Rich Man's Sky Page 28

  “That sounds very romantic,” said Fernanda.

  “Not as much as you’d think,” Lawrence grumbled. Then, ashamed of his greed and sloth and general ingratitude, added, “It’s beautiful, but there isn’t a soul in sight, and this vacuum-sealed window behind me would freeze my hand off if I held it there on the glass long enough. It’s quite a deadly environment. Like yours, I suppose.

  “Now, Michael, I assume you’ve figured out this isn’t a social call. I’m sorry to tell you, your boss isn’t coming on the next rocket, or rather if he is, I don’t know when that will be. I can offer you my sincerest apologies about this, but the circumstances are very much beyond our control.”

  “I had heard this, yes,” said Michael. “We try to cultivate some distance from the affairs of the world, but the big news gets through. We know about the blockade, and our dear abbot has already figured the implications, and made arrangements to remain for a time on Earth.”

  Lawrence grimaced at the mention of that word: abbot. He knew enough about monasteries to know that for one to operate without an abbot was a big deal in a bad way, and he was the one who’d insisted on having the three most qualified men go on ahead to prepare the way. Yes, and the eight most qualified after them, so Father Bertram Meagher needn’t strain his back setting up a goddamn moonbase. It made him miss Rosalyn that much more, because she’d surely have insisted on a plan more pious, less space-man practical, and the St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery would have its head in place already.

  “We don’t even know why the blockade is happening,” he said, “which makes it impossible to know how long it will last. Believe me, it’s a problem for all of us.”

  “I’d gathered,” said Michael. “And since there’s apparently nothing you did to bring it on, there’s presumably nothing you can do to end it. Which means an apology is unnecessary and inappropriate, and I therefore gratefully decline to accept yours.”

  “We’re looking at other launch options,” Fernanda said, and it wasn’t clear to Lawrence if she were speaking to him, or Michael, or both. “We think we can get access at most U.S. and Russian launch sites, but there’s a substantial backlog, and their throughputs are quite low compared to Suriname. It’s a lot of red tape, but we’re working through it.”

  Lawrence nodded. It wasn’t like the Surinamese were dumping rocket fuel in the ocean or working the launch pads with child labor, and yet they somehow got things done. There was a hustle-bustle about them that many other parts of the world simply lacked. Which was fine, as long as those other parts didn’t use their military might to obliterate the advantage.

  “It’s going to be a while,” he said to Michael, “No matter what. And whether or not you accept my apology or not, I am sorry this is happening. We were shipping, what, seven more people, in addition to Father Meagher? If you’re shorthanded, we can try to share some personnel from Shackleton.”

  Fernanda looked alarmed at that, because she was also shorthanded, but Brother Michael quickly answered, “We’re doing fine with what we have, sir. St. Joseph is intended, among other things, to serve as an educational institution, and some of the upcoming placements are in service of that goal. Right now we’re still grubbing in the dirt, and won’t miss a few eggheads or zealots more or fewer. Honestly, it’s fine. There’s a lot to figure out, and we’re patient people by inclination and training.”

  “You’re too kind,” Lawrence said, meaning it. “Are you comfortable enough in your facilities? Are things going well, other than the obvious?”

  “God is everywhere,” Michael answered, somewhat cryptically. “He was on the Moon long before us, and will be here long after. He is the entire universe, peering back at us from every point and vantage. What can we possibly add to that kind of glory? Are you asking if the beds are comfortable? They are, and with the new, taller modules we no longer bang our heads on the ceiling. And the synthesizers all work, and so does the 3D printer. If this embargo could starve us out, it would only prove we were never adequate to the task of moon habitation in the first place. Sir, you have equipped us well, and I am content. Let the future bring whatever it may.”

  4.6

  25 April

  ✧

  Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot

  Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 1

  Cislunar Space

  Grigory found Dona Obata in what passed for the station’s observation lounge: a grouping of four portholes on either side of the bay doors of the pressurized hangar, looking down at the crescent Earth. The night side of the planet was aglow with cities, so bright that they could be seen against the glare beside them—the daylit sliver of ocean and clouds. There were grab bars here, clustered around the windows, and a good deal of open space for acrobatics or just simply lounging around. In off hours and odd moments, most of the crew came down here to look at the continents rotating slowly, once per day, 323,050 kilometers straight below. And to watch the Sun’s shadow creep more slowly across the spinning globe, completing a cycle every twenty-eight days.

  On the station’s opposite end was the gym, whose single porthole looked out on the Moon, but that had never enjoyed even a tenth as much tourism. The Moon was a lot less interesting to look at, and uninhabited across most of its face, and more importantly it was not home. Even among the elite of the elite of space workers, homesickness was a major health condition, for which medication was common, and for which staring downward was the only real relief. Grigory hadn’t felt much of that himself—he owned seven homes on Earth, and he moved between them freely, and also between hotels in other cities. It had been that way for his entire life, since before he was old enough to speak, and so he’d never really developed a strong anchoring to any single location. He did miss his mother and sister sometimes, but it was easier to bring them to him, wherever he was, than to travel all the way to Minsk to see them. Minsk wasn’t “home,” either, and he didn’t miss it.

  But still, he knew the signs of homesickness when he saw them, and if he had to bet, he’d lay good money down that Obata, however hard she might seem and however hard she might be, was suffering from it now.

  “What are you pining for?” he asked her, coming up from behind and grabbing a rail next to her.

  “Africa,” she said.

  “Not Paris?”

  She shook her head. “I never lived in Paris. For most of the time I was in le Commandement des Opérations Spéciales, I technically operated out of the Grenoble office, in the French Alps. But I was never there long enough to feel like I belonged. What I miss is Brazzaville, on the east bank of the Congo river, across from Gombe and Kinshasa.”

  “Democratic Republic of the Congo,” he said, attempting warmth.

  “No, Republic of the Congo, not Democratic Republic. It’s two different countries.” She sounded miffed, like this was a thing she was tired of explaining, and tired of being tired of.

  “Ah. Forgive my ignorance, please. There are many countries in Africa, and I do business only with the northernmost and southernmost among them, ignoring the broad middle. This Brazzaville was your childhood home?”

  She nodded. “A neighborhood called Poto-Poto, almost middle class. We had enough to eat, and shoes. And clothing and school uniforms and secondhand electronics. I had a normal childhood, I think, if such a thing exists. I paid attention in school, and I loved fishing, though I rarely got to do it.”

  “Mmm. It sounds nice. You left for good reason, though, I presume?”

  Without looking away from the planet below her, she said, “I had the opportunity to attend college in France at no cost to my parents, and there I was recruited into le Commandement des Opérations Spéciales and offered E.U. citizenship. Le Commandement knew what they were doing—they suckered me right in, made me their own creation. I speak seven languages, did you know that? Not Russian very well, as you know. Not Italian or German very well, either, but I’m fluent in French, English, Kikongo and Swahili. I was also raised Catholic, which makes me a kind of speci
alist in the spy business, because it lets me navigate certain countries almost as an insider. Like being a diesel mechanic, instead of simply a mechanic. I know my way around Islam, too, enough to fool any casual inquiry. So even as a French citizen, most of the wet work I did . . . Do you know that term? Wet work?”

  “Mmm,” he acknowledged. “Krovovaya rabota, we say in Russia: blood work. Or dirty work, I suppose. Gryaznaya rabota. I suppose everyone calls it that.”

  “Yes. Everyone does. Anyway, all the gryaznaya rabota I did was in Western and Central Africa. Which is a very big place—bigger than Europe, and nearly as populous. It’s true that I moved to Europe voluntarily, and then came to outer space voluntarily, and worked hard to be able to stay here. Don’t mistake my meaning. But yes, I miss every centimeter of Africa.”

  “Smells? Birdsong? Particular kinds of trees and flowers?”

  “Everything,” she said. “I miss everything. I didn’t feel it much at the Marriott Stars, but of course there you have the Earth turning right under you. It’s not much different than being in an airplane; I mean, the ground looks like the ground. From here, you can’t really see any details. it looks like a globe. I mean, when you can see it at all. It was a nearly full Earth when I got here, but now it’s just this crescent. I don’t think Africa’s even down there right now; I think it’s on the other side.”

  “It is,” he confirmed. “Right now we are over western Pacific. Those lights you see are Japan and Australia. But Africa will be directly under us in twelve hours, if that helps.”

  “It doesn’t, but that’s all right. I’m an adult.”

  That word, adult, made Grigory think of his father, who had never really seen Grigory as one. Nor had Grigory particularly seen himself that way, until Magnus suddenly died one day and left Grigory no choice in the matter. He’d taken over the companies, using everything he’d learned at his father’s elbow, and doing quite well, even if he was just playacting for those first few years. To Dona he said, “My father would tell you to ignore your feelings and do what is numerically best.”

  Still without turning to look at him, she nodded. “That worked out well for him, did it?”

  “Yes. But I’ve done better by not ignoring mine. Feelings are information, from parts of ourselves that have been evolving for billions of years. Feelings sense danger and opportunity long before mathematics does. Ignore them at your peril, I say. We are optimized deep-learning networks, every one of us. Does it surprise you? That I have feelings? I think this homesickness is perhaps our brains telling us we’re not very good yet at building homes in space.”

  Putting her face closer to the window, she fogged it with her breath and said, “Great. That’s great, Orlov. You’d’ve made a fine chaplain.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that, so instead he pressed on with the point he’d come down here to discuss:

  “You should know that your friends, the American and the Kiwi, have arrived at ESL1. We’ve got people monitoring all the Renz Ventures news feeds, and they’re reporting arrival of seven new crew members. Apparently an eighth one remained behind at Transit Point due to some kind of health concern. And you, of course, disappeared. They didn’t mention that part, and the absence of comment tells me they’re concerned, and confused.”

  “Okay.”

  “So. I need you to tell me when and how your friends will strike.”

  “They’re not my friends,” Dona said. “They were agents of competitor countries. Yes, I did know them well enough and like them well enough. They were colleagues, fellow operatives on a mission. But that would not have prevented me from doing to them whatever was necessary. It still doesn’t. If they were friends, I couldn’t act.”

  “Yes, fine,” he said, annoyed by the distinction. By that terminology, he himself had no friends at all. He breathed in deeply through his nose, and then exhaled. The air in here smelled, somehow, like petroleum jelly and sand. “I still need you to tell me what they will do.”

  She shrugged. Still looking out the window, wiping the fogged glass with a sleeve of her uniform. “It was left up to our judgment. Our orders were to spend at least a few days figuring the place out, and then take control, decisively but with minimal loss of life, and minimal equipment damage. ‘Bloodless’ was a stated goal, though not an absolute requirement.”

  “Do they have weapons?”

  Now she did turn and look at him. “Officially, no. And our belongings were analyzed at the launch center.”

  “But?”

  “But anything can be a weapon. And the Americans in particular are good at disguising such things. They do love their guns.”

  He snorted. They did indeed. But this gave him the opportunity to ask something he’d been meaning to ask for days now: “Do you have a gun?”

  Funny, he’d been nervous about asking her this. His heart fluttered when he spoke the words. And it was a strange thing, because he wasn’t afraid of guns, and wasn’t afraid of her. He supposed he was afraid that he might, after all, have to put her out the airlock for her trouble. It was a surprisingly upsetting thought, but yes, there it was. He apparently didn’t want to lose her, this woman who showed no dismay when he spoke his mind. And that was a strange thing, too, but all right.

  “Yes,” she answered, without fear or embarrassment. “I do.”

  “A firearm?”

  “Of a sort, yes.”

  He sighed. “Morozov searched your flight bag when you arrived, and he went over your shuttle in great detail over the next several days. I trust him as much as I trust anyone, and he assured me he found nothing suspicious.”

  “No,” she agreed. “He wouldn’t have.”

  “Are you carrying this weapon right now?”

  “No,” she said, “but I’ll show it to you later. Three shots total; that’s all it’s got. I figured it was one for Bethy, one for Alice, one for Igbal Renz, and then people would start doing whatever I said. But I don’t need a firearm to be dangerous, Grigory.”

  “I know it,” he said. “Nor do I.”

  He pursed his lips, then, and nodded slowly. “Yes, please do show it to me. I think you are aware that some people here are also armed, and also trained killers. Perhaps your instincts can pick them out from the general population. Perhaps you think you can strike first, and neutralize them—neutralize us—but this would be difficult. Quite difficult. I personally would not like to find out how that skirmish goes. For you or for us.”

  It was her turn to nod. “I understand all that, yes. There are dangerous people here, yes. It’s why I’m here. It’s why I belong here. This is one of those cases where violence doesn’t create any solutions. We’re actually on the same side.”

  Stroking his chin, he said to her, “I know you got into my wall safe, Dona. Never mind how I know that, but you needn’t bother denying it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said simply. “Force of habit.”

  He’d wiped the whole thing down the day she got here, inside and out, and yet a week later he’d found her fingerprints all over it, inside and out. No surprise; he’d half expected her to do it, and had given her plenty of opportunity. For some reason he hadn’t bothered to clean the thing out, though, so her getting in there meant, among other things, that she’d seen his firearm, and the box of little shotgun shells it could fire. “Varmint load,” the Americans called it. For killing rats and such. Perfect also for violence on board a space station, where their lack of penetrating power was an asset rather than a liability.

  He told her, “You know, I understand. Truly. It’s in your nature, and I understood your nature the moment we met. But you should know, people here have their habits as well, myself included. You are compromised in any number of ways. You may think you know this. You may even think you have some control over it, but you couldn’t possibly know how all things work here. The danger you’re in, every minute you draw breath. Habits that can be hard to break, yes? No matter the risk or cost. Violence solves nothing for you,
but that does not mean it solves nothing for me, if you cross certain lines.”

  She laughed, wearily. “You always know the right thing to say. Such a charmer, this one.”

  “You think me rude? I have left you rope enough to hang yourself, and simply waited. That is kindness I do not lightly bestow.”

  “I do understand that, yes. I’m also not killing you.” She held up her hands. “See?”

  He sighed. This conversation wasn’t going as intended. He supposed that was a good thing, a fine thing, that there was one person aboard this station who remained unimpressed by his wealth and power, unafraid of the violence he could command. One person with whom he must, apparently, behave genuinely, for she saw through him when he didn’t. But at the end of the day, speaking without bluster was something at which he had no practice.

  He touched his forehead, touched the grab rail in front of him, touched his hair—fidgeting like a schoolboy. “The world is every kind of poison, is it not? But in building new worlds, Dona, we must be careful what we bring with us, and what we leave behind. I have two daughters, did you know? By two different ex-wives. I have little contact with any of them. They don’t fit into the cubbies of my life, so I pay them each a stipend, and otherwise think little about them. I thought perhaps you would want to be told that.”

  It seemed strange at times, that both of those lives were in the past. His life with Albina and Rada, and his life with Darya and Klara. Each had seemed, briefly, like a world unto itself, but they’d moved so easily into the past. They belonged there; they’d each gone badly and ended badly, in their own ways. And yet, at the time, each one had been his present and, seemingly, his future. The way things moved into the hungry past, inexorably and without comment, sometimes worried him, because he knew someday it would all be past, and he would be on his deathbed, with no future at all. And he knew—any idiot knew!—that meant he had to make the most of the present. To live every moment to its fullest. But what exactly did that mean? What did it prescribe? His role was a dangerous one, in a dangerous world. He could no more step away from it than he could step away from life itself. He’d made more than enough enemies, and if they sensed weakness, he was burnt. But still, one had to try.