by Greg Bear
“No rest for the wicked,” Heineman said, replacing Lanier in the pilot’s seat. He applied the tuberider clamps to the singularity to brake. The craft suddenly bucked and rolled violently, tossing Lanier and Farley against the storage rack and pinning them there until Heineman released the clamps.
“We’re accelerating,” Heineman shouted over the roaring shudder of the tuberider and airplane. “I’m not in control anymore.”
Lanier slid toward the rear of the cabin, banging into seats with his arms and legs as he tried to grab hold of something.
Farley clung to a seat tenaciously and struggled to swing around and sit in it.
The singularity now drew a long, steady red line down the middle of the plasma tube. Lanier snapped himself into a seat and reached across to help Farley climb into hers. Equipment bounced and fell to the rear, striking storage racks, bulkheads and other equipment.
“Can you reverse us?” Lanier shouted over the tumult.
“No way,” Heineman answered. ”If I clamp down, we start bucking. Thirty thousand and still accelerating.” The tuberider rolled again and Lanier and Farley shielded themselves against another onslaught of rebounding memory block racks, test kits and coiled light cables.
“Forty,” Heineman said a few moments later. ”Fifty.”
The radio crackled and chuffed and a genderless melodic voice began in mid-phrase: “—violation of the Law of the Way. Your craft is in violation of the Law of the Way. Do not resist or your craft will be destroyed. You are under the direction of the Hexamon Nexus and will be removed from the flaw in six minutes. Do not attempt to either accelerate or decelerate.”
The message ended with a soft burst of white noise.
Chapter Forty-one
Belozersky stood stiffly to the rear of Yazykov at the conference table, hands locked behind his back. Yazykov sat with his hands folded on the table. Hoffman looked over the demands and wrote out a quick translation on her slate for Gerhardt. Gerhardt read them quickly and shook his head.
“We reject your demands,” Hoffman said flatly in Russian. She, too, had spent time in the third chamber library.
“These men are criminals,” Yazykov said. ”They have kidnapped one of our colleagues and hidden in one of the cities where we cannot find them.”
“Whether that’s true or not, we already agreed to separate governmental and judicial systems. We can’t help you find these men without breaking our agreement.”
“They are hiding in sections dominated by your people,” Belozersky said. ”You yourself may be hiding them.”
“If that’s the case, then I’ve been told nothing about it,” Hoffman said. ”I doubt it.”
“Surely you support our attempt to form a civilian government,” Yazykov said.
“We don’t support it, and we don’t oppose it,” Hoffman said. “That’s your concern. Our concern at this table is with Mirsky.“
Yazykov rose quickly and nodded at Hoffman. They crossed the cafeteria and exited through the rear door.
“What do you make of that?” Hoffman asked Gerhardt.
The general shook his head ruefully and grinned.
“Mirsky’s stolen their main man,” he said. ”Looks like he anticipated them and made the first move.”
“What’s your opinion of Mirsky?”
“Hard-line Soviet military or not, I’d rather deal with him than with Yazykov or Belozersky.”
“So do we help him?”
“Help Mirsky? Hell, no. First instincts are best. We stay out of it and let them settle it themselves. Besides, Mirsky won’t ask for help. We just have to hope it doesn’t come to a fight. We might not be able to stay out of that.”
Mirsky and Pogodin removed Vielgorsky from the third chamber city in the truck, following a tortuous series of service roads until they found a main artery that crossed the remaining twenty kilometers in a straight line. the artery emerged through a number of open half-moon gates onto the ninety tunnel leading to the second chamber.
Mirsky examined several buildings along the second chamber thoroughfares before picking one that suited him. It, was hidden between one of the giant chandelier-skyscrapers the Americans called megas, and a long row of hundred-meter-high asteroid-rock towers of no apparent utility.
The building was only four stories tall and seemed to have once been a kind of school. Long rows of connected seats filled the three rooms on each floor, facing slate-black walls rimmed with silvery glass.
In the easternmost room of the top floor, they spread their supplies, and Mirsky sat down with a much quieter and even more somber Vielgorsky. Pogodin went to hide the truck.
“I don’t thank you,” Vielgorsky said. He lay back on a bench and stared at the gold stars on the dark blue ceiling. “My father died in Afghanistan. I was told nothing about his death ... state secret. I still don’t know. But that it was all a military exercise to battle-test the army...” He shook his head wonderingly.
“A ten-year exercise! To find—” he coughed into his fist, “to find that all one has believed has been an orchestrated lie—”
“Not all,” Mirsky said. ”Much, but not all.”
“Having one’s eyes opened doesn’t make one grateful.”
“We’ve always known bits and pieces, haven’t we?” Mirsky asked. ”About the corruption, the inefficient and incompetent and venal superiors ... The State preserving itself at the expense of revolutionary ideals.”
“Every man must work with such things, if not accept them. But using our finest athletes and dancers as concubines—“
”Hypocrisy mixed with stupidity.”
“How much worse for a government that says it is above scandal, and cannot do wrong! At least the Americans wallow in their scandal.”
They talked for two hours. Pogodin returned. He listened attentively, his brow wrinkling when they discussed things that pained him. He interrupted only once, to ask, “Haven’t the Americans discovered how corrupt they are?”
Mirsky nodded. ”They have always known, or at least as often as their press could uncover the facts.”
“Their press is not controlled?”
“Manipulated, yes,” Mirsky said. ”Never completely controlled. They had thousands of historians, each with his own perspective. Their history was confused, but deliberate distortions were usually found out.”
Pogodin looked between Vielgorsky and Mirsky and then turned away to walk to the entrance of the room.
“What we’ve been told about Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev—” Vielgorsky let his words trail off with a shake of his head.
“Is different from what our fathers were told,” Mirsky finished for him, “and their fathers before them.”
And they talked for another hour, this time about life in the army. Mirsky described how he had nearly become a political officer. Vielgorsky outlined the accelerated training courses he and the other Zampolid had been given before being launched with the Space Shock Troops from the Indian Ocean.
“We are not so far apart after all,” Vielgorsky said as Mirsky poured him water from a thermos. Mirsky shrugged again and handed him the cup. ”You know the responsibilities of a political officer ... the duty to party, to the revolution ...”
“What revolution?” Mirsky asked softly.
Vielgorsky’s face reddened. ”We must still be loyal to the revolution. Our lives, our sanity depends on it.”
“The revolution begins here, now,” Mirsky said. ”We are unloaded of the past.”
They regarded each other for an uncomfortably long time.
Pogodin returned to find them silent, and sat to one side, gripping the index finger of one hand with thumb and forefinger of the other and tugging it uneasily.
“The power must be shared,” Vielgorsky said. ”The party must be reestablished.”
“Not by murderers and louts,” Mirsky said sharply, jaw muscles tensing. “We have had enough of them. Russia has been raped by murderers and louts too long in th
e name of revolution and the party. No more. I will end it all.here rather than bring this back to our children on Earth.”
Vielgorsky fumbled at his pocket, pulling out an antique gold watch. “Belozersky and Yazykov will be frantic by now. There’s no telling what they will do if they don’t hear from me.”
“That weakens them,” Mirsky said. ”Let them sit for a while, or hang themselves.”
Vielgorsky grinned wolfishly and shook his finger at Mirsky. “You bastard. I know what you are. You’re a visionary. A deviationist visionary.”
“And I’m the only one you can be comfortable with, sharing the power,” Mirsky said. ”You know they will come after you eventually. You can no more trust them than you can trust a mad dog.”
Vielgorsky did not look convinced.
“Maybe now we understand each other.”
Vielgorsky shrugged and turned down the corners of his mouth.
At 1200 hours the next day, Pogodin aimed the track’s antenna toward the southern bore hole, and Vielgorsky sent a message to Yazykov and Belozersky: “Our fourth chamber troops have captured Mirsky and henchmen in third chamber library. Join us there. Trial will be held in library.”
Chapter Forty-two
They watched in silence as the red line of the singularity guided them toward the black shield. Lanier joined Farley and Carrolson in the rear, trying to make sense out of the instruments.
They periodically registered meaningful data, but not often enough to be of much use.
“Something approaching along the singularity—It’s a machine, big and black,” Heineman said. ”Coming up fast ...” Lanier pushed himself forward.
Straddling the glowing red line, a machine twice as thick as the tuberider, round in cross section, bore down on them, its surface a glossy black. Bright purple lines on the machine’s surface outlined squares and rectangles in symmetric arrays.
Lanier watched in facination as the squares and rectangles opened to extrude grapplers and a variety of jointed arms. It now resembled a deep-sea submersible—or a madman’s Swiss Army knife. ”What’s it going to do?”
“It’s matching speed. Looks like it’s—” Colored lights flashed in the cabin. Heineman flinched and drew back; Lanier closed his eyes and batted out with his hands.
”What was that?” Carrolson called from the rear. Red and green translucent objects danced again before Lanier.
He reached out to touch one, but it was insubstantial.
“They’re symbols or something,” Heinernan said. ”You see them?.”
“I see them,” Lanier said. ”I don’t know what they are, or where they’re coming from.”
The radio hissed again. ”Please state your identity and reason for approaching the Axis City shield.”
Lanier took the mike from Heineman. ”I’m Garry Lanier.” That’ll clue them, he thought ruefully. ”We’re exploring. If there are problems—”
“Do you wish an advocate?”
“I’m sorry—what?”
“You will be assigned an advocate immediately. Are you a corporeal human claiming the appropriate rights in the Hexamon Court?”
“Say yes,” Carrolson advised.
“Yes.”
“You will now be removed from the flaw and escorted to Axis Nader.”
The machine ran one arm down the underside of the tuberider.
Flying sparks obscured the windscreen; the V/STOL rolled and vibrated.
Gas hissed against the fuselage and alarms went off in the cockpit; there was a wrenching sound, and with a jerk, they floated free.
The tuberider had been cut from the singularity and cast adrift.
The V/STOL had then been removed from the tube-rider.
Heineman peered up at the bright red line and the dark machine, which still clung to the stern of the mangled and useless tuberider.
“It’s pulled us out of the mounting,” he said, voice thick with anger. The aircraft had drifted thirty or thirty-five meters. ”I’m going back to check integrity.”
Lanier pulled himself into the copilot’s seat. He methodically strapped himself in and tried to control his breathing. Just like ditching, he thought. No worse, perhaps better.
”I don’t hear any leaks, but I’d still rather be down in an atmosphere,” Heineman called from the cabin.
The machine abandoned the tuberider and spread its grapples wide as it drifted toward the V/STOL. Heineman came forward again, brushing between Carrolson and Farley.
“Shit,” he said. It was the first time Lanier had ever heard him swear.
The machine’s bulk obscured the windscreen and the plane twisted. Floating in the cockpit hatchway, Heineman did not roll with the craft.
Lanier rotated around the startled engineer, then reversed. ”Hang on before the next one,” he shouted.
Heineman grabbed for the pilot’s seat with one hand. The airplane spun around again and, like a martial arts master, used Heineman’s own mass to dislocate his shoulder.
The engineer screamed and let go, now rolling in the opposite direction of the cabin. Lanier watched helplessly, waiting for the motion to stop. When the lull stretched out to four seconds, he unbuckled and held Heineman around the waist, pushing him gently toward the rear.
The engineer’s face was a mask of pain; he opened his eyes wide like a child cruelly injured by a friend.
Carrolson and Farley had sustained bruises but no worse before grabbing handgrips. Farley held Heineman’s head and Carrolson took his kicking feet while Lanier inspected the arm.
“Son of a bitch!” Heineman howled. ”Leave it alone.”
“The longer it’s out, the longer it’ll hurt,” Lanier said. ”I don’t think anything’s torn. Jesus, how do I reset in zero-g?”
“Here, brace your foot in one of these stanchions and we’ll grab his torso,” Carrolson said. Heineman squirmed, wild-eyed.
His short hair stuck out in all directions. Lanier hitched one foot under a rung and pressed the other against Heineman’s ribs.
Carrolson and Farley tightened their hold on the engineer. “Let me go,” Heineman said weakly, his face slick with sweat and tears.
Lanier grabbed one arm and forearm and pulled, braced and twisted all at once. Heineman screamed again and rolled his eyes until only whites showed. There was a satisfying billiardball snick, and the arm was back in place. His head rolled limply and his mouth gaped. He had passed out.
“He’ll never forgive us now,” Carolson said.
“Wrap the shoulder in a cold compress,” Lanier instructed.
He pushed his face against the side port again. The machine obscured the windscreen.
“Do not attempt to accelerate,” the radio voice advised again. “Do not activate your drives. You are being taken to Axis Nader.”
Farley helped Heineman into a seat. He lolled his head back to look at Carrolson, his face pasty. Carrolson inspected his eyes, prying the lids open with two fingers. ”Shock,” she said. She opened the first-aid pack and took out a prepackaged syringe, injecting it into his uninjured arm.
Lanier sat in the cockpit and tried to get whatever information he could from the instruments. The V/STOL was moving rapidly; that much and little else was apparent.
Olmy entered the flaw monitor room, picting his Presidential access pass at the corporeal guard. The room was a high, oval chamber filled with out-of-focus information picts directed at two neomorphs on monitors duty. He floated to their position and was surrounded by detailed readouts on the destroyed and drifting tuberider and the airplane, now in control of a flaw maintenance vehicle. ”This is a security operation, by extended order of the President,” Olmy picted at the senior neomorph.
“I cannot accept that,” the neomorph replied. ”This is a serious breach and must be reported to the courts at once. They will be assigned an advocate.”
“They already have an advocate. You must accept a direct order from a representative of the President,” Olmy said. The neomorph—shaped like
an egg, with traction field grappling arms extended to each side and a human face on the forward, large end of the egg—surrounded itself with a picted white circle, signaling compliance under duress. But that was not enough for Olmy.
“By order of the President of the Infinite Hexamon Nexus, authority of the Presiding Minister, you are removed from this duty,” he said. The neomorph protested furiously in garbled sound and red-shifted picts as it exited the chamber.
Olmy took the position, exchanging glances with the remaining neomorph.
“This will not reach the court,” he stated.
“It has already been relayed,” the second neomorph said.
Olmy telepicted a message to Suli Ram Kikura’s office in Central City. A stylized personal emblem appeared before him. ”Ser Ram Kikura is not available at the present. This is one of her partials. May I help?”
“This is an emergency. We have more guests. They are in violation of Hexamon law, and their case needs to be suppressed in court immediately, authority of the Presiding Minister.” He picted the code authority.
“Received,” the partial said. Then, in a completely lifelike image, the partial shook his head. ”Really, Olmy, you bring us so much trouble.” The partial signed off, and Olmy opened another channel to Axis Nader, requesting that the Frant escort Patricia from her quarters to the inspection hangar. He ordered the clearing of all passageways between. That would arouse some suspicion and resentment, but he could see no way around it. ”And we’ll need more quarters space.” The Frant also took his coded authority and signed off.
Olmy then turned his full attention to the flaw maintenance device and the aircraft. ”They are uninjured?” he inquired, his picts demandingly purple-tinted.
“They have not been harmed by this station,” the neomorph answered, appearing alarmed.
“You realize the secrecy of this operation?” he asked. It assented in the meekest shade of green. ”Good. Then direct your vehicle and the lilators to the inspection hangar.”
Olmy pushed himself from the station and the chamber and found the quickest shaft to Axis Nader.