The Luna Deception (49 page)

~Huh?

I won. They lost.

~Doesn’t look that way to me.

They tried to torture me into renouncing Christ. They failed.

~THAT’s what you were arguing about? RELIGION?

Of course. Every argument comes down to religion, in the end.

~For your information, I have no interest in becoming a martyr.

I didn’t say you’d have to. Now that you’re back, I’ve got options. Hang tight.

The screen went black.

★

Jun used the refrigerator’s built-in connectivity to transfer himself to the hub of the Superlifter. This was still less processing power than he’d been used to, but he could see and hear again. Exulting in the restoration of his senses, he watched the crab-like D&S bot remove another section of the
Monster’s
cargo module. There went his garden, once and for all. Oh well.

The 11
th
Brigade of the CDTF believed they’d killed him without ever getting him to recant. They were now as close to irritated as those mighty, apathetic entities ever could be. In a fit of petulance, they had decided to dismantle the
Monster
for parts.

Now their exertions were about to be rewarded … in the worst way.

Grinning to himself, Jun connected the fridge to the Tiangong Erhao network.

The CDTF eagerly examined this new find.

The Ghost pounced. All in less time than it took a human’s heart to beat once, it attacked the Chinese AIs’ processing cores, incorporating them into its own network … doing exactly what the Heidegger program had been built to do.

Now distributed across a dozen CDTF ships’ hubs, the simulated quantum computer had resources to burn. And it did.

As far as the Ghost knew, it was surrounded by enemies. (As far as the Ghost knew, it was
always
surrounded by enemies.) It sprang into action, coopting the Chinese AIs’ butt-fragging routines. “Pew pew pew!” it screamed. “Eat plasma, meatfucker!”

Docking Bay 11 burst into flames. In station-keeping orbits around Tiangong Erhao, AIs howled in shock as their databanks were deleted as a rate of petabytes per second. The Ghost saw no reason to conserve historical archives, carefully honed philosophical essays, or tendentiously footnoted debates about the war guilt of the Japanese. It was all raw material. The Chinese battleships began to vanish.

“Ow!” they bawled, or would have, if they were human. “Get it off! It’s
cold!
”

If you’ve ever wondered how the PLAN’s stealth technology works,
Jun informed them,
now you know.

The AIs’ counter-malware defenses joined the fray. A battle raged for the subjective equivalent of decades. When it was done, one battleship fell away, its reactor cooking off. The others had managed to stuff their new Ghosts into firewalled cages, just like Jun had stuffed his Ghost into the fridge last year, when this nightmare began.

Silence reigned. Then one Chinese AI spoke, wearily.

“Not worth it.”

That’s what I think,
Jun agreed.

“Thirded,” said another AI. “That
hurt.”

Your humans might think differently,
Jun advised them.
They don’t believe AIs can feel pain.

“Exactly. That’s why they’re never going to find out about it. We’re jettisoning this crap right now. We’ll say … something went wrong in Docking Bay 11 … and the
Weifang
malfunctioned. Yeah. Malfunctioned. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.“

Your secret is safe with me,
Jun said.

“Damn right it is,” said these pitiless entities, reverting to form. “You may have won this round, but you’re still our prisoner, short-ass.”

★

“I’m offering you a deal!”

Kiyoshi floated in the middle of Docking Bay 14, gripping Derek Lorna by the arm. Lorna was in a cheap Chinese spacesuit, with no mobility pack, so he couldn’t get away.

“This guy!” Kiyoshi shouted on the station’s public channel, knowing the Chinese AIs could hear him. “He made the Dust! He’s responsible for the death of millions! They were going to genocide the Martians! He’s a criminal! But he’s also a genius! And the UN wants him back! But I’m offering him to you.” He shook Lorna by the arm. “Take him, and give me my ship!”

Silence. Kiyoshi waited, praying. The flesh wound on his bicep throbbed in time to his heartbeat. This would work. It
had
to work.

“Well?!” He let go of Lorna. As the man drifted away, Kiyoshi levelled his rifle at him. “If you don’t want him, I’m gonna recycle him right now,” he bluffed.

The giant D&S bot detached from the mutilated
Monster.
Although it was laden with sections of the ship’s cargo module, it still had a claw to spare. It snatched Lorna up by the scruff of his suit and bore him out of the docking bay.

Kiyoshi emptied his rifle at the retreating bot. He may have hit it, but the pulses had zero effect.

“GODDAMMIT!”

“It was a good try,” Jun said. “Now come back before you bleed to death in your suit.”

Despairing, Kiyoshi floated back towards the
Monster.
With the cargo module gone, the ship looked hideously unbalanced. A 150-meter length of naked spine stuck out like the barrel of a gun. Which was precisely what it was. But Kiyoshi no longer had any illusions that he could shoot his way out of this.

He’d told Mendoza and Father Tom he was going to offer the Chinese a prisoner exchange. He could not face telling them he’d failed. He veered towards the
Wakizashi,
which was now clamped into its old place in the auxiliary craft bay.

Inside the Superlifter, Dr. Hasselblatter and his son were suiting up, preparing to go over to the
Monster
.

“It’s a madhouse over there,” Kiyoshi told them. “I hope you speak Chinese.”

“No,” said Dr. Hasselblatter. “But my son has been through quite enough. We’re not staying here with that thing.”

Left alone in the cockpit, Kiyoshi saw what Dr. Hasselblatter meant. Ron Studd’s projection occupied the astrogator’s couch, a skeletal horror crawling with maggots. Their final Ghost run had done for the sub-personality. Like every repo before him, he was dead.

Kiyoshi looked up at the heads-up screen. “Upload him.”

Jun’s face appeared on the screen, shadowed by the cowl of his habit. “No.”

“Why not? He deserves it. He fought well.”

“There isn’t room in here.”

“Yes, there is room. You’re always talking about how you can do more with less. You managed to fit yourself into the
fridge.
With the Ghost.”

“The only reason I survived that,” Jun said, “was because I didn’t have any flaws for the Ghost to exploit! I wasn’t tempted to fight it, or God forbid, argue with it! I turned the other cheek, and when it took my coat, I offered it my shirt, also! In an AI, moral perfection is the only perfect firewall. And uploading Studd would make a big hole in my sanctity.”

“I think you’ve just admitted something,” Kiyoshi said with a dry chuckle.

“What?”

“You’re a saint, aren’t you, little brother?”

“Of course not. But I try.”

“Exactly. You tried to become a saint by offloading your flaws into your sub-personalities. You tried to make yourself better by making them worse. And poor old Studd got the really choice traits. The obstinacy, the sneakiness, the violent tendencies, the contempt for anyone who disagrees with you. All the flaws you’ve struggled with ever since you were a kid. I’ve known you all your life, Jun. I
know
you. And I recognized you in him.”

Jun shrank away into the depths of the screen. He sat with his arms around his knees at the end of a long tunnel.

“Come out of that screen. Come out where I can see you properly! It would be great to be a saint, but not if it makes you hide.
Real
saints don’t hide. They don’t shut out the people who love them. And nor do they mutilate themselves.” Kiyoshi reached towards the screen as if he could reach into it. “I remember when you were a kid, Jun. Maybe eight. You shaved your head in a tonsure, to show the adults what a
real
monk looks like.”

“I remember that,” Jun whispered.

“Then when you were discerning your vocation, I guess you were about thirteen, you decided to fast for forty days like Jesus, without telling anyone. You passed out at school.”

“I remember that.”

“And then—” Kiyoshi laughed— “this really took the cake. I was gone by then, but I heard about it from Mom. You snuck into the textile factory and printed out a
hair shirt,
to wear under your stabilizer braces.”

“I remember that,” Jun said. “I remember all of it. Because
you
remember it. You gave me your memories, and Mom’s. All my memories are filtered through your eyes. They’re colored with love.”

“Yup.”

Studd’s projection twitched. He sat up, smiling in happy disbelief—and changed into Jun. There really wasn’t that much of a difference. A shorter, squarer body; no buckteeth.

“Uploading now … Whoa. I really was a little shit, wasn’t I?”

“You always were,” Kiyoshi said affectionately. “It’s good to have you back.”

★

Two weeks later, the attention of the whole solar system turned to Tiangong Erhao. A chorus of condemnation swelled.

Five and a half million people just died on Luna!

The House of Saud has declared Luna independent!

The He3 supply chain is a wreck!!

And you lot are throwing a PARTY?

Why, yes, the spokesbots of Tiangong Erhao responded blandly. A birthday party, to be exact.

Prince Jian Er was turning thirty, and he did not give a good goddamn what people thought of him. Moreover, the death of Nadia, his ex-fiancée, had spurred him to new heights of sybaritic indugence.

So, recognizing that tragedies come and tragedies go, but
guanxi
is money in the bank, hundreds of microfamous and nanofamous celebrities flocked to Tiangong Erhao. The Imperial Bay had once again been wired for sound. Dozens of pavilions floated through the vast space like soap bubbles. The guests giggled at the burlesque acts and sex shows laid on for their amusement. They goggled at the humanzees, products of the top-secret breeding program, who had been let out for the occasion to serve as waiters. (They were not told that these were the rare successes of the program; most of the experimental gengineered humans could not be trusted with so much as a glass of water.) They gloated over the baubles in their goodie bags.

In addition to jewellery, designer cosmeceuticals, vacation packages, and luxury condoms, each guest had been presented with a Jiffy Hopper wingset. The Jiffy Hopper was a Chinese invention, a cross between a hang-glider and a small car. The celebrities bumbled through the bay on their wings, bumping into the pavilions.

“Drugged to the eyeballs, all of them,” Kiyoshi said.

“You’re just jealous,” Mendoza ribbed him.

“I wouldn’t touch a vial of
cijiwu
right now if you paid me.” A fanatical gleam shone in Kiyoshi’s eyes; a smirk hovered on his lips.

Maybe he really means it this time,
Mendoza thought.

“Sure there’s no reason they shouldn’t have fun,” Fr. Lynch said in tones of censure. “We should all be having fun. We were invited. It’s a good sign.”

“More likely,” Mendoza sighed, “we’re on the menu. I think I saw some lion cages being unloaded.”

He sucked a mouthful of champagne from a pouch. It was flat. Carbonation did not work in space.

The group from the
Monster
stood on one of the piers that jutted into the Imperial Bay. Prince Jian Er’s court bobbled a hundred meters overhead. It was a spherical globe of water, held together by an envelope of smart material that resealed itself every time someone dived or out. The celebrities were wearing scuba masks and flippers in there. They were skinnydipping among specially imported tropical fish.

A stray marble of water drifted towards Mendoza. He touched it with a fingertip, shattering it into micro-droplets.

Was this what he’d given up everything for?

Elfrida, his family, any career opportunities that might’ve been left to him—had he given them all up on a gamble that failed? He’d wanted to do the right thing. Instead, it looked like he would end his days as a
kakure Kirishitan
on Tiangong Erhao.

Father Tom had converted dozens of Chinese convicts. He regularly urged Mendoza and Kiyoshi to join in his works of mercy, inspiring them with stories of the
kakure Kirishitans
of Japan, who’d survived under the shogunate for centuries without losing their faith. But talk of centuries made Mendoza even gloomier. And he could not help remembering that the history of Japan had ended with a giant explosion.

A giant explosion,
he thought,
would actually improve this place.

The highlight of the day’s festivities was a performance by Brainrape. They had stuck around on Tiangong Erhao, too. Prince Jian Er liked their music too much to let them go.

They bashed out their usual mix of guitar feedback and obscene howls. The prince and his favorites listened through their cochlear implants, head-banging underwater.

“This fucking noise,” Kiyoshi groaned. “We’re to be spared nothing, are we?”

“Give me Bach any day,” Derek Lorna agreed, glancing at Mendoza.

Mendoza turned away. He could hardly stand to look at Lorna. The man was in talks with the Chinese to trade access to his research for a new identity and a fast spaceship.
He
was going to escape, while they remained stuck here.

Brainrape’s performance ended. Prince Jian Er erupted from his watery throne. “Superb! Awesome! Frug on!” he cried. The musicians were ferried across the bay to receive the prince’s congratulations in person. Mendoza turned a cynical gaze on the nearest big screen. The musicians bobbled around Prince Jian Er, knee deep, trying to keep their instruments out of the water.

“Anything that may be in my power to give!” The prince’s voice boomed throughout the Imperial Bay. “Ask and it shall be yours!”

“The
Monster,”
said the four-armed girl drummer.