The Eleventh Gate

by Nancy Kress

  “What? What, Rachel?”

  Why hadn’t Rachel thought of this before? Jane was going to Prometheus, yes. She may or may not have stored more pathogen there, or elsewhere. But Veatch and Caitlin had expected to destroy a biological facility on Rand, not Prometheus. They had the explosives to destroy the facility on Prometheus, but the Princess Ida was not equipped to also take out buried surface-to-space weaponry, dispersed across the dwarf planet. In fact, Jane may have installed more of those after the Landry fleet captured Prometheus from the Peregoys and before the gates had closed for three months. She couldn’t take beam weapons through gates, but she could equip her ships with those scavenged from Prometheus, a detour on her way to New Utah.

  “I know where Jane is,” Rachel said. “And what she’s going to do.” Rapidly she explained to Annelise, who would have turned pale if she hadn’t already been gray with fatigue.

  Annelise whispered, “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know. Unless…”

  “Unless what?” Annelise looked like a woman grasping at a twig as rough currents swept her to a steep waterfall.

  And Rachel’s idea was a twig. Less than that—a leaf, a bud. But it was all she had.

  “Listen, dear heart, I can’t explain it to you. You wouldn’t believe it anyway. But I need to go to Polyglot, now, myself.”

  “That’s not safe!”

  “It’s safe enough. I have to go.” To Polyglot and beyond, but Annelise would never accept that.

  “Why? For gods’ sake, what’s so necessary that you have to travel, in wartime and in your state?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my state,” Rachel said crossly. “I had a heart attack, not a burial. I’m recovered now. I have to do this.”

  “The doctor said that at any time you could have another—”

  “I’m going, Annelise.”

  Annelise gave a soft moan. Resignation—a good sign. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Only a few days.” A second lie: one of omission and one of commission. Hit all the bases, Rachel. “You can handle things here just fine.”

  “Of course. But—”

  “There is no but,” Rachel said. “I have to go.”

  “Alone?”

  “Well, with a pilot and crew, of course.”

  “I can’t let—”

  “Annelise, my dear, there’s no ‘let’ involved here. I need to do this, Jane is not going to attack New California in the next few days, not while she’s on the other side of the Polyglot-Prometheus gate, and I’ll be perfectly safe on Polyglot.”

  Lie number three.

  Plus the one she hadn’t been forced into telling, or at least not yet: All this wasn’t based on “necessity” but on daring, desperate conjecture. Stupid conjecture? Possibly. Probably.

  But Rachel didn’t see any other path through the morass the Eight Worlds had become since the discovery of the eleventh gate. This idea was all Rachel had.

  This incredible, and incredibly bizarre, idea that had sprung open her mind like a complicated e-lock responding to the right code.

  “One more thing, Annelise,” she said, in her don’t-argue-with-me voice. “I’m taking Tara with me. She’s so much better now, and she’s restless cooped up in my beach compound.”

  “Tara? She’s restless so you’re taking her off-planet during a war?”

  No possible way to tell Annelise the real reason for taking Tara. Rachel said, “Polyglot is neutral, and no one wants to upset that neutrality. Not Sloan Peregoy, not even Jane.”

  “But…Tara? Don’t you think that—”

  “No, I don’t,” Rachel said firmly, even though she had no idea which, of a million possible objections, Annelise had been going to raise. “I don’t, not at all.”

  • • •

  The ship belonged to Annelise. Jane controlled nearly everything else in the Freedom Corporation fleet except this class 6A ten-passenger personal vessel, the Kezia Landry. A name so typical of Annelise—bland, unimaginative, honoring tradition.

  It had taken precious weeks to equip the Kezia Landry with the specialized equipment Rachel wanted aboard, some of which had to be manufactured, and the necessary personnel. The ship carried three techs and the doctor that Annelise insisted accompany Rachel and Tara. No security personnel. If Rachel needed a bodyguard where she was going, the plan had already failed.

  They passed through the Galt-Polyglot gate and began the week-long voyage to the Polyglot-Prometheus gate. Soon Rachel’s techs could begin their tests.

  Late at “night,” when the lights had dimmed everywhere but on the bridge, she roamed the ship’s one corridor. Unable to sleep, unable to do anything but go over and over the reasoning that had brought her on this preposterous mission. Twenty steps down the corridor, past the closed cabin doors, twenty steps back to the commons area. Twenty steps to circle that. Repeat, unless she wanted to duck into the tiny galley and add seven more steps. The galley was well-equipped, despite the great haste with which the trip had been assembled.

  Despite the haste, she might be too late.

  Twenty steps down the corridor, past the closed cabin doors, twenty steps back to the commons area. Twenty steps to circle that. Repeat.

  The art on the corridor walls, shadowy in the dimness, were holos of mountains, a waterfall, a flock of young prikabi at play—art as unimaginative and solidly grounded as Annelise. Rachel had switched off the sound on the softly splashing waterfall, unwilling to be distracted. Although maybe distraction should be welcomed, considering her thoughts.

  She only hoped the Kezia Landry would succeed in this insane mission.

  45

  * * *

  NEW UTAH

  When the Zeus reached New Utah, it was attacked.

  Martinez scrambled from his bunk as “Captain to the bridge, Code 1” sounded throughout the ship, simultaneously with his wrister. The OOD’s face appeared. “Captain, the Zeus reports being fired on by New Utah Planetary Defense. Captain Murphy awaits orders.”

  “On my way.”

  He yanked on his uniform. The Zeus fired on at New Utah—by whom? Had the Landrys taken the planet? How?

  They had not. Edward Murphy was on viewscreen. “Captain, at 0200 hours the Zeus was fired on by New Utah Planetary Defense, after giving me go-ahead to make orbit. Two R-beams fired, both missing the ship. No casualties or damage. I have retreated beyond firing range. No follow-up communication from New Utah, and they do not answer my hail.”

  “R-beams? Not a K-beam?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Maintain position, Captain. Do not approach either the planet or the stargate to New Yosemite—it’ll be defended.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Signalman, open contact with New Utah.”

  “Opening contact.”

  If Planetary Defense wanted to attack, how the hell had they missed hitting the Zeus? That argued that whoever was in charge down there either wanted to miss or was massively inept.

  “Contact open.”

  “New Utah, this is the Peregoy Corporation Space Service ship Skyhawk, Luis Martinez commanding. Who fired on the PCSS ship Zeus and why?”

  No response.

  “Repeat: this is the Peregoy Corporation Space Service ship Skyhawk, Luis Martinez commanding. Who fired on the PCSS ship Zeus and why? Answer, or I will assume that Planetary Defense is held by the enemy and I will proceed accordingly. The Zeus was not armed; I am.” Martinez was days away, but whoever held the planet might not know that, nor that the Skyhawk and Green Hills of Earth were without beam weapons.

  Silence.

  “This is the Peregoy Corporation Space Service vessel Skyhawk, Captain Luis Martinez commanding. Who fired on the Zeus and why? Answer or I will assume that planetary defenses are held by the enemy and will proceed accordingly.”

  Silence.

  “Lieutenant, arm weapons,” Martinez said, even though
his ships had been stripped of their radiation weapons. But New Utah did not know that. He gave the order clearly and loudly. Something weird was happening here. If the Landrys had taken New Utah, they would not have miscalculated the attack on Martinez’s ships.

  “Weapons armed, sir.”

  “Prepare to fire,” Martinez said, without specifying what was to be fired on.

  “Wait!” a woman’s voice shrilled, without visual. “Don’t fire! You’ll kill innocent people!”

  “Identify yourself.”

  “This is Compatriot Christine Hoffman of the Movement. Compatriot Berman will be here in a few minutes. He’ll talk to you. Don’t fire at anyone!”

  Martinez blinked. Compatriot? And the woman sounded completely unmilitary. What had been happening on New Utah during the months that Martinez had been out of communication?

  New Utah had never been an important planet. Nearly all Peregoy Corporation commercial activity occurred on much richer New Yosemite and New California. When the New Yosemite-New Utah gate had been discovered, the corporation had claimed it mostly because it was there, was reachable by the long voyage from Prometheus, and was another world to add to the Peregoy empire. Habitable by humans but just barely, New Utah had one city, Cascade, which consisted mostly of spaceport activity. Farms spread out from Cascade to supply it, but the land wasn’t rich and would grow only the sturdiest crops. Farmers who’d chosen to emigrate there in the last hundred fifty years were independent, survivalist sorts who liked to be as far from government as possible. Military postings were by short rotation, since the place was so boring.

  Boring but defended, as Sloan Peregoy defended everything that belonged to him. When Martinez had last resupplied at New Utah, it had been guarded by two warships, unmanned defense orbitals, and surface-to-air weapons. Commander Naomi Halstead, an able soldier, had been in charge.

  “I want to talk to Commander Halstead.”

  “She’s under arrest,” Hoffman said. “Please wait. Don’t fire, and we won’t, either.”

  “I demand to know why you fired on the Zeus.”

  “Please just wait, for fucking sake.”

  A few moments later came a male voice, considerably more assured, still without visual. “This is Compatriot Scott Berman. Captain Martinez, the Zeus was in violation of Movement airspace. We—”

  “You gave permission to make orbit!”

  “—intended to warn the ship, only that. Permission to make orbit was sent by mistake. You and the Zeus both now have permission to approach the New Utah-New Yosemite gate and pass through without interference. If you do anything else, we will fire on you both, and it won’t be a warning.”

  Martinez said coldly, “You are defying warships of the Peregoy Corporation Space Service. Identify yourself fully.”

  “I have identified myself.”

  Martinez said, “Commence firing.”

  “No!” Hoffman cried, simultaneously with Berman’s saying, “You’re not in range. Surveillance has not picked you up anywhere near us. And you are probably not armed, like the Zeus wasn’t.”

  So they knew that much. But…permission was sent “by mistake”? Who were these clowns? Martinez said, “Delay firing. Mr. Berman, you have no idea what weapons we are carrying.”

  Which was true enough.

  Silence on the other end. Was Berman, whoever he was, reconsidering? Martinez said, “I demand to know who you are, and why you gave no warning before firing on the Zeus.”

  “I told you, it was a mistake. Anyway, don’t you warn your enemies before you attack?”

  “I just did.”

  Silence.

  Finally Berman said, “All right, our fire was to determine if the Zeus was armed. If it could have returned fire, it would have. We never intended to hit it. But if you attack us now, we will retaliate. Meanwhile, since the Zeus isn’t armed, it’s free to pass through the gate to New Yosemite. And so are you.”

  What? Berman didn’t care if New Yosemite Command learned that a New Utah military base had been taken?

  Martinez said, “Who are you?”

  “I told you—we are the Movement. New Utah now belongs to us.”

  Martinez said, “New Utah is Peregoy Corporation property.”

  “Since when?”

  “Four months ago.”

  And in four months, New Yosemite hadn’t already tried to retake New Utah? Even without radiation beams, which couldn’t pass the gate, there had been time to equip warships with older weapons. If Sloan hadn’t done that, why not? What was going on here?

  “I repeat, New Utah is Peregoy Corporation property.”

  “Was their property. Now this is a free state. All we ask is that you leave us alone and go through the gate to verify our story on New Yosemite. If Sloan Peregoy wanted to reclaim us, he would.”

  Martinez considered. Retaking a rebel planet was not included in Martinez’s orders, especially since he didn’t have the weapons to do so. But there was more involved here, and he saw Berman’s trap.

  “Mr. Berman, I can’t go through a gate without stripping my ship of all radiation weapons, as you well know. I am not going to do that. Recently—” he would not say just when “—I sent a scout to this gate to proceed through it. What happened to the scout?”

  “It was shot down, with a warning. The pilot ejected, and we have her here.”

  “I want to talk to Commander Halstead. If you’ve murdered the entire planetary defense deployment, I will annihilate you.”

  Hoffman cried, “We aren’t murderers, unlike Peregoy Corporation!” In her cry, Martinez realized for the first time how young she must be. Had Sloan’s military been defeated by an army of children? And for gods’ sake, how?

  Berman said, “I can get Commander Halstead. It will take about half an hour.” Contact broke.

  Martinez said, “Vondenberg?”

  “No additional intel, sir.”

  “Captains Murphy and Vondenberg, stand by.”

  DiCaria, who had arrived on the bridge as hastily as Martinez, said, “Sir, the d-base has three Scott Bermans. Most likely match is a New California citizen, twenty-eight years old standard, engineer at a water-treatment plant in Capital City, no criminal record. Of course, this is months out of date. Here is his file, sir.”

  Martinez read it. The half hour passed. When the link reopened, it included visual.

  Martinez recognized Naomi Halstead even out of uniform. She wore the same loose dun pants and tunic as Scott Berman, who stood beside her. He had a thatch of ungroomed brown hair, a beard, and the fevered eyes of a fanatic. The eyes didn’t match his cool voice: a dangerous combination. Halstead’s wrists were bound with tanglefoam.

  “Captain Martinez, Commander Naomi Halstead reporting.”

  “Are you allowed to speak freely, Commander?” There was a code for this: If she answered, “I’m allowed to speak freely,” it meant she was not. Anything else meant she could tell him the truth until she used the code phrase.

  “Yes, I can tell you what happened.”

  “Proceed.”

  “Space Command ordered the two planetary-defense cruisers home as soon as the gates reopened. No one wanted to risk not having them on New California if the war resumed. New Utah Planetary Defense was left with orbital and ground-to-space weapons. There was already some unrest here, sir, fanned by the Movement based on New California. We—”

  “What Movement? What sort of unrest? I have been out of communication for nearly a year standard, Commander.”

  “Understood. Even before the gates closed for three months, dissidents arrived as settlers on New Utah in fairly large numbers. Taxes had been raised to finance the war effort, and a greater percentage of crops redirected to the military.”

  “Stolen, you mean!” Hoffman said. Her face appeared on screen before Berman pushed her gently away. She was indeed young, maybe no more than eighteen.

  “Dissent spread,” Halstead continued, as if Hoffman did not exist. “It corrupted
some of the military here. There was a mutiny. Soldiers—too many—joined the rebels. Officers were captured, as were loyal soldiers. Most of them were sent on a deweaponized ship to New Yosemite. Some of us have been held prisoner as, I presume, bargaining chips. There has been no extraction effort from New Yosemite that I am aware of.”

  Martinez heard her resentment over this. It didn’t sound like Sloan, whose stewardship of his people would have precluded leaving officers to some unknown imprisonment, torture, or death. On the other hand, Sloan couldn’t get warships through the New Yosemite-New Utah gate without deweaponizing them. Martinez phrased his next question carefully. “Has any message come through to you from the director?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  Hoffman cried, “Because to him people are just expendable possessions!”

  The creak of a door, followed by its closing. Martinez guessed that she’d been removed from the room. That she’d been there in the first place spoke gigawatts about discipline in this ragtag Movement. He said, “Have you or your troops been mistreated, Commander?”

  “No.”

  “How many of you are being held prisoner?”

  “Thirty-eight, sir, including a captured scout pilot.”

  More than he’d expected. “Do you have any information about the course of the war?”

  “No.”

  “I do,” Berman said, unexpectedly. “We are in communication with New Yosemite compatriots. Your Director Peregoy was stuck on Polyglot for the three months that the gates were closed. Sophia Peregoy is the one who’s crippling working people with taxes, forcibly conscripting young men and women to die, and sending anyone who speaks out against the Corporation to the labor camp on Horton Island, where they’ll die of starvation to save her executing them publicly.”

  Martinez kept his face carefully rigid. Sophia? Did he believe she was capable of all that? New California had never had labor camps for political dissent.

  “Commander Halstead, can you confirm or deny those allegations about Ms. Peregoy?”