by Greg Bear
The rest of the afternoon passes, my lunch arrives on schedule, I eat and don’t die. No poison gas, no quick and dirty end. The window remains closed. Another day passes. And then another.
Inside I’m buzzing. I know that feeling. Something scary incoming. I’m on the fork of two futures. In one, I’m dead. In the other, I would rather be dead. Balls-up or balls in a vise.
For a Skyrine, having any choice is outstanding.
SNATCH AND GO
I’m a light sleeper, when I sleep at all. Hours later, something jerks me out of a warm doze. The alarm clock on the bedstead tells me it’s four in the morning. The door sighs and clicks.
Not the window shutters.
The steel door.
I push my hand between the foam mattress and the bed frame, wrap the improvised sap—a twisted bath towel with one end tied around a clutch of nuts and bolts—around my wrist and through my clenched fist, and move in a flash through the bedroom door to crouch in front of my reading chair. I swing the sap around and around. The lights blaze on. Blinking, I sway on one knee, buzzing with adrenaline. A tall brunette stands there, dressed in a green flight suit. She looks at me, at the dangling sap, then back to my eyes, which are vibrating madly. I can hardly see straight.
“You’re kind of strung out,” she says.
I raise the sap.
“Keep that, if it makes you happy.” She points through the steel door. “Ready to get out of here?”
I remain on my knee, evaluating.
The brunette tightens her lips. “The Wait Staff ordered you to be killed. I’m your last hope.”
My shoulders sag. I lower the sap. I have to chuckle. “Jesus Christ! ‘Come with me if you want to live.’”
“Exactly,” she says. Her dimples vanish. “Coming?”
“Shit yeah. Where to?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Under whose recognizance?”
“Mine.”
“And you are…?”
“Commander Frances Borden, USN, Joint Sky Research Center, Mountain View, California.” She taps a finger on her watch. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes. Get dressed.”
I pick my day clothes off the desk, shed my pajama bottoms, put on pants and shirt, and stuff the sap in my pants pocket.
“No jacket?” she asks.
I shrug.
“All right, then.”
One foot after the other, more than a little skeptical, I walk behind the commander through the open steel door. There’s nobody in the big chamber outside the black-barred cage that surrounds the suite, and nobody guarding the outer lock doors that keep negative pressure on the whole shebang. I’ve never seen all the shit meant to keep me sealed tight until now, and it’s hard to believe one Navy officer could have arranged for everyone to just vanish, but we’re moving smooth and fast. No guards. No alarms. Nobody seems to care. Scary, but certainly different, and for anything that’s truly fucking different, after 124 days in stir—I’m game. I’m up for a change.
“This way, Venn,” Borden calls as I lag behind, caught up in the drama of how important and dangerous I am. “We’ve got five minutes before this place screws down tight.”
“How do you know about me?” I ask.
“You passed a tight little cylinder to a Corporal Schneider, who delivered books from the base library. Corporal Schneider passed it to me. The lab evaluated it, then sent it on.”
“What was in the cylinder?” I ask.
“A tight little manuscript, and a metal disk. A coin.”
“Did you read it?”
“I did not.”
“Did they get to Joe?” I ask.
“How the hell should I know?” she says.
We jog past a reception station, through double glass doors, and outside the main isolation building. I glance back, of course. It looks like a huge aircraft hangar, big enough to hold a hundred suites.
Borden grabs my shoulder and points to an electric Skell-Jeep idling in a red zone in the front drive. No other vehicles. Nothing else even parked. Like a dream.
I stop, hands by my side. Only now do I reach into my pocket and drop the sap. It jingles on the concrete. Nothing makes the least bit of sense. “Just who the hell are you, ma’am? And what is this, a blind date?”
Borden climbs halfway into the driver’s seat. Her eyes go flinty. “I am geek steel,” she barks. “And I am your superior officer. Don’t forget that.”
I want to smile, to reassure her I’m cooperating, but her expression tells me this is a bad idea. “Apologies. Permission to return to your good graces—ma’am.”
She lifts her eyes. “Just get in.”
We’re out under the early morning sky: light deck of clouds, blinking stars, crescent moon fogged by high cirrus. The whole base looks deserted. Borden drives the Skell diagonally across several McChord-Field runways, over grass and gravel medians, between long rows of blue lights. Absolutely nothing in the sky coming or going.
“Why no planes, no ships?” I ask as the wind rushes past.
“Broken quarantine,” she says. “Incoming load of hung weapons. Whiteman Sampler.”
“Whiteman Sampler” was a legendary incident from ten years before, when a whole Hawksbill filled with spent matter waste destined for Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri got mistakenly diverted to Lewis-McChord. And came too damned close to contaminating the entire Pacific Northwest.
“Really?”
“Take your choice,” Borden says. “I don’t know, they didn’t tell me.”
I look up, unconsciously suck in a deep breath—and hold it. We’re not heading for one of the long strips where Hawksbills land but toward a cluster of five circles radiating from a shorter taxiway.
Borden thrusts up one hand and grabs my jaw. “Breathe!”
I open my mouth and breathe.
“It’s going to be close,” she says.
The Skell hums toward the northernmost circle, where squats a dark gray, bulky shadow. It’s an old Valor—an antique V280 tilt-rotor, used nowadays only for training. As we rumble out of the darkness, the Valor whines and coughs and begins to spin up its awkwardly massive black props. Borden cuts the Skell’s motor, slams on the emergency brake, and jumps out even before we stop.
“Go! Go!” she calls. I follow, but not too close, as we run for the descending rear hatch.
“Taking me to Joe?” I ask.
A quick hard look. We ascend the ramp. Palm leaves cover the rear deck, along with boot-and tire-impressed cakes of mud. Could have been flown up from California. Could be from Pendleton. The leaves and mud crunch and crumble as we squeeze forward and take our seats. The whole frame of the Valor vibrates, the cabin sways back and forth, doesn’t feel reliable, doesn’t feel good. Behind us, the ramp rises with chuffing, shuddering slowness.
I buckle in. “Something’s screwy!” I shout over the roar. “You couldn’t do this without major pull. But all I see is desperation.”
Borden looks sideways. She doesn’t like looking right at me. She’s scared of me. “Smart boy!” she says.
From the flight deck and the copilot’s seat, a red-lit profile turns and stares back at us—calm, cool. High forehead. Paki or Indian. My interrogator.
The chief wizard.
I lunge. Borden shoves her arm across my chest. “He’s why you’re here!” she shouts over the roar. “Right now, he’s your best friend.”
My tormentor languidly blinks.
“I don’t even know his fucking name!”
“He’s Kumar,” Borden says.
I thump my head back against the rest. “Fuck this, begging your pardon, ma’am. Let me know something! Where are you taking me?”
Borden shakes her head. “Away,” she says.
The Valor lifts from the ground—barely. My stomach doesn’t like the suspense. Then the engines rise in pitch and the vibration smooths, the rotors tilt forward, and we’re really moving, soaring lickety-klick over airfield, farmland, highways—mountains—
above a big, ghostly, glaciered volcano, like God dropped His ice-cream cone—
The whole beautiful, wide-open world.
Despite everything, I have this insane grin on my face. Away is good. Away is fucking awesome.
AN HOUR IN the air. I manage a sweaty little nap. When I come awake at rough air, I sit up and lean to look out the port by my right side. More farmland and rocky knolls, all golden in the morning sun. The sleep has improved my mood if not my outlook. I look at Borden. She’s slumped, also sleeping. The Valor shudders and makes a wide turn, and the rising sun blasts her with light. She jerks up like a startled doe and rubs her eyes.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Coffee and newspaper?” she grumbles.
“I’ll ring the butler.”
I’m rewarded with a wan smile. She’s rank and geek steel, but she’s the only female I’ve seen in months, and she’s not bad-looking. Kumar, if that’s his real name, leans back again, surveys us with those shining dark eyes, and says, “Barring difficulty, we will take you to Oklahoma. From there, we will all transfer to another conveyance and fly to South Texas.”
I lean forward and say, louder than strictly necessary, “When do I get to beat the crap out of you, sir?”
Kumar doesn’t bat a lash. “No foul, no regrets. I’m way outside your chain of command.”
“Wait Staff?”
“No longer,” Kumar says.
Borden leans over, says, “He might make a decent piñata, but if you treat him right, he’ll shower you with candy—no need for the stick.”
This provokes a twitch of Kumar’s lips. “I’ll apologize if you desire,” he says with that same slow blink. I think it over. Amazing how long-held emotions vanish when plucked out of context. I may yet beat the crap out of him, but for now I shift my shoulders and release my death grip on the seat arms. Breaking me out of Madigan could be apology enough. Everyone on this aircraft is taking a huge risk.
“No need, really,” I say. “What’s in Texas?”
“Blue Origin Skyport.”
“Fifteen minutes,” the pilot announces.
I settle in and look at Borden. “What’s going on out there? I’ve been cooped up for months.”
“Nothing you want to hear about,” Borden says.
“I’ll be the judge. Tell me.”
“Everybody’s happy,” Borden says. “Economy is booming. Hardly anyone complains.”
“The Gurus have asked that we offer up a new religion,” Kumar says. “It’s becoming quite popular.”
Borden looks like she doesn’t think this discussion is strictly necessary.
“It’s not too bad, actually,” Kumar says. “Unifying, really.”
“Gurus want to be gods?” I ask.
“No. They insist that worshippers of this new religion respect all other religions. No prejudice. Choose and let choose. All equal.”
“So?” I look between them. “How’s that bad?”
“We are to worship the electron,” Kumar says. “Apparently all electrons are the same, they just swap out around the universe, so the One Universal Electron shares all points of view, everywhere, across all time. Voilà. Deity.”
“God is a minus,” Borden says.
“God is a diffuse cloud, sometimes a wave, sometimes a particle,” Kumar adds, sort of getting into it. “Physicists in particular are pleased.”
“Wow,” I say. “I didn’t see that coming. They still hate us saying ‘fuck’ or otherwise disrespecting sex?”
“Still,” Kumar says.
“So watch yourself,” Borden says, expression sternly neutral.
“Joe had a story about fuck,” I say.
“Later,” Borden says.
In a few minutes, Kumar says to Borden, “Time to speak of Wallops Island. Before we land. Might bring some clarity to our situation.”
Borden twists in her seat. I’m peering across her sight line, out the opposite port, so again she takes my jaw and rotates my head a couple of inches, then asks, “What do you know about the silicon plague?”
I like being touched. Not this way, but it’s better than nothing. Long swallow. “Is that its name?”
“Among several. Tell me.”
“Sounds like what happened to some of our Skyrines when they tried to lay charges in the Drifter, in the Church. They turned hard and dark, inert—but with lights inside. Then the lights faded. Dead, I guess.”
Or maybe not.
“Could it have been some sort of defensive mechanism?” Kumar asks.
“We thought so,” I say, unhappy to relive that shit and be reminded of even weirder shit. Then I get it. The docs kept asking if I or anybody I knew brought back specimens from the Drifter. “Wallops Island got infected?” I ask, looking between them.
Borden dips her chin. “Thousands of square kilometers are under quarantine. No flights, no entry, a tight cordon for fifty miles around the entire facility. They shoot and collect animals exiting the area, but there isn’t much they can do about insects, the ocean… dust in the air. They’re pretty damned scared.”
There goes my Virginia Beach apartment.
“What happened?”
“Somebody on Mars bagged and returned a piece of the black stuff. Somebody else tested it for potency. It was potent. Now they’re in panic mode. That’s probably why you were scheduled to be executed.” She looks to Kumar, who nods: She can tell me more. “They call it ‘turning glass.’ Sky Defense has canceled all transfers or drops on Mars for the semester. No more offensive or defensive actions.”
“What about the Antags?” I ask.
“Quiet, but beyond that, nobody knows,” Borden says. “Anyway, the question you should be asking is, how far is this crap going to spread?”
“Turning glass?”
“No. Executing recent visitors to Mars. Quite a rift has opened up between Wait Staff and Sky Defense. And that is one reason why we’re hauling you cross-country.”
“I was once in command of Division Four,” Kumar says. “Division Four went against the express orders of Division One and ordered your release.”
“Good,” I say, just to be agreeable. I haven’t heard of Division Four or Division One, or any division, for that matter. “What are they?”
Kumar ignores me and looks forward.
The rotors tilt back for vertical landing and that damned shudder returns. My mind is going like I’ve just been dosed with post-drop enthusiasm. I think on Joe and DJ and Kazak and Tak and Vee-Def and all the others—on Captain Coyle and her team—all of us who were in the Drifter.… I had been worried about the green powder. Hadn’t thought much about the black, shiny stuff. I am remarkably dense.
“Touchdown in two,” the pilot announces. “Ground crew wants a quick transfer. They’re armed and anxious, so make it clean.”
Borden tightens her belt and says, “For what it’s worth, you’d be glass by now if you were contaminated… right?”
“Sure,” I say. But I’m ignorant. Ignorant, unshaven, wearing rumpled civvies… I could be a paranoid homeless guy wandering the streets of Anytown, USA.
The Valor bounces and sidles before settling. We’re surrounded by anonymous figures in severe orange MOPP gear. Three big green Oshkosh fire tenders stand by, foam guns ready—whatever the hell good that will do. We run under the shadow of the rotating blades to another Skell—me, Borden, and Kumar. Borden advises me not to make any sudden moves. “They’ll blow us off the runway if you so much as cross your eyes.”
“Got it.”
Our transfer is swift and clean. We pile in. Borden drives. I watch the nervous crews part to let us out of their cordon. Even through their thick visors, their eyes flash fear and even hatred.
An odd look crosses Kumar’s smoothly calm features. “Getting interesting, Master Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s what the Gurus like. They like it interesting.”
Our next ride is a low-slung private jet shaped like a manta
ray with a fin coming out of its head. On the fuselage below the fin I read Blue Origin Texas. We enter through the tail hatch and find comfortable red leather seating near the front, behind wide windows facing forward, not apparent from the outside. The comfy seats wrap around our legs and middles and cushion our necks. A sweet female voice tells us we’ll be in Texas in less than forty minutes. Sounds too pretty to be real.
The rear door seals, the jet spins about, and in a few seconds we’re in a steep climb. The jet is a drone. It feels smooth and expensive.
“We’ll be hitching on a Blue Origin lifter,” Kumar says.
“Why not ISD ships?” I ask.
“If you haven’t noticed, we’re off the grid,” Borden says.
“At the end of all our careers, I’m afraid,” Kumar says. He arranges his hands neatly in his lap. “But if promises get fulfilled, we’ll get a lift to LEO, transorbital to a Lagrange station, and from there—if we’re really lucky—a high-speed shuttle.”
“To where?”
“First stop, Mars,” Borden says.
I’ve guessed it all along—felt it in my bones. Back to the Red. Unfinished business.
“Courtesy of some very brave CEOs,” Kumar adds, “a couple of senators, and more than a few generals and colonels.”
“Sounds like a full-throated conspiracy,” I say.
Kumar demurs. “Let’s just say a number of us have become dangerously curious.”
A little vanilla-colored cart tracks up the aisle and offers us coffee or juice. I take coffee. Borden orders orange juice. The cart dispenses our drinks in blessed silence.
“Mr. Kumar provided the Chief of Naval Operations with your evaluation, as originally submitted to the Wait Staff,” Borden says while we sip. “Your psych chart has some interesting bumps. The Office of Naval Research put me in charge of evaluating those bumps.”
“Arlington?”
“Right.”
“Someone’s skeptical about what the Gurus have been telling us?”
“Draw your own conclusions.”
I raise my cup in toast. “They need you to find out why I dream about being a bug.”
Borden shakes her head. “That is beyond my mandate,” she says. “I was given another assignment. Not to beat around the bush, we hear you have visits from the dead.”