The ‘Queen of Glass’ wasn’t the only person interested in information like this either. Lady Felecia n’Calysher had also recently become a subscriber to her data-stream. Felecia paid just as handsomely as the glass dealer did—and sometimes even better than her mother, the Senatrix, although her interests tended to center largely around anything involving Maya n’Kaaryn.
‘Ah, sweet little Maya,’ Trina thought, summoning up a mental image of the young woman chained up in her virtual dungeon. Sadly, it would remain a fantasy, at least for the foreseeable future. Despite constant attempts to change Sarah’s mind on the subject, Maya remained strictly off-limits, and would stay that way until Trina found the right weakness to force her lover’s hand. After that, things would take a delicious new direction.
Letting out a long, wistful sigh at the notion, she continued browsing and spotted another file about the ETR. This one featured reports by Sarah’s field agents in Nuvo Bolivar and detailed covert aid coming to the Marionite terrorists from the rebellious Loyalistas. According to the operatives, this was being done with the complete knowledge and the full blessings of the Republican Orthodox Church itself.
Despite the defeat of their military and the death of President Magdalana, the Loyalistas were still carrying on their hopeless fight against the new government, and the Sisterhood, Trina reflected. If the file she was looking at was any indication, they were also attempting to widen the conflict through an alliance with the Marionites.
This was a significant development and she promptly made another copy, this time tagging it for General Angelique bel Thana, her eyes only, highest priority. Just a year earlier, Bel Thana had personally assumed the role of Trina’s control officer.
Such a thing was very rare; highly placed officials like Bel Thana normally left it to their subordinates to handle such tasks, but Sarah’s promotion to Sagana Sector Chief had simultaneously elevated Trina’s own standing. As a result, the Agency’s Assistant Director had taken a personal hand in the matter, managing Trina’s ongoing surveillance of Sarah’s activities.
Bel Thana hadn’t been specific about her interests however. She had merely requested that Trina send along anything that Sarah was working on, on a regular and timely basis.
Mindful of this obligation, Trina continued to search for whatever Bel Thana might consider relevant. The only other new file that she found was one concerning the famous musician, Celina. As far as she knew, Sarah had never had more than a passing interest in the realie composer, or her work, and she was puzzled by its presence.
When she went and opened it, she was even more bewildered. It was truly exhaustive in scope. There was also a song stored in one of its sub-files, and Trina realized that somehow, Sarah had copied it directly from the woman’s creative AI.
Intrigued by this, she played it for herself. She was well acquainted with Celina’s work, and what she heard truly impressed her. It was far and above anything that Celina had created so far, and she made a copy right away. An original, unpublished creation composed by a Living National Treasure was quite a find—and a potentially lucrative one. The Xee would pay well for it. They had already amassed a fortune for themselves by pirating all of the woman’s realies, and they would certainly consider this piece to be worth a hefty price tag, she reflected.
And in addition to however many Credits might be involved, it also had a certain amount of personal value. It represented a new facet of Sarah that she hadn’t been aware of, and she considered how to use it against her. Perhaps a custom Celina realie with some painful additions spliced in? The idea had some possibilities and she decided to discuss the matter with the Xee when she contacted them.
Quite pleased with her work, she tagged the ‘Celina’ file as part of her package for Bel Thana, but took the added step of omitting the little song itself. She was reasonably certain that the woman would not see any intelligence value in it, and she didn’t want to create any more of a data trail leading back to her than she already had. The Xee liked their transactions neat and tidy, and what Bel Thana didn’t know, wouldn’t harm her.
Disconnecting from the data-vault, she sent out everyone’s copies, erased the record of her visit from Aria’s access log, and exited the system.
“Everything checks out, Aria,” she said.
***
Believing that she had deceived everyone, Trina did not realize that she in turn, had been deceived. While the Lady Felecia n’Calysher was in fact a subscriber, she would not be receiving Trina’s latest update. Instead, Dana bel Hanna, having hijacked the young aristocrat’s account, would get it, and N’Calysher would be given innocuous, but believable data that would leave her none the wiser.
Since the personality matrix had quietly begun monitoring Sarah, Maya, and the others that the Galaxy Mind had mentioned, she had discovered many surprising things.
This however, trumped them all. It was patently obvious that Trina had been data-mining Aria for a long time, and she could only guess at what State secrets the woman had already peddled to unscrupulous buyers. Now Sarah’s tormenter had unwittingly stumbled on something that was truly dangerous. Bel Hanna knew that she would have to take direct action.
She immediately accessed Trina’s private data vault and altered the Song file, making certain that her changes were subtle enough to escape detection. She also made certain that the secret surveillance program that Angelique bel Thana had had put in place to watch over Trina, had caught every moment of the woman’s activities. Especially her discovery of Celina’s melody, and her failure not only to report this to her superior, but also her deliberate effort to conceal her findings.
Bel Hanna had no doubt what the ultimate result would be. Bel Thana was not someone who tolerated disloyalty. She would become suspicious, and she would monitor everything that happened from this point forwards with intense interest. If Trina did what she suspected she would, Bel Thana would also take action. With prejudice.
She didn’t feel any remorse for the part she had played in helping to set this in motion though. When she had still possessed a body and commanded the Athena, she had been forced to make decisions that had ultimately cost other women their lives. Although her circumstances were quite different now, the situation itself, and what it required of her, was essentially the same. It was a war, albeit a silent one, and war entailed casualties. Trina would not be missed.
Her work finished for the night, Bel Hanna returned to the Encyclopedia Sororitas and continued her efforts to rewrite its entries. As she did so, she noticed once again that many of the images used in the falsified data had been created with the help of ReVision studios.
Compared to breaking into the RSE databanks, access to the studio’s computer network proved to be childishly simple, and once inside, she found all the tools that she needed for the next step in her campaign. The Sisterhood was about to have its political and historical re-education accelerated.
CHAPTER 9
Residence of Trina n’Daeva, Marpesia District, Thermadon Val, Thermadon, Myrene System, Thalestris Elant, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1048.11|01|05:43:67
Trina received a shock just seven days after her decision to sell the Song to the Xee. Her broker, a woman who specialized in peddling pirated data, had relayed her offer to the management of Maggothymn Productions, and Trina had expected them to accept it immediately.
This was not what occurred.
Instead, her broker informed her that the Xee had not only been uninterested in the Song, but had asked that they never be contacted about such a thing ever again. This was a highly uncharacteristic response for a race that prided itself in its ruthless business practices, and extremely disappointing.
Even more surprising was the fact that this response had not come from the Xee that the broker usually dealt with. Rather, it had come from a subordinate, who had suddenly been promoted to his superior’s position.
What truly terrified her, was the reason behind this advancement. Their old contact had
died under mysterious circumstances, and just after receiving her offer.
Trina went to her workshop right away. Among the many tools she had there was a data terminal, which she used mostly for diagnostic work, and a DNA encoder. This was the same device that was employed to create the messages that the famous black roses delivered.
Hands shaking, she logged into the terminal, found the file with the Song in it and sent it to the encoder. After a few seconds, the encoder signaled that the message was ready, and a small door popped open, revealing a tiny tray which held a vial of clear liquid. It was a protein, which now had the Song’s data imprinted on its genetic structure, along with a delivery agent.
Normally, this would have been injected into one of the flowers, and the message would have bound itself with the chemicals that gave it its scent. Today however, she had no intention of doing this.
Instead, she removed the container, and spilled its contents into a spray bottle of sterile water. Swirling it around for a moment, she mixed the two substances, and then lifted the bottle to her nose, sending a burst into her sinuses.
Another minute passed, and then she tested the message by thinking of the Song. Its notes rang out clearly in her mind, as if she had just heard them only a second earlier. The Song had become part of her memory.
But she wasn’t done. There was another task that she had to undertake to completely ensure her safety.
She moved over to a small refrigerator that sat in a corner of the shop and took out a tray of glass vials. These also contained water, and swimming around in one of them was an army of nanobots.
The ‘bots had one job to perform, but it was a vital task. Once ingested, the majority of them would find their way into her brain’s memory centers, while the rest positioned themselves in her Neo-cortex, waiting for a day that hopefully, would never arrive.
If she died, and all electrical activity in her Neo-cortex ceased, it would send a signal to the ‘bots, and they would systematically destroy her memory cells beyond the ability of any process to recover.
Bringing out another spray bottle, she poured the solution in, and then inhaled it. This time, there was nothing for her to wait for, and she went back to her terminal for the final safety measure.
She erased the file with the Song, and then ran another program to thoroughly purge it from the system. It wasn’t until the program had ended, and every trace of the Song was eliminated, that she finally allowed herself to relax.
From here on, the only copy of it was inside of her, and anyone who wanted it, would be forced to consider something other than murder to obtain it. These safeguards were certainly far from perfect, but she was much safer than she had been only ten minutes earlier.
Feeling a little better about her situation, Trina accessed her Com and tried to contact her broker. There simply had to be others who would want the Song, she reasoned. The murder of the Xee executive—and it had to be a murder—made this a dangerous certainty.
When her broker finally answered her, it was to say goodbye. Trina’s jaw dropped as the woman explained to her that she could not continue with their business relationship. Celina’s creation had invited the attention of some very shadowy individuals, and her broker wanted out. She didn’t explain who these people were, or why she considered them so dangerous, but before she ended the call, she strongly recommended that Trina destroy her copy and forget that it had ever even existed.
Angered by this rebuff, Trina resolved to persevere. Having taken her precautions, she had no intention of simply turning tail and running. Whatever it was that made the Song so dangerous also made it worth a great deal of Credits. It was simply a matter of being willing to take the risks and find the right buyer.
She even saw a bright spot; with the broker out of the equation, it meant that she would be able to keep all of the profits for herself. Fortifying herself with a large glass of wine, she began placing some calls.
It wasn’t long before she received a response.
***
Trina shifted nervously as the robotruck stopped and parked itself across the mouth of the alley. Had she not known that this was her buyer, she might have panicked, and a primitive part of her still wanted to. But instead, she remained where she was.
A few seconds passed before the side hatch of the machine’s cargo compartment opened, revealing nothing within except darkness. Then an oily mist began to flow out of the opening, creeping across the pavement. When it reached her, it licked sinuously around her ankles as if it were a living thing.
Which for all Trina knew, it was. No one, human or otherwise, had ever determined what the Tzang were actually like, and the mysterious beings seemed to prefer things that way.
A moment later, there was movement inside the compartment, and then a human woman stepped out. She was plainly dressed, and seemed normal enough in appearance. At first.
Then Trina noted the stiff way that the woman walked and the long metal cable that trailed behind her. This, and the blank stare that she had on her face, confirmed the very worst.
The woman was a slave, most likely sold to the Tzang by the T’lakskalans, and the cable which bonded with the base of her spine, linked her neural pathways back to her mysterious masters. No more than a living puppet, she was something that Trina had only heard of in whispers, and nothing that she had ever expected to confront right in the middle of downtown Thermadon. Slavery was illegal in the Sisterhood, and anyone, alien or otherwise, who owned one, faced long terms of incarceration in a correctional colony. It was obvious that the Tzang didn’t care about this prohibition, and were equally certain of their privacy.
“Who are you?” the slave asked her. Her voice was as flat as her gaze, and Trina knew that she was listening to the Tzang themselves, through the agency of the neural link.
“I’m the one who’s selling,” Trina answered, looking past the thrall to the darkness of the cargo compartment and trying to gain a glimpse of the actual speaker. Except for a brief impression of movement however, and what her imagination told her might have been an eye, or a tentacle, or something beyond any description, there was nothing but blackness and the shiny cable, leading back into it.
“Do you have the information?” Despite the fact that the slave’s voice was an emotionless monotone, Trina still caught a hint of greedy anticipation. The Tzang wanted what she had, badly.
“The price for it has gone up”, she said. “I want twice what we agreed.”
“What if we refuse?”
“Then you don’t get it, and I sell it to someone else,” she countered. “I’m sure that the Hriss, or the Giposhi would pay me more.”
There was more movement inside the compartment. Whatever was in there seemed to be fidgeting in uncertainty, or its closest alien correlate. I have them, she thought. They’ll have to accept my offer.
Abruptly, the motion ceased. The Tzang had come to their decision. “We will not pay you any more than we agreed,” the slave informed her.
Trina started to protest, but then a hairy black tentacle no thicker around than her thumb whipped out from the shadows, and she instinctively jumped back before it could close around her left foot. The appendage reared and then struck out at her again, but Trina had come prepared. She retreated a few steps and pulled out a Marine-issue smart grenade from her jacket, holding it aloft.
The tentacle hesitated at the sight, and then hastily withdrew back into the depths of the robotruck. This was followed by the first emotion she had seen on the slave’s face during their entire meeting. It was an expression of pure, undiluted hatred.
“You will not live to sell it to anyone else,” the slave rasped. At the same time, the thrall was backing herself towards the trailer, and the strange mist was departing with her.
Shaking with terror, Trina kept the grenade in view, and backed up a few more steps. The slave had reached the cargo compartment by this point and was vanishing into the shadows. But not before Trina heard her speak one final time.
>
“We will have the Secret,” the woman growled, “and you will die!”
Trina didn’t wait for the grenade to float out of her hand. Instead, she threw it towards the hatch, turned and ran.
Back behind her, she heard the robotruck hurriedly engaging its gears and reversing away.
Then the grenade went off with a flat ‘bang!’ Lacking a biosignature to key it to, Trina had set it for a simple proximity detonation, and she seriously doubted that it had done any damage to the truck, or its mysterious occupants. She also didn’t care. Escape was more important.
When she reached her hoverbike, there was no sign of the Tzang, or anyone else, but she knew that the City AI had sensed the explosion and that it would only be a matter of minutes before the Metros came around to investigate. Grasping the handlebars, she boarded her machine and flew away. As she rose into the traffic lanes and accelerated, she hazarded a glance back over her shoulder. Far below her, the spotlights of a police cruiser were already lighting up the alley.
Trying to sell to the Tzang had been a stupid idea, she admitted, and the Song was worthless if she got killed in the process. As much as she hated to accept it, she would have to keep it a secret. Unless, somehow, she found a safe way to sell it.
Bel Sharra Memorial Spaceport, Thermadon direct to Waanderstaad Spaceport, Zommerlaand, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1048.11|02|03:43:67
The time arrived for Sarah and Maya to make their journey to Zommerlaand to attend Lilith’s wedding, and Angelique not only had them driven to Bel Sharra in her personal hoverlimo, but saw them off herself. Just before their flight was about to depart, she signaled to her adjutant, and the woman came forwards bearing a gift-wrapped parcel.
Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve Page 36