‘As I’ve told you already, I don’t have PR. I’m out-of-system, on contract to Lynthax.’ Scat had to admit that. Without showing a valid employment contract or proving substantial private wealth, he would never find a place to rent.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Then you’ll be paying the full contract up front. One year. If you don’t have it, we can go back to the digs along the Eastern Wall.’
There was a knock at the door. Scat walked off to inspect the bathroom for a second time. The realty agent went to see who it was.
‘I understand a Mr Scatkiewicz is on the premises. May I have a word?’ the stranger asked. The agent stepped aside to let a painfully thin, middle-aged man into the small main room.
‘Mr Scatkiewicz?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Scat answered, hardly needing to raise his voice from inside the bathroom.
‘I have an invitation for you,’ the man said, holding out an envelope. ‘It’s from Mr Irwin of Moss Valley. He asks if you will attend a dinner with his family this Saturday.’
‘Thomas?’ Scat asked. ‘How in the blazes does he know I’m here?’ He took the envelope.
‘Ah! That would be your communicator, Mr Scatkiewicz—your graf. It’s registered on the publicnet. I tracked you down by its signal. Illegal, I admit, but Mr Irwin was most insistent that I find you. He is very old fashioned about these things. I was to deliver it in person, which hasn’t been easy. I’ve been chasing after you for a couple of hours. Anyhow, I’m glad to make your acquaintance.’
He stretched over to shake Scat’s hand, very weakly.
‘I’m Joseph, Joseph Innanovic. Mr Irwin’s PA. Mr Reginald Irwin’s PA. The invitation is from him—although I’m fairly certain it was prompted by Thomas.’
Scat smiled, as much to stifle a laugh at the older man’s foppish mannerisms, as he was pleased at the prospect of a home-cooked meal later in the week.
‘I’ll be happy to accept, Joshua. Where’s Moss Valley?’
‘Everything is in the invitation, Mr Scatkiewicz. You’ll be picked up from, well, here, if this is where you’ll be staying?’ Innanovic looked at the realty agent, as if not quite believing it would be. The Irwin’s weekend dinners were generally A-list affairs. She shrugged.
‘Yes, I’ll be living here, thanks. But there’s no need for transport. I’ll make my own way. In truth, I’ve no idea where I’ll be, come Saturday afternoon.’
‘So be it. Consider Mr Irwin informed. Good day to you, then, Mr Scatkiewicz. Things to do. Mr Irwin keeps me busy.’
After signing a 12-month lease, Scat returned to his hotel room to prepare his first expenses sheet. The cost of settling down in the city was staggering, but money was not his biggest concern: Maurice would be expecting more than a list of domestic achievements when he reviewed his first week’s report. Even if he did not intend to satisfy Petroff’s curiosity about the rebels, he did need to pass something back to him—however innocuous or sanitised. And he would need to come up with something soon, or else the paycheques would stop. Bridges had said as much.
He wondered if dinner with the Irwins would qualify and whether it was something he would want to report.
35
From the planning room on the 120th floor of the Lynthax Centre, Petroff looked down onto a dark and cluttered Second Avenue. It was strange how he could experience vertigo staring out of his office window, but absolutely nothing when looking down on a pseudo-planet from the cabin of a frigate. He told himself that it was the perspective: the lines of the buildings coming together as they disappeared downwards. Yes, perspective: he needed some of that.
The last couple of days of civil disobedience had been quite testing for the corporations. It was disrupting services, flights, and production. He had spent several hours on the problem.
It was no more than a distraction, though. This disobedience would get the Trevons nowhere. Trevon was still reliant on external support. They would only hurt themselves. If they escalated this to a fully-fledged revolt, Earth would simply cut them off from everything they needed to keep this level of civilisation going. Still, walkouts, bomb threats and street rallies were effective disruptors. Dealing with them was expensive at a corporate level so he needed to be involved. For the time being, he was stuck on Trevon.
He walked back to the oval table.
‘Alex, look, it’s vital we ban these public gatherings and invoke at least a minimal level of order,’ he began. ‘We need these emergency powers until Earth can give us some direction, or at least offer some guidelines. We should be hearing from them soon, but, in the meantime, we don’t want things descending into anarchy.’
Petroff was pushing as hard as he knew how, certain he would carry three out of the eight-man security committee without much argument—they were on his payroll. The civilian element would be a harder nut to crack.
Alex Foxglove, Chairman of the Trevon Chamber of Commerce, breathed in and out through flared nostrils, his lips pursed. One eyebrow remained half-cocked. He appeared sceptical, not at all convinced that a shutdown was such a good thing.
‘If we do that, Jack, we risk alienating the fence-sitters. They have businesses to run, kids to school. We can’t ban public meetings without affecting all kinds of commercial and social arrangements. And—’
The local Chief of Police, Miguel Mendes cut in:
‘Nonsense, Alex. If these rallies get out of control, no one will be taking their kids to school. The businesses will shutter in any case. First and Second Avenues between 17th and 19th came to a full stop last night. I’d rather not have to deal with that again.’
‘But the vast majority of Go Down is still peaceful,’ Foxglove reminded everyone. ‘Emergency powers are reserved for exceptional circumstances. We’ve only used them once before, and that was when the original dam wall failed. No one’s ever used them to suit a political purpose before.’
‘We’ve never had political rallies get out of hand before, either, Alex,’ Petroff countered. ‘Feelings are running high. Who in this room hasn’t felt the tension?’
‘And who’s still willing to walk down lower Second after dark?’ asked Felix Summers, the Go Down City Mayor, an ex-Lynthax Corporation Public Relations man. ‘Not me for sure!’
‘Look, appropriate measures taken now can be explained as precautionary,’ Petroff argued. ‘The fence sitters will just suck it up, and the pro-Earth faction will understand: that’s two-thirds of the population right there! Leave it any longer and the pro-independence faction will claim to own the streets. If they can say that, then the two-thirds we have to keep onside will begin to think that maybe they’re right. Do you want that?’
‘Good point, Petroff,’ Summers said, looking around the room. ‘Unless there’s any more to be said, we should vote on it. Any objections?’
There was none, although Petroff could see a couple of heads shaking in resignation.
‘All in favour of a minimum 3-day state of emergency, to include the banning of public meetings between three or more people, and the right for all corporate security staff to bear arms in support of the local police, say “Aye”.’
Six out of the eight voted “Aye”.
‘So, the motion is carried, then,’ Summers confirmed. ‘If we hurry, we can get the House to vote on it tonight—during the security debate.’
Petroff made a note of the two who had voted against him, and then closed his notebook.
As the meeting broke up, he walked back over to the window and looked down. The morning sun had finally broken across the eastern rim and was advancing across the rift. Streetlights were shutting down along the Avenue. Up above, plough-bots were clearing the snowdrifts on the environmental roof, making like moving cloud shadows on the road below.
If only his more Trevonly problems could be swept away as easily. He could then focus on a much more interesting matter, a light year away.
36
The Main Ward was empty, aside from the craft that la
y on a metal cradle in the centre of the room, its front end pointing at the door leading to reception, though no one knew for sure that it was the front.
It had not so much as blinked since throwing Makindra across the number two port deck. Nor was it receiving many visitors. Makindra would not spend more than a few minutes in the same room with it. The troopers providing security at the elevator and inside the field hospital behaved as though the craft was a ticking time bomb. Then there was the continuing problem of power outages.
Williams had positioned the second SG team inside the reception circle and given them the task of deciphering the meaning of the 5023 signals emitted from the craft when the tug had inspected it, plus the 3045 additional signals picked up by the frigate just prior to its capture.
There had been none since.
Of course, there would have been thousands of unrecorded emissions, so Williams thought it unlikely that they would learn anything from what they did have. It was like putting a jigsaw together without knowing just how many pieces there should be, and without having a picture on the lid. Still, the recordings were only one line of enquiry, out of many, that Makindra had initiated. Doubtless, they would follow the others when they received more resources.
However, no word from Petroff—not yet—which was frustrating. Four days, and still there was nothing. And, as the neuralnet was useless at such distances, Williams could not even drop him a reminder. He would just have to wait.
‘Howzit?’ he asked the lead SG operator.
‘Still cataloguing, sir. We won’t be collating commonalities till tomorrow, probably.’
‘OK. Let me know if you come across anything obvious. I’ll be with Xin at the station. Where’s Makindra?’
‘Research, sir.’
Williams nodded his thanks and shuffled across to the research and admin wing. Makindra was sitting at a desk, adding lines of code to a programme on his PC. He had not noticed Williams come in.
‘Progress, Raj?’
Makindra shot bolt upright, almost leaving his seat.
‘Um, oh, yes. Of sorts, Thomas.’ He replied, slightly flustered. ‘I’ve settled on the initial routines. Now I’m ordering the processes. How’s the SG coming along? I haven’t heard any “eurekas” since coming back on watch.’
‘You won’t. Not till after tomorrow. They’ve a lot of base lining to do. As do you, I should think. When do you want to scan the casing?’
Makindra returned to adding lines of code.
‘Tomorrow would be early enough,’ he said. ‘Certainly not today. It’s not something I want to rush. We’ll have to be careful what kind of scan we apply to it and at what power. We don’t want a repeat of the void here on Prebos, do we, eh?’ He wobbled his head for emphasis.
‘A what?’ Williams asked.
‘Another void, Thomas. A void. It might not have done anything to the tug, or to the frigate, but it wasn’t touching them in any way when it was active—’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Williams said, interrupting him. ‘Is there even a remote possibility that Prebos would disappear?’
Makindra looked up.
‘Of course there is. It’s the reason why Petroff made it quite clear to me that we are to work passively with it. If we want to see another void, well that will have to wait until after he returns with more capabilities than we have now. And we’d need to drag it out into space again. A long way out.’
Williams swallowed hard. No wonder the troopers were steering clear of the damned thing. He hadn’t given it any thought. Had Xin?
He contacted Xin on the neuralnet.
‘Of course I’d thought about it, Thomas. But it’s dead, right, or at least broken, and the frigate was able to enter the void without disappearing. In any case, all we have is a busted hulk, which no doubt Makindra will open up at some point.’
‘Oh no, he won’t, Ryan! He’s not about to open anything. He’s of the opinion it isn’t dead and that it needs careful handling. So’s Petroff.’
There was no response for a few seconds.
‘Shit! Thomas. You had me for a moment, there. I thought you were being serious.’
‘I am serious, Ryan. And now I’m seriously farking pissed off with Petroff.’
He was, too. Like everyone else, he bent the rules, but mostly it was to get the job done more efficiently, or to help a trooper who needed an extra day’s R&R. For sure, he never bent the rules for personal gain. So, knowing the higher-ups cast all the friggin rules aside, whenever it suited them, and at the risk of everything around them, grated on him. But he was on shaky ground. He knew his moral compass was holding him back, and that Petroff was still pissed with him for that challenge on the Venture Raider.
At the other end, there was another period of silence as Xin digested the implications of what Petroff had done by bringing the craft to Prebos.
‘Well don’t confront him directly, Thomas. It’s my job as the ranking officer to do that. We don’t want the man chewing your ass off for a second time. In the meantime, can we stall work on the craft until Petroff gets back?’
‘Of course we can,’ Williams replied. ‘We instruct Makindra to stay in his bunk and close off the ward.’ As he said this to Xin, he looked grimly at Makindra who continued to work on his processes, not realising that Williams and Xin were discussing him.
‘I agree.’ Xin said, without hesitation. ‘Make it happen.’
37
The western Gap Plain was covered in frozen, snow-covered bogs and large, flat-topped rocky outcrops, so the way across it was a winding one. The road had been built with few resources, mostly concrete laid directly on the surface, so it meandered and dipped between obstacles and cracked in places. There were no bridges to carry it across the gullies so the road wound around them.
Scat didn’t mind. He was alone in the driverless, soft-tracked taxi, and the circuitous route gave him an opportunity to see more of Trevon in the failing light; outdoor Trevon, the space that humans would occupy in growing numbers as the weather improved. Not now though. He didn’t expect to see more than a few habitats until he dropped into Moss Valley.
He was being careful. He had called up the local area map on his graf without signalling a destination and then zoomed out until he had the whole Gap Plain in view, which is how he knew there to be so few residential habitats on the Plain itself. The taxi was a kerbside hail on Third Avenue in Midtown, and he had used a prepaid card. It was Saturday, he was going to meet the Irwins for dinner and he did not intend to tell Maurice anything about it. This was his opportunity to find out a little more about life on Trevon, outside of the Lynthax shadow.
The road had led him out of Go Down City at the Loop, then south along the eastern edge of the rift where it joined the spaceport road at the original GDC entrance. He then headed west across the snow covered tundra to the crest line some 20 kilometres away, passing several deep mines and opencast pits along the way, after which he entered the tunnel and descended into the valley just as Thomas Irwin had done some days ago.
It was quite dark by the time he arrived. Thomas Irwin was already at the gates to welcome him, wrapped in a heavy quilted jacket, head bared. He had with him a large shaggy-haired dog that stood as tall as his waist. Scat ordered the taxi to stop and to drop the near side window. Thomas shook Scat’s hand, smiling broadly as freezing air rushed into the cabin. The dog stood on two legs and tried to jump in. Thomas held him back.
‘Good to see you again, Matey,’ Scat said. ‘Glad to be home?’
‘Of course, Scat. Mother’s cooking, sister’s friends. You know the sort of thing. How about you?’
‘Couldn’t be happier, Thomas. And thanks for the invite. I wasn’t expecting it.’
‘My pleasure, Scat. Let’s get you up to the house. Father’s keen to meet you.’
Scat opened the door. Thomas hopped in followed by the dog that lay down across both foot wells. Just as well, thought Scat. It must weigh 150 pounds.
Thomas pointed up the drive.
‘It’s not far—about a mile. Tell the taxi to follow the roadside beacons and park in slot 2. Don’t worry, the beacons will tell it where it is.’
Scat ordered the taxi to proceed as directed.
‘Not cold?’ he asked, realising that Thomas could have been standing outside for some time.
‘Nah! Dusty and me go walking twice a day when I’m home; we’re used to it. In any case, you came up as a proximity alert.’ He held up his graf, the panel still glowing brightly. ‘It had to be you. Everyone else has been here since lunchtime, strategising and the like. It’s been cold-nosed business all day. Even mother’s hard at it: she’s been entertaining the wives while the menfolk plot and plan.’
‘Menfolk? Entertaining the wives? Have I landed in a different era, Thomas?’
‘It never matters what century you live in when life is at its most basic, Scat,’ Thomas tried to explain, bashfully digging a deeper hole. ‘Think of Outland Trevon as an old Chinese mine. What woman in her right mind would want to dig for coal when there were warm and pleasant office jobs to be had, eh? In our case, we cultivate and harvest moss by hand, even in this climate, and it’s dangerous work, Scat. Very. So the more plentiful men take the physical risks, and the less plentiful women manage the offices or keep family—unless they’re determined to keep their careers going in Go Down. And anyway,’ he joked, ‘we like our women to compliment us, Scat, not compete with us.’
Scat slapped him on the shoulder.
‘It is a different era!’
‘Perhaps,’ Thomas conceded, smiling, ‘I won’t go into the population controls, or how many women go back to Earth to have their children on account of the quota system, but we’re happy and free—and living above ground these days, or at least more above ground than the Morlocks in Go-Down. OK, we’re here.’
To their front appeared a long, low window, stretching some 15 metres or so across, set into the side of a rocky outcrop twice as long and perhaps five metres high. The valley’s eastern wall towered above it, an indeterminate distance behind. Yellow light escaped from inside and spilled out onto a snow covered vehicle park, littered with cruisers, cross-loaders, and recreational vehicles. Scat’s taxi parked between two cruisers, a short distance from what looked like a concrete path and metal railing leading to a heavy door set into the outcrop.