Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

‘The cybersphere is susceptible to monitoring even if we encrypt – in fact, especially if we encrypt. Meetings can be spotted and observed, but it’s a question of balance. You obviously believe it’s the less risky option for the location and situation.’

  ‘Very good. It’s nice to know Stig was actually listening to me. We’ll turn you into a covert operative yet, Kazimir McFoster.’

  Kazimir had spent the afternoon reviewing the list, and making notes. He kept his proposals straightforward, complexity in this kind of operation could trip you up. He was sure that simplicity was the key. It would be interesting to hear what Elvin said about his tradecraft.

  Most of the time had been spent researching through the unisphere. Hundreds of separate queries had returned dozens of answers. It was a question of sifting through them and deciding how they could be applied. Stig had always warned him the job would be boring for ninety-nine per cent of the time.

  He started walking through the park again, alert for any signs of an observation team boxing him. Of course there was one query he had stoically resisted launching into the unisphere ever since he received his first insert. And he could never break cover to make contact with a civilian while he was on a mission as important as this one. He just couldn’t.

  He reached the end of Palisades Park, and crossed over to Colorado Avenue. Five minutes later he was back in his hotel room. Air conditioning reduced the temperature to comfort-able. The darkened glass of the window let in a few specks of light, hinting at the city grid outside. There were almost no sounds from the traffic. He kicked off his trainers and flopped back on the bed’s jellmattress. It was far too early to sleep. Any good, dependable Guardian member would carry on planning to acquire the items needed back on Far Away.

  Kazimir closed his eyes and saw the darkness of the tent after night had fallen on Mount Herculaneum. Starlight showed the dusky outline of the angel’s face as she rose above him. She smiled, proud of him, and excited by him, by the things she confessed in low whispers that she wanted him to do.

  Nothing in his life had ever come close to the wonder of that time. No girl had – could – ever match her, in any respect. He’d gone on with his life, accepted that nothing would ever be that good again, knowing he could put it all behind him because he would never see her again. She was on Earth, and he was on Far Away, a safe four hundred light-years distant. And so it would remain. For ever.

  ‘Goddamnit,’ he shouted to the room. He lurched up, and came close to slapping himself. Instead, he took a breath, perched on the end of the bed, and told his e-butler to open a link to the planetary cybersphere.

  ‘I want an identity check on an Earth citizen,’ he told his e-butler. ‘See if there’s any reference available on Justine Burnelli.’

  *

  I ought to be getting used to this, Paula thought. She wasn’t, though. And that was far more painful than any irony.

  For once she’d gone to Mel Rees’s office. It was a political thing. This was her mess, her responsibility. Once again.

  Not that it was any comfort, but Mel Rees seemed to be as unhappy about the meeting as her. His office was only margin-ally bigger than the one she occupied. Although his view of the Eiffel Tower was a lot better. The door closed behind her, and he sat behind a big old walnut desk that was devoid of any clutter.

  ‘So what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Paula. Some psycho takes out a half block of Venice Coast, kills nineteen people in the process, and you don’t know? This is not a good start for the Agency. Columbia is demanding results, and he’s not using nice language to ask.’

  ‘I am aware of the Agency’s situation. What happened out there concerns me a lot more.’

  ‘I understand how concerned you are.’ He hesitated, winding himself up, like a doctor preparing to break bad news. ‘You’ve been on this case a long time. Maybe . . .’

  ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘It is not time for me to move on and hand over to someone else.’

  Rees didn’t argue. He seemed to shrink a little further behind his desk. ‘All right. But be warned, Paula, there are questions being raised about your suitability. Things are different here now, and they’re going to change even more. If the order comes down to move you on, it isn’t one that I’ll be able to shield you from. If it wasn’t for your record outside the Guardians case—’

  ‘I am aware of how my reputation protects me. And you know none of your other investigators would be able to run Johansson down.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The thought was visibly worrying him. ‘So what can you tell me about Venice Coast?’

  ‘I’ve been supervising the forensics operation, trying to reconstruct the sequence of events. It added very little to what we already know.’ She told her e-butler to run a file on the deputy director’s wall-mounted portal. It produced an image from one of the observation team’s sensors, showing the man poised in Rigin’s shattered office window the moment before he dived into the canal. ‘The face is unknown to any database, so we assume it’s a cellular reprofiling. There’s no visual sensor image of him arriving or leaving Anacona at the CST station.’

  ‘A native, then?’

  ‘Unlikely, but we haven’t ruled out the possibility. As far as we can determine, his weapon systems were all wetwired, with the exception of a simple arm dispenser. We recovered the receptionist’s memorycell, and read the last ten minutes. I acquired it myself.’ The memory was now as clear as any of her own. She could recall the man walking into the gallery. She’d sat up a little straighter behind the reception desk, smiling when she noticed his youth and looks. Then his arm was raised, something moving below the jacket sleeve—

  There was nothing else, no time for her to feel pain, or horror, or fear. Death had been instantaneous. ‘We were lucky to get that,’ she said. ‘The way the gallery was built meant the ground floor had a degree of protection from the plasma surge after the blast. There were other bodies down there, but they were ninety per cent vaporized. And the bodyguard, Roberto, he was fortunate, too. His armour frame wasn’t exactly designed with a superthermal charge in mind, but its deflector field did provide some shielding. The frame’s processors contained some interesting records. Just before the blast it had managed to ward off an ion pulse, then the armour received some terrible physical impacts. Someone used poor Roberto as a punchbag. Our intruder was one sophisticated boy. I asked our new colleagues in the Enforcement Directorate what it would take to build someone up to that standard. They actually had trouble working out the specs for me. Wetwired force fields are cutting edge.’

  Mel took a long disapproving glance at the image in the portal. ‘Do you think Johansson has a lot of them?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s Johansson’s at all. Elvin hasn’t acquired this kind of capability. Besides, he wrecked Elvin’s operation. No, he was sent by someone else.’

  ‘Any guesses?’

  ‘Logically, there are three possibilities. A deep Commonwealth security department sent him in, something we’re not cleared to know about. There have always been rumours about the Executive office having its own intelligence sector. Why they’d use an operative in this instance I don’t know, unless it was to send a very clear message to Johansson that we’re not going to tolerate him any more. The same applies to CST. They could certainly put someone like this together, and they’re not likely to forgive or forget the sabotage attempt on the Second Chance.’

  ‘And the third possibility?’

  ‘The Starflyer sent him.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘It’s an option, you have to admit that.’

  ‘No, I don’t. What about Rigin’s enemies? He was a black market arms merchant for God’s sake. His kind don’t settle disagreements over a meal and a bottle of wine.’

  ‘A rival wouldn’t bother destroying the equipment Rigin was collecting, they wouldn’t even know about it. No, the timing indicates someone who had the same information
we did. That fits the first two possibilities. Our operations are available to the Executive. It might even fit the third.’

  ‘No. Paula, no! There is no third option. The Starflyer is a cult conspiracy theory. You do not include it in any official report. If you do, I will not even attempt to cover your ass. Don’t you see how political this is? It had to be the President or CST. We can investigate many things, but not them.’

  ‘Nobody is above the law.’

  ‘Damnit. If the Executive authorized it, then it is lawful. Same for CST; God, Sheldon and Ozzie own whole planets including a Big15, they are governments.’

  ‘That doesn’t make what happened right. They killed people.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Paula,’ Mel was almost pleading. ‘Let me talk to Columbia, let me find out if this is safe. You never know, I might actually be right. It might have been one of Rigin’s enemies.’

  She considered the request. ‘Very well, I’ll complete the investigation into the gallery explosion itself. How it is carried forward after that, and who it’s assigned to, will be your call.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘If the investigation is blocked politically, it will be because it was either CST or the Executive which ordered the assault, in which case I’m not interested. Not that I don’t want to see justice done, but it would not be possible to ever achieve justice in those circumstances. I would be wasting my time, which I could be using to pursue Johansson and Elvin. If Columbia wants us to proceed, then that’s a different matter.’

  ‘If we get the all clear, it’ll be to find out who Rigin was at war with. Do you really want to spend time on that? You’ve got the resources to track down Johansson now.’

  ‘If we get the all clear, you and I will need to know which of us is right.’

  ‘So, do you want the case?’

  ‘I’ll let you know when you bring an answer from Columbia. Until then, I’m still dedicating the team to finding Johansson.’

  ‘Okay. I can live with that.’

  ‘There’s something else I want you to raise with Columbia.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Elvin was after some very advanced equipment; I really think it’s time for every export to Far Away to be searched. Our current policy of random checks is simply not acceptable any more. Not that it ever was to me.’

  ‘I’ll put it on the agenda.’

  ‘Good.’

  *

  Hoshe Finn was just sitting down to supper when the apart-ment’s door sensors showed him who was approaching. He muttered: ‘Holy shit,’ and stood bolt upright. His wife, Inima, gave him a surprised look, then glanced at the little screen showing the camera picture. ‘Isn’t that . . .?’

  ‘Yep.’ Hoshe went through the lounge and arrived at the door the same time as Paula Myo. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked after he’d invited her in.

  ‘No, everything is fine, thank you.’ She looked him up and down. ‘You’ve lost some weight.’

  ‘Not before time,’ Inima said. ‘We’re considering having a child.’

  Paula produced a genuine smile. ‘Congratulations. Will you be carrying it?’

  ‘Heavens no,’ Inima said. ‘It’ll be a vitro womb pregnancy.’

  ‘Right.’

  That seemed to exhaust the investigator’s small talk. Hoshe and Inima exchanged a mildly bewildered look.

  ‘Do you want to join us for supper?’ Inima asked.

  ‘No thank you, it’s mid-afternoon Paris time. I caught the express.’

  ‘We can talk on the balcony if you’d like,’ Hoshe said as his wife shot him a desperate glare.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ Paula said.

  ‘I’ll just get on with catching up on some work,’ Inima assured her.

  The balcony on the little apartment barely had room for the small round table and two chairs that were pressed up against the railing. Hoshe shuffled round the table and sat down. Paula stood by the rail, taking in the view. The thirty-storey apartment block was in Darklake City’s Malikoi district, a long way back from the shore. Paula could look out and see the parks and elaborate buildings which meandered along the shoreline, she could even pick out the tower behind the big marina where Morton used to live.

  ‘You have a nice home, Hoshe.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  She left the rail and sat opposite him. ‘I need some detective work doing. This is not an official request, it’s a . . .’

  ‘A favour,’ he supplied gently.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t like working outside channels, do you, Paula?’

  ‘I don’t have a lot of choice in this particular case. I believe my Agency is compromised. That’s why I’ve come to you, and a few others I worked with outside the old Directorate. You can make inquiries that won’t be registered in our office.’

  ‘Compromised by whom?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But they will be very highly placed inside the Commonwealth government, perhaps even the Executive itself. If they find out about this, it won’t exactly help your career.’

  ‘What have they done?’

  ‘What they always do, play politics and manoeuvre among their own kind. But this time it’s resulted in people being killed.’

  ‘Okay. What do you need?’

  ‘Have you seen the recordings of the Venice Coast bomb?’

  ‘Hell yes. Mellanie has been playing them just about non-stop.’

  ‘Mellanie?’ Paula hesitated. ‘Mellanie Rescorai?’

  ‘None other. I sometimes think I did the wrong thing letting the demon out of the bottle.’

  ‘You let genies out of bottles, Hoshe, not demons.’

  ‘Not in this case, believe me. After the court case she went on and made some softcore TSI biogdrama, Murderous Seduction. Did you access it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It got a huge rating. The actor playing me looked like a sumo wrestler for heaven’s sake. They got you about right, though. Anyway, Mellanie won a lot of media attention; certainly locally, so Alessandra Baron took her on as Oaktier’s rep for her show. She’s actually quite good. I think she’s got her own personality line as well; all the usual crap, swimwear, holograms, monthly TSI releases, scents, food, there’s even a Murderous Seduction cocktail. She’s got quite a fan club these days.’

  ‘Strange. She didn’t seem the type. I don’t normally underestimate people so poorly.’

  ‘Yeah, there’s some politicians she interviewed who made that mistake when she started out. They don’t any more.’

  ‘And she’s been showing the Venice Coast recordings?’

  ‘Every news show has. I just watched her because she gets the decent interviews; it was one of Rafael Columbia’s deputies, I think.’ He gave Paula a cautious glance. ‘Mellanie was really pressing the point about how you kept fouling up the Johansson case. Her words.’

  ‘I’m sure she was.’

  ‘So where do I tie in with what happened on Venice Coast?’

  ‘This is not public knowledge, but not all of the equipment Rigin was collecting got destroyed in the blast. Several items were being stored downstairs. We managed to retrieve them.’

  ‘What kind of items?’

  ‘One was a very high-power superconducting microphase modulator. Its regulator software was modified by a fix that apparently came from the Shansorel Partnership, that’s a specialist software house right here in Darklake City. Elvin couldn’t have placed a regular order for it, this is really technical stuff. They would need an expert brief. And, Hoshe, they would have known it wasn’t a legitimate contract.’

  ‘What was the modulator used for?’

  A slight frown crossed Paula’s forehead. ‘We’re not sure. The best guess forensics could come up with from the items we know were delivered is some kind of customized force field. Though that doesn’t explain half of the components.’

  ‘Okay, so you want
me to look into the Shansorel Partnership?’

  ‘Please, yes.’

  ‘What exactly am I hunting for? And how much pressure do you want me to put on these guys?’

  ‘I want to know how deep their connection with Elvin goes, if it’s long-term, or if they were just short of money one time and took a no-questions contract to get the bank off their backs. I’m hoping for the long-term, of course, that way I can run a deep-cover tracker on their contact with Elvin’s team. How you want to play it is up to you, there’s always a weak link in any group of people, see if you can find which one it is in Shansorel, and make them sweat.’

  ‘Okay. But I’m puzzled by this. You’re going after Elvin. How does that help you with the Agency’s internal leak?’

  ‘Standard elimination entrapment. Each suspect is given a different piece of information in isolation; then I sit back and see who reacts.’

  *

  Decades ago Thompson Burnelli had made a huge mistake. He assumed that because he was a man and relatively fit, his reach and strength gave him an easy advantage, he would beat Paula Myo at squash. He was good at squash – no false modesty. Whenever he was in Washington, he would visit the Clinton Estate, his ultra-exclusive social and sports club, where no small percentage of Intersolar government business was conducted. Two or three times a week he would play his fellow senators, or their aides, or some committee chair, or a Grand Family representative. Standards were high, and the Estate’s professional was an excellent coach if any part of his game should slip.

  With Paula Myo he learned that placement and precision were everything. She barely moved out of the centre of the court, from where she sent the ball slamming into places he wasn’t – every time. He had staggered out afterwards, red faced, slick with sweat, and fearing for his pounding heart. It was eleven years before he finally won a game; two years after a rejuvenation when he was at his absolute physical peak, while she was due into rejuvenation in another three years. So their cycle continued over the decades.

  Right now, she wasn’t ten years out of rejuvenation, and he didn’t care about points, his only concern was to avoid a coronary before he lost, dashing from one side of the court to the other chasing after her calm shots. Anyone else he played who lacked perhaps his status or seniority – aides, lobbyists, new senators – would allow him to win the odd game. Not every game, but enough to make him feel good. It was simple politics. That would never apply to Paula. It took him a while, but eventually he worked out why. Throwing a game would be dishonest, the one thing she could never be.