The sight of Claire Amos standing in the center of her prison cell again arrests me. In the silence of that cell corridor, she stands proud. Auburn hair streams from the sides of her head over her shoulders, and one cannot distinguish the moment when Claire’s locks blends into the fur coat we have chosen not to confiscate from her. We tell ourselves that mercy motivates us to allow Claire to keep that warm coat. I have come to think, however, that our motivations are less charitable. It’s been a long time since any of our corridors have held much any luxury, and the woman who stands so straight in that fur coat warms us as well.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? Isn’t there something I can have the cafeteria provide for you in ways of a last meal?”
Claire has not flinched at the sight of my face during the five months she’s occupied her cell. The crown of her head is shaved bald, and the black sun tattoo is all the more apparent for the long hair framing that patch of skin atop Claire’s head. Her green eyes sparkle in her gray surroundings. I pray that those eyes are not stricken with fear when the time comes for me to escort Claire down the long hall that leads to the killing chambers.
“Thank you, Gunner, but I only want to hear the sirens sing.”
I told myself I would not ask my question to Claire. I vowed I would not disrupt Claire’s thoughts when her execution was so close. But I realize that it will not be long until the space marshals have delivered the final member of the Black Sun Temple to us, that it will not be long until there will remain no others capable of answering my question.
“Why do all of you who sport the black sun tattoo always want to listen to the sirens in the end?”
Claire takes a breath. Her eyes close and her shoulders slump. I hate myself for asking her.
“Maybe we want to hear what song wins in the end,” Claire eventually whispers. “When the end comes, maybe we want to listen and see if we were right to resist it. Maybe we want to understand why you worship the sirens more than your own kind.”
“I don’t worship the sirens.”
Claire’s eyebrow raises a challenge to my assertion. She still does not flinch as I unlock her cell and enter her confines. She never turns away from my bone grin. She never blanches to look upon what fire and war have written upon my features.
She offers her hands as I raise the handcuffs from my hips. I notice that both of her hands are missing fingers, a clue that Claire spent too much time floating through the outskirts of our solar system in a cold, failing cryogenic pod before she was found by the space marshals.
“How long were you asleep?”
Claire shrugs. “They tell me I slept for years. It felt like no more than a night to me. My time floating in space just felt like another dream.”
“What did you hope to find when you awoke?”
“I’m not sure,” Claire answers. “I believed my husband would find me. I thought we would be reunited after the world was no longer so mesmerized by the sirens’ song. I thought our world would’ve remembered to save itself by the time I woke from my dreams. I think I had hoped we would’ve remembered to preserve what we could of the world before we chased off into the stars.”
“We were trying to preserve all kinds of things on board the Diana.”
Claire scoffs. “You gathered all our treasures in a ship you wrapped as a gift. You didn’t preserve anything. You were going to just give it all away.”
I drop my gaze onto my boots. It’s been poor taste to enter an argument at this time with Claire.
A few moments pass before Claire asks me a question of her own. “Have you done the favor I asked of you, Gunner? Have you checked on my husband’s records?”
“You don’t want to know, Claire. Now’s not the time.”
“You’re right, Gunner. But I don’t have any more time to give. I need to know.”
I will not deny Claire the knowledge of her husband’s fate. Her favor is a part of her last request.
“The space marshals found your husband three years ago while raiding a black market in orbit around Callisto. He spent two months in these cells before we executed him.”
“Did you escort him?”
“I can’t remember. I’ve escorted so many.”
“Can you tell me how he died?”
“We drowned him.”
Claire’s green eyes water. “That doesn’t sound like such a terrible death.”
I think all the death we deliver is terrible, but I will argue with Claire no more. “It was not.”
“You have delivered death far more terrible than drowning haven’t you, Gunner?”
“I have?”
“Will my killing be terrible?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire sighs. “I think you hold that knowledge back from me, Gunner. I think you’re trying to be kind. I should report you to your superiors.”
“My record will survive another infraction.”
I gently clasp Claire at the elbow before guiding her out of the cell and into that long corridor leading to the killing chambers. Claire stumbles a few times as she wills herself forward. I feel her trembling body beneath the thick fur coat. She has spent too much time floating in the recesses of space, and her body is light, so that my strength is not taxed as I help support her. She does not cry. She does not attempt to pull out of my grip. I would like to know if her green eyes still glow, but I lack the courage to look into her face. I remain silently at her side as we take those steps to her execution.