by Jim Graham
It was surreal. Scat had to pinch himself. Despite being a prisoner, held by a corporation, wanted by his country, protected by a quasi-national regulatory body, and condemned to death by his planet for his role in the Outer-Rim rebellion, he felt some stirrings of pride as he watched the news unfold.
He had been involved in this.
This was the first planet he had opened up.
His Chapter had named it for the place in the New England colonies where the colonists had fired the first shots of the American Revolution.
They had still been hopeful of their own freedom back then. Now they had to be satisfied that 100s of thousands of others, possibly millions more, would soon be free of pollution, hunger and poverty, free to start new lives on a planet that was “on the up”. A planet man had yet to ravage.
The view switched to recorded footage of a harvest taking place on Boston. As it played, the TV presenter reminded her viewers of what the US President had said about the development of this new and exciting technology: it had given man the chance to renew itself, to start over. It was to be a “renaissance for mankind”.
Maybe the President was right. It certainly looked impressive. Although Scat couldn’t help but wonder whether this was the beginning of something else, as well: that it was the beginning of a shift in power and that its centre of gravity was moving, soon to lie elsewhere.
135
On the 63rd day, a single escort roused Scat from his pen and brought him out into the hangar.
The chamber door was open, and the wormhole was inactive. The rest of the hangar was almost empty, save for a few first generation bugcams, some empty crates and rolls of plastic wrapping. The command cabin lights shone down onto the hangar floor, and a female voice echoed around the open space. It was hard to tell from where, exactly, but he looked up the steps.
‘Go on up,’ the guard said.
Scat nodded. As he walked up the steps, he found himself adjusting his orange coveralls and dusting himself off.
Petroff began to speak, even before Scat had crossed the threshold.
‘Good evening Scat. Come on in.’
Scat stepped inside and looked around. Petroff was standing alongside the console, hovering over a man and a woman who were pouring through data that trickled across a spare monitor.
The woman turned in her seat and smiled.
‘We meet again, Sebastian. How are you?’
It took less than a second to recognise Mary Sheffield, despite her being the last person he expected to meet that day. She was sporting an extremely short haircut, and there were a few lines around the eyes, but there was no mistaking her femininity or her beauty.
He tried not to stare.
‘I’m fine, thanks, Ms Sheffield. A social visit?’
Mary sat silently, weighing him up, still not sure what to make of the man she had met briefly on Trevon and the world had since condemned to death.
Scat started over.
‘How are you Miss Sheffield?’
She smiled.
‘I’m well. How are they treating you?’
‘It depends. Where do you want me to start? Pre-rebellion?’
‘OK,’ she said softly, but with authority, getting out of her seat, ‘I can see we need to clear the air a little before we can continue. Let’s get that done now, shall we?’
Scat didn't know what she meant by that, but shrugged his acceptance.
‘We know you were set up as a patsy for Booni. We know you were pushed into the rebellion. And we know you have been wrongly convicted of economic crimes against humanity and more recently pushed into forced-labour on behalf of private enterprise. Are there any other injustices you’d like to get off your chest before we can get down to business?’
He thought she had summed it up pretty well. Petroff was smiling in disbelief, pretending to be offended.
‘The food’s lousy.’
‘It’ll get better,’ she replied turning to her male companion. ‘Take his neural disrupter off, Taffy. Then see that the others have theirs removed, first thing in the morning.’
As her assistant removed the neural disrupter, Petroff stared at her with arched eyebrows questioning her judgement.
‘We’re their custodians now, Petroff,’ Mary explained, annoyed at the unspoken criticism. ‘We decide whether the neurals are needed, and then only if the guardian council approves of it. Until then, they come off. We’ll discuss their conditions, and any further changes to them, once I’ve toured the facility tomorrow morning.’
Petroff threw a thumb at Scat.
‘It’s no concern of mine what you do with these convicted felons, young Miss,’ he said. ‘As of tomorrow, they’re all yours to feed. You can move them back into the dorms, if you like—I don’t care. But if you think for one minute I’m happy leaving them under your sole supervision, then you’re mistaken. We’ll be keeping our guards in place, just as before. I need to know they’re under lock and key.’
He stepped back to his monitor, theatrically dry washing his hands and shaking them dry.
Mary was quick to respond.
‘And we need to know they’ll be well treated, Petroff, so while you do that, I’ll be assigning some of my own people to watch over yours.’
Mary ushered Scat out of the cabin and walked with him down the stairs.
‘As you can see, Scat, you’re a prisoner, still, and you’ll remain one until we’ve found a way to deal with you. It’s complicated, and I’d appreciate your forbearance for a while longer.’
‘So I don’t get my own room, after all. I was just getting used to the idea.’
Mary ignored him.
‘Scat, the reason I’ve asked to speak to you is because we understand you met with Picton. Is that correct?’
‘Yes. It is.’
‘Well, we’re grateful to you. We can imagine the risks you were taking. Where is he?’
‘He’s in the pens, along with a few of the other NARRies.’
‘The what?’
‘Your No Automatic Right of Returnees. The NARRies.’
‘Oh. Of course.’
She was silent for a few seconds and then called out to Taffy, asking him to come on down.
‘Picton’s in the pens,’ she told him. ‘Get him out of there—and the other NARRs.’
Taffy looked down at her as though she had given him an impossible task. She reassured him.
‘NARRs aren’t a part of the rebel prisoner mandate, Taffy. We don’t need to wait until tomorrow. They’re ours now.’
Taffy turned to Scat, looking for directions. He pointed to the corridor joining the two buildings. When Taffy was gone, Mary appeared to relax. Her tone softened. She opened up a little.
‘Without your message to Nettles, we would still be in the dark,’ she told him. ‘As it is, Lynthax is still holding out on their whereabouts and Petroff here won’t offer up a thing. They claim our authority doesn’t extend to NARRs beyond the first 1000, and insist on the UN Security Council issuing a warrant for anything closer in. That in itself gives us some hope that the missing NARRs are out there somewhere. As I was saying, Scat: we owe you some thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it. So who do we have to thank for you lot acting like a bull in a china shop? Trevon would still be on the road to independence had you been a little more subtle in your approach.’
That Scat was still thinking of independence surprised her. It was a dead issue. It had been since ISRA had proposed the peace talks back in late 2214. She decided not to tackle the issue directly.
‘In order to accept what we did, you’ll need to be more aware of the bigger picture, Scat. It’ll take some time, but you’ll get there if you try.’
‘So what’s next?’ Scat asked, moving on.
‘Well, we’re setting up representative offices on the new planets, and a High Commission here on Runnymede. The commission will organise our efforts to track down the missing NARRs, or NARRies, as you call them. It’ll also dou
ble up as our centre for the rebel custody programme, until Earth has settled the legal wrangling, that is. Taffy, a few ORF and I are the advance party. We arrived an hour ago.’
The rebel custody programme was of interest. Scat had been sentenced to death, as had Birdie and “Georgie” Orwell. He couldn’t give a fig for the NARRies or the advance party.
‘Legal wrangling?’ he asked.
‘Yes. We have custody for now, but the Western Bloc is taking it to the ISRA Appeals Court. They really do want you.’ She emphasised the point, and the seriousness of it, by pressing a finger to his chest. ‘In the meantime, and as a counter to their appeal, The Authority has set up a panel to review the convictions and death sentences. We’re trying to muddy the water a little.’
Scat looked down to where the finger had touched him.
‘Thanks,’ he said, smiling.
Mary frowned.
‘Don’t thank us, yet, Scat. You still did some awful things. The ends did not justify the means you employed. Not even sovereign states have that latitude. No, there will still be a reckoning, only it will be a just reckoning—not some kangaroo court with a hanging judge.’
‘Again, thanks. We’ll sleep better.’
Mary wasn’t sure whether Scat was being sarcastic or not. Nor did she care. She was tired and was due to inspect the facility at 6.30 am when her mandate kicked in. She looked at her graf. It was two am.
‘I’m off to bed,’ she said, turning to call the guard across to them. ‘Please see Mr Scatkiewicz back to his cell.’
She walked away without saying goodnight. Scat watched her cross the hangar floor and step through a small side door to a waiting pod.
Well, the lads will be relieved that ISRA’s pushing Lynthax aside: at least as their “custodians”, whatever that means. And the reviews sounded promising. Maybe we can make this scrap between Lynthax and ISRA work for us in other ways, as well.
With that thought in his head, Scat turned on his heels, and with a renewed spring in his step, he took a memory of her scent back to the pens.
136
Over the following few weeks, Mary and her team tried to work out where all the Lynthax No Automatic Right of Return workers were. It was difficult.
Petroff declined to open the company files. Mary threatened court action. He laughed.
‘Good luck, my dear. I’ll remind you, we haven’t been charged with a crime, let alone been convicted. As we’ve told you before, if you want something, get a warrant.’
So she asked for one and ISRA made the application.
As they waited for it to arrive, Petroff took a few sensible precautions. He quietly ran down the number of Runnymede wormholes and shifted their operation to Concord, leaving the original wormhole in place to meet their local needs. As he shifted wormholes, so he moved some of his other valuable assets and with them went a greater number of his security detail. As an afterthought, he sent a message to N’Bomal, asking him to push for the deployment of additional starflyers in Runnymede space. Just in case.
Meanwhile, Mary’s team did all that it could.
They trawled the Authority’s central records to work out who had left Earth to work for Lynthax on a No Automatic Right of Return visa. They then contacted the immigration authorities on the New Worlds where Lynthax conducted its business. On Earth, ISRA’s investigators contacted the NARR families, to see which of them were still in touch. Added to the list of the missing was anyone who hadn’t spoken to their families in over a month.
They interviewed the NARRies who remained on Runnymede for their knowledge of whom had passed through the facility. Mary circulated the Authority’s NARR photo records among the Pathfinders. They lifted DNA from surfaces throughout the complex and ran the results through the World Health Organisation database.
But the UN Security Council warrant never arrived; the Western Bloc continued to run interference, and the New Worlds dragged their feet, citing data privacy concerns.
Eventually work ground to a halt. They had done all that they could legally do, with what resources they had.
One afternoon, as Mary toured the Pathfinder dorm, she called Scat down from his room.
‘I've just come back from Concord,’ she said. ‘You must be mightily proud of the work you did there. ’
‘Yes. We are thanks. How is the place?’
‘Busy. We didn’t get to wander around much, but what we could see from the air was truly impressive. It’s fertile, for sure. And it’s very beautiful; the ground seems to ooze colour. It was a good pick.’
‘And First Entry? ’
‘Covered in port-a-cabins, Scat, as are several other settlements we visited. First Entry is home for ten thousand people now. Oh, and they’ve named the hill “Scat’s Lookout”.’
Scat looked as though he had just received word from home. He flushed with embarrassment. She changed the subject.
‘Scat, I’d like to thank your people for helping us out with the NARRie thing. It’s hard to be sure about this, but we’re working on a theory that Petroff discarded the missing NARRies on some of those planets that didn’t make the final cut.’
‘If you think about it, it would have been an easy thing to do,’ she explained. ‘Your Pathfinders friends and the NARRie crew go out together, much as usual. Petroff then finds an excuse to bring the Pathfinder team back early: perhaps to switch them to a planet of greater interest. To keep up appearances, he replaces them with some of his own doorstops, but once the hand over was complete ...
‘It was simple, and it was effective. It meant that the people who saw them go out didn’t see them come back. No one, other than his own people, would know it was meant to be a one-way journey. Nor did your friends think to question whether they came back or not. You were segregated; there was no way they could ever know. But if you dig deeper, you’ll find that where that has happened, none of your friends can say for sure that they’ve seen the same NARRies since. Or that they’ve revisited the same planet since. At least not knowingly.
‘And the descriptions the Pathfinders have given us match the NARRies who haven’t been in touch with their families.’
‘So, problem solved.’ Scat felt he had been useful. He was pleased. It was another tick in the plus column for the ex-rebels.
‘Well ... Not really,’ Mary said, sounding a little troubled.
‘Can’t you requisition some wormhole time and take a look?’ Scat asked. It seemed the obvious thing to do.
Mary shook her head.
‘No. It’s not possible.’
‘And why not?’
‘The trouble is, aside from Concord and Boston, we still don’t know where these other planets are. Your boys have been as helpful as they can, but Lynthax was exploring areas of space we haven’t looked at before, and it was using a catalogue system of its own devising. And no one, outside of a select few, was ever given their co-ordinates. We don’t think the co-ordinates were ever shared, not even with their head office. We think they kept the details here and maybe elsewhere, out past the first 1000. The same goes for the NARRies we’ve interviewed: they were kept in the dark.
‘And we can’t get at their off-world data without that warrant. Not without breaking the law or risking a conflict on Earth.’
‘Well, you know what they say about lawyers and their arses,’ Scat said. ‘So, what’s the total up to?’
‘We’re missing over a thousand.’ Mary looked at the floor, knowing that number would rise. ‘Well, we always knew it would be a slow process, but we’ll get there in the end. In the meantime,’ she added, looking at her graf, ‘join us in Economic Review Department. We have an update on the appeal.’
‘Good news, I hope, Mary. Being in limbo like this is no fun.’
She didn’t offer him any encouragement. She walked on, her detail trailing behind her.
Scat wasn’t the only ex-rebel to attend. Most of the rebel leaders were there. They all had one thing in common: everyone of them was either
condemned to death, or represented a Chapter where some of its members were. No one appeared to be overly concerned, or expectant; there had been several updates over the past month and none had amounted to much.
Mary walked into the room, followed by an Outer Rim Force trooper and her new aide, Picton, who she had recently co-opted onto her detail. The room was empty save for the department’s workings on the economic effects of wormhole travel. It all lay covered up or behind screens.
Picton started with a general update.
‘First, the good news: Lynthax has finally accepted our diplomatic status, which means we can use wormholes whenever we need to. They’ve assigned a wormhole to each of our Outer-World offices, so we'll not need their permission to carry out our spot checks. However, Lynthax’ll still operate them, so they can cut us off at any time.
‘Second up: we’ve just conducted our first tour of Concord. The immigrants are happy and look well. On the face of it, Lynthax is doing an admirable job.
‘On the other hand, our Office of Intelligence thinks that Lynthax now has a weapons-enabled fleet of around 40 starflyers. That’s in addition to their frigate, the Venture Raider. That’s twice as much muscle as we have, and is roughly what each of the Blocs can put together for a campaign outside of the Inner-Rim. And we don’t know where they all are. We can only assume they’ve dispersed them. If they can open up a large enough hole, they could be anywhere.
‘The upshot of that is, no single bloc can challenge Lynthax in a shooting war. We would need to add our starflyers to that of another bloc to be sure of the outcome—and that’s if we’re only taking on Lynthax. We’d need more if one of the blocs came to its aid.’ He was alluding to the West’s unwavering support for its flagship resource company.
Picton then moved to one side and made room for Mary. She seemed a little uncomfortable, Scat thought. It didn’t bode well.
‘I asked for you to be brought up to date on these matters to help you put the Western Bloc’s appeal regarding your status in perspective.