Polity Agent (10 page)

Orlandine reached up and touched the hard edge of her cowl. ‘We’re still running some mass searches—rather a lot of ionization when the converter detached.’

‘I thought we predicted that?’

Idon’t really need a technical discussion now.
‘Just making sure. I’ll shed this in my quarters and join you soon.’ She moved on, noting a glint in his expression. No suspicion there, though—he obviously assumed she was taking her carapace back to her rooms prior to enjoying some entertainment with her partner.

Eventually she entered her quarters, then went directly to her wardrobe. The doors slid aside at a non-verbal command. A similar command opened a safe in the back of it. For a moment she ignored this while finding and donning some knickers, and a pair of loose baggy trousers that belted around her hips below the carapace supports connected to her hip bones. Activating a little device in the belt then caused the trousers to shrink until skin-tight. She next pulled on enviroboots, and a backless green blouse specially designed to be worn with a carapace. From the safe she took out the Jain node—sealed up in its anti-nanite container—and dropped it into the blouse’s top pocket. She had put it away in the safe directly after Shoala observed it, wondering what self-destructive impulse made her leave it out on display in the first place. Next she found a carry-all, and took it over to the display case, which she opened by sending a signal ahead of her. Into the carry-all went the rest of her collection, but nothing more. There seemed no point taking anything else, and she was all too aware that only twenty minutes remained before this place was rattled by a small nuclear explosion.

From her quarters she headed directly to a drop-shaft distant from the one taking others to the Feynman Lounge. Only a couple of women passed her, one wearing an aug and the other nothing obvious, so she was probably gridlinked—there were few people here without an augmentation of some kind. They glanced at her without interest and continued conversing in low tones.

Stepping into the drop-shaft, Orlandine knew the worst was over, since she would find few of the higher-ranking haiman staff down in the shuttle bay. As she stepped out into that bay itself, a sudden horrible thought jerked her to a halt.

Did I really need to kill Shoala?

Yes, yes, she did . . . she ran the scenarios. She could not afford to live in the hope she would remain undiscovered, so must now flee, and as an overseer of one of the largest construction projects in the Polity her abrupt abandoning of her post would be thoroughly investigated by forensic AIs. Their attention would have focused on Shoala, and he, having nothing to hide, would have opened all his files and his mind to them. The inevitable discovery that she possessed a Jain node would result in Polity AIs expending huge resources in hunting her down. This way, however, they would think they only pursued a murderess, so the resources they expended would be limited . . . hopefully.

This particular bay comprised a narrow area lined along its two longer sides by numerous one-man inspection pods—globular affairs containing one seat, simple controls, and ionic directional thrusters. A maglev strip ran down the centre of the floor towards a far airlock. Passing many empty spaces for pods, Orlandine strode along briskly until she reached the first of them on one side, turned and stepped through its open side door. Automatically, as soon as she plumped herself down in the seat, the door closed and the pod manoeuvred out on to the maglev strip. She strapped herself in, and rather than control the vehicle through her carapace as the signals might be traced, took hold of the manual joystick. With a low hum the pod buoyed up on the maglev field and wafted towards the airlock, which consisted of an inner shimmer-shield and an outer hard door. The pod slid through the shield, halted while the iris door opened, then fell out into the night.

Above her the
Heliotrope
rested in docking clamps, attached to the station by various umbilicals. The long sleek ship terminated at its prow in a forked pincerlike extrusion. This was for manipulating large objects in space, and was another reason why Orlandine had chosen this particular ship. Turning her pod over so that the side of the station now appeared as a plain of steel below her, she pushed the joystick forwards. Drawing close she sent a simple signal, and an irised lock opened in the vessel’s hull. Soon she manoeuvred the pod to dock, then abandoned it to enter, and finally take her place in an interface sphere inside the ship.

‘How may I help you?’ asked the ship AI.

‘Take us out,’ she replied. ‘I need to take some direct ionization readings.’

Opening herself into the ship’s systems she observed the umbilicals detaching like flaccid worms. Autohandlers had loaded the last few items requested only minutes ago. Clamps detached and the slight spin of the station cast the ship adrift. Now clear of it, she observed the Cassius Station in all its might.. Ovoid and gigantic, the thing was 200 miles from top to bottom and 150 miles wide, yet in itself it was but a single component that would be later fitted into the Dyson sphere, along with millions like it. Orlandine focused on the equator while selecting certain crucial programs from her files—only slightly different from those she had used to kill Shoala’s systems. The detonation lay only three minutes away. To delay until after that would be to forewarn this ship’s AI.

‘Heliotrope, here are the parameters of a search, and related data.’ She sent the programs to the AI, and trustingly it accepted them without checking. As the Jain programs isolated the AI and began to take it apart, she watched the station. Precisely on time a brief speck of light appeared on its huge surface. But the mere fact that she saw it without magnification, from this distance on a structure so massive, meant a few thousand cubic yards of the station had been vaporized along with Shoala’s interface sphere, and his corpse. After a moment she picked up signals meant for her, and ignored them, while delving into the complexities of entering U-space. The ship AI died just as the ship it controlled dropped out of existence.

* * * *

With a feeling of extreme déjà vu Thorn walked out along the platform, but that sensation passed as he gazed out across the roiling sea. When Skellor had come here, and for ten shillings picked up his Jain node at a market stall, there had been no sea here at all, but now the terraforming process was much advanced. The market now absent, large structures had arisen on what must now be described as a pier. A big ship lay magnetically moored to it, and a crane lowered large cargo containers into its hold.

‘Why a ship?’ he asked.

‘That was Aelvor’s choice,’ replied Jack via Thorn’s comlink. ‘For energy efficiency. The runcible is downside so requires the main output of present fusion reactors, thus for planetary transport he is using less energy-profligate means. The output from the reactor aboard that ship would only be enough to lift an AG transport one tenth the size.’

‘Then why not bring in more reactors?’

‘Economics. Aelvor is working within a budget.’

Economics.

Thorn tasted the word. When you worked for ECS it was one you knew about, but also knew only applied to others. The formulae that AIs employed to control financial systems he knew to be as esoteric as those they used to control runcibles. He understood that the profit margins of all concerns were limited by those formulae, as were their rate of expansion and resource demand. This last applied here, too, for Aelvor, the haiman overseeing the terraforming of this place, had been allocated limited resources and was left to assign them as he saw fit. Here then was an attempt to allow a terraformer to create something not quite so homogeneous as many worlds in the Polity. This world was also unusual in having a haiman in charge—the Osterland AI’s power being limited solely to the runcibles and their infrastructure. He wondered how the AI itself felt about that.

Thorn continued along the edge of the pier until he was closer to the ship. Studying one of the containers he recognized on its side the logo of a private biofact corporation. The vessel, he realized, was a seeding ship, and its cargo would probably be released only at specified locations in the sea. Doubtless each container held slow-release canisters of plankton and seaweed spores, as well as fish, crustacean and mollusc eggs, and maybe larger organisms. By the foamy look of the waves and some staining back on the rocky shore, he guessed algae were already taking hold.

‘Okay, we’re on,’ announced Jack.

‘About time too. Why the delay?’

‘Aelvor is high security status, so has already been alerted to the threat Jain tech represents. He was rather miffed that people, such as yourself, who had come in contact with it, were here on his planet, then extremely reluctant to allow any alien organisms of another kind, draconic in nature, down on the surface. I understand his point of view.’

‘What brought him around?’

‘Osterland and myself pointed out how a woman once sold Jain tech from a stall on that very pier, but what really made him become more cooperative was a promise of ten per cent extra on his resource allocation should we leave any mess he needed to clear up. I rather think he would now like us to have a small war down here.’

Thorn turned from the rail to head back towards the city which, over the years, had spread across the rocky landscape. ‘What information do we have?’

‘Her name is Jane von Hellsdorf. She has been through adjustment after conviction for selling faulty Sensic augs and black-market memcords of “victim-oriented sexual acts, murder and necrophilia”.’

‘Nice,’ commented Thorn.

‘Yes, and that she ended up selling the same stuff here indicates her adjustment did not stick. Probably due to some organic problem.’

‘Yeah, but where the hell is she now?’

‘We have her covered. Aelvor has kept her located for us from the moment he received our message. She is out in the Oaks, in a recently constructed village called Oakwood. It occurs to me that Aelvor could use more imagination in naming places around here.’

‘Get on with it, Jack.’ Thorn now reached the land-side end of the pier. A promenade stretched to his left and right, along which ertsatz Victorian cast-iron street lamps emitted a muted glow in the growing overcast. From this thoroughfare, roads led inland at regular intervals between blocks of four-storey buildings constructed from the local stone, which were roofed with solar tiles, and from which bulged hemispherical chainglass windows like amphibian eyes. Lights glowed warmly inside many of these sea-front residences, and Thorn wondered what their inhabitants were expecting of their new world.

‘I have sent coordinates to your palm-com. Scar and his people are down now, and have set up a perimeter. The situation is under control.’

Thorn did not bother to observe that he had heard that one before. He took out his palm-com and flipped it open. It obligingly displayed a map of the town indicating the locations of both himself and his aircar. Droplets of rain were smearing its screen as he closed the device and headed for the narrow street nearest.

Sliding garage doors occurred regularly along the bases of the tall buildings, no doubt leading down to basement parking garages for ground vehicles. Hydrocars probably—another energy saving on Aelvor’s part. As it began to rain more heavily Thorn pulled up the hood of his envirosuit. The streets were cobbled—very retro and possibly a draw for runcible tourists. Following the course he had memorized, Thorn took a left, a right, then came out into an open arcade around a wide pool, at the centre of which a fountain gushed. Peering into the pool he observed glittering rainbow weed between whose strands swam shoals of small blue flatfish. The shopfronts here possessed those same bulbous chainglass bay windows. A man with a wide fedora and a leashed Dobermann strode past. He raised his hat to Thorn and smiled.

As the dog walker disappeared into a side street, Thorn finally reached his aircar: a replica mini AGC parked on the cobbles. Detecting his presence, the car popped open its door, and he strode over to duck inside. The cramped vehicle smelt of fish. When he first obtained it he had wondered if so small a vehicle was a result of Aelvor’s energy savings or just spite. Now, after seeing more of this town, he thought otherwise. The haiman seemed to have a complete disregard for standardization, as demonstrated by his lack of ergonomic town planning. Thorn rather liked the result.

The mini took off with a lurch and was soon cruising a hundred yards above even the highest buildings. Thorn floored the accelerator and it took off on two fusion burners. To his left the combined runcible facility and spaceport looked like some industrial complex close to swamping an ancient town—yet they had been established before the town. Below, once the car passed beyond the final buildings, rose grassy and rocky mountainsides scattered with gnarled trees. Over the peak of this mountain, the terrain dropped away to a river valley. Beyond that lay a forest canopy.

‘He likes oaks, does Aelvor,’ Thorn observed.

‘Evidently,’ came Jack’s reply.

‘Is Scar linked into com?’

‘He is—voice connect.’

That meant Thorn need only first speak the dracoman’s name and the comlink would open to him. ‘Scar, what’s your situation?’

‘Wet,’ came the dracoman’s brief reply.

‘A little more detail would be helpful.’

‘We have surrounded the village and are now allowing no one to enter or leave. One resident has spotted us and shown signs of emotional disturbance.’