“I can't let you do it, Rik. I guess you've got some way of stopping the ship. Some sort of radio device, I'm guessing, not tied into the Net, so you couldn't use it through your cogplus. Something without a strong signal. Something that probably fits in your pocket.” He watched Rik, perhaps hoping for a confirmation. None came. “So I want you to take it out of your pocket and hand it over to me now.”
Rik's brain was slowly revving into gear, but he still couldn't make much sense of what Burleigh was doing. “You know you'll die too?” he said, his voice almost a sob as he fought against blind fury and frustration. He was just talking out loud, trying to get his thoughts moving. “What could they possibly give you...?”
“They've got my parents, Rik. My mom and dad.”
“Your parents?” It didn't seem credible that the hard-faced soldier pointing a gun at him had parents. Surely men like Burleigh just sprang, fully-formed, from the rock.
“The trigger, or whatever it is,” Burleigh said. “Hand it over.”
“Why don't you just shoot me and take it?” He struggled back onto his feet. He was damned if he'd sit there and let anyone shoot him like a wounded animal.
“I don't want to shoot you, Rik.”
“But you'll kill me and everyone else here? Well, fuck you!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cylinder. It was a small radio trigger, just as Burleigh had guessed. It had a safety cap that had to be pushed off, and then the little red button at the end would be ready to press.
Rik had taken it from the armoury aboard The Phenomenon of Man when he armed himself on the run back from Omega Point. The explosives he found there that day had just been too tempting. He had taken one of the remote detonators and primed it, inserted it into a chunk of plastique and hid it away out of sight. There was enough explosive in that room to blow the ship in half. It seemed like a good precaution at the time. A bargaining chip, in case he needed one. He hadn't supposed it might save his life.
All Rik had to do was flip the cap and press that little red button. It would take him – what? A second? One and a half? How long would it take Burleigh to see what he was doing and squeeze off a shot? Half a second? The maths didn't work out in Rik's favour. However, if it came to it...
“Tell me about your parents,” he said.
“What?”
“Your parents. Where do they live?”
“Shut up, Rik.”
“What about your father? Is he a big man like you? I bet he's proud of his son, keeping the peace, helping to build something out here. Was he a soldier too? Fought in the Oil Wars, I bet.” Rik had little idea where he was going with this but, to his amazement, he saw tears forming in Burleigh's eyes. “You're a good man, Burleigh. I saw the way your troops looked at you, the way they snapped to obey when you gave an order. They respect you. They look up to you. Hell, they even like you. I could see it.”
Burleigh's anger flared. With an inarticulate roar, he advanced on Rik, gun raised, rage burning behind his tears. “Give me the fucking trigger!”
Rik stood his ground. “Go to hell, Burleigh. If you want it, you've got to shoot me. If you shoot me, you'd better pray I don't survive.”
Burleigh stepped closer, pushing the cold barrel of the Colt hard against Rik's temple. The cop's face was just inches from his own.
“They're my parents!” he shouted. “There are killers in their house. In their house! Just waiting for a signal to shoot them both. What else can I do? Tell me! What the fuck else can I do?”
There were tears streaming down the cop's face now. The eyes that glared into Rik's were filled with pain.
“You can do the right thing, Burleigh. It's all any of us can ever do. It's the only thing that keeps the Lanhams and the Cordells of this world from having the whole damn thing on a plate. People like you – and me – doing the right thing.”
The anger drained suddenly from Burleigh's face, leaving only pleading. “Jesus, Rik.”
“Even if Cordell, or whoever it is, let them go – which he won't – what do you think they'd feel about all the people who had to die to keep them alive? How do you think they'd feel about their big, heroic son?”
Burleigh stepped back with a yell, the gun quivering in his hand, his teeth clenched in a grimace of rage and indecision, his eyes glaring at Rik. Then, like his strings had been cut, he slumped. His eyes closed and his arm fell. “The Wild West,” he said, following some train of thought Rik could only guess at. He threw his gun across the room. “It should have been simpler than this,” he said, but Rik was no longer listening.
He sprinted for the cupola, flipping the cap on the trigger as he went. His legs gave way again, and he staggered and almost fell, but managed to make it all the way on his feet. For a wild moment he scanned the skies above him, looking for the bright pink exhaust of a fusion torch, but there was nothing but blackness beyond the tinted windows. He stabbed down at the button.
Chapter 44
Lanham, riding to his death in a borrowed body, listened to Mozart through the cabin speakers. Even with his emotional centres tuned to zero, there was a simple elegance of pattern and ratio to the music that made the piece perfect for these last moments. If Mozart could have been rescued from death, what music would he have written with the whole resources of Omega Point to augment that brilliant mind?
It was a question Lanham often asked himself. It bothered him that there were no artists or academics in Omega Point. Artists and academics died poor. Even Mozart had died poor. It was a sad fact that the economics of the situation demanded that you needed to be rich to live forever. In Omega Point, the home of the elite, transhumans were all business people, gangsters, dictators...
He should start a program of scholarships. A trust. A body like the Nobel Prize Committee, which would seek out the greatest artists and scientists and reward them with the offer of immortality. He wondered idly whether he should transmit his resolve back to his original, but it was unnecessary. If he had had the thought, then so would that other Lanham. The one that was not about to die.
A loud thump interrupted his reverie. It felt as though the ship had been hit with a giant hammer. He looked at the displays. A hull breach? An explosion? He had felt a brief acceleration, not along his planned course, but sideways.
Another explosion shook the ship, a more violent, destructive blast this time. Immediately, everything turned to chaos. He was flung around in his seat. Forces that would have smashed a human body threw him in all directions before settling into a steady pressure. He was spinning. A last glance at the instruments before the power died showed him the ship was a wreck and tumbling off it's course. The fusion drive sputtered out its last high-energy exhaust in all directions, like a giant Catherine wheel.
He was in the dark. Total blackness. Straining against his harness as the spin tried to throw him out of his seat. There was no sound. The air had gone, he supposed. No more Mozart.
He dug around in his internal files and found a copy of the piece. The music filled his mind again. Perfect. Beautiful. He hyped up his own internal clock to triple speed so that he could play the piece more quickly and it would still sound normal. That way, he would have time to hear it all before he hit the ground.
Chapter 45
The infirmary in Heinlein was a busy place. The panic caused by the quarantine had left quite a few injured – some of them with gunshot wounds. It surprised Rik that Maria managed to find him in all the hubbub. It wasn't as if the little hospital had lucies to spare for showing visitors around.
“How are you doing?” she asked, glancing at the sling on his left arm.
“Torn ligaments. A bit of bruising. They put a nerve damper in my shoulder and it feels just fine now.”
Best of all, they'd had a surgical bot do a quick repair on Rik's cogplus, and the headaches that had plagued him were completely gone. The technician who had supervised the work, handed Rik a tiny biochip afterwards and said, “That was piggybacking your implant. Someone gave
you those headaches on purpose.” Rik could only marvel at how thorough Cordell's people had been. If you wanted your dupe too distracted to think straight, a migraine did the job just fine.
Maria said, “I just came over to say goodbye. I'm catching the four o'clock gondola to Partway.”
“I heard from Burleigh,” Rik said. “He was in here a while ago. Said you were all square with the FBI.”
Maria smiled. “The UN seems to have some clout, even with the CIA. I think the British Government was involved in sorting things out somehow too. Your friend, Fariba?” She looked at Rik oddly, as if she were trying to read his reaction. “I like her. She's... tough.”
Rik took her hand. It was long-boned, fine and delicate. “I didn't mean to get you mixed up in this, but I'm glad you were. I mean, if you'd been at home when Lanham's people came, I don't know how I'd have lived with it. I'm sorry about your boyfriend too.” He felt a sharp pang of remorse. He had done so much damage to this woman. “I owe you for so many things. I made a big mistake when I...” He stopped himself. He had almost said, “When I married you.” It was true, but he didn't want to say it like that. Despite everything, he would never regret knowing Maria.
She seemed to understand his difficulty, because she smiled again and said, “Yeah, I've thought about it a lot, too. Time we both grew up and moved on.” She squeezed his hand and then withdrew hers.
“Maria–” He wasn't sure what he'd been about to say, but her eyes were full of kindness and acceptance, and it stopped him dead. It was over. Properly, truly over. And he knew he wouldn't pine over her the way he had done for so long. A wonderful lightness filled him, and he smiled back at her.
“Let me know how you are from time to time,” he said. “And check your bank balance when you get a chance. I decided Lanham owed you a service fee for finding the package and delivering it, and since I had control of Lanham's funds for a while back there...”
Maria gave him a puzzled smile. “As long as it covers the trip here,” she said. “Flying to the Moon is not exactly cheap.”
“It should be enough.”
She leaned close and kissed his cheek. “Goodbye, Rik. Look after yourself.”
“You too.”
-oOo-
Rik found Freymann in a makeshift treatment room, arguing with a red-faced nurse. He waited politely in the background while the MI6 agent finished explaining what she planned to do with the man's medical scanner if he didn't get out of her goddam way and let her leave.
The nurse finally gave up and stomped off to find more grateful patients, leaving Freymann to notice Rik at last.
“That dress has seen better days,” he said, referring to the torn and filthy rag she had on that had once been such a lovely, gauzy confection.
“She's dead now,” Freymann said. “Vicki. Do you think she knew they planned to destroy themselves like that?”
Rik said nothing. The Phenomenon of Man had hit the ground fifty kilometres from Heinlein with the force of a large nuke. A small amount of debris had rained down on the town itself, but there had been only minor damage to a few surface buildings. No-one was injured. No-one had died.
“What happened up there?” she asked. “Between you and Burleigh? I heard a gunshot.” Rik didn't reply. Burleigh's last-minute ethical issues were between the two of them. “He told me he was heading Earthside for a funeral.”
“It's a long story, for some other time. But we're good. We worked things out. And he's in sweet with his bosses again, now that they've bothered to get the story straight. He's been a big help cleaning up the mess I was in. I gather you've been helping out there, too.”
“What could I do? They were going to throw you in the slammer for the next thousand years until I explained you were working undercover for Six. Our mutual friend Mr. Shah backed up the story. So did my section head. There's a feeling that if you wanted a proper job, they wouldn't be completely against the idea of putting you on the payroll.”
Rik grinned and offered Freymann his arm. “Do you fancy a coffee? I've got a counter offer, but I've had enough of this place. You OK to walk?”
Her right leg was in a cast from knee to toes, and her right arm was in a sling that matched Rik's. She slid her good arm into his. “I'd crawl if I had to. Just get me out of here.”
They found a café out in the street. People stared at the tattered and bandaged couple, looking away quickly when either of them noticed.
“Oh, that's good!” Rik sipped his cappuccino and closed his eyes.
“So tell me about your counter-offer. If you're looking for a barmaid for that flea-pit of yours, forget it.”
“The Harsh Mistress is a fine establishment. Or it will be, when the new owner completes the repairs.”
“You've sold it!”
Rik was enjoying himself. “I gave it away. To Veb. He was pretty surprised.”
“You–” For a moment, Freymann was speechless. “What are you planning to live on? I've seen your file, remember? The gumshoe business up here isn't exactly flourishing. You only got by at all because you lived at the bar and your wives fed and clothed you.”
“I've come into a little money.” She waited, open mouthed, so he went on. “While I still had control of Lanham's account, I paid myself for my services. I added a little danger money.”
“OK, so you got paid. I still don't see how-”
“I gave you a consultancy fee too. And Veb. You should check your account, to be sure it's all there.”
The glaze in Freymann's eyes told him she was doing just that. A moment later, she was wide-eyed and open mouthed again. “Holy shit,” she said.
“I hope it's enough. I don't have access to Lanham's dough any more.”
“It's...”
Speechless again. Rik laughed with delight. “I know. It's a fortune. We're all set up for life. You, me, Veb, Maria.” Then his smile fell. “I put money in Brie's account too. You heard that Blake didn't make it?” He couldn't say it yet without the pain of it clutching at his throat. He pushed past it. “Brie will hate me for it, but she won't refuse it. She's... practical about these things.”
Freymann said nothing for a long time, long enough that Rik began to feel nervous. He'd been so pleased with himself, but Fariba's silence was making him wonder if maybe he'd made some kind of mistake.
When she finally spoke, it was to ask, “When did you do all this? Does Lanham know?”
“I did it as soon as the ship crashed. I was in a pretty shitty mood. I sent him a message to say I was putting right some of the wrongs he'd done. He sent back just two words before he cut off the funds. He said, “Smart move.” It's all small change to him. The ship he wasted trying to bomb us was worth a lot more than I took. Even Rivers and her fancy nuclear plumbing would be worth more. It's just small beer when the stakes are as high as he thought they were.
“Speaking of Rivers, I lost track of her in all the craziness. So did Burleigh. And Veb won't say. Any idea where she went?”
“None at all. It's not like my guys have a field office here.”
“Probably gone back to Earth to build the criminal empire of her dreams.”
“That's where I'm going too,” Freymann said.
Rik nodded. He'd guessed as much. “That's what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Rik, I know we–”
He held up a hand to stop her. “It's kind of different, when the adrenaline's up and there are people trying to kill you. People get close real fast. Closer than they would under normal circumstances. You know what I mean?”
Freymann nodded. She looked relieved. Rik went on.
“Yeah, so I thought I'd go down to Earth and set up a real detective agency. You know? With a sign on the door and staff and everything, not just a table in the corner of a bar. With all that money, it's not like I ever need to work again, but...” He shrugged. What else was he going to do with himself?
“Sounds good.”
“Yeah. LA would be a good place. I
've got a lot of contacts there. But, well...” He looked up at the tunnel roof above them. “I've got used to living indoors, and everything being miserable and grey. So I figured London would suit me better these days. What do you think?”
She was smiling, and he could have sworn she looked genuinely happy. “London sounds just perfect,” she said.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
About the Author
Contact the Author
Back to the Start
Table of Contents
About the Author
Graham Storrs is a science fiction writer living in Queensland, Australia. A former research scientist, IT consultant and award-winning software designer, he now lives and writes in a quiet corner of the Australian bush with his wife, Christine, an Airedale terrier called Bertie, and a Tonkinese cat called Minsky. His writing credits include three children's science books, and a great many magazine articles, academic papers and book chapters. Since turning his attention to writing fiction he has had many short stories published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, some of them in the Placid Point universe in which this novel is set and available for free in the collection: Placid Point.
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