The Best of Us

by Karen Traviss

“We’re Navy. Just tell us.”

  “Okay. Headlines. You remember the first wave of epidemics? Well, we had more assorted outbreaks with high death rates. But the tipping point was famine caused by agriweapons. Look out for ‘die-back’ in the report I’m sending you. Terrorists released it, not us, by the way. Long story short, it wiped out key crops — soy, wheat, and maize were the worst hit — and it affected the US and Europe. Europe... well, it wasn’t pretty to begin with, but die-back’s finishing the job. It’s been a hard few decades. APS closed their borders years ago and tried to stop the spread with salted nukes. All in all, most of the Western world’s gone down the drain, and anyone who could get out moved a long way south or east. And a few more rich guys’ lighthuggers abandoned Earth, too. So there you are. You left just in time.”

  “Europe,” Haine said. He glanced at Ingram. “How about the UK?”

  “You’re surviving. A really big moat has its advantages. We’ve got a couple of your special forces guys marooned here with us, by the way.”

  “We’re not at war with the Pacific states, are we?”

  “No. Just very unwelcome.”

  Haine nodded. “Good, because we have Japanese and other APS nationals on board.”

  Ingram wondered about the legal status of the mission if some crew members had functioning governments and others didn’t, but then she realised it didn’t matter a damn. This was their world now, and it was whatever she decided it would be. She hung onto the fact that Britain had survived. At least she could catch up with old friends.

  “Now you know why I didn’t want you to look for the news on your cool FTL portal and wonder where all the American and European channels were,” Alex said. “So at least you’ve been spared the media clamour for interviews.”

  “You can probably see from the general lack of reaction here that we’re, ah, somewhat taken aback.” Ingram ground through the chain of logic, trying to ignore the inner voice screaming at her that everything was gone. They’d assumed it would be, although not quite like this. “Nobody’s left next of kin behind, but it’ll still be a massive shock for the crew, so we’ll prepare accordingly. Where do we route messages if people want to check on their hometown? Is any comms infrastructure still functioning?”

  “Ah, that’s something else I was coming to. It’s not that simple. When I mentioned the media attention you wouldn’t be getting, I didn’t explain why.”

  Alex went back to that beard-flicking gesture and his blink rate shot up. Ingram could see he’d been ramping up to the most contentious news rather than getting the worst over with first.

  “I don’t know if you remember that there was a political row about the mission,” he said.

  “That Ainatio kept governments out of it? Yes. The tech corps never handed out free tickets for their lighthuggers either.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Don’t tell me they’re still upset about it.”

  “No, but they were upset at the time, and we didn’t want Cabot scuppered by investigations and sanctions. If they’d known Cabot was armed, or a few other details, it might have turned a tad ugly. So we created a cover story.”

  Alex paused again. His timing was starting to infuriate Ingram.

  “Just spit it out,” she said. “It can’t be any worse than the end of Western civilisation.”

  “Okay. Some time after the launch, we announced that we’d lost contact with Cabot and that all hands were presumed dead.”

  Now it was Ingram’s turn to pause. The tidal wave of bad news had started to hit home.

  “But that was decades ago,” she said. “Did you come clean in the end? Tell me you did.”

  “No, of course we didn’t.”

  It felt like being buried alive. Nobody knew they’d survived or even where they were, at least nobody outside Ainatio. The wardroom was one single held breath.

  “Why weren’t we told before we left?” she asked. “Or were you making this up as you went along?”

  “Nobody wanted to risk it leaking.”

  “Good God, we’re all used to OPSEC. Don’t treat us like cretins.”

  Alex looked red-faced and wretched. It wasn’t his fault, but Ingram felt that was only a technicality right now. “I can only assume that they weren’t a hundred per cent sure about the civilian contractors on board.”

  “So come clean,” Ingram said. “Whoever’s left needs to know we’re alive. Who’s going to object to Cabot now?”

  “Asia, mainly.”

  “So why do we care? You said there’s no functioning US government and the West is basically cut off. Quarantined. Here be dragons. Even if our existence offends someone, what can they do about it? We’re decades away.”

  “I don’t think you understand how marginal things are back here. We don’t have any defences except a handful of corporates. One research centre. Fifteen hundred people out of an original global corporation of two hundred thousand. And four follow-up vessels. Four. Not the fifty we planned. If APS finds out we have a foothold on Opis, they probably won’t stand back and let us develop it. Especially when they realise the FTL that made this link and the remote work possible was something we stole from them.”

  Ingram had been trained to keep her head and assess the situation. That didn’t stop her from being angry.

  “Anything else you want to tell us?”

  “No, that’s about it. Sorry.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that you compromised this entire crew? You corporate, that is, not you personally. I imagine this happened on Bednarz’s watch.”

  “Not even Solomon knew it was stolen research. We only found out a few weeks ago.”

  “So we can’t call anyone on Earth except you, in case we blow our cover.”

  “Correct.”

  “But it’s not as if scientists didn’t know Pascoe b existed.”

  “That doesn’t mean anyone else would head there, though. It’s not the only planet, and it’s a hell of a lot further away. Everyone else chose to focus on manned exploration within the solar system. Well, except the lighthuggers, but they’re nuts, and that’s been our cover. Nobody’s worried about where the lighthuggers are heading, so if Ainatio loses a ship doing something just as crazy, everyone shrugs and says serves them right.”

  “This is rationalisation after the event.”

  “I’m not making excuses. But we are where we are.”

  “Are we speaking freely?” Haine asked.

  “Certainly,” Alex said.

  “I was talking to Captain Ingram.”

  Ingram made an after-you gesture. “Knock yourself out, Commander.”

  “Alex, I’d be a liar if I said nobody cares about a little bit of glory, because every human likes to succeed and say look how brave and clever I’ve been,” Haine said. “But that isn’t the issue. It’s being cut off and nobody knowing where we are — except you.”

  Alex meshed his hands on the table. “I’m not saying this to be cruel, but the world’s forgotten you and a dozen other epoch-making achievements in the last fifty years. You would have been forgotten even without the cover story.”

  “But not by the people who knew us. It’s being airbrushed out of existence that grips my shit, frankly. We’re not dead. We might be embarrassing if we resurface now, but we’re not dead. And screw you for making us so, I might add.”

  “If you reappear now, you’ll get a whole lot worse than psychological scars.” Alex suddenly snapped at Haine. “APS could commandeer the remaining vessels, muscle us out, and head your way to take over Nomad now that the heavy lifting’s been done. They don’t trust the West with technology. They don’t trust us because of die-back getting out of the labs. They don’t trust us with space colonisation. And they’re going to be extra-pissed if they find out we stole their FTL research. If they seize the project and show up bef
ore the colony’s established and defended, which is going to take a century, then it’s all been for nothing. Wasted. Zip. You might have to wait forty-five years to get your asses kicked, but they will be kicked.”

  He sat back so hard in his seat that Ingram heard it creak and shudder. That wasn’t an act. There was no point in arguing any more at the moment, not without doing more homework, and for all she knew, he might have a point. It was time for a brief tactical withdrawal.

  “Very well, Alex,” she said. “You’ve made your case. I need to discuss the implications with my team and work out the best way to brief the crew. Do we have limited access to the portal now?”

  “Yes.” Alex kept nodding. “It’s routed through Ainatio anyway, and it’s almost all archived. We lost the net ages ago. But you can look at things to your heart’s content, and sometimes Sol manages to hack into some foreign media sites via the sats. I’m sorry this wasn’t a happy conversation, but there won’t be any more surprises. The full report should be on your system now. Have a good day.”

  The screen defaulted to the company ident. Bissey raised his arms over his head, locked his fingers, and stretched until his joints clicked.

  “Ah well,” he said. “We can’t do a bloody thing about it now, so I’ll be happy if we can watch a sports channel, even if it’s netball in Cantonese.”

  This was what Ingram expected of her officers. It was shattering news, but they had a job to do and they’d rage or bawl their eyes out later when it was done. In the meantime, they’d find the positive side of it. They all knew what they were really thinking.

  “Time to crack on, people,” Ingram said. “Does anyone need counselling? Because I can only manage a good slap and tell you to pull yourself together.”

  Steve Kokinos got up to leave. “Works for me, ma’am,”

  “It’s not every day we find half the world’s gone Black Death on us while our back was turned. I’ll circulate the report to you all, and then we’ll decide how to brief the crew. Let’s get going.”

  Ingram caught Searle in the passage. “I’m really sorry about what’s happening in the States, Brad. We’ll get more information out of the company.”

  “Well, we’re still hanging in there, ma’am. We’ll recover. They can’t wipe us all out, can they? Don’t worry about me.”

  Of course I worry. Be upset, Brad. It’s okay. “Good man.”

  Nothing pulled people together like adversity — the right kind of people, anyway. Ingram went back to her cabin to read the report in private in case she lost the fuel of resigned calm and righteous indignation. It wasn’t happy reading. The die-back virus was released by people who didn’t care if they lived or not, but cared very much that their enemies died. Or maybe it really was just a negligent release of an experimental bioweapon. Whatever it was, the truth had been lost in a thousand claims and rebuttals. It only mattered if you had the luxury of finding who was responsible and making them wish they’d never been born.

  “Straws and camels’ backs, Solomon?” she said, testing the summoning powers of his name. “One disaster after the next, and finally the whole system falls over. Is that it, then? Any other lies Alex hasn’t told us about?”

  “No, Captain, that’s it. He’s been remarkably frank.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  “Because I gave you my word. And I wouldn’t have gone along with the deception if I hadn’t agreed that there was a real risk to Nomad. I decided it really was best to hide in the shadow of ridicule around the lighthugger missions.”

  “You decided.”

  “I told you what I was,” he said. “An AMAI. Autonomous Moral Artificial Intelligence. I’m designed to make moral choices. I don’t like lies, but sometimes I have to conceal facts for the safety and well-being of those who depend on me.”

  “That’s what we all tell ourselves.”

  “There really are no more secrets, Captain.”

  “Okay. I believe you.”

  “You have an excellent crew. The right people. You won’t make the same mistakes that Earth did. A fresh start is a wonderful opportunity.”

  It was an odd comment. It might have been reassurance. But Solomon had a point: she did have the right crew for this job, and they were going to make the most of this because now there really was no going back.

  “Yes,” she said. “We chose the best.”

  * * *

  Director’s Office, Ainatio Park Research Centre:

  Next Day

  “When did you get to be so damned argumentative, Solomon?” Erskine had her back to the desk, watching the feed from Nomad. “Why do we need to tell Doug Brandt yet? We’ve still got more issues to iron out. There’s nothing worse than dropping a big announcement on people and then being unable to answer their questions. It makes them anxious and then they fill the gaps with speculation.”

  It was a meeting of those not normally assembled in Erskine’s presence: Trinder, Marc Gallagher, and Tev Josepha, plus Alex Gorko. Alex sat on the sofa opposite, his arm along the back cushions and legs crossed, swinging one foot. He’d had that frown fixed to his face since the mauling Ingram had given him.

  “Because we can’t keep the mission quiet any longer,” Solomon said.

  Erskine swivelled her chair to face the room. “I suppose employees will talk, but who do they get a chance to tell?”

  “They don’t have to gossip. Chris Montello knows about Pascoe’s Star.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “You forget how we acquired Dr Kim. She gave him the co-ordinates.”

  “So somehow he takes a string of numbers and works all this out, does he?”

  “He simply asked around in his camp and a teenager who likes astronomy recognised the format. The boy’s got hobby software that you used to be able to buy for a couple of dollars. There’s no monopoly on that kind of information.”

  “So why is it an issue?”

  “Because Sergeant Montello’s a curious and intelligent man. He worked out that we take in much more food than we need for the number of staff we appear to have. And he noticed the amount of resources devoted to experimental medicine. He asked questions.”

  “Of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you answer them?”

  Solomon disliked confrontation, but there was nothing that Erskine could do to him, and the matter had to be settled.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What?”

  “I told him what we really do here. He asked because he analyses situations like the soldier he is. He reads the world around him. Those skills are valuable and he isn’t a threat, so I felt he deserved answers.”

  Erskine’s face went a pale, waxy yellow. For a moment, Solomon thought she might collapse. The blood drained visibly. It was fascinating. “What the hell possessed you to tell him?” she demanded. “How dare you breach security. How dare you. You do not decide to disobey security protocols when it suits you.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Your job is to manage the Nomad mission.”

  “Exactly. And this is part of managing it.”

  Erskine sat staring at the speakers, the place she regarded as his physical presence, as if she was trying to work out why a computer hadn’t done what she expected. The blood flooded back and her face flushed. She was embarrassed. Solomon had learned what embarrassment felt like early in his development, when Bednarz dressed down a PhD student in front of him. His respected mentor was behaving in a way that clearly upset the student, and Solomon wanted it to stop but didn’t know how to say so because of Bednarz’s status. The student was equally embarrassed, both for failing his supervisor and being insulted in front of others in the lab.

  Embarrassment wasn’t quite the same as feeling foolish over a mistake and signalling regret or apology, like the textbook said. For
Solomon, there would always be an element of fearing to speak up or seeing someone in authority lose their moral weight. He studied the reactions of others in the meeting: Trinder and Marc were trying not to look, keeping their gaze fixed on their hands, Alex was watching Erskine, and Tev was watching the Opis feed. It told him a lot.

  “We’ll talk later, Solomon,” Erskine said.

  “Can we can move this on?” Alex asked. “We need to make a decision about whether we open the missions to the camp as well as the townspeople. We need them. I really don’t buy the lack of security vetting or health profiling as grounds to exclude them.”

  Alex, a man who brokered cooperation between the uncooperative by being superficial and a little dishonest, had a streak of aggression that surprised Solomon. He’d let it slip out with Ingram’s officers, and now he looked like he’d reached that point of exasperation again. Solomon kept quiet, not out of reluctance but curiosity.

  Trinder spoke up for the first time. “Ma’am, I have to agree with Alex. The mission needs people like Montello. He’s intelligent, resourceful, and tough. All his vets are, and most of the civilians as well from what I’ve seen. It’s why they’re still alive against the odds. Even if the vets were rear echelon, they’ve still got that get-it-done mindset and they’re willing to take physical risks. That’s what we need. That’s what space programmes have always needed.”

  Erskine slipped into her regal posture. She leaned back in the chair, head lifted a little so that she was looking down her nose. “This is starting to feel like a campaign. Mr Gallagher? Mr Josepha? You’re security advisers. Advise.”

  Marc raised his hand to shoulder height. “I’m voting with Major Trinder, ma’am. Your boffins are nice people, but a colony needs as big a gene pool as you can get, and also some lads who aren’t afraid to do what it takes.”

  “I’m voting for a bigger gene pool too,” Tev said. “Except more tactfully.”

  Erskine turned back to the screen and watched the activity in the Nomad camp. A water tank was being ratcheted up its tower.

  “Very well, let’s open it up to them, but I want health profiles. Are you sure there’s no way of getting access to security checks, Solomon?”