by Manda Benson
“Don’t know about his mind. I’d do stuff to his body, though.”
“Can we please stop thinking about Farron? Don’t get dressed quite yet,” Anthony pleaded. “I like having you in my sun-yacht all dripping wet and nude.”
“I never really thought about my body before I met you. It was just there.”
“It’s certainly there. Don’t know how anyone could not notice it’s there. How are you liking my sun-yacht anyway?”
Verity considered. “It doesn’t offer much in the way of privacy.” She picked up the bag. “Let’s get off this stuffy bridge and have a go in this centrifuge then.”
She gathered some cheese and biscuits with some packets of meat and chocolate, and a carton of fruit juice from the fridge in the kitchen. She had to stuff them inside the bag so she didn’t drop them in the corridor.
The centrifuge operated much like the ones on the base on Callisto, but contained four awkwardly shaped rooms at right angles to one another. A dressing gown, a pair of slippers and a duvet floated in the bedroom, but they drifted into the wall and sank to the floor when Verity closed the hatch and switched the centrifuge on. The weight pressing her feet to the floor slowly increased. Verity rolled up the duvet and threw it back on the bed. She tipped the contents of the bag out and set Anthony’s computer down at the corner of the mattress.
Verity arranged the cheeses and the grapes on a board. She cut a thick wedge of Lunar Blue and squashed it on a biscuit.
“Nothing like good cheese,” Anthony thought as she chewed it.
She glanced up at the windows on either corner of the ceiling. Stars drifted past with the rotation of the centrifuge.
“There’s a thought-prompt to make those windows into mirrors too.”
Verity swallowed. “That’s just not right, having mirrors where you sleep.”
“Probably not, but if I lie in bed and see the stars turn over a few dozen times, I start to feel like I’m going to throw up.”
For a while, neither of them formed any conscious thoughts, and Verity ate and enjoyed it. Anthony savored the taste of the food through her senses.
“Do what you did back in your quarters on Callisto again?” he suggested as she wrapped the cheeses back in their foil.
“We’ve got to stay focused. How long until we hear back from Torrmede?”
“Not for another fifty minutes at least. Please? I want to feel it... I need to feel alive one more time.”
“Look, when all this is over, I’ll have orgasms for you until you blow a fuse. But until then, I’m on duty, and you need to tell me everything you know about what’s going on.”
“Zeta, Farron is dangerous. The Magnolia Order don’t want you involved in this.”
Verity threw a pillow at the wall. “And you can stop calling me Zeta! That’s not my name, it’s just a number.”
“Sorry.”
She curled up in the bedcover and closed her eyes. “What is the Magnolia Order anyway? Who’s in charge of it? Who are they to say I’m not to get involved?”
“I don’t know who’s in charge of it. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I took an oath. They have a hierarchy system that determines who’s allowed to know what. You’re ranked as one, which means you have potential and they’ll tell you more when you’re ready to know more.”
“What about Farron? What are they going to do about him?”
“I don’t know. If I’d escaped a few days ago when the warrant was issued on me, I’d have been able to get word to them then, and we’d have had more time.”
Verity sighed.
She wasn’t aware she’d fallen asleep until Anthony shouted, “Wake up!” inside her head.
“Why did you let me fall asleep?” She started upright. “What time is it?”
“Time to go. Better take my dressing gown in case you need to send a video message.”
Verity pulled on the dressing gown, made from a scratchy woolly fabric. Its material enclosed an unfamiliar male scent that made her wonder again about the real man Anthony had been. Did he wake every morning and pull on this dressing gown? Perhaps he yawned, stretched and smiled, running fingers through his hair.
She waited for the centrifuge to slow, then maneuvered through the hatch and made her way up to the bridge. A red light on the communications console was illuminated.
She pushed herself down into the chair and pressed the play button.
A man appeared on the holovision screen. “Sergeant Verity, this is Spokesman Sidney Worrall, from Torrmede on behalf of the Meritocracy.”
“Not him,” Verity muttered. “He’s a dickhead.”
“MANTIcore has brought the matter you reported to our attention. A veto was recently carried among the Spokesmen for the Meritocracy. We have decided that your report demonstrates cause for concern. We are sending immediate orders to Callisto that Farron be suspended from his duties and held in custody, and we have dispatched a sortie from Earth to Callisto to further investigate the matter. The sortie should arrive within twenty days, and has been instructed to secure the base.”
“Oh, no, no! That’s not good enough! They won’t be here in time.”
No, they wouldn’t. Verity realized what he meant. Twenty days was too late by far. Referendum day would have been and gone. Autonomy would have been voted in, by what would seem to the Meritocracy from the outside to be the valid but rather misinformed choice of the local electorate would become law, confusing the matter and delaying things, buying Farron more time.
“Upon the securing of the base, it is requested that you rendezvous with the sortie on the surface as a necessary witness. Sidney Worrall, over.”
“It’s not good enough,” Verity thought.“What are we going to do?”
“There’s nothing anyone can do. The Rolls-Royce company can’t build fusion engines powerful enough to get from Earth to Jupiter in less than twenty days. We’re screwed.”
The red light came on the console again. Verity frowned at it. “There’s another message.”
“Open it.”
She pressed the button, and the holovision image of another man came up. From his physiognomy, Verity guessed that at least some of his ancestors must have been Japanese.
“This is Takahashi Tōru from Torrmede. The content of this message is private and is intended for Sergeant Zeta Verity of Callisto. Sergeant Verity, from your last message it can be assumed that Anthony Cornelian is dead, and that you have obtained the information incriminating Lloyd Farron that was the purpose of his mission. I understand that a veto has been carried among the Spokesmen, and a sortie is being dispatched to Callisto as I send this message. If the Magnolia Order’s intelligence serves us correctly, the sortie will arrive too late, and while the Meritocracy loses time deciding what to do about the problem, we will be losing valuable time which Farron may be using to bolster his as yet unknown forces out here.”
Takahashi interlocked his fingers on the desk before him and paused before continuing. “Sergeant Verity, how much importance do you place on the values and integrity of the Meritocracy? Would you be prepared to die for the Meritocracy? Would you be prepared to die at its hands in order to safeguard what it stands for?”
“The Spokesmen offer a level of protection to the Meritocracy. They are chosen by the Electorate so urgent matters that cannot pass before the Electorate by referendum can be acted upon immediately. We are another level of protection, but the Magnolia Order is a vigilante force not under any direct control from the Meritocracy, and thus our workings must remain secret. If you choose to act under the Magnolia Order’s instructions, you must bear responsibility for your own actions, and you must not reveal anything of the Magnolia Order to any person, so long as you shall live.
“The Magnolia Order has decided that this coup must be stopped before it can come to completion. If it is not, countless lives will be lost and the Meritocracy will come to harm. The only person who is in place to do this now is you, Sergeant Verity. Find F
arron and kill him.” Takahashi opened his hands and slashed them over the surface of the desk, palms down.
“Destroy whatever research he’s doing. Let nothing and no one stand in your way. If you do this and you succeed--and your chances of succeeding are no doubt small--but you are not able to prove your motives in doing it, the Meritocracy may decide you are a criminal, and may even put you to death. If they do that, then it will be your duty to the Magnolia Order to die silent, just as Anthony Cornelian did, and as every member of the Magnolia Order who has died protecting the Meritocracy has. If you attempt to expose the Order to save your own life, you have only my name, and they shall have nothing from me as I follow in your steps to execution.
“I can tell you no more. You alone probably know more than I do about your mission, but to help you I am transmitting all the information we have on Farron and our suspicions about his activities. Over.”
The message ended and Takahashi Tōru’s image disappeared.
Verity stared at the monitor.
“It’s a suicide mission,” Anthony said. “We can’t succeed, and if we do succeed, we’ll probably be executed anyway.”
“Then I accept it.”
“It won’t make any difference. You’ll be killed.”
“There’s a chance, isn’t there? And you forget. I made an oath. I swore to you that I would avenge your death. Farron is responsible for your death. I’ve just been given orders to assassinate him. It’s straightforward.”
“No, it’s not straightforward. This is the Magnolia Order you’re talking about! Taking orders from them is not the same as taking orders from your superiors in the Sky Forces. If you take orders from the Magnolia Order and then someone questions them, you’ve no recourse!”
Verity leaned over the console and pressed the switch to record a message. “This is Sergeant Verity of Callisto. This message is private and intended for Takahashi Tōru of Torrmede. I accept your orders. I shall not attempt to make contact with you again.”
She pressed the transmit button. A light flashed twice. “Look, Anthony, this is your mission as well as mine. I’m going to do it with your help or without it. Now, how do I move this yacht so I can get to the Jupiter orbital?”
For a moment, Anthony did not respond. Then he said, “The course computer can handle it automatically. The orbit data are public information under the Freedom of Information Act. All you have to do is turn the yacht round so the other side of the sail is facing the sun. It’s got a carbon dioxide ballast system. You’ll find the wheels that operate the valves on that panel in front of you.”
Verity found the four wheels on the panel and turned the one to open the starboard ballast valve. A noise of depressurization and a jet of white gas appeared in the starboard window. The stars began to drift as the yacht turned.
Chapter 9
“Is it there?”
Anthony thought, “The course schematic says it is.”
Verity squinted at the stars beyond the bridge window, scrutinizing them for hints of which one might be the Jupiter orbital complex. “I can’t see it.”
“If we could see it, it would be able to see us. Try it on the scope.”
Her hand slid to a panel on the left side of the console. When she looked, she saw it was indeed the screen and controls for the magnification viewer. An image came to her mind of Anthony Cornelian sitting at these controls, his fingers touching these switches, dials and imaging screens that hers now pressed and turned. Those same fingers now lay frozen and lifeless at the bottom of a crater back on Callisto. For an instant she felt like a trespasser--a murderer and usurper.
The screen came on, and Verity adjusted the coordinates to match the readout the course program gave as being the location of the orbital. Pinprick stars moved across the screen, leaving wavy trails of light in the scope’s image. A fuzzy grey torus appeared. Verity rotated the focus knob until it took form as a ring rotating slowly around a central axis. It looked somehow unrealistic and silly, something man-made and dwarfed by distance, laughing in the face of nature’s hideous adversity. Hanging there upon the outer edges of Jupiter’s magnetosphere, it appeared a toy gyroscope tossed from reality and left as a claustrophobic bastion of humanity in between Jupiter’s deadly radiation belt and the vacuum of space.
“Can they see us?”
“Not unless they’re looking for us hard. We’ll have to hope they aren’t.”
Verity checked the flight schematic, showing the orbiting path of the complex around Jupiter, and the projected path of the sun-yacht following in its wake. “So, we go there on the lander, and if we don’t die there, we come back and the yacht will still be in orbit where we left it?”
“This yacht cost good money.” Anthony transmitted in a tone of mock offence. “Stop casting aspersions on it and insinuating it can’t hold a stable orbit!”
Back in the main corridor, Verity retrieved the pieces of her armor from the locker and put them on.
“This might be a stupid question, and I’m guessing it’s ubiquitous in the Sky Forces. I have to ask, why are you going commando?”
Verity secured the Sky Forces standard issue bag with the computer and the other gear in it to her back, and plugged the wire from the computer into the socket in the interface shunt on her forehead. “I forgot to bring any clean underwear. So I put the sweaty, stinky underwear in the washing machine and it isn’t finished yet.” She gave her helmet a shove so it drifted into the lander, then took hold of the sides of the airlock door and pushed herself feet first after it.
After she sealed the hatch, she pulled herself into the pilot’s seat and fastened the belt. It took a few moments for her to boot up the flight control computer and get the trajectory plotted.
“Here goes,” she thought, and hit the release sequence switch. The belt jabbed into her shoulders as the sun-yacht ejected the lander from its docking slot, and stars and the pastel-stippled flank of Jupiter leapt back into the fore windows. She craned her neck to make a visual clearance check of the yacht through the upper window before pressing the switch that started the course program. The fusion engine fired with a loud roar, jolting the back of her skull against the headrest.
The stiff plates of her armor were unpleasantly clammy against her bare skin. Verity fidgeted against the G-force of acceleration pushing her back against her seat. She could feel the angular shape of Anthony’s computer inside the bag against her back. “Will you just control yourself and stop being randy? I’m getting bleed-back off you and it’s making my armor all sticky, and it’s not a good feeling when I’m supposed to be assassinating someone!”
“How do you know,” said Anthony slyly, “that it’s not you who’s feeling sexy and causing bleed-back on me?”
The fusion engine cut off and the acceleration force eased away. Verity reached over her shoulder and caught hold of a narrow strip. She yanked the long piece of material out of the bag: a tie she had taken from Anthony’s wardrobe with a piece of foil taped to the inside. She wrapped the tie round her forehead like a bandana, so the foil covered her interface shunt, and knotted the ends together. Now the ANT on the orbital complex wouldn’t detect her, but she could maintain communication with Anthony through the direct connection via the wire.
“Don’t go broadcasting signals or doing anything stupid in there.” She reached back to the other seat and caught her helmet by the strap.
“Don’t wear that,” said Anthony. “You’re going to need unimpeded use of your eyes and ears.”
“It’s easy to die without a helmet.” The incident with John Aaron still remained fresh in Verity’s mind, and a sick feeling came to her stomach at the recollection of it, despite knowing John Aaron was dead and had never really posed a threat in the first place.
“It’s also easy to die if you don’t hear your enemy sneaking up behind you!” Anthony countered. “Have you forgotten what the Magnolia Order taught you about that katana?”
Verity’s fingers closed on the handle
of the katana at her hip. “The wise give life with the sword. The fool kills himself on another’s sword.”
“So don’t kill yourself on someone else’s sword. Or anyone else’s fist or gun, for that matter. Make sure they all kill themselves on your sword.”
“Are you suggesting I don’t need armor, that I just go in there wearing nothing apart from a sword?”
“Well, I suppose that’s a novel strategy. It might give you the element of surprise I guess.”
Verity found a smile forming on her lips despite herself, and leaned closer to the window. Details started to become visible on the bright star ahead, and it began to look more like the image she had seen in the scope.
“It’s not very big,” she thought as the prow of the lander passed the outer edge of the steadily turning ring, and its perimeter disappeared behind the edge of the window. The radius couldn’t be more than a mile. “I expected it would be bigger than that.” Braking thrust cut in sharply, throwing her forward against her shoulder straps.
“You’re right.” Anthony’s transmission had a dubious tone to it.
“There’s no way Farron can have any kind of decent-sized army in that.”
“We’re here now. We may as well see what we can find out about it. I take it you’ve been trained how to carry out a manual docking procedure?”
Verity rolled her eyes and set her hands to the levers that operated the lander’s ballast valves as the static central hub of the orbital’s wheel drifted slowly in. Hexagonal nodules studded its convex surface--all airlocks for docking. One lander was already in position, the one that had left from Callisto: Farron’s transport up here.
She opened the side-valves as the lander closed the distance to rotate it so the upper section with the hatch faced the docking apertures. After using the keel valve to push the craft in, she hit the switch for the electromagnet. The cabin lurched and the sound of metal striking metal clanged through the hull. The grinding sound of the airlock flanges locking in place began, and the green light on the hatch over her head lit up.