Part 8 (1/2)

But Mum closed her eyes. She was used to the pyramids and caverns of Mars, and could not believe that a thin layer of blue air could protect her from the rigors of s.p.a.ce.

And as Harry peered up, he saw a line of light cut across the sky, scratched by a spark bright enough to cast faint shadows, even in the sunlight.

New Yorkers looked up, faintly concerned. This wasn't normal, then.

”It was the first strike of the Squeem,” the Rememberer said. ”Harry never forgot that moment. Well, you wouldn't, would you? It shaped his whole life.”

Rhoda and her soldiers listened, trying to understand, trying to decide whether to believe him. Trying to decide what to do about it.

While the old man rested, Rhoda let her staff resume other duties, but summoned Reg Kaser, her first officer.

In her cabin, she powered up her percolator, her one indulgence from her Iowa home. While it chugged and slurped and filled the cabin with sharp coffee scents, she faced her big picture window.

The Jones Jones was a UN Navy corvette. It was locked in a languid orbit around Rhea, second largest moon of Saturn. In fact, the was a UN Navy corvette. It was locked in a languid orbit around Rhea, second largest moon of Saturn. In fact, the Jones Jones wasn't far from home; its home base was on Enceladus, another of Saturn's moons. wasn't far from home; its home base was on Enceladus, another of Saturn's moons.

Rhea itself was unprepossessing, just another ball of dirty ice. But beyond it lay Saturn, where huge storms raged across an autumnal cloudscape, and the rings arched like gaudy artifacts, unreasonably sharp. The Saturn system was like a ponderous ballet, beautiful, peaceful, illuminated by distance-dimmed sunlight, and Rhoda could have watched it forever.

But it was Rhea she had come for. Within its icy carca.s.s were pockets of salty water, kept liquid by the tidal kneading of Saturn and the other moons. That wasn't so special; there were similar buried lakes on many of Sol system's icy moons, even Enceladus.

But within Rhea's deep lakes had been discovered colonies of Squeem, the aquatic group-mind organisms that had, for a few decades, ruled over a conquered mankind, and even occupied Earth itself. The Jones Jones was named for the hero who had crucially gained an advantage over the Squeem, a bit of bravery and ingenuity which had ultimately led to the Squeem's expulsion from Sol system or so everybody had thought, until this relic colony had been discovered. The xenologists were already talking to these stranded Squeem, using antique occupation-era translation devices. was named for the hero who had crucially gained an advantage over the Squeem, a bit of bravery and ingenuity which had ultimately led to the Squeem's expulsion from Sol system or so everybody had thought, until this relic colony had been discovered. The xenologists were already talking to these stranded Squeem, using antique occupation-era translation devices.

It was Rhoda's task to decide what to do with them. She could have them preserved, even brought back to Earth.

Or she could make sure that every last Squeem in Rhea died. She even had the authority to destroy the whole moon, if she chose, to make sure. She was promised the firepower. Weapons were Reg Kaser's department, and there were a lot of black projects around.

It was a hard decision to make.

And now she had the complication of this old man, the self-styled ”Rememberer,” and his antique saga of the occupation, which he insisted had to be heard before any decision was made about the Squeem on Rhea.

First Officer Reg Kaser waited silently as she gathered her thoughts.

They were contrasting types. Rhoda Voynet, forty years old, came from an academic background; she had trained as a historian of the occupation before joining the service. Kaser, fifty, scarred, one leg prosthetic, and with a thick Mercury-mine accent, was a career soldier. He had taken part in the counterinvasion a decade ago, when human s.h.i.+ps, powered by hyperdrive purloined from the Squeem themselves, had at last a.s.saulted the Squeem's own homeworld.

They worked well together, their backgrounds and skills complementary. Kaser had learned to be patient while Rhoda thought things through. And she had learned to appreciate his decisiveness, hardened in battle.

”Tell me what we know of this old man,” she said.

Kaser checked over a slate. ”His name is Karl Hume. Born and raised on Earth. Seventy-four years old. He's spent his life working for the UN Restoration Agency. Literature section.”

Rhoda understood the work well enough. Much of the material she had drawn on in her own research had come from the Restoration's rea.s.sembling. The Squeem were traders, not ideological conquerors, but in their exploitation they had carelessly done huge damage to mankind's cultural heritage. A hundred and fifty years after their expulsion, the Restoration was still patiently piecing together lost libraries, recovering works of art, even rebuilding shattered cities brick by brick, like New York, where young Harry Gage had watched the sky fall.

”Hume was a drone,” Kaser said, uncompromising. ”His work was patient, thorough, reliable, but he had no specific talent, and he didn't climb the ladder. He held down a job, all his life. But n.o.body missed him when he retired. He had a family of his own. Wife now dead, kids off-Earth. He never troubled the authorities, not so much as a dodgy tax payment.”

”Until he tried to abduct a kid.”

”Quite.”

The boy, called Lonnie Tekinene, was another New Yorker, ten years old the same age as Harry Gage, Rhoda noted absently, when he had witnessed the Squeem invasion. Hume had made contact with the kid through a Virtual playworld, and had met him physically in Central Park, and had tried to take him off to Hume's apartment. Alert parents had put a stop to that.

As Hume had been processed through the legal system, he had become aware of the discovery of the pocket of Squeem on Rhea, moon of Saturn, and the deliberation going on within the UN and its military arm as to what to do about it.

Kaser said, ”Hume didn't harm a hair of the kid's head. At first, he just denied everything. But when he heard about Rhea, he opened up. He said it was just that his 'time' had come. He was the 'Rememberer' of his generation. But he was growing old. He needed to recruit another to take his place just as he was recruited in his turn by some other old fossil when he he was ten.” was ten.”

”He never explained why he chose this kid, this Lonnie. What criteria he used.”

Kaser shrugged. ”On the other hand, looking at the police files, I don't think anybody asked. Hume was just a nut, to them. A s.e.xual deviant, maybe.”

Rhoda said, ”And he insisted we have to hear what he has to say. Some truth about the Squeem occupation, preserved only in his head, that will shape our decision.”

”But we know all about the occupation,” Kaser said. ”It was a system-wide event. It affected all of mankind. What 'truth' can this old fool have, locked up in his head, and available nowhere else?”

”What truth so hideous,” Rhoda wondered, ”that it could only only be lodged in one man's head? What do you think we should do?” be lodged in one man's head? What do you think we should do?”

Kaser shrugged. ”a.s.sess the Squeem colony on its own merits. Maybe they're just stranded, left behind in the evacuation. Or this may be a monitoring station of some kind, spying on a system they lost. Maybe it even predates the occupation, a forward base to gather intelligence to run the invasion. Either way, it needs to be shut down.”

”But the Squeem themselves don't necessarily need to be eliminated.”

”True.”

”You think I should just ignore the old man, don't you?”

He grinned, tolerant. ”Yes. But you won't. You're an obsessive fact-gatherer. Well, we have time. The Squeem aren't going anywhere.” He stood up. ”I'll see if the old guy has finished his nap.”

Karl Hume, bathed in strong Earth sunlight, spoke of memories pa.s.sed down through a chain of Rememberers: the memories of ten-year-old Harry Gage.

Before the invasion, humans had diffused out through Sol system and beyond in their bulky, ponderous, slower-than-light GUTs.h.i.+ps. It was a time of optimism, of hope, of expansion into an unlimited future.

Then the first extrasolar intelligence was encountered, somewhere among the stars.

Only a few years after first contact, Squeem s.h.i.+ps burst into Sol system, in a shower of exotic particles and lurid publicity. The Squeem were aquatic group-mind multiple creatures. They crossed the stars using a hyperdrive system beyond human understanding. They maintained an interstellar network of trading colonies. Their human label, a not very respectful rendering of the Squeem's own sonic rendering of their t.i.tle for themselves ”Ss-chh-eemnh” ”Ss-chh-eemnh” meant something like the Wise Folk, rather like meant something like the Wise Folk, rather like ”h.o.m.o sapiens.” ”h.o.m.o sapiens.”

Communication with the Squeem was utterly unlike anything envisaged before their arrival. The Squeem didn't count in whole numbers, for instance. But eventually, common ground was found. And despite fears that mankind might be overwhelmed by a more technically advanced civilization, trade and cultural contacts were initiated.

Then, in orbit around every inhabited world and moon in Sol system, hyperdrive cannon platforms appeared.

And on Earth, rocks began to fall.

”They came in too fast for the planet's impactor defenses to cope with,” the Rememberer whispered. ”Rocks from Sol system's own belts of asteroids and comets, sent in at faster than interplanetary speeds. Obviously it was the Squeem's doing.

”And they were targeted.

”Harry and his family, stranded on Earth, got an hour's warning of the Manhattan bolide. Harry's father knew New York. He got Harry off the island through the ancient Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

”The bolide came down right on top of Grand Central Station.

”The impact was equivalent to a several-kiloton explosion. It dug out a crater twenty meters across. Every building south of Harlem was reduced to rubble, and several hundred thousand people were killed, through that one impact alone, on the first day of the invasion. Harry saw it all.

”And Harry's mother didn't make it. Crushed in the stampede for the tunnels. Harry never forgave the Squeem for that. Well, you wouldn't, would you?”