The Meek Read online

  “Valentini, I want you to give Claire Dubeau, GK 5, access to anything she needs on the CW. You will assist her with any communications or observations she needs, and connect her to any of the Belt’s deep-space tracking installations.” Axworthy nodded at Claire. “Go ahead.”

  Over the next fifteen minutes Claire sent and received messages from a variety of space-based observatories in the Belt and fed the data into the GK navigational program. When she was done, and the new figures for Ceres’s orbital trajectory appeared on the screen, she looked at both Cody and Axworthy with wide concerned eyes. Cody peered over Claire’s shoulder at the graphics inset, a diagram of the four inner planets, their positions, their paths, and a forty-day projection, Mars and Venus losing ground to Earth, Mercury cycling halfway around the sun ahead of Earth on its quick 88-day orbit. Ceres’s new orbit, in green overlay, reminded Cody of the cellophane, Buster’s orbital trajectories, Lulu’s dream-projection of the moss-hung amphitheater, Buster’s odd singing.

  Claire said, “Ceres has decreased speed to 160,000 kilometers per hour.” She double-checked the figures to make sure she was right. “She’s in orbital decay, sinking sunward. You can see on this forty-day projection that in five and a half weeks Ceres will pass within a hundred thousand kilometers of Earth.” She looked at Axworthy. “I guess Cody’s right. The silos are really thrusters. And it looks like we’re headed for Earth.”

  * * *

  “They want us on standby,” Axworthy said to Cody. “They’re in emergency session right now and they should have an answer for us soon.”

  “Did they give you any indication of the way things might go?” asked Cody.

  Axworthy shook his head. “No. But you have to remember, well over half the members fought in the Civil Action here thirty years ago. They see the Meek’s orbital maneuvering as a deliberate escalation. They see it as a belligerent rejection of their generous offer to subsidize the Meek’s exodus to Charon.”

  Cody sighed, disheartened by the way the whole thing was getting out of hand.

  “Why would they threaten Earth?” he asked.

  “Because they have the capability. Because this is what Buster meant when he said Ceres was a means to an end.”

  “Buster himself told me they have no offensive weapons. They live in a culture of peace and cooperation now.”

  “Buster’s a liar. I don’t think they’re going to Earth for a holiday, do you? Fourteen of those silos are still armed.”

  “What do you think Council will do?”

  Axworthy took a slow meditative sip of his coffee. “I think they’ll give him another chance.”

  “You do?” Cody felt suddenly hopeful.

  “They’ll look into possible firing sequences for the remaining silos, try to devise a sequence that will lift Ceres back to its traditional orbit, then ask Buster to initiate that firing sequence. If the Meek are able to do this, Council will probably offer them another chance at Charon. The Council members aren’t unreasonable. They’ll exhaust all diplomatic measures before they resort to something firmer.”

  “Should I talk to Buster?”

  “No. I’m going to send Lulu.”

  “Lulu?”

  “Why keep her detained?” asked Axworthy. “I think we’ve gotten everything we can get out of her, and she can deliver to Buster whatever decision the Council finally makes. I just hope Buster knows what he’s doing. I hope he realizes he doesn’t stand a chance. He still has the opportunity to make amends. But he’s going to have to address this orbital decay, I’m sure of it. That will be Council’s first demand. If he doesn’t, I imagine we’ll be asked to storm the silos. We can rig our own firing systems to the silos. We’re devising special suits up in the Conrad Wilson right now that will protect us against the ricin and this demolecularizer. I’m sure we can find a way to make the silos lift Ceres back into its proper place. But there’ll be a lot less bloodshed if Buster does it for us.”

  “The Council won’t order another bioextermination, will it?” said Cody. “There are 620,000 people here.”

  “The Council will do whatever it takes to get Ceres back. And if that means using the Conrad Wilson strategically, well, then … I’ll have to follow orders. And since the asteroid is in orbital decay they’ll have to make their decision soon. The Conrad Wilson can stay only so long before she’ll have to pull away.”

  “How long?” asked Cody.

  “About thirty hours. Council’s asked all nonessential personnel to be evacuated to the Conrad Wilson within the next twelve. Like I told you before, I’m going to need eighteen of my own men. I’d like to conscript two of yours, over and above the crew you’re going to need to keep here. Claire, because she’s an ace programmer and we might need her. And Dr. Rudnick, because … well, with the death of Dr. Minks …”

  “I understand,” said Cody.

  CHAPTER 16

  Cody should have been sleeping right now. But he couldn’t. He kept thinking of the children flying over the river. Lulu stared at him with growing apprehension. He knew she could feel all his misgivings. He was concerned about the Council’s final ultimatum—whatever that ultimatum might turn out to be—the one that Lulu would deliver to Buster once Vesta City made up its mind. Would the Meek be able to restore the asteroid’s orbit now if that’s what the Council should ask? And would they finally concede if they were offered a second chance to go to Charon? Would Council even offer them a second chance? Or would it simply go ahead and order another bioextermination? Seven hours since he had spoken to Axworthy, and not a word from Council yet.

  Crew slept around them in the bunkroom. Eight hours of sleep, then one more shift working on the emergency shelter, then the landers would come for the nonessential personnel. Axworthy wanted at least a skeleton crew working on the emergency shelter, patching whatever nano-putty holes remained in case his recruits should need the shelter as their first fallback.

  Cody glanced out the doorway into the control room. Azim sat at the tracking console. Axworthy stood behind him looking down at the screen. Something wrong again? Buster chipping away at life support? Undermining the automated defense? Surprising Axworthy yet again? Azim kept switching modes, muttering commands into the voice-activated interface. Bruder stared at Cody from a chair just outside the door, kept patting the grip of his sidearm in a taunting fashion. Cody turned away from him.

  Lulu reached up and put her hand on his cheek. She looked into his eyes and he felt her great loneliness. I can’t hear anybody, Cody. He stroked her albino-white hair with his hand. She said: This is what it must have been like for Buster at the beginning.

  He said: They’ve killed all the marrow in Newton.

  She said: I can hardly hear you.

  He nodded. She lifted some lichen from a bowl, chewed it for a while, then pulled him near. They kissed. Only this time it wasn’t a kiss of communication. He felt her desire. It enveloped him like a warm cloud. He hadn’t slept with a woman since Christine had died. He was a widower, and, yes, that made a difference; he had Christine’s memory to think about. Only now, kissing Lulu like this, the habit of his self-imposed celibacy seemed to melt away. Lulu’s desire infected him like a good dream come true. His desire, through the medium of the marrow, stoked her, and the two of them worked in tandem to ignite the whole thing, like fire feeding fire. An empathic sexuality, where desire was doubled because he couldn’t help feeling his partner’s passion. He placed his hand on her small perfect breast, amazed, astonished, and frightened that this strange blue woman should at last open the floodgates. She reached down and stroked his thigh. He heard Bruder shift. He turned around.

  Bruder.

  Watching them.

  He had just about had enough of Bruder.

  Bruder sat there grinning at them in a mean way, stroked the grip of his sidearm once more, then formed his hand into the shape of a gun. He pretended to shoot, all the while keeping the mean grin on his face. This was more than Cody could stand.

&
nbsp; He got up, walked over to Bruder, grabbed him by the front of his uniform, and shook him.

  “Do you have something to say?” demanded Cody.

  Bruder’s face turned red. “No … no, I …”

  Still clutching the front of Bruder’s uniform, Cody yanked the man to his feet and shoved him against the wall. “If I so much as find you looking at Lulu again, or threatening her in any way, I’m going to turn your face into mush.”

  “I just …” He could tell Bruder wanted to respond with force, but knew Bruder wouldn’t dare in the face of possible reprimand from Axworthy.

  Cody let him go. He didn’t like confrontations, but he saw Bruder was the kind of man who understood things best through confrontations. Sensed Bruder’s surprise, his anger, his frustration at not being able to respond. Cody stared at him hard.

  “I’ll be watching you, son,” he said.

  Cody found both Axworthy and Azim looking at him. Axworthy was obviously annoyed, but otherwise didn’t say anything.

  “Cody, come here and have a look at this,” said Axworthy.

  Cody walked over, trying to calm himself, letting the harsh energy of his anger drain away, and looked at Azim’s screen.

  The microgen tracking screen, only an hour ago registering every single Meek, now had only a few specks of green left—and those few were blinking off one by one.

  “When you delivered our counterproposal to Buster, did he mention our tracking microgen?” asked Axworthy. “Could you sense it in his thoughts at all?”

  “No.”

  They watched six more green dots go out. “Because the tracking microgen is one of our key defenses,” said Axworthy. “Without it the antipersonnel emplacements are useless. Somehow they’ve found a cure for our tracking microgen. I don’t see how that’s possible since it takes its blueprint from a virus.”

  Superscience, thought Cody. He respected more than ever the resourcefulness of the Meek.

  More green dots blinked off.

  Finally the screen was clear. No tracking microgens left at all. Axworthy shook his head.

  “They can overwhelm us any time they like now,” he said. Axworthy looked ashen, truly shaken by the turn of events. “We won’t be able to target them as effectively. About the most we can do now is draw a tighter perimeter, send out more scouting robots, and try to hang on until reinforcements arrive.” He looked at Cody, gave him a tired grin. “They were always smart, Cody. That’s what I remember about them. They were always practical and inventive. You think you have them, but then they turn around and do something that puts you on the defensive. They’re formidable. They’re resilient. Too bad they don’t have more common sense.”

  Cody worked on airlock 6 of the emergency shelter the next day. Deirdre held a strip of dura-seal into the groove while Cody screwed it into place. Through the doorway and into the main auditorium and mess hall Cody saw the Conrad Wilson‘s oxygen pod, a pressurized sphere, the old piece of equipment Axworthy had promised. Cody wasn’t even sure they made them anymore. When he thought of oxygen pods he thought of the nineties. They were from a bygone era, lifeboats to be used in the unlikely event of a prolonged pressure wall breach. Prolonged pressure wall breaches didn’t happen these days, not since the introduction of his own insta-seal.

  It looked like an antique diving bell, such as they used on Earth and Europa for undersea exploration, had round porthole-like windows, an oval pressure door made of riveted steel, with an antenna and a small satellite dish on top. He liked old equipment. He liked to see how workmen from other decades, other centuries, put things together.

  “That just about does it for this side,” said Deirdre. “Do you want to test it?”

  He looked at Deirdre, and saw a shy grin come to her face.

  “Sure,” he said. “Thanks for staying on, Deirdre. You’re one of the best.”

  She shrugged, looked away. But then her eyes narrowed and her face grew solemn. “It doesn’t look good for the Meek, does it?”

  He paused. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”

  They gazed into each other’s eyes, groping for a better understanding. He wasn’t sure what passed between them as they stood facing each other but it was as if Deirdre had been rendered afresh to him; there was a new depth to her green eyes that spoke of silent struggles, an easier bearing in the way she carried herself, as if whatever existed between them had made her stronger. He exhaled, relieved, surprised and glad to feel a new fondness for her. He turned to the street.

  “The marrow is coming back,” he said. He pointed to a patch in the crevice by the curb. Talking just because he liked talking to her. Enjoying her company.

  “It grows fast,” she said.

  He could sense it. Friends. Nothing more. No love, or at least only the love friends feel for each other. He put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a comradely shake. No romance. No sex. Crewmates. Working together. He liked that.

  Deirdre had a passing thought of Lulu, and Cody sensed it. Her expression changed yet again; her eyes grew searching, her lips pursed inquisitively, and she looked as if she were on the verge of a breakthrough of some sort. He felt the residual recoding of the Meek still within her, and impressions passed between them—feelings, thoughts, images. An image of Lulu. Of Lulu accepting some marrow from Deirdre. Of two women, from different worlds and cultures, from different genetic brews, making peace with each other.

  “You can sense that?” asked Deirdre.

  “I can,” he said.

  “We’ve talked,” said Deirdre. “We’ve kissed.”

  Cody nodded. “I’m glad,” he said.

  “She really loves you,” she said.

  Cody knew this but was still a little overwhelmed, still had mixed feelings about it all. Because of Christine. He had nothing to say to Deirdre, but he was grateful for her interest and concern. He lifted the Thermos and poured coffee for her. She took it with a grin.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “You look cold.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  They got back to work.

  They were just setting up the equipment to check the seal on the airlock when Cody’s legs grew weak. The Meek. He could sense them. He felt as if he were standing in a strong current again, like that first time, and that it was about to wash him away. He looked at Deirdre and he felt as if he were seeing her from the wrong end of a telescope. She gazed at him in alarm and he could tell the recoding wasn’t strong enough in her for her to sense what he was sensing.

  “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  He closed his eyes, put his hand against the wall to steady himself. He felt Deirdre’s hand on his shoulder. A thousand chaotic aromas filled his mind. They were coming. He could sense them all around, seething with the same objective. They were coming to free Lulu. Even before Axworthy had a chance to let her deliver the Council’s decision.

  “Cody?” said Deirdre.

  He put his hands over his ears and looked up at her, thankful she was here. Seven of them streaked by. Then another three. Deirdre turned, alarmed. Another five loped by. Their thoughts clamored in his mind. Deirdre clutched Cody by the arm and guided him into the airlock recess. He felt the Meek, felt anger feeding anger. Several more ran by, all of them toward the VDF bunker. He felt old resentments feeding old resentments. He heard the bunker alarm sound. A whole pack of them ran by.

  He moved out of the recess.

  “Cody, please,” said Deirdre.

  He looked down the street. Odd to see such a crowd of them all in one place, at least a hundred or more, all blue, all armed with knives, all silent. No war cries, no protests, none of the expected din a normal human mob would make. It reminded him of the photograph in Ptolemy Square, when they’d come to kill civilians during the war. Their anger was like a tidal wave in his mind. They swarmed the bunker like an angry bunch of bees, pelted it with nano-putty. The bunker began to steam and hiss, melting like a block of butter on a hot day. Security
officers came out and fired laser rifles into the crowd but killed only a few Meek before they themselves were attacked. A couple of Meek slit their throats, then stabbed them repeatedly. It’s always overkill with them. Cody saw Buster. And as if Buster sensed his presence, the old warrior turned his way. He looked down Rhenium Lane and narrowed his eyes, eyes that now looked as if they had black greasepaint around them. In fact, they all had black greasepaint around their eyes. Cody sensed from Buster that he wanted Lulu back, that before the battle was joined he had to get her into his own camp.

  Buster turned away, shutting him out, then smoothed nano-putty over the side of the bunker and waited. Other Meek sabotaged supplies while Buster’s nano-putty ate away the wall. He gave the wall a good kick and the putty-compromised piece collapsed inward. Then he threw a smoke grenade inside.

  Out in the supply yard Cody heard a hiss. Some of the Meek wrecked the bunker’s oxygen production unit, while others released oxygen from the extra tanks. Deirdre came and stood beside him. He sensed that she was afraid and put his arm around her to reassure her.

  As the smoke from the grenade cleared, Buster and a half dozen others entered the bunker.

  Cody saw Axworthy, Azim, Bruder, and some of the other security recruits stagger out of what was left of the bunker, coughing, their eyes wet with tears from the caustic smoke. The smoke didn’t affect any of the Meek at all. Several of them ran away with supplies, foodstuffs, and oxygen tanks. Someone flicked on the floodlights but this time the Meek didn’t run around blindly, weren’t affected one way or the other—the new greasepaint around their eyes seemed to diminish the effect of bright lights. Buster came out of the bunker and surveyed the scene dispassionately, turning his head this way and that, taking it all in, looking as if he had stepped into an old memory. Lulu came out behind him, stumbling a bit for having been restrained so long, but now free, now out of shackles. She paused, searched the square, squinting against the bright lights. She picked him out down Rhenium Lane, stared at him with her big violet eyes. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He knew how she felt. He felt the exact same way. They didn’t want to part. Buster grabbed her by the hand and yanked her off into the darkness of Isosceles Boulevard, as if he had the inalienable right to take her anywhere he pleased. She took one last glance backward. Cody didn’t know whether she was going willingly or was being coerced. She seemed dazed. He took a few steps toward her, but, disoriented by all the emanations, he stumbled. Deirdre steadied him. When he looked down Isosceles Boulevard once again he saw that they were gone, all the Meek. The darkness had swallowed them up.