The Great Symmetry (8 page)

Suddenly Evan hit himself on the side of his head. “Stop! We need to dash for the ground right this minute!”

“Come on, we talked about this. I have a good cover.”

“Known associates. Think about it. If these ships all came to Kelter on my account, who will they be looking for? Known associates of Evan McElroy. And I even asked to place you on the expedition.
I assume you’re the registered pilot of this can right now?”

“It’s kind of borrowed, but yes, I am. Captain, actually.” She looked pleased.

“I think we need to leave. Right now!” Evan was frantic.

“Hey, I’ve got this,” Mira told him. “We can’t depart from the flight plan. It’s pretty buttoned down around here
. And as your captain, I’ve got a plan. Grab that canister and swap it into your EVA. It’s good for about twenty hours. As we approach, you step out for another of your little walks, and stay out for as long as I’m on station. If anyone searches the boat, we’ll be clean.”

No way. Not the EVA suit again. “But you’re going to take the shuttle into a bay
, right? Then we’ll all be inside.”

“Nope,” she said. “For a run like this with no bulk cargo, I just engage an airlock and pop through. The ship stays outside. Short term parking. As we approach, I’ll put it
in a slow spin, and you cycle out when the lock is facing away from the station. Then just stay on the away side as I rotate the lock toward the station. See that row of hatches right there? Our spot is number three.”

Anything but the EVA. “I’ll be visible to any ship coming in to Top Station,” Evan tried.

“Nobody will be looking, but in any case you can crawl into one of the turbo intakes. There should be just enough room. Stay in there until I come for you.”

“I still say we just blast for it.”

“That’s why I’m the captain and you’re the passenger. The single best way to be caught is to try to blast this bucket anywhere. We can’t outrun anyone, can’t maneuver.
All we can do is think on our feet.”

An implausible thought suddenly arrived. “Mira, you’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

Mira looked up from the controls, looking puzzled and smiling at the same time. “To the man? Do you know me? Not for an 840 credit rating. Once we get to Kelter, we’re going to make a big splash with your news, and poke Affirmatix in the eye at the same time. We’ll set the planet spinning on a new axis!”
Evan caught a flash of the Mira of years past, who could make the craziest idea seem reasonable. It was hard not to catch some of her enthusiasm.

“But we need to get there first,” she continued. “And right now, I’m kind of digging this whole captain thing. So, do we have a plan?”

“Aye Cap’n, we’ve got a plan.” In resignation, Evan reached for the oxygen canister and fitted it into his EVA. He really, really did not want to get back in that suit.

The Weasel

“I still say this is too crude,” Skylar said, as the docking sequence began. “If our mission is to contain information, then we shouldn’t take high profile actions that draw attention to it.”

“Sometimes you are too subtle,” Lobeck rejoined. “We should not hesitate to apply all needed force, or persuasion, to accomplish our objective. I have received authorization from President Sanzite to take any measures that are required. Any measures, without limitation.”
He felt the thud of the locking bolts from Top Station engaging their shuttle.

“But our action clearly elevates the importance of the rogue message to any competent observer,” she insisted. “Right now it’s just a mystery. If we demand all of the private keys, it obviously relates to the message, and will focus attention on it.”

“I think you underestimate the novelty of the events of the past day. It’s still all over the news, all the time. It’s even beating out celebrity affairs. Everybody knows that a new glome is huge news, and then the missile impact on top of it. And the coded message. So we don’t need to be tentative.”

“We could work more carefully,” Skylar admonished.

Lobeck stepped into the airlock, and waited for Skylar to join him. “Mithra, how long have you been with me?”

“Going on seventy years now,” she said.

He looked down at his long-time confidant. Mithra Skylar had chosen her own path. Taking the opposite approach to Lobeck’s intense fitness regimen, Skylar had done everything possible to slow her metabolism. Deep meditation. Direct control over her heart rate. Eating only weekly, if that. Breathing air with intentionally reduced oxygen. Her choice required its own kind of discipline, perhaps more than his method.

To the outside world, she looked emaciated and insubstantial. But Lobeck knew better. Freed from needs of the body, Skylar could apply the entirety of her consciousness to any problem that faced them. He could still see traces of the beauty that once was the talk of all of Goodhope.

At least she had not made the same choice as
President Sanzite. Lobeck tried to put the image out of his mind.

The door of the airlock dialed shut behind them. “You know how much I value your analysis,” he told her. “And I also know that you like to puzzle and puzzle until you find the best possible solution. That has been excellent, ninety-nine percent of the time, when we had latitude to plan ahead. This is not that
situation. We are recovering from the massive blunder of letting McElroy leave the Aurora system, and we must react in real time to events. This is where I decide, and then
we
do.”

“If you say…”

“This time of all times, I need your commitment.
Whatever it takes, whatever I direct. Mithra, I need to know that you’re with me.” There was no real question about her loyalty, but every so often it was a good idea to make her put it into words. To remind her of the source of all good things.

“Of course I’m with you,” she told her commander. “
There’s nowhere else in the galaxy for me.”

“So show me. I want you to request the private keys from Jarvis. A good task for you – step out of the background. And now it looks like we have completed docking. Let’s get this done.” The airlock door in front of them dilated, revealing a chamber with two station guards, already standing at attention. The door to the hallway beyond was open.

Lobeck set out, forcing Skylar to keep up, pulling her supplied air
behind her through the halls. A few minutes later, the two arrived at the office of Eltan Jarvis, head of security for Top Station, and by extension much of Kelter Four. While there were other stations in orbit around Kelter, Top Station was the hub of commerce for the entire system. Most of the goods and passengers in transit between Kelter and its two moons, or other stations, passed through Top Station.

And so Jarvis was a man to be reckoned with. Any matter of security, anywhere in the Kelter system, was his business. He was with the Kelter government, but his position was of course funded by subscribers, which included the Affirmatix Family at a ten percent participation rate. In many other systems, such positions were simply funded by a one seventh share from each of the S
even Sisters, but Kelter had unusually high participation from independents and even nonprofits. They liked to hang on to some illusion of independence, and that was their prerogative, if they were willing to foot the bill.

Lobeck and Skylar were ushered directly in to see Jarvis. Ten percent got you that, anyway. And a fleet of warships probably didn’t hurt.

After the obligatory handshakes, they got down to business.

“You moved rapidly to sequester the message from the terrorist vessel,” Lobeck said approvingly. “Good work.”

“I didn’t think we had a choice,” Jarvis replied. “The events were so unusual that it seemed prudent to act first and assess later. We could always release the information
if it proved harmless.”

Lobeck nodded in appreciation. “That is excellent judgment, and in this case you could not have been more right. In your evaluation, how effective was the sequestration?”

“I am not aware of any failure of containment. We have also been tracking unauthorized efforts to acquire the information, and so far we have five infoterrorists in custody.”

“We may want to interview them,” Lobeck said. “Please retain any person of interest until I give further notice.”

“Meanwhile, there is the matter of the encrypted content,” Skylar put in.

It took Jarvis a few moments to shift his focus to her. “Yes, the coded message. Looks like strong 2KB. It will take a few weeks to decrypt it, assuming that we’re able to.”

“We’re working on it as well,” she said. “Have you made any use of the private keys that you have registered?”

“No, because we don’t know whose key we need. The law enforcement key file is only useful if you know whose key you need, or have a short list.”

“This time we should make an exception. I need you to provide us with all of the keys.”

For a moment, Jarvis just stared at Skylar, processing the audacity of the demand.
“I can’t do that. We have a process, which is used for requests of up to a hundred private keys at a time. Checks and balances, you know.”

Lobeck took over. “Checks and balances are for peacetime. We have an emergency going on right now. The ship was bearing several types of severe infoterrorist threats, not the least of which was a formula for a new variant of the TDX virus, virulent and fatal to humans. It’s imperative that we contain all information that came from the ship, as well as all physical artifacts.”

Jarvis jumped up in alarm. “But you just came to Top Station from a ship that has had contact with the remains of that ship.
Why aren’t you quarantined?”

“There is no issue,” Lobeck assured. “The ship remains are in vacuum storage in the hold. We haven’t even directly examined them – remote sensing only. And you notice that we’ve had no contact with Top Station other than the two of us. So rest assured that we will maintain the strictest isolation. Now back to the keys. We need them, and we need them now.”

Jarvis was backing away from them, shaking his head. “You are asking for about a hundred million private keys, in contravention to every law we have on our books. They are for selective law enforcement purposes.”

“Just ask yourself, Mr. Jarvis, what you value more.
Do you value the lives of all of the people in the Kelter system? Or do you value some rules devised by bureaucrats to slow the performance of our duties to protect our constituents?”

“I don’t have the authority.”

Jarvis was a weasel. Fortunately, Lobeck had decades of experience with this type of creature.

“But you have the capability, and that’s what matters. We are both men of action, are we not? Playing those games of authority is just a way to pass off a critical decision. Right here and right now, are you able to make decisions to protect your citizens?”

“I’ll need to consult with my command chain on this,” the weasel replied.

Lobeck knew how to close the deal, as he had so many times before. Bureaucrats thrived in an environment of obstacles to action, represented by closed doors, required procedures, and the ornaments of their authority. These could be swept away by a clear set of instructions, delivered at close range.

He stepped around the desk to where Jarvis had retreated, and towered over him. “You know perfectly well what you need to do, so let us delay no further
. The safety of all your constituents depends on this. Load the keys on to this card – we will wait right here as you do so.”

Jarvis took the device from Lobeck and stared at it for a moment. At last he said, “Wait here. It will be about ten minutes.”

“Thank you. Please also include everything you have on Evan McElroy. History, people, finances. Everything.”

“Ten minutes,
” Jarvis repeated.

“Mr. Jarvis, we need more people like you, who can take decisive action. If you tire of government work, please feel free to contact me any time.”

Ten minutes later, Lobeck and Skylar had what they needed.

Fly Casual

Mira conveyed her small cargo without incident, a courier package with some product samples for a mid-level trade representative of the Philomax Family. That took only a few minutes. Then lunch, as planned.

Walking through the checkout at lunch, she felt the return of a familiar feeling. Would her card run, or would it fail? For so long, she had lived with that as an open question on many or most days. It was not a question of money or ability to pay. There was always more credit to be had, conveniently extending your line, at a price.
No. The question was your standing. At that moment in time, whether you were allowed to operate in the world of credit.

For the last few years, it had no longer been an issue. She had seen her score steadily rise. She showed up for work on time. Followed procedures. Didn’t spend time at the pub with certain people.

Had she grown up?
Or had she given in?

That was all out the airlock now. She had a passenger who was known to be dead, but who in fact was very much alive. And there was a good chance that the first symptom of official scrutiny would be failing a credit check. That was how they operated. Helpless, you would be stuck wherever you were, unable to pass through the next portal in the corridors of the station,
or even scan into the public restroom, until it was actually a relief when the authorities showed up to visit with you.

There was no problem getting her food. She waved her card at the checkbot, and the green light told her to move on through.

Then she actually took time to sit and eat her lunch, at a provided table.

Mira did not normally
stop for lunch. Usually she was eating and doing something else at the same time. Anything. Eating was boring, except with company and with beer.