Heaven's Fall (20 page)

He did, slowly bending toward the container with its wrapped greenish material, like foaming gelatin. “What is it?”

“It’s just raw material,” Xavier said, an honest if incomplete answer. “It’s what we found on Keanu when we arrived twenty years ago. It’s very . . . adaptable. You can make almost anything out of it.”

Now Roi’s eyes went wide in an entirely different manner. This was curiosity, possibly cunning. (It occurred to Xavier that he had been wrong in identifying Pandya as the likely intelligence agent on Singh’s squad, that it might well be Aircraftsman Roi. It was also possible that
everyone
on Singh’s squad was a spy—that was how he would have done it. But he was now committed to this gambit.)

“You can touch it,” Xavier said, demonstrating. It was harmless; had to be, since on Keanu the HBs made food out of it.

Roi dabbed a finger in it, smiled. “How does it work?”

“You need to have the right machine—a 3-D printer, what we call a proteus. You tell the proteus what you need, and, basically, it turns this goo into it. Food, equipment—”

“Money?”

Had him. “Anything,” Xavier said. “Especially if you’re just thinking of selling some of this to, say, a Chinese entrepreneur—” That was risky, because his sense of this world was twenty years out of date: China might not have entrepreneurs anymore, or if they did, they might be considered evil.

“Mr. Toutant?” Pandya was in the entrance, though the stack of containers kept him from seeing what the group inside were up to.

“One moment,” Xavier yelled. “Just a final adjustment!”

He turned away, and Xavier leaned close to Roi. “I would be happy to make you a little gift,” he said. He took off one of his gloves. “I could scoop the spilled material into this, and no one would ever know.

“But my colleagues might ask—” Xavier let the last word linger just long enough to earn a knowing smile from Aircraftsman Roi, who then said: “I have two hundred new rupees in my pocket.”

“You know, that would be a welcome gift. If I’m asked, I can say I exchanged the material for some money. We don’t have any!”

And with that, a deal was closed—and a new friend was made.

It was actually reassuring to Xavier, in a way, to know that some things never change.

And that it was possible he could break out of Yelahanka with minimal effort.

Reaction to the presser: not bad as far as it went, but it didn’t go very far.

Confirm that crew includes Rachel Stewart and Pav Radhakrishnan as well as their daughter, Yahvi. Another U.S.-born individual, Mr. Toutant.

But sources say six and that leaves two missing. Wounded? Imprisoned?

Same sources suggest one of the missing two is not human. Can anyone help? It’s important!

COLIN EDGELY TO THE KETTERING GROUP,
APRIL 14, 2040

CARBON-143

STATUS:
Following a general Aggregate Carbon maneuver, in which each formation relocated from its workplace to the greater staging area, then, following precise circumnavigation, Carbon-143 found herself resuming her modeling with greater vigor.

It should have been anomalous. One of the least questioned verities of Aggregate existence was that their superiority to more organic life forms was due to their high and steady levels of production. Somatic disturbances such as fatigue or lassitude or general unhappiness were not attributes of the Aggregates.

Nevertheless, it had become clear to the formations that, especially in a new planetary environment like Earth’s, certain affirming measures helped maintain productivity and contributed to the general sense of purpose. Carbon-143 certainly felt more aligned with her immediate partner, 143/A71, as well as the rest of the A formation.

The march past the rows of vehicles being prepared for action served as a reminder of the scale of the work being performed and impressed upon individual units their relative unimportance and disposability.

Carbon-143 noted the day’s lesson.

INPUT:
Although no actual data reached her, Carbon-143 detected a tremendous amount of signal noise on her military operational channels. Some action was about to take place. It was too soon to be directly related to the work at Site A—the countdown timer available to all formations and units still stood at minus twenty-five days.

But somewhere on Earth the Aggregates were going into action.

ACTION:
None at this time.

HUMANS RETURN FROM KEANU

BANGALORE, APRIL 14—The Indian Space Research Organization confirmed what the rest of the world already suspected: Five humans from the Near-Earth Object Keanu returned to Earth yesterday, landing at a still-undisclosed air base in India. The humans—four of them originally born on Earth and transferred to Keanu by the mysterious Objects in August 2019—are in excellent condition and are expected to make a public statement within the next two days. They are currently being debriefed by government officials and ISRO scientists.

The group includes Rachel Stewart, daughter of American
Destiny
astronaut Zachary Stewart, who commanded the first human vehicle to land on Keanu, and is believed to have died there. Also Pav Radhakrishnan, son of General Taj Radhakrishnan, commander of the Coalition’s
Brahma
mission to Keanu in 2019. General Radhakrishnan is chair of the official welcoming committee.

One human, daughter of mission commander Stewart and her husband, Pav Radhakrishnan, was born on the NEO.

Also traveling with the humans is a member of the so-called race of Sentries, extraterrestrial aliens who reportedly lived aboard Keanu for centuries prior to the arrival of humans.

BANGALORE TIMES
, APRIL 14, 2040

See this, typical of all official reports: Note that there is no mention of the Aggregate attack on their ship, or the severe injuries suffered by one of the crew members.

Why is India hiding the truth? This is what we’d expect from the so-called Free Nations.

COLIN EDGELY TO THE KETTERING GROUP,
APRIL 14, 2040

“May I present the candidates for representation of the
Adventure
saga,” Taj said.

There were three smiling people to his left at the front of the conference room. “Miss Arunjee Lim from Popular Malaysia Group.” She was a woman Rachel’s age, slim, confident, dressed for corporate success and wearing a pair of spectacles that were so thin they vanished when she turned to smile.

“Mr. Urvashi Muraly of
Times Independent
.” Male, perhaps a year or two younger than Miss Lim, equally stylish, equally confident. He did not appear to be wearing the magic spectacles.

“And Mr. Edgar Chang of NewSky.” This was an older gentleman, heavy, rumpled, looking more like a Hong Kong pawnshop owner than a media genius. “Cheers,” he said, revealing a strong Australian accent.

In truth, all Rachel heard was
blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah-blah
. Her lack of concentration—or interest—was partly due to the nature of the meeting: She saw the search for a representative as a necessary exercise, but little more than that.

It was also due to a series of static-filled bursts in her head. Keanu was trying to get in touch. She kept biting down to activate her transmitter, silently grunting “Rachel” or “here” or some other single syllable that might travel across four hundred thousand kilometers without resulting in an embarrassing moment in the presentation.

And there was the nagging distraction caused by her concerns about Sanjay. If not for him, they would have been packing to go . . . somewhere else.

Don’t blame the victim,
she reminded herself.

She almost missed the presentations.

Lim and Muraly had swiftly laid out similar plans: a press conference within twenty-four hours to “introduce” the
Adventure
crew to the world, then exclusive “in-depth” profiles to the highest bidder. “I see four major media groups,” Lim said.

“I see three,” Muraly said. “But my financial targets might be higher.”

That was all short-term. Mid-term, there were “as told to” stories, then “insider views” of the
Adventure
vehicle, “tales of Keanu.”

Chang sat silent through the verbal tennis match between Lim and Muraly until: “One useful thing we might do is connect Earth-based families with their lost loved ones on Keanu,” he said.

That made Rachel sit up and listen. They had talked about this on Keanu. She glanced at Pav, who nodded as Chang talked about a website and links to humanitarian organizations on the subcontinent.

“What about Free Nation U.S.?” Rachel said. Since that would be important to forty percent of the HBs. “Aren’t you, here, sort of at war with them?”

Chang didn’t seem fazed by the question. “The model isn’t World War Two, though the utter domination and subjugation of North America, Europe, and much of Africa answers very well to that.

“It is more like the cold war, where you had a Soviet bloc that forbade access, did almost no trading, and blocked the flow of information to the West.

“Yet no system is perfect, not even that of the Aggregates, and especially not in the post-Internet age. New Sky has wires into Free Nation U.S. We have facilities, in fact, in the gray zones—”

“Which don’t exist!” Arunjee Lim said.

“Whether they exist or not,” Rachel said, writing off Lim at that moment, “I’d like to hear about them.”

“Gray zones,” Chang said, bowing toward Lim, “or rather, ‘Zonas Grises,’ are geographical areas within Aggregate-controlled nations where it is possible to visit . . . as long as one is discreet.”

Now it was Muraly’s turn to take a shot at Chang. “Even if these Zonas Grises exist, and I’m not convinced that they do, I don’t think the Keanu crew is going to be able to be ‘discreet.’ Your arrival was surely known to the Aggregates long before your actual landing . . . and with the announcement today, they’ll be able to track your every move.”

Rachel had to admit that Muraly was correct: She and Pav and the others would have a hard time sneaking into a gray area.

And they weren’t supposed to be talking about that, anyway. “Stipulating that a gray area might exist, and that we might have some kind of access to it,” Rachel said, “how is that helpful to our mission . . . to connecting the Keanu population with their families and vice versa?”

“The grayest of the gray areas is Mexico,” Chang said. “Where you will find numerous pirate transmitters. If you want to get information into or out of Free Nation U.S., that’s the place to do it.”

Rachel turned to Tea. “What do you think about this?”

Her father’sformer-girlfriend-turned-mother-in-law just shook her head. “Oh, honey, I got out of the U.S. fifteen years ago, just when things were getting really bad. I haven’t been back since.”

“Don’t you miss it?”

Tea glanced at Taj, as if concerned that her next words would offend him. “All the fucking time.” She sighed. “But it’s not the country I grew up in. . . .”

There was more back-and-forth, but Rachel had truly ceased to listen. Lim, Muraly, and Chang were sent off, leaving the three
Adventure
travelers, Taj, and Tea to confer, though to Rachel, the choice was clear and the outcome never in doubt.

It didn’t happen without argument, but everyone eventually agreed to let Rachel have Edgar Chang.

In the hallway afterward, she grabbed Pav, who had wanted Muraly. “I didn’t really,” he said. “I just said that to see the look on your face.”

“You bastard!”

“And to see you be what you’re supposed to be, which is the leader.” He kissed her. “Welcome back.”

She welcomed the kiss, and his touch . . . but was troubled by his joking comment. She knew she was the “leader” of the
Adventure
mission; she was the one who had been mayor of the Houston-Bangalores for years.

But in that job, she felt secure . . . she knew the issues, the players, the possibilities. Not here, where the issues were complex, the population vast, even the landscape great and unknowable. The circumstances were unpredictable.

Had she let those factors paralyze her? Had she been reluctant to act? Was she, to use another phrase Zack Stewart loved, punching above her weight?

The only way to answer that would be the results. And the problem with getting results was . . . she and the Adventure crew had only one goal, which was to somehow free Earth from Reiver domination.

At the rate they were going, it would be a thousand years from now, or never.

In spite of her doubts, Rachel expected to sleep more soundly the second night. The bed would be more familiar, as would the noises and smells of the Yelahanka infirmary. And she was tired.