Spindrift (9 page)

“You've got visitors, convict,” the closer of the two guards said, his voice formal and yet not unkind. “You can take a break now. Warden says it'll count toward your work quota, so take your time.”

“Thanks. Tell Mr. Torres I appreciate it.” Ramirez ignored Shillinglaw and Sinclair as he pulled off his work gloves. “I can speak to them, can't I?”

“Sure. Just watch what you say.” The guard stepped back a couple of feet, the butt of his rifle resting upon his hip, while his companion moved past them and took up a similar position on the gravel pathway leading between the rows of plants.

Once again, Shillinglaw nervously looked around. Even with two armed guards as escorts, he didn't like where he'd found himself. The farm surrounded them like a primeval forest, its warm air humidified by the fine spray of water from the gridlike network of irrigation pipes high above their heads. Here and there among the cannabis, he spotted other inmates, some spreading mulch and trimming leaves while others cut full-grown plants and loaded them into wheelbarrows. Gazing at the nearby crater wall, he saw a couple of prisoners lounging against the railing of one of the lower-level cell tiers; they stared back at him, their expressions implacable until one of them raised his fingers to his lips and blew him a kiss.

Shillinglaw hastily looked away. No wonder Torres had left him and Sinclair at the crater entrance. Even with armed guards at his side, he felt vulnerable. He suddenly realized Torres's intentions: instead of letting him talk to Ramirez in the privacy of an interrogation room, he'd made sure the meeting took place where his unwanted visitor would be intimidated. But with Sinclair in the picture, that idea had backfired, and now the warden wanted to distance himself as much as possible.

“So…let's hear what you have to say.” Ramirez shoved his gloves in his back pocket. “Better not be another psych profile, though. I'm done with them.”

“I'm sure you are.” Sinclair regarded him with undisguised contempt. “Anyone ever find out what's wrong with you? I mean, besides the fact that you hate the human race?”

“Not the entire human race, no…just certain members.” Ramirez bent forward to peer at Sinclair's lapel pin. “We've never met, but I have little doubt that you're among them.”

Sinclair smirked, a retort hovering on his lips. Shillinglaw cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves,” he said before the conversation could degenerate further. “I'm John Shillinglaw, associate director of the European Space Agency. My colleague…um, companion…is Donald Sinclair, from the…”

“I know where he's from, thank you.” Ramirez turned his attention to him. “ESA, you say? How interesting…which department?”

“Extrasolar Exploration. It's…”

“New, isn't it? Have you made any progress? Toward building your own starship, I mean.” He absently glanced up toward the pressure dome high above. “We don't get much news here. Or at least
I
don't…the warden restricts my net access. Just sports and the occasional fic.”

From the corner of his eye, Shillinglaw saw that Sinclair was listening with great interest. “We've made some progress,” he replied, and quickly changed the subject. “I've come here to discuss an important matter with you…something you may be able to help us understand.”

“I hope it's not about the Savants again.” Ramirez looked down at the ground. “Look, it was a mistake. I've lost everything because of what they did…and if I'd known what they were planning, I would've never helped them in the first place. So if you're trying to find out more about their plans, believe me when I tell you that I've already—”

Sinclair made a flatulent sound with his mouth. Shillinglaw chose to ignore him. “It's not about the Savant genocide,” he said. Mindful of the nearby guards, he lowered his voice. “It's about Raziel. It's received a signal.”

Ramirez's eyes snapped toward him. For a moment he seemed to shake, like a man who'd just received a cold chill. Then he stepped closer to Shillinglaw, closing the distance between them. “Artificial?” he whispered, and Shillinglaw nodded. “Confirmed?” Shillinglaw nodded again. “When? How?”

“Ten days ago…and no, this is not an April Fool's joke, although that possibility crossed a few people's minds. Two radio telescopes on Earth unpinned their dishes and used them to confirm what showed up on Raziel's multichannel analyzer.” Shillinglaw paused, then added, “It's real. It's as real as it can get.”

“Oh, dear god.” For the first time, Ramirez noticed the folder Shillinglaw carried in his left hand. “Is that the data? Let me see it…”

Impatient, he started to reach for the folder, as if to snatch it away from Shillinglaw. The suddenness of his action drew the attention of the closer of the soldiers; before either of them could react, the Guardsman grabbed Ramirez's arm and roughly hauled him back, while the other one brought up his gun to cover his partner.

“It's all right!” Raising his hands, Shillinglaw moved between Ramirez and the second Guardsman, blocking his shot. “It's okay! I'm fine! No problem!” In the background, he could hear whistles and catcalls from the other inmates; somewhere above them, one of the prisoners who'd been watching them pounded on the railing, apparently signaling to the others that a fight was about to break out. Shillinglaw tried to put it out of his mind. “He just got excited, that's all,” he said quickly. “Leave him alone, please.”

The soldiers seemed unconvinced until Sinclair walked over to the one holding the rifle and murmured something in his ear. Shillinglaw couldn't hear what he said, but it was enough to make the Guardsman lower his weapon. A brief nod to his colleague, and the other soldier released Ramirez, albeit reluctantly, and stepped back. More whistles, this time mixed with a few boos, then the inmates gradually quieted down.

“Sorry.” Ramirez gently massaged his arm where the guard had grabbed him. “Just a little overstimulated.” A wan smile. “Nine years in this place, and now this…I hope you understand.”

“Sure. I would be, too.” Shillinglaw was surprised to see that Ramirez's face had gone pale; there was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. “Besides, if there was any trouble, your friends would've helped you out.”

Ramirez's smile faded. “No, I'm afraid not,” he said quietly. “They were probably hoping that the guards would beat the crap out of me.” He glanced at the folder again. “If I may…?”

Shillinglaw held out the file. Careful not to take it from him too quickly, Ramirez accepted the folder with quivering hands. Half-turning away from him, he opened it and began to study the technical printouts. Some pages he flipped quickly past, while others he examined more thoroughly, his lips moving as he whispered to himself.

As Shillinglaw watched him, he found himself torn between long-standing disgust for the man and a certain grudging respect. Nine years ago, no one outside the scientific community had ever heard of Jared Ramirez. An American astrobiologist working within the confines of the Western Hemisphere Union, his principal line of research had been the search for extraterrestrial intelligence…a field that had gone out of vogue in recent years, despite the Union Astronautica's development of the diametric drive, due to lack of evidence that intelligent life existed beyond Earth. Indeed, it'd even been argued that, because humankind had discovered the means to go to the stars, only to find no one waiting for them, this was proof that
Homo sapiens
occupied the pinnacle of creation.

Yet although the strong anthropic principle had become the philosophical basis for Dominion Christianity, Ramirez's research had earned just enough support within the Proletariat—particularly among the Council of Savants—that he was able to acquire funding for a SETI project based at Mare Muscoviense on the lunar farside. It only made sense that the Savants remained interested in finding other forms of intelligent life, for they were no longer quite human themselves. Scholars, philosophers, and dreamers who, for one reason or another, had decided that the normal human life span was a death sentence they couldn't tolerate, they'd taken advantage of radical advances in cybernetics to have their cerebral patterns scanned and downloaded into quantum comps contained within mechanical bodies, thereby giving birth to posthuman life.

For a time, it appeared as if the Savants would peacefully coexist with baseline humans. Their enhanced ability to process new information, coupled with near immortality, seemed to make them the intellectual vanguard. Although they were still viewed with suspicion by the European Alliance and the Pacific Coalition, the Savants took advantage of the Western Hemisphere Union's doctrine of social collectivism to have their representatives elected to the Proletariat, where they formed a third council that worked alongside the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. There they wielded considerable influence; it was upon their advice that the Union decided to build a fleet of five starships that would journey to 47 Ursae Majoris in order to wrest control of Coyote from the handful of colonists who'd arrived there only a few years earlier.

Yet no one knew that the Savants had their own agenda. Least of all Jared Ramirez, who'd become a collaborator in their plan to obliterate nearly one-third of Earth's population. Unwittingly, or so he claimed…

“This is…this is absolutely incredible.” Still staring at the papers in his hands, Ramirez turned toward Shillinglaw. “And it happened by accident?”

“Pretty much so, yes.” Walking over to Ramirez's side, Shillinglaw reached past his shoulder to turn back a couple of pages. “There, you see?” he said, pointing to the first column of figures. “The object was spotted when Raziel aimed itself at Proxima Centauri. It wasn't engaged in a search pattern at the time, just using that star to recalibrate itself…”

“As it's programmed to do, yes.” Ramirez shook his head in amazement. “I picked Proxima because it's an M-class dwarf close enough for Raziel to locate without any trouble.” He chuckled to himself. “Of all the stars I'd least expect…”

“It's not in orbit around Proxima. See?” He flipped to the next page, indicated another set of figures with the tip of his finger. “Once Raziel locked on to the object, it continued to track it while it occultated Alpha Centauri A and B, and later HR6416. So that means it's…”

“A transient, right.” Shutting his eyes, Ramirez lifted his left hand from the page, almost as if he was visualizing a star map indelibly etched in his mind's eye. “Coming from the general direction of the outer Orion Arm. Heading toward the galactic center, slightly below the solar plane of ecliptic. And how far away did you say it was?”

“When it was first spotted about four and a half years ago…”

“Four and a half years ago? Why didn't you…?” He stopped himself, and a wry smile appeared. “Oh, right. I was still in solitary. Makes consultation a bit difficult.”

“It was approximately two-point-one light-years from Earth. We estimate it as being approximately one thousand two hundred kilometers in diameter, spherical in shape…”

“Only one thousand two hundred kilometers?” He sighed and shook his head in dismay, then thrust the folder at Shillinglaw's chest. “A rogue asteroid,” he muttered. “Space junk. Don't waste my time. Nice to meet you, but I'm not…”

“Since then the distance has decreased to approximately two-point-oh-five l.y.'s, and it's on a trajectory perpendicular to our solar system.” Shillinglaw didn't take the file from him. “With that sort of velocity, does it still sound like a rogue? And before you answer that, let me show you one more thing.”

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his pad. “Raziel is one hell of a system,” he continued as he opened its cover and entered a code number. “When it spotted something that looked like a possible candidate, it did what it was supposed to do…”

“It would've transmitted a signal. But it wouldn't have done that unless…” Ramirez's voice trailed off as a three-dimensional image materialized a couple of inches above the pad's holoscreen: a dark, featureless sphere, like a small moon or a large asteroid, save for lack of surface textures. Yet it wasn't that which attracted his attention, but the tiny object that circled around it like a miniature satellite.

“When the transient occultated Proxima Centauri,” Shillinglaw went on, pointing to the orbiting blip, “it spotted this thing. So, as you say, its recognition program kicked in, and it transmitted a signal.”

He paused. “Two days ago, we received a response.”

Ramirez's jaw dropped. His shoulders sagged, and his knees buckled. For a moment, Shillinglaw thought the man was about to faint; he started to reach forward to steady him, but Ramirez recovered himself. Putting a hand to his mouth, he stared at the holo with such fascination that tears began to form at the corners of his eyes. A nervous giggle, almost like a little girl's self-conscious laughter, escaped from his throat; he made an effort to choke it back, but it came forth again, no less hysterical than before.

“We received a signal,” he whispered, almost breathless. “My god…oh, my god…we received a signal.”

“Yes, we did.” Until then, Sinclair had remained in the background, quietly observing the conversation. Now he came forward, hands clasped behind his back. “And you see why we need your help. Obviously, this is something that needs to be investigated, the sooner the better…”