Fallen Fragon

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Number eighteen's household AS told him nothing, because it had been inactive for over a week. The system was still waiting repair. Smaller independent sections of the house's network were functioning on autonomous backup mode, but they didn't have memory logs. Strangest of all, the security system was also offline; its sensors weren't even drawing power.

  Minster Avenue's road traffic logs confirmed there had been very few vehicles driving along the street during the night Hal claimed he'd visited. Certainly no taxi had pulled up outside number eighteen. But the Prime dug deeper into the local transport network. Between 1:48 and 2:10 the network dataflow had increased by a small percentage.

  After Hal had left.

  There was nothing in the logs to account for the increase.

  "Shutting up shop," Lawrence muttered to himself. The minute data abnormality wouldn't convince a court that had Hal's DNA sample taken off the girl. He wasn't even sure if it would be admissible in court. But it was good enough for him: an electronic graffiti roughly equivalent to spraying KillBoy was here across the front of the house.

  Lawrence walked over the road and rang the brass bell. It took a minute before the black front door swung open. A woman in an apron stood in the hallway, giving him a suspicious stare. "Yes?"

  "Elena Melchett?"

  "Yes? Who are you?"

  "Lawrence Newton. I'm covering the alien rape case."

  Elena Melchett didn't look as if she wanted to cooperate with the media. "So?"

  "Ah, the alien suspect claims he was somewhere in this street when the incident happened. It's his alibi. I was wondering if you had seen anything?"

  "Mr. Newton, that obscene crime took place at one o'clock in the morning. I was in bed asleep. I certainly didn't see any alien thug hanging around outside."

  "I didn't think so, thank you. Er..." He fished around in his pockets while Elena Melchett grew increasingly impatient. He found his media card and activated a visual file. "Sorry to be such a pain, but do you recognize this man?" The card's screen showed a picture of Hal.

  Elena Melchett studied it. "No."

  "Really? That's odd."

  "What do you mean?"

  Lawrence told the card to switch to another file. "This is a blueprint of your hall, isn't it?" He peered past the woman at the big staircase that curved up to the second-floor landing.

  This time Elena Melchett barely glanced at the image. "It's similar."

  "I'd say it's identical. Even down to the marble tiling."

  "What do you want, Mr. Newton?"

  "That alien suspect, he put this image together with an architect program. How would he know what your hallway looked like if he'd never been here? You did say you didn't recognize him, didn't you?"

  "Get out!" Elena Melchett ordered him in a strident voice. "Out, and don't come back. If I see you around here again, I'll call the police." The glossy door slammed shut.

  The prosecution had got Hal up on the witness stand. Lawrence could finally appreciate the saying about someone being his own worst enemy. It wasn't going well. In fact it was excruciating just being in the same room.

  The prosecution wanted to know why he'd jumped curfew.

  Hal—good old honest fresh-from-the-farm Hal—said he did it because he was desperate for sex.

  The prosecution wanted to know where he'd gone that night to hunt for sex.

  Hal told them the brothel on Minster Avenue, doggedly sticking to his version of events. Lawrence presumed it was because his mother had always told him to tell the truth.

  The prosecution tore that version of the fateful night to shreds, and there wasn't any evidence that Lieutenant Bra-low could produce to back Hal up. Then they went on to ask about the genetic samples. Hal claimed the girl was a whore, and that the rest of it—the rape allegation, the nonexistent brothel—was all a setup by KillBoy.

  It didn't go down well. Francine Hazeldine's haunting statement had already been played back to the court. Lawrence had watched the presiding officers as her fragile voice had described what happened that night, detail by agonizing detail.

  The more the farce carried on, the more Lawrence admired KillBoy's strategy and resourcefulness, and the more angry he became. Hal was just too easy. He wanted to stand up in the banqueting suite and face the locals, asking: "Why don't you try this one with me?" But then, the devastating effect that the trial would have on Z-B's morale was the final triumph of that elegant strategy.

  He was also haunted by the terrible specter of responsibility. There should have been a trial very similar to this last time he was on Thallspring. The fact that it had never happened was in no small part due to him. Justice then had been circumvented rather than served. Now justice was coming back to strike them with a vengeance.

  Lawrence spent most of the time wondering if the two could possibly be connected.

  Only by a God with a very twisted sense of humor, he decided.

  After five hours of testimony and witness examination, the presiding officers recessed the court so they might consider their verdict. They took ninety minutes, which Lawrence thought was a diplomatic enough length of time given that they'd already decided that verdict before the court-martial even began.

  Hal stood in front of the dais facing the presiding officers, his shoulders squared, as Ebrey Zhang announced the findings.

  On the charge of disobeying a direct order and breaking curfew: guilty.

  On the charge of misleading the local police: guilty.

  On the charge of assault and rape of a minor: guilty.

  "No!" Hal yelled, incensed. "I'm not."

  There was a sigh from the audience, not of jubilation, but a shared sense of justice and victory. Against all the odds, they'd been given the right outcome.

  Hal sat down again while Lieutenant Bralow gave what Lawrence had to acknowledge was an eloquent plea for clemency. Then everyone stood for the sentence.

  A very troubled-looking Ebrey Zhang said: "Halford Grabowski, given the grave nature of this abominable crime, we find we have no alternative but to impose the most severe sentence it is within this court's power to issue. You are hereby sentenced to death."

  Hal Grabowski went berserk. He screamed obscenities at the presiding officers and started to run for the door. Anyone who got in his way was felled with powerful punches from his hulking frame. The audience scrambled for safety, also screaming.

  It took two Skins to hold on to the enraged squaddie and administer a sedative. His unconscious body was dragged out of the banqueting suite.

  Ebrey Zhang straightened his uniform and cleared his throat. "Sentence to be carried out at dawn the day after tomorrow. Leave to appeal is denied. Lieutenant Bralow, please inform your client of the outcome. This court is now concluded."

  The presiding officers filed out. Lawrence didn't move.

  Bralow turned to him and said: "I really am sorry. He didn't deserve this." As he didn't get an answer, he nodded nervously and hurried out. The audience was lining up at the doors at the rear to get out and back to their town and their lives. It wasn't long before everyone else had left.

  Amersy and the remaining members of 435NK9 lined up in front of the defense counsel table. Lawrence looked at them one by one. "If anybody wants to stick with Zantiu-Braun, you'd better leave now."

  A couple of them snorted in derision; the rest simply waited expectantly for their sarge to tell them what to do next.

  "Okay," Lawrence said. "Time for us to start playing unfair."

  * * *

  This time Josep drove a car out to the spaceport. He arrived in the middle of the afternoon and passed through the main gate with the identity of Andyl Pyne, a junior manager with the catering company that had the franchise for the administration block. The spaceport's general management AS assigned his car a slot in park 7. Because of Andyl Pyne's somewhat lowly status, he had a long walk back to the block itself.

  He carried a slim briefcase with him, de rigueur for management of any level. Sunglass
es were also obligatory, so he wore a cheap plastic pair. His light green one-piece coverall wasn't quite regular, but it had the catering company logo on its breast pocket. He had boots rather than shoes. All in all, his appearance was well inside the permissible norm.

  Ahead of him, the afternoon sun shone on a five-sided structure with slightly convex walls of darkened glass. From where he was, the administration block resembled a closed-up tulip flower with a blunt tip. It stood by itself to one end of the terminal building, away from the much taller control tower. Although the building was only five stories high, the architect's plans that his Prime had trawled out of the data-pool showed a service level and another five floors below-ground.

  When he reached the main entrance he had to repeat the whole security identification procedure, allowing the AS to check his palm and facial pattern. Security in general was a lot tighter in the administration block than the main terminal, thanks to all the Z-B staff that worked there now.

  Inside, he ignored the reception desk and the two Skins standing beside it, walking directly to the bank of elevators in the central lobby. No one who came in on a regular basis would be intimidated or even concerned by them anymore. He took an elevator down to the first sublevel, where building maintenance had its offices, along with the canteen. So far everything matched the floor plan and security camera images they'd trawled.

  Josep went into the toilets and claimed an empty cubicle. The AS logged him through a security camera. Coverage inside the administration block was almost universal, with only places like the toilet cubicles free of cameras. Not that their absence mattered: the AS followed everyone's position constantly, you couldn't trade places or switch with anybody else. It was Andyl Pyne who went into the cubicle; if anyone else came out the AS would sound the alarm.

  It wasn't the AS that Josep was trying to avoid, he simply needed time to make a few alterations. At this stage, sharp-eyed humans were his greatest worry. His Prime went into the administration block's network and began editing the monitor logs. The AS soon registered that it was Sket Magersan who was in the cubicle. Once the switch of electronic records was complete, Josep stood still and concentrated. The d-written organelles deep inside his cells quickened and began to modify his flesh. Facial skin pigmentation darkened slightly. Features started to morph. The tip of his nose broadened out, while the nostrils widened. Lips fattened up. His cheeks sagged slightly, then stiffened, giving the impression of a flatter jawbone. Irises became a light hazel.

  There was a small vanity mirror in his briefcase. Josep took it out and examined his rearranged face.

  They'd spent a long time observing Sket Magersan as the Z-B spaceplane pilot drank in Durrell's bars and ate in its restaurants. He'd been chosen because he was similar in height, weight, age and general profile, so Josep's d-written systems would be able to imitate his physical appearance without too much trouble. His voice was deeper than Josep's, and his accent was pure Capetown, but a direct link with a neurotronic pearl running a vocalsynthesizer program took care of that. Josep even had the man's walk down pat; his shoulders had a lavish swing when he hurried.

  The image in the mirror was that of Sket. Nodding in satisfaction, Josep stripped off his green one-piece and reversed it. This way round it was a standard dark-gray Z-B pilot's flight suit, complete with insignia, baggy leg pockets and elastic waist.

  Josep stepped out of the cubicle and took his time washing his hands, making sure the toilet's security camera could see him clearly. The Prime monitored the security AS, but there was no caution alert issued. He went back to the elevators, and descended to sublevel five.

  Simon Roderick had decided on the simplest system possible to monitor the key vault. Keep electronics to an absolute minimum and rely on human observers. That distrust of electronics extended to not informing the spaceport security AS that a covert operation was being mounted. They didn't even tell the local security staff.

  According to the administration block records, the office on sublevel four was assigned to Quan and Raines, who were Third Fleet quartermaster staff. They were the ones in charge of spare parts being shipped down from the starships to keep the Xiantis flying, working with their own AS to keep expenditure to the lowest level possible. Even the data that flowed into the office from local networks supported their assignment, although it did contain a large amount of information not directly applicable, such as staff schedules and flight profiles. Typical bloatware overload.

  Simon occupied the office next to theirs. The AS had him listed as a spaceplane avionics systems manager, a title that could be confirmed by the number of boxes and small packages that kept getting taken inside, all of them labeled with electronics department bar codes.

  The only thing missing from the two offices was a security camera. Simon wasn't going to risk the opposition being able to spy on his own spies.

  They'd set up the first office as an observation center. One wall was now covered in sheet screens, relaying various scenes from the administration block. Each one was connected to a single fixed-position lens via fiberoptic cable. Picture quality was well down on standard sensors, but this way there was no electrical cabling. A power flow, however small, could always be detected. The screens even had their own independent power supply, a bank of cells in one corner. That way there was no drain on the administration block circuits, which could be tracked through the datapool.

  Adul Quan watched the elevator doors open on sublevel five. A man in a Z-B flight uniform walked out.

  "Who've we got here?" Adul grunted. Procedure was to confirm everybody who arrived on sublevel five. The screen feed was linked to a desktop pearl that had no connection to the local network: instead, it was loaded with personnel files. Whoever the new arrival was, he walked right underneath the lens covering the elevators.

  "Sket Magersan," Braddock read off the card's display.

  "One minute." He was frowning as he riffled through a stack of hard copy. Both he and Adul had privately bitched about Simon Roderick insisting on keeping printed records. But their chief was convinced that e-alpha had been compromised, leaving their data memories wide open to manipulation. So every morning, the spaceport's personnel schedules were printed out. This way they could check who was supposed to be in the administration block and who was suspect.

  Braddock glanced down Magersan's sheet, stopped and read it carefully. "Shit, he's supposed to be on leave today. Spent the last five days flying."

  Adul straightened up and peered at the other screens covering sublevel five. "So what's he doing here, and down at that level?"

  "Good question." Braddock went to stand beside his colleague. They watched Magersan walk along a corridor, nodding affably to people.

  "Heading toward the vault," Adul said in a low, excited tone.

  "That's not certain."

  "Bullshit." Adul was on the edge of his seat.

  Magersan had arrived at the communications department He gave the security sensor a codeword and put his hand over the scanner. His voiceprint and blood vessel pattern must have matched. The door slid open.

  "Sir!" Braddock was heading for their office's connecting door. He opened it hurriedly. "Sir, I think we have something."

  There were three offices making up the communications department, linked by a short corridor. Security cameras confirmed that as usual there were only two people inside, one in the first office, one in the third. When the outer door opened, Josep slipped in and waited for it to shut. Prime edited him out of the security cameras' vision. Neither of the two Z-B officers inside the department had heard the door. He paused for a second, then ordered his Prime to call the man in the first office. It was a query from the maintenance division about a glitch in a spaceplane satellite tracking unit, with the quasi-sentient program generating the supervisor's image and voice.

  When the communications officer started to answer, Josep walked quickly past the office and went into the second. His Prime disabled three alarm sensors that were trigger
ed by his entry. He shut the door and locked it with a manual bolt, then drew a quiet breath as he waited to see if either of the officers had reacted. Images from the security cameras hung behind his eyes, showing both of them at work behind then-desks.

  The key vault had a big steel door reinforced by boron longchain fiber. Before Z-B arrived, it had stored the gold and platinum used in the microgee manufacture of electronic components. Now the metal had been shipped up to the star-ships, leaving a lot of empty space for Z-B to store its keys.

  There were two locks that worked on deep-scanned hand patterns. They had to be activated simultaneously by two different people. Josep took a pair of slim dragon-extruded modules from his trouser leg pockets and applied the first one over the top lock. Its surface undulated slowly as it melded itself to the scanner. The second module went over the bottom lock. He activated them together, and the magnetic bolts snapped out with a clunk loud enough to make Josep flinch.