“Isn’t that a little paranoid?” Jamie had asked.
“Yes, it is. It’s a habit I got into during the war. Before Hella. I was naïve, then. Not anymore. So yes, I knew that the lifter was hacked and what it was programmed to do, but people were watching, cameras were on, and I needed a performance. I didn’t want them to know that I knew.” He added, “The Laytons. It was the Laytons.”
“I suppose I should be surprised,” Madam Coordinator had said, “but I’m not. He’s running out of time. He’s getting desperate. Once the new colonists start landing, once they get three new seats on the Council, his chances for an eastern station will be over.”
Captain Skyler told her, “I did warn you about this. The Laytons have been installing snoops for years.”
“Yes, you did. But he’s been discreet enough. Most of his snoops are in his own offices. So it’s easier to pretend I don’t know than to call him out. He can’t be impeached for a misdemeanor, he has to be impeached for a felony.”
“Attempted assassination? That’s a felony, isn’t it?”
The way Captain Skyler told it, Madam Coordinator had nodded and said, “We have to get to Winterland before we can bring him up on charges.”
That was where I had to interrupt. “Can I ask something?” They all looked to me. “Why does everybody keep secrets from everybody else? Why don’t we trust each other?”
Nobody answered. Not immediately. Finally, Jamie said, “You and I, we’ll talk about it later, okay?”
“Okay. But it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me either,” said Jamie. “But some people know they themselves can’t be trusted, so they don’t trust anyone else.”
“Like Councilor Layton?”
“Like Councilor Layton, yes.”
Captain Skyler said, “And that’s why we have to be even more suspicious of him than he is of us.”
“So, he’s making us think like him?”
This time, no one tried to explain, not even Jamie.
Captain Skyler continued his story. “I knew the lifter was programmed to crash, but I didn’t know what else he might try. The safest way to get here was to let Layton think he’d won. We talked it over, all of us. Nobody liked the plan, we knew it would be painful for people who love us, but we didn’t have a better idea. We snuck out on a truck.”
It was nightshift, most people were sleeping when they boarded the outbound weather truck. Nobody except the crew of the weather truck knew they’d boarded and they were sworn to silence. Captain Skyler set the lifter for autonomous flight and told it to take off. It flew directly into the storm and crashed.
The weather truck traveled slowly and by an old unused route with several difficult passages. They had to carve a couple new ones as well. The truck took more than two weeks to arrive at Winterland—but instead of coming in the front, it circled the range of volcanoes so it could come in from the far side, arriving instead at X-Station. It was running dark, so Winterland’s operators wouldn’t know where it was or if it had been lost in the storm.
There was one good argument for leaving it “lost.” Commander Khuri of X-Station wanted the truck and all the supplies loaded on it, but there was another good argument for letting it show up late. One of the drivers had a husband and wasn’t happy about disappearing.
I said, “But why didn’t you tell anybody? You let us think you were all dead. Mom is still crying—”
“We had to.” Jamie put his hand on mine. “We wanted to contact you, but after the lifter went down, we couldn’t take the risk. We knew that from the beginning.”
Captain Skyler said, “I know it hurt, Kyle. Believe me, none of us wanted to cause anybody any pain, not you, not your mom, not anybody, but if anyone here at Winterland had known the truth, you wouldn’t have behaved the same way. Layton would have become suspicious. If he was willing to crash a lifter, he’d certainly be willing to send anti-saur drones after the weather truck. We had to stay off the grid. We had to stay as dark as possible.”
“But you’re back now, and all you have to do is just go in and arrest him for attempted murder and treason and—”
“I wish. But it’s not that easy,” said Jamie.
Madam Coordinator explained. “As soon as I was declared dead, as soon as he became the new Coordinator, all the codes were changed. He has the authority now. We could walk into the big plaza and tell our whole story, but he’d still be the Coordinator, he’d still have the legal authority, and we’d just be ordinary citizens trying to get ourselves declared alive again. Even if we could prove our story—and we can—it still doesn’t erase his authority until we can get a court to act and invoke the suspension rule.”
Jeremy said, “This is what your mom was talking about with Captain Boynton and Lilla-Jack. The court can’t act until a case is brought before them. And you need a majority vote on the Council to authorize an investigation. You need an Advocate. And without Captain Skyler on the Council, there aren’t enough votes. So our hands are tied by our own rules.”
Nobody said anything to that.
“Um.” That was Charles. He pointed to the monkey. “HARLIE, do you have any ideas?”
The monkey scratched itself. “Well, that depends on how many laws you want to break.”
“None,” said Captain Skyler. “We don’t want to break any laws at all.”
Madam Coordinator added, “This has to be legal. Every step of the way.”
“Well, that does complicate things,” said the monkey. It fell silent again.
“Why can’t we just tell the truth?” I said. “Once everybody knows what he tried to do, they won’t let him be Coordinator anymore, will they?”
They all looked at me. Madam Coordinator smiled. “Out of the mouths of babes.”
“I’m not a babe.” I looked to Jeremy. “Although I could be. Maybe.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” said Jeremy.
“You really are growing up,” said Jamie.
Captain Skyler said, “Well, there’s the answer. We have to force a vote of no-confidence. The best way to do that is simply get the truth out.”
“You’re all alive,” I said. “Isn’t that enough?”
Madam Coordinator frowned. “I wish it were.”
“Why can’t you just show up—”
“Where? How?”
“Arrive on the truck. Pull into the main dock—”
Madam Coordinator and Captain Skyler exchanged a look. When people do that it usually means something, like they know something that you don’t. Sometimes they tell you, sometimes they don’t. Madam Coordinator looked to Commander Khuri. “Go ahead, tell them.”
Everyone looked to the commander of the X-Station. She hadn’t said anything until now. She was dark and stocky and looked like she was all muscle. She wasn’t tall, but she was imposing—the kind of person you didn’t want to argue with. “There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on at Winterland,” she said. “We have a feed of the station’s public channels. When Marley went missing, when all of you went missing, Layton locked down the entire station. Nobody goes out unless it’s essential. He hasn’t accused anyone of kidnapping, but Jeremy, Kyle, Charles, J’mee, you four are considered persons of interest. He’s got search teams prowling everywhere and security teams at every access, and he doesn’t trust anyone.”
Madam Coordinator said, “Tell them the rest.”
Captain Skyler looked at all of us. “Nobody knows where Captain Boynton is. Or your mom. Or Lilla-Jack. Some of Lilla-Jack’s team have disappeared too.”
“Have they been arrested?” Jamie asked.
“We don’t know. They’re still listed as missing.”
Jeremy spoke up then. “They might be disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“They won’t call it that. Not
where anyone can hear. They’ll call it another unsolved mystery. Like whatsisname—Doyle Ibrahim. Remember him? Bruinhilda didn’t like him either. So, you know. Sometimes people get lost in the lava caves. Or their vehicle sinks into the salt. Or maybe they were captured by booger-jacks. Whatever story is convenient. Oh, they’ll make a show of looking sad. They’ll say oh dear, oh dear, this is so very sad, we’ll have to put up a plaque somewhere, but now it’s time for the rest of us to get on with life, what’s for lunch?”
Jamie looked at him. “They couldn’t get away with that! Not with so many people—” And then as he thought about it, his expression changed. “Could they?”
Jeremy said, “They make plans. Lots of plans. Plans for things they’ll never do. I grew up, listening to all their plans. I used to think they were just venting, wishing they could do stuff—but no. Bruinhilda said that Dad should start staffing certain security teams with people they could trust, people more loyal to them than to the Charter. That’s when I knew they were serious. That’s why I had to leave.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I did. Nobody wanted to listen. Captain Skyler listened, but as far as I knew, he was the only one. Everybody else thought I was making it up. They thought I was an angry spoiled brat. They didn’t take it serious, they never believed that anyone would ever try anything so stupid. Or maybe they didn’t think it would ever get this far.”
“But here we are anyway,” said Captain Skyler. “And after the lifter business, I don’t think we can afford to underestimate him. Them.”
“It was a coup,” said Madam Coordinator. “I apologize. I didn’t recognize the danger in time.”
“Nobody did,” said Captain Skyler. “By the time we did, it was too late to stop it.”
“Couldn’t we just put a message on the grid? Email everyone? Tell them you’re alive and all right?” I asked.
Commander Khuri put her mug down on the table, just loud enough to make everyone look at her and said, “He’s locked down the grid. He knows something is up. He just doesn’t know what. So everything is filtered for content before it’s allowed to connect. You could send emails, you could upload a public announcement, but no one would ever see it, and you’d just give yourself away.”
“How do you know this?” asked Captain Skyler.
“We have taps into the system.”
“Oh.”
Charles spoke first. “If you have taps, then couldn’t we use them to access the grid? If you can get around Layton’s filters—”
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not. We can’t take the risk. The taps are for listening only. I’m not exposing X-Station. We’re not even admitting it exists.” She put both her hands flat on the table. “It’s not negotiable.”
Captain Skyler looked at her, the way she sat, the expression on her face. He decided not to argue. “Right. So we have to find another way.”
Commander Khuri said, “There’s more. Layton is suspicious of everyone and everything. The disappearance of Marley? He suspects kidnapping and sabotage. He’s pretty sure there’s a conspiracy against him, one that started even before he took office. He has an enemies list. It’s pretty extensive. And now he’s wondering if Boynton and some of the Cascade crew are up to something too, and then there’s that other thing . . .”
“Go on.”
“He sent scuttle-bots to the wreckage. The weather slowed them down. They had to hunker down and anchor themselves against the high winds, so it took a while for the bots to get there. But they did get there and they did examine the wreck—and they reported back. They didn’t find any remains. Of course, but it wasn’t conclusive. The whole area had been scorched in the crash, and then there was a lot of wind and rain that came in, overturning everything scattering pieces everywhere, and dropping a lot of mud and debris across the entire debris field. Plus, after how many days it took them to reach the site, the bots couldn’t tell if perhaps any remains had been gobbled down by carrion-feeders. So Layton can’t be sure what happened. Maybe you were aboard the lifter, maybe you weren’t. He knows you aborted the first takeoff. He doesn’t know why. He’s a suspicious man, he’s suspicious of everything. So, yes—that’s the bad news.”
Madam Coordinator asked, “Are you saying there’s good news?”
“Yes, you have one advantage. He doesn’t know for sure that you’re alive. Even if he suspects, he still doesn’t know where you are. But he can’t let you live. Not any of you. Not even the children now. You’re a walking indictment. So he has to stop you any way he can. If you show up at any access he controls—and we have to assume that he controls them all—you’ll either disappear or, if he can’t do that conveniently, he’ll arrest you, hold you someplace where no one can find you, and then create some kind of story that you were all in a conspiracy to frame him for murder. He’ll use that as a justification for taking down a lot of other political opponents too.”
“We’d be entitled to a trial. We can testify there.”
“Your trial will be in a sealed courtroom with three hand-picked judges. And all the records will be sealed—and then erased.” Commander Khuri picked up her tea and took a long drink.
No one spoke, not for a long moment—not until Madam Coordinator finally spoke. “And that’s the good news?”
* * *
—
Commander Khuri put her cup down, looked around the table. “Would anyone like a refill?”
Captain Skyler nodded and pushed his mug forward. “Okay. We’ll just have to find another way to get our message out. If we can’t go through the grid, we’ll go around it.”
Charles cleared his throat then. “Upload it to the Cascade. Ask them to broadcast it from there. Layton doesn’t control that channel.”
Captain Skyler shook his head. “Everything from the Cascade gets monitored before it’s released. He’s been doing that since he took office. He’ll shut down the whole channel and claim an equipment failure.”
“Just the same—” J’mee spoke up then. “We still have to send it. We have to let everyone on the Cascade know what’s going on down here. Even if they can’t alert anyone here, at least Layton will know that he has no friends in orbit.”
“He won’t let them land,” said Captain Skyler.
“He doesn’t want to let them land anyway.” That was Madam Coordinator.
“They could land their pods at Summerland Station in the spring, before the summer migration,” said Charles. “They’d establish a base of resistance. He can’t stop that.”
“And that would be the worst thing possible,” said Captain Skyler. “A civil war. No, we need to find a better way.” He looked to J’mee. “You’re right about the upload though. We have to do that. The weather truck has an uplink capability, but—” He sighed. “Look outside. We’re in the middle of a super-storm. We barely got here. It could be weeks before there’s a break. So . . . we’re on our own for now.”
“So that’s it. We either break into the grid or we go around it.”
The monkey interrupted. “Breaking into the grid isn’t a problem. I have some ability as a hacker—” At that, Charles and J’mee both laughed out loud. HARLIE ignored them. “Find me a secure link, and I’ll find a way to upload anything you want. And I can spoof the location. I can make it look like it’s coming from inside Layton’s bathroom.”
“That would be funny,” said Jeremy.
“It’ll certainly make him crazy,” said Captain Skyler.
“Crazier,” corrected Jeremy. “I can imagine his expression.” He made a face to demonstrate, all scrunched up and tight and snarly.
“All right,” said Madam Coordinator, retaking control of the meeting. “That seems to be our best option. The safest anyway. So let’s consider the message we want to send. It should be a clear statement of events. Like a courtroom testimony.”
�
��Yes,” agreed Captain Skyler. “We definitely need to do that. But it won’t be enough.”
Madam Coordinator looked at him. “Why not?”
“It also needs evidence,” he said. “It needs a confession. Marley’s.”
She stopped. She frowned. “Yes. You’re right. Her statement would be critically important. But she’s not going to help us. She won’t cooperate.”
“Oh, I think she will.” Captain Skyler said. But he didn’t explain. He looked to me. “Kyle, I want you to set up the video. Here’s what I want you to do—”
* * *
—
Marley Layton was locked in a room.
When we entered, she sat up and glared at us, but she didn’t say anything.
It was just me and two women from X-Station, two people she didn’t know. Both of them had stunner clubs hanging from the belts of their jumpsuits. One stood on either side of me while I set up the tripods and the cameras. Three of them. Three different angles.
I didn’t say anything to Marley, I didn’t even look at her, except to check the lighting and the focus. When I was satisfied I had the best angles, I started recording.
The two guards followed me out to the hall where a desk with a workstation had been rolled in. Jamie and Jeremy and I, and Charles and J’mee too, we would monitor the videos from here. Captain Skyler and Madam Coordinator and Commander Khuri and a small crowd of others were gathered behind us. There were other displays up and down the hall so everyone could have a good view.
Commander Khuri said, “This looks good. Are you recording? Is everything set?”
“Uh-huh. You can go in anytime.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry. Do you need anything else?”
“I’m okay,” I said.
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