by Ken MacLeod
“Right, I know what you mean. ‘For what it’s worth’ seems to come up in conversation a lot these days. Anyway. Here’s the deal. We sell you exclusive rights to the package, you back us up against the commie hordes. Shopping-list to follow, but like you say, later for details.”
The waiter arrived with a hot platter and a couple of dishes; a girl followed with bowls of salad and rice. The main dish was like a salad of meat, in which most possible cuts from a cow were represented, along with the tastier internals and a few of the less tasty.
“Enjoy your meal, ladies.”
Thank you,” said Sadie. She stubbed out the roach. “Oh, and another sangria, please.”
Myra was ravenous, her appetite honed even keener by the joint, and spent about twenty minutes in atavistic carnivorous ecstasy and exclamation before slacking off enough to take up the conversation properly again.
“So, Sadie.” She put down a rib, wiped her fingers and chin. “What do you say?”
Sadie took a long swig of sangria, the ice chinking slushily.
“You know, that guy we sent to speak to you? From the Company?”
“Bit hard to forget him.”
“Uh-huh.” Sadie sighed. “Well, Myra, sorry about this, but—” She scratched her ear. “It’s still the deal, basically. We can give you some kit, sure, but nothing like what you’re asking. Definitely no alliance.”
Myra rocked back. She heard the feet of her metal chair scrape the flagstones.
“That’s even with what we’re offering?”
“Even with.” Sadie picked up something intestinal-looking, dragged it through her teeth. “Because we can’t take it. It’s no use to us anyway, frankly.”
“Oh my God. Oh, shit.”Myra reached for her cigarettes. “Mind if—”
“Go ahead. Yes please.”
“What’s the problem with our package?”
“Skill sets and legacy systems, basically.” Sadie looked at the tip of her cigarette, wrinkled her nose and sucked grease from her lips. “Look above my head. Up. What do you see?”
Myra gazed southward and upward.
“Top of the Two Mile Tower?”
“Right. Know what’s in it? Squatters, mostly. Damn thing damn near built itself, like a stone tree. But the builders couldn’t find enough businesses to rent work-space in it.”
“That sort of thing’s common enough,” Myra said. “Speculative spectacular buildings are usually finished just before the recession hits, and stay empty until the next boom.”
“If there is another boom…” Sadie said gloomily.
Myra remembered Shin Se-Ha’s version of the Otoh equations. “There will be,” she said. One more, anyway, she didn’t say. “What’s your point?”
“We’re losing people,” Sadie said. “It’s no secret. The coup has succeeded in more ways than it’s failed. A hell of a lot of our best scientists and engineers have migrated to the orbital colonies, and they support the faction that Mutual Protection have been running supplies for.”
“The Outwarders.”
“Yeah. Think civilisation on Earth is doomed, and they’re getting out. And, more to the point, so is a lot of the big money. Most of the corporations have been headquartered in orbital tax-havens since at least the Fall Revolution. Now they’ve got the muscle—technical, military—to back that up. And the on-site personnel. They’ll finance us, all right, but strictly as user fees, like hiring a defence agency, and only as long as we don’t step out of line. You may think of the US as the old imperialist oppressor, but these days we’re just another banana republic. The whole Earth is one Third World. Big money and skilled labour are in space, and what’s left down below is mostly surplus population.” Sadie smiled wryly. “And bureaucrats, like you and me.”
“So you’re saying the US empire still exists,” Myra said. “But its capital—in both senses—is now in orbit.”
Teah, exactly!”
“Fair enough,” said Myra, “but how does that affect our offer?”
“Well.” Sadie leaned back, took a short draw, like a sip, on her cigarette. “Let me draw you an analogy. Suppose, just hypothetically, for the sake of argument, that the US wanted to go back to a strategic nuclear posture. Leave aside the fact that the Third World War did for nukes what the First did for gas. At least in terms of using them on Earth—the UN got away with the Heaviside Layer blasts, but that was a bit of a fluke. Leave aside the fact that the big money in orbit is becoming virtually Green with paranoia about nukes in space, too.”
Aha, Myra thought. She would not leave that aside, at all. This was the crux, however valid the rest of Sadie’s points were.
“Leave aside the fact that there simply aren’t that many big nukes left around. Suppose somebody came to us with, I dunno, a stash of old post-Soviet city-busters: laser-fusion jobs, long shelf-life, low maintenance. They still wouldn’t be any use to us, because our whole military doctrine has shifted away from reliance on nukes. There’s a lot more to maintaining a credible strategic nuclear deterrent than maintaining the actual weapons. You need missile and bomber crews, tactical boys, analysts, constant practice. Hell, I should know, I worked hard enough at dispersing the teams and scrubbing the records, back in my disarmament days. We don’t have people with the relevant skills any more, and we don’t have the people to train new ones. We need all our available skill pool to keep our stealth fighters flying, and our teletroopers, smart-battle tactics and techniques up to scratch.”
“1 think I see your point,” Myra said dryly. “So, by the same kind of reasoning, our offer of, uh, mining rights in Kazakhstan isn’t really of interest.”
“You could say that. That is the analogy, yes.”
Myra doubted that their reversal of analogy and actuality would have fooled any snoop for a second, but there was a protocol to be followed on these things. It was, she recalled, illegal for public officials under UN jurisdiction—after the Fall Revolution as much as before—to even discuss nuclear deterrence as a serious policy option.
And of course they hadn’t. Not in a way that would stand up in court, which was all that mattered.
“There is of course one advanced country that isn’t a banana republic just yet…” Myra said. “Never even rejoined the UN, come to that.”
Sadie shrugged. “Go to the Brits if you like,” she said; lighdy, but she acknowledged the implied threat. “Not my problem. But it will be somebody else’s.”
“Just so long as we know where we stand,” Myra said, likewise taking the hint. “OK Forget about the package deal. What about ground troops and air support?”
“The latter, maybe. At a pinch. And hardware. Hardware, we got. Troops, no.”
“Oh, come on. Even mercenaries. We can pay good rates.”
“Mercenaries?” Sadie laughed. “Mercenaries are the best we have. We use them to put some backbone into our crack regiments. And the crack troops are about all that’s left. It’s become just about impossible to raise ordinary grunts. Conscription? Don’t even think about it.”
Myra still looked sceptical. “I’ll show you,” Sadie told her.
They chatted amiably for a while longer, agreeing to dump on Khamadi and Ibrayev the detailed work of negotiating what little aid the US had to give; but basically, the discussion was over. Myra settled the bill, left a generous tip and followed Sadie out. As they recrossed the crowded pavement to the limo, Sadie startled Myra by walking boldly up to a bunch of Andean lads hanging around a headware stall. The boys looked her up and down, lazily curious.
“Hi, guys,” she said. “How’re you doin’?”
“Fine, lady, fine.”
“How ’bout work?”
“This our work.” They grinned at the stall’s owner, who smiled resignedly back.
“Ever thought of joining the Army? Good pay, great conditions. Tough guys like you could make a good go of it.”
They had to hold each other up, they were laughing so hard.
“Not gone get k
illed fighting hicks and geeks,” one of them said. The sweep of his arm took in everything from the Two Mile Tower to the stall’s bristling headware whiskers. He spat away, on to the pavement.
“You preferred tech to men,” he said. “Let tech defend you.”
11
The Rock Covenant
I followed Druin out of the tunnel and into the gallery of the seerstone growers without any idea of what he intended to do. Like him, I had my rifle slung and my hands empty. He strolled across the floor to a central aisle between the ranks of stone troughs and turned down it, walking in the same overall direction as we had been following in the tunnel—downwards, towards the old power-station.
“Hey!”
One of the growers came hurrying up. He was a stocky, dark man with sharp, darting eyes. His overalls were blue, dusted with white powder that caught the light like ground glass. He stopped a couple of metres in front of us and glared.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “How did you get in?”
“We’re—”
Druin motioned to me to be quiet.
“We’re just passing through,” he said. He gazed around the chamber with an expression of slack-jawed wonder. The other tinkers had stopped work and stood about watchfully. “It’s a fascinating place you’ve got here, I must say.”
“How did you get in here?” the tinker repeated, taking a step closer.
Druin jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Oh, we were out chasing the deer,” he explained casually. “We came across a kind of—” he looked at me, as if searching for a word “—a manhole, would you call it? In the woods up there. We went down it for a bit of a lark, like, and made our way down through yon tunnel.”
Druin hitched his thumb under the rifle’s strap and added, “So if you don’t mind, we’ll just be on our way.”
The tinker showed more real amazement than Druin had feigned.
“You came through the tunnel?”
“Aye,” said Druin. “It’s got some real eerie hollows in it,” he added, with an appreciative wink. He began to walk forward, and I beside him. To my surprise the tinker stepped aside, with a glance and a small shake of the head to his colleagues. I suspected that no outsider had made it past the cavern’s spectral guardians for a long time, and that the tinkers here just didn’t know what to make of us.
On either hand of us were the stone troughs; the ones we passed first each contained a layer of tiny stones, gravel almost; subsequent ranks had larger and fewer stones, until we reached the very end, where a trough—or rather, by this point, a large circular tub—might contain a single boulder. On the floor below the troughs were oddly shaped stones, apparently discarded; some of these casualties of quality-control had evidently ended up in the tunnel. However, we saw no hollows in that chamber, and I wondered if I’d misunderstood the implied sequence of events, or if the light in there was too bright for such displays.
Within the stones themselves, queerly distorted by the rippling water, strange fleeting scenes played themselves out with a coherence that increased with the size of the stones. I had no leisure to inspect them, but several times I felt that the faces flickering across these smooth surfaces were faces I had seen in the tunnel.
The walls and ceiling of the unnatural cave converged to an entranceway to another passage, about two and a half metres high and two wide. It continued for about thirty metres ahead of us, beyond which a darker doorway loomed. This corridor was unmistakably artificial, its squared walls and ceiling being made of the same glazed substance as the shaft. Its lighting, too, was subdy different from that of the growing-gallery—though it came from similar glass panels, it had that overtone of yellow which marked it as ordinary electric lighting, if more powerful than usually encountered. Our footsteps rang on the ceramic floor, echoing sharply.
“You carried yourself cool in there,” I said to Druin.
“Ah, it’s all bluff,” he said. “They’ve got used to folks being scared by their bluff. But I reckon we’ll soon meet some who’re ready for us—our friends back there will have signalled ahead.”
“You’re not bothered?”
“Not a bit.”
“I was, but I wasn’t going to show it My heart was hammering and my head was buzzing with bewildered images, like the seer-stones themselves, and my hand clutching the rifle’s strap was slick with sweat.
The response that Druin had expected—or, possibly, a stronger response—came when we were about two-thirds of the way down the corridor. Fergal and two other men appeared in the exit, barring our way. They carried rifles of an unfamiliar design, not aimed at us but ready for use. We walked forward. He stepped out in front of the others and raised a hand.
“Stop right there!” he ordered.
We stopped.
“What are you here for?” Fergal asked.
I decided it was about time I spoke up for myself.
Tm here to see you,” I said. “And Menial.”
“You’re seeing me,” Fergal said. He waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll talk to you later.” He stalked closer, to a few metres away, and stared at Druin. “I know you,” he said venomously.
Druin shrugged. “You’ll have seen me around.”
Fergal’s weapon was instantly aimed square at Druin’s gut. My companion made a twitch towards his rifle strap, then raised both hands above his head. The other two tinkers brought their rifles to bear at the same moment.
“I know who you are,” Fergal said slowly, “and what you are. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you now.”
Druin took a deep breath. “Och, man, if you have to ask that there is no help for you,” he said in a steady voice. I looked at him sideways, frozen except for a severe shaking in my jaw and my knees. “You see,” Druin went on conversationally, “if you were to kill me, now, my friend Clovis here would some time soon have to kill you. He would kill you and cut your head from your neck, and carry it to my widow and my weans to prove that you were dead and the matter was at an end.”
He glanced at me. “You would, aye?”
“I would,” I swore. I had eaten under Druin’s roof, and could not well refuse the task, if required. The thought of it made me feel sick, but it didn’t shake my resolve. I had no idea why Fergal might want to kill Druin in the first place, and I didn’t care. That he was willing to contemplate murder told me all I needed to know about him.
“Well, there you are,” said Druin. “You could kill Clovis too, I suppose, but that would just double your problem.”
I did not find this last consideration quite as definite and reassuring as Druin made it sound.
Fergal’s glance flicked between the two of us, his tongue unconsciously touching his lips. He backed off a little.
“Put down your weapons,” he said, then added, as we lowered our rifles, “all of them.”
As I unbuckled my belt I looked at Druin. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. I placed my knife and pistol and multi-tool beside the rifle.
“The sgean dhu as well.”
I felt naked when I stood up. Quick hands passed over or patted my body.
“They’re clean.”
Fergal picked up my gear, and one of the other tinkers picked up Druin’s. Fergal jerked his chin at the exit and moved around behind us.
“This way.”
We walked forward to the end of the corridor. Beyond it was the open interior space of the old power-station; we descended a short flight of steps to a concrete floor and were told to halt. Behind us I could hear some low-voiced consultation. We waited for its decision, hands on our heads, and I looked about. The turbine, of course, was long since gone, as were most of the original fittings; all that remained was a haunting afterlife of odours, of flaked paint and rusted metal and antique brickwork. Above these whiffs rose the newer smells of concrete and solder. The whole big cuboidal building, with its long windows, had been turned into a complex factory full of workshops and walkways, noisy and bright with th
e screech and sparks of metalwork. From the number of people I glimpsed at their benches or hurrying along, I guessed that about a hundred tinkers were at work in the building.
Strangely I felt on safer ground here, amid those scores of busy people, and hard by the road and rail of civilisation. I knew this comfort was delusory, but clung to it anyway. The thought of calling out for help crossed my mind; then I reflected that Fergal and his comrades would hardly be so bold if their actions were unknown to the rest.
Suddenly the tinkers clattered down the steps behind us and we were each roughly jostled away, in opposite directions. I heard a door slam, from the other side of the stair, just before I was pushed through another.
The room into which I stumbled was a few metres square, with an overhead light, a table and a couple of chairs. Along its sides rough stacks of copper piping, coils of cable, sacks and so forth suggested that the room was one that currendy didn’t have a definite use, and was used indifferently as a store, a meeting-place and—now—an interrogation cell. There was even, as somehow seemed inevitable, a sink and an electric kettle and some grotty opened bags of coffee, sugar and tea.
Fergal stepped past me, spun a chair into place on the opposite side of the table and gestured to the other.
“Have a seat.”
He put the weapons he’d taken off me on the draining-board, keeping his own rifle trained on me all the while. Then he sat down, not at the table but tilting his chair against the far wall, and cradling the black rifle with its odd, curving ammunition clip.
“OK, man,” he said. “Looks like I underestimated you, Clovis.” I let this flattery pass. He rocked the chair forward again, gazing at me intently. You’ve got yourself into a bit of a mess,” he continued in a confidential tone, “and the others are pretty riled with you, but I think I can square it with them. We can sort this out.”
I said nothing.
“Do you know what Drain is?”
After waiting a moment for some response, he went on, “He’s a management spy, that’s what. He works for the site security committee of the ISS at Kishorn. He reports on union activists, among other things.”