Pandora's Star

  She wanted to put her head in her hands, or maybe belt some sense into him. ‘Kazimir, listen to me. We have a navy now, which has a branch dedicated to stopping Johansson. Hundreds of officers are working on the case. They will catch you. They will.’

  His kindly smile was one that told her she simply didn’t understand. ‘They won’t. We’re perfectly safe.’

  ‘Kazimir, this is not a game.’

  ‘I am the one who has always known that. And now you have become a victim of the Starflyer, too. I wept when I heard its creature had murdered your brother. How cruel that fate, that of all the people in the Commonwealth, it hurt the only person I love.’

  ‘No, God no, this isn’t happening. Kazimir, please, there is no Starflyer. My brother was killed by his rivals. It’s ugly, and brutal, and shocking, and it’s never happened in Commonwealth politics before. But it is not the fault of a secret alien.’

  ‘Politicians are its creatures, too. They are the easiest of all humans to corrupt.’

  ‘Listen to yourself. You’re just repeating student slogans. Johansson is an evil old man who’s using you, and all the other clans back on Far Away.’

  ‘Justine, I’m sorry, but it is you who cannot see the truth in this.’

  ‘I can’t believe we’re having this argument. You have to stop, Kazimir, just walk away. I’ll clear any problem with your involvement. God knows, you’ve been indoctrinated since birth. Nobody will blame you.’

  ‘How could you ask me that?’ he demanded, shocked and hurt. ‘I had hoped you would help us. The planet’s revenge can be your revenge as well, if you let it. You can make sure the Starflyer is defeated.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Get the cargo inspections lifted.’

  ‘What?’

  He couldn’t have appalled her more if he’d slapped her. ‘Is that why you came?’ she asked.

  ‘No!’ he protested. ‘I risked everything to come to you. Everything. I love you Justine, I am fighting to save your world.’

  She leant forward and grasped his hands, desperately conscious of how young and idealistic he was, how much he had to prove himself. ‘I don’t want you to, not like this. Kazimir, it is a far braver and nobler thing to admit you are wrong. I know, I’ve had to do it many times. Please, just consider leaving the Guardians to manage without you for a while. You and I can talk this through.’

  ‘You can browbeat me, you mean.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean at all. I just want you to learn that there are other viewpoints than the Guardians’.’

  ‘I cannot desert my comrades. You should not ask me this. I watched my best friend die in front of me, I have lost many others. Now you say it was for nothing.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he countered. ‘Will you try and stop me returning to my comrades? I will not let your security people interrogate me.’

  ‘Calm down,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Nobody’s going to stop you leaving. I don’t want you to leave, but that’s the only chain around you, how much I love you, and don’t want to see you harmed.’

  ‘I have been through many battles. I have no fear of my enemy.’

  ‘God!’ she growled through clenched teeth. ‘Men!’

  He gave her a twitchy smile and rolled off the bed.

  ‘Where are you going? You’re not going now?’

  ‘I have to.’ He shrugged, almost blushing. ‘I hadn’t expected to spend the night.’

  She felt her own cheeks colouring at that. ‘I want you to spend every night here, Kazimir. I want every night to be like last night. I don’t do this anymore . . . Damnit, I thought . . . I didn’t think I could care for someone like this, not anymore. But you . . .’

  ‘When this is over, when nothing lies between us, I will be yours for as long as you’ll have me.’

  ‘Damnit.’ Her eyes were watering.

  ‘Don’t cry. I won’t have my beautiful angel cry for me. I’m not worth it.’

  ‘You are. You are so worth it. You have no idea.’

  He finished dressing, then held her for a long moment. ‘I will come back for you,’ he promised gravely. ‘I swear it.’

  She nodded, too exhausted emotionally and physically to do anything else. After a while, with fresh tears running freely down her cheeks, she placed a call to Alic Hogan at his Paris office.

  *

  It started raining an hour before dawn, cold drops splattering down on the cobbles to form grubby rivulets racing down the gutters. Mellanie stood in a doorway three down from Paula Myo’s Paris apartment; tired, miserable, and hungry as the sun rose, exposing the narrow street to a grey shading that belonged to the middle ages. The time-bowed wooden lintel above her was dripping steadily on her head, wrecking her expensive hairstyle. There had been no time for her to prepare properly. She knew Alessandra wouldn’t allow her a second longer than the two days unless she got a real story. So her jacket collar was turned up in a grim attempt to keep some of the cold out, because the 1950s party dress she wore under it was certainly no good for that. Both feet were soaking inside her handstitched Italian leather shoes, that were now ruined.

  The early morning monotony was occasionally broken by a civic GPbot rolling past her. By six o’clock people had started using the street. She received a few curious glances. Their eyes soon slid away, deciding she was some hooker waiting for her pimp or pusher after a bad night.

  Close, she told their backs as they hurried away.

  At half-past seven Paula Myo walked out onto the street. She wore a long raincoat, unbuttoned to show her usual business suit; her feet were protected by calf-high booshide boots, and she switched on a plyplastic umbrella stick which flowed out into a wide black mushroom-shape.

  Mellanie waited until the woman had almost reached the end of the street, and left the scant cover of the doorway. Her virtual vision displayed a simple map of the area. As she’d expected, Myo was walking to the nearest Metro station. She kept twenty metres or so behind her, trying not to be too obvious. The wider streets had some traffic and pedestrians, making cover easier. Headlights cast bright reflection ribbons on the black tarmac, while their tyres produced a thin dirty spray. The smell of fresh-baked bread emerged from patisseries that were opening their doors. Mellanie’s stomach growled from the temptation.

  Ahead of her Myo turned a corner. Mellanie hurried forward. When she turned the corner, the Metro station sign gleamed brightly fifty metres ahead. Myo had vanished.

  ‘Where . . .’ Mellanie scanned round. The woman hadn’t crossed to the other side of the road. None of the shops were open, so she couldn’t have hidden inside anywhere. ‘Damnit.’ In her mind the plan had been perfect: follow Myo to wherever she was working. That would give a clue to what she was working on for the Burnellis, or even if it was the Burnellis. Whatever, it would give her enough interesting questions for Alessandra to keep her on Myo.

  ‘You would make a dreadful field operative.’

  ‘Huh.’ Mellanie spun round.

  Myo was standing there, umbrella held straight, giving her a quizzical look. ‘It is illegal to run search programs through restricted city listings. Paul Cramley, the hacker you used to gain access, is old enough to know that.’

  ‘What are you going to do, arrest us?’

  ‘No. He will have a formal charge filed against him. It will probably result in a fine and confiscation of his equipment.’

  ‘Bitch!’

  ‘He broke the law. So have you. Being a reporter does not place you above the law, Ms Rescorai. You have to obey the rules like every other citizen, however inconvenient that is to your so-called profession.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of this Paul Cramley. You can’t prove anything.’

  Myo’s stare hardened. ‘I don’t have to. You are interfering with a government official, which is also an offence.’

  ‘You’re not, you got fi—’ Mellanie drew a deep breath. ‘I’m so
rry, I was desperate for an interview with you.’

  ‘I don’t give interviews. Everyone in your profession knows that.’

  ‘But you must be able to tell me if there are any suspects in the Burnelli murder.’

  ‘Ask the Navy Intelligence media office for an update.’

  ‘They’re not as good as you. If they do catch anyone it’ll be on the foundation you laid. I want the whole story.’

  ‘I don’t respond to flattery, either.’

  ‘I’m not flattering you. I despise you. But I’m also a realist.’

  A dark grey limousine drew up to the curb beside them. Its rear door opened. ‘You’re wasting your time following me,’ Myo said. Her plyplastic umbrella flowed back into a simple fat stick. ‘Even if you were any good, you wouldn’t find anything of interest where I’m going.’

  ‘Where would I find something interesting?’

  ‘In truth, I’m not sure. You might try space, deep space.’ She got into the back of the limousine, and its door closed.

  Mellanie stood shivering in the rain, watching the plush vehicle’s scarlet tail-lights merge into the Parisian traffic. ‘Is it true she never lies?’ she asked the SI.

  ‘It is true she never tells a direct lie; though she is capable of modifying the truth if it will forward her investigation.’

  Hell. Deep space? Who knows about deep space?

  *

  There had been quite a celebration on High Angel last night. StAsaph had returned from another flight, scouting eleven stars. Captain McClain Gilbert had reported that they hadn’t encountered any Prime wormhole activity. Then, along with Admiral Kime and Captain Oscar Monroe, he’d gone to watch the Dauntless disengage from her assembly platform. The warship was a distinct design change from the Second Chance and the earlier scouts. She’d been built inside a single three-hundred-metre-long hull, shaped like a stretched teardrop, with eight blunt thermal radiator fins at the rear to complete the aerodynamic illusion. A crew of thirty were in command of a marque 4 hyperdrive, with a top speed of one light-year per hour; a seven-tier force field complemented with a locked molecule hull field; fifty missiles containing fifteen independent twenty-gee sub-warheads carrying hundred-megaton charges capable of diverted energy functions; and thirty directed energy beam weapons. To supply power for the hyperdrive and the combat systems, fifteen high-capacity niling d-sinks had been installed. Charging them up to flight readiness was now beyond the generator capacity of Kerensk, which was already supplying power for the entire scoutship fleet. CST was laying in superconductor power lines from other planets to supply the anticipated fleet. The construction of new generators was providing a bull market for power bonds right across the Commonwealth as entrepreneurs and existing utility companies bid to supply the navy with gigawatts.

  Dauntless had disengaged right on time, small blue ion flames around her base pushing her slowly away from the open assembly platform. She’d curved round the High Angel, giving the people in the crystal domes a good view of her size and shape as she traversed Icalanise, before switching on her hyperdrive and vanishing in a burst of violet light.

  ‘Three completed, another ten authorized,’ Wilson had said as the big ship slipped over Babuyan Atoll. ‘Defender is next out. She’s yours if you want her,’ he told Oscar.

  ‘Oh, I do. Yes, indeed, I truly do.’

  Mac had laughed delightedly and congratulated his old friend. Then the pair of them had gone out and hit the town, such as it was in Babuyan Atoll, to toast the new command and the successful return.

  Oscar groaned miserably as the express shot into strong lemon-yellow sunlight, which shone through the first-class carriage windows. He reached for his sunglasses.

  ‘So where did you two finish up last night?’ Antonia Clarke asked from the seat opposite.

  ‘I have no goddamn idea,’ Oscar grunted. ‘There was a band there. I think. Maybe jazz?’ He picked up the cup of black coffee that the steward had just poured, looked at it, felt strange fluids in his stomach start to churn, and hurriedly put it down again.

  Antonia laughed. She’d already had to baby-sit him through the freefall commuter flight from High Angel to the Kerensk wormhole station. Keeping his uniform clean under those circumstances had been tricky; then there had been the complaints from their fellow passengers.

  ‘Have you got your speech ready?’ she asked.

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘You want another tifi hit?’

  ‘Look! Just shut – Oh God, yes please.’

  Grinning, she took out the packet of tubes, and pressed one to his neck. There was a capacitor whine as the membrane pad on the end fast-tracked the drug into his bloodstream. ‘That’s your limit. No more for another six hours.’

  He touched his fingertips delicately to his sweating forehead, testing to see if the pain was abating. ‘They only print that to keep the lawyers quiet. You can take at least twice the dosage before anything bad happens.’

  ‘Ever the optimist. How do you feel?’

  ‘I think that one might actually be working.’

  ‘Good.’

  The express went through another wormhole gateway, and the light became even brighter, a sharp blue-white. Antonia looked out of the window. ‘We’re here. New Costa Junction. Let’s go.’ She stood up.

  Oscar gave the cup of coffee a last longing glance, and decided against.

  A senior manager from the clinic was on the platform to greet them. He had a car for them, which slid smoothly onto highway 37.

  ‘Ten-minute trip from here,’ the manager promised. ‘We’re between shifts, so the traffic is light.’

  The Nadsis hotel was set back off the freeway, a twenty-storey X-shape, with five separate conference facilities. Over a thousand media reporters were packed into the Bytham auditorium where the welcome back ceremony was to be performed. Both of the honoured guests and all the VIPs walked en masse onto the stage, to considerable applause. Dudley Bose, a lanky adolescent with a shock of ginger-blond hair that refused styling, broke his sulk to grin around before eventually giving the thumbs up that had been his interview trademark. Emmanuelle Verbeke was a surprise to those who had accessed her file for background information. On the Second Chance she’d been sober and professional to the point of dullness, a woman with rather bland features who didn’t care about appearances. Today she was almost indistinguishable from a genuine first-life eighteen-year-old. She’d chosen a strap-top purple dress with a short skirt to show off long legs that had been toned to perfection by the clinic’s physio-therapists. Her dark hair, still shortish despite the accelerated growth phase of cloning, was arranged in neat curls that emphasized her youth. Her perpetual gleeful smile and very girlish giggles illustrated a rare case of someone being highly suited to the whole re-life procedure.

  It was Oscar who was scheduled to make the initial speech. He said hello to everybody. Then he had to perform the introductions – a stupid thing to do. After that was his own quick ‘personal’ welcome to his former crewmates. A happy anecdote from the Second Chance to show what great friends they all were; while what he wanted to do was blurt out the story of how Bose had managed to screw up the shower filtration unit for his deck.

  After five minutes of torture he sat down to polite applause and Antonia’s mocking smile. Vice President Bicklu was next, making the formal welcome back speech. He was a tall man whose features were sequenced and profiled to produce a bland handsomeness, along with Nordic white skin to contrast with Doi’s African ethnicity. Oscar had to sit with a fixed smile as the VP made a very good speech, with plenty of easy jokes that had the media laughing and the other guests smiling appreciatively. He made Oscar look like the amateur warm-up act.

  When it was her turn, Emmanuelle got up and gave the VP a sweet kiss on the cheek. She smiled at the big audience, said how nice it was to be back, how she was impressed by the progress the navy had made, how she wanted to join up again as soon as she was old enough – applause and a few whistles –
and a big hello to all her friends and thanks for all the support they’d shown while she was in re-life.

  She gave Dudley Bose an encouraging wink as he went to the podium. ‘I’ve heard a lot this afternoon about how dedicated and friendly everyone was on the Second Chance,’ Dudley said. A hand came up automatically to play with his ear. ‘What a great ship, what a good job it did flying that mission. I’m puzzled by that. Because I haven’t got a fucking clue which Second Chance they’re talking about. It certainly isn’t the one I flew on. The bastards I was crewing with LEFT ME THERE. ALONE! Our great so-called captain didn’t even check to see if we were still alive, he was so desperate to save his own arse.’ His arm shot up, a rigid finger pointing at the ceiling. ‘I’m still out there, you know. Somehow. Some alien has kept me alive, or bits of me. So why am I here as well? Why are you doing to me, you shits?’ He stomped off the stage, leaving all the VIPs staring at each other in embarrassment.

  ‘Do something,’ Antonia said out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Why me?’ Oscar mumbled back. Every reporter in the audience was looking at them expectantly, relaying the image through the unisphere. Many of them were smiling. It wasn’t in sympathy.

  ‘You’re the MC.’

  ‘Ohshit.’ Oscar walked slowly over to the centre of the stage, where the main lights were focused. He cleared his throat. ‘Kids today, huh?’ He’d never known a silence so deep, so unbroken. ‘Look. Okay. I’m sorry Dr Bose feels the way he does. Had we stayed at the Watchtower, we would have died. It’s that simple. The Primes were firing nuclear missiles at us. You can’t hang around philosophizing in circumstances like that.’

  At the front of the audience, Alessandra Baron stood up. ‘Captain Monroe, the Second Chance had ftl capacity. The Primes did not. So why didn’t you circle back and make a final pass to see what had happened to your crewmates?’

  ‘Our primary mission was to report our findings back to the Commonwealth. Everybody on board knew that, Dr Bose included. We all accepted the risks.’