The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle

by Peter F. Hamilton

  The image in his virtual vision showed him the simple hoop of equipment that anchored the Half Way end of the wormhole. For a moment, it was illuminated by one of the powerful blue-white flashes in the sky. The stab of light revealed the interlocking machinery inside the arch. There was no wormhole.

  “Well,” Morton said. “I’d say getting back is going to be a tad difficult now.”

  “There are still planes at Shackleton,” Adam said, keeping positive. He didn’t want anyone to start panicking. Not yet, anyway. If they started thinking about how isolated they were, they’d lose it very quickly indeed. All he could think of was the one remaining wormhole on this godforsaken planet, and the fact that the Starflyer was going to reach it first. He had to admit, as traps went, this one was a beauty. All the Starflyer had to do was get through to Half Way and blow the generator behind it, leaving them stranded on a world with no link to anywhere, in an environment that would slowly kill them. And who would come looking? Sheldon might. Possibly.

  Adam’s e-butler told him Bradley was calling on a private link. “This isn’t good. Did you ever examine this scenario?”

  “Stig and I reviewed what would happen if the Starflyer blew the Port Evergreen wormhole generator as it returned. That was a year ago. We believed there would be sufficient resources on Far Away for the clans to complete the planet’s revenge. But that assumed they already had the Martian data, and we’d got more equipment through. The Far Away freight inspectorate division screwed that up for us, which is one of the reasons why we switched to the blockade run scenario.”

  “But we expected to do that before the Starflyer’s return,” Bradley said.

  “Exactly. Then the Prime attack threw another spanner in the works. And I certainly didn’t predict anything quite this personal.”

  “So what are our options?”

  “There’s only one: get to Port Evergreen before it.”

  “And can we do that?”

  “Even if it hasn’t sabotaged the planes, it has a thirty-minute head start. We don’t have aerobots. Or even air-to-air missiles.”

  “I see,” Bradley said. “Is there any way we can call ahead, and reverse this trap on the Starflyer? Get our clan warriors through the wormhole at the other end, and secure Port Evergreen before the Starflyer arrives? That way it will be trapped between us.”

  “The planes only have short-wave radio in case of emergency. There are no satellites here, only a seabed fiber-optic cable between Shackleton and Port Evergreen to link Far Away to the unisphere.”

  “So someone stays behind and when the next cycle begins they send a message through to Stig.”

  “The Institute is blocking all communications, has been for days.”

  “Then we have no choice but to make the flight and hope Stig can help us out somehow.”

  “Without knowing what’s going on?”

  “He’s not stupid. He’ll know the Starflyer is returning, and that we’re on our way as well.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  The vehicles arrived on the shelf of rock where the pressurized huts and vast hangars were laid out a hundred meters above the sea. Two of the hangar doors were open, the regular flashes from the planet’s odd double star revealing their empty cavernous interiors. When the drone made its early flyby, its active sensors revealed the remaining seven hangars each contained a Carbon Goose.

  “Our vehicles will fit into one,” Adam announced.

  “I don’t mean to intrude, but isn’t that a little too risky?” Bradley queried him. “All our eggs in one flying basket.”

  “I’m prepared to run an inspection on the planes,” Adam replied. “We’ve been running with the possibility of sabotage by Starflyer agents, that’s why I brought the forensic sensorbots. There are enough to check over three planes. But we have to get airborne and fast. Putting all the sensorbots onto one plane will speed the whole process up. We can’t afford luxuries like three aircraft, Bradley, not any longer.”

  “I apologize, Adam. This is your operation; I’ll try to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the journey.”

  “Don’t. I can still make mistakes. If you see one coming, shout it long and loud.” Adam switched back to the general channel. “Kieran, Ayub, you have decontamination duty. I want it checked thoroughly; we don’t need any surprises over the middle of the ocean.” He made everyone else wait in the relative security of the vehicles while Kieran and Ayub went over to the Carbon Goose in the fifth hangar, which had been left in a minimal power hibernation mode. A swarm of standard forensic sensorbots wriggled over the rock with them, looking like arm-length caterpillars. The machines bristled with gossamer-thin smart-molecule filaments like a downy fur. They circled the gigantic aircraft, testing the rock for any sign that someone had been in the hangar recently.

  “Nobody for well over a week,” Ayub reported. “Zero thermal disturbance. No residual chemical dissemination.”

  Adam gave them the go-ahead to test the plane itself. Kieran went up to the cockpit and loaded a batch of diagnostic software into the avionics. Ayub supervised the sensorbots as they crawled over the fuselage and slithered in through the airlocks. They wriggled into the structure through inspection ports and grilles, probing every component casing with their filaments, sniffing the air for any trace chemicals, performing resonance scans on the structure. He dropped three into each of the nuclear turbines so they could squirm their way past the fan blades and work their way back through the compressor bands.

  “When does the wormhole cycle begin?” Anna asked.

  “In just over six hours,” Adam said. “Assuming the Starflyer has a standard flight, it’ll remain open for about an hour and a half after it arrives at Port Evergreen.”

  “That just gives us enough time,” Wilson said. “But it’ll be tight.”

  After twenty minutes, Ayub cleared the lower cargo hold, declaring it free of booby traps.

  “How long does this take?” Oscar asked.

  “As long as it needs to,” Adam said resolutely.

  “We’re giving them too big a lead time,” Wilson said. “At this rate there’s no way the Starflyer will leave a working gateway at the other end by the time we get there. We have to keep hard on its tail if we’re to stand any kind of chance. You’ve got to run a minimum scan and take the risk.”

  Adam knew he was right. If the Starflyer truly hadn’t wanted them to follow, it could easily have wrecked the remaining planes before it left. So either they’d been sabotaged, or it simply intended to destroy the Port Evergreen generator, leaving them trapped here. Simple is always most effective. And the Starflyer must be improvising to a degree as well. “Okay,” he told the drivers. “Load them up.”

  Kieran and Ayub opened the main cargo deck ramps at the back of the Carbon Goose. The Volvos went up first. As the armored car drove under the wing, Adam saw sensorbots starting to fall out of the turbine exhausts to lie flexing uselessly on the sheer rock floor, their sophisticated electronics victim to the micropile’s radiation. He stayed focused on them for a long time as they slowed and finally became inert. It was a bad omen on a world inimical to humans when even the machinery designed to function here proved deadly to standard Commonwealth technology.

  Wilson was still in his armor suit when he entered the cockpit. In keeping with the rest of the Carbon Goose, it was a big compartment with seats more like leather recliners than the cramped USAF fighter seats that he used to contend with in his first life. The windshield was a curving transparency six feet high that gave a panoramic view out over the blunt nose. Kieran was sitting in the pilot’s seat, still in his armor, with three high-performance arrays spread out on the control console. They were plugged into the plane’s avionics with thick fiber-optic cable.

  “Did you find anything?” Wilson asked.

  “No. The software checks out. I’ve loaded some additional monitors in case anything was submerged, but they didn’t really have the time to plant anything sophisticated. Th
ere’s no thermal trace of anyone here before us. My opinion for what it’s worth: this is clean.” He climbed out of the chair and unsealed his helmet.

  Wilson studied the young face that was exposed. Short hair framing slim features, alert eyes; eager, dedicated, efficient. Me, three hundred forty years ago. God! “When I was in the air force, I learned to always trust my engineering crew. I don’t suppose anything’s really changed.”

  Kieran broke into a genuine grateful smile. “Thank you.”

  “Okay, let’s see if I actually remember how to fly.” He started to take his armor suit off.

  “Admiral. I’m glad you’re here.”

  The term surprised Wilson. Thirty hours ago, the navy that he was in charge of had been hunting down the Guardians as if they were a pandemic virus. It made the young man’s faith all the more touching. “I’ll do whatever I can,” he promised.

  Oscar and Anna arrived in the cockpit as Wilson was pulling his feet out of the armor’s boots. He was only wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, and the cockpit’s air was almost freezing.

  “Here you go,” Oscar said, and dropped a small bag at Wilson’s feet. “Our CST-issue executive travel pack. Essential for survival in hotels and conferences the Commonwealth over.”

  “Don’t mock,” Wilson growled as he unzipped the bag. He found a fleece with a CST logo on the chest, and pulled it on quickly before sitting in the luxurious pilot’s seat. “Yow, this leather’s cold.” He put his hands over the console’s i-pads, and reviewed the menus rolling into his virtual vision as the interface was established. The first thing he did was locate the plane’s environmental circuits and switch the heating on full.

  “Everybody in and secure,” Adam reported.

  Anna was out of her armor suit, puffing against the cold as she pulled on some clothes from her CST pack.

  “You want to take the copilot’s seat?” Wilson asked.

  “Sure.” She gave him a quick intimate smile.

  “We actually need to be in the air before you two can join the mile-high club,” Oscar told them dryly.

  Wilson grinned. “This is the bit I’ve always wanted to say,” he confessed to them as the avionics confirmed the micropiles were ready. “Atomic turbines to power!”

  Anna and Oscar exchanged a look. Oscar shrugged.

  The turbines spun up, and Wilson released the wheel brakes. The Carbon Goose rolled out of its hangar and down toward the icy sea.

  “Oh, brother,” Ozzie grunted. He was accessing files from his asteroid, seeing the refugees from Randtown come stumbling through the wormhole. “There goes the neighborhood.” Two hours into his review of everything that had happened, and he was beginning to wish he’d headed off in the other direction after leaving Island Two.

  The last home file showed him Nigel wandering around the bungalow. Ozzie’s own recorded projection played out, and Nigel swore at the end of it. Back in the cozy warmth of the Ledbetter penthouse suite, sprawled on his circular, emperor-sized jellmattress, Ozzie grinned at his old friend’s dismayed expression. Poor old Nige had always disapproved of his lifestyle, the decisions and choices. It was their contrary opinions that made them such a good team.

  He drained his tumbler of bourbon and told the maidbot to refill it, then moved on to examine records from the latest invasion. “Oh, brother.” The damage that the flare bombs and quantumbusters inflicted on the stars was terrifying. Then something terminated Hell’s Gateway, something that the Sheldon Dynasty had done independently from the navy, something greater than a quantumbuster. Half of the unisphere now comprised speculation and gossip about Nigel using that ultra-weapon against Dyson Alpha, winning the war in a single strike.

  The other half of the unisphere was busy discussing the Second47’s evacuation into the future. Ozzie took another swig as the War Cabinet made their announcement. “Son of a bitch, don’t bring me into this,” he shouted at Nigel’s image. His so-called friend’s face loomed hugely over the bed, as projected by the portal on the opposite wall. It was badly focused now. Ozzie tried to do some math to see if Nigel knew what the fuck he was talking about, but the equations were impossible to form. He looked at his tumbler, which was empty again. “Just bring the bottle,” he told the maidbot.

  Virtual hands wobbled through virtual vision, and he knocked politely on the SI’s icon.

  The War Cabinet vanished to be replaced by tangerine and turquoise lines weaving through and around each other. “Hello, Ozzie. Welcome back.”

  “Good to be back. I mean it. You’ve no idea how wonderful toilet paper is until it’s taken away from you by an unfeeling universe. I think it’s a defining characteristic of human civilization, the ability to manufacture something decent to wipe your ass on. Believe me, forest leaves just don’t cut it. Well, actually,” he sniggered, “they do, and that’s the problem. And you can make that my epitaph if you want.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “Hey hey, don’t you smartass me. You’ve got some bigtime explaining to do, man.” The maidbot rolled up to the side of the bed, and held out the bourbon bottle. Ozzie took it, and winked at the little machine.

  “You are referring to the emergency Randtown evacuation,” the SI said.

  “Nail on the fucking head, dude.”

  “We took the liberty of saving thousands of human lives. We assumed that given the circumstances, you wouldn’t object.”

  “Yeah yeah, trillions of dollars spent building the ultimate in private housing, and it’s all blown. All gone.” The room rotated around him, leaving him spread-eagle on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He took another drink of bourbon to compensate. “I’ll have to dream up something else now. Maybe go back to the Ice Citadel. No! Fuck, what am I saying? It was cold there. I am, like, not a cold-weather person. I learned that about myself.”

  “So your venture was successful, then?”

  “Oh, brother, was it ever. I found out everything; who put the barriers up, why they did it, why they won’t help us. And I’ll tell you something else, I was right about the Silfen, too.”

  “Do they evolve into an adult state?”

  “Ah ha.” Ozzie wagged a finger at the slow wavestorm of glowing lines. “I thought you’d want to know that. Man, you should have seen where they live. The gas halo is like totally groovy. Maybe I should try and build one. I’d just love to see Nigel’s face when I tell him that.”

  “Who built the barriers?”

  “Clouddancer said it was some race called the Anomines. But that was in a dream. I think. Anyway, they’re not around anymore. Actually, no, cancel that; they are but they’re not the same. I think they out-evolved the Silfen, some of them anyway. The others all went back home and joined Greenpeace.” Ozzie smiled lazily. The bed was wonderfully soft, and he was very tired now. He closed his eyes. “They’re not going to help us, you know. You’d dig that. You haven’t been majorly helpful here, have you? Apart from scooping up that Mellanie chick. Damn, she’s hot. Do you know if she’s dating anyone?” He yawned. Waited for the answer. “Oh, come on, man, you’re not pissed at me, are you? Just a few home truths among friends. You’ve got to grow thicker skin.”

  There was still no reply. The light in the room changed.

  “Mr. Isaac.”

  “Huh?” That wasn’t the SI. Ozzie opened his eyes. The tangerine and turquoise lines had vanished. He swung around toward the sound of the new voice, or tried to; the bed kept getting in the way. A man’s head slid into view. Upside down, and frowning. “Hey!” Ozzie exclaimed happily. “Nelson. Been too long, man. How’s it hanging?”

  “I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

  “Never better.”

  “Quite. Nigel would like a word.”

  “Bring him on in.”

  “It’s easier if we take you to him.”

  “Sure thing. Let me find my shoes.” Ozzie finally managed to move, and slithered off the end of the bed to land in a heap on the floor. Something hurt. It probably belonged t
o him. “Can you see them?” he asked Nelson earnestly.

  Nelson smiled blankly, and beckoned. Ozzie was lifted to his feet by two powerful young men in gray business suits. They had identical red and green OCtattoos on their cheeks, a stack of centimeter-long lines that looked like neon sideburns.

  “Hi, guys. Good to meet you.”

  They carried him out of the bedroom. Orion was in the lounge outside, still wearing his fancy white and scarlet jacket. The boy looked very scared. There were a lot of people in the lounge with him, just like the ones carrying Ozzie: polite well-built men and women without any sense of humor.

  “Ozzie?” Orion said; he bit his lip, looking fearfully at Nelson.

  “Hang tight there, little dude, everything’s perfectly under control. Where’s Tochee?”

  “I am here, friend Ozzie.”

  “Do as they say.” Being vertical wasn’t good. Ozzie’s stomach didn’t like it. He threw up.

  They carried him into the service elevator. There was a convoy of big dark cars outside the hotel. He was bundled into the first one. The short drive ended with him being carried onto a hypersonic aircraft, just big enough to accommodate Tochee at the back where a dozen seats had been removed.

  Nelson sat down opposite Ozzie and produced a large red tablet. “Take this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something to help.”

  “I’m not ill.”

  Fingers pinched his nose shut, and he opened his mouth in reflex. The tablet was shoved in, followed by water. Ozzie half swallowed, half gagged. “Oh, brother.”

  Nelson leaned back. “Strap him in. He’s going to need it.”

  The flight was truly horrible. Ozzie shivered violently in his seat, his skin feverish. He desperately wanted to be sick again, but it was as if his stomach had grown an extra membrane to prevent it. The acidic heartburn down his gullet spread right through his gut. His headache seemed to be sweating its way through his skull.