The Best of Us

by Karen Traviss

  “Four heat signatures,” Solomon said.

  “Can you get us in?”

  “One way or another,” Solomon said.

  Without the option of entering the network, Solomon’s options were to drill or apply brute force. The doors were locked by concealed steel rods in their centres that slid in from the top and bottom, so it was easier to cut than smash. He extended the bot’s drill attachment and chewed eight neat holes in a rectangle spanning the inner edges of both doors between the bars. Now all he had to do was saw from hole to hole.

  His rear camera could see the reactions to the noise. It must have been painfully loud. Dieter gestured to indicate he was moving Girlie away, leaving Chris and Marc with their hands pressed to their ears. The cutting tool sliced through wood panelling and composite fire retardant in seconds. Two sections crashed back onto the tiles, throwing up sawdust.

  “Not bad, Sol,” Chris said, stepping inside.

  Solomon had to do more cutting to make the gap big enough to squeeze his frame through. He was about to enter when he felt a vibration in the floor and heard Chris shouting to Marc to get back. The safety bulkheads were closing. Maybe he’d triggered them by cutting the doors open, or perhaps Dr Singh had activated them manually. It could even have been Erskine. Either way, something was now sealing off the department.

  “Chris? Marc? Where are you?”

  The two men came running back towards him. “I think that confirms they’ve got her,” Chris said. “Where can they go from that end of the corridor?”

  “Down to a basement level and up again into the grounds. They could go anywhere from there.”

  “Well, they can’t remove their chips, so we’ve got them.” Marc studied his screen. “But if I were them, I’d split up and get us going in circles.”

  “They’re hauling a prisoner,” Chris said. “That’s harder than it looks to a civvy.”

  “You’re assuming she doesn’t want to go with them.”

  Solomon knew exactly what Kim wanted to do. “She doesn’t.”

  “Y’know, if Erskine didn’t want anyone to get hold of Kim, she could have shot her and saved herself a lot of trouble,” Marc said.

  Chris shook his head. “Dan’s got all the firearms.”

  Marc looked at him with the expression of a man who didn’t see why that was a barrier to executing someone. “Their only other option is to take her with them on the shuttle, then. And that means there’s a few places they’ve got to pass where we can intercept.”

  Marc started walking back down the corridor in the direction of the management suite, eyes on his screen. Dieter and the dog caught up with them. Solomon knew they’d find Kim again, but the question was when.

  “Yeah, Ben’s cutting across to the infirmary, or maybe the plant lab, and the other two have turned off to the admin block. So... I dunno, maybe they’re planning to sedate her, or chill her down for cryo in advance. You sure she’s not in on this, Sol?”

  “I don’t think she is.” Solomon realised he was starting to waver and that he’d made a few wrong calls already. Kim wasn’t on either side in this situation. She was a foreign agent whose mission just happened to fit Solomon’s for the time being. This was how many humans lived their lives, in the grey areas where blind eyes were turned, and he didn’t like being part of it. “I can’t see how she can be.”

  “Do you really need her?”

  “I’ve got the data she wanted. I could transmit some documents to APS now as a taster to show them we mean it and hope that it’s taken seriously. They will, though, definitely listen to her.”

  “They still haven’t responded. I’d better talk to the FCO again.”

  Chris held out his hand for Marc’s screen. “Go make your call. We’ll find her.”

  “Okay. Give me a shout when you do. I call dibs on her.”

  Mark turned off to the stairs. Solomon carried on with Chris and Dieter, working out how to break the documents into instalments to send to APS, one to get their attention and the rest to eke out as insurance until Shackleton was ready to launch. He’d once thought he could predict human behaviour well enough to call it trust, but he’d been wrong about Erskine, and he hadn’t anticipated that Kim would ignore his instruction to hide. There was probably only one reason for her to risk returning to Propulsion: she’d tried to take advantage of the situation and get hold of the data she’d come to Ainatio for.

  I should have seen that coming. Another mistake I should never have made.

  Have I made a mistake about APS too?

  “Sol, even if APS stops us going to Opis, we can still survive,” Chris said as they made their way back along the corridor. That sounded like an attempt at reassurance. Solomon took that as a sign that even Chris thought he’d screwed up. “There’s a lot of stuff here we can use to build transport. The bots can repurpose material just like the ones on Opis do, can’t they?”

  “They can, yes.”

  “So we’re not helpless refugees. We’ve got resources. We just need to think a bit bigger.”

  “I’m sure we can.” Solomon hadn’t put Erskine’s offer to him yet. He was honour-bound to do it. He chose his words carefully. “Chris, Erskine asked Alex to offer you places for your militia, seeing as the detachment won’t be going. There are still sixty-eight unallocated pods at the moment.”

  Solomon waited. Chris’s expression was unreadable. Then he frowned, a brief flash of distaste, and shook his head. He glanced back at Dieter for a moment as if he was confirming something.

  “We’ve got a hundred and three people, Sol,” he said. “So that’s a no. But thanks anyway.”

  At least he’d assessed Chris correctly. The man hadn’t disappointed him. Whatever it cost to save these people, Solomon knew it would be worth it.

  16

  ‘Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.’ Marcus Aurelius said that. Works just as well for me two thousand years later.

  Chris Montello, explaining his preference for never planning too far ahead

  Administration Building:

  2055 Hours

  Alex still had sixty-eight vacant cryo pods. Everyone was being gallant, refusing to leave friends or family, or at least more afraid of an unknown world than the known one, and it wasn’t the uplifting experience he’d expected. It was a terrible waste.

  The last-minute rush for spare berths still hadn’t happened. He’d hold the passenger list open until midnight, then, because nobody was going to enforce the fasting rule to the letter, and the medics wouldn’t get to everyone right away. But the closer the deadline, the more it bothered him to watch the security feed from the underground floors. There were fewer cameras downstairs, most of them monitoring utilities and exits, but he couldn’t fail to notice how many kids there were among the evacuees. Elcano’s spare places were nowhere near enough to give those children an escape route. For the first time, the reality started to overwhelm him.

  For all he knew, the holdouts were still having agonising debates with friends about whether to go or not. Now he had to chase Dan Trinder and make sure that the detachment hadn’t changed their minds about staying put. He sent a message to Trinder’s screen.

  DAN, HAVE ANY OF YOUR PEOPLE HAD A RETHINK? BERTHS STILL SPARE.

  Alex studied the words in his sent folder, just letting them sink in. It was such a mundane phrase for so huge a decision. His door was open; the corridor outside was completely silent. People weren’t wandering past any longer. He checked the trackers on the floor plan, trying to work out where they were congregating, and it didn’t surprise him that a lot of them were in the bar. Others were still clustered around the accommodation block, and some were in their offices and labs.

  He didn’t even need to check the names to work out who was where, and
why. Some couldn’t handle goodbyes. Others couldn’t cope with being abandoned. But a fair number seemed to be willing to have a few final drinks with friends they might never see again, or might catch up with at the end of their lives.

  Should I go? Should I have a beer with them?

  No, Alex couldn’t face it. His absence would be noticed and commented upon, but his excuse was valid. He had to manage the passenger list right up to the last minute. Technically, it wasn’t his job, but it was certainly his responsibility.

  Trinder’s reply popped up on his screen. NO, WE’RE GOOD. THANKS.

  Alex wondered how future historians would interpret these messages. Stoical, resigned, optimistic? Alex didn’t feel any of those right then. And he hated this silence.

  “All ashore who’s goin’ ashore,” he said.

  There was nobody to hear him. He logged into the security cameras to see what was happening outside and saw a lone pick-up drive through the gates, probably on its way to Kill Line to do some last-minute errand. On another feed, he could see the two Lammergeiers on the lawn, one with its rear hatch open and ramp lowered. It was still light outside, a pleasant evening that he’d forgotten existed after working around the clock in this windowless room.

  Where was Erskine?

  Alex browsed through the trackers, looking for Berman, who’d probably be with her. The cameras found them in the lobby outside her suite. Berman was clearing a locker, shoving personal items into a sports bag. Mendoza had told Alex that the guy had asked to be taken off the original Elcano list when Erskine was still planning to go, which must have really hurt the old bag. Alex had never been sure whether Berman actually liked her. He’d always been rigidly loyal, but he obviously had his limits. It felt uncomfortable watching, so Alex switched to the nearest cameras to the shuttle. He couldn’t get a feed from the workshops or the runway. Greg Kent must have disconnected them during the outage.

  “Sol, are you around?”

  There was no response. It looked like Sol was still staying out of the network, which was probably for the best, but Alex missed being able to ask him anything, anywhere, and get an answer. He poured some coffee and started drafting the message he’d send out tonight when the passenger list closed. But now he could hear someone coming down the corridor. He checked his screen for trackers.

  Whoever they were, they weren’t chipped. He pushed back his chair to go see if it was one of the Brits, Erskine, or even Kim, but before he could get up, Ben Tusa appeared in the doorway, and Alex could see something was wrong.

  Ben had a black eye complete with a dressing on the brow bone and another adhesive patch on his left forearm. He looked startled, as if he wasn’t expecting Alex to be there.

  “Do me a favour,” he said. “I need a temporary pass.”

  “I have questions.”

  “Yeah.”

  “First, your tracker’s not showing up.” Alex checked his screen. “And according to this, you’re in the infirmary.”

  “I removed it.”

  “You gnawed your own leg off. Awesome.”

  “Novo gel and a scalpel. Long story.”

  “My diary’s clear. Do tell.” Alex tapped his own eyebrow. “Start with how you got that.”

  “Come on, Al, who gives a shit about bureaucracy? We’ll be out of here tomorrow. Anyway, issuing passes is clerical stuff. It’s not like anyone can fire you for it.”

  “I’m naturally curious. Indulge me.”

  “I got in a ruck with someone, that’s all.”

  “And the chip?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  There was a limit to how wild things could get in Ainatio. Nearly everyone here was respectable, ludicrously qualified, and not used to resolving debates with their fists. Ben was pretty big and fit, but it was sports fit, not psycho unarmed combat fit like Marc Gallagher. Even so, Alex heard a little alarm bell go off in his head, a very small one, but a bell nonetheless.

  “Life in Propulsion must be a lot more exciting than I thought,” he said. “I’ll go get you one. Wait here.”

  Alex walked down the corridor to the admin office. Nothing was locked. It took him some rummaging in a desk to find the passes, and there were only three left, so Trinder must have handed some out to Chris Montello’s people. But why did Ben really need one? Alex couldn’t expect people to behave normally at a time like this, but he also couldn’t put together a set of circumstances that explained why Ben would remove his chip. It was a minor procedure, but a messy job even if one of the nurses did it, and it was pointless. And the black eye — that was just weird.

  Did it matter? Yes, it did. The chip was still working. Alex took out his screen again and checked. There it was, in the infirmary, probably sitting in a bin. Why come here and ask for a pass? Ben might have thought that Alex wouldn’t be there and that he kept some in his desk, seeing as he was doing the admin.

  Alex could only think of two reasons for removing a chip. One was a technical malfunction or allergic reaction, both highly unlikely, and the other was to avoid being tracked or to access somewhere that your own chip wasn’t programmed for.

  Something made Alex check the security cameras in Propulsion, just in case Ben had done something crazy to Javinder Singh. No, those guys were tight as brothers. They’d never resort to a fist fight, not even if they were both high. But Alex checked anyway, and what he saw worried him. The safety bulkhead had been closed, cutting off the main corridor, and the entrance looked like it had been cut open by an industrial saw. The department was empty. A quick check of a few key trackers showed that the rest of the Propulsion team were in the bar, where they’d been hanging out for the past day.

  Okay, he’d play along and just give Ben the pass, make some crack about secret trysts with someone else’s girlfriend, and then track him carefully. One thought crossed his mind, though, and wouldn’t go away.

  Annis Kim.

  He walked back to his office, trying to look as if he wasn’t thinking the worst, and handed Ben the pass.

  “Whoever it is, if her boyfriend catches you, I had nothing to do with this. People do crazy things on last nights.”

  Ben blinked a few times. “Yeah. I’ll be discreet. Thanks.”

  Alex went back to his coffee, now tepid, and waited to hear Ben’s footsteps fade. Then he started tracking him. There was every chance that he’d dump the pass, but he needed it for a reason, and he might have felt he was in the clear after Alex’s comment about illicit meetings. Either way, Alex couldn’t ignore this. He sent Trinder a message.

  NEED TO TALK TO SOL URGENTLY RE BEN TUSA. HAS INJURIES, PROP LAB A WRECK.

  Alex kept an eye on Ben’s tracker while he waited for an answer. It took Trinder a couple of minutes to respond.

  STILL LOOKING FOR KIM WITH CHRIS & K9 TEAM. YES, AWARE OF LAB. SOL DID THAT SEARCHING.

  Damn, Solomon was giving that sapper bot some serious use, then. BEN REMOVED CHIP. ASKED ME FOR PASS. TRACKER REF 9738.

  Alex watched as Ben’s tracker moved through the management building, down to the ground floor, and then outside towards the recreation hall. Okay, he always spent a lot of time in the gym, but nobody in their right mind would train tonight. Alex decided that he needed to get down there fast. It was the dumbest thought he’d ever had. He had no idea what he was going to do or how he was going to do it, but if Kim was down there, he had to grab her.

  Ben’s going to flatten me.

  Yeah, but who hit him?

  SENDING MARC, Trinder messaged. HE’S WITH ME.

  Trinder’s tracker showed he was in one of the Lammergeiers. Alex was closer. He could get to the gym before Marc.

  HEADING FOR GYM. KIM POSSIBLY THERE.

  He didn’t wait for the response. He shoved the screen in his pocket and ran down two flights of stairs to the outer doors. The recreation hall was the other side of a
lawn, between the admin block and the infirmary building, and there weren’t that many places in there to lock someone up. Kim would have to be confined somehow, unless she was doing this of her own free will, and if she was, Alex had no idea what was going on.

  There was nobody around when he went in. A couple of guys were playing pool in the games room when he passed the glass doors, but nobody was working out or using the squash courts. He checked his screen and zoomed in as far as he could to pin down Ben’s position more accurately. At this scale, it was hard to tell if the tracker was moving. It appeared to show Ben either at the rear interior of the building or outside the back doors. If Kim was in here, the only places Alex could think of with locks were the disused office and the locker rooms.

  He’d work upwards from ground level, then. The storage and admin offices were upstairs. He walked into the locker room lobby and stopped to listen, struggling to hear over the noise of his own gasping breaths, but there were no voices and no footsteps. He could call out to Kim, but she might not hear him before Ben did. If Ben had any sense, he’d be looking for trackers approaching his position anyway.

  Screw it. Check every door.

  Alex went into the men’s section first and tried all the cubicles and lockers. Kim was a hundred pounds and five-three, five-four if she was an inch, so she’d fit in a full-length locker even if it was painfully uncomfortable. But every door hung open as if someone had done a final check to make sure nothing had been left behind. There was litter on the floor and a couple of odd socks. People had grabbed their stuff and gone. Alex almost skidded on a sheet of paper that turned out to be a small poster announcing try-outs for basketball.

  He walked back across the lobby and ventured into the women’s locker room, feeling awkward even though he knew nobody would be in there. It smelled of disinfectant, old perfume, and mould. It was just as litter-strewn and messy as the men’s, with that same atmosphere of lives that had somehow fallen off the edge of the world and would never resume, at least not on Earth.

  There was a motor rumbling somewhere. Was that a vehicle? That meant another set of external doors were open. Maybe Ben was getting ready to move Kim, and even if there was only one place he could take her, it would still make retrieving her that much harder. Alex had to speed things up. He strode through the shower room, pushing open cubicle doors and calling out. He had no choice now.