by Dan Moren
“Not that many would blame him for trying,” said the general wryly. “Even as a boy, Hadrian was insufferable.”
Kovalic shifted uncomfortably; that the old man had personally known those in the highest echelons of the Imperium was still vaguely unsettling, even after all these years. The general’s running unchecked. He pushed back at Page’s words, but felt them slither down into a hole in his brain, coiling in wait for another, more opportune moment.
“Still,” said the general after a moment, “I have to admit that I am discomfited by this plot.”
“Sir?”
“The prince is ambitious, certainly, but…” he hesitated. “Well, to put it diplomatically, he was never much of one for cunning and guile when sheer, brute force was an option.”
“You don’t think this was actually his plan?”
The general stroked his beard in thought. “No. I do not. I think someone proposed to him exactly the kind of plan he would like: brash, bold, high risk, high reward.”
Kovalic raised an eyebrow. “You think someone played him?”
With a shrug, the general spread his hands. “What’s the perfect stratagem, Simon?”
An adage of which the general was fond. “One in which you benefit no matter the outcome.”
“Precisely. And, in this situation, what were the outcomes? Either Hadrian succeeded, in which case the Imperium seized Bayern and potentially solved their monetary problems, or he failed – as he did – and was personally disgraced.”
“Who stands to benefit from either of those scenarios?”
The general smiled cryptically. “Ah. When we know that, we’ll know who our opponent is.”
“Our opponent?”
“Not a chess player, are you, Simon?”
Kovalic shook his head. “I was never very good at seeing the board that many moves ahead.”
Reaching out, the general triggered a button on his desk, and a holoscreen flickered into existence above it; it showed a chess game in progress – a recording of one evidently, as the pieces moved slowly, in a methodical dance. “Someone’s moving against us, Simon. Of that much, I’ve become certain. The outcome at Bayern. Your team’s ambush on Sevastapol, and whoever was responsible for leaking that information. But, like an astronomer searching for a far-off planet, I’ve only determined the existence of our adversary by observing the tiny ripples caused by their actions.” He frowned. “And, worse, I don’t yet understand their endgame.”
Staring at the incomprehensible yet hypnotic shift of black and white on the board, Kovalic felt his head spin. “You have no idea who they are?”
“I have an idea of their position, if not their identity.”
“Oh?”
“As you might expect, my departure from IIS left a bit of a power vacuum in the service’s leadership. And despite my best attempts and remaining contacts, I’ve been unable to determine who has filled that office in my absence. Even CARDINAL, my most highly-placed source, has come back empty-handed. Whoever it is has gone to lengths to keep their identity concealed.”
Kovalic folded his arms over his chest. “You must have some idea. What about the department heads who served underneath you?”
With a shake of his head, the general replaced the chess match with a series of five portraits, each dressed in a crimson Imperial uniform. “One has died in the intervening time – but even had he not, I would not have deemed any of my former lieutenants capable of this level of strategy.” He smiled grimly. “When one leads an organization as full of ambitious and talented people as an intelligence service, one is very careful to choose subordinates of precisely the right level of competency – mainly so one doesn’t have to check for a knife in one’s back every morning.”
A wave of equal parts shame and regret washed over Kovalic.
“Apologies,” said the general, eyeing Kovalic’s expression and dismissing the screen with a wave of his hand. “I realize the incident with Lieutenant Page is still fresh in your mind. He was an exemplary officer, and I’m sorry you had to go through that. Betrayal is never easy.”
“Yeah, he was exemplary. Right until he started feeding information to CID.”
“Any idea,” said the general, his look thoughtful, “just how much he gave Deputy Director Kester?”
“I don’t know,” said Kovalic slowly. “But I think we’d both better get in the habit of checking for that knife every morning.”
“You assume, captain, that I ever stopped.”
Thankfully, producing his military ID and a letter on Commonwealth Navy letterhead was enough to get Kovalic access to the living unit. The landlord let him in with bland comments about how nice and quiet the young man had been. Kovalic thanked her, took the keycard, and assured her that he could handle it from there.
And found himself enveloped in the sum total of Aaron Page’s belongings.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t much. He’d never figured Page to be one for material possessions, and he wasn’t disappointed. The furniture had all come with the living unit, as far as he could tell: bland beige couch, fake wood end tables, an all-too-pristine glass coffee table. The entertainment unit and computer terminal were common enough, though the latter was a secure, military-issue model. He’d have to pull that and bring it back to see if they could find any evidence of Page’s communications with Kester, but he already knew they wouldn’t. The man had been meticulous about security; Kovalic couldn’t imagine him having slipped up here.
He flipped through the contents of the media system, but it was mostly digital recordings of jazz and classical music from Earth, as well as selections of popular music from Nova itself. The latter were primarily hits from Page’s own youth – not, Kovalic thought, that youth had been so long ago for the man.
The refrigerator was almost empty: a row of condiments, a half-drunk container of milk, some eggs. The cabinets were no more enlightening: a single set of plates and bowls, a box of instant oatmeal, a package of coffee, and some bread that had begun to mold. The drawers held a set of silverware and cooking utensils.
The first of the two bedrooms was no more illuminating. A bed, made with military precision and a nightstand with a lamp. The closet held a spare set of boots, a Commonwealth naval uniform, and a civilian suit; on a high shelf was a lockbox that Kovalic was fairly certain held Page’s military sidearm.
The four-drawer bureau sported half a dozen identical sets of underwear and socks, blank T-shirts of a few different monochromatic shades, and some carefully folded trousers. Underneath the shirts, he found a button-down in a tropical island pattern that he vaguely remembered ordering the lieutenant to buy for the one time they’d gone out for a drink. It didn’t look like he’d worn it again.
He was a bit surprised, with the general lack of stuff, that Page had opted for a two-bedroom unit. Not that he couldn’t afford it on his salary, but simply because he didn’t seem to need the space. It wasn’t until he let himself into the second room and flipped on the light that he realized why.
The room was full of books.
Not just in the way that the general’s studies had loaded bookcases; this room was overflowing with books. Volumes filled the shelves, and when a shelf was full, more books had been stacked lengthwise across the top. Then there were more stacks on the floor – arranged, from what little Kovalic could tell when he glanced through one, by subject area. Metaphysics here, chemistry there, Earth history wedged in between psychology and linguistics.
Had Page read all of these? He picked up a random volume – On the Frontline: A Comprehensive History of Warfare, 1918-1945 – and flipped through it, his eyes widening as he saw notes, in Page’s cramped hand, filling the margins of several pages. More often than not they seemed to be cross-references to other volumes, mentioning where one author disagreed with another, or where there were interesting synergies. Sometimes the notes even seemed to branch off into entirely separate topics. One of the pages in the warfare history mentioned a text that sounded
like sociology, another seemed to be a page number for a physics treatise.
He shook his head, putting the volume back down again. Surely, Page could have easily gotten access to all the information online. Kovalic would have thought it’d be even easier to do the cross-referencing and note-taking there – hell, the computer could probably do it for you.
And that, he realized suddenly, was exactly why Page had done it this way. It would have been just too easy to let the computer do all the work.
He sat down heavily in the room’s lone chair.
The ghosts had been haunting him since Sevastapol. All the people he’d lost over the years. People were quick to tell you that the faces of the dead never faded, but the dirty secret, the one that they didn’t like to admit even among themselves, was that too many of them did. Lieutenant Carlin, back when he’d been a private during the Illyrican invasion of Earth – had her eyes been brown or blue? Her nose narrow or broad? For the life of him, he couldn’t bring it to mind.
Another face flashed in his mind – this one he had no problem recognizing: Jens and his bushy blond beard. Kovalic squeezed his eyes closed, but that only brought the face more vividly to mind. He tried to remember Daoud’s stupid grin winning that poker game during the Mars campaign, or even Trinh’s face sitting across from him in the mess aboard the Relentless, but no matter which way he directed his mind, it kept flipping back to Jens. Maybe he hadn’t killed the pilot, but he’d definitely let him down.
He could feel his pulse spiking, so he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to clear his mind and find some sense of calm.
But that only seemed to provide a canvas for a parade of faces to march past, and suddenly he could see them all clearly, as though he’d unlocked a vault buried deep within his mind: Carlin, Daoud, Laing, Kiroyagi, Fletcher, Trinh, Jens, and more than a dozen in between. Twenty years of soldiering meant an awful lot of casualties along the way. He’d let all of them down, in one way or another, then shoved their deaths into the back of his mind so he could keep doing his job.
And then one last face, etched in high-definition clarity. Aaron Page. Sitting in that park on Bayern and looking strangely calm as Kovalic pulled out his pistol.
His eyes opened. Rubbing a hand across his mouth he cast a glance around the room, and happened to chance upon a single volume, lying open on a table. The only book in the entire room not in a stack. Frowning, Kovalic rose and threaded through the piles, carefully trying to avoid knocking any of them over.
He picked up the book; it was bound in red leather, with little adornment on the back or front covers. A ribbon, attached to the binding, had been used to mark a page, which also happened to be the very first page of the book. Unlike the others, Page hadn’t marked this book up; it wasn’t hard to see why – this particular volume wasn’t just a source of information, it was an artifact in and of itself. Its browning pages told of its age, and Kovalic realized that more than the most delicate of touches might see the paper crumble in his hand.
Kovalic’s breath caught as he looked down at the text. Even without notes, he knew why the man had left it at this page – he even knew exactly what the man had been looking at the last time he’d opened the volume. The end of the very first sentence, all the more apt now than it had been just a short week ago. Words that Kovalic knew even he, without the benefit of an eidetic memory like Page’s, would recall for the rest of his life.
… it was the worst of times.
Acknowledgments
So often a book is viewed as a singular endeavor borne of one mind, but the truth is that there’s an iceberg’s worth of people who are responsible for bringing it into being, of which I’m just the part visible above the surface.
Thanks, first of all, to my formidable agent, Joshua Bilmes, who never gave up on getting this book to print, even though the road was long, twisting, and more than occasionally daunting. As always, he helped make the final result inestimably better than the crude work I first presented to him.
Many people read this book before it even got to that point, and I owe them many thanks: Gene Gordon, Anne-Marie Gordon, Brian Lyngaas, Serenity Caldwell, and Jason Snell all consulted on early versions and provided invaluable feedback. Any remaining errors of fact or judgment should of course be laid directly at my own feet.
To the Angry Robot crew who saw promise in this story, I cannot thank you enough for all your hard work in turning it into a stunning final product. Marc Gascoigne, Penny Reeve, and Nick Tyler are all delightful people who know what they’re about, and their presence will be missed. Simon Spanton’s editorial advice and guidance was key, especially when it came to cutting out of the cruft and getting to the story.
Thanks also to my fellow writers, to whom I turn in those long dark tea-times of the soul for their unfailing encouragement, advice, and commiseration: Adam Rakunas, Eric Scott Fischl, Helene Wecker, John Birmingham, and Antony Johnston. And to my friends at The Incomparable, Relay FM, and the Fancy Cats, who always stand ready to provide a good bucking-up on the frustrating days, and a virtual pat on the back on the good ones.
Harold Moren and Sally Beecher: thanks for never chastising me too much for reading under the covers, and never making the idea of pursuing a writing career seem impossible or foolish. To the whole Beecher/Kane/Moren clan, thanks for being my biggest, most unabashed fans; you’re the best street team any author could hope for.
And, finally, to Kat, who not only puts up with my writerly anxieties and daily muttering to myself, but is also never shy about telling me when I’m very wrong about how intergalactic finances would work. Thanks and love ya, babe.
About the Author
Dan Moren is a novelist, freelance writer, and prolific podcaster. A former senior editor at Macworld, his work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Macworld, Popular Science, Yahoo Tech, and many others. He co-hosts tech podcasts Clockwise and The Rebound, writes and hosts nerdy quiz show Inconceivable!, and appears on the award-winning The Incomparable. Dan lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he plays ultimate frisbee, video, and tabletop games.
dmoren.com • twitter.com/dmoren
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ANGRY ROBOT
An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd
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In from the cold
An Angry Robot paperback original 2019
Copyright © Dan Moren 2019
Dan Moren asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
UK ISBN 978 0 85766 819 6
US ISBN 978 0 85766 819 6
EBook ISBN 978 0 85766 820 2
Cover by Amazing 15.
Set by Argh! Nottingham.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.
ISBN: 978-0-85766-820-2
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Interlude
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Interlude
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Interlude
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Interlude
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Interlude
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Interlude
Chapter 24
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Social Robotics
Legals