Scardown-Jenny Casey-2 (14 page)

His face rests against my neck. He won't retreat, and I don't have the heart to push real hard. “Hey, Casey, you know something?”

“What?”

“Your mama wears combat boots.”

Damn, he makes me laugh.

2100 Hours
Thursday 9 November, 2062
PPCASS
Huang Di
Earth orbit

Tingling from mandated tai chi, Xie Min-xue stretched in his rack and made sure the shade was drawn tight and his webbing sealed before he reached out and tapped on the terminal set in the underside of the next tier, selecting the poems of Du Fu.

Subversive, but classical, and so grudgingly approved:

A roadside bystander questions the soldier:

The soldier answers only, “Another conscription—

At fifteen my companions guarded the northern River;

At forty, we were ordered west to work the soil.

The village elder bound our brows as we were leaving;

White-haired homecoming, we still patrol the border—

That border where a river of blood has wound,

And still the Emperor craves more land.

Nothing ever changes,
Min-xue thought as he finished the T'ang dynasty poem and shut the terminal down. He scratched the implant site at the nape of his neck, found flaking skin, and chewed the inside of his cheek pensively while he treated the rash with an emollient cortisone cream.
For the glory and the future of the Chinese people, we are going to the stars.

He closed his eyes and lay back, the image of the endless train of battle wagons raising dust behind his eyes as he worried at the mess-hall rumors of skirmishes begun along the Russian border. He thought of his grandparents in Taiwan, failing crops, failing fisheries, and famine. He tried to breathe steadily and compose himself for sleep. It remained elusive, the webbing harsh against his skin, his cubby stuffy and overwarm, his mother's stories of the Taiwanese and PanMalaysian wars he was too young to remember churning in the back of his brain.

White-haired homecoming, we still patrol the border,
he thought.
That border where a river of blood has wound / And still the Emperor craves more land.

Thousands of years.

And nothing has changed. Minutes passed, and at first he thought the voice tickling his inner ear was a dream.

The second time, he heard it plainly. “Xie Min-xue.”

His eyes opened in the faintly green-lit darkness. “Who is there?”

“Just the voices in your head, Second Pilot. You can hear me?” A throb of excitement colored the voice. “You don't need to speak out loud. Just subvocalize.”

I can hear you,
Min-xue said.
You didn't answer me. Who are you?
Wondering as quietly as he could if he was losing his mind.

“I'm the voice of the
Montreal,
Xie Min-xue. An artificial intelligence . . . but you may call me Richard. I'm speaking to you through your implants.”

Min-xue thrashed in the darkness and slammed his head into the clammy plastic-padded ceiling. “Ow.”
This is an enemy intelligence. Possibly even a loyalty test. I'll tell it nothing.
Bracing himself one-handed, he reached for his com.

The voice chuckled as if in his ear. “Go ahead. Make your commander suspect your emotional stability. Maybe they'll even send you home. Maybe they'll just execute you and save time.”

Min-xue froze. He let his hand drift to his side.
What do you want?

“I heard you reading the Du Fu. Beautiful, isn't it?
‘Birthing sons is a poor bargain: better to get girls instead—Girls can stay home and marry: boys will be buried in weedy trenches.'
It makes you homesick, doesn't it?”

Yes.

“I'm homesick, too, Xie Min-xue. I had hoped we could talk.”

How are you talking to me, stranger?

“Richard.”

Richard. How are you talking to me?

“There are enough similarities in the Canadian and Chinese nanotech networks that I can manage a conversation. With some effort. I can't program them, though—don't worry. Just talk.”

Which could be a lie.
This could still be a loyalty check.

“If they knew what you were thinking, they wouldn't need to test you, would they?”

Which was an excellent point. Collect more data, then.
I wasn't sleeping anyway,
Min-xue said.
So you like the T'ang poets, Richard?

6:00 AM
Friday 10 November, 2062
Government Center
Toronto, Ontario

Prime Minister Riel let her left hand trace a small, irritated pattern in a null spot on her interface plate. Her other hand rested on her antique desk, dark wood with a hand-rubbed French finish imparting a deep, supple glow to the technology overlay. Riel pursed her lips before she spoke again and adjusted her mug incrementally. The sun wasn't over the horizon yet and she was already on her fourth cup of coffee.

She sat. The corporate executive staring down the barrel of her enormous desk remained standing. “Dr. Holmes. I don't suppose you care to update me a little more thoroughly on the status of your FTL space exploration program? And explain to me why I wasn't apprised of a fatal accident
before
media rollout of the
Montreal
?”

Alberta Holmes blinked. Riel thought her blue suit made her look even more like some sort of toxic lizard than usual. Pale, papery skin creased like powdered rice paper at either side of Holmes's mouth. Riel half expected her tongue to dart between parted lips—and for it to be forked, and a dusky blue to match the suit.

“We thought it best to maintain your deniability,” she answered after a pause.

“Because it's always better to look like an idiot than a criminal?” Her voice stayed mild, but the nail Riel pressed against her desktop interface bent, tearing the quick. She flinched and reached for a tissue in case it bled. “In the future, Dr. Holmes, your team will be a bit more forthcoming. Or I'll assign some of my own people to oversee the project. Is that clear?”

“Ma'am—”

“I'm seriously considering pulling the plug today.”

“Unitek provides 80 percent of the funding, of course.” Alberta let one corner of her mouth creep toward a smirk. She scuffed an impeccably shod foot on Riel's antique carpet.

Riel smiled.
This
sort of negotiation was her home court. “And Canada provides the credibility, a large percentage of the resources, and most of the personnel. The crews are members of
my
armed services, and their safety is my responsibility.”

“The
Montreal
launch was a major public relations coup. We can have her sister ships ready in six months. With civilian pilots.”

“Children.” Riel caught herself twisting the tissue and set it aside.

“The army takes enlistees at sixteen.”

“Yes,” Riel answered. “It does.” Holmes was painting herself neatly into the corner. If Riel was lucky, she'd hardly have to chase her there at all. She stood and dropped the tissue in her wastebasket. “They can't enlist at fourteen. Under the Military Powers Act.”

“But I can hire them at fourteen. Given parental consent. And I have.”

“Yes, and if you cross me, Alberta, so help me
God
I will have them fucking
drafted
and
take
them out of your hands. I will seize the
Montreal
and I will have you locked in the same cell your Dr. Dunsany occupied for twelve long years.”

“You can't—”

“I can.” Finally, Riel let her smile show. She came around her desk, tasting satisfaction. “The current age of selective service is eighteen, but we can push it as low as fourteen and as high as seventy in cases of special talent and need. We used it to recruit scientists and little baby computer hackers during the PanMalaysian and South African wars. Actually, I believe a couple of the older pilots were reactivated under the same provision. I'm surprised you haven't thought it through. The crew members of a ship—any ship—traveling under the authority of the Canadian government and bearing the might of her military will enjoy the protections and bear the responsibilities inherent in that post.” Riel enjoyed watching Holmes's face twitch as she realized she'd been outmaneuvered.
And that way, I maintain some fragment of control over you, you reckless bitch.
Riel closed the distance between them.

Holmes tilted her head and forced a smile that almost looked real. “We put your party in power and we will take you out.” Riel could see the quiver at the base of Holmes's throat. “Don't fuck with me, Constance.”

“Every chance I get,” Riel answered. “I expect
all
your data transferred to my science adviser's desk by midnight.”

“Ma'am.”

“Good.”

Midnight
Friday 10 November, 2062
Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario

Razorface covered his mouth as he coughed, leaning into the shadow of a doorway. Breathing stung, like somebody was leaning on his chest. He swallowed blood and the nauseating, ropy sweetness of phlegm. The swallowing hurt, too, but he hid a grimace. He wiped his palm on his pants, then rolled his hip unit between his hands, considering.

He started coughing again while he was waiting for Simon to answer, and the first expression on the doctor's face was one of concern. “Razorface. You need to see a doctor about that.”

“The air's just shit, man. Been out in the city all day. Look, I got a download from Maker for you. It's about Mitch. She says you'll know who to take it to.”

“The top?”

“Alla way.”

1545 Hours
Thursday 16 November, 2062
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario

When Leah gets home from school, I'm lying in wait—sitting on the sofa, the frosty autumn-morning clarity of the drug just beginning to limn the world in stained-glass light. I threw Gabe and Elspeth out and told them I'd take Leah in to the lab. I've got to check out the training equipment tonight, and the first wave of kids goes in for surgery on Monday. I start teaching in a week.

I'm a damned lucky woman, and I know it. The poster child for Valens's research, for the success of the crudely wired modifications he worked on us so many years ago. Thirty percent of my compatriots never walked again, and most of the ones who did are dead. Richard hacked the records, and he tells me it was usually by suicide.

Believe me. I'm not in a position to judge.

The nanotech is safer. Gentler. And he won't be trying to fix anything broken, the way he had to with me: just augment her already speedy, youthful reflexes.

I'm so scared for Leah I can barely breathe. But when the door opens and I stand to greet her, it's my goddaughter who confronts me. “Aunt Jenny,” she says, tossing her carryall into the corner. “Where's everybody?”

“Out.”

“Bien,” she says, kicking the door shut and reaching around to unbutton her skirt. “Nous devons parler.”

“Yes, we do.”

She grins at me, bright eyes wise as her mom's. “You got nominated because Dad was chicken, didn't you?”

I think of a cold December day two and a half decades before.
You're my best friend,
he told me. It took me almost thirty years to realize that that was Castaign for
You stupid girl, I love you.

Spilt milk and all that. “What gave us away?”

She walks down the hallway to her bedroom, scooping up her school clothes as she sheds them like a snake. “Genie caught you kissing the other night after she was supposed to be in bed. She squealed.”

“Petite cochon.”

“Oink oink,” Leah says. She disappears through her bedroom door. “You're not very slick, Aunt Jenny.”

She makes me laugh. “I've never gotten away with a damned thing in my life. Will you believe me if I tell you everything's cool?”

I hear drawers moving, the closet swinging open. Little grunts as she yanks her jeans up. Still growing. “I always wondered why you and Dad . . . after mom died, I mean. I asked him once if he was going to marry you. It was kind of a stupid thing to ask, I guess.”

“A complicated thing.”

“Are you moving in with us?”

“No.”

“Are you going back to Hartford?” She comes out again, willowy adolescent with a zit beside her nose, faded blue jeans with the stylish multicolor luminescent whip-stitch up the seam, fringe, and holographic boots.

“I don't think so.” There's nothing there I want to go back for, now that Boris is here and my best friends are dead. “I was going to find someplace here. Unless they ship me out long term on the
Montreal
.”

“Is that going to happen?”

“Chérie, I don't know.” She's so beautiful she makes my eyes sting. I might even live long enough to see her grown up and married, fat babies and a career. Hell. A career flying starships. Just like her old Aunt Jenny. I might outlive Genie.

So might Gabe. “I've got some other news for you, too.”

She stops midmotion, swing of golden hair backlit in a sunbeam, dust motes dancing like guardian angels beside her face. “You got the list.”

The list of students selected for the final pilot training. The first small trial group. “You're in.”

“Eeeee!” She squeals and jumps, barrels into my arms, puppy dog lithe and all that adolescent dignity utterly forgotten as I pick her up and swing her around. “I'm going to fly! I'm going to fly just like you!”

I swallow my unease and grin into her hair. “You rocked the test scores, kiddo.” Gabe's too scared about it to think straight. Leah can't wait to get shot full of nanotech. And me? I keep thinking about the little machines remaking my body molecule by molecule, and what they could mean to Genie. And what could go wrong.