Fallen Fragon

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Michelle Rake had spent the whole morning sitting on her bed hugging her legs. She was fully dressed, but couldn't bring herself to venture out from the little apartment. Some of the other students in the residence house had gone out to see the invaders march through Durrell. Michelle knew what that meant. They'd end up throwing stones at the terrifying Earth-army troops, who would shoot them with agonizing stun bullets and drag them away to have explosive collars fastened around their necks.

  So she had kept indoors and accessed the datapool news services. That way she'd been given a close-up view of the drop gliders landing on the edge of town and disgorging thousands of the big Skin-clad troops, who had promptly swarmed along the streets. And she was right People had lobbed rocks, and bottles, and even some kind of firebomb. Barricades were thrown up across streets, then set on fire. The troops just walked through as if it were rain, not flame. Nothing affected them or slowed them down.

  There had been other forms of resistance. The news reported that one of the spaceport's hydrogen storage tanks had exploded. A few civic buildings had been set on fire, sending up thick columns of smoke over the capital city. The datapool was slow, and sometimes her connection dropped out for minutes at a time as strange software battles were fought within the city's electronic shadow.

  A quarter of an hour after the gliders arrived, small pods full of equipment fell out of the sky, dangling beneath big gaudy yellow parachutes. They were all drifting into the parks and meadows to the west of Durrell. Cameras followed several whose chutes had tangled, hurtling down to smash apart in a cascade of metal and plastic fragments.

  To start with, she'd kept a line open to her parents over at Colmore, a settlement two thousand kilometers to the south. It might have been weak of her, but they understood how frightened she was by the invasion. This was her first year at the university, and she didn't make friends too well. All she wanted was to go home, but the commercial flights had all stopped within half a day of the starships being detected. She was stuck here for the duration.

  Every time she thought about it, she told herself that she was an adult and should be able to cope. Then she started crying. Durrell was the capital, there would be more of the invaders here than anywhere else. Everything was bigger in Durrell, including the potential for trouble.

  An hour after the drop gliders landed, her link to Colmore was cut. Nothing she could do would bring it back; the data-pool management AS kept saying that the satellite links were down—nothing about how or why they were down.

  She'd hugged herself tighter, flinching at every tiny sound in the building. Her imagination filled the stairs and corridors with Skin suits as the invaders dragged students out of their rooms and snapped the explosive collars around their necks. They'd do it because everyone knew students always caused trouble, and rioted and demonstrated, and campus was a perpetual hotbed of revolutionaries.

  There was a knock at the door. Michelle squealed in shock. The knock came again. She stared across the room at the door. There was nowhere for her to hide, no way she could escape.

  She uncurled and stood up. The knock came again. It didn't sound authoritative or impatient. Hating herself for being so fearful, she padded across the threadbare carpet and turned the lock. "It's open," she whispered. She was trembling as if the world were in winter while the door slowly swung back. Somebody was standing there, giving her a curious look. He was so totally out of context that she thought her feverish brain was producing hallucinations.

  "Josep?" she muttered.

  "Hi, babe."

  "Ohmygod, it's you!" She jumped at him, clutching him so hard she would surely squeeze him to death. But... Josep!

  They'd met that summer when she was on vacation, celebrating her entrance exams—the first vacation she'd ever had by herself. It had been the most incredible time. Before then she'd always laughed at the clichйd stupidity of a vacation romance. But this had been different, she really had fallen in love. And at night she'd almost been frightened by her body's passion, the things they did with each other in her hotel bed. Almost Leaving Memu Bay had torn her very soul in half.

  She sobbed helplessly as he held on to her. "I thought you were one of them," she babbled. "I thought I was going to be made a hostage."

  "No, no." His hands stroked her back. "It's only me."

  "How did you get here? Why are you here? Oh, Josep, I've been so frightened."

  "I caught the last flight out of Memu Bay. I told you, I wanted to come with you and enroll at the university here. I'd just decided to leave the diving school when these Z-B bastards arrived."

  "You came here ... for me?"

  He took both of her hands, pressing them together inside his own until they stopped shaking. "Of course I did. I couldn't forget you, not ever."

  She started crying again.

  He kissed her gently on the brow, then moved down her cheek. Each touch of his lips was like a blessing. He was here, wonderful Josep with his strong, exciting body. And all the badness that had fallen upon their world wouldn't, couldn't touch her anymore.

  Steve Anders made his way carefully down the concrete steps into the basement underneath the bar. The concrete steps had worn and crumbled in the coastal humidity, making them treacherous. He hadn't even known the bar had such a room underneath, but then it was a long time since he'd been in one of the tourist traps along the marina water-front. His walking stick tapped its way gingerly across each curved surface before he put his feet down. At his age he didn't want to risk a broken bone.

  He chuckled at that. It was his age that had brought him here. By God, it was good to be helping fight back against the swine who'd killed his son last time around. Good that he could do something, that his age was finally an asset.

  It was a typical bar's storage room. Crates of empty and full bottles stacked against the walls. A trapdoor with a power platform to bring the beer barrels in and out. Broken chairs, advertising placards from years ago, boxes of old tankards, torn sheet screens rolled up and stuffed behind a pile of elaborate clay pots that still held desiccated plants.

  He reached the floor and peered around the gloomy shapes. The place was lit by a single green-tinged light cone.

  "Hello, Mr. Anders."

  He squinted at the girl who came out of the shadows. Pretty, young thing. "I know you," he said. "You're the schoolteacher."

  "Best not to label people," Denise said.

  "Yes. Yes, of course. I'm sorry."

  "That's all right. I thank you for what you've done. It was very brave."

  "Pha." His free hand came up automatically to stroke the plastic collateral necklace. "It was easy enough to get. And I had fun annoying that young shit who put it on me."

  Denise smiled and indicated a chair. Steve nodded gruffly, covering his rising nerves, and sat down. He watched with interest as she took a standard desktop pearl from her canvas shoulder bag. The unit was a rectangle of black plastic, fractionally larger than her hand, with its pane furled up along one edge. Nothing special.

  She put it on her open palm, as if she were holding an injured bird. Her eyes closed and the slightest frown creased her forehead.

  Steve Anders wished he were sixty years younger. She was enchanting. Some young lad didn't know how lucky he was.

  The desktop pearl changed shape, stiff plastic flowing into a crescent with needle-sharp tips.

  "That's unusual," Steve said, trying to keep his voice light. Before he'd retired, he'd been a protein cell technician. Nothing fancy, just a time server at Memu Bay's food refinery. But he knew Thallspring's level of technology.

  Denise's eyes fluttered open. "Yes. Are you ready?"

  Steve suddenly had a lot more confidence he was going to live through this. "Go ahead."

  Denise brought the device up and touched its tips to the collateral necklace. Steve tried to look down at what was happening.

  "It is melding with their systems," she said, understanding his apprehension. "By echoing them we can un
derstand their function. Once that state has been reached, they lie open to us."

  "It sounds more like philosophy than hacking." Did she mean duplicating their software, or hardware? Either way, he'd never heard of a gadget that acted the way this one did. It excited and disturbed him at the same time.

  "There we are," she said contentedly.

  The necklace loosened its grip. Denise took it from his neck. Steve let out a whoosh of breath. He saw that the tips of her gadget had sprouted a kind of root network, fibers as thin as human hair that dipped into the necklace plastic.

  No, nothing native to Thallspring could do that.

  "That's it?" he asked.

  "That's it."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The scrum down-formed with a hefty bone-cruncher thud as the heads of the prop forward locked together. Each of the boys tensed, gritting their teeth, breathing hard as they waited for the scrum-half to slip the ball in.

  From his flanker's position, Lawrence could just see through the tangle of mud-smeared legs. The ball was a blur of darkness as it entered the narrow gap. He yelled with the effort as he helped his teammates push. The hookers went after the ball like a pair of human jackhammers.

  Lawrence's boots began to skid backward. The Lairfold team's prop forwards were the biggest (supposed) eighteen-year-olds Lawrence had ever seen. The Hilary Eyre High first fifteen were losing almost every scrum, and it was costing them in points.

  This time Nigel, the Eyres hooker, managed to snag the ball for his team. It went sneaking back through the second row. The Lairfold team saw what was happening and started to wheel the scrum. Rob snatched the ball out of the second row and gave it a flying pass out to the Eyres wing just before he vanished below the painful slam-down of the enraged Lairfold scrum-half.

  The scrum broke apart with jostling aggravation, and the heavy boys began to lumber out toward the wingers who were running with the ball. It was passed three times before Alan caught it just short of the halfway line. He was smaller than most of the team, but his stocky frame carried a lot of strength. He sprinted downfield faster than the opposition expected. The twenty boys converging on him had to alter direction, gaining him a few extra seconds before one of Lairfold's flankers crashed into him. It was a tumbling impact, both boys leaving the ground, legs akimbo. The ball flew straight and purposeful out of the melee with Alan screaming, "Go, you fucker!" and Lawrence caught it without even stopping. He pounded toward the Lairfold goal line.

  The cheering from the touchline rose to a bombardment of yells, catcalls and chants. Out of the corner of his eye he just saw the scarlet and turquoise pompoms sashaying about as the Eyres cheerleaders gave it their raucous all. Couldn't make out which one was Roselyn. Then he saw the Lairfold fullback coming straight at him, and the lanky bastard was faster. He wasn't going to make the touchdown. On the other side of the pitch Vinnie Carlton was keeping pace with Lawrence's dash, making sure he didn't get in front.

  Two seconds before the fullback tackled him, Lawrence turned and flung the ball. The fullback's arms wrapped around his legs and he crashed to the sodden grass with a bruising impact. The ball arced across the field, turning slowly end over end. Everyone watched its silent flight; even the supporters on the sideline abandoned their clamor. Vinnie carried on running. And the Lairfold team noticed him. Their gorilla-men prop forward bellowed a furious war cry. But nobody was even close.

  Vinnie caught the ball beautifully, ten paces from the line. He sailed over with a joyful whoop, holding it aloft as he pelted in toward the big goalposts, slamming it down onto the grass.

  The crowd was jubilant. Lawrence laughed madly as he clambered out from under the angry fullback. His ribs and shoulder hurt like a bastard, and the tackle had left him partly winded, but he was still clapping and hollering in elation. The Eyres team swooped on Vinnie, who hugged Lawrence.

  "Great pass, man!"

  "Better try."

  "One point down," Alan said, always eager to spread gloom.

  Lawrence shook his head. "Two up, you mean. No sweat. Richard'll get it."

  They walked back toward their own half as Richard hacked into the ground with his heel, then carefully stood the ball upright. Lairfold lined up between the goal, facing him. But for Richard, Eyre's prize kicker, the three-point goal was a simple jog forward and a swift boot. The ball flew sedately between the tall white posts.

  There was another three minutes left to the game. Eyres played it tactical. Not giving ground. Kicking it into touch. Holding the ball in the scrum.

  The referee blew the whistle. Both captains did the gentlemanly thing and shook hands in the middle of the pitch. Lawrence stood with his teammates and gave their opponents three hearty cheers as they left the field.

  Alan was laughing cruelly. "Look at them. Bunch of jerkoffs. Go home and kill yourselves, guys!"

  Nigel's hand clamped over his mouth. "Show some dignity, man."

  "I am." Alan smirked. "I'm fucking enjoying myself. I love it when people that arrogant take a dive."

  "Hey, man of the match!" John wrapped an arm around Vinnie's shoulder, and pulled his hair down over his face. "What a run!"

  Vinnie grinned happily. "Wouldn't have meant a thing without Lawrence."

  Lawrence put on his most humble tone. "I do what I can."

  "Yeah," Alan grunted. "Only if Roselyn lets you."

  Several of the cheerleaders were running across the field to greet their heroes. They were dressed in short scarlet skirts and cornflower-blue sports halters.

  "Now that's what I call a welcome home," Alan said. His laugh was like a bad case of hiccups. He put his arms out wide and ran toward them. They scattered.

  Roselyn swatted him with a pompom and danced around to reach Lawrence. "You won!" she squeaked as she kissed Lawrence.

  "It was a team effort."

  "No, it wasn't. It was your brilliant throw that clinched it I saw it all. You were magnificent. Kiss me."

  "Oh, for fuck's sake," Alan grumbled. He ambled off toward the changing room.

  Lawrence and Roselyn laughed at his departing back.

  "Ugh, you're filthy," she complained suddenly. Streaks of cold, wet mud from his shirt had soaked into her halter. "Go and wash."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Be quick. It's freezing out here." She rubbed her arms and gave the dome's conditioning fans a suspicious glance. The school always lowered the temperature for rugby and soccer so the players wouldn't get too hot, but this felt as if the atmosphere had circumvented the inlet grids to blow straight in.

  "Are you going to the party tonight?" Nadia asked. She was leaning against Vinnie, with his arm casually possessive around her waist. But it was Lawrence who was receiving her intent stare.

  "Yeah, sure," he said, very careful to keep the tone neutral. Roselyn seemed to have some kind of telepathic ability when it came to detecting his thoughts on other girls. Not that he did have thoughts on other girls, of course. Funny thing was, for years not a single girl at Hilary Eyre High had shown any interest in him whatsoever; but now he had Roselyn he'd started to get definite signals. Not just from Nadia, either.

  "See you later," Roselyn said. She turned, then bounded back. "One more kiss."

  He obliged.

  "So is she pregnant yet?" Alan asked in the locker room.

  "What? Who?" Lawrence had showered, managing to grab someone else's shampoo. Now he was toweling his hair dry beside his locker.

  "Roselyn."

  "No!"

  "So what's all the practice for?" Alan's question trailed off into his hiccup laugh.

  "God, you're such a pervert."

  "God? Ah, this would be Roselyn's God you've borrowed, would it?"

  "Fuck off."

  "Listen." Alan's voice rose in volume so he could appeal to the rest of the locker room. "Three times I asked if he was coming out for an evening last week. Every time," his voice became all whiny, "I can't, we have to study together."

  "Which bit of her
were you studying?" Rob shouted.

  "Yeah." Nigel laughed. "Don't you know all the working parts yet?"

  "Fuck off," Lawrence yelled at them, hoping he wasn't grinning too much. It was quite a prestige thing, having a girlfriend for so long that everyone knew for sure that the relationship was solidly physical.

  "They're just jealous," Vinnie said. "Freaks without chicks."

  Lawrence gave him a small bow. "Thank you." He liked Vinnie Carlton. The boy had arrived on Amethi only eighteen months ago, just after Roselyn's family. But already it was as if he'd been there forever. Lawrence had started getting pally with him around the same time he was reintegrating himself with his own peers. Vinnie didn't have any family in Templeton. His father was still back on Earth wrapping up contracts for his software business before flying out to live permanently on Amethi. As Vinnie was seventeen when he disembarked the starship, he was legally able to live without any guardian supervision. He had his own apartment, and some legal firm took care of his finances and other official stuff, such as getting him a place at school. Lawrence had been incredibly jealous of that apartment at first. But they had a lot in common—shared academic classes, both in the flight club (Vinnie had actually flown an aircraft back on Earth—he claimed), got roped into the same team games, enjoyed duking it out in the i's together. They even looked similar, though Lawrence's hair was a couple of shades lighter, and Vinnie's eyes were deep brown instead of gray green. "I think you're cousins," Roselyn had said once.