The Year’s Best Science Fiction (St Martin's) 26

by Gardner Dozois

  That was many years, and a different identity, ago. Max was vain enough to feel proud, and old enough to be ashamed. He loved his home, and had always served it any way he could.

  Outside, the hangman fixed the steel cable around the Adarean’s neck. Tradition called for hemp rope, but there was so little natural fiber on the planet, despite decades of terraforming, that everything but their clothes was made from metal or rock. The minister began preaching the repentance sermon while the powerfully-built hangman forced the Adarean to kneel and bend his head. The crowd settled down to listen, and the driver nudged the car forward again.

  Max continued to stare out the window. They hovered through dusty, unpaved streets, leaving a cloud of grit behind them, until they arrived at a big, concrete open-ended U. The Department of Political Education building.

  The guard hopped out, weapon at his side, and held open the door. “It must feel good to be back, huh?”

  Max looked up to see if the guard really was that stupid. His simple, frank face bespoke genuine belief. Max scooted across the seat and lifted his handcuffed wrists for an answer.

  The guard waved his hand vaguely. “Nobody believes that charge of treason!”

  Max winced at the word. In the old days, even a suspicion of treason meant immediate death. He walked quickly as if to escape the charge, crossing the courtyard to the entrance. More guards, these blissfully silent in their charcoal-colored uniforms, opened the door. The lobby inside was an oasis of tan benches planted around a small blue pool of carpet.

  A pale green Adarean leapt up from one of the seats and blocked Max’s way. “Please,” he said. “I must see Director Mallove while there’s still time to stop the execution.”

  Depending on the length of the sermon—they could run for a few minutes or a few hours—it might already be too late. “Can’t really help you,” Max said, lifting his handcuffs in answer for a third time.

  The guard steered Max around the Adarean. When the door to the stairwell creaked shut behind them, the guard grumbled, “Weedheads.”

  “I’ll never get used to grass hair,” Max said. He doubted the Adareans converted much solar energy from their hair, despite all their talk of developing “multiple calorie streams.”

  His legs ached in the full gravity as he climbed the stairs. He’d visited planets with elevators before: the older he got, the more he believed in the possible holiness of technology. When he went to Earth, he visited a museum about the Amish, a group of people who stubbornly lived in the past while technology swept others past them. The tour guide thought he’d find the religious similarities interesting. Max had begun to have sympathy for the galactics who looked at his planet as an oddity just like the Amish.

  Too bad his people had never been pacifists.

  On the top floor, the guard ushered Max past the admin—owl-eyed Anatoly, whose expressionless gaze followed Max across the room—to the office of the Director of Political Education, Willem Mallove. Max’s boss.

  One of Max’s bosses. But that was complicated, and involved his old identity. Max filed that away in “things too dangerous to think about right now.”

  Mallove sat posed, hand on chin, staring out the window. He had an actor’s face, handsome and charismatic with just the right hint of imperfection—a small scar that forced his upper lip into a minor sneer. His face had gotten him into vids when he studied off-planet on Adares, years ago, before the revolution. Rumor had it that his insincerity—the Adareans were enormously sensitive to nuances of emotion—had driven him out of acting. The spacious office was decorated with fabric wall-coverings, some rare wooden chairs, and the famous stained-glass desk with its images of the Blessed Martyrs—a ministry heirloom from before the revolution.

  “You may leave us, Vasily,” Mallove told the earnest-but-stupid guard. His hand stayed posed on his chin.

  “But, sir—”

  “That will be all.”

  Great—whatever happened next, Mallove didn’t want witnesses. The door clicked shut behind Max. He had an impulse to stand at parade rest, hands behind him—like all of the government bureaucracy, Education was part of the military—but the cuffs made that impossible.

  “Sir, may I have these off?” Max lifted his bound wrists.

  Mallove’s chair creaked as he spun around. Instead of answering the question, he pulled open a drawer, removed a gun, and aimed it at Max’s head.

  “Someone in my Department is disloyal,” Mallove said. “What I need to know, Max, is it you?”

  Max stared past the barrel into Mallove’s eyes. “Sir, if you want me to be disloyal, I will be.”

  If it was going to be theatrics, Max could play his role.

  They stared at each other until Mallove, with exaggerated casualness, placed the gun, still charged, still aimed at Max, on the desk and leaned back in his chair. “A big change is coming, Max. Before it arrives, I have to root out every traitor—”

  Cold fear prickled the back of Max’s neck. “Is Drozhin dead?”

  Mallove paused, frowning in irritation at the interruption. “I know we all think of General Drozhin as the man who eats knives just so he can shit on people to kill them. But even he is just another mortal man.”

  “That’s why I asked. Is he dead?”

  Mallove folded his hands together and looked away. “Not yet, not quite.”

  Max held his breath. Dmitri Drozhin was Max’s other boss. Drozhin, the last great patriarch of the revolution, Director of the Department of Intelligence, in charge of the spies, the secret police, and the assassins. Max had been all three for Drozhin, including his deep undercover spy on Mallove. Max’s last mission in space, aboard the spy ship Gethsemane, had gone badly when his orders from Drozhin conflicted with his orders from Mallove.

  And now here he was a prisoner. Very likely, he had finally been caught as a double agent. Maybe Meredith, his wife, from long ago and that other identity, would use their soil ration to plant flowers for him in the cemetery.

  “Too bad,” he said to the news about Drozhin.

  Mallove leaned forward, resting his hand on the gun. “What happened aboard the Gethsemane? To Lukinov, I mean.”

  The implication was that he knew something. Answer right, or I’ll still shoot you. For once, Max didn’t think Mallove was acting. What could he say safely? What did Mallove know and what did he only guess? Max jerked his hands apart—the metal cuffs dug into his wrists as the chain snapped taut. He was thinking about this wrong: if he wanted to survive, the question was not what did Mallove know, but what did he want to hear?

  “It would seem,” Max said, reciting the official version, “that Lukinov tried to sabotage the ship’s nuclear reactor, that he ended up killing himself when he botched it.”

  Mallove sketched a whirligig in the air with his free hand, signifying his opinion of the official version. “Yes, but what really happened?”

  What really happened is that Max caught Lukinov spying for Mallove. Max garrotted him and sabotaged the ship so he could return home to report to his secret boss. He paused for a second, trying to guess Mallove’s fear. “I don’t think Lukinov was selling us out to the Adareans, no matter what Intelligence says,” he said. “More likely it had something to do with his gambling habit.”

  Mallove’s scarred lip twitched—a tell.

  The gambling habit. That was probably how Mallove blackmailed Lukinov into spying for him. Now Mallove was afraid of being caught.

  Max decided to push his luck. “I witnessed Lukinov gambling with the captain,” he said. “The sabotage was intended to cover up some secret, only it went wrong. I’m sure I was arrested on trumped-up charges in order to keep me from investigating the captain. If we find out who Lukinov had been gambling with at home before—”

  Mallove interrupted. “That doesn’t matter. So his body’s still floating out there in space?”

  “Yes. He was ejected during a hull breach in the radiation clean-up.”

  “Well, you can re
st easy. I’ve insisted that we recover Lukinov’s body. If anything’s been hidden, we’ll find it.”

  Like the ligature marks Max left on Lukinov’s neck? That would wreck his story. “Excellent news,” he said.

  Metal runners squeaked as Mallove pulled open another stained glass drawer and retrieved a crystal bottle of vodka with two tumblers. He filled one and took a sip. “How long have you been with Political Education, Max?”

  Longer than you, Max thought. He’d been there at Drozhin’s side when the old man decided to form Political Education. Together, they created a new identity for Max when he joined it as a mole. “Since the beginning. It was my first posting when I joined the service.”

  “Mine too.” Mallove tapped his fingers on the glass. “The treason charges against you are laughable, Max. I’m sure Drozhin locked you up because he knows you’re one of the key men in my Department.”

  Yes, why had Drozhin’s department locked him up as soon as the ship landed? Disregarding the captain’s official charges against him, Max was still trying to figure that one out. He’d gone from being the prisoner of one boss to the prisoner of another. What did the Bible say about serving two masters?

  He rattled the links on his cuffs. “If the charges are so laughable, maybe we could take these off.”

  Again, Mallove ignored his request. “Let’s speak frankly. Drozhin’s old, he’s sick, he’s going to die soon. Maybe within days. Without him, Intelligence will be in complete disarray.”

  And the people he’s protected, like me, Max thought, we’re all compost.

  Mallove picked up the gun. Max tensed, ready to take the bolt.

  But Mallove didn’t notice him flinch; he was too intent on swiveling his chair to point the gun out the window. “The fact is, Intelligence is done for once the old man dies. Drozhin never promoted anyone smart enough to replace him. So when he dies, there will be a battle for power.”

  There was more than some truth in that. “You think it’ll be a physical battle?”

  Mallove pretended to shoot people out the window, as if he wanted a physical battle. “There won’t be soldiers in the streets,” he said. “Those days are long behind us. Yes, men will be discredited, forced to leave their positions, and senior officers will go to prison. But if I surround myself with enough loyal men, all that power will be mine.”

  Which would be a disaster for the planet, and all their attempts to change it for the better. “You think there’s a traitor within Education?”

  “I’m sure of it, at least two.” Mallove spun around, pointing the gun directly at Max.

  This time Max didn’t jump. Mallove paused a moment, then set the gun down. The metal clicked hard on a slab of colored glass depicting the assassination of Brother Porluck.

  Mallove chuckled to himself. “‘I’ll be disloyal if you order me to, sir.’ Now there’s loyalty for you. Drozhin doesn’t have anyone like that.” He tapped the intercom. “Anatoly, bring in the key.”

  Max released a sigh of relief. For the first time, he thought he might survive this interview.

  The door swung open quietly. The admin entered and unlocked Max’s cuffs. Anatoly was a competent, scholarly officer, the kind who plotted out military campaigns on spreadsheets instead of maps. His gaze lingered on the desk, on the gun backlit by bulbs behind the stained glass image of the fall of the Temple, and on Mallove’s hand, which rested with deliberate casualness by the pistol’s trigger.

  Max rubbed his sore wrists, and wondered what part of this tableau was for him and what part was for Anatoly. With Mallove, there were always wheels inside of wheels.

  “Anything else, sir?” Anatoly asked.

  “There are some things still up in the air—kinda like clay pigeons.” Mallove barked out a laugh at his own joke and pretended to shoot one. “Get reservations for three down at Pillars of Salt. The booth across from the door.”

  Anatoly said, “Yes, sir,” and reached in his pocket for a phone.

  Max’s mouth watered at the prospect of dinner from Pillars of Salt. He had lamb medallions on a bed of saffron couscous the last time he was there, a few years ago, and hadn’t eaten that well since. That had been with Meredith, to celebrate their wedding anniversary—

  He shut down that line of thinking. He kept his life strictly compartmentalized, different parts of it sealed behind bulkheads. This was no time to weaken the seals.

  Mallove capped the vodka and put it in a drawer, along with the weapon. Scene over, time to put the props away. The second glass, intended for Max, had been forgotten.

  “I want you to help me find the traitor, Max,” Mallove said. “Let’s root out Drozhin’s spies.”

  “I’m the man to do it,” Max said, without a hint of irony. Maybe he could cast suspicion on Mallove’s best men, and weaken Education in the process.

  “Anatoly has already compiled a short list of suspects. The two of you together will find Drozhin’s moles.”

  Max carefully avoided meeting the admin’s gaze. “Are you sure Anatoly has time for this, with all his other duties?”

  “He’ll make time,” Mallove said. “This is the most important job I have and you’re the two best men I’ve got.”

  That’s what Max feared. Anatoly was smart, and Max didn’t want to risk being caught by him. The admin stared at Max over the rim of his glasses, as if he were already trying to peer through his facade. He maintained eye contact the whole time he tapped out reservations and made a call to Mallove’s driver to bring around a car. He looked like he wanted to say something; Max wondered what it was.

  Anatoly’s gaze flicked to Mallove. “They have the booth ready, sir.” Then he held out his hand to Max. “It’s good to have you back, Nick.”

  Max forced a grin. Nick was short for Nikomedes—Anatoly had always called him Old Nick, said he was as ugly as Satan and twice as mean. He clasped Anatoly’s hand, hard. “It’s damn good to be back, Annie.”

  He knew the admin hated the girly contraction of his name, but he grinned back. Max’s first order of business would be getting Anatoly off this assignment.

  They left the office together, bootsoles echoing on concrete as they stomped down the main stairwell, which was plain and unpainted. The architecture was plain for a moral as well as a practical purpose. The settlers of Jesusalem had called themselves Plain Christians, 21st-century religious fundamentalists who feared the advances of science and considered all genetic engineering abominations. After all, if man was made in the form of God, any changes in that form amounted to a renunciation of the divine. They’d started in the old United States, in North America, but had found many of their converts later in Europe, especially the former Soviet republics.

  Ironically, it was the technology the Plain Christians feared that allowed the survival of their religion. When biocomputers created the singular new intelligence that made space travel possible, they sunk all their resources into a mass migration out to the first marginally habitable planet no one else wanted, a primitive place with surface water and just enough ocean-algae-cognate to produce breathable levels of oxygen. Everything beyond that was rock and sand and struggle, a desert for the devout. Publicly they claimed to keep their buildings austere and luxuryless as penance; the truth was that terraforming went slowly and poorly, and plain was all they could manage.

  When they exited the stairwell and crossed the main lobby, the Adarean rose from his bench and came toward them.

  Max looked at him more closely this time. The Adarean was too tall, with joints and proportions that were off, inhuman even before you noticed the green color.

  “Willem,” the Adarean called out to Mallove, coming forward. Like they were old friends. Adareans hated hierarchies. “I’ve been waiting days to see you.”

  “Ah,” Mallove said, his face momentarily blank as he thought about which script he was performing. Then he smiled, cold, frosty, as blinding as the sun on a comet. “How good to see you again, comrade Patience.”

 
For a second, Max wondered if the Patience were a joke; the Adareans who came to Jesusalem sometimes named themselves for traits they admired, but Patience?

  Mallove didn’t offer his hand.

  “I’m here to protest recent acts of violence against innocent Adareans and ask for a halt to today’s execution, late though it may be,” Patience told Mallove. He seemed very agitated, looking up as if he expected to hear other voices.

  Mallove took the stern role now. “But you chose to come to Jesusalem, knowing the history between our planets and accepting the personal risks.”

  “Between our planets?” The Adarean’s voice rose into that unsettling mid-range that could be either male or female. “What does that mean? Planets don’t interact—individual people do. You know that we have nothing to do with the Adareans who came here before us. They were different people.”

  A group of Adareans had come before the revolution to join the Plain Christian church. When the old patriarchs were losing the war in the cities, a few radical Adareans showed them how to fashion nuclear weapons from the fissionable undecayed uranium-235 sometimes found in the young planet’s surface. They’d nuked the revolutionary stronghold of New Nazareth, almost reversing the war.