Wednesday's breath steamed in the darkness of the docking hub. One of Portia's minions had rigged up floodlights around the boarding tube from the liner, and stark shadows cut across the gray floor toward the spin coupling zoner. Dim silhouettes drifted slowly round, rotating between the floor and cathedral-high ceiling over a period of minutes.
"Can you hurry it up a bit?" Portia told her phone. "We need to be able to see in here."
"Any moment. We're still looking for the main breaker board." Jamil and one of the other goons had headed off into the station to look for a backup power supply, wearing low-light goggles and rebreather masks in case they hit a gas trap. Getting the main reactors going would be difficult in the extreme—it would take weeks of painstaking work, checking out the reactor windings, then inching through the laborious task of bootstrapping a fusion cycle—but if they could find a backup fuel cell and light up the docking hub, they'd be able to rig a cable from the Romanov to the hub's switchboard, and provide power and heat and air circulation to the administrative sectors.
Old Newfie had once supported thousands of inhabitants. With a source of power, it could support them again for weeks or months, even without reseeding the life support and air farms.
"So where did you hide the backup cartridge?" Franz asked Wednesday, deceptively casual.
Wednesday frowned. "Somewhere in the police station—it was years ago, you know?" She stared at him. Something about the blond guy didn't ring true. He looked excessively tense. "You'll need power for the lifts in order to reach it."
"This is no time for games," he said, glancing at Hoechst, who was listening to her comm. "You don't want to cross her."
"Don't I?" Wednesday glanced up at the axial cranes, skeletal gantries looming like lightning-struck trees out of the darkness high above. "I'd never have guessed."
Portia nodded and lowered her comm. "We have lights," she said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. Moments later, a loud clack echoed through the docking hub. The emergency floods came on overhead, casting a faint greenish glow across the floorscape. "We should have heat and fans in a few minutes," she added, sounding satisfied. A nod at one of her other minions, a woman with straight hair the color of straw. "Start moving the passengers aboard, Mathilde, I want the passengers off that ship in ten minutes."
"You're evacuating it?" Wednesday stared.
"Yes. We seem to be missing a Junior Flight Lieutenant. I don't want her getting any silly ideas about flying off while we're all aboard the station."
Portia smiled thinly. "I'll admit that if she can hide from a ubiquitous celldar net and shoot her way past the guards who are waiting she might have a chance, but somehow I doubt it."
"Oh." Wednesday deflated. She felt her rings vibrate, saw a pop-up notice in her left eye: new mail. She tried to conceal her surprise. (Mail? Here?)
"Why were you killing our ambassadors?" she asked impulsively.
"Was I?" Hoechst raised an eyebrow. "Why were you hiding out with a pair of spooks from Earth?"
"Spooks?" Wednesday shook her head in puzzlement. "They wanted to help, once you hijacked the ship—"
Portia looked amused. "Everybody wants to help," she said, raising her comm to her mouth. "You. Whoever I'm speaking to—Jordaan? Yes, it's me.
The two diplomats from Earth. And that fucking busybody journalist. We're going to the station administrator's office by way of a little detour along the way. Round up the diplomats and the scribbler. Take a backup and meet us at the station admin office in half an hour. Send Zursch and Anders to the communications room with the key, and have them wait for me there. I'll be along after I've finished with the other errands. Understood? Right. See you there." She focused on Wednesday. "It's quite simple." She took a deep breath. "I'm here to tidy up a huge mess that was left by my predecessor. If I don't tidy it up, a lot of people are going to die, starting with your friends who I just mentioned, because if I fail to tidy up the mess successfully, I will die, and a lot of my people will die, and killing your friends will be the easiest way of conveying to you—and them—just how angry that makes me. I don't really want to die, and I'd much rather not have to kill anybody—which is why I'm telling you this, to make sure you know it isn't a fucking game." She leaned toward Wednesday, her face drawn: "Have you got the picture yet?"
Wednesday recoiled. "I, uh … " She swallowed. "Yes."
"Good." Something seemed to go out of Hoechst, leaving her empty and tired. "Everybody thinks they're doing the right thing, kid. All the time. It's about the only rule that explains how fucked-up this universe is." A wan smile crept across her face. "Nobody is a villain in their own head, are they?
We all know we're doing the right thing, which is why we're in this mess. So why don't you show me where this police post is, and we'll dig our way out of it together?"
"Uh, I, uh … " She was shaking, Wednesday realized distantly. Shaking with rage. You fuckmonster, you killed my parents! And you want me to cooperate? But it was an impotent fury: confronted with someone like Portia, there wasn't anything she could see that would make things better, no sign of any way out that didn't involve doing what the ReMastered wanted. Which was why they were the ReMastered, of course. Not villains in their own heads. "This way." You have mail blinked in her visual field as she walked across the frost-sparkling metal of the dock toward the empty shadows of the lift shafts. Almost instinctively, she twitched her fingers to accept.
Hello, Wednesday. This is Herman. If you are reading this message, you are back on the Old Newfie communications net—which was not shut down when the station was evacuated. Please reply.
"Are you all right?" asked the one called Franz, reaching for her elbow as she stumbled.
"Just a slip. Icy," she muttered. She thrust her hands into her pocket to conceal her finger-twitched response.
I'm here. Where are you? Send.
The reply arrived as they waited while Jamil went over one of the lift motors with a circuit tester. It was icy cold in the station: breath clouded the air, sparkling in the twilight overspill from the lights.
I am where I always was. My causal channel is still linked into the station network. The station's other comms channels are still operational, including the diplomatic channel U. Hoechst intends to use to send the "stop" code to the Muscovite R-bombs. Hoechst acquired one of the "stop" codes from her predecessor, U. Scott. There is another code key in the station administrators safe in the central control office. Svengali and his partner successfully panicked the surviving Muscovite diplomatic corps. My highest-probability scenario is that Hoechst's objective is to take control of the Muscovite R-bombs under cover of decommissioning them, then to use her ownership of the R-bombs to convince both the Muscovite ambassadors and the Dresdener authorities that the R-bombs are committed to an irrevocable attack. This will lay the foundations for a ReMastered takeover of Dresden. The current junta members will flee, providing promotion avenues for ReMastered proxies and generating public disorder in anticipation of an attack that will never arrive.
The lift motors creaked and hummed, and lights flickered on inside the car.
"Seems to be working," said Jamil, poking at the exposed control panel.
"It's got a separate flywheel power supply that I'm spinning up right now.
Everybody in. What floor are we looking for?" he asked Wednesday.
"Fourth," she mumbled.
Expect no mercy from the ReMastered. They will honor any promises they make to the letter, but semantic ambiguities will render them worthless.
Important note: U. Franz Bergman is a malcontent. Prior to Hoechst's arrival in Septagon he and his partner were preparing to defect. Hoechst's hold on him is his partners upload data. An offer of medical reincarnation coupled with the upload record may constitute leverage in his case.
Your old implant conforms to Moscow open systems specifications and is therefore able to receive this message. Unfortunately, owing to a protocol mismatch, I cannot contact other people directly. Please copy and forward this message to: Martin Springfield, Rachel Mansour, Frank Johnson, by way of your Septagon-compliant interface.
The lift squealed to a halt. Wednesday shook herself. "Where now?" Portia demanded.
"Where?" The doors opened onto darkness. The air was freezing cold, musty, and held a residual fetor, the stench of long-dead things that had mummified in place.
"Can I have some light?"
Behind her, a torch flared into brightness, sweeping long shadows into the corners of the curving passage. Wednesday stepped out of the lift car cautiously, her breath steaming in the freezing air. "This way."
Trying to re-create the path she'd taken all those years ago came hard.
She walked slowly, fingers twitching furiously as she copied and forwarded the message from Herman. No telling when it would arrive, but the mesh networks and routing algorithms used by implants in the developed worlds would spool the mail until she got within personal network range of someone who could handshake with them—maybe even one of the ReMastered, if they'd had their systems upgraded for work out in the feral worlds.
Frozen carpet creaked beneath her feet. Her pulse sped, and she glanced behind her, half-expecting to hear the clicking clatter of claws. Portia, Jamil, and Franz—an unlikely triptych of scheming evil—kept her moving on.
They were near the toilet. "Here," she said, her voice small.
"You're not going to—" Franz stopped.
"What is it?" Portia demanded.
"There's a body in there. I think." Wednesday swallowed.
"Jamil. Check it out." Jamil pushed past, taking his torch. Portia produced a smaller one, not much more than a glow stick really. A minute of banging about, then he called, "She's right. I see a—hmm. Freeze-dried, I guess."
"Explain." Portia thrust her face at Wednesday.
"He, I, I—" Wednesday shuddered convulsively. "Like the paper said. I left it two decks down, three segments over," she added.
"Jamil, we're going," Portia called. "You'd better not be wasting our time,"
she told Wednesday grimly.
Wednesday led them back to the lift, which groaned and whined as it lowered them two more floors into the guts of the station. The gravity was higher there, but still not as harsh as she recalled; probably there'd been some momentum transfer between the different counterrotating sections, even superconducting magnetic bearings are unable to prevent atmospheric turbulence from bleeding off energy over time. You have new mail, Wednesday read, as the lift slowed. "Come on," Jamil said, pushing her forward. "Let's get this over with."
Message received. We understand. Get word out via hub comms? Any means necessary.—Martin
The gaping door and the darkness within loomed out of the darkness. The seed of a plan popped into Wednesday's head, unbidden. "I think I hid it in one of the cupboards. Can you give me a torch?" she asked.
"Here." Portia passed her the light wand.
"Let's see if I remember where … " Wednesday ducked into the room, her heart hammering and her hands damp. She'd only get one chance to do this.
Turning, she flashed the torch around overturned desks, open cupboards.
There. She bent down and picked up a cartridge, crammed it into one pocket—scooped up a second and a third, then straightened up. "Wrong cupboard," she called. Where had she left it? She looked around, saw a flash of something the color of dried blood—leather. Ah! She pulled on it, and the bag slid into view. "Got it," she said, stepping back out into the corridor.
"Give it here." Portia held out her hand.
"Can't you wait until we get back to the hub?" Wednesday stared at her, bravado rising. The leather wallet with the diplomatic seal of the Moscow government on it and the bulge where she'd stashed the data cartridge hung from one hand.
"Now!" Portia insisted.
"You promised." Wednesday tightened her grip on the wallet and stared Portia in the eyes. "Going to break your word?"
"No." Hoechst blinked, then relaxed. "No, I'm not." She looked like a woman awakening from a turbulent dream. "You want to hold it until you see your friends, you go right ahead. I assume it is the right wallet? And the data cartridge you took?"
"Yes," Wednesday said defensively, tightening her grip on it. The three riot cartridges she'd stolen felt huge in her hip pocket, certain to be visible. And while only Jamil had a gun slung in full sight, she had an edgy feeling that all the others were armed. They'd be carrying pistols, if nothing else. What was the old joke? Never bring a taser to an artillery duel.
"Then let's go visit the control center." Portia smiled. "Of course, if you're wasting my time, you'll have made me kill one of your friends, but you wouldn't do that, would you?"
"Never bring a taser to an artillery duel," muttered Steffi, glancing between the compact machine pistol (with full terminal guidance for its fin-stabilized bullets, not to mention a teraherz radar sight to allow the user to make aimed shots through thin walls) and the solid-state multispectral laser cannon (with self-stabilizing turret platform and a quantum-nucleonic generator backpack that could boil a liter of water in under ten seconds).
Regretfully, she picked the machine pistol, the laser's backpack being too unwieldy for the tight confines of a starship. But there was nothing stopping her from adding some other, less cumbersome toys, was there? After all, none of the spectators at her special one-woman military fashion show would be writing reviews afterward.
After half an hour, Steffi decided she was as ready as she'd ever be. The console by the door said that there was full pressure outside. Negligent of them, she thought as she pointed her gun through the door and scanned the corridor. It looked clear, ghostly gray in the synthetic colors displayed by her eye-patch gun-sight. Right, here goes.
She moved toward the nearest intersection corridor with crew country, darting forward, then pausing to scan rooms to either side. Need a DC