by Greg Egan
That, and the fact that for the first time in her life she’d be leaving the surface behind.
Gustave helped her strap on the gas jets. Their weight, on top of the suit, was enough to make her calves and lower back ache at the unaccustomed loading. “I’ve put the orbit of the ice block in by hand,” he said. “It will be wiped from memory as soon as you’re done. If you’re caught, just say you were joyriding over the mines. The port’s systems won’t be able to contradict you; without a beacon, you won’t be fast or shiny enough to register.”
“Right.” Camille’s initial fantasy had involved obtaining a robot to do the job, but on reflection it wasn’t entirely surprising that it was impossible to find a second-hand model with all its logs and safeguards disabled—ready to do its owner’s bidding without a trace of accountability, whether that meant helping out with odd jobs around the home or bludgeoning random strangers to death.
Her comms found the jets’ interface. She brought up the overlay and Gustave talked her through all the options. He could have flown this mission himself with his eyes closed, but the safety beacon implanted in his viscera, a prerequisite for his job at the port, rendered him incapable of stealth.
“Any questions?” he asked.
Camille shook her head. He led her to the airlock.
Every cycle of every airlock was logged, but Gustave had brought a cargo-handling robot into the workshop for an inspection a few days before, and now the fifteen-metre behemoth was ready to return to the surface. It would not power up until it had been delivered back into its working environment; so long as Camille got away quickly it would have nothing on her to tattle about. She clambered onto the machine and hunkered down behind the huge folded grippers; they looked like King Kong’s monkey wrench. There were cameras in the airlock, but Gustave had assured her that this nook would be hidden by the bulk of the robot above her.
He called out to her, “Good luck.”
The conveyor belt started up, carrying the robot forward. The ride itself was as smooth as any walkway’s, and though the chassis creaked and shuddered a little, when the load was passed from the workshop’s belt to the lock’s Camille could barely detect the transition. The door slid into place behind her, then the suit’s interface showed the ambient pressure dropping and the aural world shrank to the sound of her own breathing.
She felt the huge hydraulic lift begin its ascent, but once it was in motion it became imperceptible, and she wasn’t even sure she had arrived until the outer door had risen high enough to admit a sudden blast of sunlight. Camille forced herself to stay flattened against the robot’s hull, like a timid cockroach. She waited until the conveyor belt had deposited her insensate host on the rock, and then she crawled backwards and dropped to the surface. She gave the door a few seconds to come low enough to hide her from the cameras within, then she turned and marched briskly over the grey basalt, concentrating on the terrain, refusing to look up.
“All right,” she muttered. She patted her tool belt to reassure herself that she hadn’t dropped the payload somewhere and rendered the whole exercise pointless, then she invoked the jets’ navigator and told it to execute Gustave’s flight plan. Debris swirled around her for a second or two, the fractured facets of obsidian shards catching the sunlight, and then she was ascending.
The straps under her arms bore most of her weight, pressing into her flesh, while her legs dangled disconcertingly; it was like being lifted by a clumsy giant who couldn’t manage a clean grip around her waist. Before she could begin to take in the aerial view of the site around the airlock, the horizon dropped away below the edge of her faceplate, leaving her with nothing to see but stars.
Camille focused on the navigator’s overlay. The ice block Gustave had chosen for her had already suffered its last collision, leaving it in a high, slow orbit ready to be plucked by a cargo robot when needed. The schematic in front of her already showed her anticipated trajectory closing on the orbit, but it would take almost thirty minutes for her to match the block’s altitude and speed.
The adrenaline rush of her illicit egress subsided, giving way to sober anxiety. But all she could do now was trust Gustave’s claim that she was drab and sluggish enough not to elicit any interest from the port’s specialised surveillance, which was more concerned with the prospect of misaligned cargo from a braking impact gone wrong than with the joyriders that everyone tutted about but made no real effort to stop.
She approached her target from the “night” side, its own shadow rendering it invisible against the blackness until she was so close that the starlit sheath appeared as a pale grey hexagon, looming larger at a disconcerting pace until she began to decelerate. The navigator eased her into a matching orbit but left a prudent gap of ten metres or so before surrendering control.
Camille had the jets administer a gentle puff that sent her inching her way towards the closest edge of the cube. The corners of the sheath were truncated into triangles where the attitude jets sat, safe from the impacts that struck the block head-on. The tiny tracking scopes fitted beside each jet only cared about a handful of guide stars; all she had to do was avoid blocking any of their lines of sight.
She was moving so slowly that she managed to get a gecko-grip with outstretched hands before her torso made contact. The sheath brought her to a halt but then rebounded, and when that failed to dislodge her she was dragged forwards, with the whole cycle repeating until she invoked the jets’ software to administer some smart damping. Once she was still she clung to the spot, psyching herself into accepting that there’d be no danger in letting go with one hand, then she shut off the adhesion in her right glove and reached into her tool belt.
The spray gun couldn’t pierce the sheath—but every sheath was guaranteed to be peppered with tiny holes from micrometeorites. Camille played the jet of lukewarm steam back and forth across the surface; frost clouds billowed away from the site, stretching far enough to leave the block’s shadow and paint a fragment of a rainbow, pallid but surreal against the stars.
The concentration of the contaminant would be tiny, however much got through to the ice, but she’d designed it with care not to adhere to any of the adsorption purifiers or samplers it would be confronting further downstream. The only thing to which it would readily adhere was a particular kind of villus cell in the lining of the human intestine.
When the gun was empty, Camille checked the time. It would take her another forty minutes to return to the surface, but she had more than an hour’s wait anyway, until Gustave’s schedule allowed him to bring another robot through the lock.
“Do you see it?” Camille asked impatiently. “Here!” She touched the spot.
Olivier remained silent. Perhaps his eyes were taking longer than hers to adapt to the dark.
“Oh, you’re right.” He laughed nervously, and slid his thumb back and forth over his inner arm, as if the fluorescent calligraphy might rub off.
“The J is a bit crooked,” he complained.
“No, you’re just tensing your muscles strangely,” Camille retorted. “The morphogens are better at measuring the normal distance from cell to cell than you are.”
“So when does yours show up?”
“Who knows? Not everyone will get enough of a dose.”
Olivier said, “I think I should perform a thorough examination.”
Camille undressed in the dark and lay down on the bed beside him. She thought the search would just be a game, but after a few seconds Olivier cried out in triumph and led her over to the mirror. The letters were on her lower back, angled obliquely. Choosing the site and the orientation had proved too hard; in the end, they’d settled for control over content rather than placement.
“J’accuse,” she read, convincing herself that the upside-down mirror writing really was a faithful reproduction. “This is better than stamping it on everyone’s forehead,” she decided. “It’s the element of surprise that’s half the fun.”
“Fun?” Olivier hesitated. “
I hope that’s how it’s taken.”
“More fun than six hours of cholera, or six weeks of drought.”
“I’m not criticising the plan,” he said. “But most recipients’ first thoughts might not be ‘Hooray! I don’t have cholera!’”
Camille snorted. “Well, fuck them if they can’t take a joke. I didn’t think it was all that hilarious when I got mobbed in the emergency room.”
“I know.”
The doorbell rang. Olivier glanced at an overlay from the entrance camera. “Laurent?” he muttered.
“Ignore him,” Camille suggested. “We don’t all need to compare tattoos.”
Laurent started pounding on the door. Olivier went to open it while Camille made herself presentable.
She heard the two men talking, too softly for her to make out the words, but the cadences were far from jovial or celebratory, and when she joined them in the sitting room the mood was sombre. “What is it?” she demanded.
Laurent said, “Mireille is dead.”
“What?”
Olivier was hunched over on the couch, unable to speak, unable to look up at her.
“How? What happened?”
“She was in a nightclub,” Laurent replied. “Mouthing off about the tax, and taunting some people…” He trailed off, but Camille understood: people for whom the message was suddenly visible, glowing on some patch of exposed skin.
Laurent continued. “Her friend said she was shouting, ‘think about what’s next!’”
Camille was light-headed. “But what did they do to her?” Throw a drink in her face? Throw a punch or two?
“They dragged her out and started beating her. By the time the robots pulled them off, she had a skull fracture and a blood clot. She died in the hospital, about an hour ago.”
8
“Ten in a week.” Pyotr whistled appreciatively. “That’s a record.”
Anna watched as Anton, the new trainee, dragged the pod out of the airlock. She said, “If the workload’s getting too much, I can recommend putting a third team on standby.”
“You should do that,” Pyotr agreed. “Absolutely.” He smiled and lowered his voice. “Some recognition of the higher demand might even bring my fees down.”
“That’s how it’s meant to work,” Anna replied, offended by the suggestion that she’d be doing him a favour. Then again, he was probably just needling her.
There was a faint banging from inside the pod. Pyotr sighed. “This is why I hate wrigglers. Se calmer! Se calmer!”
Anna left him to it and headed back to her office. She was halfway there, gliding along the middle of the corridor, when her Assistant spoke.
“There’s some news I think you’ll want to see.”
It rarely interrupted her unbidden while she was travelling. Anna grabbed a guide rope and brought herself to a halt. “Show me,” she replied.
A local news feed was carrying a report from a supposedly neutral source on Vesta. A ferry named the Arcas had visited the asteroid two weeks before on a scheduled trip, and the time it had spent docked there had passed without incident—but now the Vestan authorities were claiming that hundreds of “war criminals” were on board, and they were demanding that the Arcas return and surrender these people for prosecution.
Anna hung from the rope, unsure what to make of the story. The Vestans scrutinised everyone who came and went from these vessels—and their identification procedures weren’t easily fooled, or there’d be no need for anyone to ride the stone river. Even anxious Sivadiers with the clearest of consciences who merely wished to be rid of the place only left by ferry in tiny numbers; Anna’s Vestan friends had told her that most would be too afraid of being dragged out of the queue and accused of something they hadn’t done.
When her shift was over, she called in on Olivier to hear his take on the incident. “The people they’re after didn’t board directly on Vesta,” he explained, handing her a coffee. “The Arcas picked them up from deep space.”
“You mean it plucked them off cargo stones!” Anna was prepared to be impressed by this audacious feat, but Olivier quashed the notion.
“No, that’s not practical. These people weren’t riders, they were waiting for a pre-arranged rendezvous.”
He seemed sure of the facts. “So none of this took you by surprise?” she asked.
“I wasn’t aware of the plan beforehand,” Olivier replied. “I’m not some strategist-in-exile for the Vestan resistance! I just know people who’ve talked to people on the Arcas in the last few days.”
“Right. So…who are these people on the Arcas that Vestan security are so keen to get back?” Anna caught herself. “Is that something you can tell me?”
“It’s no secret now. The main one they’re after is a man called Tavernier. He’s the strategist. His identity became known about a year ago, and he must have been in hiding ever since.”
“Why didn’t he just become a rider?”
Olivier shrugged. “Maybe it was decided that his time was too valuable, or he was too important to face that risk.”
Anna said, “I’m surprised that the owners of the ferry agreed to this.” At the very least, it was going to be tense when the Arcas dropped in on the way back.
“The owners live on Mars, but they’re sympathetic to the resistance,” Olivier explained. “I suppose they decided it was worth the gamble. Vesta really can’t afford to boycott the company; that would screw them almost as thoroughly as picking a fight with Ceres.”
“I’ve sometimes wondered if we should use the ice trade for leverage,” Anna admitted. “We could cope without new building material—”
Olivier cut her off. “That would be crazy. Apart from the delay in any impact downstream, I can promise you that innocent people would go thirsty long before anyone in power.”
“OK.” Anna set down the empty coffee mug and rubbed her eyes. “Well, the Arcas clearly won’t be turning around before it comes here. So if they’re serious about wanting this Tavernier, they’ll have to send an extradition request.”
Olivier was amused. “I think they’ve got the message on that front. The courts have turned down, what, fifty so far?”
“Every case is decided on its merits,” Anna insisted. “If they have real evidence that he’s a war criminal, it’s not impossible that he’ll be returned.”
“I doubt that’s how Vestan security will be looking at it.”
Anna said, “Maybe. But what else can they do?”
Olivier hesitated, as if unsure whether she meant the question seriously. Eventually he realised that she did.
“Come after him,” he said. “Give chase.”
9
“Ten years isn’t nothing,” Laurent said warily. “That’s the longest sentence they could give.”
“For manslaughter!” Céline’s face was distorted with contempt. “I should slit a few Taxer throats and see if I get manslaughter!”
Angelique, Mireille’s sister, put an arm around her mother, but Céline threw it off. Camille was starting to wish that they’d chosen to meet in someone’s apartment instead; this café was close enough to the courthouse that the family had been able to stagger in while they were still numb with shock—but it was far too public for what was unfolding as the shock wore off.
A man who’d been stealing glances from a nearby table approached Céline. “I’m so sorry about your daughter,” he said. “I’ve never felt so angry and ashamed as when I heard that news.”
Céline stared through him.
“I’ve decided to join Fair Share,” he added. “I was thinking about it for a while, and now—”
“Fuck off!” Céline screamed. “If you want to give me charity, just bring me a knife!”
The man recoiled and hurried out of the café. The other customers averted their gaze.
Olivier whispered, “I’m so glad now that I didn’t join.” Camille reached down and punched him on the leg. Members of FS agreed to share their total tax liability equally a
mong themselves, irrespective of ancestry. The last Camille had heard, almost five percent of Vesta’s untaxed population had signed up—as a gesture of solidarity, and a defiant nose-thumb to the New Dispensation Movement—but only about a tenth of the Sivadiers, and there was a lot of pressure on them to drop out. She thought it was grossly unfair to dismiss the whole idea as condescending, but coming right after the murder, the timing had made the concept doubly offensive to those who were inclined to take offence.
Céline began weeping in long, angry sobs. Camille couldn’t think of anything she could say that would have the slightest chance of diminishing the woman’s pain.
If she hadn’t deployed the graffiti virus, Mireille might still be alive. But what were the Sivadiers meant to do? Meekly accept the status quo in silence, with FS rubbing salt in the wound by neutralising any claim of actual disadvantage? Ten percent, five percent, one percent…it made no difference. Either the distinction was erased and they became Vestans like any other Vestans again—or they remained Freeloaders, parasites and vermin. Fair game.
After forty minutes, Olivier could take no more. He leant towards Céline and spoke softly. “I’m so sorry, but we have a shift at the hospital,” he said, including Camille in his lie.
Céline nodded blankly, but Angelique rose to kiss them on their cheeks. As they hurried away, Olivier said quietly, “We need to calm this down. No more escalation, however benign it seems.”
Camille frowned. “And you’re calling the shots now?”
“No, I’m expressing an opinion.”
“So you think we should be intimidated into doing nothing?”
Olivier stopped dead, almost colliding with her on the rope. He said, “I’ve just spent an hour listening to talk about slitting people’s throats. Our last effort got one of us murdered and a new security chief installed. Doesn’t any of that tell you that we need to be thinking things through more carefully?”