Lord Banshee- Fairy Dust

by Russell O Redman

  I warned, “I would not be surprised to find that she and her fellow agents had planted bombs throughout the air supplies on the earth stations, ready to blow when the attack begins.

  Singh asked, “How is it possible that someone with such a background was able to enter Terrestrial employment, and on the earth stations no less?”

  Sergei replied, “Not hard at all, I am afraid. One of Governor Ngomo's less celebrated achievements was the near complete destruction of all civil records on Mars. He destroyed most of the government institutions in the Martian cities, because they all turned against him as he became more notorious. They, in turn, destroyed the Governor's compound and all its records at the height of their success, just before the Counterstrike. He escaped to an underground compound, where he hid until the Counterstrike had eliminated the rebel powers. His successor rebuilt a semblance of government using the few records that had been preserved, with the strong assistance of marines from the Terrestrial Defence Force.

  “The surviving population of Mars had to reregister as citizens, and were largely free to declare themselves to be whomever they desired. No one knows for sure, but it is generally believed that many rebels simply gave themselves new names, new families, and new political allegiances. Half of the current government on Mars is probably comprised of former rebels who declared themselves to be loyalists, and who would ever contradict them? It is an entire society built on lies and deception. I had to wash myself compulsively for a month after I left Mars before I began to feel that I had cleansed myself of that septic planet.”

  Morris started to stir. “Our meeting with the Council starts in just a few minutes. There is more to discuss, but we must break for now. I thank you for your valuable inputs, Agents.”

  All that I had heard left me profoundly uncomfortable. “Very Senior Minister Morris, can I leave you with a question? I do not expect an answer, but any advice you can provide would give valuable guidance to our own discussions. I have spent the last ten years worrying about the Incursion and what comes next. The Earth has given such consistently bad government to Mars that for them independence is no longer an option. It is an existential requirement, absolutely necessary.

  “I have not been on Mars since the end of the war, yet I am sure the leaders of the major factions all realize that the attack on the Earth at the start of the Incursion was a disastrous mistake. They sought to prevent us from reinforcing the Governor with the abundant and well-trained armies of the Earth. Instead, we rebuilt our space-based military and retook Mars before they had time to consolidate their winnings. The need to prevent the Earth from reinforcing the Governor remains an absolute prerequisite for Martian independence.

  “The dilemma they now face is how to win against overwhelming odds. Mars has only thirty million people and the Earth has almost four billion. Mars has more raw materials in the Belt, but the Earth has industrial and intellectual capacities that Mars can only dream of. Mars needs the markets of the Earth, just as the Earth needs the materials that Mars gathers and processes. With such weakness, and such mutual dependencies, how can Mars prevail?

  “Martians almost never repeat an error within living memory. It is why their factional debates take so long. They will not repeat the Incursion, but what will they do to subdue the power of the Earth? We will endeavour to provide you with such intelligence as we can uncover, but if the attack is real it may require resources different from anything we have yet considered to beat it back.

  “My question is therefore, where is the Earth most vulnerable?”

  Sergei and I bowed and left.

  2357-03-03 22:00

  Wash-up

  When we arrived back in our small suit of rooms, everybody was in the exercise room. We dumped our new armour just inside the door to the main room and headed across the hall. Sergei was immediately put to work on a rotation of workouts involving spring-loaded treadmills, curls, push-outs, pull-ins, and back flexing. Marin dragged me back into the other room and removed the anaesthetic wires that had been inserted when we first came aboard the Mao. Suddenly, I could feel pain in my legs again, and it was not a good sensation. I had bumped myself in more places than I had realized, and all the bruises and nicks started to complain at once. I applied the anaesthetic salve and returned to the exercise room. She set me on an exercise rotation that was half the intensity of my normal workout and did not directly exacerbate my injuries, but still felt like slow torture. The last week had been hard on my body in ways I had not fully appreciated.

  When my rotation put me on a machine next to Leilani, I tried to explain about the host of ships requesting permission to leave early and how we wanted to get the list of ships, owners and destinations from Commercial Intelligence. Formally, we both still worked in CI, but she had been an Inspector and my supervisor, so it seemed appropriate that she continue to be our primary contact with the organization. This took a long time to say as I huffed and puffed. She responded breathlessly with, “I will see what I can find,” and moved on to the next machine.

  My next machine placed me between Valentino and Chandrapati. I tried to explain that we had not yet had a chance to discuss his dietary problem with Captain Wang, but I was hopeful that we could at least get supplies from the Deng that might offer some alternatives. Chandrapati looked much worse than before. Valentino explained that he was keeping a close watch because the only food Chandrapati had consumed was water with a little salt. His workout was much lighter than mine but still seemed to be taxing the limits of his strength.

  I wondered out loud if he might be better off with a workout based on weightless yoga. Valentino had never heard of it, but Chandrapati looked interested. After that set of machines were done, I lead the two of them over to a quieter corner and showed them what I could remember of the basic exercises. On the Earth, yoga is a set of poses held against the restraints imposed by gravity, stretching, loosening and tightening different sets of muscles while maintaining rhythmic breathing and mental equilibrium. Unfortunately, most standard yoga positions were meaningless in zero-G. How do you stand on your head, or balance on one foot when you are weightless and drifting around the room? However, many people considered yoga to be an essential aspect of prayer. Yoga practitioners had developed ingenious positions that used the corners and doorways, isometric balancing of muscle groups against each other, and even some of the simple spring machines in the exercise room to reproduce many of the standard yoga positions. Although no expert, I had learned it because maintaining mental equilibrium had become a major focus of my daily routine since my return from Mars. I had studied with a master, Sri Atman, on the Gandhi several years ago. It occurred to me that Sri Atman might be able to provide useful advice on dietary matters as well, so Valentino called his office and booked an appointment.

  Marin came over and commented that I should take care because I was stretching some of my scars, which might cause problems until they had set properly. In a few days, yes, yoga would be good. Maybe not right now.

  The next set of exercises put me next to Raul. As our current expert on advanced military technology, I wanted his opinion about the enigmatic object we had seen. “I have something that may interest you, probably for the first time since we boarded the Mao. The images were fuzzy and they could not make an accurate estimate of the distance, but a sentinel near L2 showed a slender object tapered towards the front, almost a cone. It was about fifteen meters long, maybe three meters wide at the stern. Most intriguingly, it was nearly impossible to detect at any wavelength from visible light through radar and was first noticed in silhouette against an emission nebula. Sergei thinks it might be a stealth weapon with a reflective surface. It was moving towards the Earth, but might have been aimed at L1. Without a distance, it was difficult to derive a trajectory. They only saw one, but would not have seen even that if it had been farther away. Any idea what it might be?”

  “Not one of ours. If we take your estimates at face value, it would be too small to be a transpo
rt, not a sensible shape for a missile, and too far from the Earth to be from anywhere except Mars or the Belt. Can I look at the data? And you are right. I have been bored stiff. This is like taking a vacation in a… a… well, prison cells look like more fun. Prisoners at least get therapy.”

  I nodded, “I will get it for you. We have been stuck in this steel box for long enough without anything real to do and only tidbits of maddeningly enigmatic information think about. I think we are all desperate to get back to work.”

  After the workout, Sergei and I joined the doctors as the first round of people to wash up and get fresh pajamas. We entered the washroom, picked our insignia off the soiled pajamas, stripped and tossed them into the bin. It was clear Sergei had not thought the process through, because he halted and blushed as everyone started to disrobe. We only had access to three rooms: our living/working area, the exercise room, and the toilet/wash room, which was open, communal and small. I and the doctors started soaping and rinsing, spraying each other off in the hard to reach areas, teasing and laughing. He finally undressed himself and joined us, but resolutely washed alone, staring pointedly at the walls. “Relax,” I said to him quietly, “it is like monkeys grooming bits out of each other's fur, and has about the same social significance.” But he just got red again and continued to wash in silence by himself.

  After we were done washing, I sent a request to Captain Wang to release the images of the object to the team and to allow Raul access to any follow-up reports. Within moments the request was granted, but the reply came from the onboard MI agent.

  Sergei cornered me while the others washed, and demanded, “That was... awkward and humiliating. Worse than visiting a beach in Eurowest, where half the people are plain and uninviting. If I am supposed to learn this culture, what perverted rule requires that everyone in space cuts their hair in a crewcut, that all the men have the same short beards, and that everyone shaves the rest of their body hair.”

  I almost laughed, but contained myself. “You never took the two-month training course for spacer applicants. That is not a rule, just more meds. Hair would clog up the air and water filters, so they add meds that limit hair growth to be short on our heads and almost nonexistent elsewhere. It grows in quite densely and each strand is finer but more durable than normal human hair. We call it cat fur, except we never shed.

  “The Moon, of course, is different. They have larger pipes in their septic systems and prefer more terrestrial hair. The earth stations are somewhere in between, because residents like the softness of spacer hair, but often want shoulder-length hair styles.

  “Even as a student, I never did like shaving and the meds are so much more convenient. We were told that the original meds eliminated hair entirely, but almost everyone is vain enough to want a little. If you stay here long enough, your hair will slowly change as well. It does make it harder for Leilani or myself to work undercover on the Earth. Our hair labels us as spacers to anyone who knows.”

  He looked dubious. “So, practicality trumps perversion?”

  “Almost everywhere on shipboard, almost all the time. Except in our private hours, when the opposite is true.”

  He shuddered, then drifted away. Hair was not what was bothering him, but he would ask when he felt ready for the answer.

  The yoga had reminded me of my own troubles, so I retreated to a corner and spent a few minutes in prayer and meditation while I waited for everyone to return.

  2357-03-03 23:00

  Monkey Business

  We gathered with an hour left before lunch. Sergei and I recounted our meeting with the Captain, omitting the presence of the two Ministers and Sergei's new mission. Neither of us wanted to talk about that, and we had not formally accepted the change. We showed the images of the strange craft approaching the Earth. Raul looked distracted most of the time, presumably reviewing details that the rest of us would not have understood. Finally, he stirred and focused on our rambling discussion.

  “Raul?”

  “Sir, I have considered what that ship could be. Like you, I think it is neither a transport nor a missile, and is surely using camouflage. What did you call it? Stealth? Of the weapons systems we know, only a small laser or a short rail gun could fit into the front end. The back is just large enough for a reactor with enough power to be useful in small-scale asteroid mining. But I cannot think of a single militarily significant target that could be damaged by such a pea shooter. I suppose we can assume there are more of them on the way, but for the moment I advise we consider them a distraction from our real task.”

  I gave that a moment’s consideration. “You may be right. Stealth mining equipment – now that is a novel concept and typically Martian. Still, could you keep on top of this issue? Somebody is doing this for a reason we do not understand, and they thought it was worth the effort.”

  Then an awful thought hit me. “Oh, and could you give some thought to the drive on the Fairy Dust? I have not had time to prepare a formal report yet, but that ship was not using an ion drive when it blew up. I believe it was some form of rail gun firing a stream of pellets at enormous speeds. I have heard rumours that a weaponized drive could be built that way. It could make a considerable mess inside a port facility.”

  “Meanwhile, would someone like to summarize what is currently known about the Hanuman? I have been too busy to read the material.”

  Katerina volunteered. “The recovery team has reached the Hanuman, which is currently in-bound crossing the Lunar orbit. It is quite close to the Moon right now, so the TDF has dispatched a frigate which is also closing in. I used our new security code to request a data stream from Lunar Recovery, and they granted the request. I do not think even the TDF gets this stream. The ship is clearly an old freighter, but seems intact.” She popped up an image.

  Both Leilani and I startled at the image. “Stop, Katerina, we need to tell the recovery team to keep away from that ship. That is not the Hanuman! That class of freighter was obsolete thirty years ago, and the last dozen or so were sold to a small company in the Belt, well before the Incursion. Given the events of the last week, we must assume that the hulk has been weaponized in some way.”

  Leilani had been doing more than jumping to conclusions. “I confirm,” she said, “those hulls were sold to Inner Mercantile, who also bought some old tugs. According to this report, they were going to salvage the motors from the tugs and rebuild the freighters as automated delivery and storage systems for one of the larger refineries, let us see, Psyche Metals and Mining. Which is... no longer listed on the Terrestrial Index of Businesses, but still seems to be an active company selling low-quality refined metals. Does anyone know who owns Aries Holding? Aries seems to be a major customer, but is also not on the Index.”

  Sergei looked grim. “It will not be listed there, ever. As nearly as we can tell, it is a front company for the Martian Imperium, or at least one of their major financial supporters. Owned by a shadowy faction based somewhere in the Tharsis region.”

  I sent a message marked urgent to the Captain and to MI, CC'ed to the rest of the team. “The ship that purports to be the Hanuman returning from Tantalus is in fact an EXX-series freighter mothballed and sold to a company in the Belt to be recycled thirty years ago. The current owner is a front for the Imperium, and the ship is almost certainly a fireship. Tell the recovery team not to approach it, but to return to base. That ship is now a military target.”

  And then I realized that I had just given an order to the Cap of a TDF battleship. Before I could apologize, Captain Wang answered back. “Good spotting, but a little late. We have already told Lunar Recovery to recall their team and have dispatched a frigate to investigate more closely.”

  Of course. After working alone or in small teams for so long, I sometimes forgot that many people were smarter than me and better at doing their own jobs. Especially the ones who had earned their high offices and not just purchased them. Thank goodness, he replied to me and not to everyone else.

  It h
ad taken four years working in CI before I learned again how to deal with other people's authority. Four years without friends. Four years in which I argued with my supervisors, ignored their orders, and had private temper tantrums in my office when I thought no one was looking. In intelligence, someone is always looking. Four years in which I would have been dumped without ceremony if I had not been solving cases so regularly. Four years of regularly changing supervisors and receiving no promotions, until they finally assigned Leilani – Rachel at the time, recently Marya – as my supervisor. Remember the kid's tale about Beauty and the Beast? I was the Beast. Powerful. Proud. Intolerant. Alone. I have no idea why she agreed to take me on. But she tamed me and we had become a great team, and more than a team. She sheltered me from the idiocy of bureaucracy, showed me again how to pull the strings that got things done, and gave me a shoulder I could safely cry on.

  That was not a metaphor. Instead of raging in my office, I could go to her, bring out some broken, bleeding piece of my life that had snagged on the latest trauma, and then literally cry myself back into sanity. The psychs had done what they could on the way home, but she had helped me put the pieces back together into the semblance of a real life. I practically worshipped her. She was worth more to me than my own life.

  It was one of the reasons I no longer tried to sleep with her, why I had kept the sex suppressed so hard for so long. That and the fact that CI took the rules about fraternization across the ranks more seriously than any spacer. We teased each other about it, and pretended to be lovers sometimes. We had even tried it for real once, but failed when the job got in the way. With her spacer background, I was sure she would ignore the rules if I asked again, but I did not dare to jeopardize what we had built at such cost.

  And, of course, there was the Fatwa.

  Katerina was still talking, “I have the latest report here. The recovery team have already been called back, but got closer than even I would have. Their ships are really tough. From the specs, if someone took all the uranium and plutonium from a freighter's reactor, rebuilt it into a bomb and detonated it at a range of a kilometre, the recovery team inside an LR ship would survive without harm.