Equinox

by Christian Cantrell

  “Organic Data Storage and Retrieval,” Cadie said. “A technique for using human DNA to store and retrieve arbitrary data.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ayla said. “What does any of this have to do with the baby?”

  Cam and Cadie gave each other a long look. Cadie indicated that Cam should explain.

  “Arik had a very serious accident back in V1,” Cam said. “We didn’t think he was going to make it, so Cadie was asked to . . .”

  He seemed to be searching for the right way to proceed when Cadie interjected. “To propagate his genes,” she said.

  “And you used his DNA from the ODSTAR project,” Omicron suggested, “which contained all his terraforming research.”

  Cadie nodded.

  “Hold on,” Charlie said. “How would the Coronians have known all this?”

  “They didn’t,” Omicron said. “But they knew enough. They intercepted Arik’s transmission to us from V1, so they knew there was information encoded in the baby’s DNA that was capable of transforming the planet. That’s all they needed to know.”

  “So now we know what the Coronians know,” Ayla said, “and we know how they know it. But what we still don’t know is why they care.”

  Charlie gave Luka a significant look that the rest of the group seemed to sense. There was a moment of expectant silence while Luka gathered his thoughts.

  “Leverage,” he finally said. He looked at Cam. “The Coronians don’t give us power for free. They give it to us in exchange for the natural resources they need to expand Equinox.” He looked at Charlie, and then his eyes passed along the rest of the faces in the circle. “Charlie and I have proof that the Coronians are planning on doing their own mining. We believe that means they know that Earth is running out of resources.”

  “Wait a second,” Cam said. At some point, he had released Cadie’s hand and he pointed at Charlie. “You said the Coronians live in a space station, right? What’s up there for them to mine?”

  “Asteroids,” Omicron said. “At least at first. The Asteroid Belt is basically the remains of a protoplanet. In fact, it’s better than a planet in some ways because it’s already cracked open for them. And as they replace their molecular assemblers with assemblers that work at the atomic level, they’ll be able to use just about any kind of matter they can sequester. Given that the entire Asteroid Belt is only about four percent the mass of the moon, and obviously much farther away, it’s reasonable to assume they’ll eventually strip-mine the lunar surface.”

  “If they’re planning on doing their own mining,” Ayla said, “why do they care what we do?”

  “Because they’re not ready yet,” Charlie said. “They might be five, ten, twenty years away, and they know that if something eventually happens that decreases our dependency on them—something like widespread terraforming that could allow us to start living in self-sustaining colonies again—they might not have leverage over us anymore. If we stop sending them resources before they can mine enough on their own, they’ll eventually die.”

  “Basically,” Luka said, “they want to make absolutely certain that they no longer need us before we no longer need them. It’s a race, and whoever loses could go extinct.”

  “You said you had proof,” Omicron said. “What kind of proof?”

  “We assemble a lot of mining equipment,” Luka said. “Almost all of it we use ourselves, but lately we’ve been getting orders from brokers, and they want it crated and shipped in a way that only makes sense if it’s being launched into orbit. And as far as I know, the Coronians are the only ones up there.”

  “Maybe,” Cam said, “or maybe launching things into orbit is just a faster way to transport them from one side of the planet to the other.”

  “I doubt that,” Ayla said. “I’ve been in the shipping business for a long time, and I can guarantee you that putting payloads into orbit is the least cost-effective way to move anything. Unless that’s your final destination.”

  “Have you told anyone about this?” Omicron asked Luka.

  Luka let out a sardonic laugh. “I tried,” he said. “That’s what got me thrown in prison.”

  “Nobody here wants to hear it,” Charlie said. “Everyone’s basically in denial.”

  “Not everyone,” Omicron corrected. He nodded toward the center of the circle. “It looks like something you did got Two Bulls’ attention. Ask him where the baby is.”

  The projection had been standing idle while the conversation took place around him. Luka looked back up at Two Bulls.

  “Do you know where the baby is?”

  Two Bulls crossfaded, then replied, “We believe the baby is probably aboard Equinox by now.”

  “Ask him about Zaire,” Cam said.

  “Who’s that?” Luka asked.

  “She was with us when we left V1.”

  “Zaire is Cam’s wife,” Cadie added.

  Luka looked back up at Two Bulls. “Where’s the other girl who was brought here? Zaire.”

  Two Bulls located the correct response. “The Coronians are not interested in Zaire,” the projection said. “She is with a man called Jumanne Nsonowa. He has an obsession with anything—or anyone—with any kind of African heritage.”

  Ayla and Omicron looked at each other. This time, it was Cadie who reached over and took Cam’s hand. Cam’s expression was hardened against any demonstration of emotion.

  “Ask him how we get them back,” Cam said.

  “How do we get them back?” Luka relayed.

  “Recovering the baby and Zaire is not your mission,” Two Bulls said. “Your mission is to recover the data. That’s it.”

  “No way,” Cam said. “We’re going after them.”

  “Hold on,” Cadie said. “We might already have the data.”

  “How?” Omicron said.

  “Fetomaternal microchimerism,” Cadie told him. “Fetal cells.”

  Omicron watched her for a moment with his heavy brow furrowed, then nodded in consensus. “Yes,” he said. “That might work.”

  Ayla looked back and forth between Cadie and Omicron. “Are either of you going to explain what that means?” she asked.

  “Fetal cells are cells from the baby,” Cadie said. “Nobody knows why, but a small number of cells from the baby pass through the placenta and establish lineages in the mother.”

  “How does that help us?” Ayla asked.

  “Those cells retain the baby’s DNA,” Cadie said. “They’ll contain all of Arik’s research.”

  “How long do they live?”

  “They can persist for decades,” Omicron said, “but we’ll need a well-equipped lab in order to isolate them and to be able to extract the genetic material.”

  “Can we build one on the Hawk?”

  “It would require a lot of equipment,” Omicron said. “Luka, try asking Two Bulls about next steps now.”

  Luka looked back up at the projection. “Now can you tell us what we should do next?”

  Two Bulls crossfaded. “You and Charlie have both been given almost universal access throughout the San Francisco. Charlie should take Ayla and Omicron to their ship, which is ready to be released.”

  “What about Cadie and Cam?”

  “In the bottom of the EMATS capsule, you will find two sets of contacts. Cam and Cadie are now official citizens of the San Francisco, but they should stay out of sight as much as possible while you work.”

  Luka overturned the capsule and two blister packs of ICLs fell into his palm. He looked back up. “Work on what? What should we do?”

  “You need to discover what it is that the Coronians fear,” Two Bulls said. “And then you need to figure out how to use it against them.”

  “Ask him about equipment,” Omicron said.

  “What if we need equipment?” Luka asked.

  “Whatever you need, just send a schematic to Tycho. Within an hour, it will be added to your work queue at the foundry with a forged invoice and manifest.”

  “Good,�
� Omicron said. “That just leaves one thing.”

  “What?”

  “The guards.”

  Luka watched Omicron for a moment before looking back up at the projection. “What do we do with the officers?” he asked.

  “The bridge is waiting for the waterlock to be flushed and for four bodies to be purged,” Two Bulls said. “I think you know the answer to that.”

  Luka squinted up at the projection. “Hold on,” he said. “You want us to kill them?”

  “The missing officers will be the only way to explain the absence of the Accipiter Hawk. Communications and financial records have been created to suggest that after executing the prisoners, the four officers defected with their ship. If the officers’ bodies are ever found, your cover will be blown.”

  “No fucking way,” Luka said. “We’re not going to just murder them.” He gestured down the corridor toward the waterlock. “Me and Charlie know those people. This is their home. We can talk to them. We can bring them in on this.”

  “The Lakota have a very old saying,” Two Bulls said. “‘Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.’ The Coronians are applying force. The City Council is applying force. The officers had no problem applying force when they needed to. You and your team are the resistance, Luka. Four lives is a small price to pay for all that you can accomplish.”

  “I’m sorry, Luka,” Omicron said. “But Two Bulls is right.” The group looked to him and waited for him to continue. “Either all of us leave right now on the Hawk and never look back, or the guards have to go.”

  Luka was on the verge of panic and Charlie placed a calming hand on his shoulder. “Then we all go,” he told Omicron. “Whatever we can do from here, we can do from your ship, right?”

  “Unfortunately not. We don’t have a lab on board, and we don’t have access to assemblers. If we’re going to take a stand against the Coronians, the four of you will need to be embedded here. If you leave with us, you can save the lives of the guards, but the chances of us ever being able to make a move against the Coronians are essentially nonexistent.”

  Cadie abruptly got to her feet. “I can’t be a part of this,” she said. The optical lasers that had been her connection to the projector expanded back out into a broad mesh of light and were once again attempting to locate her eyes. Cam started to stand but Cadie stopped him. “No,” she told him. “You need to be a part of this. I don’t.”

  “Luka,” Omicron continued, “I know this isn’t easy, but it’s the only way this is going to work.”

  Luka shook his head. “I don’t care,” he said. “I never asked for any of this, and there’s no way I’m going to execute innocent people.”

  “I have an idea,” Charlie said. She looked to Omicron and Ayla. “Why don’t you two take the officers with you? Hold them prisoner until all this is over? Then we can decide what to do with them.”

  “What about purging the waterlock?” Omicron reminded her.

  “We’ll just have to purge it with one body instead of four.”

  “What if the bridge wants to verify that all four prisoners were purged?”

  “That’s just a chance we’ll—”

  There was the sudden sound of static from the other end of the corridor—the full-spectral white noise of violently surging water. Luka looked up and saw Cadie watching them from the panel beside the waterlock’s sealed door.

  “What the hell is she doing?” he said. He stood, and after the optical beams lost his eyes, the entire projector went dark, and the radial extensions retracted.

  Omicron and Ayla rose together.

  “She’s flooding it,” Ayla said.

  Cam got to his feet and took a step toward Cadie.

  “Stay where you are,” Cadie said. She extended her hand so that it was poised above the panel, and in response, Cam stopped.

  “Please,” Luka said. Desperate muted shouts came from the other side of the thick metal door, but Cadie did not seem to notice. Luka could hear Mandy screaming, and inside his head, the audio was matched with images of Val. Somehow he was aware of Charlie covering her mouth with both hands. Luka thought about the railgun on the floor beside him, but he wasn’t sure if there was time to pick it up, and even if there was, he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to shoot Cadie. “Please,” he said again. “Let’s just think about this for second. We can figure something else out. I promise.”

  Cadie shook her head. “There’s no other way,” she said. “They have to be flushed.”

  “This isn’t even your fight,” Luka told her. There was aggression in his voice now, and he took a step forward. The surging water subsided, leaving only the sounds of weakening fists against the walls, and still Cadie ignored them. “Why do you even care about any of this?”

  “Because,” Cadie said, “I won’t let Arik’s sacrifice be for nothing.”

  Luka could see the word “PURGE” pulsating on the polymeth panel, and then intensify to a bright crimson red beneath the girl’s gentle touch.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  HAMMERFEST

  LUKA’S EARLIEST MEMORIES WERE of Hammerfest Arkade. The combination port, dry dock, and trading post was only a few clicks northwest of the Hammerfest Pod System, which was rumored to be one of the wealthiest and most secure in the world. Although by most pod system standards, the Arkade was a slum—a kind of parasitic by-product of the much more affluent and technologically advanced enclave that supported it—Luka had never known anything else, and consequently believed that he and his family enjoyed a near-perfect existence.

  He remembered the volume of the hermetically sealed pavilion as being significantly greater than that of the San Francisco, though he wasn’t sure now if it actually was bigger, or if perhaps his recollection was simply the result of typical childhood-scale distortion. The atmosphere inside Hammerfest was good most days—much hotter than the San Francisco’s above-deck mean temperature, but generally clean—and there was always plenty of purified if tepid water available to anyone with caps.

  The stall Luka’s parents ran doubled as their home with two cots in the back, a kind of nest Luka built himself out of scraps of composite construction material and silicone gel packs, an old low-res polymeth surface they used as a table, and a capacitive cooking surface. The shop was a microcosm of the greater exchange that contained it—a miniature bazaar in its own right. Most of what they sold were items that Luka’s father had repaired, refurbished, or pieced together himself out of components or material obtained from other merchants, usually through aggressive but almost always good-natured bartering.

  Luka’s little family also did reasonably well selling an eclectic selection of novelties. Not dirty, tattered, or incomplete trinkets excavated from the age of inexpensive global manufacturing, but truly unique novelties custom-built by Luka and his mother. Some of them were functional like ornate calligraphic capacitive styluses, and intricately carved polymer storage cases. Others were purely aesthetic such as models or sculptures built out of buckets of old injection-molded thermoplastic bricks, and music boxes that produced melodies when wound up and placed against acoustically resonate conductive polymeth.

  Luka and his mother originally began their artistic explorations purely as a way to satisfy and indulge their own visual and tactile curiosities, and perhaps to brighten up their sparse living quarters. They never expected anyone to pay good caps for anything that wasn’t necessary or practical—anything that couldn’t be used to make a repair, to defend oneself, or to preserve or purify consumables. But when they started getting offers on objects they’d inadvertently left lying around, or that they tinkered with in their laps or on a workbench as they ran the storefront, they began to realize that there were others out there who believed as they did: that just surviving wasn’t enough; that any life worth living and fighting for had to find ways of incorporating elements of beauty, wonder, and inspiration.

  By far the most popular pieces the Mance
family sold—and what rapidly became their signature product—was their line of mechanical butterflies. They purchased the various components from several other venders, assembled them, hand-stained the wings with hypodermic needles, and sold them at a very attractive profit. Luka didn’t know much about how they worked, but he knew that the light gathered by their wings gave them energy, and that they were somehow able to seek out bright colors while avoiding obstacles. And—as he’d been told by more than one repeat customer—he knew that his work had reached ports, ships, and even pod systems all over the world.

  Luka believed he had the perfect childhood. Although it wasn’t unusual for him to get into fights with the other kids—and even though he’d gotten sick several times when merchants who ran the distilleries entertained themselves by giving him shots of vanilla or cocoa vodka frozen with liquid nitrogen—Luka generally felt safe and looked after inside Hammerfest Arkade. He typically spent an hour or two a day being home-schooled by his mother, and often had to run errands for his father, but most of Luka’s time was spent doing what he loved more than anything else: scavenging and building. With so much opportunity to create, explore, and interact with diverse and interesting people—some of whom he’d seen every single day of his life, and some he would probably only see once and then never again—it was impossible for Luka to think of himself and his family as poor.

  The circumstances surrounding his family losing their stall were never explained in detail to Luka, but he pieced together that it had something to do with his mother and the captain of the Arkade peacekeepers. Whatever it was, the allegations were serious enough that they were not only evicted, but everything they owned was confiscated. Luka’s parents tried to borrow caps to pay the fine and get their stall back, but every day they couldn’t pay, the amount they owed increased. For several days, the Mance family stayed with some of the other families they did business with, and at night, Luka laid in the dark listening to his parents fight and his mother cry.

  one night they stayed with the man who sold them the printed solar sheets that Luka and his mother cut up into butterfly wings. Luka heard his father explain to the man that if they did not pay the fine the next day, they would be arrested and probably banished. Once they were forced out through the airlock, Luka’s father explained, it would only be a matter of time before they died of exposure, or were captured by subterraneans who would keep them alive as long as possible while consuming them in order to prevent the remainder of the flesh from rotting. The man said that it was all Luka’s mother’s fault—that their only option was to give the captain of the peacekeepers what he wanted—and then Luka’s father and the man began yelling. Luka heard things breaking, and then he heard screaming. Luka’s mother was crying when she came in to get him and they spent the rest of the night on the floor of the public latrines where the peacekeepers were not likely to find them.