“Never mind your career, how will you keep these weapons safe from the Sons of the Vanitar? There were near misses in the past, when such devices nearly fell into the cult’s hands.”
“My personal authorization is required to launch them.”
Mykor nodded. “Against an enemy like whoever controls Caitanya-9, it’s the only possible method of deterrence. You need the ability to immediately put it down. If it gets off a single shot, that’s the end. But you there’s a price to pay, as you know.”
“Yes,” Sarkoth Amnon said. “No happy ending if we blow one of these things. A court of last resort, for sure.”
He’d been extensively briefed on the effects of detonating five hundred kilograms of antihydrogen. A lethal bubble of radiation expanding out through space. Anything inside the bubble would die. If Caitanya-9 appeared in close proximity to Terrus and Selene, they’d both need to be evacuated. And they couldn’t be evacuated. There was no way to get ten billion people off the planet in time.
If it came to that, so be it. Better to sacrifice Terrus and Selene and at least spare the billions living in the Asteroid Belt and beyond, the territory of Second Minister Raya Yithdras.
But the best solution was still deterrence.
The point of antimatter weapons, poetically enough, was that you didn’t have to use them. Their mere existence guaranteed that nobody would attack you.
Well, at least nobody with a normal functioning brain, Sarkoth Amnon, and that could be a problem.
“I’m glad you’re doing this,” Mykor said. “It’s what I would have done, in your place. Is there nothing else you want from me?”
“No.”
“Good. I confess I still don’t much like the sight of you. Let’s keep our encounters short and sweet, from now on. Nonexistent would be even better.”
“I’ll try to make my visits nonexistent for the right reason,” Sarkoth said, staring at the sky and the mysteries beyond. “This is a precarious spot to be in. I’m not caught between a rock and hard place, I’m caught between a gamma ray burst and an antimatter explosion. And at any point my old mentor might decide to end my life via the killswitch in my neck.”
Mykor sighed. “About that…keep it close to your chest, but I don’t think the killswitches work.”
Amnon had started to walk back to the Atrium, but he snapped his head around. “What?”
Mykor touched the faint scar on the back of his neck. “I have one too, remember. Why hasn’t it been used? Why am I still here talking to you.”
“It was presumed you were dead.”
“But I also could have been turned, or rebelled – which is exactly what happened! Surely the Sons of the Vanitar have some kind of black book policy that if they don’t hear from an agent in so many years, the killswitch is activated. Unless the killswitches are a sham, just a way to control people.”
Sarkoth thought about it. It was a good point.
He rubbed the gentle dimple at the back of his neck. He still remembered when the implant had been put in, the sudden sense of discipline and urgency he felt to get about his work, lest he be a disappointment to the old man. But the years past, the dimple grew shallower, and he forgot about it.
Perhaps now would be a good time to remember.
Mykor sat down. “Centuries ago, there was a group not unlike the Sons of the Vanitar, called Aum Shinrikyo. They spent many millions of dollars in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction - back then, humanity was confined to one planet, and nuclear weapons posed a persuasive risk to man's continual existence. Their leader was a man of strange inclinations, hiring orchestras to play 'astral compositions', and selling his bathwater and blood as instruments of spiritual enlightenment. But one of his smartest ideas was a metallic cap that he made his followers wear. It delivered six volts at regular intervals, so as to synchronize their brainwaves with his. Thus, he would read their thoughts, detect treason and heresy, and know their innermost secrets. An impressive method of control, don't you think?”
"Did the metal caps really work? Could he read their minds?"
"Why don't you go about your business, Sarkoth? You must have all manner of things to attend to, and I would rather be alone right now. But remember that shadows can be frightening even when there’s nothing to cast them."
Doom
Just Beyond Terrus – December 1, 2142 – 0000 hours
The first signs of the end were the ripples of ionizing radiation detected by Geiger-Muller stations on Mars.
At first they fluctuated well within normal limits. Then space ripped open.
Nearby satellites watched as a large bubble appeared, several kilometers across, it appeared to warp light around it. Within minutes, the bubble disappeared, leaving a bright and glowing object behind.
The object was on collision course with Terrus.
It was not a large one, perhaps a kilometer across, but it defied all categorization. It wasn’t spherical like a planet, but it wasn’t craggy and irregular like an asteroid.
When the first photographs came in, scientists could hardly believe their eyes.
It was a man-made space station. Three habitat wheels, connected by long metal struts. In an even more bizarre turn, it was identified as Konotouri Space Station, the colony that had orbited Caitanya-9.
It descended upon Terrus, homing in on the southern hemisphere. Its position was tracked, and missiles were armed in space, ready to shoot it out of the sky.
Second Minister Raya Yithdras ordered the missiles to stand down. There was something deeply peculiar going on here, and scientists wanted something more to study than fragments and vapours.
Despite the potential loss of life, it was allowed to collide.
It entered the atmosphere at Mach 16, three whirring disks of light that broke apart and separated, ending up hundreds of kilometers apart.
Konotouri Gamma disintegrated in the air, its wreckage scattered across the Simpson desert in Australia. Search parties found nothing notable in its remains.
Konotouri Beta struck just north of Sydney, near Newcastle. Powerful electromagnetic pulses annihilated much of the power grid. Military installations and other high-grade equipment were protected within Faraday cages, but all the civilian power went down. Neon-hued cities went dark. There was panic in the streets.
Konotouri Alpha was the densest piece of the station, and the best preserved upon impact. It plunged into the Tasman sea, a few kilometers off the coast of Australia. Like Konotouri Beta, it radiated massive levels of radiation, and there was concern about the stability of the local fisheries.
Salvage ships were deployed to the site, and it was hauled back to the surface and then to dry land. Within minutes, first responders hacked through the doors, and starting searching inside.
It was a man-made yet an alien landscape – twice filled with void: first that of space, then that of seawater. Men crawled inside, seeing touching and disturbing remnants of human life – a carpet worn thin in places roller chairs, computer terminals with the keys worn smooth by use. A loud thudding noise almost gave a young marine a heart attack, but it was only a flopping fish, trapped in a stairwell.
There were no people on board, alive or dead.
Already, the media was sniffing a story, and legitimate government officials were soon crowded out by journalists both public and independent.
Some reporters drew obvious parallels to Konotouri Station and Marie Celeste: the ship discovered drifting in the Azores without a soul on board.
But the comparison fell short in several areas. The Marie Celeste hadn’t crossed more than forty one trillion kilometers of space, undetected and unobserved, with no engine and no source of propulsion.
And the Marie Celeste hadn’t been the site of a recent and poorly documented military expedition, led by the same man who currently sat in the Prime Minister’s seat at the Atrium.
There was only one thing of interest found. It was in the control room.
Explorers kicked i
n the door, and found themselves in the central lobe of Konotouri's brain, the place where it was controlled and perhaps where men had made their last stand.
There was a message scratched on the aluminum wall. Two lines, in English.
SEE THE DIRT ON AMNON’S HANDS
HE HAS DUG BILLIONS OF GRAVES
Strapped to the strongest wall, wrapped in foam to protect it from the crash, was a ticking clock.
It was counting down to a date exactly 180 days in the future.
A clumsy attempt was made to bribe the cleanup crew into silence. It failed.
Riots engulfed the world. Soon Neo Tokyo, Neo Los Angeles, and Neo Mumbai were filled with the reverberations of shouting voices and sonic cannons. There was panic in the streets, in the country, in the highest levels of government.
The appearance of Konotouri Space Station violated the known laws of physics, and the message contradicted the official story of what had happened on Caitanya-9. And it destroyed forever the public's faith in Sarkoth Amnon.
The next day, the ominous message plastered on every news service and his administration drowning in bad press, Sarkoth Amnon gave a hastily written speech.
He employed a strange tactic: honesty.
This was the work of powers unknown, he said, and given the menacing nature of the message, it was reasonable to presume hostile intent.
It was an impressive speech, given how obviously drunk he was.
His next step was to declare a time of national emergency throughout the Solar Arm, authorizing the Executive Branch to seize massive control over spending.
The official budget was scrapped, and another one issued, greatly prioritizing defense. Buried in the trillion ducat spending spree were generous carve-outs for "high level strategic weapons": a vague euphemism that encompassed all sorts of things, some five decimal points apart in destructiveness.
With millions conscripted, and factories and ironworks opening in the asteroid belt, The Solar Arm was gripped with fear, both from the message and the sudden militarisation of the state.
When the next set of opinion polls were published, Sarkoth Amnon's Reformation Party was down to 11% favourability. Betting companies offered 12-1 odds that he would be voted out of the Atrium in the next election.
A leader working with a strong and united party might have turned the situation around, but soon rumors swirled about infighting within the Reformation Party. Loyal backbencher (and now Second Minister) Raya Yithdras was missing from important state functions. Important pieces of legislation were passed without her signature.
The Solar Arm was now at war with a phantom ghost, and led by a liar.
Six months.
The Atrium – Selene – December 2nd 2142, 1500 hours
Sarkoth Amnon received a netmail. It was one he’d been expecting, and dreading.
Meet me on Titan, or die. This is not negotiable.
Titan – December 3th 2142, 0800 hours
In Emil Gokla's mansion, Vante was a wan and pale shadow of himself, as if the essence he was transferring to Emil Gokla was hollowing him out like an empty sack. His eyes were surrounded by purple rings. His fingers and toes were going a mottled blue color.
He played holographic videogames listlessly in his room. Various people came and went at the mansion, some of them fabulously wealthy and important. Important state conversations were held, only one wall separate from him. He remembered none of it.
Emil Gokla's health was rapidly declining, and he needed far more regular infusions of blood than usual. His infrequent demands were now almost constant.
“Your bent back will lift me to heaven,” Emil had said, comforting the boy after a particularly taxing amount of blood had been drained. “Your stem cells, your plasma, your red blood cells…they’re of fantastic quality.”
Vaguely, through the thick fog that clouded his thoughts at all time, he heard a robotic voice speak.
“Prime Minister Sarkoth Amnon has arrived, sir,” a robotic voice said. “And he is alone.”
“Admit him.”
The ancient patriarch of the Black Shift corporation lay back in a recliner chair, staring at the center of the room where holographs were projected. Lines and veins criss-crossed his face in an ongoing war that his skin was losing.
The looming presence of Raya Yithdras stood in the background, her fingers steepled. They were waiting.
When the Prime Minister arrived, he looked only slightly healthier than Gokla. Events of the past few months were clearly grinding him away like sandstone.
I wouldn’t count on the next few months being less stressful, Gokla thought.
“Well, you have me here,” Sarkoth Amnon said. “So, talk. What could you possibly want to hear from me?”
“An explanation,” Raya said. “That’s all. Just talk, and this will all be resolved to our mutual satisfaction. Something happened on that planet that you’re hiding from us.”
Amnon tried to get a read on Emil’s face. It was carved from stone.
“I cannot explain the appearance of the Space Station, if that’s the topic you’re trying to steer me on to.”
“Damn it, Sarkoth,” she said, “we don’t expect you to explain the mysteries of the universe. Just tell us what you remember.”
“What I remember is that the planet disappeared while I was waiting in orbit to land. How many more times do I need to say this? You’re raking for muck that isn’t there.”
Emil shook his face, like a father disappointed at his son.
“Second Minister Yithdras lied to you,” he said. “This can’t be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of everyone involved. You are obfuscating us. Blocking us. Withholding critical information from the Sons of the Vanitar that we need to achieve our goals. I want answers, but to tell the truth, you would have been far wiser to give them three months ago.”
“You own Black Shift,” Sarkoth Amnon said. “You have access to my memories. Why don’t you load them into someone’s blank head, and question them?”
“I cannot do that, you fool,” Emil Gokla said. “Memories end up hopelessly garbled when loaded into the wrong person. The brain and the memory have to match.”
“You need me alive, and your threat to kill me is a hollow joke,” Sarkoth Amnon said. “I’ve made my feelings on you very clear, Emil. Once, I considered the Sons of the Vanitar’s cause to be honorable. Now, I don’t. Any help I render to you will assist in something I now find reprehensible. So tell me this, even if I’m lying, what is my motive to ever help you?”
Gokla tapped the edge of his chair with a wizened finger. “Oh, this is good. You think we need to keep you alive? Not at all, in fact, you being alive makes our position worse at the nonce. We believe Caitanya-9 to be a weapon that could end humanity. You’re putting policy in place to neutralize the effectiveness of that weapon. How successful you’ll be, we can only guess. It would be extremely handy for us if you just fell over dead right now.”
“Then do it,” Sarkoth Amnon said. “Activate the killswitch in my neck.”
Emil Gokla didn’t move. Titan was covered in several kilometers of frozen methane that wasn’t even half as icy as his stare.
“Go on, press the button,” Sarkoth snarled. “Solve your problem.”
Emil still didn’t move.
“It will look like a stress-induced heart attack. Easily covered up, and even if it isn’t, you won’t be long for life either,” Sarkoth said. “Do it. Kill me.”
After a full thirty seconds passed, Sarkoth laughed.
“As I thought. You were bluffing. The killswitches don’t work. You’ve been manipulating us all these years with harmless dummy implants.”
Emil Gokla just studied him, as if he was a small and repulsive insect.
“Why can’t you leave things well enough alone?” Sarkoth said. “I’ve renounced my membership in your cult, but I’ve gone no further. I haven’t tried to arrest any of you for the litany of crimes you’ve committed. I haven’t expo
sed you to the light of day. I know that you’ll go along your way, and eventually die, which will be a mercy, because none of your successors have the drive to keep your organization going and you’d otherwise have to watch it rot from the inside out. Nothing you’ve ever tried has worked, and that’s the only thing that’s saved you from me. You’re the teeth between the stars, are you? Unfortunately, all I see is gums.”
“We do have something that will work,” Raya said. “Caitanya-9 returns in six months.”
“If it does, I have anti-planetary weapons that can thwart it.”
“Yes. The factories you’ve opened up on my territories. I’ve put out inquiries, and I know what you’re doing. Whether these weapons would work is irrelevant, if I decide to thwart you.”
Sarkoth Amnon shook his head. “You can’t, Raya. You’re my Second Minister. Everything you do needs my signature on it. Everyone else in the Sons of the Vanitar falls into the category of businessperson, socialite, and low-level politician. I was the highest-positioned person the cult had, and with me, you’ve blown your chance. Perhaps my political career is over, but my works will last beyond my horizon. Once my antimatter missile shield is built and stationed out to the Oort Cloud, it will be there indefinitely.”
Emil Gokla nodded to Raya Yithdras, and she touched the cuff of her nanomesh computer suit.
It glowed green. She was accessing a data file.
“Treason’s a tricky word,” she said. “Usually it’s defined as aiding and abetting an enemy in times of war. Myself, I prefer a broader definition: causing great harm to a country, even when no threat is present. And there’s perhaps a few judges that would agree with me.”
A document leaped from the computer in her suit, expanding into a bright holograph in the center of the room. Sarkoth Amnon tried to read it, and realized from his time with the Solar Arm Constabulary that he was looking at a crime scene analysis.
“Remember that psychotic truck driver who murdered all those people and sabotaged the Solar Arm Ark?” Raya said. “What does it say about our times that that has been forgotten so quickly. Procedural work is slow, especially for an area so disastrously irradiated, but we’re beginning to see clues that might explain his motivations.”
Extinction Level Event (The Consilience War Book 2) Page 15
