Frozen Sky 2: Betrayed

by Jeff Carlson

  Henri doesn’t realize he’s being used, she thought. Either that or he sees no choice. Our crew has been manipulated by some extraordinarily powerful people.

  Maybe it’s not too late to muck up their plans.

  “Ben, I need a wingman,” she said, and his answer was an amused drawl.

  “Yep.”

  “Are you sharing your updates with Dawson and Koebsch?”

  “Yep.”

  “Let’s piggyback into their stations. I want to find out what they’re doing before they do it.”

  “Hacking the command line sounds like the kind of thing that gets people thrown in jail,” he said. It wasn’t a complaint. He said it like a dare.

  She considered joking back. Maybe they’ll lock us in the same room with nothing to do except make love. But she didn’t want to tease him anymore. He deserved better. He’d earned her devotion if she could learn how to give it.

  He can teach me, she thought. Business first.

  “Ash and I wrote CEW codes into our mecha before we merged our grid with Ribeiro’s,” she said. “I should be able to tap his feed. I can definitely open Dawson’s station. You need to run interference for me with as much noise as you can generate.”

  Ben grinned. “Noise is my middle name,” he said.

  “I love you. Um.” Did I just say that out loud? she thought. Her cheeks burned—but for once, Ben didn’t parry with a wiseass remark.

  “Let’s go,” he said casually.

  She couldn’t look at him, feeling shy excitement. I should love him, she thought. And he loves me.

  They acted in concert not unlike her dances with Tom.

  Ben generated ten new sims, choking the ESA datastreams. Vonnie laced segments of his files with her counter-electronic warfare codes. By now, Top Clan Eight-Six had penetrated the solid layer of ice, falling silent as they vanished beneath the ancient mass. It was a good moment for Ben to increase his mock-ups detailing the existence of new seas and mountains. “Koebsch, we can stand down,” he said. “The sunfish are gone.”

  “Nonsense,” Dawson said on the group feed.

  “They’re four point three klicks below us and two point two north of camp,” Ben said.

  Dawson shook his head. “At best, your sims are ranked at fifty percent accuracy. You can’t say what’s below that layer of ice, and we know the cavities in its underside are caused by steam or geysers, which correlate with ongoing volcanic activity.”

  “The layer acts like a shield,” Ben said.

  “They’ve tunneled through it at a thin point,” Dawson said. “Look at your third sim. If they flood their hole, that layer may crack laterally. How many subsurface seas will spill in the collapse?”

  “There’s only one sea within a four kilometer radius.”

  “You’ve located two additional seas within five kilometers as well as several rivers and catacombs. Don’t minimize the severity of our situation for her,” Dawson said. He emphasized her with a patronizing tone.

  “Got you,” Vonnie murmured.

  She’d hacked the telemetry from his jeep, identifying a submenu that didn’t belong, not to a genesmith.

  Like everyone, Dawson could access their listening posts and mecha. At 14:01:33 local time while he was driving from camp, he’d run a diagnostic on their spies, actively involving himself in their grid rather than leaving standard checks to the engineers. Of course he’d have an explanation. He’d laid the groundwork for it among his mem files.

  I know what he’ll say, she thought.

  The sunfish had bioelectric sensing organs like sharks, although the sunfish were more sensitive. They were stronger. Dawson would claim his research implied they could also generate bioelectric fields, allowing them to jam the spies. He’d say he’d driven to Module 06 because he was concerned for her safety. Then he’d started this whole mess himself.

  His diagnostic had included a command for ten spies to wriggle a few millimeters at the same time. The quake would have obscured a minor commotion from ESA sensors—not from the hyper-aware sunfish. If the tribe had abruptly detected ten spies near their home, it could explain why they’d fled.

  But he isn’t a programmer, she thought. Maybe we can track his records to whoever designed the command for him.

  Is it one of us? The FNEE?

  “Damn it,” Ben said inside their privacy screen. “Von, we’re in trouble.”

  “We might be okay,” she said.

  “Von—”

  “I can prove Dawson caused the tribe to run. We’ll tell our proxies and show the media. Then we need to stop the tribe from hurting anyone.”

  “We’re past that,” he said. “Look.”

  Vonnie lifted her gaze from her work and glanced at a new feed on her display. Her heart leapt in shock.

  Ben had used her codes to access the datastreams from the FNEE maintenance shed, including a surveillance camera. The shed was packed with moderately damaged diggers and other mecha in need of repair. Standing among the machines were Henri Frerotte and the two FNEE soldiers. They’d carried an ESA storage container inside with them.

  The four-by-two-by-one-meter box was identical to hundreds of containers attached to the exterior of their ship, the Clermont, differing only in its ID codes.

  It did not hold food or lab gear.

  From it, Henri had unloaded ten pony bombs. He’d armed five of the quarter-kiloton devices. Then he’d attached the warheads to five FNEE diggers.

  The first bomb had been activated seven minutes ago.

  In the floor of the shed was a hatch.

  The FNEE lieutenant had keyed two codes into the hatch, opening it. Then the diggers had scurried into the fractures beneath the surface.

  “They’re invading,” Ben said.

  “No. My God.” Vonnie swallowed hard. “They want to seal the ice forever.”

  6.

  Dozens of political, military, and corporate groups sought to undercut the ESA at every step. They said dealing with the sunfish was too costly. They said Earth had no concern in the affairs of savage aliens.

  Vonnie accepted that millions of people regarded the sunfish with greed or fear, but she was astonished that billions didn’t care at all.

  It was their indifference that allowed the bad guys to act against the tribes.

  Ben explained the social equation like this: In some ways, ironically, humankind’s success had been its undoing. Civilization had bred out the demand for the “nomad gene,” and restlessness and imagination went hand in hand. So did imagination and empathy.

  In the twenty-second century, with cheap energy and abundant genesmithed crops and fisheries, Earth’s population had swelled to 9.3 billion. Most of them lived in comfort. Many couldn’t see past their holo streams. What they adored were sex dramas and police dramas as evidenced by the sky-high ratings for repetitive stories about criminals, corrupt statesmen, top cops and hot females. Popular media had also cycled around to yet another infatuation with vampires—idealized gods who combined humankind’s darkest tendencies with everyone’s desire to hold onto their youth and health.

  Europa was too strange for some people to comprehend. Worse, the ESA mission was physically static. The astronauts stayed inside their modules because sending them into the ice was suicide, but the public wanted eye candy. They wanted linear narratives and certain gratification, not open-ended scenarios with complex issues.

  Vonnie knew there were smart, honest adults in the world. She heard from them on the net. Unfortunately, too many leaders scoffed at her moral compass. Instead of doing the right thing, they rationalized why they should do what was easiest or most profitable.

  The most profitable path was to treat the sunfish like vermin. Earth’s space-faring nations had grown rich on the ice. For eighteen years before life was discovered beneath the surface, they’d mined Europa for deuterium, supplying orbital stations and fusion ships throughout the solar system.

  The mining hadn’t stopped after First Contact. I
t couldn’t. Earth’s militaries stockpiled fuel and water to create tactical advantages over each other, and even the civilian agencies worried about the sustainability of their operations.

  Vonnie recognized that they needed the ice. How much was too much and who owned it? Should they offer payment? Merely landing on Europa had disrupted the native culture. By providing tools and food, the ESA wanted to boost the prominence of Top Clan Eight-Six among the other tribes. They hoped to rebuild the sunfish empire—not because they were idealistic pansies—because peace would allow them to explore and mine Europa safely. But what if Eight-Six wasn’t best suited to unite the barbaric tribes?

  Asking such questions allowed her opponents to call her indecisive. They didn’t have answers themselves, but they didn’t want answers for the sunfish. Not asking questions didn’t make them stronger than her. It made them smaller. They liked to preen by saying they were taking care of people, creating jobs, keeping their nations secure, all the usual smoke and mirrors to conceal the genocide they’d planned.

  Our lives are so much easier than the lives of the sunfish, but nothing is ever enough, she thought. Too many people only take and take. They think it’s weak to give.

  I’ll give them something.

  “Koebsch, I have emergency data packets for you and our proxies,” she said. “You need to see this.” Glancing over her shoulder, she signaled Ben with one hand, counting down from five fingers, four, three…

  Koebsch answered her on a private channel. “Von, your responsibility is piloting Lander 05.”

  “I’m not flying 05,” she said.

  His eyes were hectic. He was juggling several data/comm feeds. “Von, do it now,” he said. “Protecting our crew comes first.”

  “There’s no danger if you shut off Henri’s bombs.”

  “You’ll pilot 05 or I’ll lock your station. Tony and Ash can take the landers.”

  “This crisis was faked! It’s a setup. Dawson ran a bullshit diagnostic on our spies to scare the sunfish, and I can guess who authorized the bombs.”

  “We don’t have time for…” Koebsch hesitated.

  “Let me show you,” she said.

  “Not now. After we’re in the air.”

  “By then it will be too late.”

  “Are you going to log into 05?” he asked.

  “Berlin hid missile components on the Clermont for our defense, I get it,” she said, trying to slow him down. “We’re a long way from home, we’re at odds with China, and we were still on the fence with Brazil when we left Earth. But you can’t think it was a good idea to bring the warheads into camp. Did Henri or Ash surprise you with that storage container?”

  Koebsch dropped his gaze. The gesture was almost like nodding his head.

  He hates this as much as I do, but he’s stuck, she thought. They sent the missiles with us for good reason. The Chinese ship is a destroyer. It could force us to leave Europa. We needed the deterrents, but then it was too easy for the wrong people to misappropriate our weaponry.

  “How far down will the FNEE diggers carry our warheads before they detonate?” she asked. “Two klicks? Three? They’ll also travel sideways. We have time to stop them.”

  “My orders are to get in the air before the sunfish open another geyser or a volcano,” Koebsch said. “It doesn’t matter who started it. You need to log into 05. Lift your hab module to Evac Point F.”

  “The detonations will cause blowouts and collapses for a hundred kilometers,” she said. “That includes the NASA and PSSC camps. We’ll make them evacuate, too, and this is the most inhabited area we’ve found.” She touched her maps, highlighting every point of contact with abandoned ruins or living sunfish, eels, bugs, bacterial mats and fungi.

  Koebsch couldn’t stop himself from looking, his silent gaze flitting up and down.

  Ten thousand years ago, Europa’s southern pole had been a vibrant world. From ancient tunnels and carvings, they guessed the sunfish had once colonized hundreds of cubic kilometers of ice. Now the survivors existed within a few scattered pockets. The pole was a decaying oasis.

  “Our bombs will sterilize it,” she said. “We’ll kill the tribes. Then the ice will freeze into a solid mass like a shell. Don’t you see? They want a permanent barrier between us and whatever else is down there. Five warheads are a small price to pay to restart full-scale mining ops.”

  Koebsch said nothing.

  Vonnie remembered Harmeet’s premonition. The ESA flightcraft were designed to carry one module each. So was the FNEE shuttle. She said, “Even if we go, trying to evacuate is bad math. Two landers, three modules. Ribeiro has the same problem with one shuttle and two modules. It won’t work.”

  “I…” Koebsch lowered his gaze again in shame. “We’ll come back for Harmeet,” he said.

  “You’d leave her behind?”

  “Our mecha can start pulling her module away. As soon as the rest of us are clear, we’ll send a lander for her.”

  She knew how he would decide, Vonnie thought. I can’t believe it. Dawson caused this mess but Harmeet gets stuck holding the bag.

  I’ll lift her to safety first, not us. I’m sorry, Ben. We can’t abandon Harmeet while Dawson gets away.

  Koebsch must have seen the discord in Vonnie’s gaze. Even as she made her choice, he reached into his display. He locked her station, permitting her to hear and see their group feed but not to interact with their grid.

  “Wait!” she shouted.

  “Tony, you’re piloting 05,” Koebsch said. “Ash, are you ready with 04?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ash said.

  “I want you to lift 01. Tony, grab 06. The FNEE shuttle can take their command module. Henri will ride out with our mecha. We’ll fly back for Harmeet as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” Vonnie blurted, sick with dread and guilt. She loathed working against her friends. Their leaders in Berlin might crucify her for insubordination, but the unprovoked slaughter of the tribes would be an atrocity.

  She finally signaled Ben.

  “Jetzt,” she said in German. Now.

  Koebsch hadn’t restricted Ben’s station. Ben broadcast his sims on their public channels and to a specific group of AIs: the proxies.

  Loading the ESA databanks with electronic ghosts had been Berlin’s answer to the distance between Earth and Europa. NASA had received the same treatment from Washington. The FNEE had proxies, too, and it was common knowledge that the PSSC astronauts were closely ruled by their own watchdogs.

  An artificial intelligence in all but name, a proxy should have been a violation of western laws prohibiting human-based AI personalities. As usual, the politicians had made exceptions for themselves, then for their underlings and supporters.

  Each proxy was the result of a comprehensive interview with the VIP it represented. Establishing the base personality took hours on the VIP’s part—but then copies could be made, augmented with specific directives, and transmitted anywhere in the system. They were a cheap way to maintain authority over sensitive missions. They were disposable. They were inhuman.

  They examined Ben’s data with AI speed, then interrupted Koebsch with questions and demands. Vonnie couldn’t hear what the proxies were saying. They appeared on private channels inside Module 01. In the chaos, however, Koebsch forgot to remove himself from the group feed.

  His response told her what was happening.

  “Prime Minister Yoshinao, your outrage is valid and I share it,” Koebsch said with stiff formality. “Yes. I apologize. President Manihuari, I want an explanation, too. Admiral Cornet has confirmed the telemetry is accurate.”

  He means the telemetry showing Dawson’s command to the spies, she thought. Now the proxies know what really happened, and some of them are furious.

  Will they order us to…?

  “Stand down,” Koebsch said on the group feed. “Tony, Ash, stand down. Don’t lift off. Colonel Ribeiro, inform your men. I want everyone on
high alert, but don’t move the landers. All mecha hold position.”

  “Affirmative,” Ribeiro said. His taut expression never changed. The man was like stone.

  “Von, what did you do!?” Ash yelled.

  “I’m saving lives,” Vonnie said.

  “Henri, get off the ice,” Koebsch said. “With permission from Colonel Ribeiro, I’d like you to join the FNEE. Their hab modules are closest.”

  “Permission granted, of course,” Ribeiro said as Henri added, “Roger that.”

  “We might only have a few minutes before our orders are rescinded and we evacuate,” Koebsch said. “Harmeet, I need you to leave 02. Run. A jeep will bring you to Module 01.”

  “Thank you,” Harmeet gasped. “Thank you.” Her round, dusky face was terrified. Then she vanished from the group feed, briefly leaving a view of her lab before she remembered to switch to her helmet cam. Her breathing grew louder as she stumbled into 02’s ready room and keyed the air lock.

  “Colonel Ribeiro, join me on the command line,” Koebsch said. “We may disarm our warheads.”

  “Affirmative,” Ribeiro said. He and Koebsch vanished from the group feed, raising new privacy screens, which didn’t stop Dawson from complaining.

  “Administrator Koebsch, a delay now is asinine,” Dawson said. “Our lives are at stake.”

  Vonnie bared her teeth at him—an elated grin—trying to recall the proxies’ names she’d heard. Yoshinao was the Japanese prime minister. Manihuari was from Peru, an ally of Japan and an influential neighbor of Brazil. She didn’t recognize the name Admiral Cornet, but she was glad to learn there was a military commander in the mix. Not all of the proxies were opposed to aiding the sunfish.

  “Goddamn it, we can’t wait for a geyser or a quake!” Ash yelled. She moved her hands across her display, and, on the group feed, the cameras in Lander 04 trembled as she initiated its fusion jets.

  Alarm bars filled Ben’s display. “Ash, you were ordered to stand down,” he said.

  “I won’t!”

  “The proxies are reconsidering our situation,” he told her as Vonnie said, “They should reconsider. Ash, look at our sims. Don’t let Dawson panic you.”