Pandora's Star

  ‘Do we now know where we both stand?’ the policewoman asked.

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘All I want is for you to do something for me. A small thing. Will you do that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘One day someone will turn up at your chapter, and I want to know about it. I can’t give you his name, he changes it every time. But he’ll be looking to buy things, weapons most likely, or kaos software, or samples of diseases, or components with the wrong specifications which will screw up whatever they’re installed in. That’s the kind of person he is. A very unpleasant individual. He’ll claim to be a party member, to be doing what he does for a noble cause. But he’s lying. He’s a terrorist. An anarchist. A murderer. So I want you to tell me when he visits you. Okay?’

  Sabbah didn’t like to think of the alternative. She was still pointing the weapon right at him, aiming low. ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll do that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘When’s he coming?’

  ‘I don’t know. It might be tomorrow. It might be in thirty years’ time. It might be never. Or I might have caught him before he ever reaches Velaines.’

  ‘Uh, right, okay.’

  ‘Now turn round.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’ She got to her feet, the little weapon still pointing at him. Sabbah reluctantly turned to face the door. His hands were grabbed, forcing him to drop the maidbot box. A cold band of malmetal coiled round his wrists immobilizing them. ‘What the hell . . .’

  ‘You’re under arrest for theft.’

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking joking! I said I’d help you. That was the deal.’ He turned his head to try and look at her. The weapon was jabbed into his jaw.

  ‘There is no deal. You made a choice.’

  ‘That was the deal!’ he yelled furiously. ‘I help you, you get me off this rap. Jesus!’

  ‘You are mistaken,’ she said relentlessly. ‘I didn’t say that. You committed a crime. You must face the consequences. You must be brought to justice.’

  ‘Fuck you, bitch. Fuck you. I hope your terrorist blows up a hundred hospitals, and schools. I hope he wipes out your whole planet.’

  ‘He won’t. He’s only interested in one planet. And with your help, we can stop him from damaging it further.’

  ‘My help?’ the word came out as a squeak he was so shocked. ‘You stupid bitch, you can suck me and I’d never help you now. We had a deal.’

  ‘Very well. I will lodge a plea with the judge, asking him for leniency.’

  ‘Huh?’ This was so weird it was doing his head in. Right from the start the woman scared him. He wasn’t even sure she was a policewoman any more. More like a serial killer.

  ‘I will tell him you cooperated fully, and agreed to be my informer. The file will not be encrypted when it is attached to your court record. Do you think your friends will access it when they see you receiving a light sentence? Will they be happy about what it says? My colleagues have already arrested them for tonight’s robbery, by the way. I expect they’ll be curious about how we knew.’

  ‘Oh goddamn.’ Sabbah was near to tears. He wanted this whole nightmare to end. ‘You can’t do that to me. They’ll kill me, a total death. You don’t know what they’re like.’

  ‘I think I do. Now, are you going to tell me when my target turns up?’

  So through clenched teeth he said: ‘Yes.’

  And that had been the way of it for nine years. He’d been given a suspended jail term for the robbery, and made to perform two hundred hours’ Citizen Service. It was the last time he’d done a job – well, anything major, anyway, just the occasional rip-off.

  And every three weeks there would be a message in his e-butler’s hold file asking him if the man had come. Every time he replied: no.

  Nine years, and that superbitch had never let it go. ‘Time,’ she’d told him on the way to the police station, ‘lessens nothing.’ She’d never said what would happen if he didn’t tell her. But then, it wasn’t something he wanted to find out.

  So Sabbah walked for several blocks, leaving the chapter house behind. That way his e-butler would be operating through a cybersphere node which wasn’t anywhere near the building. The chapter had several tech-types; heavily idealistic about total-access they all sailed close to anarchistic beliefs, believing all information should be free. They also smoked things they shouldn’t and played sensory immersion games for most of their waking hours. But they did have an unnerving habit of delivering the goods when databanks had to be cracked for the cause. Sabbah wouldn’t put it past the party’s senior cadre to mount a simple surveillance operation around the chapter building, the local network was sure to be compromised.

  His e-butler entered the code she’d given him. The connection was placed immediately, which was unnerving if not entirely surprising. Sabbah took a deep breath. ‘He’s here.’

  *

  Adam Elvin took his time in the lobby of the Scarred Suit Club while the hostess dealt with his coat. His retinal inserts adapted to the low lighting easily enough, bringing up an infrared profiling which banished shadows for him. But he wanted a moment to take in the whole scene. As clubs went it was pretty standard; booths around the wall, each with an e-seal curtain for privacy, tables and chairs on the main floor, a long bar with an extensive number of bottles on the shelves, and a small stage where the boys, girls, and ladyboys of the Sunset Angels troupe danced. The lighting was low, with topaz and purple spots casting their shady beams onto the dark wood of the fittings. The music was loud, a drab software synth that kept up a constant beat for the performers to remove their clothes to. There was more money in here than there should have been, he thought. That made it protected.

  At one o’clock in the morning, every table was taken, and the crowd of lowlife around the stage was enthusiastically waving notes in the face and crotch of the two dancers. Several booths were occluded by shimmering force fields. Adam frowned at that, but it was only to be expected. As he watched, one of the Sunset Angels was led over to a booth by the manager. The force field sparkled and allowed them through. Adam’s handheld array had the capacity to pierce the e-seal, but the probe would be detected.

  So many hiding places was a risk. Again, one he was used to. And in a protected joint, they wouldn’t take kindly to police.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the doorman said. He was being friendly, not that it mattered, cellular reprofiling had given him the same kind of bulk as Adam, except his wasn’t fat.

  ‘Sure.’

  The doorman glided his hands above Adam’s jacket and trousers. They were heavily OCtattooed, the circuits fluorescing claret as they scanned for anything dangerous.

  ‘I’m here to meet Ms Lancier,’ Adam told the hostess as the doorman cleared him. She led him round the edge of the main room to a booth two places down from the bar. Nigel Murphy was already there.

  For an arms dealer, Rachael Lancier wasn’t inconspicuous. She wore a bright scarlet dress with a low front. Long chestnut hair was arranged in an elaborate wave, with small luminescent stars glimmering among the strands. Her rejuvenation had returned her to her early twenties, when she was very attractive. He knew it was a rejuvenation, possibly even a second or third. Her attitude gave her away. No real twenty-two-year-old possessed a confidence bordering on glacial.

  Her bodyguard was a small thin man with a pleasant smile, as low-key as she was blatant. He activated the e-seal as soon as Adam’s beer arrived, wrapping the open side of the booth in a dull platinum veil. They could see out into the club, but the patrons were presented with a blank shield.

  ‘That was quite a list,’ Rachael said.

  Adam paused for a moment to see if she was going to ask what it was for, but she wasn’t that unprofessional. ‘Is it a problem for you?’

  ‘I can get all of it for you. But I have to say the combat armour will take time. That’s a police issue system; I normally provide small arms for people with somewhat lower aspirations than yours.?
??

  ‘How much time?’

  ‘For the armour, ten days, maybe two weeks. I have to acquire an authorized user certificate first.’

  ‘I don’t need one.’

  She raised her cocktail glass and took a sip, looking at him over the rim. ‘That doesn’t help me, because I do need it. Look, the rest of your list is either in storage or floating round the underground market, I can pull it in over the next few days. But that armour, that has to come from legitimate suppliers, and they have to have the certificate before they’ll even let it out of their factory.’

  ‘Can you get the certificate?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘How much?’ he asked before she could start on her sales pitch.

  ‘In Velaines dollars, a hundred thousand. There are a number of people involved, none of them cheap.’

  ‘I’ll pay you eighty.’

  ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t some kind of market stall. I’m not bargaining. That’s the price.’

  ‘I’ll pay you eighty, and I’ll also pay you to package the rest of the list the way I require.’

  She frowned. ‘What sort of packaging?’

  Adam handed over a memory crystal. ‘Every weapon is to be broken down into its components. They are to be installed in various pieces of civil and agricultural equipment I have waiting in a warehouse. The way it’s laid out, the components will be unidentifiable no matter how they are scanned or examined. The instructions are all there.’

  ‘Given the size of your list, that’s a lot of work.’

  ‘Fifteen thousand. I’m not bargaining.’

  She licked her lips. ‘How are you paying?’

  ‘Earth dollars, cash, not an account.’

  ‘Cash?’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘Your list will cost you seven hundred and twenty thousand. That’s a lot of money to carry around.’

  ‘Depends what you’re used to.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a thick bundle of notes. ‘That’s fifty thousand. It’s enough to get you started and prove my intent. Once you’ve assembled the list, give me the location of your secure warehouse where I can send my machinery. When it arrives there, I’ll pay you a third of the remaining money. When you’ve installed it, I’ll pay you the remainder.’

  Rachael Lancier’s poise faltered slightly. She gave her body-guard a glance, and he picked up the notes. ‘It’s good to do business with you, Huw,’ she said.

  ‘I want daily updates on the state of play.’

  ‘You’ll get them.’

  *

  Chief Investigator Paula Myo left her Paris office three minutes after getting the call from Sabbah. It took her eighteen minutes to get across town to the CST station. It was only an eight-minute wait on the platform for the next express. She arrived on Velaines within forty minutes.

  Two senior detectives, Don Mares and Maggie Lidsey from the Tokat metropolitan police, were waiting for her when the taxi delivered her to their headquarters. Given the level of the request for cooperation from the Intersolar Serious Crimes Directorate, the two detectives had no trouble requisitioning a conference office and departmental array time. Their captain also made it clear to them that he expected them to provide genuine assistance to the Chief Investigator. ‘She’ll file a report on our operational ability when this is over,’ he said. ‘And the Directorate has political clout, so be nice and be useful.’

  With Don Mares sitting restlessly beside her, Maggie Lidsey used her e-butler to call up the Chief Investigator’s file. Broad columns of translucent green text began to flow across the virtual vision generated by her retinal inserts. She skipped through the information quickly enough, it was a refresher rather than a detailed appraisal. Everyone in law enforcement knew about Paula Myo.

  The headquarters array informed the two detectives their guest had arrived. Maggie focused on the lift doors as they opened, banishing the ghostly ribbons of text. The conference office on the eighth floor of the metropolitan police head-quarters building had glass walls, as did every cubicle on the same floor. From her viewpoint, Maggie could see the whole layout. At first nobody paid much attention to Paula Myo as she walked down the main corridor, followed by two col-leagues from the Serious Crimes Directorate. In a white blouse, prim office suit, and sensible black shoes she fitted into the bustling compartmentalized work environment perfectly. She was slightly short by today’s standards when eighty per cent of the population had some kind of genetic modification. Not that she lacked physical stature; she obviously stuck determinedly to an exercise routine which kept her fitness level an order of magnitude above anything the metropolitan police required from their officers. Though Maggie suspected that was more a personal obsession. The Chief Investigator’s thick raven hair had been brushed straight so that it hung well below her shoulder blades. She always allowed it to sweep in front of her face, partially obscuring her features. Given her notoriety that was understandable. But when she did use a hand to brush those strands aside men would look up from their desks and stare, not just because of the legend she was. The Human Structure Foundation on Huxley’s Haven which had so carefully developed her genome had selected a mix of Filipino and European genes as a baseline, giving her a natural beauty which was utterly beguiling. A rejuvenation five years previously made it look as if she was now in her early twenties.

  Even though she knew she should never judge anyone by their physical guise, Maggie Lidsey had trouble taking the girl seriously as she shook hands with her and Don. With her size and fresh looks, Paula Myo could quite easily be mistaken for a teenager. The giveaway was her smile. She didn’t seem to have one.

  The other two investigators from the Directorate were introduced as Tarlo, a tall, blond Californian, and Renne Kempasa, a Latin American from Valdivia, who was halfway towards her fourth rejuvenation.

  The five of them sat round the table, and the walls opaqued. ‘Thank you for such a swift response,’ Paula said. ‘We’re here because I have a tip-off that Adam Elvin has arrived on Velaines.’

  ‘A tip-off from who?’ Don asked.

  ‘A contact. Not the most reliable, but it certainly needs investigating.’

  ‘A contact? That’s it?’

  ‘You don’t need to know, Detective Mares.’

  ‘You were here nine years ago,’ Maggie said. ‘At least, that’s the official entry in our files. So I’d guess your man is Sabbah. He’s a member of the Socialist Party, as was Elvin.’

  ‘Very good, Detective.’

  ‘Okay, we’re here to help,’ Maggie said. She felt like she’d passed some kind of test. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘To begin with, two surveillance operations. Elvin has made contact with a man called Nigel Murphy at the seventh chapter of the local Socialist Party here in town. We need to keep him under constant watch, virtual and physical. Elvin is here to acquire arms for Bradley Johansson’s terrorist group. This Murphy character will be his link to a local underground dealer; so he can lead us to both of them. Once we have the connection, we can intercept Elvin and the dealer at the exchange.’

  ‘This all sounds very easy and routine,’ Maggie said.

  ‘It won’t be,’ Tarlo said. ‘Elvin is very good. Once we’ve identified him, I’ll need a detective team to help backtrack his every movement to the moment he arrived. He’s a tricky son of a bitch. The first thing he will have done is establish an escape route in case this deal blows up in his face. We need to find it, and block it.’

  ‘You guys know it all, don’t you?’ Don Mares said. ‘What he’s doing, where he is. I’m surprised you even need us.’

  Paula looked at him briefly, then turned her attention back to Maggie. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘A little more information would be appreciated,’ Maggie said. ‘For instance, are you sure he is here to contact an arms dealer?’

  ‘It’s what he does. In fact it’s all he does these days. He’s just about given up on the party. Oh, he’ll throw the loca
l chapter a bone or two for cooperating with him. But he hasn’t really taken any part in the movement since Abadan. The party’s executive cadre effectively disowned him and his entire active resistance cell after that fiasco. That’s when he hooked up with Bradley Johansson. No one else would touch him, he was too hot. Ever since then he’s been the quartermaster for the Guardians of Selfhood. The acts they commit on Far Away make Abadan seem quite mild.’

  Don Mares grinned. ‘Managed to get any of the money back yet?’

  Tarlo and Renne gave him hostile stares. Paula Myo looked at him without saying anything. Don met her gaze levelly, showing no remorse.

  ‘Is he likely to be armed?’ Maggie asked. She glared at Don. At the best of times he could be an arsehole, today he seemed to be going out of his way to prove it.

  ‘Elvin will probably be carrying a small weapon,’ Renne Kempasa said. ‘But his main armoury is his experience and guile. If there’s any kind of physical trouble, it won’t be him that starts it. We’ll have to research the arms dealer carefully, they tend to lean towards violence.’

  ‘So no money, then,’ Don persisted. ‘Not after – what is it now – a hundred and thirty years?’

  ‘I also need your office to try and track down Elvin’s export route,’ Paula said. ‘The CST security division will cooperate with them fully on that.’

  ‘We’ll liaise with our captain over officer allocation,’ Maggie said. ‘We’ve already arranged for you to have an office and access to the departmental array.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d like to brief the observation teams in two hours.’

  ‘Tight schedule, but I think we can manage that for you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Paula hadn’t moved her gaze from Maggie. ‘No, I haven’t got any of the money back yet. Most of it is spent on arms deals like this one, which makes it particularly hard to track and recover. And I haven’t got this close to him for twenty years. So I will be seriously disappointed if an individual screws this up. It will be a career wrecker.’