Nemesis (10 page)

‘Overcaptain Shah,’ she said, ‘please forgive me for being blunt but could we cut to the details? My assumption is that we’re here to discuss the fallout from the Tiwanaku assault – is that correct? You must have heard back from Earth by now.’

Sam smirked, apparently amused by her reaction. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Of course. The answer is yes, there will be a mission, as we expected, and we want you on it.’

Ann breathed deep. ‘How many ships?’

‘Monet expected two,’ said Sam. ‘Our people pushed for three, for the obvious reasons. Monet seemed flexible in that regard.’

‘So you need a first officer?’ said Ann optimistically. ‘Someone to help you keep the game from getting out of hand?’

‘No, Ann. I need a captain.’ He pivoted to face her.

Ann’s eyes went wide. ‘A captain? For which ship?’

‘The
Chiyome
.’

‘But I thought you were going to take it?’

Ann felt flattered but confused. The
Chiyome
was the ship the Fleet wasn’t supposed to have. It used hybrid Human/Fecund technology, with both a quantum stealth-shield and third-generation tau-chargers. It was, to all extents and purposes, invisible.

Sam shrugged and let some frustration show in his expression.

‘That I was, but Monet has made things a little complicated for us – he’s insisted on bringing in Mark Ruiz as a pilot for the
Gulliver
.’

Ann’s brow creased in confusion. ‘Ruiz. Isn’t he the man you told me about – Monet’s protégé? The one who stole a starship and nearly killed everyone aboard?’

Sam nodded and set off down the path again.

‘I thought he was out of the picture,’ said Ann. ‘Didn’t that get resolved?’

‘It did,’ said Sam. ‘Monet unresolved it.’

‘I can’t imagine the senate will agree,’ said Ann. ‘Given what you said, Ruiz must not have held a command for over a year.’

‘The senate already bought it,’ said Sam. ‘Admiral Baron threw his full weight behind the request and threatened to invoke emergency powers. We didn’t anticipate that.’

‘And did Ruiz consent?’

‘We haven’t heard back yet, but given the time-lag involved, we have to assume he will and prepare for that eventuality. League agents on Earth will no doubt be trying to figure out how to passively remove him from the proceedings without arousing suspicion. It goes without saying that they’ll have to be incredibly careful. Monet’s role is central to our plans and by now everyone will be watching Ruiz, from the senate, to the sects, to Monet himself.’

Ann exhaled as her mind raced through the implications. The League plan was, in broad strokes, simple. Having used the Nems to fake an alien attack, they’d lure Will Monet to Tiwanaku. Once there, they’d goad the
Ariel Two
into igniting a Nem swarm-response, having laid a convenient warp trail all the way to Earth. They’d then divert Will to Snakepit to make sure he couldn’t prevent the invasion that would inevitably follow. The Nems’ assault would be shut down almost as soon as it started, just after the Earther interests in the home system took a hit. The sects’ power would crumble while the Fleet would come off looking like heroes. With minimal loss of life, the political stalemate would be broken, with Colonial interests favoured. Even better, Will’s culpability would leave him conveniently malleable in the new order to follow. A return to IPSO’s current compromises would be out of the question.

The devil, though, was in the details. Getting Monet and his ship to Tiwanaku and soliciting a violent response from the Nems were both trivial tasks. Shutting down the Nems at Earth wasn’t likely to be a problem, either, given the League’s extensive knowledge of the machines’ weaknesses. Getting the
Ariel Two
to Snakepit, however, required finesse. The plan hinged on the careful manipulation of Will Monet – a process that had been underway for years. Unless Will took himself out of the picture at the critical juncture, the most powerful starship in human space would remain dangerously – and unpredictably – in play.

In that context, Ruiz’s involvement was something of a wild card. Ruiz had been their leverage – their means of ensuring Monet’s compliance. Their plans for abducting the young roboteer would have to be scrapped.

‘That makes control over the
Gulliver
somewhat uncertain,’ she said. ‘I mean, if he has helm control, how are you going to get the ship to Snakepit?’

‘A good question. Which is exactly why I’ve added myself to the diplomatic team,’ said Sam. ‘I’m going to take on the role of strategy specialist and manage him directly.’

Ann paused, unsure of what to say.

‘Do that and you’re putting your life on the line,’ she said eventually.

The
Gulliver
would be in the thick of it when the Nems reacted to their visit. Their response would be swift and terrible, and the
Gulliver
was unarmed.

Sam nodded. ‘Because that’s my responsibility. Which means that I need you to play the outfield in the
Chiyome
.’ He grimaced. ‘Let me come clean with you. I’m asking you because I need someone totally rational on that ship. Someone who will stay on top of things. I know your politics aren’t aligned with most of the League but you understand better than anyone why we’re doing this. You were the one who built those models. You know how many more people will die if we don’t act. We’re talking about billions here. We’re talking about the end of civilisation itself.’

Ann nodded. Her predictive work on frontier conflicts had attracted the League’s attention to her in the first place.

‘It may get
unpleasant
in there,’ said Sam. His face darkened into a scowl. ‘We’ve never used the Nems on a target as large as Tiwanaku. It’s more than twice the size of the settlement the sects tried to dump at Nazca, and you know what that was like.’

Ann wished she could forget. After laying the warp trail to Nazca to lead the Nem swarm to its prey, she and the other conspirators hid at the edge of the system and listened in on the emergency broadcasts from the doomed Flags. Worse still, she’d been part of the surface clean-up team after the Nems had finally fallen torpid.

She’d stood in the sterilised dust where the illegal settlement had once sat and stared at the weirdly organised heaps of dismembered human bodies and machine parts. Immobile Nem surface-workers loomed all around her, clumsy and insectile, vapour still venting from their backs. The eyes of the not-quite-dead machines tracked her as she passed, the fine orange hairs that covered them quivering in the planet’s feeble breeze. Her skin crawled just thinking about them.

It had taken weeks for the Nem activity at Nazca to peter out, and probably weeks for their last victims to die. During that time, the Nems had busied themselves with cryptic, purposeless tasks, like dying ants bereft of a queen. The League had held its breath waiting for them to stop so they could safely descend to the planet and clean up the remains.

It appeared that the larger the target they used the Nems to clear, the longer it took for them to shut down afterwards. The League’s scientists had speculated that above some threshold, the machines would take on a different behaviour – probably the creation of a new colony. That in itself wouldn’t be such a bad outcome. However, it’d leave the League with plenty of explaining to do when the next IPSO scout flight arrived.

‘This puts the whole operation way outside our comfort zone from the get-go,’ said Sam. ‘We’re playing with fire but absolutely cannot afford to get burned. Do you understand me?’

Ann found his change of mood intimidating. She nodded. She never knew with Sam whether to treat him like a superior officer or some kind of friend.

‘Isn’t that what everyone does these days, though?’ she said defensively. ‘Since the war, the whole economy’s been built on borrowing alien tech. And there have been fewer surprises with the Nems than with the Fecund ruins.’

‘People don’t use Fecund ruins to carry out mass executions.’

Ann flinched inwardly and changed the subject to lighten the tone. ‘What about Ash? Wasn’t he going to captain the
Gulliver
?’

‘Ash becomes Mark’s second. And the moment the shit hits the fan, I’ll issue an executive order and slide him into the hot seat. You don’t need to worry about the
Gulliver
– I’ll cover that angle and rendezvous with you at Snakepit. You keep your eyes on Monet.’

‘And who’s my second?’

‘Jaco Brinsen-Nine,’ said Sam. ‘Do you mind?’

Ann shrugged. ‘Of course not. Jaco is a dedicated contributor to the League and an accomplished officer. I can see why you picked him.’

Jaco was part of Sam’s own staff. She couldn’t have asked for a more attentive second, even if he was an FPP zealot.

‘So that’s a yes, then?’ said Sam. ‘You’ll take the position?’

‘Of course,’ said Ann. ‘I could hardly say no.’

Sam’s expression darkened again. ‘I wanted to give you the option. If someone offered me this job, I’d be shitting my pants. We’ve set a juggernaut in motion here and we have to stay the course. A lot of people are going to die. The next fifty years of political history are about to be shaped by what we do. Maybe the entire course of human development.’

‘Desperate times—’ she started.

‘Desperate times doesn’t even begin to cover it,’ he said, his gaze fierce. ‘If we had a government that was awake enough to solve this problem without us, it would have happened by now. But we don’t, which means we have no choice but to go around them. We won’t make any friends doing this. The best possible outcome will be that nobody ever realises what we’ve done for them.’

He stared at her, waiting for something. She had no idea what to say.

‘I won’t let you or the League down,’ she told him.

‘Just understand that your primary responsibility now is to make sure that Monet gets out of there alive and heads straight for Snakepit. It is
imperative
that he take the bait. The predictive models we have for him are only about sixty per cent reliable, as evidenced by this Ruiz business, despite him being the most modelled man alive. Whatever happens, we need him to be a part of what follows. He’s too dangerous anywhere else. Whoever controls the
Ariel Two
has the edge in human space. And that needs to be us.’

‘Understood,’ said Ann.

The idea of manipulating her childhood hero wasn’t a comfortable one, but they all had to play the hands they were dealt. She understood how important it was that Will remain in the dark, even while she hated the necessity of it.

‘What will happen to the
Griffin
?’

‘River Chu will take over,’ said Sam. ‘The
Griffin
will conveniently be sent on a tour of the home system. That way, River will be able to participate in the clean-up process.’

‘Of course,’ said Ann.

She’d have preferred for her crew to be a long way from Earth when disaster struck but knew that Sam couldn’t spare the staff. The reach of the Rumfoord League might be long but its members were few. They relied on their network of uninformed FPP sympathisers for almost everything. And at least half of the League’s effort was taken up just keeping that network functioning.

‘One more thing,’ said Sam, his voice softening again. ‘I need a favour.’

‘Whatever you need,’ said Ann.

‘It’s not part of our core mission plan, but there’s a way we might be able to safely, gently resolve this Ruiz business before the mission even starts. I think we have to try.’

She glanced at him nervously. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘I’m planning a small scandal to disqualify Ruiz from taking command – something that Monet would find disappointing but plausible. I think it should be easy enough to arrange. I’m asking you because you’ve got more undercover police experience than just about anyone else in the League and you’ll be there on Triton at the right time. All you’d need to do is make contact with a certain member of the Triton underworld and set up a suitably embarrassing episode – anonymously, of course. I’ll handle the rest. Think you can manage that?’

‘Easily,’ said Ann.

‘Once you’ve made the connection in person, everything should run by itself. I’ll forward you the details via the League channel. Does that work?’

‘Sure,’ said Ann.

‘And, needless to say, do keep this quiet,’ Sam added. ‘Best not to even share it within the League. If anything goes wrong, we want our people to have plausible deniability, as usual.’

‘Of course,’ said Ann.

She tried to hide her dismay at the prospect of carrying yet more secrets. But in a matter of weeks it’d all be over. She could hardly complain at this point.

‘Terrific,’ said Sam, breaking into a smile. ‘Time is of the essence, I’m afraid, so you’ll be leaving directly. You have a passenger berth on the
Dolittle
– it’s leaving for the home system in two hours.’

Ann was astonished afresh. ‘That doesn’t leave me much time to pack.’

‘River is doing it for you right now,’ said Sam.

‘That’s a relief,’ she lied. Apparently she wasn’t going home even for a day.

Sam stopped as the gravel path looped back to face the transit station and stuck out his hand for her to shake.

‘Look, I know this is a tough call, but you’re the best I’ve got. The next time we meet will be on Triton, and I won’t be able to be half this chummy. So this is me saying good luck now. I know you’ll do great.’ He offered her a rough half-smile.

‘I appreciate it, sir,’ she said, feeling pride and terror in equal measures as she shook his hand. ‘And thank you.’

‘Welcome to the most dangerous mission in history,’ said Sam. ‘See you in a couple of weeks.’

She managed a watery smile and a salute as she stepped towards the pod.

3:
ARRIVAL

3.1: WILL

Two days before he was due to depart, Will met Pari Voss at the Bogota spaceport. They transferred to her private lifter and made for Mexico City with all haste. Pari’s lounge had a window-wall where passengers could take in the view. They drank Nibiru sours and caught up while jagged, grey mountains slid past beneath, reaching up out of a pale and furious sea.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

‘Great,’ said Will guardedly. He knew Pari wouldn’t have asked him to come down if there hadn’t been a pressing need. ‘Scrambling to pull everything together in time but enjoying it.’

He’d spent most of the intervening three weeks feeling impatient to leave while IPSO’s bureaucracy had dragged its heels at every turn. Fortunately, getting Mark involved had lifted his mood immeasurably. His dreams about the war had stopped, which came as an incredible relief.

‘How about you? What’s the deal?’

Pari had been handling the political fallout from Ira’s announcement of the mission and her request to see him here was undoubtedly related. However, she hadn’t forwarded him details about their upcoming meeting which usually meant that, legally speaking, it wasn’t happening.

‘Not so great. Somebody leaked the fact that you have a link to Mark to the E.T. Affairs group in the House Proportional.’

Will rose out of his chair. ‘They did
what
?’

Only a handful of people in the senate knew about Mark’s past and all of them had been sworn to secrecy. Will had worked for years to keep the young roboteers from his failed Omega Programme out of the public eye. It had been an endless source of stress and misery for him and after the tribunal it had only grown harder.

‘Now E.T. Affairs think you’re packing the mission with your cronies and trying to pass them off as allies of Earth. Or that’s what they’re saying, at least. They’re threatening to cry foul and block the mission.’

‘Who did this?’ said Will, his fingers curled into claws.

Pari threw up her hands. ‘We’re still figuring that out. For all we know the information has been sitting out there for a while and the House has just been waiting for the right time to apply it. In any case, the good news is that we have a solid commitment that word hasn’t gone any further.’

‘From whom?’ Will growled.

‘From my guy in the House Proportional,’ said Pari. ‘His name is Ezekiel Wei. Zeke knew my husband. Our kids used to play together. He’s okay. Really.’

Pari didn’t like talking about the loss of her family. A Revivalist splinter group had killed them all while she was away on senate business. It had been a sad, bloody affair, so Will didn’t push it further. He sank back into his chair and glowered at the dead ocean.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Pari. ‘He’s got our backs. And that’s who we’re going to meet. We’re going to Mexico to show willingness to compromise.’

Will frowned at her. ‘
Are
we willing?’

‘Of course not,’ said Pari. ‘Unless you’ve changed your mind.’

Will peered furiously into his glass. ‘I thought they couldn’t block the mission in any case.’

‘No, but they could tie us up in paperwork for weeks. And by that time, every sect and colony will have sent their own missions.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ said Will. ‘I don’t care what they fucking want. I’m done with this shit. I’m leaving in two days whether they like it or not.’

‘And you can do that,’ said Pari. ‘Just realise that if you do, Mark won’t be coming with you. Nobody can stop you leaving on the
Ariel Two
, but the
Gulliver
is a diplomatic ship under IPSO control.’ She looked at the expression on his face and sighed. ‘Will, don’t go in confrontational, I beg you. You’ll hurt our cause. This should be a very quiet meeting. Trust him and leave him room and we can probably resolve this.’

Will downed the rest of his drink. Alcohol hadn’t touched his metabolism in thirty years – a fact he lamented from time to time. Still, the drink’s bite helped stiffen his resolve.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Do we know what they want?’

‘That’s the other piece of bad news,’ said Pari. ‘They want you to hand off diplomatic leadership of the mission to Yunus Chesterford.’ She glanced down at his hands gripping the arms of the chair. ‘Will, please don’t break the furniture. Titanium loungers are so difficult to replace.’

‘Yunus Chesterford is a dick,’ said Will. ‘No way. That guy has tried to fuck me over more times than I can count. He’s gone on record as a Transcended-denier, for crying out loud.’

‘I know, Will,’ said Pari. ‘I know. He’s Earth’s pet exoscience pundit. If he could roll the clock back and bring Sanchez out of the grave, he’d probably do it.’

‘That’s because he has no fucking idea what the High Church was like. They used to string up intellectuals like him and flay their skin off with nanowire.’

‘Let’s just see what Zeke has to say, huh?’ said Pari. ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes. We can get angry later.’

The conversation petered out after that, leaving Will alone with his thoughts. His last run-in with the Chesterfords on the biosphere world of Davenport loomed in his memory.

Humanity had discovered several biospheres during its expansion, each as useless as the last. Earth’s organisms appeared to either destroy alien life or wither before it. One biochemistry always found a way to dominate and co-opt the other. So rather than wrestle with the ecological nightmares biospheres caused, colonists tended to seek out lifeless Mars Plus worlds instead. They lived contentedly under plastic domes and left life-bearing planets for scientists and thrill-seekers with no fear of cancer.

Davenport was an extreme case. Its life was among the most virulently disruptive that humanity had ever found. The entire planet had been cordoned off to prevent the risk of its flora and fauna being weaponised by terrorist groups.

Which was why Will had chosen that site for his experiment in personal duplication. Away from prying eyes where nobody could get hurt, Will had taken over a small lake between two moss-spattered hills and consumed enough of the local biota to build a backup copy of himself. Or a near copy, at least. The experiment, like most of his endeavours since the war, had been a flop. Something in the structure of his smart-cells prevented him from making a complete duplicate. The clone had been a sort of shadow-Will, halfway between himself and a walking SAP. Useful, perhaps, but not the reserve copy for the human race he’d hoped for. After three days of life, it committed suicide, but not before sharing the full extent of its personal anguish about Rachel with him.

To Will’s dismay, it turned out that Citra Chesterford, Yunus’s wife, was leading one of the Davenport research teams at the time. Despite signing the Fleet nondisclosure agreement and promising silence to his face, she passed knowledge of the failed experiment to Yunus the moment he’d left the system. Yunus had promptly turned it into a political weapon. Will was still living out the consequences.

With some difficulty, he forced himself back to the present and tried to concentrate on the view that Pari’s senatorial lifter afforded. Like many of the world’s metropolitan areas, Mexico City had acquired its share of supertowers. They jutted out from between earlier, less battleship-like forms of architecture, most of which had been allowed to dissolve in the worsening weather. As they nosed towards their destination, a tethering arm reached out of the building to meet them, bearing an old-fashioned transit pod with real windows.

Zeke met them there. He turned out to be a dapper individual with small features and tidily oiled hair tinted a conservative blue to match his jacket.

‘Parisa, Will, wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for coming. Only chit-chat until we reach the safe room, please. Security in ArcoCinco is not what it used to be.’

Will stared at the man and tried to restrain himself from saying something unpleasant.

The pod took them down into the body of the tower, granting some impressive views over the grey infinity of Mexico City’s rubble-maze on the way.

‘I see you have vegetation down there,’ said Pari, pointing to some feeble patches of green. ‘That’s impressive.’

Zeke shrugged. ‘Small-scale projects. It’s all for show. Surface plants cost more to manage than they give back. All the real farming is underground nowadays, like everywhere else.’

The pod swapped track and descended into the tower’s vast hollow interior. The top floors had been well maintained, Will noted, at odds with his expectations. They looked, if anything, better off than some of the habitats he’d seen on Mars. About forty levels below, though, things got ugly. Down in the building’s central well, Will could make out the scars of flenser damage on the ceramic walls, and long, dark streaks of something unpleasant on the plastic windows.

The pod dropped them at a penthouse meeting room with a real lawn and apple trees. They sat down around an antique Formica meeting table to talk.

‘We’re ready to pull the plug and start over,’ said Zeke cheerfully.

Pari sighed. ‘Do that and we’ll all lose valuable time, the sects and the Fleet both. Plus any mission the sects send by themselves will lack credibility.’

‘Granted. But my committee can’t green-light something when they’ve been taken out of the loop altogether.’

‘That hasn’t happened,’ said Pari.

Zeke shot her an incredulous glance. ‘Really? Then how come you’re recruiting already?’

‘Some parts of the mission are negotiable and others aren’t,’ she said. ‘It makes sense for us to make progress on those elements that aren’t.’

‘So the nepotistic inclusion of Will’s protégé is non-negotiable?’

Will pressed his hand against the table, being careful not to break it.

‘First up,’ said Will, ‘ship’s captain is a Fleet position and we’ll pick staff for Fleet roles as we see fit. Secondly, the selection is not nepotistic. I picked Mark because he’s the best starship pilot the Fleet has ever produced. Bar none. Or did your source forget to mention that while they were laying out the juicy titbits? We’ll be risking our lives out there and we need to make choices which reflect that reality. And frankly, I’d have thought your people would relish the appointment. I picked the only Omega-rated roboteer who’s from Earth. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Your alternative was Ash Corrigan-Five, from Drexler – the FPP’s favourite planet. You’re telling me you’d prefer that?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Zeke. ‘And honestly, the gesture did mean something, right up until it turned out that Ruiz was one of your people, not one of ours. The sects thought they’d won something at first, then they started to feel cheated. Now they need some kind of concession so they know you’re not trying to screw them over.’

‘What’s wrong with the House just doing its job?’ said Will. ‘The military positions on this mission were never open for debate. You’re supposed to be helping us source scientists.’

Zeke threw his hands open. ‘And that’s what I’m trying to do. But help me out here! I’m sympathetic to your needs, but you have to realise that the House Proportional is
not
like the senate. Most of the representatives know about the Tiwanaku Event now and they
hate
it. They’re all from Earth, of course, and to them this whole thing looks like an attempt to demonise Flags.

‘For the sects, an independent colony like the one the
Reynard
found out there isn’t a sin, it’s an inevitability. Sure, such things aren’t legal yet, but they expect that to change and they’re quietly furious that it hasn’t already. This event, though, makes it look like Earthers run around fomenting interspecies war. The sects need to feel like they’re a part of this process otherwise they’ll go it alone. I can think of at least three groups with Revivalist wings that could reach Tiwanaku easily. They have armies of Truist zealots just begging to recreate old glories. Any one of them could send a mission out while we sit here in bureaucratic hell.’

‘What about the fact that one of these groups of yours is probably the outfit that caused this situation in the first place?’ said Will.

‘Of course,’ said Zeke. ‘But what about the others? They’re not going to break ranks until they know who to blame. And they already hate the fact that you’re still ambassador. I’ve heard people calling you the
Alien Satan
again, which I haven’t heard for years. And the fact that you’re putting your own people in key positions only makes that worse. As far these people are concerned, Will, the Transcendist experiment failed years ago, back when the Transcended stopped talking. IPSO became a prison then, not a promise. They want Earth’s primacy back. For them, this just looks like another delay to their destiny.’

‘We’re already making compromises,’ said Pari. ‘We’re sourcing the diplomatic ship from the Vartian Institute rather than using one of our own, and we’ve reduced our contribution to the diplomatic team to a single strategic advisor.’

‘That doesn’t help much,’ said Zeke. ‘The Vartian Institute will insist on putting one of their own paranoid agents aboard, which only leaves three places to fill.’

‘Make them count, then,’ said Pari. ‘Who have you picked?’

‘Venetia Sharp is a definite,’ said Zeke.

Pari wrinkled her button nose. ‘The woman who wrote all that vitriol about the FPP?’

‘The same. But you can’t debate the fact that she’s an excellent scientist.’

Will said nothing. He’d read plenty of Venetia’s work and found it rock-solid.

‘As for the other two slots,’ said Zeke, ‘that’s where the Chesterfords come in. If you put Mark Ruiz in the captain’s seat, we want Yunus Chesterford to head up the diplomatic effort. He gets to be the public face of this mission, with executive command over that ship.’

Will fumed silently.

‘Come on,’ said Zeke. ‘You get what you want and Earth gets what it wants. It doesn’t cost you anything. We both know the mission will go from diplomatic to military the moment you find out who pulled the stunt at Tiwanaku. When that happens, control of everything reverts back to you anyway. So what’s wrong with handing Earth the
appearance
of a victory?’