xiii.
At that very moment, in Danggood Universal’s all-terrain mobile white goods fab, the company’s regional CEO, Kip Rensselaer, was looking out the kitchen window. The window was actually a viewport screen, and the panorama upon it would have been invisible to the naked eye. Danggood Universal operated further ahead of the terminator than UNVRP did, proceeding in darkness around its band of territory between 65° and 72° N. In this simulated view, the banners stood out like wounds on the cliff.
“Flattering,” Rensselaer said. “Do they know this operation has a human staff of four point five?”
“I don’t think you’re the intended audience,” said his visitor. “It’s the NEO colonists they’re targeting.”
“Oh. Thanks for destroying my momentary illusions of importance.”
“Sorry.” There was a pause. “Point five?”
“What? Oh. My mineralogist’s seven-year-old daughter.”
“I hope you’ll allow her to make up her own mind about who to vote for,” Dr. Ulysses Seth said, archly.
“She’s already joined the Hasselblatter fan club,” said Rensselaer. “They get capes and wizard hats to stick on their internet profiles.”
Visibly depressed, he opened the drinks cabinet and poured himself a bourbon.
Dr. Ulysses Seth watched him thoughtfully. The two men were old acquaintances. They had both spent their lives on Mercury, which bound them together in a small and exclusive brotherhood. This planet grew on you. Unlike an asteroid, Mercury had gravity, in every sense. Dr. Seth had come to cherish its sere, radiation-scalded expanses. For that reason (and others), he’d travelled here in person, rather than arranging a teleconference. His personal Flyingsaucer was parked on the stem of the cargo launcher that undulated behind the fab like a Slinky.
As they sat without speaking, a shooting star lit up the viewport screen. A container had just launched, packed with 100,000 air-conditioners.
“So who are you voting for?” Dr. Seth said.
“Not you,” Rensselaer said.
“And I came all this way to press your withered flesh and promise you sweeties.”
“A wasted guilt trip,” Rensselaer said. Dr. Seth grimaced at the pun. “We’re voting for Pyls O. Mani. When a man takes the trouble to change his name to a homonym for mucho moolah, you can be reasonably confident that his soul contains … well, no depths whatsoever. That’s what we’re scared of, you see. The depths of people’s souls. This planet turns people into poets. Strivers. Utopians. They cease to see the rocks for the horizon. Just look at Doug.”
“He’s still backing Patel.”
“He hopes to win the affection of the NEO colonists, who collectively owe him 1.1 billion spiders. But they are joining the Hasselblatter circus in droves.”
“What about me?”
“What about you, Seth? You’ve been buzzing in our ears for decades about founding a Republic of Mercury. I’ve told you, we’ve all told you over and over again, that kind of thing went out with fossil fuels. Even if we were prepared to rebel—yes, I say rebel—our independence would last precisely as long as it took the news to reach Earth. Star Force keeps a couple of ships in orbit around Mercury at all times. What’s up there right now? The Crash Test Dummy and the Dead Weather. Either of them could wipe out all our assets in less time than it has taken me to drink this bourbon. You could not hold a coalition of regional plutocrats and horny-handed plebs together in the face of such overwhelming odds.”
“George Washington did.”
“That’s the sort of thing I expect to hear from Doug, not you. Also, you’re not George Washington.”
“Nor ever like to be. I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
“When a man starts to quote Eliot,” Rensselaer said, “it’s time to open another bottle.” He did so.
Dr. Seth hobbled restlessly around the kitchen. It was circular, banded in part by the viewport screen, with fish tanks running the rest of the way around. A short hop, for the fish, from tank to chopping board. Rensselaer and his staff killed the fish that they ate themselves, rather than getting a bot to do it. Space-dwellers, if they were psychologically healthy, came eventually to relish dirt, grime, fish scales, even blood. It was a natural human reaction to confinement in tunnels and radiation-shielded boxes. Sociologists saw this craving for pastoral squalor as a sign that a colony was reaching its psychological limits. They did not believe that humans could live in space any longer than three generations. But Dr. Seth believed differently. While he acknowledged that the UNVRP R&D division had gone off the rails, he saw this as something to celebrate.
Under the most unnatural conditions, human nature asserted itself.
He interpreted Rensselaer’s despair as a tribute to this same miracle.
Rensselaer was aware that humanity was collapsing into a defensive crouch, oppressed by the seemingly undefeatable PLAN.
And he believed they couldn’t do anything about it.
But Dr. Seth did.
He halted in front of the viewport screen. “I suppose you saw the news yesterday?”
“Yes. Earth’s PORMSnet intercepted another meteorite. Quite a large one. The explosion was visible in daylight from South America.”
“Isn’t it odd? In past centuries, destructive meteor strikes were rare enough to go down in history. Now, they come at the rate of several a week.”
“Oh, stop being so arch,” Rensselaer said. “You and I know perfectly well that those meteors do not wander into Earth-crossing orbits by chance. They are kinetic kill vehicles launched from Mars. Earth’s defense establishment lives in terror of the day when the PLAN throws something really big at us … something we could not blow up, or divert in time … something like 4 Vesta.”
“We foiled that scheme. If that was their scheme.”
“Yet the so-called Heidegger program lives on in 4 Vesta’s abandoned infrastructure. I can’t understand why we haven’t fragged it,” Rensselaer said.
“I can. It must be studied, its weak points found. Some think that the meteors aimed at Earth aren’t intended as kill vehicles pure and simple, but that they carry something similar to the Heidegger program, which a successful impact would unleash on Earth. Or perhaps it’s something worse. Biological terror. We have never let one get close enough to examine it properly.”
“I’ll drink to that. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”
“Perhaps a coffee.”
“Yours?”
“I’d certainly rather it to that instant swill they provide you with.”
This was the other reason for Dr. Seth’s in-person visit to Danggood Universal: he had brought Rensselaer five pounds of coffee beans. The smuggling fraternity in the test hab dealt in many things, but the greatest source of their profits was coffee, the example par excellence of a foodstuff that couldn’t be faked up from nutriblocks. Dr. Seth himself connived at this trade.
A maidbot appeared and operated the coffee grinder. A marvellous aroma filled the kitchen.
“The PLAN intends to destroy humanity,” Rensselaer said. “That is not news. Cheers.”
Dr. Seth accepted a demitasse of freshly brewed Idaho coffee and inhaled its steam in delight. “It may not be news, but it is debatable. It has been pointed out that if the PLAN means to destroy us, it’s not trying very hard, given the tactical edge its stealth technology offers, and the vast resources of Mars. I believe that their activities add up to a coherent strategy. They don’t want to destroy us physically. They want to destroy what makes us human.”
“That’s what I meant. I agree with you, Seth. So do van Gaal and Bankasuprapa.” Rensselaer named two of their confreres, the regional managers for Centiless and GESiemens. “From this distance, we have a clear view of the changes they are forcing on Earth. Slowly but surely they are molding us. By targeting purebloods, they intend to make us turn on our own. We responded laudably in the beginning, by denying the differences am
ong us …”
“But the cracks are starting to show,” Seth finished. “Witness UNVRP’s decision to remove our pureblooded staff from Mercury. All in the name of safety.” He spat the last word with contempt.
“That wasn’t your decision?”
“Pope’s. To be fair, the man had not a notion of retreating in the face of the PLAN. He was the greatest pragmatist I have ever known. It would be cheaper to automate the Phase Five ramp? Let’s do it! His gaze was fixed on Venus, and beyond that, the stars. But the idea of evacuating our people got taken up at the highest levels. The personhood faction seized on it as a stalking horse for their own cause. Safety first! It is in danger of becoming UN-wide policy.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. And meanwhile, Mercury still lacks a PORMSnet of its own, which would remove the argument for evicting my people.”
“One could be forgiven for thinking you were in this for the colonization of Mercury, not Venus,” Rensselaer said with amusement.
“I have come to believe that both are equally possible and desirable. Yes, I admit it, I’ve been talking to Doug. He’s a crypto-nationalist—”
“In addition to his other, ahem, issues—”
“But he’s also a paraterraforming expert. And, Kip, sometimes it takes a foilhat to point out the obvious.”
“The PLAN has never attacked Mercury,” Rensselaer said, pointing out the obvious in his turn. A timer rang. He rose and sprinkled food into a fish tank. Slender silver branzino crowded to the surface.
“There’s always a first time. We need a PORMSnet to defend the planet. And beyond that, Kip …”
“Uh oh. I see a Doug-ish gleam in your eye.”
“This idea is entirely my own. Kip, if we were a sovereign state—just listen—we could turn over a portion of our capacity to weapons production. A fleet of ships piloted by MIs, officered by a small corps of humans. We would hurl them at Mars in numbers sufficient to overwhelm the PLAN’s planetary defenses. The—”
“Been tried,” Rensselaer said, moving on to the next fish tank.
“Not on the scale I envision. We could achieve so much here, with Mercury’s resources.”
“Have you been tested for dementia recently, Ulysses?”
“It’s one hundred percent doable! But it will take a planet. Earth is complacent, shortsighted. They won’t even admit that we’re at war. Someone has to lead the pushback. Kip, it has to be us. There is no one else. We must at least try!”
“No.”
Rensselaer removed the dust cover from a third tank. A toy boat lay sunk at the bottom. Presumably it belonged to the mineralogist’s daughter, the only child in this facility. Rensselaer rolled back his sleeve and tenderly fished it out.
“Please,” Dr. Seth said.
“Go bother someone else, Ulysses. Never was a man so misnamed. All he wanted to do was go home.”
“So do I,” Dr. Seth said. “But the home I left isn’t there anymore. Nowadays, the police paintball you for speeding. Orbital gun platforms blow up black tech labs without regard for casualties. The media amplifies scare stories to keep Earth’s people in a state of fear. Conflict abroad begets repression at home, ad hoc, ad infinitum. We have to set a new example of courage, faith, and hope.”
“You’re worse than Doug,” Rensselaer said. “He only wants to reboot the United States of America.”
A new flash of color appeared at the edge of the viewport screen. The Danggood Universal fab’s slow westward journey had brought it level with another banner. VOTE FOR HASSELBLATTER! MOAR ART. This one had a picture of a robot bison on it.
“You do know,” said Rensselaer, “that Dr. Hasselblatter is President Hsiao’s man. She parachuted him into this campaign to stop some lunatic—like you—from walking off with the directorship.”
“You aren’t going to tell me the President came up with those robot bison.”
“No, that seems to have been Hasselblatter’s own idea. I don’t think anyone expected his campaign to take off like this. The President must be delighted.”
“Look at that,” Dr. Seth cried.
A little farther along hung another banner. This one was splarted crooked, so that a ripple in the cheaply printed fabric warped its message. Yet it could be still be read.
VOTE FOR ANGELICA LIN. GET JUSTICE.
Rensselaer laughed until he cried. “They’re all at it. Monkey see, monkey do. We are what we are, Ulysses.”
“I feel rather sorry for her,” Dr. Seth sighed. “She must have planned to run on Charlie Pope’s record. Then she found out that everyone loathed him. Now she’s having to come up with some actual principles.”
“Justice isn’t a bad start.”
Kip Rensselaer, BS, MA, Ph.D., regional CEO of Danggood Universal, Inc., surveyed the limp vegetables and pouches of condiments laid out on the kitchen counter.
“I think it may be my turn to cook supper,” he said. “Ulysses, will you be staying?”
“No,” Dr. Seth said. He’d spent too long here already. As Rensselaer had warned him up front, it had been a wasted trip. And at his age, time was a precious commodity.
From the privacy of his Flyingsaucer, he sent an encrypted email.
“The election is as good as lost. Our allies are weak reeds. You are our only hope.”
xiv.
Elfrida logged out. The children lay twitching on couches around her.
She’d promised them she would take care of the competition.
She took off her headset and gloves, and stood up, rotating her stiff shoulders.
Hotel Mercury’s telepresence center had started life as a tourist attraction, 100 years ago. Posters showed the creepy, sub-humanoid phavatars the idle rich had once used to stroll over the surface of Mercury. Elfrida walked between rows of modern couches jammed into this turn-of-the-century womb. Her hair felt sticky with the oil from other people’s heads. Her heart felt like someone was stabbing it with manicured fingernails.
She stopped in front of two young men. Their spaceborn legs spilled off the ends of their couches. This had to be them. If they were miners, they’d have brought footrests.
Interplanetary regulations forbade interrupting an operator during a telepresence session. It could cause physical and mental disorientation. But the two phavatars Elfrida’s team had encountered on the scarp had refused to talk to them. Hadn’t even identified their operators, which regulations also forbade. So Elfrida felt justified in pulling one of their headsets off.
“You tried to interfere with our legitimate campaigning activities,” she said to the pimply young face she uncovered. “That was totally out of line. And you copied our idea. Who hired you to do that?”
She knew already. Didn’t want it to be true. Had to ask.
The youth stared up at her, his eyes wide and wild. Then he let out a roar, exploded off his couch, and punched her in the nose.
★
“Oh my God! Baby! What happened?”
Cydney rushed out of the radial corridor leading to the VIP suites. Elfrida stood in the foyer, holding a wad of gauze to her nose. A medibot had sprayed congealant into her nostrils to stop the bleeding, and given her a painkiller, but she could feel her nose puffing up.
“Had a heeling I’d hind ‘ou here,” she said.
“What happened to your nose?”
“Yo’ went-a-t’ug punched m’.” Cydney frowned, unable to make out what she was saying. Elfrida articulated harder. “I asked him who hired him to mess with our banner campaign. And he punched me. But he didn’t mean to. He was disoriented. And he was really apologetic afterwards. And he told me that you hired him and his friend to copy our banner campaign, and take down our banners, too.”
“What a liar!” Cydney squealed. “I never said to take down your banners!”
She covered her mouth.
“Whoops,” Elfrida said. People were staring. She didn’t care. “I told you about the banner campaign, Cyds. I asked your advice
on fonts. I didn’t know you were going to steal the idea.”
“I didn’t.”
“Someone told Angelica Lin about it. Someone’s been spending a lot of time up here. And now I know why.”
“Would you believe, for the hot showers?” Cydney said with a sickly smile.
“Lin declared her candidacy a couple of days ago. You had the scoop. I didn’t put two and two together at the time, but now I understand. You’re helping her with her campaign. Aren’t you?”
“Yes. I knew you’d think I was competing with you, but it’s not like that.”
“You can be really self-destructive, Cyds,” Elfrida said. “This is at least the second time you’ve fucked up your own career.”
Angelica Lin came into the foyer, her hair down, wearing a loose black pantsuit. “Oh God,” she said, catching sight of Elfrida’s face. “You’re bleeding! Sit down.”
“I don’t stand with my nose,” Elfrida said childishly, but she sat down on a red velvet hassock.
Angelica Lin sat down on the sofa opposite her. Cydney sat beside her. Elfrida realized that Lin’s pantsuit was actually pyjamas.
And suddenly she knew the truth.
It felt like a deluge of cold water, stealing her breath, quenching her righteous anger. When she was capable of speaking without screaming, she said, “Let’s go home, Cyds.”
Cydney shook her head. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do. You should go home and get some rest.”
“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. Which makes it weird that she’s wearing pyjamas.”
“They’re comfortable,” Lin said. “Laugh.”
“Laugh. Fucking har-dee-har-dee-haw.”
“I’m sorry,” Lin said quietly.
The Sol System Renegades Quadrilogy: Books 1-4 of the Space Opera Thriller Series Page 72
