“Don’t look outside the horizontal, and always remember the poor sod above you thinks you’re going to fall on him,” his crusty old guide had said.
Knowing he had been defeated before he even started, Maynard Khanna walked along the yellow-brown stone path towards the building that resembled a Hellenic temple. It was a long basilica which had one end opening out into a circular area with a domed roof of some jet-black material supported by white pillars, the gaps between them filled by sheets of blue-mirror glass.
The path took him to the opposite end of the basilica, where a pair of serjeants stood guard duty like nightmare goblin statues on either side of the entrance arch.
“Captain Khanna?” one asked. The voice was mild and friendly, completely at odds with its appearance.
“Yes.”
“The Lord of Ruin is expecting you, please follow my servitor.” The serjeant turned and led him into the building. They walked down a central nave with large gilt-framed pictures hanging on the brown and white marble walls.
Maynard Khanna assumed they were holograms at first, then he realized they were two-dimensional, and a more detailed look revealed that they were oil paintings. There were a lot of countryside scenes where people wore elaborate, if baroque, costumes, riding on horses or gathered in ostentatious groups. Scenes from old Earth, pre-industrial age. And a Saldana would never make do with copies. They must be genuine. His mind balked at how much they must be worth; you could buy a battle cruiser with the money just one of them would fetch.
At the far end of the nave a Vostok capsule was resting on a cradle under a protective glass dome. Maynard stopped and looked at the battered old sphere with a mixture of trepidation and admiration. It was so small, so crude , yet for a few brief years it had represented the pinnacle of human technology. What ever would the cosmonaut who rode it into space think of Tranquillity?
“Which one is it?” he asked the serjeant in a hushed tone.
“Vostok 6, it carried Valentina Tereshkova into orbit in 1963. She was the first woman in space.”
Ione Saldana was waiting for him in the large circular audience chamber at the end of the nave. She sat behind a crescent-shaped wooden desk positioned in the centre; thick planes of light streamed in through the giant sheets of glass set between the pillars, turning the air into a platinum haze.
The white polyp floor was etched with a giant crowned phoenix emblem in scarlet and blue. It took an eternity for him to cover the distance from the door to the desk; the sound of his boot heels clicking against the polished surface echoed drily in the huge empty space.
Intended to intimidate, he thought. You know how alone you are when you confront her.
He snapped a perfect salute when he reached the desk. She was a head of state, after all; the Admiral’s protocol office had been most insistent about that, and how he should treat her.
Ione was wearing a simple sea-green summer dress with long sleeves. The intense lighting made her short gold-blonde hair glimmer softly.
She was just as lovely as all the AV recordings he’d studied.
“Do take a seat, Captain Khanna,” she said, smiling. “You look most uncomfortable standing up like that.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” There were two high-backed chairs on his side of the desk; he sat in one, still keeping his pose rigid.
“I understand you’ve come all the way from the First Fleet headquarters at Avon just to see me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“In a voidhawk?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Owing to the somewhat unusual nature of this worldlet, we don’t have a diplomatic corps, nor a civil service,” she said airily. A delicate hand waved around at the audience chamber. “The habitat personality handles all the administrative functions quite effectively. But the Lords of Ruin employ a legal firm on Avon to represent Tranquillity’s interests in the Confederation Assembly chamber. If there’s a matter of urgency arising, you only have to consult them. I have met the senior partners, and I have a lot of confidence in them.”
“Yes, ma’am—”
“Maynard, please. Stop calling me ma’am. This is a private meeting, and you’re making me sound like a day-club governess for junior aristocrats.”
“Yes, Ione.”
She smiled brightly. The effect was devastating. Her eyes were an enchanting shade of blue, he noticed.
“That’s better,” she said. “Now what have you come to talk about?”
“Dr Alkad Mzu.”
“Ah.”
“Are you familiar with the name?”
“The name and most of the circumstances.”
“Admiral Aleksandrovich felt this was not a matter to take to your legal representatives on Avon. It is his opinion that the fewer people who are aware of the situation, the better.”
Her smile turned speculative. “Fewer people? Maynard, there are eight different Intelligence agencies who have set up shop in Tranquillity; and all of them run surveillance operations on poor Dr Mzu. There are times when their pursuit becomes dangerously close to a slapstick routine. Even the Kulu ESA have posted a team here. I imagine that must be a real thorn in my cousin Alastair’s regal pride.”
“I think what the Admiral meant was: fewer people outside high government office.”
“Yes, of course, the people most able to deal with the situation.”
The irony in her tone made Maynard Khanna give an inward flinch. “In view of the fact that Dr Mzu is now contacting a number of starship captains, and the Omutan sanctions are about to expire, the Admiral would be extremely grateful if we could be told of your policy regarding Dr Mzu,” he said formally.
“Are you recording this for the Admiral?”
“Yes, a full sensevise.”
Ione stared straight into his eyes, speaking in a clear precise diction. “My father promised Admiral Aleksandrovich’s predecessor that Dr Alkad Mzu would never be allowed to leave Tranquillity, and I repeat that promise to the Admiral. She will not be permitted to leave, nor will I countenance any attempt to sell or hand over the information she presumably holds to anybody, including the Confederation Navy. Upon her death, she will be cremated in order to destroy her neural nanonics. And I hope to God that sees the end of the threat.”
“Thank you,” Maynard Khanna said.
Ione relaxed a little. “I hadn’t even been gestated when she arrived here twenty-six years ago, so tell me, I’m curious. Has Fleet Intelligence discovered yet how she survived Garissa’s destruction?”
“No. She can’t have been on the planet. The Confederation Navy was in charge of the evacuation, and we have no record of carrying her on any of our ships. Nor was she listed as being in any of the asteroid settlements. The only logical conclusion is that she was outsystem on some kind of clandestine military mission when Omuta bombed Garissa.”
“Deploying the Alchemist?”
“Who knows? The device certainly wasn’t used; so either it didn’t work or they were intercepted. The general staff favours the interception scenario.”
“And if she survived, so did the Alchemist,” Ione concluded.
“If it was ever built.”
She raised an eyebrow. “After all this time, I thought that was taken for granted.”
“The thinking goes that after all this time, we should have heard something other than rumours. If it does exist, why haven’t the Garissan survivors tried to use it against Omuta?”
“When it comes to Doomsday machines, rumours are all I want to hear.”
“Yes.”
“You know, I’ve watched her sometimes while she’s been working over in the Laymil project’s physics centre. She’s a good physicist, her colleagues respect her. But she’s nothing exceptional, not mentally.”
“One idea in a lifetime is all it takes.”
“You’re right. Clever of her to come here, really. The one place where her security is guaranteed, and at the same time the one mini-nation which everybody know
s is no military threat to other Confederation members.”
“So may I say you have no objection to our maintaining our observation team?”
“You can, providing you don’t flaunt the privilege. But please reassure yourselves. I don’t think she’s received much geneering, if any. She can’t last more than another thirty years, forty at the outside. Then it will all be over.”
“Excellent.” He leant forward a few millimetres, lips moving upwards into a slight awkward smile. “There was one other matter.”
Ione’s eyes widened with innocent anticipation. “Yes?”
“An independent trader captain called Joshua Calvert mentioned your name in connection with one of our agents.”
She squinted up at the ceiling as if lost in a particularly difficult feat of recall. “Oh, yes, Joshua. I remember him, he caused quite a stir at the start of the year. Found a big chunk of Laymil electronics in the Ruin Ring. I met him at a party once. A nice young man.”
“Yes,” Maynard Khanna said gingerly. “So you didn’t warn him about Erick Thakrar being one of our deep-cover operatives?”
“Erick Thakrar’s name never passed my lips. Actually, Thakrar has just been accepted by Captain Andrй Duchamp for a berth on the Villeneuve’s Revenge , that’s an Adamist ship with an antimatter drive fitted. I’m sure Commander Olsen Neale will confirm that for you. Erick Thakrar’s cover is completely intact, I can assure you that Andrй Duchamp doesn’t suspect a thing.”
“Well, that’s a great relief, the Admiral will be pleased.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And please don’t concern yourself over Joshua Calvert, I’m sure he’d never do anything illegal, he’s really an exemplary citizen.”
The Lady Macbeth is preparing to jump insystem, Oenone warned the crew. They were two light-weeks from Puerto de Santa Maria’s star, which cast a barely perceptible shadow on the voidhawk’s foam-encased hull. The Nephele was drifting eight hundred kilometres over the upper hull, yet Oenone ’s optical sensors were unable to see it.
Twenty-eight thousand kilometres further in towards the faint star, the Lady Macbeth ’s sensor clusters and thermo-dump panels were folding with the neatness of an alighting eagle.
If only everything about the Adamist starship’s flight was that neat, Syrinx wished. This Captain Calvert was a born incompetent. It had taken them six days to get here from New California, a distance of fifty-three light-years. The manoeuvres which Lady Macbeth performed every time she reached a jump coordinate were appallingly sloppy, they went on for hours at a time. Time was money in the cargo business. And if this was the way Calvert navigated on every voyage it was no wonder he needed the money so desperately.
“Stand by,” Syrinx told Larry Kouritz. “He’s lined up on the Ciudad asteroid.”
“Roger,” the marine captain acknowledged.
“The Ciudad,” Eileen Carouch muttered as she accessed the Puerto de Santa Maria file in her neural nanonics. “There are several insurrectionist cells based there, according to the planetary government’s Intelligence agency. They are pushing hard for independence.”
Attention everybody,syrinx broadcast, I want us out of stealth mode the moment we emerge. This Lady Macbeth is fitted with maser cannons, so let’s not have any mistakes. Chi, you have fire-control authority as of now. If they make one smartarse move, slice them in two. Nephele , you keep a sharp watch for approaching ships. If these insurrectionists are desperate enough to try and obtain antimatter-confinement technology they may be dumb enough to try and assist their courier.
We’ll cover you,targard, the Nephele ’s captain, replied.
Syrinx returned her attention to Oenone ’s sensor inputs. The Lady Macbeth had reverted to a perfect sphere. Blue ion flames shrank away to nothing. There was a sharp twist in space’s uniformity.
Go,she commanded.
Oenone erupted out of the wormhole terminus seventeen hundred kilometres distant from the Lady Macbeth . A blizzard of foam flakes swirled away as electronic sensors and thermo-dump panels were uncovered around the crew toroid. Fusion generators in the lower hull combat systems toroid powered up. X-ray lasers deployed. Gravity returned to the crew toroid. The distortion field swelled outwards, accelerating the voidhawk up to seven gees. It chased a sharp curve round to align on the Lady Macbeth . Two hundred kilometres away the Nephele was shaking off its stealth cloak.
Ciudad was a distant lacklustre speck, with a small constellation of industrial stations wrapped around it. Strategic defence sensor radiation raked across the Oenone .
Syrinx was aware of a curious secondary oscillation in the distortion field. Foam was streaming away from all across the hull.
That’s better, Oenone sighed almost subliminally.
Syrinx didn’t have time to form a rebuke. A transmitter dish unfolded from the lower hull toroid, swinging round to focus on the Lady Macbeth .
“Starship Lady Macbeth ,” she relayed through the transmitter’s bitek processors. “This is Confederation Navy ship Oenone . You are ordered to hold your position. Do not activate your reaction drive, do not attempt to jump away. Stand by for rendezvous and boarding.”
Oenone ’s distortion field reached out to engulf the Adamist starship.
Syrinx could hear Tula communicating with Ciudad’s defence control centre, informing them of the interception.
“Hi there, Oenone ,” Joshua Calvert’s voice came cheerfully out of the bridge’s AV pillars. “Are you in some kind of trouble? How can we assist?”
Lying prone on her couch, her teeth gritted against the four-gee acceleration, Syrinx could only glance at the offending pillar in disconcerted amazement.
Oenone covered the last five kilometres cautiously, every sensor and weapon trained on the Lady Macbeth , alert for the slightest hint of treachery. At a hundred and fifty metres’ distance, the voidhawk rotated slowly, presenting its upper hull towards the Adamist starship. The two extended airlock tubes, then touched and sealed. Larry Kouritz led his squad into the Lady Macbeth ’s life-support capsules, executing the penetration and securement procedures with textbook precision.
Syrinx watched through Oenone ’s sensor blisters as the crew toroid’s clamshell hangar doors hinged apart. Oxley piloted their small boxy multifunction service vehicle out into space, yellow-orange chemical flames propelling it round towards Lady Macbeth ’s open cargo hatch.
Joshua Calvert was marched into the bridge by two marines in dark carbotanium armour suits. He grinned round affably at the members of Syrinx’s crew, with an even wider display of teeth when his eyes found her.
She shifted uncomfortably under the handsome young man’s attention. This was not how the interception was supposed to be going.
We’ve been had,ruben told her abruptly.
Syrinx flicked a glance at her lover. He was sitting behind his console, an expression of glum resignation settling on his features. He combed his fingers back through his beret of curly white hair.
What do you mean?she asked.
Oh, just look at him, Syrinx. Does that look like a man facing a forty-year sentence for smuggling?
We were on the Lady Macbeth for the whole flight, she never rendezvoused with anybody.
Ruben simply raised an ironic eyebrow.
She returned her attention to the tall captain. She was annoyed at the way his gaze seemed to be fastened on her breasts.
“Captain Syrinx,” he said warmly. “I must congratulate you and your ship. That was a superb piece of flying, really quite superb. Jesus, you scared the crap out of some of my crew the way you jumped us like that. We thought you were a pair of blackhawks.” He stuck his hand out. “It’s a pleasure to meet a captain who is so obviously talented. And I hope you don’t take offence, but an extremely attractive captain as well.”
Yes, we’ve definitely been had.
Syrinx ignored the offered hand. “Captain Calvert, we have reason to suspect you are involved with importing proscribed technology into this star system. I a
m therefore cautioning you that your ship will be searched under the powers invested in me by the Confederation Assembly. Any refusal to permit our search is a violation of Confederation space regulatory code which permits lawful officers full access to all systems and records once a request has been made by said officers. I am now making that request. Do you understand?”
“Well, gosh, yes,” Joshua said earnestly. A note of doubt crept in. “I hate to ask, but are you quite sure you’ve got the right ship?”
“Perfectly sure,” Syrinx said icily.
“Oh, well of course I’ll cooperate in any way I can. I think you navy people do a great job. It’s always reassuring for us commercial vessels to know we can always rely on you to maintain interstellar order.”
“Please. Don’t spoil the effect now, son,” Ruben said wearily. “You’ve been doing so well.”
“I’m just a citizen happy to oblige,” Joshua said.
“A citizen who owns a ship that has an antimatter drive,” Syrinx said sharply.
Joshua’s gaze refocused on the front of her pale blue ship-tunic. “I didn’t design it. That’s the way it was built. Actually it was built by the Ferring Astronautics company in Earth’s O’Neill Halo. I understand Earth is the greatest Edenist ally in the Confederation? That’s what my didactic history courses say, anyway.”
“We have a common viewpoint,” Syrinx said reluctantly, anything else would have sounded like an admission of guilt.
“Couldn’t you have the drive taken out?” Ruben asked.
Joshua managed an appropriately concerned expression. “I wish I could afford to. But there was a lot of damage when my father saved those Edenists from the pirates. The refit took all the money I had.”
“Saved which Edenists?” Cacus blurted.
Idiot,syrinx and ruben told him together. the life-support engineer spread his hands helplessly.
“It was an aid convoy to Anglade,” Joshua said. “There was a bacteriological plague there several years ago. My father joined the relief effort, of course; what are commercial needs compared to saving human life? They were taking viral-processing equipment to the planet to manufacture an antidote. Unfortunately they were attacked by blackhawks who wanted to steal the cargo, that kind of equipment is expensive. Jesus, I mean some people are really low, you know? There was a fight, and one of the escort voidhawks was wounded. The blackhawks were closing in for the kill, but my father waited until the crew got out. He jumped with a blackhawk’s distortion field locked on. It was the only chance they had, they were badly damaged, but the old Lady Mac , she got them out alive.” Joshua closed his eyes, remembering old pain. “Father didn’t like to mention it much.”
Reality Dysfunction — Emergence nd-1 Page 35