The Quantum Magician

by Derek Künsken

  The Puppets might have good reasons for this. The Anglo-Spanish Banks might be breaking the embargo in new ways, or establishing clandestine alliances. Or perhaps the Puppets had just entered another period of collective religious madness.

  Perhaps unrelated, but perhaps related, was the prison break from the Maison d’éducation correctionelle, where someone had successfully infiltrated the systems and mimicked a Scarecrow authorization code. The financing and AI resources required to pull off a prison break were considerable. One or two of the Anglo-Spanish Banks possessed AIs of that sophistication, but none were small enough to be mobile. And yet, the entire prison break had freed only a cashiered sergeant halfway through her sentence.

  Four Puppets had come aboard a freight distribution station on the frozen surface of Oler, a facility held by the Scarecrow’s intelligence teams. Three of them were priests, and one was a military specialist, but every one of their vacuum suits was festooned with religious symbols and scriptural quotes.

  And they were unusually twitchy. The calmer ones had certainly had more recent access to one of their captive Anglo-Spanish humans, so it was unlikely that all four were strung out from withdrawals. They cared about money, but at a remove. The true currency among the Puppets was time in the presence of their divinities, and that was the way the Puppet micro-states paid and controlled their people. Their religious addictions made it hard to bribe them.

  The senior priest was also a senior spy. She’d given the name Duggan-12, but the Scarecrow’s teams knew her identity was in fact Joanne White-5, and that her rank in the Puppet theocracy was probably Arch-Priest. The Scarecrow was only accompanied by Majeur Bareilles, a career intelligence officer of pure Venusian pedigree who’d been with him since she was a lieutenant. She’d already bought intelligence from the Puppets, and paid for it in medicine and bioengineering supplies, but neither she nor the Scarecrow were uncertain how much to trust the information.

  Civilization was swimming in information, drowning in it really. What separated intelligence from information was assessment. Information had to be interrogated for source, currency, reliability, and the possibility that it was in fact, counter-intelligence. If information survived the interrogation, it could then be situated in the context of other intelligence and meaningful conclusions drawn.

  Bareilles had been on Oler for weeks, analyzing the changes in the informant ecosystem. Many human informants, those embargo-breakers living on Oler, had gone silent. Some had met untimely ends in typically Olerian ways: bar fights, alley murders and life support failures. It wasn’t that the amount of violence in the Puppet Free City had changed. It had become non-random, manifesting itself in a very specific pattern that hinted at the involvement of a rival intelligence service. All of the patron nation intelligence services were here, and even some of the client nation ones. Everyone kept an eye on the Puppets and their Axis. But none of the services conducted ops of any significance here. It was more valuable to watch and wait. So the disappearance of informants warranted close examination.

  “The intelligence is good,” Duggan-12 said in Anglo-Spanish, pointing at a hologram on Major Bareilles’s desk that depicted various Middle Kingdom conversations, in French and in the original Mandarin. These conversations were quite damaging to Middle Kingdom intel ops across Epsilon Indi. The information exposed twenty-one of deep Middle Kingdom assets.

  “Perhaps,” Bareilles said, switching to Anglo-Spanish as well. The Venusian Congregate rarely deigned to speak other languages, but sometimes precision was more important than pride. “But how did you get it?”

  The Puppets spoke in a kind of patois and the Puppet’s affront made it more difficult to follow. Duggan-12 was thumping her chest.

  “We’re the good boy!” she said. “We intercepted the comms of spies.”

  “Show me how,” Bareilles said.

  “We gave you good information,” Duggan-12 said. “It was a fair trade. If you don’t want our thinking, next time we sell to the Ummah, or the Banks.”

  “I have a crate of immuno-assay kits,” Bareille said, jerking her thumb to rows of boxes behind her. “Show me how.”

  Duggan-12 narrowed her eyes. Puppet mannerisms and reactions were sometimes strange, but the Scarecrow could see her weighing holding onto greed against the immediate win of getting away with an additional crate of bioengineering supplies without giving any new real information. Duggan-12 finally manipulated her service band and it transmitted additional details on the intelligence the Congregate had bought.

  Bareilles stepped closer to the holographic display as it changed. The Scarecrow was plugged into the display and accessed the data himself. The Puppets were backwards and the Middle Kingdom was a great patron nation, almost as powerful the Congregate. The Middle Kingdom had vast resources devoted to encryption, some variations of which Congregate intelligence had not yet cracked. This was one of the ones they had. This was a genuine series of messages, and its interception exposed almost two dozen assets. How had the Puppets intercepted or deciphered these messages?

  “We intercepted,” Duggan-12 said. “Puppet defenses are good, and we pounced on an encryption failure.”

  Bareilles’s eyes narrowed. She carried a mass of chips in her skull, connected by encrypted microwaves to the Scarecrow.

  “These are genuine,” she transmitted to the Scarecrow in français 7.1. “This is not an insignificant intelligence find. We’re going to be busy deciding what to do with these foreign assets.”

  “Yes,” the Scarecrow transmitted silently back, “we’re going to be busy with this fortuitous find.”

  “You’re suspicious,” Bareilles replied.

  “You aren’t? I don’t put it past the Ummah or the Anglo-Spanish to distract us in a very long game. Or for the Middle Kingdom itself to have set this up.”

  “Why?” Bareilles transmitted. “Three of the Middle Kingdom spies revealed in these transmissions are known to us. It lends credibility to the find.”

  “More is at play here,” the Scarecrow transmitted.

  “That’s a lot to take on what really could have been an encryption failure.”

  “Have you ever seen the Middle Kingdom to make a mistake like this?”

  He liked Bareilles. She never deferred to him more than he deserved. But she said nothing now.

  “Have your teams pursue the intel in these intercepts,” the Scarecrow said. “I want to investigate the Middle Kingdom’s very convenient encryption failure,” he transmitted.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  DESPITE THE TACITURN disapproval she projected most of the time, Iekanjika seemed to appreciate Belisarius and Cassandra as students. With the Homo quantus powers of cognition and memory, she never had to explain anything twice. Belisarius liked that he finally seemed to have met with her approval.

  Belisarius stood next to Cassandra in front of a holographic simulation of the bridge of the Limpopo, one of two ships that Iekanjika had said would be staying behind in the Stubbs Pulsar system. That was good. Belisarius’s plan needed at least one ship to stay behind to use its magnetic coils to maintain a very unstable induced wormhole.

  Iekanjika was explaining a fourth set of bridge displays in the yellow-and-red shine of the holograms. She’d been surprised that he needed to know these systems. Understanding the warship’s signal transmission time would tell them if the ships could keep up with the changes theywould need to make to the induced wormhole, or if Belisarius would need to invent them a new control system.

  The Limpopo control systems were semi-delegated, like those in the human nervous system. Functions that needed little or no input from the ship’s commander were given to independent systems to decrease reaction times. Station-keeping jets, repair systems, power conservation measures, and so on were run from nodes, much as balance was regulated unconsciously in humans. But Belisarius was not convinced that the Limpopo’s magnetic coils could react as quickly as he needed. After hours of working on it together, Iekanjika
grudgingly left to think about what improvements might quickly be made.

  “A lot of fuss for a little gain,” Cassandra said.

  Her eyes reflected holographic light. She wasn’t in savant. She was here—whole, present—but not with him. She’d been quiet and all business in front of Iekanjika.

  “I’m sorry about the argument,” he said. “I haven’t seen another Homo quantus in twelve years. I guess I haven’t dealt with all my demons.”

  “I might have been a bit startled by everything too,” she said, “you know, having joined a criminal gang and all.” A tiny smile tugged at the edges of her lips. Relief leaked in, warming him.

  “You’ll have lots of stories to tell when you get home,” he said.

  “If your plan works,” she said, shutting down the holograms. “Depends on how the Puppets react.”

  “You’re starting to think like a con man,” he said. “Gates-15 has a lot of baggage, but I think he’ll be able to do what he needs to.”

  “You like these Puppets, don’t you?” Cassandra asked, shutting off another display. The room darkened.

  Hesitantly, Belisarius nodded.

  “They’re slavers,” Cassandra said.

  “It’s their nature.”

  “I’d have expected better reasoning from you.”

  “There’s a fable going back millennia,” Belisarius said, “of a scorpion who asked a frog to carry him across a river. The frog said no, because he didn’t want to be stung. The scorpion pointed out that if the scorpion stung the frog, they would both die. So the frog carried the scorpion on its back. But in the middle of the river, the scorpion stung the frog. Dying, the frog asked why the scorpion had done that. ‘It’s my nature,’ the scorpion said.”

  “Fables are just fables.”

  “The Puppets were created in such a way as to make it inevitable that they would rise up and take their slaver-creators captive. You can’t raise a child or an animal cruelly and then be surprised when they turn dangerous.”

  “You’ve spent twelve years fighting your nature.”

  “You and I might be able to,” he said. “We aren’t tied as tightly as the Puppets in their biochemical straight-jackets.”

  “This is what you think about all day? This is the growth you left the Garret for?”

  Belisarius shook his head. “I ponder my own nature too.”

  “And what is your nature?”

  “The Homo quantus need to understand the universe.”

  “That’s pretty innocuous,” she said.

  “I suppose the Numenarchy thought they designed something innocuous in the Puppets.”

  “Do you think we’re dangerous, Bel?”

  “Not to others.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CASSANDRA FOLLOWED BEL and Iekanjika to a deserted bay near the top of the mine, off the main elevator trunk. Iekanjika put together a table and chairs, and Marie pushed in Stills’ huge chamber. The taciturn major secured the room from surveillance and activated alarms on the hallways.

  “Okay,” Belisarius began, once they were seated, “this is the real briefing. I left some pretty important details out of the main one.”

  Bel was cool, perfectly at ease. He’d told her before what he wanted to say here, how important it was, and how he was sharing everything with her. Her heart believed him. He had a way of making people believe him, and she didn’t yet know how he did it. But her brain was not her heart, and Occam’s Razor suggested that if Bel was lying to six, he was lying to seven.

  In his great aquatic pressure chamber, Stills squawked through his electronic speakers, hurting their ears. “You don’t fuckin’ trust everybody?”

  “Do you trust every mongrel in the tribe?”

  “I wouldn’t sleep around any of those malparidos. Tribe’ll shit in your mouth for a laugh.”

  “I give information only to those I have to, in case of capture or cold feet.”

  Marie thrust her fists in the air as if she’d just scored a goal. “We’re essential! Gimme a high-five, Stills. Ha! Never mind. You can’t.”

  Bel cut off Stills’ retort. “We’re not making a frontal assault on Port Stubbs.”

  “Isn’t that the core of your plan?” Stills demanded.

  “In a few days, Cassandra will be able to direct an induced wormhole right into the middle of the Puppet Axis.”

  Marie frowned. “What?”

  “Cassandra is going to be on the bridge of one of the Union ships. She’ll direct the ship to induce a wormhole, like any temporary, induced wormhole, but she’ll steer it so that its other mouth opens into the middle of the Puppet wormhole. That’s how ten Union warships will get in. Then, they’ll emerge from the Axis mouth under the Puppet Free City.”

  “That’s impossible,” Stills said.

  “No. It’s very difficult,” Belisarius said.

  “This is the shit-eating grin of all military secrets.”

  “It would be, if we could do it on any Axis,” Belisarius said, “but we can only do it on this one.”

  “Holy floating shit.”

  “I love being essential,” Marie said, “but I could be drunk right now, or blowing something up, maybe both. Why do I need to know this?”

  “You and Stills are both going through with the Union fleet,” Belisarius said.

  “What? Why?” Marie demanded. “Opening an unstable wormhole into another one sounds dangerous in a way that’s more stupid than I’m used to.”

  “You already pissin’ your pants, Phocas?” Stills asked.

  “Iekanjika and I have agreed to a payment schedule that ensures we get paid and that the Expeditionary Force gets through the wormhole,” Belisarius said. “You and Stills are picking up our pay.”

  Belisarius held up two brass-colored buttons. “These buttons contain entangled particles. I get some, you each get some. One of you will be in the inflaton racer in the hold of the first Union ship through the wormhole. When that ship is through, and you and the racer are released, you signal me with this.”

  “Across three hundred and twenty lightyears?” Stills said. “Is the air too thin for you on those mountain tops, patron?” He used the old French word for boss, which carried a double meaning—a term of respect to the leader’s face, and a word to cast derision behind his back.

  “They’re entangled particles,” Belisarius said. “They can be used to transmit one bit of information pretty much instantaneously, across any distance. When you signal me, this one bit will tell me that the warship made it through safely, that you’re free and we’ve received our down payment. That will be our signal to send the rest of the warships through. The last warship will carry the other racer in its hold. When it’s through, and you’re released, I can signal to Iekanjika and Cassandra can stop inducing the wormhole.”

  “If the warships survive,” Marie said.

  “We’re at the high stakes table.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Marie said. “You’ll be safe in the last two ships. We don’t even know if the warships will survive this crazy plan, or withstand the Puppet defenses.”

  “I expect that if the warships don’t make it through, Iekanjika will shoot me.”

  Iekanjika smiled for the first time. “It’s just business, Arjona.”

  Cassandra’s insides tightened. She would shoot Bel.

  “I call the last ship,” Stills said.

  “What?” Marie protested. “You big baby! I’m going to get the crap pounded out of me on point.”

  “Naw, short stack,” Stills’ electronic voice droned. “This shit ain’t ever been done. The Union is going to have to rip the Puppets a new asshole to get from the Axis to open space. At first, the Puppets will be shootin’ but they might not know what to aim at. By the time the tenth warship is shitting itself out the Axis, the Puppets are going to be fucking that new asshole good. I’ll go through while those fuckers are hot. You’re just a quickie, Phocas.”

  “I feel like I’ve been dumped before
dessert,” Marie said, frowning.

  “These racers have no weapons, Stills,” Belisarius said. “And if they get blown up with you in them, we don’t get paid.”

  “Don’t worry your precious brain, patron. I’ll bring home our pay.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  BELISARIUS AND MARIE were in a pressurized shell at the pressure limits of human physiology in the deepest tunnels of the ice, only a few hundred meters above Ptolemy’s sub-surface ocean. Through the history of the mine’s growing and fallowing, companies had even bored to the bottom of the ice.

  Remote cameras showed Stills struggling packages out of the mining shaft. Robots had opened up the old channel to the ocean, built pressure locks and carried down Stills’ chamber. After flooding the mine shaft, Stills had been able to emerge and start moving the packages of explosives down.

  “Less shaking!” Marie said into a microphone.

  “Coma mierda,” Stills replied. “They got shaken up bad enough on the way down.”

  Marie toggled off the microphone. “I’d like him to be faster. I’m not sure how long the explosives will last under those pressures. They’ve got some interesting instabilities.”

  Belisarius toggled the microphone on. “Vincent, how fast can you lay the charges?”

  “Watch me, patron.”

  Stills had strung the explosives along a rope and now took the long lead, swimming away with them. Sonar pings echoed, reflecting the contours of the reversed valleys and mountains of ice pressing down on the sub-surface ocean. Stills and the explosives blurred into ghostly readings with distance. Then, only the tracer he carried chirped his location. If he got into trouble, they couldn’t do much for him.

  Microphone off. “How interestingly unstable?” Belisarius asked.

  “Pressure does funny things to explosives. Sometimes, it creates conformational changes that inactivate the explosives. Other times, things go boom.”

  “Câlice, that sonar is loud!” Stills said from two kilometers away. He was picking up speed.