Judas Unchained

CHAPTER EIGHT

Paula had used just about every kind of transport system the human race had ever invented, but the travel pods in the High Angel always unnerved her. The way they turned transparent from the inside, the high speed, the perfectly maintained gravity field, all that combined into an insidious roller coaster disorientation. Nowadays she knew to keep eyes firmly closed from the moment she got in until a quiet ping announced they’d reached her destination.

Two armored navy security guards were standing outside the pod as she climbed out. They saluted sharply. “The Admiral’s expecting you, Investigator,” one said.

Paula nodded and looked up. She was standing at the base of the Pentagon II. Overhead the dome was completely opaque, diffused with a creamy light. The High Angel was in major conjunction above Icalanise, with Babuyan Atoll pointing directly at the local star. She couldn’t see anything outside at all.

The security guards escorted her into the elevator. Anna was waiting outside when it arrived on the top floor. “Good to see you again,” she said.

“Thanks. How’s married life?”

“Busy.” She held her hand out showing off her rings.

“Lovely,” Paula conceded.

“He’s waiting for you. Oscar’s in there with him.”

Paula hadn’t expected that. “Okay.”

With the dome’s uniform white light outside, it was difficult to tell if the windows in Wilson’s office were clear or not. Given this was supposed to be an ultra-secure meeting, she supposed they were sealed. It wasn’t something she asked; it was fairly obvious she’d walked right into the middle of an argument.

Wilson was standing behind his desk, his long features drawn tight by antagonism. Oscar stood opposite, hands on hips, staring him down.

“Problem?” Paula asked.

“A huge one, actually,” Oscar said. The anger fled from him, and he slumped back into the nearest chair. “Fucking hell!”

“What’s going on?” Paula asked.

“I asked you here because we had proof of some very serious treachery on the Second Chance flight,” Wilson said. He still looked furious, fingers rapping on the desktop. “I needed your advice on the Guardians. Jesus, if they’re right…”

“Had proof?” Paula asked. She didn’t like the way Wilson had made the emphasis.

“Let me show you,” Oscar said.

A wide section of the office wall began to project the shuttle flight between the starship and the Watchtower. Oscar gave a commentary as the little craft left its hangar bay, explaining the dish deployment, where it was pointing. Paula watched it all in fascination. It really was concrete evidence, rather than circumstantial, that someone was actively working against the interest of the human race. One of the Starflyer’s agents had to have been on board the Second Chance.

“Thank you,” she said with quiet sincerity. “This is exactly what I needed.” The emotional reaction to the revelation was stronger than she’d expected; it was almost like being mildly inebriated.

“No it’s not,” Wilson said curtly. “And that’s the fucking problem. This is a recording Oscar made from our main records.”

“I reviewed the Second Chance data while I was on board Defender,” Oscar explained. “Someone from the Guardians contacted me and said enough to raise some doubts in my mind. I started going through the old records and found this.”

“You know a Guardian?” Paula asked.

Oscar shot Wilson a guarded look. The Admiral stared ahead, unresponsive.

“They claimed they represented the Guardians,” Oscar said. “I mean, they don’t exactly carry club membership badges. In truth, I’ve no way of knowing.”

“I see. Go on.”

“The point the Admiral is making is that this”—Oscar waved at the projected image that had frozen to show the dish—“is an unofficial copy of the navy secure records.”

“So?” Paula asked.

“Let me play you the official record of the same sensor,” Wilson said. The frozen image flickered and vanished. Then the recording began again, showing the Second Chance superstructure rising into view as the shuttle left its hangar. Reaction control thrusters squirted sulphur vapor, rotating the craft. It began to head out toward the Watchtower, leaving the giant starship behind. The image froze.

“Oh, hell,” Paula said.

“We sat in here two days ago watching this very same goddamn official recording,” Oscar said. “It showed the dish deploying exactly as it does in my copy. When we ran through it today—” His fist came down hard on the arm of his chair. The main communications dish on the Second Chance was still folded down in its recess.

Paula looked from one man to the other. “Who else knew?”

Wilson cleared his throat awkwardly. “Just the two of us.”

“Oscar, did you tell the Guardians what you’d found?” she asked.

“No. There’s been no contact since I returned from my scout mission.”

“Is there an access log for official navy records?”

“Yes,” Wilson said warily. “That was the first thing we checked, of course. Nobody has accessed this recording since we did two days ago. But then…”

“There’s no log entry of Oscar copying the files,” Paula presumed.

Oscar’s head dropped into his hands. “I’d been contacted by the Guardians. The Guardians! And I was making illegitimate copies of sensitive navy data right in the middle of Pentagon II, for Christ sake.”

“You erased the access log.”

“Yeah. With my code authority it’s not difficult. I know a few program fixes.”

“Don’t we all,” she admitted. “I could probably do a better job than you. But at least it does prove that someone can get in and out of your secure records without a trace.”

“What somebody?” Wilson challenged. “There’s just the two of us.”

“Three,” Paula corrected. “The High Angel sees everything that occurs within itself.” She looked up at the indistinct white ceiling, arching an eyebrow. “Care to comment?”

The High Angel’s colorful icon appeared in her virtual vision. “Good morning, Paula,” it said.

Wilson flinched. He’d obviously forgotten just how pervasive the alien starship’s attention was. Oscar’s face was red with guilt.

“Do you know who altered the official recording?” Paula asked.

“I do not. I see within myself, but your electronic systems are independent and heavily encrypted, especially the navy network. I have no way of knowing who accessed the official recordings.”

“Did you see the official recording which Oscar and the Admiral played in here two days ago?”

“I saw the images produced by your holographic projector. I cannot vouch where they originated from inside your network.”

A very legalistic answer, Paula thought, but the giant alien starship was correct. It couldn’t prove the origin of the images. “Thank you.”

“So what does that tell us?” Oscar asked petulantly. “We’re royally screwed.”

Paula took a moment to compose her thoughts. “First option, and the simplest: that this office is not totally secure, and a Starflyer agent found out about your discovery. The records were subsequently altered to remove the dish deployment. Second option: one of you two gentlemen is a Starflyer agent, and altered the official recording. That option effectively means you, Admiral.”

“Now just a goddamn minute—”

“Third option,” she said forcefully. “That both of you have conspired to produce a bogus recording to discredit myself and anyone else opposing the Starflyer.”

“If that’s true, why are we telling you that what we saw got altered on the official recording?” Oscar said.

Paula nodded reasonably. “Good point. I listed them in order of probability.”

“Well, I’ve got another one for you,” Oscar said. “That the Primes, the Starflyer if it exists, and the High Angel are all conspiring against the human race.”

“Yes,” Paula said. “If that’s so, then we’re in more trouble than I thought. A lot more trouble.”

They all paused, waiting to see if the High Angel would refute the claim. It was silent.

“It’s got to be the first one,” Oscar said. “We know the Starflyer infiltrated the navy right from the start. Son of a bitch, any of us could be its agent.”

“But we’re not,” Paula said. “Don’t let paranoia take over. Look at it this way, you know you’re not a Starflyer agent.”

“How does that help?”

“It’s a start. You have to work on the assumption that not everything you do can be sabotaged. Plan your actions very carefully.”

“Right, so we repair the official recording.” Oscar gave Wilson a defiant glance.

“I can’t permit that,” the Admiral said. “It compromises the whole allegation.”

“He’s right,” Paula said.

“But we have to,” Oscar said. “It’s the only proof we’ve got. My copy is the genuine record. You can’t let the Starflyer escape on some smartass lawyer technicality. For fuck’s sake, this is our future as a species we’re talking about.”

“You know for certain that the copy is real,” Paula said. “So does the Admiral because he saw the official recording before it was doctored. I, however, do not know for certain. I suspect it might be real, but that isn’t good enough.”

“I don’t believe this! I have genuine evidence that some bastard traitor was on board the Second Chance, and I can’t use it? The original recording was altered.” He gave Wilson a pleading glance. “You know that all we’d be doing is repairing the Starflyer’s sabotage.”

“If the provenance is faked, the evidence is worthless,” Paula said.

“Son of a bitch, you can’t be serious. We can blow the Starflyer out of space with this. Everyone would know it exists.”

“I would not accept a substitute recording, no matter how noble your intentions,” Paula said. “I would have to inform any authority you went to that it was not genuine.”

“Both of you!” Oscar growled sullenly.

It wasn’t hard for Paula to work out what he was thinking. Option five: he was the only innocent one.

“The Starflyer hasn’t been entirely successful in this venture,” Paula said.

“It might have avoided exposure, but we ourselves now have further evidence it is real.”

“What fucking use is that?” Oscar demanded. “You just said we can’t use it.”

“Not publicly, no.”

“Further evidence?” Wilson asked sharply. “You knew already?”

“I strongly suspected, and have done for some time now. I’ve amassed a great deal of circumstantial evidence; but again the problem is that it’s not sufficient to go to court with.”

“Is that why you wanted me to pursue the Mars case?”

“Yes, Admiral.” She gave Oscar a steady look. “It could have got me closer to them. I still don’t have any access route to the Guardians. If I did, and we shared information, they might be able to help me trace the Starflyer.”

“When they get in contact next I’ll tell them,” Oscar said in defeat.

“They probably won’t want to talk to me,” she told him. “But try and persuade them anyway. Try very hard. It is extremely important that we work together on this.”

“Sure thing.”

“What the hell do I do about the navy in the meantime?” Wilson asked.

“We’re completely compromised.”

“I don’t think there’s much that can be done. Obviously you’ll have to increase security, but there’s no way the Starflyer can prevent the major actions you’re undertaking. There’s too much political, fiscal, and physical inertia behind the navy.”

“But it can tell the Primes everything. We’ve already seen it can communicate with them.”

“Even if the Primes knew the exact time the navy ships are due to arrive at Hell’s Gateway, would it make any difference? Really? They know we will attack them there at some time. Their defenses will be as strong as they can conceivably make them. They’ve seen our weapons technology in action. Nothing has changed.”

“The strength is in the details,” Wilson said. “If they know exactly what we can do, they’ll be able to counter it.”

“They know what we’re doing on the Lost23, yet that insurgency campaign appears to be remarkably successful.”

“Yeah, maybe, but this is one weapon type we’re using. Neutralize that and we’re screwed.”

“You cannot change the attack’s schedule by much, that much is obvious. What you must do now is conduct the rest of the conflict appropriately. Information must be compartmentalized. Internal security procedures need to be strengthened, starting with your network and arrays. Work on the assumption that all information will ultimately leak to the Primes. In the meantime, I will try and identify the traitors.”

“Do you think Columbia is working for the Starflyer?” Wilson asked.

“I’m not sure yet. His actions are certainly detrimental to me personally, but that doesn’t make him guilty of anything other than being a politician.”

Wilson pushed back his hair. “Damnit, I still can’t believe anyone would betray their own species.”

“From what I understand, such an action is not voluntary. The Starflyer exercises some kind of mental control over its agents. I don’t understand the nature of it yet. I am currently tracking down several such people. When they are in custody, we may be able to determine the methodology.”

“You already know the identity of Starflyer agents?” Wilson asked.

“I have suspects, yes.”

“Are they connected with the navy?”

Paula considered the question carefully. She had arrived prepared to share a great deal of information, but the alteration of secure navy records was a nasty surprise. There was no way of telling how trustworthy Wilson and Oscar actually were. Until she was certain, she had to regard option three as highly probable, which meant limiting the information she made available. “I have reason to believe that a legal firm and a bank in New York have been acting as a financial distribution center for the Starflyer. The specialists I’ve had examining their accounts have come up with an interesting connection. A Mr. Seaton, who is one of the lawyers we’re trying to locate, sat as a nonexecutive director on the board of Bayfoss Engineering.”

“They manufacture sensor satellites,” Oscar said quickly. “We used their ground survey models in the CST exploration division to map new planets.”

“They also manufactured the Armstrong-class satellites which the Second Chance carried,” Paula said. “That means the actual hardware integrated into the satellites must be considered suspect.”

“Oh, shit,” Wilson whispered. He and Oscar swapped a horrified look.

“How many did we lose in the Dark Fortress?”

“Nine satellites total,” Oscar said. “Four of them were Armstrong-class.”

“And just after that, the barrier came down.”

“Did the Starflyer know how to switch it off?”

“That depends,” Paula said. “If you take the Guardians’ assumption that this whole war was deliberately engineered by the Starflyer, then it is highly likely that one or more of those satellites contained a device capable of shutting down the barrier.”

“And the traitor on board triggered the damn thing while we were there,” Oscar said. He closed his eyes as if he were in pain. “So we did switch off the barrier and let them out? Oh, God.”

“We, as in humans, did not,” Paula said. “We were, however, manipulated to produce the result it required.”

“How did it know?” Wilson asked in confusion. “If it planned all this out decades ago, it must have known the Primes were inside the barrier, and known how to shut that barrier down. How?”

“That’s certainly something I intend to ask it when I finally catch up with it,” Paula said. “But for now I suggest you concentrate on this information as an exercise in damage limitation. I believe Bayfoss is still supplying the navy with equipment? Their shareholder report certainly claims they’re doing well on military sales.”

“Yes,” Wilson said. “They’re a specialist astroengineering company; we use them extensively.”

“Is it for anything critical?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, they have contracts to supply several highly classified projects.”

“Perhaps you’d better take a close look at the components they’re delivering.”

***

Ozzie woke up as slim beams of bright sunlight slid across his face. Their side of Island Two was rotating back to face the sun again after nine hours cloaked within its own umbra. Here in the gas halo, “night” wasn’t anything like as dark as it would be on a planet, but it did give them a reasonable break from the relentless glare. He checked his watch; he really had been asleep for nine hours. It was taking his body a long time to recuperate from those days spent in freefall.

He unzipped his sleeping bag and stretched lazily. A long shiver ran down his body; all he wore in the bag were shorts and his last decent T-shirt. They were enough while he was sealed up, but the air temperature here was that of early autumn. His guess was that Island Two was currently in some convection current that was cycling back from the outward section of the gas halo to the warmth of the inner edge. He scrambled around for his patched and worn cord pants, then pulled on his checked shirt, giving it a dismayed look as more stitches popped along the sleeve. The old dark gray woolen fleece prevented the chill air from getting to his chest.

Ordinarily a cool morning outdoors would be quite invigorating. The time he’d spent trekking and camping across worlds in the Commonwealth added up to over a century now. But he was mistrustful of the reef and its eternal orbit through the gas halo; and all the cold did nowadays was trigger memories of the Ice Citadel planet.

His sleeping bag was in one section of the small shelter they’d rigged up from the broken segments of the poor old Pathfinder. Wood from the decking and flotation bundles had been adapted into low walls; the tatty old sail stretched across it formed the roof. Bunches of dried leaves from local trees had been stuffed into the bigger holes, helping to maintain a reasonable screen, although the sunbeams cut through in hundreds of places. They hadn’t built it to provide protection from the elements; it was just to give them all some privacy. After the extremely close confines of clinging to the Pathfinder, a little private space of your own worked wonders for morale.

He pulled on his boots, which although scuffed were still in pretty good shape. Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for his socks; he really needed a good darning session. His packet of needle and thread had miraculously stayed with him. He’d found it again the other day when he went through his rucksack. It was times like that when you began to appreciate what true luxury really was.

Ready to face a brand-new day, he pushed the crude door curtain aside. Orion had already rekindled the fire from yesterday’s embers. Their battered metal mugs were balanced on a slatelike shard of polyp above the flames, heating some water.

“Five teacubes left,” Orion said. “Two chocolate. Which do you want?”

“Oh, what the hell, let’s live a little, shall we? I’ll take the chocolate.”

The boy grinned. “Me, too.”

Ozzie settled on one of the rounded ebony and maroon polyp protrusions they used as chairs. He winced as he straightened his leg.

“How’s the knee?” Orion asked.

“Better. I need to do some exercises, loosen it up. It’s stiff after yesterday.” They’d walked all the way to the tip of the reef, where the trees ended abruptly and the bare oyster-gray polyp tapered away into a single long spire. They’d edged out cautiously onto the long triangular segment, feeling uncomfortably exposed. Gravity reduced proportionally the farther they went. Ozzie estimated it would finish altogether about five hundred meters past the end of the forest. They turned around and scooted back to the enclosure of the trees.

The spire was a landing point, Ozzie decided, the aerial equivalent of a jetty. Should any of the flying Silfen choose to visit, they would simply glide down onto the far end of the spire and walk in long bounds toward the main part of the reef, their weight increasing as they went.

Other than that, gravity on Island Two was constant. On the third day after the Pathfinder had reached the reef they’d traveled to the other side, which was a simple duplicate of theirs. The rim of the reef was a narrow curving cliff covered in small bushes and clumps of tall bamboolike grasses. Gravity warped alarmingly as they started to traverse the cliff, making it seem as if they were vertical during the whole transition.

Halfway around, Ozzie had looked back to see he was now standing at right angles to where he’d been a hundred meters before. Coming to terms with that was even more disconcerting than orienting himself in freefall.

While Orion dropped the chocolate cubes into their mugs, Ozzie started peeling one of the big bluish gray fruits they’d picked from the jungle. The pulp inside had a coarse texture, tasting like a cinnamon-flavored apple. It was one of eight edible fruits they’d discovered so far. Just like every other environment the Silfen paths led to, the reef was quite capable of supporting life.

Tochee emerged from the jungle, its manipulator flesh coiled around various containers it had filled with water. A small stream ran across the rumpled polyp ground fifty meters from their shelter, its water so clean they barely needed to use the filter.

“Good morning to you, friend Ozzie,” it said through the handheld array.

“Morning.” Ozzie took a drink of the chocolate.

“I have detected no electrical power circuit activity with my equipment.” The big alien held up a couple of sensors it had brought with it. “The machinery must be very deep inside the reef.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Even after all this time spent together, Tochee hadn’t quite grasped the fact that Ozzie liked a bit of peace and quiet at breakfast.

“Where did you go?” Orion asked as Ozzie munched stoically on his fruit.

“Five kilometers in that direction.” Tochee formed a tentacle out of its manipulator flesh, and pointed.

“I think the middle is that way.” Orion pointed almost at right angles to Tochee’s tentacle.

“Are you sure?”

“I dunno. Where is it, Ozzie?”

Ozzie jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “There, nine kilometers.”

“I apologize,” Tochee said. “My instruments do not possess a navigation function like yours.”

“Did you see anything interesting?” Orion asked.

“Many trees. Some small flying creatures. No large or sentient life.”

“Too bad.” The boy cut a big slice out of a purplish fruit with his penknife, and bit into it eagerly. Juice dribbled down his chin, getting caught in his wispy beard. “Were there any caves?”

“I did not see any.”

“There’s got to be a way in to the core somewhere. I wonder if it’s right on the tip of the spires. There can’t be any gravity along the axis, that’s where it all balances out, Ozzie said so. I bet that’s just one long tunnel the whole length of this thing.”

“Logic would dictate the shortest distance. An access passage to the core would surely begin on the surface at the middle.”

“Yeah. I bet there’s a whole load of caves and stuff. It’ll be where the reef’s inhabitants live, like the Morlocks.”

Ozzie took another drink of chocolate, not making eye contact. He was already regretting telling that story.

“Do you still think something lives here, friend Orion?” Tochee asked.

“What’s the point of it otherwise?”

“I have seen no sign of any large creature.”

“No, ‘cause they’re underground.”

Ozzie finished his chocolate and retied his hair with a small band of leather so that it didn’t flop down over his eyes. “They are not underground,” he said. “You do not build islands in something like the gas halo, and then populate them with troglodyte species. Nothing lives here.”

“What’s a trogodite?” Orion asked.

“Someone who lives underground.”

“Excuse me, friend Ozzie,” Tochee said. “But this whole gas halo is lacking in logic. We might yet find some life belowground. Why else would you build islands in the sky?”

“Carbon sinks,” Ozzie said. “It’s all a question of scale, which is admittedly difficult to get your head around. Even I’m having serious trouble with this when I look up and see sky that goes on forever. But we know that there is a lot of animal life flapping around inside the gas halo. As it’s a standard oxygen-nitrogen mix it’s pretty safe to say they all breathe oxygen, and exhale carbon dioxide, or some other waste product. Now I’m sure it would take billions of years for all those animals to poison something as gigantic as the gas halo, but it will happen unless the opposite process is active. You can either do it artificially, with machines; or the green way, with plants. And that’s what this reef is, a part of the ecosystem. It probably doubles as a food garden and watering hole as well. The air-desert equivalent of an oasis.”

“You said there was machinery inside it,” Orion said, his tone accusing.

“There is some kind of gravity generator, certainly, man, and that probably has a steering function; I’m pretty sure it was put on a collision course with us. The rest of it is all biological.”

“What’s the point if they can clean the air with machines?”

“I suspect they built all of this just for the hell of it, man, the enjoyment of living in something so utterly fantastic. I know I would if I could. I already did something like this on a minuscule scale back home.”

“Did you?”

“Very small scale, yeah.”

“What?”

“It’s an artificial environment; nothing special, not important. Look, the reason I’m interested in trying to locate the gravity generator in this reef is because I might figure out how to use it to steer us somewhere.” He held a hand up to stall both of them. “And no, guys, I don’t know where yet, but a degree of control would be useful at this moment in time, okay? We really are out of all other options.”

“You said that back on the water island.” Orion’s grin was pure disrespect.

“Shows you how little I know. Come on, Tochee’s probably right about the inspection hatch being close to the center. Let’s go see if we can find it.”

The intricacy of the reef’s jungle fascinated Ozzie; it was a work of art. There was a near-uniform gap between the ground and the first level of branches of about four meters. Just right for a human or a Silfen to walk comfortably in the low gravity without hitting their head on branches. In fact, if you happened to push off too hard the lacework of branches and twigs was dense enough for a simple slap of the hand to help flatten out the arc of your glide-walk. An overhead safety net, basically. Ozzie was convinced that was deliberate. So if the trees weren’t pruned, and he’d seen nothing to indicate they were, they must have been configured at a genetic level to grow like that. Even for a society with the resources to build the gas halo, that was a lot of work.

There was plenty of variety, too, ranging from trees that could have come direct from the forest of any H-congruous world, to the bizarre purple chimneylike tubes, as well as a host of alien species like the flexible globular lattice that Orion had landed in. Ozzie half expected to see a ma-hon growing amid the profusion of exotica.

Covered by the thin layer of loam was an equal diversity of polyp strata, dull ash-gray bands interlocked with stone-brown bulbs and creamy intestinal clusters, knobbly gentian ropes and open-ended maroon cones with puddles of dank water lying at their base. Blue-speckled hazel protrusions in the shape of button mushrooms were common, although they were all over two meters in diameter.

Johansson had been right to call these creations reefs, Ozzie thought. The trees, as they swiftly realized, lived in perfect symbiosis with the polyp. There was no deep layer of soil to support the roots; instead they were supplied with water and nutrients by the coral itself. In return it must slowly absorb the loam formed by their fallen, rotted leaves to regenerate itself.

There were glades, wide patches where no trees grew, filled with bright sunlight. Here the thin sandy soil sprouted a few tufts of grass, or straggly plants giving a curious impression of lifelessness amid the luxuriant growth of the jungle. Each time they came across such a feature they stayed close to the fringe of trees, as if they’d grown afraid of the empty sky.

Ozzie was pretty sure he knew where such uncertainty rose from. Anything could exist in the gas halo, descending on them without warning out of that infinite blue expanse.

“Do you think there are paths here?” Orion asked. “You said Johansson walked back to the Commonwealth from a reef.”

“There could be,” Ozzie admitted. Indeed he was carrying his rucksack in case they did wander onto the start of a path. He’d insisted on the boy and Tochee carrying their essentials as well. They had so little equipment and supplies left they simply couldn’t afford to lose any more. Deep down, he was hoping they really would start the long walk off the reef midway through one of these expeditions. That yearning was a direct reaction to his circumstances. All he was focusing on these days was simple survival. He’d been traveling for so long now he had grown terribly weary of it. The starship had surely flown to the Dyson Pair and returned by now. It was a depressing thought that the answer would be waiting for him when he returned home, a brief historical note within the unisphere.

When he did catch himself indulging in such wistful speculation he grew angry. After enduring so much he deserved to find the adult Silfen community.

“I know when we’re on a path these days,” Orion said. “I can feel it.”

“I believe I may share that awareness,” Tochee said. “There is no logic to the knowledge, which is difficult for me, but I sometimes find an inner certainty.”

Ozzie, who had possessed that particular trait for some time, kept quiet. The really good thing about getting home would be dropping Orion and Tochee off in a decent hotel and getting the hell away from their constant inane chatter.

The handheld array reported they were drawing near to the geometrical center of the reef; it was hard to define the exact point outside of an area a couple of hundred meters in diameter, although they were certainly halfway between the tips of both end spires. A good visual clue was in the size of the trees, which were getting a lot taller. Why, though? Is the center the oldest part? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Nonetheless, their trunks were massive here, several meters across, leaving the ground directly beneath them arid and dusty. The surrounding polyp had cracked, with long dead flakes lifting up like jagged teeth around the bark. Overhead, the ceiling of branches and leaves was so dense that the light had reduced to a pale uniform gloaming.

“It’s lighter up ahead,” Orion said. A glare of sunlight was filtering past the trunks. They walked toward it, squinting after so long in the gloomy silence of the great trees.

The light came from a clearing over a kilometer wide. For once there was a blanket of greenery covering the ground, a plant as tenacious as ground eldar but with slim ankle-high jade-green leaves that rustled like rice paper. A fence of the purple polyp tubes formed a neat perimeter, towering above the thick trees, each one curving around high above them so their ends were aligned horizontally out across the reef.

“They’re chimneys!” Orion declared. White vapor was oozing out of each one, twirling away above the treetops. Ozzie recalled the odd riverlike ribbons of cloud they’d seen on their approach.

Orion immediately dropped down and pressed his ear to the ground.

“Friend Orion, what are you doing?” Tochee asked.

“Listening for the machines. There must be factories in the caves down there.”

“I do not detect any electrical or magnetic activity,” Tochee said.

“Calm down, man,” Ozzie said. “Think about this: Factories to make what?”

Orion gave him a puzzled look, then shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Okay, then. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“There is something in the middle of the clearing,” Tochee said.

Ozzie used his inserts to zoom in. A squat black pillar stood by itself in the middle of the rustling sea of leaves. “Now that’s more like it.”

Orion got there first, leaping on ahead, each giant step sending him gliding three or four meters through the air. Ozzie took more cautious steps, keeping a wary eye out on the sky above, while Tochee slithered along at a modest speed.

The pillar was three meters tall, standing on a broad patch of bluish polyp devoid of any soil or plants A ring of symbols had been engraved halfway up, made from long thin strokes curving at all angles, with several orbital dots. All the grooves and indentations had been filled with a clear crystal. Ozzie scanned them with the handheld array, and whistled at the result. “Diamond. That’s one mother of an expensive anticorrosion application.”

“What kind of runes are they?” Orion asked. The symbols bore a slight similarity to ideograms, but not in any human language. “Is it like a signpost for paths?”

“I don’t have any reference,” Ozzie said. “How about you, Tochee?”

“I regret not.”

Ozzie began to scan the ground, which was solid enough. None of his sensors could detect any kind of cavity beneath the pillar. Nor was there any electrical activity, no circuits buried just below the surface. He gave the pillar an aggravated look as an excited Orion hurried around it, the boy’s eager fingers tracing the lines on all the symbols. Then Ozzie looked back across the open expanse of the glade, an unwelcome conclusion dawning in his mind.

“Shit!” Ozzie spat brutally. “Shit shit shit.” He aimed a kick at the base of the pillar. It hurt his toe, so he kicked it again, harder. “Ouch!” Kick with the other foot. “I do not fucking believe this, man.” All the frustration, all the rage that had been building inside him, was rushing out; vented on this one simple artifact. He hated it for what it was, everything it represented.

“What’s wrong, Ozzie?” Orion asked quietly. The boy was giving him an apprehensive glance.

“What’s fucking wrong? I’ll goddamn tell you what’s wrong.” He kicked the pillar again, not quite so hard this time. “I have spent months in the wilderness, eating crappy fruit when all I wanted was a decent steak and fries; actually, I don’t just want it, I dream of it. I’m walking around in rags like something out of the stone age. I haven’t had sex in, like, forever. I’ve been sober so long now my liver is feeling healthy. I’ve been flushed off an ocean in the biggest cosmic joke there ever was. But I put up with it, all this crap, because I know you—yes YOU—are watching and guiding me along, and manipulating the paths so that in the end we’ll meet up. But, oh no, you’ve got to have one more go at making me feel humble, one more time making me the butt of your stinking lame-ass, so-called humor.” He thrust a finger out toward the pillar. “I do not think this is funny! You got that? Are we clear on the meaning of NO, here?”

Orion gave the clearing a timid look.

“Friend Ozzie, who are you talking about? I can see no one else here but us.”

“It’s watching. Aren’t you?”

“Who?” Orion pleaded.

“The adult community. The real Silfen.”

“Are they?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Orion turned back to the pillar. “So what is this?”

Ozzie sent a long breath rattling out through clenched teeth as he tried to calm down. It was hard. If he didn’t let his anger burn, he knew he’d wind up curled up in a ball weeping in sheer frustration. “Nothing. The most stupid insignificant piece of nothing on the whole goddamn reef. I used to respect the dude who came up with the design for the gas halo, I mean it is like impressive. Now, I think they’re the most anally retentive morons in the whole galaxy. You want to know what this is? Why it’s so completely visible, standing here all by itself, with the sunlight shining on it like it’s some kind of celebrity? It’s the reef’s goddamn serial number, man.”

***

MorningLightMountain detected the approaching ships while they were still fifteen light-years distant. Twenty of them were approaching the staging post star at four light-years per hour, the fastest human ships it had observed so far. That was to be expected. They had no alternative but to send their best weapons against the staging post.

Part of its main thought routines noted that every time some part of itself encountered human starships, they always flew faster than the previous time. The rate at which humans developed and advanced their technology base was atypical of their society as a whole, which appeared so disorganized, with numerous instances of leadership class and administration class corruption. Study of the mined data and human personality animations it had enacted showed that certain small clusters of individuals were capable of high-level organization within specialized fields. During the frequent outbreak of wars while they were still confined to their original planet, the “weapon scientist” groups were always deferred to by the leadership class, and given disproportional resources to complete their tasks.

It decided the leadership class must have reverted to its old behavior pattern and allowed the weapon scientist class increased access to resources. That development would have to be watched carefully; humans with their wild imagination might be capable of producing very dangerous hazards at a strategic level rather than the tactical level that they had engaged at so far. Fortunately, MorningLightMountain still had weapons capable of devastating entire star systems, which it had so far held in reserve. With preparations for the second incursion almost complete, it was now ready to use them against Commonwealth star systems. This time there would be very little resistance from the humans. The radiation would kill them all off, while leaving their industry and buildings intact.

MorningLightMountain refined and analyzed its sensor data, learning what it could of the distortions generated by each ship, the nature of their energy manipulation process. It began to prepare its defenses, halting the flow of matériel and ships to the new twenty-three worlds. Seven hundred seventy-two wormhole generators on the three remaining original asteroids orbiting the interstellar wormhole began to adjust their configuration; as did the five hundred twenty generators so far completed on the four new asteroids it had established. Force fields were strengthened around all the settlements containing immotile groupings. Weapons installations were brought up to full readiness. Attack ships moved to their departure locations.

The human starships began to slow. They came to a halt twenty-five AUs distant from the interstellar wormhole, and emerged into real space. MorningLightMountain immediately opened twenty wormholes around each starship. Six hundred missiles were launched through each one, followed by forty ships. It then modified the wormholes again to try to prevent the starships from escaping within their own wormhole, a technique perfected during the first stage of its expansion into Commonwealth space.

As soon as the human starships powered down their faster than light drive systems, they became immensely difficult to detect. Missiles were unable to lock on to anything. The sensors on all MorningLightMountain’s ships struggled to pick up any radiation emission; radar was completely ineffectual. Only the wormholes themselves were able to provide some guidance, their distortion waves revealing faint echo traces, though even those were elusive, never giving the same return pattern twice. The entire assault floundered.

Then a new distortion point appeared. Another. Five more. Within twenty seconds, three hundred small human vehicles were approaching the interstellar wormhole at four light-years per hour. As MorningLightMountain had predicted, the humans were using the same attack process they had used so effectively above Anshun.

Thousands of immotile group clusters began modifying the energy structure of the asteroid-based wormholes, aligning their openings on the faster than light missiles, interfering with their own exotic energy structure. Erratic bursts of radiation erupted along the missiles flight path as the conflicting distortions clashed, their overlap leaking back into spacetime.

The great deflection operation succeeded, diverting and disturbing the flight of the missiles, twisting them away from the gigantic interstellar wormhole and its massive supplementary assembly of asteroids, equipment, and installations. As the interference grew stronger, human missiles were torn from their superluminal flight millions of kilometers away from their target, traveling at close to ninety percent lightspeed. It was a velocity that gave even the tenuous solar wind particles a lethal kinetic impact. Furious spheres of plasma spewed out around every emergence point, far brighter than the local star.

A second volley of a hundred superluminal missiles raced in toward the interstellar wormhole. This time MorningLightMountain was more successful in locating their origin coordinates. Its own missiles were redirected. Thousands of fusion explosions saturated space where it suspected the human starships to be lurking. There were dark eddies within the tides of elementary particles. Sensors probed them, seeking the cause.

Three human missiles managed to get close to the interstellar wormhole before MorningLightMountain’s interference forced them out into spacetime. They instantly erupted into spears of relativistic plasma spitting hard radiation that burned out any sensor aligned onto it. A patch of solar wind over a million kilometers wide glowed a faint purple as it was energized. Several ships exploded as they were overwhelmed by the searing tide. Force fields protecting sections of the asteroids strained under the effort of withstanding the colossal energy input. Dozens of localized breakthroughs occurred, allowing shafts of X and gamma rays to slash across the equipment and machinery underneath. Four wormhole generators were immediately vaporized. Thousands of immotiles were irradiated, dying almost at once. Eight group clusters were lost. The interstellar wormhole remained unaffected, its force field holding against the electromagnetic blizzard. Slowly, the purple nebula darkened down to nothing.

Out on the edge of the star system, MorningLightMountain sent hundreds of ships racing in toward the little betraying knots within the nuclear plasma it had unleashed, firing their beam weapons and launching salvo after salvo of high-velocity missiles. The human starships retreated into their self-generated wormholes. MorningLightMountain managed to disrupt three of them, leaving them exposed to the full vehemence of its attacking ships. Their force fields were exceptionally strong, but not even those could withstand the intense assault it directed at them.

Three new explosions blossomed, almost unnoticeable among the deluge of elementary particles ripping through that section of space. MorningLightMountain’s quantum wave sensors observed the seventeen surviving human ships fly back into the void. It watched for a long time to see if there would be a second wave. No more starships came.

More supplies and apparatus came through the interstellar wormhole from its home system. It resumed its preparations for the next stage of its expansion into the human Commonwealth.

***

Barry and Sandy were so excited they barely ate a thing at breakfast, not even the scrambled eggs with crusted cheesefish that the chefbot had produced. Panda picked up on their mood and barked happily, wagging her tail as she went around the table, pleading for scraps.

“Can you take us up to the starships, Dad?” Barry asked as Liz put his plate in front of him. Sandy gasped, and paid very close attention.

“Oh, sorry, son, not today. The orbital platforms aren’t open to visitors.”

“I’m not a visitor,” he said indignantly. “You’re my dad, I’d be with you.”

There were times when Barry’s simple, absolute devotion brought a lump to Mark’s throat. “I’ll have another word with the boss,” he promised.

“Maybe we’ll smuggle you up one day.”

“And me!” Sandy insisted.

“Of course.”

Liz gave him an accusing glance across the table. He knew exactly what she was thinking: How are you going to keep that promise?

“Don’t do that,” Liz admonished Barry.

“What?” the boy protested, putting on his hurt innocence face. It was a very familiar expression.

“I saw you give Panda toast.”

“Aw, Mom, I dropped it, that’s all.”

“It had butter on it,” Sandy said primly. “And you fed it to her.”

“Snitch!”

“Both of you, shush,” Mark said. He tried to stop grinning as he read the news flowing across the paperscreen that was balanced on his coffee cup. It was difficult; this was a proper family breakfast, the kind he’d loved back in the Ulon Valley, and an increasingly rare event these days. It wasn’t that life here was hard—quite the opposite. The two-story house they lived in was built from shiny carbonsteel composite sections, assembled by construction-bots. But even though it looked low-cost from the outside, the interior was spacious, with luxurious fittings. Its kitchen alone probably cost more than the old Ables pickup he’d driven in Randtown, with every automated gadget known to the Commonwealth, work surfaces of Ebbadan marble, and cupboard doors made from brown-gold French oak. All the other rooms were equally well appointed; and if you lacked any furniture you could order whatever you wanted from a unisphere catalogue site and the project personnel office would arrange for it to be delivered. The same with clothes or food.

No, home life was easy. It was the work that devoured all his time, and kept him away from the children. Except today. This was his day off, the first one in a long time. They’d arranged for the children to skip school so they could all spend it together.

“Can we go now?” Barry implored. “Dad, please, we’re all finished.”

Mark stopped reading the article about the political battle to lead the African caucus in the Senate. He glanced over at Liz for permission. She was holding her big teacup in both hands. Most of her French toast was still on her plate. “Okay,” she said.

The kids whooped and raced out of the room.

“Make sure you use your toothgel,” she shouted after them. “And don’t forget your swimsuits.”

Panda barked happily.

Mark and Liz grinned at each other. “Do we get some time together tonight?” he asked, trying to be casual.

“Yes, I’d like to have sex, too, baby. If we’re not tired after today, that’s a definite.”

They shared a more intimate, playful smile.

Liz wolfed down the last portion of her French toast. “Humm, too much pepper. I’ll have to alter the bot’s recipe.”

He glanced at the broad picture window behind her, checking the weather. Liz always sat with her back to the window, no matter what room of the house they were using. “I hate this landscape,” she’d announced on their third day in the town. “It’s a corpse of a world, a vampire planet.”

“Looks like a good day,” Mark said cheerfully as the sunlight shone on the rock and sandy regolith outside. “The tarn should be warm enough to swim in.”

“Whatever.”

“Something wrong?”

“No. Yes. This place. It really is driving me crazy, baby.”

He held up the paperscreen. News articles were still flowing down it. “We won’t be here for much longer, one way or another. The navy fleet should be hitting Hell’s Gateway any day now.”

Liz glanced at the open door, and lowered her voice. “And if that’s not enough?”

“It will be.”

“Then why is Sheldon building this fleet?”

“Because he had a healthy paranoia back when all this kicked off. In any case, he’ll probably use the starships even if we beat the Primes back to their homeworld.”

“Say again?”

“The Commonwealth is all humans have; we’re all bunched up in one big group. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to set up another human civilization on the other side of the galaxy? It’d probably be completely different to this one. We know how to avoid our mistakes now, to build something new. You’d have enough volunteers to make it viable; look how many people settle weird places like Far Away and Silvergalde.”

“Uh huh.” She sat back and gave him a calculating stare. “And would that include us?”

Mark’s enthusiasm went into an unpleasant nosedive. “I don’t know. How do you feel about it?”

“I feel very strongly that the children are brought up in the safety and security of the Commonwealth, providing it survives. Once they’re grown up, and responsible enough to make their own choices, they can start thinking if they want to go gallivanting off into the wild.”

“Er, right, Sure. But it appeals to me.”

“I can see that, baby. And I’ll be happy to talk about it later, say, in about fifteen years.”

“Ah. All right, I don’t suppose this will be the only intergalactic colonization attempt. I think we’re shaping up to live in a real golden age. The Prime attack might well be the best thing that ever happened to us; it’s shaken us out of our complacency. Just think of it, fleets flying off into the unknown. I bet we even go trans-galactic one day. That would be the ultimate, wouldn’t it?”

Liz gave him a tolerant smile. “I keep forgetting how young you are.”

“You mean you wouldn’t go?” Mark asked, surprised, and not a little upset.

“I hadn’t thought about it, baby, is the honest answer. But do me a favor, don’t mention this to the kids; their world is turbulent enough as it is right now without introducing wild ideas like this.”

“Like what?” Barry asked. He was standing in the door, his coat trailing from one hand.

“Tell you about it later,” Mark said automatically. He winked. “When your mom’s not about.”

“Don’t you dare,” Liz growled.

Barry giggled happily. “Sure thing, Dad.” He pelted off back into the house. “Hey, Sis, I know something you don’t!”

“What?” Sandy squeaked.

“Not telling you.”

“Pig!”

Liz grinned and rolled her eyes. “Gonna be a long day.”

***

Mark had arranged to borrow a Ford Trailmaster7 from the garage. They all piled in, with Panda in the back, and he headed out of their big housing estate for the perimeter ring road. All the civil construction work had finished now. The town was as large as it was ever going to be, supporting twelve thousand technicians, scientists, and engineers who were busy assembling the starships in their orbital docks, and the crews who would fly them.

A bright sun shone down out of the light purple sky, glinting strongly off the town’s composite buildings. The ground between them was gritty sand scattered with flaking rocks; there wasn’t even a single weed growing anywhere. Nobody had gardens. H-congruous plant life wasn’t permitted here. Hundreds of modified gardenbots were on constant patrol in the town, spraying the sand with biological inhibiters that would prevent any kind of growth. Sewage from every building was simply tanked to Cressat, and from there back to Augusta, as was all the garbage. Nothing was allowed to contaminate the pristine environment.

Liz wrinkled her nose up at the town as they sped along the ring road. “This place is like Gaczyna,” she said as they passed a Bab’s Kebabs franchise at the end of a strip mall.

“Where?”

“A place in Russia that they used to train spies during the Cold War. It supposedly had a perfect replica of an American town, so the agents could familiarize themselves with life in the West. That’s what this is, a replica of the Commonwealth. Everything we associate with everyday life is here, but it’s not actually real.”

“The Dynasty’s doing its best to make things comfortable for us.”

“Yeah, baby, I know. It wasn’t a complaint, just an observation.”

Mark nodded, and concentrated on driving. He was getting quite worried about Liz; the whole lifeboat venture had brought out a despondency in her that he found difficult to deal with. She was normally the sunny one, the one he relied on for common sense and optimism. Given what he had to tell her at some point today, her criticisms and moodiness weren’t good omens. He could see what she meant about Gaczyna, though. He’d never been anywhere with so many bots. The only people the Dynasty allowed here were those involved in building the lifeboats. There was no service economy; bots performed every domestic function; even Bab’s Kebabs along with all the other stores in the strip mall were automated. When a bot malfunctioned, it wasn’t repaired here; that would require a secondary industry, people not connected to the lifeboat project. He’d seen whole trucks full of faulty bots being shipped back to Augusta for maintenance. It was an expensive way of doing things, but it was the only way of sustaining the level of security that Nigel Sheldon insisted on.

They turned off the ring road onto a dirt track that led away into the hills above the town beyond the fusion stations. He actually enjoyed sitting behind the wheel, driving manually. There were no real roads on the planet outside the town and its sprawling grid of industrial buildings. All the tracks out here had been made by residents taking off to explore. Mark turned left at the first fork, then right, following a route he’d been told about. The Ford’s tires churned up a lot of dust, deepening the wheel ruts.

After an hour they came to the tarn. The sand had given way to naked rock kilometers earlier. All around them were the steep rolling slopes of the interlocking mountaintops. There were no streambeds, or erosion gullies; the planet hadn’t had an atmosphere long enough to begin features like that, although rain was busy washing regolith sand down into the lowlands. From there it was creeping steadily into the shallow oceans. Up here, water trickled over the undulations in unbroken sheets until it found basins and nooks to collect in. The tarn was a long oval shape, with water up to its brim. When the rains came it overflowed into a sharp cleft of black granite at the eastern end.

“It’s so clear,” Barry exclaimed as they stood at the edge. Apart from small ripples reflecting the velvet sky there was no movement. They could see the rough rock bottom sloping away toward the center. “Just like the Trine’ba,” he said with a smile.

“Almost,” Liz agreed. “Come on, let’s go get changed.”

The four of them waded in, gasping at how cold the tarn was. Their voices echoed cleanly through the mountain air, bouncing off the high rumpled inclines around them.

“I miss the fish,” Sandy confessed as she swam cautiously farther out from the shore. Mark had insisted she wear inflatable wings on the back of her suit. For once she didn’t argue.

“No fish, no algae,” he said to Liz. It was strange; he normally associated water with life, while this was the complete opposite.

“It’ll come,” she said. “Every time someone comes swimming up here they leave bacteria behind. In a hundred years this tarn will be a proper little vat, the planet’s biggest natural petri dish, leaking its new bugs out across the landscape every time it rains.”

“We always leave our mark, don’t we?”

“Just about. I guess it’s evolution on a galactic scale. A planet that produces life smart enough to figure out star travel will spread its DNA across the stars. And evolution is one tough battleground.”

“That sounds like the Gaia hypothesis.”

“Taken to the extreme, I suppose it is. I wonder if the Primes recognize it at an instinctive level. They were certainly keen to alienform Elan. Remember those images Morton recorded of the biorefinery they built on the edge of Randtown?”

“So whoever built the barriers knew that, too?”

“Yeah. A stellar-sized rabbit-proof fence, like the one they built in Australia once the immigration started. And along we came with the bolt cutters. Damn, we’re dumb. Maybe this is evolution’s way of telling us we’re obsolete.”

Mark stood on the slippery rock, and started to wade out. “We’re not dumb, we’re principled. I’m proud of that, of what we are collectively.”

“Hope you’re right, baby.” Liz waded out beside him, and hurriedly wrapped a big towel around herself. “Five minutes, you two,” she called out to the children. They were several meters offshore now, splashing about with Panda. Barry waved back.

“Here.” Mark twisted the tabs on a couple of hot chocolate cans, and handed her one as it began to steam.

“Thanks.” She gave him a quick kiss.

“They’re moving me,” he said tersely.

“Moving you where?”

“To a different part of the project.” He looked up. One of the spaceflower moons was gliding up over the horizon. Even now, the massive gigalife gave him a thrill. To think that there was a society out there that could afford to produce such things just for the sheer fun of it. That was inspiring. The kind of endeavor that a new human civilization should strive for, rather than the constant commercial rat race the Commonwealth pursued and worshiped.

“What do you mean?” There was a hint of steel in her voice.

“It’s not just lifeboats the Dynasty is building up there. A fleet that big traveling through space we know nothing about…it needs protection, Liz.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Liz spat in contempt. “I might have known: they’re building warships.”

“Frigates, yeah. It’s a new design, smaller and faster than the Moscow-class. There’s something different about the drive, as well. I don’t know what. And nobody will talk about the weapons it carries.”

“No kidding. So what did you tell them?”

Mark took a long drink of the hot chocolate, marshaling his thoughts. He always hated it when they had an argument. For a start she was so much better at it than he was. “This isn’t the kind of job you get to choose assignments. We both knew that.”

“All right,” she said. “I guess not. I just don’t like the idea of you working on weapons.”

“I’m not. It’s the assembly system they want to get up and running. They’re using a different method than on the lifeboats, with their preassembled sections. The frigate assembly bays are combined with the station dockyard. Individual components are shipped in directly and integrated up in orbit.”

“Whoopee, another great technological step forward.”

“Liz,” he said accusingly. “We’re at war. From what I hear, we might not win. We really might not.”

She sat on a big boulder, and looked forlornly at the can in her hands. “I know. I’m sorry I’m being a bitch. I just…I feel so helpless.”

“Hey.” He went over and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m the one who needs you to support me, remember, that was the deal.”

She grinned weakly up at him, squeezing his hand. “That was never the deal, baby.”

“So, are you cool with this?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Thanks, that means everything, you know that.”

Liz pulled him closer. “I’m so glad I’ve got you. I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else right now.”

“Well, I couldn’t face this without you.” He gestured at the kids. “And them. But the frigates are as far as we can go. We’ve been running ever since we got back from Elan. No farther. There won’t be any more surprises for us.”

“I hope you’re right, baby. I really do.”

***

The shower nozzles pumped water out at a velocity that pummeled Mellanie’s skin almost to the point of being painful. She didn’t even have to turn around; the water came at her from all sides, the nozzles sweeping up and down. Foam ran down her body as scented soap was mixed in by the management array. Cooler water flushed it away, its temperature invigorating her after the luxuriant heat. The water turned off, and warm dry air gushed out of vents all around the big marbled cubical, snatching the moisture away from her skin and blowing her hair about.

She wrapped a huge purple and cream towel around herself and went back out into the office suite’s bedroom. Michelangelo was still lying on the big bed. He watched her lazily as she began getting dressed.

“Damn, I’m glad you defected from Baron,” he said. “You’d be wasted on her, she’s a cold bitch.”

Mellanie flashed him a naughty grin. “Whereas we have a deep and meaningful relationship.”

“You’re good in bed. We both know that. A real turn-on.”

“You’re a good teacher.”

“Yeah?”

It was almost as if he were the bashful one, seeking reassurance. “I keep coming back, don’t I?” she said. “And we both know I’m doing well enough for the show that I don’t actually have to anymore. But I like it, I like it a lot.”

There was a growling sound from the bed. He rolled off the mattress and pushed his long highlighted hair back. Mellanie couldn’t help the way her eyes lingered on his body. It was like a youthful Apollo had returned to walk among the mortals once more.

“Hell…I don’t understand you,” he complained. “What is it you really want?”

She grinned as she struggled into her asymmetric top. “Your job.”

“You know ordinarily if some intern your age said that I’d just laugh it off as pitifully naïve. But with you it’s truly not funny.”

“Be careful whose face you tread on today, because it could be the one you’re fetching coffee for tomorrow.”

“Duly noted.”

“Admit it, I did good on the lifeboat story, didn’t I?”

“I’ve never seen a senior Halgarth so defensive. Congratulations.”

“Black, one sugar.”

“You’re not that good,” he said with a scowl. “Not yet.”

“I know. I want to get the Sheldon lifeboats. Now that would be a real break while we all wait for the starships to come back from Hell’s Gateway.”

He gave her a pensive look. “How’s the other big story coming on?”

“The New York finance scandal?” she said with a sigh. “Not so hot. The leads are all dead and cold. Besides, the authorities are showing an interest. Where’s the impact of breaking something the rest of the pack all know about? Exclusivity is our goal and god, as you so rightly told me when I started here. See, I haven’t forgotten.”

“Yeah.” He nodded slowly.

“What?” She knew that reluctance; he hated giving away any advantage.

“Please?”

“All right, quick tutorial, you’re not thinking this problem through properly. You’re trying to track down three fairly successful lawyers who’ve been involved in some dodgy finance deals, right?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t telling anyone on the show about the Starflyer. Not yet. That would land her a show of her own, probably a studio of her own.

“You’re trying to chase after them. Wrong. That’s what the police will be doing; but they’re fugitives, they’ll be ready for that and take care to cover their tracks. Any decent hunter will come at their prey from the direction they least expect. So what you should have done is ask where would they go.” He gave her an expectant look.

“A crime syndicate that can protect them?”

“Close. You need a place where you can change your identity completely. And I don’t just mean some decent data registry alterations, a memory erasure, and a new face. If they’ve ripped off as much as you say they have, the Financial Regulation Directorate will chase them right across the Commonwealth for the next ten centuries. They need to be free to fritter away their new wealth in perfect safety without spending the rest of their lives looking over their shoulder. For that you need a lot more than a bit of cellular reprofiling. Their DNA will be on record, the FRD will always be able to identify them. So the thing they need above all else is a baseline DNA modification.”

“What’s that?”

“Damn, I never know if you’re taking the piss or not. That is a treatment similar to rejuvenation, when the clinic alters your DNA in every cell. Permanently. The person who comes out of the tank is literally not the same person who went in. Once you’ve had that done, along with your new birth certification, a decent back history, and all your desourced money, you’re home free. You can live where you want, even next door to your old family, and they’ll never know.”

“Where would they go for that?”

“Unless you own your own biogenetic medical facility, there’s only one place: Illuminatus. There’s a lot of very specialized, ultra-discreet clinics there which offer such a service.”

“I need to go there.”

“I just knew you’d say that. Even if you did, you haven’t got a clue where the clinics are. They don’t exactly advertise on the unisphere.”

“I’ll find them.”

Michelangelo gave an extravagant sigh. “One week ago, three people checked in to the Saffron Clinic on Allwyn Street, two men, one woman. I don’t know their names, but the time frame fits.” He gave a diffident moue. “I have contacts. I am still numero uno here, please remember.”

“Thank you,” she said sincerely.

“Mellanie, take care, Illuminatus isn’t the safest place in the Commonwealth.”

***

Ozzie woke up as slim beams of bright sunlight slid across his face. He grunted in dismay at the awakening. Yesterday’s disappointment was still churning through his mind, making him listless. It was snug inside the sleeping bag, and he could feel cool air on his face. Getting up was an effort.

“Damnit.”

Lying there moping wasn’t an option. That was too much like defeat, which he wasn’t going to admit. Not yet.

He unzipped his sleeping bag, and stretched lazily before shivering. All he was wearing were shorts and his last decent T-shirt. His hand felt around on the floor for his cord pants that he shoved his legs into. When he pulled on his check shirt there was a tearing sound as stitches popped along the sleeve.

“Not again!” When he examined the sleeve the split didn’t seem too bad.

He slipped into his old dark gray woolen fleece to keep the chill out while he put his boots on. Toes stuck out through the holes in the end of his socks. Today really was going to have to be sewing day. He gave his toes a closer look. The bruising had gone down. In fact, it had disappeared altogether. He couldn’t remember putting any salve on after giving the serial number pillar that very satisfactory kicking.

Outside the little shelter, Orion had already rekindled the fire from yesterday’s embers. Two metal mugs were balanced on a slatelike shard of polyp above the flames, heating some water.

Orion looked up and gave Ozzie a welcome smile. “Five teacubes left. Two chocolate. Which do you want?”

“Oh, what the hell, let’s live—What?”

“Tea or chocolate?”

“I thought we finished the chocolate yesterday.”

Orion rummaged through the various packets he’d spread out around him and held up the cubes in a palm. They were all foil-wrapped: five silver, two gold with green stripes. “No. Bourneville Rich, with double cream. Your favorite.”

“Right. Sorry. Yeah, man, chocolate is good.” Ozzie sat on the polyp bump. He winced as he straightened his leg.

“How’s the knee?” Orion asked.

No fucking way! “Still stiff,” he said slowly. “Where’s Tochee?”

“Gone to get some water. It was scouting around last night, seeing if it could find any sign of the machinery that works this place.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean? You said we should try and track down the gravity generator.”

“But we know there’s no electrical activity on the reef. Not that we can detect.”

“We haven’t looked that hard. Besides, you told Tochee to use its sensor gadget while it was in the jungle.”

“Yeah. Two days ago. But there’s not a whole lot of point now, is there? I mean, if there wasn’t anything at the serial number, then there certainly isn’t going to be anything in the middle of the trees.”

Orion stopped unwrapping the second chocolate cube. “Serial number?”

“Yeah,” Ozzie said sarcastically. “Big black pillar in the clearing. Me in a bad mood. Coming back to you now?”

“Ozzie, what are you talking about?”

“Yesterday. The pillar.”

“Ozzie, we walked to the spire at the end of the reef yesterday.”

“No no, man, that was the day before. We found the serial number yesterday.”

“On the spire? You didn’t say.”

“No, goddamnit. Yesterday. The pillar in the clearing. What’s the matter with you?”

Orion gave him a sulky look, pouting his lips. “I went to the spire yesterday. I don’t know where you went.”

Ozzie took a moment; the boy didn’t normally fool around like this, and he certainly sounded sincere enough.

Tochee emerged from the jungle, its manipulator flesh coiled around various containers it had filled with water. “Good morning to you, friend Ozzie,” it said through the handheld array.

“You didn’t find anything, did you?” Ozzie said. “Your equipment didn’t find any electrical activity. And you’ve traveled about five kilometers in that direction.” Ozzie pointed.

“That is correct, friend Ozzie. How did you know?”

“Good guess.” Ozzie told his e-butler to pull up yesterday’s files. The list that came up in his virtual vision were the visual and sensor recordings of their trip out to the reef’s end spire. “Show all files recorded in the last five days,” he told the e-butler. There was nothing relating to the serial number pillar. “Goddamn.” He unlaced his boot and pulled it off, then began squeezing his toes where the bruise ought to be. There wasn’t even a twinge. “Let me get this straight,” he said carefully. “Neither of you two remember walking to the middle of the reef?”

“No,” Tochee said. “I have not been there, though I believe that if we go, we might have some success in finding an access tunnel to the machinery that lies at the core of this reef. It would be the shortest distance.”

“Dead right, man. So let’s go, shall we?” He shoved his boot back on and stood up.

Orion held out his battered metal mug. “Don’t you want your chocolate?”

“Sure. Hey, have you been having any unusual dreams since we arrived here?”

“Nah. Just the usual dreams.” Orion pulled a morose expression. “Girls and such.”

Ozzie led the way at a fast pace. He followed the route that his handheld array’s navigation function produced, guiding him to the middle of the reef. As before, the trees were taller as they approached the area his virtual vision displayed. Today there were no beams of sunlight sliding horizontally past the thick ancient trunks. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” he said out loud as they began their third sweep of the central area.

“What has?” Orion asked. The boy had been watching him with some concern ever since they set out.

“There’s a clearing right in the middle.”

“How do you know?”

Because I was here yesterday, and so were you. “I saw it on the approach.” He stopped and told his e-butler to display all the visual files from the last couple of hours before the Pathfinder landed on the reef. When he checked through them, the jungle at the middle of the reef was unbroken. There was no central glade.

Ozzie stood motionless at the base of a rubbery globe tree, leaning against its elasticated branches. Not that they bent much anymore, they were so old and wizened. Okay, either I’m hallucinating or someone has done a superb hack job on the handheld array. No, Orion and Tochee don’t remember. So it was a hallucination. Or a vision. But why would I be led here?

He took a good look around the gloomy jungle floor with its cracked polyp and dusty soil. There were no tracks in the thin dirt. Nothing moved, nothing lived here. He activated every sensor he had, and turned a complete circle. Nothing registered in any spectrum.

“I don’t get this,” he said out loud. Almost, he expected some bass voice to answer from the treetops.

“Friend Ozzie, I cannot see a clearing.”

“No, me neither. The files must have been jumbled up when we landed. The array took quite a few knocks.”

“Can we go back now?” Orion asked. “I don’t like it here, it’s all dismal and dead.”

“Sure thing.” He was a lot more cheerful than he had any right to be. Something’s happening. I just wish I could figure out what.

***

It was a miserable duty, but then Lucius Lee was used to that by now. He’d been granted the rank of probationary detective three months ago in the city’s NorthHarbor precinct, and all he’d done since then was sort out a whole load of data files and reports for the two senior detectives he’d been assigned to for his probationary year. When the three of them ever did venture out of the office he was the one who had to do all the boring stuff like cataloguing crime scenes, directing forensic bots, and interviewing low-grade witnesses; he also got the night shift in stakeouts. Like this one: Sitting in a beat-up old Ford Feisha in an underground garage below the Chantex building at twenty past four in the morning, looking out across a concrete cavern illuminated by green-tined polyphoto strips that should have been replaced years ago. There were fifteen other cars parked on the same level; he knew them intimately by now.

Why the hell they couldn’t use a decent covert sensor for this he didn’t know. Marhol, the detective sergeant who was his official mentor, said it was “good experience.” Which was such bullshit.

The real problem was ancient enough to be laughable. A punk gang had been carjacking luxury models out of NorthHarbor and—big mistake—one belonged to the rich girlfriend of a councillor’s son. City Hall wanted a Result. Automated systems couldn’t do that, not quickly. So here he was waiting on a tip from one of Marhol’s dubious informers, who were actually more like drinking buddies.

Marhol had taken Lucius along to the bar for the meeting, presumably so he could witness the expense claim. So he had to sit there while this zero of an informant who couldn’t have been over twenty and had big dependency problems claimed the cars were actually being ripped off by the Stuhawk gang out of SouthCentral. He should know, he was running with the JiKs, who like owned NorthHarbor, and they weren’t doing it. The Stuhawks had stupidly got themselves into big debt with a professional syndicate who’d simply given them a mechanic and a list. They did the scout, and provided muscle. But they scouted cars around NorthHarbor, not their own district. It was a turf war.

For such crap the Tridelta City taxpayer had to reimburse Marhol’s beer tab for a week.

Four twenty-one. The lift doors opened. A man emerged. He was smaller than usual, for an age when rejuvenation could add inches to anyone’s frame for almost no additional cost. Skinny, too; his shirt had short sleeves showing arms that were mostly bone. His hands were out of proportion, big and covered in grime. First impression was a first-lifer in his fifties. But then Lucius started to pay attention. The guy had confidence, strutting across the concrete as if he were a Dynasty chief walking into his harem. He was wide awake, too; not someone who’d been working a late shift upstairs.

Lucius started to breathe faster. There was no way this guy was part of some punk gang. In fact, Lucius was pretty sure he wasn’t a first-life at all; that cool self-assurance didn’t belong to anyone under a hundred. Maybe the informant had been right. The Stuhawks were muscle for a syndicate. Lucius was suddenly very interested.

The mechanic walked over to a midnight-black Mercedes FX 3000p, a brand-new Hi-range saloon, with a list price of over a hundred thousand Earth dollars. That price included a superb security system; the drive array program was virtually an RI in its own right. It wouldn’t let anyone take control without the owner’s approval.

Lucius was waiting until the man tried to break the car open. That was when he would make the arrest; and he was quietly thankful there were no Stuhawks with him. An arrest swiftly followed by a successful interrogation would be the kind of proactive police work that the councillor wanted to see. Not that Lucius would get any credit; it would no doubt be filed as Marhol’s arrest.

The mechanic made a slow circle of the gleaming vehicle, regarding it with respectful approval. Lucius was amazed at the mechanic’s audacity; he wasn’t really thinking of taking the Merc, was he? Then Lucius remembered some Commonwealth-wide alert for a grade-A mechanic coming into the precinct a while back. This man was certainly A-grade, for arrogance if nothing else. He told his e-butler to find the file.

The mechanic was about to put his hand on the Merc’s front door i-spot when he froze. Lucius held his own breath. The mechanic looked around the near-empty garage until his gaze found the Ford Feisha. His lips moved up in a dry smile, and he started to walk over.

“Ohshit,” Lucius muttered. There was no way anyone could see through the Ford’s secure glass no matter how good their retinal inserts were, but somehow the mechanic had become aware of him. He drew his ion pistol and flipped the safety. It was then he realized he’d probably revealed himself by using the unisphere. Even with the police-secure encryption there had been an electronic emission from the car. In a deserted garage. In the small hours. “Oh, brilliant, Lucius,” he told himself bitterly. “Just brilliant.”

To compound the error, his e-butler delivered the requested file for him. Navy intelligence wanted to question Robin Beard, a known criminal specializing in car crime. A lot of biographical data ran across Lucius’s virtual vision. Several pictures accompanied it. With a few easy differences, they matched the man who was now three meters from the hood.

So far, Beard hadn’t drawn any kind of weapon. Lucius gripped his pistol tighter.

Beard smiled at the nonreflective black glass windshield, and put his hand on the Ford’s i-spot. His whole forearm glowed red and green as OCtattoos turned active.

Lucius jumped as a nasty clunk reverberated around the car’s interior. The locks had all engaged. Three red lights started flashing on the dashboard. There was a nasty burning smell.

“If I were you,” Beard said, “I’d be very careful what you touch in there. Your car’s superconductor batteries are malfunctioning; they’re feeding their power directly into the body frame. So don’t lay a hand on anything metallic. Oh, and anything that ionizes the air will also act as a conductor. To take an example at random: an ion pistol shot fired through the window. Whoever was holding that pistol would be fried in the discharge. Ever see somebody struck by lightning? They say their eyeballs boil and burst while their tongue chars to black meat.”

The ion pistol dropped out of Lucius’s startled fingers, clattering onto the floor. He flinched.

Robin Beard smiled at the faint sound. “Not to worry, the batteries don’t have much charge left. They should be drained by noon.” He turned on a heel and walked back to the black Merc.

A red warning flowed across Lucius’s virtual vision, telling him his connection to the unisphere had dropped out. He watched through the window as Beard put his hand on the Merc’s i-spot. He wasn’t surprised when the door opened. Less than thirty seconds later, the big sleek car slid smoothly onto the garage’s exit ramp and up into the remarkable beauty that was night on Illuminatus.

***

The day the starships were due to arrive at the star system where Hell’s Gateway was located, the navy increased its observation of the Lost23. Wilson sat in his white office reviewing the information as it came in. Anna was with him acting as communications officer; Oscar qualified for his place as senior staff officer; Rafael completed the navy contingent. Justine Burnelli was there on behalf of the Senate, sitting as far as possible from Rafael, while Patricia Kantil represented the Executive, although President Doi maintained an ultra-secure real-time link; as did Nigel Sheldon, who presumably was in touch with the other Dynasty leaders—Wilson didn’t ask. Dimitri Leopoldovich arrived a few minutes late, and took a seat next to Patricia; he ignored the cool reception he received from the navy officers.

The navy started opening wormholes above the Lost23. They were the same type that were used to communicate with the insurgency troops that were operating against Prime installations. This time, they opened a considerable distance away from the planet, several million kilometers, clear of the heavy Prime orbital defenses. Sensors slid out into spacetime, and scanned for the quantum distortion signatures of wormholes. They detected a total of eight hundred sixty-four wormholes linking the Lost23 back to the Hell’s Gateway star system.

“I thought our troops had blown up several planet-based gateways,” Patricia said.

“Twenty-seven to date,” Rafael confirmed. “On average the Primes take three days to reopen them and assemble a new gateway mechanism.”

“What are our losses?”

“A hundred seventeen reported fatalities,” Wilson said proudly. “That’s a lot better than our projected damage ratio. We’re hurting them badly.”

“We’re tying up resources,” Dimitri said. “I wouldn’t call that inflicting damage, exactly.”

Rafael gave him a very cold look.

An hour and a half before the expected attack time, seven hundred seventy-two Prime wormholes shut down.

“Holy shit!” Oscar exclaimed. He half rose from his chair, as if he could get closer to the data that the holographic portal was projecting across half the room. Wilson’s face lit up in a huge smile.

“Too early to open the champagne?” Rafael inquired lightly. He grinned at Wilson.

“We did it?” Patricia inquired delightedly.

“No,” Dimitri said firmly. He was studying the data in the big display. “There are exactly four wormholes remaining on each planet. We know the Primes use base four; so it is deliberate. They’re maintaining communications with their new colonies. Therefore they shut down the other wormholes, not us.”

“You don’t know that,” Oscar said.

“If our attack had been successful enough to knock out over seven hundred wormhole generators, it would have destroyed the remainder at the same time. This is an organized switch, not the result of a strike by Douvoir missiles.”

Wilson wanted to tell Dimitri to shut the hell up. His hopes had soared with the disappearance of the wormholes. And he needed that boost badly after the shock of realizing the navy was compromised. But what the StPetersburg strategist was saying made uncomfortable sense. Don’t shoot the messenger.

“When will we know for certain?” President Doi asked.

“Not long,” Wilson said with outward calm; it was a polite lie.

Five hours later the wormholes all reopened. A groan went around the office.

“Your interpretation?” Justine asked Dimitri.

“They beat off the attack,” the pale man said. For once he looked nervous, dabbing at the perspiration on his forehead with a handkerchief. “I did say they would use everything they could to defend the staging post.”

“So you did,” Rafael said.

“What now?” President Doi asked. She sounded confused.

“We need to find out what happened,” Wilson said.

“They beat us,” Patricia said in an angry, scared voice. An arm gestured wildly at the display. “That much is bloody obvious.”

“The technical details,” Wilson said. “How did they do it? That’s what’s important if we are to formulate a coherent response strategy.”

“It’ll be five days at the earliest before the ships get back in communications range,” Nigel said.

“If there are any ships remaining,” Dimitri said.

“Enough from you,” Rafael told him hotly.

Wilson held a hand up to his fellow admiral. “I know this is difficult—those were our friends and colleagues out there—but we have to be realistic.”

“We cannot afford five days,” Dimitri said. “Madam President, it is imperative that we arm our remaining starships with the Seattle Project quantumbuster weapons. The Prime aliens retain the ability to launch an immediate strike at us. They now have no reason to delay.”

“Yes,” Doi said. “I’ve seen your earlier recommendations. Admiral Kime?”

“Madam President.”

“We will convene a full War Cabinet by ultra-secure link in thirty minutes. Please be ready to present your plans for using the Seattle quantumbusters in defense of the Commonwealth, and any alternatives.”

“Very well, Madam President.”

“Do we release the failure of our strike against Hell’s Gateway to the media?” Justine asked.

“No,” Patricia said immediately. “We don’t know what happened. People will fear the worst, and we won’t be able to offer any details to reassure them.”

“The news shows are expecting some kind of comment.”

“Tough. We simply say we are unsure of the outcome, and we’re waiting for the starships to return.”

“They’ll know something’s wrong,” Justine said. “If the strike had worked we’d be shouting it as hard as we could.”

“We have five days until we have to admit anything is wrong,” Patricia said. “That’s enough time for me to prepare the groundwork. This had got to be handled perfectly if we’re to prevent panic.”

Wilson couldn’t bring himself to look at Oscar as everyone except Rafael and Justine left the office. Dimitri had argued that the Primes would work out a counter to the Douvoir missiles because they already knew humans were capable of such an application. What if they were told, given exact details? I knew we’d been compromised, and I did nothing. All for fear of looking foolish.

“Just so both of you know,” he told Rafael and Justine, “I’m going to recommend we deploy the quantumbusters as Dimitri suggested.” And pray we maintained some kind of integrity with their development.

“That little shit,” Rafael grunted.

“He’s always been right,” Wilson said. “And he’s only doing his job. Damnit, if we’d listened to him and equipped the starships with quantumbusters to attack Hell’s Gateway we might not be in this position.”

“You can’t play what if, not at this level,” Rafael said. “We have to concentrate on the immediate threat.”

“There wouldn’t be an immediate threat if we’d used the quantumbusters.”

“We don’t even know that,” Rafael said. “Not for certain.”

“It wasn’t the technology which let us down, we suffered a failure of will. We’re too civilized to push the genocide button.”

“I’m glad,” Justine said. “That reluctance to exterminate any creature that might be a difficult problem defines us as a species. We don’t operate at their level. That’s got to be worth something.”

“Not when you’re dead, it isn’t,” Wilson snapped angrily. He knew that he was actually scared and trying to cover, which in itself was pathetic. But the failure to eliminate Hell’s Gateway was profoundly shocking; and the implications even worse. Dimitri was right, they now had to contemplate the unthinkable.

“Do you think Doi will authorize their use?” Justine said.

“Sheldon will,” Rafael said. “He’s a realist. And I know the Halgarth Dynasty will support him, as will most of the others. Nobody was expecting today’s attack to fail so completely. We’re all still reeling from that; but the implication will sink in soon enough, and not just with us.” He shook his head in reluctant acknowledgment. “Dimitri and his nerd think tank were right. We weren’t hardheaded enough; we didn’t want to recognize what we’re actually facing, it’s too frightening.”

Wilson nearly told him about the treachery on board the Second Chance, the existence of the Starflyer. But he retained enough of his political instinct to hold back. Coward, he taunted himself; but he needed Rafael’s whole-hearted support over the next few days; they simply had to work together. The human race couldn’t afford for them to make another mistake. The thought sent an evil shudder down his spine.

It took the War Cabinet fifteen minutes to make its vote. The unanimous decision was to allow the navy to arm all its starships with quantumbuster weapons in readiness for any subsequent attack by the Prime aliens.