by John Barnes
“—and he is the Hive Intel open agent in place for the Harmless Zone. An agent’s prestige, in that organization, is much higher if he is secret rather than open. Prestige also depends on the importance of the nation in which an agent operates. So Hive Intel has bounced this heet as low as they can bounce him without bouncing him out. You’re getting a heet who has a knack for antagonizing the powerful and for failing his superiors.
“He will be under your orders theoretically but you will not be able to punish or fire him, because his name is Clarbo Waynong. That Waynong family. He will arrive in a day or two—he had to meet with friends at the Patridiots Association expats banquet.”
Jak felt sick. The Patridiots were a reactionary student movement; it was the shorthand combination of patrician-patriot-idiot, young men and women from the Hive’s traditional political families who favored the abolition of the Republic, the creation of a hereditary aristocracy, and an enforced loyalty to a list of conventional ideals. They proudly described themselves as “too loyal to be smart” and declared that “Leadership isn’t what you do, or know, it’s what you are.”
Faczel shrugged just as if he could actually see Jak’s shudder. “Sorry to be adding all these complications, Jinnaka, but the Assembly Steering Committee ordered this directly, and since four of Mr. Waynong’s cousins were voting on the subject—” He shrugged again. “Good luck to you, sir.”
The vision clicked off. Before Jak could even decide to take off his goggles, there was another signal; an incoming call from Hive Intel’s Deimos office.
Doctor Mejitarian’s big warm eyes had never looked so troubled before. “Hello, Jak. You’ll be happy to know that for once this is not about the Princess. I wanted to let you know that we intercepted Hel Faczel’s message and he is correct in all particulars. Clarbo Waynong really is a fool and had no business passing the PSA, let alone being taken into Hive Intel.
“But in our business, we work with what we have. We are keeping Waynong in Hive Intel because he wants to be in Hive Intel. We give him what he wants because he is the oldest son in the senior branch of an important patrician family. He is highly electable and appointable, and therefore certain someday to be very powerful.
“We want him favorably disposed toward us.
“We need him to succeed at the present business, and we need his name to be all over the success when the story becomes public, you see.
“Engineering his success is not going to be easy. (I assure you that you will get no help from him.) Nonetheless, if somehow he succeeds, we will know who engineered it. So, by way of incentive, direct from Dean Caccitepe: if Hive Intel obtains control of the Nakasen lifelog through your efforts, in such a way that the public credit goes to Clarbo Waynong, then we will at once completely decondition you from your attachment to Princess Shyf, terminate your double-agent mission, and transfer you out of PASC and into Hive Intel. Make what we want happen, and everything you want is yours.
“Any questions?” The kobold’s grin was surprisingly warm.
“None at all, sir. It’s a deal,” Jak said. “Thank you for the opportunity.”
Mejitarian’s expression went flat. “I have been working with Clarbo Waynong for most of two years, and I would say, don’t thank me for this opportunity until you’ve had some firsthand experience of it. Good luck.”
“Thank you.” Jak took off his eyepieces and his headphones. Pikia was looking at him curiously.
“Bad luck, not of our making, but we’re going to be cleaning up after other people’s messes,” Jak said to her. “We’re getting three backseat drivers. Two pushy zybotniks and a probable incompetent.” He gave her the truth about Sib and Gweshira, and a highly edited version of the Clarbo Waynong problem. It was a chance to practice his cover story with a less-experienced person.
When he finished, she made a soft click with her tongue.
“What?” Jak asked.
“Well, at least I’m not the most useless person on the team anymore.”
CHAPTER 5
If You Can Pull It Off, You’re In Out of the Cold
An hour later, they were back on the acceleration couches, comfortable enough in slightly more than two g, as John Carter slid down into the atmosphere. The Martian scale height is large (pressure falls very gradually with increasing altitude), and much of the post-Bombardment atmosphere is far above the surface, since the planet does not “hold it down” very hard. Martian air is sticky so that it exerts great force on any airfoil, but its thinness and high heat capacity dissipate aerobraking heat rapidly.
Thus the risk in coming into Mars’s post-Bombardment atmosphere at too steep an angle was not so much of burning up as of being squashed flat; the danger of coming in too shallow was that the terrific lift of the sticky air could fling one away from the planet all too easily. John Carter entered shallowly, and moved rapidly down to a hypersonic glide at very high altitude. The relatively short distance around Mars—half that around Earth—the great velocity, the shallowness of the glide, and the great distance to be descended meant that they would glide right around the planet almost three times during their reentry.
The captain announced, “All right, no more aerobraking, and we’re not in free fall: You two can get up.”
Jak got off the acceleration couch. The grav was about a third of a g, downward, with a gentle noseward pull.
Day and night flashed by at hour intervals, twice; three times they passed under Phobos. There was something ominous about the Jovian League’s major base hanging there, seemingly close enough to touch.
Every few minutes the captain talked to his purse, and the variable geometry of the warshuttle varied further. Fins grew to wings, wings lengthened, then widened, then curved. After their third swift dawn, the warshuttle, still fifteen kilometers up, took up a twenty-kilometer-radius circle around Red Amber Magenta Green’s landing field. The fuselage, which had been nearly the whole ship on Deimos, was a small ellipsoid between vast wings.
At last they coasted a dozen meters above the hard-packed red sand, toward the mad jumble of spires, towers, arches, and domes that was Magnificiti, the capital of Red Amber Magenta Green. John Carter dipped as if bowing to the towers, the linducer grapples coupled to the maglev rails, and they had grabbed the planet’s surface, like a perfect catch on the trapeze.
Around them, the wings and fins rolled, folded, and collapsed back into the fuselage, until John Carter looked much as it had on Deimos, with only two meters of the boarding wing extended on the right side. The linducer track carried the warshuttle on across the desert, as if it were a big, slow-moving Pertrans car.
There were five people waiting at the quai. Dujuv rocked back and forth like a small boy, and Shadow on the Frost stood with exceptional straightness, the floppy feather-covered scent organs standing so straight up that he really did look like a bunny—at least, like a very tall feather-covered bunny with a mouthful of saber-teeth. Erect posture was the equivalent of a broad human grin; the Rubahy have no facial muscles and hence no expressions.
Sib and Gweshira stood by uncomfortably, too aware that Jak would rather they were not there.
The fifth person was a tall young woman, very beautiful even in a century when genetic modification and routine body sculpting made everyone beautiful. Her gold-blonde hair and her all-but-jet skin were made more striking by her full, long white gown.
Captain Adlongongu clasped forearms with Jak and Pikia again, gripping Jak’s muscles like a vise, but closing as lightly as a breath all the way round Pikia’s slender arm. “Well,” he said, “if (as you tell me) this mission is actually something that might someday make the history books, make sure my ship gets a footnote.”
The boarding door dilated, and Jak walked out across the wing, onto the quai, and into a bear hug that could crush a pony. “I missed you too, Duj, you big goon,” Jak managed to gasp. The six hours down from Mars to Deimos, and the ten hours back up, and their tight schedules, had prevented their seeing each oth
er since taking up their duty stations.
Dujuv released him and stepped back. Jak’s oldest and best tove was a panth, a breed the genies of the Old Martian Empire had intended as bodyguards: mesomorphs with ultra-short reaction times, ultra-fast metabolisms, and far more fast-twitch muscle fiber than unmodified humans. Natural gymnasts, wrestlers, pilots, or commandos, they were also modified to bond deeply—once he was your tove, a panth could hardly help being anything else. They had a bit less verbap and mathap to make room for a great deal more spatiap, and their speed at sorting out a chaotic situation was astonishing. A panth often won the fight before anyone else in the room knew there was one.
Panths were naturally all but hairless; Dujuv’s only visible hair was his eyebrows, which were a mere scattering of a few coarse hairs on his deep brown skin. They had little subcutaneous fat; naked, Dujuv looked like an anatomical drawing. “It’s good to see you again, pizo,” Jak said.
“And to have you along on this, old tove,” Dujuv answered.
“The Rubahy say that a meeting of three old friends is seven gladnesses,” Shadow on the Frost commented. “Three who are glad to be with each other as three; the gladness of each one not to be away from his toves; and the gladness of each pair. I feel that saying at this moment. It honors me to stand in both your company.”
“And it honors us, your oath-friends, as well,” Jak said, giving the reply that he knew was correct—though even after five years of friendship, Rubahy social customs were a permanent bewilderment to him. “Let me introduce my assistant, Pikia Periochung.”
Sib, Gweshira, and the silent young woman all gathered for introductions; when Pikia had been introduced all around, Dujuv said, “And you are to receive your official greeting and welcome to the territory of the Splendor of the Splendiferous Chrysetic People from Princess Kayadi Guntrasen, recognized second heir of King Witerio Guntrasen of the Gunemabuv Branch of the Kaesenedi Dynasty.”
“If you call me anything other than just ‘Kayadi,’ ” she said, “I will slap you. My brother Prince Cyx, or Heir Number One as I call him, is fond of ceremony. I have decided to let him have all of mine.”
A whirling cloud of dust bounced over the nearest hillside. Turning to follow Jak’s gaze, Dujuv said, “Oh, there she is now.”
“She?”
“What has sprung over our short Martian horizon,” Shadow explained, “is a hovercar, which is why it is kicking up such a large cloud of dust, carrying Teacher Xlini Copermisr, which is why it is late.”
Dujuv shrugged. “She’s very dedicated to her work, so she never leaves it till the last second. Still, no one gets around in the Harmless Zone better. She’s the first one I call when I need advice in dealing with some petty king. If they had let her handle the whole deal, it would be done by now.”
“She said more or less the same thing about you,” Jak said.
Dujuv nodded. “She would. My predecessor told me to follow her around as much as I could, keep my mouth shut, and listen for my first two months. He should have said three months, or four.”
The hopping and leaping cloud was nearly on them. The hovercar burst from the base of the great pillar of dust, slewed sideways, flared its flexible skirts toward them, and coasted to a sloppy stop beside the goal, throwing red-brown dust up toward them.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Teacher Copermisr said, hurrying up the walkway onto the goal, as if she were five years old and they were going on a picnic.
Introductions were repeated, and then Kayadi said, “Well, I have to go stand around uselessly at a party all afternoon. And no doubt you all need to confer. We set you up with the guest pavilion, Dujuv, with private rooms for everyone. If you like, take one of the royal taxis there.”
“That will be fine,” Dujuv said. “Thank you for being the one who came out to meet us—this wouldn’t have been so pleasant without you.”
“You mean it wouldn’t have been as efficient. With my father or brother you’d have had a brass band and a full military review, and with my mother, my grandma, or either of my sisters, you’d have all been inspected for the presence of eligible men with some aristo blood, for possible matching up with my minor cousins. But be sure you remember, Xlini, I’m counting on you for an invitation to a dig this fall—otherwise I’ll be stuck going through my second social season.”
Teacher Copermisr grinned. “I wouldn’t let that happen to a tove. We’ve got some undersea excavation to do. You’ll probably have to take off some of that hair for the helmet.”
“Ruined for two social seasons! Oh, Xlini, you’re a toktru tove! Good-bye, everyone, welcome to the Splendor!” A small robot limousine glided up; Kayadi got in and it whisked her away.
Dujuv spoke into his purse. “Taxi for seven, bill to the King. To the guest pavilion.”
“Right,” his purse said. “And notify guest services at the palace?”
“Please.” Dujuv touched the reward spot, and his purse cheebled merrily. He looked up at the rest of them. “The plan for the rest of the day is to do nothing,” he said. “To save up energy for tomorrow, when we’ll be doing nothing with great grace and style.”
Jak worked out three times a week in a full-g centrifuge, and Martian grav is a bit less than 0.4 g, but the difference between voluntarily working against weight for an hour, and having weight all the time, is painful and exhausting. Besides, he had been in constant motion for thirteen hours. His aching bones and tired muscles cried out for a comfortable bath and early bed. He took a muscle relaxant, and set up the conference room in his suite so that everyone could talk half-reclining.
Jak’s first conference was with Sibroillo and Gweshira. They had been awakened at their hotel on Deimos after only four hours’ sleep, flown down on a regular commercial launch into Bassoon, and caught a four-hour trip in a sleeper Pertrans car from there to Magnificiti, and of course they were both more than a century older than Jak; it was hardly surprising that they both looked strange. But there was something else as well.
Gweshira looked grimly determined. Sib appeared slightly hangdog and defiant, showing more of his bald crown than his face. Gweshira said, “Jak, Sibroillo has something to say to you.”
“Well, it’s Gweshira’s idea, but she’s right, and I’m working my way around to feeling that she’s right. Jak, we’re only stringers for Hive Intel. For them we’re strictly mercs, and all that they have officially asked us to do is to make sure that we are participants in the process and that Hive Intel’s interests are looked after. It looks to Gweshira and me as if Hive Intel is reaching hard for something that it would be better for it not to touch—if they capture that object for their exclusive possession, it will cause enough negative blowback to be contrary to Hive Intel’s own interests—if only they had brains to see that! So … we will look after their interests by just riding along—unless you appear to be completely crazy or stupid.” Sibroillo winced slightly.
Jak had barely seen the flick of Gweshira’s fingers against his arm. She’d lost none of her speed in all the years he’d known her. Sib hastily added, “And we won’t be too quick to make that judgment. Carte blanche, old pizo. I’m swallowing several tons of advice right now, you know.”
“I know, Uncle Sib. I appreciate that.” Jak was touched, overwhelmed really, but his feelings were severely mixed. It was good that there was no risk that Sib would snatch Nakasen’s lifelog himself, or take any of Jak’s credit away. Yet at the same time, Jak really had not thought about whether it was a good thing for Hive Intel to have the lifelog or not.
“Well, then,” Gweshira said, smiling brightly, “we’ll be going now—I know there’s forty minutes left in the time for this meeting, but if we stayed, poor Sib would compulsively spend that forty minutes finding ways to not give you advice.”
“Thank you, Aunt Gweshira.”
It was nice that Sibroillo and Gweshira would be letting him run his own show, but on the other hand that also meant he would have to run his own show. Oh, well, weehu, P
rinciple 129 said that “The hardest thing to understand about a balance is that both sides are equal; grasp that and the universe is yours.” In a way he wished they had stayed. Jak did not need forty minutes before his next meeting to nervously arrange chairs—
His purse said, “High priority message from a high priority source.”
“Screen it.”
“From Myxenna Bonxiao, coded channels, and it came from von Luckner. Eyes only.”
Von Luckner was a Ranger-class raider; raiders were the fastest ships in the Spatial and Ranger-class were the fastest, most modern raiders. A Hive Intel agent aboard one was hardly unusual, but Myxenna was also one of Jak’s best and oldest toves, and for her to call him from von Luckner meant it was at least semi-official business.
“Can you do eyes-only protocol here?”
“It will take three extra minutes for bugsweeping.”
“Then do it.”
The door to the room contracted, the locks activated with a synchronous thud, and the windows opaqued. White noise roared through the speakers. That must be some side effect of his purse attacking and defeating listening devices.
The screen flickered to life. “Hi Jak.” Myxenna Bonxiao had blue stars within her green irises, thick dark hair, freakishly pale skin, big high breasts, trim little waist, tight round buttocks, and beautiful legs. Any reasonably hetero male had a hard time looking away from her. She was also one of the smartest people Jak had ever met, both book-smart and people-smart and able to use the two together.
“Jak, I’m on von Luckner because it’s delivering me to Mars, as quickly as it can. The Hive is still four months back from its next opposition with Mars, so even at von Luckner’s top speed, it’s going to take about ten days for me to get to you. When next you see me, I’ll have the happy expression of a girl who’s been mashed by nine g, one hour out of every six, for more than a week, with full grav in between.
“My job is to secure the lifelog if you haven’t. So if you’re going to grab that thing and save Clarbo Waynong’s career, you’ve got ten days, and it won’t be easy. Did you know him in the PSA? He was two years ahead of us and always asking me out. For every course he ever passed, his family had to create a scholarship, donate a research grant, or buy the athletics program a new toy. He has a major self-confidence problem—he has major self-confidence and that’s a problem. When Caccitepe heard who would be assigned to retrieve the lifelog, he turned gray and started shouting, and when he was done shouting I had this mission.
