Resolution (86 page)

Ro would have hated it.

At the end, as Frau Doktor Ilse Schwenger delivered the final tribute, a thunderclap sounded overhead. Three thousand heads tipped back, ignoring the rain, as thirteen mu-space craft crashed through into real-space, screamed past in perfect formation, and were gone.

Every one of two thousand fledgling Pilots looked towards the podium and snapped a perfectly synchronized salute.

‘
The Admiral is dead.
’

They spoke in unison, unrehearsed. Every non-Pilot in the stadium felt their neck-hairs rise.

‘Long live the Admiral.’

Kian bowed his head.

When the service was over, there was largely purposeless milling. Among the senior UNSA management, a politically minded observer would have paid close attention to who leaned close to whom and talked in low tones. With such powerful figures in one place, it was inevitable that the day’s alleged purpose became merely an occasion that brought people together, not the only reason for being here.

Deirdre watched it all with sour amusement. She had not known Ro, but she knew Kian and had begun to know Dirk, and they were not the kind of people to wheel and deal at a time of mourning ... except that Kian had been assured as well as modest in the way he took the young Pilots’ tribute and bowed back from the podium.

‘Deirdre?’ The tone was uncertain.

‘Paula. I wasn’t sure ... you’d be here.’

‘If you’d read my— Never mind. Have you seen Zoë?’

‘Who?’

‘Blonde hair, petite, looks a third of her actual age. You’ve met her.’

‘Yes,’ said Deirdre. ‘I didn’t realize you had.’

‘She used to be my boss.’ That was the clearest admission yet that Paula worked for UN Intelligence, not UNSA. ‘She told me ... something. Something Kian ought to know.’

Deirdre crossed her arms.

You‘re using me to reach Kian.

Paula read the gesture correctly. ‘So here it is, and you can just tell him or not, OK? Zoë accessed the interrogation logs for Solly. You’ll remember him’ - with a trace smile - ‘as the one whose testicles squished on the toe of your boot. Er ... Where are they all off to?’

Young Pilots were moving past them. Some were children of seven or eight, leading their even younger colleagues. All were in black uniform.

‘I don’t know. I do remember Solly.’

And I wonder if Zoë needed to access the logs.

Someone had to perform the interrogation, after all.

‘Solly knew he was working for Zajinets.’

‘Um, right.’ Deirdre stared at Paula. ‘Wasn’t that obvious?’

‘Not really. From past experience, many of their cell members are recruited by other humans. When you join a shadow organization, particularly a small one, it’s pretty hard to be sure who it is you’re working for.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Anyway, Solly knew the truth, so they pushed the questioning further than the usual: what’s your contact’s name, how do you meet up, that sort of thing.’

Deirdre shivered.

Perhaps it was the cold rain that was falling more heavily now. But Paula showed no sign of wanting to head for shelter.

‘They asked the question,’ Paula said, ‘that no-one’s been able to answer:
Why do the Zajinets hate humans?
Why have they targeted Pilots, specific Pilots?’

She paused.

Deirdre gave in. ‘So why? What’s the answer?’

‘Solly said:
“They’ll allow the darkness to be born. It will spread across the galaxy, and they won’t fight back until billions have perished. I’ve seen it.”
That’s what he said.
“The Zajinets showed me the future, and I’ve seen it.”
It may sound insane, but Solly believed. He was in no fit state for joking by that time.’

‘You’re using the past tense,’ said Deirdre.

‘He did not survive the interrogation. A pre-existing medical condition, they said.’

‘Oh, Jesus.’

‘I don’t think He was there that day. Deirdre ... Things are different now. I don’t like the way the organization is going. I’m not sure I belong here.’

After a moment, Deirdre said: ‘Well, here’s a thing. I
never
liked it.’

In a huge near-empty hangar, designated Flugzeughalle Zwei and vast enough to hold three mu-space ships at once, the Pilots-to-be convened. They were children and young adults with obsidian eyes and solemn expressions, and they stood in rows on the cold concrete floor and waited for Kian to speak.

None of them had flown a ship. Not a single virally rewired adult Pilot was present.

This was a gathering of Ro’s Children.

All two thousand of them, near enough: only a few had been kept away by minor disasters or administrative snafus. In Tehran, fifteen youngsters were trapped in the spaceport while anti-xeno demonstrators picketed the buildings and prevented landings and take-offs. But enough of them were here.

Two of the older youths dragged a wheeled platform into place. It was designed for engineers who needed to work underneath a mu-space vessel’s wing; it would do for what they had in mind. They locked the wheels in place, and nodded.

From the hangar doors, Kian limped - still using his cane - along a natural aisle with a thousand young Pilots ranked on either side. When Kian reached the platform he paused, as though reconsidering. Then he handed his cane to one of the young men who had positioned the platform.

‘Thank you, Carlos.’

‘No problem, boss.’

Kian hooked his bad hand over the steps’ rail, and climbed up to the platform.

And looked down upon his brothers and sisters.

In the flight base control tower, Paula used her ID ring to open a steel door, and ushered Deirdre inside. In a half-lit room, surveillance holos flickered. In them, shone scenes of a large hangar and the two thousand young Pilots gathered there.

‘Does Kian know he’s being watched?’ said Deirdre.

There were twelve men and women observing. One of them turned at Deirdre’s question, mouth opening.

‘Is there a problem, Browning?’ asked Paula.

‘Er ... No, ma’am.’

‘Good.’

Deirdre was shaking her head. ‘This is not right. You can
not
do this.’

But one of the observers was frowning.

‘There’s, um, something going on.’

‘What?’

In most of the displays, the scene was as before. But one of the holos showed a close-up of Kian’s face, as if he were looking directly into the observation room.

And smiling.

Deirdre shivered. For a moment, she thought a faint glimmer of gold crossed his black eyes, and she remembered the Santa Monica PD drone that had fallen from the sky.

In the observation room, every holo winked from existence.

This was the speech that Kian gave:

‘We are a family, my brothers and sisters. We mourn our mother, the first Admiral. And our brother Dirk who is lost, perhaps for ever.

‘There are armoured flyers overhead. You’ve seen them. Soldiers surround the base, guarding us. Protecting us.

‘For UNSA we are resources. Of course! Millions are invested in our training, in the construction and maintenance of great ships that we will come to think of as our own. We cannot blame them for fearing that we will go astray, or that public opinion will be swayed by paranoid minorities.

‘If we upset them, they will be like children whose toys have been stolen. It is
we
who must be the adults here.

‘Some people fear what is different. But they should not fear us, for we are humanity. UNSA need not fear us, for we will do their bidding, and they should know that.