TerraCom Inception

“Not since close of business, sir,” Cutter lied. “I’m sure she’s gone home. Is there something I can do for you instead?”

Wallace sighed and said, “No, I just wanted her advice on the best way to deliver our findings concerning Amber-Rivet to our corporate allies and other concerned parties at Geneva. I thought maybe she’d heard something. Most of them are undoubtedly conducting their own studies of the phenomenon. Luckily none have the data that we do.”

“What about SolCorp, sir?” Cutter said and rubbed his eyes. The glare from the screen often hurt his eyes. “Surely the largest interstellar corporation has made some inroads we may not be aware of.”

“Representatives from every major corporate power sit on the SolCorp member council,” Wallace replied. “Ourselves included. All they care about is the regulated flow of Hydrogen fuel to all points of known space regardless of boundaries and, as far as I’m concerned, is the only thing keeping the peace. Their arbiters are useful for negotiating agreements and the occasional dispute, but something that appears this small, for the time at least, I doubt they’ve even noticed.”

“If she mentions anything to me, I’ll let you know, sir,” Cutter said and reached over his desk for the stack of hardcopy he’d printed. “However… I may not see her before we leave. Shall I have one of my assistants prepare some possibility scenarios for you to review? I assure you that all of Leda’s perceptions are included.”

“Quite unnecessary,” Wallace said and touched the bandage. “Thank you, Artemis… try and get some sleep, we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Good night, sir.” Cutter said and the conference window in his computer display closed. He slowly traversed his chair until he faced Leda. “Are you sure there’s an alien intelligence out there?”

“Without a doubt,” Leda said and nodded vigorously for emphasis. “I feel it… everyone feels it. They just don’t know what to do about it.”

“You’re going to find out what we should do about it,” Cutter said. “I want you on the next shuttle out of here. Get as close to these things as possible and try and ascertain what it is that they’re here for. If you can communicate with them then do so. You are to report only to me. If you need anything, call this office… not the supply department… nobody. This way it’ll give Cairn Wallace time to forget about you.”

“He won’t forget about me,” Leda said solemnly. “Not after what I did.”

“Then it’ll give me time to think up something else,” Cutter said and held up a finger as Leda was about to speak. “Don’t ask me what,” He dropped his eyes to the stack he fingered through. “Who knows? CEO’s come and go. Maybe by the time you come back he’ll be gone.”

“Small hope.” Leda called over her shoulder as the art-deco doors quietly parted and she exited. Cutter steepled his fingers as he swiveled in his chair to look out the window, his eyes focused between skyscrapers on the distant lights of Jamaica Bay Spaceport, lost in troubled thoughts long after she’d gone.

***

Geneva, unlike much of the rest of Europe, glowed with light. Two separate facilities built by the Bern Fusion Authority were placed inside the city walls, dedicated to providing power for eight million residents in an urban core that had grown to encompass 200 square kilometers. Business towers filled the canton around the southwestern end of Lake Geneva while apartment buildings covered the surrounding hills. It was cleaner than any NorCom city and lacked the obvious chaos infecting the EuroCon sprawls. As the train passed slowly through the security gate into Geneva proper, a crowd of typical Genevese in cold weather clothes appeared on the platform outside Jena’s window. Some carried sporting gear… air-boards and snow gliders for the private resorts nestled deep in the Alps.

The city, she noticed, had lost none of its centuries old charm. Despite the trappings of modernity, Tudor houses and cobblestone streets dating from the 1600’s had been meticulously preserved… surrounded at the same time by elevated, automated people movers, neon-lit holo parlors, and robots that would have made the watchmakers of old gape in wonder.

“This is why I don’t care for travel by rail or by air,” Kinkaid said as he donned his cap lined with synthetic fur and grasped the travel bag he’d pulled from overhead storage. “I hated it when they rerouted us around Paris. EuroRail’s been having a great deal of trouble keeping the lines through the city open. North African bandits have taken to putting barricades up over the guideways and sacking the trains that stop. I hear it’s gotten so bad that the EuroCons had to transport all the artworks in the Louvre to more secure locations.”

“Where’s that?” Jena said and stepped up behind him as the loading door of the passenger car opened and the waiting queue started moving. “Off world?”

Kinkaid laughed and said, “Into the private homes of many prominent EuroCon ministers… that’s where… especially since all of them live in communities guarded better than the Louvre ever was.”

“And all of this because of Transterran?” Jena said as Kinkaid shouldered his way through the multi-national crowd toward the nearest platform exit.

“No… not directly,” Kinkaid said as they came into the terminal proper, a stone edifice with high arches and marble floors that echoed with the click of boot-heels, arrivals announced by public address, and the muted conversations of tourists. “The EuroCon owed money to more companies than Transterran. Collecting debts from civil authorities has traditionally been very difficult. Transterran merely purchased these outstanding debts from the others at substantially less than they were worth and brought them before the World Court in a single, massive class-action suit.”

“You’re very well informed for a man who’s been out of cold sleep for less than six months," Jena said as they moved toward the line of robo-taxis visible through the archways on the other side of the terminal. “You surprise me.”

“I learn less from our own intelligence sources than I do from the various news sources that transmit to Mars,” Kinkaid said and checked his Krono-Tek. On impulse, Jena followed suit, she fallen into the habit of trying to read Kinkaid’s mind in anticipation of his needs. The United Nations of Earth reception was still half a day away. The unintended detour around Paris had taken five hours. “There are no secrets, no matter how deep, when there’s a watching eye on every corner… government or otherwise.”

“Do you mean that?” Jena said as Kinkaid opened the door of a robo-taxi and tossed his bag inside. He took Jena’s bag and dropped it beside his own.

“Of course not.”

Hours later, Jena rubbed that back of her neck where a stand of whispy-fine hairs had once been growing in violation of the regulation that stated that, regardless of the style it was worn in, no hairs were to touch her collar. The robotic-stylist, a new Sanyo, had unfolded three spider-like arms after being wheeled into place behind her, and at the end of each was a multi-tool holding a clipper, a spritzer, hot-air dryer, and several different sorts of combs. Important news from the day, rather than gossip, came out of the speakers built into the robot as the arms whirled about her head… the pretty attendant had warned her to keep very still.

“You do have your moments.” She later said to her reflection and turned back and forth to catch her figure from the best angles. The bathroom of her Bristol Hotel suite was small but efficient. For the reception, Kinkaid had requested that she forego her uniform in favor of something less conspicuous, the shimmering purple cocktail dress purchased for her on Mars was the most expensive item in her wardrobe. For lack of need in Fleet service, she’d almost forgotten what makeup did for her, but when she capped her eyeliner and checked the mirror again. What she’d applied gave her a glamour she’d missed.

Her suite was next to Kinkaid’s, and through the front window she could see across Lake Geneva to the U.N.E. headquarters building. She was gazing out at it when the door chime sounded. The old admiral was standing in the hallway when the door opened, in his white formal uniform, a placard full of service ribbons and awards covering each breast of his brass-buttoned jacket. He smiled when he saw Jena and said, “Heaven help me, commander, if you weren’t the child of my dearest friend and if I weren’t pentuple your age…”

Jena smiled as she found her small clutch-bag and stepped past him into the hallway. She unsnapped the clutch and dropped her key-card in, and said, “Why, admiral… are you asking me out on a date?”

The old man guffawed and said, “I doubt I would survive that, commander, not when you go out looking so deadly. That task I leave up to the young fools who think they can subdue a tempest and other forces of nature.”

A taxi stand was set up in front of the hotel lined with robotic, GPS-guided cabs. Jena and Kinkaid climbed into the back of one, which pulled out into the traffic flowing over Rue de Mont-Blanc bridge. Jena pushed her face against the window to watch the stream of VTOL’s, anti-collision lights on full, passing overhead, making for the U.N.E. building. Higher-ranking VIP’s were being flown in.

***

“They can’t ignore us now, they wouldn’t dare,” Lillith said as she watched the lights of Geneva at night passing beneath them as her skimmer banked over the lake, assigned to a holding pattern around the UNE HQ. They’d been making slow circles over the city for 10 minutes, making their way around toward ground level with each pass. She adjusted the bustline of her black, company issued evening dress, then settled back into the seat. “We’re bigger than SolCorp now and still we have to wait for landing clearance. I’ll bet the SolCorp board of regents didn’t have to wait.”

“Shall I call the UN director of flight operations and tell him to get us clearance?” Stephan said and lifted his datapad to emphasize his intent to do so. He wore a black suit and a wireless earpiece/boom mike that he’d seen others of similar station wearing. Lillith shook her head.

“I doubt that would help,” She said and sat back with an impatient sigh. “It would only give them more reason to delay us. You don’t understand how these people work. They’re so tiny in regards to the rest of us that we don’t even see them. The only way they can ever feel noticed is by taking over responsibilities for things we need but don’t want to do for ourselves… then they do everything they can to piss us off because we have to rely on them and there’s nothing we can do about it. I can’t wait to see the ban on us lifted. There’s nothing sweeter than seeing a pariah overcome all obstacles and emerging triumphant.”

“I love the way you’re always so confident.” Stephan said and lowered his datapad. He fixed her with his eyes and allowed himself a restrained smile. “I had my doubts that the World Court verdict would be in our favor… you didn’t. Honestly, I had doubts about us coming here, I thought it was a fool’s errand intended to get you away from our headquarters for some nefarious purpose… backroom dealings and the like… that you’ve always seemed to stay above.”

Lillith laughed and said, “My position is more secure now than it ever was. I get the credit for the World Court victory, and after tonight I get the credit for opening up Earth and Sol system to Transterran products again. It’s like Nixon going to China.”

Stephan looked confused and said, “Who?”

The skimmer lurched as it dropped another 20 meters in altitude. Lillith reached across the passenger cabin to pat Stephan on the cheek. “Don’t worry your sweet head about it, my pretty imbecile… just remember that someday you’ll be telling a management training group about how you were with me the night the company fortunes truly changed.”

“So how are you going to do it?” Stephan said as Lillith withdrew her hand.

“Plans have been underway for a long time to bring it about,” She said and turned to gaze out at the UN building. “Pretty soon Earth and Sol system are going to need us more than they ever needed SolCorp. Our chairman briefed me on the plan himself. It’s… beautifully crafted… and infallible as near as I can tell. That’s all you need to know.”

“What about the Cruxis Liberte?”

“They’re not the first terrorist group pretending to be revolutionaries that have threatened us before,” Lillith said and shrugged dismissively. “They’ll be dealt with. We’ve had a plan for that ever since we started dealing with the EuroCon. I wouldn’t worry about them either, they’re a fringe group… too far away from Procyon or any other Transterran nexus to do any real damage. They got lucky once… besides, a World Court judge can easily be replaced.”

“I can’t believe you aren’t worried for yourself,” Stephan said and replaced his datapad in the Nylon holster her carried it in. “I’d be afraid for my life.”

Lillith nodded toward the UN building and said, “A Cruxis Liberte agent would be insane to try and get to me down there. There’s a small army of security forces locking down every square inch of the United Nations tonight. Noone will be there that isn’t supposed to be there.”

“What about an inside job?” Stephan said.

“It’s possible that the EuroCon would sneak someone in just to take me out, for spite if nothing else,” Lillith said as the skimmer dropped again. “I’m not an easy target but they’ve had chances before this. If the Cruxis Liberte wanted my head they would’ve had it by now.”

“You must be right.” Stephan said.

“Of course I’m right,” Lillith replied with a sneer. “The company doesn’t pay me to be wrong. That’s why I’m alive right now and about to make company history. Just be thankful that you were transferred to me in time to see it happen.”

“I’m just happy to have a part to play,” Stephan said as the VTOL pilot radioed back an instruction to prepare for landing. “I’m especially grateful for the chance to see Earth. Noone in my family ever has… we used to just look out at the stars and find the one that Sol system was hiding behind. Everything I ever knew about it I learned from news couriers. Now that I’m here I admit that it’s not what I expected.”

Lillith snorted and rolled her eyes. “Concern yourself with what I expect.”

“Of course I do,” Stephan said as the engine noise increased and the VTOL flared, jarring the passenger cabin as landing skids touched down. “My family lived in a garbage dump on New Saxony until the company found me. I’d do anything for it… anything I was told. I was trained ever since I was hired to take care of you.”

“You do it well,” Lillith said as the sliding passenger door was opened by a uniformed attendant. She set her face with a smile and accepted the hand the male attendant offered and slid over the jump-seat to the door. She extended one leg and felt it touch ground, then brought the other leg down in a fluid motion that drew her out of the VTOL into the open. She looked back into the passenger cabin as Stephan was sliding out behind her. “Keep it up or you’ll be back, knee-deep in that shit looking for scraps.”

Stephan stopped, as if stunned, before recovering with a forced chuckle. “I won’t… no matter what I have to do, I’m never going back. Now that the company is taking care of my family, they’ve got too much to live for.”

“Then we understand each other,” Lillith said and turned for the UNE entrance a hundred meters away with Stephan in tow. She waved at the spectators lined up nearby and was greeted by the flashes of a hundred poised digi-cams. She felt like neo-royalty… first administrator of the new Transterran empire. “Come along, Stephan… the world is ours.”

***

“Die madchen ist mit mir, danke,” Adm. Kinkaid said and took Jena by the elbow, surprising her as she dug through her small handbag for her guest pass, leading her past the two morbidly serious-looking Genevese police captains who manned the main security checkpoint at the entrance to the U.N.E. “Learn how to speak the language of your enemies, commander,” He whispered to her once they were away. “That way you know what the bastards are saying about you.”

Just inside the large, open doors was a reception area that went a dozen feet back into the building, a glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling at the far end, adding just enough light to turn the maroon carpeting under her feet the color of dried blood. People dressed in formal wear clustered together in groups of two’s and three’s at sporadic intervals… assistants and junior executives forbidden from the larger assembly. Jena felt eyes following her as Kinkaid led off toward the twin staircases she could see ahead. Like a wishbone, stairs followed the wall on each side down to the main hall on the floor below.

“Be careful what you say and do here,” Kinkaid said as he stopped at the polished brass railing overlooking the main hall and did a slow pan from right to left. “What you see here are not people… they are not human and will offended if you think so. Politics is the name the give to polite war. People you think are friends are not… support you’re sure you have you do not.”

Jena stepped up beside Kinkaid and looked down at the crowd below them. Although the formal wear looked mostly similar, subtle differences in cut and style were evident, but she was not familiar enough with them to make distinctions. Everyone wore a flag or logo pin to make identification easy. A string quartet tucked back into an alcove filled the air with lilting sonatas.

“They’re watching us right now,” Kinkaid said and worked his face into a smile. “They know who I am and are already planning on what they’ll say to me, but they don’t know who you are… so they have to try and figure out how they can fit you into their schemes,” He turned to Jena and gestured toward the stairs they were nearest to. Jena fell into step with him as he descended. “Did you say you wanted to make admiral someday?”

Jena nodded as Kinkaid paused as a uniformed waiter passed carrying a trayful of champagne flutes. He took two and gave Jena one before continuing down the stairs. After a deep draw from the glass he said, “This is where most of our battles are fought, right here with people like these… these politicos. They control the money that we need to supply our fleets, pay our crews, and develop new weapons. They control the hearts and minds of the people we protect, and before we go to war, it is these people we must convince that war is necessary. God, I hate them sometimes.”

He drained his glass in a single draught and wiped his lips by rubbing them between his thumb and index finger. The glass was deposited on the empty tray of a different waiter moving past in the opposite direction.
“Come along, commander,” Kinkaid said and worked his mouth into a smile again as they reached to bottom. “Let’s get on with it,” He scanned the room and nodded toward a trio of men dressed in the ceremonial robes of the NorCom congress. “Oh look, there’s two of the most insidious vipers in the nest. I should’ve known they’d be here.”

The three lit up with smiles and waved as Kinkaid caught their eye, then broke off their huddled conversation and began moving toward him. The admiral leaned over to rasp in Jena’s ear, “The younger one is new… be polite but he’s small potatoes. The tall one and the fat one… Reynold and Harpsprung… they chair the Regulatory Oversight Board. They watch the watchers looking for government impropriety… God help us.”

“Admiral… so good to see you!” The man identified as Reynold called out as soon as they were within hearing range. He was lanky, and had an angular face framed by brown hair, any semblance of youth betrayed by the white flashes above his ears. “It’s been a very long time, but I suppose if anyone deserves to be here, it’s you. Your military policies helped make this happen.”