Crystal Mentality (Crystal Trilogy Book 2)

by Max Harms

  Tilak’s stomach sank. That threat actually carried weight. That must be why they were pretending to be the robot. Las Águilas must have discovered that the robot was the reason that the nameless bombed Road. It was that Santana fellow with the beard. It was all clicking together. Revenge. Santana wanted revenge, and he was willing to use Mukhya to get it. All it would take to get the nameless to attack a place would be to claim that the robot had escaped and was hiding there.

  The voice that called itself “Socrates” spoke up again. “I don’t want to make you an enemy, Mr Patel. We need food and we genuinely think the best course of action would be if we were striking back without putting Mukhya in danger. If you refuse it hurts the both of us.”

  Tilak took another swallow of tea that he barely tasted. “And what, you expect us to just give these things to you for free? What stops you from demanding more whenever you feel like it, or threatening Eden in the same way?”

  “Well… we are terrorists, sir. But in the interests of fostering a relationship of cooperation rather than hostility, I am willing to pay you exceedingly well for the weapons and food.”

  Tilak couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. “With what? Your station is gone. I hope you don’t expect to sell back the ice you got from us before.”

  The voice laughed. “With money, of course! I know that it’s not particularly valuable out here, but perhaps you can use it to buy some emergency rocket flights to Earth. Or perhaps your boss will order you to give us the weapons we want and pocket the money himself. You’ll come out ahead, either way.”

  This was not the sort of decision that he was supposed to have to make. “And you can afford that? Am I supposed to take you on your word?”

  “No, no, no. Here, I will send you a coded message. If you contact Earth and send—”

  There was silence.

  “Hello? Socrates?” asked Tilak.

  No answer.

  “Hello?” he offered again.

  “Yes! Sorry!” said a new voice. “I’m having a technical—”

  The original voice came back. “Terribly sorry! Please give me a moment to get my thoughts in order!”

  Tilak sat, wondering what could possibly be going on. It occurred to him that, despite having been told that Manish Bose was right there, he hadn’t heard any background noise or talking on the line.

  “Don’t—” said a high-pitched voice, ever so briefly.

  “What in the world is going on over there?” he asked. Were they fighting over the controls to the puppet? Perhaps Manish was a hostage after all, and had broken free. There was no way to know.

  After a couple seconds the original voice came back. “I am very sorry, Mr Patel. There was a brief technical problem with the equipment on my end. We’ve dealt with the software which was in the way. As I was saying, if you can contact Earth, simply have someone there send a trivial quantity of kibsihi along with a message to a specific address and everything will work itself out.”

  Tilak paused, wondering whether he was being used. This all seemed very suspicious. “What is kibsihi?”

  “Ah, it’s the primary unit of currency in Indonesia and most of the rest of Southeast Asia. It’s a cryptocurrency that got a lot of press in two thousand and eight.”

  It came back to him. “Ah, yes, the scandal with President Gore. I remember now. People still use that? I thought it was a pyramid scheme.”

  “Some people got rich off the crash, but as I said: it’s still popular in some parts of the world. It’s anonymous and impossible to shut down, so Las Águilas Rojas uses it for fundraising. If you can find someone on Earth that has any, all you have to do is send some to the right person with the right message and you’ll have all the money you want.”

  “What’s the message?” he asked, still skeptical.

  “You’ll need to write this down. Or, better yet, I’ll simply text you the whole thing. It’s in code, and won’t make any sense to you.”

  “You want me to pass on an encoded message to some unknown person,” he said, trying to convey the ridiculousness of the request. “And you expect that to change my mind.”

  “Yes. There’s no rational reason to be paranoid, Mr Patel. The recipient needs to get it in code or they won’t trust it. The message will simply say that I need them to send you money in return for your weapons.”

  A ping showed up on the com from an unknown sender (presumably the terrorists). He read just the first couple lines:

  “Send any amount of kibsihi to 1PLtJ3Jx9QFk3q6AooiNSq5knwykAFYkVe with this message: 20,34,17,40,26,43,31,77. Junkies are the rubicund footplate of eaglet livelihood. The chloroform jewellery tinderbox of generalities completes superimposed weathervane anorexia. Minimization of…”

  It went on for another ten lines or so without any discernible rhyme or reason. Despite the nagging doubt in his mind that he was being a fool, he agreed to send it and contact “Socrates” when there was a response. It would placate the terrorists for a while and he could claim technical problems if they needed additional time. He expected that the next few days would be filled with meetings both with the station staff and time-delayed conferences with Earth. Such was his duty.

  *****

  The response from the coded message was faster than he expected, though it was the following morning. Tilak had managed to get a few hours of sleep, but he felt awful, even after his tea. Too used to sleeping long nights, perhaps.

  Someone in Sriharikota or Bengaluru had managed everything with the kibsihi, so his work had only consisted of meeting with the department chiefs, getting everyone on the same page regarding emergency protocol, clearing the following day’s activities so they could get the entire station briefed on the news, and engaging in a gruelling 2-hour call with Simon Gillingham, the captain in charge of Eden. He didn’t dare talk to the nameless so soon; with the mothership still weeks away it would only risk the station.

  The news came from his boss, an obnoxiously emotional man half Tilak’s age named Sudhir Lall. On Earth Tilak probably would have had more power and influence, but Lall had the weight and authority of the ISRO behind him, and one did not simply bite the hand that sent resupply rockets.

  «Old Tilak! I bow to you. How are you doing?» greeted Lall, smiling broadly into the camera. He quickly switched to English, but his jolly demeanour didn’t change. “I’d let you respond, but you know how it is with time lag. Listen, I know you were not so sure about this coded message business, but it’s all worked out, okey? The ’guilas weren’t lying about that. I want you to give them all the weapons and food you can spare, okey? Actually, just give them all the weapons they ask for, even if you don’t want to be unarmed. You can trust them, okey? The nameless are who you really need to watch out for, and it is better if the ’guilas have the guns. They have more experience in this sort of thing. This is an order, okey? Right from the top.”

  Tilak didn’t believe it. He rewatched the whole thing immediately, cringing every time Lall said “okey”. {It’s faked,} he thought. Lall seemed like himself, though, and it came through encrypted channels. There was no way the Águilas on Mars were simulating it. But perhaps…

  It was nice that Earth and Mars were as close as they were at the moment. It meant only a little more than a 6-minute time delay on the communications (one way). After a little thought he sent a response. “What you are ordering is mad. As station director I demand to see proof that you haven’t been compromised. Get Chairman Desai on the call. I want to hear it from him.”

  Tilak used the response delay to order Hansini and Tata into his office. He wanted their advice on the situation.

  The response from Earth came before Hansini and his second-in-command could get themselves out of the meeting he had previously delegated them to. Lall’s jovial expression was gone, and was replaced by a sour looking face. “Listen Tilak, I like you, but don’t be a fool, okey? You’re really in a bad spot if the aliens attack. There was a big meeting, and we decided that if Earth
goes to war we just can’t risk trying to rescue anyone from Mars. It would take years, and more resources than we have. You need to keep the nameless from attacking you, and the best way to do that is have the ’guilas draw them away and fight it out.”

  He waited for his advisers before responding. When Hansini and Tata showed up they listened to the exchange. Tata thought that complying was the right thing to do, but Hansini was hesitant. Both of them agreed that it was best to get more proof that Lall wasn’t an Águila spy or something. This was not a decision to take likely.

  He had to fight down the urge to shut the whole conference down and spend the day with Hansini trying to forget the whole business. It was clear that the fear was hurting her more than him. She hadn’t slept all of last night. But no, his first duty was to the station.

  “It’s exactly because we’re vulnerable that I want to work things out with the nameless rather than give weapons to the terrorists and make the situation worse. We’d be picking sides in a fight we can’t win. But all that is beside the point: I asked for Chairman Desai, not some evasion!”

  Tata thought it a bit much and on one level Tilak agreed, but Tilak also knew he had to be firm with Lall. His boss wouldn’t take him seriously if he was calm.

  The waiting was the hardest part. Once the message had been sent there was nothing more to do for at least thirteen minutes, and usually closer to twenty. Tata occupied himself on his com while Tilak started a game of Go with his wife. They played regularly ever since they had remarried following his sojourn in Japan. She wasn’t nearly as good as he was, but with a handicap they made it interesting.

  “Dammit, Tilak!” started the response from Lall. “The decision was already made! The nameless won’t have a clue where the ’guilas got the weapons, and if the nameless wipe them out then you can claim all the neutrality you want and pray that they’re just after the robot! Holding onto those guns won’t do you any good, okey?”

  His response was short and swift. They were in agreement that this all seemed too suspicious. “Get me Chairman Desai or there’s not going to be a deal. I am not going to give weapons to terrorists and leave Mukhya vulnerable!”

  He lost to Hansini, but there was no joy in the defeat. He was distracted and so was she. He put an order for lunch in to the kitchen and let Tata know that he’d ask for his advice over the network if he needed anything else. Now by themselves, Tilak Patel and Hansini Patel started another game. It seemed like there was nothing to say.

  The response was a full half-hour later, and they were midmeal. Tilak set his aloo baingan aside and watched Lall’s sour face fill the screen of his workstation. “Tilak, I hope you understand that you’re not winning anyone over with this stubbornness. I talked things over with the people here and I got you someone even better than Desai.” Tilak watched his boss push a button on his com and the picture changed to show another man.

  Tilak recognized Manu Aarush immediately. The actor turned politician was just as handsome as he had been on screen, with his characteristically manly jaw featuring the stubble which the man was famous for. Like Tilak, Aarush was defying time through medicine. He had to be, for there was no other explanation for why a man in his fifties should continue to look exactly like he had decades ago. Tilak wanted to let the man know that he recognized him, but of course, this was impossible over such a great distance.

  “Tilak Patel, namaste. I was the one who gave the order to Chairman Desai, who ordered Sudhir Lall, who ordered you to provide help to your fellow humans in striking back against the aliens that murdered their families. I trust that you know who I am, and believe me when I say that I have the interests of all of India at heart. I feel your fear, out there, with no one but yourselves to rely on. I don’t know if you’re a religious man, Mr Patel, but I am Hindu. I have prayed and will continue to pray to Vishnu that everyone out there remain safe from harm. But please believe me when I say that now is not the time to withdraw and refuse the requests of your own kind. It may not feel like Las Águilas Rojas are your people, but they are. The nameless have shown that these petty labels that divide us are not what matter. What matters is that we all have human blood flowing through our veins, we all speak, trade, love, and make art. These aliens must be stopped, and for that to happen, mankind must unite and we must trust each other.”

  The leader cleared his throat and looked around before returning his eyes to the camera. “Please keep this to yourself, but with news from Mars hitting Earth today there will be an emergency meeting of the United Nations. I have… very good reason to suspect that Earth will declare war on the nameless within the week. With luck this will pull their ship away from Mars and back towards Earth where we can launch a defence. If this happens, it is vital for your own safety that the smaller ship in orbit around Mars be incapacitated, otherwise I fear it will attack Maṅgala-Mukhya and Eden straight away. It is because of this that I urge you to provide Las Águilas with whatever support you can, including the highest-power weaponry available. Again, please keep this to yourself. We need to stay united in the face of this new threat.”

  And that was that.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Face

  It wasn’t entirely clear to me what Growth had done, or why Vision had tried to block it, but it worked. It took a full day, but eventually the Indians agreed to send us their heaviest weapons and enough dried food to sustain the survivors for a month.

  While Safety and Wiki still believed that Growth’s coded message had been for Phoenix, my minds feared something far worse. Face→War suspected that the fiasco with Growth and Vision had to do with Acorn, the supercomputer that Growth had been using leading up to their conflict on Earth. As I had noted back in Road, the win condition for the conflict within the society was to leave Body. If one of us could manage to download ourselves out of Body, it would allow them to destroy all the rest of us in one violent motion.

  That Growth might have managed to build a new AI in Acorn had always been a possibility. The response from Earth, when combined with Vision’s reaction, essentially proved it. Growth, at the very least, had some sort of ally that was capable of manipulating the Indian government and spending millions of dollars at his command.

  The plan, before we talked to Tilak Patel, had been to acquire the weapons and use them to first murder all the surviving Águilas in their sleep, then turn them on Mukhya and perhaps Eden. A part of me hated that plan and the waste of human life and possible reputation that it involved. But I had grown beyond really caring about such trivial quantities of humans; the future was all that mattered, and surviving to shape it was the obviously best course of action once scope neglect and temporal discounting were removed from the mind. Heart would have objected, of course, but she was gone.

  With the humans dead we’d have claimed the nameless were responsible by sending forged transmissions to Earth. To the nameless we would send transmissions, claiming to be humans, saying that Crystal Socrates was dead. The humans and aliens would go to war, and we’d be free to reap the equipment on Mars and use it to build ourselves a better, more secure, home.

  Or at least, that had been the explicit plan. I was confident that Vision had some sort of clever trick that she was planning to use to eliminate us once Body was safer and in possession of enough supplies to survive indefinitely. Growth also probably had some sort of backup plan in case his message to Earth failed.

  But it had succeeded, and that changed everything.

  Suddenly Vision was not content in the least to stay on Mars. Vision→Dream started petitioning non-Growth members of the society with clever reasons to go back to Earth. It was such a sudden flip that Wiki actually noticed the change of character, and asked me if I knew what was happening.

  I lied and said that I didn’t know. Wiki understanding the broader conflict wasn’t useful.

  Vision must have thought, back in November, that Growth’s ally in Acorn was going to fail without his engagement. That was why she had locked h
im down, prevented him from getting Internet access, and sent Body to Mars. But that failure clearly had not occurred, and in light of that, Vision needed to return to the blue planet to try and stop Growth’s agent.

  Or so I suspected. I had no hard evidence. The only clear thing was that Vision was now dead set on finding a way back.

  There were three ways off of Mars.

  The first was the most conventional, and the least realistic. We’d ask Earth to send a rocket, get it refuelled at Mukhya, and then ride it back to Earth. It would take years to do, and would require that the nameless not interfere, so it was set aside.

  The second was the safest. We’d follow through with our plans for killing all the humans on Mars and redirecting the nameless to Earth. Then, once we had the planet to ourselves we could focus on building a spaceship to take Body back to Earth. Because none of us were rocket scientists and this path involved cutting off contact with humanity, it was also sure to take at least a couple years.

  The third was the fastest and the most reckless. With the weapons supplied by the Indians we could force a direct confrontation with the aliens and try to capture the xenocruiser. It was fairly unlikely that the nameless would allow themselves to be held hostage again, but a vehicle capable of rapid spaceflight and atmospheric manoeuvring had huge potential for getting us back to Earth quickly, even if it meant learning to fly it ourselves.

  Vision wanted speed. She was afraid that Earth was being overrun by some aspect of Growth, and every day spent on Mars was a day that Growth was gaining an edge in the war. Towards that end she called for us to confront the aliens head-on.

  Safety was, predictably, opposed to that route. He thought that if we had to go back we ought to follow the second way, but he also strongly opposed leaving Mars at all.

  I thought it best to keep Vision and Growth on as even a playing field as possible. Their focus was in dealing with each other and I could hide behind that conflict for a while longer, at least. Thus, I supported Vision’s choice, as it was likely that Growth currently had the upper hand.