Justin gave one of his sad smiles. “Yes, the power is back on. There is a nuclear power plant on the Ek side of the river. It is old, but it works. We only had to start it up and repair the transmission lines.”
“You’re not doing too badly here,” Dolph said, as if he were trying to convince Justin as much as himself.
The elevator rose smoothly. Mirrored walls reflected our dishevelled hair and reddened faces. On the fifteenth floor, we stepped out into an open-plan office furnished with oversized split-level desks built for four-armed people, and chairs and couches with arms shaped like capital Es in cross-section. The Sixers used Ek stuff by preference, given their physiques. The modern decor was a far cry from the sodden mess I remembered. The sun had risen behind the clouds. Pale light poured through a north-facing wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.
“I try to keep in mind that things are much, much better than they used to be.” Justin sat down at a computer and powered it up. “How much do I owe you?”
“Thirty will do,” I said, sticking to the original agreement. I had intended to play hardball and get him to match Dr. Tierney’s sixty, but I felt too sorry for him.
“That is not enough for your trouble,” Justin said, tapping keys. “We’ll make it a hundred.”
“That’s very good of you,” I said, astonished. “But will it go through?” I was thinking about Burden’s radio blocking protocols, and the de facto comms censorship the Hurtworlds Authority wielded by controlling the planet’s only FTL drone. For us to get paid, Justin’s transaction needed to get on board that FTL drone and get to an EkBank node.
“Oh yes,” Justin said. “We have a dedicated data landline to the spaceport, and Burden allows my financial transactions. He wants me to make purchases.”
Dolph rubbed a thumbnail against his lower teeth. “A hundred for us, three hundred to Total Research Solutions—more? Four hundred?—and I get the impression it’s not the first time you’ve made that kind of purchase … The subsidies ain’t even meant to cover much beyond starvation rations and running water.”
“But the subsidies are not our only source of revenue.” Justin led us to the north-facing floor-to-ceiling windows.
Below, the river threaded through urban sprawl. The entire planet was carpeted with the debris of lost civilizations. Smog and coal smoke smudged the hills on the horizon. Closer to hand, I saw the green squares of the backyard farms where the Sixers grew vegetables in soil that was half rubble. I also saw what must be the nuclear power plant, on the far bank of the river: a fortress wall enclosed a spacious compound, dotted with the trademark cooling towers of first-generation fission power. I shivered at the sight. I may fly a spaceship with an antimatter drive, but nuclear fission? Now that’s not safe.
“That’s Mittel Trevoyvox Extraction Ventures?” Dolph said.
Rows of prefab warehouses lined both banks of the river, flat roofs blanketed with snow. “Thirty-one point five million servers, running around the clock,” Justin said.
“Whoa,” I said. “Your father only had about six server centers.”
Justin nodded. “It’s an arms race. Eventually, currency mines will cover entire planets. You’ll need the power of a star just to solve a single hash. That’s already how the Eks do it. They have orbital currency mines powered by solar arrays the size of moons. We have to keep expanding, just to keep up with them.”
The way the EkBank works, anyone can have a go at mining new GCs to add to the ledger. All you need is servers to solve the equations … lots of servers. When d’Alencon and I were spitballing possible sources for Rafael Ijiuto’s funds, he had thrown out the possibility of currency mining. The Darkworlds didn’t have the necessary infrastructure for that. But with millennia of technological junk buried in their basements, the Sixers did.
I would have expected Justin to be proud of his achievement. Instead, he sounded tired beyond his years. “Burden permits us to continue operating, because the more money we have, the more there is for him to steal.” He walked towards the elevator.
Irene drifted back to us. “Need your binos,” she murmured.
“What for?”
“Just come over here.”
The south wall of the office was all windows, as well. We could see the spaceport from here. Dolph had his binoculars out in a flash. “There she is,” he said in relief. I grabbed the binos. It reassured me to see the St. Clare unhurt, sitting where we had left her, a steel-gray beast among all the white HA ships. I now guessed that some of those were Traveller ships, repainted. That’s why the spaceport was so full. Undercover Travellers and undercover ships. Could their usual grisly style of ship art be a deliberate ploy, to make us think that we would know them when we saw them?
Behind us, Justin said, “You see? I told you your ship would be all right. The spaceport manager is an Ek—Isir Olthamo. Xe is not corrupt. Xe doesn’t believe Burden is corrupt, either, and Burden wants to keep it that way.”
Irene took the binos. Staring through them, she stiffened.
“What?” Dolph said.
Irene looked up at Justin. “There’s a barge on the river, just inside the spaceport.” I could see it, a green rectangle moored on the Ek side of the river. “It’s covered with a tarp. There’s something under that tarp—see? Do you know what that is?”
“Yes. It is a spaceship. It arrived about a week ago. They moved it onto that barge and covered it up. I do not know why.”
“Because they don’t want it to be spotted from orbit before they get a chance to paint it white,” I said. On the way back to the elevator, I was morose, thinking about the audacious scale of the Travellers’ scam, taking place right under the Fleet’s nose. I would have to tell Jose-Maria d’Alencon about this.
We glided down in the elevator. Justin seemed nervous. Several times he started to speak. At last he said, “Can I trust you?”
Lightly, I said, “Son, we just brought you a cargo of illegal genetic engineering materials. I think you can trust us.”
The elevator doors opened. An Ek waited. Xe wore a red cape with six armholes, for xis six arms. An Ur-Ek. I’d never seen one on the Hurtworlds before. Xe surveyed us with glinting yellow eyes. “These are the off-worlders?”
“Yes,” Justin said. “I’m going to show them the lab.”
“Are you sure that is wise?”
“They are my friends.”
This time the elevator had stopped underground. We walked through brightly lit corridors. The Ur-Ek put xis middle right hand on Justin’s arm and spoke to him in the Ek language. Justin responded in the same tongue, gesturing at us. He had learned the language of the Sixers’ former enemy. If I got a chance, I wanted to ask him how the war had ended.
Double doors swung open. We entered a cavernous room filled with throbbing, whooshing, humming equipment. It was similar enough to Dr. Tierney’s set-up that I knew immediately what we were looking at.
“Welcome,” Justin said, “to the future.”
16
Welcome to the future. The exact same phrase Dr. Tierney had used. Actually, Justin had probably got it from him.
It was just after dawn; there was no one at work. At the far end of the lab there was another door. Sixers were carrying our plastikretes into the lab and unpacking them, while Eks supervised the operation.
“So what are you researching?” I said. It was cold in the lab, and I folded my arms to hide my shivering.
Justin led us to a workstation with a split-level desk. He sat in an Ek-style chair. “I am not an expert. I have little scientific understanding. But they are experts.” He waved at the Eks who had taken charge of our cargo.
I frowned. What could those Eks teach anyone, apart from how to build homemade artillery and bombs? They got sent here for a reason—because they were felons. Every Ek on Mittel Trevoyvox was either a criminal, or the child of criminals. That’s why I had been surprised to learn that the war had ended without rivers of blood in the streets.
“Th
e Empire has laws against everything.” The fluting voice came from the Ur-Ek who had met us at the elevator. “I am Morshti. My father and mother were nobles. They committed lèse-majesté. A serious crime, that is. But in general, it is easy to get sent to the Hurtworlds. Laws against theft, fraud, embezzlement, assault, deviating from specifications, removing tools from one’s place of work, feeding birds, wasting water, reading English books, putting one’s house in the wrong place, wearing pink, using drugs, selling drugs, and insulting ticket-collectors, the Empire has. Also, it has laws against genetic engineering.”
“Ah,” I murmured, eyeing the other Eks with new understanding. They’d been deported to Mittel Trevoyvox for messing around with gene-modding technology. And now Justin had given them a place to carry on doing it.
“Does Burden know about this?” Dolph said.
Justin grimaced. “He reviews all our procurement requests.”
“That’s a yes, then.” I saw that the relationship between Burden and the Sixers was more complicated than it had appeared at first. In a sense, they needed each other. Justin had gotten away with setting up an illegal genetic engineering lab … because Burden was a criminal. The Travellers were content to let Justin procure illegal materials, as long as they got their cut. “So what are you working on?” I said.
“Look.” We gathered around Justin’s chair. The central screen of his setup displayed a naked Sixer male. “This is one of the subjects we’ve sequenced. We’re going to sequence everyone.”
Justin touched a key, and the Sixer on the screen began to shrink. His lower arms shrivelled and vanished. His torso narrowed. He became a mainstream human, and flashed a simulated grin before disappearing.
“You see? We’re going to eliminate our genetic defects,” Justin said with a tense smile. “Then there will be no reason for them to keep us imprisoned here.”
“Son,” Dolph said, “gene therapy can’t make you shorter. It can’t amputate limbs. It ain’t magic.”
“I thought you were just going to improve your heart capacity and bone structure,” Irene said, disappointed.
“We would still be Sixers,” Justin said. “This is the only way they’ll ever let us leave. Oh, I know there’s no hope for the living. But germline gene modification can fix the next generation in utero.”
“So you’re going to throw away your past,” Dolph said. “Hundreds of years of suffering. Everything your ancestors lived and died for. You’re just going to erase that from history, huh?”
Justin scowled at him. “We are merely undoing what was done to us in the past.”
“Right,” Dolph said. “Now ask yourself if that’s too high a price to pay for freedom.”
Morshti said, “In my opinion, it will not work. Germline genetic modification is not a game. He’s likely to do more harm than good. But a hobby, everyone needs, right?”
“I wish you would keep your opinions to yourself.” Justin pushed himself upright, using his lower pair of arms, while shutting down the computer with his upper pair of arms.
“Am I not Queen?” Morshti said. That startled me, but it made sense, given that xe was an Ur-Ek.
“Queen?” Irene said.
“Of course.” Morshti eased up behind Justin and kissed him on the side of his face. “To be clear, I hope your project will succeed. Then leave the planet, you would.” Xe smiled circularly, and nuzzled the top of Justin’s head. “Ours it would be, forever.”
Staring straight ahead, Justin said, “My royal wife jests. Among the Eks, marriage pacts are the most weighty political alliances. My marriage to Morshti has brought peace to New Abilene-Qitalhaut. We are allies—united—one people.”
Dolph’s and Irene’s faces mirrored my own disgust and amazement. Eks and humans simply do not marry. They can’t, can they?
Catching our all-too-obvious reaction, Justin colored. His blush reminded me how young he was. He threw off Morshti’s embrace, rose, and started to walk through the lab to the far entrance, biting into a cold baked potato which he took from his pocket. Unappetizing though his snack looked, my stomach growled. It seemed like days since I’d eaten.
I caught up with him as he reached the far doors. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s none of our business. But I’m concerned about the situation with Burden. I’ll report the incident last night to the authorities on Ponce de Leon. They’ll take the appropriate steps.”
Justin pushed the doors open. Cold air blew in from the parking garage. For a minute he and I were alone on the far side of the doors. “Please don’t do that. If Burden goes … so does our only hope.” His stiff smile said he knew he’d made a deal with the devil, but he was sticking to it.
The others came out. At a shout from Justin, Sixer and Ek soldiers jogged away to fetch our truck.
The parking garage was dotted with APVs, snowploughs, and a good few tanks left over from the war, Ek-built monsters with turrets as well as main guns. Surveying it all, Dolph said cynically, “Sixers make good soldiers. Why don’t you just hire yourselves out to the Fleet as cannon fodder? That’s what we did.”
Our diesel rumbled up, already repaired by efficient Sixer mechanics. Two APVs, detailed as our security escort, followed us.
We drove for several minutes without speaking. The sunlight gilded the fresh blanket of snow in the streets. At last Dolph broke the silence. “Stupid goddamn kid.”
“What’s that?” Irene exclaimed.
A star shot up from behind the MTEV building. The crackling thunder of ship engines rolled distantly across the golden sky.
“Someone just took off from the spaceport.” I stepped on the gas.
17
I stopped the truck outside the spaceport perimeter gate, a shimmering three-meter force field with a railroad-crossing style barrier in front, so you wouldn’t drive straight into it. The guards on duty made us wait. I stood in the snow outside the gate, weary and full of forebodings.
At last a six-armed Ur-Ek ambled towards the other side of the force field, xis fur-trimmed cape swishing. I thought of Morshti, but this Ek’s face had had the soft, puffy look that denotes old age. Xe spoke in a deep, tranquil voice, muffled by the force field. “Mr. Starrunner. I apologize for the delay.” The shimmering barrier between us vanished. I thanked the Ek in surprise. “I am Isir Olthamo, manager of this spaceport.” Xe spoke perfect English, without the usual garbled Ek syntax. A sign of class. “I trust you had no difficulties delivering your cargo?”
“None at all,” I said. “Thank you so much, Xr. Olthamo.”
“You will be departing today?”
“Yes.” I paused. “We saw a ship launch about forty-five minutes ago. Was that a Hurtworlds Authority flight, or …”
“Not precisely. It was my colleague, Jonathan Burden. He has gone on vacation.” Olthamo looked sly. “One may hope his vacation will be indefinitely extended.”
Burden gone! That was good news … for us, but not for Justin.
Torn, I considered laying it all out for Olthamo. But Justin had asked me not to. And I’d already decided to give d’Alencon the information first. I just thanked Olthamo again and got back in the truck.
We passed a couple of the disguised Traveller ships on our way back to the St. Clare. Humans scuttled around them, clearly readying the ships for take-off.
“Look at that,” Dolph said. “It’s like we gassed a rats’ nest. It ain’t like Travellers to run scared.” He looked at me. “Maybe they think we’re gonna sic the Fleet on them.”
“Nnnoooo,” Irene said, with a nervous laugh. “They’d start asking us questions, and we’d never get out of here.”
“Don’t seem to be much point,” I mumbled. “Burden already ran, anyway.”
Dolph’s lips pressed together. He leaned out the window and gave the middle finger to the Travellers.
I had seldom been so glad to see the St. Clare. A knot of tension in my chest unwound as I dropped into the familiar trunk corridor. “You took long enough,” Martin said
, slithering out of the pressure door that led to the engineering deck. “What happened? You get sunburned? On this planet?” Our faces were still red and irritated from the tear gas.
“Long story,” I said. “What’s our resupply status?”
“The water tankers have been and gone. Reaction mass is at 100%. Still waiting on the other stuff.”
“We’ll launch without it. Resupply on Yesanyase Skont. I have a feeling there’s about to be a run on consumables around here.”
I changed out of my damp clothes and then made straight for the galley. I constructed an economy-size sandwich out of stores: long-life bread, deli meat, processed cheese, and cryo lettuce from Ponce de Leon. Dolph was already there, eating a microwave chicken dinner. Irene elbowed us out of the way to get her vacuum-packed mice out of the fridge.
“Guess what,” Dolph said to Martin with his mouth full. “The king’s married to an Ek.”
“You’re kidding. That’s disgusting.”
“Right?” Dolph said. “How do they even do it?”
“I’ve been trying to convince myself they don’t,” I said.
“Well, it wouldn’t be technically impossible,” Dolph said. “Every Ek has both sets of parts, right?”
“That’s why they call ‘em xim,” Martin said.
“I just wonder which tab goes in which slot,” Dolph said. “I didn’t get faggy vibes from the young monarch … but then again, he’s married to an Ek, so all bets are off.”
“He called xim his wife,” I recalled.
“Maybe they stick to oral gratification,” Martin speculated.
“I’d rather get a blow job from a vacuum cleaner,” I said with a shudder. Dolph and I both instinctively crossed our legs at the thought of all those sharp teeth. Martin probably would have, too, if he had legs (or exterior genitals) in python form.
“I know!” MF piped up, rolling along the corridor. “Simultaneous penetration! After all, male humans also have orifices!”
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