[ 3.2 ]
The racer kneels, palms against the floating platform, his face obscured by his helmet. His chest rises and falls, the red and white patterns on his suit pulsing slowly with his biometrics.
When the signal is given, he throws himself forward, into the open space of the arena. This first jump is crucial: you want to build velocity, but not so much you can’t control your landing.
He spins in the air, his boots landing precisely in the center of the next platform, which pivots on impact. He takes a moment to re-orient himself, and when the platform has spun far enough, he soars to the next one, quickly pivoting and diving down through the floating corridor — bouncing up and down, up and down, alternating between feet and hands before he curls into a ball and floats through the first checkpoint ring, which fades away with a burst of light.
Zero gravity is unforgiving — a small miscalculation at the start can throw you off exponentially, until you’re sailing helplessly past your target. There’s nothing more embarrassing than killing your momentum on a bad landing and being forced to grapple back to a checkpoint.
But this racer is fast, confident, and precise, even when he starts weaving through the notoriously treacherous rotating beams. Once he’s through, he grabs a tether and swings up to what is now, from his perspective, the top of the arena, and then onto the spinner, the massive wheel at the center of the course, where he grabs the first handle and starts climbing.
His suit is now lit up like a raging inferno, pulsing with his heartbeat. At the next checkpoint, he flips over and climbs down to the spinner’s axis, carefully taking position on the last platform.
This final jump is the hardest, as it requires him to compensate for the spinner’s rotation. But the racer doesn’t hesitate: he throws himself toward the exit port, firing the thrusters he’s been saving, going fast — too fast, Serafin thinks — but his aim is true, and the racer sails through the final checkpoint, out of the arena, sliding through the funnel back into the ship’s gravity, tumbling into the crash pads before bouncing to a halt.
“Yallah!” bellows the assistant coach, rushing with some of the other racers into the landing foam. The racer’s having a little trouble finding his balance, and the slaps on his back and shoulders aren’t helping. When he removes his helmet, his hair is slick with sweat, and his face is quite similar to Serafin’s — but softer, smoother, and with a wider, more charming grin than his father could ever manage.
“Beautiful, JJ!” shouts one of the other boys.
“Is that a record? Is that a record?” another keeps asking.
“It’s close!” says the assistant coach, checking the final tally on the scoreboard. “A little wobbly on the beams, but otherwise, fine work, boy! Fine work indeed!”
Jim Serafin Junior — who is going by JJ these days — soaks up the praise, accepting the shoulder slaps and applause with the same élan he displayed on his run. When he finally breaks free of the congratulatory gauntlet, he notices his father in the stands. “Hey, pop!” he shouts.
“Morning,” Serafin says, sipping his morning Rossana. “Nice moves out there.”
“They made us run a lot of zig drills on the Argo,” JJ says, jumping up and pulling himself onto the railing, where he takes a seat. “I mean, not obstacle courses — but the fundamentals are pretty much the same. You wanna take a run?”
“Oh no.” Serafin laughs. “I was always pure crash out there, the zigs were more your Uncle Ashley’s game. Are you going to try to make the team?”
“I mean, I’d like to! They say there’s a spot open, but I’m worried it might interfere with my classes. Advanced Orbital Mechanics this semester, you know, that’s going to be rough….”
“You’ll be fine,” Serafin says. “Remember, this isn’t just a game; it’s an opportunity to make connections. Ziggies are a big deal in the higher levels; Kase Barber was the Averroes team captain, back in the day.”
“I suppose,” says Ashley, scratching his jaw. “But I’d have to pay to get my gear re-fitted… and I know money’s tight right now….”
“It’s not that tight. Like I’ve said before: if you want to do this — if you want to do anything, anything at all — so long as it helps you with the social or the educational — we’ll find the money for it, understand? You’re in the slingshot. This is your time to build momentum; the more connections you make here, the better it will be for you going forward.”
“Hmm… I mean, if you think it’s a good idea….”
“Hey now, I didn’t say that,” Serafin says, quickly. “If you do sign up, it needs to be your decision. I’m not the one who will be getting up at five in the morning to practice my C&Cs.”
“Yeah,” JJ says. “Maybe I shouldn’t….”
Serafin fights off the sigh. He’s done his best to impress upon JJ the importance of signing up for something extracurricular this semester, but has also gone out of his way to refrain from specifying what said something should be. He had hoped this might encourage the boy, help him find his passion, but zig racing is only the latest activity JJ has considered (after debate, robotics, music, and the school’s student news broadcast service, the Praeco). Serafin can see JJ slowly talking himself out of this as well, and thinks it’s a mistake, but père ordering fils would defeat the entire purpose of the exercise.
Olivia would know how to handle this.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” says Serafin, “but I’d give it some serious thought, at least. Anyway, I’ve got to get to it — are you coming for dinner tonight?”
“Esther’s taking me to the Interfaith mixer.”
“That should be fun,” Serafin lies.
JJ catches it. “You don’t think it’s a good idea?”
“I didn’t say that. But I’d keep my eye on my wallet, if I were you.”
“I don’t own a wallet,” says JJ, confused.
(Neither does Serafin, to be fair.)
“Old figure of speech,” Serafin says, and begins tapping unseen controls, preparing to disengage. “Have a nice time. Give Esther my best.”
“I’ll be sure to!” JJ says cheerfully. “And thanks again for dropping by to watch the run, pop, I appreciate it.”
“Of course, son,” says Serafin. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
He closes his eyes tightly, and the world begins to stretch and slide away.
When he opens them again, Serafin is back in his office, palms against his desk. He stares out the window, allowing himself to repersonalize, letting the nausea tumble and roll through his belly. He’s always been unusually sensitive to remoting, for some reason; his BCI is supposed to reduce the disorientation — and, well, he’s stopped throwing up afterward, hasn’t he? That’s progress.
Once he’s sure he’s keeping his breakfast, he calls up the Idea (formerly the Notion) and sets to work.
For months, Serafin has been exhausting himself trying to understand the discovery he made on the Oberoi. He’s spent far more than he can afford on a local cognifier engine, which allows him to churn through his research securely. And there’s been progress, of sorts — he’s found thousands more minor anomalies in the public record — but he still can’t see the pattern in the constellations; the motive and source remain elusive.
Someone’s altering the history of the Churchill Cluster. But why?
Could it have all been for the Marius Hill Accords? Perhaps — but the Soviets have made some painful concessions, like surrendering the salvage rights for Kubasovsk, which is like sacrificing a rook to protect a pawn. Could be chaff, of course, but given the fact that new anomalies are still appearing, he’s left with the distinct impression the operation remains ongoing.
As far as their source . . . he has his suspicions.
When he first arrived at Firnas, Serafin put together a data-comp of every department, agency, and office with any connection to intelligence, and began slowly and methodically working through them:
It’s probably not the Department of Colony Security; everybody already knows how broken and corrupt they are, so no one takes them or their reports seriously.
SDF intelligence is notoriously overly cautious; ASF intelligence, the inverse; if the powers that be actually read the ASF yearlies and believed them, the UFA would be fighting wars on every planet and station in the solar system.
He has the lowest confidence in his OFI research, given how little information is available, even through covert channels, but they seem an unlikely culprit: the Executive is in the midst of some obscure ideological fracas with them; Serafin’s not privy to the details, but they’re likely out in the cold until a more sympathetic administration rolls in.
The civilian governances remain strong candidates still — particularly Foale — but the waystation’s leadership has always been a pack of squabbling children. Everything one colony says is loudly contradicted by the next; without a much greater degree of cooperation than they’ve historically demonstrated, they can’t have much influence on higher-level leadership. And the data doesn’t really track; too many opportunities to lie they haven’t taken advantage of, too many truths told they couldn’t have known about.
Which leaves….
He’s been reluctant to say it out loud; as though it’s professional blasphemy.
But the signifiers all point in the same direction.
If a full classified report can be thought of as a symphony, the signifier is a single note, the smallest unit of intelligence. Someone is or is not doing something; something is or is not happening. In rare cases, a single signifier can be vital — a critical target has been downed, a vital asset has been secured — but it typically takes dozens or even thousands of signifiers before one can gain even minimal situational awareness.
(And any analysis is of course made exponentially more difficult when the enemy goes dark or begins generating false signifiers.)
Serafin isn’t sure — even now, after all his months of research — but he’s running out of alternative hypotheses. He can’t be sure, without access to the SSCI data-bank, public intelligence can only get you so far, but when he looks at the pattern of signifiers, it looks like, it seems like, it feels like…
… SIS has been compromised.
It’s a nasty thought, to carry around in one’s head. Serafin’s been holding onto it for months now, trying to disprove it. But the more he digs, the more evidence he finds. As best as he can tell, the Solar Intelligence Service is the only UFA organization with the resources necessary to pull something like this together, to not only generate false events but also propagate them through the info-banks. And if they’re compromised—
Serafin’s proximity alert sounds. He sits up, waving off his research.
Norah arrives on time today, which is surprising, considering she’s usually early. Also of note: while she may appear, at first glance, to be her usual immaculately coiffured self, Serafin has spent enough time with her to immediately notice the frizz at the ends of her dark copper hair; the asymmetrical bunching of her blouse at the waist; the telltale frayed corner betraying robes twice-worn.
If it were anyone else, Serafin might suspect she had entertained a gentleman caller. He’d like to express his curiosity, but best not to frighten the poor soul.
“Good morning, Missus Lincoln,” he says, sipping his coffee, while she slips on her gloves and retrieves her pad from her bags.
“Good morning, Mister Serafin,” she says, avoiding eye contact, as is her wont.
There aren’t many perks for interlocutors, but one of the professors missed a connecting flight from Shepard, and so this quarter Serafin has been granted both an office and the services of one Norah Lincoln. The office seems more trouble than it’s worth, but Norah, despite her tremulous nature, has been a life-saver. Serafin had hoped to teach Political Science or Corporate Security, but the lack of openings forced him to fall back on History, his neglected secondary. In addition to her standard assistant duties, Norah has helped him get back up to speed on the current research in the field, as well as guiding him through the minefield of professorial rivalries and bureaucratic pitfalls.
She is also, mercifully, mahira with the Preception software, which Serafin continues to find baffling and inscrutable. She taps at her pad, loading the semester’s curriculum, and a complex, fractal spiral stretches overhead.
At the center is the core curriculum, the essential concepts which are the highest priority, colors shifting depending on the subject and the extent to which students have mastered the material. Norah zooms in on one branch, expanding it until Serafin’s class comes into focus. Against the wall, student profiles appear, mostly greens and yellows.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” says Serafin, examining the metrics.
“Yes. A few laggards.” Norah isolates the offenders. “Breeze seems to be struggling.”
“Struggling would imply some degree of effort.”
“Perhaps Wainwright could tutor him?” suggests Norah. “He needs the extra credit after last month.”
Serafin grunts assent. She scribbles a note on her pad, and Perception chimes agreeably.
At the edges of Serafin’s seminar, tendrils lead off to other lesson plans, weaving in and out and back again. One in particular has an alert icon floating over it; Serafin pokes and swipes at it, but it doesn’t react.
Norah grabs it for him. “Ada has asked you to integrate some practical examples relating to Markov chains in your Tuesday class. Preception has generated a list of possibles, which I’ve narrowed down to the strongest candidates — I was thinking perhaps resource extraction or trade routes?”
“Whatever you think best,” says Serafin, ever meek, ever mild.
The latest education trend is enmeshing, the idea that students benefit from drawing associations between the subjects they’re learning. Great pains have been taken to ensure collaboration between departments — there was even some discussion of doing away with departments entirely and adopting a structure similar to the modular management methodology popular in some of the newer corporations, but the outrage from tenures made it became clear any such reorganization would need to wait until considerably more of the old guard had moved on.
Serafin is somewhat skeptical of enmeshing, as he is of all popular trends, but the Preception system handles most of the work, so he doesn’t really mind. At the start of the quarter, he spent an afternoon describing his most important ideas and essential concepts he believed the students needed to learn, and the software balanced that out with every other proposal from every other other instructor, interlocutor, lecturer, and professor, in addition to ensuring the current UFA recommended educational guidelines were followed, along with some revisions based on current projections about what students would likely need to know in the future. As an interlocutor, Serafin is obliged to defer to the great and terrible Primary Curriculum, but Senior Professor Harron is much more interested in terrestrial politics and culture than military history, which leaves plenty of room for Serafin to ply his trade.
“We’re still over budget, unfortunately,” Norah says. “With your permission, there’s some adjustments we can make to the Siege of Mombasa later in the semester, if that’s alright—”
“Yes yes, of course.” Serafin waves this off. “I trust your judgment. Really, Missus Lincoln, you’re the one who should be teaching this seminar. You’ve been to Afghanistan — I’ve never even set foot on Earth.”
“Thank you, but you shouldn’t, ah, sell yourself short,” Norah says, blushing. “You managed to re-acclimate yourself with the current scholarship quite well. Very well, yes. As fast as anyone I’ve ever worked with, certainly. The… the considerable complexity of the material here is… no one would fault you if you missed something — which is not to say you have, of course! Impeccable, is the word, I’d probably use… although I don’t mean to imply that the work of our colleagues is substandard in any way….”
When it comes to scholarship, Norah is creative and bold, never afraid to challenge a prevailing theory or dominant paradigm. Interpersonally, she’s a wreck, unable to speak in front of more than a handful of people at a time. Lecturing is impossible, and even the mildest necessary correction of a wayward student sends her into nervous, stammering fits. The brilliance of her publications and her social position have kept her off the retrenchment lists, but her career has likely hit the nets until she can find some method to defeat her nerves.
“How’s next week looking?” Serafin pulls up his notes, which Perception immediately begins attacking with warnings, suggestions, and reminders.
“Oh! Very good,” says Norah, chasing off the scoldings. “We’ve gotten final approval and clearances on the Murphy HPC.”
“Wonderful,” Serafin says with a smile. “What would I do without you?”
Too much, too much: Norah is once again reduced to incoherent stammerings.
At one point, Serafin had been sufficiently impressed by Norah’s work he considered asking for her assistance with the Idea, but he’s never quite managed to raise the issue. It’s not just that she’s a civilian (although that’s certainly part of it) — the real problem is that she seems to have become rather smitten with him, despite the pains he’s taken to maintain an appropriate and professional distance. Between the work, his exhausting schedules, her severe social anxiety, his own myriad troubles — to say nothing of the panopticonic Office of Morals — well. Isn’t that enough? No need to go looking for trouble, is there?
When the day cycle’s work is done, Serafin shuffles back to the family housing sector, where he is somewhat baffled to discover his habitat transformed — so much so, in fact, that he initially pauses at the threshold, concerned he’s entered the wrong room by mistake. The bare floors are now covered with shift tiles, and the hallway, formerly sterile and bare, now prominently features cerulean silk, decorated with shimmering, golden smart-thread that wanders through the fabric, slowly generating alternating patterns of leaves, flowers, and elaborate arabesques.
Venturing further inside, he sees the battered standard-issue furniture has also been replaced in favor of more stylish and modern options, including a frankly grotesque morph couch, to which Serafin takes an immediate, visceral dislike. His few personal items — his medals, his father’s books, the various baubles he’s collected on various assignments over the years — have been retrieved from various boxes and drawers, and are now lovingly displayed in an illuminated mahogany case.
In the kitchen, the likely vandal, Lucy Serafin, chats with some friends over tea.
“… well obviously, there’s something going on,” Petronilla Kindy says, checking to make sure she hasn’t spilled anything on herself after every sip. “They raised an awful fuss when I stopped by her room. ‘Other people live here too!’ I told them. I’ve got half a mind to file a complaint with the Administrative.”
“They’d better watch out now that Genevra’s gotten herself involved,” Lucy says. “Do they have court-martials in Security? She might make them start.”
“It’s strange to see. She was always so beastly to Valerie, but now that she’s gone, Genny acts as though they were sisters from first flight.”
“It’s a easier thing, to love the dead.”
Dima Akhund looks up and smiles when she notices the new arrival, although she’s clearly disappointed he’s not JJ. “Peace be upon you, Mister Serafin.”
“Salaam, ladies,” says Serafin. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Not at all!” says Kindy cheerfully. “Feel free to join us!”
Serafin declines, respectfully, hands clasped in doleful supplication as he retreats to his quarters, which have mercifully not been subjected to the same treatment as the rest of the habitat. Under other circumstances, Serafin wouldn’t mind whiling away an hour with Lucy and her friends, but he’s eager to begin working his way through his assignment from Fyfe, which has been stealing cycles in the back of his mind all day.
Fyfe, by his own account, was quite busy during the war, overseeing the Firnas unit that directed the flow of information between SIS and the various departments while keeping watch for for subversives and saboteurs. With the war over, the unit has moved on to other posts, and Fyfe’s post-war duties are considerably lighter, but there’s still much to be done — but none of it has found its way onto Serafin’s itinerary.
At least, until now.
Until now, Fyfe has treated Serafin as dead weight, limiting him to scut: preliminary interviews with potential candidates for the SIS cadet program; reviewing comms for inadvertent or surreptitious disclosures; fetching or delivering fads and hard-cases — once, Serafin spent the greater part of a particularly humiliating afternoon on a cross-ship trek to deliver a container of what turned out to be Fyfe’s dinner. Blank work, to put it bluntly, only given to Serafin because Fyfe holds a deep distrust of any technology more advanced than a slide rule, but also clear evidence of Fyfe’s low regard for his new hire.
Now, at last, the moment has arrived: Serafin’s (ostensible) superior has, for the first time, seen fit to provide him with a proper assignment related to proper intelligence. Off-book, of course, but that’s not what concerns Serafin; he’s been off-book before; his current life is, after a fashion, off-book.
Work the problem. What’s the problem?
Masri and Hartshorne.
And what is the solution?
Hard to say.
It would be helpful to know why the powers that be have taken an interest in the pair, but Serafin suspects that information has been withheld intentionally — possibly by Fyfe? He was smirking more than usual, clearly knew more than he was letting on. A challenge, perhaps? Fyfe wants to see if Serafin can find a solution even without all of the pieces, or maybe he wants Serafin to ferret out the truth on his own? Either way, it’s an opportunity to get into Fyfe’s good graces—
Lucy pokes her head in, letting him know that the coast is clear. Serafin returns to the kitchen, where he is somewhat irritated to realize that he no longer knows where anything is.
“Nice visit?” Serafin asks, tapping his wrist to request an update on the kitchen inventory from the apartment network.
“Nice visit, but not so nice circumstances,” says Lucy. “Valerie Moss died.” Serafin starts moving teacups to the sink, but she waves him off. “Don’t worry about all that, the Robbie’s coming over tomorrow.”
“My condolences. Did you know her well?”
“Not as well as I would have liked, but we were becoming friends,” Lucy says, pushing herself up onto the counter and crossing her legs, resting her head against the cabinet. “Very sweet. Quite brilliant, very much the Archimedes sort. She was constantly jotting down these little notes to herself — I got the impression that her mind was like a transit center, great ideas constantly rushing in and out. Reminded me a bit of Aunt Rita.”
“Was she one of the Dowers?”
This is the standing informal nickname for the widows’ club, which everyone uses and nobody likes. Lucy’s nose wrinkles, but she lets it pass.
“She was. Her husband died during the Collins Occupation, as I recall.”
Serafin examines the contents of the refrigerator; unimpressed with his options, he retrieves a Quikbite out of the freezer. Lucy lets this pass without remark as well — strange, considering her usual enthusiasm for monitoring his diet.
“How did she pass?”
“Well, that’s the thing of it: we don’t know. Security says it was likely an accident, but some of the ladies are suspicious. If I had to guess, it’s some to do with that awful boyfriend of hers. He buttonholed me at the reception last week, wouldn’t stop carrying on about politics, and I didn’t care much for what he was spouting, lots of EMAK talk. Very unpatriotic sort! But yes, it’s quite the scandal: security locked down the whole floor her room was on, and they refuse to tell us anything about it.”
“I’m sure they have their reasons.”
“I know.” Lucy scoots to one side, allowing him access to the microwave. “It’s just… sometimes I feel like everything in the whole solar system is a big secret these days.”
That might be directed at him. He might deserve it.
Best to leave it be.
“Speaking of secrets,” Serafin says, “I can’t help but notice that some scoundrel seems to have broken in and redecorated our hab in my absence.”
“We discussed it.”
“We discussed the possibility,” Serafin says, opening a bulb of Zamzam. “I don’t recall signing off on it.”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s very stylish, I’m sure. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the old furniture, was there?”
“It was awfully dated. And so bulky. Last week’s dinner was so cramped, it felt like we were nothing but knees and elbows. This new set is just so much better! And gives us room to breathe.”
“That’s all well and good, dear, but as I’ve reminded you before, we are on a budget—”
“We are,” says Lucy, stealing a sip of his drink, “but if you must know, most of the furniture is from the Dowers, old pieces they were keeping in storage. That’s why Dima stopped by, she was dropping off those wonderful tapestries.”
“Donations, hm? What about that?” Serafin gestures toward the floating Meissner table, which he immediately pinged as the most expensive of the new set.
Lucy smiles through a wince. “Oh. Well. That,” she says, launching into an prepared explanation that is clearly prepared and practiced. The girl has a gift for explanations; by the time she’s finished weaving the tale of The Shockingly Affordable Centerpiece, it has become not only an essential part of the decor, but an essential Serafin heirloom, to be passed down through future generations.
“Fine,” Serafin says eventually, knowing better than to argue with her over such matters. “But do try to show a little restraint for a while, alright, Lulu? At least until the next quarter.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, glancing at her peripherals. “Looks like Billy’s still awake. Want to go in and say good-night?”
“I want to, but I’d better get back to it. Need to make the money to pay for that eyesore.”
“Another chore from Professor Fyfe? I swear, you get more homework than the students.”
“Oh, I get the same amount. I just do my homework.”
She slides off the counter and kisses him on the cheek. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Serafin takes his meal down to the Rounds, the common area beneath the family housing tower, so named because is the only section, aside from the zig module, that is open, and thus passengers can see all the from one end of the ring to the other. Serafin takes a seat near the neglected garden and the copper and brass water clock. The night cycle has fallen, and so the tables are mostly empty and the food carts are closed up, except for the ones overseen by robots. From sternside, small pockets of students move through the tunnel underneath the curving amphitheatre, jostling each other and laughing as they head spinward, around the Rounds, to reach the dorms.
As he eats, he watches the Coriolis curve of the water clock flowing out of the funnel, the same as it always has, the same as when he was a student here himself. It had been around the same time as this, in fact, when Ashley had taken advantage of the reduced occupancy of a planetary layover and — at considerable expense — installed a second, duplicate clock. This bit of mischief had required bringing in contractors to pull up the floor panels and reroute the piping; they had even gone to the trouble to move the original, to make it more difficult to ascertain which was which. When Admin had finally tracked him down, Ashley insisted it had been a bold act of permutationism that raised profound questions about originality and reality (Serafin, having been present for most of the scheme, knew it had mostly been about infuriating Ashley’s nemesis, Professor Hartono). Ashley had even been gathering materials for a third, but gave up the game when Admin made it clear further mischief would result in consequences more severe than mere rustication. After that, of course—
But no.
Focus.
Ben Masri and Chip Hartshorne are too close. Both Interfaith, but Interfaith isn’t really the problem — Interfaith is simply the pond that’s being poisoned.
Chip Hartshorne is the most important vector, Serafin quickly concludes: Chip has become the de facto leader of his group of friends, his authority likely bolstered by their religious devotion. But as the Reds are so fond of asking, what is to be done?
Serafin reviews Chip’s profile to see if there’s anything to indicate how aggressively his treatment should be, but doesn’t see much: the boy is the fifth of five siblings, born in some place called Connecticut. Like most Firnas students, he’s a child of privilege — so much privilege, in fact, one of the support ships attached to the fleet is actually owned by the Hartshorne family.
But so what? Serafin isn’t a Communist — you don’t target someone just because they’re wealthy.
Chip’s first-generation accelerated, which helps to explains his phenomenal academic record and somewhat aberrant Preception readings. Serafin’s mildly surprised to discover the boy’s a veteran, as well — a United Nations Space Force volunteer, in fact, who saw some action during the Siege of McCarthy. Perhaps they don’t teach manners in the UNSF; or perhaps they simply didn’t stick.
What else?
Raised Sedevacantist. Relatively new to Interfaith. On the Averroes zig racing team. He has cousins in the Corporative, but they work in entertainment, nothing too sensitive or vital to UFA interests.
The only red flag is the Earth First connection. It’s definitely concerning — the Hartshorne family is among the movement’s largest backers, and the movement has ties to less savory elements like the Returners and Samaa Batil — but the Hartshornes appear to have kept well clear of all that, and there’s no indication that Chip has ever expressed any sentiments about the terrestrial/empyrean conflicts.
Try as he might, Serafin can’t seem to find the problem.
If Chip was compromised, if he was celebrating anti-space radical action, or spreading Red propaganda among his classmates, or calling for waystation uprisings, that would be one thing. But there’s nothing in the profile to suggest a security risk, and Serafin’s personal interactions have always left him with the overwhelming impression that Chip Hartshorne is exactly what he appears to be: an insolent, disagreeable undergrad.
An uncouth version of Ashley.
The thought surprises Serafin. Is that true? No, of course not. It’s absurd. There are surface similarities, to be sure — both wealthy, both Earth-born, both gifted, both popular and athletic. But Ashley was confident where Chip is arrogant; Ashley was cultured, where Chip is elitist; Ashley, gregarious, where Chip is presumptuous.
And Ashley was never particularly religious….
But might he have been, had he grown up today? How much of Serafin’s affection is born of haneen? How much of the apparent difference comes from seeing through the eyes of a friend, rather than the eyes of an educator?
But he’s thinking about Ashley again. Focus. Plenty of time to reminisce later — unavoidable, in fact; said time is steadily creeping ever closer on the calendar. Save it for September. Work the problem.
Chip Hartshorne is king of his domain.
What does one do with kings?
Once he’s started, Serafin honestly finds it difficult to stop. This is what he’s good at, maybe what he’s best at, and he’s missed it terribly. His fingers race across the table, pulling up statistics, running probabilistics, double-checking Hartshorne’s psych profile. The military records are key; by midnight, Serafin has put together a plan to be proud of — bold, aggressive, deniable, and he’s confident it will work. But by the time he starts to head home, Serafin has also resolved not to put it into action.
Going after some corrupt apparatchik is one thing — Serafin’s done far worse, over the years — but a UFA citizen? A student? A veteran? That seems a bridge too far.
No, Serafin decides. While he’s certainly tempted — access to the SSCI data-bank is a prize almost too sweet to resist — Serafin decides he simply can’t move forward without more clarity on the problem.
Fortunately, Monday’s class helps settle the issue.
Serafin admittedly spent more time on the Historical Personality Construct than he should. In addition to tweaking the face, making sure to capture the soulful eyes, the full lips, the thin mustache, the full, dark red-dyed beard, Serafin pored over old footage to make sure the gestures were correct — the little tug on the collar, the precisely calibrated diplomatic smile Murphy made whenever someone asked a difficult question. Serafin even went so far as to use a specialized mimic unit instead of a standard blank, which allows for greater subtlety of movement, as well as a physical facerig instead of standard consensus overlays. By the time it was finally finished, it looked just like the man in the painting. Serafin attributes his talent for false faces to the theater class he took here at Firnas, all those years ago (a talent which had the added benefit of keeping him off-stage). He’s proud of his work, seeing it now, sitting at the front of the classroom.
Sadly, his efforts seem to go wholly unappreciated by the students.
They do seem to enjoy interrogating the HPC though, which Serafin supposes is what really matters. The questions range from the interesting to the inane: what exactly was Omar Murphy’s relationship to the American government (Unofficial intermediary.) Was he a spy? (No.) Was he married? (Not at the time.) Was his family wealthy? (Yes.) What languages did he speak? (English, Arabic, and Pashto.) Was he ever scared for his life? (Yes, although rarely when he should have been.) Was he a spy? (Still no.) Did he enjoy American food? (A Wainwright question.)
How did he come to be involved in the conflict?
“It all began when I was approached by James Bath, an old friend of my father, after the elections,” Murphy says, leaning back in his chair. “He represented some investors who were interested in developing land that my family controlled — gifted to them in perpetuity by Stalin, actually. At the time, my father was recovering from heart surgery, and so I was asked to travel in his stead — just filling in, you know. The day I arrived in the capital, I met with the head of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum—”
“I have a question,” Chip Hartshorne interjects. “Why did you choose to ally with the Durrani clan?”
Serafin taps his temple — crown on, Mister Hartshorne. Chip obeys as Murphy answers; the HPC takes the interruption in stride, perhaps assuming people in the future are just rude.
“There were several reasons, actually. The Durranis had strong support in the Parvan area, as well as long-standing alliances with tribes throughout the country. And they were committed: we knew we could rely on them to use what we gave them to fight the Russians, rather than target political rivals or flip them on the black market. And I suppose the personal factor ought not be understated: I attended uni with several of their cousins; wound up marrying one of Rahim’s sisters, actually—”
“Yeah yeah, but why them, specifically?” Chip asks. “I was reading about Abdul last night — this guy was a kafir, right? A smuggler. A gangster. A corruptor of women. He had actually been disinherited when First Light was painted!”
“Well, uh,” Murphy says. “The, uh, well….” This isn’t a malfunction — the question would have caught the real man off-guard as well.
Serafin intervenes: “Abdul Durrani was no saint. But context is key: remember, Afghanistan had been annexed since 1980. And as we’ve discussed before, what always happens when Soviets take control?”
“Repression,” guesses Breeze.
“Crime,” says Masri.
“That’s right,” says Serafin. “It’s almost axiomatic. Why do we think that is?”
“A loss of moral framework,” says Mendelson. “They deny God. They say individuals aren’t responsible for their behavior.”
“True, but insufficient. Ideological contagion takes time to metastasize, while the criminal networks in question arise almost immediately.”
“Necessity!” says Wainwright. “If there’s no free market, then, you know… stuff can’t go where it needs to go? I guess?”
“Yes, actually!” says Serafin. “Communist governances have struggled with resource allocation from the very beginning — even after 1917, they had to resort to measures like the NEP to address the problem… and that struggle continues to this today, despite claims to the contrary.
“So Abdul Durrani was a criminal, yes. But that’s precisely why the coalition needed him: he had significant capital, a disciplined paramilitary force, considerable access (ironically) to law enforcement, and deep, intimate ties to the Pakistani governance, which allowed him to move whatever was needed across the border.”
“Like weapons,” says Masri.
“Or drugs,” snaps Chip.
“Or medical supplies, or religious materials, or refugees,” says Serafin, the model of tolerance and patience.
“But why rely on some immoral desert savage? Why not a group with more combat effectiveness?” Chip asks. “There were other groups — the Mountain Men, I think they were called….”
“Oh, I met with them, actually!” Murphy says, pleased by Chip’s studiousness; the HPC doesn’t seem to recognize the boy’s only looking for a quarrel. “We called them the Mujahideen. Damn tough, but they tended to fight amongst themselves quite a bit, which only got worse after Hekmatyar died. They did join the coalition eventually… but in 2006, the general sentiment in Washington was they were a little too bloodthirsty for what we were trying to do.”
Chip scoffs. “I would think bloodthirsty is exactly what you’d want!”
“I’m… not sure I follow, son.”
“I mean no disrespect, Mister Murphy, but you spent ten years and billions of dollars on all this intrigue and scheming and subterfuge… and then it all fell apart in the end anyway! Why bother? What’s the point of it all? The Soviets are the enemy. Why not just fight them?”
“The last thing the United States wanted was another Hanbando,” Serafin says. “And as we’ve discussed previously, the capitalist nations’ force projection capabilities were at their lowest point since World War II—”
“But that’s what I’m saying!” says Chip. “What if, after Pearl Harbor, we had decided to just try and bribe and blackmail everyone in Europe, instead of rolling up our sleeves and dealing with the problem? I was born in the United States, okay? In 1941, we had less than half a million servicemen, 200 ships, 400 tanks. But we mobilized. We whipped ourselves into fighting shape, and then” — he smacks his fist into his palm — “we went over there and took care of business!”
“Hardly comparable,” Serafin says. “While the Axis powers certainly had an advantage in terms of personnel, they were overextended from France to North Africa, and they were already running low on essential materiel — and that’s before Barbarossa. In Afghanistan, we’re talking about a situation where the Soviet Union has been in full control of a territory in their own backyard for decades. Even if the Azadis had full and open western support, there would be no reasonable expectation of success — which is one of the requirements of just war, if you’ll recall. So what you’re suggesting is not only foolish, but immoral.”
“But we wouldn’t need to win, would we?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like you say: the Soviets needed the Afghani resources. Yeah? No way they could maintain the flow in the middle of a civil war. There’s nothing they could do! They’d have to come to the table, or they’d get crushed.”
Serafin feels a familiar fluttering in his palm. Over the past few months, Serafin has noticed a strange, intermittent trembling in his prosthetic arm — tiny flutters imperceptible to the eye that come and go. He’s run diagnostics and updated his firmware, but can’t seem to track down the source.
“A provocative suggestion,” Serafin says, flexing his fingers. “But let’s consider other possibilities. Putting aside the logistical and logical, suppose the western powers do go all in — boots on the ground, as you say. What happens when our troops fire on Soviet advisors? What happens when they bring down one of our aircraft by mistake? Maybe we get lucky the first time. But the second? The third? Every time there’s a direct engagement, the chances of escalation increase. And if we’re going to openly support rebels in their backyard, what’s stopping them from offering similar assistance to, say, the Fifth Internationalists in Mexico? Even if you’re not concerned with the potential loss of life in the region — which I assure you, would be tremendous — a state of open war between the major powers would be simply unacceptable.”
Chip shrugs in that way only young men can shrug, the way that means I don’t know, I don’t care, and I’m absolutely right all at once. “I don’t see why. I mean, I’m not saying it wouldn’t be risky, but wouldn’t it be better shut down the Reds then and there? I mean, how much better would everything be if they’d never gotten off the ground?”
“You’re not the first to ask this,” Serafin says. “I’d recommend reviewing Tejani and Grosze’s Alternate Paths. The models are clear: in an aggressive rollback scenario, the two most likely outcomes would be the collapse of the capitalist alliance or a full thermonuclear exchange.”
“I’ve read Tejani and Grosze,” Chip says, “and I think they’re missing the same key detail as everyone else you’ve been making us read this semester.”
“And what is that?”
“Faith.”
The only reason Serafin doesn’t sigh out loud is because he’s been expecting this for some time. “Could you elaborate?”
“If the cause is righteous, I don’t believe we could fail.”
“Is that so? And what happened to all of the countries that the Soviets invaded? Were the ukrayintsi and the nihonjin insufficiently devout? Why did their prayers go unheard?”
Chip scoffs. “That’s just territorial squabbling. There’s a difference between just believing in God and bellum sacrum. If the people believe, and the cause is righteous, the Lord provides.”
Ben Masri contributes: “‘… if there are twenty among you who are steadfast, they will overcome two hundred. And if there one hundred among you who are steadfast, they will overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a people who cannot comprehend.’”
“I’m all for faith,” Serafin says, carefully. “Even an atheist would acknowledge its positive effect on morale. But what you’re describing would require more than faith — it would require the direct intercession of a higher power.”
“Is that really so absurd? It’s happened before, hasn’t it? Joan of Arc had visions.”
“Joan of Arc also had cannons.”
“Well, what about the Angels of Mons? Or the Battle of L2?” Chip asks, and by the smug tone Serafin can recognize Chip thinks he’s found his kill shot. “You don’t think there was some divine intervention there?”
This is not a question. This is a trap.
The Battle of L2 was the turning point of the Iblis Crisis, the finest hour of the combined Copernican forces, the moment when humanity reclaimed its future from the machine armada. If Serafin says no, he paints himself as not only secularist but unpatriotic, and possibly ridiculous: the massive energy burst that bought the Seventeenth the time they so desperately needed is quite literally referred to as the Miracle of the Vorota, after all. Serafin could argue the miracle would have meant nothing without the tireless efforts of War Tech scientists and engineers and the heroic sacrifice of hundreds of thousands, but it seems gauche to attempt to use the bodies of his brothers in arms to win an argument with an insolent undergrad.
Of course, if he says yes, he is ceding ground to Chip’s deranged thesis. Best to refuse the provocation entirely:
“Mister Hartshorne,” Serafin says, offering his most patronizing, most professorial smile. “This is a history class. The Battle of L2, being a recent event, falls outside of the purview of our seminar, however miraculous it might have been. If you’d like to come back in a decade or so, I’ll be happy to share my thoughts on what transpired. Until then, I would appreciate it if we could return to the Liberation of Afghanistan, the actual subject at hand?”
Chip obviously wants to keep going, but Serafin doesn’t give him the chance, instead turning and gesturing for the HPC to continue.
“Where was I?” it says, scratching its cheek. “Oh, yes yes yes, the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum. So we had lunch in Puli Alam….”
The HPC carries on. Serafin expects to feel relief, but the tension doesn’t go away. He isn’t quite what’s wrong until he glances at the Preception monitor. And there it is, plain as day:
While the class is still synchronized, the center has shifted — you don’t need to see the brainwaves and heartbeats to feel the momentum turn. The Interfaith clique is drifting away from Serafin, slowly and gradually, realigning toward the smug little prodigy at the center of the room.