“How is a recall code sent?” Rachel inquired.
“Via causal channel from one of the embassies,” said Tranh. “Because the bombers are strictly STL, they maintain contact with the government-in-exile. The ambassadors possess authentication tokens that the bomber crews can use to confirm their identity. Having authenticated themselves, they have a vote code system — if two or more of them send a recall code, the bomber crews are required to stand down and disclose their position and vector for a decommissioning flight. But — and this is a big but — there’s also a coercion code. It is known only to the ambassadors, like the recall code, and if three or more ambassadors send the coercion code, the bomber crews are required to destroy their causal channel and proceed to the target. The coercion code overrides the recall code; the theory is that it will only be used if an aggressor has somehow managed to lay his or her hands on an ambassador and is holding a gun to their head. The ambassadors can tell the black hats the wrong code and, if three or more of them are under duress, ensure that the strike mission goes forward.”
“Oh. Oh.” Gail shook her head. “Those poor people! How many ambassadors do we have to work on? With?”
George tapped the tabletop. “It’s in your dossier. There were twelve full-dress embassies from Moscow in residence at the time of the disaster. Unfortunately, two of the ambassadors had been recalled for consultation immediately before the incident, and they are presumed dead. Of the remaining ten, one committed suicide immediately, one died in a vehicular accident six months later — it was ruled an accident; he seems to have fallen in front of a train — and, well, this is where it gets interesting. I hope you all have strong stomachs…”
After the meeting she caught up with Martin. He was idling on the promenade deck, playing with the image enhancement widgets on the main viewing window.
“How did it go?” he asked, glancing up at her from the chaise longue. He seemed to be treating the journey as an enforced vacation, she noticed; dressing casually, lounging around, catching up on his reading and viewing, spending his surplus energy in the gym. But he looked worried now, as if she’d brought a storm cloud of depression in with her.
“It’s a lot to swallow. Budge over.” He made some space for her to sit down. “I want a drink.”
“I’ll get you one. What do you—”
“No, don’t. I said I wanted a drink, not that I’m going to have one.”
She stared gloomily at the wall-sized expanse of darkness on the other side of the almost empty room. Something circular and penumbral, darker than the interstellar night, cut an arc out of the dusting of unwinking stars. “What’s that?”
“Brown dwarf. Uncataloged, it’s about half a light year away. I’ve got the window accumulating a decent visible light image of it right now.”
“Oh, okay.” Rachel leaned back against the wall. The designers had tricked out the promenade deck in a self-conscious parody of the age of steam. From the holystoned oak planking of the floor to the retro-Victoriana of the furniture, it could have been a slice out of some nuclear-powered liner from the distant planet-bound past, a snapshot of the Titanic perhaps, a time populated by women in bonnets and ballooning skirts, men in backward baseball caps and plus-fours, zeppelins and jumbos circling overhead. But it wasn’t big enough to be convincing, and instead of a view across the sea, there was just a screen the size of a wall and her husband wearing a utility kilt with pockets stuffed with gadgets he never went anywhere without.
“How bad was it?” he asked quietly.
“Bad?” She shrugged. “On a scale of one to ten, with the New Republic an eight or nine, this is about an eleven. A chunk of it is die-before-disclosing stuff, but I guess there’s no harm in letting you in on the public side. Which is bad enough.” She shook her head. “What time is it?”
“Mm, about 1500, shipboard. There was some announcement about setting the clocks forward tonight, as well.”
“Okay.” She tapped her fingertips idly on the lacquered side table. “I think I will take you up on that drink, as long as there’s some sober-up available just in case.”
“Umph.” Martin twisted one of his rings. “Pitcher of iced margaritas on the promenade deck, please.” He watched her closely. “Is my ex-employer involved?”
“Hmm. I don’t think so.” Rachel touched his shoulder. “You haven’t heard anything, have you?”
“I’m on the beach, I think.” His cheek twitched. “And between contracts, so there’s no conflict of interests.”
“Good,” she said, taking his free hand, “good.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“That’s because—” She shook her head. “Why the hell are people so stupid?”
“Stupid? What do you mean?” He lifted her hand slightly, inspecting the back of her wrist intently.
“People.” It came out as a curse. “Like that asshole in Geneva. Turns out there was a, a—” She swallowed, and before she could continue the dumb waiter beside the table dinged for attention. “And that bitch in Ents. I set a search going, by the way. Pulled some strings. I should have all the dirt on her when we get home.” She turned to open the dumb waiter and found there was a tray inside. “That was fast.” She removed two glasses, passing one to Martin.
“Where was I? Yes, stupid, wanton, destructive assholes. About five years ago, that supernova out near the Septagon stars, a system called Moscow. Turns out it wasn’t a natural event at all. Someone iron-bombed the star. That’s a causality-violation device, and about as illegal as they come — also apparently unstable to build and hazardous as hell. I’d like to know why it didn’t attract a certain local deity’s attention. Anyway, the Moscow republic had a modest deterrent fleet in their Oort cloud, far enough out to just about survive the blast, and they were in the middle of a trade dispute. So they launched, and now we’re trying to talk their diplomatic staff into calling off a strike on a planet with nearly a billion inhabitants who we are pretty damn sure had nothing to do with the war crime.”
“Sounds bad.”
She watched him raise his glass, a guarded expression on his face.
“The headache is, the place they launched on — New Dresden — isn’t squeaky clean. They had a series of really bloody civil wars over the past century or so, and what they’re left with may be stable but isn’t necessarily happy. Meanwhile, Moscow — damn!” She put the glass down. “Worlds with a single planetary government aren’t meant to be peaceful and open and into civil rights! When I see a planet with just one government, I look for the mass graves. It’s some kind of natural law or something — world governments grow out of the barrel of a gun.”
“Um. You mean, the good guys are getting ready to commit genocide? And the bad guys are asking you in to talk them out of it? Is that the picture?”
“No.” She took a quick pull of her ice-cold margarita. “If that was all it was, I think I could cope with it. Just another talk-down, after all. No, there’s something much worse going on in here. A real stinking shitty mess. But George wants to keep a lid on it for the time being, so I can’t dump it on your shoulder.”