Jiang might have taken offence, Penny realised. In the formal talks both sides had shied away from any comment on the other’s political system. But, from what she had seen of the city of Obelisk, she was curious about this herself. “We never did have our conversation on that topic.”
Jiang merely nodded thoughtfully. “It is an interesting question. We of Chinese descent are products of a stable society now centuries old—”
King snorted disrespectfully. “All framed by a value system that goes back to Karl Marx and Chairman Mao.”
“But within any system, the challenges of ensuring freedom under conditions that pertain in an offworld colony—even here, in the largest offworld colony of all at the present time—are significant.”
“In our Western tradition the freedom of the individual is paramount.”
“Yes,” Jiang said, “as I understand from my own school studies. But even in your own offworld colonies the freedom of the individual must be curtailed, if the collective good is to be maintained. The problem is the fragility of the colonies. One cannot challenge the most repressive dictator, if that dictator is the only one who can control the air supply.
“We have philosophers exploring ways of ensuring individual freedom within a tightly constrained collective system. This is after all the condition under which most of mankind is likely to live for the foreseeable future. We reach back to old traditions; a citizen of the Roman Empire, for example, would have placed less value on individual liberty in the modern Western sense than on collective responsibility—a collective liberty, if you like. Actually it is a system-wide debate, for us. An ongoing participation for all our citizens, on Earth as well as offworld. Though we are not minded to follow your example, as evidenced at your Eden colony on Mars—I have been there myself—of excessive individual freedom kept in check by excessive policing.”
King laughed, and clapped his shoulder. “You got me there. Who’d want to live in a dump like that? Well, let’s hope these talks work out and we get to see a future where we can try out these experiments in liberty. Right, Colonel Kalinski? Colonel?”
But Penny had been distracted by a commotion. A door opened, and a harassed-looking official bustled in with a slate that he showed to the leading Chinese delegates. The news, whatever it was, spread quickly. Something about Mercury, she overheard them muttering, something extraordinary.
And then, it felt like, everybody in the room stared at Penny.
Chapter 60
They all staggered. Yuri and Mardina reached for each other, and for Beth. Tollemache backed up to a wall.
Beth clasped her stomach. For the first time in this whole episode she looked genuinely scared. Nearly in tears, she stumbled across to her mother, who held her tight. “Mom? What just happened?”
Tollemache said, “It feels like the elevator just went down.”
Mardina said, “Or the drive thrust just cut. But we’re not in a spacecraft.”
“Or,” Yuri said, “the gravity just weakened.” He bounced on his toes; he drifted back down slowly. What was this, about a third Earth-normal? Like Mars? He was distracted by motion he glimpsed through the open doorway. He walked that way, slow-motion swimming in the low gravity. Through the open hatch he saw another cylindrical chamber, a third, just like this second one, like the first. But though the walls glowed with that same eerie grey-white radiance, Yuri thought there was something different about the light in there. As if there was another source, shining from above.
A figure walked past the open hatch, back turned. A black costume, spangled with silver.
He looked wildly at Mardina. “That looked like—”
“An ISF uniform.”
“Then who the hell is that?”
“Only one way to find out.” Mardina led Beth across the floor and climbed through the doorway to the next chamber, and helped Beth through. Then Tollemache came, and finally Yuri.
This third chamber was another smooth-walled cylinder, just like the rest. A ladder had been attached somehow to the curving wall. Elsewhere on the wall small sensors had been fixed, anonymous white boxes, evidently human made. Yuri saw, glancing up, that some kind of translucent dome had been set up over the open pit, through which could be seen a roof of rock, as if they were stuck in some deep cavern.
That figure in the black and silver astronaut uniform, a woman, her back to the new arrivals, was working her way along the row of sensors, referring to a slate as she did so. Tall, blonde-haired, she was softly singing some tune about flying around the universe with her lover. She might have been in her fifties.
Beth turned to Yuri, grinning gleefully, thrilled at this new development, her low-gravity queasiness forgotten. She pointed at the woman’s back. Her meaning was clear. She doesn’t even know we’re here!
Mardina raised her eyebrows. Then, gently, she coughed.
The woman jumped, whirled like a Per Arduan builder, dropped her slate, and backed against the wall. “Holy shit. Who are you? And how did you get in here?”
Tollemache took charge. He strode forward, pointing his finger. “Never mind that, lady. Who are you? And how come I don’t know about you? This whole damn planet is full of illegals and stowaways.”
The astronaut shook her head, irritated, baffled. “What are you talking about? What planet?”
“Prox c.”
The astronaut stared at him. “Conan Tollemache!”
“What?”
“I knew I recognised you. Your face has been all over the news just recently. Peacekeeper Tollemache, right?”
“What’s it to you?”
The astronaut turned to the others, one by one. “Mardina Jones. Yuri Eden. Beth Eden Jones. All four of you. My God.”
Mardina glared at her, confused, disturbed. “What is this? What do you mean, the four of us? How do you know our names?”
“You’re the four who disappeared, into the hatch on Prox c, a few hours ago.” She frowned. “No. That is, given the time it took for the news to get here at lightspeed—four years ago, I’m guessing, by your time…”
They spoke at once.
“We didn’t disappear anywhere,” Mardina said.
“What do you mean, we disappeared on Prox c?” Yuri asked. “Where are we now, if not on Prox c?”
“Who are you?” Beth asked.
But Tollemache was the most insistent. He faced the young astronaut. “Four years ago. Bullshit.” He raised his ISF-issue chronometer, and brought up the date. “This is the date. 2193.”
“No.” Backing away from Tollemache, the woman bent to pick up her slate, and brought up a date of her own. “This is the date. 2197.”
Yuri could see it. If this astronaut wasn’t lying to them—and why the hell would she?—he had just jumped forward four years and a couple of months in time. Just like the cryo sleep.
“Not again,” he said.
The astronaut looked at him strangely. Then she smiled, competent, efficient, taking control, her training kicking in. “To answer your questions. Sir, my name is Stephanie Kalinski, Colonel, ISF. Good to meet you. And as to where you are, Ms Eden Jones,” she said to Beth, “welcome to the solar system. You’re on Mercury.”
Chapter 61
Penny tried to make sense of the news from Mercury. Refugees from another star, wandering out of the Hatch in the kernel layers? What could it possibly mean?
King growled, “Damn it. That cuckoo’s nest at the heart of the solar system is screwing us up again. And I’ve got to go back to Mercury to sort the bloody mess out.” He got up and left the room, without ceremony.