Dark Foundations (26 page)

“Herding cats?”

“Meaning, I think, nothing quite goes to plan. Look, give Delastro paperwork. Get him to write speeches. Have him produce a working paper on the nature of evil. But let me know if he causes trouble. Now there are other issues.” Vero took a large sip of coffee. “My friend, we have a problem. We are developing an army of sorts, but we can't keep anything secret.”

“We can't?”

“No. Everything we do is filed on the Admin-Net. Everything we research is recorded by the Library. If an intruder logged on to the Admin-Net, they could find out what the factories had made and where they had shipped the supplies. They could find out where every vehicle, every sea or space vessel is. If they logged on to the Library, they could see who consulted what files, where, and when. Any secrecy, and hence any defense, is almost impossible.”

“I see. Assembly transparency works against us. So what do you propose?”

“A drastic but simple solution. Encrypt the entire Library and Admin-Net with a molecular key and whenever the intruders appear, we switch off the decryption. They couldn't be used without the key. The computer theorists tell me that it could take a thousand years with the fastest computers to crack such a code.”

“Close
both
the Admin-Net and the Library? Could we survive?”

“With the Library, yes—if people were told to download what they needed in advance. And with the Admin-Net? Probably. You'd have to create a separate subnetwork of basic data on such things as power, electricity, and water. You'd migrate users to that before locking it down.”

“Is it feasible?”

“I have some people working on that. We think so. But I wanted to warn you this is what we're thinking of.”

“I would be interested in what Corradon and Clemant would say.”

Vero shook his head. “Please don't. Not yet.”

“Why not?”

Vero looked away. “I'm saying that they don't need to know yet. We have to be cautious.”

“With both of
them
? But aren't we answerable to them?”

“Ultimately, but . . . ‘Be careful who you trust,' the envoy said.”

“But if we can't trust them . . .” Merral let the words trail off.

“I don't mistrust them. I-it's just that Clemant has his own agenda. And Corradon is so weak that when trouble comes, he may crumble.”

With a rueful shrug, he downed the last of his coffee and left Merral alone with his troubled thoughts.

Over the next few days Merral found himself immersed in a ceaseless and wearying blur of meetings, reviewing reports, and approving decisions. He found it easy to be depressed by all the difficulties he faced. Nevertheless, within days he could see progress being made.

The three regiments acquired bases, recruitment grew, and training programs began. Some weapons and equipment were already being made and others tested. As far as Merral could tell, Vero was making progress with the irregulars, but was rarely seen. When he appeared, he volunteered little information.

The Urban Defense Planning Team came up with their suggestions: all settlements should make the most of natural attributes such as rivers or cliffs to create defensive barriers. Where these did not exist, plans should be drawn up so that, within days, excavators could create encircling pairs of ditches and ramparts. Every settlement should prepare designs for walls and gateways to make attacks harder.

The team also made recommendations on the issue of refuges. As part of standard Made World practice, all Farholme settlements had one or more refuges designed to give protection from volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, ice storms, hurricanes, and the like. The team advocated the expansion and restocking of all refuges and suggested an ominous novelty: a way of sealing the refuge doors shut from the inside.

After a long meeting on the eve of the Lord's Day the plans were approved, and confidential guidelines for every warden and community leader prepared. Every settlement was to prepare a defensive strategy that could be implemented in no more than forty-eight hours. Refuges were to be checked, restocked, and made secure from the inside. All earthmoving machinery, both robotic and manned, was to be overhauled and placed at locations for rapid deployment. Where defense was deemed impractical, plans for evacuation were to be drawn up.

Merral read the guidelines through one last time and then gave orders for their distribution to every settlement at the start of the working week.

Merral did his best to relax on the Lord's Day but found it hard; he had so many concerns. The next morning, as he sat at his desk, Merral noticed calls already flooding in from wardens and leaders in the Henelen Archipelago and the Anuzabar Chain. He wondered how soon it would he before he heard from Isabella.

She called just after nine, her face framed by her perfect hair.
Impressive.
She has seen the document within an hour of it arriving on Enatus's desk
.

“Merral,” she said, “these defense guidelines. What's going on?” Beneath the very polite tone of her voice Merral sensed the faintest ugly note. She seemed to glare at him from the diary screen.

Merral chose his words carefully. “Well, what do
you
think?”

“I know what
I
think. I want
you
to tell me.”

“I want to know what you think, Isabella,” he said firmly, struck by how smartly she was dressed for a day in the office.

“You want us to be prepared for attack. A powerful ground attack.”

“True.”

“But I want to know more. I
need
to know more. By what? When? What numbers?”

“If we knew any more, we would have expanded the guidelines.”

A look of irritation crossed her face. “What can you tell me? Privately. This is your town.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It wouldn't be fair. I can have no favorites.”

“But
I'm
asking you.”

“It makes no difference.”

“So it's like that, is it? This town . . . us . . . nothing of our past counts for anything?”

“Isabella, it's not that. But I can't—and I won't—bend rules for you or anybody.”

She glared at him. “Very well, if you won't help me, then I'll just have to help myself. Thanks—for nothing!”

Merral stared at the blank screen for some moments. Then, sighing deeply, he tried to concentrate on other matters.

11

T
he following day Merral was invited to Anya's office in the Planetary Ecology Center. He found her slumped in her chair with her feet on the table, staring at a diagram.

“Welcome, Commander Tree Man,” Anya said with a tired voice. “Excuse the mess. Too many hours. Blame the Krallen.”

Merral looked around, remembering his first visit. The office had seemed full then; it now seemed even more so. In fact, it was much more untidy than it had been then. There were unstable piles of books and datapaks on the desks, dirty mugs on shelves, and a discarded lab coat draped carelessly over the model of the giant sloth. The animal smell common to all biology offices seemed even stronger.

Anya put the diagram down and rose to meet him. She gave him a formal, almost halfhearted embrace and closed the door behind him. As she did, Merral glimpsed a lock.
Here too
.

“Thanks for coming,” she said.

They sat heavily in opposite chairs and stared at each other in silence for a moment. From the far corner came the chatter of tree hamsters in their cage.

She looks weary
and
in need of a break, exercise, and some sunlight. But then we all do
. He was struck too by the carelessness in her dress. Her blouse had seen better days and her trousers had a stain on them. Her hair needed combing.
How odd
.
Isabella now dresses up. Anya now dresses down
.
The changes in our world affect people in different ways.

“So, what's new?” he asked, dragging himself to the present.

“We're coming to the end of what we can do on the Krallen project. As the only man to get a really good look at the things, I want you to check the reconstructions.”

She pressed a button on the desk and the blinds closed. She touched her diary and a gray, four-legged, holographic form floated just above the floor.

“Ugh,” Merral said with a shudder.

“Good, we got close enough to elicit a response of disgust,” Anya observed drily. “Now look it over and I will adjust the model.”

Merral took a breath. “Okay. Rotate it around a vertical axis. . . . Stop. It's too doglike. Make the head a bit bigger.”

After half an hour of reshaping everything from teeth to tail, Merral was satisfied. He walked round the image one more time. “Close enough. Can you make it move?”

“Watch.”

The model Krallen began moving in a slow lope.

“Good,” Merral said. “A bit more fluid. More flexing at the knee joints. And when I saw them, they moved more on the tips of their toes than on the soles of their feet. They move lightly, not like machines at all.”

Anya nodded and jotted down some notes. “I'll work on that. And you say they climb too?”

“Very agile. Some hung upside down in the ship. They have opposing claws on their feet.”

She made a further note, but said nothing.

“Any bright ideas?” he asked.

“On how to defeat them?” Anya shook her head in a forlorn way. “They have replaceable tiles of armored skin, are tireless, fast, superbly agile, have claws and teeth, and work in perfectly coordinated packs. They're the perfect weapon. The best way to defeat them is to nuke them before they land.”

“That's what everyone says.”

She shrugged. “We are worried about the accounts from those who fought them at Fallambet. Much of the energy of cutter gun blasts seems to have been absorbed by this skin. Some kind of bullet might penetrate the skin, but the engineers suggest that all these angled surfaces may mean that bullets just skim off. But in the absence of real specimens, we just don't know. ” Anya stared glumly at the holographic model. “Sorry.”

“It's not your fault,” he said, feeling pity—and more—for her.

“How much time have we got? Twelve, thirteen weeks?”

“Twelve maximum. Maybe less.”

Anya shook her head in silence.

“What'll you do next?” he asked.

“Look at pack behavior. There are animal analogues that may throw some light on how they operate. It may give us a clue. Help defenses.”

Anya gazed unhappily at the holograph and then tabbed the diary. The model of the Krallen vanished. She turned back to Merral. “So, how are you?”

“Surviving on a diet of meetings and decisions. I worry about both my enemies and my friends. But what about you?”

There was a moment's silence. “I still hurt,” she said in a low sad voice and looked away into the corner where the hamsters scuttled noisily around their cage. She looked at Merral, seeming to blink a tear away, and sighed. “But I tell myself that I must forgive.”