‘Yes,’ Paula said as they stopped beside one of the bulky suspension cases. And this is one of them. ‘I’d like to see her, please.’
‘You may use a field scan. It will not interfere with the suspension systems, they are quite robust.’
‘Open it.’
‘As you wish.’
The suspension case’s malmetal lid flowed apart. Paula looked down at the body inside. The Cat lay there, her body webbed with the silver threads used to provide long-term suspension, ensuring her cells remained intact throughout the sluggish centuries as she lay poised on the cusp between life and death. ‘All hail Schrödinger,’ Paula muttered. Her field scan swept through the Cat, confirming the small scars and burn patches that she’d acquired in that last ferocious firefight which resulted in her capture. The hospital had healed her for the trial. At the time, several senior members of the Directorate, and indeed the President’s office itself, had questioned why Paula had allowed her to survive. Political types to whom the rule of law was an irksome guideline to be bent or broken with impunity at every convenience.
Paula nodded in satisfaction. This was definitely her old adversary. The original one at least. Not that originality stood for much any more.
‘How many people have visited her?’
The ANAdroid wasn’t designed for surprise, but it somehow managed to convey that impression. ‘Your inspection three hundred and eighty years ago is the only one, Investigator.’
‘Thank you,’ she told the ANAdroid. That was the time when a political group on Far Away had boasted that they’d managed to extract their idol from purgatory. They hadn’t of course, it was just a bid to gain more influence.
The lid flowed back into place, sealing the Cat back into a darkness that was due to last for another four thousand years.
‘Are you satisfied now?’ ANA:Governance asked as Paula emerged out into the mellow Parisian daylight.
‘Not entirely, no.’
‘It is not possible to break into the Directorate vault.’
‘I know. But there are a few other possibilities. Resurrecting her is something I’ve given a lot of thought to over the centuries. There are still plenty of fanatics out there.’
‘The Knights Guardian don’t actually want her alive and walking round. It is politically convenient to have a leader who will return in the far future. That gives them plenty of leeway.’
‘Now where have I heard that before.’
‘This is a strange weakness of yours, Paula.’
‘We’re all entitled to one.’
‘So do you still believe it was her on Sholapur?’
‘I think it’s a strong possibility that I encountered a full clone version.’
‘Her DNA is probably easy to obtain. But where would they get a copy of her memory? We know she never had a secure store, she was too worried your Directorate would gain access to it.’
‘Her weakness,’ Paula said flatly. ‘However, there is one copy that I know of. I’ll check it out.’
‘I’m not being critical, but there are other matters that require attention. Quite urgent attention. If the respite Justine has bought us is to have any value, I must know what the Accelerators are planning.’
‘Are you trying to guilt me into chasing round after Marius and his cronies?’
‘I have to use guilt?’
‘If the Cat has been brought back in some form by the Accelerators, they clearly want her for some very dirty deniable work. But, as I suspect they’re discovering, she’s not easy to control. Her personal agenda will always come first. I can use that to catch her. Once she’s in custody, she can be fully interrogated.’
‘An interesting application of logic.’
‘But logical nonetheless.’
‘Assuming you’re correct about Sholapur.’
‘I believe a great deal of my usefulness to you comes from my instinct, a facet of personality you have yet to acquire.’
‘Correct.’
‘Thank you. However, you are right about following other leads. I reviewed Troblum’s file on my way here. That presentation he made to Kazimir was very interesting.’
‘Yes. I considered it to be well argued, and highly plausible.’
‘That’s not what I mean. It implies he has a very strong knowledge of the Dark Fortress itself.’
‘The Navy maintains an effective force around the Dyson Pair, it would not be possible for him to gain access to either of them.’
‘It would if he was part of the Navy science team. There aren’t many people, especially Highers, who have his physical profile. Please review all the Navy personnel to have served at the Dyson Pair since the Starflyer War.’
There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation. ‘That was an excellent deduction. I have the file.’
Paula examined it. The identity was recorded as one Kent Vernon, a physicist from Salto. Exoimage showed her a face similar to Troblum’s, but with ebony skin. ‘He darkened his pigmentation considerably, though that face is definitely recognizable. Oh, of course, that name. He is descended from Mark Vernon.’ She smiled at the memory of Mark, a man really out of his depth, but a thoroughly decent human being. ‘And Mark was married to Liz, who was Afro-American. Very neat,’ she complimented. ‘If lacking in imagination. I’m surprised his Accelerator controller allowed that.’
‘He served a six-month tour duty on the Navy Exploration Division science ship Poix fifty-six years ago,’ ANA reported. ‘That particular research mission was concentrating on the inner two lattice spheres. They made some progress mapping the integral quantum function. Though the Navy project is still ongoing; we still don’t quite understand the mechanism behind the Dark Fortress.’
‘Even you?’
‘Even me.’
‘And according to his file “Kent Vernon” subsequently downloaded into you,’ Paula said as she scanned the exoimage. ‘That ties up any loose ends as far as an inconvenient outside investigation is concerned. So let’s see what real facts we can find.’ Her u-shadow called up the records from Troblum’s apartment, and Daroca’s utilities. Those for the period fifty-six years ago were already deep cached, but they were soon accessed with her authority rating. ‘Look at that power consumption rate,’ she said.
‘Nominal, for ten years. Implying Troblum wasn’t there. Whatever he was doing took him off Arevalo for a decade.’
‘What kind of device takes a decade to build?’
‘That was what Troblum wanted to tell you.’
‘Why didn’t he just come straight out with it?’ she said in annoyance.
‘He is a genuine paranoid. Understandably, given the clandestine projects he’s been associated with, and under the supervision of Marius. A paranoia which was fully vindicated by events on Sholapur. He has probably left the Commonwealth altogether now. His starship seems quite capable of such a flight, even without ultradrive.’
‘I’d certainly like to leave, so I can believe that,’ Paula admitted. ‘Unfortunately, wishful thinking is a luxury right now. List everyone who served with Troblum, and mine their history, please; start with his captain.’
‘The captain of the Poix was Donald Chatfield. A Higher, currently resident on Ganthia.’
‘All right, I concede this is more pertinent than the lead I have on the Cat. I’ll go and interview Chatfield.’
‘As you wish.’
‘And you really can’t guess what the Accelerators might have built?’
‘No. According to Gore, they wish to duplicate me and fuse this replica with the Void to initiate post-physical evolution. The systems to initialize another such as myself would be complex, but they wouldn’t require any input from the Dark Fortress technology.’
‘Will that fusion work?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Very well, I’ll call in as soon as I have something.’ Paula activated her field interface function, designating her exit coordinate. Earth’s T-sphere immediately translated her back up to Sky Pier. As
she crossed the reception centre to the station terminus her u-shadow told her Kazimir was calling.
‘Bad news,’ he said.
Paula’s heart performed a little flutter. There weren’t many people left in the galaxy she cared about, but Justine was one of them. ‘Justine?’
‘No. I have no further information on mother, which as far as I’m concerned is good news . . . But I am in contact with the Lindau.’
‘I don’t know the ship.’
‘It’s the Navy scout I dispatched to Hanko to monitor the whole Aaron situation for you.’
‘And?’
‘They don’t have the best sensors in the fleet, but there’s something wrong with the planet.’
‘Wrong in what way?’
‘Its gravity. We believe someone has fired a Hawking m-sink into it.’
‘Oh Christ. No! Why would they do that? It’s a dead planet anyway.’
‘The Restoration project base at Jajaani has stopped broadcasting. Lindau is still picking up some of the project’s surface beacons, so it looks as if the base itself was targeted.’
‘But an m-sink? That’s a monstrous overkill. We know those ships were ultradrive, they’ll be equipped with weapons powerful enough to take out an undefended civilian base.’
‘I don’t know the reason, I’m just reporting the results. Naturally, there’s no sign of either ultradrive ship.’
‘Naturally.’
‘However—’
‘Ah! Yes?’
‘The Lindau has also picked up a very powerful distress signal from the surface. It’s a standard biononic emission. Nobody listed as a member of the Restoration team was Higher.’
‘So it’s either Aaron, or Inigo himself.’
‘Yes. Which leaves me with a rather painful decision. With an m-sink eating away at its core, that planet isn’t going to last much longer. The Lindau estimates a few hours more at best before the mantle starts to readjust prior to implosion, at which point nothing is going to survive. So, do they land at Jajaani and see if there are any survivors?’
‘No,’ she said immediately. ‘They have to recover whoever is sending that signal with biononics.’
‘One person.’
‘If the m-sink hit at Jajaani, there will be nothing to recover from there, not even bodies, and certainly not any secure memory stores. Everyone working in Restoration projects knows there are risks, they all have back-up memories and DNA samples on their homeworld. They will be re-lifed. If there is the slightest chance that survivor is Inigo, or can tell us where Inigo is, then you have to rescue them.’
‘I was thinking along those lines myself, but it’s always satisfying to receive your endorsement. I’ll speak with the captain, and keep you updated.’
‘Kazimir.’
‘Yes?’
‘Warn them to take extreme precautions. If it is Aaron down on the surface, there’s no telling what he’ll do.’
‘I know. I’ll emphasize the need for caution.’
Paula drew a deep breath, and gazed down through the transparent hull section of Sky Pier’s reception centre. Bordeaux was spread out below the station, lush and beautiful in the lazy sunlight. She’d visited a few times when the vineyards were still producing their renowned wine, and the remaining citizens stubbornly resisted the advances which the Commonwealth provided. Something about the area and its culture had made her feel comfortable and welcome, satisfying that deep human yearning for a simple life, a fundamental which had never been sequenced out of her psyche by her creators. She wondered what its long-departed people would make of today’s life with all its associated bizarre problems. Somehow she suspected they’d be less than impressed.
Looking down on the region again, a small part of her wanted to just teleport down there and settle in one of the remaining homes. Cut off communication, deactivate her biononics; leaving her far away from Kazimir and Aaron and Marius and the Cat, and all the rest of it. Supposedly, there were several primitive groups on Earth, living as their ancestors had two thousand years ago. ANA always denied it, but rumours persisted.
Not this time, though, she decided. So she walked into the terminus with its glowing Cherenkov light from the wormhole which led back to Orleans. From there another wormhole connected directly to Arevalo. By the time she got back to Daroca spaceport, the Alexis Denken would have been resupplied, and the medical chamber replaced. The starship would be ready to fly her onwards. Again.
*
It had been over a year since Araminta had visited the house. At the time, she’d looked on the compact drycoral building as a development project, seeing costs and returns in everything, ignoring the family which had welcomed her in and given her a lovely Sunday dinner. Now, when the door opened, and Tandra’s face peered out, Araminta couldn’t help herself, she burst into tears. Life hadn’t been so bad back when she was waiting tables in Nik’s. It really hadn’t: she’d been part of a larger collective family, Tandra and the other waitresses had included her in their gossip and lives, they’d hung out together between shifts, and some evenings they’d gone out in a big group having a good time even though she’d been flat broke. The very same people she’d ignored and left behind once Laril’s money had come through. Tandra’s immediate unqualified concern and graciousness at the stray appearing unannounced on her doorstep simply made Araminta feel even more wretched.
‘There, there,’ Tandra crooned and gave her a motherly hug. ‘It’s all right.’ Martyn, her husband, was also attentive, clearing the kids’ toys from the settee in the living room. Mixal and Freddy, their five-year-old twins, were given fruit smoothies to hush them up while Araminta blew into tissues and tried to get her sobbing under control. ‘I’m sorry,’ she wailed. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I’ve nowhere else to go.’ And at the back of her mind was the worry that just by being here she was putting Tandra’s family in danger.
‘You’re more than welcome, and you know that,’ her old friend told her. ‘Did you have a fight? Have you left him?’ She was giving Araminta’s roughed-up clothes a highly suspicious examination.
‘No. Nothing like that. There’s a whole bunch of people in the park outside my apartment. They’re very angry. The invader soldiers are there as well. I was frightened.’
‘Those bastards,’ Martyn grunted.
Tandra shot him a warning look, her gaze darting pointedly to the twins, who were watching intently over the back of a chair they were sharing. ‘Yes, they are unpleasant people who have behaved wrongly,’ she said with parental formality. ‘However, the law will prevail, and they will be expelled from our world.’
Martyn rolled his eyes. ‘Yes. They will.’
‘And until they are, you can sleep on the couch,’ Tandra assured her.
‘Just for one night,’ Araminta promised. ‘That’s all. I need to get myself back together.’
‘No boyfriend?’ Martyn asked.
‘Not right now,’ Araminta lied.
He didn’t say anything, but his tight little smile triggered a fresh wave of Araminta’s guilt. She didn’t dare delve into the gaiafield to learn his emotional state.
‘We’re staying here at home for the rest of the afternoon,’ Tandra said. ‘The twins are having the day off school as a treat, aren’t you?’
‘Yes!’ they yelled gleefully.
Martyn was looking out of the window. ‘How did you get here?’
‘Walked.’
‘From where?’
‘Bodant.’
‘That’s miles!’
‘They won’t allow capsules to fly, and my trike pod is being fixed.’
Tandra and Martyn exchanged a look. ‘You sit there and rest,’ Tandra said. ‘I’ll give those clothes a wash. Martyn, some tea.’
‘Coming right up.’
‘Thank you,’ Araminta said meekly.
Tandra waited until he’d vanished into the galley kitchen. ‘Anything else you need to tell me?’
Araminta shook her head. ‘I really will g
o in the morning. I’ve already got an idea what to do. There’s someone I need to talk to. I’ll call him tomorrow.’ When I’ve worked out how to.
‘Okay. I’d better go get a robe for you. Martyn will have a heart attack if he sees you walking round the place in your underwear.’ She patted her own legs. ‘He’s only used to women a size or ten bigger than a youngster like you.’
Araminta grinned. ‘I missed you.’
‘Sure you did. Out there enjoying yourself every night, I bet you thought of me the whole time.’ She gave the twins a critical look. ‘I swore I’d never have any kids again this life around, this one would be for me, but what the hell . . . A girl doesn’t stand a chance with a Love God like Marty.’
Araminta started laughing. Then stopped, casting a guilty look at the kitchen archway.
‘That’s better,’ Tandra said. ‘You have the world’s greatest smile, honey, that’s why the rest of us always insisted on pooling the tips on your shifts.’ She ruffled both of the children as she went past. They gave her an adoring look. ‘I just love the sleepless nights, the worry, losing my figure, no money, and lack of sex. It’s character building.’
‘I’m going to find out myself one day.’
‘Sure you will. And your introduction starts today.’ Her voice rose a couple of levels. ‘Guess what, Aunty Araminta is on dinner duty tonight. Then she’s going to give you both a bath and wash your hair.’
‘Yes!’ the twins yelled jubilantly.
‘Still want to stay?’
‘Oh yes,’ Araminta said. This house, Tandra, the twins: it felt like an oasis of decency amid the madness raging outside. After the last two days, she badly needed to remind herself what normal was. Then I might be able to work out how to get back there myself.
*
Seven hundred years ago, Wilson Kime had officially handed over control of the Commonwealth Navy to Kazimir. It was the fifth time Wilson had held the role of Supreme Commander, on that occasion it was essentially a ceremonial appointment, lasting a single year before he downloaded into ANA. His final farewell to the physical.