As he waited for the imam to arrive, the portable transceiver, which he’d set down beside him, sent an alert to his BCI. The instrument had detected a signal at the 512 MHz frequency.
Hiding the screen with a fold of his dishdasha—you were supposed to keep all electronics switched off inside the mosque—Youssef located the source of the signal.
Hey. Looked like his lost swarm was in here. Funny. But not unexpected. The Dust gravitated to crowds of people, for whatever reason.
Youssef was running the command program on his BCI. ~SWARM COMMAND, he subvocalized. ~Head over to the women’s side and grab me some pix of that hottie from HR.
A stir announced the entrance of the imam. Youssef turned the RF detector off and backgrounded the command program.
Tears streaked the imam’s bearded cheeks. Voice breaking, he said, “Frank is dead.”
“Oh no,” Youssef shouted, with the others. “Not Frank!”
Amidst his grief, he did not notice that his command to the swarm went unacknowledged.
Someone had pranked his swarm—removed it from his control.
The transceiver indicated that the swarm’s signal was getting stronger. Coming closer.
But Youssef noticed nothing.
★
The ancient prince woke from his doze.
“Oi! I was talking to you!”
Mendoza, feebly resisting Nadia’s flirtatious banter, jumped as if he’d been shot. He hurried back to the mobile throne, followed by a now-sulky sheikha.
“Not a coincidence,” the King barked.
“What isn’t a coincidence, your majesty?”
“Abdul. Vicky. Raul. And now Frank.”
“Oh no,” Nadia cried.
“He’s dead. Just heard.”
Mendoza felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He fought to keep his voice steady. “I agree, your majesty. It’s not a coincidence. Can’t be.”
“Someone’s sabotaging us.”
Mendoza stiffened. He had not allowed himself to think about that possibility. It …
… didn’t seem far-fetched at all.
“Earth,” the prince grunted, echoing Mendoza’s thoughts. “May Allah smite those polytheistic dogs. The UN bombed Mecca, you know. Destroyed the Kaaba! We were all mad in those days. But Hsiao’s gang is worse than mad: they’re frightened.”
Hsaio, Tiffany Hsiao. The President of the UN was known for her conservatism.
“They’ll do anything to stop us from exposing their weakness.”
“They must have a spy inside D.I.E.,” Mendoza realized
“Yes. Exactly. And I have an idea who it is.”
“Who?” squealed Nadia, getting drawn in.
“Think. Who wrote the control software for the Dust? Who is currently facing criminal charges that may end his career, or worse? What would you do, to get out of being sent to Pallas? He must have struck a deal with them. He’s sabotaging D.I.E., in exchange for leniency.”
“Derek Lorna,” Mendoza breathed.
In his sterile bubble, the ancient prince smiled.
★
Mendoza hoped that the Saudis would take over at this point. With their wealth and power, they had a better chance of stopping Derek Lorna than he did. But all the prince offered him was better transport.
Nadia explained, “My dad can’t do much without consulting the King. And the King doesn’t want to hear about it. He says you should never attribute to malice what can be explained by metal fatigue. Also, he’s very sensitive to bad publicity. So it’s just us.”
“Uh, did your father say you could come?”
“He didn’t. I wouldn’t listen if he did. I’m my own woman. That’s why I had to break up with Jian Er. He was just as controlling as my father and uncles.”
Mendoza accepted the situation for what it was. He also accepted the prince’s offer of transport: a Moonhawk, one of the high-end flying cars that the Saudis used for surface trips. It had room for a mobile throne in the back. Despite its poetic name, it resembled an SUV. The gimballed cold-gas jets underneath its chassis provided twice as much thrust as the Grasshopper’s. Mendoza overshot New Jeddah and, humiliatingly, had to back up in little hops. Nadia cackled. “Shall I drive?”
“Autodrive only inside the dome,” Mendoza said, managing to align the Moonhawk with the New Jeddah roadlock.
Outside his apartment building, he said to her, “Stay here. I’ll be back in five. I just need to grab some stuff.”
She nodded, kneeling in the back of the Moonhawk, her wings hiding her like a black cloak.
Mendoza hurried upstairs. For once, his apartment was deserted. The Copts must have gone out. Mendoza bent over the home printer in his bedroom, flicking through designs he hadn’t touched in months. Behind him, the door of the walk-in closet stood slightly ajar.
The printer hissed. The smell of fixative filled the room. Mendoza snatched each item as it emerged. Stiff white shirt. Detachable collar. Tie. Socks. The trousers, being made of heavier fabric, took longer. While he waited, he depilated his stubble and rubbed some dry shampoo through his hair. He noticed that Gerges had left his carebot lying on Mendoza’s bed. That was weird. But the little guy had been getting better; maybe he didn’t need it anymore …
“Item complete,” said the printer into the silence.
Mendoza hauled his new trousers on, still warm, and fastened them with the same suspenders he’d worn to work today. No one would notice.
Shoes!
He didn’t have the right liquid to print fake leather. He glanced at the walk-in closet, noticing that the door was slightly ajar. He might have some black lace-ups in there. Or the Copts might.
In the kitchen, something exploded.
Mendoza dashed through. Abraam stood in front of the microwave, a sickly smile on his face. That sound had been something exploding in the microwave. Noisome smoke trickled from it.
“What the hell did you put in there? One of your carebots? I agree, those things are too cute by half, but …”
Abraam spread his hands helplessly. He didn’t speak English.
Giving up, Mendoza tossed some ReadiPak meals and drink pouches into a gym bag. God knew if this stuff would meet with a Saudi princess’s approval. It was all he had.
Screw the shoes. Sometimes the Victorians must have worn brown ones.
Abraam hovered, watching, as Mendoza bounded towards the door.
“I may be gone for a few days. The place is yours.”
The door closed behind Mendoza, plunging the apartment into a deathly silence.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, finding no one in the kitchen … no one in the living-room … no one in the bathroom.
From the bedroom came a lifeless thump. The door of the closet opened a few centimeters wider, pushed by a weight that had rolled down against it from inside.
A foot and ankle, clad in a black shoe and sock, lolled out.
xxx.
A couple of weeks into the Monster’s captivity on Tiangong Erhao, Kiyoshi ran out of cijiwu. The Nan Yang had left for the Belt, and the crew of the colony ship that had taken its berth weren’t selling. Likely, they’d been ordered not to have anything to do with him.
“I’m going to the festival,” he told Father Tom.
“Will they let you?”
“Sure. Even the convicts are going.”
“I’m not.”
“Killjoy.” Kiyoshi dolloped some Gravity Gel into his hair to make it lie flat. He was wearing a newly printed edition of his dirtside outfit, complete with buckles and chains. He thought about wrapping the chains around his wrists and ankles, as a protest, and decided the Chinese would not appreciate it.
“Where is this festival?” said Father Tom.
“Dunno. I’m going with the guys from the Hagiographer’s Complaint.”
“Have fun,” Father Tom said. Kiyoshi thought he added something else under his breath, but he let it go.
At the airlock, Kiyoshi spoke int
o the air. “I’ll see if I can find out anything useful.”
Jun did not answer. Maybe he was just too busy to talk. Kiyoshi hoped that was the reason for his silence.
Since they returned to Tiangong Erhao, Jun had been arguing for their lives. It seemed like a replay of his previous argument with the civilian ship. But the 11th Brigade of the China Territorial Defense Force was no rabble of haulers and colony-ship AIs. They meant business. They were interrogating Jun. And there was nothing Kiyoshi could do to help. He didn’t know what the CDTF wanted. Didn’t even know whether he and Father Tom were part of whatever Jun stood accused of, or just hostages to Jun’s compliance.
So all Kiyoshi could do was what he did, and right now, that meant cijiwu.
His solemn vow in the sight of Christ to get clean, his promises to Jun and the boss-man—none of that counted for anything here.
The guys from the Hagiographer’s Complaint—a tramp freighter, here to sell Belt-mined yttrium and lanthanum to the Chinese—had lent him a coverall-style EVA suit so he could wear his own clothes underneath.
A shuttle came to Docking Bay 14 to collect the festival-goers. Kiyoshi and the crew of the Complaint squeezed in among convicts in throwaway EVA suits (print the coverall, splart it to a reusable rebreather set).
“Talk about a captive audience,” said the Complaint’s captain, looking around at the off-white thermal sacks with legs.
The shuttle glided along the length of Tiangong Erhao to one of the station’s knobbly ends. It slid into a ship-sized airlock. The passengers spilled out into a pressurized bay a kilometer across, two deep. ‘Below,’ piers stuck out like crags from metal cliffs that narrowed into a dark ravine choked with machinery. ‘Above,’ there was no sky. The only light came from floodlights set up on the piers.
More shuttles disgorged convicts like clouds of gravel. A handful of private spacecraft floated in the middle of the bay on stability tethers.
One of the piers had a stage set up on it. Kiyoshi and the Complaint’s crew floated across the gulf to that one. Might as well be near the front. They took off their suits, bundled them up, and tethered them to the floor with twang cords. Around them, others were similarly marking out their territories.
A Chinese girl appeared on stage. She wore a gold robe and had her hair gelled into spikes like the top of a pineapple. Her voice filled the bay, surreally loud.
“The acoustics in here are going to be shit,” said the captain of the Hagiographer’s Complaint.
“What’s this festival in aid of, anyway?” Kiyoshi said.
The trekkies shrugged. They didn’t know. Or care. They hadn’t come for the music.
As soon as the opening act bounced on stage, the audience began to schmooze under cover of the noise. The strobing lights made everyone look like purple-faced ghouls, but Kiyoshi had no trouble picking out the non-Chinese. Every indie hauler, trader, smuggler, recycler, pirate, and real estate scout currently parked at Tiangong Erhao had come to the festival, for the rare opportunity of talking to each other. You were ordinarily not allowed to travel from one bay to another, and no one trusted wireless comms, with the Chinese AIs potentially listening in. So here they were, yelling into each other’s faces, swapping news, rumors, jokes, and resumes.
And fixes.
Kiyoshi bought 200 cc’s of cijiwu from a Bangladeshi pirate, after injecting a bit into his cubital port to make sure it was good. Other people were selling lovejuice, vitamin K, and various stim-based concoctions. Trekkies often dabbled in pharmacology during long voyages. But Kiyoshi—a former mixologist in his own right—wanted nothing other than cijiwu now. The stuff was magic. It made you sociable but not obnoxious, and there was no risk of getting sentimental. You just felt the way he felt right now: on top of the world.
On stage, nude girls laced themselves into a human hula hoop and spun around a singer encased in a retro robotic exoskeleton. Kiyoshi grinned and swayed on his gecko boots.
The pineapple-haired MC came back. This time, simultaneous translations into English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese flashed up on the big screens dotted through the bay.
Tiangong Erhao shuns the Ten Nots and promotes the Thirteen-And-A-Half Yeses!
The convicts applauded.
We are gathered here today to celebrate the deliverance of this space station! Some irresponsible individuals recently circulated rumors that Tiangong Erhao was in danger of being attacked by the PLAN. However, the CDTF successfully deterred the aggression of the hateful Martians! Thanks to the preparedness of our armed forces, and to the foresight of the Prime Minister, Tiangong Erhao was not attacked!
Wild applause.
Kiyoshi and the other indies exchanged incredulous looks. “Wait until the news feeds get hold of that,” said the captain of the Hagiographer’s Complaint.
Some of the Belters didn’t get it. Others explained, “They’re celebrating the fact that Tiangong Erhao wasn’t attacked, a couple of weeks after Luna was attacked? How’s that going to go down in Shackleton City?”
“Sure, it looks insensitive. But the Chinese don’t care what we think of them,” a Belter pointed out.
“You have a point, my friend. I’m vidding this, anyway. Should get a few spiders for it.”
The MC continued: Before I introduce our headlining act, I would like to to invite Tiangong Erhao’s most important guest to say a few words! Your imperial highness, if you would be so condescending?
Spotlights converged on one of the private spaceships floating in the middle of the bay. It looked like an oceangoing yacht, to the point of having a foredeck enclosed by a streamlined bubble. This now turned transparent, revealing a crowd of revellers. The yacht was much too far away for Kiyoshi to make out any details, but the big screens displayed closeups of Chinese people in gaudy historical robes.
“Out of their skulls,” Kiyoshi murmured, recognizing the staring eyes and fixed grins of fellow cijiwu connoisseurs.
The camera zoomed in on a Chinese youth as handsome as an action figurine. “Ni hao,” he burped.
Sustained applause.
Pulling himself together, the young man declaimed (and English subtitles said): Dear subjects of my illustrious Father! Remember that you may swim in an ocean, but if you step in a puddle, you will get your feet wet!
The camera cut back to the MC, while cheers resounded through the bay.
Thank you very much, your imperial highness! The MC’S voice trembled as if with emotion. We will all treasure these words of wisdom from Prince Xi Jian Er, the fourth in line to the Dragon Throne of the Imperial Republic!
“That short-assed waste of oxygen is a prince?” Kiyoshi said.
“They don’t really run the country, you know,” said the Complaint’s captain. “They’re just decorative.”
“Not very.”
And now, I will introduce our headlining artists! the MC continued, after the applause died down (Kiyoshi timed it at five minutes, thirty-seven seconds). Everyone, please give a warm welcome to …. Brainrape!
“You have got to be kidding me,” Kiyoshi said.
The MC dissolved into thin air—she had just been a holograph, after all. The members of Brainrape flew onstage, brandishing their instruments. The drummer was carrying her entire kit, a feat only possible in zero-gee. A smattering of applause greeted the band.
“These guys?” Kiyoshi said. “They’re amateurs.”
“Take that back, man,” the Complaint’s captain said. “They ROOOOCK! This is fantastic! Frug OOONNN!” he bellowed.
Brainrape started to play, while flying through the air on individual mobility platforms. Kiyoshi did not change his opinion. This was just noise, like everything that had gone before it. But a lot of the trekkies seemed to think this was better noise. They pogoed, moshed, and howled in ecstasy. Their enthusiasm contrasted sharply with the reaction from the convicts on the other piers (dumbfounded silence). Therefore, Brainrape naturally kept their mobility platforms hovering in this area, whe
re they were getting the best feedback.
Kiyoshi folded his arms. Maybe he should give Brainrape a second chance. Two hundred itinerant sleazebags couldn’t be wrong, could they?
Guitar Boy (who had obviously bought a new axe) brought his platform down until it hovered just above the audience. He swan-dived into the crowd
Kiyoshi cursed and reeled back from the instant mosh pit.
Still playing a solo, Guitar Boy floated on his back, being propelled from one pair of hands to the next. His eyes were closed. But just as Kiyoshi slunk past, he opened them.
“OH MY MOTHERFUCKING DOG!” His amplified voice boomed throughout the bay. “IT’S THE FUCKER WHO STOLE OUR SHIP! GET HIM!”
★
“How did you end up here, anyway?” Kiyoshi asked.
He and Brainrape were on one of the yachts in the imperial convoy, waiting to find out how much trouble they were in.
“There aren’t many bands desperate enough to play Tiangong Erhao,” Guitar Boy answered.
“That’s not true,” exclaimed the four-armed drummer. “We were invited. It was an honor. And they were going to pay us.”
“They won’t now,” Guitar Boy said gloomily.
The festival had ended in chaos. Amid the excitement after Guitar Boy—Charles, Kiyoshi reminded himself—accused Kiyoshi of ship theft, many people had forgotten the cardinal rule of zero-gee safety: when you’re in a large space with no gravity, keep your gecko grips on the floor. Dozens of hapless frug-rock fans had drifted away towards the distant corners of the bay. Brainrape had helped to rescue them, using their mobility platforms. Station security had done the rest … and had also corralled Kiyoshi before he could escape.
“We’re broke,” Charles said. “Thanks to you. We spent eleven million on that space truck. Never got a penny of it back.”
“Sorry about that,” Kiyoshi said.
A rectangular, knee-high security droid rolled into the anteroom and instructed them to follow it.
“I hate these guys,” the bassist muttered. If he was talking about the security droid, Kiyoshi agreed. The droids—that was the translation the Chinese used, where English-speakers would have said bot—roosted everywhere on Tiangong Erhao. They resembled wheelie suitcases. Kiyoshi had once seen one unzip itself and kill a convict with a burst of plasma so intense, not only did the convict catch on fire, the people around him got first-degree burns. If you bumped into one by accident, they felt strangely squashy. No one knew whether they were remote-controlled, and if so, by whom. If they were autonomous, they were illegal. In the UN.
The Luna Deception Page 31