Event Horizon (Hellgate) (44 page)

The security personnel were intent on the strand, as if a column of Terran agents might burst out from behind the
metroshuttle
stops. Marin was not about to challenge them, and was about to call into the loop, looking for Jon Kim, when he heard Kim’s voice.

“Curtis, Neil – I can see you. Stay right there, I’ll send an escort for you. This place is apeshit paranoid – I thought they were going to frisk
me
on the way in! They’re so suspicious, they’re dangerous. Hey, look up.”

A movement at a second floor window caught Marin’s eye and he saw Kim there, framed by heavy blue curtains, right hand waving. “We’ll be here,” he said simply. And then, “Neil, those security guys are scanning us.”

“And we’re armed,” Travers added. “Stand still – don’t give them a reason.” He held his hands well out from his jacket, and as two Chesterfield goons approached – faceless, anonymous in the full-visor helmets – he turned his head to display the military style combug in his ear. “Colonel Neil Travers, Colonel Curtis Marin, with General Shapiro’s party.”

Two cocked and primed service pistols remained leveled on them, but an authorization call went through at once and a moment later both squaddies performed a crisp salute. “Go right through, Colonel Travers.” The voice was as anonymous as the face; only the sergeant’s chevrons distinguished the speaker from any other trooper on this street. “Take the side door, the private elevator. The General’s aide is waiting for you in the Blue Room.”

Three steps led up to an ornamental door flanked by potted palms. A waft of chill air greeted them ahead of another naked pistol, and a young uniformed officer scanned them from head to foot before she would let them pass. Marin and Travers shared a glance and Marin asked,

“You expecting trouble, Lieutenant?”

“We always expect trouble.” But she set aside the handy and gestured them toward the lift. “You’re just in time.”

“For what?” Travers wondered.

“Proclamation.” The short-cropped blonde head nodded toward the body of the theater. “It’s
happening
, Colonel. You have no idea what it means to us. I’ve got a kid brother who’s waiting for his conscription notice. Now he won’t have to go.” Her face darkened. “I’ve also got an older sister still in Fleet, and they won’t even tell us what ship she’s on. She could be on the
London
for all we know.”

“Reality hits you in the face like a brick,” Marin said quietly. “My partner, here, has young siblings who’ll be rookies about now. Who knows where they are?” He stirred forcibly. “General Shapiro’s aide is waiting for us – the Blue Room. Where…?”

She pointed. “Elevator, up one floor turn right. The Blue Room is a press room just off the circle balcony. The President’s party will be seated in the prestige spot, with a security cordon. The President himself will be escorted to the stage directly, and then up to the center-circle, right on the balcony. There’s a concert following Proclamation.”

And the party would begin across Westminster and most of the planet, Marin thought as he and Travers stepped into an elegant, mock-antique elevator. A smooth, fast ride later, it opened onto a bronze-carpeted salon with multiple double-doors to the body of the theater on their left and a bar in front, already serving a small crowd. The Blue Room was ten meters on their right – guarded, with two uniforms either side of the door and four plain clothed secret service people inside.

They saw Jon Kim at once as he came to meet them with a look of intense gratitude. His jacket hung over a chair behind him, and he was finishing a coffee. “At last, a sane face! These people are freakin’
nuts
.”

“They know they have Terran agents loose on the planet somewhere,” Travers amended quietly. “Heads, probably their own, would roll if the new President was assassinated on his way to the Proclamation speech, or during it.”

“And you know how badly they want Harrison’s head on a silver platter,” Marin added.

Kim’s face was grim, gray. “I know. They’ve been sweeping the place constantly, looking for agents or weapons. You’re, uh, armed?”

“Of course.” Marin lifted the left side of his jacket to display the Chiyoda machine pistol. “Relax, Jon. These people might be a little nuts, but they’re taking the job so seriously, a cockroach couldn’t scuttle through this security screen. You’re almost as safe here as on the
Wastrel
. To take Harrison or President Prendergast, Confederate agents would need to have rigged this venue days ago, before they even knew where the show would take place, and they’d need to have managed it in some way no scan in the book can detect.”

“Prendergast could just as easily have broadcast the Proclamation from Chesterfield House. In fact,” Travers said shrewdly, “it’s a safe bet the rogue agents expected him to, and focused what resources they could scrape together on the mansion. We were shot at on the way in, remember.”

“Like I’ll forget in a hurry.” Kim’s face warmed with an embarrassed blush. “Sorry. You might not believe this, what with the war and all, but that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever actually been shot at. Look at all this – this
opulence
. It’s fantastic. But dead is just plain dead, even here.”

Behind Kim was a backdrop of rich blue drapes, a sea green carpet, long mahogany tables set up to accommodate a gathering of journalists and an imaging team. Between the windows, opposite the door, was a life sized portrait of a striking red-haired woman in a white ball gown.

“This would be Madeleine Chen,” Travers guessed.

“A freak soprano,” Kim affirmed as he set down the mug and snatched up his jacket. “She had such a vocal range, it’s not even supposed to be physically possible … native to Jagreth, married a colonial governor – an Earther, no less. She actually did a tour on Earth, but audiences and critics wouldn’t accept her. Seems the press tagged her, and her voice, as a mutation, some genetic accident that happened out here due to pure Earth bloodstock being exposed to this mean, nasty colonial swamp we live in. So she came right back to Jagreth.”

“And the husband, the governor?” Travers wondered.

“Came back with her,” Marin told him as ancient memories stirred, “but twenty, thirty years later they divorced and he went home. To Mars, as I recall,” he added as Kim tugged his jacket straight.

A chime rang softly through the salon and Kim looked nervously at his chrono. “That’s the ten minute warning. Follow me.”

The theater must have held two thousand, Marin thought, and almost every seat was full. The circle balcony itself would accommodate at least seven hundred, and of the few empty chairs, most were reserved from the President’s retinue. The stage was massive, far below, with redwood boards, five-meter ruby drapes and glowbots flitting where they were needed. During a performance the stage could rotate on a repulsion cushion – he saw the locking clamps for the platform, artfully concealed as gilt cornucopias – and up above were multiple different gantries which would be configured a specific show.

Tonight the stage held only a rostrum and tiers of fresh flowers, blue and white and yellow. The Daku colors. No seats were set up behind the rostrum, so there would be only one speaker. Security people patrolled the wings and a knot of operatives had gathered at stage right, which gave the most direct access to the stage door. The whole theater was a quiet rush of subdued conversation.

“You ever been inside this place before?” Travers wondered as he took a seat with Kim and six assorted members of the President’s entourage. More blue-suited secret service operatives prowled behind them, half-seen in the shadows.

“Never,” Marin confessed. “I’ve seen it on vids, of course, but …” He chuckled quietly. “I was seventeen when I shipped out, right to Fleet. I didn’t have much interest in anything they’d have been performing here, even if I could’ve afforded the ticket.”

“Which you couldn’t.” Travers shared his amusement. “The money came later ... along with the risk.”

“You got that right.” A rustle, the soft shush of doors, drew Marin’s attention to the side, and back, and he turned toward it. “Here they come.” Along with Kim, he and Travers stood.

So this was Elaine Osman, till lately the wife of Charles Vidal, and the woman Michael Vidal passionately disliked, though she was his mother. She was more than sixty years now old, Marin knew, but the athlete’s body was still svelte, sleek, supple. The Pakrani hair was as platinum blonde as Jazinsky’s, with copper and emerald highlights, and her skin was still like flawless porcelain. She had dressed in black for the occasion, with a lot of gelemerald jewelry, and she looked every inch colonial royalty. The years of being married to Vidal had given her a polish to match the gems. She had forged her reputation on the aeroball court, but she was quite ready to be the First Lady of the Republic of Jagreth. Elaine Osman looked, Marin thought, smug, with a kind of self-righteous conceit stemming from the knowledge she was far more beautiful and more privileged than any other individual in the colony with the possible exception of her husband. And he could imagine the
sotto voce
harangue they would have heard if Mick Vidal were here.

A step behind her was Harrison Shapiro – bored, Marin observed, tired, perhaps even a little annoyed, though he was too artful a diplomat to ever let any hint of it slip through the polite face he wore like a mask. He was handsome in the dress grays, not as tall as Osman, just a few years younger, and poised with professional elegance.

Behind him came an entourage of secretaries, attendants and at least two bodyguards Marin could identify. Discreetly, Jon Kim joined the aides and Marin waited for some officer to specify where he and Travers were wanted. Before he could ask, Shapiro spoke quietly to one of the personal guards, and gestured toward them. Travers whispered,

“Looks like we’re back on duty.”

“We always are.” Marin gave a subtle nod to the more senior of the bodyguards, and they moved up one level, to the seats directly behind Shapiro and Osman.

“All right, let’s do this properly.” From a pocket Travers produced a small handy and, before he sat, turned a full three-sixty with the unit. “We’re clean.”

“We’d better be,” Marin breathed. “The way Chesterfield Security’s been sweeping the place – if they’ve missed something, it’ll be buried so deep, we’re going to go up in a blast that’ll take half the city.”

Travers snapped the handy closed, thrust it back into his pocket and gave his combug a tap. “
Wastrel
101 to Ops.”

“
Wastrel
Ops.” Richard Vaurien’s voice had never been more welcome. “Chesterfield updated us one minute ago. It’s happening right now. CNS just picked up the broadcast – I’m looking at a stage full of flowers and glowbots.”

“We’re seeing the same thing. We’re at ground zero,” Marin told him. “You’re deep-scanning the system?”

“Constantly. We popped forty drones into a data conduit, back out as far as the asteroids.” Vaurien paused. “Nothing moving, Curtis. All quiet. You’re having second thoughts? You want me to launch Bravo?”

For a moment Marin and Travers shared a look before Travers said, “No reason to. Just keep your ears open, Richard.”

“You mean, take nothing for granted?” Vaurien made almost amused noises. “Two hours ago we recalled Sergei and his boys from Sanmarco. I’ve got the
Mako
flying a racetrack pattern around the main shipping roads, triple-checking the minefields they seeded while we were at Omaru. Sergei’s not happy. Seems he’s nursing a hangover, and apparently we hauled the three of them out of bed … we promised them bonuses. Relax, Neil. You’re covered.”

“Thanks.” Travers mocked himself with a crooked grin. “With any luck we might be out of here in an hour. Leave your comm open.”

“Will do,” Vaurien acknowledged.

As he fell silent the sound system whispered, issued a bass note, and Marin heard the opening strains of the national song, soon to be the anthem of Jagreth
. O citadel among the stars, the bastion of the free;
How fair the skies and seas of home, how sweet our liberty.
On this home soil shall ne’er be heard the knell of spoil or death
–
/ The jewel of all the northern stars, our motherland, Jagreth.

The stage lighting dimmed; the house lights went down and the muted noise from the body of the theater dropped away to polite, expectant silence. The tall ruby curtains swished open two measured meters; glowbots pooled gold light on the redwood boards as the familiar figure of Rob Prendergast stepped out.