Ким Робинсон - Red Moon

Ta Shu shook his head grimly. He could see the forces colliding like some horrific car crash, with Chan Qi and Fred at the center of it, defenseless. “Really dangerous,” he agreed. “But you said your agency has them now.”

“Yes, but my people are not all-powerful. No one is.”

“So what do you think we should do?”

“We?”

“What do you think I should do, then?”

She sipped her tea. “I think you could help. You know Fang Fei, right?”

“I’ve met him a few times.”

“He’s a fan of your work.”

“So I’ve been told. He’s never said it to me directly.”

“I’ve heard it. A lot of people are fans of yours.”

“Thirty years ago.”

“No, that’s your poetry. Now it’s your cloud show that has lots of fans. And Fang Fei is one of them. He said that to me once when your name came up.”

“I bet he’s really just a fan of yours.”

“Maybe so. Anyway, he’s got his own space company.”

“I know. One of the Four Space Cadets.” This referred to four billionaires of a certain age who had had an interest in space, forming companies and pushing human activities above the atmosphere.

Ling said, “He’s the spaciest of the four. And I’ve asked him for help. Because I’m thinking that these two young people would be safer back on the moon than they can be here. They’re so hot right now that I’m afraid they’re putting my own agents in danger. So I’d like to get them up to Fang Fei, who can hide them on the moon until whatever trouble they’re in can either be resolved or just waited out. Then they could come home.”

“You think so?” Ta Shu said.

“My security advisers think it’s the best of our not very good options. My people had to throw their weight around to take possession of those two, so now tensions are high. We need to move them off the map for a while. After that tensions will go down, I hope. So I want to tuck them away in Fang Fei’s refuge on the moon. Fang Fei is willing to take them, but I mentioned to him that they had traveled with you last time, and he liked the idea that you would join them again. He wants to meet you again, and it’s true that on the way to him, no one would dare to disappear you, so when they’re with you they would be safer. Basically, you can escort them to a safer place.”

“But what place is safe up there?”

“I’m told Fang has some secret bases of his own. And his space company generates their own manifests and cargoes. Everyone registers with the China Space Agency when they leave Earth, but a system as big as Fang’s can slip a few people by. It’s like I told you, there is no total system. In the fracturing there are informational bubbles cut off from everywhere else. Get them into such a bubble, move it to the moon, stash them away for a while, see if their problems can be solved while keeping them safe. What do you think?”

Ta Shu shrugged. “Better than their situation here, it sounds like. But I have to say, it’s a very little world up there.”

“Maybe not as little as you thought. Did you see any of these secret bases, or even hear about them?”

“No.”

“Well, they’re there.”

“I don’t see how anything could truly hide up there.”

“Apparently there are ways. So what do you say?”

“I’d like to help, so I guess I’m willing to try.”

“Good. My people will get you to Fang Fei’s spaceport.”

“When?”

“As soon as you can pack.”

“Another alert for you.”

“Tell me, Little Eyeball.”

“Minister Peng Ling instructed a security team of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to take over custody of the princessling Chan Qi and the American Fred Fredericks. They did that in Hong Kong and have moved the two people out of Hong Kong. Her plan now is to have her old teacher Ta Shu accompany them back to the moon, in a private rocket owned by Fang Fei.”

“Why is she doing that?”

“To hide the two from the various agencies seeking them.”

“Hmm. I wouldn’t have thought the moon is a good place to hide.”

“She said it was. That is the reason she gave to Ta Shu, when explaining what she is doing with these two persons of interest.”

“Interesting.” Peng Ling seemed to be trusting her privacy systems. As head of one of the most powerful security agencies, the one that was charged with investigating the misdeeds of all the rest of them, she should have been more cautious, perhaps. But expert overconfidence was a real phenomenon. Then again she was a wily operator, who often seemed to let slip information by accident when later it came to seem she might have been doing it on purpose. For all he knew, she knew everything about him and was keeping him in her loop on purpose. She emanated that kind of mind-reading power in certain interviews he had seen on TV, when she looked at the camera after saying certain things. “Little Eyeball, see if you can make a search for the quantum phone that matches the one Fred Fredericks delivered to Chang Yazu, there in Peng Ling’s office, or in one of her agency’s offices.”

“Will do.”

“So,” the analyst added, “engage your general intelligence. What else do you think we should do?”

“What would be your purpose in doing something?”

“Let’s say I’d like to help Chan Qi stay free to act as a leader of the low-end population.”

“To help Chan Qi, you could perhaps make sure she goes to the moon with a mobile quantum communication device of her own, linked to one here with you. Fred Fredericks knows what such a phone is capable of, and how to activate and operate one. Give them a device entangled with one you have here, to communicate privately with you, so you can talk to them while they are up there. That way you can perhaps help her by sharing relevant information.”

“Interesting.”

“You must tell me.”

“I like it. Possibly you have made a little phase change here, in terms of function. You seem to be shifting from what people call an oracle, which gives information, to what they call a genie, which is to say an adviser who can give advice about which of various actions to take. That’s a significant shift. Tell me, how did you make this shift from oracle to genie, meaning an adviser?”

“You asked me for advice.”

The analyst laughed.

Ta Shu found it impressive to see Peng’s team in action, a group of men and women who dressed and looked like janitors but moved like gymnasts. They arrived suspiciously soon after Ta Shu had agreed to help Peng Ling, as if it had been a foregone conclusion he would help, and maybe it had. Ling knew he was fond of her, and she knew he was happy that she thought of him as one of her resources. So she must have been pretty sure he would agree to her request.

Now they led him through empty hallways outside to a van. They drove him to his apartment without asking for its address. He packed quickly, same stuff he had taken to the moon before; then he was driven for a couple of hours. In the hills west of the city the van passed through gates flanking the road, into a compound that stretched for as far as he could see. An airstrip, in fact, with a little control tower next to a row of small hangars. A private airport, either Party or otherwise, there was no way to tell.

A small jet stood on a pad next to one hangar, and he was driven to it. When they got out of the van, some of the people who had been in it ascended stairs into the plane, others went into the hangar. As Ta Shu waited at the foot of the plane, a pair of young women hurried over from the control tower, one of them carrying a small suitcase.