Up Against It Part 34

"We have nanomeds. Nothing fancy but enough to accelerate the healing."

"Good. Let's also immobilize my arm and use some tape around my rib cage. That should do for now."

Kamal obliged. "You're lucky," he remarked, as he worked. "You might have been killed."

No argument there, Xuan thought. Xuan thought.

A big whump! whump! shook the walls and the floor. It knocked them tumbling into the air. A second, louder one set off more alarms. Choking clouds of dust rolled into the room. Xuan coughed spasmodically, twisting in the air. Jets sprayed icy water, which stung his exposed skin, mixing with the dust. He began s.h.i.+vering. Xuan could not see well out of his right eye. He settled to the floor, and gingerly poked at the sodden bandage with a finger. b.l.o.o.d.y water dripped onto his hand. He looked over at Kamal. Muddy water ran down the young man's face, too. shook the walls and the floor. It knocked them tumbling into the air. A second, louder one set off more alarms. Choking clouds of dust rolled into the room. Xuan coughed spasmodically, twisting in the air. Jets sprayed icy water, which stung his exposed skin, mixing with the dust. He began s.h.i.+vering. Xuan could not see well out of his right eye. He settled to the floor, and gingerly poked at the sodden bandage with a finger. b.l.o.o.d.y water dripped onto his hand. He looked over at Kamal. Muddy water ran down the young man's face, too.

"Wait here, I'll go check," Kamal said. But Amaya and Geoff entered, wearing their helmets and pony bottles. A platoon of small robots followed them, carrying more supplies, drinking water, and tools. Last came the rocketbikes, driving themselves. Geoff used a controller to park them in a corner, and then shut off the dust suppression stream at the console.

While Geoff and Amaya removed their helmets and started putting the new supplies away, Kamal finished taping Xuan's arm and redid the head dressing.

"What happened?" Xuan asked Geoff. "What were the explosions?"

"They launched another missile," Geoff said. "It took out the inner lock and explosively decompressed the entry cavern. But we were ready."

Amaya said, "I had a minerbot rig a charge at the West Spider Way shaft entrance. They're programmed for that. I triggered the cave-in as they entered-after Geoff and his bots made it into the shaft."

"We collapsed the back half of the entry cavern," Geoff said. "That should keep them out for now."

Amaya gave Xuan and the others a troubled look. "I think at least one of them was. .h.i.t by flying debris. I saw blood."

"What do we do now?" Kamal asked. "We're trapped down here. The distress signal didn't go on long enough for anyone to hear it before they fired a missile at us. n.o.body knows where we are."

"Yes, they do," Xuan said. "My trip out here was logged at the docks."

"And I called Sean Moriarty," Geoff said, "and let him know we were on our way out here. Remember?"

Amaya said, "We could could dig our way out, if we had to. Use one of the little tunnelers." dig our way out, if we had to. Use one of the little tunnelers."

Kamal shook his head. "Not if we wanted to get away. They'd hear it. They'd feel the vibrations. And where would we go, anyway?"

"If we could get a distress signal out," Geoff said thoughtfully, "that'd do the trick. If it wasn't detected and shut off, or destroyed..."

That all seemed too much to hope for.

"Are there any other ways out?" Xuan asked after a moment, "other than tunneling our way out?"

Geoff hesitated. "There's a venting shaft for heat and waste emissions. Amaya can get through it, but just barely. The rest of us won't fit, though, and neither would any of our bots or mining equipment."

Amaya said, "Which means I could climb out through the vent again, and go for help. My bike is still out there."

"They probably already found it," Geoff replied. "And you're low on fuel."

Kamal went on, "And the launch ramps are right next to the shuttle. It would be too risky. They'd see you go."

"I might be able to tap the fuel tanks up top."

"Amaya..."

"We have to do something!" she snapped at Geoff.

Xuan said, "I appreciate your willingness to risk your life, Amaya, that's very brave, but I got a good look at their cargo hold. They are armed with heavy munitions. Smart weaponry. They could shoot you out of the sky without even having to think about it. And they would."

Amaya looked away, distress straining her features.

"What if we just sit tight?" Kamal asked. "They can't get in. Eventually they will just go away."

Again, Xuan had to shake his head. "I don't think they'll be going away. They can't afford for this rock to be discovered by the authorities."

They all looked at Xuan. Geoff said, "It's because of the ice, isn't it?"

"It is. Have you taken your own measurements?"

"No, but we figured it had to be a lot-several tons at least."

Xuan looked at him askance. "Multiply that figure by about a billion and you'll come closer to the actual figure."

The three youths all spoke at once: "What?" "That can't be!" "Are you sure sure?"

He answered the last. "Not absolutely sure-there may be large pockets of vacuum. Have you explored? How extensive are the tunnels?"

"There aren't that many," Geoff said. "Most are sealed off." He got a strange look on his face.

"With ice?"

Geoff nodded. "My G.o.d. You honestly believe this is a real live sugar rock, don't you? I mean, like the original? Gigatons' worth?"

"I think that is a very real possibility," Xuan answered. "And Mr. Mills suspects likewise. I jury-rigged the gravitometer to suggest that this mine is still heavy with metals, not yet tapped out, but he did not trust my results.

"Eventually," he said after a moment, "they will either use the big mining equipment up on the surface to dig in after us, or use explosives to ensure we can't escape. They'll want to know we're good and dead."

They all looked sick. "What can we do?" Kamal asked.

"We can't fight heavy munitions," Xuan replied, "but we can fight the men who wield them. Let us rest, and take stock, and we will figure out a plan."

Once ensconced in Sean and Lisa's guest room, Jane forwarded to Harbaugh the evidence of Glease's meeting with Kovak, with a note: "As promised. Attached herewith, proof Nathan Glease was responsible for the ice disaster."

Even if they managed to catch Glease, he-or the Ogilvies-would find a way to reach out and harm her, her family, or some other innocent Phocaean. So next she spent some time on the monitoring software the Viridians had given her. She created a macro she called DeadMan: the software saved the video stream to a private archive of hers here on Phocaea. Every ten minutes the macro requested a sequence of microgestures, and waited thirty seconds. If the gestures were not forthcoming, DeadMan then beamed the video to the usual wavesites and e-mailed it to the local news media. She tested it to make sure it worked. Then she went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, the bell rang. Jane lofted herself into the living room, half awake, and opened the door, expecting to see Xuan or Sean. It was Glease, standing in a dustfall of dying "Stroiders" motes. He had a gun pointed at her. Jane glanced at her heads-up-precisely two a.m. Of course; the blackout window. Her heartbeat leapt. She activated DeadMan with a flicker of an eyelid.

"I can't begin to tell you," he said, "how irritating it is, the way you keep interfering with my plans, Commissioner."

Lisa came out of her room, belting her robe. "Is that Sean?"

Jane triggered the door lock and stepped into the corridor, forcing Glease to take a step back. "It's business," she said over her shoulder as the door slid shut. "Go back to bed." The door latched behind her.

Glease gave her a tight little smile. "Fast thinking. Saves a mess."

"Get to the point. What do you want?"

He tucked his gun into his jacket. "We're going on a little jaunt."

Jane pointedly looked around. They were on a Promenade level. Traffic was light, but a few people were out here and there and a trolley rattled past. "Why should I cooperate? Maybe you should just shoot me here and have done with it."

"Oh, no. I have other plans for you. Besides"-he leaned close and whispered in her ear-"we have Xuan."

He meant it. Her breath caught. "I'll come."

Glease took her up the Weesu stairwell to Level 60, and stopped at a private entrance to Kukuyos.h.i.+: the entry to the memorial garden. She went rigid as he keyed in a code. The door opened and he waved her in, but she refused to cross the threshold. "You have no right to be here."

"Oh, come now," he said. "You know the old saying. Might makes right." He emphasized the verb, and shoved her, hard. She stumbled out into the clearing where the memorial had been held, flailing midair in the one-fifth gee till she could grab the limb of a nearby tree with a foothand. "That's always been one of my favorite sayings."

"I hope you realize," Glease went on, while she climbed down, "this is nothing personal. I'm a company man. I have a family back home and we do cookouts on the weekend with our neighbors." He spread his arms. "If I could have done this without resorting to these more extreme measures, I would have gladly done so. But you have left me with little choice."

She alighted next to the memorial wall. He grabbed her by the collar. "I have big plans, Commissioner. And I'm not going to let some used-up, tight-a.s.s old b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h with a messiah complex, in a rinky-d.i.n.k rock in the middle of f.u.c.king with a messiah complex, in a rinky-d.i.n.k rock in the middle of f.u.c.king nowhere, nowhere, mess up those plans." He gave her a rough shake with each insult. "Just saying," he finished, and released her. mess up those plans." He gave her a rough shake with each insult. "Just saying," he finished, and released her.

She eyed him, panting with despair and rage. She had no way to protect Phocaea. She couldn't even protect Xuan. They would kill him, her, everyone who got in their way.

She had barely escaped Vesta with her life. The memories were something she never talked about, had forced herself to forget. But they surged up now, unstoppable.

She had been the one to find Vesta's resource commissioner dead in his office. Poison. She never knew for certain whether it had been murder or despair. She remembered seeing the pills floating before his swollen, purple face. She remembered the b.l.o.o.d.y handprints on the bulkheads, as friends smuggled her and a handful of other, low-level officials to a freighter. She had spent seven weeks in an icy hold, and had emerged half starved, frostbitten, on Phocaea... only to find that no one cared. Vesta was a small cl.u.s.ter, millions of kilometers from anywhere. Everyone was busy and had their own problems.

So many friends and coworkers had died there. And it was not the work of an uncaring universe. No. It was the work of evil men.

An that hadn't even been the worst of it. The worst had been those who had helped the Ogilvies do what they had done. Among them had been her own coworkers and friends. They had betrayed their fellow Vestans to the mob to save their own lives, or save themselves from humiliation, or to earn a troy. They had seen no reprisals. They were powerful people now; wealthy, connected. They keynoted Upside conferences and published papers. She sometimes saw their names in the news.

When she had returned to Xuan, all those years ago, he had loved her, held her, and comforted her, helped her to heal. He had given her every microgram of love and empathy a life partner could summon. He had nagged her for working too hard, for driving her people too hard, for being too inflexible with herself and others. But he had never reached this part of her. Not really. He had never understood why she drove herself the way she did. She had turned her own gaze away because she couldn't bear to keep looking. The truth was too awful, too intractable.

It was simple, though, of course, now that she faced it. All these years, as Phocaea's resource commissioner, she had been trying to outrun her own horror at what people were capable of, when they were greedy enough, or frightened enough, or broken enough. When no one was watching.

And it's happening again.

Glease shoved her along. Their movement awakened the wall's holographic ghosts, who whispered greetings and bon mots as Jane pa.s.sed by. At the very end, Carl Agre's ghost awakened. He grinned. "Air kiss..."

Carl. Her eight dead. Her friends and family. Her fellow Phocaeans. A weird calm settled over her. I'd rather be a b.l.o.o.d.y smear on a bulkhead I'd rather be a b.l.o.o.d.y smear on a bulkhead, she thought. I'd sooner even give them Xuan, G.o.d help me, than help them butcher anyone else. I'd sooner even give them Xuan, G.o.d help me, than help them butcher anyone else.

Glease took her to a secluded s.p.a.ce behind the wall, near the bulkhead. There he spoke a pa.s.sword and presented his retina to a panel that revealed itself. A hatch opened up. He forced her down into it, and she found herself in a hidden room. Three armed men stood there. Glease locked the hatch and pulled his weapon out again. Jane eyed it in distaste. "The one you used to kill Marty, I take it?"

"The very one." He displayed it, laying it out on his palm, and stroked it lightly with his fingertips. "You like it? Latest model; cost a mint."

If she had been able to get the gun from him then, and known how to use it, she would have shot him without a second thought. He saw it in her eyes, and seemed amused. He gestured for her to move ahead of him.

The antechamber they were in held a digital art mural that s.h.i.+fted shapes and colors as they moved through. At the door to another room, Jane stalled in shock. Thondu was sitting inside. Definitely looking more female than male, and more European than African.

So much for my vaunted intuition, she thought bitterly. She had trusted the Viridians. This meant her DeadMan macro was useless. And that flash of insight next to Carl's hologram? Sheer delusion. She felt heartsick. she thought bitterly. She had trusted the Viridians. This meant her DeadMan macro was useless. And that flash of insight next to Carl's hologram? Sheer delusion. She felt heartsick.

But Thondu turned to her, and she reconsidered. The Viridian's expression didn't change, but from hir stiff posture and desperate glance, it was clear: ze was a prisoner, too. A fourth armed man stood in the corner.

"A word with you, sir?" the guard said to Glease, who took him into the other room. They left the door ajar and spoke in lowered voices. As Jane turned to Thondu, she caught a flicker of a gesture from the young Viridian, and a flimsy, near-invisible barrier settled over the two of them. The murmur of Glease and the young man's voices ceased. Thondu did not look at Jane, but instead seemed to be working inwave.

"Listen carefully and don't talk," ze said swiftly. "Mr. Glease evaded arrest tonight and came to the Badlands. Learned Harbaugh's dead and Learned Obyx was badly wounded, may be dead, too-"

"Holy s.h.i.+t!"

"He's forcing me to make it look like you had a psychotic break, that you did the murders to prop up a paranoid fantasy." Jane thought, And I just went to my doctor and told him I was hearing voices. And I just went to my doctor and told him I was hearing voices.

Glease must know, she realized. she realized. He's using it. He's using it. And that meant he had inside access to the "Stroiders" feed. And that meant he had inside access to the "Stroiders" feed.

"He's holding hostage the biocrystalline copy of the feral. It's locked in his safe. He doesn't know about this version." Ze touched hir belly.

"But what about-"

"Shh! Listen! He Listen! He doesn't doesn't have your husband-a call just came in. Xuan eluded capture but he and others are trapped on a sugar-rock stroid, trying to fight them off. We have to-" Ze interrupted hirself by puncturing the bubble with a slicing motion of hir hand-so swiftly Jane only registered it after it had happened-as Glease and his flunky reentered the room. Ze incorporated the slicing movement into an action to bring up some images on the ma.s.sive displays against that wall. have your husband-a call just came in. Xuan eluded capture but he and others are trapped on a sugar-rock stroid, trying to fight them off. We have to-" Ze interrupted hirself by puncturing the bubble with a slicing motion of hir hand-so swiftly Jane only registered it after it had happened-as Glease and his flunky reentered the room. Ze incorporated the slicing movement into an action to bring up some images on the ma.s.sive displays against that wall.

"It doesn't change anything," Glease said softly, angrily to his flunky, as the insulation bubble dissolved. He told Thondu, "Get me Woody."

A shock ran through Jane as Elwood Ogilvie's form materialized before them. "Well, what have we here?" Ogilvie asked, surveying the room, after a bare fraction of a second's pause.

Jane did the math. He had to be within twenty million kilometers or so. Vesta was fifty million kilometers away-a third of an AU. He had had to be closer than that, possibly on one of the military s.h.i.+ps ready to launch at Phocaea. to be closer than that, possibly on one of the military s.h.i.+ps ready to launch at Phocaea.

"I brought you Navio, as you asked," Glease told Ogilvie.

Woody Ogilvie's gaze s.h.i.+fted to Jane. He looked very pleased to see her. "Commissioner. I am going to explain this to you once. I expect instant compliance. You will call a press conference and announce that you falsified evidence implicating Nathan in the murder of your man Martin Graham. Or I will order your husband killed."

Jane's heart knocked in her chest, and red waves washed across her vision. "No one would believe such a claim, since the recordings I obtained can be authenticated."

"You let us worry about those details," Ogilvie said.

"Our Viridian friend here is going to doctor the records in the local system," Glease said, "indicating that the data has been altered by you. The librarian who sent you the records has already met with an unfortunate accident"-but how did they know? Jane thought, and then saw the look of suppressed horror on Thondu's face; ze had helped them locate Masahiro. Jane thought, and then saw the look of suppressed horror on Thondu's face; ze had helped them locate Masahiro. What will I tell Chik.u.ma? What will I tell Chik.u.ma?-"and won't be able to testify. By the time anyone else is able to send a claim to Earth to compare your records to those Downside, there will already be so much chaff in the system that no one will be able to tell what is truth and what is not. With your confession, we have all we need."

He paused. Jane did not reply. Ogilvie said, "I am not a patient man, Ms. Navio. You will do this without further argument, or your husband dies tonight. Speak now."

Jane drew a calming breath. "Very well. At this moment, I am recording and beaming to a safe location everything that has happened to me, including Nathan Glease's confession a few moments ago that he killed my aide, Marty Graham, and your threat just now to kill my husband if I don't cooperate with your attempt to cover up that murder.

"I have a dead man's switch. If anything happens to me, this recording will immediately be beamed to local news organizations, as well as public Earth tourism wavesites regularly trawled by 'Stroiders.'"

Glease's eyes widened. "She's lying!" he told Ogilvie. "We have the best antiwave security money can buy. This office is in a silent zone. No way she could be recording anything, much less beaming a signal out."

"Very well," Jane said. "I will prove it."

She called up her software, grabbed the snippet of video of Ogilvie saying, "You will call a press conference first thing in the morning and announce that you falsified evidence implicating Nathan in the murder of your man Martin Graham, or I will order your husband killed," and transmitted the video to Ogilvie. A few seconds later, he frowned, and gestured inwave. His eyes widened as he focused on something unseen. Then he pursed his lips. "I'm afraid she's telling the truth, Nate."

Glease gestured to the guard, who grabbed Jane and pinned her arms. She did not resist. Glease gripped her chin and turned her head, and eyed the processor in her ear. "I think we should just pull it right out," he said. "Rip out the wiring. See how much brain matter comes with it."