The Best of Us

by Karen Traviss

  “You know me so well.”

  “I’m just the project manager. I don’t do science. I read minds.”

  Alex put a beer in Eduardo’s hand and looked him in the eye to check that the crisis had passed. It was completely impractical for the man to swap jobs, but he wasn’t the only person who’d asked. Of course staff felt helpless: they had no idea of what was coming. They could only see a past and a future of unbroken failure. Alex wanted to tell Eduardo that some things couldn’t be put right fast enough, and might never be fixable at all, but there’d soon be a new task for all of them that would secure humanity’s future. He just hoped the guy could hold out for a few more months.

  How the hell have I managed not to blurt it out?

  Alex promised himself that once Nomad was out in the open, he’d get totally wasted to make up for all the years he didn’t dare drink too much in case he let something slip.

  People were drifting outside to drink on the gantry despite the cold, so he followed them, flinching at the icy air that brushed his face as the external doors opened. They were all crazy to stand out here in this weather, but they wanted to look up at the stars after a working day in windowless labs, offices, and meeting rooms. Alex couldn’t blame them.

  A small group huddled together, chatting in shivering voices as the safety lighting made glowing gold steam out of their breath. Javinder and Ben from Propulsion were here with some of the biomed team, including Audrey, whose kid was now a year old and no longer a barrier to drinking. Alex handed out more beers.

  “What’s this, the call of the wild?” He raised his bottle to toast them, careful never to finish it. “Hey, we could get a pizza oven out here. Warm things up.”

  “Make it happen, boss,” Ben said. “Get some hot punch laid on, too.”

  Alex leaned on the rail with them and looked up at the night sky through broken cloud while they tried to spot orbitals. On the ground, the town of Kill Line looked as idyllic as a Christmas card, a cluster of yellow lights visible through the trees, with the occasional sound of voices drifting on the night air. Alex imagined it as the kind of place he might find after struggling frostbitten through the mountains, desperate for warmth, close to death, and in need of a miracle. It was nice to fantasize.

  “It’s them I feel worst about,” Audrey said suddenly. She pushed her hands into her opposite sleeves like a muff, shoulders hunched against the cold. “The farmers. They must think we’re useless. All this technology and we can’t reverse something that other scientists did. I often wonder how that looks to a layman. They must hate us.”

  “But they know we’ll starve to death the same as them if we don’t fix things.”

  “Y’know, you should have been a comedian. You’re such a comfort.”

  “Hey, who’d hate someone who keeps them in coffee, liquor, electricity, clean water, fuel, fabric, medicines...” Alex stopped. He suddenly wasn’t sure if he was joking. Knowing there was good news around the corner when everyone else was worried sick probably made him look like a total bastard. “What I mean is whatever Ainatio or the town does, we’re both in the same boat now.”

  Just as he was shaping up to say something more profound, a pool of light spread across the floor as the doors opened and someone else came out. He glanced over his shoulder. “Ten-shun, demigod on deck.”

  “You’ve found your calling in life, I see.” Todd Mangel put his hand on Alex’s back and helped himself to a beer from the bot trolley. “The hospitality industry will always have a job for you.”

  “Yeah, everyone’s suggesting careers for me tonight. I think I’m more of a lavatory attendant, though.” Alex knew he wasn’t one of them when it came to the crunch. He was a manager, neither scientist nor engineer nor anything else, but as long as he knew just enough about their respective disciplines to spot when they were bullshitting him and to referee between them in turf wars, that was all he needed. “I dream of a new rim brush.”

  “Have you got five minutes?”

  “For you, Todd? Two.”

  “Excuse me, boffinettes.” Mangel flashed his eyebrows at the biomed women as he led Alex away. “I’ll be back later to dazzle you with my insight.”

  Audrey looked at him dead-eyed. “Oh good. I’ll go get my welding goggles.”

  Mangel slipped into the service corridor with its dim bluish lighting and odour of disinfectant. Alex followed him into one of the empty offices.

  “Just wondering if you knew anything about our visitor,” Mangel whispered.

  I’m told nothing. Okay. Fine. “What visitor?”

  “They brought in a woman a few hours ago. Dr Annis Kim. She claims to be from Seoul National University.”

  Alex seethed. “It must have slipped Erskine’s mind.”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t think this was planned.” Mangel got quieter as he grew more agitated. Alex leaned in closer to listen. “She just showed up on the border. One of the refugees found her and called Trinder. But — wait for it — she quoted the Pascoe co-ordinates to get our attention, so I told Trinder to let her in. She’s in the infirmary.”

  Alex felt suddenly numb. His mouth was making the right noises, but his brain had become a blank grey sheet with a few mundane concerns written on it that fell short of the panic the situation deserved. Erskine should have told him about something this serious by now. It was way beyond a routine security issue.

  “Shit. What else does this woman know?”

  “I’m not privy to that.” Mangel tapped his forearm. “My chip won’t let me into the medical wing. Erskine’s barred me.”

  “And you want me to go and find out.”

  “Don’t you want to go and find out?”

  “Okay. What’s she going to do, fire me?” Alex shifted up a gear to anger again and put his drink in Mangel’s hand. “Hold my beer, as the saying goes.”

  The long walk to the medical wing gave Alex too much time to speculate, and there was always the chance that Erskine would spot him coming on the cameras and block his chip as well. He broke into a jog. He could often cross this entire floor without seeing another human being, just bots wandering around like possessed filing cabinets, and the layouts were so similar that only the colour coding on the walls and floors gave him any sense of progress. Eventually he had to slow to a brisk walk, breathless. There was nothing worse than trying to face down Erskine as a gasping, sweaty heap.

  The rhythmic thud of a gait too regular to be human and the sound of a motor made him stop and look around. A quadrubot was coming down the corridor at a low, steady trot, looking like a lion shaping up for its final sprint to bring down a zebra. It was just an old-style utility model like millions of others built to be sent into damaged reactors, collapsing mines, and other hazards a human couldn’t survive, but Alex knew right away that this one had a passenger.

  “Why do you still park yourself in that thing?” he asked. “Get a drone. You could fly.”

  “I like to feel the ground,” Solomon said in a cultured, mid-Atlantic voice. He matched Alex’s pace as he resumed walking. “So we have an interesting visitor.”

  “Sol, you’re just a nosy parker.”

  “I can’t not know things. I’m in every system. How else would I run security checks on her?”

  “Anything I should know, then?”

  “Dr Kim certainly shows signs of long exposure in some unpleasant and contaminated places. She’s picked up some fascinating intestinal parasites.”

  “Everybody should have a pet. How about what she knows?”

  “She either knows a great deal and she’s bluffing that she’s made an inspired guess, or she’s made an inspired guess and she’s bluffing that she knows a great deal.”

  “The latter sounds better until I think about it.”

  “Agreed. Only superior technology would explain the former, but if casual observers can
work out our intentions, we have a problem.”

  “What’s her cover story?”

  “She appears to be who she claims, but the why’s more uncertain than the whence. Erskine’s waiting for Dr Mendoza to finish examining her.”

  It was just as well they had a medic with full Nomad security clearance. “Are you taking part in this?”

  “I’ll eavesdrop.”

  “Are you going to rat on me and let her lock me out?”

  “If she wanted to limit your access, she’d have done it already.”

  “Good man. See you later.”

  Ah, there it was again. Alex fell into talking to Solomon like a buddy every time. But only one AI like him had ever been created, and Ainatio had put the execution and entire future of Nomad in his non-existent hands. He had more power than Erskine, if he chose to use it. He even predated Cabot, so maybe he also knew more than she did. It was a shame that he was the wrong kind of entity to ply with beer to get him to talk. Years of friendly chats had revealed surprisingly little of the relationship he’d had with Bednarz.

  Alex followed the signs to the infirmary past labs and mothballed wards, then opened the last set of security doors into the public area with its luxurious carpets and expensive art. If any of the townspeople needed hospital treatment, this was where they were admitted, albeit under constant supervision. Erskine was sitting in the main waiting area, still looking like she’d stepped out of a board meeting in her neat blue suit, her iron-grey hair pinned in a neat French pleat. The apocalypse hadn’t reached her wardrobe yet. She glanced up from her screen.

  “Astonishing to see what you can and can’t keep quiet in this place,” she said. “Mangel, I assume?”

  “He’s a little hurt by the security clampdown.”

  “Are you going to join me for the debrief, then?”

  Why didn’t you ask me anyway? “Do you want me in there?”

  “Good cop, bad cop. Might work.”

  “Did she really come from Korea? Unless she’s got a private jet and a parachute, she’s passed through some pretty rough neighbourhoods.”

  “It’s hardly unknown for spies to go through extreme preparation to back up their cover.” A door opened a little way up the corridor and Dr Mendoza emerged. “In we go, then.”

  If Annis Kim had endured the last eight months’ journey just to look the part, Alex hoped she was getting a pay rise from her spymasters. She was emaciated: she looked like a starving child, all hollow eyes and parched scarecrow hair. One hand was covered with a dressing. She looked at both of them as if she was too exhausted to care whether she was in trouble or not.

  “Good evening, Dr Kim.” Erskine had one of those smiles that never looked warm even when she seemed to mean it. Alex wasn’t sure which cop she’d decided to be, nice or nasty. “I hope you’re feeling a little better. I’m Georgina Erskine, the director of this facility. This is Alex Gorko. He manages all our technical teams.”

  That told Kim nothing, which was fine. Alex pulled up a chair for Erskine and one for himself. The only place to put them was either side of the bed, which probably looked like an intimidating pincer movement.

  “Well, thanks for patching me up,” Kim said.

  Erskine only cranked out a half-smile this time. “We don’t get many visitors. So I’m sure you’ll appreciate that we need to ask a few questions. You obviously like to make an entrance.”

  “No need to be diplomatic,” Kim said. “I would have walked up to your front door if I could have found it. Or walked.”

  “Did you really come from Seoul?” Alex asked. “Because that’s crazy, whichever route you took.”

  Kim eased herself further up the pillows on one arm. “Chinese coast, Russian islands, then across the Bering Strait on a contraband vessel. It was much harder crossing America, though. I didn’t realise how bad things were.”

  “Impressive survival skills for an academic.”

  “I’m a physicist. Space propulsion research.”

  This wasn’t taking the conversation down the path that Alex expected, but all three of them knew which question they weren’t discussing. “Okay, I can’t stand the suspense.” He gave up on cues from Erskine and tried to thaw the conversation. “What brings you here? This is a bunker in the middle of nowhere and we spend most of our time devising ways to keep the contamination at bay. I’m guessing life’s a lot easier in Korea.”

  “It is,” Kim said. “Go on. You know you want to ask me about the co-ordinates.”

  Erskine didn’t blink. She never did. “We’re listening.”

  Kim just looked at her for a few moments, unreadable. “Well, you recognised them as Pascoe’s Star right away, which I expected. Because I don’t think you ever abandoned space exploration. You just scaled it up.”

  Alex knew Erskine well enough to know when she was playing for effect. A little frown creased the bridge of her nose and she tilted her head just a fraction, as if she really was waiting for Kim to go on. Kim didn’t.

  “Is that it?” Erskine asked. “Is that why you risked your life to come here? Okay, thank you. When the doctor says you’re well enough to leave, I’ll make contact with your nearest embassy somehow and we’ll arrange to hand you over.”

  Alex looked at Kim for some flicker of a bluff expertly called, but there was nothing. This was going to get complicated.

  “Miss Erskine, I’ve only just started,” Kim said quietly. “So I’d hold that call until we’ve discussed what Ainatio’s done with the FTL research that it stole from my great-grandmother, round about ninety years ago. Because you did, and I can’t wait to see what use you made of it.”

  Complicated. Yes, Alex could see it coming. It was going to be a long night.

  * * *

  Security Section, Ainatio Park Research Centre:

  2000 Hours

  Solomon considered whether to involve himself in the security meeting that was going on in Major Trinder’s office.

  It wasn’t an easy choice. Did he announce his presence and ask to participate, or just monitor discreetly? Or should he just suspend his attention from that spur of the audio system and ignore it? He always had more information than they did, he couldn’t share it, and it often troubled him. They’d be making decisions based on a lie.

  Just like me.

  I never knew about Dr Kim’s relative. I don’t even know if it’s true.

  This was why lying was wrong. From the moment he’d become self-aware, Solomon had known instantly why humans regarded lying as a sin. He’d felt that even before he’d realised he wasn’t a human like the people who talked with him. It was necessary to refuse to give an enemy information, but to withhold it from allies — friends — could only be done for their protection. Otherwise it was like letting them walk off a cliff in the dark. Everything that followed from a lie was tainted and dangerous.

  It wasn’t that simple, his programmers had told him, because humans had evolved survival advantages from deception, but Solomon knew they were just making excuses. He forgave them. They filtered reality without realising.

  I don’t. I can see exactly what’s there. This is why you need to know what’s real.

  “Yeah, it’s only one woman,” Trinder said. “But it’s time to review how we monitor incursions. We didn’t see this one coming.”

  Solomon viewed the room from the security cameras in the corners of the ceiling. The major was sitting with his confidants in the small briefing room, drinking coffee. The group was always Elena Fonseca, Aaron Luce — his staff sergeant, a former police detective — and the two military advisers, Tev Josepha and Marc Gallagher. Like Kim, Tev and Marc were now marooned a long way from home. They’d both been British special forces. Solomon could find very little information about them, other than that Tev’s father was Fijian and Marc played rugby, but sparse detail was to be expected in their li
ne of employment. He wasn’t unduly worried.

  “We’ll always have advance notice of big problems via the orbital cameras,” Fonseca said. “But that won’t necessarily spot individuals approaching downstream under tree cover, and if it does, then there’s the response time. Maybe we do need to put sentry bots along that route.”

  “Armed variety,” Marc said. “You might lose some wildlife that way, but you want to stop these buggers before you need to go chasing after them to engage them. I’m thinking more about disease than violence.”

  “And there’s the deterrent value,” Trinder said.

  “Only if the target survives to go and tell their mates that they’ll get perforated if they come here.”

  “Well, whatever the camp militia did to the gangs who showed up that time, word seemed to get around. Not that we can be sure, but there’s been no incursions on that scale since. Just the occasional bunch of chancers.”

  “Dan, there aren’t any heads on poles. I went out looking.” Marc tapped his temple. “Psy ops. Just a rumour. And it looks like our visitor hadn’t heard it.”

  “Okay, we’ll get some armed sentry units in place and notify the townsfolk to stay clear.”

  “I know I bang on about this, but how can you have a bunch of trained men living a few miles down the road and not talk to them about joint working? Baltimore, you said. If they could handle that shit-show, you’re wasting people you’re really going to need one day. It’s been nearly two bloody years. Even this Montello bloke’s got to accept they’re here to stay.”

  “I’ll never get Erskine to agree to it,” Trinder said. “There’s no way of running security checks. No clearance — no entry, no contact.”

  “Erskine was happy to let us in,” Tev said. “I guarantee she couldn’t get anyone to confirm or deny we even existed.”

  “You were working for embassies that trusted you enough to get their people flown out. And you ended up stranded here. That’s enough of a reference.” Trinder seemed to be thinking it over. “But the main problem is the transit camp likes its privacy. They don’t even mix with the Kill Line people. The way things are, they’re happy doing their patrols, they seem effective, and the town’s happy. It’d be great to have some more experienced people alongside us, but I’m not sure they want that.”