by Nancy Kress
“One of the fleet officers he’s holding prisoner is my half-sister. Lieutenant JG Serena Drucker. Berman is going to insist that you infect his prisoners first, isn’t he? To see if it’s a trick.”
“Probably, yes.”
“Serena had J. randi as a child. The original kind. It was long before the war, of course. She was at school on Polyglot and she made a friend from Rand, and her mother let her visit Karila on Rand the year the plague struck. Serena was very sick but she survived, and now she’s immune. Or at least that’s what the Rand doctor told us when the planet came out of quarantine and she was allowed to go home. If Berman lets me see her, I could maybe obtain some of her blood with antibodies in it, and it might be useful to our researchers in making some sort of…of…” DiCaria floundered, having reached the border of his medical knowledge. “Some sort of medical thing. For long-term, I mean. With antibodies.”
Martinez said, “I’ll take your request under advisement.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Caitlin Landry would know if smuggled antibodies would be useful.
No—the Peregoy doctors on New Yosemite would know, and that’s who Martinez would ask, damn it. Not Caitlin. And not the director.
Richard III had been a disastrous, power-hungry, murderous heir to Edward IV.
• • •
Every one of the Princess Ida crew came down with J. randi mansueti, and two days later most of them recovered, some more completely than others. Martinez linked with the captured pilot, whom Vondenberg said seemed like the least resentful of the prisoners. This proved true. Her face conveyed mostly bewilderment: at how a simple mission carrying passengers to Rand had resulted in capture by Peregoy forces, at why she’d been made sick, at the good care she’d gotten to aid recovery, at what this enemy commander wanted from her.
Martinez wanted assurance that the “cowpox option” didn’t cause mental impairment. He got it; the pilot was perfectly lucid. Martinez was ready to contact Scott Berman.
“New Utah, this is Captain Martinez aboard the Skyhawk. I have an important update for you. Please respond.”
Nothing.
“New Utah, this is Captain Martinez aboard the Skyhawk. I have an important update for you. Please respond.”
Nothing.
“Mr. Berman, if you don’t respond, you will be destroyed. The Landry fleet has been detected on its way to New Utah.”
Berman responded to the lie. His image flashed onto a viewscreen, face stony, shoulders twitching with emotion that had nowhere else to go. A crowd of Movement “compatriots” stood behind him, partially visible to Martinez. A hand, a face, half a torso.
Berman demanded, “How far away?”
“Before we discuss that, I have something equally critical to tell you. On New Yosemite we created a mild version of the Landry virus. Very mild. It’s been tested on thirteen people who became slightly ill but recovered rapidly. We can infect your entire planet with this altered pathogen, J. randi mansueti, and it will protect you against the virulent version of the disease that Landry ships are on the way right now to spew over your planet. This will protect you.”
Berman already knew all this; all the data had been in a report Martinez had beamed at New Utah, to no response.
Berman said, “Doctor?” and a middle-aged woman with cropped hair and dark skin stepped forward.
She said, “I’m Dr. Whitney O’Brien. I’ve read all your reports, Captain, and gone over the genemod data. But it’s impossible to tell two things: first, whether the reports are false and you’re lying about all of it.”
“He is!” shrilled a voice out of the link field. Martinez recognized Christine Hoffman, the hysterical young woman who’d berated him before. In whatever way Berman’s Movement was structured, it lacked discipline. Apparently anyone could say anything at any time, even during a critical military conference. No way to run a planet.
Hoffman cried, “He lied about how long he’d be on New Yosemite! He’s probably lying about this, too!”
Dr. O’Brien ignored the interruption. “Second, even if you’re telling the truth and this genemod virus causes no lasting harm, there’s no guarantee that it will create partial or complete immunity against the virulent form of P. randi. You haven’t tested it. To do that, you’d have to now expose your test subjects to the original virus and see if they fall ill.”
“I know that,” Martinez said. “And we have tissue samples of the original virus. But I’m not letting a pathogen with a one hundred percent kill rate loose on my ship when my crew has not been exposed to the cowpox-option version. And there’s not enough time. The Landry fleet will be here very soon.”
Berman said, “Our orbitals haven’t detected approaching ships. What proof can you offer?”
“Sensor data from a distant drone—”
“Send it to me.”
He couldn’t; there was no sensor data.
“So you are lying. Then why shouldn’t we believe that your so-called medical data is also false? Yes, I know your report said we can link directly with your test subjects—but they’re all Landry prisoners, aren’t they? You could have tortured them into saying whatever you choose. They’re not credible.”
“Mr. Berman—”
“You’re not credible. And you’re not infecting New Utah with a Peregoy virus under the guise of ‘helping’ us.”
“Then everyone on New Utah will die. You’ll either be annihilated by the Landry attack or else die horribly of the coming epidemic. And it will be horrible. You’ve seen images of the corpses.”
Silence. Berman’s shoulders gave a massive, involuntary twitch. The young man was pierced by responsibility. But he said steadily, “I still have no reason to believe you.”
“Berman—”
“That’s all, Martinez.” The link broke.
From her ship Vondenberg said quietly, “He might have come around, but his people are pressuring him.”
“Decentralized authority in action,” Martinez said, more bitterly than he intended. His authority here was not decentralized, but that didn’t mean he wanted to do what came next. He would be risking the lives of the thirty-eight officers held hostage by Berman’s lunatics.
Officers who would die anyway.
He said to Vondenberg, “Prepare to launch.”
54
* * *
NEW CALIFORNIA
SueLin said, “What?”
She stood in the middle of her mountain cabin on Jabina Island, facing Sloan. She hadn’t run out to meet his flyer, hadn’t launched herself at him in fury when he entered. Her voice, flat, barely rose above a whisper. Her hair, once red-gold as sunrise, lay tangled and unwashed on the shoulders of her food-smeared tunic. She stank.
Tears prickled Sloan’s eyes. Horrified, he banished them with brusqueness. “I told you, SueLin. You’re to come back to Capital City with me now.”
“Why?” That same flat, lifeless tone.
“I told you that, too. Bathe first. Do that now.”
SueLin didn’t move. And then the unthinkable happened: Sloan’s pilot, who’d inexplicably followed Sloan into the cabin, stepped forward and presumed to take charge. “Ms. Peregoy, I’m Karen Healy, your grandfather’s pilot. We’ve come to take you home, because Capital City needs you. There’s been rioting, striking, burning down buildings, attacks and counterattacks. People are dying. The rioters are calling your name. ‘Free SueLin’ they say. They want you home.”
The same dull voice, but a brief quirk of eyebrows that might have been interest. “They do?”
“Yes. They don’t want to think of you being a prisoner here. You should be free.”
Sloan made a choking noise. Karen—Karen!—sounded like a protestor herself, a member of the Movement. But then deep instinct told Sloan that she was not. She was merely handling SueLin, and far better than he had.
SueLin said, “Free.”
“Yes. To live as you choose. You breed
birds, don’t you? And compete with them?”
SueLin grimaced, but her tone grew more normal. “Are my birds okay?”
Karen looked at Sloan, who had no idea what had happened to the birds. He almost said, “Of course,” but the same instinct for negotiation that let him trust Karen made him say honestly, “I don’t know.”
Karen said, “You need to come home to check on the birds. They’re your birds, after all—you bred them. But we need you to do something, too, SueLin. We need you to talk to the protestors, to tell them to stop the violence. They trust you. Will you do that?”
“No.”
Sloan felt one fist clench, and made it uncurl. He couldn’t even tell if the anger was against SueLin, or against himself. He had done this. SueLin was his granddaughter, and if she was completely selfish, it was his fault.
Karen said reasonably, “Why not?”
“Why should I? I don’t care what happens to the protestors or to your stinking corporation. I only want to do what you said, live my life and show my birds!”
“Yes,” Karen said, “but your birds are in the city, and the city is being destroyed. The protestors have military weapons because part of Planetary Defense has joined them, and the rest of Planetary Defense is retaliating. If you don’t address everybody, there’ll be no city left, no birds, no anything.”
SueLin chewed on her bottom lip. Finally she said, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Director Peregoy will write out the speech for you.”
“And record it? Not here, or you might not take me back!”
Sloan said, more harshly than he’d intended, “Not a recording. They might believe it’s faked. You, in person.”
“What if I get shot? No, I won’t do it, it’s too dangerous.”
Before Sloan could answer, Karen said quickly, “You’ll have shields and high security. The birds, SueLin. Your birds.”
More lip-chewing. Finally SueLin said, “Okay.”
“Bathe first,” Sloan said.
• • •
He wrote the speech in the flyer. At corporate headquarters, plasticlear shields were put up on the roof and soldiers stationed everywhere possible. Sloan didn’t tell SueLin that the shields could stop sidearm bullets but not artillery and certainly not beam weapons. Loudspeakers blared; radios transmitted; commercial wallscreen programs were interrupted; cheap wristers without encryption programs suddenly spoke at top volume: “SueLin Peregoy will address the city in twenty minutes. SueLin Peregoy in person, from the roof of Peregoy Corporation Headquarters. SueLin Peregoy will address the city—”
“I’m scared,” SueLin said. She refused to let go of Karen’s hand. SueLin had not once asked for her actual mother, Sloan’s daughter Candace, who in any case had fled the war to New Yosemite.
Karen said, without cloying emotion but just as a statement of fact, “You’re braver than you think.”
SueLin nodded.
Sloan hoped Karen was right. SueLin, clean now and dressed simply in pale blue tunic and pants, held a tablet with her speech. However, she could say anything at all once she was in front of an audience—who might believe anything. After all, they’d believed that they were not free, even before Sophia had tightened controls so much that, in fact, they were not. Public broadcasts censored, dissenters sent to Horton Island and murdered, military divided and destroying itself.
A huge crowd advanced toward Headquarters. They marched down the broad main boulevard of Capital City, joined by tributaries from side streets, from buildings, from, it seemed, the very air. So many! For this spoiled girl who didn’t care what happened to any of them. If Sloan’s intel network had been able to find the Movement leader, this kid Scott Berman, would they still have made SueLin into such a powerful and ridiculous symbol?
Where was Berman? Did Sophia know?
What was Luis Martinez doing on New Utah?
“Now,” Karen said, freeing her hand from SueLin’s grasp. “No, I can’t come with you. You can do it.”
SueLin didn’t move. Sloan drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. All those people massed out there, and if she didn’t appear they would rush the building, or fire on it from the weapons that were of course concealed in the crowd, and then soldiers on all the rooftops or at the ready in fliers would fire back, and the slaughter would be—
“Look,” Karen said. “There’s a bird. A good sign.”
Sloan opened his eyes. A common jibird circled over the rooftop, calling stridently. SueLin watched it intently, squinting into the light. Then she stepped out onto the rooftop, walked to the low railing, and raised her hand. The crowd was silent for a moment as long as eternity, and then roars and cheers drowned out the bird.
SueLin’s voice, amplified and transmitted, rang out more strongly than Sloan had dared hope.
“People of New California! This is SueLin Peregoy. I’m free, because you demanded that I be free. Thank you.”
A wall of noise rising from the crowd. SueLin looked startled, but Sloan knew they weren’t cheering her but themselves. They had done this. They had, in their view, brought Peregoy Corporation to its knees.
SueLin said, departing from her speech, “Oh thank you! Thank you!”
Because she was sincere, and because she was pretty and young, and because the crowd believed it had won more than it had, they went wild with cheering and waving. And again Sloan closed his eyes, in chagrin and grief. For just a moment, he saw the loveless little girl that SueLin had been, and shame scalded him.
But only for a moment. What if all this unearned adulation made SueLin decide she wanted even more of it? What if she decided she wanted Peregoy Corporation?
“I have to ask you something,” SueLin said, and Sloan’s heart began a slow, painful hammer. This was not what he’d written for her to say.
“I have to ask you to stop blowing up buildings and burning them down and shooting each other. My grandfather told me you want a lot of things, like…like the things you asked for. To not be so much under his control. And I know what that’s like! So if I promise to make him talk to you about those things, will you stop destroying things until after the talking?”
A babble of angry voices. SueLin was losing them. A holosign flared high: REMEMBER HORTON ISLAND.
SueLin said, “I don’t know what Horton Island is.” Her bewilderment, in her slight frame and on the hugely magnified wall screens on the sides of building, was so genuine that at least part of the mob quieted.
“Look, I just want to go back to my birds. But nobody wants your husbands and wives and friends killed, right? If you won’t talk to Sloan Peregoy, will you talk to my Aunt Sophia? No? Then to who?”
The babble resolved itself into a single, incredibly irrational cry, “SueLin! SueLin!”
She turned, fearful now, to look at Sloan. No, at Karen. SueLin didn’t know what to do, and she was afraid.
Karen said, “Tell them you’re the heir to the corporation.”
A flash of the old SueLin: “I don’t want the stinking corporation!”
“You don’t have to have it. Just tell them that for now.”
SueLin hesitated, and Sloan saw his entire life, his entire world, tremble on her quivering lower lip.
She turned back. “I am the heir to Peregoy Corporation,” she said simply.
The cheers resumed. They felt vindicated. She’d said ‘heir,’ but Sloan knew that many of them heard ‘director.’ Those people, worked up to the point where mobs lose rationality, thought they had won. Sloan Peregoy was out.
And they were right. He would not be able to resume control of Peregoy Corporation again, at least not publicly. Nor would Sophia. SueLin didn’t want the Peregoy worlds and was incapable of running them. But she had done the important thing: She had stopped, even if momentarily, the slaughter. Planetary Defense already had Sloan’s order to suspend all solitary, lone-wolf retaliation against protestors.
Sophia would not take any of this well. When she returned from New Y
osemite, Sloan would need to protect not only his city from the forces tearing it apart, but his granddaughter from his daughter. The prospect sickened him. He wasn’t even sure he was capable of doing it.
Why wasn’t Luis here?
55
* * *
NEW UTAH
“Launch,” Martinez said.
The missiles had been prepared even before his last, disastrous link with Scott Berman. They were modified probes of the kind used to sample the surfaces of asteroids and moons. Small, remotely controlled, heat-resistant enough to not burn up during atmospheric entry, they were designed to retrieve payloads. This time, each one would make a one-way journey. They’d been altered on New Yosemite to explode on impact and spray viruses into the air of New Utah’s one city, Cascade.
It was a windy day down there.
Planetary-defense orbitals and ground trackers would, of course, shoot at the missiles. They might vaporize a few, but they wouldn’t hit them all. J. randi mansueti was highly infectious. In two days, most of New Utah would be mildly ill and—Martinez hoped—majorly protected. The Skyhawk, Zeus, and Green Hills of Earth would stay beyond weapons range.
“Keep the link to Berman open,” he said to DiCaria.
“Yes, sir.” The exec’s face looked strained; Martinez had not forgotten that DiCaria’s sister was among the captured PCSS officers.
It was half an hour before Christine Hoffman’s face appeared on the screen. “You cocksucker!”
“I’m trying to save your life. All your lives.”
Berman pushed her aside. His hair was wet, as if he’d been pulled from a shower with the news of Martinez’s missiles. Facing Berman’s icy, controlled fury, Martinez thought, He’d have made a good fleet officer.
Berman opened his mouth. Before he could speak, an arm snaked around his throat from behind and yanked him backward, out of the field of vision. Yelling, struggling, and another face appeared.
Martinez said sharply, “Berman?”
“Gone,” the man said. Older than Scott Berman, he had the hot, twisted face of a thug beyond reason. “We don’t need his fucking weak leadership. You deal with us now, fucker.”