Olivia returned to the ferry terminal alone, reasoning that the less she was seen in the company of the other two women, the safer all three of them would be. Not that it would make a difference if Angeli and Isabela were already under surveillance by the Directorate. Pushing that unsettling thought to the back of her mind, she paused long enough to retrieve the mini-decrypter from its Security locker, then joined the stream of travelers being funneled onto the walkway to the boarding dock.
Olivia remained below decks for the return trip to the mainland, finding the sour smell of bodies crowded together preferable to the sinus-scouring pungency wafting from the barges anchored farther along the shore. As a bonus, those bodies also generated heat, and the temperature outside was perceptibly falling.
When she disembarked on the other side of the strait, she found Linda Forrand waiting for her, one hand resting on the curved roof of a bullet car.
Hurrying toward her, Olivia called out, “Your timing is perfect. But how did you know which ferry I would be on?”
“Let’s get inside,” Linda urged. “We’ll talk on the way home.”
As the car jerked into motion, a gentle warmth began drifting through the cabin.
“There, that’s better,” said Linda. “Oh, and I have a gift for you.” Reaching into her pocket, she brought out a small, familiar-looking object and depressed a button located on its side. Immediately, the air filled with beautiful orchestral music. “For those times when you need to have a private conversation,” Linda explained. “The symphony has a jamming signal embedded in it that turns specific voices into static. For now, it’s programmed for yours and mine. Later, I’ll show you how to add more.”
“This is brilliant.”
“Thank you. It’s my own invention. Completely illegal, of course, but forgivable when it’s used by a Forrand. Now, to answer your question, the Directorate is able to track the whereabouts of every one of us. Members of certain families may have access to that information.”
Olivia frowned. “Optimized or not, we’re being tracked?”
“Yes. Not every technology our scientists develop is shared with the general population. In order to stay in power, the Directorate needs to maintain an advantage. This is how they do it.”
“So, the families in question…?”
“…are those of the Directors.”
“I see. And what happens to the secret technologies if I do what Gervais wants?”
“I don’t know. Losing them may be the price of reuniting the two factions.”
Olivia gazed into her great-grandmother’s eyes, noticing once more that they were gray, like her own. “I need you to tell me the truth, Linda, about everything.”
“I know, minona, and I’ll do my best to give it to you.”
“You used that word when I first arrived. What does it mean?”
Linda’s features softened. “It’s a term of endearment. On Earth, I would be speaking Anglo and calling you ‘sweetness’ or ‘darling’. Here on Stragon, it’s minona for a girl, minian for a boy.”
“Gilles didn’t look happy when you called me that.”
“He knew that you were about to be given a very important mission. He felt the need to point out, correctly, that you’re still a child, with a child’s naive idealism, and that you will soon learn how cruel the world can be when it is governed by the Directorate.”
Olivia had heard something quite similar from Dennis Forrand, back when she really was a naive, idealistic child. It stung to hear it again, even coming from someone three times her age.
“Whatever happened to ‘Forrands don’t fall into line behind others’?”
“We don’t. However, we do defer to our oldest living members. The first Forrand to join the Directorate was Louis. His consciousness survives, but no one has heard from him in decades. Gervais now controls the family, and has effectively taken control of the Directorate as well. Once it falls, his political power will be gone, and the rest of us will be free to create a new and better order.”
To Olivia, that smacked of the same sort of naive idealism that Gilles had been so quick to disparage. The temptation to comment was strong, but her curiosity was stronger. So, she asked, “Now that I’ve seen the island, I can’t help wondering. It was originally meant to hold prisoners, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But not criminals, not in the usual sense. They’re a disruptive element. We call them objectors.”
This was sounding awfully familiar as well. Olivia stared a question at her. Linda replied to it.
“Stragori society — the one the Directorate created — is highly structured, with levels of privilege and responsibility, and well defined boundaries. For most of the population, this was a tolerable arrangement, even comforting for some. They always knew where they fitted in and what their limits were.”
“And this was the system that Adam Vargas brought to Earth?”
“A version of it, yes. It was the fastest way to bring order out of the chaos on your planet. But not everyone on a world will be satisfied to live under the same set of rules. So, the island was designated as a place reserved for those who objected to the Directorate’s vision. It allowed them to establish their own, different kind of society.”
The Stragori social order wasn’t the only thing Vargas had brought to Earth, Olivia mused darkly. Daisy Hub had been classified as an experiment in self-contained deep space living, but it too had been intended as a gulag for dissidents.
A sickening suspicion hatching in her mind, she demanded, “Where are the objectors now?”
Linda lifted sad eyes to meet her gaze. “The surviving population was removed to another part of the planet. That’s all we were told. The Directorate picked the location, but the coordinates are being kept secret.”
“The surviving population?” Olivia echoed. “What did they survive?”
“The island. After five years, people began dying. It turned out they’d been poisoned by the chemicals in the soil. By the time our scientists had figured that out and come up with an effective broad-spectrum antitoxin, ninety percent of the objector population was beyond help.
“According to the official records, none of them were supposed to have been there that long. After a year, two at most, they should have been relocated to one of the new colony worlds. But there was a terrible accident, and the Directorate had to cancel our colonization program.”
“According to the official records,” Olivia repeated. As a former politician, she’d used that phrase often enough to know how empty it was, and at the same time how opaque. From the look on her face, Linda knew as well. “And no one thought to evacuate these people as soon as they began falling ill?”
“The island was under quarantine until it could be determined whether or not the sickness was contagious,” Linda replied. “At least, that’s what people were told at the time.”
“According to the official records,” Olivia said again, a little more harshly. “The Terrans have been on the island for about five years. Are they going to begin to die too?”
Linda gasped. She looked genuinely shocked. “Of course not, minona. Every Terran refugee received an injection of the antitoxin at the spaceport on arrival. Administered before exposure to the chemicals, it’s one hundred percent effective.”
“Really? Or just according to the official records?”
Linda sank into wounded silence and remained there for the rest of the journey home.
Meanwhile, Olivia was processing what she had learned. In her experience, nothing was completely effective. There was always a margin of error. Carlos Calvera had died of an inoculation within a year of settling on the island. If his blood test results were being suppressed, then perhaps he hadn’t been the only one to die this way. In any case, Olivia doubted whether quoting statistics to Isabela would quench a grieving sister’s thirst for justice.
When the bullet car stopped at the Forrand residence, Olivia went directly to her bedroom and plugged the mini-decrypter into the light screen on the wall.
This time, the face that appeared was Dennis Forrand’s. It, too, was just an image and could easily be counterfeited, but she was too angry to care.
“Well?” grumped the face. “You called me, Juno. In trouble already?”
“I’ve learned some more about the Directorate. Now I’m thinking that death may be too good for them.”
He chuckled. “I agree. So does every other Stragori who was born and grew up on Earth. It’s ugly behind that curtain. Unfortunately, there is no longer any way to cause the Directors physical suffering. The best we can hope for is to delete them permanently from the servers.”
“What about backups? Gervais told me that the Directors who wished to live had stored copies of themselves off-site. Can you find out where that is?”
“I can try. Contact me again in a couple of days for an update.” A second later, the image pixelated and dissolved into darkness.
Olivia’s plan was still nascent, but little by little, it was firming up in her mind. Take out the backups first, wherever they might be. Then destroy the Directorate’s dedicated, supposedly hack-proof server and get the hell off-world. Their escape route would have to be carefully mapped — with the traffic-controlling AI disabled, the transit grid on the mainland would be out of commission as well.
She hoped there was a contingency plan in case of a computer failure. Bullet cars shot through those tunnels, crossing paths with split-second accuracy. If the cars couldn’t all be stopped at once, people would die in a rapid-fire sequence of high-speed collisions.
That would be unfortunate. After all, the whole point of her plan — of her even being on Stragon — was to avoid bloodshed.
—— «» ——
Two days later, Olivia returned to the island. Now that she knew the mini-decrypter functioned as she’d been told — and that the Directorate had other ways to track her — there was no longer any point in leaving it with Security at the ferry terminal. However, as she passed the counter staffed by two uniformed officers, one of them yawning with boredom, she couldn’t help wondering: Why would a dozen lockers need to be watched by personnel on site when the area was already bristling with surveillance technology?
Olivia added this to the growing list of questions at the back of her mind. She waved pleasantly to the guards in case she needed to chat them up later. Then she hired a different vehicle than before and let it carry her to Angeli and Isabela’s apartment building.
Isabela served her something that looked and smelled like java. In answer to Olivia’s inquiring glance, she explained, “Angeli found this on the mainland. Apparently, some of the Terrans who have moved there are maintaining gardens for bartering purposes, using seeds they brought from Earth. One of them is growing java plants.”
Olivia frowned. She certainly appreciated the hospitality. However, “Which of your most precious belongings did you have to part with in exchange for this treat?”
A pause, then, “A paper-and-ink edition of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. It wasn’t a great sacrifice. The book carried sad memories for me.”
“Speaking of sad memories,” said Angeli, “we finally found Vikram’s report yesterday, and it raised a lot of questions.” She handed her playback device with the datawafer in it across the table to Olivia. “As you can see, he measured the depth of the soil at various locations on the island…”
“‘…and struck a hard, flat surface that was too smooth to be natural rock,’” Olivia said a moment later, reading from the screen. “‘It could not be drilled or dissolved by anything at my disposal and consequently could not be further analyzed. But by extending my sampling area, I was able to establish its dimensions.’” She read silently for a few seconds more, then glanced up, her eyes wide with sudden comprehension. “It sounds as though he’s describing a roof. And if there’s a roof, there has to be—”
Of course! What better place to store an untouchable server array than inside a bunker on a gulag surrounded by water, buried under half a meter of toxic waste?
That explained what she’d noticed about the ferry terminal as well, Olivia realized. The two-way walls, the Security officers on duty — it all made sense now.
“If there is a building beneath that roof, then there must be another entrance on a lower level,” she declared. “A service door, maybe, for receiving supplies.”
“If it were up to me, I’d put it in the Wilderness Zone,” said Angeli, visibly warming to the idea.
“There are caves along the foot of the bluff on the south shore,” Isabela put in. “I do not know how deep they are, but it’s possible that one of them could be concealing an entrance.”
Everyone paused for a breath.
“I suggest we surveille the area to see whether anything is delivered,” Angeli said. “Then, if we’re right, we’ll also know which cave to explore.”
“I can do that,” Isabela told them. “Before Vikram died, I used to come and go all the time in the Wilderness Zone, sometimes after dark.”
Angeli put a hand on her arm. “Bela, are you going to be all right there on your own?”
“I’ll be fine, chica. It is you that have to be careful.”
—— «» ——
“Your contact is correct. There is a bunker under the island,” said Dennis Forrand’s image on the screen in Olivia’s bedroom. “According to the archives, it’s been there for thousands of years. The bunker, not the island. The island came much later, built up around the bunker to conceal it, at a time before Stragon had ‘clean’ industry. Hence, the toxic chemicals in the soil.”
“Is that where the Directorate is? Inside the bunker?”
The image let out a sigh. “None of my sources are willing to commit themselves by answering that question, so all I can tell you is this: if I were Gervais, that is where I would be. Considering by how much the bunker predates the existence of the Directorate, I would also wager that there’s much more down there than just a collection of servers in a clean room. Unfortunately, there’s only one way to find out anything for sure, and it’s not going to be easy.”
“We’re already working on that problem. What about the offsite backups that I asked about earlier?”
“I’ve located multi-level server installations on all three of the major land masses. Unfortunately, none of them are as thoroughly firewalled as they’d need to be in order to protect the Directorate’s uploaded consciousnesses.”
“So Gervais was lying to me?”
“Maybe. Or maybe there are installations that only a handful of people with above top secret clearance are aware of. Or perhaps, in this case, ‘offsite’ is code for off-world. This may or may not be relevant, but a friend of mine on the Directorate’s staff was able to learn that a diplomatic shuttle departed a while ago under cover of darkness after taking on some sort of mysterious cargo. Only the pilot was aboard.”
“Did your friend give you any specifics about this flight?”
“The flight plan was classified above my friend’s security level. But he noted that another member of the Directorate’s staff was transferred off-world without warning that same night and hasn’t been heard from since. A fellow named Vinson Trager. And before you ask, he’s a qualified shuttle pilot with diplomatic envoy status. It’s only a guess on my part, but he could easily have transported a server backup through the defense grid unchallenged.”
So, it was entirely possible that Olivia’s plan had already been foiled. Wonderful.
“Thank you, Dennis,” she said tightly. “I think we can take things from here.”
“So do I. Good luck, my dear.”
—— «» ——
One week later, Olivia was back on the island.
Isabela had completed her part of the mission prep. She had concocted and aerosolized the knock-out drug as requested, creating three spray containers, one for each of them. She had also identified an inlet on the southern shore of the island, where a small craft had offloaded three large packing containers two nights earlier.
Meanwhile, Angeli had enlisted the assistance of one of the other EIS cells to assemble several small devices for her: two EMP generators and four heat bombs. A frankenstein of Terran and Stragori technologies, each one was half the size of a commpad and, as she explained to the other two women, could be set to detonate on a time delay.
“Are you sure these will work?” Olivia asked, picking one up and turning it over in her hand.
Angeli took it from her and put all six devices into her own bag. “They’ll do what they were designed to do,” she replied briskly. “Whether they’ll accomplish what you want is another issue.” Under Olivia’s questioning gaze, she placed the bag with the other two beside the door, then continued, “We have no idea what we’re going to find inside that bunker, but I’m assuming it’s current Stragori technology.
“The best way to corrupt a database, Terran or Stragori, is with a strong electromagnetic pulse. If the bunker is EMP-shielded, the servers might not be. But just in case they are, we can plant the heat bombs to take out the power supply and control consoles as well. The data will remain intact but unreachable, and the chaos and confusion should last for a while, giving us a chance to escape. Look, I know it’s not perfect,” she bristled, “but it’s the best I could do with the intel I had.”
“I know,” Olivia assured her. “That’s all anyone can ask.”
Isabela had been looking out the window. She turned and told them, “It will be dusk soon. When the sun touches the horizon, we leave.”
At Isabela’s insistence, Olivia was wearing a mismatched combination of garments, half of them belonging to Angeli. It was a good thing they would be traveling in near-darkness, she reflected. Every item she was wearing would look gray or black. Even the color of her skin would be disguised by the hood attached to her jacket and the long sleeves and trousers that swathed every possible bit of her body. “Ouf! I’m drowning in fabric,” she complained.
“Better that than what the plant life out there will do to you,” Isabela told her. “On Earth, in The Flats, there are certain flora with the word ‘poison’ in their names. Poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac. In the Wilderness Zone, every growing thing is poisonous, potentially lethal. So, you must not touch anything with your bare hands. Always wear gloves, and make sure you tuck your sleeves into them, to protect your wrists.”
“It’s time,” Angeli cut in. “Bela and I have devices that should jam up the securecams between here and the gates. Let’s go.”
Moving stealthily from shadow to shadow, the three women negotiated the five-block route to the edge of the district. Then they walked double-time to the first gate, hugging the post as they sidled through it. Isabela led the way to the second gate and past it into the Wilderness Zone, where they stopped for a “bare skin check”. Seeing by the light of handheld glow-rods, they then proceeded into the woods. Half an hour later, they had reached the bluffs above the coastline.
Isabela hunkered down and pulled something cylindrical out of her pack. She put one end of it up to her eye, then turned and peered through it, down the shore to their left.
To see what, exactly? The area below them was pitch dark and the glow-rods had limited range. Olivia heard the sibilant mutter of waves breaking below them and couldn’t help wondering how Isabela planned to get the three of them safely down there from this ridge.
“Have a look,” Isabela urged, placing the cylinder in Olivia’s hand.
She complied and saw clearly the stretch of beach, the water seeming to breathe beside it, and the gnarled and pitted rock surface that rose at its back, all appearing bathed in an eerie orange light.
“The Stragori call it ‘night sight’,” Isabela explained. “It’s actually a coating applied over a regular glass surface. Angeli came across the formula in one of her restricted files.”
Which probably meant the Directorate knew what they were up to, and what they would need in order to accomplish it. Wonderful, Olivia thought glumly.
Well, that answered one of her questions. There was still the matter of getting themselves down and back up again.
As though reading her mind, Isabela said, “Point the glass to the right, along the top of the bluff, and tell me what you see.”
Again, Olivia did as she was told. In the middle of the grassy fringe at the edge of the drop sat a brown lump with a disturbing resemblance to the feces of a very large animal.
“It’s … a pile of something,” she said.
“It’s a climbing ladder. Vikram made it for Moe,” said Isabela, “and we are going to use it to access the beach.”
“Will it hold our weight?” Angeli asked.
“It should,” came the response. “It is securely anchored at the top. Just to be safe, however, we’ll need to climb it one at a time.”
Despite its off-putting appearance when lying on the ground, the ladder had been cleverly engineered. A single length of reinforced rope with sturdy loops pulled from it to act as hand- and footholds, it wasn’t the easiest thing to negotiate. Nevertheless, it got all three of them to the foot of the bluff, and as it hung over the edge, it was dark enough to blend into the background when seen from the water.
“They carried the supplies into the fourth cave from this end of the beach,” Isabela told them in a whisper. “But it might not be the only way in.”
“We’ll have to be careful,” Olivia agreed.
Keeping their backs to the rock face, they moved along in single file, testing their footing with each step and holding their breath as they scurried past the first three cave openings. At last they arrived at number four.
“Knockout spray,” hissed Olivia. Isabela dropped her pack in order to distribute the canisters, then shouldered it again.
Cautiously, they entered the cave mouth, senses on high alert, spray cans at the ready. But alarms were already going off at the back of Olivia’s brain. There was something in the air, something familiar that she couldn’t quite identify, like a name that she was struggling to put to a face she recognized.
All at once, she recalled where she’d experienced the sensation before.
“Stop!” Olivia commanded them, bringing everything to a halt. “Have either of you touched the walls yet?”
“Not yet,” said Angeli.
“Nor I,” Isabela replied. “What are you thinking, chica?”
“The Stragori have advanced holographic technology,” she said tautly, “and it feels just like this. These rock surfaces could be an illusion. Someone could be watching us right now. And if so…” With sudden decisiveness, she shrugged out of her pack, took a long stride deeper into the cave, and declaimed loudly to the air, “Listen up, people! We know you’re here, and we know why you’re here, so you may as well drop the disguise and talk to us.”
Behind her, Angeli and Isabela froze in place. For the next few seconds, they were immersed in a silence so thick and heavy that they could practically feel it pressing against their skin. Then, with a sound like static, the cave pixelated and dissolved, leaving behind a large room made of metal, with a glowing domed ceiling. The entire innermost wall consisted of a pair of featureless sliding doors. Hissing ominously, they slowly parted, releasing a shaft of bright light into what was clearly an antechamber of some sort.
Olivia’s legs were shaking. They wanted to turn and run back to the beach. But she’d issued a challenge, and now she had to see it through.
I’m a Forrand. I stand my ground, she reminded herself sternly.
As the women stood staring at the opening, three beings emerged from the inner room. They were short and stocky, with gray skin, beaklike mouths, and large hairless heads. All three were clad in shiny, one-piece garments. Olivia had only ever seen such creatures in news feed images, but she recognized the race immediately.
So did Isabela. “Madre!” she breathed. “Those are Thryggians.”
The aliens took a step forward.
“You appear surprised. But you said you knew we were here?” one of them chirped.
“We knew someone was here,” Olivia replied, savagely bringing her voice under control. “We just weren’t expecting it to be you.”
“You say you know why we are here,” piped up a second alien. “But we do not know why you are here.”
Olivia paused, selecting a safe response. Meanwhile, the third Thryggian produced a wand of some sort and pointed it at each of the women in turn. Then he (it?) turned to the other aliens and chittered at them for a moment.
“You are from Earth. Who else have you told about this place?” demanded the first alien.
Olivia’s thoughts were racing. Which would be more dangerous? Saying that no one else knew? Or saying that everyone else knew?
Before she could speak, Isabela declared, “We are not sure how many others know about you. But my mate was murdered because he stumbled onto your secret. That is why I am here, to see for myself what someone decided my husband’s life was worth sacrificing to protect.”
Unexpectedly, the aliens’ arms burst into spastic, fluttery motion. “They are killing? No, no,” chattered the first Thryggian, and the second chimed in, “That is wrong. It cannot be.”
“Well, it’s happened,” Angeli broke in angrily. “And it will probably happen again. If we could figure things out, so can others. How many have to die just to keep your presence on this world a secret?”
“This is terrible. What can we do?” chirped the second alien.
It wasn’t addressing the women, but Olivia felt compelled to answer anyway. “You can help us mend the rift in Stragori society by showing us where the Directorate is stored.”
“Then you can leave Stragon,” Angeli added.
Forming a huddle, the aliens chirped and chattered excitedly at one another for several long moments. When they turned back to face the intruders, it was clear which Thryggian was the leader.
“We cannot leave. We are the observers. The experiment must continue. It is all that protects the Humans on this world now, from the Great Council,” it explained, the skin of its head visibly pulsing.
“Experiment?” murmured Isabela. “Do you know what this alien is talking about, chica?”
Unfortunately, Olivia did. “I’ve seen a lab report written in Thryggian. It dates back thousands of years. In that language, Stragori means ‘control group’.”
“A control group exists to show what would have happened if the experimental group had not been treated,” Isabela said.
“Or, in our case, interfered with,” Olivia added grimly.
“So, the Stragori are us if we’d just been left alone?” said Angeli. “And the Humans of Earth were experimented on? All of us? For thousands of years?” A storm was brewing on her face and in her voice. Her hands were curling into fists at her sides.
“Why do you need to see the Directorate’s server?” asked one of the aliens.
Olivia looked it straight in the eyes and replied, “To destroy it. The Directors have chosen death as the only way to heal Stragori society. Since they cannot delete themselves, I have been tasked with corrupting their programs in order to avert a civil war.”
“You were told this?” said the Thryggian leader. “It is a lie.”
“How do you know that?” Angeli demanded.
“We observe all Stragori, including those in the Directorate. Any Director wishing to die can move into a designated compartment of the server. We monitor and clear it every eight days.”
“Well, you can’t be observing very closely,” said Olivia, “because it was a Director who gave me this assignment, and everything he said was backed up by a senior member of his family.”
Isabela laid a cautioning hand on her arm. “Chica,” she said softly, “are you quite certain the person you were speaking with was a Director?”
In that moment, every suspicion Olivia had had since landing at the spaceport slammed into her stomach at once, driving a sour taste up into her throat. “No. No, I’m not,” she admitted. “I’ve been played so many ways since arriving on this world that I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”
There was another huddle, and another spate of chatter by the Thryggians.
When they’d finished, the leader turned to face Olivia and chirped, “We will show you to the Directorate to find the truth. This way, please.”
Exchanging wary glances, the three women followed the aliens into the bowels of the bunker. At the end of a circuitous, featureless hallway sat a metal slab of sliding door. One of the aliens pressed its hand to the wall and chittered a password, and the door moved ponderously out of the way.
Olivia stepped into a room that was more like an aquarium display. Three of the walls were transparent panes holding back some sort of aqueous material, and suspended in it she saw numerous small … jellyfish?
“Where is the server?” she asked.
“This room is the server,” a Thryggian replied. “Each node contains the consciousness of a single Director.”
“Are these— Are they inside living creatures?”
“Living, yes, but not sentient. Just as your brain is physically transported by your body, each Director now moves through the hyperconductive fluid of the server by means of an organic node.”
“This is old technology on Thrygg, but it is compatible with what the Stragori have developed,” said another of the aliens. “Until they perfect their programming, it will need to be supported herewise.”
“Which Director gave you your task?” asked the Thryggian leader.
“Gervais Forrand,” Olivia replied.
“A recent addition,” supplied another of the Thryggians.
As Olivia watched, the third alien opened a panel in the wall beside the door and thrust a hand inside. A moment later, a round pedestal rose from the floor in the middle of the room, stopping when it was about a meter in height.
“Contact him,” the leader instructed the second alien, who then busied itself with a strange-looking array that had appeared in one corner of the room.
A moment later, all eyes were drawn to the top of the pedestal, where a three-dimensional figure had materialized. It looked solid enough to be real, but this fearful child — ten years old at most — couldn’t possibly be Gervais Forrand.
“What is that?” Olivia demanded.
“It is a memory. This Director is still adjusting to his current state,” said the leader. “For the first hundred years, it is difficult to focus on the present. But if you speak to him, he will answer.”
“Can he see me?”
“Only if we project your image into the hyperconductive fluid, or if it is already in his memory. This will be a test of his memory.”
“So, if it was really Gervais that I spoke to earlier…?”
“…then his consciousness will have a visual record of you. Elsewise, he will hear you but be blind.”
Summoning her courage, Olivia called out, “Gervais Forrand!”
At the sound of her voice, the image shifted. Now it showed them a man near the end of his life. Pale, deeply wrinkled skin hung at his jowls. Wisps of white hair barely covered his mottled scalp. “Who is calling me?” he demanded, his image appearing to gaze around the room.
“Olivia Townsend. I’m Gilles and Linda Forrand’s great-granddaughter.”
“Gilles and Linda,” he repeated. The image shifted again, becoming more recognizably the man she had seen on the light screen. “Gilles and Linda are on Earth. What is your name again?”
“Olivia Townsend. Linda says I look just like you,” she declared. “Do you see the resemblance?”
His eyes glazed over. “No. It’s too dark here.” His features went slack. “If she says so,” he sighed. A second later the man was gone, replaced by a boy who looked to be in his early teens. He was staring directly ahead with an expression of gleeful anticipation on his face. “This is going to be fun!” he exclaimed.
The Thryggian leader gestured to the alien at the array, and with an electronic sizzle, the image dissolved.
“The Gervais Forrand that I spoke to was completely focused on the present, very logical and persuasive,” said Olivia. “And he was on a light screen, interacting with Gilles and me.” She turned apologetically toward Angeli and Isabela. “It was a con. I should have known better.”
“Then you will not be destroying the server?” chirped one of the Thryggians.
Angeli’s gaze hardened. “That depends. Are you going to let us leave?”
The Thryggian wrung its hands. “We are scientists. We observe. We monitor. We do not interfere. And we do not imprison,” it maintained. “We ask only one thing.”
“Don’t worry,” Olivia assured it. “We’re used to keeping secrets. Yours will be safe.”
The alien leader turned to Isabela. “We regret the loss of your mate. If we were suddenly reduced to two, we would be stricken with grief. In a paired society, the sadness must be much more. We will carry yours with us for the rest of our days.”
Tears shining in her eyes, she replied, “Thank you.”
—— «» ——
They still had a problem.
The journey back to Angeli and Isabela’s apartment had gone relatively smoothly. They’d scrambled up the climbing rope with only a couple of near-mishaps, and, to Olivia’s surprise, had managed to find their way back out of the Wilderness Zone without incident. Isabela had then led them quickly along the paved streets of the district, picking the shortest route to the quadplex.
After removing their protective garments, the three women had stared mutely at one another for several heartbeats. Normally, an operation would have been followed by a debriefing. Tonight that had been unnecessary. It was fortunate, because Olivia doubted whether she would have believed what had happened if she hadn’t been there herself.
There was no way any of them would be able to sleep that night.
At last, Isabela had broken the silence. “I think I would like some tea,” she’d said, and had gone to the kitchen to make a pot of it.
Now they sat in the living room, sipping from cups of dark, strong brew. Angeli and Isabela were chatting quietly at one end of the sofa. Meanwhile, Olivia slouched in an armchair, mired in thought.
She had been betrayed. Again.
Whatever had possessed her to come to this world? What arrogance or half-baked idealism had convinced her that she, of all people, could make a difference here? Did Olivia even dare to go back to Gilles and Linda’s house, knowing what she now knew about the Directorate, and about the impostor who’d passed himself off to her as Gervais Forrand? How could she look either of her great-grandparents in the face again without wondering whether they’d helped him to trick her? And whether they’d do it again?
Gilles had called her a child, and he’d been right — the political power games she’d learned to play on Earth had done little to prepare her for the cold war being waged on Stragon.
“They said it was an experiment and they never interfered,” Isabela was pointing out. “But if they have linked their server to the ones the Stragori are using in order to compensate for flawed Stragori programming, is that not interfering?”
It was blindingly obvious now to Olivia that the Forrands were undeclared radicals, conspiring with person or persons unknown to murder the entire Directorate. But who was using whom? Dennis Forrand had been opportunistic as hell back on Earth. Linda had seemed anxious to build a new world order and hadn’t hesitated to go behind her husband’s back. That the Forrands hadn’t become powerful on this world by “falling into line” was a gross understatement. Scheming and backstabbing were apparently written right into the family’s DNA.
And Olivia shared part of it. Once she’d shown her mettle by carrying out an act of mass murder, Linda and Gilles had promised to introduce her to her cousins.
Angeli’s raised voice dragged Olivia back to the moment. “So, the Stragori have had this consciousness-uploading technology for centuries. By now they must think it works perfectly, when in fact, the Thryggians have been secretly plugging the holes in the Stragori’s programming. They’ve been using Thryggian technology to safeguard the Directors, while fooling the Stragori into thinking they’re more advanced than they actually are. That’s not just interference, Bela. That’s cheating.”
“No,” Olivia cut in, “it’s protection. You heard what the Thryggian said. They have to ensure that the experiment continues because as long as the Stragori are a monitored ‘control group’, no one is allowed to interfere with them, including the Great Council.”
“But they did not say they were protecting the Stragori,” Isabela reminded them. “They said ‘the Humans on this world’. To me, that means the Terrans as well.”
“Including us?” Angeli returned. “Are we allowed to interfere? Because if the objective of this op is to destroy the Directorate, it seems to me the only way to accomplish it is to take out the bunker.”
“And betray the Thryggians,” Olivia added bleakly. “And end the experiment, and with it any protection Stragon has enjoyed from the Great Council. I’m aborting the operation. We can’t do it.”
Angeli cursed under her breath. “So basically, we’re right back where we started, but with more intel and a lot more questions.”
“And a half-dozen or so devices that we’ll have to either use or destroy,” Olivia added.
“Hmm.” Angeli deliberately wrapped both her hands around her teacup. “If Vikram was killed by Stragori to keep the existence of the bunker a secret, then it’s a safe bet that whoever is impersonating Gervais also knows about it. That’s probably why he wants violence to break out on the island. It makes it a lot easier to blame the Terrans when the server containing the entire Directorate gets destroyed. Meanwhile, the ones who have backed themselves up can step in and take control, with Gervais as their leader.”
“But we are not going to destroy the bunker,” Isabela reminded her.
“Which will smack Gervais off something fierce,” said Angeli. “Well, if we’re going to ruin his plan, let’s do it right. Let’s scramble or blow up a couple of servers on the mainland that might contain a Director or two, then get ourselves off-world before the dust clears. We’ll need to coordinate our timing with Novak’s, though, since he’s arranging the extraction.”
“He can’t,” said Olivia.
Isabela nearly choked on a mouthful of tea. “What? What are you talking about?”
“The timing will be too tight. We’re here, he’s there, and it takes too damn long to communicate with Earth.”
“So you’re saying we’re screwed?” Angeli said flatly.
“No. There’s an alternative. Daisy Hub is less than three days away, with access to both intel and transportation.”
“How sure are you that your brother can help us?” Angeli asked.
Olivia debated with herself for a second, then swallowed a sigh. She was no longer the Chief of Intelligence. Drew’s new role in the organization was not for her to reveal. “He’s one of us. He has an EIS decrypter, so we should be able to communicate directly with the Hub. Angeli, you’re the coordinator of the original mission. Would you set that up, please?”
The other woman gave her a startled look, then replied, “Of course.”
“We still have to locate the servers on the mainland, chica.”
“Leave that to me. Once I’ve identified our targets, we’ll split up and attack them simultaneously.”
“I have a better idea,” said Angeli. “Neither one of you knows your way around the mainland the way I do. Let me plant the devices, setting them all to go off at the same time. Then I’ll rendezvous with you at the extraction coordinates.”
Olivia was too tired to argue. “All right. Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Always.”