Thirty-Seven
THIRTY-SEVEN
Eight and a half months ago
The Sweetsea jutted from the center of the cityhab, as if spawning from the frozen depths of the planet itself, the breaching nose of a great metallic whale caught in stasis, vertical lines of lights along its swooping length glistening like water spray, support struts splayed to the sides like fins.
Pointed skyward, the imposing, historic, vaguely phallic bow of the Great Ship Tenacity could be seen from nearly every corner of the cityhab.
Many times, Martim had pictured himself accompanying his client to the Executive’s residence, but he’d never anticipated it would happen so soon, and under such circumstances.
As they passed through the vaulted entrance, he craned his neck up to stare.
As a boy, he’d imagined that the mysterious palace contained a vast reservoir of water, bigger than any other—that was what a sea was, after all—but the name was enigmatically inaccurate; what met his eyes was completely different.
Over a central rotunda of stone tile, empty space stretched up to a source of soft light far overhead.
At ground level, narrow hallways led off in every direction, ramps and stairways climbing along the interior of the structure like tangled vines of steel, sliding doorways leading off into chambers high above, distant figures moving around on the causeways, the entire clockwork-like sight vertigo-inducing to behold.
The sheen all around them reflected off surfaces mottled by age—shades of brown, yellow, and black.
The rising furnace-heated air was damp and tasted of rust.
“Incredible,” he breathed.
“It’s ancient.” Even Uchi’s voice was muted with reverence.
The palace, and the precious Genebank housed in the vault beneath it, was the colony’s most enduring connection to the homeworld.
In the years after the Founding, every part of the Great Ships had been repurposed: the hull cut apart and turned into walls and roofs, all the metal and plastic, wiring, lights, and life-supporting machinery cannibalized to construct the habitations of the first colonists.
Over the centuries, most of the original Founding-era houses had been replaced by newer, better-constructed and better-insulated homes made of labwood and brick alongside towers of Aquilon steel—but the Sweetsea remained, a constant, enduring reminder of the cityhab’s origins, grand and claustrophobic and eerily antediluvian.
Martim wondered how anyone, even someone as inhuman as the Executive, could live here in comfort.
Uchi strode ahead without pausing, having no doubt seen it all before. Martim hurried to shadow him. Thea fell in behind them both, even though there wasn’t anywhere they were less likely to be in danger than here, where no one entered without the Executive’s approval.
Director Uchi stepped onto one of the stairways and it began to move, winding upward like a twisting escalator.
The machinery didn’t move quickly; there was plenty of time for Martim to watch the floor receding below them.
Perhaps that was the point; ascending high enough for a personal meeting with the Executive wasn’t a journey that could be rushed.
When at last they reached the uppermost level of the palace, four of the Executive’s personal guard glided forward to intercept them.
These were not contracted longknivesmen; they wore white badges and carried silver pistols holstered on their hips.
The Executive Guard were one of only two exceptions to Company policy forbidding firearms. After examining the visitors through opaque security visors, verifying their identities and scanning them for prohibited items, they stepped aside to let Director Uchi and his retinue continue.
Before them stood a wide, double-doored hatchway that might’ve once been the entrance to a shuttle docking bay.
It opened slowly with ponderous metallic scraping.
To Martim’s astonishment, the industrial entryway revealed a large chamber covered in soft carpeting and bathed in natural light from tall slit windows.
The room was pristine and minimalist, simply furnished, a portrait of understated luxury in white and gray, accented by touches of dark labwood.
The Executive’s office looked like a staged photograph out of a Companynet lifestyle article—clean, cold, and untouchable.
From the other side of the room, a lithe figure clad in pale blue silk unfolded from a cradling throne of preserved true wood.
Martim’s skin crawled at the uncanny, puppetlike movement of old synthtech; he fought the urge to back away from the ancient second stager’s approach.
Staying right behind his client, he bent with Uchi into a low bow.
“Uchi, my friend. How glad I am to see you well. It’s been years, but you look as if you could stay in your first stage for decades.
” The voice that spoke over their bowed heads was high and melodious, but chilling, lacking the subtle inflections that conveyed human emotion. “Come sit, please. Let’s talk.”
Director Uchi straightened. Martim followed suit, raising his eyes to the Executive’s smooth, pale face.
It was as handsome as a porcelain mask, neither young nor old, male nor female, serene and framed by a short crown of pure silver hair.
At one time, the leader of the Company had been an ordinary person of flesh and blood, a brilliant and ruthless individual who’d overcome all rivals and risen through all the layers of the vast organization to sit in the Sweetsea.
That had been sixty years ago.
“It’s good to see you, too,” Uchi answered cordially, as if the two of them were old colleagues. “It’s been a long time.”
“I believe we last met in person upon your promotion to director. Twenty-four years ago, was it? Or twenty-five? I lose track of time easily these days.” A quieting of the musical machine voice suggested nostalgia.
The Executive motioned them toward the cushioned chairs arranged on a white rug under slim, hanging tendril lights.
“Will you have something to eat or drink? I can summon refreshment for you.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Director Uchi declined the polite offer briskly; it was insensitive to eat in front of second stagers.
Martim swallowed dryly, wishing he could have something to drink, but neither Uchi nor the Executive glanced his way or acknowledged his existence. He was here merely as an attendant.
Uchi waited for the Executive to take a seat on a raised divan before settling himself into one of the chairs opposite, crossing his long legs.
As hale as he was for his age, next to the elfin Executive, Uchi appeared to be an enormous, gnarled old man.
Martim waited until his client was seated before lowering himself to the edge of a chair nearby, poised uncomfortably straight-backed.
Thea remained standing at attention by the doors.
“You have something on your mind you wish to speak with me about.” There was curiosity in the Executive’s placid, tinkling voice, but the words were a statement, not a question.
“I wouldn’t bother you otherwise.” Uchi was more restrained and deferential than usual, humble in the Executive’s presence, but Martim noticed his client’s foot tapping, the clipped tone of his voice.
“We’re old friends,” the Executive said pleasantly. “Say what’s on your mind.”
“I know what the Board is keeping secret.”
“The Board has many secrets.”
“I’ve seen the confidential memos, the radio signals, the communication codes from Earth.” Uchi uncrossed his legs and leaned forward intently. “We’re facing the end of the Great Silence.”
Martim searched for a reaction on the Executive’s face, but he wasn’t accustomed to interacting with second stagers.
Thea was the only one he knew personally, and her synthbody was so much more lifelike compared with older models.
The Executive was inscrutable, but it was hard to tell if the dispassion was due to physical limitations, or if, being a hundred and forty years old, a person naturally became more detached from human emotion and the concerns of those in flesh-and-blood bodies.
“I would ask how you came by such sensitive classified information,” the Executive said, “but by now, I shouldn’t be surprised by your ingenuity at circumventing policy.”
Uchi’s gaze was fixed and interrogative. “What do you intend to do?”
A ghostly smile played over lips that might’ve been cast in marble. “I assume you’re about to tell me what you think my answer ought to be.”
“This information is too dangerous to ever be made public. It should be destroyed, immediately.”
Even knowing what his client would say, hearing it spoken aloud on the top floor of the Sweetsea made Martim shiver, as if the temperature in the cold white room had suddenly dropped ten degrees.
“You would destroy evidence of the homeworld’s attempts to contact us?
” the Executive queried with equanimous interest. “We have been isolated for centuries, cut off from the rest of humanity, left to endlessly speculate on why Earth abandoned us and if it even still exists. When the Great Silence began, confusion, chaos, and despair provoked the First and Second Uprisings, killing thousands and nearly wiping out society. Now there’s an end in sight to the long, lonely ordeal, yet you would categorically deny this vital knowledge to the public?
” The machine voice remained unchanged and the glass eyes glittered as bright and cold as sunlit ice.