Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) (22 page)

"Neatly argued and I totally agree, that being the point of my earlier sarcasm."

"Oh," said Sandy. Vanessa grinned.

"Come on, roll over, I'll get the rest of the kinks out."

"Okay, but no groping," Sandy warned, rolling face down as Vanessa shifted position to sit on the bed beside her waist.

"Just doing my bit for the Callayan military industrial establishment."

Come 9:45, and Vanessa really was late. "To hell with it," she sighed as she walked to the door, "this is what happens when they make me a babysitter. I'll just blame it on you." Sandy smiled, wincing as she flexed her shoulders and swung her arms, rejoicing at the relative lack of stiffness, for the moment. "You going to be okay?" Looking at her with what Sandy thought was genuine concern.

"Fine," she said. "You take care."

"I will. And you're going to stay happy all day? No moping aimlessly over your terrible predicament in life?"

Sandy grinned. Realising only too well why Vanessa had stayed so long and made herself late for morning pre-ops. She'd been cheering up her friend. Not that Command would necessarily disagree that keeping their friendly GI in a good mood was a good thing ... but still, it was a commitment. "I'll be fine," she said.

"You better, I deal with pessimism very harshly, I'm warning you."

"Ricey?" Halting her as she turned to go.

"Hmm?" Sandy walked up and wrapped her into a big hug. Vanessa returned it with a happy grin. Unfazed, Sandy thought with mild amazement, at the potentially bone-crushing power of the arms that encircled her. But there was more to potential than mere technical ability. There was will, and intent. And she would much rather die than harm Vanessa. The most amazing thing was that Vanessa appeared to be aware of it. She released her, took her head in both hands, and planted a warm kiss firmly upon her forehead.

"You're the best," she told her, with great affection.

"I know," Vanessa replied, with a parting pat at her face. And grinned slyly, opening the door. "It's just a pity it's all wasted on you, huh?"

Sandy made herself a cup of Lebanese coffee, which, after much trial and error, Vanessa insisted to have discovered to be superior to any competing blend. The number of different brews amazed her, as so much civilian variety amazed her. It was a trivial irrelevance when one brew would comfortably have sufficed. It was the kind of trivial irrelevance that she enjoyed so much in civilian life, and she looked forward to sampling each variety for herself, to discern her own favourites.

The machine hummed and made aromatic gurgling noises as she cast her eyes along her decorated apartment wall, pausing briefly to take in the as-yet mostly empty bookshelf. The top two shelves, however, had been filled-her own request, when someone had suggested housewarming presents (another curious custom) upon her return from vacation three weeks ago. She'd requested books, preferring to shop for most other items herself, shopping being yet another much-loved addition to her tastes ... but books were too numerous in number and title for her to possibly know where to start. She'd asked for any wellwishers to give her personal favourites of theirs, since she'd had only her own uneducated guesswork until now to direct her tastes.

Vanessa had presented her with a recent fictional work set during the French Revolution of the eighteenth century, which she'd already completed in several long nights of utter fascination when she should probably have been sleeping or working. Vanessa was half-French by ancestry herself (her preferred half, she claimed), which added to the intrigue. The rest she'd simply not had time to get to. From President Neiland came a beautifully bound hardcover copy of collected Chinese fables, stories and poems from the ages. From Rajeev Naidu, an historical romance set in old Mughal India-not surprising, she'd suspected Naidu of a romantic streak. Many of her SWAT team-mates had provided various works of basic entertainment, thrillers and mysteries and the like. And from CSA Director Ibrahim, whom Sandy had expected to send her something of Afghan or Arabic ancestry, she had instead received a large, bound volume of collected works of a certain nineteenth century North American writer named Mark Twain. Ibrahim, she was gathering, was full of surprises.

The technogeeks (a term they embraced with gusto) of Intel had contributed their own works too ... some science fiction, some technical, many with an historical bent for great periods of scientific evolution. One was a Federation perspective on the advent of GIs and GIrelated technology in the League, and on the impact upon Federation politics-Splitting Humanity, it was called. Others were on great disasters in technological evolution. She hadn't gotten to any of them yet either, but her favourite title was The Nanotech Calamity: When it goes nuts and kills you. And a second book on the same subject-They Don't Always Do What They're Told.

And Feddie lawmakers thought she was dangerous. Not all of the Federation's techno-cynics had become such without some pretty damn solid reason. Losing a few hundred million people in the twenty-fourth century because some genius hadn't realised a self-evolving artificial microorganism could just as easily become a human competitor as a human servant was just such a reason. You could program the little buggers to evolve. You could give them strict instructions on how to do so. You could even try to stop them from evolving at all. But somehow, the chaos gremlin in the numbers always twisted it to suit the gods-with-the-dice, and only after two hundred and thirty million deaths had the mathematicians found the kinks in the calculations that proved it. She'd seen T-shirt slogans dated to that time period that read, in various languages, "Don't Fuck with God." The mathematicians, despite quibbles about the terminology, agreed that the sentiment was in fact basically correct. Some universal laws refused to be controlled. Needed to be uncontrolled, many argued, for the universe to even exist. Random chaos was a naturally occurring artifact of nature, and woe betide the scientist who tried to fight it.

Nano had been very, very heavily regulated ever since, and the political repercussions had been the first stirrings of a technology-related split that had eventually led to the formation of the League, and then to the whole, messy war of containment. None of this stuff was ever simple. She'd been learning that since she'd first begun to read history.

Coffee poured, and relaxed in underwear and T-shirt, she settled into the chair before her workdesk, and activated the screen. A broad view of Santiello spanned to her right, darkened somewhat in the polarisation of the windows-she had no doubt those snooping SIB agents were out there still, monitoring from some comfortable vantage. Santiello-green trees, middle-density modern housing, parkssuburban comfort with tall towers rising sharply beyond, and spanning all around into the fading distance.

The screen bleeped at her-files received, she noted with a sip of her coffee, and a very large number indicating memory storage. She accessed, data-sift programs sorting for security threats and finding nothing. All but five messages were addressed to her from the CSA compound. She uploaded those and flashed visually through a mass of network security protocol programs, things she'd wanted checked or to get further information on ... several had attached messages from CSA techs wanting further clarification on some point she'd made in earlier work. She shook her head in mild disbelief-Tanushan network infrastructure was incredibly advanced, but not with security in mind. The naivety of some of the designers amazed her.

Four of the remaining five messages were from government institutions. Three were from bureaucratic officials wanting clarification on some point of League military law or operating procedure. She knew far more about such matters than any resident CSA experts and generally received about twenty of them a week-for some reason some bureaucrats needed to know such things. She suspected most of them were financial modellers-famous for meticulous detail-and were trying to plot the effect of League economics on local circumstances ... What her mostly military knowledge could tell them about League economics, she wasn't certain. Military expenditure levels, perhaps. The rest were probably just curious. The fourth message was from Mahudmita Rafasan, the President's senior legal advisor, advising her of the latest half dozen civil suits filed against her and the Neiland Administration by disgruntled residents demanding the rogue League GI be removed from official duties immediately. Well, she thought sourly, thanks to the SIB, we're halfway there.

The last message was neither from the CSA, Parliament or the bureaucracy. In fact, the location coding was alien to her, and had not been screened through CSA com-sifters like most of her messages. She opened it, and found it addressed personally to her from a certain Ambassador Yao-the League Ambassador to Callay.

She stared at the heading for a long moment, coffee temporarily forgotten in her hand. She didn't like the fact that it hadn't been security sifted. There was no way that she knew of for anyone to reach her mailing address otherwise. But, of course, the League always had to do things the difficult, mysterious, clandestine way. She decided she wouldn't jump to conclusions until she'd at least read the message. It was seriously encrypted-League encryption, military grade, probably she was one of the few people in Tanusha capable of reading the content. Intentional, no doubt. She didn't like that either.

Dear Ms. Kresnov, the message read. I sincerely hope that the following information may be of use to you. Please be aware that there are Federal Intelligence Agency personnel infiltrated through many of the visiting Earth delegations. Their intentions may be far from honourable.

Tell me something I don't know, Sandy thought sourly. And since when were the FIA's intentions on anything honourable? To anyone but themselves, anyhow ...

I have also recently received information through ongoing investigations currently being carried out by various apparatus appointed to the task by the new League Government. As you are aware, the recent FIA infiltration of Callay was supported by various clandestine agencies within the League. Our new government is attempting to root out these agencies, and determine the extent of their involvement.

Sandy didn't believe that for a second, having received some CSA intelligence of her own recently that, to her experienced eye, suggested otherwise. She read on, with an ever-firming stare.

It now appears that certain of these League agencies were in direct contact with Governor Dali prior to his appointment as Federal Governor to Callay four years ago. He visited Tokanagawa two years ago to attend an officialfunc- tion ... and his Federation vessel returned a week late, having suffered "technical difficulties" at one of the jump points along the way. Intelligence now indicates the vessel had in fact been diverted one week off its course to a secret jump point meeting with these same League agencies. During this meeting he met with military personnel and intelligence personnel, including some from Dark Star. It now seems that the use of particular GI forces for the now infamous operations may have been discussed.

I understand that your duties will now compel you to share this information with your superiors please do so with my blessing, as a sign of the new Administration's hopes for friendly relations in the future. I did, however want this message to reach your eyes first, as a courtesy in consideration of your special relationship with some of those involved, and a token of respect in light of your many years of selfless service to the League ... a debt that I do not believe the League will ever be sufficiently able to repay.

Your sincere admirer

Gordon Yao

League Ambassador to Callay

It took her at least ten whole seconds to stop being furious. From that point on, she was merely mad. How dare he? How dare anyone from that mob of murderous lunatics attempt to gain her good will from something so trivial as ...

She took a deep breath, and calmed herself further. Mahud. That was who he meant, regarding her "special relationship." Had Mahud been at this secret meeting in deep space? Had he met with Governor Dali? Perhaps Dali had needed assurance that the lead GI for the operation could be trusted.

Damn. She stared out the window, at the sunny, pleasant vista of Tanushan suburbia beyond. Huge ramifications. Enormous. Previous speculation was that Dali was a puppet. That he hadn't known the precise scale or nature of what he was involved in. This meeting would prove otherwise-that he knew well in advance, and was personally involved in the planning process. And that he'd personally helped plan, or at least given his first-hand approval to a plan to kill the President and then use it as an excuse to assume power on Callay for himself. People had wondered to what extent he'd been an FIA man. This would indicate he was an FIA man all the way to the bone. Which in turn implied that the level of FIA interference in the operation of the Federation Grand Council was enormous. And if Dali was tried on Callay, under Callayan law, and was forced to admit such things before a horrified audience of Federation planetary representatives ...

Another more personal thought occurred to her. Mahud had told her that he was not the only member of her old team to have survived. Pessivich, Rogers and Chu ... Chu, her old friend. Pessivich and Rogers had been recent, she hadn't known them well. But Chu ...

She accessed an uplink in a flash-an absent, background rush of sensory data-found the appropriate com-codings and relayed ... Back came the reply-Ibrahim's office, Ibrahim's personal connection. Blink blink. She waited, watching it flash, a pulsing node in visual cyberspace. Blink blink. Connect, flare of lighted pathways, codings and encryption in place, a rushing, reflex awareness of lockdown security...

"Hello, Cassandra." No warnings of "this better be important," Ibrahim didn't waste time with such threats. He assumed people already knew how serious matters had to be before contacting his personal connection.

"Sir, I need personal access to Governor Dali, with your permission. He and I need to have a chat."