Erebus

by Ralph Kern

  “Hi, Layton,” Vance called over.

  “Guys, are you okay?”

  “Sure. I’m reviewing what we have so far. Just to let you know, the deep space arrays are examining along Magellan’s last known track,” Vance replied.

  “Oh? And?” I asked.

  “Nothing yet, I’m afraid. But it’s a very long line to look at.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Actually, I hadn’t, not at first. The numbers that Frampton had spouted had been just that, numbers. Ninety-one billion kilometers was thirteen times the radius of Pluto at its furthest point—in other words, a hell of a long way. Getting my head around that was going to have to be a work in progress. I changed the subject. “Alright, what do we have here?”

  “At the moment, we have nearly a thousand people who have been lifted off Io and over five hundred from Magellan, not to mention a multitude of people back in Earth space and here who could potentially have accessed the liner’s systems,” Vance answered. “In other words, we have a lot of people to get through, all of whom we need to ask some rather pointed questions.”

  I glanced over at the walls and synched my HUD into the room net. The walls came alive with readouts and long lists of names. It was all pretty daunting-looking, but I was used to long witness trawls in investigations.

  “How far has the JAS got in the investigation at this end?”

  Vance gave a snort. “They’ve had a look throughout the Jupiter Alliance, viewed the recordings, and asked a few questions. They’ve pretty much already pigeonholed anyone who’s Linked as not involved. The JAS trust them implicitly.”

  “Right…and can they guarantee that they are actually trustworthy?”

  “Apparently so. They can hide stuff from each other—they call it vaulting—but other Linked will know they are doing it. If one asks another, ‘Did you blow up a moon?’ and it flags they are doing this vaulting thing, then we’d know to have a chat with them. Evidently, no one has.”

  “Fair enough, I guess. So they either all are in on it or none?”

  “Yes. But let’s take them at their word for the moment. If we get any evidence to the contrary, we can review that decision later. Until then, let’s operate under that assumption,” Vance said.

  “I presume we’re getting a liaison from the JAS?” I asked.

  “You presume right. When they arrive, I suggest the first order of the day is that we sit down and hash out a plan.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  ***

  The next few hours of discussion, arguing, and debating were a textbook example of throwing too many chefs into a kitchen with not enough cooks—other than Frampton. He was most definitely Vance’s bagman and happy to be told what to do. Eventually, we nailed down a starting point. We were going to go through the roughly fifteen hundred people from both Io and the Magellan and assign each a priority for questioning.

  That was a monumental task, but fortunately, we had some excellent AI routines we could run. We figured out criteria of what to look for in each of those people. Intelligence trawls would show whether they were linked to any questionable organizations, military and espionage connections, educational achievements with special focus on space or pilotage subjects, and that kind of thing. Within moments of feeding the AI the criteria, it had sorted everyone into three categories: a short list of reds, people who had a number of contentious markers against them; yellows, who had a few; and greens, who looked clean.

  “We seem to be staggering our way to a starting point here,” Cheng said, leaning back with a sigh in his chair. The conference table we were seated around was like everything in the room: clean, modern, and tasteful, all chrome lines, glass, and graceful curves. “With ninety-two reds to look at, things are getting a bit more manageable.”

  I nodded. That number was far less daunting than fifteen hundred. I looked over the list. The only downside was that they were scattered far and wide throughout the Jupiter system. Not a major problem, but it would slow things down.

  “Well, folks—” I started to say as I heard the door swish open behind me. I spun my chair around. When I saw the pair who came in, my voice trailed off. The guy barely registered on my radar, thirty-something, clean-shaven, dark-haired, but fairly mediocre. The girl on the other hand—she’s what caused me to lose my train of thought. She was beautiful. Not hot, not cute, but beautiful in a classical kind of way: black shoulder-length hair, slim figure in a dark, figure-hugging suit, in her early twenties. But it was her eyes that got me; intense was the word, like laser beams.

  I managed to get a grip of myself as the man spoke. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Lieutenant Adin Agir. I’m on Complex Investigations with the JAS, and my colleague is Cerise Lense.”

  A stuttering chorus of hellos came from around the room. Clearly, everyone was as captivated as I was with this Cerise. Aware that I was staring, I made a determined effort to drag my eyes away from her; it was a bit unseemly for me to be ogling someone I needed to work with, especially on such an important and high-profile case.

  The two of them made their way to empty seats and sat down. Vance looked around at the guys, a Cheshire-cat grin on her face. It was painfully clear she found the whole thing highly amusing. Sonia, the representative from Red Star, on the other hand, did not look pleased in the slightest.

  “Welcome to Concorde University campus,” Cerise said with a radiant smile. “My role is to facilitate communication between the Linked and the investigative teams. I promise I won’t get in the way.”

  Now that was the best news I’d had all day. It made the whole space-adaption-sickness thing totally worth it.

  We quickly filled them in on our plan—or at least our starting points.

  Sihota piped up. “We will require some kind of transport, since we have a number of witnesses scattered in near space, and we want to keep them apart rather than bring them here.”

  “We understand. We will see what we can do,” Cerise responded in her calm voice.

  “If I may, I’m rated and current on a number of craft. I saw a few Icarus-class shuttles in your dock,” Sihota said.

  Cerise simply nodded and cocked her head slightly as if she were listening to something. A few seconds later, she spoke again. “I have requisitioned one for your use.”

  “Oh...thank you.” Sihota looked slightly taken aback at the speed with which she had secured a spacecraft for our personal use. So was I, to be honest. This was the model of efficiency. I dreaded to think what the process would be for doing that in the Earth-moon system.

  “It’s my pleasure.” Her smile was, again, radiant.

  “That was remarkably…efficient,” Vance said.

  “Yes, we don’t believe in needless bureaucracy here. If something can easily be achieved, it will be done.”

  “And getting hold of a shuttle is that easy?” Sihota asked.

  “Oh, I may be exaggerating a touch,” Cerise said. “I, of course, had to get it cleared and requisitioned. I merely sent the request through to the appropriate people, and they said yes. Then I had to clear it with the Consensus to ensure they were happy for Linked resources to be used in such a manner, which of course, they were, considering what has occurred.”

  “And you did that just now?” Vance asked.

  “As soon as you asked the question,” Cerise answered.

  “But,” Vance frowned, “you got the answer back within a few seconds.”

  “The Links are only limited by light-speed. As soon as I thought it, the harbormaster checked that it was okay, and the consensus poll was given Io-Incident priority for Consensus consideration. The Linked voted and approved the request.” She shrugged. “This is simply the way we do things up here.”

  “Jesus,” muttered Frampton from behind Vance. “It took her longer to explain it than do it.” Vance nodded. I was beginning to see why she seemed a little wary of the Linked’s potential in the Sol system. I was also thinking how much I hated paperwork...


  “It strikes me,” I said, “that if we had the same ability to hook into your—what did you call it? Consensus?—we could speed things up significantly.”

  “It would,” Cerise said, “except for the fact that you are not used to it. The ability to join the Linked Consensus is not something you can simply download.”

  “Could we have some kind of temporary access?” I asked.

  Cerise and Lieutenant Agir exchanged a look before she said, “This isn’t about security; it’s about simple ability. You would not be used to it.”

  “Try me.” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to impress, but if I’m honest with myself, it was probably the stunning Linked woman.

  “Very well.”

  A Link-accept icon appeared on my HUD, and giving a brief glance at the others, I accepted it. Suddenly, I heard thousands of voices and data streams flowing through my HUD and directly into my stack.

  Welcome to the Consensus, Layton. A voice—Cerise’s, I think—cut through the confusing mess. I saw in my stack…me, looking perplexed but from her view.

  STATION ROTATION NOMINAL / IO / I LOVE YOU CASSANDRA / ICARUS REQUISITION COMPLETE / PARTY AT 231 CAPRICORN STREET ALL INVITED / ATMOSPHERIC ADJUSTMENT IS BEING ACTIVELY MONITORED / IO / CAN ANYONE HELP ME MAKE SOME CAKES FOR THE REFUGEES

  Hello? I said as if I was calling out for someone in a crowded room where no one was paying any particular attention to me.

  Relax, Accept the links. Do not try to focus on anything in particular.

  Easy for her to say. All around me, the voices were getting louder. Images crept in. Many of them seemed to be live feeds from linked HUDs. It was a complete montage, everything from people working in offices and control stations to people having sex.

  I’M GOING FOR A RUN ANYONE JOIN ME / I LOVE IT WHEN HE DOES THAT THING / COMING IN TO DOCK SLIP 5 / IO

  I blinked, trying to drive out the voices and images that were overwhelming me. It felt like my mind itself was overloaded with malware, causing pop-up after pop-up to appear.

  Shut it off!

  Everything ended. The room came back into sharp focus again. I looked over to Cerise, a bemused smile on her face. “Wow.”

  “Do you still think it would be useful, given the fast-moving situation we find ourselves in?” she asked, not expecting an answer. “It takes months or even years of adaption.”

  “Yeah…I think it’s probably best if we stay old-school on this one, Cerise.” I looked around the room to see faces that ranged from concerned through intrigued to downright amused.

  “Maybe once this is over, you could come spend some time with us and get to know the Link properly at your own pace,” Cerise said.

  “Yeah, I’ll…er…I’ll think about it.”

  “Right, if you’re done trying to impress?” Vance said sarcastically.

  I scowled but nodded.

  “I would suggest that we retire for the evening. Tomorrow, first thing, I will do a round-robin and drop off the investigators at their assigned stations,” Sihota cut in before Vance—or more likely, I—could say anything that would compromise the working relationship with our new partners.

  There were murmurs of ascent and some small talk about grabbing a good night’s sleep. Me? I was going to head to the nearest bar.

  ***

  “It was her eyes…” I knew I was slurring, but then, so was Cheng. In fact, we were all pretty drunk. “They’re so intense.”

  The club we had found ourselves in was on the Concorde University campus, and like student bars since time immemorial, the drinks were cheap and flowed freely. Despite Sihota’s insistence that he was going to leave after one drink, he was still out with us for what was turning into a night on the town, along with Frampton, who was engaging a young lady in what was clearly a deep and meaningful debate in the corner.

  “I know. What I would give to romance her,” Cheng said as he knocked back his pint of lager.

  “I would think Mrs. Cheng would have something to say about that,” Agapov said, the twinkle in his eye breaking through his normally humorless facade.

  “When the cat’s away, the mouse will play. I mean, when the mouse is away and the cat’s at home…Fuck it, you know what I mean,” Cheng slurred.

  “How about your kid?” I couldn’t help myself. “Won’t your family be disappointed if you go native and run off to Jupiter?”

  “I’m sure they’d get over it,” Cheng said smoothly.

  I took another swig of my drink. The world seemed mellow despite the pumping songs that were smashing out of the speakers. It felt like the first time I’d been able to relax, if only slightly, since I was sent to Sahelia. Who knew how long it would be before we got another opportunity to chill out.

  “I tell you what, boys and girls,” I nodded at Vance and Sonia before gesturing at Frampton with my half-empty pint, “we must be in a weird alternative universe where the science geek is showing us how it’s done.”

  “Don’t you be dissing my science geek,” Vance grinned. “Up here, the ladies value intellectual capacity, not you throwbacks who look like they’re about to cry when Linked up.”

  “Throwback my arse, and what can I say? I’m a sensitive soul at heart,” I grumbled, leaning onto the high, round table. I swirled my pint in the glass, foaming up the head again. I had long learned that being defensive didn’t work with this kind of banter. It was far better to just roll with the punches.

  “Don’t take it personally,” Vance chuckled. “Maybe one day you’ll find yourself a nice provincial girl out here somewhere. I hear the asteroid cities are always looking out for new DNA.”

  “I’m sure they are, and prime DNA it is,” I said. The thought of spending my twilight years in zero gravity was not appealing to me in the slightest, nice provincial girl or not.

  “Assuming, of course, that whatever we find out here doesn’t start an intersystem war.”

  We all gave a theatrical drunken hush at Vance. Job talk had been banned for the night.

  Vance held up her hands in mock surrender. “Just saying, is all.”

  “All I’ll say is anyone who is hung over better be prepared to clean up their mess when I’m shipping you around Jupiter space,” Sihota said.

  I gave a silent groan. The thought of going back into zero-g was already making me feel queasy. Either that or the booze was doing its job. I guess I just had to hope that the Sobex pills I had in my wash bag would do the job of calming things down.

  My heart sank, though, when I saw Agapov head to the bar with his stated aim being to load up on shots.

  ***

  I meandered my way down the gravel path, floating orbs of light illuminating my way. They looked so damn pretty, kind of like little floating moons—that’s right, moons. Night lay over the station. The sun strip was off, and extraneous lights were dimmed. Overhead, I could now see the stars winking through the transparent roof of the ring. No matter how hard I tried, the ability to travel in a straight line eluded me. The path probably had some kind of capability to twist and turn on its own, and some JAS agent was controlling it for kicks. I stumbled to a halt and squinted at my HUD, which was trying to guide me back to my room in one of the student accommodation blocks. It was the ultimate beer autopilot, but it relied on the person using it to be able to walk straight.

  Spotting a bench, I slumped down in it. The world spun by me, both figuratively and literally since I was in a big spinning space station, which probably didn’t help matters. I leaned back and looked up. Through the clear roof, I watched the lights of spacecraft coming from and going to the central hub of the station. Concorde was a busy place.

  I was feeling a little philosophical as the stars wheeled past the opposite rim. My life had certainly taken some strange twists and turns. A week ago I was in some god-awful desert, and now I was here, millions of miles away from home.

  Humanity was an odd beast. We could make amazing things like Concorde and the space elevators, but the same species was just as capa
ble of butchering a load of hospital staff and patients for little more than a few drugs and some implants for sale on the black market.

  With a sigh, I hauled myself up, focusing on the little blue line that my HUD projected to lead me straight back to my block. And bed.

  CHAPTER 15

  JUPITER SPACE

  Fortunately, the Sobex did its job, and I wasn’t feeling too bad. In fact, Agapov looked a lot worse than me, which I found a sweet kind of justice. We had ascended the spoke elevator to the center of the station and back into zero-g. In anticipation, I’d taken a double dose of antinausea drugs to go with the Sobex, and I was feeling quite chipper.

  Sihota met us in the docking bay, gripping a handle on the Icarus to support himself. The sleek-looking shuttle was my idea of what a spacecraft should look like. The cockpit and seating area in the back were small but comfortable and could hold eight people. The crewed areas were enclosed in a sleek fuselage that looked more like it belonged on a fighter plane. It even had wings that allowed it to handle Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.

  “Morning,” Sihota said. “This is the ST-180 Icarus shuttle. It is one of the most common crew transfer vehicles in the solar system, which is why I’m checked out on it.” Sihota rattled off a series of specifications. The man took his job as the pilot seriously—enough to inflict a preflight briefing on us. I wasn’t quite sure why he felt we needed to know all this stuff, but at least he was knowledgeable, which gave a certain confidence in his ability.

  Toward the end of the monolog, I was stifling a yawn. Finally, he let us board. Cheng called shotgun for copilot’s seat, and I sat in the second row with Vance. The others packed in behind with Frampton drawing the short straw of sitting next to Agapov. Karma, I guess. We had had to go find Frampton in that young lady’s room this morning, and he’d had a beaming grin on his face ever since. Even the thought of being in zero-g next to the queasy-looking Agapov wasn’t putting a dampener on his jubilant mood. I hadn’t quite had the heart to tell him that his performance with his new Linked friend had probably been visible to half the station—if she’d decided to share.