Mind Over Ship (49 page)

Fred didn’t like the sound of that, and his thoughts raced to discover any flaw in his reasoning.

“You are correct that we have an army on board and that we plan to hijack the ship, but as to the destination and time frame, you’re way off. My soldiers are not in deep biostasis but only in a light fugue state, a form of hibernation, as you surmised from the liquid blood. A body can survive that for a year, two years tops, not twenty years, not even four. Which means we have to make our move much sooner than you’d like. In fact, we will take over the ship within a few months of its departure. And that means your insurance policy expires in less than six months from today. And believe me, you couldn’t hide from us in any case.”

Fred was confused. The particle beam acceleration was so incremental that in six months the Oship would hardly be beyond Earth’s orbit.

Veronica read his expression. “Whatever made you think we were interested in deep-space colonization? I thought you were paying attention to my speech last year at the Charter Union Rendezvous. There are no space-faring charters, Commander. The powers that be have effectively frozen us out of the space game. They wouldn’t even sell us a ship without taking our land in exchange. Our way of life must be too threatening to allow us to gain even a toehold in space. But we refuse to give up either our claim on Earth or our rightful share of the solar system.”

The truth finally dawned on Fred. “You’re stealing the
Chernobyl
for in-system colonization!”

“At last,” Veronica’s proxy said. “It took you long enough. Yes, we’ll use this wonderful platform to bootstrap our own inner system colony. I don’t think I’ll tell you exactly where, but it wouldn’t be hard to guess. We have all the chemical rockets we need to get us there and we have nuclear power to run life support. So we won’t need Heliostream after the launch. We’ll establish a whole new space economy to break the stranglehold of the UD and the Chinas. We’ll create a brand-new center of power in this weary old system.”

Fred shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I assure you we are not.”

“You won’t last a week. The Space Command will board you.”

“You think? We have our own insurance policy. Have you forgotten our hostages? We will have crypts full of freeze-dried hostages. Think of it, we won’t even need to feed or water them or take them to the bathroom. They’ll never complain. They have an indefinite shelf life and are conveniently packaged so we can return them as good-faith gestures, one at a time over vast distances of space.” The TOTE leader seemed to relish the ingenuity of her plan. Her confidence impressed Fred, and he tried to see the logic of her reasoning, but it didn’t add up.

“You picked the wrong class of hostage,” he said at last.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it. The colonists aboard the
Chernobyl
have already chosen to leave Earth forever. As far as public opinion is concerned, they’re already dead and gone. In addition, they’re made up of economic refugees, ex-chartists, small business owners, schoolteachers, and poets. In a word—ordinary nobodies. Do you honestly think the UD Space Command will think twice about them when they blow the hatches to board you?”

“Absolutely,” Veronica’s proxy said, as confident as ever. “We’re talking about a
quarter million
men and women. The world would never allow so many people to be snuffed out at once.”

Fred could only shake his head in disbelief. “Where have you been for the last hundred years? The UD would rather torpedo you to bits than let you get away with that ship. And then they’ll blame you and make it look like it was
your
fault. What were you thinking?” A tiny but all-important hint of doubt crept into Veronica’s expression, and Fred drove his point home. “I’m sorry to rain on your parade, but, honestly, don’t you people hire consultants?”

Fred prepared to leave. He doubted his words would have any effect on this pirate charter’s grand scheme. Before exiting the stockroom, he turned to the proxy, which didn’t seem nearly so cocksure as a few moments ago, and said, “Now, if you had chosen the
Hybris
instead, then you’d have
real
hostages. Each one of those feckers is either an aff or the clone of an aff. There aren’t nearly as many of them, but they make up for that in juice. They’re all VIPs, every last one of them. They are the very flesh of presidents, diplomats, and vid stars, parliamentarians—you name it. Now those are
some
hostages. No one’s going to torpedo that ship of fools. Not only that, but half its stasis crypts are empty.

“Anyway, thanks for the chat, but if all I have left is six months, I better get to it. See you back on Earth.”

FRED’S BRAVADO CARRIED him all the way back to his stateroom, where he finished packing. It took him to the Admin Wheel, where he turned in his standstill wand, visor cap, and TECA sidekick. It took him out the spar to the space gate where the
Fentan
was docked. It took him all the way to the gangway, but there it abandoned him. If he had managed to sow a seed of doubt in Veronica’s mind about her crazy scheme, she had managed to sow one in his about dropping everything and running to Mary’s side.

Veronica was probably right; by the time the
Fentan
reached Earth, the whole evangeline crisis would be resolved, one way or another. And, besides, what could he do that the world’s leading researchers couldn’t? This was bad enough, but the real question was whether or not Mary would welcome him. Even without the ’Leen Disease, would she want him to come barging in to rescue her? Again? Fred couldn’t get out of his head the little scene they had in their bedroom the morning of the clinic incident. She not only asked him not to interfere, she
begged
him not to. She sincerely wanted to handle the situation by herself.

But he had interfered anyway, and he had, in fact and in deed, saved her life, and thus Ellen Starke’s life. She had admitted as much. And by his actions he had landed in prison and then, to repay the TUGs for their logistical support, he had been forced to come up here. But—and here was the rub—had Mary ever thanked him? He scoured his memory for any word of thanks, any hint of appreciation, and he came up dry.

Fred hung in a corner of the gangway like a gargoyle, oblivious to the curious glances of passersby. If he went, he was screwed. If he stayed, he was screwed. After an hour or so of second-guessing, Marcus called.

“What do you want?”

To give you a word of advice
.

“I don’t want your advice.”

I understand, but you are loitering in a very public space and causing a lot of talk
.

“What do I care?”

I am asking you to care. You have made arrangements to leave the station and return to Earth. It is my opinion that you proceed to and board the
Fentan.

“Why?”

Because your continued presence here at Trailing Earth is a constant irritant that will likely spark violent unrest
.

“How so?”

Your brothers were already under a lot of strain before your arrival, due to the labor troubles with Capias World. The situation with the evangelines has pushed them to the breaking point. You are a convenient scapegoat, and I know that there have already been threats against your person. Now that the donalds have learned of your method results, it’s only a matter of time before they reveal them to the russ population. The falseness of the method will not restrain your brothers. They will express outrage, and our tenuous truce with the donalds will break down. There will be intergermline violence. Worse, there will be fratricide—your brothers will kill you. Your impulse to leave is a good one
.

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I deserve what I get? You’ve said as much yourself.”

On the contrary, I haven’t yet given up on you. But the bigger issue is the good reputation of your germline. With your history of retrievable manslaughter, your death here at the hands of your brothers would surely seal the fate of your entire ten-million-strong issue
.

“Really? Is fratricide any worse than our brutish Original Flaw?”

I’ve told you before, and I repeat, the whole Original Flaw method you underwent was a hoax. I assure you that the russ germline has never had a problem with pedophilia. That was pure fabrication
.

“Is that a fact? And what about our fascination with evangelines and their boyish features and body type?”

What of it? You are equally attracted to the more voluptuous lulu type
.

“What about my fascination with retrogirls? Even Mary noticed the attention I gave that Kodiak girl last year.”

Human males have always sought sexual congress with children, all the way back to Paleolithic times when female menarche occurred between the ages of seven and thirteen years. For dominant males to impregnate the youngest fertile females in a tribe was adaptively advantageous to the tribe. While this may no longer be so, the male’s attraction for children has survived into modern times, like the once-advantageous taste for sweets and fats. Biological propensities are hardwired into the genes and may take tens of millennia to weed out when they are no longer useful
.

What’s important to keep in mind is that new, inhibitory tendencies emerge to counteract obsolete ones. While your sexual interest in children may be natural, your inhibition against acting on this interest is also natural and even stronger. Neither you nor Thomas A. nor any russ has ever violated
society’s taboos in this regard. Whoever designed the Original Flaw method cleverly used your own russ sense of propriety against you to damage both you and your germline. I am attempting to mitigate the damage, but I will need your cooperation to do so
.

How Fred wanted to believe the mentar, but he remembered the last time it had tried to talk him down from a ledge. It had tried to convince him that his
Book of Russ
debacle was due to HALVENE poisoning, and that hadn’t worked out either.

“Fine. You’ve said your piece, Marcus. I’m not a monster; now prove it. I ask again; if this isn’t the russ Original Flaw, then what is? You said you’d get the Brotherhood Council’s permission to tell me.”

I said I’d try to get it. Permission was denied
.

“There you have it then,” Fred said as he pushed off from his perch. “Get back to me when you have a better answer.” He left the
Fentan
gang-way and returned to his stateroom to give the whole matter some serious obsessing.

With her skin mission accomplished, Saul and Tia waving good-bye and her rental car lifting off from their sod-paved airstrip, Andrea gave her tired body up to the plush comfort of her seat pod. But she didn’t return to her always room; the real Alaskan panorama outside her windows was too disturbing to ignore. Mountain range on top of mountain range in every direction as far as the eye could see.

Meanwhile, the six-month term of their quarantine world passed, and the pocket world had not imploded. Perhaps the datapin Zoranna had sent Jaspersen was harmless after all.

What do you think?
E-P said.
Break quarantine and open it?

That was what Andrea wanted to do. It was probably safe, and her curiosity was high, but a nagging sense of caution made her say, “No, let it run another six months. In the meantime, are you able to make me a new Jaspersen sim and sidebob here?”

Two phantoms appeared in her car and struggled to orient themselves. The sim looked at her, then outside the window, then back at her and said, “Myr Tiekel, what is the meaning of this? How did you—?” The true purpose
of her visit dawned on it then, and it thundered, “This is a gross violation of my privacy. I will sue you. I will bring you to ruin for this. This is criminal. This is—”

“Oh, please,” she said, “spare me the drama.” Andrea tuned the Jaspersen sim out and asked the sidebob what was on Alblaitor’s datapin.

“It contains detailed, proprietary financial statements of Applied People,” the sidebob said. “And it outlines the broad terms of a possible sale. It’s an intriguing offer.”

Andrea wiped them both away and said, “Now bring me a set of Zorannas.”

The pair of Zorannas appeared where the Jaspersens had been, and E-P warned, Allow us to remind you,
Alblaitor has never sat for a preffing session and these constructs are only inferential
.

Why remind her? Was E-P losing confidence in its work? “They’ll do,” she said, and when the pair of Zorannas had oriented themselves, the sim said, “Andrea, what is the meaning of this?”

“I wanted to know why you’d be willing to sell your company to Saul Jaspersen.”

“Jaspersen? I would
never
sell to him.” The sidebob agreed with the sim, and Andrea wiped them away.

“This doesn’t track,” she said. “Are you sure the pin came from Zoranna?”

From her hands to his, we’re highly confident of it
.

Andrea sat back as her car crossed the Copper River Valley below. Count on Jaspersen to reside beyond the reach of modern infrastructure, nearly four hundred kilometers from the nearest Slipstream station in Wasilla. Knife-edge ridges plummeted to ice-carved gullies. Water seeped from every cranny. Everything below timberline was a deep, vital green. Few signs of humans, no roads or power lines, no towers or relay stations, no strip mines, no forest clearings, and no flat places for her car to put down in case of emergency. She fretted for the continued purr of its engines.