by John Meaney
He might have been about to speak, but a low chime sounded, and a holovolume opened.
‘Hello, Max.’
It was a woman with white cropped hair, her face deeply lined, but her expression strong.
‘Admiral Kaltberg.’
‘Are you free at the moment?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘The Admiralty Council is about to convene. We’ve had a last minute thought, and we’d like you to attend.’
‘I’ll be right there.’
She nodded, and the holo was gone.
‘Last minute thought, indeed. I wonder what’s going on.’
Max looked at the ceiling. ‘You knew, of course.’
Labyrinth did not reply.
The Admiralty Council was in session when Max arrived in an outer chamber. Three Pilots, wearing black, gold-trimmed capes over their jumpsuits, saluted.
‘We’re to show you straight in, Commodore.’
‘Go ahead.’
The big doors curled back, and Max entered with his escort. Once inside, the trio saluted, turned on their heels, and marched out. The doors folded into place without a sound.
At the head of the long table was Rear-Admiral Schenck. To his left was Admiral Kaltberg, her expression like stone. To Schenck’s right was Admiral Turnbull, his face relaxed and smiling, which meant nothing.
Six other admirals sat at the table, all of them with their-eyes-only holovolumes open - Max could tell from their eye movements and the faintest glitter of reflection.
Turnbull said: ‘We have some news for you, Max. A change of membership among us.’
Max raised an eyebrow. If Turnbull meant this Council, then he was talking about a group whose faces remained the same for decades.
‘I’m standing down,’ said Admiral Kaltberg. ‘It’s finally time.’
‘Surely not, ma’am.’
Was she being forced out? Perhaps she was frailer than she had been. Perhaps it was simply age and the natural order of things.
‘Kind of you to say so Max, but I’m retiring fully.’
‘It’s been my honour, Admiral.’ He meant it. ‘And it’s been the service’s privilege.’
‘Then you’ll ask Dr Sapherson to treat me gently?’
‘Like one of the family, ma’am. The procedure grows more exact every year.’
‘Good, because I’d like to hang on to what I can.’
There were chuckles from all but the youngest admirals, some perhaps uncertain. At least two others were old enough to have mulled over the treatment, contemplating their own retirement.
Max still could not tell whether Admiral Kaltberg was retiring voluntarily or because she had lost some political game. Either way, there would be furious covert deals playing out right now, as cliques sought to put their own candidate in place, taking Kaltberg’s seat.
This would be interesting.
‘We decided to tell you in person’ - at the head of the table, Schenck gestured around his colleagues - ‘since you deserve to know. I can’t exaggerate how important you are to this Council.’
The statement was ambiguous, causing Max to smile. Schenck was a consummate game-player, and rarely spoke without thought.
‘Thank you for the compliment, sir.’
On one side of the table, two of the younger admirals, Whitwell and Asai, echoed Max’s smile. They were supporters of Kaltberg; and Max thought it might be worthwhile to spend some time with each of them in private, over the next few days.
‘So, that’s probably all we need you for.’ Schenck looked around the table. ‘Unless there’s anything else for Max?’
‘Not really,’ said Turnbull. ‘Oh, I saw you had an old friend visiting, Max.’
Admiral Kaltberg tilted her head. It might have meant nothing; Max took it for a warning.
‘Who was that, sir?’
‘Carl Blackstone and his family. We noted that you took the son - Roger, is it? - on a quick informal tour.’
‘That’s right.’ Max controlled his breathing, aligning all his mental resources. ‘It seemed like a good idea, given his father’s previous capabilities.’
‘You’re not saying you showed him the prisoner?’
There was no need to ask which one; but Turnbull would expect him to deny everything about the trip inside the Annexe.
‘I did in fact, sir. For several minutes.’
So Turnbull’s people - or more likely Schenck’s - had observed him meeting Roger on Borges Boulevard. But they could not have had surveillance inside the cell complex: he had triple-checked.
‘And what happened?’
‘Not a trace of the father’s former ability, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I kept him there for long enough. Carl would have started to grow uneasy after about two minutes. By four minutes, his intuition would have told him that something was wrong.’
‘And Roger showed no reaction?’
‘None, sir.’
The admirals were great psychological tacticians. Max had to be better.
‘Disappointing,’ said Admiral Zajac finally, and nodded towards Schenck. ‘Time to press on, Boris, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’ Schenck raised a hand. ‘Thanks for your time, Max.’
‘Sirs.’
Max nodded, turned to the doors as they curled back, and stepped through, careful to maintain full control of his body language as he walked out.
Then the doors were shut behind him.
Bastards.
On the other hand, how could they possibly be worse than him?
Avril. You’d better come back.
Her ship burst into glorious realspace, amid blazing stars: the heart of the galaxy. All passive sensors were on maximum gain; all active scanning was off. She was in full stealth mode, hanging in the void, surrounding by a billion glorious suns, and the galactic fire produced by the vast black hole that tore stars into incandescence. This was as magnificent as realspace could get.
She continued to float, scanning in all directions, awed by what she saw.
And then, the anomalous data.
‘A jet?’
Was this what Commodore Gould meant by observe, record, bug out? Or should she carry on taking—?
Starlight shimmered, rippling with refraction.
‘That can’t—Ship, let’s go!’
But invisible hooks were through her poor ship, holding her in place.
‘Damn you. Damn you.’
She was sobbing as she made the cutting gesture. It was called the seppuku command.
Ship, I love you.
I love you, too.
Nova brightness enveloped them, as they blew themselves to oblivion.
In his office, Max waited, hoping for Avril’s return, praying for it, knowing that if she did not come back, he would still have learned what he needed to know.
For that, he hated himself.
TWENTY-SIX
EARTH, 2146 AD
They met at a restaurant specializing in nouveau Nihonjin, though Rekka and Simon planned to stick with traditional fare, perhaps mizo soup and vegetable tempura. Leonora and Alwyn were a couple, Hussein and Peter were colleagues, and they were waiting for Mary Stelanko and her partner Amber Hawke to arrive.
‘It’s good to be back,’ Rekka told them.
After the initial drinks, Alwyn - an artist from the Welsh Republic - restarted his ongoing debate with Simon.
‘See, every one of us is unique—’
‘Especially you,’ murmured Leonora.
‘—so there’s no such thing as numbers. They’re not real, because no two things are identical.’
‘So if you prepared lunch for us, expecting two people,’ said Simon, ‘and we turned up with four hundred of our best friends, it wouldn’t matter that we’re all different. Only that there’s four hundred and two of us.’
‘You’re wilfully missing the—’
And so on, harmlessly and without conclusion.
‘Shal
l we call them?’ asked Hussein finally. ‘I’m getting hungry, so I think we should—’
But at that moment the hubbub around them died, conversation attenuating to murmurs. This was New Phoenix (the city motto: We Rise From The Ashes) with plenty of UNSA personnel resident here, but still the sight of a Pilot caught everyone’s attention.
Amber walked with her arm lightly on Mary’s. UNSA provided guide dogs for Pilots, both for long-term companionship and for short durations; but Amber was not unusual in refusing them.
Highlights glinted off the steel sockets where her eyes had been.
‘Hi everyone,’ said Amber, sitting down. ‘Nice to see you all.’
The words were ordinary conversation, not ordinary. Everyone knew she would never see again, not in this universe. They also knew she experienced wonders in mu-space that they were literally incapable of imagining - or imaging - because their occipital and parietal lobes had not been virally rewired for fractal dimensions.
‘Good to see you, too,’ said Rekka.
‘Hey, congratulations. You bagged yourself a first contact.’
‘Uh-huh. Tell McStuart and the rest how good that was. He asked me what the pre in pre-contact might possibly mean, but he supposed they didn’t teach Latin where I come from.’
‘Bastard.’
‘I told him it derived from the preposition prae, as in pretentious .’
‘Good for you,’ said Hussein. ‘A toast. Congratulations to Rekka.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Cheers.’
But Simon was looking at Mary.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What’s that smile all about?’
Rekka remembered why she had fallen for him. He understood the unspoken in every conversation.
‘I was maybe going to mention it later—’
‘Come on, Mary. Tell us.’
‘But Amber and I are pregnant. Well, she’s the one doing the hard work.’
‘Wow.’
‘Well done, you two.’
Rekka was first in line to hug and kiss them both. There were excited embraces for the next couple of minutes.
Simon asked, ‘Are we hoping for Mary’s beauty and Amber’s brains, or the other way round?’
‘Don’t answer that,’ said Rekka. ‘I’ll punish him later.’
Finally, when the meal was underway, the conversation moved on to topical areas, and Pilots’ education came up. The Higashionnas - Robert and Luisa - were pushing for a new curriculum that emphasised UNSA control and discipline. Since all the youngsters now were natural-born Pilots, carrying the organelles nicknamed fractolons in every cell, their potential for self-determined lives was worrying conservatives.
Rekka noticed how quiet Amber was during the discussion.
After the meal, they said their farewells in the car park behind the restaurant. The night was warm, the desert palms were spiky shadows against dark sky, and the ever-present cicadas sang their insect song.
Mary saw Amber into their car, then walked back to where Rekka was standing. Simon was bantering with Hussein, Peter and Alwyn, while Leonora was trying to get them to call it a night. For the moment, Mary and Rekka were alone.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Rekka.
‘Sort of. We—We want Amber’s son, our son, to be a Pilot.’
‘It’s a boy?’
‘Yes. But management said no to the treatment.’
‘They can be real bastards.’
Without fractolon insertion and related procedures, the child would be born fully human. Only natural-born Pilots gave birth to their own kind - and even then, the later stages of development had to take place in mu-space.
‘So we went ahead anyway. Don’t ask me how.’
‘Mary! My God.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But how will you—?’
‘That’s going to be the real trick, isn’t it?’
With Amber pregnant, and her an old-school Pilot rather than natural-born, she would be grounded for the duration.
‘What’s the cut-off?’
‘Six months, latest.’
Meaning that the last three months of foetal development, at a minimum, had to take place in mu-space, along with the birth itself.
‘You’ll never manage it.’
‘Some of the younger Pilots are real renegades, you know. Ro herself is.’
Ro McNamara had been the first Pilot born in mu-space. She was maybe twenty-three, twenty-four years old - Rekka wasn’t sure. The others of her kind, all bearing fractolons derived from hers, started to be born about two years after her.
Giving a twenty-year-old Pilot responsibility for a massively expensive spacecraft was a risk. No wonder UNSA were so concerned with education and training.
‘Let me know if I can help,’ said Rekka.
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Yes. But if McStuart has anything to do with it, I’m grounded forever.’
‘Don’t count on it. Kilborn runs the schedules, and he hates McStuart.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Uh-huh. Plus, your friend Sharp will be flying home in a few months, and you’re to go with him. He wants it, Poliakov recommended it, and Kilborn’s insisting on it.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘You did good, girl.’ Mary hugged her. ‘A lot of us know it.’
‘Thank you.’
Later, as they drove across desert beneath a spectacular night sky, Simon asked what the private conversation with Mary had been about.
‘Girl talk,’ said Rekka.
Three months later, just past four a.m. on a Friday, a Pilot with glittering black eyes walked along an unlit corridor in Desert One. Then he paused before a locked door to which he did not have the code.
In his eyes, tiny golden sparks danced like fireflies. They faded as the door clicked open.
‘Hello,’ he said.
Inside, seated on a large couch, Sharp turned to see his visitor, his antlers looking hard and massive in the half-light.
‘You are the Pilot.’ The words came from his chest speaker. ‘It is good to meet you.’
‘Yes, Sharp. My name is Luís Delgado, and I’m honoured to be taking you home later.’
‘I will not see you during the voyage?’
‘No, that’s why I’m here now.’
‘Do you know Rekka?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Luís smiled. ‘And I like her very much.’
‘So do I.’
‘I’m glad I talked to you. Farewell, Sharp.’
‘Farewell, Luís Delgado.’
Luís nodded, and then walked out. The door automatically locked behind him.
Continuing through the xeno complex, he came to a door leading to an equipment bay. No automatic lights, as he walked the corridors, had activated. Now, the door failed to scan the person standing before it.
Once more, golden sparks glimmered in his eyes. The door slid open.
Big TAV cranes looked like giant silver scorpions, their tails capable of lifting enormous loads. In six hours, they would be loading equipment aboard Luís’s vessel. He looked around for the stacked white crates, and found them.
He walked closer.
One of the crates came up to his chest. After a few seconds, he pressed his fingertips against it and closed his eyes. Then he smiled slowly.
Then he walked back among the shadows, slipped out of the bay, and into the night.
At 9:38, Mary Stelanko was standing next to Simon in the control tower, staring down at the gleaming white-and-silver delta-winged ship that shone on the runway.
The TAV cranes were moving out of sight, their cargo already aboard the ship. Then a smaller vehicle rolled slowly across the tarmac, and came to a halt beneath a massive wing.
Sharp and Rekka alighted.
The ship’s own carry-arm extended from the hold, providing a small platform for them to step on to. Then it carried them up, and they disappeared inside.
