Baudry faced her superior.
“If Aurora has embarked on this strategy, chances are she has a high expectation of success. She already has intimate knowledge of security holes in the polling apparatus. There’s every reason to think she has the ability to seize another habitat if she can get weevils into it.” All of a sudden Baudry looked shattered, as if the crisis had notched past some personal threshold of endurance.
“I think we must assume the worst.”
The wall displays froze abruptly. Bracelets chorused in unison. The Solid Orrery consumed the weevil and sprang up an enlarged representation of one of the two threatened habitats, a hubless wheel.
“That’s Carousel New Brazilia,” Baudry said.
“Anti-collision systems have begun to engage the incoming flow of weevils. We can expect House Flammarion to begin similar engagements within the next fifteen minutes.”
“How are our assets coping?” Aumonier asked.
“We only had time to place three corvette-class vehicles close enough to Brazilia to make a difference,”. Baudry said.
“Frankly, their pinpoint weapons are next to useless against the scale of the flow. Even if we dropped a nuke into the middle of it, it would only take out a few thousand units. It’s like trying to stop a tsunami with a spoon.”
Aumonier answered calmly: “Then we need an alternative strategy.”
“Our corvettes are standing by to concentrate their fire on the weevils once they make groundfall on the habitat. The war robots will need time to cut through or force their way in via docking apertures.”
“Let’s assume we don’t stop them all. What happens if we lose Brazilia and Flammarion?”
“Both habitats have manufacturies of their own,” Dreyfus said, looking up from his compad.
“If Aurora takes them, she’ll have two new sites of weevil production. From there she can start leapfrogging to new habitats.”
“I’ve prepared a simulation on the Orrery,” Baudry said.
“There’s a lot of guesswork fed into it, obviously, but I can show you how things might progress under some reasonable assumptions.”
“Go ahead,” Aumonier said.
Baudry shrank the image of Carousel New Brazilia back down to its former size, so that it became simply one gemlike point moving in the stately swirl of the Glitter Band. With another gesture she turned all the points of light to the same emerald green, save for four scattered points of ruby.
“These are the habitats Aurora now controls,” Baudry said, before two more red points lit up, each located close to one of the other four points.
“These are Brazilia and Flammarion, under the assumption that Aurora attains control. I now assume that both these new habitats become weevil-production centres with an output flow similar to what we’ve already seen. I assume also that each habitat concentrates its weevil output on one other habitat not yet in Aurora’s control, in accordance with what we’ve seen so far. I further assume that in twenty-six hours, a habitat can be attacked by weevils, brought under Aurora’s control and direct its own weevil flow against a designated target, crossing space until they make contact.”
“Continue,” Aumonier said.
“In one day, we’ll have already gone from two compromised habitats to four. Those four habitats will each infect another neighbouring state, giving us eight infection sites by the end of the second day.” As she spoke, the number of red lights increased in geometric fashion.
“At the end of the third day, sixteen habitats. Thirty-two by the end of the fourth day. Sixty-four by the fifth. One hundred and twenty-eight by the end of the sixth: that’s more than one per cent of the entire Glitter Band.”
There were now too many red lights to count. They were still overwhelmed by the green lights, but the inevitability of the process was now painfully apparent.
“How long… ?” Aumonier asked, voicing the question none of them wanted answering.
“Fewer than half the states in the Glitter Band retain any kind of manufacturing capacity,” Baudry said, “but that’s still over four thousand habitats. Aurora will have taken them all a few hours into the twelfth day. Even if we still hold the remainder by then, we’ll lose them very quickly. Aurora will have over four thousand weevil-production sites to turn against us. I doubt that we’d retain a single habitat by the end of the thirteenth day.” She swallowed heavily.
“That includes Panoply.”
“And that assumption of twenty-six hours—” Dreyfus began.
“It’s guesswork, a number I pulled out of the air. Perhaps it’ll take longer than that. But even if it takes four days to leapfrog from one habitat to the next, she’ll still have beaten us within two months. It’s anyone’s guess how long Chasm City will be able to hold out, but I wouldn’t put odds on it lasting much longer than the Glitter Band.”
“We can do something, though, surely,” Aumonier said.
Baudry’s expression was that of someone burdened with terrible news. She reminded Dreyfus of a doctor about to deliver the most devastating of verdicts.
“We can do something, yes. Now, while Aurora is still gaining a foothold, and before her efforts touch us. Let’s rewind the simulation back to day zero, today.”
Now there were just four habitats highlighted in red.
“The weevil flows have reached Brazilia, and will make contact with Flammarion any minute now.” Baudry glanced uneasily at her bracelet.
“But for the
next few hours—maybe even as long as a day—we’re only looking at four points of potential spread, if we assume the new habitats can be geared up to weevil production.” Baudry tightened her fingers against each other.
“Aurora is at her most vulnerable now. She has revealed herself, and therefore already played the element of surprise. But she has not yet consolidated enough territory to truly overwhelm us.”
“I thought you said we were already overwhelmed by the weevils,” said Senior Prefect Clearmountain.
“I’m not talking about dealing with the weevils,” Baudry answered.
“I’m talking about taking out the production centres.”
Clearmountain looked unimpressed.
“This isn’t surgery,” he said, looking around the table at the others.
“You can’t just take out a manufactory and somehow leave the rest of the habitat intact.”
“I’m aware of that,” Baudry said, with icy control.
He blinked.
“Then you’re talking about—”
“Mass euthanisation, yes. We nuke the infected habitats. If this was the easy option, do you honestly think I’d have waited until now before raising it?”
“It’s murder.”
“We’d be sacrificing a certain number of lives to ensure the survival of vastly more. You saw that simulation I just ran, Senior. Within two months we’ll have lost everything. She could be all over us in as little as thirteen days if my earlier assessment was correct. Maybe we don’t even have that long. That’s one hundred million lives. If we target both Brazilia and Flammarion now, we’ll only be losing six hundred and fifty thousand people. Include Szlumper Oneill and House Aubusson and we’re still talking about less than two per cent of the total number of citizens in our care.”
“You’re talking as if two per cent is a blip,” said Clearmountain incredulously.
“With all due respect,” Baudry answered, “this is war. There isn’t a general in history who wouldn’t snatch at the possibility of victory if it could be guaranteed with less than one casualty for every fifty combatants.”
“But they’re not combatants,” Dreyfus said testily.
“They’re citizens, and they didn’t sign up to be part of anyone’s war.”
“The balance of numbers still holds,” Baudry said.
“Strike now and we’ll be saving many tens of millions of lives. We have to consider this, ladies and
