Mission to Minerva

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Laisha felt upbeat and lighthearted, with hopes for the future that she hadn't known for years. It was as if a growing burden inside that she had ceased being aware of was suddenly lifted. And on top of that, there was the sense of gratification and accomplishment that came with the thought that she had played a part, even if a minor one, in bringing it about.

President Harzin had been in Melthis for two days. The interim bulletins released to the world's news services were encouraging, and it had just been announced that they would be making a joint statement to the peoples of both Cerios and Lambia at noon that day, before Harzin's scheduled departure. The gossip around the offices in the Agracon, the complex of government buildings in the center of Melthis being used by the delegation Laisha was attached to, was that it would be the accord that all had been awaiting. It had also been noted that King Perasmon's calendar showed no fixtures for the few days immediately ahead, which perhaps indicated a surprise program to be unveiled at the same time. Laisha sat at her desk in the translators' room, tidying up her notes and records. There was little work going on that morning. She conjured up pictures in her mind of Minervans working together, and the fleet of ships taking shape that would one day carry them to Earth.

Uthelia stuck her head in through the doorway from the press office. "Hey, Laisha Engs. You've got a phone call."

"Me? Who from?"

"Well, I don't know. You'd better come and find out. Try to make it quick, though. We need all the lines we can get this morning."

Laisha got up and went through to the clutter of paper-strewn desks and beeping phones where the Cerian journalists and reporters worked. The Lambians had supplied lines to their offices back home. Uthelia gestured toward a handset off its cradle on a table stacked with files in a corner. Laisha picked it up. "Yes? This is Laisha Engs speaking."

"Hey, how proper and formal! Very professional. I'm impressed."

"What?… Kles, is that you?"

"Ha-ha! Surprised? Happy Birthday."

"But it's not my birthday."

"So? Birthdays are supposed to have surprises. Where's the surprise in being told Happy Birthday when it is your birthday and you're expecting it?"

"Oh, Kles, you're so daft. So where are you?"

"Still on base. We've got a class going on here, to do with communications and codes and stuff. It made me think of Wus Wosi, that guy I knew at college. You remember him?"

"The ball player?"

"That's him. Well, I remembered he's working with the NEBA news bureau in Osserbruk now. I figured they must have some way of talking to you guys over there in Lambia, so I called him on a special cleared channel that we have here. And guess what. Here I am!"

Laisha shook her head despairingly but smiled. "You're crazy. But it's great to hear you voice. Especially today, after all the work we've been putting in. It tops off the good news."

"Let's hope it is good news, anyway. But I have to make it short."

"I know. Me, too. But I'm glad you thought of me."

"I do all the time. You know that."

"And me."

"Well, take care with that Lambian brandy. I have to go. Maybe we'll see you back soon."

"I hope so. Goodbye, Kles."

"And… well, you know. There's guys around."

"I know. Me, too."

Laisha replaced the phone and turned to go back. Uthelia was watching her. Her face had a pinched look, as if she were mildly resentful. Perhaps she just begrudged anyone's using the office's time. Whatever, it was her problem, Laisha decided as she walked back through to the translators' room.

Now back in his flagship aground on the lunar far side, Imares Broghuilio paced restlessly across the floor of the bridge deck. Estordu and a group of aides were standing behind a signals operator's console, watching a picture being picked up on one of the Lambian news channels. It showed King Perasmon and President Harzin addressing a crowd from the center of a group of figures out on a balcony at the front of the Agracon. Another screen showed Freskel-Gar, his adjutant, and Broghuilio's general Wylott at the fortress-palace of Dorjon, twenty miles from Melthis. Freskel-Gar was conferring with two officers updating him on the state of the preparations.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly. Freskel-Gar had been dissatisfied with Perasmon's rule and laying plans for a coup to seize power himself for some time. However, an opportunity had just presented itself to get rid of Perasmon and take over as the legal successor, which happened to coincide with Broghuilio's arrival. At the same time, it promised to bring about just the kind of irreconcilable split between Lambia and Cerios that Freskel-Gar needed. Perhaps feeling that he needed to impress Broghuilio and gain his confidence if he was going to be given Jevlenese weaponry, Freskel-Gar had been surprisingly generous in sharing details of the situation and his plans.

From his own intelligence sources, Freskel-Gar had divined that following their address to the people, Perasmon would be returning with Harzin, the Cerian president, to make a symbolic reciprocal visit to his guest's home country. In a hastily devised operation designated Hat Rack, a missile would be launched from a flight of three Lambian interceptors flying at high altitude when Harzin's presidential plane was over the far side of the ocean. Waiting until it was closer to Cerios would make a cover story implicating a rogue faction of Cerians more credible. Planting an on-board bomb would not have looked good on a Cerian plane that had taken off from Lambia, inviting accusations of failed security if nothing else.

Although Freskel-Gar would succeed automatically when news came of Perasmon's demise, there was always the chance of some kind of opposition emerging and impeding a rapid establishing of control. in some form. He was mobilizing his forces accordingly as a precaution. The units assigned to securing key points and installations were ready to move; Freskel-Gar's own picked troops were heavily represented in the roster of duties around the Agracon; and prominent legal and political figures ready to endorse the legitimacy of the succession were standing by. If necessary, the moves to secure his position and place the right people in office would be carried out under the justification of emergency provisos following the assassinations.

Wylott and his advance contingent of Jevlenese had been installed at Dorjon, but they would not be taking an active role in the events planned for that day. The Jevlenese would be integrated into the national scene gradually and invisibly, avoiding the risk of a public reaction that could unite Minerva in opposition. Wylott's part would be to prepare the way for bringing the rest of the Jevlenese down from the Moon. That night, while Minerva was still in confusion, the five ships secreted on Farside would slip in to deliver their occupants to a transit site being prepared in a remote part of Lambia. The ships would be stripped of as much as would be useful, and then sunk in the ocean. It was regrettable, but once their power was exhausted they would become more of a liability than anything, while having to account for them in the event that their existence was discovered would create impossible difficulties.

"Excellent," Freskel-Gar said. While he dismissed the two officers, Wylott came back to look out from the screen. Broghuilio looked back at him inquiringly. "Reception parties to meet the ships tonight are being organized," Wylott informed him. "Temporary accommodation is being made ready, along with supplies of clothing and provisions."

"Good." Broghuilio nodded.

Freskel-Gar joined Wylott. "Will we need to do something about recovering scuttling crews after the ships are sunk?" he asked.

"That won't be necessary," Broghuilio replied. The ships would simply be sent down into one of the deep trenches on automatic control, and opened to the ocean.

A muted roar from the crowd sounded at the screen Estordu and the others were watching. Broghilio told the operator to turn up the volume. The two leaders had declared a truce between them as had been widely anticipated. Then, while the noise was still abating, they went on to announce Harzin's invitation to Perasmon to visit Cerios, and their imminent journey together-precisely as Freskel-Gar had predicted. Broghuilio had already marked Freskel-Gar as shrewd, calculating, able to wait until his time was right, but at the same time possessing the nerve to move swiftly and surely when he saw his opportunity. An invaluable resource to have around for securing their position in the period immediately ahead, Broghuilio had decided. And in the longer term, dangerous.

At that moment the bridge-deck computer interrupted with an announcement. "Attention. We have an anomalous surveillance alert."

"Report to Station 5." A crew officer brought screens and indicators to life.

Broghuilio moved across, frowning. "What kind of alert? What's happening?"

The officer studied the displays. "Something strange, Excellency. Intermediate C-band has picked up an unidentified object. It seems to have just suddenly… appeared, about a million miles out."

"Object? What kind of object?"

The officer took in more data. "It's not one object. It's two. There's another one a few hundred miles away from it."

Freskel-Gar was watching the activity from the screen connected to Dorjon. "What's happening up there?" he demanded.

"We're not sure," Broghuilio told him.

They were still debating the anomaly, when the computer came again: "A larger disturbance is building up, registering seventeen-six in beta octave."

The officer reported, "About a thousand miles from the away from the first. This one is much larger. It's transmitting some kind of signal in h-mode."

For several seconds, Broghuilio just stared. It didn't make any sense. "That's impossible," he declared.

Nothing had existed in the age of Lunarian Minerva that could produce h-radiation.

"Homing beacon is locked on and checking positive. Backup beacon is functioning. You're set to go. Good luck, Shapieron. Sequencing out… Transferring."

They were back at Minerva, now six months before the sinking of the Cerian frigate Champion. The silence dragged while ZORAC scanned for the probe that had always been the indicator that the Jevlenese had arrived. Every previous reconnaissance had found it not far away from Minerva-which was to be expected if it had only recently arrived. But it used Ganymean h-space signaling, so there would be no noticeable turnaround delay in any case.

"Negative," ZORAC announced. Startled looks, some disbelieving, flashed around the Shapieron's Command Deck. Was this really it, finally?

"Repeat the scan and confirm, ZORAC," Garuth instructed.

A sort delay, then, "No response registering. There's no sign of it."

No probe; no Jevlenese. The mission had arrived.

Hunt ran his eye over the faces. They were tense. This was not another reconnaissance. It was the real thing, what the whole mission had been leading up to. Eesyan was looking at him questioningly. Showm was watching. Danchekker looked on impassively from one side. Hunt returned a faint nod.

"We go with it," Eesyan said to the team waiting at the other end of the link back to Thurien. Calazar and Caldwell were connected in again. It had become a sort of custom. On this occasion they just sent silent salutations.

"Wave function consolidated and stabilized," Garuth confirmed. "Ready to detach."

"Dissolving the Gate bubble."

"Local bubble deactivated." The Shapieron was on its own, a free creature in its natural element once again.

The next thing was to establish the exact date. They knew by now when the Harzin-Perasmon assassination had taken place, and could tune into Lunarian broadcasts. As had previously been decided, VISAR had aimed for as close to that date as its coarse scaling would allow. They expected having to make a few fine corrections to edge closer-ideally to within a couple of days of the incident, which would have Minerva in a hopeful mood, while at the same time allow the mission some margin to make contact and communicate its message to the right people. Hunt moved to where Chien was standing, behind one of the Ganymean crew operators, watching him sift through the Lunarian communications spectrum. A reference to Harzin indicated him to be still alive. Things were looking promising.

"So, are we merely following a path between our reality and this one that was always here?" Danchekker's voice asked from behind Hunt. It was a mild gibe at naturalist materialism. "No, I refuse to believe it. Frenua was right. We are creating a new reality. Whole worlds will come into being from this, Vic." Danchekker had been entertaining some radical departures from his customary habits of thought since getting involved with the Thurien philosophers. Four years ago, Hunt wouldn't have believed it. Once one of the most ardent and inflexible defenders of the theory of mind as simply an emergent property of matter, his latest assertion was that mind is no more an accidental product of nervous systems than the plays of Shakespeare were an accidental product of marks on paper.

"You'll be taking up politics next, Professor," Chien said impishly. "Enrolling in the diplomatic corps."

Danchekker rubbed his nose with the crook of a finger. "I'm inclined to suspect that we may have done that already. What else would you call this escapade?"

The Ganymean operator gave an over-the-shoulder glance that said, How about this? Hunt leaned forward to see. The screen showed a crowd in what appeared to be some kind of city square, cheering a group of figures up on a balcony. Moments later, a switch to close-up showed the two in the center to be Harzin and Perasmon. The operator gestured to the bar across the bottom of the screen in a way that said there was no need to comment.

Hunt read the details. "Oh God!"

Eesyan came over. "What?"

"VISAR was right on. We're too close, Porthik." Hunt pointed. "It's today!"