“If I had,” Prescott said carefully, “would it have made any difference? And if I had known, do you seriously think I’d have stood by and watch it consume us and not try to find a solution?”
That was pretty well what Hoffman had said to Margaret. He thought of her raging at him for not telling her the Hammer strikes were coming. And what would you have done if I’d told you? Yes, he’d said that to her. This was his punishment. He wasn’t a man who believed in divine interference, but he accepted that fate and his own hypocrisy were forcing him to relive Margaret’s viewpoint on that terrible day. Maybe there was such a thing as hell after all. Maybe this was it, and he was already dead.
But he clung to his anger and let it carry him along. He couldn’t stop now.
“How the fuck could you hide it?” he demanded. “How you could not tell us that we did it to ourselves again? Was that it? Couldn’t you face admitting that another of our god-almighty weapons came back to bite us in the ass?”
Prescott blinked a couple of times, staring into Hoffman’s face. His focus flickered as if he suddenly didn’t know what Hoffman was going on about. “I’m sorry?”
“Lambency. It’s a COG bioweapon, am I right? We cooked it up right here during the Pendulum Wars, didn’t we? And then we deployed it to kill the grubs, just like the Hammer, and now it’s killing us too. Our own shit’s killing us again. And that means you must have known the grubs were coming long before E-Day.”
Hoffman felt his throat tightening as if his anger was finally going to choke the life out of him. His heart was racing. He felt as close to a stroke as he’d ever been, too drained and betrayed to summon up the energy to punch that bastard in the face.
But Prescott could always surprise him. For a moment, the man’s expression became absolute despair before the mask snapped back into place and his real feelings were buried forever. It was so fleeting that Hoffman wondered if he’d imagined it out of sheer hope that he’d finally broken Prescott’s silence.
“You have no idea,” Prescott said softly. “Victor, you could not be more wrong. You really couldn’t.” He paused, stopped himself saying something—no, not an act, definitely not an act—and shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s not of our making. If it were, we might stand a better chance. And I had no warning whatsoever—no idea that the Locust were coming. No damn idea at all.”
Prescott was telling some kind of truth. Hoffman felt devastated and angry. He’d wanted that truth so badly. Or at least he thought he did; what he wanted, he realized, was for Prescott to know what this thing was and reveal that he’d found a way to deal with it before the last humans on Sera were picked off. He really wanted the man to know best. He wanted a grown-up to put things right.
But Prescott didn’t have a solution. That was clear. Hoffman’s whole neat theory about Lambency, so plausible and such a perfect fit to events, was completely wrong. Hoffman was on his own again, orphaned.
“Goddamn,” he said quietly, completely deflated. “I’ll leave you to write your speech, then, Chairman. Good day.”
Hoffman managed to get up and walk out. He didn’t storm off. He couldn’t manage it. Michaelson and Trescu followed him down the stairs in silence, already in the habit of waiting until they were out of earshot to react to events. They stood on the steps of Admiralty House, now an island refuge in its own right. The parade ground in front of them had become a crowded town square.
“I told you he was afraid of something,” Trescu said at last.
“Well, well.” Michaelson raised his eyebrows. “At least I lived long enough to see a miracle. Prescott, coming clean. The apocalypse must be due any minute.”
Hoffman felt shaky now. He needed to see what Bernie had found. And he needed to lean on her for a little moral support.
“If I’d known what an honest Prescott reaction looked like,” he said, “I might have saved myself a lot of time over the years.”
“Have we ever actually caught him lying to us at all?” Michaelson asked. “No. He’s just withheld information. Which is bad enough, but more confusing. I can’t read him at all now.”
“So what is on this disc you neglected to tell me about?” Trescu said quietly.
It was inevitable. Hoffman had to salvage the relationship. “I haven’t even told most of my own men, so I didn’t put you on the circulation list either. I stole it from the asshole. Other than that—it’s as much goddamn use as a drinks coaster. We can’t decrypt it.”
“It’s nothing personal, Miran,” Michaelson said. “He didn’t even tell me until a little while ago. Didn’t want to drop me in the dwang.”
“At the risk of sounding like an echo, is there anything you’re withholding from me?” Trescu asked. He wasn’t hard to read. He looked massively pissed off, a man who didn’t feel any need to play diplomacy games with the COG. “Seeing as we’re all being so trusting.”
“No.” Hoffman felt ashamed. “You’ve plumbed the depth of my ignorance now.”
“Then you won’t mind if we retain enough imulsion to enable us to leave independently if Prescott lets us down in any way.”
Eugen was dead. It would have been churlish to respond any other way. “You’re putting lives on the line for us,” Hoffman said. “You’ve got a right to an insurance policy. Keep whatever you need, Commander.”
Trescu nodded and looked down at his boots as if the comment embarrassed him. “I would prefer everyone to stick together, but the wild card, as you put it, is your Chairman. So we carry on. We plan for every eventuality, and we see what happens next.”
“He obviously thinks he can find a solution faster on his own or else he’d be spending all his time demanding one from us,” Michaelson said. “And that’s starting to worry me.”
They walked slowly across the parade ground, normally a good place to have unheard conversations, but it was too busy today.
“Maybe he just doesn’t trust us,” Hoffman said. “But that’s a given. His kind trust nobody.”
“Neither do I,” Trescu said. “But I especially wouldn’t trust a subordinate who stole information from me.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Commander.”
“We’re on our own, Hoffman. Actually, I do trust you. You’re scared of lying. You blurt out the truth. That’s why nobody tells you anything and you have to shake it out of them.”
“I used to think it was a virtue.”
“It may come to be one again. By the way—if you want encrypted COG data decoded, you had only to ask. We used to be very good at that. The offer stands.”
Goddamn. What harm could it do now? “I’ll probably take you up on that.”
He left Trescu with Michaelson, knowing that any damage he’d done would be smoothed over by Michaelson’s wardroom charm. He was adrift again. He thought he’d been putting the pieces together in a logical way, and now he was back to square one.
His day couldn’t get any worse. He was sure of it. Then he thought of Borusc Eugen’s wife, and decided he’d gotten off lightly today.
CHAPTER 16
This isn’t the first time that Lambency’s contaminated another species. But I’d still like a tissue sample from the animal for storage in case we ever find a way of analyzing it. You’re doing some very useful work, Corporal—I can always use someone technically minded on my personal staff. You might want to consider that.
(Chairman Prescott to Damon Baird)
CIC, VECTES NAVAL BASE.
“Hello, sir.” Mathieson pointed to a clear desk in CIC. “If you park yourself there, you’ll see the Pack as soon as it comes through the gates.”
Hoffman steeled himself to stay calm when Bernie showed up looking the worse for the fight with the Lambent, which he knew she would. He sat down to go through the non-urgent signals while he waited. “Thanks, son. Any more databurst activity?”
“I couldn’t monitor much this afternoon, sir. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I realize it’s been a shitty day all a
round.”
“Everything all right, sir?”
“Oh, the usual. Frustrations boiling over.”
Ten minutes later, the Packhorse rolled through the gates into the vehicle compound and Anya got out of the driver’s door followed by Sam and that red-headed sergeant that Baird couldn’t stand. The first thing he noticed was the state of Anya’s usually neat hair. Then Bernie climbed out of the back and spent a few moments extracting the dog and what looked like a large parcel in a battered canvas bag. Hoffman couldn’t even begin to imagine what the hell she’d brought back.
Hoffman pressed his earpiece. “Hoffman to Mataki,” he said. “Get your ass into CIC now, Sergeant.”
The radio clicked. Only Bernie could somehow make that click sound pissed off. But her tone was completely neutral. “Yes, sir. On my way.”
She walked into CIC covered in mud and reeking of smoke. Mac limped alongside her, looking equally bedraggled.
“The good news is that we’ve got a few steaks,” she said, not doing a convincing job of humor. “The bad news is in here.”
She held up the bag. Mac’s eyes were fixed on it.
“Show me.”
“It came out of the stalk—I mean actually out of the blister things. The pods. I wasn’t imagining it, Vic. Ask Anya.”
“Sir?” Mathieson called. It was a warning. “Sir, Chairman Prescott’s coming…”
It was too late. Prescott filled the doorway. There was no way out of this now.
“I’m relieved you’re back in one piece, Sergeant,” Prescott said, putting paid to any examination of the sample without him. He went up to Mac and ruffled his fur, and Mac accepted it as if he and the Chairman were old buddies. “Is everyone else okay?”
“Fine, sir. I’ve got a sample.”
“Good work. Let’s look at this upstairs.”
Bernie turned to Mac. “Stay, Mac. I won’t be long.” But he followed her, looking pathetic. She tried to get him to sit by pressing on his back but he wasn’t having any of it. “Sorry. He saved me from a glowie today and he took a pounding. He’s a bit clingy.”
“Bring him along,” Prescott said, all charm and understanding. He stepped back and ushered her up to his office like a perfect gentleman. Hoffman trailed behind him, seething.
Bernie laid the bag on Prescott’s desk, scattering soil and ash across it. She reached in and tugged out a charred piece of meat, holding it up by a stump of bone. To Prescott’s credit, he didn’t flinch. He just reached into his desk drawer and took out a pair of old workshop gloves.
“Where did you find it, Sergeant?” He cleared the files off the desk and laid out some sheets of paper, then held out both hands for the remains. “Let’s have the background.”
He really did seem fascinated. He lowered the joint onto the paper and examined it like a pathologist. Hoffman caught Bernie’s eye for a second. Like all familiar faces he saw, the slowly changing detail of aging was usually filtered out, but Bernie looked wrung dry and it scared him.
She shouldn’t have to do this. Nobody should.
“There were lots of them.” Bernie sounded hoarse. “They slipped straight out of the pods.”
She reached across Prescott’s desk and flipped the hunk of meat over to show a piece of exposed bone. When she took it in both hands by the charred ends and flexed it, the cooked meat pulled away from the bone in long strings. Now it was clear that one end of the lump was a joint, a small knee-like hinge.
“I heard about the bull, sir, but this one came as a shock,” she said. “They looked pretty much like dogs. And I don’t mean infected ones. Seb Edlar only lost two dogs, and it also doesn’t explain why the Lambent ones actually came out of those pods. The blisters. Or whatever we’re calling them now.”
Prescott was riveted, hanging on Bernie’s words. Hoffman could only watch. There was now no pattern to the Lambent, no logical progression, and the only consistent thing was that they exploded.
“Good God,” Prescott said at last. He seemed genuinely taken aback. “Sergeant, would you put this in a freezer for the time being, please? If the cooks argue with you, tell them it’s on my orders.”
“Yes, sir.” Whatever Bernie thought of Prescott, it didn’t show on her face and she remained the dutiful sergeant. She rewrapped the charred leg. When she turned to go, she didn’t even look at Hoffman. Mac followed her out of the office.
“Before you ask, Colonel,” Prescott said, “I have no idea what that was.” He gestured to the empty chair opposite his desk. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
The office was exceptionally tidy. Prescott had always been the organized type, but he looked as if he’d been sorting out papers and cleaning shelves. In a normal world, the head of state wouldn’t have had to dust his own office, but Prescott didn’t seem to mind. There were things to admire about the man after all. They just weren’t the qualities that Hoffman needed to put the lives of his Gears and the future of the COG in Prescott’s hands without question.
He’s never actually done anything crazy. He’s never been incompetent. I’d have done what he did, every time. But he dicks me around. I can’t stand that.
“Is this about the disc?”
“No, it’s about what I’ve just seen. I’m as troubled as you are about the rate at which the Lambent are spreading.” There was none of that silky, calculating tone in Prescott’s voice for once. “I realize that none of the senior staff think relocation to the mainland is viable yet.”
It sounded like a perfectly normal discussion of the kind he was meant to have with Hoffman. They should have had a lot more of them.
“If we leave here, then we’ll have to split up into small groups to survive,” Hoffman said. “We don’t have the resources to duplicate military or civic infrastructure across a dozen or more small settlements. It’s going to finish us. We’re stronger as a single entity.”
Prescott didn’t look as if he was resisting the pessimism. “That’s a pretty stark assessment.”
“It’s the view of all of us. You know what the alternatives are, and they’re much more tied to the seasons than to the level of threat here.”
Prescott leaned back in his chair. “You know there are those who want to take their chances and leave anyway. I think we should let them go.”
“No, absolutely not. We’ve been here before, Chairman. You let malcontents leave Port Farrall to fend for themselves, but they were only taking a few of their own private vehicles. Anyone who leaves Vectes takes a vessel—a boat that others are going to need one day. We can’t replace ships.”
Prescott nodded as if he was listening. “I see your point, but will you stop them trying?”
“I already have.”
“It’s not as simple as it looks, morally or practically. I worry about spending resources on corralling a minority.”
“That’s anarchy,” Hoffman said. “Not on my watch.”
“It might come to that, Victor.” Prescott’s tone softened even further, like a disappointed father who had to ask his son if it was true he’d had one beer too many and dented the car. “I want to ask a question, man to man. No games. A straight question, and I’ll respect your straight answer. Well, that’s the only kind you give, isn’t it?”
This could have been going anywhere, but wherever it was heading, Hoffman knew he wouldn’t like it. “You know it is.”
“Why do you think you’re now the senior commander, Victor?”
“Well, every other asshole died except me, sir.” There’d been a lot of officers who just went missing over the years after E-Day. Sometimes that thought plagued him, but he filed them with the other missing billions of grub victims. Then he thought of General Bardry. “Or blew their own goddamn brains out in despair.”
“Victor, you’re here because I chose you. I chose you when I took office, actually. You do what needs to be done, however hard it is, when others are still consulting their rule books and wasting lives.” Prescott leaned forward again. “I’ve rea
d your service record. The one with the report you wrote about the siege of Anvil Gate, not the official bullshit that airbrushed out all the less savory parts. So I know what you’re capable of.”
“Would that be executing a civvie for stealing rationed food from my Gears, or shooting an honorable UIR officer who had taken my surrender?” And who gave me water. And was prepared to treat my wounded. I know which one haunts me. “I did a lot of unsavory shit, you see, sir. It’s hard to keep up.”
“I was thinking of the civilian,” Prescott said softly. “But both showed that you had your priorities straight. And I knew that you would see the sense in using the Hammer of Dawn for asset denial.”
Hoffman wanted to call a halt to this but it was like staring at a car crash. He couldn’t drag himself away. “Yes, I kept it from my wife, and she ended up dead because I followed orders, while you even tipped off your goddamn secretary so she could get her family to safety. So we’re both assholes in our own special way. Where’s this going?”
Prescott’s mask had started to peel away a little more. He really could control his facial reactions to things, the tiny giveaways that were involuntary in most people. Now he looked as if he was talking to Hoffman man to man.
But don’t forget he’s a terrific actor.
“I’m going to ask something of you very soon,” Prescott said. “But I won’t be able to explain why. All I can tell you is that there’s something I have to do that can’t wait any longer, and I need you to help me do it. What will you say?”
He’s got to be winding me up for laughs. He has to be. How many times have we had fights over this secrecy shit? How many times does he think I’ll bend over and take this up the ass?
Hoffman tried to give him a reasoned answer rather than just punch him in the face and have done with it. “If you’d asked me for blind obedience to an order ten years ago, Chairman, I’d have bitched but done it. But after the events of this last year—no, I would not, sir. I would not do your bidding unless you were prepared to tell me absolutely everything.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Victor.” Prescott looked like he knew that was coming but thought it was worth a try anyway. “Unfortunately we’re in a unique situation, one not dissimilar to your own at Anvil Gate. One requiring you and I to be bastards whose names will be cursed yet again. Still— I haven’t given an order, so your refusal is hypothetical.”