A Star in the East

"A Star in the East" - a reading (on YouTube)


Today, the name on his door read “Micah Aaronson.” Tomorrow, who knew what it would read or whether it would even be on the same door. He preferred code names but those only worked in the field not in the labyrinth of offices that made up Terra’s military-intelligence complex perched on the dark side of its moon. A misnomer, he knew, but for his organization it fit.

His office faced east by the consolidated Terran-Lunar direction convention. He looked out through the arcology dome at the slowly shifting starfield of human space beyond. The view of his demesne from this office captivated him, enough so that he lowered the lights and enjoyed it at every opportunity. One of the stars near the horizon looked somehow brighter today. He adjusted the filters on his bio-prosthetic implant. It didn’t help.

His assistant, today going by the name Yan Kanu, entered without an invitation. She was the only one of his staff afforded that privilege. She was also the only one who knew exactly where he was on any given day.

“Does it seem brighter to you today?” Aaronson asked, not bothering to turn toward the door.

“You’re looking at a double binary ten thousand light years coreward,” Yan said without hesitation as if reporting on an unfulfilled action item. “Astrogation issued a bulletin that one of the lesser companions has gone supernova. If we were fifteen light years closer, say on Diaspora, it would rival Venus and still be waxing. Right now, we only see telltales outside the visible spectrum.”

Aaronson turned his back on the starscape as he brought up the lights. Yan, as still as a porcelain doll, clutched a datapad to her chest. She hadn’t even referenced it for that snippet of information. At least today, the background of her first name matched her predominant genetic heritage, though of which particular Asian variety that was he did not know and her records did not say. “I take it you didn’t come here as a spurious interrupt just to act as my personal astronomy wiki.”

“We have a situation unfolding on Diaspora,” Yan said, now manipulating a datapad as she spoke. Aaronson could almost hear her delicate fingertips tap and squeak across its surface in an intricate allegro ballet. “The control points in the Barabasi social networking algorithm point to a high overlord emerging.”

“Are we talking about a system takeover?”

“Diaspora is the nexus. The min/max simulations point to his control extending to over one-third of human space.”

“Has the situation gone critical?”

“Not yet.” She glanced at the datapad. “The models say this is our best opportunity to contain the outbreak. In thirty years, there is an eighty-five percent chance he will develop a martyr complex, then things spiral out of reach.”

Aaronson’s brow furrowed. This was serious. But if it weren’t, Yan would never have interrupted him. “Is he in situ?”

“Ninety-five percent probability he remains unborn.” Yan looked at him, not the datapad.

“Have we ID’d the mother?”

“With 99.97% certainty.” No hesitation and no glance down. She had memorized the information that quickly.

Aaronson turned back toward the window so she wouldn’t see him smile. “Send Fagerstrom to talk to her. He always makes an impression on the ladies. Let’s see if she’s reasonable. Maybe we can avert a crisis this time.”

---

“Fagerstrom just sent his debriefing. The mother’s got a bodyguard now. We’ll never get near her again directly without her contacting all the news feeds.” Yan wasn’t performing on her datapad this time. That meant she’d pre-screened the information which said the news wasn’t good.

“Is this bodyguard the father?” Aaronson asked. He wondered if that question might give her pause. A side game he liked to play to see if he could find her limitations. He hadn’t.

“Unknown,” she said, watching him as if calculating his next question. He wondered if she’d had a bio-enhancement performed on her eyes. If she had, he couldn’t spot it. State-of-the-art had vastly improved since his implant. He might need an upgrade soon.

“She has a dissociative personality,” Yan continued. “She took Fagerstrom’s angelic appearance as a sign that her unborn son is important and the center of a government conspiracy.”

“Definitely a son?”

“The mother’s convinced,” Yan said with as close to doubt as her professional tone ever allowed, “If Fagerstrom talked to the right woman.” Yan and Alan Fagerstrom had never gotten along. Some sort of professional jealousy.

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” Aaronson said with a half-smile. “He’s meticulous when he has orders but there’s no subtlety in that man. Did he at least come back with her DNA?”

“A partial sample only. PsyOps thinks she might be preparing to move off world. If she does, she’ll head for one of the moons in-system, maybe an agri-squatter settlement.”

“Time to get some boots on the ground. Who’s available that has local knowledge?”

Yan glanced down at her datapad now, but Aaronson knew she was just confirming the details she’d already memorized. “Three agents fit the profile. All are former analysts, wizards with the data. If she has a weakness we can exploit, any one of them will find it.”

“Send all three,” Aaronson said. Yan not so much paused as blinked. She hadn’t expected a full deployment. He liked that he wasn’t completely predictable. “Tell them if they get close, they’re authorized to resolve the situation on their own initiative.”

---

“They did what?!” Aaronson was livid. How could such a simple scenario go so horribly wrong the one time they had advanced warning?

“They bootlegged the raw data and ran the numbers themselves,” Yan said. “Their analysis indicates he’ll become a benign overlord.”

“There’s no such thing as a benign overlord,” Aaronson snapped.

Yan shrugged. “They smuggled in luxury trade goods to fund her escape. Almost as good as Solars but completely untraceable and more compact.” Aaronson could hear in her tone that she admired their plan. He had to admit it was as brilliant as it was unforeseen. That’s why his organization only employed the best and brightest. But someone in the Archives would have to pay for this breach of need to know.

“Make sure we never hear from them again,” Aaronson growled. “I want those three erased from all records, down to their work histories and pensions. In a year, I want you and I to be the only ones who remember their names, then I want you to forget. Put Michaels on it. He’s good at that sort of thing. Then contact the local governor and have him scour the system.”

“Bio-weapons says they can tailor a virus based on the genetic fragment we have on file,” Yan said in an even yet mildly hopeful tone. “But they won’t have time to refine it down to our usual standards. It’ll be wider band than normal.”

“What are we talking about?” Aaronson was focused on the problem again. Plenty of time for recriminations later. He just needed to keep Yan from falling on her sword until he found the responsible party. He was always afraid she would take their setbacks too seriously.

“Only kids still dependent on their mothers’ immune support in their formula,” Yan said. “Infants under two.”

“How many?”

“Based on the local population density, bio-genetic research suggests maybe twenty, no more than a hundred.”

“Can’t be helped,” Aaronson said with a wave of his hand. “Have the governor distribute it through the water supply.”

---

“We just received confirmation they fled before our bio-plague was deployed,” Yan told him. “The mother, the bodyguard and the newborn infant. They headed rimward, somewhere toward the fringe. Out of our sphere of influence now regardless. The governor has issued a full alert to his security forces in case they return.” This time Yan’s professional mask had the tiniest of cracks, really no more than the first faint crazing of age on her otherwise unblemished skin.

“How many kids were collateral damage?” Aaronson asked, resigned to any answer other than zero adding to their failure.

“Epidemiology is still conducting a census. A couple dozen at least.” Yan was back to performing her finger ballet on her datapad. “Made a brief splash on the local feeds but we were able to contain it as baby formula contaminated by local radicals. Coverage never went viral and returned to nominal with three days.”

“When does he re-emerge?” Aaronson touched his fingertips across his brow, one of his few nervous ticks. Still dry. But now there were the makings of another migraine behind his semi-artificial eye.

“The sims say thirty years is the crisis point back on Diaspora.” Yan was already focused on what came next. That’s what he loved about her, her sense of priority and perspective. Like a prime athlete, she acknowledged her losses and quickly moved on. He wished he had that luxury.

“We’ve got too many irons in the fire to dedicate further resources right now,” Aaronson said. “In the meantime, let’s seed some rumors and see if we can control the outcome by picking up some local allies.”

“I’ll direct our people onsite to work on the governor’s son,” Yan said, already tapping out the orders. “He’s ambitious. I see him as a likely successor if he survives the old man’s purges. The governor is not a well man.”

“Establish contact with whatever the local religious cult is. They might prove useful if we paint this ascending overlord as a threat.”

“Any other actions?” Yan waited expectantly for his answer, as always attentive to the moment rather than being distracted by the pile of details she’d need to oversee to execute his simple decisions after she left.

“Just monitor the situation and see how much attention we’ve gathered. I want you ready to roll up the operation as a precaution, but contact me before you change the locks and the nameplates on the doors. You can pass the day-to-day off to Michaels now. I need you focused elsewhere.”

Her fingers quickly squeaked out the instructions she’d need to make that happen, then looked up. “Anything else?”

“Did we ever get a name on our ascending beneficial overlord?” In Aaronson’s mind it was an honest question, not one intended to trip her up.

Yan folded her datapad to her chest beneath crossed arms. Another answer she’d anticipated. “Jess Christiansen is our best translation.”

Aaronson filed the name in a corner of his mind for future consideration. He was afraid he, or someone in the organization, would hear a lot more of that name all too soon.

Yan turned to leave.

“Oh, and get me an update on the Sid Arthur situation,” Aaronson added before she could disappear. “His influence is spreading toward Tao. That’s the next major fire we need to fight.”

Yan tipped a hand as an acknowledgement without pausing on her way out. Aaronson didn’t know how he’d ever get anything accomplished without her.

He dimmed the lights and turned back to his office window. Through the lattice of arcology dome, he swore that star in the east had grown brighter.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III