by Brian Trent
The IPC later told him it was a strange talent for analysis. Machine intelligences like those at Avalon were unequalled in their ability to calculate yet they lacked this intuitive skill. If computerized thought was a great topography of data, then asymmetricals like Gethin were the irrational bubbles in quantum foam. They were the wormholes in neat glass blocks of holographic logic.
The water lapped delicately at his ears.
Gethin let his mind unspool and reach out for what was available.
Kenneth Cavor’s death.
Burned in the base explosion.
Brought to Tycho Hospital.
Burned again…this time to cinders.
Possibility: Prometheus Industries had been conducting illicit experiments that literally blew up in their faces. Now they were in rabid cover-up mode. Witnesses had been conveniently killed. The sole survivor had been rushed to a Promethean hospital where, surprise, surprise! he had been murdered.
But how?
Working with Officer Terry, Gethin had probed the hospital’s entire ventilation system. Nothing unusual was found, except for signs of intense heat through four meters of length leading to Cavor’s room. So what the hell did that mean?
The assassin had come through the vents.
It didn’t matter that the vent shaft was far too small for even a child to crawl into; assassins didn’t have to be human. And whatever it was, it came packing heat.
Scuttling through the maze of ventilation shafts, the assassin powers up its weapon with only four meters to reach the grill, and the activated heat source is so strong that it causes instant topical damage to the metal. The camera is cut by some electromagnetic pulse. Cavor is burned to cinders, the only witness rendered down to scorched meat and melted bone…
Gethin gave a lazy backstroke in the water.
With Cavor dead, the assassin must have retreated back into the vents. The probe’s findings actually suggested that the shaft had been twice subjected to intense heat. From there the trail evaporated.
Maybe the assassin had evaporated.
Gethin had seen IPC files on constructs and chimeras designed to self-destruct after making a lethal strike. Biological chimeras could be induced to putrefaction within several hours. Other, theoretical entities might be constructed of shape-memory alloys. Strong as oak one moment, jelly the next.
Gethin sighed in frustration, considering the full gravity of the problem. Once he figured out how Cavor had been destroyed, he still needed to deduce who had wanted the man dead.
Prometheus Industries?
A Promethean competitor?
Both likely. When historians sang of the three-hundred-year Pax Apollonia, they conveniently ignored that humanity’s belligerent instincts had merely retreated to the shadows. And things were going to get worse; Gethin and other analysts had long ago reported to the IPC that the fiercely divided Asteroid Federation would become the force to reckon with within fifty years. His own father, now stationed in Drop Town on Ceres, wrote to him of the violence happening out there.
Aboard the shuttle and backstroking in virtual meditation, Gethin sighed deeply and felt his chest constrict in anxiety. On some level he was still disturbed by his death and resurrection. He didn’t want to dwell on that. Didn’t want to think of his scattered atoms in space. The loss of his real body.
Like Kenneth Cavor.
Scorched into oblivion.
Gethin closed his eyes again. Immolation as if by divine fire. It seemed a biblical thing, something Outland folk would discuss around oil-barrel fires. Or even more classical than that: Kenneth as Icarus, who flew too close to a sun; as Actaeon, who witnessed Artemis bathing and got torn apart by his own mitochondrial hounds; mortal flesh crawling off bone in the presence of Zeus’ unclothed radiance.
“He’s guilty.”
It came to him like a spear of white light. Cavor was an insider. Perhaps he had been responsible for the incident himself, hiding away in the bathroom when it happened. It had blown up in his face, burned him horribly but left him alive…left him to be repaired in a snug hospital bed. But then the gorgon came back for him. It returned to finish the job.
Gethin twisted in the water, breaststroked to the pool edge, and pulled himself up. The golden sun drew his shadow on the mosaic tiles at his feet. He returned to the palace and entered a dim temple annex. The walls were pockmarked by hieroglyphs, but with a wave of his hand he turned them as smooth as new clay.
With a flick of his fingers, a falcon feather pen appeared in his hand. He began committing ideas to clay as he went.
Who had destroyed Base 59?
If Flight 3107 had been the exclusive target, Gethin might have suspected the radical isolationists known as MarsAlone. If the target had been Republic or IPC property, he would have pointed an accusatory finger at StrikeDown.
But neither group had gripes with Prometheus.
In fact, Prometheus Industries was actively embraced by certain groups and demographics. The IPC had outlawed interstellar colonization, after all, but Prometheus Industries looked forward to tomorrow’s cosmic colonizations. They openly dreamed of an age when it was human seedships, not probes, which could be investigating other systems. Despite frontierist gains in the Senate, despite the identification of at least three habitable worlds in the nearby Ra System only a few light-years away, the IPC wouldn’t budge on the subject.
No extrasolar colonization. End of debate. Full stop.
Then, just fifty years ago, a Chinese astrophysicist named Meng Cheng published a theoretical paper on fusion ignition of low-mass celestial bodies. The ability to create goddamn stars.
Not real stars, of course, but the next best thing. And the frontierists went wild, because here was the chance to light the deepworlds with their own illumination. Here was the chance to build a Trans Neptunian Outpost – the most massive artificial construction ever created – with its own mini-suns to light up the dark edges of the solar system like a great lantern in a cave. It would spark a new wave of colonization to the deeps. And once there, once perched on the very edge of the solar system…was there any way to stop progress out of the system? To the far shores of the galaxy at last?
The frontierists had naturally thrown their lobbying power behind the TNO project. Prometheus Industries outbid all others to snag the contract to build it. Frontierists were the last people who would sabotage anything connected to that.
But the IPC might do it…
Gethin dismissed his feather pen. The walls of the cave were now covered with his own scribblings.
The IPC might do it.
“No,” he said aloud. The IPC wouldn’t risk open war with Prometheus. Surely not. Even with formidable battleships at their disposal, there was no telling what the outcome of such a war would be. It would be a crapshoot on an interplanetary scale. The return of open war after three hundred years of peace.
Gethin logged off from his Cave and found himself again on the shuttle as it hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere, towards the North American landmass.
The IPC might do it.
Chapter Ten
Arrival at Babylon Arcology
The arcology’s East Bay doors slid open like a magical wall. Rain spilled in front of the breach. Jack Saylor stood alongside a landing pad, breathing the fragrant air of foodpods growing green and yellow and red along the overhead support struts, as the IPC transport cruised in. He watched the rain separate around its nose and fly apart from the force of the wingrotors. The shuttle glided, dripping, to land on Pad Five.
Almost at once the door slid open. A black-haired, green-eyed man came down the debarkation stairs.
“Gethin Bryce?” Jack asked.
His first impression was that this IPC officer looked decidedly the non-arcology type. Something edgy and feral about his movements, the way his emerald eyes registered the landin
g bay as if it were a battleground to be subdued. He was dressed in a starchy gray jumpsuit that looked like it had been bought off the rack.
“Jack Saylor, sector chief,” Jack said, extending a hand.
Gethin had to crane his neck to meet Saylor’s eyes. “Too bad.”
“Excuse me?”
“The standard corporate practice in dealing with authorities is to send a mid-level assistant. You take me on a vanilla road through smoke and mirrors. I won’t expect that from a sector chief.”
Saylor froze at this bristly manner. “Certainly not, Mr. Bryce. The IPC will find us cooperative, of course.”
The bay doors squealed shut.
Gethin glanced around. The arcology had four bays on each side of the ziggurat. They probably all smelled like this one: an uneasy combination of new plastic, black soil, and vegetables. His small shuttle looked vulnerable beside the other aircraft.
But it wasn’t the smell of the place that was bothering him. It was Earth’s gravity. On Luna he’d weighed just over thirty pounds. Here, his full Terran weight of a hundred and eighty pounds was tugging on his stomach, limbs, neck, and lungs. His muscles felt like bags of lead dust. His sore joints pinched and groaned.
He followed Saylor to the check-in terminal. The officers there were two of the most stunningly beautiful women Gethin had ever seen. One was a raven-haired goddess with blue eyes and killer legs. Her uniform fit her a little too well and he tried not to stare. The other was blond and incredibly voluptuous.
“Welcome to Prometheus Industries Babylon,” the darker woman said sweetly.
“Thank you,” Gethin managed. He pressed his fingertip to the screen and waited for the biometric scan to clear him.
“Do you have any Familiars to declare?”
“Two.”
“Enjoy your stay, Mr. Bryce.”
Once past the booth, Gethin silently commanded Ego to latch onto the local database.
To his escort, he asked, “Is that standard practice? Helen of Troy greeters at the air terminal?”
Jack laughed. “That’s just a coincidence. Janice and Olga happen to be very striking employees.”
“How long have you worked for Prometheus?”
“Sixteen years.”
“All of them in Babylon?”
“No,” Jack said. They took an escalator down to an airy, flowering atrium. A faceless marble colossus stood there, feet slightly apart, one hand at his side and the other outstretched to the stars. The Prometheus Industries logo twirled on his chest.
“Where else were you stationed?” Gethin persisted.
“Boston. Then Memphis.”
Gethin nodded, his Ego crosschecking all this and more: Jack Saylor was thirty-four, married once, had an eleven-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son, and was now divorced as a result of his wife committing adultery while on assignment in Scotland’s World Tree arcology. She had custody of both their children; the judge had not looked kindly on Jack’s all-encompassing Promethean responsibilities and ruled that the mother would provide a more stable upbringing.
At the bottom of the escalator, they took the people-mover into a crowded galleria, the main agora of the arcology. The volume of bodies was incredible. It took Gethin a moment to realize what felt out of place: children. There were so few he could count them on one hand. Every direction he looked revealed adults. Youthful, or aged to calculated maturity. But an adult-only club, really, unlike Mars, where the cities crawled with screaming toddlers or wide-eyed pubescents. The younger generation was already…changing too. Martian gravity encouraged a beanpole look, with legs like stilts and long, swinging arms, graceful necks, torsos stretched like a troop of gingerbread men pinched at the waist to achieve an elongated look. Funhouse mirror people. Gethin shivered.
“When will Kenneth Cavor be revived?” Gethin inquired.
“He’ll be ready in five hours,” Jack said.
Gethin noted the time and, with a quick motion of his fingers, set a timer to alert him when 0400 rolled around. “Where will he be?”
“Level 244 has a regen center.”
“Your Lunar employees are revived on Earth?”
“Always.”
“I would think that would be inconvenient.”
Jack shrugged. “It’s protocol. We don’t often lose employees in mysterious explosions on the moon, so when accidents happen we like to know why. They revive planetside and submit to a query team, and there’s usually a waiting period before he or she is sent up again. Standard procedure.”
“I’m guessing your deepworld employees don’t come back on Earth.”
“No. Mars takes care of its own. Ceres has its own regen center and they handle deaths in the Jovian and Saturnian Leagues too.”
Gethin nodded. “And Venus?”
Jack gave him a look. “We don’t have a presence on Venus.”
“But surely your employees travel for pleasure. If they die there…”
“Then they return there. No point inconveniencing a vacation.” Jack swallowed, thinking of his daughter. The last time they spoke, she was excited about spending a year in the Venusian Republic’s floating colonies. Dad! she had said over the comlink, radiating the kind of energy that is the domain of bright-eyed children whose sense of what is possible has yet to be blunted by reality’s grimmer, ugly machinations. I might be going to Venus! Ms. Mujahid said they’re only taking three students from my school, and I’m top-block in my class! Oh I really really really want to go! My webfriends Vertonia and Orchid are applying, they’re in Spain and Italy, you know, we could have the BEST year if we all went! Ishtar has this HUGE shopping center! I miss you, Dad! Can you come visit soon?
Jack walked abreast of the IPC investigator with a heavy heart. Without warning, Gethin turned off the path into a busy shanty shop where the mixed crowd drank coffees and Malaysian teas at lapis tables, or pawed over a clothing bazaar’s racks.
Gethin spoke to Jack without looking at him. “I need a complete list of everything that was in Base 59. Every item from coffeepots to pornomods. The IPC has a team screening the debris, so please make sure your list is thorough.”
Jack nodded. “Done.”
“And I want to be there when Cavor comes back. As soon as he’s conscious.”
Jack thought over the logistics of this request. It was necessary. The higher-ups would simply have to agree. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“That makes two of us.” Gethin was already expecting evasion when it came to the Base 59 inventory. “The other two employees, Mr. and Mrs. Judith Merril. I understand they’re already revived, walking around.”
“I’ll take you to them now. We put them up in the corporate hotel, Level 314.”
* * *
Gethin expected the couple would be unhelpful and, five minutes into the interview, his suspicions were confirmed.
The Merrils made a strange pairing. The husband, Marco, was a squat, dark-haired fellow with hands like a child; everything about him seemed soft and delicate. Judith was a blond Amazon: tall (though not nearly approaching Jack Saylor’s stature) long-necked, and strong-limbed. Facing them, Gethin had the impression of speaking to a mother and son.
Naturally, the problem was they didn’t remember anything. Gethin amped all his sniffer programs to their highest level as he conducted his inquiry. He measured vocal stress patterns, pupil dilation, body temperature, muscle twitches, eye movements. In three minutes he knew far more about the Merrils than he ever wanted to: Marco was a mewling submissive, while Judith was a sexual predator with a hardcore control fetish. It had been a month since their last Save, and though all research notes were safely backed up, the Merrils couldn’t relate what happened the night of the explosion.
“At least our notes were recovered,” Judith explained, and she handed Gethin a smartboard. Her voice had the
edged, caustic undertone of a jaded schoolteacher. “We were getting ready to present for the mid-month conference.”
“When was that going to be?”
“Tomorrow.”
Gethin sifted through the files. The last entry of the daily log was written by Judith herself, just nineteen minutes before the explosion:
Please see embedded virtual test results. JM
Gethin inserted his finger into the smartboard’s port to download the data directly to his sensorium. “What was the subject of the presentation?”
“Storage cathodes.”
“For what?”
“We were designing a cathode rail for the Ceres labs,” she said with a trace of impatience.
“What kind of cathode?”
“Experimental.”
Gethin laughed coldly. “Mrs. Merril, do you really want to play games with me?”
She blinked. “Excuse me, Mr. Bryce?”
“What the fuck kind of storage cathodes were you developing? What was being stored in them? A direct answer will suffice!”
Her eyes grew in righteous offense. She shot an angry glance to her husband, and he looked ready to spring up to defend her. A well-trained attack dog, Gethin thought. He even caught a glimpse of leash marks around Marco’s neck.
Gethin stayed the husband with a glare. “I’m bound by IPC protocol not to divulge protected intellectual property,” he added. “This is a formal investigation of an interplanetary tragedy. Dispense with the stonewalling. What was there?”
“An experimental cathode rail,” Judith repeated, though this time there was a waver in her voice.
“For what?”
She hesitated. “Mr. Bryce? You’re an investigator, not a journalist. You are not prone to sensationalism.”
“That would be a fair assessment.”
“Good. The rail is meant to store exotic matter.”
