by Tim Dennis
More people in the Car started to pay attention. The woman continued to fuss. "I suppose they're calling everyone in, what with all this earth business. I heard they're backward. Yup. Never recovered from the diasporas."
"But what about that ship? It's more advanced than anything we have." A neatly dressed young man seated on the other side of the car joined in.
The woman reached into her bag. "Now you stand still, I've got something here."
The thin man standing next to Mallick watched the woman remove from her purse a package of nested rubbery cups, selecting one of a certain size and holding it against Mallick's wound. Mallick tensed his shoulders and twisted his head around. "Face front." The woman said. Mallick turned back. "There you go."
"I don't think he's even from Earth." Said the woman's tall companion. "He was on Legong Digest again. Looked taller and much paler even than Central-Command Beetles, probably been in that ship for decades. I'm guessing he's from another colony, one that launched after us."
"Pink, dear," said the woman. "Pale means colorless, he was definitely pink. Ish."
"That doesn't mean he's not allied to Earth." The young dandy retorted.
"He's a colonial!" Shouted an unseen voice from the far end of the Cab.
"There are colonials, and then there are Colonials, if you know what I mean." Said the Thin Man as he held Mallick's collar, aiding the woman's efforts. The woman applied light pressure to the cup.
"What about that Advocate?" She said, "taking him down to Caldera like that."
The woman looked at her work with pride." Ooh, those poor people on Caldera, first the flood, then this off-worlder, and now the Shuttle Station. You know, they say an old man did it. Imagine that? An old man!"
Mallick froze, the argument about the Earth man paused while the participants turned their attention to him.
"Ha! Oh well, what can I say? You've got me!" Mallick forced a smile and held out his hands for cuffing. The crowd laughed and went back to the Earth-man-not-Earth-man debate.
"Well, that won't happen again," said her accomplice, "not with Krykowfert on the job."
Cokely sat in the back of Midgfet's hacked Cab, balancing the Maker over the back with one hand as he held a manual link against his head with the other, guiding the Cab slowly across the flat wasteland between Plateau and the sea. Midgfet and Fernstrom followed along behind, ceaselessly shoveling sand, rocks, and anything else they came across into the fuzzy blue beam, all of it turning first into a scintillating powder of crystallized bismuth before assembling into a thick cable, running along the open ground to a second Maker in the distant mountains. That one sat at the Plateau Launch-Rail's bell end, pointed directly down its throat; a hundred kilometers of tunnel between it and Mallick, patiently waiting at the Station.
The cab stopped at the shore and Cokely handed the Maker down to Midgfet and Fernstrom, who used it to run a few meters of slack cable while Cokely unpacked an electrical junction box. Fernstrom secured the Maker to a tripod, pointing at the sea, as Cokely connected cable to junction box; and Midgfet, junction box to Maker.
All three stepped to the far side of the Cab, squatted and looked back towards the distant hills south of Plateau. Cokely held the manual link against his temple and counted aloud. "...two, one, zero."
A brilliant flash of blue and a deafening crack filled the sky as eight hundred thousand cubic meters of salt water instantly converted into pure energy. The Maker and the cable so painstakingly laid ceased to exist, replaced by a line of charred, glassy sand and a wall of slowly rising smoke running away into the hills. Re-filling the gash made by the Maker, the sea issued a thunderous crash as electric flashes of white light illuminated the hills on the horizon behind them. A second rumble. Uncounted gigajoules of electricity tried to turn eight hundred thousand cubic meters of salt water into two billion cubic meters of steam, oxygen and hydrogen. Before the gasses could shove aside the hills above, the hydrogen and oxygen recombined. The hills rose, only to fall again, permanently changing the profile of the Plateau basin.
Rough calculations had been done by hand, avoiding any possibility of a computer guessing their intent, and they were pleasantly surprised by their accuracy. The twenty kilometers of foothills protecting the Launch Rail's exit from the ground became a boiling blanket of rock and soil, pouring out across the plains and curdling up into the sky. There would be one hell of a breeze at Plateau's Shuttle Station, but that couldn't be helped. Mallick had posted a warning.
"I bet that's the first time a Launch Rail has actually launched itself!"
Quivering scrub brush and a rapidly moving wave of dust marked the edge of the approaching shock-wave. They waited. A thunderous crash hit them, a concussion felt as much as heard, knocking the unprepared Cab onto its side. They stepped back, letting the Cab struggle to its feet before climbing in and galloping away along the shoreline. They had a Skimmer to meet.
Within the hour, fifteen other Launch Rails in fifteen other tunnels leading away from fifteen other settlements were destroyed, disassembled, or just disappeared, but none as spectacularly as Plateau's.
Mallick stood at the entrance to Plateau's Shuttle Station. The flash, a hundred kilometers away, had come and gone so quickly it had barely been noticed, but the gale force wind issuing from the Station, and the rising mushroom cloud in the distance, drew plenty of attention. In no time a crowd had formed. There were barely a hundred, but that was enough.
"It was Central Command who closed the polar regions," Mallick stood on the back of a Cab. "Central Command that divided us and made us foreigners in other peoples settlements!"
Plateau was filled with polar refugees, the settlement had been created in response to those exact protestations. It was meant to be a place that belonged to polar refuges, not shared with other, established populations. Mallick was preaching to the choir, it was safer that way.
"When was the last time you saw a Councilor on the surface?" Mallick paused. His heart beat out an uncomfortable silence. Finally someone in the crowd spoke up.
"Never! They never come down here!"
"That's right!" Relief for Mallick. "Then there's no reason for us to go up there. We're the true Legongs, it ain't Eden, but we made this planet into a home. We didn't need Earth and we don't need the Council. Break the links, break the Rails, and you break the Council! Break the Rails, break the Council!"
Mallick had to repeat it a few more times than was comfortable, but the crowd finally caught on, allowing Mallick to sneak away into the side streets. The Cause had a Cry.
31
Myles's shoes made an anticlimactic soft pat as he dropped from Traveler's ship to Central Command's hanger deck. He walked past the brace of Guards that had come to meet him, shaking his head at their perplexed stares.
Myles exited the hangar to the corridor nexus, said a polite, if tentative, hello to the Guard there and walked himself down the hall to an interrogation room. There he waited, listening, as the shuffling of nervous Guards grew frantic, then stopped altogether. For ten minutes he sat alone, with Pig.
"How are you going to explain that?" asked Pig.
"I'm not," said Myles.
"Well you're going to have to come up with something. Peto and Norte certainly aren't going to help you."
"I don't need their help. I don't need anyone's help."
Nia Feric stood in the open doorway. "The Director sends his apologies."
Myles would normally have worried just how long Feric had been standing there, listening to him talk to an imaginary pig, if indeed Pig were imaginary, but today he didn't care. He left his gaze softly focused in the middle distance as Feric pulled up a chair and seated herself beside him. Rubbing his eyes and stretching his arms above his head, he looked around for a drink of water, but found nothing. Having failed at the simplest task of hydration, Myles admitted to himself that he did need help, and a lot of it.
"How do we do this?" He asked.
"A Council Clerk, Nod I bel
ieve, will arrive shortly. You will answer questions, but not volunteer anything. I will stay with you. As soon as the Clerk leaves, you will go to the surface."
"What are they-"
"Do not ask any questions of the Clerk. You are tired and traumatized, you need rest. Specifically, you need the comfort of your family."
Myles looked at her with suspicion, then over at Pig. Pig shrugged, said nothing. Council Clerk Nod arrived within minutes, along with Councilor Six. The questions were predictable, mostly concerning Norte and Peto's incident, without forgetting about the reason for the trip: Navigation tools.
"Tell me again about the events immediately prior to finding Norte's wrecked vehicle." Asked Nod.
Myles reviewed it all one more time; Norte's theft of the ground vehicle, Peto's murder of the museum docent, and their subsequent rampage, ending in the crash. "I watched it from the pilothouse." Myles lied. "There was nothing I could do."
Silence while Six and Nod consulted with each other, or the Guards, or some hidden Clerks back in the Council Chamber. Myles didn't care. He looked over at Feric and Pig, who, although not actually avoiding eye contact, neither chose to look back at him.
Being ignored annoyed Myles. "She specifically sought out a primative vehicle without A.I., she wanted complete control herself."
Six and Nod broke from their links but remained speechless. There were no truer a statement that could be said about Norte. It made the events, as described by Myles, perfectly logical, even predictable. They all sat in silence for a moment longer, then Feric stood. Myles took the hint and stood with her, glancing back at Pig who looked back at him with Traveler's inscrutable smile. Leaving Pig behind, he allowed himself to be led out of the room, past the elevator lobby and into the public corridors beyond. Feric took him through a seldom-used door, up one level of stairs where a two-seat eight-legged Cab-crawler waited. Myles knew they existed on Central Command, but had never had the need to use one. They slipped in and the thing took off, click-clacking along by tiny furious steps, avoiding the ceiling by clinging to the floor. They quickly arrived at yet another recently Makered hangar where, without comment, Feric handed Myles into the care of two middle-aged Shield Guard wearing Eden Project insignia, three small K-ships lined up behind them.
Before he had the sense to question anyone, the Guards were decanting him from the little K-ship onto the dirt between his childhood home and the cattle barn. Without comment the ship lifted off and his mother stepped out from the kitchen.
"Myles?" She asked, nonplussed.
"Hi Ma." He answered. "Uh. I've been to Earth. Twice. And some people are dead."
"Oh!"
Pig, appearing beside him despite being left on Central Command, threw his arms up in despairing dismay. Myles's father appeared on the hillside, hiking down the small rise with urgency but not panic.
"What's going on?" He called.
"Myles has been on a trip." His mother answered for him.
The three went into the kitchen where Harry was busy baking. "Myles!" He said.
"Harry? What are you-"
"I don't really know. Bento called, said to meet her here. Didn't give a reason but was quite insistent."
"Bento?" Myles asked, picking up a guitar leaning against the wall beside the kitchen door.
"She's got Traveler on some Legong-spanning tour. Public speaking, meeting dignitaries, that sort of thing. She brought that back from her last trip. For you." Harry nodded at the guitar.
"Oh. Thanks." At this point they all paused to listen to the puff and thump of another K-ship landing in the farmyard. Moments later Bento and Traveler entered the kitchen.
"Myles?" She said. "You're back." Myles looked at Bento and Traveler, then at Pig, plucking a string on the guitar. Bento followed his eyes. "I thought you and Harry could start up those lessons you wanted."
Myles looked from Pig to Bento. "Right. Yes. Thank you." Fatigue and shame combined within Myles, exhausting him in a way Councilor Six's interview had failed to do. He looked as he felt, tired, defeated. It frightened his mother.
"Krykowfert came down and fed your pet lizard." She said. "He took Joey with him."
"What?" Myles asked.
Traveler tried to remain in the background, moving around the perimeter of the room to help Harry remove the first tray of tarts from the oven.
"Krykowfert brought down his granddaughter. Li went with them to your house. They rode in one of those new ships."
"Krykowfert has a granddaughter?" Myles asked.
"Yes. Her parents were killed in the outer system. Something went wrong with a large-object diversion, something like that. Anyway, she lives with him now and when he came down to feed that little lizard..." she trailed off.
Bento ignored Harry's offered tart and shifted in her seat. "You've got to tell us about Earth, about what happened. There's no record of Norte and Peto's return, only rumors about an attack-"
"There was no attack!" Myles snapped, looked over at Traveler. "There was no attack. Earth didn't take any action against us at all, not even after Peto murdered that museum guard." This was clearly information that had not yet been made public. Harry left Traveler by the open oven door and came to the table.
"That's impossible." He said. "A Legong wouldn't do something like that, we're civilized."
Bento said, "Never mind that now. Norte had a recorder, we'll know the facts soon enough."
Norte had a recorder.
Pig stopped plucking at the guitar strings and looked at Myles in alarm. The little ball Norte had mounted in the pilothouse recorded everything that happened, everything that was said, everything that was shown on the walls of the little room. Myles's heart jumped into his throat.
Would the pilothouse have continued to generate images without anyone in it?
"You mean while you were setting the stage for their doom?" Pig added.
"Protocol would be to download their implant databases daily." Bento added. "This is one situation where politics won't matter. It'll all be on record."
Another thrumming with requisite hissing and puff-puffing was heard from the farmyard. A knock sounded on the kitchen door. Everyone froze. Myles thought a smirk crossed Traveler's face. For an instant he hated the Earthman. Myles's mother calmly, but slowly, stood and went to the door. She opened it.
"Hello?"
Krykowfert leaned in. "Excuse me Ms. Tugot, I understand your younger son is here. May I speak with him?"
Mother turned to Myles. All he could offer was a shrug. She stepped away from the door and Krykowfert marched in, followed by a middle-aged woman in a white lab coat and Dr. Greenbro, Myles's pediatrician, a man he hadn't seen in almost twenty years. Bento leapt to her feet and stood at attention. Krykowfert nodded and smiled.
"I am so sorry to interrupt, I would have met with Myles before he left Central Command, but I was already on the surface on other business you see." His manner was cheerful, disarming. Mother smiled and relaxed a bit, Harry offered him a tart. "Yes, yes. Very nice. Thank you, but we can't stay long." Krykowfert turned to Myles. "Myles, I'm going to need your implant." It was an order spoken as a polite request. "I understand you've been considering having it out, and well, since I was here..."
Without speaking, the dour lab-coated woman stepped behind Myles's chair and took a collection of bars and knobs from her coat pockets, assembling them into a frame around Myles's head.
"Umm..." Myles ventured.
Dr. Greenbro looked on awkwardly as the woman attached two cylinders to the framework and sprayed something up Myles's nose and onto the back of his neck.
"Shouldn't he be in a hospital for this?" Mother asked.
Myles caught Krykowfert giving a nod to Dr. Greenbro, who then applied a second spray up Myles's nostrils. The room started spinning and his head became heavy.
Bento, still rigidly at attention, relaxed her body and looked back and forth between Krykowfert, Mother, and Myles. With all the attachments complete, the cylinder
s began to hum, little spikes extending up his nose.
Krykowfert spoke over the humming. "Mother Tugot, do you think it would be possible for Asha to come visit next week? She's not stopped talking about the farm since we came to feed the lizard."
Myles gurgled as the thick root of the nose-probe locked itself into his sinuses.
"I, uh, I don't see why not. We'd have to check with Li. He's in the upper fields."
"Splendid! Central Command is such a boring place for a child of her age."
"Is this safe?" Asked Myles's father, not sure what he could do about it even if the Director of Shield Guard said 'no.'
"There is nothing in life without risk." Krykowfert answered.
Seeing the effect of this blankly honest answer Dr. Greenbro interjected. "It is a common procedure, even the young and the elderly seldom experience complications."
The machines continued to hum, with the second drill emitting a slurping sound, a little ball of blood rising around the insertion point at the base of Myles's skull.
"Now about Asha," Krykowfert continued, "I haven't the time just now to chat with your eldest, so if I may, I'll leave that up to you. He can reach me personally with any questions, I'll leave a direct connection available."
The probes retracted and the grinding noises stopped. Krykowfert reached over and took the tiny chip that had been extracted by the nasal probe. Holding it up for all to see, he smiled, then slipped it in his pocket. The lab-coated woman disconnected the drills and took apart the framework. Krykowfert gave a little bow, tossed a salute to Bento and exited with the woman, leaving Dr. Greenbro behind. The thrumming-puff-puffing faded away, replaced by the thwack-whack of Cab feet on dirt. A knock on the door.
Again Myles's mother went to see who it was.
"Is Lieutenant Urbo here ma'am?" Asked Clark, Bento's old Skimmer-Mate from her previous duty. Bento went to the door.
"What are you doing here?" She asked.
