Galactic Empires

by Neil Clarke

  Which I guess is why I’m here watching you squinch your eyes shut while the sound of that second gunshot fades into the air.

  Watching you process a nightmare into a vision.

  Watching you build a pearl around a grain of bloody truth.

  Watching you go fast.

  The bodiless Carlotta hovers awhile longer in the fixed and changeless corridors of the past.

  Eventually, the long night ends. Raw red sunlight finds the window.

  Last dawn this small world will ever see, as it happens; but the young Carlotta doesn’t know that yet.

  Now that the universe has finished its current iteration, all its history is stored in transdimensional metaspace like a book on a shelf—it can’t be changed. Truly so. I guess I know that now, girl. Memory plays tricks that history corrects.

  And I guess that’s why the Old Ones let me have access to these events, as we hover on the brink of a new creation.

  I know some of the questions you’d ask me if you could. You might say, Where are you really? And I’d say, I’m at the end of all things, which is really just another beginning. I’m walking in a great garden of dark matter, while all things known and baryonic spiral up the ladder of unification energies to a fiery new dawn. I have grown so large, girl, that I can fly down history like a bird over a prairie field. But I cannot remake what has already been made. That is one power I do not possess.

  I watch you get out of bed. I watch you dress. Blue jeans with tattered hems, a man’s lumberjack shirt, those thrift-shop Reeboks. I watch you go to the kitchen and fill your vinyl Bratz backpack with bottled water and Tootsie Rolls, which is all the cuisine your meth-addled mother has left in the cupboards.

  Then I watch you tiptoe into Abby’s bedroom. I confess I don’t remember this part, girl. I suppose it didn’t fit my fantasy about a benevolent ghost. But here you are, your face fixed in a willed indifference, stepping over Dan-O’s corpse. Dan-O bled a lot after Abby Boudaine blew a hole in his chest, and the carpet is a sticky rust-colored pond.

  I watch you pull Dan-O’s ditty bag from where it lies half under the bed. On the bed, Abby appears to sleep. The pistol is still in her hand. The hand with the pistol in it rests beside her head. Her head is damaged in ways the young Carlotta can’t stand to look at. Eyes down, girl. That’s it.

  I watch you pull a roll of bills from the bag and stuff it into your pack. Won’t need that money where you’re going! But it’s a wise move, taking it. Commendable forethought.

  Now go.

  I have to go too. I feel Erasmus waiting for me, feel the tug of his love and loyalty, gentle and inevitable as gravity. He used to be a machine older than the dirt under your feet, Carlotta Boudaine, but he became a man—my man, I’m proud to say. He needs me, because it’s no easy thing crossing over from one universe to the next. There’s always work to do, isn’t that the truth?

  But right now, you go. You leave those murderous pills on the night-stand, find that highway. Don’t be afraid. Don’t wait. Don’t get caught. Just go. Go fast. And excuse me while I take my own advice.

  Jack Campbell (John G. Hemry) is the author of the New York Times bestselling Lost Fleet series, the Lost Stars series, and the “steampunk with dragons” Pillars of Reality series. His most recent books are The Lost Stars: Shattered Spear, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan, and the Pillars of Reality novels The Servants of the Storm and The Wrath of the Great Guilds. Later this year, Vanguard will be published, the first in a new trilogy set centuries before the events in The Lost Fleet series. John’s novels have been published in eleven languages. This year, Titan will begin bringing out a Lost Fleet comic series. His short fiction includes works covering time travel, alternate history, space opera, military SF, fantasy, and humor.

  John is a retired US Navy officer who served in a wide variety of jobs, including surface warfare (the ship drivers of the Navy), amphibious warfare, anti-terrorism, intelligence, and some other things that he’s not supposed to talk about. Being a sailor, he has been known to tell stories about Events Which He Says Really Happened (but which cannot be verified by any independent sources). This experience has served him well in writing fiction. He lives in Maryland with his indomitable wife “S” and three great kids (all three on the autism spectrum).

  SECTION SEVEN

  John G. Hemry

  Valentía looked beautiful from orbit, but then most planets did. Foster gave the world a weary traveler’s worth of attention as the lander glided down, reflecting that from a great distance you couldn’t encounter temperature extremes or rough terrain or the bites of bugs that wanted to eat you even if they couldn’t digest you. Not to mention encountering the people, who were always the source of the particular problems Foster dealt with.

  The customs official barely glanced at Foster’s standard ID before feeding it into his desk scanner. A moment later, the ID popped back out onto the counter where he could pick it up.

  “HaveanicestayonValentiaMr.Oaks,” the official mumbled before reaching for the ID offered by the next traveler.

  Foster retrieved his ID, took two steps past the customs desk, and found himself facing a trio of individuals wearing dark uniforms and stern faces. One of the port police officers held out her hand. “May I examine your ID, sir?”

  “Uh, of course.” Foster let his own expression show an appropriate level of surprise and a hint of worry as he fished out the ID again. “Is something wrong?”

  The officer took the ID and slid it into a portable reader before answering. “Just a random check, Mr. Oaks. Valentia wants to make sure all travelers have good stays here. What brings you to Valentia?”

  Foster smiled with the practiced enthusiasm of a sales professional. “I represent Inner Systems Simulations. You’ve heard of ISS?”

  The officer’s responding smile was both polite and brief. “No. Sorry.”

  “We make some of the finest entertainment software. Just in the Inner Systems right now, but we want to expand our market. If you’d like, I can show you some of our—.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” The officer removed the ID from her scanner and returned it to Foster. “Have a nice visit to Valentia, Mr. Oaks.”

  Foster smiled back with the same degree of professional insincerity, though his smile could’ve been genuine. Posing as a sales professional had numerous advantages, not the least of which was the ability to drive away questioners by beginning to offer a sales pitch. It never hurt to cut short an interview, even though his false IDs couldn’t be spotted by any scanner and his cover story was solid.

  Outside of the port terminal Foster squinted against the brightness of Valentia’s sun. He hailed a cab by raising one hand in a gesture understood everywhere humanity had gone, directing it to the short-term rental business apartment complex where Mr. Oaks had his reservation. Foster didn’t bother looking around for anyone tailing his cab, since that would have been a tip-off he thought he might be followed. Instead, he watched the scenery roll by with every appearance of boredom.

  Foster checked in, went up to an apartment whose interior decoration could’ve placed it on any of a score of worlds, and swiftly changed clothes. The Valentian styles in his bag hadn’t aroused any suspicion at Customs, since many tourists didn’t want to look like tourists. A few minutes later, he was leaving the apartment complex by a different way than that he’d entered through. A brisk walk took him to a restaurant, where he paused to examine the menu in the window while also checking the reflection for anyone following him. There weren’t any apparent candidates, but Foster took the precaution of checking for tails in two other restaurant or shop windows before entering an establishment promising authentic Italian cuisine using the finest native Valentian ingredients.

  Like all sit-down restaurants, it had restrooms. And like most restrooms, these were located near a service entrance. Foster had no trouble leaving via that entrance, then criss-crossing further into the city before finally entering a hotel and reg
istering there as Juan Feres using another one of his IDs. Only after reaching his room there did Foster actually unpack.

  His data pad linked to the local net with some difficulty, causing Foster to frown. Once linked, he located the local classified ads and searched for the one he wanted, one advertising antique Beta videotapes for sale at prices too high for anyone to be interested. Foster called up on his data pad an ecopy of a venerable novel entitled Dykstra’s War and went to the page that correlated with the Standard Federation Julian Date. The prices and titles of the Beta tapes provided coded links to words on that page, giving Foster a phone number in the city.

  The phone number was answered by a recording. Foster waited until the ancient sign of the beep sounded and spoke his message. “Juan here. I’m at the Grand Frontera Hotel, Room 354. I have a message from your sister Kelly on Innisfree.”

  Then Foster waited. After a bit, he began wishing he’d paused long enough to pick up some of the authentic Italian/Valentian food. Room Service provided an overpriced and overcooked plate of ’authentic nachos’ which in addition to chips and cheese included some sort of small fish filets and what appeared to be a raw egg cracked into the center of the plate. Foster sighed, chewed some of the latest stomach calming medicines available in the inner systems, then ate carefully around the egg, or whatever it was. Dealing with local tastes in food was just one of the occupational hazards of his job.

  A soft tone announced his room had received mail. He checked the message, ensuring its enthusiastic response included the counterphrase needed to confirm it’d come from his Valentian contact. Referring to Dyk-stra’s War again, Foster decoded the information in the reply to find an address in the city.

  The local mapping system balked at working with his data pad, causing Foster to frown again. He finally got the directions he needed, saw his destination was too far to walk, and headed for the public transit system, carrying his bag along. It didn’t do to leave bags unattended in hotel rooms if you could help it. Especially bags whose shielded, wafer-thin concealed compartments contained a variety of false IDs as well as other useful materials.

  Sitting on the subway gave Foster a decent excuse to idly glance around. None of the other passengers seemed to be suspicious, and none left at his stop. Foster nonetheless took a circuitous route to his destination, weaving back and forth along several blocks and checking unobtrusively for tails, before finally reaching the doorway of a private residence.

  A nondescript man of medium size and build answered Foster’s ring. “Hello. Are you Juan?”

  “That’s me. Wide and free from Innisfree.” Foster winced internally at the code phrase. He didn’t make them up, but he had to say them.

  “I wasn’t sure Kelly had left Barbadan. Is she still engaged to Collin?”

  Foster nodded. “Now and forever.”

  Sign, countersign, and counter-countersign exchanged, the man let Foster in, closing the door carefully behind them, and led the way into the house, bringing Foster to a nicely laid-out library room and closing that door as well before speaking again. “I’m Kila. Jason Kila. Welcome to Valentia.”

  “Gordon Foster. This room’s secure?”

  “Tight as a drum. No one can see or hear us.”

  Foster sat in the nearest chair and leaned back, relaxing for the first time since he’d arrived on Valentia. “Can you bring me up to date?”

  Kila sat down as well and shrugged. “Not much has changed since my last report. Just more of the same.”

  “I noticed compatibility problems with the local software.”

  “Oh, yeah. They’ve got this operating system they claim is easier to use and more reliable than Federation standard, and also fully compatible. Some of the stuff in it is easier to use, other’s harder. I don’t know about the reliable part. I do know it’s less and less compatible every time they tweak it.”

  “We’ll have to take care of that.”

  Kila grinned, his lips drawing back to expose his back teeth. “You’ve got authority to act?”

  Foster nodded. “Once I’ve heard everything. What else?”

  “Here.” Kila fished in one pocket, then tossed a small object at Foster. “Local ammo.”

  “Hmm.” Foster frowned down at the bullet. “It’s too small for 9mm and seems too big for 5.6mm.”

  “Right. Good eye. It’s 6.8mm.”

  “Six point eight?” Foster let exasperation show. “Why the hell are they producing ammunition incompatible with Federation small arms standards?”

  Kila rolled his eyes disdainfully. “They wanted one round for pistols and rifles. So they picked something smaller than a 9mm pistol round and bigger than a 5.6mm rifle round. They call it universal ammo.”

  “Universal?” Foster laughed. “They create a new ammunition type incompatible with Federation standards and then label it universal? I guess I should give Valentia credit for sheer gall.”

  “Yeah. Between the operating system and the ammunition, we’ve got a slowly accelerating gap developing between Valentia and the rest of the Federation. There’s already talk about altering the mass transit gauge ’to better suit local conditions.’ It’s all in my report.”

  “What about the Federation demarches to Valentia demanding conformity to standards? Has there been anything about those in the local press? Any public debate?”

  “Nope.” Kila shook his head for emphasis. “The government’s sitting on the demarches. There’s been a few questions raised about diverging standards, but they’re very isolated. Most locals don’t see it as anything to worry about.”

  “Okay. Valentia thinks they can sit in their own little corner of the Federation and do whatever they want.” Foster flipped the bullet back to Kila.

  Kila snagged the shiny object and eyed Foster. “Pretty much. What do we get to do about it?”

  Foster turned up the corners of his mouth in a humorless smile. “We get to mess with a few things.”

  “Yee-hah. When do we start?”

  “Right now. Have we got a software engineer on planet?”

  Kila nodded. “Of course. Janeen Yule. She’s very good.”

  “Give her this.” Foster slid open the heel of his shoe, revealing another shielded compartment, and removed a data coin. “It contains a worm called Black Clown.”

  “Black Clown?” Kila took the coin gingerly, turning it over between two fingers. “What’s it do?”

  “It makes things harder. Have Yule make any necessary changes to match it to Valentia’s new operating system. Once we introduce it onto the Valentian net it’ll propagate like crazy.”

  “The Valentian firewalls won’t stop it?”

  “No.”

  Kila clearly wanted to ask more, but simply nodded. “I’ll get it to Yule. Are you sure you don’t want to hand it off personally? Yule might have some questions for you.”

  “If she does, you pass them to me. I want to maintain tight compart-mentalization of this operation. I don’t need to know what Yule’s local cover is.”

  “You’re the boss.” The coin disappeared into Kila’s clothing. “What about the ammunition?”

  “I’ll need access to the fabrication module controllers in the manufacturing facilities. For the ammunition, and for the firearms the Valentians are building to use that stuff.”

  Kila’s brow furrowed for a moment. “You’ll need to work directly with one of our on-planet people for that. Not Yule. Jane Smith.”

  “Jane Smith?”

  “Yeah.” Kila grinned. “Her real name sounds like a cover name. Jane’s burrowed into the Valentian bureaucracy. She can get you that access and not leave any fingerprints.”

  “Cool. It’s good to have a friend in the bureaucracy.”

  Kila smiled again, then looked at Foster questioningly. “Speaking of bureaucrats, I heard that rumor again. The one about our pensions and stuff not being honored because officially we don’t exist as Federation employees.”

  “There’s no truth in that. We
’re covered. Every one of us has an official and totally innocuous identity within the Federation government. I’ve personally confirmed that. Those identities have nothing to do with our real work, but they’re accruing all the benefits we’re entitled to.”

  “All of us? Everybody in Section Seven?”

  Foster frowned and held up a warning hand. “That doesn’t exist,” he reminded Kila in a soft voice.

  Kila looked like he was trying to eat his last words. “Damn. Sorry.”

  “Just don’t say it again.”

  “I won’t. I never say it. I don’t know why I said—.”

  “Said what?”

  “Why I said . . . ” Kila finally got the idea. “Nothing. So, it’s a go?”

  “Yes. I’ll stay at the Frontera a few more days and then shift hotels. Is the number from the classified ad good for contacting you routinely?”

  “Now and then. Don’t worry about coming by here. It’s a mixed business and residential district, so there’s always lots of foot traffic. You won’t stand out.”

  “Good location. Nice work.”

  Foster met Jane Smith two days later at a public park. She wore nice but not flashy business attire which made her look more professional than attractive. “Tatya Ostov. Bureau of Inspections.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Foster felt a data coin slide into his palm as they shook hands.

  “Yes. I understand you’ve come from the Genese Islands to help out in my branch. I appreciate your help, Mr. Danato.”

  “I’m glad to be here, Ms. Ostov.”

  “Your first inspection is set for tomorrow. Please report in to the Bureau front desk first thing in the morning. I’ll go over your schedule then.”

  “Thank you.” Smith/Ostov left, and Foster made his way to the next-closest library to pop the coin into his data pad. It contained all the information he needed to memorize about his role as Julio Danato, facilities inspector from the isolated Genese Island chain brought in temporarily to help eliminate an inspection backlog at the bureau.