Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 42 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

Not saying what they’ll fall on, Justin thought unhappily, but, considering Grant, he kept that observation to himself.

“Attention.”The vid changed abruptly. Ari was suddenly on camera, not with the news, but somewhere else, somewhere office‑like. “We’ve identified the object as an I‑82 air to ground missile, serial number 38298, which did detonate conventional explosives. It came from the military base at Svetlansk. It fell in the green space between the airport and the warehouses, and it’s no longer a threat. We have the following statement:

“Reseune asks why any Defense installation on Cyteen is in possession of such armament and what enemy they anticipate to exist on this planet. Reseune asks who authorized its import and storage. Reseune asks who targeted it at a sovereign Administrative Territory, where only Union civilians are present.

“Reseune calls on the Council Office of Inquiry to ask these questions where appropriate and to relay their findings to the Council of Nine and the Council of Worlds. The citizens of Reseune call on patriotic members of the Bureau of Defense to consider this event and act immediately to prevent another such attack on the constitution and the rights of the people of Union.

“We will interrupt tonight with bulletins only if necessary. Security doors will open at this point. Please proceed to your destinations and remain alert in the event we are not done with alarms. Thank you.”

Justin finished his drink, put a hand on Grant’s shoulder, and said, “Well, what do you want to do? Stay here, or go up?”

“I leave that to the wisdom of born‑men,” Grant said, and gave him a look that said he really wished he could. “Do you think there’ll be another?”

“No way to know. I think if they know where that came from, they’ll be watching. We’ll get an alert.”

“Well, I suppose it’s more comfortable upstairs,” Grant said.

So they went. So did the rest, except part of Ari’s staff, who might intend to keep the tunnel facilities active–in case.

Ari herself was over in Admin, now, Justin had no personal doubt, probably in ReseuneSec or up in Yanni’s office; and she’d put him in charge of Alpha Wing, a charge he took seriously. A little phone inquiry, once they’d gotten into their own apartment, proved Yvgenia Wojkowski was over in Admin, so was Patrick Emory. Sam Whitely was upriver, in his own hot spot, and Amy Carnath was in Novgorod, which was probably the worst place in the world to be at the moment. He checked on Stasi, Dan, and Will, who all returned com calls after the system had opened up again.

So he knew, at least, where all his Alpha Wing residents were. The Security office downstairs, where Mark and Gerry had gone, reported some members out on the grounds assessing damage and reporting to Ari, the rest accounted for as well.

So everybody was safe. Everybody he was remotely in charge of was accounted for; and those in charge of him were over in Admin, making contact with somebody, he hoped, who could at least have the decency to claim it was an accidental launch. A lie, at least, would be more welcome than a direct challenge.

Or maybe some fool had vastly exceeded orders.

Vid, coming from the news channels now, showed people, black figures, out by the impact site, under the streetlight. The bots were still scurrying around, probably held from intervening on the site until the investigation was done. A call over to hospital reached Ivanov himself, who said their patient was doing well and Hicks had opted to stay with him.

“A good idea,” Grant said. And made an executive decision and turned off the vid, which was only repeating, endlessly, all that it had.

Justin sat there a moment staring at the screen, just shaken. He wanted things to be right, and safe, and in good order. And dammit, the people in charge of the world weren’t acting sane, except Ari, except a handful of Councillors who were a long way from the halls of power down in Novgorod–sharing the shelters with Reseune’s citizens, was what, as helpless as the rest of them.

He took out his own com and called Jordan’s apartment, then, reaching a point of resolution to make up at least one point of discord in the world. It rang through, and Grant set a vodka under his hand. He took a sip of it, feeling at least a little calmer, hoping Jordan was. “Dad? Just checking on you. Are you all right over there?”

“Doing fine.” Jordan said. “I’m in the process of sending a letter to young sera’s office. I want it in writing. I’m clear. Absolved. I want it for the court. And I want my damned back pay.”

He didn’t know what he thought about the last. But he didn’t say so. Leave it to Jordan to think of that…but then…

“Well, good you’re all right, Dad. We’re back. We’re fine. ‘Night.”

“ ’Night,” Jordan said flatly, and Justin shut down the connection.

Dammit, he and Grant sat where they sat, knowing that if Defense had its way, Ari would be dead and God knew how long they’d live–but in Jordan’s way of thinking, Defense was only one among many obstacles to Jordan having his way, just one more annoying entity he’d dealt with in his life, one more power that didn’t give a damn for the rules.

So what if Defense fired a missile at them? Fine. It missed. Jordan wanted what he was due.

Maybe he was tired. Maybe it was just bone‑deep exhaustion hammering the last sense out of him, but after all their work over recent days, there ought to have been some sense of winning the round–getting Jordan vindicated–something.

He wished to hell Jordan had some soft, sentimental reaction in his soul, some sort of gratitude for being part of the team effort with Ari. Something he could take away with him tonight and feel good about.

But back pay, with a bloody great hole in the lawn, and no guarantee there wouldn’t be another hole in a significant building before morning, or the whole damned environmental envelope ruptured, AG in ruins, everything contaminated, as far as Reseune’s land ran?

Jordan was going to ask Ari for his back pay?

He had another sip of the vodka, he called Jordan back, and when Jordan answered, he said, “You’re welcome, Dad. On behalf of myself, and Grant, and Ari, you’re just fucking welcome.”

And hung up.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter iii

AUG 28, 2424

0439H

Vid worked intermittently. It came on–it went off. They had audio, at times, Yanni and Frank did, when they didn’t have image on the vid; and they kept it constantly on, a low static hiss for hours of the night, their tie to the outside world.

There was a report of a broadcast that had reached some parts of the network–reports of a missile strike that had come in at Reseune. The Carnath girl had made a try at finding out, young Quentin had risked his neck, and more particularly, his lungs, trying to rig an antenna to get something in from some more distant station that wasn’t being interfered with, and they’d still learned nothing more than that.

A storm had come in, unmoderated by the towers–rain had lashed the windows for hours, and they’d lost their watchers for a while, which tempted one to make a move, but Yanni nixed it, on the part of any of their security.

It still spat rain, an outside sound which confused itself with static noise from the vid, but Yanni waked with the distinct impression the static had somehow become words, and then he was sure it had. He came out of the bedroom into the sitting room to a white flicker of visual static. In that light, Frank was sitting on the edge of the chair.

Yanni didn’t ask. He took an adjacent chair and listened. In fitful reception from somewhere, maybe even from the Science tower, it was Ari’s voice, saying they were unharmed, despite a missile strike designed to hit the reporters at the airport. “ They missed us,” she said, saying nothing about Reseune’s defenses. And then a reporter, Yanni was relatively certain, said they were all unharmed, and that Reseune had taken measures to protect them. She must be down at the airport.

At this hour of the night.

Static took over again. They had a few bandit stations that operated intermittently and from non‑fixed points in the crisis, this and that Bureau, maybe–God knew what. They didn’t use call signs.

“We don’t know,” Yanni muttered, “how much of this the opposition intends we get. I don’t entirely trust the transmission.”

Frank nodded agreement. They were both short of sleep. There was constant harassment, maneuvering of agents around the building, communications that came and went. They hadn’t heard from Lynch, and were supposed to have heard; at the moment Yanni didn’t know whether he was still Proxy Councillor or Councillor for Science, whether Lynch was still alive or as dead as Spurlin and probably Jacques and probably Lao by now, give or take the mechanical support that reportedly sustained her.

They’d done all they could. They’d sent messages. Bogdanovitch, son of the late Councillor for State, and Proxy for the current one, Harad, had headed upriver by air. Then Harad himself had gone, or was supposed to have gone a few hours ago, last but him and Corain, holed up here in the hotel; young Bogdanovitch carried Corain’s Proxy as well–illegal, but Bogdanovitch didn’t need to show both, they hoped to God, just one of them. The document was signed. The name had yet to be filled in. Could be anybody. Corain’s wife. One of his kids. And they hoped not to get to that.

A pass by the window showed a sheet of water, nothing of the watchers at the curb. Tempting. Too tempting.

Easy to assume they could make a break for it. He hoped Harad had made it. He’d wanted to get Lynch on a plane sometime today, let him get to Reseune, because–never mind that Lynch hadn’t voted in the office for years–the point was that Lynch couldvote, if he got to the rest of the Council…and if Lynch just quietly disappeared, and dropped off the face of the planet, the Proxy for Science couldn’t name another proxy. It didn’t actually say he couldn’t. But there was that pernicious clause… and other powers not specifically named are reserved to the Council in special quorum.

Which was what it took to seat a new member, too. Eight of the Nine.

Now therewas a gaping great logical defect in a fairly new constitution, wasn’t it? The founders had been optimists.

So the meeting was supposed to happen on September 12. But the; hours were fast slipping away in which they could still do something–faster still, if Khalid had dared fire a missile at Reseune Airport. Planes weren’t that safe. Boats on the river wouldn’t be, if the renegade Proxy Councillor for Defense had given orders to prevent them moving…not to mention it was a long river with lonely spots where nobody observed what happened. Barge traffic was still snarled, with all its concomitant problems, but it was starting to move. A number of enterprising citizens had gotten together and cleared a warehouse by taking foodstuffs and distributing them to all comers; so there was room to offload an incoming barge or two, barges had gone out yesterday; but things were getting increasingly desperate in the city, and the mayor was ordering the police to take action to get dockworkers to the docks, failing which he threatened to hire any applicant to take the jobs.

That wasn’t going to be popular with the dockworkers.

Fact was, a city could only take so much disorder before things began to break; and patience was the first thing to go.

A rap came at his door. Frank got up from the chair, and drew a gun that was very rarely in evidence. Yanni went to the door, flicked on the outside vid, and opened it fast. It was Amy Carnath and Quentin behind her.

“Ser,” the girl said, “Quentin thinks we should move. They’re not out there.”

“Trap,” Frank said.

“When is it going to be better?” Amy asked, which was a good question, in Yanni’s estimation. “We go over to the hotel behind us. Frank and Quentin get the cars, and two other cars go out front, while they go around the block, and we go straight over the bridge; and then we all just go hard as we can for the airport.”

“Planes aren’t safe,” Yanni said. “They’re shooting missiles lately.”

“Boats are slower,” she said. She was a gawky kid. She’d begun to grow into the lanky, large‑eyed height; but at the moment she looked her youth, scared, but willing to try any damned thing, possibly because she didn’t adequately imagine failing. “Quentin and I will do it; we’ll get the car to the front, if you and Frank can get Councillor Corain to the curb.”

“Hell,” he said. “I’ve got files to wipe. I’m not ready for this.”

“She has a point.” Frank said suddenly. “Make a feint toward State. Two cars that way. Two more toward Lynch. One car gets us all to the airport.”

“We only have four cars,” Yanni said. “And the hotel bus.”

“Wouldn’t use it at the moment,” Frank said. “Or the cars they know. We take the executive car from the next building’s garage. Safer.”

“You’re agreeing with this,” Yanni said.

“The missile strike,” Frank said, “argues they’re fast losing their inhibitions. They’re feeling omnipotent–that, or something’s made them desperate.”

Yanni cast a glance at the Carnath girl, said, “Stand there,” and went to the bedroom and threw on what he’d been wearing, casuals, two tees under a sweater. His coat was going to be no protection against the chill. When the weather got like this upriver, they headed for the storm tunnels. To do what they proposed to do, they’d have to hold their breath and make a dash for it through open space in the alley, trusting the downpour to wash noxious life down the gutters, this far in among city towers, building connected to building by overhangs spanning some of the alley, but it was sloppy and cold out there.

He came back to the main room and started putting on the coat. “Frank, what do we do?”

“Five minutes for me to brief Jack and Carl, you get Corain out of bed, and get downstairs.”

“Got it,” he said.

“Quentin, you take the south stairs. Meet you at the back door.”

“Yes, ser,” Quentin said.

“Then go.” Frank said, and it was just that fast. They were into it. Launched. Yanni looked at his watch, then walked over, picked up the briefcase, and laid a hand on young Amy’s shoulder.

“Here,” he said to her, getting her attention. “ Youtake the official briefcase.”

He had a gun in his own jacket pocket, courtesy of ReseuneSec. He didn’t plan to use it; he never in his life planned to draw it, but he made sure it was there, all the same.

He heard a quiet flurry exiting the room adjacent, where ReseuneSec was camped. Whatever orders Frank had given them, they were moving.

Three minutes. Frank and Quentin would be heading for the stairs.

Two minutes.

One. Their guards had left, somewhere. There wasn’t a sound, anywhere near.

“You stay with me,” he told Amy and waited the precise last seconds before he opened the door.

They headed out, then. Himself and the kid, out to rouse out Mikhail Corain, if their security moving into position hadn’t triggered Armageddon.

It hadn’t. At least that.

They made it down to Corain’s door, rapped softly, then louder, and there was a soft stir inside. Yanni stood against the door, trying to look casual.

“Mikhail.” he said. “Mikhail, it’s Yanni. Open up.”

Corain opened the door. Had on only underwear and the shirt he’d slept in. His hair stood on end. He turned an appalled look at young Carnath, and started to excuse himself.

“We’re going,” Yanni said, catching Corain’s arm. “Get dressed. Now.”

Corain just nodded, looked anxiously at Amy Carnath, then grabbed his pants off the fat armchair and pulled them on. “Shoes,” he said, searching.

“Here,” Amy said, and he found them and grabbed his coat. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else but the coat.

Down the hall, then, over blue, figured carpet, to the emergency stairs, the same Frank would have used. Hadn’t moved this fast–

Hadn’t moved this fast, Yanni thought uneasily, since the day Ari had died. Since he’d gotten the advisement, and he’d known every plan he and Ari had ever made was upended, thrown into jeopardy.

Everything since, he’d improvised. Like this, like their escape. Granted they made it.

There was a man unconscious, at the bottom of the landing. He might be dead. He wasn’t hotel staff. He wasn’t theirs. He was wearing a rain‑spattered coat.

“God,” Corain said. Young Carnath didn’t say a thing, just stepped gingerly over the fallen man’s leg, and held onto the briefcase.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter iv

SEPTEMBER 4, 2424

0821H

The late Councillor Bogdanovitch’s son, his sister, and Councillor Harad had made it into Reseune Airport together, in an otherwise empty commercial plane out of Moreyville, and took up residence, young Bogdanovitch and his sister in vacant apartments in the Ed wing, Councillor Harad occupying Jordan’s old apartment.

And beyond that, on following days, things settled back to quiet, much too quiet, in Ari’s estimation. Hicks had transited from close confinement to medical leave, and Ari had assigned a licensed nurse to be living‑in, to be sure neither Kyle nor Hicks himself had rejuv issues–if you got supportive treatment fast, so Ivanov had said, you could sometimes prevent a rejuv collapse, so it was important to keep them both under observation while Kyle tried to get his mental bearings and settle down after the shock he’d had.

Not least–the nurse had a qualification in psych, and kept an eye out for that kind of problem, too. But Kyle couldn’t be questioned as yet. He wasn’t up to it: they had that from the nurse.

Jordan sent a nice letter saying back pay for the last two decades would be greatly appreciated. Ari wrote back saying there might be tax implications he might want to consider regarding a lump sum payment, but she’d start the procedures and pass it on to Yanni when he got there…

Yanni. Yanni was her overwhelming worry. Harad had said Yanni was supposed to have left close behind him, and now it was three days after Harad had arrived, with no Yanni, no word from Amy, who should still be in Novgorod. She’d never understood the phrase worried sick.

Now she did.

The last she’d heard, Amy and Quentin had been in Yanni’s and Corain’s hotel, and they’d been watched. Nearly under house arrest. She hoped for word from Lynch, of Science, in lieu of Yanni, maybe relaying some word or instruction from Yanni; but that didn’t come. What had come, via Harad and Bogdanovitch, was the news that Yanni had arranged a diversionary move toward Lynch, but that the crew who’d attempted it had swung back to the hotel with three cars cutting them off from that route.

And that was that–three days since Harad and young Bogdanovitch had been here, safe, and there was no Yanni, no Corain, no Amy, not a ripple out of ReseuneSec in Novgorod, and Amy didn’t answer Maddy’s discreet personal call.

The situation sent her back to Base One to make sure she understood the constitutional scenario if there was a near‑majority vote and there should be a Council seat vacated by disaster.

Dicey was what it seemed to her: there was a procedure by which the remaining Councillors could unanimously declare a Bureau seat could not be filled within the likely span of an emergency–but the sticky point was that “remaining Councillors” had to include Khalid, who naturally wouldn’t vote to unseat himself…except he hadn’t gotten seated, not officially, and needed a majority of living Councillors to beseated.

That was an interesting point of law, but it was also a real kink in the situation for Khalid. He’d alienated everybody. He was on a collision course with constitutional law–and that wasn’t a major point with most CITs, who didn’t understand it; but it was a nasty situation for Khalid on the one hand and for the constitution on the other.

You could think it’s just a document,she wrote to her successor, in the small hours of the morning, but it’s more. It represents a real point of consensus we haven’t got now, and a lot of people were willing to give up things they wanted so they could get that agreement. It was a point in human history where all of Union agreed to a set of priorities, and now we’ll either prove that agreement still binds everybody, or we’ll prove somebody with enough guns can run everything at any given moment; and that means no peace, even for them.

I never got excited about studying law–until we are a few missile launches away from not having any law at all.

We’ve got to get that consensus back. That means we’ve got to be able to tell people the constitution still works, and make them believe it. That’s why the forms matter. People have to see things done by the rules. We’ve got to make people feel safe again and make them believe that compromises are going to be binding.

Unfortunately people in Khalid’s own Bureau haven’t done anything to stop him.

His Bureau was taking his orders–or, at least, took them far enough to launch that missile. There hasn’t been another. Maybe that means that’s all they had, or all they can get to.

Maybe it means it even shocked people in Defense.

It should have. I hope it did.

She put in a once‑a‑day meeting with the reporters at the airport, who said the broadcasts were having a lot of trouble getting out at Novgorod and they weren’t sure about Planys; but they were still getting out intermittently there and fairly consistently in other places. People were sending bits all over the net, and Defense was trying to block it, but Defense couldn’t stop what other Bureaus ran. So that was doing some good.

She tried to improve her sleep patterns; she still found herself awake at night and napping on her arms on her desk, after being up at 0500h. She finally took to her proper bed in the thought that if she could sleep at all, at any time, she ought to, no matter what else was going on in the world, and no matter how worried she was about Yanni. But she wouldn’t take a sleeping pill.

She’d just about gotten to that nowhere state, all the same, when Florian’s voice said, “Sera. Sera, forgive me, but there’s a report Defense has just moved in on Planys. They’ve shut down all communication. We terminated accesses.”

Damn, she thought.

But she wasn’t wholly surprised.

And she had no doubt they’d be after whatever they could get, Library, all of it–but they hadn’t likely gotten anything. System had taken measures, that fast. They had it set up for Planys, for particular operations inside Reseune, for Strassenberg, for ReseuneSec offices in Novgorod: one System‑level irregularity, and System needed to be reset from Reseune Admin. One code, out of Base One, and it nuked accesses at any other given base until codes were reset.

That had happened, probably at the first probe they made into System. She was ahead of them that far.

She shoved herself up on one arm, and the other, and found the edge of the bed, raking hair out of her eyes and trying simultaneously to ask herself if there was any other thing she needed to think of, if they’d just lost Planys.

There wasn’t anything to do, was there? They’d known they could lose it, that fast, because a Defense installation was snuggled up against it, and Defense installations had guns and a lot of electronics, and they’d probably spent years preparing themselves to crack System.

That part hadn’t worked. She felt good about that.

“Tell Admin,” she said, and Florian called Catlin on com and told her to tell Chloe, while Ari was pulling on her boots. “Tell the Councillors,” she added. That was a new priority on their notification list, but they kept the Council, such as it was, as informed as Admin, where it regarded move’s by Defense. “I’ll be over there. I’ll go talk to the reporters. I’ll take calls from anybody on the ‘notify’ list.” She took a twist in her hair and jammed the skewer in slantwise. Which hurt, but she was in a hurry.

Joyesse showed up. “Coat,” Ari said. “Please.” And, “Florian? How did they do it?”

“There were already Defense personnel inside the labs. Fifty more Defense personnel arrived about midnight local. They took armed possession of the administrative offices and that was that: most people go offshift at 1600.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“ReseuneSec in uniform we’re roughed up,” Florian said as they entered the hall. Joyesse brought the coat and Ari turned and slipped it on. “That’s the last information we have. It may have gotten worse, but they have their standing orders.” Go to plainclothes, offer no resistence, destroy any records you can, those were the instructions. “Physical records they’ve undoubtedly got, undoubtedly some manuals. And the prior codes. They’ll be going over those with every expert they have, looking for some forgotten app they can still get into. They won’t find one.”

“Good. Then that’s gone by the book.” They reached the front door and Theo let them out.

“Catlin is talking with Chloe in Admin,” Florian said, and then pressed the com into his ear, intent on something for an instant. He suddenly stopped walking–and nothing distracted Florian. She stopped, there in the hall, among the paintings.

“Sera,” he said, “there’s a plane requesting a landing.”

Her heart leapt up in hope.

“It’s Defense, sera.” Florian was still listening. “General Awei, Klaus Awei, requesting permission to land, courier jet. Air Traffic Control requests Admin advice.”

“Permission granted,” she said. There was little else they could do; let automated defenses kick in and start something, or let that plane land. Military courier. If it landed instead of shooting, Defense was talking, and talking–that, she could do something with, even if it delivered a threat. “How far off?”

“How far off?” Florian asked ATC, having relayed her prior instruction; and he reported: “Fifteen minutes, sera.”

“Get a bus.”

“Sera, it’s dangerous.”

“The airport has tunnels, if they’re lying.” Her pulse had kicked up, a level of aggression she had to watch in herself, and question her own decisions. “If they’re going to talk, I’ll talk to them.”

“Yes, sera,” he said, and started relaying that information to Catlin and then to the Transport Office, which ran the buses.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter v

SEPTEMBER 8, 2424

0932H

The bus had gotten to the Wing One doors by the time they met Catlin there–Catlin carrying a rifle/launcher and Florian with only a small pistol. The two exchanged nods, a signal of some kind, the bus door opened, and Ari started to board. Florian interposed an arm between her and the door, saying, “The plane is coming in now, sera. Wait a moment.”

She stopped, and stood beside the bus, looking where Florian and Catlin looked. In a moment she saw a black dot in the east, across the river, coming in on the course most planes from Novgorod used.

“Landing to the north,” Catlin said as it banked, and it followed that route, rapidly becoming a distinct, swept‑winged shape.

“Gear down,” Florian noted in some relief, and leapt up to the bus deck in two strides. Ari climbed up, Catlin behind her.

“Field gate,” Ari said before she’d done more than grasp a seat back for support. “Onto the field to meet it. Go!”

The driver said, “Yes, sera,” and the bus hummed forward and gathered speed down the drive.

They veered onto the airport road, and Ari didn’t bother sitting down; neither did Catlin or Florian, and the bus wasted no time, heading down to the airport road, past where the crater in the lawn had been…work crews had righted the damaged lamp, earthmovers and bots had restored the area and put back sod, so there was very little but the seams in the new sod to say where the missile had been. The warehouses nearby, which had taken some damage, were getting new facing; those panels were a little brighter than the rest. Reseune didn’t admit its wounds. It fixed things, fast, all back to normal…on her orders, for morale. On principle.

And if Khalid had something to say, and sent some messenger to deliver threats, she’d hear what he had to say. The media could hear it, as far as she was concerned. And it could equally well hear her answer.

“The media can come out to the landing area if they want to,” she said. “This isn’t going to be off the record, whatever it is. We’re not playing that game.”

“Sera,” Catlin said, “you know this bus is no cover against what they have.”

“Reseune itself isn’t cover against what they have.” If they killed her, if they meant to kill her, it was for one reason; to get a new Reseune administration in charge of a new infant Ari–she sincerely believed it; and to get that, if it was war, Khalid would peel back layers of Reseune until they got what they wanted, with missile after missile, with a landing on that broad, bot‑defended shore, and killing anybody in their path.

She couldn’t win a war only on defense. Not against all the hardware Defense commanded.

She got one com call from Councillor deFranco as the bus was passing the gate–likely the landing was being carried on Reseune’s operations channel, not kept secret from the population; and she had someone else simultaneously trying to call her, probably Chavez or Harad. Either Florian or Catlin could have taken that call, but it wasn’t the moment to distract them from their contact with ReseuneSec.

“It’s a General Klaus Awei,” she said to deFranco.

“ Awei” DeFranco sounded surprised. “He hasn’t been Khalid’s.”

In a bleak landscape, thatwas interesting information. “I’m there.” she said, because the plane was stopped, and opening up, and their bus was pulling into its vicinity. “Call the others, sera. Tell them follow this on the news. I’m there. Got to go.”

She thumbed off, pocketed the com, grabbed the seat back for balance as the bus braked. Florian and Catlin were right with her as she handed her way to the bus steps, with the black, foreign shape of the military craft in the right side windows.

At the same moment she stepped down onto the ground, someone was exiting the still pinging plane, one man, then a second, both in plain flight gear. She walked ahead, closing the gap, taking a look at Marine General Awei–white‑haired man in the lead, to judge by the collar, lean and not looking like a desk‑sitter. He probably had piloted his way in. The man behind him was of lesser rank, carrying nothing but a sidearm and, a good sign, not touching that. Florian and Catlin were right behind her.