*
Rebka’s e-i directed her up the side of the habitat shell into the low-gravity regions. She’d never quite forgiven herself for not enjoying zero gee. It looked such fun: flying, somersaulting with more grace than a ballerina gymnast, bouncing off the walls like a perpetual-motion squash ball, and there were always the awesome rumours of freefall sex which was supposed to be amazing. But her inner ears disapproved in a major way, resulting in more than one instance of projectile vomiting. Even her notoriously stubborn persistence had stalled from trying to ‘acclimatize’ after the fifth time her mother made her wash all her own clothes and apologize in person to everyone else in the axis gym.
Now the lift which ran all the way up to the axis stopped seven hundred metres above the curving floor at the one-third gravity level. She pushed off in a gentle walk, keenly aware of inertia as she glided in long arcs between her feet touching the corridor floor. There were big hand hoops on the walls every couple of metres, to grab when you needed to slow, stop, or change direction at a junction. She kept her arms out, ready to seize one just in case. So far her stomach was holding out.
The door her e-i delivered her to didn’t seem any different from all the others in this section, which according to the overlay blueprint was mostly used for habitat maintenance engineering. It slid open and she glide-walked into the darkened room beyond.
The room was a lot bigger than she was expecting, like a small docking hangar with a curving ceiling ten metres above her. There were weird structures spaced throughout it that resembled giant strands of DNA, but with multiple helixes that had warped and bloated, made out of a substance that approximated to pearl. The multiple curving ridges of varying sizes which interlocked all over them in seemingly random patterns bestowed the appearance of a sea creature shell, convincing her they were living configurations rather than technological. It was hard to tell because they were phasing in and out of spacetime; random sections would dematerialize to sketch their original profile with sharp emerald and orange laserlight sparkles, as if photons were interchanging with atoms. Their haze made peering through the gloom of the chamber difficult.
When she did squint, she could see the wall at the far end was made up from big rectangular window sections that looked directly out into space. A figure was silhouetted against the rotating starfield.
‘Rebka, thank you for coming,’ Constantine North said.
‘It’s a tradition,’ she replied, and walked cautiously towards him, anxious not to brush against any of the distended not-quite-real structures; if nothing else, when they did exist, the ridge pinnacles looked sharp and hard. ‘I wasn’t going to be the one who broke it.’
Jupiter’s darkside slid into view as she reached him. As always she was thrown by how young he looked, only a couple of years older than Raul. Yet she knew he was born over a century ago.
‘If anybody would . . .’ he said.
Rebka pouted. ‘I’m not that bad.’
‘No. Of course not. The teenage years are always a trial for parents, yet somehow all of us seem to muddle through in our own way.’
‘Mum said you want to know if I’m happy here.’
The pale light reflected off Jupiter’s cloudbands painted grey shadows on his face. ‘Not quite. The purpose of this interview is to determine if you’re going to be happy living here.’
‘I guess.’
‘I liken this talk to the Amish rumspringa.’
‘You just lost me.’
‘The Amish are a society within a society, living in the United States. They have rejected modern life to live a quiet pastoral existence, an existence they’ve followed for centuries. However, when they are teenagers, their families actually encourage them to go and sample the wicked delights of the majority culture which surrounds them, the rumspringa. What the rest of us consider an astonishing percentage, nearly ninety per cent, choose to return after their time away and join the Amish church for good. I suppose that speaks a lot of our arrogance in the belief that our way of life is superior. I find that humbling and quite salutary.’
‘And that’s what you’re offering me?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘In a way, yes; this is your rumspringa moment. I wish to offer you an explanation and a choice. I am trying to build, if not a democracy, then at least a consensus based on a common ideal. So please forgive the irony of me acting like a patriarch. It would appear old habits die very hard indeed. Do you know why I set up this society out here?’
‘We’re an ark, humanity’s last hope if the trans-space worlds fall to the Zanth.’
‘That’s a part of what we are, yes. But I want something a lot greater than that. Ultimately, I want us to defeat the Zanth.’
‘Wow. That’s . . . big.’ She was starting to wonder how long this was going to take; there were so many things she needed to get ready for the party.
‘It certainly is,’ he said in amusement. ‘But to do that, to be able to pursue the pure science theorems which can deliver that goal, we need to be free of the debilitating economics and material concerns which have acted as an anchor on true human creativity for centuries now. I looked round me, nearly sixty years ago, and saw nothing but stagnation. The HDA, for all its nobility of purpose, is a holding action, nothing more. That is why I founded Jupiter. We already have the technology in the shape of microfacture and fusion energy to step beyond the economics which have governed us for the past few hundred years and free us from material concerns. Yet we don’t. The dead hand of society’s inertia and the financial interest of the elite minority hold us back as a species. They govern us so they can continue to govern us.’
‘History repeating itself,’ Rebka said brightly.
‘Precisely. I was a part of that stagnation, along with my brothers, opening St Libra for human settlement and founding Northumberland Interstellar, helping to maintain the bioil market dominance. More than anyone, I know how strong it is, how easily it contaminates and absorbs any divergence from the norm. Breaking free was an argument the three of us conducted over many years. My dear departed brother Bartram believed that by giving everyone a lifespan of millennia we would learn to value life so much more than we ever have done, and thus would change happen. Poor, poor Bartram. To be the first of us to achieve his goal, the first human to begin rejuvenation. His murder was fate’s cruellest irony. Augustine . . . well, he believed that evolution would come anyway, bring enough people enough riches and progress was inevitable, he said. He accused us of wanting the fast and easy option, of being the worst products of the entitlement generation, of being so selfish that we believed wishing alone would make it so, of not working and suffering to earn our achievements. So he stayed and continued to build his corporate behemoth, content the wealth it brought was the answer to everything. And then there was me: I chose isolation to give me the freedom to pursue a different societal route. And this location over any other, over a distant world, or city-state like Abellia, forces its residents to appreciate science and technology. We have to keep the machines working merely to survive. It helps focus the mind on the reality of the universe at large. Nonetheless, this is just the interim stage, Rebka, here, today, at Jupiter. We are the fulcrum for the revolution. What you have grown up in is essentially a renaissance enclave populated by millionaire Marxists, devoted to pushing science forward in new directions because the old ones have plateaued a generation or more ago. That is why I now always hold this conversation in this particular chamber.’ He gestured round at the coiled structures with their ephemeral mass state condition.
‘Okay, I’ll bite,’ she said. ‘What are these things? I’ve never seen anything like them.’
‘It’s active-state matter, which is sort of common enough. However, what we did with it is something different and new. This is a lightwave engine, capable of flying the whole habitat amalgamation away to safety should we ever be threatened.’
‘The habitat is a spaceship?’ she asked in delight. It was a wonderful notion.
‘I always said it would be an ark,’ Constantine replied levelly.
‘Wow.’
‘Hopefully we’ll never have to move it, but this type of spacedrive is precisely the kind of innovation our society was set up to create. The theory was developed and the hardware built without reference to cost and the political economic consequences.’
‘So you’re not going to give it to anyone else?’
‘Frankly my dear, I don’t see the point. It isn’t something which can defeat the Zanth, it is a convenience for us to have our ships with such a drive. Whereas its introduction to the trans-space worlds would simply cause widespread economic upheaval and mass unemployment. If they truly wanted this technology they could develop it. Let them keep their torpor.’
‘Okay,’ Rebka said uncertainly. ‘But it might help in a Zanthswarm. Fighters with lightwave engines would be better than the Thunderthorns, wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, there would be an improvement in their flight envelope, a considerable one. But the Zanth would still swarm. And introducing lightwave technology would come with a price tag of vast upheaval, and yet another two-decade-long recession. In tandem would come an extreme level of interest in what we are achieving for ourselves out here. Such a drive would end our isolation for good. That is why not making it available is mainly a political decision on our part.’
‘Oh. I see. I guess.’
Constantine’s smile became sympathetic. ‘I’m afraid it gets worse. Jupiter, like a true Marxist state – the very worst kind – cannot permit any dissidence from the ideology. This habitat is a fragile artificial environment, there is no Wellsian conflict playing out here between education and barbarism, because we can afford no barbarians. Out here our constitution is simple: with citizenship comes total responsibility. We are a one-dogma society, and if you do not like that, if you disagree with our aim, or simply want to live your own dream, if you don’t believe in what I’m hoping to achieve, then you’re not merely free to leave, we’ll encourage you to go wherever you want and even set you up there.’
‘I’m not really a science geek,’ Rebka said, feeling almost overwhelmed. This is not what she thought she’d have to deal with on her birthday. Although, actually, she found it all rather exciting.
‘I know,’ Constantine said. ‘But our true goal is understanding, complete knowledge, not just on an abstract level, but in a very physical, practical arena as well. To each according to need and ability.’
‘So you see me contributing on the physical side of things?’
‘I do. Rebka, there is a puzzle that I need to solve. So far the answer has eluded me despite a tremendous effort by Clayton and others. I believe you may be able to be of enormous help in its resolution. In fact, it is why I originally had you brought here. Among my other quirks, I do believe in karma, and our families are deeply entwined in this affair.’
‘My family?’
‘Indeed.’ He handed her a small glass phial on a silver chain. ‘By the way, happy birthday.’
‘Thank you,’ she said automatically. ‘Er, what is it?’ The phial seemed to be half-full of very dry dust, judging by its near-fluid motion when she tipped it.
Constantine fastened the chain around her neck. ‘A very rare item these days: it’s soil from your birthworld. I thought it might give you something to hold on to in times of uncertainty. To ground you, if you like.’
‘Oh, really?’ She held it up to study the grey-brown motes. ‘From True Jerusalem? That’s neat.’
‘No, Rebka. Not True Jerusalem. That is where you came here from. But you were born somewhere else entirely.’
*
Sid was more than impressed with Ralph, and it was starting to veer into intimidation. After they’d identified the farmyard Sharman’s operation was based at, Sid had carried on driving north for another thirty minutes along the A1, then turned around. Half an hour later he was back at the B6347 junction south of North Charlton, and turned down it. By then it was half past two in the morning. Ralph had spent most of the drive with his eyes closed, murmuring to his e-i. Now he looked out of the windscreen at the darkened countryside. An overlay satellite map graphic slid across the windscreen.
‘Keep going past the first turning. There are some farmhouses along this road, we’re going to the second one.’
Ian and Eva had parked their cars on the side of the B6347 by the junction. As Sid drove past they began to follow. A minute later they came to Cuckoo Farm, a modern hexagonal house with a curving solar roof. The field behind was covered in industrial-scale greenhouses, all shining with the yellow-green glare of artificial lighting.
‘It’s a commercial chrysanthemum farm,’ Ralph said. ‘Which is good for us. The greenhouses are all hydroponic and heavily automated, and at the same time lots of vans come and go during the day. My people identified it as the best place to set up a forward monitoring post.’
‘Uh huh,’ Sid said.
‘Drive past the house and straight into the barn.’
The barn was twice the height of the greenhouses, with one of its tall roller doors already open. The headlights played across two black sedans already parked inside amid the agricultural machinery and pallets of nutrients and buckets for transporting the flower stems in. Deeper in, he could see the mulching machines and soil sterilizers.
‘Are those your people?’ Sid asked. There were six of them standing on the dirty concrete floor, all in suits with long coats. It was like a uniform. He thought he recognized one of the women from the helicopters that had arrived to claim Ernie Reinert.
‘Yes,’ Ralph said. ‘They were on standby in Newcastle. I told you we needed back-up.’ He opened the door and got out.
‘Of course you did,’ Sid said under his breath. Eva, Ian, and Abner were getting out of their cars, giving the HDA agents judgemental looks.
The Micklethwaite family who owned and ran Cuckoo Farm were huddled in a group, sleepy and bewildered in thick coats thrown on over their pyjamas. Three kids, aged between twelve and seven, were clinging to their parents. An old woman, who Sid took to be the grandmother, was starting to argue with an agent, her croaky voice rising. She was claiming a lot of rights, as well as being insulting about Nazis and corrupt government officials.
A rant that was almost comforting to a policeman, it was so familiar. Sid started to relax.
‘Thank you for your cooperation,’ Ralph said, cutting through the tirade. ‘You will be fully compensated for our use of your property. Now, we have arranged for accommodation at a five-star resort hotel.’ He gestured to the biggest car. An agent held the back door open.
‘I hope that’s not compensation from the city,’ Ian murmured to Eva as the sullen Micklethwaites obediently clambered in.
‘This is good organization,’ Sid said to Ralph as the family was driven away.
‘Thank you. I do have a certain degree of influence. Now, let’s go take a look round the house and see where we can set up a command post.’
They wound up choosing the lounge. The remaining agents started bringing in cases of equipment from the car, including a secure laser array to link directly the HDA satellite constellation in geostationary orbit. ‘In case Sherman’s byteheads are watching the local net,’ Ralph said. ‘I don’t want them catching a traffic increase from Cuckoo Farm.’
By then it was three o’clock. Sid and his team went home. There was nothing else they could contribute at that point.
*
It was coming up to eight o’clock in the morning, and Sid was driving to Market Street. Jacinta had complained that he was working on a Sunday again, that he shouldn’t have to do that now he was senior management. He did what all married men did when it came to their jobs: blamed it on the boss and promised he’d say something this time.
The Toyota Dayon was on auto, because he didn’t trust himself to drive. Too little sleep. Despite the fatigue, he was excited and quietly pleased. He’d played a hunch, taken a huge, reckless gamble wit
h his career, and it looked like it was paying off. Whether or not the farm did have a connection with the North murder, he was backed by the HDA now. With their approval and the agencies pitching for him, the Chief Constable slot was theoretically possible. What he needed to do was start building a relationship with the Mayor.
Sid grinned out at the wonderful old sunlit stone buildings of the city centre, enjoying the daydream of a world where everything worked smoothly and in his favour. So close to the resolution, he was intently curious about whatever corporate fight had resulted in the North’s murder. He was sure Ralph would tell him, even if it was off-log.
His e-i told him Ralph was calling. ‘Morning,’ he said cheerily.
‘I need you to come to Cuckoo Farm, now,’ the agent said.
Market Street Station was thirty seconds away. ‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, then. I’ll drive up to you. I’ll be there in less than an hour.’
‘No, I don’t want you in your own car. Sherman probably has a list of every police officer’s vehicle licence code. And if he doesn’t, Aldred certainly has.’
Which was true spook paranoia, Sid thought, but he wasn’t going to argue. ‘Okay then, how do I get there?’
*
It was a drive to the HDA base in Shipcote, where he switched to a civilian car with an agent. That drove him to a commercial district alongside the A19, and another change of vehicle. This time a company van belonging to Allison’s Floral House. He even had to wear the overalls.
They pulled in to Cuckoo Farm just after nine o’clock; to anyone or any program observing just another regular flower collection.
It wasn’t the first covert visit the farm had enjoyed that morning. When Sid walked into the lounge it had been filled with consoles and big hologram panes, far more equipment than the few cases he’d seen being unpacked before he left. The farmhouse Jede had led them to was centre stage of the panes and screens, shown from various angles. Between them the images came in just about every colour, covering a vast range of spectrums from straight visual to thermal to electromagnetic. There was even a grainy high-magnification monochrome which seemed to be drifting. Ten agents were sitting at consoles, four of them on fold-out chairs, monitoring the operation. A couple of smaller screens were flicking through faces, with profile streamers running along the bottom.