Neutronium Alchemist - Conflict nd-4

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “You’re not Mother.”

  Louise glared at her. Genevieve’s stubborn mask collapsed, and she started to sob.

  “Oh, Gen.” Louise skimmed across the narrow space and caught hold of the small girl. She ordered the processor block off, and the glowing bricks flickered into dewy sparkles before vanishing altogether.

  “I want to go home,” Genevieve blurted. “Home to Cricklade, not Tranquillity.”

  “I’m sorry,” Louise cooed. “I haven’t being paying you much attention on this flight, have I?”

  “You’ve got things to worry about.”

  “When did you go to sleep last?”

  “Last night.”

  “Humm.” Louise put a finger under her sister’s chin and lifted her face, studying the dark lines under her eyes.

  “I can’t sleep much in zero-gee,” Genevieve confessed. “I keep thinking I’m falling, and my throat all clogs up. It’s awful.”

  “We’ll book into a High York hotel, one that’s on the biosphere’s ground level. Both of us can have a real sleep in a proper bed then. How does that sound?”

  “All right, I suppose.”

  “That’s the way. Just imagine, if Mrs Charlsworth could see us now. Two unmarried landowner girls, travelling without chaperones, and about to visit Earth with all its decadent arcologies.”

  Genevieve attempted a grin. “She’d go loopy.”

  “Certainly would.”

  “Louise, how am I going to take this block back home? I really don’t want to give it up now.”

  Louise turned the slim innocuous unit around in front of her. “We escaped the possessed, and we’ve flown halfway across the galaxy. You don’t really think smuggling this back to Cricklade is going to be a problem for the likes of us, do you?”

  “No.” Genevieve perked up. “Everyone’s going to be dead jealous when we get back. I can’t wait to see Jane Walker’s face when I tell her we’ve been to Earth. She’s always going on about how exotic her family holidays on Melton island are.”

  Louise kissed her sister’s forehead and gave her a warm hug. “Get packed. I’ll see you up at the airlock in five minutes.”

  There was only one awkward moment left. All of the Bushay family had gathered by the airlock at the top of the life-support section to say goodbye. Pieri was torn between desperation and having to contain himself in front of his parents and his cluster of extended siblings. He managed a platonic peck on Louise’s cheek, pressing against her for longer than required. “Can I still show you around?” he mumbled.

  “I hope so.” She smiled back. “Let’s see how long I’m there for, shall we?”

  He nodded, blushing heavily.

  Louise led the way along the airlock tube, her flight bag riding on her back like a haversack. A man was floating just beyond the hatch at the far end, dressed in a pale emerald tunic with white lettering on the top of the sleeve. He smiled politely.

  “You must be the Kavanagh party?”

  “Yes,” Louise said.

  “Excellent. I’m Brent Roi, High York customs. There are a few formalities we have to go through, I’m afraid. We haven’t had any outsystem visitors since the quarantine started. That means my staff are all sitting around kicking their heels with nothing to do. A month ago you could have shot straight through here and we wouldn’t even have noticed you.” He grinned at Genevieve. “That’s a huge bag you’ve got there. You’re not smuggling anything in are you?”

  “No!”

  He winked at her. “Good show. This way please.” He started off down the corridor, flipping at the grab hoops to propel himself along.

  Louise followed with Genevieve at her heels. She heard a whirring sound behind. The hatch back to the Jamrana was closing.

  No way back now, she thought. Not that there ever had been.

  At least the customs man appeared friendly. Perhaps she had been fretting too much about this.

  The compartment Brent Roi led her into was just like a broader section of the corridor, cylindrical, ten metres long and eight wide. There were no fittings apart from five lines of grab hoops radiating out from the entrance.

  Brent Roi bent his legs and kicked off hard as soon as he was through the hatch. When Louise went in he had already joined the others lining the walls. She looked around, her heart fluttering apprehensively. A dozen people were anchored to stikpads all around her, she couldn’t see their faces, they all wore helmets with silver visors. Each of them was holding some sort of boxy gun. The stub muzzles were pointed at Fletcher the instant he popped out of the hatchway.

  “Is this customs?” she asked in a failing voice.

  Genevieve’s small hand curled around her ankle. “Louise!” She clambered up her big sister’s body like mobile ivy. The two girls clung to each other fearfully.

  “The ladies are not possessed,” Fletcher said calmly. “I ask you not to endanger them. I shall not resist.”

  “Too fucking right you won’t, you son of a bitch,” Brent Roi snarled.

  • • •

  Ashly fired the MSV’s thrusters: too hard, too long. He cursed. The drift had been reversed, not halted. Pressure was wiring him close to overload. Mistakes like this could cost them a lot more than their lives. He datavised another set of directives into the craft’s computer, and the thrusters fired again, a shorter, milder burst this time.

  The MSV came to rest three metres above the launch tube’s hatch. Like the rest of the Beezling ’s fuselage it was badly scarred and mauled. But intact.

  “No particle penetration,” he datavised. “It seems to be undamaged.”

  “Good, get it open,” Joshua answered.

  Ashly was already extending three of the MSV’s waldo arms. He shoved a clamp hand straight into the mounting hole left by a broken sensor cluster and expanded the segments, securing the MSV in place. A fission blade came on, burning a lambent saffron at the tip of the second arm. Ashly used it to slice into the fuselage at the rim of the hatch, then began to saw around.

  Both the Beezling and the MSV trembled energetically. The computer datavised a series of clamp stress cautions, their grip on the mounting had shifted slightly. “Joshua, another one of those and you’re going to shake me loose.”

  “Sorry. Won’t happen again, we’re docked now.”

  Ashly accessed the MSV’s small sensor suite. The Lady Mac had attached herself to the rear of the Beezling , her aft hold-down latches engaging with the warship’s corresponding locks. A slim silver piston slid out of her ring of umbilical couplings, weaving around slowly as it sought out a socket on the Beezling to mate with.

  Spacesuited figures wearing manoeuvring packs were flitting towards the bright circle of light which was Lady Macbeth ’s open airlock. A third of the way around her fuselage one of her combat wasp launch tubes had opened. The front section of a combat wasp had risen up out of it, a dark tapering cylinder bristling with sensors and antennae. Beaulieu was working on it, her glossy body alive with reflected streaks of salmon-pink light that rippled fluidly with every movement. She had anchored her feet in the midsection grid which contained the drone’s tanks and generators. One of the submunitions chamber covers had already been removed; now she was busy extracting the cluster of electronic warfare pods from inside.

  The MSV’s waldo arm finished cutting around the Beezling ’s hatch. Ashly grabbed it with the heavy-load arm and pulled it free. A strew of dust motes and composite shavings popped out, quickly dwindling away. The MSV’s external lights swung around, and he was looking straight down into a smooth white cylinder which nested a sleek conical missile whose silver surface was polished brighter than any mirror.

  “Is this the right one?” he asked, including his retinal image into the datavise.

  “That is the Alchemist carrier, yes,” Mzu replied.

  “There’s no response from any processors in there. Temperature is a hundred and twenty absolute.”

  “It won’t have affected the Alchemist.”

&
nbsp; Ashly said nothing, hoping her self-confidence was as justified as Joshua’s. He extended one of the MSV’s manipulator waldos into the launch tube and fastened it around the apex of the carrier vehicle’s nose cone. Triangular keys found the locking pins, and turned them. He retracted the arm carefully, bringing the nose cone with it. The base was studded with junctions for the thermal shunt circuits, which were reluctant to separate; after thirty years the vacuum and the cold had melded them together. Ashly increased the tension on the waldo, and they tore free with a judder which the arm’s inertia absorber could barely cope with.

  “That’s it?” Ashly datavised when the nose cone was lifted clear.

  “That’s it,” Mzu confirmed.

  The Alchemist was a single globe one and a half metres in diameter, its seamless surface a neutral grey colour. It was held in place by five carbotanium spider-leg struts which encased it neatly, their inner surfaces lined with adjustable pads to maintain a perfect grip.

  “You should be able to detach the entire restraint mechanism,” Mzu datavised. “Sever the data and power cables if necessary; they’re not necessary anymore.”

  “Okay.” He moved the manipulator waldo down the side of the Alchemist and used its small sensors to inspect the machinery he found below it. “This shouldn’t take long, the rivets are standard. I can cut them.”

  “Fast, please, Ashly,” Joshua datavised. “The Organization ships are only twenty-four minutes away.”

  “Gotcha. I’ll have this with Beaulieu in three minutes.” He moved the first of the manipulator’s tools forwards. “Doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why bother with a specialist carrier vehicle if it can be deployed in an ordinary combat wasp?”

  “That carrier vehicle is designed to shoot the Alchemist into a star. Admittedly that’s a large target, but we can’t take starships very close to one. The carrier has to be fully insulated from the star’s heat and radiation, and it also has to be fast enough to avoid interception from combat wasps in the event we were detected. We built it to accelerate up to sixty-five gees.”

  Ashly would have liked to have called her bluff. But given their current situation, ignorance and blind faith made life altogether less stressful.

  Monica didn’t leave Alkad alone in the EVA preparation compartment, but she did permit her a discreet distance. Two other operatives were with her, ready to inspect the Beezling ’s crew to make sure they brought nothing threatening with them into the Lady Macbeth .

  Alkad didn’t really notice the agent’s presence, every aspect of her life had been under continual observation for so long now that intrusion meant nothing. Not even for this most precious occasion.

  She anchored herself to a stikpad in front of the airlock hatch, waiting with outwards patience. When she sorted through her feelings she found the rightful edgy anticipation, but perhaps not so much of it as there should have been. Thirty years. Can you really stay in love with someone for that long? Or did I just keep the ideal of love alive? One small illusion of humanity in a personality which deliberately and methodically set about excluding any other form of emotional weakness.

  Well enough, there were memories of the good times. Memories of shared ideals. And of course memories of affection, adoration, and intimacy. But shouldn’t real love require the continuing presence of the loved one in order to sustain itself and constantly renew? Has Peter really become nothing more than a concept suborned, just another excuse to retain my commitment?

  The doubts tempted her to turn and flee from the moment. In any case, I’m over sixty and he’s still thirty-five. A hand started up towards her face, wanting to fork her hair back or tidy it. Silly. If she was so concerned about her appearance she should have done something about it long ago. Cosmetic packages, hormone gland implants, gene therapy. Except Peter would have hated her resorting to such untruthful indignities.

  Alkad forced the delinquent hand down. The LEDs on the airlock’s control processor changed from red to green, and the circular hatch swung back.

  Peter Adul was first out, the others had allowed him that civility. His SII suit’s silicon film had withdrawn from his head so she could see all the features she remembered so well. He stared back at her, a frightened smile on his lips. “White hair,” he said gently. “I never imagined that. Lots of things, but never that.”

  “It’s not so bad. I imagined much worse happening to you.”

  “But it didn’t. And we’re here. And you came to rescue us. After thirty years, you really came back here for us.”

  “Of course I did,” she said, abruptly indignant.

  Peter grinned wickedly. She laughed back, and launched herself into his arms.

  Joshua was accessing the MSV’s external sensors to monitor Ashly’s and Beaulieu’s efforts to integrate the Alchemist with their combat wasp. Ashly was using a waldo arm to edge the device down into the submunitions chamber which the cosmonik had cleared. The Alchemist would fit, but the restraint arms folded around it were causing problems. Beaulieu had already sliced a couple of chunks off the carbotanium struts when they scraped against the chamber walls. This was one incredibly crude kludge-up from start to finish. But it didn’t need excessive sophistication to work, just a secure mounting.

  Superimposed across the sensor image were the Lady Mac ’s systems schematics, enabling him to keep a slightly more than cursory eye on their performance. Liol and Sarha were prepping the ship for high acceleration, shutting down all redundant ancillary equipment, cycling fluids back out of weight-vulnerable pipes and into their tanks, bringing the tokamaks up to full capacity so their power would be available for the molecular-binding force generators. Dahybi was running diagnostics through all the zero-tau facilities on board.

  By rights the expectancy should have reduced his brain to a small knot of psychoses by now. Instead he had the oldest excuse of being too busy to worry. That and a wonderful burn of pure arrogance. It can work. After all, it was only marginally more crazy than the Lagrange point stunt.

  Too bad I’ll never be able to brag about this one in Harkey’s Bar.

  Which was actually more of a concern than the manoeuvre itself. I can’t stay in Tranquillity for the rest of my life. I should never have mentioned it to the agents.

  He saw Ashly extract the waldo from the combat wasp, leaving the Alchemist behind. Beaulieu reached forwards to hold a hose over the top of the submunitions chamber. A frayed jet of treacly topaz-coloured foam shot out of the nozzle, surging all around the Alchemist. It was a duopoxy sealant, used by the astronautics industry for quick, temporary repairs. The cosmonik moved the nozzle in smooth assured motions, making sure the foam completely encapsulated the Alchemist, cementing it into the combat wasp.

  “Ashly, take the MSV around to the main airlock and transfer over in your suit,” Joshua datavised.

  “What about the MSV?”

  “I’m dumping it here. It was never designed to withstand the kind of acceleration we’ll be undergoing. That makes it a hazard, especially with all the reaction thruster volatiles it has in its tanks.”

  “You’re the captain. But what about the spaceplane?”

  “I know. You just get back in; we’ve only got sixteen minutes left before the Organization ships get here.”

  “Acknowledged, Captain.”

  “Liol.”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Jettison the spaceplane, please. Beaulieu, how’s it going?”

  “Fine, Captain. I’ve got it covered. The sealant is bonding, should be set in another fifty seconds.”

  “Excellent work. Get back inside.” Joshua datavised the flight computer for a secure channel to the combat wasp. The drone came on-line, and he started its launch sequence program. Once its internal processors were operative he loaded in the flight vector he’d formatted. “Doc, it’s time to find out how good you are.”

  “I understand, Captain.”

  She accessed the processor governing the combat wasp’s cha
mber which the Alchemist was riding in and used it to datavise a long activation code at the device. It datavised an acknowledgement back to her. The display in Joshua’s mind opened out rapidly to accommodate the new iconic representation: parallel sheets of dark information stacked as high as Heaven. They came alive with interlocking grids of purple and yellow that shone like channelled starfire. Perspective switch, and the sheets were concentric spherical shells, coming alight from the core outwards. Information and energy arranging themselves in a precise, and very specific, pattern.

  “It’s working,” Alkad datavised.

  “Jesus Christ.” The neurovirtual jewel glimmered at the centre of his brain, complex beyond human comprehension. It was an outrageous irony that something so deliciously intricate and beautiful should be the harbinger of so much destruction. “Okay, Doc, set it for neutronium. I’m launching in twenty seconds—mark.”

  • • •

  Lady Mac ’s spaceplane had risen up out of her hangar as thermo-dump panels and sensor cluster booms shrank back the other way. Ashly caught one last glimpse of it as he swept down into the airlock. The circular docking ring clamped around its nose cone had just disengaged, allowing it to drift free, then Beaulieu’s shiny brass silhouette occluded the airlock hatch behind him, and that was the end of it.

  Pity, he thought, it was a lovely little machine.

  As soon as the airlock’s outer hatch closed the cylindrical chamber was fast-flooded with air. The flight computer’s datavised display revealed their status. Joshua was already firing the thrusters to align them on their new flight vector. Combat wasp launch tubes were opening.

  Ashly and Beaulieu dived out of the airlock, racing for the bridge. There was nobody in any of the decks they passed through. Several open cabin doors showed them active zero-tau pods.

  The combat wasp carrying the Alchemist completed its fusion drive ignition sequence and launched. A quick cheer from the bridge echoed through Lady Mac ’s empty compartments. Then ten more combat wasps were firing out of their tubes and chasing after the first. The whole salvo headed down towards the gas giant at twenty-five gees.