Final Days

TWO

Kepler Colony, Sphere Administrated Development Zone, 15 January 2235

A few hours after emerging from the Copernicus–Kepler gate, moving lightly in the .85 gravity, Saul Dumont stepped out from the lobby of the Heping Plaza Hotel and soon found himself in the heart of one of New Kaiohsung’s busy night markets. He navigated his way through dense crowds of shoppers, the air thick with the smell of barbecuing meat and cho dou fu. Their breath frosted where it emerged from ten thousand throats, while the street vendors were stained with orange light wherever they clustered under the tall municipal heating units rising above their heads.

Saul tilted his head back to catch a glimpse of Kepler’s moon, its fractured outline floating cool and serene far above clustered high-rises and jerkily kinetic video advertisements. He brought his gaze back down, ignoring the occasional stares of passers-by, most of whom were immigrants from China, Korea and other Pan-Asian Congress nations. Saul’s clothes and ebony skin, by contrast, screamed Western Coalition.

It wasn’t long before he found his way to a quiet alleyway where he spotted Jacob Maks sitting in the window of a shui-jiao dian, forking steamed dumplings into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. A TriView screen, bolted at an angle between the ceiling and rear wall of the eatery, ran news items piped through the local Array from back home.

Jacob looked up, in the middle of chewing a mouthful of peppered meat and cabbage, and started when he saw Saul enter. The new arrival pulledown the hood of his parka, and placed his briefcase on the floor next to Jacob’s table.

Jacob gestured with his chopsticks to the empty seat across from him, the motion quick and birdlike. ‘You want something? I’ll buy.’

‘First,’ Saul replied, his tone even and careful, ‘tell me why we aren’t meeting at the hotel like we were supposed to, Jacob, or I might not be able to resist the urge to break both of your arms.’

Jacob’s hands never remained still, constantly twirling the chopsticks between his fingers or fiddling with the edge of his paper plate. ‘I can always tell when you’re pissed at me, Saul,’ he replied, with a nervous twitch of the mouth.

Saul took the seat opposite, slow and easy as always. Jacob watched him cautiously, as if trying to assess whether he might follow through on his threat.

‘You left me sitting there waiting in the lobby of the Heping for over an hour before you got in contact,’ Saul persisted. ‘I had no idea what was going on. You’re supposed to keep me informed of any last-minute changes, so what the hell happened?’

Jacob cleared his throat. ‘Look,’ he said, putting the chopsticks down, ‘this was a very last-minute change of plan. I couldn’t call you without compromising myself. But, now you’re here, you should know that we aren’t meeting Hsiu-Chuan at the warehouse any more.’

‘No?’ Saul cocked his head, the movement typically slow and deliberate. ‘Why not?’

‘Apparently his security people didn’t think it was secure enough, so they picked another location. Not a damn thing I could do about it. We’re just lucky he didn’t pull out altogether.’ He leaned to one side and looked down at Saul’s briefcase. ‘Is that the bait?’

Saul nodded fractionally. ‘What about Hsingyun? Do you trust him?’

Jacob had the courtesy to look offended. ‘Of course I don’t, but he’s a street soldier looking for a fast promotion, and he’s got too much to gain from helping us to want to screw us over. And remember, he’s still the only real link we have connecting Hsiu-Chuan with the Tian Di Hui.’ The Tian Di Hui, of which Hsingyun was a member, were a loose network of separatist groups that railed against the Western Coalition’s monopoly on the wormhole gates.

‘A pretty tenuous link at that, don’t you think? One seven-second segment of footage showing Hsingyun and Hsiu-Chuan talking together, and that’s it.’

Jacob smiled. ‘Still more than enough to merit us being here, right?’

‘I guess,’ Saul sighed, leaning back. ‘It looks like most of what he’s been telling you checks out anyway.’

‘Who did you talk to? Narendra?’

Saul nodded. ‘I got back from Sophia just this morning. Narendra put out some feelers and, from what he’s heard, the Tian Di Hui are moving on something. Could be big.’ He shrugged. ‘Hard to say just what. But according to Narendra, Hsiu-Chuan is involved, whatever it is.’

Jacob shook his head and chuckled. ‘And you just asked me if I trust Hsingyun? I could ask you the same about Narendra.’

‘And I’d give you the same answer.’

Jacob sighed and sat back. ‘All right, touché. Look, as far as Hsingyun goes, as long as I pour enough booze down his throat, he’s been happy to tell me pretty much anything I want to know. Which, if you’ll remember, is how I managed to set this all up in the first place.’

‘How worried should we be about the last-minute change of venue?’

Jacob shrugged. ‘My gut tells me they’re just being cautious. It took a lot to get someone like Hsiu-Chuan to even entertain the idea of doing business with a couple of strangers.’ He drummed his fingers on the table top and gestured at the unfinished plate of dumplings, a plastic bowl full of chopsticks next to it. ‘Eat something,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’

Saul shook his head. ‘Not hungry.’

Jacob sighed. ‘Try not to look so worried.’

‘We really need,’ warned Saul, ‘to not screw this up.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ Jacob snapped, failing to hide his irritation.

Saul nodded, far from mollified. There had been talk about pulling Jacob out of the investigation once it seemed to be going nowhere. Then all of a sudden, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he’d come up with Hsingyun: someone who could finally get them close to Hsiu-Chuan.

The details, long since memorized, span through Saul’s mind like an endless loop. Shih Hsiu-Chuan was a rising star in the Pan-Asian Congress of Pacific Sphere States, popular for his aggressive stance in favour of full independence for the colonies administrated by the Sphere Congress and also the establishment of their own, dedicated network of wormhole gates. There had never been any solid evidence of a direct link between member-nations of the Sphere and the Tian Di Hui – nothing good enough to stand up in the international courts, at any rate – but showing that Hsiu-Chuan had been present at a Tian Di Hui-moderated meeting could change the whole distribution of influence between the power blocs for ever.

‘I want to make sure we’ve got everything straight,’ Saul said, as Jacob finished his meal and pushed his plate to one side. ‘As far as Hsingyun or anyone else is concerned, I’m—’

‘Donald Lassen,’ Jacob interrupted, wiping his mouth with a tissue. ‘You’re an Earth-side broker for a private financial concern with a hefty reputation in the Western Coalition’s underground economy. Your employers moved into the lucrative realm of biotech fencing after the global financial situation took a turn for the worse a few years back. You’re ambitious, and you’re willing to trade an illegally cloned black-box arbitration device, with a solid-gold record in market speculation, in return for becoming the Tian Di Hui’s newest bulk distributor of illicit off-world materials. Have I got it all?’

Saul nodded.

‘And, of course,’ Jacob continued, ‘I’m Victor Cowles, a smalltime operator who runs an import-export company based in Southeast Asia, as a cover for his real business, and who has formed a partnership with Mr Lassen, whom he regards as his ticket to the big time.’

‘Sounds about right, but no more surprises, Jacob, understand? If there’s anything else I need to know, now’s the time. Starting with, where the fuck is the meeting taking place?’

‘At sea,’ Jacob replied, standing up. ‘Offshore.’

Saul stared at him. ‘You’re shitting me.’

Jacob shrugged. ‘Official Sphere jurisdiction stops thirty kilometres off the coast. Beyond that, it’s effectively lawless.’

‘So we’re heading to one of the islands?’ Saul asked, standing as well.

‘Not exactly.’ Jacob pursed his lips in thought for a moment. ‘Well, more like an iceberg, really.’

‘The meeting is on an ice-pharm?’

‘A big one,’ Jacob nodded, ‘with a whole town carved into it.’

They found Lee Hsingyun in a dive bar near the docks, where the stars were far more easily visible than they were in the middle of New Kaiohsung. Saul had read through the names of some of the local constellations in a magazine article back at the hotel, but found he couldn’t recall a single one. Nonetheless, one of those far away speckles of light, hanging over the snow-sprinkled concrete like frozen diamonds, was Sol, all of fifty-five light-years distant.

Hsingyun was small and wiry, with fashionably streaked hair and calculating eyes, and something about his manner made Saul take an instant dislike to him. Hsingyun and Jacob clasped hands like old friends as soon as they arrived there, but Saul still couldn’t shake the feeling of unease that had been plaguing him since he’d first realized Jacob wasn’t going to show up at the hotel.

Hsingyun led them to a private booth at the rear of the bar. From where Saul now sat, he could see another TriView running what might be the same news feed. The sound was inaudible in the noisy bar, but the closed captions running underneath,n both Mandarin and English, followed a story about Galileo. A series of rapidly cut shots, taken more than a decade before, showed separatist graffiti decorating various Galilean settlements, followed by footage of attacks on the ASI forces that had been sent in to quell the unrest.

The captions gave a voice to the images: ‘Nearly a decade after separatist groups affiliated with the Tian Di Hui claimed responsibility for the destruction of Galileo’s CTC gate, Sphere representatives are meeting with leading Coalition member nations in advance of the link’s re-establishment.’

The scene changed to the UN building in Strasbourg. More than half the men and women mingling on a platform before an audience of journalists were from Pan-Asian Sphere nations, and of those the majority were probably representatives of the Chinese Confederacy. The rest came from affiliated nations like Malaysia and Indonesia, along with a smattering of black and brown faces drawn from Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

The commentary switched to cover an interview with a protester whose skin was even darker than Saul’s. ‘All we ask is for the same right to choose our destiny as enjoyed by citizens of the Western Coalition states, and that means full access to the wormhole technology. We should be able to set up our own network of wormhole gates, so that the colonies can link to one another directly, instead of forcing people to pass through the Lunar Array every single time they want to move from colony to colony.’

‘The Coalition States all say the Lunar Array is the only adequate means of providing support and protection to the colonies,’ replied an unseen interviewer.

The protester shook his head. ‘That’s a lie,’ he said angrily. ‘This way, they control access to the colonies, and make them dependent on the Coalition. Everyone knows that what happened to Galileo happened because they tried to push for independence.’

‘But separatist groups are believed to have been responsible for the collapse of the Galileo wormhole,’ suggested the interviewer.

This time the protester laughed out loud. ‘Well, I think it was a cover-up. The ASI did that deliberately, to stop the revolution spreading to the other colonies.’

‘Saul?’

He dropped his gaze back down, to meet Jacob’s. ‘What?’

‘Ignore that bullshit.’ Jacob’s hands tap-tapped on the edge of the table before him. ‘Did you hear what Lee was just telling us about?’ He gave Saul a meaningful look: play along. ‘His new gun fires ice bullets.’

Saul shook his head. ‘It’s pykrete, not ice.’ He had to shout it over the pounding music filling the otherwise empty bar.

‘What the hell is pykrete?’ demanded Jacob.

Saul looked at him with an expression of infinite patience. ‘Ice water mixed with cellulose fibre,’ he replied. ‘The same stuff the ice-pharms are made from.’

Jacob looked surprised. ‘It’s just ice, isn’t it?’

‘Nope.’ Lee shook his head. ‘Pykrete’s hard as steel, makes the pharms extremely resistant to a direct assault. Now, the guns have cooled chambers that—’

Just then a waitress deposited a tall green bottle and three glasses on the table between them. Hsingyun quickly poured them each a shot.

‘A celebration,’ he said, pushing a glass each in front of Saul and Jacob. ‘Tonight we sleep as rich men.’

Saul recognized the brand as one containing a variety of powerful synthetic psycho-actives native to Kepler. He caught Jacob’s eye and nodded at him to come closer.

Jacob leaned over the table towards him and, for once, Saul was glad of the pounding music. ‘Why are we drinking this shit?’ he demanded.

‘It’s not that strong,’ Jacob yelled in his ear. ‘Read the label; it’s a mild derivative at best. You’ll get a bigger hit from the alcohol, I swear.’

‘Mr Lassen,’ Hsingyun raised his glass towards Saul with a smile that sent shivers down his back, ‘if you will.’

Saul picked up his glass, unable to resist a certain fascination at the way the sudden movement made the gene-engineered bioluminescent bacteria within the liquid glow more brightly. He knew the consequences if he failed to drink it.

He shot a quick, angry look at Jacob, when he was sure Hsingyun wouldn’t notice, and swallowed the contents in one go.

‘So this ice-pharm we’re going to,’ Saul asked a little while later, ‘what does it research?’

‘They collect samples of sea-life, mostly microbial,’ said Hsingyun. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware,’ he tapped the rim of his glass with a fingernail, ‘the rewards for finding commercially exploitable gene-sequences are enormous.’

‘And how many of the pharms are doing actual legitimate research, as opposed to just synthesizing illicit drugs?’ asked Saul.

Hsingyun smiled enigmatically. ‘We all need to make a profit to survive, Mr Lassen, whatever rules the Coalition may impose on us.’

Playing his part, Saul patted the briefcase next to his knee and grinned. ‘Couldn’t agree more.’

Hsingyun nodded. ‘Money is the only thing that matters, whatever world you’re on. If you don’t know that, you’re just one of the sheep. Which reminds me.’

He dipped one hand into a pocket.

Saul tensed, but Hsingyun withdrew only a slim roll of pale yellow paper, pulling it open to reveal several tiny powder-blue balls individually wrapped in cellophane, each one stamped with a minuscule portrait of a wolf howling under a full moon. Hsingyun next reached into another pocket and withdrew an inhaler-like device, loading three of the balls of loup-garou into its chamber.

Saul felt as if a yawning chasm had opened up inside his gut.

‘A little confidence boost always helps, yes?’ Hsingyun enquired, glancing between his two companions.

Saul watched dry-mouthed as Jacob took the first hit. The stuff was favoured by street gangs back home, and by Mexical hijacking crews in particular. There were stories that it had achieved near-religious significance amongst the death squads roaming the Russian wastelands. Loup-garou wildly boosted aggressiveness, while reducing the controlling influence of the super ego. It didn’t exactly make you grow fur or sprout fangs, but the feeling it gave you was close enough.

Jacob’s head jerked back as he fired the sweet-smelling smoke down his throat, then laughed as the drug punched its way through the soft tissues of his lungs and into his bloodstream. A thin wisp of smoke curled out of one nostril.

Hsingyun was next, inhaling sharply. Saul knew that, when his own turn came, he had a perfectly good excuse for not indulging. He could tell Hsingyun he wanted to keep his head clear, particularly if they were expecting to engage in serious business. But, as Jacob’s new friend passed him the inhaler, Saul found that all he could really think about was just how good it had felt the last time he’d taken a hit, and wasn’t it a damn shame he’d left it for so long.

He pressed the inhaler against his lips and clicked the igniter button. The acrid smell of burning plastic filled his nostrils, and a moment later smoke tasting faintly of peppermint and ash plunged its way through his lungs.

Saul breathed in deeply. Already he felt sharper, more alert, more in control. His tongue and the back of his throat tingled as he passed the inhaler back over, feeling now like he could handle anything the night could throw at him. He watched with detached amusement as Jacob tipped his head back and howled at the ceiling. Hsingyun laughed in response.

An indeterminate number of drinks later, they stumbled out of the bar and into a taxi that sported an actual human driver. Ten minutes later they found themselves standing on the edge of a bleak-looking airstrip running parallel to a long stretch of shore. A single unmanned drone-copter waited for them on the flat concrete, its blades already slowly rotating in anticipation of their arrival.

While Hsingyun and Jacob argued over who got to pay for their flight, Saul stepped over to the edge of the airstrip nearest the ocean and stared out at the slate-grey sea. His wife and daughter came, unbidden, to mind as a frozen wind pulled at the hood of his heavy parka, and he found himself remembering Deanna and Gwen the way they’d been before they’d left for Galileo, almost a dee before. A feeling of bottomless despair fought its way past the haze of alcohol and narcotics, and gripped his heart in a vice.

A lot could happen in ten years, and Galileo had been caught up in the middle of an uprising when the wormhole gate had collapsed. A starship carrying a new wormhole link was now only months away from achieving orbit around Galileo, but instead of feeling elated, all Saul felt was a numb apprehension. He hoped and prayed they were still alive, but beneath that lay the guilt. If it hadn’t been for him, Deanna would never have taken up that administrative post on Galileo, and never taken their daughter there with her.

He sighted several dark shapes moving against the tide, sinuous, writhing things swimming in parallel. But by the time Jacob yelled over to him to hurry the fuck up and get on board, the black-skinned creatures had slipped back beneath the waves.

The three of them fell into silence once they climbed inside the aircraft’s cramped fuselage. The pitch of its blades rose to a whine as it lifted into the air and headed out over the ocean, dipping occasionally to fight its way past a strong headwind.

Hsingyun dug out his inhaler once more, and offered them another hit. Saul very nearly put his hand out to restrain Jacob as he pressed the device to his lips but, instead, waited until his own turn came, before accepting the device with gratitude.

We’re fucking this up, he thought, pressing the inhaler to his lips. The smoke tasted sweet and sharp in his lungs, and immediately he felt like he’d grown taller and stronger.

Barely twenty minutes after setting out, the ’copter began to drop lower once more. Saul leaned his head against the window, and found himself staring down at a flat white plain that appeared to extend to the horizon on all sides. For a moment he thought they must be back over land, until he caught sight of a line of black water foaming against the expanse of ice.

He knew how big some of the pharms could get, but this had to be one of the largest. He could make out a few dozen pre-fab buildings clustered below, off-white domes and warehouses that nearly merged into the ice itself, distinguishable only by the corporate logos on their roofs and the faint shadows they cast under the moonlight.

Once they had landed, they disembarked into a bitingly cold wind. There was no sense of motion, however, no way to tell that they were standing on a chunk of floating pykrete rather than on solid ground. Saul peered into the distance, but was unable to discern where the ice ended and the water began.

‘What’s to stop the Sphere authorities or anyone else just landing here and storming the place?’ Saul yelled over the sound of the wind.

‘You mean if we weren’t already paying them not to?’ Hsingyun yelled back, withdrawing a small antenna-like device and holding it out in the direction of the nearest dome. ‘Well, since you ask, there are mines buried in the ice all around us. I can find the safe path through the minefield, so just follow behind me and stay close, unless you want to blow yourselves the fuck up.’

The pre-fab buildings proved to be much larger than they had appeared from the air. Many were several storeys in height, and he spotted a few automated vehicles traversing the narrow roads linking buildings and warehouses.

‘Nobody here to greet us?’ Saul asked.

‘Trust me, they know we’re here,’ Hsingyun replied, over his shoulder, before stepping forward cautiously. The antennae device he clutched in his gloved hand gave a beep, and he began to walk more quickly.

As he and Jacob fell in behind him, Saul was not entirely unfamiliar with the technology Hsingyun was using. He knew they were, in fact, stepping directly on top of mines as they approached the dome. The mines communicated with each other by radio frequency, activating or deactivating according to pre-set patterns, meaning that the ‘safe’ path through them could change as often as you programmed it to. You therefore needed something hooked into the same encrypted network in order to find your way through the minefield without getting killed.

Saul caught Jacob’s eye and flashed him a dark look. If this turned out to be a trap and they needed to get out, it was going to be almost impossible to negotiate the minefield without Hsingyun’s device.

We should have said the warehouse, or no deal, Saul wanted to yell.