Here We Stand, page 48
“I’m sorry, Howie. I honestly didn’t expect things to turn out the way they did in Fiji. You can say no about Ingram and that’ll be fine.”
“Is she going to live with us?”
Marc had brought this on himself again. He’d given Howie the casting vote but Ingram had somehow brought him back to some semblance of being alive. It was a case of his needs or Howie’s. He’d hoped Ingram would be good for both of them.
“Only if you want her to,” he said. “It’s not like she’s miles away, so we see each other all the time anyway. But you were here first, which is why I’m asking.”
Howie did an indignant humph. “I’m not a little kid. You want her to live here and you’ll get married.”
Marc had no idea what to say. He didn’t want to make Howie feel pressured into agreeing to it when the kid was still raw about what he’d lost and afraid of what he could still lose. He’d had this thing about living on his own because he didn’t want a substitute family, so just sharing space with Marc must have taken an effort. Now he might think he was having a replacement mum foisted on him.
“You don’t have to decide now.”
“It’s okay.” Howie gave him that worryingly adult look, the forty-year-old who wished he hadn’t seen it all. “But she’s got to do chores just like us.”
“Damn straight,” Marc said. “No pulling rank.”
“You’ll be happy, and she won’t have to live in her office.”
“That’s the general idea. Maybe we’ll all be happy.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve still got a veto, though.”
“What’s a veto?”
“The right to say no.”
“Okay. I’m not saying no.”
Marc had started to remember how kids could do an about-turn like that in an instant. “See you later, then,” he said. “Remember — any problems, you call me.”
Marc set off down the road, past the Kill Line town sign with its cheery threat of a round through the windscreen if drivers failed to halt, and headed south across the green towards the cluster of admin offices and communal areas that had been collectively dubbed the Main Building, as sure a sign of a British defence presence as a Union Jack. There was usually a Main Building or a COB — Central Office Block — in MoD establishments, stark and literal names often reduced to an acronym that civvies imagined stood for something much more exciting.
Would the Yanks really be pissed off if a British mission showed up? The way Ingram worried about their sensitivities made it sound like an invasion fleet. Maybe she’d picked up something Marc hadn’t. There was going to be a lot of muttering about sending Elcano back, though, and it was just going to add more heat to the resentment about the Fiji trip. There’d be even more of a general huff when Ingram moved in with him.
He had to walk the full width of the green and pass between some workshops and the helicopter pad to get to the main building. On his left, the old accommodation block that had been vacated when the houses were built was still being converted to other uses, including the new restaurant and a small cinema, a sure sign that people had had enough of leisure time spent at home and needed places to socialise that didn’t involve bathtub gin. Marc slowed to look at the progress as he walked by. A couple of the Ainatio blokes were wheeling seats into the unit earmarked for the cinema and he waved to them, but he just got an indifferent glance and a nod.
So he was still the bad guy, then. Well, sod them. He carried on to the supply warehouse to pick out the grocery order, got the bot on duty to put the box in the cold store until he came back to collect it, and headed to the security office. Ingram was waiting for him, sitting on one of the desks and swinging her legs. The office was empty for a change.
“I stood Simonot down,” she said. “Sol’s ready to set up the call. Anything I need to know before we start?”
Marc hesitated, but there were no secrets to be kept from Solomon.
“Howie says you can move in,” he said. “But he expects you to do your share of the housework.”
Ingram stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, bless. I admit I was worried he wasn’t ready for it.”
Marc had been so concerned about Howie’s reaction that he hadn’t given enough thought to how Ingram was going to fit in. He’d made a lot of assumptions because he wanted a woman around the place again, but he was no better prepared for it than Howie was. Ingram wasn’t the kind of woman who’d see his scale of existence as normal. She’d been used to a grand house with lots of room to get away from family members when she wanted her space. Living in a tin box of a cabin on board ship was one thing, but the captain’s quarters were a throne room, a place where the lower ranks had to seek audience even if the place wasn’t big enough to swing a hamster. An ordinary house with a kid, a grumpy bloke, a part-time dog, and nowhere to escape from them other than going outside might wear her down in the end.
“Are you ready for it?” Marc asked.
“The housework?”
“Enforced close quarters.”
“Can’t be any more cramped than a patrol vessel. Are you having regrets? I realise this has been hasty.”
“Fear of failure more than anything.”
“Let’s see how it goes.”
“I’m doing a roast chicken for lunch. You in?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, that’s another thing off my list. So I’ll check in on Tev, get Lawson over and done with, and then we’re as back to normal as we’re ever going to be.”
“You forgot to add Barry Cho.”
“Ah, yeah. That’s if Lawson can get me some intel.”
It was time to change the subject. Ingram wasn’t keen on the idea of him springing Cho from prison, and it wasn’t without its difficulties, the biggest of which was concealing the use of the gate. But she wouldn’t stop him doing it. She knew why he had to. It was why he hadn’t promised Howie that he wouldn’t take on any more risky missions.
“Okay, Sol, let’s do this.” Marc settled down at one of the desks and laid out his notes in front of him. “Ready when you are.”
It would be Sunday lunchtime in England. Lawson didn’t know when to expect a call so Marc hoped he hadn’t gone down the pub.
“Sorry to intrude on your Sunday, Guy,” Marc said. “I’ve got some information for you. Is there anyone with you?”
“No, I always take your calls privately,” Lawson said.
“Good, because what I’m going to say probably needs some pre-digestion before anyone else hears it.” Marc wondered why Lawson hadn’t used a video link yet, but the reason was probably the same as his. Both would reveal too much going on in their respective backgrounds. “And you still want to know whose technology you’ve got, yeah?”
“If I may,” Lawson said.
“Okay.” Marc shut his eyes. He knew he was going to hear himself say the word aloud and cringe as he said it. “It belongs to aliens. I say again, aliens.”
Lawson’s pause was very much longer. Marc waited patiently.
“I know you wouldn’t joke about this,” Lawson said at last.
“No. I definitely wouldn’t.”
“Good grief.”
“We found them here and got quite chummy. It’s not their homeworld, though.”
“You’ve actually made first contact.”
Lawson had always seemed an unflappable bloke but there was a hint of dread in his voice. It probably wasn’t just about the existence of extraterrestrials. He was probably already worrying how he’d eventually explain this to a politician and what would happen when he did.
“Yeah, Chief Petty Officer Aiken proved they were intelligent and taught them English,” Marc said. “They talk like professors now and they live on the base. So forget all the protocols and experts. It’s done.”
“All this in a few months.”
“Yep. But there’s a lot more, so brace yourself and take notes.”
“Oh, I’m braced,” Lawson said. It sounded as if he paused to take a sip of something. “Fire away.”
Marc stuck to his notes to make sure he didn’t overlook anything important or invite awkward questions about suspiciously short time intervals.
“It’s a lot more complicated than just one alien species,” he said. “We’ve got at least five intelligent, technologically superior, and well-armed civilisations in the sector. The ones here with us, the teeriks, are on the run with a stolen warship. The aliens who own the ship are the Kugin — militarised, big empire, short tempers — and the Jattans, a sort of Kugin client state, and they’re both hunting for it. The Jattans are also about to have a civil war, and one of the rebels turned up here to seize the warship for the cause. Final score — one dead Cabot scientist, one dead teerik, although not one of our guys, and one dead Jattan rebel. We’re currently spying on the official Jattans for our own safety, and the Jattan opposition is trying to make contact. Oh, and the bloke you spoke to, the one who sent you the plans — that’s Fred, or at least that’s what we call him, because we can’t pronounce his real name properly. He’s a teerik. A giant sentient crow.”
It was probably the most crucial sitrep any bloke had ever delivered. Marc could have recapped further back in the timeline and told Lawson he was right to suspect Ainatio carried out the cyberattack on APS, but he probably knew anyway. And during the understandable stunned silence that followed, Marc felt wonderfully free, almost euphoric. He wasn’t sure whether hearing himself summarise it in all its terrifying clusterfuckery had made him realise how amazing the universe was, or if he was just relieved to offload the shock news onto someone else. But either way he felt cleansed.
He looked up at Ingram, who was slowly pacing the floor like it was Victory’s foredeck. She put her hand on his shoulder and just nodded. Yes, he’d done his duty. He could relax a bit now.
Lawson found his voice again. It was probably only ten or fifteen seconds of silence, but that was a long time to wait for someone to start screaming.
He didn’t, of course. He could give Chris a run for his money when it came to deadpanning.
“Oh my, oh my, oh my,” he said quietly. “I’ll be frank, Marc. After the dire warnings from Captain Ingram about the nature of the intel, my worst case scenario after a whisky or two was either that you’d stolen the technology from APS, or you’d found the legacy of a long-dead alien civilisation on Opis and raided their archives, in the finest traditions of popular cinema. I wasn’t expecting this level of complexity.”
“Just tell me you believe what I’ve told you.”
“Oh, I do.”
“Now for the detail,” Marc said. “The teeriks are effectively top-tier slave labour. They’re rocket scientists owned by the state of Kugad. They escaped and hijacked the warship they were working on, but as far as we know, the Kugin and the official Jattan government don’t know we’re here or where the ship is. But the rebels probably do, or at least one of their operatives did before we shot him. They’ve got good reasons not to tell anyone else, though.”
Lawson let out a breath. “Do you have the warship?”
“We do. It’s not as much use to us as it looks, though.”
“And you’re harbouring what the major powers in the area would consider criminals — runaway slaves, hijackers — and in possession of their classified information.”
“Not intentionally, but we didn’t call them and offer to hand back their property, either.”
“Is it feasible for you to communicate with them? Linguistically, I mean.”
“Oh yeah. Our AI’s getting up to speed with the various languages and the teeriks do translation for us. We just decided against it for the time being.”
“I realise circumstances left you no choice, Marc, but you do seem somewhat embedded in the politics of the region already,” Lawson said.
“This is why I said you won’t want to rush out here anytime soon. Look, you’ll have boffins and all sorts wetting themselves to make contact with the aliens, but this isn’t the time or the place for a zoological expedition or a trade mission. We’re probably in the run-up to a shooting war and there’s nothing you can do for us except stay away, build a ship or two, and not reveal Earth’s position.”
Marc meant that. It was a worst scenario assessment, and he knew he was probably pushing it to ward off early visits, but if anyone got over-ambitious and tried to make direct radio contact with any of the aliens, it was probably more likely to end in tears. They had all the information they needed to build FTL comms right away, even if a full-on ship would take some time. It was a real possibility they’d do the dumbest thing.
“That’s rather sobering.” Lawson probably used the same tone to his kids when they brought home disappointing school reports. “You said you were still able to evacuate, though. The offer of resettlement stands. I realise you’re reluctant to abandon a mission of that magnitude, but it hasn’t exactly been a wasted effort given the technology you’ve acquired.”
And there was the open door. Lawson was all teed up for being asked to take Elcano. Marc approached it slowly and carefully.
“Well, thank you, we’re grateful for the offer,” he said. “Most of the population are civvies who didn’t have much choice about being here, although they want to stay, but they’re the reason we’re not inviting you in. If it was just us military volunteers, we’d probably be hooking up for some co-operative projects or whatever the politicos call it these days. But we’re a self-defence force and we’ve got to do what’s right for the civvies.”
“I understand.”
“Opis isn’t the only habitable planet, either. We can give you data on other worlds, courtesy of the teeriks.”
“I still think you should evacuate and rethink all this,” Lawson said. “I found some of Tadeusz Bednarz’s papers on the establishment of colonies, by the way, so I realise you’ve probably got a substantial settlement now and don’t want to abandon a century of work.”
“Yeah, it’s a complete small town,” Marc said. “A shop, church, labs, factories, bars, hospital, school. No, we don’t want to leave it, at least not without putting up a fight.”
Marc fought the urge to offer to send Lawson some images. It wasn’t nice holiday snaps he wanted to show the lads in the pub, and he knew damn well what would happen to any material Nomad transmitted. Images would be pored over in microscopic detail by analysts. There’d be boffins working out precise positions and digging out astronomical data on Opis and Pascoe’s Star to assess the composition of the planet. There’d be generals and admirals extrapolating from the teeriks’ engineering plans to work out how aliens might be armed. And the politicians would be arguing about who should be told, and when, and how. It was all the shit Marc had left behind and he didn’t envy Lawson one bit.
“Extraordinary,” Lawson said. “I understand the need for people to make a go of the colony. It’s the biggest test in history for the future of our species since the Toba eruption. But I do urge caution. Nobody will think the less of you all for it.”
“I can only look out for the guy next to me,” Marc said. “But there is something you could do for us.”
“Of course.”
“We’ve got one thousand and thirty-two passengers in Elcano stuck in cryo, including two hundred and forty-nine children. We could move her, but it might be better to send her back to Earth and revive everyone.”
“I’m certain we could accommodate that,” Lawson said.
“The adults are mostly the scientists you thought you might find quite handy.” Marc looked at Ingram for a reaction. She was just leaning against the wall with her arms folded, nodding approval. “They’ll be disappointed when they realise they never set foot on Opis, but they didn’t volunteer either. We can bring them back if they still want to return after we tell them about the aliens. They don’t know about them.”
“Elcano didn’t start out with FTL,” Lawson said. “We’re not talking about them arriving here in forty-five years’ time, are we? Forgive me if I’m confused by all this.”
Ingram narrowed her eyes. Shock hadn’t confused Lawson one bit. Marc had the Elcano complication on his Q and A list under If Pressed.
“No, our alien allies recovered her and two others en route. That covers your time discrepancy. They’re busy upgrading all our vessels.”
“Good grief. What do they want in exchange for that?”
“Ration bars.”
“Sorry?”
“They were starving. Ingram used some soft power on them and now we feed and house them. She’s played a blinder, actually. Give her some credit.” Marc glanced at her just to give her a nod, but she frowned at him. Protection, she mouthed. Marc took the hint. “And they need someone to defend them when the Kugin show up. Teeriks are brilliant at engineering but apparently crap at self-defence.”
“Will data be available?”
“What kind of data?”
“About your various aliens.”
“We don’t have much yet. We’re working on it. Anyway, here’s the deal. On top of the FTL stuff, you get extraordinary technology, including Ainatio’s base-building know-how, and data on other habitable planets with lots of lovely minerals and stuff. In exchange, you stand back and let us sort out Opis ourselves. I know that’s a big ask, but we blundered in and now we’re stuck with the consequences. If you blunder in as well, it might well kick off a disaster for Earth, and we’ve got to keep the Americans on side. They’re the majority here and we’ll be relying on them to survive.”
