Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘And us? What about us?’

  She smiled cheekily, picking up a strawberry and licking it in a suitably wicked fashion. ‘You don’t think I give myself like that to anyone I don’t care about, do you?’

  His answering smile was one of cautious relief. She pulled her chair round the table until she was pressed up beside him. With him watching in silent fascination she picked up another strawberry and held it delicately in her teeth. Very slowly she undid her bathrobe and pulled it open, then leant in towards him, guiding the strawberry into his mouth. He bit into it, their lips touching.

  ‘Oh God.’ He was trembling, his eyes damp.

  ‘Now you feed me something.’

  Dudley held up a slim slice of pancake dripping with maple syrup. She laughed as the drops fell on her breasts, then nibbled her way up the pancake slice. Dudley leapt at her, knocking the breakfast trays across the table. She was amazed he’d shown that much restraint, and laughed as her chair went flying backwards. They both tumbled onto the floor, with Dudley tugging frantically at his own bathrobe.

  He fucked her there and then on the expensive moozaki rug with orange juice leaking down on top of them from the overturned glasses on the table. Then she was pulled over to the bed and fucked again.

  ‘I’m going to need another bath,’ she said after he’d finally spent himself. Even though he’d done his best to lick all the syrup and juicy lolabeans off her chest and thighs she was still awfully sticky.

  ‘I’ll join you.’

  She grinned, snuggling up against him. ‘So when did you meet Paula Myo?’

  ‘Before the flight,’ he said, sighing. ‘They took me out of rejuve for the interview.’

  ‘They did what?’

  ‘I was undergoing partial rejuvenation before the flight. There wasn’t time for a full one, but I was quite old, physiologically, so they were going to bring my age down as much as they could before they started my crew training. Paula Myo had me taken out. She questioned me and Wendy. I can’t remember much of what I said. It was very disorientating having the procedure interrupted. That’s why I wasn’t as young as I wanted to be when we left. Not as young as Oscar Monroe wanted, either.’

  ‘Don’t start putting any value on what that old lush says. You said Myo was quizzing you about a break-in.’

  ‘Yeah. My bitch ex talked to Bradley Johansson, who was masquerading as a reporter; he asked her about the organizations who funded my observation. The next thing we know our home was broken into and every file copied from the house array.’

  ‘What did Myo think the connection was?’

  ‘That moron Johansson believed one of the charities funding my observation was a front for the Starflyer. That’s the alien . . .’

  ‘I know what the Starflyer is. When did this happen, exactly?’

  ‘Right after the attack on the Second Chance. Myo had the authority to do pretty much anything she wanted when they gave her that case, including yanking me out of rejuve.’

  ‘And she’d tracked down that connection. Why?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. She just said she was looking for anomalies; anyone connected to the Second Chance project was reviewed. But the queer thing is that Johansson knew she’d find the connection, he told Wendy to give Myo a message.’

  ‘Really, what was it?’

  ‘Stop concentrating on the details, it’s the big picture that counts.’

  ‘Weird. Do you remember which charity Johansson was suspicious about?’

  ‘Yeah, the Cox Educational charity.’

  ‘Never heard of them.’ She patted his arm as she stood up. ‘You know what you’ve just been doing, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Talking about what happened to your previous body as if it was you. You’re starting to connect your body lives. Well done. I told you I was good for you.’ She blew a kiss at his startled young face and went into the bathroom.

  The big sunken tub was filled to its rim, with a mound of soapy bubbles floating on the surface. Mellanie stepped in, sighing gratefully as she sat down in the warm scented water. She turned the nozzles on, welcoming the gentle flow of air bubbles around her body as they eased away the aches. Dudley hadn’t been gentle the last time. His desperation and fierceness had made it a lot more interesting than his usual monotonous perfunctory act.

  She turned up the music and rested her head back on the rim cushions. Her virtual hand touched the SI icon. ‘I need some financial information,’ she said.

  ‘You know we cannot provide confidential records, Mellanie.’

  ‘I just need what’s on public record. It might be a little difficult to track it all down, that’s all, and I don’t want to go through the show’s researchers.’ And I can’t use poor old Paul Cramley any more.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘The Cox Educational charity helped fund Dr Bose’s observation. How much did they give him?’

  ‘In total, one point three million Earth dollars; spread over eleven years.’

  ‘Where does their money come from?’

  ‘It is a private charity.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The source of the money is not open to inspection.’

  ‘Okay, so who runs it?’

  ‘The registered commissioners are three lawyers, Ms Daltra, Mr Pomanskie, and Mr Seeton, who all work for Bromley, Waterford, and Granku, a New York legal firm.’

  ‘Humm.’ She ran a sponge along her legs. ‘What else does the Cox support?’

  ‘It contributed to over a hundred universities and colleges across the Commonwealth. Do you want the list?’

  ‘Not right now.’

  ‘Would you like the total amount of money given to the other institutions.’

  She opened her eyes, suddenly very interested – it wasn’t like the SI to volunteer information. ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Seventy thousand Earth dollars.’

  ‘For each one?’

  ‘No. That is the total payout.’

  ‘Hell. How long has it been going for?’

  ‘Fourteen years. It shut down two years after Dudley Bose observed the envelopment. Six months after Paula Myo inter-viewed Dudley Bose.’

  *

  ‘So, most hated man in the Commonwealth,’ Carys said with a taunting smile. ‘Quite a title. As voted for on the Maxis unisphere poll. Never guessed my little nephew would be so famous.’

  Mark just grunted in response, and wormed down deeper into his favourite chair. They were all sitting round in the living room, giving Carys a taste of last year’s Ulon Valley wine before lunch.

  ‘Nobody here cares,’ he said. ‘It’s not important.’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s only relevant to us, isn’t it? Us, being decadent metropolitan types practising our intellectual snobbery over you poor country bumpkins.’

  Mark shrugged, smiling. ‘You said it.’

  ‘Wake up and smell the coffee,’ she snapped. ‘The media is going to screw your beautiful little town into the bedrock. I know from my contacts that Alessandra Baron is already planning a follow-up. Have you tried booking a skiing holiday here for this next season? I did. They’re offering fifty per cent discounts already. Nobody’s coming.’

  ‘And you can fix all that, can you?’

  Carys exchanged a glance with Liz. ‘You need some serious PR, Mark. And I’m the only expert you’ve got.’

  ‘You called her!’ Mark accused Liz.

  ‘You have to listen to somebody, baby. Everyone around here is being very careful not to lay any blame. To your face.’

  He turned to Carys, appealing. ‘I never said it the way that interview came out. They edited me to make it sound bad.’

  ‘The technical term is raunching up,’ Carys said. ‘They always do it. We can use that to fight back.’

  ‘How?’ he said suspiciously.

  ‘I can get you interviewed on other shows. Live studio interviews, so they can’t mess with your message. You’ll need a lot of coachin
g before we let you on, and you’ll have to grow a decent sense of humour. But it can be done.’

  ‘I’ve got a sense of humour,’ he protested indignantly.

  Carys opened her mouth to answer. There was a bright flash outside. Mark and Liz frowned in unison. There were no thunderclouds anywhere.

  Out in the garden, Sandy was squealing as if she was in pain. Both parents jumped up and went through the open patio doors.

  ‘What’s the matter, poppet?’ Mark asked.

  Panda was going berserk, barking, jumping up and down. Sandy ran to her mother, arms flung wide. ‘In the sky,’ she wailed. ‘My eyes hurt. I see purple.’

  Mark’s wrist array crashed. The sky to the south-east turned dazzling white. ‘Damn, what the hell . . .’ All the autopickers had stopped. As had the tractors. Every bot he could see was motionless and silent.

  The smear of silky light above the mountains was draining away to leave the normal blue sky in its wake. Then a vivid rose-gold sun climbed up from behind the peaks, its surface writhing with webs of black fire. It cast long moving shadows across the ground.

  ‘That’s the Regents,’ Liz murmured. ‘Oh my God.’

  The new sun was rising on a stalk of brilliant raging flame. All the remaining snow on the Regents vaporized in a single violent white explosion. The tops of the mountains looked as if they were vibrating. They started to crumble just as the ferocious vapour cloud swarmed round them, obliterating them from sight.

  Sandy’s shrieks reached a crescendo.

  ‘They nuked it,’ Mark shouted in awe. ‘They nuked the detector station.’ He watched the mushroom cloud swelling out, its colour darkening, deepening as it spread its bruised perimeter across the clean sky. Then the soundblast reached them.

  *

  Mellanie ordered a light salad from room service before dressing in jeans and a coal-black sweatshirt from her own fashion line. She tied her hair back in a simple loose tail, just using moisturizer on her face, no make-up. It was important she looked serious for this call.

  One of the scowling housemaids brought the salad while Dudley was splashing about cheerfully in the bathroom. She spent a couple of minutes clearing up the mess that was the two breakfast trays. Mellanie gave her a twenty-dollar tip. If anything the scowl was deeper when she left.

  ‘Double screw you,’ Mellanie told the door.

  She picked at the salad for a while, sorting out the pitch in her mind, then sat at the bureau and used the room’s desktop array to place a call to Alessandra.

  Alessandra’s image appeared on the array’s screen. She was sitting in the green room’s make-up chair, a paper bib round her neck to protect her fabulous dress. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she demanded.

  ‘I’m on Elan.’

  ‘Okay, in that case I’ll let you live. As it is, you’re this close to being fired.’ She held her hand up, thumb and forefinger almost touching. ‘Don’t ever put a block on your unisphere address code again. Now: I need your follow-up report in an hour. And it better be a prize-winner, or that tiny little arse of yours will reach orbit.’

  ‘I’m on to something.’

  ‘What?’

  Mellanie took a breath. ‘Paula Myo thinks the Starflyer is real.’

  ‘You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that. I give you every chance, more than I’ve given anybody else, and not just because you’re good in bed. And this drivel is what you come up with?’

  ‘Listen! She put me on to Dudley Bose.’

  ‘Do you know where he is? Everybody in the biz is going apeshit trying to find him.’

  ‘I’ve been fucking him for information, yeah.’ She tossed her head, keeping her face expressionless as she looked at Alessandra’s image. ‘And like you say, I’m very good at it. I found something out.’

  ‘All right, darling, have your fifteen seconds of fame. What have you got?’

  ‘One of the charities that funded Bose’s observation of the Dyson Pair is a front organization. The Starflyer arranged for us to see the envelopment. It wanted us to investigate the barrier.’

  ‘Proof?’ Alessandra snapped.

  ‘The charity had secret bank account funding,’ she said, hoping to God it was slightly true, but she had to get Alessandra behind the investigation. ‘I checked through all its other donations; they’re tokens, validity in case anyone ran a quick review. And it was shut down right after the discovery. But the important thing is that Myo knew this years ago. Don’t you see what that means? All these years she never caught Johansson and Elvin, she knew all along. She might even be working with the Guardians!’

  ‘This is your vendetta,’ Alessandra said.

  Mellanie could see the uncertainty, and pressed on doggedly. ‘But it will be your story. Give me a research team, let me work it. Hell, take charge of a research team yourself. That’s what Myo’s telling us. Us, the media. This is all public source information, verifiable if you know where to look. We can prove the Starflyer exists. For God’s sake, Wendy Bose actually met Bradley Johansson! Did that ever come out in any interview? This is real, Alessandra, I promise.’

  ‘I want to talk to Bose.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The SI’s icon sprang up in Mellanie’s virtual vision. ‘Get on the floor behind the bed,’ it told her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The navy detector network is registering wormholes emerging inside the Commonwealth,’ the SI said. ‘The Regents’ detector station is under attack. Get behind the bed, it will provide some cover.’

  ‘Mellanie?’ Alessandra asked, frowning.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she hesitated, not really believing. Then her virtual vision showed inserts coming on line, activated by the SI. They were systems she neither recognized nor understood.

  ‘We will try and remain in contact with you,’ the SI said.

  ‘Mellanie, there’s some kind of alert—’ Alessandra said. Her voice had risen in alarm.

  Mellanie dived for the bed. There was a brilliant flash in the sky outside.

  *

  Wilson was alone in his awful white-glowing office, waiting for people to arrive for the second management meeting of the morning, the one on ship production scheduling and subcomponent delivery supervision. The override priority call which came in from the planetary defence division made him sit upright in his chair as it delivered big emergency icons to his virtual vision. The wormhole detector network was picking up unidentified quantum signatures inside Commonwealth space. Wormholes were opening in several star systems.

  The office began to dim, scarlet and sapphire digits slipped along the ceiling and down the walls as emerald graphics flowered across the floor, the projections stabilized, arching out into the air to place Wilson at the centre of a tactical star chart. He was close to the boundary of the Commonwealth, where phase three space dwindled away into galactic night. Twenty-three star systems were encircled by amber icons, with small script windows full of digits and icons.

  ‘Twenty-three wormholes?’ he murmured in dismay. The navy only had three functional warships, and eight scoutships refitted as missile carriers. Then the dataflow increased, clarifying the information coming in from the detector network. Forty-eight separate wormholes had opened in each of the twenty-three star systems, bringing the total to over eleven hundred. That was about the same number of gateways that CST operated in total. ‘Son of a bitch.’ He couldn’t believe the numbers, he who’d been to Dyson Alpha and seen the scale of the Prime civilization for himself.

  More information was pouring through now, complementing the navy network. The cyberspheres on Anshun, Belembe, Martaban, Balkash, and Samar were already suffering huge glitches and area crashes. Reports of explosions were coming in from the government systems of those planets, in almost every case corresponding to electronic failure zones. Twenty-three translucent globes expanded into Wilson’s image, representing the planets under attack. Detailed imagery was hard to find for any of them. Land survey satellites, geosynchron
ous relay platforms, industrial stations, and high-inclination meteorological sensors were being systematically blasted out of orbit. Wormholes appeared as bright scarlet diamonds poised over the planets. They winked in and out of existence, changing position by the minute to avoid sensor lock. Radar tracked high-velocity projectiles flying out of them at each emergence.

  The navy was losing contact with its detector stations on Elan, Whalton, Pomona, and Nattavaara, all planets in phase three space with relatively small populations. One by one the stations were dropping off the network, reducing the resolution in the display. No stations at all had survived on Molina, Olivenza, Kozani, and Balya; phase three worlds which weren’t even open to general settlement yet.

  Anna materialized beside him, a ghostly grey outline. It was as if they were both on their acceleration couches back on the Second Chance again. ‘They started with nukes!’ she said, aghast.

  ‘We know how they fight battles,’ he said, deliberately harsh, numbing himself to what all the display graphics really meant. With her there it was easier to haul back on his own emotions. He was the commander, he had to keep calm and analytical, to suppress that small part of himself that wanted to run out of the office and head for the hills. ‘Get Columbia into the command circuit. And find our ship positions for me.’

  ‘All of them?’ There was a lot of bitterness in the question.

  ‘Do it!’ His own hands were busy pulling planetary government civil defence data out of the unisphere. Little blue lights appeared on the twenty-three planet representations: cities with force fields. On the four start-up worlds, only the CST stations were protected.

  Rafael Columbia came on line, appearing on the other side of Wilson from Anna. ‘There are so many,’ he said, and for once even he sounded intimidated and uncertain. ‘We’re launching combat aerobots now. They should provide some interceptor coverage against those projectiles, but only around major population centres. Damnit, we should have built ten times this many.’

  ‘Get every working city force field up,’ Wilson told him. ‘And not just on these twenty-three worlds. There’s no guarantee this is the limit of the invasion. Use the planetary cyberspheres to issue a mass warning, I want people to get under cover. That’s a start.’