The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

  She felt like giggling; the kind of giggle that came from being tickled by a merciless lover: unwelcome yet inevitable.

  The affinity contact with the other three serjeants reduced, paring down to essential information: location, threat status, environment interpretation. She couldn’t help the little frisson of eagerness at the experience; this was the first time she had ever been anywhere outside Tranquillity. Ayacucho might not be much, but she was determined to soak in as much of it as she could.

  She was following Joshua out of the transit capsule which had delivered them from the spaceport. The axial chamber was just a low-gee bubble of rock, but at the same time it was a bubble of rock which she hadn’t seen before. Her first foreign world.

  Joshua got into a waiting tube lift and sat down. She chose the seat opposite him, the composite creaking as it adjusted to her weight.

  “This is all so strange,” she said as the lift moved off. “Part of me wants to be next to you.”

  His face became immobile. “Jesus, Ione, why the fuck did you shove your personality into the serjeants? Tranquillity’s would’ve been just fine.”

  “Why, Joshua Calvert, I do believe you’re embarrassed.”

  “Who me? Oh, no, I’m quite used to sexless two metre monstrosities making a pass at me.”

  “Don’t be so grumpy. It’s unbecoming. Besides, you should be grateful. My instinct is very protective towards you. That might give me an edge.”

  Joshua’s retort was lost somewhere in his throat.

  The lift’s doors opened on a public hall in the asteroid’s commercial district where several late office workers scurried to work while a pair of mechanoids cleaned the walls and floor. It was less spartan than the axial chamber, with a high, arched roof and troughs of plants spaced at regular intervals. But it was still only a tunnel through rock, nothing exuberant. Unfortunately the serjeant didn’t have lips that could easily be compressed into a pout, otherwise she would have done it. She really wanted to see the biosphere cavern.

  Joshua started off down the hall.

  “What do you hope to accomplish here?” she asked.

  “T’Opingtu is a big company; someone will have been appointed to run it straightaway. And Ikela would make sure his replacement is someone he can trust, someone from his immediate circle. It’s not much, but it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

  “I really don’t think you’ll be able to get an appointment today.”

  “Don’t be such a downer, Ione. Your trouble is Tranquillity is incorruptible and logical, that’s all you’re used to. Asteroids like Ayacucho are neither. The size of the contract I’m going to dangle in their faces will get me straight into the top office. There’s an etiquette to this kind of business.”

  “Very well, you get in. Then what?”

  “I won’t know until I get there. Remember this is strictly a data acquisition mission, everything is helpful even if it is only negative. So keep your senses open and your memory on full record.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Okay, now we’re primarily interested in anything we can learn about Ikela’s life. We know he was an Garissan refugee, so who did he move with from the past, was he a strong nationalist? Names, contacts, that kind of stuff.”

  “My personality didn’t suffer any damage during the replication process, I can think for myself.”

  “Wonderful. A bodyguard with an attitude.”

  “Joshua, darling, this isn’t attitude.”

  He stopped and jabbed a finger at the husky construct. “Now look—”

  “That’s Pauline Webb,” Ione said.

  “What? Who?”

  Three people were marching down the public hall towards Joshua. Two African-ethnic men flanking a white woman. He didn’t like the look of the men at all; they were wearing civilian suits, but combat armour would have been more appropriate. Boosted, and no doubt containing a wide variety of extremely lethal implants.

  Pauline Webb stopped a couple of metres short of Joshua and gave the serjeant a curious glance. “Your appointment is cancelled, Calvert. Collect your crew, get back in your starship, and go home. Today.”

  Joshua produced his most nonchalant grin. “Pauline Webb. Fancy seeing you here.”

  Her narrowed eyes gave the serjeant another suspicious glance. “This situation is not your concern anymore.”

  “It is everybody’s concern,” Ione said. “Especially mine.”

  “I didn’t know you things could operate independently.”

  “Now you do,” Joshua said politely. “So if you’ll just step aside …”

  The man directly in front of Joshua folded his arms and planted his feet slightly apart, a true immovable object. He smiled carnivorously down at Joshua.

  “Er, perhaps we could come to an arrangement?”

  “The arrangement is simple,” Webb said. “If you leave, you get to live.”

  “Come on, Joshua,” Ione said. The serjeant’s all-too-human hand closed on his shoulder, forcing him to turn.

  “But—”

  “Come on.”

  “That’s smart advice,” Webb said. “Listen to it.”

  Ione let go of his shoulder after a few paces. A fuming Joshua allowed her to escort him back down the hall towards the lift. When he glanced over his shoulder Webb and her two troopers were standing watching him.

  “This isn’t her turf,” he hissed at the serjeant. “We could have caused a scene, made trouble for her. The police would have sorted her out as well as us.”

  “Any incident with the authorities here would have been resolved in her favour. She’s a CNIS officer assigned to Mzu; the local Navy Bureau would have backed her, and you and I would be in deep shit, not to mention jail.”

  “How the hell did Webb know where I was going?”

  “I imagine Lady Mac’s crew is under clandestine surveillance right now.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Quite. We will have to withdraw and come up with a new strategy.”

  They reached the lift doors, and Joshua datavised for a ride back to the axial chamber. He cast another glance over his shoulder to check on Webb, a sly smile germinating on his face. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “The agencies don’t have her yet. We’re still in with a chance.”

  “That’s logical.”

  “Of course it’s logical. We may even be able to turn this to our advantage.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll tell you when we’re back in Lady Mac. Everyone’s going to have to undergo decontamination first. Christ knows what sort of covert nanonics they’ve stung us with. We’ll be broadcasting our own thoughts back to them if we’re not careful.”

  The lift doors opened and he stepped inside. Someone had slapped half a dozen twenty-centimetre circular holomorph stickers at random over the walls, with a couple more on the ceiling. One was at head height; it started its cycle, a tight bud of lavender photons swelling out from the centre into the form of a scantily clad teenage cheerleader. She shook her silver baton enthusiastically. “Run, Alkad, run!” she yelled. “You’re our last hope; don’t let them catch you. Run, Alkad, run!”

  Joshua stared at it in stupefaction. “Jesus wept.”

  The cheerleader winked saucily, and syphoned back down below the sticker’s surface. Three more began their cycle.

  Chapter 02

  Arnstadt fell to the Organization fleet after a ninety-minute battle above the planet. The Strategic Defence network was hammered into oblivion by Capone’s antimatter-powered combat wasps. There had been some advance warning from the Edenists, giving the local navy time to redeploy their ships. Three squadrons of voidhawks had arrived from the habitats orbiting one of the system’s gas giants, reinforcing the Adamist vessels.

  None of the preparations altered the final outcome. Forty-seven Arnstadt navy ships were destroyed, along with fifteen voidhawks. The remaining voidhawks swallowed away, withdrawing back to t
he gas giant.

  The Organization fleet’s transport starships moved unopposed into low orbit, and spaceplanes began to ferry a small army of possessed down to the surface. Like all modern Confederation planets, Arnstadt had few soldiers. There were several marine brigades, which were mainly trained in space warfare techniques and covert mission procedures. Wars in this era were fought between starships. The days of foreign invasion forces marching across enemy territory had vanished before the end of the twenty-first century.

  With its SD network reduced to radioactive meteorites flaring through bruised skies, Arnstadt was incapable of offering the slightest resistance to the possessed marching down out of their spaceplanes. Small towns were infiltrated first, increasing the numbers of possessed available to move on to larger towns. The area of captured ground began to increase exponentially.

  Luigi Balsmao set up his headquarters in one of the orbiting asteroid settlements. Information on the people captured by the advancing possessed was datavised up to the asteroid where the structure coordination programs written by Emmet Mordden decided if they should be possessed or not. Organization lieutenants were appointed, their authority backed up by the firepower of fleet starships in low orbit.

  With the subjugation of the planet confidently under way, Luigi split half of the fleet into squadrons and deployed them against the system’s asteroid settlements. Only the Edenist habitats were left alone; after Yosemite, Capone wasn’t about to risk a second defeat on such a scale.

  Starships were dispatched back to New California, and fresh cargo ships began to arrive soon, bringing with them the basic components for a new SD network along with other equipment to help consolidate the Organization’s advance. Rover reporters were allowed to see carefully selected sections of the planet under its new masters: children left non-possessed to run around freely, possessed and non-possessed working side by side to restart the economy, Luigi stamping down hard on any possessed who didn’t acknowledge the Organization’s leadership.

  News of the successful invasion swept across the Confederation, backed up by sensevise recordings from the reporters. Surprise was total. One star system’s government—no matter what its nature—taking over another was a concept always considered totally impossible. Capone had proved it wasn’t. In doing so he set off a chain reaction of panic. Commentators began to talk about planetary level exponential curves, the most extreme showing the entire Confederation falling to the Organization within six months as the industrial resources of more and more systems were absorbed by Capone’s empire.

  On the Assembly floor, demands that the Confederation Navy should intervene and destroy the Organization fleet became almost continuous.

  First Admiral Aleksandrovich had to make several appearances to explain how impractical the notion was. The best the navy could do, he said, was to seek out the source of Capone’s antimatter and prevent a third system from being taken over. Arnstadt was already lost. Capone had secured a victory which couldn’t be reversed without a great loss of life. At this stage, such casualties were wholly unacceptable. He also pointed out that, sadly, a great many non-possessed crews were cooperating with the Organization to operate their starships. Without them, the invasion of Arnstadt could never have happened. Perhaps, he suggested, the Assembly should consider introducing an emergency act to deal with any such traitors. Such legislation might, in future, discourage captains seeking to sign up with Capone for short term gain.

  ***

  “Escort duties?” André Duchamp asked wearily. “I thought we were here to help defend New California itself. What exactly does this escort duty entail?”

  “Monterey hasn’t given me a detailed briefing,” Iain Girardi said. “But you will simply be protecting cargo ships from attack by the Confederation Navy. Which is exactly what your contract stipulated.”

  “Hardly,” Madeleine growled. “Nor does it say anywhere that we help a deranged dictator who wiped out an entire fucking planet. I say jump out, Captain. Power up the patterning nodes right now and get the fuck out of here while we still can.”

  “I would have thought this was a more appealing task for you,” Iain Girardi said. His acceleration couch webbing peeled back, and he drifted off the cushioning. “The majority of the crews in the cargo ships are non-possessed, and you won’t be permanently in range of the Organization’s SD platforms. If anything, we’re giving you an easier job with less risk for the same money.”

  “Where would we be going?” André asked.

  “Arnstadt. The Organization is shipping industrial equipment there to help restart the planetary economy.”

  “If they hadn’t blown it all to shit in the first place they wouldn’t need to restart it,” Madeleine said.

  André shushed her impatiently. “It seems fine to me,” he told Iain Girardi. “However, the ship will require some maintenance work before we can undertake such an assignment. An escort flight is very different from supplementing planetary defences.”

  Iain Girardi’s humour appeared strained for the first time. “Yes. I’ll have to discuss the nature of the repairs with Monterey.” He datavised the flight computer for a communications channel.

  André waited with a neutral smile.

  “The Organization will bring the Villeneuve’s Revenge up to full combat-capable status,” Iain Girardi announced. “Your hull and sensor suite will be repaired by us, but you must meet the cost of secondary systems.”

  André shrugged. “Take it out of our fee.”

  “Very well. Please dock at Monterey’s spaceport, bay VB757. I shall disembark there; you’ll be assigned a liaison officer for the mission.”

  “Non-possessed,” Desmond Lafoe said sharply.

  “Of course. I believe they want you to take some reporters with you, as well. They’ll require access to your sensors during the flight.”

  “Merde. Those filth. What for?”

  “Mr Capone is highly focused on the need for accurate publicity. He wants the Confederation to see that he is not a real threat.”

  “Unlike Arnstadt,” Madeleine said swiftly.

  André piloted the starship down from its emergence zone to the large asteroid. Spaceflight traffic above New California was heavy: starships raced between the orbital asteroids and the emergence zones, spaceplanes and ion field flyers flew a constant shuttle service from the planet.

  Although the starship only had sixty-five per cent of its sensor clusters remaining, André kept them fully extended to gather what information he could.

  When the flight computer told her Girardi was talking to Monterey again, Madeleine opened an encrypted channel to André: “I don’t think we should dock,” she datavised.

  The captain extended the datavise to include Erick and Desmond. “Why not?”

  “Look at those ships out there, if anything there’s more activity than before the planet was possessed. I didn’t realize how damn professional this Capone Organization is. We’re not going to get out of this, André, we’re in too deep. The second we dock they’ll swarm on board and possess us.”

  “Then who will crew the ship for them? Non, they need us.”

  “She has a point about the Organization’s size and motivation, though,” Erick datavised. “The possessed are dependent on us flying the warships, but what happens when there are no more worlds left to invade? Capone took Arnstadt in less than a day, and almost doubled his military resources doing so. He’s not going to stop now. If he and the rest of the possessed keep on winning at that rate, there will be no place left for non-possessed anywhere in the Confederation. That’s what we’ll be helping bring about.”

  “I know this.” André cast a guilty glance at Girardi to make sure he wasn’t aware of the conversation. “That is why I agreed to the escort duty.”

  “I don’t get it,” Madeleine said.

  “Simple, ma chérie. The Organization repairs the Villeneuve’s Revenge for me, fills up our cryogenic fuel tanks, equips us with combat wasps, and sends u
s off on a flight. Then while we’re en route, we vanish. What is to stop us?”

  “Their liaison officer, for a start,” Desmond said.

  “Ha, one man. We can overcome him. Capone has made his greatest mistake in trying to dishonour André Duchamp. It is I who is using them now, for the benefit of my fellow man, comme il faut. I am no quisling. And I think we should make sure the reporters know of this savage blow we will strike against Capone.”

  “You really intend to leave?” Madeleine asked.

  “Naturally.”

  Erick grinned, as best as his new skin would allow him. For once Duchamp’s devious nature could actually work for the best. He opened a new file in his neural nanonics memory cell and started recording the sensor images. CNIS would want to know about the Organization’s disposition; though he suspected the New California system would already be under full covert surveillance.

  “What about Shane Brandes?” Desmond asked.

  André’s face darkened. “What about him?”

  “How long were you planning to leave him in zero-tau?”

  “I could hardly drop him off at Chaumort, it was too small. We want a backwards planet where we can dump him in the middle of a desert or a jungle.”

  “Lalonde would do,” Madeleine said under her breath.

  “Well, if you’re looking for somewhere he won’t come back from,” Desmond offered maliciously.

  “No,” Erick datavised.

  “Why not?” André asked. “Give him to the Organization when we dock. It is an excellent idea. Shows them how loyal we are.”

  “We kill him, or dump him. But not that. You didn’t see what they did to Bev.”

  André flinched. “Very well. But I’m not hanging on to that bastard forever, his zero-tau is costing me power.”

  Villeneuve’s Revenge docked in its designated bay, its crew alert for any treachery from the Organization. There was none to see. As Iain Girardi promised, maintenance teams immediately started to work on the starship’s battered hull and defunct sensors. It took eleven hours to withdraw the damaged sections and install new replacements. Integration and diagnostic checks took another two hours to complete.