The Credulity Nexus (33 page)

When Rik had
finished, Burleigh sat in silence and sipped his beer. The robot
with the package in its hand was still on the floor, not far away.
And Burleigh gazed at it with a distant expression. The robot had
not twitched for at least ten minutes. At one point Burleigh said,
“The credulity nexus, you say? Well, I'll be...” He then lapsed
back into silence.

Finally,
Burleigh put down his beer and turned to Rik. “OK,” he said. “Let's
destroy the sucker.”

The instant
the words were out of his mouth, the damaged robot lurched up into
a sitting position, crushed the box of phials in its hand, and
swung its arm around in a wide arc, sprinkling everybody within
three metres with a clear liquid.

Rik and
Freymann sat with Lieutenant Burleigh and half a dozen cops in the
isolation ward at Heinlein Base Hospital. They were all wearing
hospital pyjamas and looking like they'd rather be somewhere
else.

“
This is all wrong,” Rik said. It had been
nagging at him for the past hour, ever since the robot had showered
them all with the credulity nexus vector. Now, at last, he was
beginning to see why.

“
The robot shouldn't have done
that.”

The others
looked at him but said nothing. Each of them seemed lost in their
own private misery. Rik pressed on.

“
Why would it do that? It doesn't make any
sense to infect Heinlein.”

Freymann rose
to the bait. “Wasn't that the point of the virus? To infect
people?”

“
Yes, of course, but not just one small
town on the Moon. It was meant to reach everybody on Earth. That's
the real prize. Nine billion people, not the few thousand out here.
It has to be some sort of ploy.”

“
Ploy?” said Burleigh, as if the word
itself had roused him from his reverie.

“
What else could the bot do?” asked
Freymann. “Isn't it better to infect a few thousand than none at
all?”

“
No!” Rik stood up, excited. It was
becoming clearer all the time. “No, it's worse than useless.
They're running around out there like headless chickens, trying to
contain the spread of the virus, but they can't. Not in Heinlein
where all the air is pumped and circulated around and around. It's
only a matter of time before they have to shut the spaceport and
quarantine the whole place. If a single infected ship reaches
Earth, it could be a disaster. So they'll shut down Heinlein, send
for virologists. Everyone here might go nuts, but they'd have all
the time in the world to analyse the virus and develop an antidote,
or a vaccine, or whatever they'd do. Releasing the virus here
guarantees that the virus is harmless to Earth.”

Burleigh
wasn't convinced. “You think that robot had the wit to work all
this out? AIs aren't that good, are they?”

“
Maybe not. But what if it had
instructions? What if someone foresaw what happened and told the
robot how to react?”

Freymann stood
up, too, and walked quickly across the room. “Shit,” she said,
softly.

“
What?”

“
Rik, you know what this virus is supposed
to do, right? Activate the credulity nexus, turn people into
gullible, credulous types. The kind of people who believe in UFOs
and crazy religions...”

Rik finished
it for her. “And conspiracy theories. Yeah, I know, but Fariba,
this isn't crazy.”

“
Maybe you can't tell any more. Maybe none
of us can.”

Rik couldn't
argue with that, so he didn't even try. He just pushed on. “To go
back to your other question, what else could the bot do? It could
have left the virus for the lieutenant here to collect. He'd be
forced to hand it over to his superiors. They'd hand it over to
some Earth agency or another – the CIA, maybe. Sooner or later, it
would be in the hands of someone Cordell could get to. After that,
it would just be a matter of fixing a price, and he'd have it back
again.

“
So if it's a stupid move to release the
virus here, why did the bot do it? What does Cordell get by
infecting Heinlein?”

Burleigh
answered him. “They close the place down, like you said. Declare a
quarantine. But Cordell's hoping that someone manages to sneak
out.”

Rik shook his
head. “The only people who are more scared of a general outbreak
than I am are the uploads at Omega Point. What would they do if a
quarantine was declared here? What would they feel they had no
choice but to do?”

“
Nuke us from space,” said
Freymann.

“
Nuke us from space,” Rik agreed, feeling a
grim satisfaction that he'd brought at least Fariba to that point.
“Then what? Why would Cordell want the uploads to nuke Heinlein?
What does he gain?”

Freymann had
lost her sad, sceptical look and was clearly beginning to see where
all this was leading. “He hates the uploads. He thinks they should
be wiped out. To him, they're all soulless monsters.”

“
And business rivals,” said
Burleigh.

“
His biggest rivals in any number of
industries,” said Rik.

“
So he tricks them into nuking Heinlein,”
said Freymann. “He forces them to become mass murderers, to protect
themselves, and then gets to point the finger at them and say,
“Look at what they did. Didn't I tell you how evil they were all
along?”

Burleigh
joined in too. “People would be outraged. No-one on Earth really
likes them anyway. Most people hate the fact uploads can still own
wealth. The Omega Point guys would be branded war criminals.
Legislation would be passed to confiscate their property. The UN
would be asked to arrest them and bring them to The Hague for
trial. It would be the end of them.”

Rik looked at Freymann and Burleigh. From
their appalled expressions, he was sure they were with him. “Look,
maybe this is just the virus talking, but Lanham's ship is up there
right now. He must have realised this was a possibility. That's
why
The
Phenomenon of Man
took
off as soon as we disembarked. That's why it's sitting up there in
a synchronous orbit.

“
We need to get out of here. We need to get
up to the ship and stop it from doing whatever Lanham's got
planned. And we'd better get moving, because the trigger is
probably the city authorities declaring the quarantine.”

“
But...” Freymann couldn't seem to bring
herself to say it.

“
But we're infected, and we'll spread it to
anyone we meet,” said Burleigh.

Rik shook his
head. “No, we're not.”

“
What?”

“
I don't know what was in those phials but
it wasn't a virus. My guess is it was plain water.”

“
Water?”

He turned to
Burleigh. He knew Freymann would do what he asked by now. It was
Burleigh he needed to trust him. “Lieutenant, we're all the victims
of a massive hoax. Newton Cordell has been pushing us around the
board like pieces in a game. Me especially! And it's time we
started acting for ourselves.”

At least the
lieutenant was still listening.

“
I'll explain everything once we're
underway, but right now, we need to get moving. Lanham's ship is
waiting in space to destroy Heinlein. We need to get up there and
stop it, and you are the only person I know who can help me do
that. You've got access to a ship, right? You can get us onto one
of those UNPF patrol ships.”

Burleigh
showed no sign of agreeing or disagreeing. He just frowned at Rik,
looking as if he still needed convincing.

“
Well, let's go get it! Any minute now, the
city administration will declare a full-blown quarantine, and then
Lanham's people will act. I don't want to just stand here in my
pyjamas, waiting for a bomb to drop through the
ceiling.”

Burleigh still
didn't show any sign of moving. Rik felt his anger rising.

“
I thought you were supposed to be the
Sheriff, Burleigh. I thought you were the law around here. These
are your people, man! If you ask me, Heinlein's a damned sewer,
built on a cesspit. A couple of good nukes is just what the place
needs. But there are people here that I care about. Including me!
And, with you or without you, I'm going to do something about
it.”

He stood
squarely in front of the lieutenant, glaring down at him. “Are you
going to try and stop me?”

Slowly,
Burleigh got to his feet. He and Rik were standing so close that
their foreheads almost touched. Burleigh's men, who had been
watching anxiously, now got to their feet too, ready to come to
their lieutenant's aid. Burleigh met Rik's angry glare with a scowl
of his own.

Quietly, he
said, “Russo, take two men and get our clothes and weapons. We
don't want to be running about the town in our PJs looking like a
bunch of space ninjas, do we, now? Spivey, is your pilot's license
good for a Mark IV Interceptor?”

A voice behind
him said, “No, sir.”

Burleigh
didn't even blink. “Well, we'll just have to hope you're a fast
learner. Are you a fast learner, boy?”

“
Yes, sir!”

“
Then let's get out of this chicken coop
and save the good citizens of Heinlein from the bad
guys.”

Fariba
Freymann watched the shabby streets of Heinlein sliding slowly by.
Rik and Burleigh sat opposite her in the little police transport
pod. The rest of Burleigh's squad were in a larger pod behind them.
She had complained at first about taking the ridiculous little
electric cart when they were on a mission to save the city, but Rik
and Burleigh had both insisted it was the fastest – indeed, the
only – way to get around Heinlein, emergency or not.

A tense
silence had fallen on the group as each of them studied their own
thoughts.

“
I – I don't know where to go.” That had
been Maria, infuriatingly helpless, as Freymann had ushered her out
of The Harsh Mistress and into the alley at the back. Freymann had
badly wanted to get back inside to help Rik, but his ex couldn't be
left on her own to wander the streets. If Cordell's people found
her again – or Lanham's – she could be used against
them.

“
Just go straight down there.” She pointed
along the alley in a direction she picked at random. The curved
walls of the lava tube were rough and grimy on one side of the
narrow space, and the backs of shops and apartments were rough and
grimy on the other. The ground was bare regolith. The tube walls
had been sprayed with ceramic foam insulation – more regolith,
mixed with a polymer resin and aerated. It made Freymann shiver to
think of how cold the lunar rock would be at the other side of that
barrier. “When you can, cut through to the street and catch a pod.
Don't talk to anyone. Don't draw attention to yourself. Tell the
pod to take you to police HQ and then turn yourself in. You'll be
safe.”

Whether she
would or not, Freymann had no idea, but at least Maria would be out
of play, and that's all she cared about right then.

Maria looked
scared and overwhelmed by what was happening. Freymann took in the
big eyes, the porcelain skin and the long, delicate limbs, and
understood why Rik had wanted to protect her. Hell, she felt the
urge herself.

But Maria
didn't run off. She stood there, chewing her lower lip, and asked,
“Are you and Rik...?”

“
We don't have time for this.”

“
I just... It's just...”

It was
maddening. Why wouldn't the stupid woman just go?

“
It was great at first,” Maria said. “You
know? Wonderful. It really was, but then, slowly...”

Freymann
didn't want this conversation and she didn't want to be standing in
that alley.

“
Then, slowly, what?” she snapped. “You
didn't know he had problems? You didn't think he'd picked you as a
substitute for his mother and sister? You looked at that big tough
hunk and all you saw was the Daddy you'd never had?”

Maria looked
as if Freymann had slapped her across the face. It made her relent.
Maria wasn't the enemy. It wasn't Maria's fault that Freymann had
some of those same feelings herself.

“
OK. Look, there's nothing between me and
Rik. If you want to take another shot, he's all yours. But, if you
want my advice, you–”

And that was
when the firefight broke out inside the bar and Freymann ran
inside, not giving Maria a second thought.

As the police
car trundled its leisurely way out to the spaceport, Freymann
wondered for the first time whether Rik had already checked that
Maria was still all right. The thought gave her a pang of jealousy,
which she angrily suppressed.

“
So tell us the rest,” she said, breaking
the silence. Trying to turn her thoughts to something less
irritating. Rik looked at her, puzzled, so she elaborated. “The
rest of the story. How do you know there was only water in the
phials?”

Rik looked
into Freymann's eyes and smiled. “It's to do with the other thing
that's been bugging me. Why pick me to be the courier? I've got no
reputation. It's not even my usual line of work. I'm just a PLEO
who can't get a decent client, just a washed up ex-cop in
self-exile at the ass-end of nowhere, treading water but sinking
fast. The only reason Cordell would pick me is so that I'd be a
convincing Judas goat who could lead Lanham's people here.”

“
You're going to have to give me a bit more
than that.”

“
OK.” He leaned forward, and so did
Burleigh. “Once you know the end-game, the rest all makes sense.
Cordell used Greet-Greet to recruit me. For all I know, he had his
fundamentalist asshole flunkies all over the Moon looking out for
someone like me: someone with few friends, no real home, hungry
enough to take the job without asking too many
questions.