by Astrotomato
All those years ago she had killed herself for the greater good. For all the worlds and all the people and all the life out there.
If the time ever came, she would do it again. For a different world. For a different time.
On her way to the tunnel she anticipated Masjid’s response. He would panic, be suspicious, his emotions unstable. And why not? Peter was dead, killed by the pods. She knew that Masjid would think his life's work was threatened, might be about to shatter; a giant, beautiful crystal, grown beyond its capacity to sustain its structure, waiting for the tiniest crack, the lightest knock, to glitter into razor dust.
At the tunnel she waited patiently by the large door. The car would be gliding to a halt on the other side. Masjid would need a minute to pull out the body and get to the security panel. And then the lights would turn: yes, there. A small hiss coincided with her taking a step backward.
She had implemented the plan for the situation that Daoud had always known would happen, and for which the two of them had prepared and simulated so often in the past. The herald was here. And one of their four had turned traitor. And with this first part of the plan successful, she would now have to deal with its first consequence: the death of Doctor Peter Cassel.
Masjid leaned into the car. He grunted as he pulled Peter’s body out and tried to lower it to the floor as carefully as possible. “Forgive me, Peter. You deserve, unh, more dignity.” He steadied his legs, and pulled Peter towards the door, making sure only his heels scraped along the floor. “This is no work for an eighty year old.”
He lay Peter’s body by the wall whilst he opened the door. He knew he was scared, panicking: better to get to safety as quickly as possible. But where? Should he contact Daoud when he was beyond the door, back on the Colony’s comms system? He couldn’t walk all the way to Daoud’s office with the body; or his own office for that matter. Where was he going to take it?
With one hand on the door’s handle, he set his heels into the dirt floor, prepared to pull. Sweat ran down his back. He swallowed over a dry throat. The door hissed when he pulled it and it released a smell of engineering grease. He kept his eyes on Peter, at the floor. Finally the door seemed like it was open enough. Now he had to man-handle Peter over the raised lip of the door.
Masjid moved his eyes to the door frame to gauge how far he would have to lift Peter.
There was another pair of feet.
“Doctor Currie.”
Masjid's eyes snapped up into Sophie’s face. “What? What are you doing here?” The panic expanded, his chest tightened. He looked around the corridor.
“Let me,” she stepped over the door frame and into the tunnel. Masjid watched her hoist Peter's body onto her shoulder, as if he were a bag of vegetables from the farming pods. So much dead weight.
“What are you doing here?” He watched Sophie exit to the corridor, as calm as the depths of space.
“I suggest we act first. We need to make this right.”
Masjid looked around the corridor again, his gaze a caged animal. He followed her into the corridor and sealed the door behind him.
How could Sophie be here and be so calm? “Where are you taking Peter?”
“See that conduit there? On the wall to your left? Pull the front panel off, you’ll find a lever.”
Masjid stared at the conduit jutting out of the wall. He looked back at Sophie, who steadied herself under Peter's weight.
“The panel, Doctor.”
He huffed through his nose, annoyed at being ordered around, but walked over anyway. He was torn between duty and desire. Between taking care of Peter and making sure MI didn't discover what had happened. They couldn't, mustn't; not now, not this close to achieving his life's work. But Peter needed to be safe. The panel popped away from the conduit, clattering out of his hands.
“I'm too old for this,” he looked stupidly at the panel on the floor.
“The lever, Doctor Currie. Be quick.”
Panic still had him. He looked into the conduit at the lever, wondering what it was for. Somewhere she was still talking. Quieter. Softer than usual. She was mentioning the lever again. Telling him he was making a good decision. He found his hand reaching out. When his fingers closed around the lever, his breath stuck in his chest.
How could Peter be dead? So soon after Huriko? Sophie was still speaking, somewhere to his right. Why was she here anyway? How? So calm and –
“Doctor Currie, pull your arm backwards. A gentle squeeze and pull.”
He closed his eyes, put his forehead to the conduit's metal. If MI found out about this, he’d lose everything. They’d take over, take away his research. His breath quickened. Masjid focused on the panel at his feet, taking a slow breath, “I have over sixty years of experience running high profile research. I run the premier classified research facility in the galaxy. My friend and colleague Doctor Peter Cassel is dead. Before I pull this lever you’re going to answer some questions.” Masjid looked around. He wanted to know how Sophie knew to be here. Why Peter might have mentioned her.
But Sophie was standing next to him, pulling down a long panel in the wall. She tucked Peter’s hand in before closing it completely.
“Thank you Doctor Currie. You can let go of the lever now.”
“What?” He looked from the smooth, featureless wall up to Sophie, who stood free of Peter’s body, at ease. He jerked his head back to the conduit. His hand still gripped the lever, but it was tipped towards him.
“Doctor Currie, you pulled the lever already. You can let go now. Come with me, Daoud is waiting.”
“Daoud?” His eyes jumped around, seeing nothing.
“Yes, Daoud knows what to do.”
Masjid looked Sophie in the eyes. Hers were calm, placid, where he knew his must be flicking, staring.
She reached out a hand to his upper arm, “Come with me, Doctor. Let’s talk about this privately with the Administrator, let him sort it out. You know deaths are reportable to MI.” Masjid felt Sophie pull him, gently, softly, toward her. “You can comfortably forget this. We’ll take responsibility. Come.”
Masjid held on to a thought as he walked away from the dark tunnel, that Peter was right, the specimens needed to be destroyed before anything else went wrong. Administrator Daoud would understand. He thought about how to achieve it without causing a seismic signal or arousing Verigua or MI’s suspicions. He didn’t notice where Sophie led him, only that her hand was warm and solid on his arm. It was there, alive.
He trusted it.
The shuttle accelerated out of Fall’s atmosphere. Win was flattened into his chair while the sky darkened, cooled to violet and became the depthless cloth of space. The small shuttle craft was carrying two probes to search for unauthorised vehicle traces or communications signals.
From behind the shuttle the electric glow of the planet crept into his window, obliterating any features in the space ahead.
“Sir? Sir? Can you hear me?”
“I’m sorry, pilot. What were you saying? How long until we reach the Lagrange point, please?”
“Just over ninety minutes. The Ortema tubes are twisting. Gravity gradients are changing. Means we travel a little slower than normal, while I map the path with least gravitational resistance. Hope that’s OK for you, Sir.”
“I’m sure you do a good job, pilot.”
Win returned to looking out of the window. “Pilot?”
“Sir?”
“How is your family?”
“I have no family, Sir.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, that’s OK, Sir. They died when I was very young, here on Fall.”
“You were born on Fall?”
“Yes, Sir. I’m one of the first children of Fall. From the original Colony. My parents died in the crash.”
“I’m sorry. You must miss them.”
The pilot was quiet for a while, “Truth be told, Sir, I don’t remember them. I was born shortly before the crash. I
was just a few months old at the time.”
“What happened? With the crash, I mean. The data files don’t say much about it.”
“I probably know as much as you do, Sir. The original Colony was being closed. The miners had discovered the cavity where we are now. Half the population had already moved over. Then one day a cruiser was taking off. It’d dropped off a load of colonists. Something went wrong with its antigrav system. A couple of klicks up, the cruiser just dropped out of the sky. Everyone on board and most of the people still left in the original Colony were killed. I was one of the few survivors.”
“It must have been terrible. I don’t remember seeing the crash site when we arrived. Has the wreckage been moved?”
“No, Sir. It crashed into the old Colony, burying itself underground. It's all covered with sand now.”
Win nodded to himself. He and the pilot sat inside separate cockpit structures, his behind and placed above the pilot's. If Win peered forward, he could just see the pilot’s helmet. “Does anyone ever visit? Can you get in?”
“Some of us used to, in remembrance. But the underground structure’s dangerous and the desert floor’s unstable. We're not allowed any more. And it’s pretty spooky.”
“Spooky?”
“The sound the wind makes when it goes through the open holes in the desert floor. We say it's the sound of their souls crying.” Win waited while the pilot paused, “I’m just glad my folks died immediately.”
“Pilot, would it be OK to fly over the site on the way back to the Colony?”
“Yes, Sir, of course.”
“You don’t have to call me ‘Sir’, you know. My name is Win.”
“Sir, yes, Sir.”
Win closed his eyes in his cockpit, “I am serious. I might be MI, but I’m really no more than a data analyst. That’s all. Please just call me Win. What’s your name?”
“Kiran.”
“Nice to meet you, Kiran.”
“Same to you, Sir. I mean Win.”
“Have you ever left the system, Kiran? Been beyond Fall?”
“Only the once. When I turned twenty, I was taken on a supply mission. Administrator Daoud himself gave permission. We went to the Spys system. Have you been?”
“Yes. Last time there was an asteroid due to impact on one of its occupied moons. I was in the Incident and Disaster Management Team for it.”
“That's when I was there! Well, not on the moon, but on the planet. Everyone was worried about meteorite storms or chunks of the moon being blown off.”
“Exactly. So me and my colleagues worked with the system’s authorities to deflect the asteroid.”
“That is so cool.” Win smiled in his cockpit. “Your job must be so interesting. Better than anything on this dustball.”
Win looked at his reflection in the cockpit window, “It can be. But it keeps me from my family. It’s some time since I saw them last. Tell me, have you communicated with anyone out of system in the past few days?”
“No Sir. Comms are monitored. I don't know anyone, anyway.”
“Do you think anyone would have?”
There was a pause. “I doubt it. Comms are on lockdown because of the vendetta, anyway.”
Win perked up at mention of Huriko's death, and the rumour. Before he could say anything, Kiran returned to his job. “We’re leaving Fall’s gravity well. Excuse me a moment, I need to concentrate on my calculations.”
The shuttle banked to one side. Win spent the time constructing the final holicons needed to program his probes. In front of him danced an array of animated icons, each nesting encrypted instructions. The icons sent out small hands to their neighbours. Win watched them dance along to a holo of his probes, where they filed inside, as if entering ancient rocket ships for a moon journey. He wished Djembe could be here to see how he’d programmed the probes; it would surely annoy his friend. He smiled. They would argue about the correct use of technology; an old argument which had often kept them sane during long missions in the past.
“Sir. Win, I've found an Ortema tube that will take us directly to the Lagrange One point. The tube’s gravity gradient may change occasionally, as the blue sun approaches eclipse line with Fall. Things might get a little disorienting at times.”
“Thank you. Can I ask a question? What did you think of your off-world trip? When you went to the Spys system?”
“Nervous, truth be told. I dock with the occasional supply ship out near the well. The wormhole I mean. But going into it! And to see another planet. Woo. It must be how the old timers felt. Back when we left the Terran system.”
“Terran system? I haven’t heard that for a long time. Most people say ‘Old Earth’ now.”
“We hear that on SysNet sometimes. I grew up with ‘Terran’, and that’s good enough for me. Don’t expect to be out in the wild lands much anyway.”
“You were telling me about going through the wormhole.”
“Oh, yeah. I hadn’t thought there’d be no light source inside them. I bet you could enter one and not even know it. 'Cept for the occasional flashes, I guess, energy potentials between the ship and well. Thought that was a bit disappointing, to be honest. But the system! Man.”
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
“I never imagined planetary systems could look like that. Ours is all dust clouds. Sometimes you can see Fall Four when you fly out; I used to think it was so beautiful. But it’s just a standard gas giant, right? And our inner planets, they’re just lumps of rock. Planetoids really. Spys, though.”
Win leaned forward, and thought he could make out Kiran shaking his head in the cockpit below. They talked about the system for a while; its red sun, the disc of blue gas caught around the system, the different coloured planets, forested moons of the gas giants, the Habitat network that described an arc fifty thousand kilometres long and growing, the two wormholes that hung permanently open, connected by the blue gas, as if it was an electric spark between enormous planet-sized electrodes. Eventually talk turned back to Fall and the reason, as far as Kiran was aware, for Win’s presence on the planet.
“So, these probes we’re going to leave. What are they for? To track the assassin?”
“You believe Doctor Maki's death was a vendetta.”
“I know they said exposure. But really. And any pilot in the hangar would've gone to collect her. I would have, if I hadn't been helping in Research. It may only be a rumour, but...”
“But you are right, we have to check. If it is, there will be an ion trail in the system. My probes will find it, if it’s there.”
“You’ll be lucky finding an ion trail now. The suns give out real spiky em-signals.”
“The dust cloud will contain a signature of everything passing through it. My probes are sophisticated, they’ll detect it if it’s there.”
“Why would anyone kill a scientist in this day and age? And anyway, we’re classified, which is a good thing, if you ask me. Keeps tourists away. But doesn’t that make us difficult to find?”
“Vendettas are strange things. They still exist in parts of my culture, in the Qin. They are done for honour. They’re rare, thankfully. But you’d be amazed.”
Their shuttle craft banked as it followed the Ortema tube's low gravity gradient. The electric blue glow of the planet was far behind them, and now the great dust clouds were apparent as a smudge. Where there were rents, the stars shone through.
The shuttle shook as it passed between bumps in the gravity gradients. “Good job my colleague isn't here. He hates turbulence.”
“Sorry, Sir. Shouldn't be that violent. The eclipse effects must be stronger than we're expecting.”
They passed through space in silence for some minutes while Kiran made course adjustments. Eventually his attention returned, “Will you tell me more about the Qin? The only Qin who live here have been part of the Common Quarters for the last three hundred years.”
“We come from a place on Old Earth called China. When Old Earthers discove
red the system's wormhole and developed usable spaceships, millions of us fled the environmental catastrophe on the planet. Like everyone else, the Chinese found planets very like Old Earth, and settled. We closed our borders and became Qin Space. You had to be three quarters Qin to join. Eventually we closed our borders even to Old Earth Qin, who were considered impure. And we let no one out. We made great leaps in technology, especially in space flight, terra-forming, sustainable food production and quantum computing. We created a society based on a political theory called Communism. There was no economic basis to it, no money. Everything was produced and distributed equally by the Qin government.”
“Like the AIs do now?”
“Similar. But it was prone to corruption. Billions of Qin meant there were billions of opportunities for greed. Especially when there were droughts, outbreaks of disease and so on. We looked out at the Common Quarters, as they were then called, at the rest of humanity, and saw their economic capitalism drive them to war, piracy, environmental destruction, and we prided ourselves on not being like them. Not being caught up in the Corporate Wars. But it was political hubris. Do you know that word, ‘hubris’?”
“No.”
“It means excessive pride in a belief or ability, which leads to disaster.”
“So why was it hubris? We were at war, you weren’t.”
“Because so many of our people were put to work running the massive bureaucracy needed to ensure everything was fair and that there was no corruption, that we didn’t have enough people to do the work to grow the food or distribute it. The Qin society started to collapse. But because of our hubris the stories of famine on one world being caused by food caught up in paperwork on another, were all hushed up. It was embarrassing to the leaders.”
“But that sounds so stupid. If you had enough food, why not just send it where it was needed?”
“When political systems mature they become like living beings. They exist to feed themselves and serve themselves. That’s when many Qin started to leave Qin Space, to the Common Quarters, smuggling Qin technology with them. It was the start of the period we call the Flight of Qin, which lasted over two centuries.”