The Machinery of Light ar-3

by David J. Williams

  “Let me do the talking,” says Jarvin.

  What are they talking about now?” asks the Operative.

  “Maschler and Riley?”

  “Who else?”

  It’s not like there’s anybody else that matters right now. Unless there are more voices in Haskell’s head. He wouldn’t put it past her. Her signal’s all he’s got—even louder than his internal monologue. He no longer knows what he wants.

  “Yes you do,” says Haskell.

  “What?”

  She says nothing—though it sounds like she’s laughing at him. Or maybe it’s his own mind cackling as it finally goes over the edge. He finds himself grasping at anything that’s solid. He can think of only one thing.

  “So what the hell’s the plan?” he asks.

  “You already know the plan,” she replies. “Convince Szilard that you stole the Manilishi from Montrose.”

  “That’s not the only possibility,” says the Operative.

  Haskell nods slowly. “You didn’t steal me—”

  “Maschler and Riley did.”

  “Right.”

  “They’re SpaceCom agents.”

  “They’re pretending to be.”

  “Christ, Claire, they probably are.”

  “I guess we’re going to find out.”

  “How close to L2 are we?”

  “Like they’d tell me.”

  “Ask them anyway.”

  She does. Maschler looks at her. “Getting warm,” he says.

  “And you’re SpaceCom agents?”

  Riley laughs. “Now what would give you that idea?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “I doubt we could do it convincingly,” says Maschler.

  “You are, aren’t you?”

  “Szilard thinks we are,” says Maschler. “That’s all that matters.”

  “You guys had better—”

  Riley laughs. “Like we’d ever cross our lady. She sees everything.”

  “Knows it all,” says Maschler.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You guys don’t look like you’re crazy. If you’re working for InfoCom, then you’re about to die. Killing Szilard’s a fucking suicide mission.”

  “Not if it succeeds,” says Maschler.

  “Even then the assassins will die—”

  “That’d be Carson,” says Riley. “He’s the triggerman.”

  “Or at least the guy who gets close enough,” says Maschler. “He’s a goner.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “We draw danger pay for a reason,” says Riley. “And we’re going to torch everybody on the Redeemer who can link this back to Montrose.”

  “Me included?”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” says Riley. “You won’t feel a thing.”

  “Except for now,” says Maschler.

  What the hell is this?” says Linehan.

  “What does it look like?” asks Lynx.

  It looks like ice. Sheets of it stretch away on all sides.

  “How big is this place?” Linehan asks. He pulls himself out of the last of the wires and crawls through the hatch that Lynx has opened.

  “Couple hundred meters,” says Lynx. “This is the core of the ship. And over there is frozen methane, so we’ve got fuel and water from a single locale, and also the backbone of the sleeper freezing units.”

  “And the route past the outer perimeter.”

  “You catch on fast,” says Lynx.

  They extend crampons, start to rappel out onto the slopes of freeze.

  Sir,” says a Russian sergeant, “your codes.”

  “Here,” says Jarvin—sends them over. At least, that’s what Spencer is forced to presume. But now the Chinese sergeant steps forward.

  “Your codes,” he says. “Sir.”

  “Again?”

  “I must insist.”

  “Don’t you trust your colleague?” says Jarvin, indicating the Russian sergeant.

  “I trust my orders.”

  “In other words, no.” Sarmax’s voice is coming through loud and clear on the one-on-one in Spencer’s head. “Things must be getting tense in that fucking cockpit.”

  “They’ve probably got the balance just so.” Spencer’s thinking fast. “Three more Russians may throw things out of whack.”

  “But the Praesidium is supreme authority across the whole Coalition. So they have to let—”

  “They don’t have to do shit,” says Sarmax—but the Chinese sergeant nods. The Russian sergeant clears his throat.

  “You’re cleared, sirs,” he says. “They’re sending an elevator down now.”

  “Very good,” says Jarvin—and now that voice echoes in Spencer’s helmet: “This whole place is in lockdown mode. God only knows what it’s like up there.”

  “We’d better be ready for anything,” says Sarmax.

  “We’ve got the highest clearance,” says Jarvin. “Theoretically, we can confront the captains and take command of the ship.”

  “Theoretically,” says Spencer.

  An elevator door opens. Jarvin starts toward it—just as the ship suddenly changes course without warning. Spencer’s hurled toward the wall—along with everyone else.

  Fuck, she says.

  “What?”

  But there’s no answer. He gets a quick glimpse of what might be Haskell’s face, falling away from him as though it’s tumbling through some endless space. And suddenly he’s back in the real one—opening his eyes. A boot is prodding against him.

  “Wakey wakey,” says Maschler.

  She’s coming ’round,” says a voice.

  It’s news to Haskell. She feels like a freight train just ran through her skull. She senses something fading that might be vertigo, but in reverse—as though she’s already hit the ground and is still getting used to that fact. Awareness starts to crystallize all around her—as if all existence is a grid, and she’s sitting at the very center.

  She opens her eyes.

  “Welcome back,” says Stephanie Montrose.

  They’re creeping along sheets of ice. Sensors are everywhere. Linehan can only hope Lynx is dealing with them. He normally doesn’t worry about stuff he can’t control, but this place is giving him the creeps. As extensive as it is, it’s also intensely claustrophobic. The sheets of ice are only a few meters apart at points. Linehan feels like the whole thing could fold up at any moment—like he’s about to end up in a glacier sandwich.

  “How much more of this?” he says.

  “Carson told me nothing rattled you,” says Lynx.

  They crawl over a slope and along its other side. They seem to have left the central portions of the ice behind. The space they’re in is getting even narrower—so cramped now that Linehan can brace himself against both walls. Soon it’s just a tunnel in the ice. He follows Lynx along it, sees the razor opening another hatch. He follows him through.

  And finds himself in a small chamber. Looks like some kind of storage space. There’s only one other way out—yet another hatch. But Lynx scarcely spares it a glance. Instead, he sits down in a corner. Linehan looks at him.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Shut up and take a seat,” says Lynx.

  Hammer of the Skies is changing its trajectory. The fact that it’s doing so without warning is causing no little inconvenience for many of those within. Spencer can hear the intercom ringing in his ears, instructing everybody to assume the brace position, but the position he’s already assumed has very little to do with anything he had a chance to brace for. He’s spread-eagled against the wall. So is everyone else. He hears the voice of Sarmax ringing inside his head.

  “Must be evasive action.”

  “No shit,” says Spencer.

  “Wrong,” says Jarvin. “We just got a new destination.”

  Haskell struggles to focus. She’s still on that souped-up gurney, back in the InfoCom HQ. The place looks like it
’s cranked up to even more frenetic levels of activity. She can see screens showing the megaships. Only they’re no longer heading for the Moon.

  “Next stop L5,” says Control. The voice is coming from one of the consoles. She suddenly realizes that’s the console her mind’s held in—that she’s actually in that console too, watching her body watch her, feeling Control’s zone-presence hovering around her. As her zone-view coalesces, so do the InfoCom battle management systems, spread out across hundreds of thousands of kilometers of vacuum. Earth’s a lost cause—entirely Eastern now, along with the rest of the near-Earth orbits. Most of the Eurasian ships are consolidating at the geo. Yet most of the zone-focus is on the East’s advance team—the two megaships. They’ve climbed about half of the distance to the Moon and have just veered off at a sharp angle, attaining even greater speeds as they race toward L5. Haskell can see the lunar batteries flailing away, can see the smaller fleet at the libration point raining fire down upon the approaching dreadnaughts and the ships they’re towing. The battle management computers don’t seem to think it’s looking good.

  “Sinclair’s about to get taken off the board,” says Control.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Haskell mutters.

  “You’d be advised to avoid them as well,” says Montrose—and as she speaks, Haskell feels something tighten around her in the zone—like a vise that’s constricting all around her, cutting off her energy, starting to suffocate her …

  “Fuck,” she says.

  “Let’s get some things straight,” says the president.

  Get up,” says Maschler.

  The Operative staggers to his feet, pain gripping his head as he looks around.

  “Same as you left it,” says Riley.

  And all too familiar. That cargo chamber, the two InfoCom agents, that sarcophagus-suit—and the woman within it. Unconscious again now.

  “So who is she, really?” he asks.

  “No one,” says Maschler.

  “A temporary receptacle,” says Riley.

  “Sure, but what the hell’s the receptacle?”

  “Cloned body,” says Maschler. “Implanted with an artificial personality construct. A primitive one.”

  “But effective,” says Riley.

  “Enough to get us near Szilard?” says the Operative.

  “We’re about to find out.”

  So when do we start the run?” asks Linehan.

  “Earth to Linehan: we already did.”

  Yet for now they’re staying put. They’ve been marking time for a few minutes now. Linehan’s starting to get antsy. All the more so as he gets that Lynx has taken him in tow for muscle—and that the razor must be badly in need of that muscle to try to leverage him.

  Or else there’s another angle to all this.

  “You’ve been using me,” says Linehan.

  “Of course I’ve been using you.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “C’mon, Linehan. You’re the mech—”

  “Who used to work for SpaceCom.”

  “Who got rigged with a compulsion by them,” says Lynx.

  “Which you reverse-engineered.”

  “Which is why I showed myself to you back on the Montana. Right. But—”

  “But I’m also your back door into the SpaceCom mainframes,” says Linehan.

  Lynx grins. “One among many.”

  The megaship’s continuing to accelerate, but now its route has straightened out. Soldiers are pulling themselves off the wall, taking up positions again around the elevator-bank. Spencer steadies himself while Jarvin moves back toward the elevator-banks.

  “We can’t let you up there,” says the Chinese sergeant.

  “We already had this conversation,” says Jarvin. “Out of my—”

  “Sir,” says the Russian sergeant, “we can’t let you up there,” Guns are out now.

  “I already gave you my clearance.”

  “Sir, they just revoked it.”

  So now I’m your slave,” says Haskell.

  “You’re alive. You’re not in pain. Count your blessings.”

  Haskell studies Montrose from several angles. The president looks as if she’s been under a lot of stress. Though now she seems to be perking up a little.

  “You’re the most powerful instrument in creation.”

  “Instrument,” repeats Haskell.

  “And someone has to wield you.”

  “I had myself in mind.”

  Montrose throws her head back and laughs—loud enough to make the visors of her nearest bodyguards turn. “Like you have the maturity for that.”

  “Fuck you—”

  “You see? ‘Fuck this’ and ‘fuck that’—you keep on ranting and all the while all you are is a mind so close to the edge of sanity that you’re only fit to be the tool of the ones who really run the show. Jesus, Claire. I expected better from you.”

  “Would you rather I wasn’t strapped to this table taking orders from you?”

  “I’d rather you were a little nicer about it. Seeing as how we’re going to have to get used to each other.”

  “And how we’ve got work to do,” says Control.

  She feels that leash brush up against her throat.

  The Operative’s climbing back into the main cargo bay. Maschler and Riley are both following him this time. Both men have their guns out now. The Operative’s head hurts too much for him to even think about trying anything. He winces.

  “Not to worry,” says Riley.

  “We’ll dose you with some ’dorphs before we set you loose,” says Maschler—snorts with laughter. But the Operative says nothing—just grabs a ladder, starts climbing back into the cockpit. He knows exactly what he’s going to see in its windows. He hears the proximity alert starting up.

  Bang on schedule,” says Lynx.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Linehan’s thinking Lynx’s smile is starting to look ever more demented. But the razor just laughs.

  “You didn’t think we were going to do this alone, did you?”

  “The way you keep talking, I don’t know what to think.”

  “All good assassinations are done from all sides.”

  “Whatever you say, Lynx.”

  “JFK, for example. They—”

  “Who?”

  “Kennedy.”

  “You mean the spaceport?”

  “I mean the president.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “That’s because you’ve got no education. Grassy knoll, book depository, Secret Service, open season: they got the bastard from every direction.”

  “Good for them.”

  “For us, you mean. We’re going to do the same to Szilard.”

  “With me as expendable?”

  “We’re all expendable, Linehan. But if we manage to pull this off, we might yet get out of here in one piece.”

  “After which we go where?”

  “First things first.”

  Fine,” says Jarvin—turns, fires suit-jets to steady himself as he exits the foyer. The other two men follow him.

  “So what the hell do we do now?” asks Spencer.

  “Figure out another way in,” says Jarvin.

  “How the fuck can they deny codes from the Praesidium?”

  “Because someone in the cockpit told them to.”

  “God only knows who’s in charge there now,” says Sarmax.

  “Could be the Rain themselves,” says Jarvin.

  “Was wondering that myself,” says Spencer. “Or they could just be taking no chances.”

  “Whoever it is,” says Sarmax, “they certainly don’t want any competition.”

  Jarvin laughs. “Now that we’re about to hit L5, who would?”

  As I anticipated,” says Control.

  Haskell can hardly fault that machine for sounding so conceited. Especially now that she’s his humble servant—she’s been slotted in, given access to the full range of his battle-management c
alculations. Apparently he’s been predicting this move for some hours now—had anticipated that the megaships’ drive on the Moon was a feint, that their real target was L5. There’s decidedly less hardware there than at the Moon, meaning that the megaships have a far better chance of taking the libration point by themselves than they would have of destroying all of the American lunar forces—

  “If they take L5, the Moon will be next,” says Montrose.

  “Of course,” says Control, “but they’ll need to bring up the rest of their fleet from the Earth orbits. That’ll give us some breathing room.”

  But Haskell is barely listening. She’s too busy getting cranked up to new heights. She doesn’t want to go there, but she’s being rushed toward them by Control’s implacable grip. She feels herself opening out toward the universe. Other minds glimmer here and there: Carson in the shuttle that’s almost docked; another mind deeper within Szilard’s flagship. Still other minds seem to be present at L5, but they’re more opaque—as though they’re being shielded. She can guess by what. Even if she can’t see it anymore, she can still feel that monstrous presence lurking out there, practically screaming at her intuition. The heart of L5: and she wonders how Matthew Sinclair plans to deal with millions of tons of Eurasian steel—wonders, too, who’s really in control of that steel now. She feels herself surging ever higher. The parameters for the run on Szilard click in around her, incandescent matrices flaring out toward infinity. She takes the whole thing in—draws back from what’s being asked of her …

  “Begin,” says Montrose.

  Not bad,” says the Operative.

  “That’s all you can say?” asks Maschler.

  “Nothing rattles our Carson,” says Riley.

  The Operative shrugs. He’s in this way too deep to waste time gawking at the sight in the windows, impressive though it may be: the Redeemer spans almost half a klick, gunnery flaring all along its length. Beyond them the Operative can see a swathe of ships, a blaze of fire—and yet all of it a mere fraction of the fleet that lies beyond.

  “The ramparts of L2,” says Maschler.