It took a couple of minutes to wiggle his gauntlet about and compact the earth around it. Electromuscles strained on the limit of their strength just to achieve that. After the hand came the forearm, and finally he could move the whole arm in a little cavity. He began scrabbling. It took hours.
“There was never this much soil on top of us,” he kept saying.
“Inertial navigation is fully functional,” Alic would reply each time. “We’re heading straight up.”
The power cells were draining away at an alarming rate as they wriggled and grubbed their way along. Heat was a big problem; the suits kept pumping excess heat onto their external surfaces, but the soil wasn’t a good conductor. It began to build up around them. One more problem Morton could do absolutely nothing about.
Seven hours after the storm arrived, Morton’s gauntlet pushed through into open air. He sobbed with relief and shoved like a maniac, battering the suit forward, no longer caring if it was good technique. Claustrophobia was creeping up behind him, refusing to let go. Soil crumbled away around him and he finally flung himself out of the hole and into early evening sunlight crying out with incoherent relief. He slapped at the emergency locks, shedding sections of the suit as if it were on fire.
Alic came stumbling out on all fours. Morton helped him off with the legs and shoulders. They hugged for a long moment, slapping at each other’s backs like brothers who had been torn apart for a century.
“We fucking did it,” Morton said. “We’re invincible.”
Alic drew back, and finally took a long look around. His expression became troubled. “Where the hell are we?”
Morton finally paid attention to their surroundings. His first thought was that they’d tunneled away for kilometers to emerge in a different place altogether, possibly a different world. They were standing in a desert; it didn’t have sand and sun-blasted stones, but the expanse of raw soil and dark stone fragments that lay all around didn’t have a single blade of grass or tree growing anywhere. Nor was there any evidence that life had ever visited this place.
He looked up at the mountains that barricaded the western horizon, and called up a map file, integrating it with his insert’s inertial navigation function. The peaks corresponded to the eastern edge of the Dessault Mountains just outside the Institute valley. They were in the right places, but they weren’t the right shape at all. Every crag and cleft had been abraded away, reducing them to tall conical mounds of stone. They weren’t as high as they used to be, either. The snow had vanished completely.
“That really was one hell of a storm,” Morton muttered. “I never took Bradley seriously before.” He looked to the east, convinced there should be some sign of it. The horizon was a perfectly flat line between the newborn reddish brown desert and Far Away’s glorious sapphire sky. “Probably gonna go all the way around the world and bite us again.”
Alic was looking at the gentle saddle that used to hold the Institute. “No sign of the Marie Celeste. I guess the planet had its revenge.”
“Yeah.” Morton started scratching the back of his arms. Just about every part of him was itching now. The sweatshirt and thin cotton pants he wore didn’t exactly smell too good, either. “What now?”
“We survived. There’s got to be someone else around here.”
Wilson watched the tail end of the storm flow away into the east. The mountains around the High Desert were hard to see now; they’d become the same color as the land. It was a beautiful view, the air the storm had left in its wake was perfectly clear, there were no clouds anywhere. A doldrum calm had enveloped the whole Dessault range. If he had a regret it was the way the storm had stripped the snow off the eastern mountains. Real mountains deserved snowcaps to complete their majesty.
“It’s over, Admiral,” Samantha said.
“Are you sure? That seems a very bold statement.”
“You didn’t see the starship launch, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.” He smiled at her conviction. “And you’re quite right. I would have seen the fusion drives if they had fired. Your planet had its revenge.”
“Thank you, Admiral, you made it possible.”
“I just hope that storm dies out soon.”
“We think it will break up in the Oak Sea; there’ll be ordinary hurricanes split off from it, but the main body will power down before long.”
“Nice theory. Did the Martian data help you come up with the figures?”
“Yes.”
“That’s very comforting for an old NASA man like me to hear. Thank you, Samantha. My congratulations to you and your colleagues.”
“Admiral, our original observation team should be with you in ten to fifteen hours. They’ll escort you down. If you could make your way to the southern end of Aphrodite’s Seat they’ll rendezvous with you there.”
“That’s very kind of you, Samantha, but I’m just going to stay here. I imagine it will be quite a spectacular sunset.”
“Admiral, uh, I don’t want to…Are you all right?”
He looked down at his legs. The blood had finally stopped seeping around the epoxy foam. They didn’t trouble him anymore; he could barely feel them now. Every now and then a big shiver would run along his torso. The lava he was resting on had become quite cold. “I’m fine. Tell your team to turn back. They’d just be wasting their time. I’m afraid I’m not quite the pilot I used to be.”
“Admiral?”
“You have a lovely and strange world here, Samantha. Now the Starflyer’s gone, make the most of it.”
“Admiral!”
Wilson closed the link. She meant well, but she’d want to keep talking. He didn’t need companionship now. It was quite a revelation after so long, but he didn’t fear death anymore, not with Oscar and Anna showing him the way.
They’d find his body, and extract his memorycell, and re-life him. He was sure of that. But it wouldn’t be him who lived on in the future. He’d never accepted that form of continuation in the way the Commonwealth-born generations did. That old twenty-first-century way of thinking was one very tough habit to quit.
But this isn’t a bad place for it all to end, not after three hundred and eighty years. I flew up the highest mountain in the galaxy and helped defeat the monster. Shame I didn’t get the girl. I suppose she’ll be re-lifed with edited memories. Maybe her clone and my clone will have a beautiful future together. Be nice.
The cold closed in slowly. Wilson kept staring down on the planet. Watching the shadows lengthen and the atmosphere far below haze to gold.
Big black shape sliding through the heavens, blotting out the stars.
This must be the end, then.
Pain, just when he thought it had all ended. Jolting from side to side. Space suits. Low gravity. A long black ellipsoid parked on the gray-brown regolith. Airlock open, stairs extended.
I crashed. On Mars. Is this the rescue party from the Ulysses?
“Admiral, stay with us. Come on. The Searcher’s in orbit, we’ll get you up to their medical facility in no time. Stay with us now. This is Nigel. Remember me? Hang on! Understand?”
What about the flag? There was no flag in the ground. I thought we did that. It’s always the first thing you should do when you land on a planet. Says so right there in the manual.
***
Mellanie didn’t want to open her eyes. She was frightened of what she might see. There wasn’t any pain left, but her body remembered it only too well. It ghosted around her, taunting, threatening to return. So much so she thought its absence might only be an illusion. She could still see the horror on Giselle’s face. The blood that surrounded her like a fine mist as she spun helplessly. Kinetic weapons pulping her flesh.
“Am I dead?”
Nobody told her she was.
There was light now. Dark red of closed eyelids. Sheets touching her skin. Hard patches on her arms. Most of her torso was numb. She could hear her heart beating.
That has to be good.
She drew in
a breath, and risked a quick glance. The room was strangely familiar. It took a while for the memory to come back: Bermuda room, the mansion on Illanum. There was a big cabinet of medical equipment beside the bed, tubes and wires led under the sheets.
Oh, well, there are worse jails.
Someone was curled up on the couch in the big bay window, snoring softly. Sunlight filtering through the white gauze drapes shone on his ginger hair.
The sight of him made Mellanie smile fondly. Crazy boy. Why he was here puzzled her, unless he’d been confined to this room by Nigel.
Her virtual vision grid was in peripheral mode. She told her e-butler to refresh it and brought it up to full operative status. A great many squares were dark; mostly her inserts. “What happened to them?” she asked her e-butler.
“You have received extensive clone grafting,” it replied. “Damaged systems and OCtattoos have not yet been replaced. Some functional systems were removed.”
The SI ones, she realized. Then she read the date. “Three weeks? I’ve been out for three weeks?”
“That is correct.”
“Why?”
“Time required for medical treatment.”
“Oh.” Now Mellanie really didn’t want to look under the sheets.
Orion stirred, saw she was awake, and sat bolt upright. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. I haven’t tried to move yet.”
“The nurses said it’d be another few days before you can get up.” He came over to stand beside the bed, gazing down at her in awe. “Are you really all right? I was really worried. They spent so long treating you. The chief doctor said they had to grow new bits. I didn’t know they could do that.”
“They can. Uh, Orion, why are you here?”
“They said I could be when you woke up.” He suddenly became terribly anxious. “Why? Don’t you want me here?”
“No…I’m glad you are, actually.” There weren’t many people she wanted to face right now. The boy was easy, though.
His smile was euphoric. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
His hand crept down to where hers lay outside the sheets, then darted back.
“So are we under arrest?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh, no. The security people weren’t very nice when the ambulance brought you back here. They said Nigel Sheldon was really cross with you. But it’s all been okay since he and Ozzie got back.”
“Back from where?”
“They flew to Dyson Alpha and restarted the barrier generator. It’s been on all the news shows.”
“Oh.” And I missed it all.
“There are Dynasty warships going off on Firewall flights right now. And there’s been alien agents arrested in the Commonwealth, and there was some big storm on Far Away that killed the Starflyer, and lots of other stuff. Tochee and I can hardly keep up with it.”
“Nigel’s back?”
“Yeah. He said to tell you the offer’s suspended. What does that mean?”
“He promised me an interview; that’s all.”
“Okay. And a bloke called Morton stopped by. He said you’d know where to find him if you wanted to.”
“Right.” He couldn’t be bothered to wait?
“Mellanie, where do you want to go when you’re better?”
“It’s a little early to…What did you call me?”
Orion hung his head sheepishly. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was heavily creased, as though it had been read a lot.
Mellanie recognized her own handwriting. She’d actually written it in this room.
Darling Orion,
I’m sorry I have to leave you like this. I don’t want to, but I’m not even who you think I am. My real name is Mellanie. One day I’ll explain, if you ever want me to.
“I’ve managed to find out most of it,” he said. “Who you are and everything, that the SI sent you. Ozzie explained.”
Her throat was tightening horribly. “Then why are you here?”
“I told you, they said I could be.”
“But, if you know…?”
He reached out, boldly this time, and brushed some of her hair from the side of her face. “None of that stuff changes the way I feel about you.”
Mellanie started crying. It just wasn’t fair that he was the only one in the universe who truly cared for her. Why couldn’t I have met him before any of the others? “I can’t do this. I’m wrong for you.”
“No you’re not, don’t say that.”
“I’m not a nice girl, Orion, really I’m not.”
Orion gave her a quick devilish grin. “Yeah. I remember. I was sort of hoping you’d go on being like that with me.”
She put her hand around his head and pulled him down for a kiss.
***
The building manager was standing outside the main entrance of the ancient five-story building, supervising the maintenancebot as it removed the sign. Paula watched the electromuscle tentacles drop it into a trolleybot’s wire cage. It lifted out the old sign and placed it on the stone wall, then began to screw it into place. She smiled at the familiar lettering.
“Madame!” the building manager’s face lit up. He bowed deeply. “You are back! Welcome, welcome. The world has regained its sanity.”
“Thank you, Maurice,” she said sincerely. “Slight exaggeration, but it does feel good.”
He kissed her on both cheeks. “Everybody is waiting for you inside. May I carry that?” He indicated the small plastic bag she was gripping in her left hand.
“No thank you, I can manage.” Paula took a breath, and walked up the steps. As the doors opened, the maintenancebot began polishing the letters on the sign. She paused and watched the ancient brass lettering start to gleam again in the Paris sunlight.
INTERSOLAR COMMONWEALTH
SERIOUS CRIMES DIRECTORATE
The first person she met when she walked into the office on the fifth floor was Gwyneth Russell.
“Boss!” Gwyneth exclaimed. “Welcome back. And congratulations. Deputy Director. It’s about time.”
“Yes, well, you can’t spend your whole life in a rut.”
Gwyneth gave her a very startled look. “Absolutely not. I’m footloose and fancy free myself for the next fifteen years till Vic steps out of the Boongate wormhole. Fancy a drink tonight? I know some good clubs with lots of sweet first-life boys.”
“Not tonight, but sometime, yes.”
“Sure.”
Behind Gwyneth the rest of the investigators were standing at their desks, applauding enthusiastically. Paula actually felt her cheeks redden. She looked around at the familiar faces, and nodded her appreciation. “Thank you; it’s nice to see you all back out of uniform again,” she said. They fell quiet immediately, smiling. “It’s customary for the new chief to tell you that there’s going to be some changes around here, but I think we’ve all seen enough of that. From now on it’s strictly business as it used to be. So—I’ll want a meeting of all senior investigators in an hour to establish current case priorities. I shall also be reviewing personnel files today and tomorrow to see how you performed recently, and we need to rebuild teams after the losses we took during the navy days. To which end, I’d like to welcome Hoshe Finn to the office; I’m sure he’ll fit in just fine.”
Hoshe gave her a grin, and raised his cup of herbal tea in salute.
Alic Hogan was in the director’s office, putting his personal effects in a box. He gave Paula a half-guilty look when she walked in.
“Sorry, Chief, I wasn’t expecting you for another hour. How did it go with the Director?”
“Easy. Departmental meetings are a waste of time at best; it’s all politics and budgets. Nothing useful or relevant.”
“You’ll be all right, now you’ve got the Burnelli family backing you. Five years, you’ll be the Director.”
“Humm.” Paula cocked her head and looked out of the big window. “Adopted again.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.
I never realized: you can’t see the Eiffel Tower from here. You could from my old office.”
Alic swept the last pile of papers into his box. “Uh, you know that’s the one building management assigned me to.”
“Very symbolic.” Paula sat behind the desk and pulled her rabbakas plant out of the bag. The flower had faded, but another pink shoot was worming its way up out of the black corm. The hologram of the Redhound family was placed next to it. Then she took out a fist-sized perspex cube with a memorycell embedded in the middle. “I’m really pleased you’re staying, Alic,” she said.
“I don’t see a huge future for me with Admiral Columbia. Uh, I was surprised when you agreed to accept me in the Paris office.”
“From what I heard you stood up to him for what you knew was right. That means you’re in the right place.”
“Thanks.”
“In any case, you could have taken your pick of government jobs after Far Away.”
“I quite enjoyed the work here, despite all the politics.”
“Yes, well, that should be considerably reduced from now on; Columbia has his hands full at the moment. He’s pressing the Senate for navy involvement with the CST exploratory division.”
Alic let out a low whistle. “What did Sheldon say about that?”
“Let’s just say he wasn’t very enthusiastic. The two of them are also struggling over who gets the credit for the Firewall. I expect we’ll see Columbia’s bid for the presidency before too long. Now, I’ve got a meeting scheduled with our office’s lawyers and the prosecuting attorney from the Justice Directorate at eleven o’clock, which I’d like you to sit in on.”
“No problem. What is it for?”
Paula held up the perspex cube. “Interesting case. Gene Yaohui, aka Captain Oscar Monroe. Do we re-life him and then hand him over to the Justice Directorate for trial and suspension, or should he sit out his thousand years here?”
Alic gave the cube a startled look. “That’s him?”
“Yes. I recovered him and Anna Kime from Stakeout Canyon. Anna’s being re-lifed, with a suitable memory edit to remove the Starflyer contamination under the conditions of the Doi amnesty. My contacts tell me we’re going to be facing a request from Wilson Kime’s lawyers to hand Oscar’s memorycell over to him for custody on York5. If that happens Kime will undoubtedly re-life him. There will be a lot of political pressure on the Justice Directorate to drop the Abadan station charges; heavyweight character references, emotionally loaded claims of rehabilitation claiming he’s paid his dues to society, the precedent for sentence cancellation set by the navy interdiction troops on the Lost23, that kind of thing. Should be quite an interesting court battle.” She smiled, giving the memorycell a curious gaze. “I might even lose.”
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