"Prime," Michelle stammered. "The software was called Prime."
* * *
It was quite an operation, lifting the dragon out of its underground lair. The route had been prepared years ago, of course. Denise's family had sunk a second shaft down to the chamber, a bigger shaft than the elevator, which emerged to the side of the small stone temple.
Lawrence sat on the curving stone bench, watching as its concealed hood rose up on magnetic pistons, bringing a meter of soil with it. The dragon slowly emerged underneath, still sitting on its white-glass pedestal. Its golden power-induction mesh was wrapped tightly around its midsection. Sunlight glinted off individual strands. Electrohydraulic motors whined loudly in the placid air.
"Welcome to the world," Lawrence said. "I don't suppose you can sense visible light?"
"Not directly," the dragon replied. "However, I receive the images from yourself and other humans. I know what Arnoon looks like. It is very beautiful."
Repairing Lawrence's leg and hip wasn't all the pattern-form sequencer particles had done. They'd also modified a cluster of his neuron cells, giving them an ability similar to a DNI implant. D-writing, Denise called it, the particles engineering cellular structures in a direct fashion that human v-writing could never achieve—outside of germline treatments. Vectoring in new DNA was a scattergun approach deployed against entire organs or muscles; this was far more selective and precise.
"But you haven't given this communication cluster to everyone here?" he'd asked her.
The two of them had sat together in the snowbark pavilion for most of the morning, discussing how to get the dragon up to a starship. They were being polite to each other, nothing more. There was too much history for friendship.
"No," she said. "Only people like me and Raymond and Jacintha need it. We didn't want to create some kind of superwarrior breed. The enhancements given to the children are more benign and beneficial."
"Similar to germline v-writing?"
"Yes. The patternform sequencers can alter DNA quite easily. We gave everybody cancer resistance, and stronger immune systems, and refined organs, much greater life expectancy, a higher IQ. Their changes will be permanent, and the traits will carry down the generations. Arnoon won't have to depend on the dragon anymore."
"And the food," he said. There was a carved wooden bowl on the table in front of him. It was piled up with various fruits. He rested his finger on the rim, pressing it down so the bowl swung from side to side.
"The plants are also genetic adaptations," Denise said, enjoying his discomfort. "They'll breed true. In a hundred years, this forest will be an orchard that can feed a city. Nobody will need protein cell refineries anymore. Another economic necessity will be consigned to history."
"An economic necessity that liberated seventy percent of the human race from perpetual starvation. Growing things for food is a terribly inefficient use of energy."
"That depends on the nature of the culture you have to feed," she said. "Massive industrialized nations had to use industrial farming to feed their urban populations. If you replace them with scattered self-sufficient villages like Arnoon, then the requirements become very different."
"A world of physically separate communities linked by the datapool. The true global village. Knowledge belongs to everybody, and everybody goes their separate ways. You need microscale manufacturing to back that up, you know."
"I know. We've been studying the dragon as best we can, and we've copied every memory it has. If we give that to the rest of the world, then we hope something similar to the patternform sequencer can be built. It'll take decades, but we never wanted to force change overnight. This is going to be an organic revolution, generated from internal knowledge. It must succeed, if not here, then on a fresh world. Today's culture can't be the only way a technological society develops. It can't."
His eyes flashed with mischief. "Plenty of prejudices to overcome."
"There certainly are." She picked a peach from the top of the bowl and held it up in front of him.
"You sure? Last time a girl did this to me I threw up all over her."
"You're just a born romantic, aren't you?"
He took the peach and bit into it. The fruit was sweet and succulent. Quite pleasant, really.
"It's not just fruit we get from our trees," Denise said innocently. "Some of them grow meat, too."
Lawrence had trouble swallowing.
He saw Hal before he left. The kid was in one of the A-frames, sleeping peacefully. His medical modules had all been repaired and were now industriously cycling chemicals through various organs once more. And his skin was a much healthier color.
"The major internal damage has almost been repaired," the doctor said. "We'll start removing these modules in a day or two. I'm a little concerned about his biomech heart."
"What's wrong with it?" Lawrence asked.
"It's somewhat crude. I believe it was only intended as a temporary replacement I'm not sure how long it will last, and with the dragon leaving we don't have enough pattern-form sequencer particles to rebuild it. He'll probably need another transplant in twenty years."
Lawrence chuckled. "I wonder what kind of heart that'll be."
"Who knows?"
"What about his brain?"
"That will take more time to repair. He lost a lot of neurons from oxygen starvation. The patternform particles are rebuilding as fast as they can, but it will be weeks before full intellectual function is returned."
A concept that, applied to Hal, made Lawrence grin. "Will his full memories come back?"
"No. Not even the dragon's systems can recover them. There will be large gaps in his life."
Lawrence stroked Hal's forehead. "I think that's probably a good thing if he's to make a fresh start here."
"Yes."
"Do me a favor. Take those valves out. That'll give him a real fresh start."
"Of course. Is there a message when he recovers?"
"Just... I don't know. Good luck, I guess."
It was pretty lame, he had to admit. But, really, what else was there to say? The kid had a chance at a new life here, why tie him to the past?
"Perhaps you could record a message," the dragon suggested.
"No. Cutting him loose is the best thing I can do for him. Besides, the last thing he needs is advice from me. Look what a screwup I made of everything."
"I believe that's what you call sweet Fate."
Lawrence touched two fingers to his forehead, saluting the dragon as a heavylift robot eased it off the pedestal. "You got me there."
Jacintha came into the temple and sat beside him. A small cargo robot rolled up behind her. The island's shoreline was nearly invisible under all the boats that had brought people and equipment over from the village. Lawrence hoped to hell Z-B's spy satellites didn't notice all the unusual activity. The villagers claimed they'd tracked everything the starships had launched into low orbit around Thallspring. If they were right, they had a clear sky above them right now.
"Your Skin's ready," Jacintha said, indicating the fat plastic case that the robot was carrying.
"Thanks. I thought that was dead."
"We had an antidote to sharkpike venom long before we ever found the dragon. As long as it's applied quickly, you're okay. The Skin's muscle cords were receptive once we'd flushed the contaminated blood out."
"Thanks. Those damn things scared me shitless."
"Every rose has its thorns. The rivers around here are full of sharkpikes. I've been bitten a couple of times myself."
"Can't you introduce some kind of virus? Wipe them out"
Jacintha's expression darkened. "Is my little sister really going to be able to trust you?"
"Yeah, she can trust me."
"She's the closest thing to a genuine KillBoy there is. I was part of the team that wiped out your platoon. And now that's all in the past? This from a man who would genocide a species because it has sharp teeth."
"The platoon foll
owed me," Lawrence said slowly. "I brought them up here. You might have pulled the trigger, but it was me who put them in front of you."
"And there I was thinking you were going to say they knew the risks."
"That too. We don't expect a population to fight back, and we certainly don't expect it in the hinterlands of Thallspring. But each time we land we know it's a possibility. Denise might have had a few zippy gadgets, but her real advantage over us was how willing people were to sign up to her bogus resistance movement. If the local inhabitants ever get properly organized, or call Z-B's bluff, we automatically lose. Do you really think a starship captain, a flesh-and-blood human who has family of his own, is ever ever going to give an order for a gamma pulse that will slaughter half a million people? It won't happen. So we know we're on our own down here, that there's no fallback, no help from above. The fact that Denise eliminated so many of us in Memu Bay proves what I've known for a long time now: that Z-B is in decline. Probably a terminal one. Skin suits are superb technology, even up against your dragon's knowledge. But without the organization, the initiative and the determination to face down threats, that means nothing. And we had none of those qualities down in Memu Bay. Santa Chico should have told the Board that asset realization was over, finished for good. Instead they just kept on, trying to find weaker targets."
"You agree with the Eternals, then? Life is in a permanent cycle."
Lawrence let out a long breath, exhausted with holding back his anger and despair. "Could be. You know what? I really don't care. I don't care that you killed my friends. I don't care that I killed your ambush party. I don't care if that makes us quits or not. I don't care that Z-B is quietly collapsing. I don't care that you want to build some noble civilization based on total bullshit about people being perpetually nice to each other. I don't care that your deranged sister is willing to sacrifice herself and everyone she knows to save some piece of talking rock. I don't damn well care that the universe is doomed and the galaxy is falling into a black hole. I have spent the last twenty years caring. I cared for my platoon. I cared about what the human race was doing and where it was going. I cared that we didn't have frontiers anymore. I cared about my career. I even cared about what I was doing with my life. And look where I am because of that. Helping a bunch of cosmic hippies hijack a starship. Sweet fucking Fate!"
"You mean we can't trust you?"
"You got it, girl. Denise cannot trust me, not now, not ever. I do not like her. I will never like her. I will, however, respect her abilities. And I expect a similar respect in return. What you can have from me is reliability. I am dependable in this in a way none of you are. I will hijack that starship, and it will fly to Aldebaran. Of that you can be certain."
"I'm not sure I can be, Lawrence."
"This is for me, now. Not you and your ideals. That's why you can be certain. I finally, finally, have a chance to put my life back together and live it the way I was born to live it. To cancel out the last twenty miserable years. After Aldebaran I'm going home. That's all: home. And nothing and nobody can stop that from happening."
The sound of the hovercraft approaching made both of them turn and look out across the crater lake. Lawrence couldn't help a derisory laugh at the absurdity of the vehicle. It was made from wood, Arnoon's lightest, hardest timber, crafted into a simple oval platform with a cabin grafted onto the prow. Two big steerable propellers stood high on smooth, tall fins at the rear. The skirt was willow wool, a fine tight weave easily holding in the cushion of air on which it rode. Electric motors powered the propellers and impellers, salvaged from an assortment of heavy machinery across the plateau.
It swept lightly across the water, with a thin haze of spray escaping from underneath its skirt, and a creamy V-shaped wake spreading wide. When it reached the island it rocked slightly as the front skirt rode up the shingle and onto the scanty grassmoss. The propellers reversed pitch, bringing it to a halt. It sank down with a prolonged wheeze of escaping air.
The heavylift robot carrying the dragon trundled over to it. A ramp was deployed in front of the propeller fins, enabling it to climb up onto the deck.
"We're ready," Denise said. She gave Lawrence and her sister an anxious glance, aware that they'd been quarreling.
"Sure," Lawrence said brightly. "Is that thing really going to work?"
"Certainly." Denise sounded offended. "We've practiced the route a dozen times. The river is the easiest way out of Arnoon. The hovercraft will take us straight to Rhapsody Province. One of the articulated trucks from Dixon is already at the rendezvous point. It'll take the dragon all the way down to Memu Bay's airport. We'll be there in fifteen hours. After that, it's all up to you."
"Don't worry, my contact has sent a plane to collect us. Where's the cargo pod? We can hardly load the dragon into a Xianti as it is."
"The cargo pod is with the truck. An RL-thirty-three, industry standard sixty-ton capacity. We'll put the dragon inside it when we get there."
"Okay. Let's go."
* * *
Simon was appalled to discover that there was no supersonic transport on Thallspring. He wound up commandeering the presidential jet, which could barely reach Mach 9. It was a converted fifty-seat medium-range commuter jet that had a flight time of four hours to Memu Bay.
He spent the time working with his personal AS, dropping hundreds of askpings into Memu Bay's datapool. The leisure company that Michelle had signed up with to go diving among the atolls had no file on any employee called Josep, nor on Raymond, who was supposed to be his friend. The AS trawl couldn't find any abnormalities in the company's memory blocks. No substituted files, no gaps in the daily boat trip logs for a month either side of Michelle's visit; even the financial accounts were in order.
"Arrest them," Simon ordered Ebrey Zhang.
"Who, exactly?" Memu Bay's governor asked.
"The company's senior management. Their diving gill instructors. Boat crews. Bring them all in for questioning. I want them in custody by the time I arrive."
"Yes, sir."
The governor's noticeable reluctance made Simon review the current situation report for Memu Bay. "For God's sake," he muttered as the indigo script scrolled down. And to think, he'd warned the SK2 to keep an eye on the place.
Memu Bay had gone into meltdown over the last week. Asset realization was down to 50 percent of estimated targets. Two-thirds of the settlement's factories had some kind of strike action going on. The entire mayor's office had walked out and refused to work with Ebrey Zhang following the Grabowski rape case. The rest of the civil sector was reduced to emergency services only. Platoon morale was rock bottom, with charges accumulating against 30 percent of Z-B's personnel. TB cases were still being reported; immunization implementation was slow. Sabotage against utilities was a daily occurrence. Several districts had become no-go zones—and that included for Skin platoons. Collateral no longer worked. There were reprisals every time. Zhang was afraid to use any more necklaces for fear of making the situation even worse.
The more Simon studied the breakdown and its history, the more interested he became. Essentially, Z-B had lost control of the settlement. The resistance group led by KillBoy had waged a beautifully orchestrated campaign against the invasion, building to this climax of near anarchy.
"Why, though?" Simon asked a dismayed Braddock Raines. "How does this help our alien? Wiping out Zhang's little command is hardly going to cripple Zantiu-Braun."
"I'm not sure they could even do that," Braddock commented. "Physically eliminating every Skin stationed in Memu Bay would be difficult even for them. They can force the platoons off the streets and back into their barracks, maybe even make them fall back all the way to the airport. But if you hit those lads too hard, they'll hit you back. Part of the problem is Zhang holding back."
"You might be on to something there," Simon said. "With the platoons off the streets, the alien is free to do what it wants in Memu Bay without us noticing. But we still don't know what that is."
The presidential jet landed without incident. There was very little activity at the airport. Half of its buildings were operating on reserve power supplies, thanks to the resistance group severing a set of superconductor cables two nights earlier. Skins patrolled the perimeter.
A helicopter was waiting for Simon. He climbed in as a big Pan-Skyways cargo jet took off, heading for Durrell with a hold full of assets.
Skins had to clear the square in front of the Town Hall so the helicopter could land. The displaced protesters jeered and threw stones over the barricades. Simon's Skin escort closed in around him. He never normally noticed them, but today he was grateful for their presence. He didn't often get this close to physical danger. The clamorous hostility of the crowd made him distinctly uncomfortable.
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