Owens had a doubt on the same score. “That’ll probably take care of it,” he said unhappily. The pilot reached into his tunic and fumbled with some sort of fastener, then withdrew a mini-tape and handed it to Todd. “The governor and your sister send their loving regards, Mr. Saunder.”
“Gib, I’m having an awful lot of trouble swallowing all this cloak-and-dagger gibberish.” Owens was maddeningly uninformative. Waiting. Todd tossed the mini-tape in his palm, then dropped it in the “read” slot. An image snapped up on his desk monitor. Visual garbage.
Owens smiled tolerantly, then offered Todd a thin strip of intricately formed alloy metal. It appeared to be some exotic combination of materials somehow combined with layers of silica. “Try that in your translator-splitter circuit, sir, if you would.”
Todd recognized the form of the tiny key Owens had given him. More military borrowing. They had adapted Ward Saunder’s translator patents and extrapolated them into cryption-decryption devices. The key Todd held was the only thing that would unlock the meaningless smear on the screen.
“It’s not for replay;” Gib warned. “One run-through.” Goddard had also borrowed the mini-tape self-destruct option. Todd would have to get this message right the first time or forget it.
Owens’s young face, behind the beard and the makeup, was hard, older than his years. Their harrowing ride in the shuttle must have been just part of his recent experience. Had he been on Goddard when the earlier missiles had hit? Sharp, combat-ready, willing to die, if necessary, so that Goddard would live.
Owens stood up, headed for the door. Todd stared at him. “Where are you going?”
“The tape will give you everything you need, sir. I haven’t been briefed on its contents. It’s safer that way.” The look he gave Todd was rather cheerfully fatalistic. “If I don’t know, I can’t tell anyone we don’t want to find out about it, now can I?”
Once, Todd had thought corny lines like that only occurred on vid dramas, part of a theatrical game. But this wasn’t a game. The young pilot meant every word and knew the risks he was taking. He nodded, then was gone.
Todd looked down at the decoder strip Owens had left, turning it over several times. After a long moment, be inserted the key in the translator circuitry and waited for the screen to clear.
Kevin McKelvey’s image gazed out at him. Mari was leaning familiarly on the back of Kevin’s chair. “Hello,” Kevin said. The mini-tape was very crisp. Todd doubted the new worry lines in that rugged face were caused by imperfect resolution in the recording. The strain of leading Goddard Colony and fighting off unknown enemies was showing. “Mari’s filled me in on what happened at Saunderhome, of course. I assume you heard Fairchild’s subsequent speech at Protectors of Earth assembly, revealing the missile attacks.”
There was a pause while Kevin considered how best to express himself. Mari rubbed his head, whispering too softly for Todd to hear. McKelvey’s broad shoulders straightened. “Pat has gotten word to us via Fairchild, promising that his committees will investigate the missile attacks. So far, we’ve seen no movement down there. We’re trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, as you requested. Meanwhile, we’re watching him make political capital out of your material about the alien messenger vehicle. His mobs are attacking our people planetside, just as the missiles struck at us up here.” He didn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone, but his resentment wasn’t aimed at Todd.
Mariette cut in, her voice a bit startling after Kevin’s deep rumble. “Pat’s stalling, Todd. We know he is. He’s refusing to deal with our planetside intermediaries and agents. And it’s not just because he’s busy pulling strings and lining up votes. I’ll bet he’s not talking to you, either . . .”
Reflexively, Todd opened his mouth. Then he felt sheepish. He hadn’t done that for years, not since he was a child. It was foolish to argue with a recorded image. His reactions had reached something deeper in him than his lifelong experience with vid media. He listened morosely while his sister and Kevin went on talking.
“We’re going to give you an update on what we’ve collected with the mass driver net,” Kevin said. The screen separated into two sections, one showing the data readout. “Electronics are Asian, probably Nippon Associated or a good copy. That doesn’t mean they made them, of course. These pieces of reassembled guidance fins are CNAU-manufactured. The part of a triggering device seems to be Maui-Andean in make. Nothing direct, naturally. But these are all staunch Earth First nations—or their leaders are. And they’ve been involved in some of Earth First’s shady deals in Protectors of Earth, and against our supporters.” Kevin’s huge hands clenched into fists, drawing Todd’s eyes momentarily. The barely contained fury didn’t come through in his voice, which was remarkably calm. Nevertheless, in his own way, Kevin was as much a political orator as Pat was. Kevin’s captive and willing audience was Goddard Colony, and he didn’t have to fake their sentiments at any point in order to convince them he would be their best choice for a leader.
“There have been two more attempted attacks, Todd,” Mari broke in. “Our units stopped them in lower orbit. No damage. But they certainly aren’t giving up or going underground, whoever they are. In fact, they’re stepping up the rate.”
“They’re stepping up the firepower, too,” Kevin said grimly. “From now on, we’re using the toughest equipment Lunar Base Copernicus can spare.” He answered Todd’s question, anticipating it. “The Moon’s regularly scheduled supply ship is two weeks overdue. No adequate explanations, according to the base commander. And his previous supply was partially contaminated. They detected it in time to prevent an outbreak of neo-anthrax.” Todd’s jaw dropped. The viral mutation warfare system was Earth’s worst nightmare, after what it had lived through in the Death Years. The latest pandemic of neo-anthrax had been brought under control in 2030, but everyone suspected the strain still existed in secret labs, somewhere. If Kevin was telling the truth, that suspicion was based in fact, and someone was trying to use the deadly material to wipe out the Moon base. “The shortages put them on critical mode. We helped them out, or they would have been forced to lift ship and abandon. We’re not oversupplied right now, either. But we’ll make it. So will they.”
Worse and worse. Lunar Base Copernicus and Goddard were separate legal entities. They had cooperated in the past, but obviously the loan of classified military equipment constituted a breach or orders on the lunar commandant’s part. By all implications, the pair of them were one step away from joining forces totally in defiance of all legal connections with Earth. Didn’t anyone at Protectors of Earth realize what was happening up there? Or did they know and not care?
Let the erring sisters go . . .
They couldn’t
afford
to let the space colonies go, and whoever was putting missiles up in killer orbit and sending neo-anthrax to the Moon knew it. The Spacers had a terrible advantage if they chose to fight back—Earth’s gravity well. Push far enough, and there would be a war in space, with firepower raining back on Earth to repay the death and destruction dealt to the Colony and her allies on the Moon. Innocent bystanders, perhaps billions of them, would die, on Earth and in orbit.
From the little screen, Mari was now addressing him. “Todd, we had to confide in you. We depend on you, trust you. We hope you’ll keep your promises, even if Pat won’t keep his.”
A picture, a taped image. They weren’t speaking to him directly. Yet elapsed time and distance didn’t matter. Mariette and Kevin were there in the room with him, and they were calling in their debts.
A live-action scene began on the second half of the screen. The picture was quite crude. Todd narrowed his eyes, studying it clinically. Poor transmission? No, he saw the problem. The recording had been made under difficult, hurried conditions, probably with woefully inadequate equipment. A hidden lens? The man’s name escaped him temporarily, but Todd was familiar with the visage, and not in a pleasant context. Part of the North Asia groups. Not a petty dictaror. The head of secret police in his national area. He was an enforcer who kept his name and picture out of the media. How had Mari and Kevin obtained this recording of him?
Then Todd concentrated on the man’s words. Instatranslation converted the language smoothly, though the lips weren’t in synch. Ward Saunder’s inventions served the audience, again. The instatranslator must be operating with a scrambler, too. That enforcer wouldn’t have let them get away with taping him if his security people had detected them. Considering what Goddard’s agents were up against, the poor picture quality was forgivable.
“. . . do not pressure the Human Rights Committee again or you will regret it most deeply. If you do, your leader will cease to exist. We will make sure that, despite the sanctions, any further effort to communicate with Antarctica will result in your beloved Kuwai’s immediate termination . . .”
The screen tore up briefly as the hidden lens fought to maintain its focus. When the picture steadied once more, the little man’s eyes were awful. He relished the prospect of killing his victims. Expertly, he touched the unseen audience’s very soul. “You do not fear for yourself or your brave allies. This I understand. You will die, and your preserved seed in the tissue banks in Antarctica will die. I promise you this. You and your inheritance will be gone—
forever!
And your beloved leader? He, too, will die. He will never awake from his frozen cell.
“You will cease all your rebellious meetings and publications at once! Any further opposition, and I will carry out my promise without delay! Break off all relations with these Spacer people or pay the price. You will receive no further warning!”
The insert image winked out. Mari and Kevin glanced at each other, gauging what effect the scene might have on Todd. They seemed to be wondering if he would think it was a fake.
Todd wished he could dismiss it as a fake. But it rang all too true. The tone, the references, everything pointed to that nasty little faction of Earth First, to its most ruthless and fanatically planet-oriented faction. Such an ugly threat suited their style.
But did they have the ability to carry through on that threat?
How much had the anonymous agent dared in smuggling that recording to Goddard? SE Antarctic Enclave. Incorruptible. Watchdogged. Reachable via remote-relay vid view of any of the confinees. It had to be off-limits to any political conflict.
“That son of a bitch means it,” Kevin said. Mari was nodding, her pale eyes reaching across space and time to Todd. That was the way Pat had looked at him when he first began to comprehend the implications of the alien messenger.
Mari was shaking with anger. “That’s not the only’ thing threatening our agents. That’s one of the few we were able to catch on a recording, though. We can’t betray that agent. His life is at stake. His life, and that of his leader. There are thousands who may be in jeopardy.”
They showed him a quick series of other recordings, obviously made at several different places. Someone making a pleading inquiry about a relative, a dissident who happened to be a supporter of Goddard. The response:
“No, we have no record of your uncle. No, no conviction notice. We really don’t know where he is. Sorry.”
Someone else trying to find out why credit deposits supposedly registered to a Spacer political group had mysteriously vanished. Legal runaround, the more frustrating because the people behind the readout wouldn’t come forward and tell the lies to the bankrupted inquirer’s face:
“No record. I have no record of that account. Please check your number again and be sure you have cued the monitor correctly . . .”
And another attempt, in another language:
“We are not permitted to give you that data, madam. I am sorry, madam.” Off screen, an enraged, impotent woman yelling that the data demanded was that regarding her own son. Imperturbable, the readout continued. “That data is classified, madam. If you wish to register a complaint, please go to the Department of Civil Information and request Form 8568-T. Thank you . . .”
T? T
for Terminated?
The screen coalesced into one image_Kevin’s and Mari’s. “That’s only a sampling,” Kevin said. “Such things are happening constantly to our Supporters. Maybe to other people, too, the third parties that also oppose Earth First. I don’t hear anything about Earth First supporters running into those situations. I doubt you do either, Todd. But Third Millennium, the Expansionists, the Serene Future people over in Asia, the Energy Now Party, the Socialist Communalities, even United Theocracies for Peace—they are being wrapped up in threats and red tape and dumped, more and more frequently. If the enemy can’t beat us fairly, they’re going to erase all the rest of us, it looks like.
“We’ll give you a key list. Each of these particular people has been specifically threatened, through his relatives, political followers, or some other person who cares about his survival. Each of them is a confinee to SE Antarctic Enclave, or has dropped out of sight. You can’t keep the list,” Kevin said as an afterthought.
Todd blinked as eighteen names flashed on the screen. Time pressure was heavy. He worked to memorize the data, the faces, the idents. He hadn’t known some of these people were even up for trial! Other names he recognized from ComLink’s news reporters—people their countrymen Considered troublemakers. Some of their countrymen. Three of the potential political problems had avoided that designation by volunteering to go to the cryogenic preservement facility during the earliest years of the polar Enclave. They had done so to spare their followers war and death, thinking that by removing themselves from the scene, those they loved would be safe. Others had been sent there after trumped-up trials. Some came from nations which themselves had ceased to exist when they had been gulped up by larger national entities.
The data stayed on the screen while Kevin’s voice-over explained, “The confinees can be seen, in theory, via holo-mode linkups with the global telecom network— yours. You have a monopoly, Todd. It’s a minor department of ComLink. Maybe you aren’t aware that certain requests to see relatives’ or dissidents’ holo-images never reach the processing system. They’re being thwarted in their own countries. They’re not allowed even to ask. Neither is anyone else. They get put on hold or told there’s a technical problem. If you complain to P.O.E.’s Human Rights Committee, you get the same shuffle round and go nowhere. If that isn’t a conspiracy, we don’t know what it is. We can’t get past the red-tape barricade. We’ve tried. We can’t even clear some of the financial nonsense out. It’s ‘classified,’ even stuff we have a right to see. Maybe you can get around it.”
Kevin split the screen again, so that Todd could see him and Mari and the eighteen names, reduced, simultaneously.
“Two of the people who’ve smuggled data to us have disappeared within the last month. Mari made some discreet checks on them when she was planetside. Nothing. Maybe they’ve been shipped to the Enclave, or dropped into the Pacific. We don’t know and can’t find out. They join a growing list, one five years old in some cases, as long as Goddard’s been in existence and factions on Earth have been fighting our right to that existence,” Kevin said grimly. “We’re sure these eighteen have vanished, for all purposes, off the face of the Earth. And the Human Rights Committee won’t let us into Antarctica or into their sealed records to check on them . . .”
“They can’t, under law,” Todd reminded him, to no avail.
Kevin shrugged, as if he had heard Todd’s comment. “Who gets it next? Who vanishes next? Whose credit disappears next? Yours? You can be damned certain it won’t be Pat’s, or any other faithful Earth Firster’s, such as Galbraith’s or Riccardi’s or his satellite network’s. There’s a pair we’re keeping our eyes on! Them and Weng and Ybarra and some others. They all have too many good reasons for wanting Goddard out of their economic and political hair. You say we’re paranoid and have to maintain our lifeline to Earth. Well, someone’s chopping that lifeline in two, killing our people, engulfing our financing. We’re asking you to help, as a trusted ally.”
Mari leaned forward, peering directly into the lens. “We do need you. And you need us, Todd, whether you realize it yet or not. Use our agents, our allies. Trust Fairchild. She can put you in touch with some sane people in high places who might not come out openly for us, but would do it for you. A general or a second-in-command politico. We don’t think they’re
all
against us down there! Fairchild will help us, to the limits and beyond. Todd, please?”