Pandora's Star cs-2

by Peter F. Hamilton

  The reception hall had an arching roof of white-painted brick, and a flagstone floor. Before being converted into a gallery, the building had been a storage warehouse, which made it an ideal place to house EK pieces. The receptionist sat at a desk in front of a smoked-glass doorway that led into the gallery’s display chambers. She was staggeringly pretty, with a sylph body, Nordic white skin and red-gold hair that hung halfway down her back. Her flimsy brown and emerald dress belonged on a couture house’s runway. She smiled automatically at him, which deepened to mildly flirtatious as he walked over. “Hi, can I help you?”

  “No.” He shot her through the temple with a microdart from his arm dispenser. Its n-pulse locked her muscles solid, an instant rigor mortis, holding her upright in her seat. Anyone peering in from the street would see her behind the desk as usual.

  His e-butler opened a channel to the desk’s array. A brief software battle ensued as he took control of the building’s electronics network. As it progressed, the weapons and defense systems wetwired into his body powered up, bringing him to full combat status. He disconnected the gallery’s network from the planetary cybersphere, then deactivated all the internal alarms. The front door was locked. Where possible, fire doors were silently sealed, compartmentalizing the gallery. Sensors fed directly into his virtual vision, showing him the location of several people, although he knew there were at least three rooms without sensors.

  The first chamber housed a three-meter-high EK gryphon, with a body made from thin sheets of jewel-encrusted brass that moved with fluid grace as they were manipulated from within by hundreds of small cogs and micro-pistons. It was as if Leonardo da Vinci had animated a sculpture with a difference engine. An old couple were walking around it, making admiring noises as they pointed out features to each other. He shot both of them with an ion bolt. The gryphon cooed loudly as he moved into the second chamber.

  On the second floor, the fifth chamber had a single strip of machinery running its entire length, each component coming from the same aircraft, and broken in some way so instead of the smooth movement associated with the aerospace industry they jerked around like a damaged bird when power was applied. Ripples of motion ran up and down the strip, each one different to the last. A gallery guide was walking along the side of the piece, with a frown on his face as he came to investigate the strange sounds that had burst out of the fourth chamber.

  The ion bolt vaporized the top of his skull. Blood-steam misted the workings of a wing flap electrohydraulic activator, slowing its motion. Loud rattling sounds began to issue up and down the whole length of the EK piece as its synchronization was thrown off and stresses built up.

  He went up to the third floor. Valtare Rigin’s office was the second door along the hallway. Like the chambers below, it had a vaulting brickwork ceiling. At the far end, an arched window gave a splendid view out over the Cesena district, with StPeter’s mirror-chrome spire framed almost dead center. Rigin looked up in surprise from behind his desk, where he’d been struggling with his crashed network interface. “Who the hell are you?”

  “You are Valtare Rigin?”

  Rigin smiled thinly. “Roberto,” he called quietly.

  A large black leather couch had been placed on the left side of the door, so it would remain unseen by anyone who entered the office until they were well inside the room. He had of course sensed the human male sitting on it. The man, presumably Roberto, who was now lifting his seven-foot-high frame onto his very large feet.

  He brought his left arm up and fired an ion pulse straight through the door at the big human’s head.

  Roberto, as a good bodyguard, was wearing a light armor frame below his expensive hand-tailored suit, which wrapped him in a deflector field. The ion bolt sizzled loudly as it bounced off into the brickwork. Carbonized clay puffed out of the strike point. Roberto slammed both hands into the door, which ripped off its hinges.

  He barely noticed the impact as the door crashed against him. His arm sliced around hard, smashing three-inch-thick hardwood into splinter shrapnel.

  Roberto grunted in surprise, and went for the weapon in his shoulder holster in a slick high-speed motion only available to those with a nervous system wetwired for accelerated response time. The bulky mag-a pistol that he pulled out fired two depleted-uranium rounds at the intruder, whose sparkling force field halted both of them. That was the only chance Roberto got.

  He launched himself straight at the big man, right leg swinging up and around to kick the ribs. Roberto shrieked as the blow punched clean through the armor frame. Three ribs broke and pushed inward, puncturing his lungs.

  The bodyguard ignored the pain and countered with a left twist, his right arm coming around flat, aimed for the intruder’s neck, armor frame’s e-dump function on and eager to wreck the other’s force field. Energy flared from the impact like a fusion bloom, the blinding discharge flinging off slivers of static that clawed at both figures as they grounded out. But the e-dump never got anywhere near overloading the force field. A fist like the front end of an express train crashed into Roberto’s side, sending him flying backward through the air to smack into the curving brickwork. Trailers of blood smeared the white paint as he slithered down limply to the polished wooden floorboards.

  He leaped gracefully across the intervening distance, one heel coming down on Roberto’s leg. The knee joint snapped with a sickening crunch under his heel. Roberto threw up as hands grasped the lapels on his ruined suit, hauling him to his feet. It was difficult for Roberto to focus through the daze of pain, but he just managed to squint at the intruder’s frighteningly emotionless features. Then the head butt caved in the front of Roberto’s face, pushing several splintered fragments of bone from the fractured skull directly into his brain.

  He dropped the dead bodyguard, and turned to face the terrified man behind the desk. “You are Valtare Rigin?”

  “Yes.” Rigin crossed himself, his eyes watering as he waited to die.

  “I do not have time to torture information from you. If you do not cooperate, I will destroy your memorycell insert when I kill your body; then we will infiltrate your re-life clinic and erase your secure store. You will be genuinely dead. We do have the capability to do this. Do you believe me?” Rigin nodded frantically. “Holy Mother of God, who are you?” His eyes flicked to the broken corpse of his bodyguard. “How did you… ?”

  “The location of the equipment you are buying for Adam Elvin?”

  “I… That wasn’t the name he gave me, but everything for the deal I’m putting together right now is in the second storeroom at the end of the hallway. All of it, I swear.”

  “Give me the file containing the list of components and the methods of payment to your encrypted bank accounts. I also want the export route.” He ordered his e-butler to open a channel to the terrified arms merchant. Information flowed into his cache. The ion bolt blew a wide hole through Rigin’s chest. He hurried over to the corpse and bent down. A single slender harmonic blade slid out from underneath his right index finger, and he quickly cut through the neck to pull out a bloody glob of flesh and bone that contained all of Rigin’s inserts.

  With the arms merchant’s memorycell safe in his pocket, he walked down the hallway to the second storeroom. A single kick shattered the reinforced polytanium door. There were three crates in the windowless room, all unsealed, with packaging foam scattered around them. He went over to the first, checked to see that it did contain high-technology items, then dropped a superthermal demolition charge in.

  To exit the gallery he went back to Rigin’s office. He stood in front of the window and activated a focused disrupter field. The entire window of toughened carbonglass shattered before him, its cascade of shards twinkling in the brilliant sunlight as they flew outward. He followed them, sailing through the warm outside air in a perfect swan dive to land cleanly in the Clade canal with a small splash. Underwater, he put his feet together and kept his arms by his side. A ripple of motion swept down his body, and he
powered forward with the ease of a dolphin through the muddy water, his enhanced senses showing him the canal walls on either side and the boats above.

  The superthermal charge exploded behind him.

  …

  His training had been hard. Not just physically, Kazimir had expected that, but mentally, too. The things he’d had to learn! The Commonwealth’s history, its current affairs, the multitude of planets and their accompanying cultures, technology, programs, endless programs, and how they managed his new inserts. There had been so many times over the last two years when he just wanted to shout: “I quit!” at Stig and his other tormentor-tutors. But the thought of Bruce stayed with him through all those months spent moving between the secret clan villages of the Dessault Mountains; he competed against the memory, thinking how Bruce would never quit, never turn tail.

  Now, finally, Kazimir stood on Santa Monica’s sandy beach facing the water as the morning sun rose slowly behind Los Angeles, and admitted it had all been worthwhile. A pleasant wind blew in off the Pacific Ocean, ruffling the waves, while the first limousines and coupes of the morning’s commuter traffic slid silently and cleanly along the Pacific Coast Highway. To his left was the Santa Monica pier, extending a kilometer out into the ocean; its ancient original structure, a platform of wood and metal and concrete, gradually blended into the first of the three extensions that had been grafted onto it during its four centuries’ lifetime. Out to sea, the newer components of sicarbon and glass and hyperfilament girders had been arranged in mockorganic forms, sometimes discreet, sometimes deliberately garish, especially where the funfair rides were stationed along the east side.

  He’d been so tempted to walk along it yesterday when he arrived, maybe go on a couple of the rides. Fit the profile of a visiting tourist mark. After all, that’s what he genuinely was. It was a testament to Stig’s training that he resisted—though he suspected had Bruce been here with him they would have sneaked off and done it, for old times’ sake.

  Instead he’d done what he was supposed to. Registered at the hotel behind the Third Street Promenade with its smart ancient shops that pulled in locals as well as visitors. Scouted the area, acquainting himself with the grid of streets. Noted access to public transport points, for escape. Which hotel lobbies were open, and the building’s exits. Position of civic buildings. Rough timings for police patrol cars on the main roads. Location of public observation anticrime sensors.

  The reconnaissance had given him a good feel for the city, and he’d been impressed with what he saw, its wealth, neatness, and style. He’d been on a few Commonwealth worlds now, enough that he wasn’t completely intimidated by urban areas that covered hundreds of square kilometers. But this particular part of Los Angeles had threatened to undo all that acclimatization. He hadn’t been prepared for how shiny and clean it all was; after all, most of the cities on the new worlds had large districts that were crumbling into ghetto status. Here, where age had every chance to pour entropy and decay into entire neighborhoods, the residents had resisted. Money helped, of course, and there was plenty of it residing among the condos fronting Ocean Avenue and the exclusive houses between San Vicenti Boulevard and Montana Avenue, but there was more to it than that. It was as if Santa Monica had discovered how to continually rejuvenate itself just like the humans who built and lived in it. For all its age, it had a buoyant vivacious atmosphere, making it a fun and friendly place to be. Surprisingly, Kazimir thought he might actually be able to live here—if he was forced to live anywhere on Earth, that is.

  Big city-owned tractorbots were slowly grinding their way along the beach just above the water, fluffing up the dense sand and leveling it ready for the day. Cyclists, joggers, power walkers, ordinary walkers, dog walkers, skaters, pedcrawlers, and n-scoots were starting to appear on the path that wound along the back of the beach. Kazimir was getting used to Commonwealth citizens and their eternal quest for looks and fitness, but the highest concentration of obsessive personalities surely had to be on Earth. Everyone on the path was dressed in high-fashion sportswear, no matter what age, from mid-twenties up to approaching-rejuve-fifty. It was an effort for him not to smile at them as they sweated their way along, faces intent and frowning.

  As he watched them idly, he realized how few young people were using the path. But then that was true of Earth in general. The number of children he’d seen here so far was very small.

  One of the early morning walkers left the path and headed over the sand toward him. It was an exceptionally tall man in his thirties, with blond hair that under the Californian sunlight was almost pure white. In contrast his eyes were very dark, making his face stand out rather than appear classically attractive. He was wearing a simple white V-necked jersey, knee-length shorts, and midnight-black trainers.

  “Kazimir McFoster, I presume?” He put his hand out. There was no hesitancy, no caution that he might have got the wrong person.

  “Yes.” It took every piece of self-control for Kazimir not to stammer or gawp incredulously. “You’re Bradley Johansson?”

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “About half the cops on the planet.”

  Bradley nodded appreciatively. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Thank you for giving me the chance. It’s still kind of hard to believe you’re real. Alive, I mean. I spent so many years learning what you’ve done for us, the stand you took, what it cost you.” He waved an arm at the city above the cliff. “It’s an outrage they don’t believe you.”

  “Let’s walk,” Bradley said. “We ought to try and blend in.”

  Kazimir wasn’t sure if he’d offended the great man. More likely he’d simply bored him. How many times must Bradley have heard something similar from stupid, awestruck youngsters? “Sure.”

  “I always forget what a shock places like this are for people who grew up in the clans back on Far Away. How are you coping?” Bradley asked.

  “Okay, I guess. I’m very conscious of trying to appear blasé about everything.”

  “That’s good. When you stop making the effort you’ll be taking it all in your stride, everything balances out. So now that you’ve seen the Commonwealth, or some of it, what do you think? Are we right trying to save it?”

  “Even if it wasn’t worth saving, we are. People, I mean. Human beings, our race.”

  Bradley smiled out across the ocean, taking a deep breath of the fresh breeze. “Right or wrong.” He shrugged. “Sorry, that’s a misquote from before your time. Before mine, too, actually. So you think it is worth saving, then?”

  “Yes. It’s not perfect. I think they could have done a lot better with all the knowledge and resources they have at their disposal. So many things are hard for people, when they don’t need to be.”

  “Ah, an idealist.” Bradley laughed softly. “Try not to let Adam corrupt you too much about what shape society should take when we’re victorious. He’s a disgraceful old revolutionary rogue. Very helpful, though.”

  “What does he do?”

  “You’ll find out when you meet him. He’s going to take over from Stig now.”

  Kazimir stopped; they were still three hundred meters from the pier. People were wandering down onto the beach from the bridge road that connected it with the land. A whole section just in front of him had been roped off; a city lifeguard stood by the entrance gate. There was nobody inside it.

  “Do you know who that’s for?” Bradley asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s for children, so they can enjoy the beach together without having to share it with a whole bunch of adults hanging around spoiling it for them. They’re getting to be a rare commodity on Earth these days. At least for the middle classes; who can’t really afford to have them anymore. Though they still do, of course, that’s human nature for you. It never ceases to amaze me what we’ll go through, the sacrifices we’ll make, so our kids can enjoy their childhood. That’s the one part of life which our technology can never reproduce; yet after porn it’s
the most popular TSI genre. I guess none of us really forget the wonder and joy which that innocence brought us. Psychologists always say we crave the sanctuary of the womb—bunch of overeducated idiots, if you ask me. This is what we actually want. Times when every day is fresh and exciting, and the only worry is if the ice cream is going to last. It doesn’t understand that, you know?”

  “The Starflyer?”

  “Yes. For all its intelligence—and it is very clever, Kazimir—it cannot grasp this part of us. It has never understood how important our children are to us, the bond of love and adoration which exists between us. Partly because its life cycle doesn’t include offspring in our fashion, but mainly because it regards them with contempt. It believes they cannot affect it, therefore it ignores them. I seriously believe that could be its downfall: our nature. The one thing it believes it controls because it does comprehend our greed and our fear. But we’re more than that, Kazimir, we are more complex than it thinks.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help. You know that, sir.”

  “I do. You’ve shown your loyalty to our cause many times.”

  “You mentioned that this Adam person will take over from Stig. Does that mean I passed?”

  Bradley turned back from the ocean to give Kazimir a broad urbane smile. “Passed? Passed what?”

  “The test. Your approval, sir.”

  Bradley draped a long arm around Kazimir’s shoulder, and urged him on around the back of the roped-off area. “Believe me, my dear boy, if I hadn’t approved of you, you’d still be standing on the beach wondering where the hell I’d got to. Or worse.”

  Kazimir glanced around, seeing the flash of judgment in the old man’s eyes. It was more disturbing than any diatribe of threats and sneering.

  “I need the strongest the clans can produce for the task ahead,” Bradley said. “You know that, don’t you, Kazimir? You will be asked to do many unpleasant things. If I deem it necessary, I will ask you to die so that we can grant Far Away its revenge.”