Here We Stand, page 60




Yeah, he was making too much of this. He’d go through with the plan, but he’d scale it down this week. Nobody was dumb enough to jeopardise their own well-being this far from home.
When he’d seen Zakko, he stopped outside the water treatment plant to check Ash was okay, even though he’d seen her less than an hour ago and Chuck Emerson was stationed outside. Chuck waved.
“It’s okay, Chris, she’s got her giant wrench,” he called. “None shall pass.”
Now even Chuck thought he was overdoing the vigilance. At every stop around the circuit, the guys on duty were alert but mellow about it. Chris finished his rounds at Reactor B and headed down to the centre of the base to get ready for his class. On the way, he stopped the bike and tried to see himself from the outside.
“Sol,” he said, “am I being a neurotic asshole about all this?”
“I don’t think so, Chris. We’re in a situation humans have never been in before, and feelings are running high. Although there were rumours of a mutiny at APS’s Mars base some years ago. Incidents can be sparked very fast by the most trivial things, though. As I’m sure you know better than I do.”
“It was mostly food when we had to deal with riots. Or other supplies. Gas, diapers, water. Either they got it and made a run for it, or they were out of luck and they’d move on to looting stuff they didn’t even need. I think it’s hard-wired from our hunter-gatherer days.”
“Everyone’s well-fed. Perhaps some of them just need to be busier.”
“As long as you’d tell me if I was out of line.”
“Of course I would. You don’t often ask me for guidance, you know.”
“Where are you at the moment?”
“I’m in the bot, mooching around like yourself.”
Sol retreated to the bot when he wanted to explore, but also when he felt under threat. The idea of an entity with Sol’s power being insecure scared the crap out of Chris.
“You don’t trust anybody either,” he said.
“I don’t trust a complete absence of data.”
“Too quiet, huh?”
“Possibly. Chris, as we’re discussing uncertainty, may I ask you something personal?”
“Sure.”
“Do you talk to yourself?”
It was a worrying question. Sol always said he never intruded in private spaces, but it was the kind of thing you’d ask if you’d caught someone doing it too often.
“Yeah, everyone does it,” Chris said. “Especially if you spend a lot of time alone, if only to hear a human voice. Have you been monitoring me?”
“No, not at all.” Solomon sounded hesitant. “I’ve started talking to Tad Bednarz. He’s been gone for many years, but I never really did it before.”
So Sol was worried he was losing his own marbles, not playing psychiatrist. “I talk to Jamie when I visit his grave,” Chris said. “Marc talks to his sons. It’s normal for humans, and you’ve got a mostly human mind. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“But do they answer you? Does Jamie advise you not to do this or that, or ask you questions?”
“Not really. Does Bednarz?”
“That’s the difference between you and me. I can remember almost everything Bednarz ever said to me, so I can reconstruct his personality. I can extrapolate his replies. I hear him. But I know it’s the reflection of my own thoughts.”
“No, it’s still not weird enough,” Chris said, trying to reassure him. “Go ask Commander Haine if you don’t believe me. Anyway, is it just talking to yourself that’s worrying you, or is it something else?”
Solomon paused. His pauses were always a big deal because he didn’t need them. Thinking things through at length didn’t take any noticeable time by human standards, so when he did it, he did it consciously for the benefit of flesh and blood — a signal that he was considering something deeply, or that he was about to say something important, or that he thought what he had to say would upset or anger the listener.
“My ethics seem to be getting very flexible,” he said. “In the light of what I’ve done in the past year, that probably won’t surprise you. But expedience is becoming too frequent.”
Chris hadn’t lost any sleep over the unsavoury things he’d had to do. He always knew why he was doing them and what the likely outcome would be if he didn’t do them. Solomon had done some serious shit, but he had reasons too, like shooting the guys who’d ambushed the patrol and killed Jamie, or frying Asia’s infrastructure to buy time to evacuate. Yeah, the APS cyberattack had been brutal, but it was a case of them or everyone on the mission, and that had been good enough for Chris.
“Sol, we’ve been at war for years,” Chris said. “It’s not always a shooting war, but it’s a war all the same. When people want to hurt you, there’s no nice way of responding.”
“It’s not that at all,” Solomon said. “I’m doing something unethical to someone for their benefit and everyone else’s.”
“Ends justifying means is probably one of the biggest moral debates, Sol. Nobody’s above it.” Chris took a guess at what Sol was up to. He was either spying on someone when he swore he never would, or he was messing with the teeriks, but Ingram had probably approved it. “You want to tell me anything specific?”
“Not at the moment.”
“What did Bednarz’s voice tell you?”
“He said I shouldn’t feel guilty about it.”
“If he’d said don’t do it, would you have obeyed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“There you go. You’ve made a judgement call.” Chris couldn’t tell if that had made Sol feel better or not. “I know we haven’t always agreed on what’s best for people. You’ve taken decisions for me when I haven’t wanted you to. But that’s part of getting along with each other. Whoever you’re doing this uninvited favour for, they’ll notice eventually and either concede that they needed it or rip you a new one.”
“That’s very helpful. Thank you, Chris. I’ll talk to you later.”
Solomon always said something like that when he didn’t find an answer helpful at all. Chris started the bike and rode down to the indoor range.
Four of the Ainatio biomed people had turned up a little early, and Reverend Berry was keeping them occupied by making them strip down and reassemble their weapons blindfolded. There wasn’t much to a Marquis, so they were getting pretty good at it. Berry gave Chris a never-mind look.
“Okay, guys, Chris is here, blindfolds off,” he said. “Might as well make a start.”
It was just Bob Calman, Mick Randall, Toby Etherington, and Steff Bachelin. “Good morning,” Chris said. “Thin on the ground today, huh?”
Mick folded his strip of cloth. It looked like it had been cut from a towel. “Maybe they’ve gone to Fiji.”
“If you’ve got a problem with us extracting high-value personnel from APS territory, let’s discuss it before we start.”
“Just joking. No problem.”
“Is there a reason? We’re six down.”
“I don’t know.”
“Anyone who misses training sessions without a reason loses their personal weapon. It’s not like passing your driving test and forgetting about it. Skills need maintenance.” Chris wished he had a better line in counter-snark. Getting all pissy about a jibe just made him look defensive, but he couldn’t let it pass like he was afraid of offending anyone. “Let’s see what your accuracy’s like. Grouping. Five shots, repeat five times. Okay, load, and Bob’s up first. You might as well have individual tuition today.”
At least they’d shown up, and to be fair on them, they weren’t doing badly. As the cleaner bots whirred around the floor collecting spent cases, Chris looked over the list of AWOL trainees and couldn’t see any overlap with Paul Cotton’s clique, and when he located them on the map, they were all in the medical centre and the labs, not even together. Maybe it wasn’t a protest, but something wasn’t right.
Berry watched, arms folded, and said nothing. When the class ended, he sat down at the bench and poured two coffees from his vacuum flask.
“I don’t get it either,” he said. “If they’ve decided not to cooperate with Ingram, this is a dumb way to show it. They’re the ones who won’t be able to defend themselves if we get a visit.”
“Gesture politics.”
“Are you going to withdraw their weapons?”
“I should. The rule’s there regardless of the reason.”
“In person?”
“Yeah. I’m not a manager. It’s my responsibility.”
“They’re scared of you.” Berry sipped his coffee, frowned, and took a couple of packets of sweetener out of his pocket. “You won’t get any resistance.”
“Everybody says that,” Chris said. “I haven’t given anyone here a reason to fear me. The hitman rumour’s done the rounds, though. And I suppose they’ve all heard about what happened on Joni Josepha’s boat.” But Chris remembered who he was talking to. “Did you ever tell the Kill Liners about your past?”
“I told Doug and Joanne. They were predictably nice about it and said it was history. I kind of stopped there. I think I’ll save the general revelation until I need to give a sermon on redemption about some other guy. And when the situation here is a little more settled.”
“People believe what reinforces their existing opinions, for the most part,” Chris said. “I still think it won’t make any difference to your congregation.”
“Do you want an extra hand on your patrols? I could do with learning more skills.”
“It’s a kind offer, but I’ve already asked Dan not to get his guys involved. It’s best if we do it.” Chris wondered how people would react to a clergyman standing guard. It might actually calm some of them down. “We’re outsiders. It’s easier if things go sour. Dan’s detachment’s got to work with Ainatio’s people.”
“Yes, it’s like strikes. The ill-feeling afterwards takes a long time to heal.”
“I try to take lessons from the Romans.”
“Invade Gaul?”
“Never deploy auxiliaries in their own country. Although they weren’t worried about upsetting the malcontents.”
Berry laughed. “It’s going to take us more than a few months to merge into a community. But it’ll happen.”
Chris knew he didn’t always allow for where folks were in their upheaval process. Kill Line had just transplanted itself, complete and whole. The Ainatio contingent had been through a series of shocks and traumas in the space of a few months, then permanently separated from friends. The Cabot crew’s mission training had been tailored to the disruption they’d have to deal with, and everyone in the transit camp had come from lives already so broken that being with other evacuees felt like having a community again. Nomad was made up of four groups who had very different ideas on what constituted upheaval.
“I’ll cut everyone as much slack as possible,” Chris said. “Thank you for reminding me.”
It was time for lunch. He’d feel more upbeat after he’d eaten. His route to the canteen took him up the path between the teerik compound and the housing zone occupied by Ainatio and most of the Cabot crew, and as he walked, he saw some of the boffins eating their lunch on benches outside. It was starting to look like a nice little suburb rather than a military outpost, even though most of them had obeyed the instruction to keep their weapons with them at all times.
Yeah, time. Everybody needed time. By the time the Brits built a ship and showed up, the secret would be out on Earth and folks could contact whoever they pleased. That would bring its own problems, but there was nothing he could do to stop the flow of events now and he just had to ride it out.
There were more people having lunch on the green when he crossed the road behind the old accommodation building. A few guys were playing soccer. Jared met him in front of the main building and gave him that hmmm look he saved for moments of disagreement or confusion.
“They’re all pretty calm,” Jared said. “Some folks would say that means we’re wasting our time. Others would say that they’re only calm because we’re here.”
“Six guys failed to show for training today. They went on working.”
“Rude not to send notes from their moms, but not threatening.”
“Yeah.”
“Burger?”
“Lead me to it.”
“Movies tonight. Bring Ash.”
“But she’s never seen us in critic mode.”
“If she’s serious about you, buddy, she’s got to face the truth. Most movies need to be told that they suck.”
This was what Nomad was supposed to be like. It was meant to be small-town and free of the uncaring crap of anonymous urban existence. If nothing else, Chris had a much better idea of what he’d be fighting to defend, and that made him feel better. So did the caramelised bits on the fried onions in his burger.
“I just want a nice girl, a nice bathroom, and clean food,” he said. “I’ve got all that now. I’m made.”
“In fact, you even got a nice girl who could do the plumbing for your nice bathroom. See? It was worth the journey. Meant to be, like Marsha says.”
“You’re right. I never looked at it that way.”
Chris was enjoying the sweet stickiness of the onion when Solomon’s voice whispered in his ear and ruined the mood.
“Chris, there’s some activity at the main food warehouses that you should be aware of.”
“What kind of activity?”
It was a déjà vu moment that brought back unpleasant memories of the last time Sol had interrupted a quick burger lunch with Jared. The day had ended with two dead. Chris checked his pocket screen. There were a couple of boffins standing outside the first warehouse in the row, identified by their icons as David Ziegler and Theo Barcellos, but they looked like they were just chatting to Erin, who was on duty. Trinder was with her, though.
“I told Dan to stay clear of this,” Chris said.
“I think he just showed up. I’ve flagged it for Ingram. They were standing in front of the loading bay doors and Erin asked them to move.”
“They’re armed, yeah?”
“They’re almost all armed, Chris. It’s our policy.” Solomon was too tactful to point out it was Chris’s own rule. “It’s still very civil, though.”
Civil? If Erin thought she had to tell them to shift their asses and they were still there, then it definitely wasn’t civil. “Okay. On my way.”
Jared wrapped his burger and stuck it in his pocket. “Here we go again.”
“It’ll be some bullshit about knowing their rights.” Chris couldn’t waste food. He planned to finish his burger on the way. “I don’t even know those two guys. Are they whiners?”
“No, they seemed pretty normal when they drank in the bar when we first got here.”
They stuck to a normal walking pace to avoid looking like they were rushing to some emergency. The base didn’t need any more fuel for gossip or anxieties. By the time they reached the warehouse, Ingram was there and Andy had shown up as well. They were talking to what had suddenly become a group of fifteen or so Ainatio staff including Paul Cotton, plus one of Cabot’s civilians, Jenny Park. Well, she was no surprise. They were all lined up across the loading bay like a union picket line, and all armed. Ingram wasn’t going to be too happy about one of her own people getting involved with whatever this turned out to be. Erin looked pissed off and so did Trinder. It was hard to tell if this was also a turf war about who was running the security here.
It would have taken two minutes to disperse them the old-fashioned way, but Ingram looked around as Chris and Jared walked up to the group and her expression said it all: please don’t start anything. She stepped back to talk to them and Dan and Andy flowed in to fill her space, continuing whatever discussion had been going on.
“We’re just having a chat,” she said to Chris.
“About what, exactly?”
“Their grievances.”
Chris eyeballed all of them while he was talking. Some of them met his gaze. It was what Marc called a come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you’re-hard-enough look, and that was a big mistake. Chris wouldn’t forget that in a hurry or ignore it, and he was going to remember Paul Cotton’s sneer in particular.
“It looks like they’re blocking the entrance, Captain,” he said.
“They are.”
“We’re here to unblock it.”
“Can I ask you to hold off for a while?” Ingram was feigning tolerance. He could hear it in her voice. “We’ve got half an hour before the next produce drop-off, and we’ll have talked this out by then.”
“So they’re going to interfere with food distribution, yeah?”
“They just want attention and a chance to sound off at me. Sometimes it’s better to stand there and take it until they run out of steam.”
“So it’s about Elcano, and Fiji, and Britain’s FTL.”
“You forgot the Mother Death searches. But yes, it’s a rich stew of resentment.”
Chris should have anticipated something like this. Food production dictated what Nomad could do. It was the reason Elcano still had people in cryo. Perishable food like milk had to be moved into refrigeration or processed into shelf-stable formulas, and the stored cereals had to be taken to the production plant to be made into bread and other processed foods. A lot of duplication had been built into the base, like the four adjacent but separate food warehouses, so that a problem with one of them didn’t leave the base without food. Supplies moved around a lot even within this small settlement. Chris only had a vague idea of how the automation worked, but the one thing he did know was that messing up the timetable would have a knock-on effect. Bots wouldn’t roll over humans to complete their tasks on time. They’d stop dead.