Resolution (58 page)

Their guide was an amiable, soft-looking man called Solly, pear-shaped, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt with a bolo tie. Solly revealed a habit of wiping his high forehead with a forefinger as he led them through the visitors’ registration process. He watched as Dirk, Kian and Deirdre downloaded encrypted parole-and-countersign routines into their infostrands; then he showed them where the restrooms and the drinks machines were situated.

‘This w-way.’

Solly led them into the hushed, grey-carpeted expanse of the Human Engineering Department, where analysts worked quietly over pulsing holosimulations of control systems and Pilot/ship interface processors.

‘Th-this is where we’ll be monitoring your f-fitting session tomorrow.’

Solly flicked a hand in the direction of a wide console, currently unmanned, where diagnostic displays pulsed and billowed, checking and re-checking transponders and i/o buffers. It was automated, triple-AI verified (no test was passed until all three independently evolved systems concurred), ready to pass the buck to humans the moment a potential fault revealed itself.

‘Is that our ship?’ asked Dirk.

‘Oh, y-yes.’ Solly beamed. ‘Ready to fly.’

Deirdre looked at Kian and shrugged.

‘What?’ he asked her.

‘Seems thorough enough,’ Deirdre said, neutral-voiced. ‘Would you like me to check the deduction chains, maybe the interface dendrimers?’

Offering to check UNSA’s system was provocative, but Dirk and Kian could see that Deirdre was uneasy. They had expected arguments when the twins tried to sign her in as a visitor with them, but the security people had immediately accepted her presence: almost took it for granted that she would be there.

It made the twins wonder whether Security had expected her. Perhaps the mysterious Zoë had told the truth when she said - obliquely - that they were being watched.

Dirk answered: ‘I guess we ought to trust them.’

‘Yes, of course.’

Kian grinned at Solly.

‘She’s got our best interests at heart.’

‘Um ... Yes.’ Solly wiped his forehead once. ‘We
are
a little behind schedule. Can I sh-show you your q-q-quarters?’

‘How far behind?’ asked Deirdre.

‘T-tom-morrow m-m-morning?’ Solly’s reply sounded like a question. Then a look of relief passed over his face as a slim, crop-haired young woman walked towards them.

‘Oh-ten-hundred,’ she said, matter-of-fact. ‘Ready to interface. I’m Paula, by the way. Assistant controller. I’ll be monitoring.’

‘In which hangar?’ asked Kian.

‘Right out there’ - Paula pointed - ‘on the main runway. No-one else will be using it.’

Dirk frowned. ‘It’s just a static session, right? Fitting interfaces. No flying.’

‘Part of the delay was that flight control integration came in
ahead
of schedule, thanks to Solly here…’

Solly blushed. His forehead shone with sweat.

‘... so if you want to take a little spin overhead, feel free ...’

Kian and Dirk grinned in unison.

‘... but only in this universe, mind you. We’re not ready for mu-space y—’

‘Hey! We get to—’

‘—fly! That’s—’

‘—outstanding.’

Deirdre looked at Paula and shrugged. ‘I apologize for my friends. They’re very grown up, really.’ ‘No apologies, please.’ Paula’s smile was directed at Deirdre. ‘I’m really pleased to be working with you all.’

They spent the evening playing Go, having discovered - in a lounge set aside for Pilots’ use; there were no other Pilots here at this time - a traditional wooden table and two porcelain bowls filled with the polished ellipsoidal pieces known as stones.

Cross-legged, staring down at the nineteen-by-nineteen grid etched in the low tabletop, Dirk laid down the first black stone with a
clack.
Deirdre, playing white, responded by occupying one of the pivotal intersections at the other side of the board.

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Kian, ‘how long she’s been playing.’

Deirdre smiled. ‘I know the rules, is all.’

‘Ha.’ Dirk picked a stone from the bowl. ‘I’ve heard that one before.’

The initial stages proceeded quickly, as black and white stones swirled across the board, increasing territory at each other’s expense. Then a strong envelopment from Deirdre’s forces caused a collapse in Dirk’s strength, and it was only through cunning play that he managed to deploy ‘eye’ formations which could not fall to the enemy.

Dirk began to lay down counteroffensives, penetrating white territory. Deirdre fought back; but Dirk merged with the flow, became calm, and used a deft series of feints before enveloping her stones to achieve victory.

Dirk’s body, when he brought his mind back to normal awareness, was coated with sweat.

‘So ... How long
have
you been playing for?’

‘A whole year.’ Deirdre looked at Kian and wrinkled her nose. ‘I thought I was going to win this one.’

‘We’re pretty much neck and neck these days,’ said Kian. ‘Evenly matched.’

‘After a year. Just one year.’

‘Right.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

Both twins had been playing since the age of four, a form of tutoring which Ro had considered as vital as physical martial discipline. Though they held no formal dan ranking, they had beaten strong players who did.

‘You’re a scary person, Deirdre Dullaghan.’

‘Well, Jeez ... You two should talk.’

After that, they switched to an in-house holosystem which would allow them to play 3 Go, a new variant that added red stones to the other two sides, and allowed them to wage a three-way campaign which, when applied to political situations more complex than a single battlefield, was a truer simulation of real-life complexities.

They wondered, as they played their first game with lighthearted banter and no conversation of deep import, whether Security was monitoring them even now, analysing voice tones and measuring body responses, constructing psychosomatic profiles. Perhaps UNSA techs were already implementing manipulative systems whose gameplay affected the fate of countries and even offworld colonies, and whose pieces were myriad; and every single one was a person.

Later, the three of them went outside at sunset, walking across sand that glowed with vermilion warmth. Crimson sun dragged spectacular violet across the sky, before slipping below the empty horizon with a rapidity which disconcerted Dirk.

‘That’s the way it happens round here, bro,’ said Kian.

‘Amazing.’

It was the lack of high mountains nearby, or human habitation besides the UNSA field at their back, which made the night sky magnificent: black velvet in all directions, a vast hemisphere over the world. Stars were silver points of light but gathered in a profusion such as neither twin had ever seen.

‘You’ll be going out there.’ Deirdre stared straight up. ‘Hard to believe.’

A faint sharp scent drifted on the air and Dirk sniffed.

‘That’s mesquite,’ Kian told him.

‘Right.’ Dirk turned. Out in the desert, in shadow, stood a fat alien shape bristling with spikes. ‘And what the hell is that?’

‘Er…’

‘A boojum tree.’ In the gathering gloom, Deirdre looked from one twin to the other. ‘What? You think I’m kidding? I swear on my mother’s grave, that’s what it’s called.’

Kian sighed. ‘Your mother lives in Portland, Oregon.’

‘Does that mean she can’t have a grave? She’s got a nice little plot all marked out.’

‘Jesus, Deirdre. You’re one—’

‘—sick woman, that’s for—’

‘—sure.’

The twins’ conversation and examination of the desert night concealed a deeper vision, a mode of analysis they could not share with Deirdre while being monitored... and they
were
being watched. They knew it for sure.

Low across the sand, a microward boundary glimmered invisibly. Scan-waves pulsed; bats turned back in the darkness, disturbed by the vibrating barrier only they and the desert mice and two young men who were almost human could sense.

‘Does the emptiness,’ asked Deirdre, ‘seem frightening to you?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Dirk.

He shifted his shoulder minutely.

There. Below the sand.

Kian’s answer was a subtle mouth movement impossible for others to read even in daylight.

I
see it.

A bunker, or a ... launch silo, that was it. Covered by a hatch or membrane over which sand lay. There was the faint sense of ducts and fans - or perhaps a polymer spray of some sort, capable of transforming dry sand to manageable sludge - waiting to suck the desert away and clear a path for defensive fighters to launch.

‘There’s another universe beyond that one.’ Kian spoke as though only the surface conversation counted, turning to gesture at the night sky while scanning further along the nightbound sand.

Another silo, there.

There was a subliminal answering sound from Dirk.

Got it. And there.

They had the pattern now. Laid out in a ring, spaced every klick around the perimeter, submerged fighters waited for the ‘go’ signal, in permanent readiness. Mother had never told them that the base was so heavily defended. Perhaps she had not known, or perhaps it had not been this way the last time she was here.