The Grapple

by Moshe Ben-Or

  “You know all this. You are the seasoned military man among them. Your voice on these matters carries weight above other voices, the way the Calculator’s does on matters of commerce, King Filip’s on questions of public relations and diplomacy, or the Kunovsker’s when it comes to the shadow war of spies. But you are also, and above all else, a politician. Which side does the politician choose today?”

  “The Executive Council is now in session,” pronounces the Calculator. “Before us is General Staff Strategic Proposal Eight, Military-Strategic Objectives and General Directives for Universal Standard Year 3773.”

  Stating the matter for the secretarial AI, thinks Reginald Freeman. There will be a vote for the record this time, without doubt. They’ve brought in an audience, and insisted on all the formalities.

  “Does any of the Honored Councilors have additional questions for the representatives of the General Staff?”

  Of course not, thinks the admiral. If they had additional questions, there would be an informal meeting instead of this show. Half the room would have to leave, if they wanted to go into the top-secret details. He’d known there would be no questions, the moment he saw the Hidekkeler’s son.

  “Does any of the Honored Councilors desire a resumption of the private discussion?”

  No, no they won’t want that either, muses Duke Freeman. They’d gone over the whole thing, cover to cover, in private, for four hours straight last night, with aides scurrying back and forth, the Calculator’s entire staff running simulation after simulation for their mistress, the Kunovsker postponing his evening prayers, all kinds of subject matter experts coming and going, and a late supper brought in. These people don’t raise their voices at one another. But from the way their aides had looked, running in and out of the chamber, things had gotten quite... intense.

  They have a whole mess of folks waiting next door, anyway. Finance and Transport, mostly, with a few people from Industry. This war does not begin and end with the General Staff, however vital the General Staff might be. The Council of Four has been working ten to twelve hours a day, day in and day out, same as everyone else. This damned proposal has been back and forth between them and the General Staff six times. It’s time for a vote, bright and early in the morning. Turn this thing into a Strategic Directive, and on to other pressing business they go. If it has gotten this far up, past the phalanx of bureaucrats and AIs, it is all pressing.

  “Very well,” continues Theresa Thibodeaux, “the Serpent Swarm Corporation moves to put the matter to a binding vote.”

  “Motion seconded,” answers the Chief Rabbi of Haven.

  “All right,” thinks Duke Reginald, “let’s see where we stand.”

  * * *

  “He is coming,” said Alice dejectedly. “Next week, when I ovulate. And he is taking me back with him.”

  She looked like she was about to start crying again.

  “Just when we thought that things were getting better...” thought Maria. She was just about ready to start crying herself, truth be told.

  “We are prepared for an audit,” she said out loud. “The books are in order, the inventory control inputs match the outputs, the QA/QC logs are all fine. There’s nothing for him to snag on, except the two hundred ghost ponchos in the warehouse. Katrina’s got those dispersed all over the place. There’s no way he’ll find them. We’re talking needles in hay mountains here, not needles in haystacks. We’re fine, Alice.”

  “It’s Martín,” replied Alice, shaking her head, “the Planetary Auditor. The smartest man on the planet, bar none, and the most obsessive. I’ve seen him find needles in hay mountains before, believe you me. There’s a reason Doctor Weinberger gave him that job.

  “There is a record of the ghosts. Katrina’s warehouse robots know where they are, even if no living being besides the four of us does.

  “It’s a human-accessible record separate from the warehouse books, and it was purpose-created for some reason. I don’t care how deeply buried it is, Martín will find it.”

  “So what do you want to do?” asked Dolores.

  “We have to destroy them,” sighed Alice, flicking off a tear. “I’ll run an unscheduled post-production QA inspection. Make up some likely-sounding defect. An intermittent flicker on reconfig, maybe. Those can be tricky to find. Some crazy-unlikely combination of inputs repeated some crazy-unlikely number of times causes intermittent, semi-random power supply thrashing in a few percent of nanites, and that’s that. I’ll think something up.

  “We’ll yank the ghosts along with the production series they’re hidden with. Recycle everything. Wipe the records clean.

  “Katrina’s list becomes a recall log. I’ve always suspected that there was something wrong with these series, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I asked Katrina to mark them for me, and then I figured it out. All is well. Pat me on the head, Doctor Martín, I’m a smart girl. I’ll suck your dick some more while I’m at it, and then you can fuck me pregnant and take me home.

  “I’ll reset the machinery tomorrow. No more ghosts. My replacement will find nothing amiss.”

  “All that work...” thought Maria. “We risked our lives for nothing.”

  She pushed the thought away as her arms wrapped around Alice’s tiny frame. If she thought about this too much, she’d start sobbing, too.

  “I’ll go find Katrina,” said Dolores, getting up. “Don’t know what’s keeping that girl.”

  “She’s with Jose, probably,” sighed Alice, “Ringing in the solstice with the Sacred Ritual, like a good and proper Vessel of the Goddess. Starting early, to continue where they left off after Midnight Mass.

  “His petition finally came through. Her implant got yanked this morning. A couple-three months from now, she’ll be heading back to campus, too. No more rocket attacks for her.”

  “It’s been over a month since the last one,” pointed out Dolores. “Snipers have gone away, too. Maybe Señora Morales’ people finally got the message.”

  “It’s the weather,” replied Alice morosely. “All the leaves are off the trees. Jose’s UAVs can see everything on the game trails, when it’s not snowing like crazy, or raining cats and dogs. Hard to carry heavy rockets off-trail, beating brush through all that half-frozen mud. The snipers are gone because there’s nothing to shoot at. Jose’s got all his firing slits covered with camo now, all his men are wearing ponchos, and they can’t see past the berm, inside the camp. Even if they could, we’re always down in the trenches.

  “The message never got there. Come spring...”

  “That’s what I like the most about you, Alice,” smiled Maria wanly, getting up herself. “You’re such an inveterate optimist.

  “Come on, there’s picante de quinoa at the dining facility tonight. Real venison in it. Jose’s people shot a couple of deer to brighten up our holiday, while they were out on patrol.”

  “Holiday, schmoliday,” answered Alice, still sulking. “I miss real holidays, you know that? Easter. New Year’s. Christmas Eve. Real Sunday Mass, not this travesty where we all stand around and sing for an hour, then go stuff ourselves and sit around singing some more, until the priestess tells us all to go home and fuck like demented rabbits.”

  “Oh, come on,” replied Dolores, “the hymns are nice. I like the Breaking of the Bread. It makes me feel like we’re a real community, all sharing a meal together. Eating the same food, saying the same blessings, singing from the same hymnal, lowest A-tabber all the way up to the Dean. I like the Goddess Mass. Never felt that way in the old days, sitting in the pews, watching the priest swing the censer.

  “If Doctor Garcia wasn’t such a dick, I wouldn’t even mind all the other stuff, honestly. I mean, look at Katrina. There are lots of happy Pins.”

  “We’ll do something for Christmas, just the three of us,” resolved Maria. “Something nice, I promise. Quietly, so no one else will find out.

  “In the meantime, if I can’t fuck like a demented rabbit after Midnight Mass, at least
I can enjoy a decent meal before. Don’t know about you two, but I don’t feel like eating instant ramen on Solstice Eve.

  “Let’s go get some of that nice picante de quinoa. We’ll swing by the warehouse first, just in case lover girl stayed at work later than usual for some reason, instead of running off to jump in the sack with her man.”

  It was freezing cold outside. The air felt wet and heavy, like a sodden blanket. Their breath smoked in the weak light of the pace lanterns, and disappeared again in the inky blackness between. Patches of yellow Daphne-light broke through, here and there, as gusts of nighttime breeze tossed about the pregnant clouds. Slushy mud lining the trenches squished revoltingly underfoot. Bits of ice crunched with every step. If it wasn’t for the polymer grating, they’d be knee deep in it. Even with two sweaters on her, poor Alice was already beating a rattle with her teeth.

  It was fixing to rain again, thought Maria, pulling her hood closer around her face, thrusting her hands deep into the pockets of her cloak as she huddled against the cold. The nasty stuff that turned to ice the moment it touched a surface. It would turn to slush as the night went on, the way it always did. Come morning, there’d be icicles everywhere, and it would take all a girl’s skill not to break her neck as she tried to make it up and down the slippery steps between the blast enclosures and the commo trenches.

  The forecast promised outright snow for Solstice Day, specifically to dust the ice and make it even less obvious where the most slippery stuff hid.

  Maybe they should’ve stayed inside after all. Instant ramen for dinner didn’t sound all that bad, on second thought. But it was too late to turn around now. That venison picante de quinoa had better be good.

  Katrina almost ran into her as they turned left at the intersection that led to the warehouse. Maria tripped, cursing. The muddy sidewall of the commo trench rasped wetly against her cloak. The submachinegun dug painfully into her side as Dolores blundered into it from behind.

  “Come on!” whispered Katrina breathlessly, hauling at her friend’s arm. She was grinning ear to ear in the semi-darkness.

  “I hear there’s venison picante de quinoa at the dining facility tonight,” said an unfamiliar voice as Katrina dragged her up the steps that led to the warehouse, jumping two and three at a time despite the icy crust. “Is it good? Been a while since I’ve had picante de quinoa.”

  Leaning up against the blast wall, precisely where neither casual passerby nor security camera would see him, was a lean, wiry, light-skinned man of average height and indeterminate age.

  “A blanco,” thought Maria at first glance.

  But no; no he wasn’t. Nose too big and a little hooked, brows too bushy, lips just a bit too thick, face not quite the right shape. Her glance slid right off the green-gray-white camouflage pattern of his loose, hooded overall. A submachinegun dangled at his hip. Something protruded over his left shoulder. A sword. It was the grip of a sword. Molded to fit the hand, with a simple one-bar guard and a teardrop pommel to balance the blade. The grip of a Spartan palash, like in historical VR.

  A vibro, of course, thought Maria. Spartan Shock Corps infantry carried their vibros like that, the way their Royal Guards Dragoon forefathers had carried their sword-bayonets. Clearly, some of the other Leaguers did, too. Perhaps it rubbed off.

  Casual lean and relaxed manner or not, Maria had the sudden feeling that he could kill all four of them in an eyeblink, with that vibro. Instantly and silently, faster than any of them could scream. Looking into those unblinking, steel-gray eyes made her shiver. Cold and merciless. The eyes of a cobra.

  “You see,” whispered Dolores, “they did get the message.”

  “We did,” agreed the Leaguer, pulling out a pipe. A cloud of strange-smelling tobacco smoke enveloped Maria as he lit it. The scent made her slightly giddy, like wine.

  “Took you long enough,” snapped Alice resentfully. “Twenty-seven people died. Good people. Our friends. You killed them!”

  “The message was delayed,” replied the stranger mildly, “by circumstances beyond any of our control. I know it is no consolation, but I am sorry for what has happened. If I could bring your friends back, I would.”

  He was old, decided Maria suddenly. Old enough to be her grandfather. Maybe even older than that. Maybe almost as old as the Dean, or Her Eminence.

  It was something about his voice, when he’d said that he was sorry. The way the lines had suddenly set around his lips, and at the corners of his eyes.

  Alice opened her mouth to blurt some other stupid thing.

  “You have seen worse,” said Maria to the stranger, squeezing Alice’s hand to shut her up.

  “I have,” came the calm reply. “Terrible things happen in war. That, unfortunately, is one of the few constants.

  “How many units do you have for me?”

  “Two hundred and eleven,” answered Katrina. “I have them dispersed, hidden between the boxes. Give me a minute, and I’ll pack them for you.”

  “Six packages, if you please,” said the stranger. “A single man must carry each. It would be good if they had straps, like a backpack.”

  “They will be heavy,” warned Katrina.

  “We will manage.”

  “He came with five other men?” thought Maria.

  Maybe, and maybe not. He was the one chosen to make contact, but there were others, watching in the darkness. He could afford to lean against a wall and casually smoke a pipe while he chatted up some girls. His deadly friends were all around him.

  Six men would carry the packages of ghost ponchos across Jose’s perimeter. There might be others to help, and to guard.

  The message he’d received had provided some key, but it could not be a quick thing even so, or an easy one. If it were otherwise, nobody at this mill would still be alive today.

  “When can we expect the next shipment?” asked the Leaguer as Katrina flitted into the warehouse and a banging of moving robots came from within.

  “Never,” snapped Alice.

  The stranger raised an eyebrow.

  “There is an auditor coming. Doctor Iago Martín. My...”

  “Husband,” quickly interjected Maria. There was no need to sidetrack this alien man with tawdry details.

  “Husband,” agreed Alice. “After the audit, he will take me away, to have his baby. Without me, these ghost ponchos cannot be produced.”

  “And you are...”

  “I am head of end-to-end QA/QC.”

  “I take it, you have no choice in the matter?” asked the stranger.

  “None.”

  “None of your compatriots can replace you?”

  “She’s the on-site accountant,” answered Alice angrily, jabbing her thumb at Maria. “She’s the inventory manager. Katrina, over there, is just a warehouse tech, and not even the senior one. There is no one else.”

  “But if your husband were to agree to it, you could return, and resume your work?”

  “He will never agree.”

  The pipe puffed for a moment.

  “And he is not involved in any of this? He does not know what you do?”

  “No,” resolved Alice. “No, he works for Doctor Weinberger.”

  The pipe puffed again. Tiny red lights danced in the stranger’s eyes. Maria felt a chill running down her spine. It wasn’t the weather.

  The warehouse conveyor belt came to life. Six squarish bundles slid out of the gateway. Heavy polymer wrapping, securely cross-banded with doubled-up packing straps. The robots had run extra straps through the banding. Loose ones, to make rough backpacks.

  “You have something with his DNA?” asked the Leaguer. “A comb, perhaps?”

  “Nothing.”

  “A loving marriage, I take it.”

  “Very much,” came the sarcastic reply.

  “Bring me a cream,” said the stranger, “or an oil, or a gel. Something that you can apply where only a husband will touch you. A small amount, unremarkable and readily explicable when carried.”
<
br />   “I...” began Alice, “We don’t have cosmetics...”

  “Here,” said Katrina, “Algae wax. They sell it at the store, now.”

  In her hand, there was a tiny tube of hand cream.

  “Keep this sealed,” said the Leaguer as he turned back around.

  Whatever he’d done, thought Maria, it had only taken a moment. Something, out of a pocket, perhaps. He’d removed the cap… She couldn’t really see.

  He’d put something inside. Something terrible.

  Death. It had to be death. Death, in a tiny drop.

  The objection died in her mouth, unspoken. If she’d had a chance, and it was Pillár...

  “Do not even touch the cap until you are ready to use it. Keep it with you at all times. Regardless of what happens, it must not be unsealed by accident, or fall into a stranger’s hands.

  “Apply it immediately before you are with him. Use all of it. Wash your hands thoroughly. Touch no other man before him.

  “Love him well. Afterwards, ask to return here. He will grant your request. Insist on making all the arrangements immediately. He will agree, and help.

  “Dispose of the empty tube carefully, as soon as practical. Not in your own home, but somewhere else. Some place where it will never be found, or identified as yours. Better yet, incinerate it. A plasma arc is best, if you have unobtrusive access to one. A base recycler, for example.”

  Alice nodded, swallowing nervously.

  “Spend time with him. Let him sire the child he desires. He will be kind, and truthful to you. You may hear things from him you would never expect.

  “Be a good, obedient wife. Then return. In a week is best. No more than fourteen days.”

  “W-what is it?” stuttered Katrina.

  “Do not ask questions to which you should never know answers,” replied the stranger.

  “I do not exist. This tube does not exist. None of this ever happened. The warehouse cameras have recorded nothing. You can review the footage, if you like.

  “Your friends came to take you to dinner. There’s picante de quinoa at the dining facility tonight, made with real venison. The guards shot two deer, and the cooks slaved away all day to make the special for Solstice Eve.