A Threat Among the Stars

by Mark Henwick

  They pause, floating on a sea of communications on which Xing is eavesdropping.

  Hwa eases in and tries to follow the trail to Ministro Sánchez to see if he knows anything about where Zara is.

  There are messages flowing in from the high sierras.

  Chapter 45

  Sánchez

  Sánchez hasn’t changed out of his pajamas and robe. There’s been no opportunity. A sense of everything accelerating out of control grips him, making his stomach clench. His head and his heart are pounding. His eyes are staring. Too much coffee. Too much stress. Too little time.

  His residence has always been a second office. Within minutes of Berges leaving, he’d had the study transformed with a wall of screens, a holo-projector has been wheeled into the center of the room and direct connections to the Bureaux’s internal InfoHub have been made. Bureau of Justice staff have been roused. A full communications center has been set up in his living room. Swift calls have been made to find that Berges had not been exaggerating; he has authorization over the entire Bureau of Defense.

  An hour after Berges has gone, his house, the Bureau of Justice, and the Bureau of Defense are fully manned and scurrying like disturbed ant-nests.

  He has left the majority of Defense to the appropriate subsecretario and taken personal control only of the high sierras. He has had sleeping police chiefs and ranger captains woken in the city and all the towns. Every policeman and ranger is on the streets now.

  His staff are interrogating everyone with any authority about any recent events.

  Every minute drags by and some of the adrenaline rush starts to leave him.

  He’s about to go and change when a breathless aide rushes in. “A woman’s ID was taken in Cabezón, Ministro. The name says Maria Orita, but the facial analysis programs say it’s almost certainly Zarate Aguirre. That was early this morning.”

  The man holds out a printout. Sánchez looks at it and feels the adrenaline kick back in.

  “Order the Cabezón police to begin searching house to house for this woman and any companions she has,” he says. “Warn them that I will be sending military troops to assist. They will need to co-ordinate—provide the necessary details. The entire city will be searched by midday—every house, every apartment, every hotel room, every private and public building. No one is allowed to leave the city.”

  “Warrants?” the aide asks. He does work for the Bureau of Justice.

  Sánchez shakes his head and waves the man away, even as his stomach clenches again. “This is authorized under the emergency legislation.”

  The aide runs back while Sánchez connects to the colonel commanding the Syndacian troops at the airfield next to Cabezón.

  “How many troops do you have at the airfield?” he demands.

  “No more than a battalion. All the others are out.”

  A Syndacian battalion. Five hundred.

  “The airfield is to remain fully guarded, two alternating shifts. Keep two strike squads with helicopters back for emergencies. Send the entire remainder into Cabezón. The two Aguirre women were there yesterday. Deploy your seekers to track them down. If they’re not in Cabezón, they’re not far away. I want them dead by the end of the day. Do you understand, Colonel Karis?”

  The colonel understands. He has lost in excess of a company of troops, and he’s been told the Aguirres are foremost among the rebels. There is a certain amount of professional pride involved, if nothing else.

  An aide brings Sánchez breakfast. Another lays out clothes.

  He ignores them, chewing over what he might have missed. His life may hang in the balance. He senses the movement itself may live or die on stopping Aguirre. And yet, he doesn’t know why. How could the woman be so critical to what happens?

  The holographic display in the center of the room is rendering a three dimensional situational image of the high sierras, with the hundreds of markers, some of them blinking in place, some of them creeping slowly. The projection processors track his gaze and label the markers that he looks at.

  Syndacian units. Police groups. Token Newyan army presence. As he watches, markers move from the airfield at Cabezón toward the town. The colonel has used his initiative. Helicopters overfly the city and drop troops at the far side, while trucks approach the nearest entry. A pincer movement.

  He stands back, widens the aspect of the holographic image and looks at what is happening across the continent.

  The Bureau of Transport is collapsing under the strain of its orders. There are workers at Xorio to create the internment camp that Loiola has demanded, but they have neither the food nor building supplies yet. Trains with cattle trucks are being sent to every major city, but many of them are stuck in stations, or side outs, because there are only single tracks in the wilds, and they have to wait for the supply trains to get to a section of double track before they can proceed.

  It’s a nightmare. The Ministro of Transport has leaped into action without planning. His frantic activity is actually holding his progress back.

  He mustn’t do the same. He has to stop and think about Aguirre. He’s just reacting. He has to get one step ahead instead of chasing her. Why does he have this sick certainty that she’s so dangerous to the movement? He’s not prey to the paranoia that Berges has. So... while his operation sets up he has time to think: what is it that Aguirre has got that is so dangerous?

  Chapter 46

  Yion

  The quiet ping of an incoming call on his pad has Yion bolt upright and instantly awake in the quiet darkness.

  Almost no one has his contact details.

  This can only be bad.

  Natalia has woken as well. They’re both fully dressed. It will be the work of a moment to take everything and leave the house.

  “Yes?” he says, into the pad. It’s a voice-only call, of course.

  “Police. House to house, with seekers. Every house. Breaking doors down,” a voice says, speaking quickly. “Working outward from the Plaza Mayor. Reports of military units coming in as well, working inward. Get out if you can, or hide.”

  The call terminates.

  He doesn’t even know who it was, but he has to believe it.

  Natalia has heard. She’s at the window, peering out around the heavy curtains.

  “It’s still dark,” she says.

  He marvels that her voice is so level, so calm.

  There’s a curfew during the hours of darkness. If they leave the house now, they’ll risk being shot in the street. This isn’t the house they normally stay in, it’s simply the one they could reach before curfew last evening, after helping Zara at the railway station.

  The safer houses in the center of the city are the ones with passages and hiding places.

  Could they get past the police? On the rooftops? In the sewers?

  The night is not so quiet anymore. There’s the distant thud of a helicopter somewhere, the faint sound of shouts, breaking glass. The police or the mercenaries are already in this area.

  They’re trapped here.

  They both have good fake ID, but if the police are using seekers and going into every house, this isn’t a casual check and no fake will hold up.

  Some of Natalia’s calmness seeps into him.

  This could always have happened. It will be how it will be.

  There’s a hiding place in this house, far too small for them, but large enough for weapons. Yion opens it and retrieves the two old pistols and ammunition. He hands one to Natalia, making sure she cannot see that he’s trembling.

  They quickly strip and reassemble the pistols by touch, and then load them.

  The sound of his breathing and his heart beating seem like a storm in his ears.

  “You’re Yion Bey, you’re a Name, you’re more important to the resistance,” she says quietly. “I could divert them. You might have a chance.”

  He doubts it. They’d catch him before he could get out of the city, and where could he hide inside the city that wouldn’t involve
others and risk their deaths? But the real reason is deeper within himself. Deeper than he will admit.

  “If I did,” he says instead, “if I sacrificed you to save myself, I would be just like them. Never become what you seek to fight.”

  “Sounds very theoretical. Must be all that college education.”

  In the darkness, he can make out she’s smiling a little.

  “It is. But beneath it... there’s something that’s not theoretical at all.”

  That’s as close as he can come.

  They move to the hallway, taking up positions on either side. The police will come through the doorway, not expecting resistance, probably not expecting anyone. It’s dark in the house. The police will be at a disadvantage. For a while.

  It will be quick once they break in.

  “Did we ever have a chance?” Her voice has become very small in the darkness. “I mean... you and me, Yion. If this hadn’t happened?”

  “It hasn’t happened yet.” He tries to avoid the question, and yet he cannot. He takes a deep breath, tries to let some of that calm return. “Why would you doubt it?”

  “You’re a Name.”

  “So? I have a famous surname. My great-great-whatever got here before yours.”

  “It’s not just a surname.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s an idea. But maybe it’s an idea that needs more work.”

  “Even if you weren’t a Name...” There’s a long silence, as they listen to the sounds approaching outside. “I’m nothing. A petty criminal, a—”

  “You did what you had to, to survive.”

  It’s actually painful that she thinks herself so lacking in value. He values her so far above all those young ladies that his parents urgently suggested he pursue.

  Across the width of the narrow hallway, Yion takes one hand from the pistol, reaches across.

  Natalia matches him. Their hands meet. The touch is electric. Erotic. Fingers brush. Slide over each other. They grip. She has such softness and strength, such desirability.

  “I love you,” he whispers, shocking himself.

  The door of the neighboring house is splintered with a kick. They feel the impact through the thin adjoining walls, hear the boots rushing through the house, up the stairs.

  Their hands return to their guns.

  “And I love you,” Natalia whispers back.

  Chapter 47

  Sánchez

  Sánchez can’t remember the security aide’s name at the moment, but the man is supposed to be the most informed person about the hunt for Aguirre. Sánchez demanded access to him. The man arrived thirty minutes later.

  It’s nearly dawn. There’s no news from Cabezón. Sánchez has three open channels on his comms board: the colonel at the airfield, the police chief and the Syndacian captain in the city.

  Nothing.

  It’s starting to feel like she’s slipped through his fingers, and his stomach is aching. He paces up and down. He knows he has to get ahead of her, instead of just reacting.

  He was sure she would make an attempt at the airfield, but the sensors there haven’t even picked up anyone sneaking around the periphery.

  Every road has roadblocks and they’re required to make a report every half hour. There’s nothing moving on any of them.

  There’s a helicopter out with a look-down IR scanner flying a grid over the countryside. It’s getting lots of hits, but there are no people out there in the wilds, on foot or in a vehicle.

  The railway’s closed. There are no passenger trains.

  There’s no way for her to escape.

  But still no news. He feels the stirring of panic. What if she’s already gone?

  Berges continues to claim that Ministro Goya is a traitor to the Hajnal, and that Goya must have revealed to Zarate Aguirre that her cousin Kattalin was in the Sierra Arija. Goya has disappeared into the Bureau of Security.

  Sánchez has asked for Goya and has been told she’s ‘unavailable’. He dare not ask again.

  He knows Goya is no traitor. And he knows if he fails to catch the Aguirres, Berges will twist her paranoid delusions around until he’s the traitor. He’ll disappear into the sound-proof basement at the Bureau of Security.

  He needs to have something to fall back on, if Aguirre evades him. Some information about what Aguirre’s doing that will nullify it. Only that will save him from Berges.

  So while he waits for news from Cabezón, he grills the Security aide.

  “Last confirmed whereabouts before she got on the Shohwa?”

  “It’s difficult, Ministro,” the man says. “We are reasonably sure she was in Iruña to meet with the Director of Media. A date and location were arranged. That was a month before her escape on the Xian freighter. But she didn’t attend that meeting.”

  Sánchez grimaces. The failure to capture Aguirre at that meeting had been blamed on the Director of Media. It turned out to be a fatal error for him. His punishment had come so quickly, they didn’t even know what Aguirre had been offering to show him.

  What could it have been? Documentation? Even video and voice recordings could be manipulated. Aguirre would know this. Surely she couldn’t have expected such evidence to have any effect, even if she could have persuaded the media to present it.

  Sánchez knows Aguirre wasn’t just waiting all that time for a Fortunate Stars freighter because there had been several arriving and leaving in that time. She was doing something. Something vital.

  “Between that time and her appearing at the Emigration office,” the aide admits, “we have no confirmed sightings of her.”

  “Unconfirmed?”

  The man shrugs. “There was a reward offered. We investigated and discounted every report.”

  “Any clues? Anything?”

  The man purses his lips. “A small aircraft belonging to her was missing from the estate, and later found abandoned at a makeshift airfield about fifty kilometers away from Iruña.”

  “A small aircraft? You mean like a hedge-hopper?”

  “Indeed, precisely that, Ministro.”

  A month in a small aircraft designed to land on unprepared ground. She could have gone anywhere on the continent. Difficult, what with refueling and avoiding being seen. Difficult, but not impossible.

  He turns away from the aide to hide his growing excitement.

  She used that month to go somewhere and hide something. He knows it. It had to have been evidence that was difficult to smuggle off-world. Not some simple recordings or copies of documents. Something substantial.

  And where better to hide it? Berriaren. No one goes up onto the Sierra Arija, let alone into the abandoned city itself.

  No one except the Aguirres.

  That’s what she was doing, landing her escape pod up on the sierra. She was retrieving her evidence. Nothing to do with meeting her cousin.

  What is that evidence then? What is so important and incontrovertible that it will bring the movement down when presented to the Enquiry?

  “The other one, Kattalin Aguirre,” the aide interrupts his train of thought. “She was scheduled to be terminated with the rest of her family, but we found there was one body short in the house. Later, we discovered she was staying in Valdivia, and she was known to still be there at about the same time the elder cousin disappeared.”

  “Hmm?”

  Sánchez isn’t fully listening to what the aide says. He’s feeling the world sliding out beneath his feet. On all of Newyan only the Bureau of Justice, his own ministry, has evidence about the movement so compelling it could not be discounted.

  Surely not?

  “Valdivia,” the aide says, misunderstanding his distracted response. He expands the holo-projection and walks through it to point out the remote coastal town of Valdivia.

  “And then how did she get to...” Sánchez begins and falls silent.

  He’s not thinking about what evidence Aguirre has anymore; he’s looking at the projection. Seeing the lines that link remote Valdivia with Cabezón
in the high sierras. The cross-country roads, with roadblocks near every junction. The airfields, with police posted nearby and air traffic control centralized.

  The railways. The railways.

  “We’ve got her!” he yells.

  An aide comes in, alerted by the shout.

  “Get onto the railway controller for the Cabezón line,” Sánchez says. He points at the marker in the holo-projection. “Get that empty supply train stopped at Orbaiz. Do it now.”

  He turns to the open channels on his comms board, selects the first. “Colonel Karis, those two strike squads. Get them airborne. Now! Their target is the rail station at Orbaiz. The fugitives are on the train, and we’ll hold it at the station.”

  There are noises in the background as commands are shouted.

  “They’ll be airborne in under five minutes. ETA Orbaiz...” the colonel pauses, “ETA an hour and fifty minutes.”

  “The squads have seekers on those helicopters?”

  “They do.”

  “Good. Then even if she runs, there will be nowhere to hide out there in the plains. Stay online and be ready to update me.”

  Sánchez selects the line for the Syndacian captain in Cabezón. “The fugitives aren’t in the city,” he says. “Pull your troops out of Cabezón. They’re wasting their time, and probably causing more trouble by being there. Return to the airfield.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Sánchez finally selects the line for the police chief in Cabezón. “Chief?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Stand down the search. We know where she is, and it’s not in Cabezón. Redeploy your men to distributing the supplies you received yesterday. Give the people something else to think about.”

  He stands, breathing heavily, looking at the holographic projection, now centered around the tiny recharging depot of Orbaiz in the middle of the vast plains between Cabezón and Iruña.

  “We’ve got her,” he breathes, and snatches up his clothes. He even has time to celebrate by having a shower and getting dressed.