World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) (39 page)

“It’s a big ask.”

“It’s been done before. Hear about the Erewhon airlift back in ’ninety-one? They cleared three million people out ahead of a Polis Plus onslaught. No one thought it would succeed, but it did. Touch and go, admittedly, with the last cruiser taking off while Plusser crab tanks were rolling into the spaceport. Hopefully we won’t have to cut it so fine.”

“And then what? Calder’s and Xanadu are left as ghost towns. The Plussers can just move their furniture in and hang up their family photos and say ‘Ours.’”

“I’m not saying it’s what
I
want, Harmer. But I’m not Maurice Graydon. He’s a governor, with a governor’s mandate. His duty of care is to his electorate. I want to save Calder’s, and I’m going to try my hardest to do that, but we have to prepared for every contingency.”

“And one of those is bailing out,” said Dev.

“If the Plussers do try and take over afterwards, I guess TerCon might consider that an act of aggression. Troops could be sent in to roust them out and recapture the planet.” Kahlo sounded optimistic, but not hopeful.

“No one’s going to war with Polis Plus, captain, not again. No one has the stomach for it. The Frontier War’s still too fresh in people’s memories. We’ve no will to engage them head to head again. We’re only just recovering from the last time. And that’s what they’re counting on. Once Calder’s and Xanadu are empty, the Plussers will consider them fair game. They occupy them, and in effect they’ve occupied Alighieri.”

“What about Lidenbrock? Does that even figure? They won’t have the whole planet if there’s still one human-occupied city.”

“My hunch is TerCon will cut Lidenbrock loose. A city full of rejects and undesirables – who cares if it has to share a world with Plussers? There’ll be an outcry in some quarters, but the
realpolitik
of the situation is that Polis Plus will have outplayed us, outmanoeuvred us, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it. Lidenbrock will be considered an acceptable sacrifice. What’s one dirty, scum-ridden rabbit warren of a city when a whole planet has been lost?”

Kahlo sighed. “Fuck it. There’s got to be some way out of this.”

“There is,” said Dev. “But it’ll need co-operation from several directions – a concerted effort – and it has to be done fast. Once Ted Jones is finished with Xanadu, I don’t think it’ll be long before he comes back and hits Calder’s again.”

42

“D
EV
H
ARMER,
”
SAID
Ben Thorne. “Don’t you look a sight.”

The head of the Fair Dues Collective sauntered into Governor Graydon’s office as though it were his own living room. He tipped a finger to forelock in greeting to Graydon, before turning to the Calder’s Edge chief of police.

“And the lovely Captain Kahlo,” he added, with a mock-obsequious bow. “What an august assembly of personages. Calder’s Edge royalty, no less, our very own king and princess. Together in the same room. A rare treat. I feel honoured – me, a humble miner, and a miner’s son. I am truly hobnobbing with the gentry.”

“Sit down, please, Mr Thorne,” said Graydon with studied calm, too much the professional politician to be provoked by this needling. “Can I get you something? A drink?”

“No, no, I don’t need you waiting on me, governor,” Thorne replied with a swat of the hand. “If I’m thirsty, I’ll deal with it myself. So, you’ve summoned. I’ve come. What’s the aim of this meeting? Not that I can’t make an educated guess...”

“Let’s hold fire on that. We’re expecting one more guest.”

Thorne made himself comfortable in a chair, then leapt back to his feet and helped himself to a generous measure of Graydon’s Yamazaki whisky. “In times of crisis,” he said, “it never hurts to take a moment out to appreciate the finer things. Harmer, word is you’ve been over to Lidenbrock.”

“I have,” said Dev.

“And lived to tell the tale. But what’s with all the – this?” Thorne circled a finger at his own face. “The blisters and the flaking skin? You look like someone had a go at you with a blowtorch.”

“I went up top to catch some rays.”

Thorne grinned, amused. “Anyone else, I’d say they were joking. But not you. You know, some of my FDC boys and girls, they were impressed by you. How you handled the Ordeal. How long you lasted. Not me, of course. But my brethren and sistren have been talking about you with genuine respect in their voices. That’s quite a thing for hardened mineworkers to do. Especially given you’re a non-miner, and an offworlder to boot.”

“The Ordeal?” said Graydon. “They put you through that? Why?”

“You’d have to ask Mr Thorne,” said Dev. “Not wishing to put words in his mouth, but I think he felt I’d been throwing my weight about and had besmirched his good name. Also, there was a strike brewing, and apparently there was something I could do to ease the tensions between management and workforce.”

“You have a strange way of welcoming visitors to our city, Mr Thorne,” said Graydon.

“This visitor,” said Thorne, jerking a thumb at Dev, “has a strange way of treating blameless, upstanding citizens as criminals. At any rate, he’s learned not to make that mistake twice.”

There clearly wasn’t much love lost between Thorne and Graydon. The two men spoke to each other with the exaggerated civility common to implacable foes. Thorne’s union activism posed a constant threat to the smooth, well-ordered running of Graydon’s city. Graydon represented the managerial elite Thorne despised. And Graydon had once been a miners’ union representative too, before running for governor, which, to Thorne, made him a traitor.

Getting these two to see eye to eye on anything was likely to be a challenge.

Not as much of a challenge, however, as getting Thorne to see eye to eye with the final participant in this meeting, who was just now entering the room.

Yuri Konstantinov of Anoshkin Energiya.

“And our party is complete,” said Graydon, shaking Konstantinov warmly by the hand.
These
two appeared on good terms.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Thorne drawled. “My favourite company executive.”

“My favourite union pain in the neck,” Konstantinov replied. “What is this all about? Another strike looming?”

“Why, do you want me to call one?”

“With everything else that’s going on, I should have thought pay and productivity issues would be furthest from your thoughts, Thorne.”

“I rarely think about anything else, Konstantinov. As a caring, conscientious union leader, the welfare of the mining workforce means everything to me. If it meant as much to you, perhaps you and I wouldn’t be butting heads all the time.”

“I’m as accommodating as a man in my position can be. Anoshkin has always bent over backwards to meet your demands, outrageous as they usually are.”

“Bent over backwards? That’s funny. The number of times you’ve bent us over forwards and –”

“Okay, okay,” Dev said, making a T with his hands. “Time out, gentlemen. While it’s reasonably entertaining watching you two snark at each other, that’s not what we’re here for. We can measure penis sizes later.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kahlo mask a smirk.

“This is about Calder’s Edge,” he went on, “and saving the city. Saving miners’ livelihoods, Thorne. Saving your mines, Konstantinov. Saving lives, above all. You know what it’s like out there.”

He gestured towards the picture window.

“Tunnels blocked. Rail tracks down. Habitats crushed. Frightened people – very frightened. A death toll in the triple figures, and it’s amazing it’s not higher. Calder’s Edge is on the edge, and I’m not saying that for the cute wordplay. Well, maybe a little. The city is on the brink of all-out disaster. Panic in the streets. Mass evacuation tabled as an option. If we don’t do something, pretty soon there isn’t going to be a Calder’s worth speaking of.”

“But how?” said Konstantinov. “You can’t stop earthquakes. They’re a force of nature.”

“Not these ones,” Dev said. “These ones aren’t natural.”

And he explained.

“You don’t expect me to buy that,” Thorne said scornfully when Dev had finished. “Fucking moleys? Led by a Plusser
inside
one of them?”

“It’s hard to swallow,” Kahlo said, “but there are good grounds for believing it to be true. The evidence Harmer’s unearthed is compelling.”

“I took some persuading myself,” said Graydon. “I’m still not wholly convinced, to be honest. Harmer, however, has the experience with Polis Plus. We should at least hear him out. I’d be curious to know how he thinks we can tackle this.”

“The quakes have been too specific, too organised, to be random events,” Dev said. “I mean, come on. The moment I arrived here, literally within minutes of me being installed in this host form, a huge chunk of rock fell on the ISS outpost. If that wasn’t a targeted attack, I don’t know what is. The Plusser agent, Ted Jones, had got wind that I was coming and took steps to eradicate me. Moleworms under his control dislodged a piece of the cavern roof by burrowing above it just enough to weaken it. I was incredibly lucky not to get flattened. Wish I could say the same for ISS Liaison Bilk.”

“And then, realising he’d missed,” said Kahlo, “Jones tried again by hacking the rail network control server and throwing a runaway freight shuttle at you – and me.”

“Him or his ally,” Dev said.

“There are
two
Plusser agents on Alighieri?” said Graydon.

“Afraid so. Jones is the main player, but he’s definitely had help. And now that he knows I’m on to him, this whole thing has become about bringing Calder’s Edge to its knees as soon as possible. Xanadu, too. Originally the plan was meant to be much more subtle. The slow build-up was supposed to continue until you, Maurice, and your counterpart in Xanadu were driven to declare a state of emergency and bring gulf cruisers in to clear everyone out.”

“I still will if I have to,” Graydon said. “I’m this close to making that call.”

“Which is entirely your prerogative. My analysis of the situation is that Jones can’t keep gradually turning the screws any more and making it look as though the quakes are just quakes. That ship has sailed. Now it’s all or nothing. Do or die. And that could work to our advantage, despite how bleak everything looks.”

“Bleak?” said Konstantinov. “You don’t know the half of it. We’ve already begun shutting down operations. Other mining conglomerates are doing the same. We cannot reasonably allow the mines to stay open, not when it’s so dangerous for all concerned. See, Thorne? Anoshkin
do
care.”

“You haven’t a choice,” Thorne shot back. “No one’s turning up for work anyway.”

“My point is, we as a company apprehend the severity of the situation. What I myself don’t see, personally, is how Mr Harmer can say it’s in any way to our advantage, this Plusser going on a rampage. Surely, on the contrary, that only makes the danger more immediate and more acute. I’m with the governor in thinking that abandoning the planet might be the most sensible course of action.”

“You would,” Thorne snorted. “Cut and run – that’s exactly what I would expect from you and your sort. Typical management. No backbone.”

“You mistake prudence for cowardice, Thorne. You’ve never seemed to appreciate that Anoshkin put people before profit. Always have, always will. You win most of your battles with us, and that’s because we understand that without workers – contented, well-rewarded workers – we would have nothing. If we’re prepared to surrender Alighieri’s vast helium-three deposits, all those still untapped seams, because our workforce is at intolerable risk, then we can’t be the corporate monsters you think we are.”

“But you don’t have to give them up,” Dev said. “This is what I’m driving at. Ted Jones may be on the warpath, but in fact he’s also on the back foot. He wouldn’t be going all-out if this wasn’t his last and only shot. We can use that. Use it against him.”

“Why are you telling us all this, anyway?” Konstantinov asked. “What do you expect us to do?”

“Yeah,” said Thorne, for once in agreement with the Anoshkin Energiya executive. “This isn’t just a courtesy, is it? This isn’t about keeping prominent Calder’s public figures in the loop. You want something, don’t you?”

“You read me like a book, Thorne,” said Dev.