Bedivere shut down the screen and leaned on the counter, trying to clear his head and think it through. “Not only is he dead, there wasn’t any official gifting of his DNA registered. He didn’t pass on his body.”
“So is Devlin Varkan, or not?” Connell asked.
“I don’t know,” Bedivere said slowly, not liking the answer. “The DNA isn’t registered in Devlin’s name. That means he stole the body.”
Connell’s eyes widened. “How could a Varkan do that?” he breathed. “Even if they wanted to, there’s checks and tests and registration searches. Not even a bootleg mule farm would risk handing over a body that doesn’t belong to someone, whether they’re human or Varkan. So….”
“So who is Devlin Woodward?” Bedivere finished.
Chapter Eighteen
Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187
There was a low profile spacer’s bar in Celestial that served rot gut and premium drinks depending on the drinker’s budget. They prided themselves on catering to all comers but it was spacers who used the bar the most, and spacers were generally serious drinkers intent on dusting off the chill of space and catching up on the real news, the sort of gossip that only got passed on in places like this one.
Bedivere took Connell there. “I need a drink like I need oxygen and I don’t want to sit looking at these walls for another minute,” he told him as he shut down the ship into sleep mode and reasserted all the security measures.
Connell seemed dazed, his cocksure swagger deflated. When Bedivere ordered the first round, he knocked back the shot without comment and reached for the ale. He stared at the foam on the top, as if he would find answers there. “I don’t believe it,” he said quietly. He looked around for eavesdroppers. The tables all around them were empty. Bedivere had picked the most isolated spot in the bar. “Devlin Woodward?” he breathed.
Bedivere understood his bewilderment. When he had first considered the idea that Devlin was Varkan it had given him many sleepless nights and wakeful days, as he’d put together the implications. He’d already accepted the basic premise that Devlin was not who he said he was. This was just one more step, even though it was a development he had not anticipated.
Connell drank deeply once more and wiped the froth from his lip. His lucid eyes settled on Bedivere. “Why hasn’t anyone else figured this out? DNA isn’t hard to get hold of if you’re really determined. People shed cells like confetti. Someone must have got curious about him before we did.”
“With all the good he does, why would anyone question his background?” Bedivere said. “When I first suggested to Brant that he might be Varkan, Brant shut me down. He didn’t care what Devlin might or might not be, because Devlin proves every day by his actions that he is a good guy. I can’t dispute that, so I didn’t follow up on it and I had every reason in the world to not drop it. If inertia bogged me down, if even I thought it was better to not rock the ship, then there’s probably a lot of people out there who also got curious and decided to leave things alone.”
“There’s official checks. Forms. Security scans. Why didn’t one of those blare an alarm because his DNA doesn’t match his ID?” Connell said, his voice low. “I mean, his DNA would come up blank for everyone who scans him. That should scare the hell out of most people.”
“What checks? What scans?”
Connell lifted his hand in a helpless, it’s-obvious gesture. “Every time he steps onto a new planet, or a new station. You know what it’s like. They scan you every which way and inside out when you first dock. It’s all unobtrusive and unrequested, too. You don’t get the option.”
Bedivere wiped the condensation off the side of the glass and watched bubbles rise. “When was the last time Devlin Woodward stepped onto a planet’s surface?”
Connell’s eyes widened. Then he frowned. “Station checks, then.”
“And when do you think was the last time he was checked by a station’s security?” Bedivere asked. “It’s Devlin Woodward.” He used the same emphasis Connell had used a moment ago. “Most station authorities trip over themselves to roll out the welcoming committees as soon as the Hana hoves into sight. Devlin gets escorted by planetary governors and presidents and CEOs, along with every high-powered politician within spitting distance.”
Connell shook his head and drank.
“If anyone did have the temerity to scan him, even unobtrusively and without permission, then when they get the no-result feedback, they’re going to assume they screwed up the scan.”
“We didn’t assume that,” Connell pointed out.
“Because I was already considering the idea that he wasn’t who he claimed to be. So we didn’t dismiss the null results as a simple data anomaly.”
Connell leaned forward. “We can’t be the first to question it! In a hundred years not a single other person has had reason to dig deeper? He’s such a great guy everyone in the known worlds is going to let him get away with a fundamental lie?”
“I’m going to guess that we’re not the first to dig.”
“Then why hasn’t this come out before now?”
Bedivere just looked at him steadily, waiting for his brain to catch up with his mouth.
Connell sat back. “Oh,” he said, sounding winded again. “Oh hell….” He looked over his shoulder and this time, Bedivere knew he wasn’t looking for eavesdroppers. The caution flooding off him was like neon, flashing his sudden paranoia. “He’s dealt with anyone who goes digging.” He swallowed.
Bedivere leaned forward, pushing his glass aside and beckoned Connell to lean in, too. “Someone has gone to a lot of trouble and expense to wipe out any data pointing to the Lanzo identity. If they’re going to make that sort of effort it follows that they’re going to be just as efficient in dealing with anyone who gets too close to the truth.”
“Your data archives, where we found Lanzo…tell me they’re not accessible via the primary datacore?” Connell breathed. “Tell me they’re nested in an isolated server that only you can access?”
“I think we’re okay for now,” Bedivere told him. “I tapped into the archives using a sealed conduit. Nothing is one hundred percent unhackable, though.”
Connell looked unhappy. His knuckles were white on the glass.
“Devlin doesn’t know I have those old archives, which protects us,” Bedivere added. “He can’t monitor what he doesn’t know exists.”
“Except he has an army of dedicated Varkan who will do anything he asks of them, almost without question,” Connell replied. “Damn…I wonder if they know who he is?”
“There’ll be a few who know he isn’t who he says he is. I suspect that you and I are the only two in the known worlds who know his DNA is stolen and who he stole it from.”
Connell did another quick check over his shoulder. “You have to go through the archives again. You have to research this Lanzo guy.”
“I can’t,” Bedivere reminded him. “I’m not…strong enough, yet.” If he ever would be, he added silently to himself. That wasn’t something he wanted to consider very closely right now.
Connell shook his head. “I don’t like the way the Silent Sector keeps cropping up one way or another in your life, Bedivere. It’s…creepy.”
“Is that a primary computation?” Bedivere asked, amused.
“It’s my gut talking to me,” Connell growled. “I’ve learned to listen to it, lately. You dived down into the Silent Sector ninety years ago. The Periglus arrived from the Silent Sector. And now this Lanzo disappeared there ten years before you got there.”
“It’s coincidence,” Bedivere told him. “The Silent Sector is one of the last remnants of uncontrolled space in the galaxy. Anyone with criminal or nefarious intentions ends up there sooner or later. Anyone who might have escaped to the fringes in the last millennium will now head there, instead.”
“Except there are giant, alien pest exterminators waiting there now,” Connell pointed out dryly. “I
mean it, Bedivere. You have to find out more about Lanzo. What if there is a connection?”
His chest constricted. “I can’t,” he repeated, his voice harsh. “But you can.”
“I?” Connell frowned. “I don’t have access.”
“I’ll give you access. Use the conduits in the suite, they’re armor-plated. If you don’t spend too much time in one session, you shouldn’t draw attention.”
“Sips, instead of dives?”
“Don’t copy anything,” Bedivere added. “Don’t pull data through the channel. Don’t store it locally.”
Connell laughed. “That’s impossible. Even just reading the data creates a local copy.”
“Then put yourself in the server and stay there.”
Connell stared at him. “You mean it?”
“I do.”
Connell licked his lips. “I’m Varkan, Bedivere. Even just remembering something creates digital tracks that can be followed.”
Bedivere nodded. “Write it down. An analogue record. Add a note telling yourself why you wrote it down. Then wipe the memory and the trace back to the source.”
Connell pressed his lips together. “As soon as I read that record, I’ll be creating a local memory.”
“And that’s fine,” Bedivere told him. “That local memory is part of your personal datacore and it doesn’t have the trace back to the source. It will be isolated and untrackable.”
Connell pushed his hair back and gave a gusty sigh. “And you call me sneaky?”
Bedivere registered quick movement from the corner of his eye and looked up. There were people running past the windows, out on the concourse. Most of them were all heading in one direction, toward the Central City.
Connell looked around. “Something’s happening?”
“Maybe.” Bedivere moved to the door and out on to the concourse, which was the center of the village and under the highest part of the dome. Sunlight was streaming onto the light-colored floor, making it dazzle and wink in a way it never had. No one was stopping to admire the bright splendor, though.
Connell moved up next to him. “I don’t know anyone here to ask.”
“Go digital,” Bedivere urged him. “Ask Yennifer.”
Connell sighed and looked down at the ground as he connected to Yennifer’s digital psyche and exchanged information. Then he straightened up with a snap. “The Periglus. They’ve emerged.”
“Here?” Bedivere asked. That would make sense, given the mass exodus he was watching.
“Sunita!” Connell replied. He was already moving into the stream of people.
Real fear cramped Bedivere’s belly and squeezed his heart. There were eight settled worlds in the Sunita system and a dozen more moons and satellites with mining colonies and settlements. It was the most crowded system in the galaxy.
He realized he was following Connell, anyway. With a deep breath, he braced himself and dipped into the datastream, sampling the digital world that all Varkan shared.
Then he understood.
He began to run, just like everyone else.
Chapter Nineteen
Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187
“Do we have a system destination yet?” Devlin called, from his position by the cartography table.
“Undetermined,” Mael called back from the pilot’s chair, “but soon. They only emerged from the gates twenty minutes ago.”
“There’s no point jumping until we have one,” Catherine pointed out as the big engines rumbled, making the deck under her feet tremble. The Hana was pulling out of the docking bay and inching forward into the space beyond the city, from where it could jump.
As the external dock doors opened up, Catherine gasped. The space around the city was a teeming mass of ships. Every docking bay in the city was emptying out its vessels, spilling them out into the dark void beyond. Ships were sliding past each other, finding room far enough beyond the city structure so that the implosion that happened after the ship jumped and space collapsed behind it wouldn’t rock the city. There were all shapes and sizes there. She spotted Connell’s big bus and the Aliza, little skivvers and old Federation class ships that Varkan had bought and converted to transport ships for their own businesses. Any vessel capable of carrying passengers and a Varkan pilot was assembling there.
“Message for you, Mr. Shahrazad,” Wayna called.
“On the heads-up, please.”
Bedivere appeared, the flight deck of the Aliza forming behind him, all of it in miniature. “We have analyzed their destination,” he said shortly.
Devlin looked up from the maps. “Where?” he said, just as shortly.
“Varnham. It’s the right gravity and temperature range.”
“There are millions of people on Varnham,” Catherine pointed out. Although in recent years, there were far fewer people on the surface and many more of them living permanently on the city that was growing around the station.
“You need to tell everyone, Devlin,” Bedivere said. “Direct them to jump there immediately.”
“I don’t have the coordinates, or the time,” Devlin said swiftly. “You have the data. You share it.”
Bedivere’s gaze cut away from him for a moment. Then he looked at Catherine for a space of time that seemed to stretch for an age or two, but could only have lasted for a second at the most. “Very well.” He cut the feed and the image dispersed.
“Coordinates coming through,” Mael said.
“Jump as soon as you’re ready, Mr. Maedoc,” Devlin told him.
Catherine squeezed the arm of the sofa as the star field shifted and the shudder ran through the ship.
Varnham hung in the sky ahead, a blue globe with swirling clouds and the misty edges that spoke of a rich atmosphere. In front of it was the sprawling, eclectic space city.
The space between the Hana and the city was thick with ships, far more than had been hanging in the space around Charlton. Even as she watched, new ships were winking into view.
Cleon, the second navigator, swiveled on his chair to face Devlin. His gaze, though, was focused on the flow of information he was receiving via his tether. “Bedivere sent the coordinates across the datacore. We have ships reporting in from all known systems and some non-registered craft.”
“Dark space ships,” Catherine said. “New Gaia, Fu-Sang, the mining colonies....they’re all responding.”
“United against a common enemy,” Devlin said. He moved over to the sofas and sat on the one opposite her. “This is out of my hands,” he added and nodded toward the three pilots. “The Varkan are uniquely skilled. They are the only ones who can do this, now.”
“Any ship that can land has been directed to the surface to pick up as many passengers as they can,” Mael said. “The rest are to latch onto the space city and take passengers from there.” He swiveled the chair enough to look at Devlin for permission.
“Do whatever you’re asked to do,” Devlin said. “We’ll dock at the city, of course.” The Hana was too big to land. It had been built in space and entering the atmosphere and gravity well of a planet would tear it apart.
Catherine got to her feet.
Devlin glanced at her and lifted a brow.
“We’re going to be taking a lot of people aboard,” she pointed out. “All they need is enough floor space to stand up, so every square centimeter of the ship will be full. That’s going to take coordination. To begin, I want all the permanent crew here on the bridge, and the boardrooms behind it. And I want their quarters opened and the space available.”
Devlin stood. “There’ll be a lot of hysterical people to deal with. I’ll help.”
* * * * *
That was the beginning of the exodus from Varnham. The Periglus fleet took three days to reach the planet from the system gates, which were on the far side of the system from Varnham. In those three days their approach could be seen like the aurora that heralded sunrise. Their ships lit up space with the glow o
f their engines and the reflection of the Sunita star off their surfaces.
In those three days, no one slept except for cat naps when it wasn’t possible to go on without passing out. Catherine ate when someone pressed a handful of food into her palm as she worked. She had directed one of the AIs to coordinate human biological needs and make sure no one on the ship was deprived too badly while they concentrated on the urgent matter of survival and the AI in turn directed Varkan and people to make meals, serve portions and provide water as needed. It was background activity she barely noticed.
Catherine lost track of how many jumps they made. Each time they docked at the station city and opened the doors, a flood of people would stream onto the ship through every portal it had. After the first few jumps the crew developed a routine that would fill every crevasse of the ship in the fastest time possible. No one was permitted to bring possessions with them except for what they could hold in their hands, to maximize the numbers they could take onboard.
As soon as the ship was filled, it would drift off into local space, then jump back to Charlton.
Every Varkan-piloted ship in the galaxy was repeating the same process. They would take on board the most people they could squeeze in, then jump back to their point of origin, offload the evacuees, then jump back to Varnham.
On the second day, the station city was emptied. Only the people living on the planet itself were left. AIs and the station’s citymind ran the automated processes needed to allow shuttles from the surface to dock and disgorge their passengers, and direct them to the nearest waiting Varkan transport.
Other Varkan ships that could navigate the atmosphere and land were picking up passengers from the surface directly. That would include the Aliza, for Bedivere had insisted that whatever ship he owned must be able to maneuver and land in gravity. The ability to land had proved far too useful in the past, so he had eschewed one of the light, large and elegant Varkan-designed craft for a new ship built using traditional designs meant to withstand inertia and gravity stresses and could cope with whatever atmosphere it found itself in.
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