“You don’t know,” Prax said. “You don’t know that they’re dead, and until you know, you’re abandoning them.”
Basia looked down at the floor. There was a flush rising under the man’s skin. He shook his head, the corners of his mouth twitching down.
“You can’t go,” Prax said. “You have to stay and look for him.”
“Don’t,” Basia said. “And I mean do not shout at me in my own home.”
“These are our kids, and you don’t get to walk away from them! What kind of father are you? I mean, Jesus …”
Basia was leaning forward now, hunched over the table. Behind him, a girl on the edge of womanhood looked in from the hallway, her eyes wide. Prax felt a deep certainty rising in him.
“You’re going to stay,” he said.
The silence lasted three heartbeats. Four. Five.
“It’s arranged,” Basia said.
Prax hit him. He didn’t plan it, didn’t intend it. His arm rolled through the shoulder, balled fist shooting out of its own accord. His knuckles sank into the flesh of Basia’s cheek, snapping his head to the side and rocking him back. The big man boiled across the room at him. The first blow hit just below Prax’s collarbone, pushing him back, the next one was to his ribs, and the one after that. Prax felt his chair slide out from under him, and he was falling slowly in the low g but unable to get his feet beneath him. Prax swung wild, kicked out. He felt his foot connect with something, but he couldn’t tell if it was the table or Basia.
He hit the floor, and Basia’s foot came down on his solar plexus. The world went bright, shimmering, and painful. Somewhere a long way away, a woman was shouting. He couldn’t make out the words. And then, slowly, he could.
He’s not right. He lost a baby too. He’s not right.
Prax rolled over, forced himself up to his knees. There was blood on his chin he was pretty sure came from him. No one else there was bleeding. Basia stood by the table, hands in fists, nostrils flared, breath fast. The daughter stood in front of him, interposed between her enraged father and Prax. All he could really see of her was her ass and her ponytail and her hands, flat out at her father in the universal gesture for stop. She was saving his life.
“You’d be better off gone, brother,” Basia said.
“Okay,” Prax said.
He got to his feet slowly and stumbled to the door, still not quite breathing right. He let himself out.
The secret of closed-system botanical collapse was this: It’s not the thing that breaks you need to watch out for. It’s the cascade. The first time he’d lost a whole crop of G. kenon, it had been from a fungus that didn’t hurt soybeans at all. The spores had probably come in with a shipment of ladybugs. The fungus took hold in the hydroponic system, merrily taking up nutrients that weren’t meant for it and altering the pH. That weakened the bacteria Prax had been using to fix nitrogen to the point that they were vulnerable to a phage that wouldn’t have been able to take them out otherwise. The nitrogen balance of the system got out of whack. By the time the bacteria recovered to their initial population, the soybeans were yellow, limp, and past repair.
That was the metaphor he used when he thought about Mei and her immune system. The problem was tiny, really. A mutant allele produced a protein that folded left instead of right. A few base pairs’ difference. But that protein catalyzed a critical step in signal transduction to the T cells. She could have all the parts of an immune system standing ready to fight off a pathogen, but without twice-daily doses of an artificial catalyzing agent, the alarm would never sound. Myers-Skelton Premature Immunosenescence they called it, and the preliminary studies still hadn’t even been able to tell if it was more common outside the well of Earth because of an unknown low-g effect or just the high radiation levels increasing mutations rates generally. It didn’t matter. However she’d gotten there, Mei had developed a massive spinal infection when she was four months old. If they’d been anywhere else in the outer planets, she’d have died of it. But everyone came to Ganymede to gestate, so the child health research all happened there. When Dr. Strickland saw her, he knew what he was looking at, and he held back the cascade.
Prax walked down the corridors toward home. His jaw was swelling. He didn’t remember being hit in the jaw, but it was swelling, and it hurt. His ribs had a sharp pain on the left that hurt if he breathed in too deep, so he kept his breath shallow. He stopped at one of the parks, scrounging a few leaves for dinner. He paused at a large stand of Epipremnum aureum. The wide spade-shaped leaves looked wrong. They were still green, but thicker, and with a golden undertone. Someone had put distilled water in the hydroponic supply instead of the mineral-rich solution long-stability hydroponics needed. They could get away with it for another week. Maybe two. Then the air-recycling plants would start to die, and by the time that happened, the cascade would be too far gone to stop. And if they couldn’t get the right water to the plants, he couldn’t imagine they’d be able to set all the mechanical air recyclers going. Someone was going to have to do something about that.
Someone else.
In his rooms, his one small G. kenon held its fronds up to the light. Without any particular conscious thought, he put his finger in the soil, testing it. The rich scent of well-balanced soil was like incense. It was doing pretty well, all things considered. He glanced at the time stamp on his hand terminal. Three hours had passed since he’d come home. His jaw had gone past aching into a kind of constantly rediscovered pain.
Without her medicine, the normal flora of her digestive system would start overgrowing. The bacteria that normally lived benignly in her mouth and throat would rise against her. After two weeks, maybe she wouldn’t be dead. But even in the best case, she’d be so sick that bringing her back would be problematic.
It was a war. Kids died in wars. It was a cascade. He coughed, and the pain was immense and it was still better than thinking. He needed to go. To get out. Ganymede was dying around him. He wasn’t going to do Mei any good. She was gone. His baby girl was gone.
Crying hurt worse than coughing.
He didn’t sleep so much as lose consciousness. When he woke, his jaw was swollen badly enough that it clicked when he opened his mouth too wide. His ribs felt a degree better. He sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands.
He’d go to the port. He’d go to Basia and apologize and ask to go along. Get out of the Jovian system entirely. Go someplace and start over without his past. Without his failed marriage and shattered work. Without Mei.
He switched to a slightly less dirty shirt. Swabbed his armpits with a damp cloth. Combed his hair back. He’d failed. It was pointless. He had to come to terms with the loss and move on. And maybe someday he would.
He checked his hand terminal. That day was checking the Martian body drop, walking the parks, checking with Dr. Astrigan, and then a list of five brothels he hadn’t been to, where he could ask after the illicit pleasures of pedophilia, hopefully without being gutted by some right-thinking, civic-minded thug. Thugs had children too. Some probably loved them. With a sigh, he keyed in a new entry: MINERALIZE PARK WATER. He’d need to find someone with physical plant access codes. Maybe security could help with that at least.
And maybe, somewhere along the way, he’d find Mei.
There was still hope.
Chapter Eight: Bobbie
The Harman Dae-Jung was a Donnager-class dreadnought, half a kilometer in length, and a quarter million tons dry weight. Her interior docking bay was large enough to hold four frigate-class escort ships and a variety of lighter shuttles and repair craft. Currently, it held only two ships: the large and almost opulent shuttle that had ferried the Martian ambassadors and state officials up for the flight to Earth, and the smaller and more functional Navy shuttle Bobbie had ridden up from Ganymede.
Bobbie was using the empty space to jog.
The Dae-Jung’s captain was being pressured by the diplomats to get them to Earth as quickly as possible, so the ship was running at a nea
r-constant one g acceleration. While this made most of the Martian civilians uncomfortable, it suited Bobbie just fine. The corps trained at high g all the time and did lengthy endurance drills at one g at least once a month. No one ever said it was to prepare for the possibility of having to fight a ground war on Earth. No one had to.
Her recent tour on Ganymede hadn’t allowed her to get in any high-g exercise, and the long trip to Earth seemed like an excellent opportunity to get back into shape. The last thing she wanted was to appear weak to the natives.
“Anything you can do I can do better,” she sang to herself in a breathless falsetto as she ran. “I can do anything better than you.”
She gave her wristwatch a quick glance. Two hours. At her current leisurely pace, that meant twelve miles. Push for twenty? How many people on Earth regularly ran for twenty miles? Martian propaganda would have her believe that half of the people on Earth didn’t even have jobs. They just lived off the government dole and spent their meager allowances on drugs and stim parlors. But probably some of them could run for twenty miles. She’d bet Snoopy and his gang of Earther marines could have run twenty miles, the way they were running from—
“Anything you can do I can do better,” she sang, then concentrated on nothing but the sound of her shoes slapping on the metal deck.
She didn’t see the yeoman enter the docking bay, so when he called out to her, she twisted in surprise and tripped over her own feet, catching herself with her left hand just before she would have dashed her brains out on the deck. She felt something pop in her wrist, and her right knee bounced painfully off the floor as she rolled to absorb the impact.
She lay on her back for a few moments, moving her wrist and knee to see if there was any serious damage. Both hurt, but neither had any grating sensation in it. Nothing broken, then. Barely out of the hospital and already looking for ways to bang herself up again. The yeoman ran up to her and dropped into a crouch at her side.
“Jesus, Gunny, you took a hell of a spill!” the Navy boy said. “A hell of a spill!”
He touched her right knee where the bruise was already starting to darken the bare skin below her jogging shorts, then seemed to realize what he was doing and yanked his hand back.
“Sergeant Draper, your presence is requested at a meeting in conference room G at fourteen fifty hours,” he said, squeaking a little as he rattled off his message. “How come you don’t carry your terminal with you? They’ve had trouble tracking you down.”
Bobbie pushed herself back up to her feet, gingerly testing her knee to see if it would hold her weight.
“You just answered your own question, kid.”
Bobbie arrived at the conference room five minutes early, her red-and-khaki service uniform sharply pressed and marred only by the white wrist brace the company medic had given her for what turned out to be a minor sprain. A marine in full battle dress and armed with an assault rifle opened the door for her and gave her a smile as she went by. It was a nice smile, full of even white teeth, below almond-shaped eyes so dark they were almost black.
Bobbie smiled back and glanced at the name on his suit. Corporal Matsuke. Never knew who you’d run into in the galley or the weight room. It didn’t hurt to make a friend or two.
She was pulled the rest of the way into the room by someone calling her name.
“Sergeant Draper,” Captain Thorsson repeated, gesturing impatiently toward a chair at the long conference table.
“Sir,” Bobbie said, and snapped off a salute before taking the seat. She was surprised by how few people were in the room. Just Thorsson from the intelligence corps and two civilians she hadn’t met.
“Gunny, we’re going over some of the details in your report; we’d appreciate your input.”
Bobbie waited a moment to be introduced to the two civilians in the room, but when it became clear Thorsson wasn’t going to do it, she just said, “Yes, sir. Whatever I can do to help.”
The first civilian, a severe-looking redheaded woman in a very expensive suit, said, “We’re trying to create a better timeline of the events leading up to the attack. Can you show us on this map where you and your fire team were when you received the radio message to return to the outpost?”
Bobbie showed them, then went step by step through the events of that day. Looking at the map they’d brought, she saw for the first time how far she’d been flung across the ice by the impact of the orbital mirror. It looked like it had been a matter of centimeters between that and being smashed into dust like the rest of her platoon …
“Sergeant,” Thorsson said, his tone of voice letting her know he’d said it a couple of times before.
“Sir, sorry, looking at these photos sent me woolgathering. It won’t happen again.”
Thorsson nodded, but with a strange expression Bobbie couldn’t read.
“What we’re trying to pinpoint is precisely where the Anomaly was inserted prior to the attack,” the other civilian, a chubby man with thinning brown hair, said.
The Anomaly they called it now. You could hear them capitalize the word when they said it. Anomaly, like something that just happens. A strange random event. It was because everyone was still afraid to call it what it really was. The Weapon.
“So,” the chubby guy said, “based on how long you had radio contact, and information regarding loss of radio signal from other installations around that area, we are able to pinpoint the source of the jamming signal as the Anomaly itself.”
“Wait,” Bobbie said, shaking her head. “What? The monster can’t have jammed our radios. It had no tech. It wasn’t even wearing a damned space suit to breathe! How could it be carrying jamming equipment?”
Thorsson patted her hand paternally, a move that irritated Bobbie more than it calmed her.
“The data doesn’t lie, Sergeant. The zone of radio blackout moved. And always at its center was the … thing. The Anomaly,” Thorsson said, then turned away from her to speak to the chubby guy and the redhead.
Bobbie sat back, feeling the energy move away from her in the room, like she was the one person at the dance without a date. But since Thorsson hadn’t dismissed her, she couldn’t just leave.
Redhead said, “Based on our radio loss data, that puts insertion here”—she pointed at something on the map—“and the path to the UN outpost is along this ridge.”
“What’s in that location?” Thorsson said with a frown.
Chubby pulled up a different map and pored over it for a few seconds.
“Looks like some old service tunnels for the dome’s hydro plant. This says they haven’t been used in decades.”
“So,” Thorsson said. “The kind of tunnels one might use to transport something dangerous that needs to be kept secret.”
“Yes,” Redhead said, “maybe they were delivering it to that Marine outpost and it got loose. The marines cut and ran when they saw it was out of control.”
Bobbie gave a dismissive laugh before she could stop herself.
“You have something to add, Sergeant Draper?” Thorsson said.
Thorsson was looking at her with his enigmatic smile, but Bobbie had worked with him long enough now to know that what he hated most was bullshit. If you spoke up, he wanted to make sure you actually had something useful to say. The two civilians were looking at her with surprise, as though she were a cockroach that had suddenly stood up on two legs and started speaking.
She shook her head.
“When I was a boot, you know what my drill sergeant said was the second most dangerous thing in the solar system, after a Martian Marine?”
The civvies continued to stare at her, but Thorsson nodded and mouthed the words along with her as she next spoke.
“A UN Marine.”
Chubby and Redhead shared a look and Redhead rolled her eyes for him. But Thorsson said, “So you don’t think the UN soldiers were running from something that got out of their control.”
“Not a fucking chance, sir.”
“Then gi
ve us your take on it.”
“That UN outpost was staffed by a full platoon of Marines. Same strength as our outpost. When they finally started running, there were six left. Six. They fought almost to the last man. When they ran to us, they weren’t trying to disengage. They were coming so we could help them continue the fight.”
Chubby picked a leather satchel up off the floor and started rummaging in it. Redhead watched, as though what he was doing was far more interesting than anything Bobbie had to say.
“If this were some secret UN thing that those Marines were tasked to deliver or protect, they wouldn’t have come. They’d have died doing it rather than abandon their mission. That’s what we would have done.”
“Thank you,” Thorsson said.
“I mean, it wasn’t even our fight, and we fought to the last marine to stop that thing. You think the UN Marines would do less?”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Thorsson said again, louder. “I tend to agree, but we have to explore all possibilities. Your comments are noted.”
Chubby finally found what he was looking for. A small plastic box of mints. He took one out, then held the box out to Redhead to take one. The sickly sweet smell of spearmint filled the air. Around a mouthful of mint, Chubby said, “Yes, thank you, Sergeant. I think we can proceed here without taking up more of your time.”
Bobbie stood up, snapped another salute at Thorsson, and left the room. Her heart was going fast. Her jaw ached where she was grinding her teeth.
Civvies didn’t get it. No one did.
When Captain Martens came into the cargo bay, Bobbie had just finished disassembling the gun housing on her combat suit’s right arm. She removed the three-barrel Gatling gun from its mount and placed it on the floor next to the two dozen other parts she’d already stripped off. Next to them sat a can of gun cleaner and a bottle of lubricant, along with the various rods and brushes she’d use to clean the parts.