On the Steel Breeze

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

No one dared call it launch day. Even now the prospect felt unreal, impossible to square with the ordinary trajectory of her morning so far.

She had risen as normal and met with Noah and the children just before they set off for college, exchanging the usual strained but cordial small talk. Then she shared a transit pod with Noah, back to the administrative core, both of them acting as if nothing of consequence lay ahead of her that day. Two eager mid-level functionaries rode with them in the pod, clotting the air with maps and diagrams of Zanzibar’s interior while they debated vital matters of resource allocation. Noah and Chiku wisely said nothing.

Later there would be tears, she knew that. In the last few hours before the launch, before their secret was revealed to the rest of the caravan, Ndege and Mposi would be pulled out of college. She would meet them again and attempt to explain herself – attempt to make them understand why she had to do this baffling, cruel thing to them.

They would not understand, of course – not here and now. But she could give them words to carry with them after she was gone, and at some point they might come to understand, if not forgive.

When they arrived at their destination, Chiku and Noah quickly took their leave of the other politicians and functionaries who had shared the same pod. They made their way out of the transit terminal, down the long approach to the Assembly Building. Citizens and journalists watched her pass, but none approached her. Something in Chiku’s stride and determination, projecting a hard repulsive field the way a planet deflected solar radiation.

‘On Earth,’ she told Noah, ‘Chiku Yellow had to run into that building to escape a war machine. Inside, there were wild cats – panthers, I think they were, black and very powerful. The Mechanism was malfunctioning somehow, which made them more likely to attack. They hunted us deep inside the household.’

Noah lengthened his stride to match hers. ‘This is the first time you’ve talked about that incident. Why the change of heart?’

‘If not now, when? I’m grateful that you never pushed, never used what you knew against me.’

‘You might not have trusted me, Chiku, but I always trusted you to do the right thing, in your own fashion. Have you seen her lately?’

‘Nowhere near as much as I’d have liked. She’s fine, though – much better than she was, actually.’

‘And she’s… fully in the picture?’

‘Absolutely. I talked everything over with her, ran almost every decision I took past her for a second opinion. You can dump some of the blame on her, if you like.’

‘Seems a bit pointless.’

They were nearly at the building now. Her thoughts flashed back to the original household in Africa, after which the Assembly Building aboard Zanzibar was fashioned. She wondered if it still stood. She imagined its white walls surrendering to the bush, the whole property turning into an outline on the ground, a map of itself you could only see from the air. I want to be back in Africa now, she thought, back in that body, not in this one. Under an honest sky, panthers or no panthers.

‘How are you feeling?’ Noah asked as they jogged up the steps.

‘Nervous. For about a million reasons.’

‘I’m sure you’ll rise to the occasion.’

She slowed before they were fully inside the building, glaring at the duty constables until they moved back from their stations and allowed her some privacy.

‘Noah, before I announce my resignation… I’m going to do what I should have done all those years ago. You said I should have trusted you, and you’re right. I can’t make amends for that – I can’t give you back the years I stole from our marriage, or make our children suddenly understand what I’ve done to them. I realise it’s much too late for that. But there’s something I’d like you to have. Do you remember when we visited her, when I left Ndege’s companion with her?’

After a moment, he nodded.

‘It gave her a way to reach us, and vice versa. It’s not perfect, and you’ll need to use it sparingly, but there’s a ching bind and a proxy at the other end. It’ll place you in her presence.’

‘I’d need the coordinates.’

‘I memorised them years ago. I’ll send them to your private account, during the session.’

‘How safe is this ching bind? Is it traceable?’

‘She’s been very good at covering our tracks, but as I said, you shouldn’t use it too often. My last visit was… I was going to say months ago, but it’s probably longer than that. She’s not totally in the dark – she has access to the public nets, and to some of the private areas, but I’m sure she’d like to hear from you. Help her to stay up to date, if you can.’

‘I’ll… keep an eye out for those coordinates.’ After a moment, he said, ‘Thank you. For whatever reason, I appreciate it.’

‘I think we’d better get to work,’ Chiku said. ‘We don’t want people thinking something’s afoot, do we?’

‘There is?’

She smiled at Noah.

Soon they were taking their seats in the Assembly – Noah near the front in the main fan of seats, Chiku in the Chair’s position, facing her democractic legislature.

The plan was simple enough – barely a plan at all, truth be told. They would all go through the motions of a normal day’s business. If her enemies had planted spies or eavesdropping devices anywhere in the Assembly, they would report nothing of note – not until it was already much too late to react.

The morning’s business was going well – she was only paying it the bare minimum of attention – when the constables thrust open the doors and allowed an aide to enter the room. The current speaker fell silent and stood demurely at the lectern while this interruption played out. The aide approached Chiku and whispered.

She listened and felt her core body temperature drop by several degrees.

She asked a couple of questions, nodded, and then indicated to the speaker that he should return to his seat.

Chiku stood. ‘I have some news,’ she said. ‘We hoped today’s developments would come as a surprise to Zanzibar and the rest of the local caravan, but it seems there’s been a leak.’

Noah was the first to speak. ‘What’s happening?’

‘The Council of Worlds has issued a statement – more of a demand, in fact – ordering Zanzibar to suspend all extravehicular movements and submit to an immediate inspection. We’re forbidden from launching or receiving ships and personnel, except on Council authority.’ Chiku was gripping the lectern like a shipwrecked survivor in a storm. ‘Delegations are on their way to us from six holoships in the local caravan.’

‘We didn’t see this coming?’ asked the person next to Noah, a Sou-Chun loyalist.

‘Unfortunately not,’ said Chiku. ‘The launches were coordinated and simultaneous, and no advance warning was given. This was meant to take us by surprise.’ Chiku turned back to the aide and instructed him to project a real-time visualisation of the local caravan with the new ship movements plotted and extrapolated – bright curving tentacles of light, originating from different points in space but all converging on Zanzibar. ‘They’re closing at maximum civilian burn,’ she said as the numbers and predictions stabilised. ‘Eighteen ships, mostly shuttles and cargo craft, a few high-capacity taxis. The first of them will begin to arrive in about ninety minutes, sooner if they push the margins. Indications suggest that a second wave is being prepared for launch, which will include vessels from more than just the six holoships contributing to the initial wave.’

‘This feels like war,’ Noah said.

‘It’s not war,’ Chiku said firmly, as if the word itself was a curse that needed to be revoked before it took root. ‘This is a legal inspection… unusually coordinated, yes, but fully within the provisions of normal inter-holoship governmental cooperation.’

‘What are they planning to do – ram their way in?’ asked the representative from October chamber.

‘They’ll be expecting us to comply fully with their requirements,’ Chiku said. ‘Clear all locks and prepare to receive inspection parties.’

‘Eighteen ships!’ said another. ‘We don’t even have eighteen independent locks! What are they thinking?’

‘I don’t know,’ Chiku said, and it was true. ‘But it’s bad, and it puts us in a pinch. If hundreds of inspection parties are suddenly let loose in Zanzibar and go combing through our secrets, they’re bound to find Icebreaker.’ There – it was out. ‘Then we’re finished. They’ll tear it apart, dismantle the research programmeme, put Zanzibar under the yoke – years of work undone. We can’t permit that to happen, not after we’ve invested so much. But our only option, short of armed resistance, is to launch immediately. I mean now, as soon as possible, before the first wave arrives.’

‘What, exactly,’ asked the Sou-Chun loyalist, one of the Assembly members not cleared for full disclosure, ‘is Icebreaker?’

‘That will take a little explaining,’ said Chiku, ‘but I’m sure my colleagues will be more than happy to answer your questions.’ Then she gripped the lectern tighter and swallowed hard. ‘In the meantime, I, Chiku Akinya, Chair of the Zanzibar Assembly, hereby announce my immediate and unconditional resignation.’

In five minutes she was in the government car, racing away from the Assembly Building.

‘I don’t envy you,’ she told Noah. He was sitting next to her in the rear compartment as the car beetled up the steep slope to the transit station. ‘I always knew there’d be trouble after the departure, but I’m afraid it’s going to come much sooner than I expected. Do you think you can keep order?’

‘Why are you asking me? I’m not the new Chair, nor anywhere close to becoming it.’

‘You have influence, though, and you might end up Chair after they’ve sorted through the mess I’m about to leave you. You’ve managed not to end up totally tainted by association with me, and I know you have at least as many friends as enemies. Your voice will count – you’re not me, for one thing.’

‘We can’t afford to resist the inspection teams. If a drop of blood is spilt on either side, they’ll send reinforcements. Constables, delegates, whatever it takes to impose external authority. We’d be finished.’

‘There mustn’t be blood – you’re right about that. But you’ve got to do everything in your power to protect the new technology. Give anything but that.’

‘You might be asking the impossible.’

She nodded gravely. ‘If the worst comes to the worse, we’ll still have the duplicate files aboard Icebreaker – how to make a Post-Chibesa engine in ten easy steps. If we choose, we can easily transmit the blueprints back to Zanzibar or the rest of the caravan. Our governments are going to try to suppress the information we’ll be sending back from Crucible, or simply fail to act on it. You have to prevent that. You have to be strong, Noah. You’ve seen how the game is played. Make enemies of your friends, piss people off. Get used to being hated in service to a noble cause. You have it in you.’

‘I’m not sure I do.’

‘You’re not alone. You have an ally in Eunice. Don’t forget the ching coordinates.’

‘You think she can dig us out of this hole?’

‘If anyone – or anything – can, it’s her.’

An empty train was ready and waiting for them, flanked by constables. They were ushered from the car to a forward compartment and the train accelerated out of the chamber. Chiku could only sit and wait and hope everything went according to plan. The arrangements she had put in place were all predicated on her authority as Chair, and now she was just a member of the citizenry again, with no executive privileges. She could be arrested and detained on the flimsiest pretext.

But she had set enormous bureaucratic wheels turning, and they had a stony, grinding momentum of their own. The world was still happy to treat her as if she was running the place.

In the compartment, Chiku voked a visualisation of Zanzibar and its approaching visitors. She and Noah stared at it wordlessly for a few moments.

‘You were right,’ Noah said finally. ‘Ninety minutes was optimistic. They’re pushing harder – could be on-dock in fifty, maybe less. How long do you actually need to complete the launch sequence?’

‘We assumed we’d have hours, but we only need enough time to get clear – they won’t actually shoot at us, will they? We don’t put guns on spaceships!’

‘No,’ Noah conceded. ‘But we do put lots of things on spaceships that could be used as weapons, if you’re that way inclined. I’d want a margin of error – a good few thousand kilometres of clear space. Can you get that far away, before the first ships arrive?’

‘We’ll have to. And light the PCP earlier than we were planning, if it comes to it.’ She felt a profound urge to curl up and bury her face in her hands, walling out the universe and its woes. ‘Fuck! We’ve been preparing for this for years! How the hell did they find out? And why wait until now, the very last day, to call us on it?’

‘That’s exactly why they’ve waited: there’ll be no plausible denials now. Twelve of your top specialists are already aboard the ship in skip-over! How would you ever explain that?’

She felt as if some cunning ratchet-like thing in her head, a piece of neatly fashioned metal, had just disengaged itself with a solid clock-like tock, allowing a marvel of gears and pulleys and weights to whirr into life. A decision, becoming manifest.

‘We have to launch now, even though we’re not all aboard. Those who are ready can board now – including Travertine, even if ve suddenly decides ve’s changed vis mind. Then we blow the chamber and get Icebreaker into clear space. That’s the most critical part, and we can’t afford to delay.’

‘What about the rest of you?’

‘We’ll need a shuttle, something fast – can we make that happen?’

‘Launching a shuttle will be in direct contravention of the Council’s terms.’

‘Somehow, I don’t think it’ll make our position much worse. I’m going to order one released for take-off immediately.’

Noah looked doubtful. ‘Can you order anything?’

‘Recommend in the strongest possible terms, then – good enough for you?’

As the train sped on, she voked back to one of her trusted colleagues in the Assembly and requested an immediate summary of Icebreaker’s state of readiness. The loading of provisions and fuel had been completed days ago and the major support systems and umbilicals retracted. But securing clamps and docking tunnels were still in place, ready to receive the last of the crew, and with a certain inevitability technicians were still inside, fussing over last-minute headaches.

‘Pull them out,’ Chiku said. ‘Whatever the problem, just pull them out. I want Icebreaker clear of Zanzibar within thirty minutes.’

They protested, as she had expected, because this turn of events was not in their plans or covered by any of their contingencies. It should never have come down to this mad scramble. But she reminded them of that old adage of war about plans never surviving the first contact with the enemy.

Although this was not war, not precisely.

Not yet.