The Ascension Factor

"You're saying, essentially, that she will accept this duty because of love for humanity. Did she have love in her life? A man? Children?"

Her camera crew was warming to the task. They had not brought a monitor into the tiny space, and now she wished they had. It might be an OK piece, after all.

While staring at this brain behind glass, Beatriz knew that it was alive, a person. She also realized that the tech was surrounded by the squad that had murdered her crew and he probably hadn't the slightest inkling of what had happened.

No one will know if I don't tell them, Beatriz thought. I'm like this brain, cut off but alive inside. I wonder what she dreams?

"I know very little about the person," he said. "It's in the record. I do know that she had a child that was given up for adoption so that she could continue her studies in the kelp outposts."

"Dr. MacIntosh stated two years ago that Organic Mental Cores were crude, cruel, inefficient and unnecessary," she said. "Do you have a comment on that?"

The tech cleared his throat.

"I respect Dr. MacIntosh. He, along with the Director and this OMC, is one of the last survivors of the original flight of the old Earthling - 'Ship,' if you prefer. Yes, it's true that there were failures, and this required some compensation, but those bugs have been worked out."

"For some of our viewers, your term 'compensation' might seem a little cold. The 'compensation' you refer to was the first known creation of an artificial intelligence - one that turned out to be smarter than its creators, one that many believe is the personality 'Ship,' one that most Pandorans still revere as a god. Why did your department pursue the failed course of OMCs, severed living brains, rather than pick up on the artificial intelligence?"

"We were instructed to take this course."

"You were ordered to take this course," she corrected. "Why? Why is the Director more comfortable with failure than with the success that saved his lif... and hers?"

Beatriz pointed to the OMC, wired into her box, deaf, blind and dumb beside her warm, dead host.

"That's enough!"

The captain's voice behind her froze her spine and started her hands trembling. She was stunned silent again while the tech and her crew inspected the deck and their shoes.

"I'll speak with you in the cabin."

She followed him out of the shuttle storage lockers and into the dimly lit passenger cabin.

"I had to stop you," he said. "It is expected of me, no matter what my opinion. Soon there will be no need for deception. Prepare for docking. There will be briefing materials for the next Newsbreak when we get aboard."

Three Orbiter security lounged at the docking bay as the hatch opened from the shuttle. They were ready for the press, for the Holovision cameras, but they weren't ready for Captain Brood. The captain remained inside the hatchway, with Beatriz beside him.

"Three men out there," he said to her in a gentle voice. His eyes held her with that same wild glitter. She tried not to look at his face. "Choose one for yourself. One t... entertain yourself."

She was stunned at the question and his calm, disarming manner. She felt a something rise at the back of her neck, something that she'd felt tingling there before the killing started groundside.

"You want none of them?" he answered for her. "How fickle."

He pulled her aside and signaled the men behind them to fire. In seconds nearly a quarter of the Orbiter's token security force lay dead on the deck.

"Dispose of them through the shuttle airlock," he told his men. "If you kill one in a room, kill all in the room. I don't want to see any bodies. Beatriz will announce that there is a revolt in progress aboard the Orbiter and the Voidship. We've been sent to stop it."

"Why do you do this to me?" Beatriz hissed. "Why do you tell me I have a choice when I don't? You were going to kill them anyway, but you have to include m..."

He waved his hand, a dismissal gesture that she'd long associated with Flattery.

"A diversion," he said. "Part of a gam... but see, you are stronger for it already. It amuses me, and it strengthens you."

"It's torture to me," she said. "I don't want to get stronger. I don't want people to die."

"Everybody dies," he said, motioning his men aboard. "What a waste when they don't die for someone's convenience."

***

Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it.
- Machiavelli, The Prince

Spider Nevi's favorite color was green, he found it peaceful. He jockeyed Flattery's private foil across the green-tinged seas and allowed the plush command couch to soothe the tension out of his back and shoulders. Green was the color of new-growth kelp, and tens of thousands of square kilometers of it stretched out around them as far as the eye could see.

Some sunny days Nevi spun a foil out of moorage just to drift a kelp bed, enjoying the smell of salt water and iodine, the calm of all that green. He didn't like red, it reminded him of work and always seemed so angry. The interior of Flattery's foil was finished in red, upholstered in red. The coffee cup that Zentz handed him was also red.

"What's so special about this Tatoosh woman," Zentz gurgled, "the Director got the hots for her?"

Nevi ignored the question, partly because he wasn't listening, partly because he didn't care. He was about to have his first sip of coffee for the day when the Navcom warning light flicked on. He almost didn't notice it because the light, like everything else, was red. An abrasive warning tone blatted from the console and he started, spilling hot coffee into the lap of his jumpsuit. He doubted that he would have missed that tone if he were comatose. Their foil slowed automatically with the warning.

"Go ahead," he told Zentz, "let's hear it."

Zentz turned up the volume on the Navcom system. Nevi couldn't stand the radio chatter while he was trying to relax, so he'd had Zentz shut it down when they hit open water.

"...ou are approaching a 'no entry' area. Sector eight is disrupted, kelpways not secure. Code your destination and alternate routes will appear on your screen. Be prepared to take on survivors. Repeat - warning, 'code red,' you ar..."

Nevi took the foil down off its step and kept the engines idling.

"Fools!" Nevi muttered. "They were warned to keep her away from the kelp."

"Do you think they're in there? Maybe they made it through befor..." Zentz cut himself off when he saw the anger in Nevi's eyes.

"Get a display up," Nevi ordered, "I want to get a look at this 'disruption.'"

He coded in the private carrier code for Flattery's quarters. The waters around the foil had already gone from choppy to rough, and in the offshore distance Nevi could make out portions of a large sub train bobbing the surface.

"Yes?" It was a female voice, curt.

"Nevi here, get me the Director."

The display that Zentz had been working on spread across their screen. It reminded Nevi of a weather picture of a hurricane - everything on the outside swirling toward the center. But this was kelp, not clouds, and it was happening undersea, almost within sight of their point. He was not happy with the delay from Flattery's office.

The woman's voice came back as curt as the first time.

"The Director is busy, Mr. Nevi, we are in full alert here. Someone blew up one of the outer offices, a security detachment has attacked the Kalaloch power plant and there is some problem with the kelp in sector eigh..."

"I'm in sector eight right now," he said, his voice as even as he could make it. "If he can't talk, get me a direct line to Current Control."

"Current Control has been incommunicado for nearly an hour," she said. "We are attempting to find out the meaning of -"

"I'll keep this frequency open," Nevi snapped. "Get him on the air now!"

Her only response was to close the circuit. Nevi pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, staving off one of his headaches.

"You should've kept her on," Zentz said. "What did she mean, 'A security detachment has attacked the Kalaloch power plant'? We defend the Kalaloch power plant."

"We need to figure out where the Galli woman is and we need to get our hands on her fast," Nevi interrupted. "She's our bargaining chip no matter what's going on." He tapped their Navcom screen with a well-manicured finger and traced the spiral pathway that wound from edge to center.

"I'm guessing she's in there somewhere," he mused, "and anything in there is heading for the center. There isn't time to bring in any hardware. We'll have to chase them down or intercept."

"You mea... follow them in there?" Zentz asked. "What about the attack on the power plant? Something's coming down in the ranks and my men -"

"Your men seem to be undecided about their loyalties," Nevi said. "They can work that out among themselves. But I'll put you out here and radio for a pickup if you'd prefer."

Zentz's massive face paled, then flushed.

"I'm no coward," he said, puffing himself up. "There's just something going down at the Preserve, wher... ."

Flattery's carrier frequency sounded its tone and his voice crackled in their speakers.

"Mr. Nevi, we're having some urgent problems here that need our full attention. What do you want?"

"I want a direct line to Current Control. The kelp out here is going berserk, and if you want the Galli woman we need to straighten it out or knock it down."

"I'm monitoring their actions," Flattery said. "They've applied full power to that sector and the subs have all surfaced. Things here are getting sticky. A bomb went off in my outer quarters about a half hour ago. Killed my staff girl, Rachel, and that guard, Ellison. Looks like he brought the damned thing inside. Mop up out there as soon as you can and get back here. We may go Code Brutus on this one. Our Chief of Security has some answering to do."

The connection was broken at Flattery's end.

Code Brutus, Nevi thought. So, it's starting already. At least out here, right now, we don't have to choose sides.

He had no doubt which side Zentz would ally with. For Zentz, a return to Flattery meant sure execution. Too many errors, too little strategy.

Maybe he's already in on it, he thought.

Zentz was on the radio to his command center at the Preserve, chewing out some major. If this was a coup from the security side, he didn't believe Zentz was in on it.

Nevi kept his attention on the screen, where the kelp configuration didn't seem to change.

Would it be worth it, going in after them?

He thought it probably would. The different factions of Pandora only needed a symbol to bring them together, and Nevi knew Crista Galli was ready-made for the job. Better his hands on her than Shadowbox. Besides, he'd maneuvered around troublesome kelp in the past and never had problems that he couldn't handle. And if a coup did come down, Nevi could be seen as rescuing Crista Galli, along with the very popular Ozette. That would get the media on his side.

Either way; that LaPush has to go, he thought. That one's been too much trouble for too damned long.

Nevi didn't want to be the one to rule Pandora, if that was what all of this came to. He was happy being the shadow, being the arranger of possibilities. His distaste for Flattery and his style grew more unbearable by the year, but he had no desire for the hot seat himself.

Code Brutus, he thought. A coup attempt from within.

Nevi didn't think that Zentz was capable of carrying off a coup, though he had to admit that he was in the middle of the perfect alibi - at sea with the Director's highest-ranking assistant, a known and effective assassin.

Zentz was finished chewing out the major in charge of the power plant and the configuration of the kelp on the monitor hadn't changed a bit. Nevi checked his fuel reserves: all four tanks full. He pressurized the fuel, retracted the hydrofoils and extended the airfoil.

"We're going back?" Zentz asked. His voice sounded eager, but not greedy.

"No," Nevi said, and smiled. "We're going to pinpoint them from the air, then go in. We have enough fuel for almost an hour."

After an hour they'd be forced to set down on the water to extract more hydrogen, but Nevi planned to have everything that he needed aboard by then.

***

The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.
- T. Robbins, from A Literary Encyclopedia of the Atomic Age

Beatriz was hustled through the passageway and locked inside the Orbiter's makeshift Holovision studio with three techs from Brood's crew. None of the three had been at the launch site killings, but none of them had much to say to her, either. A large portable screen behind her hid the wet lights and mirrors that cluttered all six studio bulkheads. The same Holovision logo she wore at the left breast of her jacket emblazoned the screen: it was an eye, bidimensional, but the pupil was a holo stage.

Beatriz loved weather and had never liked the claustrophobic world inside the studios. That was why she and Ben had worked so well together and, in spite of offers, spent so many years in the field. Her recent promotion carried a lot of studio work, and her contract guaranteed a room with a view - on paper. She missed the sense of drifting she'd had, growing up an Islander.

Aboard the Orbiter she was assigned a cubby rimside, more than a kilometer from the studio near the axis. From her cubby she watched Pandora wake and sleep above her bed. Her father, a fisherman, would be taking his midafternoon break right now. Inside the studio there was no time of day, no night.

Her instructions from Brood were simple and cold: "Relax, we'll do the work. You just read what's in front of you when the red light goes on."

A small security camera mounted high on the bulkhead kept track of her every move. It was a toy, a trinket compared to the personalized cameras and triangulators that her team used at the launch site. Holovision's equipment got worse every year. She missed her own gear.

They were the best, she thought. And maybe that last tape is still inside.

She wondered whether Brood's men had picked them up.

Rico made those sets, she thought, and those triangulators, too. Nobody who knew cameras could pass those up.

She felt her first rush of real hope. The cameras weren't down at the launch site at all.

They're here, she thought, or at least they're in orbit with us.

She didn't want to think about the tapes. For now, she wanted only to focus on the cameras.

She couldn't help wondering what they'd do with the tapes.

Keep them, as backup. Record over them when their other tapes are full.

She doubted that whatever this team planned would involve a whole lot of tape. But the techs had brought them along, her logic assured her of that.

They might still be on the shuttle.

She didn't want to go back to that hatchway, where Brood's men had shot those guards down.

Beatriz glanced up at the surveillance camera.

Is it a person behind that thing, she wondered, or tape?

She didn't think they'd waste the tape. The techs ignored her altogether. They worked quickly at several editing and sound stations, coordinating something among themselves. She suspected it had something to do with her.

Maybe there's no one behind it.

The three-hour light flashed. Three o'clock in the afternoon marked the start of the assembly of the six-clock news. Getting the tapes was only one problem. Inserting them into a Holovision Nightly News broadcast with Brood's men watching posed another problem. She knew who could help her with the second problem, and it was the one person she most wanted to see.

Mack could get a message groundside, coded to the right frequency and digitally encoded.

She knew, because he'd done it once for her at Ben's request.

He was teaching me, she realized. Ben must've thought something like this might happen.

Most Pandorans were too hungry to fight, she knew that. Thousands already slept in holes dug in the talus, under torn plastic vulnerable to demons and the weather. From her family she learned that fighting was only one way.

She remembered something her grandfather had told her, something she'd told Dwarf MacIntosh last time: "Educate, agitate, organize."

Flattery had organized the world. Now Beatriz wanted to use that organization against him.

Communication would do it. People had their bodies. Coordination of all those bodies would be the key to their freedom.

How to get away with it?

Maybe she couldn't get away with it. What kind of message would she deliver then?

It might save Ben and Rico, too, she thought, though in a part of her somewhere they were already beginning to disappear. She tried to make her shocked and exhausted mind think through all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, all that there was to go.

I've got to get to Mack, she thought. That is, if Brood hasn'... hasn'...

She wouldn't allow herself to complete the thought. She concentrated on what she had to work with. This small studio aboard the Orbiter had been her project all along, her excuse to stay close to the stars. It was a little larger than the one at launch site. Flattery had had it installed to be sure that the Voidship project received the best documentation, the best publicity, the world's complete attention. She knew now what its primary purpose had been all along - diversion, something to keep people looking up while Flattery stole their boots.

The studio was divided into six engineering units and the one live set where Beatriz worked. Quarters were very cramped. Six editing screens and a couple of very large clocks kept them in touch with the world. A constant barrage of images rolled across the six screens as the editorial team groundside reviewed the day's film from the field and made their selections. There was a small holo stage in the center of the room for final mock-up and a large viewscreen behind it. Both the clocks and the growl in her belly told her things she didn't want to know.

"Three hours to air time," she said.

Her console indicated she was speaking into a dead microphone.

She raised her voice. "We're five hours behind schedule."

No answer. The techs worked as though she were a piece of furniture. They relayed tapes of their own groundside for editing and placement.

Beatriz rolled her tape of the Organic Mental Core up one of the screens and suppressed a shudder. This was a person, a living, thinking brain, kept alive by attachment to a comatose host. She wondered what it was that caused the coma. She was certain that she knew who.

"I need to talk with Dr. MacIntosh," she said.

This was not the first time she'd said it, and the response was always the same - silence. She'd received the silent treatment from the techs since docking aboard the Orbiter. From the occasional glances in her direction she surmised this to be orders from Brood, rather than choice.

Unlike counterparts of old, this OMC would be able to talk, using neuroelectrical pickups. When the time came it could communicate with the neuromusculature of the ship, feel everything that transpired aboard. This, Flattery reasoned, would keep the OMC sane where the original OMCs had failed.

It was clear to Beatriz that Flattery didn't want to face the kind of artificial consciousness that had brought humankind to Pandora. There were those who believed that Ship still existed, and would return. The hyb tanks that had brought Flattery, Mack and Alyssa Marsh were evidence to Beatriz that Ship could be very much alive, God or not.

If I can get one of these techs to start talking, that would be a wedge against Brood, she thought. And it might be a way to Mack.

Current Control and MacIntosh were only a few meters down the passageway. Beatriz could practically feel the vibrations from his throaty speech, his huge body bashing about his offices. Current Control and the Holovision remote studio shared a few kilometers of cable between them, but no hatchway. Both areas were soundproofed.

Beatriz tried to remember what Mack had taught her about their hookups. He'd spent a lot of time orienting her during her trips aloft. What came to her were his philosophies and musings, the relaxing tone of his deep voice. She remembered nothing of the linkup between the two rooms. She had already tried a few electronic tricks of her own to contact him, but with no luck.

He knows I'm due, she thought. Maybe he'll come looking for me.

She hoped that it wouldn't mean walking into his own execution.