“I’m sorry,” Justine said. “But I still can’t lock that down.”
“Confront him,” Gore said. “Put him in a position where he has to make a hard choice. That should tell us who he’s playing for.”
“That seems reasonable,” Paula said. “We still don’t know exactly how the Starflyer controls humans. I’m expecting an answer to that shortly.”
“I hope you’re not relying on Senate Security to supply it,” Gore said.
Justine gave him a fierce look.
“No. We secured Isabella Halgarth. Her mind is being examined by the Raiel for me.”
“Oh,” Gore said, slightly taken aback. “Okay, that’s a decent pedigree.”
“Do you have any ideas how we can approach Sheldon?” Paula asked.
Gore gave Justine a hard look.
“Me?” she asked.
“Yeah, you. Nobody in the Commonwealth is going to say no to meeting you right now.”
“I’m not sure we should be exposing the Senator to any further possible confrontation with Starflyer agents,” Paula said.
“Hear hear,” Justine muttered.
“Campbell,” Gore said quickly. “Use him. He’s senior enough to get a direct line to Nigel.”
“All right,” Justine said. “I can probably arrange that.”
“Have you got any idea what the Starflyer’s next move will be?” Gore asked.
“Not specifically,” Paula said. “I can only go by earlier Guardian releases. If they are correct it will return to Far Away. I already have a Senate Security covert observation team in place on Boongate watching for just such an attempt.”
“I’ll reinforce it with our own people,” Gore said. “If we don’t gather enough open political support to force Doi into acknowledging the threat we may have to shut the wormhole down by ourselves to prevent it going through.”
“That’s risky,” Justine said.
“Better than being dead, girl.”
“Where is Mellanie right now?” Justine asked.
“She went to LA with a Senate Security escort,” Paula said. “She said she had to collect Dudley Bose. She was worried about him.”
“The reporter whore has got her claws into Bose?” Gore said. “Christ!”
“I think she should be brought in,” Justine said. “Investigator, if you’re finally satisfied she’s not working for the Starflyer, she could be helpful to us. She obviously has connections of her own. We need information as much as we need allies, however unlikely they are.”
“I’ll certainly suggest that to her,” Paula said.
“And I’ll call Campbell,” Justine said.
Stig rolled out of bed just before dawn. His e-shielded room at the top of the rental house was almost empty; whitewashed plaster walls, bare carbon floor panels, a crude dresser with a big china bowl and a jug of water on top. Shuttered doors opened onto a tiny Juliet balcony that gave him a view over the red tile rooftops of Armstrong City’s Scottish district. Grime-laden solar-charged globes rested in a series of alcoves at shoulder height around the walls, their glow diminished to a moonlight spark after eight hours of darkness. As he always left the balcony doors closed during the day, there was never enough light to fully recharge them.
He crossed the room and swung the thick burgundy curtain away from the arch that led to the tiny bathroom. A couple of polyphoto bulbs came on as he stepped in, filling the room with green-tinted light. Because of the city’s lack of basic infrastructure, the toilet was a self-contained unit, an algaereactor made by an EcoGreen company on Earth over a century ago. Whatever biological processes went on in the compostor chamber behind the wall, the algae and bacteria certainly needed refreshing. The smell that drifted up made Stig’s eyes water every morning. He peered at himself in the mirror, not liking the face he saw. It had been reprofiled after the Oaktier to LA run, giving him small flat ears, a squashed nose, and skin that was a couple of shades darker than his original tone. The thick stubble was now ebony, while his close-cut hair remained mouse-brown. His own mother really hadn’t recognized him when he returned.
The rental house got its water from big semiorganic precipitator leaves that hung from the eaves, which was heated by a row of solar panels up on the flat roof. Half of the hot tank had been emptied by his fellow residents last night, but Stig was always among the first to rise in the morning, so the water that squirted out of the shower nozzle was reasonably warm.
He stood under the spray and started to wash himself down. Water on Earth had always fascinated him, the speed it fell, the hard strike of droplets on skin. Here on Far Away water was a much gentler substance.
Olwen McOnna squeezed into the small cubical. She was only a few centimeters shorter than he was, with a lean slim body that made her heavy breasts even more prominent. Red star OCtattoos glowed on her round cheeks sending trailers coiling down her neck, which made her gaunt face even more hawkish. She pressed up against him, and he felt the rough scar tissue on her belly where the healskin had recently come off the burn she’d received when her force field skeleton was overloaded by a plasma shot. There were other scars he knew of on her body, acquired over the last few weeks. He had his own personal reminders of the increasing violence in Armstrong City; his left arm was still difficult to move.
“The morning,” Olwen said, “the one and only time men can always be relied on.” Her hand slid down to his erection, guiding the tip of his cock between her legs. He gripped her buttocks, lifting her feet off the shower floor, pushing her back into the tiled wall as he impaled her. She snarled in rough delight; her arms twined around his neck to hold herself in place as he thrust repeatedly.
They clung to each other for a while after the climax, water splashing over both of them as tingling nerves returned to normality.
“Do you think that finally got me pregnant?” she mumbled, lowering her feet. “It certainly felt good.”
“Well, thank the dreaming heavens for that.”
“If I was pregnant, you’d have to take me off active duty.”
“Is that why you’re fucking me?”
She grinned. “You got a better reason?”
Actually, he didn’t, but he could hardly say that. They’d started sleeping together weeks ago. The constant danger, the adrenaline buzz, the fear, it all kicked the primal urges into high gear. And he knew damn well she didn’t want to quit active duty.
Olwen turned around, letting the spray wash down her back. Stig finished soaping himself down, and stepped out. She joined him a minute later when he was almost finished toweling himself dry.
A long list of messages had arrived in his hold file overnight. He started working through them, building up a summary of events. The Institute had attacked another two clan villages in the Dessault Mountains, with thankfully few casualties. The clans were watching the movements of the Institute troops closely now; they’d been caught out too many times when the raids started, suffering awful fatalities. Surprise ambushes were becoming rare, although combating the Institute forays was using up a lot of clan members, members who should be helping to prepare for the planet’s revenge right now. Stig didn’t have as many people working in his teams as he would have liked.
There had been a couple of disturbances in the city during the night, not quite large enough to qualify as riots, but news about the navy ships had stirred up the general level of anxiety. Shops had been looted, some fires started, cars stolen and used as barricades. Sparky residents flung missiles at police and Institute troops.
The teams that Stig had on duty during the night had been busy tracking Institute troop movements. On the map in his virtual vision it was clear what they were doing, consolidating their hold along a broad passage between First Foot Fall Plaza and the start of Highway One outside the city.
An Institute-assisted police team had raided a warehouse in the docks. Stig recognized it as one he’d been using to store equipment in right up until three days ago. The Institute was definitely pick
ing up its intelligence-gathering operation.
There had also been arrests in the Chinese district on various warrants. Three of those taken into custody worked for the Barsoomian residence. The Institute wasn’t yet challenging the Barsoomians directly, but they were definitely chipping around the edges.
The Governor had certified another three police precinct assistance contracts with the Institute.
“Shit.”
“What’s the matter?” Olwen asked.
“The Governor signed over 3F Plaza.”
“To the Institute? Fuck it!”
“Yeah.” He pulled a fresh set of shorts and a T-shirt from his small bag, then put his force field skeleton suit over them and covered that with a checked shirt and baggy jeans. The long leather biker jacket he’d bought in StPetersburg on Earth went on top. He slipped a slim harmonic blade into the top of his hiker boots. His ion pistols and high-velocity machine carbines slotted into their holsters to be covered by the zipped-up jacket. Grenades clipped into his belt. His arrays with their sophisticated sensors went into his chest pockets. Steel sunglasses with enhanced display functions hung on a purple surfer band around his neck.
Olwen finished dressing for the day in a similar fashion, with baggy sulphur-yellow pants and a green rainjacket with North Sea Power Surfers printed across it.
They left the apartment block together. The streets were virtually deserted, with shopfronts still covered in fine carbon grilles. Ancient civicbots rolled slowly along the pavements, gathering up rubbish and washing away yesterday’s grime. A few early delivery vans raced along the empty roads. Buses with the first shift workers slumped into their seats rumbled past in clouds of diesel fumes.
When Stig looked east, Far Away’s sun was rising above the horizon, sending a rosy glow to soak the city. He stopped at a mobile stall that was just setting up on a corner three hundred meters along the road from the rental house. The owner smiled happily at them as Stig ordered some bacon sandwiches and coffee for breakfast. They drank some fresh-squeezed orange juice while the man flipped their bacon slices on the griddle.
Stig called Keely McSobel, who was on duty in the room above the Halkin Ironmongery store. “Anything near us?” he asked.
“No, you’re cool, the Scottish quarter’s pretty quiet. But they’re really pouring their people into 3F Plaza. It’s not just troops, either. Some tech types are in the gateway control building.”
“Damn, that’s not good. Can you snoop around inside?”
“That’s the second problem. The city net’s links to CST’s center are being eliminated. I think they’re physically cutting them.”
“Dreaming heavens, are we going to be able to get our calls through?”
“I’m not sure. I managed to get a scrutineer inside CST’s arrays. It can’t send much back without being detected now they’ve cut the bandwidth, but from what I can make out the Institute is setting up censor programs on all the Half Way channels. Any call going out through the link to the Commonwealth unisphere will be examined, same for anything coming in.”
“Bloody hell.” Stig finished his orange juice and pulled out a pure-nicotine cigarette. “Good job, Keely. We’re going to scout around 3F Plaza.”
“Be careful.”
They collected the sandwiches and coffee, and he started to tell Olwen about the Institute’s latest accomplishment as they walked along toward Mantana Avenue, which was the quickest route to 3F Plaza.
“That’s very provocative,” she said carefully. “Especially on top of everything else this city is putting up with.”
“Yeah.” He lit the cigarette. “They’ve already armor-plated the route from the gateway to Highway One, now this. It can only mean one thing.”
“The Starflyer’s coming,” she said it with a knowing gleam in her eyes. It was the moment every Guardian dreamed of. The showdown with their enemy. The planet’s revenge.
“Yeah.”
They were very visible going down Mantana Avenue, the broad thoroughfare that linked First Foot Fall Plaza with the main government district. With a little uncharacteristic flourish of ambition, city planners had laid out a three-lane road as a transport centerpiece between the biggest commercial market and storage zone in the city and the civil servants who sought to regulate it. Then a wealthy Russian émigré had gifted the city with a thousand saplings of newly sequenced GM maple fur poplars. The trees were all planted along Mantana, growing fifty meters tall, with leaves that resembled woolly magenta catkins. For nearly a century the arboreal avenue had been one of the city’s grandest sights, with the thick tall trees screening the road from the pavement.
Now, over half of the trees had withered and died from a native fungal virus that had reestablished itself in the southern hemisphere and swept through the city a couple of decades back, spoiling the beautiful wall of drooping leaves that separated traffic from pedestrians. The Barsoomians had provided resistant saplings as replacements, but the uniformity of the avenue would never be regained now, and a lot of the saplings had been vandalized. It left long segments of the pavement exposed.
Stig assumed an innocent, absorbed expression as yet another convoy of six-wheeled Land Rover Cruisers roared along the road toward 3F Plaza, hooting crossly at any other vehicle impertinent enough to be on the same route. The buildings set back from the avenue were three or four stories high, their elaborate faux-Napoleonic facades making them the most sought after addresses in Armstrong City. Their ground floors were individual shops, as exclusive as anything could be on Far Away; the offices above were mostly inhabited by lawyers and the local headquarters of big Commonwealth corporations, the only organizations that could afford the rent.
“Where in the dreaming heavens is everyone else?” Olwen complained as the Cruisers disappeared ahead of them. Even for early morning, there were remarkably few pedestrians abroad; the traffic was reduced as well. Normally there would be a stream of vans and trucks and carts going in and out of 3F Plaza in preparation of the day’s commerce.
“Bad news travels fast,” Stig told her.
Half a kilometer from the Enfield entrance to 3F Plaza they took a side road off the avenue, and made their way through the clutter of secondary streets to Market Wall.
“Stig,” Keely called. “Muriden says he’s seen a couple of guys loitering around the end of Gallstal Street; it’s the third time they’ve walked past.”
“Damnit,” Stig exclaimed. Gallstal Street was only a few hundred meters away from the Halkin Ironmongery store. He and Olwen were now fifty meters from the base of Market Wall. The merchants in the archways were starting to open for business. Everyone seemed a lot more meek and restrained than usual. “Tell him to keep watching them; I want to know what they do next, if they’re just on a loop. And tell the other sentries to scan around.”
“Aye, will do.”
“And, Keely, prep for a crash evacuation.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, do it.”
“What’s up?” Olwen asked as he scowled.
“Possible reconnaissance on the store.” He was angry that he wasn’t there to make a proper evaluation. I ought to trust the others by now.
“It was only a matter of time,” she said.
“Right.”
They reached the bottom of Market Wall, and started up one of the broad stone stairs that led to the raised souk. On the top, the stalls with their canopies of solarcloth and worn canvas shared the subdued air that infected the vendors at the base. He and Olwen did their best to blend in, but this hour was given over to chefs and owners of cafés and restaurants buying fresh food from bulk suppliers. It was like a massive extended family, with everybody knowing each other. So they wove through the ramshackle layout of tables and counters, ignoring the welcome smiles and promised bargains, trying not to be too obvious. When they reached the thick stone parapet, it was lined with cautiously curious people staring at events below. Stig edged through and glanced over. “Bloody hell.”
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It was as if an occupying army had landed in the middle of Armstrong City. A curving line of Range Rover Cruisers was parked in front of the gateway, their mounted kinetic weapons deployed and sweeping from side to side to protect the shimmering force field. More Cruisers were parked to block every entrance, except Enfield, where barriers and concrete cubes turned away all civilian traffic. The wide expanse of the Plaza was empty, something Stig had never seen before. The three big fountains were actually audible from the top of Market Wall as they pumped their white plumes into the air. Squads of Institute troops in flexarmor were going around the base of Market Wall, ordering the stallholders in the archways to shut up and go home. There were a few loud protestations, swiftly followed by the sounds of a brutal beating, screams, sobbing. The Institute was now in complete control here.
“Keely, give me status on the link to Half Way, please,” Stig asked.
“There are no links. They’ve cut every cable into the CST control center except two, and those both have monitor programs that I wouldn’t know how to circumvent. I’m sorry, Stig, there’s no direct line back to the Commonwealth anymore.”
Stig clenched his jaw as he stared down at the dark armored figures strutting across the dusty plaza below. “What about Muriden?”
“His two observers have gone, but Felix reports a possible in his zone.”
“Okay, get out now, that’s an order. We’ll regroup our headquarters at fallback location three. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
The connection ended. Stig waited a few moments, and told his e-butler to connect him to the Halkin Ironmongery store. The address was inoperative. He smiled in grim satisfaction. Keely and the others were acting professionally.
“Let’s go,” he told Olwen.
They retraced their path through the stalls, and started back down the broad stairs. “What do we do now?” Olwen asked.
“I don’t know. And don’t tell the others that.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 177
