After greeting both Kime and Columbia, Patricia sat beside Oscar. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He gave her a wan smile. “Sorry for not getting up. Gravity makes me feel very weak and dizzy right now.”
“Please, don’t apologize.”
“The annoying thing is, I stuck to the exercise schedule we were given, and took all the biogenics. It doesn’t make the slightest difference. Damn, I hate freefall.”
“The President asked me to convey her personal thanks to you and your crew. Discovering the opening to Hell’s Gateway is the vital element which could turn this whole campaign around.”
“Just doing our job,” Oscar mumbled.
Mac came up behind his old friend. “Modesty is also a by-product of freefall exposure. Don’t worry, he’ll be cured by the time we reach the medal-giving ceremony. Do you think the Vice President will award Oscar personally?” he asked with a straight face.
Patricia laughed. “Now I think about it, our good Vice President Bicklu wasn’t his usual joyful self in cabinet when your name was mentioned.”
Oscar managed to smile at that.
Wilson called everyone to order. Dimitri Leopoldovich, who had been talking quietly to Rafael, took a seat next to Anna, while Mac sat on the other side of Daniel. Technically this was the Navy Strategic Review Council, but Wilson thought of it as simply a meeting between his best advisors and the Executive, as represented by Patricia and Daniel. Its job was to come up with policy to forward to the War Cabinet.
“We’ll open with the obvious,” Wilson said. “The location of Hell’s Gateway.” A hologram portal on his desk projected a simple star map. The star system where Oscar had detected the giant wormhole was about three hundred light-years beyond Elan.
“You’ve all seen the sensor log,” Oscar said. “There is no mistake; it’s them.”
“Low possibility,” Dimitri said, “but we have to consider if this is a decoy.”
“An enormously expensive one,” Mac said. “We know the Primes don’t have economics the way we do, but in terms of resources it would be a considerable investment in machinery to duplicate Hell’s Gateway. And for what purpose? At best it would gain them a couple of months’ respite.”
“Or they’ve built a second giant wormhole,” Dimitri said cheerfully. “More than one? We know they are quadralactric; it would be prudent to assume the worst.”
“You always do,” Patricia said in a low voice.
Dimitri’s pale face lifted in a regretful smile. “My job.”
“Are you suggesting we postpone the attack?” Rafael asked.
“No, sir. What I, and the Strategic Studies Institute, are recommending is that the scout flights should continue. In fact, we ought to take another flyby of Dyson Alpha. That would tell us for sure if there are any more giant wormholes operating there.”
“Risky,” Wilson said.
“The same risk as attacking Hell’s Gateway,” Dimitri countered. “Whatever defenses the Primes have developed, you can be sure they won’t be restricted to their home system. Hell’s Gateway is vital to them. It will be defended with the best they’ve got.”
“We’ll certainly fly reconnaissance missions afterward,” Wilson said. “We need as much intelligence about their intent as we can gather.”
“Intent is their one continuing unknown,” Dimitri said. “As Captain Gilbert said, their economic model doesn’t follow any we understand. However you look at it, invading the Commonwealth is simply not cost-effective. Our conclusion is that they are mounting some kind of religious crusade against us.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Daniel said.
“Excuse me, sir, but it is not. Obviously we don’t even know if they have gods or religion, but the fundamental principle stands. They are not doing this out of logic, therefore a degree of fanaticism is involved. Crusades are the human equivalent, whether they have religion or ideology as their starting point. We have had a great many during our history.”
“Is this relevant to considering our assault strategy on Hell’s Gateway?” Patricia asked.
“The implications should be considered,” Dimitri said. “We are striking what we hope will be a significant blow against an enormously powerful enemy. If their motivation for invading the Commonwealth is based on an illogical premise, that their ‘God’ or political leader has decided humans must be swept from the galaxy, they will not be deterred. It will be a setback, not an end to their campaign. They will hit back. We must be prepared for that eventuality.”
“Without Hell’s Gateway it would take them a long time to rebuild and strike at us,” Rafael said. “Every ship orbiting the Lost23, every installation they’ve built in the Commonwealth will be vulnerable to us. We can eliminate them completely before any reinforcements arrive.”
“Pardon me, Admiral,” Dimitri said, “but those Lost23 planets have been well named by the media. They are indeed lost to us, permanently. Right now the troops we have deployed there are absorbing a great deal of the Primes’ resources; but in the event we succeed in destroying Hell’s Gateway the Lost23 become an irrelevance. We should not deploy our ships in battles that will result in any attrition.”
“I’m all for that,” Mac said sarcastically. “We only go in slugging when we know we won’t get hurt in the process.” He gave Dimitri a tight, almost pitying smile. “This is war, man; it gets dirty and we are going to take losses. You have to accept that.”
“We are in the process of developing weapons that will guarantee victory,” Dimitri said. “Wait until they have been built, then use them. Don’t try and knock the Primes down one tiny piece at a time. They are too big. We can’t do it.”
Nobody replied. Wilson took a look around their troubled faces. Everyone here knew about the Seattle quantumbuster, but it was the last resort, the doomsday weapon that you prayed to whatever God you believed in that you’d never have to use. It certainly wasn’t the first thing you reached for. “The only way the Seattle weapon can be deployed to get us that guarantee is if we use it to genocide the Primes,” he said.
“And what do you believe, Admiral, they are doing to us? I have accessed the reports from squads dropped onto the Lost23. On every single occasion when refugees and survivors encountered the Primes, they were exterminated. We cannot assign them human logic and motivation; don’t make the mistake of assuming they care about us. They want us dead and gone. Every analysis the Institute has made boils down to one simple proposition: it’s them or us.”
“Use of the Seattle Project weapons is a political decision which will be taken by the War Cabinet,” Rafael said. “That has already been agreed. It is not part of the strategy we are discussing today.”
“Then we would recommend it should be,” Dimitri said. There was a glint of sweat on his pale brow as he leaned forward in his chair to appeal directly to Wilson. “I’m not saying this lightly, but we have already shown our hand. What the Desperado did was truly magnificent; they slowed down the Prime advance and in doing so allowed millions of people to escape. But the Primes have now seen that application of hyperdrive technology. They will be able to duplicate it. And more, they will be devising countermeasures—I know we are. If we strike Hell’s Gateway with relativistic weapons there is no guarantee they will be successful.”
“Nothing in war is certain,” Wilson replied. “That doesn’t mean we give up.”
“I’m not saying we should give up. I’m saying we should have a complete victory.”
“Prime ships started leaving Dyson Alpha within an hour of the barrier coming down,” Oscar said. “They are out in the universe now, an escaped genie. We have to deal with them on that basis.”
Dimitri pushed back some of his floppy hair. “I’m sorry, we at the StPetersburg Institute do not believe that ultimately there is any other way to deal with them. Whoever encountered them before was clearly of a similar opinion, which is why the barrier was erected. We do not have that luxury.”
“Thank y
ou, Dimitri,” Wilson said. “The Institute’s views will be brought before the War Cabinet. For now, we are planning a conventional assault against Hell’s Gateway. Anna?”
“Manufacture of Moscow-class ships is accelerating,” she said. “Now that we’re mass-producing all the hull sections and components on the Big15 it takes about a fortnight to assemble one from scratch. The process is a lot more modular than it was even with the scoutships. Currently we have twelve of them operational, but that’s due to change rapidly. Our ninth assembly platform is now complete; sections for platforms ten through fifteen are being fabricated, and should be functional within another month. Linking the platforms directly to Kerensk via wormhole has been a real boon as far as construction is concerned. We’ve trodden on Chairwoman Gall’s toes in the process, but she’s been diplomatic enough to keep quiet; she realizes that High Angel can’t insist on a monopoly in these times. Besides, most of the docking station crews are still dormitoried here.”
“How many ships can we send against Hell’s Gateway?” Patricia asked.
“By the end of this week: fifteen. If we wait another week, there will be twenty-two. If you wait a further week, we should have commissioned over forty, and after that we’ll be churning out forty-five every fortnight.”
“How many do you need for a successful strike, one that closes Hell’s Gateway?”
“We estimate a minimum of twenty,” Mac said. “They have a formidable presence in that star system. Hell’s Gateway is only a part of it. There are all the generators for the wormholes leading to the Lost23, which are still transferring a colossal amount of equipment to the Commonwealth. During the invasion, we estimate they deployed over forty-five thousand ships against us. If they’re planning a second invasion, we must assume that at least that many are currently stationed there. Probably a lot more.”
“Twenty of our ships against forty thousand?” Patricia said. She sounded worried.
“We won’t be engaging them the way we did above the Lost23,” Wilson said. “The Moscow-class will stand off and launch their Douvoir missiles from the edge of the Hell’s Gateway star system. No slower-than-light ships will ever reach them.”
“Twenty ships?” Patricia said.
“Minimum,” Mac said.
“Fair enough, another week is acceptable.”
“It must be longer,” Dimitri said. “You cannot throw everything we have at them, there has to be a reserve. The Primes will retaliate.”
Patricia gave him a fractious glance.
“Dimitri is correct,” Rafael said. “This has to be balanced correctly. Much as I hate to say it, we have to take the prospect of failure into account. As I am responsible for defending the remaining Commonwealth planets I must ask for some ships to be assigned to protective duties.”
“Wilson?” Daniel asked.
“I agree, it is the prudent course. I know people are impatient for us to retaliate, but this is not something we should lay open to political expediency. The guerrilla warfare is progressing well. We can take the opportunity to increase the number of troops on the Lost23 while we carry on building ships. We know that strategy is working well, intensifying it should keep the Primes preoccupied.”
“How long?” Patricia asked.
“A fortnight,” Anna told her. “That will give us twenty ships to cover each duty. That should be enough.”
“All right, I’ll take that to the President.”
Oscar remained in his seat as the others said their good-byes and left the office. Trepidation was making his stomach churn, a sensation far worse than any of the aftereffects of freefall exposure. He didn’t like the idea of lying to Wilson just to cover his own ass, not with something this serious. But Wilson certainly had to be told, and he’d probably figure out who else was involved.
Mac and Anna were the last to leave. Oscar caught her giving Wilson a quick little shrug before the door closed.
“Drink?” Wilson asked.
“Yeah, thanks. Whiskey, with some ice, no water.”
Wilson gave him a slightly surprised look, but walked across the white office to the spherical drinks cabinet. “Well, you’ve certainly got me curious. An official and private meeting.”
“We have a problem,” Oscar said.
Wilson gave a distant grin as he poured the whiskey into a crystal tumbler.
“Houston.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Sorry, go on.”
Oscar accepted the drink, despising himself for needing liquid courage. “A little while ago I was approached by someone who was suspicious about various aspects of the Second Chance mission.”
“You, too, huh?”
“They talked to you?” Oscar found that incredible.
“Let’s just say there’s a lot of politics going on around here. What did this someone want from you?”
“It’s easier if I show you. Here.” He told his e-butler to access the log recordings directly from the secure navy database. The portal on Wilson’s desk projected the recording from the shuttle as it started its journey to the Watchtower.
“See the main dish?” Oscar asked as he froze the image. “Someone was signaling to the Prime homeworld.”
“Son of a bitch.” Wilson dropped into his chair, staring at the picture that filled half of his office. “Are you sure?”
“We both know the dish shouldn’t be deployed at this stage in the mission. I did some rough alignment calculations, and that’s the direction it’s pointing.”
“Son of a bitch. Who the hell was it?”
“I don’t know. Our records are quite comprehensive, but whoever ordered the dish to deploy was clearly circumventing our management programs. This is about the only proof we’ve got it ever happened.”
“I don’t understand: a traitor? Why? What possible motive could there be?”
“There’s a lot of fairly wild theories floating around in the unisphere,” Oscar said carefully. “We never did understand why the barrier came down as soon as we arrived. And I think we can be pretty certain now what glitched our communications with Bose and Verbeke.”
“Someone in the crew,” Wilson whispered in shock. “But I picked them all…we picked them. You and I.”
“Yeah,” Oscar said miserably.
“Christ.” Wilson was still staring at the picture of the dish as if it were some kind of physical threat. “This doesn’t make any sense. Nobody benefits from a war. In any case nobody knew what was inside the barrier.”
“The Silfen probably did.”
“No. Not them. I don’t believe that.” He turned to Oscar, eyes narrowing.
“Who asked you to look into this?”
Oscar held his gaze. “The Guardians of Selfhood. Someone I used to know was the contact.”
“Fuck, Oscar! Those bastards tried to destroy the Second Chance.”
Oscar nodded at the picture. “They might have had good reason.”
“The Starflyer alien they believe in? You can’t be serious.”
“Maybe I’m not,” Oscar said warily. “I don’t know. But somebody on board was acting against us in the most terrifying way imaginable. We’re fighting a war because of that flight, a war we might lose, and all that entails for us as a species. As you said: Where’s the motive? It’s not political.”
“No, you’re right, it’s not. There has to be some kind of outside influence. Whoever did this is betraying us as a species. Son of a bitch, that’s just so hard to accept.”
“I know.”
“Have you told the Guardians about this yet?”
“No, of course not. Look, I’ll make this easy for you; I’ll resign.”
“Like hell! We need to find out what the fuck is going on, and do it fast. We’re about to send our fleet to Hell’s Gateway; and God help us if that goes wrong.”
“You don’t think…”
“Somebody betrayed us before while we were flying the Second Chance. If they’re still around, they can do it again, and
probably will.”
“Goddamn, I hadn’t thought of that. What do you want to do?”
“Get help. Paula Myo knows everything there is to know about the Guardians. I’ll consult with her.”
***
Mellanie broke her promise. They didn’t check into a swanky LA hotel; instead she found a cheap three-room apartment just behind Venice Beach. The building was old and worn down, its ground floor given over to small ultra-bargain stores selling T-shirts, handmade jewelry, secondhand domestic bots, powerskates, and sportswear, each of them blaring out tinny music late into the night. The windows on the two floors above had wooden shutters and rows of ancient air-conditioning radiators that whistled and hissed in the sun’s glare.
The apartment next door to theirs was taken by a couple who fought every time their shifts brought them home together; upstairs a hooker who sneaked her clients up the fire escape gave them their hour’s worth of non-TSI entertainment at high volume.
In their own rooms the water supply was erratic. The fridge was stuck on its coldest setting, freezing anything they put inside. Furnishings dated back fifty years. And the purple-painted floorboards creaked badly.
The building’s landlord was only too pleased to take cash. There was no accessible record that they were living there.
Strangely, for an environment that was so unruly, Dudley was at his most relaxed since they hooked up. When she got back from her visits to the Michelangelo studio offices she’d often find him cooking elaborate meals, or sitting outside the building with a beer watching the theater of street life going past. She suspected the fact that Morton was unreachable two hundred light-years away had a lot to do with his newfound contentment.
The evening after Mellanie received the recording of Randtown’s destruction, she slipped into a simple T-shirt dress and walked down to the beach. She carried her sneakers in one hand as she walked along the sand, heading for the Santa Monica pier.
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