Now We Are Ten: Celebrating the First Ten Years of NewCon Press

by Peter F. Hamilton

  *

  By the time he has the Royal Barge on visual, Yssim itself is too large for his mind to interpret as spherical. The gas giant is a sky-spanning backdrop of mauve and azure, lavender and turquoise. He is close enough to spot details in the roiling turbulence between the coloured bands. Thanks to the false-colour projections enhancing his view through the canopy, he can see the ion-streams: ethereal threads and skeins, twisting and curling out from the massive world, curved lines of force linking it to Estin, the pus-yellow moon constantly pummelled by Yssim’s tidal forces.

  Now comes the first test. The intricacies of orbital mechanics make an actual start line impossible. Instead Kheo, and every other Pilot, must interpret detailed positional readings then use them to apply delta-V, at the same time keeping track of the movements of the other yachts.

  The exact moment the race starts is determined by the AI-enhanced stewards on the Barge, who are monitoring every one of the twenty-three yachts to determine when all of them are present in the prescribed volume of space. Just being in position isn’t enough: you need to be on the right heading and, ideally, as near the front of the volume as possible.

  Fifteen ships already lined up... another entering. And another.

  He makes a tiny adjustment; raising his orbit slightly. He’s in a good position but he can’t afford to leave the start volume before the last yacht enters. A false start not only annoys the watching billions, it means the culprit has to start in the secondary volume, behind everyone else.

  The penultimate yacht enters the volume. Kheo’s got less than five seconds before he leaves it...

  The final yacht is in place.

  His board lights green.

  He keys the preset that maxes the drive. The gentle hand that has been pressing him into his seat becomes a grasping fist.

  The Flamestar Challenge is on.

  *

  Two days before the race, Clan Reuthani held the pre-race banquet in the liner’s Great Mess, a name which had made Kheo smile when he was growing up.

  Kheo’s first banquet had been seven year ago, shortly after his sixteenth birthday. Uncle Harrik had been First Pilot then, and Kheo had joined in with the drunken and enthusiastic chorus of the Reuthani Clan anthem which serenaded him to his rest. Harrik had won the Flamestar that year, a victory made more special because that had been the first staging of the race since the Empress had been ousted; their Clan yacht had even been renamed in recognition of the coup. In all, his uncle had won twice in eight races. Impressive, but not as good as three out of six.

  This year, as the diners picked over the second course of the third remove – sweet jellied consommé upon which floated spun sugar confections in the shape of fusion yachts – a lull in the quiet murmur allowed an overloud stray comment to surface.

  “Liberation’s become a dirty word!”

  The speaker was Kheo’s father, the Honourable Earl Reuthani. At his words silence fell across high table. Several people on nearby tables glanced at the chair between Kheo and his mother. Next to him, Prinbal sighed. His younger brother currently greeted most parental comments with sighs but for once Kheo could have joined in.

  “Surely you aren’t suggesting we were better off under the Empress!” That was Harrik: no else would dare speak up, but the combination of being an ex-Pilot and having fought in the Liberation gave him the right to question the Earl.

  “Course not, she wasn’t even human.” His father was drunk, as usual. “What I mean is, the commoners forget that most of us rose up when they did, an’ fought beside ‘em. And now they’re angling for this ‘New Liberation’ – from us!”

  At least Clan Reuthani still exists, thought Kheo grimly.

  His brother was watching their father, absorbing the adult interactions even as he pretended to disdain them.

  His Mother said, “But I doubt the malcontents will get far. We need some continuity. Most people realise that. What we should be worrying about is all those other systems out there.”

  “Surely contact could be to our advantage,” said Kheo, thinking of the new technologies he had heard about via the recently instituted ‘beamed virtual’ connection. After centuries of imposed isolation they were finally part of the universe at large.

  A cousin chirped, “Yes, who knows what outsider technology could mean for the Flamestar Challenge?”

  Assuming it continued. Now that the massive extravagance of moving everyone of note out from Homeworld to run a race around the largest body in the system was no longer maintained by the Empress’s brutal taxes, the race was becoming unsustainable. Which just made it more important that he won it again this year. But as discussion returned to the upcoming race, Kheo found his taste for the festivities dulled. He was glad when he was sung to his rest.

  Alone in his room, his mood darkened further. He had spent much of his adult life being secretly grateful that he had been too young to fight in the War, that his elder sister had volunteered instead, although he doubted Father would have let an older son join the fight. Now, facing a life of responsibilities he never wanted and knew he was not up to – not to mention the frustration and hypocrisy – he almost envied his dead, heroic sister.

  *

  The first stretch is a long straight burn.

  Kheo’s initial gamble paid off: he has a solid starting position. But so have half a dozen others, including Umbrel Narven. She’s one of two female Pilots, vanguard of the kind of changes the Earl hates; she has a reputation for recklessness and her clan has some of the best techs, inherited from now-defunct clans. With two close seconds and a third but no win to her name, Narven’s the one to watch.

  A couple of competitors are already lagging behind, possibly because their yachts aren’t as well tuned as his, or possibly because their starts didn’t give them the trajectory they wanted for their chosen path through the ion-streams. Everyone else is still a threat.

  Thirty minutes in and the field is spreading out. Now the tactics start to show, as each Pilot plots the precise course they’ll be taking through the near-invisible energy maze formed by the ion-streams. Kheo has assimilated all available data on the current disposition of the streams but now, close up, he can get more detailed readings and make final adjustments. It looks good: the provisional trajectory he agreed with his team won’t need significant adjustment.

  The projection of the streams overlays the view ahead, a shifting, sparkling curtain coloured every shade of the rainbow. The colours are a code imposed by his comp. He is heading for the golden-orange area, nearer Yssim than Estin. Running close to the gas giant has inherent risks, being liable to fluxes and gravitational effects that could affect his instruments and put stress on his yacht, but he has the skill to navigate it and Liberty Bird is up to the task. And the crowd will love it.

  But he is not the only one risking a close skim. By the time they are fifty minutes into the race, his sensors show two other yachts lining up for similar courses. One of them is close enough that he thinks he can actually see the tiny black speck against the looming ion fields. His instruments ID it as the Aurora Dream. Clan Narven; he might have known.

  *

  The sense of emptiness lingered. He woke with a ridiculous urge to cry, but saw it off with a cold shower, along with all the other unwanted desires and unsafe emotions.

  He was nervous at the prospect of going to the workshop but, in the end, what else would he do the day before the race? His heart tripped when he saw Mechanic Sovat, and he looked away.

  After the daily briefing he lingered, and was unsurprised when the Chief Mechanic did the same. Kheo searched for the right thing to say. Finally, as Sovat raised an eyebrow and turned to go, Kheo managed, ‘Do you really think Clan Narven’s directional thrust innovations pose a threat to us?’

  If the mechanic had any idea that this wasn’t what Kheo wanted to say he gave no sign. “They might well, sirrah. You’d best take the lead from the start; they have the advantage in hi-gee manoeuvring. Make Narven
’s yacht work hard to catch you, and stick the course. Just like I said.”

  Which he had, in the meeting, only a few minutes earlier. “Right. Yes.” Kheo looked at the man’s hands, because they were safe. Except they weren’t. They were fascinating.

  “You’re a good pilot, sirrah.”

  Kheo tried not to be over-pleased by the praise. Before he could stop himself he looked up and said, “I believe you worked late two days ago.”

  Rather than answer immediately Sovat bent forward a little, leaning on his fists; those perfect, sinewy hands. Kheo got a heady whiff of oil and sweat. “What makes you think that?” said Sovat quietly, then added, “sirrah.”

  “Never mind my reasons, Mechanic,” Kheo was glad of the table, which was high enough to hide his body’s response to the encounter. “Were you in the hangar the night before last?”

  “I was.” Sovat’s gaze never wavered.

  Kheo found his own eyes drawn, once again, to those hands. “And were you alone?”

  “No, sirrah. I had Apprentice Greal with me.”

  Kheo must have imagined the small hesitation between ‘Greal’ and ‘with’. “And did anything happen?”

  “Happen, sirrah?” Kheo would swear the man was enjoying this. “What sort of thing were you thinking of, sirrah?”

  “I... I could check the camera feeds, you know.”

  “So you could, sirrah.” The mechanic smiled laconically. “But I doubt you’d find anything to alarm you.”

  Because Sovat had edited them. The Mechanic was careful, thorough: he must have lived with what he was for years. Kheo wanted to hate such forward planning, such contrivance, but found himself admiring it. This man could not only face the truth, but live with it. “If,” he managed, “I did see anything some people might find alarming...” he swallowed, half expecting an interruption, but the other man remained silent, “I’m not sure I’d be alarmed, myself,” he finished in a rush. His face felt like it had caught fire.

  Sovat’s voice was soft. “Perhaps you wouldn’t, at that,” he said.

  “And if, if I was not alarmed when, when most people would be. Normally, that is. Would that be ... something of interest? To you.”

  Sovat remained silent.

  Kheo swallowed. “I was asking you a question.”

  “Were you now, sirrah?” Was that caution or knowing acceptance in Sovat’s voice?

  Acceptance, Kheo decided. They understood each other. No damning words, no absolute confirmation, but there was that connection, that shared experience. Except Kheo’s experiences had been confined to fantasy, until now. “What if I had been here, with you, instead of Apprentice Greal? Would something have happened? Something the cameras wouldn’t see, and that no one,” he felt his breath growing short, “no one ever needed to know about.”

  Sovat paused before answering, then said, his voice regretful, “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “A matter of taste, sirrah. Personal taste.”

  “What are you saying? I’m not your type? But you’re... and I’m...” And no one else is. Except Greal, apparently. “I could report you, you know. What about that, eh?”

  “You’re free to do as you will, sirrah.” Sovat sounded calm; Kheo had no idea if he was concerned about the threat. “Your word carries far more weight than mine.”

  But with doctored cameras, it would just be his word. And he could never betray the only man he had ever spoken to in this way. Not even if that man rejected him. “Well, just... remember that.”

  “I always do, sirrah. Was there anything else?”

  “No. Nothing else.”

  After Sovat left Kheo sat alone in the briefing room. Then he locked himself in the nearest restroom alone, and privately explored the possibility that Sovat would walk in, and find Kheo was his type after all. Then he showered, thoroughly.

  Having been both vindicated and rejected in one short conversation, he returned to the family suite, heading straight for his rooms. Here he checked the publically available information on Mechanic Sovat. The man’s first name was Appis, and Kheo spent a few moments saying the name, Appis Sovat, before chiding himself and looking deeper.

  There was nothing incriminating to be found. Had there been the technician would not be in the position he was in today. Kheo uncovered only one item of note, from before the War: when Sovat was twenty-six two of his male friends had been charged with gross indecency. One had opted for surgical readjustment; the other had not relented of his perversion and had been exiled ‘at the Empress’s service’. Further research revealed that the man had died two years later, at a mine in the bleak high plains of South Arnisland. The verdict was death by natural causes. It generally was, in the mines.

  *

  Kheo hisses in triumph as one of the two yachts peels away, slowing as it does. Too rich for you, eh? He has taken the shorter, riskier path twice before. The first time, he won. The second time overdriving the engines damaged his yacht, and ended his race. Who would have thought two other pilots were also willing to take the skim? Or rather, one now. Umbrel Narven is still in the race. And her yacht is going to enter the streams ahead of him. He’ll be hard pressed to catch her.

  No, that’s defeatist talk: he is still the best Pilot, in the best ship.

  Umbrel Narven no doubt thinks the same about her own skills and vessel.

  *

  “Ah, there you are!”

  Kheo looked up from his desk and forced a smile for his mother. “I thought I’d get an early night...” He waved the display clear.

  “Very sensible. But first, I have news.”

  Kheo knew that tone. “You’d better come in.”

  She swept into his room and perched on the more upright of the two chaises. “I didn’t want to distract you until we were sure, not with the race coming up –”

  “It’s tomorrow, Ma, and I don’t want to be distracted, you’re so right.” Kheo ignored his mother’s wince at being spoken back to.

  “Ah, but this will give you something to race for.”

  “Have you... finalised arrangements? You have, haven’t you?” Making the right match was as much the duty of an oldest son as racing in the Flamestar Challenge. More, really: the Empress had dictated that Clan scions must prove themselves before marrying, but she was gone. Given the dangers of yacht-racing, many Clans, already depleted by the War, forbad their heirs from taking part. And whether or not the race endured, it was no activity for a family man, as his mother had reminded him on his last birthday.

  “I have!”

  “With Leilian Fermelai?”

  “Well, you two used to play together so well when you were children. And the poor thing lost both her parents in all the nastiness.” Meaning: unlike Clan Reuthani, Clan Fermelai had not acted against the Empress. “We’ll announce the engagement en route back to Homeworld, and hold the formal party at the Manse.”

  “This isn’t what I want.” His voice sounded dead in his ears.

  “Kheo, I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for all of us. But you have to settle down. Leilian is technically the head of her clan but she’s only a woman, and with most of her family gone... this is better for everyone. She will be a good wife.”

  He wanted to protest further, to say he did not want a wife, good or otherwise, but it would be futile.

  More gently his mother added, “This marriage is a necessary thing. I hope you can find happiness in it, Kheo, I truly do. But if you cannot... provided you do your duty, a blind eye can be turned.”

  Does she know? But he had done nothing to act on his feelings; on the contrary he had made every effort to live up to the image of the yacht-racing noble rake. “What do you mean?” he asked as evenly as he could.

  “The unsuitable women,” said his mother, in the verbal equivalent of scraping excrement from a shoe.

  Ah yes, those women, the entertainers and hostesses; eager to please, and notorious enough that his rumoured liaisons with them maintained his rep
utation, yet low enough that his failures and foibles would never reach the wrong ears. He had been careful in his choices. He wouldn’t miss the embarrassment and guilty revulsion; nor the fear that they saw him for what he really was.

  “You won’t have to worry about them,” he said.

  “Good.” His mother’s smile told him that she, like everyone else, believed the carefully cultivated image. “That’s settled then.”

  *

  The Aurora Dream is pulling ahead, Narven’s lead opening up second by second.

  So, no win. No glory. No final chance to shine before subsiding under the weight of duty and acceptable behaviour. The best he can hope for is second place.

  Why can’t I just be happy with the privileged life I was born into? He knows the answer: because he can’t be himself.

  Am I being selfish? Perhaps; there were choices, plenty of them. He could have fought in the War, despite being young. He could admit what he really wants in a lover, although where would he find that in the world he lives in, where such things are never spoken of, even if they are no longer punished with more than a fine? He could stand up to his father, although the old man is quite capable of disinheriting him; an unthinkable prospect.

  Plenty of choices there. Shame he has been too much of a coward to take them.

  He blinks away stupid self-pitying tears and focuses on Liberty Bird’s instrument panel. Here is the one thing that is good and simple and right about his life, directly in front of him. And he is about to come in second, in his final race. It’s all downhill from here. Winning isn’t just desirable any more: it’s the only option, whatever the cost.

  There isn’t much time: he scans his readouts, their meaning as comforting and familiar as the drapes above his bed, or the face of his childhood nurse. It would be a minor adjustment to his trajectory.

  He makes the change.

  An alarm sounds.

  He ignores it.

  *

  Kheo never slept well the night before a race. He doubted any Pilot did. He ended up resorting to the chemical remedies offered by the Clan doctor.

  Perhaps that was why, when he was escorted through the halls and corridors of the liner the next morning amid cheers and thrown petals, he felt as though he was watching the festivities from afar, rather than being the reason for them.