by Alex Lamb
‘Doctor Tamar, can I help you?’ he said, rising from his bunk.
‘We have to talk,’ said Zoe. She stood in front of him with an urgent look in her eyes, her body blocking the doorway.
‘Okay,’ said Mark cautiously. ‘About what?’
‘About that debris you picked up and what it means.’
This was new. Since their first abortive conversation, Zoe hadn’t tried talking science with him.
‘Go on,’ he said cautiously.
‘Most of it is recycled human equipment, or new kit built to modified human designs,’ said Zoe. ‘Take that out of the picture and all you have left is some very complicated biomachinery – too dense to understand, really – and some surprisingly lame warp-drive tech.’
‘Okay,’ said Mark. ‘That’s interesting, I guess. Nice work.’
‘It’s not just interesting,’ said Zoe. ‘It’s critically important. You gave me the pointer I needed, actually. Your remark about faking the warp signature the other day – it was wrong, of course, but it prompted me to write extra code to scan the warp envelopes on those drones, just in case. If I hadn’t been looking that closely, I’d have missed it.’
Mark felt a frown coming on. Zoe was being weird. ‘Missed what?’
‘There were two warp-drive designs in use in that cloud,’ she said, ‘not one – ours and theirs. Fortunately, the remains we collected contained bits of both kinds of drive. Just enough for me to prove the hypothesis. Apparently, when the Photurian machines encountered humans, they dropped their version of warp and started copying ours. I can hardly blame them – their version is weirdly over-designed and makes a warp field so thin I’m amazed it ever worked. No wonder the emission spikes were so sharp. It’s as if they were trying to build magnetic containers for a quantum shield and changed their minds about what they wanted halfway through.
‘The best you could do with their version was create a film of curvon discharge, not a channel of it. So we have our answer about the drones at last – Photurians are apparently terrible engineers, just like they’re terrible negotiators. Maybe that’s what happens when a bunch of SAPs try to invent warp drive instead of having people do it for them.’
Mark folded his arms and tried for a polite smile. ‘I don’t get it. How is this critically important?’
‘Here’s the thing,’ said Zoe. ‘Those original warp drives are so bad, there’s absolutely no way the drones we found could have reached Tiwanaku on their own – or ever leave, for that matter – which means they got here some other way. In other words, there’s a big part of the Photurian puzzle we just don’t have yet. A crucial part. And that’s why we have to go back to Tiwanaku.’
Mark stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out if she was serious. Her eyes retained their round, owlish stare. He realised, with a sinking feeling, that she was.
‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘It’s not in the mission plan and it would put everyone on this ship at risk.’
She brushed his comment away. ‘Mark, listen. Think about it. If the drones couldn’t have got there without help, what brought them? Why didn’t we spot it?’
Mark shrugged. ‘It had a tau-charger?’
‘No!’ she exclaimed, her voice rising. ‘It’s more obvious than that. The radiation weapon they fired when they arrived at Tiwanaku wasn’t a weapon. It was a drive. We were looking at the mother of all warp flashes without realising. It was the arrival of whatever brought those drones. Understanding what that thing is will give us the advantage we need to protect ourselves. And we’re not going to figure that out just sitting here and doing nothing.’
‘That’s great,’ said Mark. ‘Very impressive reasoning, and you’re probably right, but I can’t change my orders. We’re supposed to wait here until the final deadline passes, eight hours from now, and then we’re supposed to go home.’
Zoe scowled. ‘I know that. But this could mean the difference between peace and war. It’s the last piece of the puzzle!’
‘It’s the last piece of the technical puzzle,’ said Mark. ‘We still have no real idea why the Photurians attacked in the first place.’
‘What does that matter if they can’t do it again? Look, we don’t have to go right back into the system. Just to the edge. I could scan from there.’
Mark gave up and squeezed past her towards the chute that led down to the lounge. She followed him.
‘Look, I believe you,’ he said. ‘It’s just that we have a job to do here. I know that’s not a very popular idea right now, but we made a commitment to IPSO and it’s my intention to carry it out.’
‘So you can get your interface rights, is that it? Ash told me as much.’
Mark scowled and headed down the ladder.
‘Look, this isn’t about you and whether you’re a screw-up or not,’ she said. ‘It’s about the future of the human race.’
Mark rounded on her as she clambered down to meet him. ‘Did you even consult the rest of the crew yet?’
‘No,’ said Zoe. ‘I didn’t want to have to take it to a vote. We know what that’s like. I wanted to make you see reason first. But I can hardly imagine that Citra would complain. And I bet Ash would help.’
‘This conversation is over,’ said Mark and headed for his chair.
Zoe seized his arm. ‘Stop!’ she yelled.
Mark spun around. ‘What?’ he snapped, yanking his arm out of her grip. His anger derailed slightly when he saw the panicked expression on her face.
‘Don’t move,’ she whispered. She started sniffing the air.
‘What?’ said Mark. ‘What’s going on? What kind of bullshit is this now?’
‘Shut up a minute,’ said Zoe.
She sniffed the air energetically, as if impersonating a bloodhound, until she neared his chair.
‘Holy shit!’ she breathed.
‘Can I sit now?’ said Mark, his patience waning. He started to slide past her.
Zoe’s arm whipped out to block him. ‘Don’t! It’s been smeared with neurotoxins.’
Mark peered at her in confusion. ‘What?’
‘I can smell them,’ she said. ‘Vartian Institute implants in case of alien attack – I was fitted with biotech augs to detect chemical incursion. What did you think I was doing on the privacy level back at Delany – having my nails done? Stay right here, and if anyone else comes in, don’t let them sit down. Anywhere. I mean it.’
Mark stared after her as she raced up the ladder. He didn’t buy it. Who would be stupid enough to do such a thing?
Zoe returned seconds later with a medical sampler in her hand. She handed it to him.
‘Look for yourself.’
Mark synced with the device and swept it back and forth in front of his usual seat. Warning icons started piling up in his sensorium. She was right. Someone had rubbed the headrest of his chair with a very nasty nerve agent – one even his smart metabolism wouldn’t have picked up.
He blinked, thunderstruck. Someone had just tried to kill him.
‘What is that shit?’ he said, pointing at the seat. ‘And why do we even have it aboard?’
Zoe queried the database, patching information straight to her view. Then she threw him a window. A rotating model of a large, complex molecule appeared in his primary metaphor.
‘Look – it’s a compound from the Davenport biosphere. It’s a cytoskeletal disassembler used in comparative biology. Citra’s lab carries it.’
Mark couldn’t believe it. It was his usual chair, but anyone could have sat in it. It was pure luck that Zoe happened to have an aug that could detect it. She dashed back up the ladder again while Mark stood in a daze.
Citra was the likely culprit, but what could she possibly have imagined the fallout would be? She was a respected biologist. With him dead in a chair, her career would be over. While Citra had shown plenty of
capacity for irrational behaviour, she wasn’t stupid. And the Chesterfords were nothing if not protective of their public personas.
Could it have been someone else, then? He wondered for a moment if Zoe was responsible. She’d discovered it, after all. Maybe she’d wanted to scare him. But with what motive? Venetia he ruled out immediately. She’d been supportive of him throughout. And he and Ash had too much history. His old friend had been unusually quiet over the last few days but Mark had felt, if anything, that Ash was working harder at their relationship. He looked constantly on the brink of opening up. And now that the mission had been so badly scorched, Ash didn’t come off as remotely hungry for the captaincy.
That left Sam. But as Venetia had pointed out, Sam was a cop. His whole career had been about maintaining order. Even if he genuinely thought Mark constituted some kind of nebulous threat to the mission, why try to kill him? And why now, with Tiwanaku already behind them? While talking to Sam still left Mark feeling uncomfortable, trying to picture him as the culprit didn’t sit right. He’d have just as much to lose as Citra from a stunt like this. More, in fact.
Zoe returned with a squeeze-bulb marked with lab codes and started spraying down the chair.
‘It’s time for another meeting, I think,’ she said.
Mark nodded in agreement and sent out an alert to the others while his hands shook from the shock. He’d come to hate their meetings. But an attempted murder called for an all-hands, whether he liked it or not.
10.2: WILL
Will experienced the blast as physical pain. He arched in his couch as his integrated mind burned with the damage to the ship’s internal systems. An agonised gasp escaped his lips. He collapsed back into the captain’s chair, his body bathed in sweat, and had to open his eyes and physically check to ensure he hadn’t actually been shot in the gut.
‘How?’ he wheezed.
While his heart pounded, he reached out through the tortured ship to scan for the origin of the attack. He knew what to look for. Though it pained him to contemplate it, he could think of only one ship with the capacity to deliver the blow.
The Ariel Two had been pierced through every one of its primary power routings in the same second. That implied an extensive knowledge of his ship. And the attack had come on the back of a soft assault that had taken out his shield. The Chiyome was out there somewhere.
Ann hailed him before he could spot her.
‘Ariel Two, this is Captain Ludik of the Chiyome. Your primary power is offine. You cannot fire or run. Please power down the rest of your ship and give yourself up. In return, your questions will be answered and your safety assured.’
Her demands sank a lead weight through his heart. The reason she’d been so keen to let him spill his feelings was now painfully clear. She needed to keep tabs on him to deliver this blow. Something cold curdled inside him. Give himself up? Fat chance.
A grim picture had started assembling itself in Will’s mind. The habitat below had sat here waiting for him without any shields to speak of, suggesting it didn’t consider the planet a threat. And Ann’s attack had left him defenceless – a move that suggested she held the same opinion. All this left the sickening implication that the Fleet hadn’t incurred the wrath of some alien species after all or tried to hide the details behind the Tiwanaku event. They’d caused it.
He could guess why. The Earth sects had been using hidden Fecund sites to fuel their advance, and this, somehow, was the Fleet’s answer. They’d gone looking for secrets of their own and found this place. And then they’d turned it into a tool of war. They’d taken an unknown alien technology and made it into a weapon.
No wonder the timing of the Tiwanaku Event had been so propitious. There’d been nothing accidental about it. Were the people on his own side that stupid, though? Hadn’t they read any history? But of course, they had to know how he’d feel. He’d never have let them do this, and that was why they hadn’t told him.
How long had they been exploring this while he’d been covering their traitorous asses on Mars? he wondered. How much time had they stolen? How much opportunity? And how badly had they fucked things up? It occurred to him then that he’d dragged Mark into the middle of a set-up. In doing so, he might have killed the closest thing he had to a son.
Beside him, Nelson hung his head. ‘Apparently we don’t have much of a choice,’ he said. ‘We can’t see them. We can’t fire back.’
‘Fuck that,’ Will spat. His ship had the capacity for limited warp using the secondary conduits. That would have to do. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said. ‘I’m routing power through the secondaries. Hold on tight, everybody.’
‘Will, stop!’ said Nelson. ‘Are you crazy? We don’t have any shields. We’re sitting ducks.’
‘Then we’d better sit somewhere else,’ said Will, and sent subminds racing through his ship’s systems, seeking out alternative channels for power.
Nelson stared at him, horrified, his expression imploring. ‘Will, please remember you’re not alone on this ship. It’s fine for you to risk your own life but my team is still aboard. You’re risking everyone.’
Will picked a vector designed to put the Chiyome at the greatest disadvantage and threw power into the thrusters.
‘Then tell them to buckle the fuck up,’ he snarled. ‘I’m not giving that bitch the satisfaction of imagining she has me pegged. I’m going to make this as hard for her as I possibly can.’
‘Will!’ Nelson roared. ‘You’re not being rational and you’re damaging the ship. The secondaries aren’t designed for this. And besides, that beacon had a Fleet signature – isn’t that proof enough they don’t want us hurt?’
Will glared at Nelson with his human eyes. The man was starting to sound weirdly naïve. Hadn’t he noticed they’d just been shot at by their own side?
Drones raced ahead of them and detonated, sending shock waves clanging through the unprotected hull. Warning shots from the Chiyome. Will layered in an evasive manoeuvre program. He could feel the strain on the ship like the ache of tired muscles. It was years since he’d tried to use the Ariel Two this way.
‘You’re overloading couplings all across the ship,’ said Nelson, his eyes skittering over the data in his view. ‘At least let me help!’ He reached into the Ariel’s smart-web and started tinkering.
Abruptly, power died altogether as several overworked secondary junctions blew simultaneously. All across the mighty ship, fluid stopped pumping and robots sagged mid-task. The lights in the primary habitat core dulled to a clotted red.
The ship drifted. The Chiyome raced up behind them in a second and dropped its cloak, revealing a boser pointed straight at them.
Will rounded on Nelson. ‘You did that,’ he said. ‘You crippled us on purpose.’ He started climbing out of his couch, hands closing like claws.
‘Now you’re being childish,’ said Nelson. ‘Why don’t you listen to what these people have to say first?’
Will froze. His skin prickled as the obvious finally dawned on him.
‘You’re with them.’
To his credit, Nelson didn’t bother denying it. ‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ he said.
Will sagged. He’d entrusted his secrets to Nelson. He’d let the man decide things for him. Crucial things. Nelson had watched him cry, heard about his war nightmares, listened to him babble out his innermost fears. This new betrayal cut deep enough to suck the strength from his body. He hung his head and drifted. A sense of disgust and exhaustion as heavy as a glacier stayed his hand from killing.
Ann’s voice sounded over the comms.
‘Ariel Two, this is your final warning. Captain Monet, will you surrender peacefully, or must we fire again?’
Nelson thumbed the comm. ‘We’re without power, Chiyome,’ he said. ‘You can come aboard. The captain will be waiting for you.’
10.3: ASH
As
h was lying in his bunk, failing to sleep, when the alert came through. He saw Mark’s ID attached to the message and immediately knew the plan hadn’t worked. He fought down a surge of angry desperation. He’d proposed to Sam that he make nice with Zoe and try to convince her to change her vote. Sam had refused.
‘That moment’s past and we’re out of time,’ he’d said.
So Ash had taken the bottle Sam had given him and applied it carefully, as instructed. He’d trusted Sam that it would just knock Mark out without wanting to think about it too much. What else was he supposed to do, after all? In the meantime, Sam had managed Citra.
Ash got up. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. At this point, he preferred any kind of resolution to the dread of waiting. He’d spent his life aboard ships, flying risky missions to and from the Frontier, keeping secrets, pushing life’s envelope. He wasn’t used to being afraid. It was, he’d come to appreciate, the anticipation that got you, not the experiences themselves.
And Ash knew what was coming – not starships, just death. By his estimates, they had only a few hours left before the Nemesis machines arrived. The Gulliver’s warp trail would be painfully easy for the Nems to see. And the Nems always chased down perceived antagonists.
When he joined the Rumfoord League, he’d never guessed it would end like this. He’d seen himself as a brave defender – one of the few making sacrifices to maintain the peace. Now he just felt like fish-food. He tried to keep the guilt and fear off his face as he headed for the lounge.
The others showed up on the lower level looking more than a little confused.
‘Another meeting?’ said Venetia. ‘Really?’
‘Do you want to tell us what’s going on?’ Sam asked Mark. He looked gently curious, and as unruffled as ever.
‘This is going to sound weird,’ said Mark, ‘but there’s been a murder attempt on this ship. The intended victim was me.’
Ash’s heart sank as disgust curdled inside him. He should never have taken Sam at his word. Sam’s eyes, meanwhile, went wide in a perfect simulacrum of surprise.
