“That’s what makes it positively ingenious,” Rhys told him. “You not only use TEE to take out a threat, you target the venting behind enemy lines where it will cause maximum damage. Drop ten hectares of desert on a harbour packed with warships. Dump a mountain fortress on a missile silo or germ-warfare site. Bury the fuckers under it for good. Two strikes for the price of one, primary and secondary targets inseparable from one another. Could there be a better weapon?”
There was something brittle and excessively zealous about his brother’s advocacy. Owain wanted to shatter it.
“What about enemy attacks?” he said. “Missiles, for example. Could you take them out in flight?”
“Using Omega? Probably not. It would have to be a reasonably static target so we could insert the loop. And not too high up. It’s a geodynamic thing, linked to the earth’s magnetic field.”
“So they could retaliate?”
“If we didn’t get them first, yes.”
“We’d have to defend ourselves by conventional means.”
Rhys didn’t deny it.
“There could be major destruction on both sides.”
“The risk is considered acceptable,” Rhys said. “Remember, they have no means of defending themselves against Omega attacks.”
“They could take out the site here.”
“Do you really think we’d proceed with only one?”
No, of course he didn’t; he’d just wanted to know.
“We needed you up close at Minsk because the relay satellite was new and the only power source was here. You were there for triangulation, though we built in a little leeway so you wouldn’t get swallowed.”
They’d told him of the dangers when he’d volunteered. No better than a fifty-fifty chance of survival. He hadn’t hesitated.
“Now we have global coverage and control centres on mobile platforms. They can go almost anywhere.”
“How many?”
“Eight, ten, a dozen. Enough.”
He didn’t know for sure. Doubtless they would be scattered all across Alliance territory, and perhaps points beyond. There was an abundance of targets.
Rhys switched the channel to BBC-24. A newsreader was detailing recent instances of American aggression. There were pictures of new fortifications on the western Irish coast—teardrop-shaped domes of a pale concrete that blended in well with the snow-covered landscape. A new front line, he was being told, against any threat from the west.
Rhys turned the sound up loud. Now he came and sat down beside Owain.
“There’s only one problem,” he said softly.
“What?”
“You take out the terrain, but you’ve made a permanent alteration in the underlying geology. Remember it’s a three-dimensional loop, larger below than above. The bigger the excision, the deeper it goes.”
“Earth tremors,” Owain said, remembering Blaskowitz’s conversation with his uncle.
“That’s the least of it. Inevitable if the area’s extensive enough. Now imagine doing a big excision over a hot spot or plate boundary. You might get more than that: open up a hole in the crust or take out a chunk of a subduction zone. You’d end up with some pretty impressive firework displays, or get an event that’s right off the Richter scale.”
The heightened volume on the TV meant that they had to lean close to hear one another, a proximity Owain didn’t relish. He was tiring of words, of not knowing what others wanted from him.
“So what’s your point?” he said.
For once Rhys looked unctain.
“Are you having second thoughts?” Owain asked.
“I’m wondering what you think.”
“About what?”
Rhys smiled. There was something patronising about it, as though he considered Owain a hopeless case.
“This hasn’t happened before,” Dr Pearce said with some anxiety, rather less concerned with the actual incident than that we might consider him professionally negligent by not having warned us.
“I think I over-excited him,” Tanya confessed. “We were dancing.”
“Did he know he was doing it?” Pearce asked.
“Dancing or relieving himself?” I said.
“Relieving himself.”
“He knew.”
Rees gave a little chuckle. Keisha scowled at him and he subsided.
We all were in my father’s room, waiting for him to return. The room held a small wardrobe and a bedside table in addition to the single bed. A modern desk had been crammed into a space beside the door, but its beech-veneer surface was conspicuously free of books or writing equipment.
I knew that the wardrobe held no more than a few changes of clothing. No ties, though he’d always worn one, even when working at home. Another way in which his autonomy had been stripped from him. Everything was pared down to the essentials of easy maintenance. I’d brought him family photographs in the past, but they were nowhere in evidence.
