“Ah,” Shen said, glancing at Wei. “I see the announcement has been made.”
“I am hearing it,” Earthshine said, faintly distracted.
Penny frowned, peering at the screens. “What announcement?”
Shen said, “I had hoped we would be given a few more hours, that our agenda would not be disrupted…”
“What a dispiriting sight,” Earthshine said. “Even here the delegates have retreated into their respective packs. They came all this way, to this enchanting world in its wan sunlight, to discuss what might have united mankind: a unified expansion into the unimaginable wealth of the outer solar system. Now here we are, huddled in our tribes. And, look, the only place one side is talking to the other is at that island where they’re serving coffee.”
“Well, at least that’s something,” Penny murmured.
Shen Xuelin glared at Earthshine with unexpected hostility. “You speak as if you are aloof from the fray. The Core AIs have been a force in geopolitical affairs for decades. Indeed, a significant fraction of Earth’s resources is diverted to sustaining you and your brothers. If we are in difficulties now—well, it is because of a situation you have played a hand in shaping—”
“Never mind that,” Penny said sharply. “What announcement? What’s going on here?”
The upper portion of the cone robot, bristling with manipulator arms, swivelled towards her. “Yes, you daydreamed away much of the transit aboard the lightsail ship in your cabin, didn’t you? Typical of you scientists, frankly, while events on Earth and elsewhere have increasingly turned ugly. Colonel Kalinski, even you must have heard of recent incidents that have caused so much concern—”
“Don’t patronise me,” she snapped. “I know about the Atlantic tsunami, the punctured dome at Terra Sirenum—”
“Both relatively minor events in themselves,” Shen said. “Unless you were personally involved, of course. The loss of life at our colony at Sirenum was actually greater than that caused by the tsunami. What matters is that specific accusations are beginning to be aired, even in the UN chambers. Such as, maybe the tsunami was triggered by the implantation of a deep bomb, as developed by our own government for exclusive use on Mars in the terraforming project. Colonel Kalinski, the tsunami, the Mars dome break, other incidents, may or may not have been caused by provocative agents on either side. But the incidents did serve to show up our respective vulnerabilities. And I have to tell you that it is New Beijing that feels the more vulnerable. You have the kernels. This situation cannot continue. Our governing councils have therefore determined to take action, leveraging our own strengths, in response to the implicit threat of kernel technology—”
“I get it,” Penny snapped. “So why all the fuss here today?”
Shen said evenly, “Because of what has been announced by our government in New Beijing.” She pointed to a corner of the big screen where an announcement, in Chinese but subtitled in English, was repeating over and over.
It took Penny a couple of minutes to figure out that the Chinese had ordered their military forces in space to divert a small main-belt asteroid onto a collision course with the Earth.
Even Jiang looked shocked; evidently he hadn’t heard of this.
“As an engineering problem it was simple,” Shen said. “As you can imagine. And, so I hear, the project has been under development for some years.”
“You wouldn’t do this,” Penny said. “Your own people—billions of them—”
“The asteroid could be manipulated to deliver selective strikes.”
Earthshine grunted. “Knock out one side of the Earth and not the other, right? That’s a dangerous game, Madam Shen; it’s a small planet.”
“But we have many years to sculpt this tool,” Shen said. “The rock is on a long-duration orbit; it will take years to reach Earth. We are publishing a detailed timescale, including branch points where it will be possible to divert the rock. This long timetable is deliberate. It contains deadlines by which we insist that certain peaceful measures must be conceded by the UN. Such as, no more monopoly of emigration to Per Ardua. And, most importantly, a full sharing of the kernel and Hatch technology. The intention is not to smash a rock into the Earth, but to force concessions from the UN.”
Earthshine mused, “A Cold War weapon with a ticking clock. You are ingenious.”
“You say ‘you’,” Shen said regretfully. “I say ‘we’. I have had no hand in this. Nor anybody else in this room, I imagine. Here, we are all—utopians. Idealists. We would not be here otherwise. We are here to discuss a better future of peace and prosperity, but the present drifts towards war. We can only watch events unfold, and hope.” Now she looked at Penny with what seemed like a longing for understanding. “You can see this is all a bluff. To force the UN to concede—”
“But if they don’t back down,” Penny said quickly. “Just suppose—if they don’t agree, and they call your bluff—would you drop the rock? Would you really do it?”
But Shen would not reply. Neither Jiang, nor Wei Ling the helpful young soldier, would meet her eyes.
Earthshine, locked in his avatar, spun and whirred. “Just think, Colonel Kalinski. If not for the kernels, if not for the damn Hatch, we’d be sitting here now discussing joint missions to Jupiter. Instead we’re facing interplanetary war. I wonder if whoever planted that damn material on Mercury knew it would lead to this.”
Jiang gently touched Penny’s arm. “I prescribe coffee. Come…”
Seven
Chapter 68
2213
“They’ve taken Thursday.”
Liu stood before Yuri’s desk, in an expensive but grimy coverall; he’d evidently been out in the fields. Liu Tao was in his seventies now—nearly two decades older than Yuri, physically, after Yuri’s four-year gaps in the Hatch. Yuri thought he had never seen him so agitated.
Twelve years after Yuri’s return from Mercury they were both rich, both powerful—but only in their own little pond, this small world of Per Ardua, and every so often they were handed a reminder that there were far mightier forces at work in their universe. Here was Liu talking about his twenty-two-year-old daughter being apprehended, probably for little more reason than the crime of being half Chinese. He looked as helpless as he must have been on the day his Chinese rocketplane had fallen out of the sky into a UN-controlled enclave on Mars.
Yuri touched a slate built into the surface of his desk—old mahogany, imported from Earth and carried through the Hatch from Mercury by human beings, fantastically expensive. “Stef? I think you’d better get in here.”
“On the way.”
“Sit down, Liu.”
“Damn it, Yuri—”
“Sit down. Stef’s on the way. We’ll find a way to handle this.”
Stef Kalinski came into the office. She had a redolent scent of builder stem about her; among her other projects, she was trying to extract more details of the builders’ own deep past and their engagement with the exotic technologies of the Hatch. In her sixties herself, Stef was still a multitasker, and it could be difficult to get her to focus. But as soon as she saw Liu standing there, obviously agitated, he was the centre of her attention. “Tell me how I can help.”
Yuri went to the coffee pot and poured three brimming mugs. This was Arduan coffee, cultivated and processed at the Mattock Confluence. Yuri liked to import treasures from Earth as luxuries, but as a policy he bought local. “Liu says Thursday’s been arrested.”
Stef’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Who by? I guess the UN—”