Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Different insurance companies, different clinics,’ Hoshe said defensively. ‘I’m sure Wyobie would have raised the question with my division eventually when he asked after Ms Shaheef.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So you recognized the name?’ Paula asked.

  ‘Yes. God knows why I didn’t edit the little shit out of my memories during the last two rejuvenations. Subconscious, I guess. You learn from your experiences, a smart man doesn’t dump them.’

  ‘So was it a painful divorce from Tara?’

  ‘Her leaving me was a shock. I simply didn’t see that coming. I mean, with hindsight I was heavily involved with our company, and we’d been together for a while, I suppose it was inevitable. But to walk out like that, without any warning, that wasn’t Tara. Not the Tara I thought I knew, anyway. But I got over it the same way a lot of guys do: screwed every piece of skirt in sight and threw myself into my work. After that, the actual divorce was completely irrelevant, just a signature certificate loaded on a file.’

  ‘And there was no clue she was going to leave you?’

  ‘Hell, no, I was worried about her when I got back home. I mean, she hadn’t answered my calls for two days. But I figured at the time she was pissed with me for spending the time away from home. Then when I got back she’d stripped the apartment, everything she owned was gone. Pretty big fucking clue, huh?’

  The butler returned with the sparkling gin in a crystal glass, and put it on the side table next to Morton. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

  ‘For now.’ Morton waved him away.

  ‘Was there any message?’ Paula asked.

  ‘Not a damn thing. The first and only time I heard from her was when the divorce file arrived two weeks later.’

  ‘That was handled by a legal firm. So you never actually had any contact with Tara at all?’

  ‘No. Not after she left.’

  ‘How did you know Wyobie Cotal’s name?’

  ‘It was in the divorce file.’

  ‘Tara put it in?’

  ‘Yes. He was the irreconcilable difference.’

  ‘I’d like a copy, please.’

  ‘Sure.’ He instructed his e-butler to release a copy file to Paula.

  ‘I have to ask, did you benefit from the divorce?’

  Morton laughed with genuine amusement. ‘Sure did, I got rid of her.’ He took a drink of his sparkling gin, still grinning.

  ‘That’s not quite what I meant.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’ He locked his hands together behind his head, and gazed up at the ceiling. ‘Let’s see. There wasn’t much to it. We both came out of it financially secure. That was part of the pre-marriage contract, everything to be split fifty fifty. It was fair enough. Tara was richer than me back then, she put up a higher percentage of initial capital for the company. That was no secret. But I was the one who managed it, who made it work. When we divorced, our shares were divided up strictly according to the contract, we both got half.’

  ‘How much more money did she put in?’

  ‘It was a sixty-five, thirty-five split. That percentage isn’t something I’d kill for.’

  ‘I’m sure. So who kept the company?’

  ‘I’m still running it, after a fashion. AquaState’s one of our subsidiaries now.’

  Paula consulted his file. ‘I see. You’re the chairman of Gansu Construction now.’

  ‘That’s right. Six months after we went public, Gansu made an offer for AquaState. I negotiated a good two for one exchange rate on my shares, a seat on the Gansu board, and a decent options deal on more stock. Forty years of hard work later, and here I am. We’re the biggest civil engineering outfit on this whole planet; you name it we can build it for you. Plenty of offplanet divisions as well, and more opening every year. One day we’ll rival the multistellars.’

  ‘According to my records, the company you and Tara owned, AquaState, didn’t go public until three years after the divorce.’

  ‘No, Tara agreed – or rather her divorce lawyers did – that we’d both get a better deal by waiting, letting the moisture extraction business grow until we could get the maximum price from the flotation. When AquaState finally went public, her shares were registered with a bank on Tampico, then they were converted to Gansu stock when I sold out. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but . . . Since she got re-lifed, most of them have been sold. She’s using up money at a hell of a rate, supporting that idiot aristocrat husband and his plantation.’

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t think that’s relevant to our inquiry. I’m more interested in what happened to her shares for the seventeen years prior to her re-life. Did they just sit in the Tampico bank?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes. I only know they’re being sold now because as chairman I can see the ownership registry. She’s disposing of them at quite a rate, a couple of million Oaktier dollars a year.’

  Paula turned to Hoshe. ‘We need to check with the Tampico bank to find out what happened to those seventeen years’ worth of dividend payments.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Mellanie Rescorai climbed out of the pool and started towelling herself down with the pink-wash sky as a backdrop. She was very attractive, Paula conceded. Morton was staring at her with a greedy expression.

  ‘What about enemies?’ Paula asked. ‘Did Tara have any?’

  ‘No.’ Morton was still looking at his trophy girlfriend. ‘That is: I doubt it, I don’t actually remember, I got rid of the majority of those memories, just kept the essentials from those days, you know.’

  ‘And you? Did you have enemies back then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far. I had business rivals, certainly. And I’ve got a damn sight more of them now. But no deal would be worth killing over, not in those days.’

  ‘Only those days?’

  ‘Or these,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘Did you meet up with Tara again, after the re-life?’

  ‘Yes. The insurance investigators and the police both had a load of questions for me, all of them the same as yours. I went to see her after she came out of the clinic, for old times’ sake, to make sure she was okay. I don’t hold grudges, and we’d had thirteen good years together. We still meet up occasion-ally, parties, social events, that kind of thing. Though that’s getting less and less now she’s got her husband. I haven’t actually seen her since my last rejuvenation.’

  ‘You and Tara didn’t have any children, did you?’

  Morton’s attention switched back to the living room. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? As you said, you were together for thirteen years.’

  ‘We decided we didn’t want them; it was even written into our pre-marriage contract. Both of us were busy people. The lifestyle we had then didn’t have any space for that kind of family commitment.’

  ‘Okay, one last question, probably irrelevant considering you’ve had two rejuvenations since, but do you remember any odd incidents prior to her disappearance?’

  ‘Sorry, no, not a thing. If there were any, they’re memories that I left behind a long time ago.’

  ‘I thought that might be the case. Well, thank you again for seeing us.’

  Morton stood up and showed the Chief Investigator out. As they walked through to the vestibule, he let his eyes slip down to her rump. Her business suit skirt was clinging in an enjoyable way, showing off her hips. Even though he’d accessed her court cases several times through the unisphere, her physical appearance post-rejuvenation was a pleasurable surprise. He wondered if she’d be going to a Silent World tonight. If so, it was one he’d like to be visiting.

  When they’d gone he went back out onto the roof garden. Mellanie smiled at him with the simple happiness of the totally devoted.

  ‘So was she murdered?’ the girl asked.

  ‘They don’t know.’

  She twined her arms around his neck, pressing her still damp body against him. ‘Why do you care? It was centuries and centuries ago.’

  ‘Forty
years. And I’d care very much if it happened to you.’

  Her lips came together in a hurt pout. ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘The point is, time doesn’t lessen a crime, especially not today.’

  ‘Okay.’ She shrugged, and smiled at him again. ‘I won’t run away from you like she did, not ever.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He bent forwards slightly, and started kissing her, an action which she responded to with her usual eagerness. Her youthful insecurity had been so easy to exploit, especially for someone with his years of life experience. She’d never known anyone as urbane and self-confident, nor as rich, as him before; the only people she’d ever dated were nice first-life boys. By herself, she wasn’t brave enough to break out from her middle-class conformity; but with his coaxing and support she soon began to nibble at the forbidden fruits. The publicity of their affair, the rows with her parents, it all played in his favour. Like all first-lifers she was desperate to be shown everything life could offer. And as if by a miracle, he’d appeared in her life to fill the role of both guide and paymaster. Suddenly, after all the years of discipline and restrictions she’d endured to reach national level, nothing was outlawed to her. Her response to the liberation was a very predictable over-indulgence.

  Mellanie wasn’t quite the most beautiful girl he’d ever bedded, her chin was slightly too long, her nose too blunt, to be awarded that title. But with that lanky, broad-shouldered body of hers trained by the national swimming federation coach to the peak of gymnastic fitness she was certainly one of the most physically satisfying. Although, truly, it was her age which excited him in a way he’d never reached with any of his Silent World encounters. Even in this liberally inclined society, a rejuve seducing a first-lifer was regarded as being over the edge of civilized behaviour – which simply added intensity to the experience. He could afford to ignore the disapproval of others.

  This was what he was now, one of the rich and powerful, rising above the norm, the mundane. He lived his personal and professional lives in the same way. If there was something he wanted in either of them, he got it. Empire building became him, allowing him to thrive. Compared with his first mediocre century he was truly alive now.

  ‘Go in and get changed,’ he told her eventually. His e-butler summoned the dresser and the beautician to help get the girl ready. ‘Resal is expecting us on the boat in an hour. I don’t want to be too late, there are people coming that I need to meet tonight.’

  The dresser and the beautician appeared in the doorway, waiting patiently. Two middle-aged women who knew his tastes probably better than he did; the dresser acted as his wardrobe stylist as well.

  ‘It’s not all business, is it?’ Mellanie asked.

  ‘Of course not, there’ll be fun people there as well. People your own age, and people older than me. Now please, we need to get moving.’

  ‘Yes, Morty.’ Mellanie caught sight of the two women waiting for her, and turned back to him. ‘What would you like me to wear?’

  ‘Always: something that shows you off.’ His virtual vision was displaying recent clothing purchases the dresser had made. ‘That gold and white thing you were fitted for on Wednesday. That’s small enough.’

  She nodded eagerly. ‘Okay.’ Then she hugged him again, the kind of tight reassurance-seeking embrace a child would give a parent. ‘I love you, Morty, really I do. You know that, don’t you?’ Her eyes searched his face, hunting for any sign of confirmation.

  ‘I know.’ His older, earlier, self would probably have experienced a twinge of guilt at that adulation. It was never going to last. He knew that, even though she would never be able to see it. In another year or so some other stray beauty would catch his eye, and the sweet heat of the chase would begin again. Mellanie would be gone in a flood of tears. But until then . . .

  He gave her bum a quick gentle slap, hurrying her back into the penthouse. She squealed in mock-outrage before scampering in through the wide doors. The two women followed her in.

  His e-butler brought up a list of items which he hadn’t finished working on during the day. He surveyed them all, taking his time to add comments, demand more information, or approve them for action. It was always the way; no matter how complex the management smartware a company employed, executive decisions were inevitably made by a human. An RI could eliminate a whole strata of middle management, but it lacked the kind of creative ability which a true leader possessed.

  When he’d tidied up the office work, the butler brought him another sparkling gin. Morton leant on the steel balcony rail to sip the drink, gazing out at the city below as the sun fell below the horizon. He could outline sections of it in his mind, entire districts which Gansu had built, where their government-licensed subsidiaries now provided utility and civic services – his innovation, that. There were other areas, as well, which drew his eye. Old plantations and orchards that now formed the outskirts, green parquetry flocking round the base of the mountains. Gansu’s architects had drawn up plans for beautiful buildings which would fit snugly into those crumpled mini-valleys, expensive exclusive communities providing for Oaktier’s increasingly affluent population. Already, the farmers were being tempted with financial offers and incentives.

  When he looked up to the darkening sky the stars were starting to twinkle. If everything went to plan, his influence would soon stretch out to them, far exceeding the small subcontracts their offplanet offices currently achieved. He controlled Gansu’s board now, and the increased business and rising stock price he’d achieved for them over the last decade had given him near-regal status. There would be no timidity in his expansion plans. The opportunities which lay out there were truly staggering. Entire civil infrastructures to be built. The new phase three junction worlds which would one day rival the Big15. Now was the best time to live.

  He lowered his gaze again to scan the city rooftops. One old medium-sized tower caught his attention. It was the apartment block he and Tara had lived in for most of their marriage; he’d never realized he could see it from his roof garden before. There were no details from this distance, twilight transformed it into a grey slab with parallel lines of light shining out through windows. He took another sip of the cocktail as he stared at it. His memory couldn’t even provide an image of the apartment’s interior. When he’d gone in for rejuvenation six years after the divorce he’d edited away everything but the basic information from his secure store. Now, that life was almost like a series of notes in a file – not real, not something he’d lived through. And yet . . . Twenty years ago, when he’d heard of Tara’s re-life procedure some-thing about it had nagged at him. It was out of character to go and see her, yet he had. The semi-neurotic woman in her new clone body wasn’t anyone he recognized, certainly not the kind of woman he could form an attachment to. He put that down to shock and psychological trauma from the re-life.

  Then the news about Cotal had been filtered out of the unisphere media streams by his e-butler, which had caught the connection to Tara. He’d stopped work in his office – an unheard-of event – and worried about how strange the coincidence was. His staff had made a few discreet inquiries, the results of which had been enough for him to call the police. Their subsequent report on the case had annoyed him with its vagueness and lack of any real conclusion. Rather than kick up a fuss himself, which would draw comment, he’d spoken to some of the senior members of the Shaheef family.

  He hadn’t quite expected someone as renowned as Chief Investigator Myo herself to be assigned the case. But it was a pleasing development; if anyone could sort out what had actually happened, it would be her. His thoughts slipped to her compact body again, and the high possibility of her needing to visit Silent World.

  ‘Morty.’

  He turned round. The dresser and beautician had worked their usual magic. Mellanie was standing silhouetted in the light from the lounge, her auburn hair dried and straightened so it fell down her back, the tiny dress exposing vast amounts of toned young flesh. His disquiet o
ver Tara and Cotal vanished at once as he contemplated what new indecencies he would tutor her in later tonight.

  ‘Do I look all right?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘Perfect.’

  10

  Oscar Monroe and McClain Gilbert took the early morning express from Anshun, passing through StLincoln then Earth-London before arriving at Kerensk. The CST planetary station there operated the gateway to the High Angel, but there was no train. Instead, they disembarked from the express and walked back up the platform to the main concourse. Next was a series of security checks to get into the High Angel transfer section; CST operated the first, a standard deep body scan and luggage examination, before passing them over to the Commonwealth Diplomatic Police Directorate who reviewed all visitor details. The High Angel was the one place where free entry was not a guaranteed right for Commonwealth citizens. As well as all personal details being reviewed by the Diplomatic Police for any criminal record, the file was also forwarded to the High Angel who possessed the ultimate veto on who could enter.

  Oscar waited with a fluttering stomach as the policeman accepted the citizenship ID file from his e-butler and ran a DNA scan to confirm he matched the certified data. He’d never been to the High Angel before and there was always a chance it would refuse him entry, or worse, say why. ‘You ever been before?’ he asked Mac. It was an attempt to appear casual in front of the policeman.

  ‘Five times now,’ McClain said. ‘Forward teams train in the zero-gee sections so we’re ready for any type of space encounter.’

  ‘Damn, all these years on the job, and I never knew that.’ McClain grinned at his friend. They’d known each other for ten years, working together in Merredin’s CST exploratory division; after that much time in a high-pressure profession if you didn’t develop a mutual respect then somebody had to leave. Chain of command was always a nominal concept in the division, you trusted people to do their job right. ‘Oh great, I’ve been risking my life under an Operations Director that doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.’