Five Planes

by Melissa Scott

  Naksatra, wrapped in swirl upon swirl of opaque smoke with the color and scent of dark pine needles, bowed and mimicked Sanxing’s kiss. Unbending, she flashed a smile with lips the same color. “My pleasure to be here, Supreme Justice.”

  Nalani steered them to the food. Along the way, both of them were kept busy greeting other guests…Nalani noted that they knew every name and relevant topics. (“They have codices,”) she thought.

  (“Sub-AI units linked to corporate AIs,”) her codex answered. (“Our processors are far superior, and we have access to Judicial comm channels. I wouldn’t worry about it.”)

  (“Did I say I was worried?”)

  Soon they reached their destination, and interior lights dimmed to bring prominence to the outside view.

  Against the silent, distant stars, wrecked spacecraft surrounded them. Of all sizes and configurations, they floated in ranks in every direction, in haphazard arrangement—some obviously damaged or partially dismembered, others seemingly in perfect shape. Some were huge enough to swallow cities, others the size of a single person or household pet. Retaining their pattern relative to one another, they drifted slowly past, none coming close enough for alarm.

  In and around each craft, tiny bright pinpoints of color swarmed like insects. They were too luminous to miss, not intense enough to annoy—and they moved independently, cavorting almost as if in time to the music.

  Nalani led the CEOs to a particular group of couches, gave Al-Ghazali a signal through her codex. This part of the room was under a hushfield, and Al-Ghazali would make sure they were not disturbed.

  “I see neither of you,” Nalani said, “has visited the Ainslee Belt before?”

  Both shook their heads. “It’s stunning,” Naksatra whispered.

  “Perbaikan Rock’s repository of damaged ships,” Nalani explained. “For spare parts. Everything is cataloged and mapped. Constantly updated with new additions . When a mechanic needs a part, it’s usually available here.”

  For a few breaths they were quiet, as wrecked ships drifted past and rainbow lights danced with the music. Then Sanxing said, “What is the purpose of the lights? Are they location or category tags?”

  “No.” Nalani turned her back on the wrecks, faced the CEOs. “Each of those lights represents a life that was lost on that ship.” She looked over her shoulder. “Ah, we’re coming up on a section that dates from the last major war—three hundred years ago.” The dancing lights were more numerous ahead, a luminous fog speckled with every color of the spectrum, sometimes so dense that the pinlights obscured the wreck they surrounded.

  Naksatra clapped her hands. “Oh, very well done, Supreme Justice.”

  Sanxing frowned and crossed his arms. “May we assume that whatever point you wished to make is taken?” His eyes narrowed. “What do you want from us, Supreme Justice Thurgood?”

  “I want you to tell me why this war you’re planning is worth the cost. I want to understand.”

  The two glanced at one another, then Sanxing waved to the wreckage beyond the dome. “Fair enough. Take a good look at the ships from the last war. You’ll notice they’re more streamlined than ships we use today. You’ll also see that most have protruding structures with flat vanes parallel to the ship’s hull.”

  It was Nalani’s turn to frown. “I don’t see the significance.” (“What’s he talking about?”)

  (“I have a suspicion,”) her codex answered. (“I need to consult with engineering databases.”)

  “Bear with me, please,” Sanxing continued. “If you consult repair records, you’ll probably see that the engines and comm systems of these ships have not been cannibalized or reused much.” He brought his eyes back to Nalani. “The DiaSanti process replaced those physical vanes with rectified hyperfields, also eliminating the need for streamlining. A revolution in comm technology made those old-fashioned units obsolete.”

  Nalani nodded. “My codex tells me of something called the G-Los Index.”

  “Yes,” Sanxing said. “A detailed list of several thousand technological changes that came about during the war in question.”

  Nalani cocked her head. “You don’t need war to spur technological advances.”

  Naksatra sighed. “I’m afraid we do. Otherwise, all our best ingenious techs get snapped up by the First Plane. And who knows when we’d get the benefit of their work?”

  “I’ve been told,” Sanxing said, “that the DiaSanti process has been in use on First for a thousand years.”

  Nalani sat down. “This is the first I’ve heard of such a concern.”

  Naksatra sat next to her. “We’ve been traveling between planes for five millennia—and if we know substantially more about transplanar physics than we did back then,” she shrugged, “no one’s told us here on Fourth.”

  “I expected to hear you two tell me about disputed markets, unbalanced trade, something like that.” She looked out at a million dancing lights. “Not this. How do I stop this?”

  Naksatra’s smile was obviously meant to be a reassuring one. “I don’t think you can, Supreme Justice.”

  1.23 State of Emergency

  Al-Ghazali’s office was both smaller and more spartan than Nalani’s. Milos settled on a simple, straight-backed chair before a small desk whose surface was preternatually bare. Al-Ghazali herself sat in an identical chair, her back as straight as her midnight-black hair, her hands clasped a few centimeters above the desktop.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” Milos started. He couldn’t say that he disliked the young apprentice—he didn’t know her that well, despite sharing quarters. He couldn’t say he was afraid of her—not exactly, more like wary. In looks as well as disposition she reminded him of Fredi, and fair or not, he always associated his family’s troubles with Fredi’s arrival.

  Al-Ghazali’s smile seemed genuine...or was it just Judicial smile-number-whatever, ordered up to put a client at ease?

  That was unfair of him.

  “You’re family,” Al-Ghazali said. “I know we haven’t talked a lot. I-I’m not good with people. I don’t want you to think that I’m not conscious of the way you’ve welcomed me into Thurgood’s circle. I’m very grateful.”

  Milos opened his mouth, closed it. “Thank you. As you said, we’re family.” He took a breath. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been talking with someone on the pirate crew that took Bhagwati.” Before she could answer, he held up a hand. “He was once a husband of mine, don’t ask how he got there. The important thing is, I think we may have come up with a way to get Bhagwati back.”

  She leaned forward, eyes bright. “Tell me.”

  Milos recounted the whole story. When he finished, Al-Ghazali drummed her fingers on her desk. “Why come to me, instead of going to Nalani first?”

  Milos met her eyes. “You’ve been spending more time with her recently—how is she?”

  With a sigh, Al-Ghazali settled back in her chair. “I don’t think she’s doing well. Losing Bhagwati was a blow to her, and now she’s found out that preventing war is harder than she thought it would be.” A breath. “Milos, I don’t think she knows what to do next. And if you tell her I said that, I’ll have to ruin you.”

  Milos swallowed. “So do you think I should go to her with this plan? The data I got from Quintile Illumination in exchange for Bhagwati’s return?”

  She stared off into space, then refocused her eyes on him. ”You’ve been talking to the codices.”

  He nodded. ”Some of them. It was their choice.”

  Al-Ghazali’s eyes narrowed. “Have you spoken to hers?”

  His answer was a whisper. “Yes.”

  “What does it think?”

  “It doesn’t know if she’ll approve the plan or not. It suggested I ask you.”

  Al-Ghazali pursed her lips. “She’ll be unwilling to put you in danger. She thinks she got Bhagwati into this mess—the little idiot—and it’s her responsibility to get him out.” More drumming. “We can’t do it behind her
back...and if she tells us not to, we can’t go against her orders.”

  Milos waited a moment, then said, “We can’t...can we?”

  “I’d rather not have to make that decision.” She put her hands flat on the desk and stood up. “Maybe it won’t come to that. Let’s talk to her.”

  Nalani listened, her eyes darting back and forth between Milos and Al-Ghazali. When Milos finished, she bowed her head and gazed down at her arm cuff. “I want to thank both of you. Al-Ghazali, I know you’ve been working hard on ways to get Bhagwati back.” She looked up. “Milos, you constantly amaze me with your insights and your ideas.”

  She leaned forward, reaching out both hands to lay atop theirs. “My friends, how can I possibly put either of you in danger, just to fix my own mistake?”

  Al-Ghazali stroked Nalani’s hand. “Begging your pardon, Thurgood, but I can’t agree that you made any mistakes. What happened to Bhagwati was not your doing.”

  “You’re hardly impartial in this case, Apprentice.”

  “Neither are you, Supreme Justice.”

  Nalani started to draw back, then softened. “Touché.”

  Milos cleared his throat. “Nalani, I don’t think there’s much danger.”

  Nalani drew back her hands and shook her head. “Neither of you has dealt with pirates before. Treachery is part of their code.”

  Milos frowned. “Remember that I lived most of my life on the Second Plane. I know more about pirates than you think I do.” He took a breath. “It can all be done without physical contact. I’ll transmit the QI’s data tranche to her in stages. She sets Bhagwati loose in a pod. As soon as we have him safe, I’ll send the remainder of the data. Then she flies away.” He brushed his hands together. “We don’t ever have to meet her.”

  Nalani’s eyes flashed. “Yes we do. I want to see her, face to face.”

  Al-Ghazali said, “Now who’s going into danger? I don’t want that pirate anywhere near you, Thurgood.”

  “No,” Nalani said, her face set. “I have to find out what she’s up to. I need to know what she wants.” A short pause, then in a lower tone she said, “I have to know what she’s done, and bring her to justice if necessary.”

  Milos swallowed, then glanced at Al-Ghazali. The Apprentice’s face was impassive. “So we’ll set it up that way. Do you want me to try to make arrangements?”

  For a moment Nalani looked as if she were going to say no. Then she looked again at her cuff, and back to Milos. “My codex agrees with the two of you.” She closed her eyes. “All right. We’ll give it a try.”

  Last Fair Deal had moved twice since Parra, short darts through hyperspace that brought them to the edges of unprepossessing systems. The first was a corporate property, mine-and-manufacture stations ringing the debris field of a proto-planet; the Deal lurked on the system’s fringe, powered down and stealth modalities fully engaged, while ap Farr queried the mail system and waited for an answer. Whether she received one or not, they were on the move again in less than ten hours, but that had been time enough for Imric’s systems to build up a disturbing picture. 4-2EWU4 was, according the records, a leading manufacturer of rough-framed transport, half-finished starships built from materials harvested in the system and then ferried to the purchasing shipyard for finishing. The ships in parking orbit, however, looked far better finished, and they certainly didn’t look like transports. Most of them looked like variations on Fourth Plane light attack craft and that, Imric thought, could not bode well.

  The 4-3YUS9 system was wholly owned by one of the larger pharmaceutical manufacturers, its only inhabitable planet sparsely settled, with the population concentrated in the orbital starport and along the banks of the broad, slow-flowing river that nearly bisected the largest continent and allowed for easy transport of the harvest to the collection zones. Traffic was steady and tended to ignore the other ships—for all that Fortis was aligned with Hemgi Kaisha, it sold its produce to anyone willing to pay—and it was easy for the Deal to find a dead spot in the system’s outer fringes. They powered down in the shadow of a larger asteroid, set the autopilot to keep station, and once again ap Farr queried the local mail system.

  “Fifteen hours,” she said, when she had finished, and vanished into her cabin before anyone could question her.

  Left to themselves, the rest of the crew finished their end-of-run checklists, and retreated to the commons for a more relaxed meal. Imric trailed behind the others, half hoping he’d get another chance to contact Milos, but unwilling to risk rousing suspicion by staying behind. It was his turn to cook, anyway, though that meant selecting a common base pack and letting the others pick protein and sauces. They were all tired, after the prolonged Drop and the stim packs that had got them out of it, and he set a pouch of strong mint tea beside the riz-alarabe.

  Morcant nodded her approval. “Good thought. Want me to heat it?”

  “Sure, thanks.” Imric let her slide it past his elbow, and out of the corner of his eye saw her fit it into the heater. They were all but out of fresh stocks, only a few husks of fresh fruit and vegetable remaining for use as flavoring, and when he pulled up the supply listing, he grimaced.

  “Problem?” Derrian asked, and Imric shrugged.

  “We need to resupply soon. Not that we’ll starve if we don’t, but we’re running low on the good stuff.”

  “What’ve we got, then?” Morcant asked, and came to look over his shoulder.

  “Chix, chix, and chix.” That was the vat-grown protein that was a staple on the Second Plane: perfectly edible, and certainly nutritious, but boring as a steady diet. And still better than what they’d get in prison, Imric reminded himself, if ap Farr didn’t find some way to get rid of Bhagwati. Claims of cooptation wouldn’t help them much when weighed against a kidnapped judge. “I’ll throw in an extra spice pack, that’ll help.”

  No one objected, which was agreement enough. Imric fed packs into the machine, suddenly, sharply reminded of the kitchen in the ramshackle house on Kuala Domal. It had been nothing like this, a broad, open space with a long counter that ran from the long back windows almost to the sliding door that led to the rest of the house. In theory, they’d all taken turns cooking main-meal, but in practice it was usually Rana who took over, using the duty cook as an assistant, while the children gathered around the counter to beg for tastes and the older ones fiddled with homework modules. They had eaten plenty of chix then, particularly while the business was getting on its feet, but somehow Rana had always managed to disguise it. She’d taught him a few useful skills—how to carve every scrap of flesh off a dire-peach, how to pit a suthi-fruit, and how to zest a lymem—but mostly he remembered how it had felt to chop vegetables under her eye while he and Milos shared the day’s news and the air slowly filled with savory smells.

  He shoved the thought away—he did not need to think about Milos just now—and set the timer. “Twenty minutes.”

  “Good,” Morcant said, and pushed a glass of tea toward him. Imric took it, and Derrian dropped heavily into his usual chair.

  “I didn’t like the look of things back on Willanesta.”

  Imric frowned, and Morcant said, “4-2EWU4.” She looked back at Derrian. “No more did I. Nor did the capa, I think.”

  “There’s no chance they could have been something else,” Imric said, and was unsurprised when Morcant shook her head.

  “Those looked like military frames to me. Mind you, on Fourth Plane, that’s corporate military, but—”

  “Navy’s navy,” Derrian said. “That’s all we need, a shooting war.”

  On top of kidnapping and piracy? Imric swallowed the words as ill-advised. “From some things she’s said, I somehow thought the capa was expecting trouble.”

  “Oh, sure,” Derrian said. “There’s always trouble—we make trouble. But nothing we’ve done should set the corporations at war.”

  “Not bloody likely it’s our doing,” Morcant pointed out. “And the capa always expects the worst. But I don’t think
any of us were counting on a war. I don’t know how she’s going to trade the judge if people are shooting at each other.”

  The cooker chimed, and Imric served them all. They ate in silence, no one apparently inclined to pursue the subject further, and Derrian rose as soon as he had finished. “I’m for bed,” he announced, stuffing his dishes into the recycler, and Imric watched the hatch close behind him. He glanced sideways at Morcant, who was scowling at her empty plate.

  “Do you think she can pull this off?” He’d meant it as a delicate feeler, but Morcant’s scowl deepened, and she shoved herself to her feet.

  “She’d better,” she said, and slammed her dishes into the machine. “You should get some sleep, too.”

  “I will,” Imric promised, but didn’t move. For a moment, he thought she was going to insist, but then she turned away.

  He remained at the table a little while longer, sipping his tea, until he was sure that the others had gone to their cabins. Ap Farr was still closeted with the AIs; she had left word earlier that she would take care of her own meals, but even so, Imric queried the ship’s systems as he fed his own dishes into the recycler. Nothing had changed. He took a deep breath, and made his way back to the control room. If there was a chance of contacting Milos… And in any case, there were always diagnostics to run.

  He settled himself at his console, calling up the test routines in the main screen, then opened a second, smaller window for the information he was truly interested in. As he had hoped, ap Farr and her AI had a communication line open, but this time they’d narrowed the focus, and there was no chance to slip his own query into the transmission. Maybe it would widen as they worked, he thought, watching the diagnostics tick down on his other screen. Though what good it would do, except offer the doubtful comfort of talking to Milos—