The Dreaming

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Got them,” Macsen announced victoriously. “Lady, that last one’s an arrogant bastard. You sure you’re okay, Edeard?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” He started to walk out of the storeroom. Some deep instinct made him tread carefully round the patches of hot liquid glistening on the floor. Thin wisps of vapour were layering the air close to the ceiling, producing a stench which made his eyes water. When he passed the bulky metal door he trod on some of the packets containing metal thread. The thief had thrown them all away. Edeard picked one up, frowning.

  Why did he do that?

  Mystified, he hurried up the passage and out into the alley where his squad was waiting with the subdued prisoners. Now he had time to think about what he’d done, and what the squad had achieved, his elation was rising with the potency of a dawn sun.

  ***

  The court was convened in Makkathran’s Parliament House which dominated the Majate district. Technically one building, its component structures had amalgamated into a village of huge halls, assembly rooms, auditoriums, and offices, with cloisters instead of streets. Right at the centre was the elaborate Democracy Chamber where the Grand Council met to debate policy and laws. Wrapped protectively around that were tiers of offices for the Guild of Clerks who worked to administer the city’s regulations and collect taxes. A whole wing contained well-appointed offices for each district representative, where they could be lobbied by their constituents about every perceived and actual injustice. Somewhere inside (underground it was rumoured) were the Treasury vaults, containing mountains of gold and silver, where the coins were minted. The Chief Constable was also based in one of the five conical towers, along with a modest staff. For centuries, the outermost tower, closest to the City Gate, used to house the militia barracks; but they had long departed, the serving soldiers to several barracks within the city, while their General and senior officers had taken up residence in the Orchard Palace next door. The vacated barracks had been eagerly taken over by the ever-expanding Guild of Lawyers.

  Although democratically open to anyone, it was the interconnecting domes which ran alongside the Centre Circle Canal which the average Makkathran citizen was most likely to be familiar with. They housed the Courts of Justice as well as the constabulary’s main holding cells. Edeard and the rest of the squad had been shown round by Master Solarin who explained the history of every corridor and room at inordinate and boring length. Part of their training was to attend trials so they could accustom themselves to the procedures, and listen to the verbal sparring of the lawyers. Edeard had been looking forward to that part, but in all the trials they watched the lawyers had confined themselves to simple questions to those in the witness stand. Though there had been an obscure argument about interpreting a precedent established four hundred years ago to settle a dispute between two fishmongers and their supplier about who got priority on the catch based on the length of the contract. Edeard barely understood the words they used, let alone followed the logic involved. The only criminal trial they’d seen was one where the constables had arrested a bunch of minor family sons during an altercation in a theatre late one night. The young men had all been sheepish, never challenged the senior squad sergeant’s account, pleaded guilty to all charges, and accepted the fine without question.

  As preparation and experience went, Edeard was beginning to realize how useless it had all been.

  Two middle court judges and a Mayor’s Council judge had been appointed to preside over the case against the trio of thieves they’d arrested. They sat together behind a raised wooden podium which ran along the back of the oval courtroom, clad in flowing scarlet and black robes, with fur-lined hoods hanging over their right shoulders. The Mayor’s Council also wore a golden chain, signifying his high-ranking status.

  Arrayed in the dock on their left the thieves stood with two court constables in dress uniform standing guard. They had finally given their names. Arminel, the hooded leader called himself. No more than forty, with a drawn pale face and thick sandy hair that he wore long to cover large ears. At no time did he ever look worried. If anything his expression indicated ennui. His accomplices were Omasis and Harri. Harri was still in his teens, the one they’d told to stand guard in the alley. He’d only been charged with complicity to steal. Arminel and Omasis were both charged with theft and aggravated trespass. While Arminel had to face the additional charge of assaulting a constable. The jewellery shop owner had swiftly identified the contents of the two bottles Arminel had smashed together as a highly volatile spirit-based cleaning fluid and acid. Edeard had shivered at the thought of what could have happened if his shield wasn’t strong enough to ward off the fireball. He’d wanted Arminel to be charged with the attack on Kavine in the Silvarum market, but Master Vosbol, the lawyer that Captain Ronark had retained to prosecute the case, had said no. It was too long ago for witnesses to be considered reliable. “But I recognized him immediately,” Edeard had cried.

  “You saw someone behaving suspiciously,” Master Vosbol said. “You believed him to be the participant in the previous crime.”

  “Kavine will identify him.”

  “Kavine was stabbed, quite badly. The defence will argue that makes him unreliable. Let’s just go with these charges, shall we?”

  Edeard sighed and shook his head.

  It really should have served a warning as to the methodology of Makkathran’s legal affairs. Instead, the first inkling that their case wasn’t as watertight as they imagined came when the defendants all entered a plea of not guilty.

  “They can’t be serious,” Edeard hissed as Master Cherix, the defence lawyer, stood before the judges and entered the plea. The squad was sitting along the rear wall, all in their dress uniforms, waiting to be called by the prosecution. Captain Ronark sat on one side of them, with Sergeant Chae on the other.

  Just about all of the seating was empty. Edeard didn’t know if he was pleased about that or not. He wanted the city’s citizens to see his squad had helped bring a small part of their troubles to justice. Show them that the law hadn’t deserted them.

  Master Cherix raised a surprised eyebrow at the exclamation, and turned to look at the squad. Master Vosbol shot them a furious look. “Be silent,” his longtalk ordered.

  It was, Master Cherix explained, a terrible misunderstanding. His clients were honest citizens going about their business when they perceived the blast in the alley. It had blown open a small door, and full of the concern for human life they had ventured in to the storeroom filled with smoke and flames—at great personal risk—to make sure there were no injured inside. At which point the constables had stumbled upon them, and received a totally false impression.

  One by one the three accused took the stand and swore under oath that they had been acting selflessly. As they did so their unshielded minds radiated sincerity, along with a modicum of injured innocence that their good deed had been so misinterpreted. Master Cherix shook his head in sympathy, woebegone that the constables had acted so wrongly. “A sign of the times,” he told the judges. “These constables are well meaning young folk, rushed through their training by a city desperate to make up staffing targets for the sake of politics. But in truth they were far out of their depth on that sad day. They too need to make arrests to prove themselves to their notoriously harsh station captain. In such circumstances it is only understandable why they chose to interpret events in the way they did.”

  Edeard met Arminel’s stare. He tried to kill me, and his lawyer’s making out it was all a misunderstanding? That we’re in the wrong. It was so outrageous he almost laughed. Then Arminel’s expression twitched, just for an instant. That condescending sneer burned itself into Edeard’s memory. He knew then that this was not the end. Nowhere near.

  After two hours of listening to the defendants, Edeard was finally called to the stand. About time, I can soon set this straight.

  “Constable Edeard,” Cherix smiled warmly. He was nothing like Master Solarin. He was a young man who dressed lik
e the son of a trading family. “You’re not from the city, are you?”

  “What’s that got to do with this?”

  Master Cherix put on a pained expression, and turned to the judges. “My Lords?”

  “Answer the questions directly,” the Mayor’s Counsel instructed.

  “Sir,” Edeard reddened. “No. I was born in the Rulan province.”

  “And you’ve been here for what? Half a year?”

  “A little over that, yes.”

  “So it would be fair to say that you’re not entirely familiar with the city.”

  “I know my way around.”

  “I was thinking more in terms of the way our citizens behave. So why don’t you tell me what you believe happened?”

  Edeard launched into his rehearsed explanation. How Arminel tried to avoid the ge-eagle. The squad tracking them along Sonral Street. Arranging themselves in an encircling formation, whilst standing back and observing through farsight. Sensing Arminel picking the locks.

  “At which point we closed in, and I witnessed the accused stealing gold wire from the storeroom.”

  “I’m curious about this aspect,” Master Cherix said. “You told your squad to wait in Sonral Street by the entrance to the alley. Yet you went down into the storeroom. But I thought you said Harri had been left ‘on guard duty’ in the alley. How did you get past him?”

  “I was lucky, I found another entrance through the shop which backed onto the jewellers.”

  Master Cherix nodded in admiration. “So it was hardly a secure storeroom then? If you could just walk in.”

  “It was difficult,” Edeard admitted, praying to the Lady to help him rein in his guilt. But this wasn’t a lie, just a slight rearrangement of his true route into the storeroom. “I just managed to get there in time.”

  “In time for what?”

  “To see Arminel stealing the gold wire. He was doing that before he flung flaming acid at me.”

  “Indeed. I’d like you to clarify another point, Constable. When you emerged after this alleged event to join up with your squad, did Arminel have any of this supposed ‘gold wire’ on him.”

  “Well no, he dumped it when I challenged him.”

  “I see. And your squadmates can confirm that, can they?”

  “They know… yes.”

  “Yes, what? Constable.”

  “We caught them doing it. I saw him!”

  “By your own statement, you were deep underground in the poorly illuminated storeroom at the time of the alleged theft. Which of your squadmates can farsight through fifteen yards of solid city fabric?”

  “Kanseen. She knew I was there.”

  “Thank you, Constable. Defence would like to call Constable Kanseen.”

  Kanseen passed Edeard on her way to the stand. They both had meticulously blank expressions, but he could tell how worried she was. When he sat down next to Dinlay the others all smiled sympathetically. “Good job,” Chae whispered. Edeard wasn’t convinced.

  “You have a farsight almost as good as your squad leader?” Master Cherix asked.

  “We came out about equal in our tests.”

  “So you could sense what went on in the storeroom from your position in Sonral Street?”

  “Yes.”

  Edeard winced, she sounded so uncertain.

  “How much gold wire was in there?”

  “I… er, I’m not sure.”

  “An ounce? A ton?”

  “A few boxes.”

  “Constable Kanseen,” Master Cherix smiled winningly. “Was that a guess?”

  “Not enough gold to be obvious to a casual farsight sweep.”

  “I’ll let that go for the moment. Constable Edeard claims you perceived him in there.”

  “I did,” she replied confidently. “I sensed him appear in the back. We’d been worried when we lost track of him.”

  “You sensed his mind. There’s a big difference between a radiant source of thoughts, and inert material is there not?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Master Cherix patted the jacket he wore under his black robe. “In one pocket I have a length of gold wire. In another pocket I have an equal length of steel wire. Which is which, Constable?”

  Edeard concentrated his farsight on the lawyer. Sure enough, there was some kind of dense line of matter in his pockets, but there was no way to tell the nature of either.

  Kanseen looked straight ahead. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. Yet there is only five feet of clear air between us. So can you really say with certainty you perceived my client picking up gold wire when he was on the other side of fifteen yards of solid mass?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you, Constable, no more questions.”

  It came down to an argument between two lawyers. Edeard found himself grinding his teeth together as it was presented as his word against Arminel’s.

  “Acting suspiciously,” Master Vosbol ticked off on his fingers. “Gaining entry to a storeroom behind two locked doors. Seen by a constable of impeccable character stealing gold wire. Attacking that same constable. My Lords, the evidence is overwhelming. They came to the storeroom with the express intent of theft. A theft which was valiantly thwarted by these fine constables at great personal danger to themselves.”

  “Circumstantial evidence only,” Master Cherix pronounced. “Facts twisted by the prosecution to support a speculated sequence of events. A country boy alone in an underground city storeroom full of smoke and flame. Confused by the strange environment and regrettably unreliable; his claims unsupported by his own squadmates and friends. My clients do not deny being in the storeroom, responding to the fire as any responsible citizen would. The prosecution has offered no proof whatsoever that they ever touched the gold wire. I would draw my Lords’ attention to the precedent of Makkathran versus Leaney, hearsay is inadmissible.”

  “Objection,” Master Vosbol barked. “This is testimony by a city official, not hearsay.”

  “Unsubstantiated testimony,” Master Cherix countered. “Must be accepted as having equal weight to my clients’ account of events.”

  The judges deliberated for eight minutes. “Insufficient evidence,” the Mayor’s Counsel announced. “Case dismissed.” He banged his gavel on the bench.

  Edeard’s head dropped into his hands. He absolutely could not believe what he’d just heard. “Lady no,” he gasped.

  The defendants were cheering, slapping each other jubilantly. Edeard was disgusted to see Masters Vosbol and Cherix shake hands.

  “It happens,” Captain Ronark said gravely. “You did a perfect job, nobody could do better. I’m proud of you. But this is the way it is in Makkathran these days.”

  “Thank you sir,” Dinlay and Macsen murmured sullenly.

  Ronark flashed them all an anxious expression, debating with himself if he should say more. “This will be useful to you,” he said. “I can imagine what you think of that right now, but next time you’ll know what to do, how to be extra careful gathering evidence, and we’ll nail that little bastard good and proper.” He nodded at Chae, and walked down to talk with Master Vosbol.

  “Buy you all a drink,” Chae said. “I know how bad this hurts, believe me. I’ve had smartarse lawyers get scum off on worse charges than this.”

  “A double of something illegally strong,” Macsen said. The others nodded in grudging agreement. They looked at Edeard.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Arminel saluted him with two fingers to his forehead. His smile was gloating.

  Edeard quashed his impulse to dive across the court and smash his fist into the man’s face. Instead he winked back. “Be seeing you,” he whispered.

  Chapter Seven

  « ^ »

  The Unisphere had never been a homogenous system, nor was it designed along logical principles, which was quite an irony considering the purely digital medium it dealt with. Instead it had grown and expanded in irregular spurts to accommodate the comm
ercial and civil demands placed on it by a proliferating interstellar civilization. By definition the Unisphere was nothing more than the interface protocols between every planetary cyber-sphere, and they were incredibly diverse. Just about every hardware technology the human race had developed was still in operation across the Greater Commonwealth Worlds, from old fashioned macro-arrays running RI programs, to semi-organic cubes, quantum wire blocks, smartneural webs, and photonic crystals, all the way up to ANA which technically was just another routing junction. The interstellar linkages were equally varied, with the Central Commonwealth Worlds still using their original zero-width wormholes, while the External Worlds used a combination of zero-width and hyperspace modulation. Transdimensional channels were becoming more common especially among the latest generation of External Worlds. Starships were also able to link in providing they were in range of a star system’s spacewatch network. The massive gulf between technologies and capacities within the Unisphere meant the management software had swollen over the centuries to accommodate every new advance and application. With effectively infinite storage capacity, the upgrades, adaptors, retrocryptors, and interpreters had accumulated like binary onion layers around each node. They had the ability to communicate with every other chunk of hardware to come on line since the end of the twenty-first century; but with such a complex procedure dealing with every interface, the problem of security increased proportionally. It was relatively easy for a specialist e-head to quietly incorporate siphoning and echoclone routines amid centuries’ worth of augmentation files. The problem was one which every user got round by using their own encryption. However, in order to decrypt a secure message, the receiver had to be in possession of the appropriate key. Ultra secure keys were never sent via the Unisphere, they were physically exchanged in advance, a common method for financial transactions. A less secure method was for a user’s u-shadow to dispatch a key using one route, then call on another. Given the phenomenal number of (randomly designated) routes available within the Unisphere, most people (who even considered it) regarded that as sufficient. It would, after all, require a colossal amount of computing power to monitor every route established to a specific address code for a key, then follow up by intercepting the message.