The Elysium Commission (28 page)

That made sense. She was the sister who controlled the Garda and the Planetary Defense Force. “Why me?”

“Who else?” Shannon laughed. “I'll wait here for you. Just go through the door there and to the open door at the top of the ramp. When you're done, come back here.”

With my implants, I could sense some energy flows, but they were beyond my tech or protocols. I wasn't going anywhere. Not until I got a better answer. “Why me?”

“Because there isn't anyone else. Not in time. Now, go talk to the sister. Even you don't want to piss her off, Donne.”

He had another point there. I got out of the maglev car and went through the door and up the ramp. The walls were gray. So was the indestructible carpet that covered the ramp. There were no decorations on the walls or carpet. Why was there always so much gray in the intelligence areas? Because the more you knew, the less obvious matters were?

No sooner than I had stepped through the open archway than the two sides of the door irised shut behind me. I stood in a narrow room, four meters wide, and close to six long. Energy shields divided the chamber, wavering and shifting enough that I could only make out the general image of a woman in black beyond the shields. She sat behind a small console desk, facing me. A black hood shadowed her face.

“Seignior Donne.”

“Soror Tertia.” I inclined my head slightly. “Apparently, I'm here at your invitation. Was Seigniora Reynarda your agent?”

A light laugh greeted my words. “After a fashion.”

“What do you wish of me?”

“To tender an invitation.”

“Oh? Like the one offered by Seigniora Reynarda?”

“That was an example of what that technology can do.”

“You're making an offer I can't refuse, I see.”

“We needed to get your attention in a fashion that indicated the severity of the situation. Legaar Eloi and Judeon Maraniss are about to activate a certain technology that will have adverse impacts on all Devanta. The example you witnessed was nothing.”

“A Hawking field and a modified jumpship generator?” I suggested.

“A very modified field and generator. From what we can tell, they intend to wipe out Thurene and most life on Devanta. Obviously, we would prefer that they don't.”

“Where do I fit in?” I had a very good idea where that was. But I could be wrong. I'd been wrong before.

“There are two ways in which Legaar can be handled. Locally, or by the Assembly of Worlds. If we call for Assembly assistance, that is a de facto admission of inadequacy.”

“Reformulation and a loss of your power.”

“Yes.” The admission was without equivocation.

“Interstellar protection is the duty of the Assembly. Why can't the Assembly space service stop the Frankan forces bringing the Hawking field?” That was a guess on my part, but it was the only thing that made sense.

“They are occupied elsewhere at the moment. They are likely to remain so.”

“Oh…TABS and the Eloi connections have bought enough Assembly politicians so that it becomes a test of whether you can get out of the mess?”

“Essentially.”

“So why don't you just send in a Garda team and take out Classic Research?”

“Whom would you suggest? Officer Javerr? Patroller Donahew? Do you think they could? Or that they would obey Captain Shannon?”

Sister Tertia had a point. I didn't like it. “So you want someone not in the Garda organization.”

“A team not in the Garda organization.”

“Where will you get the rest of the team, then? From the streets of Thurene?”

“Sarcasm doesn't become the shadow knight. We have the rest of the team.”

“I still don't understand…”

“You will.”

“If I might ask…why should I?”

“You mean…exactly what benefit accrues to you?” The light sardonic laugh followed. “Survival, for one. Second, if you become part of the effort, the authentication will be retroactive to your engagement by Seigniora Reynarda. That effectively means, if the effort is successful, you will be fully indemnified for the loss of your nightflitter, as well as the other damages incurred from the Eloi operation. Third, you will receive a paid consultancy of five thousand credits monthly, plus a five-hundred-credit-per-stan fee for all services in excess of ten stans per month. The minimum term of that consultancy would be ten years.”

Matters were worse than I'd ever thought. “How soon before things heat up?”

“Five to seven days.”

“I'm not exactly in the best shape.”

“We know. That is secondary.”

Both the Sister Tertia and I knew neither of us had much room to maneuver. “Who else is on the team?”

“Do you agree?”

“I agree.” What real choice did I have?

“Colonel Shannon developed the plan. He and you, and a highly trained pilot with unique specialization, will execute it. You will all be briefed by the best intelligence specialist on Devanta. The timetable is very precise.”

“What exactly am I supposed to do?”

“Enter a facility more secure than an Assembly operations center, disable or kill anyone there, and single-handedly operate a console and equipment you have never seen before to neutralize a system that could conceivably rip apart a section of our universe.”

Her description made Pournelle II seem like a walk down the South Bank. It was also absurd and impossible.

“It is not quite so impossible as it sounds,” the sister added.

“You don't want the Assembly to learn about the technology Eloi and Maraniss have developed, do you?” I couldn't resist asking.

“Would you?”

“What is it?”

“That will be covered in your briefing. Captain Shannon is waiting for you.” With the last of her words, the screens cut off all light from her end of the chamber.

It was an effective dismissal.

I turned and walked back to the maglev.

The capsule hatch closed behind me, and Shannon nodded.

“Where to now?” I asked.

“A special medical facility. Where else? You need some remedial work.”

I had the feeling I'd need a lot more than that, and I wasn't looking forward to any of it.

The maglev's next stop was farther away, and shielded. I had no access to Max, the villa, or even to any commonnet. Shannon ushered me straight to a med-chamber whose energy and equipment made my villa medcenter look several centuries out of date.

A doctor was waiting.

“You're the remarkable Seignior Donne.” Those were the first words out of the doctor's mouth. Her manner and tone made both Krij and Siendra seem maternal by comparison. Yet I doubted she was more than 150 centimeters tall and slender to match. Slender with the strength of a nanite-steel rod. “Off with your clothes above your waist. We need every minute. We're doing a full arm regression-rebuild, with reinforcement backup.”

I didn't care for the “reinforcement backup.” I pulled off my shirt and jacket.

Shannon vanished without a word or a glance, leaving me with the doctor.

“On the table there. This shouldn't be too bad. You've already got a week of nanite-boosted regrowth.”

Not too bad? I could hardly wait.

Legaar paced around the penthouse study, with its hidden and remote links to the Classic Research operations center at Time's End. His movements were like that of a graceless cougar, each of his tailored Drelaan shoes hitting the high-impact carpet as hard as a sledge falling onto it.

“The schedule for delivery is almost a week. Why so long? The sisters are nosing around, and somehow Shannon or someone has gotten Special Operations interested. Only TABS is keeping the Assembly at a distance.” His words were like awkward dark-voweled birds clattering down on a slate roof. His eyes turned away from the single console.

“I told you the approach would be slow.” I'd told him far more than once, but he always wanted to believe that technical limitations were obstacles that could be removed as abruptly and thoroughly as he'd removed people. “They'll have to make a slow and shielded approach coming in-system. The energy of a high-speed approach would alert both the IS monitors, the PDF, and possibly even the Garda. The Assembly couldn't overlook anything that blatant, much as they might wish to.”

“A polar approach?” His eyes flicked as though his attention were elsewhere, and that was less than optimal because even when his attention was fully present, his concentration focused all too often upon the trivial or upon the short-term acquisition of greater power.

“High ecliptic. There's more debris there.”

“It's taken forever to set this up.” He rocked back and forth from one foot to the other, and the hideous and expensive shoes creaked under the stress. “Forever…”

“It's unique, and unique technology that conveys that kind of power takes time to assemble and coordinate. But it won't take that long once they're in position. We'll have roughly ten hours after the Hawking complex comes online before the first brane-flex break occurs. That should provide enough time for the last transfers.”

“That's easy enough for you to say, Judeon. All you have to transfer is yourself and a few personal items. You haven't had an entire corpentity to consider.”

“That's because I moved most of the heavy objects early on,” I pointed out. “I might also observe that you have, upon more than one occasion, noted that there are few indeed in your various organizations that merit either rescue or restitution.” Or anywhere in Thurene or on all of Devanta.

“I've had to relocate my family and my very best people.”

“There is a cost to everything, especially for a new knowledge of reality, but when it's all over, you'll be able to dictate to the Assembly. In effect, you'll be running the Assembly. With the complex fully active, you can remove entire fleets. The space service will think you've destroyed them.” Hurled hundreds of light-years and who knew how far forward or back in time, the warships would certainly be neutralized. Some would be destroyed, but none would be around to cause trouble.

But then, shortly after that, neither would Legaar.

Infinitely small needles of white-hot agony twisted through my arm and shoulder. From what I'd undergone in SpecOps regen, I was prepared for that. I wasn't ready for the nanoscale blue ice frozen hydrogen explosions that warred in the same area. I passed out.

When I woke, I was in another chamber. My entire left hand, arm, and shoulder were encased in a medunit. A second unit encased my right hand, arm, and shoulder. The only difference was that the right side throbbed slightly. I felt nothing on the left. My head ached as well, and my brain felt as though it had been squeezed. That had to have been a side effect of something else. Humans don't have the nerves for direct pain reception inside the skull.

My nose and cheek itched. I could turn my head enough to rub the cheek against the medunit. But not my nose. It was hard to ignore the itching.

I lay there, thinking. Trying not to envision the purplish gray mass that had engulfed my hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders. I could almost imagine the white-hot needles burning the length of my arms. The nerve blocks stopped the actual pain, but I knew that without them, I'd be convulsed in agony.

Why my right arm? Or had the doctor discovered something there as well?

I did my best to push that away and concentrate on what little additional information I'd obtained from the Third Sister. Shannon had known about Eloi and Maraniss for a time, yet he'd let Javerr bully me. That made sense now. So did the sisters' indirect methods. I still didn't like either. The sisters also knew at least something about the technology Legaar Eloi was using. Yet they'd apparently done nothing. That was what I didn't understand.

“Seignior Donne.” The doctor appeared. She was smiling.

I waited.

“You're in remarkable shape for an ex-operative. In fact, you're in better shape than most operatives on duty.”

I hoped so. I'd worked at it. “What time is it?”

“It's only five hour.”

“What day?”

“Marten, of course. The way your rebuilding and reinforcing is going, you'll be out of the right unit late tonight and the left one sometime around noon tomorrow.”

“What are you doing to me?”

“Accelerated healing of the fractured radius, and some repair and strengthening of your arms, forearms, shoulders, and fingers. Oh…and upgrading your implants and comm faculties. You'll need those as well.”

“Why the strengthening?”

The doctor smiled, faintly, almost sadly. “I don't know. I was only told that your mission profile required it.”

“What about my head?”

“In addition to the implants? A little nanite clean-out, making sure there were no lesions in critical areas.”

She was hedging on that.

“What else?”

“You'll have faster reactions in certain situations. We strengthened certain linkages.”

“What will that cost me elsewhere?”

She laughed. “You're skeptical. The only thing it will cost you is patience. Over time, unless you're careful, you'll wonder why people take so long to react to situations.”

I'd already had that feeling. I didn't say so.

“Your reactions in those areas are already well above normal. That's true of all special operatives. I was assured that you'll need to be faster for your mission.”

The absolute certainty in her words chilled me.

“You're doing well. We're going to enhance your sleep—”

“No slumbereze!”

She shook her head. “You shouldn't ever use one. They're not designed for people with brains like yours. We'll be using something else…”

I took some consolation in the fact that my own feelings about the slumbereze had been right—before a gentle velvet darkness enfolded me.