That just left his job. He worked in factory 8. At his orientation class he learned it contained three assembly bays. He considered that ordinary enough. Then they told him their size: cylindrical chambers twenty-five meters in diameter and thirty-five high. They were lined by a hundred plyplastic tool arms, and twenty heavy lift manipulators; up to a hundred and fifty engineeringbots could be deployed inside at any one time. The construction operation was supervised by an array loaded with RI-level software.
“You’re building starships,” Liz told him when he got back home after his first exhausting twelve-hour shift. “Everyone in town says it.”
“Yeah, but they’re not for the navy. The assembly bays are putting together complete compartments; that’s why they’re so large and complex. These are like spheres that have six airlocks. All you have to do is stack them together on top of a hyperdrive section, and you can have any size ship you want. It’s the ultimate in modular design concept.”
“What’s in the compartments?”
“Factory eight is doing suspension tanks,” he said.
“Damnit. I bet they’re evacuation ships. I had the placement office call me today and ask if I’d like to work in a team designing state-of-the-art genetic agronomy laboratories. You know what that means?”
“Modifying terrestrial crops to grow in alien soil.”
Liz sucked on her lower lip. “Sheldon’s going to leave if we lose the war,” she said with grim admiration. “He’ll probably take most of his Dynasty with him. How many suspension tanks are in the compartments?”
“A hundred each. We’re receiving all the major subcomponents already integrated; with the exception of the hull and the life-support systems, most of it is standard commercially available hardware. The assembly bays just plug all the pieces together. There’s a lot of development gone into this. It would have taken a long time, even with advanced design software. I think he’s been planning this since before the invasion.”
“A hundred per compartment?” she mused. “That’s a big ship.”
“Very. Factory eight is churning out six completed compartments a week. Some of the other factories are just packaging industrial cybernetics for long-term storage. You’ve seen how many trucks are using the highway; they’re shipping all the completed compartments out somewhere.”
“Six a week, in one factory? That’s…” She half closed her eyes as she did some multiplication. “Jesus damn! How big are these ships? He must be planning on taking a whole planet with him.”
“If you’re intending to establish a high-technology civilization from scratch, you need a lot of equipment, and a decent population base.”
She put her arms around him. “Do we get to go, too?”
“I don’t know.”
“We need to find out, baby. We really do.”
“Hey, come on; this is just a rich man’s paranoia. The Commonwealth’s a long way from falling to the Primes.” Mark stroked her back, moving gently down her spine the way she liked.
“Then we should get paranoid, too. If we do lose, what would happen to Sandy and Barry? We’ve seen the Primes firsthand, Mark. They don’t give a fuck for humans; we’re lower than pond scum to them.”
“All right, I’ll ask around. Someone at the factory should know. Hey, did I tell you, old Burcombe is one of the managers. He’ll probably tell me.”
“Thanks, baby, I know I’m a pain to live with sometimes.”
“Never.” He held her closer. “I don’t know where they’re putting these ships together. It has to be in orbit, but I’ve not seen anything here. Not that I’ve really looked, but anything that large would show up like a small moon.”
“It could be anywhere within a hundred light-years. Hell, that asteroid of Ozzie’s was a perfect place to use as a shipyard, ultra top secret and habitable. You could house a cityful of people in there and barely notice them.”
***
The cloud had thickened up in the Regents, bringing with it a cloying sleet riddled with slender hailstones. Morton could hear them striking his armor suit, a constant tattoo of crackling to complement his feet as they squelched through tacky slush.
It was slow going back up the mountain to the saddle. The human survivors from Randtown were all riding in the bubbles, which could tackle the terrain easily, while the remaining members of Cat’s Claws simply walked up in their armor. That left the alien who claimed to be Dudley Bose. It didn’t have any kind of clothing to protect its pale skin. Bose said its body would work in the cold, but with difficulty. So they had to drape it in blankets and scraps of cloth, then hang sheets of plastic on top to protect it from the worst of the weather. Even so, the creature couldn’t move fast up the muddy slope.
It took most of the night just to reach the cloud level, and that was taking a direct route up from the cave. After that they had to follow the contour line along to the saddle where their equipment was stored.
They detected flyers patrolling the lake below, but none ventured close to the mountains and their treacherous downdrafts and microswirls.
When they finally reached the saddle, they took refuge in one of the deep crevices.
Rob opened some of the packs Parker and the Doc had brought with them. “Try these on,” he told the three standing refugees, handing around clothes. “A lot of it is semiorganic, it’ll shape itself to you.”
“Thank you,” Simon said gravely. “I am sorry we never got to know your friends.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Rob turned away and knelt down beside David Dunbavand. The man had improved considerably during the bubble ride: some color had returned to his skin, and his feverish sweating had subsided. “How’re you doing?”
“Okay. The drive up was kind of interesting, the bits I remember, anyway. Those biovirals: it’s like drinking a gallon of champagne cocktails.”
“Your leg’s stabilizing,” Rob said as he ran the diagnostic array up and down the man. “Looking good.”
“Thanks.”
“How about you?” Morton asked the Bose motile.
“This body is sluggish but functional. Prime motiles suffer some degradation in the cold, but they are more resistant than humans.” The polythene and blanket swaddling was covered in a thin layer of muddy slush. It was unwinding them one at a time, dropping them on the rocky floor. The array it was using to speak through was held in the pincers of one arm. “May I eat, please?”
“Sure.” All three of Cat’s Claws had carried plastic pouches full of lake water up the mountain. Bose said it was thick with base cells, the main food of the aliens. There were also containers full of cakelike vegetation, resembling shredded seaweed. It had built up quite a little stash in the ruined house in anticipation of repatriation.
They had all listened to Bose’s story on the climb. How he and Verbeke had been captured in the Watchtower; their imprisonment and death, the download of his personal store into an immotile unit. He provided a fascinating insight into the nature of the threat the Commonwealth was facing—one that Morton and the others found uniquely disturbing. They were being invaded purely with genocide in mind. That MorningLightMountain was psychologically unable to grasp the concept of compromise, let alone sharing a universe with any other life-form. Maybe Doc Roberts and Parker had the right of it, Morton thought. This is a fight to the death.
“Shouldn’t be long till we get you back to a hospital now,” Rob told David. “The navy will be opening a wormhole right away when they find out we’ve got Bose with us.”
Morton faced them all. “I’m not sure we should tell the navy,” he said.
The Cat laughed with delight.
“You’re kidding, right?” Rob said.
“No.”
“Okay, so you want to tell us why not?”
“Mellanie said the navy can’t be trusted. Apparently there’s some big political struggle going on in the Senate with the Dynasties and Grand Families.”
“What total bullshit,” Rob said.
“
Are you talking about Mellanie Rescorai?” Simon asked. “The reporter?”
Mandy let out a snort of disbelief. “Her!”
“Yes,” Morton said.
“How is not telling the navy going to help the Commonwealth?” Simon asked.
“I’m not saying we don’t ever tell them,” Morton said. “I just want to know what the implications are before we do.”
“How do you propose finding out, exactly?” Rob asked. There was a dangerous edge to his voice.
“Mellanie arranged for encoded messages to be included in the recordings I send to the Michelangelo show. She’ll be able to tell us if it’s safe.”
“Safe!” Rob grunted. “Man, you are paranoid!”
“Look, one day isn’t going to make any difference,” Morton said reasonably. “We’re perfectly safe here. We have to wait until the Randtown force field is expanded anyway. So just humor me.”
“Shit!” Rob gave the Cat an angry stare. “What do you say?”
“Me? I think it’s hilarious, darling. Do it, Morty, screw the navy over. Gets my vote.”
“For what it’s worth,” Simon said, “I trust Mellanie.”
“How can you?” Mandy demanded. “The little bitch was wrecking our town and everything we stood for, your ideals. The whole Commonwealth hated us because of her.”
“She saved us, though, didn’t she?” Simon said gently. “Surely that is penance enough?”
“Something happened here,” the Bose motile said. Everybody turned to look at it. “This is where MorningLightMountain came up against the SI, the only time they clashed during the whole invasion. That is why I chose Randtown as my return point to the Commonwealth; the SI has some kind of presence here.”
“Had,” Morton said. “It had a presence here. Mellanie works for the SI.”
“Ah,” Simon said. For the first time in weeks, he actually smiled. “I always wondered how she achieved all she did.”
“Your girlfriend is some kind of agent for the SI?” an incredulous Rob asked. “That…that…bimbo?”
“Hey,” Morton growled.
The Cat was laughing again. “Oh, this is fabulous. Thank you so much, Morty.”
Morton gave Rob a level gaze. “So do I tell the navy or not?”
Rob glanced around at everyone, then gave the stationary motile a long stare. “What the fuck. Do what you like for now, Morton. But after we set off the nuke your girl had better provide one hell of a reason not to tell the navy what we’ve got. That’s how long she’s got.”
***
Mark and Liz spent the evening in their living room, sharing a bottle of wine and accessing the final moments of Randtown. It was Ulon Valley wine. His e-butler’s search program had found a supplier on Lyonna who had a few bottles left; it was an extortionate price, and then there was the premium same-day shipping charge to MoZ Express couriers on top of that. But what else could you drink while you watched a nuclear explosion obliterate your old hometown?
Mellanie had joined Michelangelo in his studio for the report. She marked the sobriety of the occasion by wearing a long black dress with a panel skirt that fell open to show off her beautiful legs. Her hair had been pulled back from her forehead into a thick, wavy tail. Michelangelo sat behind his desk like a minor Greek god in a sharp blue suit. The sexual tension between them was so strong that anyone using full-band TSI to access the show could almost smell the pheromones they were both pumping out into the studio air.
It certainly gave Mark some uncomfortable reminders of that day he’d encountered her up at the blockade in the Dau’sing Mountains.
“You were there during the evacuation,” Michelangelo was saying. “What’s your response to this?”
“It was inevitable. I really enjoyed my time in Randtown. The people were a bit quirky, we all know that, but seeing the images of what the Primes had done to the town and the Trine’ba was just devastating to me. They got what they deserved. I only hope the other navy squads are equally effective.”
“You say effective, but they lost two of their members on their first deployment. This remarkable recording, exclusive to our show, reveals the desperate odds our navy troops on the ground are facing.”
The picture changed from the studio to a grainy image of a mountainside in the middle of the night, a composite of various sensor feeds, producing a monochrome image. It was centered on Randtown, with the force field shining like a phosphorescent pearl above the familiar shoreline. The tactical nuclear bomb went off, flooding the interior with light. For a brief second the force field held, containing the explosion. Then it failed, and the mushroom cloud climbed up out of a seething pool of darkness.
“There really is no going back now,” Mark said solemnly.
Liz raised her glass. “To not looking back.”
“Amen.”
They stayed accessed for a while longer, while Mellanie eulogized about the squads that the navy had sent out. There were other recordings that Morton had made. Reconnoiter of Randtown and the aliens. The heroic last stand Doc Roberts and Parker made against the flyers. Simon Rand and the other refugees. She and Michelangelo discussed the navy strategy.
Mark’s e-butler told him someone was approaching the front door.
“At this hour?” Liz asked.
The house array showed them an image of Giselle Swinsol standing outside.
“Oh, Jesus,” Mark complained. “Now what?” He kept having guilty thoughts about all those insistent questions he’d been asking at work.
Giselle came straight into the living room, and refused the offer of a drink. She didn’t sit, either. “You’ve been asking a lot of questions, Mark,” she said. It was an accusation.
Mark was determined not to be intimidated by her tough-bitch personality. “I’m working on a fascinating project; obviously I’m curious. But I can appreciate that Nigel Sheldon doesn’t want the Commonwealth to know about it. You can rely on me.”
“Very good, Mark. The answer to your dreadfully unsubtle question is: yes, you and your family are entitled to a berth on the lifeboats should we face annihilation here.”
“Thank you.” It came out with such a heartfelt sigh he immediately felt ashamed. Once again she’d proved the strongest.
Her glossed lips curved up slightly, acknowledging her position. “So, you now advance to level two.”
“What does that mean?” Liz asked suspiciously.
“It means that Mark has done such a good job here that we feel his kind of expertise is better suited to other, more critical sections of the project.”
“What sections?” he blurted.
“Starship assembly. Pack your bags. The bus will pick you up tomorrow at eight o’clock.”
“We’re moving?” Liz said in alarm. “But the children have only just settled in school.”
“Their next school is just as good.”
“Where is it?” Mark asked. “Where are the evacuation starships being built?”
“Classified.” Giselle gave Liz a small smirk. “You’ll enjoy this next part. It’s right up your street.”
“Cow,” Liz hissed when she’d left.
Mark looked around the living room, the nearly empty bottle, the one big indentation on the couch where they’d snuggled up together. He had felt really comfortable in this house. “I don’t suppose they’ll move us again after this.”
“Only to the other side of the galaxy, baby.”
***
MORTY, DO NOT INFORM THE NAVY YOU HAVE THE MOTILE CONTAINING BOSE’S MEMORIES. ANY INFORMATION ON MORNINGLIGHTMOUNTAIN IS TOO IMPORTANT TO RISK TO POSSIBLE CORRUPTION.
I HAVE THE RE-LIFED BOSE WITH ME. HE SHOULD RECEIVE THE MEMORIES. THAT WAY HE WILL BE ABLE TO INTERPRET THEM IN THEIR CORRECT SEQUENCE. AFTER THAT WE CAN DECIDE HOW TO PROCEED.
I WILL MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO EXTRACT YOU FROM ELAN. UNTIL THEN, KEEP THE BOSE MOTILE AND THE REFUGEES SAFE.
MELLANIE.
“I have been re-lifed?” the Bose motile asked.
“Mellanie had a wormhole opened to us once before,” Simon said. “She can probably do it again.”
“Probably ain’t good enough, friend.” Rob pointed at the Bose motile.
“This is our ticket out of here.”
“To what?” Morton asked. “If she’s right about the navy, we’re not going to help the Commonwealth by giving them this information.”
“Oh, listen to yourself. The Commonwealth navy is the Bad Guy? Get real. They’re the only hope we’ve got. Your girl is trying to build her career by chasing phantoms. She’s a goddamn reporter, one of the biggest turds in the galaxy. Tell the navy we’ve got Bose at the next wormhole opening. Get us out of here.”
“She works for the SI. She can do this. Trust her.”
“Bullshit.”
“Question,” the Cat said. She was sitting in Full Diamond position on the floor of the fissure, clad in a simple leotard, seemingly immune to the cold.
“Morton, when you sent your encrypted message, did you mention MorningLightMountain by name?”
“No.”
The Cat changed to King Cobra position with simple lithe movements. As she did she gave Rob a sly smile. “How did a conspiracy theorist nut find out its name all by herself?”
Rob’s defiant expression crumpled. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ; fuck-it-up Rob strikes again. I always get the shit assignments. Always. We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”
“Yep.”
“I have been re-lifed?” the Bose motile repeated.
“Yes,” Morton said.
“And I am dating a beautiful young media reporter?”
“Apparently so, yes.”
“Tell him the rest of it, Morty, my dear,” the Cat said with a smirk. “Mellanie is a complete sex maniac.”
“I would very much like to meet me.”
***
The star system was on the border between phase one and two space, eight light-years from the Big15 world of Granada. CST had examined it once, and immediately moved on. The M-class star presided over a meager realm of two planets: one small solid world no larger than Earth’s moon, and a Saturn-size gas giant orbited by a dozen moons. As far as habitability was concerned it rated an easy zero. Nobody had ever returned.
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