by Linda Nagata
“We know it.” I finish strapping into Glover’s rig. It feels small and awkward, but a few experimental steps convince me I can make it work. I walk over to Parris. “What were you working on in your lab, Dr. Parris?”
“Who are you?” she asks again. “Are you Canadian special forces?”
I don’t answer. I just watch her through the anonymous black screen of my visor. Without night vision, I must appear to her as a looming shadow with mechanical edges; nothing to separate me from a walking machine. I intend it to rattle her, and it does. The pace of her breathing picks up. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Because you think I’m part of it.”
“Are you?”
“No! Vince stole my work. He had it with him. The microbial cultures were in a black sample case.” She tries to move, to turn, but the exoskeleton holds her in place. “I need to recover it.”
“Lieutenant?” I ask.
“Got it, Captain.”
Logan comes over, carrying a frost-covered, molded-plastic case. I shine an LED light on it so Parris can see. “This it?”
“Yes.”
“How deadly is it?”
She’s cold, scared, exhausted, sinking into hypothermia. Her earlier confusion returns. “Deadly? I don’t understand. What are you asking?”
I rephrase my question. “How fast does it spread? How many will die?”
I’m watching her eyes past the frost that clings to her lashes; they widen as understanding kicks in. “You think it’s a bioweapon. Oh my God! Is that why you came? You thought I was running a biowarfare lab?”
“What else would you be doing behind all that security?”
“Bioprospecting.”
She says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You want to explain what that means?”
She’s strapped into my dead sister so she can’t really gesture, but she moves her fingers to indicate the ice below our feet. “That world down there, it’s barely explored. The microorganisms on the seafloor—most can’t be cultured in a lab. So we analyze them in situ. In place. It’s a robotic system. Microlabs. Little automated pods with nutrient chips. We grow the bacteria, test it, sequence the DNA.”
“All on the seafloor?”
“Yes, but—”
I spotlight the case. “Then what the fuck’s in there?”
I swear I see guilt in her eyes. “Well, you see, once we have the DNA sequences, we can synthesize genes. We do that in the lab. And those synthetic genes get implanted into lab-stable microbe strains. But the legal requirements for … working with synthetic organisms …”
Yeah, now I understand. The only thing they brought up from the seafloor was data. She could have been doing the lab work in Toronto or Vancouver or anywhere else. But there was an advantage to doing it aboard Sigil. “You’ve been sidestepping the rules. You wanted to do the work out here where the jurisdiction is open to question.”
“You have to understand. We’re in competition with the Chinese, the Russians. If we waited to get permits—”
“You found something worth protecting.”
She nods; her bloodless lips crack as she presses them together. “We’ve been running simulations. We may have an effective treatment for several degenerative brain diseases.”
“And that’s worth a lot of money?”
“Potential billions. Enough to tempt pirates. The company sent in extra security while we go through the permit process.” Her voice goes soft. “Vince knew what we had. We didn’t tell him, but he knew. He wanted to sell the synthetic strain. He said he had a buyer.”
ETM 7-1 does not exist to referee shares in dragon treasure. “I need you to be straight with me, Dr. Parris. Do the contents of that case have biowarfare applications?”
“No. It has nothing to do with biowarfare. I would never work in a field like that. War is immoral. Killing people is immoral. I can’t believe what Vince did.”
“Goddamn it, Kanoa, is she telling the truth?”
My emotional analysis program, FaceValue, refuses to pass judgment because her face is masked, but Kanoa has more resources. “Voice and pupil analysis indicate yes.”
And that means this mission has been a waste of time and lives. All those slaughtered at Sigil are dead because we moved in—our presence triggered this disaster—and the only thing that was ever at stake was money.
I hate fucking look-and-see missions.
“Why are you still alive?” I ask her.
“Because it was my project! Vince thought I might be useful. That’s the only reason.”
“It parses as truth,” Kanoa says.
I have another question. “Did he try to call his contact? Ask for support?”
She nods. “After they had to land the helicopter, he made a call.”
“And what happened?”
“They were angry. From the things he said, I think they were Chinese. And then they wouldn’t talk to him. And we started walking.”
I take the case from Logan and step away. “Kanoa, you picking up anything on the military networks?”
“Negative. Nothing so far.”
“So what do you think?” I ask him.
“I think Glover’s employer didn’t want to get caught with a bloody hand in the cookie jar, so they cut him loose.”
“Expecting him to die?”
“Yes.”
Whatever it is we’ve been looking for these past months, this wasn’t it.
I stash the case in my pack. Palehorse Keep has been a disaster, and it’s not over yet. I need to get Parris to shelter, and I need to get my squad safely home.
“What’s the status of Oscar-1?” I ask.
“Unknown. We’ve lost track of him. The base commander was questioning his credentials. It’s possible he’s been arrested.”
If that’s true, we are in a really bad position.
Every mission is subject to chance, but if the Red is behind us, mission support usually goes like clockwork. The Red makes sure of it, issuing orders, manipulating schedules, providing access, whatever it takes to let us move and move quietly to where we need to be—but not this time. “It’s like the Red pulled out of this mission. The action didn’t play out as expected, and we got dumped.”
“Something else may be going on,” he concedes.
Just a few hours ago, I was chewing out Tran for assuming we could rely on the Red—but that is exactly what we’ve been doing on this mission. We were relying on the Red to get Oscar-1 past the military checkpoint on Ellesmere, without preparing any alternate means of refueling his aircraft.
Kanoa tries to reassure me. “There’s no evidence of an immediate threat.”
“Matter of time.”
“Roger that. Get to Tuvalu Station and we’ll have more options.”
• • • •
I brief the squad, and then we move out. I’m exhausted; we all are. We ran a marathon today, but it’s not just the distance that weighs on us. The cold, the wind, the adrenaline—the doubt—each takes a toll. We push on anyway.
At least the ice is flat. The sky remains clear. Even the wind eases a little. Six kilometers isn’t far. That’s what I tell myself. But it’s far enough that I have time to envision new and dire worries.
“Kanoa.”
“Here.”
“Are we looking at flat ice like this all the way to Tuvalu Station?”
“Affirmative.”
“I don’t like it. We’ve got no cover. If we get surprised by a nest of mercenaries—”
“Negative. This is not Sigil. It’s not a petroleum company. There is no evidence of private security.”
“Why is it set up so close to Sigil ? That’s suspicious, don’t you think?”
“No, it’s deliberate. There’s a mutual-support agreement on file that says in case of emergency, they help each other out. Tuvalu is staffed only by a few scientists and pioneer types. Nothing to worry about
.”
“Scientists aren’t harmless,” I point out. “They invented nukes, guns, bombs, toxins—”
“Your cerebral wiring.”
“Exactly. You can’t trust them.”
“I think we need to adjust your settings.”
Kanoa says it to shut me up and it works. But as I lope behind the squad, my footplates crunching against the ice, I wonder about it. “Kanoa.”
“Here.”
“Does that happen? Do you sit down with medical, assess the baseline, adjust it … change who we are?”
“You don’t have enough on your mind? Tie your shit down, Shelley. You’re on the easy leg of this mission. I called ahead to Tuvalu, let them know you’re coming.”
“You fucking called them? What did you tell them?”
“The truth. Sigil was attacked, the helicopter shot down, Dr. Parris is the sole survivor.”
“Are we the good guys or the bad guys in this story?”
“There are no good guys, but they don’t know that yet. They expect to treat Dr. Parris for hypothermia, and fly all of you out as soon as her condition improves.”
“So we leave her there and take the helicopter?”
“Roger that. I want you back at Sigil. There won’t be room on that helicopter for everyone in the squad, but you can at least fly the wounded out.”
• • • •
We’ve been calling Tuvalu a research station, but that term implies a permanence and an importance that Tuvalu lacks.
Deep Winter Sigil was a billion-dollar facility built to last decades and designed to be functional whether afloat in the open ocean or locked up in ice. But as we approach Tuvalu, it becomes clear that nothing about it is permanent. The buildings I thought I saw in the satellite image are really just tents. Starlight falls in slick reflections against the metallic sheen of their fabric, making them shine in night vision. Two are shaped like Quonset huts. The third is an expansive yurt-like structure with a round footprint. Short tunnels link them together. None of the tents have windows or show any sign of artificial light leaking out. I see no movement.
Several times I pause to listen. My helmet audio filters the sound of the wind and quiets the crunch of our footsteps. I hear no other sound. But my helmet does detect EM signatures—a lot of them, just like at any human outpost.
Kanoa annotates the scene with labels projected in my visor, expanding on the information with a voice report. “The round tent is the hangar. The other two are shared-use—living and research space. You can enter through the airlock on the central tent.”
No reason for all of us to go inside; we’re not planning to be here long.
“Escamilla, I want you to take a walk around the outside of the facility. Look for anything interesting.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Tran, take up a post outside the hangar door. Assuming there really is a helicopter in there, make sure it doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got a feeling, Shelley?” Kanoa asks.
I look for the skullnet icon. If it were aglow, that would indicate interference, input into my emotional state, but it’s invisible, so I’m not getting warnings from on high. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“You’re reading a little tense.”
Not really a surprise. Everything on this mission has been a fuck-up, and now we’re about to steal a helicopter.
As we near the tents, Escamilla and Tran split off to cover their assignments. The rest of us walk with Parris up to a door of insulated aluminum that opens as we approach. Bright artificial light spills out, blinding me for a full second before my visor compensates and drops out of night vision.
When I can see again, I notice that color has returned to the world—and that without even thinking about it, I’ve turned the muzzle of my HITR to cover a stocky figure in a bright orange parka who is standing in the doorway. He glares at me from a flat, brown, wizened face framed by an orange hood. My encyclopedia runs an automatic facial recognition routine and tags him with a name: John Parker. I let the muzzle of my HITR drop until it’s pointing at the ground. I suspect John Parker is already regretting this encounter, not that he really had a choice.
In a low voice with a soft inflection that suggests a native Arctic heritage, he says, “I have to ask you to take off your exoskeletons and helmets.”
Kanoa cuts in right away. “Negative. Take control of the facility.”
I let the skullnet capture my response: Roger that.
One of the most impressive aspects of human psychology is our proficiency with bullshit. Specifically, the way we use it to reduce violence in the world. I don’t want to kick my way inside the facility, and I don’t want to directly challenge John, but I need him to know who’s making the rules. So I play the concerned and cautious commanding officer. “That’s fine, Mr. Parker, but we’ll need to check things out first. I’ll send my lieutenant in to look around. Logan, take Roman with you.”
John’s lips press together. He isn’t happy, but he’s too smart to argue. He retreats into a vestibule. Logan and Roman follow, closing the door behind them.
It’s just me and the civilian left waiting on the threshold. I turn to Parris. The sooner she’s off my hands, the better. “Let’s get you out of that rig.”
She’s exhausted and only half-conscious. She doesn’t resist, but she doesn’t help either as I pull the cinches.
Escamilla checks in. “Shelley.”
“Here.”
“Found a cache of supplies outside the hangar. Can’t tell what they are.”
“Leave it.”
As I free Parris from my exoskeleton she starts to slump. I catch her, walk her into the vestibule, and help her sit down on a bench. The inner door is closed, but the vestibule is still warmer than outside in the wind.
Logan begins to relay his report. “Large room just inside. Six personnel present. No weapons. No overt signs of hostility.”
Kanoa watches through Logan’s helmet cams to ensure nothing is missed. “Confirmed,” he says. “All six personnel cross-check with known records.”
Logan directs Roman to stay in the central area while he moves through the tunnel to the second tent. “Looks like a dormitory.”
“Clear the rooms,” I tell him.
“Roger that.”
I leave Parris to the goodwill of Tuvalu’s staff, and go outside again. The dialog between Logan and Kanoa continues as I strip out of the dead merc’s rig and get back into my own.
“Room one, clear,” Logan reports.
“Confirmed.”
“Room two, clear.”
I walk toward the hangar, where I meet Escamilla and Tran. “Have we got a way out of here, sir?” Tran asks me.
“Still waiting on that.”
A door in the side of the hangar opens. I turn fast, but this time I manage to keep my HITR across my chest instead of targeting the civilian framed in the doorway. Artificial light from inside illuminates a blue parka and hood, half-raised hands, gloved palms turned out, no obvious weapons. My gaze shifts from the hands to the face. She’s standing a step back from the door so the light falls at an angle across the bare skin of her face. Black skin, dark-brown eyes, elegant eyebrows drawn down in a fierce scowl, her lip curled in contempt. “You got anything human left under that helmet, Shelley?” she asks me.
Escamilla and Tran both turn their weapons in her direction. Kanoa checks in with a monosyllabic observation: “Shit.”
And me? Shock hits me so hard it blows every thought out of my brain but one—one that’s so strong, so focused, my fucking skullnet picks it up, translates it to audio, and in a calm tone that in no way represents how I feel, I hear my artificial voice say over gen-com, “Jaynie.”
It’s an impossible coincidence to run into Jayne Vasquez here, at the ice-end of nowhere—but then, I don’t believe in coincidence. I know better than that.
“Shelley, take it easy,” Kanoa warns—as if I would ev
er hurt her.
Jaynie can’t see my face, but she recognized me anyway. We’ve been on enough missions together. She knows what I look like when I’m rigged. She knows how I move.
I shoulder my HITR and then I reach with two hands for my helmet.
Kanoa protests, “What are you doing?”
I ignore him and take the helmet off. I peel back my thermal hood. The cold hits like fire, but I don’t care, because I need to show Jaynie that I am not more or less than what I used to be.
She takes a long look at me. Then she steps aside to let me into the shelter of the hangar.
• • • •
Inside the hangar, the air is heated to five degrees American—bearable compared to the outside. The round walls surround a small Bell helicopter painted rescue yellow; the span of its blades is only a couple of meters less than the hangar’s diameter.
Escamilla follows me in. Roman comes in through the tunnel that leads to the living area. I ignore them both. So does Jaynie.
She pushes back the hood of her parka, letting me see that she is not wearing a skullcap. Her scalp is covered in tightly curled black hair trimmed short in a military cut. I want to ask if she got wired, if she had a skullnet put in, but I know better. “You gave it up, didn’t you? No skullcap. No skullnet. You’re not an emo-junkie anymore.”
That’s not what she wants to talk about. “You are supposed to be dead.” She watches me with a stonewall expression. “The fucking United States Navy shot you out of the sky. Or was that faked?”
“It wasn’t faked.” The navy fired the missile that brought down our little spaceplane, Lotus. It wasn’t a direct hit, but the shockwave and the debris were enough to break us apart. “Kurnakova is dead.”
“And you’re still here. Still God’s favorite.”
God’s favorite toy, maybe.
Since I’m not wearing my helmet anymore, Kanoa has switched gen-com to my overlay. “This is not what you’re here for, Shelley. The only thing you need to worry about is getting your squad safely extracted.”
“I don’t agree, sir.” Dread and anticipation wage war in my head as I look past Jaynie to the tunnel entrance, imagining Delphi appearing there. I kept track of her for a while. I was glad when she partnered with Jaynie. When they set up a company together, I was sure she’d be okay. So I left it at that. I stopped looking back. But now? “There is a reason for this,” I insist.