[ 2.4 ]
Two days later, on March 23rd, following an exceedingly difficult around of negotiations, the Copernican powers arrive at a broad agreement about the order of the post-war system, in what will come to be known as the Marius Hills Accords. Over breakfast in the little canteen, Serafin reviews the announcement, shifting back and forth between pen and fork: a few bites here, a few scribbles there. What better way to start the day than stale bread, cold coffee, and interplanetary diplomacy?
First, there’s a statement of intent to establish a universal regulatory program for non-human intelligence oversight, with a specific focus on military autonomics and Seldon engines. This comes as little surprise, as it’s merely the culmination of several ongoing trends — likely to happen, if only because it will require a considerable number of bureaucrats to bring into effect, and likely (irresistibly) necessitate the creation of an entirely new bureaucratic regime.
Second, there is a general agreement to deactivate, disarm, and dismantle any and all Iblis units located in each governance’s respective territories, and to refrain from developing new anti-human weaponry based on Iblis technology. Most of the media is, not unreasonably, focused on this particular section of the agreement. But there are almost no details — not even the barest provisional framework — and no mention of any mechanisms to ensure compliance, which suggests this is likely more faint hope than real desire, something they’ve declared because they know they have to declare something.
The third item on the list is a catastrophe, albeit a well-concealed one:
“… given the devastation the Iblis conflict has wrought on our solar system and the magnitude of the coming reconstruction that awaits the citizens of Copernica, all signatories hereby commit to a reduction of military forces from all non-planetary colonies as soon as it is feasible to do so without hazard to human life or vital infrastructure, and to allow all populations to enjoy a peaceful and orderly transition to a free representative civilian governance….”
Nothing too concerning, at first glance. And when he reviews the official timeline, he sees little impact on the planets and orbitals; there’s a bit of jockeying in the Asteroid Belt, but nothing too shocking. But when he runs projections on the waystations — specifically, Churchill Cluster — the results are so alarming he has to check them twice and inspect the verity before he can accept their authenticity.
According to the data, the UFA will pull the majority of its forces from the cluster in the next two years. This is a monumental shift, made all the more stunning by its seemingly ex nihilo appearance. The implications of such a decision are complex and varied; the only constant being that they are, as best he can discern, wholly negative for the post-terrestrial governances.
Serafin is not a man in power. But for most of his life he has been a man with his ear to the door of men in power; as such, he has always enjoyed some insight into the workings of the system — near the loop, if not exactly in it.
But today, he’s completely blindsided.
To not even have been aware something like this was in the works? To not even hear a whisper of the possibility from van Arden, or Rita? He knows, rationally, his disconnection makes sense: he spent months in a box and then more in a bed. Why wouldn’t he be out of touch?
But it gnaws at him, makes him feel useless and spent. And the more he digs through the projections, the worse it looks: the withdrawal will diminish access to resources, reduce force projection capabilities, and make it essentially impossible to maintain order in the habitats. There’s a passel of short-term gains they’ll likely throw out to sell it to the public, but everything he sees suggests this is going to be a kāritha.
What is he missing?
As much as the surprise stings, what’s worse is that he can’t begin to make heads or tails of what’s really going on. And this nonsense about “a peaceful and orderly transition to a free representative civilian governance” — what’s that about? A concept the Reds can barely comprehend, let alone carry through on.
He begins to scribble a quick missive to Nail Hadlow, an old college chum who chose to join the FWDM for his second career. Nail won’t be able to respond immediately, but he’s likely to have been in the room when the negotiations were taking place; perhaps he can offer some insight as to what in God’s name they’re thinking—
“Good morning, Mister Serafin!”
Once again, Serafin finds himself wrested from his thoughts by Maila, who has arrived in the dining hall in a pair of colorful pyjamas — although she has elected, in a nod to modesty, to toss a shawl over shoulders. Another example of the declining etiquette of the new generation, no doubt, but given that Serafin is neither God, her father, nor her husband, he elects to let the sartorial choice pass without remark.
“Good morning, Missus Schott,” says Serafin, waving away his news displays. “Flying solo this morning?”
“Hermy over-did it a little last night. We missed you at the dance!”
“Sorry to have missed it. I was just getting caught up on some work.”
“What are you working on?”
“I have an interview.”
“Like a job?”
“Like the media, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, how exciting! To be able to share your thoughts with the whole solar system… I’d love to be on broadcast!”
“I’d love to send you in my place.”
She giggles. “Are you going to finish that?”
Serafin surrenders his plate, and she seizes his remaining flatbread and begins smearing it in honey. “Herman said you were living in the Churchill Cluster, before.”
“That’s right.”
“My family was on Johnson. I was wondering… do you… do you think they’re alright?”
“I couldn’t say for sure. But there were rather a lot of Johnnies on Sharman.” Nearly 285,000, in fact — a fraction of Johnson’s peak, but far more than Sharman was designed to comfortably house.
“It’s just… I haven’t heard from them in ages.”
There’s a tone in her voice that convinces him to tread carefully. He’s not the sort of man who wilts at the sight of wide eyes and trembling lips, but he certainly wouldn’t want to suffer them unnecessarily.
“I wouldn’t read too much into it,” Serafin says. “The refugee indexes are in shambles, and our comms are still in quite a state of disarray.”
“Disarray?”
“Disorganized, messed up, broken. Some of the relays were damaged in attacks, some of the C-LSC infrastructure was taken offline intentionally, in order to prevent them from being subverted — ah, used, by enemy forces. And after we learned they were building signal-hunters….”
Best not to elaborate.
To be honest, it might be best if they went out quick, in one of the early strikes. There are rumors the Iblis kept certain individuals alive longer because the rhythm and frequency of their screams were calculated to cause more distress than others; if Maila’s family didn’t make it off Johnson in time, it’s possible their suffering was echoing across the solar system on every available frequency for years.
Not that Maila knows anything about that, thank God. But even mention of the Iblis is enough to make her shiver and pull her shawl tighter.
“My Aunt Joelle took me to Luna for interplanetaries when I turned twelve,” she says. “We were only supposed to be gone for six months, but the day after we arrived they shut down the transports, so we were stuck in Earth-space. And when the messages stopped going through… why, we didn’t hear about Johnson until months after. And then my Aunt Joelle… there was a tunnel collapse….
“This peacekeeper’s family took pity on me and put me up for a while, but… I was in a bad way, you know? I didn’t have any next of kin, I didn’t know anybody… I remember standing in the terminal, watching the curves talking to their johns, and I thought to myself, you know, is that going to be me next year? I’ve nothing against it, you know, my friend Sady, she worked at a rubhub… a real nice one, but… I don’t know. Just the idea of… going with someone, just for the money?”
She shakes her head, wipes away tears. “Hermy says it’s no good, focusing on the past. I don’t know what I’d do without him, honestly. I was all on my own until he came along. My salvation angel. He even hired some investigators to try to find my family.”
“Well, I hope they find them. How did you fare in the interplanetaries?”
She smiles. “I came in third.”
Serafin pats her arm.
“Good girl.”
It is at this moment that Herman arrives, scowling, stomping, and hungover. He approaches like he’s looking for a fight — “Hermy!” Maila says, hands nervously dancing across the table before scurrying under the table like she’s got more to hide than bread.
“There you are!” he barks.
“Herman,” says Serafin, calmly.
“Jim,” says Herman, greetings, questions, and threats efficiently layered into his tone.
In the course of everyday human interaction there are countless routines we fall into: some as reflexively simple as a “bless you” after someone sneezes; others complex, multi-act dramas about who has ruined the other’s life the most. Herman looks to be trying to put on an amateur production of Are You Putting Moves On My Girl? — it’s obvious from his stance, his eyes searching for the slightest flinch or tremble. Maila is performing her part (the guilty wife) with gusto, although she doesn’t have anything to be guilty about so far.
But one of the pleasures of age is coming to recognize that, if you’re willing to suffer the social discomfort, you can simply decline the roles you’re offered. While Serafin was willing to offer a bit of solace to a young woman worried about her family, his reserves of sociability are not limitless; this particular outlay is simply more than he is willing to pay. Jealousy is a young man’s game.
And while Herman is young (younger, at least, it’s all such a muddle these days), and although he certainly appears interested in raising a ruckus, it appears, judging by his hunching and winching, that he may be too hungover to successfully stir one up.
“What are you two up to?” Herman mutters at last, rather feebly. Even young men are still subject to Newton’s third law. Right now, he’s floating — without Serafin providing reaction, Herman needs to start throwing accusations or continue to drift.
“We were just discussing the state of the system,” Serafin says. “Have you seen the news? We’ve come to terms. Peace amongst worlds.”
“Is that so?” Herman asks. “How about that! I guess your boy Abergel managed to pull it off after all. You know, I had my doubts about that guy, but he’s really stepped up!”
“Mm.” Serafin dislikes the current Executive, but not for any reasons he’d care to share.
“They say anything about the Iblis?”
“Disarm and dismantle,” Serafin says. “Nothing too surprising.”
“Those damn machines. They’re lucky they never got serious about hitting Earth,” Herman says, squeezing a fist. “We’d have showed them a thing or two! You know, I was listening to this broadcast Hessman did the other night, dynamite stuff, he really lays the whole thing out…”
Suddenly, Serafin is split in two: on one level, he’s still having an artificially civil conversation with Herman; but on the other, the Notion has come roaring back to life. It’s like being in the midst of a hurricane: there are a hundred connections spinning through his mind, each carrying a thousand implications. He can’t articulate it yet, but if he can just focus, just for a moment—
“… I mean, it all comes down to land, doesn’t it? What is territory — comes from terra, or land, right? And of course, one the planets, you have terra firma — but not in space, there’s nothing keeping you connected, do you see?. We’re spiritual beings, we need that connection to the land…”
Serafin’s pulse races. Somewhere, in all these reports and agreements and projections, is what he’s been searching for: a solution, or at least the start of one, something solid and constant to help guide him through the maelstrom. All he has to do is find it, if he can just concentrate—
“… Hessman was also saying the waystations were a mistake—”
“Hessman doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Serafin says, with a little more heat than intended. “The waystations are fundamental to Copernican infrastructure, anyone who’s taken intro to post-terrestrial governances knows this; we can’t maintain OEFW chains without them. The waystations also took the brunt of the Iblis attacks — we’d all be dead if it wasn’t for Churchill and the rest.”
Serafin is horrified to hear this spilling out of his mouth; it’s true, but he shouldn’t be talking about politics at all, let alone with such frankness. He does his best to stammer out some apologetic “in my opinion” blather, but it’s barely coherent; half his mind is still running down the track like a greyhound, unconcerned with anything except the chase.
The key lies with Churchill Cluster.
But this news came from Marius Hills—
“Hey, it’s my fault!” Herman says magnanimously. “I’m just not explaining it right. I’ll send you the broadcast, trust me, it’s one of his best—”
Suddenly, at last, at long last, epiphany strikes, months of research and no small measure of intuition crashing together. It’s too much to hold together for long; it’s as though a flash of light has revealed the world around him, and he must desperately take in as many details as possible before he plunges back into the gloom.
Fact the first: The UFA is withdrawing all military forces from Churchill Cluster.
But Churchill can’t survive without military forces, not after the war. The only reason Patrick Station is still operational is because they’re plugged into the ASF Sultan’s reactors. Sellers hasn’t been able to produce its own foodstuffs for years. Sharman might be a lost cause, even if they get all the aid they’ve requested.
Even assuming the miraculous does occur and the cluster manages to re-stabilize on its own, it will still be on the brink of disaster. The ways have performed admirably against the Iblis, but they lack the will and the ideological rigor for a serious covert campaign. A division of underfed civilian peacekeepers in fresh-print uniforms against a fully equipped Soviet subversion unit? They’ll be changing the cluster’s name to Stalinskaya before the decade is out.
The powers that be wouldn’t agree to the withdrawal unless they believed Churchill was a lost cause.
Churchill isn’t a lost cause.
So why do the decision-makers believe Churchill is a lost cause?
The belief only makes sense if they’ve got a bad read.
Why do they have a bad read?
Bad reads are caused by bad intelligence.
Why do they have bad intelligence?
Conclusion: something’s wrong.
There’s a disconnect between UFA leadership and the reality on the cluster.
This is it. He needs to flesh it out, but this is it. The Notion is blooming at last into a proper idea: something’s wrong. He has no idea what, but this is a premise, an argument, something he can explore, falsify, build upon. It’s no longer just an undefined ache in his gut, no longer a vague irritation.
Herman has said something else and is waiting for Serafin’s response, but Serafin’s too far gone, can only manage a nod and a polite smile, leaving the hungover man completely defeated.
“Well, I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do,” Herman says. “We need to get going anyway. We’re late for this massage session you” (this is directed, with some venom, at Maila) “insisted on.”
“Oh, yes!” Maila says. “Have a good day, Mister Serafin!”
“You too,” mumbles Serafin, scribbling notes and reminders to himself. As she leaves, she attempts to slide her arm around Herman’s, but he pushes her away, leaving her awkwardly flitting after him like a moth after a light.
As soon as they’re gone, Serafin heads back to his cabin as briskly as he can without drawing attention, going over the trail in his mind, over and over; it takes an incredible amount of willpower not to break into a sprint. As soon as the door has slid shut he flips the bed into the wall and waves open his idea-space: at its heart, he sets down his only certainty, the solar center around which all else must spin: something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong.
But that’s too vague. Clarify. Simplify. Refine.
‘Intelligence’ is a versatile word, carrying all manner of meanings: it can be a process, a profession, an object, a community. But all of the definitions are toward a single purpose: to allow decision-makers to understand what is happening in the solar system, and to make the correct choices.
Serafin starts with the decision-makers. Who is responsible for the Marius Hills Accords? Who’s whispering in their ear? Who’s briefing them on the state of the clusters? Who stands to gain from this new paradigm?
From the Executive’s feeds, Serafin finds a brief recording of the UFA senior leadership at a conference table, a feeble attempt to depict the administration as serious and sober thinkers, guiding Copernica through the treacherous debris fields to a new prosperous and profitable era. He copies the room and instantiates it, freezing it so he can inspect the players.
At the head of the table is Executive Abergel, of course, hand pressed against his jowls, his brow furrowed in an imitation of serious contemplation as he gazes at display of the inner transits. But just because the masthead is at the front of a ship doesn’t mean it’s calling the shots — Abergel’s a notoriously soft touch, an unelected bureaucrat who had to wade through the ashes of better men to reach his current position. The popular narrative is that his naib, the notoriously temperamental Kase Barber, is the real power behind the throne, but Barber isn’t even in the room at the moment; he’s on Earth, promoting the new Free Interplanetary Enterprise boondoggle the UFA is pitching to the terrestrial powers. While Barber probably signed off on everything, his attention is clearly elsewhere.
Hunched over on Abergel’s left, with his sleeves rolled back, is Legislator Hafiz, Abergel’s strongest supporter in the Majlis, who has a reputation for diplomatics — the newscasts have indicated he’s one of the principle authors of the Accords, which is odd, since Hafiz also has a reputation for hard-lining the Soviets.
Several feet behind the legislator, against the wall, Arthur Nock glowers, arms folded. Nock would have nothing to contribute in terms of politics, so he’s almost certainly in attendance as a representative of Intelligence, just as the major general on his left is here to share the perspective of the ASF. Nock is thoroughly unpleasant, but he’s unlikely to spin the status of the waystations, if only because there’d be no benefit to doing so.
A likely intel conduit, Serafin thinks.
Who else? A few underlings and assistants, a consistant, some lesser members of the Cabinet, and a handful of groundhogs. At the far end of the table, Nail Hadlow is deep in conversation with his fellow diplomats, hands raised and fingers outstretched to grasp invisible spheres, his hair still just as unkempt as it was back in the Firnas days.
It’s not the team that Serafin would have chosen for this moment, but they’re not buffoons, or traitors, or madmen.
Something’s wrong. But what?
A notification appears: Nail’s responded — a long missive full of nice sentiments and updates about his family, which Serafin skips. The real meat is his remarks about the Accords:
I’m well aware some people are unhappy with how this all turned out, and obviously the xabbers are having a field day with us, but we’re delighted with the outcome — the Reds gave up rather more than we expected: obviously everyone is going to be talk about the mining agreements, but we didn’t even have to press them on the Mars orbitals, and Kubasovsk was always a lost cause…. If I’m completely honest, we were lucky! Nikitin could have slit our throats, but he only picked our pockets. We had far more trouble with the terrestrials — now that the war is over, they’re pushing hard to roll back the UFA expansions. Can successfully kicked, I suppose, but that’s a knot we’ll have to untangle eventually….
Nail’s cheery estimate only makes Serafin more suspicious. In the Devasthal grey zone, there was an old saying about the russkiye vendors: you had to hold your breath when you visited them, or they’d haggle over the air in your cheeks.
But there’s an unexpected bonus at the end: Nail has been kind enough to include the FWDM delegation’s noforn briefing, which outlines the UFA’s public estimates of the current state of the solar system. Serafin eagerly adds it to his idea-space, spending a few hours wandering through the data, which more or less backs up the official narrative: the Marius Hills Accords are a hard-fought compromise that allows all parties to hold their heads high as they enter the post-war era.
Serafin taps his wrist, returning to the conference room. “Generate CVP profiles for the Marius Hills delegations and run them against the Hadlow briefing,” Serafin says. “I want to see if the Accords are consistent with their history.”
Above the heads of the delegates, the data appears: political alignments, voting histories, diplomatic track records, and more. Serafin studies them carefully, but there’s nothing here — as best as he can tell, everyone in the room sincerely believes the Accords are the best deal they can get. The decisions are sound: tributaries of ifs and thens twisting and flowing inevitably toward conclusions that will drag everything down into the mire.
Something’s wrong. But what?
He works until he falls asleep, and even then only gets a few hours. He can’t help it: whenever his eyes open, the work calls to him, and he shuffles to the cantina for more coffee, ignoring the protests of his med-sense.
The next day, an idle fancy grabs him: he brings up the noforn briefing and converts it into a time-map of Copernica, hovering above his head as the war dances through the orbits, hope and horror compressed into abstract symbols and lights. Then, he loads the anomalies and curiosities from the Notion he’s been collecting during his convalescence, and asks the system to flag deviations.
Immediately, the display blooms, red markers flowing out throughout time and space. The deviations are incredibly subtle, but consistent: on Mitchell, they drive down public sentiment, suggesting less support for the UFA than is the case; on Peake, they seem designed to indicate there are less resources available than is truly the case; he can’t make sense of what’s going on with Foale, but Sharman and Kubasovsk are clearly not as hopeless they appear to be going by the public record. The briefing suggests that UFA Intelligence current has no eyes inside Sharman — but Serafin knows for a fact that isn’t true, has personally spoken to assets on the station. The russkiye military assets also appear to be over-estimated, although further research will be required to be sure.
Serafin leans back, disturbed. Someone’s lying — no, not a singular someone. This isn’t a single bad source. This is a campaign, carefully executed over years, in order to influence the direction of the years. And these are precisely the sort of statistic anomalies the much-ballyhooed Oversight system is designed to detect — which means that whoever is responsible has some way of subverting the corrective mechanisms the intelligence community relies upon.
Someone is moving pieces across the board. But who? And why?
It’s unsettling. Suspicious. Gharib. He doubts himself, worried that he’s jumping at ghosts. It would be nice to have a second pair of eyes on this, but who? The problem is so sensitive, and touches on so many classified matters, they’ll need to be in the circle and beyond question.
(And if the circle is compromised—)
No. That idea, sitting coiled in the dark recesses of his mind, is too dangerous. Best not go down that road until he’s taken the proper steps to protect himself, until he’s gathered the proper tools to attack it properly.
Who would he believe more than his own two eyes? Who does he trust beyond trust? In better days, he would have certainly rolled up this mess and taken it to Ashley, but….
The war has taken such a toll. Who’s left? Sal, maybe? Denny, perhaps? Nasser wouldn’t be up to date, but the mean old goat has seen more than anyone else in Copernica; he might have the whole problem figured out already. But it can’t be over comms, and who knows when they’ll be in local space together again….
van Arden? Not yet. The boss is unparalleled as a tactician, but it’s not a coincidence his career didn’t take off until the war really got going. He’s a peacekeeper, at the end of the day, brilliant with a manhunt or a disrupt job, but he’s never had a talent for special projects; always had a reflexive suspicion of what he refers to as “the wild hairs.”
Serafin sips his coffee glumly as time and space slowly spin and rotate around his head. At the moment, all he has is charts, graphics and models. Suspicions and concerns. But he can’t help think the errors overhead look suspiciously like a cancer, spreading throughout the solar system.
For now, best to carry this alone.