SEPT 8, 2424
1927H
A long, long silence prevailed in communications…with the airport, with the city, with the Bureaus, and with the station overhead…not to mention the two aircraft that laced the skies, zigging and zagging, occasionally going down to one plane as one aircraft landed down at Novgorod Airport. Those two planes didn’t talk to Reseune ATC and it didn’t seem a politic time to be trying to pry into the Defense system. Ari just took what she had, which was a fair amount of knowledge she couldreach.
She wasn’t alone in ReseuneSec Ops. Amy had come back to sit in the little room, and regale her quietly with an account of how they haddodged people trying to track them from the hotel, and taken out toward the docks instead. They’d walked the last bit, Amy said, so as not to leave their stolen car too obviously close to the barge they’d picked.
“They were moving out a few barges. This stack of containers was ready to load on. It was construction stuff, for Reseune,” Amy said, sipping juice by tiny, tiny degrees, and with a monitor patch taped to her wrist. “So Frank got us into a container, got the door to stay shut while they loaded us on, way down deep in the hold, and later on, when we were running out of air, Quentin shot three holes in the plastic and we used one of Yanni’s tees for a filter. The medics don’t think we got any contamination, being down deep, but they shot us full of stuff, in case. And we didn’tknow Defense people would stop us once we got underway and start searching the barge and all. They did, about halfway up the river, but they didn’t get to the bottom containers, maybe because they expected us to leave a trail for the sniffers, walking aboard, I’m not sure. But we’d come on with the loading machinery You look awfully tired, Ari. When did yousleep?”
“I’m not sure I remember what that is,” she said. She liked hearing Amy’s voice near at hand. She wanted to hear from Sam, and they hadn’t; she wanted to hear from Awei that his forces weren’t losing, wherever they were, and the silence around that operation was thorough.
She was supposed to talk to the media–her security wouldn’t let her go down to the airport, but they were going to bring three representatives up to Admin for the first time to hear a report–and she didn’t know where she was going to get the strength to sound as if the momentum of the Council action was still going.
Yanni was back, and Yanni was doing all right, but they weren’t telling him about all the problems. She had Harad and deFranco to make decisions about the outside world, but meanwhile she had to figure whether to try to make contact with Strassenberg or just let them lie low; and whether to let techs go up to the babies in the wombs or just leave them on auto. She’d decided in the positive on that and told them to just be ready to dive for cover. The skies had stayed quiet.
Keywork. She thought better that way. No verbals. Idiom crept in, imprecise. Even the Base One AI wasn’t entirely safe, not when it came to sequencing orders. She did it.
Amy fell silent, just watching, maybe interpreting. Amy was all right. She’d been there since childhood, almost the first. Amy didn’t know all the tools she had under hand nowadays. Amy could use Base One’s functions, but nobody could quite useBase One, except her, except Florian and Catlin, and anybody she let have just one little tag end of a command that Base One could execute.
Executewas a dangerous word. A meaningful word.
She stacked up commands, things to cascade once the first button was pushed–knowing if she got it wrong, she’d expose Reseune agents over in Planys, and elsewhere. The whole Planys‑base ReseuneSec organization was out there for her to use. She could access everything about the agents there, names, numbers, experience, rank, and how deeply embedded.
Maybe she should bring up the first Ari. Maybe she should give her a chance to argue with her plan. But she knew the keywords. She knew what Ari had told her. Politics matters. Perception matters. Assassination breeds assassination. War breeds war.
And after all the philosophy: If you have any choice, don’t be perceived to have struck first.
In going after Reseune, Khalid had given her everything she needed.
She pushed a button. She stored the orders, left them waiting in System on this side of the ocean. When the pipeline opened, it would open wide, and the chain would cascade in nanoseconds.
An hour later Catlin and Florian both lifted their heads from the console. “Awei is calling,” Florian said. “He says–now is the time, sera. He needs the data.”
The sequence was prepared. The orders were prepared. They’d probably lose System in Planys once the intruders retaliated. They’d very possibly lose a dozen personnel.
Execute.
The order went out. Spanned the ocean. Touched off quiet alerts first, PlanysLabs staff to take cover–or take action, if they were linked into System; and certain azi staff staved potentially linked in, if they could.
System in Planys came all the way up. Took a snapshot. Locked doors. Located faces. Fired that information off to Reseune and Awei, and sounded the intrusion alert in Planys’ hallways–just to create maximum confusion.
Ari sat with chin on fist, looking at Planys’ readouts. A few went out, quickly extinguished. But the room where a major part of System actually sat was deeply buried, difficult to find. That was what Base One said about it…
Planys System was a lot like Base One. It moved. It created power‑out conditions. It turned out lights. It locked and unlocked doors for a handful of agents whose faces the Planys System knew, individuals who could go like ghosts where they needed to go.
Meanwhile it produced maps for the general, and located vehicles, aircraft, personnel whose faces weren’tknown to System.
The intruders figured out they were in trouble. Some eyes went out. Some stayed.
Florian and Catlin handled communications as needed. Amy hovered close, watching, in total silence.
They had found the Enemy.
BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter xi
SEPT 9, 2424
1303H
It wasn’t where Justin had planned to be, not at all where he wanted to be. The Council convened in a session open to the media, down at Reseune Airport–at the farthest remove from Reseune Admin they could manage, as he understood the intent; appearances. But things were still all on end, and though Councillor Corain had managed to get out of his hospital bed and show up for the session, using a chair for the most part, Yanni was having a heart replacement, and was in no shape to take the Science seat. Ari was holding the Information seat–had been besieged by reporters; it was their Bureau she represented, and Catherine Lao’s death was officially reported in Novgorod: yes, she said, she hoped to attend the funeral; so did all the Council.
Justin had his own share: did he count his appointment permanent, did he believe Yanni would resume the seat?–”I certainly look forward to that, ser,” he said, and having found one question he actually could answer, he felt a sort of calm settle over him like a blanket. Standing near the table that served as the official desk, he looked toward Grant, over by the door, caught his eye, and then realized that that was Paul, who’d just arrived by Grant, right next to young Sam Whitely, who’d just come in to meet Ari right before the session started.
And if Paul was here–
Jordan came into the room, quietly wearing the usual ugly tweed coat, stood there in camouflage…come to see his son take a Council post, or to see his old enemy’s replicate take her place on Council; or come to raise hell, Justin had no idea. At the moment Jordan exchanged a quiet word with Paul, and Paul with Grant.