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It was about ten days later that Ward called everybody to a meeting in the refectory. I had no idea there were so many people hiding in the maze of old tunnels. The techs had been busy setting up new toys and Corina had been told there was too much involved in moving her bits and pieces all the way from the tech team’s room, so she was riding with me. Nobody knew what had caused Ward to call the meeting, but there were rumours everywhere, most saying that something amazing had been found in Corina’s copy of the dataweb.
‘You have any ideas?’ I asked. ‘It’s your stuff, after all. Corina was sitting next to me on the bench — or rather an extension of the bench that didn’t exist. I was sitting at the end. She shrugged.
‘Not a clue. I spent the last few days unlocking encrypted files. Translation is so easy I threw it off to a subroutine I barely monitor, then out into their storage. The rest of the searching and analysis is done on their tech.’
Two of Tara’s people were wobbling on chairs that had been put on tables, fixing a white sheet to the wall. Tara was half way up the room, fiddling with a box that shone a bright light at the sheet. There was some arguing, some fiddling, and a picture sprang into sharp focus.
‘Impressive, considering,’ said Corina. I thought it was impressive, period.
Ward stepped onto one of the tables beside the sheet and pushed the chair aside with his foot. He looked grim as he raised his hands for quiet, and people fell silent instantly. I saw Tara standing next to Ward, on the floor. Her face was white and her eyes were rimmed with red. I began to feel uncomfortable.
‘People, I have a report in my hand that was extracted from the dataweb information that Corina was giving us.’ His voice got louder. ‘I want it understood right now that neither she nor Jax had anything to do with this. She has worked around the clock to help us unearth this information.’
People were throwing curious looks at me and I felt naked and vulnerable. Corina looked confused so I assumed there was no point in prodding her for any more information, but I hoped there was somebody Ward trusted outside whichever room she was in.
Ward looked down at the paper, cleared his throat, and shook his head once. When he spoke, I knew he was reading from the page. 'Report to the Planetary Acquisition Committee from the Planning and Implementation Group. We are pleased to report that a covert delivery vessel successfully entered System...’ Ward looked up from the paper. ‘I’m sorry, there is a long and meaningless reference number here, which I will omit. Suffice it to say the document refers to our solar system.’ He cleared his throat and looked down at the page again. ‘The delivery vessel was undetected during approach and was able to deliver the payload on time and on target. A coronal mass ejection was initiated, with a yield within ten per cent of that requested.’
There was an angry buzz growing in the room. Ward raised his head until the room was again silent.
‘The CME was on target and on time, and of sufficient intensity to depopulate the hemisphere containing the dominant nation of the planet. Sufficient electromagnetic fallout disabled the technological infrastructure of the rest of the planet, and effectively sterilised the soil. Functional civilisation on the target has been neutralised, and we believe the incident is being passed off elsewhere as a ‘normal’ solar disaster. We recommend that the Committee proceed with Phase Two, and immediately approach the third planet to establish salvage rights.’
‘That’s a lie,’ I screamed, only it wasn’t me, it was Corina. I stood up and touched my halo, my mouth, and spread my hands helplessly. The room broke into uproar; screaming, shouting, weeping, and stunned immobility.
Corina had disappeared from beside me, but I thought her name and appeared in her ‘room’. There were two false windows in front of her. Dagashi text flickered across one, diagrams and picture across the window beside it. Corina’s eyes flicked from one to the other.
‘What are you doing?’
‘It can’t be true. My people would never do that. We came here to help. That’s what they told us.’
‘What if they didn’t tell you all everything?’ I couldn’t get why I wasn’t screaming at her. I was angry enough to weep and throw stuff and lash out at anybody if they deserved it or not. Perhaps being not-real myself was separating me from my anger.
‘They must have misinterpreted the document. Or it’s a fake. I need to find the original Dagashi file and I can tell–’
Everything froze; Corina, the pictures on the false windows, even me. I couldn’t move, and then I realised I couldn’t move for real. Then the screaming started. The word ‘No’, over and over again, louder and louder. My ears hurt. All around me the image of Corina’s room, and Corina herself, was melting, dissolving into streaks of colour that disappeared in puffs of nothingness. I managed to force my eyes open, but it didn’t help. I was lying on the floor. Sounds were distorted, meaningless, and what I could see flowed and twisted like oil on water. I tried to reach for the halo, but I had no control. My body shook, spasmed, uncontrolled, until Tara forced her way through the crowd watching me and touched the stud. I gave one last, convulsive lurch and passed out.