Cenotaxis (4 page)

A buttress protruding from the ravine wall welcomes us, and I release my grip on the boxer. I am, however, far from relieved. How could I not have seen this coming? I feel responsible for the deaths of my companions: those who have already fallen, and those who might yet die if I don't think of a way out of our predicament, fast. The sniper will already have called for reinforcements. While we are confined like rats to a wall, we are vulnerable.

But we are not helpless. I remind myself of this as my troopers regroup. We are armed and mobile. Alice-Angeles and the others will be coming up the road after us, having laid a trap that will at least delay the sniper's allies on the ground. The invaders can't have more than a soldier or two already mobilized, otherwise we would have spotted them sooner. This one simply got lucky, that's all. If we're quick, we'll soon turn the tables.

AI strafing slashes the far wall of the ravine, provoking no visible response. The rain continues unabated. I have to chance that the sniper is behind cover for the moment—or maybe even neutralized by a lucky shot. Snipers rely on concealment and stealth to remain alive, not armor.

I am decided. We split into four groups scrambling along the eroded face of the ravine. One team remains behind to provide covering fire. The second makes for the nearest six-wheeler. Half of the six vehicles we brought with us have lost tires now, but they remain full of valuable equipment. One of them in particular.

The third team heads back the way we came, intending to cross the ravine out of range of the sniper, make its way along the far side, and catch him in a pincer.

The boxer, two others and I are heading to the highest ground we can find. I have kept just two pieces of equipment: binoculars and the dead man's switch that hasn't left my pocket since we started our journey. At the summit of the ravine, we crawl on our bellies to the edge and peer over. The binoculars add further augmentation to my vision, so the rain seems to evaporate from the air. I sweep the far side of the ravine but can still find no sign of the sniper. The team I sent to the nearest six-wheeler is moving from cover to cover with all due haste. Of the six vehicles, two are critically damaged. I am certain we can scavenge enough tires to keep three of the other four roadworthy. When Alice-Angeles arrives, that will make six left of the original nine. We are down but not out.

One of the AI turrets explodes into flame, casting a ghastly yellow light across the ravine. The sniper has fired again. A second later, another turret goes up. I curse under my breath. Our adversary is targeting the undamaged vehicles, using our own munitions against us. My boxer is tense on his belly beside me, but does not return fire. We don't want to draw attention up here just yet. The others provide enough noise and threat to cover our absence.

Movement on the far side catches my eye. The other team has arrived. Silhouetted against the gray sky, they creep like shadows through a dim, crepuscular world. I feel a moment's disorientation, as though I'm watching an old flatscreen movie that has suddenly taken on three dimensions. I fear that dawn is about to hit Station Zero, and I stab my gloved fingers into the mud.

No! I cannot leave now! There's too much left unfinished!

The view doesn't shift. I remain firmly in the same location. Dawn is hours away yet. I am simply anxious.

The boxer fires his rifle and I snap out of my spell. Raising the binoculars, I discern a glassy, translucent figure making impressive speed across the far cliff face. The others have flushed the sniper from hiding! Long-limbed and agile, and almost certainly male, he sports camouflage more sophisticated than anything we have, but raindrops render him more visible than he would prefer to be. With a pistol in each hand, he fires over his shoulder at the frags who stumbled across him. One drops like a sack, pierced by a round through the skull. Two more go down. My boxer snaps off three more shots, and the sniper lifts his head to look in our direction. Blood turns to rainwater in my veins as he raises both guns to fire at us.

Five rounds strike him simultaneously. Two from below, two from the far side of the ravine, and one from the boxer. The sniper loses his balance and falls to the mud below. Frags break cover and converge on him to make certain he has been neutralized. My companions stand up, obviously keen to join them and get moving again.

"Wait," I tell them, raising my visor to speak aloud. "It's not over yet. Alice-Angeles and the others are late."

A voice crackles over the radio. "So you took out Freer. Well done. Understand, however, that I have the rest of your people hostage. If you want to see them again, turn yourselves in now. Otherwise, I'll have them executed and come in after you myself. You don't want that."

It's Bergamasc, hard on my heels like a bloodhound. Gritting my teeth, I test the airwaves. The jamming has eased, which is small consolation for the capture of Alice-Angeles and the others, and the position I now find myself in.

My hands shake as I slip off my gloves and reach into my pocket.

"Release them immediately, Bergamasc," I say over the radio. "That's an order."

"I don't take orders from anyone, especially not you."

My rain-slick fingers close over the dead man's switch and pull it out into view. The boxer watches impassively as I activate it and grip it tightly in my fist.

"I have a nuclear weapon in my possession," I tell Bergamasc down the open channel. My voice is surprisingly calm. "It's armed and will detonate at my command—or upon my death, should you send any more snipers. Release my people now, and let us go on our way, or I'll use it."

"You can't be serious."

I let the rain do the talking for almost a full minute. "It's your choice, Bergamasc. I've made mine."

While my enemy decides, the boxer, my two companions and I negotiate our way down the side of the ravine. I imagine Bergamasc checking satellite data, seeking any signs of the nuke we claim to have. He will be checking stores of fissionable material, pursuing manufacturing trails, searching databases on forbidden weaponry—and he will find the clues he needs. They're there. It's not possible to build something as deeply, darkly forbidden as this without leaving some kind of trace. I have in fact been certain to leave tracks in case of just such a moment. Nuclear weapons haven't been used on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years; no one would ever dream of making one any more, or of threatening to use it in such a contaminated environment. But now that I have, I want him to know it, to have no doubts at all that my threat is real.

"All right," he finally says. "I'll send them in, provided you leave the nuke behind."

"I'll abandon it in Malan once I'm certain we're not being followed," I promise him. "And one more thing. You're coming with us."

"You're insane if you think I'll agree to that."

"I don't think so. You have my personal guarantee you won't be harmed, which is more than I suspect you'd offer me. Aren't you curious to know more about the man you're fighting?"

The silence is longer, this time. I reach the bottom before he replies. There, the body of the sniper has been retrieved and lies guarded by three of my troopers. They have removed the man's weapons and helmet. His face is angular and broad. The rain has flattened his dark hair across his temples. Steel-gray eyes peer from half-open lids, seeing nothing.

"Bury him with the others," I instruct them. "Not deeply, but respectfully. We have time."

They go about their new duty without question. The others are remounting wheels, distributing supplies, checking systems. Only two of the six-wheelers are roadworthy now. We will be cramped.

"All right." Bergamasc sounds almost amused—but whether at my proposal or his acceptance, I can't tell. "We're on our way."

The jamming resumes, slamming the door shut on our conversation as though he is afraid I might change my mind.

I clamber onto the slippery roof of the vehicle containing the nuke and wait with the switch in my hand to meet my enemy face to face.

No matter what Bergamasc says about a traitor, there are clear and unquestionable reasons for not doubting my allies. Periodically throughout the battle for Earth, representatives of the Round send offers of support. These come from individuals, corporations, and governments based in the systems surrounding Sol, smuggled to Earth via long and tortuous routes along the enemy's infrastructure. I am glad to know that his defenses are as porous as mine, that even his will can be subverted when necessary. He has weaknesses, and I suspect that he is very aware of them. To disavow them would be the worst kind of hubris.

Such messages take many different forms. In my plastic cell, a faint buzzing at the edge of hearing presages the arrival of the latest. A spindly insect with nano-thin limbs and invisible wings extrudes itself from a tiny hole drilled in the wall. It flies the distance to my ear in fits and starts, buffeted by barely perceptible air movements. I follow its progress out of the corner of my eye, unsure at first whether it's something my enemy has sent, or word from people outside. When the mosquito alights on my skin and implants its message, I await with interest for the contents to unfold.

The protein packet is unraveled by my skin's outer defenses. The complex molecular bunches perform no biological function, and are carefully examined to determine their true purpose. The message is encoded in the form of deviations from known sequences. It says, simply:

EXTRACTION TEAM IN PLACE
AWAITING CONFIRMATION
SWAT BUG = GO
WINDOW CLOSES 2 HOURS

I've ignored such messages before, and this time is no exception. Don't these well-meaning do-gooders realize that I can't leave here until my mission is completed?

I ignore the mosquito. An hour before the deadline, it burrows a little deeper and finds a nerve. This it tickles rather painfully before delivering another message packet saying exactly the same thing. Perhaps it thought I slept through the first one.

Still I ignore it, and wonder as I do what its makers are thinking. Am I dead or grievously harmed? Am I collaborating with the enemy and don't want to be rescued? Am I insane?

Our timetables are different, that's all. When the two hours are up and the mosquito dissolves into a slurry of unrecognizable molecules, I feel nothing but relief.

Soon after, Bergamasc comes to visit. "I have a treat for you," he tells me, without preamble. "Don't get up. I'm coming inside."

I wonder if he knows about my visitor and the aborted rescue attempt. Is this "treat" some new form of torture he and his cronies have devised?

Nevertheless, I do as he bids, remaining seated on my bunk as the plastic pane slides back and he walks into my space.

"Now, we could've done this without you noticing," he tells me, placing a hand over my forehead, "but that wouldn't have been respectful." His skin is cool and creates a tingling sensation against mine. "This won't take a second to set up. Yes, here it comes. Hold on to your hat!"

Barely has he uttered the archaic expression when the cell vanishes around me. The disorientation is profound—not because I am unused to such sudden changes, but because the time is not right. Has Bergamasc found a way to interfere with the ancient minds of Earth's grand design?

That fear is soon assuaged. Bergamasc reappears beside me, dressed in a somber gray suit. We are standing on an observation deck of a geosynchronous satellite. The earth—blue and magical—floats far below.

"The VR thing is kinda crude, I know," he says, "but it's easier than the alternative. I've prepared a little tour for you. Pay attention. This is important."

Before I can respond, we are moving. Stars streak by, blurred into motion by our inconceivable acceleration.

He emits a small laugh. "Absurd, isn't it? I stole it from an old movie, just to get us in the mood."

We slam to a halt in a system far from Sol, one with no planets and girdled instead by vast artificial islands fashioned from comets and asteroids, strung together in a loose ring. Some of the habitats are almost as old as those around Earth, and their elements may well have been created in the same cosmic furnace, billions of years ago. This vast crown of thorns vanishes to a one-dimensional line as it stretches around the plump red dwarf at the heart of the system.

"Do you know where we are?" Bergamasc asks.

"Somewhere in the Round," I guess. "The constellations haven't changed much." There are two hundred and forty systems within ten parsecs of Sol, most of them red dwarfs. I don't have the information at hand to tell which one this is.

"You're looking at Vanguard—continuously occupied since the third millennium and home now to a hundred million people. More, if you count the components of gestalts and singletons as separate. Staunch proponents of the Containment and Quarantine policy, they've been quite a thorn in my side these recent years. You wouldn't know it to look at the system, though, would you? There hasn't been a single shot fired here. All our sparring is done with words."

"How very civilized," I say.

"I like to think so." He gestures and we are moving again, rocketing past more systems in the Round, then out into the vast complex of gaseous bubbles that dominates the region surrounding Sol. Billions of years of star-formation and supernovae have created an intricate, three-dimensional structure that evolves as it rotates around the heart of the galaxy. Stars are scattered like tiny jewels everywhere I look.

We stop a second time in system dominated by a bright blue giant with a single, yellow companion. Civilization lurks in the relative shadow of the companion, following its orbit around the larger star and soaking up energy like a sponge. The system is alive with radio noise, both random and directed.

"New Esperance," Bergamasc says. "I was born here."

"Really." I keep my tone carefully disinterested.

"Yes. Look." We zoom closer to the habitat. Line relays carry signals out of the system via dozens of powerful maser beams. Its dock is extensive and filled with every possible variation of spaceship. There are thousands of them. "Pilgrims, for the most part. There's a shrine here, I'm told. Never been to it myself. Probably cause a riot if I did."