Iron Sunrise s-2

by Charles Stross

  “Hi there,” he said quietly. “Are you, um, Frank Johnson of the London Times?”

  The gorilla glanced up at him sharply, one eyebrow rising. The young woman was also staring. Martin barely noticed her, fine-boned alarm and black nail paint. “Who’s asking?” said the big guy.

  Martin sat down opposite them, sprawling inelegantly in the sofa’s overstuffed grip. “Name’s Springfield. I’m with the UN diplomatic service.” That’s odd, he realized distantly. Both of them had tensed, focusing on him. What’s up? “Are you Frank Johnson? Before I go any further—” He held up his diplomatic passport, and the big guy squinted at it dubiously.

  “Yeah,” he rumbled. “And this isn’t a social call, is it?” He rubbed his left arm meditatively and winced slightly, and Martin put two and two together.

  “Were you at the Muscovite embassy reception yesterday evening?” he asked. He glanced at the young woman. “Either of you?” She started, then leaned against the big guy, looking away, feigning boredom.

  “I see a diplomatic passport,” Frank said defensively. He stared at Martin. “And I see some guy asking pointed questions, and I wonder whether the purser’s office will confirm if the passport is genuine when I ask them? No offense, but what you’re asking could be seen as a violation of journalistic privilege.”

  Martin leaned back and watched the man. He didn’t look stupid: just big, thoughtful, and … Huh. Got to start somewhere, right? And he’s not top of the list by a long way. “Could be,” he said reflectively. “But I’m not asking for the random hell of it.”

  “Okay. So why don’t you tell me what you want to know and why, and I’ll tell you if I can answer?”

  “Um.” Martin’s eyes narrowed. The woman was staring at him with clear fascination. “If you were at the Moscow embassy in Sarajevo, you probably saw rather a lot of bodies.” The journalist winced. A palpable hit. “Maybe you weren’t aware that the same thing also happened before. We have reason to believe that the responsible party” — he paused, watching the implication sink in — “was probably aboard this ship. Now, I can’t compel you to talk to me. But if you know anything at all, and you don’t tell me, you’re helping whoever blew up all those people to get away with it.” Holed below the waterline: the journalist was nodding slightly, unconscious agreement nibbling away at his resolute dedication to the cause of journalistic impartiality. “I’m trying to put together a picture of what happened that night to aid the investigation, and if you’d like to make a statement, that would be very helpful.” He gave a small shrug. “I’m not a cop. It’s just a case of drafting every warm body who can hold a recorder.”

  Frank leaned forward, frowning. “I’m going to check your passport, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Do you?” He held out a hand. Martin thought for a moment, then reluctantly handed the white-spined tablet over. Beside him the woman leaned over to look at it. Frank glanced at the passport then snapped his fingers for a privacy cone and said something muffled to the ship’s passenger liaison network. After a moment he nodded and snapped his fingers again. “Okay,” he said, and handed the passport back. “I’ll talk to you.”

  Martin nodded, his initial apprehension subsiding. Frank was going to be reasonable — and having an experienced journalist’s view of affairs would be good. He pulled out a small voice recorder and put it on the low table between them. “This is an auditing recorder, write-once. Martin Springfield interviewing—”

  “Wait. Your name is Martin Springfield?” It was the young woman, sitting straight up and staring at him.

  “Wednesday—” The big guy started.

  “Yeah. I’m Martin Springfield. Why?”

  The girl licked her lips. “Are you a friend of Herman?”

  Martin blanked for a moment. What the fuck? A myriad of memories churned up all at once, a hollow voice whispering by dead of night over illicit smuggled causal channels. “I’ve worked for him,” Martin heard himself admitting as his heart gave a lurch. “Where did you hear the name?”

  “I do stuff for him, too.” She licked her lips.

  “Wednesday.” Frank glared at Martin. “Shit. You don’t want to go telling everyone about—”

  “It’s okay,” said Martin. He raised his recorder. “Recorder. Command delete. Execute.” He put it down. What the fuck is going on here? He had a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. This couldn’t be a coincidence, and if Herman was involved, it meant the whole diplomatic ball of string had just gotten a lot knottier. “Ship, can you put a privacy cone around this table? Key override red koala greenback.”

  “Override acknowledged. Privacy cone in place.” All the sounds from outside the magic circle became faint and muffled.

  “What are you doing here?” Wednesday asked, tensing. Martin glanced from her to Frank and back. He frowned; their body language told its own story. “Back downside—” she swallowed. “Were they after me?”

  “You?” Martin blinked. “What makes you think you were the target of a bombing?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” rumbled Frank. He looked at Martin warningly. “She’s a refugee from Moscow, one of the survivors of the peripheral stations. She settled in Septagon, except someone murdered her family, apparently for something she’d taken, or left behind, or something. And they tried to follow her here.”

  Martin felt his face freeze, a sudden bolt of excitement stabbing through him. “Did Herman send you here?” he asked her directly.

  “Yes.” She crossed her arms defensively. “I’m beginning to think listening to him is a very bad idea.”

  You and me both, Martin agreed silently. “In my experience Herman never does anything at random. Did he tell you my name?” She nodded. “Well, then. It looks like Herman believes your problem and my problem are connected — and they’re part of something that interests him.” He looked at Frank. “This isn’t news to you. Where do you come in?”

  Frank scratched his head, his expression distant. “Y’know, that’s a very good question. I’m roving diplomatic correspondent for the Times. This trip I was basically doing a tour of the trouble spots in the Moscow/Dresden crisis. She just walked up and dumped her story in my lap.” He looked sideways at Wednesday.

  She shuffled. “Herman told me to find you,” she said slowly. “Said that if you broadcast what was going on, the people hunting me would probably lay off.”

  “Which is true, up to a point,” Martin murmured, more to himself than to anyone else. “What else?” he demanded.

  Wednesday took a deep breath. “I grew up on one of Moscow’s outlying stations. Just before the evacuation, Herman had me go check something out. I found a, a body. In the Customs section. He’d been murdered. Herman had me hide some documents near there, stuff from the Captain’s cabin of the evac ship. I got away with it; nobody noticed that bit.” She shuddered, clearly unhappy about something. “Then, a couple of weeks ago, someone murdered my family and tried to kill me.” She clung to Frank like a drowning woman to a life raft.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” Martin said slowly, the sweat in the small of his back freezing. Herman’s involved in this. A dead certainty, and frightening enough that his palms were clammy. Herman was the cover name that an agent — human or otherwise — of the Eschaton had used when it sent him on lucrative errands in the past. So there’s something really serious following her around. Wait till I tell Rachel! She’ll shit a brick! He caught Wednesday’s gaze. “Listen, I’d like you to talk to my wife as soon as possible. She’s — you probably saw her on stage. At the embassy.” He swallowed. “She’s the expert in dealing with murderous bampots. Between us we can make sure you’re safe. Meanwhile, do you have any idea who’s after you? Because if we could narrow it down or confirm it’s the same bunch who’re after the Muscovite diplomatic corps, it would make things much easier—”

  “Sure I do.” Wednesday nodded. “Herman told me last night. It’s a faction of the ReMastered. There’s a group of them aboard this
ship, traveling to Newpeace. He reckons they’re going to do something drastic after the first jump.” She grimaced. “We were just trying to figure out what to do…”

  CLOWNING AROUND

  Franz was snared.

  Some time ago he’d heard a story about wild animals — he wasn’t sure what species — which, when snared, would chew a leg off to escape the hunter’s trap. It was a comforting myth, but clearly false in his estimate: because when you got down to it, when your own hand was wedged in the steel jaws of a dilemma, you learned to make do with what you’d got.

  Hoechst had come up from the depths of the Directorate like a ravening black widow, carrying away Erica and menacing him with the poisoned chalice of her acquisitive desire. His own survival was at stake: I wasn’t expecting that. But he’d done as she told him, and she hadn’t lied. She hadn’t bitten his head off and nibbled daintily at the pulsing stump of his neck as she consummated her desire. Even though his trapped conscience hurt as violently as a physical limb. Her luggage included almost fifty grams of memory diamond, loaded with the souls and genomes of everyone in U. Scott’s network who’d failed her purge. Each morning he awakened with his heart racing, panting with the knowledge that he was walking along the lip of a seething crater. Knowing that death at her hands would be a purely temporary experience, that he’d awaken with his lover and uncounted billions more in the simulation spaces of the unborn god, did not make it easier to bear. For one thing, the unborn god had to be built — and that meant the destruction of the enemy. And for seconds …

  Falling in love was like losing your religion. They were two sides of a coin that Franz and Erica had flipped some years ago, out among the feral humans. He was no longer sure what he believed. The idea of the unborn god picking over the bones of his human fallibility made his skin crawl. But this was foreshadowed: when the ReMastered finally destroyed the Eschaton and began their monumental task of reimplementation, the deity they’d build in their own image would hardly be a merciful and forgiving one. Perhaps it would be better to die the permanent death than to meet his share in the collective creation, down at the omega point at the end of time. But the more he contemplated it, the more he found that he couldn’t quite bring himself to pick one horn of the dilemma — either to chew away the restraining grip of his conscience and flee alone, or to force the black widow to execute him out of sheer disgust.

  Which was why, on the evening of the first full day in flight, one hour before the first jump, he was kneeling on the floor of Portia’s Sybarite-class stateroom next to Marx, helping him load ammunition into a brace of handheld recoilless gun launchers while Samow and Mathilde armed their little bags of tricks. We’re really going to do this, he thought disbelievingly, as he stared at a squat cartridge. She’s really going to do it.

  The idea was disorienting. Franz had thought, in his more optimistic — unrealistic — moments that maybe he and Erica could manage the trick: that perhaps they could flee the iron determination of the ReMastered race, escape from history, run and hide and find a distant world, live and work and indulge in the strange perversion called love, die forever and molder to humus, never to rise beneath the baleful gaze of the omniscient end child. But escape was a cruel illusion, like freedom, or love. A cruel illusion intended to temper the steel of the ReMastered.

  He snapped the round into the box magazine before him, then picked up another and loaded it on top. It was the size of his thumb, nose gleaming with sensors and tail pocked with the tiny vents of solid-fuel rocket motors. One shot, one kill. Every time he pushed another BLAM into the magazine he felt something inside him clench up, thinking of Jamil plunging the propagation bush into the back of Erica’s head, turning her into so much more reliable meat to place on the altar of the unborn god for judgment. Kill them all, god will know his own meeting god is dead: we must become the new gods.

  “This one’s full,” he said, and passed it to Marx.

  “That’s enough for this set.” Marx carefully set aside one of the handguns and a linked bundle of magazines. “Okay, next one. Hurry up, we’ve only got an hour to get this sorted.”

  “I’m hurrying.” Franz’s hands flew. “Nobody’s told me what I’m assigned to do during the action.”

  “Maybe that’s because she hasn’t decided if she wants you alive for it.” Franz tried not to react in any way before Marx’s harsh assessment. It was all too possible that it was a test, and any sign of weakness might determine the outcome. “I obey and I labor for the unborn,” he said mildly, working on the ammunition case. “Hmm. The power charge on this one is low. How old is this box?” The big guided antipersonnel rounds needed a trickle charge of power while they were on the shelf — the biggest drawback of smart weapons was the maintenance load.

  “It’s in date. Anyway, we’ll be using them soon enough.” I could defect, he told himself. All I’d have to do is tell the Captain what’s happening — Except he didn’t know who else might be involved. All he knew about was Portia’s team, and Mathilde’s group. There might be others. Restart. If I defect — Erica would be dead forever, or doomed to resurrection beneath the hostile scrutiny of an angry god. Even if he could get his hands on the package of souls Portia was carrying for the Propagators, he had no easy way of instantiating Erica’s mind, let alone growing her a new body. That was privileged technology within the Directorate, ruthlessly controlled by the Propagators for their own purposes, and expensive and rare outside it. And if Hoechst is telling the truth — there were worse things to be than a DepSec’s serf. Much worse.

  “Ah, Franz.” A warm voice, behind him. He forced himself to focus on what his hands were doing — pick, load, pick, load. She doesn’t mean anything, he thought. “Come with me. I’ve got a little job for you.”

  He found himself standing up almost without willing it, like a sleepwalker. “I’m ready.”

  “Hah! So I see.” Hoechst beckoned toward one of the side doors opening off her suite. “Over here.”

  He followed her over and she opened the door of what he’d taken for a closet. Spot on: it was indeed a closet. With a chair in it, straps dangling from the armrests and front legs.

  “What’s this?” he asked, heart thudding.

  “Got a little job for you.” Hoechst smiled. “I’ve been studying this love phenomenon, and it has some interesting applications.” Her smile slipped. “It’s a pity we can’t just work our way through the passengers until we have the girl, then puppetize her and force her to comply.” She shook her head. “But whoever’s behind her almost certainly took precautions. So we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

  “The old—” Franz stopped. “What do you mean?”

  Hoechst pulled out a tablet and tapped it. A video loop started cycling, just a couple of seconds showing its target waving at someone off-screen. “Him.” She pointed at the face. “I’m giving you Marx and Luna. While everyone else is executing Plan Able, you will go to his cabin and bring him here. Undamaged, to the extent possible. I want a bargaining chip.”

  “Hmm.” Franz shrugged. “Wouldn’t it be easier simply to force her?”

  “This is force, of a kind.” Hoechst grinned at him. “Don’t you recognize it?” The grin vanished. “She has a history of evading capture, Franz. Kerguelen was not entirely negligent: he was up against experience. I’ve been reading U. Scott’s field files, predigested raw transcripts, not the pap he was content with. She won’t dodge me.”

  “Ah,” Franz said faintly. “So what do you want me to do with him?”

  “Just snatch him and bring him here while I’m dealing with the rest of the ship. If he cooperates, he and the girl can both be allowed to live — that’s the truth, not a convenient fiction. Although they and the rest of the passengers will be sent for ReMastering when we arrive at Newpeace.”

  “Got it.” Franz frowned. She’s going to ReMaster everyone on the entire ship? Is she planning on making it disappear? “Do you want anything else?”

 
“Yes.” Hoechst leaned close, until he could feel her breath on his cheek. “This is job number one for you. I’ve got another lined up after we dock with station eleven. It’s going to be fun!” She patted him on the back. “Cheer up. Only another three weeks to go, and we’ll be home again. Then, if you’re good, maybe we can see about giving you back your toy.”

  Steffi stifled a yawn as she lowered herself into the chair at the head of the table in the dining room. An overlong shift spent poring over personnel movements with Rachel had left her bleary-eyed and wanting to throttle some of the more willfully persistent tourists. Having to follow that by stealing ten minutes to freshen up, then sitting at the head of a dining table for three or four hours of stroking the oversized egos of the more stupid upper-class passengers, was the kind of icing she didn’t need on her cake. But it’s better than being on the outside of the investigation, she told herself. And maybe she’d get some quality time with Max afterward; he was sitting up on the high table at the other side of the room, lofty but affable, everybody’s favorite picture of a senior officer. He’d need to blow off steam, too.

  “Mind if I join you?” She looked round. It was Martin, the diplomatic spook’s right hand.

  “By all means.” She managed a wan smile, keeping up appearances. Down the table, the middle-aged Nipponese woman smiled back at her, evidently mistaking its target, triggering an exchange of polite nods. By which time Martin was sitting to her left and idly scrolling through the menu. She looked around the table. It was half-empty. The troublesome kid was evidently eating in her room. So, come to think of it, were those creepy cultural exchange students from Tonto. Fucking stupid cover, she thought. A blind idiot could see there’s more to them than that. No such luck with the bankers, though.