Cosmonaut Keep (40 page)

"They'll be overthrown in a few days," said Camila. "It's 1991 all over again, you'll see."

"Not this August," I said.

One more news item was given a lot of play: a ship was being readied at Baikonur to rescue the scientists and cosmonauts of the
Marshall Titov
from the small rebel cabal currently holding them hostage.

Shots of boosters lifting heavy equipment and a large number of personnel to orbital rendezvous with a large craft. It had to be large because it held a complement of about a hundred.

Two were ESA cosmonauts. The rest were EPAF Special Forces: space marines.

I looked up from my plate to see Driver moving crabwise behind the long table. He squeezed in opposite us with a plate of tonight's sticky rice-and-meat concoction and a liter plastic bottle of red. It was the first time I'd seen him in the refectory; now that I came to think of it, the first time I'd seen him outside his office.

He pressed the plate to the table and passed the wine across.

"Help yourselves," he said.

We ate for a while, pausing occasionally for a squirt of wine. Driver drank rather more than we did.

"You're looking very relaxed," said Camila.

"Oh, I am," said Driver. "The anti-gravity actually works! Weight off my mind, know what I mean?"

We laughed politely.

"Nah, it's actually getting Volkov's little conspiracy lanced that did the trick," he said. "Christ, it does get tedious knowing people are plotting against you, and not knowing when they're going to make their move. Tomorrow I'm going to shove all the responsibility for running this station onto whatever committee the scientists see fit to elect. Let somebody else take the strain for a while."

"You'll still be managing the projects?" I said.

He shrugged. "If they still want me to."

"I hope so," I said.

Camila was looking from one to the other of us.

"I don't
believe
you guys," she said. "There's just been a goddamn
military coup
in your own country, and you're carrying on like something good has happened."

Driver crushed his plate and glowed up a smokeless.

"It's not good," he said. "But it's not as bad as it looks. It's still the Party that's in power, not the Army, and not the FSB, thank God. And it's the Party centrists, not some ideological dingbats."

"Huh!" she said. "That commie gibberish that Jilek came out with sounded ideological enough to me."

Driver and I both laughed.

"That ain't ideology," said Driver.

"Well, what is?"

"Do you believe," he said, "that human beings are endowed by their Creator, or by their nature, with certain inalienable rights?"

"Sure I do!"

"Why?"

"It's, well, like the man said, it's self-evident. You get it, or you just don't get it."

"Fine," said Driver. "Now,
that's
ideology. What the Major-General appealed to in his serious little talk is
vocabulary.
It's just a structure of ideas and symbols and organizations that helped the Russkis get their act together a generation ago, and helped the Europeans to unite shortly after. What our people really believe in isn't microwaved Brezhnevism but the Party's
real
ideology, which is something a good deal more insidious."

"And what's that?"

He shrugged. "Protectionism, I reckon. Anyway, fuck it. The coup's a bit of a relief. It's like we're not waiting for the other shoe to drop anymore."

"It's you that's gonna drop," said Camila, "when they come out here."

Driver shook his head, narrowing his eyes as though against imaginary smoke.

"Nah," he said. "We don't do hanging. Nor shooting, not even for spies and traitors, despite what Aleksandra said. Nor your horrible Yank electric frying." He made a chopping motion. "Guillotine. Quick and humane -- at least, nobody's ever complained afterward."

I folded my plate over the remains of my dinner and took a quick squirt of wine. Asteroid 2048. Rough, definitely not a good vintage.

"Do you really think -- "

"Let's not kid ourselves," Driver said. "You guys should be all right. Camila, you're an American just doing your job, they can't touch you. Matt, well, maybe if they throw the book at you, but I don't think so. Emigration isn't a crime, even if you did it illegally. As for the rest of the crew -- "

He sat back, and at that moment I realized that everyone else in the refectory had stopped talking and started listening. No doubt this was all going out on more than one set of spex. Driver pretended not to notice.

"Most of the scientists should be all right, they can claim they didn't have much choice. At worst they'll be taken off the station and given other work. Even my good mate Paul -- well, hey, they don't want to hand a martyr to the Reform faction. Five years, tops, in a temperate climate." He grinned and winked at me. "I hear the Highland lumber camps aren't too bad, apart from the midges. I've seen guys who'd sweated out a tenner up there, no bother. Paul has the connections. I don't."

"Is that because you're English?" Camila asked.

"Yeah. My parents were English lefties. We were on holiday in the south of France that summer the Russians rolled over the Yanks in the Urals and just kept on coming. Didn't see any reason to go back to London. I got a good education and I've done all right in the FSB, but, you know how it goes. If there was ever anybody who'd make a perfect candidate for the chop, it's me."

He stood up and stretched. "Still, it's been a good run. No complaints. See you tomorrow -- we'll skip the debriefing tonight and have a general meeting in the morning. Make sure the teams know, okay?"

He was off before either of us could say a word.

Not much work got done that evening. People hung in the station's intranet, talking or watching the news. The Emergency Committee was making frantic efforts to mend bridges: with its own populations, with China and India, and with the United States. They made hostile gestures at Japan. As Avakian pointed out, it was safe enough to annoy a country about which nobody gave a shit.

I was following the arguments in a fairly desultory way when a call from Nevada blinked up.

"Well, hi there, Matt," said Jadey. She smiled, bright across the light-seconds. I felt a surge of joy; and a pang of guilt, which I had not expected.

I propped my reader where its camera could see me and replied.

"Hi," I said. "It's great to see you! Are you all right? You're looking well."

After forty-odd seconds' delay her answer came back.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's great to see you too, Matt! They treated me all right, apart from that pack of lies they put in my mouth -- I'm still mad about that. Thanks for your messages, though, they did get through and they were a big help. You know, this is more like instant messages than phoning? Like, it's
not
instant? So I'll just keep talking and then let you come back, otherwise we'll be talking across each other all the time. You're not looking too hot yourself, Matt."

"Ah, I'm all right, just knackered. We've been busy. You heard we got the flying saucer to fly?"

I watched her waiting.

"Uh-huh. Camila Hernandez has been in touch with Alan. But look, Matt, you're not getting this, you have to talk for longer than that, otherwise we spend half the time waiting. So give me your news, and what you make of this commie coup and so on. And while you're thinking about that, I can tell you things are getting a bit hot over here too -- all kinds of legal hassles. The Feds are accusing us of stealing the alien tech from the commies without authorization,
and
of giving it to the commies. It's like they got us coming and going."

When she stopped I was still thinking over the implications of Camila's having been in touch with her home base. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but she hadn't told me about it; not that she had to, but ...

"I've been missing you," I said. "I think it might have been me who got you out."

I recounted my social engineering with Volkov, and what he had been up to.

"And," I continued, "your so-called confession was a fake, sure, but basically I think it was more or less true. Your Feds -- the CIA or whatever -- and some factions in the E.U. have been using us, and they must have some plan to wrap it all up."

"Yeah, yeah." She nodded impatiently. "They all dream the same dream -- a stable society with themselves on top. Statist shits! Full marks to you guys for splashing the code-cracking math all over the Net, but they're already talking about ways around that: keep secrets on paper or in people's heads, use trusted messengers instead of electronics. I can tell you, the nukes are now invulnerable to cracking, they moved real fast on that one, which is a good thing, I guess. But they're gonna try to keep the alien tech in safe hands -- theirs! Think about that, Matt. Uh, I've gotta go, this is one of the few secure channels we've got left, and there's a queue. But keep sending the voicemail, and I'll reply when I can. And thanks for getting me out. Try and get yourself back in one piece, okay? Just for me?"

"I'll do that," I promised. "And you look after yourself. Watch out for the black helicopters."

"You're tense," said Camila. She was massaging my shoulders, her thighs gripping my hips.

"Yeah."'I laughed. "I've been talking to Jadey."

"Jeez, is
that
what it's about? Hey, come on. This isn't hurting her, and it's helping you. And me, I have to say, nothing's changed. So give the conscience a rest, okay?"

"It's not just that," I said. We rolled around and I began returning the favor. "It's all the stuff that's coming up. Not that I ever expected the information campaign to change the world, but I expected it to do something better than make the governments even more paranoid than before. And -- God, this sounds so childish -- I didn't ever expect us to get in trouble for what we've been doing."

"Ah," she said. "Don't let that bother you. This is endgame, sure, but we ain't beaten yet, not by a long way. And come on, Matt, today I near enough flew a goddamn flying saucer!
Nothing's
gonna make me feel down after that!" She shifted her shoulders under my hands and sighed. "Just you keep doing that for a while longer, and see if I can't make you feel a lot better real soon."

The amphitheater at Ephesus -- not a bad place for a meeting. This time Avakian had resisted the urge to fiddle with the dials. The scan was recent: ruins, scrub, litter, and lizards. Everyone appeared in their own avatars, a small crowd in a space built for a large one. Aside from that, and the site's subliminal implications of elite democracy, the virtual venue seemed neutral enough.

"It's like a football game," Camila said, sitting down beside me and gesturing at the people taking their places on the worn tiers.

"No, that would be in a
stadium."

She punched me, her avatar's fist swiping through my avatar's chest.

"I won't do that again," she said. "Makes me queasy."

"Me too," I said. I shut my eyes. It was something like travel-sickness.

When I looked up again I focused on the stage down at the front, where Driver had taken his position. When he looked up, he held out one hand, palm uplifted like a classical orator. I couldn't guess whether the imitation was deliberate.

"Okay, comrades," he said. "We all know why we're here." He looked around. "Okay, some of us aren't here. I've given the, uh, comrades in detention the opportunity of taking part. None of them have.

"Right -- we can assume the marines are on their way. Those shots yesterday of the ships being prepped wouldn't have been released before launch. Trouble is, we don't know when they actually were launched, but we have a minimum of eight days, a maximum of thirteen. We have to decide now what we're going to do, because we have quite a wide range of options, starting with unconditional surrender and working up from there.

"Up until now, you've all had the option of claiming that you did what I told you, and you obeyed me for whatever reason -- coercion, or the belief that I had some constitutional authority, or for want of any alternative. That option ends here. As of now, I'm stepping down from provisional command of this station. What you decide to do about the, ah, rescue mission, and what to do about me, is entirely up to you."

He then literally stepped down, to take a seat a few rows up from the stage. For a moment everyone looked at each other, uncertain what to do next. I glanced over at Avakian, hunched over his virtual keyboard. He shrugged and shook his head. It wasn't like Driver to leave something like this to chance; I was certain he'd have sounded out someone else to step in at this point. Lem-ieux, also sitting near the front, stood up without taking the stage.

"For different reasons, I take the same position as Colin."

Out of the uneasy silence that followed, the scientist Louis Sembat jumped up and bounded to the speaker's dais.

"For the moment, unless there is any objection, I will chair this meeting."

No objection.

"Very well." He pointed. "Angel, you wish to speak?"

Pestaña stood up, turning around as he addressed the crowd rather than the chair, though he maintained the formalities.

"Colin must know," he said, "that his comments last night were widely discussed. Nobody, other than some of those in detention, is going to let him take all the responsibility. We are certainly not going to see him executed, or Paul imprisoned. Above all -- let us be quite frank about this -- we are not going to have our work taken away from us."

"You might be given the choice," said Driver, from his seat. "Let them have me and anyone else tagged as a ringleader, and keep your work."

Pestaña shook his head. "It wouldn't be politically possible to condemn you for inciting us to do something that we would still be permitted to do. Also, you have done nothing that we have not done. Replacing us would be difficult. I say there is room for serious negotiation."

The mathematician Ramona Gracia spoke next.

"I would not be too sure of that," she said. "They could retain our colleagues who are not present, and these could train a new influx of scientists. Some work would be lost, but it might be considered worth it for a reliable crew."