They went separate ways, he to the bridge and Daniels heading for the cargo bay that had been the recent scene of a potentially crippling confrontation.
She knew Jacob was right. Hallet and his team would be methodically checking the area for any explosives they might have missed on the initial sweep. The sergeant didn’t need her looking over his shoulder. Besides, the incident had already put her behind in her own work.
But even as she moved to resume her schedule, she found herself wishing she could have had time enough to ask the enigmatic Mr. Sasaki one or two very penetrating questions.
V
For decades no one had known how many people actually lived in Greater London. So many migrants had poured in from other parts of the planet that the overwhelmed Census Bureau eventually gave up. As a result, for the past forty years the population had been estimated, instead of counted.
Even that much would have been impossible without the aid of scanning drones, but as with the human counters, the drones missed the troglodytes who eked out an existence in the tube tunnels, and the scavengers who ate, slept, and screwed in the corridors of the increasingly interconnected buildings. Save for the infiltration and proliferation of advanced technology, inner London was coming more and more to resemble ancient Kowloon’s walled city as its buildings pressed together above roadways and historical landmarks.
Despite the passage and enforcement of progressively stricter anti-pollution laws, there was only so much the authorities could do. As a result, when winter took hold, melting snow and rain combined to produce a dirty slush that made walking itself hazardous. The Thames Barrier still managed—barely—to hold back the floods and intruding ice floes. Spring was tolerable, and autumn was threatening.
Then there was summer.
Summer drove anyone who could afford to leave out of the city. The millions unable to do so were forced to endure a choking, cloaking layer of heat-simmered particulates that could make breathing not just dangerous, but potentially lethal. Compared to the contemporary atmosphere, the original London “fogs” would have seemed like a breath of fresh air.
The authorities and scientists blamed it all on the melting Greenland ice sheet that drove the Gulf Stream southeast and away from the British Isles. This played havoc with traditional weather patterns in northern Europe from Dublin to Denmark and beyond. There was nothing that could be done except suffer through until fall, or leave the planet behind entirely.
For Sergeant Lopé, taking a break and watching a vid stream, the weather was one of many things that motivated him in his life’s choices. Though head of ship’s security and only incidentally a colonist, Lopé was among those bidding a relieved farewell to the Earth. Once on Origae-6, he would become chief of planetary security with his partner Hallet as second-in-command. He would hold an important position in the incipient planetary government.
Not that he gave a rat’s ass about status. He was looking forward to spending the rest of his life breathing air without having to wear a mask, drinking water that wasn’t processed through filters and treated with chemicals, and walking for hours at a time without being bumped and crowded and cursed by hundreds, thousands of his stinking fellow humans.
As far as he was concerned, the launch couldn’t come soon enough.
His own personal departure would come only when the ship’s security detail was at full strength. That goal was within sight. He only needed to sign one more recruit. Then he and the final conscript could depart—separately or in tandem—for the ship. With luck, that would be the final time he would be required to set foot in the broken cradle of mankind.
It should have been easy. Certainly he had thought so when the company had started vetting applicants. But while there were plenty of qualified contenders for many of the colonial positions, security was such a sensitive area, and the company proved exceptionally picky when it came to hiring. Hundreds of eligible aspirants had been winnowed down from several thousand, and at the end he would be allowed to select only one.
Almost done, though, he told himself. One more slot to be filled, one more application to be approved. Then he could take the fast train north to the Wash shuttleport. He didn’t even need a reservation. As the Covenant’s chief of security he could claim any seat on any Weyland-Yutani shuttle heading for orbit.
The room where he was conducting interviews was located on the fourth floor of an 80-story-tall company subsidiary tower. The office was small, relatively soundproof, and there were no exterior windows. A mid-level executive would have been mortified to have been assigned such a confined space. Lopé didn’t give a shit. He was used to life in the field, familiar with the rough camp life of a soldier. Anything resembling a luxury would have been wasted on him.
His whole adult life had been about the job, which in turn meant that it had been all about surviving. That in the course of his career he had lost nothing more permanent than a back tooth—and that not from combat—was a greater testament to his martial skills than any brace of shiny medals. He had been knocked down, wounded, had bones broken, and owned a plethora of hidden scars—but physically as well as mentally, he was intact. Properties much to be valued in the settling of a new colony.
For someone who seemed to have as much testosterone as blood in his veins, he got along exceptionally well with people. It was this combination of battlefield expertise and empathy that had landed him the chief’s position. It was why he was interviewing the applicants for the final security team slot, instead of some mannered executive or steroid-driven officer. He’d decided to forego any uniform for the interviews, as well. Casual clothes generally put people at ease.
The final interview process would have been familiar to anyone occupying a similar position from a hundred years earlier. Every applicant waiting in the outer office had already passed the requisite written and physical testing. Each had undergone preliminary and intermediate questioning by a virtual interrogator.
All that was left for them was to convince a single gruff-but-polite ex-soldier that they were best suited to spend years in deepsleep, then settle and police a new world that would be cut off from their homes, their families, their pasts, and all other human beings save their fellow sleepers.
Of necessity and by design, the security team was small. In a pinch the rest of the crew could help out, all of them having been trained in the fundamentals. But if a difficult situation arose, it would be up to the official security team to deal with it. Which meant that any decisions involving ship or colony security would land first, last, and always, upon his shoulders and his alone.
It was that knowledge that induced him—despite his dislike of the city—to take his time interviewing the final candidates for the last open position. Ultimately a commander was only as successful as his troops in the field. When that field lay many light-years away, there would be no opportunity to send home a recalcitrant subordinate, and discipline was something they would have to live with forever.
Given the consequences, it behooved him to take his time and be careful who he chose to serve under him.
Having satisfied every requirement—including the interview with Lopé—Privates Ledward, Ankor, and Cole were busy aboard the Covenant, carrying out their duties under Sergeant Hallet. They would continue to do so until soon after their departure from Earth orbit. At that point the security team and the crew would take their place in deepsleep alongside the colonists.