‘It’s going to take hours to pass across Ikeo. That’ll mess up sensors, no matter how sophisticated they are. There will be force fields on over most estates, which will block a lot of low-angle scanning. That’s to our advantage, isn’t it Troblum, darling?’
‘Could be,’ he admitted. What he would have liked was Isabella Halgarth’s opinion on the situation, but he’d lost her I-sentient personality program when he’d left the Accelerator Faction station, using it in a projector to convince the sensors his starship was still sitting passively in the docking bay. Isabella had an altogether more devious outlook than the other girls, which would have made her ideal to analyse forthcoming events.
‘Not if you try and arrive during the storm,’ Tricia said. ‘Even with this ship’s ingrav you’ll be struggling to hold level in the winds. Best you leave it to provide cover if you have to leave in a hurry.’
Troblum accessed the external sensor imagery again. It was a large storm. Even from this height he could see flashes of sheet lightning ripping through the dark clouds. At his request the smartcore overlaid the sensor patterns guarding Ikeo from uninvited intruders. The Mellanie’s Redemption could sneak through unnoticed. Probably. But it would be a close fought electronic battle. And Tricia was right, the storm would produce a particularly difficult environment to fly through. He ran a passive scan for orbiting ships, but there was no inbound or outbound traffic that he could detect, just Sholapur’s small band of geosynchronous satellites. ‘Activate our full stealth suite and take us down,’ he told the smartcore; then pulled up a map of the city, and designated a small valley five miles from Stubsy Florac’s home, just outside the estate’s official boundary.
*
Troblum was sweating with worry as they descended through the last levels of cloud. Then they were past the cold vapour, and the rugged land was only two kilometres below. In the wan pre-dawn light the starship blended perfectly into the grey overcast sky as it sank fast through the clear air. He landed it next to some tall palm-equivalent trees that were already starting to wave about as the wind built up.
To visit Stubsy Florac he selected an armoured fabric one-piece he could wear under his toga suit. Then he ran a fast check on the biononics which produced his integral force field to make sure of their functionality. In combination, the armour and shielding should be able to stop a great many weapons, but he didn’t delude himself about their ultimate ability if a fully enriched Accelerator agent cornered him. For a moment he considered taking a weapon. There were two jelly guns stashed away in a locker. Both of which would need charging. But he didn’t have any experience in physical combat, his biononics could produce a respectable distortion pulse if pushed, and besides Stubsy wouldn’t like him carrying that kind of hardware into his home. It was going to be bad enough turning up unannounced and then asking for a further favour. So he left the guns in the locker and went into the airlock.
There was a one-man regrav scooter stowed in a midship cargo hold. Troblum gave it a suspicious stare as it floated out to hover a couple of centimetres above the thick blue-tinged grass. He hadn’t used it in decades. It looked uncomfortably small now, and it bobbed about alarmingly under his weight as he tried to lift his leg over the saddle. It took three attempts, but he eventually managed to sit astride it, wincing at what he was sure was a pulled muscle just above his hip. Biononics went to work tracking down and repairing the cells in his overstrained flesh. A transparent plyplastic visor unfurled from the front of the scooter, producing a streamlined hemisphere to shield the rider from the slipstream, though it had to curve outwards to enclose Troblum. He directed the little craft towards Stubsy’s grand villa just outside the valley, keeping his speed to a prudent fifty kilometres an hour at a three-metre altitude.
While he was travelling, his u-shadow analysed all the spaceports whose networks were connected to the sparse planetary cybersphere. It produced a list of starships currently on the ground, none of which were Earth-registered. Hardly complete, he acknowledged, but then he was fairly sure that Paula Myo wouldn’t draw attention to herself here, which is undoubtedly what an Earth registration would do. Nor was there a ship that fitted the profile of an Accelerator agent. If anyone was here for him, they weren’t out in the open.
His scooter arrived at the line of slim silver pillars which marked out the boundary of Stubsy’s estate. His field functions reported several sensors locking on as he slowed. He called Stubsy’s code. It took a disconcertingly long time for the dealer to answer.
‘Troblum, man, is that you out there?’
‘Of course it’s me. Will you let me through your perimeter, please.’
‘I didn’t know you were on Sholapur. You didn’t land at Ikeo spaceport.’
‘I told you I needed discretion for our last transaction.’
‘Yeah, yeah, right.’
Troblum gave the silver pillars an uneasy glance. He was feeling very alone and exposed out here. ‘Are you going to let me in?’
‘Right. Yeah. Sure. I’ve cleared you through the defence systems. Come on in.’
The top of the two pillars in front of him turned green. Troblum eased the scooter forward between them, tensing up as he passed over the line. When nothing happened he breathed easier.
Beyond the big white villa, a dense curtain of rain was heading in across the steel-grey sea. As he settled in front of the high glass doors, Troblum looked down the long slope to the lovely little cove below. There was no sign of Stubsy’s glide-boat anchored offshore.
Stubsy opened the door, and gave Troblum a nervous grin. ‘Hey, big man, how’s it going, huh?’
‘No change,’ Troblum said. His gaze swept across Stubsy, who was hanging on to the side of the door, preventing any glimpse of the big hallway beyond. The man was wearing his usual expensive and tasteless garb, too-tight gold sports trousers and a shirt with a vivid black and orange flower pattern, open to the waist. But his face looked haggard, as if he was suffering the mother of all hangovers, with dark circles under his eyes, and at least two days’ stubble. He looked flushed as well, his skin hot and sweaty.
‘I’m here to pick up my collection.’
‘Yeah,’ Stubsy said, scratching the base of his neck. ‘Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. You are.’ Somewhere in the house behind him was the sound of bare feet running on tiles.
Troblum had to consult his social interaction program. ‘Can I get them now, please?’ he read off his exovison script.
‘Okay,’ Stubsy said reluctantly. He swung the door open and stood aside.
The open area in the middle of the house was exactly as before, with waterfalls bubbling swiftly down the surrounding boulders to top up the pool. Green and yellow flowering plants twice Troblum’s height waved in the gusts that were starting to spill over the low roof. Nobody was swimming. Three of Stubsy’s Olympic warrior women companions were waiting in the patio area, with one lying on a sun lounger while the other two stood motionless beside the long bar. Troblum’s mild field scan showed him that all their enrichments were inactive.
The sound of thunder rolled through the sky. All three companions looked upwards at the noise.
‘Are you going to put up a force field?’ Troblum asked Stubsy as he sank his bulk into a sun lounger. The wood and fabric creaked as it accepted his full weight. He’d chosen the one next to the companion in the emerald green bikini. She was gripping the edges of her own sun lounger very tight, as if she was holding herself down against a gravity inversion. ‘That storm looked big.’
‘Force field,’ Stubsy said. ‘Yeah. Good idea, man. Uh, yeah, we can do that, sure.’
‘Did my collection arrive okay?’
Stubsy nodded his head, and perched himself on a sun lounger beside the companion in the green bikini. ‘Yeah,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s here. We ferried it over from the freighter as agreed. The captain was very curious, you know. I had to slot some extra cash his way. I’ve got it all downstairs. Man, I wasn’t expecting so much junk, you know
.’
‘I have been collecting for a long time. And it is not junk.’ Troblum glanced up as a force field came on above the villa. The sound of the wind shrank to nothing. ‘I’d like to get it loaded on my starship today.’
‘Where is your starship, man?’
‘Close,’ Troblum said. He wasn’t going to give anything away until he’d sorted out payment and the collection was ready to move. ‘Do you have a cargo capsule?’
‘Sure, sure.’
‘There’s something else I need from you if you don’t mind. I’ll pay for the trouble, of course.’
Stubsy drew down a loud breath, as if he was having trouble swallowing. ‘What’s that, then, man?’
‘I want to meet someone here in private. Someone you wouldn’t ordinarily have at your house. You’ll have to clear them with the city’s defence system.’
‘Who?’
‘Think of her as a police officer.’
‘Police?’ Stubsy grimaced a smile. ‘Ho boy. Well, what the hell, we’re all going to die in the Void boundary anyway, right?’
‘Possibly,’ Troblum said. He didn’t know what to make of the expansion phase yet. If it really couldn’t be stopped then fleeing to a colony world was going to be no use at all. He’d have to travel all the way to another galaxy, as Nigel Sheldon had been rumoured to do. It would be a huge challenge for the Mellanie’s Redemption. Fortunately, the hardware he’d taken from the Accelerator station should make such a flight achievable, if he could ever assemble the myriad components and make it work. ‘So I can call her and arrange a meeting?’
Stubsy produced a strange little laugh, his eyes crinkled up. ‘Sure.’
‘Thank you,’ Troblum said. He used the secure link he was maintaining to his starship to call ANA:Governance’s security division.
‘Yes, Troblum,’ ANA:Governance said.
‘Connect me to Paula Myo, please.’
‘As you wish.’
Paula Myo came on line. ‘Are you ready to meet?’
‘I told you not to stealth your ship.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Then where are you?’
‘Close to Sholapur.’
‘All right. I’m at Ikeo city, Florac’s villa, I’ve arranged for him to let you through the city’s defences. How long will it take you to reach me?’
‘I can be there within a couple of hours.’
‘Fine, I’ll be waiting.’ Troblum ended the call. He glanced over at Stubsy, who hadn’t moved. ‘She’ll be here in two hours.’ Which wasn’t exactly what she’d said, a pedantic section of his mind acknowledged. Paula would never lie, but there were a lot of ambiguities in the way she’d phrased it.
‘Cool,’ Stubsy said.
‘Can I see the collection?’
‘Sure thing, man. It’s downstairs.’
Stubsy led the way back into the villa. The three companions stayed beside the pool, though their eyes followed Troblum like targeting sensors as he walked after Stubsy.
One of the arching doors in the hallway opened to a set of concrete stairs leading down. Stubsy stood at the top as the polyphoto strips came on. He seemed reluctant to go down.
‘Down here?’ Troblum asked.
‘Yeah,’ Stubsy whispered.
The dealer was sweating again, Troblum saw. Whatever excess he’d indulged in last night must have been substantial for his body to take so long to flush the effects out.
Stubsy started down the stairs. Troblum was right behind him, keen to make sure his precious collection of Starflyer War memorabilia was unharmed. Everything had been in an individual case with a stabilizer field, but he’d had to rely on chartered commercial carriers to get it all to Sholapur without any supervision on his part – it was the only way to avoid Marius’s attention. So much could have gone wrong.
There was a broad passage at the bottom of the stairs, carved into the naked rock, with smaller corridors branching off every few metres. They were lined with malmetal doors. Stubsy’s vaults were a lot larger than the villa above.
Troblum nearly asked, What do you keep down here? But his social interaction program told him that Stubsy was likely to get upset by that kind of question.
Stubsy turned off into one of the side passages. A malmetal door opened for him. Lights came on in the chamber beyond. Troblum walked into a large circular chamber filled with low tables. His collection was there waiting for him. Every priceless case, their surfaces shimmering with protective shielding. It was going to be tough squeezing everything into Mellanie’s Redemption, he acknowledged, some of the larger items might even have to be discarded. His u-shadow performed a fast inventory, checking case logs. They’d been banged around more than Troblum liked, but the cases had protected their contents perfectly. Smiling, he ran his hand over the case containing the handheld array with a foxory casing; the expensive unit had belonged to Mellanie Rescorai herself, a gift from her lover Morton before his trial. Troblum could just discern its outline below the shimmer.
‘Thank you,’ Troblum said. ‘I know you didn’t have to do this.’ When he glanced up at Stubsy Florac he saw an expression his emotional context program interpreted as anger and contempt.
The villa nodes relaying his secure link to the Mellanie’s Redemption went dead.
‘All this makes me feel quite at home,’ the Cat said.
Shock ran through Troblum’s body in the same way as physical pain. His knees almost gave way, forcing him to clutch at the table. She stepped out from behind a huge casing containing the blunt nose cone belonging to a Wessex-based exospheric combat aerobot. Her lean body was dressed in a simple white suit that emitted a hazy glow as if she were some historical saint; it was wreathed in black bands which undulated slowly; ten of them formed a bizarre cage around her head. Troblum knew the suit had to be some kind of armour. Even now with fear so strong it threatened to reduce him to tears, he acknowledged she looked quite magnificent.
‘Troblum, my dear,’ she said brightly as if she’d only just caught sight of him. ‘How lovely to see you again. You’re really a lot of fun. It was a brilliant game we played. Well, I thought so.’
‘Game? he said weakly. His integral force field had come on instantly, though he knew it would be no use against her.
The Cat took a few paces towards him. Troblum lurched backwards in near panic. Even now he couldn’t resist admiring her movements; they really were feline.
‘Why yes, darling,’ the Cat said. ‘How funny you couldn’t work it out. Marius was right, wasn’t he? You don’t connect with humans on an emotional level. You marched in here completely oblivious to dear old Stubsy and his naughty little posse. Didn’t you see their faces, Troblum? Take a look now.’
Troblum gave Stubsy a wild glance. The dealer’s face was a rigid mask, teeth clamped together so hard his lips were quivering. Two of the companions appeared at the chamber door, tall and powerful. Troblum recognized them from his last visit: Somonie, wearing a scarlet dress with a high hem; while Alcinda’s taut muscles stretched her shiny black bikini fabric to near bursting point.
The Cat let out a mocking wolf-whistle. ‘Aren’t they gorgeous? And they play nasty, too, which is really fun.’ She cocked her head at Troblum. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? Fantastic. You are interesting. Run an emotional context recognition program, my dear. It’ll tell you they’re all very, very pissed off. They were when you came through the front door, and sadly they still are. All because of little old me.’
‘Okay,’ Troblum said. ‘You’re right, I didn’t get it. Congratulations.’
‘I know.’ The Cat gave a fulsome pout. ‘Me and Stubsy here had a small wager going. I thought you’d realize by the time you reached the pool, Stubsy said it would be as soon as you arrived and saw him. We both lost. Your fault.’
‘How did you find me?’ Troblum said. He didn’t really have any tactical programs to run, no smart way to work out how to escape from an underground room with only one door and no communications.
But then he was pretty sure even the best tactical program would tell him he was going to die. His own knowledge unfortunately supplied him with a host of extremely unpleasant methods she was known to use to kill her enemies (and friends), and that was before he called up her file to check. If he could just keep her talking . . . He glanced at the door again.
‘Oh my!’ The Cat’s delighted laughter rang across the chamber as she caught his unsubtle motion. ‘Troblum, darling, are you going to make a run for it? Tell you what, I’ll give you a five minute head start. Do you think your fat legs can reach the bottom of the stairs by then? Will you need to sit down and take a breather?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Troblum! How jolly rude!’
From anyone else it would have been ridiculous. From her, it frightened him even further.
‘How did you find me?’ he repeated.
The Cat batted her eyes. ‘It was so difficult. You’re such a master covert agent. Let me see, could it be all the illegal money your Accelerator friends pay into your External world bank accounts, which is rather easily traceable to Stubsy here? Or was it when you called ANA:Governance and told my dearest old chum Paula Myo to meet you here? Humm, which was it now? My memory is not what it was.’
‘Oh.’ It wasn’t often Troblum felt foolish, but the way she said it made him realize what an idiot he’d been. He’d suspected that the unisphere might be compromised to a Faction, yet he still hadn’t taken adequate precautions. And as for the money, well any half-rate e-head could trace money.
‘Where’s your ship?’ the Cat said.
Troblum shook his head. ‘No.’ The smartcore had some very specific instructions should his secure link be broken. A timer was counting down in his exovision. It was a small glimmer of hope, though he suspected the kind of ship which the Accelerators had supplied her with would be able to burn the Mellanie’s Redemption out of the sky with a single shot. More bad planning. That just left one chance.