The locomotion ridge flesh smothering Ozzie’s hands retracted, and he grabbed at the mast. His heart was thudding away inside his ribs.
“What’s happening?” Orion demanded. The boy still hadn’t let go of the decking where he’d been tied. “Why aren’t we dead?”
Ozzie opened his mouth, and gave a loud burp. Now he had a moment, he could feel his stomach rebelling against the ceaseless falling sensation. On top of that discomfort, his head felt as if he’d suddenly come down with a cold, with his sinuses badly clogged. “We’re not falling in the normal sense,” Ozzie said slowly. He was aware of Tochee’s body aligning its eye on the handheld array, where the alien was avidly reading the spiky purple patterns flowering on the screen. “And that wasn’t a normal planet.” He pointed tentatively back at the gigantic waterfall. It formed an awesome curtain of glistening motion beyond the port side of the raft, extending away out to a vanishing point in three directions. Only the rim of the worldlet provided an end. And that seemed to be receding gently.
The Pathfinder had actually descended several kilometers below the level of the ocean. There the water foamed and frothed wildly as it poured out over the edge, while behind them it was now considerably more placid as its gargantuan writhing cataracts and spume merged back into a single rippling torrent that surged along the cliff that comprised the side of the synthetic worldlet. Following the water as it flowed along, he couldn’t see where it was heading, not even with his retinal inserts on full zoom. Right at the limit of resolution, the cliff appeared to be curving away. If he was right about that, it would make the worldlet hemispherical.
Directly above them, the brim of the worldlet was definitely curved, although it was a very slight one. His inserts ran a few calculations; if the topside was truly circular, it would be just over sixteen hundred kilometers in diameter. He whistled appreciatively.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Orion said miserably.
“Listen, man,” Ozzie said. “I know you feel this is the strangest sensation, and I really appreciate it looks even worse, but the human body can live in these conditions. Astronauts were floating around in space for months at a time when I was your age.”
“I don’t know any astronauts,” Orion wailed glumly. “I never heard of aliens called that.”
Ozzie wanted to drop his head into his hands, but that would have required gravity.
“I am not certain that my body can survive, either,” Tochee said through the array. “I feel considerable discomfort. I do not understand why I think I am falling. I can see I am not, yet that is not what my senses tell me.”
“I know it’s difficult at first,” Ozzie said. “But trust me on this one, guys, your bodies will get used to it in a little while. If experience is anything to go by, you’ll probably even get to like it.”
He stopped as Orion made a miserable retching sound, then the boy was vomiting weakly.
“I would like to believe you, my friend Ozzie,” Tochee said. “But I do not consider you understand my physiology well enough to make such a statement.”
Orion wiped his hand over his mouth, then stared in disgust at the sticky yellow globules that oscillated slowly through the air just in front of his face. “We can’t stay here,” he exclaimed desolately. “Tochee, can you pull us back to the island?”
“I should be able to.”
“Whooo there, guys,” Ozzie said. “Let’s not rush into actions like that. If we fly over that ocean and the gravity catches us, we’re likely to fall for real.”
“It’s got to be better than this,” Orion whined. His cheeks bulged again, and he groaned.
Ozzie looked back at the worldlet. They were definitely drifting away from it at a slow but steady rate. “There are other objects inside the gas halo. Remember what Bradley Johansson told me? He wound up on some sort of tree reef that lives in orbit here. And they categorically have paths away. I mean, how else would he get back to the Commonwealth?”
“Are they far?” Orion moaned.
“I don’t know,” Ozzie said patiently. “We’ll have to wait and see what we find next.” He held his hand out. “There’s a breeze here. That means we’re moving.” He realized the raft had twisted so that the worldlet was slipping below the decking.
“I really hate this,” Orion said.
“I know. Now let’s get everything as secure as we can. We can’t risk losing any more supplies. Or any of us, for that matter.”
The designers of the Tulip Mansion had intended the conservatory-style chamber to be the breakfast room. It extended out from the eastern side of the north wing like an octagonal blister: traditional high glass roof supported by cast iron pillars, and walls made out of gently curving panes that came down to ground level. The floor was classic black and white marble tiles, with a large central circular Romanate bar where the pampered owners ate their morning meal amid dappled beams of strong sunlight. Vines and climbing fuchsias grew out of big unglazed pots at the foot of each pillar, their shaggy greenery providing a gentle shade. The air had a sweet muskiness, complemented during the day by the delicate scent of the short-lived flowers that bloomed all the year.
With the Burnelli family preferring the less exposed west wing dining room to start the day in, Justine had taken over the chamber as a kind of casual office. Out had come the formal chairs to be replaced by some large leather couches and even a couple of gelmold bags. The only thing standing on the central bar these days was a giant crescent-shaped aquarium, with a variety of colorful terrestrial and alien fish that regarded each other warily. It left just enough room for the two technicians to install the new large array on the remaining surface.
Justine stood in the doorway, watching as they completed their checks and gathered up their tools. She was wearing black, of course, a plain long skirt and matching blouse; nothing too fashionable, but not gloomy, either. Just a simple statement, which she felt was most appropriate. Most of her social circle wouldn’t even recognize the significance, she thought; their kind never had to deal with the concept of death anymore.
“Up and running, ma’am,” the senior technician said.
“Thank you,” Justine said distantly. The two technicians nodded politely and left. They were from Dislan, the Burnelli-owned electronics company that did nothing but manufacture and supply equipment to the family.
She went over to the austere silver-gray cylinder squatting on the polished granite-top bar. There was a tiny red light on the upper rim, gleaming scarlet.
Paula Myo walked into the chamber and shut the tall double doors behind her. “Is this secure, Senator?” she asked. There was a degree of skepticism in the tone as she glanced out through the wide windows. Beyond the rose garden, the hills of Rye County formed a crumpled landscape of pine forests, broken by the deeper green swathes of rhododendron bushes that had long finished flowering.
Justine gave her e-butler an instruction. The walls and roof dissolved into a grainy curtain of gray light, like a hologram projector showing a drab autumn sky. No hint of the external world remained, an effect that produced a near-claustrophobic feeling. “It is now,” Justine said lightly. “And the array is completely independent; it doesn’t even have a node, so nobody can hack in. We’re as isolated as it’s possible to be in the modern world.” She took the memory crystal from a slim metal case and stood in front of the array. The single light turned from scarlet to emerald as she pressed her hand on the top. “I want you to scan this, and tell me what data it contains.”
“Yes, Senator,” the RI replied. A small circle on top of the cylinder dilated, and Justine dropped the memory crystal in.
“It’s a quantum scanner,” she told Paula. “So it should be able to locate any hardwired ambush in the molecular structure.”
The two of them sat on one of the couches. Its brown leather was so parched from the strong sunlight it was cracking open; Justine enjoyed it for that as much as the softness that came from age. A tatty piece of furniture in a trillion
aire’s immaculate household also made the chamber more appealing to her, a little stamp of personal identity.
“What happened at the autopsy?” Justine asked.
“It was all very ordinary,” Paula said. “They confirmed a lack of any memorycell insert. The rest of his inserts were all relatively common. Navy intelligence will track down the manufacturer, and from that we should get the clinic which gave them to Kazimir. I expect the operation will have been paid for either with cash or from a onetime account; Adam Elvin doesn’t make elementary mistakes, but they could get lucky.”
“Is that it?” Justine wasn’t sure what she’d expected, something that made him stand out at least, an aspect that proved how exceptional he was.
“Essentially, yes. Cause of death confirmed as the ion shot. He wasn’t taking any narcotics, although there was evidence of heavy steroid and hormone infusions over the last couple of years, which is understandable for someone born on a low-gravity world. You should know he hadn’t undergone any cellular reprofiling.”
Justine gave the Investigator a frown.
“It really was him,” Paula explained. “They weren’t trying to push a ringer on you.”
“Ah.” She could have told the Investigator that. He was Kazimir, nobody could fake that. “What about his hotel room? Any leads there?”
“It doesn’t look like it. I’m receiving the reports directly from navy intelligence as soon as they’re filed in their database. Of course, if there’s anything they’re not filing, that they’re keeping to themselves, then we have a problem.”
“Is that likely?”
“It’s a remote possibility. Legally, they have to put everything on file, and therefore Senate Security has complete access as we are higher up the security service food chain. However, you and I both know that the navy is compromised. One of the Starflyer’s people could be holding things back.”
“Assuming they’re not, will the hotel room tell us much?”
“Not really. The Guardians seem to be as thorough with their tradecraft in their own homes as they are everywhere else. The only report I really value is Kazimir’s financial record. That should give us a nice breakdown of his movements before you alerted the navy to his presence.”
A fresh burst of guilt at the reminder made Justine tighten her jaw muscles. “When will that be ready?”
“A couple of days. The navy intelligence office in Paris will correlate the data. I’ll review it after that.”
“Paris: that’s your old office, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Senator.”
“Do you think that’s where the Starflyer’s agent is?”
“It’s a very high probability that one of them is there, yes. I was running several entrapment operations before I was dismissed.”
“And I went and told them about Kazimir,” Justine said bitterly.
Paula Myo stared straight ahead at the cylinder containing the array. “I will expose the Starflyer, Senator. That is what the Guardians are fighting for; the one thing Kazimir McFoster believed in above all else.”
“Yes,” Justine said with a nod.
“I have completed an analysis of the memory crystal,” the RI announced.
“It holds three hundred and seventy-two files of encrypted data. There are some software safeguards against unauthorized access, but they can easily be circumvented.”
“Good,” Justine said. Given the capacity of the array she would have been very surprised if it couldn’t gain access to whatever was stored on the crystal.
“Can you decrypt the files?”
“They are encrypted with one thousand two hundred eighty dimension–geometry. I do not have the processing capacity to decrypt that level.”
“Bugger,” Justine muttered. For a moment her hopes had actually risen; she had expected slightly more help from a piece of hardware that had just cost her over five million Earth dollars. “Who does?”
“The SI,” Paula said. “And the Guardians, of course.”
Justine asked the question that she found very difficult. “Do you trust the SI?”
“In helping us defeat the Prime aliens, I believe it to be a trustworthy ally.”
“That’s a very cautious answer.”
“I do not believe that humans can understand the SI’s full motivation. We do not even know its true intent toward us as a species. It claims to be benign, and it has never acted in any other fashion toward us. However …”
“Yes?”
“During the course of my investigations I have come across instances which suggest it pays considerably more attention to us than it will admit to.”
“Intelligence gathering has been the occupation of governments since the Trojans got a real bad surprise from that little gift the Greeks left behind. I don’t doubt for a second the SI monitors us.”
“But to what end? There are several theories, most of which belong to the wilder realms of conspiracy paranoia. They all tend to concern its incipient ascent to godhood.”
“What do you believe?”
“I imagine it considers us in much the same way as we would regard a mildly troublesome neighbor. It monitors us because it doesn’t want any surprises, especially one which would threaten the neighborhood.”
“Is this really relevant?”
“Probably not, unless it chooses to take the side of the Primes.”
“Damn, you’re suspicious.”
“I prefer to think of it as an extended chess exercise,” the Investigator said.
“Excuse me?”
“I try to see all the possible moves that can be made to oppose me as far ahead as I can. But I agree that the SI being an enemy is extremely remote. On a personal level I have established a useful working relationship with it; and of course it does contain a great deal of downloaded human personalities, which should act in our favor.”
“Now I just don’t know what the hell to think.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to place you under any additional anxiety. It was thoughtless of me given your current situation.”
“You know, the only benefit of my age right now is that I know when I’m too messed up to be making that kind of decision. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just leave it up to you. Do you want to ask the SI to decrypt this for us?”
“The only alternative is to contact the Guardians and ask them directly.”
“Do you know how to do that?” Justine asked.
“No. If I had that kind of lead into the Guardians I would have shut them down decades ago.”
“I see.” The gray-blue icon for the code Kazimir had sent her hovered in the corner of her virtual vision, inert but oh-so-tempting. Once again she knew she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to make that choice. She didn’t even know if she should tell the Investigator she had it. And for a Commonwealth senator to contact what was currently classified as a political terrorist group was a momentous act. Instinctively, she was loath to risk loading that innocuous code into the unisphere. If any such association became public knowledge before the Starflyer was exposed, she would be completely discredited. Not even the family would be able to protect her. And the Starflyer would have won another victory.
“We might not have to ask anyone to help with the memory crystal,” Paula said. “The navy is investigating the observatory in Peru. They ought to be able to find out the nature of the data, even if the actual files remain blocked.”
“Okay then,” Justine said in relief. “We’ll wait until the navy files that report.” She extracted the memory crystal from the array, then switched off the room’s screening. Warm afternoon sunlight flooded back through the big windows, making Justine blink.
The mansion’s butler was waiting beside the door. “Admiral Columbia is waiting to see you, ma’am,” he said.
“He’s here?” Justine asked in surprise.
“Yes, ma’am. I showed him into the west wing reception room and asked him to wait.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“Alas, no, ma’am.”
“Stay here,” Justine told Paula. “I’ll deal with this.” She set off down the north wing’s central corridor, squaring her shoulders as she went. How typical of Columbia to try to gain the advantage by making a surprise visit to her home ground. If he thought that kind of crude tactic would work against even the most junior Burnelli he was badly mistaken.
The decoration in the west wing reception room harked back to the most lavish days of the French monarchy. Justine had always disliked quite so much gilt framing and gold leaf; and the period chairs, although beautifully ornate, were actually uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time.
Admiral Rafael Columbia was standing waiting in front of the huge fire-place, one foot raised slightly to rest on the marble hearth. In his immaculate uniform, all he was missing was a fur-lined coat for the image of an imperial tsar to be complete. He seemed to be studying the onyx case clock dominating the mantelpiece.
“Senator”—he gave her a small bow as she made her entrance, pushing the double doors open and striding in—“I was admiring the clock. An original?”
The doors swept shut behind her. “I imagine so. Father is quite an aggressive collector.”
“Indeed.”
Justine indicated a glass-top table, etched with the Burnelli crest. They sat down on opposite sides in high-back chairs.
“What can I do for you, Admiral?”
“Senator, I’m afraid I must ask why you interfered with a navy intelligence operation. Specifically, removing the body of a suspected terrorist from the scene of a crime.”
“I didn’t remove anything, Admiral. I accompanied the body.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 117