by Alec Saracen
“Hello, Lho,” Zhai said, a smile breaking out across his face. “I was worried you weren't coming.”
Lho shrugged. “You call, I come running.”
Lho had managed to get through eighty-five-plus years of life in the modern era without speaking a word of Chetic or Volmais. She spoke nothing but Xoma, an old and unusual form of Qienchuan which was just barely mutually comprehensible with Zhai's standard dialect. Zhai could understand about 95% of what she said, but he had the disquieting sense that she understood his every word almost better than he did. Worse still, only native Qienchuan speakers like himself had a hope in hell of knowing what Lho was saying. To everyone else, she was a pleasant, grandmotherly old woman, and her tone of voice never betrayed that image. Only her words did.
Lho looked around the room. “Who are these people?” She looked at Umbiba. “I don't like this one. Is he a man or a gorilla? He stinks of stupidity.”
Umbiba looked helplessly at Zhai, who was struggling to keep a straight face.
“Yes, he is, isn't he?” Zhai said to Lho. To Umbiba, switching back to Chetic, he said: “She says you're very tall.”
Umbiba looked awkwardly between them. “Right, sir.” It wasn't inaccurate. Umbiba approached two metres in height, and Lho was maybe two-thirds that. “Um, who is she, exactly, sir?”
“I'm standing somewhere else,” Lho said, wandering away from Umbiba. “I don't like the smell of him.”
“Lho Pangleng,” Zhai said. “The last piece of my puzzle. We couldn't possibly leave the station without her. It'd be a disaster.”
Umbiba looked at Lho with undisguised doubt. She smiled sweetly back at him. “And – what is her role?”
“Crucial,” Zhai said. He slapped his belly. “She's my chef.”
5
Zhai hated the moment of transition between realspace and the Void. He'd never been able to find the words to describe it. Physically, it was a kind of sudden jerk without actual movement, a moment of interruption as unsettling as it was ephemeral. Mentally, it was – a glitch, or something like it. As he slipped into the blackness between dimensions, the functions of his mind all stopped dead for an instant – except for consciousness. That moment in limbo, caught between universes, scared the shit out of him. Every time, he was absolutely certain that the rest of his mind would never return, and he'd be left as a disembodied ball of awareness with nothing to be aware of. Forever.
The moment passed, and they were in the Void. The gravity generated by the V-shield came into effect at a comfortable 0.5 g or so. Zhai closed his eyes, breathed deeply, then popped his seatbelt, stood up, and left his cabin.
Their ship was more or less standard. Half of its bulk was given over to cargo and ship systems, which left them a forty-metre-wide hemisphere to split between twelve people – not including the seven crew. It didn't take Zhai long to pace out its interior. There were thirty cramped cabins – each consisting of little more than a bunk and a desk – a communal eating and living area, a small gym, an observation area, and the separate crew module. That was about it.
Peck and her flunkies, none of whom Zhai heard speak until the third day, occupied a block of five cabins on one side of the ship. Zhai's cabin was flanked by Harod's and Ceq's on either side and Sam's opposite him. Umbiba had placed himself between Zhai and Peck, though whether it was intentional Zhai couldn't say. If Umbiba was really an Incez choice, surely he couldn't be completely ignorant of the SSA's internal factional battles, Zhai told himself, but the more he thought about the man, the more convinced he was that Umbiba had been chosen for exactly that reason. It made sense, in a way. If Umbiba didn't care for politics, then he would simply follow Zhai's orders. What concerned Zhai was whether he could be trusted to act against fellow SSA operatives.
The first day was spent acclimatising to the ship. It was officially designated CDHVV AX-37, but Osmirci, the crew's commander, referred to it as Axel. He was the only crew member they really saw. As the ship's V-fire specialist, if a pressing need for his V-ability arose, they were probably already doomed. He had that sickly, atrophied look of a man who'd spent too long in the Void, and his dark skin had an unhealthy flatness to it. Despite his gaunt appearance, he was unfailingly upbeat and cheerful.
Osmirci seemed to be everywhere on the ship. On the first day, he poked his head in as Zhai and Harod sat down for lunch – Lho had managed to produce a commendable curry despite the difficulty of cooking in one-half gravity and the subtly altered physical laws of the Void – and chatted at them for twenty minutes. He would just happen to be taking a constitutional as Zhai was climbing a ladder between decks, or attending to some calibration or other in the observation deck as Zhai sat watching the endless dark Void clouds twist and roil beyond the V-shield.
Zhai quickly worked out that Osmirci was well aware of the fraught political situation aboard his ship and was taking early steps to puncture the tension before it ballooned out of control. He admired Osmirci's insight, though he found the man's garrulousness rather wearing. Which was the point, of course.
Osmirci's interventions seemed to do the trick. On that first afternoon, Zhai saw Osmirci corner Peck in the mess area and earnestly tell her an involved story about a week-long layover in Star City, ultimately driving a hunted-looking Peck back to her cabin for the rest of the day. Zhai had warmed up to him after that, but by then the Void was already taking its toll.
Even with the V-shield in place, the Void seemed to drive everyone slightly mad. Sam spent most of his time in the observation deck, staring through the window with eyes that seemed to conceal an ocean's depth of secrets. Harod ate compulsively, which was convenient, because Lho cooked compulsively. Ceq retreated to her cabin, complaining of V-sight-related headaches. Fleischer rigged up a dangerous-looking sensor array in the mess hall and spent hours scowling at her watch and muttering about 'strange readings' to anyone who would listen until Zhai forced her to disassemble it. Umbiba aggressively hit the gym. Tetaine always seemed tired. Zhai was left with the discomforting sense that some hidden fundamental constant had been tweaked by a distant intelligence just to see what effects would ripple out.
V-ships had a smell. It was the dry, mechanical scent of recycled stale air, and it was inescapable. It even managed to permeate the kitchen when Lho was cooking. On the first night, Zhai took hours to get to sleep. The bed was too hard and the sound of Axel's internal machinery was just different enough from Megereth Station's to be noticeable, but Zhai was convinced it was that strange, lifeless smell that did it. He remembered seeing his watch display 0335, turning over, rolling back a minute later, and seeing 0718. There was no possibility of sleep after that.
On the second day, he locked himself in his cabin with Harod and Tetaine, determined to learn everything he could about Tor. He suspected Peck was doing the same, if she hadn't done it already. He had no idea what her little faction had planned, but he was damned if he was going to let them be better prepared.
Zhai always liked having Tetaine around. The big man was unfailingly relaxed and easy-going no matter how much work was piled on him, and Zhai had never met anyone with his talent for sifting the important data from the chaff. You could give Tetaine a thousand-page novel and receive a detailed synopsis with some notes on theme inside half an hour. That was invaluable in Zhai's line of work, where he often felt like he was swimming in an ocean of information. Tetaine could detect the blood in that water with the unerring accuracy of a shark.
Tetaine's last boss had cut him loose for providing only cursory reports on the areas he had been ordered to investigate, instead producing reams of information on what appeared to be irrelevancies. The first time they'd worked together, Zhai had almost done the same. Just in time, he'd realised that Tetaine's innate understanding of the flow and significance of information and intelligence was much more incisive than his own. The man's habit of receiving orders, disregarding them, and following his instincts was occasionally infuriating, but they were damn good instincts.
“Right,” Tetaine said, perched on the edge of Zhai's bed with his watch's display projected into the air in front of him. Zhai had the chair, and Harod was cross-legged on the other end of the bed. The side supporting Tetaine's massive bulk had sunk noticeably lower. “How much do you need to know?”
“Total briefing,” Zhai said. “Top to bottom. Planet, politics, everything.”
“First things first: it's hot,” Harod said. “Uncomfortably hot.”
Tetaine nodded. “The inhabited area is here.” He called up a globe of Tor on his watch, which hung slowly rotating in the air between them. The northern half of a southern-hemisphere continent was highlighted in red. “Classic hot-wet climate. There's a long dry season followed by a short and very, very wet season, and you're never going to see the temperature below sixteen or seventeen centigrade.”
Zhai groaned. “Oh, fantastic. So I'm going to sweat like a pig all the time, am I?”
Tetaine smiled sympathetically. “Looks like it. Right now it's towards the end of the dry season, so maybe we'll get some nice cooling monsoons.”
“Twins,” Zhai muttered. “I'm not built for hot worlds.”
“Should have asked Sekkanen for Scorch,” Harod said. “All that blubber would serve you well there.”
Zhai ignored him. “Fine. Hot, wet. What else?”
“Native life isn't much to write home about,” Tetaine said, scanning the display. “Complex plant life, grass, algae, trees, that sort of thing, but fauna looks like it's mostly confined to the sea. Pretty primitive, too. It's a young world. No giant scorpions for us.”
“Small mercies,” Zhai said. “Now, the big cities I know – Landing, obviously, then Macard and Ossaile. Right?”
“Ossaile's irrelevant,” Tetaine said dismissively. “That's the intermediate one, the first city they built outside Landing but before they got their act together enough to build a real city.”
“It's a dump,” Harod agreed. “After Macard went up, all the elites went with it. Ossaile got stuck in the middle. It was on the decline when I was there, and I can't imagine it's improved.”
Tetaine shook his head. “It hasn't. Macard, on the other hand, is the big one. Something like 40% of the entire planet's population live in its metropolitan area. It went up after the Expansion Wars, so the Alliance's greasy fingerprints are all over it. It's modern – integrated super-fast transport network, agro-towers, that kind of thing. It has the space elevator. There's one in Landing too, but with less than half the capacity. And, most importantly for us, it's the centre of government.”
“I assume Landing is like every other Landing in the galaxy,” Zhai said.
“Give the man a medal,” Harod said. They did, Zhai thought. “Yes, it's pretty grim. Worse than usual, in fact. When I was there, they hadn't demolished a single one of those old prefabbed blocks. People still live in them. Or they did, at least. Maybe they've seen the light since then and knocked them down.”
“Don't bet on it,” Tetaine said. “Everything I've seen says that Landing's basically the same city they slapped down during the Evacuation. Less crowded now, sure, but that just means there's more to be neglected.” He took a chocolate bar from his shirt pocket, absently unwrapped it, and ate half in one bite. “Basically,” he said, his mouth full, “you've got your usual situation. Same pattern as every other Evacuation world. Big, rich, shiny, prestigious city versus ancient decaying hellhole. How that plays with the war I can't say, but it'll be one of my priorities when we get dirtside. You'll get a report on day one or two.”
Zhai nodded. “Let's talk politics, then. Anything outside the FPA norm?”
“Not really,” Tetaine said, just as Harod said: “Somewhat.”
Zhai looked from one to the other. “Harod, you first.”
“It's the standard form,” Harod said, “but not quite the standard function, not to my eyes. Every Alliance world has its own particular way of being corrupt. Tor's all about the military. There was a general when I was there, though I can't for the life of me remember his name. Hacker?”
“Hactaur?” Tetaine said sharply.
Harod clicked his fingers. “Yes, Hactaur. You know him?”
“Not him, but there's a Parys Hactaur in command of the local air force.” Tetaine called up an image of a woman with obsidian-black skin, standing to attention in a blue military uniform festooned with ribbons and silver braid.
Harod peered closer. “A daughter, perhaps. She certainly looks like him. You could chop carrots on his cheekbones. Anyway, he was a big, big player in government affairs. I remember someone telling me that the Torian chiefs of the army and air force could rule the planet if they worked together – so of course it's the governor's aim to make sure they hate each other. If they do, everything's just peachy.”
Zhai raised an eyebrow. “And if they put aside their differences?”
“Then the civilian government has a problem on its hands.”
Harod said 'problem' with a delicate inflection that made it sound uncannily like 'military coup'. Twins preserve us from soldiers who think they can run a government, he thought.
“Parys Hactaur,” Zhai said, committing name and face to memory. “Who else?”
Tetaine flicked through a range of other faces. A handsome white man, in his forties or early fifties but with hair that seemed greyer than it should have been, popped up, looking very slightly dishevelled. Zhai gazed at him, trying to decide if his rumpled look was calculated or genuine, and came down towards genuine.
“Governor Cowden Chang,” Tetaine said. Harod sat up straight, peering fiercely at the man's face as if trying to place it. “As far as we know, he's still in charge–”
“–but there's a significant chance he's already been ousted,” Zhai finished. “What do we know about him?”
“If I had to bet, I'd say he's still in the job. He's a conciliator, not a tyrant. Worked his way up the internal ladder by what looks like very canny positioning and good timing. The guy's a smart political operator, as you'd expect, but any Alliance governor's power is built on unstable ground outside the core worlds.”
“Chang!” Harod exclaimed, and laughed aloud, slapping his knee. “I knew I recognised him! He was some Foreign Affairs idiot's personal assistant when I was on Tor, though I can't say we ever spoke. Well, he's done well for himself.”
“This place sounds even more incestuous than usual for the Alliance,” Zhai said, fully aware of the hypocrisy of that coming from a Xanang-born Coalition ambassador. “How close is Chang to Morette?”
“We're not sure,” Tetaine said. “My guess is that he rose to power on his own and they backed him post facto, but like I say, that's guesswork.”
“Probably not much loyalty to the Alliance itself, then,” Zhai mused. “That could be useful. Who else?”
“Aliven Cadmer, head of the army.” Tetaine swiped onto a sallow, jowly man with reddish-brown skin and a fuzz of ginger hair. “You might get mileage out of playing him and Hactaur against each other.” Next was an ugly olive-skinned man with an ill-advised haircut and still more ill-advised beard. “Jon Weiv. Head of the local Home Affairs division. We think he's more Torian than FPA. Probably pro-independence. That might mean he's been wiped before we get there, but if he's still kicking around, he could be helpful.”
A woman appeared next, spectacularly beautiful, with thick waves of raven hair and large dark eyes. Harod whistled under his breath.
“Persylla Domoulos,” Tetaine said. “Now she's a central appointment, straight out of Morette. Local Foreign Affairs rep, very popular in inner Alliance circles. What she does now that she's cut off from home base is anyone's guess.”
“Do we have any intel at all on how worlds are reacting to the Alliance's collapse?” Harod asked.
Tetaine shrugged. “Not really. Bayard fell over itself to join the Coalition, but the next world you'd expect to hear from is Scorch, and the file for them at the moment is just one big question mark. The V-navy l
eft behind a small orbital picket over every world they took. Nothing's getting through that blockade apart from the occasional ballsy data runner, and they're all going west anyway. What I've told you is what we know, essentially.”
“I can fill in some blanks,” Harod said, turning to Zhai. “Macard is very controlled. Giant screens up everywhere to blare propaganda at their citizens, pretty much total surveillance – that's what a planned city gets you. Landing, on the other hand, is – well, not free, but not as controlled. The manpower isn't there. It's still got manual cars and about half a train system, so getting around it is a nightmare. If there's unrest on Tor, that's where it'll be. Hard to stamp out.”
“Makes sense,” Zhai said. “Media?”
“Obviously, all the legitimate outlets are under government control,” Tetaine said, “and they've got a pretty good grip on the local net too. One of our agents reported that Landing was seeing a lot of physical distribution as a way around the law – flyers, posters, even pamphlets.”
Harod laughed. “Old school subversion. I like it.”
“But, like always, the government's too slow to shut down everything,” Tetaine said, with more than a hint of approval in his voice. He ate the second half of the chocolate bar, wiped his mouth, and carried on. “Now, there's this one thing which keeps popping up. They call it FreeSpeak. As soon as the government sees it, it's taken down, but they put it back up within seconds every time. It's a hugely impressive technical feat. All it can carry is basic anonymous text, but it's never down for more than a few hours per day.”
“That implies significant financial and technological backing for an anti-government movement,” Zhai said. “Not just a few geeks doing it in their spare time.”
Tetaine inclined his breezeblock head. “That was our assessment too. Of course, since it's all so secretive, we have no idea who's behind any of it. But it's not just FreeSpeak. There's an entire illicit network. It runs parallel to the official planetary net, piggybacking on the signal and hiding in plain sight. You need special software to decode it, which is – you guessed it – highly illegal. Doesn't stop people. If you want uncensored news, that's where to get it. There are even media personalities and news teams on there, though they're all anonymous.”