“Including you. And I’m grateful.” Dev recalled the outstretched arms he had seen before blacking out. Robot arms. “So you hauled us aboard using the waldoes?”
Kahlo nodded. “The ship’s got telemanipulators for carrying out essential external repairs to ejector tube doors and the like. The pilot dragged the three of you in, shucked the suits off you, tossed them back out. Then he opened the cargo bay airlock so the medics could come in and do their thing. It was precision stuff. The guy’s a pro.”
“Remind me to thank him.”
“Sir,” said the paramedic. “I strongly recommend you rest up and don’t talk so much. After what you’ve been through, you should take things easy for a while.”
“Wish I could, believe me.” Dev turned back to Kahlo. “I don’t suppose you were able to reach Milady Frog?”
A sombre frown from Kahlo. “We got there first before we doubled back and went looking for you. And... there wasn’t much left of her. Just a smouldering husk.”
“Damn.”
“Wing Commander Beauregard got off a last-minute message as we were approaching. Said you three were out on foot and indicated which way you’d gone. We must have passed by not far from you on the way in, but somehow missed you.”
That had happened, in all probability, while Dev, Trundell and Stegman were negotiating the boulder field. The three of them would have been out of direct sight, their beacon signals blocked, weakened by solar interference.
“Ten minutes sooner,” Kahlo continued, “and we might have got to Beauregard in time. Iota Draconis takes no prisoners.”
“Tell me about it,” Dev said. “Pity about Beauregard. He saved us. More than once.”
“Speaking of ‘us’... Where’s Deputy Zagat?”
Her tone said she was anticipating bad news, and Dev’s solemn expression confirmed it.
“Shit, Harmer. Not him, too.”
“Back at Lidenbrock City, we ran into difficulties. Zagat was a fucking marvel. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better at my side. One-man platoon. But he got caught, got taken out, and for that I’m happy to shoulder at least part of the blame. It’s on me. I thought an opponent was down when he wasn’t. He ought to have been, but he wasn’t. Maybe I should have checked, and then Zagat would at least have made it out of Lidenbrock alive.”
Kahlo set her mouth in a bitter pout. “Two men died to get you into and out of that place. That’s a high price.”
“You think I’m not beating myself up about it?”
“I damn well hope you are.”
“But you know also that the real culprits are the Plussers?”
“It’s the only thing that’s keeping me from tossing you back out onto the surface,” Kahlo said. “Those bastards have a lot to answer for.”
“How’s the situation in Calder’s? I’m guessing it’s not so terrible, since you’ve come out here to head up the search for us, rather than staying there.”
“It’s quietened down. There’ve been no quakes for a couple of hours. Rescue crews are combing the rubble, pulling out survivors. Xanadu seems to be bearing the brunt of it right now, and getting it worse than Calder’s. Details are still sketchy, but it seems there may have been a significant roof fall in the main cavern – as in, most of it. We’ve also heard that Xanadu’s governor, Huston, could be dead.”
“How’s Graydon?” Dev nearly said “your dad,” but Kahlo hadn’t yet come clean to him about the truth of her relationship with the governor, and it was simpler if Dev appeared not to know.
“Taking it badly. Stressed as anything. He’s toying with the idea of contacting TerCon for permission to call in all the nearest available gulf cruisers.”
“What, to get everyone off-planet?”
“If possible. A mass evacuation. If TerCon declare an official emergency on Alighieri, we could have probably a dozen cruisers diverted this way within twenty-four hours. All civilians could be embarked within a day or so after that, leaving just essential personnel.”
“It’s a big ask.”
“It’s been done before. Hear about the Erewhon airlift back in ’ninety-one? They cleared three million people out ahead of a Polis Plus onslaught. No one thought it would succeed, but it did. Touch and go, admittedly, with the last cruiser taking off while Plusser crab tanks were rolling into the spaceport. Hopefully we won’t have to cut it so fine.”
“And then what? Calder’s and Xanadu are left as ghost towns. The Plussers can just move their furniture in and hang up their family photos and say ‘Ours.’”
“I’m not saying it’s what I want, Harmer. But I’m not Maurice Graydon. He’s a governor, with a governor’s mandate. His duty of care is to his electorate. I want to save Calder’s, and I’m going to try my hardest to do that, but we have to prepared for every contingency.”
“And one of those is bailing out,” said Dev.
“If the Plussers do try and take over afterwards, I guess TerCon might consider that an act of aggression. Troops could be sent in to roust them out and recapture the planet.” Kahlo sounded optimistic, but not hopeful.
“No one’s going to war with Polis Plus, captain, not again. No one has the stomach for it. The Frontier War’s still too fresh in people’s memories. We’ve no will to engage them head to head again. We’re only just recovering from the last time. And that’s what they’re counting on. Once Calder’s and Xanadu are empty, the Plussers will consider them fair game. They occupy them, and in effect they’ve occupied Alighieri.”
“What about Lidenbrock? Does that even figure? They won’t have the whole planet if there’s still one human-occupied city.”
“My hunch is TerCon will cut Lidenbrock loose. A city full of rejects and undesirables – who cares if it has to share a world with Plussers? There’ll be an outcry in some quarters, but the realpolitik of the situation is that Polis Plus will have outplayed us, outmanoeuvred us, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it. Lidenbrock will be considered an acceptable sacrifice. What’s one dirty, scum-ridden rabbit warren of a city when a whole planet has been lost?”
Kahlo sighed. “Fuck it. There’s got to be some way out of this.”
“There is,” said Dev. “But it’ll need co-operation from several directions – a concerted effort – and it has to be done fast. Once Ted Jones is finished with Xanadu, I don’t think it’ll be long before he comes back and hits Calder’s again.”
42
“DEV HARMER,” SAID Ben Thorne. “Don’t you look a sight.”
The head of the Fair Dues Collective sauntered into Governor Graydon’s office as though it were his own living room. He tipped a finger to forelock in greeting to Graydon, before turning to the Calder’s Edge chief of police.
“And the lovely Captain Kahlo,” he added, with a mock-obsequious bow. “What an august assembly of personages. Calder’s Edge royalty, no less, our very own king and princess. Together in the same room. A rare treat. I feel honoured – me, a humble miner, and a miner’s son. I am truly hobnobbing with the gentry.”
“Sit down, please, Mr Thorne,” said Graydon with studied calm, too much the professional politician to be provoked by this needling. “Can I get you something? A drink?”
“No, no, I don’t need you waiting on me, governor,” Thorne replied with a swat of the hand. “If I’m thirsty, I’ll deal with it myself. So, you’ve summoned. I’ve come. What’s the aim of this meeting? Not that I can’t make an educated guess...”
“Let’s hold fire on that. We’re expecting one more guest.”
Thorne made himself comfortable in a chair, then leapt back to his feet and helped himself to a generous measure of Graydon’s Yamazaki whisky. “In times of crisis,” he said, “it never hurts to take a moment out to appreciate the finer things. Harmer, word is you’ve been over to Lidenbrock.”
“I have,” said Dev.
“And lived to tell the tale. But what’s with all the – this?” Thorne circled a finger at his own face. “The blisters a
nd the flaking skin? You look like someone had a go at you with a blowtorch.”
“I went up top to catch some rays.”
Thorne grinned, amused. “Anyone else, I’d say they were joking. But not you. You know, some of my FDC boys and girls, they were impressed by you. How you handled the Ordeal. How long you lasted. Not me, of course. But my brethren and sistren have been talking about you with genuine respect in their voices. That’s quite a thing for hardened mineworkers to do. Especially given you’re a non-miner, and an offworlder to boot.”
“The Ordeal?” said Graydon. “They put you through that? Why?”
“You’d have to ask Mr Thorne,” said Dev. “Not wishing to put words in his mouth, but I think he felt I’d been throwing my weight about and had besmirched his good name. Also, there was a strike brewing, and apparently there was something I could do to ease the tensions between management and workforce.”
“You have a strange way of welcoming visitors to our city, Mr Thorne,” said Graydon.
“This visitor,” said Thorne, jerking a thumb at Dev, “has a strange way of treating blameless, upstanding citizens as criminals. At any rate, he’s learned not to make that mistake twice.”
There clearly wasn’t much love lost between Thorne and Graydon. The two men spoke to each other with the exaggerated civility common to implacable foes. Thorne’s union activism posed a constant threat to the smooth, well-ordered running of Graydon’s city. Graydon represented the managerial elite Thorne despised. And Graydon had once been a miners’ union representative too, before running for governor, which, to Thorne, made him a traitor.
Getting these two to see eye to eye on anything was likely to be a challenge.
Not as much of a challenge, however, as getting Thorne to see eye to eye with the final participant in this meeting, who was just now entering the room.
Yuri Konstantinov of Anoshkin Energiya.
“And our party is complete,” said Graydon, shaking Konstantinov warmly by the hand. These two appeared on good terms.
“What a pleasant surprise,” Thorne drawled. “My favourite company executive.”
“My favourite union pain in the neck,” Konstantinov replied. “What is this all about? Another strike looming?”
“Why, do you want me to call one?”
“With everything else that’s going on, I should have thought pay and productivity issues would be furthest from your thoughts, Thorne.”
“I rarely think about anything else, Konstantinov. As a caring, conscientious union leader, the welfare of the mining workforce means everything to me. If it meant as much to you, perhaps you and I wouldn’t be butting heads all the time.”
“I’m as accommodating as a man in my position can be. Anoshkin has always bent over backwards to meet your demands, outrageous as they usually are.”
“Bent over backwards? That’s funny. The number of times you’ve bent us over forwards and –”
“Okay, okay,” Dev said, making a T with his hands. “Time out, gentlemen. While it’s reasonably entertaining watching you two snark at each other, that’s not what we’re here for. We can measure penis sizes later.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kahlo mask a smirk.
“This is about Calder’s Edge,” he went on, “and saving the city. Saving miners’ livelihoods, Thorne. Saving your mines, Konstantinov. Saving lives, above all. You know what it’s like out there.”
He gestured towards the picture window.
“Tunnels blocked. Rail tracks down. Habitats crushed. Frightened people – very frightened. A death toll in the triple figures, and it’s amazing it’s not higher. Calder’s Edge is on the edge, and I’m not saying that for the cute wordplay. Well, maybe a little. The city is on the brink of all-out disaster. Panic in the streets. Mass evacuation tabled as an option. If we don’t do something, pretty soon there isn’t going to be a Calder’s worth speaking of.”
“But how?” said Konstantinov. “You can’t stop earthquakes. They’re a force of nature.”
“Not these ones,” Dev said. “These ones aren’t natural.”
And he explained.
“You don’t expect me to buy that,” Thorne said scornfully when Dev had finished. “Fucking moleys? Led by a Plusser inside one of them?”
“It’s hard to swallow,” Kahlo said, “but there are good grounds for believing it to be true. The evidence Harmer’s unearthed is compelling.”
“I took some persuading myself,” said Graydon. “I’m still not wholly convinced, to be honest. Harmer, however, has the experience with Polis Plus. We should at least hear him out. I’d be curious to know how he thinks we can tackle this.”
“The quakes have been too specific, too organised, to be random events,” Dev said. “I mean, come on. The moment I arrived here, literally within minutes of me being installed in this host form, a huge chunk of rock fell on the ISS outpost. If that wasn’t a targeted attack, I don’t know what is. The Plusser agent, Ted Jones, had got wind that I was coming and took steps to eradicate me. Moleworms under his control dislodged a piece of the cavern roof by burrowing above it just enough to weaken it. I was incredibly lucky not to get flattened. Wish I could say the same for ISS Liaison Bilk.”
“And then, realising he’d missed,” said Kahlo, “Jones tried again by hacking the rail network control server and throwing a runaway freight shuttle at you – and me.”
“Him or his ally,” Dev said.
“There are two Plusser agents on Alighieri?” said Graydon.
“Afraid so. Jones is the main player, but he’s definitely had help. And now that he knows I’m on to him, this whole thing has become about bringing Calder’s Edge to its knees as soon as possible. Xanadu, too. Originally the plan was meant to be much more subtle. The slow build-up was supposed to continue until you, Maurice, and your counterpart in Xanadu were driven to declare a state of emergency and bring gulf cruisers in to clear everyone out.”
“I still will if I have to,” Graydon said. “I’m this close to making that call.”
“Which is entirely your prerogative. My analysis of the situation is that Jones can’t keep gradually turning the screws any more and making it look as though the quakes are just quakes. That ship has sailed. Now it’s all or nothing. Do or die. And that could work to our advantage, despite how bleak everything looks.”
“Bleak?” said Konstantinov. “You don’t know the half of it. We’ve already begun shutting down operations. Other mining conglomerates are doing the same. We cannot reasonably allow the mines to stay open, not when it’s so dangerous for all concerned. See, Thorne? Anoshkin do care.”
“You haven’t a choice,” Thorne shot back. “No one’s turning up for work anyway.”
“My point is, we as a company apprehend the severity of the situation. What I myself don’t see, personally, is how Mr Harmer can say it’s in any way to our advantage, this Plusser going on a rampage. Surely, on the contrary, that only makes the danger more immediate and more acute. I’m with the governor in thinking that abandoning the planet might be the most sensible course of action.”
“You would,” Thorne snorted. “Cut and run – that’s exactly what I would expect from you and your sort. Typical management. No backbone.”
“You mistake prudence for cowardice, Thorne. You’ve never seemed to appreciate that Anoshkin put people before profit. Always have, always will. You win most of your battles with us, and that’s because we understand that without workers – contented, well-rewarded workers – we would have nothing. If we’re prepared to surrender Alighieri’s vast helium-three deposits, all those still untapped seams, because our workforce is at intolerable risk, then we can’t be the corporate monsters you think we are.”
“But you don’t have to give them up,” Dev said. “This is what I’m driving at. Ted Jones may be on the warpath, but in fact he’s also on the back foot. He wouldn’t be going all-out if this wasn’t his last and only shot. We can use that. Use it against him.�
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“Why are you telling us all this, anyway?” Konstantinov asked. “What do you expect us to do?”
“Yeah,” said Thorne, for once in agreement with the Anoshkin Energiya executive. “This isn’t just a courtesy, is it? This isn’t about keeping prominent Calder’s public figures in the loop. You want something, don’t you?”
“You read me like a book, Thorne,” said Dev.
“Or I’m just cynical.”
“Show me the union boss who isn’t. Yes, I want something. I want you – the pair of you – to help me fight back.”
Thorne and Konstantinov exchanged glances, both of them equally nonplussed.
“I want you,” Dev continued, “to put together an army. Thorne, I want you to rally the miners. Not just your Fair Dues Collective but all of the unions. Use the full force of your charm and charisma on them.”
“You what?” said Thorne. “An army?”
“And Konstantinov, I want you to sanction the use of Anoshkin equipment to arm this army. I want you also to recruit other mining companies – X-O-Geo, the one with the double-barrelled German name, all of them.”
“Heinkel-Junger, you mean?”
“That’s it. And the rest. Talk to your fellow execs. Use your connections, your clout. Get their consent for what I’m proposing. And I want you both to do it fast, as in yesterday. Because we really don’t have a lot of time.”
“Anoshkin equipment,” said Konstantinov. “You’re talking about...?”
“The digging and drilling exoskeleton rigs your workforce use. Normally a human being would be no match for a moleworm. But a human being in one of those rigs...”
“Let me get this straight,” said Thorne. “Pit folk fighting moleworms... with mining gear on?”
“It might seem crazy, but think about it. The rigs afford plenty of protection. Whoever’s inside is shielded by a steel roll cage and mesh grids so that they won’t be injured if a stray shard of rock flies at them. The arm attachments are six-inch-diameter drills, pickaxes, rotary saws, diamond-tipped cutters – the kind of sharp-edged implements that could really ruin a moleworm’s day. Those rigs are pretty much ideal under the circumstances. Without any alteration whatsoever, they can become mobile anti-moleworm attack suits.”
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