Judas Unchained

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The stealth coat wrapped Stig in a gray-black haze as if he’d been devoured by his own private event horizon. Above him, the midnight sky was dominated by the twinkling stars of Neptune’s Trident, the constellation that marked his birth. Directly ahead, the chain-link fence stretched out for kilometers, a straight line slicing through the low grass like some kind of border between nations rather than a mere aerodrome perimeter. Even with the starlight it was dark out in the surrounding fields where he’d been waiting. His retinal inserts were switched to enhancement, giving the damp land a blue-gray hue. Sleeping sheep were huddled together for warmth. There were flocks on both sides of the fence. The aerodrome was spread over such a big area it was cheaper to give the local farmers grazing rights than buy and maintain a fleet of mowerbots.

He reached the fence in the middle of a hundred-meter section where there were no lights. The poles and the fittings were there; they just didn’t work. His bolt cutters cut through the slim strands of rusted metal as if they were paper. By now he was feeling ridiculous with the whole superagent covert mission setup. There was no real security at the aerodrome, just a couple of overweight guards who spent their nights sitting around the management building raiding the canteen kitchen and watching local dramas on their portals. He could have walked in through the main gate and they’d never know.

Usually.

And that was the one thing that Adam had lectured him about ceaselessly. There was no usual. So here he was jogging over a kilometer of open field between the gate and the back of the vast hangars for the sake of procedure.

“How’s it going?” Olwen asked.

“Good. Be there in five minutes or so.” Sweat was running down his skin now; the stealth coat on top of his usual jacket, force field skeleton, and weapons meant he was carrying quite a weight.

He reached the first row of hangars, and jogged down the strip of hard ground between them, where mosses and weeds were smothering the crumbling gray concrete. On either side of him the ends of the vast buildings presented perfect black semicircles against the star-filled sky. Almost sixty meters high at the apex, their sliding doors had been shut against the elements decades ago, never to be opened again. They rattled constantly now as the gentle breeze from the North Sea swept over the aerodrome. Built by the revitalization project, they were made out of the ubiquitous carbon panels pinned to a geodesic grid of carbon girders. Age and neglect had seen the pins and epoxy decay and fray, allowing blustery weather to worry away at the edges and joints. Each hangar had lost hundreds of panels to the wind, while others now hung by a single tenuous pin, swaying from side to side in the slightest gust. They clattered away against the framework as Stig moved deeper into the deserted ghost city. He turned off the wide thoroughfare to cut through toward the next row. The irregular gaps in the curving walls of the hangars on each side gave glimpses of the interiors. All of them were empty, stripped of machinery and support equipment. Dead cabling and pipes dangled down from unseen conduits overhead. Water leaked in through the missing panels to pool in long dank puddles on the concrete floor.

The final row of hangars, which the remaining blimpbots operated out of, were kept in a better state of repair, with so many new panels fixed to the framework they produced a check pattern so pronounced it looked like the original design. Maintenancebots stood along the base of the walls, their wide, flexible crawler trolleys looking alarmingly spindly for the weight they had to carry.

Powerful halogen bulbs on the top of the hangars produced elongated smears of light down the thoroughfare, which were easy enough for Stig to avoid. His sensors couldn’t detect any kind of electronic activity, anyway. The management building was at the end of the row, another construct of molded carbon panels that had been modified and added to over the years to become a strange amalgamation of cubes, cylinders, and domes.

Stig avoided the main entrance, and walked around to one of the smaller doors at the side. It wasn’t even locked. Every light was on inside. He moved through the corridors, going up and down stairs, checking rooms. The whole place was completely deserted, not even the guards had turned up for their shift.

Stig finished up in the security office, and opened a link to Olwen. “Everything clear in here. I’ve loaded our software into the arrays. I’m opening the gate for you now.” A bank of screens showed various camera images of the aerodrome, with the biggest concentration around the main entrance, the management building, and the inside of the operational hangars. He watched the barrier at the main entrance lift up. A couple of minutes later, the Guardians drove their three trucks through.

He met them outside the service door on the first hangar; it occupied a small corner segment of the flight doors, but it was still big enough to take two trucks side by side. Olwen climbed down out of the cab once they were inside.

“I’ve never been this close to one before,” she said in admiration.

There were two blimpbots tethered end to end inside the hangar. The dark ellipsoid shapes were a hundred fifty meters long, and fifty meters high. With their ducted fans folded back along the fuselage their resemblance to airborne whales was even more acute.

“Me neither,” he admitted. Up close, the blimpbots weren’t quite so impressive. Their fuselage envelopes had as many patches as the hangar that sheltered them, although they were a lot neater. The series of payload bay doors that lined the belly were open, showing various mechanical latches and grabs in the cavities. “I didn’t expect them to be this crude.”

“But they’ll do the job,” she said. “How many are there?”

“Twenty-two in the hangars. Three have had their flightworthiness certificate withdrawn, pending maintenance, but they’ll do for what we want.”

The other Guardians were climbing down out of the trucks.

“Let’s get at it,” Olwen told them. “We can install most of our systems by morning.”

“The next wormhole cycle starts midafternoon,” Stig said. “That’ll give us enough time to get them all airborne and positioned. They can circle the city until we call them in.”

“What about the revitalization team and the engineers?”

“I don’t think they’re coming back. This place is abandoned. And if they do show up, we’ll just hang on to them so they don’t raise the alarm.”

“All right then.”

One of the trucks had been backed up as close as it could get to the underside of the first blimpbot. The Guardians let the rear gate down, and pulled out a set of wheel ramps. Stig and Olwen went over to help them. A trollybot inched its way down the wheel ramps, carrying a fat cylinder nearly four meters long. The metal ramps creaked under it, betraying the weight of the cylinder.

“Are these going to work?” Olwen asked.

“I hope so.” Stig peered up into the truck. “We’ve only got six. I’d be pleased if just one of them reaches 3F Plaza.” He could see another of the cylinders resting on its cradle inside. Crates full of decoy drone and chaff dispensers were strapped to the floor around it. “We need to fit dispensers to all the blimpbots, including the ones we’ve armed. That way the Institute won’t be able to spot the difference until it’s too late.”

“No kidding?” Olwen said.

“Sorry. I get kind of nervous around bombs like this.”

They followed the trollybot as it rolled down to the central payload bay. The Guardians started to attach the blimpbot’s internal hoist cables to the cylinder.

“We’re picking up a lot more rumors from the Institute troops,” Olwen said. “They’re all talking about some kind of attack on the Commonwealth.”

“The Primes again,” Stig said.

“Yeah, but, Stig, it was a big attack; they’re consistent about that. It’s making them very jittery. There’s even been talk about some of them breaking through to Half Way.”

“Stupid of them. They don’t know if there are any Carbon Goose planes left at Port Evergreen.”

“It was only a whisper.”

Probably true, though, Stig thought. Guardians and their supporters had taken jobs at the pubs and clubs that the Institute troops had established as their own in Armstrong City. They provided a slow but steady trickle of information on the troops and their assignments. Morale, already low, was heading downhill fast. The soldiers had all signed up for medium-term contracts to help the Institute combat raids from guerrilla bands out on the Great Iril Steppes; none of them expected to be doing urban paramilitary duties. Being the most hated group on the planet, subject to constant abuse and harassment, was taking its toll. Their officers had to let them out at night; safe together, they drank and bitched like any soldier since Troy.

“Anybody let on if they’re expecting an arrival?”

“I’d have told you. They don’t know, too low down the food chain.”

“It can’t be long now.”

She watched the heavy cylinder rise up into the cargo bay, flinching each time the ancient winch chains let out a creak of protest at the weight. “You’ve done everything you can do. It can only come through at preset times, and we know what those are to the second. We’ve got 3F Plaza covered by every kind of sensor the human race has ever invented. If those troops even so much as glance at the gateway we’ll know about it. So stop worrying, we’ve got it covered.”

Stig looked up at the blimpbots, and laughed at the audacity of the plan they’d come up with. “Right, who’s going to notice a goddamn airship on a bombing run? Dreaming heavens!”

“Nobody,” she said, smiling back with the same wild enthusiasm. “That’s the beauty. Fly them in low enough, and they’ll be over the walls of 3F Plaza before the Institute can aim a single weapon at them.”

“I hope you’re right.” He gave a start as the winch mechanism stopped with a nasty metallic grinding sound. The bomb was completely inside the bay. “Let’s work out how to get this brute secure. I really do want to have them all in the air by morning.”

***

Oscar didn’t expect a downtime of more than six hours. Enough to recharge the Dublin’s niling d-sinks, and reload the forward section with Douvoir missiles and quantumbusters. Fleet Command had indicated they’d be sent right back to Hanko. After the wormholes had vanished, they’d destroyed over eighty Prime ships before their armaments were depleted.

As soon as the starship eased its bulk into a docking station at Base One, the secure encrypted message popped into Oscar’s hold file. Admiral Columbia wanted to see him right away. Along with the rest of the crew, Oscar was still in shock by the way the War Cabinet had dumped shit from a great height on Wilson. Resentment was a strong twin of that feeling; he was tempted to tell his new commander where to shove his meeting, an impulse made worse by worry that Columbia was implementing a political clearout of his new office. Oscar had been one of the first people Wilson had recruited, making him a prominent loyal member of the old regime.

However, you can’t go around judging people on the basis of your own emotional prejudices. So Oscar did the mature thing, and sent a message back saying he was on his way. Sir.

“If the shit fires you, we walk, too,” Teague said.

“Don’t,” Oscar said as he left for the small shuttle craft. “The navy needs you.” Where have I heard that phrase before?

Nothing physical had changed at Pentagon II. Senior staff seemed twitchy as Oscar went through the offices and corridors, but then they were in the middle of organizing a battle to defend human worlds against forty-eight alien armadas. They were allowed to be twitchy.

Rafael Columbia had taken over Wilson’s sterile white office. He was alone when Oscar was shown in.

No witnesses, Oscar thought immediately. Oh, for God’s sake, get a grip.

Columbia didn’t get up; he simply waved Oscar into a chair with easy familiarity. “I have a problem, Oscar.”

“I’ll resign if it makes it easier. We can’t afford any more internal disruption.”

Columbia frowned in genuine surprise, then smiled briefly. “No, not that. You’re an excellent starship captain. Just look at the Dublin’s performance.”

“Thank you.”

“I have a problem somewhat closer to home. I might have made a mistake.”

“Happens to us all, sir. You should see my list.” Actually, you shouldn’t.

“I’m receiving a lot of information which indicates the Starflyer is a real and current threat. The evidence is building, Oscar. In the past I’ve always dismissed it, but I can’t do that anymore, no matter how personally uncomfortable that may prove to be.”

“It scared the living shit out of me when I found out.”

Columbia stared at him, before finally grinning a reluctant submission. “I might have known. Very well, this makes it easier. For both of us.”

“What do you need?”

“A confirmed traitor has turned up on Boongate, a navy officer called Tarlo. My Paris office is putting together an arrest team; but of course all the wormholes to the Second47 are shut by War Cabinet edict. I need that traitor, Oscar, he can prove or disprove the whole Starflyer legend once and for all.”

“You want me to fly there?”

“No. For the moment we’re keeping this dark; God knows what kind of shitstorm it would stir up if word leaks out before we’ve got it contained. I want you to be my personal emissary to Nigel Sheldon; you must emphasize just how important this is. Ask him to quietly open the wormhole and let the Paris team through. Nobody else, just them.”

“You want me to ask that?” Oscar couldn’t believe what he was hearing, even though it was very flattering.

“Your record ever since Bose witnessed the Dyson Alpha enclosure is impeccable. You were also highly placed in CST before the war. Nigel Sheldon will see you and listen to what you say; I don’t have that level of political capital with him today, and I’m reluctant to bump this up a level by asking Heather to intercede on my behalf. If he agrees to open the wormhole I want you on-site at Narrabri to oversee the mission. I need your dependability, Oscar.”

Oscar stood up. He damn near saluted. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

***

It was another beautifully clear dawn in the Dessault Mountains as the sparkling constellations slowly washed away into the brightening sapphire sky. Samantha had no time for admiration as the gentle early morning radiance filtered through the open doorway of the ancient shelter. Her skin was hot and sticky inside the thick protective one-piece garment that she and the rest of the team wore while they were working close to the niling d-sink. Modern d-sinks had integral reactive em shielding, but the ones she was dealing with were decades old, and their passive shielding had broken down long ago. This one had been in place for sixty years, receiving and storing power from the solid state heat exchange cable that had been drilled two kilometers into the base of the mountain. She’d spent all night modifying the power emission module. Its original control array had needed replacing, never an easy thing to do with a live system. And there was a lot of basic circuit maintenance that had to be carried out; the niling d-sinks were good high-quality systems, but they’d never been designed with sixty years of continuous use in mind.

It had taken the best part of seven hours, looking through a scuffed, misted visor in the light of four paraffin lamps. Her back ached, her fingers were numb, her head was full of the coding from obsolete programs. She clambered slowly to her feet, hating the sound her joints made as she moved. It was like being an old woman.

“Run the connection verifier,” she told Valentine, the convoy’s technical chief.

“Got it,” he shouted from outside.

Samantha picked up the handheld arrays lying on the crumbling enzyme-bonded concrete floor, and closed the wicks on the paraffin lamps one by one. She was confident enough that the power connections would work. This was the ninth manipulator station they’d set up in five weeks, making her quite an expert on the old niling d-sinks.

“We got power flow,” Valentine called.

Samantha went to the open door, stretching elaborately to work the knots out of her too-stiff muscles. The sun was just rising over the foothills, revealing Trevathan Gulf, the huge valley that stretched out below her. They were on the northwestern corner of the Dessault range, only four hundred kilometers from Mount Herculaneum. Every day, she thought she could see the crest of the gigantic volcano rising through the shimmering air when she looked to the south, a gray splinter hovering tantalizingly along the horizon. Other people in the convoy said she was imagining things. Aphrodite’s Seat ought to be visible from their altitude, possibly the glacier ring as well. Today her eyes were just too tired to peer through the thin air.

Bright sunlight washed along Trevathan Gulf, sparking off the multitude of tributary streams that wound their way through forests of deciduous trees that had colonized the valley floor. The Gulf was a geological fault pushing out from the Grand Triad to split the Dessault range like a highway bulldozed by fallen angels. Its softly meandering course ran over seven hundred kilometers from the base of Mount Zeus in the west to the scrubland border of the High Desert in the east. Eighteen big rivers, and hundreds of smaller streams, drained out of it through the valleys of the sundered northernmost mountains to spill across the Aldrin Plains. Winding rivers carried the water across the grasslands to the North Sea. It was an irrigation system that supported nearly a quarter of the farms on the planet.

Translucent cottontuft clouds scudded low over the treetops, precursors to the heavy storm residue that would arrive later that morning after it had raged around the Grand Triad. Once the dark cumulus was overhead, it would rain for at least three hours. Given the Gulf’s altitude, the water was always cold, sometimes threaded with sleet. The caravan had endured the chilly, rainy climate for weeks now as they helped set up for the planet’s revenge.

“Good job,” Harvey said in his rasping voice. He was standing just outside the shelter, dressed in the same mustard-yellow protective suit that everyone in the caravan wore.

“Same old job,” she replied.

“Yes, but done well. And that is vital.”

“Are we going to start the test?”

“Aye.”

They walked away from the shelter with its thick cladding of ivy. When the hole had been drilled for the solid state heat exchange cable and the shelter erected around the niling d-sink, this had been a broad swathe of open land on the northern side of the Gulf, with just a few saplings struggling for life on the stony foothills. Now with the rain nurturing the grass, lichens, and mosses spread by the revitalization team, the trees had thrived. There was no clear ground anymore, the forest had spread out from the floor of Trevathan Gulf to rise up toward the peaks in a wavy line broken by gullies and ridges. Genemodified pines were in a majority up here on the slopes, though vigorous sycamores were always challenging them for space, and equally prolific species like white poplars and maples fell away in proportion to the altitude above the valley floor. The shelter was now surrounded by bushy weeping pines twenty meters high that crowded aggressively around spindly horn-beams and birch trees. A variety of ivy that had leaves so dark they were nearly black plagued everything; carpeting the sandy ground and swaddling the trunks of every tree. The shelter had been completely swamped by the thick creeper. It had taken them an hour to find and clear the doorway again.

Even without the ivy, the forest provided excellent cover for the shelter, and all its cousins, along the Trevathan Gulf, but reaching it was difficult. The caravan could drive across the foothills above the forest line, plowing through the streams and following the contours around sharp folds; but pushing through the trees was a specialist business. The Guardians Samantha was working with had stolen a JCB trailblazer from one of the tour companies that provided hyperglider flights over the Grand Triad. Its big forward roller-scythe of harmonic blades was the only way of chewing through the forest to reach the shelter. Once they’d reached it, the big machine had circled around in a spiral, clearing ground to set up the station equipment. Samantha knew it was the only way, but she couldn’t help thinking that from the air the trailblazer’s path must look like a giant arrow cutting through the trees, pinpointing their stations. It was a good job there weren’t many aircraft on Far Away.

The equipment they’d set up sat on the springy mat of wood chips spewed out by the trailblazer. It had taken three trucks to carry the crates that they’d unpacked. In two days, the components had been assembled into a ungainly five-sided pyramid of black metal, standing seven meters high. Dew was already collecting in the crevices and ridges as the sun rose high enough to shine on the bulky machine.

Samantha and Harvey walked around its base, toward the road that the trailblazer had carved. Two McSobel technicians were fussing over an open panel, which revealed a matrix of red and amber lights. Valentine was standing behind them. “Any minute now,” he said.

The convoy’s vehicles were parked in a line back down the broken path, out of range from the hazardous em pulses given off by the niling d-sink. When she was three hundred meters from the shelter, Samantha took her helmet off and took a deep breath of cool, moist, unfiltered air. The scent of pine was thick in the air as she trod on the shattered splinters of bark and mashed needles.

“I’d like you to handle the last two stations,” Harvey wheezed.

“Why? Where are you going?”

He pulled off his helmet. Sunlight shone on the thick translucent bands of skin that crisscrossed his cheeks and neck, giving his ruined face a milky texture. “A message came in last night while you were busy. The clans are putting together raiding parties in case the Starflyer gets through the gateway at 3F Plaza. They’ll be spread along Highway One.”

“You can’t,” she said automatically, then sucked in her lower lip. “Sorry.”

“It’s only surface damage,” he said cheerfully. “I can still ride, and I can certainly still shoot—better than any of these lads who call themselves warriors these days. Besides, there’s a rumor the Barsoomians will join us. Now who could resist that?”

“No one, I suppose,” she said with a sigh. Trying to argue him out of it would be useless, she knew.

“Now don’t you go worrying about me. What you’re doing is the truly important thing.”

“Sure. What about Valentine?”

“He’s a good techhead, but we need someone who can drive this on. That’s you.”

“Thanks, but you know we can’t complete all the stations. We don’t have the equipment.”

“Have a little faith in Bradley Johansson, he’ll get the last components to us in time. Meanwhile, you can assemble the systems we do have, ready for the final installation.”

“I heard that we can only build another four functioning stations.”

“You heard just about right. Bradley will deliver the equipment to complete the last eight. Don’t worry.”

“He’s cutting it very fine.”

“I’m sure they have their problems out there in the Commonwealth.”

“Yeah,” she said, not liking what a gripe she sounded.

“But what?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Did you have to?”

“All right,” she admitted. “I wanted to be on the team that goes up to Aphrodite’s Seat.”

“Well, the dreaming heavens know you’ve earned a place. If you finish the last two stations on schedule, and Bradley delivers the remaining components to bring the network up to operational status, you should get to the Nalosyle Vales in time to make the rendezvous.”

“That’s bribery.”

Harvey chuckled, a nasty liquid rumbling sound.

They reached the first parked truck. Over a dozen Guardians were grouped around it, waiting. Ferelith was holding on to an excited Lennox. When she let go, the little boy toddled unsteadily to his mother, a delighted smile on his face. Samantha picked him up, and turned to face the new station they’d built. Valentine and the last two technicians were running down the track. She could just see the edge of the black pyramid about six hundred meters away in the shelter’s new clearing.

The latecomers all pulled their helmets off.

“Everyone here?” Valentine asked. Without waiting, he raised a handheld array, and entered the activation sequence. Samantha brought up her own handheld array, juggling Lennox onto one arm as she tried to watch the power supply symbols.

The air around the clearing sparkled as the pyramid generated its base force field eight hundred meters wide, stabilizing the whole structure. She could feel the ground trembling slightly as the force field permeated the rock beneath them, anchoring itself solidly into place. It was that single function that had made construction of the generators so difficult, almost half of the components had to be custom built for them inside the Commonwealth. Standard force fields couldn’t permeate solid matter for more than a few meters at best. Nothing moved inside the bubble of energy, the leaves on every tree were stilled as the now-lustrous air solidified.

“Stage two,” Valentine shouted.

Samantha tilted her head back, and pointed for Lennox. The little boy stared up curiously into the sky.

Five long blades of air shimmered above the existing force field. Their shape was tenuous at first, but as the initial energy surge was absorbed, the air calmed as its molecules were rearranged and locked into new shapes. There was only the faintest of diffraction layers left to reveal the contours, slight pressure fissures cutting through the clear sapphire sky, but it was sufficient for the naked eye to make out. From Samantha’s angle, it was as though the blade shapes were made from high-quality glass. They curved away gently from each other, expanding until they were half a kilometer wide and separated by three kilometers; then they began the long curve back to a single point eight kilometers above the fresh clearing in the forest.

“The universe’s biggest egg-whisk,” Harvey growled.

As Samantha watched, grinning at his description, thin streamers of cloud hit a couple of the unyielding blades and twisted sharply away. Gentle gusts were washing against her as the breeze that blew constantly along Trevathan’s Gulf was deflected by the blades.

“Stage three,” Valentine warned.

The blades began to move, rotating clockwise, very slowly. After five minutes they’d finished a complete circle, and stopped. Samantha felt the wind they’d stirred race across the road in a giant slothful pressure wave, causing the trees to sway. Her protective suit flapped about, while her sweaty hair swirled around her head. Lennox laughed delightedly.

“We did it,” Harvey said. “Again. What was the power use?”

Samantha consulted her handheld array. “Four percent.”

“That’s a lot.”

Above them, the blades vanished. Then the base force field released its grip on the surrounding rock and air. A zephyr swept along the road as the air currents churned back into their original patterns.

“Initialization uses a disproportionate amount of power,” she said. “Don’t worry, there’ll be enough for the planet’s revenge.”

***

Four identical black Cadillac limousines drew up outside the big old converted warehouse in Darklake City’s Thurnby district. Mellanie stepped out of the first one, her expensive Fomar pumps just missing the soggy mass of leaves and paper that clogged the gutter. She’d chosen the most sober clothes from her own range to wear, a neat black jacket with slim white lines marking out a square pattern. Matching pants and a cream blouse finished off the image. This way she had a whole Paula Myo authority figure thing going for her. It felt funny coming back here as a take-no-shit professional troubleshooter, backed up by six very tough wetwired CST security operatives.

There was nobody about on the street, so they all trooped over to the door. Nothing had changed; the purple Wayside Production plaque was still on the wall outside, the couches in the tiny reception area were still snowing flakes of chrome on the floor, the scent of ozone and disinfectant hanging in the air. Mellanie went straight through reception into the narrow corridors that separated the stages. Up above her, the ancient solar collector roof creaked incessantly. Voices from one of the stages echoed around the cavernous overhead space. A stagehand came around a corner, pulling a trolley with a circular bed balanced precariously on top. He stared in astonishment at Mellanie and her escort.

“Where’s Tiger Pansy?” Mellanie asked.

“Huh?”

“Tiger Pansy, where is she?”

His hand waved limply back down the corridor. “Dressing room, I think.”

“Thank you.” Mellanie marched past him. She hadn’t actually made it as far as the dressing room before. It wasn’t hard to find, a big open area lined with lockers on one side, makeup tables along the other. The far end was a jumble of clothes racks. Several girls dressed in feathers and gold-crusted Hindu sarongs were sitting around waiting for their turn with the makeup lady, a large elderly woman in a black mourning dress. One of the girls was having her OCtattoos tuned by a sensorium technician; she was very young, an easy forty centimeters taller than Mellanie, thin bordering on malnourished, with lustrous black skin. She had a nervous yet resigned expression on her face as she watched the technician sticking modifier patches over the OCtattoos that webbed her thighs and genitalia. Something must have registered as she caught sight of Mellanie. The technician looked up from his sophisticated handheld array. Across the dressing room, the babble of conversation cut off.

“Tiger Pansy?” Mellanie called.

Someone stood up in the middle of the girls waiting to be made up. Mellanie barely recognized her; the peroxide blond hair was now orange verging on tangerine, and seemed to be all straw, standing up as if it’d been electrocuted. Reprofiling had taken the chubbiness out of her cheeks, but the thick crust of skin it’d left produced deep creases as her jaw worked away at her gum. Even before the makeup session, she still had way too much mascara around her eyes. The turquoise and topaz feathers around her chest were under a lot of strain holding her vast breasts up.

“Oh, hi, Mellanie,” she squeaked. “Watcha doin’ back here?”

“Came to see you.”

“Yeah?” Tiger Pansy giggled, a high-pitched sound drilling through Mellanie’s eardrums. “You wanna interview me? Jaycee won’t like that.”

“I’m here to offer you a job. And nobody cares what Jaycee likes, least of all me.”

“Oh, really?” a man’s voice asked.

Mellanie turned to face him. Like his studio, Jaycee hadn’t changed either, head still shaved, black clothes with the crow’s-foot wrinkles that only cheap cloth produced. “Get lost,” Mellanie said curtly.

Jaycee’s pale skin started to flush. He gave her bodyguards a quick appraisal. “Fucking say that without your friends here.”

She smiled with predatory malice. “They’re not here for my benefit; they’re here to keep you safe from me.”

“Fuck off, bitch. I mean it. You don’t come in here like you rule the universe and try to steal my fucking girls away. Tiger Pansy’s mine. You fucking got that?”

Mellanie cocked her head to one side, pursing her lips as if she were mulling over what he’d said. “No.”

“I don’t care who the fuck you think you are, fuck off now!” Jaycee yelled. “And you”—he jabbed a finger at Tiger Pansy—“you don’t go fucking anywhere. Understand?”

“Yes, Jaycee,” Tiger Pansy said meekly. Her chin quivered as she fought back tears.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Mellanie said. She took a step toward Jaycee.

“Or what? You’ll give me a blow job?” He smiled around at the bodyguards. “Did Alessandra pass her around you guys? I hear that’s what she does: the Baron show’s whore.” His sneer turned triumphant. “Isn’t that right?” he asked Mellanie. “You’re just a fucking cheap media whore. What? You think I don’t fucking know that? Every fucker in the business knows what you are.”

Mellanie knew she should just grab Tiger Pansy and get out. Had it been anyone else but Jaycee she would have done just that. “I am not for sale,” she growled out as she took another step, putting her nose to nose. “I told you that before.” She brought her knee up.

Jaycee twisted with fast competence, bringing his own leg around protectively. Her knee skidded off the back of his thigh. His grin was mocking. “And we’ve done this befor—”

Mellanie slammed her forehead into his nose. Jaycee screamed as his cartilage made a horrible crunch. His hand came up automatically to cup his nose and stanch the blood. That was when Mellanie brought her knee up again, properly this time.

“Yeah, you’re right, this is a real déjà vu session,” she said amiably as tears flooded Jaycee’s eyes. His mouth opened in a silent screech as he fell to his knees, one hand clamped over his nose, the other over his crotch. Blood made the front of his black shirt glisten disgustingly.

The girls got out of the way fast as Mellanie walked over to Tiger Pansy. “This job, it pays so much you’ll never have to come back here. There’s a rejuvenation treatment thrown in as well. You can start over again.”

“Yeah?” Tiger Pansy asked. Her jaw worked hard on the gum as she looked at Jaycee. “Is he gonna be all right, d’ya think?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I don’t want to rush you, but I do need an answer.”

“He wasn’t last time you did that, y’know. He couldn’t get it hard for a week.”

“For which the human gene pool was very grateful. Tiger”—she put her hand on the porn starlet’s arm—“I need your help. I really do. A lot of people are depending on you.”

Tiger Pansy gave the bodyguards a resigned look. “Who do I got to fuck?”

“Nobody. It’s not like that. We’re going to link you up one-to-one for a special client. That way this client gets to find out what you feel. I came to you because you’re the best sensorium artiste there is.”

“Yeah?” Tiger Pansy grinned sheepishly. “You’re an all right girl, Mellanie, I knew it when you came in here that first day. Straightaway, I said to myself, I said, she’s class, Tiger, you should try and be more like her. I’m not, though.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Mellanie.” Tiger Pansy put her head down and whispered, “there’s this, like, medicine I need to get through the day. Special medicine. Jaycee used to get it for me. I can’t go nowhere without it.”

For some reason, Mellanie’s throat tightened to an almost-painful degree. She couldn’t remember feeling so much sympathy for anyone before. “We can get it for you, I promise. Better quality than Jaycee ever supplied. You can go anywhere, Tiger. And when you’re rejuvenated you won’t need it anymore.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Tiger Pansy produced a lottery-winner smile. “Okay then.”

***

The look on Nigel Sheldon’s face wasn’t exactly engineered to make Oscar feel welcome. Daniel Alster, who’d met him from the train, had been polite and upbeat. Oscar had thought that attitude would reflect from his boss. Now, in the senior management suite at Narrabri station, he realized what a mistake that had been.

“So what does Columbia want?” Nigel asked. “It has to be important and delicate to send you.”

“The navy intelligence Paris office has found a rogue officer called Tarlo, and needs to arrest him. However, there’s a problem. Tarlo is on Boongate.” Oscar braced himself for the outburst.

Amazingly, Nigel leaned back in his chair and gave a bemused little smile. “Tarlo was one of the people on Illuminatus, wasn’t he?”

Oscar had to think back quickly over the briefing he’d absorbed on the train journey over from the High Angel. “Yes, sir.” All he could think was how amazingly well briefed Nigel Sheldon was. Then again, he is the head of the largest Dynasty.

“What sort of rogue?” Nigel asked maliciously.

“Sir, we need to arrest him and read his memories to confirm who he’s working for.”

“So Columbia is finally starting to believe in the Starflyer, is he?”

“Uh,” Oscar managed to rumble.

“Don’t worry, Oscar, I know it’s real.”

“You do?”

“Me and several others, so you can relax now.”

Somehow, that just wasn’t possible. “Thank you, sir. The Paris office has put together an arrest team. We’d like to send them through to Boongate.”

“The War Cabinet decided to keep all the Second47 wormholes closed.”

“I know, but it’s only a team of five. The time the wormhole would be open for isn’t long enough to permit any kind of mass exodus from the Boongate side, especially if the planet is unaware the wormhole is open.”

Nigel drummed his fingers on the desk. “What is the plan should they capture Tarlo intact?”

“Direct memory read.”

“That’s what we’re doing here with Starflyer agents; if Columbia is coming around to our views we can share our information with him.” He screwed up his face, undecided. “If they get Tarlo, the arrest team will want to come back. That’ll mean opening the wormhole again. People on Boongate will know; damnit, my people there will know, and I’ve already forced them to stay. I don’t think so, Oscar, I’m sorry.”

“The arrest team have volunteered to go into the future along with the rest of the planet. They’re not asking for a return trip, sir, they just want the chance to get their man.”

“Oh.”

“Tarlo is a critical Starflyer agent; his position in the Paris office allowed him to cover up any number of its operations. His memories would be invaluable in exposing the whole Starflyer network. I cannot overemphasize how important he is.”

“Damnit.” Nigel let out a long breath. “All right, but we keep this very quiet. If and when Tarlo is hooked up to a neural download the data extracted from his brain is to be routed through to the operation we’re putting together here. Columbia can have full access, but we direct the procedure.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Nigel nodded acknowledgment. “You’d better hook up with Wilson. He can brief you on our operation.”

“Wilson’s here?”

“Yes,” Nigel said wryly. “Along with some others you may recognize. But that’s not to be shared with Columbia until we’re convinced he’s acknowledged the Starflyer. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Daniel, organize some transport for the arrest team.”

“I’ll get right onto it. What do you want to do about opening the gateway?”

“The Paris team goes through, and that’s it. If it’s open for more than a minute I’ll want to know why. Who’s on duty over there?”

“Ward Smith. I’ll get over to the gateway control center and liaise with him myself.”

***

There were eight Guardians working on the big engine. The old Ables ND47 sat on the single track that ran through the huge Foster Transport shed, its new ultramarine paintwork gleaming under the bright overhead lights. A cluster of mobile gantries surrounded it, giving the engineeringbots access to the entire superstructure. Under the supervision of the Guardian team they were installing force field generators and medium-caliber weapons in casings that looked like they were integral segments of the bodywork. Forty meters behind the engine, two long enclosed wagons sat on the shiny rails.

Bradley Johansson stood beside the big coupling on the first wagon, looking up at its dusty yellow and maroon shell. A single connector cable dangled from beneath the coupling, its end almost reaching the ground; it was as thick as his torso.

“We’re basically ready to go,” Adam said. “All the equipment and vehicles are loaded. The old brute is so heavily armored even it will have trouble carrying the weight.”

“And if it does get hit?”

Adam grinned, and patted the cool metal chassis of the front wagon. “The armored cars make the final dash through to Half Way. I’ve got it all covered, Bradley, stop worrying. We will make it.”

“All of us?” Bradley asked quietly. He glanced at the Guardians swarming like acrobats over the gantries around the nuclear-powered engine. There wasn’t one of them over thirty-five.

“Most of us,” Adam said.

“I fear the dreaming heavens will be welcoming a lot of friends this coming week.”

“You know, I never did get that part of your philosophy. Why give the Guardians their own religion? That makes it look even more like a cult.”

“I didn’t. I’ve been to the dreaming heavens, Adam. It’s at the far end of the Silfen paths, a place where noble demons fly through an endless sky. I was cured there.”

Adam gave him a judgmental look.

Bradley’s e-butler told him Senator Burnelli was calling.

“I’ve been in a meeting,” she told him.

“Forgive my lack of surprise, Senator, but that’s what politicians do.”

“Not meetings like this one, we don’t. You’ll be happy to hear you’re almost legitimate now. We want to bring you in, Bradley, you and the Guardians.”

Bradley opened the call to Adam as Justine explained what had been decided at Nigel Sheldon’s mansion.

“The Starflyer is the same family as the Primes,” Bradley said. “Well, in all the dreaming heavens, I never knew that. It does make sense, though. I remember its interest in the Dyson Pair right from the start.”

“Do you know where the Starflyer is?” she asked.

“No, but like you, we believe it will try and get through to Boongate.”

“It can’t. However, we are going to let it think it can. If its train approaches the gateway, our squad will bag it.”

“A honey trap. Good idea.”

“You’re at the Narrabri station already, aren’t you?”

“Now, Senator, you know that’s not a question I’ll answer for you.”

“But we want to join forces. You must have established procedures for this very moment.”

“We are certainly prepared for most eventualities.”

“Well then, we stand a much better chance if we combine our operations.”

“Forgive me, but after being hunted like a diseased animal for a hundred and thirty years, it is understandably hard for me to welcome the hounds into my house.”

“You have my word this is an honest offer; Nigel Sheldon’s word, too. I can put you in contact. You can hear it from him personally.”

“I appreciate that. However, there is one way you can settle the problem of trust.”

“Yes?”

“Kazimir McFoster was carrying some data for us when he was murdered at LA Galactic. We believe you may have it.”

“I do, yes.”

“Excellent. If Paula Myo delivers it to me in person, then I will truly know the Guardians have come in from the cold.”

“How about if I deliver it? Surely that would prove our goodwill?”

“Please understand, if it is the Investigator, I can be absolutely certain. I believe in her honesty. It is the one true constant in a very uncertain universe.”

“But you don’t trust me?”

“Please don’t be offended, Senator. It’s just that habits, both good and bad, become ingrained over a hundred thirty years. And I am a creature of habit.”

“Very well, I’ll see what I can do. But listen, CST is searching Narrabri station in case the Starflyer is already in place. If the security teams close in on you, for heaven’s sake call me. The last thing we need is for us to be shooting at each other.”

“Thank you, Senator. I am not so prideful as to risk everything we have achieved on a point of stubborn principle. If we are in trouble, I will shout for help very loudly indeed.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Bradley smiled, his eyes focused on the far end of the shed. Adam groaned in dismay, resting his forehead on the huge steel wheel. “I can’t believe you just did that. Paula Myo? You’ve got to be fucking joking. As soon as she sees you or me, she’ll blow our brains out. She has no choice; her DNA won’t let her do anything else.”

“Nonsense, Adam, you must have more faith in human nature.”

“She squealed on her own parents, for God’s sake.”

“They weren’t her parents, though, were they? They were her kidnappers.”

“Oh for—We had it. We were there. Burnelli was offering us legitimacy, and you blew it. So much for not being prideful. Damnit!” He slapped the wheel in frustration.

“Adam, Adam, have you no negotiating skills? Investigator Myo is the opening gambit. It would be lovely if she did agree, but I expect we’ll wind up with a two-minute call from Nigel Sheldon or some other high-placed player.”

Adam groaned again, sounding like an injured animal. “I don’t need this extra stress. I really don’t.”

“It won’t be much longer, I think we can both be sure of that.”

The CST exploratory division wormhole at Narrabri station followed the usual layout: An isolated building away from the commercial sector, where the big environment confinement chamber was grafted onto the gateway. The Operations Center and all the associated support team offices formed a protective honeycomb around the outside.

Paula stood on the floor of the environment chamber waiting for the wormhole to be aligned. Nigel stood at her side, his mouth raised in a soft smile as he looked at the fuzzy bubble of air that was the force field capping the wormhole.

“Always gives me a buzz,” he confessed to the Investigator. “People just take this for granted so much these days, nobody appreciates the technology and energy sitting behind a gateway.”

“Making the extraordinary appear commonplace is the ability of true genius.”

“Thank you, Paula. Tell me, would you consider marrying me?”

“You ask me that every time we meet.”

“What do you answer every time?”

“No thank you.”

“Ah well, I’m sorry. And I won’t wipe this time from my memory. You must think me appallingly boorish to have done so before.”

Paula gave him a sly look. “If you ever did.” The slight flush above his collar was confirmation enough for her. “What did Heather say about the Starflyer infiltration?” she asked.

“Let’s just say she’s not a very happy person today. Christabel helped her save some face with the precautions she’s already instigated. Good move on your part alerting her.”

“It was Renne Kampasa who knocked on the door.”

“The one who died on Illuminatus?”

“She suffered bodyloss, yes.”

Nelson and Mellanie walked into the chamber. Paula was about to greet them when another woman came through the open airlock. She walked carefully, balancing on platform shoes that added over ten centimeters to her height. Paula froze in surprise.

“This is Tiger Pansy,” Mellanie said. She sounded proud, as if she was introducing a sister who’d made good.

“Real pleased I’m sure,” Tiger Pansy said around her gum. She smiled at Paula. “Hey, I know you, you’re that famous Investigator, right. I was wanting to play your character in Murderous Seduction, but Jaycee gave it to Slippy Gwen-Hott instead. Shame, that.”

Paula had absolutely no idea how to reply. She looked at Nigel for guidance. He seemed indecently pleased at her discomfort.

“Delighted to have you here, Tiger Pansy,” Nigel said with perfect civility.

“Oh, wow, it really is you.”

“This,” Paula sputtered at Mellanie, “this is the person you found for Qatux?”

“Of course,” Mellanie said. “Tiger Pansy is perfect.”

Paula took a breath, and gave the porn starlet a close look. Tiger Pansy was combing at her wild red hair with three-centimeter gold and purple fingernails. Her facial skin was leathery, with a sheen that betrayed inexpert reprofiling treatments that not even her excessive makeup was able to conceal. She’d squeezed into a henna-colored skirt that only came halfway to her knees; a black blouse had the top three buttons undone. Paula was sure Tiger Pansy was wearing an uplift bra. She really didn’t need to. “Do you know what you’re supposed to be doing?” Paula asked.

“Yeah, Mellanie explained it all to me. It’s kinda weird, but what the hell. It ain’t fucking a D.O.L. for a living. Right?” She giggled loudly, a sound reminiscent of a sea lion mating call.

And Paula realized that, actually, Mellanie was one hundred percent right. Tiger Pansy was perfect for this. “Right,” Paula agreed.

“They’re coming through,” Nelson announced.

The dark force field turned fluorescent as the Operations Center locked the wormhole exit inside the High Angel, the first time the sentient starship had ever allowed that to happen. Hoshe and Qatux walked through it.

Tiger Pansy’s jaw stopped chewing as she looked up at the big alien. “Oh, wow.” Her giggle turned nervy. Even Mellanie’s chirpiness faded away.

Nigel stepped forward. He bowed. “Qatux, welcome to the Commonwealth. We are honored that you’re here. I only wish it was under different circumstances.”

“Nigel Sheldon,” the alien rasped. Several of its eyes swayed around to look at the Dynasty leader. “I am grateful for this opportunity. My race has remained sheltered in the High Angel for too long. And is this the delightful lady who has agreed to be my companion during this visit?”

“Ohh.” Tiger Pansy’s mouth opened to a wide incredulous O. She walked forward, almost falling as her shoes wobbled on their slender heels. Nigel, Nelson, and Paula all gave a little lurch forward, their arms lifting in unison ready to catch her. “You’re a real gentleman, you know that.” Tiger Pansy hesitantly put out a hand.

Qatux unrolled an unsteady tentacle. Its tip coiled gently around Tiger Pansy’s wrist. She shivered as if caught in a blast of icy air. Slender OCtattoos glowed a phosphor green beneath her skin; for a moment her whole body was luminous, with emerald pinpricks shining through her fuzz of hair. Qatux sighed like a human who’d just downed a whiskey chaser in one.

Tiger Pansy looked down at her hands as the light faded. “I didn’t know they could do that. You got you some fancy software there, Mr. Qatux.”

“Yes,” Qatux murmured. “I thank you for allowing my routines access to your circuitry. They can provide the direct links I require. I can feel your emotional content perfectly. You are a poignant lady, Tiger Pansy.”

Tiger Pansy’s nervous giggle sliced into the silence. “Hey, that’s really sweet.”

Qatux released her hand; its head swung around to face Nigel and Nelson. “And now it will be my delight to help you uncover the Starflyer agents in your midst.”

“We’re setting up a dedicated analysis center,” Nelson said. “The suspects will be brought in for you once we’ve neutralized any wetwired weapons.”

The biggest airlock door in the chamber expanded. Qatux moved through it with a ponderous gait. Tiger Pansy tottered alongside. “So is there, like, a Mrs. Qatux?” she asked.

Paula couldn’t help the gentle smile on her face as she watched the very odd couple leave.

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” Hoshe said quietly.

“Only once in a very long lifetime, I’d say,” Paula replied. Her e-butler told her there was a call from Justine for herself and Nigel.

“I’ve made contact with Johansson,” Justine said. “He’s willing to help us track down the Starflyer, but there’s a problem.”

“Which is?” Nigel asked.

“He wants some proof that our offer isn’t an entrapment. After all, he has spent a hundred thirty years being pursued by the Serious Crimes Directorate, and now he’s about to face his target.”

“Will a personal guarantee from me swing it?” Nigel asked.

“He wants Paula to deliver the data Kazimir McFoster was carrying.”

“No.” The word came out before Paula even knew she’d said it. There was no analysis, no careful reasoning. She simply knew the answer.

“Why not?” Justine asked. “I know this is difficult for you, but the Guardians were right.”

“I accept that,” Paula backtracked. “Johansson had a perfect right to oppose the Starflyer, even though he should have used different methods. But Elvin is a mass murderer, a political terrorist of the worst kind. I cannot overlook that, no matter what.”

“You have to,” Nigel told her.

“You both know what I am. Therefore you know I cannot.”

Just for an instant, Nigel’s affable façade slipped. “I don’t get this; you of all people know what’s at stake here. Just take the data to them, forget your damn scruples for a minute. We can nab that little shit Elvin when this is over, because I assure you I certainly haven’t forgotten Abadan.”

“No,” Paula said.

“Shit!” Nigel glared at her. It would have made anybody else in the Commonwealth back down immediately; Paula seemed oblivious of his anger. “All right,” he snapped. “Justine, call them back. Negotiate. Find someone else they consider acceptable.”

Mellanie trailed after Qatux and Tiger Pansy as Nelson led them over to the security center. It wasn’t far from the exploratory division, a blank dome with a heavily guarded entrance. Cat’s Claws had been assigned the escort duty; wearing their bulky armor suits they looked formidable. Her inserts scanned them passively, showing her which one was Morton; otherwise she would never have known. He didn’t say anything to her. All of the squad were taking their duty very seriously.

“This way I get to stay in the game,” Morton had said contentedly when he and the others suited up. Nelson had given them the option of leaving, but they’d decided to stay on. Mellanie knew why Morton was doing it; this kept him close to the real players and, she hoped, her as well. The Cat and Rob just seemed to enjoy the whole idea of a fight.

Nelson had turned over a lecture theater for Qatux to use. Most of the seating had been removed, and the lighting dimmed. Various technicians were setting up equipment cabinets. They all stopped when the alien came in. Several applauded. Tiger Pansy giggled, and started doing introductions like some old-fashioned diplomatic interpreter.

Mellanie saw Dudley and the Bose motile lurking about near the big wall-mounted portal that presenters used to display their lecture data on. The Bose motile had three security guards standing close by. They all wore sharp business suits, and appeared perfectly friendly, but Mellanie’s scan located some inserts with a very high power density wetwired into their bodies. Their visible OCtattoos were green and red lines running in parallel along the rear of their cheeks.

Two of the Bose motile’s sensor stalks bent around to follow her as she walked over to them. “Hello, Mellanie,” it said. She saw it now had a slim modern handheld array hanging from a leather strap around one of its arm limbs.

“Hello,” she said pleasantly. “So are you Dudley one, or two? What have the pair of you decided?”

“We haven’t discussed that yet.”

Mellanie was amused to hear the array synthesizing Dudley’s voice perfectly. It obviously irked the human version, judging by his expression of distaste. She smiled brightly, and leaned forward to kiss him. Morton was over by the main door with The Cat, so she figured it would be easy enough. Amazingly, Dudley moved back before her lips touched him.

“Dudley?” She frowned at him.

“Ah, yes, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Talk to me?”

“Yes. I’d just like to say that I am happy to stand aside now Morton has returned.”

“Stand aside?”

“That’s right. I know how much you feel for him. In view of that I think it’s for the best. Circumstances have changed for both of us, have they not?”

“Circumstances?” Mellanie desperately wanted to stop repeating things, but she was so surprised by Dudley her brain was refusing to come up with anything original. When she studied him she saw he’d actually shaved. The tiredness and perpetual worry were fading from his eyes. He’d even dressed in a stylish mauve shirt and black semiorganic trousers. For the first time, she could actually see his true age in that calm face that looked back unflinchingly at her.

“I believe even you would have to concede that our relative situations have altered substantially since we met,” Dudley said. “That calls for a serious reevaluation of our relationship.”

She just stared at him. This wasn’t even Dudley talking anymore; there wasn’t an illusion of reticence or caution. His voice was calm and measured, verging on patronizing.

“Of course, I’m enormously grateful for what we experienced and shared,” he said hurriedly. “Without you I would never be whole again. And I will never be able to thank you enough for that. I hope we can continue to be friends as well as colleagues in this endeavor.”

“You’re dumping me.”

“Mellanie, human beings are effectively immortal. I know this is your first life and everything is more intense for you, but believe me when I say nothing lasts forever. It is better this way. Honesty is the way forward for both of us.”

“You are dumping me?” Even from her own mouth it sounded terribly wrong.

“I am,” the Bose motile said. “It’s because I’m a complete asshole.”

Dudley glared at his alien twin. “I see you haven’t mastered tact yet.”

“Well, face it, where would I inherit that from?”

“After everything I’ve done for you?” Mellanie asked; it was as though she was questioning herself.

“Our hierarchal structure wasn’t entirely one-sided,” Dudley said in the kind of tone used to correct one of his students. “I believe you gained as much, if not more, from this relationship as I did. Look at where we are, deciding the future of humankind.”

“Oh, just fuck off.” She turned around and walked away, fast. At least there was no danger of tears—for a second, the image of Jaycee sinking to the ground clutching at his balls filled her mind—well, no tears in her eyes anyway. He’s not even worth that.

“Sorry,” Dudley Bose’s voice called out across the lecture theater.

Mellanie didn’t turn to check which one of them had said it. She already knew.

“You okay?” Tiger Pansy asked.

“Sure. I’m fine.” The original bounce-back girl, me.

“Hey, Mellanie, I gotta thank you,” Tiger Pansy said. She waved enthusiastically at Qatux, who was discussing sensorium interface technology with one of the CST technicians. The Raiel raised a tentacle in acknowledgment. “This is like the bestest gig ever.”

“I thought you’d like it. But, Tiger, remember, you really can’t tell anyone afterward. These people can’t be messed around.”

“I know that. I ain’t that stupid.”

“I know you’re not. Take care.”

“You going?”

“Yeah. There’s only one thing I want now, and it’s not here.”

“Well, I hope you find it.”

“Me, too.”

Nobody around the Raiel really noticed as she walked away. The last thing she wanted was to run over to Morton after what had happened, so she went toward a door on the opposite side of the lecture theater. Hoshe was sitting on one of the remaining audience chairs, suspiciously close to the door.

Mellanie gave him a fond smile, and sat beside him. Without warning, she darted forward and gave him a kiss.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Hoshe Finn, my very own guardian angel.”

“I didn’t think you were speaking to me after Isabella.”

“Humm, your halo did dim there for a minute. But once again you made sure no harm came to me.”

Hoshe glanced down at the two aliens who were now talking together. Dudley Bose was standing beside the Bose motile, trying to steer the conversation his way.

“One of your smarter moves,” Hoshe said. “You can do a lot better than him.”

She glanced at the trio of armor suits. “I thought you said you were married.”

Hoshe grinned. “I guess I deserved that. Shouldn’t pry into your private life.”

“There’s nothing much private about it. That’s my biggest problem. What about you? What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to Nelson. I have a favor to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to get some people off Boongate. A Senate Security team was following a suspected Starflyer agent and got stuck there. My fault.”

“I doubt it. Do you want me to talk to Nigel about it? He has the final say on that.”

Hoshe gave her a surprised look. “You can do that?”

“For you, of course.”

“Might be worth it.” He didn’t sound very certain.

“Just say the word. I owe you.”

“No you don’t.”

“A month’s unisphere access, and a week at a B and B if I remember rightly. There’s a lot of interest piling up in that account, Hoshe Finn.”

“Another time, another universe.”

“I’d still like to repay you.”

“I’m not sure it’s worth it. Look, this is just about over now. Sheldon will destroy the Prime homeworld; Paula and the Guardians will track down and eliminate the Starflyer. Everybody needs to start thinking what they’re going to do after the war, because life is going to be a whole lot sweeter then. After what we’ve all been through, it can’t be anything else.”

“God, I hadn’t even thought about afterward. I’ve been so scared since Randtown. Trying to keep one step ahead takes up every moment.”

“You’re a damn good reporter. I bet you wind up with your own show.”

“That’d be nice,” she said, and it was a comfy thought, the kind she had before the ships flew down out of a clean Randtown sky, and her world turned upside down. Again. “I could do with something that’s going to last.”

“Well, there you go then.”

“There’s just one thing I’ve got to do first.”

Hoshe gave a mock-groan. “What?”

“I’m going to cover Alessandra Baron’s arrest. I want to see her led away in chains. I want to show the entire Commonwealth that most beautiful sight.”

“They don’t manacle people anymore. Besides, if she’s a Starflyer agent it’s likely to get violent.”

“Here’s hoping,” Mellanie muttered with a wicked smirk. “Who’s going to be the arresting officer?”

“Hasn’t been assigned yet,” Hoshe said, with an eye on Nelson and the Raiel.

“But you could put in for it, couldn’t you? You could do that while I speak to Nigel. How about that? A trade, not a repayment.”

“Done.”

***

The maglev express was almost empty. After all, who in their right mind would travel to Wessex right now?

Alic walked out of the first-class carriage onto the nearly deserted platform in the Narrabri station’s Oxsorrol terminal. The three cases carrying his armor suit and weapons followed loyally a few meters behind. Vic Russell was close on his heels, eager to get going. Matthew Oldfield, John King, and Jim Nwan formed a rearguard group, trying to keep their conversation lighthearted. It wasn’t going well, every movement agitated some injury sustained on Illuminatus. Alic knew they shouldn’t be going into combat again so soon, but this mission overrode any kind of by-the-book protocol. Besides, he kept telling himself, there were five of them, and they’d raided the Paris office armory for some serious heavy-caliber hardware. There would be no repeat of Treetops no matter what Tarlo was equipped with this time.

Two men were waiting for them on the platform outside their carriage. One of them was in a navy captain’s uniform. Alic recognized him immediately. “Captain Monroe?”

“Pleased to meet you. Daniel Alster here is our liaison with CST for this operation, and we have some very good news for you.”

“We can go?” Vic demanded.

“Yes,” Oscar said.

“All right!” Vic high-fived with John King.

“We have some transport for you gentlemen.” Daniel gestured at a big Ford ten-seater Holan parked on the side of the platform. “It’ll take us over to the station’s track engineering facility.”

“What’s there?” Vic asked.

“A train that will take you through the wormhole.”

“How long before we go through?”

“Once you’re suited up, we can take you straight to the gateway,” Daniel said, unperturbed by the big man’s attitude.

“Thank you,” Alic said before Vic could make a scene. He was already regretting agreeing to the big man coming on the mission. Even if they were successful in engaging Tarlo he wasn’t sure they could get him into the cage they’d brought.

“You should know the gateway will only be opening once,” Oscar said. “After you’re through, you will be evacuating into the future with the rest of the population.”

“We accept that,” Alic said. He wondered if he should give Vic another chance to withdraw. Once the mission was over, the big man would be separated from Gwyneth for a long time.

The Ford drove them to one of the eight long sheds that housed CST’s Wessex track engineering division. A single gentian-blue carriage was waiting for them, which looked like it had been in service for a century at least. There was a tiny cabin at the front, with five rows of bench seats giving the track crew a view through grimy windows. Three-quarters of the spartan metal-panel interior was simply storage space for bots and equipment. Long doors at the rear had their own lift platforms, which were folded up against the sides.

“It’s not fast,” Alster said as they climbed up the ladders to the cabin. “But it is reliable, and it can get you there easily enough. The drive array has modern software; traffic control can take you straight across the station yard to the gateway. I’ll be in the control center myself to supervise the opening.”

“Thanks,” Alic told him. The rest of the team was climbing up to see what they’d got.

“Your cases can come up on the door elevators,” Alster told them. “If you’d like to get suited up now, we can begin.”

“Keep a communications link open to me from now on,” Oscar said.

“Will do,” Alic said. “And thank Nigel Sheldon for the opportunity. It means a lot to us.”

“I know.” Oscar backed out of the door, and went down the short ladder to the ground.

“All right,” Alic said. “Jim, get the doors open and our cases inside. We need to be ready. Matthew, establish a link to Edmund Li. Let’s find out what the bastard’s up to. Then we can finalize our game plan.”

The Ables ND47 was fully automatic, of course. New arrays had been installed during its refurbishment; the drive software was capable of controlling it through the maze of tracks that made up all of CST’s planetary stations and then taking the engine out on the main lines of whatever planet it was visiting.

There were manual systems fitted, but they were there to comply with safety regulations rather than necessity. Adam gazed over the broad console that took up the entire front portion of the tiny cab sitting atop the huge engine. The two narrow windows in front gave him a view along the top of the engine, where the darkish purple metal segments were riddled with long black grilles and stumpy tarnished-chrome vent pipes. When he turned around, the single rear window showed him the two long wagons pressing up against the engine. Display screens along the back of the console filled with graphics that illustrated the coupling integration diagnostics at work, checking the integrity of the connections. The left-hand side of the console was a burgundy color, containing all the nuclear micropile controls and readouts. A completely new console section, which was fixed to newly welded brackets on the wall, presented the control systems for the force field and armaments the Guardians had grafted on in the last few days. That was why they’d agreed someone should be in the cab, though again with modern control arrays it wasn’t strictly necessary. They all just felt more confident with someone up there.

Adam saw the last of the mobile gantries lower its platform, and roll away from the engine. When he stuck his head out of the cab door, he could see Kieran walking among the engineeringbots as they fussed around the wheels.

His e-butler told him a call was coming in from Marisa McFoster.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Victor’s on the move,” she said. “There’s a whole load of vehicles driving out of the Sunforge warehouse. Vans and small trucks, all shielded—we can’t see what’s inside.”

“Where are they going?”

“It looks like they’re heading for the gateway. They’re not using any of the yard’s service roads, they’re just driving right across the rails.”

“Don’t expose yourself,” he told her. “Just maintain the observation.”

“Is this it, is the Starflyer coming?”

“I don’t know. But we’re ready for it.” Adam sounded a single blast on the engine’s horn that reverberated around the big shed. He couldn’t resist; he leaned out of the cab door and bellowed: “All aboard.”

Wilson knew he should dump his irritation toward Dudley Bose; it really wasn’t helpful. But there was just something about the astronomer that rubbed him the wrong way. He’d been furious when the old man lobbied himself onto the Second Chance; he’d been exasperated with the young re-lifer who hadn’t adjusted to his new circumstances, and now the man had all his memories back and seemed a whole lot more rational, he was still irritating, still pressing for attention, getting in the way.

It had seemed like a good idea while they waited for the various arrest squads to bring in known Starflyer agents, and Paula and Nigel began their search for the actual alien itself. Wilson and Anna had gone over to the Bose motile when it finished talking to Qatux, and asked if it had accessed the signal that the Far Away flare had broadcast.

“No,” it said, “I haven’t.”

“The Commonwealth has never been able to translate it,” Wilson said. “But if you’re right about the Starflyer being an alienPrime—”

“I understand,” the Bose motile said. “I should be able to translate it for you.”

“I’d like you to try,” Wilson said. “It’s been bothering me ever since we found out what the Starflyer is. Suppose it was talking to another ship?”

“That’s unlikely,” Dudley Bose said. He’d inched his way closer to them as soon as Wilson started talking to the Bose motile.

Wilson pressed his teeth together, then smiled tightly. “Why’s that?”

“The flare emission was omnidirectional.”

“I imagine their ships would have remained silent during flight so as not to attract attention from whoever built the barriers,” Anna said. “Once the Starflyer had landed, it wouldn’t know where any of the others are. It would have to broadcast in all directions.”

“Which it actually didn’t,” the Bose motile said. “The Far Away star has a rotation of twenty-five days. As the flare only lasted for seven days, the signal was only broadcast across a relatively narrow sector of the galaxy, one that didn’t include the Dyson Pair; in fact, the star’s bulk would have shielded them from the signal.”

“Can we just examine the signal?” Wilson said. He was beginning to regret mentioning it. His e-butler accessed the national library on Damaran, and pulled out a recording of the signal.

They all waited while the Bose motile reviewed it. The initial flurry of activity in the lecture theater that had accompanied Qatux’s arrival was now dying down. Most of the technical systems were set up, Qatux and Tiger Pansy were talking together, Cat’s Claws remained on duty by the main entrance, Nelson maintained a number of his own security staff around himself and Paula. The only person Wilson couldn’t see was Mellanie.

“Simple enough,” the Bose motile said. “It’s basically an identity, which is MorningLightMountain17,735, followed by a short message: I am here. If any of I/us survive, contact me or fly here. The patterns are a very old form, but the content is easy enough to decipher, there is little ambiguity.”

“Did we ever detect another flare?” Anna asked. “An answer to the Starflyer?”

“No,” Dudley said.

“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one,” the Bose motile said. “If another survivor picked up the signal, it could have used an interstellar communications maser to reply. Their ships were all equipped with them. The Commonwealth would never see that.”

Wilson was thinking along similar lines. “So we don’t actually know if there are any more of these alienPrimes at loose.”

“If one survived, it is logical to assume there could be others,” the Bose motile said. “Though I doubt there can be many; the Dyson Beta Primes had only just started building starships; they didn’t have the production capacity of Dyson Alpha when the barriers were established. The numbers would be small.”

“But if any of them landed on a world more useful than Far Away, there’s no telling how big their civilization is by now. Primes almost match the old nightmare of exponential expansion.”

“You should assume that the Dyson Alpha Primes had starships in flight as well,” Anna said.

“We are going to have to conduct an extensive search of stars in that sector of the galaxy,” the Bose motile said. “The problem could be more widespread than originally thought.”

“If Nigel Sheldon does initiate novas, the problem will be considerably reduced,” Dudley said.

The lecture theater’s main doors opened, and Oscar walked through. He caught sight of Wilson and waved happily.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Wilson said, smiling happily.

“I might ask you the same thing,” Oscar said after he’d collected his kiss from Anna. “You should have carried him off back to York5 and started a decent honeymoon,” he scolded her.

“Don’t think I didn’t want to,” she said wistfully. “So when did you get back?”

“About five hours ago.”

“Damn, I’m glad you’re okay,” Wilson said. “Are you reloading?”

“The Dublin is, yes. I’ve got another job.”

“What? Columbia isn’t being difficult about you being one of my placements, is he?”

“No, quite the opposite. Columbia is coming around to the idea the Starflyer might be genuine. I’ve been appointed as a glorified messenger boy.” He explained the Paris team’s mission. “Sheldon said you’d brief me on this little black ops setup you’ve got running here. Is that really a Raiel?” He was staring at Qatux.

“Yes, it really is,” Wilson said. “It’s called Qatux, and it’s agreed to help us root out Starflyer agents.”

“Uh huh.” Oscar faced the Bose motile. “And that alien?”

“It’s a Prime,” Anna said with a laugh. “Our deadliest enemy.”

“The good news is that this one is harmless and on our side,” Wilson said.

“And the bad?”

“It’s yet another version of Dudley Bose.”

Alic ran the integration program one last time. The additional weapons mounted on his armor suit responded properly. Two particle lances on malmetal arms that were secured to the base of his spine rose up over his shoulders, and swung from side to side as his sensors ran a targeting program. They locked on to Vic, whose armor suit had almost doubled in size thanks to the backpack missile dispenser.

“Hey, careful who you’re pointing those things at,” Vic complained.

The particle lances retracted, folding back parallel to Alic’s spine. He was as anxious as any first-day recruit to fire them. He hadn’t known particle lances could be built so small, and even with modern power cells he didn’t have many shots. Of course, without the armor and malmetal he could barely pick one up, they weighed so much; he couldn’t imagine what they were made out of, solid uranium by the feel of it.

John King and Jim Nwan both had rotary launches on their forearms, with a flexible feed tube snaking around to their backpacks. Matthew Oldfield was carrying all the electronic warfare systems; there were so many sneekbots clinging to his suit, he looked like the king of the insects. Matthew also managed the cage, three large matte-black mobile cubes that should be powerful enough to hold Tarlo.

Alic was mildly impressed that the carriage floor could take their combined weight. He brought the management array systems up into his virtual vision. Midnight-black hands flicked over the control icons. Narrabri station traffic control responded with a transit authorization, and they started moving with a small judder.

“We’re on the move,” he told Oscar.

“Okay, I’ll inform Alster. He’s in the gateway control center. What’s Tarlo doing?”

“Li says he’s still up in the security room.”

“You sure you want to do this?”

“It’s not quite what I thought I’d be doing when I woke up this morning, but yeah.”

“Good luck.”

“Yeah, see you in fifteen years.”

Their speed built up as soon as they left the track maintenance division shed. The station force field curved overhead, a gray film smearing the sky. Above that, the Narrabri city force field extended from horizon to horizon, its apex reaching out of the troposphere. The borealis storms had died down now, though the highly charged atmosphere was still plagued by severe lightning storms. Brutal blue-white flashes rippled around the boundary of the city force field. Alic felt ridiculously safe underneath all that technological protection. The Primes had flung their worst at Wessex, and the Big15 planet remained secure. It made him confident for the future.

The carriage snaked over points every few seconds, clicking and rattling as it moved to a different set of rails, then switching again. Long trains slid past on either side, blurs of lighted windows. Up ahead, a long stretch of pale rosy light spilled out from the gateways to douse the myriad tracks. It had gaps in it, dark shadowy sections. Gateways to the Second47, Alic thought. They’d never shine their unique starlight here again. The knowledge made him sad.

“Anything new on Tarlo?” he asked Matthew.

“No, Boss.”

“Okay.” He knew there wasn’t. Just had to do something to distract his nerves, which were far too jumpy.

The carriage lined up on the cliff face of gateways and carried on forward at a much slower speed. There were fewer trains running on this section of the station yard. They passed a GH7 class engine waiting on a siding; the massive machine only had five wagons attached, their pea-green metal bodywork caked in topaz sand thick enough to obscure their company logo.

His e-butler told him Daniel Alster was calling.

“You should be on the direct Boongate line in another couple of minutes,” Alster said. “Once you’re there, we will open the gateway and give you transit clearance. It will close thirty seconds after you’re through.”

“Right, thanks.”

“Good luck.”

“Looking good,” Alic told his arrest team. His heart started to beat a lot faster as the carriage squeaked and rolled onward.

Oscar simply couldn’t take his eyes off Tiger Pansy. She’d caught him staring quite a few times, and he’d managed to deflect her questioning gaze with a polite half smile. He knew it was getting close to rudeness now, but she was so out of place here her attraction was akin to a star’s gravity well. But then, would someone like her care about middle-class standards of rudeness? And what does that judgment say about me? Damn, was Adam right about what I’ve become?

“You’re going to have to stop that,” Anna said, and moved to stand in front of him.

“I know,” he mumbled awkwardly.

Her smile became evil. “If you’re a big fan, you should get over that shy streak and go ask her for an autograph.”

“Well, shucks, I guess I’m just too bashful.”

Wilson chuckled. “Stop letting her bully you, man.”

“Advice from the henpecked husband. Great, just what I need.”

Wilson’s tranquillity chilled rapidly. “Oh, hell,” he whispered. “Dudley Bose is on the way over. Both versions. The human one looks pissed.”

Oscar resisted the impulse to turn around. “Time to make a break for it?”

“Too late,” Anna said through gritted teeth and a broad false smile.

“Captain Monroe.” Dudley’s imperious voice cut right through Oscar’s residual good humor. He turned and summoned up a smile. “Dudley. I understand you’ve reacquired your memories.” His gaze flicked to the tall alien with its odd stalklike tentacles. It unnerved him to see something resembling an eye on the end of one bending around to return the gaze. This was worse than locking stares with Tiger Pansy.

“Yes, you bastard,” the human Dudley spat. “I got my memory back. So I know what you did to me.”

People nearest to them hushed up and stole some circumspect looks.

“Problem?” Wilson asked politely.

“Like you care,” Dudley sneered. “You who left me there to die.”

“You make it sound deliberate,” Anna said.

“Well, wasn’t it?” Dudley demanded. “You just kept telling us to go farther in. All the time: Just a little bit farther, Dudley. Go on, find out what’s around the next spiral. This is really interesting. And we trusted you.”

“I never said that,” Oscar insisted. He was racking his memories of those frantic last minutes by the Watchtower. “Your comrelay failed as soon as you entered the tunnel.”

“Liar! You knew MorningLightMountain’s ships were on their way. I’ve seen the official recordings; the whole ship was panicking. Yet you let us carry on. You dumped us like we were garbage.”

“If you’d really accessed the original recordings you’d know we busted our balls trying to reestablish contact,” Oscar said with tight anger. “Mac and Frances put their asses on the line to try to get you back. It was you that ignored protocol; you should have come back as soon as you lost contact. If you’d paid the slightest bit of attention to your training you’d have known that. But, oh no, you were too busy playing up for the unisphere media to bother with training like the rest of us. The Great Discoverer off to further the frontier of human knowledge. You’re as ignorant as you are arrogant, and that hideous little combination is what plunged us into this war.”

Wilson hurriedly stepped between them. Oscar was annoyed. He would have liked to have smacked Dudley right on the nose, and to hell with how bad it would make him look.

“Enough, the pair of you,” Wilson said. The tone of command was perfect. Oscar felt himself scowling at what he could see of Dudley, but still backed off. I’ll be damned, how did he do that?

“We clearly need to go over what happened to establish exactly where the communications failure occurred,” Wilson continued. “But this is not the time or the place.”

“Pha.” Dudley waved a hand in disgust. “Official inquiry by a navy already discredited. Did you prepare the whitewash answers before the President fired you?”

A now furious Oscar sidestepped around Wilson. “Part of the training you missed while you were mouthing off on talk shows was how to recognize impossible situations. You should have wiped your memorycell and suicided as soon as you were captured. Where did MorningLightMountain get the stellar coordinates for our planets, eh? Your mind! You’re not just a traitor, you’re a coward with it!”

Dudley went for him, fists raised. The Bose motile hooked a thick curving arm around his torso, preventing him from reaching Oscar.

Wilson pushed Oscar hard in the chest, shoving him back. A quick pushing match followed before Oscar’s heat withered in shame. “Sorry,” he mumbled, mortified to find that Anna was helping to restrain him as well. “He just gets to me.”

“I know,” Wilson said; his arm was still draped loosely over Oscar’s shoulder, muscles tensed in case he needed to push again.

It was an image mirrored by Dudley and the Bose motile, who were walking in the other direction. Dudley managed to look back, and screwed his face up in rage.

Oscar sucked in his lower lip, trying desperately to resist the temptation to start it all up again. Anna and Wilson were both pressing in close.

“Come on,” she murmured. “Let it go. Down, boy. Calmly.”

“All right.” Now thoroughly embarrassed, Oscar held his hands up in surrender. “Backing off. Doing yoga; some balls like that.”

Anna grinned. “Never knew you had it in you.” Her lips puckered up in a mocking pout. “Soooo macho.”

Oscar just winced. “Don’t. Please.”

Wilson gave him a rueful grin, then sobered. “You know, much as I dislike Bose, that is a worryingly big discrepancy.”

“The Starflyer agent?” Oscar guessed.

“My first choice. Damn, we really are going to have to sit at a table with the little shit and listen to what he has to say.”

“Better off with the motile. It doesn’t look like a permanent walking hissy fit.”

“Hey, behave.” Anna punched him on the arm.

“Ow.” Oscar rubbed at the pain, then noticed Tiger Pansy standing a couple of meters away. She had an avid grin as she chomped away on her gum. “You guys,” she said with shrill admiration. “You’re so intense. Really.”

“What the hell is that?” Adam asked.

The sensors that the Guardians had planted around the approach to the Boongate gateway were showing a single dilapidated old carriage creeping forward onto the main Boongate line.

“It’s the type of carriage the station maintenance crews use,” Kieran said.

The sensor image wobbled, then expanded. Kieran was focusing the camera on the carriage windows. There wasn’t much to see. A yellow light illuminated the interior of the carriage, diffused by the grimy glass. There were dark humanoid shadows moving around inside. Bigger than the average human. Much bigger.

“Bradley?” Adam asked. “What do you think?”

“It seems an unlikely vehicle for the Starflyer to use. On the other hand, because that’s not what we’re expecting…”

“It does have a small cargo handling ability,” Kieran said. “How big does it have to be?”

“I don’t know,” Bradley said.

Adam shook his head. He really didn’t like that carriage. It was wrong, and he knew it. But he couldn’t work out what it might be doing.

Sensor data such as it was filled his virtual vision. The carriage certainly didn’t have a force field. But there were some large power sources inside, five of them. And its communications link to traffic control was all standard.

He touched the icons of the small combat team they’d hidden out near the gateway. “Get ready,” he told them.

“If it’s the Starflyer, it will be heavily protected,” Bradley warned.

“I know. Call Burnelli, get her to find out what that is.” He took his armor suit helmet from the cab’s console where it had been lying, and locked it over his head. A hundred meters in front of him, the shed doors began to slide open.

***

“Sir, the navy team is in position,” Daniel Alster reported.

“Okay,” Nigel said. His virtual hands pulled the wormhole activation code from an encrypted store, and sent it to the Boongate gateway control center.

“Confirm activation code,” Alster said. “We’re opening it now.”

“Get them through as fast as you can, Daniel, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nigel shifted the gateway control center data to a part of his virtual vision grid where he could monitor it. In front of him, the doors to the lecture theater opened automatically for himself and Nelson. “They’re going through,” he told the security chief.

“I hope it’s worth it.”

“With confirmed Starflyer agents in custody, Columbia will fall into place without a fight. That makes it worthwhile.” Nigel scanned across the auditorium floor to see the various groups. He was halfway to Qatux when Mellanie intercepted him, with an uncomfortable-looking Hoshe in tow. “We’ve got to get some people back from Boongate,” she said.

“Excuse me?” He couldn’t help glancing over at Oscar, who was in a huddle with Wilson and Anna. Oscar looked up expectantly.

“There’s a Senate Security team stranded there.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s not our problem.”

“They’re following a Starflyer agent. I thought we wanted Starflyer agents.” Her arm swept around the auditorium. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? Grab them and haul them in here for Qatux.”

“Wait, which Starflyer agent are they watching?”

“Victor Halgarth, Isabella’s father,” Hoshe said.

“He’s there as well?” The Boongate gateway data in Nigel’s virtual vision grid showed him the wormhole opening.

“As well as who?” Mellanie asked. “Look, Nigel, the Senate Security team have just reported Victor’s on the move with a whole bunch of armed troops. We need to get them out, or send in reinforcements. Either way, the gateway has to be opened.”

Wilson and Oscar exchanged a startled look.

“The Paris team can’t divert to help Senate Security,” Oscar said. “Arresting Tarlo is an absolute priority.”

“Tarlo’s on Boongate?” Paula asked in surprise; she turned to Hoshe. “Why didn’t we know?”

“None of this has been filed,” Hoshe said.

“Two Starflyer agents on Boongate?” Nelson asked. He sounded alarmed.

“What operation are you running?” Paula asked Oscar.

“Tarlo’s appearance was reported by Edmund Li,” Oscar said. “He works at the Far Away freight inspectorate division on Boongate. Tarlo has taken over the whole Far Away section at Boongate station. The Paris office team are going in to arrest him.”

“Going in?” Paula asked in surprise; she rounded on Nigel. “Are you opening the gateway?”

“It’s already open,” Nigel said. He tried not to sound sheepish.

“You have to shut it,” Paula said. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

Nigel reviewed the data in his grid. “It’ll be closed any minute now.”

“Nigel!” Justine called out.

“Now what?”

“I’ve got Bradley Johansson, we really need to talk to him. Now.” She switched Johansson’s link to a general call.

“Mr. Johansson,” Nigel said. “It looks like the Commonwealth owes you a big apology.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sheldon, but right now I’d like to swap that for one piece of information.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a train approaching the Boongate gateway. Is it one you authorized?”

“Yes. Don’t worry. It’s carrying a team who are going to deal with a Starflyer agent.”

“Really? And what about the second train?”

Nigel stared at Nelson. “What second train?”

The link broadened into a grainy visual image. A single aging carriage was crawling forward toward the giant row of gateways. Three hundred meters behind it, another train was sliding onto the track that led to Boongate.

“Who the fuck is that?” Nigel gasped. His expanded mentality accessed Narrabri station traffic control. The train wasn’t even registering on the system.

“Shut the gateway,” Paula demanded. “Now!”

Nigel didn’t need to be told. His virtual hand touched Daniel Alster’s icon. There was no reply; it didn’t even acknowledge his connection request. The only result was the Boongate gateway data dropping out of his grid. “Shit.” He hurriedly called up Ward Smith’s unisphere address code. It didn’t answer, either. Nigel diverted his full expanded mentality to the Boongate gateway control system, ready to take personal control and shut the wormhole. His electronic presence couldn’t gain access. “I can’t get in,” Nigel said. It shocked him more than anything else. “I can’t get into the fucking system.”

“What about Alster?” Oscar asked. “Can he shut it down?”

“He’s not responding.”

“Daniel Alster, your chief executive aide,” Paula said; she nodded with what could have been satisfaction. “Perfectly placed.”

“This is most exhilarating,” Qatux said. “I am so glad I came.”

***

The Boongate gateway was four hundred meters dead ahead, and the carriage had slowed to walking pace. Alic could see the track leading straight into the bottom of the funereal semicircle in front of them, glimmering silver in the dusky light. So close! The tension from waiting was acting like ice water on his guts. None of the others were saying anything; they all stood together watching the gateway as it opened for them.

It had never actually closed, Alic knew, that was misleading; the wormhole still reached Boongate—CST had simply reduced its internal width to zero. Expanding it again was a simple application of power. In his mind he saw it as a single big lever you just had to pull down.

The dark semicircle began to brighten, shading up to a husky gold.

“Here we go,” Matthew said.

“Hell, I never thought we’d actually do it,” Jim said. “What do you think the future’s going to be like?”

“Let’s just concentrate on the mission,” Alic said.

“Oh, come on, Boss, you’ve got to be interested.”

“Maybe, but the mission comes first.” But it did give him pause for thought as the carriage began to speed up.

“Do we get twenty years’ salary paid us?” Jim asked.

“From the navy?” John said. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“But we’ll be gone for twenty years.”

“Only if we actually make it through this time travel wormhole. I mean what happens if the Primes attack Wessex while we’re halfway through?”

“Then we get dead very quickly,” Vic said cheerfully. “Without the generator, the wormhole collapses with us inside.”

“Sheldon will use his superbomb against Dyson Alpha,” Matthew said. “Nobody’s going to attack Wessex. We’ll win the war.”

“Okay, but what if some other war breaks out in ten years’ time while we’re still traveling?”

“Great, you just keep looking on the good side—”

“Alic,” Oscar said. “It’s behind you.”

“What?” some primitive instinct sent a shiver along Alic’s limbs.

“The Starflyer is behind you. There’s a train accelerating along the track. We’ve lost control of the gateway. Move!”

Alic swung around to examine the rear of the carriage. The ceiling lights were dim back there, turning the cargo handling area into a gloomy metal cave. He raised an arm, a plasma rifle siding up out of its forearm recess. He set it to rapid expansion, and fired. The bolt blasted a two-meter hole through the rear of the carriage. A judder ran along the carriage floor as it rocked on its stiff old suspension.

“Christ, Boss,” Jim exclaimed. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Alic didn’t answer. He was staring through the gap. Bright light was shining straight in at him. His retinal inserts brought filter programs on-line. A GH7-class engine was moving onto their track three hundred meters behind them, its headlights blazing as it started to pick up speed. He could see the last of its wagons curving around off the points, clad in yellow sand. It was the train they’d just passed on a siding.

The front of the GH7 was almost three times the height of the carriage they were riding in, and easily twice as wide. Its chrome air intake grille alone was bigger than them. And its speed was reducing the distance fast; with only a few wagons it could accelerate hard.

“Shit!” Vic cried out.

“It’s the Starflyer,” Alic told them. One of his particle lances swung up and over his shoulder, pointing directly at the center of the GH7. He fired. Incandescence flooded the carriage like a solid force. Windows blew out from the sound blast of the discharge. Alic swayed backward, almost falling, feeling the suit’s electromuscle bands fighting the recoil. The lance struck the GH7 head-on, and broke apart.

“Force field,” Matthew said. “They’ve got heavy-duty protection.”

“Vic, John, take out the track,” Alic ordered. The GH7 was closer now, barely two hundred meters away. It was terrifyingly massive.

“Speed up,” Oscar said. “Take control of the carriage, and accelerate.”

Alic’s virtual hands danced over the carriage management icons. Vic and John raced for the back of the carriage, and knelt down in front of the blast hole. They began shooting at the track between them and the GH7. Green and purple flashes streaked across the ground outside.

“They’ve extended their force field,” Vic yelled. “We can’t hit the track.”

Alic’s black virtual hand thumped the carriage accelerator symbol, and held it down. There was a shrill whining sound from the axle motors, and the carriage lurched forward.

“They’re gaining on us,” Matthew yelled. “We’re going to get bulldozed.”

Alic whirled around. The gateway was only two hundred meters away now.

A searing scarlet explosion erupted from the side of the GH7. Flames splashed across the giant engine’s force field, twisting away into the sky to fuel a writhing cloud of black smoke.

“Oh, great,” Jim moaned. “Now someone else out there is shooting.”

Nigel’s expanded mentality examined the physical connections into the Boongate gateway control center. Fireshields had been erected at every interface node in CST’s Narrabri network, isolating the entire system.

There has to be a way in!

He could crack the fireshields, but it would take time. They were based on one hundred ninety geometry encryption.

“Get a security team into the gateway control center,” Nigel snapped at Nelson. His digital presence circled around and around the network, interrogating every routing node, hunting a weakness. Eight of Narrabri station’s RIs were diverted from their primary function of managing wormhole generators, and assigned decryption on the fireshields. He knew they wouldn’t do it in time.

The traffic control network, with its complex sensor system spread across the station, was still available to him. He accessed the cameras on top of the Boongate gateway, receiving a clear view looking down on the little carriage as it shuddered its way along the last hundred fifty meters of track. The GH7 was right behind it, headlights illuminating the shoddy paintwork and grime-smeared wheels. The distance was shrinking rapidly as the carriage accelerated as best its ancient hub motors could manage. Missiles slammed into the GH7. Completely ineffectual.

Where did they come from?

“Gateway control center is closed and barricaded,” Nelson reported. “We can’t get in.”

“Blow it open,” Nigel ordered. One aspect of his expanded mentality was examining the orbital platforms to see if their beam weapons could get a clear shot at the GH7. But he didn’t have access to the Narrabri force field, and by the time he got through to Alan it would be too late.

Another slender particle lance shot came from the carriage to strike ineffectually at the force field around the GH7. Then the carriage swept through the open gateway.

Alic was instinctively bracing himself for the impact. The GH7 was closing fast now, bearing down on them with more inertia than a falling moon.

“Get ready to jump,” Alic said. He bent his legs, ready to use the strength of the suit’s electromuscle. It should be enough to power him clear, then if he sprinted…

“We stay,” Vic growled. “We’ll be through any second. I’m not going to let him get away from us now.”

“But—”

The weak rose-gold light emanating from the gateway was almost lost in the harsh blaze of the headlights behind them. Alic was mesmerized by the GH7 as it raced ever closer. Decision time was measurable in seconds. Less.

“Stay with it,” Vic pleaded.

Which was a personal choice, Alic knew, whereas he should be making cool operational assessments. Too late.

Another barrage of missiles hammered at the GH7 engine. Then they were through the force field, and Boongate’s planetary station was laid out in front of them under the gloaming of a twilight sun. Alic stared in consternation at what was waiting for them. “Jump,” he yelled frantically.

***

The GH7 vanished through the Boongate gateway.

“It got home,” Nigel exclaimed. He couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. “Right under our fucking noses. Son of a bitch!”

“Commander Hogan’s link has dropped out,” Oscar said. “They must be under attack on the other side.”

“No goddamn kidding.”

“Unisphere connection to Boongate has failed,” Nelson said. “It looks like the physical link was taken out just the other side of the zero-width wormhole.”

“Mr. Sheldon,” Bradley Johansson said, “we need to go after it.”

Nigel shot Justine a look, anxious for advice from someone who must surely understand all the factors. She just shrugged, her left hand held against her belly. He thought she was going to be sick; her cheeks were puffing out.

“We’ll put a team together,” Nigel said. It came out like an admission of defeat.

“Your pardon,” Bradley said. “We already have a team. And I have spent a hundred thirty years preparing for this eventuality. Let us go through.”

“I don’t even have control of the gateway right now.”

“My squad is getting entry into the gateway control center,” Nelson said. “Some resistance. Oh…they’re all dead, all the staff, he murdered them.”

Nigel closed his eyes, experiencing an anguish that was close to physical pain. One of his grid squares expanded into his virtual vision. He couldn’t recall summoning it. Links from the security squad showed him the carnage. “Oh, Christ.” It was Anshun all over again. “How many of these Judas bastards are there?” Four of the security squad were chasing someone in a force field suit, blowing flaming holes in the structure of the gateway administration building as they went. A grade one security alert was slowly closing off the building, force fields compartmentalizing it. Too little, too late, Nigel knew.

“We have to get back to Far Away,” Bradley Johansson said. “The Guardians can stop the Starflyer. This is our time, Mr. Sheldon; let us do what we have devoted our lives to achieving.”

Ion rifle fire and enhanced energy grenades were shredding the fourth floor of the administration building as the security squad closed in on Daniel Alster. Nigel took a breath, steeling himself. “What do you need?”

“We have a train here at Narrabri station loaded with our equipment. All we need to make it work is the data Kazimir was carrying. Senator Burnelli has it.”

“I do,” Justine confirmed. She held up a memory crystal, then grimaced against another burst of nausea.

“Once we have that,” Johansson continued, “we need passage through the wormhole to Boongate. Investigator Myo can guarantee that.”

“No,” Paula said. “I will not do that. I will not legitimatize Elvin’s criminal activities.”

“We need a guarantee if we are to expose ourselves,” Johansson said. “Surely you must see that?”

“I have no reason to lie,” Nigel said. “You can go through. No catch.” The RIs were breaking the fireshields, hacking a route back into the Boongate wormhole systems for him. It didn’t look as if Alster had inflicted any physical damage to the giant machine.

“Investigator, I am not asking you to legitimatize anything,” Bradley said. “I am asking you to help us overcome the mistrust that has assisted the Starflyer for a hundred thirty years. In addition, you will be able to witness its final demise.”

Nigel had never seen Paula look so uncertain before. There was even a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. He put the link to Johansson on hold. “You’ll have to go,” he told her gently. “Take Cat’s Claws with you; they’ll maintain your safety.”

“I arrested Morton,” she said indignantly.

“All right, some CST security operatives, then. But we need to get this moving.”

Wilson and Anna had been whispering together. “We’ll go,” Wilson said. “Someone from our group needs to confirm what happens on Far Away, if we ever reach it.”

“You two have no experience on dealing with unknown terrain,” Oscar said. “Besides, I’m a serving navy officer.”

“Enough.” Nigel held his hand up. “The three of you and Paula can go with Cat’s Claws. That’s it. Nelson, get them suited up, the best armor we have.” He brought Johansson back on-line. “Bradley, we’re sending a team out to you, including Investigator Myo; they’ll accompany you to Far Away.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sheldon.”

“I also will accompany Mr. Johansson,” Qatux announced.

Tiger Pansy’s giggle was loud in the auditorium. “I guess that means I get to go, too, huh?”

“If you would be so kind,” Qatux said. “I do not believe anything you can experience in the Commonwealth will be as rich with emotional content as this chase.”

“Sure. Okay,” Tiger Pansy said. “It’ll be a laugh.”

“Qatux, you can’t go,” Nigel said.

“Why not?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“That is for me to judge. I am an individual.”

“But we need you here,” Hoshe said.

“I will return to assist you in investigating Starflyer agents. I expect I will be of more use on Far Away in the immediate future; there are likely to be more Starflyer agents there.”

“Oh, why the hell not.” Nigel grunted with ill grace. “Anyone else?” He stared at Mellanie, who responded by looking up to study the ceiling.

“Could I ask you to hurry, please,” Bradley Johansson said. “We’re running out of time.”

There wasn’t much government left on Boongate by the time MorningLightMountain sent its ships and flare bombs into the star system. The population, too, was much reduced; people had been leaving ever since the Lost23 were invaded. For the rich it was easy: they could afford to switch home without too much trouble; the middle classes, well informed or with a young family, took the loss as the price for safety; for single people it was even easier to pack up and leave. Local government, assisted by the Commonwealth Senate, did their best to discourage the exodus. The navy strengthened the planet’s defenses, including the force fields that shielded cities and the larger towns. Recently a starship had been assigned to the system for patrol duties, complementing the orbital platforms. The displacement continued more or less as before.

So many police had left that Boongate’s First Minister was forced to ask CST for additional security staff to help with crowd control around the planetary station. Sure enough, Nigel sent them in from Wessex, though it was in their contract that they returned to that base between shifts. Without that concession they wouldn’t have taken the duty.

As more and more people drifted away from the countryside and villages, leaving for the far side of the Commonwealth, so the rural police were withdrawn to the towns. Eventually, they were brought back to the cities, and just patrolled the towns. Intermittently.

Best estimates were that thirty-seven million people had so far abandoned their world. That still left over ninety million living there in various levels of trepidation. When the flare bombs and quantumbusters detonated in the star there was no real mechanism left for counting how many people made it to safety under the force fields. The frenzied particle storms that swept around the planet disrupted power supplies and communications. Everyone who heard the warning did their best to make it to safety, cowering in cellars or behind thick walls, heading underground, driving into tunnels; a lucky few had caves nearby. Once the borealis blizzards had diminished, the agitated atmosphere hit the survivors with gales and hurricanes. People struggled on to the nearest population center with a force field.

The War Cabinet had given planetary governments of the Second47 half an hour’s advance warning before they made their public announcement. Boongate’s First Minister and the remaining members of the cabinet were left with the near impossible task of getting the survivors to the capital inside the one-week deadline for evacuation. Anyone with a car started to drive. Buses were commandeered. Train schedules were drawn up, utilizing both passenger carriages and cargo wagons.

The CST planetary station force field, which had powered up when the invasion began, remained on. With everyone left on the planet slowly congregating underneath the capital’s force field the government needed to keep the station clear to prevent a stampede. Within hours, the new deluge of refugees had ringed the entire station. Their numbers expanded constantly, without order. It was soon impossible for food, or police, or medical personnel to reach the innermost migrants pressed up against the force field. All anyone could do was wait for Nigel Sheldon to make good on his promise. The cabinet knew that as soon as the gateway was opened to the future, and the station force field turned off, there would be a panicked race for the gateway, with injuries reaching horrific numbers. Medical contingency plans were drawn up with little prospect of ever being implemented.

In the meantime, those who were inside the station boundary when the force field came on rejoiced in their amazing good fortune, and settled down for the kind of relaxed wait impossible outside. It lasted right up to the moment when the gateway to Wessex opened without any warning.

The battered old track maintenance division carriage burst through the opening. Its frame was shaking violently as its motors strained away at torque levels they were never designed for.

A host of vehicles was waiting on either side of the track. Big four-by-fours and covered vans, all of them equipped with bulky mounted weapons now openly deployed. There was a long moment broken only by the metallic screeching of steel wheels and bearings that were being pushed far beyond their safety margins. Armor-suited figures leaped through the carriage’s shattered windows as the vehicles fired lasers, kinetics, and ion bolts into the bodywork. The flimsy metal panels crumpled and vaporized, yet still the tormented chassis held together. It was nothing more than a fireball on wheels now, plummeting forward.

The giant GH7 engine raced through the gateway, its five big cargo wagons intact. All the vehicles stopped firing. Two seconds later, the GH7 slammed into the burning wreckage. What was left of the carriage simply disintegrated, its remnants forming a short-lived halo of flame around the front of the GH7.

Scraps of scorched twisted metal pattered down around Alic. His passive sensors showed him their blackened shapes bouncing across the stony ground. When he shifted the focus, he saw the GH7 slowing to a more reasonable speed now its mad dash for the gateway was successfully concluded. It was already half a kilometer away. The parked vehicles started up, and drove off after it, providing a tight escort on either side. They rocked violently as they cut across tracks and drainage ditches, always maintaining their position in the line.

The two vehicles bringing up the rear of the little convoy opened fire with magnetic Gatling cannons, strafing the area where the armor suits had landed. Instinct made Alic clasp his arms over his head as the ground erupted into clouds of stone chips around him. A couple of the projectiles struck his armor, punching him sideways, but the force field held. Their impact was like taking a kick in the ribs.

“Son of a bitch,” Jim groaned. “I got hit on the helmet.”

“You okay?” Matthew asked.

“Hangover like an eight-day stag weekend.”

“Boss, you want us to hit the vehicles?” Vic asked. “I can target at least eight with missiles.”

“No. They’re not important. The Starflyer’s all that matters now.” He saw a red square flashing in his communications grid. “Damnit. We’ve lost the unisphere, all I can hook into is the planetary cybersphere. I can’t tell Oscar what’s happened.”

“They’ll be here soon enough,” Jim said.

Alic climbed to his feet. That was when he noticed that John King’s telemetry grid was black. “Oh, shit. Anyone see John? Did he make it out?”

“I got him,” Vic said. “Some of him. The kinetics got through; he must have taken a real pounding. Damn, they made a mess. Chewed him up bad.”

“Crap.” Alic wanted to hit something. Hard. “Can you see his helmet? Did his skull get damaged?”

“No, I think that’s okay; he’s in one piece from the shoulders up. More or less.”

“Okay, his memorycell’s intact. He can be re-lifed.”

“By who?” Jim cried. “This planet isn’t even going to be here by the end of the week.”

“Before we leave, we come back and recover the memorycell,” Alic said. “That goes for all of us. Last man standing has that duty. Agreed?”

“Yes, Boss.”

The other two grunted acknowledgment.

“All right.” Alic stared along the track where the GH7 had gone. The Far Away section force field was a gray-shaded bubble squatting over a cluster of diminutive buildings and warehouses six kilometers away. “We know where it’s going. Let’s get after it. Matthew, get Edmund on-line. It’s about time he earned his money and switched off that force field.”

“Just us four?” Jim asked.

Alic looked around at the gateway. It was still open. I could run through. We all could. It would be so easy. Technically the mission’s over. We’ve proved the Starflyer exists. “I don’t think we’ll be alone for long.”

His visual sensors picked up something moving a kilometer away across the station yard, heading toward them. A laser radar sweep showed him a bike, moving fast as it jumped rail tracks, heading for the wormhole. It picked up a couple of other moving objects behind the bike, possibly small cars. “Let’s move,” he said. “We’ll get run over if we stay here much longer.”

***

Adam eased the Ables ND47 out of the shed and applied the brakes. Narrabri traffic control logged them onto the system, and assigned them a transit code. He had to smile at the file name: Guardian 0001A.

Now we’re The Man.

“Here they come,” Bradley said.

Adam opened the cab door, looked out. A medium-sized truck and a fifteen-seater bus were racing along the service road to the shed.

“Everyone okay down there?” he asked the team crammed into the armored vehicles. The three squad leaders, Kieran, Rosamund, and Jamas, all replied yes. He thought they were all wound too tight. Even for a Guardian, committed since birth, it was quite something to finally know the Starflyer had passed just a few kilometers away. As for him…

I don’t have to take it on faith anymore. It was an astonishing release, almost spiritual. The Starflyer was real, the Guardians were mainstream, and there was a noble cause to be fought. In the middle of a war for species survival with millions already dead he actually felt good.

The bus and truck pulled up beside the two closed wagons behind the Ables ND47. Bradley had already opened the broad side doors, and was extending the ramps. He’d said Sheldon was sending something large. Adam assumed that would be some kind of combat aerobots.

Armor-suited figures were hurrying out of the bus. The back of the truck rolled up, and a thick ramp slid out.

“Fuck me,” Adam muttered.

A Raiel lumbered down out of the truck, its bulky body undulating in long wave motions. It was followed by a woman with wild red hair, who was dressed in a black blouse and short skirt colored almost the same shade as her hair. She’d squeezed a force field skeleton suit on top of her clothes. Even that couldn’t quite account for her inelegant movements. Then Adam realized she was in heels.

Five Guardians spilled out of the armored vehicles to greet the newcomers. Mostly they clustered around the Raiel.

A man in a sharp expensive business suit stepped out of the bus. Adam recognized Nelson Sheldon immediately. His presence sent a little shiver along Adam’s spine as he watched Bradley take his suit helmet off and walk over to shake hands with the security chief. Historic moment. A figure in an armor suit standing beside Nelson handed Bradley a small plastic case, the type used to carry memory crystals.

Her! Adam shivered again inside his armor suit.

As if she could sense his thoughts, Paula Myo turned and tipped her blank helmet up so that she was staring right at him. Even with all his suit’s passive and active layers of protection, Adam felt terribly vulnerable.

“All right,” Bradley announced, “let’s get this show on the road.”

The Raiel started up a ramp into the rear cargo wagon. Bradley had obviously decided it could ride in one of their armored Volvo trucks.

Paula Myo stayed outside, looking up at the cab on top of the Ables ND47. Adam’s e-butler told him she was calling him on a secure local channel. He opened the communications link.

“Mr. Elvin,” Paula Myo said.

“Investigator. Thank you for agreeing to help us.” Total bullshit, of course; he wasn’t pleased. He didn’t want her within a hundred light-years of this train, nor him.

“Just so we understand each other,” Paula said. “When the Starflyer threat is over, I will be arresting you for the Abadan atrocity. Johansson has committed many criminal acts, but they were politically motivated, for which I expect he will be given a pardon. High-level discussions are under way on that subject. You, on the other hand, will not receive a pardon. That has already been decided. Your continued assistance in exterminating the Starflyer might help mitigate your sentencing with the judge, nothing more.”

Adam canceled the link, and gave her the finger. It wasn’t a gesture that came over well in an armor suit.

Paula walked up the ramp into the first covered wagon.

Adam slammed the cabin door shut. He was shaking inside the suit. Even his virtual hands seemed to be trembling when he began manipulating the engine’s systems, preparing the defense hardware for whatever was waiting on the other side of the wormhole.

Pre-combat nerves, that’s all. Not her. She doesn’t scare me. Not anymore. No way.

“Well, they didn’t start shooting at each other,” Nelson said. “That’s something.”

“Not yet,” Nigel told him. He was relaxing in a seat at the back of the converted lecture theater, as good a place as anywhere to see the remainder of this mission through. His expanded mentality now had complete control over the Boongate gateway. CST communications technicians were looking into reestablishing Boongate’s connection to the unisphere. Someone had bombed the primary connection node, and the backup, and the fallback interlink. Emergency laser relays working through the main gateway were now in operation, allowing a remote survey of the damage. Permanent reconnection would mean keeping the main gateway open while technicians went through to do the work. With less than a week left before the evacuation was due to begin, Nigel didn’t favor that option. Besides, the main gateway would soon have to be reduced to zero width to permit final realignment on the generator itself so it could be formatted for temporal transit.

One piece of data that was coming through clear and strong was the images of the rush toward the gateway on the Boongate side. It had only been opened twenty minutes, and already over a hundred vehicles had powered through, from bikes, to cars, buses with tires that had burst on the rough journey over tracks, even a tow truck; so far five guys had cycled through. Sensors on the other side showed a lot of people jogging toward the open wormhole, making good time, too, considering the terminal was five kilometers distant.

A section of his grid expanded into his virtual vision, showing him the Guardians’ train starting its journey across Narrabri station.

“They’ll be through in two minutes,” he told Justine, who was sitting next to him, chewing on a peppermint settler tab.

“Will you shut the gateway after that?”

“Completely. I’m recoding the management routines so that I’m the only person who can activate it. When that’s done I’m going to start firing half of my security operation. This was a total fucking catastrophe.”

“No more than the rest of this war,” she said equitably. “Who knows when the subversion software was loaded in? It could have been sitting in the arrays for decades waiting for today. The Starflyer really thinks and plans ahead. I just hope Bradley Johansson’s counterstrike is up to the task.”

“At least he has a plan,” Nigel said wearily. “I suppose I’d better send a starship to Far Away to provide backup. Oh, hell…”

“What now?” Justine asked.

“According to Johansson, the Starflyer’s going to take off and fly back to Dyson Beta, or somewhere it can link up with its own type.”

“Yes.”

“But it didn’t know we could build FTL starships when it started this conspiracy. We can catch the Marie Celeste at any time in the next six hundred years if it goes back to Dyson Beta at sublight speed.”

“Ah, you’re thinking it modified the Marie Celeste for FTL.”

“At least. I’m just hoping Alster didn’t give it the details of our new hyperdrive. We really would be up shit creek. No.” He shook his head. “We only just built the prototype drive ourselves two weeks ago, and there’s been no transport to Far Away for longer than that. If the Marie Celeste is FTL now, it’ll be using our original continuous wormhole generator.”

Mellanie and Hoshe entered the auditorium; they’d both been to see off Wilson’s team, staying with them while they suited up and caught their transport out to the Guardians’ train.

“Are you angry with me?” Mellanie asked Nigel.

“For what?”

“I was being a bit of a brat when I asked you to open the wormhole.”

“I just wish you’d asked earlier; we might have caught the Starflyer with its pants down.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a demure kiss. Both of them automatically looked over at where Dudley and the Bose motile were standing. Dudley was emphatically not looking in their direction. “Will you open it to get them back?” Mellanie asked.

“Not the main wormhole, no, it’s being converted to time travel, remember. If Wilson and Cat’s Claws do come back from Far Away, we can probably use the exploration division wormhole to retrieve them. I haven’t really thought any of this through. There’s also the question of the Commonwealth’s connection to Far Away as well. Which is going to be difficult and very expensive to renew, especially if the Commonwealth is paying for forty-seven new worlds at the same time. We might just reduce the connection to starship flights, or leave them as an Isolated world.”

“They wouldn’t care,” Mellanie said. “Morton could build himself his empire there. It’s that kind of planet.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go with them.”

“Really? It’s simple enough. I don’t have a death wish.”

Nigel grinned. “How’s Paula?” he asked Hoshe.

“Not happy. I really don’t think it was a good idea forcing her to go.”

“She’ll survive.” His virtual vision showed him the Guardians’ Ables ND47 turning onto the Boongate line. Cars and small vans were popping through the gateway, where CST security was busy rounding them up. Sensors showed him a force field strengthening around the train. He opened a link to Wilson. “Good luck. I’m going to send a starship to Far Away to support you. It should be there in a week or so.”

“Thanks,” Wilson said. “See you when we get back.”

“Boldly they rode and well,” Adam muttered as the engine lined up on the Boongate gateway. A four-by-four Toyota pickup sped out of the glowing haze that capped the entrance. A CST security division helicopter buzzed over it. “Into the jaws of death.” His virtual hand twisted the power feed, and they began to pick up speed. The force field extended, sweeping out across the rails ahead. “Into the mouth of hell.” Now they didn’t need to be stealthy, he deployed the weapons from their disguised casings. The gold glow from the gateway shone in through the cab windows. Adam smiled in welcome at the placid light; this far above the ground, isolated, running smooth, it was as though he were gliding into the sunset. “Rode the six hundred.”

The Ables ND47 went through the gateway at close to a hundred kilometers an hour. The gold haze tore away from the front of the engine revealing the twilit landscape of the station yard. A big Audi Luxnat ten-seater was trying to turn onto the track. The train smacked into it, shredding the bodywork to splinters of carbon. Adam winced in guilt. Hope the Investigator didn’t see that.

Dozens of other vehicles were jouncing their way across the multiple tracks, converging on the gateway. Cameras showed him exhausted runners flinging themselves down as the train hurtled past. He took in all the peripheral scenes with a swift sweep through his virtual vision display grid, concentrating on the tracks ahead. Radar showed them intact. The force field over the Far Away section was an impenetrable bubble.

“We’re closing the wormhole now,” Nigel Sheldon said.

“Thanks for nothing,” Adam retorted gleefully as the signal faded. Sensors were showing him some kind of firefight up ahead. His virtual hand throttled back on the power, and began applying the brakes. The cab’s array connected with the local traffic control. Adam used the authority codes he’d been given to open a route directly to the Far Away section. It was a superfluous order; the points were still open. The Ables ND47 rolled onward, using the same route the Starflyer had taken not thirty minutes before.

Adam concentrated on the firefight. Over twenty vehicles were clustered together outside the force field, guarding the point where the tracks led into the Far Away section. His sensors showed him weapons fire emerging from fast-moving locations. Whoever was launching them must be stealthed, the sensors couldn’t lock on to them.

“This has to be the navy team,” he said.

“We agree,” Wilson said. “One moment, I’ll try to contact them.”

“Got another one,” Vic claimed as the ground close by sizzled from a burst of maser energy.

Alic was jammed into a shallow drainage ditch beside Vic. Jim and Matthew were fifty meters away, using a raised roadway for cover.

The vehicles that had escorted the Starflyer’s train were spread out ahead of them, making sure no one got close to the big dome of energy that protected the station’s Far Away section. They’d encountered vigorous resistance from a kilometer out. It’d taken time to creep forward. Vic’s missiles had disposed of eight, but Alic didn’t want him to waste any more. They’d need serious firepower if they ever caught up with the Starflyer.

A particle lance swung up and over his shoulder, and he raised himself up so its sensors could lock on to the closest four-by-four. He fired, and the vehicle exploded in a spectacularly violent fireball. The blast wave slammed overhead, sending a rain of small stones rattling down on Alic and Vic.

“Good shooting, Boss,” Vic said.

Masers and a burst from a magnetic gatling cannon pounded the ditch. Alic and Vic started to crawl along through the trickle of dirty water in the bottom.

“Edmund, any progress?” Alic asked.

“No, man, sorry. All I can see is about ten cars and such ringing the gateway to Half Way. There’s been no change since the train went through. They’re just waiting for anyone to try and take them on.”

Alic wanted to give the man a swift kick up the ass. Even before they’d left for Wessex, the Paris tactical crew had come up with half a dozen safe routes he could take to the force field generator. Edmund Li had also been given powerful software to subvert Tarlo’s routines. Technical had shown him which generator components to shoot with his ion pistol. There was nothing stopping him from making the run. Nothing.

“Edmund, you’ve got to kill that generator.” Another fusillade from an enhanced energy area denial cluster made him fling himself down. Blue flame sealed off the top of the ditch. Steaming water gurgled around his armor. “We can’t get you out.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do it, I’m safe here.”

A repetitive drumming sounded through the roar of retreating flame. Jim was firing his rotary launcher. The air was split by a whistling shriek as hypervelocity kinetics zipped overhead. A moment’s pause, and another of the bad guy vehicles was reduced to flaming scrap metal.

“You can’t stay there,” Alic said; he was near to pleading now. “Tarlo will keep the force field on permanently. He doesn’t want any attempt to follow the Starflyer. That means you won’t be able to join the exodus. This planet will be abandoned. You’ll die in there, Edmund. Nobody will ever find your memorycell for re-life.”

“Oh, Christ, I don’t want this.”

Alic resumed crawling forward. “None of us asked for this war. Your part won’t take more than five minutes. Get to that generator, let us in. We’ll take care of Tarlo and the escort vehicles.”

“I’ll see if I can get there.”

“That’s fine, Edmund. Go for it, now, eh?” Alic accessed two of Matthew’s sneekbots as they scuttled over the hostile landscape, trying to triangulate on another vehicle.

“Which one is launching those bloody area denial clusters?” Vic asked.

“Not sure,” Matthew said. “They took out five sneekbots last time.”

Alic’s e-butler told him it was picking up a localized secure call from Paula Myo. “Localized?” he queried.

“Yes.”

“Thank Christ, put her through.”

“Commander, is that you engaging the vehicles outside the force field?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, stand by, we’ll take them out for you. We need you a minimum one hundred meters away from them.”

“We are. What have you got?”

“The Guardians tell me they have zone killers.”

“Guardians? You’re with the Guardians?” He didn’t know why he was surprised; the universe wasn’t operating logically today.

“I am. We’re in pursuit of the Starflyer. Stay down.”

“Trust me, I’m down a long way.” He and Vic were clinging to the bottom of the ditch. He strengthened his force field to maximum.

“Do you still have a contact inside the Far Away section?” Paula asked.

“Yeah. He’s proving reluctant to shut off the force field generator.”

“Why? We need the force field down.”

“He knows. I think he’s finally doing something about it.”

“Good. Heads down, here it comes.”

The sneekbots showed Alic something like a man-sized jet-propelled moth descending on the cluster of vehicles. There was a dazzling green flash, and every sneekbot signal vanished. Vivid green light flowed into the bottom of the ditch like a pervasive liquid. Then the ground thumped Alic upward as if he’d been caught in an earthquake. A prolonged thunderclap howl reverberated across the land. Alic could feel it through the suit’s insulation.

“Clear,” Paula said.

Alic slowly clambered up out of the ditch. Each of the remaining escort vehicles was lost inside a thick swirl of flame. He watched a big Ables ND47 approaching down the same track the Starflyer’s train had used. It was braking hard, with sparks zipping out from the huge wheels.

“Now that’s what I call making an entrance,” Vic said.

The Ables ND47 came to a halt. A small door opened in the side of the first wagon.

“Get in, please,” Paula said.

Alic and his arrest team sprinted across the blackened land. He noticed the zone killer had left the rails intact. Up on the front of the engine, a couple of dark cylinders twice the size of his armor suit were extending ponderously from the bodywork on malmetal stalks. He didn’t recognize the type of weapon, but he knew he didn’t want to be close by when they went off.

There were several bright flashes from above the engine’s chrome intake grille, accompanied by a crack. Something like a black nebula swirled across the gap between train and force field. A broad arc on the force field’s surface started to glow a gentle copper; static flames thrashed about close to the ground, raising a pack of small dense dust devils.

Alic jumped up into the dark wagon. Outside, there was a terrific boom as the weapons fired.

Edmund hit the outside door running. Behind him, the administration block’s network was crashing from the disruptor software he’d loaded in. The sensors couldn’t see him; but Tarlo would know for sure someone was inside the force field. Someone who was trying to sabotage the Starflyer’s return. It didn’t take a tactical genius to work out what the next stage had to be.

The building housing the force field generator was an elongated geodesic hall of pearl-gray composite. He could see it protruding over a warehouse on the other side of the parking lot. Once he was there, this nightmare would be over.

His parked Honda came to life as soon as he loaded in the drive orders. It accelerated hard, wheels spinning on the damp concrete, and headed out toward the main road. As a distraction it should gain him a few seconds—so the Paris tactical experts claimed. Edmund sprinted in the opposite direction; if he could just make it to the cover of the warehouse he should be okay.

The turbid gray sky above the parking lot flared brilliant white. A terrifyingly loud screech echoed around the inside of the force field. Edmund lost his footing and went sprawling painfully on the concrete. He gawped up at the force field, where scarlet lightning was now scrabbling furiously against it. The vivid streamers slithered up into the air to strike the bottom of the station force field.

White light blazed again, and the horrendous noise ripped across the Far Away section. This time he understood: someone was shooting at the force field with incredibly powerful weapons, trying to break through. He made himself get up. Blood was soaking into his shirt sleeve where he’d landed on his elbow. Wincing at the pain, and cowering as another energy blast struck the force field, he ran for the warehouse.

By the time he made it around the corner he was breathing heavily. The geodesic hall was only a hundred eighty meters away now. He dashed for it as fast as he could, ignoring the awesome burns of light overhead as they alternated between dazzling white and lurid crimson. The punishing noise trapped under the force field was just about constant. His ears were ringing badly.

He was short of breath and unsteady on his feet when he finally arrived at the door to the geodesic hall. It was open, which he didn’t expect. He took a quick glance inside. Nothing was moving. Edmund pulled down a ragged breath and went in.

The generator was a large cluster of metal and plastic shapes laid out along the floor, as big as a house. White and red light took turns to fluoresce the composite arching overhead. The stentorian roaring was muted inside. He identified the power injection points, and put his hand down to his holster.

“Shit!” The shock stabbed through him as his fingers closed on empty leather. There was no pistol; it must have dropped out when he fell. “Oh, fuck. Fuck!” He stared helplessly at the bulky generator. He had no idea where the control console was—that’s if there even was a control console. His head twisted from side to side, searching for something he could use to smash a section of casing. That would be as much use as screaming at it to switch off, he decided. There was nothing else for it; he’d have to go back for the ion pistol.

The interior of the hall flared with blue-white light. An ion pulse ripped through the air, and struck the generator casing. A dazzling purple discharge seethed down the dark metallic composite, partially obscured by a fountain of smoldering plastic droplets.

A second ion pulse hit a power injector, exactly where the Paris experts had told Edmund to aim. It was suddenly very quiet. The alternating red and white light outside had stopped.

Very slowly, Edmund Li turned around to face the person who was shooting, knowing what he’d see. Tarlo was standing to one side of the open door, his arm outstretched, holding an ion pistol.

“Why?” Edmund asked.

Tarlo simply smiled as he swung the pistol around to point at Edmund Li’s head. He fired again.

Adam was sweating inside his armor. He’d calculated the firepower of the atom lasers himself. It should have been enough to break the force field, especially with the dump-web stressing it. Instead he was watching the awesome energy blasts ricochet dangerously.

The force field vanished. “Dreaming heavens,” Adam grunted. “Your inside man did it.”

“What do you know,” Alic said. “Edmund came through.”

Adam moved the Ables ND47 forward cautiously. Radar scanned ahead, showing him the tracks were broken less than a kilometer in front of them. “We’re not going to get much farther in this,” he told the teams back in the wagons. The sensors showed him the phalanx of vehicles around the gateway that led to Half Way. He launched another zone killer. The triangular shape streaked away from its launcher on top of the engine, curving in a short ballistic arc. It detonated in a cascade of green scintillations that sank toward the ground in a display of perverse splendor. Harsh orange fireballs spoiled the beauty as the vehicles and their munitions exploded.

The train braked again, grinding over the last few meters of track before coming to a halt in front of the shallow blast crater that had destroyed the rails. “End of the line,” Adam said. He unlocked the wagons.

“I’m staying here,” Vic announced as Kieran gunned the armored car down the ramp.

There were eight of them crammed inside, Vic, Alic, Wilson, Anna, Bradley Johansson, Jamas, Ayub, and Kieran up in the driver’s seat. All of them wore armor suits of various marques, though externally there was little difference: stone black figures that outlined a rough human shape. Additional weapons packs distorted their basic humanity.

“I understand,” Bradley said

“No you don’t. He’s still here.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I can feel it. Getting in was too easy. Tarlo’s a smart bastard. He doesn’t play a straight game.”

“Then you should stay inside this armored car,” Bradley said. “It is extremely well protected.”

“No. I’ll find him out there. Hey, I’ll be covering your ass. He’ll have something planned for you.”

“My team has planned for most eventualities.”

Vic stood up. “But not all of them.”

“As you wish,” Bradley said.

The side door slid open. It was dim outside, the air layered with smoke from the ruined vehicles.

“You coming, Boss?” Vic asked.

“We know the Starflyer’s real,” Alic said. “It’s just on the other side of that gateway. That’s my priority. Jim, Matthew, if you want to go with Vic, that’s fine by me.”

“I’ll stick with you, Boss,” Jim said.

“Sorry, Vic,” Matthew said, “but this is bigger.”

“That’s okay.” The big man stooped to get through the door. “I want this for myself. And Gwyneth.”

“Good luck,” Alic said.

Adam climbed down the ladder on the side of the engine, thankful for the suit’s electromuscle. It was a long way to the ground, and he was getting tired after days of high-pressure preparation. Three armored cars were waiting beside the broken track for him, blunt olive-green ovals with a smooth skin of passive deflector panels riding on ten independent mesh-flex wheels. They were in a triangular formation around three Volvo trucks. The Volvos were based on the twenty-wheel GH chassis, developed for rough terrain on developing worlds. They’d been customized with a cruder version of deflector paneling than the armored cars, then beefed up with extensive electronic countermeasures, turning them into squat brutes a dull gray-blue in color. With their diesel tanks full they should have the range to dive from Armstrong City to the Dessault Mountains, where the components they were carrying were desperately needed for the planet’s revenge.

As Adam made his way over to the armored car taking point duty he saw Vic walking away, and shook his head in regret. They could have done with a genuine professional. Personal feelings were always bad news in combat situations.

The armored car’s side door slid open, and he climbed in. There was one seat left, opposite Paula Myo. Oh, crap.

“Do you want to drive, sir?” Rosamund asked.

“No, that’s okay. Just remember what I taught you.”

“If she does that, she’ll probably wind up in suspension, just like you’re going to,” Paula said.

“We’re not in that courtroom yet, Investigator. We both have to live through the next couple of days first, and personally I don’t give us particularly high odds.”

“You want us to kill her for you, sir?” Rosamund asked. She sounded very hostile.

“Oh, dreaming heavens, no. Let’s just all stay civilized, shall we? All of you, leave the Investigator and me to work out our own little problem by ourselves.”

“Okay. But you just have to say the word.” Rosamund fed power to the engines, and the armored car rolled forward.

“You should watch your mouth,” Adam told Paula. “Remember this is my home ground.”

“To the best of my knowledge you’ve never been to Far Away.”

“No, but these are my people.”

“I don’t think so. You’re a black market arms dealer who gave them some training. Do they know how many innocent people you slaughtered before Johansson sheltered you?”

“You two,” Bradley said, “knock it off. We have a different war to fight today.”

Adam bit back on his next comment. He was sure the Investigator was smiling inside her helmet. His virtual hands pulled sensor images from all the armored cars out of his mission display grid. They were heading across the last few hundred meters of ground in front of the small gateway. It shone a pallid coral-pink in front of them.

“It’s open,” Rosamund said.

“Pay attention to the weapons,” Adam told her. There were over twenty maser cannons covering the gateway, the first line of defense in any alien invasion. Ironic, Adam thought, ultimately they wound up facing the wrong way. The X-ray lasers on the armored cars began firing, targeting the cannon.

Adam switched his attention to the person next to Myo. He was wearing absolute state-of-the-art armor, which Adam envied; despite his every effort and contact in the black market he hadn’t been able to get his hands on the suit that the navy had used to equip all its Lost23 insurgents. “Hello, Rob,” Adam said. “Good to be working with you again.”

“For you, maybe,” Rob retorted. “I didn’t even know it was you last time, and I wound up with a two-hundred-year life suspension.”

“We almost made it though, didn’t we? Almost stopped the Second Chance. If we had, we wouldn’t be here today.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

“Just pointing out how things go full circle.”

“Elvin, you took no part in the Second Chance assault,” Paula said.

“I planned it, I organized it. The damn thing would have worked if the SI hadn’t thrown in on your side.”

“Look,” Rob said. “I didn’t know I was working for you. And the only reason I took the job was because I owed some very bad people a lot of money. Okay? We’re not comrades, we’re not buddies; that’s it, period.”

“Were you recruited through an agent?” Paula asked.

“It’s in my file,” Rob said. “I cooperated fully with the police. Much good it did me.”

“Give it a rest,” Adam snapped at her. “We’re about to face the Starflyer itself.”

“I ask, because Vic may be right. This is very easy. Why has the Starflyer left the gateway open to Half Way?”

“You think it’s going to ambush us? We’re ready for that. This is what I do, plan combat scenarios. I know you don’t like the idea, but have some faith in me, Investigator; you wouldn’t be chasing me unless I was good.” Even as he said it, he checked his virtual vision grid. The maser cannons were being taken out one at a time, slumping over to the ground as their mountings turned sluggish. They were only a hundred meters from the gateway now, bumping along the single track that led to Half Way. It was discomfortingly easy, he had to admit.

“Remember Valtare Rigin?” Paula asked.

Better than you realize. Adam still got chilly when he thought how close they’d been that day on Venice Coast, and she’d never seen him. “Owner of the Nystol gallery on Venice Coast, the one Bruce targeted.”

“Yes. We didn’t release the information at the time, obviously, but our forensic team found that Rigin’s memorycell had been removed postmortem.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Tarlo took the head of the Agent on Illuminatus, complete with memorycell. Do you understand, Elvin? The Starflyer is building up a very intimate database on your activities. Now I don’t know how many more of your contacts it has captured and subjected to download. But it knows who you use, who you want, what equipment you’re buying. Tell me this: if it has all that, is there any way it can deduce what you’re doing today, now?”

Adam hated the question. He knew what he would like to answer, no, no way, but the stakes were too high for that kind of pride now. “I don’t know. I never tell the Agent what the operations are, especially last time. I just needed people with combat experience.”

“Let’s hope that’s not enough.”

“Wait a minute,” Rob said. “You mean that thing knows my name?”

“Yes,” Paula said.

“Oh, shit.”

“We’re ready,” Rosamund said.

The last maser cannon had been eliminated. They were right in front of the gateway to Half Way. Mild ruby light shone through the milky opaque pressure curtain force field. Nothing was visible through it.

“Send the drone through,” Adam said.

The little winged bot zipped through the force field. Its camera showed a landscape of naked rock beneath a dark fuchsia sky. A single set of rails ran from the gateway into the head of a deep valley, dipping down toward the calm sea.

“Nothing,” Rosamund reported. No electromagnetic activity, no thermal spots. They’re not there.

“Take us through,” Adam ordered. “And send the drone out over Shackleton; let’s see if there are any planes left.”

Vic watched the last Volvo truck disappear through the red pressure curtain. He’d jogged away from the Guardians as they knocked out the maser cannon; the big T-shaped weapons had keeled over to lie smoldering on the scorched ground amid the still-burning wrecks that the zone killer had taken out. It was like being back on Illuminatus, walking through the aftermath of Treetops.

He knew their easy passage was all wrong. The local network had crashed thanks to Edmund, but the hardened security links should have been resistant to the disruptor software. Tarlo would have retained fire control. If he’d wanted, he could have engaged the Guardians. The maser cannon were old, but they could have probably taken out a couple of the Volvos. It didn’t make a lot of sense, unless Tarlo wanted the Guardians to get through to Half Way. Why?

Vic reached the geodesic hall containing the force field generator. His sensors couldn’t detect any personal force fields or weapons power packs. There was an infrared source lying just inside the door, human-sized. He went in.

The corpse sprawled on the enzyme-bonded concrete only had half of its head left. An ion pulse had blown the face off and incinerated most of the rest. Vic was pretty sure it was Edmund Li. It certainly wasn’t Tarlo. Of course, there was no way of knowing just how many Starflyer agents there were left on this side of the gateway. He switched his suit sensors to active scan, and swept around the dark hall. The two shots that had disabled the generator were easy to detect, the casing was still hot where they’d hit. There was no sign of anyone else in there.

A huge explosion outside made Vic crouch down instinctively as his force field strengthened. As soon as he went back out through the door he saw a giant gout of flame and black oily smoke rising up from the long building that housed the Half Way wormhole generator. The gateway at the front of it was now nothing more than a concave semicircle packed with complex machinery. There was no red luminescence, no alien starlight diffused by the pressure curtain. Another explosion ripped out from the generator building, sending debris flying for hundreds of meters. Flames took hold inside, licking around the huge holes blown in the roof and walls.

Vic started jogging toward the dead gateway, heedless of the exposure. His sensors scanned around constantly, searching for any motion, any hint of human activity.

Someone was walking toward him, stepping unhurriedly over the burned earth in front of the gateway, making no attempt to conceal themself. Vic didn’t need confirmation, he knew who it would be, but his visual sensors zoomed in anyway.

He stopped ten meters short of Tarlo. The Starflyer agent wasn’t using any of his wetwiring, his inserts were inert, power cells switched to inactive mode. He simply stood there in a glossy suit of semiorganic fabric refracting a moiré shimmer; his blond hair swept back and held in place with a small black leather band.

“Vic, right?” he asked the hulking armor suit. “Gotta be Vic.”

Vic switched on the suit’s external audio circuit. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Cool. How’s Gwyneth?”

“Does it matter to you?”

“Part of me, man, yeah.”

“She’ll be okay. Why did you do it?”

Tarlo’s handsome face gave a sympathetic grin. “It’s what I had to do. Man, that Paula Myo, what a ball-buster. I always knew she’d be the one who blew me.”

“Who am I talking to?”

“Both of us, I guess. My part is over, so it doesn’t care anymore. It’s just waiting for you to kill me.”

“You failed, though. The Guardians got through.”

“The Guardians got through. I succeeded.”

“It was a trap.”

“What do you think?”

“I think I’ll take you back for a memory read.”

“Man, it’s too late for that; Qatux has gone through with the rest of them.”

“How did you know—” Vic’s suit sensors showed one of Tarlo’s inserts powering up. He fired his ion rifle, which blew Tarlo’s body in half.