Come the Revolution (23 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

One problem in Sookagrad those days was the lack of privacy. Folks had been pretty packed together before everything started going to hell, and events since then had compounded the problem. Moshe got us the use of Doc Mahajan’s office and left the three of us alone there. He displayed more sensitivity to our “family issue” than I thought necessary, but when someone offers you a thoughtful and generous gesture, accept it and shut up.

I sat behind Doc’s desk and my father sank into the chair across from me, eyes on the floor. Aurora stood leaning against the wall, full of nervous energy which seemed to keep her from sitting still.

“So what do you know?” I asked her.

“She knows nothing,” our father said without looking up.

“How could I live with you, then near you, for a quarter of a century and not know
something
?” she demanded. “You didn’t think I was curious? I am an investigative reporter. You never thought I investigated
you
?”

For the first time he looked up and at her. Panic flashed across his face, and then he as quickly looked away. I glanced at her and saw her blink once, slowly, then look steadily at her father as she resumed talking. He wasn’t watching, so I don’t think he realized that everything from then on was being recorded.

“Peezgtaan was full of biochemists,” she said, “all of them suddenly no longer employed by AZ Tissopharm or Simki-Traak. Don’t you wonder, Sasha, why AZ Kagataan would single out this one biochemist and offer to rescue him from the chaos engulfing that world?”

“The question crossed my mind.”

She looked at our father before continuing. “You published five papers before we emigrated to Peezgtaan, three of them on exotic neurotoxins. Once you were on Peezgtaan, no more publications. Why?”

He shrugged. “All my work there was proprietary.”

“Yes, the intellectual property of AZ Tissopharm. But then Tissopharm dissolved, and the research was still in your head. What was it you were working on which AZ Kagataan wanted so desperately?”

He looked up and grimaced. “If they had wanted it ‘desperately,’ they would have provided four seats, not two. What difference does it make now? There were potential commercial applications from some of the neurotoxins in the Peezgtaan native-form molds—psychotropic drugs.”

She laughed. “You haven’t been working for twenty-seven years on psychotropic drugs. The CSJ did not send four assassins to silence you over
psychotropic drugs!
I don’t know all the details, but much of it began making sense to me two years ago, when it finally came out that the Peezgtaan native mold forms are based on Human-compatible protein. You are developing Human-specific weaponized biotoxins, aren’t you?”

I watched his head twitch just a little, his eyes flick up, then to the right, and I knew he was making up a lie.

He blinked a couple times and then nodded. “Yes, I admit it. It is true. We have developed several neurotoxin protein strains which are Human-specific.”

So then he told us about how AZ Kagataan had been working on weaponized biotoxins, covertly, for about twenty years, how the psychotropic drug research had mutated into this black op—black because there was a whole string of
Cottohazz
Wat
edicts out there banning bioweapon research. He had a lot of detail, stuff which could only be known by someone on the inside, which made the story very persuasive. Aurora listened intently, nodding from time to time, almost glowing with the satisfaction that came from vindication and confirmation after years of growing suspicion.

Back in the old country they had a word:
maskuvannya—
the Russians said
maskirovka,
same thing. It meant deception, a scam to convince someone one thing is true in order to conceal a different, bigger truth.
Maskuvannya
always worked best when you tried to convince someone that what they already
wanted
to believe was in fact true.

The use, by one species, of bugs which killed another sentient species but left their own unaffected could tear the
Cottohazz
apart and lead to a massive interstellar war along species lines, possibly a war to extinction. As much friction as there was in the
Cottohazz
, it never quite broke unambiguously along species lines, which is probably why the ramshackle commonwealth had managed to stagger on for so long. This bioweapon stuff was a really, really big deal, which is what made it such a persuasive
maskuvannya
. Aurora was buying it because she wanted to be right about her suspicions, and it was potentially the biggest story in a generation. I pretended to buy it, but I wondered what it was hiding.

What could be a bigger secret than
that
?

* * *

I sent the old man back to Katranjiev’s headquarters building along with an armed guard, told the guard to keep him there under restraint. My father was potentially valuable, but I didn’t want him under foot where folks were doing important work. That was probably unfair to all the folks working long hours at headquarters, but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing or what difference it made. Not their fault Katranjiev had mired himself in bureaucracy, but they could keep an eye on the old man in between processing requests to be added to the official membership rolls of the Sookagrad Merchants’ and Citizens’ Association, and then updating same. Maybe they’d put him to work collating or something.

I asked Aurora to stay and she finally sat down, as if the old man not being around took away the tension that kept her so wired up.

“This CSJ guy we caught is fitted with a bio-recorder,” I said. “I’m wondering if there’s any way to erase its memory without killing him.”

She kept looking right at me, her eyes not moving. “Why would you ask me?”

We sat there looking each other in the eyes for a few seconds, and then her expression changed from mild curiosity to rueful surrender.

“How long have you known?”

“Since back on Stal’s rooftop, the night of the big attack.”

She nodded. “Not many people know about bio-recorders, not that they are a big secret. There’s just not much interest or demand outside of a couple narrow fields. I’m not recording this, by the way. The agent knows things you don’t want to get out, but you don’t want to kill him. That’s interesting.”

“Yeah,” I said, “interesting and possibly academic. I may get outvoted, not that I really have a vote, but if we did want to keep him alive is there a way to wipe his recorder’s memory?”

She looked down and thought for a few seconds, then looked up again. “You want to wipe my recorder memory as well?”

I didn’t actually, but if I said so, there was as much chance she’d take it as a deceptive attempt to manipulate her, and put her on the defensive, as there was she’d believe me. I didn’t know her well enough to guess which way she’d break.

“No promises,” I said.

She nodded a couple times, thinking that over. Finally she shrugged. “Yes, you can wipe his system memory with a strong electromagnet focused on the memory field, which is usually along the forward surface of the spine, between the third and sixth vertebrae. At least that’s where mine is. Your med techs can find it with bio-scanners set to look for silicon. That will also temporarily disable his recorder until he can get it reprogrammed.”

“Okay, thanks. And no, I’m not going to scrub your recorder memory. We may need it down the road.”

“What do you want here?” she asked. “And I’m still not recording. I just want to know.”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “What do any of us want? To survive this mess, to get back to our families, to get on with lives.”

“The same lives as before?” she asked. “The same shabby dead-end lives as always?”

Good question. Want it or not, I didn’t see how life could ever get back to just exactly what it was before, but if not the same, then what? Better or worse? Hopefully better, but how?

“There are a lot of non-Varoki in the
Cottohazz
,” I said. “If we can get the bulk of them to see what’s going on here, what’s going on under all the public slogans about consent of the governed and rights of the races, maybe we’ll see some real changes.”

She looked away and pursed her lips in thought, but then shook her head. “Hard to see how. I’ve been covering it for a decade now, all the political wheeling and dealing. The intellectual property covenants are at the heart of the economic stranglehold the Varoki trading houses have over the whole
Cottohazz
, and those aren’t changing.”

“Why not? The Varoki have fewer than 40 votes out of 172 in the
Cottohazz
Wat
.”

“The IP covenants are not legislation,” she said, “they’re integral to the
Cottohazz
charter, and that cannot be amended without a supermajority.”

“What’s a supermajority?”

“It’s an absolute majority of every one of the six circles, the six races. You can’t alter that, or any other part of the charter, without getting a majority of the Varoki
wattaaks
to agree.”

Huh! Well, so much for plan A. That wasn’t going to happen, was it? I figured Plan B was Zdravkova’s answer: a revolt, maybe even open warfare between the races. But I was pretty sure we’d get our asses kicked, given the economic and technological differences, and that was even without some Human-specific superbug AZ Kagataan might or might not have perfected. That could leave Humans knocked back to our own world, maybe bombed back to the stone age, and that’s if crazies like Gaant didn’t get in charge and just solve the “Human Problem” once and for all.

So what was Plan C?

Well, I guessed whatever it was it was above my pay grade. I had a family to survive for and get back to. Unconventional and multispecies as that family might be, as far as I was concerned it was still the only real family I had, these two new strange blood-acquaintances notwithstanding.

* * *

“Naradnyo, shake your lazy ass and get out here!” I heard Zdravkova shout to me through the open doorway of Ivanov’s main fabrication building, which was starting to look like a mad scientist’s workshop. I handed back the long composite penetrator dart with the tungsten tip and walked over to see what was up.

“What?” I said. Brilliant sunlight poured through the open doorway, all but blinding me, as my eyes had adjusted to the dim interior of Ivanov’s lair. I stepped out and felt the sun warm my skin, and I smiled. I’ve always loved sunny days, and now even more so since sunlight meant electricity, electricity to run autodocs and fabricators, cook food and light shelters, charge gauss rifle magazines, and even store up some extra juice in those scavenged vehicle battery packs for a rainy day.
Literally
for a rainy day.

“What’s got you so excited?” I asked.

“Some more refugees snuck through the militia lines this afternoon,” she said. “I’m damned if I know what to do with them, but they should tickle you.”

My eyes were adjusting to the light and I saw a group of tall refugees, about a dozen of them, walking down the street. When I recognized who they were I sucked in a quick breath and felt my skin tingle with the sudden jolt of adrenaline.

“
Varoki
refugees? Coming
here
? Why?”

I walked over and stood beside her as she watched them approach.

“Because they heard we were holding out against the militia,” she said. “Because they’re loyalists, because the junta was demanding they sign loyalty pledges, taking over their homes, starting to arrest folks. Because somehow they heard about Captain Prayzaat’s appeal, and they think we’re the closest Municipal Police.

“What the hell do we do with them?”

I looked at her and I saw something shining in her eyes.

“You know what we do with them. We protect them. It’s our job. We
are
the police.”

She looked at them for several long seconds, then sniffed and shook her head, but in wonder rather than negation. “This is so strange,” she said, her voice hoarse.

Yes it was: strange and terrible and wonderful.

I looked back at the refugees, and then I had another jolt as I recognized one of the faces.

“Borro?”

The’On’s
personal bodyguard, who I’d last seen the day of the first riots in Praha-Riz, left the group and walked over to me. He was dirty, clothes torn, and half his face and head was concealed in a bloody bandage. We shook hands.

“Hello Sasha. I had almost despaired of ever seeing you again, but I thought if you were still alive I might find you here. I am afraid I have some very bad news.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

My face flushed, I felt dizzy with fear, and a surge of panic constricted my chest and throat, but I swallowed hard and found my voice.

“Marr? Has something happened to her? Is it Tweezaa? Is the baby all right?”

Borro must have recognized the look in my eyes for what it was and he stepped forward, put his hands on my shoulders.

“No, your family is safe and well, Sasha. E-Lotonaa as well. I am sorry if I made you think otherwise. Please put your mind to rest on that score.”

Relief didn’t exactly flood through my system. The panic which came to visit had been too real, so it hung around for a while, sizing things up. I clenched my fists to keep my hands from trembling, forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply, from down in my belly. That doesn’t make you less afraid, but it helps relax your throat and upper body, which keeps your voice from shaking. That’s important. When you can’t
not
be afraid, all you have is not showing it. I saw Zdravkova beside me, watching me, surprised at what she saw.

“What?” I asked her, and it came out harsher than I intended.

“Nothing,” she said, and turned to Borro. “So is the bad news personal for Naradnyo, or do we all get to share the joy?”

“I am afraid the latter,” Borro said.

* * *

“This is Borro, the personal bodyguard for The Honorable Arigapaa e-Lotonaa of the Consular Corps of the
Cottohazz
Executive,” I said, introducing him to the troika and Captain Prayzaat. I turned to him. “You know, as long as I’ve known you, I don’t know the rest of your name.”

“Borro is sufficient, my friend,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s sufficient for me anyway.” I turned back to the others. “I’ve known Borro for over two years, went through hell with him on K’Tok, and almost got killed with him during the first riot at Praha-Riz. I trust him with my life. You don’t know him so I’m sure you’re skeptical, and I understand. But for whatever value you place on it, I vouch for him.”

We were gathered in Captain Prayzaat’s small headquarters, or at least the room dressed as a holovid set to look like one. He’d spent the last few days here, holed up with his three troopers with not much constructive to do. We tried to keep him informed, sought his advice when we had time, but he probably had a lot more influence outside of Sookagrad than inside it. The only people in Sookagrad outside this room who knew he was even here were his three patrolmen and Ted, the vid tech. I think Aurora was beginning to suspect, but she probably wasn’t sure yet. Just bringing Borro into the circle required a major leap of faith on the troika’s part, but they’d done it without much persuasion once they got a load of what he had to say.

“I appreciate your assessment, Mr. Naradnyo,” Captain Prayzaat said. “Do you believe there is a possibility this new intelligence is linked to the CSJ raid last night?”

My initial reaction was to just deny it, but I realized there were a lot of ways they could be related, and I took a little while to think about them, but I ended up shaking my head anyway.

“Not directly. I mean, I don’t think CSJ is working with the junta or the militia. Gaant’s speech that first day of the coup, the one about how ‘the
Cottohazz
can rot’ is just the sort of thing to make the provosts roll their eyes back up into their heads and swallow their tongues. Really, I can hardly think of anything more calculated to drive those guys into a seizure than talk like that. The
Cottohazz
forever, that’s what CSJ believes. From their point of view, the Gaantists are worse bad guys than we are.”

“And the raid?” Prayzaat asked.

“Only reason CSJ would try to kill my father is if he knew something which, if revealed, would damage or destabilize the
Cottohazz
.” I then spent a moment thinking about that. Other than a species-specific superbug, what could a biochemist specializing in exotic neurotoxins know which could destabilize the
Cottohazz
?

“You said no direct relation,” he said. “But indirectly?”

Katranjiev jumped into the discussion. “Their raid and the military buildup could be independent responses to a common external pressure. Your appeals and directives, Captain Prayzaat, along with our local bulletins, must be paying off. They must both feel as if the time for action is running out, that whatever is going to get done has to get done right now.”

For a change, I thought Katranjiev might have hit the nail on the head. Prayzaat nodded as well.

“Very well, let me hear the details of this buildup.”

Borro repeated what he’d already told the rest of us, but in more detail this time. Lots of logistical units, supply dumps, mess facilities, and mobile med units for casualty treatment. Headquarters in place along with laser communication hubs, which would cut through the jamming provided they had a line of sight to their receiver. The logistics people had been showing up all last night and this morning, and now the first combat units were arriving: APCs carrying regular infantry, some light combat walkers, and at least a handful of gunsleds that Borro had seen himself, out west of our lines. He hadn’t seen any indirect fire support assets, but he’d been close to our lines when the combat units started showing. The support weapons, if they were there, would be farther to the rear.

This was a real army moving in, not the militia, not a bunch of yokels pumped up on big talk and then slapped down so hard they’d had enough to last them for the duration. This was trouble, probably terminal trouble.

“How soon can we expect an attack?” Prayzaat asked.

We looked around at each other but I was probably the one with the most actual time in service with a combat unit, even if corporal was the pinnacle of my responsibility.

“They brought in the logistical tail first,” I said, “so the combat troops should be able to jump off fairly soon after they get here. On the other hand, and not to sound too much like a crazy optimist, the uBakai Armed Forces haven’t fought a conventional ground campaign in over a generation. The war with the uZmatanki was mostly fought in space and with surrogate and mercenary forces on the ground. I think the uBakai training is okay, so far as it goes, but it’s slanted mostly toward small-scale internal security missions.”

“That pretty much sums this operation up too, doesn’t it?” Katranjiev said.

“Maybe. The thing is, it looks like they’re planning a big coordinated assault from four sides, and they can’t afford another fiasco. It’s got to go off right. I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent some time making absolutely sure everyone was in place and on the same page before they pull the trigger.”

“From what I have seen in our joint exercises with them,” Prayzaat said, “I am inclined to agree. They could launch an attack as early as sundown, but I think it more likely they will wait until predawn to launch a well-coordinated operation. Do you agree?”

I realized with a start he was talking to me.

“Sure.”

“Commander Zdravkova, what condition are our defensive forces in?”

“The six line platoons are up to strength, about three hundred fighters mostly equipped with RAGs. Number Six Platoon, that’s the Strikers, is pretty good, mostly combat veterans from before the troubles. The other five have seen an hour of intense combat and come through it smarter than they went in. They can execute very simple tasks. Petar Ivanov has managed to fabricate several hundred two-centimeter grenades for the launchers integral to most of the RAGs. That’s a capability the opposition hasn’t seen from us before.

“We have five additional provisional platoons, formed in the last two days, armed mostly with civilian rifles and carbines. They’re more backup security and to keep out infiltrators, and I don’t expect much from them in a hard fight. They don’t have any real training, but they have some experienced people running most of the squads, so I’m hoping they’ll hang together and generate some fire until they start taking casualties. I wouldn’t expect them to last long after that.

“Behind them we have probably two hundred more security guards armed with pistols, not incorporated into tactical units or actually trained to fight.”

“You clearly have some familiarity with the military, Commander,” Prayzaat said. “Did you serve?”

She shrugged. “I was a major in the Judge Advocate General Corps, if that counts. I never carried a weapon, let alone fired one, in uniform. I’ve done some shooting since then.”

“I see. And what sort of antivehicle weapons do you have? Can you stop a mechanized assault?”

Zdravkova frowned down at the floor before answering.

“If they throw a vehicle or two at us to scare us, we can hurt them. If it is a well-coordinated mechanized assault, with dismounted support, and delivered with determination, we cannot stop it.

“We have about twenty improvised antivehicle launchers Ivanov rigged up. Each one is loaded with twelve long-rod penetrators which are salvoed all at once, propelled by a PLX explosion which will destroy the launcher as well. The twelve penetrators will spread laterally, probably a lot, and I can’t guarantee they’ll hit anything, but they’ll make a lot of smoke and noise.”

I remembered looking one of those penetrators over this morning in the workshop. The actual launcher looked like a lashed-together mess to me, but I wasn’t very mechanically inclined.

The core of the launcher was a honeycomb of composite tubes, each holding one of those titanium-tipped long-rod penetrators I’d handled back in Ivanov’s workshop, where I’d also seen them assembling the contraptions. Behind the tubes was a reservoir of PLX and a detonator connected by a long wire to the electronic trigger. There was a sheet of composite armor behind the charge and four more sheets making up the sides of the box. The space in the box between the launch tubes was filled with foamstone, and there were a couple fiber straps around it, holding everything together.

When the PLX detonated, it would blow the whole thing apart, but the sides and rear would, in theory, contain the explosion long enough for the penetrators to blow out the front, through their launch tubes, and be on their merry way before everything came apart in a giant ball of flame.

“How do you aim the launchers if they blow themselves up?” Stal asked.

“We just emplace them pointing down a street, back off with the detonator wire, and when it looks like something’s in the way, light it up. At least that’s the theory. We’ve only test-fired one of them. It didn’t work, but we’re pretty sure we fixed the problem.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone thought about that.

“What about gunsleds?” Borro asked. “I saw four of them before crossing the lines.”

She smiled a gallows smile. “We think we can get a pretty good slant angle of attack by propping some rubble under the front of the launcher.”

Jesus!
I felt the first chill of real physical fear, as opposed to generalized anxiety and dread. They were going to roll right over us. I could see Prayzaat thought the same thing. Katranjiev looked as if he wanted to soil his pants. Stal was as difficult to read as always.

“We have many civilians to think of,” Prayzaat said. “It may be time to attempt to negotiate a surrender.”

“What about you?” I asked Prayzaat. “If you throw in the towel, a lot of folks are going to think of that as the end of effective resistance.”

“It has not rained hard in three days, as I recall,” he said, and I nodded in agreement. It had sprinkled a little bit last night, but it ended almost as soon as it started. “You have opened several shafts to the storm sewers, and the water level should be much lower now. I and my men will try to escape that way. From what Mr. Borro said, there are other pockets of resistance still holding out, yes?”

“Yes,” Borro said. “One of them is the Black Docks, south of here on the river, a mixed Human and loyalist Varoki enclave. If Sasha was not here, I would have gone there next. But there is a—”

“I believe we will head in the opposite direction, north, and try to get out of the city,” Prayzaat said, cutting Borro off. He looked down at his desk, although there wasn’t anything there to look at. “It has been an honor serving with you all. I could not ask for a more gallant company with which to share this ordeal, but now I think you should see to obtaining the best terms possible from the Army.”

“I doubt that is an option,” Borro said. “There is one more thing I have not yet told you.”

* * *

The meeting broke up and we all headed back to our people to get things moving. We had a whole lot to do and no time to get it done, but when things get really bad, that’s usually the way. Borro’s last information had been a bombshell, and two of the other Varoki refugees confirmed it. The Army wasn’t making much of a secret of it; uBakai soldiers and militia were openly bragging about it to the locals.

No surrender. No prisoners. And they weren’t just talking about armed combatants.

I let the others go their own way and stopped in an alleyway where half a dozen kids were playing with a soccer ball. I looked up at the clear afternoon sky, felt the sun warm my face, listened to the voices of the kids yelling after scoring a goal, probably their last goal ever. What was Marr doing? Was Tweezaa playing soccer somewhere on
The’On
’s estate? I’d never know.

This was it, the finish. This was where it all ended. We had a plan, a way of not going gentle into that good night, a plan that gave some of our people a chance to live, but mostly was just a way to take a lot of our murderers with us.

The pain of never holding Marr in my arms again and never seeing Tweezaa grow to an adult lanced through me, a sudden physical reaction to loss so intense I bit my lower lip. I should have felt something like that for my unborn son, too, but I didn’t know him. Now I probably never would. I couldn’t miss him as much as the others, but I still felt a burning inside, a mixed-up ache of unfulfilled yearning and regret over a responsibility not discharged.

I didn’t want him to grow up without a father, like I had, but he’d still have Marr. She was as strong as most men I’d ever known, and she’d do the job for both of us. Hard on her, having to do it alone, but she’d do it. And she’d tell him all about me—the good parts anyway. I guessed my life story could benefit from a little editing. Or maybe he could learn something from my mistakes. Either way, I trusted Marr to sort it out for him. In some ways it would be as good as me being there.