The Expendable Few: A Spinward Fringe Novel (13 page)

“I’m detecting chemical communication,” Remmy says. “These issyrians are a lot healthier, I think.”

“I didn’t know we could detect pheromonal communication,” I reply.

“I’m using the medical scanner. I can’t tell what they’re saying, but they’re talking to each other.”

We come to a roughly circular central chamber with a domed ceiling. Pipes come in from all directions. Many of them are capped or redirected so their contents flow back into the sewer system. In the centre is a thick column with vessels, intertwining tubes, and monitoring systems built in. There are several alcoves scattered around the room. I watch an issyrian emerge from one with a new circulation device affixed to his back. He looks worse than our guide, with a misshapen head and only one arm. The solid stone of the hallway is replaced by fine grating. Several other issyrians and a few humans - all of them looking healthy and clean - are busy at work maintaining the machinery, or working the controls at free standing input columns. A breeze tickles my skin from below as we move across the space towards a pair of staircases. I look down and see whirling waters. At a glance I can see several small shapes, like fish, darting around beneath.

“This is an incubator and treatment room,” our guide tells us, directing our attention down through the floor. “One of the few places on this hemisphere where our children can be born then grow to adolescence.”

“Why don’t you cover it?” Mary asks. “A lot of things could pass through this grating.”

“They must become accustomed to interference, learn to combat contamination. The pools are also monitored so the aggressiveness of diseases can be maintained.”

“So you know how to purify the world outside?” Isabel asks hopefully.

That seemed to surprise Emiss, whose gaze lingers before she answered. “No, the Order has contaminated every space on this world. We disease and cure our young so they can evolve to survive. They know pain in youth so they survive as adults.”

“Thank you Emiss,” says a raspy voice from above. We look to see an older woman coming down a winding metal staircase. “I can handle things from here.”

“I wanted to speak to you about the recruiting centre,” Emiss replies.

“There will be time later. Why don’t you spend some time in a regeneration pod?”

Emiss bows and walks away without another word.

“Thank you,” Remmy says as the issyrian passes by him. He’s rewarded with a nod.

“I speak for Doctor Marcelles.” The tall woman says as she descends. Her piercing grey eyes make quick work of inspecting me and my companions.

“We’re here to ask for his help on behalf of Freeground Intelligence,” I tell her.

She idly checks a display on a nearby control column. “You have a problem that even Freeground Intelligence, with all their tendrils stretching out into the galaxy can’t solve?”

“I wouldn’t say they’ve got a lot of contacts out here,” I reply.

“Then how did they find Doctor Marcelles? They have someone out here listening, watching,” she returns her attention to us. “You have the look of fresh initiates. You’ll learn all about how Freeground Intelligence compartmentalizes, and maybe even how long of a reach the organization has.” She turns towards a nearby exit and beckons.

At the end of a short hallway is a makeshift sitting room, where a few humans casually watch news broadcasts from the Stellarnet. “…taken responsibility for the Holocaust Virus, but the British allegations make things interesting for the Order of Eden. As more recruitment centres appear across civilized worlds we see more allegations of the Order of Eden’s responsibility for the virus. Most of our viewers live on worlds that have wiped out artificial intelligences in all their systems, making machines safe again. The Order of Eden calls the mass deletion the first digital genocide. If you ask the representatives from the new British Empire, they’ll unanimously tell you that it’s the best remedy to the Holocaust Virus. The Carthans and Roma Prime Public Affairs office, agree, adding… “ the newscaster says.

It’s strange seeing a real human actually reading the news. Until the Holocaust Virus, most news casters were artificial intelligences with fairly convincing human images sitting in to represent them. The Stellarnet was the first to come back online. I didn’t see much of it because of Freeground censorship, but I saw enough to know that humans were at the wheel again, bringing their creativity and imperfections with them. “Across the core worlds that were worst hit by the Holocaust Virus, new governments are emerging along with the old establishments. Despite the infighting, groups of rebels and combat ready ships are making their presence known. A common message; ‘Hate Fate’ has been spreading like the virus that brought on these terrible times, and this newscaster expects that these words will become our call to action. They are a direct reaction to the Child Prophet and his message of-” I stop listening. The newscaster seems to be reveling in the misfortune of billions almost as much as the Order itself.

“Have a seat,” our hostess invites. “I can have food brought if you like.”

“No thank you.” I take a seat across from her in the middle of a worn sofa. Remmy and Isabel sit on either side of me. Mary warily lowers herself into an ancient armchair. “No offence, but I’d like to speak to Doctor Marcelles directly.”

“He’s a little busy,” she replies. “My name is Omira Gerring, where he goes, I go, so this isn’t just his decision.”

“Well, there are some things, like our offer, that I don’t think I can discuss with anyone else,” I tell her. I decide that would be my last attempt at getting past his gatekeeper for a long while. I don’t want to wear out our welcome before we’ve even had a chance to so much as shake the Doctor’s hand.

“I know everything about his past work. Besides, he’s listening,” she says with a knowing smile.

I take a breath and nod. “All right. I’ve come with an offer. We can get him in range of Jacob Valance. We’re aware that he never got to finish his work with him.”

“He finished what was important. The Valance project was a failure in the end, so Doctor Marcelles moved on.”

That takes me by surprise. Ever since I found out about Jacob Valance and the framework designs, I was under the impression that it was Marcelles’ masterpiece, maybe even an obsession. How could he move on from something so revolutionary, or someone who went on to create his own history? Her statement also takes one of my best bargaining chips away.

“Isn’t that a little like child abandonment?” Remmy asks.

“Valance was programmed with what he needed to survive before the Doctor escaped from Vindyne. Judging from the data we saw four months ago, he’s still failed to trigger the final phase of his development, so the chances of him ever becoming more than just an average framework with a passable intelligent personality installed are next to nil. We’ve moved on.”

“To what?” I ask. “That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Applying stable quantum entanglement to medical nano technology,” she answers. “It’s all theory now, but we’re certain it’ll be a leap forward when it’s applied.”

“So your work doesn’t have anything to do with the issyrians here?”

“No. They provide a safe place to work and we help them develop a treatment for their people. Their hope is to evolve the new broods into an infection resistant breed that can take the planet back. Rejoining their Houses is impossible now, so that’s their only option.”

“I’m sure Special Projects will be glad to help. They’d at least provide research data, maybe even send some people down for a while,” I tell her. “Or you can rejoin Freeground, and you’ll have full access, your own department and a safe place to research for the rest of your lives.” It’s a risk, embellishing the offer a little and extending it to Omira as well, but she already seems unmovable.

“You have the clout to make that happen?”

“My mission director does, and I know he’d be behind this kind of research,” I reply, sure of my response.

“Are you sure you can promise this to me as well? You don’t even know who I am.”

“I can guarantee Freeground Intelligence would extend their offer to you, especially if you know everything he does.”

“In trade for what?”

I don’t see any reason to hesitate or package those details. “We need your help in defeating the framework technology. We have evidence that-”

“Stop there,” she says, holding a hand up. “I know for a fact that Doctor Marcelles warned Freeground Intelligence, Vindyne, and anyone who would listen about the potential harm that could be done if that technology was misused. The portions of the framework technology that he worked on were meant to augment a living being, not to create an army. Now you’re in a new arms race. I can assure you he wants no part of it.”

“You can’t be safe here. It’ll only be a matter of time before the Order discovers this place,” I retort. It is only when I watch Omira lean back in her seat that I realize that I’ve been reduced to being adversarial. The encounter is supposed to be about enticing Marcelles back and it’s turning into an argument.

“I’ll discuss this with him. Please make yourselves comfortable, just don’t wander.” Omira is on her feet and heading out of the room before she finishes speaking. She doesn’t give me time to add anything, not that I have anything in mind.

The rest of my team know I screwed up an opportunity. Not even Mary looks at me in the awkward minutes that follow as we wait idly. Then, just as Remmy is opening his mouth, about to offer some silence shattering quip, Omira returns. “You have his attention,” she says. “Even after all the time I’ve spent with him, he still manages to surprise.”

“That’s good for us, right?” Remmy asks.

“Yes,” Omira replies. “He’ll show you how to kill frameworks one on one, from there your government can develop whatever mass weaponry it wishes to overcompensate with. First you have to do something for us, something very important.”

“And dangerous,” Mary adds. “Just guessing.”

“Your companion is right,” Omira confirms, sitting down across from us. “There is a ship called the Fallen Star, it was hidden in the Silvermane Belt, this solar system’s outer asteroid belt. Doctor Marcelles wants you to download the contents of the lab computer system and collect some samples that should still be in suspended animation.”

“That’s what you were after when you came here,” Remmy says. “It’s what led you to this solar system in the first place, isn’t it?”

It was like he picked the question right out of my head, only I wouldn’t have asked it. Omira’s tense smile tells me it’s too soon for details, and I make sure we don’t push. “Why can’t he go himself?” I ask. That’s the important question.

“Something aboard the Fallen Star broke containment. A being that was in storage for another scientist’s work. The Fallen Star was a Freeground research vessel, one that was never meant to be this close to any civilized area,” Omira replied. “Once he provides your people with the information they’ll need to kill frameworks he knows they’ll start asking about what was left on that ship next.”

“So he wants to be prepared,” I reply. “What was he researching there?”

“You haven’t earned the right to that information yet, sorry.”

“When do we leave?” I ask, watching Mary’s reaction in my peripheral. I can tell at a glance that she agrees it’s the right move. I’m convinced there’s no other way to get what we need out of Marcelles, so it’s the only way. I promise myself that I’ll gather as much intelligence about the Fallen Star as possible before we make hard seal on her airlock. There’s a nagging, bad feeling about the whole thing that just won’t go away.

Freeground’s training focuses on what happens between the stars. In the dark expanse between distant points of light, where anyone could disappear forever in the endless cold vacuum. Boarding missions are the most risky venture in ship to ship combat. I have no shame in admitting that boarding the Fallen Star makes me more nervous than I’ve been on a boarding mission since I was a trainee. If you’re in the infantry, more general purpose marines, or any part of Fleet, you’ve had at least a hundred hours of simulation time, and many hours of practical time at boarding and disembarking.

As Isabel flies our aged shuttle through the slowly moving outer solar system asteroid belt, none of that training matters. We pass through a clutch of brown and black stone and the more active part of the inner asteroid belt comes into view. A dark shroud of fine, whirling dust surrounds a ring of highly magnetic stone. If it weren’t for the scant light from the distant sun, we’d barely see it at all.

The situation is completely different on the scanner readout screens. The fine dust caught in the magnetic ring show up as bright blue and green arcs, clearly illustrating the safe course, and perfectly obscuring anything in the whirling ring’s midst. “Are you sure you accounted for drift and collisions?” I ask Omira.

“If you enter where I specified you’ll come in right behind the Fallen Star,” Omira replies. “The magnetic fields here obscures her perfectly.”

“Can we get through without being pulled off course?” I ask Isabel.

She takes a moment to verify her position and trajectory before answering. “I’m going to use a part of the field ahead to pull us in. We should get to a magnetically stable pocket here,” she pointed at one of the displays, indicating a place behind a large dark spot. “A magnetic planetoid. I bet the Fallen Star is shadowing behind.”

“If we’re lucky,” Remmy says. “With all that magnetic activity, there’s no telling what condition she’ll be in.”

“She will be largely the way Doctor Marcelles and I left it,” reassured Omira.

She wears her confidence like armour. It is almost difficult to speak to Omira, since we entered the belt she seems smug.

The sound of fine particles grating against the hull makes any further discussion difficult. For a moment the shuttle begins to turn sideways. I glance behind me into the main hold and catch Mary’s eye. She’s beyond nervous. Her gloved hands grip the hand-holds above her seat tightly, and her old fashioned pull-down helmet faceplate is fastened tight.