*I think you made the right decision, Jake. For everyone concerned. Please bring me up to date."
Jake sighed. *Where to begin?" He pursed his lips and took a deep breath. *The whole mole hunt has badly shaken RIM. The place is riven by paranoia and suspicion. But I told you that in my last call. What has changed is that Colonel Rench - you remember him? - is now Major-General Rench and for reasons I can"t explain, he"s been fast-tracked for promotion. Somebody at the highest level is grooming him for big things."
*I never liked him. But is that necessarily a problem?" Anneke asked.
*I think it"s a big problem. Rench isn"t a fool, but he"s part of the Pullback school within RIM. Believes RIM has overstepped its historic role, that it should play a more diplomatic line, less storm trooper. He feels RIM has interfered with *galactic destiny". All poppyc.o.c.k in my opinion, but the man is persuasive and has a large following. The problem is, this is the worst time for his approach. Another time, maybe he"d be right. But now? I don"t know, Anneke. The outer systems are becoming restless and skirmishes are on the rise. Kanto Kantoris is stirring again, waiting to flex its old imperialistic muscles."
Jake suddenly looked tired. *It"s as if everyone senses that change is on the way. And you know what that means. The weak will get trampled under the boots of the strong, who will believe they"ve got to grab power for themselves before they get swept away in the collapse."
Anneke was startled. *You think RIM could collapse?"
*Ever hear of a run on the bank?"
*No. Is it a sport?"
Jake made a face. *In ancient Terran history there were financial inst.i.tutions called banks. Before Averaged Galactic Currency and data stores, that"s where people kept their money, discrete bits of plastic or metal tokens. But the banks never kept enough money to redeem all the people"s credit notes. Didn"t matter, as long as everyone didn"t want their money back at the same time. So long as they kept confidence in the bank. But if that went, then there would be a run on the bank. Then the bank couldn"t pay out, since it had loaned out money, invested it where it couldn"t be retrieved quickly. And so the bank would collapse. Well, an organisation like RIM is similar. Because we don"t employ draconian methods, demanding obedience, punishing those that don"t give it, we depend on the galaxy"s confidence in us. Their faith that we can do our job. If that confidence were to evaporate ..."
*Then RIM would crumble."
*Exactly."
*And you think that"s happening now?"
*I think the patient is showing early symptoms of the disease."
*Is there a cure?"
*I hope so, Anneke. I hope so."
*This is the best ice-cream in the universe!" said Deema suddenly. *Can I have some more?"
Later, in Anneke"s room, as Deema slept, Anneke andJake continued their discussion, in muted tones.
As I see it, then, I"m to come back, but stay low, stay invisible."
*Stay off the radar completely. You might want to look at a full metal jacket. Someone like Ramid could do it."
Anneke stared at Jake. A total DNA jacket? Nano retroengineering? I don"t think I"m ready for that yet. Sounds too much like a drench vat to me."
Jake smiled ruefully and scratched his chin. *I guess. But "ghosts" make the best agents, as you know. And it"d be useful having you around, especially as I might be retiring."
Anneke stared at him. *You"re not retiring? Tell me you"re not."
*Not my call. Let"s say Rench visited me the other day. Made it very clear he didn"t like me and especially didn"t like my opposition to his views. Suggested strongly that I consider tendering my resignation. I refused. He then said bluntly that I could be retired, forcefully."Jake sighed. *You know, Rench and I-and your uncle Viktus - all started in RIM together. We were friends for a while. Then things changed. Rench developed an enormous hatred towards Viktus and me."
*Why?"
Jake waved that away. *Ancient history, Anneke. Doesn"t concern you, but I figured you should know the lay of the land. I might not be around much longer. Can"t say I"d hate it. RIM is changing too rapidly. It"s not the place I dedicated myself to twelve decades ago."
Anneke remembered something her uncle had once told her. *You are responsible to the principle of RIM even if not to RIM itself."
Jake laughed uneasily. *They"re not Viktus"s words. Not originally. Our commander during probation used to say that. And he got it from his commander who got it from hers. It"s as old as RIM itself. And that"s old!"
*Do you have arry good news?" Anneke asked suddenly.
Jake fixed her with a look. *How well are you?"
*Well."
After a moment he said, *There"s a rumour. Something"s been found off Orion"s Belt." He told her what it was. Her eyes went wide. *Could be nothing. Could be everything."
*Somebody should go investigate," said Anneke.
*Somebody should."
BLACK worked feverishly. The possibility in the rumour of a derelict dreadnought, an M-Cla.s.s Destroyer adrift off Orion"s Belt, was so startling, so electrifying, that he felt a fuzzy thrill at the thought that the ship might be there.
There were dummy corporations to set up. He manipulated the local Net directly through his neural neck jack and visual overlays were generated through his optic nerves. Three-dimensional representations floated before him, data made into dancing light. Holding companies, umbrella bodies cavorted before him. Then voting shares, directorships, proxies, and other false trails with razor-thin but real links. It was a sleepless forty-eight hours for Black, fuelled by noradrenalin. Now Maximus Black claimed - through a maze-like series of corporate ownerships and sh.e.l.l companies - salvage rights in a *putative" F-Cla.s.s Battleship that might be located within a cuboid of otherwise empty s.p.a.ce.
Certain that his claim was thoroughly disguised, and untraceable, he met again with the Envoy. This time they were atop the tallest rain-swept tower of s.p.a.ceport Lykis, their heads bowed against the elements. It was near midnight and they had the platform to themselves, the tourists having gone for the day. Hundreds of metres below lay the lights of the port buildings and the vast luminescent field on which hundreds of ships, scramjets, skimmers and shuttles sat, hooked to their array of umbilicals, docking tubes, clamps and elevators. Tiny ant-like droids and engineers swarmed about the ships, servicing them as drones to their queens. In the distance a kilometre-long and kilometre-high nanodiamond launch ramp twinkled reflections from the s.p.a.ceport while it shot supplies into orbit using the ramp"s magnetic linear accelerator.
Black pointed. *I want that ship," he said, his eyes, even in the rainy dark, fever bright. The Envoy nodded, his hood thrown back. Rain spattered his carapace and ran in rivulets between his insect-like features and the deep-set yellow eyes that rarely blinked. He seemed to enjoy the weather.
*It is your Kadros," he said, as if this explained everything.
*My destiny?" This time, Black did not sneer. The universe had handed him a prize. With it, much that remained hazy, plans waiting to be birthed, had found their midwife. Black too, perhaps. The metaphor made him lick his lips. Perhaps he too was being reborn. Certainly there was something elemental, something pagan, about standing on this great finger of metal, amid a storm that raged not only outside but inside as well. The Galactic G.o.ds must be with him.
Black steadied his racing pulse, took a deep breath, and said, *You know what you have to do."
*I will find it," said the Envoy and with that he turned on his heel and vanished into the drizzling dark.
Black turned back to the edge of the tower platform. There was no parapet, only an invisible deflector field. He stared down at the distant s.p.a.ceport. All the tiny ants that serviced humanity would soon service him. A heady notion, yet it was coming true. It was becoming real.
The thought made him sway.
The Envoy plunged down the drop tube, his descent r.e.t.a.r.ded by interlacing fields. He alighted at the departure level, presenting his datapa.s.s allowing for travel and operation of the fast cruiser, Dragonfly. It amused him to take the name of an earth-bound insect. He knew how the humans saw his species. Likefiiggin" c.o.c.kroaches, one had said long ago. It was a century before he had understood that c.o.c.kroach was a derogatory term. But having subsequently studied the insect, learned its wily ways, its rampant breeding practices, and its brazen success at survival - no matter what was thrown at it, he had come to see the name as a compliment. Humans should be so hardy, he thought, though his thoughts did not take the form of words or coherent sentences.
Meaning was an amalgam of many parts.
The Envoy boarded the Dragorifly within the hour and the ship was prepped for takeoff. When he received clearance, he lifted off to the Orbital Ring where he sat watching the s.p.a.ce Colonies spin. Eventually a departure window opened and he shot away from Lykis Integer, the red and green planet where he had once *died".
The journey to the Scorpius region of Orion"s Belt was uneventful. Rigel and Betelgeuse were many pa.r.s.ecs off and the nearest shipping lanes avoided this region due to uncharted anomalies and the presence of n-s.p.a.ce fluctuations thrown off, like ripples, by the birthing of new stars in Orion"s Nebulae. No doubt this helped account for why the derelict vessel, if indeed it existed, had remained undetected for so long. That, and the intentions of the previous owners.
The Envoy scoured the region for a standard Terran month, enduring the dangerous anomalies and narrowly avoiding destruction through a collision with a starless asteroid. Not that that bothered the Envoy. It would merely have been a delay until a hatchling could be ferried to the spot to resume the search. The Envoy, unlike a human, did not comprehend death.
But perhaps humans did not either. The Envoy was aware of the Mercator Equations that had theoretically proven the existence of an afterlife in a parallel universe. Strange, then, that humans should still fear the Great Darkness and a final journey that was no longer final. Strange, also, that his own species refused to take that journey.
One month and one day after his search began, the Envoy came upon the dreadnought. Though not given to human outbursts of emotion, he felt a thrill of awe at the audacity and hubris of the builders.
Contrary to the Envoy"s earlier estimate, the vessel was actually ten kilometres from bow to stern. A colossus, indeed. A nightmare from the deep past. A symbol of unbridled power dedicated to wanton destruction. Exactly what Maximus Black desired.
The Envoy, who could survive in a vacuum for hours without a protective suit, boarded the dreadnought at what the ancient schematics suggested was the command level.
Surprisingly, the schematics were right.
The Envoy confirmed this by exploring every corridor and pa.s.sageway. With several thousand kilometres of these, including access walks and maintenance tunnels, this took many hours, even in zero gravity, at the speed at which the Envoy could move. Next, he checked the engines, the power plants, the gravity and shield generators and the weapon banks.
Satisfied, he returned to his ship to awaken his *cargo".
Fortunately it was possible, even on Lykis Integer, the headquarters of RIM, if enough palms were greased and the proper *freight" was paid, to export illegal cargo. The fifty-three humans held in suspended animation in the concealed hold of the Dragonfly qualified as illegal. Or at least, semi so. Humans, stuck in suspension tubes and rendered indistinct by hot red artificial haemoglobin and nanomechanical fluid, were not slaves. Black, once a slave himself, would have no truck with slave traders. But he was not averse to acquiring indentured workers who foolishly traded their freedom by running up debts they could not pay.
These workers had been handpicked from a world remote from the mainstream of galactic life (to be returned there once the job was done) and promised an annulment of their servitude.
In exchange, they needed to get the dreadnought movmg.
Where to was no concern of theirs. The Envoy would handle the initial navigation then hand it over to Black"s man, a seasoned astronomer and ship"s captain named Spuke.
The team, equipped with exoskeleton vacuum suits and an impressive array of tools and automatic tech-bots, got to work. Their first priority was atmosphere and heating the inside of the ship, since humans could work faster and better without the enc.u.mbrance of vacuum suits; the second was to set up an unregistered Dyson jump-gate. With this, supplies and personnel could be brought onto the ship without hindrance or delay. The downside of the Dyson gate was that it was trackable. Cultured stellar novae created the teleportation backbone between gates. Teleportation itself formed signature anomalies in n-s.p.a.ce. Black had partially solved this problem by *buying" a registration at an astronomical price. According to the registration, the jump-gate belonged to the scientific research ship, Methylated Spirits.
Three months after finding the vessel two things happened. Or rather, three.
One. The Dyson gate came on line and supplies flooded into the ship, along with fresh food, rec cubes, and an *entertainment" corp of female specialists.
Two. The ship began to move, keeping to uncharted lanes, and hugging the galaxy"s natural *shadows" and *blind spots".
Three. The Envoy discovered a stowaway.
The designation was uncertain. *Intruder" might be a better description but, since the ship was now underway, and since they had an unregistered and uninvited guest on board, stowaway was technically the correct term.
The Envoy, who sent reports back to Black via e-pad on a regular basis, was a stickler for correctness. He prided himself on his intuitive understanding of human language.
At first he thought the stowaway was a ghost.
His species accepted the notion that the energy of the dead might return to haunt the living, despite their rejection of memory-death. Indeed, they believed the universe was full of such energies; as the universe created *s.p.a.ce" it also created such ent.i.ties in a symbiotic process not yet understood.
The Envoy spotted the ghost late at night. He thought he saw the creature from the corner of his eye and spun around in that direction faster than any human could, yet there was nothing there.
This partly convinced him it was a ghost (and was why he did not report it to Black, humans being superst.i.tious) since humans could not move that fast.
But he was wrong.
The next day he detected internal activity in the ship-wide sensor trap. Two days later he discovered the mainframe had been hacked and vital schematics downloaded, though nothing, thankfully, relating to the purpose of the dreadnought or to its full (still unknown) capabilities.
This was the final straw.
The Envoy laid a virtual trap, as a spider would for an annoying fly.
And the fly walked into it. So the Envoy thought.
A week later, the Envoy stood composed and still as Maximus Black exploded in fury. Black upended his desk, smashed his jack interface, and tried to break the shatterproof windows of his office, bashing them repeatedly with a chair. His graduation photograph drifted through the air, away from the corner where it usually hovered.
The Envoy watched impa.s.sively, as if Black"s actions were an odd religious ritual.
Eventually, panting from the exertion, Black calmed down. He righted his chair and dropped heavily into it. Still the Envoy said nothing.
Black looked up at him, his face a furious scowl.
*Anneke Longshadow is alive?"
The question was twofold. *She did not die on Arcadia as we all believed -" the Envoy began.
*And asjake Ferren reported!"
*- and she is still alive, since I failed to kill her on the dreadnought."
Black slammed a fist on the table. *Is there no way to kill this blasted woman?"
The Envoy shrugged, humanlike. *Perhaps she is your nemesis."
*What"s that supposed to mean?"
*Maybe she is a necessary component to the fulfilment of your destiny, the rock against which you must test yourself"
*Oh, how very Zen." Maximus stopped. The Envoy was incapable of understanding sarcasm.
*The path to Kadros is dark and mysterious."
*Naturally. No self-respecting mumbo jumbo could be anything but."
*You are angry."
*This is why I don"t need a shrink. I have you." Black tried to compose himself His anger wrenched him, threatening to overwhelm him. He recited a mantra of relaxation and control, felt his pulse slow and his breathing return to normal, then fixed the Envoy with a restrained look.
*What happened?"
The Envoy"s trap had backfired. Perhaps Anneke had outguessed him. By redeploying indentured engineers he had found the breach by which Anneke had entered the dreadnought and pinned down the date and time of her incursion.
How she had found out about the ship or located it piqued the Envoy"s curiosity, but was irrelevant at this point.
She was on board. She had stolen information on the ship. She must not be allowed to leave alive.
The Envoy a.n.a.lysed the data Anneke had siphoned off. It was important, but not critical. Of more interest to him was Anneke"s concern regarding the weapons capability of the dreadnought.
This meant she might be planning to penetrate the weapons level.
The Envoy employed all available detector techniques; to physically install more robust and up-to-date systems would alert Anneke to the trap. Which meant only pa.s.sive, pre-existing systems could be deployed.
The reason his trap backfired was that Anneke had co-opted the systems first. She"d known exactly what he was doing and why.