‘Our worst fears have been proved right,’ the Guardians’ spokesman said in a calm, significant voice. ‘The Dyson aliens are preparing to invade the Commonwealth. They have an overwhelming force pouring through Hell’s Gateway which will be unleashed against us any day now. We warned you this would happen, and now, sadly, millions if not billions of citizens will be killed to confirm everything we have always said is tragically true. They will die because our Commonwealth’s defences are completely inadequate. We know that every person serving in the navy will do their utmost when the invasion begins, we support them wholeheartedly in their awful task, but there are too few of them, and not enough ships. If we could provide them with assistance, we would, but that is not our arena.
‘We will carry on our own lonely fight against the Starflyer creature who has brought about this disaster. It is not often we are able to expose one of its agents, for they are normally hidden and protected. However, in this case, the evidence is overwhelming. One person put forward the proposal to launch a starship to investigate Dyson Alpha. One person now governs the size of the navy budget. One person knows the true size of the resources we need, and continually denies us those resources. One person sends their murderer to kill their opponents. This one person is the most powerful puppet the Starflyer has ever used against us. It is President Doi herself.
‘Be warned, and remember the true crisis we are facing is not the physical one from the Dyson aliens. It is the one corrupting us from within. We have always been honest with you. Now, in humanity’s darkest hour, we ask you to believe us in this one last time. Doi and her master are our enemy, she will obliterate us if left unchallenged.
‘Challenge her.’ The spokesman bowed his head. ‘I thank you for your time.’
*
The whole office was spending the morning filing reports and filling in finance department forms to cover the cost of the LA deployment. Thankfully, Paula just had to skim the summaries and attach her authorization code. That left her with some time to contemplate what had happened, although all she could really think about was Thompson Burnelli’s murder. Tarlo and Renne were busy sifting through the pitifully small amount of leads resulting from the pursuit so they could draw up an action plan. Alic Hogan had chosen to examine the camera images from LA Galactic in a virtual projection to see if the software had been handed over inside the station terminal. She didn’t object. For all he was Columbia’s place-man, Hogan was relatively efficient at his job, and it would keep him away from her for most of the day.
As so often happened with the Johansson case, LA had become a problem that had multiplied unexpectedly, and always in the wrong directions. Although on the positive side, she at least knew that Elvin was putting together another smuggling operation.
At eleven o’clock Rafael Columbia appeared in the office. He was dressed in his full admiral’s uniform, with several staff officers in attendance. Everyone in the office stopped what they were doing to look at him.
Paula stood up just as he reached her door. ‘Wait for me,’ he told his officers, and closed the door.
‘Admiral,’ Paula said. She closed the file in her virtual vision which had been displaying the names of everyone she’d informed of a target arriving at Seattle, along with their time-frame.
He gave her a humourless smile as he sat in the visitor’s chair. ‘Commander.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘Ordinarily, I would say you can explain your latest fuck-up. But, frankly I think we’ve gone beyond that, don’t you?’
‘Los Angeles was unfortunate, although we did learn that . . .’
‘Not interested. It was a half-assed operation from the start. And that is indicative of the way you run things. Some target appears out of nowhere, and without any planning or prior notification you put an under-resourced team on pursuit duties. Not only that, but when things go wrong, you drag half of the LAPD into the operation just in time for them to watch it blow up in our face. We’re a fucking laughing stock, Commander. And I will not tolerate that.’
Paula saw how much anger was behind Columbia’s steely expression, and realized she was going to have to confide in him. ‘I’m sorry about the negative publicity, but I can assure you the operation was planned with considerable forethought. I used a small team for a reason.’
‘Which was?’
‘I believe there is a leak of some kind in navy intelligence. I have been running isolation and identification operations for some time in an attempt to identify the source.’
Rafael Columbia’s face darkened. ‘A leak?’ he said with false calm.
‘There has to be.’
‘And you didn’t bother informing me nor Lieutenant Hogan about this?’
‘I was waiting for some concrete results first.’
‘So then you don’t have a suspect, yet?’
‘No, sir, not yet.’
‘Outside your suspicions, is there a single shred of evidence to back up this allegation against your fellow officers?’
‘I believe Venice Coast was . . .’
‘Ah! The other very public setback you inflicted on us.’
‘As I was saying,’ she said forcefully. ‘Venice Coast was leaked. The unknown attacker must have received information from a source inside the navy.’
‘And this unknown attacker, who was wetwired with the most sophisticated armaments the Commonwealth can produce, is working for Johansson’s Starflyer?’
‘That is an option.’
‘An option you’ve been shouting very loudly to your political allies.’
‘Somebody has been deflecting my investigation for decades. I need to start widening my approach.’ She just held back from telling him what Thompson Burnelli had told her.
Rafael Columbia took a small paperscreen from his pocket. He held it up as it unfurled. ‘Recognize him?’
Paula stared at the image on the paperscreen. ‘That’s the Venice Coast attacker.’ The image had been taken from a bad overhead angle, and he was wearing sports whites, but she would never mistake that face.
‘I’m glad we agree on something. That image was given to me by Senate Security. It was taken by a camera at the Clinton Estate. That is the man who walked out of Thompson Bur-nelli’s squash court after the senator was murdered.’
‘He wouldn’t,’ she whispered in horror. Sheldon eliminating his political opponents? I don’t believe it. That’s not how the Grand Families and Intersolar Dynasties operate. Something is wrong about this. Badly wrong.
‘Who wouldn’t?’ Rafael demanded.
‘The murderer. Why would he be used to kill the senator?’
‘I don’t fucking know. But according to you, he goes around causing mayhem on the orders of a navy officer.’
‘I did not say that, and you’re a fool if that’s what you think.’
Rafael Columbia sat back in the chair and gave her a steady look. ‘When I became chief of the Directorate I was just as impressed with you as all those media morons you play up to in your trials. The legendary Paula Myo, who solves all her cases except one, and she’s still working on that after all these decades – never giving up. So like all the other chiefs before me, I gave you plenty of space, and never questioned your methods. After all, Johansson and his sidekick are just a pair of lunatic conspiracy fanatics spouting paranoid propaganda. Kind of romantic really, like pirates in sailing ships. Because the only physical damage the Guardians cause is on Far Away, where nobody ever goes, and certainly nobody cares about apart from the Halgarths, and they can afford it anyway. Except, pirates were actually the most bloodthirsty psychopaths, who slaughtered the crews of entire ships and wrecked economies because of the trade routes they closed down. You see the parallel here? It took decisive naval action to eliminate piracy. Now I gave you an entire department, with unlimited government resources, tasked to do one thing. I gave you that in good faith, because you are the Paula Myo, and everyone believes you are the one person in the Commonwealth
who can run down Bradley Johansson for me.’
‘I can.’
‘You haven’t. The reason you’re still chasing him – and I’m sorry if this causes offence, but it happens to be true – is that you’re an obsessive-compulsive. The only reason, Commander Myo.’
‘I am what I am. And that makes me perfect for the job.’
‘I disagree. You have poor leadership skills, you antagonize and alienate your fellow officers, you do not follow procedure, you do not believe anyone is capable of performing tasks as well as yourself – in other words you belittle them and are distrustful of them, which is why we find ourselves in this whole business of leaks. It has to be a leak, doesn’t it, because it couldn’t possibly be your fault, your screw-up.’
‘Would you like to say what you came here to say.’
‘Certainly. As of now, I am appointing Alic Hogan to take charge of the Johansson operation.’
‘No.’
‘You will continue to be a part of the operation, of course, but it will be in an advisory role only. Hogan will direct the day-to-day running of this office, and facilitate policy and strategy.’
‘That is not acceptable.’
‘You are a navy officer, you will obey my orders.’
‘I am not a navy officer, I am not a part of this bureaucratic farce. I am a police officer.’
‘Not any more. If you refuse my order you will be dismissed from the service.’
‘This is my investigation.’
‘It is not.’
Paula’s e-butler told her it had just been locked out of the office network. She gazed over the desk at Rafael Columbia; some kind of shock was holding her body rigid, she could feel her skin cooling. Some sick feeling that she suspected was close to panic had begun to clog her thoughts. It was obvious Rafael wasn’t going to accept a compromise, he wanted his man running the operation, LA was just the excuse. One thing was perfectly clear, she couldn’t continue the investigation as part of the navy.
‘Fine. I resign my commission.’ Paula stood up, which made Columbia flinch. She picked the quartz cube hologram off her desk and put it in her shoulder bag, then she took the rabbakas plant from the windowsill.
‘Word of advice,’ Columbia said. ‘Next time you get rejuvenated, get your Foundation-fixed dominants taken out. The clinics can make anybody normal these days.’
She raised an eyebrow in interest. ‘There’s hope for you yet, then.’
Everybody in the office was sitting behind their desks as she walked out, holding the same position they were in when Columbia arrived. The only difference was the surprise on their faces.
‘Goodbye,’ she told them. ‘And thank you for all the hard work you did for me.’
Tarlo half-rose from his chair. ‘Paula . . .’
She shook her head fractionally, and he fell silent. Without looking left or right she walked out of the office.
When she got down onto on the street she walked automatically back to her apartment, half a mile away. It was on the second floor of a centuries-old block that had a central cobbled courtyard overlooked by shuttered windows. Narrow stone stairs wound upwards in the kind of central well that looked as if it had been water-eroded rather than built. In her one visible concession to security, the solid oak door of her apartment had a modern electronic lock to supplement the ancient mechanical one.
Inside, there were three rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, and the living room with a small kitchen alcove. She didn’t need anything more, she didn’t use anything more. It was somewhere to sleep conveniently near the office, an address for her clothes valeting service.
When Paula walked in the maidbot was sitting passively in the corner of the living room. It had already run through its daily cleaning routine, polishing the age-darkened floorboards, dusting every flat surface, and putting her breakfast crockery in the dishwasher. She opened the window that overlooked the courtyard, and put the rabbakas on the little dresser beside it where it would catch the sunlight every afternoon. With that taken care of she looked around the neat living room as if searching for a clue. There was nothing else for her to do. She sat in the sofa which faced the wall-mounted portal, perching on the edge.
Memories were filtering up inside her mind. Memories that had never been erased or transferred into safe storage at any of her rejuvenations. Memories she’d assumed were dormant. Right after her parents’ trial she’d gone back to the hotel with her police escort. That had been a big new tower in Marindra’s capital, with its cube rooms and clean new furniture and air conditioning. The escort had left her alone, giving her a break before the Huxley’s Haven government official arrived to take her ‘home’. Now the trial was over, she didn’t know what to do. There was nothing to fill her time, no school to go to, no Coya to hang out with, no boys to eye up. She sat on the bed, perched on the edge looking out through the big picture window at the capital’s skyline, and waited. Strange things happened inside her head, Coya’s hysterical crying and pleading was still echoing round in there; while her eyes looked through the window all she could actually see was her parents being led from the dock. Her father’s head hung low as his dreams and hopes lay broken around him. Her mother, equally haggard. But Rebecca turned to look across the court, meeting her stolen step-daughter’s gaze, and mouthed, ‘I love you.’
In her small, empty Paris apartment Paula whispered, ‘I love you too, Mum.’ Then just as she had in that hotel room a hundred and sixty years ago, Paula Myo started crying.
*
Preparation had taken many months, vast amounts of resources and industrial capacity had been diverted from the expansion expedition being mounted on the other side of the interstellar wormhole, but MorningLightMountain was finally ready. The other immotiles had been forming alliances that might eventually challenge its dominance. They were worried about its new technology. It knew that they had been experimenting with wormhole construction, its quantum wave detectors had picked up the tell-tale fluctuations from many settlements across the Prime system. If it didn’t act now, they would soon reach parity, its advantage would be lost permanently.
Three hundred and twenty-eight wormholes were opened in unison. They were small, all of them measuring a metre and a half wide. Just enough for a ten-megatonne warhead to pass through. The wormholes closed.
MorningLightMountain had opened them next to the primary groupings of all the other immotiles on the planet, inside the ultrastrong protective force fields that guarded them from the sky, and next to the sprawling buildings which sheltered and nurtured them. The warheads detonated immediately, wiping out every motile and immotile within a twenty-five-kilometre radius. Even as the first round of nukes was exploding, MorningLightMountain was opening the wormholes again, this time at the next series of targets, the subsidiary immotiles orbiting the Prime homeworld. After that it targeted the first of the two solid planets, the second. Then came the innermost gas-giant, its moons, the asteroid habitats, the outermost gas-giant, industrial stations. The wave of obliteration rippled out across the system for over a day. Not that many of the remaining immotile groupings ever knew they were at war; they had little or no warning of their doom. MorningLightMountain’s wave of assaults travelled across the star system faster than the speed of light.
When it was over, when every other immotile grouping had been reduced to a lake of radioactive lava, MorningLightMountain used the wormholes again. This time it sent connections through, microwaves or fibre optic cable, inserting itself into the core-less communications networks of its vanquished rivals. Its thoughts and orders flooded into the minds of the surviving motiles, expelling their mental heritage, turning MorningLightMountain into the sole sentient entity in the star system. Every motile was enmeshed in its thoughts as it took control of the infrastructure and spaceships that remained. For over a week it sent its billions of new motiles out to survey the wreckage and list the mechanical systems that had survived unscathed. Most of the farms and food production plants had come th
rough intact, as had a great many industrial facilities. The information was used to assemble a strategy for integration, bringing together every production centre in a single unified organization. It began to amalgamate thousands of motiles into new subsidiary groupings of itself to cope with the huge demands of managing an entire star system. Without rivalries, and acting in conjunction, the combined industrial output of every manufacturing plant was greater than before.
Synergy, the Bose memories called it. The alien’s concepts and words still lingered and lurked amid MorningLightMountain’s system-wide thoughts, even though the coherent article had long been erased. It had even taken the precaution of physically eradicating the immotile unit which the Bose memories had been stored in. All that remained now were memories of memories, disseminated information that manifested in the odd alien phrase. There was no concern left of possible contamination. It was pure now, a single life that lived throughout this star system, and was now expanding into a second.
The effort to reach the Commonwealth resumed, with hundreds of ships flying daily through the interstellar worm-hole to the staging-post star system, carrying equipment that would build the next sequence of wormholes.
*
Out of all the hundreds of billions of motiles hurrying to perform their appointed tasks, one did not obey Morning-LightMountain’s instructions. Because such individuality was impossible to a Prime, it moved where it wanted and saw what it needed. No other motile possessed the kind of independent thought structure that would question it. As long as it avoided the attention of MorningLightMountain’s main thought routines, it was perfectly safe to come and go as it pleased.
For over a day it had been moving around the base of the giant mountain building which contained the original heart of the massive interlinked creature which was MorningLightMountain. It didn’t move as smoothly as all the other motiles, it wasn’t used to four legs, nor the strange way they bent and twisted. But it made progress.
In the background of its mind were the directives and thoughts of MorningLightMountain, emerging from the little communication device attached to one of its nerve receptor stalks. It ignored them because it wanted to. A mental ability which other motiles did not have. The images and information coming out of the communication device were a useful guide to what was happening across the Prime system.
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