Trident's Forge (29 page)

“Which was?”

“Do more with less.”

Benson considered what he'd just heard, and what it told him about the Atlantians. As alien as they had seemed when he'd landed little more than a week before, it was hard to avoid the parallels. Disasters beyond their control or comprehension had decimated both of them, reduced their societies to a shell of their former selves and driven them into exile from the world they knew, forced to live for years on the barest essentials, leaving lasting scars on their collective psyches.

All things considered, Benson figured exile on board the Ark had probably been more comfortable.

“When was the last time your people were forced below ground?” Benson asked.

“Cuut has been lenient since the Shrinking. Seeds have still fallen, but they've been small, their clouds lasting Varrs, not years. It's why we've had the time to build our villages and roads. Still, many believe we have forgotten Cuut's lessons, that our expansion taunts zer, and that we are overdue for another reckoning.”

Benson could only chuckle at that. “Well, they weren't exactly wrong. You would have gotten hit last year if we hadn't caught it in time. Big sucker, too.”

Kexx's face went pale in a way that not even Benson could miss. “I… I don't understand. What do you mean?”

“I mean we've been mapping all the, er, seeds around your world since before we arrived and tracking the ones big enough to be dangerous. One was on course to strike, so we shot it with a…” How did you explain a laser to someone with stone-age tech? “A spear made of light and knocked it out of the way. As long as we're here, you're never going to have to worry about Cuut's Seeds again.”

“That's not possible,” Kexx said flatly. “You would have to be gods yourselves to interfere with Cuut's will.”

Benson realized he had walked out onto the thin ice of religious orthodoxy. Of all the Atlantians he'd spoken with, Kexx was easily the most rational and levelheaded, doubtless a byproduct of zer years as the one person in zer village tasked with seeing past everyone's bullshit. But apparently even ze had zer limits.

Benson proceeded cautiously. “That may be true. But the seeds, the asteroids, are just rock and ice. Some are tiny, no bigger than a bean, some are as big as cities. But they're still just rocks. They don't have a will. They just roam around out there, zipping through space until they hit something. But if you hit them hard enough, they move.”

Kexx, still pale as a sheet, shook his head. “That would be like hitting a spear in flight with another spear.”

Benson smirked. “Oh, it's
much
harder than that. You can't even imagine how fast things move around up there, but we do it all the time. On the way here, our ship had to hit dust no bigger than pebbles dozens, even hundreds of times a day.” Benson had a sudden, chilling flashback to tumbling through space after a bit of stellar dust the size of a grain of rice, just below the Ark's radar threshold, nearly vaporized his EVA pod. He'd almost died that day. It was not one of his fonder memories.

He shook himself back into the moment. “Anyway, if we can hit pebbles, hitting a mountain is child's play.”

“Varr,” Kexx said quietly, reverently.

“I've heard you say that before. What does it mean?”

Kexx collected himself silently. “Varr is… was Cuut's mate. Ze was exiled after the Shrinking for betraying Cuut and siding with Xis to try and shield us from Cuut's judgment.”

Benson listened intently. A trinity of gods. It made sense, considering the Atlantian's apparent three-gender arrangement. Certainly more sense than the contortions the prelaunch Catholics had to go through to explain their Trinity.

“Varr fought with Cuut for zer children for three years without rest, causing the ground to shake and the sky to burn, until the fight ended in a draw. Unable to beat Cuut or change zer mind, yet also unable to bring zerself to kill zer lover, Varr accepted defeat, but promised to return once Cuut's loneliness was too great. Now, ze visits eleven times each year, hoping Cuut will finally listen to reason.”

Moon
, Benson realized,
Varr was the name of their moon.
“And stop sending seeds to destroy the world and drive your people underground,” Benson finished for zer.

“How did you know that?”

“I've read a lot of stories. You pick up on the patterns.”

Kexx nodded, some light and color returning to zer face. “When this becomes common knowledge, there will be many who believe your people are emissaries of Varr zerself. Many already believe this.”

“Are you one of them?”

“Are you of Varr?” Kexx asked, zer cautious, deliberate mind crashing headlong into a long-repressed childhood faith.

A buried memory from one of Theresa and Bryan's first dates at the classic movie theater in Avalon module put a smile on his face. He couldn't remember the film's title, but a line jumped out regardless.
Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!

“No, Kexx, we're not gods. I know it sounds like it sometimes, but we haven't done anything your people couldn't do with enough time.”

“But much less time if we ally with you?”

Man, ze doesn't beat around the bush
, Benson thought. “I don't think I'm the one to make that kind of offer, Kexx. I just want to find out who's responsible for what happened to our people.
Both
of them.”

The conversation was interrupted by a flashing icon in Benson's field of vision. The small solar array draped over his shoulder had finished recharging his satellite uplink. He had an hour window to update Shambhala on the day's discoveries and to talk to his wife, maybe warn her off. He intended to use every second.

“If you'll excuse me, Kexx, I have to talk to my people back in our city.”

Kexx nodded respectfully, then picked up zer pace and fell into formation at the head of the caravan to give Benson some privacy. He pulled the sat uplink out of his pack and unplugged it from the solar charger, then synched it up with his plant. Familiar icons appeared in his field of vision, including yet another software update notification demanding to be seen.

[Important Implant Software Update, Fixes Memory Leak Error #34788001. Install Now?]

Benson sighed his annoyance. Whoever was writing code for the updates and patches had the most secure job in all of human society. he asked his plant OS.

[Less Than One Minute.]

Fine, whatever
, he thought. If he didn't do it now, it would just keep popping up before every link, wasting even more time.

he said internally.

The flashing icon disappeared, replaced by a green download status bar. It filled up in less than five seconds. A small file, then. Good.

[Install Now?] it asked.

Benson said. he added, knowing full well it wouldn't make anything happen faster, but feeling satisfied for having said it anyway. The cursor in his mind's eye turned into a small spinning circle.

[Installation Complete]

No sooner than the message appeared, Benson's vision blurred as his plant displays turned to static and noise. A sharp pain struck his chest, like being impaled. Benson's hand shot up to his heart, certain it would find the shaft of a spear sticking out of it, but it grabbed only the damp cloth of his sweat-soaked shirt.

“Mei!” Benson shouted in sudden, all-engulfing panic.

“Me….” His breath left him as his vison faded to black.

The last thing Bryan Benson felt was a sensation of falling.

T
heresa and Korolev
sat in her office and stared at each other in stunned silence. The news of Captain Mahama's death hadn't been made public yet, but it wouldn't be long before it leaked out somehow. News was even better than helium at escaping whatever tried to contain it. Reluctantly, and under pressure from the acting administrator, Theresa had ordered twenty of her newly recruited reserve officers to mobilize in preparation for whatever civil upheaval accompanied the news.

Korolev broke the awkward quiet. “They've only been drilling for three days, chief.”

“I know, Pavel.”

“And they haven't done any crowd control training.”

“I know, Pavel.”

“And just mustering them is going to let people know something is up.”

“I
know
, Pavel!” Theresa snapped at her subordinate, surprising both him and herself. She took a deep, calming breath. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout. But I already said all of these things to Administrator Merick, and he still wants them activated. And we follow orders around here until and unless we have a very compelling reason not to.”

Korolev shrank a bit, like a scolded puppy. Or what Theresa guessed a scolded puppy looked like. “I understand, ma'am. And I wasn't suggesting we disobey. I'm just…”

“Worried,” Theresa finished for him. “Well, so am I. You'd be stupid not to be, and it's good that you're recognizing these things. But you're trying to do a job one level above your pay grade, at least for now. What I need from you right now is to know that you're going to take these stupid orders and do your best to unfuck them on the ground. Can you do that?”

“You know I will, ma'am.”

“OK, so how are you going to do it?”

Korolev rubbed his chin as he contemplated the question. Finally, he answered. “Pair them up, then link them with one of our existing constables as three-man units, and make it clear that the constable is in charge.”

“And what do you do with the hotheads?” Theresa asked. “You're talking about football players, after all. Some of them are more than a little testosterone-soaked.”

“Assign them to female constables,” Korolev said without hesitating. “They might want to show off for each other, but they'll think twice about looking like goons in front of a lady.”

Theresa smirked. “I don't know if that's always been my experience, but I'm going to let you write the roster assignments. Deal?” Korolev nodded enthusiastically. “I thought you'd like that.”

Korolev nodded his thanks, but didn't move. Instead, he shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. “Is there something else, Pavel?”

“Yeah, maybe. I guess.”

“Out with it, then.”

“It's just that… The captain dying doesn't make any sense, does it?”

“The universe is under no constraints to make sense to us,” Theresa replied. “Still, no, it doesn't.”

“People her age don't die of heart attacks.”

“It's rare, I'll grant you, but the stress of command can wear on a person, and she'd been in the chair for longer than anyone in decades. That, and she was alone in her quarters when it happened, with the door locked. Like, physically locked, which was why the medics couldn't get to her in time to resuscitate. So unless we're talking about ghosts…”

“But so soon after Valmassoi? That doesn't strike you as odd?”

“Valmassoi died of spear poisoning, Pavel. They're hardly related.”

“Did he, though?”

“You were there. Are you telling me you're not sure how he died?”

“No, well, maybe. Look, Valmassoi was hurt bad, really messed up. But we got his vitals stabilized on the flight back. He was holding on right up until final approach when his heart just stopped. No warning, no change in his vitals, it just quit. Like someone flipped a switch. I didn't think much about it at the time, but now…”

“Now it sounds exactly like what happened to the captain,” Theresa said.

Korolev shrugged. “It's an odd coincidence.”

“It's a
convenient
coincidence,” Theresa said, echoing what her husband had said when she broke the news to him over the link. “For someone, at least. OK, Pavel, I'm on board with the possibility, but how does someone stop a heart at will without touching the person?”

Korolev held up his stun-stick. “We induce seizures without touching people. How hard would it be to do the same thing to a heart?”

“What, through our plants?” Theresa said in disbelief. But the suggestion was anything but crazy. The plant was integrated with the brain before someone even left the tank. It was wired into the visual and auditory senses, monitored brain activity, body chemistry, vital signs, and in the case of their stun-sticks could even interrupt normal brain function through an electrical pulse. What if someone found a back door, or exploited a bit of code to redirect that pulse to a different part of the brain and shut off the signals that reminded the heart to keep beating?

Theresa whistled low. “Hold that thought.” She punched in Dr Russell's contact info on her plant and made the call.

Theresa cut her off.

Russell said uncertainly.

Theresa cut the call and turned back to Korolev. “I'm going to have dinner with Dr Russell. We'll see what she thinks. No offense, Pavel, but I really hope you're wrong.”

“Tell me about it,” Korolev said.

“Still, I don't think they'd risk using it openly.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well it's not like you could hide a dozen sudden heart attack deaths in healthy people, could you?” Theresa rubbed her cheek. “No, if that's what's happening here, they're using it as a last resort. They organized the raid on the Atlantian village somehow, hoping he'd be killed during the battle. That was the plan.”

“And when I saved him, they didn't have any choice but to zap him.”

“Exactly, and he'd been so badly wounded that no one would question the cause of death. Then they get Mahama locked alone in her own room. Boom, no evidence of foul play, no suspects, no suspicion. But if one of us dies of a heart attack in the middle of trying to make an arrest for building a heart attack machine, that would be a little harder to cover up.”

“Not that we'd be around to enjoy watching their trial.”

“True, but–” Theresa jumped as something struck her office window hard enough to shatter it. Korolev was on his feet and moving for the door with his stun-stick in hand before she had time to blink. A spiderweb of cracks in the window prevented her from seeing what was happening outside, so she stood to follow, but Korolev closed the door and put his back to it.

“We'd better grab our riot gear, chief.”

<
T
his is an unlawful protest
,> Theresa shouted through her plant directly into the minds of the crowd, yet still barely audible over the surging noise.

Word of Captain Mahama's death leaked even faster than Theresa feared it would. Administrator Merick had issued a statement on the steps of the Beehive to address the rumors and eulogize their fallen leader in a transparent bid to boost his visibility and standing with the voting public. After a respectful mourning period of no more than thirty seconds, the good people of Shambhala had taken to the streets in force. Theresa's constables barely had time to equip and meet them before the wave reached the Beehive. Their line was shaky and anxious, but holding.

The usual group of rabble rousers that had been agitating in the wake of Valmassoi's assassination had grown and been joined by other groups. People protesting for greater independence from the Ark and its crew saw the captain's death as a perfect opportunity to apply pressure, while the Returners fighting to overturn Mahama's policy preventing people from moving back up the beanstalk did the same. Naturally, all three groups were just as busy shouting at and shoving each other as they were in supporting their own causes. It was a powder keg just waiting for the right spark.

But at least they were too engaged in fighting among themselves to unify against Theresa and her constables.

“Bullshit!” someone shouted from the other side of her wall of clear acrylic shields. “We have the right to free assembly!”

Theresa scanned the rabble rouser. Trevor Cambias, twenty-six, machinist, no priors. She wasn't sure which faction he was protesting with, but he seemed closest to the isolationists. She tagged him and threw his info into her growing database of protestors. “You have the right to
peaceful
assembly, Mr Cambias.” Theresa shot back with her own voice. “Which doesn't include throwing rocks through my fucking window! Which is why it's time to disperse.”

“Or what?” Cambias challenged.

Theresa brandished her stun-stick. “Or I start cutting strings and dragging people into cells.”

“You wouldn't dare,” someone else shouted, not at all sounding like they believed it.

Oh, honey, you'd be shocked at what I'd dare
, Theresa managed not to say. She had to walk a very fine line between showing resolve and authority and antagonizing the crowd into violence. The protest was much larger, and angrier, than before. Theresa guessed it was closing in on twenty-five hundred, maybe as much as three thousand people. If push came to shove, there was no way her few dozen constables could keep it contained. There could be fights, broken bones, maybe even bloodshed.

“Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. Who knows? Personally, I'd rather not have to find out. Now c'mon folks, we've let you come out here for days already, but it's getting out of hand. Vandalism is not acceptable. Violence is not acceptable. So we have to pack it in for the day. Come back tomorrow and we'll try again. But for right now it's bar time, ladies and gentlemen. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.”

The less committed parts of the crowd laughed and worked their way toward the edges, where they peeled away. Slowly, and with a little more coaxing, the ominous crowd evaporated until it reached a more manageable size. Soon enough, all that remained were the three cores of true believers who still hadn't figured out how to put aside their differences long enough to present a united front against Theresa's constables. She was only too happy to exploit the fracture lines as she ordered the arrest of half a dozen of the most vocal and troublesome protestors, two of which broke into fisticuffs and had to be stunned.

By the time it was all over, they were actually offering to testify against each other. Theresa shook her head as they were put on one of the electric carts and driven off toward the jail. The crowd well and truly dispersed, Theresa let out a long sigh she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.
Humans,
she thought.
Even after all this, we're still so busy fighting among ourselves, it's a miracle we get anything done at all.

“That was dicey, chief,” Korolev said. “Well played.”

“It'll get worse before it gets better.”

“We tagged the leaders. We should be able to come up with enough excuses to hold them for a couple of days. That should calm things down.”

“They aren't the leaders, Pavel.” Theresa pointed to the cart receding down the road. “They're the patsies someone's spun up to create chaos and keep everyone distracted, including us. A crowd that big doesn't assemble itself out of thin air. Someone leaked the captain's death to people they knew would cause a ruckus. And if she really was murdered, you can bet they were in contact with the people who did it, if they weren't one and the same. This whole thing is coordinated. I'll bet my house on it.”

“So what do we do?”

“Everyone we arrested, comb their internet traffic, plant conversations, text messages, everything. See if we can spot the leaks.”

“You really think whoever this was will be that sloppy?”

Theresa shook her head. “Not really, but you never know. We might get lucky. And I think it's time to tell Feng to break cover and go full throttle into an official investigation on the Ark.”

“I thought they denied him entry.”

“It wasn't him specifically. The crew froze all traffic in and out when they found Mahama dead. They lifted the freeze a few hours later. So he's in place.”

“But we sent him up there under cover so he wouldn't spook anybody.”

“I know, but my gut tells me this is building to a crescendo, and quickly. We're running out of time. Maybe Feng's investigation will make someone panic and flush them out of hiding.”

“A lot of ‘ifs' and ‘maybes' in there, chief.”

“Yeah, but the glorious thing about being us is our prey has to be perfect. We only need to get lucky once.”

“Some of us would like to get lucky more than once,” Korolev said, blushing at his own joke.

“Ugh, Pavel. I know a half-dozen girls who would let you cook them breakfast tomorrow if you would just ask them out.”

“Really?” Korolev's eyes narrowed. “What're their names?”

“Oh no, you little chicken shit. Want to be a detective, work it out for yourself.”

“Judas,” Korolev said. “Oh, there was one other thing, I was going to mention it earlier.”