by Neal Asher
"Probably come for the docking charges," Gant suggested to Cento.
Cormac glanced at Gant. "Who are these?" he asked.
"Could be anyone," the Sparkind replied. "There's about a hundred private armies here employed by various corporations. More likely though that these are Elysium Security — each corporation provides a percentage of its own forces for overall security."
"Got some serious weaponry," noted Cormac, indicating the drones.
"They are ship drones built for Earth Central Security," said Aiden.
Cormac turned to the Golem. "Any communication?"
"They are somewhat… terse," Aiden replied.
The drones reached them first and floated out to either side of them, turning to the horizontal as they did so, training their weapons on the four of them. Each drone, Cormac noted, possessed a missile-launcher and an APW — antiphoton weapon — obviously whoever had sent this welcoming committee was taking no chances. The soldiers halted smartly while the two leaders advanced and came to a halt five metres from Cormac. The one on the right, who was bald, quite obviously boosted, and had skin the colour of orange cheese, carefully surveyed Cormac and his companions.
"Welcome to Elysium." he said, at last.
"Interesting that you chose those words," said Cormac, eyeing the drones. "I don't feel particularly welcome."
"We are always cautious here," the man replied. "And we become especially cautious when paid a visit by an ECS dreadnought. What business do you have here?"
The man's companion, who was shorter, not so heavily built, and had long black hair spilling across his shoulders, showed a set of chrome teeth in a grin. "Lons here is always a little blunt," he said. "But you must understand that many living here have interests that they wish to preserve." He moved forwards, with Lons trailing a step behind him, and held out his hand to Cormac. "Alvor," he said, clasping Cormac's hand in a sweaty grip.
"Ian Cormac."
Both men's expressions abruptly hardened, but Alvor continued: "I'm surprised you would want to come here. But now that you are here, if you would accompany us?" He turned and gestured towards the drop-shafts.
"I think you are misconstruing the purpose of my visit. I'm here solely because Elysium is the only place on my present route to possess a runcible facility," said Cormac.
"Unfortunately I am not the one this needs to be explained to." Alvor was now surveying Cormac's companions. He went on, "Also, because of certain security considerations, your friends will unfortunately have to remain here meanwhile."
Cormac raised his hand to silence Gant, who had been about to protest, and asked, "Who do I need to explain this to, and what are these 'security' considerations you mention?"
Lons replied with, "We've no objection to Golem here, except of course when they are Golem Twenty-sevens disembarking from an ECS dreadnought. Then we become suspicious."
Alvor shrugged. "Dreyden is understandably nervous of such company."
"Dreyden?" Cormac asked.
Alvor stared at him for a long moment before going on, "Our employer has been the de facto ruler of Elysium for some years now — of which ECS must be well aware?"
"Well, I'm not," said Cormac. "As I said to you, my business here relates only to this place's location — nothing else — and I can't be expected to remember the name of every tinpot autocrat, since hundreds of them rise and fall in every decade around the edge of the Polity." The two men frowned at this, but Cormac continued. "I'll now accompany you to see this Dreyden, but meanwhile my companions will continue with the real purpose of our visit here."
"Are you sure about that, Agent?" Gant asked him.
Cormac glanced at him. "If I'm not back here with you when you're ready to leave, and if I haven't communicated with you… then you'll know what to do." He glanced coldly at the two grey-suited men. "I'm sure Captain Tomalon would be more than willing to give his weapons a test run."
"Unfortunately Dreyden does not want ECS Golem running about this place unsupervised, so they must remain here," said Alvor.
"And how do you intend to make them remain here?" Cormac asked.
Alvor glanced at the two huge drones, and winced as if it was painful for him to even mention their presence.
"Let me put it another way," Cormac went on. "Is this Dreyden prepared to murder ECS Golem androids out of no justification other than his paranoia? When all they will be doing is going over to the runcible facility to await someone's arrival?"
Alvor put his fingers against his aug, as he obviously received further instruction. "The arrival of whom?" he asked after a moment.
"Not that it concerns you greatly, but a Polity scientist, that's all," Cormac replied, starting to feel irritated now.
Smoothly Alvor went on, "If that is their only purpose here, then you'll have no objection to them being accompanied, then?"
"No objection, just so long as there are no more delays," said Cormac. Then, to his three companions, "No screw-ups. This place is for another day."
Cormac waved a hand in the direction of the drop-shafts, and began heading in towards them. The two grey-suits fell in beside him, and the attendant soldiers parted before him, then closed behind.
Upon reaching the shafts, Cormac glanced back to note that the two drones had remained with the Golem — obviously human soldiers were not considered sufficient accompaniment for those three. Alvor punched a code into the touch-console beside one of the shafts, then stepped out to where the irised gravity field wafted him upwards. Cormac quickly followed. As he was dragged up he felt that familiar slight tugging each time he passed a floor and, counting thirty of such sensations, realized he must be nearing the top of the station. At one point there was a pause in his ascent, before he passed 'Restricted Area' signs, and thereafter the sides of the shaft were striped orange and black — the universal colours of danger. At the required level, he stepped out behind Alvor into a vestibule before twin wooden doors. The floor of this space was slabbed with alternate white and translucent-red stones — probably of alabaster and artificial ruby. Suspended from the ceiling by ominously heavy cables was a standard design of security drone, but with an APW bolted underneath. It observed him with matt-black visual receptors and turned to track his progress as he followed Alvor to the door. Glancing back, he saw that only Lons had joined them — the soldiers having departed the shaft somewhere below. No doubt Dreyden considered them unnecessary now Cormac was within his internal security system.
At the doors, Alvor turned and held out his hand. "Your weapons."
Cormac pulled his thin-gun and tossed it across to the man. As Alvor caught and inspected this, Cormac unstrapped his shuriken holster, then handed it across. With raised eyebrows Alvor studied the weapon before pocketing it.
"Interesting," he said, before turning to lead the way in.
Beyond the doors was a glass lock, and through this Cormac saw a huge biodome with a roof constructed from hexagonal panes of chainglass, through which sunlight was reflected from a pylon-mounted mirror on top of the station. Following Alvor through the glass door when it hissed open, he found himself beginning to sweat in the humid atmosphere inside the dome. All around grew tropical plants: cycads, tree ferns, orchids, and other adapted or exotic species. To his right a stand of cyanids reared up into shadow, their sharp blue leaves like huge machete blades, metre-long flower pods open to expose intricate yellow convolutions like the surface of a brain. A low creaking attracted his attention towards his left, where a plasoderm's circular grey seed case slowly opened and oozed the flattened worms of jelly that were its slime-mould spore carriers. Seeing this last plant — a native of Callorum — immediately raised Cormac's suspicions. However, he knew that samples of such plants were always in circulation, and could be easily obtained by an enthusiast. He told himself not to have such a nasty suspicious nature.
"Friend Dreyden has an interest in botany, I take it?" he said.
"Yeah," grunted Lons, revealing even more of his cha
rm now he felt himself to be more in a position of power.
"Donnegal Dreyden was an expert in the fields of biomechanics, botany, linguistics, and political science before he focused his full attention on metallurgy, and subsequently formed Alliance Smelters," said Alvor — quoting straight from the manual, Cormac felt — before gesturing ahead to a building that seemingly acted as a wide pillar supporting the centre of the biodome, and then leading the way over to the metal stairs that spiralled up its side. Lons trudged along behind them, resentment more than obvious in his mien.
At the top of the building, the stairs terminated in a balcony ringing a circular and luxuriously appointed apartment. Entering it, Cormac scanned the fortune in antiques gathered here — there was even what looked like a preruncible computer resting on a replica Louis XIV gate-legged table — then brought his attention to the man rising from a single screen and simple console positioned in one corner. This individual, on cursory inspection, could have passed for one of Alvor's or Lons's associates. Closer inspection revealed that his businesswear was Armani and his aug a Sony 5000. He was thin and his hatchet face looked tired — with shadows under his eyes and those eyes red-rimmed. His movements were jerky, and slightly unsure, as in someone who is withdrawing from some drug. On standing, he took a cigarette from the box on the table beside him and tapped it on his wristcom, before putting it into his mouth. He lit it with a small laser igniter set into a heavy ring on his forefinger.
"Ian Cormac," he said. "I knew a day like this would come, but I did not expect it so soon."
"That day being?" asked Cormac, advancing into the room as Alvor and Lons moved back to stand by the balcony door.
"Drink?" Dreyden asked, gesturing to a nearby cabinet.
Cormac contained his impatience and nodded briefly, watching while Dreyden poured two whiskies from a crystal decanter, then added rainbow spheres of cips ice. Taking the drink proffered, he felt disinclined to sample it.
"You know, it's taken me two years and about a billion New Carth shillings to get this place organized." Dreyden led the way to a seating area and plumped down in an armchair. Cormac perched himself on the edge of a sofa, placing his drink on a coffee table, the top of which was a polished slab of green tourmaline, apparently found on the asteroid that had made Dreyden his first billion, or so said holographic text scrolling round in the mineral.
"And this is relevant to me how?"
Dreyden drew hard on his cigarette. "Because you're Earth Central Security, and don't tell me that ECS doesn't intend to subsume Elysium."
"Maybe so, but that has nothing to do with why I'm here," Cormac replied.
Dreyden looked doubtful as he went on, "You know, because of the security service I formed here, crime is down to Polity levels and the standard of living is very high. In fact higher than on many Polity worlds. A lot of people here are making a lot of money."
"Admirable," commented Cormac dryly.
"If ECS come in here then many people will die. They'll fight to keep you out; they like things the way they are," Dreyden told him.
Cormac twirled his glass on the tourmaline and noted that the biggest smelting complex in Elysium was Dreyden's property — apparently it could turn a million tonnes of asteroidal steel into foamed-metal construction members in less than a solstan day. Cormac was impressed, but no less irritable and bored.
"You're not listening to me," he said. "I'm not here to conquer your little empire, Dreyden." He looked up. "Though I may yet give the matter some consideration if I'm delayed any longer."
Dreyden stood, and Cormac observed the beads of sweat dotting his brow. The man was twitchy — either angry or scared — as revealed in his sneering tone when next he spoke.
"I have something to show you," he said.
With weary impatience Cormac followed him to the centre of the room, then up yet another spiral stair leading to a platform positioned directly below the chainglass roof. Climbing through the hatch and onto this platform, they came into a smaller glasshouse protruding up from the roof itself. All around, they had a perfect view of Elysium. Dreyden gestured to the ships crowding the floating docks, then beyond them to where the Occam Razor was clearly visible.
"Big bastard, that ship, but it probably doesn't mass much more than the asteroids we regularly bring in," he said. He now pointed to the habitats and smelting complexes that formed almost a tangled wall in space beside them. "You know, we don't have Separatists here because essentially most of Elysium is not actually in the Polity. Though being upon the Line as we are, we share many of the benefits of Polity membership. It's a situation we do not really want to change, either through annoying you people by harbouring criminals or by pushing for full membership."
"Your point?" Cormac asked.
Now Dreyden indicated the huge sun mirrors. "I have complete control over those now. The grabship captains have to buy time on them from me, as do those corporations that own the few furnace satellites that I myself do not own," Dreyden said.
Cormac remained silent, waiting for the man to make his point — he now had some intimation of what that might be, but he wanted it clearly stated.
Dreyden went on, "It only takes a minute to shift the focus of those mirrors. You can't see from here, but there is a ring of them, each capable of covering its nearest partner within a matter of seconds. They can also cover all possible approaches to our… community."
"Very cosy. So you would be well defended should a stray asteroid head in this direction," said Cormac sarcastically.
Dreyden dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it out on the platform. After taking a swallow of his drink he glared at Cormac. "You know, we don't even use the tightest focus to melt asteroids. If we tried that on an asteroid it would vaporize and obliterate the furnace satellite it was lodged in. On the tightest focus we can get heat levels — if the conditions are just right — high enough to start a fusion reaction. There's no known substance that can endure that for long, and no field technology that can withstand it."
Cormac wandered over to the glass wall and gazed down at the Occam Razor. Dreyden's message was quite clear, but utterly irrelevant considering what he knew of ECS policy concerning this place.
"Last count as I recollect," said Cormac without turning from the glass, "there were two hundred million people living here." He turned now to face Dreyden. "ECS just isn't interested… you want the figures? AIs have calculated that with the people here living in such fragile circumstances the losses during a takeover would be something in the region of twenty per cent. And to gain what?" He gestured to the nearest giant smelting complex. "The whole infrastructure would probably be destroyed as well, and the Polity would basically end up with a refugee population in the tens of millions. Probably the smelters and mirrors would be destroyed too, so there would be nothing to gain, and anyway most of what is made here is sold to the Polity, and most of the money used to buy it is spent on Polity goods. I'm not here for this, Dreyden."
Dreyden continued to glare and Cormac realized that the man would just never believe what he was being told — he had too much invested here and was evidently too frightened of Earth Central Security to trust any of its agents. In reality his attitude was perfectly understandable: the Polity had without compunction absorbed worlds into itself when that best served the interests of its entire population, and for the same reasons empires like Dreyden's had been undermined, or obliterated.
"I've no time for this," said Cormac, heading for the hatch.
"What do you want with this Asselis Mika, the life-Coven woman?" Dreyden asked suddenly.
Cormac turned as he began to climb down. "Her expertise. And we will leave with her — understand that."
"So long as you do leave." Dreyden gulped the rest of his drink. "Perhaps, after you are gone, you can pass on the message that Polity battleships are no longer welcome here."
"Oh, I'll pass that on," said Cormac, departing.
Jarvellis was probably the most smo
ulderingly sexy woman Thorn had ever met. She had long straight black hair, a face that seemed perpetually cheeky, as if she was just about to say something quite shocking, and a figure that was well emphasized by the ersatz acceleration suit she wore. Thorn also understood, even on such very brief acquaintance, that she was completely and utterly in love with John Stanton. She did not give a swooning display in his presence, nor did she simper; it was just a sense of connection between the two of them. He had caught it in that one glance exchanged between the two when he and Stanton had entered the bridge sphere of this trispherical ship. It was a personal connection that completely cut anyone else out of the circuit.
After strapping himself in, Stanton gestured back the way they had entered. "That's cargo, as you saw, and the other sphere is the living quarters. We've got a small galley and a machine shop just behind here as well."
As he too strapped himself into one of the two acceleration chairs immediately behind Stanton and Jarvellis, Thorn considered the hold he had just seen. He'd noted the four cryopods fixed upright to one wall and been unable to miss seeing the racked cargo of weapons crates and other less easily identifiable items.
"What I could do with is an autodoc," he said, delicately probing his broken teeth.
"We've got one, but you'll have to wait. All consoles are DNA-keyed to me and Jarv. Also, Lyric II is run by an AI, and she tends to trust people even less than I do."
That figured.
Thorn turned his attention to Jarvellis as she piloted Lyric II up and away from the planet. The rumbling of acceleration through atmosphere was growing less now, and the middle one of the three screens showed whitish sky diffusing away over starlit space. The right screen displayed a view of the rapidly receding world.
"Ooh, those ECS boys know some dirty words," said Jarvellis, her head tilted towards her earplug.
"And what words are they saying?" asked Stanton.
"Well," said Jarvellis, turning to give Thorn an estimating look, "the gist is 'Stay where you are and wait to be boarded', but the language is much more colourful."