Here Be Dragons (22 page)

This time, Elena did look away.

“I’m not certain how long I was in there. I only knew that I had eaten all my food and drank all my water, and mother hadn’t come. When it seemed like I couldn’t take it anymore, I heard footfalls once more. But these were not my mother’s. They were heavy, and slow. I thought maybe the boards would lift, and I would see my father’s face once more. But they didn’t. The feet kept coming and going, and coming and going, and now they were right above me, and no one had called my name.”

Erasmus picked up the bowl of water and lofted it in one hand.

“Have you ever held a pistol? It’s always so much heavier than you expect. This gun was small, but so was I, and I had to hold it with two hands all the same. I could feel my arms tremble as I pointed it towards the ceiling. If I hadn’t rested it on my chest I wouldn’t have been able to aim it at all. I flipped the switch, like father showed me. The boards creaked, and I put my finger on the trigger. And then there was a black face looking down at me, and in a flash I knew what was going to happen. I had to kill him, or he was going to hurt me and make me cry, like they had made Sonja cry.”

All this time Erasmus had held the bowl out before him, and Elena could see his arm begin to tremble. He set it down.

“But I didn’t. I looked into those eyes, around the barrel of the gun, and I tried. I couldn’t pull the trigger. He reached down and took the gun from me, and then he knelt and pulled me out. I fought and bit, but two days underground had taken their toll. Everything hurt, parts I didn’t even know I had. The daylight burned my eyes so badly that even putting my hands to them couldn’t keep it out. I felt metal on my lips, and then water. I drank, and he pulled the cup away after a few seconds. Dr. Mbeki knew better than to let me have my fill. Instead he pulled my hands away from my eyes, and poured the water over my face.”

Erasmus traced a finger over the surface of the bowl. The ice had entirely melted.

“When I could finally see, I couldn’t find Sonja anywhere in the room. And when he took me outside to where the jeep was waiting, I didn’t see mother or father, or anyone else that I knew. But I did see that the garden had been torn up and piled over, and that made me sad, because Mother had loved her flowers. Dr. Mbeki took me to the township, where I spent the next decade of my life. Those three days on the farm are my only memories of my first family.”

“Is that why you became a doctor?” Elena asked. “Because of Mbeki?”

“Yes. Well, it didn’t start that way. I ran away more times than I could count, but there was always someone to find me and take me back to his clinic. After a while, I started to see the looks on their faces when they handed me over. My father’s hands had looked at him in a similar way, but this was different. My father’s men had respected him, and feared him, but none of them had loved him. But it’s hard not to love a doctor who will leave his bed in the middle of a night to see to your child’s fever, or to wade in the blood of a man with HIV to pull a bullet from his chest. Everyone loved him. And eventually, I did too. I went away to Capetown for medical school, but I always came back to Bloemfontein and the township, and to Tata’s clinic. He died the year before I graduated. But for the rest of my career—in the townships, the Red Cross, Liberal International—I carried with me the memory of a black man who had pulled a white child out of a hole in the ground, washed his sister’s blood from his face, and loved him as his own son. I wanted people to look at me like they had looked at him.”

For the first time since his story began, Erasmus looked Elena in the face, and for the first time she saw in his eyes how old he really was, how long ago this had been.

“There are people out there in the world who need healing, and I will be here for them, as long as I can. But there are also those that need hurting, and I haven’t held a gun since that day on the farm. And there will be others like me. People who won’t be able to pull the trigger, or even have a trigger to pull. They won’t be as fortunate as I. There will be no Dr. Mbeki for them. I need someone who can take the shot that they can’t. I need you.”

“You want me to kill for you.”

“To protect my people for me. I don’t fear those who hate me, Captain. I will die for this planet, if I must. But . . . yes. I need someone to kill for it also.”

“You say you can’t pull the trigger,” Elena said. “It seems to me like you did just fine a few days ago.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“You gave me the order.”

“You asked for it. And if I hadn’t given you what you wanted, would you have taken the shot anyway?”

Elena had tried very hard not to ask herself this question.

“Yes.”

“Well, there we are,” Erasmus said.

“Anyone in my position would have done the same.”

“You believe so? I’ve reviewed the telemetry records from that day. I usually have no idea what I’m looking at, but I have people to explain it to me slowly, in small words. Every single Agency ship and station in orbit could see what you were seeing, and so could Solstice. What did they tell you to do?”

Elena looked away from those yellow eyes.

“To stand down.”

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that there are elements within the Agency who would not be displeased if every independent satellite were to fall from the heavens, and leave the opposition helpless.”

“You think that Solstice deliberately ordered me down to help
Victory
?”

“I don’t know that Solstice did that. And I don’t know that they didn’t. All I do know is that I need someone I can trust for this job, and Solstice it is not.”

“Job?”

“Your crew is on leave right now, but they shall return to Glenn Station within the week. And when they do, they will be informed of your true destination, and be given the opportunity to decline. If any do, you will have full authority to recruit replacement officers of your choosing from the candidates that we are pre-positioning at Glenn as we speak. And when you have a full complement, you will depart for Jupiter.”

“You mean the outside.”

“No, Captain,” Erasmus said. “I mean Jupiter itself.”

Neither spoke for a moment.

“I don’t understand,” Elena said. “
Michael
won’t be completed for another twelve months.”

“Nine is what I’m told. They’re ahead of schedule, thanks to the lessons learned by
Gabriel
and
Archangel.
But we don’t have nine months. The next feasible approach window is in six months, which means you need to leave next week.”

“Babe in the woods.”

“I’m a quick learner.”

“And what will we do when we get to Jupiter?”

Erasmus smiled without humor.

“Kill outsiders.”

Elena stood and walked to the windows, mindful as always of the enormous pressure that was threatening to throw her outside.

“Trust isn’t enough. Not for something like this. So why me?”

“This is awkward,” Erasmus said, and laughed. “Is it appropriate for me to thank you? If not for you, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You know about that?”

“Elena,” Erasmus said, “more people know about Overstar than you can possibly imagine. It’s an open secret. And next week, when the new Assembly holds its inquiry, it won’t even be a secret anymore.”

“How in the hell does that make you
more
likely to want me?”

“I am aware that you may have violated a few regulations.”

“Or, you know, all of them.”

“I am less interested in what you did, than why you did it.”

“And why do you think I did it?”

“Do you think that a Prime Minister is powerful? There is nothing so much like God come to Earth as a general on the battlefield, or a captain at the helm of her ship. You will be beyond Solstice’s control, or mine. You will be on their side of the border, in their territory. You will be alone, and the choices will be yours and no one else’s.”

“Why do you think I did it?” Elena repeated.

“Because you thought that it was the right thing to do. Because you wanted the truth to out.”

“Do you?”

“Of course.”

“Then why hasn’t anyone been told about Hyperion-1?”

“What about it?”

Elena shook her head, and clucked her tongue.

“No, no. You’re supposed to say, ‘Hyperion-1? What is that, what are you talking about?’ But you reviewed the telemetry, you said so yourself. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Erasmus’s confused smile faded.

“Now is not the time, Captain. William Campbell-Azzam is in hiding. The independents are screaming bloody murder. The Sovereigntists are convinced that we’re on the brink of a civil war, and half the Agency appear eager to give them one. We’re on the brink. Earth needs a hero, someone that we can unite around. Someone to save us from the outsiders—and each other. And you’re going to give us one.”

“So this isn’t really about the outsiders at all, is it?”

“No, it never has been. The problem has always been ourselves. But perhaps the outsiders can provide a solution.”

Elena sat down before him.

“I nearly resigned, two years ago. But when
Archangel
was destroyed…they wanted to shut the project down, and if it had died then it would have all been for nothing. But Helena Dixon saved it. She believed in what Captain Muller had died for. So I stayed, and I built another ship. I built
Gabriel
for my angel.”

Erasmus didn’t respond, didn’t react, didn’t do anything at all. He was as still and cold as freshly fallen snow, and Elena wondered if he already knew.

“That nuke was a stain on what I built. I could have tried to hide it, but I would have always known it was there. My executive officer had me convinced that it was a Sovereigntist trick, some scheme to discredit us. But I’ve had plenty of time during the last few days, and I reviewed the telemetry too. Every gun onboard
Victory
was blazing, but the one that killed Hyperion fired on it, and it alone, and then shut down. It was firing plutonium from our reactor, wasn’t it?”

Erasmus stared at her for a long moment, hands clenched on his knees, knuckles white.

“The Global reactor produces plutonium with traces of chemical impurities,” he said, finally. “Like a fingerprint. The nuclear material recovered from Hyperion’s wreckage was a match.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone?”

“If the public believes that Hyperion was a nuclear reactor, then we are at war with the independents. If it is revealed that the plutonium was planted, then I am at war with my own Space Agency. There were no other ships in range, Elena. No one else knows. What would you have me do?”

“What is right.” He gave a strange smile that was almost a grimace, his rheumy eyes still hooded, in acknowledgment of the touch. “And even if you won’t, I will. I’m going to stay, and testify at the inquiry. I’m going to wash it clean.”

Erasmus’s shoulders sagged, and for a moment she could almost see him put his face in his hands.

“I understand what you’re trying to do. Really. And
Gabriel
is a good ship,” Elena said. “She’ll do whatever you want from her, and if you need a flight commander, I recommend Vijay Nishtha for the post. If he’s too junior, then you won’t find a better executive officer.”

Erasmus looked up.

“I don’t think I’ll find a better commanding officer,” he said.

“You don’t know me, Prime Minister. I’m a personnel file and a fifteen minute conversation to you.”

“Is there anything I can do to change your mind? To convince you of the justness and necessity of this course? Anything at all?”

He had to know her history. He had to know what he was really asking.

“No.”

Erasmus cleared his throat, and straightened his tie. He offered his hand when she rose, and she shook it. Even under half gravity, Erasmus appeared unable to stand. His grip was loose, and it didn’t hurt at all.

“I admire you, Captain. More than ever, I think I made the right choice.”

Elena nodded down to him, slumped in his chair.

“Good luck, sir. ”

She walked to the door.

“
Gabriel
will not depart for ten days,” Erasmus said. “There will be time to reconsider your decision.”

Elena stopped, and reached down to remove her medal. She tossed it to Erasmus, who caught it neatly out of the air.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Elena said. “I’m out.”

She left the room, and him alone.

Against All Enemies

E
lena closed the hatch that led from the engine room to
Gideon’s
bridge, and halted. Her thruster pack was still floating next to the fuel cell where she had left it. She motioned silently for Rivkah to wait, and then opened a private circuit to Ikenna.

“There’s still time to go with them, Ikenna.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me, Captain?”

“I’m trying to give you a choice.”

“And I chose not to go with
Archangel
two years ago.
”

“I don’t know if you regret that or not,” Elena said. “But if you do, here’s your second opportunity.”

“We all deserve at least one,” he said. She could tell by his voice that he was smiling behind his faceplate. It was a sight she had never seen. “I would like to use that opportunity to remain at my post, Captain.”

“Why didn’t you go with her the first time?”

“Why didn’t you?” Ikenna asked.

“I wasn’t asked. Too many ties to cut.”

Ikenna was quiet for a moment. Elena wondered what Rivkah was imagining inside her helmet.

“We weren’t told at Ceres what was really going to happen. Only that the mission was vital to the safety of the Global Union, and that it would take years. And that when we returned home, we would be heroes. That wasn’t enough for me.”

“And if they had told you the full mission? Would you have gone then?”

Once more, he was quiet. This must have been the first time he’d been asked this question, even by himself.

“No. I left my home behind once before, and I couldn’t bear to do it again. I came to protect my people against the outsiders, but these—” he motioned to
Gideon’s
walls “—are my people too. They are not my enemy.”

Elena smiled inside her helmet.

“Would you like to go back home?”

“God, yes.”

“I’ll get you there.”

The three of them returned to
Gabriel
in silence. They scrambled one by one through the hole they had created in the airlock, after reattaching their safety lines. Elena looked up in the sky and saw her own home floating there before her. They leapt across the void to
Gabriel.

Elena hit first, and clung to the hull with the grapple. Ikenna landed a moment later and rebounded, and she tugged on the slack in the line and arrested his momentum. He did the same for Rivkah, and they climbed down to the ship together. When they were all safely grounded Elena hit the trigger once more, and the hooks dissolved and came free of the hull. She bent briefly to run her hand over the scar that she had left on her ship, and then rose to follow the others.

Eduardo Suarez met them at the airlock. She could see the scar on his forehead where he had been thrown against the bulkhead during the missile attack, back at the border.

“Captain, can I speak to you?”

Rivkah held her helmet in her hands, and her eyes were unblinking.

“Of course.”

“In private.”

Elena turned to Ikenna.

“Please go the bridge and inform Chief Nishtha that I will like to see him in my office shortly. Officer Lamentov will relieve him.”

“Aye, Captain.”

She and Rivkah entered the stateroom. Elena dropped her helmet and her toolkit, took a seat, and motioned for Rivkah to do the same, but the doctor wasn’t even looking at her.

“These are beautiful,” Rivkah said, facing the maps on Elena’s wall. Alone of
Gabriel’s
crew, the doctor had never been inside her stateroom. “Where did you get them?”

“They were given to me before we left,” she said.

“Someone close to you?”

“Very.”

“May I touch them?”

“It’s fine,” Elena said. “They’ve been treated, you won’t damage them.”

Rivkah reached out with both hands and touched the maps. Her left hand touched Jupiter’s place on the star map. Her right caressed the speck of land in the center of the globe that, for a century, had been the State of Israel.

“Every year, when we celebrate our rescue from Pharaoh, we end the seder with the same wish. Do you remember?”

“‘Next year, in Jerusalem,’” Elena said.

“Do you think they say ‘Next year, on Earth?’” Rivkah asked.

“If that’s what they wanted, they could have had it at any time.”

“We don’t know what they want.”

“We know they chose to be here. We know that the Global Union is this close to a war with the independents, and another with itself,” Elena said. “What do you think will happen if the one thing that unites us is taken away?”

“You think that’s the only thing we have in common?”

“There was no Global Union until the outsiders came,” Elena said. “What else is there?”

“Our humanity,” Rivkah said. She turned to Elena. “And those aren’t outsiders. Not anymore. So we should stop treating that them as if they’re our enemy.”

“They’re fighting a war too,” Elena said.

“In self-defense.”

“There would be no need if they would only talk to us.”

“No need? Have you ever seen Tel Aviv, Captain?”

“No.”

“Nor have I,” Rivkah said. “That’s because there’s nothing left.”

“That was a hundred years ago. And if they’ve been getting our signals for the last century, then they know those days are over.”

“What about Overstar?”

“That was different,” Elena said. “Nobody died.”

“This time.”

“How can you be so sure that there will be a next time?”

“Do you really think that the bomb was the only one of its kind?” Rivkah faced Elena, and there were tears in her eyes. “We do this, once a century, like clockwork. We tear each apart, bury the bodies, and swear that they will be the last.”

“That won’t happen again.”

“You’re an intelligent woman, Captain. A lost tribe hidden in the shadows, a secret warship out to erase any trace of its existence, and a nuclear warhead. Do I have to draw you a map?”

She glanced at the charts next to the desk.

“The explorers who drew these didn’t find any monsters either. Only men, like themselves.” Rivkah looked over her shoulder at Elena, but not at her eyes. She could see that the doctor was taking in her black hair and eyes, her olive skin, her high cheekbones. “I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next.”

“No, you don’t,” Elena said. “And you don’t need to tell me how to do my duty. I think we’re done here.”

Rivkah opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Her jaw trembled. Elena hadn’t imagined before today that this woman could cry.

“One more request then.”

“What is it?”

“When we pass Ganymede, I would like to take a lifeboat and stay behind.”

“And leave us without a doctor?”

“The medics know this job nearly as well as I do, Captain. And it is looking more and more unlikely that there will be any further need of me here at all. Please consider it.”

“Why should I?”

“I’ve spent my entire life wandering the desert. I want to go home.”

“They’ll shoot you on sight.”

Rivkah did cry this time, but her voice was hard and clear.

“I would rather die with them than live without them.”

Elena was silent for a long moment. Then she nodded, and Rivkah left.

Elena rose and hovered over her desk. She surveyed the king of planets and the holy land, and locked eyes with the archangel Gabriel. He had been no cruel god like Jupiter. He would guide mortals, but he would not rule them. He was only the messenger, bearing the truth. They had to make their own choices.

She retrieved her helmet, sat at the desk, and connected the visor to her work station. As the data uploaded, Elena composed a brief but thorough message to Ikenna. Then she summoned Vijay.

Elena showed him the image of the Star of David on
Gideon’s
hull, and the corpses they’d found within. His mouth dropped open at the sight of Anne Muller. The helmet visors had recorded everything.

“Incredible.”

“She says that they can escort us around Jupiter, but
Metatron
won’t be coming home with us.”

“Where?”

“The trojan asteroids.”

“Of course,” he said, shaking his head. “Incredible.”

“So,” Elena said, making herself a cup of coffee, “what do you recommend?”

“Continue the mission, Captain. Destroy this ship, return to the Belt, and leave the outside behind.”

“And the outsiders?”

“They have done fine here by themselves,” Vijay said. “They do not need us. Not nearly as much as we need them.”

“You agree with Captain Muller, then? About the situation on Earth.”

“Maybe the peace will hold even if the war ends. But I know what Mumbai looked like before the Storm, Captain, and I have seen what it looks like now. That is a risk I am not willing to take.”

“You really think that the Union would fall?”

“I know it would,” Vijay said.

“Then maybe it should,” Elena said. “It’s based on a lie.”

“Maybe at bottom,” Vijay said. “But not at heart.”

“If that’s true, then we have nothing to worry about.” The coffee had cooled enough for her to take a sip. “If you had to break contact with
Metatron
and transmit to Earth, how would you do it?”

“I would not, Captain. Not for the reason you’re proposing.”

“You think we should keep their secret?”

“I think it is too dangerous to be released into the wild.”

“When the truth is your enemy,” Elena said, “you’re fighting the wrong war.”

“I know exactly what war I’m fighting, Captain,” Vijay said. “Do you?”

“No,” Elena said. “Not anymore.”

She gulped her coffee and felt it burn all the way down as Vijay checked his bracelet. She realized that she had frozen the video on a still of Anne’s face.

“I would have liked to meet her,” Vijay said.

“Maybe you will.”

“Yes.” She could tell not tell if he was agreeing with the sentiment or merely acknowledging it. “What was it like to see her again?”

“I’ll tell you once I figure that out.”

“Come now. It must have been like old times.”

“I buried those days. I can’t dig them up so easily.” Elena glanced at the still of Anne’s face, and shut the monitor down. “Do you know what attracted me to her in the first place?”

“I could imagine.”

“Not that. Not entirely that. I’ve spent eighteen years in the Agency now. I’ve served alongside hundreds of officers, maybe thousands. Worked hand in hand with a few dozen. In all that time, only two of my closest colleagues have ever had the decency not to talk about my father. You’re one. Anne was the other.”

“Good company.”

“But now she did just that, on
Gideon
. She hurt me. She never would have done that before. It’s like she doesn’t know me.”

“She loves you, Elena.”

“Then why did she leave me?”

“I am certain that she would have brought you with her if she could,” Vijay said. “As her executive officer.”

“Maybe,” Elena said. “Apparently I didn’t fit the profile for
Metatron.
”

“Which was?”

“Orphans.”

The word had left her mouth before she had seen it in her head. Elena looked Vijay in the face, and he smiled once more. His eyes were flat and clear, and he didn’t blink as he searched hers.

“Maybe they will pick me next time.”

“Maybe,” Elena said.

She raised her pouch to her lips and drank long and slow. The stateroom had narrow walls and a low ceiling, and now they seemed closer still. Nearly everything in the room had been tied down.

“How many other nukes are there?” she asked.

Vijay started, but it was with the mannered theatricality of an actor who already knows how the story ends.

“How would I know that?”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Elena said. Her voice held neither fire nor steel. “Ikenna is searching the missiles right now.”

Vijay was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, he would not look at her.

“You should have reported the material. You should have called the cleanup crew. All this could have been avoided.”

“What else were they going to find? Answer me.”

“Elevated radiation levels in Ikenna Okoye’s cabin and effects,” Vijay said.

“Casus belli,” she said. Elena brought the pouch to her mouth and found that it was empty. “Why?”

“No one is sure how many reactors the independents built altogether. We do not know if we destroyed them all. But this time, we will do it right. This time, no stone will be left atop another.”

“We’re supposed to end wars, not start them.”

“The war is coming whether we start it, or they do. I spent nine months in the forbidden zone, Captain. By rights, I should have died in the womb. I believe that someone else paid that price for me, and I will forever be in her debt. What happened to Nishtha shall never happen again.”

“You broke the Treaty to save it.”

“We did.”

“How many times?”

“It is as I told you that day in forward control,” Vijay said. “We only needed the one.”

Elena rose from her desk and floated past him, to the galley in the corner. She hooked her pouch into the coffee machine.

“I wish I could believe you,” she said.

Vijay stood slowly, and watched her empty the grinds into the press. He spoke to her back.

“What do you plan to do, Captain?”

“You know exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Overstar,” Vijay said in a low voice behind her. Elena watched him shake his head in the hopper’s polished surface. “I should have seen that coming. I protected you, you know.”

“You knew the whole time.”

“I did. And I was ordered to continue with the plan anyway, but I could not. I could not bear to see you harmed.”

“Thank you.” The press appeared to jam. Elena fiddled with the machine a bit, and removed the guard from the spout. “Es verdad.”

“Elena. You know that I love you.”

She couldn’t bring herself to turn and look at him.

“I know, Vijay. And I love you too.”

Elena clamped the press down on the beans, and turned on the hot water hose.

“Then for both our sakes. Do not do this again.”