Crossways

by Jacey Bedford

  “That’s what Cara says.”

  “Then listen to her, man. Besides, you don’t want us old folk slowing you down, especially not now that you need to keep one jump ahead of the Trust and Alphacorp. It’s time to let the youngsters shine.”

  “I could do with your experience behind me right now. We’re living on credit until Olyanda produces the first platinum. We’re taking a chance on hiring the mercenaries van Blaiden used against us on Olyanda. We’re no closer to finding the missing settlers. Crowder’s hidden himself behind a double security screen operated by the Trust and the Monitors, in particular by a slippery bastard called Sergei Alexandrov who’s been brought in precisely because he has a grudge against me.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Isn’t it enough?” Ben sat back in his chair. “Ah, you’re right. I suppose it’s not all bad news. There’s a woman here called Dido Kennedy who thinks she can manufacture jump drives that can be retrofitted to any spacecraft. Yan Gwenn’s working with her and he says she might be on to something. Don’t tell anyone but I think Yan’s sweet on her.” He smiled. “Lorient has finally agreed to a new planet, Jamundi, in the Penda System. Yeah, it’s going to be a hassle getting the settlers there, but it’s sweet. Better real estate than Olyanda and no platinum to speak of. It’s got a jump gate hub only eight days away for supply. I’m sending a smaller set-up team, though, because we need to split resources to find the missing settler ark. In fact I could sure do with Suzi to lead the agriculture team. If you’re thinking about retiring, how do you fancy growing cabbages on Jamundi?”

  Serafin’s chuckle turned into another cough. “I’ll think about it.”

  Crowder had hated space travel ever since the Londrissi hijack. He always insisted on a sedative for the journey through the Folds, but he still felt as though his body had been turned inside out. His palms were damp, his mouth dry. He’d woken with the nagging worry that unremembered dreams had snagged in the dark corners of his consciousness and were waiting for an unguarded moment to manifest.

  It was possible to attend board meetings via a high-speed holo-link—the signal routed through three jump gates and the time lag was barely five seconds—but as the newly proposed member of the board he really needed to make the effort to be there in person. Despite the Olyanda fuck-up, he’d earned enough kudos from getting control of Hera-3’s platinum to warrant the invitation.

  He’d landed at King Shaka Spaceport, in KwaZulu Natal, north of the tourist city of Durban. He’d left Stefan with a watching brief to let him know of any developments on the Benjamin front, and since he’d just seen the most recent colony mission launch, he had a few days’ grace before he needed to think about the next one. His deputy could handle the pre-mission planning for the time being.

  He needed to devote himself utterly to the business of board politics for the next few days. He had plans once his seat was secure—and those plans involved making an impact quickly and building up his own faction.

  He transferred to Mangosuthu in a maglev pod. The shining headquarters complex occupied the land where Umlazi Township had once stood, before the demise of the USA and China in the meteor strike, combined with the advantageous distribution of platinum, had left Africa ascendant in Earth’s political arena.

  Sifiso Kweyama, his designated personal assistant, met him at the door with a schedule as a bot took his luggage to his suite. There was much lobbying to be done if he was going to work his way up and eventually oust John Hunt from the position of CEO. Hunt was a formidable opponent, but though his age had been wiped from the records sometime around his second or third rejuv treatment, he had to be pushing ninety-eight at least. It wasn’t his age that Crowder took issue with, but his leftward political leanings. For some time he’d been in the pocket of the European prime minister, Vetta Babajack, and some of the decisions he’d made had been to Babajack’s advantage over the Trust’s. Rushing the Ecolibrians off Earth before a particularly finely balanced election had been inexplicable unless you knew of Hunt’s connection to Babajack.

  That had meant rushing the Olyanda planetary survey to speed up the exodus, which resulted in the Trust missing one of the biggest platinum finds ever.

  “And look where that got us,” Crowder muttered to himself as he rose in the antigrav tube.

  “Sorry, sir?” Kweyama said, floating by his side.

  “Nothing, just talking to myself. Has Ms. LeBon left any messages for me?”

  Tori LeBon would support him, for a consideration of course. She was as good as her word as long as he delivered on his promises. Isaac Whittle was on his side; he owed Crowder a favor, having been tipped off to buy Hera-3 shares at rock bottom prices before the platinum news broke. He’d sold at a massive profit. Yolanda Chang would do whatever Tori told her to, and Adam Hyde always went with the majority. The problem, apart from Hunt himself, would be Beth Vanders, Sophie Wiseman, and Andile Zikhali. Vanders and Hunt had had a child together once upon a time and, though they might not be lovers now, had always retained an affection for each other that ran deep. Wiseman was a wild card, easily swayed by rhetoric and ruled by her heart. Zikhali was ruled by his head, cool and logical, and always looking at the bottom line.

  Wiseman and Zikhali were the ones he needed to win over if he was going to eventually move Hunt out of the top job and himself into it.

  Kweyama interrupted his thoughts. “Ms. LeBon said she’d see you in the Atrium at sixteen hundred for afternoon tea with Mr. Zikhali.”

  “Good, thank you.”

  And so it began.

  Cara recognized Ully’s mental handshake.

  *What’s up, Ully?*

  *Mother Ramona asked me to pass on some news for Commander Benjamin.*

  *He’s going over loading manifests for Jamundi with Marta. Do you want me to patch you through?*

  *No, just tell him that she got a report from one of her sources. Gabrius Crowder has been appointed to the Board of the Trust. He was proposed by Tori LeBon. That’s all the information she has.*

  Tori LeBon? The name didn’t mean anything to Cara but maybe Ben knew more.

  *Thanks, Ully.*

  Cara wandered through from the alcove where she’d been helping herself to a cup of caff and found Ben in the open workspace that would eventually be divided up into smaller units. Ben sat at one side of a desk and Marta, a damp scarf wrapped around the delicate gill slits on the side of her neck, sat opposite. They had a holo-screen each and they were moving items from column to column, the loading weight totals changing with each move.

  Both of them looked up when she entered.

  “A snippet of news from Mother Ramona,” Cara said. “That woman is well-connected. She must have people in every megacorp head office.”

  “I believe she does,” Ben said. “To our advantage, I hope.”

  “Well, I don’t know how advantageous this is, but I suppose it’s best to know. Crowder’s got himself a seat on the board.”

  “The hell he has.” Ben’s mouth tightened and he shook his head. “He always said he would, and I never doubted him for a minute, but if it means more power and influence for him it’s bad news for us.”

  “He was proposed by Tori LeBon. That’s not a name I know.”

  “She was head of the Trust’s Research and Development unit in Pretoria,” Marta said. “A bit of a whiz kid by all accounts. Followed her father onto the board when he bowed out due to ill health.”

  “I met her once, briefly,” Ben said. “She came to Chenon to see what went on in Colony Operations. It was soon after Hera-3 and we were still waiting for the final hearing. She asked a lot of intelligent questions. She also spent a lot of time closeted with Crowder. She may be up to her elegant armpits in whatever Crowder is planning.”

  “Maybe the whole board is,” Marta said.

  “Could be. I just don’t know anymore. I’m not stu
pid enough to think we can take on the whole Trust. Crowder’s still my main target. Besides, if we could shake the Trust apart what would happen to their colonies? Not all of them are self-sustaining. A lot of people could get hurt. A shake-up would be good, but not a breakup.”

  How could you manage one without the other, Cara wondered.

  Kitty had angled to join the party heading toward the settlers’ new planet, but all the available space had been taken up by the advance team of psi-techs and the core group of settlers, the decision makers. She’d heard the planet’s name mentioned several times, but Jamundi wasn’t on any of the star charts. When Remus contacted her early in the morning the day after Solar Wind had departed, fully laden, she had to admit that she didn’t know where the Olyanda settlers were going.

  *How can you not know? You’re a Navigator,* Remus said.

  *That’s right, a Navigator, not a psychic. Look, Remus, I’m doing my best, but I don’t get included in everything that happens around here.*

  *Ms. Yamada wonders if your best is good enough. You haven’t been able to get the platinum production figures for Olyanda. You don’t know where the settlers are going. What else are you missing?*

  *There’s nothing to miss. The station heads, Garrick and Mother Ramona, are unhappy about the blockade, but shortages haven’t begun to bite yet, so there’s no general unrest. Serafin West is out of danger and likely to recover slowly. The psi-techs are busy building. Benjamin and Carlinni heard the news that Mr. Crowder had been appointed to the Trust’s Board of Directors. There are no figures for platinum production on Olyanda yet because it’s still too early. There is no production. It will take at least six months. I can’t give you information that doesn’t exist yet. There’s a woman who thinks she can retrofit spacecraft with jump drives, but the word is that she’s a crackpot.*

  *Ms. Yamada asked you for the new IDs for the departing psi-techs.*

  *I’m working on it.*

  Now that her mom was free of disease, how hard did Kitty have to try to please Ms. Yamada?

  *Remus, where’s my mom? I want to know how she is.*

  *All in good time.*

  *The time’s good now. I messaged the clinic. They said the treatment has been successful, but Alphacorp has moved her to somewhere with a better climate than Shield City.*

  *Oh yes, much better.*

  *I want to message her, hear her voice, see for myself how well she is.*

  *When Ms. Yamada has her information. The platinum figures, the whereabouts of the settlers, the new identities of the departing psi-techs. In the meantime take my word for it that your mother is being very well looked after. She has the best of everything. Of course, she hasn’t had the bill yet.*

  *Bill?*

  *Her accommodation is very luxurious.*

  Kitty’s heart began to pound. Her mother, formerly a data clerk, had been living on a very small welfare payment since her illness began. Her reserves were gone.

  *Does she know . . . that you’re going to bill her for everything?*

  *Not yet, and she need never know as long as Ms. Yamada feels as though she’s getting value for money.*

  *I see.*

  *Yes, I think that you do.*

  Cara stared at the forward screen. Rena Lorient had chosen well. Jamundi hung before them, bathed in light from its yellow sun. Blue-green with intermittent cloud cover, it looked as close to Earth as any planet might be. Its second moon, an irregular rock barely big enough to be worthy of its status, orbited between them and the planet, leaving a small eclipse shadow on cloud and land alike.

  Because they had to route through independent gates, the journey time from Crossways for the massive superliners was a month, but Rena, Jack, Saedi, and fifteen settler volunteers were on board the Solar Wind as an advance party, together with a small group of psi-techs led by Gupta. Cara had suggested Mel Hoffner as Gupta’s second. She was the young medic who had proved so capable at dealing with the settlers back on Crossways. Ben had added four resourceful Psi-Mechs and several crates of bots, a botanist, an exozoologist, a surveyor, and two agronomists to the team, including Suzi Ruka, who had said if she was going to retire and grow cabbages she might as well plant them on Jamundi. Serafin would follow as soon as he was well enough. Suzi had seniority over both Gupta and Hoffner, but she said she didn’t want the headache of administration and would much rather just do her job.

  It had taken only days to mobilize ten thousand settlers, but considerably longer to arrange for basic agricultural equipment, tools, temporary shelters, seeds, and provisions. Horses, cattle and sheep, chickens, pigs, and goats were more difficult to source with the quarantine still in force.

  Marta, based in the organized chaos of Blue Seven, was still hunting down supplies as the superliners departed Crossways. Before they’d reached the first jump gate she had found five independent colonies willing and eager to sell surplus stock at the right price and contracted a commercial fleet to ship them, making sure the animals were well-sedated in the Folds.

  Cara received the good news as Ben put the Solar Wind into orbit around Jamundi and set the long-range scanners working.

  “It’s beautiful,” Rena Lorient whispered as she gazed at the planet from space.

  Jamundi’s axial tilt gave it slightly more seasonal variety than Earth, but as it was springtime on the vast southern continent, Ben settled the Solar Wind on the edge of a broad river valley that had been the site of the original colony. Fast-growing sycamores had invaded the remains of stone buildings from the long-abandoned earlier settlement, but there were cut stones available to be reused once the Psi-Mechs and their bots had cleared the site.

  After mistakes made on Earth—even at the height of the Great Colony Grab, humankind’s first and fastest expansion into the galaxy—all the megacorporations and the independent settlers had upheld the Chenon Accord, which stated that no more than thirty percent of the land surface of any planet could be taken for settlement and the remaining seventy percent must be protected as a natural reserve. But Jamundi had originally been semibarren and any native growth had long ago been overtaken by the vigorous imported flora.

  Fauna, too. A herd of bovines, descended from Earth stock, spooked by Solar Wind’s approach, stampeded across the rolling grassland beyond the thick swath of trees that crowded along the river bank.

  As the ramp lowered, Cara took her first breath of planetside air and looked out onto a virgin vista: tall trees to one side of the ship and rolling grassland to the other, if indeed it was all grass, since it was intermingled with blue-green growth exhibiting soft fronds. She sighed. It would end up being called grass since that was the nearest equivalent. That was the way it always happened. Humans always brought familiar names into unfamiliar landscapes. It made it feel more like home. In the far distance a range of hills rose to the horizon.

  She smiled at Rena Lorient and stepped back. “It’s your planet. Want the honor of being first down the ramp?”

  “Should I? Is it safe?” Rena asked.

  “We’re right behind you,” Ben said. “Besides, the colony that failed didn’t do so because of the planet. They found it mostly benign—at least, no more dangerous than Earth.”

  “So only earthquakes, volcanoes, super storms, floods, blizzards, and wildlife to worry about?”

  “You forgot landslides, quicksand, poisonous plants, and drought.”

  Rena laughed. “So I did.” She walked down the ramp with a light, firm step and jumped the last stride, planting both feet in a puff of dust. “Jamundi, I claim you.”

  An insect the size of a small sparrow fluttered upward with a startled chitter and several more followed it. They circled once and flew away.

  Rena stepped back.

  “Not dangerous.” Kayla Mundy, their exozoologist, was already tapping something into her handpad. “They’re on the survey. Prey on a leaf-
eating grub, so probably going to be the farmer’s friend.”

  “Well . . .” Rena gathered herself together. “I guess we’ll get used to them.” She looked at Ben and Cara, who’d flanked her, and at the rest of the settlers and psi-techs on the ramp. “I’m going to make you all a promise. We made mistakes on Olyanda and I’m sorry for it. We’ll probably make mistakes on Jamundi, too, but they won’t be the same ones. We were too ready to think of ourselves as different from psi-techs, but we’re all people and we should all treat each other with respect.”

  Jack Mario started to applaud and everyone caught his mood and joined in.

  “What about the Director?” one of the settlers asked.

  “Leave him to me,” Rena said.

  “And me.” Jack Mario stepped forward, still holding Saedi’s hand.

  Cara glanced sideways at Ben and saw that he looked satisfied.

  *Were you expecting this?* she asked.

  *I was hoping.*

  It had been five days on Jamundi, and nothing and no one had tried to kill them yet. Things were getting better. Cara had almost begun to relax. Of course it might all dissolve to shit when Lorient arrived, but so far, so good.

  They set up a base camp for the newly arrived settlers, erected perimeter beacons, surveyed the surrounding area and agreed on a plan for the first year with Jack and Rena.

  Suzi set about taking soil samples in the river valley and Kayla went with her, examining anything that crawled, ran, wriggled, or flew. The settlers started to erect temporary shelters using an old method of pumped quickset over an inflatable frame. The inflatables provided an interior lining and the quickset slurry added strength and durability and had the advantage of using local materials, mostly dirt, with a powdered catalyst.

  Cara thought Ben began to relax a little, too. He hadn’t been sleeping well, but he wouldn’t open up to her. She figured that was down to a number of things. He seemed to want to keep her around, or said he did, but she’d brought him nothing but trouble, or, at least, compounded the trouble he had already. She’d put him in the position of having to kill van Blaiden. Admittedly it was self-defense, but Ben wasn’t a natural born killer. He couldn’t just take someone down in cold blood and shrug it off. Maybe it was different if someone was shooting back, but van Blaiden had been unarmed, even if his guards hadn’t been.