The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (145 page)

Dawn found Hoshe Finn on his balcony, slumped in a cheap plastic patio chair looking out across the twinkling urban grid. Oaktier’s sun was sliding up over the eastern districts of Darklake City, cloaking the tips of the glass and marble towers with an energetic rose-gold glow. Colorful birds started chirping from inside the tall evergreen trees standing around the base of his apartment block, while gardenbots moved along the narrow moat of dewmoistened gardens, performing their daily tidy-up routine.

Sometime in the small hours, he’d woken up in the middle of the dream again, jolting up on the bed in a fever-sweat as the too-real images of collapsing buildings and quaking ground drained away into the darkness of the room. Every night since the Prime attack it had been the same. He refused to call it a nightmare. This was just his subconscious coming to terms with what had happened. All very healthy. Playing it back in sleeptime, letting all those nasty little details wind out from his mind where they’d been compressed like some secure file in a crystal lattice. Like the woman who’d been crushed in two by a broken bridge support—glanced at briefly as he’d carried Inima past. The children wailing outside the smoking rubble that had been their house, lost and dazed, filthy with dust, soot, and blood.

Yeah, a really healthy way of dealing with it all.

So he’d pulled on his old amber bathrobe and limped out onto the balcony to watch the sleeping city, thinking like some frightened kid that maybe dreams only came to people in bedrooms. He’d dozed fitfully for the rest of the night as his burns throbbed and the clammy ache down his back cycled from hot to cold over and over. Not even the rum and hot chocolate helped; it just made him feel sick.

What he wanted was Inima. The reassurance of having her lying beside him at night; the exasperated tolerance she turned on whenever he was ill and moping around the house instead of going in to work. But the doctors weren’t going to let her out of the hospital for another ten days at the earliest. He still tensed up every time he thought about her. Pulling her out from the broken four-by-four on Sligo, the way her legs were bent and blackened, fluid weeping from the tarlike encrustation that had been her jeans. Her low whimpers, the sounds that only the seriously injured make. A few vague memories of first aid flitting through his brain, utterly useless as he stared at his wife in disbelief that anything like this could possibly happen. Cursing himself the whole time for being so helpless.

They were vacationing on Sligo to see the flower festival. A fucking flower festival; and an alien army came dropping down out of the sky, blowing the whole world to shit.

Someone rang the apartment’s doorbell. Hoshe turned automatically, and grimaced at the number of twinges that triggered right across his body. Grumbling like an old man he limped his way to the door and opened it.

Paula Myo stood outside, neat and tidy as always, in some charcoal-gray business suit with a scarlet blouse. Her hair had been brushed to a gloss, hanging free behind her shoulders. She was studying him carefully, and he was abruptly self-conscious of the way he looked, the fact he hadn’t stood up to the attack the way he knew other people had.

Instead of some lecture or trite comment, Paula gave him a gentle hug.

Hoshe thought he covered up any surprise at the display of affection reasonably well given the circumstances.

“I’m really pleased you’re okay, Hoshe,” Paula said.

“Thanks. Uh … come on in.” He glanced across the living room as she walked past him. Maidbots had kept the apartment clean, but it was obvious he was spending a lot of time at home, indoors. The room had an almost bachelor feel to it, with memory crystals, mugs, plates, and a long paperscreen scattered over the table, blinds half-drawn, clothes piled up in one chair.

“I brought you this,” Paula said, and gave him a fancy-looking box of herbal teas. “Somehow, I thought flowers would be inappropriate.”

Hoshe examined the label on the side of the box, and grinned sheepishly. “Good choice.”

The sleeves of his robe were baggy, revealing long strips of healskin on his arms. Paula saw them and frowned slightly. “How’s Inima?”

“The doctors say she’ll be out of the hospital in another week or so. She’ll need a clone graft for her hip and thigh, but they didn’t have to amputate, thank God. They’re going to fit her in an electromuscle suit, so she’ll be mobile around the apartment at least.”

“That’s good.”

He dropped down into one of the chairs. “Medically, yeah. Our insurance is refusing to pay out for
quote
war injuries
unquote.
They say the government is responsible for covering its citizens in times of conflict. Bastards! The decades I’ve spent paying my premiums. I’m talking to a lawyer I know. He’s not optimistic.”

“What does the government say?”

“Ha! Which one? Oaktier says it isn’t responsible for something that happened to registered citizens offplanet, because that’s beyond their jurisdiction. The Intersolar Commonwealth:
Well, we’re kind of busy right now, can I get back to you on that?
We had to use the mortgage we raised for having a kid to pay the hospital.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Right now, it doesn’t seem like a terribly good idea to have a child anyway.” Hoshe growled it out, using anger to override the anguish. If he didn’t, he knew he’d do something ridiculous like start crying.

“I accessed the Prime attack on the unisphere,” Paula said. “But I don’t suppose that can ever substitute for being there.”

“It was mayhem on Sligo; absolute mayhem. We were lucky to get out. After what happened there, I’m never going to complain about a Halgarth ever again. That force field took about eight direct hits from Prime nuclear missiles when we were inside it, and it never even wavered. The ground shocks were bad, though. I was in California once when they had a quake; that was nothing compared to this. I mean, buildings were collapsing all around us. The roads buckled right away; you couldn’t use any kind of vehicle.”

“I heard you headed up one of the evacuation squads.”

“Yeah, well, they were appealing for anyone with any kind of government service connection. It’s an authority thing. The local council didn’t put a lot of police on duty for a flower festival.”

“Don’t be so modest, Hoshe.”

“It’s not like I ever expect a medal or anything. It was mainly self-preservation.”

She indicated his arm. “How bad were you hurt?”

“Burns, mostly. Nothing too serious. The worst bit was the wait for treatment afterward. It was ten hours before Inima even saw a nurse. And that was just for triage. It was actually easier for us to get back here and go to our local hospital than wait for the navy’s cobbled-together relief operation to finally catch up with us.”

“So now what?”

“Same as everyone else. Carry on as normally as possible, and hope that Admiral Kime does a better job next time around.”

“I see. I came here to offer you a job, Hoshe. I’m working at Senate Security now; I need an assistant, someone I know can do a good job, and someone I know I can trust.”

“That’s very flattering,” he said carefully. “But I’m not really that keen on the Commonwealth administration right now.”

“That’s not you talking, Hoshe, that’s a whole lot of confusion left over from Sligo.”

“Very psychologically astute, I’m sure.”

“You want me to go on and list medical benefits? How good the family health plan is?”

“No.” He clenched his teeth, trying to come up with a valid reason why he shouldn’t accept the offer. “What about your old office team? Why not approach them?”

“I still don’t know which of them I can trust. I received some disturbing information yesterday, which adds to the likelihood one or more of them is working for the Starflyer alien.”

It took a moment for Hoshe to place the name. “The one the Guardians keep banging on about? You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I was.”

The dream flashed through his brain again, its blurred montage of misery and destruction falling from the sky in blinding purple contrails moving barely slower than lightspeed. And that was just what one alien species could do. If there was another, something deeper and more sinister … “I opened some of those Guardian shotguns. It all seemed pretty paranoid stuff to me. Something a freaked-out kid would babble about after his first bad trip.”

“That would be a favorable result, proving Bradley Johansson really has been wrong all these years. I’m not used to doubt on this scale, Hoshe, I find it unnerving.”

He thought about it. No, not true. What he considered was how he would explain to Inima that he’d taken the new job. “I’m not going to be much use for any active role. Not for a week or so.”

“I wanted you to start by reviewing some old files for me. Now that we know what we’re looking for, they might be more helpful than the last time I looked through them.”

“So what exactly is the deal with those medical benefits?”

The chalet that Mellanie had rented was one of fifty tucked away in a coastal forest over ninety minutes’ drive from Darklake City. Together they formed the Greentree Village Park vacation resort, the kind of place where parents on a modest budget could take their kids and let them exhaust themselves during the day on the resort’s playtime amenities or down at the beach. A large bar and restaurant building in the heart of the forest provided an evening refuge for the adults to unwind. Two nights a week there was a live cabaret act.

An hour after nightfall, the rental car dropped Mellanie off at the main entrance and rolled back to the parking lot. Vehicles weren’t allowed inside Greentree, leaving her to walk along the shingle paths amid the ancient bent rani trees with their white-moss leaf clumps and spongy green bark. Little mushroom-shaped light fittings along the paths provided a soft blue glow as they unraveled through the woods. Greentree had been laid out so that each cabin was completely isolated; all you could see from the windows were trees and the glowing turquoise path. Somewhere off in the forest she could hear the sound of the piano trio as they crooned their way through songs that were old even before Oaktier had been discovered.

A thin mist was creeping out of the soft loam as the temperature fell. It swirled in spooky luminescent currents around her feet, which she found slightly disconcerting. When she’d come here as a child with her parents, she’d adored the shaggy old forest with its thick buckled tree trunks. It had seemed magical in those days, a fantastical world to explore. All she could think about today was what might be lurking among all the shadows and secluded glades.

She’d paid in cash for the chalet she and Dudley were sharing. Most of the other chalets were empty right now, which reduced the chance of anyone seeing and recognizing her. She still left early in the morning as a precaution. And the SI assured her it was watching the local cybersphere nodes for any encrypted message activity that would indicate a surveillance operation. Even so, she’d be glad when they left. She still wasn’t sure what Baron would do about her.

Their three-room chalet was in a small clearing, with five huge rani trees towering over it. Dudley was pacing nervously up and down the lounge when she walked in.

“Where’ve you been?” he shouted.

“Fine, thank you, how are you?”

He stopped in the act of flinging himself at her, producing a massive petulant scowl instead. “I was worried.”

She ran her hand back through her tawny hair and gave him a mellow smile. “I’m sorry. It didn’t go as well as expected with Paula Myo. Turns out she doesn’t trust me, and I don’t trust her. Which kind of screws up the idea of us joining forces to take on the Starflyer. So I went on to California. My agent set up some job interviews. Good ones.”

“Oh.” He went up to her and gave her a cautious hug. When she didn’t squirm away, he asked, “Did you get one?”

“I got three offers, actually. Let me get out of these clothes and I’ll tell you.”

Dudley’s face immediately brightened.

“No, Dudley,” she said wearily. “Not for sex.”

“But … we will tonight, though, won’t we?” he asked in a whiny voice.

“Yes, Dudley, we’ll have sex later.” She glanced over at the kitchen alcove. Yesterday morning they’d paid cash for over a week’s worth of food and supplies from a supermarket twenty minutes away down the highway. The bags were still sitting on the bench, unpacked. “I’m going to have a shower, then I’d like something to eat. Think you can manage that for me?”

Once she’d freshened up she wrapped a towel around her hips and went back out into the lounge. It was almost a routine, checking the effect she had on him. Sure enough, Dudley could barely take his eyes off her naked torso. Ever since they had got here, she’d been using the gym a couple of hours a day to keep herself toned. The machines there faithfully recorded her physical condition, giving her top marks; but it was always reassuring to have her sexuality confirmed by a man. Even if it was only Dudley.

He’d made a mess of the dinner, which was impressive. The packaged food had a code strip for the microwave, automatically setting the timer and wattage when you put it in. He must have altered the settings manually. She took one look at the brown goo bubbling away under the cellophane wrapping and dropped them in the bin. The conditioning grille would take care of the smell eventually. “How did your day go?” she asked as she slid two fresh packets into the microwave.

“I went down to the beach. Some people arrived and started a barbecue. I came back here and accessed the unisphere.”

“Dudley, you need to learn how to socialize with people again.” She kissed him as the microwave counted down, breaking away with a promissory smile when it pinged. They settled down on the broad couch and Mellanie told her e-butler to turn the fire on. Bright holographic flames leaped up in the fire-place, while the invisible heater let out an accompanying blast of hot air—it even added a scent of burning wood.

“I don’t know who works for the Starflyer. It could be anyone. And the navy’s probably hunting us as well.”

“I doubt that.”

“You don’t know. Not really.”

Mellanie narrowed her eyes to look at him. Already he was sitting upright, fully defensive. She didn’t help his condition with her own mild paranoia about the Starflyer and Baron. “No, Dudley, I don’t; but they’ll have a very hard job finding us. I’ve made sure of that.” She curled her legs up and started poking chopsticks into the steaming dish of savory rice and chicken. Maybe it was a good idea they were leaving in the morning.

“What were your job offers?” Dudley asked.

“One was a TSI drama,
Late Rendezvous.
The producers were very keen to sign me up; it’s about a girl who arranges to meet her boyfriend on Sligo, then the Primes attack and she doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead. It’s all about her finding romance under the pressure of the attack.” She grinned to herself at the memory of the “co-stars” the producers had introduced her to. One of them, Ezra, had been utterly gorgeous. The thought of days spent rehearsing love scenes with him had almost made her sign up on the spot. Before the Prime attack and discovering Baron’s connection to the Starflyer there would have been no hesitation.

“A TSI?” Dudley said, alarm leaking into his features. “No! Please, Mellanie. Don’t. Not one of those again. That’s just sex. That’s what they want you for. Don’t. I don’t care how much money they offered. I couldn’t stand it.”

There were times when she really hated how pitiful Dudley was. She was fairly certain that there was no more useful information to extract from that abysmal jumble of thoughts in his brain. After California she’d toyed with the notion of simply not coming back to Greentree, just tell the navy where he was and leave their psychologists to straighten him out. But given who she wanted to meet next, having
the
Dudley Bose in tow, and under control, would make success a lot more likely.

And she did like him in a way. She supposed. Occasionally. When he was calm he could be very lucid, providing her a glimpse of the intellect that had qualified him for his earlier academic life. A sort of sneak preview of what he could be like. Then there was Elan, and everything they’d gone through together there when the Primes attacked. That wasn’t a bond easily discarded, not even for her. If he could just get the idea of love out of his head …

“I turned it down,” she said. “I can’t afford that kind of time commitment right now.”

“Thank you.” He bowed his head to examine the rectangular meal packet he was holding, almost as if he hadn’t seen one before. “What were the others?”

She pincered a big chunk of chicken with the chopsticks and popped it in her mouth. “Reuters said they’d take me on as a junior associate. Bravoweb offered me a reporter’s slot on the Michelangelo show; he’s always been a big rival for Baron. They’ve been fighting over audience points for over a century.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I’d take the Michelangelo slot. I think he got quite a bang out of poaching one of her top people. They offered me a trial three-month roving brief; and they agreed to my first story proposal.”

“Right. So what was it?”

“An inside account about people who live on a world that’s probably going to be invaded by the Primes in the next wave. I said I’d travel out to examine communities that are too poor to leave, the ones that have to stay even though they suspect they’re in for hard times. It’s pretty horrendous for them, really.”

“Oh.” Dudley picked up a tall tumbler of water and stared morosely at the ice bobbing around on top. “How does that help us track down the Starflyer?”

“I know for certain that’s where we can meet some really strong allies in the fight against the Starflyer, and Bravoweb will pick up the tab. Which is handy, because it’s not cheap traveling there.” She fashioned a smug smile.

“See?”

“Right. What planet?”

“Far Away.”

Coming into the office every morning was getting to be a real drag. In the old days when it was the Directorate, Renne had often come in early, especially when they were on a major case. Now she had to force herself up out of bed when the alarm woke her. And cases didn’t get any bigger than this one.

Somehow, Alic Hogan was always there ahead of her. Like Paula used to be, except Hogan didn’t conjure up enthusiasm in the rest of the team. Having him watching you arrive was like an automatic reprimand. She knew she was going to have to make an effort to cycle down on the irritation she felt toward him. But that was the problem. It was an effort.

John King appeared in the middle of the morning and walked over to her desk. “That smuggled technical equipment you had shipped back from Boon-gate. My analysis staff have got a slight problem with it.”

“Goddamn typical,” she spat.

John gave her a hurt look.

“All right, I’m sorry. It’s just that nobody ever comes and tells me any good news these days.”

“This isn’t bad news, exactly, it’s just strange.”

“Go on then, what’s strange with it?”

“Same as the stuff from Venice Coast, we can’t understand what it’s used for.”

“John, come on! You must have some idea. I saw the manifest Edmund Li finally produced. There was nearly a metric ton of hardware.”

“A lot of it very similar,” he said defensively. “But given we don’t know what they’re building, it’s difficult.”

“I’ll settle for best guess. I trust you.”

He smiled sheepishly. “All right, based on these systems, and factoring in the surviving components from Venice Coast, assuming they were intended for the same thing—”

“John!”

“Force fields. Very high-density force fields. But the thing is, they’d use up a terrific amount of power.”

“So?”

He gave her an elaborate shrug. “On Far Away? Where are they going to get it from? I checked with the Commonwealth Civil Council. There’s five medium-size civic power stations supplying Armstrong City; they’re gas turbines running off a local oil field. The revitalization project imported some fission micropiles to power their equipment in the early days. And the Institute has three micropiles to power their facilities. That’s it. The rest of the planet gets by on solar panels, wind turbines, and a few oil wells. They don’t have anything like the power output one of these weirdo devices would consume.”

She stared at him blankly, waiting for a suggestion. None came. “Then what does produce that much power?”

“I haven’t got a clue. It’s not like you could have smuggled a fusion or fission generator through unnoticed even before we were inspecting every piece of cargo. And Far Away can’t be physically plugged into the Commonwealth power grid. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Right then.” She instinctively reached for her mug of coffee, only to find it was empty. “So what we have is an unknown force field device, or devices, which consumes a lot of power, on a planet that doesn’t have any.”

“Nicely summarized.”

“I look forward to seeing how the Commander treats that one when you submit it.”

They both glanced over at the door to Hogan’s office.