The Curve of The Earth (36 page)

Newcomen was looking alternately at the crash site and Petrovitch. “You’re ragging on me.”

“Ragging on you, Farm Boy? Does it look like we’re ragging on you?” Spinning around, Petrovitch held his arms out wide. “Didn’t your handlers explain this to you? This is what it’s all been about. From start to finish. My little girl found an alien spaceship in her back yard.” He pointed to Avaiq. “This man saw it. He was here when they opened it.”

Newcomen’s eyes were suddenly bright with fever. “Opened it?”

“Yeah. Opened it.” Petrovitch glanced at Avaiq. “You did open it, right?”

“Of course we opened it. What were we supposed to do? We thought there might be someone inside. Someone who needed our help.”

Now Newcomen was slithering backwards, pushing with his hands, trying to distance himself from Petrovitch and Avaiq. “Get away from me.” His voice started off normal and ended in a low moan. “Get away! You said it was the Chinese. You said!”

“I was wrong,” called Petrovitch. “It wasn’t the Chinese after
all. I should have worked it out a long time ago, but your lot have known ever since the beginning. They’ve got what’s left of it after they hit it with a cloud of tungsten flechettes and forced it to break up in our atmosphere. They came here and took everything, hoping to make it look like nothing ever happened.”

“Nothing did happen here,” screamed Newcomen. “Nothing. Nothing at all. No aliens. No spaceships. Nothing.”

Avaiq, listening, called out: “That’s not true.” Petrovitch turned to stare, and he added quietly: “About them taking everything.”

The final piece of the jigsaw slotted home, and Petrovitch shivered with anticipation.

“What was it?”

Avaiq shrugged, his parka rising and falling. “I don’t know. A thing. She’s got it with her. She might have even figured out what it is by now.” He nodded at Newcomen. “Why is he acting like this?”

“I don’t think it’s an act,” said Petrovitch. “I think he’s genuinely lost it.”

“I want to take you to your daughter, and we’re just wasting time here.” The Inuit regarded the sky. “You need to do something about him – either leave him, or… whatever.”

“Tempting, but no.”

Petrovitch advanced on Newcomen, and the struggle was brief and to the point. Newcomen tried to keep the smaller man away, using the still-tethered pistol as a club. Petrovitch grabbed it, ripped it free, threw it away and slapped him on the side of his head with his left hand. It was like being hit with a bag of bolts.

“It could have been different. It should have been different.
Yobany stos
, I was actually starting to like you. I was even ashamed of lying to you.” Petrovitch went through Newcomen’s pockets for the snowmobile key. “It was Tabletop who suggested the bomb: the others agreed, and I fought it all the way. I beat them down to faking it. I still went along with it, though, so yeah. I was ashamed.”

He found the key, a silver bar with a plastic fob, and straightened up.

“We were meant,” Newcomen slurred, “we were meant to be alone.”

“I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t look that way.”

“You’re wrong. They’re wrong. It’s all a mistake.”

“It’s too late for that, Newcomen. You can’t pretend. We’re going to get Lucy. Good luck with whatever it is you decide to do now. I’m sure someone will come for you at some point. Maybe even before you freeze to death.” As he limped away, he told Michael: “Terminate his link. He won’t be needing it again.”

The closer they drew to the coast, the foggier it grew, until they were driving in a bubble caused by their own existence. Beyond, there was nothing, and the rest of the world could have ceased to be. Almost.

[Sasha. What do you propose we do?]

“I don’t know. Someone must have come up with a good idea.” Petrovitch followed Avaiq down the frozen river towards the sea, behind but not directly so because of the snow that the tracks kicked up.

[There are plenty of suggestions. Some are mutually exclusive. Others could be joined together to form a more-or-less coherent strategy. But there is no unanimity. On a decision as momentous as this, we should reach a broad consensus rather than a simple majority.]

“So give me a rundown of the factions. Not the personalities, just the proposals.”

[The first faction is centred around the idea that we should keep this discovery secret.]

“We don’t keep secrets. In fact, we’re in this
pizdets
because the Yanks wanted to keep it secret.”

[A point that is not lost on the plan’s advocates. However, they suggest that the secrecy only lasts as long as you and Lucy are within the borders of the United States. Once you have been successfully extracted, along with whatever artefacts Lucy has been able to retrieve, we will make an announcement. By maintaining our silence, they believe the Americans will be fooled into thinking you have died.]

“That has its merits. Next.”

[Another faction believes we should use distraction to cover your escape, most likely by launching a massive information war on key US infrastructure targets, perhaps aided by the Chinese, in the hope that they will be too busy firefighting those to track you down. I have pointed out that not only is the result in doubt, but the methods used in the Jihad attack on SkyShield depended on careful planning, an unsuspecting target and the preplanting of code. Still, people remember the success while not appreciating the level of difficulty.]

“It also gives the game away that Lucy’s still around. We’re smarter than that. Who else?”

[The third faction supports full and total disclosure of all the data we have gathered so far, and the release of more as and when we are in a position to disseminate it. They believe that by neutralising the secrecy element, we disarm the Americans’ need to silence either you or Lucy – your deaths would become counterproductive to their cause.]

“That’s hardly a comfort to me if they do it out of spite. I
die, Lucy dies, and all the evidence ends up locked in a crate in Area Fifty-One.” Petrovitch considered all the plans. Each one held out the promise of escape, but none of them were foolproof. The variables, the uncertainty involved: none of them were brilliant.

[So the Silence faction and the Open faction are in conflict. Each is attempting to enlist supporters of the Attack faction, but the Open faction hold the ultimate veto. While I can block their Freezone-based discussions from entering the infosphere at large, I cannot prevent any of them from simply talking to another human being. Not all of the Freezone is on the island of Ireland. It is only a matter of time before the news leaks, in a haphazard, partial, and uncontrolled way.]

Petrovitch drove on. He guessed where Avaiq was taking him: to the spot where the video had been made. There had been some sort of camp there. Which begged the question, why hadn’t it been found?

[Sasha?]

“I’m thinking. I’m cold, I’m hungry, bits of me are dropping off, I’ve been blown up and shot at, I’m pissed off and I have to help decide the fate of the planet and everyone on it. I’d like a few moments.”

He realised he was still totally at the mercy of the Americans. If they could find him, they could finish him. Newcomen was right: there’d be no evidence, just a lot of dismissible crazy talk.

So what was important was the evidence. Get that out, whatever it was, and they’d be over the worst. Yes, they could all still die, but that was the point of the Open faction’s argument. Death wouldn’t matter if the story lived on.

Petrovitch nearly fell off the snowmobile. He slowed down to stop his uncontrolled wobble, and ended up sideways to the
river. Avaiq, swaddled up against the freezing wind and with the noise of the engine in his ears, failed to notice. He disappeared into the fog, though the sound of him was clear enough.

“
Yobany stos
,” said Petrovitch. “I need to talk to First Vice Premier Zhao.”

[He is still at home.]

“I don’t care if he’s hang-gliding off Everest. He’s my go- to man.”

[Sasha, you are not authorised to do any deals with the Chinese. There will have to be, at the very least, an ad-hoc. Possibly more.]

“We don’t have the time.”

[We have to make the time.]

“You know what the Chinese are like! They’ll take for ever to come to a decision if we do this through the usual channels. I want to talk to Zhao and make an offer in person. They can change. They can be flexible – remember, Zhao called me.”

[The choice is not yours.]

“Well, it should be.”

[Every time you rail against having to consult someone else about a course of action that affects the Freezone as a whole and not just you, I have to remind you that you designed the decisionmaking process, you consciously and deliberately eschewed any special exception for yourself, and you told me that if you were to ever change your mind, I was to have you shot.]

Petrovitch hit the handlebars with both fists. “Bastard.”

[Me? Or you?]

“Both of us.”

[Shall I convene an ad-hoc while you explain your idea?]

“Yeah. Okay.” He reluctantly returned to the business of guiding his snowmobile over the ruts and runnels of the river
ice. “All three factions have something, but on their own, it’s not enough. And you’re right, we have to make a decision now, or simply by default a decision will be made for us.”

[Your proposal, Sasha. The ad-hoc is waiting.]

“We’ll skip the introductions, if that’s okay.” He could see them, though. Moltzman was one of them, which was both good and bad, because he wouldn’t give Petrovitch an easy ride. “The problem is getting out of Alaska, alive, with the artefact that Lucy has. It’s two hundred and eighty kilometres to the Canadian border, and the Americans will stop at nothing to prevent us from getting there. What I want to do is sell a share of the artefact. To the Chinese. For a dollar. Are you with me so far?”

[Sight unseen.]

“Yeah, that. Look, we’re flogging half of an alien doohickey for less than a six-pack of cheap beer. The price isn’t important. What it actually is isn’t important either. We could end up with a wiring loom with none of the stuff it attaches to. We could have the equivalent of the entire ship’s memory. What is important is that we get it out of the country.”

Moltzman leaned in close to his camera. “How far away are you from Lucy? Because you’ll have pictures soon enough. Why not wait?”

“Because then we’ll know what it is we’re selling, and they’ll know what it is they’re buying. I don’t want to run the risk of having to ask Zhao if he wants to buy a pile of melted crap that could have come from anywhere. He commits his government to the purchase now, while neither of us have a clue what it is.”

Then O’Malley, a repatriated Irishman, extended his forefinger from his big fist and shook it at Petrovitch. “We don’t actually
own this whatever-it-is, do we now? So how can we be selling it?”

[Technically, Lucy Petrovitch has a claim of ownership, since she found the material abandoned. There is no immediate prospect of finding the original owner.]

“Isn’t there some law about things that fall from space?”

[I have made a brief overview of Alaskan state law within title thirty-four, chapter forty-five, and I can see no reason why she does not have a valid claim. Certainly she must register her find, but not until the first of November of this year.]

“But,” argued O’Malley, “won’t the government just say it’s theirs?”

[They indisputably will. But they have no basis in law to do so. The law of treasure trove does not apply, Alaska does not escheat abandoned vehicles, and she was not trespassing on the land where the artefact was found.]

“So it is the girl’s?”

[Yes.]

“Just not the Freezone’s.”

[The concept of individual versus corporate ownership temporarily escaped me. Apologies.]

There was a deep and profound silence. After a while, the youngest member of the ad-hoc found the courage to speak up. “We shouldn’t make a decision without Lucy.” Her brown skin flushed darker with embarrassment, and she lowered her gaze. “I mean, I know you’re Sam Petrovitch, and you know we all love you. But… you need to ask her. Sorry.”

Moltzman gave a frown that threatened to obscure his eyes completely. “I’m sorry too, Doctor. I move we suspend this ad-hoc. Lucy Petrovitch needs to makes the request, not her father.”

“
Pizdets
,” hissed Petrovitch, and the ad-hoc voted to disband.

[I still maintain the capacity to be surprised by humans.]

“Surprised?
Yobany stos
, we needed to set this up now. We can’t wait.”

[And yet wait we must. Lucy’s rights as finder cannot be violated simply because you find it expedient. The Freezone holds much in common for its members, yet we still maintain a separation between communal and personal property. She can gift the artefact to whoever she wishes; it is her choice.]

“Why the
huy
did she have to grow up?” Petrovitch gunned the motor on the snowmobile and started chasing Avaiq in earnest.

[I understand that is a common complaint that fathers have against their daughters. Sasha, you have brought her up well. She is intelligent, wise, fearless and kind.]

“Yeah, all those things despite me. She’s going to do something stupid: I can feel it in what’s left of my bones.”

Avaiq’s skidoo appeared out of the fog bank, parked up on the east side of the river. He was no longer on it. Petrovitch slowed down and coasted to a halt next to it. A single set of footprints led away.

Grabbing his bag, Petrovitch followed the trail across the snow. He felt his heart spin faster, his feet pick up pace in sympathy. Everything suddenly hurt less.

“Lucy? Lucy?”

Out of the fog came a single word.

“Sam?”

Then there she was. Whip-thin despite the swaddling of coats and blankets, her face translucent-pale, her eyes dark and heavy. But she seemed to have all her limbs, and her head.

He dropped his bag and they stumbled towards each other. Even though she was fractionally taller than him, he caught her up and crushed her to him.

“Hey, Dad,” she said.