Because Bowles was one of InterDome’s best-known reporters and she had a lot of seniority, she could go anywhere in the complex. So when she got off the bullet train from Tycho Crater, she headed immediately to InterDome’s live-feed monitoring chamber.
The monitoring chamber had no windows. The walls were screens, but the screens were unlike those found in the average building. These screens had high-resolution imagery and everything shown on them was life-sized. Multiple images did not run in the chamber. Instead, one large image covered the entire room, so that the person who monitored this particular story could feel as if the story lived and breathed and surrounded him.
Bowles usually stayed out of the chambers, preferring to experience the story herself through live reporting. But this time, she couldn’t. So she went through a series of image rooms, each worse than the last—starting with the images coming out of Sahara Dome, and ending with the space around Mars.
The bodies disturbed her, as did the panic in the various Domes, but the scope of the crisis became clear to her as she stood in the center of the last room, the blackness of space around her, Mars a red presence in the foreground, and ships coming off it like fur off a cat.
So many of these ships collided, exploded, or simply lost control and flipped end on end that it seemed as if no one were piloting them at all.
Maybe no one was.
Bowles had seen things like this before in her history classes. She had studied mass exodus when she was dealing with Etae last year. But she had never personally witnessed this kind of panic.
She burst out of the room and headed past the imaging chambers to the main offices. Her boss, a shy, sensitive man named Thaddeus Ling, had the largest office on the floor. He was also shielded by a bevy of security codes, links, and real-life assistants, all of whom were supposed to keep people out.
Bowles pushed through the doors without sending a message in advance, as was the desired custom, startling three assistants who were lounging at their desks.
“I’m seeing Thaddeus,” she said as she continued toward the large plastic doors he had painted a bright yellow, just because he could. Her own links were screaming; the security worked in the form of high-pitched blasts to the inner ear.
The assistants were scrambling after her, demanding that she stop. At least that’s what she thought they said, because she couldn’t hear a thing. The instant headache she got for her troubles made her vision blur. But that yellow door was hard to miss.
She hit it with both palms, and it bent open, as if it were expecting her.
Maybe it was.
She stepped inside Ling’s office, and immediately all sound ceased. She wished the headache had as well.
“This is really unorthodox, Ms. Bowles.” Ling was standing beside a jade sculpture of one of his ancestors, a slender woman who had a pleasant face. Ling’s face wasn’t pleasant. It was too thin and had frown lines that enhancements couldn’t tame. They made his golden skin look chapped, and over time, his eyes had stretched until they seemed too large for the sockets. Apparently, no one had ever suggested repairing that.
“Have you been to the imaging chambers?” she asked.
He was rearranging some tinier jade sculptures on a shelf built into the wall. Plants she didn’t recognize rose around the shelves, the green leaves looking alien against the brown backdrop. The only thing that looked natural, oddly enough, were the jade sculptures on every surface. There was even a life-sized dog next to his desk.
“I’ve been thinking of getting rid of those chambers,” he said, moving a sculpture the size of his thumb up two shelves. “They’re a waste of space.”
“They help put things in perspective,” Bowles said. “Come with me.”
He peered around yet another sculpture. This one was a simple obelisk as tall as Ling was, with writing in a language Bowles didn’t recognize running up the side. “You barged in here so that I would accompany you to the imaging chamber?”
“You want a larger office?” she asked. “Maybe a little more power with InterDome? Haven’t I heard you mention that you’d like to be in charge of the expansion to Earth?”
“We’re not going to expand to Earth in my lifetime,” he said bitterly.
“Stop it, Mr. Ling,” she said. “We’ve got a story here.”
“Is it that security chief story you were nagging me about?”
“It might be,” Bowles said. “Come with me.”
Then, without waiting for his reply, she grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the sculptures. He bumped into the obelisk and for a moment, it looked like the entire thing was going to tumble. Bowles caught it with one hand and pushed it back into place, surprised at how heavy it was.
“Violence doesn’t solve a thing, girl,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes and kept pulling him forward. When they reached the doors, she said, “Shut off the damn security. My head can’t take more of those tones.”
He smiled. “You’re the only one who has ever gotten through them.”
She took that as a promise and pulled him out of the room. The assistants watched gape-mouthed but did nothing to stop her. When she hit the corridor, she kept her grip on Ling, but noticed that she was no longer pulling. He was keeping pace with her.
“I have to inspect these rooms anyway,” he said. “I’ve been promising the Unit Manager that I would give him a report on the chambers within the week. Everyone believes they’re not worth the funding—”
“Everyone except the writing staff, the reporters, and the researchers,” Bowles said. “Of course, you never bother to check with us.”
“Sarcasm won’t put me in a mood to help you, Ms. Bowles.”
“I’m not bringing you here to help me,” she said. At least, not exactly. “We have the story of the century here, and we have to figure out how to cover it.”
“You could have explained it in my office,” he said.
“Not like this.”
She pressed a hand on the lock that opened the first imaging chamber, and walked inside. The images coming from Sahara Dome were still devastating.
Ling gasped.
She took him from room to room, showing the ever-expanding crisis on Mars, until they reached that last room. The images were as amazing as ever: the blackness, the pinpricks of burning light against a red planet, the sheer volume of free-floating ships.
“My god,” he breathed. “Have they all gone mad?”
“They’re afraid of something and they’re running,” Bowles said. “Everyone thinks they’re crazy, but I downloaded some Disty histories. I found a lot of evacuations. Do you know how they discovered our solar system in the first place?”
“No,” he said without looking at her. He was watching the tiny ships whirling away from the surface.
“Some Disty were fleeing a death ritual gone awry. An entire town had been destroyed, but before that happened, several dozen Disty got into distance ships and fled. They ended up here. Other Disty followed—their death leaders, whatever they’re called—”
“The Death Squad,” Ling muttered, still watching the ships.
“And took care of the escapees. But then they reported back to Amoma, and someone sent scout ships. Humans met them near Titan. The rest you know.”
He nodded absently. “So?”
“So,” she said, “the point is that the Disty have a history of running from places where something has gone wrong.”
Ling turned toward her. She finally had his attention. “Wrong how?”
She shrugged. “Something to do with ritual and ritualistic banishment. I don’t entirely understand it, but you have to understand, I’ve only processed about five minutes of information. I’ll have it all within an hour or two.”
“This is a Mars story,” he said. “InterDome on Mars probably has feeds going all over the solar system.”
“They do,” Bowles said. “But it’s a Moon story too.”
She swung a hand toward the red pl
anet, looking too bright against that black backdrop. “Where do you think those ships are going to go? They’re so panicked, most of them don’t have real pilots. The ones that do won’t be able to make it all the way back to the Disty system, not right away. They’re going to need fuel and maybe some money, and maybe even some contacts. Where’re they going to go?”
His frown lines softened as he realized what she was saying. “They’re coming here.”
She nodded. “We’ve had refugee situations in the past, but nothing this overwhelming. If the figures I’m getting from research are correct, the number of Disty coming this way will double Armstrong’s population within a day. If all the Disty make it and somehow end up here, we won’t have room for them in any of the Domes.”
“They won’t all come here,” he said, but he didn’t sound like he believed it.
“They might. Refugee situations are dicey. They go to the nearest place, and they don’t care if there’s no room. We don’t just have room factors. We have food and strain on the old Domes, and maybe even problems in the ports.”
Ling glanced over his shoulder. The redness from the image of Mars made his skin seem copper. “Everyone’ll be covering this within a few hours. Why bring me here?”
“I just got back from Tycho Crater,” she said. “I just saw Security Chief DeRicci’s ex-partner from the police force. He gave me a story about her, one that shows how much she hates the Disty.”
Ling’s eyes narrowed, reaching almost normal size. “You think she’s going to deny them entry.”
Bowles nodded.
“Oh, my….” He didn’t finish the thought. “She can’t do that. Thousands, maybe millions will die. She has to take in at least a portion. That’s what governments do in these kinds of situations. They provide as much humanitarian aid as possible.”
Bowles just stared at him, letting him reach the conclusions she’d been thinking about for a while now.
“She doesn’t have that kind of power, does she?” he asked.
Bowles shrugged. “That’s why she was hired. For exactly this type of emergency. No one ever anticipated the scope.”
His eyes were sparkling. He was seeing awards and classic stories and life-changing reporting work. He was seeing the story that would open the doors to Earth for InterDome, and all the promotions he ever dreamed of.
Bowles knew that as well as she knew her own reaction. She’d worked with Ling long enough to understand what interested him. It wasn’t news. It was advancement.
This story would advance all of them.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I need a team,” she said, “from all over the Moon. I need researchers and people who specialize in Disty, and maybe even a Disty or two if we can get them. I need a secondary live face—I’ll be primary—and I need total control. This entire story, from the crisis on Mars to the refugee situation on the Moon, is mine from start to finish.”
“And?” he asked.
“Do your best to get me unlimited access to the United Domes Government. Most of all, I want to be there when Security Chief DeRicci makes her fateful decision. I want it all recorded, and I want to be the reporter of record.”
“I may not be able to do that last,” he said.
“We need it,” she said. “It’s the heart of the piece.”
“You got the ex-partner recorded? We have the history of her hatred of the Disty?”
“We have it,” Bowles said. “And I’m going to play it front and center, the minute she closes our borders.”
“You’re convinced the borders will close.”
“Yes,” Bowles said.
“And that the chief will do it.”
“If not,” Bowles said, “she’ll be the one recommending it, and right now, they’ll listen to her. She’s handled two crises. She’s the experienced one. They don’t realize how this’ll backfire.”
“The Disty will blame the Moon.”
Bowles nodded. “The entire Alliance might be ending, right here. Right now.”
“My god,” he whispered. “And we’ll have the evolution of that collapse on every link the moment it happens.”
“As it happens,” Bowles said.
Ling frowned, looked at the ships again, and rubbed a hand over his chin. “This doesn’t frighten you?”
“The story?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “The real-life implications.”
His body was silhouetted against that planet, the exploding and drifting ships. If she told him the truth—how this whole thing felt like the end of everything she knew and understood, and that it terrified her more than she could say—he would take the story from her. He would think her unable to be logical and cold about it, when logical and cold was her only refuge.
“It’s not my job to worry about the implications,” she said. “I’m just supposed to report them.”
He put a hand on her shoulder, startling her. It was all she could do not to jump in surprise.
“We’re lucky to have you,” he said. “Now, get to work.”
Forty-one
DeRicci sat at her desk, marshalling information as if she were the governor-general instead of an ex-cop who had been promoted above her competence level. She had one of her assistants searching for those backdoor links Flint had talked about, the ones that would let her talk to someone in Sahara Dome. And she’d assigned Popova to organizing a meeting with the governor-general and the council for the United Domes of the Moon, stressing the importance of having that meeting within the hour.
Popova doubted everyone could make it, and DeRicci had told her in no uncertain terms that everyone had to be there, even if it was on vid link on a secured channel.
So far, no one had mentioned that DeRicci lacked the authority to do any of this. But, she supposed, before the day was out, someone would remember. She only hoped they would already know what the plan was.
She certainly didn’t. Flint had spooked her. A cursory search of the Disty on Mars had never shown behavior like this before. The Disty ritual list was so long that Disty would never have time to go through it, and she found nothing about contamination, but she really didn’t know where to look.
What she needed was some kind of Disty guide or an authority on the Disty. She didn’t know any Disty personally—not that she’d ever wanted to; the creepy little creatures bothered her on an almost instinctual level—and she had never cultivated an authority on anything.
She only had two assistants, and she felt they were already doing important tasks. So she’d gone blindly through Dome University records until she found someone home in Alien Studies. Then she’d asked who specialized in the Disty.
The name she got was Coral Menodi, along with a private link. When DeRicci tried the link, she initially got no response. She was going to look for someone else when she remembered how people used to get through to her when she kept her links off. She turned on every alarm and red light and flasher available through the links, and sent those along with a request for contact to Menodi.
Menodi picked up with both audio and visual. DeRicci downloaded the image from her links to her desk screen.
Menodi was tiny, with black hair and skin the color of Flint’s. DeRicci had never seen that combination before.
“Forgive me, Professor,” DeRicci said after introducing herself. “I understand you specialize in the Disty.”
“No one specializes in them,” Menodi said. Behind her, someone moved. There was a lot of flesh, and a rumpled bed. DeRicci had clearly interrupted something. “They’re too private for that.”
“But you understand them.”
“No, sir. I try to. I figure this will be my life’s work.”
“Have you caught the news today?”
Menodi glanced over her shoulder, made some sort of gesture that her visual link didn’t pick up and then turned back. “No. Should I?”
DeRicci suppressed a sigh, beginning to understand people’s old irritati
ons with her. Willful ignorance made things difficult all the way around.
As quickly as she could, she explained what was happening on Mars, and then she mentioned Flint’s theory, not using his name but letting Menodi know the idea had come from Sahara Dome.
“First,” DeRicci said, “is this idea of contamination correct?”
Menodi’s skin had turned even whiter. “Oh, yes. I don’t know how severe the Disty believe this contamination is—obviously they think it drastic or they wouldn’t be doing this—but the situation could be so out of hand that our own Disty population, which is quite large, you know…”
DeRicci didn’t know. She knew that there was a Disty section in Armstrong, and she had avoided it ever since her first run-in with the Disty. She’d tried to avoid them as well.
“…our Disty might think that having the Contaminated Ones in our ports might be enough to contaminate the Moon. I don’t know without knowing the exact nature of the contamination.”
“If I get that information for you, will you be able to help me?” DeRicci asked.
“It would be guesswork,” Menodi said. “Normally, I’d contact some friends of mine in the Disty community, but I don’t think that would be wise in this instance.”
DeRicci thought this would be the perfect time. She would be calling Disty if she knew them. “Why not? Don’t we need their advice?”
“Have you had contact with any of these fleeing Disty?” Menodi asked.
“No,” DeRicci said.
“Have you had contact with anyone who has had contact with those Disty?”
DeRicci felt like she was suddenly on trial here. “No.”
“How about contact with anyone in Sahara Dome?”
“Human or Disty?”
“Yes.”
“No,” DeRicci said. “I haven’t.”
“Have you had contact with anyone who has talked with someone in Sahara Dome during this crisis?”
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