The Curve of the Earth

36




The closer they drew to the coast, the foggier it grew, until they were driving in a bubble caused by their own existence. Beyond, there was nothing, and the rest of the world could have ceased to be. Almost.

[Sasha. What do you propose we do?]

“I don’t know. Someone must have come up with a good idea.” Petrovitch followed Avaiq down the frozen river towards the sea, behind but not directly so because of the snow that the tracks kicked up.

[There are plenty of suggestions. Some are mutually exclusive. Others could be joined together to form a more-or-less coherent strategy. But there is no unanimity. On a decision as momentous as this, we should reach a broad consensus rather than a simple majority.]

“So give me a rundown of the factions. Not the personalities, just the proposals.”

[The first faction is centred around the idea that we should keep this discovery secret.]

“We don’t keep secrets. In fact, we’re in this pizdets because the Yanks wanted to keep it secret.”

[A point that is not lost on the plan’s advocates. However, they suggest that the secrecy only lasts as long as you and Lucy are within the borders of the United States. Once you have been successfully extracted, along with whatever artefacts Lucy has been able to retrieve, we will make an announcement. By maintaining our silence, they believe the Americans will be fooled into thinking you have died.]

“That has its merits. Next.”

[Another faction believes we should use distraction to cover your escape, most likely by launching a massive information war on key US infrastructure targets, perhaps aided by the Chinese, in the hope that they will be too busy firefighting those to track you down. I have pointed out that not only is the result in doubt, but the methods used in the Jihad attack on SkyShield depended on careful planning, an unsuspecting target and the preplanting of code. Still, people remember the success while not appreciating the level of difficulty.]

“It also gives the game away that Lucy’s still around. We’re smarter than that. Who else?”

[The third faction supports full and total disclosure of all the data we have gathered so far, and the release of more as and when we are in a position to disseminate it. They believe that by neutralising the secrecy element, we disarm the Americans’ need to silence either you or Lucy – your deaths would become counterproductive to their cause.]

“That’s hardly a comfort to me if they do it out of spite. I die, Lucy dies, and all the evidence ends up locked in a crate in Area Fifty-One.” Petrovitch considered all the plans. Each one held out the promise of escape, but none of them were foolproof. The variables, the uncertainty involved: none of them were brilliant.

[So the Silence faction and the Open faction are in conflict. Each is attempting to enlist supporters of the Attack faction, but the Open faction hold the ultimate veto. While I can block their Freezone-based discussions from entering the infosphere at large, I cannot prevent any of them from simply talking to another human being. Not all of the Freezone is on the island of Ireland. It is only a matter of time before the news leaks, in a haphazard, partial, and uncontrolled way.]

Petrovitch drove on. He guessed where Avaiq was taking him: to the spot where the video had been made. There had been some sort of camp there. Which begged the question, why hadn’t it been found?

[Sasha?]

“I’m thinking. I’m cold, I’m hungry, bits of me are dropping off, I’ve been blown up and shot at, I’m pissed off and I have to help decide the fate of the planet and everyone on it. I’d like a few moments.”

He realised he was still totally at the mercy of the Americans. If they could find him, they could finish him. Newcomen was right: there’d be no evidence, just a lot of dismissible crazy talk.

So what was important was the evidence. Get that out, whatever it was, and they’d be over the worst. Yes, they could all still die, but that was the point of the Open faction’s argument. Death wouldn’t matter if the story lived on.

Petrovitch nearly fell off the snowmobile. He slowed down to stop his uncontrolled wobble, and ended up sideways to the river. Avaiq, swaddled up against the freezing wind and with the noise of the engine in his ears, failed to notice. He disappeared into the fog, though the sound of him was clear enough.

“Yobany stos,” said Petrovitch. “I need to talk to First Vice Premier Zhao.”

[He is still at home.]

“I don’t care if he’s hang-gliding off Everest. He’s my go- to man.”

[Sasha, you are not authorised to do any deals with the Chinese. There will have to be, at the very least, an ad-hoc. Possibly more.]

“We don’t have the time.”

[We have to make the time.]

“You know what the Chinese are like! They’ll take for ever to come to a decision if we do this through the usual channels. I want to talk to Zhao and make an offer in person. They can change. They can be flexible – remember, Zhao called me.”

[The choice is not yours.]

“Well, it should be.”

[Every time you rail against having to consult someone else about a course of action that affects the Freezone as a whole and not just you, I have to remind you that you designed the decisionmaking process, you consciously and deliberately eschewed any special exception for yourself, and you told me that if you were to ever change your mind, I was to have you shot.]

Petrovitch hit the handlebars with both fists. “Bastard.”

[Me? Or you?]

“Both of us.”

[Shall I convene an ad-hoc while you explain your idea?]

“Yeah. Okay.” He reluctantly returned to the business of guiding his snowmobile over the ruts and runnels of the river ice. “All three factions have something, but on their own, it’s not enough. And you’re right, we have to make a decision now, or simply by default a decision will be made for us.”

[Your proposal, Sasha. The ad-hoc is waiting.]

“We’ll skip the introductions, if that’s okay.” He could see them, though. Moltzman was one of them, which was both good and bad, because he wouldn’t give Petrovitch an easy ride. “The problem is getting out of Alaska, alive, with the artefact that Lucy has. It’s two hundred and eighty kilometres to the Canadian border, and the Americans will stop at nothing to prevent us from getting there. What I want to do is sell a share of the artefact. To the Chinese. For a dollar. Are you with me so far?”

[Sight unseen.]

“Yeah, that. Look, we’re flogging half of an alien doohickey for less than a six-pack of cheap beer. The price isn’t important. What it actually is isn’t important either. We could end up with a wiring loom with none of the stuff it attaches to. We could have the equivalent of the entire ship’s memory. What is important is that we get it out of the country.”

Moltzman leaned in close to his camera. “How far away are you from Lucy? Because you’ll have pictures soon enough. Why not wait?”

“Because then we’ll know what it is we’re selling, and they’ll know what it is they’re buying. I don’t want to run the risk of having to ask Zhao if he wants to buy a pile of melted crap that could have come from anywhere. He commits his government to the purchase now, while neither of us have a clue what it is.”

Then O’Malley, a repatriated Irishman, extended his forefinger from his big fist and shook it at Petrovitch. “We don’t actually own this whatever-it-is, do we now? So how can we be selling it?”

[Technically, Lucy Petrovitch has a claim of ownership, since she found the material abandoned. There is no immediate prospect of finding the original owner.]

“Isn’t there some law about things that fall from space?”

[I have made a brief overview of Alaskan state law within title thirty-four, chapter forty-five, and I can see no reason why she does not have a valid claim. Certainly she must register her find, but not until the first of November of this year.]

“But,” argued O’Malley, “won’t the government just say it’s theirs?”

[They indisputably will. But they have no basis in law to do so. The law of treasure trove does not apply, Alaska does not escheat abandoned vehicles, and she was not trespassing on the land where the artefact was found.]

“So it is the girl’s?”

[Yes.]

“Just not the Freezone’s.”

[The concept of individual versus corporate ownership temporarily escaped me. Apologies.]

There was a deep and profound silence. After a while, the youngest member of the ad-hoc found the courage to speak up. “We shouldn’t make a decision without Lucy.” Her brown skin flushed darker with embarrassment, and she lowered her gaze. “I mean, I know you’re Sam Petrovitch, and you know we all love you. But… you need to ask her. Sorry.”

Moltzman gave a frown that threatened to obscure his eyes completely. “I’m sorry too, Doctor. I move we suspend this ad-hoc. Lucy Petrovitch needs to makes the request, not her father.”

“Pizdets,” hissed Petrovitch, and the ad-hoc voted to disband.

[I still maintain the capacity to be surprised by humans.]

“Surprised?Yobany stos, we needed to set this up now. We can’t wait.”

[And yet wait we must. Lucy’s rights as finder cannot be violated simply because you find it expedient. The Freezone holds much in common for its members, yet we still maintain a separation between communal and personal property. She can gift the artefact to whoever she wishes; it is her choice.]

“Why the huy did she have to grow up?” Petrovitch gunned the motor on the snowmobile and started chasing Avaiq in earnest.

[I understand that is a common complaint that fathers have against their daughters. Sasha, you have brought her up well. She is intelligent, wise, fearless and kind.]

“Yeah, all those things despite me. She’s going to do something stupid: I can feel it in what’s left of my bones.”

Avaiq’s skidoo appeared out of the fog bank, parked up on the east side of the river. He was no longer on it. Petrovitch slowed down and coasted to a halt next to it. A single set of footprints led away.

Grabbing his bag, Petrovitch followed the trail across the snow. He felt his heart spin faster, his feet pick up pace in sympathy. Everything suddenly hurt less.

“Lucy? Lucy?”

Out of the fog came a single word.

“Sam?”

Then there she was. Whip-thin despite the swaddling of coats and blankets, her face translucent-pale, her eyes dark and heavy. But she seemed to have all her limbs, and her head.

He dropped his bag and they stumbled towards each other. Even though she was fractionally taller than him, he caught her up and crushed her to him.

“Hey, Dad,” she said.

“Hey.” She smelled of her, of short-term panic and week-long fear, unwashed and unkempt. “You’ll never guess what.”

“Part of an alien spaceship crash-landed close to the research station, while a decaying fusion drive knocked out electronics for tens of kilometres. You opened it up and took something vital. You then hid out here until either I came to get you or the Americans found you and killed you.” He looked over her shoulder. “Where is here, exactly?”

She pushed him away. “How did you know? How could you have possibly known?”

“Some people think I’m quite smart.” He kept on looking for some sort of shelter or structure, but couldn’t see anything that might resemble one. Avaiq’s dark shape appeared, and stood a way off. Petrovitch flipped to infrared: deep blue but for the people and the snowmobiles.

“I would have thought you’d have said it was the Chinese.”

“Yeah, that was so this morning. You have to move fast to keep up.” He reached out for her and gave her a rattling shake. Nothing fell off. “You okay?”

“If I have to eat another tin of lukewarm beans, I’m going to hurl. I’m tired, cold, stir-crazy, and I’ve spent the best part of two weeks wondering where the hell you were. What took you so long?”

“You hide pretty well, and Avaiq wasn’t exactly advertising where you were,” he said. “Where is it, then?”

“Back in the igloo. Come on.” She walked towards where Avaiq was, stopping to look back at Petrovitch. “You’re limping.”

“I jumped from a plane. A flying, burning plane. Doesn’t matter.”

She took him at face value. “Okay.”

“I blew stuff up, too. And we jihaded some teletroopers. That was fun.”

“It doesn’t sound like they made it easy for you.”

“Quite the opposite. They did everything to make sure I could find you. But they were playing a different game, one that ended with you and me eaten by bears.”

“And you decided not to go along with it?”

“I never liked rules, did I?”

There was a small hill, a flattish mound some two metres tall. It had a slit at its base, just wide enough to crawl through. It was impossible to see, even when right up close: someone could walk over it and never even notice it was there.

“There,” said Lucy. “What d’you think?”

“Not too shabby. I take it you added the thermal blanket.”

“Snow,” she said. “It’s called snow.”

“Yeah. But you wanted to make yourself invisible to infrared.”

“It took three of us half a day,” said Avaiq. “At least it seems to have worked.”

“Speaking of which, what happened to Dog-team Guy?”

“Inuuk. He’s one of my uncles. He tries to live the old ways. Hunting, fishing. Works a sled team. He can’t do it any more: it’s the weather, the animals, the community – everything he knew is now wrong, so I help him out. That’s what I was doing here, taking him supplies. He,” and Avaiq looked away. “The weird shit doesn’t scare him. He says he’s seen all kinds of things out here alone, on the Slope, in the winter. Yet when we – him, me, your daughter – managed to get the hatch open and this clear Jell-O just pours out? It was all I could do to stop him from running off into the night.”

“Like the gel inside impact armour,” said Lucy. “It looked, you know…”

“Wrong?” offered Petrovitch.

“Very.”

“So after we got back here and made her safe, he took off. Towards Barrow. He dragged me and the skidoo back to Deadhorse and didn’t stop. I guess he didn’t want to hang around any longer than he had to.” Avaiq looked glum. “I don’t know where he is. Alive, dead, I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything either way.”

“No radio?”

“Broken. Worked before, didn’t work after. He wouldn’t have used it if he could. He knew we were in the shit.” Avaiq looked at Lucy. “You told him yet?”

“I thought he should see for himself.”

“Yeah, okay: if you’re trying to get my attention, trust me, it’s all I can do to hold myself back.” Petrovitch eyed the entrance.

“Come on in, then. We’ve been out in the open long enough already.” She lay belly-down in the snow and reached inside the tunnel, pulling herself inside in stages. First her shoulders, then to her waist, then everything down to her knees. Her heels disappeared, and Petrovitch and Avaiq both indicated the other should go next.

“You first,” said the Inuit. “I’ve seen it. Creeps me out enough to know I’m not in a hurry to see it again.”

Petrovitch lowered himself until his cheek was pressed against the cold whiteness of the ground. He pushed his bag ahead of him, and a hand reached out to grab the handles. Then, like Lucy, he dragged himself forward.