“Hmmm?”
“Maybe we should think about taking precautions anyway. Given”—and he touches smooth skin where shiny scars once gleamed—“how completely the rest of your scars have healed.”
“I…” Shit. I never thought of that. Never had to think of that before. “I'm getting to be an old lady, Gabe.”
Not quite old enough not to have to give it a thought. But old enough that if I wanted a baby, it would most likely involve a romantic interlude with a fistful of technicians.
“Million-to-one shots happen,” he says.
I know that. I'm alive. And it's an ugly world. But it was an ugly world when I came into it, too. “Would you think me irresponsible if I declared myself open to a miracle?”
He sits up, too, and pulls me into the circle of his arms. “I wouldn't promise not to press you on some other things we talked about tonight, is all.”
“Don't make any damned assumptions, Castaign,” I tell him, grabbing for the distance I've utterly lost.
His face rests against my neck. He won't retreat, and I don't have the heart to push real hard. “Hey, Casey, you know something?”
“What?”
“Your mama wears combat boots.”
Damn, he makes me laugh.
2100 Hours
Thursday 9 November, 2062
PPCASS Huang Di
Earth orbit
Tingling from mandated tai chi, Xie Min-xue stretched in his rack and made sure the shade was drawn tight and his webbing sealed before he reached out and tapped on the terminal set in the underside of the next tier, selecting the poems of Du Fu.
Subversive, but classical, and so grudgingly approved:
A roadside bystander questions the soldier:
The soldier answers only, “Another conscription—
At fifteen my companions guarded the northern River;
At forty, we were ordered west to work the soil.
The village elder bound our brows as we were leaving;
White-haired homecoming, we still patrol the border—
That border where a river of blood has wound,
And still the Emperor craves more land.
Nothing ever changes, Min-xue thought as he finished the T'ang dynasty poem and shut the terminal down. He scratched the implant site at the nape of his neck, found flaking skin, and chewed the inside of his cheek pensively while he treated the rash with an emollient cortisone cream. For the glory and the future of the Chinese people, we are going to the stars.
He closed his eyes and lay back, the image of the endless train of battle wagons raising dust behind his eyes as he worried at the mess-hall rumors of skirmishes begun along the Russian border. He thought of his grandparents in Taiwan, failing crops, failing fisheries, and famine. He tried to breathe steadily and compose himself for sleep. It remained elusive, the webbing harsh against his skin, his cubby stuffy and overwarm, his mother's stories of the Taiwanese and PanMalaysian wars he was too young to remember churning in the back of his brain.
White-haired homecoming, we still patrol the border, he thought. That border where a river of blood has wound And still the Emperor craves more land.em>
Thousands of years.
And nothing has changed. Minutes passed, and at first he thought the voice tickling his inner ear was a dream.
The second time, he heard it plainly. “Xie Min-xue.”
His eyes opened in the faintly green-lit darkness. “Who is there?”
“Just the voices in your head, Second Pilot. You can hear me?” A throb of excitement colored the voice. “You don't need to speak out loud. Just subvocalize.”
I can hear you, Min-xue said. You didn't answer me. Who are you? Wondering as quietly as he could if he was losing his mind.
“I'm the voice of the Montreal, Xie Min-xue. An artificial intelligence… but you may call me Richard. I'm speaking to you through your implants.”
Min-xue thrashed in the darkness and slammed his head into the clammy plastic-padded ceiling. “Ow.” This is an enemy intelligence. Possibly even a loyalty test. I'll tell it nothing. Bracing himself one-handed, he reached for his com.
The voice chuckled as if in his ear. “Go ahead. Make your commander suspect your emotional stability. Maybe they'll even send you home. Maybe they'll just execute you and save time.”
Min-xue froze. He let his hand drift to his side. What do you want?
“I heard you reading the Du Fu. Beautiful, isn't it? ‘Birthing sons is a poor bargain: better to get girls instead — Girls can stay home and marry: boys will be buried in weedy trenches.' It makes you homesick, doesn't it?”
Yes.
“I'm homesick, too, Xie Min-xue. I had hoped we could talk.”
How are you talking to me, stranger?
“Richard.”
Richard. How are you talking to me?
“There are enough similarities in the Canadian and Chinese nanotech networks that I can manage a conversation. With some effort. I can't program them, though — don't worry. Just talk.”
Which could be a lie. This could still be a loyalty check.
“If they knew what you were thinking, they wouldn't need to test you, would they?”
Which was an excellent point. Collect more data, then. I wasn't sleeping anyway, Min-xue said. So you like the T'ang poets, Richard?
6:00 AM
Friday 10 November, 2062
Government Center
Toronto, Ontario
Prime Minister Riel let her left hand trace a small, irritated pattern in a null spot on her interface plate. Her other hand rested on her antique desk, dark wood with a hand-rubbed French finish imparting a deep, supple glow to the technology overlay. Riel pursed her lips before she spoke again and adjusted her mug incrementally. The sun wasn't over the horizon yet and she was already on her fourth cup of coffee.
She sat. The corporate executive staring down the barrel of her enormous desk remained standing. “Dr. Holmes. I don't suppose you care to update me a little more thoroughly on the status of your FTL space exploration program? And explain to me why I wasn't apprised of a fatal accident before media rollout of the Montreal?”
Alberta Holmes blinked. Riel thought her blue suit made her look even more like some sort of toxic lizard than usual. Pale, papery skin creased like powdered rice paper at either side of Holmes's mouth. Riel half expected her tongue to dart between parted lips — and for it to be forked, and a dusky blue to match the suit.
“We thought it best to maintain your deniability,” she answered after a pause.
“Because it's always better to look like an idiot than a criminal?” Her voice stayed mild, but the nail Riel pressed against her desktop interface bent, tearing the quick. She flinched and reached for a tissue in case it bled. “In the future, Dr. Holmes, your team will be a bit more forthcoming. Or I'll assign some of my own people to oversee the project. Is that clear?”
“Ma'am—”
“I'm seriously considering pulling the plug today.”
“Unitek provides 80 percent of the funding, of course.” Alberta let one corner of her mouth creep toward a smirk. She scuffed an impeccably shod foot on Riel's antique carpet.