by Nancy Kress
Martinez said, “Maneuver to retrieve ejected pilot. Vondenberg?”
“Ship is a Landry vessel, registered on Polyglot as the Princess Ida. Awaiting orders, captain.”
He wanted to blow up the Landry craft. Adebayo was alive, but he’d taken radiation. The other scout pilot had just died. And although the bioweapons facility had been destroyed, that didn’t mean that samples of the pathogen had not already been taken elsewhere, as they had been on the Dagny Taggart and Galaxy. That was probably what this personal craft was here to do—export even more of the bioweapon. Damn all the Landrys to hell forever and beyond.
He said to Vondenberg, “Force the vessel to surrender and board it. Use a scout and keep the Green Hills of Earth out of detonation range in case they try a suicide attack. Recruit volunteers for the boarding party, who are authorized to use whatever force is necessary to take everyone on board prisoner. The vessel was flying toward the facility, not away from it, so it isn’t yet transporting the disease, but take all possible precautions anyway. When you’ve secured the Princess Ida, contact me. The Skyhawk will move away from the gate and you’ll follow as soon as feasible.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As soon as we know it’s safe, I want the prisoners aboard the Green Hills of Earth. Interrogation to follow. They are going to tell us everything they know about this fucking operation.”
If his uncharacteristic cursing startled Vondenberg, she didn’t show it. “Yes, sir. We’ll get them aboard.”
• • •
The Skyhawk flew back toward New Utah. Martinez didn’t dare risk using the Prometheus-Polyglot gate, although that had been his original plan. The gate was open and Polyglot might still be neutral, but depending on how the war was going, there might be Landry warships waiting on the Polyglot side. After all, a Landry pleasure craft had just gone through the gate. The detour to Prometheus had cost Martinez time, but if he cut everyone’s rations again, they could make it to New Utah. Barely.
And maybe the Princess Ida was well-stocked. If so, the prisoners weren’t getting the food. Let them starve.
He was experienced enough to know that his anger was dangerous to clear thinking.
Tad Adebayo exposed to a too-high radiation count and Fiona Haller, the other scout pilot, dead. Both excellent officers. A deadly engineered pathogen possibly loose in the Eight Worlds. Had the Landrys learned nothing from Earth’s horrors? Did Rachel Landry never read any history? At least Sloan Peregoy, who also was too ignorant about the human past, was not a monster. Sloan would never have created a bioweapon.
When the Green Hills of Earth joined the Skyhawk, the ships slowed to match speeds and trajectories. Vondenberg had reported a successful capture.
The Landry pleasure craft, the Princess Ida, contained fourteen people. Four small staterooms, a common area, crew quarters, and a bridge. The ship had surrendered immediately, which surprised Martinez a little, even though it was true that unless the Princess Ida self-destructed, she had no battle advantage. She couldn’t outrun the Green Hills of Earth. She didn’t know if the warship still carried radiation weapons to vaporize her. Her crew was far outnumbered. Still, a boarding party was always at a tactical disadvantage, and the Landry crew must have carried sidearms. In their position, Martinez would have fought. But they had not, which suggested they had no valuable information they could be forced to give up. Either that or cowardice: better to be prisoners than molecular rubble.
Vondenberg finished her report with, “They could have blown themselves up, and us, too. The boarding party found a lot of plastic explosives.”
“Retinal identifications of the prisoners?”
“In process…here comes the data. Querying data banks…okay. Thirteen matches with Polyglot records. One male without any scan data whatsoever. IDing everyone else now.”
Martinez waited. Neutral Polyglot shared security data with the Eight Worlds. If the fourteenth person was not in the databanks but the ship had come from Polyglot, that suggested a very high-level altering of records. Someone with major influence.
Vondenberg said, “Four crew members: two pilots, one engineer, one steward. Two lab techs, trained at Bernhoff College on Polyglot, employed by Formano Biotech, a Landry-owned company on Polyglot…okay, one of the lab techs was fired for criminal activity, charges pending. Six Galt citizens, registered on Polyglot as security guards, all ex-military. Those are the six that the boarding party said looked really unhappy about surrendering their weapons.”
So why had they, instead of putting up a fight? Someone had given firm orders.
Vondenberg said, “Still nothing on the undocumented male. The fourteenth passenger ID coming up now…whoa.”
Martinez said, “Who is it?”
“Caitlin Susan Landry.”
One of Rachel Landry’s granddaughters. What was she doing way out here, and carrying large amounts of plastic explosives?
Vondenberg said, “She’s president of Galt University. Degrees in biology.”
Martinez said, “Strip search everyone. Take tissue and blood samples and analyze for matches with the d-base information we already have about the pathogen. If the prisoners come up clean, transfer them naked to the Green Hills of Earth. We don’t want any spores or whatever coming aboard in clothing. When you have them aboard and they’ve gone through enhanced decon, isolate and guard the Landry woman and the unidentified male, separately. Lock the others in a secure cabin. Notify me when medical analysis and transfer are complete.
“I’ll be coming aboard.”
37
* * *
PROMETHEUS
Caitlin stood naked in her cabin on the Princess Ida while a woman in a Peregoy military uniform probed every cavity of her body, taking samples. She kept her head high and her face stony, or tried to. The pain was minimal, the humiliation enormous. Was Veatch undergoing this procedure, too? She hoped so,
He’d wanted to fight the soldiers boarding the Princess Ida. So did his mercenaries, the six thugs that Veatch had hired. Not for the first time, Caitlin wondered just what Veatch would have done if they had reached the biowarfare facility on Prometheus—killed everyone there as well as blowing it up? Were those Rachel’s orders? No, surely not. Her grandmother was trying to stop Jane’s monstrous plan, not murder the scientists carrying it out. Rachel hadn’t even known the facility wasn’t on Rand.
It was Caitlin who’d made the decision to surrender to the Green Hills of Earth—dumb name for a warship. The Peregoy fetish for old Earth was pathetic. And so was she, for ending up in this degrading position. When she’d insisted, wielding threats in the Landry name, that there be no attempt to battle the boarding party, Veatch’s six mercenaries had looked uncertainly from her to Veatch and back again, trying to decide whom to obey. They’d chosen Caitlin. She was a Landry. Or maybe they just wanted to survive.
What would the Peregoy fleet do to her, to them all? She hoped for a ransom bid. Rachel would pay it, if it was just money. But what if these Peregoys wanted some sort of war concession that Rachel wouldn’t make?
The soldier finished with Caitlin’s body and threw at her a flimsy 3-D-printed robe. “Put this on.”
Caitlin did. “Now what?”
“Wait.”
To analyze the tissue samples, of course. Did they think Caitlin was carrying the deadly pathogen? Maybe. But if so, they didn’t think it very seriously, since by now she would have transmitted it to this impassive soldier.
Their medical analysis was quick. Caitlin was herded into the Princess Ida airlock and then into a vacuum sled. “Where are the others?”
Her guard didn’t answer. She sealed the sled and it shot through its escape slot. Were they jettisoning her into space to die? No, they wouldn’t waste the sled. In less than a minute, it jerked to a halt. Another few minutes and the sled opened. Caitlin climbed out.
She stood on the deck of a large vehicle bay, surrounded by Peregoy uniforms. She demanded of the closest soldier, “The
others on my ship? Are they safe?”
No one answered. A female soldier who looked as if she could lift mountains grabbed Caitlin’s arm and led her through a door. The flimsy robe tore. The guard deposited her in a small room empty of everything but a table bolted to the deck and three chairs. Another soldier dumped clothing onto the table. Without a word, both soldiers left, locking the door behind her.
Caitlin replaced the torn robe with the actual clothes: pants, boots, a tunic a bit too tight for her. Somebody’s old civvies. The boots pinched. This time, the wait was longer. Caitlin felt the slight acceleration when the vessel started to move. She was aboard a Peregoy warship, a prisoner, and she had no good course of action. Well, she could try to smash a chair onto whoever came through the door next, but that wouldn’t really get her anywhere. Her best choice was to try to negotiate.
Caitlin knew she was not a good negotiator, not like Annelise or Rachel. Science didn’t negotiate truth; it tried to discover and prove it. But negotiation was all she had. If the Peregoys would not bargain and she was going to die, she wanted to do it calmly. If she was going to be tortured for information she didn’t have, calm probably wasn’t possible, but she would try.
After what seemed like hours but was probably not, the door opened and a single man came through and stared at her. Tall, dressed in a Peregoy uniform of high rank—she didn’t know what rank the insignia indicated—he had the coldest face she had ever seen. Under the ice, he was suppressing fury and doing it well, but fear swept through her anyway. She stood, chin lifted, saying nothing. This was the person in charge.
“Caitlin Susan Landry.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. And you are…”
He ignored the question. “Sit.”
She ignored the command. “What have you done with my crew?”
“I’m asking the questions, Ms. Landry. Who is the man without ID?”
“His name is Eric Veatch.” It probably wasn’t, but maybe it would be good to appear to cooperate. “What have you done with him?”
“Why were you, Veatch, and the others traveling to Prometheus?”
Caitlin stayed mute.
He watched her closely. “There was a research station on Prometheus. It had been converted to manufacture a deadly pathogen for biowarfare. We’ve destroyed that facility.”
Caitlin felt her chin drop—too late to hide surprise. “You did?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Completely destroyed?”
“Yes. You don’t seem distressed.”
“I’m not. It’s what we went there to do.”
“You can’t expect me to believe that.”
“I don’t care what you believe,” she said. Her mind raced. If he wasn’t lying, then Jane’s horrific genocide wouldn’t happen. Unless— “Do you know if there are more facilities elsewhere? Or if any of the pathogen had been stored anyplace?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” She took a step toward him and locked gazes. “Look, I don’t know anything at all, except that the biowarfare facility existed. If you know my name, you know that I am the president of Galt University. I’m not involved in my family’s war plans. There is nothing useful I can tell you.”
“You have degrees in biology. You run a research university. Do you really expect me to believe that you had no part in developing the bioweapon and are completely ignorant of its intended uses?”
“Well…yes. I learned only recently that the bioweapon even existed. Then I was sent to destroy the facility, because I’m a Landry and we wouldn’t be shot out of the sky. We were supposedly bringing two new lab assistants—if you IDed everyone but Veatch, you know that’s true. You also know we had explosives to destroy the station once we were inside. You must have found them on the Princess Ida.”
“And how were you going to ‘destroy’ the station from within without also blowing up your own people?”
“I don’t know.” Veatch had refused to tell her. The data library on the Princess Ida had been locked down. Caitlin had been virtually a prisoner on the ship, although she was not going to reveal that.
“I see. You were leading a mission that you had no idea how to carry out.”
“I wasn’t leading it. I was just…just a name. A key to unlock the station. But yes, before you ask—I wanted it destroyed, too. What it was doing was a monstrous human abomination.”
A long silence. Then he said, “I will give you this, Ms. Landry. You’re among the best liars I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Let’s assume for just a moment that you’re not. Your mission was to destroy the research station. You were just an innocent lamb, sent along—”
“I didn’t say—”
“—to create enough credibility to gain entrance for the mysterious Mr. Veatch. Who sent both you and him?”
Should she answer that? If this war ended, there might be a war crimes court, as there had often been on old Earth. Caitlin had to protect Rachel. And—yes—even Jane. They were family. Although maybe it was a protection to Rachel to say that her grandmother had wanted to forestall biowarfare. But on the other hand—
“I’ll ask you again. Who ordered your supposed mission to destroy the biowarfare facility?”
“My grandmother, Rachel Landry.”
Clearly he didn’t believe her. Caitlin plunged on. “No, it’s true. My grandmother doesn’t want biowarfare any more than you do—” true? Maybe he did want it, for his side “—or anyone sane. I’ve studied what engineered pathogens did over decades of escalating war on Terra. Rachel Landry doesn’t want that for the Eight Worlds—she’s not genocidal. She didn’t even want this war, it somehow got started by accident, and she went to Polyglot to try to reason with the Council of Nations and with your dictator. Her heart attack interfered and things only got worse. But this isn’t what Rachel wants.”
“If that’s true,” he said, not looking as if believed it, “then someone else ordered biowarfare, developed the pathogen on Prometheus, and was carrying it on two of your warships toward New Utah when I destroyed the ships. I lost two good soldiers there and a pilot on Prometheus. Someone on Galt caused that. If not you or your grandmother, then it must be the Landry commanding your fleet. Your sister.”
“No,” she said, heard her own lie, and knew that he heard it too. She couldn’t risk him not believing the rest of what she’d said. He’d just voiced the terror that had kept her awake every night on the Princess Ida, that made her chest tighten unbearably now: carrying the pathogen on two of your warships… The disease was out.
She managed to say, “Or rather, yes…it was Jane. Not my grandmother. The rest of us didn’t know and don’t want biowarfare. That’s why Rachel wanted the research station bombed. You did it thoroughly enough to sterilize the entire area? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Thank the gods.” She closed her eyes briefly, involuntarily. Although if Jane had sent more samples out from Prometheus on more ships…
When she opened her eyes again, he was studying her. Abruptly he said, “You’re going under truth drugs.”
“Yes. All right. Although—you do know those are not reliable for all personality types under all circumstances? People with—”
“I know.”
“Veatch, for instance, is—”
“Don’t lecture me on brain function, Ms. Landry,” he said, with the first irritability she’d seen from him. “Not even if you’re a biologist.”
“Sorry. But please—tell me you haven’t killed my crew.”
His face hardened again. “You killed mine,” he said, and left her alone.
• • •
Martinez regretted that parting shot. Not professional. But she was not what he’d anticipated. Either she was the Landry Libertarian Alliance’s champion actress, or the situation on Galt was disintegrating. Intrafamily schisms, rogue military, no discipline or overall strategy. But what could you expect from l
ibertarians, who believed every person’s only duty was to themselves?
No. That, too, was a cheap shot. Martinez had read enough to know that libertarianism was more nuanced and complicated—although that didn’t mean it was suited for wartime. Much better to have a single, sane commander-in-chief who considered his duty to all his people, military and civilian both. Martinez would be glad to reach New California and plan again with Sloan Peregoy.
Meanwhile, his small fleet, the Zeus ahead of the other two vessels, continued on to New Utah.
38
* * *
NEW CALIFORNIA
Sloan’s four-person flyer landed in a tiny upland meadow, beside a large cabin built of rough karthwood logs. In the passenger seat, beside the pilot, Chavez awaited orders. Sloan glanced at his longtime bodyguard—did Chavez now receive his orders from Sophia?
She’d approved this flight, of course, with that silky approval that looked deceptively like mere interest. Sloan was under no illusions. If Sophia hadn’t approved this trip to see SueLin, Sloan would not be here. During his three months on Polyglot, what had been shared control of Peregoy Corporation had radically altered.
Not officially, of course. Sloan was still CEO. But so skillfully had Sophia promoted or replaced key executives, shunted funding to various divisions, built political and financial alliances, threatened and bribed, that she now had more control than he did. Sloan was still uncovering all of her changes; he could not yet undo them.
The secrecy hurt him most. She was not telling him everything, not anywhere close. He believed her reasons to be unselfish; Sophia honestly thought that she was doing what was best for the Peregoy worlds, and that if Sloan knew of all her draconian measures, he would try to reverse them.
She was right. He didn’t, and he would, as soon as feasible. Sloan knew more than Sophia guessed.
About SueLin, however, they were in agreement. Their heir must not come anywhere near the protest movement that had made her its unlikely symbol of Peregoy “oppression.” It both angered and shamed Sloan that he felt it necessary to check on SueLin’s treatment at Sophia’s hands.