Origins (20 page)

Zhang was nearly a hundred years old, but didn't look much past forty standard: his rounded face, unlined by age or worry, bearing only the slightest hint of his ethnic Chino roots, was almost cherubic. Dressed in a black smart-suit, frame well-exercised. As premier of the largest power bloc in human space, he wielded the combined military weight of the Asiatic Directorate. Indisputably, Zhang was a dangerous man, but a man who didn't want you to
believe
that he was dangerous. He smiled to the camera, nodded and gesticulated – never staying still.

“
This mission represents the future of human–Krell relations, and as a spokesperson for the Asiatic Directorate, as a representative of over two-thirds of the human population in this galaxy, we wish you luck, crew, in your voyage.
” He paused, a warm smile playing on his lips. “
And we will be with you, in your hearts.
”

“You think that they wanted to go too?” Brooke asked me. “Into the Maelstrom, I mean.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think that they wanted to go a lot.”

The
Endeavour
's mission was purely Alliance-backed, but that hadn't stopped Zhang and his senior advisers from requesting that the ship carry Thai observers. The Thai Kingdom was the least militarised nation-state of the Directorate; with colonies as far flung as Nebaris III, it was also one of the most advanced. Other elements of the Directorate had been less diplomatic about what they saw as proper involvement in the expedition. Unified Korea – Uni-Kor – had been particularly insistent that a Directorate ship accompany the fleet. They had even threatened military repercussions if their demands were not met, but intervention from the Euro Confed had talked them down before the launch.

“I interviewed one of his lieutenants, once,” Brooke said. Her voice suddenly sounded very lucid – not very drunk at all – and her eyes were extremely focused. “It… wasn't a nice experience.”

“I reckon,” I said. I had the overwhelming urge to tell her about Carrie, about my sister: killed by Directorate Special Forces when she was barely out of adulthood.

Brooke waved a finger at the holo. There were marching rows of soldiers, dressed in all-enclosing black suits, hides as shiny as rad-ants. Those were called hard-suits: assisted exo-skeletons for use in hazardous combat environments.

“You know what they're doing, now?” Brooke asked me. Before I could respond, she was talking again: “They don't have mothers, and they don't have fathers. They're grown in vats, birthed from test tubes. Can you imagine it? A whole army of those bastards.”

“I've heard the rumours.”

Not all soldiers, of course, but the Directorate were resorting to cloning tech: creating Special Ops teams in crèches, out in Cambodia. Labs where all they did was build men and women, breed children that only cared about war. Command insisted that the Directorate were creating paler imitations of simulants, that their genetics programme was nothing to be afraid of, but I didn't see it that way. What the Directorate didn't have in quality, they would eventually have in numbers.

“Do you think that something grown in a tube has a conscience?” Brooke said, still staring at the screen.

“No, I don't.”

“You did the right thing today,” she said, suddenly changing the subject. “Trying to stop Dr Marceau, I mean.”

“I know,” I said.

“I don't mean like that,” Brooke said. “The
Endeavour
's mission… I've heard things. We've all heard things.”

I froze. I suddenly felt very sober, very angry and very alone. Everything else in the room dropped away from me. “Such as?”

“Not everything is right with the expedition,” Brooke said, leaning in to me. “Not everything is as it seems. There's a lot about it that you don't know.”

“Tell me,” I said. “Everything.”

Brooke looked left, then right. She appeared genuinely frightened, her expression only slightly tempered by the fact that she was thoroughly drunk. Abruptly, she drew back from the table. I saw the barest flicker of intelligence-sharing across her pupils; that blue flash that indicated she was remotely consulting a database somewhere. Her eyes reflected on the mirrored table surface, but by the time she looked up at me – the false smile across her face again – the connection was gone.

“I've seen some of the manifests,” she whispered. “There are weapons onboard. Plasma tech, kinetic carbines. She's carrying a big armoury.”

“That's not news,” I said, annoyed. “There's a whole simulant team onboard. Under Sergeant Stone; organised by O'Neil.”

O'Neil was head of Simulant Operations; the asshole who had approved security for the mission.

“Why do they need weapons to organise a Treaty?” Brooke said.

“Because they're going into the Maelstrom: they need protection.”

I was only repeating the official line, but the words left my mouth by rote: a single Sim Ops team wouldn't be protection enough for a whole expedition.
The crew are doomed
, my inner voice whispered.

Brooke swallowed down a mouthful of liquor, noisily, and gave me a broad smile: snapping out of whatever rut she had fallen into. Her mood instantly shifted, and the moment passed. As though she had decided against whatever disclosure she had been about to make.

“Sorry to get your hopes up, buddy,” she said. “What will we have to report on, when the war is over? That's the real question.”

“I'm sure you'll find something,” I said. “Was that all you had to tell me?”

“Pretty much. I… I feel kind of sick. It's real hot in here.”

The drunken look returned to her face. She had gone almost green. I stood from the table.

“I think that I'd better go. I have a hotel room in Sector Three. The Mumbai.”

“Fine,” I said. “Safe journey.”

“You could say it like you mean it, trooper. It's real nice – old-fashioned – that you're waiting for her, even though you don't think she's coming back. It was good meeting you.”

“Pity I can't say the same,” I said, as Cassi Brooke left the bar.

I managed to secure a bunk down at the local barracks, playing up my Sim Ops position, and the night passed uneventfully but I slept little. I constantly relived Elena leaving on the shuttle, the fact that I hadn't stopped her. Had I been able to? Probably not, but that didn't stop me from feeling that I hadn't done
enough
. What plagued me most was the uncertainty. Had she seen me as she'd entered the shuttle hatch?

Mostly, I was tormented that she might've done so, and yet still boarded the transport.

I had come to Calico hoping to – in some way – interfere with the launch. I had naively presumed that if Elena had actually seen me, she would've changed her mind about leaving. I knew, deep down, that things were not that simple, but that had been my objective.

And then there was Cassari Brooke's disclosure that something was wrong with the expedition. What had she meant by that? Her explanation about weapons hadn't been convincing.

What did she really know?

The morning: maybe that would hold some answers.

The opposite was of course true, and the morning held just more frustration.

I left the barracks early and went straight to the Mumbai. Post-launch, it was busy with departing tourists, but slightly less hectic than the day before. Paying no heed to the queued off-worlders, I went straight to Brooke's hotel. Brooke wasn't the only person who knew how to give a bribe: I paid-off the door-staff for her room number, and took the lift to her floor.

Only to find that her room was empty. A cleaning droid was inside, stripping the bunk.

“You can't be here,” the droid said immediately, singular security-eye flashing in non-recognition. “You are not a registered guest.”

“I know,” I said, “but I'm looking for one.”

“This room is being prepared for the next occupant.”

I looked down at my wrist-comp: it was only oh-eight-hundred hours. Still early by civilian standards. “What happened to the last guest?”

“Gone,” the droid said, sterilely. “Checked out.”

“When?”

“Early. How should I know? I only clean rooms.”

I sighed with anger. “Did she leave anything?”

The droid shrugged its metal shoulders. “Your name Harris?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Then this is for you,” it said, indicating.

There was a folded sheet of paper on the cabinet beside the bunk. I opened it, read the message inside. It was a single line, in scrawled block letters.

I crumpled the paper.

“Fuck.”

The droid paused over the bed for a moment. With robots, even hotel-staff bots, it's always difficult to read an expression or motive. I could swear that this droid was smiling at me.

“You read the news, Harris?” it asked.

“No, why?”

“You might want to,” it said. “Now get out of here. I have beds to make.”

I left the room in a hurry, blood thumping in my ears. As I waited at the elevator door, I opened my wrist-comp: called up the latest news-feed. There were, of course, multiple stories about the
Endeavour
's launch, about the crew, on post-expedition analysis and the prospects of the Treaty being agreed…

And something else.

SIM OPS: THE MAN THEY CALL LAZARUS.

Reporter: Cassi Brooke, CNN correspondent.

We awoke under the light of a different star, light-years from the Alliance.

I sat in the mess cradling a cup of hot coffee. It was surprisingly good; smelt real enough and tasted rich at the back of my throat. It was my second cup: the caffeine always helped to throw off the effects of the sleep. The Legion sat around the mess hall table, trying their best to shake off the post-sleeper hangover.

“We're inside the Maelstrom,” I said.

Jenkins yawned. “There was a time when that would've shit me up…”

For the Legion, like death, the Maelstrom had lost its glamour, but the same could not be said for everyone aboard the ship. I noted the greenhorns and newly promoted maintenance staff eying us from across the hall. More than once, I'd heard the word “ghost-ship” and “government conspiracy” being muttered between crewmen.

Mason sat across from me with a plate heaped with breakfast items: fried eggs, cornbread, potatoes and more. The look of the massed Navy food – so soon after we'd come out of hypersleep – made me feel vaguely queasy. She was almost rabidly consuming the food.

“Where do you put that stuff, Mason?” Jenkins asked. “I've never seen a girl eat as much as you.”

Mason barely looked up from the plate. “It's the freezers,” she said. “They always do this to me.”

“Right,” Jenkins said. “That's your excuse, and you're sticking with it.”

“Let the girl eat,” Kaminski said. “Nine months is a long time.” He smiled, gave a bitter laugh. “No telling what's happened to the rest of the Alliance. Maybe the Krell have given up, and the War's over.”

“We're in the dark,” I said. “No comm-link, no news-feeds. But I severely doubt it.”

Any contact with the outside world could summon the Krell, and surrounding space was likely filled with fish heads. We were in a sort of perfect isolation; unaware of the progress of the Second Krell War, the hostilities with the Directorate, or any other fate that might've befallen the Alliance.

“Maybe we've lost,” Jenkins said. “I mean, for all we know, the Krell might've reached the Core Systems by now.” She waved a hand in the air. “All of this might be a waste of time.”

Just then, Lieutenant James breezed past our table – took up a seat with some of the Navy crew in the corner of the room. He'd obviously been decanted directly into a simulator, and was back in a next-gen sim, ignorant of the whole incident in the hypersleep bay.

“Jesus,” Jenkins whispered. “How does the guy live like that?”

What other choice does he have?
I asked myself.

“Same as everyone,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Does what he has to.”

“I heard that he has a kid and wife, on Tau Ceti,” Jenkins added. “I wonder if he goes home in his real body.”

“Not like that, he doesn't,” Kaminski muttered.

Mason suddenly stopped eating. She pushed her plate, only half-emptied, away. “I don't feel like eating any more,” she said.

I sipped down another mouthful of coffee. “We've got a mission to execute out here,” I said, “and you can all stop with the theorising. I want everyone on point and frosty; not thinking about what could've happened back home. The real work starts now. We don't know what we're going to find on that ship.”

Martinez sighed. “The new battle-suits are going to need some prep work,” he said. “They need to be marked up and stamped for duty.” He looked around the table. “You haven't seen anything until you've seen these bad boys. They are
absolute
bad ass. Nothing going to stand in our way with that armour.”

“I want those suits tested,” I said, finishing my coffee, “as well as complete weapon drills and equipment checks. No corners cut.”

“Affirmative,” Jenkins said. “Where are you going?”

“To see Loeb,” I said.

The CIC was populated by newly defrosted staff, mostly gathered around the tactical display. A projection of what I guessed was the local star system was shown there: glittering in green wireframe tri-D. I paused to examine the data.

As we drew nearer to our objective, the star system was being detected with increasing clarity. A wilted red star sat in the middle of the map, its light blurred but still strong, and a collection of rugged planets orbited the sun. The Arkonus Abyss sat among the network of planets, devouring any planetary debris that came too close: a blue rent in time-space.

“The readings are off the charts,” Admiral Loeb said, as he approached. “I was just about to call for you, Harris.”

He stood at the head of the table, hands behind his back: already completely alert and awake. That was the benefit of being a regular spacer; despite his age, he had the constitution to throw off the hypersleep with ease.

“Morning, Loeb. What have we got?”

Loeb waved at the tri-D. “We made Q-space translation exactly as planned. There's a lot of debris out there, but we're taking it slow and easy.”

“Debris?” I didn't like the sound of that.

“Nothing we can't handle,” Loeb said. “A lot of chaff, but not enough to provide cover for a fleet. A quasar on the edge of our sensor range, a couple of black holes nearby.” He sounded almost blasé about the whole thing, but I could understand why. He shrugged. “For the Maelstrom, none of it is unusual. Well, except for
that
.”

The Arkonus Abyss.

“The energy emissions are very similar to those recorded from the Damascus Rift,” Professor Saul added. He stood across from me, peering down at the display. “I'm certain that this is another Shard Gate. It's emitting a fairly regular stream of tachyon particles, as well as flooding near-space with exotic radiation.”

He magnified the map; focused on the blue rift in space broadly in the middle of the star system. It flickered, writhed with energy, as though it was a living entity, appearing as an area of non-space, visually very similar to the phenomenon we'd encountered at Damascus.

“Far as we can tell,” Loeb said, “this one isn't active.” He nodded at Saul. “The Professor has been lending his scientific expertise to our technical team.”

Saul gave a tepid smile. “I'd like to help where I can, and it keeps me busy.”

The Abyss had a hypnotic quality to it, and I felt some tiny triumph at proving its existence. Elena was really out here; she'd used this Gate to contact me at Damascus.

“How close do we have to get to it?” I asked.

Loeb sighed. “Nearer than I'd like. Ostrow's coordinates take us further into the system,” he said. “Almost half an AU out from the gas giant.” A flashing beacon appeared on the holo, slowly looping around it. “Going to be a while before we can get proper eyes on the target.”

That planet was designated by a string of numbers. Electrical storms coursed over the surface, spreading like cracks on a sheet of ice. It was encased by multiple bands of rock in almost geometric shapes, and without even consulting the scanner I knew that it would be projecting a decent volume of background radiation. Probably nothing down on the surface, I concluded – the giant was too similar to Sol's Jupiter, and not even the Krell could make their home down there.

“What about the other planets, Loeb? We got eyes on them too?”

“Such as we can,” he said, shaking his head. “The chaff the Abyss is putting out is making it difficult to build a proper picture.”

I pointed out a blue and green world, closer still to the Abyss, held in the sway of the deadly Shard Gate. The name DEVONIA flickered along the display.
Strange
, I thought,
that no other world out here has a name…

“That looks like surface water,” I said. As I absorbed the imagery, it became undeniable: Devonia was the only nearby world with active surface water, and it was locked in an orbit that could even give it life-sustaining temperatures. “Water and Krell… They go together like shower and shit.”

“That's where the Krell will be,” Saul agreed. “And a fitting name, too.”

He laughed, but the reaction had a forced and almost manic quality. When no one else joined in he quickly stopped. I didn't probe that response; so far as I was concerned, unless the world was an immediate threat it wasn't my problem.

“We're watching near-space for any activity,” Loeb said. “Stealth systems are at full deployment.”

“How long?” I said.

I couldn't wait for this. The tang of excitement was thick in my mouth. That, but also fear: the horror that this could all be torn away from me.

“Twelve hours, at sub-light,” Loeb said.

“Good,” I said. “If we can make it any faster, then so be it.”

Loeb nodded. “Understood.”

That veil of focus that always came before a drop fell across the Lazarus Legion, and the squad dispersed across the
Colossus
readying for the mission. There was much to be done: weapons loading, equipment prep and simulant-checking. I ordered the Legion to assimilate the tactical database on the
Endeavour
and her fleet – shipboard schematics, projected entrance and exit routes, potential hazards. There was a lot to absorb, given that we didn't know exactly what we were going to find on the ship. In other circumstances, with more time, we'd have run a simulation on the search. It could be a combat-op, a rescue mission, or something in between.

With less than an hour to go, I sought solace in the starship's hangar bays. They were vast, depressing chambers. Made to hold wings of fighter ships, with the two Dragonfly gunships as cargo they were now cavernously empty. I walked the elevated gantries and watched the deckhands work – supervised by Lieutenant James – on the primary Dragonfly. It was being loaded with Banshee anti-personnel missiles, the two door-guns equipped with kinetic assault cannons.

I fished two items from my fatigue pockets: the silver flask and the packet of smokes that I'd picked up as we left Calico. Automatically, I unscrewed the cap – did my best to ignore the inscription on the outer case, words from a loved one to a partner or child who was now long dead – and smelt the contents.
Malt whisky.
I swigged it back hard, felt my eyes burn with the taste.
Jesus; that's good.

“They work fast.”

Professor Saul stood further down the gantry. I'd been so enraptured with the liquor that I hadn't even heard him approaching. Almost cautiously, he edged beside me, leant on the railing to watch the loading process. The Dragonfly looked like a drab green bug – enormous wings spread, each racked with red-tipped missiles. The hull gave off a vague sheen, but it had seen action and there were scorch marks and patched scars along the flanks.

I ignored Saul's comment, and grudgingly offered him the open flask.

“No, no,” he said. “I don't drink.”

“Of course you don't,” I said. “A religious thing?”

Saul's jumpsuit was open, exposing a large blue and green emblem at his chest: a pendant of the Gaia Cult. The Cult worshipped some far-out ideal of Old Earth, back when it had been green and beautiful and something to hold on to.

“Something like that. Unless food or drink comes from Earth, it isn't sanctified.”

I laughed. “Sounds expensive, but for all you know, this might be Earth-produce.”

“If it came from Calico, I doubt it.”

I decided it was best not to ask him how he'd fared in Directorate custody: I doubted that his captors had shown much reverence for his religious beliefs. Instead, I swallowed the liquor and stared at the unopened packet of cigarettes. They were some cheap Calican brand, produced on-base, and there was a smear of blood across the plastic wrapper.

“I didn't know that you smoked,” Saul said.

“I don't,” I said, clutching the packet carefully. “They're for
her
: for Elena. She's been gone a long time, Saul, and I think she'll appreciate a taste of home.”

By home, I meant humanity. Elena and her team had been out of circulation – isolated – for a decade. That'd be tough on anyone. Saul nodded, but it was plain that he didn't really understand.

Just as I was about to ask him why he was here – why he had searched me out – he said, “Before we left for the Maelstrom, you said that you wanted to speak with me.”

I nodded. “I did. I saw the way that you reacted when I mentioned the Revenant. Anything you want to tell me, Saul?”

He let out a long sigh. The deck was consumed by the clangor of munitions being loaded into assault cannons, and Saul cringed. When the noise cleared, he spoke again.

“I haven't been entirely honest with you, but my reasons are genuine.”

“Go on,” I said, swigging the bottle again. “Treat this as a confessional, if you will. A clean slate.”

“Whether you believe me or not, I don't know anything about the
Endeavour
's mission,” he said. “But in this case, the absence of knowledge is perhaps more telling. The entire project was only ever accessible to echelon-four Sci-Div staff.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “And you're not echelon four?”

“I'm three,” he said. “And there are, to my knowledge, only fifteen such staff across Alliance space.”

“All right. Then what about Operation Revenant?”

He shook his head. “It's not an operation, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. The word was attached to a series of glyphs found on Tysis World.”

“Tysis World?” I asked. I recognised the name as a planet on the border of the old QZ, a planet within the confines of the Maelstrom. Saul had mentioned it once before, I suddenly recalled: during his interrogation aboard the
Colossus
, in Damascus. “Enlighten me.”

“We found ruins there; Tysis was the first world which proved the existence of the Shard. Nothing as useful as the Artefact on Helios, but we were able to use what we could find. There were starship components, elements of a factory complex… Many years ago, before the end of the First Krell War, the Sci-Div team on Tysis managed to access some of the machinery left behind. I call it machinery, but it was far advanced beyond anything we have available to us now. A thinking machine: a true intelligence. I was instrumental in accessing the machine's central core.”