“If I knew more, I could follow your thinking,” Lassiter said. “Regardless, it’s important for you to realize a successful monarchy is based on the idea that the ruler always has to play the long game. It’s never about the king. It’s about the kingdom and the throne. If you can look at all the things going on around you as transient, it might keep you focused where you need to be.”
“Right now I’m having trouble seeing past the growing chaos,” he said. “Things are unraveling so fast, and then there’s still this unknown element.”
“Your job is to deal with humanity,” he said. “You need to compartmentalize it and do your part.”
“The problem is there are so many loose ends,” Derek said. “Like Tana Drake.”
“Drake is a loose end?”
He nodded. “She wasn’t at the meeting. Her participation is critical to moving this whole thing forward.”
“Why her?” he asked
“I can’t explain that yet,” Derek said.
“Of course not,” Paulson said, leaning forward in the chair and grabbing the arms like he was about to push himself to a standing position. “If this is what access to more information means to you, I don’t think I can accept your offer.”
I need to tell him something, Derek thought, his frustration at having his hands tied, overwhelming his desire to keep his relationship with Lassiter beyond Odysseus ears. He realized when it answered that keeping anything secret wasn’t possible, anyway.
“Tell him that I am responsible for your current position of power,” it said. “However, you must not reveal anything about the reason for my existence.”
Armstrong: Approaching L-4 Trojan Cluster:
“Excuse the hour ma’am, but we got a response from the Jakob Waltz and I assumed you’d want to know as soon as it came in.” Katryna rolled over and looked at the screen on her thinpad with one eye. The velcro edge of her coverlet made a ripping sound as she stretched her arm to pick the unit up and squint at the face of the captain.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked.
“Once or twice a month,” Jeffers said.
“What did it say?” Katryna asked.
“Basically, it says don’t come. There is no ghost fleet and no base. Do not risk approaching with your ships. We’re safe but we’ve crashed on a frozen iceball and the things that caused that to happen, will do it to you too,” the captain said.
“Wait? Crashed into an iceball?” she sat up and blinked several times.
“Well, that’s the simplified version, but those are the high points. They also sent some absolutely incomprehensible math. They said the math will explain why it is dangerous to get closer. I forwarded that to Dr. Jameson and he said he’d get right to work on it.”
“He doesn’t sleep either does he?” Katryna asked, holding back a yawn.
“Probably not.” She shrugged.
“Forward the full message to my office,” Roja said, “and tell Jameson to report to me as soon as he has any idea what the math is saying. Unless he comes up with something really scary, I’m not inclined to change our thinking.”
“Agreed,” Jeffers said. “It would be a waste to come all this way and have them tell us no thanks we don’t need your help after all.”
The screen went blank as the captain signed off and she punched in the comcode for Admiral Nakamiru, “Can you join me in my office?”
“Don’t you sleep?” he asked, his voice a soft growl.
“Not anymore,” she said. “We got a message back from the Waltz. Something has forced them to go hard down on an iceberg.
“With a D-class keel?” he asked.
“Yah,” she said. “I think we need to make a decision.”
He sighed. “On my way.”
She was still yawning, but managed to get her first hardball down by the time he got to her office. He looked far more awake than she felt, but she knew it was an act of will on both their parts. He just had more of it.
“Sorry I woke you,” she said, settling into place behind her desk and nodding to the seat across from her.
“The price we pay to lead a rebellion,” he said. “When duty calls, we answer. Even at 0300 hours.”
“May I join the conversation?” Odysseus-Solo asked. The modified instance of Odysseus inhabited the networks of the Armstrong and was always monitoring events although it chose never to intrude without permission. It was like having a stalker. Fortunately it had manners.
“Do you think this is relevant to your purpose?” she asked, glancing at the admiral who raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
“It may be. I know you expressed concern that the Jakob Waltz could potentially be the point of the ESI contact,” it said. “I have been attempting to determine the validity of this hypothesis, but thus far there’s been little information I can extract through monitoring activity between Odysseus instances down-system. Direct communications from close to the potential source may be useful.”
“It might also be something far more mundane,” she said.
“Of course,” it said.
“Let’s listen to what they have to say, then we can decide what we think is going on,” Nakamiru said.
“Playback message from Jakob Waltz,” she said.
Captain Cochrane appeared on the wallscreen and they both turned to look at him. He didn’t look at all stressed considering what Jeffers said he was about to report. His expression seemed oddly calm and relaxed for a captain that had just marooned his ship and crew.
“I have to say I’m surprised to hear you’re still planning to devote the resources to our rescue given everything else that has to be screaming for your attention. However, since there is no evidence of a ghost fleet or a clandestine base in the Neptune L-4 Trojan Cluster, I think the risks to your ships and crews make it ill advised for you to approach.
“Prior to the political crisis down-system, we sent you an initial assessment of the phenomenon we encountered, but I’m including our most recent analysis for your scientists to look over. Even though the underlying science is well beyond my education, our current understanding is that there’s some kind of field out here that works like a quantum version of quicksand.
“The more thrust a vessel applies toward movement, the more it sinks the force. Unfortunately, this means that any ship entering this area will be unable to escape.
“We first encountered this effect when we were almost fifty million klick from where we ended up. Once we located what we determined to be the source of this quicksand, we incrementally made our way toward it in an effort to determine the cause. We entered a close orbit around the object we now call L-4 Prime.
“Shortly after we arrived, some internal geophysical heat source caused the subsurface ice of L-4 Prime to begin liquefying. The resulting cryovolcanism created an atmosphere of sufficient density that drag to the Jakob Waltz made it impossible to remain in orbit. The quantum energy sink also made it impossible to gain altitude and escape, so we had no choice but to bring the Jakob Waltz down onto the surface of the ice.
“For the time being, we’ve sustained no injuries and are not in danger. Our life support and food production systems are undamaged and adequate to keep us alive as long as necessary. We’re working toward finding a way to reverse the quantum quicksand effect, but until we have some idea how to do that, I believe that for you to approach L-4 Prime would be an unacceptable risk to you and your ships.
“We will advise and update you as we know more.
“Jephora Cochrane, Jakob Waltz: L-4 Prime.”
After several seconds of drumming her fingertips on the edge of her console, Katryna asked, “What did you notice in that message?”
“He sounds awfully calm for having just crashed forty kilotons of ship into an iceberg,” Nakamiru said.
“Voice analysis indicates a substantial level of stress in his voice.” Solo said.
“Like he was lying?” she asked.
“Or hiding something,” it said.<
br />
“An ESI contact?”
“That would be one possibility,” it said. “I think there is a high probability that if they were in contact with a non-solar civilization, it would be stressful. From his perspective there is no visible authority in the Union to which he could hand it over.”
“At least none that he would consider capable of managing this type of event,” she said.
“I think that is a valid assessment,” the admiral said. “I also think it is possible he has been captured and forced to send that message.”
“When hostage taking was a political art form, that was a common practice,” Katryna said, nodding.
“I concur,” Solo said.
“That leaves us with two possibilities,” she said. “Either he’s a prisoner or he’s in over his head.”
Nakamiru nodded.
“I don’t see how either of these possibilities changes our need to continue forward with our plans,” she said.
“If I may make a suggestion, I think it does have a bearing,” Solo said. “If we continue at our present velocity and someone has captured them, we are providing the enemy more time to prepare for our arrival. On the other hand, if it is an ESI contact we are leaving them alone with it for another thirty-eight days, four hours, and twelve minutes. Much could go wrong in that period of time.”
“We are running at the maximum safe cruise for the icebarges,” she said.
“We could leave them behind with one of the multicruisers and use our whiskers to provide coverage for the rest of us to push forward,” Nakamiru said.
“At two-g acceleration to our safe cruise velocity, we could arrive at L-4 Prime in approximately a week,” Solo said. “This would give us the element of surprise in the event that hostile forces are in the area, and if not, it would allow us to assume control of the contact situation at the earliest opportunity.”
“It also splits our fleet,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I like that idea.”
“If the quicksand is real, it might be good to have the ice haulers divert to a different target outside the fifty million klick safety zone that Cochrane mentioned,” Nakamiru said. “We could put the Galen with them to provide protective cover and make sure they are safe to start processing.”
She got up, floated over to her VAT, and punched in for a double black. Then added a shot of guarana. She looked down into her thermocup like she was reading tea leaves in the swirling darkness. Finally, she nodded.
“Transfer all the reserve ice from the barges to the Archer and Challenger. If there is any left, pump it into our tanks. Pass the orders that I want us to be on our way before the end of first shift.”
Personal Quarters of the Executive Director: Galileo Station:
Derek Tomlinson sat bolt straight in his bed, sweat pouring off his body and his sheets in a tangle around his feet. His throat hurt like he’d been fighting to draw in air.
“Lights,” he gasped, squinting as the room faded into clarity in front of him. He hoped that reality would push the nightmare into the past as light swept the darkness away, but this dream held on with teeth and claws.
He closed his eyes and saw it again.
The window shattering slowly. Frost and vapors spread like spider silk from the lower corner. A pinhole that widened in slow motion until it became a gaping maw of jagged shards. Crystal teeth in a mouth that roared and howled with screaming rage
Things, trinkets and debris, shuddered and shook until they slipped through the teeth and into the darkness beyond. The rattling flutter of objects tumbling into the open mouth became a deafening thunder. Crashing sounds. Tearing sounds. Things slamming shut in the distance.
A scream. And then at last, silence.
He opened his eyes and swung out of bed, pulling himself up and across the room on unsteady legs. He leaned forward against the dressing table and shuddered. Blinking he saw strobe flashes of the dream again. Each time, a different image captured in horrifying still life detail. Cascading instants ratcheting backward in time.
Backwards, to before the window. A shadow. A form. A person. Carrying a tool in his gloved hand. Marking the window with a scribe and then scarring it deeper with a miniature hand drill. Faint hissing sounds as the bit cut a dozen perforations, none of them too deep. Only enough to weaken, but not break. Finally, one small hole in the corner all the way through, and quickly filled with a dab of crystal epoxy. A thermal loop embedded on the edge of the patch, with a nanowire lead to a microlink, almost invisible.
The details sharpened with each fleeting instance. Clarity coming in stabs into the reality around him.
He shook his head trying to fling off the nightmare vision. He staggered toward the other room. Anywhere away from the window above his bed. He paused, shutting the door firmly between the rooms and hopefully locking his fear on the other side.
He took several deep breaths, blowing them out noisily and letting them carry his irrational terror away. Knowing he’d closed a barrier between him and the thin membrane of glass that held the vacuum outside, helped reinforce a thin veil of calm.
“I’m awake now,” he said, to the empty room.
Walking toward his VAT he glanced at his console and noticed a newslink alert message. On the way by, he tapped the screen to begin the playback. He expected it to be another riot down in the unaligned sections so he paid little attention while the image file loaded.
The face of a news commentator appeared in front of a closed emergency bulkhead door. Her face wore a mask of artificial gravity as she looked directly into the optic to begin her report. “This morning at 0125 hours, station maintenance teams reported a major hull breach in residential Section Twenty-One.”
He spun to face the console holding his empty thermocup in his hand.
A hull breach?
“Galileo civil authorities say there is no risk of further decompression, as safety seals activated and prevented additional venting of the station’s atmosphere. It is believed the breach was contained to only one residence, however it is unknown if anyone was home at the time.”
He was only a couple hundred meters from Section Twenty-One. Maybe he felt the fluctuation in pressure and that triggered his dream?
That has to be it, he thought, letting out a heavy sigh and leaning back against the VAT to watch the rest of the news story.
“Officials are withholding additional information as to the specific residence where the incident occurred while they attempt to locate the individual who owned the apartment. They have also begun an investigation into the cause of the accident and preliminary statements indicate that the decompression was the result of structural failure of an exterior window seal.”
He gasped and his knees buckled sending him sliding down the face of the counter and into a heap on the floor.
He pressed his knuckles into his eyes as the dream sucked him back into its demonic grip. This time he landed in the instant between the realization and the silence.
The image was as sharp as if he stood in the room watching it with his own eyes. In that frozen moment before the window exploded into the vacuum of space he saw a face reflected in the glass. Even twisted into a mask of terror, he still recognized who it was that stared into the unimaginable realization of her mortality.
Carmen Ambrose.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Earthward Promenade: Galileo Station:
By the beginning of firstshift, the word had spread that Carmen Ambrose was missing. The blown out window had indeed been in her quarters although no one had made an official announcement that she had died in the decompression.
She might not have been a leader in the current realm, but she was a respected figure across all political lines and her disappearance shook everyone. The corridors were empty, and the promenade deserted, with only a few people huddled together in front of shops, talking in hushed voices.
“You know he did it,” Graison Cartwright said as he angled toward Lassiter.
&n
bsp; “Excuse me?” He was strolling toward his favorite breakfast eatery with two bodyguards following behind. One of them stepped forward to interpose his looming bulk between them, but when Paulson nodded it was alright he settled back, keeping a wary eye on the situation from several meters away. There was little friendship between the two men but Lassiter had little to fear that there would be a real confrontation, not in public.
“Tomlinson did it,” he said. “He ordered her killed.”
Paulson stopped and lowering his voice said, “Be careful making unsubstantiated allegations against the Director. As far as I know, the investigation is only just starting, and she is still considered missing.”
“You can’t be that naïve,” he hissed.
“Neither can you,” Lassiter said, narrowing his eyes and almost snarling as he bit down on his reaction to the insult. “Let’s say for a moment what you say is true—”
“You know it is,” Graison challenged.
“Irrelevant,” he said, dismissing his comment with a sharp snap of his hand. “If it was in fact true, and in no way I am saying I believe that to be the case, then you would also have to assume the deaths that occurred before he ascended to his current position are probably his doing as well.”
“Probably.” Cartwright nodded.
“Then consider carefully what happens to people who threaten his power,” Paulson said. “Are you sure you want to make that kind of accusation and draw down the lightning? Especially out here in public.”
“Somebody has to stand up to him,” he said.
“Perhaps, but to be blunt you are not the person to do it,” Lassiter said. “You don’t have the political muscle to rise to a place where he would even notice your accusation. You are far too inexperienced, and wouldn’t be in this position at all except that the others in FleetCom that were more suited were also unapproachable. Honestly, you are a bureaucratic second seater and that means you’d be easy to silence.”
He stopped and looked at his own security detail and then looked pointedly around the open promenade. “You seem to lack even the political sense to be aware of the potential danger around you. Carmen never traveled alone and still …”
Fulcrum of Odysseus Page 7