Pushing Ice (67 page)

“I understand.”

“We trust that these gifts will enable you to consolidate your position as designated negotiator, Svetlana Barseghian.”

“I’ll do my best.” Svetlana called up a HUD read-out. The suit’s memory inventory contained many new files, in the format used for forge-vat blueprints. Even after the technological convulsions of the last thirty-five years, the Musk Dog’s names for the gifts conveyed a shuddering implication of profound futurity. “How did you do that?” she asked.

The Musk Dog glanced at the wall of screens. “We have already subjected your data protocols to exhaustive study. Your suit is less secure than you imagine.” It looked back at her, opening its muzzle in a drooling smile. “But don’t be alarmed. We would never seek to disadvantage a valued trading partner.”

Svetlana glanced at the wall screens: business as usual in Crabtree, judging by the ShipNet content. Bella had yet to make an alarmist statement denouncing Svetlana’s actions. “So how do we proceed from here?”

“We discuss terms of access. We will begin with a single energy tap. It will have no detrimental effect on your own energy-gathering activities. In return for this, we will offer you the blueprint files to build a Whisperer passkey.”

“And that will get us through the endcap door?”

“It will function on four occasions, and then it will cease to operate. You would need to negotiate with us again if you wished to open more doors. We would then sell you another limited-use passkey.”

“I’m not quite sure how this will work,” she said.

“What, exactly?” the Musk Dog asked.

“There’s only one route into our world — through the sky-hole at the Fountainhead embassy.”

“So we noticed. The Fountainheads placed energy taps inside Janus, didn’t they?”

She answered with the automatic authority of a leader. “Yes.”

“Are there physical power linkages between the interior and the embassy?”

“No,” she said, masking her hesitation.

“Our technology requires linkages. They will need to be routed back to the gristleship through skyholes.”

“Can you drill skyholes?”

“Very easily, with your permission. We’ll begin with a single skyhole, a single discreet tap. We can cut the skyhole immediately.” The Musk Dog studied her with a peculiar attentiveness. “That will make your return journey less problematic, we hope.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“Does that mean we have your permission?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then the passkey blueprint will shortly appear in your suit memory.”

“Can we make it in one of our vats?”

“Yes, but with caution. The passkey must be assembled using femtotech machinery, but that machinery need only constitute a temporary kernel, quickened within a shell of normal nanomachinery. When the passkey is complete, the femtotech layer will self-disassemble.”

“It sounds complex.”

“The blueprint will take care of the details. Later, we can negotiate for the transfer of a permanent femtotech kernel, which will enable you to make a frameshift engine.”

“Let’s just start with one hole, one tap.”

The Musk Dog nodded. “There is one other matter we must resolve before this arrangement can be said to be satisfactorily settled. It is a small thing, and will cost you nothing. When the matter is concluded, the passkey file will be transferred.”

Something in its tone alerted her. “What?”

“It concerns the other Musk Dog, The One That Greets.”

“Yes,” she said uneasily.

“It will arrive here shortly, intending to escort you back to the arrival chamber. That is its duty: to escort visitors on and off the ship. That is why it is called The One That Greets.”

“I understand that, but —”

“When it arrives, you must refuse to accompany it. The One That Greets will be offended and alarmed, and will plead with you, but you must hold firm. You must inform it that you found it offensive, and that you do not wish to spend any further time in its company.”

“I didn’t have any problem with it.”

“Nonetheless, you must lie, otherwise these negotiations cannot reach a settlement.”

“I don’t get it. Why do I have to lie to it?”

“I did not expect you to understand.” The Musk Dog emitted an audible yawn, very much like a human sigh. “We are a factional species. The operation of the gristleship is divided amongst many groupings… packs of Musk Dogs. At any one time, one or more of these packs may attempt to assert dominance over another.”

“I see.”

“Currently, there is a factional dispute between the department of the ship under my responsibility — the handling of affairs of trade — and the department of the ship served by The One That Greets. It is necessary that I assert my authority. If the other one is not shamed, my own position will become untenable. If that were to happen, so would yours. We would have no option but to discontinue negotiations.”

“It still didn’t do anything wrong.”

“When the first one brushed against you,” the Musk Dog said, “it was attempting to assert ownership over you. It left a chemical tracer on your spacesuit, specific to The One That Greets. It was claiming you as its own. I cannot tolerate this.”

“It claimed ownership of me?”

“We have never pretended to be anything other than a highly territorial species.”

The suit conveyed a scrabbling, scuffing sound to her ears. The first Musk Dog had returned, almost tumbling over itself in the hectic flail of its multiple sets of limbs. Seen together, there was no way she could distinguish between the two aliens.

“If negotiations are concluded, I am ready to take you back to the travel pod,” The One That Greets informed her.

“Negotiations have proceeded very well,” The One That Negotiates said, unctuously. “Very, very well indeed. Haven’t they, Svetlana Barseghian?”

* * *

When it was done, when she had locked the helmet back into place and purged her lungs of the fetid, vile-smelling air of the gristleship (although it was, as the Musk Dog had promised, quite breathable) she said, “What will happen to the other one now?”

“The other one?”

It was scent-marking her spacesuit now, overwriting the earlier traces left by the first Musk Dog. It smeared weeping glands against the suit, leaving rapidly hardening secretions. It cocked legs and urinated. It moved around the suit, pausing here and there, watering her with the fastidious care of an elderly gardener.

“The one you just asked me to humiliate,” she said.

“Oh,
that
one. It will return to its faction. They will learn that it did not earn your approval, that you spurned it, that you have entered into negotiations with my pack.”

“And then?”

“They will reprimand it.”

She had to know. “And what form will that reprimand take?”

“It will be dismembered,” the Musk Dog said, disinterestedly. “Dismembered and then eaten.”

THIRTY-SIX

Bella was making plans to pay an unscheduled visit to the Fountainheads when she learned that Jim Chisholm was already on his way down. She caught the maglev and met him in Underhole, in a secure part of the plaza. The area had been cordoned off by an impromptu wall of flickering haunts, joined hand in hand like a chain of paper men.

Beyond the cordon, the usual thin straggle of passers-by watched the proceedings uneasily, unpleasantly aware of how dire things must have been to merit a visit from Chisholm. Bella could feel it, too: her old friend no longer belonged amongst his own people. Of all of them, of all the dead who had been revivified, he was the only one who had never really returned from the grave. Svetlana had been right all along, she thought peevishly. They got back
someone
, but it was not the man they had known on
Rockhopper
. It wasn’t just the fact that some parts of his mind had been filled in using structures salvaged from Craig Schrope, although those instances when the Schrope patterns broke through were unsettling enough. There was also an alien aura around him, like a haze of static electricity. She did not fear him for a moment, or doubt that he meant well. There was still goodness in him. But it was the shrewd and analytic goodness of the paternally wise, which could sometimes feel very much like coldness.

His eyes were serious behind the old half-moon glasses he still wore. “It’s bad, Bella.”

“Your news or mine?”

“Both, I suspect. The Musk Dogs are playing true to form. Sooner or later they were bound to tempt one of you into making contact. Short of imposing martial law, there’s not a lot you could have done about that. McKinley’s very agitated, as you can imagine. I just hope the situation isn’t irremediable.”

“McKinley said there was no safe level of exposure to Musk Dogs.”

“McKinley was right, but if you act now, you may be able to salvage something.”

“I don’t know how much damage she’s already done.”

“You’ll find out sooner or later.” Chisholm removed his half-moon glasses and wiped them on the beige sleeve of his gown. “You’ve played things very well up until now: not issuing a public statement was exactly the right thing to do. Let the Musk Dogs think this is all officially sanctioned.”

“What next?” she asked.

“Reason with Svetlana, if you can. Persuade her to back out of further negotiations. If the Musk Dogs get the message that there’s nothing more to be gained here, they may cut their losses and leave.”

“I’ll do what I can. Maybe I should send Ryan — she’s more likely to listen to him than me.”

“That sounds wise. I’d offer to talk to her myself, but if she’s bought the Musk Dog line, my protestations won’t count for much.” He tucked the glasses back onto his nose. “Besides, there’s another matter currently pressing on my attention.”

“Your bad news,” Bella said.

“The Musk Dogs have allowed the Uncontained to penetrate an adjoining volume. Doors are open clear through to five light-minutes. They’re on their way.”

“This can’t get much worse, can it?”

“It’s about to. The exiled Whisperer returned to the embassy. It’s even more certain that there’s been some kind of deal between the Musk Dogs and the Uncontained. There may have been nothing accidental about their leaving those doors open.”

“And they still have no idea what that deal’s about?”

Chisholm was grim-faced. “The Whisperer had obtained some new intelligence — it’s beginning to look as if the deal might have something to do with access to Janus.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“Janus was a machine designed to bring us here and keep us alive during the journey. It contained enough energy to move itself across interstellar space at relativistic speed, with a little bit set aside for emergencies. Now that we’ve arrived in the Structure, its job is done. We may not have noticed it, but the energy reserves in Janus are finite and dwindling.”

“It’s dying,” Bella surmised.

“Running down. We could keep tapping power for decades, but sooner or later there won’t be anything left. That’s what happens to all the moons that arrive in the Structure, in the end: they run dry like old batteries. But in Structure terms, we’ve only just arrived. Our moon still has a pretty hefty charge inside it.”

“Enough to do what?”

“If the Whisperer’s intelligence is good, the Musk Dogs may be trying to tap all that remaining energy in one hit.”

“I don’t get it. Why —”

“To blow a hole in the Structure,” Chisholm said quietly. “To blast a way out to the external universe.”

Bella shivered at the implications. “Can it really be done?”

“It’s
been
done, according to Structure lore, but only once. And nothing was ever heard from the culture that escaped.”

“At least they tried. At least they didn’t accept being penned up in this thing for the rest of time.”

“It may not be that simple. None of the cultures has any firm data on conditions beyond the Structure. Until you get out there, you won’t know what you’re going to find. A cage can also be form of protection.”

“Those who want to stay would always have that option,” Bella said.

“Remember what I said: nothing was ever heard from the escapees again.”

“I don’t get it. If someone already blew a hole in the wall, why can’t the Musk Dogs use that one?”

“The walls heal,” Chisholm said. “After a week or two, they’re as good as new.”

Conflicting emotions wracked Bella. She liked the idea of finding a way out of the Structure, even if it cost them Janus, but not the fact that she had no control over whether or not this happened. “What would it take for the Musk Dogs to achieve this?”

“They’d have to reach deep into Janus, access the right machine layers. The Musk Dogs aren’t clever enough to figure out what to do on their own, but they’ll have had help from the Uncontained.”

“How long do we have?”

“No guessing. Could be hours, days, or even longer.”

“And then Janus goes nova.”

“Something like that. Needless to say, the Musk Dogs won’t want to be inside this chamber when that happens. They’ll use their passkey to seal themselves into the next chamber.”

“We, on the other hand, will die.”

“If we’re still here when it happens, I wouldn’t put much on our chances.”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough. We need to stop this before it starts.”

“Not quite as easy as it sounds,” Chisholm said.

“Why not? The Fountainheads can take out the Musk Dogs, can’t they?”

“They could, but they’ll need something more solid than the Whisperer evidence before they move, or they’ll risk censure from the rest of the Shaft-Five Nexus. Whisperers haven’t been the most trustworthy of cultures in the past, and there’s always the possibility that this might be a ploy to provoke action against the Musk Dogs.”

“But you said the Musk Dogs had bought passkeys from the Whisperers.”

“It’s all only intelligence, Bella. There isn’t a single piece of information that isn’t questionable on some level.”

“So you’re just going to sit tight and let us die?”

“I didn’t say that. I said we’d need something more solid than what we have so far. Don’t assume that McKinley and the others don’t care — they’re already doing everything they can to protect you from the Uncontained.”