"Okay. What does our medical AS recommend?"
"Immediate production and distribution of a vaccine. Isolate all confirmed cases and begin enforced medication treatment."
"Is it curable?"
"There are precedents. The medical AS has templates of metabiotics that have proved successful in the recent past. We can also combine that with lung tissue regeneration virals. Such a procedure will be neither cheap nor quick."
"Estimated time?"
"For full recovery: two years."
"Damn it. What about the time it will take to implement the vaccine production?"
"Production can begin within twenty-four hours once you issue a priority authorization. To produce it in sufficient quantities to inoculate the entire planetary population will take three weeks."
"What the hell will that do to our asset-production schedule?"
"An appraisal is impractical. There are currently too many variables."
His desk intercom bleeped. "President Strauss is here, sir," his assistant said. "He's demanding to see you immediately."
I bet he is, Simon thought. "Show him in."
"Sir."
"And ask Mr. Raines to come in as well, please."
When it came to someone who would soothe the way for asset realization and make sure Z-B's staff integrated well with the planetary legislature and civil service, President Edgar Strauss was not your man. The usual threats and coercion seemed to have almost no effect. He was rude, stubborn, uncooperative and in some cases actively obstructionist. Simon had even refrained from using any of his family for collateral: if they took after him they would probably welcome martyrdom.
Strauss stormed into the office with the same inertia as a rogue elephant. "You motherfucking fascist bastard! You're killing us. You want this planet cleaned out so you can stuff it with your own families."
"Mr. President, that's simply not—"
"Don't give me that, you little shit. It's all over the data-pool. You've released tuberculosis; some v-written type to boost its effectiveness."
"It is not v-written. It is a perfectly natural organism."
"Crap!" Edgar Strauss's gray eyes glared out of his hard, reddened face. "We're absolutely defenseless against it. You committed genocide, and condemned us to a long painful death. You should have done it with the gamma soak, you bastard, because this gives us the opportunity to slice your throats one by one. What use is your collateral now, huh?"
"If you'll just calm down."
The door opened again, and Braddock Raines slipped in. He was with Third Fleet intelligence; in his mid-thirties, the kind of man who could normally blend into the background of any scene, allowing him to assess what was happening with a minimum of interference from local officials. It was the simple knack of invoking trust in people. Everyone who talked to him would always say how pleasant he'd been, the kind of guy you'd enjoy talking to over a beer. Simon knew he could always be relied on for an accurate report of the most difficult situations.
"Who's this? Your executioner?" Edgar Strauss asked. "I know you'll never let me live now that I know the truth. Too scared of me. How are you going to do it, sonny, knife or a nice messy bullet to the brain?"
Braddock's jaw dropped. For once he was too shocked to respond.
"Shut up or I will have you shot," Simon snapped.
President Edgar Strauss sneered contentedly.
Simon took a long breath and sat down, waiting for his blood to cool. He couldn't remember the last time he'd lost his temper. But the man was quite intolerable. How typical of a primitive, backward planet like Thallspring to elect a blunt man of the people like Strauss. "Mr. President. I have only just been informed of this terrible outbreak myself. I am of course shocked and dismayed that such a thing could happen on this beautiful planet. And I would immediately like to go on record to assure you and the entire population that Zantiu-Braun will be doing everything we can to assist the local health authority to combat the disease. Templates for a vaccine and relevant metabiotics will be made available immediately. If all the necessary planetary resources are given over to dealing with the situation, then we're confident of a swift and effective end to the problem."
"It'll take a month before we can make enough vaccine to go round, sonny. How many people will die in the meantime?"
"We estimate three weeks maximum for a sufficient quantity of the vaccine to be produced. And with the correct procedures, nobody who has contracted the disease will die. However, that will require complete cooperation from your authorities. Are you going to assist with that? Or do you want your people to suffer needlessly?"
"Is that why you introduced this, to help subdue us?"
"It was not introduced by us," Simon ground out. "The tuberculosis bacilli have a long history of evolving new and unpleasant variants. Nobody knows where this particular one has evolved. Only a fool or a politician would seek to blame us for this." His personal AS informed him the president was receiving a stream of files from the datapool, all encrypted. Updating him on tuberculosis, no doubt "Oh yeah," Edgar Strauss said. "You and it arriving together is just a complete coincidence. What kind of screening procedures does Zantiu-Braun use on its strategic security personnel before departure? Huh? Tell me that, sonny. The people who come from Earth's big cities, where TB has been breeding away for centuries. You check them all out, do you?"
From the corner of his eye, Simon saw Braddock Raines wince. He kept his own face impassive. "We employ the same procedures that every starship leaving Earth has always used, as mandated by UN quarantine law. We wouldn't be allowed to leave Earth orbit without them. Didn't the Navarro house starships use them?"
"Of course they damn well used them. We've remained uncontaminated until you bastards started invading us."
"Then why didn't it happen last time we were here?"
Edgar Strauss's glare deepened. "So this vaccine is another improvement you want us to adopt. Another product that is more sophisticated than anything we have."
"And your problem with that is...?"
"You're fattening us up for next time. That's what all this fallacious generosity is about. You even turn our misfortune to your advantage. These vaccines and metabiotics will be available for you to harvest on your next violence-crazed invasion, along with all the other advances. I've seen how many new designs you've released to our companies and universities. Neurotronics, software, biochemistry, genetics, even metallurgy and fusion plant design. You've made it all available out of the kindness of your heart."
"We want our investment in Thallspring to be successful. Naturally we help you in upgrading your technology and science base."
"But only for your profit. If we were still producing old-fashioned systems next time you come, you would reap no dividend."
"You think that?"
"I know that, and so do you."
"Then all you have to do is not use them. Go right ahead." Simon gestured expansively at the city beyond the window. "Tell them that, Mr. President. Persuade them they don't need the latest version memory management software, tell them they don't need next-generation brakes on their cars. Best of all, tell them they don't need better medicines."
"You'll lose in the end. You know that, don't you? There are fewer starships this time. Where did they go? Why didn't you build replacements? One day you'll come here and we'll be strong enough to resist. We grow while you wither away like every other decaying society in history. This is our time that's dawning. An end to starflight will bring an end to tyranny."
"Did your speechwriters dream that slogan up, or did you actually manage to think of it for yourself?"
"My grandchildren will dance all over your grave, you little shit." Edgar Strauss turned on his heel and marched out. He whistled the first few bars of Thallspring's anthem as he went.
Simon watched the door swing shut behind him. "My grave doesn't exist," he whispered to the president's back.
"That was fun," Braddock said stoically. "Would
you like him to have an accident?"
Simon permitted himself a dry laugh. "Don't tempt me."
"So why am I here?"
"We're going to have to start this vaccination program that the medical AS recommends. I want you to supervise inoculating strategically important personnel: everyone who is critical to continued asset production. Start with the factory staff, but don't overlook people who work at the power stations and other ancillaries. I want to keep any disruption to our schedule to an absolute minimum."
"You've got it."
* * *
The pump station was unimpressive—a flat-roof box of concrete measuring twenty meters on each side, rucked away behind a chain-link fence, itself surrounded by a hedge of tall evergreen thorn bushes. It was in the corner of a small industrial estate on Durrell's outskirts, invisible from the trunk road outside, ignored by the estate.
At night, it was illuminated by tall halogen lights around the perimeter. One of them was off, while another flickered erratically. Maybe it was the angle of their beams, but they seemed to show up more cracks in the concrete walls than were visible during the day.
From his sheltered position in the hedge, Raymond studied the gate in the fence. A simple chain and padlock was all that held it. Although they'd studied long-range images, they'd never been quite sure if that was all. Now he could confirm it. One padlock.
Security wasn't a large part of the water utility's agenda. Enough to discourage local youths from breaking in and causing petty damage. To that end, there were a couple of alarms and sensors rigged outside—at least, they were the only ones listed in the station's inventory.
Prime was probing every aspect of the little station's internal data network, examining each pearl and circuit for hidden traps and alarms. And not just the station: the local datapool architecture was being scrutinized for inert links leading to the station, secondary trip alarms that would link into the datapool only when an intruder activated them. If they were there, the Prime couldn't find them.
Caution could only be taken so far before it became paranoia.
Raymond told the Prime to go to stage two. Images from the visual and infrared sensors around the station's door froze as the software infiltrated their processors, although their digital timers kept flipping through the seconds, making the feed appear live. Another routine inserted itself into the lock. Raymond heard it click from where he was hiding.
He slipped out of the shadows and scrambled up the fence. A quick gymnastic twist at the top, and he landed on the un-mown grass inside. It took another three seconds to reach the door and open it. Total elapsed exposure time, seven seconds. Not bad.
His d-written eyes immediately adjusted to the darkness inside, a tiny scattering of light gleaned from LEDs glowing on the equipment boards. There was only the one room. He could see the pumps, five bulky steel cylinders sitting on broad cradles. Thick pipes rose out of the concrete beside each one. Their heavy throbbing filled the air with a steady vibration.
He took the pack from his back and removed the explosives. Working quickly, he moved along the pumps, securing the small shaped charges directly above the bearings.
His retreat was as quiet and efficient as his entry. The lock clicked shut behind him. As soon as he was back over the fence, the door sensors resumed their genuine feed. The Prime withdrew from the Durrell datapool, erasing all log traces of its existence as it went.
The red-and-blue strobes were visible long before the pump station itself. Simon could see them through the car's windshield as they turned off the main road and into the industrial estate, throwing out planes of light that flickered off the walls of buildings. Over a dozen police vehicles were drawn up around the pump station. Electric-blue plastic Police Crime Boundary barriers had been erected, forming a wide cordon outside the shaggy evergreen hedge. Uniformed officers were standing around it, while forensic personnel and robots carried out a slow centimeter-by-centimeter search of the ground. Skin suits moved around inside the barriers like guards overseeing a chain gang, never physically mixing with the forensic team. A crowd of reporters was jostling the blue plastic, shoving sensors forward. There must have been twenty direct feeds diving into the datapool, delivering the operation direct to the public in every visual and audio spectrum acceptable to human senses. Even laser radars were being used to map out the scene in 3D. Questions were shouted at police and Skins, regardless of rank. A constant harassment, deliberately pitched to provoke a response of any kind.
Simon's DNI was providing him with technical results from the forensic team as soon as their sensors acquired it. The grid of indigo tables and graphs was depressingly devoid of valid data.
"Can you believe this?" Braddock Raines said. He and Adul Quan were sharing the car with Simon. They were both staring out at the rest of the spectators. Staff from the factories and offices on the estate had gathered outside their respective doorways to observe the police operation firsthand. They shivered in the early morning chill, stamping their feet and swapping gossip and rumor, most of it invented by themselves.
Braddock took over manual control of the car and slowed it, steering around the clumps of people standing in the road. Most of them seemed oblivious to traffic.
"You want to go in, Chief?" Adul asked. "It won't be very private."
Simon hesitated for a moment. True, i-holograms could provide him with the scene of the crime to peruse at his leisure. And he had an inbuilt reluctance to be identified as any sort of important figure—especially here. Yet there was something about this whole act of sabotage that unsettled him. He just couldn't work out why. Whatever he was looking for, it wouldn't be in a hologram, no matter how high the resolution.
"I think we'll take a look."
"Okay." Adul started to inform the platoon sergeant they were arriving, while Braddock parked the car as close as possible.
Reporters saw them pull up. Half a dozen made their way over as the doors opened. Three police officers and a couple of Skins moved to intercept them and clear a passage for Simon.
"Are you guys Zantiu-Braun's secret police?"
"Will you use collateral necklaces in retaliation?"
Simon kept a neutral expression in place until they passed through the cordon. When they made it inside the pump station his nose crinkled at the sight. Then he realized he was standing in a couple of centimeters of water.
Each of the pumps had been torn apart, their impellers bursting out of the casing. Chunks of metal were embedded in the concrete walls and the ceiling. No piece of machinery was left intact; even the control boards were buckled and shattered.
Simon's gaze swept from side to side. "Competent," he murmured. "Very competent." He saw the senior police officers, five of them huddled together. The sight amused him. He'd visited a great many crime scenes over the years, and anyone above the rank of lieutenant always sought out and stuck with his or her contemporaries. It was as if they were afraid they'd get mugged by the junior ranks if they were alone.
His personal AS interrogated the police AS and discovered the officer in charge. Detective Captain Oisin Benson. He was easy enough to identify: no other senior officer had hair that unkempt.
Oisin Benson caught sight of him at the same moment. He gave his colleagues a knowing look and came over.
"Can I help you?"
"We're just here to take a preliminary look, Captain," Simon said. "We won't get in your way."
"Let me phrase that better," Oisin Benson said. "Who are you, and why do you think you have the right to be here?"
"Ah. I see. Well, we're from the president's office, and we're here by the authority of General Kolbe. And the reason we're here is to determine if this was an anti-Zantiu-Braun act."
"It wasn't."
"You seem to have come to that conclusion remarkably quickly, Captain. What evidence have you got for that?"
"No slogans painted here. No statement released by freedom fighters. None of your people or operations were targeted. This
is purely a civil matter."
"Are there a lot of terrorist explosions on Thallspring?"
Detective Captain Oisin Benson leaned a fraction closer and smiled coldly. "They're about as rare as tuberculosis, Mr. Roderick."
So much for being unobtrusive, Simon thought. "Actually, Detective, our operations were targeted by this. The pump station provides several factories with water. All of them will have to curtail their operations until supplies can be restored."
"Out of the seventeen factories supplied by this station, only five are being forced to provide your tribute. The utility company that owns this station, on the other hand, is the subject of several lawsuits concerning toxic spillage brought by the families of those afflicted. It's a court battle that is taking a long time to resolve, and the company so far has not made any interim payments to the victims."
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