Great North Road (28 page)

Antrinell gave a reluctant sigh. “I get that. But didn’t anyone in the general staff science team mention just how unlikely it is for bipedal life to evolve anywhere else? There’s no evidence for it on all the planets we’ve visited. Hell, Guanimaro animals don’t even have limbs, and they get along fine.”

“The general science staff did a very lengthy review,” Vermekia said. “First off, Sirius is close, and that opens up astrogenic theory, that basic life in this galaxy is spread between stars by microbes.”

“No way. It used to be called panspermia theory, and it was finally disproved a century ago. Nothing complex enough to reproduce itself, even a monobacterium hitching a lift on an interstellar comet, can maintain its molecular integrity for that kind of time frame in a vacuum at absolute zero.”

“It wasn’t disproved because it can’t be. You can’t run an experiment to check it. All that happened was one bunch of scientists with a countertheory carried the day over its proponents back then. That’s all. It’s an argument over statistics and probability. In other words, nobody has a clue.”

Antrinell threw his hands in the air, shaking his head. “Whatever.”

“Second, and more relevant, is St. Libra’s biosphere itself,” Vermekia said. “It’s a real anomaly; this no-animals-or-insects environment is unique. Suspiciously unique. No other world we’ve found has just plants. Now, there’s never been a lot of research into St. Libra’s fossil record. Highcastle only has one university, and that concentrates on turning out bioil engineers for the algaepaddies and refineries rather than archaeobotanists. But there are a couple of teams working on St. Libra, and the results that have trickled in over the last thirty years give us cause for concern. As far as they’ve found, there was no life on St. Libra prior to about one and a half million years ago.”

Vance frowned at the information. “I didn’t know that.”

“It’s all buried in obscure academic journals. And again, they haven’t conducted many digs, and you can’t judge a planet St. Libra’s size from eight sample points close together on one continent. There’s also the problem that St. Libra’s zebra botany is simply too sophisticated even if you disregard the lack of a fossil record. That’s a young star, don’t forget. Plants that complex shouldn’t have had time to evolve. All of which has the general science staff postulating that what we have on St. Libra is an artificial bioforming event instead of natural evolution. In other words, someone manufactured St. Libra’s biosphere. A couple of million years ago, a whole batch of bacteria and seeds were dumped on that planet and left to get on with it.”

“Creation time,” Vance said with a grin.

The others chuckled appreciatively.

“The only reason you do that is if you’re developing real estate for your own species,” Antrinell concluded.

“I don’t believe it,” Vance said. “Nobody thinks in those kind of time scales.”

“Nobody human,” Vermekia countered.

“If it had been bioformed ready for species expansion, then they would’ve been able to take possession after a few thousand years.”

“Maybe. Nobody is asking why they haven’t turned up yet. But it’s another huge question mark hanging over St. Libra. Imagine what the formers would think if they came back to check on their project and they found our algaepaddies leaking terrestrial biocrap all across their landscape. Maybe it’s a freaking art project—if you have the technology to bioform on an interstellar level, you certainly don’t have economics as we know it. Or it’s an emperor’s nature park. We don’t know, and that’s the point. That’s why the expedition is going ahead.”

“If there’s a sentient on St. Libra, we’ll find it,” Vance said.

“I’m sure you will.” Vermekia gestured at the cathedral entrance as the bells fell silent. “Shall we go in, gentlemen? Your mission could do with every blessing our Good Lord can bestow, and who knows when you’ll get a chance to pray properly again.”

*

Crowds lined Newcastle’s western A1 ring road more or less its whole length, from the junction with the A696 airport link road to Last Mile and the gateway itself. The banks beside the bridge over the Tyne at Lemington provided a great place to watch from. Everyone on the slopes stared across the gulf in awed fascination as the first double-deck SuperRoc approached the crossing. The carriageways were barely wide enough to take the main undercarriage bogies, and then people started to wonder if the bridge would actually hold the weight. A fully loaded SuperRoc weighed in at more than six hundred thousand kilograms, but,operational empty weight was barely three hundred thousand, which the bridge would be able to handle.

A praetorian guard of technicians in their uniform gray-green HDA parkas scurried around the massive plane as it crept forward. The tow-tractor had its auto firmly disengaged as the driver steered it down the exact center of the bridge. A vanguard of the parka figures checked whether the ice and snow had been properly cleared from the tarmac as the nose undercarriage reached the bridge—nobody wanted a loss of traction now. More parka people swarmed around the main undercarriage, verifying clearance.

The SuperRoc made it over the bridge just after nine in the morning, and everyone cheered as it rolled onward around the ring road. The second SuperRoc and three more Daedalus strategic airlifters followed sedately.

Sid had brought Jacinta and the kids to a vantage point at the end of the car park that used to serve Bensham Hospital, just above the train line that bordered the eastern side of Last Mile. The hospital was half demolished, with the developers awaiting various city permits to redevelop the area with a trio of lavish thirty-story office towers. Its proximity to the gateway itself, which was just a few hundred meters away, made it one of the most valuable chunks of real estate currently available in Newcastle. Quite how that particular section of city-owned land came to be sold off had resulted in five councilors placed under investigation by the regional budget scrutiny office.

But pressed up against the car park’s tall galvanized-metal fence, the Hurst family did have a splendid view across the lumpy solar roofs of Last Mile buildings to the gateway itself. The metal road ramp that led into the trans-spatial connection was empty. It had been lowered, settling down on the exit route below, so freeing up more of the gateway to take the bulk of the planes. All other traffic to St. Libra, commercial and personal, had been suspended; even the constant stream of emigrants on foot had to wait for once. Today they had to mill around at the entrance to Last Mile until the HDA transit was complete.

“Why are they all going to St. Libra?” Zara asked as the towing tractor hauling the first SuperRoc turned off the A1 at the Lobley junction and crawled slowly into Last Mile, curving around to line up on the gray haze of the oval gateway.

“It’s an expedition, stupid,” Will taunted his sister.

“Yes but
why
?”

“They’re exploring Brogal,” Jacinta said. “We don’t know very much about that continent, and the HDA is checking to make sure it’s safe.”

“Why wouldn’t it be safe?”

“There have been reports of possible alien sightings,” Sid said, repeating the official explanation and hating himself for doing it.

“The Zanth?” Zara asked anxiously.

“No, not Zanth, darling. Something else. They don’t know what, that’s why they’re looking. It’s probably nothing, but they have to make sure, that’s their job.” He exchanged a glance with Jacinta, who was struggling to hold in her contempt.

“It’s on the ramp, look,” Will said, pointing eagerly through the fence.

Directly ahead of them, the tow-tractor’s fat front tires trundled up the slight incline. Sid wasn’t sure if it could pull the giant plane up a slope, even one as gentle as this one had been reduced to. He put his arm around Zara, giving her an affectionate squeeze.

“Is it going to fit, Daddy?” she asked.

“It should,” Sid said doubtfully. It would certainly be close. The SuperRoc’s wings were folded back flat along its fuselage. It was a feature designed into every plane the HDA ordered, since they all had to pass through gateways and be mission-ready as soon as they were on the other side. The tall twin tail fins were also hinged down.

Will grimaced as the tractor crawled into the gateway’s distortion haze. Then the SuperRoc’s nose slipped in. The parka people congregating around and underneath the plane were becoming more animated. Green laser fans swept out from the oval portal, measuring the plane’s position and clearances. It inched onward.

Sid almost winced as the engine pods reached the gateway. The plane was going really slowly now, with measurements being taken constantly. Technicians clustered under the jet pods, arms gesticulating wildly. He was sure there could have only been a few centimeters’ clearance. But slowly and surely the plane carried on.

The crowd in the car park was cheering and whistling enthusiastically as the pods passed across to St. Libra. Then it was just the tapering rear fuselage left.

“Back in a minute,” Sid told Jacinta. She gave him a disapproving look, but nodded.

“Daddy, where are you going?” Zara asked in dismay. “The next airplanes are just arriving.”

“I’ve seen an old friend,” he said, and started worming through the tightly packed throng of people pressing up along the fence. He ignored the irritated looks flashed his way as he pushed and shoved. Eventually he wound up at the back of the crowd, standing beside what first impressions marked as a rounded hump of traditional camel hair topped by another, smaller hump, this one of red and yellow wool. Sid could just make out a face in the small gap between coat and hat. Detective (retired) Kaneesha Saeed had dark Asian skin, mottled by a shoal of ebony blemishes; oily tips of curly black hair peeked out from the constricted rim of the hand-knitted hat, and her glasses had bulging lenses that distorted her hazel eyes. It had been nearly four years since Sid had seen her last, and in the intervening time he guessed she’d doubled her weight—at least. On someone who barely came up to his shoulder, it made her appear almost spherical.

“Thanks for seeing me,” he said.

Kaneesha took a drink from her Costa espresso cup. “Sure. I heard you got suspended.”

“I’m back on duty now.”

“Good for you, pet.”

Sid guessed that suspension was a kind of final approval stamp for Kaneesha. She’d applied for early retirement six years ago, accepting a heavily reduced pension for getting out ahead of at least three internal audits. Not that she’d needed to worry about money. She now lived in a penthouse apartment on Quayside, just east of Ouseburn; then there was a second home on Sao Jeroni, the Brazilian world. Word around Market Street station was that she could afford the life because of gang payoffs, which was pretty much a standard reaction; though Sid had heard that senior officers like O’Rouke were worried she’d been a full-on gang member since the day she walked into the city recruitment office and began her constable cadet training—which was the true reason they allowed her to take retirement and quietly get the hell out of the service. Because if it ever got out that the police had been infiltrated … Sid didn’t know, and wasn’t about to judge. They’d worked together a couple of times. Got a decent result.

“Quite a sight, huh.” He indicated the second SuperRoc, which was now starting up the gateway ramp.

“Why is it a sight, Sid? Why are they bothering?”

“I can’t say, man. I got me a gravity case right now.”

Kaneesha grinned around the cup’s plastic lid. “Can’t escape, huh. I remember those.”

“The North carjacking. It might be connected to all this, you never know.”

Kaneesha finally paid him some real attention, her glasses’ lenses giving her pupils a weird magnification as they focused on him. “You playing with the big boys, Sid?”

“Yeah.”

“Aye, well, you be careful, pet. They don’t play nice.”

“I will be, thanks.”

“How’s the family?”

“Growing fast. I need to know a few things that aren’t on file, Kaneesha.”

She looked away, sipping more coffee. “Like what?”

“Where do the gangs touch the corporates?”

Kaneesha spluttered on her espresso. “Fuck, Sid, you can’t ask me that.”

He smirked at the classic reaction, maybe feeling some satisfaction. “Why not?” The second case they’d worked on produced a bad moment. Kaneesha had been trailing a suspect, and got jumped by a group of street punks. It wasn’t a planned ambush, she just hit the wrong place at the wrong time—standard police nightmare. Sid had broken off his end of the tail and waded into the fight, using a multifire Taser and some non-regulation high-strength tear gas he just happened to be carrying in a non-standard extended-range dispenser. “We don’t have any secrets, you and me.”

“Sure we do, pet.”

“I have this problem, see. They gave me the North case, and I don’t think I can solve it with standard procedures. I need another way in. And it looks like the North might have been caught up in some kind of corporate crap.”

“Aye, I thought that bullshit about a carjacking was pretty lame.”

“Bought me some time,” Sid said.

Kaneesha gave the massive plane edging through the gateway a more thoughtful look. “And this is the result. What the fuck are they scared of, Sid?”

“It’s not the first time a North’s been killed. Remember Bartram?”

“Aye, just about, me e-i would have to pull the files to be sure.”

“Whatever the reason that North died last week, the killer had a lot of help dumping the body—and I’m short of leads. Come on, there must be something; you led the city’s gang task force. There must be some contact between them and the corporations.” He studied what was visible of Kaneesha’s face, seeing how the multitude of tiny dark blemishes were dry and cracked. Some had even been bleeding—they looked sore. And she had gloves on, he couldn’t check her hands.

“Not as much as you’d think, nor the transnet dramas make out,” Kaneesha said reluctantly. “The corporate lads have their own dark teams to handle any dirty work for their security departments. Completely deniable, of course. You’d never find a connection that would stand up in court.”