Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

  *

  ‘I can’t get them back,’ Oscar said. ‘The comrelays must have glitched. We’re not even getting a carrier wave from either of them.’

  ‘Goddamn it!’ Wilson started calling up the contact team status displays onto his console screens. ‘When did you lose contact?’

  ‘Just as you told us to get them back. I don’t believe this. Those comrelay units can’t fail, they’re nothing but safety circuits.’

  A 3D chart of the Watchtower station sprang up, with other team members’ positions illustrated by small green lights. All of them were converging on the beacon.

  ‘Who’s missing?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Verbeke and Bose.’

  For one instant, Wilson felt a flash of anger. It just had to be him, didn’t it. Anger was equally quickly replaced by guilt. He’s one of my crew, and he’s suffered equipment failure. ‘Don’t they have to make their way back if they lose contact?’

  ‘That’s what the manual says. Emmanuelle knows it well enough, even if Dudley is a little shaky on theory. They should be on their way back.’

  ‘How far away are they from a working relay?’

  ‘I don’t know. They set up eighteen units behind them, I’m still getting telemetry from sixteen of them. That puts them about twenty metres away from a working one.’

  ‘Right,’ Wilson said tersely. He could imagine it, the two of them annoyed their progress had been halted, maybe a quick squabble about going back right away or taking a fast look a few metres ahead.

  ‘Should be back on line any minute now,’ Oscar said.

  ‘Anna, Sandy, is there any response from those ships yet?’

  ‘Sorry, sir, not yet,’ Sandy Lanier reported. ‘They’re still on course. No signal, not directed at us.’

  ‘Son of a bitch. Right, we need to start shouting. Bump up the power level in the transmission antennae. Make damn sure we get their attention.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  *

  McCain Gilbert shot out of the carbon composite tunnel into the beacon compartment. In front of him, contact team members were freeflying out of the gap in the wall. Pale gas from their manoeuvring packs swirled in rapid eddies through the beams of the remaining suit lights.

  ‘Have we got them yet?’ he asked Oscar.

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘They should be back in range. For fuck’s sake, Emmanuelle knows what she’s doing. How long now?’

  ‘Fourteen minutes.’

  ‘No way. No way is that a comrelay failure. They’re in trouble.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘I do.’ He twisted himself round and pushed off the wall, heading for the tunnel that would take him directly down to level five.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Oscar shouted.

  ‘Helping them.’

  ‘Get back to the shuttle!’

  ‘I’m with you, Mac,’ Frances Rawlins said.

  Mac was already in the tunnel. Light shone on him from behind. ‘I’ll take care of them,’ he told Frances.

  ‘They’re my team, damn it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Mac, for Christ’s sake,’ Oscar said. ‘Get back to the shuttle, both of you.’

  ‘Two minutes, Oscar. Come on, man, that ain’t going to make any difference.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  *

  ‘The wall is changing again, look,’ Dudley said. He stopped himself, and shone his suit lights on the patch just in front of his helmet. Emmanuelle drifted up beside him.

  The tattered aluminium was now formed into a series of small corrugations. Spaced between them was a yellow ceramic. It had small red markings on it. ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘Hey, is that writing?’ Emmanuelle asked.

  ‘Could be. What do you think, Oscar?’

  ‘We’re not sure. Make sure you get a clean video of it.’

  ‘Copy that.’ Dudley waited a moment. ‘Geddit? Copy. That.’

  ‘Just video the bloody thing,’ Emmanuelle moaned.

  *

  ‘OhmyGod.’ Sandy pushed herself back from her console as if it had just given her an electric shock. ‘Sir, missile launch. The lead ship has fired. Eight. Nine. Twelve. That’s confirmed as twelve missiles.’

  ‘At us?’ Wilson asked. He was pleased by how calm he sounded.

  ‘Four of them, yes. The rest are on courses for ships two, three, and six.’

  Wilson’s virtual finger stabbed at a communication icon. ‘Mac, Frances, get out of there now. I’m recalling the shuttle in three minutes.’

  ‘We’re almost at level seven.’

  ‘The aliens are firing at us. Get out of there. I am not going to repeat this order.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The other ships are responding to one’s missile launch,’ Anna called out. ‘Salvos launching from ships three, two, five, six, four. Oh, now eight has launched. Lead ship has fired again. Over one hundred missiles in flight. Sir, twenty-four of them are heading for us. God, they’re hitting fifteen gees.’

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ Wilson spat. ‘Pilot, take us over to the Watchtower. We’ve got to get that shuttle on board. Tu Lee, is the hyperdrive ready?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Tu Lee said. ‘We can go ftl at any time.’

  *

  Mac’s virtual hand twisted the throttle as far as the graphic would let him. He shot out of the station compartment into free space. His suit sensors locked on to the shuttle, and a bright red trajectory plot streaked across his virtual vision. He steered himself along it, ignoring the amber velocity warnings winking urgently. Frances was beside him, matching his flight.

  A searing white light appeared from behind the Watchtower. Mac flinched inside his suit. Then logic kicked in. It was the Second Chance’s plasma drive, bringing the ship in close. Cutting down the time it would take for the shuttle to get inside its force field.

  A time that shouldn’t have existed. I couldn’t leave them without making some effort to help. I just couldn’t. Who knew this would happen?

  He started to decelerate a few metres short of the shuttle, using his legs to absorb most of the impact. Even so, he hit hard. The cilia on his soles gripped the fuselage grid, preventing any rebound. Frances came down beside him. ‘Bugger me,’ she grunted. Her legs were bent sharply, torso twisting.

  ‘Go,’ Mac told the shuttle pilot.

  ‘You’re not inside yet.’

  ‘Just go. We’re secure.’

  Space around him flared yellow as the chemical rockets ignited.

  *

  Oscar had hurried back onto the bridge compartment. Wilson acknowledged him with a quick wave as he claimed his console. He was waiting for the shuttle, willing it across the gap. Both Jean Douvoir and the shuttle pilot did a superb job, rendezvousing thirty kilometres from the Watchtower. A small screen showed him the little craft settling onto its cradle, which sank back into the hangar.

  Wilson kept clenching his fist, which was disrupting his contact with the console interface pad. ‘Any contact?’ he asked for the tenth time.

  ‘No,’ Oscar said. ‘I think Mac was right, they’re in trouble.’

  ‘What the hell kind of trouble? It was dead over there. Cold and dead.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Missile detonation,’ Anna said. ‘Ho boy, here we go. Multiple blasts. High megatonnage. They’re using diverted energy pulsers, very heavy e-band emission, gamma and X-ray activity. Plenty of electronic warfare.’

  ‘Where were they?’

  ‘Ship three. Attacking and defending barrage. The ship’s still intact. Changing trajectory slightly.’

  Wilson glanced at the forward portal which was tracking the twenty-four missiles powering towards them. Their velocity alone was terrifying.

  ‘We should go,’ Oscar said quietly.

  ‘Right.’ The second shuttle was on its cradle, a volunteer pilot ready to launch the second there was any signal from Verbeke or Bose.

  ‘More
missile launches,’ Anna announced. ‘And we’re about to get another round of explosions. There’s an attack cluster almost in range of ship five.’

  ‘Any reply to our signal?’ Wilson asked.

  Sandy shook her head.

  ‘Detonations,’ Anna sang out. ‘Shit, it’s like the warm-up for Armageddon out there.’

  ‘Wilson,’ Oscar urged. ‘It’s time.’

  Captain Wilson Kime took a final look at the tracking display. The missiles were close now, and their true offensive capability remained unknown. He was coming perilously close to endangering his ship and crew. The bridge crew were all watching him, their expressions of defeat and regret, and yes, even guilt, were the same as his own.

  ‘Hyperspace,’ Wilson ordered. ‘Take us home.’

  15

  The lift doors opened smoothly, and Police Captain Hoshe Finn stepped into the familiar vestibule. For once he didn’t have to call ahead, the double doors into Morton’s pent-house were wide open. Several large flatbed trolleys had rolled through into the big split-level living room, delivering large plastic packing crates which were stacked against the walls. The process of loading the plush furniture into them had already begun, along with smaller household items all wrapped in sheets of foam. But after only three crates had been filled, the clearing-up process had come to a complete halt. All the GPbots that had been doing the work were motionless, some were still holding the objects they’d been carrying when the reported incident with the harmonic-blade carving knife had happened. Two junior managers from the Darklake National Bank, the court-appointed debt-receiver, were waiting, somewhat nervously, by the remaining settee in the conversation area. The super-visor from the removal company was sitting on the stone hearth in front of the fireplace, drinking tea from his thermos cup and smiling slyly.

  ‘Where is she?’ Hoshe asked. It said something for the power of unisphere publicity that he didn’t have to use his new police captain’s identity certificate. They all knew who he was.

  ‘In there.’ One of the bank suits pointed to the kitchen. ‘I want the bitch arrested.’

  Hoshe raised an eyebrow whilst managing to look bored at the same time – something he’d seen Paula Myo do to great effect on several occasions.

  Rather pleasingly, the suit flinched. ‘She threatened us,’ he blustered. ‘And she’s damaged one of the GPbots. We’ll be requiring compensation for that.’

  ‘Badly damaged?’ Hoshe asked.

  The supervisor glanced up from his tea. ‘Dunno. I’m not going in there. Psychos aren’t part of my job.’ He sounded amused, though his face was carefully sober in front of the suits.

  ‘Don’t blame you,’ Hoshe said. The door into the kitchen was partly open. ‘Mellanie? It’s Hoshe Finn. Do you remember me? I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Go away!’ the girl yelled. ‘All of you, just piss off.’

  ‘Come on Mellanie, you know I can’t do that. We have to talk. It’s just going to be you and me. No constables, or anything, you have my word.’

  ‘No. I won’t. There’s nothing to talk about.’

  Her voice had almost cracked. Hoshe sighed, and moved right up to the kitchen door. ‘You could at least offer me a drink. I always used to be offered something when we came here. Where’s the butler?’

  There was a long silence followed by what sounded like a sniffle. ‘Gone,’ she said quietly. ‘They all left, all of them.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll make my own drink. I’m coming in now.’ Hoshe edged round the door, still cautious, not that he thought there was any real danger.

  Like the rest of the penthouse, the kitchen was huge and elaborate. Every worktop had been carved out of pink and grey marble, with the cupboard doors below them made from burnished brentwood. The cabinets above the worktop all had transparent doors, showing off the expensive sets of crockery and glasses. He had to walk round the pool-table-sized central workbench to find Mellanie. She was sitting on the floor in a corner, hunched up tight as if she was trying to push herself through the wall. A harmonic-blade carving knife lay on the terracotta floor tiles just in front of her.

  Hoshe wanted to squat down beside her, illustrating support and friendship just like the training scenarios emphasized, but he hadn’t quite lost enough weight to do that comfortably. Instead he lounged back, resting his buttocks on the marble worktop. ‘You should be careful of those harmonic-blades,’ he said casually. ‘They can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands. Lots of junior debt-receivers can get bits chopped off if your aim’s good enough.’

  Mellanie looked up. Her auburn hair was in complete disarray. She’d been crying badly, with sticky trails daubed down her cheeks. Even so, she remained gorgeous. Perhaps even more so in this state: a classic damsel in distress. ‘What?’

  He grinned ruefully. ‘Never mind. You do know why those people are here, don’t you?’

  She nodded, and lowered her head again.

  ‘The penthouse belongs to the bank now, Mellanie. You have to find somewhere else to stay.’

  ‘This is my home,’ she wailed.

  ‘I’m really sorry. Would you like me to drive you back to your parents’ house?’

  ‘I was going to wait for him here. Then when he comes back, everything would be just the same again.’

  That shocked Hoshe more than anything else in the whole case. ‘Mellanie, the judge gave him a hundred and twenty years.’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ll wait. I love him.’

  ‘He doesn’t deserve you,’ Hoshe said sincerely.

  She looked up again, her face troubled as if she didn’t know who she was talking to.

  ‘If you want to wait, that’s your decision, and I respect that,’ he said. ‘Though I’d love to try and talk you out of it. But you really can’t do it here. I know it must be horrible for you seeing the bank walk in and take everything like this. But busting up a bot isn’t going to help get rid of them. In any case, the idiots outside are just doing their job. Annoying them just means people like me have to turn up and do their dirty work for them.’

  ‘You’re a very strange policeman. You care. Not like that—’ Her lips tightened.

  ‘Paula Myo’s gone. She left after the trial. You won’t ever see her again.’

  ‘Good!’ Mellanie looked at the carving knife, and extended a leg, pushing it away with her toes. ‘Sorry,’ she said sheepishly. ‘But everything nice I ever had happen in my life happened here, and they just barged in and started . . . They were really nasty.’

  ‘Small people always are. You going to be okay, now?’

  She sniffed loudly. ‘Yes. I think so. I’m sorry they bothered you.’

  ‘Not a problem, believe me; any excuse to get out of the office is welcome. So, why don’t I help you pack a couple of suitcases, then I’ll take you home? Humm, how about that?’

  ‘I can’t.’ She stared straight ahead. ‘I will not go back to my parents. I can’t do that. Please.’

  ‘All right, that’s okay. How about a hotel?’

  ‘I don’t have any money,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been eating the packets in the freezer since the trial. They’re almost gone. That’s why all the staff left. I couldn’t pay them. Morty’s company won’t help. None of the directors will even see me now. God! Those bastards. They loved me before, you know. I stayed at their houses, played with their children. And the parties we had. Have you ever been rich, Detective?’

  ‘That’s Hoshe, and no, I’ve never been rich.’

  ‘They really don’t live by the same rules as anyone else. Whatever they want to do, they just do it. I found that exciting. It was so wonderful being a part of that, not having limits, living so free. Now look at me. I’m nothing.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Someone like you can achieve whatever they want to. You’re just young, that’s all. Changes this big are frightening at your age. You’ll pull through. We all do in the end, somehow.’

  ‘You’re very sweet, Hoshe. I don’t deserve that.’ She wiped some
of the moisture from her cheeks. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

  ‘No. But we do need to find you somewhere to stay for tonight. How about a friend?’

  ‘Ha.’ Her smile was bitter. ‘I don’t have any. Before the trial I had hundreds. Now, there isn’t one of them who’ll talk to me. I saw Jilly Yen the other week. She actually left the shop so she didn’t have to say hello.’

  ‘Okay, look, I know the manageress of a B&B not far from here. Have a couple of nights there on me while you get yourself sorted out. You could maybe get a job waitressing or something, there are enough bars in this town. And the colleges will start enrolling in another three weeks. You must have had some thoughts on a career before all this happened.’

  ‘Oh no, no. I can’t take money off you.’ Mellanie pushed herself to her feet, combing at her snarled hair in embarrassment. ‘I don’t want charity.’

  ‘It’s not charity. I’m doing all right now as it happens, I got a decent raise as part of my promotion.’

  ‘You got promoted?’ Her brief smile died as she realized why. ‘Oh.’

  ‘You have to go somewhere. And, believe me, this B&B is cheap.’

  Mellanie bowed her head. ‘One night. That’s all. Just one.’

  ‘Sure. Let’s go and pack a bag.’

  She peered at the door. ‘They said I couldn’t take anything that was mine. They said Morty paid for it all, so it belonged to the bank now. That’s why I . . . Well, you know.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll sort it out.’ He guided Mellanie out into the living room. ‘The young lady is packing a bag of clothes and leaving,’ he told the suits.

  ‘We cannot allow any bank property—’

  ‘I’ve just told you what’s happening,’ Hoshe said. ‘You want to make an issue of it? You want to call me a liar?’

  They looked at each other. ‘No, Officer.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Hoshe had to laugh when they went into the master bedroom. Not at the cliché playboy décor of circular bed and black sheets, complete with mirror portal behind the pillows. It was the poor GPbot, lying on the floor with a sharp dint in its bodywork where someone had kicked it; two of its electro-muscle limbs were severed clean at the base, and the remaining three knotted together round its legs. It took a lot of strength to do that to electromuscle.