Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5)

by Scott Rhine

  Joan interrupted the lecture over the loudspeaker. “Sir, we intercepted a broadcast from the new CEO of Fortune, Tetsuo Mori. He’s spreading lies thicker than manure on a vegetable field.”

  His victory speech. “His gloating will inform you of his strategy going forward,” Kaguya advised.

  “Play it for us, and notify the others in Garden Hollow,” Conrad ordered his young bridge officer.

  ****

  Theme music played from a popular talk show host. Millions interacted online with the host, and he would ask the most pressing questions presented by viewers. Testuo Mori’s image filled the golden door. He resembled a presidential candidate sitting at the desk beside the host. “It is with a heavy heart that I take the reins of my friend Elias Fortune’s company. I hope to save it from the treachery of those closest to him … to both of us.” He paused to breathe oxygen through his clear mask. “The US inquiry into the Llewellyn boy determined that he was either authentic or the greatest hoax in history, which could only have been perpetrated by my company. Sadly, this turned out to be the case.”

  He coughed, requiring him to take a sip of water from the podium. “Seven years ago, the curator of the Ascension Museum, Kieran Llewellyn, spotted inconsistencies in the web of lies. Mary Smith seduced him and removed him from access to further information about the shuttle. Recently, as a respected university dean and philanthropist, Kieran discovered more information about Smith’s fraud and came to me for help. Sadly, I wasn’t able to intervene before Stewart Llewellyn killed his uncle to conceal his crimes. Two dozen other witnesses died that night.” The old businessman lowered his head in a moment of reverence.

  A few moments later, the host asked, “Sir, are you saying Sanctuary hasn’t returned?”

  “According to documents in Mary Smith’s files, the Sanctuary crew died in a reactor accident, similar to that of the Kundali probe near Jupiter a few years after. We’re still not sure whether Stewart is the sole survivor of the disaster or the illegitimate child of Mary Smith herself. We believe Kai Llewellyn connected with Mary at the wedding of Mira Hollis, a year before the war.” A photograph appeared on the screen of the dashing Captain Llewellyn dancing with Mary. “Just time enough to give birth to a child before she began her role as the decoy for Mira Hollis. One more secret buried with the death of Sanctuary. However, Ms. Smith has barricaded herself inside her hotel and refuses to undergo genetic or psychological testing.”

  “Psychological?”

  Mori admitted, “Like my own deluded daughter, Mary had long awaited the return of her own lover. The two have been colluding since Kaguya’s release from the asylum. Our working theory is that Mary detonated Sanctuary’s core remotely soon after her sister Mercy married Captain Llewellyn. In addition to revenge, this act gave her ownership of both the Smith Foundation and Fortune Enterprises.”

  The chat room churned like feeding piranhas.

  “None of the ambassador’s stories were true?” asked the host. “What about the technology?”

  “My own granddaughter, Laura, was seduced by these charlatans, pawning off decades of our most secret corporate research as alien technology. The cure for male multi-talent syndrome came from her division of Mori Biotech.” Then, Mori looked at the camera and uttered the line that changed everything for the crew of Sanctuary. “The US has presented supporting evidence to the UN assembly, causing them to cancel the upcoming vote on the nation status of the spaceship. We are forced to accept that the Zeisses and Llewellyns have robbed our world of any access to the gifts of our alien visitors.”

  ****

  “None of that was true!” Pratibha burst out before the interview officially ended. “It’s absurd. How can they doubt our existence?”

  “Enough people will believe the lie,” said Kaguya. “The corporate turmoil caused by his smear campaign will keep Father in charge for months. The question you should ask yourself is why is he baiting you this way?”

  “The best way to disprove him is for a member of the original crew or ship to surface,” Conrad replied. He locked eyes with her, and she knew her plans would work. “They need to draw us out in order to assault Sanctuary. If they succeed in killing us all, the story he’s spreading will allow them to claim the empty ship as salvage.”

  “I think it’s more personal,” Kaguya said. “Father wants the healing pods to save himself. Failing that, he’ll take Stewart’s blood to learn how to double the lifespan of the rich.”

  Conrad nodded. “We have to consider this a no vote from the UN.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Pratibha.

  “Convene a war council with all the senior staff and those with military experience among the recruits,” announced the commander.

  ****

  Having twenty-two people packed into the storage area, all talking at once, made Kaguya’s ears hurt. She sat beside Risa Herkemer because the engineer didn’t speak. She wasn’t sure why Conrad was stalling, and then Stu arrived, barefoot and rubbing his hair with a towel. He looked confused. She made a spot for him on her other side and motioned her son-in-law over.

  Eventually, Conrad whistled for quiet. “Mira is still downstairs in the arrival area. Joan will warn us if she comes out prematurely. We have a special presenter today—Kaguya Mori. There’s been a history of … competitive friction between them.”

  Risa snorted derisively.

  The commander eyed Herk’s wife and asked, “Since you obviously have opinions, what did you think of Mori’s announcement?”

  “The source of the wedding photo worries me,” Risa replied. “I’ve searched my memory, and Gabriela probably took that with her phone.”

  “Mary Smith’s assistant?” Zeiss asked.

  Stu said, “She was missing when we reached the jet. We have to assume corporate security nabbed her when everything went sideways.” He leaned over to tell Risa, “Sorry I lost Herk’s shirt in the embassy attack.”

  “It’s fine,” Risa replied. “You assembled the best medical team on the planet.”

  “Kaguya could add a few more trauma experts from NERO,” said Stu.

  Risa grimaced. “The Moris are our enemies.”

  “Mori Electronics, Lockwell, and one other member of the big five murdered our friends,” the commander summarized.

  “Actually, all three weapons may have been from Koku trying to eliminate Snowflake,” Stu explained. “Oleander is still tracking the components used to build those particular synchrotron generators.” Parts of the radiation laser were strewn all over the decontamination area for analysis.

  Zeiss addressed the group. “Our bluff has been called. We threatened to withhold Magi secrets if the UN refused to grant us protected status. What’s our next move?”

  Stu stood to address the group. “Even if we could trust the UN not to bury the evidence, we can’t present one of our citizens as proof. They’ll claim cloning because none of you looks old enough except Oleander.”

  “Thanks. That’s the last time I’ll spend thirteen years of my life helping to raise you,” the Nordic blonde said. “But I see your point. Because of her Ethics Page, Yvette is the only one the UN could believe, and she has big holes in her memory.”

  Zeiss asked, “Should we give the ship to them? Technically, Sanctuary belongs to the entire human race.”

  “They’re not mature enough yet,” Risa argued. “You don’t give an infant that sort of destructive power.”

  “True. What we do with the ship may be as much of a test as Labyrinth was. Who votes to give the UN the ship and throw ourselves on their mercy?” Zeiss nodded when not a single hand was raised. “Right. So we’ve appointed ourselves the keeper of secrets for our race. Do we hide on the other side of the sun like some sort of Antichthon, the Counter-Earth?”

  Yvette raised her hand to speak. “I think we all signed on to explore other planets and start a colony. If the UN doesn’t wake up, we head there without them.”

  Everyone but Zeiss indicated agreement i
n some fashion. The commander said, “We justified stealing the artifact temporarily for the greater good. That’s a slippery slope without absolute rules and compassion for our fellow humans.”

  “The bad guys won,” said Risa. “They’re in charge.”

  “Is there anything we should give to select countries before we leave?” Zeiss asked.

  Pratibha shook her head. “We can’t just give tech to one side, or we risk global war.”

  Then Zeiss asked, “Would there be any harm in giving them the data about the Labyrinth pandas or the planets?”

  “The ambassador already gave enough away,” one of the newcomers argued.

  Zeiss spread his hands. “What’s done is done. He traded for your lives. I think he brought an excellent return on our investment.”

  “Stu just updated his will, and that got me thinking,” Pratibha said. “Our ship has been marooned and come near death several times. What happens to all our precious information if the universe or another ambush wipes us out? I mean, humanity won’t get this gift again.”

  “I like the idea of leaving data archives, but we have to be careful,” Stu said. “I planted several copies of my UN speech on the university servers before we left and rigged it to broadcast in the event of my disappearance. Nothing made it out, not even the plea for women’s rights. The corporations squashed it all.”

  “Maybe we give the tech to the Amish for safekeeping?”

  “The failsafe holder doesn’t have to be against technology, merely have compassion and nothing to gain from early distribution,” Risa said. “We could entrust it to some charity that gets an annual stipend for not revealing the information.”

  Zeiss scribbled notes. “For how long?”

  The group consensus settled on a quiet period of eighty or a hundred years, until Actives were the majority.

  Kaguya said, “NERO has legal mechanisms for miners in the asteroid belts in the event of disasters. I’ll look into leveraging one of those to bestow our legacy.”

  “Earth won’t last that long without us. Billions are starving,” Stu said. “Perhaps some of the refinements we made to the ecology equations here could help.”

  “So we give them enough to survive and put conditions on the rest?” Zeiss suggested.

  The group liked this idea. Several shouted out ideas that would demonstrate progress, such as equal rights for women and enforcement of existing human-rights laws. Risa added, “They should also disband the companies responsible for attacking us.”

  “A stroke of a pen, and they’re back in business under another name,” Kaguya explained.

  “So we reformat the entire board of directors,” Risa said. “The bastards will learn eventually.”

  Kaguya licked her lips. She wouldn’t get a better opening. “Oleander, Yvette, Eowyn, and I have a plan that will strike my father where it hurts him most, as well as provide cover for your rescue of Miss Smith and the other invitees. We can even leverage Sif’s contacts in Chinese Intelligence to handle the bulk of the risk.”

  “Why would China assist us?” asked Conrad. “For that matter, why would we ask? They’re the ones who called for the atomic retaliation on Alcantara.”

  “Because Koku sees China as the biggest economic and military adversary on the planet, my father has been blackmailing them for years with a series of scorched-earth measures called The Seven Seals. This package includes bioweapons that specifically target ethnic Han. They don’t dare act against Father directly, or the failsafe engages.” Kaguya walked over to hand Conrad her ring and notes. “By ethically reformatting Koku, we disrupt the heart of Father’s empire and remove the threat to the Chinese. In my ring are access codes to Mori Electronics data vaults, as well as the NERO resources you need to succeed with your mission. All I ask is the chance to prove myself.”

  “You always were good at sales,” Conrad admitted. He plugged the ring into the Sanctuary network, and a design for a colony supply ship appeared on the wall. “You have until Laura emerges from decontamination to pitch your plan. If these advisors agree, then we all have to sell the idea to my wife.”

  Kaguya approached the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and began drawing circles. “Dark lab seven is a cluster of small, cupped craters that began as a profitable mine for titanium and iron. The biggest is less than a kilometer high and under ten across. The surface around the craters is rich in ilmenite, titanium, and iron necessary for building and repairing spaceships. In the first step, the mining company cannibalized the meteoric iron at the center of each crater to construct a smelting facility.”

  “Why in the craters?” asked Zeiss.

  “Because the lighter colored material uncovered by the impacts is anorthite, which had aluminum, silicon, and magnesium for manufacturing the living quarters.” She sketched an inner and outer ring around the main crater, plus bubbles at each crater and tunnels between. “Once the war was over, the demand for titanium on Dark Side plummeted, and Mori bought the base cheap for waste storage. One side effect of the ore density and magnetism, however, was to shield the base from orbital observation. Seven became a black lab, the home for several of the most ambitious experiments Mori Electronics has ever attempted, including self-deploying power grids.”

  Meanwhile, Stu studied the NERO ship design with interest. He interrupted the briefing several times to compliment on the innovative aspects and how well it complemented Sanctuary.

  Chapter 45 – Honeymoon

  Laura woke in a round shower stall, coughing gobbets of purplish goo. The urge to purge wracked her body so hard it brought tears to her eyes. Mira knelt beside her. “It’s all right. Get it all out. Deep breaths.”

  Deeply embarrassed, Laura dripped with slime and shivered until Mira lowered a spray nozzle of warm water. When Laura could stand and rinse her own hair, Mira exited via a frosted-glass door.

  Examining her legs, Laura noted that her collection of bruises and scratches were gone. After she finally felt human again, she stepped out of the shower.

  Her biological mother introduced her to a full-body blow dryer and warned, “Don’t have unprotected sex until you check in with Yvette. The alien cleansing eliminates most forms of birth control as unwanted foreign material that disrupts the body’s natural functions.”

  “Speaking from a strictly design point of view, yeah.” Laura pulled on a new flight suit. She tried not laugh when her mother gave her a bundle of condoms. Zipping them into her front pocket, she noticed the nametag was simply Laura. “Isn’t a first name unusual for a paramilitary organization.”

  “Stu didn’t know your last name when he invited you, but we knew his intentions were serious.”

  Laura ran her fingers along the gold lettering. “This doesn’t feel real.”

  Mira said, “Maybe if I showed you the rest of the habitat?” She leapt into the control room, waving to Joan.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Stu?” At the large airlock to the habitat, Laura tugged on soft boots.

  “He’s already in debriefing. The pods arrive in order. I had to threaten him to get him to leave. My spending time with you first gets him off the hook for jumping in the sack with you so fast.”

  “Pft. Took me a month to wear him down. If I’d had my way, I’d have thrown him on the table during our first dinner together.”

  Mira opened her eyes wide. “I forgot you had a more … liberal upbringing.”

  “What? You didn’t wrap men around your little finger with Empathy?”

  “That’s different.” Mira changed the topic of conversation by opening the golden door.

  The view outside momentarily robbed Laura of speech. Bouncing out onto the gray paneled boardwalk, Laura admired the architecture. Above, the saucer was ringed with a pergola made of antigravity tiles. She stood on the railing of what resembled a water tower inside a giant hamster ball. A floating staircase spiraled down toward the greenery of the habitat. “Everything is so lush. I’ve never seen so many different types of crops in one pl
ace.”

  “It helps that the biosphere has no seasons and that we control the weather. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to harvest everything we need.”

  Descending the staircase felt like a dream. Each step, she weighed a little more and fell faster. She could see a swamp below with a yellow brick road leading toward the other hemisphere. When Laura reached the pecan trees, she said, “It’s a paradise.”

  “It’s a lot of work,” Mira replied. “The trip to the settlement takes about forty minutes.”

  Now that they were alone, Laura resumed the previous discussion. “So you never seduced a man?”

  “Tried a couple times—epic fails. My height and my bra size were stunted until I was sixteen, to reduce complications from being a multi.”

  “Even as the shortest one on the team, everyone in this biosphere is intimidated by you, and you made the UN’s Most Wanted list. So kudos for attitude.”

  “As a prodigy, I was always better at math than people,” Mira admitted.

  “They wouldn’t let me do math, but DNA just made sense to me. I didn’t have friends growing up other than my m—Kaguya. I didn’t have dark hair and eyes like the girls at my school. Nana turned the few who tolerated me into competition. Later, I thought boys would be a substitute for peer approval. If they wanted me, I felt better about myself.”

  “But that type of friendship doesn’t last,” Mira said. “You just feel worse when you find out the truth.”

  “Stu is different—honest. Being around him is …”

  “Stewart is sweet and has great spatial abilities, but he’s not in your league in so many ways. Are you sure you’re not rushing into this?”