Nemesis (15 page)

‘I put something inside you,’ she said. ‘I’m not saying what, but you know how it feels now. Your agonising death is keyed to your own data release. The moment you go public, my crawlers will notice and post a signal to your spine. If we lose, you lose.’

He stared at her with a mix of panic and outright loathing.

‘In case it wasn’t already obvious, you’re in over your head,’ she said. ‘But you strike me as a decent enough guy, so instead of killing you, I’m going to save you. When you leave here, you’re heading straight to the shuttle port. When you get there, you’ll find a ticket waiting for you on the next nestship out to Nazca under the name of Sundar Kim, courtesy of ISPO undercover ops. You’re going to start a new life on that colony. A good one. You get one network call out, and that’s to shut down the timer on that data packet. Don’t bother trying to call anyone else. We’ll be listening. Do as you’re told and you’ll be safely in coma within the hour, otherwise you’ll be dead. And believe me, you’ll be a hell of a lot safer out there than you are here.’

‘You wouldn’t do that,’ he wheezed. ‘You’re Fleet.’

Ann smiled like a shark. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. You need another jolt to convince you?’

‘No!’

‘Good. And now you get to walk out of the room a free man. Congratulations, you win.’

She applied the rest of the dose to his neck and stood back to give him room. She gestured at the exit.

‘I’m Made Platinum,’ he said. ‘You’ll be hearing about this.’

‘No, you’re not,’ she replied. ‘You’re Sundar Kim, an unaffiliated project manager with a modest bank account and good prospects. Enjoy it. It’s more fun out there than this dump, I can assure you.’

The fixer shot her a look of pure spite, staggered to his feet and walked silently to the door. As soon as he was gone, Kuril exhaled noisily.

‘Sooner or later that man’s going to figure out he’s not on a timer,’ he said. ‘Without a stabilising framework, those micromachines will drain out of his body within hours.’

‘He’ll be far away before that happens,’ said Ann. ‘And by tomorrow morning, so will we. We’re looking at the end of civilisation, Kuril. We can afford to play a little fast and loose.’

On paranoid instinct, she quickly checked the fixer’s movements in her security shield, but he was headed out of the bar as ordered, having made a single call to a nondescript secure address. The tail she’d put on him was operating perfectly. It’d warn her if anything weird happened.

Kuril sagged against the wall. ‘Why me, if you don’t mind me asking? Why not Jaco?’

‘Jaco would have insisted we mind-clamp the guy for his data key and then dump his body out of an airlock. He doesn’t like loose ends. I was prepared to bet you felt differently.’

‘You bet right,’ he said.

‘But I’m going to need you to keep quiet about all this,’ she said. ‘The League won’t like it. It’s not their style. Can I count on you? You know how they feel about mistakes – they burn them out before they spread, no matter who makes them.’

‘Of course.’

She clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Then thank you,’ she said. ‘And sorry for involving you. The way I see it, everything we’re doing is an attempt to minimise the loss of life in the big picture. Which means that every life counts – even a scumbag like our Mr Kim.’

‘Don’t worry. I’d have done the same thing. Or tried to, at any rate.’

‘Now get out of here,’ said Ann with a companionable smile. ‘My security will cover your exit from the building. I’ll follow in ten minutes. That should give us a solid hour before these two guys wake up with a bad case of memory-blur.’

Thankfully, the problem had resolved itself with plenty of time left over to remove her status report from the network. Presuming there wasn’t further fallout from the event, she and the League were in the clear. Still, Ann knew she’d be counting the hours till she left port the next morning, checking the tail she’d set every time her anxiety bubbled up.

She wasn’t kidding herself about why all this had happened. She’d agreed to follow through on the favour for Sam without having the first clue as to how his operation at Triton worked or who was involved. She should have made him explain more. Not understanding had nearly ruined everything.

With Ruiz involved, the game was changing too fast for her to rely on simply following orders. In the IPSO Fleet, officers were expected to ask questions and act independently to achieve their commander’s intent. The same applied in the League. Ann knew she needed to step up to that plate. If she didn’t understand the role she’d been asked to play, they might not get through the next few months alive.

4.2: MARK

After several hours of tedious Fleet upgrades, medical checks and legal paperwork, Mark floated out of a transit pod into the lounge of the most spacious and well-appointed shuttle he’d ever seen. The entire interior had been lined with reactive biopolymers. Curving padded walls with a mother-of-pearl sheen swept down to meet at a discussion area with bio-nouveau couches, luminous clamber-web and projector bubbles. It was like visiting the inside of a designer pumpkin. A cluster of people dressed in shipwear floated down near the central meeting area, chatting like old friends – his fellow explorers, apparently. He felt a stab of awkwardness just looking at them.

Nelson drifted up to meet him, dressed in Fleet blue today rather than his usual slick duds, but no less immaculate for it.

‘Hi, Mark. Good to see you,’ he said, extending a warm hand. ‘I’m glad this all worked out so well.’

Mark accepted the gesture and tried for a smile. If Nelson had any idea what happened the night before, he showed no sign.

‘I trust you slept well?’ said Nelson.

Mark had not. The Fleet dorm had been as blandly acceptable as always. But between the blood-scrubbing, the adrenalin come-down from the fight and too much thinking about Will’s words, Mark had struggled to relax.

‘Well enough.’

‘Great,’ said Nelson. ‘Let me introduce you to some of your shipmates.’ He pushed off the wall, back towards the conversation below. ‘Ladies and gents,’ he said, ‘may I introduce Mark Ruiz, our captain aboard the
Gulliver
?’

On entering the secure shuttle, Mark had deliberately chosen not to take the memory download of mission personnel the security SAP had offered him. He always found that meeting people with total foreknowledge made him behave too much like a classic roboteer – overfamiliar, mechanical and creepy. There wasn’t much he could do about who was coming, he reasoned, so he might as well meet them first-hand and treat them like equals. That strategy had worked well for him in New York.

The first person to turn around was Ash Corrigan-Five – formerly his Omega dorm buddy and childhood friend, and subsequently someone he never wanted to see again. Ash was all blond hair and apple-pie looks, as ever. He greeted Mark with easy good humour.

‘Mark! Great to see you!’ He grabbed Mark’s hand and pumped it.

Mark tried not to show just how unwelcome the surprise was. In the back of his head, he scrabbled to turn on introduction-assist. Ash, apparently, would be his subcaptain. It’d be their first opportunity to work together since Ash had given evidence against him at the trial.

‘So you’re back,’ said Ash. ‘Just like old times, eh?’

‘I guess so,’ said Mark.

Great
, he thought.
Let’s pretend you never sold me out, you pushy Drexlerite fuckhead
. He kicked himself for not coming in as prepared as possible. That was the Fleet way of doing things and he’d just end up paying for it if he didn’t get with the programme, particularly as his role was so central.

The
Gulliver
was a ro-ship – geared for roboteer pilot and command. Ro-ships were the fulfilment of Will Monet’s childhood dream that one day roboteers would captain and control their own vessels. That had probably sounded like a grand and fitting dream for a generation of pre-war roboteers trapped in terraforming work. What that vision had created for the Fleet, though, was a giant headache.

Roboteers were subject to digital infection risk, attention overload and numerous other personal limitations, not to mention attacks of good old-fashioned autistic behaviour. To compensate, ro-ships had their own pattern of command. Each captain was required to fly with a sub on board, at least one non-roboteer passenger-witness and an extensive battery of backup software. Where possible, two subs were preferred.

While ro-ships were capable of fast and delicate flying that ordinary pilots couldn’t match, they generally weren’t allowed to take on high-pressure missions. Most roboteer captains ended up as glorified ferrymen, running modified nestships packed with supplies and colonists to the Frontier. Mark should have guessed that someone he knew would be in the number-two seat on his ship. A mission this significant called for someone Omega-rated, and there weren’t that many of them to choose from.

The discomfort of the moment, though, paled in comparison to the one that followed.

‘And may I introduce the physicist with our scientific team?’ said Nelson, pointing back over Mark’s shoulder. ‘Doctor Zoe Tamar.’

Mark turned around to see the girl with the purple hair gliding down from the pod bay.

‘Doctor Tamar is also the mission’s representative from the Vartian Institute,’ said Nelson. ‘She’s more familiar with the workings of the
Gulliver
than anyone else, so you’ll be working with her closely.’

Dr Tamar’s expression suggested she was at least as disappointed as he was.

‘Oh, but we’ve met,’ she said, before clapping a hand over her mouth in mock-regret.

Mark’s heart skipped a beat. Nelson regarded her in confusion.

‘We had a lovely conversation in a hallway,’ said Zoe. ‘Something about contemporary privacy issues, if I remember correctly?’ She glared at him with a cryptic kind of anger, as if his being in the same room as her constituted an affront.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mark stiffly. ‘I’d
forgotten
. How nice to see you again.’

‘Super,’ said Zoe. ‘We get to fly together? How unexpected.’

Now that he had an opportunity to look at Dr Tamar properly, it was also easy to tell what kind of company she was likely to be. She had big dark eyes, full lips and curves under her one-piece. She also clearly considered him dirt. Her bio said it all. She was a year younger than him but had published a dozen seminal research papers already. Her resume said
I’m out of your league and you know it
. Mark liked his crewmates a little less obviously acid in temperament. It was shaping up to be a fun trip.

‘And may I introduce the
Gulliver
’s exopsychology specialist, Venetia Sharp?’ said Nelson, gesturing to the woman behind Zoe Tamar.

Mark found himself being scrutinised by a thin woman in her subjective forties with a severe black bob and a sly smile.

‘Nice to meet you, Captain Ruiz,’ she said. ‘Your reputation precedes you. I admire your work.’

She appeared to find this statement quietly amusing. To Mark’s ear, it sounded like a veiled slight.

Great
, he thought.
A comedian.

Venetia stuck out a hand and Mark shook it distractedly. Between Ash and Zoe Tamar, his attention was already scattered; his focus didn’t split nearly so neatly when human relationships were involved.

‘Excuse me,’ said a loud voice with a strong Leading-class accent.

Mark and the others looked up to see a man floating into the centre of the crowd with his arms raised. He was tall, with a scrawny build and weak chin but an impressive mane of professor hair.

[
Yunus Chesterford,
] his introduction SAP informed him, [
mission leader.
]

Mark frowned and shot a silent request back to the program.

[
I thought Will Monet was in charge?
]

[
Will Monet is the senior Fleet officer,
] said the SAP. [
Yunus Chesterford is the head IPSO representative.
] The top diplomat, in other words.

‘The shuttle tells me we’re all here,’ said Yunus, ‘so we’ll be leaving shortly. May I recommend that you all take a seat and we’ll begin the briefing?’

Mark grabbed the nearest strand of clamber-web and made his way down to the meeting space. He spotted Will as he moved to clip himself into a seat. Will sent him a short electronic
hi
. Mark declined to respond.

‘First, welcome,’ said Yunus. ‘I see some new faces here and plenty of familiar ones. It’s not often that people in our line of work get to put their talents to the test, and these are hardly ideal circumstances. Regardless, I’m delighted to see you all. With luck this mission will achieve something wonderful for the human race, and at the very least it should help resolve a dangerous situation.’

He glanced down at his hands with a wry expression.

‘And to all of you who, like me, have been required to take on some Fleet augmentations for this mission, apologies on behalf of IPSO. Apparently they’re necessary for flight safety under possible combat conditions. They assure me that, upon conclusion of this mission, anyone who wants the augs removed can have them taken out. Now, before we begin the meeting proper, I’d like to share a message from our senate sponsor – the head of the Senate Committee for E. T. Affairs, Parisa Voss.’

Yunus gestured at the central projector bubble, which sprang into life. Auntie Pari’s face appeared against a majestic background of stars. It’d been years since Mark had seen her. She looked exactly the same. Just as plastic. Just as prissy. Her nose was, if anything, even more eerily button-perfect than he remembered. Will liked her, of course. But she’d never had a particularly good effect on Will, in Mark’s opinion, particularly after Rachel’s loss. Through her, Will had been dragged further and further into the very politics he hated.

‘The mission you are about to undertake is the most important in recent history,’ said Auntie Pari. ‘You are travelling to meet a very real threat, some of you unarmed. That threat is unquantified in its scope. Whether we face extinction or the beginning of a golden age may depend on the actions you take. There has been precious little time to prepare for this mission, which means that all of you will need to cooperate and improvise at the highest levels of Fleet performance. I know you’re capable because we’ve chosen our best. For what you are about to do, on behalf of IPSO and all the Human Worlds, I salute you.’