Was it worth it?
She gazed at the brain floating in the tank beside her and repressed the urge to strike out at it. She needed that brain yet, if only for a little while longer.
She stood up and sloughed off the last of her extra nano machines, so that she was just ordinary sized Rhea once more.
Will joined her. “How’d it go?”
“It went,” Rhea said.
She walked to the brain tank, unfolded the handle built into the topmost cap, and used that to lift the unit with one hand.
"Let's go get arrested,” she said.
18
Rhea sat in confinement with Will, Targon, Brinks and Renaldo. Burhawk, Min and Horatio were also held in the same cell, though their bodies remained frozen, with the beam having disabled every servomotor save those involved with breathing.
“Can’t believe they impounded me ship!” Targon was saying. “The nerve of them! Arresting me for being an accessory to a crime.” He sighed. “I’m sorry again for not warning ye. They jumped me as soon as I left me ship. Didn’t have a chance to send a single transmission before they disabled me comm node.”
“Yes, yes,” Renaldo said. “That’s like the fourth time you’ve told us now.”
“Fourth?” Brinks said. “I think it’s the eighth.”
“Tenth,” Will said. “Not that I’m counting.” He glanced at Rhea. “I still think you should have turned his brain to mush, rather than giving him up.”
Rhea nodded distractedly. She, too, was worried she’d made a mistake. What if the palace technicians discovered the modifications she had made? Khrusos had men who were familiar with Ganymedean technology, after all. Perhaps they would notice the stealth modules she’d installed and transfer his brain to a new mind-machine tank. Then again, it was possible they’d believe any modifications to be artifacts of the nano technology he’d filled his body with. She dearly hoped the latter proved to be the case, and that they wouldn’t move his brain.
“Can’t believe Miles is gone,” Brinks said. “Though I suppose he deserved it. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking when he betrayed us.”
“He wasn’t,” Renaldo said. “And that’s the point. Always think very, very carefully before you do something that will endanger the lives of your friends. Because if you’re wrong, then you won’t be able to live with the outcome.”
"He redeemed himself in the end," Rhea said quietly.
“And what about ye?” Targon said. “Did ye achieve everything ye came for?”
Rhea nodded. “Mostly. But there are a few loose ends I’d like to tidy up before we go home.”
Apparently, the technicians hadn’t moved Khrusos to a new mind-machine tank, because she sensed when he came online a few minutes later.
She looked up and glanced at Will: "He's online."
The door to their cell unlocked and slid aside.
The robots standing guard outside kept their weapons lowered.
Will gave her a knowing look.
“Hey, looks like we’ve been granted access to the jail’s wireless network,” Brinks said.
She glanced at her HUD. Sure enough, the signal had been unlocked. She connected.
She received a call a moment later. It was from Khrusos.
She accepted, and a hologram of a bearded man in a dark suit with a red tie appeared before her. His eyes glinted with unconcealed zeal when he saw her.
"Hello, Mistress,” Khrusos said.
The next few days passed in a blur for Rhea.
She had Khrusos hold a meeting with the High Council of Earth. The president, on her orders, told the councilors of his intent to scrap the mass digitization initiative, and instead called for a ratification of the water deal with the Europans. He held a vote. The Chinese were in, of course, since he had them in his pocket; Chile-Argentina and Persia abstained; the Russians usually voted with the Chinese, and they did in this case as well, allowing the deal to proceed to the ratification stage.
The Europans signed it a day later, and accepted funding from the High Council to help accelerate construction of the necessary infrastructure, so that eight months from now, when Earth’s supply ran out, a steady stream of tankers from Ganymede would keep the water flowing.
She also had Khrusos release a handful of Ganymedean prisoners he’d kept with him for the past thirty years. They would be returning to Ganymede to start another dome colony. Khrusos had already arranged permission with the Europan government for such a dome as part of the water ratification deal. Some of the funding for the water infrastructure would be siphoned into its construction: Rhea planned for it to serve as a key space port in the water trade, though the Europans didn’t know that yet. If they had, they probably wouldn’t have allowed for it to be built.
Khrusos had Rhea’s streaming accounts enabled across all the major sites, and she personally sent out a call throughout the solar system, inviting any Ganymedeans that were in hiding to come out and join in the construction efforts. During her live streams, people often asked in the chat if she would be helping out, too, to which she always replied: “My fight is done.”
The palace technicians helped Will repair the servomotors of Min, Burhawk and Horatio. When Min and Burhawk were ready, she summoned them to her elaborate guest quarters in the palace, along with Will and Horatio.
“I’ve called this meeting because I want to arrange the transference of power,” Rhea told Burhawk and Min.
Min’s brows drew together. “The transference of power?”
“I want to give you control of Khrusos,” Rhea explained.
“What if we don’t want this control?” Burhawk said.
“Speak for yourself,” Min said. “With the president’s power, I can redress all the wrongs he’s committed against not just my people, but his own.”
Rhea nodded and glanced at Burhawk. “And I’ll need you to accept as well, if only to act as a counterbalance to Min.”
Min crossed her arms. “I don’t need a counterbalance.”
“You do,” Rhea insisted. “Checks and balances should always be in place to ensure world leaders remain on their best behavior. It’s
