Selma coughed discretely, and everyone focused their attention on her. Renee remembered the first time she had seen her at an interview when she had tried to join Buchanan military. She had wanted to fight back, to take revenge on the Moon people who had destroyed her homeland and killed her people. The military didn´t want her, though. They believed she would be a liability with her thirst for vengeance and recent losses. But Selma had seen something in her and taken her under her wing. Renee had gone on to pass every selection trial set out for her and had finally been accepted into intel. Not yet a full operator, she had nevertheless gained field experience, having conducted an info-gathering mission deep into Corpus territory, the land where the Covenant worked their slave-driven economy.
"Let´s get started, shall we?" Selma said. She noticed the young man had pushed the black box toward the middle of the table. "David Wagner, English from the Covenant and formerly an initiate of the Wardens, the Covenant´s intelligence and security branch, escapee, and our current associate, has received a message from a friend. Let´s watch the recording again, David."
David pressed a finger to the box, and a hologram appeared. At first, Renee didn´t recognize the figure speaking, but suddenly she realized who it was. Her eyes widened as she regarded David Wagner again. Who was he?
When the message ended, everyone kept quiet and waited for Selma to speak. Instead, David stood up.
"This is Mark Novak, counselor to Head Servant Lunde and one of the most prominent figures in the Covenant. He is also my friend and has saved my life more than once at great risk to himself. Novak wants to avoid all-out war, and he wants to change the Covenant from within. The common friend he’s referring to is Susan Atlas, a friend of mine from Charlestown. We went to school together, got selected for Service together, and we escaped together. She got captured. I don´t know all the details, but I do know she ended up on Luna somehow. She seems to have been given Bliss before being returned to English society. Here´s the thing: she´s still being treated with Bliss. If we could get to her, we might get to Bliss, and if we get our hands on this stuff, we might be able to create an antidote. I´m no chemist, but I know that the Wardens couldn´t function without Bliss. Imagine if we were able to spread an antidote among the Wardens.”
"Now, now," Selma interrupted. "Let´s not get ahead of ourselves. We don´t know what is possible yet, but we do know that having access to Bliss could make us better able to understand its workings. And from what we have learned, Bliss is used more extensively than we previously believed, even among the civilian population for control." She paused as everyone around the table began to realize the potency of uncovering Bliss’s secrets.
"We could risk war just by gaining access to this stuff," Grey said quietly. Selma nodded.
"That we could. On the other hand, we risk war every time we go near the Rift. Every time we allow escapees into Buchanan. We risk war just by existing because the Moon people want it all. Make no mistake: the Covenant would attack immediately if they saw weakness. If they believed they could knock us out like they did the French, they would launch everything they had at us immediately. Our only chance, and this is how it has been ever since the two civilizations met, is to keep up. We need to stay ahead on weapons, intel, offensive, and defensive capability. If we fail, we´re history. And knowing the Moon people, they´d probably erase that as well."
"Do we know where this woman is? Are there any pictures of her?" Captain Lee asked. Selma grinned and picked up a remote control. She pressed a button, and the wall screen behind her came to life. It showed a recorded feed from the Covenant broadcast service, the mandatory viewing network that cast propaganda and dumb entertainment to every household in the Covenant. Renee gasped as she saw the young woman being awarded a medal by Head Servant Lunde.
"It seems Susan Atlas was quite a hero before she became a threat to the Moon people," Selma said, chuckling. "Imagine what the Covenant leadership in Legacy would say if they saw her working for us."
Renee sat petrified, staring at the face on the screen.
"I know that woman," she said.
Dave
Dave scratched his head and sighed heavily. This was powerful stuff. He checked his notes again, making sure he got everything right. He had already scoured through everything he could find in the Buchanan Library, and now that he was working at the Frost Observatory, he had access to the Buchanan archives, an electronic repository of books, documents, and files too vast to ever get through, even if he spent an entire lifetime trying. It was, however, useful in gaining an understanding of the issue of the spacecraft that had left Earth more than 200 years ago. There was so much history he´d never even known existed. Before the Fall and before history as he´d known it had begun.
From what he´d gathered, they had learned of the coming Fall more than two centuries ago in 2072, by the old way of counting, twelve years before the Fall. A single starship was sent out from America, carrying some 1,600 colonists. A curious detail of the project leading up to this departure was that Senator Joe Buchanan, head of the project, had come out here in what was at the time mostly wilderness. He had laid the groundwork for an underground shelter that would keep several thousand people alive through the Fall. These survivors would found the settlement that later became the city and nation of Buchanan.
Dave also learned about the attempts of other parties to send people away from Earth, such as the Indians and the Chinese. There wasn´t much detail about this, so he´d switched to learn about the Russians and Norwegians who had built a base on the Moon. Something had happened on the Moon—something terrible—and the original colonists had all disappeared, apparently killed by their own children. The files were incomplete, so Dave could only try to understand from the bits and pieces he´d been able to find.
The second generation of lunar colonists was completely changed, and when they returned to Earth almost fifty years later, they built the Covenant on slavery and a strict class system where the so-called Moon people were superior to the natives, the "English."
Dave felt anger welling up as he thought of how his own people had been used and abused by these so-called saviors. He thought of the mandatory euthanasia laws and the way English were tricked into killing innocents using Bliss. As he read on, he learned more about Renee´s people as well. After meeting her a week ago, he´d learned she was one of a few hundred survivors to escape the Moon people´s conquest of her homeland, north of the Covenant. They were the descendants of a predominantly French-speaking population who had survived the Fall, and although they had never been as numerous or powerful as Buchanan or the Covenant, they had remained fiercely independent throughout the years. Now, their history had come to an end. Dave easily understood the hostility Renee had displayed after the meeting when they had finally greeted each other. After all, he had been a Warden.
The American starship was what held Dave´s interest. Having left Earth’s orbit in 2080, it had travelled through space for 165 years with the crew and passengers in a dormant state for most of that time. In 2245, they had reached their destination, Aurora, in the 55 Cancri A system. There wasn´t much info on the new settlement, but from the signals received, the colonists seemed to have settled Aurora successfully. He shook his head. It was an astonishing feat to travel more than forty lightyears and colonize a new planet. He could only dream of how amazing it must have been to take part in such a venture.
When the scientists at the Frost Observatory had received the first signals that proved humans had reached Aurora, it wasn´t much, just small intercepts of radio waves. When they fine-tuned their equipment, they discovered changed light signatures and slight energy bursts too minor to be detected by anything other than the most sensitive equipment. He wondered if the Covenant had the same state-of-the-art tools. They must. They were even able to use the Moon as an observation post, which would help less sensitive equipment get better readings due to the lack of atmosphere.
Dave found it odd to use the old t
ime measurements, but it seemed these were commonplace in Buchanan, so he was going to have to get used to it. By this count, the year was 2299, and the first confirmed signals from Aurora had been received in 2286. These first signals were only able to confirm that the starship had reached its destination and humans had landed on Aurora. In the following years, the scientists intensified their study, testing and retesting for alternative explanations, as well as receiving and interpreting more data as it came in. Three years later, in 2289, it was commonly agreed that humans had settled Aurora.
Dave sighed again. This was all interesting, but he wondered if it would ever amount to more than this: a quest for knowledge about what had happened. It wasn´t that he didn´t value knowledge; Dave was born to learn and advance knowledge as much as humanly possible. But while he could bury himself in data and analysis for years, the real world was suffering from a spreading violence. How could any of this be of value in that struggle?
He remembered what Dr. Sims had said when he took this job: what they did here could change the world. He wondered what she had meant, or if they were just empty words. He didn´t feel like any of this had the potential to change anything. It was like watching as someone else did something meaningful while he was restricted from taking part. He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, not for the first time. What it must be like to be on the starship, to land on a strange planet, to be among the first humans ever to set foot there. To have a real purpose, not just to serve those deemed better than you, as he had for the first eighteen years of his life. Or, like now, to watch everything from a distance, doing what he had wanted for so long, and yet still feeling like life was passing him by.
Evan
Evan sat alone at his desk, quietly examining the erased files. Most were unrecoverable, but there was one from the hallway outside the Security Directorate. It showed a shadow moving across the camera view leaving his father´s office. For a split second, he thought he had the proof he was looking for, but it went too quickly to identify the person. He initiated a program that would need a while to analyze and enhance the data. He leaned back. There was nothing to do but wait.
He´d disagreed with his father on most things, and they had only just begun to learn to get along. It was no deep affection that made him go to such lengths to find the truth. It was more a sense that he was being played, and that was something he resented. The question, as he saw it, was who had gained from his father´s death. There was only one possible answer. One that made him furious every time he thought of it. How long had he been played? How long had they schemed and plotted?
He realized that all his ambitions and hopes of changing the Covenant were impossible as long as he remained a simple pawn. Whether he figured out who was responsible for his father´s death or not, he needed to move up and assume the role of a player himself. Playing the game of power was the only way to accomplish what he wanted.
He couldn´t do it alone, though. He needed allies.
He slid his hand across his father´s desk. He would do the thing nobody expected. He would surprise them all. He had made up his mind.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Come in," he said loudly. The door opened, and a figure clad in shiny black formals entered. First Janissary Ivanov came in and sat down in the chair opposite Evan.
"So, Hordvik, have you made up your mind?" he asked.
"I have. Let´s discuss terms."
Chapter 5
Mark
Mark paced the floor of his private suite at First Landing Memorial Hospital, waiting for the doctor who would be overseeing his treatment program. He was wearing nothing but a silky robe. He had already completed the antiseptic routines, including a complete shaving of all body hair. He touched his scalp for the hundredth time. Smooth. He´d done this too many times to count, but everything was different this time. He reckoned the treatment could be reduced to a minimum of three to four months, and he intended to make the doctors understand the adjustments that would make this possible. It usually took six to eight months, so even a conservative doctor should treat a 50% reduction in time as an opportunity.
Besides, he was Mark Novak. People listened to him. He invented the treatment, and without him, the Moon people would just be an isolated group of lunatics and their descendants confined to Luna or some remote part of Earth.
While the treatment and the plan for conducting it, were important, Mark found himself occupied with thinking of everything that was happening. The starship orbiting Saturn had disappeared and was possibly closing in on Earth. Covenant leadership was in the balance, and Mark wasn´t sure which side he would end up on. Meanwhile, David Wagner was in Buchanan, and although Mark had sent him a message to help him figure out what to do next, he wasn´t sure whether Wagner would see the possibilities, let alone act upon them. And then there was poor Susan.
Mark cursed himself for letting her be brought to Luna in the first place. He should have picked her up from the Corpus himself. He´d actually believed Evan Hordvik would take care of her, but something had happened up there. Mark didn´t know how she had ended up in Charlestown, or why she was being treated with Bliss. What was Evan´s role in it? Why had he let her go like that?
This was his greatest concern: he might have completely misread Evan Hordvik´s intentions. If Evan figured out the truth of his father´s death, that would be the end of Mark—and Alexej along with him. War would certainly follow, as inevitable as the seasons.
The door opened, and Mark looked at a stunning blonde standing in the doorway. Swaying as she entered the room, she smiled when he sat up straighter. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, and Mark wondered who had sent her. She had to be a gift from Alexej, he thought. He grinned sheepishly.
"Don´t get up on my account, Counselor Novak. I´m here to discuss the procedures," she said, taking a seat next to him. She flicked the screen of her infopad, ignoring his surprised look.
"You´re the doctor? You look a lot younger than I expected," he said. She grinned, flashing a perfect row of white teeth.
"Well, it´s been a while since you were here last." She seemed to be scanning a list before she put her finger on one of the items. She looked up at him, all business. "While your work is amazing, Counselor, there have been a few developments since you last took the treatment. I took mine just two years ago, and you can’t tell, right?" He nodded slowly.
"I´m close to a hundred and twenty years old, Counselor Novak." Mark said nothing as the implications struck him. The treatment had evolved, and the doctors were performing even bigger miracles. Yet, even as the possibility of more effective rejuvenation exhilarated him, a chill crept up his spine. They had done all this without his supervision. They had managed to improve the treatment to an even higher standard. He would soon be redundant, if he wasn´t already.
Dave
Dave was working late. He was bleary-eyed and tired from staring at the computer for hours, and his eyelids had drooped shut more than once in the last hour.
He started at the loud clicking of footsteps behind him and turned to see who it was.
Dr. Michelle Sims stopped and smiled.
"Mr. Wagner, I see you take your work seriously," she said. Dave blushed.
"Well, yeah," he said. Dr. Sims took a chair and sat down next to him.
"So, how do you like it here?" she said. Dave thought for a moment before answering.
"I love it. I really do. There´s so much to discover, and what I´m doing here goes way beyond anything that I did while I was with the Wardens. Perhaps they do more in Legacy. The Covenant shouldn´t be underestimated, you know. But honestly, I never dreamed that someone had ever left for another planet, let alone left the solar system. Those people had never even heard of the Moon people, right? Or Buchanan?" Dr. Sims smiled smugly.
"Well, the Moon people, no. Definitely not. They might have heard of Buchanan, not the city or the nation, but the founder should have bee
n quite well known among them. In fact, he was in charge of the project that sent them out there in the first place," she said. Dave nodded. He had read as much.
Dr. Sims waved it off and changed the subject.
"Listen, Dave. There is something I would like you to see. I know you have been busy working on the Aurora information and the data sent back from the Exodus en route to Aurora, which is interesting, but what I have to show you, young Wagner, will blow your mind." Dave looked up. Dr. Sims never spoke like that. In fact, now that he looked, he could see she was beaming. Something big was happening, that much was obvious.
"Tell me about it," he blurted. Dr. Sims shook her head. She got to her feet and motioned for him to follow.
"Come with me. I think you should see for yourself."
Dave followed her through the hallways of the Frost Observatory, which were almost empty at this hour. A few red-eyed scientists on their way out nodded their acknowledgement in passing, and a cleaner moved her trolley aside for them. Other than that, the only sounds were the clicking of Dr. Sims’s heels and the low hum of fans. The air smelled of ozone and detergent, and there was a special quiet this time of night that Dave had always enjoyed.
They entered her office, and Dr. Simms unlocked her computer. Dave saw a diagram, and he sat down while Dr. Simms explained it to him.
"These are gravity measurements from near Saturn. As you can see, there is a spike. In reality, it´s just a small blip, but it has been enhanced for us to see the disturbance."
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