“Ozzie, Tochee, look!” Orion was racing on ahead of them through the grass. There was no cliff here, the ground had dipped until it was almost level with the sea. A big sandy beach curved away ahead of them. The boy ran onto the sand. A dead fern frond was standing on top of a low dune at the back of the beach like a brown flag. Ozzie had stuck it in there when they started their exploratory walk.
The boy’s delight crumpled as he pulled the frond out of the sand. “This is an island.”
“ ’Fraid so, man,” Ozzie said.
“But…” Orion turned to look at the small central mountain. “How do we get off?”
“I can swim to another island,” Tochee said. “If you are to come with me, we must build a boat.”
Orion gave the sea a mistrustful look. “Can’t we call someone for help?”
“Nobody’s listening,” Ozzie said, holding up his handheld array. The unit had been transmitting standard first contact signals since it started functioning again, along with a human SOS. So far, the entire electromagnetic spectrum had remained silent.
“If this is where the Silfen live, where are they?” the boy demanded.
“On the mainland, somewhere, I guess,” Ozzie said. He stared out to sea. Three islands were visible to his retinal inserts on full zoom, though he wasn’t sure of their distance. If they were the same size as this one, they’d be nearly fifty miles away. Which given he was now only a couple of yards above sea level should have put them far over the horizon on any Earth-sized planet. He wondered if this one was the same size as Silvergalde.
“Where’s that?” Orion asked grouchily.
“I don’t know. In that cloud bank we saw from the other side of the island, maybe.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t,” Ozzie snapped. “I don’t get this place at all, okay.”
“Sorry, Ozzie,” Orion said meekly. “I just thought… you normally know stuff, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well this time I don’t so we’ll have to find it out together.” He told his e-butler to call up boatbuilding files from his array’s memory.
…
Even in midsummer, the waters of the Trine’ba were cold. Filled with snowmelt every spring, and deep enough to keep sunlight out of its lower levels, it guarded its low temperature jealously. Mark wore a warmsuit as he drifted among the fabulous dendrites, fans, and arches of coral that sprouted from the main reef. So far marine biologists had identified three hundred seventy-two species of coral, and added more every year. They ranged from the dominant dragonback, with its long amethyst and amber mounds, down to beige corknuts the size of pebbles. Unicorn horn formations poked upward from the patches of bright tangerine ditchcoral, seriously sharp at the point. He was pleased to see Barry was showing them due respect. So many people wanted to see if they were as sharp as they looked. Warmsuit fabric gave no protection for fingers and palms. Every year Randtown General Hospital treated dozens of tourist impalements.
Barry saw him watching, and gave the circular OK signal with his right hand. Mark waved back. Cobalt ring snakes thrummed inquisitively in their niches as they swam lazily overhead. Rugpikes crawled over the reef, hundreds of tiny stalk eyes swiveling as if they were a strip of soft green wheat waving in a gentle breeze. Fish were clotting the water around them like a gritty kaleidoscope cloud. Thousands of brilliantly colored starburst particles whose spines and spindles pulsed rapidly, propelling them along in jerky zigzags. They came in sizes from brassy afriwebs half the length of his finger up to lumbering great brown and gold maundyfish, bigger than humans and moving with drunken sluggishness around the lower reefs. A shoal of eerie milk-white sloopbacks wriggled right in front of Mark’s goggles, and he made a slow catching motion with his hands. The palm-length creatures bent their spines back to form a streamlined teardrop and jetted away.
Barry was doing slow barrel rolls, his flippers kicking in careful rhythm. Both hands were clenched around flakes of dried native insects, which he was slowly rubbing apart. Fish followed him, feeding on the tiny flecks. They formed twin spirals in his wake, like intersecting corkscrews. As they ate, their unique digestive tract bacteria began to glow, illuminating them from within. Looking down on them against the murky bottom was to see an iridescent comet tail spinning in slow motion across the darkness.
With the food almost gone, Barry slapped his hands together, creating an expanding sphere of broken flakes. The Trine’ba fish swarmed in, creating a galaxy of opalescent stars around him.
Mark smiled proudly inside his gill mask. The boy was everything he could have wanted in a son: happy, cheeky, confident. He’d grown beautifully in this environment. It was becoming hard to remember Augusta now. Neither of the kids ever talked about it these days, even Liz called her friends back there less and less, and he hadn’t spoken to his father in months.
He kicked his legs, closing in on his son as the shroud of luminous fish darkened and swam away in search of more food. The timer in his virtual vision said they’d been exploring the reef underwater for forty minutes now. He pointed to the surface. Barry responded with a reluctant OK hand sign.
They came up into warm bright sunlight that had them blinking tears against it as they searched around for the boat. The catamaran was a hundred fifty meters away. Liz was standing on the prow, waving at them. Mark took the gill mouthpiece out. “Got a long swim over there. Better inflate your jacket.”
“I’m all right, Dad.”
“I’m not. Let a little air in, huh, make your mom happy.”
“Okay, I guess.”
Mark pressed the pump valve on his shoulder, and felt the warmsuit jacket stiffen as the fabric inhaled, puffing up around him. They rolled onto their backs, and began a steady kick.
Sandy was still snorkeling around the yacht, along with Elle, one of the Dunbavand kids. Lydia and her two lads, Will and Ed, were already back on the catamaran, washing their diving gear. David and Liz were starting to prepare lunch on the middeck.
Panda barked delightedly as Barry swam up to the small dive platform at the back of the yacht.
“Stay,” Liz called. The dog looked like she was about to jump in and swim again.
Barry clambered onto the dive platform and took his flippers off. “Did you miss me?” he asked Panda. “Did you?”
The dog was still barking excitedly, her tail wagging furiously. Barry made a fuss of her when he climbed up the small chrome ladder to the main deck. He started to reach for one of the boiled eggs from the salad Liz was setting out. “Clean up and dry out first,” his mother warned him.
Mark helped Sandy onto the dive platform. She lifted her mask off, and smiled happily at her father. “I saw a grog down there, Daddy. It was hugely big.” Her arms stretched out wide to show just how big.
“That’s lovely, darling,” he said as he pulled his own flippers off. “Did you put your sunscreen on before you went in the water?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded vigorously.
Even though Sandy’s skin was a lot darker than his, he was suspicious about the back of her neck and arms; they looked slightly sunburnt to him. “Well, let’s put some aftersun salve on, shall we?”
Happy with the attention, she agreed readily.
“You shouldn’t have taken him out for so long,” Liz chided when he sat down and began applying the salve to Sandy’s back. “I was getting worried. And look how far away from the boat you got.”
“But, Mom, it was so clear down there today,” Barry protested. “You could see for kilometers. It’s never been so good before.”
Mark gave his wife a helpless look. How could you prevent a kid having that much fun? She gave the pair of them an exasperated stare, and carried on with the salad.
The catamaran belonged to David and Lydia, who used it during the summer months to explore the little coves and inlets along Trine’ba’s shoreline. In wintertime it was hauled up the Randtown yacht club’s slipway, so on the weekends David could spend hours in the
boatshed painting the hull and repairing the rigging ready for the next season. Mark loved the yacht, and had already begun to think seriously about getting one himself. Not that they could afford one yet. It was a bit like having a dog and a four-by-four, all part of Randtown.
When everyone was finally washed and dry and sitting down to lunch, the catamaran’s electromuscle rigging unfurled its sails and set off for one of the tiny conical atolls that poked up from the very deepest part of the lake. They’d promised the kids they could visit one in the afternoon to see if the balloon flowers were inflating yet. It was almost time for the annual event, which Randtown celebrated with parades and a huge lakeside barbecue in the evening.
“The vineyard association said they haven’t noticed any decline on orders,” David said when the kids had all gone to sit on the stern to eat their lillinberries and ice cream. “I was at the meeting last night. You should have come, Mark.”
“Not sure I’d be welcome.”
“Don’t be so paranoid,” Lydia told him. “You didn’t even get your fifteen minutes of fame; you were just a one-minute wonder that evening. All the media cares about right now is the Burnelli murder.”
“That Baron woman is still using the phrase,” Mark said. “According to her show all of Randtown is antihuman.” Everyone in the district was worried about the effect Baron’s propaganda would have on their small economy. So far it hadn’t been bad. After a five-day standoff, the navy trucks had eventually retreated back down the highway, and the tourist buses had returned. Of course, the summer bookings had been made months before; it was too late for anyone to cancel. The true test would be next season’s bookings. A surprising number of visitors had congratulated the residents on making their stand—Mark’s interview was politely never mentioned. In the meantime, people were watching to see what would happen to their small export trade of wines and organic food.
“Nobody on Elan is going to organize a boycott, for heaven’s sake,” Liz said. “In any event, half of the wine we make is sold right here in the district; and the kind of people who buy proper organic produce support what we did anyway.”
Mark nodded glumly, and poured himself some more Chapples wine. “I might have got away with it, then.”
David leaned over and touched his glass to Mark’s. “I’ll drink to that. Come on, the future’s looking good. Liz has almost cracked the Kinavine’s rhizome sequence; once we have that fixing its own nitrogen we can sell it for cultivation right across the valley. People will be ripping up their old vines and replanting. There won’t be a vineyard on Ryceel that can compete against that wine when it crops.”
“It’s going to take a little while yet,” Liz said.
Mark put his arm around her. “You’ll do it,” he said softly.
She grinned back at him.
“What in God’s name are those?” Lydia asked. She was shielding her eyes with one hand, pointing back toward Randtown with the other.
Blackwater Crag dominated the skyline behind the town, then there was a short break in the mountains to the west of it where the highway valley led back into the Dau’sings. After that the rugged peaks rose again to stand guard over Trine’ba’s shore. One of the tallest peaks on the western side was Goi’al, the southernmost of a cluster collectively called the Regents, where the district’s snow bike sports and racing was based. Only now, in midsummer when the ice and snow finally lifted from the sheltered high ground, did the little machines pack up for a few months.
Black specks were circling slowly to the side of Goi’al. To be visible from this distance they must have been huge.
“Bloody hell,” David muttered. He went straight to the cabin, and brought back a pair of binoculars from the locker. Electromuscle pulleys began to furl the sails, reducing speed to make the catamaran more stable. “Helicopters,” he said. “Bugger, but they’re big brutes. I’ve never seen anything like them before, they’ve got double rotors. Must be some kind of heavy cargo lifter. I make that at least fifteen of them up there, could be more.”
He offered the binoculars around to the others. Liz took them. Mark didn’t bother, he slumped down into the middeck’s semicircular couch. “It’s the detector station,” he said in dismay. “After everything we did, everything we said, they brought it in anyway. The bastards.”
Liz handed the binoculars to Lydia. “You knew it was going to happen in the end, Mark. Something that big isn’t stopped by a bunch of people standing in the middle of the road.”
“I thought we lived in a democracy.”
“We do. We exercised our democratic right to protest, and they ignored us. Ultimately, the navy is a government department, what did you expect from them?”
“I don’t know. Would a little sensitivity be too much to ask?”
She went over and sat beside him. “I’m really sorry, baby. I don’t want them here any more than you do. But we’re going to have to knuckle down and live with it for the duration. These are strange times, we have to make allowances for that. Once this whole Prime thing is over, and the warmongers and profiteers have finished frightening the life out of everyone, then the station will be gone. We’ll make damn sure they take all their crap with them, as well, I promise that.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, conscious how he must be coming over as a petulant brat to the Dunbavands. “Yeah, I guess so. But I don’t have to like it.”
“Nobody’s asking you to.”
He drained the last of the Chapples wine from the glass, and looked back across the cool calm waters of Trine’ba. The helicopters had already begun to land on the other side of Goi’al.
…
“Our worst fears have been proved right,” the Guardians’ spokesman said in a calm, significant voice. “The Dyson aliens are preparing to invade the Commonwealth. They have an overwhelming force pouring through Hell’s Gateway which will be unleashed against us any day now. We warned you this would happen, and now sadly, millions if not billions of citizens will be killed to confirm everything we have always said is tragically true. They will die because our Commonwealth’s defenses are completely inadequate. We know that every person serving in the navy will do their utmost when the invasion begins—we support them wholeheartedly in their awful task—but there are too few of them, and not enough ships. If we could provide them with assistance, we would, but that is not our arena.
“We will carry on our own lonely fight against the Starflyer creature who has brought about this disaster. It is not often we are able to expose one of its agents, for they are normally hidden and protected. However, in this case, the evidence is overwhelming. One person put forward the proposal to launch a starship to investigate Dyson Alpha. One person now governs the size of the navy budget. One person knows the true size of the resources we need, and continually denies us those resources. One person sends their murderer to kill their opponents. This one person is the most powerful puppet the Starflyer has ever used against us. It is President Doi herself.
“Be warned, and remember the true crisis we are facing is not the physical one from the Dyson aliens. It is the one corrupting us from within. We have always been honest with you. Now, in humanity’s darkest hour, we ask you to believe in us this one last time. Doi and her master are our enemy, she will obliterate us if left unchallenged.
“Challenge her.” The spokesman bowed his head. “I thank you for your time.”
…
The whole office was spending the morning filing reports and filling in finance department forms to cover the cost of the LA deployment. Thankfully, Paula just had to skim the summaries and attach her authorization code. That left her with some time to contemplate what had happened, although all she could really think about was Thompson Burnelli’s murder. Tarlo and Renee were busy sifting through the pitifully small amount of leads resulting from the pursuit so they could draw up an action plan. Alic Hogan had chosen to examine the camera images from LA Galactic in a virtual projection to see if the software had been handed over in
side the station terminal. She didn’t object; for all he was Columbia’s placeman, Hogan was relatively efficient at his job, and it would keep him away from her for most of the day.
As so often happened with the Johansson case, LA had become a problem that had multiplied unexpectedly, and always in the wrong directions. Although on the positive side, she at least knew that Elvin was putting together another smuggling operation.
At eleven o’clock Rafael Columbia appeared in the office. He was dressed in his full admiral’s uniform, with several staff officers in attendance. Everyone in the office stopped what they were doing to look at him.
Paula stood up just as he reached her door. “Wait for me,” he told his officers, and closed the door.
“Admiral,” Paula said. She closed the file in her virtual vision that had been displaying the names of everyone she’d informed of a target arriving at Seattle, along with their time frame.
He gave her a humorless smile as he sat in the visitor’s chair. “Commander.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Ordinarily, I would say you can explain your latest fuckup. But, frankly, I think we’ve gone beyond that, don’t you?”
“Los Angeles was unfortunate, although we did learn that…”
“Not interested. It was a half-assed operation from the start. And that is indicative of the way you run things. Some target appears out of nowhere, and without any planning or prior notification you put an underresourced team on pursuit duties. Not only that, but when things go wrong, you drag half of the LAPD into the operation just in time for them to watch it blow up in our face. We’re a fucking laughingstock, Commander. And I will not tolerate that.”
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