The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  He turned his attention back to the communications link. After the shocks he’d received, Kyle Prager was reacting badly to Mzu’s news of her deal with the agencies and Ione.

  “You know I cannot hand it over to anybody else,” Prager said. “You should never have brought them here, no matter what you agreed with them.”

  “What, and leave you to rot?” Alkad replied. “I couldn’t do that. Not with Peter here.”

  “Why not? We planned for it. We would have destroyed the Alchemist and signalled the Confederation Navy for help. You know that. And as for this fable about the dead being alive …”

  “Mother Mary. We can barely pick up your signal now, and I knew where to look. What sort of condition would you be in five years from now? Besides, there might not be any Confederation left in another five months, let alone five years.”

  “Better that than risk others learning how to build an Alchemist.”

  “Nobody is going to learn from me.”

  “Of course not, but there are so many temptations for governments now the knowledge of its existence has leaked.”

  “It leaked thirty years ago, and the technology is still safe. This rescue mission is designed to clear up the last loose end.”

  “Alkad, you’re asking too much. I’m sorry my answer has to be no. If you try to rendezvous I will switch off the confinement chambers. We still have a quantity of antimatter left.”

  “No!” Alkad yelled. “Peter’s on board.”

  “Then stay away.”

  “Captain Prager, this is Captain Calvert. I’d like to offer a simple solution.”

  “Please do,” Prager answered.

  “Shoot the Alchemist down into the gas giant. We’ll pick you up after it’s gone. Because I can assure you, I’m not going to come anywhere near the Beezling with that kind of threat hanging over me.”

  “I’d like to, Captain, but it will take some time to check over the Alchemist’s carrier vehicle. Then the antimatter would have to be reloaded. And even if it still works, you might be able to intercept it.”

  “That’s a very unhealthy case of paranoia you’ve got there, Captain.”

  “One that has kept me alive for thirty years.”

  “All right, try this. If we were possessed or simply wanted to acquire Alchemist technology we wouldn’t even have come here. We already have the doc. You’re military, you know there are a great many ways information can be extracted from unwilling donors. And we certainly wouldn’t have thrown in a crazy story like the possessed to confuse the issue. But we’re not possessed, or even hostile to you, so we told you the truth. So I’ll tell you what. If you’re still not convinced that we want to end the Alchemist threat, then go right ahead and kamikaze.”

  “No!” Alkad yelled.

  “Quiet, Doc. First though, Captain, you put this Peter Adul character in a spacesuit, boot him out the airlock, and let us pick him up. He cannot be allowed to die, not if he knows how to build an Alchemist. The possessed would have him then. Guarding against that technology leakage is part of your duty, too, now. Once we have him, I’ll blow you to shit myself if that’s what it takes.”

  “You would, too, wouldn’t you?” Prager asked.

  “Jesus, yes. After what I’ve been through chasing the doc, it’ll be a pleasure to finish this properly.”

  “It may be just the lousy reception I’m getting, but you look very young, Captain Calvert.”

  “Compared to most starship captains, I probably am. But I’m also the only option you have. You either die, or you come with me.”

  “Kyle,” Alkad pleaded. “For Mary’s sake!”

  “Very well. Captain Calvert, you can rendezvous with the Beezling and take my crew off. After that the Beezling will be scuttled with the Alchemist on board.”

  Joshua heard someone on the bridge let out a heavy breath. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Christ, what an ungrateful bastard,” Liol complained. “Just make sure you invoice him a huge rescue bill, Josh.”

  “Well that finally settles that question,” Ashly chuckled. “You’re definitely a Calvert, Liol.”

  The Beezling was in a sorry state. That became increasingly apparent on Lady Mac’s final approach phase, when they were rising up behind it from a slightly lower orbit. Both ships were deep inside the penumbra now, although the gigantic orange and white crescent they were fleeing from still cast a glorious coronal glow across them. It was enough for Lady Mac’s visual sensors to provide a detailed image while they were still ten kilometres away.

  Almost the entire lower quarter of the warship’s fuselage plates were missing, with only a simple silver petal pattern left surrounding the drive tubes. The hexagonal stress structure was clearly visible, fencing in black and tarnished chrome segments of machinery. Some units were obviously foreign, jutting up through the centre of the hexagons where they’d been hurriedly inserted to complement or enhance original components. From the midsection forward, the fuselage was relatively intact. There was very little protective foam remaining, just a few dabs of blackened cinderlike flakes. Long silvery scars etched across the dark monobonded silicon told the story of multiple particle impacts. There were hundreds of small craters where the fuselage’s molecular-binding generators had suffered localized overloads. Punctures whose vapour and shrapnel had been absorbed by whatever module or tank was directly underneath. None of the delicate sensor clusters had survived. Only two thermo-dump panels were extended, and they were badly battered; one had a large chunk missing, as if something had taken a bite out of it.

  “I’m registering a strong magnetic emission,” Beaulieu said as they closed the last kilometre. “But the ship’s thermal and electrical activity is minimal. Apart from an auxiliary fusion generator and three confinement chambers the Beezling is basically inert.”

  “No thruster activity, either,” said Liol. “They’ve picked up a tumble. One rotation every eight minutes nineteen seconds.”

  Joshua checked the radar return, computing a vector around the crippled old ship so he could reach its airlock. “I can dock and stabilize you,” he datavised to Captain Prager.

  “Not much point,” Prager replied. “Our airlock chamber was breached by particle impact; and I doubt the latches will work anyway. If you just hold station we’ll transfer across in suits.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Captain,” Beaulieu said. “Two fusion drives. They’re on an approach vector.”

  “Jesus!” He accessed the sensors. Half of the image was a ghostly apricot-coloured ocean illuminated by the planetary-sized aurora borealis storms which floated serenely above it. The nighttime sky which vaulted it was a perfect orrery dome of stars where the only movement came from tiny moons racing along their ordained pathways. Red icons were bracketing two of the brighter stars just outside the ecliptic. When Joshua keyed in the infrared they became brilliant. Purple vector lines sprouted out of them, projecting their trajectory in towards him.

  “Approximately two hundred thousand kilometres away,” Beaulieu said, her synthesized voice sounding completely uncaring. “I think I can confirm the drive signatures; it appears to be our old friends the Urschel and the Raimo. Both plasma exhausts have very similar instabilities. If not them, then there are certainly possessed on board.”

  “Who else?” Ashly grunted morosely.

  Alkad looked around frantically, trying to make eye contact with the crew. They were all looking at Joshua as he lay on his couch, eyes closed, his flat brow producing neat parallel furrows as he frowned in concentration. “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Take the survivors on board and run. Those ships are too far away to threaten us.”

  Sarha waved her hand in annoyance. “They are now,” she said in a low voice. “They won’t be for long. And we’re too close to the gas giant to jump out. We need to be another hundred and thirty thousand kilometres away. In other words, up where they are. That means we can’t boost straight up; we’d fly straight into them.�

�

  “So … what then?”

  Sarha pointed a finger at Joshua. “He’ll tell us. If there’s a vector out of here, Joshua will find it.”

  Alkad was surprised by the amount of respect in the normally volatile crew woman. But then all of the crew were regarding their captain with the kind of hushed expectancy that was usually the province of holy gurus. It made Alkad very uneasy.

  Joshua’s eyes flipped open. “We have a problem,” he announced grimly.

  “Their altitude gives them too much tactical advantage. I can’t find us a vector.” A small regretful dip at the corner of his mouth. “There isn’t even a convenient Lagrange point this time. And I wouldn’t like to risk it anyway, not while we’re so close to a gas giant as big as this one.”

  “Fly a slingshot,” Liol said. “Dive straight at the gas giant and go for a jump on the other side.”

  “That’s over three hundred thousand kilometres away. Lady Mac can probably accelerate harder than the Organization ships, but they’ve got antimatter combat wasps, remember. Forty-five-gee acceleration; we’d never make it.”

  “Christ.”

  “Beaulieu, put a com beam on them,” Joshua said. “If they respond, ask them what they want. I’m sure we know, but if nothing else I’d like confirmation.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Doc, how do we go about firing the Alchemist at them?”

  “You can’t,” she said simply.

  “Jesus, Doc, this is no time for principles. Don’t you understand? We have no other way out. None. That weapon is the only advantage we’ve got left. If we don’t kill them, they’ll get you, and Peter.”

  “This is not a question of principle, Captain. It’s not physically possible to deploy the Alchemist against starships.”

  “Jesus.” He couldn’t believe it. But the doc looked frightened enough.

  Intuition convinced him she was telling the truth. The navigation program was still producing flight vectors. Dumb forced-calculation, trying out every conceivable probability to find one which would let them escape.

  The plots flickered in and out of existence at a subliminal speed, miniature purple lightning bolts crackling around the inside of his head.

  Throw in wild card manoeuvres, lunar slingshots, Lagrange points. Pray!

  It didn’t make the slightest difference. The Organization frigates had thoroughly outmanoeuvred him. His one hope had been the Alchemist, a super-doomsday machine, a nuke to kill a couple of ants.

  I have come so far I can actually see the ship it’s stored in. I can’t lose now, not with these stakes.

  “Okay, Doc, I want to know exactly what your Alchemist does, and how it does it.” He clicked his fingers at Monica and Samuel. “You two, I’ll stay in Tranquillity if we survive this, but I have to know.”

  “God, Calvert, I’ll stay there with you if that’s what it takes,” Monica told him. “Just get us out of this.”

  “Joshua,” Sarha said. “You can’t.”

  “Give me an alternative. It gets Liol’s vote. He’ll be captain then.”

  “I’m crew, Josh. This is your ship.”

  “Now he tells me. Datavise the file, Doc. Now, please.” Information leapt into his mind as the files came over. Theory, application, construction, deployment, operational parameters. All neatly indexed with helpful cross-referencing. The blueprints of how to slay a star; in fact, build enough and you could slay an entire galaxy; or even just … Joshua flicked instantaneously back to the operational aspects. Pumped a few figures of his own into Mzu’s coldly simple equations.

  “Jesus, Doc, it wasn’t a rumour. You really are dangerous, aren’t you?”

  “Can you do it?” Monica asked. She wanted to shout the question at him, jolt him out of that infuriating complacency.

  Joshua winked at her. “Absolutely. Look, we came off badly down in that ironberg yard because that’s not my territory. This is. In space, we win.”

  “Is he serious?” Monica appealed to the rest of the bridge.

  “Oh, yes,” Sarha said. “If anyone gets hostile with Lady Mac, they just crash straight into his ego.”

  ***

  High York posed a difficult problem of interpretation for Louise. The AV pillar in the Jamrana’s lounge shone its image down her optic nerve throughout the entire approach phase. There was no colour, space was so black she couldn’t even see the stars. The asteroid was different to Phobos’ chiselled cylinder, a grizzled irregular lump which the ship’s sensors seemed incapable of bringing into proper focus. Mechanical artefacts were shunting out of its puckered surface at all angles, though she wasn’t quite sure if she had the scale right. If she had, then they were bigger than the largest ship ever to ply Norfolk’s seas.

  Fletcher was in the lounge with her. From the few comments he made he understood even less of the image than she did.

  Genevieve, of course, was in her tiny cabin playing games on her processor block. She’d found a soul mate in one of Pieri’s younger cousins; the pair of them had taken to locking themselves away for hours at a time to tackle battalions of Trafalgar Greenjackets or skate through puzzles of five-dimensional topology. Louise wasn’t entirely happy with her sister’s new hobby, but on the other hand she was grateful she didn’t have the duty of keeping her amused during the flight.

  High York’s disk-shaped spaceport traversed the AV image, eclipsing the asteroid itself. A high-pitched whine vibrated out of the lounge walls, and the Jamrana drifted forwards. And still there was no glimpse of Earth. Louise had really been looking forwards to that. Pieri would align a sensor on the planet for her if she asked, she was sure; but right now the whole Bushay family was involved in the docking procedure.

  Louise asked her processor block for an update on their approach, and studied the display which appeared on its screen while it accessed the ship’s flight computer. “Four minutes until we dock,” she said. Assuming she was reading the tables of figures and coloured lines correctly.

  She’d spent a large portion of the flight working through the block’s tutorial programs until she could manage the unit’s more basic display and operation modes. She didn’t need to ask anyone’s help to manage her medical nanonic packages, and she could monitor the baby’s health continually. It gave her a good feeling. So much of Confederation life was centred around the casual use of electronics.

  “Why so nervous, my lady?” Fletcher asked. “Our voyage ends. With Our Lord’s mercy we have prevailed once more against the most inopportune circumstances. We have returned to the good Earth, the cradle of humanity. Though I fear that which has befallen me, I can do naught but rejoice at our homecoming.”

  “I’m not nervous,” she protested unconvincingly.

  “Come now, lady.”

  “All right. Look, it’s not getting here; I’m really delighted we’ve made it. I suppose it’s silly of me, but something about being on Earth is very reassuring. It’s old and it’s very strong, and if people are going to be safe anywhere, then it’ll be here. That’s the problem. Something Endron said about it keeps bothering me.”

  “You know that if I can assist you, I will.”

  “No. It’s nothing you can help with. That’s the point. Endron told me we wouldn’t get through High York’s spaceport; that there would be inspections and examinations, awfully strict ones. It’ll be nothing like arriving at Phobos. And everything I’ve heard from Pieri just confirms that. I’m sorry, Fletcher, I don’t think we’re going to make it, I really don’t.”

  “And yet we must,” he said softly. “That fiend Dexter cannot prevail. Should the necessity become apparent, I will surrender myself and warn Earth’s rulers.”

  “Oh, no, Fletcher, you can’t do that. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

  “Yet still you doubt me, Lady Louise. I see your heart crying in pain. That is a source of grief for me.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Fletcher. It’s just that … If we can’t get through, then Quinn Dexter won’t manage it either. That would mean your whole journey is for nothing. I hate that.”

  “Dexter is stronger than I, lady. I hold that bitter memory quite plainly. He is also more cunning and ruthless. If there is but a single chink in the armour of Earth’s valiant harbourmasters he will find it.”

  “Heavens, I hope not. Quinn Dexter loose on Earth is too horrible to think about.”

  “Aye, my lady.” His fingers clasped hers to emphasise his determination.

  Something he rarely did, shying away from physical contact with people.

  It was almost as if he feared contamination.

  “That is why you must swear faithfully to me that should I stumble in my task you must pick up the torch and carry on. The world must be warned of Quinn Dexter’s devilish intent. And if possible you must also seek out this Banneth of whom he spoke with such animosity. Alert her to his presence, emphasise the danger she will face.”

  “I’ll try, Fletcher, really I will. I promise.” Fletcher was prepared to sacrifice his new life and eternal sanity to save others. Her own goal of reaching Joshua seemed so petty and selfish in comparison. “Be careful when we disembark,” she urged.

  “I place my trust in God, my lady. And if they catch me—”

  “They won’t!”

  “Ah, now who has adopted a frail bravado? As I recall, ’twas you who warned me of what lies crouched beside the road ahead.”

  “I know.”

  “Forgive me, lady. I see that once again my tact is left wanting.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Fletcher. I’m not the one they’ll put into zero-tau.”

  “Aye, lady, I confess that prospect is one I shrink from. I know in my heart I will not last long in such black confinement.”

  “I’ll get you out,” she vowed. “If they put you in zero-tau I’ll get it switched off, or something. There will be lawyers I can hire.” She patted her ship-suit’s breast pocket, feeling the outline of the Jovian Bank credit disk. “I have money.”

  “Let us hope it proves sufficient, my lady.”

  She gave him what she hoped was a bright smile, making out that everything was settled. So that’s that.

  -->