Pushing Ice (18 page)

“What did they say?” Parry asked, still maintaining a semblance of calm.

“They said…” But Bella trailed off, unable to continue.

Craig Schrope tapped his pen against the flexy. “They said the data was faked.”

“That’s what Svieta was telling you,” Parry said.

“No,” Schrope said. “What they said was that Svetlana faked the evidence. There never was any smoking gun.”

“That can’t be true,” Parry said, looking to Svetlana for confirmation. “Can it?”

“It is now,” she said.

“You can see it here,” Schrope said, directing Parry’s attention to the flexy. “There’s no difference between the two sets of pressure data. The information in the buffer matches the information on ShipNet.”

“But I saw it for myself,” Parry said.

“You saw… something,” Schrope said. “It wasn’t what you thought you were seeing.”

“Bella screwed up.‘ Svetlana said. She felt faint, drained, knowing that nothing she could say now would make any real difference. ”Bella screwed up by sending them the buffer data.“

“Don’t be silly,” Schrope said firmly.

“It must have been difficult for them to doctor those numbers,” Svetlana said, “but when I found the differences between the two data sets, they had no choice but to find a way.

And
you
let them, Bella. You showed them the numbers. You drew their attention to the buffer.“

“You think DeepShaft tampered with the buffer data as well?” Bella asked.

“They’d have found a way if it mattered enough.”

“She has a point,” Parry said. “If it made enough of a difference —”

“I think this has gone far enough,” Schrope said, clicking his pen with judicial finality. “For the record, Svetlana, DeepShaft has already recommended your removal from duties. We could have acted on that recommendation immediately, but we thought we’d at least give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Thanks, guy.”

“We checked their story,” Schrope continued. “We checked their story because our instinct was to believe you. But you betrayed that trust, Svetlana. You let
us
down.”

“Oh, please.”

“Can’t you see she’s been set up?” Parry said. “She’s done
nothing
wrong — Bella, you know Svieta better than this. You know she’d never betray you.”

Bella’s discomfort was obvious. “I’m sorry it has to come to this,” she said, “but I have to take the evidence at face value.” She looked at Svetlana pleadingly. “I have to remove you from duty, Svieta. If I do anything other than that I’ll be in dereliction of my own duty as commander of this mission.”

“You don’t have to justify your actions,” Schrope said.

“Craig,” Bella said, “shut the fuck up. This is between me and Svieta.”

“Don’t do this,” Svetlana said. “Listen to me. Listen to me or
we will all die
.”

“I can’t. I have no choice.”

“Then we’re fucked. All of us.”

“When we get back home,” Bella said, “you have my word that there’ll be a thorough inquiry. No stone will be left unturned. If the company has done this, then we’ll find that evidence. We’ll find someone who’ll talk, someone who’ll vindicate you.”

“Don’t you understand?” Svetlana said. “If I’m right, we will
never
get back home.”

Bella closed her eyes. “We’ll get back home,” she said. “Whatever happens, that’s a promise.”

* * *

“Don’t hate me for this,” Bella said, when they were alone. “Do anything but that.”

Svetlana looked at her from across the table. What she saw in Svetlana’s eyes was much closer to stunned incomprehension than the self-righteous fury she had been expecting. “Then don’t do this,” she said softly. “If our friendship means anything, don’t do it.”

“I have no choice,” Bella said unhappily. “I can only go by the evidence. The evidence couldn’t look much worse.” Bella stared hard into Svetlana’s eyes, trying to make some final connection that would salvage their friendship. “But I meant what I said —
when
we get home —”

“It won’t happen.”

“I’m going to talk to Ryan Axford,” Bella said, brightening, suddenly seeing a solution. “You had a bad accident out there. It’s my understanding that you left Ryan’s care before he authorised your discharge. Really, you should still be in the medical centre. The last few days shouldn’t have happened. I don’t think it’ll be difficult for us to say that they never did.” She waited, hoping Svetlana would see the sense in her proposal.

But Svetlana just shook her head with stubborn defiance. “My accident had nothing to do with this. You know that, so why pretend otherwise?”

“I’m only trying to help.”

With maddening calm, Svetlana said, “If you remove me from duty, it still won’t alter the fact that we don’t have enough fuel to make it back home.”

“I don’t doubt for a minute that you believe that. The problem is that I can’t have you going around telling everyone else. I have a ship to run, Svieta. I have a mission to complete. I’ve got planet fucking Earth looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to screw up.”

“
This
is the screw-up.”

Bella bridled, but by an immense effort of will she kept her temper. “If only it was that easy. I’m a fifty-five-year-old woman, Svieta. I’m the commander of fifty thousand metric tonnes of mining spacecraft. There are one hundred and forty-five people on this ship —”

“One hundred and forty-four,” Svetlana said icily, “unless you think Mike Takahashi still counts.”

“One hundred and forty-four, then. Of whom a lot fewer than seventy-two are women. Things are better than they’ve ever been, Svieta, but we’re still a minority. And as commander of this ship I cannot
for one second
be seen to show the slightest leniency with anyone: most especially not someone who happens to be another woman — let alone a close personal friend.”

“So you make an example of me, just to show that you can be as tough and stubborn as any man?”

“Spare me the piety, Svieta: in my shoes you’d do exactly the same.”

There was the tiniest flicker of agreement in Svetlana’s face: an unguarded reaction that nonetheless said that, yes, in that regard Bella was right. But that did not make the thing itself right, the same look said.

“Please reconsider, Bella. Give me time to prove this is real. Let me drill a pressure tap into one of the fuel tanks, get a direct measurement… anything.”

“I wish I could. I wish I believed you, but right now I don’t. I don’t think you’re lying, either. I think you’re just —”

“Deluded.”

“I burnt out once, Svieta. I know how it happens. One minute you’re just sailing along, the next you’re in pieces. There’s no shame in it. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Bella dared to think, for a moment, that her words had hit home; that Svetlana had realised that she was taking no pleasure in this and that she felt a compassionate concern for her friend’s wellbeing.

Then Svetlana said, “This isn’t about you and me, is it? It’s about Powell Cagan.”

“I’m sorry?” Bella responded mildly.

“We all know what happened with you and Cagan, Bella.

We all know you fucked him. We all know it’s more than just business with the two of you.“

Bella’s face stung. In all their years of friendship, she had never once spoken of the affair with Cagan. She had assumed, with absolute certainty, that Svetlana knew nothing of it. But she now realised it had been there all along, like a weapon waiting to be drawn and used.

“That was twenty-five years ago,” she said, on the edge of tears.

“But old habits die hard, right? You might not be fucking him now, but Powell still only has to say jump and you say how high —”

“Don’t say another word. Please, don’t say
one more word
.”

“After all this time, you just can’t face it, can you?”

“Face what?”

“The possibility that Cagan might not be the man you looked up to back then.”

Bella moved to slap Svetlana across the cheek. But at the last moment she stayed her hand, even as Svetlana held up her own hand in defence.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Bella said. “You really, really, shouldn’t have said that.”

EIGHT

The great barrel of the mass driver swung slowly through space until it was brought to a halt by the free-fliers. Tiny pulses of micro-thrust finessed the aim.

Denise Nadis sat wearing a headset and wraparound mike combo, dreadlocks tied back, tapping a shiny purple fingernail against the mike as she talked to the AI of the newly deployed driver.

“We’re okay?” Bella asked.

“She’s all yours.”

Bella opened a channel to the
Shenzhou Five
using the reply protocols that the Chinese had already specified.

“This is Captain Bella Lind,” she said. “I am commander of the UEE exploration vehicle
Rockhopper
. Thirty minutes ago our sensors detected the
Shenzhou Five’s
penetration into our exclusion volume. We are entitled — even obliged — to take defensive action against any possible threat.”

Bella halted and made a conscious effort to sound reasonable and conciliatory. “We have the means to defend ourselves. We have deployed a steerable mass driver loaded with a free-flier robot equipped with a nuclear demolition device, the kind we use for comet reshaping. I can put that nuke close enough to hurt you; it may fry your electronics or stress your shielding. I am hoping I will not have to do that, and that this message will be enough of a warning for you to apply reverse thrust and start exiting my airspace. If you do not, I will put that shot across your bows. If that does not deter you there will be no second warning: I will just keep loading up the mass drivers until you get the message. The closer you get, the better my aim. I am asking you to turn around now. I will give you five minutes to signal your intentions by altering your thrust and vector.”

The message had been transmitted in real-time: even allowing for translating software delays, Wang Zhanmin should already have received her first communication. There would be no time for him to consult with Beijing for clarification on the best course of action. But Bella doubted that Wang would need such assistance. The appended video file, showing the deployment of the mass driver, should have been all the encouragement he needed. Everyone in space knew what a mass driver could do if you pointed it the wrong way.

But five minutes went by and there was no detectable change in the thrust signature or transponder Doppler of the Chinese ship. Bella gave Wang Zhanmin two extra minutes of grace, then ordered the driver to deliver its payload.

Telephoto cameras tracked the foreshortened gun-barrel shape of the driver. The iron cage that would normally have accelerated a lump of cometary material flicked to one end of the driver’s long launch track in less than two-tenths of a second, faster than the eye could follow. Recoil shoved the driver in the opposite direction. By the time the payload emerged, it had gained fourteen kilometres per second of motion away from
Rockhopper
.

Nadis confirmed that the robot and its nuclear cargo had survived the launch: they were hardened like artillery shells. It would take five hours to cross space to the
Shenzhou Five
, but the robot’s own thrusters would be able to make small course adjustments if the Chinese ship deviated from its predicted flight path.

Bella didn’t expect much of that. What she knew of the Chinese indicated that if Wang Zhanmin had not backed down by now, he never would.

She called Nadis. “Status on the driver, Denise.”

“Bruised and battered, but she can probably take another pulse.”

“Good. Load another robot into the can. I think Wang’s going to need more than one bloodied nose before he sees sense.”

Bella took no satisfaction in being right: she would have liked nothing better than for the
Shenzhou Five
to turn away with its tail between its legs, but for the next six hours the ship remained perfectly on course, its fusion burn clean and even.

During the final phase of the intercept, the free-flier steered itself to within a hundred kilometres of the Chinese ship, close enough to make a point but not, Bella devoutly hoped, to do more than bruise it.

Slamming past, the FAD opened like a flower. The prick of hot blue light was visible across three hundred thousand kilometres: an evil little guest star that had no business in the sky. Then the nuclear flash died away, and the transponder signal from the
Shenzhou Five
was still there, ticking like a pulsar.

“The bastard didn’t even blink,” Schrope said. They sat in her office and digested the news.

“He’s brave, Craig. Anyone who comes this far out has my respect, no matter what flag they hang on their wall.”

“All the same, you made him a promise. I’ve reprogrammed the second free-flier for a closer intercept. One hundred klicks doesn’t seem to have done the trick. How does fifty sound?”

“Be careful,” she said. “We want to scare them off, that’s all.”

“Fifty is still plenty of room. Wang the Man is probably bored out of his mind. Let’s give him something to write home about.”

Bella waited another five minutes to see if the detonation had resulted in any belated change in the
Shenzhou Five’s
trajectory, but there was no alteration: it was as if their warning shot hadn’t even registered. Part of her wanted to send another warning message — she couldn’t help but see the amiable face of the young Chinese commander whenever she closed her eyes — but she had warned him that there would be no second chance.

She told Nadis to fire another shot.

“Kill margin set to fifty,” Nadis told her as the robot sped away.

“It isn’t supposed to kill,” Bella said fiercely, “it’s just persuasion. Don’t anyone forget that.”

* * *

Bella was off-duty. She knew she ought to be using the hours to catch up on sleep, but the idea seemed ludicrous. She worked on her static bicycle until she hit exhaustion like an iron wall, and then she worked through the exhaustion into the clean, clear limbo beyond it.