The taxi dropped Mellanie off at 1800 Briggins, a long residential street in the Olika district. It was a kilometer from the lakeshore, running parallel, a proximity that gave the air a rich humidity. Bungalows with lush wraparound lawns were backed up next to walled chalet compounds, while broad apartment blocks looking like small classy hotels fronted most of the junctions. A good many sporty boats occupied parking lots or single-span car ports; jetskis were almost compulsory garden ornaments. The side roads were dominated by chic restaurants, bars, and boutiques. High-earning professionals and media types had colonized the street, pushing real estate out of the realms of middle income families.
Mellanie was always slightly surprised that Paul Cramley lived here. Number 1800 was a bungalow of lavender drycoral arches framing lightly silvered windows; it had a circular layout, the curving rooms locking together around a small central swimming pool. She sort of assumed he’d occupied the same spot from day one of Oaktier’s settlement, living at the center of a farm in some prefab aluminum hut while Darklake City grew up around him, slowly selling off his land field by field to the developers. From what she knew of him, there was no other way he could afford the location. Paul was one of the oldest people she’d ever met, claiming to have grown up on Earth long before the wormholes were opened. His age meant that he knew everyone worth knowing on Oaktier, simply because he predated all of them. Mellanie had been introduced to him at some party thrown by one of Morty’s circle. He seemed to survive purely by loafing; there were few swanky parties in Darklake City that Paul didn’t slip into. Stranger still was the way people at all those classy events deferred to him. Morty had explained once that Paul was a grade-A webhead, spending up to eighteen hours a day wired into the unisphere. He dealt with information that wasn’t always legitimately available. That made him very useful to certain types of people in the corporate world.
The gate lock buzzed before Mellanie even reached it. She went through into a small courtyard area that led up to the wooden front door. One of Paul’s nostats rippled across the worn slabs. An alien creature that resembled a mobile fur rug, in its current configuration it was a simple fat diamond shape, a meter to a side, with a stumpy tail. On its top the russet-colored fur was as soft as silk, while the strands on its underside had twined into thicker fibers with the texture of a stiff brush. They were strong enough to hold the body off the ground, and rippled in precise waves to move it along. It reached the front door and shot through a cat flap. Mellanie watched in bemusement as its body changed shape to squeeze through; it was as if the fur was a simple sac around some treacly fluid. She could hear a plaintive keening on the other side.
“Who frightened you, then?” a man’s voice asked.
Mellanie saw a shape moving through the panes of amber glass set into the side of the door. It opened to show Paul Cramley cradling the nostat, which sat in his arms like a flaccid bag. She caught a flash of movement behind him, and saw two more of the creatures whipping across the hall’s dark parquet flooring, hurrying deeper into the bungalow. Paul didn’t have any shoes on; all he wore was a pair of faded turquoise biker shorts that were covered by sagging pockets of all sizes, and a black T-shirt that had frayed badly around the hem and collar. The getup made him look like some kind of delinquent grandfather. His long face with its lively dark eyes was the kind that would be handsome for a good twenty years following rejuvenation. That opportune moment was now thirty years behind him. Wrinkles and heavy jowls were being pulled down by gravity, his once brown hair had receded and turned to silver. Mellanie had never known anyone to spend so long between rejuvenation treatments. Not that he’d put on weight; he was quite skinny, with long legs and knees that were swollen enough to make her suspect the onset of arthritis.
“It’s you,” he said in disappointment.
“You knew it was,” she retorted.
Paul shrugged, and beckoned her through.
Inside, the bungalow looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for ten years. Mellanie walked after Paul as he went through the kitchen into the curving lounge. There were no lights on. Maidbots older than her stood in their alcoves, their power lights dark, covered in a thin layer of dust. In the kitchen, only the drinks module was active. Two large commercial catering boxes of disposable ready-to-hydrate cups stood on the floor beneath it, one of English breakfast tea, one of hot chocolatte. His waste compactor had stalled, jammed tight with fast-food boxes from Bab’s Kebabs, Manby Pizzas, and HR fish and chips. Another nostat fled from the whiffy pile as they passed through. It flattened itself out into a diamond nearly a meter and a half across, and slithered straight up the wall, its bristle fur sticking to the tiles with the tenacity of insect legs.
“I thought they were illegal,” Mellanie said.
“You can’t get import licenses for them anymore,” Paul told her. “But I brought these to Oaktier over a century ago. They’re from Ztan, originally. Some idiot made a fuss over them fighting his pedigree dogs and Congress rushed through a ban. They’re fine if you train them properly.”
The living room puzzled her. Apart from the dust and the grimy yellow ceiling, it was perfectly tidy, though the furniture was so old-fashioned it almost qualified as retro-chic. So which room does he use? The couch she sat in gave her a view into the central pool area. Dead, soggy leaves drifted across the still surface.
Paul sat in a big wicker globe chair that hung from the ceiling like an oversized bird perch. It creaked alarmingly as it took his weight. The nostat he was holding wriggled up closer to his chest, its edges flowing around his ribs as he carried on stroking it. “You have some very strange programs observing you, did you know that? They follow you physically through the cybersphere, transferring from node to node.” He looked down curiously at the nostat. “Like some kind of pet on a short lead.”
“I thought there might be,” she said.
“I got busted the last time you asked me a small favor. A simple run through a restricted city listing that nobody should have known about.”
“I know, I’m sorry. How much was the fine? I can probably pay it for you.”
“Not interested.” Paul was still absorbed by the loose blob of rusty fur flopping happily in the nest of his arms. “The police came here and took all of my arrays. People found out. I can’t get around this city, my city, the way I used to. Doors are shutting in my face. Do you have any idea how humiliating that is for someone like me? I was the hottest webhead in town. Well, not anymore. I’ve never been busted before. Not ever. And I’ve hacked my way into corporate arrays that make the Great Wormhole Heist look like stealing candy in a kindergarten lunch hour. Are you beginning to understand now?”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“Fuck it!” Paul jumped out of the chair, sending the startled nostat flowing down his leg. He stood in front of Mellanie, hands pressed into the couch cushioning on either side of her shoulders, his face centimeters from hers. “Are you really as dumb as you look?”
Mellanie gave herself a self-conscious glance. Her short satin skirt was bright scarlet, worn with a simple white top to show herself off; men always responded to that. Paul was no exception; he’d always flirted and leered in his oddly chirpy way at parties when they’d bumped into each other. She’d never seen him like this, though, never guessed he could get violent. Her glittery virtual hand hovered over the SI icon, though she hated the idea of yelling for help yet again. “No, I’m not dumb.” She glowered back at him.
“No, I don’t suppose you are.” Paul backed off, a grin on his face showing nicotine-browned teeth. “Paula Myo was protected by extraordinarily sophisticated software. I don’t want to bang my own drum here; but there is absolutely no way I can get caught hacking into some poxy city listing. Not in any normal state of play, that is. Now who exactly would be protecting her weird little Hive ass, do you think?” He clicked his fingers as if struck by a thought. “Hey, here’s an idea, it could be the same people who’re covering your ass with protective software.
Mega coincidence there, huh?”
Mellanie grimaced a smile. “I don’t know. I didn’t know Paula Myo was protected. Honestly.”
“No shit?” Paul lit a cigarette and sank back into his wicker chair. “I almost believe you. So tell me what you do know.”
“Nothing much. Paula Myo doesn’t really want to talk to me. I don’t think she trusts me.”
Paul grinned and blew out a long plume of smoke in her direction. “You’re a reporter. Nobody trusts you. As a breed, you’re on a level with politicians.”
“You’re talking to me.”
“Yeah, and look what happened to me.”
“Can you get another array?”
“Yeah. But why would I want to?”
“I need another hack.”
Paul started laughing. It turned into a bad cough, which forced him to slap his chest to stop. “Oh, screw me. You young people. Hell, was I ever so single-minded? I remember my dear old mother was a straight-talking woman, God rest her Irish soul. But you!”
“You shouldn’t smoke,” Mellanie snapped; she’d been trying very hard not to frown at the cigarette, even with the vile smoke making her want to sneeze. But Paul just kept blowing more of it in her direction. Deliberately, she reckoned.
“Why not? It’s not as if it can kill you anymore. Rejuvenation will root any cancers out of my lungs.” He took another deep drag. “Helps keep you thin, too, did you know that? Better than any diet. Want to try one?” He held the packet out.
“No!”
“Figure like yours, best kept in trim.”
“Will you run a hack for me or not? I can pay.”
“I have money.”
Mellanie couldn’t stop herself from looking around the seedy lounge with a disbelieving expression.
“Yeah, yeah,” Paul growled. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, sweetheart.”
“There are other ways I can pay you.”
Paul’s gaze started at her Davino pumps and slowly tracked up her bare legs. “I can see that,” he said lecherously. “Do you know what major event occurs in just three short years from now, young Mellanie?”
“No. What?”
“I will be four hundred years old. And, if you don’t mind, I’d actually like to reach that particular birthday.” His gaze slid back to her thighs, and he smiled comfortably. “Mind you, as my dad would have said: What a way to go.”
Mellanie just managed to suppress a shudder at the notion. “I was talking about another currency. The one you trade in.”
“I doubt that. No offense, but you’re just a soft porn star who made good.”
“I want you to run an observation routine on my old boss, Alessandra Baron. The results will benefit both of us.”
Paul pulled a fresh cigarette from the packet, and lit it against the stump of the old. “How?”
“Because there’s something you don’t know. There is information out there in the unisphere that’s critically important to the Commonwealth. Information that will let you deal yourself back into that life you enjoy so much on this planet. Those doors that got shut against you will spring right open again if you use this properly. Somebody your age knows exactly how to do that.”
“All right. You have my attention. Why should I go out and buy myself a new array?”
“The Starflyer is real. It exists, just like the Guardians always said.”
Paul started coughing again. “You’re shitting me.”
“No.” She could have given him a whole list of reasons why she was right, but one thing she’d learned about coping with the real elderly was that they didn’t respond well to emotionally charged arguments. So silent conviction it was.
Paul shifted around uncomfortably, starting a small pendulum motion in the wicker chair. “Then how does watching Baron … Oh, Jeezus, you’ve got to be kidding. She’s part of it?”
“The chief cheerleader against our navy. What do you think?”
“Bloody hell.”
“I need to know who she gets in touch with. The important stuff will be encrypted traffic to onetime unisphere addresses. Crack the codes for me, find out who’s with her, backtrack their communications. I want to know what she’s up to, I want to know what the Starflyer’s next move is. It’ll be difficult. She’s got her own team of webheads; or the Starflyer has. I know they’re good. They altered some of Earth’s official financial records without anyone ever realizing. And if you get caught, it won’t be a police visit; they’ll send that man who killed Senator Burnelli and the Guardian agent at LA Galactic.”
“I don’t know, Mellanie. This is really heavy-duty shit. I mean … seriously. Go to the navy with what you’ve got. Senate Security, maybe.”
“The navy fired Paula Myo. And I know she believes in the Starflyer.”
Paul took a worried drag on his cigarette.
“Look.” Mellanie stood up and smoothed down her little skirt. “If you won’t do this, you must know someone else who can. Just give me a name. I’ll stop them reaching their four hundredth birthday.”
“And I’m way too old for reverse psychology, as well.”
“Then give me your answer.”
“If you’re right—”
“I am. I just need the evidence.”
“Tell me why your protector won’t give it to you. And no bullshit, please.”
“I don’t know. It says it doesn’t want to be involved in physical events. Or it doesn’t care. Or it’s cheering for the other side. Or it wants us to stand up for ourselves. Or all of those. I think. I don’t really understand. The Barsoomian warned me not to trust it.”
Paul gave her a surprised look. “Barsoomian? You’ve been to Far Away?”
“Just got back.”
“You get around, these days, don’t you?”
“You mean for a soft porn star?”
“I remember when I first met you. Some party on Resal’s yacht. Sweet little thing, you were back then.”
Mellanie shrugged. “That was about four hundred years ago. Seems like, anyway.”
“Okay. I’ll run an observation on Baron’s unisphere use for you. See what turns up. And, hey, when I get out of rejuvenation …”
“Yeah, I’ll make very sure you never reach five hundred.”
Dawn was a pale gray wash creeping up over the Dau’sing Mountains, allowing the peaks to cut a sharp black serration into the base of the bland sky. Simon Rand stood in the narrow mouth of the cave to stare at the insipid light, and sighed. Once, he used to welcome every day in this land with a sense of pride and contentment. Now, he could only greet each new morning with a shiver of trepidation at what sacrilege it might bring.
In the first few weeks since the alien landing there had been little visible activity. More of the giant conical ships had landed and taken off from Lake Trine’ba, producing hurricanes of steam that spun out to smother the entire surface of the water. The cloud would cool rapidly after the incandescent fusion fire vanished from the air, but still expanding, sloshing against the confining rock walls of the giant mountains that surrounded the Trine’ba. Each flight resulted in a cloying fog that lingered for days, or sometimes weeks as it was continually replenished by further flights.
Such dank miserable weather had made it easy for the few remaining humans to move cautiously around the adjacent valleys. The thick mist hindered most of the sensors that the aliens possessed. So they crept in close to the new structures and machines that were being assembled amid the ruins of Randtown, and left their crude bombs before vanishing back into the safety of the perpetual swirling veil. They never knew if they’d done much damage, but the encouragement each strike gave to Simon’s little band of resistance fighters kept their morale high.
There were no ships left now. The last one had launched over three weeks ago, shooting back up to one of the alien wormholes orbiting Elan. The last wisps of unnatural fog had drifted away during the days that followed, leaving eyes and sensors with a clear view for kilometers as the clea
n mountain air swept back down over the massive lake.
The changes it revealed were slight, perhaps imperceptible to someone who hadn’t lived with that same view for over fifty years. It was late summer on the Ryceel continent, a time when the vines were picked clean and the crops harvested under wide sunny skies. Now, those skies were almost constantly clouded over, bringing unseasonable gusty winds and hailstorms. Usually the thick permanent snowfields that coated the peaks had retreated as far as they ever would. This time they’d shrunk back farther than ever before, thawing before the tides of warm mist pouring out from the lake and the intolerable radiance of the fusion drives. When the ships were flying, the temperature of the whole district had risen by several degrees. Simon could have lived with that; nature would have reasserted herself by next year, pushing the winter snowfall back to its traditional boundaries. But no mantle of snow, however deep, could disguise the damage caused to the Regents. Where the nuclear explosion had wiped out the navy detector station, the profile of the surrounding peaks had been altered. Rock slides, pressure waves, and raw nuclear heat had pummeled the mountains into twisted parodies of their original selves. Only recently had snow and ice begun to crystallize and settle there again. The heat from the blast had finally radiated away from the new crater that had formed, though it would take generations for the fallout to abate.
Down in the town and its neighboring valleys, the aliens were systematically creating a different kind of disaster. For fifty years the humans who’d been drawn to this land had been meticulous how they cared for it. Simon’s Green ethos had guaranteed a respect for their native environment; terrestrial crops had been grown along with some imported grasses and trees on the slopes, but that had been done in sympathy with the scant covering of existing plants. And Lake Trine’ba with its precious, unique marine ecology had been protected from any contaminants or material exploitation.
All that meticulous preservation was being wiped out by the aliens. Their flyers had ferried all manner of equipment and vehicles ashore from the big spaceships: engines and generators spewing out fumes and oily contaminate pollutants. They also brought increasing numbers of their own kind, each one defecating straight into the Trine’ba. As the new buildings were rising out of the remains of Randtown, so rubble and wreckage were simply bulldozed into massive piles where organic detritus festered and oozed into rancid puddles before soaking into the streams and brooks that fed the beautiful lake.
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 134