The Sol System Renegades Quadrilogy

by Felix R. Savage

  “You’re telling me. Well, maybe there’s a guy on the surface, monitoring it when he’s not busy vidding porn flicks. Anyway, we got away fast enough to satisfy its exclusion parameters, thank God.”

  “If we went back, how close do you think we could get before it glommed onto us again?”

  “It first pinged us when we were here,” Mendoza pinpointed a spot near the edge of the Rheasilvia crater, “maneuvering 400 kilometers up. That’s a lot lower than our designated orbit. That’s probably what set it off. But regardless, I’m not taking the sat anywhere near there again. No way, no how.”

  “Oh, Mendoza! Come on!”

  “There’s obviously something in the Rheasilvia Crater they don’t want us to see. Maybe it’s something to do with the Big Dig. Maybe it’s something to do with the missing workstation. Maybe this is just what private-sector information security looks like these days. Either way, if we get the satellite shot down, regardless of whether we had authorization for the search, our jobs are toast. Do you know how much those babies cost?”

  “I got a whole space station shot down once,” Elfrida said. “And I’m still here.”

  After a pause, Mendoza said, “Yeah, but that wasn’t your fault. I heard about the astrodata leak. But it wasn’t you. It was your phavatar.”

  “And I should have figured out what the phavatar was up to.” Elfrida shook her head. “Never mind. What I wanted to say was, couldn’t we just go back and look at the maglev again?”

  “The rail launcher?”

  “Or the actual train bit.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw something in the traffic from its comms.” She had found it again while they were talking. “Here. Look. This signal.”

  “What about it? It’s encrypted to hell and back, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

  It means they learned their lesson from last time, Elfrida thought.

  “Not the signal itself. The destination. They had their antenna pointed towards Gap 2.5.”

  ★

  The Kirkwood Gaps were regions in the asteroid belt which had been swept clear of asteroids by Jupiter’s gravitational influence. Viewed in a 2D starchart, they looked like narrow stripes on a spinning top. There were five pronounced Gaps, with radii of between 2.06 and 3.27 AUs. Vesta’s orbit would bite into Gap 2.5 at aphelion, when it swung furthest from the sun.

  Eighteen months ago, during the 11073 Galapagos mess, Elfrida’s stross-class phavatar had sent a stream of unauthorized reports to someone lurking on an isolated rock in Gap 2.5. The name of that rock was 99984 Ravilious.

  Elfrida had learned these facts with military trace and decryption tools, which she shouldn’t have been using. The results of her search had been passed on to Star Force. She had assumed that whoever or whatever was on 99984 Ravilious, Star Force had taken care of them. There hadn’t been anything about it on the news. But then again, there wouldn’t have been.

  But what if, for some reason, 99984 Ravilious had slipped through Star Force’s fingers?

  Political considerations could screw up the simplest things. Star Force answered to the Select Security Council, and the SSC could be influenced by the President’s Advisory Council. Which was now adorned by the presence of Dr. Abdullah Hasselblatter, the director of the Space Corps, and the man with the most to lose if the truth about the 11073 Galapagos incident ever came out.

  “Sounds to me,” Mendoza said, “like you’re getting pretty far ahead of the evidence.”

  “You’re right,” Elfrida said humbly. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

  They were standing outside the STEM building, in the rain. Elfrida had insisted on leaving their office to talk in the open, on the off chance that—as Mendoza frequently joked—their office was bugged. Of course, if their office was bugged, the whole habitat was probably bugged. But the splashing of the rain, and the gurgle of water flowing down the gutters, would help to foil any hidden microphones.

  “You already have jumped to conclusions,” Mendoza said. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. But what evidence do we actually have? One signal from the VA maglev to a location that may be in Gap 2.5, or may be on the far side of it, where this mysterious asteroid of yours may or may not be now.”

  “I agree it’s not much to go on. But I remember that 99984 Ravilious was near Vesta. That was eighteen months ago, but it was near enough that it should have a similar orbital period. So I bet you it’s still within signalling range. I mean, it’s not gonna be on the other side of the sun. And there’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “That was a direct signal.”

  “True.”

  “That’s why it jumped out at me. They usually use the Net-band and route everything through their comms satellites. Right? Most everything coming out of the train was Net-band traffic. But this was in the Ku-band.”

  “15.5 GHz.”

  “Right. So I’m wondering why they chose to send this one signal at a different frequency, aimed at a totally different region of the sky, nowhere near any of the VA comms satellites. And I remembered 99984 Ravilious. And it just seems like too much of a coincidence.”

  Rain dripped down Elfrida’s face. The soycloud parked overhead blocked the sunlight from the roof. They stood in a dark, watery microclimate. The fungi that grew at the bottoms of the walls of the STEM building were opening like primroses. What if the mysterious entity on 99984 Ravilious had somehow escaped (been protected) and was still out there? Up to its old tricks again. What data could it be receiving from Vesta?

  She scowled up at the soycloud. Its underside was dark green, its rim pixellated with leaves. The water pattering onto her face definitely tasted like fertilizer.

  “Wanna borrow my umbrella?” said Mendoza, who was standing under a large red one printed with the legend BREATHING IS FOR WIMPS.

  “I’m all right. I mean, I’m wet already. I’ll have to go home and change. But Mendoza, don’t you think it’s worth investigating?”

  “If you’re right, the people on the other end of that transmission have already caused kilodeath. And got away with it.”

  “I know! That’s why! OK, it’s probably not them, but we need to find out. What if the data they’re transmitting is related to whatever Dr. James is hiding? What if he’s working for 99984 Ravilious? What if 4 Vesta is being targeted?”

  Something struck her on the head. She screamed and clapped her hands to her scalp. A small shape landed on the path. It was a frog. It sat stunned for a moment, and then hopped off into the grass.

  “Wow,” Mendoza said. “Isn’t that in the Bible? A rain of frogs. A plague of frogs. I’ve never seen that before.”

  “Listen, Mendoza. You do what you like, but I’m going to follow this up as far as I can. And if you breathe a word, I will personally make you regret it. I may not be connected, but I have got resources on Earth.”

  “Whoa! Hold on a minute! I never said I was against it. Are you kidding? I’m going to investigate this thing, and you can come along for the ride, or not, as you like.”

  Elfrida started to smile in relief, but Mendoza, uncharacteristically, wasn’t smiling. His face wore a peaky, fixed expression. She realized that she didn’t know anything about him, only that he worked all the hours God sent, and enjoyed—an unlikely hobby—classical music.

  “I’ve never mentioned this,” he said, “but my sister got whacked by the PLAN. She worked for a trading company. They were docked at a legit settlement on the asteroid 470108 Gironda, delivering a cargo of consumables, when the PLAN hit the rock. Everyone killed.”

  “Oh my God. I remember that.”

  “The settlers were Spanish nationalists. Catalan, or some thing. They were asking for it. But my sister was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I totally sympathize with anyone that’s had that experience. And I have no sympathy at all for anyone that’s enabled the PLAN, or might be cooperating with them.”

  “Well, I don’t think t
here was ever any suggestion of that,” Elfrida said nervously. “It was more that the people on 99984 Ravilious, whoever they are, screwed up.”

  “That’s just as bad. They need to pay.”

  Elfrida hesitated. She had never known Mendoza had this kind of vengefulness in him. The rain started to ease off. She heard a chirruping sound and realized it was frogs, lots of them.

  “I think the workstation might actually be on the train,” she said. “The passenger compartment’s rad-shielded, so we wouldn’t have detected any wireless signals within the shielding.”

  “Or it might be in Rheasilvia Crater.”

  “But either way, if we can’t take the satellite back there without it getting slagged…”

  “Then,” Mendoza said, “I guess we’re gonna find out how that orbital gun platform feels about people trekking in on foot.”

  “Well, that’s one idea,” Elfrida said, thinking, Oh my God, Mendoza, you mean it, don’t you? And he looked so harmless under his joke umbrella. “But I have another idea that might be, uh, less death-defying.”

  “What?”

  “We’re not the only ones who would like to get that workstation back. So why are we doing this alone?”

  x.

  Dr. James had been incarcerated, pending his bail hearing, at the koban downtown. Constructed, or rather grown, on the same organic substrate as the permanent buildings of the university, the koban had not been tended with the same fanatical care. It looked like an overgrown mop-head abandoned on a corner between taller, neater buildings. Tendrils of its green curtain crawled across the sidewalks. Higher up, the greenery twitched.

  “We’re here to see Dr. James. We’re from UNVRP,” Elfrida explained.

  “Yeah, I know.” The UNESCO peacekeeper on duty stared at her and Mendoza. His stare telegraphed the uniquely implacable hostility that throve between UN agencies. “What do you want?”

  “Well, we work with him,” Elfrida said, wishing Mendoza would help her out.

  “And?”

  “And we want to talk to him.”

  “He’s been charged with aggravated assault.”

  “I know, but—”

  A cloud of peacock-green and lemon-yellow twirled in from the street. It was Cydney.

  “Ellie!”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve just come to visit Dr. James.” Cydney beamed at the peacekeeper on duty. “What about you?”

  “We were hoping to do the same thing,” Elfrida said.

  Two minutes later they were being ushered up to Dr. James’s cell. As they scrambled / bounced up the zipshaft, someone else came zooming down. She was a large person, so large in fact that she bulged out of her lane and nearly knocked Elfrida off her wimp handle. Without apologizing, she landed bent-kneed at the bottom of the shaft and scuttled away.

  Elfrida frowned after her. “Hey …”

  “That was incredibly rude!” Cydney shouted after the woman.

  “No, it’s not that. I know her, but I can’t place her.”

  “Maybe you’ve seen her around the STEM building. She’d be hard to miss.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “In here,” said the peacekeeper, while he operated an iris scanner and a DNA reader embedded in the wall. “I’ll have to lock you in with the suspect, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, don’t lock me in,” Cydney said. “I’m not staying. I just came to drop off this care package. Ta-daah!” She brandished a bunch of carnations in the face of the palely hovering Dr. James. “These are from your friends in the dean’s office. And these are from Dean Garcia herself. Home-baked! I must dash. I’ve got a seminar, but it’s great to see that you’re holding up so well! That’ll be a load off people’s minds.”

  She breezed off. The door closed behind Elfrida and Mendoza.

  “Flowers,” Dr. James said morosely. “The last thing anyone needs in this place.”

  Elfrida made sympathetic noises. Now she was face to face with Dr. James, her suspicions seemed excessively paranoid. He probably wasn’t working for the mysterious entity on 99984 Ravilious. But that didn’t mean he was innocent.

  “They mean well, I suppose,” he continued. “I was surprised to see your friend. She’s in PHCTBS Studies, isn’t she?”

  “She’s got a good heart,” Elfrida said.

  The cell was about two meters square. Roots poked through the inside of its slimy walls, rotting for want of care. There was a fetid organic smell. Water pooled in a corner of the floor, which was not level. Dr. James squatted on his prostheses. “I’d offer you a seat,” he said, “but there isn’t one.” He opened the box of cookies Cydney had brought. “White chocolate chip and macadamia nut. Home-baked, she said.”

  Mendoza, speaking for the first time, said, “I’d steer clear of those.”

  “You may be right,” Dr. James said. “I wasn’t aware I had any friends in the dean’s office. It’s astrophysics that justifies the existence of this university, but the administration is caught in a trap of moral equivalence that compels them to stiff us in favor of disciplines that don’t deserve the name. I’ll be very surprised if anyone testifies in my defense. Thank God for Virgin Atomic: they’ve lent me a lawyer. He’s supposed to be good. He’s en route from Ganymede as we speak.”

  Elfrida held up the bag she was carrying. “Well, it isn’t home-baked, but we brought coffee. The barista at the Virgin Café said you usually get a triple full-fat macchiato. I don’t know if you’re interested, but …”

  “Give me that,” Dr. James said.

  Some moments of devoted slurping later, Elfrida said, “Uh, we actually came to ask a favor.”

  “I knew it.”

  “I might be wrong, but doesn’t the astrophysics lab have a surface rover?”

  ★

  Cydney Blaisze zoomed up the zipshaft of the Tariq L. Clinton administration building, basking in the pleasure of a good deed done. Poor Dr. James! He might be misguided, he might even be a criminal, but he didn’t deserve to be locked up like an—actually, you wouldn’t even treat an animal like that. Like a virus, a dangerous virus that needed to be quarantined.

  She was well aware that was how her friends in PHCTBS Studies saw him.

  But Cydney, while sympathizing with their grievances against the STEM department, did not think they really understood the conflict they were involved in.

  She didn’t, either.

  But now, at last, she was getting close. She knew it.

  And she had methods that were far superior to theirs. Masks and pellet guns in the dead of night? Honestly.

  She bounced into the dean’s office and displayed her empty hands to the dean’s secretary. “Mission accomplished! He was so touched. He said he’s incredibly grateful for the support of the faculty.”

  “Like him or loathe him, Eliezer James is one of ours,” said Dean Garcia, coming out of her office. She was a thin, silver-bunned woman, clad in a greyish-green kaftan that she’d probably hand-woven from the excretions of gengineered caterpillars that lived in the walls of her yurt. Despite her lack of fashion sense, she managed the difficult trick of projecting authority while being spaceborn, her long and emaciated body crooked over at the shoulders like a predatory insect. “It’s extremely important at this time of crisis,” she pronounced, “to emphasize that the university community stands shoulder to shoulder against the arbitrary excesses of law enforcement.”

  “Ma’am, you should see the cell they’ve got him in,” Cydney said. “It’s tragic.”

  The secretary said, “Ma’am, I just wanted to remind you that you’ve got a lunch appointment with the UNESCO prosecutor. Would you like me to postpone, or …”

  “Is that the time? Ye gods! Call down to the telepresence center and have them set up a private cubicle straight away.” Garcia grimaced at Cydney. “I shun UNESCO on principle, but this is my one opportunity to argue for a condign, not punitive, settlement. It would only exacerbate tensions if Dr. James were se
en to be a victim of prosecutorial bias.”

  Translation, Cydney thought, you’ve remembered that Dr. James is the biggest star on your faculty. “Absolutely, ma’am,” she said. “I totally agree. Fairness must be our watchword.”

  Cydney had wormed her way into the dean’s good graces by presenting herself as a spokeswoman for the Humanities students in the wake of David Reid’s shooting. But this was only the latest, opportunistic twist in a campaign that had started with her arrival on Vesta, when she’d presented her credentials to Dean Garcia and hinted that her enrollment at U-Vesta might lead to favorable media coverage.

  Not that she’d delivered on that promise. Her feed had been sliding down the rankings. People just weren’t interested in the goings-on at a podunk university in the asteroid belt.

  But that, Cydney believed, was about to change.

  Garcia used the surface of a Greenpeace Good Governance award as a mirror to apply lipstick. “I don’t know why I’m bothering with this,” she said. “It’s a telepresence session, after all. Speaking of which—” she turned to her secretary. “If this lasts the scheduled three hours, I’m going to get hungry. Order me a sandwich. Something I can gnaw on during the latency periods, while my phavatar in Geneva stuffs its plastic gullet with filet mignon and asperges aux sauce polonaise. Don’t you think that remotely experiencing a fine meal is torture?” she asked Cydney.

  “It’s the absolute worst, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am, shall I ring down to the cafeteria, or—”

  “No! I can’t abide so-called sandwiches in pouches. Get me a ham and swiss on rye from Reuben’s.”

  “Ma’am, they don’t take online orders.” This was a posture adopted by many of the earthier businesses in Bellicia.

  “Then go get it, darling, go get it. That’s why evolution gave you legs.”

  “I’ll go,” Cydney volunteered.

  “Not necessary. Jordan needs the exercise.”

  Cydney waited a few more minutes. As Dean Garcia prepared to sweep out the door, Cydney said, “I actually wanted to tell you a little more about my visit with Dr. James.” This was pure invention, as her visit with Dr. James had been all of twenty seconds long. “If you have a few minutes this SecondLight, or …?”