Here we stand, p.51
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Here We Stand, page 51

 

Here We Stand
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  Ingram kept forgetting that. Alex had kept Ainatio’s massive deception quiet for years. He knew exactly what had happened and what was planned. So did Solomon, of course, but for some reason she couldn’t be angry with either of them or even mistrust them. She blamed the company. But holding abstract things responsible for actions that only individuals could have taken was a way of avoiding confronting guilty people who had names and faces, so at some level she probably blamed Erskine, who didn’t seem to have had any more choice about maintaining the blackout than Ingram had. Everyone who was truly guilty was long dead. It made any attempt at revenge deeply unsatisfying.

  “Whatever you say, Dan, it isn’t going to change things,” Ingram said. “They’re just feeling hard done by. We all do sometimes.”

  Trinder lowered his voice to a whisper. “They’re stir-crazy, they’re scared, and they haven’t forgotten we treated them like terror suspects. Then we ship their buddies home and bring Tev back from Earth. We’ve done it for good reasons, but it doesn’t look like that.”

  “You left out sharing teerik tech with Britain. The icing on the cake.”

  Trinder looked even more grim. “And no Marc?”

  “He’s talking to Tev. Do we need to interrupt him?”

  “I’d hate for you to be the lone Brit in there.”

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it? Right.”

  Trinder paused for a moment as if he was working out another way to put it to her. “That’s why I want to handle this. Head it off at the pass.”

  “Let’s see how things go.”

  Ingram followed him into the club. The room was too small to feel like anything other than a bear pit. The Ainatio delegation was clustered around Alex, twenty or so people, and she was surprised by who’d turned up. Paul Cotton was predictable, but she hadn’t expected to see Kurt Tomlinson and Todd Mangel. The rest were just faces she recognised from Biomed, Engineering, and the plant labs, but didn’t know well enough to judge.

  Chris was already there, leaning against the windowsill next to the tables, arms folded, as if he was distancing himself from the debate but standing ready to break up brawls. The group looked up with grunts and nods. Mangel put down a half-eaten taco to pull out a chair for her.

  “Don’t mind me, Captain,” he said. “I’m not part of this. I just wandered across to tell the others to stop being dicks.”

  Alex looked tired, as if he’d already had the argument and lost it. “We’ve been discussing why the Elcano folks will be better off in Britain,” he said.

  “You have,” Paul said. “We were just listening and asking why.”

  Trinder dived in. “Guys, I asked for the Brits to take her. And even if it had been feasible to revive everyone a couple of months ago, I’d still have been arguing for the kids to be evacuated with their parents.”

  “Your idea, then,” Tomlinson said.

  “I admit it was a mistake to move her out here, but that was when APS was more of a threat than aliens.”

  Chris raised a forefinger. “No, I suggested bringing the ship here.” It sounded more like an attempt to stop Trinder blaming himself for everything again rather than a claim of prior art. “But yeah, it sucks, now so we need to do something different.”

  Tomlinson carried on, still focused on Trinder. “You didn’t ask for Kill Line’s kids to be shipped out.”

  “That’s because their parents know the score, they want to stay here, and it’s their call,” Trinder said. “And if they change their minds, we can still evacuate them. But we have to take the decisions for people who don’t even know hostile aliens exist yet.”

  “Why now? And why not revive them and ask them?”

  “Because Marc’s government contact knows about everything except the Caisin gate, so we no longer have a reason not to send the ship home for a while. But we do have a reason to minimise the information the Elcano people might accidentally reveal.” Trinder was doing a pretty good job of sounding wearily patient, as if he thought they should have worked all this out by now. “If they’re going back, it’s best if they only know what Lawson knows. We’ll revive them in Earth orbit. If it gets kinetic out here, we’ll never forgive ourselves if the ship’s hit. I’d rather inconvenience people for a while than bury them forever.”

  “I thought the point of the gate was that it could move ships anywhere at a moment’s notice,” Tomlinson said.

  “It can, but we’d be parking Elcano in some temporary holding position. We’d have to bring the ship back at some point, so unless we find a way to deal with the aliens long-term, there’d still be a risk of an imminent attack.”

  “So you know we’re expecting trouble.”

  “No, we don’t. We have no idea. But if it happens, we deal with it, and we minimise whatever risks we can beforehand. We can’t build a cryo facility down here and complete the defences, but being in cryo makes them vulnerable anywhere.”

  Ingram cut in. “Come on, chaps. What’s this really about? I can understand you’re upset that your friends are stuck in limbo. But the situation keeps changing and we have to change with it.”

  She’d already decided she didn’t like Paul, so his dissent was easier to take than Tomlinson’s. But as someone who’d gone out of her way to volunteer for the mission, she was supposed to understand the concerns of those who’d been bounced into it with little warning. Chris, who’d had a minor spat with Paul during the evacuation, watched the man with his distracted vicar expression, which probably meant he was working out the most efficient way to remove him from the gene pool without staining the faux terrazzo floor.

  “Okay, I’m the bad guy, so I’m going to say what’s on a lot of folks’ minds.” Paul wasn’t unaware of what people thought of him, then. “You start by taking extreme security precautions back at Ainatio Park during the evacuation. You don’t tell us about the gate — or the aliens — until we drive straight through it and find ourselves on Opis. Then nobody’s allowed to contact Earth, again for security reasons, because it would be the end of civilisation as we know it if Earth realised we’ve got this alien technology. Just finding out that aliens exist would cause riots in the streets. So we watch the news, see one of our colleagues sabotaging everything we worked for and hastening the end for Earth, and there’s nothing we can do to help — because we’ve got to stay silent about what we’ve discovered. And we can’t revive our colleagues in Elcano because we don’t have enough food yet to buffer us against a couple of failed harvests, even though we’re not exactly starving. Then out of the blue, after all that secrecy, Fred decides to contact Britain and send the government his how-to guide for building an FTL vessel. Then, also out of the blue, you decide to send Elcano home, with the last legitimate CEO of Ainatio on board. Then Marc goes back to Earth to retrieve Tev, despite the fact nobody else is even allowed to contact home. Call me paranoid, Captain, but that sounds like a coup to me. Nomad will be under British control.”

  He looked at Ingram with real anger, his clenched jaw moving slightly behind compressed lips as if he was chewing something and hoping nobody noticed. He genuinely believed his theory. Ingram debated whether to go for the jugular or just correct him like a kind aunt, but either way, she had to knock this firmly on the head before things escalated.

  “Paul, if this had been an actual coup, you wouldn’t even be here,” she said. “Nor would the Kill Liners. Once we’d found out about the Caisin gate, I’d have worked out if I needed anyone from Ainatio who I couldn’t replace with British personnel, and that answer might have been nobody, in which case you’d never have known about teeriks or the existence of any of this technology. Then I’d have used the gate to bring in British forces and a support team. Now that’s a proper coup. I wouldn’t have turned this base upside down to accommodate you all overnight, and if I had any misgivings about Erskine arriving a few decades down the road, I could have destroyed Elcano as soon as she came within missile range and nobody would have known or cared. But you’re all here because I and my crew honoured our contracts with a dead corporation because it was the right thing to do.”

  Paul didn’t look remotely chastened by Ingram’s counterattack. “But you regret it now. Or your government does. So Georgina Erskine needs to be removed from the picture.”

  “Why would anyone need to overthrow Erskine?” Ingram asked. “Do you really think we’d feel so threatened by an elderly woman that we’d go to all this trouble to get rid of her? Solomon could just sabotage her cryo berth, and I suspect he feels he has cause. And she can be as furious as she likes when she wakes up, but she’s not a military force, and we are. Besides, the last legitimate CEO of Ainatio was Alex. He stayed at his post. She didn’t.”

  Ingram sat back, satisfied she’d made the point. She would never normally belittle someone in front of their colleagues if they were simply wrong, but she knew the slightest concession would provoke Paul like blood in the water. The darker part of her, the Ingram who wouldn’t delay an attack by so much as a minute because she’d given the enemy a deadline to evacuate its non-combatants, wondered why she hadn’t carried out that coup in the first place, because it was true. Nobody was left to care if Ainatio lost Nomad. The company didn’t exist. Even its country was gone. But she was always so bloody proper, and conscious of the Royal Navy’s honour and her country’s reputation. One day that wasn’t going to be enough reason to hold her back.

  “I’m sorry, this is all wrong,” Paul said, shaking his head. “We want everyone in Elcano revived now. We’re not short of food. We tell them everything that’s happened so they can decide whether they go back to Earth or not.”

  It wasn’t a new argument. It had started as soon as Elcano had reached Opis orbit. So had the counterargument, the one with numbers and yield projections and nutritional requirements that said the base might be able to feed all the extra mouths that had arrived forty-five years early if nothing went wrong and if everybody accepted rationing. They didn’t have to test that gamble if the ship was sleeping in orbit, and the passengers hadn’t expected to wake for decades anyway.

  Everybody accepted Andy Braithwaite’s revised calculations because the man knew his stuff. Nothing had changed since then.

  “And I’m sorry, too, Paul, because it’s not up for debate,” Ingram said. “We can’t revive them yet, and I’m erring on the side of safety because the Jattans sent a probe to scope us out and then they’ll show up in person.”

  Paul didn’t deviate. “My colleagues deserve to be allowed to decide for themselves.”

  “If we tell them the full story, then none of them can go back to Earth,” Ingram said, painfully aware that she’d already exempted Tev and his family from that rule. “It’s the risk of accidentally mentioning the Caisin gate.”

  “We’re not all like Abbie.”

  “I did say accidentally.”

  Paul still kept shaking his head. “If you’re going to tell them the redacted version when they get to Earth, you can tell them the redacted version now. But you’d be okay with evacuating Kill Line kids to Earth despite the fact they know all about the gate. Forgive me pointing out your inconsistencies.”

  “And what about the food situation?”

  “What about Britain?” Paul spread his hands. “They’ve got food. This Lawson guy has seen data showing the round trip only takes weeks with regular teerik FTL, so why can’t we ship in extra supplies when we need them? That’s not a secret now.”

  “Sorry, I thought I was the one staging this coup.”

  “You can’t justify anything you’re doing, Captain.”

  “Paul, listen to yourself,” Ingram said. “You want to invite the British government to Opis to deliver groceries. If you’re really worried about perfidious Albion seizing control, you’ve just made Nomad dependent on British logistics and there’ll be a military presence to make it happen, because it’s humanitarian aid. Congratulations. You’ve opened the gates and asked them if they’ve got a big wooden horsey thing they’d like to wheel in.”

  Nobody else said a word. Chris looked as impassive as ever, but he was tapping out something on his pocket screen.

  “Captain, if we revive people and the food situation gets difficult, we can evacuate them to Earth or exchange some raw materials for supplies,” Paul said. “I don’t think the gate’s that big a deal now, to be honest. It’s just a refinement of the big prize that Britain’s already got — a proper FTL drive. So even with the threat of attack, we have the wherewithal to do this the right way. We have a back-up plan for food. If anyone wants to stay, we know support from Earth is feasible. And we have other things Britain probably wants, like raw materials.”

  “I think you’re forgetting why we’re doing this to start with,” Ingram said. “Aliens. They’ve found us. If one lot can find us twice, so can the others. They could be on their way now.”

  “And then again, they might not. But if they are, then what makes you think Earth’s safer? If the teeriks could locate it, maybe everyone else can too.”

  Chris finally joined in. “Dr Cotton, why do you think the Caisin gate isn’t a big deal?”

  Paul shrugged. “I think you’re placing too much emphasis on the impact it’ll have. There’s not much difference between instant and very fast.”

  “Spoken like a botanist,” Chris said.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If you did my job, you’d understand the value of a split second, and why the Caisin gate’s the holy grail of warfare. As soon as someone finds out about it, we’ll be under siege — not space tourists gagging to see the sea monsters, but military missions. Someone, probably APS, is going to wipe us out and take the technology.”

  “But only the British have the FTL data.”

  “It’ll leak,” Chris said. “Nothing stays secret forever. It’s when, not if.”

  That silenced Paul. He blinked a few times, but it only diverted him for a couple of seconds. “Fine, but we still have to give the people in cryo a say about what happens to them right now. And refusing to do that makes me think the issue really is about removing Erskine.”

  “Okay,” Chris said. “If it makes you happier, we could thaw her out and keep her here just to show that we love her really, but the rest of the folks still have to be evacuated.”

  Alex nodded. “Dan?”

  “Copy that,” Trinder said. “Easier to reverse the evacuation when the situation’s less fraught than it’ll be to raise the dead.”

  Ingram noted that Trinder had learned to land verbal blows below the belt despite his reputation for silence in meetings. Now was the time for her to signal she’d won and make a few conciliatory noises.

  “Well, there you go,” she said. “Look, Paul, I don’t blame you for feeling like this. You were lied to shamefully for years by Ainatio — and Abbie — and it must have been heartbreaking to find all your die-back work was for nothing. It’s inevitable you’ll see everything through that prism. Damn, I certainly would. Remember they told our families and friends that we were dead. The ones who’ve survived still think we are, so we know what those lies feel like at the personal level, believe me. But sorry, no coup. Just a massive cock-up that we’re trying to put straight, and evacuation’s part of that. You’re going to have to trust us to make the call on the military threat.”

  Ingram didn’t dare look at Alex because she could see him in her peripheral vision and she was sure he was biting his lip. Paul had listened, though, and she had to give him points for that. He really did have no reason to believe anyone after what had happened during the past year. But empathy wasn’t sympathy. Ingram just made sure she understood the enemy.

  “It’s impossible to prove a negative, Captain, so I won’t labour the point,” Paul said. “But you’ve not heard the last of this.”

  Ingram nearly took the bait and asked how he planned to stop her, but she already knew what his options were and it was time to let him cool off a little. She willed Chris to say nothing. It didn’t work.

  “There’s no vote on this, Dr Cotton.” Chris’s use of honorifics was always a gauge of how much his heart had hardened. Ingram wasn’t even sure that Paul was a PhD, but Chris seemed to think that using someone’s first name was a sign of his approval, and just using a surname probably struck him as rude. He set great store by manners, even if he wanted to blow someone’s brains out. “But if there was, you’d probably lose it. It’s just the math.”

  “The problem’s not going to go away,” Paul said.

  Alex seemed to have had enough. “Okay, any other questions that aren’t related to wicked redcoat occupation and parking tanks on lawns?” he asked. “If you think there’s a better plan, we really do want to hear it, but in the absence of that, it’s happening. Sorry. Caution wins.”

  “You heard our better idea,” Paul said.

  The argument seemed to be reigniting. Ingram tried to wind the discussion down again. “Please don’t make this any harder than it is. We’re in a tight spot and the last thing we need is fighting each other when we might be under attack soon.”

  Alex tapped the table with his pen. “Okay, I declare this committee meeting of the Tinfoil Milliners’ Union closed. Let’s all try to get along, shall we?”

  Most of the Ainatio group got up and left, but Mangel stayed to finish his tacos.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “I thought they were just going to complain and feel better for venting.”

  Chris shrugged. “But they’ve got a point. And I also get why they think this is a stitch-up.”

  “Why didn’t you say that, then?”

  “Because I’d rather be the bogey man than accidentally sounding like I sympathise. They need to think through what’ll happen if they escalate this and my guys have to respond.”

 
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