Valhalla Station

by Chris Pourteau

  “She’s my…” Kwazi began. But no, Amy hadn’t become that yet. He was superstitious, unwilling to risk fate punishing him later for such presumption now. “She’s my friend. My … family. A member of my team. We were in the refinery, and a giant walked through…” He realized he was picking at the sheet. A little embarrassed at mentioning the giant from his dream, he asked, “Where am I?”

  “Wallace Med,” the woman said. “We’ve been taking care of you. My name’s Milani Stuart.” She pointed at the name badge opposite the caduceus. Her smile widened. “I’ll be your doctor today. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Jabari.”

  “Kwazi,” he replied automatically. He latched on to the conversation to settle himself. “Milani is a pretty name. I’ve never heard it before.”

  “My mother’s parents came from Italy,” she said, turning her attention to the readouts on the monitors. “I was in the crop of kids that got named after places on Earth that don’t exist anymore. Remember when it was like every newborn got named after some place like that?” She paused, looking down at him. “Kind of a morbid memorial, when you think about it.”

  Attempting to sit up in the bed, he found himself too weak to do so. “Uh…” Kwazi swallowed the sick feeling rising from his stomach.

  “Slow down. The Med creates gravity the old-fashioned way in this unit, by spin. It takes a little getting used to.”

  He sat back. “How long have I been here?”

  “Three days,” Stuart said, sitting down on the bedside. Her hand found his forearm. “Take it easy. Coming out of a coma can be disorienting.”

  “Three days?” Panic began to rise inside him, replacing the nausea. “Coma?”

  She squeezed his arm. “We had to induce a micro-coma to treat your injuries. You had significant head trauma, and the low-g on Mars didn’t help. They got you here quick as they could, but to avoid brain damage…” Stuart turned her head to one side. “I’m dragging you into the weeds with me. Sorry about that.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Kwazi answered, reaching up to find a bandage around his head. “I don’t remember any of that. The last thing I remember is…” Kwazi levered himself up, ignoring the warning from his gut. “Amy—is she here too?”

  Stuart’s expression became solemn. “I don’t know of an Amy that was brought in, I’m afraid.”

  “Amanda Topulos. She was a member of Team Sixteen, like me. We were together when the second round of explosions hit. I was sitting with her, holding her hand, and I’d just gotten her into a vac-suit, and she was fine really, no serious injuries, but Aika, she’s another member of our team, Aika told me not to leave her, and I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to, and Beren—”

  Kwazi realized he’d been sitting up toward her, running his words together. Her hands on his chest were kind but firm. He looked down to find himself sitting straight up in bed.

  “You have to take it easy,” Dr. Stuart said. “I’ll ask around. They’ve had everyone here on deck, literally, since the event. Your Amanda might be in another room or another ward altogether. Every section here was converted for triage and trauma. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Thank you,” Kwazi said, closing his eyes. He snapped them open again and looked around, trying to engage his sceye. “My CorpNet link isn’t working. Is something wrong—?”

  Standing, Stuart shook her head. “We disconnected your implant when we put you into a coma. Once we run some more tests, I can hook you back in. For now, how about that monitor?” She tossed a hand at the wall behind her.

  Kwazi forced himself to calm down. Amy was here, somewhere. She had to be. It sounded like everyone from the tunnels was here somewhere. If he was here, she was here.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Stuart switched on the monitor. “I’ll be back in a few. I have to check on other patients, and I’ll look for your friend. Okay?”

  “Okay.” As the door sealed behind her, he said, “Volume: ten.”

  The Real Story was streaming over a headline that read:

  CITIZEN-WORKERS MURDERED BY RESISTANCE ATTACK ON MARTIAN REFINERY

  “Volume: twenty.”

  He’d said it so softly, Kwazi had to repeat it for the command to register.

  A corporate spokesman with SynCorp’s five-pointed star prominent on his jacket appeared, speaking in cryptic tones of barely contained fury. Behind him, Kwazi recognized what was left of the outer dome that had sealed off the mining-refinery complex of Facility 12. No wonder the air had bled out so quickly. The breach in the dome wasn’t the finger hole Kwazi had imagined. The reinforced plastisteel that remained looked like the mouth of a massive see-through jack-o-lantern. Jagged and random, cut without care by someone in a hurry.

  It looked like a giant had thrown rocks through it.

  Amy. Where are you?

  And Aika. Beren. Don’t forget them.

  Max and Mikel. Try not to remember them.

  Not yet.

  The camerabot over the spokesman’s shoulder turned to his left to focus on a grim-looking woman Kwazi instantly recognized. The sparkle of her emerald eyes, the defiant, upswept tips of her elfin ears—both bodymorph enhancements she’d carried forward from youth into middle age. She’d colored her hair silver, probably to hide the gray. Helena Telemachus, the eloquent mouthpiece of the Syndicate Corporation. She looked like a living avatar who’d just stepped from the fantasy landscape of a hologame for older adults who liked their porn soft.

  “That’s right, Merrick,” she was saying. “This was an unprovoked attack with one purpose only: to take innocent lives.”

  “But it’s caused a disruption for the Company too, right?” the commentator prompted. “I mean, a facility of this size—”

  “Honestly, we haven’t even given production a second thought,” Helena said. Her expression suggested it was gauche of him to bring it up. “Our entire focus has been on rescuing those we can and—” Pause. “—comforting the loved ones of those we were unable to save.” She turned to the camera and stared directly at Kwazi. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families. To all their loved ones.”

  The possibility of never seeing Amy again crept into Kwazi’s consciousness. It layered damp, cold fear over his skin. His brain stopped thinking. His lungs stopped breathing. He felt a hole forming beneath where his heart beat loudly in his chest.

  No, I saved her, he thought, pushing back against the fear. If I made it, she made it. The others, I don’t know, they were down the shaft. Beren said they were blocked by rock. But Amy—

  “Absolutely devastating,” Merrick added, facing the camera as he said it. “What could the Ghosts be thinking? How does this help their cause?”

  Helena offered a sigh. “How can you ascribe a rational intent to an irrational act? This is precisely why anyone identified as a member of the Resistance is classified as mentally ill by the Company. That’s why we do all we can to reeducate them when we catch them. They deserve a life free of brainwashing.”

  Merrick turned to her, affecting the penetrating look of a hard-nosed reporter. “Helena, as the voice of the people, I have to tell you: it’s said the Company kills them outright.”

  “Resistance propaganda,” Helena said, shaking her head sadly. “Bald-faced lies. The Company does all it can to protect our society. All of its citizens.” To the camera again: “Even the aberrant ones.”

  “Truly dreadful, this Resistance business. Thank you for your time, Ms. Telemachus.” Merrick’s eyes found Kwazi’s again through the miracle of CorpNet. “We’ll keep you updated as this situation develops.”

  “Monitor: off,” Kwazi said. He couldn’t look at the facility, with its outer dome ripped apart and gaping like that. He needed to find Amy. And then, together, they’d find Beren and Aika.

  The door swept aside. Good. He planned to hold Dr. Stuart in his room by force, if need be, until he found out where Amy was. But it wasn’t Stuart who passed through the door. It was a woman with two marshals as escorts. The ma
rshals stood to either side of the door as it closed.

  Kwazi stared, thinking absurdly that maybe he hadn’t shut off the monitor properly.

  “Hello, Mr. Jabari,” said the woman, now much taller than she’d appeared just a few moments before. Her green eyes were more penetrating in person. “I’m Helena Telemachus.”

  Swallowing into an abruptly dry throat, Kwazi couldn’t speak. This can’t be good. Whatever else this is, it can’t be good. The mouthpiece of the Syndicate Corporation offered him an understanding if sad smile.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” she said in the same voice that had earlier promised thoughts and prayers.

  Chapter 8

  Stacks Fischer • En Route to Callisto

  I’d been aboard the Cassini’s Promise for a couple of days before I decided to make a public appearance. It’s six days from Earth to Callisto, and in another day or so, we’d be due to flip and start our decel burn. As good a time as any to mingle.

  The Promise was an old-style bulk freighter, built just after the Company took over the United Nations a few decades back. Tony’s strategy for cementing the hold of the Five Factions over the system had been pretty simple—spread out in all directions. Back then, the factions were often at odds with each other, but they could all agree on one thing: they might control the United Nations, Earth’s de facto ruling body, but its member nations were still far too powerful.

  So Tony stamped SynCorp’s star logo wherever he could while Earth’s governments recovered from Cassandra’s War, named for the New Earth goddess who’d killed millions using tech intended to reverse climate change. Quick expansion required rapid construction of habitat domes, like on Mars, and converting over the UN-controlled LUNa City on the Moon to Company control. With a little creative spin from Helena Telemachus, Tony had even redubbed LUNa City as Darkside’s End. Kind of a creepy name, if you ask me, but Helena insisted it was inspirational.

  Okay, then.

  Tony called his strategy the Great Expansion. Freighters like the Promise were fast-printed and assembled to move people and materiel first to Mars, then to the outer system. SynCorp granted adventurous types land grants along the most promising frontiers—Callisto around Jupiter and Titan around Saturn—full of natural resources for the taking. The ramp-up costs were huge, but once the assembly line of miners and freighters were in place, it’d be revenue ad infinitum for the Company while Earth rebuilt.

  The real reason? Expansion and claim staking.

  Enthusiasm to leave a broken world, while its governments reshaped themselves to survive under Company control, lasted for nearly a generation. When Elise Kisaan and the agro faction stratified Earth into growing zones that focused on animal or plant production, it limited career options. Staying on Earth became passé—what pussies who didn’t have the courage to step off-world did instead of grabbing life by the balls. Moving out into the solar system became the thing manly men and womanly women did.

  But the pendulum always swings back, and now, fewer and fewer folks were interested in leaving the creature comforts of the inner system for the frontiers beyond the Asteroid Belt, where a random asteroid strike could kill a colony. Still, a few hearty souls could be found to strike out now and then as miners and their families rotated back to Earth.

  I was passing as one of those hearty souls. I’d made sure to dress in the standard dull gray shirt and suspender pants of the stereotypical miner—dressed in flat colors, aiming to mine wealth one cubic meter of gas at a time. I felt like an actor in costume. I’d shaved and everything.

  I strolled into a communal cafeteria, angling straight for the black-root bitters the cooks onboard had the gall to call coffee. As for the food, you could eat it, but you wouldn’t enjoy it. And there were no bars on the Promise, a cruel error in judgment I was still getting used to. Maybe they’re preparing you for the frontier, I thought, where everything but the freedom to die in vacuum is in short supply.

  “Anyone sitting here?”

  A mixed-gender table of émigrés looked up, almost to a person.

  “Well, ain’t you the one with the nice manners asking?” one of the men said. He had a scar angling like a crescent from the corner of one eye down around his chin.

  “I was raised by a nun.”

  A woman laughed around the bread in her mouth.

  “Take a load off,” another woman said.

  One of the men moved to make space and pushed the bread in my direction. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Callisto or Titan?” a man asked.

  “Callisto. Gonna make my fortune mining deuterium.”

  The woman who’d laughed before laughed again.

  “Yeah, us too,” Scarman said. “We’re all gonna be richer’n Adriana Rabh.”

  There was general enthusiasm around the table for the idea. The mention of Adriana gave me pause. It hadn’t even registered, her being Callisto’s regent, when Tony made my assignment. I’d worked for her once, a long time ago—a job I’d just as soon forget. She’s a character, Adriana, the richest woman—person, actually—in the history of the solar system. Older than dirt now, and the moneybags behind most of the Erkennen Faction’s research that developed cutting-edge tech, like MESH and the troubleshooters. That made sense, when I thought about it. Old people love to think they can cheat death. Nuzzling the low end of old age myself, I’m starting to see wisdom in the fantasy.

  “Aren’t you a little old for atmosphere mining?” the man who’d made room asked.

  I looked him dead-on and smiled. “Haven’t you heard? Fifty is the new thirty.”

  The woman with the sense of humor laughed again. “Maybe we ought to try out that notion.”

  Most of the table guffawed. Scarman didn’t. “Watch yourself, Annie.”

  “Aw, hell, Allard, lighten up. She’s just kiddin’,” one of the other women said. Eyeballing Annie, I wasn’t so sure. Neither was Allard.

  “Name’s Jaxson,” said the man who’d made room. “And you are?”

  “Sawyer,” I said.

  “Saw my what?” Annie asked. To say her voice was suggestive is to point out that stars twinkle.

  “Annie,” Allard warned.

  But he was looking at me when he said her name. I tried to keep the smartass out of my eyes. I was here for information, not a bar fight. And I’d left my artillery in my cabin. All I had was the spring blade under my right wrist. But if that had to come out, the jig was up. My cover would be blown.

  “Haze and me,” Jaxson said, nodding to the woman who wasn’t Annie. “We’re headed for Titan. The methane there makes up whole lakes. We figure the fusion thing is coming on, but there’s still plenty of need for combustible fuels back on Earth.”

  “You’re living in the past,” Allard grumbled. “Callisto is where a man can make a fortune.”

  “Or a woman,” Annie added, eyes glistening in my direction. Not that I noticed. The banter was starting to make my own eyes heavy. I don’t do people well.

  Somebody turned up the volume on one of the wallscreens. Set to the YourVoice Network, of course. As the sound came up, Helena Telemachus’s voice filled the eatery. She was on Mars being interviewed about the sabotage of the QM extraction refinery. It’d been the only story worth streaming, apparently, since the explosions. I was constantly impressed how “breaking news” was, in fact, the same news I’d heard the previous hour. I mean, that’s news with legs, you know? The leading questions from the SynCorp talking head set her up nicely. Turns out, the Resistance was behind the whole thing. Who knew?

  Low-hanging fruit is SynCorp’s journalistic specialty.

  “Out there, you don’t get that crap,” Allard said, nodding at the wallscreen. “Rebels leave the outers alone.”

  “Oh yeah?” There was challenge in Haze’s voice. Jaxson looked uncomfortable. “What about the pirates?”

  Okay, that woke me up.

  “Pirates?” I said with all the Boy Scout I could mu
ster. Ignorance was an easy disguise for me.

  Allard reared back on his bench. His scar seemed to lengthen and fill in with blood blushing into the crevice. I thought this must be what Annie saw every day: the hubs, impotent and full of hot air. There weren’t any visible marks on her to indicate the contrary, though visible doesn’t mean anything. No wonder she liked to tease him by flirting with anything swinging sausage.

  “No pirates running out of Titan,” Allard said, like he was reading it from a book. “That’s just a bunch of stories.”

  Huh. I wonder where those stories came from. Tony said only the five faction leaders knew of the problem. Except the pirates knew, too, of course. The Company kept all three levels of CorpNet pretty well trolled and locked down, but sometimes things got out. And what’s a sexier story than pirates stealing from the Company? Hell, maybe the Resistance had started the rumors just to destabilize the outer reaches. Why go in person when a rumor will do just as well?

  Only, the pirates weren’t just a rumor. They’d been siphoning off almost-undetectable levels of fusion fuel from the tankers sailing the Frater Lanes between the outer and inner planets.

  “You know what they call the leader?” Haze asked.

  “Do tell, honey,” Annie said.

  Did I mention pirates are sexy?

  “The Dutchman.”

  “Oo, I like that!”

  “Annie,” Allard said, “there ain’t no pirates. Keep your frillies on.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked Haze, ignoring the Bickering Bickersons. I tried to keep the enforcer out of my voice. I was just another rube heading outward to make his fortune. I was supposed to be afraid of the dark.

  “You hear things,” she said, like that gave me an answer. Jaxson was scooping the mediocre protein up faster out of his plate. Nervous, much? I decided not to press Haze for her source. Maybe later.