Killswitch: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 3)

Sandy strode fast along the corridor, Hiraki leading the way, rifle to his shoulder and a mean swagger to his step. Soldiers moved aside in passing. Many recognised her, despite the dark hair, and saluted. Some stopped in their tracks, and snapped off salutes so crisp they sizzled, defiance in every postured muscle.

When they reached the entrance to the med-bay, Hiraki took up guard, rifle at cross-arms. ‘I’ll be okay,’ Sandy told him.

‘Even so,’ said Hiraki, scanning one way, then the other, with slanted, dangerous eyes. He was, Sandy had gathered, in an exceptionally bad mood. First, Vanessa had held gold squad back from the airborne assault on the residential buildings the missiles had come from. Then she’d held him in place while the GI had killed two of Vanessa’s squad and then escaped. In Sandy’s estimation, Vanessa had been right on both calls-the first because the threat assessment against an offensive assault at the buildings was low, and she’d wanted her best squad leader in reserve for something more serious; and the second because if Hiraki had gone into the Chambers’ station, he and most of his squad would also have been dead. Lieutenant Hiraki, of course, didn’t see it that way.

‘You’ve got duties,’ Sandy reprimanded him. ‘I don’t need an armed guard in my own building.’

‘It’s not your building, it’s the government’s.’ Hiraki didn’t even look at her. ‘You need a ranking officer here in case of wandering bureaucrats.’

‘I won’t get reported.’ A pair of CDF soldiers passed, recognised her and snapped salutes. Everyone knew she wasn’t allowed to be here. The expressions on passing faces was enough to suggest that even General Krishnaswali might not discover her presence until she was gone. And if he ordered her detained, it was unlikely to be obeyed. ‘Get back to your unit, that’s an order.’

‘You’re out of uniform,’ Hiraki said pointedly. ‘I’m not.’ Sandy half-rolled her eyes in exasperation.

‘Fine, have it your way.’ She walked into the med-bay, and found seven of the twenty main beds were occupied. Vanessa was up at the end, propped on her pillows with her head bandaged, reading over various comp-slates, a half-eaten sandwich and a steaming cup on the bed tray to her side. She met Sandy’s gaze immediately. Sandy felt her heart leap, with an unexpected shock of relief and fear … it could so easily have been different, and now it really hit her. Vanessa returned a faint smile. Sandy responded, then stopped by the first bed, where a private named Rafale-one of Hiraki’s-was lying.

She made her way along the line, talking briefly to each of the four who were awake, reliving the scenario and voicing her strong approval of their efforts-she’d uplinked the full tac-net record upon arrival, and knew exactly what had happened. Then she reached Vanessa’s bed, and pulled up a chair.

‘Hi, gorgeous.’ Leaned to kiss her on the cheek, not wishing to make too much of a fuss in front of the troops. Vanessa caught at her hand as she sat back-a light, grateful grasp. She wore her cps jacket over the dressing gown, stitched with many patches on the arms and shoulders. SWAT Four, Sandy recognised one. And the main CSA patch. Her college coat-of-arms patch too, though that had nothing to do with military service-Ramprakash University, she’d done an MBA there, of all things. It had been Vanessa’s habit, back in SWAT, to adorn her jacket with all the units she’d served in, and all the places she’d once belonged. Somewhere along the line, other CDF officers had started copying that habit, and then the enlisted troops too. Although less than two years old, the CDF was already beginning to accumulate peculiar traditions.

‘Cold?’ Sandy asked, with a glance at the jacket, knowing full well that wasn’t why Vanessa was wearing it.

‘Feel stupid sitting in this damn polka dot gown.’ Vanessa glanced down, distastefully. ‘I mean seriously, polka dots? Which idiot in procurement ordered these horrible things?’

‘Not my department.’ Sandy gave the standard reply.

‘We’re soldiers, not nursery rhyme characters.’

‘Let me make a note of that.’

Vanessa snorted, giving her a wry sideways look. Sandy was relieved to see that she didn’t look too bad. The bandages were wrapped diagonally, covering most of her right eye, cheek and ear. There was a cheek fracture, she’d already been told, and a corresponding one on the back of her skull where it had been slammed on the platform. Otherwise it was just concussion, which healed nearly as fast as fractures with microsynth treatments. Bits of wild dark hair stuck up through the swathed bandages, defiantly. Under the eyes, the last traces of blackness from the previously broken nose were still faintly visible.

‘Been getting beaten up a lot, lately?’ Sandy suggested.

‘So what else is new? Does Krishnaswali know you’re here?’ With a sombrely measuring look from her good left eye. Sandy shook her head. ‘Great, so either he finds out and orders you detained, or he doesn’t find out, and gets furious because no one told him.’

‘Fuck him,’ said Sandy. Vanessa considered that for a moment, offhandedly.

Then, ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ she decided. And gazed blankly across the ward for a moment. Sandy followed her gaze, turning in her seat. And saw young Private Moutada, unconscious in his bed, right arm swathed in bandages over bio-casts within a mass of fluid-tubes. The microsolutions healed the burns, encouraged the growth of new, unscarred skin, and formed new nerve pathways where the old ones were destroyed.

‘He’ll be okay,’ Sandy said quietly. ‘They can reconstruct the hand and wrist, it’ll be just like new. Maybe better.’

‘Doesn’t help the others much, does it?’ Vanessa met Sandy’s gaze once more as she turned back around. ‘Nor all Duong’s marines.’ Pause. ‘Nor Duong.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Damn it,’ said Vanessa, with a sudden flash of dark irritation, ‘I don’t need a lecture. I know it wasn’t my fault. The whole fucking system was compromised from the beginning. They snuck a GI right into the damn Chambers through the underground. The missile attack drives everyone right into the exact place they wanted them. We were set up from the start. I’m not blaming myself, I can do my own damn shrink-work.’

Sandy gazed at her for a moment. ‘Well, good,’ she said, injecting just enough of an edge into her tone, ‘I’m real pleased to see you don’t have a problem.’

‘I’m angry,’ said Vanessa, a little more calmly. ‘And I’m not going to deal with all this emotional shit now. I have things to do.’

Sandy took a deep breath. If that was the way Vanessa wanted to play it, she would oblige. ‘Are you going to be okay with the rosters?’ she said instead.

‘Sure, I’ve got Rupa doing revision plans on her spare time, even Arvid was surprised to learn he does know one end of a comp-slate from another. It’s not so hard when suddenly no one’s going home to sleep. We’ll cover for you. Though it might be nice to know how long for?’ With a questioning look.

‘That’s why I’m here.’ There was no point keeping her voice down -the soldiers in nearby beds could no doubt hear, with their enhanced hearing. But amongst CDF soldiers, she didn’t mind the knowledge spreading. ‘That last lead we were on. Went back to the Senate.’

Vanessa frowned. ‘That stray arms shipment?’ Sandy nodded. ‘Where in the Senate?’

‘Don’t know. It gets kind of lost after that, even An can’t get access to Senate files real easy. But he did find out what was in the shipments. Hi-Star multifire-type twos, plus ammunition.’

‘So somehow,’ Vanessa said slowly, ‘a couple of military grade, multifire rocket launchers get through customs en route to a Senate address, then wind up in the hands of a Tanushan radical nationalist movement. Ari should have fun trying to join those dots.’

‘Well, he’s hardly bothering with the Senate,’ Sandy replied, ‘that’s just banging your head against a bureaucratic wall. But he was talking to some contacts who know the Callay Rashtra. It looks like this was coming for a while.’

‘I bet Ari’s real pissed he didn’t notice.’

‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Sandy countered, ‘Callay Rashtra were such patsies, they had everything fed to them on a spoon, and they bought it. Someone in the government gave them the equipment, gave them the intel, set them up for the whole thing. An reckons they were lured to make the rocket attack, and think it was their own idea. He doesn’t think they knew about the GI.’

‘So the home grown Callayan loonies take the blame,’ Vanessa concluded, ‘while the real masterminds stay hidden.’

‘Giant fucking setup,’ Sandy confirmed. ‘And it worked.’

‘Yeah,’ Vanessa murmured. Her gaze slid to the small display screen upon the opposite wall, angled so the rest of the ward could view it. It was a local news channel, of course. The broadcast had slipped into what was being called by some the ‘holy shit’ mode, where the screen was filled with blurred, uneven live images of explosions and flaming wreckage. Glimpses of weapon fire and confused carnage were interspersed with experts, espousing their very well-paid opinions. Several, to Sandy’s small surprise, had books to sell, or analysis-services to promote. A few had once been CSA. And, worse, Special Investigations Bureau.

‘Been following this?’ Vanessa asked, sombrely.

‘My seekers buzz me whenever something interesting comes up,’ Sandy replied. ‘Lots of buzzes lately.’

‘Saw Benale’s speech?’

‘Uh-huh.’

There wasn’t much more to say. The Secretary General had been furious. The kind of shaking, head-sweating fury that usually followed a close brush with death, in Sandy’s experience-particularly when the person in question was utterly unaccustomed to such things, and was inclined toward mortal offence at the smallest inconvenience to his person. Or, rather, his Very Important Person.

There had been a huge barrage directed at the CSA and the CDF, for their ‘utter and inexcusable failure to provide even the smallest modicum of basic security.’ And another barrage for the Neiland Administration, and President Neiland herself, for ‘direct responsibility in stirring up some of the basest emotions at work within the Callayan political spectrum.’ Such an incident, he had stated, with beads of sweat gleaming in the lights on his shaved scalp, was ‘a grave provocation to the forces of Federal unity that Earth and its institutions represents.’

‘That last line was certainly a killer,’ Vanessa completed their mutual train of thought. ‘`If the government of Callay cannot even provide the basic security required for a simple summit meeting, how in the galaxy can they possibly be trusted to hold and protect the very seat of all Federation authority?”

‘Subtle little fuck, isn’t he?’ Sandy murmured.

‘What’s the Fleet doing?’

‘They’re in conference,’ Sandy said with a sigh. And hung her head, elbows forward on knees. Her neck was stiff, and she had the beginnings of a most rare condition-a headache. ‘Official next in command of the Fifth is Captain Rusdihardjo. Makes Duong look like a moderate. It’s not going to be pretty.’

‘Convenient,’ said Vanessa. Flatly, her good eye dark with sombre meaning. ‘For people who’d like that promotion.’ Sandy nodded, wearily. ‘We’re going to lose the stations, aren’t we?’

Sandy nodded again. ‘They’ll interpret their security prerogative independently, as is their right. Earth’s a long way away, they’re authorised to take whatever action they require. Intel thinks it’ll be a full blown blockade. Maybe worse.’

‘That’s not good.’ There was a brief silence, but for faint footsteps in the corridor beyond, and a muffled conversation between doctors. ‘A blockade is already a violation of Callayan sovereignty within the Federation charter. Anything more is … well, war.’

‘What really shits me,’ Sandy said with eyes narrowing, ‘is that for someone out there, this is turning out exactly the way they’d planned. I have to find that GI. She’s the link between us and whoever’s planning this whole mess. And if she’s leaving you cryptic messages to pass on to me, maybe she’ll talk rather than shoot.’

‘Track record there doesn’t seem great,’ Vanessa murmured.

‘GIs,’ Sandy said firmly, ‘are unpredictable. They’re not machines. Higher-designation minds can’t be programmed like regs. I think the message was a sign of that.’

‘Or maybe it’s exactly what she was told to say,’ Vanessa replied blandly. ‘Maybe it’s a part of a plot to get your hopes up and your guard down.’

Sandy shrugged, concedingly. ‘Either way, I have to try. It’s so much easier when they talk without shooting.’

‘All the same to me,’ Vanessa muttered. Sandy gazed at her, worriedly. Vanessa turned her single-eyed stare upon her, with dark emotion. ‘If she won’t play civilised, promise me you won’t go all soft and mushy, huh? You can’t play a gentleman’s game with a chimpanzee, Sandy. If she so much as blinks, you fuckin’ waste her, you got me?’

It was fury, pure and simple. Worse than fury. Hatred. Sandy gazed at her friend for a long moment, and felt a slow, creeping dread moving in the pit of her stomach.

‘Sure,’ she said finally. ‘Sure I will.’ And glanced down, for the first time, at the comp-slate resting on Vanessa’s lap. Zoomed on the writing there. It was a letter. To Mr. and Mrs. Hussein, parents of young Private Omar Hussein. And she recalled in a flash a cocky, confident young man with an easy grin. A little arrogant, in the way of so many young Tanushan men, but full of spirit and life … ‘esprit,’ Vanessa had termed it before, in her fluent French. A word larger than itself, and much to be admired. She’d never had to write a letter like that herself, Sandy realised. All the soldiers she’d lost directly under her command had been GIs. And GIs had no one waiting at home to grieve when the letter arrived.

‘It’s not fair what GIs can do, Sandy,’ Vanessa said quietly. ‘It’s real convenient when they’re friendly and on your side. But on the receiving end … it’s just not fucking fair. They were good kids. Good soldiers, too. They didn’t stand a chance.’

‘Ricey.’ Sandy reached for Vanessa’s hand upon the covers. Clasped it gently, and gave a light squeeze. ‘She’s her. I’m me.’

William Reichardt sat in Mekong’s captain’s chair, and listened to the procession of bad news over station com. About him, the cramped metal spaces of the warship’s bridge glowed the dull red of full alert, all posts occupied, terminals and operators interfacing in a familiar embrace.

‘Captain,’ called the com officer, ‘we’ve reports of shooting in green sector, as many as seven casualties. Dockworkers, I think.’

Reichardt set his jaw hard, and did not answer. Station feed was still broadcasting full schematics on Fleet encryption, and on his chair’s primary display screens he could see the small blue dots of Fifth Fleet personnel spread throughout the station’s circumference. It still ached-the stationmaster’s final pleas for intervention clear in his memory, the thumping crashes in the background as Amazon’s marines had battered through the last barriers of the desperate bridge crew. There were few things William Reichardt enjoyed less than sitting helpless and watching while bad things were done. He was not, at this moment, feeling at all pleased or proud of himself. From the expressions on the faces surrounding him, he knew he wasn’t the only one.

‘Sir,’ said Cho from armscomp into that pause, ‘shouldn’t we at least talk to Rusdi?’

‘That’s Captain Rusdihardjo on this bridge, shipmate,’ Reichardt replied, eyes not leaving the displays. ‘And we’ve got nothing to talk about.’

‘Captain …’ Cho persisted, ‘… couldn’t we at least try and get the stationmaster out of detention? That’s just nowhere in the procotols, it’s just plain illegal …’

‘And shooting recalcitrant dockworkers with Fleet marines is?’ Reichardt glared across the tight, display-lit space at his first mate. Cho looked exasperated, tense with anger and concern. ‘The Fifth just lost its admiral, Cho. This isn’t a rational military procedure. This is revenge. Talking won’t help.’

‘Captain,’ came first com again, ‘I have a secure transmission from Pearl River.’

‘Captain’s chair,’ said Reichardt.

‘Billy,’ said Captain Marakova in his ear the second his connection established, ‘I’ve given you an hour to think it over, and now I want an answer. What’s your next move?’

‘Lidya, I have no authorisation to deal with this situation.’ It took several seconds for the signal to reach Pearl River and return, from midorbit to high geostationary and back. Reichardt’s display counted the seconds for him.

‘Utter nonsense, those gutless fools left you in charge, they’re in no position to complain if they don’t like your actions. Rusdi’s always been half-crazy, you know what I think happened here. ‘

‘Yeah,’ Reichardt replied, not bothering to keep the frustration out of his voice, ‘I’m not real interested in political conspiracy theories right now, Lidya. Neither am I in any frame of mind to initiate hostilities with the Fifth Fleet.’

His eye strayed over the nav display as he spoke. Four major stations servicing the world of Callay. The Third Fleet, under his unofficial command, had one warship docked at each, and three more in geostationary ‘watch.’ Mekong was the only carrier. Pearl River was an intercept cruiser, as were three others of similar class-plenty fast for deep space engagements, but equipped with only small marine complements, and not designed for boarding and occupying. The other two were rim hunters, midsized and equipped for outer-system sweeps, where pirates and raiders liked to hide. Lots of sensory gear, plenty of mobility, but not much firepower.

In situations short of a shooting war, carriers were most useful, and most provocative. Amazon’s complement of three hundred marines, plus another three hundred from the Yangtze, now held Nehru Station, and its entire thirty-thousand-strong resident population, completely under Fifth Fleet control. Carriers on two of the other three stations had done likewise-Ryan Station was oldest and smallest, and only required several cruisers’ complements to secure. Four carriers … one hell of a provocation. One didn’t send four carriers to a supposedly friendly system unless there was a great suspicion that they’d be required. Damn right his old friend Lidya Marakova was suspicious.

‘Hell, Lidy,’ he muttered into his headset mike, ‘thirty years. Thirty years we’ve been doing it this way-a planet here, a few stations there. Thirty years out in the cold, away from civilisation, making our own rules against opponents who didn’t always believe in them. Now we’re back in civilisation, and it doesn’t recognise us … or we don’t recognise it. What the hell’s happened here?’

‘Someone should explain to Rusdi that she was never betrayed.’ Marakova’s voice was filled with contempt. ‘The Federation didn’t abandon her or her values. Rather it had never accepted her damn values in the first place. Somewhere out there in the cold, she forgot. That is all that’s happened here.’

‘She thinks she came home from the war to find her husband in bed with another woman,’ Reichardt countered. ‘That’s what we’re dealing with here. She’s real pissed, and I’m not going to start playing chicken with someone who doesn’t know how to flinch.’ His screen illuminated briefly, indicating another incoming call. ‘Hold on, Lidya, I’ve got Verjee on the line.’ He switched to the local, station line. ‘Hello, Captain Verjee, what can I do for you?’

‘Captain Reichardt,’ came the new voice, with none of Marakova’s easy informality. ‘Due to recent events, the station is now facing crew shortages in cargo and docking departments. This is an official request from actingAdmiral Rusdihardjo that you deploy a complement of your troops to help fill this vacancy.’

From the neighbouring seat, Cho stared at him in disbelief, sharing the higher officers’ linkage to all operational com. Reichardt took a deep breath.

‘I’m not deploying anyone from Mekong into an unworkable environment,’ he replied, with what he thought was commendable calm. ‘You reinstate the stationmaster to his rightful post and release all the dockworkers you’ve detained, and I might reconsider your proposal.’

A pause at the other end. ‘Is he fucking kidding?’ Cho mouthed to him, silently. Reichardt just shook his head.

‘You misunderstand the nature of this communication, Captain. This is not a request, it is an order from a senior officer.’

‘I do not accept Captain Rusdihardjo’s new promotion,’ Reichardt replied with a hardening tone.

‘We are a long way from any committee to decide the issue, Captain. As I understand the order, you shall either comply with this instruction, or you shall be found to be in defiance, and removed hencewith. ‘

‘Like fuck you will,’ growled someone from the other side of the bridge. ‘You can try,’ Reichardt said simply. There was no immediate reply from the other end. Anxious faces around the bridge turned Reichardt’s way. Familiar faces. Close friends, many of them. People who’d been there when Kresnov had ordered the orbital strike upon Tanusha’s Gordon Spaceport, and gotten them embroiled in this twoyear-long mess. Some who’d been there far longer than that, through combat against the League, through horrors and terrors he’d never have wished on anyone, least of all his friends.

The Fifth Fleet had gone through those horrors too. Only it hadn’t been the same Fifth Fleet, then. When it had all ended three years ago, lots of ships were decommissioned, lots of crews stood down and eager to return home. Somehow, the hardliners had all stayed. Many of those from broken squadrons in the other Fleets had also, somehow, gotten transferred sideways into the Fifth. Reichardt had always known these people existed. But he’d never seen so many of them all crammed into the one space at the same time. In command of so much firepower, in orbit around the world that was to become, God willing, the new centre of the Federation. Something had gone very badly wrong with the whole process for things to end up like this. It made him wonder, for the thousandth time in recent days, if that alone didn’t prove what the likes of President Neiland had been saying all along, about the bureaucratic despotism and corruption that had grown into the old, Earth-centric Grand Council over thirty years of war, unlimited budgets, military secrecy and centralised power.

What would these people give to hold onto their preciously acquired authority? What would they do? What had they done already? And how in the name of all the hells of all humanity’s many religions had he managed to end up holding the can?

‘Captain,’ Verjee said at last, ‘we are the Fleet. We cannot be so divided. You have no authority to reject acting-Admiral Rusdihardjo’s demands. ‘

‘Fine, you tell her to start abiding by Federation law, and I’ll place myself entirely within her service.’

‘That is not your call to decide, Captain.’

‘Nor hers to blockade what is effectively the capital world of the Federation.’

‘Not yet it’s not.’

Reichardt nearly smiled. There it was, right there. Four little words, one enormous problem. ‘But it is, I’m afraid, Captain Verjee. Little thing called democracy. The people of the Federation have spoken. I serve their wishes. You only serve Earth’s wishes. Until your attitude changes, you have no authority, by Federation law, over me, or over any vessel of the Third Fleet. If you attempt to assert such authority, the Third Fleet within Callayan space shall be left with no other choice than to resist by any means necessary, in accordance with our oath to serve the people of the Federation. Do you understand that, Captain Verjee?’

Another link established itself to Mekong’s com. This one came directly from Amazon.

‘Captain Reichardt,’ came Rusdihardjo’s cool, mild voice. ‘Your position is very clear. At least, now, we all know where everyone stands.’

‘Indeed, Captain,’ Reichardt replied. ‘Indeed we do.’

‘I’m not listening to you,’ Sandy told An, gazing out at the blazing carpet of light that was nighttime Tanusha. A gentle breeze, smelling of rain and recent thunderstorms, tossed at her hair. Beyond the rooftop security railing, fifty storeys below, lay Chatterjee Park, dark and crisscrossed with lighted paths.

‘Wh … why aren’t you listening to me?’ Ari gave her a sideways, concerned glance, gloved hands upon the railing. He’d had false retinal overlays done long ago, but he still worried about fingerprints. Sandy had assured him often that no Tanushan organisation she knew of, legitimate or otherwise, concerned themselves with fingerprints. But, well … some people called Ari paranoid.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Sandy. ‘Perhaps it’s the two years of lies and secrecy in all the time I’ve known you.’

‘Oh, right …’ An nodded. ‘I guess that could be it, huh.’

The target of their attentions, the Golden Welcome Hotel, stood upon the northern end of Chatterjee Park. Perhaps fifty storeys tall, it was shaped like a giant, four-sided pyramid. Fancy lighting flashed along its angled corners, and at some points decorative lasers strobed the overcast sky.

‘He’s bound to be very well guarded,’ Ari attempted again, in a mild, matter-of-fact tone.

‘I know,’ said Sandy. ‘That’s why you’re going to help me.’

‘Um … when I said very well guarded, Sandy, I kind of meant the network barriers as much as the physical ones.’

‘Enough with the false modesty. I know you can get me in.’

An coughed self-consciously. ‘What if I don’t want to?’

‘Then I’ll probably get caught, and it’ll be very embarrassing for the CDF, CSA, President Neiland and Callay in general.’

‘Sandy … look, I do a lot of things in the service of this wonderful planet and its … its charming, worthy inhabitants,’ Sandy rolled her eyes, ‘but I never just outright go and break the law.’ Sandy looked at him. ‘Well okay … I do fiddle a bit at the edges, but I’m allowed to, that’s the wonder of the new security legislation.’

‘You’re telling me that you’re a professional law breaker? Oh, that’s all right then.’

‘I’m trying to tell you,’ An said with the beginnings of impatience, that just breaking into a private company’s data files is illegal.’

‘This isn’t a big enough crisis for your security legislation to cover?’

‘You’re a soldier, Sandy. Special circumstances cover Intel operators only.’

‘So help me, Mr. Bigshot Intel Operator, and I’ll be a part of your operation.’

An sighed, knowing a losing situation when he saw one. Lightning leaped upon the distant horizon, outlining a forest silhouette of towers between, stretching away into the distance. On streets below, people flowed like a river, alive with lights and the occasional, airborne streak of amateur pyrotechnics.

‘They’re rioting over at EarthGov Embassy,’ Ari commented. ‘My friend Sanjay was there, he said the marines guarding the place looked nervous.’ There was a note of disbelief in his voice. An criticised Tanusha often, but it was his home. He’d lived here all his life, and had no intention of leaving. Sandy wondered what it was like, to be that attached to a place, and see it all turned upside down so quickly.

‘Cops must have done a good job though,’ she said. ‘Considering no one’s dead yet.’

‘Give it time,’ Ari murmured. ‘I’ve never seen people so angry. I mean, a blockade. They’re blockading commerce. That’s like banning a musician from playing music, or … or a net addict from diving.’

‘Or a nymphomaniac from screwing,’ Sandy offered.

‘This friend of mine, Sanjay … did you ever meet Sanjay?’

‘Not yet.’

‘He was a key organiser in a group called `Callayans Against the War,’ one of the pacifist groups protesting the League-Federation war. He said nothing could ever justify violence. Now he’s throwing stones at the EarthGov Embassy.’ Ari shook his head in amazement.

‘Only people who’ve never suffered,’ Sandy murmured, ‘and never known what it’s like to lose everything at the point of a gun, could ever think there was nothing in the world worth fighting for.’

An hour later, Sandy walked along the central path of Chatterjee Park, gazing up at the enormous, sloping side of dark glass, tapering toward its pyramidal apex far above.

‘What a horrible design,’ Sandy formulated upon Ari’s tailorencrypted tac-net. It linked, he said, into particular subroutes within the local Tanushan network, and built those narrow-access protections into its tight encryption base. She couldn’t uplink into the network herself, nor download vast quantities of data other than what An fed to her via relay, but it did allow verbal communication between them without (Ari insisted) leaving her vulnerable to the killswitch codes. ‘Mathematicians and geometricians should leave architecture to real architects. ‘

‘I like it,’ came Ari’s predictable reply in her ear.

‘Looks like something out of Orwell,’ Sandy retorted.

‘Who?’

‘Never mind,’ Sandy replied, with as close as uplink formulation allowed her to come to a sigh. Sometimes she couldn’t help but think that multicultural, vibrant, artistic Tanusha was somewhat wasted on An.

Sandy entered through the main lobby-an enormous, highceilinged space with cutaway hotel levels ahead, and a broad, sunken lounge-restaurant to the left. Sandy panned her vision across the broad reception desk to the right as she walked, letting An see the security guard at the far end, scanning the lobby.

‘Ari, I’m going to take off my sunglasses, this guy’s going to ping me.’

‘Yeah, okay … I’m into it, you’re clear.’ ‘It,’ of course, was the security system monitoring the lobby by remote, which included facial recognition. It would also tend to register anyone wearing sunglasses inside as worthy of double-checking, as would the guard by reception. Exactly how Ari managed to fool a high-grade visual security system into not recognising her, Sandy didn’t know-her own uplinks (when she could use them) were superior where simple hack-and-disable routines were concerned, but those kinds of sledgehammer routines were of little use to a covert operator like An. This kind of thing required subtlety … something an alarming number of her friends had accused her of lacking, at one time or another.

She removed the shades and pocketed them, her gaze wandering disinterestedly as she walked. Hotel guests wandered the lobby, heading in from a meal, or heading out for late-night drinks or shows. None of their outfits appeared to cost less than a CDF officer’s monthly salary. Or yearly salary, she reflected with a glance at several outrageous gowns with enough jewellery to fill a small store at the Rawalpindi gold souk. Callayan tourism had fallen during the initial troubles two years ago, and then soared once the relocation was announced. Now, Sandy thought sourly, the continuing troubles appeared almost a part of the package-come visit Callay for the wide spaces of the outback, for the unrivalled nightlife of Tanusha, and for the thrills and excitement of a genuine political crisis, complete with assassinations, intrigue, and more tension than ten holovid dramas.

She made it across the lobby without the guard or anyone else recognising her, and slipped the sunglasses back on as one of numerous elevators opened to admit a new group directly before her. One of those, she noted with relief, was a similarly dressed underground-noir type, with a long black coat, boots and a tall, spiky mohawk. So at least she wasn’t going to look totally out of place. She ducked into the empty elevator and pressed the door-close before the next group of guests could arrive.

‘The central elevator would have taken you up further,’ Ari said reprovingly in her ear.

‘And more people use it. I don’t want to be recognised. ‘

‘Hold on … no, okay, I see another way. Take it to the top and turn left. ‘

The elevator made it to the thirtieth floor without interruption, and Sandy exited to find that left was the only way she could go-to the right, the hall ended with the angled glass of the hotel’s exterior, beyond which the city lights shone blurrily through the falling rain. Sandy passed a well-dressed couple too engaged in hilarious conversa tion in the hall to notice her, and glanced at the holographic wall displays at the next T-junction. A display of the entire pyramid structure stood on a low podium cut into the intersecting corner, shimmering with light, its main thoroughfares and attractions highlighted in red, blue or gold.

‘Ignore that,’ Ari told her, seeing what she saw through their encrypted link. ‘That doesn’t tell the half of it.’

She walked to the end of the hall, hearing strained on maximum trying to filter echoing conversation and footsteps from the throbbing hum of the aircon vents.

‘Stairwell on the left,’ said An. ‘Down two flights.’ Sandy entered, and rattled down at speed. And paused at the level twenty-eight door as Ari said, ‘Wait. Two security passing near, they’re fully integrated. ‘ And gave a faint whistle. ‘Very fully integrated. I could get you their Acred-file numbers if you wanted. ‘

`Just try sticking to the job, Ari. ‘

‘Sorry. Old habits. You’re clear, they went past.’ Sandy entered the hall, and went left. ‘Now, you’ve got a maintenance door coming up on your left. I can get you a … three-second window to open that door and close it again before the sweepers reconfigure my integration module and notice the hack. ‘

‘Got it. ‘ She saw the door, on the left, clearly marked NO UNAUTHORISED ADMITTANCE. An’s signal counted toward the threesecond window as she approached. And she saw the guest room door click open just ten metres further on. The departing man-African, in a loose, flashy blue outfit-was still chatting loudly with someone inside the room as he backed out. Sandy grasped the door handle, opened as Ari’s signal hit zero, and slipped inside without the distracted guest appearing to notice. Closed the door behind her, well inside Ari’s parameters, and continued within.

Inside was a dark maintenance passageway. A large bundle of pipes and wires ran across the ceiling ahead, and built-in ladders climbed the walls into crawlways along the sides. She ducked under the pipes, not hearing any other activity beyond the relative din of aircon and pumping machinery, here away from the soundproofed guest areas. The lighted doorway beyond stood open to what looked like empty air.

Sandy arrived, and found that she stood on a metal grille footway, twenty-eight storeys above the open hotel floor. From far below, music blared, and lights flashed. The floor was huge, one entire side of the pyramid structure devoted to entertainment and, by the looks of at least half of it, gambling. Casino tables sprawled, surrounded by milling crowds of the well dressed and affluent, and several hundred bodies danced on a nightclub floor beneath the soaring, sloping glass ceiling. To the right, along the vertical inner wall, the footway led to a crossbridge, where angled wall met the vertical. Intervening, however, was a metal grille security door.

‘That’s not on the graphic,’ said An.

Sandy sighed. ‘I could climb around.’

‘ Um … no, that’s all tripwired, you’ll set it off. Just wait, I’ll find it. ‘

Sandy crouched in the shadow of the doorway and waited, watching multiple directions at once in case of wandering maintenance staff. From the audible deep rush of ventilation systems, it seemed to her that the building was massively overpowered. Being an assault commander made her something of an expert on modern architecture, if from a slightly different perspective than the average citizen. Most Tanushan buildings of this scale possessed remarkably low energy requirements, thanks again to strict central regulations encouraging ‘environmental sensibilities.’ Not, of course, that Tanusha’s twentyfive underground and peripheral fusion reactors meant that the city could ever be short of cheap, zero-polluting energy. But ‘environmental sensibilities’ was one of those codewords for that peculiarly Tanushan aestheticism that one found everywhere, meaning natural sunlight, convection-assisted ventilation, and the absolute minimum of what the planners liked to call ‘structural imposition’ … meaning, at its most simplistic, anything that got in the way of a view. ‘Organic building,’ was the other codeword. Buildings that breathed, and dispersed heat and energy, and people, like a natural, living organism.

This damn pyramid only seemed to live on life support, as evidenced by the noisy machinery pumping air, water and heat through its unstreamlined bowels. Sandy wondered how the hell anyone had gotten this design past the planners. Unless ‘variety,’ that other much-loved concept of the planners, dictated that there should be at least one ugly, inefficient, League-style monstrosity in the city. A landmark. Architects, Sandy thought, like artists, seemed to suffer from the illusion that uniqueness was a value in itself. As far as she could see, a unique piece of shit was still a piece of shit, by any other name.

‘I still don’t like this damn building,’ she muttered.

‘Oh, come on,’ An said mildly. The distraction would not bother him, she knew-he liked to talk while he worked. It was something they had in common-multiple-track brains. ‘Look at that enormous, sloping sheet of glass, cascading with rain and all lit up with internal lights and external lightning and the city lights outside … ‘ Showing off, to demonstrate exactly how good his visual feed was. ‘Isn’t that an amazing sight?’

‘It’s amazingly inefficient. Spectacle is the shield behind which insubstantial people hide. ‘

‘Oh, so this is an ideological objection. Nice to have some company in my irrational, ideological frenzies … ‘

Sandy snorted, and gazed over at the crossbridge. It disappeared into what looked like another open doorway like the one she was presently in. She could jump the distance comfortably, but someone might see it. Given Ari’s network capabilities, it seemed a pointless risk to take.

‘At least we know why they wanted you dead,’ Ari said after a moment.

‘We do?’

‘To kill Duong. It wasn’t ideological at all. They just wanted you out of the way so they could kill him. ‘

‘Vanessa did a great job,’ Sandy said firmly.

‘Sure. Sure she did.’ A little anxiously. ‘But you’re the only one who could have stopped that GI. ‘

‘Maybe. So Callay Rashtra were set up to take the blame?’ Callay Rashtra were the latest local extremist group to be splashed all over the news. Several senior CSA people had immediately issued gloating ‘told you so’s, having trumpeted warnings about Callay Rashtra for the last several years. An, who of course had met several members personally, didn’t believe a word of it. They were not, he’d insisted, anywhere near organised enough to pull off operations of such complexity as a rocket attack upon a major summit. Where such judgements were concerned, Sandy took Ari’s opinions over all others as a matter of policy.

Of course, not even the Fifth Fleet, led by the particularly incensed Captain Rusdihardjo, and cheered on from the sidelines by Secretary General Benale, had been able to link Callay Rashtra’s attack with the GI who had killed Admiral Duong. Instead, they questioned whether there had been a GI at all, implying that it was all a fabricated plot by shadowy Callayan authorities to deny complicity. Given how little information regarding internal security workings anyone in power was actually allowed to reveal to the public, it was a difficult charge to counter. Not that it would have made any difference, Sandy reckoned.

‘And invite everyone to blame it on Callayan extremists, sure,’ said An. ‘And affirm to right-minded people everywhere that the Fleet is only here for our own protection … I mean clearly, Callayans just can’t be trusted with their own affairs.’

‘Let alone control of the Fleet.’

‘Exactly. Try that. ‘

Sandy grasped the handle on the security gate, and multiple locks clicked open. She ducked through quickly, closed it behind her, and walked along the footway and across the crossbridge. Below, the band were playing something hyper-techno, with lots of electronic harmonics and a skirting, unpredictable rhythm. Damn, this really was Ari’s kind of place. No one seemed to notice the dark shape upon the overhead walkways, and she ducked through the end doorway … and into what appeared to be a maintenance room for the automated window cleaners. Several of the insectoid, sucker-footed robots awaited in maintenance cradles.

Sandy flitted from shadow to shadow, pressing herself to one corner wall and listening hard … heard the faint, electronic manipulation of controls further along the passage beneath the sloping glass, and the weight of a body shifting in a control chair.

‘Ladder ten metres to your front,’ said An. A maintenance worker emerged from a doorway, turning unawares to resume work on one of the glass cleaners. Sandy darted silently across to the ladder, and rapidly climbed several levels. From there it was a relatively simple matter for Ari to override the controls for the maintenance elevator, into which she climbed. The maintenance elevator rode up the side of the pyramid at a forty-five-degree angle, suspended by overhead rails and passing through maintenance levels along the way. Sandy sat upon the lowest row of seats provided, the elevator floor sloping before her at that same forty-five degrees, and saw through the porthole the face of one worker who was waiting for the elevator, and was evidently surprised when it didn’t stop.

At level forty-nine, at the top of its rails, the elevator did stop. The doors unfolded outward, and Sandy jumped lightly from her seat to the ground, and headed along the short, dimly lit passage toward where the pyramid’s central elevator shaft would be. Part way along, the end security door opened with Sandy not five metres away.

‘Oh, shit,’ said An. ‘Hide. ‘ The corridor here was straight, and the nearest doorway was five metres behind her. Even with her speed, Sandy knew it was impossible.

‘Can’t,’ she said. The maintenance worker-a round-faced man of Chinese appearance with a thin beard-stopped and frowned at her.

‘Damn,’ said An. ‘Do something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Who are you?’ the worker demanded, suspiciously. Sandy supposed it wouldn’t help much to put her hands in her pockets and whistle nonchalantly. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘I dunno!’ An retorted. ‘Punch his lights out!’

‘Ari,’ Sandy formulated, somewhat testily, ‘I’m not about to go around putting civilians in hospital. Jam his uplinks, if he’s got them. ‘

And the maintenance worker’s suspicion turned to frowning puzzlement, indeed as if he’d just attempted to raise the alarm, and found his uplinks strangely nonfunctional. On a flash of inspiration, Sandy whipped off her sunglasses, and strode forward. The worker took a pose that suggested he did know how to fight (fight-tape was a popular expense among many blue-collar Tanushan workers), and Sandy ran a purposeful hand through her hair, brushing back the wet fringe to give him a good look at her face. He froze, eyes widening.

‘C-Com-Commander Kresnov?’ Incredulously.

‘That’s right,’ she told him. ‘You surprised me. I’m here on a mission. It’s very important that no one knows I’m here.’

‘You … you …’ The man seemed to be having difficulty getting his head around it, for which she supposed she could hardly blame him. ‘You broke in?’

‘Yes. I need to speak to someone here privately.’

‘Sandy,’ An said plaintively in her ear, ‘this is not a good idea … he … he could f r e a k out, he could t e l l everyone and then they’ll s w e e p their systems and f i n d me, and then … ‘

‘You’re here to see Takawashi?’ the maintenance worker exclaimed as it occurred to him, his eyes widening. ‘Or, no … hold on, you don’t like Takawashi, do you? You ran away from people like him in the League?’

‘That’s right.’ How much he knew would determine how she ended up playing this, she reckoned. Let him keep talking.

‘My … my buddies and me were talking about it … you know, having Takawashi here and all that, we wondered if you’d met him yet. I reckoned you’d hate his guts.’ Gazing at her, with wondering excitement.

‘Pay attention, Ari,’ she formulated silently, ‘see here the knowledge and wisdom of the ordinary Tanushans you’re always disparaging. ‘ And to the maintenance worker, quite bluntly, she said, ‘I’m not here to talk to him. I’m here to steal something from him.’ And she could all but hear Ari’s exasperated sigh from the other end of his uplink. The worker blinked, rapidly. Then thrust a hand into his jumpsuit pocket, and withdrew a small, round security insert-key.

‘I’ll probably lose my job for this, but …’ and he thrust the key into her hand. ‘Take it. I’ll say I lost it. He’s got his own security systems rigged through the penthouse, this’ll get you access past the initial barriers, you can disable whatever you like from there.’

Sandy smiled at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and meant it.

The worker shrugged. ‘We’re practically at war, and you’re the boss. As far as I’m concerned, you were never here.’

Sandy clasped his arm. ‘If you do lose your job, contact me through the CSA. I have a few friends who could find you another one.’

She slipped past him toward the security door. ‘Gee, I wonder who’s going to be doing the job hunting for your new friend?’

‘Stop complaining. Sometimes it takes a bit of feminine subtlety, Ari. ‘

‘Let me make a note of that. ‘

The lift door opened a silent fraction. Sandy hung within the elevator shaft, suspended by the steely fingers of her right hand from a structural beam just below the doors. No light came through the narrow gap. Behind, in the shaft, the elevator cables began whirring once more. The car itself remained a good forty storeys below, shuttling mostly between the ground floor, and the bottom twenty storeys that held the majority of the hotel’s guest rooms-logically, within a pyramidal structure. But surely even the soft whistle of high-tension cables would penetrate the room within, as perhaps would some breeze.

‘Clear,’ murmured An’s voice in her ear. Not that he needed to murmur, really. But the lower his voice, the more hearing she’d have to devote to her surroundings. ‘Sorry for the delay … he’s got it rigged like a maze, mostly League-codings, too. But it looks okay now. ‘

Sandy gave a couple of experimental pulls with her right arm, testing the grip and the leverage. Then she tensed, and gave a sharp yank. Flew briefly upward, thrust her casted arm between the doors with her left leg, and slid quickly through, her right hand retrieving the pistol from inside her jacket even before she’d cleared the doors. Then, in a low crouch with pistol ready, she surveyed the room.

As expected for something named the ‘Presidential Suite,’ it was enormous. A broad, dark polished floor was softened by an expensive rug, before descending several steps to a sunken lounge in front of the angled windows that formed one corner of the square floorplan. The four-sided, glass pyramid met its apex directly overhead, structural supports ending in an overhead square frame, leaving the actual tip entirely transparent. Laser lights blazed skywards from their overhead mounts, sweeping the rainswept heavens with choreographed patterns. The elevator shaft, before which Sandy now crouched, was located in one corner of the suite, leaving the rest of the floor bare, but for the luxuriant, modern furnishings. In another corner was a grand, wide bed, surrounded on all sides by the soaring, electric view of nighttime Tanusha, spectacular even dimmed behind the steady fall of rain.

‘Not bad for a studio apartment,’ Ari couldn’t help commenting. ‘Where’s the bathroom?’

`Just beside me, there’s a curtain adjoining this elevator,’ Sandy formulated a reply. `just as well it’s one-way glass, though-not much privacy, otherwise. ‘

‘No. Considering all the depraved things Mr. Takawashi is reputed to do in his lofty towers. ‘

Sandy moved silently across the floor, careful to skirt the carpet in case of hidden pressure sensors. She certainly didn’t feel very hidden, considering the three-sixty degree views of cityscape. Lightning flashed in the middle-distance, throwing her shadow dancingly across the sofa and vid-screen arrangement to one side of the floor centre. A large fish tank, used cleverly to divide the open space, added gliding, bubbling colour to the darkened space.

Sandy paused beside the vid-screen, unspooling a cord from her pocket, inserting one end into the back of her skull, and the other into the socket provided beneath the screen. It was a familiar data-rush, a sudden graphical illustration of so many old patterns. League patterns, and a whole different philosophy of base code and interweaving textual design …

‘There’s the private database,’ she said as she found it, ‘I knew he’d need a booster to access … are you reading this?’

‘Yeah, I’m getting flashes … damn it, Sandy, slow down a bit, that’s too fucking fast for anyone’s mental health. ‘

‘No time,’ she said. ‘He’s not going to store much here in the apartment, but if we could just find an itinerary, or some proof of business dealings, we might get some idea of why he’s here in Tanusha at all … ‘

The flow of data stopped, as if a cord had been snipped by a pair of scissors. Light flickered to life through the apartment, a dim, atmospheric glow of soft insets about the floor and angled ceiling structure. Damn it. Sandy knew better than to go fully into combat mode, or scan furiously about with her weapon levelled. The only GI-trap that could have worked in these surroundings, with so little cover, was the entire floor rigged to blow. Which would not have been preceded by the lights turning on.

‘Okay, where are you?’ she announced resignedly, disconnecting her cord and standing up. An registered no surprise or protest in her ear, having established very conclusively that Mr. Takawashi and entourage were presently at a large function on the other side of Tanusha. An, in fact, said nothing at all. No doubt the security systems had cut off their communication channel when activated.

There came a faint, rustling motion from the bed in the far corner. Then a slim, long-fingered hand grasped the covers, and pulled the man himself upright in a slow, unfolding movement. He was thin, elegantly dressed in a silver kimono with pink petals. He held a slim black cane in one hand, and seemed uncertain of his balance without it. And his shoulders were shaking, faintly, as if he were … laughing. A soft, hissing chuckle, with evident, unexpected merriment.

‘Cassandra Kresnov,’ announced a soft, faintly wheezing voice. He moved forward, steady enough with the aid of his cane, in a slow glide of silver robes across the polished floor. The smooth yet gaunt face remained in shadow, the suite’s illumination being little more than mood lighting, on their present setting. ‘The great strategist, outwitted by an old man. I am amazed, truly amazed.’

‘If I’d come here to kill you, pal, I wouldn’t have bothered with all this sneaking around.’ Adjusting her vision to penetrate the gloom. Takawashi’s dark, half-oriental eyes were fixed upon her with unerring fascination. Something about them made her uncomfortable. Cold, even. He seemed so … sure of himself. Few people did, upon first meeting her.

‘But you, Cassandra Kresnov, would never have come here to kill me,’ said Takawashi, the faintest traces of a smile curling at his thin, taut lips. The cane tapped upon the hard floor as he glided closer, then stopped, just five metres away, beyond the furthest of the leather chairs that surrounded the vid-screen.

‘You don’t know me,’ Sandy said coldly. ‘I’m far more than the sum total of all your psych-simulation experiments.’

‘Oh, Ms. Kresnov,’ Takawashi sighed, shaking his head with tired humour. ‘If only it were true.’ And the smile grew a little broader, with genuine, devilish amusement. ‘But here’s the little secret,’ he said, leaning forward on his cane, conspiratorially. ‘None of us are.’

He beamed at her for a moment. And for one brief, startling moment, Sandy found herself reminded of her old friend, the Callayan senator, Swami Ananda Ghosh. Another old man, leaning upon his cane, face lined with age and beady eyes brimming with wisdom. One derived his wisdom through science, the other through faith. Was one wiser than the other? Was science wiser, for always providing answers where faith so frequently failed? Or was faith the wiser, for always asking the questions that science could not answer? And she blinked herself back to the moment, but Takawashi was already gliding away, down the steps of the sunken lounge, headed for the small drinks bar.

‘The maintenance worker in the corridor,’ Sandy said, watching his descent, curiously. ‘He’s one of yours?’

‘Maintenance worker?’ Takawashi paused upon the lower step, swivelling part way to regard her. ‘I have made no use of any maintenance worker.’ And he smiled, knowingly, like a kindly uncle teasing his niece about a new boyfriend. ‘I do understand, Cassandra, that you have numerous admirers, here on Callay. Unsurprising. Your social skills were always amongst your most surprising developments.’

‘How did you know I was coming?’ Sandy pressed, determined not to be swayed by Takawashi’s tantalising bait, so artfully dangled before her.

‘Ever the pragmatist, even so,’ Takawashi sighed. He sipped at his drink. From the involuntary pursing of his lips, she guessed the clear substance was not water. ‘A man in my position has the luxury of keeping the audience waiting. Tonight’s engagement has been temporarily postponed. Even a master of bio-science suffers the odd cold every now and then. Particularly at my age.’

Another sip. Sandy merely watched, and waited for him to answer the question. Takawashi smiled, indulgently. ‘Dear girl, I knew you were coming. Of course, you have the pretext of wanting to find out about this rogue GI running about the city, killing senior Fleet admirals on a whim. But mostly, you could not pass up an opportunity to meet with me.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself. If I knew you were here, I wouldn’t have broken in.’

Takawashi laughed, the smooth, drawn face abruptly stretching into deep, aged creases, that vanished as his expression regained his previous, calm amusement. ‘Come, Cassandra, you have not touched your drink. I assure you I have not spiked it with GI-specific chemicals, you know full well that there are none that could harm you from just a small taste.’

Sandy took a small, almost negligible sip, her eyes not leaving his. A cocktail, with an alcoholic base and … makani fruit juice. Her favourite. Something must have registered in her eyes, for Takawashi smiled.

‘Wonderful, is it not?’ he said. ‘Taste. Smell.’ Lightning flashed nearby, briefly obliterating the suite’s broad shadows. ‘Sight, and …’ he waited, and then came the booming rumble of thunder, ‘. . . sound. Wonderful that we should take such pleasure in such simple things. Some people most admire the human species for intelligence. Others for courage, or spirit, or imagination. I most admire the human species for pleasure. Imagine the selfless wonder of a species whose neurological reaction to the universe’s stimuli is … pleasure.’ He beamed at her. ‘I understand that you yourself are well versed in the art of pleasure. I wonder if your present environment continues to provide you with such avenues as you had become accustomed, when you were a soldier.’

‘I’m still a soldier,’ Sandy said flatly. ‘And quite frankly, Mr. Takawashi, that’s not a question for polite company, in this city.’

‘Old men become coarse and mannerless with age.’ With a gleaming smile. ‘There was a time, I understand, when you seemed to accumulate bed partners like an entomologist accumulates beetles. Perhaps the Federation has civilised you? Transformed you into a model of `polite company’?’

There was knowledge behind his question. A depth of insight that turned her stomach cold, and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Surely he couldn’t know her personal details from direct sources. He must be guessing. But they did not feel like guesses. They felt like … probing. Seeking long-suspected answers to questions he’d long wanted to ask. Oh, so much he must have known about her, in those early years of her life. How he must have watched. Her instinct was to shove his curiosity back in his face. But that would only demonstrate the power he held over her, with that knowledge. If he wanted to know, fine. Give him a taste. Make him want more. Give her power over him.

‘In truth, Mr. Takawashi, I find my sexual urges have become more controllable.’ Meeting his gaze calmly. There was no doubting the intrigue in his eyes. ‘Not receded, as such, not in intensity.’ An could attest to that, she thought … but kept to herself. ‘But they do not distract my thoughts as they once did, during idle periods.’ And once begun, now she could stop. Once, that had been a problem. ‘I think now that they were a way for my brain to seek an outlet. An escape of pentup energy, if you like. Now, here in Tanusha, I have so many other things to occupy my attention. Whole parts of my consciousness and my personality have been unlocked that previously lay dormant. I believe I have found an equilibrium that I did not possess in the League … and in fact that the League was incapable of delivering me. I owe the Federation. In many ways, I feel I owe them my life … for my life without the things I have found here, I now find impossible to imagine.’

Takawashi’s expression unsettled her. There was more than fascination, and more than excitement. It was a look of deep, deep affection. ‘I had suspected, I had suspected!’ He clicked his fingers repeatedly, as if in some kind of triumph. ‘And tell me, which aspects of mundane, civilian life do you most enjoy? Surely you haven’t lost your taste for reading and music … but tell me, have you attempted an instrument yourself? Do you cook?’ And paused as something most especially fascinating occurred to him. ‘Or have you found yourself taking particular interest in a religion?’

Sandy smiled, sipping at her makani and spirits once more. ‘In time, Mr. Takawashi, in time. First, tell me about this GI.’

Takawashi laughed, with a rasping rattle in his throat not present when he spoke. ‘Very well, Ms. Kresnov. Very well played. Come, sit with me.’ He waved a silver-robed arm down the stairs, at the sunken lounge. Sandy nodded, and Takawashi began a slow descent. Sandy detoured to the fish tank at the top of the stairs, wanting Takawashi to take a chair first, and give her the choice of seats. ‘This is a painful business for me, Cassandra. My fascination in the field was not intended to produce soldiers.’

‘So you’ve said on many occasions,’ Sandy replied, pausing before the fish tank. Callayan reef fish, multicoloured and lovely on the eye. Evolution followed the same paths in similar environments. An astonishing discovery, it had been for Earth’s first explorer-starfarers. Water was water. Gills, fins and a streamlined shape were highly efficient. Nature loved efficiency, and punished the inefficient with ruthless consistency. Only where worlds offered environments radically different from Earth-like, prime worlds like Callay, did evolutionary patterns significantly alter … and faster-than-light technology gave humanity a vast enough range that the habitation of such worlds, although possible, was hardly necessary. Prime worlds were roughly one in ten thousand. A G-Class freighter, with a single-jump range of a hundred light years, and capable of dual or even triple-jump routes, was within theoretical range of many times ten thousand systems. Less hospitable worlds than Callay were typically bypassed, along with the vast majority of systems possessing nothing even vaguely habitable to oxygen breathers of any species.

‘We limit ourselves with our choices,’ she abruptly recalled Takawashi as saying once. It had been in an interview she’d seen … on Callayan television, wonder of wonders. Callay had been taking a greater interest in such people of late, and in relations with the League in general … for which Sandy supposed she could take at least partial credit. Or blame. The interview with the great man of synthetic neuroscience had been quite a coup. ‘The spread of spacefaring humanity was supposed to be the great, species-shaping challenge that would mold us into a better, more diverse, more capable people. But for all our won drous accomplishment, our greatest promise remains unfulfilled. We bypassed the difficult worlds, we ignored the most challenging environments … we found at least one intelligent species upon the furthest reaches of our space, and we retreated in fear and caution.

‘The League was founded by people who believe humanity’s greatest promise is yet to be fulfilled. Synthetic, biological replication technology is merely a logical extension of this philosophical tenet. It is the constant yearning for self-improvement, for discovery, expansion and renewal, that makes us truly human. Evolution made us who we are, but evolution lost its grip upon our destiny from the first moment an ape brandished a tool and used it to manipulate his environment. We now have control of our destiny. And we must evolve ourselves, for our own reasons, and our own purposes.’

A prospect, of course, that terrified much of the Federation, given that the League’s stated reasons and purposes seemed mostly about commerce, power and ideological supremecy. Terrified them so much, in fact, that they were prepared to fight a war to stop it all from happening … and thus ensured that synthetic biotech would develop in precisely the direction whose possibility had so frightened them all in the first place. Developments like GIs. Like Cassandra Kresnov.

Sandy wondered what the fish would make of it all. Stabiliser fins, a sleek tail and gleaming, flashing scales … they seemed perfectly happy. Or would do, if happiness were a part of any fish’s repertoire. She didn’t want new limbs, or new capabilities. Being a GI had its benefits … but if she had to choose between her superhuman physiology and uplink capabilities on the one hand, or the simple joys of music, food and sex on the other … well, the choice was really no choice at all.

Of course, it was kind of nice to have both. Maybe An was right, maybe her rejection of League philosophy was really just the luxury of the insanely wealthy to spout wise pronouncements about how money wasn’t everything. And she sighed, straightening to make her way down the steps. Takawashi, gentleman that he clearly fancied himself to be, waited for her to seat herself first.

‘I have information,’ he said, easing himself into the black leather sofa with the help of his cane. He sat with his back to one angled wall of glass, Sandy with her back to the other. Seated, she could not see the elevator doors across the room, but fancied she could hear anything that attempted to enter. ‘I fear I know exactly what and who this GI may be. Of all the unlikely possibilities, it seems the most logical option.’

‘Tell me.’ She sipped her drink. Tested her uplinks once more, failing to find any trace of Ari’s signal. She did not dare probe with her own, whatever Takawashi’s apparently friendly demeanour. Probably An would not be panicking. Yet.

Takawashi took a deep breath, gazing up the short steps to the fish tank. A large transport glided low overhead, multiple running lights flashing, clear beyond the transparent ceiling. ‘Several years ago,’ he began, ‘before the Federal Intelligence Agency effectively collapsed, their operatives struck at a secret facility of ours. A deep space research facility. Numerous experimental specimens were stolen … for research, we presumed. Several of those specimens were of the very highest designation.’

‘Alive?’ Sandy asked, eyes narrowed upon Takawashi’s face.

‘No. Inert. But fully assembled. Brains included, but not integrated.’

‘And you think the FIA has managed to activate one of these specimens?’ Dubiously. Whatever his protestations, Takawashi was still effectively a leading figure of the League military-industrial complex. The possibility remained distinct that he was simply lying through his teeth. ‘Neurology is the most difficult part. How would they have the knowledge to achieve that?’

‘They stole it,’ said Takawashi, his gaze sombre. ‘But not from us. From you.’ Sandy’s gaze never altered. She was too good at hiding her emotions among people she didn’t trust. But for Takawashi, no doubt, her utter, still silence spoke volumes. He sighed. ‘It is my belief, Cassandra, that the knowledge that the FIA acquired from studying you, during that … terrible episode two years ago, was enough to allow them to understand particularly how an advanced mind of your capabilities functions, in technical terms, and integrates with the entirety of your physical structure. Understand that they already had the hardware, so to speak. They merely required the knowledge to install it.’

‘Many of my systems are specific,’ Sandy said quietly. ‘Even from the other high-des GIs in my team … they had personality and depth rivalling anything I have, but my scores across all performance fields were routinely higher. Not just in creativity and tactics, but reflexes and coordination too. What are the odds that anything they learned from me could be applied to a … a body they stole?’

‘Because that was the prototype they stole from us,’ Takawashi said flatly. ‘Based on your design, and integrating the same advanced neurological pathway breakthroughs. The technology has been stewing for some time, Cassandra. It never went into mass production, partly upon my own recommendation. I did warn them that your path would be unpredictable. As it turned out, I was right.

‘Wrong, however, in my more dire predictions regarding possible hostile outcomes … and happily wrong, I readily concede. But the neurological development models at that time were open ended. There was no choice but to allow a personality to evolve. Your neurological design required a long development period-far longer than any of your team mates in Dark Star. The end result, I see here before me, and find extremely pleasing. You have become an admirable young woman, Cassandra. I am so very pleased to see that you have expanded so far beyond your initial, foundational psych-tape. The military, however, were somewhat less pleased.’

‘It’s been two years,’ said Sandy, her stare fixed unblinkingly upon the slim, gaunt man in the chair opposite. A flash of lightning illuminated his face into peaks and hollows, tight and almost fleshless. ‘I plateaued mentally when I was about seven. If this GI is based upon my design … how is that possible? She should be barely self-aware.’

Takawashi leaned forward slightly in his chair, glass held suspended between slim, brown fingers. ‘Tell me, Cassandra. What was the last book that you read?’

‘I’m not going to play games with you, Mr. Takawashi,’ Sandy said firmly. ‘This is not quid pro quo. This is the security of my planet.’

‘No games, Ms. Kresnov, I assure you,’ Takawashi said mildly, with a faint wave of his unoccupied hand. ‘What was the last book that you read?’

‘A Nairobi Christmas,’ said Sandy. ‘By a Kenyan author, J. C. Odube, written two hundred years ago.’

‘I’m not familiar with it. What was it about?’

‘In the late twenty-first century, a Kenyan-English journalist searches for his sister-in-law in Kenya, who has vanished. He discovers she had become involved in a conspiracy between competing superpower interests, involving Indian technology companies and Chinese defence contracts. It juxtaposes those trials of the late twenty-first century against the main character’s own colonial heritage, and asks whether a people or a nation’s future is really ever their own to decide. It won something called the Nobel Prize for Literature in its day.’

‘A fitting choice of topic, under today’s circumstances,’ remarked Takawashi, with obvious intrigue … and continued briskly before Sandy could protest as to relevance. ‘Do you think you would have enjoyed this book … say, fifteen years ago? When you were but two years old?’

‘No,’ said Sandy.

‘Why not?’

‘I’m not sure I was even reading at that age.’

‘You were,’ Takawashi assured her.

Sandy stared at him for a long, suspicious moment. Takawashi smiled benignly. ‘It’s complicated,’ Sandy said at last. ‘It assumes a lot of basic knowledge on the reader’s part. From twenty-first-century Earth political demographics to simple things, what it’s like to live on a planet. I understand I was raised on a research station?’

Takawashi nodded confirmation. ‘Mostly, yes. And you lacked such knowledge, at that age. The acquisition of knowledge is vital, is it not? Particularly in combat? For example, how would you feel if your formative learning tapes had simply told you the entire A, B and C of advanced special operations combat tactics, and injected it directly into your brain?’

‘Preformed knowledge presupposes the infallibility of the programmer,’ Sandy replied with certainty. ‘It’s not something anyone should enter into with any assumptions. Particularly as my capabilities were higher than anyone preceding me. No one knew what I was capable of, and thus no one could truly tell me how I ought to operate. I had to find all that out for myself, and I rewrote most of the Dark Star operating manuals in the process.’

‘And here lies the conundrum of the field,’ said Takawashi, holding up a bony forefinger for emphasis. ‘The acquisition of knowledge is time consuming. Military planners in the League have long wished to slash the lead time between GI production and mobilisation … but whenever attempts were made to simply force the required knowledge in a preconstructed manner down their throats, entire units were invariably lost.

‘To lock in preconstructed knowledge at an early stage is to inhibit the psychological development of the subject. Learning is curtailed, and personality growth stunted. Yet the theoretical value of such an approach to the military continues to exist, not merely because of logistical considerations, but because of loyalty. Imagine, if you will, an army of Cassandra Kresnovs.’ With an amused smile. ‘Liking sex better than weapons drill, reading books by long-dead Earth authors with little regard for the League’s attempts to indoctrinate you with progressive League philosophy. Getting into philosophical arguments with ship captains and other, less amused superiors.’

‘A disaster,’ Sandy said drily.

‘One creative, dissenting mind can be contained … for a time, at least. But imagine if numerous such minds got together. Commingled. Cross-pollinated, if you will. I daresay you would have left the League far earlier than you eventually did, had you gained such exposure to like minds, with whom to further shape your subversive ideas. Or foment a rebellion.’

‘You could have warned them more strongly,’ Sandy suggested.

‘I’ve already told you I did.’ And he gave a mild shrug of thin, silver-robed shoulders. ‘But they ignored me, and then I settled in with curiosity to watch the outcome, knowing that it was their own stupid fault if it all went wrong. And hoping against hope that you would survive, and grow, and perhaps one day even blossom. It was a happy, happy day when I learned you had disappeared. I thought I knew where you would go. But even I could not have predicted what an impact you would make when you got there.

‘Of this rogue GI, however, I know several things. If she is what I think she is, then you are right-she is less than two years old. She did an awful lot of damage to Admiral Duong’s very-well-trained marines, and showed enough creativity and desire for self-preservation to live to fight another day. And, she would appear to be the most likely source of the killswitch codes that nearly claimed your life, and forced you underground … thus depriving the CDF of its most prized asset.

‘I fear that this GI, Cassandra, is not only devilishly clever, but highly knowledgeable. For this to be so, at her present age, she must have been subjected to an awful lot of preconstructed psych tape, to accelerate her mental development. As such, her development pathways are fixed and rigid, rather than unformed and alive with possibilities, as were your own at a similar age.

‘This is not a being that reads books, Cassandra. This is not a being that appreciates art, or admires the sunset on a glorious evening, or possesses any of those higher, more abstract functions outside of her primary, psychological focus. Far more than you yourself ever were, or were capable of becoming, this is a being that exists solely to fight, and to kill, for a predetermined purpose. And I am afraid that it will be for you, and you alone, to discover whether this makes her a more effective soldier than yourself, or less so.’

‘But she’s like me.’ Frowning as she spoke, trying to get her head around the conundrum that Takawashi described. ‘Based upon my design.’

‘Yes.’

‘To what extent?’

‘Are you certain you really want to know?’ Sandy just looked at him, unimpressed with the evasion. Takawashi repressed a small smile. ‘Of course. Psychologically, I’m sure, the two of you would be chalk and cheese. Physiologically. . .’ and he gave a small shrug. ‘Well. You may as well be sisters.’

‘`Am I certain I really want to know,” Sandy muttered, waiting for the cruiser’s painfully slow communication link to kick in. From the driver’s seat, Ari wisely refrained from comment. Or unnecessary motion. ‘Didn’t think I’d like the implications, did he?’

Well, she didn’t. She didn’t want to know that an exact copy of herself, with her own enhanced neurological systems, could turn out to be a murdering psychopath. A sister, the man said? That was a provocation, right there. Takawashi knew such terms meant nothing to any synthetic being. He was trying to get at her somehow, trying to exploit his hidden agenda where she was concerned … most likely the same hidden agenda every senior League official of late seemed to have with her, trying to recruit her back into the fold of an organisation that murdered her friends and left her for dead … click, the connection opened up.

‘Hey, Sandy,’ said Vanessa, rumpled hair sticking out in patches beneath her bandages. Her face was sideways on the screen-she was lying down, head on the pillow, activating the vidphone on her hospital bedside table. ”Bout time you called, I was getting so tired of sleeping. ‘

‘Goddamn it, Ricey,’ Sandy snapped at the cruiser’s dash, ‘what did you mean `a bit like me’?’

Vanessa blinked. ‘Beg yours?’ she said.

‘You said in your report … which I’m just rereading here … that the GI looked `a bit like Commander Kresnov, in general build.”

On the display screen, Vanessa shrugged against the pillows. The half of her face that was visible beneath the bandage looked decidedly reluctant. ‘She looked a bit like you. She had a longer face. Leaner Not as cute. ‘

‘Yeah, thanks, that’s a real comfort.’

‘But physically, sure. About the same height, broad shoulders, strong hips. Blonde. Nice breasts.’ Trying vainly to placate her with humour. Which was good, because it showed the budget Sandy had insisted be allocated to the CDF’s medical wing, for equipment and to capture staff the quality of Dr. Obago and his crew, had been well spent. Injury recovery times were down sharply on what even the most advanced Callayan hospitals could achieve. Vanessa even looked better, her fully visible eye bright and alert, her cheek healthy with colour as the micro-synthetic and harmonic accelerator treatments reknitted and regrew over the fractures, and encouraged tissue repair, at a rate that would have been startling just thirty years ago. ‘Why? What’s going on?’

An made himself useful by filling Vanessa in, while Sandy gazed out at the gleaming, rain-wet suburbs of Tanusha, and fumed. Vanessa’s face grew steadily more sombre. But hardly surprised. Nothing bad about Sandy’s artificial nature seemed to surprise Vanessa any longer.

‘You should have told me,’ she said to the dash-screen, as soon as Ari had finished. In the driver’s seat, Ari resumed his former, studious silence.

‘Told you what? That the GI that nearly killed me just happened to look a little bit like you? I try hard to be relevant, Sandy, it’s one of my happier traits. ‘

‘How many goddamn high-des GIs are there who look like me? What are the odds? You should have told me.’

On the screen, Vanessa shrugged, exasperatedly. ‘Okay, so I should have told you. Forgive me for somehow remembering to worry about your own emotional state after I’ve nearly been killed.’

Sandy exhaled hard, and stared off across the gliding, banking spectacle of midnight Tanusha. ‘Fine,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m sorry. How’re you feeling?’

‘Better. Might get the bandages off in another day.’

‘Good.’ A short pause, filled only by the muffled whine of the cruiser’s engines.

‘So you reckon you might have a sister, huh? You want me to bake a cake?’

Sandy shook her head in faint disbelief. ‘Have a good night, Ricey, sorry to bother you.’

‘Love you,’ Vanessa volunteered before the line disconnected.

‘Yeah, me too.’ And touched the disconnect, manually sending the screen blank. Another moment of silence, as they cruised toward north-central Tanusha. Sandy rolled her head against the chair back, and looked at An.

‘No opinion to volunteer?’ she asked.

Ari shook his head, glumly, bottom lip protruding. ‘Nope.’

‘That’d be a first.’

‘Let me rephrase that-I’d rather asphyxiate myself with soiled underwear than offer an opinion.’

Sandy snorted, and stared once more out of her window.

‘So,’ Ari ventured after another moment’s silence. ‘What’s up with you and Ricey?’

Sandy frowned. ‘What’s up?’

‘You’ve been snapping at each other the past few days.’

‘I haven’t been snapping at her.’ Ari raised his eyebrows, eyes flicking meaningfully back to the dash monitor. ‘Okay, that was my first snap. Mostly she’s been snapping at me.’ And it suddenly worried her that Ari had noticed. Maybe she’d been right to worry about it before, and it hadn’t just been another attack of social insecurity. Maybe she should call Vanessa back, and apologise? ‘Why do you think?’

‘Ah … I’m not answering that.’ Decisively.

‘Worse than soiled underwear?’

‘Much worse,’ said An.

Sandy sighed.