“Let me explain, captain. She has skills and knowledge you might find useful,” Scribb informed him. “She is the world’s most renowned expert on artificial intelligence.”
“What is that to me?”
“She could be a valuable hostage, or perhaps she could even be persuaded to join your crew. Her skills are incomparable.”
Gore considered Scribb’s point, and applied it to his enterprise. “Very well, I’ll speak with her.”
Scribb turned to Bill. “Mr. Penn, do you see her?”
For an instant, Bill was indecisive. What if I’m sending her to a different death or worse, by calling her out? Perhaps Gore will let Aurora go. Nevertheless, he walked into the crowd, Scribb close on his tail. She was not hard to find. Her oval face, highlighted by the animated tattoo that was as enchanting as it was distracting, signaled her fear, though she fought hard to hide it with poise and confidence. The silk shawl draped over Molly’s shoulder covered a modest, if curve-hugging outfit. The pale green color of her blouse reminded Bill of a shallow tropical cove. No wonder I fell in love with her. He felt an urge to kiss her, but he pushed the preposterous thought away. Remember what she did to Anne.
Scribb called over Bill’s shoulder. “Molly, it’s so good to see you again after so many years. You’re as beautiful as ever.”
Molly’s hand was entwined in the hand of another woman, almost as beautiful, in a white cashmere coat. The companion cried, “You can’t take her. She’s nothing to you.”
Bill and Molly locked eyes for a full second. Her expression was blank, but she switched her focus of attention between him and Gore. Is she nothing to me? If the time were a week ago, Bill might have agreed.
With feigned politeness, the guard pointed the way for Molly through the crowd. She drew herself up, kissed the female friend on the cheek, and walked ahead of Bill and Scribb until she was standing in front of Gore. Bill was surprised at her quiet compliance. Gore’s tawny face was almost unreadable, though Scribb was pleased.
“What do you want, Martin?” Molly kept her attention on Gore.
Scribb turned to the pirate, obeisant. “ Kapitan, may I suggest some privacy?”
Gore’s cat’s eyes remained on Molly, and Bill again tried to get a read on him. “The restaurant, upstairs,” the captain ordered.
The passengers watched them climb as if the group were abandoning them.
Inside the restaurant, Scribb directed the group to a cloth-covered table, mocking the behavior of a maitre ‘d, and his three guests took a seat. The table was large enough for ten, and each took a place some distance from the other. That suited Bill fine; he didn’t want any part of any of them. Scribb found four glasses and a bottle of wine, and removed the cork like a sommelier, pouring just the right amount in each glass. No one, except Scribb, took a sip. His hand trembled, from either fear or anticipation.
“Please, my friends, drink.” Scribb’s tone was oily. “There’s always time for a glass of wine, even on difficult days.”
“Enough with the boot-licking, Martin.” Molly touched the glass, despite her disgust with the monk. “Tell me what you want.”
Scribb consumed the wine audibly. “You have valuable skills that our business—”
Gore jerked his head at Scribb. The dissed man noticed.
“...that Kapitan Gore, er, can make use of.”
“If you think—”
Scribb interrupted. “I’m referring to your AI skills. Ships like Aurora Borealis have very sophisticated defenses. Extinction needs someone like yourself. We could do great things together.”
Molly had no interest in this proposition, Bill saw. Could I say something to persuade her? “You haven’t changed at all, have you, Martin?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Still selling dreams, I mean. The last dream you sold nearly destroyed life on this planet.”
Martin spat his response. “You, as I recall, were a willing participant. Weren’t you, Mol? And for your efforts, you got off with a couple of years of prison, while I paid the ultimate price. Or did you forget?”
“Enough,” Gore growled. “ Scribb is correct, Mrs. Bain. I have need of skills such as yours. Aurora’s defenses were formidable, if inadequate. I believe you should join us.”
Molly hissed. “You ‘believe’? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Let me put it this way, Mrs. Bain. You have a choice: Join me or I will destroy Aurora and kill all aboard her.”
“You’re a maniac,” Molly said, the edge in her voice sharp.
Bill protested, more for the principle than for any residual feelings for her. “That wasn’t the deal, Captain. We’re supposed to persuade her to join us, not coerce her.”
“Mr. Penn, I can understand now why she left you. You cannot read her as I can. She has no love for Mr. Scribb, and will not follow him again, but I reckon she is valuable, and I want her on Extinction. For a woman as decent as Mrs. Bain, life or death for her fellow human beings is a powerful incentive. I have no such qualms.” Gore’s amber eyes returned to Molly. “Well, Mrs. Bain, what shall it be?”
Molly’s face twisted with anxiety, a sight that surprised Bill. When had that ever happened? “If I agree to go with you, will you guarantee the safety of everyone aboard Aurora?”
“I give you my word.”
“What good is that?” Molly’s fingers gripped the edge of the table.
Gore wasn’t going to split hairs. “You’ll have to take that chance. I believe you know that I will kill everyone on Aurora if you do not agree. That includes Mr. Penn, by the way.”
Bill recoiled at Gore’s threatened betrayal. “Wait, what are you doing? I helped you.”
Molly slumped in her chair. “I guess I have no real choice, do I?”
“I disagree, Mrs. Bain.” Gore sniffed at his wine. “We always have choices. Some choices are easier than others.”
I’m sitting at a table of monsters, Bill thought.
Gore stood up and motioned the guards to the door. “I’m informed that the petroleum transfer is complete. Shall we, my friends?”
“ Kapitan, your wine. You haven’t touched it,” Scribb pointed out.
Gore was eye-to-eye with Scribb. “Wine makes me ill.” The corsair bared his teeth, and Scribb shrank at the sight.
The group emerged from the restaurant and trooped down the stairs to the fantail. Gore stopped at the same place where he had made his earlier announcements as Bill, Scribb, and Molly entered the companionway. Bill heard Gore make another announcement, though the exact words were difficult to make out. When Bill reached the deck of Extinction, he noticed activity on an upper deck of Aurora. Hatches opened and a dozen or more blaze orange boats were lowered to the water.
As Gore drew near, Bill tensed, but he wanted to know what was happening. “Kapitan, what did you say to them?”
Gore turned to the Aurora’s hulk as the orange lifeboats pulled away. “I gave them a choice. Die on Aurora or live on a lifeboat.”
The creature’s depravity was endless. “You are all about choices, aren’t you?”
“He who has the power controls the options.” Gore scanned the gunmetal sea. “I said the passengers would live,” he clarified. “I said nothing about the ship. She’s worthless now anyway. The oil she carried has corrupted her.”
The last of Aurora’s lifeboats moved away from the dead hull, and Bill heard muffled explosions. Unlike Aganippe, Aurora did not die immolated. Instead, she steadily settled lower and lower in the water until she slipped under the waves like a coffin lowered into the ground.
♦ ♦ ♦
Molly descended a ladder into Extinction. Tattered men and women jerked aside as the guards escorted her forward, led by Kapitan Gore. The air was a miasma of sweat, machine oil, and unease. Competing with the trauma of living through the capture and destruction of Aurora Borealis was the Gordian knot of feelings toward Bill. The shock of seeing him at Pole Station hadn’t worn off, and now he’d brought he
r aboard a vessel that could become her tomb. Gore had reappeared in her life as well, as unlikely an event as Bill’s resurrection. No, there was a difference, she thought. Embers from her love for Gregori Ilyenevich smoldered, while ash was all that was left of her marriage. That’s why it was so easy for Molly to say yes to Gore, in spite of the threats. I may have just thrown away everything I’ve worked for, but I’m like a moth careening into a flame.
The dogs tightened on a watertight door, a klaxon sounded, and the scratchy announcement “Dive. Dive. Dive.” blared over the intercom. A shudder ran through the boat’s steel hull. Molly braced herself and the deck tilted toward the freezing depths of the Arctic Ocean. At least Ginny and the other passengers have a chance once the local coast guard finds them. The guards disappeared, a further sign that she had nowhere to run. She had no idea what to do if the boat was attacked and sunk. In the shallow Kara Sea, if the pressure hull weren’t breached, Extinction would settle on the bottom, and she would suffocate with the rest of the crew as the oxygen ran out. The world would not rescue a crew of dissed.
They passed through a hatch into a large room with metal tables and benches. The Spartan atmosphere suggested a military vessel with a dearth of discipline: chipped cream paint on the steel surfaces, signs of rats and roaches, and a thin film of grime on the LED lamp coverings. Martin invited her to sit, and her former boss set a cup of something in front of her he called “coffee,” although the provenance of the greasy liquid was unclear. Martin’s hairline had retreated like a shrinking glacier in the years since she had seen him last. Despite his unctuous behavior toward Gore, his brown eyes had lost much of the innocent sparkle that had attracted her to his methyl hydrate enterprise so long ago. She never once thought of him as a potential lover. She wanted to loathe him, because of what he had done to the planet, but her complicity in the disaster mitigated her hatred. She had helped him, but she had escaped his own fate by the slimmest of margins; she saw in him what she might have become. Unlike Bill, he had changed as well.
“Martin, I don’t remember you as a religious man,” Molly said.
“My mother was a devout Catholic,” Martin said. “My mother insisted on baptism, catechism lessons on Sundays, and confirmation. It gave me a certain respect for the church as a moral institution, but I didn’t believe in the dogma.”
Molly rested her chin in her hands as she anticipated a boring lecture, though the information might be useful. “Something changed?”
“The day Father Gonzales found me, I felt as if I were dead. As a social outcast, I was spiritually dead. Spirituality may be an individual experience, but it happens within a social setting, else why would religions exist in the first place? This may sound silly, but Father Gonzales resurrected me.”
“You were still disidentified. He didn’t change that.”
“Let me put it this way: He gave me hope that all was not lost.”
“Hope of redemption?”
“No, that came from another quarter, which is why I have sought you out.”
Molly noticed Bill’s attention rise. “Hope from where?”
“You know the man. He’s Colonel Raleigh Penn, Bill’s brother, your former brother-in-law, the man who prosecuted us and oversaw my disidentification.”
Bill’s face twisted in disgust. “He’s an officer in the Bureau of Environmental Security. That’s why I left my ranch. BES has accused me of a crime that was not my fault. The fact that he’s my brother means nothing. I haven’t seen him since I was a child.”
“I believe he has a certain feeling for Molly,” Martin said. “He was the one who prevented your disidentification. He saved your life, in a sense.”
The same system that had executed Martin’s social persona had spared Molly’s. Of the dozen or so sentences to disidentification, only Martin’s sentence was confirmed. “What does Raleigh want from me?”
Martin explained the illness killing the colonel and the failure of the experimental treatment.
Molly didn’t get the connection to her. “He’s dying and he wants me to fix his problem? Why should I?”
Martin raised his brow in surprise. “Because you owe him something.”
“I don’t owe him anything.”
“As someone who has experienced disidentification—the contempt, the rejection, the isolation, the physical and emotional violence—I believe you owe him a great deal. He prevented that from happening to you, and he’s Bill’s brother.”
“Don’t help Colonel Penn on my account, Molly,” Bill reiterated.
Martin edged closer to Molly. “The colonel is also Anne’s uncle.”
What about Anne? She was always part of the conversation, but it was like talking about a celebrity you’ve never met.
“Bill, I heard you have a holo-pic of Anne,” Martin said. “Pull it out and show us.”
“Why should I...? I guess it doesn’t matter.” Bill removed the device from his pocket and set it on the table. It projected a moving image in three dimensions above the table. Anne wore the cap and gown of her high school graduation. Bill touched a corner, and it spoke: “Hi Dad. How do I look? Thanks for everything.” She waved her diploma. “Valedictorian! I love you. You’re the best dad ever...” Despite the grim surroundings, tears wet Bill’s eyes.
The image of the happy young woman transfixed Molly. Physically, Anne was a younger version of her, but with lighter hair, maybe a little taller. She was beautiful and intelligent. Molly couldn’t help feeling admiration for Bill. He did a good job of raising her. It confirmed for Molly that leaving all those years ago was the right thing to do. I had no time for mothering. Molly laughed at the odd confluence of feelings. “That’s not enough for me, I’m afraid.”
“Then do it to help me, Molly,” Martin said. “You were the most brilliant person on my staff. I admired you for your intellect. I was even a little afraid of you.”
You were in love with me. “You’ve done nothing for me, Martin. In fact, you destroyed me when you destroyed the world.”
“I accept responsibility for what happened, but the one thing that Father Gonzales taught me was that there’s always a chance at redemption. That chance comes when we can help a fellow human being. I have a chance to save a man’s life, and so do you.”
Bill begged to differ. “Colonel Penn represents everything that’s gone wrong in the world since the the Spike. The Bureau of Environmental Security is as bad as the Gestapo in Nazi Germany or the FBI after New York was nuked by the Judgment of God. We’re better off if he’s dead, if you ask me.”
“I agree with you, which makes helping him all the more meaningful,” Martin said. “Jesus said to love your enemies. At another time, I’d have rejoiced at the painful death Colonel Penn faces, but hatred destroys those who hate.”
Molly heard the noble words, but Martin’s motivations were more selfish. Helping Colonel Penn was a means to an end, that is, social restoration. What disidentified person wouldn’t take that opportunity? Plus, she wasn’t sure she had the skills to solve the AI problem Colonel Penn and his doctors faced. Martin admitted he knew little of the technical details. She needed to hedge her bets.
“All right, I’ll help you.” I won’t help Martin, but I will help Bill and Anne. “There’s one condition: You must see that Bill and I leave this ship unharmed. If anyone else is here against his or her will, they must be freed.”
“That may be difficult,” Martin said doubtfully. “Gore has trouble recruiting crew. He kidnaps and enslaves the disidentified.”
“That’s not my problem, Martin. If you want my help, you agree to my terms.”
Martin crossed his arms. “Very well, Molly. I agree. Let me talk to him.”
CHAPTER 30
♦ ♦ ♦
KILEL SAT IN HER CAR at the top of a hill in Pennsylvania about two hundred meters from a gate. Rain was falling in sheets, camouflaging her from the guardhouse. A faded, tumbledown road sign further screened her car from scrutiny. The sign read, �
�Welcome to Titusville: Birthplace of the Oil Industry.” The rain cut both ways: It obscured her vision as well. She lifted her binoculars, which enhanced the dull gray light of the early morning to show a patrol with robotic dogs arriving from its latest circuit of the grounds. She set her own secbot to autonomous mode and started the car.
The young men of the Eastern Pennsylvania Militia gaped as she slowed at a striped barrier in front of the gate. One of the guards approached her, and she cracked the window enough to show her personal identification. Kilel was never denied access to any facility, government or private, if she was on an investigation. Her research on the 28th Infantry Division, Special Assignments Unit showed a stellar record since it had been assigned security duty in the third North American sector established by the Carbon Acts. Her evidence for the security breach was explosive, and she had to confirm the details for herself.
A sign on the lawn in front of a modest building announced the headquarters of the local environmental security region, which covered part of the old oil and gas producing areas of the northeastern United States. Its commander, Brigadier General Rex Gill, was a thin, compact man, with a hawk nose and hazel eyes. His uniform looked tailored to conform to his muscular body. He greeted Kilel and invited her into his office. “Coffee, Inspector?”
“No, thank you, General.”
“No vices in the BES, eh, Inspector?” Gill chuckled.
“I had a large cup with my breakfast.” Kilel called up her notes on his service record in her minds-eye. Gill’s affect suggested irritation and nervousness, but he controlled his emotions well. She turned her internal attention to her security bot’s monitor. It was well inside the region’s perimeter, and it had already visited some of the old wells. It had found nothing unusual.
Addressing Gill, Kilel folded her hands on her lap. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve come unannounced.”
“We’re always ready to accommodate Bureau personnel... May I call you Janine?”
“Inspector Kilel will do.”
Gill held his breath, even as he spoke. “To tell you the truth, it’s a busy time for us, Inspector.”
Carbon Run (Tales From A Warming Planet Book 2) Page 25