by Barry Kirwan
It was intended to be humbling. Not necessarily before IVS, but simply before whatever gods one believed in, or failing that, a stark reminder of one’s mortality and the fragility of existence. Nevertheless, he wondered at the civil engineering of the arm he stood in, defying gravity. He was also impressed that such a building had survived fifteen years without a single successful terrorist attack, when it was such an obvious target. He surmised it was because IVS was not a dictator but a protector to this city and its people, indeed the nation – IVS had achieved what the former Chinese work-focussed hegemony had never managed – the people here actually worshipped this place, after a fashion. How could a terrorist or foreign army even get close?
Some ten meters behind him a door opened with a small sucking sound. Vince didn’t turn, but used his ears and the warped reflections in the curved windows to discern a slim man entering the room, deferentially, as if entering a chapel. He’s not the one I need to talk to.
"Sir, I am afraid that the Board cannot see you at this time. As you will appreciate, recent events have become very demanding. I am certain you understand."
Vince stared outwards. They were being monitored for sure. It was all a show, to see how he would react. He suspected the man was holding his hands together in supplication, but the humility was a sham. Vince remained quiet. He heard the small man shuffle, and then issue a polite cough.
"Sir – did you hear me?"
"I hear only the truth." There, let them chew on that. He heard a sleeve rustling, indicating a small arm movement – no doubt the man was raising his hand to his ear to listen to an instruction relayed by a sub-dermal earpiece. Vince remained steadfast. The man coughed again.
"Sir, the IVS and the Chorazin have not had… an easy relationship in recent years."
Ah, thought Vince, through to the next level. Time to take command of this little charade.
"Not surprising, since very recently you had a man inside the Eden Mission, now dead incidentally, feeding you telemetry whilst giving us bogus information. An illegal act of immense proportions – at the least transgressing our national security, at most possibly an act of war."
As Vince anticipated, the man exited without another word, his departure punctuated by the dull click of the door’s magnetic seal. Vince closed his eyes and listened intently, hearing silence. When he opened his eyes, he was taken aback. A wiry man with a forehead that had seen too many frowns sat in an immaculate business suit at a desk in front of him, where there had been none before. He wasn’t looking in Vince’s direction, rather, out the window over Mumbai. Vince realized the glass had shifted back some four or five meters. The swarthy, none too healthy looking man smoked a cigarette, occasionally taking a long, deep inhalation. Now the glass wall separating them was gone, Vince smelled the menthol-scented nicotine. The ashtray was already half-full with stubs.
The man blew a trail of smoke coolly from lips that looked parched. Vince wondered how high up in IVS this man was. It was rumored that the Indistani President always consulted IVS before making key decisions. Could this be the man the President talked to? But looking at his casual, disregarding manner, the suit and his invisible office, Vince sensed that the President talked to someone further down the IVS food-chain.
When he spoke, still not looking at Vince, the man’s voice rasped the past lives of tens of thousands of cigarettes.
"It’s quite a cute trick, I know." He flicked his head backwards to the glass wall behind him. "Being invisible, able to disappear. Smoke and mirrors, you know." He didn’t smile at his own pun, Vince noticed.
"Holo-projectors and diamond-glass distortion effects," Vince said. "Impressive nonetheless."
"So, Vince, if I may call you that. What do you want exactly?" He took a deep, concentrated drag from his cigarette, its red embers flaring. Vince watched as the man focused on the exhausted stump, then stubbed it out firmly in the ashtray; the way a man might shoot a beloved but broken animal.
"Are you representing the Chorazin, the Government, the Eden Mission, or yourself here today?"
Vince couldn’t help but admire the casual address partnered with penetrating directness. Someone worthy to spar with.
"The telemetry and all of the above except the last."
The man took out a fresh cigarette from a gold recess in the desk.
"I don’t have the telemetry, and – no offence – you’re not high enough in the Chorazin to represent those three parties. Senator Josefsson was quite astonished to learn of your visit." He rolled the cigarette between thin, dextrous fingers, assessing it in some way Vince couldn’t fathom.
Vince knew that Josefsson was in IVS’ pocket – it was level ten knowledge in the Chorazin, and he was level twelve. He had to admit that he had not yet gone through any of the proper channels. But after what Sandy had told him, he had to risk it. Once the ship was open, he and his government would have no bargaining chips left. The Eden Mission needed the telemetry – if what Micah had said was true, the Ulysses was in danger, and here he was playing verbal poker with this oligarch. Vince couldn’t help but wonder if, for once, he was out of his class. Still, he had to play it through, raise the stakes, and get this man’s attention.
"You need the password to open the ship. You don’t have it, neither does Josefsson."
For the first time, Vince felt himself being surveyed by the smoker. He knew what he was thinking – that Vince had little to go on, nothing to bargain with.
"My dear man, we will simply go through all the words until we find the right one. It may take a few extra days, but we can wait."
Vince almost laughed at the tactics, those he himself might have used in such a situation, to force the other’s hand. He let a wan smile spread across his face, but said nothing.
"Well, there it is," said the man, "so nice of you to drop by." Vince heard the door behind him swish open and the sound of two heavies enter. The smoker flipped open a lighter, pressed a button, and a flame appeared.
It was now or never. Vince prayed the last intel from his dead former partner three days ago was right, and had been worth dying for. Instinctively Vince’s right hand formed into a loose fist. He felt the tightening of his skin against the hidden stiletto.
"There is, of course, the matter of the covert IVS mission to Eden. You know, the Phoenix." Vince had joined up the dots – Micah had been perplexed as to how IVS could have fed false data to the Eden Mission, since data from Heracles or Prometheus would have been easily recognizable. Vince’s former partner, Ralph, had transmitted two coded words before being terminated: Phoenix and Eden. Ralph used to say that Indistan was like a phoenix rising unstoppable from the ashes of the War, IVS its head.
The smoker’s nascent flame wavered, just out of reach of his cigarette. Releasing the button, the flame flickered and went out. He put the lighter on the table in front of him, let the unlit cigarette rest in the ashtray, and sat back. With a single finger raised, he stopped the advance of the two men. He peered at Vince through eyes outlined by crow’s feet, framed by well-groomed but greasy and lank brown hair. He let out a small chuckle. He stood up and walked over to the plazglass window looking down on Mumbai. He touched the glass with nicotine-stained fingertips.
Vince walked over and stood next to him. He imagined he could hear the guards’ muscles tensing behind him, but the smoker didn’t seem perturbed. They both gazed outwards.
"It’s a long way down, Chorazin-man." He turned to face Vince, who awaited the outcome, knowing that if the rest of the world found out IVS had sent a ship to Eden, it could trigger deep suspicion, enough to send their stock price into a tailspin. The mere hint of it would be damaging.
Vince had a reluctant admiration for this man – prepared to take huge decisions on his own, and wondered if he would be like him if things had been a little different. But he decided no, he was a field operative. A strategist yes, but when he killed, it was with his own hands. Not from a distance.
The man spoke to the windo
w. "A trade. The password for the telemetry."
"And the rest?"
"There is no ‘rest’". If any material on a supposed IVS mission to Eden should surface, you will find yourself, and your compatriots in a very difficult, painful, and most likely irretrievable situation." He turned and fixed his gaze on Vince.
"This building is in the shape of Kali for a reason." He looked away again. "That’s the deal."
Vince nodded. "I accept. Where’s the telemetry?"
The smoker tapped open a drawer in the desk and handed Vince a crystal data-cube. Vince leaned forward and whispered the password.
The man perched on the edge of the desk, and raised an eyebrow. "You know if it doesn’t work you’ll be dead very soon?"
Vince grinned, nodded goodbye, and headed out. Just as he was leaving, he heard the man whisper, "Well I’ll be damned."
I’m sure you are already, Vince thought. But when you arrive in hell, they’ll probably put you in charge.
Thirty minutes later Vince was onboard the fast-jet, taking off. There was of course a risk that his jet would experience an accident, but he doubted it. The smoker would assume Vince had a dead-man switch somewhere who would release the information if he didn’t return in one piece. Besides, if IVS wanted him dead, it would take only seconds – which meant that the password had already worked.
As the jet soared above the Mumbai haze, he watched the Kali Tower glistening in the pre-sunset, rising above the evening clouds. He downloaded the crystal’s contents. Although he now allowed himself to feel his fatigue, he found the contents so interesting that he only slept the last hour of the flight. The final transmission from the Ulysses suggested a ghoster attack, but the later, non-interactive telemetry showed they had made it to Eden’s solar system. So, there was some hope, after all. He decided to give a copy to Micah, to see what he could make of it.
***
Sanjay Shakirvasta waited until Vince was gone, then picked up his cigarette and lit it, flicking open the vidcom. "Happy now?"
A voice from the vidcom replied. "Hell, no. How’d they find out about the Phoenix?"
"No idea. I suspect it was a lucky guess, but if we get some silence for that telemetry, it’s a good deal. It won’t help them in any case."
"And the password. Sesame. I don’t fucking believe it!"
"Makes sense. This ship has been down there a long time, centuries at least. Entire cultures can rise and fall in that time. You need to use a word or phrase that gets into folk-lore, so it won’t be forgotten. It’s also the oldest trick in the conman’s book – hide something in plain sight. Does it work?"
There was a pause. He took another drag, listening to the crackling of the tobacco igniting and twisting in the frenzy of its own fire. He half-closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply, feeling the warm grey haze fill his expanding lungs.
"Not yet. They’re using a speech synthesizer to run through all manner of pronunciations, forty-three so far. Wait a minute... Holy shit! The hatch is opening."
"Do you see anything?"
There was no reply. He took one more drag. "Bill?" It was then he noticed that the vidcom was flashing purple, indicating a holo message.
"You’d better take a look yourself."
He snapped his finger and thumb, and the holo-vid flickered into view. It was not what he’d been expecting; possibly the last thing.
"Well, it seems I’m damned twice in one day." He leant back in his chair, and pressed another button. "Take the bomb off the Chorazin jet."
***
Three thousand miles east, a previously un-openable hatch slid open.
The pewter-grey ship had the breadth of five football fields, and was ten storeys deep. The lifting had been effected by the latest Indonesian attack submarine, taking a full day to breach the surface.
The ship appeared to be circular, with triangular sections cut out of it. The only notable structure was something akin to a conning tower, but much larger, like a cylindrical four storey office block. There was a hatch at the tower’s base. The password had finally allowed fresh air to enter the dormant vessel.
Several IVS choppers had landed close to the conning tower, and Bill Torreanos with a handful of scientists, engineers, and demolition experts had been involved in trying to open the doors for two days. They’d tried everything from electronics to explosives and acid – but nothing dented, scratched or even warmed the metallic hull. After the IVS vid call, they tried the word "Sesame". The pronunciation which worked had been whispered, snake-like, with an emphasis on the "S’s", keeping the final "e" silent. Then the door issued a loud clunk and hiss before unlocking.
Out stepped Professor Kostakis and his assistant Jennifer, both looking rough as hell, and a little thinner than last time Bill had seen them, but otherwise unharmed. Kostakis, as usual, was beaming. He rushed to the camera relaying the vid-footage and began gesticulating and shouting.
"We can fly to Eden in this! We can fly to Eden! It’s a space-ship!"
***
Shakirvasta collapsed the holo with his hand. He let his eyes drift out toward the sun’s tangerine rays streaming across the city. The windows automatically shifted their refraction to subdue the glare. He took a last drag and stubbed out the cigarette. He pressed a small button in the top of the smooth polished desk.
"Get me Josefsson."
"Yes, Sir… Sir, it’s five in the morning there."
He said nothing.
"Certainly, Sir, right away, Sir."
He stood up and paced while he waited for the call. They’d believed Kostakis dead. How had they gotten inside the ship? How had they survived? Of course these were secondary questions – Bill could deal with those. But Kostakis had said it was a space ship and could go to Eden. It was huge, capable of carrying the population of a small town. Word on the IVS defense net was that there were now estimated to be at least two similar ships found in other parts of the world. From the IVS perspective, this set the stage for complete share dominance, possibly leading to what they had dreamt of for a decade – a structural change that would leave IVS as supreme economic power for centuries to come.
It also meant they could cancel the construction of Phoenix 2 and the futile research on the mass transit Alcubierre drive which confounded IVS’ best asyrophysicist and engineers. They also no longer needed to intercept Ulysses’ telemetry, which had been cut off in any case. Ulysses might well have made it. But if IVS could get to Eden and come back first using these ships… It was being first to return from Eden that really mattered.
But he never, ever, believed in a free lunch. Where had these ships come from, why were they here, and why appear now – the timing, the synchronicity, were too coincidental. And yet he knew his reservations would be overruled by others’ hope, optimism, and greed. He could see the media hype sweeping across a planet boiling with desperate people. IVS should surf on that tsunami of optimism. He reminded himself of an epithet he used when he had lectured at Harvard all those years ago: "He who hesitates is crushed underfoot by those who do not."
The call came in, a grating voice on the other end. "What in god’s name is worth waking me at five am on a Sunday?"
He knew how to hook people and reel them in.
"Senator, when you told me once you wanted to be President of the United States one day, how serious were you?"
Chapter 24
Bubble
It had been a long day. Micah was bone tired, and broody as hell; the booster was wearing off early, aggravated by Lucidium withdrawal symptoms. His mind swirled with dark thoughts, like sharks circling, hunting bait-fish. He headed toward one of the high speed bubbles that wormed out of his building, to start the trek home, then slowed; the back of his neck tingled. He turned around, sure someone was following him. But all his eyes met was a flood of flushed, rush hour faces, irritated he had blocked the flow, delaying them a few precious seconds. Unable to pick anyone out from the crowd, he carried on and squeezed into the lozenge-shaped bu
bble that would flush him and his fellow commuters down to Kaymar Nexus. Just as the doors were closing, someone slipped in behind him.
It was so packed he couldn’t turn around. Hardly anyone ever spoke on the bubbles. Dismal music played, mercifully drowned out by the whooshing and rattling of the mass transit system kids aptly called the pea-shooter. Several teenage commuters wore I-vids – opaque sunglasses cradling their eye sockets, evanescent light patterns occasionally leaking out – seeking refuge outside of the present.
He felt eyes burning into the back of his head. A synthetic, incomprehensible female voice blurted out the name of the next station. Micah decided he was getting off, no matter what. The noise whined down and they jolted to a stop, the doors opening a little too early so that the person behind him stepped out. Micah twisted to see a bedraggled Antonia standing on the platform, eyes edgy, in amongst passengers trying to board. With an effort he carved through them and disembarked from the bubble, whose doors zipped shut, as it catapulted down the tunnel to its next destination. The bubble’s wake blew her skirt around her legs. He tried not to look.
There she stood, the girl of his dreams, right in front of him on the platform with its ebbing wash of people. Four minutes max before the next one.
He framed her – this pocket of time with its vanishing possibilities – in his mind.
"What are you doing?" she asked, a frown appearing on her forehead, like corrugated sand patterns after the tide has retired.
"Stealing a perfect moment."
Her eyes glared distrust.
