Auberon

by James S. A. Corey

  “Take a look for me,” Mona said, standing up. “We can go over it in… five?”

  “All right,” Veronica said, as if the request were perfectly reasonable. Prepare a report in the time it takes to brew a cup of tea. Mona waited as Veronica walked out—she wouldn’t leave the woman in her office alone—and then locked the office door behind her and headed right along the pale-green hall and then right again into the commissary.

  She poured herself a cup of green tea and picked up a sugar cookie from the dessert table before sitting down alone at a table by the window. Tall white clouds rose on the horizon, glowing gold and red in the sunlight. She scowled at them. Someone had cracked the window open, and the breeze actually smelled fresh. She’d become so desensitized to the local environment that the fecal smell of the planet’s biology didn’t even register to her anymore.

  The situation with Veronica was becoming a problem, and not just because Veronica was a problem. Mona was meant to be reporting back to Laconia. There was a whole team of soil researchers and agricultural biologists waiting for her to share the insights of Xi-Tamyan and Auberon. There had even been queries from Dr. Cortázar, which was one step short of attention from Winston Duarte himself. She should have had a preliminary report ready to go, outlining the state of play not only for research here but across the colony worlds that Auberon partnered with. Instead, she had notes on a criminal conspiracy, and a solemn injunction from Biryar that she should leave any action to the same regulatory bodies that had let it happen in the first place. The frustration was a restless energy in her spine. It was keeping her from focusing on her work. She had to get past it.

  She couldn’t get past it.

  She kept remembering Dr. Carmichael at the reception her first night on Auberon. Her own excitement she’d felt when she heard about the array translation, the possibilities that a comprehensive mapping plan would give, not just here but across all the colony systems. And the disbelief that anyone would intentionally undermine something with so much potential. It had been so recent, and yet that past version of herself already seemed so naive. Auberon was changing her, and she wasn’t sure she liked what it was changing her into.

  She finished her cookie in a bite, gulped down the last of her tea, and headed back to her office. Not that she wanted to be there. Just that the commissary was annoying her now too. Or rather that she was still annoyed, and nothing she’d found gave her any respite.

  Veronica hadn’t returned with the report. Mona sat at her desk, looking sourly out her window Same world, different view. Barradan spread out to her right: streets and houses and domes. The local wilderness was on her left, exotic and untamed and almost unimaginable in its diversity and richness and strangeness. This should have been everything she’d hoped for. All the pieces were there.

  Self-rule for them, her husband said in her memory. Not for us. But…

  Something shifted in the back of her mind. The thought came to her fully formed, like she had already planned everything and had only been waiting for the right moment to be conscious of it.

  Point one: Either the administration of Xi-Tamyan was aware of Veronica’s scheme or their eyes were so thoroughly off the ball that it had been permitted by default. Two: as the spouse of the governor, she was more valuable to Xi-Tamyan than Veronica Dietz would ever be. Three: What was good for the goose might very well be quite excellent for the gander.

  She turned to her desk, a frown etching itself into her forehead almost hard enough to ache. She pulled up the financial records and tried to reallocate funds, just to make sure she couldn’t. That was fine. Her breathing was shallow and fast, but when she made the connection request, her voice sounded calm.

  “Dr. Rittenaur?” an older man said from the screen. He had thin, gray hair and a little beard that didn’t disguise his double chin. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m having trouble with accounting. I need to allocate funds for a Laconian state project, but it gives me an error code.”

  The man with the double chin looked chagrined. “I’m not… I’m not sure that…”

  “It should be under Special Projects with the code for the Laconian science directorate? What would that be?”

  “I don’t think we have a code set up for that, ma’am.”

  “We’ll have to find something temporary, then. There is something for cooperative governmental programs, isn’t there? We can use that for now.”

  “I… um… I guess you could,” the man said.

  “Not perfect, but…” She shrugged and laughed. “If you clear the access problem, I’ll take care of it that way.”

  She smiled patiently. She’d done nothing wrong. Not yet. If he pushed back, everything could be explained away. But she was the face of Laconia at Xi-Tamyan. And Laconia had just destroyed the largest navy in history and conquered the human race. She let the silence stretch. The man’s face flushed a shade darker as he decided whether he was going to tell her she couldn’t.

  He tapped something into his console. “There you go, ma’am,” he said. “It gives you any more trouble, just let me know.”

  Mona’s smile widened by just a few millimeters. “Thank you,” she said, and dropped the connection.

  After that it was easy. She copied Dr. Carmichael’s old funding structure and put it in a new branch under joint governmental projects, updated the contact information so that any issues or questions routed directly to her. She was expecting the funding level to refer back to some pool of money, but it was just a text field. She could put in any value she liked, and the money was summoned from nothing. She put in the value that Veronica’s unspecified powers that be had refused. Then she doubled it, and closed the file.

  Just like that, she’d funded the project that should have been going for months. She’d wait for a few days. Make sure that no red flags came up, and then she’d tell Dr. Carmichael to start renting lab space and equipment.

  She sat back in her chair, folded her hands, and let out a long, satisfied sigh. There was a warmth in her chest, spreading slowly out toward her limbs like she’d just had a shot of gin. Her back relaxed, her heart felt like she was dropping from orbit for the first time. Pleasure and risk. On impulse, she kicked her shoes off and ran her bare feet through the office carpet, feeling the texture of it against her skin.

  The soft knock came, and Veronica stepped in. “Sorry that took a little longer than I’d thought. Interruptions all the time. You know how it is.”

  “Yes, I do,” Mona said.

  * * *

  Biryar didn’t know what changed in Mona, only that something had, and he was glad of it. He saw it in small things. She slept more deeply now, and woke without being prodded. She ate better, and explored more of the local foods—fish and onion and a spicy red sauce the locals called sarkansmirch. He’d sampled it himself, but found a metallic aftertaste he didn’t care for. She was laughing more than she had, and there was an ease in the way she held herself.

  Her work with Xi-Tamyan might have been part of it. She had started sending reports out to the researchers on Laconia, and the responses from home had been positive and encouraging. She’d begun negotiations for Laconia to get full datasets directly from the company and integrate some of its high-level researchers into the staff on Laconia proper. It was part of Duarte’s long-term plan that coming to the capitol should be a reward. A mark of favor. The soft power of culture and status would do more to stabilize Laconia’s central position in the grand human project than any number of warships. It was good that Mona’s position let her advance that.

  Biryar’s own job wasn’t going quite as smoothly.

  He hadn’t found the trick yet of sleeping through the Auberon nights. Most nights, he woke as the midnight sun fell, lying awake in their bed for half of the dark hours until morning. He’d considered talking to the physician about it. If it continued, he might. The local food also unsettled him, and he found himself eating the same diet he had on the Notus: mushroom curries
and yeast-based cheeses. Even those didn’t quite taste the way they should. He might not register the stink of the planet as often these days, but it had affected his senses all the same. And the pervasive sensation of unease, as vague as it was profound, wasn’t helped by Overstreet’s security briefings.

  In the weeks since Laconia had officially taken over governance of the system, Overstreet had uncovered a dozen examples of embezzlement, theft, extortion, and financial misconduct just in the mechanisms of government that Biryar had inherited from the former head of state. Only two had involved Laconians. One had been the execution in the square, the other had killed himself when Overstreet’s military police had come to arrest him. Everyone else had been turned over to local authorities, but Overstreet suspected that the judicial system was as flawed as the executive government. As the security audit broadened to the major businesses—the Transport Union, Xi-Tamyan, Oesterling Biotics, and half a dozen more—Biryar expected more rot to come to light.

  The only good news Overstreet had to offer was the disappearance of the one-armed man. He hadn’t appeared in any monitored public spaces. He hadn’t shown up in any financial scans. If it hadn’t been for the footage from the reception, he might only have been an unpleasant dream. Overstreet’s analysis was that a local criminal had tried to come on strong, overplayed his hand, and fled when he understood the magnitude of his miscalculation.

  The reports coming in from other systems showed that the separatists were still very much at work. The governor of Nova Catalunya, a man Biryar had trained with, had died in a shuttle accident that was being investigated for sabotage. Governor Song, on Medina Station, found another discrepancy in the station map that hid a service corridor, abandoned now, that the terrorists had used as they planned their missions. Drive plumes had been sighted in half a dozen systems that couldn’t be tracked back to known ships.

  The ghosts of unrest were everywhere. The separatists couldn’t stand in an open battle with Laconia, but they could resist in small ways, and those small ways could have body counts too. He didn’t bring his worries to Mona. Better that one of them should sleep well. If it felt a little strange not to tell her everything, at least the cause was noble. He still felt the urge now and then to unburden himself to her. He didn’t have anyone else.

  Instead, he tried to keep his attention on his own duties: playing kingmaker in local politics until Laconia was so established and unquestionable that he could play king. He found himself crafting the role of Governor Rittenaur as if he were acting a part in a play. He had come to notice when his own impulses were different from what Governor Rittenaur’s would be, and then bury his own judgment to give space to the requirement of his office. He was a professional impersonator of himself. It required, among other things, a close relationship with the local newsfeeds.

  “I understand that the Notus is slated to leave Auberon,” Lara Kasten said. She was a host for one of the popular public newsfeeds. Not a reporter, but a warm, approachable interviewer whose greatest strength was the intensity with which she could listen.

  “It’s already burning for the ring gate,” he said. “It will still be weeks before it leaves the system, but yes. It’s on its way.”

  “That’s got to feel a little odd.”

  His office, decorated in the local style, had casual chairs set beside a window that looked out over a garden of Earth plants. This was the fifth interview he’d granted her. It was important that the local population know him. Normalize his presence. Lara’s approach to their conversations suited his needs.

  “Not really,” Biryar said, looking out at the red sunset of late morning. Clouds on the eastern horizon already turning from gold to gray. “The Notus is a valuable resource, and needed elsewhere. We have a great deal of work to do here, but Auberon doesn’t need a warship. We’re a very safe system. The situation is quite stable, and with the loyalty and cooperation of the authorities, I expect it will stay that way.”

  Lara smiled and leaned forward to pick up a glass of iced tea. She took it with sugar. He knew that from the last time they’d talked. Previously, she’d worn a high-collared white blouse, but today she had one in Laconian blue with a scoop. Instead of returning the glass to the side table, she leaned forward and put it by her feet. He was careful not to notice the tops of her breasts as she did it.

  “But it was your way home, wasn’t it?” she said. “Even if you never intended to use it. You spent your whole life on Laconia?”

  “I did. But Auberon is my home now.”

  “What’s that like for you?” she asked, and he thought there was a real curiosity in the question. He saw himself for a moment through her eyes. The proverbial stranger in a strange land, given power and responsibility and asked to be strong for his nation and the people over whom he ruled.

  “I’m happy to be here. I am. Auberon is a beautiful planet and an important part of the empire.”

  He nodded to himself, silently approving his own answer. That was the right thing to say, and the right way to say it. Turn the question back to the system itself. Not him, but them. Good that when the locals look at him, they see themselves reflected.

  He waited for the next question, but Lara was quiet. The sky darkened, and the first stars came out. The little moon, halfway to full, glimmered. She tilted her head, the straight, honey-colored hair hiding one eye, an impish smile on her lips. Biryar felt himself smiling back, and he chuckled when he spoke.

  “What?”

  “You’re happy to be here? That’s all? You’re the most important man in this system. There are literally millions of people looking up to you. You’re on a planet you didn’t set foot on until it belonged to you. It must be… hard? Intoxicating? What is it like for you, Biryar?”

  He shook his head. The breeze from the window was warm against his cheek. Lara’s eyes were locked on his. He found that he wanted to tell her. He wanted to spread out all the ways that being Governor Rittenaur of Auberon system was different from what he’d expected, even after his training. The displacement of being so far from everything he’d known, the unease of knowing that there were people who hated him, not for himself but what he stood for.

  That wasn’t what his duty required of him.

  “I can’t imagine anyone’s terribly interested in that,” he said, and his voice sounded almost melancholy in his ears. That was odd. He recentered himself and said, “I am really very happy to be here.”

  Lara’s smile faded. The last red light of sunset caught the curve of her throat, and Biryar felt the impulse to turn the office lights on. He also felt the impulse to leave them off. He didn’t move. Her expression wasn’t impish now. He remembered the time in their third interview when she’d told him about her brother’s death, how sorrowful she’d been. How strong in her grief. Of all the people on this stinking world, he felt closer to Lara than to anyone that hadn’t come on the Notus with him. She knew him.

  She leaned forward again, this time reaching not for her drink but her handheld. She held it up for him to see. The recording marked second after silent second. She turned it off and set it back down.

  “What is this like for you?” she said.

  He was silent for a moment, uncertain whether he was going to answer. However much he wanted to.

  “It’s…” Biryar was surprised to find a thickness in his throat. “It’s difficult. Sometimes.”

  She nodded, acknowledgment and encouragement in the same single motion. Biryar leaned toward her, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped.

  “I am trained for my duties as thoroughly as anyone could be. But knowing something intellectually or from simulations… it isn’t the same.”

  “You feel alone,” Lara said.

  “I do, in a way,” Biryar said. “This is off the record, of course.”

  Her smile was in shadows now, but he could make it out. “Just between us,” she said, and traced an X over her chest. “Cross my heart.”

  He felt something shift,
deep in his gut. Like a relaxation of a fist held clenched so long that the letting go ached. He drew in a breath, held it, and as he exhaled, he sank. “It’s overwhelming. Not always, but sometimes. I feel like a splinter, and Auberon is festering around me. Isolating me. Trying to push me out.”

  Her voice was soft, but not pitying. He couldn’t have stood it if she pitied him. “That’s terrible, Biryar.”

  “It is. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  For a moment, the only sounds were the ticking of the walls as they cooled in the darkness and the murmur of midday traffic in the distant streets. Lara shifted, and he found himself very aware of her presence. Her physicality and solidity. Her hand touched his, and it felt like a rope to a drowning man. She moved close to him, and he had the weird impression that she was reaching for the pistol at his side, that she was going to take it from him to make some demonstration of a larger point. It was only when her lips touched his that his mind exploded in cold alarm.

  He stood up, backing away in the darkness of the room. “I’m sorry. No, no. I’m very sorry. I didn’t… This is not…”

  He found his desk, pulled up his controls, and turned on the lights. The office flooded with the bright blue-yellow of the daytime. Lara knelt in the space between their chairs, looking up at him in surprise. Biryar wiped his hands on the sides of his jacket. His tongue felt like it wasn’t responding the way it should. Like he was having a stroke.

  “This is…” He shook his head. “We should… we should finish the interview. This was very nice. I’m glad to have your friendship. Yes. We should finish the interview.”

  He pressed his lips shut to make himself stop talking. He sounded like an idiot. Lara rose to her feet. She wasn’t blushing as much as he was.

  “Biryar, I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just—”