“Humm, remind me: How many angels have we counted on that pinhead now?”
“You started this. And it’s forty-eight worlds. Damn, how the hell are they going to transport all these factories to a new planet?” He stared out of the window. Beyond the highway, the megacity rolled away into the smoggy horizon, vast housing estates alternating with industrial precincts, stitched together by the curving lines of the railway tracks and highways. Every few kilometers, the really big structures of refineries or smelter plants rose up out of the low-level sprawl, like the cathedrals and castles of a medieval landscape. Dusk was creeping over the protective force field dome, giving an extra potency to the iridescence that besieged the sky outside.
“Forty-seven,” Bradley said firmly. “Hutchinson won’t move this; he’s already terraformed this world once. Even if the flare kills off every living thing outside the city, the tractorbots will just replant it all for him. In any case, the whole time travel enterprise will have to employ the wormhole generators at Narrabri’s planetary station. No, this world will remain no matter how much damage it suffers. Thirty-two billion people depend on it.”
“Yeah. Those bombs we have … I knew the navy must be developing stronger weapons than the Douvoir missiles, but hell, something that can damage a star? Do you think the Starflyer expected that?”
“No, I don’t.” Bradley smiled into his plastic cup of coffee. “Once again, it has underestimated us. This war was intended to wreck both species; now a decisive victory is within our grasp. Doi and Sheldon will use these weapons, whatever they are, against Dyson Alpha.”
“It wasn’t so clever on Illuminatus, either. Jenny reported that Bernadette was finally cornered by Paula Myo.”
“Really?” Bradley’s eyebrows rose. “How fascinating. Myo must be convinced that the Starflyer is a genuine threat by now. And the failed assassination attempt against Senator Burnelli will also add weight to our story. I wonder if we should attempt one last shotgun message to the Commonwealth.”
“Nobody will listen, not today, not for a long time.” Adam indicated the portal, which was now showing Michelangelo back in his studio. Even his composure had been shaken by the War Cabinet; the commentators he’d got with him seemed almost lost for words. “I’m more concerned that Starflyer agents captured the Agent’s head. Once his memorycell is analyzed, we’ll be looking at a major security breach.”
“I agree it’s upsetting, Adam, but I feel our time frame is measured in days if not hours. Even if the Starflyer worked out where we are and what we’re doing, it would take time to launch an offensive against us. If it was smart, it would have left the Agent to the charms of the navy. They’ll come in guns blazing at the slightest opportunity.”
“Maybe, but we have to watch for the possibility. And with Kime removed, we’ve lost a major potential asset. Oscar won’t have anything like the same influence with Columbia.”
“Has he uncovered anything in the Second Chance logs yet?”
“I don’t know. He’s spent so much time on board his ship, I haven’t been able to contact him.” Adam’s e-butler told him Marisa McFoster was calling. “Yes?” he said.
“We’re on Boongate,” she told him. “Victor Halgarth has gone into a station warehouse belonging to the Sunforge company. Sir, there’s a lot of police-type observers following Victor as well as us.”
“I’m not surprised. The authorities were watching Bernadette on Illuminatus. You’ll find some of them are from Halgarth Security. Can you fit yourselves into a secure location?”
“I’m not sure. It’s a real mess here. The station is nearly in anarchy. After Doi’s announcement, everyone left on the planet is heading right for the terminal building; but the rest of the station is deserted. We’re not going to be able to do much without being seen.”
“I understand. We’ve got several teams on Boongate. I’ll authorize them to contact you and provide as much backup as they can afford. In the meantime keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Victor Halgarth on Boongate, and the whole planet about to be evacuated,” Bradley mused. “This is a remarkable opportunity for us, Adam. We might be able to intercept the Starflyer here in the Commonwealth. It hasn’t returned home yet, and it has only the shortest of times to get back to Boongate. CST won’t risk opening the wormhole for ordinary transport again for fear that there’ll be a stampede through.”
“Mellanie left Illuminatus with Paula Myo,” Adam said. “Shall I try calling her again, and see if she can convince the Investigator?”
“No, we’ll use Senator Burnelli; she’s better placed than Myo, and she has the necessary political strength to place a complete block on the Boongate wormhole.”
“How long do you think it will take CST to modify the wormhole generator to do this time travel trick?”
“Sheldon spoke of a week. I suspect it’s a question of programming rather than any physical modification—everything important is a software problem these days.”
“Okay, while you do that, I’ll prepare our train. We might need it yet.”
“Of course.” Bradley stirred the dregs of his coffee. “You know, it’s highly probable that the Starflyer is also in the Narrabri station, preparing to crash through the Boongate wormhole, just as we are. How ironic is that? I wonder if it has rented the warehouse next to ours?”
“It hasn’t.”
“If you say so, Adam. But we must reorganize our teams to watch the Boongate gateway ourselves.”
“I’ll put some people on it.”
“Have we got any? I understood we’re short, post-Illuminatus.”
“I can spare enough for a simple operation like this. We’re only going to notice the lack of muscle if we do have to crash through.”
“Well, as of now, you have one more piece of ‘muscle.’ I shall be joining your team permanently now. There is little else I can do in the Commonwealth anymore. And it is time I went home to face our nemesis.”
“That’s good; having you on board will be a big morale booster for the Guardians. They need a pick-me-up now we’ve lost contact with Far Away.”
CST’s Newark station had wormholes connecting it to over twenty planets in phase one space, including three wormholes to Augusta. Its terminals and marshaling yard squatted on the site of the old airport, sending out an arterial maze of road and rail connections into the surrounding sprawl of urbanization. Nigel gazed out of the manager’s office on the top floor of the station’s administration skyscraper, seeing the New Jersey Turnpike curving around the station’s perimeter. The ancient route still carried huge amounts of freight and passengers in and out of the station, though it was now being supplanted by the new tunnels that CST had drilled to carry trains directly to Manhattan and along the East Coast. Beyond the road the cold gray waters of Newark Bay surged against the shore of Staten Island. Today, the shimmering dome of the force field arched above the island’s buildings and parks, giving the air a filmy hue, as if a faint sea fog had settled over the land.
Nigel’s e-butler showed him security sensor images of Campbell greeting his visitors down in the lobby. Justine Burnelli unbuttoned a snow-white fur-lined coat and gave Campbell the demure kiss of a trusted friend. Nigel had only just realized Justine was pregnant when she arrived for the emergency War Cabinet meeting; now the little bump was quite visible under her stylish gray cashmere dress. It surprised him; someone of her age and status nearly always used a womb tank. When he checked with Perdita she hadn’t known either, let alone who the father was—also unusual—the Grand Families always had strong financial agreements concerning their children, yet nothing had been filed in the New York legal registry. The security sensors showed him her inserts were maintaining a heavily encrypted link to the unisphere, which he guessed led directly back to Gore.
Investigator Myo was exactly as he remembered, her lovely face forever cursed with a slightly melancholic expression, wearing a well-cut charcoal and blue suit with a salmon-pi
nk blouse, her hair brushed to a gloss. Nothing to indicate that less than thirty hours ago she’d been crammed into an armor suit, in the thick of a firefight on Illuminatus.
His real attention, though, was reserved for Mellanie. Her wavy golden hair had been given a cursory brush, leaving it mildly unkempt; that and the way she kept clenching her jaw in a resentful fashion gave her an aggressive appearance. A dramatically short white skirt, long suede boots, and simple thin blue denim shirt managed to be both trendy and trashy. Dudley Bose stuck to her as if there were some kind of membrane holding them together. The petulant anger leaking out over his youthful face was exactly the same as Nigel recalled from the notorious “welcome back” ceremony.
Nigel faced the office door as the lift arrived. He noticed that Campbell had managed to stand as far as possible from Mellanie during the ride up in the small lift. Perdita was right, then.
“Ready?” Nelson asked. The Dynasty security chief had also picked up on the implications of the meeting, but then he’d been observing events on Illuminatus a lot more closely than Nigel.
“Be nice to get a few answers, finally,” Nigel said. He pulled his suit jacket straight. Stupid vanity.
He greeted Justine and Paula formally, then turned to Mellanie. “At last.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Excuse me.”
“I’ve been following your recent activities with a lot of interest. It’s very exciting for me to finally meet you in person.” Which was an understatement. In the flesh she was fabulously attractive, great figure, slightly wild appearance, as if she’d just finished having sex—and wanted more. He held on to her hand. She didn’t try to pull it back, just twitched her lips roguishly as she reviewed him.
“Me, too,” she said; her voice must have dropped a couple of octaves.
“Hello again,” Dudley said. He somehow slid in front of Mellanie to stick his own hand out.
“Dudley; glad to see you’re recovering.” Nigel avoided any inflection in case the neurotic astronomer picked up on the irony.
“That’s all thanks to my Mellanie.” His hand went around her shoulders. She didn’t try to hide her look of disapproval.
Nigel offered them all seats as the e-seal came on around the office. “Well, this is all very serious, Justine. It can’t just be about your committee battle with Valetta.”
“In a way it is,” Justine said. “The Halgarths now have control of the navy.”
“Yes, but I have the nova bomb. And the rest of us have a great deal of input into the navy budget. Heather is balanced. That’s the way the Commonwealth works.”
“I have a question,” Paula said.
“I imagine you do,” Nigel said lightly. “I’ve spent most of the last few hours trying to work out what it’s going to be.”
“For the past century, I’ve been pressing the Commonwealth Executive to impose inspections on all cargo being shipped for Far Away, with no success whatsoever. That kind of examination would have enabled me to restrict the Guardians’ weapons shipments, and possibly even shut them down altogether. Just before he was assassinated, Thompson Burnelli discovered that you have been opposing me for all that time. I’d like to know why.”
Nigel couldn’t help the way he sneaked a help me out look at Daniel Alster, who was in his usual position, a helpful couple of meters to one side. “Have I? I had no idea, or memory …”
“There’s no policy file on that,” Daniel said quickly.
“This is critical,” Paula said. “Thompson believed it to be true.”
“Find out,” Nigel told Daniel. “Call Jessica right now.”
“Sir.”
Nigel stole a glance at Mellanie, who gave him a playful wink and crossed her legs. He wondered what the best approach would be for a girl like this. Just come straight out and ask her to bed. Probably. Though the one thing he didn’t understand was: Why Dudley? What could she possibly see in him?
“Er, our political office has been pursuing that policy,” Daniel said; he sounded embarrassed.
“Why?” Nigel asked.
“Ozzie ordered it.”
“Ozzie?”
Some of the tension went out of Paula’s pose. “I had no idea Mr. Isaac had an input into your Dynasty’s political office.”
“He doesn’t, normally,” Nigel said. “Actually: ever, as far as I’m aware. But Ozzie has an equal share in CST, so as far as I’m concerned he’s entitled. Are you sure?” he asked Daniel.
“Yes.” Daniel gave Paula a curious look. “He instructed the political office to adopt that strategy in 2243.”
“Oh, my,” Paula said. “The year of the Great Wormhole Heist. The year Bradley Johansson formed the Guardians and stole enough money to begin their operations. So the Starflyer never had anything to do with it. The Guardians stopped any examinations. I knew they had high-level access to the Executive, but I never considered Mr. Isaac was behind them.”
“Okay,” Nigel said; he wagged his finger at them. “Explanations, please. Now.”
“Simple enough,” Justine said. “Wilson Kime is quite correct. The Starflyer is real. It funded Dudley’s observation of Dyson Alpha through a bogus educational charity. It had agents on board the Second Chance.”
“It has also infiltrated the navy,” Paula said. “Wilson uncovered evidence that its agents were on board the Second Chance, but that was subsequently tampered with by someone inside Pentagon II. He couldn’t go public with it. We believe a modified sensor satellite was responsible for interfering with the barrier generator and letting the Primes out. The whole mission was a gigantic con trick designed to start a war between us and the Primes, weakening both our species.”
Nigel finally knew how Wilson had felt when he landed on Mars. Today, he’d turned a star nova to neuter the greatest threat the human race had ever faced, then gone on to work out how to save thirty-two billion human lives; now he’d found out the war that had destroyed their stars was mostly his fault to begin with. “Oh, holy fuck.” He shot an appealing look to Nelson, but the security chief was struggling with his own shock.
“If you’re correct about this—” Nelson began.
“We are,” Mellanie said primly.
Nelson gave her a short annoyed smile. “Then the Guardians are probably right about the Starflyer infiltrating the Halgarth Dynasty.”
“Essentially, yes,” Paula said. “Our showdown with its agents on Illuminatus confirmed this. The majority of Halgarths are completely unaffected, of course. But those in strategic positions have been taken over. Christabel is slowly acknowledging something is wrong; she’s discreetly helping us keep track of suspects. It won’t be long before she takes her suspicions to Heather.”
“And Columbia?” Nelson asked. “Is he one of them?”
“We don’t know.”
“Son of a bitch,” Nigel grunted. “Well, that settles it, we do not release our nova bombs to the navy. Jesus! And Doi? What about her? The Guardians said she was one of them.”
“We believe that was simple disinformation,” Paula said. “Isabella Halgarth, a confirmed Starflyer agent, helped put that shotgun together. However, Isabella also had a relationship with Patricia Kantil.”
“She helped engineer the political decisions to form a navy,” Justine said. “We’ve all been played to some extent.”
“Alessandra Baron is one of its agents,” Mellanie said. “The bitch.”
Nigel felt numb as his expanded mentality began to examine the problem. There was a lot of anger building in his mind, the kind of straight animal antagonism that came from being fooled. But it was countered by the surprise and sheer worry of the situation. Goddamn, we were blindsided! “Whatever we do, we can’t make this public,” he decided. “Not right now. We need the public’s complete confidence in government for the immediate future. The populations we’re trying to save are dependent on the rest of the Commonwealth unifying behind the time travel strategy. That has to be our number one priority. Rooting out traitors can
be done quietly in parallel. You guys must have some ideas how to do that; that’s why you’re here, right?”
“Primarily, yes,” Paula said. “To begin with, simply being aware of the manipulation effectively nullifies it.”
“What exactly does the Starflyer hope to achieve?” Nelson asked. “It’s got its war, what more can it achieve?”
“I’m uncertain,” Paula said. “The Guardians say it wants to destroy or at the very least weaken both species, leaving it to become the dominant power in this section of the galaxy. I would speculate that your nova bomb has upset those plans; humans are now capable of destroying the Primes. The Commonwealth will remain, and we will be considerably stronger. From a military point of view it has already failed.”
“Only if the navy and ourselves continue to press the attack,” Nelson said. “That’ll be where it concentrates its influence now. I would. After all, the Primes aren’t exactly helpless yet. They still have the Hell’s Gateway generator, and flare bombs. If we hesitate, thanks to the Starflyer, they could still manage a devastating blow against us.”
“Then we have to launch a strike against Dyson Alpha right away,” Nigel said. “That’s where the Hell’s Gateway generator is. Don’t tell the navy, don’t consult anyone else. Just do it.”
“The Charybdis should be back in communications range in another day,” Nelson said. “And the Searcher is already home. Frigate construction is already under way. We can launch within forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”
“See to it,” Nigel said. “You personally, Nelson. God knows if it’s infiltrated our Dynasty as well. Is there any kind of test?” he asked Paula.
“We have to wait until the results from Isabella come back. Once we understand what was done to her, we might be able to recognize it in others. But don’t expect it to be quick or simple. It could well take decades to find the last of them.”
“You’re reading her memories?” Nelson asked.
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 187