Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

  It was every bit as bad as she knew it would be. The blood pooling over the white marble. The smell. His face perfectly intact, holding the expression of someone whose prayer had been answered.

  Justine knelt beside him, though in truth her legs could barely hold her weight any more. The wide puddle of his cold blood soaked into her expensive skirt. She reached out and touched his cheek with her fingers, fearful of what she would feel. Lifeless bodies she had seen countless times, including her brother’s. But Kazimir was a Guardian, he didn’t have a memorycell insert. This was genuine death, a life that had ended. She thought she’d left this barbarity behind centuries ago.

  Later there would be anger. Fury. And a bitter, bitter remorse. For now she was just numb. Not understanding how this could have happened despite all her power and authority; all the orders and thinly veiled threats that nothing nothing was to harm him. Now here he was, her beautiful young love: dead. For ever.

  Justine heard a pair of heels clicking on the marble. Someone walking purposefully along the concourse towards her. No doubt who that would be. She smiled forlornly down at Kazimir one last time, then rose to her feet and turned round.

  ‘Senator,’ Paula Myo said. ‘My sympathies.’

  Justine’s smile turned cruel as she glanced down at the dark blood staining her skirt. ‘I told them. I made it very clear to the navy. Kazimir was not to be hurt.’

  ‘The navy didn’t do this.’

  ‘You see, I always thought that I was right, that he was just a naive provincial lad with a head full of nonsense. I have to be right because I’m nearly four centuries old, and I live in mansions and penthouses and I have enough money to buy his world. I had to protect him from himself, from others who were using him.’

  ‘You did everything you could.’

  ‘Then why is he dead, Investigator?’

  ‘There is a leak in the navy, probably more than one.’

  ‘It is real, isn’t it?’ she said with a kind of detached amusement. ‘Kazimir was right all along.’

  ‘Yes, Senator, the Starflyer is real.’

  *

  Wind and current were acting in happy conjunction, pushing the Pathfinder along at a steady clip. In other circumstances, Ozzie would have been quite pleased about that. But not today.

  ‘Isn’t there anything ahead?’ Orion asked with a petulant whine.

  Ozzie switched off his retinal insert’s zoom function, which he’d been using to scan that uncomfortably distant horizon. ‘No,’ he said. Even he thought he sounded defensive.

  Fifteen miles to starboard, and now slightly behind, the last island rose up out of the tranquil blue-grey water. The simple dark green cone was the fourth one they’d tried to reach. Once they’d left their original island behind, the sea’s current had picked up considerably. So much so that they had very little ability to steer. Even with Tochee angling the rudder hard over, they couldn’t vary their course by more than a few degrees.

  They had missed the first island by over ten miles; standing on the raft’s creaking deck to watch despondently as it sank away behind them. It had been larger than the one they’d set sail from, with wide coves and extensive forests. Ozzie hadn’t seen any signs of habitation, even with his retinal inserts on full magnification; but it had looked very promising.

  After the shock of missing landfall, they had swung round straight away for the next island, thirty miles further on. This time with near-constant rowing and the tiller jammed over, they’d got to within a couple of miles as the current swept them onward. Neither of the two exhausted humans had said anything, but they both knew that Tochee could have swum ashore if it wanted to. Their big alien companion had chosen to stay with them.

  From then on there were fewer islands they could aim for, and the current strength had increased noticeably. And now, what might have been their last chance was receding at a respectable speed.

  Ozzie sat down with his back to the mast, looking back, trying not to appear too disappointed. The stiff square of sail was curved tautly as the breeze pushed against it. There wasn’t a lot of point having it up any more. The surface of the sea was flowing as fast as a plains river. He couldn’t work out why it was doing that, either. Seas simply didn’t rush about, there was no hydrological mechanism he could think of which would produce such an effect. It was just one more anomaly which the planet had thrown at them. Ozzie worried that it might prove a fatal one.

  ‘I might be able to tow us back over to the last island,’ Tochee said.

  Ozzie gave the big creature a dubious look. ‘You’re more likely to just wear yourself out. Let’s save acts like that until we get desperate.’

  ‘And we’re not now?’ Orion muttered.

  ‘As long as we’re moving, we’re okay,’ Ozzie said firmly. ‘There will be more islands over the horizon, or even the mainland. It’s when we stop moving that we’re in trouble.’

  Orion’s expression was very sceptical, but he didn’t argue. Tochee pulled the rudder up, then simply shuffled round until it was facing forwards.

  So far they’d eaten about a third of their fresh supplies, Ozzie calculated. If they were a little more careful from now on, the fruit should last them another four or five days. Technically, food wasn’t a problem. Tochee could catch fish for them indefinitely, and the filter pump could produce fresh water. From that point of view they could sail over the entire ocean. However, he was under no illusion about how long the raft would last. The palm frond ropes were already showing signs of swelling and fraying where they bound the log bundles together. When they started to go, their future would be measurable in hours. There were no lifebelts on board. He was now wondering how useful the inflatable tent walls would be in an emergency.

  *

  Ozzie woke with Orion shaking his shoulder.

  ‘Ozzie, I can hear something.’ The boy’s voice was low, as if he was afraid.

  ‘Okay.’ Ozzie pushed his sunglasses up, blinking round. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. When he looked behind them, there was a small trail of bubbles emerging from the stern of the raft. ‘Jeeze, we’re leaving a wake. How fast are we going?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Orion was still subdued.

  Ozzie climbed to his feet, very conscious of the wind. The sail was straining hard, applying a lot of force to the mast. ‘Let’s get that down,’ he said. He and Orion untied the ropes, and lowered the dry grey-brown square. It flapped away enthusiastically as it came down.

  ‘Is there a cause for concern?’ Tochee asked.

  ‘Orion thought he heard something,’ Ozzie said.

  ‘Are air vibrations a danger?’

  ‘Depends what’s making them,’ Ozzie said. Even after all this time, with their expanded vocabulary and literally days devoted to explaining the topic, Tochee still had difficulty with the whole concept of noise.

  ‘Can you hear it?’ Orion asked.

  Ozzie stood still. There was a distinct sound carrying over the water, just loud enough to be heard above the wavelets that lapped against the Pathfinder. A reverberant grumbling, like distant thunder.

  When Ozzie looked forward, trying to pinpoint the sound, he saw the horizon had become indistinct. A thin blanket of fog lay over the water. He zoomed in with his retinal inserts, which revealed nothing. The sound was gradually getting louder.

  ‘I think we should tie ourselves on,’ Ozzie said. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘What is it?’ Orion asked. ‘Please, Ozzie.’

  ‘I dunno, man. Honestly. I’m just taking some precautions here. We’re a long way from land, and if this is a storm brewing up I don’t want anyone going overboard.’

  They busied themselves with some lengths of rope, lashing the ends to the base of the mast. Tochee declined a rope, using its locomotion flesh ridges to anchor itself to the decking.

  When they’d finished, the fog bank was a lot closer, and the noise had become a constant soft roar that continued to build.

  Ozzie stood beside the mast
, hooking one arm round the tall shaft of wood. ‘I don’t get it,’ he complained. ‘I can’t see any storm clouds anywhere.’ Above him in the clear sky, the water specks in the gas halo gleamed with their usual intensity. The sea around them was becoming choppy, with waves rushing forward in unison, carrying the Pathfinder onward. They were starting to rock about from the speed they were travelling. The creaking of overstrained ropes was audible above the roaring.

  Several new water specks rose above the horizon, like small constellations on the move. Ozzie stared at them in puzzlement. Something very weird was happening to his sense of perspective. It was as if the fog bank was shrinking, while the horizon rushed in towards him. Then in a moment of truly terrifying revelation he realized what he was seeing.

  There was no fog bank. It was just a thin line of spray hanging above the waves. Spray thrown up by a waterfall. The sea was pouring over a cliff that extended out to the vanishing point on either side of the Pathfinder.

  White water boiled up directly ahead of the raft, its vigorous spume drenching Ozzie. The raft tilted alarmingly as it juddered over the churning water, forcing him to cling to the mast as his feet slipped. Looking to starboard he could see the entire sea cascading down in a vast arc that thundered further and further towards . . . there was no bottom beneath them, only the empty void of the gas halo.

  Ozzie lifted his head back to stare at the false stars above, his face a mask of incredulity and pure rage. ‘You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!’ he screamed at the sky.

  The Pathfinder fell off the edge of the world.

  The End of Pandora’s Star

  The Commonwealth Saga will be concluded in Judas Unchained