down.”
“Aren’t the Tritons developing those?”
“There are thousands of them. And they are all Kuiper belt captures. We could replace from the Kuiper belt, if the Tritons want. So nothing need be lost as far as Neptune is concerned. The Tritons already agree to the principle.”
“Well,” Swan said, baffled. She didn’t know what to say. She regarded their faces, so grim and irritated. “Is it what the people here want? Can you tell?”
They looked at each other. The first said, “There’s a network of cadre layers, like the panchayats in India. And everyone is talking. There’s only forty million of us here. So-the Working Group will hear from us and from everyone. But in fact the idea was already gaining traction. Now with this thing, people see the need. Lakshmi has won.”
L ater, when Swan was alone back in her room at the hospital, there was a tap at the door, and in came Shukra with Swan’s young friend from Earth, Kiran. She greeted them happily, immediately cheered by the sight of their faces, so vivid and real. Shukra, whom she had worked with a million years ago; Kiran, her newest friend-now they had the same look on their faces, serious and intent. They sat down by her bed and Swan poured them glasses of water.
“Listen to the youth here,” Shukra said, tipping his head at Kiran.
“What?” Swan said, alert to trouble.
Kiran put a hand up as if to reassure her. “You told me when you brought me here that there were factions. That’s turned out to be true, and it’s even kind of a little underground civil war, you could almost call it.”
“Lakshmi,” Shukra said heavily, as if this would explain everything. “He got involved with her.”
“Is that bad?” Swan asked. “I mean-I’m the one who told him to try her.”
Shukra rolled his eyes at this. “Swan, you were here a hundred years ago. You should know that things have changed since then. Tell her,” he said to Kiran.
“I started moving stuff and carrying messages for Lakshmi,” Kiran said, “and Shukra saw that was happening, and got me to look closer into what I was seeing when I did things for her.”
“He was bait,” Shukra said with a hard smile, “and she took it. But probably she knew he was bait.”
Kiran nodded, with a look at Swan that seemed to say Look what you got me into here. He said, “There’s a new coastal town that Lakshmi’s team is developing, it’s definitely her place, and it’s set too low for some reason. People thought she might want it drowned later on for an insurance scam or something like that. Anyway, they’re doing something funny in that town. I think maybe they’re making androids or something. Robots made to look like humans, you know?”
“I do know,” Swan said. “Tell me more.”
“There’s an office there that was closed off, a pretty big building. I saw a box of eyeballs get delivered there. I think they might be putting together artificial people. Some kind of Frankenstein factory.”
“You saw that?”
“The guard I was with opened a box, and it was eyeballs. He didn’t like it that I saw, so I had to get to teacher Shukra here, and ask for help.”
Shukra nodded as if to say this had been a smart move. Swan said to him, “So this place he was at is Lakshmi’s?”
“Yes,” Shukra said. “Her work units built the whole town. So look-I don’t know anything about this Vinmara operation, but she’s got people coming into Cleopatra that we can’t ID. I set up an office in Cleopatra myself, it’s supposedly an open city, although really she calls the shots there. I was trying to figure out where these new people were coming from. But now-when I heard about the attack on the sunshield, the first thing I thought was, Well, isn’t that convenient for friend Lakshmi. People will be scared into supporting the plan to spin up the planet, and if we do that, the new hole they’ll rip in the equator will shrink the reach of the ocean accordingly. These places like Vinmara, that are set too low? They won’t be set too low.”
“Ahh,” Swan said. “Wow. But-what about the Chinese?”
“The Chinese hate this second bombardment idea, and so if it happens anyway, despite their opposition, they lose leverage-again, all the better for Lakshmi. And in truth none of us want Beijing telling us what to do. So this also helps her in the argument.”
“And so these humanoids she’s having built?” Swan leaned forward and clicked on the table screen. “Here- show me where this Vinmara is on a map. Let’s get Inspector Genette in here, and Wahram too. They’ll be very interested to hear what you have to say.”
I nspector Genette arrived in her room, then Wahram, wheeling himself along in his wheelchair, his left leg swathed in its medwrap. They listened to Kiran’s story and then sat pondering the implications.
Inspector Genette said, “I think we need to decide some things before we act on this. After what’s happened, I’m quite sure that I need to execute the plan we have been devising, which I have not yet described to you, Swan. So if you will agree to turn off Pauline again, I can tell it to you.”
Swan wasn’t sure she wanted to go through that again, and the inspector must have known by now that she had told Pauline what had been said at the last off-the-record meeting, so she didn’t see the point.
But in any case she was forestalled, because Wahram now said to Genette, “I’m afraid we should perhaps go through with the plan without Swan knowing about it at all. She may turn off Pauline for the conversation, but she may then tell her qube what happened after she turns it back on, as she did the last time we did this.”
Swan gave Wahram a dagger of a look and said to Genette, “It was Pauline who informed us of the attack in time to do something about it. And it was Wang’s qube who set up the new surveillance system able to detect that pebble mob. So you can thank me for that later. But my point is, whatever these Venusians are up to with their qube people and their plots, there are other qubes who are clearly on our side. We need to be working with them!”
Inspector Genette agreed. “I’ve had a long talk with Wang and his qube, and what you say is true. There are factions among the qubes too, I’m afraid.”
“So we need ours informed!”
“Maybe,” Genette said. “Although which are ours is an open question. And in this case, the fewer that know, the better. So look, with this information from Kiran, I am going to proceed with this particular Interplan operation as planned.”
“And that is?” Swan said pointedly.
The inspector’s little face, as beautiful and curious as a langur’s, regarded Swan with a bright smile. “Please let me tell you about it after we are farther along.”
Swan gave Wahram another black look. “You see what you’ve done.”
Wahram shrugged. “The plan needs complete secrecy to work. Even I am ignorant of the details.”
“I should also add,” Genette added quickly, “that my plan also needed this information from your young friend here. So it is just now coming together. Please allow me to make the next move confidentially. Even Wahram, as he says, and really everyone here on Venus”-bowing toward Shukra-“is ignorant of our next step, and it has to be that way to succeed.”
Whether Genette was just helping Wahram to look better in Swan’s eyes, Swan couldn’t tell; she was too furious to keep a good sense of the nuances of the situation. Her judgment was off. Genette was now talking to a colleague who had come into the room, finally turning to the rest of them and saying, “If you will excuse us.”
“I will not,” Swan said, and stormed out.
W ahram caught up with her down the hall and matched her step for step, rolling along in his wheelchair and capable therefore of keeping up with her no matter how fast she walked.
“Swan, don’t be angry at me, I needed to tell the inspector what happened to stay in good faith on an important matter; this operation is delicate and the whole situation had to be told.”
“So now it is.”
“Yes, and soon you’ll know everything too. But for a while you have to trust us.”
“Us?”
“I’m going to help the inspector. It shouldn’t take too long. During that time I hope you will go back to Terminator and talk with your people there, about the situation on Titan and about us.”
“You think I’m still interested in any of that?”
“I certainly hope so. It’s more important than your bruised feelings here, if you will allow me to say so.
