Basement level six under the Opole PSR office only had four cells. It hadn’t been used in the living memory of any current PSR officer, although it was maintained with the grudging routine of any government facility. One short corridor served all four cells, its dark brick walls leaking white salt crystals out of the mortar. There was a cage door at the foot of the stairs where armed guards were stationed along with the two floor chiefs. The steel cell doors themselves weighed nearly half a ton and needed two separate keys to unlock them. They all had a spyhole.
When Chaing and Yaki arrived, eight officers were clustered around the metal door of cell one, taking it in turns to peer through at the new inmate. They straightened up and saluted guiltily as the two floor chiefs greeted the director. Yaki maintained a disapproving silence as they all filed out sheepishly when the cage door was opened. The floor chiefs put their keys in the door of cell one, and turned them simultaneously.
“Is the recording equipment working?” Yaki asked as the locking mechanism clunked.
“Yes, ma’am,” the senior chief said. “It’s all been checked and confirmed by the electrical manager herself. Everything is in duplicate.”
“Thank you. Open the door, please.”
The senior chief tugged hard on the handle, and the big door slowly swung back.
Roxwolf was sitting at the sturdy wooden table in the middle of the room, facing the door. A handcuff was clamped around his human wrist, securing him to a heavy iron ring in the center of the table. A shackle bracelet was holding his human ankle to a similar ring set in the floor underneath the table. The guards obviously hadn’t been sure about the restraints working on his ginger-furred animal limbs; instead they’d taken to binding his mismatched legs together. The upper portion of the arm limb was contained in a long leather sheath, with chains holding it immobile against his torso.
“Director Yaki, welcome,” Roxwolf said in a gurgling voice.
Chaing couldn’t take his eyes off the fangs filling the creature’s mouth—how sharp they were, how the jaw muscles bulged. He didn’t want to be in the same building as that mouth, let alone locked in the same room. All he could think about was that mouth eating, shredding meat as if it were wet bread—and what kind of meat.
“Did your officers enjoy peeking at the big scary monster? You should charge people for the privilege. It would double the amount of illegal kickbacks you acquire from your various commercial rackets. And Captain Chaing, the great Stonal’s representative on Bienvenido, congratulations on your no doubt imminent promotion. How long you will enjoy it, is of course another matter entirely.”
“Longer than you’ll live to see,” Chaing said as he and Yaki sat in front of the table.
“And yet, here I am: alive. If you wanted me dead, then a quick bullet to the brain from your pistol when you captured me would have sufficed. Good work, by the way. I’m impressed amid my depression.”
“Patterns,” Chaing said. “The downfall of us all. You always use underground escape routes.”
“I will make an effort to remember that.”
“We need information from you,” Yaki said.
Roxwolf stretched his lips wide, exposing more of his fangs. “Of course you do.”
He knows how disconcerting that is for humans, Chaing thought. So he must believe he still has some advantage.
A moment of silence stretched out. Then, “Oh,” Roxwolf said, sounding mildly disappointed. “I was waiting for you to give me the ‘hard way or easy way’ speech.”
Yaki tipped her head to one side and fixed him with a faint smile. “You’ll give us what we want, or you’ll die. Good enough?”
“And after I give you what you want, you’ll kill me anyway. So why don’t you just go right ahead?”
“If you wanted to die, you had plenty of opportunities to make a break for freedom while we were bringing you in. The assault team is good, but you’re a scary beast right out of Uracus itself; one of them would have pulled the trigger.”
“Quite right, Director. So instead of using the stick, would you like to show me the carrot?”
“Carrots and sticks are for donkeys.”
“Ah, donkeys. They taste nice, but not as nice as you.”
“What are you, exactly?” Chaing asked, pleased he could put up a cold wall of indifference to the creature’s goading.
“A mistake,” Roxwolf grunted, and looked pointedly at his leather-bound arm. “A very literal half-breed.”
“So you are Faller? That’s where your sympathies lie?”
“I am useful to them. I take risks they dare not, so they allow me to live—for a price.”
“You have a price, then?” Yaki asked.
“Everybody has a price, Director. You should know that.”
“What will your cooperation cost us?”
“That depends. What is it you wish to know?”
“The locations of every nest you know of.”
“That is expensive information.”
“How valuable is your life?”
“Very. But you haven’t shown me you can guarantee that.”
“What guarantee are you looking for?”
A long serpentine tongue flickered between Roxwolf’s fangs as he exhaled gently. “Full citizenship, granted publically, and legal immunity from all my past crimes.”
“I can ask for that,” Yaki said, sounding slightly puzzled. “I’m not sure if the government will grant it.”
“Of course. As a gesture of good faith, I am willing to give you the current location of the five largest nests in Opole.”
“Five?”
“Yes.”
Yaki glanced at Chaing. He knew exactly what she was thinking. There are more than five?
“I can agree to that,” she said. “At the very least, you won’t die today.”
“Good to know. Oh, there’s one other thing.”
Yaki stiffened. “Yes?”
“The Commonwealth girl, Essie.”
“Paula,” Chaing said. “Her name is Paula.”
“Interesting.” Roxwolf nodded as if agreeing to some inner conversation. “I will also require Paula to agree to my terms.”
“We have no way of getting into contact with her.”
“Now, that’s not entirely true, is it, Captain? In fact, you’re trying rather hard, aren’t you? Section seven has been pressuring every radical Eliter they know of, demanding she get in touch again. I’m assuming that has something to do with the machine in the basement.”
“The what?”
“Ry Evine used that phrase as his proof of identity to the polar Liberty mission, who in turn convinced the prime minister—or ex–prime minister, I should say. It was an intriguing conversation—supposedly private. But if your astronauts will broadcast direct from orbit you must expect people to overhear them.”
“All right,” Chaing said. “If she gets in touch with us, we can ask. But I’d like to know why. Why do you need her to agree to your request?”
“I met her, as you know. A formidable little thing, even back then. Now she is just plain terrifying. It’s the potential she represents, you understand. The nests risked everything to use your atomic weapons against her, and we still don’t know if they succeeded.”
“So you think she’d kill you?”
“Not if we have a deal. She was open to a deal even after I tried to blow her brains out.” He shrugged. “I failed, of course—which gives me enormous respect for her.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Yaki said. “But we will add it to your demands.”
“People in a position of strength make demands. I merely offer negotiating points to keep myself alive.”
“So you’ll just roll over so easily?” Chaing said.
“You have no idea what is about to happen on this world, do you?”
“The great Faller Apocalypse? I know.”
“You don’t. You don’t even know our numbers.”
“You’ve taken over every landmass apart from Lamaran and Byarn. I can only assume you have bred a formidable population base.”
“Touché. I suppose the seibears gave that away?”
“Yes. And you’ve got detailed plans how to disrupt our society; the raid on our nukes showed us that.”
“Indeed. And the Trees?”
Chaing fought against turning to look at Yaki; it would have shown weakness. “What about the Trees?”
“This is a war for total supremacy. There can only be one survivor. I know you think you understand that intellectually, but in reality you are blind.”
“What about the Trees?”
“The Apocalypse—your Apocalypse—will begin when they fly down from the Ring to low orbit. You see, your cities and farms and railways and industry are not part of Faller culture. The Fallers do not need such things. They are spoils that will not be claimed by the victor.”
“Then what will the Trees do?” Yaki demanded in a strained voice.
“Low orbit will allow them to refine their aim. Every egg they have will come crashing down on your buildings, your bridges, your dams. And there are tens of thousands of eggs growing up there. Their shells are engineered at a molecular level to withstand any impact, no matter what it is they land on. Every half-important structure you have ever built will be reduced to ruin in a matter of hours. Humans will have nothing left to defend. Millions of you will die before the nests even begin their assault. Survivors will be rounded up and either eaten or eggsumed. You’ll see.”
“Oh, crudding Giu,” Chaing whispered. “But why tell us? Why warn us? If what you say is true, the Fallers are going to win no matter what we do.”
“And if they do, I will probably lose. I am a realist above all else. Now that you have captured me I cannot deal with them, not from this prison cell; the weapons I was supposed to supply will not be delivered. I was treated with contempt before, and now you, Captain Chaing, have condemned me. Paula’s protection is my only chance of survival. And I want to survive. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“But…You just told us it’s useless. We don’t stand a chance.”
“You don’t. But she does. If anyone can defeat the Fallers, it’s Paula. She’s the only hope any of us have left.”
“We can help them?” Kysandra said in exasperation.
She was sitting on one of the new chairs extruded by the synthesizers, giving Paula a disapproving look. In the chair next to her, Florian—typically—simply seemed bemused by the discovery of Unit976 and the other Macule Units of Zone43, treating them as just another marvel of the universe outside Bienvenido. Ry, of course, was excited at first contact with a non-genocidal alien race, while Paula had smoothly incorporated its potential into her plan. Kysandra wondered just what it would take to fluster the girl; so far, everything that had happened in the last few weeks had proved she was pretty much unflappable. No wonder the ANAdroids were so pleased she finally turned up.
“Yes,” Paula said. “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Kromal were obviously a territorial species; they fought and lost a war motivated by naked tribalism. And trade is the basis of most tribal and national affairs, so they understand the concept perfectly. We exchange our knowledge and offer to take them back to the Commonwealth galaxy with us, in return for the raw materials that they possess.”
“Crud,” Kysandra grumbled under her breath. She looked out of the dome’s window. Unit976 had been joined by several similar machines, one of which—Unit26—made them look small. Unit26 was a single metal cylinder forty-five meters long, with massive caterpillar tracks on each corner and sensor prongs protruding along its flanks. It towed its own fission reactor behind it—a big wheeled sphere that dripped oils at an alarming rate as it crawled along. Fifteen long silver thermal radiator panels stuck out of the sphere’s steel casing, as if it had stolen wings from broken airplanes and didn’t quite know what to do with them.
Right now it was rolling slowly around the extruded domes, scanning them with its crude sensors. And that wasn’t the only attempt to discover the secrets the humans had brought to Macule. Unit976 had opened hatches on its third section and five small wheeled vehicles came racing down the ramps, trailing power and data cables behind them. Kysandra had named them the puppies from the way they nipped about between the few Commonwealth machines left outside the domes, examining them as best their small sensor arrays could manage.
“The Kromal might have been tribal,” she said. “but Giu alone knows what these things are,” she said.
“I performed a thorough fieldscan on Unit976,” Paula said. “Its mechanics are relatively crude, barely ahead of Bienvenido’s technology. However, there is one exception. The controlling intelligence, its processor core, is mainly biological in nature.” Her u-shadow sent them all a file that contained the fieldscan imagery of Unit976. Right at the center of the second segment was a spherical module into which all the machine’s data cables were plugged. At its core was a hexagonal star-array of bioware cylinders, sustained in a fluid that seemed to serve as both coolant and nutrient.
“Not quite as advanced as us ANAdroids,” Demitri said, “but certainly capable of semi-sentient thought if the programming is sophisticated enough. My only worry would be what kind of corruption has crept in over time.”
“Unit976 claims that original Kromals downloaded their memories into the biocores,” Paula said. “The Units they’re housed in can be repaired and rebuilt with a basic engineering capability—presumably in the caves Ry found. They build completely new ones every few hundred years when the biocore has also begun to degrade. The Unit simply transfers its thought patterns and memories into a newly grown core, which is installed inside the new Unit.”
“And they’ve kept that going for thirty-five thousand years?” Kysandra asked in astonishment.
“Thirty-five thousand years is only sixty or seventy generations for the Units,” Demitri said. “Technology stasis is easy to maintain over such a period. Their only problem is going to be copy errors creeping in. Other than that, theoretically they should be able to maintain themselves for millennia to come, until an outside event intervenes or their resources shrink.”
“Intervention is us; so other Zones running out of resources and coming over the border would be the other event?” Kysandra said.
“Yes. Resource wars can’t happen often here. As long as the Zones have energy, they can recycle most of their metal. Uranium may be their limiting factor, even with breeder reactors.”
“Why, though?” Florian asked. “What’s the point? This world is dead.”
“Not quite,” Paula said. “The idea is to wait until the radioactivity dies down to a point where biological life is sustainable again.”
“The Zones must have banks of genetic material,” Demitri said. “The Kromals will live again. Hopefully next time, they will have learned from history and embark on a more peaceful society.”
“Unlikely,” Paula said. “They were expelled from the Void, then they wiped themselves out in a planetwide nuclear exchange. That doesn’t speak peaceful rationality to me.”
“And you want to trade with them?” Kysandra asked skeptically. She glanced through the big hexagonal window again. Unit26 had stopped its prowling and was now turning slowly to face the domes. She didn’t want to think what would happen if it tried to roll forward. The tracks on each corner were massive, capable of crushing the composite dome panels with ease. And the force field was off…
“Yes,” Paula replied. “They can supply us with material we would otherwise have to waste time tracking down and bringing back here. All that costs to us is some technical information, which we will limit.”
“And help them back to the Commonwealth galaxy,” Ry said. “If they’re as bad as we suspect, do we want them as neighbors?”
Paula grinned. “Bienvenido humans were also expelled from the Void. And trust me, back in the galaxy we deal with aliens a lot worse than the Kromal.”
“I suppose…” But he didn’t sound convinced.
“In any case, we have no real choice,” Paula said, indicating the Units and their puppies outside. “They’re here, it is their world, and we have to deal with them. And I’d rather have them as allies than enemies.”
“All right then,” Kysandra said. It was just like arguing with Nigel all over again. You knew you were always going to lose; the only interest was in exactly how.
Paula stood up. Her suit flowed over her, expanding a transparent bubble around her head. Kysandra and the others followed her out of the dome’s airlock.
Three of the puppies raced over to them, hauling their dusty cables along. Unit26 stopped its ponderous turn and tracked them with several sensor mechanisms. Kysandra’s exovision showed her maser pulses just a little too powerful for comfort, as if their suits were being tested.
“We’d like to begin our alliance,” Paula told Unit976. “As a gesture of goodwill, this file contains the blueprint of a small fusion reactor that could be used to replace your current fission piles. I provide it without asking anything in return.” Her u-shadow sent over a file.
“We respect your commitment to honesty,” Unit976 replied.
“Then we should begin our trade. Do you have records of Valatare? I would like to examine them.”
“We do.”
“I also have a list of materials we require.”
Interim Prime Minister Terese was still holding meetings in the grandiose cabinet room at the center of the palace. She’d appointed several loyal supporters to key posts, shunting Adolphus’s people aside. She’d done deals with senior party members, and awarded civil service directorates to supporters. Her position was now as politically secure as it could be, but retreating to the palace bunker might still be seen as a sign of weakness. Her biggest concession to personal security was to use the regimental communications center, which was on the second floor in the palace’s state wing, when dealing with martial law and the reservist buildup.
That would have to change, Stonal thought as he was shown into the cabinet room. He was mildly pleased to see that Davorky, the master general of the regiments, was also waiting for him, sitting in the chair next to the prime minister. The old general played the capital politics game well—you couldn’t rise to his post without that ability—but he also boasted a distinguished record leading troops against Faller eggs and nests, and constantly promoted the case for increased regimental funding to the dismay of the state Treasury. All of which made him popular with the regiments. Technically, he was Stonal’s commanding officer, but that wasn’t a test of strength Stonal ever wanted to enter into. The two of them respected each other’s particular fields of expertise, and left it at that. It was simple realism.
“Director Stonal,” Terese said in welcome. “My chief of staff said you had some very urgent information for me.”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” he agreed as he sat in the chair opposite to hers, glancing pointedly at her two young aides and mentally reviewing their files. They had top-level security clearance, but still…
“Please proceed,” Terese said.
“I’ve just been briefed by my agent, Captain Chaing.”
“I remember the name,” Davorky said. “Wasn’t he tracking the Commonwealth girl in Opole?”
“Yes. And now he’s just captured Roxwolf, a mutant Faller who ran the gangs in Opole.”
“A mut…You mean a breeder?”
“A failed breeder, apparently; he’s some kind of physical crossover. Chaing is escorting him here to Varlan. I’m sure the Faller Institute will have a wonderful time analyzing him, but that’s not the point. Roxwolf is offering information on the nests and the Apocalypse.”
“In exchange for what?” Terese asked quickly.
Stonal kept his face expressionless. Politicians, they can smell a deal a kilometer off. “He wants to live.”
“Tell him he can. Once we have what we want, then the institute can take over, as you said.”
“That might be difficult. He wants Paula’s protection.”
“She’s dead, along with the crudding Warrior Angel.”
“We left the possibility open-ended. He has been remarkably cooperative given the circumstances.”
“Good. So what did he tell us?”
Stonal took several minutes explaining Roxwolf’s claim about the Trees flying down to low orbit. How the Fallers neither wanted nor needed human structures—a point he admitted he’d never considered. None of them had, not even in the bleakest planning scenario.
“The Trees can do that?” Terese asked. She was perfectly still, though her hands were holding on to the edge of the table as if she feared she was about to keel over.
“They often take flight to a higher orbit when a Liberty approaches them,” Davorky said. “Their acceleration is small, but constant. You can check with General Delores if you want, but I can’t see any reason to prevent them from moving into a low orbit instead.”
“Crudding Uracus,” Terese muttered under her breath. She looked at Davorky. “What do we do?”
It took Stonal a long moment to answer. “To defend us from an attack like that? Nothing.”
“Crud.” Terese looked from him to Davorky, clearly waiting for the master general to disagree and offer her a lifeline.
“It’s starting to look like evacuation of essential personnel to Byarn should go ahead,” Stonal said, hating himself for it. Byarn was the ultimate admission of defeat. “That would be my recommendation. The majority of facilities there are underground.”
“So we are going to be using Operation Reclaim, then?” Terese said. “I never thought it would actually…I thought the regiments might prevail.” She blinked against the moisture in her eyes. “Are we absolutely certain Paula and the Warrior Angel are dead?”
“The Fallers used two nuclear bombs in the location we believe the Viscount was buried. Major Em Yulei was unable to regain contact with their party after that. The conclusion is straightforward. They had personal force fields, but Mother Laura showed us they cannot withstand a nuclear explosion.”
“Right then,” Terese said through a tightened throat before regaining her poise. “Start the evacuation,” she told Davorky.