Seeds of Earth (33 page)

'Aye, right,' said Rory from the back seat. 'And the
baro
might not shit in the woods, and the bishop of Trond might turn out tae be an atheist! - is that whit yer saying?'

Theo glanced at Barbour and saw him grinning. 'You'll have to excuse him - his glass is a bit half-empty tonight.'

'Better a half-empty glass of truth,' Barbour said, 'than a keg full of deluded hopes, is that it, Rory?'

'Better a cynic than a sucker, sir.'

'Remind me not to be marooned on a desert island with you - the optimism would kill me.'

31

ROBERT

The passenger lounge serving Port Gagarin's Landing Bay 2 was closed to the public and the rows of seating had been moved well back to make room for the Hegemony and Earthsphere entourages - one with nineteen members, the other with just two.

Harry, dressed in a long grey coat over a dark formal suit circa 1930s America, was smiling as he observed the High Monitor Kuros and his escort of four Ezgara commandos, twelve DVC soldiers and three attendants.

'Robert, sometimes I don't think the Diplomatic Service takes your safety seriously enough - hell, you don't take it seriously enough. Yesterday, Sundstrom offered you your very own personal escort, just like Kuros, but you turned it down. Why?'

'I've told you already,' Robert said in a low murmur. 'My secretary and his assistant are both armed - any more would be an unnecessary burden and would get in the way.'

'Yes, well, I didn't believe you yesterday and I don't believe you now, so what's the real reason?'

Robert glared at his AI companion, which elicited only a sunny smile in response. He sighed.

'If you must know, an openly armed escort would make me feel as if I really was in danger. If this was a non-Human world, like when we were on Giskhn 4 a few years ago, I could see the point. But here . . . well, it would feel like an admission of defeat. These are our people - we can't fail them so we must make sure that the special accord between Earthsphere and the Hegemony actually means something.'

'I'm sure it means something to the exalted Kuros,' Harry said. 'Loyal dependability, for example.'

For a few moments they regarded the Hegemony envoy. The tall Sendrukan was attired in a more martial manner than on previous occasions, his sleeves and leggings resembling ancient metal armour, his headgear looking more like a helmet than a hat. Also, oblivious to his guards or Robert, he was clearly in conversation with his own AI companion, going by the lip movements and infrequent hand gestures. Robert realised that in the absence of reporters and their cams - banned from this event - Kuros felt more able to relax. Even the terminal security cams had been switched off by the express wish of Diakon-Commodore Reskothyr, the Brolturan ambassador to Darien.

The other main condition of Reskothyr's visit was that President Sundstrom not be present, since the Brolturans insisted on dealing initially only with responsible authorities, i.e. Earthsphere. Inevitably Sundstrom was annoyed but he had quickly grasped the diplomatic realities and displayed considerable leadership qualities by the speed with which he reconciled himself to the situation.

'I've met him, you know,' Harry said. 'Kuros's companion.'

Robert stared at him. 'You've met him? You can communicate with Hegemony AIs?'

Harry gave him a droll look. 'It's not such a hard concept to grasp, Robert - avenues for dialogue exist, according to stringent protocols laid down by both governments, and quite recently I chanced to encounter the High Monitor's companion.'

'I'm fascinated - what was he, or it, like?'

'He's an ogre. His persona is a detailed remap of one General Gratach, who was a Principal Abrogator during the Three Revolutions War, an especially gory episode in Hegemony history.'

'I've seen some recordings from that period. Gory doesn't begin to cover it.'

'Well, old Gratach was up to his elbows in it, helped put the first Serrator Hegemon on the throne - both times. If he's Kuros's companion it might be worth going over some of his campaigns, just to get a feel for his strategic style.'

Robert nodded. 'I wish I'd known about this a couple of days ago, Harry.'

'Well, when I say quite recently it was really pretty recently. Like last night.'

Robert was about to reply when his comm beeped softly - it was Gagarin Terminal's security chief, Porteous.

'Mr Ambassador, I am to inform you that the
Purifier's
shuttlecraft has landed and that the Brolturan delegation will be with you very shortly.'

'Thank you, Mr Porteous. Please extend my sincere gratitude to all your staff for their efficient professionalism today.'

'You're very kind, sir - I shall do so at the earliest opportunity.'

'Incidentally, any news on the comm network?'

'Sorry, sir, we're still restricted to a local service. I understand that engineers are working on the local hub now.'

Harry grinned as Robert put away his comm.

'Relax, it's probably just a blown fuse or melted circuit, given the backward state of the cell network here. I've seen the plans - it's a wonder it works as well as it does.'

Robert shrugged. 'It's my job to worry. How else do I earn the fabulous salary they don't pay me? But never mind - what about Kuros? With a brutal old Hegemony general for a companion, you'd think he would be rather less than even-tempered ...'

He broke off, seeing figures descending a spiral staircase which lay beyond a tall glass wall at the other end of the passenger lounge. He turned and signalled to his secretary, Omar, who hurried over from the seats with the welcoming gift, a hand-carved chess set. Glancing over, he saw Kuros also receiving a package from one of his assisters.

'Could be awkward if it's another chess set,' said Harry.

'Kuros strikes me as more of a poker player,' Robert said. 'Keeping his cards close to his chest, that sort of thing.'

'What about our new guest?'

'His game of choice? Something with the ornate qual- ity of chess and the brute directness of boxing, maybe.'

The Brolturan procession had reached the foot of the spiral stairs and turned towards the wide open double doors that led into the lounge. Reskothyr's livery ran to blood-reds and silver-grey, as manifested in the attire of the four bodyguards and six officials, while he himself wore perfect black, a collarless, knee-length coat of austere cut: his head was bare and shaven, his hands covered by gleaming black gauntlets. Before them strode two standard-bearers dressed in plain crimson uniforms and grey metal helmets. As Robert made Omar stand a pace behind with the wrapped gift, ready to hand it forward, he realised that there was some kind of music coming from the approaching entourage, a deep vocal drone.

Then the procession came to a halt, except for the standard-bearers. They continued several paces further on then diverged, one carrying his standard over to the Hegemony envoy, the other to the Earthsphere ambassador. As the choral droning grew louder Robert realised that it was coming from a small black cube at the top of the standards. Then with the huge Sendrukan looming over him, Robert bowed to the standard, a long banner of thick, dark blue cloth fringed with jewelled honours and carrying the duty and family crests of DiakonCommodore Reskothyr.

That was when the shooting began.

PART THREE

32

KAO CHIH

Drazuma-Ha* had explained about Bryag Station's singular security precautions, the outer perimeter markers, the sensor web enclosing several cubic lightyears of emptiness, and the semi-random route that the station followed through it all. But Kao Chih could not help but feel a gnawing exasperation when they encountered the third marker buoy. According to Tumakri's itinerary notes they had been due to contact a Piraseri at the station almost three days ago.

Seeing the marker-buoy signal on the console display, he shook his head and slumped back in the couch.

'Another one?' he said. 'This is beyond paranoia.'

'If I could shrug,' said Drazuma-Ha*, 'I would. But it's their security and their rules - to my certain knowledge, Bryag has only suffered two attacks since deploying this system a century ago, once by an Earthsphere operative, the other by a Kiskashin blood smuggler with a grudge against the ruling Vusark Enclavol - both times damage was minimal and no one died . . . well, no one of consequence . . .'

Just then the intership channel clicked and a synthvoice spoke in 4Peljan, a Vusarkic trade language that Kao Chih recognised from his dockside work on Agmedra'a. His linguistic enabler translated it perfectly.

'Attention vessel 433 dash 2506 - you are being scanned to ascertain your fitness and trustworthiness with regard to a Bryag Station boarding permit.. . scanning ... all passengers must remain still for 12 seconds . . . scanning . . . speech pattern scan will commence in 15 seconds

Which was a word-for-word repetition of the last two encounters, both of which had resulted in being offered course data for a 'stage continuance' or an 'area exit' microjump. Of course, both were essential, since the vast sensor web - and thus Bryag's wanderings - were confined to the fringes of the Omet Deepzone where dense, swirling clouds of dust and things they hid distorted any attempt at hyperspatial computation. Travellers had to rely on Bryag's course data or not bother travelling there at all.

As they waited, Kao Chih gazed out of the viewport at the foggy darkness of deepzone space. Here and there the concentrated light of stellar clusters and the nearest stars managed to pierce the dust veils that glowed muddy orange and purple, distorted whorls of amber, stretched ripples of violet. The Omet Deepzone, as Drazuma-Ha* reminded him, was the source of the great Achorga Swarms which 150 years ago had torn through hundreds of star systems in the vicinity, ravaging and wrecking entire planets, amongst which was the homeworld of Humanity, Earth. That particular Achorga outbreak was not their first and others had occurred since, many of them sweeping into Indroma territory, causing havoc and destruction on a vast scale.

Somewhere out there, he thought, in the dark heart of all that dust and debris, was the world of the Swarm, the Achorga. Without them there would have.been no Swarm War, and no desperate, blind launch of the three colonyships. The
Tenebrosa
would never have plunged blindly through hyperspace and arrived at the beautiful world which the first settlers had named Virtue In The Valley, nor would they have suffered those attacks and the sight of their world being mined and scoured around them, the long indenture for those who escaped . . .

'Scan complete. Permit approved.'

Kao Chih sat up straight, gaping then grinning as the marker buoy went on.

'Please state course required - station access or area exit?'

'Station access,' Drazuma-Ha* said swiftly, a neon yellow microfield extensor flicking out to operate the com panel. 'Polydigital channel open.'

'Fastchaining data ... fastchain complete. You may now depart.'

'And not before time,' said the mech, who was already merging the new course data into the navigationals. Kao Chih just had time to strap in before the hyperdrive forcewaves cohered and twist-hurl-dropped them back into the first tier of hyperspace.

Another half-hour microjump during which he again went over the notes in Tumakri's documenter, making sense of the Bryag Station contact - a Piraseri vacsuit vendor named Milmil S'Dohk - and how to recognise his suspensor-mobile establishment. After that he spent a further twenty minutes playing halfboard chess against the ship's gaming subsystem until hearing the strap-in alert. Moments later the
Castellan
emerged-fell-spun from hyperspace just a few klicks away from their destination. Drazuma-Ha * powered up the manoeuvring thrusters and soon they were vectoring in on a guidance beacon.

Set against the dust swirl colour-glow of the Omet, Bryag Station was a sight. Coasting along on its neverending peregrination, it looked to Kao Chih oddly like a colossal bivalve seashell, like a cockle gaping wide open, the central hinge pointing the way ahead. Each half was full of structures, towers, domes, globe clusters, spars, cables, as well as scores if not hundreds of bots, hopcraft and jetsuited creatures darting this way and that. The outer surface of the station's hull halves were dark grey carapaces of heavy plating, shielded ducts, maintenance housings and armoured drive vents, pitted and scored by the Omet's plentiful dust and micrometeorites.

Pairs of docking booms of various sizes fringed the lip of either half, berthing capacities increasing towards the station's stern. The
Castellan's
pilot system followed the guidance beacon in towards a boom dock on the leading edge with a learned grace. Grapplenets unfurled from the booms, snared then drew the small ship through the glitterglow of an atmosphere shieldfield and into an auto-adjusting cradle. From the viewport Kao Chih could see three levels of walkways running the length of the dock and wide gantries extending tonguelike between the berths.

Excited, Kao Chih made sure he was first at the airlock as it went into equivalence mode and opened fully. Across the gantry was their neighbour, a Makhori organics miner, its hull resembling a glued-together cluster of large, leathery-brown and misshapen ovoids entwined in numerous cables and ribbed pipes. Engrossed in it, he had just stepped through the lock with his left leg when someone collided with him. Reversing out of reflex he caught his heel on the edge of the hatch and fell back inside, thumping into a protruding lower drawer handle. He uttered a strangled cry, assaulted by pain from both foot and shoulderblade.

'Please, please, please, can you help me? . . . please help or they'll . . . they'll take me and . . . and . . .'

Grimacing with the pain, Kao Chih sat up and saw a slender young woman, a human female, cowering inside the doorway. She wore a zip-pocketed canvas jacket over a grubby blue teklabourer onepiece, a little shoulder bag of some transparent material, and a pair of heavy, paint-splashed miledriver boots. Her disarranged hair was a rich brunette and her face, smudged with something oily and stained with tears, was arrestingly beautiful.