The Callisto Gambit (32 page)

Most of the letters faded out, and the remaining letters slid closer together, leaving: C & RES

The ampersand was shaped like a fancy E.

The Japanese murmured in grudging appreciation.

“Yes, my friends! Don’t spread it around, but the time will soon come for Ceres to chart our own political course, independent of the UN, which is a swamp of nepotism and patronage.”

“I knew it,” Molly said audibly. Her expression was dour. She stood next to Kiyoshi in the middle of the crowd, which seemed to be getting bigger every minute.

Adnan uneasily surveyed his growing audience. “Perhaps we could speak in private …”

He directed the suggestion to the man Michael took to be the community leader, a short, scrawny old guy with a boozer’s broken veins.

“Who do you want to speak with? All I do is monitor that dumb machine,” the old guy said.

“Maybe the archbishop,” someone else said.

Adnan Kharbage laughed and threw up his hands at the idea of discussing planetary security with an archbishop.

Michael was riding on the shoulders of his father’s biggest bodyguard. He tried to catch Kiyoshi’s attention, but Kiyoshi just stared at his feet. He hadn’t looked up once.

It was cold in this hab, even colder than it was in the Belows in general. Frost coated the needles of the pine trees on the radial avenues. The tunnels had been cleverly constructed to damp the tin-can effect, so it was as quiet as if they were standing outdoors at Occator Lake—
amazingly
quiet, given the number of people gathered in front of the church. A single word, spoken at normal volume somewhere near the back of the crowd, carried clearly to all ears.

“Nanites.”

Adnan pointed in the direction of the speaker, as if the person had won a prize. “Yes!
That
is the threat we face! And
that
is why Customs and Resources is prepared to devote all our resources, everything, to defending Ceres … to defending
you!”

A mutter of voices drowned out his last words. As if the first speaker had given them permission, dozens of people now shouted questions about the nanites.

This went on for a few minutes, with Adnan fielding questions and struggling to be heard. Then a squad of young men and women emerged from the church. Clad in black coats as long as robes, they shouldered towards Adnan, shoving people out of their way. In the low gravity, this resulted in people floating in the air, impatiently kicking their feet.

The Kharbage bodyguards exchanged terse nods. The man carrying Michael lifted him down.

Kiyoshi Yonezawa shouted over the din. “All right!
Omae-tachi konakute ii!”
He moved in front of the black-clad security squad. “They’re here for me,” he told them, still speaking Japanese.

Michael had made himself a rough-and-ready Japanese translation program during their journey on the
Unsaved Changes.
“Yes!” he cried in delight. He ran to Kiyoshi and hugged him. When Kiyoshi moved away to talk to his father, Michael hugged Molly. “Where’s Colin?” he asked, anxious about the fourth member of their little crew.

“He’s around,” Molly said. “What have you gotten Kiyoshi into? I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It’s OK,” Michael said. “Look, they’re leaving. Nobody wants a fight.”

The old guy whom they’d mistaken for the community leader trudged away, pulling people out of the air as he went. Soon, the crossroads was deserted again—except for the Japanese security squad. They spread out into a cordon. Their faces were stony. They looked, in fact, as if they
did
want a fight, but they’d settle for Adnan Kharbage leaving.

The Kharbage bodyguards urged Molly and Michael back towards the tunnel.

“Mikey,” Molly said. “Are we under arrest?”

“No!”

Molly stumbled on the lip where the portcullis had sealed to the floor. A bodyguard caught her elbow. She flinched away as if she thought he was going to hurt her. “Oh, Mikey, how could you do this to us?”

The accusation stunned him. “I’m
helping
you!” What could he say that wouldn’t give the game away? His father had impressed on him the need for absolute secrecy until they got home. “It’s an
opportunity,”
he whispered.

“The kind of opportunity you just can’t refuse?”

“I got my dad to offer Kiyoshi a job!”

“What kind of job?”

Ahead of them, Adnan Kharbage was rambling about corporate identity, statement branding, and cross-sector collaboration.

Kiyoshi cut in. “So you need a pilot?”

Michael nudged Molly, pointed at Kiyoshi, and grinned widely.

Kiyoshi had ridden on a Voidstream before. The boss-man’s private spaceship, the
Angel,
was one. But Adnan Kharbage’s model beat the
Angel
all to hell in the luxury stakes.

Instead of several round decks stacked on top of each other, it had a single cabin running the length of the fuselage, which spun to simulate 0.3 gees of gravity. Rich executives were supposed to be inured to the Coriolis effect, and know not to look up.

To help with that, the ceiling—a holographic partition that seemed to bisect the cabin lengthways—displayed a realtime optical feed. So it was like flying in a real leather recliner through the stars.

Kiyoshi accepted a glass of pinot noir. It came with a little dish of real cashew nuts and raisins, which the cabin attendant, a blandly pretty robot, brought on a tray.

Michael, accustomed from birth to this kind of luxury, hugged his complimentary blanket and ate Swiss chocolates from a bag. When the Voidstream reached orbit, he pointed out his old school on the overhead feed—a sedately rotating torus, a franchise of a top Former United Kingdom public school. “I’m never going back there,” he said for at least the twentieth time.

Wetherall had joined the party. He sat with Molly at the back of the cabin, whispering. Kiyoshi wondered if they were regretting they had come … or plotting to seize the Voidstream.

It would be easy to take out Adnan Kharbage’s security.
(Nobody
seemed to know what a Kiloeraser was.) Hold Adnan himself hostage until he transferred the command permissions to Kiyoshi. Then off and away. How much would a Voidstream sell for on 6 Hebe?

Kiyoshi’s half-assed fantasy crashed into reality. There was no 6 Hebe anymore. No Eros, no Lutetia, no Davida. The PLAN had dusted all the big rocks in the last months of the war. Hundreds of millions had died. All that remained was Ceres, the queen of the asteroid belt.

The end of the line.

All his hopes had rested on Ceres.

He wobbled down the cabin to Molly and Wetherall. They looked guilty. “Let’s just hear what Kharbage has to say,” he told them.

Wetherall pushed up the end of his nose with two fingers, making a snouty face of ambivalence. They were not being shy about drinking Adnan Kharbage’s drinks, anyway. Molly had a whole bowl of nuts in front of her.

Michael scuffled down the cabin. He looked from one adult to the others. “It’s OK,” he insisted. “Just trust me!”

Kiyoshi crouched down to look him in the eye. “Mikey,” he said quietly, “I trust you … but I don’t trust your dad. Or those other guys.”

Those other guys:
a bunch of corporate suits who’d boarded with them at Kirnis Spaceport. Cronies of Adnan Kharbage’s, evidently. Cut from the same cloth. Yukking it up with him at the front of the cabin. Fragments of their conversation drifted back, all about spaceships.

Michael bit the side of his thumb. “It’s going to be all right,” he insisted.

“So tell me why your dad arrested us.”

“You’re not under arrest!”

“Oh, so I can walk away? Kinda difficult to do that, on a Voidstream in high orbit.”

Kiyoshi caught a telltale gleam of fear in Michael’s eyes. Michael had been totally confident back in the Belows. Now he was scared. That was
not
reassuring.

“It’s going to be OK!” Taking Kiyoshi’s hand, Michael pulled him back to his seat. Kiyoshi accepted another glass of pinot noir. Right about now, he should have been going back to the halfway house for his next dose of anti-addiction meds.

Back in the Belows, he’d been this close to running. There’d been several moments when the Kharbage security goons were distracted, and he could’ve vanished into the labyrinth. One word had held him back.

Not
nanites,
the one word Adnan Kharbage had used to sow panic among the Galapajin.

A different word.

Pallas.

He had to get there, somehow. He didn’t have a ship. Adnan Kharbage had lots of them.

Among them, a deluxe Voidstream.

So do it.
His foot tapped against the rucksack holding the Kiloeraser.
Put them all in suits, shove ‘em out the airlock …

(again)

No. Michael didn’t deserve that from him.

The Voidstream docked with an O’Neill habitat. The lustrous steel cylinder was one of many privately owned orbitals that circled Ceres in permanent parking orbits. The robot stewardess collected everything that wasn’t magnetically secured, and the fuselage of the Voidstream ceased to rotate. They disembarked through a flexible docking tube into a 500-meter-long garden.

A stream flowed spinwise around the cylinder’s midpoint. Birds perched on the dark portions of the axis, facing in all different directions, accustomed to flying in and out of freefall. A single, distant portion of the axis shone like the sun, casting realistic evening shadows at the near end of the cylinder.

They descended a flight of stairs on the end wall, getting heavier all the way, until Molly put her hand to her chest and let out an
ooof
. Spin gravity was about one-half Earth standard on the circumference.

The grass underfoot had the special resilience that meant it was planted in soil, not a LivingLawn™. Fig and olive trees grew on hummocks. The air carried the aroma of barbecue smoke.

All Kiyoshi could think was: Jun would have
loved
this place.

“This is our other house,” Michael said.

“Mikey,” Wetherall said, “can I marry you?”

Michael giggled. He bossily led the way through the trees. The security goons followed in the rear, keeping an eye on the three guests, or prisoners, or whatever they were.

Kiyoshi took the walk one step at a time. That second glass of pinot noir had been a mistake. He was a bit lightheaded.

His BCI automatically connected to the local wifi network, which was funny, because he hadn’t set it to do that. Popups offered information on all the trees and plants, crowding his vision. The whole orbital was one big brag wall.

The trees opened out to reveal the ultimate luxury: a swimming pool. The stream fed into it on one side and drained it on the other. Beyond the pool, a barbecue grill smoked. A dozen men and women chatted on wood-slat loungers. All of them were either Earthborn, or rich enough—like the Kharbages—to have spent their entire lives in spin gravity.

Amidst jovial greetings, Kiyoshi photographed the faces of everyone who said hello to him. He figured he was looking at the new government of Ceres. A quick trawl though the news feeds on his BCI brought up several facial matches. A thin woman in a swimsuit was still listed as the director of the UN agency of Customs & Excise, although that agency had ceased to exist. And here was the reason why, swimming in Adnan Kharbage’s pool and drinking his wine. But who was gonna jail her for betraying her employers? All the UN could do was pretend like hell that it was
not
losing its biggest remaining colony.

Small talk over grilled steaks centered on spaceships. Who had how many of them? Which ones had any kind of offensive capability?

Wetherall sat beside Kiyoshi and said without moving his lips, “That freaky-looking guy is the deputy president of LGM Industries.”

“Whoa; didn’t catch that one.”

“Yeah, and the hag in the silver swimsuit is the former head of Customs and Excise.”

“Got her.”

“Did you also get the dude in the ‘Always Use Protection’ t-shirt?”

“No, who’s he?”

“Chief science officer of Ad Astra.”

Kiyoshi was as dismayed as Wetherall seemed to be, judging by the rinds of white around his pupils. LGM Industries and Ad Astra were two of the biggest resources and manufacturing conglomerates in the solar system. Kharbage hadn’t been kidding about the level of backing he’d obtained.

“We’re swimming with the sharks now,” Wetherall muttered. He dipped bread in the barbecue sauce on his plate, getting brown stains on his fingers. “Wanna bet we’re the chum?”

“Mikey thought the job-offer thing was for real. Of course, his dad may have lied to him.”

“Wonder when we get to find out?”

Kiyoshi shrugged. “I’m not in any hurry. It’s nice to relax.”

It was true. He wasn’t in any hurry.
Pallas.
He’d get there one way or another.

Pallas.
The word echoed in his mind, getting louder and then fainter again.

Pallas: Cere’s ugly little sister, the third protoplanet in the Belt, with an extraordinary orbital inclination of 34.84°.

Pallas: the second asteroid ever to be discovered, but the last of the big ones to be colonized, because its eccentric orbit carried it vast distances out of the solar system’s plane—and because it was just a big old lump of ice, rock, and hydrated silicates. Nothing worth mining out there.

But for some people, those minuses were pluses.

Some people valued secrecy above everything, and understood that all the encryption in the world couldn’t beat the security of physical assets stashed on a far-away rock.

Pallas: the off-Earth headquarters of the ISA.

Fortress, data archive, research institute, and maximum-security jail.

Kiyoshi came out of his reverie. The last section of the sun-tube had faded to an orangey dusk setting. Small birds twittered overhead, ready to go to roost. Serving bots cleared away the remains of the barbecue. The grill plodded away on its own four feet. Kiyoshi gave his plate to a bot, wishing he’d had more of an appetite to finish his steak. It was the first time he’d eaten real meat in a year.