by Devin Hanson
“I’m coming in, Matriarch. Please stand against the far wall.”
Cynthia complied and the lock clunked open. Wharton stepped through and eyed her warily. “Okay, you have my attention. What is it?”
It was gratifying that Wharton thought her enough of a threat to need distance between himself and her. “Have you heard anything from Horizon yet?” she asked.
Wharton grunted and turned to go. “I’m not giving you information. This isn’t a two-way street.”
“Wait! That’s not what I meant. I mean, if they haven’t reached back to you, then they have already sent their marines.”
That got Wharton’s attention and he turned back around. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. It’s possible they already have people in position. My ainlif, and Alana’s, will likely have infiltrated this habitat by now. Look for people throwing credits around like they’re worthless. They should stand out in the habitat if you know where to look.”
Wharton eyed her levelly, trying for severe, but Cynthia could read the fear in the widening of his pupils and his white-knuckled grip on the door handle. “You seem confident of that. When we left Nova Aeria, the ainlif thought you both were dead.”
Cynthia lifted her chin. “My sons would not give up without following every path. Did you disable all the cameras in the airlock chamber? What of the cameras in the staging room outside?”
“Thousands of hours of footage,” Wharton scoffed. “Nobody could look through it all.”
“You’re wrong,” she shook her head. “Facial recognition routines could pick our features out quickly. You didn’t disable the cameras.”
Wharton’s lips thinned. “No.”
“Then my sons are here. Right now. They are hunting for you.”
For a long moment, Wharton stared at Cynthia and she was afraid he could call her bluff. Then he jerked a nod. “Thank you for the warning, Matriarch. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“I haven’t eaten in a while,” she allowed.
“I will have food sent. All we have is processed yeast, unfortunately, but you will not starve.”
Yeast? These people were so desperate for food they were eating yeast? “I would be grateful,” she said smoothly. “A chance to use a restroom would be welcome as well.”
“I’ll see to it.” Wharton backed out of the room and locked the door again.
Cynthia ate the food when it came, hardly tasting the tart, cheesy flavor of the yeast block. Afterward, she was escorted to the bathroom where she relieved herself and took the time to wash her face and as much of her body as she could reach with a wet cloth without stripping naked.
Then, back in her cage, she lay back on her bed and resigned herself to wait. Nerves dragged at her. These extras didn’t have any military training to speak of, and she was confident in the abilities of her sons. Still, the extras were desperate. What if they sent twenty men to kill her sons? If Evan and Farrell were caught off guard, she could have just issued their death warrant.
Still, as grim as it was, she didn’t have any other choice. If she could buy her freedom with their deaths, then that would be worth it. Her eyes burned and she squeezed them shut, willing herself not to cry. She was a matriarch. She had an obligation to live as long as she could. Her sons had already lived far beyond the normal life spans of a human. She had given them that gift, at least. If their deaths could buy her a continued lease on life, then it was a sacrifice they would make gladly.
She told herself that, and still felt the tears trickle down the sides of her face.
The knock on her door, when it came, startled her and she snapped up to a sitting position. “Yes?”
“Wharton wants to speak to you in his office.”
Cynthia scrubbed the back of her hands across her cheeks, rubbing away the tear tracks that had dried on her face. “Okay. I’m coming.”
When she reached the door and hauled it open, she had recovered her usual poise. If Wharton wanted to congratulate her on the deaths of her sons, he would find her unmoved. She let her escort bind her hands in front of her without comment and followed meekly behind them. The short trip down the hallway to Wharton’s office seemed to pass by in a daze, and she walked behind the two extras, hardly aware of her feet touching the ground.
The two guards with shotguns outside Wharton’s door eyed her warily, but stepped aside without comment, letting her pass within. She took one look at Wharton and felt a wave of relief pass through her. The man was pacing behind a wide desk supporting a terminal. Everything about his body language screamed distress.
“How can I be of assistance?” she asked, carefully holding her joy back.
“I looked for the clues you gave me. It didn’t take long to find a recently arrived crew of inspectors from Horizon who threw credits about without care. An acquaintance of mine said he was paid a thousand credits for the inconvenience of abandoning a room at a hotel. Another man corroborated the story, so I sent four of my best men to investigate.”
Cynthia met Wharton’s harried gaze, her face fixed into a neutral expression. “Then you have found them.”
“They have not checked in! How many men would be with your ainlif?”
It was the best news Cynthia could have hoped for. “None,” she said confidently. “They would have infiltrated Nueva Angela with minimum numbers, and once here, they would not have trusted anyone with their mission.”
“You seem sure of that,” he said sourly.
“It is protocol,” she shrugged.
Wharton glowered at her. “That seems like an important detail to withhold from me. How many ainlif did you have with you at Nova Aeria?”
“Six,” she said. “Two of whom were exposed to atmosphere when the habitat was struck. You probably know the effects of atmosphere exposure better than anyone. They are unlikely to have joined my other sons in their infiltration efforts.”
Wharton jerked a nod. “Four ainlif.”
“Only two have any real combat training,” she amended. If she could undersell her sons, it would only help their chances, and her own. “One is a pilot, the other is New Galway’s captain.”
“Two.” Wharton scowled down at his desk and rubbed tiredly at his beard. “Well, it is safe to say the element of surprise is lost. You have been helpful so far. Will you continue to be so?”
“As I said initially, Mr. Wharton, it is in my best interest to aid you in maintaining security.”
“Christ. No offense, Matriarch, but that’s cold-blooded. They’re your own sons.”
Cynthia let her face go hard, reflecting the desperation within her breast. “It is necessary to ensure my own survival, sir.” Let him think she didn’t care. She walled off the jubilation the news had given her. Her sons were here and coming for her!
“Right. Well, what’s their next move, then? Now that they know we are aware of their presence.”
“They will make their move,” she said. “They will have gathered all the intelligence they could, but now they will strike, and quickly.”
“How? Where will they attack?”
“To be perfectly honest, Mr. Wharton, I have no idea. The only thing I have seen in the last eight hours is the inside of my cell. You have to assume they know your defense layout. They will circumvent it in some way.”
“How?”
“I will have to see your defenses for myself to tell you that,” she said. Please, she thought, please have one of your goons escort me around your defenses.
Wharton bowed his head in thought, then grunted. “Okay.”
Cynthia caught the wave of relief before it made it to her face and she bowed her head. “Time is short.”
“I’ll have one of my men escort you.”
Wharton gestured to the door and walked over to it. Cynthia followed, trying to project submission. If Wharton wasn’t there, she had a much better chance of talking her way out of the zip ties on her wrists. Wharton slid the door open and Cynthia’s thoughts froze in her head.<
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Leila stood outside the door. She looked pale, with dark circles under her eyes. Her long black hair had worked its way out of her braid and was a sloppy mess. As Cynthia stared at her in shock, Leila’s eyes lifted and met Cynthia’s. The stupefaction Cynthia felt was mirrored in Leila’s face. Cynthia felt like her feet were nailed to floor and her head swam.
Distantly, she heard the young man next to Leila say, “Leila volunteered to help our cause.”
It hit Cynthia like a blow to the stomach and she tore her eyes away from her daughter. Leila was in league with them? Voluntarily? Bile choked her. Through the roaring in her ears, she heard Wharton’s voice, raised in irritation.
“Matriarch Everard! Bremen will escort you.”
Cynthia jerked her eyes to Wharton and nodded. “Sorry. I was lost in thought.”
Bremen was one of the door guards toting a hand-machined shotgun. “Come on, then,” he said darkly, hefting his shotgun. “And don’t try anything.”
Cynthia followed mutely. She felt dizzy. Did Leila really hate the matriarchs so much that she would throw in with Wharton and his revolution? Had she done such a poor job of raising her daughter? Even among the matriarch’s children, many of those who took the Challenge failed. It was a disappointment, but hardly the first time it had happened.
The man Cynthia was following came to a stop, and she looked up, becoming aware of her surroundings for the first time since walking out of Wharton’s office. Bremen had led her to the second level of the restaurant where a balcony looked out over the club and the bustle of construction going on there.
She leaned against the railing and looked out over the space. A two-story atrium was nearly unheard of in the habitats. It was a waste of perfectly usable square footage whose only purpose was aesthetics. Actually, as Cynthia looked around with growing interest, she saw the atrium was three levels high. The club floor was a level below the main floor of the restaurant, making a rather impressive column of open air up the center of the space. She focused, pushing aside her tangled emotions. This was her survival on the line, now. She had to be perfect, or she would be dead.
From her new vantage, Cynthia finally got an understanding of how the Basement was laid out. This bottom level of the habitat was placed at the trailing tail of the core aerogel teardrop. To her right, the core was visible through a clear plexiglass sheathing, illuminated with high-intensity floodlights that cast deep shadows among the creases and undulations of the aerogel.
To her left, the curve of the outer shell of the habitat curled around out of sight beyond the core. The main floor of the restaurant came in from the shell in a curve that wrapped about the circular club floor. The Basement occupied fully half of the “donut” around the core. Behind her, the other half of the levels were occupied by offices, storage, and likely some of the ballast tanks that couldn’t be removed without destabilizing the entire habitat.
The lift shafts were visible rising up along the face of the core. At this depth, there were only four lifts. Two of them were visible on either side of the club, with the other two somewhere behind her among the offices.
The majority of the defenses Wharton had the extras building were focused around the two lifts that opened out onto the club floor. To his credit, he had done a passable job at arranging things so anyone coming out of the lifts would be shredded by gunfire. Both lift exits were faced by a concave arrangement of barricades and cover for his men.
Anyone trying to assault the Basement through the lifts would be met with death. But, as she turned slowly, examining the rest of the club and restaurant, there was little to no redundancy of defenses. There were no sniper perches, no mounted heavy weapons.
Wharton had fallen into the trap that all habitat dwellers did: it was inconceivable to him that someone might be willing to destroy the habitat to get to him. There was no protection against someone breaching through the ceiling of the Basement. There were no defenses prepared to cover intrusion from the half of the level not taken up by the atrium.
She could find half a dozen points of entry, just from her perspective, that had no defenses prepared for them. There were likely even more on the other side of the level. If she were planning an assault on the Basement, she wouldn’t even try to come down through the lifts. That was the obvious approach and bound to fail. She would cut a hole through the ceiling into a storage room and infiltrate the Basement from there.
How much to tell Wharton? She needed to tell him enough that he would continue allowing her freedom, but not so much that it damaged her rescuers’ chances.
“Well, what do you see?” Bremen demanded of her.
Cynthia turned to him and frowned thoughtfully. “Your defenses around the lifts are solid.”
“Yeah, we know that,” the guard scoffed proudly. “It would take an army to capture the Basement from us now.”
“Hm. Yes. Unfortunately, no commander in their right mind would send their forces down a lift directly in the teeth of armed resistance.”
Bremen’s confident grin faltered. “How else would they attack?”
Cynthia gestured at the ceiling of the atrium high overhead. “If I were planning an assault, I would blast access through the ceiling and rappel down, probably there, there and there,” she pointed to places where the restaurant offered natural cover. “You have no weapons effective at range. Anyone assaulting through the roof would be behind your defensive line and free to operate.”
Bremen boggled at her before turning to stare up at the ceiling. “They can do that?”
Cynthia rolled her eyes at his back. Out of all the possible ways to assault the Basement, that was the least likely. “Oh yes.”
“Excuse me,” someone behind her said meekly.
Cynthia turned and found Leila standing behind her with a covered tray. She felt a visceral shock go through her gut. There was no recognition in Leila’s eyes, only cautious respect for the guard. A bandage was wrapped around one of her hands.
“What do you want?” Bremen asked gruffly. He still had his attention fixed on the ceiling.
“I have food for the matriarch.”
Bremen grunted. “Sure. Just put it down on that table. She can eat it here.”
Leila complied. Before she turned to go, she caught Cynthia’s eye before shooting a glance toward the tray. Then she was walking away without a backward glance, leaving Cynthia staring after her.
“Wharton’s got to hear about this,” Bremen said. He got his tablet out and began tapping away at it.
“Do you mind…?”
“No, go ahead.”
Cynthia sat down at the table. Her hands were still bound in front of her, and it made it awkward to reach up to the tray, but she managed. The food she found under the cover turned her stomach. Was this Leila’s idea of a joke? A centimeter-thick slab of raw yeast was in the center of the tray, brownish-yellow and emitting a rich, fermented cheesy smell.
She prodded at the yeast block with a fingertip. It was slightly spongey, with an oily texture that left a residue on her hand. The yeast was slightly translucent, and as she poked at it, she saw something shift beneath the slab. Cynthia glanced back at Bremen and saw he was engrossed in his tablet.
Making sure that her shoulders blocked Bremen’s view of the tray, she lifted the slab aside with two fingers. Hidden beneath was a slender shard of glass. Careful that she didn’t cut herself, Cynthia picked the shard from the yeast. It was some four centimeters long, oblong, with a wickedly sharp edge along one side.
As a weapon the little flake of glass was useless, but she felt a surge of gratitude toward her daughter. Whatever circumstances had brought Leila to the Basement, it wasn’t because she wanted to hurt the matriarchs. Cynthia very badly wanted to go running after her daughter and pull her into an embrace and tell her how sorry she was that her Challenge had not succeeded, tell her that she wanted nothing more than to spend the next seventy thousand years with her. Instead, she pushed her emotions down again. She was
n’t free yet and running after Leila would only endanger her daughter.
Holding the flake between two fingers, she folded her hand around gingerly, concealing it in her fist. She realized it would be suspicious if she didn’t eat any of her food. She had eaten fairly recently, and the smell of the yeast turned her stomach, but she forced herself to take a bite from the corner of the slab.
Cheese and slightly sour ferment flavor flooded her mouth and she swallowed the spongey, slimy yeast down. This is fine, she told herself firmly, people eat this stuff all the time. Its delicious, and you will swallow as much as you need to.
“Come on,” Bremen said from behind her. “I hope you’ve had enough to eat. Wharton wants you back in your room.”
Cynthia swallowed her mouthful, absurdly grateful that she didn’t have to eat any more. “Are you sure? I just started…?”
“No time. Stand up. I won’t ask again.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Horizon was originally designed to be the spaceport for the Venus colony. Unlike the other habitats, Horizon was enormous, nine cores spread out in an equilateral triangle in groups of three. Suspended between the cores, the meter-thick nickel-iron plate of the launch pad provided a stable, impermeable surface from which to launch shuttles back into orbit.
Over the years, the central structure of Horizon was expanded upon, with satellite cores added on to provide living space for crew and additional displacement mass to support rocket fuel storage. Then more cores were added as it became obvious that Horizon was becoming the center of the Venusian economy. The government of Venus congregated there and even more cores were added to support the burgeoning population.
Today, Horizon has no fewer than twenty-seven cores and a population of well over a hundred thousand people. Fifteen matriarchs make their permanent residence there, along with a full genetic lab to perform Rebuild treatments. It is truly one of the great wonders of the modern age.
