He employed his biononics to adjust his wilder physiological parameters, calming his thoughts. Secondary routines came on line, expanding his mentality, allowing him to examine the situation properly. The only way to be of any genuine help to Lizzie and kids.
If the deterrence fleet couldn’t break out of the force field, it was extremely unlikely that the Navy could break in. That left the Accelerator Faction agents and scientists who’d built the Swarm, or – long shot – the Raiel at High Angel. The Navy and the President would no doubt be asking the High Angel as a matter of urgency, which left him with the prospect of tracking down an Accelerator agent who might know how to switch the damn thing off. And they would be extremely reluctant to tell him.
The starship settled on its pad. Passengers hurried off, leaking uncertainty out of their gaiamotes, contributing to the vast pall of unease which was contaminating the entire gaiafield. Some services at the spaceport had ground to a halt as the staff stopped everything to access the unisphere news.
A private starship had already arrived at the Sol force field, and was relaying images of the almighty prison wall erected across space. Commentators were dredging up the historical records of the Second Chance’s first contact with the Dyson Alpha barrier, and drawing unlikely parallels.
The Delivery Man stood in the airy glass and wood arrivals hall, part of a bewildered crowd of fellow travellers staring at the red solidos hanging above the wormhole terminus to Tampico. It was as if the shining symbols somehow made the situation a whole lot more real than the frantic unisphere broadcasts. They warned that the old Big15 world no longer had a connection to Earth. To add to the irony, the preset symbols advised making alternative journey arrangements.
‘Quite right,’ the Delivery Man muttered to himself. First off, he had to acquire some serious hardware and firepower if he was going to start snatching Accelerator agents. It was only logical. Which brought him up against his choices. The only Accelerator agent he knew who would definitely have the kind of information he needed was Marius. Moreover, Marius was now back on Fanallisto, where there was a cache of field support equipment that the Delivery Man had the codes for. ‘Holy crap,’ he hissed at the enormity of the decision.
His u-shadow accessed the spaceport’s network to grab flight times of starships going back to Fanallisto. Already, operators were starting to cancel flights as a precaution.
That was when his u-shadow reported the Conservative Faction was opening a secure link. ‘What?’ The people nearby gave him curious looks. The jolt of surprise had spilled out into the gaiafield, too. But there was no doubting the call’s authenticity, every certificate and code key was correct. He collected himself, and smiled blankly as he accepted the call. ‘Have you broken out through the force field?’ he asked.
‘Not exactly. This is a . . . portion of what you know as the Conservative Faction. Think of me as the executive.’
‘All right. So how can you communicate through the force field?’
‘I can’t. I’m outside it.’
‘But the faction is part of ANA.’
‘Could we just move past the definitions stage please. Take it as read, this is the Conservative Faction speaking.’
‘Is there any way to get through the barrier? I have to talk to my family.’
‘Forget it. The bastards were smart mapping out Dark Fortress technology. ANA and Earth are going to be sitting on the sidelines for the duration. It’s down to us now.’
The Delivery Man frowned. ‘Bastards?’ he mouthed. This wasn’t the way the Conservative Faction spoke. Secondary routines dug up the ‘sidelines’ crack; it was an old sporting reference. Very old. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Like I said: the executive. What? You think we’re all equal in ANA?’
‘Well . . . yes. Of course.’
‘Nice theory. Okay then, the executive is all nice and homogeneous and glowing in love from everyone else involved in the Faction. Happy now?’
‘But you can’t be in ANA.’
‘No. I’m taking a short sabbatical. Lucky for us. Now are you with me? Are you going to help stop Marius and Ilanthe?’
‘Just so you understand my position, I’m going to require proof of what you are before I do anything.’
‘Sonofabitch Highers, you’re all fucking bureaucrats at heart, aren’t you?’
‘What the hell are you?’
‘I’ll give you proof I’m what I claim, but you’ve got to come and collect it.’
‘Listen, my priority – actually my only concern – is taking down that barrier. Nothing else is relevant.’
‘Brilliant. And how do you propose to do that?’
‘Somewhere in the Commonwealth there will be an Accelerator with the knowledge. Once I track them down I will extract the information. I am prepared to use extreme methods.’
‘I think I misjudged you. That’s not a bad idea. I’m almost tempted.’
‘What do you mean misjudged?’
‘Face it, son, you don’t exactly have a double-O prefix, do you? You just deliver things for us, with a bit of low-level covert crap thrown in to bolster your ego.’
The Delivery Man’s u-shadow couldn’t find a reference to double-O, at least not one that made any sense. ‘I’ve gone up against Marius before,’ he bridled.
‘You had a cup of hot chocolate with him before. Come on, let’s get real here.’
‘Well what’s your proposal?’
‘First off, get back to Purlap spaceport and pick up the starship you dumped there. Trust me, the person it was intended for isn’t going to be using it now. And we’re going to need some decent hardware to pull this off.’
‘Pull what off?’ But he was obscurely heartened by the ‘executive’ knowing about the starship. It meant the thing was either genuine, or the entire Conservative Faction was a broken joke; and if it was the latter the Accelerators wouldn’t be toying with him like this. That wasn’t how they worked.
‘One stage at a time. Go get the starship.’
The Delivery man reviewed the spaceport’s network again. ‘The commercial lines are shutting down all their scheduled flights. And not just here by the look of it.’ His u-shadow was tracking data from across the Commonwealth. Nobody wanted to be flying when the Accelerators were out there unchecked by the Navy.
‘Boohoo,’ said the Conservative executive. ‘You just claimed you were prepared to use any method necessary.’
‘To get me back with my family.’
‘This will, like nothing else. Now think. Where are you?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’re in the middle of a spaceport with three hundred and seventeen starships currently on the ground around you, according to its official registry. Pick a good one, take it over, and get your ass back to Purlap. You’re a secret agent, remember? Earn your double-O status.’
‘Take it over?’ the Delivery Man repeated.
‘Good man. Call me when you get there. And don’t take too long. Marius was on Fanallisto for a reason; and given what’s just gone down, it must be a hell of a good one for him to be off centre stage. He’s near the top of their hierarchy.’
The call ended, leaving a new communication icon gleaming in the Delivery Man’s exovision. ‘Take it over,’ he said to himself. ‘Okay then.’
He started to walk back down the length of the arrival hall. His u-shadow extracted information from the registry, and produced a short list. There were some Navy ships, including a couple of scouts, which were almost tempting, but that would require a little too much bravado, and he didn’t want to have to bodyloss anyone. Especially not now, when the Navy was going to need ever asset it had. Instead he picked a private yacht called Lady Rasfay.
It was cool outside, with high cloud stretching across the early morning sky. Dew slicked the spaceport’s concrete roadways and the red-tinged grass analogue. It even deposited a layer of condensation on the taxi capsule which the Delivery Man took out to pad F37
, a couple of miles away from the main passenger terminal. He climbed out, shivering against the chill air. The Lady Rasfay was ten metres in front of him, a blue-white cone with an oval cross section, like some kind of ancient missile lying on its side. He never did get why so many people wanted their starships to look streamlined, as if they were capable of aerodynamic flight. But the owner, Duaro, was clearly one who favoured image.
The Delivery Man’s u-shadow had already performed a low-level infiltration of the ship’s network. Nobody was on board, and the primary systems were all in powerdown mode. A quick scan of the drive performance figures backed up what he’d guessed from the physical profile. Duaro had invested a lot of EMAs and time on the hyperdrive, which could now push the ship along at a fraction over fifteen lightyears an hour, as good as a hyperdrive could get.
His u-shadow put a civil spaceworthiness authority code into the ship’s network, and the airlock opened. A metal stair slid out. The Delivery Man walked up it, not bothering to scan round, an act which might betray him as a guilty party. That was the beauty of a Higher world, no one really thought in terms of theft, if you saw someone entering a starship you just assumed it was legitimate. Thanks to EMAs and replicator technology, material items were available to all; certainly a starship was hardly a possession of envy.
Not that Duaro was completely guileless. The network had several safeguards built in. After several milliseconds analysing them, the Delivery Man’s u-shadow presented him with eight options for circumventing the restrictions and gaining direct control over the smartcore.
Dim red lighting cast a strange glow along the narrow central companionway. The yacht had a simple layout, almost old-fashioned in nature, with the flight cabin at the front, a lounge behind that in the midsection, and two sleeping cabins aft. Once he was inside, the Delivery Man’s biononics performed a short-range field scan to find a suitable point where he could physically access the network’s nodes. That was the same time he heard passionate groaning from the portside sleeping cabin.
The door flowed aside silently. Inside, the sleeping cabin’s decor was ancient teak, carved to cover every curve and angle of the bulkhead walls, and lovingly polished. Two figures were in flagrante on the narrow cot.
‘Duaro, I presume?’ the Delivery Man said loudly.
The man squirmed about in alarm. The woman squealed, and scrabbled frantically at the silk sheets to cover herself. She was exceptionally beautiful, the Delivery Man acknowledged, with a mane of flame-red hair and a face covered in freckles. She was also very young; a first-life if the Delivery Man was any judge.
‘Did Mirain send you?’ Duaro asked urgently. ‘Look, we can conclude this in a civilized fashion.’
‘Mirain?’ the Delivery Man mused out loud. His u-shadow ran a fast cross-reference on Duaro’s profile. ‘You mean your wife, Mirain?’
The woman on the bed cringed, giving Duaro a sulky glance.
‘I can’t believe she went to this much trouble,’ Duaro groused. ‘This is just a harmless little fling.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ the woman snapped.
‘Sneaking on board and keeping the lights off and the smart-core dumb,’ the Delivery Man mused. ‘Doesn’t appear that harmless.’
‘Look, let’s be reasonable about this . . .’
The Delivery Man gave a huge smile at the magnificent, timeless cliché. ‘Yes, let’s. Shall I tell you what I want?’
‘Of course.’ Duaro said with an air of cautious relief.
‘The yacht’s smartcore access codes.’
‘What?’
‘Non-negotiable,’ the Delivery Man said, and powered up several weapons enrichments.
*
Paula Myo couldn’t remember being so shocked before, not ever. The emotional trauma had become physical in nature, with her heart racing and her hands trembling as if she was some kind of natural human. She had to sit down hard on the Alexis Denken’s cabin floor before her legs gave way. The only thing her exovision revealed was a vast blank plain, which was what the Capital-class ship Kabul was seeing as it scanned the outside of the Sol barrier. Her link came directly from Pentagon II on a secure channel, which her status entitled her to. But there was nothing she could do, no help she could offer. She was a simple passive observer of the greatest disaster to befall the Commonwealth since the barrier around Dyson Alpha came down. That memory stirred a possibility.
‘Do you have the spatial coordinates of the Swarm components when they materialized?’ she asked Admiral Juliaca, who was Kazimir’s deputy, and now de facto commander of the Commonwealth Navy. ‘The original Dark Fortress had an opening on the outside, which is how it was turned off.’
‘Nice try,’ Juliaca said. ‘That was the first thing the Kabul attempted. There is no bulge in the Sol barrier as far as we can detect, and I’ve got eleven ships out there searching now, as well as several civilian craft. It’s perfectly smooth, certainly in the areas around the Swarm components we’ve scanned.’
‘Of course,’ Paula muttered. No fool like an old one. It was never going to be that easy. She shook herself, and ordered her biononics to stabilize her wayward body. Her thoughts, though, they were still sluggish, as if they were moving through ice. I thought I got rid of this nonsense when I resequenced. Even as she thought it, some small part of her mind was chiding her for being too hard on herself. But for Accelerators to successfully bring this off was a monumental failure of intelligence gathering and analysis on ANA’s part, for which she bore some considerable responsibility. Any kind of human would be perturbed by the enormity of the coup – which is what this was.
‘And we’re certain the deterrence fleet is caught inside?’ Paula asked.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Juliaca said. ‘There is no response whatsoever from Kazimir. If he could get in touch with us, he would. He was commanding the fleet, so logically the fleet is inside the Sol barrier.’
Paula, who had been monitoring what she could of the ANA Judicial conclave, knew the admiral was right. But . . . ‘The whole fleet? That seems unlikely. Surely there’s some craft held in reserve?’
‘One moment,’ the admiral said.
A new communication icon appeared in Paula’s exovision. She welcomed the colour it brought to the numbing image of the Sol barrier. As she acknowledged the call she pushed the Kabul’s imagery into a peripheral mode. ‘Mr President,’ she said formally.
‘Investigator Myo,’ President Alcamo replied. ‘I’m glad you are still available. Frankly, I’m looking for some meaningful advice right now. Without ANA we’re woefully short of relevant information.’
‘Whatever I can do, of course,’ Paula said. ‘I was going to suggest to the admiral that the remainder of the deterrent fleet is deployed to Sol to see if they can break in.’
‘That’s the problem,’ Admiral Juliaca said. ‘I don’t have any knowledge of the deterrent fleet. There’s nothing in any Navy facility, not even a contact code. And the Navy network has acknowledged my authority as commander.’
‘But they must be getting in touch with you?’ a startled Paula said.
‘Not as yet.’
‘I see.’ A notion was starting to fall into place. It wasn’t good.
‘Paula, do you know anything about the fleet?’ President Alcamo asked.
‘I’m afraid not, sir. Though I do know how reluctant ANA and Kazimir were to deploy it, that does suggest to me that it might not be a fleet at all.’
‘A single ship?’ Juliaca asked.
‘It fits what’s currently happening. It is inconceivable that any remaining fleet ships would not get in touch with you in an emergency of this magnitude. We should conclude there was only one, and it is trapped inside the Sol barrier along with ANA.’
‘You mean we’re defenceless?’ President Alcamo asked.
‘No, sir,’ the admiral replied. ‘The Ocisen invasion fleet and their Prime allies were disabled before the Sol barrier was established. There is no other immediate external threat, and the
Capital- and River-class squadrons are more than capable of dealing with any known species within range. The deterrence fleet was always there to deal with a post-physical-level threat.’
‘Our threat is not external,’ Paula said. ‘It is Ilanthe and that damned inversion core, whatever the hell it is.’
‘You hadn’t heard of it before?’ asked the President.
‘No, sir. All we knew was that the Accelerators hoped to achieve what they called Fusion with the Void in order to bootstrap themselves up to post-physical status.’ She drew a breath and started to analyse the situation, trying to predict Ilanthe’s next move. ‘There is one critical factor remaining which is currently outside anyone’s control.’
‘Araminta,’ the admiral ventured.
‘Correct,’ Paula said. ‘The only way Ilanthe and Living Dream can get inside the Void is with Araminta’s help. Which will be coerced once they find her.’
‘Can you find her first?’ the President asked.
‘She’s on Chobamba, and it appears as though she’s already made a deal with some Faction.’
‘Which one?’
‘I don’t know. But their agents must have helped to get her off Viotia. I imagine they are now as shocked as we are by the loss of ANA. That might make them open to a deal. We have an opportunity.’
‘Can you do that?’ the President asked.
‘I can reach Chobamba shortly,’ Paula said. Inwardly she was disappointed. The Alexis Denken was only an hour out from Viotia, and Chobamba was five hundred and ten lightyears from her current position. All I ever do these days is rush from one crisis point to another, and arrive too late each time. That cannot stand, there’s too much at stake. I have to up my game, get ahead for once.
‘Thank you,’ the President said. ‘When you find her, take her into custody. No polite requests. We are beyond that now. She goes with you, she does not ally herself with anyone else, that cannot be permitted. Do you understand?’
‘Perfectly, Mr President. If I can’t capture her, nobody else must be allowed to. I will see to that.’