Authors: John Barnes
Mother of Storms (2 page)
After he has hours of intense sex with a completely willing Naomi.
The image on the screen, when he can see it through all the waving hands and fingers, is now stuttering rapidly, because the source of the signal is switching protocols and channels a few times per second, and the UNIC tracker-suppressor software is right on its tail. Jesse knows that because for Realization Engineering you have to take a ton of cryptography (the important part of RE from the standpoint of
los corporados
is keeping everything you do from instantly being run through an AIRE—an Artificially Intelligent Reverse Engineer—and winding up in public domain). God, engineering is more interesting and fun than politics.
los corporados
is keeping everything you do from instantly being run through an AIRE—an Artificially Intelligent Reverse Engineer—and winding up in public domain). God, engineering is more interesting and fun than politics.
What would Naomi think of the way he’s thinking? It’s bad enough he can only seem to think of her as a sex bunny, but when he gets his mind out of his crotch all he can think about is the technical stuff, not about the political side. Why won’t his mind stay on track?
Naomi leans back farther, that angel’s butt brushes the front of his pants, and at least he isn’t thinking of homework anymore. For just a second the screen swims clear, and it looks like the Siberian comware is beating UNIC’s hounds—you can hear the nationals in the room cheering, the uniters booing, and it occurs to him it’s not that different from a football game—
Back to the stutter. Naomi is still making the “quiet” signal. The crowd is getting rowdier, not quieter, so she’s shrinking back against him. Tentatively he lets his hand rest on her waist, hoping it will read as support and not as what she calls “groping me all the time,” and he’s rewarded with a quick flash of a smile from under the thick mop of walnut-stain-colored hair. Her big wet brown eyes and high freckled cheekbones make his heart skip again; it feels like a love simulator on XV, and most of the complaints he’s been working up for the night’s fight go away.
He lets his arm slide a little farther into her back, and, amazingly, she leans into it and brushes his face with that marvelous hair, her warm sweet breath on his neck. “This is so stupid, Jesse. Half of these people don’t want
to hear Abdulkashim and are cheering for UNIC, half of them do and are cheering for Abdulkashim. How are they going to get a sense of the meeting if they don’t at least start
trying
to want the same things?”
to hear Abdulkashim and are cheering for UNIC, half of them do and are cheering for Abdulkashim. How are they going to get a sense of the meeting if they don’t at least start
trying
to want the same things?”
“They didn’t come here for a meeting,” Jesse reminds her. “They’re here to catch the news or see the bombs go off or because they saw the crowd on their way back from dinner, or something.”
She gives him the little smile that always reminds him how unplugged he was before she got into his life. “But what matters is they’re here and they’re talking to each other. So it’s a meeting—but no one is seeking unity.”
The babble of voices in the PolAc Room rises rapidly and then dies, leaving only a faint ring in the air; it looks like the sense of the meeting is that they want to hear whatever is on. It looks like UNIC has given up. There’s a clear image of Abdulkashim, and the flattened translator voice comes through: “—completely unprovoked and utterly outside the Charter or the Second Covenant to issue such threats to a free, sovereign, and independent state, let alone to claim to be carrying out such actions against military installations whose existence is wholly unproven—”
The image flickers and vanishes. Pandemonium breaks loose. Jesse hears the telltale thud of punches or kicks connecting.
There are not very many pro-Siberian students here at U of the Az, since the Siberian quarrel is with the Alaska Free State and a lot of people still feel sentimental about the fact that the Ak was once an American state.
The big quarrel is between the uniters, who back whatever the SecGen does, and the nationalists, who wish the United States had gotten into it directly—the sort of people who complain about “President Grandma,” as if Hardshaw could fart into her own sofa cushions without UN permission these days.
Then there’s an isolated handful booing because they oppose all censorship, there’s six or seven people who really are pro-Siberian, and probably a few guys who just showed up for a fight. In Jesse’s small-town redneck opinion, it is about to get rough around here, and he’d just as soon Naomi was out of it before anyone sets in to real asskicking.
He also knows perfectly well that she won’t believe him or take any steps for self-protection. She’s a second-generation Deeper, and “we aren’t raised that way, we’re gentle in our anger,” she has said to him many times. He’s never had the nerve to say that
he
wasn’t raised
that
way and knows what a fist or foot does on flesh.
he
wasn’t raised
that
way and knows what a fist or foot does on flesh.
There’s another shriek of everyone hurrying to finish whatever they were trying to say. It cuts off instantly when Rivera, the SecGen, a handsome young guy from the Dominican Republic, appears on the screen.
Rivera has that serious expression everyone has seen so many times
these past few years—it’s bad news and he’s counting on you to be calm.
these past few years—it’s bad news and he’s counting on you to be calm.
Like most Deepers, Naomi is a uniter, so she cheers along with that side, and Jesse cheers because he’s with her. Besides, Rivera has a way of making you trust him, and Abdulkashim could play Stalin without makeup.
It seems as if Rivera is waiting for quiet in the Student Union, but crowds calm down about the same speed anywhere in the world, Jesse supposes, so possibly the SecGen is in front of another crowd, somewhere else. More likely, knowing that about half of the world still has to share screens in public places, there is a crowd simulator coming in through his earphone to let him know.
Just as it becomes possible to hear, Rivera begins, “My friends and citizens of our planet … it is with a sad heart I tell you that tonight the United Nations is forced, for the eighth time, to intervene militarily to preserve and enforce Article Fourteen of its Second Covenant. I quote it to you in full: ‘No nation, whether or not signatory to this covenant, which did not possess and declare itself to be in possession of explosive weapons yielding more than one trillion ergs per gram delivered whether of any current or not yet invented type, by the first minute of June 1, 2008, GMT, shall be permitted to manufacture, possess, purchase, transfer or in any way exercise direct or indirect control over the detonation of such weapons. The Secretary-General shall have power at his sole discretion to enforce this article.’
“Now, for ten years since the Alaska Free State peacefully separated from the United States, the Siberian Commonwealth has pursued a claim to Alaska based on alleged treaty irregularities in the agreements between the United States and the former Russian Empire. These claims have been found—in four different international fora—to be wholly without merit.
“Not only has the present Siberian regime reiterated and pressed these claims, it has also pursued an annexation of Alaska by covert violence and overt threat.”
The screen flashes once, and shadowy shapes, too regular to be natural, show as dark blue on light blue. There are a dozen or so, all roughly proportioned like a pencil, with one end flared like the head of a flashlight and the other rounded and snub. Rivera explains. “Six clusters like this one have been located on the seabed of the Arctic Ocean. These are suppressed trajectory missiles, made by MitsDoug Defense, but microsensors dropped close to them have revealed two critical modifications, both in violation of arms-control agreements. First of all, the range has been extended tremendously by fitting a MitsDoug Cobra air-to-surface missile as a second stage, inside the warhead compartment. Secondly, the Cobra stage has been fitted with a laser-ignited fusion warhead, with a yield far in excess of what is permitted by Article Fourteen.
“We have also established through Open Data agreements that these weapons do not belong to any power permitted to own them under the Covenant. In any case they lie outside any national territory and are thus de facto illegal under Article Seventeen of the Second UN Covenant.
“Their positioning within a two-minute flight of Denali, and my description of past bad relations between Alaska and Siberia, should be placed in this context: earlier this evening I notified all three hundred and twenty-four signatory and nonsignatory nations that the UN Space Operations Office would destroy those missiles at the first sign of launch, or at 0830 GMT, whichever came first. I have received the explicit assent of two hundred and eighty-four nations, and no response from the others—except for the Siberian Commonwealth, which has lodged a strong protest at what President Abdulkashim calls a hasty and unwarranted action.
“This screen is displaying a brief report from General Jamil of UNSOO, showing target configuration before strike. At exactly 0830 GMT, a flight of twenty-five UNSOO space planes fired over one hundred missiles into impact trajectories for those sites. The missiles penetrated the Arctic ice, and delivered antineutron-beryllium warheads—or ‘cram bombs’—onto the sites you see here.”
Jesse would love to know how anything can go through hundreds of meters of ice at Mach 20 and still come out working on the other side, but he’d have to work for UNSOO a
long
time before they told him that. If you can trust
Scuttlebytes
, then maybe each warhead puts out a thin mist of antiprotons from its nose that then flows back around it, but you can’t trust
Scuttlebytes
much more than you can the Famous People Channel. Look at how many times in the last twelve years
Scuttlebytes
has claimed to finally know who set off the Flash.
long
time before they told him that. If you can trust
Scuttlebytes
, then maybe each warhead puts out a thin mist of antiprotons from its nose that then flows back around it, but you can’t trust
Scuttlebytes
much more than you can the Famous People Channel. Look at how many times in the last twelve years
Scuttlebytes
has claimed to finally know who set off the Flash.
Then it cuts to some kind of undersea remote sensing. Long white streaks arrow into the seabed missiles, so fast that it’s as if the lines of superheated steam plunging into the Arctic Ocean appear all at once, like the particle paths in a cloud chamber. Where the missile was, at the head of each streak, there’s a bright white ball.
The view jumps back to Rivera. He nods, as if to say,
Powerful, eh? Frightening?
There is no trace of a smile.
Powerful, eh? Frightening?
There is no trace of a smile.
He licks his lips once before he speaks. “An attempted launch of the seabed missiles was detected by our monitors a bit under a second before impact. Authorized UN datatrace reveals that signal’s origin to be the Commandant’s palace in Novokuznetsk, Siberia. On the basis of this evidence, I am issuing an interdict and arrest order, effective now, for the seizure of Commandant Abdulkashim and fifty-one other Siberian officials. They are to be taken into UN detention for examination and trial. All armed forces around the world are reminded that armed resistance to UN arrest—or taking military advantage of any situation caused by a UN arrest—is a capital offense at all levels.”
The SecGen’s eyes suddenly seem harrowed and frightened. When Rivera speaks again, it is very softly. “This has not been an easy decision, but so far as I have vision it has been a just, measured, and appropriate one. Let us all hope it brings us nearer global peace and justice. Good day to you all.”
The blue and white flag billowing in a soft breeze flashes on the screen, and then the UNIC logo. The screen pops back to a replay of
I Love Lucy.
There’s an uproar in the room about what to watch next. Jesse gave up on TV back when they stopped making new shows.
I Love Lucy.
There’s an uproar in the room about what to watch next. Jesse gave up on TV back when they stopped making new shows.
At least ten people are shouting above the crowd, announcing various meetings to support, protest, or discuss the SecGen’s actions.
Naomi leans back and breathes in his ear. “Oh mighty engineer, this uninitiated one craves to ken your technical wisdom, for damn all if she can understand what just happened. Besides, if there’s any meeting or rally I ought to make, I can find out and join up later. Can we go be alone?”
Her arm slides around him and he feels the heavy, soft push of her breast against his elbow as he pulls his own arm out to drape over her shoulder.
It still takes ten minutes to get out of the Student Center, because anyone as active as Naomi has at least twenty people to say hello to. Jesse does as well, but for once he’s glad that most of her friends think he’s a big dumb piece of attractive meat, because that means his part of the ritual can be confined to exchanges of head nods and saying each other’s names. Naomi has to go through a comparison of analyses with everyone.
Right now she’s explaining it to Gwendy, the girlfriend that Jesse has always privately thought of as “a blonde mop with protruding hardware.” Naomi’s getting very serious, and the tone of passion is drawing more people toward her. This doesn’t look good for an escape.
“The thing we can’t lose sight of,” Naomi is saying, delicate little hands churning and chopping at the air in front of her, “is that whether Rivera had any options in the situation, or not, isn’t relevant. It’s not our job to make him have options, after all. The point is that
of course
he had to get rid of the missiles and
of course
it was wrong to blow them up. They’re just trying to confuse the issue when they ask what else he could have done about it. If he had been doing his job, he would have had a better option. That’s what it’s all about. If he’s willing to live in a situation with only unacceptable options and then willing to take one, well, then, there you have it. We need to get some feelings expressed about all this.”
of course
he had to get rid of the missiles and
of course
it was wrong to blow them up. They’re just trying to confuse the issue when they ask what else he could have done about it. If he had been doing his job, he would have had a better option. That’s what it’s all about. If he’s willing to live in a situation with only unacceptable options and then willing to take one, well, then, there you have it. We need to get some feelings expressed about all this.”
Inwardly Jesse groans. Feelings are seldom properly expressed until there’s been a march and a conference at least.
She goes on, and by now Sibby (who tends to agree with both Gwendy
and Naomi about everything, especially when they disagree with each other) is listening intently as well, and clearly the conversation can’t end till she has a chance to agree. The apartment and the homework are looking farther and farther away every minute.
and Naomi about everything, especially when they disagree with each other) is listening intently as well, and clearly the conversation can’t end till she has a chance to agree. The apartment and the homework are looking farther and farther away every minute.
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