“It’s the same as the endgame for Equilibrium,” he said. “The end of the Conclave. The end of the Colonial Union. The end to superpowers in our little corner of space. And when it’s all said and done, our group, which acts in the shadows, fades into them forever. And we go back to our worlds.”
“Yes, but you’re dead,” Ake Bae said. “Or at least the Colonial Union thinks so. And it is in your—and our—interest for them to continue to believe so.”
“For now,” Ocampo said.
“And later?” Ake Bae asked.
“Later things will be very different,” Ocampo said.
“You don’t think this will be a problem.”
“I don’t.”
“And you’re sure about this.”
“Nothing is ever certain,” Ocampo said. “But to go back to earlier points in this conversation, after what I’ve done for this group of ours, and for our goals, I think I’ve earned some confidence for my opinions. And my opinion is: No. When all is said and done, this won’t be a problem at all.”
And then they started talking about the mold problem some more.
I came away from this with two thoughts.
One, and again: Ocampo was a real piece of work.
Two, that sob story he told me about humanity and the Colonial Union was a load of crap.
Scratch that—not entirely a load of crap. What he told me was the nice version. The version where he was a selfless martyr for humanity rather than the guy who was planting a bomb in order to profit from the chaos. I had no love for that Ake Bae character, but he or she or it was not wrong. Whatever Ocampo was up to, he was in it for himself as much as, if not more so, than he was for anyone or anything else.
And then there was the third thought: Ocampo’s megalomania, or whatever it was, had already gotten thousands of people killed.
Not only his megalomania. He wasn’t working alone. But he sure seemed to be doing some of the heavy lifting.
And soon, they would want to use me to do more of it.
* * *
And then, like that, it was time.
“We are giving you a mission,” Control said, one morning, or at least during the time of day that I’d been thinking of as morning since I got to the Equilibrium base.
Okay, I thought to Control. That’s good news. What’s the mission?
“We will provide you with a mission brief once you’re near the skip point.”
So two or three days from now, I thought.
“Sooner than that,” Control said. “More along the line of eight of your hours.”
That was an interesting admission. Skip drives, which are how we travel immense distances in space, only engage when space-time is flat enough—that is to say, far away from a gravity well.
By telling me the rough amount of time it would take to get to skip distance, Control was telling me something about where we were. That the base was someplace that had a low mass, not especially close to anything more massive, like a planet or moon.
Basically Control was telling me we were at an asteroid, at a far distance from its star.
Which I knew, but which Control didn’t know I knew. Control never told me.
By telling me now, either Control slipped, or didn’t think it mattered.
Since I knew Control had done this before many times, it didn’t seem likely it was a slip. So Control figured it didn’t matter. And I figured it didn’t matter because either they thought I was well conditioned to respond like they told me, or they didn’t plan on me surviving the mission.
I thought about my armaments—a couple dozen missiles and beefed-up beam systems, perfect for blinding communication systems and incoming missiles. And then I thought about my defensive systems, which hadn’t been substantially upgraded from when the Chandler was a trade ship.
So, yeah. I was betting on the “not coming back” scenario.
All right, I thought. It would at least be helpful to know the general sort of mission it is, however. So I might practice some simulations on the way.
“That won’t be necessary,” Control said. “We prefer you to stay focused on the mission once it starts.”
Understood, I said. Does this mean I’ll have control of the ship to skip distance?
“No,” Control said. “We will control the Chandler for the disembarkation and for a short portion of time thereafter. After which a course will be set. You will have full control after the skip. Until then you are to monitor systems. We will keep a communication channel open so you may alert us if there are any problems.”
The further I get from you the longer the lag will be in our communication, I pointed out. The speed of light still applies.
“We don’t anticipate any problems,” Control said.
You’re the boss, I thought. When do we start?
“Secretary Ocampo has asked us to delay the start of your mission until he can say good-bye to you,” Control said. “As was your request.”
Yes.
“As a courtesy to him, we will allow this. He is currently otherwise engaged. When he’s done, he will travel to you. You will have ten of your minutes to say your farewells. This will happen within the next two hours.”
Understood. Thank you, Control. It means a lot to me.
Control didn’t say anything to this; I could see that it had broken its connection. That was fine.
I had a couple of hours to prepare for my mission.
I prepared.