Alkad raised an eyebrow. “Captain?”
“I can vouch for her,” Ikela said softly. “This is Dr Alkad Mzu.”
“Captain?” Dan Malindi asked. “What does she mean?”
Ikela cleared his throat. “It was my rank in the Garissan navy. I used to be captain of the frigate
Chengho
. We were flying escort duty on the Alchemist deployment mission. That’s how I know.”
“Datavise your command authority code,” Feira Ile said sternly.
Ikela nodded reluctantly, and retrieved the code from its memory cell.
“It would appear our colleague is telling the truth,” Feira Ile told the silent office.
“Mother Mary,” Cabral muttered, glancing at the man he thought he’d known for the last thirty years. “Why didn’t you tell
us?”
Ikela sank his head into his hands. “The plan operates on a need to know basis only. Up until today you didn’t need to know.”
“What plan?” Feira Ile snapped.
“To deploy the Alchemist,” Alkad said. “After the original mission was crippled, Ikela and four other officers were detailed
to sell the antimatter we were carrying. They were supposed to invest that money so there would be sufficient funds to hire
a combat-capable starship and equip it to fire the Alchemist once the sanctions were lifted and the Confederation Navy squadron
assigned to blockade duties returned home. The only reason you partizans exist is to provide me with a crew that will not
flinch from the job that needs to be done.” She stared at Ikela. “And now I’m here, on schedule, and I find no ship, and no
crew.”
“I told you,” Ikela shouted. “You can have your ship if that’s still what we want. I have more than enough money. Anyone of
us in this room has enough money to provide a starship for you. I have never failed my duty to my people. Don’t you ever say
that. But things have changed.”
“Looks like you’ve failed to me,” Cabral said briskly. “Looks like you’ve failed a lot of people.”
“Think!” Ikela stormed. “Think for the love of Mary what she is proposing. What will the Confederation do to us if we blow
up Omuta’s star? What revenge will they take?”
“It can do that?” a startled Kaliua Lamu asked. “The Alchemist will destroy their star?”
“On one setting, yes,” Alkad said. “I don’t intend using that. I propose to simply extinguish the star. No one will die, but
their planet and asteroid settlements will have to be evacuated and abandoned. They will become a broken homeless people,
as we are. That’s fitting, surely?”
“Well yes… ” He searched around the table for support, finding only uneasy confusion. “But I don’t understand. If you survived
the blackhawk attack, why didn’t you continue with the mission? Why wait thirty years?”
“There were complications,” Alkad said tonelessly. “By the time we were in any position to function again the sanctions had
been imposed, and the blockade squadron was in place. It was decided to wait until these obstructions were removed, which
would give us a much greater chance of success. We did not have limitless government resources anymore, and we only have one
chance to get it right. This is the optimum time to strike. We won’t have another chance; the intelligence agencies are pursuing
me. And they will find me.”
Dan Malindi groaned. “Intelligence agencies? Holy Mary, they’ll find out where you’ve been.”
“Oh, yes, they’ll know you’re involved. Does that bother you?”
“Bother me? You bitch! I have a family.”
“Yes. I’ve heard this argument already today. It is beginning to bore me. I have lived the reality of the genocide for thirty
years. You, all of you, have just been playing patriot. Each of you has profited in your own field by chanting the cry of
nationalism. Well, my being here has put an end to your pathetic game.”
“Are you threatening us?” Cabral asked.
“I have always been a threat to your cosy life, even though you never knew I existed.”
“What exactly do you want?” Feira Ile asked.
“Two things. A combat-capable starship with a decent crew of committed nationalists. And a secure environment for myself while
you prepare them. Do not underestimate the agencies. They now know for certain that the Alchemist is real, which means they
will go to any lengths to acquire me.”
Ikela stood up, placing his hands on the table and leaning forwards. “I say we cannot do this. Mother Mary, we’re sitting
here talking about wrecking an entire star system as if it were some kind of difficult business venture. Times have changed,
we are not Garissans anymore. I’m sorry if that is painful for you to hear, Doctor, but we’re not. We have to look to the
future, not the past. This is madness.”
“And that is treachery,” Cabral said.
“Treachery to what? To a planet that was killed thirty years ago? If that’s what it is, then fine, I’m a traitor to it. I
don’t care.”
“Other people might when they get to hear.”
“Ikela, I really don’t think you’re in any position to back out now,” Feira Ile said. “Given your mission, you are still a
serving officer. That means you are required to discharge your obligations.”
“Then I quit, I resign my commission.”
“Very well. In that case, I must ask you to hand over the T’Opingtu company to me.”
“What?”
“I believe we just heard that it was founded on money provided by the Garissan navy. That means it doesn’t belong to you.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Listen, we can’t make a snap judgement over this,” Kaliua Lamu said. “Ikela’s right, we’re talking about wiping out an entire
solar system.”
“I might have known you’d take that attitude,” Dan Malindi said.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard. I’m willing to provide as much help as Dr Mzu wants. What the hell is the Confederation going to do to us if we’re
armed with Alchemists?”
“There is only one,” Alkad said.
“You can build more, can’t you?”
She hesitated uncomfortably. “If there was a requirement, it could be duplicated.”
“There you are then. You can’t leave what’s left of the Garissan nation and culture unprotected, can you?”
“You want to start a damn arms race as well?” Ikela yelled. “You’re as mad as she is.”
“Curb your language. Have you forgotten the possessed?”
“In Mary’s name what have they got to do with this?”
“If we were armed with Alchemists, that bastard Capone would think twice before sending his fleet here.”
“And who precisely is going to be in charge of these Alchemists?”
“The Dorados council, of course,” Dan Malindi said scornfully.
“Exactly, and we all know how much influence you have there.”
“Enough!” Alkad slammed her fist down. “I will not supply Alchemists to anyone. You have no conception of what it is capable
of. It is not some bigger and better bomb you can use for political advantage. It was built for one purpose, to destroy the
people who threatened our world. It will be used for one purpose, our revenge against them.” She looked at each of them in
turn, furious and sickened that this was all that remained of the planet she was once so proud of. Where was their dignity,
their resolution? Could none of them perform one single act of remembrance? “I will give you thirty minutes to debate this.
After that you will tell me which of you support me, and which do not.”
“I certainly support you,” Kaliua Lamu said loudly, but he was talking to her back as she limped away.
The shouting had already begun again before the door closed behind her. All the bodyguards and aides in the anteroom stared;
Alkad barely saw them. If she had just known or anticipated the shambles which the partizans had become, then she would have
been mentally geared up.
“Alkad?” Voi was bending down, giving the smaller woman an anxious look.
“Don’t mind me, I’ll be all right.”
“Please, I have something to show you. Now.”
The girl took Alkad’s arm, hustling her across the room and out into the corridor. Alkad couldn’t be bothered to protest,
although force of habit made her activate a threat analysis program. Her enhanced retinas began scanning the length of the
corridor.
“Here,” Voi said triumphantly. She opened her palm to reveal a tiny squashed spider.
“Mother Mary! Have you completely flipped?”
“No, listen. You know you said you thought the intelligence agencies were following you.”
“I should never have told you that. Voi, you don’t know what you’re getting involved with.”
“Oh, yes I do. We started checking the spaceport log. There’s a delegation of Edenists here to discuss strengthening our defences.
Three voidhawks brought thirty of them.”
“Yes?”
“Mapire only rated one voidhawk, and six Edenists to discuss our mutual defence with the council. It should be the other way
around, the capital should have got the larger delegation, not Ayacucho.”
Alkad glanced at the little brown blob in the girl’s hand, a bad feeling sinking through her. “Go on.”
“So we thought about how Edenists would search the asteroid for you. Adamists would use spylenses and hack into the communications
net to get at public monitor security cameras. Edenists would use bitek systems, either simulants or affinity-bonded animals.
We started looking. And here they are. Spiders. They’re everywhere, Alkad. We checked. Ayacucho is totally infested.”
“That doesn’t necessarily prove—” she said slowly.
“Yes it does.” The hand with the crushed blob was shaken violently. “This is from the
Lycosidae
family. Ayacucho’s ecologists never introduced any
Lycosidaes
into the biosphere. Check the public records if you don’t believe me.”
“All sorts of things can get through bio-quarantine; irradiation screening isn’t perfect.”
“Then why are they all male? We haven’t found a single female, not one. It’s got to be so they can’t mate, they won’t reproduce.
They’ll die off without causing any sort of ecological imbalance. Nobody will ever notice them.”
Strangely enough, Alkad was almost impressed. “Thank you, Voi. I’d better go back in there and tell them I need more security.”
“Them?” Voi was utterly derisory. “Did they leap to help you? No. Of course not. I said they wouldn’t.”
“They have what I need, Voi.”
“They have nothing we don’t. Nothing. Why don’t you trust us? Trust me? What does it take to make you believe in us?”
“I do believe in your sincerity.”
“Then come with me!” It was an agonized plea. “I can get you out of here. They don’t even have any way to get you out of the
office without the spiders seeing.”
“That’s because they don’t know about them.”
“They don’t know, because they’re not concerned about security. Look at them, they’ve got enough bodyguards in there to form
a small army. Everybody in the asteroid knows who they are.”
“Truthfully?”
“All right, not everybody. But certainly every reporter. The only reason they don’t say anything is because of Cabral. Anyone
coming to the Dorados who really wanted to make contact with the partizan movement wouldn’t need more than two hours to find
a name.”
“Mary be damned!” Alkad glanced back at the door to the anteroom, then at the tall girl. Voi was everything her father was
not: dedicated, determined, hurting to help. “You have some kind of safe route out of here?”
“Yes!”
“Okay. You can take me out of this section. After that I’ll get in touch with your father again, see what they’re going to
do for me.”
“And if they won’t help?”
“Then it looks like you’re on.”
• • •
“Yeah? So, I’m late. Sue me. Listen, this meeting caused me a shitload of grief. I don’t need no lecture from the ESA on contact
procedures right now.”
“Yeah, she’s here all right, in the flesh. Mother Mary, she’s really got the Alchemist stashed away somewhere. She’s not kidding.
I mean, shit, she really wants to take out Omuta’s star.”
“Course I don’t know where it is, she wouldn’t say. But, Mary, Ikela used to be a frigate captain in the Omuta navy. He flew
escort on the Alchemist mission. I never knew. Twenty years we’ve been plotting away together, and I never knew.”
“Sure you want to know where we are. Look, you’re going to come in here shooting, right? I mean, how do I know you’re not
going to snuff me? This is serious heavy-duty shit.”
“All right, but if you’re lying you’d better make sure you finish me. I’ll have you if you don’t, no matter what it costs.
And hey, even if you do kill me, I can come back and get you that way. Yeah. So you’d better not be fucking me over.”
“Oh, absolutely. I always believe every word you people say. Okay, listen, we’re in Laxa and Ahmad’s conference office. The
bodyguards are all in the anteroom. Tell your people to be fucking careful when they come in. You let them know I’m on your
side, yeah?”
“No, she’s out in the anteroom. She went out there twenty minutes ago so we could argue about what to do. The vote was three
to two for wasting Omuta’s star. Guess how I voted.”
• • •
“Laxa and Ahmad, the conference office,” Monica said. “Mzu’s in the anteroom along with the bodyguards.”
Go,
Samuel ordered.
The twenty Edenist agents closed on the Laxa and Ahmad offices. Floor plans were pulled from the asteroid’s civil engineering
memory cores. Entry routes and tactics were formulated and finalized while they jogged towards their target, the general affinity
band thick with tense exchanges.
Monica kept three paces behind Samuel the whole way. It irked her, and she wasn’t looking forwards to her debrief, either.
Teaming up with Edenists! But at least this way the Alchemist would be neutered. Providing Samuel kept his part of the agreement.
Which she was sure he would do. Although high politics could still screw everything up. God!
It took them four minutes to reach Laxa and Ahmad. One featureless corridor after another. Thankfully there were few people
about, with only a handful of workaholics left. They barged past an old man carrying several flek cases, a man and a woman
who looked so guilty they were obviously having an affair, a pair of teenage girls, one very tall and skinny and black, the
other small and white, both wearing red handkerchiefs around their ankles.