At 0150, Erskine stood up and went to get Lurie. She found the engineer in a side compartment, dozing at a console with her head resting on her folded arms. Erskine tapped her on the shoulder.
“Nothing so far,” she said. “It’s nearly two a.m.”
Lurie stretched and rubbed the back of her neck. “Let me check it.”
She went back to the screen with Erskine and adjusted it, zooming in far enough to pick out the roads and buildings of Kill Line in infrared, then the Ainatio facility.
“Looks intact to me.” Lurie rubbed her eyes with one hand. “I’d give it up, Director. Check again in a few hours, maybe.”
They’ve called it off.
They didn’t do it.
There could have been a number of reasons why the bombing hadn’t happened yet. APDU could have had a technical problem, or the whole thing could have been an elaborate scam with Kim to gain access to the site.
Or perhaps now that Solomon had Kim, he’d finally surrendered a century’s work to an unfriendly power.
He’d betrayed Nomad. Erskine’s gut, something she usually ignored, told her that was the most likely reason. Solomon had sacrificed his broader mission because humans had used his moral nature against him. But she’d managed to see the Nomad project through to a landing and a follow-up mission, despite the world collapsing around her, and despite Solomon, who was no easy adversary. The colony had its head start. She’d completed the task her father had set her. The moment didn’t feel like triumph of any kind, just relief, and for the time being that eclipsed any guilt or regret.
So I’m done here. I really am. I’ll make some time to be bitter and vengeful later, maybe.
“You’re right, Jane,” she said to Lurie. “Time to give it up. I’m going to ask the med staff to put me into cryo now.”
17
Bednarz gave Solomon one order, the only thing he absolutely had to do — define the best of humanity, identify it, and protect it against all its enemies. What he decided “the best” meant and how he protected it was entirely up to him. And Sol defined it, all right. He didn’t pick Rembrandts or Einsteins or saints. He picked soldiers. He picked them because over the course of his long and possibly infinite life, civilians — that’s us, for a lot of that time — showed him our selfishness, cowardice, disloyalty, self-pity, and mistrust of each other. Then he looked at soldiers and saw those failings were everything they weren’t. Don’t blame Solomon. He learned, and we were his sorry teachers.
Alex Gorko, talking to Todd Mangel
Temporary Control Centre, Level U3:
0230 Hours
Chris didn’t believe that he could fall asleep on a night like this, but he woke with a start and found himself at the control room desk with his head resting on his hands.
He thought he could hear a dog barking. Had he missed the UCAVs dropping their payload? Where was Kim? What time was it? He tried to unscramble his brain, scratching his scalp. Out of nowhere, a mug of coffee appeared on the desk. He’d hoped it was Fonseca paying a visit, but it was Alex Gorko.
“You okay, Chris?”
“I heard the dogs. I thought it had started.”
“All quiet. No calls, no bombs, nothing. No activity at all.” Alex pushed the mug towards him. “Here. You need the caffeine.”
“Where’s Kim?”
“She’s gone up top to use the sat phone again. Wow, that really is a museum piece. I didn’t realise we still had any.”
“Nobody should be going outside when we’re locked down.”
“How else is she going to get a signal?”
“Who’s gone with her?”
“Sol.”
The message had been sent so many times that the key people at APS must have received it by now. Maybe they really were juggling the risks of die-back against the potential benefits of Ainatio’s propulsion technology.
And if they decide it’s worth it... we’re into the next round of problems.
Someone in APS intelligence obviously knew about Opis, or else Kim wouldn’t have come here. The question was how much they knew, how much Kim would tell them when she got hold of them, and what they’d do about it. They had to at least be wondering why Ainatio had bothered to keep all the ships and where they might be going in Elcano, because whatever story Erskine had fed them, they’d check things out for themselves. Chris was starting to think that Erskine might have been right, but then he stood in the doorway and listened to the sound of nearly two thousand living, breathing individuals who had needs right now. Bargaining with APS was probably only delaying the inevitable, but if you could kick the can far enough down the road to distract whoever was coming for you, you could make a run for it.
Chris needed to find out what Kim had told APS so far. “I’m going to topside.”
Alex gestured to the south exit. “You’ll probably find Marc and Tev. They’re minding the doors.”
Chris zipped up his assault vest and slung his rifle over his shoulder. When he reached the U2 level stairs, Marc and Tev were leaning against the wall, having what looked like a pretty heavy conversation.
“But you said you wanted to go, mate,” Marc was saying. They must have heard Chris coming but they carried on. “Kim can get you back to Fiji. You’ve got to see your kids. Don’t chicken out now.”
“Becky won’t want me hanging around.”
“Tough. They’re your kids as well.”
Tev glanced up at Chris. “Hi, mate. You looking for Sol?”
“Kim. I need to ask her a few things.”
“Get her to come inside, will you? Her boss must have had the message by now.”
“Yeah. That’s what worries me.”
Tev opened the door to let Chris out. The stairs took him up through the last two floors, deserted and in darkness, a couple of extra layers of protection against a blast. The main lobby was still fully lit, bright enough to be a beacon from the air. The UCAVs would have no problem identifying ground features when they began their bombing run, but there was no harm in making the site as conspicuous as possible to help them avoid a direct hit.
Kim was outside the front doors, leaning on the glass with the sat phone pressed to her ear, but she looked as if she was waiting rather than talking. Solomon’s quadrubot was standing a few yards away, his snakehead camera staring out into the night, although he could have been observing in any direction.
Chris walked up behind Kim and tapped on the glass. She pushed herself upright and stepped back as he pressed the controls to open the doors.
“I didn’t want you to fall in,” he said. “What’s happening?”
“They’re not telling me. Tim Pham got the message, though. They said so.”
“So who are you talking to?”
“APDU HQ. It’s just one-way. I talk, they make polite noises.”
“Call it a day. You’ve done all you can.”
“Well, whatever I’ve done, it’s delayed something.”
“Tev really wants you back inside.”
“If APDU calls back, how are they going to contact me? I need line of sight with this piece of junk.”
“If the sensors don’t pick up anything incoming, we’ll try again later.”
Solomon trotted in after her. It was nearly three in the morning and Chris finally dared to think that there really had been a change of plan. He stood on the half-moon marble step out front for a moment, hoping to see fireflies, and tried to work out a timetable. When would they know whether the UCAVs had been stood down? As soon as that was confirmed, Sol would want the bots back at work on the comms links again, and access Shackleton as soon as possible. But he might not get much time between then and APS showing up. They’d come for Kim, and when they did they’d go through this place with a fine-tooth comb.
We’ll adapt. We’ll improvise. Like we always do.
> Chris took a deep breath of fragrant night air, not knowing when he’d get another chance, and went back into the lobby. Kim and Solomon were waiting for him.
“Dr Kim, if your people decide they want a deal, what’s the first thing they’ll do when they show up here?” Chris asked.
“Initial debriefing with me, so they know whether to secure the site and which parts to focus on, and then they’ll want the research.” Kim patted Solomon’s frame like a pony. “Don’t worry, Sol and I have a plan.”
“How about sharing it with the rest of us?”
“It’s pretty much what we’ve discussed. We pretend Solomon’s a regular AI, I wheel out Alex as the boss fella, and we carry on prepping Shackleton.”
“I can’t help noticing a few gaps in that plan.”
“Okay, there’s no hiding Opis. We knew all that anyway. We just didn’t know how. You don’t have to tell them everything about the base, especially now the FTL link isn’t working. You’re just another eccentric aberration like the lighthuggers.”
“See, there’s the awkward part. Have you ever tried to get sixteen hundred people to tell the same lie? It’s hard enough with two.”
“Believe me, we’re much more interested in FTL than Opis. Or your obsolete ships. It’s just one planet. There are thousands of others, and FTL means we can find thousands more. This is about opening up deep space.”
Chris didn’t know enough about the science to work out where all this might be heading. Ainatio had used FTL to build a glorified comms link. They seemed to have given up on developing something big enough to drive a ship. He understood that much, but Kim seemed to know something he didn’t. Hell, she was a physicist, an engineer, a frigging rocket scientist. Of course she did.
“Sol’s got his mission, and I’ve got mine,” Chris said. “As long as I get my people somewhere safe where they can stop running, I don’t care if it’s here or on another planet.”
He turned to go. Kim put her hand on his arm.
“Chris, I can guess what you think of me. But for what it’s worth, you, Sol, Dan, Alex, all of you, you kept your word when you could have done the easy thing and boarded Elcano. And Grandma Park isn’t a cover story. I really do want recognition for her. You’ve all helped me to do that. So I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you get where you want to go, even if I have to be a little creative in what I tell my political masters. We can all get a win out of this.”
Chris had heard that phrase so many times from so many people, usually from guys who were trying very hard to find his price for not beating the shit out of them on behalf of his employer. It never worked. And here he was, thinking that people like Trinder and Zakko trusting him had taught him to be more trusting himself. When push came to shove, his instincts were still to give most folks a wide berth.
But I can trust Sol. I’ll listen to him.
“Let’s see how things go,” he said.
He secured the front entrance and followed Solomon and Kim down to U3. Marc sealed the door behind them. Tev had gone.
“Are we done?” Marc asked.
“Yeah, but we’ll check in with APDU in a couple of hours if nothing’s happened by then.”
Marc just grunted. If he had any opinions on what APS was up to, he wasn’t going to voice them in front of Kim.
“I’m going to turn in for a couple of hours,” he said. “Call me if anything happens.”
Kim followed Chris to the control room. Trinder was there now, along with Jared, Erin, and Tev, so nobody seemed to be sticking to the duty roster. They were all watching the sensor display. It would give them ten minutes’ advance warning if the UCAVs came in range.
“I think they’ve called it off,” Jared said.
Nobody commented. The worst thing about this place was that it was a mix of advanced technology and the Stone Age, gear that could send a ship to another planet but that couldn’t talk to the world on their doorstep. Chris was used to the patchy nature of civilisation these days, but it was especially galling tonight.
No, today. It’ll be getting light soon.
“I need a walk,” he said, taking the sat phone from the desk. “Call me.”
Chris walked the floors the same way that he used to patrol the camp when the convoy stopped for the night, listening and looking, ready to step in and fix a problem. The shelter was quiet now, but it wasn’t because people were asleep. Few seemed to be in their cubicles. There was a big group in one of the halls, relaxing on chairs and cushions that they’d dragged in and just socialising, as if being with a bunch of people felt better than sitting this out alone or as families. After all the effort Trinder had put into fitting out the shelter with private spaces it seemed weird, but it was human instinct to huddle together in a crisis.
There were groups everywhere Chris went: watching a movie, playing games, tidying up, or just sitting outside their cubicles and talking, their exhausted kids dozing on their laps. It took him a while to realise how many of his transit camp neighbours and Ainatio staff had wandered out of their areas to join the Kill Line folk.
This was either the end of the world or the start of a new one, and Chris almost felt that it was up to him to decide which fate would befall them. He’d read some crazy guy’s theory that you could make yourself slip from one parallel universe to another with a different future simply by repeating affirmations out loud. Chris had filed the idea with healing crystals and the rest of the woo-woo garbage, but here he was, feeling that if he believed strongly enough that they’d survive, then it would happen.
Forget it. It’s down to us. Our guys. And Dan Trinder. And Marc and Tev. We’re the ones who’ve got to make the future happen.
Us.
Chris tried to remember when them had become us. He couldn’t pin down the moment when it had changed, but they’d all responded to a string of crises, done what they’d been trained to do, and somehow emerged united at the other end with that good, solid feeling of belonging that came from being among others who knew what had to be done. Service background and even nationality made no difference. The instinct that united them was probably as old as mankind. It grew from the defining moment when the tribe came under attack and some guys stepped forward to pick up rocks while others fled or froze. You were either a guy who picked up a rock and ran forward, or one who ran away. Chris would always pick up that rock. He preferred the company of others who’d do the same.
Ah, now here was someone else who’d grab a rock and go for it: Fonseca, walking down the corridor towards him with Howie in tow. The kid was holding her hand, which was very un-Howie. He looked up at Chris as if he’d been caught deserting and was about to be shot.
“Howie can’t sleep,” Fonseca said tactfully. “So we’re having a chat and putting the world to rights.”
“It usually helps. You okay, Howie?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
He wasn’t, of course. He was ten, the only survivor from his family. He had no problem understanding what death was. Chris usually treated him like an adult, which he loved, and Chris kind of liked it too because he didn’t have to worry about the right way to handle kids. He’d never had to work that out. But tonight, Howie was a little boy who needed a grown-up to keep the monsters at bay.
“You’re no use if you’re falling down tired, soldier,” Chris said. “Big day ahead. Get some sleep.”
“Sorry.”
“What’s there to be sorry about?”
“Being a baby.”
“Hey, everyone’s scared. Some of us have had more practice at hiding it, that’s all. You’ll be fooling everyone just like I do when you’re older.”
“We’re going to go get some hot chocolate in the control room,” Fonseca said, giving Chris a you-callous-bastard look. He’d have to catch up with her later and explain. “See you later, Sergeant.”
And we were get
ting on so well.
He went up to the ground floor, locked the last set of doors behind him, and stepped outside. It was definitely getting light. He checked the sat phone to see if there’d been any attempts to call back, but there was nothing logged. Would APDU be running four or five hours late? He doubted it, but now he was starting to wonder just how much grace they’d give them to get out of here. He went back inside and worked through the sequence of unlocking and re-locking doors on the top two floors again.
Solomon’s voice suddenly drifted out of the public address system on U2 and almost gave him a heart attack.
“Chris, I’ve managed to get a signal through to Orbital One.”
“Damn, Sol, are you back in the network again?”
“Of course I am. Ready to exit at any moment, though, in case the UCAVs are just running late.”
“Okay. How did you route that?”
“The bots manufactured a new uplink. I can’t move around yet, but I can check which systems are still responding while the primary links are being restored.”
“And?”
“Elcano’s launched, as expected, but I can’t access the FTL at all. It’s not just the receiver this end.”
Chris was disappointed, but not surprised. “So they disabled it from the orbital.”
“It looks like it. Don’t worry, it’s an inconvenience, not a disaster.”
“So are you giving me good news? I realise you’re explaining this in finger paints for me.”
“Overall, yes.”
“Thanks.”
“We need to get two of the remaining shuttles going,” Solomon said. “I’m assessing whether it’s going to be easier to bring Shackleton to Orbital One or to shuttle people out to Orbital Two.”
Chris had no idea what the difference was, but he heard the important bit. Solomon could talk to the orbital again, albeit in a limited capacity, and he’d be able to re-establish a link to Shackleton.
“Have you told the others?”
The Best of Us Page 51
