Behold a Dark Mirror

by Theophilus Axxe

  "Yup," he said, "they're heroes."

  "What do we do next?" Nero said.

  "ConSEnt will be onto us soon. We should find a hidey-hole and give up," Ettore answered.

  "Never!" Kebe said from her bunk. She arose, walking to the table. "Not when six hundred more souls cry for vengeance. Not as long as there's a drop of red blood left."

  She swept Ettore's mug off the table. "Get on your feet," she said. "Speak like the man you are!"

  Ettore stood up. Without a word, he walked to the door into the night outside.

  "Nero?" Kebe said. "Where do you stand?"

  "I'm with you, Kebe. If I give up, I'll die my second and last time. But I don't know what to do now."

  Kebe collapsed on the bench next to Nero. "It hurts, sweet darling," she whispered. "It hurts."

  They hugged each other for a long moment. Kebe found enough strength to pull herself away.

  "It hurts," she said.

  Right then the earth shook. The mug on the floor rattled and jumped. All implements in the cabin clattered, bouncing with their own life. After what looked like an eternity the shaking stopped. Ettore ran back indoors, his head wet.

  "Only a little one perhaps," he said. He took a portable receiver from the duffel bag hanging from the bunk, turned it on, played with the control. A faded video appeared above it. While Ettore put the receiver on the table the image in the video turned into that of a male news announcer who began speaking:

  "...repeat this emergency broadcast. Magnitude at the epicenter, far offshore the west coast of the Southern Peninsula, is estimated at 11.3 Richter. Most of the planet felt the ripples of this large quake. There is a tidal wave alert: landfall of a fifty-five meters wave will be 110 minutes from now. We'll provide more data as it becomes available. For now, I'm..."

  The anchor looked at his side, as if to stare at Kebe. He turned his face to the front.

  "Well, not enough news for today, yet. The seismographic station at Riplah registered an underwater explosion unrelated to today's earthquake. Investigations at the site revealed the remains of a manned underwater station. Existence of this station was previously unknown; there are preli..."

  "Damn, we're already making headlines," Ettore said, slamming his big hand on the table.

  "Shush," Kebe said.

  "...but the report is unconfirmed. Last and even more important, there's a credible allegation of some criminal wrongdoing that the Tower may have perpetrated. The Tower has recently opened to colonization a new planet called Virgil, and sponsored a popular resettlement campaign—but according to our sources, the Tower has also held back information of the utmost gravity: A mortal danger plagues Virgil. In the words of Ayin Najjar, the senior Tower official in charge of this project," a voice over spoke now: "We're losing three to five people a day on Virgil, and nobody knows why. Settlers are dying like flies." The anchor continued, "This voice snippet has been certified as Ms. Najjar's: the Tower may have breached the trust of its fiduciary stewardship beyond repair. Stay tuned for developments. Again, a large earthquake—"

  Ettore shut the receiver down. "The quake was a big one."

  "What's the Tower up to?" Kebe said.

  "Far Lands sold the rights to Virgil's development to the Tower. But the Tower should have known better than to colonize," Nero said.

  Ettore looked at him. "What's happening on Virgil?"

  "I'm not sure what's happening now, but I can tell you what happened to me. When I worked for Far Lands, my team opened Virgil. From high up it looked good. Orbital scans were promising, except Virgil was weird: luxurious vegetation, but no animal life. None—like Doka," he said, looking at Kebe. "We sent a team planetside. One of my men died. Something like a seizure killed him, yet nobody could explain it. I had an ominous hunch, nothing definite—and since we had enough data, I pulled camp. We called that place Virgil, after Dante's guide to Inferno in the Divine Comedy."

  "Dante's guide to Hell, uh? Back to us," said Ettore. "We have pressing problems. For instance, how to evade ConSEnt. Our formerly secret society is now headline news. Unless we are creative, we're history. Any ideas?"

  Kebe tormented a curl of her hair, twisting it between her fingers, her forehead resting on her other hand, her face looking down at the table.

  "Do we disband?" Nero said.

  "Well," answered Ettore, "I'll have to get out of this secret society. My life is here, my family, my business."

  "Which place in the universe is least likely to be infested by ConSEnt?" Kebe said, without looking at her companions.

  "The nucleus of a black hole," said Ettore.

  "What do you have in mind?" Nero asked.

  "We can't hide," Kebe said. "There's no running. We need allies who can stall ConSEnt."

  "We could use some new friends, yes," Ettore said.

  "Didn't say friends," Kebe said. "Just allies: someone with the same enemy." She looked up, her face wearing an insane smile. "Like the Tower on Virgil, for instance."

  CHAPTER 27

  "Sir, we can't let go of Virgil," Ayin said. "Estimated reserves of rare earths alone would pad the treasury for a decade—and heaven knows how much we need it. The strategic appeal of husbandry in that region of space—"

  "No need to remind me," interrupted the Chairman. "We're at a critical stage, Ayin." His bald forehead was even more creased than usual. "If we admit to wilfully hiding the dangers of Virgil, this incident will cripple us. If we deny, we need to manage a cover-up of colossal proportion—and if we fail the cover-up, it'll be the end of the Tower."

  "We can manage the cover-up, sir—we can, with a bit of luck. But there's a wild card."

  The old man looked at her. "I'm listening."

  "I think I’ve identified the source of the leak. If we are bold, we can quench all rumors—we can undermine the evidence against us. I have a plan."

  "Explain, then."

  "A supervised, public inspection of Virgil will allay fear. There's a risk; but casualties," she lowered her eyes, "are unpredictable and infrequent, in relative terms." She paused. "If we manage the inspection well, we'll pass with flying colors. We need to keep it short, restrict it to places where danger is low. We still control all informed sources, only the incoherent mumbles are public."

  "Other risks?" the Chairman said.

  "ConSEnt, sir. I can't fathom their intentions."

  "ConSEnt mustn't thwart the way we manage Virgil, Ayin."

  "Yes, sir, but—"

  "Virgil must be a one-way funnel," he said, "for selected expendable individuals. If unrestricted access is allowed, your plan will fail. Someone with a two-way ticket will get killed and won't come back, and then another. Provocation at home will become too insistent. ConSEnt mustn't allow two-way traffic except as we permit it. This rumor must die."

  "Yes, sir. Indeed. But also—"

  The Chairman interrupted: "I think we can manage that, Ayin. Your plan is bold. I like it. We must keep Virgil open. The Tower is fading away, Ayin; I cannot allow that. I need Virgil as soon as possible, for as long as possible. If the Tower goes, mankind won't be a civilization any more—no shared language, currency, culture, no law, no structure to society. Mankind will become a bunch of nomads scattered among the stars. Gypsies. We keep anarchy at bay, Ayin." He stood up, continued speaking as if to the wall. "And we've struck too many compromises to do so. The Tower is not allowed to govern. The Tower is government." He turned to Ayin. "Good job, keep at it, make it work. Keep me informed—but I don't care about the details." His gaze turned maniacal, "Don't fail me."

  Ayin heeded her dismissal. She bowed, turned about and walked out of the chairman's office. In the corridor on the way to her own office, she sighed in relief: The job was still hers, she still had her head. The plan was flying. She had feared be
coming the ritual scapegoat for the blunder about Virgil. But no, her gamble had paid off—what a gamble! The Tower was in such bad shape, the Chairman had decided Virgil was worth the risk.

  Ayin was lost in thought. The ranks of public officials reveled in corruption—look at Galt. Credibility had hit an all-time low—the glory of the Charter was a memory of bygone days. The Tower was collapsing under its own weight, and managing power had become too difficult for a senile Chairman. Perhaps one day... She smiled.

  Galt, she thought.

  The animal must have recorded their conversation. She should have killed him when she had the chance. Her hands tightened the grip on her briefcase, her knuckles now white. Murder is not my style. I'm a public servant, she thought. But Galt was worthy of an exception. That bastard—he recorded her! In a moment of weakness, he took advantage of her.

  Bastard! She wanted to wring his neck, hear him scream: Mercy, mercy on me! Then she would slowly strangle him, watching his agony. He sabotaged the development of Virgil! He undermined the safety of the colonists. He's killing innocent people every day. He's destroying civilization.

  He is the butcher of Virgil—not me!

  Beast! In a fit, she turned and kicked the wall, once, twice, before resuming her walk. When she arrived at her office, she stomped through the foyer without a word, opened her door and slammed it shut behind her, throwing her briefcase onto a chair. Just then she realized how hard she'd gripped it—her hand hurt. She plopped into her padded chair, poured a generous bourbon, and gulped it. As the alcohol worked its way through her system, she began to relax.

  *

  The blue room was full of news people. Ayin Najjar, behind the curtain, accepted gracefully the last touches of the makeup artist. The chief engineer peeked into her private corner, announcing, "We're ready any time now. Ten seconds per word, give or take. We'll start at your cue."

  "Very well," she answered. Makeup was done. She rose and walked to the podium in the blue room. Press conference attendees hushed. She could almost hear the recording machines turning on.

  The PA system flooded the room with Ayin's voice: "I wish to stress that I am here to dispel a libelous attack on the Tower mounted by irresponsible sources. I'll show you how the evidence of our alleged guilt was fabricated. I will next present terms for a public inspection of Virgil." She paused while surges of comments moved across the sea of people.

  "You are invited to take my terms and come to Virgil and see for yourself, or to refuse them and believe the reports of others, for I will not change my conditions. My first responsibility is to my Charter, and I must assure the protection of the common good. At the end of your visit, I expect nothing short of a full retraction with apologies—and next time, verify your sources more accurately. Let me state this clearly: The Tower doesn't engage in flesh mongering." She paused. "The Tower is the champion of the cause of mankind. The Tower is order among chaos, the paladin of justice. It is the dam that constrains anarchy and corporate greed. The Tower lives by its Charter!" There was scattered applause.

  "Now I will demonstrate that you have no true evidence of anything. Your source claims that the recording where I incredibly admit to criminal callousness is authentic. Let me show you authentic. I want a volunteer from the audience, please."

  A few people stood up, looked around. Some sat back down; one remained. "Italo Perinet, Southern Cross News," the man said in the general silence.

  "Thank you for volunteering, Mr. Perinet. This is what I ask of you. Speak a short sentence of your choosing—five or six words. Once you've done that, my engineers will process your sentence and recompose it; and this PA system will play back the result, but instead of yours, my voice will come from the speakers. The engineers will have recombined a recorded sample of my voice, obtained from a speech publicly broadcast months ago, to match the words of this sentence. I'll be here the entire time in front of you with my mouth shut. The sounds you'll hear are fabricated. Your sentence, please."

  The man said: "You have much to explain."

  "Very well," Ayin said. "That'll take about a minute—hold your breath."

  Ayin's voice carried through the PA system: "You have much to explain."

  A murmur swept the crowd of newsmen; many shook their heads. Ayin leaned on the podium. "Please pass the recording on your machines to your technicians, who'll be able to certify those words as mine. Another volunteer, please."

  She repeated the demonstration a few times. "I believe I've made my point. I've showed you how any certifiable 'authentic' voice recording could be fake. I understand this is not a great trick, but I wanted to present it to you so that you may consider the implications. I also understand this doesn't demonstrate the Tower's innocence. To make all these criminal allegations an unequivocal lie, you're invited—at most fifty of you, not one more—to Virgil. At the doors of this room take one of exactly fifty coupons and information about how you can accept this invitation. It's first come, first served, so be quick." Murmurs began running through the crowd. Ayin carried on without pausing. "Come and see for yourselves who's telling the truth. I will now take a few questions, while those among you interested in a trip to Virgil get their coupons."

  The room burst in a frenzy. All attendees who weren't rushing to the doors raised their hands, each vying for Ayin's attention. She enjoyed the chaos, savoring her little revenge.

  "I'll hear the gentleman with Space Broadcast Services," Ayin said.

  "Thank you, Ms. Najjar. Has the Tower withheld any information pertaining to safety, or the lack of it, on Virgil?"

  Ayin said, "Everything the Tower knows about the dangers of Virgil is public. Virgil is a new homestead, and the Tower is not omniscient. There may be dangers we don't know of, yet. All colonists are clearly warned this is the case. We've not withheld any information. Nevertheless, pioneering is a risky, if rewarding, undertaking."

  "Ms. Najjar," a press woman interrupted. "What exactly does the Tower expect from Virgil? What's at stake for the Tower?"

  Ayin said, "The Tower, in obeisance to its Charter, plans to make Virgil available to mankind as another tribute to our—mankind's—expansion through the stars. This is a glorious, but expensive task. The Tower must recover the cost of the infrastructure for the colonization effort, plus a reasonable fee to fund further growth. We will do so with an exclusive license to all planetary commercial revenue for an as yet uncertain, but limited period of time—according to Charter law. When the license expires, the Tower will collect royalties for its role in regulating access and assuring a peaceful and prosperous environment for Virgil's homesteaders. The job of the Tower is not to get rich; it’s to help mankind grow. This is what the Charter requires. This is what the Tower does. This is how the Tower plans to do it on Virgil."

  "How long is the license?" someone asked.

  "Acquisition costs were extremely high, so the duration of the license is longer than usual," Ayin answered. "Next?"

  "Are there any joint efforts between the Tower and ConSEnt?"

  "No. There are none."

  "But," another newsman asked immediately, "ConSEnt and the Tower are unofficially more and more interested in each other's business. There must be a plan to cooperate closely with ConSEnt on many projects, perhaps including Virgil?"

  "ConSEnt is a valuable corporate citizen, but the Tower is more than that—the Tower is the custodian of civilization as we know it. The Tower has no business or plans to cooperate as a peer with a corporation over which it has regulatory jurisdiction. The Tower represents the interests of mankind, not those of an individual corporate entity. Cooperation with ConSEnt would violate the Charter. The Tower may not engage in partisan politics or defend the interests of any specific business."

  "How many people are currently on Virgil?" Another said.

  "As we speak," Ayin answered, "Twenty to thirt
y thousand. Soon there will be many more—it's a beautiful place, come and see for yourselves. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your questions. Please address further inquiries to my assistant."

  She turned and walked to the curtain amidst a cacophony of voices pressing for more answers. As Ayin disappeared backstage, an aide walked to the podium to provide canned answers to a flood of questions.

  Backstage, Ayin sat in her booth, called for the public relations analyst. She wanted a spin doctor's diagnosis.

  "What's your take?" Ayin said.

  "Almost flawless, Ayin."

  "What’s the fly in the soup?"

  "The questions on cooperation with ConSEnt."

  "Well?"

  "They were out of scope. Who asked them?"

  "Don't know—never seen those people before."

  "Me neither. This is twice suspicious, Ayin; did you tell the truth?"

  "You should know better."

  "Yeah, well. Good job, Ayin. You handled it well."

  Ayin relaxed: Yes, I think I did well, she thought.

  *

  Stepping through the framepost was intense enough to overcome Ayin's sense of purpose. On one side of the teleportation machine were dangers she knew how to manage: crowds, politics, the press, her boss... On the other side, there was Virgil and the unknown. Nobody had ever argued successfully with Nature. She looked back into the shiny nothingness of the frame. The vastness she saw in it and the folly she saw in her own actions stopped her on her feet—for once she could feel the cold touch of hubris.

  "Ms. Najjar, welcome to Virgil." The voice of her host broke the spell. He stretched out his hand to shake hers: "We're honored by your visit."