The Gambit with Perfection (The Phantom of the Earth Book 2)

by Zen, Raeden

  “Will not be pursued,” Masimovian said, “not today.”

  That the chancellor denied Tethys’s request surprised Brody, for a hearing with Chief Justice Carmen could definitively end all arguments over his mission log.

  “Let me tell you what I can’t believe,” Brody said. “I can’t believe that a supreme scientist,” he nodded to Heywood Querice, “would withhold information to a commonwealth mission.” Brody turned to Heywood. “The board demands to know what you knew about the Lorum, when you knew it, and why my team was left out of the process—”

  “Captain, you speak for yourself,” Knox said, “not the board.”

  Brody ignored him and stared at Heywood. That Masimovian didn’t interfere forced Heywood’s response. The supreme scientist of the Huelel Facility swayed his head and pressed his lips together, and in a tone that bordered on apathy, he said, “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about—”

  “Don’t!” Brody said. “You sent us to that exoplanet and told us you required a sample from a particular liquid, though you left out the part about the Lorum—”

  “Captain Barão,” Masimovian interrupted, “where were you on this?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why didn’t you conduct due diligence, examine the ansible transmissions sent from Mars, as any capable Beimeni captain would have done, covered more than the basics of atmospheric composition, temperature, surface pressure, topography, weather, and the like. Why would you require Heywood to do your job?”

  Brody balled his hand into a fist, swiped his mouth, and contemplated a proper response. “Chancellor,” he said, “no one could decipher the Lorum’s transmissions in the ansible, and either way, I confirmed with Captain Holcombe that the signals had ceased. Heywood left out of his mission protocols any indication that the sample he desired could’ve been the advanced species with which we lost contact, an oversight that could’ve ruined our mission—”

  “I’ll not sit here and take another second of this baseless, illogical, categorically false accusation that I purposefully and maliciously misrepresented mission protocols.” Heywood rose and stalked toward the exit.

  “Sit down,” Chancellor Masimovian said. “I’ll not allow a supreme scientist to walk out on a conclave.”

  Two of the bots escorted Heywood back to his spot at the mercury pool, while their partners furiously transcribed the meeting minutes into data streams above their workstations.

  Brody didn’t know what to think. Was this a planned deception? If so, was the chancellor in on it? Did Heywood even know the metal river was the Lorum?

  A bot held a tray near Chancellor Masimovian, who accepted a glass filled with wine. “Chancellor,” Brody said, less brashly, “now is not the time for division among us. With the Lorum, we have our way out of the planet and an interstellar alliance with a being as evolved as transhumans in many respects, but as basic as extremophiles in the Earth’s interior in others.”

  “What does that mean?” Masimovian said. He sniffed his glass, then sipped his wine. “I tire of your riddles, Captain. Speak swiftly and honestly.”

  Brody stood, pushed his light blue robe to his sides, and stepped to the workstation in front of the mercury pool, across from Masimovian at the other end. Above a Granville sphere, a humanoid shell formed in the colors of the Lorum, swirls of gold, scarlet, black, silver, and yellow. The humanoid disappeared, replaced by geometric shapes and symbols that represented its molecular structure.

  Masimovian leaned forward and caressed the stubble of his beard. “What is this?”

  “This could be the resolution to the Reassortment enigma. It could send us back to the surface.”

  Brody shifted the hologram from the Lorum’s molecular structure to a city with ivory skywalks, greenery, and reservoirs beneath a transparent terradome. It was Sky City, the city built on the surface over a hundred years ago by Supreme Scientist Ninara Granville, she of Granville panel, sky, and sphere fame, who had been demoted and later perished in obscurity after Chancellor Masimovian tired of her failures—and exiled her to the Lower Level.

  May her soul rest in peace, Brody thought, and may I see her project to completion.

  “No dome we now utilize can withstand Reassortment, at least not for an extended time,” he said.

  The problem, as ever, was not just that Reassortment permeated the Earth’s atmosphere, but that it also seeped throughout the Earth’s soil. Brody didn’t know how or why Reassortment penetrated the terradomes, though it was clear that through some osmotic, diffusive process, from the ground or the air, it consistently and thoroughly corrupted every terradome ever built.

  Brody rotated the image and focused it on the terradome’s composition. “The Lorum’s molecular structure is as foreign to Reassortment as we were to Vigna, so if we used the Lorum’s unique strength and structure to create a barrier with the ground and air, if we enhance existing tunnel, tube, and terradome technology—”

  “We might enter Sky City,” Masimovian said.

  Brody studied the chancellor’s face. His brow was lifted. His cheeks were pulled nearly taut, as if on the verge of a smile.

  “I suppose you think you’re the one who’s going to do this?” Supreme Scientist Minta Pollopa said, his voice shrill.

  Minta had complained vociferously and futilely when Brody had moved Dr. Kole Shrader’s stasis containment from the Ventureño Facility to the Tomahawk Facility, and though Brody didn’t expect him to step forward, he welcomed the meeting’s pragmatic turn.

  “I do,” Brody lied. “And I will, with your help or without it—”

  “Minta,” Masimovian interrupted, “perhaps you should be tasked with a new project.” Brody was about to feign objection when Masimovian raised his palm. “I will not have this, not today.” Masimovian sniffed his glass and closed his eyes and mumbled to himself. “I hereby request the approval from the supreme scientific board for Minta Pollopa’s new task, Project Sky City, with a deadline to be determined at a later date.”

  Board members shifted around the pool. This counted as a major reversal for the chancellor, who, after Ninara’s demotion, had proclaimed Reassortment-resistant terradome research obsolete and unnecessary.

  “Your work will proceed at once with potential for significant conversion upon completion, a punishment for failure in kind. Do you understand?” Minta nodded. “Aye or nay,” Masimovian said. The board approved unanimously, the stakes set: significant conversion or death by Reassortment.

  The bots that kept the board’s minutes recorded the official assignment.

  “There’s another issue, Chancellor,” Brody said. He reformed the hologram to a cross section of the Earth showing the continental and oceanic crust, upper and lower mantle, outer and inner core. “Concerning our treaty with the Lorum—”

  “Your treaty,” Vanya said. “You didn’t have the right to speak for us—”

  “Not so,” Brody countered. “The Office of the Chancellor declared us Earth’s representatives.” Vanya ground her teeth and scowled before she grabbed a glass of wine. “The extremophiles,” Brody said, “that the Lorum seeks for its survival lie between the mantle and the core—”

  “You don’t know this,” Vanya said. “You can’t know this.”

  Brody ignored her. He focused the rendition of the Earth’s seismic cross section to the mantle’s border, zooming in on a pool of radioactive and nonradioactive elements that glowed in many shades of red, blue, yellow, violet, and brown. “This extremophile can survive amid intense heat, pressure, and radioactivity; requires little or no water or oxygen; and contains an enzyme the Lorum requires to obtain energy in the form of digestible … food, for lack of a more elegant term—”

  “Food?” Decca said. He handed his used toothpick to a bot and accepted a new one. “You’ll have us burrow through the mantle to find this … extremophile that may or may not exist, to make an interstellar delivery of … food? Is this your idea of significant conversio
n?”

  “What is significant conversion if not a significant discovery,” Brody said, “unprecedented in the history of humanity?” Decca pushed the new toothpick between his teeth. Brody turned to the board. “Don’t be so naive to believe that transhumans are the sole intelligent or apex species in this wide universe. We may need the Lorum, as it surely needs us, and when that time arrives, I’m sure it would come to our aid as we do for it. Already, it’s offered us a sample of its own genetic makeup that will help us defeat humanity’s greatest challenge to date.”

  “What’re you proposing?” Masimovian said.

  “The Lorum splayed itself over me and my strategist and my striker on Vigna, absorbed oxygen from minerals inside the exoplanet, and excreted gases that allowed us to breathe. It created a protective cocoon around our bodies to shield us from the intense heat and pressure, enabling us to survive in Vigna’s core, so surely the orb that we retained could be trained to do the same on Earth. The Lorum’s compliance with my request suggests as much. What I propose is for the board to confer the Marks on my team and shift our assignment to a Mission to Earth’s Core.”

  “My good captain, you misunderstood the purpose of this conclave,” Masimovian said.

  Brody crossed his arms and stroked his chin. I sincerely doubt it, he thought.

  “By supreme decree,” Masimovian said, “beneath the eyes of the gods and in the presence of the Supreme Scientific Board of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni, I hereby declare assignment of this Mission to Earth’s Core to the … Holcombe Strike Team, under the supervision of reinstated RDD scientist Antosha Zereoue.”

  The board members, less Vanya, who couldn’t hide the pleasure from her face, gasped and groaned. Prime Minister Decca stormed off, only to be forced back by the bots on orders from Masimovian.

  The comments from others came fast.

  “Antosha Zereoue must be dead by now,” Nasha said.

  “Chancellor,” Damy said, “the Barão Strike Team has earned this assignment.”

  “We can’t risk his presence in the RDD,” Minta said.

  “He’s been gone a long time,” Yovela said, “and I suspect our technology will be foreign to him.”

  Knox nodded furiously. “I’m unaware of clemency being offered in this manner in the past—”

  Brody connected to the board through the ZPF, though his message was directed at the chancellor. You must uphold the ruling by Chief Justice Carmen. Your reputation and that of the board is at risk—

  “NO MORE!” Masimovian said. “Antosha was injured on his way across the Infernus Sea, but I assure you, he lives. And I’m sure if we searched long enough in the archives, we could find precedent for this.”

  Prime Minister Decca sat silent, though Brody could hear him chewing his toothpick. Heywood seemed distant, as if he traveled to another galaxy, and Ministers Baltica, Charles, Sineine, and Volans were uncharacteristically unopposed to a chancellery decree.

  It seemed most of the ministry already knew of Antosha’s return, yet not one of them had freely shared their information with him. Were he in their shoes, Brody would have been more forthcoming.

  “Antosha’s return to the commonwealth is as fortuitous as the Granville sun,” Masimovian added, staring at Brody. “Did he not decipher the Lorum’s transmissions?”

  “He believed so,” Brody said, “but he also believed his mind could travel to Vigna while his body remained on Candor Chasma, that half the RDD sought his life, and that it was through death that life would be reborn on the surface—”

  “Do you seek to lose the Marks you so obviously feel you deserve?” Masimovian said.

  “I thought—”

  “You think,” Masimovian interrupted, “but you do not foresee and you do not lead this Great Commonwealth.”

  “I never said I did,” Brody said, and when Masimovian’s expression darkened, “apologies, Chancellor, I didn’t mean—”

  “To overstep your bounds, yet you do, again and again. However, you find me in a merciful mood this day, young captain. I will allow a vote to confer the Marks if you and your team agree to concentrate on Reassortment and leave Antosha Zereoue unfettered in his work in the Tomahawk Facility.”

  “Done and done,” Brody said.

  “Very well,” Masimovian said, “aye or nay to confer the Marks of Masimovian unto the Barão Strike Team for their effort to bring home this mighty gift, the Lorum of Vigna.”

  The vote came in the affirmative, eight for, seven against.

  When Masimovian adjourned the meeting, Brody and Damy exited the Brezner Building’s base level, where Nero, Verena … and Vernon Lebrizzi stood waiting.

  What’s the trader doing here? Brody sent to Damy.

  Much has changed since your departure, Damy replied.

  Brody took this in quietly. Vernon, who wore the golden suspenders Damy so despised, gave him a nod.

  Damy swiped her hand across her own Mark on her neck, then kissed her fingers and pressed them to Brody’s. “You earned it.”

  “Brodes!” Nero said and rushed his captain and hugged him, while Damy hugged Verena and congratulated her.

  “Well deserved,” Verne said. He held his hand out to shake Brody’s and Brody accepted, awkwardly. He stared at Damy, dumbfounded.

  “Let’s celebrate,” Nero said, “the Pulp Crossbar, on me—”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Damy said. “I need a bit of time with Brody.”

  Verena grabbed Nero and Verne before they could object.

  Damy led Brody along the cobblestone pathway to Artemis Square, with its white marble stone, its white palm trees, its fountains, the smells of burning nuts and honey, the harpists and singers who performed “The Eternal Life,” in an amphitheater, and the Beimenians who waited to enter Fountain Square. She pulled him aside.

  He noted a change in her. Was it fear or longing in her eyes? “My love,” he said, “you have nothing to fear from Antosha. I handled him in the past. I can do so again—”

  “It’s not Antosha I care about,” Damy said. She cradled her belly with her left hand and Brody’s neck with her right. In his ear, she said, “I carry your child.”

  Brody searched her face, then hugged her. He looked past her shoulder, up at the sky, where a hologram of the chancellor’s bust cupped by a pair of phoenix feathers—the Mark of Masimovian—rotated around Masimovian Tower’s tallest crystalline spires.

  ZPF Impulse Particles

  Polemon and Beimeni Zones

  300 and 2,500 meters deep

  Particle 1: Damosel Rhea

  Damy looked around the Gallery of the Chancellor. It seemed different somehow. Was it the way the curtains parted from the massive windows? The polish to the statues? Was it the ministers who sat arced around the dais in their golden tunics and capes and chains? Or was it that Brody stood in the back of the commonwealth’s great gallery in its great tower, his striker and strategist hand in hand beside him, ready to receive the Marks of Masimovian? None of the above, Damy concluded, for it wasn’t in them the world had changed but rather inside her.

  She’d awoken that morning with treachery in her heart, a sense that she should not follow through on her service. Her eyes saw the world from her terrace differently. The colors seemed brighter, the flowers more redolent, the harpists’ melodies sweeter. Serve Beimeni, live forever. She recited the First Precept over and over, though it didn’t do any good.

  She did not want to give up her child.

  She and Brody hadn’t yet reported an heir to the commonwealth. But soon her belly would grow, and the commonwealth would have its heir, whether she chose to give it up or not.

  Brody was unregistered, she thought, and so was Verne, and they turned out all right.

  To whom could she turn? Her true parents were dead, as was her brother, killed during a deep Earth drilling accident before she was born, and the only sister she ever knew was Noria Furongielle. Damy would rather walk nude for the last minute of her life along the stream
s on the Island of Reverie than confide these thoughts to her.

  At last, the trumpeters lined the garnet-studded promenade that led to the dais. Damy was glad to have her mind distracted. She could only hope that Marstone and Lady Isabelle missed her musings, this morning and presently, and in the past. The musicians pointed their trumpets toward the windows and played the “Battle Hymn of Beimeni,” one of Brody’s favorites, and a classic. When they finished, they placed the horns upright on the ground and waved the Flag of Beimeni, wine-red and painted with a flock of doves, wings spread along a triplet of crescent moons.

  Live doves flew out from a curtain behind Chancellor Masimovian and fluttered over the crowd, the signal, it seemed, for Brody’s team to advance, for they glanced to each other, and holding hands, ambled down the runway. The aristocrats turned in unison. Some flashed Granville spheres designed to capture the scene inside photogenic synisms.

  The crowd grew silent and the flashes ceased.

  The team climbed the marble steps that led to the government officials. Damy looked on with pride.

  Maritza Menendes, the keeper of Reassortment Hall, emerged in a deep red-violet gown that matched her eyes. She carried a crystal ewer, wide at its bottom and top and thin in the middle, carved with Beimenian glyphs and splayed with a phoenix feather. The vapors from it contained E. pigmentation, the synisms constructed to create the Mark of Masimovian, the animated tattoo still displayed upon Damy’s own neck, hidden by her long, curled hair.

  Chancellor Masimovian nodded and winked, and Maritza strutted down the steps to the path that led to the podium. She faced the Barão Strike Team.

  “I love speaking to Beimenians,” Chancellor Masimovian said, “especially when I have good news!”

  Masimo! Masimo! Masimo!

  Masimo! Masimo! Masimo!