The Eleventh Gate

by Nancy Kress

  An internal coup. DiCaria raised his head to look at Martinez, who said, “What is your name?”

  “Fuck my name! You think you can manipulate us, kill us, do anything you want the way your fucking boss Sloan Peregoy does—no more, Martinez! You hit us, we hit you!” He threw out one arm.

  Two men dragged Naomi Halstead into Martinez’s sight and held her. The thug drew back his fist and slammed it into her face. Her head whipped back so violently that Martinez thought her neck had broken. Blood streamed from her nose. She slumped in the men’s grip.

  Martinez clenched one hand into a fist, behind his back. They would kill her, possibly kill all thirty-eight Peregoy officers. Torture as well? For him to watch?

  But Christine Hoffman, to his surprise, suddenly reappeared, screaming. “No, John! We don’t do that! We have to be better than they are or what’s the point? Stop!”

  “John” turned his head and growled something that Martinez couldn’t hear. All at once the screen was full of people fighting each other, yelling, until someone must have thought to break the link and the screen blanked.

  “Can’t restore communication, Captain.”

  “Understood. Keep trying.”

  But no one restored the link on the other end. Martinez didn’t know who’d won, who was now in charge of the Movement, who controlled New Utah’s defense weapons, or what was happening to the thirty-eight Peregoy Space Fleet officers held hostage. He’d been counting on Berman’s idealism and innate decency, and now he had no idea what was occurring on the planet.

  • • •

  For two days, nothing happened. The Skyhawk could not raise the planet.

  The Landry fleet had not appeared. Martinez still had the option of retreating through the New Utah-New Yosemite gate, leaving New Utah at the mercy of the Landrys. He would be forced to do that unless Scott Berman had regained control of Cascade City, realized that what Martinez had said about the infection was true, and was willing to allow Martinez’s troops to land and take planetary-defense weaponry to defend New Utah. Even that would fail if Jane Landry had K-beams. Martinez suspected that she did; otherwise it would not have taken her so long to retrofit her ships at Prometheus. Unless, of course, she’d been slowed down somewhere by battle with Sophia’s fleet.

  By now, everyone on New Utah should be sick with J. randi mansueti.

  Were Naomi Halstead and the other Peregoy officers still alive? If they’d been killed, wouldn’t the new Movement leadership have sent grisly images of their deaths?

  Martinez lacked sufficient information on every front.

  His conferences with Vondenberg and Murphy were short and brusque, the communication of captains with nothing to share except a terrible tension that didn’t need utterance. Vondenberg, like Martinez, haunted the bridge of her ship, looking haggard. Nothing wrecked sleep like empty waiting.

  At evening of the second day, Martinez went to Caitlin Landry’s cabin.

  Henderson straightened as Martinez entered. He said, “Dismissed until I call you.” Henderson left, with a brief and uncharacteristic look of gratitude.

  Caitlin lay on the bunk in her ill-fitting, cast-off clothes, feet bare, reading on her tablet. She rose and said, “What’s happened? Oh, please tell me!”

  No reason not to. “We infected the planet two days ago. They’ve broken off communication, so we don’t know how your disease is taking.”

  To his surprise, she smiled faintly. “It’s ‘my disease’ now?”

  He couldn’t smile back, not even faintly. So much was going on inside of him that his order came out more harshly than he’d intended. “Tell me about your sister Jane.”

  Caitlin tipped her head to one side. “I imagine you’ve found out all about her already, from your databases.”

  “The basic information, yes. Now I want to know what she’s like as a person. Her childhood, her interactions with the rest of your family, with other people.”

  “Looking for a psychological advantage, Captain?”

  She was always so acute. He said, “Yes. For negotiation.”

  “There’s no negotiating with Jane. There never was.”

  They stared at each other, separated by the width of the table. Martinez saw her breath quicken. He knew, then, that she was feeling the same attraction he did, and that she, too, thought it monstrous.

  She said softly, “Damn evolutionary biology.”

  He was astonished that she should name it, astonished enough that he blurted, “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

  “I am. Of course I am,” and then it hit him that she might be interpreting his words differently than he’d meant them. Only…how had he meant them?

  He hadn’t seen that kind of fearless openness since Amy had died. The women he worked with were often fearless but seldom open; he was their commander. The women he dallied with were…well, not like Caitlin Landry.

  He looked away from her face. “Jane Landry. Why do you say negotiation with her isn’t possible?”

  “Is Jane here?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not? She’s had time.”

  He ignored this. “Tell me about her.”

  “All right. Sit down, Captain.”

  He waited until she sat first, laying her tablet on the tiny table. Martinez glanced at it and was again surprised. She’d been reading Sun Tzu’s Art of War. He said, “‘Know your enemy and know yourself and in a hundred battles, you will never be in peril.’”

  Now her smile wasn’t faint at all, a wide unpremeditated grin that brought light to her hazel eyes. “Apropos. Score one for you. Jane is one of those people capable of tremendous singlemindedness. When she wants something, she becomes completely obsessed. Actually,” she added thoughtfully, “I think we Landrys all do.”

  He suppressed the desire to ask Caitlin what obsessed her. “Give me an example of Jane’s obsessiveness, something from long before this war.”

  She thought a while before answering. He watched her. The hazel eyes had flecks of green around the edges. Her hair, tucked back, sprang out from behind her ears in short, unruly curls. The ears were small, more delicate than her features. Long, firm neck like a column—

  Stop.

  “When Jane was thirteen,” Caitlin said, “our father died. It was…difficult for all of us, but especially for my grandmother. She lost her son, and my mother was in the middle of a difficult pregnancy, so Gran had five daughters to raise. Well, Annelise was finishing university and Celia had already moved to New Hell, but Jane and I were teenagers, and then a few months later my mother died giving birth to Tara. She was—anyway, on Galt we cremate. I know you don’t do that on New California.”

  “No,” said Martinez.

  “Jane got it into her head that our father’s ashes should be scattered from orbit, even though his will said that he wanted them stored in the family vault. For a hundred thirty years, since Kezia Landry settled Galt, nearly all Landry ashes are there. He wanted his there, too.”

  Memory shadows passed over Caitlin’s eyes.

  “My grandmother tried to reason with Jane. That didn’t work. So Gran said no, absolutely not, and considered the matter closed.”

  Martinez nodded, unexpectedly fascinated by this glimpse into the enemy’s ruling family.

  “Jane went silent. But she recruited a bunch of jobless no-goods and broke into the vault. It was stone—they used explosives in the middle of the night. She stole the ashes. She had a ship ready to take her to orbit, but—”

  “A ship? At thirteen years old?”

  “She wasn’t supposed to have authority to command a ship, but she managed. Then an accidental witness alerted the police, so—”

  “Wait,” Martinez said, “I didn’t think you had a police force on Galt.”

  “The family security force, of course. We just called them ‘police.’” Caitlin looked at him with sudden dislike. “I can see what you’re thinking, Captain. Libertarian planet, only the rich who can afford it get
police protection and the hell with everyone else, spoiled kids without rules or discipline because everyone is supposed to be Libertarian free.”

  That was exactly what Martinez had been thinking.

  “It wasn’t like that. The point I’m trying to make is that Jane always defied rules to get what she wanted. She was devious, self-willed, single-minded, and oblivious to either reason or other people’s feelings. She still is. She’s also brilliant at devising strategies to succeed. That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He rose to go.

  “Wait. I answered your question. Now you answer mine. Why hasn’t Jane’s fleet arrived here yet? There’s been time.”

  He said nothing.

  Her face changed. “Luis…please.”

  If he’d thought that the use of his first name was a deliberate strategy, he wouldn’t have answered. But he didn’t think that. Caitlin Landry desperately wanted to know what might happen to her, to her sister, to all of them. This open pleading hadn’t been planned; he could see that from her face. And, after all, there was no way she could interfere with his plans.

  “I think Jane stayed at Prometheus to dig up and arm herself with the surface-to-space weapons she probably had installed around the research station. She’s retrofitting them for her ships. She’ll be here when that’s done.”

  She understood instantly. “And we have no radiation weapons because you had to pass from the new planet where you left Philip Anderson through the eleventh gate.”

  “Correct,” he said, and then he did leave the cabin, summoning Henderson via to return to duty.

  “We” have no radiation weapons. Not “you.”

  Luis.

  He was halfway to the bridge when his wrister sounded again. DiCaria’s face sprang into holo image.

  “Captain, we’ve detected the Landry fleet coming from Prometheus. They’re about thirty hours out.”

  56

  * * *

  NEW CALIFORNIA

  Sloan, an old man who hadn’t ever slept much, had now given up sleep almost completely. He knew he needed that restorative, that his health was suffering, but he didn’t sleep. Not introspective, he didn’t realize that he was punishing himself for what he saw as his failure. His admitted reason, just as true, was that he was learning.

  SueLin’s speech a week ago had calmed the city. She hadn’t appeared in public again, which was probably a good thing, although now and again the Link aired short, bland speeches Sloan had written for her. She’d recorded these without much interest. Small protests still broke out on New California, but mostly people believed that the Movement had brought Peregoy Corporation to its knees, that SueLin was now CEO, that she was the reason the arrests and fighting and conscription had eased. The actual reason, Sloan knew, was Sophia’s continued absence.

  For the last week, he’d given general orders and then let each corporate division run on routine. When routine wasn’t sufficient, he let his bewildered division heads do what they thought best. In defeat, Sloan had found a new, infinitely painful purpose.

  During the day, he had people brought to his office, one by one. He’d wanted to talk to Scott Berman, but Berman could not be found. Sloan sat across a table—not his desk—from the people brought into him. He kept Chavez with him because he had no choice, but no other security was allowed in the room. Of each person brought to him, Sloan asked what he or she thought about the riots in the city, the Peregoy Corporation, their lives. Some refused to say anything but what they thought he wanted to hear. Some refused to talk to him at all. But some spoke passionately.

  “The so-called ‘protestors’ captured a transport on Keeler Street, at the edge of the city,” said a Planetary Defense soldier, his face creased in disgust. “They disarmed the four of us inside and made us watch while they set the transport on fire, shouting slogans and other stupid shit. Then an army flyer came over and burned ’em all, vaporized ’em to ashes. They got what they deserved, treasonous bastards.”

  Sloan said nothing. The soldier wore gear Sloan didn’t recognize and hadn’t authorized, added to a Peregoy Corporation Security uniform dating from before either “treason” or “army flyers” existed.

  A woman, plucked from the protestors and dragged into Sloan’s office, refused to sit down. She glared at him, hands clasped tightly in front of her. “You think you ‘took care’ of us so well, Director. Gave us work, housing, education, medical care. Well, you did. But you didn’t give us freedom, and that’s more important than anything else. My daughter wanted to become a doctor. The testing people said no, she’s better suited to be an engineer, we need engineers, blah blah blah. No way for her to even take the tests for medical school—‘Not on the approved list.’ She hates engineering school. Cries every night. Sometimes I’m afraid she’ll kill herself. You did that.”

  Sloan didn’t say A girl who might kill herself wouldn’t have made a good doctor. He said nothing. He listened.

  A Link journalist told Sloan how news that was “treasonous” had been suppressed on public Links, underground news channels closed, reporters jailed, the Link monitored for dissent. Sloan knew about the monitoring but had paid little attention to it; Sophia had controlled Public Relations. The new controls had been put into place, with astonishing swiftness, during the months Sloan had been marooned on Polyglot.

  “Now,” the journalist finished, “you’ll put me in jail, too. Before you do, tell me what happened on Horton Island!”

  None of Sloan’s sources had been able to tell him where the deadly Horton Island pathogen had been created, stored, disseminated. That argued that it was not on New California or New Yosemite. Where?

  He listened to more protestors, to low-level Corporation employees, to Link experts, to people brought up from prison. Peregoy security looked at each other quizzically as they escorted each person past the stuffed wolves at the entrance to Sloan’s office. Sloan realized that he had never really listened before, except to Sophia. Now he made himself pay attention to the stories brought to him—often brought by force, yes, but no less true for that. His listening was more than intel. It was education, accusation, and atonement.

  He’d begun right after he learned that the retinal transplant research, for which he’d so proudly recruited scientists on Peregoy, was using executed political prisoners as a source of fresh eyes.

  At night, instead of sleeping, he read. So much of what he’d heard during the day held echoes of things Luis had said to him over the years, as if what was happening on New California was no more than echoes of things that had happened on Terra, no more than variations on a theme. Sloan read the histories Luis had once urged on him, and which he’d dismissed as irrelevant.

  “The plain truth of events which happened and will according to human nature happen again. It was written not for the moment but for all time.” Someone very ancient called Thucydides, but that history was too convoluted and the book too difficult, and Sloan abandoned it.

  Samuel Peregoy, the Terran founder of Peregoy Corporation who had claimed and colonized New California, came from the United States. Sloan accessed a book of United States history, written for youngsters. Much easier to read than Thucydides. He’d already known a great deal about the state of the country in Samuel’s time: the terrible climate changes, the biowarfare, the government’s arduous efforts to ensure that business could continue so that food and energy could reach the people. To do that, of course, the government had had to allocate itself considerable power. That only made sense.

  However, the book written for children described much earlier history, when the United States had rebelled against power. Colonies, lawful subjects of someplace called England, had decided they didn’t want that. They’d wrecked everything with war—a war they had no right to wage. People died, businesses were ruined, plantations burned. Shameful.

  Only…the book maintained that England had misused its power. The book for children ended with an unchildish quote, from what see
med to be a journalist: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin. Ridiculous! The safety and well-being of those under his care had always come first with Sloan, and that required control.

  Only…journalists were being jailed. Young people were being told what careers they must pursue. The army was vaporizing citizens in the streets, without any trial. And there was another quote, from a book Luis had especially championed: A Short History of Governmental Forms and Outcomes:

  “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” William Pitt, a leader of that same England.

  Sloan lost weight. The lines on his face deepened into ravines. He walked more slowly, and a headache low at the back of his skull would not leave him no matter what meds he took. He read on. Each night of each day he listened to people describe how the Peregoy worlds were falling apart, each day he wondered where Sophia was, why she had not communicated with him, how things could have come to this with her.

  And then a final passage, before he stopped all reading, from an unknown author: “‘We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.’” Author disputed.

  Sloan blanked his tablet. Lying on his bed in the dark, he felt his eyes prickle, and then tears slide through the topographical map of his face. He didn’t try to stop them, or wipe them off. Instead, he turned his mind to what he still, despite everything, thought of as a corporate problem. Only problem-solving could offer any consolation at all for his monumental failures.

  A Short History of Governmental Forms and Outcomes had made clear what the outcome of this terrible time could not be. Sophia could not be Sloan’s heir as CEO. Her need for power had done just what William Pitt predicted. Sophia would need to be removed and restrained, and it broke Sloan’s heart. She would hate him.