Cold Welcome

by Elizabeth Moon

  “I didn’t know,” Riyahn said. “He said it was to make them not work with any communications devices—”

  “Really? And since no one’s coms or skullphones worked anyway, why did he think that was necessary?”

  “He said this was all very secret and we’d all get in a lot of trouble if anything leaked out about it and all it would do was fry the device—”

  “Like someone’s skullphone? And you didn’t think what that could do to the person?”

  “I didn’t—I asked him—he said—he said it had to be done. And—and he was a master sergeant. He said it was an order—”

  “You knew perfectly well it would kill,” Sergeant Cosper said. The threat in his tone was clear. “You knew that; don’t lie anymore!”

  “Corporal Riyahn,” Ky said, in a quieter voice. “You are in hot water up to your nose. This is not the time for excuses. Did you or did you not know that the higher current could kill someone?”

  “If—if the—that skullphone—didn’t have a safety on the switch—it—it could. But I hoped—I thought everyone would have that.”

  “Did Master Sergeant Marek think that?”

  Riyahn looked down, shoulders hunched. “No, Admiral.”

  “Did Marek ask you to do anything besides change voltage in the electrical sockets?”

  “Um…yes.”

  “What?”

  “He was having trouble changing the lock settings. I showed him how to bypass the passcode and change to a new one—”

  “Did he have you reset the doors I hadn’t opened yet to the same code?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what the new one is?”

  “Uh—I think so.”

  “Well, then, tell me what you think it is.”

  Riyahn stared at the floor. “I’m not sure I remember it exactly—”

  “Life has a price,” Ky said. “I suggest you remember it exactly.”

  “Um…48311965…uh…5753. I think.”

  “We will test it shortly. If it happens to be a code that blows a security device, I’m sure Staff Sergeant Gossin and Sergeant Cosper will know what to do with you.” She looked at Gossin. “Have him restore the sockets, all of them, while I see if his code will open this door. If it does, I’m going to be exploring down the left branch from the T.”

  Riyahn’s code worked on the door, and nothing blew up at them. Ky led the way into the passage beyond; lights came up just as they had on first entering the facility. Windows onto the passage revealed two large control rooms, one to the left and one to the right. On the left, Ky recognized a communications center, full of familiar screens, consoles, control boards, with headsets and keypads laid neatly beside each console.

  “What do you think, Kamat?” Ky asked.

  “Communications, definitely. Satellite uplinks, ansible-capable sets, local nets…do you think it would be safe to activate the local net, if we disabled the satellite uplinks? It would make it easier to communicate when we’re spread out down here.”

  “If you can do it so it won’t be detectable topside, yes.”

  “I see short-range comunits racked on that wall.” Kamat pointed. “And the squawker’s easy enough; that’s this unit here. That would allow general announcements.”

  “Good. You can do that after we’ve taken a look at the other room.”

  Across the passage, the other room held readouts for all the environmental controls—air, water, heat, light, power supply to the local grid. It felt warmer than the passage outside. Lights glowed on all the consoles, a steady green that should mean normal operation. Ky looked at the other readouts but didn’t understand most of them. The far side of the room was also glassed in, with a large lighted area beyond, extending beyond the room’s window. When she walked closer, she felt dizzy for a moment. Far below, three rows of round shapes extended into the distance. The floor beneath her feet vibrated slightly.

  “Those are turbines,” Gurton said. “At least as big as the ones at Cavanaugh Dam, and more of them.”

  “Cavanaugh Dam?” Ky asked. All that could be seen were the round, slightly mounded shapes; they might have been breakfast buns. But the floor’s vibration and the steady hum proved Gurton right.

  “Across the continent from Port Major, Admiral. Power generation at Cavanaugh Dam supplied a wide area. We had a field trip there when I was fifteen. I wonder where the power’s going here. One of those turbines would provide much more power than this installation—at least, what we’ve seen of it—needs.”

  “What about fuel?” Ky asked. “It can’t be hydro, can it?”

  “Nuclear…geothermal…I don’t know if I can tell; it’s really not my field.” She moved away, glancing at one console after another. “I think it’s geothermal,” she said finally. “Here’s the datastream on the source, but I don’t know what the numbers mean, except it’s deep boreholes. The labels on the controls aren’t original—I’ll see if I can unstick one—” A long pause; Ky walked over beside her. Gurton had peeled back a label in the familiar writing and underneath were symbols Ky had never seen before. “I don’t know what that is,” Gurton said.

  “I don’t, either.” Ky queried her implant and came up blank. “It’s no language I know.” Ky shifted her weight back and forth. Was the hum of the turbines getting louder? Or was she just reacting to the mystery? “Does anyone know if we should be changing controls or something?”

  “No, sir.” Staff Sergeant Kurin had come into the room. “If it’s like most geothermal installations, it could run on its own for the down season, because we’re not using much power compared to its maximum.”

  “Good. We’ll close the door on this and let it do what it’s doing.”

  Farther down the passage, other door insets showed. Ky went on. A conference room, complete with table and padded chairs. Offices, some furnished with gray metal desks and chairs, others more luxurious, with large wooden desks, comfortable chairs, a sideboard. She opened the door of the largest and found facilities for making hot drinks, a wine cooler with bottles of wine and a few of beer, a shelf of liqueurs. Behind the desk hung a Slotter Key Spaceforce plaque, enameled in bright colors. And on the desk, a nameplate: COLONEL B. R. GREYHAUS, COMMANDER.

  The name meant nothing to her; she rummaged in the desk and found a small green-covered book. A paper book, like the precious volumes that had gone up in flames when her childhood home was bombed. This one, when she opened it, was handwritten in a conventional script and resembled the Slotter Key logs in the Commandant’s personal library. It was not, however, a ship’s log, she saw within the first few pages. It was full of information about this very facility. She flipped over to the last page.

  “As per orders this facility on seasonal shutdown 15 days early to accommodate elimination of threats to mission security. All research personnel withdrawn 10 days prior; Pingat Islands base advised via usual channels no further need for SAR readiness due to local operations. Anticipate return to normal operations at usual date in new year.” She flipped back; the “usual date” was defined by day length: thirty days after the equinox.

  Two days later, the last entry. “Base secure. All communications blocked until return. Mission report forwarded to command. (signed) B. R. Greyhaus.” The date was ten days before she had arrived in Slotter Key space, seven days before the shuttle flight. Here was proof the shuttle flight had been sabotaged, that someone in Spaceforce knew about it—had arranged it. And that suggested the Commandant’s presence on the shuttle was the primary reason it was sabotaged. It would have been easy for them all to die—if the pilots had not managed to achieve separation in time, if the weather had been worse, if they had not been able to deploy the life rafts, then reach land, then reach this sanctuary—they would all have died, and no one would have known what happened. All the deaths would have been attributed to the shuttle failure.

  No one knew what had happened even now but those here, the survivors, and now Rafe. It hit her, all at once, that
this could have been a strike at her family as well. Not only her, but her aunt Grace, the new Rector of Defense.

  “Anything useful?” Kurin said from the doorway.

  “Very,” Ky said. “This place closed earlier than usual because of us—whoever made the plans knew that there would be a shuttle flight with the Commandant on it, and ordered this place closed seven days ahead of time. Told the Pingat Base nobody was here and to cease SAR activity early.”

  “Ensuring they wouldn’t search for survivors…”

  “I read it that way. The Rector may have pushed them to do a flight or two, but if they were part of it—do you know anything about the Pingat Base?”

  “No, sir. I was never stationed there. There’s one northern base that closes down in winter, but two that stay open to provide SAR for polar flights just in case.”

  “I also know when this Colonel Greyhaus expects to be returning. Which gives us that long to figure out how to deal with whatever comes with him.” She held out the book; Gurton looked at it.

  “Seems like plenty of time…”

  “But it will go fast,” Ky said. “We have much to learn, and much to do to prepare.” She opened the bottom drawer; deeper than the others, it held a polished wood case the right size for the weapon Marek had used. She pulled it out and opened it; the molded lining held the outline of that model, and a small gray plastic tab. “And there’s a palm-lock code key.”

  “Marek knew it was here,” Kurin said. “So that’s how he got hold of a weapon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  PORT MAJOR

  DAY 57

  “Why doesn’t she answer?” Rafe paced back and forth.

  “She will have a reason,” Grace said. “And it will be a good one.”

  “Unless she’s hurt. Unless the fuel ran out and they have no electricity—and no heat.”

  “If it were that, she’d have let you know,” Grace said. “Sit down; you’re going to knock something over.”

  Rafe sat with a thump on the nearest chair.

  “I have great-nephews steadier than you,” Grace said.

  “They aren’t—they don’t know Ky.”

  “True, but that’s not the point. Tell me, have you figured out yet who it was that reconfigured the satellites in the first place?”

  “No,” Rafe said. “And not because I haven’t tried. I’ve been through all the records I could reach, and those you unblocked for me. One of the founding families, I’m fairly certain.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “Found something they wanted to hide,” he said with a shrug.

  “Other than the land itself?”

  “I think so. From orbit, the scans show void spaces under and near that landing site. It can’t be a mine—any conventional kind of mine—because there’d have to be more surface evidence, even if the extraction was done underground. There are old topographic signs of something…a very long time ago…” As he talked on about what his analysis of the scans taken by Vanguard II had shown, he seemed calmer, but Grace recognized the tension under all that. She felt tense herself. MacRobert had reported some unusual communications traffic that he couldn’t completely categorize. “Who owns that place, anyway?”

  “Excuse me?” Grace pulled her mind away from its own tracks, replayed what he’d said. “Owns it? You mean Miksland?”

  “At least that part of it. We know someone’s been there—do they own it, or are they trespassing? Didn’t anyone ever lay claim to it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Grace said.

  “So there’s no record at all of a claim—you said there was a record of someone visiting it—”

  “Yes, but he was considered eccentric at best and crazy at worst. His family finally put him away.”

  “He was letting out a secret they knew about, and wanted kept. Who was he? Who are his living relations?”

  “Nobody, I think.” Grace cocked an eyebrow at him; he ignored her. “Mac said they died out over a hundred years ago.”

  Rafe leaned back in his chair. “If I were a conspiracist, I would be looking for someone—two families, or two branches of one family—who somehow managed to convince everyone that place was barren, toxic, and useless. And then perhaps quarreled. One killed off the other, leaving the survivor in possession of a whole continent nobody else would bother with. All its resources available to one family. What would you Vattas have done with a continent all your own?”

  “Probably moved away. It’s in a very harsh climate zone.”

  “Yes, but you’ve seen the images now. It’s not just bare rock or frozen tundra. It becomes more and more biologically complex on a gradient from south to north; by the north coast, there’s even some temperate forest at lower altitudes. I realize Slotter Key doesn’t have as large a population as Nexus, and you’re not stretched for resources, but people could live there, if they knew how. I can’t imagine that some of them wouldn’t want to. It’s odd. And I still want to know who else knows about it. Someone must.” He glanced at her. “You Vattas were founders here, weren’t you? Surely you know something.”

  “Founders? No. We’re latecomers, not even early colonists. Third wave, if that, since we didn’t exactly come in a wave. Nemordh Vatta arrived 173 years ago, roughly, with his family on a ship that—to be blunt about it—he stole from his former employer, somewhere the other side of Nexus, after being cheated by his employer of half his earnings, and cheated on by his wife with his employer. We would prefer you not publicize that, by the way.”

  “Your dynasty was started by a thief? Stella didn’t tell me that—”

  “I wouldn’t call it a dynasty, but yes. And Stella didn’t know. According to his personal journal, he had been an honest man for all of his life until—in a fury with his employer and his wife—he took off in the stolen spaceship with the rest of his family. Then he—” She stopped as Rafe jumped up and ran out of the room.

  “It’s Ky,” she heard as his footsteps receded down the hall.

  MIKSLAND

  DAY 57

  Rafe answered her call quickly and began a spate of questions before Ky could even say hello. Ky waited them out, and when he slowed down said, “I’m fine, there was a bit of trouble because someone had hot-wired a number of sockets to be high-voltage. It took awhile to clear them—”

  “You could’ve been killed!”

  “But I wasn’t. I found the base commander’s logbook—we opened up another section of this place. Start Aunt Grace looking for a Colonel B. R. Greyhaus.” She spelled the name for him. “Someone knew ahead of time something was going to happen that might mean outsiders finding this place; he was ordered to close it early. Doesn’t give any names—”

  “Who tried to kill you?”

  “Not just me. My aide, as well.”

  “Who?”

  “Master Sergeant Marek and Corporal Riyahn.”

  “And?”

  Ky sighed. “I killed Marek; a stray shot of his killed my aide. Corporal Riyahn is cooperating with the authorities in hopes of not being executed. Things are better now. Is my flagship still in the system?”

  “Yes, though it’s been ordered back to SDF headquarters. Apparently Admiral Pettygrew has usurped your place.”

  “Not usurped. I chose him; I set up the emergency protocol. After thirty days without contact and it’s been—what, almost sixty?—the governments involved probably leaned hard on him. They probably pressured him to order Pordre back, too; Dan wouldn’t do that on his own unless there was a situation. Is there a situation? Is SDF in action?”

  “Not that I know of. Nothing in the news. Pordre’s told your aunt he intends to stay, no matter what. But really—you couldn’t have found even one safe outlet earlier than this?”

  “Not in a private place, no. You still want me to keep your secret—”

  “Dammit.” She could hear him take a long breath. “All right. I want you out of there. But nobody authorizes flights in for another hundred and something da
ys. Are you sure you’re safe down there?”

  “All systems working. We’re fine. I wouldn’t worry until it’s closer to spring. Is there any way to push a lot of data through this link fast?”

  “Not really. Oh—I’m sure you noticed regular skullphones and other devices are now able to get a signal. Wasn’t us—the other side. I doubt any of that’s secure.”

  “That’s why we’re not using them. I’ll be calling more often, but don’t worry if you don’t hear for a short time.”

  “Ha.” A strong smell followed. End of call.

  PORT MAJOR

  Grace settled herself to wait for Rafe’s report and had just closed her eyes for a restful nap when MacRobert came in looking grim.

  “Something’s moving and I can’t get the details.”

  Grace sat up and blinked. “Any clue at all?”

  “Minimal. Pingat Islands Base requested some replacement parts for their Air-Sea Rescue craft. Those craft should’ve been inspected and any parts ordered last fall, before the weather closed in. A major I know in Requisitions told me it’s a huge order, big enough to require flying one of the big troop carriers down there. He questioned it; his boss questioned it; someone upstream told them to shut up and fill it, that if Pingats wanted all their supplies at the start of the flying season it would save fuel and time to send them on down instead of a flight every ten days.”

  “Who upstairs?” Grace asked.

  “No clear answer. I’ll keep digging. I tugged the list off the line,” MacRobert said. “And brought it to you without printing it because I’m not trusting very many people these days.” He handed the stick to her.

  “What else?” Grace tucked the stick into her left pocket.

  “Little things. Three deaths, one unreported for a long time on the grounds the body couldn’t be identified, all over on Fulland in one of the big server farms. That death occurred as the result of an explosion and fire in one of the smaller units, and the investigation was handled internally because no customer service was interrupted. It would have come at about the time Rafe’s pal unblocked the scan satellites passing over Miksland. The other two were the partner and adult son of the first victim. Neither of those deaths aroused suspicion, but they had been insisting to friends that something was wrong about the report of the first death.”