Origins (27 page)

“Where are we going?” Loeb said. “We can't retreat back to the Core; we've been through this already—”

“Devonia,” I said.

Loeb's reaction was immediate and uncompromising. “Harris,” he said, “are you out of your fucking
mind
? That's surely Krell territory!”

“We're following Elena,” I said. “Before she died, she told me things.” I glanced around the room at the tired faces. “Some of which weren't easy for me to accept…”

I told them what Elena had said: about the Treaty, and about the coordinates on Devonia. They listened with patent unease. Couldn't say that I blamed them; the disclosure sat as uncomfortably with me as it did with anyone.

“Shit…” Martinez said, shaking his head. “This is a lot to take onboard.”

“If there was no Treaty,” Mason said, “then why was the
Endeavour
still out here?”

“You're always with the questions,” I said. “Look, I don't have all the answers, Mason. I didn't get that far, but Elena directed us to Devonia, so that's where we're going.”

Admiral Loeb breathed out slowly, his teeth to his lip. “I was afraid that you might say that.”

“Can we make the journey?” I asked.

“It's possible,” Loeb said, “but it won't be easy. In our current condition, it'll take three days to reach under full thrust.”

“Then that's where we're going,” I repeated. I turned to Mason. “And down there we'll find the answers to those questions.”

The room fell into an awkward silence as we all digested Elena's disclosure, and considered what it meant.

You've always had your doubts about what they were doing out here
, the voice taunted.
Don't pretend that you didn't suspect that this was the case…

Seven years ago

The official Alliance Command line was that the
Endeavour
mission went MIA – missing in action – a couple of years after her passing into the Maelstrom, but the timescales were never precise and it felt like the Alliance had forgotten her a long time before then. The Treaty was a success, or so the politicos claimed, and the Quarantine Zone was established. The First Krell War was at an end, and other than the occasional border dispute the whole affair looked as though it would pass into history as just another example of bloody and pointless conflict so familiar to the human species.

I didn't forget about Elena, but everyone else did.

Cassari Brooke's new article was the first time anyone had ever called me “Lazarus,” and I tried my best to forget that. It was easily put out of mind but not easily forgotten. I rebuked troopers for calling me it, erased the callsign when I found it on after-mission logs. Tried to deny that which was inevitable. It was slow-burn but the name stuck.

For a while after Calico, after the
Endeavour
's launch, I followed Cassi Brooke's news articles. I didn't hear from her, which suited me fine, but I read her stories: exposés on the military, following squads to the frontline, typical war-reporter stuff. Though she'd certainly moved on from cats up trees, the casts weren't really news to me. A couple of years after our meeting, Brooke just disappeared from the news-feeds. I guessed that she had probably got a marriage contract and a child licence; maybe retired from the dangerous business of being an investigative reporter. In real life, people did that sort of thing.

I'd learnt an important lesson – that I never trust a reporter – and I got on with existing. Living, dying, drinking. I thought that the bottom of a bottle held the only answers I was ever going to receive.

Then the strangest thing happened. I was stationed on
Liberty Point
, at a time when the outpost was still relatively new, when I received a message from her. Text-only, it was a request to meet.

Somehow, through what method I didn't know, Cassari Brooke had obtained a pass to
Liberty Point
. She was on-station and wanted to talk.

Just as she had done on Calico Base, years before, Brooke chose the meeting place. In those days, with
Liberty Point
's firm position as the largest military outpost on the QZ, there were more than enough bars and clubs to choose from. The Civilian District brimmed with drinking holes, but Brooke chose a diner in the maintenance sector. It was a small, rundown place frequented by many of the manual workers and dock-hands – a diner that could've easily been exported to the
Point
from downtown Detroit – filled with men and women wearing ragged uniforms, with grease-stained faces. People, I realised, who were the grist that kept the mill running. They weren't heroes, and they weren't proud, but they worked hard. I almost felt out of place in my uniform, with the shiny merit badges and the holo-tag proclaiming the number of times I'd died. These people didn't care much for that, and as I entered the diner very few even bothered to look up at me.

I searched the tables, frustrated at first that I couldn't see Brooke. She'd been specific about the time and location.

Then a voice called to me from across the room, a figure emerging from one of the booths in the corner.

“Captain Harris,” she said. Waved a hand. “Over here.”

I paused for a moment: the recognition wasn't immediate. Cassari Brooke, formerly of Core News Network, had changed a great deal in the time since I'd last seen her. Patchy recollections of images of her from news stories I'd read came back to me, and she'd changed a lot since those as well. Somewhat reluctantly, I edged my way through the diner and sat with her.

Her red hair was faded, scruffy, and though she didn't look much older – I suspected that rejuvenation treatments had kept her objective years at bay – she looked more weathered. All glossiness had gone from her features; body shrinking into a dock-hand's duffle coverall rather than a reporter's smart-suit.

“Thanks for coming,” she said.

“I could hardly miss it,” I said. “I never did get a chance to thank you for that news story…”

She gave a pale smile. “Sorry about that. Really, I am.”

“I wish that I could believe you.”

“I've already ordered coffee,” she said.

“I'd hoped for something a little stronger.”

The smile became frosted. “I don't do that any more.”

“Yeah, well, I do.”

“I've read about it,” she muttered. “You should rein it in. Take it easy.”

“You wouldn't be the first person to tell me that,” I said, “and you surely won't be the last.”

The booth at which we sat was beside an open observation window, allowing an unfettered view of the comings and goings of
Liberty Point
. Lots of warships drifted past; transports and cargo tugs flitting around the larger vessels. We thought, in those days, that we were invincible – that the Krell could never take what we'd made at the
Point
. Brooke watched the window, fiddling with the wrist-strap of her coverall, biting her lip.

“Are you still looking for your girl, Conrad?” she asked me.

“Is that what this is about? Another news story?”

Brooke's eyes remained fixed on the window. I noticed that there were no lights behind them: no data-link to the mainframe any more. Had she lost that ability somehow? That was surely a news reporter's lifeblood.

In answer to my question, Brooke said, “I don't do that any more, either. At least, not via the official channels.”

“I figured as much. I followed your stories on the Sierra Delta. On the war at Sigma.”

“That's good,” she said, although she barely sounded interested. “I worked hard on those pieces, and I hope that you enjoyed them.”

“I wouldn't say enjoyed,” I said, “but you did a good job covering the Sim Ops Programme involvement.”

She shook her head. “They weren't real stories.”

“Then what were they?”

“They were propaganda pieces,” she said. “Just nice words to keep the public happy.”

Sierra Delta and Sigma were both war hotspots. Sim Ops had been there, but Army line infantry – hardcopy soldiers – had spilled blood taking and holding those territories from the Krell. I was surprised to hear her describe them in such terms, having read her stories.

“Those aren't the only things I've been researching,” she added. Sounded nervous. “I've been researching you, actually.”

A cold feeling crept across my skin. “Really.”

“Yeah. I know that your father killed himself after he was discharged from the Army.” She swallowed, either aware that she had gone too far or considering whether she should go any further. “I know that your mother died during the Battle for Jupiter Outpost; that she was killed by the Directorate. I even read about your sister, though that was much harder to find.”

“Someone has been busy,” I said. There were no official records of my father's death. Those in higher places had done the kindness of expunging his death from the military records. “If you think that I'm letting any of that become a story—”

She shook her head, showed me her open palms. “It's not, it's not. I'm just making a point.”

“Which is?”

“That there's a lot of information in the mainframe, if you go looking for it.”

“So what's this about? The
Point
is an awfully long way for a not-reporter to travel, just to tell me that you've been doing research—”

“Then answer my question,” she snapped. “Are you still looking for your girl?”

I poured myself some cold coffee from the glass pot on the table. Noticed a small black box beside the pot, with a series of flickering green diodes on top.

“Of course I'm still looking. Even if you aren't a reporter any more, you'll know that the
Endeavour
never came back. She's lost, out there somewhere.”

“That's what they say,” she said. “That's what they say.”

“What do you mean – ‘they say'? Do you know something?”

I remembered the non-information Brooke had tried to peddle back on Calico, and given her presentation I held no hope for a genuine new lead from her now. She abruptly turned her head, avoided making eye contact with me, then tapped a fingernail – bitten to the quick – on the box beside the coffee pot.

“This is a jammer,” she said. “Cost me a lot, but it should stop anyone from listening in on our conversation. Just so that you know; in case you're wearing a wire.”

“Of course I'm not.”

“That's good.”

“Why would I be?”

“Because there are people after me, you see. Both kinds: Directorate and Alliance.”

“Have you completely lost it?” I queried.

“I never had it,” she said, with a weak smile. “But we should talk. I might be able to help you, Conrad. For real.”

“All right,” I said. “I haven't stopped looking for her. I've been across the Quarantine Zone. I've used every resource I have. But all I've ever found is closed doors. Locked doors, even.”

That was all completely true. I'd fallen into a well of frustration. The rational, sober part of me had even started to believe that maybe the authorities were right. Maybe Elena, and the
Endeavour
expedition, really were lost in the Maelstrom. Perhaps she would never be coming back. That didn't stop me from looking, but I feared that – one day – it probably would.

“If the Treaty was a success,” Brooke said, “then why didn't the expedition come back? Think about that for a moment. Does that make sense to you?”

“They say that the ships were probably destroyed on the way to Alliance territory,” I said. I didn't believe the words, but that was the explanation. “There are more than enough ways for a ship to be destroyed in the Maelstrom.”

“I know you've been in there,” Brooke said. “And I also know that you don't believe what you've just said. There were sixteen ships in that fleet, Conrad.
Sixteen ships.
Were they all lost in black holes?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“The Treaty was signed off years ago,” Brooke said. “But do you ever wonder why the terms of the Treaty have never been publicly disclosed?”

“Not really,” I said. “We know about the Quarantine Zone—”

“And whose idea was it that a Quarantine Zone should be established?” she said, speaking over me. “Surely that didn't come from the Krell. I've seen research papers. Read files. How does something like the Krell agree to a Treaty…?”

“I don't know. Ask Sci-Div.”

“Oh, I've tried. I've been inside the Science Division mainframe.”

I didn't like the turn of this conversation. Brooke was speaking fast, irrationally. Hacking into the Science Division mainframe was a high-risk venture, even for an investigative reporter. For a civilian it was probably a capital offence.

“You get caught doing that,” I said, “and I don't think that anyone is going to find out about it.”

Command, Sci-Div, Mili-Intel: one of those agencies would see to her. There would be no trial, no exposure of whatever she had discovered.

Brooke's face spasmed. “You don't think I already know that? That's why I have the box.”

“Well, if you've been in the Sci-Div mainframe, you know more of all this than me.”

“Don't be facetious. How could the
Endeavour
's crew negotiate with the Krell?”

“They have leader-forms,” I said, shrugging. “I've seen them. Maybe they can be reasoned with—”

“And another thing: this talk of the ‘Collective'. Bullshit. There are several Collectives across the Maelstrom, not one singular swarm as Command would have us believe. Science Division even has names for them; knows that they aren't all the same.”

I watched Brooke's face. She looked very tired and her left eyelid twisted erratically, as though a reaction to stress. When she spoke, her words came in a sudden, fast burst. She was ill, I realised, and me being here wasn't helping her.

“How do the Krell communicate, Conrad?” she asked me, again avoiding eye contact. “That's what I want to know. That's what Science Division, and Command, won't tell us. I don't think that the Krell are even interested in the Treaty. The government is keeping all of this from us. No one is ever allowed to join up the dots.”

She's mad
, I concluded.

“All right, Cassi. It was nice seeing you.”

Brooke's hand shot across the table and she grabbed my wrist, dug her nails into the skin of my forearm. I'd often heard it said, in Sim Ops mainly, that madness gave the sufferer strength. Maybe there was some truth in that, because Cassari Brooke was much stronger than she looked.

“I'm not fucking with you, Lazarus,” she said. “I don't think that the mission was sent out there to establish a Treaty at all.”

“Then why were they sent into the Maelstrom?”

Something in the woman's expression held me there: even if these were just the ramblings of an ex-news reporter.

“I don't know,” she said. She released my arm. “At least not yet.”

“You're mad,” I said. “You should get some help.”

There was a clatter behind me. Mutters from some of the patrons near the door.

Brooke moved faster than me. Shuffling papers across the table, gathering them into an open case. She scooped the black box up and put that in, too.

“You should've checked whether you were followed—!” she spat at me.

Two Military Police officers in black flak-suits approached the table. Big enough to block Brooke's exit from the booth, both carrying lit shock-batons that danced with energy.