“Oh, yes. Look at me, I’m fine. Most of these people will be fine. They’ll feel like shit for a while, then the stem cells will kick in and they’ll recover. But the purebloods? They’ll just slink away and die. They get their first treatment, or their second, or whatever, and then they just don’t come back.”
“That’s impossible,” Nadia said. “A neutron bomb can’t be genetically targeted.”
“Who the fuck knows what the PLAN can do? All I know is I’m losing patients.” Dr. Miller looked properly at Nadia for the first time. “You’ve got wings.”
“They don’t get in my way. I can help. I know about nursing. I’ve nursed my father my whole life. I can program Aesculapius-class medibots, and even Hippocrates-class ones.”
“We’ve already got enough clueless volunteers getting underfoot … what? You can program medibots? All righty, let’s see about getting you a volunteer pass.” Dr. Miller hesitated. “I’m afraid those wings will get in your way.”
“Then I’ll cut them off,” Nadia said. “I was getting tired of them, anyway.”
Mendoza said, “Nadia, wait. You can’t just …”
“You can’t program medibots, can you?” Dr. Miller said.
The reek of urine and vomit coated Mendoza’s tonsils. “No. But I’m good with data. I might be able to track down some of your missing patients.”
“Oh, that would be great. We haven’t got the manpower to chase after them, as you see.”
“Just give me a list of IDs and a network connection.”
The sky was bruise-purple. The diurnal cycle had broken down, leaving the artificial sky stuck on twilight. Scattered blocks of hexagons lit up noon-bright for a few seconds, giving an effect like pixelated lightning. The moans of the sick mingled with the chirping of birds, which had somehow survived.
★
Mendoza settled into a saggy ergoform in the basement of the Bob Q. Hope Convention Center, where Shackleton City’s municipal services had migrated after Verneland was flattened. He popped a pouch of coffee with his teeth, never taking his eyes off the sheaf of screens propped in front of him.
He’d been given access to the back-end of Shackleton City’s legendary surveillance network. Data bubbled up in real time from a million cameras, eavesdropping devices, robotic bats, and the camera-enabled retinal implants of human informers. He’d never known about those. There was always something new to learn in Shackleton City.
He ran location searches on the list of 548 pureblood victims Dr. Miller had given him. They came up blank, suggesting that the poor souls were dead. Next, he tried facial recognition searches. But the results were garbage. So many cameras down or damaged. So many people injured beyond recognition. When the MI analyst had done its best, Mendoza was left with batches of possible hits that he’d have to go through manually.
He stretched his legs. All around him, people chattered, laughed, snacked. The basement was cluttered with exhibits for upcoming trade shows. People were using booths as desks. They were joking around while they surveilled the dead and the dying. Mendoza had only been back in Shackleton City for a few hours, and already he was losing faith in humanity again.
He spread one of his screens flat and opened a new search window.
FIND: Derek Lorna.
He chewed the nipple of his now-empty coffee pouch.
SUBJECT LOCATED.
There was a surveillance camera in Lorna’s bedroom. Evidently, the Bloomsbury dome had not been damaged in the PLAN attack. Lorna sat in a high-end ergoform shaped like an overblown rose, working on a computer—what else?
Holding his breath, Mendoza watched Lorna mouth at the screen. There was no audio feed, but Mendoza imagined that Lorna was talking to his controllers back on Earth, discussing how they could finish D.I.E. off once and for all.
Man watching screen on screen watched by man. And Mendoza himself was probably being watched by someone—man, woman, or bot.
He reached out to wipe the surveillance feed away. Just before it vanished, someone else walked into Lorna’s bedroom. Springy salt-and-pepper hair, broad-shouldered Earthborn physique. Bare-ass naked. The man had his back to the camera, so Mendoza couldn’t see his face.
The feed vanished.
So Lorna wasn’t alone. That would make Mendoza’s job more difficult. But he hadn’t expected it to be easy.
He went back to combing through pictures that might be of Dr. Miller’s missing patients. Done at last, he checked the time. Midnight! He napped for a few hours in his ergoform, knowing he’d be good for nothing if he didn’t get some rest.
When he awoke, the morning shift had begun. An automated breakfast buffet wound its way through the basement. Mendoza grabbed some kedgeree and toast. Amid shortages, the municipal workforce were still doing themselves proud.
While he ate, he reviewed his work. He had forty-odd matches that looked good. He ran another search on those, which gave him their last known locations. He selected the closest: Mockingbird Village. Then he made a call.
“Nadia?”
“Oh, hello.”
It sounded like she’d forgotten all about him. He felt guilty at the thought that she’d spent the night caring for people with severe radiation poisoning, while he’d been dicking around on the computer.
“I’ve probably found some of Dr. Miller’s missing patients. I just have to confirm their locations.” Guilt pinched. “Uh, are you OK where you are?”
“Yes. I’m about to have my wings removed. First I was a nurse, now I’m a patient.”
“That’s the way life goes.”
“May Allah be with you, Mendoza.”
“And with you,” Mendoza responded.
As he trudged back to the Moonhawk, he reflected on the many names of God. YHWH of the Israelites, Abba, Father … and, yes, Allah. In Tagalog, Diyos. One God, almighty. Scuffling through the debris of Verneland, he wondered if the day of judgement was upon humanity now.
The Moonhawk stood where he’d left it. Auto theft wasn’t a thing in Shackleton City. Still wasn’t, even in the wake of catastrophe. Where would you go?
He got in. Didn’t bother to take off his helmet, let alone his EVA suit. It was only a short hop to Mockingbird Village.
He landed in the foothills of Mt. Malapert, near where he used to live. Boxy, modular villages dotted the slope. In the dim Earthlight, they looked undamaged. He hadn’t been able to find much information on the status of these domes. But most of his possible matches were in this area, so presumably the inhabitants were hanging on.
Mockingbird Village was on the funicular, but the trains weren’t running. The village’s big, tunnel-shaped airlock, which the funicular would pass through, was out of service. Mendoza entered the human-sized airlock next to it.
He stepped into a typical Lunar slum. A single sun-lamp shone above the station entrance, but further away the roof was dark. The PLAN had hit one of Shackleton City’s reactors, so the whole city was short of energy.
He knew this scenery: a small open space in front of the station, walled in by tenements of brick-look fabric.
But something was very wrong.
He was completely alone.
Where were all the people?
Hiding in their coffin-sized apartments, maybe.
Scared. Sick. Dying.
Mendoza started down the high street, a gash in the buildings about three meters wide. His shadow stretched long and thin ahead of him. Empty shops displayed signs in French. These slums tended to self-segregate by ethnicity.
He carried his helmet in one hand, a tablet in the other. The tablet showed a map of the village with six of his possibles marked.
Emmeline Diouf (85% probability).
He turned down an alley, following the map. The buildings cut off the light from the station. His footsteps sounded loud in the utter silence. Fear tightened his scalp.
Where the hell is everyone?
He wrenched open a door at random. Peered up a dark zipshaft. “He
llo? Um, bonjour?”
Something flew over his head and out into the alley. A robot bat.
“Diyos ko po!”
The zipshaft smelled bad. Like the open-air hospital in Wellsland, but fruitier.
Mendoza closed the door. Breathing shallowly, he walked on down the alley.
“Emmeline? Ms. Diouf?”
He could hardly see, so he switched on his helmet lamp, carrying it like a flashlight. Rubber cobbles, stiffened-cloth walls …
A woman drifted into his beam. Spaceborn, gazelle-boned, honey-colored skin. Her dress was black, and showed more cleavage than the dress code allowed. She smiled at him dazedly.
“Ms. Diouf? Are you all right? Comment ça va?”
She came closer.
“I’m from Municipal Services. I’m just here to follow up, as you missed your last radiation treatment. If you’d like to come with me, I can give you a ride into Wellsland.”
She nodded.
“OK,” Mendoza muttered. “OK.” He started back the way he’d come. The alley was too narrow for them to walk side by side. He checked behind him to make sure Emmeline Diouf (85% probability) was following. Her gait seemed unnaturally smooth. That was the spaceborn for you. They could make micro-gee seem like a birthright.
“So where is everyone?” Mendoza said. “I hope they’re not all too sick to move.”
Not a sound from Mademoiselle Diouf. When he turned, she was right behind him. He recoiled.
“What? Do I have something in my teeth?” He laughed uneasily.
By the time they reached the funicular station, he was practically running. Emmeline Diouf kept pace with him. Mendoza now felt sure that everyone else in this village was dead. A small reptilian part of his brain kept screaming that the woman with him was dead, too. But that was ridiculous. She was walking, if not talking. He was a Christian. He didn’t believe in ghosts.
“Let’s get out of here.” He slammed his fist on the airlock’s action plate. “You’ll need a suit.” He dived through the irising valve, opened the sharesuit locker. Empty!
Had people taken the sharesuits and fled outside? Why? Outside was where the danger was. (Except, now he wasn’t so sure of that anymore.)
“There aren’t any suits. Ay nako, I screwed up. I should have thought of this, brought a spare for you.” He turned to Emmeline Diouf—and broke off. She was no longer there.
Suddenly, twilight swallowed the crossroads in front of the station. The last working sun-lamp had cycled to its dusk setting.
“Emmeline?”
She must have changed her mind. Or despaired at the sight of that empty locker. Gone back into her village, to die.
“God forgive me,” Mendoza muttered, “but I’m not going back in there.”
He put on his helmet and cycled the airlock. He bounded across the hillside, back to his Moonhawk.
Inside the vehicle, he sat staring at nothing.
I have to report what I saw.
(What he’d smelled.)
Some of those guys at Municipal Services can get off their asses and go check it out.
But.
If he did that, he’d be entangled in the investigation of Mockingbird Village. He’d be breaking his word to Nadia, to her father. Breaking faith with D.I.E.. Betraying Frank’s memory.
The neck seal of his suit itched. He took off his helmet to scratch.
It can wait. Guilt tainted his decision, but—If they’re all dead, it won’t make any difference to them, will it?
He took off. The Moonhawk soared across the city, heading for the foothills of Shackleton Crater.
xxxii.
The Wakizashi’s drive grumbled as Kiyoshi increased thrust, decelerating. He glanced at the projection of Ron Studd, in the astrogator’s couch.
“So.” With little time left, he broached the topic that had been on his mind all the way from Tiangong Erhao. “Do you know what the CTDF really want from us?”
Studd shook his head. He really did look like a gerbil. Those buck teeth. Kiyoshi wondered where Jun came up with these sub-personalities.
“The Ghost,” Studd said. “That’s what they want. The Ghost. They don’t know what it is. But they know we’ve got a SECRET SUPER-WEAPON!” Not a trace of irony.
On Kiyoshi’s radar plot, ships whirled around Luna. Emergency aid arriving from Earth, cowards and casualties fleeing. He’d be able to land the Wakizashi unnoticed amidst all this traffic, since Luna’s PORMSnet was down.
“See, the trouble is, I’m not buying that,” he said. “Jun wouldn’t have sacrificed Peter Akagi to protect the Ghost. He wouldn’t even have sacrificed you. He’s been trying to get rid of the Ghost for a while now—he sold this copy, right here, to a freaking second-hand ship dealer!”
Studd dipped his head. “It’s like a stone,” he said. “You can’t drop it, or it’ll just float away.”
Whatever that meant. “So what do the CTDF really want? And why won’t Jun give it to them?”
Studd grinned. “If it was me, I’d just frag them,” he said.
“You aren’t much of a thinker, huh?” Kiyoshi said. “Actually, you remind me of someone. I just can’t remember who.”
The comms screen came alive. Kiyoshi had been talking to the boss-man ever since they got out of butt-fragging range of Tiangong Erhao. Twenty-seven minutes had passed since their last exchange, and now the boss was back.
He appeared calm, standing in the windtower at his house on 99984 Ravilious, looking out through the palm-frond vents. He’d got a handle on his fury. Not that the boss ever showed his fury. But Kiyoshi had worked for him long enough to know how mad he’d been at the news of Jun’s captivity. Kiyoshi leaned unconsciously towards the screen, fingers clenched on the arm-rests of his flight couch.
“So you’re heading to Luna,” the boss-man said. “That’s good. Remember that passenger I mentioned a while back?”
“Not this again!”
“He’s on Luna right now. Grab him. I don’t care if he’s not ready, he changes his mind at the last minute, fuck that. We’ve waited on him long enough. Pump him full of tranquilizers if you have to. Just get him on board.”
“And how’s that going to help Jun?”
“Listen, Kiyoshi, the thing about the Chinese…” The boss-man turned to descend from the wind-tower. For a moment Kiyoshi had a view of desert, curved like the inside of a cup, striped by bundles of palm fronds. Then the courtyard camera picked up the boss’s legs coming down the ladder. “About the Chinese. They hate to lose face. So don’t push it. Seriously. You’ve already pissed them off, you’re lucky to be alive. Do not go back to Tiangong Erhao. I know, I know, it sucks to lose the Chimera, or whatever you’re calling that crappy old truck now, but …” The boss-man stepped to the ground, shouldered through strings of onions and mushrooms hanging from the eaves of the courtyard. “It’s not that big a deal,” he said, looking up at the camera. “You’ve got a copy of the Ghost on board, right? And one of Jun’s repos? So we aren’t really losing anything.”
Kiyoshi felt disgusted to remember that he had had the same thought himself, fleetingly.
“I haven’t forgotten about Tom Lynch,” the boss-man went on. “But I’m sure Jun will evacuate him before he self-destructs. Heh. That’s going to blow one big-ass hole in Tiangong Erhao. Can’t wait to see how they spin it.”
Kiyoshi turned to Ron Studd. His body vibrated with anger. “He doesn’t believe Jun is really alive. He thinks the Monster is just a ship.”
Studd giggled uneasily.
And the man who’d saved Kiyoshi’s life was still talking. “Regarding this Arab princess, I probably don’t need to tell you, don’t touch that. It’s not your job to play pimp for a Chinese princeling, and it would be an equally big mistake to piss off the House of Saud. Jesus, these royals!” The boss-man stood in front of the well in the courtyard. Children and goats scuffled in the sand. “Anyway, ol’ Faisal is one of the good guys. I wouldn’t want to do that to him.”
“So just pick up our passenger and come home. If you can’t make it in the Wakizashi, steal a different ship. You’re good at that, I hear.” The boss-man not-so-subtly reminded Kiyoshi that he now had the ship-stealing incident on Midway to hold over him, as well as everything else.
“Are you ever going to tell me who this passenger is,” Kiyoshi said, “or is that information still too sensitive?”
Twenty-seven minutes later, as the Wakizashi dodged through the traffic in Luna orbit, he got his answer.
“Here’s his ID. I’ll leave it up to you whether to contact him directly. Name’s Abdullah Hasselblatter. Dr. He’s got a Ph.D, which stands for Phony Dumbshit, as I like to say.”
★
In the astrogator’s couch, the projection of Ron Studd writhed. His feet drummed on the floor of the cockpit. Tormented grunts emerged from the speakers.
In a purpose-built sim representing the translunar volume, the Ghost was blowing up Studd’s imaginary ships one by one. Kiyoshi watched the battle with one eye. Studd was good at this. He made it look like he was really trying.
Their final approach to Luna did not take long, so there was still something left of the sub-personality when they landed. His hoarse panting filled the cockpit. Kiyoshi powered down the drive, dumping waste heat into the vacuum of the no-name crater where they’d landed. He turned the lights and air circulation back on. An unfresh breeze chilled the sweat coating his body.
Studd sat up, gaunt, his uniform hanging off him, face disfigured by sores. “I’m still alive,” he said in surprise.
Kiyoshi poured gatorade down his throat. “Come on then, you ugly little punk.”
“Me?”
“We’ll set up a secure connection, and you can ride along with me.”
“I want donuts,” said the thing in the mini-fridge, imperiously. “And choux de crème. Those were good.”
“I’ll buy you all the pastries on Luna,” Kiyoshi said, “if there are any patisseries left.”
He skinned into his EVA suit. Packed a rucksack with clothes to change into, spare oxygen and water, an extra supercapacitor for his mobility pack, and some other stuff. Then he exited the Superlifter. Looked back up at it. A chrome shuttlecock lying in a strip-mined saucer of rock. To all appearances abandoned.
The Sol System Renegades Quadrilogy: Books 1-4 of the Space Opera Thriller Series Page 126