‘I’m sorry,’ said Jeff, his face flushing with embarrassment. ‘You didn’t say anything when I told you Lucy had . . .’ He paused as he remembered the look on Mitchell’s face when he had told him.
‘It’s not the first time I’ve lost someone close to me.’ Mitchell put a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. ‘Look, you’re not the only one on the run. They were planning to take me apart just so they could figure out what happened to me in that pit, and they were very clear about me not being expected to survive the experience. That’s why I contacted you. I badly need your help.’
‘Of course. But you still haven’t told me what exactly happened to you.’
‘When was the last time we spoke to each other, Jeff?’
‘You mean before I met you here?’ Mitchell nodded. ‘I guess . . . back at Tau Ceti, just before we set off for Site 17.’
‘And when was that?’
‘Several weeks ago now.’
‘What would you say if I told you it’s been a lot longer than that for me? More like the better part of a decade?’
Jeff stared at him, clearly perplexed. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I’ve got a lot to explain once we have the chance.’ Mitchell glanced around. ‘But first we have to do something about your contacts.’ He pulled a foil blister-pack out of a pocket. ‘These are fresh ones, registered with false UPs.’
Jeff stared at the blister-pack. ‘How did you get hold of them?’
‘I worked in security for fifteen years, Jeff, so I know a lot of things you don’t. Now take out your own contacts, before your friends with the guns catch up with us.’
Jeff hesitated, then reached up and delicately pinched the contact out of one eye, dropping it into the palm of his right hand before repeating the operation with his other eye. He then fished out a plastic case with his other hand, and carefully placed the devices inside.
‘You did remember to deactivate your UP before you took them out, right?’
Jeff nodded.
‘Hold on to them,’ advised Mitchell. ‘You might need them later.’
Jeff accepted the blister-pack from Mitchell and popped one of the bubbles open, dipping one finger in to lift out a contact. He leaned his head back and dropped it on to one eye.
‘I’m surrised they haven’t caught up with us already,’ Jeff remarked as he opened the second blister.
‘Trust me, they won’t be far behind. But as long as we don’t use our own UPs for now, it should be a lot easier to stay out of sight.’
Jeff dropped the second contact into position, and blinked a couple of times. A manufacturer’s logo appeared briefly in the lower right of his vision, before fading to nothing.
Instead of asking him to register his current UP, the new contacts informed him that his name was Eric Waites, and he was a native of Connecticut. As info-bubbles popped up here and there, he discovered that Eric possessed a big enough bank balance to keep himself comfortable for at least a couple of weeks.
‘Okay,’ said Mitchell, ‘let’s start walking. The sooner we get out of here, the better. How did you find your way here, exactly?’
‘I had to pay for a bus ticket.’ As they rounded a hedge, Jeff glanced ahead and spotted another exit from the cemetery, not too far ahead.
Mitchell eyed him sharply. ‘Didn’t you tell me you stole a car?’
‘Yeah, to get away from the cabin. But it was just sheer dumb luck I didn’t get caught once they managed to track it down.’
‘Buying a bus ticket made you just as easy to find,’ Mitchell said reproachfully.
‘To hell with that,’ said Jeff, feeling irritated. ‘I’m here now, so the most important thing to worry about is getting back to Montana and retrieving that database.’
‘You’re kidding.’ Mitchell raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless I heard you wrong, you went to hide out in a cabin that you owned under your own name. Could you have made it any easier for them to find you?’
Jeff felt his face burning. ‘I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.’
Mitchell gestured dismissively. ‘Well, you can forget about going back there. My guess is they’ll have the whole area well covered, in case you try to do exactly that.’
They were almost at the cemetery gates now, Jeff noticed. ‘Then what the hell do we do? What’s the point in even meeting like this if we’re just going to do nothing?’
‘You at least want to stay alive, don’t you? What’s the point of charging back up that mountain, the two of us against the whole ASI? How do you think that would pan out, seeing they’re already hunting you?’
He was right, Jeff realized; but even worse was admitting to himself that Lucy and Dan’s hard work stealing the Tau Ceti databases might well have been for nothing. He stood there, feeling utterly impotent, and for a moment saw himself as Mitchell mus see him: idealistic, naive and foolhardy.
‘The best thing we can do right now,’ Mitchell continued, ‘is just keep ourselves alive. Doesn’t anyone else have a copy of that database?’
Of course
. It was something he’d actually forgotten for a moment. ‘Farad . . . Farad has a copy, but none of us had heard from him. I guess I’ve been assuming he was dead too.’
‘But you don’t know for sure?’
Jeff merely shook his head.
‘Then don’t make too many assumptions, okay? You’ll not prove anything if you wind up dead yourself.’
‘So what now?’
‘Now we get ourselves to the Moon, preferably before the first of the growths makes an appearance here. Are you with me on that?’
‘Yes, I . . . guess.’
‘Good.’ Mitchell turned to him just by the gate. ‘But, before we do that, there’s something I need you to do for me. You used to work for Arcorex, didn’t you? Down Omaha way?’
‘Sure.’ Jeff nodded. ‘That’s where they always take the Founder artefacts, after they arrive. Why?’
‘Do you still have clearance? Can you still get inside there?’
Jeff shrugged, looking bewildered. ‘I don’t know, maybe . . . unless it’s been revoked. I wouldn’t know until I tried, but I haven’t been there in a couple of years.’
‘Good.’ Mitchell chewed his lower lip for a moment, then nodded as if coming to a decision. ‘That’s where we’re going next.’
‘Arcorex? What in God’s name could you need from Arcorex?’ Jeff demanded. ‘First you won’t help me recover those files, then you tell me you want us to go to the Moon, and now you want to take a detour via
Omaha
?’
Mitchell let out a heavy sigh. ‘I swear I’ll explain everything to you on the way. Until then, I just need you to trust me. It’ll all become clear by the time we get there, I promise you.’
Jeff gave a strangled laugh. ‘Maybe you should just tell me now. Why Arcorex?’
‘You sound like you don’t trust me.’
Jeff let his hands flap against his sides, in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I don’t know
who
to trust, Mitch. I never thought I’d . . .’
‘Screw up this badly?’
Jeff glared at him, his fists bunching.
‘Look,’ said Mitchell, ‘I swear, we’ll talk on the way.’
‘It’s going to have to be a really good explanation.’
‘It is.’
‘All right.’ Jeff managed to push his anger and frustration back down into the same place he’d been keeping them bottled up for the past few days. ‘But I’ve got a condition of my own.’
‘What?’
‘Olivia.’
‘Your ex-wife?’ Mitchell shook his head, clearly confused. ‘What about her?’
‘When we head to the Moon, she’s coming with us.’
Mitchell gaped at him, his mouth hanging open. ‘Jeff—’
‘No.’ The muscles in Jeff’s jaw tightened. ‘That’s not up for negotiation – not if you want me to get you inside Arcorex.’
Mitchell sighed again. ‘It’s going to complicate things, a
lot
.’
‘Even so.’
Mitchell shook his head wearily. ‘Fine.’ He led Jeff out on to the street. ‘We’ll fetch Olivia, but right now I’ve got a ride waiting for us.’ He pointed to a van with a silver finish parked on the kerb.
‘Tell me what’s in Arcorex,’ Jeff demanded.
‘Somebody we need to rescue.’
‘It’s not a prison, Mitch. They don’t keep people locked up there.’
Mitchell grinned, as if at a private joke. ‘You’re wrong. Somebody’s been held there ever since the incident at Site 17, and we’re going to bust him out.’ Mitchell stepped up to the van, slapping one hand on its ID plate as Jeff stared after him. The door made a clunking sound as it unlocked.
Mitchell looked over at him. ‘Get in the van, will you?’
‘What happened to you in that pit, Mitch?’
Mitchell climbed inside and touched the dashboard, a preprogrammed route springing up in response. Jeff shook his head, and went to get in on the other side.
‘I’ll tell you,’ Mitchell replied, as the van pulled away from the kerb. ‘But I’m wrning you, it’s going to take a lot of explaining.’
En route to 94 Aquarii, 1 February 2235
Fowler felt a slight vibration as the rail-mounted shuttle-car transported him across a hundred light-years in an instant.
The roof of the shuttle-car was attached to an overhead track that ran directly through the centre of the wormhole. One mouth of the wormhole was located on Luna, the other on board a star-ship already decelerating on its approach to the Galileo system. It was considerably smaller than the mass-transit models that carried thousands of passengers daily between Luna and the colonies, and existed primarily to transport the engineers and physicists whose job was to maintain the equipment that prevented either mouth of the wormhole from collapsing. Each of the mouths was capped by a vast steel torus containing trace quantities of highly unstable exotic matter, held at bay by enormously powerful magnetic fields, while the surface of the wormhole itself was hidden from sight behind dense layers of machinery and shielding.
Fowler had the sensation of falling for a few moments before he felt his weight return; the starship’s near-1g deceleration allowed him to walk around its interior in relative comfort.
His UP was already active, and he now used it to navigate his way to the observation suite, most often the first stop for documentary makers or politicians wanting to see where all the taxpayer’s money was going. He arrived to find Donohue already there, gazing up at the broad, curving bowl of the main display screen with tired eyes; Fowler guessed he’d only just got back from his trip to the Far East. When Donohue lowered his head, Fowler allowed himself a momentary satisfaction at the look of apprehension on the agent’s face.
‘I’ve read your summary report,’ he began, taking a seat opposite Donohue. ‘Your partner is dead, and you still haven’t found Jeff Cairns. If you’re deliberately trying to display unprecedented levels of incompetence, you’re doing an excellent job.’
Donohue regarded him levelly. ‘Mr Sanders did his best to follow your orders, sir. Maybe if we’d been told we were dealing with quite such
resourceful
targets, we could have—’
‘Or maybe you’re just not competent enough to do your job,’ Fowler snapped. ‘Please don’t waste my time with excuses. Have you even found Maalouf?’
Donohue cleared his throat. ‘We’ve found him, and he’s still on Newton. However, he’s escorted by armed guards wherever he goes.’
‘In other words, he’s considerably more than just a civilian scientist.’
Donohue nodded. ‘We’ve carried out extensive analysis of his movements prior to being posted to the Founder Project, and we found evidence that he’s had at least some contact with one of the local separatist groups.’
Fowler waved a hand dismissively. ‘We’ll have time to mop up the separatists after the evacuation is over. In the meantime, terminating Maalouf remains a priority. Got that?’
‘Sir.’
‘All right.’ Fowler nodded, still far from mollified. ‘What’s the latest with Hanover?’
‘We’re still in negotiation with the Taiwanese authorities, but we’ve confirmed that he allowed himself to be caught. One of our people managed to get a private interview with him, and he’s still threatening to tell Sphere representatives everything, if we don’t give him what he wants.’
Fowler grunted. ‘Hell of a gamble for him to take.’
‘But one that paid off, at least at first.’ Donohue leaned forward and clasped his hands. ‘We’ve made progress, however. Network forensics show that Hanover opened more than a dozen anonymous accounts over the past several weeks, all with firms specializing in secure data-storage. He’s set the accounts up so that any data held in them will be released and disseminated automatically
unless
he intervenes at specified times.’
‘In other words, killing him would just make things worse.’
Donohue nodded. ‘And it also puts a time limit on how long we can risk leaving him in foreign custody. However, we’ve put pressure on the owners of the businesses concerned. Several are in non-Coalition treaty territories, which means we don’t have any influence over them directly, but
all
of them do business within Coalition territories – and it’s business they can’t afford to lose.’