by Jim Graham
Curious, Scat took a seat close by, glancing across to Pierce every so often, hoping something said in hushed voices would leak across to him. Perhaps they were talking about Arnold and the comms room incident, something they had learned about earlier that morning over the companynet.
The noise died down as the large glass double-doors leading to Corporate swung open, and a harried-looking Supervisor Andrews walked briskly into the room, asking everyone to take a seat. As a couple of directors from the station’s head office took their places on the raised platform behind him, Andrews placed a folder on the podium and flicked through some pages.
With the room finally settled, and without looking up, he began to speak.
‘OK, before we get onto the station move, I’ve got an announcement to make, and some housekeeping points to cover off.
‘First up: last night’s incident in the comms room.
‘The damage is minor, and we’ll fix it in a day or two. Otherwise, none of the essential systems was affected. We’ve started an investigation, and it’s still on going, but the evidence already points to it being sabotage. And given it was Arnold who was in the room at the time, it looks like it was him who did it. Right now, he’s in a stable condition. He has some damage to his lungs, and some second- and third-degree burns all of which, I am told, we can fix. But he didn’t get any oxygen for quite a while, so there’s a strong chance of some brain damage. Dr Angelino says we won’t know the full extent of it until Arnold wakes up from his coma. His family will be informed, and he’ll be evacuated on the next supply run.’
‘Secondly, use of the rec room…’
His audience began talking among themselves: It was Arnold—the gentle giant from IT? They’re blaming a man whose only crime was to talk repeatedly about his four children, and whose eyes welled up when he reread his family mail? No, that can’t be right—he wasn’t even on the betting list.
No one believed it was him.
By the time Andrews was ready to pass the floor to the younger of the two Corporates, he was competing against a rising hubbub of discontent.
Pierce then stood up to make things worse:
‘Trevon House has voted to seek independence from Earth!’
Silence.
‘As of last night, Corporate had the Trevon government under lockdown!’
Astonishment. Murmurs rippled through the audience.
‘Four of the Outer-Rim Houses have declared their support for Trevon and aim to follow suit.’
The crowd quietened again. The usually secretive Pierce was revealing some sensational news—they did not want to miss what else he might say.
‘Corporate has declared Prebos for Earth.’
Anger. Shouts. Pierce sat back down.
Andrews looked surprised, shocked even. Perhaps it was the first he had heard of it; he was not high up the corporate ladder, more middle management. But the suits behind him looked more alarmed at the reaction than surprised at the news.
‘OK ... calm down. Calm down,’ Andrews said, as he looked over his shoulder, appealing to the directors to deny the claims: they were obviously absurd. ‘I’m sure Pierce is mistaken. Let’s calm down and check this out. I’m sure it’s no more than a rumour.’
Pierce then added a further titbit, looking directly at the directors to gauge their reaction:
‘And Corporate is sending its frigate to Prebos to secure company assets.’
Scat looked up at the platform and saw one of the directors close his eyes. The other looked at the door.
Out front, Andrews buckled. He did not like what he had heard either: he was already handling three, or was it four, long-simmering industrial disputes and this was pushing him to his limit. He turned to face the suits behind him who were offering no leadership or guidance; he held his arms out as if to ask, ‘Well?’
Meanwhile, bedlam on the floor.
The relocation briefing ended before it could start. The suits hurried from the room, followed by a torrent of abuse.
As the shouting continued, Andrews looked up at the ceiling and then stared at Pierce.
Pierce avoided him.
If Andrew’s looks could kill, Pierce would be dead already.
8
The security team arrived in local space less than 18 hours after the briefing broke down.
A rippling phenomenon preceded the arrival of their frigate, the Venture Raider, as it equalised the space surrounding it, some five thousand kilometres above Prebos. It then hung in geostationary orbit above the station where it completed its post-ftl checks, logged onto the station’s net and received a series of local area updates.
As the station announced its arrival, most of the workers made their way to the aboveground observation deck to witness the “invasion”. It was crowded with both miners and corporate administration staff, the air thick with a mix of musky, sweat-soaked inner-suits, foot odour, medicinal cream, freshly laundered coveralls and menthol gum. The mood was expectant but calm.
The flight from Trevon had taken the best part of an Earth day, during which time a lot had changed on Prebos: Corporate had lost control of the station; there had been an incompetent act of sabotage carried out by at least one Trevon; and production had stopped.
It had taken an intervention by Marvin Cade to pull the place back from the brink. He had offered to mediate, and arranged a meeting between Corporate’s representative, Lead Planning Supervisor, Frank Ulwaya and Thomas Irwin, the IT expert on Pierce’s team, nominated to speak on behalf of the employees. Pierce had declined the privilege.
They met in the canteen, Marvin leading the way. Scat was alone, pushing his breakfast around a plate when the three of them arrived. Ulwaya made as though they wanted to claim the place for themselves, but Scat ignored him so they wandered over to the far side of the room.
Marvin offered his two colleagues a seat each on opposite sides of a table. Scat turned on his graf’s microphone, increased its sensitivity and adjusted the earbud volume.
It started reasonably enough. They agreed on a life-support maintenance programme with surprisingly little fuss, and, after thrashing over some technical details, Irwin even agreed to service the mining equipment in readiness for a resumption of mining.
Then the mood changed.
‘No more acts of violence,’ Ulwaya insisted. ‘You’ve got to control your lads better. No more blowing things up and no more intimidation.’ He glanced nervously at Irwin as if to suggest the problem lay with his crew.
Irwin took issue with that.
‘That’s kak, Marv,’ he replied. ‘We aren’t threatening any one. We didn’t blow the comms room up, and it’s plain crazy to blame Arnold for it.’ He then waited for Ulwaya to respond. He didn’t, so he went on. ‘If anyone’s threatening anyone around here, it’s Corporate! We aren’t calling in the Marines, they are,’ he added, referring to the frigate’s imminent arrival. He paused again. Still no response. ‘Look, it’s not our fault the directors are a bunch of worryguts, or that the department heads are a bunch of girlie-boys. If we look mean to them, it’s because they’ve pissed us off and we’re angry. It’s no more than that.’
Perhaps this was Irwin’s first attempt at negotiation: he was filling in the silences intentionally left by the experienced Ulwaya, and he sounded a tad too defensive.
Despite having played the game a little better than Irwin, Ulwaya appeared uneasy still. He sought reassurances, but Marvin made him face facts.
‘Frank, you’ve got to get your guys to see the boys as more than just grunts,’ he said. ‘Asides from the incident in the comms room, there’s been no violence up until now, and I doubt if it’ll get to that point. What you’re doing is confusing their lack of respect for a threat of violence. That’s all.’
Ulwaya said nothing. He avoided Marvin’s stare.
‘And really, Frank: Arnold?’ Marvin added, making it clear that no one believed Arnold was capable of such an act.
Finally, Marvin
let Ulwaya know that no one was going back to work on production: there was not the consensus for it. If Ulwaya truly was concerned about the prospect of violence, Corporate should rescind its threat to withhold the miners’ pay and benefits.
Ulwaya nodded.
‘Are we done?’ he asked.
They were, and things did calm down, some, in the hours that followed.
As the frigate made its final approach, Scat moved a little closer to the window.
At least with the suspension of mining, the view to the horizon was clear and the ground had stopped shaking. The crowd would have no difficulty making out the comings and goings, to and from the frigate, if they could get close enough to the window to peer across the silvery surface.
Scat held onto the rail, and pressed down through his geckos so that the occasional jostling would not spin him away.
He had a good view—even if he did not like what he saw.
9
No one really knew what to expect, but the first hour passed without incident and as the excitement of the frigate’s arrival wore off, the spectators broke away in ones and twos. Scat wandered off to grab a coffee before retiring to his bunk on the lower floor.
A few minutes into a light doze, his graf pinged. He threw up a projection and read the bullet points of the first message through half-focused eyes.
It was Corporate: they were trying to put a positive spin on the frigate’s arrival. The security team was here to protect the company’s assets and maintain order until they could clarify the situation in the Grecos system. It even listed the benefits.
Tellingly, there was no mention of Corporate’s pledge of Prebos to Earth.
A second mail announced a heads of departments briefing in the control centre. He deleted that one and scrolled down to the final mail. It was addressed to him, personally. It was from the Director of Security.
That made him sit up.
The security team was establishing a temporary base for itself in one of the admin offices on the mezzanine floor of the main cargo area.
On the other side of the window, the number three loading bay was unpressurised and open to space. Small, unmanned cargo carts whizzed in and out, up and down the ramp, dropping crates and netted stores onto palettes that green and yellow automatic loaders then snatched up and pulled from view.
The place had not been this busy for weeks. To Scat it looked as though the security team was planning to stay a while, which unsettled him—he was still allergic to uniform.
‘We’re ready for you now, Mr Scatkiewicz. This way, please,’ said a voice from the cargo manager’s office. A young trooper, wearing a slate-grey tunic and a darker grey pair of trousers, was holding the door open, leaving just enough room for Scat to pass through. He was not armed.
Inside the room, a vaguely familiar face pumped his hand and then walked back to his seat behind the manager’s desk, cleared of the usual junk. His civilian clothing gave nothing away, but his soft, tanned face, overly neat hair, stretched tummy and slight shoulders suggested he was a well-pampered desk-jockey. Either side of him sat two security officers, jackets off, revealing slightly sweaty inner-suits of recent design and little wear.
‘Thanks for waiting, Scatkiewicz. My name is Jack Petroff. I’m the company’s Director of Security. To my left is Commander Ryan Xin, and to my right is his deputy, Thomas Williams.’ He made the introductions very quickly. It sounded as though he wanted to move right onto business.
Scat acknowledged the introductions with a slight upward nod of his head, hiding his wariness behind a pleasant smile. He had no idea why he was there, and did not care: he was not interested in becoming involved in a local political dispute, and was keen to get this meeting out of the way, to be left alone again.
‘How can I help you?’ he asked.
‘Well,’ Petroff began, ‘we’re trying to make sense of things—and we think you can help. You know Pierce pretty well. So, what can you tell us?’
Scat knew an open question when he heard one and refused to bite. He played stupid and shrugged.
Petroff stared into the air for a short while, as did Commander Xin. Petroff then took a long and unfriendly look at Scat before speaking again, this time a little slower, the harder tone of his voice hinting at an impatient nature and of someone used to getting his own way:
‘Pierce has been very antsy these past few months,’ he said, ‘and we need to know why. What do you know?’
‘I’m not sure he’s been antsy, sir,’ Scat answered, cautiously. ‘Pierce is Pierce: he doesn’t chat a lot and he doesn’t suffer fools. I haven’t noticed anything unusual, not even after Corporate asked me to watch over him. That was a couple of days ago.’
‘Watch over him? What kind of watch?’ Xin asked.
‘A suicide watch, sir.’
‘Was he suicidal?’ It sounded as Xin had no idea.
‘Well, sir, I’m not a doctor, but as I’ve said: he looked the same old Pierce to me.’
Once again, Petroff appeared to gaze at nothing. Xin did likewise.
Deputy Commander Williams broke the silence:
‘How could you tell?’
‘Because I’ve been on his team since I got here and the watch request didn’t come from Medical.’
‘But he was acting strangely,’ Petroff said. It was more of a statement that needed confirmation than it was a question.
‘I can’t say,’ Scat replied. ‘He’s odd at the best of times.’
‘How would you describe his work ethic? Xin asked.
‘Excellent. Professional.’
‘Any changes during this past week?’
‘Not really. Same old.’
‘What about your last belt run?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ Scat replied, thinking back. ‘It took longer than usual for us to reconfigure the comms link and we kind of hurried the belt walk, but we’ve done either-or before.’
This time all three faces glazed over for a second or two. It was like talking via a video link that froze every so often.
Petroff continued, appearing satisfied that he had at least gotten somewhere.
‘I’m sure you’ll have noticed the nature of this place since you arrived, Scat. How would you describe it?’
‘Dirty.’
Petroff turned to Xin for assistance. Scat could sense his exasperation.
Xin leaned forward with both elbows on the table.
‘Yes, Scat, it’s dirty; the fines get everywhere. But we’re referring to the population at large.’
‘Testy, then.’
Petroff raised his head up and down very slowly, as though testy was an apt description.
‘Getting better or worse?’ Williams asked.
‘Worse since this Trevon thing became an issue, but it wasn’t improving before that, either.’
‘And the reason for that is ...?’
Scat had not been on Prebos for more than a day or two before knowing the answer to that question.
‘Well, it’s no secret, sir: there’s a divide between Corporate and the grunts that do the work. There’s no meeting of minds. There’s no respect.’
Scat sensed that the three men were embarrassed by that.
‘That’s our appraisal as well, Scat,’ Xin said, ‘which is worrying. It’s a small community. We would have expected some coming together to work things out, but that hasn’t happened. It suggests to us that someone’s been hard at work, undermining things.’
‘You mean pushing an agenda? Supporting Trevon?’
Petroff stared at air again, as did Xin. Williams looked directly at Scat.
‘Do you mind me asking you something?’ Scat asked, hoping to change the subject and burn some time.
‘Go ahead,’ Petroff replied.
‘Why do you leave the room when I answer your questions?’
‘Leave the room? Oh, yes!’ Petroff said, turning to look at the Commander. ‘It probably does look like that, doesn’t it?’ he
asked him. Xin smiled.
‘I’m just curious,’ Scat added.
Petroff turned his attention back to Scat.
‘We’re fitted for the neuralnet,’ he said.
‘For what?’
‘The neuralnet, Scat. You must have heard of it; it’s been in development for decades.’
‘Yes,’ Scat confirmed, ‘but only as a concept. It’s never been approved for use.’
‘Well it is now,’ Petroff said, sounding very proud of the achievement. ‘Lynthax bought the prototype, shovelled some money into it and pushed it through. We’ve made it available to all our top brass and most of our key staff.’
‘Only at Lynthax?’
‘No, we’re licensing it out to the other companies as a part of its FD&S approval. And we’re allowed to sell it to qualifying individuals and government agencies, subject to some fairly strong preconditions.’ Petroff made them sound as though they very stringent preconditions.
‘Like what?’
‘It’s a fairly sensitive piece of technology, Scat. Aside from the social benefits it also provides certain, well, military advantages.’
‘So, you pre-approve its users?’
‘Yes. We do. We must, although it still leaves Lynthax with a large middle class market. And people pay a premium for this kind of advantage.’ Petroff now sounded distracted. It was obvious he wanted to get back to business.
‘What can you download?’ Scat asked.
‘Anything from the universal web,’ Petroff replied, ‘the companynet, our PCs and secure databases ... basically anything you can download using your graf IV.’
Yes, he did sound distracted. Petroff also glanced down at his graf, probably to check the time. Scat tried to burn through some more.
‘And you can communicate between yourselves?’ he asked.
Petroff nodded, curtly.
‘Yes. We use the companynet as you do, only it’s all done inside the head. It keeps things in the family, so to speak.’
It certainly would, Scat thought. There had been a long-running debate about releasing such technology. Should it prove to work, it would be a game-changer.