Crossways (22 page)

On the way back to Wes' apartment they stopped at a booth for street food, spicy vat-meat kebabs in a lentil flour wrap with extra sauce, and a crisp apple big enough to share and with a price tag that made sharing the best option.

“There's a message,” Wes said as he pushed open the door. He groaned. “I hope the captain hasn't swapped me on to the early shift tomorrow.” He passed his handpad over the reader and a message popped up on the screen. A man's face appeared, frozen partway through a word. He wore medical whites.

“Is it for me?” Kitty pushed past him as Wes activated the message.

“Ms. Keely, I regret to tell you that your mother is no longer with us.”

Kitty's heart began to pound and she reached for Wes' hand.

“I'm afraid I don't have a forwarding address. I believe she's been relocated to somewhere with a more benign climate than Shield City, but I thought you should know that her treatment was entirely successful. We discharged her on
the 18th November. She left us a well woman. That's all I can tell you, I'm afraid.”

“Oh.” Kitty sat down suddenly and began to laugh, while wiping tears from her cheeks.

“That's wonderful,” she said to the image on the screen as if he could hear her.
Thank you, Alphacorp.

B
EN HAD ALREADY PUT IN THREE Eighteen-hour days to organize transfer of the settlers from Crossways to Jamundi before he got the message that Serafin was allowed visitors, though only on condition that their stay was short. He dropped everything, hopped into one of the multihued tubs that had taken to waiting for fares outside Blue Seven, and headed for Dockside Medical with only one guard for company. He dreaded what he might find, but was much relieved when Serafin greeted him with a husky, “About time. You look like shit!”

“You're a fine one to talk.”

“I'm allowed to look like shit. They tell me I died twice and they had to take out half my left lung.”

“Okay, I revise that. You look pretty good for a corpse.”

“Thank you.”

Ben sat down where Serafin could see him without twisting his head too far. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Better than fine. But it's all down to the drugs. I'm guessing that underneath it all I feel like I died twice, but my brain isn't getting the message. Did you get the bastards?”

“All accounted for. When it turned out that the prisoners
didn't know anything, they had unfortunate accidents in an air lock.”

“You spaced them?”

“Not me. I can't fault Garrick's efficiency, but I hope none of ours ever gets on his bad side. He said he had a point to make.”

“Can't say I'm sorry.”

“Me neither, but on the whole I tend to favor the fair trial method of dealing with criminals, even ones who've tried to murder me and mine. Summary executions and accidents when everyone is looking the wrong way don't sit right with me—even though I've occasionally taken the expedient way out.” He didn't elaborate. Better change the subject. “What's the prognosis? How long will you be in here?”

“Long enough. Lungs are all to hell. Looks like I'll need new ones once I'm fit enough for the transplant. They're growing them for me now. Truth to tell, I'm thinking it's time to retire. Suzi's been telling me so for long enough. We might just settle down and find a quiet corner on some remote colony; build a house, grow cabbages.”

A gaping hole opened up in front of Ben. The old man was always talking about retiring, but he'd kept putting it off. Just one more job, he'd said. Just one more. And now it looked like this might really be it.

“What am I going to do without you?”

“Work the bollocks of Archie Tatum instead.” Serafin's laugh turned into a cough that brought a nurse to the doorway. “It's okay.” He waved the young man away. “I'm all right, no need to fuss.”

“Seriously, Serafin, the Olyanda mission ate section heads for breakfast. Now you, and Suzi, too. What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing, except perhaps not rolling with the punches. You take too much on yourself. You can't take responsibility for everything that goes wrong. We all knew the risks when we signed up. It's time you stopped carrying the dead around with you.”

“That's what Cara says.”

“Then listen to her, man. Besides, you don't want us old folk slowing you down, especially not now that you need to
keep one jump ahead of the Trust and Alphacorp. It's time to let the youngsters shine.”

“I could do with your experience behind me right now. We're living on credit until Olyanda produces the first platinum. We're taking a chance on hiring the mercenaries van Blaiden used against us on Olyanda. We're no closer to finding the missing settlers. Crowder's hidden himself behind a double security screen operated by the Trust and the Monitors, in particular by a slippery bastard called Sergei Alexandrov who's been brought in precisely because he has a grudge against me.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn't it enough?” Ben sat back in his chair. “Ah, you're right. I suppose it's not all bad news. There's a woman here called Dido Kennedy who thinks she can manufacture jump drives that can be retrofitted to any spacecraft. Yan Gwenn's working with her and he says she might be on to something. Don't tell anyone but I think Yan's sweet on her.” He smiled. “Lorient has finally agreed to a new planet, Jamundi, in the Penda System. Yeah, it's going to be a hassle getting the settlers there, but it's sweet. Better real estate than Olyanda and no platinum to speak of. It's got a jump gate hub only eight days away for supply. I'm sending a smaller set-up team, though, because we need to split resources to find the missing settler ark. In fact I could sure do with Suzi to lead the agriculture team. If you're thinking about retiring, how do you fancy growing cabbages on Jamundi?”

Serafin's chuckle turned into another cough. “I'll think about it.”

Crowder had hated space travel ever since the Londrissi hijack. He always insisted on a sedative for the journey through the Folds, but he still felt as though his body had been turned inside out. His palms were damp, his mouth dry. He'd woken with the nagging worry that unremembered dreams had snagged in the dark corners of his consciousness and were waiting for an unguarded moment to manifest.

It was possible to attend board meetings via a high-speed holo-link—the signal routed through three jump
gates and the time lag was barely five seconds—but as the newly proposed member of the board he really needed to make the effort to be there in person. Despite the Olyanda fuck-up, he'd earned enough kudos from getting control of Hera-3's platinum to warrant the invitation.

He'd landed at King Shaka Spaceport, in KwaZulu Natal, north of the tourist city of Durban. He'd left Stefan with a watching brief to let him know of any developments on the Benjamin front, and since he'd just seen the most recent colony mission launch, he had a few days' grace before he needed to think about the next one. His deputy could handle the pre-mission planning for the time being.

He needed to devote himself utterly to the business of board politics for the next few days. He had plans once his seat was secure—and those plans involved making an impact quickly and building up his own faction.

He transferred to Mangosuthu in a maglev pod. The shining headquarters complex occupied the land where Umlazi Township had once stood, before the demise of the USA and China in the meteor strike, combined with the advantageous distribution of platinum, had left Africa ascendant in Earth's political arena.

Sifiso Kweyama, his designated personal assistant, met him at the door with a schedule as a bot took his luggage to his suite. There was much lobbying to be done if he was going to work his way up and eventually oust John Hunt from the position of CEO. Hunt was a formidable opponent, but though his age had been wiped from the records sometime around his second or third rejuv treatment, he had to be pushing ninety-eight at least. It wasn't his age that Crowder took issue with, but his leftward political leanings. For some time he'd been in the pocket of the European prime minister, Vetta Babajack, and some of the decisions he'd made had been to Babajack's advantage over the Trust's. Rushing the Ecolibrians off Earth before a particularly finely balanced election had been inexplicable unless you knew of Hunt's connection to Babajack.

That had meant rushing the Olyanda planetary survey to speed up the exodus, which resulted in the Trust missing one of the biggest platinum finds ever.

“And look where that got us,” Crowder muttered to himself as he rose in the antigrav tube.

“Sorry, sir?” Kweyama said, floating by his side.

“Nothing, just talking to myself. Has Ms. LeBon left any messages for me?”

Tori LeBon would support him, for a consideration of course. She was as good as her word as long as he delivered on his promises. Isaac Whittle was on his side; he owed Crowder a favor, having been tipped off to buy Hera-3 shares at rock bottom prices before the platinum news broke. He'd sold at a massive profit. Yolanda Chang would do whatever Tori told her to, and Adam Hyde always went with the majority. The problem, apart from Hunt himself, would be Beth Vanders, Sophie Wiseman, and Andile Zikhali. Vanders and Hunt had had a child together once upon a time and, though they might not be lovers now, had always retained an affection for each other that ran deep. Wiseman was a wild card, easily swayed by rhetoric and ruled by her heart. Zikhali was ruled by his head, cool and logical, and always looking at the bottom line.

Wiseman and Zikhali were the ones he needed to win over if he was going to eventually move Hunt out of the top job and himself into it.

Kweyama interrupted his thoughts. “Ms. LeBon said she'd see you in the Atrium at sixteen hundred for afternoon tea with Mr. Zikhali.”

“Good, thank you.”

And so it began.

Cara recognized Ully's mental handshake.

*What's up, Ully?*

*Mother Ramona asked me to pass on some news for Commander Benjamin.*

*He's going over loading manifests for Jamundi with Marta. Do you want me to patch you through?*

*No, just tell him that she got a report from one of her sources. Gabrius Crowder has been appointed to the Board of the Trust. He was proposed by Tori LeBon. That's all the information she has.*

Tori LeBon? The name didn't mean anything to Cara but maybe Ben knew more.

*Thanks, Ully.*

Cara wandered through from the alcove where she'd
been helping herself to a cup of caff and found Ben in the open workspace that would eventually be divided up into smaller units. Ben sat at one side of a desk and Marta, a damp scarf wrapped around the delicate gill slits on the side of her neck, sat opposite. They had a holo-screen each and they were moving items from column to column, the loading weight totals changing with each move.

Both of them looked up when she entered.

“A snippet of news from Mother Ramona,” Cara said. “That woman is well-connected. She must have people in every megacorp head office.”

“I believe she does,” Ben said. “To our advantage, I hope.”

“Well, I don't know how advantageous this is, but I suppose it's best to know. Crowder's got himself a seat on the board.”

“The hell he has.” Ben's mouth tightened and he shook his head. “He always said he would, and I never doubted him for a minute, but if it means more power and influence for him it's bad news for us.”

“He was proposed by Tori LeBon. That's not a name I know.”

“She was head of the Trust's Research and Development unit in Pretoria,” Marta said. “A bit of a whiz kid by all accounts. Followed her father onto the board when he bowed out due to ill health.”

“I met her once, briefly,” Ben said. “She came to Chenon to see what went on in Colony Operations. It was soon after Hera-3 and we were still waiting for the final hearing. She asked a lot of intelligent questions. She also spent a lot of time closeted with Crowder. She may be up to her elegant armpits in whatever Crowder is planning.”

“Maybe the whole board is,” Marta said.

“Could be. I just don't know anymore. I'm not stupid enough to think we can take on the whole Trust. Crowder's still my main target. Besides, if we could shake the Trust apart what would happen to their colonies? Not all of them are self-sustaining. A lot of people could get hurt. A shake-up would be good, but not a breakup.”

How could you manage one without the other, Cara wondered.