The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “So what have you come up with?” Al asked as they sat in the chairs which gave them a splendid view out across the bay.

  Leroy put a slim black case down on the coffee table in front of him, resting a proud hand on it. “I took a look at the basics of what money is all about, Al, and tried to see how it could apply to our situation.”

  “Money is just something you screw out of other people, right, Silvano?” Al laughed.

  Leroy gave an indulgent smile. “That’s about it, Al. Money is principally a fancy method of accounting, it shows you how much other people owe you.

  The beauty of it is you can use it to collect that debt in a thousand different ways, that’s how come money always grows out of a barter economy. Individual currencies are just a measure of the most universal commodity. It use to be gold, or land, something which never changed. The Confederation uses energy, which is why the fuseodollar is the base currency, because it’s linked to He3 production, and those costs are fixed and universal.”

  Al sat back, materialized a Havana, and took a deep drag. “Thanks for the history lesson, Leroy. Get to the point.”

  “The method of accounting isn’t so important, whether you use old-fashioned notes and coins or a Jovian Bank disk, it doesn’t matter. What you must establish is the nature of the debt itself, the measure of what you owe. In this case it’s so simple I could kick myself for not thinking of it straight off.”

  “Someone’s gonna kick you, Leroy, for sure. And pretty quick. What debt?”

  “An energistic one. An act of magic, you promise to pay someone whatever they want.”

  “For Christ’s sake, that’s crazy,” Al said. “What’s the sense in someone owing me a chunk of magic when I can work my own? The original New California economy went ass backwards in the first place because we got this ability.”

  Leroy’s grin became annoyingly wide. Al let him get away with it because he could see how tight and excited the fat manager’s thoughts were. He’d certainly convinced himself he was right.

  “You can, Al,” Leroy said. “But I can’t. This is a not-so-rhetorical question, but how are you going to pay me for all this work I’ve been doing for you? Sure you’ve got the threat of possession to hold me with, but you need my talent, have me possessed and you don’t get that. But put me on a salary and I’m yours for life. For a day’s work you promise to do five minutes of magic for me; manifest a good suit or a copy of the Mona Lisa, whatever I ask for. But it doesn’t have to be you who owes me for the day; I can take the token, or promise, or whatever, and go to any possessed for my magic to be performed.”

  Al chewed around his cigar. “Let me get this straight, here, Leroy. Any schmuck with one of your chocolate dime tokens can come along and ask me to make them a set of gold-plated cutlery anytime they want?”

  “Not anytime, no, Al. But it’s the simplest principle of all: you do something for me, I do something for you. Like I said, it’s exchanging and redeeming debt. Don’t think of it on such a personal level. We’ve been wondering how to keep the non-possessed working for the possessed, this is the answer: You’ll pay them, but you pay them in whatever they want.”

  Al glanced over at Jezzibella, who shrugged. “I can’t see a flaw in the idea,” she said. “How are you going to measure it, Leroy? Surely the possessed will be able to counterfeit any currency?”

  “Yes. So we don’t use one.” He opened his bag and took out a small processor block, matt-black with a gold Thompson sub-machine gun embossed on one side. “Like I said, money is all accounting. We use a computer memory to keep track of what’s owed to whom. You want your magic doing for you, then the computer shows how much you’re entitled to. Same for the reverse; if you’re a possessed it shows how much work the non-possessed have been doing for you. We just set up a planetary bank, Al, keep a ledger on everyone.”

  “I must be crazy even listening to this. Me? You want me to run a bank? The First National Al Capone Bank? Jesus H Christ, Leroy!”

  Leroy held up the black processor block to stress the argument. “That’s the real beauty of it, Al. It makes the Organization utterly indispensable. The soldiers are the ones who are going to enforce and regulate payment on the ground. They make it fair, they make the whole economy slide along smoothly. We don’t have to force or threaten anyone anymore, at least not on the scale we have been doing with the SD network. We don’t put taxes on the economy, like other governments; we become the economy. And there’s nothing to stop the possessed using the system themselves. There are a lot of jobs too big for one individual. It can work, Al. Really it can.”

  “I scratch your back, you scratch mine,” Al said. He eyed the black processor block suspiciously. Leroy handed it over. “Did Emmet help with this accounting machine?” Al asked curiously. Apart from the gold emblem it could have been carved from a lump of coal for all he knew.

  “Yes, Al, he designed it, and the ledger program. He says that the only way a possessed guy can tamper with it is if he gets into the computer chamber, which is why he wants to base it on Monterey. We’re already making it the Organization headquarters; this will cement the deal.”

  Al scaled the electric gadget back on the table. “Okay, Leroy. I see you’ve busted your balls to do good work for me here. So I’ll tell you what we’ll do; I’ll grab all my senior lieutenants for a meeting in Monterey in two days time, see what they make of it. If they buy it, I’m behind you all the way. How does that sound?”

  “Achievable.”

  “I like you, Leroy. You setting up any more tours for me?”

  Leroy flicked a fleeting glance at Jezzibella, who gave him a tiny shake of her head. “No, Al; Merced is the last for a while. It’s more important you’re up at Monterey for a while now, what with the next stage just about ready.”

  “Goddamn, am I glad to hear that.”

  Leroy smiled contentedly, and put the accountancy block back in his slim case. “Thanks for listening, Al.” He stood.

  “No problem. I’ll just have a word with Silvano, here, then the pair of you can get back into space.”

  “Sure, Al.”

  “So?” Al asked when Leroy had left.

  “It ain’t my concern, Al,” Silvano said. “If that’s the way you wanna do it, then fine by me. I admit, we gotta have some kinda dough around here, else things are gonna start falling apart pretty damn fast. We can only keep people in line with the SD platforms for so long.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Al waved a discontented hand. Money for magic, Je-zus, even the numbers racket was more honest than that. He stared at his lieutenant; if it hadn’t been for the ability to sense emotions there would have been no way for him to work out what was going on behind that Latino poker face. But Silvano was eager about something. “So what do you want? And it better be good fucking news.”

  “I think it may be. Somebody came back from beyond who had some interesting information for us. He’s an African type, name of Ambar.” Silvan smiled at the memory. “He wound up in a blond Ivy League body, man was he pissed about that; it’s taking up a lot of effort to turn himself into a true brother again.”

  “Now there’s someone who could cash in a potload of Leroy’s tokens,” Jezzibella said innocently. She popped another Turkish delight in her mouth, and winked at Al as Silvano scowled.

  “Right,” Al chuckled. “What did he want to trade?”

  “He’s only been dead thirty years,” Silvano said. “Came from a planet called Garissa, said it got blown away, the whole damn world. Some kind of starship attack that used antimatter. Don’t know whether to believe him or not.”

  “You know anything about that?” Al asked Jezzibella.

  “Sure, baby, I nearly did a concept album on the Garissa Genocide once. Too depressing, though. It happened all right.”

  “Sweet shit, a whole planet. And this Ambar guy was there?”

  “So he says.”

  “Antimatter can really do that? Waste out an entire planet?”


  “Yeah. But the thing is, Al, he says the Garissa government was working on their own weapon when they got wasted, something to fire at Omuta. The biggest weapon ever built, he swears. And he oughta know, he was some hotshot rocket scientist for their navy.”

  “Another weapon?”

  “Yeah. They called it the Alchemist. Ambar said it got built, but never got used. Said the whole fucking Confederation would know if it had been, that mother’s got some punch.”

  “So it’s still around,” Al said. “Let me guess: he’ll lead us right to it.”

  “No. But he says he knows someone who can. His old college lecturer, a broad called Alkad Mzu.”

  ***

  Lady Macbeth was scheduled to depart in another eight hours, though no one would ever guess by looking at her. Twenty per cent of her hull was still open to space, exposing the hexagonal stress structure; engineers on waldo platforms had the gaps completely surrounded, working with methodical haste to integrate the new systems they had installed to replace battle-damaged units.

  There was an equal amount of well-ordered effort going on inside the life-support capsules, as crews from five service and astroengineering companies laboured to bring the starship up to its full combat capable status. A status whose performance figures would surprise a lot of conventional warship captains. A status she hadn’t truly enjoyed for decades. Her standard internal fittings were being stripped out, replaced by their military-grade equivalents.

  Joshua wanted the old girl readied at peak performance, and as Ione was paying … The more he thought about what he’d agreed to do for her, the more he worried about it. Immersing himself in the details of the refit was an easy escape, almost as good as flying.

  He had spent most of yesterday holding conferences with astroengineering company managers discussing how to compress a fortnight’s work into forty-eight hours. Now he watched attentively as their technicians clustered around the consoles manipulating the cyberdrones and waldo arms enclosing Lady Mac.

  A pair of legs slid through the control centre’s hatch, wobbling about as though the owner wasn’t quite accustomed to free-fall manoeuvring. Joshua hurriedly grabbed at the offending trousers, pulling the man to one side before his shoes caught one of the console operators behind her ear.

  “Thank you, Joshua,” a red-faced Horst Elwes said as Joshua guided him down onto a stikpad. He gave a watery blink, and peered out into the bay.

  “I was told I would find you here. I heard that you had found yourself a charter flight.”

  There was no detectable irony in the priest’s tone, so Joshua said: “Yes, the Lord of Ruin contracted me to pick up some essential specialist components to enhance Tranquillity’s defences. The industrial stations outside don’t manufacture every component which goes into the SD platforms.” Joshua didn’t actually hear anyone snigger, but there were definitely some sly grins flashing around the consoles. Nobody knew for sure what the flight was for, but they all had a good idea what it didn’t entail. As an excuse the components charter was pretty feeble. Ione had reported that every intelligence agency in the habitat had taken a sudden interest in his impending departure.

  “But they can manage to build combat wasps, apparently,” Horst said with gentle amusement. Brackets on the bay walls held sixty-five combat wasps ready for loading into Lady Macbeth’s launch tubes.

  “One of the reasons we won the contract, Father. Lady Mac can carry cargo and fight her way out of trouble.”

  “If you say so, young Joshua. But please, don’t try that one on St Peter if you ever make it to those big white gates.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind. Was there something you wanted?”

  “Nothing important. I was gladdened to hear your starship was being repaired for you. Lady Macbeth sustained a lot of damage rescuing us. I understand how expensive such machinery is. I wouldn’t want you to suffer a financial penalty for such a selfless act.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  “The children would like to see you before you leave.”

  “Er … Why?”

  “I believe they want to say thank you.”

  “Oh, yes.” He glanced at Melvyn, who appeared equally discomforted. “I’ll try, Father.”

  “I thought you could combine it with the memorial service. They will all be there for that.”

  “What memorial service?”

  “Oh, dear, didn’t Sarha tell you? The bishop has agreed that I can hold a service of commemoration to those who sacrificed themselves for the children. I think Mr. Malin’s team and Warlow deserve our prayers. It starts in three hours time.”

  Joshua’s good humour drained away. I do not want to think about death and after, not right now.

  Horst studied the young man’s face, seeing both anxiety and guilt expressed in the carefully composed features. “Joshua,” he said quietly.

  “There is more to death than the beyond. Believe me, I have seen how much more with my own two eyes. The recordings your friend Kelly made, while truthful, do not contain anything like the whole story. Do you think I could retain my faith in Our Lord if Shaun Wallace had been right?”

  “What did you see?”

  “The one thing which could convince me. For you, I expect it would be different.”

  “I see. We have to come to faith in our own way?”

  “As always, yes.”

  Tranquillity’s cathedral was modelled on the old European archetype. One of the few buildings inside the habitat, it grew up out of the parkland several kilometres away from the circle of starscraper lobbies halfway along the cylinder. The polyp walls were lily-white, with an arching ceiling ribbed by smooth polygonal ridges to give the appearance of a long-abandoned hive nest. Tall gashes in the wall had been sealed by traditional stained glass, with a huge circular rosette at the end of the nave overlooking the stone altar. The Virgin Mary, baby Jesus in arm, gazed down on the slab of granite which Michael Saldana had brought from Earth.

  Joshua had been given a place in the front pew, sitting next to Ione. He hadn’t had time to change out of his ship-suit, while she was dressed in some exquisitely elegant black dress complete with elaborate hat. At least the rest of the Lady Mac’s crew shared his sartorial manner.

  The service was short, perhaps because of the children who fidgeted and whispered. Joshua didn’t mind. He sang the hymns and listened to Horst’s sermon, and joined in with the prayers of thanks.

  It wasn’t quite as cathartic as he wanted it to be, but there was some sense of relief. People congregating together to tell the dead of their gratitude. And just how did that ritual start, he wondered—have we always known they’d be watching?

  Ione propelled him over to the knot of children after it was over. Father Horst and several pediatric nurses were trying to keep them in order.

  They looked different, Joshua decided. The gaggle which closed around him could have been any junior day club on an outing. Certainly none of them resembled that subdued, frightened group who had flooded on board Lady Mac barely a week ago.

  As they giggled and recited their rehearsed thank yous he realized he was grinning back. Some good came out of the mission after all. In the background Father Horst was nodding approvingly. Wily old sod, Joshua thought, he set me up for this.

  There were others filing out of the cathedral, the usual clutter of rover reporters, (surprisingly) the Edenists from Aethra, a large number of the clientele from Harkey’s Bar and other space industry haunts, a few combat-boosted, Kelly Tirrel. Joshua excused himself from the children and caught up with her in the narthex.

  “Lady Mac is departing this evening,” he said lamely.

  “I know.”

  “I caught some of the Collins news shows; you’ve done all right for yourself.”

  “Yes. Finally, I’m officially more popular than Matthias Rems.” There was humour in her voice, but not her expression.

  “There’s a berth if you want it.”

  “No thanks, Joshua.” She glan
ced over at Ione who was chatting to Horst Elwes. “I don’t know what she’s conned you into doing for her, but I don’t want any part of it.”

  “It’s only a charter to pick up components which—”

  “Fuck off, Joshua. If that’s all there is to it, why offer me a place? And why load Lady Mac full of top-grade combat wasps? You’re heading straight back into trouble, aren’t you?”

  “I sincerely hope not.”

  “I don’t need it, Joshua. I don’t need the fame, I don’t need the risk. For fuck’s sake, do you know what’s going to happen to you if you die? Didn’t you access any of my recordings?” She almost seemed to be pleading with him.

  “Yes, Kelly, I accessed some of them. I know what happens when you die. But you can’t give up hope for something better. You can’t stop living just because you’re frightened. You kept going on Lalonde, despite everything the dead threw at you. And you triumphed.”

  “Ha!” She let out a bitter, agonized laugh. “I wouldn’t call that triumph if I were you: thirty kids saved. That’s the most pathetic defeat in history. Even Custer did better than that.”

  Joshua gazed at her, trying to understand where his Kelly had vanished.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, really I am. I think we did okay at Lalonde, and a lot of other people share that opinion.”

  “Then they’re stupid, and they’ll grow out of it. Because everything now is temporary. Everything. When you’re damned to exist for eternity, nothing you experience lasts for long.”

  “Quite. That’s what makes living worthwhile.”

  “No.” She gave him a fragile smile. “Know what I’m going to do now?”

  “What?”

  “Join Ashly, he’s got the right idea about how to spend his time. I’m going to take million-year sojourns in zero-tau. I’m going to sleep away the rest of the universe’s existence, Joshua.”