her into the final half kilo stretch. The ‘Private Road — No Entance’ sign marked her finish line. Four minutes nine secs. A flash of annoyance; it was the S-turn, she could have gone a bit faster there.
Her body massaged by the G-forces exerted during the run from her contribution space, Sharon slowed the T8 to a sturdy prowl as she entered the driveway of her partner’s complex. The Ent residence of the Pres of SingCom was as opulent as one would expect, but Sharon paid little attention to the finely manicured gardens along the driveway nor to the marble fountain she parked behind.
I wonder if Sunita’s awake, she thought. I need her advice.
Sunita Shido had been her lover and mentor since the age of twelve. She hadn’t actually made physical love to her until she was legal, despite Sharon wanting her to, but then Sunita was nothing if not perfectly correct. It had been sixteen years since they had first been introduced.
With a soft metallic click, the gull-wing door shut behind her as she went up the steps, and the Dev, recognizing her, opened the house door without instruction. Never breaking her stride, she marched straight up the steps inside the reception area and at the first landing turned right to walk down the corridor to the master bedroom. Reaching it, the door opened and she walked in.
“You made it so quickly…” Sunita said, smiling and rising naked from the Siteazy; the image of the West Coast Travway on the screen behind her. Her hand snaked around Sharon’s neck and her lips brought the taste of an alky. “I don’t like it when you trav that fast,” she murmured, nuzzling Sharon’s ear.
“It turns me on,” whispered Sharon in a little girl voice, as reaching up with her left hand she found the release strip for her tailored UNPOL outers, just as her right found Sunita’s breast.
Chapter 14
Titanium Mine Shaft, Shackleton Moonbase, The Moon
Friday, 13 December 2109 1:45am
“Jonah, Jonah, wake up.” I felt a hand lightly shaking and squeezing my shoulder. Turning my head away from the wall, I saw Gabriel sitting on the edge of the sleeper I was in. I pushed myself up and lay back resting my weight on my elbows.
“What time is it?”
“It’s 1:45am New Singapore time. You’ve slept for four hours. Here take this, it’ll get you back on your feet.” He handed me a cup, warm on the outside. “We have until 6am. Then we have to get you visible again. Comms are down across the sector but we can only hold that for another four hours, and then we have to put you in a hot tub in the Nineveh,” with this last softly spoken comment Gabriel smiled and patted me on my knee. He crossed the room to a small table in its center.
I looked around the concrete-walled room. It was Spartan: two sleepers lengthwise against each wall, polymer storage racks, black rubberized flooring and next to the small table in the center of the room was a mobile Devcockpit. There must have been at least fifty Devscreens arrayed in a semi circle in front of a Siteazy. It was the largest I had ever seen. In contrast to the setting it was in, it looked singularly out of place. Like a shiny high cred luxury unpacked from a drab package.
Gabriel turned to me, and indicating the Siteazy next to the Devcockpit, said, “Come over here and take a seat. I’ve calculated that it would take me eighteen days, and about forty-six minutes to tell you of all that has happened in the time that we have been separated from each other. Unfortunately we don’t have that kind of time on our hands, so I’m going to have to stick to the problem we have and how we think you can resolve it.”
“Eighteen days, I asked. “Has that much happened since last week?”
Gabriel smiled, his hand resting on the head rest of the Siteazy, but he looked sad to me. “No, I meant since we were parted thirty-four years, fifty-three days, and three hours ago. You were twenty-eight days old, and I was twelve. I’ll tell you what I can in any time we have left over, if we can come up with a solution to our problem.”
I got out of the sleeper and went and sat in the Siteazy. Gabriel sat on the Biosense in the middle of the Devcockpit but turning to the opening of the cockpit put his feet up on the Dev’s manual entry panel, his hands folded into his lap.
I said, “Just do me a favor, OK?”
“Name it.”
“Just speak to me with your voice, OK? No getting into my mind stuff.”
Gabriel laughed loudly and slapped his hand on his thigh.
“OK, we won’t do that.” His face turning serious, he looked me in the eye and said, “But I will have to give you some mental training on how to survive the Truth Treatment and avoid scrutiny from Cochran.”
“Good,” I said, and smiled at him. “Now can you please tell me about this conspiracy, and how I am supposed to save the universe?”
Gabriel grinned a little sheepishly, “Well I might have been just a bit over-dramatic with that one, but then again it depends how you look it, and from where I’m sitting, it’s not far from the truth.”
The screen of the Dev was split into a multitude of past and present images, text and sounds, arranged in a two hundred and seventy degree arc extending upwards at about a forty-five degree angle. I couldn’t see the side nearest me, but on the wall behind Gabriel I could see images of UNPOL units on the Moon.
“We’re safe,” said Gabriel, noticing my look and glancing at the screen. “We could stay here for another decade and they wouldn’t find us, but we have to get you back and in position if we’re going to stop the carnage that Sir Thomas is planning. That is if you will help? I don’t think I’ve ever formally asked. I apologize, of course, but I just assumed.”
“I’m glad you assumed — please don’t apologize. You were right to. Go ahead and tell me what he’s planning.”
“Sit back, relax and put those on,” said Gabriel, nodding at a set of earphones on the arm of my Siteazy and reaching for his own on the panel next to his feet. I laid back in the chair, put the earphones on, and a screen appeared over my waist, while the sound of Gabriel talking filled my ears.
“Sir Thomas is part of a select group of individuals who regard themselves as the elite of the universe. This is in fact true, if you accept the concept of elitism. By definition entry criteria for this group defines it as elite: you must be of the highest Intelligence Score — over one hundred and forty five — and have the most accumulated wealth and position of influence to gain entry. You also need to be totally ruthless, coldly logical, and entirely selfish. We call them the Hawks, they call us Doves.
“The term ‘WarHawk’ was first used in 1812 to describe a group of congressman in the twelth Congress of the United States who advocated war against the empire of Great Britain in 1812. It wasn’t until the early 1900s, however, that the current confederation of Hawks was born, in a small farmhouse in Brittany, France. The ten men and two women who attended that meeting came together as a consequence of the first peace conference held during the previous year and the resulting Hague Convention.
“Another factor was the perception that peace would inevitably increase the influence of the common man. Sweeping Europe, and already established to some extent in France and the United States, the common man was a growing influence like never before in history. To the men and women in the meeting, these were problems that had to be dealt with. A simple but very effective plan, with two principal criteria as its objectives, was developed over the course of the next three days. The first was to maintain control of the common man, and the second was to keep his numbers down to manageable levels. The meeting concluded with the name ‘Hawks’ being adopted, as the discussions had led them to an inescapable truth. War would achieve both of the objectives that they set for themselves. This was a time-proven historical fact.
“What we are dealing with today are the children of those twelve. If you regard them as the trunk of a tree, then today we are dealing with the leaves, and the leaves are thick enough that you cannot see the branches. We know that there is an induction ceremony, and that it involves vigorous questioning, sometimes to the extent of torture and many times involving truth drugs or Truth Treatments as UNPOL like to call them. Once past that questioning, the induction ceremony is not elaborate, but each Hawk is given a dagger, usually by an elder member
