Titanium Mine Shaft, Shackleton Moonbase, The Moon
Friday, 13 December 2109 10:15am
Gabriel flipped back and forth between the image of Mark lying in the Siteazy, and the image of Sharon Cochran in the Trace Operations Center on Earth. The images were slightly delayed given the distance between them, but Gabriel had a complete dataset for the entire time that she had been logged in.
“And as for you, Cochran, I’m going to burn your mind out before this is over.”
Gabriel was tired, he hadn’t slept for over forty-eight hours, but still he refused himself the sleeper against the wall a short distance from the Devcockpit in the room where he and Mark had spoken. He was tired but satisfied. So far his plans were succeeding. Some things had gone awry but for the most part everything had worked out. Mark, as Jonah, was primed. He hated putting his long-lost brother in this situation, but he really didn’t have any choice.
At their last meeting Maloo had asked him, “Would you hesitate if it was not Mark, if it was another human so well fitted to this task?”
And Gabriel had known the answer before Maloo had opened his mouth, taking his indecision as doubt. There was no doubt in Gabriel’s mind that Mark had to be the one, was in fact the only one who could get close enough to Sir Thomas and had the skills, whether he knew it or not, to survive the encounter and achieve the task. At least Mark had a slight chance: anyone else, including himself, would be a complete failure.
Mark’s hypnosis had gone well. It had been exhausting for Gabriel, constantly checking on the Dev for the cues and memories that he had to erase for Mark to stand a chance with Cochran or Truth Treatments. Mark had to be a Hawk, and his memories had to be perfect. It had been a painful process and doing it had drained Gabriel.
Maloo had taken Mark to the Nineveh before they’d put the comms back online. He’d wiped the last remaining images of Mark being helped to his VacEnv through the lobby of the Nineveh, and then he had waited for Mark to leave. He needed Mark to leave quickly, didn’t want him hanging around on the Moon for two reasons. The first was that he had a flight to catch. With Mark on Far Side, UNPOL security would be tight — too tight to move — and it would greatly increase the risk of their capture. The second was for Mark. If he returned immediately, Gabriel would be able to at least keep an eye on the first part of the journey, and if required, could be in a position to intervene.
Maloo had been watching for anyone checking in to the Nineveh and they’d picked up Mariko and her last transmission from Cochran before she’d created the encounter with Mark. They’d reacted quicker than he’d thought they would, and it showed the intensity with which Cochran was tracing him. To put a trace on the nephew of the Director of UNPOL took guts and was indication of a fierce attention to detail. The blocks he’d put in Mark’s mind should be good enough to resist a Truth Treatment in the White Room so anything they could do up here wasn’t a concern. As far as Mark knew he really was Jonah, so his truth was his safety.
He glanced at the time in the bottom left of his primary Devscreen. 10:20am. He still had a lot to do. Gabriel leaned forward in the Biosense in front of the Devcockpit and pressed his eyes shut with his fingertips thinking back over the path that had brought him to this tiny room on the Moon.
Gabriel shook himself from his reverie. Thinking of Mark, his mood brightened. He was proud of what his brother had become, despite and against all the odds, he had made humanity’s choice. Blood is blood and the blood of a proud line of people ran in Mark’s veins. Although it placed him in great danger, it didn’t fail him when it had been called upon to do the right thing.
The Zumar blood ran strong in him, and Gabriel thought how much it must burn Sir Thomas to see the face of Philip Zumar as that of his own nephew. Or did he take some kind of perverse pleasure from knowing that the son of Philip Zumar and his wife Mariah, lived the lie of being his nephew? Gabriel didn’t know and really didn’t care. Whatever Sir Thomas thought was only of interest in how it might be used to bring about his death.
His primary Dev pinged. “Gabriel?”
“Yes, Maloo,” Gabriel said.
“How did it go?” The image of Maloo in the tunnel overhead talking to him on the Devstick came through with incredible clarity but then Gabriel had installed the Devs here himself and hadn’t spared on the cred needed to get the best high-def Devs there were. The comms were on a local grid and not connected to anything. The two men were free to talk normally.
“Well, Cochran reacted faster than we thought she would but other than that, it went as we planned, Maloo. He’ll do it, and if he is really lucky he’ll succeed. What time are we leaving? Is everything under control?”
“We’re on track. How long for you to pack? We’ve got to get to Peary before 3pm. I’ve set us up in a titanium freighter bound for the Congo. It’s straight in and it’ll be a hot bumpy ride, totally hardcore, but we should survive.”
Gabriel chuckled at Maloo’s throwaway line about surviving re-entry, but knew they really were in for a ride they’d remember forever, if they survived it. He began packing some of the peripheral equipment around the cockpit.
After taking a long drink of water, he said in an even voice, “I’m more worried about being in a sealed box with you for eight hours. What did you eat for breakfast?”
Maloo, which means thunder in the Aboriginal language, lived up to the name he had been given by the tribal elders in response to his loud and long farts as a baby. The tribe was the one that Gabriel had joined on leaving Darwin as a boy, Maloo being his boyhood friend and blood brother. “Well, don’t just stand there laughing, get over here as fast as you can, and help me get this stuff stowed away.”
“I’m on my way. Couldn’t you get anything faster than a golf cart?”
“Hey, don’t knock the golf cart. It represents the only six hundred and fifty-four yard hole-in-one in recorded history, at least according to the guy who sold it to me.”
“OK, I’ll see you in about ten.”
“Maloo?”
“Yes, Gaz?”
“What did you find out about Mariko?”
“Um, she’s OK. She’s just been manipulated into this by Cochran, but she’s not evil, far from it.”
“OK, and make it eight. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Gabriel took a look around the room. He’d been here on and off since he’d busted out of Level Ten. When they were done packing he’d get Maloo to sanitize the room while he packed the buggy they’d use to drive to Peary. They’d bought a disused buggy and repaired it so that now it looked, complete with serial numbers, exactly like a BHP mining utility vehicle, one of thousands traversing the Moon’s surface. The buggy would allow them to trav as far as Peary and then they’d board the ore freighter to the Congo. A straight long burn followed by a fast hot re-entry. He hoped the suits they’d bought would hold up. The freighter wasn’t designed to carry humans, but the box built into its guts and the titanium ore it was carrying should provide just enough protection from the heat.
He took a last look at Mark, his arm dangling by the side of his Siteazy in Super.