The Great Symmetry (13 page)

Lobeck pulled the cylinders apart laterally, then brought them together. One. Nineteen more reps for a set. He continued. “So, have the shuttles launched yet?” he asked.

“One so far.”

“Let’s just work here, and monitor progress
,” Lobeck said. “I am not due to start my full workout for another hour.”

Skylar worked quietly in the conference room, alternately tapping, reading, or quietly using voice commands. On the wall, a display showed the progress of the shuttles, with an overlay of the likely orbital path of any object traveling along the decoded vector.

Lobeck finished his set, and another. Then another set of twenty curls. His arms flared with pain. He began the next set.

It became more and more difficult to focus on any other topics.

“Still, nothing?”

“Nothing,
” Skylar replied.

“How small are we scanning?”

“Five centimeters or larger. There is no substantial object in orbit around Foray, on any possible track that could have come from the infoterrorist ship.”

“We have missed something,” Lobeck declared. “Check for any ship that crossed that path.”

“Do you take me for an idiot
? I’ve done that.”

“Try again,” he directed her. “Check for any ship that could possibly have gone anywhere near that path, at any time since projected arrival in orbit. Mathematically possible, under any circumstance. Apply a wide tolerance.”

“Here you go.” Skylar brought up a chart, showing a trajectory around Foray. “Just one hit. And it won’t amount to anything.
We had the ship checked out at Top Station with all of the others.”

“What’s the ship?”

“A shuttle. Pilot Mira Adastra.”

“Adastra? Now I do take you for an idiot.” Lobeck let go of the cylinders, which hovered in space, and fixed the full force of his attention on Skylar. “How could you miss that?”

“But we checked the ship, and Adastra,” Skylar insisted
. “We gave her extra attention because of her prior association with McElroy. The ship is clean, and she’s clean. We covered the ship and read the entire worm drive. We even have a copy of the drive. While Adastra went for a break in a swimming pool, we checked her possessions
. There’s nothing there.”

“You still don’t get it! Adastra was his personal pilot, before we constructed the Aurora expedition for him and replaced his entire crew. That’s more than an association. Right now, redirect every petaflop to the convergence of McElroy and Adastra. Throw everything at it, recent history and long past. An all-inclusive Diapers and Beer analysis.”

A full analysis, of the type that would find buried links between apparently unrelated facts, took a lot of processing power. Such power was at their disposal. Within minutes, a video began to play. It showed McElroy and Adastra, holding up glasses of some drink. They clinked the glasses together. Then they shouted out in unison, “Hey, Get Off My Lawn!”

The Untrusted Zone

“No way. Not the visitor kit. Not here at home.” Evan pushed away the offered gear.

“Be reasonable, Evan. You haven’t been outside on Kelter in a while. It’s thin, really thin.”

“Mira! I grew up here! I know that. And I lived for years out at the Valley of Dreams. We didn’t carry that stuff.”

Mira was packing a small bag with personal effects. “That was then. We can’t afford you having an anoxic lapse. And you’ve never been to the Untrusted Zone, right?”

“I need to be out in the open air, even if it’s thin,” Evan protested. “No more suits or helmets, just for a little while.”

She closed the bag and started heading aft, toward the lock. “Wear the visitor kit,” she said, “and you will look like a visitor. That’s what we want. With the
bump cap and the air supply, your facial rec profile will be cut way down. That’s really important. It’s the perfect cover.”

“I thought this was outside all of the surveillance,” Evan countered. “Untrusted Zone and all that.”

Mira considered. “It is outside. Sort of. The eyeballs are not supposed to be here, but that doesn’t mean anything. Individuals could be harvesting faces and sending them along to who knows who. So just behave, and don’t blow it now
. You’re pretty much in the clear. We’ll get you somewhere quiet for a few weeks and it will all blow over.”

“It beats the EVA, I guess.” Evan began to put on the visitor kit. Also known as the bughead, the sippy cup, or the noob tube, the visitor kit marked anyone as an object of derision. Or, an easy mark. The bump cap, designed to protect a visitor from head injuries due to bouncing too high in the low gravity, was especially the butt of jokes.

“Don’t you look just dandy!” Mira waved grandly toward the lock.

“
I don’t see you wearing one.”

“Because I don’t need it. Ha!” She opened the inner door of the lock and they climbed in. Without EVA suits, it wasn’t such a close fit as before, but they were still only a few centimeters apart.

“Mira, you are enjoying this way too much,” Evan told her.

She reached out and gave the helmet of Evan’s visitor kit, now on his head, a solid thump. “I have to get something out of this, you know
. Considering that you have no credit or money, that you endanger my life every second I’m with you.”

“Why? Really, Mira. Why have you done all of this? I really am grateful.”

“Let’s just say that it’s for old time’s sake. And – you know the ancient Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times?
Well, I believe that I do live in the most interesting of times, and I don’t want to miss any of it.”

“But these friends of yours − you know, I’d feel more comfortable with someone we both know. We should ask Kate to work her connections. And she always thinks of something I didn’t.”

Mira’
s reaction was instantaneous. “Kate? No! Evan, you need to lay low. Known associates, remember? Who, of all people, would be the single absolutely most known, most associated person to you ever, in all of spacetime? Stay away! It’s bad enough that you’re with me – we’re going to need to get ourselves lost pretty quickly.”

“I know you two never got along, but
−”

“That’s not it. Evan, if you care about nothing else, then for her. You can protect her, if that matters to you, by not going anywhere near her.”

“Maybe there’s a way to meet without anyone knowing. You’re good at that kind of stuff, right?”

“
Little Miss Privilege is the last person you need right now,” Mira declared. “I can help you, if you will trust me. Or somebody else can help you.
I’ll find you the right person. Just not Kate, not now. Hey, let’s step out. Make sure you’ve got everything, because we’re never coming back here. No loose lips while we’re in public, okay?”

Mira opened the outer hatch, and Evan found himself walking on the surface of Kelter for the first time in two years.

Even during the h
eart of the day, the dark pink sky spoke to the thin atmosphere. The omnipresent dust reminded him of the total absence of water on the surface. Water, on Kelter, was only available from deep wells, and even that water had to be desalinized and carefully rationed.

The air, of course, was lacking. The lock had drawn down the pressure so the effect was not sudden, but there was no mistaking the end result.

They stood in a large expanse of open ground, dotted with a few ships. The small craft landing field occupied a square about a half kilometer across between the city of Abilene to the south and the Untrusted Zone to the north.

To their right was a set of unremarkable doors. A bay door that could slide up to admit a vehicle, and beside it one for foot traffic. A sandblasted sign read, “Abilene Entry 16-A”.

Civilization. On the other side of
the pedestrian door was an antechamber, where you could scan in. If your record was clean, you could then step into the corridors of the city.

Not today. They turned in the opposite direction and stepped across the field, entirely devoid of any living thing, to the nearest streets of the Untrusted Zone. Denison had left a few minutes before, to deliver a top priority message. The purpose of his charter, he said. Evan hoped that the message did not concern him.

While he would never admit it to Mira, the visitor kit helped
. The kit provided a light stream of supplementary oxygen, calibrated by a pulseox sensor that was clipped onto his earlobe. If he wanted all of the oxygen, he could put the line into his mouth, sippy style, or pull down the nasal inhaler. He chose not to.

“So, no fence around the airfield? No security?”

“Nope,” Mira told him. “I locked up, and it’s not my rig anyway. First order of business, let’s get something to eat. Nothing better after
hours in the can. With a wash on the way there.”

“Sounds great!”

Mira led him through a series of streets, turning right, then left, then more turns. Although she had covered up with a loose jacket and a hat, Evan reflected that it was a poor disguise.
Anyone who knew Mira would instantly recognize her manner, and her walk.

They dodged all manner of vehicles, both motor and personally powered. As far as Evan could tell, there was no plan, and no rules, regarding the traffic. Vehicles stayed to the right. Mostly. A few times Evan stepped too high, and flailed to regain his footing. He hoped that Mira didn’t notice.

As he dodged yet another bus screaming past, it struck Evan that it would be ironic for him to have survived this far, only to get flattened in the traffic. He resolved to avoid that fate, and found himself adjusting to the rhythm of the place as they walked. There were patterns, if he kept his eyes and ears open.

At last they came to an open plaza, dominated by a huge tree. Only in this place were there no motor vehicles. No barriers kept the vehicles out. They simply were not present.

“Here we are! Wash time for you!
” Mira pointed to an open door.

The shower was Nirvana. Even the Kelter version, using as little water as possible, was bliss.

Next, lunch. Mira directed the way. “First door on the right, grab a tray and dish up whatever you want. Then we’ll go sit by the tree.”

Evan followed Mira into the caf
é and considered the assortment of offerings in the metal dishes.

“Um, Mira, what is this stuff?”

“It’s lunch.” She started to load up her plate.

“So those things, they’re some kind of root?”

“Those, my friend, are carrots. Never seen one before?” Mira grabbed the tongs and snagged a few for herself.

“Of course
I have! But those are not carrots. Carrots are straight, are twenty centimeters long, and deep orange. And smooth. These are pale yellow, and lumpy. With purple splotches.
Look, this one splits in two! And what is that white fibrous stuff?”

“They’re actual carrots, the kind that grow in the ground.” She held up a pair of the roots in the serving tongs and offered them to Evan.

“In the ground? As in, dirt? Worms? Oh, that is so unnatural. Mira, this
mutant food isn’t going to work for me. Is there any Certified Safe food here? Anything from Philomax would be great.”

“You poor thing,” Mira clucked. “I’ll save you. For starters, look for the dishes with the H, that’s hydroponic. Those leaves, there. Are they ok
? We’ll leave the meat for another day.”

“You mean – animals?”

“Afraid so. But fear not. Too expensive for us, anyway. Take some of the bean curd, that will work. Those cubes, there. We’ll drown it in sauce. And you’ll like dessert.
You’ll survive.”

Shaken, Evan managed to make it to the end of the line. He started to walk out of the café when Mira took his shoulder. “We pay here.”

“Of course. You have your card, right?”

“Not that way. Watch.
” Mira pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to a worker. The worker in turn gave Mira back three pieces of paper and two metal coins.

“Is that even legal? Oh. Right. Untrusted. Well, thanks for lunch,” Evan told her.

“Hey, I’m running a tab. For your wash too – that was about three regular washes worth of water. And you better be good for it. Wait here one minute, I’ve got to do something.”

Mira walked over to a vendor and returned with two small vials. She walked over to the trunk of the tree, mumbled something, and poured them out.

“What was that?
Did you just pour water on the ground?”

“It’s a tax,” Mira told him. “Or rental, if you like. And I added your half to your tab.”

Wasting water. He didn’t even want to know the size of his tab.

“We’ll have our lunch,” she said, “and then we vanish.”

They sat in the shade of the buttonwood tree and had their lunch. Evan started with trepidation, but quickly made a surprising discovery. The food was good! Hunger arrived, and he fed it.

“It’s not Certified Safe, you know,” Mira prodded.

“I don’t care,” he told her. “Hey, are you going to eat the rest of those carrots?”

To all appearances,
they were just two friends quietly having a meal together. People walked by, in the standard low lope of Kelter natives, paying them no attention.

Evan was beginning to believe that he might make it after all.

Not Employee Material

Already the shuttle, piloted by Mira from Top Station, had been on the
ground for ten minutes. And Kate was stuck at the exit gate, unable to get out to the landing field. “I’m sorry, Ms. DelMonaco. You have an uncleared lien. A spacecraft, claimed by CoreValue. You’ll need to sort it out before you can leave.” The functionary didn’t appear to be sorry at all.