Chapter Twelve

Over the next few months, the parliament of Audacity began to settle into a routine. For all his autocratic tendencies, the President-King was in fact able to govern effectively, taking titles from all Earths at a roughly equal rate. Herald actually stepped back a little in the race to submit the most titles, with the King’s ambitions having been temporarily sated by the marriage bill and an unusual bill that introduced an option to abstain – both of which passed, though many comedians tried to abstain on the latter. Herald had more to offer, presumably, but seemed to be biding their time.

Garden’s own perks were limited to the Vice Presidency. It hadn’t been long before the Constitutional Court got involved on that front, given that the role wasn’t actually outlined anywhere. Controversially, they ruled that the bill eventually written to support the Vice President was constitutional, provided that if they ever became Acting President, they called for an election as soon as possible. That suited Powell just fine, as she told Graves the day the decision came in.

“Let’s be honest,” she said, “If the President is ever leaving power, he’s doing so kicking and screaming.”

Graves had wanted to fight the decision further. “Why should you need to call an election straight away? If Audacity doesn’t have a President for a little while, the worlds won’t spin off their axis.”

“I agree with you,” Powell said. “But you know what else we could use that argument for? Not having a Vice President at all. So let’s keep that one to ourselves.”

Powell was smart like that – Graves didn’t have the mind to consider all those angles. Graves was a researcher first and a politician rarely, but he voted like everyone else, and in the months that followed he was sure to learn everything he could about the subjects that the titles brought up. When Earth: Carmen proposed a study into the similarities between each planet’s major languages, Graves did so much preliminary research that he stumbled into a few linguistic discoveries before the vote had even taken place. Later, when Earth: Edo wanted to make an official declaration in support of the Mitokan Games of their world (some sort of sporting competition), Graves disappeared for a week reading about the Games’ sordid history of cheaters and scandals. The sense he got was that the event was not so much about the sports and more about the opportunity to sponsor those athletes to get your company’s name out there. Whether this actually made you any more money was inconclusive, but the companies did it nonetheless. Graves thought this explained quite a bit about the Edo way of life.

All this was a distraction – albeit a necessary one – from his true mission. Before the shuttle had ever launched, he had been told that he would need to find the other scientists on board and ingratiate himself with them. It wasn’t easy, especially as it complicated the general mandate to remain “unavailable” to the other Earths where possible, but over the past few months he had identified his potential targets – one from each planet. He sat alone in his dormitory with a handwritten list of delegates and circled the names he needed. Earth: Herald’s strict hierarchy made it obvious that Curtis Panagos was the closest thing they had to a lead scientist, as well as a close advisor to the King. That was both a blessing and a curse – Graves had to assume that anything they discussed together would find its way back to King Aenos 5.

Earth: Edo had no shortage of technicians, but few of them had made it to Audacity. In the end he settled on Kei Morishita. She was a mid-level executive of a company called Nano Dex, who seemed to have some prior involvement in space travel. There were higher-ranking Nano Dex executives aboard, but anyone higher than Kei’s position seemed to be spending more time fighting with the other corporations’ executives than doing anything productive. There were a few candidates who fit that bill, but a hunch told him he could generate some rapport with Kei.

The real prize was Earth: Carmen, where you couldn’t move for scientists. Even those without a specific discipline seemed to have an informal interest in the science of Audacity, and he was spoilt for choice on targets. In the end he chose Sofia Castillo, on the strength of a rumour. It could not be proven, and he wasn’t about to ask her directly, but people had said that she was the first person to discover evidence of other Earths five years ago. If that was true, she might have just the insight Graves needed.

He got to work first, cornering Kei after a chamber meeting (“A Bill to Define Sovereignty”, failed 119 to 78) and inviting her out for a drink. She was pretty and smiled often, and like most Edoers dressed extremely well. At their third meeting, once they had gotten to know each other, he asked for her theories on divergence.

She looked at him with a tilt in her head. “Whoa there, don’t get too personal!” she teased. They were in Luna, which remained the only social space worth frequenting.

“No, really!” he said. “I’ve been hearing a ton about it all over the station – the idea that we came from each other.” This was a lie, but an unverifiable one. Audacity was just big enough that gossip was untrackable.

“Well, I don’t know about that. We’re pretty different, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“But we’re still human. We can communicate with one another, and have the same physiology.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “Tell me more.”

He rolled his eyes. Kei had had a couple of drinks by now, and seemed to develop a single-track mind when that happened. “The idea is that we were the same, but we diverged from one another at some point in time. It’s quantum mechanics.”

“Sure,” she said. “I mean, that’s what we think too. It makes sense – I know we have some shared history, even if we don’t call things the same name. Are you thinking there should be a study?”

“There will be,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll nominate it, but it’s inevitable, and I’ll probably vote for it. But a study of the right scale would need to perform an in-depth analysis of the entire history of the world, four times over.”

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t expect answers tomorrow.”

“Right.”

“So relax!” she laughed. “And let’s enjoy tonight instead.”

He slept with her that evening, and the evening after. It was a good way to build trust, but he knew Powell wouldn’t approve, so he left it out of his report.

***

Lord Panagos was less his type, so Graves took a different approach. He sent a message to the Herald head asking about some details of his latest academic paper (which he had managed to attain illicitly, anticipating that Panagos wouldn’t notice or care). Panagos sent back a message almost as long as the original paper, clearly thrilled that someone had noticed his work. The light flattery Graves sprinkled all through the original letter probably helped – it seemed that even the most level-headed Herald delegates suffered from debilitating vanity issues.

After a few more back-and-forths, Panagos suggested that they meet to discuss their shared interest further. They met in a conference room with comfortable seating and a coffee maker in the corner – it was the envy of the station, but somehow Panagos always managed to book it faster than anyone else. It didn’t take long before Graves was able to shift the topic to the nature of their universes, and the old man sprang to life.

“Of course, up until now, all that quantum work has been theoretical! The theory was sound, yes, but there was no possibility that a parallel universe might exist in a way that we could access, that’s another matter altogether. It brings up questions of spatial alignment, as well as spatial shift – why is the rift position fixed, instead of moving as the rest of the universe does? Or is it all moving relative to each other? There was a little while, early on, where we thought the Earths might end up colliding! Glad that didn’t happen, eh?”

Graves agreed it was a good thing that humanity hadn’t been wiped out. “But why us?” he asked. “That’s what I want to know – how did it end up being these four Earths?”

“Who can say, who can say.” the older man said, waving his hand.

“I was rather hoping you could, to tell you the truth.” Graves remained patient. This was a long game.

“Ha!” Panagos said, more of an exhalation than a laugh. “Why are you so interested, young man?”

Graves became suddenly alert, as he always did when someone asked him for information. He had of course assessed Panagos’ threat level as far as he could, but part of the point of being Novan was that you could never know for sure what someone would do next.

“It’s part of my job,” he eventually decided on. “I have to imagine each Earth has people who want to know where they came from – the big questions, as it were.”

“Of course,” Panagos said. “It’s irresistible, in a way. When one seemingly unanswerable question becomes answerable, even in part, it throws everything else into chaos. Luckily, I quite enjoy the chaos!”

He seemed content to leave it there, and Graves knew not to push the matter. But it seemed like Panagos knew about as much as he did about the void.

***

With Sofia, he needed yet another approach. Graves didn’t know if she was involved with that Scion she had been hanging around with, but casual conversation wasn’t likely to work either way. She was all business, but didn’t seem to take the same pleasure in it as Panagos. Instead, she approached all her work with a grim determination that Graves knew well. She had something to prove, either something specific or to some_one_ specific. Of course, Graves only gleaned this from watching her from afar, noting her movements when it was convenient to do so. It was another two months before he approached her properly. In the intervening time he received permission from Powell to start building a similar reputation, such that señorita Castillo might recognise him as a kindred spirit. He also spent more time with Kei, and Panagos where he could, simultaneously encouraging them to discover more and reinforcing his reputation.

It was difficult. Even as he became more prominent within his faction (something he was deeply uncomfortable with, and would have left to Mairin or the Colonels if he could) Sofia seemed to shrink away further, spending more time in her dormitory and an office off the Carmen quadrant. She even began missing chamber sessions, although this was not too unusual – few delegates deigned to make appearances for every single vote, choosing to abstain when absent. In this time the record for lowest attendance was set by “A Bill to Supply Each Delegate of Audacity With A Copy Of The Constitution, For Goodness’ Sake” (failed 22 to a presumably very passive-aggressive 1). He could have just approached her, but if she was inclined towards shrinking away he didn’t want to scare her off.

Eventually Graves took a different approach. He got a Private to follow along to the quadrant and make a minor distraction that might draw Sofia out, with the intent of sneaking into her office and seeing what had consumed her. He wasn’t there to see what the Private did, although he heard a startled yelp from an onlooker. It did the trick – Sofia cracked the door open and poked her head out, eventually following the noise down the corridor. She didn’t notice Graves shadow her and stop the door from closing completely – it wasn’t locked, but by stopping it before it clicked he prevented any unnecessary noise.

Graves had seen warzones more organised. Sofia had photographs and documents pasted on the walls, a map of Earth: Carmen (Graves guessed) with pins pushed into it, and a flip chart covered in wiggly lines that intersected with each other in no discernible pattern, as backed up by a note scribbled below that read “no discernible pattern”. He thought they looked rather like timelines, though they weren’t marked with specific events, and he began to hope that she had inadvertently begun research on the very subject he wanted to ask her about. Knowing he only had seconds, he slipped back out of the office and around the corner, evading detection. Sofia was none the wiser.

***

Four months in, Powell requested an in-person status report. Graves had been filing weekly reports anyway, but it was good to check in properly too. She was waiting for him in her dormitory, where the Garden delegates liked to do as much business as possible. There were no cameras in the dormitories, and they were the only doors that properly locked all the time. It almost meant they could speak G-Novan without the rest of the delegates judging them – or worse, learning to understand the language for themselves.

“Where are you?” she asked as he entered. Powell didn’t do small talk.

“Still in the early stages, Colonel. My initial impression is that Edo and Herald are totally out of the loop, but Carmen might have a little more to tell.”

“As we anticipated, then. They were always going to be the most likely candidates, even if they didn’t show it.”

“That’s the thing,” he said. “I’m not actually sure they’re capable of keeping secrets. From each other, at least, and maybe not from the rest of us either. It’s just not in their ethos.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she replied, “But isn’t your Carmen target the only one you haven’t made direct contact with yet?”

“That’s true, but -“

“So that would imply that perhaps they are not quite so open.”

“There is a difference, Colonel,” he said, trying to keep his tone respectful, “between outright lies and lies of omission. I’m certain Castillo has something, and she isn’t sharing it.”

“Then it’s time – it’s past time – to approach her directly. We’re already almost halfway through the term, and you know that the General doesn’t want us to spend any longer up here than we need to.”

“Of course.” There was no need to say any more. Novan troops enjoyed a good deal of autonomy in how to carry out their orders, as higher-ups respected that every situation was different. That had benefits for the higher-ups too, as it meant that the times they did give direct orders held more impact, and were more likely to be obeyed. Graves had to accept that Powell had given him an order now, even if it was less than direct – hurry up.

He moved to another phase with Kei, although she seemed to have grown cold on him. They still met, and drank, but she was growing more and more dissatisfied with her work, and spent long hours complaining about her colleagues. Apparently her boss, Isi Zhukov, was upset that his titles weren’t in serious contention.

“There is exactly one ascendant from Earth: Edo. One. And that’s only because there has to be! The King somehow managed to pick the least responsive, least available member of our whole delegation. So he nominates maybe one title every two weeks, if he can be bothered.”

“There are other ascendants,” Graves remarked.

“Sure,” she frowned. “But they don’t give us the time of day either, unless we can make it worth their while. And we’re running out of things to trade. Did you see we gave away land to each other planet, so they can build embassies? Nobody else is giving up land!”

“I didn’t see that,” he said. “When did that go through?”

“It hasn’t yet, but the votes are pretty set against us. Hell, I’ll probably vote for it – I’m not against embassies, I just… I don’t know.” she trailed off. Normally Graves would press her to go on, but she didn’t seem in the mood. “And your group is hardly receptive either.”

“You want to put embassies on Garden, be my guest. But anyone you land on the planet will be dead before they can lay a brick.”

“I know, I know. The big war,” she waved her hands dramatically. “But you could help us out with these bills – you have ascendants.”

“We want to help,” he lied easily, “But the King… his relationship with the VP comes first.”

“Powell. She wants to be President, one day, right?”

“Of course.” The lies came easier after a drink. Of course, we still intend to be here in a year, why do you ask?

***

Working with Panagos was getting more difficult, too. The old man’s enthusiasm hadn’t dampened so much as his knowledge base on the subject had been drained. One day Graves, getting impatient, asked him outright: “What do you think caused the rift?”

Panagos looked at him. They were walking towards the chamber, preparing to vote (“A Bill to Demonstrate the Unity Between Earths: Carmen and Herald in the Establishing Of A Communication Array”). “I couldn’t possibly speculate,” he said. “We had been assuming some kind of freak accident, but if you know different…”

“Of course not,” said Graves, inwardly cursing himself for his bluntness. “But that sort of accident doesn’t just happen.”

“We’ve no other evidence to the contrary, except statistically, as you point out. The rift itself contains matter, contains energy, but it seems self-sustaining – like another universe entirely. It’s possible that whatever did this created a whole fifth universe between the gaps.”

“Now you’re saying “whatever did this”? I thought it was a freak accident.” They passed through an office, where a few delegates and Service members sat looking over future titles. They barely paid the pair any heed as they walked through.

“Just using your terms, my good man!” Panagos seemed to be deflecting. “If we could track that energy we might be able to determine a direction of its origins… but we’re dealing with the intersection between four universes, so “direction” is a fairly abstract concept to begin with. You begin to see the complexity of the problem, hmm?”

Graves did, and he said so.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s been totally stable for the last five years – I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

He nodded, and said nothing more. For his mission to be a success, he hoped Panagos was wrong.

***

Graves was sat alone in his room. Kei had just left after an unsuccessful attempt to get him to sleep with her – she thought he was oblivious, but he was just distracted trying to figure out a route to Sofia. Powell had told him to go directly to her, but after trying that with Panagos he was worried. Sofia was a foot smarter than Panagos on his best day, and sharp enough to puncture his deception in seconds if she smelled trouble. Not to mention she had an obsessive streak, and decades of dealing with cultists and zealots had taught Novus Ordo Seculorum not to get in the way of the obsessed.

There was a knock at his door. He supposed it might be Kei coming to try again; she had a zealotry of her own, and it was probably worth indulging her to keep her on side. He reached over to his device and hit the unlock button, allowing it to slide open. He leapt about halfway out of the bed when he saw Sofia standing in the doorway.

“Señorita Castillo!” he said, trying in vain to hide his shock. “How can I help you?”

“Sergeant Graves. May I come in?”

He gestured, and she stepped through the door. It closed behind her, and he thought about locking it – but he knew it made a sound when it locked, and she would notice. If she was here to confront him, if she was smart, she would already have told someone where she’d be going. He had no recourse to silence her here.

“Sergeant – I’m sorry, I don’t know your first name.”

“It’s okay – everyone calls me Graves.”

“Well, Graves – and feel free to call me Sofia, of course – I assume you remember me from the mixer.”

“I do.” Graves was still firmly on the back foot.

“I was hoping we could talk about the visit you paid me last month. Nothing was taken, so I assume you were just…what, spying? What for?”

There was no denial to be had. All he could do now was ensure he wasn’t reported. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We had some theories that your work might be connected to our own, and I was tasked – in part – with seeing if that was true.”

“And is it? Are you working on divergence too?”

“Yes.” That was good enough for now, but he wondered how much more he would have to give up before this was over.

“So, why not just come out and ask me? Wait, let me guess.” She began to pace the room. “You people are terrified of information falling into the wrong hands, I know that much, so you don’t want anyone to know you’re working on this problem.”

“Did anyone see you come in?” Greaves asked.

“But we’re not your enemy,” she continued, “Not Carmen, not the Service, none of us. Your enemy is thousands of miles away and they presumably have no idea what you’re doing. Unless – unless they do.”

Graves locked the door.

Sofia, if she noticed, seemed too lost in her train of thought to care. She wandered over to the bed and sat on the edge, inches from him. “So your enemy factions know about Audacity, I guess because of some messages they intercepted. Probably how you know they know, too.”

“We couldn’t exactly launch a set of shuttles without them taking notice, either.” Graves pocketed his device and shuffled closer. He didn’t know what he was going to do next, but his heart was pounding. She was dismantling their wall of secrecy before his eyes.

“That too,” she said, still not looking at him. “They know something’s happening up here, so they’ll want a part of it. Or to destroy it outright, if they could. And you could work to stop them, except you’re already fighting a war on the ground. But how does this connect to divergence? I don’t see the link.” Finally Sofia looked up, realising how close he was to her. She stood fast and tried to back away, falling onto the bed again.

He backed away at the same time and smoothly unlocked the door with the device in his pocket. She didn’t have it, after all. “I can’t tell you anything,” he said, feeling more like a grunt every minute.

“Of course,” she said. She stood and crossed the room to the door, where it opened to her touch. She was almost gone when he said: “Wait,” and she turned back to look at him expectantly.

“How did you know I’d been in your office? Delegates don’t have access to the camera feeds. Do you have a friend in Security?”

She shook her head. “You know, I agree with you – information is a valuable thing. And as I’ve learned from our neighbours on Edo, one thing you can do with value is trade it.”

“No. I’m sorry, but no.”

Sofia seemed unfazed. “Okay. I’ll figure it out anyway. Goodnight, Graves.”

“Goodnight, Sofia.”

***

“Did you hear me?” Kei was asking.

Graves did not hear her, but he said “Yes” anyway. He was thinking about Sofia again.

“Isi’s not happy about it, of course, but it’s not him who has to push these stupid titles anyway. I mean, listen to this: “A Bill to Affirm That Lockstock Pork is the Finest Pork in the Multiverse”! He wants me to put my name on this, all because they made some stupid agreement back home?”

“Yeah,” Graves said. They were drinking again, but his heart wasn’t in it now that he knew Sofia was on his tail. She was right – she would figure it out eventually. And when she did, she was as unpredictable as anyone else. Sometimes the damned Novan philosophy did little more than get in the way when he needed it to guide him. Mairin had been of no use, either. Kei was still talking.

“And then there’s the matter of the aliens…”

He sat up. “Aliens?”

She jabbed a finger at him. “I knew you weren’t listening to me!”

“I heard that, didn’t I?”

“Uh huh. And before that?”

He squinted, reaching into his memory. “Something about pork?”

“Okay.” She downed her drink. “I’m going to bed. I think it’s probably a good idea if we don’t see each other again.”

“You think that’s possible in a village with less than four hundred people?” It came out meaner than he intended, and she glared.

“You know what I mean. This isn’t doing anything for me anymore. And I don’t even know what you want out of it. Sorry, Graves.”

He said absolutely nothing. She kept glaring, before finally throwing her hands up in frustration and storming out of Luna. Private Belle was watching him from behind the bar, where she seemed to be relishing cleaning a glass.

“Lady troubles, huh? Tell me about it!”

“What?”

“I’m being a bartender! That’s what they do – you tell them your problems, and they… I don’t know, I guess they listen. So spill! What’s got you down?”

Graves stared at her. “Yeah, I’m not doing that.” He left the bar too, taking a different direction so it didn’t look like he was following Kei.

Without intending to he found himself in the observation room, just below the debate chamber. The room was deserted except for Sai, the machine. They were standing unmoving in the panoramic dome, giving the impression that they were suspended there in the void.

Graves took a seat on the back row, not wanting to disturb them. He thought about Kei. He wasn’t particularly upset to not have to pretend to be interested in her anymore – she clearly didn’t know enough to help him in his mission, and it was preferable that she be the one to break it off. It made him look more innocent. But he would be sorry to have one fewer friend, and despite himself he would miss the intimacy of their relationship. In one of his many research dives over the last few months he had begun an informal study on each Earth’s approaches to sexuality. He had thought of Garden as a reasonably liberal place in that regard, but his research proved that the topic was vastly more complicated on each Earth than he could have imagined. Reading through material on the myriad identities of Carmen (and, inevitably, how they aligned with machine attraction) felt like watching new worlds open up all over again. But when that rabbit hole led him to read about the spectrum of gender on other planets, he had felt something else. He had tried to bring it up with Kei before, after reading an Edo article on non-binary identity, but she didn’t seem interested. They were both pretty terrible at listening to each other, he supposed.

But alone, his mind seemed to resist too much introspection, so he instead began thinking about the situation with Sofia. She was close to the truth, clearly, and if she found out why he was asking about the void then he would be finished. To say nothing of the rest of the delegation – it could be the end for all of them, because of his carelessness. But that was only if she found out and told someone else – if she kept it to herself, it might not make a difference.

The energy fields that surrounded Audacity crackled gently, as they did whenever the station made a full rotation on its axis. A wave of pink light washed over the room, briefly illuminating the room like a sheet of lightning.

The answer came to him at the same time – he had to play her game. She had been willing to trade the information before, and that meant she had something she could give him. It might be as simple as a friend in Security, but even that was potential leverage he could have over her. If he could convince her to make the trade, then they would each have something on the other. Then she could actually help answer the questions he needed to know, and he could assure her silence.

He thought about checking in with Powell, or one of the other Colonels, but he had already been told to do whatever it took. He stood. This could work. Feeling reinvigorated, he went to find Sofia.