It was also a good place to have a group conversation without fear of being monitored. The combination of wind, wave, and animated crowd conversation would make picking up dialogue difficult even for the most sensitive surveillance equipment. In the distance, the refuge that was the Isle of Wight beckoned, though only for those who could afford a home within its expensive and comparatively unpolluted environment.
It didn’t draw the envy or the attention of the council members. Nor did the passing cargo vessels and smaller recreational craft. They ignored the giggling children playing tag with the tide, the overweight but relaxed couples basting in the rare unobstructed sunshine, the occasional pair of lovers lost in each other’s eyes and oblivious to the degraded world around them.
Oblivion of any kind was denied to the council. Sun, sea, and sky notwithstanding, depression threatened to consume them. Every attempt to prevent the departure of the colony ship Covenant had failed. Their hopes of removing Yutani himself from the equation had crumbled when it was learned that he was friends with the head of the very same Neoyakuza organization they had hired to kill him. Instead of fulfilling the contract, Tatsuya Himura had gone straight to the corporate leader to warn him of the intended hit.
Duncan Fields wasn’t with the council. The Prophet could not abide wide open spaces such as that presented by the open sea. Such expansive vistas forced him to contemplate the sky. Contemplating the sky inevitably forced him to consider the void that lay beyond. Considering the void led to more frequent relapses of his nightmarish visions. He much preferred the dark, enclosed spaces of the farm, with its ready access to sleep aids and painkillers.
“We’re running out of time,” the diminutive Yukiko declared to her companions. The shingle beach reminded her of the gravel-lined shorelines of her own home in eastern Hokkaido.
The man lumbering along beside her masochistically walked the beach in his bare feet, his shoes held in his left hand. Occasionally he winced as he encountered a sharper-edged stone. He said he welcomed the pain. It helped him to focus.
“What more can we do?” When he shrugged, the flesh of his shoulders continued to ripple slightly after the gesture had concluded, like water into which a pebble had been tossed. “Yutani’s daughter is now better protected than the Queen. The old man has surrounded himself with a small army. Given the heightened security at the three spaceports supplying material and personnel to the Covenant, we’ll never get someone on board.”
“We might as well try to take control of a missile base.” The younger man pacing him slipped on the shingle and cursed softly. He eyed his companions. “I know—I’ve put out feelers. That is something that’s not going to happen.”
“It wouldn’t matter.” The other, older woman was licking a frozen lolly. “Taking control of a facility is one thing. Programming and coordinating a weapons system would require expertise our people are unlikely to have.” A distant blast made her flinch, but it was only the horn of a passing freighter. The great sails on its six masts were in the process of automatically furling.
“We have to find another approach.” The man who spoke had traded his usual tailored suit for lightweight slacks, sandals, and a shirt spun from tropical silk. He would have seemed perfectly at home at an expensive beach resort in the Chagos, discussing stock options and tax shelters while holding a slender glass full of ice and rum topped with a tiny paper brolly. He stepped with precision over the shingle while pondering various approaches to murder.
Like the others, he could think of nothing that would work. The effort to involve the Neoyakuza had appeared promising, only to have come to naught beneath the reality of old man Yutani’s seemingly infinite allies.
It was the seriously overweight member of the council who paused, bringing the group to a halt. Raising his free hand, he used it to shade his eyes against the glare off the water. For all his bulk he had an agile mind, one that worked ceaselessly on behalf of the Prophet and the cause.
“I think we’re going about this the wrong way.”
“How do you mean, Pavel?” Millicent, the larger of the two female members of the council, took a last bite of a creamsicle that was melting as rapidly as their hopes.
Lowering his shading hand he looked down at her, then at the others. “Consider that, initially, each of us was a skeptic, until through the sharing of the visions of the Prophet Duncan we were converted.” He paused a moment. “Instead of trying frontal assaults on Weyland-Yutani we need to attack it from within.” The notion prompted some animated conversation, and before long a decidedly different strategy began to emerge.
“It’s impossible,” Pierre said firmly. “The company has its entire reputation staked on the successful departure of a colony mission. Billions are at stake.” He sniffed. “Even if we could get inside we wouldn’t have enough time to stop the ship’s departure.
“Not,” the overlarge Slav countered, “if we can penetrate the company deeply enough.”
Yukiko laughed bitterly. “You’re talking about somehow sabotaging the Covenant’s departure from within the company itself. Might as well try to sabotage a country from within.”
“Why not?” Pavel shot back. “It’s been done before.”
The elegantly dressed gentleman, whose title was baron but whose interests lay in saving mankind from itself, had been deep in thought, considering the organization’s rapidly shrinking options.
“I know it seems unlikely, but Pavel may be on to something,” he said. “If you can’t cut off the head of a snake, you have to attack the body. No company is impenetrable. If we have to penetrate Weyland-Yutani to keep the colonization mission from proceeding, then that’s what we’ll have to do. Somehow. Even if it costs some lives.” He eyed them evenly. “Even if it costs some of ours.”
As the most technically proficient among them, the youthful Pierre was first to voice the obvious question.
“How would we hack the departure?” he said. “We can’t do any real damage if we can’t get inside.”
The corners of the Baron’s thin, immaculately trimmed mustache rose slightly. “Pierre, that falls on you.”
The Frenchman made a face. “You ask a lot.”
The Baron shrugged. “You know as well as any of us what is at stake. What humanity faces if we fail.”
“It’s still a wonder to me that so few believe.” The matronly woman carefully slipped the scoured lolly stick into a pocket.
Pavel grunted. “Show them the truth, and they think the Prophet is mad. It is better in my country. We have a history of accepting prophets.”
The Frenchman began to nod to himself. “It can be done. It will be difficult—and if it fails it could leave a trail leading to all of us—but it can be done. We will only have one chance. After that…?” He gave an eloquent shrug.
“After that, if the attempt fails,” Yukiko observed, “those of us who escape will try to regroup. We will keep striving until the Covenant mission is cancelled.” She paused. “As for it costing our lives, well, we have long since committed them to the cause.”
“It will work.” The English baron spoke smoothly and with confidence. “All that’s necessary is to get inside the company. Once in, we can do… whatever is necessary.”
“Whatever is necessary,” Yukiko repeated as they turned and headed back toward their separate modes of transportation. She didn’t object to the decision that had been reached. The council had always operated on consensus. Being Japanese, she particularly appreciated that.