The Cockroach Crusade, page 11
Turn her or terminate her.
Irene Bauer didn’t realize how lucky she was not to be dealing with Dennis Forrand right now.
Hardening his voice, Novak told her, “Your uncle was correct. Daisy Hub is a highly classified operation, and neither one of us is at liberty to discuss the details with you. However, I can give you this much: your suspicions about your birth father are correct.”
“I want to see for myself,” she said. “Can you arrange for us to meet in person?”
“You want to go to Daisy Hub? I can help you with that, but it would be extremely risky,” Novak warned her.
Ridout had been associated with the EIS for too many years not to guess where this was leading. Novak stole a glance at his face and saw a man already mourning his niece’s untimely demise.
“My job is risky, and half the time there’s no reward. This risk will be worthwhile,” she said.
“All right. I’ll need several days to figure out the logistics and get back to you. Acceptable?”
A beat, then, “Acceptable. Make it happen and we’ve got a deal.”
“Good. Now I have a question for you, and I need an honest answer, please. Have you spoken to anyone besides Chief Ridout about your research or about Daisy Hub?”
“No.”
“You’re certain that there’s no one who might disbelieve a cover story and follow you there?”
Her lips pressed tightly together, she gave her head an emphatic shake. “No one.”
“In that case, you’d better put in for some leave time, Regional Officer Bauer. And don’t speak of this meeting to anyone. One way or another, you’ll be leaving Earth before the end of the month.”
She squared her shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Novak.”
He nodded stiffly in acknowledgment.
As they watched her stride through the door to the anteroom, Ridout murmured, “She won’t be coming back, will she?”
The short answer to that was no, she wouldn’t. Novak was sending her on a one-way journey. But Daisy Hub was nearly two weeks’ travel time from Earth. A lot could change in two weeks, and strange things were known to happen in space. And Novak’s gut was telling him that when it involved a member of Ridout’s family, the unvarnished truth might be more than even a staunchly loyal ally ought to know.
“She might. She’s her father’s daughter, so anything’s possible, Chief. But I can tell you this much for certain: if she does come back, it won’t be as Irene Bauer.” Noticing the other man’s startled expression, Novak couldn’t resist adding, “What? You figured I would order her termination out of hand?”
“I thought it was standard procedure.”
“For Dennis Forrand, maybe. Not for me.”
Ridout pulled himself erect and narrowed his gaze. “Forrand recruited and trained you, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t entirely believe anything you say.”
“To be honest, I’d be disappointed if you did, Chief.”
With that, Novak wheeled and left the room. He had transportation arrangements to make, and a lengthy video recording to watch. And then, considering the nature of the company he owned, it appeared that he had a rather embarrassing security breach to track down.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Doomsday minus 525 Earth days.
The air in Juno Vargas’s clean room was a little on the chilly side, Novak thought. “Well, now we know why Ellenshaw didn’t give you any advance warning of this meeting,” he remarked. “She had none herself.”
“So she says.” Juno swallowed a mouthful of Darjeeling tea and replaced her half-empty cup on the tray. “Did you watch the vid all the way to the end?”
“I did.”
“And do I want to know why Flag Admiral Wickes was not present at this meeting?”
“Oh, did I forget to tell you? He received a top secret encrypted message and checked out of his hotel about five days ago. Went directly to the airfield to catch a shuttle. He’s halfway to Sector Five by now. Some sort of undercover mission for Space Installation Security.”
Her eyes widened. “Really! And will he be returning from this mission?”
“I would say that depends on him.”
“Fair enough. So, what are your impressions of this Doctor Dermot Rhodes who demanded and got an immediate audience with the Earth High Council?”
“Do I believe he’s telling the truth about being tapped by the Stragori to act as liaison between the Council and the Directorate during Earth’s planetary crisis? Yes, I do. His biocreds, not so much. I’m betting that his name appears on your list of Stragori infiltrators.”
Her response to that was a smile. “What about the offer he brought?” she asked. She pulled a compupad from her pocket and read from the screen. “A fleet of Gate-enabled ships, including an indeterminate number of cargo carriers borrowed from the Nandrians, with the first wave of alien vessels arriving in about eleven Earth days…”
“…with enough strings dangling from them to tie every refugee up in a paper-wrapped parcel? That offer?”
“I gather you’re not impressed by their generosity,” she remarked placidly before taking another sip of her tea.
“How did the Stragori find out we were in trouble? More to the point, why didn’t any of the High Councilors ask Rhodes that question?”
“Evidently, the Directorate was informed about our problem by the moderate you sent to Daisy Hub,” she told him. “As for the Councilors…” Her voice trailed off.
“Exactly. The High Council is in panic mode. Any knight on a white charger will do, and never mind the details.”
She gave him a knowing look. “So now you’re the one distrusting the aliens?”
“Not the aliens — the Council. They needed to ask questions and they didn’t.”
“Flag Admiral Wickes would have had plenty of questions,” she pointed out.
“Right.” Novak deepened his voice in a parody of importance. “How many warships are you going to send us for the battle? What kind of military support can you supply if Earth itself comes under attack? What good are you if you’re not going to help us defend ourselves?”
In his own voice, he continued, “I crunched some numbers last night. Assuming Rhodes is not overstating the passenger capacity of each type of alien vessel, our Fleet plus theirs can evacuate sixty million Humans in less than eighteen months. That amounts to nearly the entire Eligible population of Earth. It’s a powerful incentive for the Council to accept the Directorate’s offer, in spite of all the conditions attached to it.”
Juno sat back and tilted her head. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that too, and about how it might help the labor action. Consider these numbers: If the Council votes to accept the Stragori proposal, their ships will begin reporting to Earth’s nearest transfer points in eleven Earth days. The general strike starts tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. our time. Ten days after that, all the Ineligibles who are able to make the long march will have gathered in and around the urban districts.
“There are thirty-five urban districts on the planet, and each one will be crammed with Humans, right up to the edge of The Flats. Every thoroughfare will be clogged. Movement of traffic will be impossible. It won’t matter how many ships are available to evacuate the population if no one is able to get to the airfield to board them. The High Council will therefore have no choice but to settle the strike as quickly as possible.”
Novak almost hated to burst her bubble, but the words needed to be said.
“All right, Juno, let’s talk about the Council’s choices for a minute. You told me that you’ve promised to keep things peaceful. Have they? What if they choose to settle the strike with violence? Or what if they simply choose to ignore it? What if they’ve figured out your game plan and they choose to keep the access routes to the airfield open with security barriers protected by armed guards?
“For that matter, how certain are you that the Council will accept the conditions Rhodes has laid out? Earth for Terrans has stirred up a lot of xenophobia, and one of those strings involved setting up a permanent Human colony on Stragon.
“Even I can see that the Stragori have an agenda. The Directorate wants immigrants who will make a new home for themselves and then fight on the side of the moderate faction that made it possible. That’s why the evacuation offer excludes unattached adults without children — a single person can simply say, ‘Thanks for the ride,’ and go somewhere else.”
“Give me some credit, Barry. Of course, they have an agenda. So do we. So does every member of the High Council. Nobody on this planet wants to see Humanity beholden to an alien government. However, in this case, the alternative is much worse. Look, it may not be everything we want, but at least the Stragori plan gets the evacuation rolling and buys us some time to figure out our next move.”
Novak recognized the reasoning and couldn’t dispute it. He’d said the same thing using different words to Nayo Naguchi a couple of weeks earlier. Now he found himself repeating Nayo’s frustrated response:
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Madame Vargas.”
“I know you do. And this is why Dennis Forrand put me in charge of Intelligence, because one of us needs to be able to see a compromise as an opportunity rather than a setback.”
Novak went quiet as he recalled something he’d read once, about the method used by primitive Humans to string rope bridges across gorges. It required two teams, one on each side of the gap. The bridge would be firmly attached on one side, and then that team would fire arrows across the gorge, each with a slender line attached. The other team would start pulling on the lines, which were attached to much heavier lines, which were ultimately connected to the loose end of the bridge; and in this way, the second team were able to draw the bridge toward them and fasten it down, spanning the full width of the gorge.
That was what the High Council was doing now — helping the Directorate to string a bridge across the chasm between two worlds. Each Stragori ship was an arrow. And whether this compromise proved to be an opportunity or a setback for Earth, only time would tell.
—— «» ——
The High Councilors had been doing the math as well. When they realized that accepting the Stragori offer meant that all the Eligibles on Earth could now be saved, the Councilors wasted no further time assembling an evacuation plan.
To preserve the illusion that people were being posted to colonies off-world, relocation notices would continue to be delivered in the customary way and recipients would be given the usual amount of time to pack for the space voyage. Hundreds of notices would be going out at a time, however, in every urban district on the planet. Because that high a volume might arouse suspicion, a series of InfoComm ads would need to be published, announcing the acceleration of the colonization program. There would be waves of emigrants traveling to each of Earth’s remaining colonies. Who would be going where and in which wave would be left to the Relocation Authority to sort out. Meanwhile, the High Council turned its attention to the logistics of setting up vaccination sites and transportation for the preferred evacuees — the ones the Council was determined not to send to Stragon.
In Congoville, a top secret, highest priority report from Sector Five, filed three days earlier with Space Installation Security, had just landed in the inbox of Admiral Monica Jacobi at Fleet Command. It was late in the day. She was the only one left in the office, and her wife was waiting dinner for her at home. She decided this report could keep until the following morning.
—— «» ——
Doomsday minus 524 Earth days.
The strike had been well organized, if Juno did say so herself. Fourteen days’ notice had given the Ineligibles in the Industrial Zones sufficient time to inventory and allocate their resources, bartering their surplus for supplies from other districts. As Angeli had predicted, sympathetic drivers of cargo carriers and MPVs already in the Zones had facilitated the process by allowing their vehicles to be commandeered, not only for the transportation of goods but also to reunite families that the Relocation Authority had split up with different work assignments. Now more than ever, for a reason that none of them could know yet, it was important for families to stand together.
Angeli’s daily reports had been encouraging. However, this labor action was about to unfetter a great deal of anger. Anger sitting idle was an invitation to violence, and violence was something Juno needed to avoid. That was why the workers had been instructed to march — not ride — to the nearest government building in a show of solidarity. As a bonus, the longer travel time would also give the various district councils a chance to prepare for the demonstrators’ arrival.
Focused on the evacuation effort, the High Council didn’t realize what else was coming their way. Not until Juno activated the next step in the Reformation.
She timed it carefully, waiting in her office on the fifth floor until Ridout alerted her that the Supreme Adjudicators had reconvened to vote on the Stragori proposal. Then she moved her vigil to the anteroom of the High Council chambers, on the top floor of the building. Once Dr. Rhodes had departed with the Councilors’ decision, Juno forced her way into the meeting and insisted on addressing the Council.
“This had better be important,” warned Patricia Chen. “We’re formulating strategy to deal with a global issue right now and don’t need any distractions.”
“What I have to tell you will have global ramifications as well,” Juno assured them. “I received a message earlier today that you all need to hear.” She pulled out her compupad and scrolled to the relevant text, then read: “This is to inform you that as of noon Greenwich Mean Time today, April 11th, 2401 C.E., every Ineligible worker on Earth is on strike. We are doing this to protest the general disrespect and lack of services and opportunities we have had to put up with for so many years, and to back up our demand that the labeling of Earth’s citizens as Eligible or Ineligible must stop immediately.
“To demonstrate how serious we are, and how united we are in our determination to end this discriminatory practice by the Relocation Authority, we are not only walking off the job. We are also marching to the nearest urban district to present our complaints to the highest ranking officials we can find there. The Relocation Authority can no longer be allowed to compromise Humanity’s future by denying the majority of us the freedom and ability to choose how we can contribute to the advancement of our world and our race.
“Be advised that this is a peaceful demonstration of solidarity. It is not our intention to commit acts of violence or to damage or destroy property. However, we will be heard, and we will not be bullied back into silence. If violence is directed against us, we will be forced to respond to it. Therefore, in the interests of reaching a speedy and satisfactory resolution to this situation, we ask that you pass along this message as soon as possible to the Regional and High Councils.”
Juno looked up and saw five faces frozen in open-mouthed shock. “I don’t think these people are going to tolerate being put off,” she concluded mildly, slipping the compupad back into her pocket. “I’ve checked with the Chief Adjudicators of the other six urban districts in Americas, and each of them received this same message. So, I think it’s safe to say that every urban district in the other four political unions will soon find themselves under siege as well.”
Rhys Amis was the first to find his voice. “This has to be a hoax!”
“With respect, Mister Supreme Adjudicator, do you really want to take that chance?” Juno told him.
“I don’t care about the other urban districts. We can’t let a mob gather here while the High Council is in session,” Chen declared. “It would be chaos. I move that we call in Planetary and Regional Security to establish a perimeter around New Chicago, and authorize them to use force of arms if necessary to halt this march and send everyone back where they came from.”
“And I think that would be an extremely short-sighted thing to do!” Juno broke in before anyone could second the motion.
Chen drew back as though avoiding a physical blow. “Excuse me? You forget who you’re talking to, Madame Chief Adjudicator.”
Juno threw a significant glance at Ellenshaw. The older woman was slowly shaking her head.
“I’m afraid I must agree with Madame Vargas on this point,” said Ellenshaw, rising to her feet. “It isn’t a civil war yet, but what you’re proposing would turn it into one. Armed officers would be seen as a provocation to violence. And let’s be realistic here — the Eligibles are such a small minority that they wouldn’t stand a chance of coming out of it in one piece.”
“Then what would you suggest, Lynette?” Rhys Amis chimed in, adding, “We can’t just turn the district over to them.”
“I’m so glad you mentioned that, Mister Supreme Adjudicator,” Juno remarked, “because I have an idea that might solve this problem in a peaceful, speedy, and satisfactory way.”
—— «» ——
Walking briskly, Juno Vargas returned to the District Council offices one hour later.
“You did it?” said Angeli, following her through the door of her private office.
Juno dropped onto her chair and swiveled it back and forth a couple of times. “They listened. More than that I cannot say for sure. Meanwhile, we’re going to proceed on the assumption that every urban district will be following the recommendations we transmitted to the Chief Adjudicators two weeks ago. How are the arrangements coming for New Chicago?”
Angeli consulted her compupad. “The Ineligibles are already on the move, and the first wave of marchers should be arriving at our greenbelt in about four days. I’ve given priority to locating every portable hygiene cabinet and water tanker in the district. It will be tight, but I think we’ll have enough to serve everyone’s needs. And I’m implementing your revised plan to feed the marchers. It won’t win us any popularity contests with the local residents,” she warned.
