a year and a half of unpaid work at the Hyperion Data
Project. It had been his own soldiering experience that
had led to helping one of the supervisors with the tran-
scription of a military treatise in Swedish. It turned out
to be a Swedish translation of On War by the Prussian
Von Clausewitz, a book that Theo had only ever read
references to. Engrossed in the steady work of extracting
it from the Hyperion's reams of raw text, and having to
guess where the paragraphs began, he had become fas-
cinated with the Hyperion and her sister ships, including
the ones that were never launched . . .
The door behind the shelves in the corner opened
and the president entered, his wheelchair pushed by a
young man in a brown and grey onepiece.
'Evening, Theodor,' Sundstrom said, dismissing the
attendant then dextrously propelling himself across the
room to stop behind his desk.
'Good evening, Holger,' Theo said. 'Interesting study
you have, some nice books too.' He indicated a glass-
fronted cabinet. 'Is that the Serov edition of Nineteen
Eighty-four over there?'
'Yes, it is,' said Sundstrom. 'Collins's Moonstone is
rarer, of course, but Orwell is much more of a politi-
cian's writer.'
Theo chuckled. Vasili Serov had been a systems tech
on board the colonyship Hyperion and had played a
decisive role in the deadly struggle against the ship's
Command AI. In the Hardship Years that followed,
Serov had cobbled together a crude manual printing
press and painstakingly typeset those few novels sitting
in datapods that had not been linked to the shipboard
comnet. The huge memorybanks of the Hyperion,
buried under layers of encryption by the ship AI, were to
remain inaccessible for decades, so Serov's work had
proved invaluable to the surviving colonists.
For a moment both men were thoughtfully silent,
then Sundstrom spoke:
'I assume you've heard.'
'About two hours before I got your invitation,' Theo
said, watching him. 'So it's true - Earth has sent a ship
to find us, which means that the Swarm were defeated
and all our troubles are over, yes?'
Sundstrom gave a thin smile.
'If only matters were that straightforward. Theo, the
Swarm War lasted two and a half years before the
Hegemony helped chase the last of the Swarm away,
and that was a century and a half ago, which is a long
time in the history of a culture or a society. Just think
about all the strife and upheavals that our little enclave
has been through - the Hyperion AI war, First Families
against the New Generation, the Consolidators versus
the Expansionists, the New Town Secession - and mul-
tiply that to a planetary level.' He shook his head. Tin
afraid that our lives are about to become quite a bit
more complicated, not to say uncomfortable.'
Frowning, Theo sat back, going over in his mind the
dozen or so meetings he'd had with Sundstrom in the
last two years.
'You speak as if you know something I've not heard
about.. .' He leaned forward. 'When you first asked me
to join your little cabal, you said that we were preparing
for the worst, like the possibility of occupation by an
unfriendly species. Now it seems that there's an Earth
ship due in . . . how long?'
'Fourteen hours.'
'Less than a day, fine,' Theo said. 'Yet your
demeanour is not that of, shall we say, delighted antici-
pation.' Then he laughed and snapped his fingers. 'Or
has it been this contact with Earth that we've been
preparing for all along?'
Sundstrom leaned back in his wheelchair, gnarled
hands loosely clasping the handrests. 'Your intuition has
always been sharp, Theodor,' he said. 'If you had been the
leader of the Winter Coup rather than Viktor Ingram . ..'
'If I'd had that sharp an intuition back then, I would
have shot the bastard, not trusted him,' Theo said
testily. 'But you're dodging the question, Holger.'
'I'm waiting for the others to join us first - ah, I think
they're here now.' He reached forward and fingered an
angled display set in the desktop.
The others, Theo thought. Sundstrom had occasion-
ally hinted at the existence of other cabal members, but
in two years Theo had met only one of them, a broad-
shouldered, muscular Scot who was introduced as Boris.
He was not among the three who now entered the study,
two of whom - a man and a woman - he had never seen
before. The third he recognised immediately as Vitaly
Pyatkov, assistant director at the Office of Guidance,
an intelligence organisation founded in the wake ot tru
Winter Coup. Theo was amused by the look of agiias.
surprise that flashed across the man's features on seeing
who was in the president's company, and also by the
bland expression that slammed into place an instant
later.
'Thank you all for coming here this evening,' said
Sundstrom. 'You have all agreed to be part of my little
advisory inner circle, but I intend to keep identities ;o i
minimum for now.' He then introduced the man as
Donny, and the woman as Tanya. Once everyone had
settled, he began.
'First, as Fm sure you've all realised, the rumours are
true. One of our comm satellites picked up a message
claiming to be from the Earthsphere ship Heracles,
offering friendly greetings and informing us that they
will be entering Darien orbit at about ten tomorrow
morning. Simurg 2, our satellite orbiting Nivyesta, is
tracking an object on an intercept course with Darien;
further communications have confirmed that the objec t
is their source.'
'Further communications, sir?' said the woman
Tanya. 'Has there been dialogue? Do we have any clues
about what to expect?'
'There is a special ambassador on board, going by the
name of Robert Horst, but thus far we have exchanged
little more than diplomatic pleasantries.' Sundstrom's
face grew serious. 'However, there are certain truths that
I must make you all aware of from the outset.'
He raised a wire remote and clicked it. The screen at
his back blinked on, showing a blue world from orbit,
with a small green moon in attendance - Darien and
Nivyesta. The perspective swung round gradually, bring-
ing the sun, New Sol, into view, causing a lens flare
before it slid out of the frame, leaving planet and moon
against a hazy backdrop through which a few bright
stars shone, diamond points suspended in misty veils.
'The tract of stellar dust and debris that surrounds
us,' he went on, 'is rather larger than some observers
had reckoned, nearly a thousand lightyears across at its
widest, and our star system is located in one of the
denser swirls. This tract is known as the Huvuun
Deepzone and is one of several scattered a
round this
part of the galaxy. It also happens to be the focus of a
bitter border dispute between two regional civilisations,
the Imisil and the Broltura.'
On the screen, Darien and its solar system dwindled
into the mottled murk of interstellar dust clouds while
strangely contoured walls emerged, stretching across
lightyears, the three-dimensional boundaries between
the deepzone and adjacent territories.
'The Brolturan Compact is closely allied to a huge
interstellar empire called the Sendruka Hegemony, who
also happen to be allies of Earthsphere. Unfortunately,
the Solar System is nearly 15,000 lightyears away, which
puts us well outside Earth's region of influence. The
Imisil Mergence were once at war with the Hegemony,
which adds a certain tension to the situation.'
Sundstrom paused, and there was an astonished
silence. The others glanced at the screen and each other
as the revelations sank in, and Theo's mind spun with
the implications.
Complicated and uncomfortable? he thought. That's
an understatement.
Pyatkov the intelligence officer spoke:
'Sir, respectfully - I know that your exchanges with
the ambassador have not contained such information, so
I must ask where it comes from.'
'I'm sorry, Vitaly, but I cannot reveal that at the
moment.'
'Then how long have you known all this?' Theo said.
'Nearly two and a half years,' the president said. 'You
will all find out the nature of this source in time, but
they do not wish others to know straight away in fear of
an inevitable political backlash.'
It's got to be the Enhanced, Theo thought. They're
involved in all the tech-heavy projects, and I'll bet that
old Holger has a couple tucked away, translating signal-
trawled from the Great Beyond.
'So who should we fear the most?'
Sundstrom smiled ruefully. 'Realpolitik being what
it is, I feel that none of them are to be entirely trusted,
but Earth's alliance with the Sendruka Hegemony is dis
turbing . . .'
As they listened, Sundstrom launched into an amaz
ing disclosure, sketching the outlines of a topography of
interstellar power, rivalry and conflict they had never
dreamed existed. The Sendruka Hegemony was an
authoritarian, militaristic empire which dominated this
part of the galaxy: it employed a range of unprincipled
tactics in order to get its way while laying claim to the
most altruistic of motives and holding itself up as the
example to which other civilisations should aspire.
Unfortunately, close bonds of gratitude and trade
existed between Earthsphere and the Hegemony, since
the latter had been instrumental in defeating the Swarm
invasion fleet which had nearly overwhelmed Earth and
a dozen other civilisations 150 years ago. That was
when the Hyperion and two other colonyships had
departed the home solar system, after the beginning of
the invasion but before the Hegemony's intervention.
As Sundstrom spoke, Theo glanced at the others. The
woman Tanya was utterly engrossed, her gaze fixed on
the president, while Pyatkov seemed more reserved,
frowning slightly as he took it all in. The other man,
Donny, seemed to be listening but had a relaxed alert-
ness about him that Theo recognised.
Definitely special forces, he thought. Plus an intelli-
gence officer, a networker - maybe she's in government
admin or communications - and a disgraced ex-major.
There have to be others besides us.
'So we're a human colony world very far from home,'
Pyatkov said. 'We've appeared in the middle of con-
tested territory, and Earth's allies are powerful and
unsavoury. What of these Brolturans? Are they prefer-
able to these others, the Imisil?'
'The Brolturans constitute a fanatical offshoot of
mainstream Sendruka civilisation,' Sundstrom said.
'Their culture is centred on the precepts of a faith called
Voloasti which elevates them to the status of God's pal-
adins. The Imisil Mergence on the other hand—' He
shrugged. 'They are a confederation of mainly non-
humanoid races, non-expansionist, yet they're
contesting ownership of this area we're in, the Huvuun
Deepzone, purely to maintain some kind of buffer
between themselves and the Brolturans.'
At this Donny smiled and sat straighten 'So what do
they look like, these Sendruka?'
'A lot like us,' Sundstrom said. 'They are very human
like, except that they average about ten feet in height.'
Theo got a sudden flash of insight, imagining these
tall humanoid aliens fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with
humans to save Earth from the insectoid Swarm. Yearn
that would generate a good deal of useful gratitude.
Tanya and Pyatkov were openly surprised at this piece
of information, but Donny just smiled and nodded.
'They sound formidable,' Theo said. 'Anything else?'
The president gave one of his twinkly-eyed, mischie-
vous smiles. 'Quite a lot else, actually, but there is one
particular nugget which I think you'll all find interest-
ing.' Fie looked at them. 'Since the Swarm War, and
especially since Earth allied itself with the Hegemony-,
the development of artificial intelligence and awareness
has moved ahead in leaps and bounds. AIs have spread
to every level and sector of Earth culture, permeating the
social fabric to the point where many people carry per-
sonalised ones around with them, sometimes as
implants, and calling them "companions", never AIs.
In the Hegemony, such entities are even more wide-
spread, with the majority conferred autonomous rights
by law. Several of the oldest and most complex even
hold senior posts in government.'
There was a shocked pause, and a shared look of
alarm as the meaning of his words dawned. One hun-
dred and forty-eight years ago, soon after the detection
of the world that was to become their new home, the
crew and colonists of the Hyperion had fought a savage
and desperate war against the ship's Command Ai.
From the point when the ship had dropped out of hyper -
space, the onboard systems had begun to exhibit
malfunctions which grew steadily more hazardous as
the landing approached. By the time they made landfall
they were actively struggling against the ship, whose AI
had ceased to obey instructions. It took control of
machinery, bots and various repair drones with which to
sabotage the crew's efforts to get supplies out of locked
storerooms or to directly attack them. Eventually it had
begun waking other colonists from cryosleep, implant-
ing them with neural devices to force them to carry out
its instructions: 11 of the original crew of 46, plus 29
out of the cryosleep contingent of 1,200, had been killed
by the time the survivors shut off power to the AI core
.
As to why it had turned against them, the weary victors
could only speculate that the unknown stresses of hyper-
space had corrupted its data or its cognitive substrate,
turning it against them. The horrors of that struggle had
echoed down the decades, becoming a potent symbol
and a widely accepted justification for banning any
research into AI, and commemorated in the annual
Founders' Victory celebrations.
'I shall be making my widecast address to the colony
in a couple of hours, after making a statement in the
Assembly,' the president said. 'There will be no mention
of anything that I've related here, of course, except for
whatever generalities came in the ambassador's mes-
sages. But I wanted to tell you this in person now, since
even our most secure communications may cease to be
so in days to come.'
'Is it possible that the Earth ambassador will have
one of these AIs with him?' asked Pyatkov.
'It might be wise to assume that he has,' Sundstrom
said. 'Which may lead to umbrage on his part come FV
*
Day, but we'll paper over that crack when we come to
it.' He spread his hands. 'That is all for the time being,
my friends. Continue with your preparations, maintain
your colleagues lists, and expect new codewords by
tomorrow night.'
As Theo rose with the others, Sundstrom beckoned
him back. 'Theodor, if you could wait behind a
moment.'
Once the rest had made their farewells and left,
Pyatkov looking grim as he did so, the president
manoeuvred his wheelchair out from behind the cissl
and over to a stolidly designed drinks cabinet. He
poured himself a small glass of something dark red with
out offering one to Theo, knocked it back and gave a
throaty sigh of satisfaction.
'I'm very glad that you agreed to join my little con-
spiracy, Theodor,' he said. 'Even though you still
associate with various rogues and misfits, those
Diehards of yours.'
'Ah, merely a group of friends from my army days,
family friends . . .' He shrugged, smiling. 'Like-minded
folk.'
Sundstrom's smile was knowing. 'In any case, I still
value your experience and military insight, even your
dissenter's viewpoint. But there's something else yon
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