Starbase Human (37 page)

What worried him was this: Jarvis hadn’t shown up on Zagrando’s internal map. No heat signature, nothing, not even now. For a moment, Zagrando wondered if Jarvis had accessed his links, and the man pointing a laser pistol at him was just a hologram.

Zagrando had to act as if Jarvis were real.

Because if he was, then Zagrando had another problem.

How many other invaders had already arrived and weren’t visible on his scans?

Zagrando tried not to let how unnerved he was show on his face. The training, which had hurt, was coming in useful now. If he acted calm, he would be considered calm.

He slid a finger behind him, commanding the panel to close.

It did, just as Jarvis shot at him—low, like Zagrando expected. Jarvis shot to wound, but not kill.

The shot missed, and Zagrando backed up, out of Jarvis’s line of sight, heart pounding, but glad for the confirmation:

Jarvis needed to find that money before he killed Zagrando.

Zagrando could use that.

He could still see the edge of Jarvis’s shoe, but didn’t know how long that would last.

Zagrando shut off all contact with the space yacht after sending a shadow signal up one more level. As the hookup with the yacht winked out, Jarvis remained. If the shot hadn’t convinced Zagrando that Jarvis was real, then the fact that Jarvis hadn’t disappeared with the links did.

Still, Zagrando didn’t like severing the contact. He couldn’t figure out where invaders were without the yacht, but if he stayed hooked up to the yacht, then someone might track him through the yacht’s systems.

Then Zagrando pulled out one of the pistols he carried, set it on high, and hoped to hell he wouldn’t have to use it.

He backed away, moving as quietly as he could until he reached the next access panel. He went down two decks, squeezing through a space that he barely fit in.

Before he opened the access panel on that level, he sent out a silent prayer to all the gods he had never believed in, hoping against hope this would work.

He pushed the control, and the panel slid open.

No one waited for him in the corridor.

He scurried along, touching nothing, pistol in front of him, feeling blind without his links, lonely without a partner, and just a little worried that he had missed something important.

FIFTY-ONE

ODGEREL’S OFFICE HAD
no desk. It had no furniture, not as most people would define it. She had large, multicolored pillows on the floor, several rugs covering the tile, and some thick mats for stretching. Four decorative screens divided the room into sections.

Her favorite screen reproduced the famous Qing Dynasty painting, “One Hundred Horses.” She loved the piece, not only because its browns, greens, and blacks pleased her, but because of what it symbolized. The artist, Lang Shining, had been born in Italy, but his work became beloved by Chinese emperors. To her, the screen represented the hope that if humans could blend their cultures long ago, then humans and aliens could do so now—with the human becoming dominant, of course. Like the Chinese were dominant in this painting.

The other screens were also reproductions of famous old works, and all of them had a message—at least to her. The screen closest was a version of
Emperor Taizong Receiving the Tibetan Envoy
from the early years of the Tang dynasty,
Peach Festival of the Queen Mother of the West
from the Ming Dynasty, and
The Jade Rabbit
Explores
from the early 21
st
century. Of all of them, she liked the moonscape the least, but her eye went to it now, looking past the moon rover to the grayish surface of the Moon itself.

Back then, who would have known that the exploration would lead to such a vast and complicated civilization, one with so many moving parts even she could not understand it?

Odgerel sat cross-legged before
The Jade Rabbit Explores
, the large, pale pink pillow soft beneath her legs. She needed to unite the various Division and Department heads without making any of them feel threatened. She decided she would start with her old friend, Gāo Yǎ Dé. He headed the Earth Alliance Military Division Human Coordination Department Intelligence Service, and she could trust him to speak frankly to her.

She waved her right hand, activating the screen hidden in the center of the Jade Rabbit rover.

A brief, yellow-coded image appeared on her screen. It was the usual warning screen, one that prevented outsiders from entering the secure divisions in the Earth Alliance government.

Any contact initiated by her or someone with the codes to her screens in this single room would immediately bypass those screens.

After a moment, Gāo appeared. He had put on weight since she had last seen him, making his already-round face seem moon-shaped. He had an ill-advised mustache that accented how pale his once-brown skin had become. His eyes, dark and inquisitive, remained the same.

“Odgerel,” he said, with unfeigned pleasure. He bowed enough that she could see the top of his head before he continued. “I have missed you.”

“And I, you, Yǎ Dé,” she said. “It has been too many years.”

“And too many light-years,” he said, with the boyish smile she remembered. “I have a staff meeting in progress. I assume I must dismiss them?”

“Only for a moment,” she said, and then she waited. She did like this part of her job: the fact that others—no matter how highly ranked—catered to her.

His face disappeared, and an Earth Alliance Military logo replaced it. She waited while he dismissed his staff, using those moments to make sure her breathing was regular and her heart rate remained even.

Then Gāo’s face filled the screen once more. Behind him, she could see the edges of a starscape. He had changed locations, perhaps to a room with a view of space.

“Now,” he said warmly, “how may I help you, Odgerel?”

She let her hands rest on her knees. “You have, of course, heard of the latest attacks on the Moon.”

“Yes.” His eyes glittered. From his tone, she could tell he thought the attacks had nothing to do with him.

“I am hearing disturbing chatter, and I must consider it.” She paused, making certain he knew that she was choosing her words carefully. “I am hearing that these attacks are not criminally based, as we first thought, but are aimed at something larger.”

“What could be larger than destroying cities on the Moon?” Gāo asked.

She waited. She did not want to insult him. He needed to come to his own conclusions. Then he would own the ideas.

“No one would attack the Alliance,” Gāo said. “No one has the military power to attack us. Everyone who has tried has failed. We’ve never encountered a larger military in the known universe.”

She waited and watched. He frowned, as he thought about this.

“You think the attack is coming from within?” he asked.

“I am sure, Yǎ Dé, that you have kept a close eye on dissidents,” she said.

“Dissidents, yes,” he said. “We follow all sorts of dissidents. Generally, they dislike their own governments, not the Earth Alliance. The Intelligence Service’s Joint Unit follows those that seem to span species, and—”

“I’m aware of the structure,” she said softly. She didn’t need him to explain the sections that most divisions in the Earth Alliance had. Each alien species had its own wing of not just the military intelligence service, but also of the military prisons and, oh so many others. Just like each division had its own overall human overseer. She had to meet with her compatriots three times a year, generally off-Earth, which annoyed her greatly.

“I’m sorry,” Gāo said. “Of course, you’re familiar. I’m so used to explaining the intricacies to subordinates.”

Sure he was. She kept the disbelief off her face. She had a sense that he had started to make those little unnecessary speeches that some people in command resorted to. They often believed their subordinates were ignorant, rather than trusting them.

Almost like she had done with Brown the day before.

“Dissidents,” Gāo repeated. “Have you discussed this with your political branch? They send us updates quite often. I believe between us, we’re tracking two million different groups—and those are just human.”

“Humans against the Alliance?” Odgerel asked.

“If we get that kind of specific, then maybe half are what you’re looking for.” Gāo tapped a finger against his lips. “There are, literally, a million suspects, Odgerel. And that’s not even the problem.”

She would have thought it a problem. In fact, she did think it a problem. She had no idea how they would find the particular needle they were searching for in so many large haystacks.

“What is the problem, then, in your estimation?” she asked.

“Organization,” he said. “Dissidents rise because of events, and events, by their nature, are short-lived.”

Odgerel frowned. She thought about that for a moment, felt the truth of it.

“Perhaps we are using the wrong word,” she said. “Dissidents were once of the community, right? Then they decide that they do not agree or something happens to take them outside of the community.”

Gāo stroked that ill-advised mustache. “It’s simplistic, but we could say that.”

Had he always been so pedantic? So caught up in being right? She had known him when they were both young, and while they had stayed in touch, they had not had a long business conversation in—well, perhaps ever.

“So, let us discuss instead, groups that have never wanted to be part of the Alliance,” Odgerel said.

“Humans?” Gāo asked. “Because we began the Alliance, and I doubt there are any human-only groups that have opposed it from its start. At least that I am aware of. Perhaps your political branch knows of some.”

She nodded. She would check.

“As for others, you know that non-human groups are outside of my expertise,” he said.

He was actually trying her patience. She hadn’t had someone try her patience like this in a very long time.

“Perhaps,” she said, sounding as reasonable as she could, “you could check to see what human opposition groups have existed for several decades.”

“After the—what are they calling it? Peyti Disaster?—are we certain that the groups are human? Because the evidence suggests a joint group.”

As if Gāo had seen the evidence. He hadn’t really been paying attention. That much was clear, just from his inability to name the most recent disaster that had hit the Moon.

“We don’t know anything,” Odgerel said, and it pained her to say that. “I will be talking with your cohorts in the other divisions.”

Or someone would. She didn’t want to talk to all—what was it? At least 1,000 branches of military intelligence—on her own.

“But,” she said, “I would like you to examine this for me, see if you can find anything.”

Gāo nodded. “You do think this is human-based, don’t you.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I do not know,” she said. “Until recently, we have looked at this as a Moon-based problem that we are providing back-up and assistance for. We see the criminals as very dangerous.”

“Yet you’re talking to me,” Gāo said.

“I am,” Odgerel said. “One of my newer staff members reminded me that the Moon is the gateway to the heart of the Alliance. Plus, we must ask who gains if the Alliance goes away.”

“No one,” Gāo said quickly.

Odgerel bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement. “That was my first reaction as well. And I have learned to mistrust those automatic vocalizations. They come from my assumptions, not the assumptions of someone who is bent on harm.”

Gāo took a deep breath. “It would help if we knew how to focus the investigation.”

He was once again asking, in a sideways manner this time, if the culprits were human.

As if she knew everything. If she knew everything, she wouldn’t have to ask his help.

“The initial clones were human,” she said, because he clearly hadn’t followed this closely. “The second batch were Peyti.”

“So we have no idea,” he said.

“The Moon suffered an explosion years ago. The authorities at the time believed it connected to the Etaen crisis.” She also hadn’t given this as much thought as she would have liked. “Some corporations have hired Etaens to teach guerrilla warfare—how to get tiny weapons into large ports, for example, to cause a crisis that would then make the corporations’ products and services desirable.”

Gāo let out a small breath. “You don’t think a corporation tried to destroy the Moon.”

“I don’t think anyone wanted to destroy the Moon,” she said. “I think the attacks against the Moon’s domes will benefit several corporations, particularly those that offer construction contracts.”

Gāo shook his head. “Some of those corporations had branches on the Moon.”

“Yes,” she said, “and some of those corporations routinely do things that would, on their face, harm the corporation. For example, many have Disappearance services, so that any employee that accidentally crosses an alien government can avoid jail time. This violates Alliance law. It also risks the lives of employees.”