The Ascension Factor

"I wonde..."

He didn't finish the rest aloud. What he wondered was whether or not the Zavatans were training dashers.

"I want studies on dasher sightings coordinated with known Zavatan positions," he said.

Marta nodded and unholstered the electronic link at her side. The movement drew a subtle shift in Aumock's position. Marta didn't notice that his lasgun muzzle had focused on her head before the link cleared daylight. She clicked out her coded entry in her usual unhurried ma

Flattery knew something of the Zavatans and their history, but not nearly as much as he'd like. They were patient, organized, and they scavenged everything. If rumor was correct, they grew illicit crops in the upcoast regions and distributed them among refugees. Flattery resented this because it seriously weakened his bargaining position with the masses. He did not have the manpower to police thousands of square kilometers of rugged countryside and complete Project Voidship at the same time. Project Voidship was infinitely more important.

He saluted approval as one of the men went over the wall to fetch the dasher skins.

That much less for the Zavatans, he thought.

He made a mental note to see what the lab would have to say about where the dashers had been, with whom, what they were eating, when and why.

"And your report on the fighting?" he asked.

"Compound perimeter is secure," she said.

Marta pressed the spot behind her right ear that activated the receive mode of her messenger implant.

"I'm getting a lot of interference here, don't know the cause. Minimal damage to the compound - the expected rubble but mostly cosmetic, as usual. Rocks and sticks are no match for lasguns. Prisoners are being held in the courtyard." She paused as more information fed into her messenger.

"Reports on the power station, the ferry terminal and the grid situation," he ordered.

Marta fed something into her messenger, then her expression changed. The facade of the impartial reporter wrinkled into concern at her brow, and she leaned forward as information vibrated her mastoid bone, washed through the fluids and hairs of her i

"There is a massive force congregating at the power station," she said. "The squad of security that attacked our detachment at the site has dug in and persisted. The refugee camp is less than a kilometer away. People from the camp are backing up the rebel squad, just out of lasgun range of our defense."

"Operation H," Flattery barked. "If they keep coming, have air support shift to the camp."

Marta paled further. She lowered her voice so that the guards wouldn't hear.

"Operation H, si... they'd see it from the camp. If you jelly the attackers, witnesses will know it wasn't a hylighter."

"Use an LTA," he said. "We have a few balloons in the hangar that look like hylighters. Get them into the air. We'll worry about witnesses later. I want that squad burned, I want anyone backing them up burned. Is that understood?"

Marta nodded, and her fingers flickered the orders across her instrument.

"The ferries?"

"Operational, sir. The current shift reported on time. Casualties high, but replacements are already on-site receiving training. The OMC launch lit off and docked at Orbiter station, no update. Current Control terminated their signal to the kelp in sector eight, there is no grid but no aggressive activity."

"Terminated?"

Flattery regretted the lie to MacIntosh. He was sure that the kelp would yield, given the full electrical prod long enough. He had never thought that MacIntosh would terminate the signal.

Idiot! What could he be thinking, giving the kelp its head. Doesn't he know how much we need those kelpways open?

He inhaled one long, slow breath, half in the left nostril, half in the right. He let it out just as slowly.

"Is it working?" he asked.

"A few merchant vessels lost," she said. "Most have surfaced, making repairs. They will not fare well in the storm."

"Order Dr. MacIntosh to reestablish the kelpways, or I will do it my way from here. He has one hour."

"Yes, sir."

Flattery's mood blackened. Two small explosions and a flash came from the center of Kalaloch. He signaled one of his guards.

"Have security get what they can from the leaders of this rabble. I don't expect much. Then have the rest of them staked in the open." He surveyed the cliffside behind him that led to the high reaches. "Have them staked up there," he said, "so that everyone below can study the results of their decision in detail. It shouldn't take long."

It was what Marta had told him about the kelp that interested him the most. He'd fabricated such an intricate web of deception about Crista Galli that Flattery himself had difficulty remembering which was his masterful illusion and which reality. His earliest warnings to keep her from any contact with the kelp was based more on hunch than data, but it was clear to him now that his hunch had been good.

The kelp could actually smell her!

"I ordered Current Control to opt for a surgical solution," Marta said. "They have one hour to achieve the grid by any other means. I explained that there were too many subs at stake."

"Will it be necessary to dissect the entire stand?"

"No," she said. "Like the mob, it should convert easily with minimal damage to the affected area. That corridor will not have the flexibility it once had, but it will be navigable as soon as the debris is swept."

"When it's over, have samples sent to the lab," he said. "Complete analysis. Find out why it could resist Current Control, then render it down for the toxin stockpile."

"The Zavatan..." she began, "it would be good politics t..."

"To give them what's left of the kelp?" He snorted in disgust. "Let them dredge their own. I don't want to be party to their heresy. And I want a lot of toxin on hand, I have a surprise yet for those 'vermin,' as Nevi calls them."

Marta noted the orders into the messenger at her waist.

It was clear to Flattery that the kelp must have sensed Crista Galli's presence. How else to explain this rebellion? It had occurred along the plotted route of Ozette's foil after Marta's device was jettisoned.

The kelp must have sensed her when the bug hit the water, he thought. He smiled again, partly out of a distant relief at not being aboard the Flying Fish at the time, but largely at the predicament that now embroiled Ozette and his Shadows.

"Overflights?" he asked.

"Bad weather already in," she replied. "Low probability of contact, high probability of loss. Two Grasshoppers available in the area, but they are frail and of limited range. Do you have orders for them?"

"Observation patterns as weather permits," he said. "I want to see who they turn to when they're in big trouble. Nevi will be on the scene soon enough."

Flattery detected a definite shudder across Marta's shoulders at the mention of Nevi's name.

That's why I use him, he thought. Mere mention of his name gets results.

He dismissed Marta and surveyed the landscape, his landscape, that fell away before him. Metallic-looking wihi glinted sunlight back at him. Their short, daggerlike leaves deployed toward the bursts of ultraviolet pulsing from Alki. Flattery admired this dangerous little plant for its tenacity and for the protection it afforded his compound. Its seeds lay dormant undersea for two centuries, waiting to flourish when the oceans rolled back again. It flourished now, and made going difficult for predators near the compound - human or otherwise.

A rob of tiny swiftgrazers darted among the wihi to his left, near the cliff's rise to the high reaches. Though reputed to eat anything softer than rock, the grazers preferred to avoid humans. They had survived, like many Earthside rodents, by hiding aboard the organic islands throughout the floods. The poor often chanced netting them for foo...angerous task. He'd watched an old Islander swarmed to death on this very spot only two years ago. The man had netted only half the rob. The other half waited in the rocks for his return, then set upon his legs until he fell. It was over in a matter of blinks, and Flattery considered it an education. He ordered the whole rob burned out at the nests, of course, and their charred bodies delivered to the villagers. Strictly political.