Stealing Light

by Gary Gibson

  Arbenz nodded, already aware that Gardner’s dissipating fortunes were the impetus for his involvement in the new colony. The businessman had lost his majority ownership in Minsk-Adler Propulsions several years ago, following an investigation into serious financial misdealing. That hadn’t been enough to put him permanently out of business, but it had certainly encouraged him to get involved in financing grey-market investments like planetary surveys.

  Unfortunately, the Freehold needed Gardner and his not inconsiderable financial resources just as badly as he clearly needed them. The Freehold was now almost bankrupt, despite the Redstone system’s enormous mineral wealth. The never-ending war had seen to that.

  ‘So what’s he been up to?’

  ‘He’s clearly involved in smuggling off-limits alien technology. It’s likely that some kind of weapon, possibly Shoal in origin, was used to destroy Bourdain’s Rock.’

  Arbenz nodded, not entirely surprised by this news. It was unlikely any conventional weapon could have been used to take Bourdain’s Rock apart so quickly. Secretly, he wanted to bless the man or woman responsible; it was, after all, a victory for common sense. The culture he had briefly witnessed on Earth had been everything he’d been warned it would be: depraved, corrupt and morally backward. Yet long before its completion, Bourdain’s Rock had already become notorious even there.

  ‘Then I suppose it’s reasonable to assume the Rock was destroyed deliberately.’ Concorrant Industries had since been claiming the asteroid’s destruction was the result of an industrial accident.

  Kieran sniggered. ‘Whatever Bourdain says, I don’t think anyone believes for a moment what happened there was an accident.’

  ‘It might also then explain why Gardner was suddenly so keen to invest in an expedition that would take him a long way from Earth,’ Udo added.

  Arbenz nodded, pleased. ‘Good work, Udo, Kieran. How’re things progressing with Lucas Corso?’

  Udo made a snort of contempt. He’d never attempted to hide his distaste for the young man and his liberal views.

  Kieran answered. ‘There is already definite headway in penetrating the derelict’s systems.’

  ‘I’m concerned that Corso might reveal to Oorthaus that we intend for her to pilot the derelict.’

  Udo shrugged. ‘We could simply just keep them apart.’

  Arbenz shook his head. ‘That’s not an option. They’ll need to work together eventually, once Corso finds a way to get control of the derelict.’

  Udo looked up with an innocent expression. ‘And if, when the time comes, she objects to piloting the derelict?’

  ‘For her sake, she’d better not,’ Kieran growled.

  Arbenz nodded. ‘She’s an illegal, and she’s clearly far from squeamish when it comes to dealing in the black-market and smuggling operations that, so I understand from Gardner, are her main forte.’ He allowed himself a small smile. ‘You should remember her only way out of the Nova Arctis system, once we reach it, would be through us.’

  ‘Or she could simply hijack the Hyperion from us,’ Udo commented. ‘Or the derelict, for that matter.’

  Arbenz’s smile grew more fixed. ‘An interface chair has been set up on board the derelict to allow her to communicate with it. Corso is meanwhile installing fail-safes in the same chair that will allow us to override her control. Each of us will have a way of activating that override, using a handheld unit, if at any time she tries to work against us. Think of it as an insurance policy, in case she doesn’t work out the way we hope.’

  Udo looked impressed, but Kieran less so. A cautious man indeed, the Senator noted. Much of that caution doubtless grew out of his clear disapproval of this expedition in the first place. In truth Arbenz could sympathize with him, because carrying out a planetary survey was as good as admitting they were getting ready to hand Redstone over to the Uchidans.

  Until the discovery of the derelict, the Senator himself would have stood shoulder to shoulder with Kieran on that particular issue. It was their moral duty to protect Redstone, their home planet, to the death. But now . . . now, everything was different. With a functioning transluminal drive, there was no limit to what the Freehold might become capable of. The stars would quite literally be within their grasp.

  But that was where Gardner, with his innumerable connections and illegal research facilities, came in.

  It was an awesome vision, one Arbenz felt sure they could pull off. The Shoal’s long-term claim had been that they themselves had somehow developed a technology beyond the scope of any other species encountered within a galaxy comprising a hundred billion stars. The discovery of the derelict had put the lie to that claim.

  If Arbenz was sure of one thing, it was that humanity was destined to roam those same stars, perhaps even to conquer them.

  Or rather, he reminded himself, the Freehold were meant to conquer. By the divine right of genetic imperative, they would find their destiny in the high yonder—from the furthest reaches of the spiral arms to the very heart of the galaxy itself.

  And all they had to do was seize this God-given opportunity.

  Arbenz smiled to himself, imagining himself repeating these very same words to a massed audience after they returned home in triumph with a captured starship. He toyed with his failsafe for a moment, sliding it between his fingers, then dropped it back in his pocket.

  —

  Again and again, Dakota’s thoughts came back to the figurine.

  Ever since she’d first handled it—opened up the delicate wrapping in which the alien had placed it, then turning it over in her hands, studying its outstretched hands—the awareness that she had previously encountered this very same figure had been constantly in her mind. Yet the memory of exactly where she had encountered it remained maddeningly distant.

  But the memory simply wouldn’t come.

  The Piri Reis had been trying hard to break the cargo bay’s encryption, so that she could ascertain just what the other sealed units within it contained. But, given the nature of what she’d uncovered so far, it was probably something pretty nasty. She’d already identified robotic phage-delivery systems: long-range hunter-seekers designed to worm their way inside a ship’s hull and deliver a deadly cargo of engineered virals into its life-support system. There were also knife-sharks—vile little things that whirred through the air, seeking organic life to slice into, like airborne shredders. There were other items that Dakota did not yet have the stomach to analyse too closely.

  Her Ghost allowed her to sense the Shoal coreship as it decelerated rapidly towards Jupiter’s orbit. Once she’d brought the Piri Reis on board the Hyperion, Dakota had returned to the quarters allotted to her there, resting in her cot while the Hyperion continued to funnel a storm of data through her implants.

  At that very moment, her Ghost tagged and flagged a news item originating from Mesa Verde. It took only a moment for her to absorb the information it contained.

  She pushed herself upright, suddenly feeling alert. A moment later a screen came to life, in response to her unspoken command. The flagged news item appeared there, bearing the Mesa Verde tach-net ident.

  Josef?

  Josef was dead.

  For all their sophistication, Ghost implants could sometimes produce unexpected results, varying from individual to individual. In a few very extreme cases they had been known to subtly twist the perceptions of those who possessed them. In such cases the subconscious began to manifest itself in unexpected ways, via the artificial conduit of the implants.

  This was why Dakota at first fervently hoped she had only imagined the flagged news item. But hope rapidly gave way to a bottomless despair as she stared miserably at the information now on the screen before her.

  Josef Marados, late of Black Rock Ore Industries, had been found dead, apparently murdered. Unpleasant images of a vicious murder scene—Josef’s office, and a brief glimpse of a body that was hard to reconcile with Dakota’s memories of the living, breathing man -flashed before her in g
ory detail.

  I should go back, she thought miserably. But who could have done it?

  Bourdain.

  Who else? It had to be Bourdain. He was still alive, and hot on her trail. Josef’s only reward for helping her had been his own murder.

  After a few minutes, good sense prevailed. Under the circumstances, returning to Mesa Verde now would be tantamount to suicide. With Josef gone, there was no one there to protect her any more.

  Then she had a better idea. She could lose herself somewhere on the coreship they were now rushing to meet.

  The alien starship continually sent out informational ripples that lapped upon the shore of Dakota’s boosted consciousness. Any ship Bourdain sent after her would never be able to catch up with the Hyperion, but it might still be able to rendezvous with the Shoal coreship before it departed the solar system.

  At least once the Hyperion had rendezvoused with the coreship, she herself could disappear into the throng of humans who made their lives there, then keep moving, boarding other coreships for as long as it took for Bourdain either to give up or lose interest. It was a worst-case scenario—and one that would guarantee her the additional enmity of the Freehold—but if things really were as bad as she thought, any other options were seriously limited.

  Paranoia began to spin new webs inside her mind. The alien had given her the statuette while she was still on board Bourdain’s Rock. Was it possible, she wondered, that the statuette might contain something within it that allowed Bourdain to keep track of her?

  No, too paranoid, she thought, shaking her head. The concept of an alien collaborating with Bourdain in some way raised a thousand more questions than it provided answers. And yet. . .

  And then she remembered noticing an imager on the bridge of the Hyperion.

  If there was anything hidden inside the figurine, then that would be the best way to find it. The easier solution would be simply to destroy or get rid of it, but that overwhelming feeling there was something desperately important about the object continued to haunt her.

  She cursed herself as an idiot for not considering an imager scan earlier. At the very least doing so would keep her preoccupied until she had a better idea what exactly had happened back on Mesa Verde.

  She stepped through the door of her quarters into the corridor beyond, the figurine squeezed securely into a jacket pocket.

  Twelve

  Redstone Colony

  Consortium Standard Date: 01.06.2538

  3 Days to Port Gabriel Incident

  Dakota snapped awake to hear the duty klaxon blaring like Satan’s own alarm clock. She stumbled out of her cot—Severn mumbling behind her, only just beginning to stir—and collapsed to her knees beneath the window, gripping her head in her hands until the pain of the headache began to ebb. The last lingering fragments of her dream faded with it.

  Frequent migraines were a worrying sign. They could get worse, much worse, and sometimes the only cure for a machine-head was to have the implants removed altogether. The idea of life without her Ghost was already unthinkable.

  Finally, as the pain faded to nothing, Dakota stood up and let her forehead touch the icy windowpane. She stared outside to the spot where the altercation had taken place the night before. Fresh snow had fallen, obliterating any history.

  Then the second klaxon sounded, and Severn finally jerked upright with a surprised snort.

  —

  Less than twenty minutes later, Dakota felt another sharp stab of pain in her temple as they both made their way to the mess hall. It felt like tiny, fire-breathing dragons were rampaging through her skull, but there and gone in an instant.

  ‘Shit. Dak, you OK?’ Severn put a hand on her shoulder as she leaned her head against a wall.

  ‘No ... I don’t know, Chris. I think I need to see someone.’

  He offered to accompany her to the medical labs, but she waved him off, suddenly not wanting any company at all. She was nervous enough about this morning’s mission, and didn’t feel too much like breakfast anyway.

  —

  ‘Sounds like a standard circuit-induced migraine to me.’

  The doctor was a youngish man with dark curly hair. Her Ghost informed her his name was O’Neill. She lay back in something that looked like Hieronymous Bosch’s idea of a dentist’s chair, staring up at the ceiling beyond the curving plastic of the scan unit. The chair was angled so far back, she suspected she might slide right out of it and headfirst on to the floor, had she not been tightly strapped in place. Her head was held immobilized as tiny, needle-like devices rotated on well-oiled arms around her scalp, interrogating her implants. Ultrasound images were projected on a nearby wall.

  ‘Well, it felt worse than any fucking circuit headache I’ve ever had before,’ Dakota complained bitterly.

  O’Neill shook his head. ‘See, this is exactly why they should keep machine-heads apart as long as possible. With so many of you gathered together like this, if one’s got any kind of a problem, the rest of them will pick it up in no time.’

  ‘I know Chris Severn’s been having the same problem. Anyone else?’

  O’Neill hit a button and the chair back rolled up with a soft hum. ‘You’re not the first this morning,’ he agreed, while a nurse undid the straps and helped her down.

  Dakota watched him carefully, noting his tight-lipped expression. ‘Then is it safe to go ahead with our scheduled missions? Shouldn’t we be investigating this?’

  ‘Yeah, we should. But there’ll be shit to pay if we have to pull back now. We’ll be losing a vital “window of opportunity”, as they like to say upstairs.’

  Dakota was scandalized. ‘And this comes from Commander Marados?’

  O’Neill paused for a moment with his mouth open. ‘No, higher, I think,’ he finally admitted.

  ‘It just seems a bit dubious.’

  ‘Well,’ O’Neill touched her elbow to lead her out the room, ‘that’s the military for you. One big, happy, bureaucratic family. If anything goes wrong, it’s always somebody else’s fault.’

  Dakota stopped at the door and glared back at him accusingly.

  ‘Look,’ said O’Neill, ‘there’s really nothing to worry about, OK? Otherwise orders would have come down from Command to postpone the mission. If they’re happy, we’re happy.’

  Perhaps, Dakota thought, as she walked away, she should have mentioned the hallucinations as well.

  She had dreamed of angels with wings. They had drifted down to alight in the centre of a town marketplace she remembered from her childhood. Warmth and beauty and a sense of welcoming had been carried in the opalescent radiance of their perfect golden skin. One, a woman with long flowing hair and an expression so kind that Dakota had wept even in her sleep, floated just millimetres above the cobbled ground, regarding her with infinite compassion.

  The angel had spoken to her in some strange, incomprehensible dialect that somehow translated into perfect meaning the instant she heard it.

  On waking that morning, she hadn’t been able to recall a single word the angel had said. But the sense of having been somewhere real was sufficiently strong to leave her with an overwhelming sense of loss.

  Dakota hesitated, and thought about turning back. But what exactly could she tell O’Neill? That she had experienced a particularly vivid dream? She would only be making a fool of herself.

  Instead she continued on her way. O’Neill surely knew what he was doing, and orders were indeed orders. The med-tech would have just reprimanded her for wasting his time. The dream itself was only that, a dream—perhaps brought about by her general state of anxiety in the run-up to the assault on Cardinal Point.

  —

  On her way to that morning’s briefing, Dakota passed through a wide circular room that had been nicknamed the Circus Ring. This had become the centre of operations for the Consortium’s ground command, and a huge array of communications and data systems had been set up all around the Ring’s perimeter.

  There, the general a
ir of tension had been given an overnight boost by a threefold increase in the number of staff now wandering the corridors. The briefings were being run constantly, along with endless strategy meetings and drills. Within just a few hours, the arrival and departure of orbital personnel carriers and dropships had become a constant background roar that was expected to continue for several days and nights.

  Dakota stood on a walkway running around the Circus Ring’s circumference and looked down at a group of Freehold commanders talking with their Consortium equivalents. There seemed something peculiarly archaic about the Freeholders’ uniforms, as one of them stood with hands planted imperiously on hips.

  After a moment, Dakota noticed the Freeholder was talking with Josef Marados, whose face was red and angry She felt a stab of sympathy for him, having already heard numerous stories of such encounters with arrogant Freeholders making extraordinary demands of the people there to help them win their war. The calm of Consortium staffers moving past the tense knot of Freeholders made for a stark contrast.

  The Freeholders were a joke, and they didn’t even know it.

  Then she noticed the alien for the first time, gliding like a watery phantasm across the central space of the Ring.

  Shoal-members were generally about as easy to miss as an elephant in a tuxedo playing the flute. A few of its tentacles regularly shot out from underneath its body, grabbing at smaller creatures swimming within its gravity-suspended ball of water, and drawing them rapidly in towards it and out of sight. A few moments later, tiny pieces of bloody cartilage and bone spewed out from the creature’s underside, staining the water.

  Josef broke off from his argument with the Freeholders and went immediately over to the alien, followed by his suborn, Ulmer. The alien was already accompanied by a phalanx of black-armoured Consortium elite security.

  Dakota recalled something Severn had said the night before: one of these days, someone’s going to figure out how a bunch of fish ended up ruling the galaxy without learning how to make fire.