The three of them read the file headings as they scrolled down the holographic pane on the table. There were twenty-seven, starting with the destruction of the spaceport's hydrogen tank during the landing, moving on to include a couple of riots aimed at platoon patrols, squaddies targeted for fights when they visited bars and restaurants at night, a truck driven into the side of a Z-B jeep, industrial technicians beaten up while the accompanying squaddies were lured away, power cables to factories cut and reserve generators shorted out, production machinery wrecked by subversive software, raw material vanishing en route and finally the explosion at the pump station.
"Twenty-seven in three weeks," Adul said. "We've seen worse."
"Categorize them," Simon said to the AS. "Separate out the incidents that have affected production of assets." He examined the results. "Notice anything?"
"What are we looking for?" Braddock asked.
"Take out the two times our staff were hospitalized by thugs at the factories, and the road crash that wrecked the cargo of biochemicals on its way to the spaceport."
Braddock ran down the list again. "Ah, the rest is all sabotage, and nobody has been caught. There are never any leads."
"Last night's attack on the pump station has the same signature. Whoever it was went through the door alarms and sensors as if they weren't there. There is absolutely no record of anyone breaking in."
"Could have been an employee at the last inspection."
"Eight days ago," Simon said. "And there were three of them. That would mean they all had to be involved."
"How effective has this sabotage been?" Adul asked the office AS.
The holographic pane displayed several tables, which rearranged their figures.
"Jesus wept!" Braddock exclaimed at the total. "Twelve percent."
"That's very effective sabotage," Simon muttered. "Catalogue any slogans at the scene or radical groups claiming responsibility."
"None listed," the office AS replied.
"The other incidents," Simon said, "the riots and fights, catalogue slogans and claims of responsibility."
The list scrolled down the pane again. A complex fan of lines sprang out from each file, linking them to other files. Simon opened several of them at random. Some were visual, showing graffito symbols sprayed on the wall in the aftermath of riots and fights, most of them with daggers or hammers smashing Z-B's corporate logo, while the rest were crude messages telling them to go home in unimaginative obscenities signed by groups who were mostly initials, though someone calling himself KillBoy was quite common. Others were brief audio messages, digitally distorted to avoid identification, that had been loaded into the datapool for general distribution, declaring that various "acts" had been carried out in the name of the people against their interstellar oppressors.
Simon felt a brief glimmer of excitement at the results. The notion of the chase beginning. And most definitely a worthy adversary. "We have two groups at work here," he said, and indicated the list on the pane. "The usual ragbag rabble of amateurs keen to strike a blow for freedom and clobber a couple of squaddies into the bargain. And then someone else." The AS switched the display back to the sabotage incidents. "Someone who really knows what they're doing and doesn't seek to advertise it to the general public. They also know where we're the most vulnerable: financially. There's a small margin between viability and debt on these asset-realization missions. And if our losses and delays mount up, we might not break even."
"I have a problem with this," Adul said. "This sabotage group might keep their activities secret from the rest of Thallspring, but we were always going to know."
"We know, but we can't prove it," Braddock said. "Like the pump station, none of them are directly attributable as anti-Z-B acts. There are always other, more plausible, explanations. And they have covered their tracks well, especially electronically, which I find disturbing."
"We know," Simon said. "And we were always going to know at some stage. They must have realized that."
"That's why they keep their attacks nonattributable."
"There's something missing," Simon said "If they are this good, then why aren't they more effective?"
"You call twelve percent in three weeks ineffective?"
"Look at the abilities they've demonstrated. They could have made it fifty percent if they'd wanted."
"At fifty percent we would have used collateral, no matter what plague is killing the population."
"My God," Adul said. "You don't think they cooked up the tuberculosis as well, do you? That's going to have a huge effect on asset production."
"I won't discount it altogether," Simon said. "But I have to say I think it's unlikely. Suppose we didn't have templates for metabiotics and vaccines? They'd be exterminating their own people. That doesn't seem to be their style."
"But we are going to take a serious reduction in viability from their activities so far. They've been tremendously effective."
Simon shook his head. "They're holding back."
"Chief, the only thing they haven't done is declare all-out war."
"I want to think this through: they always knew we would uncover what they're doing, yes? That much is obvious. Very well, by clever deduction we discover there is a well-organized covert group intent on sabotaging our asset-acquisition schedule. What is our response going to be?"
"Hunt them down," Adul said.
"Of course, and?"
"Step up our security."
"Yes, which is going to tie up a great deal of our capacity, both in AS and human time."
"You think that's going to leave us open to their real attack? That this is all just a diversion?"
"Possibly. Though I admit I could be overestimating them."
"If what we've seen so far is just a diversion," Braddock said, "then I don't want to think what their main attack's going to be like."
"Their ability is worrying, yes," Simon said. "But I'm more concerned by their target. Our presence here is tripartite: personnel, starships and financial. They've already struck at our finances. If they wanted to render asset-realization in-viable, they could have done it."
"They'd face collateral," Adul said.
"Santa Chico faced collateral. It never deters the die-hard fanatics. Consider it from their point of view: five hundred, even a thousand people dead, in exchange for ridding themselves of us for good. Wars of national liberation have rarely cost so few lives."
"So you think it's either us or the starships?"
"Yes. In which case, my money's on the starships."
"They'll never get them."
Simon smiled at the younger intelligence operative. "I know. That's where all our faith is placed, our most impregnable fortress, as secure as e-alpha. The starships are invulnerable. We can detect and destroy any missiles. Our AS's will prevent any subversive software from infiltrating onboard networks. And nothing gets past spaceport security. We deep-scan every gram of cargo. And no natives are ever allowed to dock.
"But just imagine they did get through, or that somehow they have acquired Santa Chico's exo-atmospheric armaments."
"How?" Adul demanded. "Santa Chico's thirty light-years away. Even if they sent a maser message with the schematics, it couldn't have reached here by now. Besides, we haven't seen any of the spin generators in orbit."
"We always assume that Earth is the only source of star-ships, or even portals. If anybody else can construct them, then it will be Santa Chico."
"Dear God, if the Chicos are organizing resistance to the asset-realization missions..."
"Precisely. But I'm not convinced of that myself. I was on Santa Chico. Interstellar revolution doesn't fit with their societal goals. And in any case, that planet is closed to space-flight now. I'm simply using them as an example, a warning against complacency. We are totally reliant on our starships. If they are eliminated, then we are effectively dead. Our nonreturn would damage Zantiu-Braun's interstellar operations permanently, possibly even to the point of shuttin
g them down. That would be a catastrophe we cannot permit to happen. For all their ability to sustain themselves, the new worlds are dependent on us bringing them technological advances. Earth remains our race's intellectual and scientific powerhouse. However unwelcome our links are, they cannot be severed."
"Sir, I think you're overreacting," Braddock said, grinning nervously. "It's one thing to blow up a couple of water pumps. And I acknowledge they did it flawlessly. But from that to shooting down or blowing up starships ... It's not going to happen."
Simon considered the operative's insistence. He'd known he would have trouble convincing them how serious this intangible threat was. Everyone in Z-B placed their trust in the dogma of the invulnerable starship, even Quan and Raines, by nature and profession the most suspicious members of the Third Fleet. Safeguarding this mission was going to test his skill and authority in ways he hadn't envisaged when they embarked.
He held up a hand, a soft smile of understanding on his lips. "Humor me for the moment. If nothing else we need to disprove the notion."
"Sir."
They both nodded eager agreement, relieved by his mild reaction.
"So, let us consider our strategy. We definitely need to tighten up security in the industrial sector. Parallel to that, we need to keep a close watch on possible sabotage routes that can lead to the starships. I'm open to suggestions."
* * *
The population of Memu Bay was giving the platoon more space as they moved along their patrol route. Odel Cureton had been on enough patrols now to notice the difference. Before today, the locals had never really bothered much with them. The adolescents had shouted and spat, adults ignored them, nobody ever moved out of the way on crowded pavements. Pretty standard behavior. He'd seen it on every asset-realization mission (Santa Chico excepted). Today it was as if he had some invisible force field projecting out around his Skin, snowplow-shaped, moving people aside as he approached. One thing hadn't changed: the stares of hatred and contempt; if anything they'd grown more intense.
A day after the TB warning, and their demon status was now irrevocable. Not only were they here to steal Memu Bay's hard-earned wealth, their very presence endangered everyone. Demons with killer breath, every exhalation releasing a new swarm of lethal bacteria into the town's humid, salty air.
He turned down into Gorse Street. Hal was on the other side, keeping level. There were no police with them today. The assigned constables simply hadn't turned up. Odel didn't care; he knew he could rely on Hal out here on the streets. For all the stick he took, the kid was actually a good squaddie. As he watched, he saw the kid's head turn slightly as a couple of teenage girls walked past. He smiled to himself, imagining the kind of sensor imaging that the kid was requesting from his Skin. Not that he needed much enhancement. The girls weren't wearing a whole lot to begin with.
It was about the hottest day since they'd landed. Not a cloud in sight. Every whitewashed wall seemed to reflect the full force of the sun. Several sections of his display grid were indicating just how the heat was affecting his Skin. The weave of thermal fibers underneath the carapace was working at high capacity, radiating the heat generated by both his own and the Skin's muscles. His gill-vents were siphoning heat from the air before he inhaled. Even the carapace had adopted a light shading, partially reflecting the sun's rays.
Tactically, it put him in shitty shape. A glowing beacon to just about every sensor going. Odel had never got the memory of Nic out of his head.
They reached the end of Gorse Street. "Sector eight clear," he reported in. There was a lot of comfort to be had from routine these days. None of the platoon bitched about the sergeant's insistence they stuck to the protocols. If anyone could get them through this and out the other side, it would be Lawrence Newton. After the last few missions, Odel knew his faith wasn't misplaced.
"Roger that. Continue the sweep," Lawrence told him.
"Got that, Sergeant."
Odel and Hal crossed the road and started off down Muxloe Street. It was another row of small shops sitting under tall, austere apartment blocks, most of them claiming to be general stores and packed to their dirty ceilings with junk. But the road was wide, with a constant stream of traffic. The sergeant had quietly dropped side streets and narrow alleys from their itinerary over the last few days. Busy streets and plenty of people made ambushes and booby traps difficult.
Pedestrians melted away with sharp, rancorous glances. One woman pulled her two young children to one side, shielding them with a protective arm, their high voices chirping questions as he passed by.
He had a strong impulse to stop and remonstrate with her and anyone else who was listening—to reason logically, to explain, to prove he was a good chap really. The sergeant had done it with a bunch of children playing soccer the other day. But Odel knew he could never pull off anything like that. He didn't have the words, and people laughed at his accent.
He kept on walking down the street. Tactile sensors flashed up numbers in their designated grid, telling him how hot the pavement slabs were under his Skin soles. He'd heard of people frying eggs on rocks heated by sunlight. These weren't far off.
Several of Muxloe's shops were shut, or closed—five of them together in a dilapidated block whose concrete panel walls were crumbling away in big broken blister patches. Gray-green fungus thrived in the cracks. Their windows were covered with bent, rusty roller blinds. Paint on the signs above the doors was fading, leaving little indication of what they had once sold. Polyethylene waste bags and weathered boxes had been dumped along the outside wall. Near the far end was a big glass bottle full of a bright scarlet fluid. A green T-shirt had been tied to the fat neck.
Odel was almost past the derelict shops when he stopped and spun around. Nearby civilians stared at him fearfully, wondering what they'd done. The Skin helmet's visual sensors zoomed in, the T-shirt filling his vision.
"Sergeant!" he called. "Sergeant, I've found something. Sergeant, come and see this. Sergeant!"
"What is it?"
"You've got to see this." Odel untied the T-shirt. The white lettering on the chest read Silverqueen Reef Tours Cairns.
Inside his hot Skin, Odel started shivering. He switched his sensors back onto the bottle. The liquid inside...
Lawrence waited in the anteroom as various aides scurried in and out of the mayor's study. Every time one of them slipped in he wanted to barge past, to demand Ebrey Zhang's attention. Forty-five frustrating minutes so far.
Captain Bryant had finally lost patience with him after a fruitless hour in the barracks, which they'd spent arguing. "You've had my answer, Sergeant," he snapped. "I cannot authorize any further action at this point."
"Then who can?" Lawrence asked. Given the way Z-B's strategic security force was structured, you simply couldn't be more insulting to your senior officer. Both of them knew it.
Captain Bryant took a moment to compose himself. "You have my authority to raise this with Commander Zhang. Dismissed, Sergeant."
No matter how the meeting with Zhang went, Lawrence had blown it with Bryant. He found himself smiling on the walk over to Memu Bay's town hall. He couldn't give a flying fuck about Bryant and the report he would now be getting from the captain at the end of the campaign. He'd just gone and committed himself. Up until that moment his own private little asset-realization mission had been theoretical. The pieces were in place, but still he had held back from initiating anything. Then that one heated question had relieved him of any conscious decision-making.
Typical, he told himself wryly. Every major turning point in my life is decided by flashes of temper.
Thirty minutes into his wait, the City Hall lights flickered and went out. They were getting used to cuts in the hotel that the platoon had adopted as its barracks. The power supply failed most evenings when someone burned the cable, or lobbed a Molotov at a substation. But the fusion plant itself was always left intact: after all, the town would need that after Z-B left. It wasn't just the barracks tha
t suffered; power to the factories was interrupted. Internal rumor had it that they were over 20 percent behind on their asset-realization schedule.
Lawrence smiled to himself as shouts of alarm and annoyance echoed around the spacious cloisters. The overhead lights glowed like dim embers for a minute; then about a third of them slowly returned to full brightness as the emergency power supply came online, leaving the rest dark. Shadows swelled up out of the ornate arches and alcoves. If City Hall was anything like the hotel, the cells wouldn't have managed to fully recharge since the last time. Their swimming pool had been emptied a week ago because of the power drain that the filtration and heating element placed on the hotel's reserves.
One of Ebrey Zhang's aides called him in. Lawrence pulled down the bottom of his dress tunic and went through the open doors. He halted in front of the big desk and saluted. All of the study lights were on.
"Sergeant," Ebrey Zhang acknowledged with a wearied tone. A hand waved the aide out of the room, leaving the two of them alone. Ebrey moved back in his seat, picking up a desktop pearl to play with. He smiled. "You've been giving Captain Bryant a hard time, Newton."
Lawrence had been hoping for the easy routine. He remembered Ebrey Zhang from a couple of campaigns ago, when he'd been a captain. The man was a good enough officer, a realist, who understood the principles of command. Knowing when to be a ballbuster and when to listen.
"Sir. It's one of my men, sir."
"Yes, I know that. But leave off Bryant. He's new, and young, and still finding his feet. I'll have a word with him this time, but that's all."
"Thank you, sir. And Johnson?"
"I know." Ebrey sighed reluctantly. "But be realistic, Newton, what can I do that Bryant hasn't done already? If you can give me any hint where to search, I'll chopper ten platoons there immediately."
"He's dead, sir. There's no point in searching. We have to show them they can't get away with that. None of us will be safe unless you do something."