Invasion 2132, page 2
Normally they would talk, of course, during the shift change, but not with their backs turned to their Trad counterpart and their bodies blocking her in the horseshoe.
Yasmina Khan sat on a black mesh swivel chair as if rebar ran up her spine. Her brown eyes studied Leclerc from under a beige headscarf that complied with the letter of a law that her thickened lashes and artful eyeshadow denied in spirit. Her snug turtleneck sweater and tailored pants added to the effect.
She studied him, plainly trying to figure out which side he’d take.
Leclerc paused next to his people with his posture open to her. “Bonjour, good morning. Ms. Khan, you will get overtime pay because your relief is late?”
Her back remained stiff, but her eyes softened a touch. “Please suggest that to Hagerty.”
Evans pivoted smoothly to face Leclerc. “Morning, chief,” he said. He had a California accent, like Aggarwal, but less slangy. And Leclerc would much rather hear him speak English than his atrocious French. He angled his tanned face and pomaded sweep of blond hair toward the darkened main screen. “You see our problem.”
Leclerc sipped his coffee and winced at the charred roast and the cloying one-note taste of artificial sweetener. “We lost contact as I got into my car on Friday?”
Woj spoke up, eager to please. “Not quite that late. Second shift. 1916 hours.”
“Announced or unannounced?”
“Announced,” Evans replied, “but with less than five minutes lead time.”
“And Concordia comms estimated six hours,” piped up Woj. He glanced to the side, to something projected into his vision by his wearable. “Not over sixty.”
“Unusual.” Leclerc sipped more coffee. The char and the artificial sweetener clashed on his taste buds, the worst of both worlds. He smiled despite the foul taste and said to Yasmina Khan, “Since you’re the only one working right now, would you replay the downtime announcement from Concordia?”
She mashed her red lips together. “Mr. Leclerc, with respect, I ask that we wait till Hagerty and Broaddus arrive.”
Evans’ breezy expression masked a barbed comment. “They are running late, huh?”
Leclerc gestured toward glass walls under the stairway. A sitting area for breakout sessions and other informal conferencing. “Gentlemen, a word?”
Evans shook his head. “You remember protocol, chief? One authorized member from each side has to be in the horseshoe all the time.”
Leclerc’s gaze darted between the two men. He reached over and patted Woj on the shoulder. “You stay here. I will cover your overtime pay, be assured. Evans, with me.”
The sitting area held chairs and couches made of steel, black leather, and straight lines. The cushions were thick enough under rump and back, at least. Serving as a coffee table, an art object dated back to the building’s construction. A glass box containing at the bottom a chessboard in midgame. Brass and steel pieces made from the iron harvest, twisted fragments of shells and military materiél unearthed from the nearby battlefields. From the current position of the chess game, supposedly the best line of play for both white and black was a massive exchange of pieces. There would not be a winner, just one side would lose a bit less than the other.
Leclerc bade Evans sit. With a few finger swipes at the air, Leclerc turned the glass walls smoke-gray as seen from the outside. Green icons in the corner of his vision showed all the countermeasures against bugs and other eavesdropping techniques functioned fully.
He went in and shut the door. A twisting gesture locked it.
After setting down his coffee, he settled in a chair. Traces of steam rose from his cup like smoke from an explosion. “What’s got you mad at Khan?”
A sullen toss of his head swung Evans’ gaze up to Leclerc. The Californian leaned forward. “The Trads are up to something. Here, I’ll show you Connie’s last transmission—”
“I’ll watch it with Hagerty and Broaddus.”
“They’re in on it too.” Evans flicked his hand toward the doors. “They’re usually here by now. You know that.”
“Perhaps they’re running late from teleporting to Concordia to turn off its transmitter.” Leclerc fixed Evans with a reproving gaze. “What could they do? Drop the relay from one of their ground stations to here? That might last for an hour, until our next station gets line-of-sight.”
“Sure, chief. But they’re up to something.” Evans looked over Leclerc’s shoulder, to one of the doors on the ground level. “Now they can tell us…. What the hell’s she doing here?”
Leclerc twisted in his seat. He froze except for a sudden pounding of his heart.
Three people came into the main room, in a V formation. At the point, Hagerty, head of the Trad contingent at mission control for the past five years.
Five years? It seemed so, so much longer.
Strands of auburn hair failed to hide Hagerty’s bald crown. Stubble covered his jaw. He wore a rumpled blue sweater and baggy khaki pants. Transparent video glasses instead of eye socket projectors, presumably because he thought it made him look distinguished.
Not with that combover.
Leclerc ran his fingers over his own head, bald above the tonsure of hair over his ears. Better to accept your fate gracefully than try to hide it and fail.
Hagerty looked at the video wall. A bright reflection shot across his glasses. Then at the horseshoe. Then at the opaque glass box, where it remained as his feet shuffled to a stop.
A word from the woman behind him, and Hagerty veered his path toward the glass box, walking a little faster. A ripple of raised heads and whispers flowed away from them to the personnel in the farthest corners of the room.
Of the people approaching, one Leclerc knew well. Broaddus, a tall African-American. A short haircut faceted his head, and a three-piece suit in chalk-stripe gray clad his long limbs. A gold clasp held down his bright orange tie. Voted best-dressed man at mission control three years running.
The other person Leclerc knew much more by reputation. Guo, a woman from one of the Chinese successor states. She looked harmless, with a floral-printed yellow dress and a pageboy haircut of glossy black curling toward her narrow chin. A silver chain held a small pendant, green jade and milky-white porcelain in a yin-yang symbol.
Leclerc knew she played some role in the Trad science bureaucracy comparable to Aggarwal’s in his. She only showed up in times of crisis, and got as many nervous looks from the Traditionalists around the room as from Leclerc’s people.
The three Trads approached. Leclerc swallowed down his misgivings at seeing Guo. He led the way out of the glass box, then waited and extended his hand as the Trads approached. Evans followed, a clouded expression troubling his California surfer looks.
Hagerty’s video glasses partially concealed the bags under his eyes. They did not hide the sullen edge in the man’s American voice. “You’re here early, Dennis. Coming to fix the blame on my people?”
Leclerc broke off the handshake. He had to look up a couple of centimeters to meet Hagerty’s eye, but neither that nor the Americanized pronunciation of his given name phased him. “I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Just like you, yes?”
“You watched the last transmission?”
“Ms. Khan asked me to wait for you and Broaddus.” A nod to him, then Leclerc turned to the Chinese woman. “A pleasant surprise to see you again, Dr. Guo. I hope you didn’t fly in from St. Petersburg just for this?”
The Russian city, jewel of the Baltic, with canals and summer months without full night. As equally off-limits to his family vacations as the city named after it in Florida.
Guo spoke English like it was a privilege to be allowed to. “It happens that before Christmas I scheduled a visit for this week.”
Unease flickered across Hagerty’s face. Confirming she lied.
And confirming the Trads believed Concordia’s loss of contact was not routine.
The bitter coffee turned sour in Leclerc’s stomach. Should he have called in Aggarwal?
Too late now. Even by a private plane, two hours to come from Humanist headquarters in London. “Welcome. Shall we?” Leclerc extended his hand toward the horseshoe.
Inside the U, Evans and Broaddus took their seats as shift officers at the control boards. Hagerty and Leclerc stood shoulder to shoulder, each behind his own man. Near the exit, Woj and Khan leaned and peered to see what the current shift officers did at the boards, and what popped up on screen. A faint perfume scent came to Leclerc each time Khan leaned forward.
On the far side of Hagerty, Guo leaned one hip against the desktop’s edge. She crossed her arms with a rustle of silk sleeves. Her dark eyes regarded the empty main screen as if she already knew its secrets.
Broaddus’s fingers worked the control board. “Replaying main feed from Connie comms.” He twisted in his seat. “How far back before transmission loss you want to go?”
“Start with a minute,” Hagerty said, his voice muffled by his fingers tugging on the skin between his upper lip and nose. An uncommon gesture.
Guo said nothing, but her eyes, gimlet sharp, darted for just a moment at Hagerty.
Leclerc said, “We can look at more later. Proceed.”
The main screen flickered to life. Someone on the gantry clapped, three or four times, before the time stamps in the corner showed receipt time was last Friday at 1915. Transmission date, 23 August 2127, in the reference frame of Earth. After time dilation from the relativistic speeds of the journey, on Concordia, the transmission date was 24 October 2125.
In a fish eye lens, Concordia’s comms station was the size of closet. A European closet, not the room-sized affairs Sybil swooned over when watching American or Australian interior design shows. Gray foam like egg crating covered the walls. Some sort of acoustic material to break up echoes. Adhesive stuck a few still photos and handwritten cards to the door in the background. Comms personnel’s mementos of friends and family on Earth. The desk under the camera held a control panel, a microphone stand, and a lidded tumbler of coffee. All normal.
Except for the crewman filling up the screen.
Chapter 3
Sol System | Earth | France
7 January 2132
The frozen frame showed broad shoulders, wide cheekbones, a crewcut like a wheat field cut to uniform height by a laser. Kuzmich. A Russian, one of Concordia’s shift officers, one level below the co-commanders in the ship’s hierarchy.
A Traditionalist.
Leclerc drew in a breath. He owed Evans an apology. “Kuzmich doesn’t normally work comms.”
Evans pointed to the stamp of Concordia subjective date and time, then twisted in his seat. “More than that. He doesn’t normally work anywhere this shift.”
Hagerty tugged at his upper lip again, then stopped and looked at his hand like it had done it of its own accord. “Everyone’s cross-posted to two or three jobs. Varanathan and Sandford spend half their time shuffling schedules.”
“Not Kuzmich’s,” Evans said.
Leclerc waved his hand for silence. “Play. Normal speed. Sound here only.”
Broaddus worked the controls. On screen came, Kuzmich to life. His icy blue eyes angled to something presumably visible in a private virtual. His gruff voice came out of speakers mounted underneath the horseshoe’s ledge.
“Big dish diagnostics look odd.” Kuzmich raised a finger to swipe and pan virtual data. “System recommends maintenance protocol number three. Will implement. Waiting to clear outgoing science data buffers before taking offline.”
Kuzmich eased back from the camera and waited, like a blond stone. Some Russian wrinkle in the training of national service conscripts, perhaps. A tough man to play poker against.
Broaddus popped up an overlay window. Incoming data rates synced with the time stamp on the big screen. Certainly looked like a burst of science data.
Kuzmich looked up and left at some virtual data, then bobbed his chin, a single slow nod. “Outgoing data buffers clear. Estimated time to renew contact, six hours. Going offline now. Concordia out.” He worked the control panel. Buttons and switches sounded click, click, snap.
The main screen went black. Broaddus froze the error message in place.
Hagerty pulled his hand away from his upper lip. “Clearly Concordia ran into trouble implementing maintenance-three.”
An EVA—extravehicular activity, colloquially, a spacewalk—to work on the main transmission antenna. “That seems the simplest explanation,” Leclerc said. “Occam’s razor, yes?”
Evans peered at a random spot on the ledge, with a distracted air showing he dealt with a virtual message.
Leclerc mashed his thin lips together. You’d best be fielding a personal call.
Evans spun his black mesh chair and gave Hagerty a gotcha! look. “Did Kuzmich start the shift at comms?”
“I know as much as you.” Hagerty blinked. LEDs in the high ceiling glimmered on fresh sweat on his forehead. “Probably less. Khan?”
Yasmina shuffled forward a step. Her right shoulder, facing Guo, stiffened and hunched forward, twisting her upper body away from the Chinese woman. “Ferguson started the shift. Kuzmich came in to relieve him.”
Leclerc sucked in a breath. Ferguson. From Great Britain.
A Humanist.
Expelled from the comms room in favor of a Trad.
Evans regarded Khan with heavy-lidded eyes. “When?”
“I don’t have the exact time. I must check.” Khan tapped and swiped the air. Her sweater sleeve clung to her toned arm. “1837.”
“About forty minutes before Concordia stopped transmitting,” Leclerc said. He shifted his weight toward Khan. “What grounds did Kuzmich give to relieve Ferguson?”
“Routine blood work came back from Medical,” she said. “The physicians found numbers far out of range. Protocol demanded he go immediately for further testing.”
“I’d like a look at Kuzmich’s relief of Ferguson.” Leclerc raised an eyebrow at Hagerty.
The taller American scowled. “What’s that look for? You think I’d say no?”
Behind him, her gaze still on the dark screen, Guo made a faint tsk.
Hagerty stiffened for a moment. “Do it,” he said to Broaddus.
The main screen jumped back. Ferguson had ruddy cheeks and bulging brown eyes. Other than possible thyroid issues, he looked hale and hearty. He pattered in the audio channel while he pushed packets of ship systems data out the big dish. Leclerc had a weak ear for his dense Scots accent. Something about jokingly asking for soccer highlights.
Leclerc cocked his head in thought. Ask to see the transcription in subtitles?
Subtitles that would block part of Ferguson’s body language? No.
Onscreen, a light flashed on the comms console. Moments later, Ferguson said to the camera words that might have been, “Wait a tick, got a visitor.”
Ferguson unlocked the door from his console. Kuzmich must have heard the lock disengage. He opened it and stood framed in the doorway.
Subtitles might block part of Kuzmich’s body language, too.
Leclerc watched the two men. Kuzmich, stolid. A person of average build walking into him would bounce off. Ferguson worked through all the stages of bad news. A dismissive wave, crossed arms and legs, drooping shoulders. Kuzmich stayed calm through it all, except for the fingers of his right hand. Though he hid his hand in his pocket, his drumming fingers flexed the jumpsuit fabric.
Finally, Ferguson trudged to the door. Kuzmich said, “Is nothing,” and a moment later, “I’m sure.”
“Let ’em poke me again and get rest of shift off?” Ferguson lifted his chin and smiled. “Nothing to complain over.”
Kuzmich raised his hand to stop Ferguson, then spoke over the Scot’s shoulder to the camera. “Kuzmich, relieving Ferguson, comms, 1837.”
Ferguson looked over his shoulder and gave the corresponding line, then left.
Kuzmich came all the way in and closed the door. And turned the knob for the manual lock before heading to the console.
“Stop there,” Evans said.
The screen rolled on. Kuzmich took the only seat and faced the camera with his usual stony expression.
“What are you doing? Stop.”
Broaddus made a warding-off gesture with one hand. “Easy, easy. Working on it.” He lowered his hand to the controls. The video soon froze with Kuzmich caught in mid-blink.
Evans spun in his chair. “Hagerty, how do you explain all that?”
Hagerty stopped tugging his upper lip, then turned to Leclerc. “Dennis, you need to remind your people to use good manners.”
Leclerc crossed his arms and gave Hagerty a jaundiced look. “I strive to uphold the mission’s ideals by encouraging civility between both our sides. But don’t use that to pretend we have no grounds for mistrust.”
Voice loud and high, Hagerty said, “I don’t follow←”
“Why did Kuzmich manually lock the comms room door? Ferguson hadn’t done so. Why did Concordia Medical send Kuzmich to tell Ferguson he had to undergo more testing, rather than send a message directly? Something’s quite suspect….”
Ice pooled in his gut. He hid the feeling behind a wry smile at Guo. Heart pounding but voice calm, he asked, “What coded messages has Varanathan sent you?”
She pretended the words were directed at Hagerty. Her gaze remained on Kuzmich’s broad Slavic cheekbones.
Leclerc raised his voice. “Come now, Ms. Guo. We are both people of the world.”
Guo turned at that. The curled-in ends of her hair bobbed with the motion. Her face lacked guile. “I don’t know that figure of speech.”
“You don’t need to. Again, I ask, has Varanathan sent you coded messages?”
“Mr. Leclerc, we both know that mission protocol requires all messages to be transmitted in the clear. The Traditionalist Coalition has always abided by that protocol.” She looked disappointed. “Has the Humanist Alliance done the same?”
