Resolution (71 page)

Tom’s attention was turned elsewhere, in a way that only a Seer could have understood, as he Saw and experienced:
a supercilious laugh, and the Magister known as Strostiv nods in agreement. To one side, a lattice of pure white light shines, its purpose not apparent.

‘All right, Trevalkin,‘ says Strostiv. ‘But I don’t see how
—’

Then Tom was back in the chamber, where Elva and Renata were staring at him.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s time we pushed this into another phase.’

~ * ~

43

TERRA & MU-SPACE

AD 2166

<>

[12]

‘Don’t you two ever fuckin’ scare me like that again.’

‘We’ll try—’

‘—not to.’

Kian looked at Deirdre. ‘After the way you kicked Solly’s nuts up into his throat, we wouldn’t dare.’

‘Yeah? Then just you remember that. Play with bombs again, and I’ll show you both an explosion you won’t... Ah, shit.’

‘We love you too, sweetheart.’

‘I’ve got something in my eye, that’s all.’

They were in the Pilots’ waiting lounge when Paula, who had introduced herself the previous day as an assistant controller, came to see them. She used a jargon filled with abbreviations and acronyms, but not the ones expected from a flight engineer.

‘BID’ - she pronounced it as a word:
bid-
‘are talking to Solly. The bio-intel boys. We’ve already sussed out his rdv procedures and dead-letter drops. With a bit of luck, we’ll take out his whole cell before they know what’s happening.’

‘I thought,’ said Deirdre, ‘you were coming to apologize.’

‘No, I wouldn’t presume. I
am
sorry, but why should you accept that from me?’

‘Yeah, why would I? Don’t you have any fuckin’ vetting procedures in this place?’

‘It’s all right, Deirdre,’ said Dirk.

‘No it isn’t.’

Kian blew out a breath, and shrugged. ‘Perhaps not. But it
will
be all right.’

‘Maybe ...’ Paula hesitated. ‘Maybe you’d let me buy you all a beer. On me, not UNSA.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘Well’ Paula was trying not to smile. ‘To celebrate the sweetest kick in the
cojones
I’ve ever seen, for one.’

‘I’m up for that,’ said Kian. ‘Provided you spill the beans a little. What kind of cell would this Solly belong to?’

‘The Zajinets have used humans before. Your mother would have told you that, surely.’

‘And who exactly’ - Dirk leaned forward, intent not just on her words but on heartbeat and skin tone - ‘did you say you work for, again?’

‘We’re all on the same side.’

Deirdre shook her head. ‘Hard to see evidence of that.’

‘Has anyone ever told you,’ said Paula, ‘you’re drop-dead gorgeous when you’re angry?’

‘I ...’ Deirdre stopped.

Dirk and Kian looked at each other.

‘I do believe—’

‘—she’s speechless.’

‘Screw you, boys.’

The twins did not attempt even subvocalized communication. If UN Intelligence was involved, their devices would be orders of magnitude more sensitive than any available to the space agency’s security branch. Or so they guessed.

Pride filled them at the thought of Mother’s swift, decisive counterattack on the alien ship. But they worried that she might have revealed her hand to those within UNSA who were already uneasy at the Pilots’ potential for unauthorized, independent action.

In mu-space, a drifting cargo-pod was broadcasting its distress signal. There was a general mayday and a more detailed log which any Pilot’s ship could read; but this pod came from Ro’s own vessel. She had left it here deliberately.

Abandoned it. With VIPs aboard, in coma.

‘Damn. I’ll bet it’s the senators who spend the next three days throwing up.’

As Ro’s ship slid through golden space, she browsed the pod’s transmissions. There were fifty-three passengers on board, most of them rich or politically prominent or both. And she had left them drifting here too long, while she had flown back to Terra to protect her sons.

I
could’ve kept the passengers on board while I fought the Zajinet.

But Ro’s objective had been to save the twins, and if she had revealed her intelligence source - Zoë - then that was too bad. Her dumping the passengers, if it came to a tribunal, would be icing on the prosecution counsel’s cake.

Thin end of the wedge, though.

In many ways it was guilt that had made Zoë open to persuasion. Zoë’s intelligence team had used Ro as bait back in Moscow, and it resulted in Ro’s abduction. She had awoken on Beta Draconis III.

Fun times. Not.

‘Come on.’

Ro manoeuvred her vessel closer to the pod.

Any non-Pilot who woke up inside mu-space was liable to have their mind torn apart in a psychotic episode which would last until death. That was why passengers travelled inside delta-coma.

But Ro had left her passengers drifting here for so long that some had started to waken, fighting off the delta-band-induced sleep. The pod’s automatic systems had injected them with antipsychotic deep-narcosis drugs.

Which meant they would not come round naturally. Medics would have to revive her Very Important Passengers at their destination: Vachss Station, in orbit around the Haxigoji homeworld, Vijaya. And those passengers would be cursing her name for every vomit-filled hour it took their bodies to regain normal equilibrium.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Ro’s voice echoed, a snowstorm of fractal parasound inside the cabin. ‘So long as the matter compilers function OK, we’ll be all right.’

Bravado.

She was years from bringing her plans to fruition. For now, every Pilot was dependent on UNSA completely. Ro was the only true-born Pilot - meaning one who did not require viral rewiring and the eye-removal surgery - to have her own mu-space vessel.

‘Damn, damn, damn.’

Then the cabin’s rear door opened, and Claude Chalou entered. A blocky visor covered his metal eye sockets and enabled the ageing Pilot to interface with the ship’s systems. To see in mu-space. After years in Oxford, guided by sound and touch and his trained dog Sam, he was no longer a stumbling old man: he was in a sea of golden light once more.