Up Against It Part 21

"You got it out of our systems," Jane said. "The cl.u.s.ter is safe, for now. That's the most important thing."

By this time, Thondu had put away his harp.

"Any chance you could stay and join our team?" Tania asked him. "I could put you to good use. We'll gain a lot of knowledge from this"-she waved a hand at the processors holding the digital corpse of the sapient-"even if we can't recover the sapient itself."

He shook his head. "Sorry. I have other commitments. I will zap you a bill before I leave."

"Very well," Tania said. "Thanks again for your help."

He looked at Jane. "I'm very sorry. I wish we had been more successful."

"As do I." The words crossed her tongue, tasting of cinders.

Jane hailed Sean. "The sapient is gone. You can call off your attacks."

"Already done. We severed the connection to the surface."

"We saw, from our end. In case you're interested, you got it with very little time to spare. We would not have been able to stop it without you."

"Well, that's something, at least." He paused, and sighed. "Ma'am... Commissioner Jane... I've got bad news."

Jane braced herself. Sean did not get rattled over trifles. "Go on."

"Communications went down right after you called me, while I was briefing my second-in-command. I couldn't get warehouse crew down to the Hub. So, well." He cleared his throat. "I recruited four of those young bikers who helped us rescue the ice stores the other day."

"Holy s.h.i.t, Sean!" Sean!"

"Yeah. One of them I believe you know, Geoff Agre-the brother of the young man who was killed in the disaster. I recruited him and three of his friends. They were with me at the time of the attacks, I had very limited time, so... I made a command decision."

"I see." Jane tried to absorb this. A breach of judgment on Sean's part? No. They had had only moments, she had given him an order, and he had done what he must. But she could picture Sal and Deirdre's reactions now.

"They came through," Sean reported. "In a big way. But one of them was injured in the attack. Badly."

Geoff's face flashed in her mind, and an icy hand squeezed her heart. "Who was injured? How?"

"Name's Ian Carmichael. A friend of Agre's. His arm was ripped off by one of the maintenance craft out on the Hub, under control of the feral sapient. He and two of the others were fending off the machines, while two of us were cutting through the conduit housing for the xaser transmitter."

"Will he survive?"

"He's in surgery now. They say his chances are good. They got to him right away. And they expect to be able to either reattach the arm or grow him a new one. Likelihood of long-term damage to his shoulder is still uncertain. He'll probably lose some mobility. They won't know for a while."

Jane released her breath, slowly. He was very fortunate, He was very fortunate, she thought. she thought. As were we all. As were we all. If the young man had died, given current tensions and the overcrowding, they'd have an uprising on their hands. "Have the parents been notified?" If the young man had died, given current tensions and the overcrowding, they'd have an uprising on their hands. "Have the parents been notified?"

"I've been trying. I can't get through."

"I'll make sure they are contacted tonight. I'd like you to follow up with a personal visit to each of the families first thing in the morning."

"All right."

"Are they all of age?"

"Let me check." A pause. "Yes. Geoff, Amaya, and Ian are seventeen. In Geoff's case, just barely-his birthday was two weeks ago. Kamal is a year older, eighteen."

So Sean could not be prosecuted for endangering minors. He added, "I've been in touch with Sh.e.l.ley on the warehouses. They were alerted in time, and were able to shut down all their automated systems quickly. The feral did not do serious harm up there."

"Good. Anything else?"

"Well, there was something odd..." Sean's voice trailed off.

"Go on."

He hesitated. "It's not urgent. It can wait till our morning meeting. I'd like Tania to hear it, too."

"Very well. Get some rest, if you can."

Next she called Xuan. Even before she spoke, just seeing his pug face and the figures of his siblings behind him filled her with a deep sense of relief. She could hear one of the twins squalling. "Is everyone all right?"

"It was a scramble, but we're all here. We're safe."

"I'll call you back," she said. The prime minister needed to know.

Benavidez hung suspended in his office, perched in his webworks and switching through various views in his waveface, studying the workers and machinery beginning repairs within Zekeston and without.

He looked up as she materialized. "Well?"

Jane straightened. "We were successful in removing the threat from the system, and critical life-support systems are back online. We won't be fully operational for a few days-"

"But we're a h.e.l.l of a lot better off than we might have been."

"Yes, sir."

"The sapient?"

She shook her head. "We didn't have enough time to finish mapping it before it launched an attack."

He was silent, but she sensed his deep disappointment.

"Tania is trying to find out what went wrong," she went on. "It's possible they can salvage something useful. I'll know more by our meeting tomorrow morning."

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the fingers and thumb of one hand.

"I've gotten word," he said finally, "that Reinforte plans to summon you before the Joint Resource Committee."

Jane forbore from mentioning that she already knew this.

"According to my sources," Benavidez went on, "Councilor Reinforte has set his people to try to dig up dirt to use on you, but your people have all remained loyal, so far. It appears you have powerful allies."

Chik.u.ma, he meant. He himself treated Jane rather more gingerly than he might, if not for Sensei.

It troubled Jane that Benavidez had sources in her organization that she did not know about. She wanted to know where all the lines of communication in her organization were-whom they flowed to, and why. She made a mental note to do some checking. Not that she did not trust Benavidez, but-well, she didn't. In this business she dared not trust anyone completely, except perhaps Chik.u.ma-sensei. And as the old woman had once told Jane, Don't trust even me. Rely on multiple sources for your information, and always keep something in your pocket for later use. Don't trust even me. Rely on multiple sources for your information, and always keep something in your pocket for later use.

All Jane had in her pockets this time was lint. "I'm glad to hear it."

The real question mark was Benavidez himself. If he remained loyal to her, she might yet weather this storm. If he had made up his mind to trade her for the ice, nothing anyone else could do would make a bit of difference.

"One more thing you should be aware of," she said. "During the feral's attack I a.s.signed my man Sean Moriarty to shut down the wavefeed up to the surface. He deputized four young citizens to help him. They were successful-in fact, they saved the city. But one of them was seriously injured, nearly killed. His prognosis is good, I'm told, but I think it would not go amiss if someone from your office contacted the youths' families right away and made sure they are getting everything they need. I'm sending you the details now." She forwarded their contact info. "I'd be glad to do it myself, but I think it would mean more coming directly from your office.

"I'll have Emily follow up." He sighed deeply, and rubbed at his eyes. "And now we should both get some rest. I'll see you first thing in the morning in my office."

Jane swallowed her worries, her impatience. "Good night, Mr. Prime Minister."

On the way to the aerogarden, she got reports. The emergency lines were back up. But several sections of Zekeston had experienced partial decompression or other damage. She located Xuan and his sister Kieu in the corridor outside the life shelter, the one nearest their campsite.

She saw relief in his face. Behind him, Kieu looked tired and worried.

"Where's the clan?" she asked. "Is everyone safe?"

"Everyone's all right," Kieu said. "They're asleep in the life shelter."

They peeked in on them: the family had bedded down in the netting over in one nook of the badly cramped shelter. Pham blinked blearily at them when they opened the door; Kieu said good night, and entered the shelter, leaving her and Xuan in the corridor.

Jane turned back to Xuan. "What about everyone's belongings?"

"Mostly unrecoverable, I'm afraid. I'll show you." Xuan lofted himself across the hall, and opened the door to the park, where they had pitched camp. Jane looked out over ruin.

The aerospheres must have shattered the aquarium, and its destruction had taken out most of the park's trees and plants. The water had finally all settled in the wedge made by two walls: it was filled with debris, dead greenery, lumps of nutrient gel that looked like giant jellyfish, and many dead and dying fish in water that still sloshed gently from the earlier violence. Gone were the cherry trees and the picnic tables; the Goh boards stood out against what was now nearly the ceiling. Even the plants still hanging were dead. Though there was plenty of air now, the area must have been at least partially decompressed for some time. The hole to the "lower levels" was now nearly overhead. Fragments of light shot through it, revealing glimpses of further damage to other areas. Pham, Emil, and several other adults floated here and there, picking through the debris in a search for what was left of their belongings.

Jane caught a glimpse of something terrifying: what appeared to be a child's skeleton. She rushed over and bent next to it, but when she touched it, it spasmed, and exploded into a cloud of gla.s.s beads and silicone tendrils.

"What the h.e.l.l?" she said.

"Ah! That was on the news. An a.s.sembler hacking prank at the university."

"What's it doing here, then? This means we've got an a.s.sembler contaminant in the system, using up resources at a crucial time, that might screw up repairs. On top of everything else!" Furious, exasperated, she called Aaron to let him know. When she got off, Xuan said, "I've arranged for us to stay with some friends of mine from the university."

"I can't do that! Don't you see? This puts me, and them, in a very awkward position."

"Why?" he asked.

"You know d.a.m.n well why. All their work and funding comes from Kukuyoshi."

He sighed. "Jane, they already know about Kukuyoshi. The night is half gone and you have a meeting with the prime minister in the morning. n.o.body is blaming you but you."

"Have you seen my sammy cache lately?"

"Set aside your pride, Jane. Come with me and get some good rest."

She gave in, of course.

A slender, narrow-shouldered man in a bathrobe answered the door.

"I'm sorry to disturb you so late, Charles," Xuan said.

A little terrier bounced out, yapping and bounding off the walls just out of reach. "No trouble at all. Glad to see you weathered the disturbance safely. Do come in. Quiet, m.u.f.fet! Away with you." He shooed the dog away. "The wife's asleep in the other room, or I'd introduce you..."

"I'm not asleep," came her voice. "I'll be out in a moment. Miss m.u.f.fet! Come here, right now!"

As they lofted over the door's top frame, the dog sproinged off the ceiling and into the other room.

Xuan introduced the man to Jane as Charles Winford. They brushed hands. He had an English accent left over from his pre-Upsider days, sprinkled with plenty of stroiderisms and Upsider p.r.o.nunciations. His glance at Jane held curiosity. A woman floated out of the bedroom.

"We're very sorry to disturb you," Jane said.

"Quite all right," she replied, "the disturbance had us up. Glad you decided to take us up on our offer, Xuan." Her accent, too, was British. She gave Xuan a peck on the cheek, and then put out her hand to Jane. "Rowan Fairchild. I'm a researcher at the university. I know who you are, of course. It's a pleasure."

They offered them tea and marmite on toast, while they set up a hammock in Charles's office. They must know Jane had something to do with the disturbance that had just happened-word was already all over the wave-but they forbore from asking about it, and chatted instead about their work at the university. Rowan's specialty was adaptive ecosystems; she was working on a project monitoring the genetic changes the animals had been undergoing in Kukuyoshi, and producing predictive simulations. Charles was a cellular biologist studying the long-term effects of low-gravity environments on certain fungi. It was clear to Jane that they were dear and trusted friends of Xuan's.

They were both exhausted, but neither could sleep. At two a.m. the cameras went off, and she told him what had happened with the feral. He listened while she described it.

"Regrettable that it didn't survive," Xuan said.

"Yes." She released a slow, sad breath. "We've been so busy dealing with the crisis I haven't been able to prep to respond to Reinforte's accusations. They're going to eat me alive. And I haven't got a live sapient for barter. The PM will have no choice but to dump me, to get Ogilvie & Sons' ice. It's probably going to be tomorrow morning. Today, I mean." She felt more vulnerable than she had since she was a child.

It was dark in the room, except for the glow from a night-light; all she could make out was his dim silhouette. But her other senses shaped him for her: the small movements of his back muscles beneath her hand as he shifted in the hammock; the feathery touch of his breath against her hair; the beat of his heart against her cheek. His skin smelled faintly of Xuan-ness. His breath had its own scent, too, and both smelled good to her.

"Life is change. You know that."

"I know." A long pause. She pillowed her cheek. "But people will blame me. They already are. I'll go down in history as the woman who brought an entire stroid cl.u.s.ter down."

Xuan burst out laughing. "Look at it this way, dear. At least you'll be remembered! The only ones who will know my name in years to come will be random geologists who happen to stumble across my outdated old tomes in some wave archive that someone forgot to purge."

She did not know whether to be angry or amused. "Oh, Xuan."

He finally said it. "We'll weather this." He kissed her head. "Don't worry."

Her sleep was troubled that night. She saw Hugh, floating faceup in a river, dead, only he wore Marty's clothing and was covered in vines. She wept. Her mother said, "Don't grieve, for I bring you joyous tidings." A woman wearing an old-fashioned male Downsider's suit moved past. She had her hand on her belly, and Jane knew she was pregnant.

"Look!" The young woman turned toward Jane, and she had the face of a man. Two snakes slithered up to her, making wave patterns in the sand. One was made of electricity with jewels for eyes, and one a smooth blue-green, with human eyes. The snakes wriggled up to the pants legs and moved upward.

"This child has two fathers," the woman-man said and removed her-his clothing; the snakes had coiled around her-his hips, like a belt. "A father of flesh and a father of wave." She-he pressed her-his fingers into her-his belly and it opened. Within, Jane could see clockworks. Then she-he closed her-himself up, as Jane's mother's voice said, "It is to remain sealed for a time and a time."