Hammer and Crucible
Page 4
“Exactly. Another long haul like this one will kill me…or I’ll kill someone instead. Zillah’s World is far enough away that time in the hole will be reduced to an hour or so. And if I remember properly, the gates are close to the station, there.” I raised my brow at her.
She nodded. “They are. Only, you wanted military grade crush juice. Zillah’s World is purely a civilian hospice.”
“It will have to do.”
Juliyana looked as though she wanted to protest. Probably something about cancelation fees and going off-plan. Instead, she looked around. “There’s a lunch bar there. Park yourself. I’ll sort out the tickets.”
I moved over to the long counter and sat on a stool, suddenly grateful for the respite. Moving fast had taken the pith out of me.
The menu wanted me to order. I ordered water. It defaulted to the same welcome message and cheerfully and politely insisted I order something. So I moved through the river of people finding their landing bays, over to the outer wall of the station, which was white and pristine tensor graphide, put my back to it, and slid down until my ass was on the deck.
Had interstellar travel always been so exhausting?
Juliyana, when she returned, merely slid down the wall and settled beside me. “Done.” She rested her head back against the wall. “I had to pay a second set of gate fees. The taxes were raised last week.”
I had forgotten about taxes and gate fees. In the military, we didn’t pay them, of course. “You’re a well-paid Ranger,” I said. “And this is the only way.”
“It’s extortion.”
“You’re always free to refuse to pay it.”
“And get to where I want to go, how?”
“You could buy a long-haul ship, point it in the right direction and wait.”
She rolled her eyes at the infeasibility of that idea.
“You could build your own gates.” I said, keeping my tone reasonable. “That’s all the Imperial family did.”
“Then they charge everyone to use them.”
“That’s because they spent seven generations developing the technology.”
“And now they keep it a big, dark secret.”
“Of course they do. They have to earn back their original research investment. There’s nothing stopping you from doing the same thing. Not even the Imperial Family will try to stop you.”
“Because they know no one can replicate the work. And why would they? It’s already been done. Anyone who tries would be repeating all that time and effort.”
There had been attempts over the years to deconstruct the gates and figure out what made them work, only the franchise holders for the gates didn’t put up with tinkering which might damage their investment. Nor would the people living in that sector appreciate losing their access to the greater Empire.
“If you don’t want to do the work, then shut up and smile when you pay your gate tax,” I told Juliyana.
She sighed. “I hate commercial travel.”
I could only agree with her on that one.
Our departure was hours away. It could have been worse, for the Zillah’s World connection was once-weekly. After a while, my ass and back started to hurt, pressed against the wall. Juliyana helped me up. I hobbled over to the café, and this time pleased the menu by ordering a sandwich.
Juliyana ordered pastrami on rye, with a pickle, salad, soup and a chocolate cake to finish. When I raised my brow, she tapped the corner of the menu, where the simple Cygnus logo sat. “The pickle the Cygnus files print is mild except for the end, where the bump is. The chocolate cake has a gooey center.” She shrugged. “I’m at least eating a salad, too.”
“It’s your metabolism.” I peeled open my own sandwich and frowned. Only now I remembered the Cygnus bread did not settle well in my stomach. Instead, I rolled up the deli meat and ate it with my fingers.
“I’ve been thinking about what you told me, about Cygnus and the gates.” I chewed. “The Emperor took control of the array, because Cygnus was handling it badly.” I still remember the official memo that went round, when gate control, manufacturing and administration were all turned over to the Emperor. “That was the only way to end the Crazy Years.”
Juliyana nodded enthusiastically as she swallowed. “The Crazy Years was his excuse. Of course the Imperial family wanted the array back in their control.”
“They already had control,” I pointed out. “The actual manufacturing of the gates, the construction of them, has always been a family operation.”
“Only the manufacture of the parts making up the gate, the mechanical parts, at least, was parceled out. Centuries ago, there were a dozen companies making their fortune providing the Imperial Family and the Imperial Shield with parts for the gate. Then, Cygnus Intergenera convinced the Emperor they could do it all as a one-stop contract, and they could do it cheaper and better.” She pointed at the menu, with the logo on the corner. “Now Cygnus has a stranglehold on the galaxy. They’re the most powerful corporate state in the Empire, and the Emperor didn’t like it.” She paused. “The Crazy Years is how he took the array back out of their hands.”
“That was in 245 or 6 or something. Drakas was years later.”
“It was 247, and Drakas was 251,” Juliyana replied. “I didn’t say the connection was direct or obvious, because everyone would have noticed. There is a connection there, though. The Emperor took back the array and a few years later, Noam apparently goes mad and destroys Cygnus Intergenera’s premier battalion.”
“Who were lined up in protest against the Emperor taking the array back,” I concluded. “You realize how crazy you sound?”
“It sounds absolutely insane,” she said. “Only you have a memo with your signature faked at the bottom of it, and that shifts the crazy.”
“Who benefits from something like this being bought into the open? That’s what I can’t figure out. The Emperor wouldn’t like it. Cygnus wouldn’t appreciate having shareholders and the buying public reminded of their military troubles and the Emperor’s disapproval. After that, the list grows very short.”
“That isn’t the point,” Juliyana said, with a touch of impatience. “I have the information, you’ve verified there is something screwy about it, now we follow up.”
For the first time it occurred to me to ask, “Where, exactly, did you get the information? You never did explain that.”
Her face hardened. “It hardly matters. We’ve verified the data—one document, which puts the others in an interesting light. If the Emperor has arranged things to suit himself, and if he did put my father out there as his scapegoat, it’s a short step to considering if he needed Noam to be out of the way. Just like you were pushed out of the way.”
I scowled at that. “I was not under any influence when I resigned my commission.”
“Except for the influence of an entire Empire screaming for your head as a coward,” Juliyana shot back. “There is at least a possibility that the Emperor manufactured the Crazy Years, just so he could take back the array. I think that is what we are both thinking, yes?”
“The information you have suggests that general direction,” I said cautiously.
She rolled her eyes. “Presume that everything the data suggests is true, just for a moment. The Emperor arranged the Crazy Years, so he could take back the array. Then he covered up everything and misdirected.”
“Misdirected how?”
Juliyana shook her head. She wasn’t going to be derailed. “What if my father was involved in the Emperor’s schemes to arrange the Crazy Years? Then, him going mad and shooting out the Cygnus military forces and dying right after that was a very neat way of getting my father off the board. He was dead and unable to blow the whistle on the Emperor.”
I stared at her, my heart doing little flattery things. We were talking in the privacy bubble, yet I still had the need to check over my shoulder to see if anyone was listening. “That really isn’t something you should suggest out loud,” I said.
&nb
sp; “No one can hear us.” She was calm. But then, she had spent weeks contemplating the data I was still trying to wrap my head around. She had adjusted to the enormity of the concepts.
“Or maybe Noam just went mad,” I said.
“He was transferred to the Imperial Shield,” Juliyana said, as if that discounted my suggestions completely.
“Where he did the work he was assigned, and then he went mad.” My throat was aching. “No conspiracy, no power-hungry Emperor.”
Juliyana scowled and picked up her pickle. She turned it to show me the knobby outgrowth at the end. “There. It’s like all the vinegar collects in that bump.” She took a bite and winced as she chewed.
I returned to my sandwich.
We reached Zillah’s World eighteen hours later. Fourteen of those hours had been spent waiting on Melenia. Zillah’s world has extra screening which most stations don’t bother with. All of them were bio scans, designed to find anyone with high risk viruses or parasites. Such people were isolated and put on the nearest shuttle away from the station.
Only the harvest teams and a select few biochemists were allowed upon the surface of the planet. They collected and sampled the plants in the equatorial jungle belting the planet. Even though the quarantine prevented just anyone from landing on the ball, the scientists who administered Zillah’s World were still highly cautious about introducing diseases and bacteria amongst the residents of the sprawling hospice and research station floating overhead. Those bugs might be transmitted down to the surface by the research team and the harvesters. Xeno-bugs amongst the natural pharmacy down there would be a disaster for more than Zillah’s World’s single-themed economy.
Once our skin was sterilized and our internal biome classified as safe, we were permitted to move around the public areas of the station. I asked the directory to give me the nearest hospice outlets, while scratching at my arm. The scanning process was supposed to remove all the seared skin cells, but there were always some left behind. They would itch and irritate until they flaked away.
The directory showed me the layout of the station, then tracked a path for me to a clinic about a kilometer away.
Juliyana lifted her brow. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“I’m a big girl. I think I can ask for a crush shot all by myself. Why don’t you find a hilton and get some shut eye?” It was one of the basic axioms of a Ranger. Get sleep when the opportunity presented itself.
Juliyana nodded and hitched her sack back into place. She glanced at the directory, probably committing to memory the location of the clinic I was heading for. Then she turned on her heel and moved down the corridor. There was no public concourse on this station. It wasn’t a major traffic hub, but a destination. The people who actually got off a ship were here for a purpose. Either they were patients, professionals or laborers, here for therapy or work.
I turned in the opposite direction to Juliyana and made my way through the pristine white corridors. I found subdued steel glass walls and a negative pressure door, with a discreet sign bearing the name of the clinic. Zillah Garden Advanced Medical Clinic and Services Inc. I went inside.
There was an actual human at the front desk. He looked me over and tapped on his pad. “Rejuvenation, yes?”
I snorted. “I’m here for crush juice, that’s all.”
He lowered the pad. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Why not? You sell crush juice, don’t you?” It was a rhetorical question. Everyone offered crush juice.
He gave me a strained, polite smile. “We would have to do a scan to establish a baseline, but I can tell just by looking at you that your bio markers would not fit the profile range for the safe administration of crush juice.”
I stared at him, my heart thudding. “So, basically, you’re saying I’m too fucking old?”
He grimaced. “I suppose that would be one way to state it, yes.”
4
Things got heated after that. At least, on my side.
The core of the ZW station was a research and hospice. Surrounding that core were dozens of for-profit clinics and therapy centers, plus all the support services—food, accommodation—who provided the station with its economy. Given the weird and wonderful chemicals available via the bio-cocktail on the surface, people came here for alternative therapies available nowhere else. The station also provided the straightforward therapies, too.
Including crush juice.
If Zillah Garden Advanced Medical Clinic and Services Inc. did not intend to give me the crush shot I wanted, I was sure the next clinic along would be happy to take my money. I headed for the door, intending to turn left and walk until I came across that clinic.
Before I could reach the door, though, the assistant got a hand around my elbow, while talking fast. He was sweating. It was his job to add to the clinic’s revenue stream. Turning customers away would not look good.
He managed to get me into one of the consultation room, seated in a comfortable chair, while I fumed.
Then he requested my serial number, his hand waving toward my wrist. “It’s a simple procedure.” Desperation shaded his tone.
I figured he would get his ass chewed out, possibly his pay docked, if he didn’t complete the formalities. Reluctantly, I held out my wrist.
He waved the pad over it and nodded. “Thank you.” He went away.
Far more quickly than I suspected was normal, the medico appeared. She smoothed down her white shift nervously and indicated the other man who had come into the room with her. He did not wear white. “This is Harvey Blankenburg, the director for the clinic.”
They really didn’t like a paying customer walking on them. I nodded at him. I didn’t bother smiling.
“Do you mind if I sit?” Blankenburg’s smile was full of white teeth, the epitome of good health. He didn’t wait for me to say yes. He settled on the chair opposite me and gave me another blinding smile. “I must admit we’ve never had anyone of your caliber in our clinic before.”
“You mean you’ve never had anyone so old before.”
“I’m quite sure we’ve had people far older than you. I myself am in my fifth century.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing in a place like this?” I asked him. “Most people get over the need to shill for a living in their first century.” I wasn’t bothering to spare him, as I had no advantage to gain by sitting here. I wasn’t even sure why I was cooperating this far. “Time is ticking. I have things to do, places to go. Are you going to sell me a crush shot, or not?”
He wove his fingers together and placed them on the table in front of him. It was supposed to be a friendly, let’s-be-frank gesture, yet he had barricaded his hands in front of me. I was only in my fourth century, but I knew what that meant.
“I think we can find an arrangement which suits you and us. I’m not here to tell you ‘no’.”
The doctor cleared her throat nervously.
I didn’t look at her. She had no power in this room. I kept my gaze on Blankenburg.
“We have a range of half-life mortgages available, all of them with minimal bondage—”
“How much does crush juice cost these days?” I asked in amazement. I have never paid for crush juice in my life. The Rangers took care of that for us. I had learned from conversations with private carriers and freighter grunts that commercial crush juice was a month or two’s worth of wages and bonuses. By scrimping and saving across the approximate five years a crush shot lasts, civvies could buy their next dose and therefore continue to work in space.
A half-life mortgage to pay for the juice said inflation had exploded in this section of the Empire.
Blankenburg paused, while his jaw worked. “Mortgages are not available for crush juice. Why would they? Most people can afford an inertia inoculation. I presume that you can, too. That is a secondary arrangement we can deal with later.”
My jaw sagged as I realized what he was not saying. “You’re pitching me on rejuvenation?”
I sat back. Caution mixed with the anger I was feeling. “I’m not shopping for rejuvenation.”
His jaw dropped.
The doctor gave a strangled sound. “Biologically, you’re in your last decades. Of course you must rejuvenate and, I judge, within the next few years, before your telomeres have shortened beyond the point of regeneration.”
I looked her in the eye. “I’m already dying.” I looked back at Blankenburg. “Rejuvenation is not on the table here. Move on.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the doctor insisted. “Rejuvenation addresses a vast array of medical conditions and resets them out of existence.”
“Next?” I asked Blankenburg, my jaw tight.
He shook his head. “There is no next. If you want crush juice, you must rejuvenate.”
Cards up.
I was breathing too hard. Hyperventilating myself into an oxygen-deprived panic attack wouldn’t help me here. I controlled my breath, waiting for calm to return.
Rejuvenation was out of the question. Juliyana was a Ranger, but her pocketbook wasn’t endless. She could not afford to pay for my rejuvenation. Neither could I. I had lived aboard the family barge without income for decades. There, they had to feed me.
Blankenburg must have guessed some of my thoughts, for he said, “You’re a former Ranger, yes?”
“You looked up my serial number. Congratulations.”
He shook his head. “You have a military bearing about you.”
“So has half the Empire.”
“I’ve never been in the Rangers. Neither has anyone I know,” Blankenburg replied. “I believe the current recruitment rate is eighteen percent of the statistically surveyed population of the Empire.”
“So I was a Ranger, so what?”
“Then you have never negotiated for rejuvenation before. Half-life mortgages are the normal way of arranging them.”
“Not where I come from.” Enslave myself for thirty years to pay off the medical debt? “Anyway, you said your mortgages were bonded.”