Dead Space: Catalyst (7 page)

“I don’t know,” said Jensi. “I’d think so, but since it’s for the opposition candidate, I’m not so sure. He always supported the underdog. But maybe he’s changed.”

“So, possible, but maybe not likely. What about the school ceremony? Does he have anything against education?”

“He didn’t want me to join my foster family,” said Jensi. “School might be tied into that for him, something that he feels separated us.”

“But it’s a new school opening,” said Henry. “Not a school that you went to. I know his mind is broken, but as a symbolic gesture it doesn’t amount to much.”

His mind is broken?
thought Jensi. And then thought,
Yes, Henry’s right
.

“Someone on the colonial authority is cutting the ribbon,” continued Henry. “Is it anybody he knows?”

“Who is it?”

They looked at the vid notice. “It doesn’t say,” said Jensi. “No way to tell without going.”

“Even then, we probably won’t know,” said Henry. “Who knows what he’s been up to or who he’s met over the last several years. Still, not likely. What about the ambassador from EarthGov? What’s his name?” He scrolled through the vid until he found it. “Jedrow Berry. Name ring a bell?”

Jensi shook his head.

“All right,” said Henry. “That’s okay. Doesn’t mean anything. He’s a representative of EarthGov authority. That might be enough.” He sighed. “Basically nobody seems all that likely. Nobody is jumping to the top.”

They sat across from one another in silence until, finally, Jensi said “So what do we do?”

“Do? We draw straws.”

*   *   *

Jensi felt like he was going mad, his mind straining to see a connection that either wasn’t visible or simply wasn’t there. He felt like Istvan, always searching for a pattern, trying to see something that nobody else could see.

How would Istvan think?
he wondered, his head throbbing. He tried to put himself in the place of his brother, tried to remember the erratic way he had responded to those situations that had seemed clear and straightforward to Jensi, but they were all moments from childhood, and even thinking back on them he could neither understand them nor extrapolate them into something relevant to the present situation. He had long understood that something was seriously wrong with the way Istvan viewed the world, as if he were seeing everything through a different lens than everyone else, a dark and smoky lens that distorted everything and made it false. But how could Jensi, more or less normal, simulate that way of seeing the world?

Solemnly, Henry took four scraps of paper and wrote a word on each one: rally, press, school, port. Then he folded each into a smaller square and jumbled them in one hand.

“Do you want to choose first, or shall I?” he asked.

Jensi reached out, took a piece of paper from Henry’s hand.

“Open it,” Henry said.

“You go first,” said Jensi.

Henry closed his eyes, felt around among the pieces of paper, chose one. Together they opened them.
School,
said Henry’s.
Port,
said Jensi’s. Henry reached out, placed his hand on Jensi’s shoulder. “Good luck,” he said, and they both left.

6

Commander Grottor stood at the helm, hands clasped behind his broad back. There was nothing about his stance to suggest that he was anything but relaxed, but within his head the thoughts spun back and forth. He knew altogether too little about the project to be comfortable. He was not sure exactly what he was getting into.

He turned and looked behind him. There on the bridge to one side was a technician named Jane Haley. She was young, fairly fresh out of the academy, but smart and ambitious. He had seen her scores—off the charts—and read the reports on her and chosen her. Indeed, the whole crew was handpicked by Grottor, excellent crew, notable as well for being willing to follow commands to the letter and for their unquestioning loyalty. Though he had chosen Ensign Haley precisely because she was not like that, because she might stand up to him when the others would not.

On the other side of Grottor was Ensign Erik Orthor, a thin and tubercular man who was the only person that Grottor hadn’t chosen as part of his crew. Blackwell had insisted on him, which made Grottor wonder if Blackwell trusted him. He’d done what Blackwell and the two somewhat odd men he’d introduced him to had asked of him, but perhaps Blackwell still had his doubts as to his loyalty. Grottor was a good commander, inflexible in his own way, but smart enough to get out of scrapes when he needed to. And working for Blackwell, he often needed to.

Orthor too was a Unitologist. That was fine—Grottor technically was, too, but in name only. It had been one way up the promotion ladder and he had joined because it was expedient at the time. He didn’t believe in it exactly, but he’d seen enough of the footage and records from Michael Altman’s time to know that there had been power to the Marker. Blackwell, too, he imagined, wasn’t much of a believer, maybe wasn’t even a Unitologist at all, but he saw the potential for power as well. And those others, the ones who went unnamed but seemed really to be the ones in charge—he’d met them only once, but once had been enough.

Yes, he knew too much about the project to be comfortable. He was to locate a planet for a secret facility that would allow for the continuation of the Marker project. What all the specifics of that continuation would be, he didn’t know, but the fact that they wanted to make sure the planet was uncharted, away from the usual trade routes, and far from civilization, told him it wasn’t good. With Blackwell he had chosen several likely planets, but had rejected them one after another. The last on the list they were approaching now. It was one Blackwell had hesitated over for some reason, but had finally said yes, go ahead.

It was listed as uninhabited. No breathable atmosphere, but Earthlike gravity. They had approached it and circled around it, and had been surprised to find signs of life, a small colony of some sort, completely enclosed. It was small enough that he’d almost missed it, but Haley, with her sharp eyes, had caught it. Except for that the planet was perfect. He double-checked—it wasn’t in any records; they were illegals.

“Do we recommend it, sir?” asked Haley.

“No,” said Grottor. A colony, even an illegal colony, wasn’t possible. Who knew what connection they might have to other people in other places, and when someone might come looking for relatives they had down there. No, it wasn’t secure.

“So what do we do, then?” asked Haley.

Grottor shrugged. “We keep looking,” he said.

*   *   *

When the vid sounded, it was one of the two men Blackwell had introduced him to, the one with cruel eyes and grayish skin. He cut right to the point. “I hear you’ve rejected Aspera,” he said. “Care to explain?”

“There’s an uncharted colony there,” said Grottor. “It won’t do.”

The man shook his head. “It’s not a colony,” he said.

“No,” said Grottor. “Then what is it?”

“A containment facility. We have a share in it. Apart from that, Commander, is everything else about the planet up to specification?”

He referred to Haley’s notes, gave a rundown to the man. Yes, everything did seem to be right, everything else was fine.

“Then we’ll move forward,” said the man. “You’re to contact Tim Fischer on Vindauga. He’s one of us, and very discreet. He supervises the shipping for the containment facility. He’ll arrange to have building supplies shipped out, ostensibly for the containment facility, but in actuality for you.” He looked more closely at Grottor. His eyes narrowed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Grottor said.

“You can speak freely,” claimed the man.

“It seems like a risk factor,” Grottor said. “Word of the project could get out through them or the guards in the facility. In addition, there’s the risk of what might happen if the project goes awry and there’s an outbreak.”

“They’re prisoners and they’re in a secret containment facility,” said the man.

“Yes?”

“That means they’re expendable,” the man simply said.

Grottor nodded curtly.

“Besides,” said the man, “we might need human subjects.”

For a moment Grottor was silent. Then “Yes, sir,” he finally replied.

7

No
, thought Jensi on the way over.
The rally’s more likely. I should go there
. But it was only more likely, he realized, if it were he rather than Istvan doing the thinking.
Stick with the plan,
he told himself.

But when he reached the port, he found that the EarthGov ambassador’s arrival was delayed, there having been a problem with the surface skimmer that had met his ship. There was hardly a crowd, only a dozen people, most of them there in an official capacity. He scanned over them quickly looking for Istvan’s face, but wasn’t surprised not to find it.

There was still time, if he hurried, to go to one of the other sites.
Rally or press conference?
he asked himself.
Which one?
Both were roughly in the same direction. He started to run.

He went down the wrong alley and got turned around, routed back in the other direction, but he realized his mistake quickly and worked his way back out. He was running faster by now, but still unsure where he was going. One or the other. Which was closest? The rally, but not by much. He could already hear the sound of it, the echo of the loudspeaker, the words so distorted that he couldn’t begin to make them out. He cut through a back alley and came out on the main avenue, and suddenly there he was, on the fringes of a crowd.

On a platform down near the end of the street, David Vernaglia had just begun to speak, his voice booming from speakers all around the crowd. Jensi pushed his way forward, looking for his brother.

“Now, I wouldn’t say that the current administration is doing a terrible job,” said Vernaglia. “But then again, I don’t have to say it, because you already know it. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

The crowd erupted into applause and shouts. Jensi pushed further in, the people he pushed shoving back, giving him dirty looks. As he got closer, the crowd got tighter. He stood on his tiptoes and tried to peer around, looking for his brother in the sea of faces. It was hopeless—too many people.

Now what?
he wondered.
Did I make the wrong choice?

Vernaglia was still talking, really getting the crowd going now. Vernaglia was, at least, still alive, and the rally hadn’t been interrupted by anyone, which probably meant that this was the wrong place to be. Was there still time to make it over to the press conference?

He pushed his way sideways through the crowd, ignoring the complaints of the people around him. If he could get to the edge, he could go back down the alley he’d come out of and take back streets to the press conference. It was worth a try.

And then he noticed a man in a black suit pushing through the crowd at a little distance behind him, speaking into a headset. Someone official, part of the candidate’s security force probably. Another was there to his left, deeper in the crowd, but wading his way as well.
Maybe my brother’s here after all,
he thought, and glanced around a moment for him before suddenly realizing that, no, it wasn’t Istvan they were moving toward, but him.

Suddenly he realized how he must have looked, pushing his way into the crowd, causing ripples, forcing his way toward the front, then swerving away, going sideways again.

Oh my God,
he thought.
They think I’m a threat.

The man behind was slowly gaining on him. The one to the side was in a thicker part of the crowd, and was having a little more difficulty. If he started pushing and running, Jensi knew, they’d be on him all the more quickly, and people in the crowd would probably start trying to catch hold of him as well. As long as he didn’t panic, didn’t give the game away, he hoped the two security guards would stay at the same pace, trying to slowly gain on him, but not wanting to panic the crowd.

He kept moving roughly sideways, doing his best to follow the quickest, most open path.

And then, suddenly, he saw his chance: a path opening up in two directions and a large, tall man there in front of him. He ducked and scooted around him, striking the man’s left leg as he did so, following the tightest of the path but moving as quickly as he could and as far as he could while still trying not to jar or knock the people in front of them and give his location away. He risked a glance backward and saw that the man he had struck in the knee on the way past had turned and bent to feel his leg, and in so doing effectively blocked the path.

He could only go maybe three meters before the crowd thickened up again, but he hoped that would be enough.

He stayed crouched and hunched over and out of sight for a moment, and then carefully raised his head, peering over the shoulder of the man behind him. He could only see one security guard, but the one he could see was stationary, staring all around him, trying and failing to catch sight of him. Jensi moved just a little and caught sight of the other one. The man had crossed over Jensi’s path without seeing it, was pushing toward the back of the crowd, scanning the people around him carefully but never looking back over his shoulder.

Keeping his head down, Jensi began pushing forward again, more gently this time, trying not to attract the attention of the two security guards. In a few moments he was in a less populated section of the crowd. A few minutes more and he had darted down an alley and was away.

*   *   *

The press conference was only three or four minutes away—the rally must have been set up where it was partly to disrupt it and negate the colonial government’s attempts to smooth things over—but that was enough time for Jensi to realize that there was something he had overlooked, that maybe there had been a reason to favor the press conference over the other options after all. He remembered the strange moment when his brother and he had come across the children playing near the crack in the dome, daring one another to get close, remembered, too, Istvan’s obsession with the crack and when Istvan had rushed at the crack and struck the dome hard enough with his forehead to bloody it. The press conference was about a crack in a dome. That wasn’t much of a connection, but it was the only connection he’d been able to come up with so far.