part0009

Bekah strode the nearly empty corridor of Masada Station, forcing her hands to stop making fists. If Daniel Tripp told her one more time how important it was that the main firewall protocols be robust enough to be self-adapting, Bekah swore she’d brain him. The man was a genius at programming bridges to endow applications with near sentience.

His people skills, though? They sucked.

But Gregor had insisted Daniel join Bekah’s Masada team, citing that very skill set. Should Cassandra turn her worms against Masada, Daniel’s specialization could mean the difference between success and failure in protecting SynCorp’s future. Personalities couldn’t rule choices now.

Most of those who’d needed to evacuate had already done so. Rahim Zafar and his decoy team had been the first down the well. They were already rewriting the data on the backup mainframe, creating the millions of Holy Grails for Cassandra’s worms to find, all of them useless versions of actual tech specs held safe in Masada’s main databanks. Guided by Carrin Bohannon’s expertise, Bekah’s team had reinforced the station’s cybersecurity. And, Bekah had to admit, Daniel Tripp’s practical quick-fixes had come in rather handy in that time-poor, high-stakes process. If only he could be less of a dick while being so brilliant.

Bekah set aside her frustrations as she approached her grandfather’s room. She heard voices holding pleasant conversation. One was her Opa Simon’s, speaking in his quiet, sunny way. The other sounded familiar and slightly out of place at the same time, like a teacher you’ve only heard lecture in a classroom might sound if he were telling an off-color joke. She found Gregor Erkennen sitting casually on the edge of her grandfather’s bed, holding Opa Simon’s hand. When she knocked lightly, both men looked toward the door.

“Hello, Bekkalleh,” Simon Franklin said, using his Yiddish nickname for her. Hearing him call her that recalled memories of being a little girl, her mouth watering at the rich smells of food cooking for Hanukkah. He sat up a little taller against the pile of pillows propping him up. “We were just speaking of you.”

The Regent of Titan rose to his feet. “Rebekah,” he said in formal greeting. “I was just taking some time to visit with your opa before I leave.”

Bekah nodded with a light, self-conscious smile. Gregor and her Opa Simon had enjoyed a long and happy association, ever since Gregor had been a young boy in his father Viktor’s workshop. Gregor credited Simon Franklin with teaching him to think three-dimensionally about the invention process. Once he’d established his primary R&D labs on the asteroid orbiting Titan, Viktor Erkennen had employed a whole stable of non-engineers—psychologists, sociologists, cultural archaeologists, even philosophers like her grandfather. It was his way, Viktor said, of helping mankind avoid its past mistakes of creating technology without a conscience or an eye toward consequence. No more Manhattan Projects here, no more Lazarus Protocols. Not if he could help it, Viktor had pledged.

“Of course,” Bekah said, suddenly embarrassed at interrupting their private moment.

“The regent was just telling me what a wonderful job you’re doing,” her opa said. He always used Gregor’s formal title when Erkennen was in the room.

“Indeed,” Gregor added gently. He returned his attention to the ailing man. “I’d like to speak with your granddaughter a moment. I promise not to keep her too long from you.”

“Take your time,” Simon said, smacking his lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Gregor shared a look of appreciation with Bekah, one that respected the courage of the dying man in the medical bed. Patting Simon’s hand, he rose.

“I will be leaving soon,” he said, pulling Bekah aside. “I’ve asked the doctors again, but they still insist he can’t be moved.”

“I know,” she said. The words caught in her throat. She’d been so focused on fortifying the Masada mainframe, on dealing with Daniel and the rest of her team, that she’d had to wall off her feelings about what was coming. Her grandfather’s illness had been whittling away at him for so long, she’d experienced a kind of low-grade sadness for months now. A combination of pre-mourning grief, existential fear that the last member of her family was passing from her life, and the certainty that she would let her Opa Simon down in the one area that meant the most to him.

“He wouldn’t want to be apart from you anyway,” Gregor said. “Family is very important to him.”

“It’s important to me too,” Gregor continued. “Your grandfather taught me to think beyond the invention itself. I’ve never forgotten the lesson.”

“It’s why I chose you to lead the team that’s staying here.”

It took a moment to register what he’d said, to connect the dots Bekah hadn’t even known where there until she’d connected them.

“Don’t get me wrong, Bekah,” Gregor said, her nickname sounding warm and natural, all the more intimate for its rarity coming from him. “You are gifted. You might not know this, but Rahim is your biggest fan.” That surprised her. If asked how Rahim Zafar would describe her after observing her work as a member of his coding team, Bekah would have picked a safe adjective like competent . “But you have something else. You have your grandfather in you. It’s what we need here now, leading the team that’s protecting the mainframe. Talent and conscience, yes?”

She nodded from reflex. “I think Daniel Tripp might disagree about who should be leading this team.”

Gregor grumbled. “Daniel is, perhaps, the most talented heuristics specialist I’ve ever seen.” His face became thoughtful. “Sometimes his ego gets in the way. You’ll just have to be patient with him.”

I’m working on it .

“Here’s what I need to tell you, and this is for your ears only. Understand? No discussion with anyone. Compartmentalize to preserve secrecy, yes?”

I’ve gotten good at that lately .

Gregor reached into his pocket and withdrew what looked like an oversized platinum key. It had a long, corrugated body, or bit, and a broad head with a hole through it. A thin, golden chain was looped through the hole. He held it up with the clear intent of draping it around her neck.

“This is a failsafe,” Gregor said as she leaned forward. “I call it the Hammer.”

“The Hammer?” Bekah stared down at it lying against her chest. It seemed heavier than its small size should warrant.

“It was Adriana Rabh’s idea, actually. She’s got Vikings on the brain.”

“I still don’t—”

“Viking warriors wore a hammer around their necks as a holy symbol. They touched it before battle, asking Thor to protect them,” Gregor explained. “Now that I think of it, it’s a perfect name for the thing.”

“Okay. What does it do?”

“It has two functions. First, it’s an engrammatic representation of the mainframe. A quantum-level memory map of everything the Erkennen Faction has ever invented and licensed to SynCorp. Only someone with specific data keys can unlock it.”

“I don’t understand,” Bekah said.

Gregor thought for a moment. “You know the dehydrated food we eat? All you have to do is add water to recreate the original foodstuff.”

“The Hammer is the dehydrated food. The data keys are the water.”

“Okay. Where are the data keys?”

Gregor smiled. “Compartmentalization, remember?”

“That’s dangerous, Gregor. If this is the only record of Erkennen inventions,” she said, touching the Hammer, “then everything could be lost…”

His eyebrows arched. “That’s why it’s a failsafe. Not my first choice for preserving our faction’s technological history.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Also, should Cassandra see through us on Titan, you must use the Hammer to keep Masada’s data from falling into her hands, Bekah.” Gregor’s face became solemn, almost soulful. “Insert it into the quantum data port of the mainframe. In micro-seconds, it will update the content in the engrams. Turn it clockwise, and everything in the mainframe itself gets wiped.”

“Wiped?” she said. Her skin prickled with goosebumps. “But then we’d be reliant entirely on—”

“—the Hammer to reconstitute the data, yes. At least until we plugged it into another mainframe and, er, rehydrated the data again.” To the look on her face, Gregor said, “It’s better than letting the knowledge fall into the enemy’s hands. Think about it, Bekah—the medical implant records alone. We have the serial number of every SCI tied to the individual DNA profiles of billions of humans across the system. If Cassandra gained that information, she could track down everyone on her enemies list. Potentially, she could even take control of the implants, use them to infect a person with illness. We can’t let that happen.”

“But why would she do that?” Bekah asked, horrified at the thought.

“She beheaded her own mother and stuck Elise Kisaan’s head on a pike. Not the most stable individual, I think. And this Dreamscape algorithm addicting all those mindless hackheads… They’d rather die than give up their fantasies. Is that merely coincidental with everything else going on?” Gregor’s eyes were suspicious but lacked answers. “Who knows what she’s capable of, really?”

The weight of her new responsibility settled onto Bekah’s shoulders.

“I understand,” she whispered. “I won’t let you down, Gregor.”

“Hey, you two!” Simon Franklin called from his sickbed, his voice rough. “Moloch Ha Movitz says hurry up, he hasn’t got all day to wait on me waiting on you two.”

“Tell Death he can wait anyway,” Gregor replied. His fingers touched Bekah’s elbow, and together they walked to Simon’s bedside. “But we were just finishing our discussion. Bekah’s all yours.” Leaning in to her ear, he said, “I’ll remain here until Fischer arrives.”

“Okay,” she said.

“If I didn’t know you better,” Simon said, “I’d think you were trying to date my granddaughter.”

“She’s too smart for me,” Gregor replied, like they’d rehearsed a routine.

Simon coughed long and labored. It sounded wet and dry at the same time. “That is true,” he said when the fit had passed.

Bekah stood there feeling gossiped about, complimented, and mocked in the same instant. Gregor departed, leaving the two of them alone.

“That wasn’t funny, Opa,” she said.

“Life is short, Bekkalleh. No sense making it any less fun.”

She sighed a long-suffering sound and sat down in the groove Gregor had left in the bed. “That’s never an issue while you’re around,” she said. She realized too late what she’d said without meaning to say it, a blush forming on her cheeks.

“And it shouldn’t be when I’m not, either,” he said graciously. Then his tone turned serious. “You’ve been studying? What to do, I mean.”

She gave a half nod. “I have. I’ve memorized the Kaddish you wish spoken. I’ve got a checklist for the ritual to prepare the … your … body.” Bekah hated the way her voice sounded, like a programmer reciting the deployment plan for a new application. “But the kevura —I don’t know how I’m going to do that.” Ritual burial was perhaps the most sacred rite among the Jewish people. How was she to accomplish that on a space station?

Simon’s face became attentive. “Burial soon after death is a mitzvah , a commandment of God,” he said. She could feel her face contorting, her lifelong failure to be a studious Jew welling up inside her like bile.

“I’m having fun again, Bekkalleh,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I apologize. No, I take that back—I don’t apologize. I’m a dying old man. I get to do what I want.”

“Oh, Opa, I wish…” She wasn’t sure what she’d meant to say, then was absolutely sure what she needed to say. “I wish I’d been better at all this. For you.”

The hard humor left his eyes. “Better at what? Being a Jew?” He laughed, and the wet-dry sound returned. “You’re feeling guilty at not being a better Jew? You’re better at being a Jew than you think!”

Bekah managed light laughter. She considered how much she’d miss this irascible old man, the last member of her family left to her. Her heart hurt.

“I still don’t know what to do about kevura ,” she said, trying to focus.

“See, this is what you’d know if you practiced our religion and not merely studied it for a one-time performance.” The old, reactive shame flooded Bekah’s limbs, a conditioned response to the old disappointment in her grandfather’s voice. “So much of the rituals, the laws, the thou shalts —I call them the common-sense commandments for a reason, Bekkalleh.”

“I don’t understand, Opa.”

“I know you don’t,” Simon said. More disappointment from him. More self-conscious bitterness from her. But then his tone softened. “So much of our teachings derive from who we are, Bekkalleh. A transient people—nomads always moving, always forced to move. Don’t eat that dead animal on the side of the road—it could be poisoned! Eat only the food you know is clean. Bury your dead quickly! Corpses spread disease.”

Nodding, Bekah said, “You’ve told me this before, Opa.”

“Yes, but apparently you weren’t listening ,” he answered. Then his voice calmed again. “What I’m telling you is—the mitzvahs are important because they unite our people with culture and ritual when we don’t have land and home and country to do that. And they keep us alive. They’re a stranger-in-a-strange-land’s guide to survival, do you see?”

“Yes, Opa,” she said. “But I still don’t know how to accomplish the kevura —”

Simon tried to raise himself in the bed, and Bekah helped him sit up straighter. She held him through the coughing fit that followed.

“You’re still not listening,” he said from a tattered throat. “Listen , Bekkalleh. Kevura is important, but not for the act itself. My body—put me in the damned freezer! Shove me out into space! Just don’t leave me lying around for disease to take root in, or you could die too. Well, maybe not here on the station, maybe disease isn’t such a worry in space—but do you understand my point? You must survive, Bekkalleh. You , the next generation. That’s being a good Jew.”

Her face twisted. Put him in a freezer? Shove him into space? Her grandfather never ceased to establish a new line of decorum—usually a step and a half past the old line.

“You really just have to remember one thing,” Simon said, reaching out to take her hand. “We’re put here to do good, Bekkalleh. That’s really what loving God boils down to. Anything else is just Man placing himself at the center of the universe.”

“I’ll do my best to be a good Jew for you, Opa,” she said because she had to say something. Then, with a wicked look because she felt wicked in that moment: “Just this once.”

“Well, Bekkalleh,” Simon said, settling back into his stack of pillows, a smile of contentment creasing his lined face, “that, as they say, is a good start.”