Federations Read online

  “Activate the piranha swarm,” she says.

  The Warden turns to her. “Let me contact the ship first. We must see who they are.”

  “No!” Bastille has been quarantined by the rest of the Federation. Any approaching ship can only mean trouble.

  Shortly after the prison revolt, the Praesidentrix had tried to negotiate with Bastille. Then she sent laughable threats by subspace radio, demanding that Amu surrender under threat of “severe punishment.” The threats grew more strident over the weeks, then months.

  Finally, after the sudden death of her consort in some unrelated accident, the Praesidentrix became brutal and unforgiving. The man’s death had apparently shocked her to the core. The negotiator turned dictator against the upstart prisoners.

  She sent an armada of warships to retake Bastille. Theowane had been astonished, not thinking this hellhole worth such a massed effort. Amu had turned loose the defenses of the prison planet. The piranha swarm—so effective at keeping the prisoners trapped inside—proved just as efficient at keeping the armada out. The piranhas destroyed twelve gunships that attempted to make a landing; two others fled to high orbit, then out through the hyperspace node.

  But Amu is certain that the Praesidentrix, especially in her grieving, unstable state, will never give up so easily.

  “Piranha defenses armed and unleashed,” the Warden says.

  Five of the fingerprint-smeared screens beside the Warden’s projection tank crackle and wink on. Viewing through the eyes of the closest piranha interceptors, Theowane sees different views of the approaching ship, sleek yet clunky-looking, a paradox of smooth angles and bulky protuberances.

  “Incoming audio,” the Warden says. “Transmission locked. Video in phase and verified.”

  The largest screen swirls, belches static, then congeals into a garish projection of the ship’s command chamber. The captain falls out of focus, sitting too close to the bridge projection cameras.

  “—in peace, for PEACE, we bring our message of happiness and hope to Bastille. We come to help. We come to offer you the answers.”

  Theowane recognizes the metallic embroidered chasuble on the captain’s shoulders, the pseudo-robe uniforms of the other crew visible in the background. She snorts at the acronym.

  PEACE—Passive Earth Assembly for Cosmic Enlightenment, a devout group that combines quantum physics and Eastern philosophy into, from what Theowane has heard, an incomprehensible but pleasant-sounding mishmash of ideas. It has appealed to many dissatisfied scientists, ones who gave up trying to understand the universe. PEACE has grown because of their willingness to settle raw worlds, places with such great hardship that no one in his right mind would live there voluntarily.

  Theowane sees it already: upon hearing of the prisoners’ revolt, some PEACE ship conveniently located on a hyperspace path to Bastille has rushed here, hoping to convert the prisoners, to gain a foothold on the new world and claim it for their own. They must hope the Praesidentrix will not retaliate.

  “Allow me to stop the piranhas,” the Warden says. “This is not an attack.”

  “Summon Amu,” she says. “But do not call off the defense.” Theowane lowers her voice. “This could be as great a threat as anything the Praesidentrix might send.”

  She hunkers close to the screens and watches the lumbering PEACE ship against a background of stars. The deadly pinpoints of piranha interceptors hurtle toward it on a collision course.

  The First Secretary enlarges the display on his terminal so he can read it better with his weakened eyesight. Across from him, the Praesidentrix sits ramrod straight in her chair.

  She waits, a scowl chiselled into her face. The Praesidentrix looks as if she has aged a decade since the death of her consort, but still she insists on keeping her family matters and all details of her personal life private.

  The way her policies have suddenly changed, though, tells the First Secretary just how much she had loved the man.

  The First Secretary avoids her cold gaze as he calls up his figures. “Here it is,” he says. “I want you to know that your attempts to retake Bastille have already cost half of what we have invested in Bastille itself. On the diagram here,”—he punches a section on the keypad—“you’ll see that we have thirteen equivalent planets in the initial stages of terraforming, most of them under development by the penal service, two by private corporations. Several dozen more have gone beyond that stage and now have their first generation of colonists.”

  Overhead, the Praesidentrix chooses the skylight panels to project a sweeping ochre-colored sky from a desert planet. The vastness overwhelms the First Secretary. His skin is pale and soft from living under domes and inside prefabricated buildings all his life. He doesn’t like outside; he prefers the cozy, sheltered environment of the catacombs and offices. He is a born bureaucrat.

  “So?” the Praesidentrix asks.

  The First Secretary flinches. “So is it worth continuing?” Especially, he thinks, with more important things to worry about, such as raising the welfare dole, or gearing up for the next election six years from now.

  “Yes, it’s worth continuing,” she says without hesitating, then changes the subject. Her dark eyes stare up at the artificial desert sky. “Have you learned how one prisoner managed to take over the Warden system? He has a very shrewd Simulated Personality—how did they bypass him? I thought computer criminals were never assigned to self-sufficient penal colonies for just that reason.”

  The First Secretary shrugs, thinks about going through an entire chain of who was to blame for what, but then decides that this is not what the Praesidentrix wants. “That’s the problem with computer criminals. Theowane was caught and convicted on charges of drug smuggling although all of her prior criminal activity seems to have involved computer espionage and embezzlement.”

  “Why was this not noticed? Aren’t the records clear?”

  “No,” the First Secretary says, raising his voice a bit. “She . . . altered them all. We didn’t know her background.”

  “Nobody checked?”

  “Nobody could!” The First Secretary draws a deep breath to calm himself. “But I think you are following a false trail, Madame. Theowane only implemented the takeover on Bastille. Amu is the mind behind all this. He’s the one who convinced the prisoners to revolt. He’s the one who refuses to negotiate.”

  She turns, making sure she holds his gaze. “I have already set a plan in motion that will take care of him once and for all. And it will get Bastille back for us.” The Praesidentrix leans back in her purple chair as it tries to conform to her body. Her gray-threaded hair spreads out behind her. She was a beautiful woman once, the First Secretary thinks. The rumors have not died about her dead consort . . .

  The First Secretary makes a petulant scowl. “It’s obvious you don’t trust me with your plans, Madame. But will you at least explain to me why you are doing this? It goes beyond reason and financial responsibility.” He purses his lips. “Is it because the prisoners are in the ubermindist loop? I find that hard to believe. It’s just another illegal drug. Cutting off the supply will upset a few addicts—”

  “More than that!”

  “And cause some unrest,” he continues, “as well as some reshuffling on the black market, but they’ll adjust. Within a few years we’ll have an equivalent drug from some other place, perhaps even a synthetic. Why is Bastille so important to you?”

  The coldness in her gaze is worse than anything he could have imagined from her two months before.

  “The ubermindist is only one reason.” the Praesidentrix says. “The other is revenge.”

  I feel as if I am watching my own hand plunge a sword into the chest of a helpless victim. The piranha interceptors are part of me, controlled by my external systems—but I cannot stop them now. Theowane has given the order.

  I watch through the eyes of five interceptors as they home in for the kill, using their propellant to increase velocity toward impact. With their kinetic en
ergy, they will destroy the vessel.

  I receive alarm signals from the PEACE ship, but I ignore them, am forced to watch the target grow and grow as the first interceptor collides with a section amidships. I see the hull plate, pitted with micrometeor scars, swell up, huge, and then wink out a fraction of a second before the interceptor crashes, rupturing the hull and exposing the inner environment to space.

  Another interceptor smashes just below the bridge. I hear a transmitted outcry from the captain, begging us to stop the attack. Two more interceptors strike, one a glancing blow alongside the hull; the shrapnel tears open a wider gash. The PEACE ship continues its own destruction as air pressure bursts through the breaches in the hull, as moisture freezes and glass shatters. The fifth interceptor strikes the chemical fuel tanks, and the entire ship erupts in a tiny nova.

  From the debris, a small target streaks away. I recognize it as a single escape pod. I detect one life form aboard. Of all the people on the ship . . . only one.

  The escape pod descends, but then my own reflexes betray me as another interceptor also detects the pod, aligns its tracking, and streaks after it. Both enter the atmosphere of Bastille.

  Now Amu arrives in the control center. I can tell he is upset by his expression, by his elevated body temperature. His head is shaved smooth, but his generous silvery beard, and eyebrows, and eyes give him a charismatic appearance. He is raising his voice to Theowane, but I cannot pay attention to their conversation.

  The PEACE escape pod heats up, leaving an orange trail behind it as it burrows deeper into the atmosphere. It seems to have evasive capabilities, and it knows the piranha is behind it.

  The interceptor also picks up speed, bearing down on the escape pod. But their velocities are so well matched that the piranha causes no damage when it bumps its target.

  A few moments later, the interceptor—with no shielding to protect it from a screaming entry into the atmosphere—breaks into flying chunks of molten slag.

  Amu seems mollified when Theowane explains to him that the intruder was a PEACE ship. I know Amu wants nothing to do with religious fanatics; he has had enough of them in his past.

  I pinpoint the splashdown target for the escape pod. Without waiting for an order, I dispatch one of the floating ubermindist harvesters across the oceans of Bastille. No matter how great a hold Theowane has over my Simulated Personality, she can do nothing against my life-preservation overrides, except when the security of the colony is at stake.

  Ostensibly to allow it greater speed, but actually just out of spite, I tell the harvester to dump its cargo of ubermindist before it churns off across the sea to reach the pod.

  Amu stands in the holding bay of the cliffside tunnels. His bald head glistens in the glare of glowtablets recessed in the ceiling. His eyes flash.

  A second rinse sprays the outside of the escape pod. Black streaks stain the hull from its burning descent, but the craft appears otherwise undamaged. After its dunking in the corrosive seas, Amu waits for purified water to purge the acidity.

  Theowane follows him into the chamber. Amu listens to the last trickles of water come out of the spray heads; drips run through a grate on the floor where the rinse water will be detoxified and reused.

  For the hours it has taken the floating harvester to retrieve the escape pod, Amu has waited in silence with Theowane. He keeps his anger toward her in check.

  Sensing his displeasure, she twice tries to divert his thoughts. Normally he would acquiesce just to please her. She has been his lover since before the revolt. But he doesn’t like her making such important decisions on her own. It sets a bad example for the rest of the prisoners.

  On the other hand, Amu knows that Theowane tried to keep Bastille free of the PEACE ships. And he approves.

  Both of Amu’s parents had been involved in a violent, fanatical sect and had raised him under their repressive teachings, grooming him to be a propagator of the faith. He had absorbed their training, but eventually his own wishes had broken through. He fled, later to use those same charismatic and mob-focusing skills to whip up a workers’ revolt on his home planet. If the revolt had succeeded, Amu would have been called a king, a savior. But instead Amu had ended up here, on Bastille.

  He wants nothing more to do with religious fanatics. Now this one PEACE survivor presents him with an unpleasant problem.

  Theowane runs her fingers over the access controls. “Ready,” she says. She keeps her voice low and her eyes averted.

  Amu stands to his full height in front of the escape pod. “Open it.”

  As the hatch cracks, a hiss of air floods in, equalizing the two pressures. Then comes a cough, then sputtering, annoying words. A young boy wrestles himself into a sitting position and snaps his arms out, flexing them and shaking his cramped hands. “What took you so long? You’re as bad as PEACE.”

  Theowane steps back. Amu blinks, but remains in place. The boy is thin, with dark shadows around his eyes. His body appears bruised, his hands raw, as if he has been trying to claw his way out of the escape pod.

  Amu can’t stop himself from bursting out with a loud laugh. The boy whirls to him, outraged, but after a brief pause he too cracks a grin that contains immense relief and exhaustion. With this one response, he proves to Amu that he is no PEACE convert.

  “Why didn’t you let yourself out?” Theowane asks. “Isn’t there an emergency release inside?”

  The boy turns a look of scorn to her. “I know what’s in the air on Bastille, and in the water. I couldn’t see where I was. It might be bad to be cramped in this coffin for hours—but it would be plenty worse to take a shower in sulfuric acid.” He pauses for just a moment. “And speaking of showers, can I get out of here and take one?”

  After the boy has cleaned and rested himself, Amu summons him for dinner. The other prisoners on Bastille have expressed their curiosity, but they will have to wait until Amu decides to make a statement.

  “Dybathia,” the boy says when Amu asks his name. “I know it sounds noble and high-born. My parents had high expectations of me.” He stops just long enough for Amu to absorb that, but not long enough for him to ask any further questions.

  “I ran away from home,” Dybathia says. “It took me a week to make it to the spaceport. When I got there, I slipped onto the first open ship and hid in their cargo bay. I didn’t care where it was going, and I didn’t plan to show myself until we were on our way into hyperspace. I figured anyplace was better than home, right?” He snickers.

  “It turned out to be a PEACE ship. They wouldn’t let me off. They kept me around, constantly quoting tracts at me, trying to make me convert. Do my eyes look glazed? Am I brain-damaged?”

  Amu allows a smile to form, but he does not answer.

  Dybathia says, “They shut off their servo-maintenance drones and made me do the cleaning, scrubbing down decks and walls with a solvent that should have been labeled as toxic waste. Look at my hands! The captain said monotonous work allows one to clear the mind and become at peace with the universe.”

  Theowane breaks into the conversation, “Why were you the only one who got to an escape pod?” Amu looks up at her sharply, but she doesn’t withdraw the question.

  Dybathia shrugs. “I was the only one who bothered. The rest of them just sat there and accepted their fate.”

  This rings so true with Amu from his memories of his parents that he finds himself nodding.

  Dybathia looks at the mind-scanning apparatus; this will be the most dangerous moment for him. The device is left over from the first days of Bastille, when human supervisory crews had established the colony. That month had been the only time when non-prisoners and prisoners cohabited the planet; as a precaution they had used intensive search devices and mental scanners, which had remained unused since those other humans had turned Bastille over to the Warden.

  “You do understand why we have to do this?” Amu asks.

  Dybathia sees more concern on the face of the leader than he expects. This i
s going better than he had hoped. “Yes, I understand perfectly.” He flicks his gaze toward Theowane, then back to Amu. “It’s because she’s paranoid.”

  Theowane bristles, as he expects her to. She makes each word of her answer clipped and hard. “Your story is too convenient. How do we know you’re not an . . . assassin? What if you’ve been drugged or hypnotized? We can’t know what the Praesidentrix might do.”

  Knowing it is imperative for him to allay their suspicions, Dybathia submits to an intensive physical search that scans every square centimeter of his body, probes all orifices, uses a sonogram to detect any subcutaneous needles, poison-gas capsules, perhaps a timed-release biological plague.

  They find nothing, because there is nothing to find.

  “The psyche assessor won’t hurt you,” Amu says. “Just stick your head within its receiving range.”

  “How does it work?” Dybathia asks. He frowns skeptically. “How do I know this isn’t one of those machines to condition prisoners? I don’t want to end up like a PEACE convert.”

  “Explain it to him, Theowane.” Amu smiles at her, as if he knows how it will rankle her.

  Theowane blows air from her lips. “Everyone has a basic mental pattern, like a normal position that can never change. However, certain training—brainwashing, you’d call it—can superimpose another set of reactions on top of it. If you’ve been brainwashed or specially trained to do anything to Amu, or Bastille, it will show up here.” She adjusts her apparatus.

  Dybathia rolls his eyes. Amu smiles at that. Dybathia knows he is easing past the leader’s defenses. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Without a word, the boy leans into the psyche assessor’s range. Theowane makes no other comment as she works with the apparatus and takes her reading. She asks him a series of questions designed to break down mind-blanking techniques.

  Dybathia answers them all without resisting.