The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle

by Peter F. Hamilton

  His e-butler told him Daniel Alster was calling.

  “You should be on the direct Boongate line in another couple of minutes,” Alster said. “Once you’re there, we will open the gateway and give you transit clearance. It will close thirty seconds after you’re through.”

  “Right, thanks.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Looking good,” Alic told his arrest team. His heart started to beat a lot faster as the carriage squeaked and rolled onward.

  Oscar simply couldn’t take his eyes off Tiger Pansy. She’d caught him staring quite a few times, and he’d managed to deflect her questioning gaze with a polite half smile. He knew it was getting close to rudeness now, but she was so out of place here her attraction was akin to a star’s gravity well. But then, would someone like her care about middle-class standards of rudeness? And what does that judgment say about me? Damn, was Adam right about what I’ve become?

  “You’re going to have to stop that,” Anna said, and moved to stand in front of him.

  “I know,” he mumbled awkwardly.

  Her smile became evil. “If you’re a big fan, you should get over that shy streak and go ask her for an autograph.”

  “Well, shucks, I guess I’m just too bashful.”

  Wilson chuckled. “Stop letting her bully you, man.”

  “Advice from the henpecked husband. Great, just what I need.”

  Wilson’s tranquillity chilled rapidly. “Oh, hell,” he whispered. “Dudley Bose is on the way over. Both versions. The human one looks pissed.”

  Oscar resisted the impulse to turn around. “Time to make a break for it?”

  “Too late,” Anna said through gritted teeth and a broad false smile.

  “Captain Monroe.” Dudley’s imperious voice cut right through Oscar’s residual good humor. He turned and summoned up a smile. “Dudley. I understand you’ve reacquired your memories.” His gaze flicked to the tall alien with its odd stalklike tentacles. It unnerved him to see something resembling an eye on the end of one bending around to return the gaze. This was worse than locking stares with Tiger Pansy.

  “Yes, you bastard,” the human Dudley spat. “I got my memory back. So I know what you did to me.”

  People nearest to them hushed up and stole some circumspect looks.

  “Problem?” Wilson asked politely.

  “Like you care,” Dudley sneered. “You who left me there to die.”

  “You make it sound deliberate,” Anna said.

  “Well, wasn’t it?” Dudley demanded. “You just kept telling us to go farther in. All the time: Just a little bit farther, Dudley. Go on, find out what’s around the next spiral. This is really interesting. And we trusted you.”

  “I never said that,” Oscar insisted. He was racking his memories of those frantic last minutes by the Watchtower. “Your comrelay failed as soon as you entered the tunnel.”

  “Liar! You knew MorningLightMountain’s ships were on their way. I’ve seen the official recordings; the whole ship was panicking. Yet you let us carry on. You dumped us like we were garbage.”

  “If you’d really accessed the original recordings you’d know we busted our balls trying to reestablish contact,” Oscar said with tight anger. “Mac and Frances put their asses on the line to try to get you back. It was you that ignored protocol; you should have come back as soon as you lost contact. If you’d paid the slightest bit of attention to your training you’d have known that. But, oh no, you were too busy playing up for the unisphere media to bother with training like the rest of us. The Great Discoverer off to further the frontier of human knowledge. You’re as ignorant as you are arrogant, and that hideous little combination is what plunged us into this war.”

  Wilson hurriedly stepped between them. Oscar was annoyed. He would have liked to have smacked Dudley right on the nose, and to hell with how bad it would make him look.

  “Enough, the pair of you,” Wilson said. The tone of command was perfect. Oscar felt himself scowling at what he could see of Dudley, but still backed off. I’ll be damned, how did he do that?

  “We clearly need to go over what happened to establish exactly where the communications failure occurred,” Wilson continued. “But this is not the time or the place.”

  “Pha.” Dudley waved a hand in disgust. “Official inquiry by a navy already discredited. Did you prepare the whitewash answers before the President fired you?”

  A now furious Oscar sidestepped around Wilson. “Part of the training you missed while you were mouthing off on talk shows was how to recognize impossible situations. You should have wiped your memorycell and suicided as soon as you were captured. Where did MorningLightMountain get the stellar coordinates for our planets, eh? Your mind! You’re not just a traitor, you’re a coward with it!”

  Dudley went for him, fists raised. The Bose motile hooked a thick curving arm around his torso, preventing him from reaching Oscar.

  Wilson pushed Oscar hard in the chest, shoving him back. A quick pushing match followed before Oscar’s heat withered in shame. “Sorry,” he mumbled, mortified to find that Anna was helping to restrain him as well. “He just gets to me.”

  “I know,” Wilson said; his arm was still draped loosely over Oscar’s shoulder, muscles tensed in case he needed to push again.

  It was an image mirrored by Dudley and the Bose motile, who were walking in the other direction. Dudley managed to look back, and screwed his face up in rage.

  Oscar sucked in his lower lip, trying desperately to resist the temptation to start it all up again. Anna and Wilson were both pressing in close.

  “Come on,” she murmured. “Let it go. Down, boy. Calmly.”

  “All right.” Now thoroughly embarrassed, Oscar held his hands up in surrender. “Backing off. Doing yoga; some balls like that.”

  Anna grinned. “Never knew you had it in you.” Her lips puckered up in a mocking pout. “Soooo macho.”

  Oscar just winced. “Don’t. Please.”

  Wilson gave him a rueful grin, then sobered. “You know, much as I dislike Bose, that is a worryingly big discrepancy.”

  “The Starflyer agent?” Oscar guessed.

  “My first choice. Damn, we really are going to have to sit at a table with the little shit and listen to what he has to say.”

  “Better off with the motile. It doesn’t look like a permanent walking hissy fit.”

  “Hey, behave.” Anna punched him on the arm.

  “Ow.” Oscar rubbed at the pain, then noticed Tiger Pansy standing a couple of meters away. She had an avid grin as she chomped away on her gum. “You guys,” she said with shrill admiration. “You’re so intense. Really.”

  “What the hell is that?” Adam asked.

  The sensors that the Guardians had planted around the approach to the Boongate gateway were showing a single dilapidated old carriage creeping forward onto the main Boongate line.

  “It’s the type of carriage the station maintenance crews use,” Kieran said.

  The sensor image wobbled, then expanded. Kieran was focusing the camera on the carriage windows. There wasn’t much to see. A yellow light illuminated the interior of the carriage, diffused by the grimy glass. There were dark humanoid shadows moving around inside. Bigger than the average human. Much bigger.

  “Bradley?” Adam asked. “What do you think?”

  “It seems an unlikely vehicle for the Starflyer to use. On the other hand, because that’s not what we’re expecting …”

  “It does have a small cargo handling ability,” Kieran said. “How big does it have to be?”

  “I don’t know,” Bradley said.

  Adam shook his head. He really didn’t like that carriage. It was wrong, and he knew it. But he couldn’t work out what it might be doing.

  Sensor data such as it was filled his virtual vision. The carriage certainly didn’t have a force field. But there were some large power sources inside, five of them. And its communications link to traffic control was all standard.

>   He touched the icons of the small combat team they’d hidden out near the gateway. “Get ready,” he told them.

  “If it’s the Starflyer, it will be heavily protected,” Bradley warned.

  “I know. Call Burnelli, get her to find out what that is.” He took his armor suit helmet from the cab’s console where it had been lying, and locked it over his head. A hundred meters in front of him, the shed doors began to slide open.

  “Sir, the navy team is in position,” Daniel Alster reported.

  “Okay,” Nigel said. His virtual hands pulled the wormhole activation code from an encrypted store, and sent it to the Boongate gateway control center.

  “Confirm activation code,” Alster said. “We’re opening it now.”

  “Get them through as fast as you can, Daniel, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nigel shifted the gateway control center data to a part of his virtual vision grid where he could monitor it. In front of him, the doors to the lecture theater opened automatically for himself and Nelson. “They’re going through,” he told the security chief.

  “I hope it’s worth it.”

  “With confirmed Starflyer agents in custody, Columbia will fall into place without a fight. That makes it worthwhile.” Nigel scanned across the auditorium floor to see the various groups. He was halfway to Qatux when Mellanie intercepted him, with an uncomfortable-looking Hoshe in tow. “We’ve got to get some people back from Boongate,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” He couldn’t help glancing over at Oscar, who was in a huddle with Wilson and Anna. Oscar looked up expectantly.

  “There’s a Senate Security team stranded there.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s not our problem.”

  “They’re following a Starflyer agent. I thought we wanted Starflyer agents.” Her arm swept around the auditorium. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? Grab them and haul them in here for Qatux.”

  “Wait, which Starflyer agent are they watching?”

  “Victor Halgarth, Isabella’s father,” Hoshe said.

  “He’s there as well?” The Boongate gateway data in Nigel’s virtual vision grid showed him the wormhole opening.

  “As well as who?” Mellanie asked. “Look, Nigel, the Senate Security team have just reported Victor’s on the move with a whole bunch of armed troops. We need to get them out, or send in reinforcements. Either way, the gateway has to be opened.”

  Wilson and Oscar exchanged a startled look.

  “The Paris team can’t divert to help Senate Security,” Oscar said. “Arresting Tarlo is an absolute priority.”

  “Tarlo’s on Boongate?” Paula asked in surprise; she turned to Hoshe. “Why didn’t we know?”

  “None of this has been filed,” Hoshe said.

  “Two Starflyer agents on Boongate?” Nelson asked. He sounded alarmed.

  “What operation are you running?” Paula asked Oscar.

  “Tarlo’s appearance was reported by Edmund Li,” Oscar said. “He works at the Far Away freight inspectorate division on Boongate. Tarlo has taken over the whole Far Away section at Boongate station. The Paris office team are going in to arrest him.”

  “Going in?” Paula asked in surprise; she rounded on Nigel. “Are you opening the gateway?”

  “It’s already open,” Nigel said. He tried not to sound sheepish.

  “You have to shut it,” Paula said. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

  Nigel reviewed the data in his grid. “It’ll be closed any minute now.”

  “Nigel!” Justine called out.

  “Now what?”

  “I’ve got Bradley Johansson, we really need to talk to him. Now.” She switched Johansson’s link to a general call.

  “Mr. Johansson,” Nigel said. “It looks like the Commonwealth owes you a big apology.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sheldon, but right now I’d like to swap that for one piece of information.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s a train approaching the Boongate gateway. Is it one you authorized?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry. It’s carrying a team who are going to deal with a Starflyer agent.”

  “Really? And what about the second train?”

  Nigel stared at Nelson. “What second train?”

  The link broadened into a grainy visual image. A single aging carriage was crawling forward toward the giant row of gateways. Three hundred meters behind it, another train was sliding onto the track that led to Boongate.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Nigel gasped. His expanded mentality accessed Narrabri station traffic control. The train wasn’t even registering on the system.

  “Shut the gateway,” Paula demanded. “Now!”

  Nigel didn’t need to be told. His virtual hand touched Daniel Alster’s icon. There was no reply; it didn’t even acknowledge his connection request. The only result was the Boongate gateway data dropping out of his grid. “Shit.” He hurriedly called up Ward Smith’s unisphere address code. It didn’t answer, either. Nigel diverted his full expanded mentality to the Boongate gateway control system, ready to take personal control and shut the wormhole. His electronic presence couldn’t gain access. “I can’t get in,” Nigel said. It shocked him more than anything else. “I can’t get into the fucking system.”

  “What about Alster?” Oscar asked. “Can he shut it down?”

  “He’s not responding.”

  “Daniel Alster, your chief executive aide,” Paula said; she nodded with what could have been satisfaction. “Perfectly placed.”

  “This is most exhilarating,” Qatux said. “I am so glad I came.”

  The Boongate gateway was four hundred meters dead ahead, and the carriage had slowed to walking pace. Alic could see the track leading straight into the bottom of the funereal semicircle in front of them, glimmering silver in the dusky light. So close! The tension from waiting was acting like ice water on his guts. None of the others were saying anything; they all stood together watching the gateway as it opened for them.

  It had never actually closed, Alic knew, that was misleading; the wormhole still reached Boongate—CST had simply reduced its internal width to zero. Expanding it again was a simple application of power. In his mind he saw it as a single big lever you just had to pull down.

  The dark semicircle began to brighten, shading up to a husky gold.

  “Here we go,” Matthew said.

  “Hell, I never thought we’d actually do it,” Jim said. “What do you think the future’s going to be like?”

  “Let’s just concentrate on the mission,” Alic said.

  “Oh, come on, Boss, you’ve got to be interested.”

  “Maybe, but the mission comes first.” But it did give him pause for thought as the carriage began to speed up.

  “Do we get twenty years’ salary paid us?” Jim asked.

  “From the navy?” John said. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “But we’ll be gone for twenty years.”

  “Only if we actually make it through this time travel wormhole. I mean what happens if the Primes attack Wessex while we’re halfway through?”

  “Then we get dead very quickly,” Vic said cheerfully. “Without the generator, the wormhole collapses with us inside.”

  “Sheldon will use his superbomb against Dyson Alpha,” Matthew said. “Nobody’s going to attack Wessex. We’ll win the war.”

  “Okay, but what if some other war breaks out in ten years’ time while we’re still traveling?”

  “Great, you just keep looking on the good side—”

  “Alic,” Oscar said. “It’s behind you.”

  “What?” some primitive instinct sent a shiver along Alic’s limbs.

  “The Starflyer is behind you. There’s a train accelerating along the track. We’ve lost control of the gateway. Move!”

  Alic swung around to examine the rear of the carriage. The ceiling lights were dim back there, turning the cargo handling area into a gloomy
metal cave. He raised an arm, a plasma rifle siding up out of its forearm recess. He set it to rapid expansion, and fired. The bolt blasted a two-meter hole through the rear of the carriage. A judder ran along the carriage floor as it rocked on its stiff old suspension.

  “Christ, Boss,” Jim exclaimed. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Alic didn’t answer. He was staring through the gap. Bright light was shining straight in at him. His retinal inserts brought filter programs on-line. A GH7-class engine was moving onto their track three hundred meters behind them, its headlights blazing as it started to pick up speed. He could see the last of its wagons curving around off the points, clad in yellow sand. It was the train they’d just passed on a siding.

  The front of the GH7 was almost three times the height of the carriage they were riding in, and easily twice as wide. Its chrome air intake grille alone was bigger than them. And its speed was reducing the distance fast; with only a few wagons it could accelerate hard.

  “Shit!” Vic cried out.

  “It’s the Starflyer,” Alic told them. One of his particle lances swung up and over his shoulder, pointing directly at the center of the GH7. He fired. Incandescence flooded the carriage like a solid force. Windows blew out from the sound blast of the discharge. Alic swayed backward, almost falling, feeling the suit’s electromuscle bands fighting the recoil. The lance struck the GH7 head-on, and broke apart.

  “Force field,” Matthew said. “They’ve got heavy-duty protection.”

  “Vic, John, take out the track,” Alic ordered. The GH7 was closer now, barely two hundred meters away. It was terrifyingly massive.

  “Speed up,” Oscar said. “Take control of the carriage, and accelerate.”

  Alic’s virtual hands danced over the carriage management icons. Vic and John raced for the back of the carriage, and knelt down in front of the blast hole. They began shooting at the track between them and the GH7. Green and purple flashes streaked across the ground outside.