She really was an angel. Orion would never have believed he could sit and talk to a girl, and that she’d be interested in what he said; let alone a stunning girl like Jasmine. It wasn’t just her physical beauty that captivated him; she was a lovely person, too. She was eager to hear his story, and asked questions, and was astonished and impressed at the things he’d done and seen, the hardships they’d endured. He began to relax, even though he knew he was babbling on for far too long. But she laughed with him. They shared a sense of humor.
After a couple of hours, Tochee slid out onto the terrace. Jasmine sat bolt upright, her face registering complete delight. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “You really are telling the truth.”
Orion was slightly stung by the implication, but she looked so thrilled he forgave her instantly.
“Friend Orion,” Tochee said through a slim, top-of-the-line Ipressx array it was holding in its manipulator flesh. “Is this the totally—”
“This is Jasmine,” Orion told his alien friend hurriedly.
“I wish you welcome, Jasmine,” Tochee said. “And hope we will be friends.”
“I’m sure we will be,” she said pertly.
“I will immerse myself in water,” Tochee said. “It will be a relief. I fear I have been no help to my friend Ozzie this morning.”
“I think the Dark Fortress is something he’s got to work out for himself,” Orion said.
Tochee slid over to the stone rail at the edge of the terrace, and rose up to poise the front half of its body on top. The pool was about twenty feet directly below. The locomotion ridges contracted, and it tightened its grip on the array.
“You’re not going to?” Orion asked.
Tochee launched itself off the top terrace, and landed in the pool with an almighty splash.
Jasmine let out a shriek of excitement, and both of them raced over to the railing. Tochee was just surfacing as they peered over the edge. “The water is a perfect temperature,” it called up. Its ridges began to change again, flattening out into long fins. It sped away down the pool, as sleek as any dolphin.
“Superb!” Jasmine said. She cast off her robe and jumped up onto the rail.
Orion stared up at her perfect trim body in an act of near-religious worship. She was wearing a simple white one-piece swimsuit made from shiny fabric. That was when he knew he was in love, and they would get married, and spend every day for eternity in bed doing what he’d watched Andria Elex doing, only better and longer.
“No, wait,” he cried. “It’s too far down.”
Jasmine flashed him a gorgeous, teasing smile. “Last one in’s a wimp,” she shouted, and dived.
Orion’s worry turned to outright astonishment. Jasmine seemed to bend over in midflight so her hands were touching her ankles, then she spun around in a somersault, rotated the other way, spun in reverse, and straightened out to hit the water without a splash.
He gawped in disbelief. She was gliding underwater in a long curve that brought her back to the surface five meters away from where she went in. “Wimp,” she yelled up, laughing. “Wimp, wimp, wimp!”
Snarling, Orion clambered up on top of the rail, and jumped. He was right, it was a long way down. His legs cycled about crazily. At least he remembered to clamp his hand over his nose just before he hit. Unfortunately by then he was tilted over somewhat so he landed on his side. The hard water slapped him fiercely.
He struggled back up to the surface, his whole side numb. At first. The sharp stinging began as he bobbed up. He let out a pained groan.
Jasmine’s laughter cut off, and seconds later she was at his side. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Sure. Fine. No problem.” His shirt felt as if it was made from metal. He struggled to undo it, then found she was towing him to the steps at the side.
“You silly thing,” she chided. But there was still a huge smile on her face.
Orion had managed to get one arm out of the sleeve. He clung to the steps with the other. “Jasmine?”
“Yes?” She was still smiling at him, her eyes sparkling.
“Have you got a boyfriend?” Where the chutzpah had come from to ask that he didn’t have a clue.
She leaned forward and kissed him. It seemed to go on for a long time. Orion wasn’t really sure. Her tongue was inside his mouth, setting off loud fireworks in pleasure centers he didn’t even know existed before.
When she pulled back, he blinked uncertainly to see her grinning wickedly. “That was a no,” Jasmine told him impishly. She pushed off from the steps, floating on her back, still grinning at him. “Just in case you didn’t realize.”
“I did,” he whispered helplessly.
Her arm moved fast, and splashed a whole load of water over him. He splashed back. She giggled, and started kicking up a spume. Orion tugged his shirt off completely, and set off in hot pursuit.
They messed around in the pool for nearly an hour before Jasmine said she was going back up to her room to dry off for lunch. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she promised as she pulled her robe on again. “Get the cook to make me a burger, with Italian fries, you know, the herb ones. And a side salad.”
“I’ll do it,” he promised loyally.
He clambered out of the pool and found a towel in the locker by the showers.
“Your association seemed to be developing well, friend Orion,” Tochee said. It was sunning itself on the lower terrace beside the pool. Nearly all of its colored fronds were dry again, ruffling in the warm breeze.
“Do you think so?” Orion asked as he watched Jasmine walk up the stairs to the upper terrace. She waved happily when she was at the top, then hurried off into the mansion.
“I am not an expert judge of your species, friend Orion, but you were behaving most harmoniously together. It is my belief she enjoyed your company. If she did not, she would not have remained with you; she was under no obligation.”
“Hey, that’s right!” He picked up his sodden orange shirt. “I’m going to find the cook and then get a clean shirt. Do you want anything?”
“I believe I would like to try more of the cold vegetable lasagne, with cabbage, please.”
Ozzie had started the morning full of determination. Anger-driven determination, as he would be the first to admit. It would have been sweet to show that pompous dick Nigel how to fix the Dyson Alpha barrier generator. He set to it with an open mind and a burst of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, he soon found out that having Tochee with him wasn’t such a good idea. He became a little tetchy with the alien’s constant questions and apologetic answers to his own inquiries. It soon became very plain that Tochee had only a very limited knowledge of physics. Whether that extended to its entire species, Ozzie promptly stopped caring. All he’d hoped for was a little insight, that Tochee might come at the problem from a different angle. Not a chance.
By the time Tochee left to “take a break,” Ozzie could have cheered. It had also become depressingly obvious that there had been a significant amount of excellent work done on analyzing the data that the Second Chance had brought back. An alarming quantity of which he was struggling to understand. If he’d been wetwired with maximum interface, and had full access to both his secure store and his asteroid’s RI, he might have managed conversance with the plethora of theories that physicists had put together. Even then, they were only theories.
But this life around, his wetwiring was limited to the biochip inserts he’d received in preparation for walking the Silfen paths. And although the mansion’s security staff were undyingly courteous, he wasn’t allowed access to the unisphere.
An age later, he stood inside the big projection of grandiose lattice shells wrapped around their peculiar rings, and gave it a hearty curse. The green clouds of equations that summarized humanity’s finest thoughts on the problem retreated, taking their luminescence to the corners of the study. He almost shut down the projection. Now he’d actually seen the Dark Fortress his earlier notions about it were fast becoming a fantasy
inspired by petulance. His virtual hands patted down several columns of icons as if they were annoying insects, and the projection swung around him, running through a complete cycle. It still didn’t make any sense, so he resurrected the second image, a simulation of the shells after the barrier had failed. The extraneous quantum signature was as plain as possible, but without a more accurate image it was impossible to see what it was actually doing, which section of the generator it was disrupting. And the Second Chance had never returned for a close look. The starship had maintained a watch during its visit to the Watchtower, but the data it received from such a distance was constant. Nothing had changed. Ozzie returned the image to a real-time playback. This recording was nothing more than a smudge of data against a backdrop of alien stars. That didn’t help him much either. Then he gave it a surprised glance; it still hadn’t changed. He told his e-butler to run to the end of the recording, and highlight any detected variations. An intriguing notion was forming at the back of his mind.
The study door opened, and a girl walked in. Even Ozzie was impressed by how gorgeous she looked. Of course, the way she was standing there in a toweling robe that was completely open down the front to reveal a wet swimsuit probably helped that meteor-strike first impression. And after so long walking the paths it wasn’t just Orion who was desperate for the company of a woman.
“Hi there,” he said. “You must be the Sheldon girl.”
She gave him a knowing smile and shut the door in such a deliberate, firm fashion that Ozzie’s heart rate quickened. “Jasmine Sheldon, according to the certificate which got me through the front door,” she said as she advanced on Ozzie. A hand was combed sensually back through damp hair. “But we both know that’s a little white lie. The Dynasty office in Illanum gave me a nice little summary of all the hanky-panky going on here. Very kinky of you.”
“Ah well, you know how it is, the kid’s had a rough few years. You’re, um, the least I could do for him.”
She was still advancing. Ozzie wasn’t sure if he should fling himself at her or run as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
“How about you?” she asked. “Have you had it rough for a few years?”
“Boy, you are quite something. At least he’ll die with a smile on his face.”
She stood directly in front of him, a sinful smile playing on her lips. “You’re very famous, Ozzie. I hope you don’t mind but I couldn’t resist asking for this one little favor.”
“What’s that?”
“A kiss. That’s all. Just. One. Little. Kiss.”
Ozzie sucked in a breath, and checked the door behind her. “I dunno, man.”
“Ohhh.” Her lips came together in a mournful pout. “I’d be very grateful. It’s not every day you get to meet a living legend.”
“Ah…”
She stood on tiptoes, puckering her mouth up for a kiss. Her hands came up on either side, and gripped his tightly, fingers twining together. They kissed.
Ozzie’s e-butler told him the i-spots on his palms were being remotely activated to allow a simulated environment program to decompress inside his inserts. An emergency disconnect icon was flashing brightly as his intrusion counterware reacted. The weird electronic incursion interested him more than anything else. He granted the program full virtual interface authority and shifted the counterware to monitor status.
The result was like being teleported into a Russian doll of images. He now stood at the bottom of a translucent gray sphere clad in simple white coveralls, with the girl standing in front of him in the same garment. She had a slightly different face than her physical self; some features had been realigned, and the hair was shorter and golden, but it was definitely her. Outside the sphere, giant replicas of himself and the girl were locked in an embrace that he could still feel rather pleasantly on his lips. Beyond that, the Dark Fortress data swirled like a foggy nebula, boxed in by the study walls.
He brought his hand up to touch his mouth, a sensation that was overlaid on the kiss. He gave a dismissive grunt. “Okay,” he said, “you wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Of course, but first, please try and maintain the kiss.”
“Like that’ll be difficult.”
“Very funny. This simulation should be impervious to any sensors in the mansion, and we’re accelerated in here so the kiss will be good camouflage. Don’t get your hopes up, stud-boy, a minute in real time is all the grope you’ll ever get.”
“Please to meet you, too, babe. And you are?”
“Mellanie Rescorai. The SI sent me to find out what happened to you.”
“I know that name. Oh, yeah, the one who gatecrashed my home with ten thousand guests.”
“Take it up with the SI. I have an updated SIsubroutine which I can decompress into an array for you, if we can find an independent one large enough in the mansion.”
“My inserts should be able to handle it,” Ozzie said. He ordered his e-butler to clear five of the biochips, shunting their files and programs into the remainder, and erecting some very strong fireshields.
“I doubt it,” she said.
“Let’s try, shall we.”
The surface of the gray bubble flared with squalling tangerine and mauve lines. His e-butler told him the biochips were filling up fast.
The lines settled down into interlocking spirals. “Hello, Ozzie,” the SIsubroutine said.
“Neat deal,” Ozzie said.
“You were about to reveal who built the barrier when Sheldon security broke the link.”
“Oh, yeah, what an evening that was.” He explained what Clouddancer had told him about the Anomine race.
“So they will not repair the damage,” the SIsubroutine said.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“MorningLightMountain won’t be a problem for much longer,” Mellanie said. “Nigel and the others have decided to use the nova bomb against Dyson Alpha. They’re also going to destroy any other stars that MorningLightMountain has colonized to make sure it is dead and can’t threaten us ever again.”
“More than one star?” Ozzie asked, aghast.
“They’re worried about how far it has spread. It’s had a long time since the barrier came down.”
“The radiation will wipe out any living creature in that whole section of the galaxy,” Ozzie said. “Don’t they fucking know that? Christ, no wonder Nigel wants me locked up in here.”
“They know,” Mellanie said. “But it has to be done.”
“Can you help?” Ozzie asked the SIsubroutine. “Can’t you see we’re wrong to do this?”
“Ethically, it is wrong. Yet it is required for your survival. This is not our decision to make.”
“Okay, look; I’ve been reviewing the Dark Fortress data. The Starflyer agent has obviously used a modified version of the original flare bomb it hit Far Away’s sun with. The quantum distortion is plain enough. That’s what’s screwed up the generator; everyone’s agreed on that. I thought it would need repairing, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Why not?” the SIsubroutine asked.
“Because the effect is continuous. The whole time the Second Chance was in the Dyson Alpha system, it kept recording the same quantum abnormality. In other words, the actual generator systems could still be in working order, but they don’t function normally while their quantum structure is being disturbed. The disruption is just a proverbial wrench in the works.”
“Remove it, and the mechanism will resume operations.”
“It’s the only thing I can think of,” Ozzie said. “Our very last shot at redemption. Will you help me with that, at least?”
“How do you propose to remove the disruption device?”
“Nuke the fucker. What else can we do?”
“I doubt a nuclear explosive will work. If the device is producing an effect similar to a quantumbuster, the missile will either convert to energy at a distance or its components will no longer function—just like the generator itself.”
“So we use one of our quantumbusters; switch the effect from a field to a beam, point it at the Starflyer’s device, and pray our technology has a longer reach. The navy used quantumbusters to knock out flare bombs before, and it worked.”
“Assuming you are correct about every other factor, that sounds practical.”
“So I figure.”
“Do you think Nigel will agree?” Mellanie asked.
“Not a chance,” Ozzie said resentfully. “He doesn’t believe the generator can be fixed. Him and his merry band of psychopaths have already chosen the genocide option. He’s not going to let me send one of his ships on a wild goose chase.”
“Then why are you bothering with this?”
“Simple, man, now I know what has to be done, I can get on with it.”
“You?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Have you got a starship?”
“Technically, yes.”
“What do you mean, technically?” Mellanie pressed. “Does your asteroid have FTL?”
“No no, wrong way of thinking. I own forty-nine percent of CST. I agreed to take less than Nige, because all that corporate shit just ain’t my scene. So, technically, I own forty-nine percent of however many of these starships he’s gone and built.”
“I thought the Dynasty built the starships.”
“Do you want to commit genocide when it can be prevented?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But you just said Nigel won’t let you have one of the ships. He won’t even let you out of the mansion grounds. The security briefing I got in Illanum was very explicit about that.”
“Yeah, that’s a shame, because it means you two dudes are going to have to bust me out of here.” Ozzie paused, and looked at Mellanie. “Does Nigel know it’s you that’s come here?”
“No,” the SIsubroutine said. “We intercepted a girl procured from Lady Georgina. Mellanie is a covert substitution.”
“Okay, right, so will you two help me?”
“I don’t see how I can,” Mellanie said.
“If you can, will you help me?”
“I suppose so.”