Buried Deep Part 34

Ogden put a gentling hand on his arm. "Are you all right?" He looked at her, blinked, and realized he hadn't really seen her at all. Her face was pulled into an unusual frown, the shadows under her eyes deep, a line across her forehead looking new. He had never had much feeling for her; he had always thought her job dull but necessary, and felt that only a fussbudget could perform it well.

"No," he said, and staggered toward one of the chairs in the hallway. He sat, then leaned against the back, feeling cold seep in through the windows.

"Is it physical?" Ogden asked as she followed him. "Must I notify someone?"

He shook his head. The human representative to Mars watched him, as did the other human representatives to the Disty. They all probably thought they could have done better than he had.

"They want a Death Squad to meet the s.h.i.+p in orbit. The Death Squad is going to take the survivors to Lowell."

He closed his eyes for a half second, felt dizzy and weak, and opened them again. Everyone was still staring at him.

"I agreed to it," he said. "And I have no idea what a Death Squad is."

The silence that followed his words was profound. Maybe they felt that he was stupid, but they hadn't been in that red velvet, overheated room, with Disty all around, their little bodies pressing against the platform, their oblong eyes watching his every move.

"It's their version of an undertaker," the Mars representative finally said. "And more."

"Combined with a.s.sa.s.sins," one of the other representatives said. "They're the ones who do the vengeance killings."

"Only because they handle everything to do with death. This has to do with death. I'm sure that's why they're in charge." The Mars representative rubbed her elgonated hands together.

Jefferson didn't trust the movement.

"You're afraid you've killed them," Ogden said, so softly that only he could hear. "That's why you spoke of familial compensation."

"Fifty-six had me in a corner. He agreed on the record that his people will stop blaming us if we let them handle the survivors their way."

"Stop blaming us?" said the second representative, another young woman. "What does that mean?"

Jefferson looked at her. He apparently had been speaking loud enough to have been overheard.

"If the Disty stop pursuing this ma.s.sacre as an act done only to take the Disty off Mars, then we actually have some basis for discussions. We'll probably have to make even more concessions to them-after all, it's their people who are dying-but we won't have economic and physical liability. Which is a good thing, in this current economy."

"I thought Alliance members can't sue each other," the Mars representative said.

"The countries can't. The representatives for various governments can't. But the corporations can and individuals can. It would have gotten ugly, and not just on the legal side. We might have lost our entire claim to Mars."

He leaned his head back, feeling the cold gla.s.s against his scalp.

The representatives still stared at him as if they couldn't understand what he had done, agreeing to something involving a dozen human lives, something he hadn't entirely understood.

"We're not well liked within the Alliance," he said. "We think we are-what Fifty-six calls the infallible human optimism-but we are mostly hated for our intolerance and our lack of understanding about other cultures. If the Disty had declared war on us, a war that they would have been able to justify, a culture culture war, we would have found ourselves alone against former allies. The destruction would have been unimaginable." war, we would have found ourselves alone against former allies. The destruction would have been unimaginable."

"Yet you imagined it," the second representative snapped. "And paid for it with twelve lives."

He closed his eyes. "Probably," he whispered. "Probably."

55.

They looked terrified and somewhat sick, the seven people who sat in the game room of the Emmeline. Emmeline. They were scattered on the couches, not touching the screens in front of them, ignoring the food the serving 'bots kept circulating. They were scattered on the couches, not touching the screens in front of them, ignoring the food the serving 'bots kept circulating.

Seven people who, hours before, had been going innocently about their lives, and would have continued to do so if Flint hadn't found them.

They looked different than he expected. He had expected them to have a similar appearance, perhaps because they were all about the same age and had gone through the same horrors in their childhoods. But the three women, all of whom sat on the same side of the room, varied from portly to thin, from gray haired to hair an unnatural blue, from middle-aged features to features so clearly enhanced that they seemed not quite human.

The four men were just as different. Two were rangy, with the unnatural thinness that suggested too much time in zero-G-perhaps s.p.a.ce work, perhaps terrible travel conditions back when they were children. The other two looked a bit too comfortable. One had the round body so preferred in the Outlying Colonies-fatness as a sign of wealth. The other seemed so normal that Flint would not have noticed him on the street-brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair, a softness to his body that suggested a lack of exercise, a way of disappearing in a room filled with people.

The private security team that had brought them to the Emmeline Emmeline-a team hired from one of Armstrong's best and most discrete firms-had told Flint that the remaining five survivors had refused to come. Even though the officers who had found them mentioned imprisonment, the five who had stayed behind claimed they would have preferred anything-even death-to returning to Mars.

Flint had a hunch that, in their shoes, he might have made the same choice.

He had spent the first hour of the flight getting the Emmeline Emmeline out of the Moon's restricted s.p.a.ce. There had been a difficult moment when he had gone past a group of Disty s.h.i.+ps still hovering outside the boundaries. out of the Moon's restricted s.p.a.ce. There had been a difficult moment when he had gone past a group of Disty s.h.i.+ps still hovering outside the boundaries.

DeRicci had told him, as she gave him his final instructions, that these Disty were waiting. Apparently, someone had told them that negotiations were underway, and any impulsive actions on the part of the Contaminated Ones would go badly for all involved.

Flint wondered how long that truce would hold.

DeRicci had also told him that he wasn't going to land on Mars. Instead, a Disty s.h.i.+p would dock with his and take the survivors to Lowell.

Flint hadn't informed them of that yet. He hadn't said much of anything.

In fact, while he had been in the c.o.c.kpit, alone, negotiating the s.h.i.+p through the rough section, he had opened the communication system to the game room and listened to the survivors. Their conversation had been perfunctory, conducted almost as if speech were required. The introductions had a tinge of sadness, or perhaps it was the sentences that followed: I remember you.

I haven't seen you since that night.

I had no idea what happened to you.

And on and on, until Flint wanted to shut off the conversation. Then it switched to the ways they were brought to the s.h.i.+p: They told me they'd take my children if they couldn't take me.

They told me I would be imprisoned if I didn't come.

They told me I'd be killed.

They told me. They told me. They told me. And Flint had become the representative for "they." Had DeRicci known how these people were picked up and convinced to go on this mission? Would she have asked him to partic.i.p.ate if she had?

When the s.h.i.+p was safely away from the Moon, he put it on autopilot, linked it to his own personal network, and left the c.o.c.kpit. He walked down the carpeted halls, past the large, fancy galley that came standard on this version of the yacht, past the sitting area and the main dining area, to the game room.

He didn't play games and he had asked to have the room converted into something else. The manufacturer had toned down the games, but convinced Flint to keep part of it, saying that his guests would appreciate the opportunity to do something fun on long voyages.

He never thought of this yacht as fun, nor had he ever expected guests. Still, he must have had a vestige of that conversation on his mind when he placed the seven pa.s.sengers in here, after showing them each their separate quarters.

The game room had an unused air, even now, when it was filled with people. The room smelled faintly of musky perfume and garlic-the serving 'bots were carrying around some sort of beef-and-garlic concoction they had pulled from his stores. The concoction was wasted on this group; no one was eating.

All seven looked at him when he came in the room and leaned against the stylish black wall. He had decided, as he had walked here, that he had nothing to lose in disa.s.sociating himself from the various government agencies that had rounded them up.

"I overheard your conversation." He nodded at the small systems panel near the ceiling, just so that they knew he hadn't hidden the sound system capabilities from them. "We can turn back if you want. I'm not any kind of authority. I'm just a pilot they've hired to take you to Mars."

"You'd take us home?" asked Hildy Vajra. She was the youngest survivor, barely four months old when the ma.s.sacre happened, yet she looked the oldest now. She clearly hadn't had any enhancements. Her eyes had laugh lines in the corners, and her skin was beginning to get a patina of age.

"Yes," Flint said. "I can't vouch for what would happen to you after you arrived, but I would take you back to Armstrong and try not to call attention to your arrival."

"Meaning what?" Kiyos.h.i.+ Stewart asked. He was the oldest, and had come the farthest that day. His home was in one of the small, remote Domes near Tycho Crater.

"My yacht docks in Terminal 25," Flint said. "One of the privileges there is that the port doesn't have to report my comings and goings to s.p.a.ce Traffic. If they don't notice us, then we'll have gotten in easily."

"Only no one can get onto the Moon right now," Elwin Wilson said. He was the soft one, the one who blended into the background. Flint was surprised he had spoken up at all.

"I know some people. We could probably land," Flint said.

"Which would call attention to us," Juana Marcos said. Her beauty was so perfect that it looked fake-the high cheekbones, the almond eyes, the smooth skin. Her eye and hair color matched perfectly, and the color of her cheeks picked up the pinks in her blouse. Her legs, covered in cropped pants, were crossed at the ankles and swept to the side as if she were at a party instead of riding away from her home.

"It might," Flint said. "It might not."

"What'll it cost us?" Wilson asked.

"Nothing," Flint said. "I'm not doing this for the money."

"Then why are you doing it?" the last woman, Eugenie McEvoy, asked. Her blue hair looked like an affectation. All of her clothing did as well. It didn't quite fit, and seemed like something someone else had picked out for her.

"Because Mars is having a crisis, and we're going to have one, if this doesn't get solved. From what I understand, you people are the only solution."

"The ma.s.sacre," Salvatore Weiss said. He was the fat one, his voice as sculpted as his body.

"Yes," Flint said.

"They expect us to go back and save the people who killed our families," Weiss said.

"Maybe their descendents," Flint said. "But there are a lot of others there. Innocents who had nothing to do with that ma.s.sacre."

"So?" McEvoy asked.

"So it's your choice," Flint said. "But no matter what happens, the news of the ma.s.sacre is finally out. That's some good which has come of this."

"As if that brings our families back."

Flint looked sideways. The last survivor, Glen Norton, finally spoke up. He had been lounging in the corner, his long legs extended. His eyes, hooded and tired, met Flint's.

"Of course it won't," Flint said.

"But you said that as if it would, as if we should care that the universe finally knows about our little tragedy. So what if the Disty are having one? So what if humans die because of some weird cultural difference? I don't care."

"Then why did you come?" Marcos asked him.

Norton moved his head ever so slowly toward her. His gaze ran the entire length of her, from cropped pants to perfect cheekbones, and Flint got the sense that Norton didn't approve of what he saw.

"I had no choice," Norton said curtly.

"I'm giving you a choice," Flint said. "You can go back."

"Do we vote?" Norton asked. "What if six agree and one doesn't? Then what do we do?"

"I don't know," Flint said. "I'm just the pilot. You're the ones who are probably going to lose a week or two helping folks you don't know."

He wasn't quite sure why he had phrased it that way; maybe because Norton had annoyed him. Maybe because Flint didn't really want to turn back. He wanted this crisis solved, and the seven of them had the power to do so.

"People helped us," Vajra said quietly. "Took us in when they didn't have to."

"People also slaughtered our families." Norton's voice had a sarcastic strength. "If we follow your logic, we could be saints or sinners, depending on how we choose to see our past."

"I think that's exactly right," Stewart said. "We could hate or we could choose to be different. I've always chosen to be different."

"I'm rather fond of hate," Norton said, and crossed his arms.

Everyone stared at him.

Then Flint said, "If you make the pa.s.sive decision, you will end up on Mars. I think you're all better off to make an active one."

"They rounded us up like animals," Weiss said.

"It was like the past all over again," said Wilson.

"I have only been that scared once before," Marcos said.

Flint nodded. "That's why I'm giving you a choice."

Vajra sighed. "What do we become if we don't help? Will this get fed to the media?" "I have no control over that either," Flint said. "I can get you there or not. It's that simple." "I say we go," Stewart said. "It's the right thing."

"The right thing." Norton shook his head and closed his eyes.

"Don't you have a vote, Mr. Norton?" Vajra asked.

"I think we know how he stands," Marcos said coolly, obviously still smarting from that appraising look he had given her.

"So let's find out how the rest of us feel," Weiss said. "If you don't mind, mister, can you leave us? And maybe shut off that intercom in the control room for a little while."

Mister. Flint hadn't realized that he had failed to give them his name. "Sure," he said.

He nodded at them, then eased out the door. He wasn't about to shut off the controls. He wanted to know at all times what the people on his s.h.i.+p were doing.

But he would give them the illusion of privacy.

Just like he was giving them the illusion of choice.