Final Days

by Gary Gibson

  ‘Listen, you need to calm down a little, okay?’ Jeff told him. ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you.’

  Jeff glanced to one side. Eliza and Lou had moved ahead, apparently unaware that the pair had stopped. Up ahead lay a wide atrium, containing electric carts they could use for zipping about the ‘designated safe’ parts of the vaults.

  Farad was a large, bluff man with a thick dark moustache, and he sometimes compared his attempts at picking apart the self-adjusting routines controlling the Vaults to a pygmy poking at electronic circuitry with a spear. He was intelligent and sharp, an excellent poker player – as some back at the Tau Ceti station had discovered to their cost – and also in possession of a keen sense of humour. But something about the black, unforgiving void that hung over the vaults, like a funeral shroud, could get to even the best of people.

  It seemed to Jeff that the more intelligent people were, the harder it was for them to deal with witnessing a darkened universe far advanced in its long, slow senescence. Self-declared atheists began sporting prayer beads, while the moderately religious either discovered a new fervour for their faith or, more frequently, abandoned it altogether.

  Farad refocused on him after a moment, and Jeff could see that his face was slick and damp behind the visor.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Farad after a moment. ‘Sometimes . . .’

  ‘I know,’ Jeff replied, with as much sympathy as he could muster. ‘But we’ll be home in a few days. Remember, we’ve got a plan.’

  ‘Yes.’ Farad nodded, his upper lip moist. ‘A plan. Of course.’

  ‘You just need to hold it together for a little while longer. Okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Farad said again, and Jeff could sense he was a little calmer. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’

  <

  Jeff gave him his best winning smile. ‘You already said that.’ He nodded, indicating somewhere further up the corridor. ‘I think we’d better catch up.’

  Eliza had glanced back once, but chose to say nothing as the two of them caught up.

  They pulled a spare tokamak fusion unit from a pre-fab warehouse established in Vault Four’s primary atrium and loaded it on to the rear of an electric cart, before letting it zip them up a steep incline that switched back and forth the higher they rose. When they reached Level 214, they found the passageways and chambers shrouded in darkness, so had to rely on their suit lights while they swapped the new fusion unit for the failed one. There was no telling why it had shut down, but inexplicable power-outs were far from unusual.

  The lights strung along the ceiling flickered back into life, revealing closely cramped walls on either side. An airlock seal had been placed across the passageway, and they stepped through it one by one, emerging into the pressurized area beyond.

  Jeff wanted nothing more than to crack open his helmet and breathe air that didn’t taste like his own armpits, but Eliza would have none of it. He understood the reasons for her justifiable caution, but still felt resentful.

  When they entered the chamber that Stone’s team had been studying, they found Dan had now managed to drag Lucy on to a narrow strip of ground located between four adjacent pits. The pit that had swallowed up Stone and Vogel was now full to the brim with black oil, its calm stillness looking to Jeff like a black mirror laid flat on the ground. It seemed strange that none of the reconnaissance probes first sent into this chamber had triggered a similar reaction.

  The furthest walls of the chamber faded into darkness beyond the pools of light cast by the carbon arc lights. There were hundreds more of the pits, Jeff could see, stretching far out of sight. He watched from the chamber entrance as Eliza guided a limping Lucy back to safety, Dan following close behind. They had to shuffle along sideways, one at a time, wherever the edges of the pits came closest together.

  He found himself wondering what purpose these pits might have served for the vault’s architects. A garbage-disposal system, perhaps, the black oil being some universal solvent for breaking down unwanted items? Or perhaps they represented something more inexplicable, a puzzle that could never be solved – like so many of the artefacts that had already been recovered and brought back to their own time . . .

  Something suddenly moved just beyond the illuminated part of the chamber, snapping him out of his reverie. Jeff stared hard into the shadows, then stepped forward. Lou and Farad were too busy arguing to have noticed anything, as they discussed how to recover a sample of the black oil, should it prove equally adept at dissolving any type of container they might attempt to collect some in.

  ‘Did you see that?’ asked Jeff urgently, turning back to look at the two men.

  ‘See what?’ asked Eliza over the comms, audibly puffing with exion.

  Jeff stared into the shadows once more. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe it’s . . .’

  Maybe it’s nothing, he thought. The vaults lent themselves effortlessly to the imagination, after all.

  But he saw it again; a slight movement almost on the edge of his perception. Lou must have seen it, too, for he stepped up next to Jeff, unclipping a torch from his belt and shining its powerful beam across the chamber.

  The torch revealed Mitchell Stone, naked and shivering, kneeling between two empty pits and blinking up into the light.

  It’s not possible, thought Jeff, in the shocked silence that followed. But a moment’s reflection suggested otherwise. After all, the lights had failed almost immediately, so Stone might have managed to crawl out of the oil-filled pit, unseen by either Lucy or Dan, and then got lost. But why hadn’t he called out for help?

  ‘Jesus!’ he heard Eliza exclaim, followed by a muttered prayer from Farad.

  Stone raised one hand towards them, and then slumped forward soundlessly.

  Without thinking, Jeff stepped forward and began to navigate his way towards him.

  TWO

  Kepler Colony, Sphere Administrated Development Zone, 15 January 2235

  A few hours after emerging from the Copernicus–Kepler gate, moving lightly in the .85 gravity, Saul Dumont stepped out from the lobby of the Heping Plaza Hotel and soon found himself in the heart of one of New Kaiohsung’s busy night markets. He navigated his way through dense crowds of shoppers, the air thick with the smell of barbecuing meat and cho dou fu. Their breath frosted where it emerged from ten thousand throats, while the street vendors were stained with orange light wherever they clustered under the tall municipal heating units rising above their heads.

  Saul tilted his head back to catch a glimpse of Kepler’s moon, its fractured outline floating cool and serene far above clustered high-rises and jerkily kinetic video advertisements. He brought his gaze back down, ignoring the occasional stares of passers-by, most of whom were immigrants from China, Korea and other Pan-Asian Congress nations. Saul’s clothes and ebony skin, by contrast, screamed Western Coalition.

  It wasn’t long before he found his way to a quiet alleyway where he spotted Jacob Maks sitting in the window of a shui-jiao dian, forking steamed dumplings into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. A TriView screen, bolted at an angle between the ceiling and rear wall of the eatery, ran news items piped through the local Array from back home.

  Jacob looked up, in the middle of chewing a mouthful of peppered meat and cabbage, and started when he saw Saul enter. The new arrival pulledown the hood of his parka, and placed his briefcase on the floor next to Jacob’s table.

  Jacob gestured with his chopsticks to the empty seat across from him, the motion quick and birdlike. ‘You want something? I’ll buy.’

  ‘First,’ Saul replied, his tone even and careful, ‘tell me why we aren’t meeting at the hotel like we were supposed to, Jacob, or I might not be able to resist the urge to break both of your arms.’

  Jacob’s hands never remained still, constantly twirling the chopsticks between his fingers or fiddling with the edge of his paper plate. ‘I can always tell when you’re pissed at me, Saul,’ he replied, with a nervous twitch of the mouth.

&n
bsp; Saul took the seat opposite, slow and easy as always. Jacob watched him cautiously, as if trying to assess whether he might follow through on his threat.

  ‘You left me sitting there waiting in the lobby of the Heping for over an hour before you got in contact,’ Saul persisted. ‘I had no idea what was going on. You’re supposed to keep me informed of any last-minute changes, so what the hell happened?’

  Jacob cleared his throat. ‘Look,’ he said, putting the chopsticks down, ‘this was a very last-minute change of plan. I couldn’t call you without compromising myself. But, now you’re here, you should know that we aren’t meeting Hsiu-Chuan at the warehouse any more.’

  ‘No?’ Saul cocked his head, the movement typically slow and deliberate. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Apparently his security people didn’t think it was secure enough, so they picked another location. Not a damn thing I could do about it. We’re just lucky he didn’t pull out altogether.’ He leaned to one side and looked down at Saul’s briefcase. ‘Is that the bait?’

  Saul nodded fractionally. ‘What about Hsingyun? Do you trust him?’

  Jacob had the courtesy to look offended. ‘Of course I don’t, but he’s a street soldier looking for a fast promotion, and he’s got too much to gain from helping us to want to screw us over. And remember, he’s still the only real link we have connecting Hsiu-Chuan with the Tian Di Hui.’ The Tian Di Hui, of which Hsingyun was a member, were a loose network of separatist groups that railed against the Western Coalition’s monopoly on the wormhole gates.

  ‘A pretty tenuous link at that, don’t you think? One seven-second segment of footage showing Hsingyun and Hsiu-Chuan talking together, and that’s it.’

  Jacob smiled. ‘Still more than enough to merit us being here, right?’

  ‘I guess,’ Saul sighed, leaning back. ‘It looks like most of what he’s been telling you checks out anyway.’

  ‘Who did you talk to? Narendra?’

  Saul nodded. ‘I got back from Sophia just this morning. Narendra put out some feelers and, from what he’s heard, the Tian Di Hui are moving on something. Could be big.’ He shrugged. ‘Hard to say just what. But according to Narendra, Hsiu-Chuan is involved, whatever it is.’

  Jacob shook his head and chuckled. ‘And you just asked me if I trust Hsingyun? I could ask you the same about Narendra.’

  ‘And I’d give you the same answer.’

  Jacob sighed and sat back. ‘All right, touché. Look, as far as Hsingyun goes, as long as I pour enough booze down his throat, he’s been happy to tell me pretty much anything I want to know. Which, if you’ll remember, is how I managed to set this all up in the first place.’

  ‘How worried should we be about the last-minute change of venue?’

  Jacob shrugged. ‘My gut tells me they’re just being cautious. It took a lot to get someone like Hsiu-Chuan to even entertain the idea of doing business with a couple of strangers.’ He drummed his fingers on the table top and gestured at the unfinished plate of dumplings, a plastic bowl full of chopsticks next to it. ‘Eat something,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’

  Saul shook his head. ‘Not hungry.’

  Jacob sighed. ‘Try not to look so worried.’

  ‘We really need,’ warned Saul, ‘to not screw this up.’

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ Jacob snapped, failing to hide his irritation.

  Saul nodded, far from mollified. There had been talk about pulling Jacob out of the investigation once it seemed to be going nowhere. Then all of a sudden, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he’d come up with Hsingyun: someone who could finally get them close to Hsiu-Chuan.

  The details, long since memorized, span through Saul’s mind like an endless loop. Shih Hsiu-Chuan was a rising star in the Pan-Asian Congress of Pacific Sphere States, popular for his aggressive stance in favour of full independence for the colonies administrated by the Sphere Congress and also the establishment of their own, dedicated network of wormhole gates. There had never been any solid evidence of a direct link between member-nations of the Sphere and the Tian Di Hui – nothing good enough to stand up in the international courts, at any rate – but showing that Hsiu-Chuan had been present at a Tian Di Hui-moderated meeting could change the whole distribution of influence between the power blocs for ever.

  ‘I want to make sure we’ve got everything straight,’ Saul said, as Jacob finished his meal and pushed his plate to one side. ‘As far as Hsingyun or anyone else is concerned, I’m—’

  ‘Donald Lassen,’ Jacob interrupted, wiping his mouth with a tissue. ‘You’re an Earth-side broker for a private financial concern with a hefty reputation in the Western Coalition’s underground economy. Your employers moved into the lucrative realm of biotech fencing after the global financial situation took a turn for the worse a few years back. You’re ambitious, and you’re willing to trade an illegally cloned black-box arbitration device, with a solid-gold record in market speculation, in return for becoming the Tian Di Hui’s newest bulk distributor of illicit off-world materials. Have I got it all?’

  Saul nodded.

  ‘And, of course,’ Jacob continued, ‘I’m Victor Cowles, a smalltime operator who runs an import-export company based in Southeast Asia, as a cover for his real business, and who has formed a partnership with Mr Lassen, whom he regards as his ticket to the big time.’

  ‘Sounds about right, but no more surprises, Jacob, understand? If there’s anything else I need to know, now’s the time. Starting with, where the fuck is the meeting taking place?’

  ‘At sea,’ Jacob replied, standing up. ‘Offshore.’

  Saul stared at him. ‘You’re shitting me.’

  Jacob shrugged. ‘Official Sphere jurisdiction stops thirty kilometres off the coast. Beyond that, it’s effectively lawless.’

  ‘So we’re heading to one of the islands?’ Saul asked, standing as well.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Jacob pursed his lips in thought for a moment. ‘Well, more like an iceberg, really.’

  ‘The meeting is on an ice-pharm?’

  ‘A big one,’ Jacob nodded, ‘with a whole town carved into it.’

  They found Lee Hsingyun in a dive bar near the docks, where the stars were far more easily visible than they were in the middle of New Kaiohsung. Saul had read through the names of some of the local constellations in a magazine article back at the hotel, but found he couldn’t recall a single one. Nonetheless, one of those far away speckles of light, hanging over the snow-sprinkled concrete like frozen diamonds, was Sol, all of fifty-five light-years distant.

  Hsingyun was small and wiry, with fashionably streaked hair and calculating eyes, and something about his manner made Saul take an instant dislike to him. Hsingyun and Jacob clasped hands like old friends as soon as they arrived there, but Saul still couldn’t shake the feeling of unease that had been plaguing him since he’d first realized Jacob wasn’t going to show up at the hotel.

  Hsingyun led them to a private booth at the rear of the bar. From where Saul now sat, he could see another TriView running what might be the same news feed. The sound was inaudible in the noisy bar, but the closed captions running underneath,n both Mandarin and English, followed a story about Galileo. A series of rapidly cut shots, taken more than a decade before, showed separatist graffiti decorating various Galilean settlements, followed by footage of attacks on the ASI forces that had been sent in to quell the unrest.

  The captions gave a voice to the images: ‘Nearly a decade after separatist groups affiliated with the Tian Di Hui claimed responsibility for the destruction of Galileo’s CTC gate, Sphere representatives are meeting with leading Coalition member nations in advance of the link’s re-establishment.’

  The scene changed to the UN building in Strasbourg. More than half the men and women mingling on a platform before an audience of journalists were from Pan-Asian Sphere nations, and of those the majority were probably representatives of the Chinese Confederacy. The rest came from affiliated nations like Malaysia
and Indonesia, along with a smattering of black and brown faces drawn from Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

  The commentary switched to cover an interview with a protester whose skin was even darker than Saul’s. ‘All we ask is for the same right to choose our destiny as enjoyed by citizens of the Western Coalition states, and that means full access to the wormhole technology. We should be able to set up our own network of wormhole gates, so that the colonies can link to one another directly, instead of forcing people to pass through the Lunar Array every single time they want to move from colony to colony.’

  ‘The Coalition States all say the Lunar Array is the only adequate means of providing support and protection to the colonies,’ replied an unseen interviewer.

  The protester shook his head. ‘That’s a lie,’ he said angrily. ‘This way, they control access to the colonies, and make them dependent on the Coalition. Everyone knows that what happened to Galileo happened because they tried to push for independence.’

  ‘But separatist groups are believed to have been responsible for the collapse of the Galileo wormhole,’ suggested the interviewer.

  This time the protester laughed out loud. ‘Well, I think it was a cover-up. The ASI did that deliberately, to stop the revolution spreading to the other colonies.’

  ‘Saul?’

  He dropped his gaze back down, to meet Jacob’s. ‘What?’

  ‘Ignore that bullshit.’ Jacob’s hands tap-tapped on the edge of the table before him. ‘Did you hear what Lee was just telling us about?’ He gave Saul a meaningful look: play along. ‘His new gun fires ice bullets.’

  Saul shook his head. ‘It’s pykrete, not ice.’ He had to shout it over the pounding music filling the otherwise empty bar.

  ‘What the hell is pykrete?’ demanded Jacob.

  Saul looked at him with an expression of infinite patience. ‘Ice water mixed with cellulose fibre,’ he replied. ‘The same stuff the ice-pharms are made from.’

  Jacob looked surprised. ‘It’s just ice, isn’t it?’