The Best of Us

by Karen Traviss

  “What?”

  “Don’t forget that me and Tev go back to the days when our special forces worked alongside yours. The UK had space assets too.” Marc gestured with a piece of near-cremated bacon. “So whatever you’re really maintaining them for is your weak point. Unless, of course, you’re just worried about thousands of tons of burning metal landing on Earth in inconvenient places.”

  Erskine was struck silent for a moment. She’d never asked what the two Brits knew. They probably wouldn’t have told her anyway. For the first time, it occurred to her that they might know a great deal more, and that was why they were still here.

  “Well, the ships are our last resort if the die-back spreads,” she said, trying to recover. She wasn’t used to being outmanoeuvred, but maybe it wasn’t tactical questioning at all. Perhaps Marc just avoided discussing confidential information until he had to. “Losing them would be significant.”

  “Okay, you should be able to narrow down what’s got their attention. Let’s hope they don’t think you’re working on something as bad as die-back that could escape into the wild. Because that means they’ll finish what they started.”

  Erskine could only shrug. It was genuine: Kim made no sense — yet. But she couldn’t be sure what Kim had said to Trinder, and what Trinder might have shared with Marc. Another drop of truth was needed to smooth the passage of the lies.

  “Well, her story so far is that we stole research from her grandma.”

  “Long way to come to demand compensation.” Marc cleared his plate and rearranged his knife and fork neatly at least three times. He obviously wanted to leave. “Are you going to tell me what she’s asked for?”

  “So far, nothing specific. But I can’t let her go now, just in case.”

  “Spies need a way to report back to their handlers. If this really is espionage, she’ll have set up a route out, either via comms or an actual exfil. If it’s sabotage, though, she might be ready to pull the pin here and die for the republic.”

  “That did cross my mind.”

  “So is there anything more I can help you with?”

  “No. You’ve been helpful in focusing my thoughts. Thank you.”

  “I’d appreciate a heads-up if the shit really is about to hit the fan. Arrangements to make.”

  “I realise you and Tev must have family back in Britain.”

  “I had one. Both my lads were killed fighting in Greece.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry.” Erskine had no idea what to say to him. “When did...”

  “Eight years, three months, and one day ago, and eight years, three months, and five days.”

  Everything she needed to know about Marc Gallagher was in that sentence. The conversation was definitely over. He nodded politely and left. A bot inched in to remove the plates.

  “Poor man. I can’t imagine what he went through.” Solomon’s voice was a whisper in her earpiece. “That explains a great deal.”

  Erskine couldn’t afford to feel sorry for long. “We still need him and his colleague.”

  “Because you fear what might happen once news about Cabot gets out?”

  Erskine couldn’t discuss it with people around. Solomon knew that. But she let the question ride, conscious that mistrust was getting the better of her today, the price of staying up late to war-game the Kim situation. She just didn’t have the staying power at seventy.

  “Later,” she said. “I’m off to talk to our guest.”

  Solomon would follow her anyway, walking through the virtual passages of the security network. Erskine tapped her collar link and called the physician.

  “Did Kim have a comfortable night, Doctor?”

  “The infection’s responding. She’ll need to stay on the anthelmintic for a few days, and supplements for the anaemia in the longer term, but she’s eating like a horse. I don’t think there’s much to worry about.”

  “Good.” Erskine wondered when the pharmacy had last needed to synthesise worming pills for human use. “I’ll be dropping in soon.”

  Ten minutes was a long enough walk to think over what Marc Gallagher had said. It was what APS thought Ainatio had done that mattered, and she could understand their potential grievances. She could also understand that there was no international legal structure or anything else now that could stop them doing whatever they liked to show their disapproval. What hadn’t Ainatio done? Which treaties and laws hadn’t it broken? Cabot shouldn’t have been sent on a mission to a new world that hadn’t been approved by international agreement, it shouldn’t have had plans to introduce non-native plant and animal species, the ship shouldn’t have been armed — certainly not with nuclear weapons — and the company shouldn’t have developed untested plant strains in a biologically compromised zone.

  And it definitely shouldn’t have had autonomous weapons like Solomon. Sociable and sensitive as he was, he was also capable of destroying a threat when he saw fit, and he had access to every weapons system between here and Pascoe.

  And now we have Kim turn up. Coincidence my ass.

  But I’m going around in circles. Stop it, right now.

  When Erskine reached the infirmary, there was no sign of the staff, but she could hear activity further along the corridor. She was used to getting instant attention. It was her own fault, she knew, because she hadn’t told them that she was on her way, but it irritated her for no logical reason.

  One of the nurses came around the corner at a race-walking pace, looking flustered. He hesitated when he saw her but only slowed down rather than stopped.

  “I’m sorry, Director, I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said. “Mr Levine’s had another CVA. Dr Mendoza’s with him now.”

  Poor old Levine had gone downhill fast, but if Erskine had a choice, she’d opt for that rather than a slow decline with her mind fragmenting. She instantly calculated how much older than her Levine was, a compulsion she had every time a colleague died or came close to it. He was eighty-something. She still had time on her side.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I can show myself into Dr Kim’s room. Would you keep me informed about Mr Levine’s condition, please?”

  “Certainly, Director.”

  Erskine knew Solomon would keep her updated even if the infirmary didn’t. It was a damned shame that Levine might die before he found out that the mission he’d worked on for so long, and thought he’d seen fail, was months away from making history. For a moment she felt desperately sad about that, but she had to focus on the risk that Kim might present. She couldn’t afford to make the wrong call now. She tapped on her door and walked in without waiting for a response.

  Kim was sitting up in bed, devouring an apple as if it was the first she’d ever tasted.

  “Good morning, Dr Kim. You look a lot better today.”

  “Food and warmth works wonders.”

  Erskine drew up a chair. “Let’s see, where did we get to last night? You mentioned your great-grandmother’s research. That’s long before my time, so I checked the company records, or at least our AI did.”

  “And you’re going to tell me you found nothing,” Kim said.

  “Correct. If your story’s true, I wouldn’t have expected details of industrial espionage to be minuted, but then I also wouldn’t have expected to find anything if you were lying. So we’re no further forward. How about telling me what you want? Because right now, my best guess is that you’re spying for APS. Although I can’t imagine what Asia wants from us, given the shape we’re in.”

  Kim looked at her, unmoved. “My great-grandmother’s research on superluminal propulsion was stolen by Tadeusz Bednarz,” Kim said at last. “By stolen, I mean copied and used by Ainatio as its own intellectual property, except there was no attempt to pass this off in public, because it was a secret project.”

  That could well have been true. There was an FTL relay out there
right now that proved someone had worked out something, although it was for an artificial wormhole, not a ship’s drive. But Erskine had more pressing questions.

  “So you want compensation?” Erskine asked. “How would that happen? The US banking system’s collapsed. Our assets are what you see around you. We couldn’t pay even if we wanted to. And if we didn’t want to, how would you take us to court? How would that even begin to work when there’s no functioning state here, let alone a national government?” She paused a beat, not for effect but because a better idea had occurred to her. “And why did you come all this way to tell me this? Why not lodge a complaint with your government? You’re not some factory worker. You’re a physicist. And I imagine you’ve got documentation somewhere that supports your claim. They’d listen. Industrial espionage affects the state.”

  Kim said nothing. Erskine got up slowly and poured herself a glass of water from the carafe on the side table to give Kim time to chew that over.

  “I do have documentation,” Kim said. “I uploaded it. I can’t access it without a screen, though, and I had to trade mine for food.”

  That sounded like a weakening argument. Erskine dived in. “I think you didn’t involve your government because this is all garbage. Or because they sent you to find out something, like whether we’re any closer to a countermeasure for die-back. I know we’re hard to reach, but they could have asked.”

  “Would I tell you where I came from if I was a spy? I could have just told you I was Australian and you’d have been none the wiser. But I’ve been open about everything.”

  “Spies do that, too. So... I can get a message out through a neutral intermediary like the Russians and ask your government to collect you. Or I can just have you shot, because you’re a spy, and you’re the enemy, even if we’re in ungoverned territory.”

  Erskine sat down again and sipped the water. Kim was still expressionless. There wasn’t a hint of movement in her face, not the slightest twitch of a muscle, and with so little fat left on her, Erskine would have seen her jaw muscles move. But Kim didn’t even blink. She was cornered now: she was either a spy who’d failed, with all the consequences that would follow when she got home, or she really was the avenging granddaughter she said she was, and had illegally crossed APS’s closed border. Going back wasn’t an easy option either way. Erskine waited, expecting that realisation to wear down Kim’s resolve.

  “Well, I’d probably have to come clean with them, then,” Kim said. “I’d have to tell my government that I pursued Ainatio because you’d taken Grandma Park’s research and sent a manned mission out of the solar system. I’m guessing that’s what happened to your original ship, yes?”

  Erskine could handle this. It was an inspired guess. Propulsion was Kim’s specialty, after all, and she probably assumed a drive derived from her relative’s research had malfunctioned and destroyed Cabot. But then the questions began bubbling up again. Why now, in this very narrow and significant window of time? Erskine decided to flush her out.

  “So you think we built a drive based on your great-grandma’s research, bolted it onto Cabot, and it blew up.”

  “I did think that. But back in the lab, I started seeing a lot more activity last year around your orbital, so I wondered if I’d had all the pieces of the puzzle all along.”

  Damn. “Meaning?”

  “I knew Ainatio was interested in Pascoe’s Star rather than anything closer with planets that needed a makeover. Bednarz wanted a second Earth.”

  “Everyone does.”

  “No, he used to talk about the best extrasolar candidates for habitation with a guy at the University of Sydney, Paul Nguyen. And if Cabot was heading there with conventional propulsion, the transit time would be about forty-five years. Which made me ask what your orbitals were doing. Like maybe preparing for follow-up missions. Although I also wondered about the timing, because you wouldn’t have had confirmation of a landing yet. That’d be another forty years, right?”

  Erskine thought her heart had taken its last beat. The seconds ticked by so slowly that she was sure she floundered in silence for minutes. Solomon’s voice whispered in her earpiece.

  “Oh dear, that’s true,” he said. “He did indeed. Private correspondence, but Dr Kim seems to have access to it.”

  For a moment, Erskine couldn’t form words. All she could see was the orbitals being boarded, the FTL link with Opis and Cabot being compromised, and APS seizing control. She could feel her voice stalling in her throat.

  “That’s stretching guesswork to the limit,” she said. “But I still don’t see how your various theories fit together.”

  “Well, there’s always a chance you’ll have me shot if I tell you, but as I’m a propulsion expert, I think I’m more use to you alive,” Kim said. “You really needed my great-grandmother’s research to establish a foothold on Opis, and you had forty-five years to crack it. But I don’t think you have, not yet.”

  It was all slotting together in an awful, inexorable way. Damn. Damn. Kim had put it together the wrong way around, but she knew exactly where Bednarz wanted to go, and she’d worked out the rest simply from the personal correspondence of a dead Australian academic.

  Or she’s a very, very inspired guesser. A brilliant con woman who can read reactions and fill in the gaps like a fake medium.

  Erskine couldn’t afford to lose her nerve now. She still didn’t know where Kim was going with this, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to cave in and admit it was all true. Everything, absolutely every asset that Ainatio possessed, had been sacrificed for Nomad: Mars projects cancelled, all other company sites shut down and consolidated, and all research terminated, except what was needed to build, supply, and fly ships to establish a viable human colony on Opis. Everyone — Ainatio, Kill Line, herself — had served one purpose, the settlement of that planet.

  “Fascinating,” Erskine said. “No, really, it is.”

  “You asked me what I wanted.” Kim carried on as if this was a job interview for a post she was totally confident of getting. “Well, I want to stay. I want to work on the next mission to Pascoe’s Star with your team, develop a functioning FTL drive, and for my great-grandmother’s contribution to be acknowledged. Do we have a deal?”

  “Director...” Solomon whispered, but Erskine ignored him. This cocky little madam would get the shock of her life if — or when — she realised just how far Ainatio had gone.

  Erskine now had two options. She could order Trinder to shoot Kim, because these were lawless times and nobody would care what had happened to her. Or Erskine could turn this around by getting some use out of the woman.

  And I can still dispose of her any time we need to.

  “Let’s talk,” Erskine said.

  * * *

  Director’s Suite, Ainatio Park Research Centre:

  1130, February 21

  “Okay, it’s feasible that Kim worked it out the way she claims,” Alex said. “The question isn’t how she got here, but what APS might do if they know what she knows.”

  Nomad was now either compromised or it wasn’t, and if it was, there was little that he or anyone else could do about it. APS couldn’t do much about Cabot, either, not for another forty-odd years at the earliest, and by that time the colony would either be strong enough to defend itself or everyone could be dead.

  The vulnerable element was right here, in Earth orbit.

  Alex sat on the broad arm of Erskine’s black leather sofa, careless informality that normally earned him a disapproving glance, but she was too preoccupied today.

  “Those ships have been docked at the orbitals or in disposal orbits for at least thirty years,” she said. “If APS realises they’re not just mothballed and knows what we’re going to do, they’re more than capable of commandeering them.”

  “But they won’t destroy anything. They’re pragmatic. They’ll want a deal.”
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  “Not if they think the vessels are substantially armed and we’ve broken treaties. We’re a threat and they’ll deal with us. End of Nomad.”

  “End of part of Nomad.”

  “We can’t build new ships. So we can’t ship out colonists.”

  “But we’ll have a couple of hundred service personnel and assorted civilian techs already on Opis, all healthy and intelligent, and mostly of childbearing age.”

  “That wasn’t the plan.”

  “The plan had to change a long time ago, Director. It’s changing every day.”

  “Colonies need farmers, builders, teachers, mechanics. They happen to be here.”

  Alex pointed down at the carpet. “A lot of exploration and colonisation on this planet was done by ship’s crews who were stranded and had to make the best of it. Unless anything catastrophic happens, Cabot will be there, the crew will be on the ground, and they’ll be self-sufficient until further notice.”

  Erskine had a point about APS’s likely reaction if they knew Elcano, Shackleton, Eriksson, and Da Gama were armed. All the niceties about Ainatio not actually being the USA and therefore not a signatory to the no-arms agreement wouldn’t make any difference.

  “Are we sure we didn’t have any leaks?” Alex asked. “You did lose a lot of staff after Cabot launched. It wasn’t all down to plagues and unrest, was it?”

  “Yes, we had a brain drain, but none of them realised what they were working towards. No more than the teams do now, in fact. It was a simulation to them. When they got the chance to work with Martian projects, they jumped at it because they knew the bases were real. They thought our extrasolar work wasn’t.”

  “Sure?”

  “If they’d worked it out and told their new bosses, we’d have seen the consequences of that by now.”

  Alex tried again. “Then we’re back to what’s useful for Asia, and China in particular. I know Trinder always goes on about capability being more important than intent, but I think intent matters here. The Chinese won’t trash what they don’t have to.”

  “They bombed this country.”