“You do understand, dear lady, we cannot guarantee your personal safety in this fight?” Bradley said.
Tiger Pansy chewed her gum for a moment before pulling a long face. “Yeah, I figured that. But face it, I ain’t got much of a life to lose, here, do I? Mellanie got me to update my secure store before we left; I just edited most of this time around out of it.”
“Each and every human life is priceless.”
“You’re really cute, you know that.”
It was one of those mornings where Mark hadn’t fully woken up, that moment of cozy drowsiness when you’re in a warm bed with the woman you love lying snuggled up against you. He moved his head fractionally, nuzzling Liz fondly. She pressed herself closer to him, then they kissed in a languid unhurried fashion. Hands stroked. He began to pull off his T-shirt. Liz rose up to straddle him, still wearing her negligee, the new one of semiorganic fabric that mimicked black silk. The way it grew translucent as her body heated and her movements became more urgent was a huge turn-on for him. She’d exploited that to the full last night, which was why he was so drowsy as dawn broke.
The enormously erotic sight of his wife’s delectable body straining athletically above him was wiped out by an orgasm that he was sure had an accompaniment from a choir of angels.
“It’s true,” he mumbled into the darkness sometime later. “Too much does make you blind.”
Close by, Liz giggled. Mark’s sight returned to show her lifting the T-shirt from his face. He smiled up at her in perfect contentment.
“Morning,” she said, in a very appreciative tone.
“Morning.”
Her fingers played along his lips. “I think you’re getting younger. I can barely cope with you like this anymore.”
Mark grinned complacently, though he wasn’t sure he could actually manage to do it again without some serious recuperation time first. The thing with Liz was that she really was as tremendously horny as she looked; and how many men could boast about a wife like that? “Takes two,” he assured her.
She gave him a quick kiss, and rolled off the bed. “I’d better go fix the kids some breakfast; the school will be wondering why I keep sending them in starving every day.”
“Right.” He was almost regretful. It would be nice to spend a whole day just lounging around in bed together. They hadn’t done that since Barry was taken out of the womb tank.
He took a while in the shower, then got dressed ready for work. The CST corporate-mauve sweatshirt with yellow sleeves went on easily enough; his green-gold trousers were a size more than he wore back in the Ulon Valley; they had a stretch-fabric waistline, too. Mark looked down at the way a small wave of his gut hung over the trousers. Must do something about that.
As if he ever got the time anymore. If anything his daily schedule had become even busier as soon as the Searcher had returned.
Sandy let out a happy squeal as he walked into the kitchen. She abandoned her boiled egg to run over and fling her arms around his waist. “Daddy! Daddy!”
He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. “Hey, morning there, darling.”
“Hi, Dad.” Barry’s eyes were bright with admiration.
Sandy wouldn’t let go. Mark had to take her back to the table and sit beside her before she’d consider eating any more of her egg. “We didn’t come in to your bedroom this morning,” she said, her eyes big and serious. “That was right, wasn’t it? Mommy said we should leave the two of you alone; that you need a lot of grown-up’s sleep to make up for being so tired after saving us all.”
“Uh, yeah, that’s right. Thank you, darling. It wasn’t just me that helped the Charybdis mission, though.”
Barry smirked at his sister. “Grown-up sleep. Baby!”
“What?” Sandy asked with a hurt expression.
“You’re so dumb. Don’t you know what they were doing?”
“What?”
“Enough, both of you,” Liz said firmly. “Let your father eat his breakfast in peace.” She had a demure smile on her face as she put his breakfast plate in front of him.
“Thank you, Mrs. Vernon.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Vernon.”
Mark tucked in to his eggs, bacon, waffles, sausages, and tomatoes. A side plate of pancakes drowning in maple syrup, and topped with strawberries and a cone of whipped cream, were placed next to the big plate.
“To keep your strength up,” Liz said enigmatically.
“Yuk.” Barry pulled a face.
Mark tried hard not to smile.
Otis Sheldon turned up just as Mark was finishing. Panda barked happily as the pilot walked into the sunny kitchen.
“Otis!” Barry cried happily, and ran over. “Take me up to the assembly platform today. Please! Please! Dad keeps promising he will, but he never does.”
“Your father’s the man to ask. He’s in charge up there.”
“Daddy!” Sandy smiled worshipfully.
“Hi, Liz.” Otis gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
“Sit down. Need some coffee?”
“Thanks. Maybe a half cup.”
“What can we do for you?”
“Just giving Mark a lift out to the platform wormhole.” He glanced at Mark. “Did you check your message hold file?”
“Er, no.” Mark reached out with a black and gold virtual hand and removed the zero-access restriction. He’d closed it up last night to give himself some uninterrupted privacy. A priority one file was sitting in his folder; sent from Nigel Sheldon. Oh, Christ. “Thanks, Otis,” he said sheepishly.
A maidbot delivered a cup of coffee to Otis. Mark reviewed the message, and groaned in mild dismay. “You’ve only just got back.”
Otis shrugged good-naturedly. “That’s the job.”
“What’s happening, boys?” Liz asked.
“Another flight,” Mark said.
“And Dad’s getting impatient,” Otis said.
“That’s got to be the …” She trailed off, giving the two children a guilty glance.
“What is it?” Barry demanded.
“It is,” Mark told her.
“Oh, hellfire. You be careful,” she told Otis.
“You betcha.”
Otis drove Mark the short distance over to the wormhole that led up to the cluster of orbital assembly platforms. He had an antique Daimler coupe convertible, which was kept in immaculate condition. It was powered by a combustion engine. Mark wasn’t sure if it had a drive array, not that it mattered with Otis behind the wheel; the man’s reflexes were incredible.
“Have you talked to Nigel?” Mark asked after he tightened his seat belt as far as it would go.
“Yeah, minor conference on Cressat last night. Apparently, the Dynasty now officially believes the Starflyer is behind the war.”
That took Mark a moment to digest. “You’re kidding.”
“No. Classified, okay? Daniel Alster was one of its agents. Dad was seriously not pleased. The Starflyer used Alster to break through to Boongate; it’s on its way back to Far Away as we speak. So we’re also sending a frigate there, just in case it tries to escape in the Marie Celeste.”
“Holy shit. How many frigates does Nigel want active?”
“Leading question. Minimum of three to Dyson Alpha, and we’d like two to visit Far Away. Although there was talk of sending the Searcher there instead. A lot of important people joined up with the Guardians, and are now cut off from the Commonwealth.”
“You did tell him we haven’t got five assembled yet, didn’t you?” Mark said nervously.
“He knows our status. There’s also a minor supply problem with nova bombs. We don’t have many yet.”
“But, Otis, we haven’t finished incorporating our procedures into the frigate assembly systems. We were looking for another week before the Dyson Alpha mission. Even the Scylla won’t be ready for vacuum for another two days.”
“Don’t be so modest. You’ve got four completed and another six in assembly.”
�
�Yes, but they haven’t been level-two tested yet, let alone flight tested. We held the Charybdis together with sticky tape and luck. You can’t keep flying frigates in that state, they’ve got to be integrated properly; anything else is going to prove fatal, and I don’t just mean in the long term.”
“I know; more than anybody. I’m the one who has to fly the damn things, remember. Pull in whoever you need; Giselle will coordinate personnel requests for you so you’ll be free to concentrate on the engineering.”
“Huh!” Mark exclaimed, unimpressed, as they pulled into the gateway building’s parking lot. “I’d like to take the entire design team up there for a start. Maybe they’ll finally learn the difference between theory and practice.”
Otis grinned. “Designers and engineers, may the two never meet.”
At night, stuck in the Volvo’s forward passenger seat while Rosamund drove them southward across the Aldrin Plains, Adam could see no difference between this and any normal Commonwealth H-congruous world. The low gravity wasn’t noticeable, except when they hit the odd bump in the road, when the truck performed a shallow glide back down. Farmland was more or less the same everywhere, and this close to the capital city, the land was nothing else, with broad fields and big swathes of woodland stretching out into the dark beyond his inserts’ ability to resolve. It was the absence of a planetary cybersphere that gave him the biggest sense of separation from the worlds he knew. All they had for communications here were some arrays with a short-wave capability. Not, as he was the first to admit, that there was anyone else to call on this forsaken planet. The lack of information was hard to endure, though.
At least he had a degree of solitude to enjoy. He’d been worried that Paula would insist on joining him in whatever vehicle he rode in. Instead she was in the second truck with Oscar, while Kieran drove. In what was undoubtedly the last miracle of the day, Adam actually found himself concerned for her. Whatever flu-variant virus she’d picked up was obviously affecting her badly. It was unusual for anyone these days to be brought low by such a simple illness, which implied it might be extraterrestrial. There hadn’t been an alien plague case for thirty years, since the Hokoth measles epidemic. For the Commonwealth to suffer one now would be badly ironic.
He told himself he was concerned mainly because she might be a carrier and give the bug to him and the others. She’d done her best to shrug it off, but he’d seen the sheen of sweat on her brow, the long uncontrollable shivers running along her limbs. It had come on quickly; she’d shown no symptoms back in the Carbon Goose where they’d talked through tactics for the landing at Port Evergreen. That had been a surreal moment, sitting down with Paula Myo, drinking tea together as they formulated the best strategy, both pooling their knowledge and experience without reservations—at least on his part. All the while, that little speech she’d given him back at Narrabri station was running through his mind. She could probably see it in his brain he was thinking it so hard.
After that she’d more or less dropped below his worry radar as they pushed through to Far Away and met up with the Guardians. He quietly assumed that once they’d delivered their precious cargo to the waiting Guardians in the Dessault Mountains that he’d wander off into the sunset while his friends prevented her from following—then he’d live out a quiet retirement on some farm for the remainder of his years. Except the only way that would happen was if someone killed her; even then her re-life version would appear on the horizon sooner or later. The reality was that this crazy Sicilian-style battle to the death they’d got going between them could only truly end with his death. Besides, he knew damn well he couldn’t spend more than a couple of hours on a farm without getting bored out of his skull. He’d have to return to the Commonwealth and go on the run again. Strangely, the prospect wasn’t as depressing as it first seemed.
Somewhere amid the constant low-level growl of engine noise a nasty metallic grinding sound was breaking out. Adam looked around in alarm. It was so loud he thought it must be coming from their truck. Rosamund was already braking smoothly.
“I’ve got a problem,” Kieran called on the general band.
By the time Rosamund had reversed up close to the second truck, Kieran was filling the band with some filthy language but no real information. Adam climbed down out of the cab and walked back. The road they were using was the main route linking this region’s market towns to the city; originally it had an enzyme-bonded concrete surface, but that was steadily shrinking from an onslaught of earth and weeds, while cracks and potholes went unrepaired for decades. Nowadays it resembled a simple much-used dirt track with congested drainage ditches on both sides. Adam was already entertaining serious doubts about how long it would take them to reach the mountains, and this was a good infrastructure for Far Away. According to the so-called maps stored in his inserts, the roads vanished altogether another hundred sixty kilometers south where the Aldrin Plains became a sea of uninhabited grasslands.
“What’s happened?” he shouted.
Some kind of thick vapor was swirling across the Volvo’s headlight beams. Kieran strode through it, a furious expression on his angular gaunt face. He hit the release handle on one of the engine covers, and it folded back. Flame belched out into the night.
Kieran ducked back, shielding his face with his hands. “Dreaming heavens!” His voice was ripe with pain.
Oscar jumped down from the cab, and rushed forward with a slim fire extinguisher. He directed the powerful stream of ice-blue gel particles over the burning machinery, smothering the fire in seconds.
Kieran was wincing as he gripped his hand.
“Let me see,” Adam demanded.
His flesh was red; blisters were already starting to rise. Wilson had brought a first aid kit from their truck’s cab; he started applying some salve.
Oscar gave the engine another couple of blasts from the fire extinguisher. “It’s out, but we’re screwed,” he said as he peered into the smoldering mangle of metal. “You’re not going to get this repaired outside a garage, and probably not even there. Trust me, I know engines, this is just scrap now.”
Adam shot Jamas a look that was mostly accusation, even though he knew it was neither professional nor fair. But Jamas had been in charge of organizing their ground transport.
“They were in perfect working order when we loaded them up on Wessex,” Jamas said defensively. “I took them for servicing at the dealer myself.”
“I know,” Adam said. “Breakdowns happen. It’s a royal pain in the ass that it happened now, but don’t worry. We’ve got enough room in the other two Volvos to carry on.”
They worked swiftly in the headlight beams of the trucks. Adam was more than a little conscious of how visible they were in the middle of the open lightless farmland. Out beyond the light of the campfire, the wolves begin to gather unseen. The force fields were off, which added to the sensation of vulnerability. He was grateful that all three of the Volvos carried trolleybots, which began unloading the pearl-white crates from Kieran’s wrecked truck.
“I’m going to take a look at that engine,” Oscar told Adam. “See if I can figure out what happened.”
“Right,” Adam said distantly. He was watching the trolleybots move around. The damp rumpled road surface made it hard going for the little machines; they were designed to work on the flat floors of warehouses and loading bays. The crates rocked about at alarming angles, but the trollybot holding clamps prevented them from sliding off.
Half of the plastic crates had been transferred when Adam suddenly shouted: “Stop.” His e-butler backed up the order, halting the trollybot right in front of him. Adam walked over, followed by Wilson, Anna, and Jamas. The crate’s lid had a couple of recessed hand-size flip-over locks on each side. One was hanging open. Adam stared at the loose flap of dull metal, then started to pull the crate’s remaining flip locks open.
“What?” Wilson asked. “One of these can’t come loose?”
“No, it can’t,” Adam said. “They’re
designed to stay shut, that’s the whole point. They don’t spring open just because they get jiggled around.” Rosamund and Kieran arrived as Adam pulled the final lock open. “Jamas, give me a hand.”
The two of them eased the lid off. Adam and Wilson shone their flashlights inside, and Adam found himself staring into a little private version of hell. “Oh, fuck it! I don’t believe this.”
The five components inside the crate had been wrapped in thick blue-green sponge plastic for travel. Somebody had used a maser on them. The sponge plastic had melted into a blackened tar, smearing the components and pooling in the bottom of the crate. All the casings that held the support electronics on the side of the components were badly tarnished where the maser beam had been applied.
There was complete silence as the group all stared down into the crate. After that, they began to glance around at each other. Adam couldn’t blame them; he was already trying to work out who was the most likely suspect himself, but he couldn’t allow the atmosphere to become too poisonous. They still had to work together. Already they were dividing back into Guardians and navy.
“Let’s stay calm until we figure this out,” he said. “I want the rest of the crates opened and inspected. Two people to each crate. We don’t need to create any extra mistrust right now.”
With the trolleybots now unloading every Volvo it took them a quarter of an hour to open every crate. Paula didn’t help. She was left sitting on the cab steps of the third truck with a blanket around her shoulders as the others took the lids off. In total, four crates had been sabotaged, all with a maser.
“They were good when we left Wessex,” Jamas insisted. “I know they were, I helped pack them.” He was glaring at Wilson and Oscar.
“Do we still have enough systems to make the planet’s revenge project work?” Wilson asked.
“I’m not sure,” Adam said. “Kieran, what do you think?”
“Dreaming heavens, I don’t know. I think it will work anyway, that’s what Bradley was saying; what we’re delivering makes it more efficient.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 209
