Children of a Dead Earth Book One (30 page)

“You're lying.”

“I can assure you, I'm not. The course changes were known even before the Ark launched, but were classified top secret and buried as deep as anything could be. “

“Even if that's true, it doesn't prove that some god, or
the
God was responsible. It could have been, I don't know, aliens.”

“Is the distinction important? All we have to know is an intelligence with powers beyond our comprehension decreed that our time was over. Put whatever label on it you like, it won't change the facts.” Kimura lifted the tablet. “Now that you know, there's no more reason to delay the inevitable.”

Benson's hand clamped down on the gun so hard it was starting to cramp. “But you're going to murder an entire race!”

Kimura shook his head. “No, Bryan. I'm saving one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm sorry.”

With nothing left to lose, Benson aimed for the tablet itself and emptied the magazine with five shots in rapid succession. The first shot struck Kimura low in the torso, again. The second hit the shell of the nuke itself, while the last three missed entirely. But the tablet was safe. As Benson let out a battle cry and launched towards the older man with all of his strength, Kimura composed himself and pushed the icon.

Benson saw a blinding flash. Then the world went black.

T
he first thing
he noticed was the smell. Antiseptics mixed with burnt hair, and worse. Slowly, other sensations pierced the fog surrounding Benson's consciousness. Pain, for one, in his hands, neck, and face. And the ringing all around him, like standing between the tines of a giant tuning fork.

He opened his eyes, but only the right field of vision responded, and blurry at that. He tried to raise an arm to wave a hand in front of his left eye, but it felt like an anchor held it down to the bed. A bed! He was in Sickbay… again.

A shadow fell over his face. Benson tried to turn and see who it was, but his neck wouldn't respond. Frightened, he tried to call out, but he couldn't hear his own words. Just an intense ringing that seemed to come from every direction at once.

Her voice in his head was like a calming lullaby.

Benson asked incredulously.

His vision cleared up enough that he could recognize the general outline of Jeanine's face. She was smiling, but it masked deep worry. Benson steeled himself for the next question.

She rubbed her mouth before answering.

nuke
, and I wasn't even twenty meters from it.>

she said expectantly.

T
his time
, Benson awoke to the smell of apple blossoms.

Vases filled with flowers and other gifts from throngs of grateful fans and admirers filled every available surface of the recovery room. Two days had passed since his showdown with Kimura, and it was another day before the good doctor would allow any visitors through the door. He spent the extra day reviewing the tablet that Theresa had liberated from his desk and getting caught up on the fallout of his confrontation with Kimura, or at least the version of events approved for public consumption.

Kimura was
very
dead. He was less than a meter away from the center of the explosion. His suit had protected him from bullets, but against a dozen kilos of high explosives and an open visor, it only managed to keep most of his odds and ends in one place. His henchmen had fared better in the short term, but they were going to survive just long enough to be put on trial for the deaths of twenty thousand people and promptly executed anyway.

Apparently, quite a queue had formed to rub elbows with the hero of the day. Fortunately, Benson got to assign priority to the list. The door opened gently, and the moment Benson had both longed for and dreaded for three days had come.

“Hello, Esa.”

Theresa walked slowly into the room. She swallowed hard as she took in the extent of Benson's injuries. She didn't gasp or cry, but it was obvious the sight shook her to the core. Shame welled up in Benson's gut. He regretted asking her to come before he'd recovered more fully. Not that she couldn't handle seeing his condition, but she shouldn't have to.

Very gently, Theresa took his bandaged hand in hers and gave it a little squeeze. The pain was immediate, but Benson suppressed a grimace. It was worth a little discomfort to feel her touch.

“You look good, Bryan.” Her voice sounded tinny to Benson's ears, mostly because he wasn't hearing with his ears. For now, a pair of temporary implants were dumping an audio feed directly into his plant until his ruptured eardrums had time to heal properly.

Benson gave a dry little cough. “I look like a Friday night fish fry.”

“The doctor says it's mostly superficial.”

Benson chuckled. “Just like me, huh?”

“That's just the Zero Hero talking. But I know your secret.”

“Oh yeah, what's that?”

She touched the side of his face. “You go a lot deeper.”

“Believe me, no one was more surprised than me,” Benson smiled, and promptly cracked his lower lip open.

“Oh God. Here, let me get that.” Theresa dabbed the blood away with a piece of gauze from the tray next to his bed. “Actually, I lied. You're a mess.”

“Lucky you, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Very.”

“Well, you won't have to worry about competition. They're not going to be lining up for me for a while.”

“I wouldn't count on that. You're a hero, Bryan. Maybe the biggest ever.”

Benson changed the subject. “How's Korolev? He didn't get in trouble for letting me in, did he?”

Theresa leaned back. “Hasn't anyone told you? Pavel pulled you out of the room. He ignored Director Hekekia's direct order to do it, too. He got a lungful of radiation for his trouble.”

Benson's blood went cold. “Is he OK?”

“He's resting in his apartment. They pumped him full of the same nanobots clearing out your lungs.”

“Tough kid. I owe him one.”

“We both do.” Theresa put her hand on his bandaged cheek, then kissed him, careful not to aggravate his injuries, but not repulsed by them either. Benson felt himself get lost in it.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“Because I came back?”

“Because you do what you say you're going to do.” She smiled. “Even when you say you're going to do something stupid.”

“I love you too. Now, get ready for one more stupid thing.”

Theresa eyed him suspiciously. “What are you up to?”

“I need you to call the captain and tell her to get down here. There's something she's going to want to see in about fifteen minutes. You should stick around, too.”

Theresa shook her head and smiled. “You're going to make all of this up to me.”

“Count on it.”

Theresa kissed him on the cheek. “Don't take too long to recover, hero.” She winked, then walked back out the way she came, her hips gently swaying as she left. As he waited for his next visitor, Benson took a small measure of pride that not even getting blown up could dent his sex drive.

Commander Chao Feng passed through the door and gazed around the small recovery room, as if looking for an explanation for why he'd been summoned.

“Commander,” Benson said, in a raspy voice. His mouth was dry from some of the medications, and he was still getting his fluids intravenously. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting me, detective. Honestly, I was surprised to get the invite, considering everything that's happened over the last couple weeks.”

“Don't mention it. We both jumped to some faulty conclusions, wouldn't you say?”

Feng snorted. “Yes, I guess you could say that. Mistakes we've both paid for.”

“I'm sorry about your wife.”

A sad sigh escaped his mouth. “She's at peace now, and our son is safe. I have you to thank, but I'd rather not talk about her right now.”

“I understand.” Benson coughed a dry little cough. “Actually, I'm not sure you can thank me for it. From what I hear, the bomb was a dud anyway. I only managed to land myself in the burn ward.”

Feng shook his head. “Not exactly, chief. We recovered your plant's recording of everything that happened after the feed was cut. One of your shots hit the device's casing and left a dent in the shell of high-explosives around the plutonium core. It wasn't much, but the techs tell me the deformation was enough to make the implosion trigger fail, which is why the bomb didn't go critical.”

“I was aiming for his tablet. You mean I
accidentally
saved the human race?”

“So it would appear. Although you might want to leave that part out of the official record.”

“Appearances to maintain?”

Feng shrugged. “It makes a more… satisfying narrative. A falsely accused man and an infamous gun both find redemption in a defining moment of heroism.”

The FN. Benson had almost forgotten about it. “I assume the handgun found its way back, ah, home?”

“It's back in Curator Feynman's hands, yes. Although she wanted me to ask ‘Did he really need to use
all
the bullets?'”

Benson smirked through cracked lips. There really was no pleasing some people.

“She's not in trouble for springing me, is she?”

“It's hard to argue with results. The public would not be pleased.”

“I imagine not. How's the ship? I haven't seen anything official in the news feeds.”

“Surprisingly good, actually. The feed belt in the compartment you were in was wrecked, and a few dozen bombs were too damaged to use, but the shock absorber assembly is intact. Hekekia has already written a new firing pattern to account for the lost railgun. And as sad as it is to say, all the mass we shed from losing Shangri-La's atmosphere and lake means we actually have spare bomb capacity, even considering the ones we lost in the explosion.”

Benson's face darkened as he remembered Bahadur.

“Small favors, huh?”

“Indeed. Detective, may I ask, how did you know Kimura's plan?”

Benson shrugged his shoulders. “I didn't, really. It just made sense, so I played a hunch and got lucky.”

“We all did, it seems.”

“What happens to the rest of Kimura's people?”

“That's… a difficult question. Your young friend Mei led us to their hiding spot. She's already received a full pardon for her cooperation, you'll be happy to know. But the rest of them…” Feng shook his head. “Without plant data, we're going to have a devil of a time sorting out who's responsible for what, and to what degree. It's going to be a while before we have any closure. The trials will probably have to wait until after we make landing.”

“I understand. Also, I want amnesty for my people. Alexopoulos and Korolev were working under my orders.”

Feng nodded. “Of course. You've also been reinstated as Avalon's chief constable. When you're back on your feet, naturally.”

“Might have to be sooner than you think.”

Feng cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I have one more hunch to test. Is my next visitor outside?”

“I think so.”

Benson sat up in his bed as much as he could manage. “Good, send them in. Oh, and I'm leaving my plant feed open for anyone who wants to eavesdrop.”

Feng nodded a silent understanding and headed for the door.

“Chao, wait,” Benson called after him as the doors slid open. “Edmond was the hero in all this. He figured it all out by himself. I just picked up where he left off. I couldn't have done it without him.”

Feng's mouth quivered. “That hadn't occurred to me. Thank you.”

“You're welcome. Are we cool?”

Feng nodded. “Yes, Bryan, we're cool. I'll send her in.” The door clicked shut behind him.

Benson took as deep a breath as he could considering the state of his lungs, then exhaled slowly. Oddly, he felt no thrill or satisfaction about the coming confrontation, but it had to be done.

Director Avelina Pereira da Silva swept into the room, carried by an easy grace that had only been enhanced by her age.

“Bryan!” She fell to his chest and hugged him tightly.

“Careful on the lungs, please.”

“Of course, I'm sorry.” She stood back up. “Forgive me, but everyone's been more than a little emotional lately.”

“Oh, I understand, believe me.”

She tucked a lock of silver-streaked hair back behind her ear. “I'm surprised I was so high on your list of visitors.”

“You shouldn't be. We have a conversation to finish.”

“We do?” Her voice wavered so slightly, Benson wasn't sure he'd heard it at all.

“Yes, about Edmond.” Benson held up his tablet. “I've been going back over his work logs, trying to figure out why Kimura wanted him killed.”

The air in the room dropped a degree. “You have his work files? I thought they were all destroyed in the sabotage.”

Benson nodded. “So did I, but then I remembered this tablet. It wasn't connected to the net when the attack happened, so one copy survived.”

“Well…” Her face changed from apprehension to excitement. “That's great news. I'd thought we were going to have to rerun all of his experiments. This will save us months of work.” She reached out to grab the tablet, but Benson pulled it back.

“I'm sorry, but it's evidence, and the investigation is still active until all of Kimura's people have stood trial.”