‘Whatever.’ Orion shrugged with indifference.
Ozzie thought it was a near-perfect imitation of his own don’t-care gesture. ‘Good. Then there’s some files on the hand-held array I’d like to go through with you.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
‘Some background information,’ Ozzie said vaguely. ‘You can read, can’t you?’
‘Ozzie!’
‘Okay, man, just checking. Tomorrow then, yeah?’
‘We’re taking off tomorrow morning, you said.’
‘I know. There’s not going to be much else to do on the raft, is there?’
Orion scratched at his hair, obviously perplexed by this new Ozzie. ‘Guess not.’
They’d set up camp on the beach where they built the raft. Ozzie and Orion used the tent to give them a degree of darkness when they wanted to sleep. The constant light didn’t seem to bother Tochee, but then the alien didn’t sleep anyway; it just rested.
When they got back, Orion set about rekindling the fire, then started cooking the fish which Tochee had caught. Ozzie went down to the water’s edge, and used the filter pump to fill up all their water pouches. The sea wasn’t particularly salty, but they certainly couldn’t drink it neat.
He started packing their things up while Orion finished cooking. The plan was simple enough; when he and the boy woke up they’d launch the raft straight away. They had enough fruit and cured fish to last them for several days, and drinking water wasn’t a problem with the filter. Ozzie was quietly hoping all their preparations would be unneeded anyway. Even if, as he strongly suspected, their sail was next to useless, they had carved some crude oars, and Tochee could always tow them along. It surely wouldn’t take them more than a couple of days at most to reach the next island.
In the morning, he made sure Orion used some of the dwindling toothgel. Then they both set about combing knots and tangles out of their hair. Ozzie started in on his beard with his razor set – just about the only luxury item he’d hung onto. The diamond-coated blade made easy work of the growth, although he cursed the lack of a decent mirror.
‘Why don’t you just use the hand-held array?’ Orion asked. He touched a few icons and held it up in front of Ozzie. The screen had unfolded to show the camera image directly. Ozzie’s face was magnified considerably.
‘Thanks, man,’ he said as he started to apply the razor again, a little bit more skilfully this time. Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to school the boy after all.
After a quick breakfast they packed all their travel kit away in the rucksacks and various bags; then put all the food they’d gathered for the voyage into wicker baskets. All three of them lined up along the back of the raft. They’d built it a few metres from the edge of the placid water in anticipation of this moment. With Tochee in the middle, they started pushing, sliding the craft over the soft sand and down into the water. Ozzie was straining hard when the front end finally met the small wavelets lapping ashore. He almost didn’t want to watch. If the damn thing sank he hadn’t got a clue what they’d do next.
The raft dipped alarmingly as its front half rode down the slope below the water, then it slowly bobbed up again as they shoved the last of it into the water. Ozzie waded out to his waist, easing it forward. Tochee swam round it, then disappeared underwater. The first day on the island the big alien had surprised them with its grace in the water; it was almost as though Tochee was more at home in the sea than it was on land. Both sets of malleable flesh flattened out to form long fins that could propel it along at considerable speed, and it could hold its breath for a long time. The result was a constant supply of local fish which it had chased down and caught for them.
Orion stood with the water over his knees, grinning proudly at the raft. ‘Isn’t that amazing, Ozzie?’
‘Yeah, man, goddamn amazing.’ Ozzie watched their craft for a while longer, still expecting it to sink. It wasn’t quite as high above the water as he would have liked, and it was going to be really low when they loaded it up. But it floated . . .
Twenty metres away, Tochee flew out of the water and half-rolled in the air before splashing down amid a huge burst of spray.
‘Guess it approves,’ Ozzie muttered. He walked back out of the water holding on to the painter, and wrapped it round a stake they’d hammered into the sand beside the pile of their belongings. ‘Come on, man, let’s get it loaded up.’
Orion waded out of the water. ‘Ozzie, what are we going to call it?’
‘Huh?’
‘The raft? What are we going to call it? Every boat has to have a name.’
Ozzie opened his mouth. The Sheer Desperation? Titanic II? Orion was waiting, looking at him with that naive expectancy of his; and they’d spent days of hard, painful labour building the damn thing. ‘I’m not sure,’ Ozzie said. ‘How about, Pathfinder?’
‘Gosh, that’s really good, Ozzie. I like it.’ He bowed at the raft. ‘I name this ship the Pathfinder, God bless her and all who sail on her.’
God help all those who sail on her, more like. ‘Okay, let’s get our stuff on board.’ He picked up a couple of the wicker baskets and waded back out again.
They had everything loaded in fifteen minutes. Tochee emerged from the water, its multicoloured feather fronds glistening under the bright sunlight. It shook itself furiously, scattering droplets in a wide shower.
‘Are we ready?’ it asked through the array.
‘Can’t think of any reason to stay,’ Ozzie said.
The Pathfinder wobbled about alarmingly as they hauled themselves up onto the rickety decking, especially when Tochee squeezed up over the side. Ozzie checked the buoyancy again. The water was almost up to the decking, but they were still floating. He could see small fish swimming underneath them. But it’s not the small ones I’m worried about.
‘All right. Crew, places please.’ Ozzie sat down on one side, Tochee claimed the middle, and Orion sat on the other side. They all got their oars out, and started rowing. Progress was fairly pitiful at first, then Ozzie started calling out a rhythm, and they learned how to coordinate their strokes. When they were a hundred metres from the shore, Ozzie could feel the breeze against his face. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if the sail works.’
He and Orion pulled on the ropes, raising the rough square of woven fronds on the four-metre mast, which had once been the tallest tree on the island. There was a lot of creaking as the ropes took the strain. The swell had grown considerably as they left the lee of the island.
Orion was giving the beach a wistful look. ‘Are we moving?’
Tochee’s manipulator flesh extended a tentacle, and it poked the tip into the water. ‘We move.’
‘Yeay!’ Orion clapped his hands happily. He immediately looked ahead, where there were several of the small dark smudges which were other islands in the archipelago. ‘Which one are we heading for?’
‘Good question,’ Ozzie said. ‘Tochee, can you try steering us to the second from the left. I thought that was the closest.’
‘I will endeavour that,’ Tochee said. It lowered the rudder into the water at the back of the raft, a broad wooden paddle on a crude pivot that they’d rigged up.
Now they were further from the shore, Ozzie was definitely aware of the wind pushing them along. He sat on the side, with his feet dangling in the water, and watched the island slowly shrink away behind them.
*
Civilization was a blessing you never really appreciated until it threatened to collapse all around you. That long, long day on Elan had shown Mellanie how precariously close a collapse could be. Fear brought out a very strong survival trait in people, one that overwhelmed all the usual rules of behaviour. She was never going to forget those last hours standing beside the small wormhole in the Turquino Valley. The way the crowd had started to panic, everyone pushing forwards, their desperation and ferocity building. And that was with a strong character like Simon Rand holding things together.
Yet now, barely a week later, i
t all seemed so remote. She was standing at the window wall in Alessandra’s penthouse on the skyscraper’s sixty-fifth floor, looking out over Salamanca. Cities at night always looked more vibrant, somehow, and New Iberia’s capital was no exception. This was a rich world, among the first of phase one space to be settled, with a population now closing on two billion. Salamanca alone was home to twelve million souls. Its lights sparkled all the way out to the horizon; here in the centre, where the height of the metal and crystal skyscrapers was a real estate value prospectus, the streets were arranged in a standard grid, beyond that the patterns became more random until they merged into the general light pollution that hazed the outlying districts. Cutting through the precise lambent lines was the inevitable radial web of silver rails, threading straight through the grid blocks, and bridging roads, always given preference so that the trains could shunt their valuable goods between districts and the CST planetary station. It might have been her imagination, but she didn’t think there were as many trains as usual rolling along the rails tonight. But then just about every activity in the Commonwealth had come to a halt during the invasion, and things were only just starting to return to an approximation of the old normality.
When she raised her gaze, she could just make out the ephemeral shimmer of the force field above and around the city. It seemed strange to see it there, fuzzing the stars above. Even though most major cities had them, they’d never been switched on except to ward off the most vigorous hurricanes and tornados. Now they were all on permanently, even Dark-lake had protection.
‘It’s still the same, isn’t it?’ Alessandra said, coming up to stand behind Mellanie. ‘Somehow I was expecting changes when I got back. But it’s wonderfully reassuring to see. I’ve stood here for hours myself just watching.’
It had taken several days before CST resumed its standard passenger service between planets. Millions of refugees from the invaded worlds were given priority as they sought accommodation throughout the rest of the Commonwealth. Wessex still hadn’t returned to full operational capacity. CST was busy repairing the wormhole generators that had been damaged during Nigel Sheldon’s battle of exotic energy above the planet. Services to that whole section of phase two space remained patchy, though its worlds were still connected to the unisphere. But the express train between Augusta and New Iberia had resumed, allowing Alessandra to return home three days after the Desperado’s final flight.
This was the first time Mellanie had come back to Alessan-dra’s penthouse. She’d finally left Ozzie’s bizarre asteroid two days ago, walking through the wormhole which had been realigned on Augusta, at the end of all the Randtown refugees. The intervening time had been spent with Dudley, reassuring him, and taking a break to compose herself. With all the SI’s inserts now quiescent, her newfound confidence had receded somewhat. She wasn’t sure what kind of shape her investigation into Myo and the Starflyer would take. Dudley probably had more information lurking amid his confused memories. It would take a while to be sure she’d got everything she needed from him. For now, he was safely stashed away in a cheap coastal holiday resort chalet on Oaktier, a place where she’d spent many early childhood vacations. Nobody would be able to trace him there, at least not straight away.
Alessandra’s hands slid over Mellanie’s shoulders. ‘We’ve been hearing some strange stories from the Randtown refugees. Some of them say they were in an alien starship.’
‘They’re lying. It was an old dormitory station for a deep space industrial facility that CST is decommissioning. The wormhole was still working, luckily.’
‘Interesting.’ Alessandra’s grip tightened, giving a small massage. ‘That’s the only part of the whole invasion that senior management prevented us from carrying. None of the other media companies carried it, either. Somebody’s been putting pressure on. And that’s a hell of a lot of pressure.’
Mellanie turned to face her, looking intently at the statuesque woman’s perfect classic features. ‘Not guilty.’
‘Humm.’ Alessandra stroked a finger lightly along Mel-lanie’s cheek. ‘You’ve changed.’
‘I was there on the ground when we got invaded by aliens. It kind of makes you focus, you know.’
‘I’m sure it does, darling.’ She leaned forward for a kiss. Mellanie put a hand out. ‘Not yet.’
‘Oh really?’ One of Alessandra’s elegantly plucked and shaped eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Well you’d better get yourself in the mood pretty quickly. I’ve got Robin Dalsol coming over later for dinner, he’s Goldreich’s senior aide. I need to know how much money the Executive is planning on pumping into the navy for our retaliatory strike. The two of you should be good together, he’s only ten years out of rejuve.’
‘Fuck him yourself,’ Mellanie growled.
‘Mellanie, darling, I don’t do that any more. I don’t need to, I have you to do it for me; you and fifty others.’
‘Fine, call one of them.’
‘We’ve had this discussion before. It’s starting to get boring.’
‘I don’t care about the navy budget. It’s hardly going to be a secret, they’ll tell us as soon as it goes to the Senate.’
‘God help us! Darling, it’s not that we will know, it’s when we know. I’m the best because I can break news first.’
‘But what about my story?’ Mellanie almost shouted. ‘That’s the only one that counts. For God’s sake, we’ve just been invaded, and we can track the cause down. There is nothing bigger than that. I came here to find out who my research team is, when we can start, not to suck some asswiper’s dick for you.’
Alessandra frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Starflyer!’ Mellanie hissed. ‘I’m going to track it down.’
‘Oh that nonsense.’ Alessandra put her hand on her brow theatrically. ‘You’re wrong. I had it checked out for you. Cox Educational is completely legit, and still going strong. I think Bunny actually talked to one of the trustees, Ms Daltra. She assured us their funding is all above board, the accounts are filed with the charity commissioners every eighteen months, as required. Take a look at them if you want.’
‘What!’ Mellanie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘You were wrong, darling. No big deal. We all make mistakes on the way up. If you want my advice, you should stop screwing Dudley Bose, he’s got a lot of psychological problems. Re-lifers generally do. They get over them eventually.’
‘No.’ Mellanie shook her head. ‘No, that’s wrong. Dudley only . . .’ She trailed off as the real shock hit her, strong enough to raise the goosebumps all along her arms. She gave Alessandra an incredulous stare, it was all she could do not to back away from the woman. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You made a mistake,’ Alessandra told her. Her smile became humourless. ‘Another one. And I’m not really into this “three strikes and you’re out” crap that the judiciary practises. Frankly, the show’s only keeping you on now because of your report from Randtown. That showed promise. But face facts, darling, you’re not an investigator. God, you’re too dumb even to get to college; everybody goes to college and gets a degree these days. So let’s focus on what you are good at, shaking that shapely little ass of yours at the men I tell you to. Clear?’
Mellanie bowed her head, and even managed a noise which sounded suspiciously like a sob. ‘Yes.’
‘Good girl.’ Alessandra put her hands on either side of Mellanie’s head, and kissed her crown, as if performing a blessing. ‘Now, why don’t you go and put something nice on for Robin. You know, he asked for you specially. I think he was impressed by Randtown as well. You’re a celebrity now, darling.’
‘All right.’ Mellanie left the living room, careful to close the door behind her as she went out into the penthouse’s main hallway. ‘Are there any special safeguards on the front door?’ she asked the SI.
‘Just the standard security systems and alarms.’
‘Great.’ She almost ran at the tall double doors. They opened
for her, and she looked wildly round the marbled vestibule outside. There were only three other doors to the remaining penthouses, two lifts, and the stairwell. Her e-butler interfaced with the skyscraper’s management array, and told her the lifts were on their way up. She was too worried that Alessandra would follow her out to wait for them, so she went straight to the stairwell and ran downwards. ‘Get a lift to stop for me on the sixty-second floor,’ she told the SI.
It was waiting for her when she burst out of the stairwell. She hopped in, and the doors closed. ‘Lobby,’ she told the SI. ‘There will be people there, I should be safe.’
‘What is the problem, Mellanie?’
She pressed her head against the cool metal walls of the lift, waiting for her racing heart to slow. ‘I never told Alessandra the name of the charity.’
‘It would not be hard for her to discover it.’
‘Run a check on it for me again, please.’
‘The public records have been amended since last week.’
‘Goddamn!’ She glanced up, as if expecting Alessandra to be ripping her way through the top of the lift like some psycho in a bad TSI drama.
‘They now show the Cox Educational has been in continual operation since its formation, and is still making donations to various science departments,’ the SI said.
‘But that’s all forgeries, you know that.’
‘We do, but the official records are complete.’
‘How did they do that?’
‘It is not impossible to subvert public records, especially in the finance sector. Although the effort involved is considerable.’
‘She tipped them off,’ Mellanie said out loud. ‘Alessandra told them I was on to them. Onto it, the Starflyer. It had to be her. There’s no one else. It’s her. Oh God.’ Her legs were trembling the way they had when she was facing the soldier motiles in Randtown.
‘That is a strong accusation,’ the SI said.
‘Are you testing me? If Alessandra had run a genuine check, she would have found what I told her. The Starflyer would never have had time to cover its alien ass; a fraud this elaborate would take time. It had to have been given a direct warning so that the cover-up would be in place in case I survived and started yelling allegations. The only person I told was Alessandra. It is her! She’s working for it, isn’t she? Alessandra is one of the people Johansson warns us about, like the President.’