The Wellstone (21 page)

Don’t take my hand. Where could we jump?
That no one’s been a thousand times?
I’ve faxed myself to Saturn’s rings; your love hath broke
my pump.

— “Because Lilly”
BASCAL EDWARD DE TOWAJI LUTUI, age 14

chapter thirteen

the cold rebellion

The hard part was letting Xmary know. They hadn’t agreed on any sort of signal for the start of hostilities, but if he didn’t get word to her—to
someone
—then Bascal could simply put the guards on him again, and that would be that. No speaking, no gesturing, no pounding on the walls.... But she needed to know what was happening, and what the teams were, and it wasn’t like he could just tell her right in front of everybody, and it wasn’t like he could whisper in her ear or lead her off for a private conference, or pass her a note. Not Xmary, not without attracting a lot of attention.

That left Martin and Karl, and Conrad wasn’t really sure he trusted Martin. The kid was too quiet; beyond expressing “grave doubts about the present regime,” he hadn’t said much. There was no real clue as to the inner workings of his head, or even if he
had
much of an inner life. Some people seemed to get by without one. If it came down to a simple brawl, Conrad was pretty sure Martin would at least stick a foot out or something— some small gesture in his own self-interest. But
initiating
any action seemed unlikely. It was too much to ask.

That left Karl. And because Conrad’s shift at the helm was about to begin, there was no time to lose, and no point in delaying. And no reason to be especially afraid, since the price of failure—death—was identical to the price of doing nothing. But he
was
afraid. He’d never done anything like this before. He didn’t know how to approach it, where to start, how to keep himself from fucking up along the way. And the threat of immediate bodily harm seemed for some reason more viscerally real than the prospect of crashing and vaporizing in a week and a half.

But the sketchy outlines of a plan were taking shape in his mind, and the time to act was now.

He looked around, studying the room. It was “day,” with the ceiling—now off-limits to Xmary—giving off a diffuse, warm, vaguely sunny glow. Conrad would have preferred to turn the power down on that—they didn’t
need
that much light—but there was enough stored energy in the capacitors to keep it lit for a year or so, and since that was a lot longer than they had to live, he wasn’t going to make an issue out of it.

And in spite of the “daylight,” Ho was asleep in his closet, or maybe whacking off, and Preston Midrand was cinched down on his mattress and also apparently asleep. Bascal was on the bridge, of course, along with one of the Palace Guards. The other guard was in here, rooted to the spot where it had stood, motionless, for most of the past month. And hovering near it with a sketchplate tucked under her arm was Xmary, half-seriously chewing out Martin for “farting again.”

She must be really bored, really sick of her studies, because their shipboard diet had always centered around beans and franks—one the gassiest and most diarrheic food combos in the known universe. Fortunately, any fart gas that touched the fax machine was absorbed and disassembled and whisked into the mass buffers, so the air never had a chance to grow
too
foul. But yeah, it was a problem they’d all been living with and grown used to, although it had grown steadily worse as they’d depleted their other meager food supplies.

Which, by the way, Conrad strongly suspected Ho of playing more than his fair part in. He did sleep with the food, after all, and memorize its inventory, and guard it jealously against unauthorized access. The one time Karl had sneaked a handful of pecans out, Ho had looked ready to murder him for it, and probably would have if not for the Guards. But two days later the pecans were gone, and Ho said nothing.

Jamil and Karl and Steve Grush were solemnly playing the handball game Karl had invented as a zero-gee alternative to shirtball soccer. The idea was to bat the shirtball to the next person with an open hand, and keep a three-or four-way volley going for as long as possible. Not terribly exciting, and just like shirtball soccer it lent itself to certain abuses, such as the constant and deliberate targeting of noncombatants. But it passed the time.

Karl’s last duty had been swabbing the main cabin’s ceiling and skylights, so Conrad launched himself to the ceiling, gave it a cursory inspection, and said, “Little gods, it’s filthy up here. Who cleaned this?”

This was delivered in Leadership Tone, a bit of play-acting Conrad had adopted based on studies of Bascal. Far from commanding or stern, it was actually sort of jovial. And yet, when you did it properly there was an edge to it, a not-so-casual hinting at potential consequences that seemed, for whatever reason, to yield maximum response. Steve and Jamil and Karl looked up; their shirtball went skittering off into a corner.

“Karl,” Conrad said, “would you grab a dust mop and meet me up here, please?”

“Do I have to?” Karl answered, glowering vaguely, and Conrad couldn’t have
asked
for a better response. God bless that boy’s stubborn streak.

“I would like you to,” Conrad told him. This was another trick from the de Towaji School of Management: never give an order if you could give a pointed suggestion instead.

Sighing, Karl went around to the fax and asked it for a mop. His look was sullen when he arrived at Conrad’s side.

“Keep that exact expression on your face,” Conrad murmured, trying not to breathe too hard. He needed a tight rein on his fear if this was going to work. “Look at the ceiling; that’s right. Now wipe it, and listen carefully. Oh, boy. In a few minutes, I’m going to start doing something about our predicament. No, don’t look down there; look at your mop. I’ll be altering the helm settings, and I want you and Xmary to be prepared. It may get... ugly. I may need a distraction, or help with something. We may even have to fight.”

“I don’t want to,” Karl said, and Conrad could practically
smell
the sudden fear coming off him.

“Neither do I,” Conrad admitted, showing off a shaking hand. “But consider the alternative. Bascal is planning to crash this ship, and kill us all.” He raised his voice a bit. “We’re counting on you to do your part, okay? If you need me, I’ll be on the bridge.”

And that’s where he went.

Bascal, far from suspecting anything, just looked tired.

“Hey,” he said, looking up and immediately moving to untie himself from the chair.

“You look tired,” Conrad said.

“Yeah,” Bascal agreed. “Boredom and terror make a wonderful mix.”

Conrad blinked. What the hell was that supposed to mean? What was Bascal afraid of? Dying? Wasn’t this all his idea in the first place? “You, uh, you should take a nap.” On impulse, he added, “There may be more options than you realize.”

“Yeah,” Bascal agreed vaguely, as he lined himself up and launched toward the open door. “I’ll think real hard about that.”

When he was gone, Conrad closed the door behind him, went to the nav chair, and tied himself loosely into it. He wanted to be able to
move
if the need arose.

The first part of the plan was something he’d thought of a week ago, based on the wording of Bascal’s threat: kill him if the wellstone broadcasts a signal. He still didn’t know if the guards would follow that command or not; it seemed doubtful, but “doubtful” was a poor thing to stake your life on. Under such bizarre circumstances, there was no telling
what
the robots would do. On the other hand, the instructions required to generate a signal from the wellstone were fairly straightforward, and there was nothing to prevent him from
storing
them for later use.

In fact, this took him only about fifteen minutes, and the next part, although fateful and irrevocable and huge, was even simpler: he entered the instructions that would turn the sail, and guide
Viridity
to a new course which would—just barely—miss the barge. Outside, behind the sail, the stars began, imperceptibly, to drift.

Not too surprisingly, this triggered an immediate alarm: the ceiling flashed red, and dotted itself with speakers emitting a low, staccato buzzing. The mutiny was at hand.

The first to appear in the doorway was Ho. “What did you do, bloodfuck?”

But Bascal was right behind him, and the two entered together. The prince looked more weary than surprised. “All right, boyo. What is it?”

“I’m changing course,” Conrad told him. “We need to miss the barge, or we’ll all be vaporized.”

Bascal pursed his lips. “Isn’t this something you should discuss with me first?”

“Ideally,” Conrad said, and
God
he was nervous. It was really happening now, and he couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to. “But you’ve been sort of immune to reason lately, so I’ve taken the precaution of what they call a ‘deadman switch.’ If I take my hands off this console, or somebody else takes them off for me, then all the energy in the capacitors gets dumped into a broadband SOS, across most of the ... the spectrum. Light, radio, et cetera.”

“Clever,” the prince said grudgingly, after a moment’s reflection. “And what did you hope to gain by this? My full attention?”

“Your common sense,” Conrad answered.

“Ah.”

“If we hit the barge, we’ll all be vaporized. Even the kids in the fax machine. If we miss it ...” Whoa. A sudden stab of excitement ran through him. “If we
miss
it, we can brake magnetically. The peak accelerations are too high for human bodies. Two hundred gee! But, but ... the fax machine would probably survive. Along with the patterns inside it.”

“Ah!” Bascal said, perking up.

Conrad faced the bridge’s Palace Guard. “Robot, I’m not sure how much you understand about all this, but these helm settings are vital to the prince’s survival. If
any
alternate course is selected, there’ll be a collision with absolutely no way for him to survive.”

There was no reaction from the guard—no sound or movement, no indication that it had heard.

“They won’t listen to you,” Bascal told him. “Idiot.”

“Oh, I think they will. They’re not stupid. Who knows? They may even send a distress signal of their own, if they sense the ship is in danger. Which it most certainly is.”

The prince sighed. “What do you want, Conrad?”

“Is it so mysterious?” The quaver was leaving Conrad’s voice now. “I don’t see the point of dying. I don’t see how that helps. We’ve already made a dramatic statement. It’s too bad our Nescog gate is down; I’ll bet we’re all over the news channels: the hunt continues for fifteen missing children! Ingenious ship design escapes detection!”

Bascal waved a hand, dismissing these words as foolish. “Do you want to surrender, or do you want to succeed?”

“I want to
survive
! There are memories which you have no right to take away from me.”
My hands on your girlfriend. My fingers in her hair, unresisted.

The prince waved again. “That’s not what I asked. Let’s say we survive, okay? So there’s no concern there. In a survival situation, given a choice between surrendering and succeeding, which do you choose?”

“It’s a false choice,” Conrad said.

“No, it isn’t. You’ve just said so yourself: we can
all
climb in the fax machine. The robots can leave us in there until the fun is over, and when the ships are docked and they pull us out, we can put on our space suits and climb to an airlock on the outside of the barge. Simple.”

The prince’s voice was reasonable, and his argument made sense. Sort of. But he’d sounded that way before, too, and Conrad knew better than to believe it. “We don’t know that that will work.”

“So simulate it,” Bascal said, and now he was bright and encouraging, his weariness gone.

“Don’t talk like you’re suddenly my friend,” Conrad warned. “I’ll just pick my hands up and we’ll see what happens.”

The prince put his own hands up in gesture of placation or surrender. “Steady, Conrad. You know I was never going to hurt you. Or anyone else. I
knew
there had to be a way to work this. And I’m glad, I’m
glad
we didn’t give up before you found it. Just think, man: imagine stepping through that fax into Denver again. Sure, they’ll arrest us, but think what that
says
, versus simply surrendering now.”

Worryingly, Conrad felt his resolve begin to crumble. He knew better than to trust this Prince of Sol; that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that Bascal’s ruthlessness did not, by itself, make him wrong. It didn’t guarantee or even imply that his plans and conclusions weren’t sound. Quite the reverse: without sentimentality to weigh him down, he might be
better
equipped to make decisions. This thought led to a most disturbing conclusion: that even the suicidal approach might genuinely be in the boys’ best interest. They were going to live forever, right? What harm was a youthful indiscretion or two, if it gave their surviving copies a stronger voice?

“You’re clouding my mind,” he said.

Bascal laughed. “I wish I had that power, my friend. Really. Your mind is clouded because you keep thinking this is simple, and you keep thinking it’s about you. About us, these copies here on this ship. But when you actually bother to
communicate
, when you remember the bigger picture, it’s not quite so obvious.”

Conrad had no immediate reply, so Bascal pressed the attack. “You’ve done an amazing job here. I’m very impressed with this ... blackmail exercise. But it’s not necessary. You and I have the same goal, and believe it or not we
are
still friends.”

“No,” Conrad said, shaking his head. “That’s not correct. If I hadn’t done this, if I hadn’t done it
today
, we’d have crashed and died. You weren’t on my side. You weren’t asking me for help.”

Bascal shrugged. “Am I perfect? Have I got it all figured out? This is difficult for me, just like it is for you. I apologize for any bad feelings my mistakes have caused.”

Conrad glanced at Ho, who was observing the conversation in sullen silence. Perhaps sensing a threat to his position and power. Oh, yeah, like being beta male on a ship full of troubled children was any great thing anyway. He also glanced at the doorway, mildly puzzled; no one else had come in here, or even poked a head in to look. With the alarms and flashing lights and raised voices, such an absence of curiosity was difficult to believe.