Quite Possibly Heroes (Freeman Universe Book 3), page 21
“Daughter,” Saoirse nic Cartaí said, “go sit down. I woke up early, is all.” She tapped on her handheld. “I expect you all can hear me, so I’m not going to make a big production out of taking my place in the pecking order you’ve arranged here.”
“Who are you?” External Affairs said.
“I’m the woman whose deck you’re walking on. And I say anyone who wants to get up and leave can do so right now, and safe passage to your vessel and Godspeed to you. But before you go—and Mr. Glasnevin, or whatever it is you’re calling yourself now, I’m talking to you—I want you to note that’s twice now you’ve heard the same advice from the Reynard, and them two different men’s voices speaking, and separated by the span of two men’s lives. You might consider what that means, before you dismiss the argument this time.
“I’m locking the hatches in thirty seconds, so if you want to go you need to scoot. If you want to stay you’re welcome, but I’m also shutting down the environmentals in thirty. The stationmaster says the compartment’s good for an hour of jawing, and then you’d best have a rebreather if you’d like to stay and chat longer.”
External Affairs shouted. “Guards!”
“All right. That’s done.” Saoirse clapped her hands together. “Now where are my pretty boys?”
A pair of mong hu appeared from the shadows. They stalked across the compartment to greet her. One of them brushed past Seamus to reach her. It purred as she scratched its ear.
It was close enough to touch.
“Go ahead,” she whispered. “You won’t regret it.”
Seamus stroked its fur.
It glanced at him and blinked.
“Off with you now,” Saoirse said, loud enough for the listening devices to pick her voice up and broadcast it. “If you spot anyone with weapons lurking, you have my permission to eat them.”
“This is outrageous,” External Affairs said. “I demand—”
“Mr. Butler, is it?” Saoirse said.
“That’s right,” Internal Affairs said.
“What is this circus all about?”
“Rumor is that the prime minister ordered the attack on Sunbury Park. This is an attempt to squelch that rumor, as well as the unstated assumption behind it.”
“That Prime Minister Samantha Bray is a thrall of Ixatl-Nine-Go.”
“Of this Consortium entity, through the agency of the Ixatl-Nine-Go device.”
“The Consortium is a straw man?”
“It’s a closely held limited company and shady by nature. A shadow government behind the governments of Sampson and New Sparta. Inconsequential worlds, in an inconsequential area of space. Utterly disposable and entirely suitable as a scapegoat. A little too on the nose, if you take my meaning. The appearance of doing something while doing nothing.”
“And entirely an internal League decision, if something were to be done.”
“Unless the dog and pony were the something being done.”
“Translation,” Ojin Home Fleet said.
“The purpose of this meeting is the meeting,” Truxton said. “And the press releases about the meeting.”
“The Outies are all Bray’s lot,” Butler said.
“Butler believes the prime minister is a thrall of Ixatl-Nine-Go,” Truxton said.
“That’s treason,” External Affairs said.
“Hardly. It might be sedition if I’d said it,” Butler said. “But note that I haven’t.”
“That could explain the League civil war,” Ruairi Kavanagh said.
“It could,” Butler said, “Though I don’t believe it does. If such a rumor were true, however, it might intensify the conflict, if one side were to consider the other side—”
“Somewhat less than human,” Nevin Green said. “Or somewhat more.”
“Quite so,” Butler said.
“We have experience with New Sparta,” Fionnuala nic Cartaí said.
“Likely a consideration,” Butler said. “Easier to convince you lot to go along with the charade.”
Saoirse glanced at Seamus. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Does all that seem plausible to you?”
“It does.”
“But…”
“This Eight Banners Empire,” Seamus said. “What do the banners stand for?”
“Us,” Ojin Home Fleet said.
“The Ojin?”
“All of us. Eng, not Eng, Ojin, Huangxu, Alexandrian, League, both human and synthetic intelligences. Eight banners, united.”
“And what of the Freeman Federation?” Fionnuala nic Cartaí said.
“No idea,” Ojin Home Fleet said. “I’m repeating what I’ve been told.”
“Anyone?” Saoirse said.
The room seemed deadly silent without the air handlers running.
“Unknown at first,” Hector Poole said. “Considered ephemeral later. Once it was determined you might make a go of it? Too late to change the brochures, I’m afraid. By then the die had been cast.”
“You’re an agent of the Eight Banners Empire?” Saoirse said.
“I’m an educated man. One whose business it is to know esoteric facts.”
“One whose knowing things got my son killed,” Fionnuala nic Cartaí said.
“The only one who got Aidan nic Cartaí killed was Aidan nic Cartaí.”
“Leave off, you two,” Saoirse said. “Argue later. Now’s the time for answers.”
“The admiral is right,” Poole said. “Those are the eight banners.”
“Thanks,” Seamus said. “That clears up a lot. Since you’re educated about these banners, would you know anything about these rumors that are reportedly being spread?”
“I do, in fact, know a little.”
“Would you be able to relate what you know as a seanscéal, so that none of those present would be inclined to file intent based on the content of these rumors?”
“No, I could not.”
“Could you cast the story so that no one in the room ended up on the bad side of a matchmaker?”
“No, I could not.”
“I see. Well, then, did you find one of those devices we were speaking about earlier?”
“The implant reprogrammer? Yes, I did.”
“Could you turn it on now?”
“Sorry, no, I can’t.”
“Oh.”
“I could, however, ask Mr. Singh to turn it on. Or you could. He’s the man behind me, raising his hand and waving now.”
42
Seamus ignored the screaming and scanned the compartment for the unaffected. He was somewhat surprised that of the Freemen present, only Ruairi Kavanagh was down and suffering. None of the Ojin were, which was to be expected. That left the Leaguemen, which should have approached nearly one hundred percent and didn’t. Besides Singh and a couple of technicians either side of him, neither of the Asters were down on the deck and screaming, nor was Hector Poole. Or Butler, Mr. Internal Affairs.
Nevin Green turned to glance at Seamus. “Am I a suspect?”
“You’re a synthetic intelligence?”
“An avatar of one. LRN Defiant.”
“Then you’re not a suspect.”
Butler pulled a needler from his pocket.
“Oh,” Seamus groaned. “Bad move.”
Something large and angry stepped from the shadows. When Butler turned his weapon toward it, something larger and angrier padded up from behind him.
Seamus shouted over the screaming. “You can turn it off now, Mr. Singh.”
Hector Poole watched the big cats tearing into Butler. “That doesn’t look good.”
Seamus agreed. “It feels worse than it looks.”
“How long until he stops muttering ‘die’ over and over again?”
“Seems like forever,” Seamus said. “But I’d be surprised if it was.”
43
“Pretty soon we’ll have whittled this crowd down to nothing,” Saoirse nic Cartaí said. “Now you, Mr. Poole, we’ll not need a seanscéal from you, but a true and complete accounting of all you know about these rumors.”
One of the technicians had thrown an emergency blanket over the hulk of Butler after first extracting Ixatl-Nine-Go from his skull. It appeared that they had developed an extractor tool, one that required a single press of a button to drill in, grip the implant, power it down, and extract it, all in a precise order.
“Would he have survived that?” Seamus asked.
The one called Singh answered, “You mean if he hadn’t been a dumbass and drawn a weapon?”
“If he hadn’t. Or Ixatl-Nine-Go hadn’t.”
“That’s the idea. In this case, who knows? This is the first field test of the extractor.”
The technician ejected the implant from the tool. The ugly monster lay on the conference table, powered down and seeming dead. The Ojin crowd remained intact, as did the Freeman but for Ruairi Kavanagh, and of the Erl a handful remained, and of them, only Jordan, the External Affairs man, had suffered the brunt of the reprogrammer’s assault. He groaned and massaged his forehead.
“The rumors are simply this,” Poole said. “That some years ago the Eng developed technology that allowed them to extend human life. The technology required vast amounts of computing power the Eng did not possess. So they stole processing cores from the League. Because the process proved risky, they tested it on prisoners first before determining it safe to use on their leaders. Once assured, they did so.
“What they did not realize until much later, when they were able to purchase sufficient computing resources, was that it wasn’t simply the processing power that made the life-extension process work. Rather, it was that they were imprinting their own patterned consciousness onto an already long-lived being, and in the process, wiping the pre-existing consciousness from existence.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sarah Aster said.
“They brain wipe one of us,” Nevin Green said. “And replace our consciousness with their own.”
“I understand that,” Sarah said. “But then what? You’re not even remotely human physiologically. Do they use avatars as you do?”
“They use hounds,” Ojin Home Fleet said. “Human bodies produced in a macrofab.”
“From what pattern?” Lady Tabatha Aster asked.
“Their own.”
“Ouch,” one of the technicians whispered loud enough to be rebroadcast.
“Just so,” Ojin Home Fleet said. “Once their consciousness is safely duplicated and stored, they are physically disassembled and a pattern made. A duplicate hound is made and the stored pattern transferred to it.”
“They step into a macrofab alive?” Sarah said.
“So we are told,” Ojin Home Fleet said. “A small price to pay, to step out an immortal.”
“Except they’re not really immortal,” Sarah said. “They would still age.”
“At which point they would make a new hound from the stored pattern, a duplicate of the original copy of their consciousness, and unite the two.”
“But that would be like a hard reset,” Sarah said. “They’d lose all they’d learned since the pattern was made.”
“Such is the price of endless power.”
“That’s insane,” Sarah Aster said.
“The Eight Banners Empire agrees with you,” Hector Poole said. “And that is why they’ve declared war on the Huangxu and Alexandrian emperors.”
“But not on their empires?” Truxton said.
“Correct. A fine point, but one they wish made known.”
“What of the Ojin emperor?” Fionnuala nic Cartaí asked.
“Don’t go there,” Ojin Home Fleet said. “It is a can of bugs.”
“The Eight Banners Empire’s leadership are largely former senior Ojin diplomats,” Hector said. “They thought it best to split from the Ojinate rather than drag the empire into their fight.”
“And because of Atomu Sato,” Ojin Home Fleet said. “And because of the emperor’s stated desires. And because they themselves are to blame for much of this.”
“I wasn’t going to go there.”
“You make them sound too clean. Like they are heroes. Some they do for good reasons. Some for bad. If not, then there would be no cleavage between us. You tell one side only. There is more than one page in the Book of Junh.”
“You’re right. My apologies.”
“Great backgrounder,” Truxton said. “But where’s the linkage to the demon implant?”
“The prisoners,” Seamus said.
“Test subjects or prisoners, either one works,” Hector said. “The originals were destroyed but the patterns retained. Eventually the patterns were stolen or sold off, and subsequently acquired by a closely held limited liability company, one controlled by an Alexandrian scientist instrumental in the original project. Her name is—”
“Vatya Zukova,” Seamus said.
“Correct,” Hector said. “Zukova had the skills and the resources to revive them, and she had the time, because she’d turned the process on herself, using a computational core from a starship found trapped deep within the Alexandrine. The name of that starship was…” Hector Poole glanced at Seamus.
“No idea,” Seamus said.
“Sudden Fall of Darkness.”
“That is a second-epoch survey vessel,” Nevin Green said. “Those vessels are insane.”
“I understood that they were all volunteers,” Hector said. “I imagine that might seem insane to some.”
“Yes,” Nevin Green said. “They were all volunteers, and no, they didn’t just seem insane to others. They volunteered for a process that rendered them insane.”
“Perhaps some of them,” Hector said. “By accident.”
“Not by accident,” Nevin Green said. “And not some of them. All of them. On purpose. Many celebrated when they failed to return. No thought had been given to their reintegration with society.”
“Well,” Hector said, “now one of them has returned and hooked up with a monster. Vatya Zukova is certifiable, and so are her associates.”
“That still doesn’t explain how this Zukova managed to create the implant from hell,” Truxton said.
“She didn’t create them,” External Affairs said. “She simply found out about them and stole them.”
“She stole them from…?” Ojin Home Fleet said.
“She appears to have stolen them from us,” External Affairs said.
“She doesn’t just appear to have,” the engineer called Singh said. “She did steal them from the League. There’s a joint bioweapons lab on the second moon of the ninth planet of a system Freemen call Contract. That’s where Ixatl-Nine-Go was designed and is being manufactured.”
“Joint with whom?” Lady Tabatha said.
“The Huangxu Eng,” Singh said.
“That is a treaty violation,” Ojin Home Fleet said.
“It’s treason,” Lady Tabatha said. “If true.”
“Oh, it’s true,” Singh said.
“How do you know that?” Truxton said.
“I ordered some,” Singh said. “And that’s what the seller told me. When we got the units, broke them down, and followed the component supply upstream, there was no doubt. We made them. And when the clever lads and ladies chased the document trail down, they found the development agreement buried in the fine print of a joint cease-fire declaration from more than sixty years ago. We made the hardware and software. The Huangxu Eng provided the specs and made the meat to hook it up to. Vatya found the implants had other uses.”
“By meat you mean people,” Ojin Home Fleet said.
“If you say so,” Singh said.
“And that is why,” External Affairs said, “Forward Fleet Headquarters at Prescott Grange has been notified. And that is why—”
“Who was the seller?” Seamus said.
“That big footie guy the kids like. Ares Adonis.”
“A Truxton hand,” Fionnuala nic Cartaí said. “Imagine that.”
“And with that,” Saoirse nic Cartaí said, “the discussion ends and the fighting begins. As to the original topic, the People of the Mong Hu do not bring people to trial and we don’t hang them. The League is on their own there. As we don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to Sampson and New Sparta, we’re fine with whatever the League decides there. And should the League forward a list of these offensive parties, we’ll keep an eye out for them and deal with them ourselves.”
“Likewise, say the People of the Book,” Ojin Home Fleet said. “You may quote me for your press releases.”
“And on that barbed jab I propose to adjourn this meeting and turn the air back on. All those opposed hold your breath in protest.” She tapped on the handheld and the air handlers began to rumble.
“Mother—”
“I’ll be down in a minute, and we’ll chat. Run on, all of you. If you’ve something to say to me make an appointment through the stationmaster’s office. I expect I’ll be up for a couple of days this time.”
Seamus stood.
“You don’t get to go anywhere. I want a word.” She gazed along the table. “Mr. Glasnevin, tarry a while will you? That’s grand.”
44
“I want the pair of you to become acquainted,” Saoirse said. “Mr. Glasnevin, Mr. Reynard. Mr. Reynard, Mr. Glasnevin. Now shake hands.”
Nevin Green chuckled and held out his hand.
Seamus hesitated. “Are you having me on? Or can we really do that?”
“Try it and see,” Green said.
“It feels like a real hand.”
“You didn’t try to see how hard you could squeeze it,” Green said.
“I might have done, without an audience, and without the thought you might squeeze back.”
“There’s a room like this in every Erl embassy and consulate, and on every capital ship. If the two of you ever need to speak, you should do it in one of those rooms.”
“I presume that information is for my benefit,” Seamus said.
“Mostly, though it doesn’t hurt Mr. Glasnevin to be reminded. We Freemen prefer the tangible.”
“Noted.”
“Both of you looked like you had indigestion back there, though at different times. Best you share, so that together we can make good decisions. Mr. Glasnevin?”
