Up Against It Part 27

"The disaster was sabotage. We don't have hard proof yet, but we know who is behind it."

"Ogilvie & Sons."

"Has to be. Benavidez thinks he can handle them. He's in for an ugly shock. And it's the people of Phocaea who will suffer. There was just no way I could have predicted all the variables that led to the sapient's emergence." It sounded like a whine, even to her own ears. But she needed to say it once. "No way anyone could. Not even Tania."

"Of course not. Jane, you mustn't take the bad-sammies personally. This is not about you. Not really."

"I know. People are scared. They need somewhere to put the blame. They need a scapegoat. But it is personal, for me." With a sigh, she straightened. "So, let's talk strategy. What are my options?"

"Since you're leaving shortly, it sounds like our main priority is protecting you from the media and your political enemies while you make preparations to go."

They spent some time devising a legal strategy to give Jane some breathing room, and she had a lot of good ideas for countering the bad press. It was going to cost, though. She thought about their savings. Hugh was out of school and supporting himself, but Dominica still had five semesters to go. As an Upsider Downside, her tuition was breathtakingly expensive.

Yes, Jane had been bought off with a lot of money. But none of that felt real. She half expected them to find a way to screw her out of it. And part of her did not even want it. She wanted to throw it back in Benavidez's face. Much as she needed that money for her kids. And for Xuan's family members still trapped Downside.

Thinking about Xuan's Downsider family reminded her of Dominica, which reminded her of the data lozenge Xuan had given her. Jane touched the pocket in which the lozenge rested. She should view her daughter's bad news. There wasn't much point in putting it off any longer.

Sarah gave Jane a quiet corner of her office and busied herself with some legal research while Jane viewed the lozenge.

Dominica's face appeared. "Ma, Da. Sorry for the long delay." She was looking down at her notes. Her face was stiff. "I've found Phan Huu-Thanh. As we feared, she's been encrypted. She was processed in Edmonton and staged for a while there, but she's been shipped to the new people heap they're building on the moon. She was interred just two months ago." Dominica knew, as did Jane, that there was no real chance to get at her now. Once people went in, they did not come out.

Now Dominica looked up. She was Upsider to the core: concise, methodical, controlled, and serious. Her careful breathing told Jane what the effort to stay calm was costing her. Jane hurt with the need to tell her daughter that it wasn't her fault Huu-Thanh was lost to them. Don't lose heart, Don't lose heart, she thought. she thought. Don't lose hope. Don't lose hope.

"I haven't been able to locate any of the children. I've spent the past month at Edmonton. Before that, Winnipeg." Edmonton and Winnipeg housed two of the biggest refugee camps in southwest Canada. "No sign of them anywhere. I'm thinking Lanh must have been encrypted, too, but I can't find confirmation. But the rest are still too young and have to be somewhere." Prep.u.b.escents were too immature to encrypt. They might have been sold to the s.e.x slavers, though. Or abandoned and left to die. Disposable humanity. Of less note than a used tissue. "It's possible they are trying to enter Vietnam illegally, trying to reconnect with other branches of the family. A boat left Vancouver two months ago, heading for Manila. I'm headed there next. I have a few weeks before the semester starts to do more research."

Another hesitation. "I've found someone who knows how to work the system. He has a good rep, but he's pricey. And I'm almost out of money. I'm going to need more soon. Another fifty thousand, if possible."

She finally looked up, with Xuan's dark eyes and Jane's own aquiline nose and wide, full mouth. Her face was shadowed by exhaustion and grief. "I'll send another message next week. Love to you both."

Jane closed the missive and sat, remembering Huu-Thanh's messages from the Canadian refugee camps years ago. There had been a handful, over the ten years they had spent trying to work through the bureaucratic entanglements to get her and her children out. Each had been so calm, so confident that the family would be able to help. Jane and Xuan were unimaginably wealthy, by Huu-Thanh's standards.

But in the background, in that last message inwave-what was it? two years ago, now? three?-Jane had seen despair in Huu-Thanh's children's faces, and sullen anger in the eyes of her eldest, Lanh. And now they had been scattered: human detritus caught up in the machineries of Earth's socioeconomic engines, to be mulched and processed and molded into tools for the use of others.

Rage filled Jane. She hated Downside. She hated their intolerance, their rigid hatred, their self-deception, their greed. The inhumanity of the crypts, the battling enclaves of power Down there, the religious intolerance that masked the politics and dirty dealings that went on behind the scenes. They had long since abandoned any semblance of democracy in the nations of America. It was all about power: money, control, and social status. Oh, she hated Earth.

Sarah was watching her. "I have some work to wrap up, and then I'm free. If you don't have plans for dinner later, I'll take you out."

"Sure you want to be seen in public with me?"

"'Stroiders' doesn't go everywhere."

"What, we're going to eat in a restroom?"

Sarah merely smiled.

24.

By the time Geoff and his companions disengaged from the treeways, the shiny blob Ouroboros hung in s.p.a.ce, about two hundred kilometers distant. Beyond it, diamond-bright Saturn and two of its moons, as well as aquamarine Neptune, dominated the backdrop of stars. A third bright object elsewhere in the vast starry sky was probably the rocket tugs bringing the big new ice shipment.

Geoff had heard about it in the news. The sight of the ice shipment sent tingles of relief along his back and arms so strong he shuddered, despite the too-warm confines of his suit. You grow up in s.p.a.ce; you learn to ignore certain kinds of fear. You ignore the Big Empty surrounding you. Otherwise you'd never do anything but hide in a cubby and wait to die. But now, on the brink of Phocaea's rescue, he realized just how frightened he had been. He drew a slow breath and thought again, sadly, of Carl.

Ouroboros spun around its narrow axis, a barbell shape that slowly brightened and dimmed, like a giant beating heart, as it tumbled. He smiled at the familiar sight-and then frowned. Something was off. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something about the pattern of rotation seemed different.

It might have just been hit by another big rock. A big enough stroid would change its contours or rotation, and it had certainly been clobbered many times before. Geoff shut off his rockets, to make it easier to zoom in, and Amaya and Kam pa.s.sed him. He brought up his optical scope and focused on the big rock.

There! Rising on the horizon, along the narrowest section of the stroid, he saw a shape that had not been there before. A bright shape. A geometric one. A ship had landed on Ouroboros.

"What the h.e.l.l?" He signaled Amaya and Kam, who were continuing to accelerate. "Shut off your rockets!"

Their flames died instantly. "What is it?" Amaya asked.

"Zoom on the rock. There's a ship."

"Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," Kam said, after a pause. A brief silence followed as they all studied the shape that had not been there before. "Black marketers?"

n.o.body replied.

"What are those numbers there, on the side?" Geoff asked. Kam had the best optics. "Can you read them?"

"Hang on. Yeah. Think I've got it." He fed the numbers to Geoff, who put in a call to Sean Moriarty. The Stores chief took several minutes to answer; meanwhile, they drifted toward Ouroboros on their bikes.

"Moriarty here."

"Sir, it's Geoff. Geoff Agre."

"I'm glad you called. The police are still waiting for you to go down to the precinct. They need you to give a statement about what happened last night with those black-market thugs."

Geoff had forgotten about that. "We will, sir, as soon as we get back into town. But that's not why I called. My friends and I"-he cleared his throat-"we seem to have a problem."

"You seem to collect them."

"That's what people tell me, sir."

Moriarty chuckled. Geoff hesitated. He did not want to remind anyone about his ice claim just now, but not doing so would be incredibly stupid.

"Well, spit it out!" Moriarty said. "If you need my help, I'll do what I can. If not, I have other things that need doing."

"Kam told you about my stroid. The one with the ice."

"I remember. What about it?"

"Well, there are some people out here. A ship. I was afraid maybe it was the black marketers again."

"You're out there right now?"

"That's right."

A brief silence. "OK. What do you see?"

Geoff studied the image again. "A ship. Maybe a twelve-seater yacht. Maybe a shuttle. We're not close enough to tell. It's landed on my rock."

"Have you got the ship registry number?"

"Yes." Geoff fed it over the link.

"OK, got it. Hold on. Where's Mitch.e.l.l? You, get Mitch Shibata," he called to someone on his end. "Tell him I need him right now. Double time! Hang on, Geoff, I'm going to do some quick checks. Don't go offline."

While they waited for Moriarty to get back, Kam linked the three of them up in waves.p.a.ce, trained their three different perspectives on the shape, and plugged it into some app or another. The resulting magnified, three-dimensional image that hung in their shared waves.p.a.ce was clearly a cargo ship. There was a marking in blue and gold-a corporate logo?-on the side.

"I am pretty sure," Kam said, flicking through the images in sequence to show them the movements of some spots near the ship, "that those little dark spots are people wandering around on the surface."

"Where are they with respect to the cave entrance?" Amaya asked.

"Close. About fifteen meters, maybe. Near the storage tanks."

Which meant sneaking in would be difficult, if not impossible.

The remote comm light came on again, and Moriarty said into their shared s.p.a.ce, "We've checked the logs. You should be fine. The university has sent out a team to survey the claim. You know Ngo Minh Xuan, Commissioner Navio's husband?"

"I've met him," Geoff said.

"He's on the team. Everything looks to be on the up-and-up."

A sick feeling sank in Geoff's gut. "All right. Thanks a lot, sir." He signed off with a sigh. He could not think of anything to say that would not sound stupid or petty, so he simply said, "Let's go," fired up his rockets, and made for Ouroboros. His two friends did likewise.

As Ouroboros grew slowly in their sights, Geoff tried to figure out a way to make this new development work out. Maybe, Maybe, he thought, he thought, with the big ice coming Down, we can merely register ours, and hold off on selling it. with the big ice coming Down, we can merely register ours, and hold off on selling it.

Was there really anything wrong with wanting to benefit from his claim?

He tried to picture what his dad and mom would say. No doubt Dad would be angry that here was yet another big secret Geoff had sat on for so long.

Maybe, Geoff thought, Geoff thought, next time, next time, I'll I'll punch punch him him in the face. in the face. At the notion, he got a mental glimpse of Carl looking at him, looking sad. At the notion, he got a mental glimpse of Carl looking at him, looking sad. Go away, Go away, he thought. he thought. Stop trying to make me care. You're Stop trying to make me care. You're dead. If his friends had not been on the comm channel with him, he would have screamed it. dead. If his friends had not been on the comm channel with him, he would have screamed it.

Aaron reached Jane via her wavelink as she left Sarah's office and entered the lobby. Aaron's face was pale, masklike. She broke stride. "What-? What's wrong?"

"A moment," Aaron said, and-with an uncomfortable glance at Jane-used his new authority to invoke privacy. Dead spydust drifted down around her. On her waveface, the red "Stroiders" light winked out. Then he said, "Jane, Marty is dead."

The words sank in, and horror spread through her. She braced her hand on the wall. It couldn't be. They'd talked only an hour or two ago.

Marty!

Ogilvie did this. It had to be.

Think, Navio. Don't jump to conclusions.

She found her voice. "What happened?"

"I don't know yet. I tracked you down as soon as I heard. I'm on my way to the scene right now. Jane-" His voice broke. His gaze was anguished, his lips tight. "Too many things are happening at once. Too much is at stake. I don't have the right to ask this, but I need your help."

He seemed only half convinced she would agree. That stung. "Of course I'll help! What do you need me to do?"

Relief broke over his face. "Thank you. I got a call from Police Chief Fitzpatrick, asking me to meet him at the scene. I don't know the details. It may have been an accident, but I fear otherwise."

"I'll be right there. Send me the coordinates," she said. "And I'll need you to commandeer a lift for me."

His hands danced in midair. "Both done. Hurry."

Aaron got Tania on the line while Jane made her way to the lifts. They briefed Jane as she rode up alone, clinging batlike by her feet to the lift loops.

"I sent him on an a.s.signment," Aaron told her, "based on something Tania learned about the feral sapient attack last night. Tania, if you please..."

Tania was pacing on her catwalk. Behind her, Jane could see glimpses of her programmers' s.p.a.ce. She spoke low and fast, in a monotone, as if trying to stay ahead of her own thoughts. "It's standard protocol to run security checks after something like last night, and when my people did so, they found evidence that somebody broke into our systems. We were hacked during the attack. By somebody other than the sapient."

Jane gaped. "What? Are you sure?"

Tania nodded once, sharply. "Pretty d.a.m.n sure. While you and I were fighting off the sapient and doing the shutdowns, there was a point at which the systems were vulnerable for an instant-no more than that. Someone broke through our firewalls at exactly that instant, and planted a worm that tampered with our video banks."

"To what end? Do we know?"

"Yes," Tania replied. "They modified some backed-up images. The system crashed just as the worm was finishing its work, which is the only reason we were able to detect it; it hadn't finished cleaning up after itself. Otherwise we never would have detected the intrusion."

"Are you sure it wasn't the sapient itself doing this?" But she answered her own question. "No-it wouldn't have any reason to."

"Exactly. We have plenty of data on the feral's state of awareness, and at that point it was not even aware of what videos were. It learned a lot during the attack, but not enough to know or care about some different, other videos about a time and place from before it even existed. And it was all but overwhelmed, dealing with us."

"It had to be preprogrammed, then, that worm. No way whoever planted it could have antic.i.p.ated when our walls would drop."

Aaron said, "I was afraid Tania's organization might be... infiltrated. That someone might have been cracking us on the fly during the a.s.sault. That was why I sent Marty. Communications had been corrupted by the feral sapient. Because of this, one major set of archives was offline during the worm's attack. The drives in question had not yet been brought inwave and needed to be physically disconnected from the system before the repair sapients reached them, in case the worm was still hiding somewhere in the system.

"I wanted to send someone we could trust. I knew I could trust Marty." Then he broke down, and pressed his hands against his face.

Jane had to speak. "Aaron..."

He looked up at her, horror stamped on his face, and shook his head: a silent plea for her not to say anything-not to comfort him, not to absolve him. She felt a sharp pang, remembering all those late nights working together, the bull sessions afterward; all the confidences. Now she could not comfort him. She was no longer his boss, and no longer his friend.

Aaron had not been work-hardened, yet, by all the forces they would bring to bear against him as resource chief. He would master himself, and excel. She knew Aaron. But any death resulting from one's orders was a dreadful burden to carry. Ironic, that she had shouldered such a burden at the very end of her tenure while he had had his thrust on him at the very beginning of his.

"What about the other videos?" she asked. "The doctored ones?"

Tania answered. "We couldn't detect anything from the tampered video. Whatever the worm was designed to hide or change, it succeeded in doing so. But we do know the place and time that was altered. The altered video was a span of about fifteen minutes, two months ago, recorded by a couple of store security cameras in a neighborhood in Uraniaville."