The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (100 page)

As she looked out at the rain sweeping across the old city her virtual vision was displaying a simple star map. New Rio was on the other side of Earth from the Dyson Pair, over a thousand light-years away from the Primes. That also was a comfort.

....

Hoshe parked out on Fairfax, and walked a block back down Achaia. It was midday, and the heat had just about cleared every other pedestrian off the sidewalk. Hoshe took his jacket off as he walked, dabbing at the perspiration on his brow. Achaia was one of those narrow streets in the city grid that looked like it ran on forever, with the cracked concrete’s heat shimmer obscuring the far end as it slipped into the commercial district. The housing on both sides was mainly three-story apartment blocks, fronted by small yards that were filled with overgrown ornamental bushes and trees that had nearly reached roof level. Air-conditioning units hummed constantly above all the narrow balconies where their fins radiated away the excess heat. Cars came and went in front of him, turning out of ramps that led down to underground garages.

When he reached the first alleyway, he stopped and scanned around. High fences guarded both sides, with flowering shrubs and creepers tumbling over them in colorful shaggy mats. Beneath his feet, enzyme-bonded concrete gave way to a hard-packed surface of stone chippings and dirt. Several dogs barked as he passed gates. He even heard the distinctive metallic gabbling of a catrak and hoped to heaven it was securely chained.

He was about a hundred meters along the alley when he came to the backyard of 3573. A low double gate opened onto a short section of concrete that led to a big double garage made from prefab stonesteel sections that were bolted together. A wooden bungalow stood behind it, its windows dark and closed, yellow paint peeling from the planks. Vines with droopy sapphire flowers had engulfed every pillar that supported the overhanging roof, looking like thick elongated bushes the strands were wrapped so densely.

Hoshe went through the gate. One of the garage doors was open. Someone was moving around inside.

“Hello?”

A young man jumped at the sound, and hurried to the door. “Man, who the fuck are you, man?” he blurted. His black jeans had been washed again and again until they were a pale gray, above them he wore a purple T-shirt that was equally overused. He had gold frame sunglasses perched on his nose, their rose-pink lenses displaying moving graphs and columns of text—Hoshe hadn’t seen anything like them since early in his first life, when they’d briefly been in fashion. But they did complete the geek image, it was hard to imagine him as anything other than a software writer.

“I’m Hoshe, I’m looking for Kareem.”

“Never heard of him, man. Now, I’m kinda busy.”

“Giscard sent me. Giscard Lex. He told me Kareem lived here. I’ve gotta see him, it’s urgent.” He took a thick fold of Oaktier dollar bills from his pocket. “Really urgent.”

The young man licked his lips, eyeing the money greedily. Paula had been right about that, there was always a weak link. It hadn’t even taken Hoshe much effort to find it. He’d run a simple search against every registered partner in the Shansorel Partnership. When none of them had a criminal record, cross-referencing had produced old friends and colleagues who had. Namely Giscard Lex, who’d been Kareem’s classmate at college, where his academic career had been cut short by illegal experimentation in narcoware. A couple of weeks’ casual observation confirmed that the two still saw each other.

Hoshe dropped by on Giscard Lex one evening and was offered everything from dimension-shifting sensory morphware to a couple of girls who’d be sweet on him. At which point Hoshe returned the favor by offering to introduce him to the precinct desk sergeant. Giscard Lex was almost relieved that all he had to do was provide an introduction to Kareem.

“Okay, man,” Kareem said, he looked back down the alley, little OCtattoo lines turned emerald on his ears as he checked for anyone lurking. “Come inside.”

The garage was filled with crates. A bench running along the back was lined with tools that were being cleaned. They were very old-fashioned ones; Hoshe couldn’t see a single power tool among them. He picked up a screwdriver and gave it a close examination while Kareem activated the garage door. The plyplastic closed up with a quiet slurping sound. “Are you an antiques collector? I didn’t even know they still made manual screwdrivers.”

“No, man.” Kareem gave a shifty grin. “This is my survival gear. Ain’t no electricity where I’m going.”

“Where’s that, exactly?”

“Silvergalde, man. I’m gonna live with the elves, me and my girl. They’ll protect their own planet from the Primes. This fucking government won’t, we haven’t even got a force field to cover Darklake City.”

“Right.” People like Kareem were getting wider coverage in the media recently. It was hyped as the Exodus by excitable reporters, though the actual numbers were so small governments didn’t even register them, no more than a few thousand from each planet, and most of them first-lifers. But together there were enough for CST to have to triple the number of trains running to Silvergalde. “What about the navy?”

“Ha! What, like both ships? Fat lot of fucking use they’re gonna be when Hell’s Gateway blows open above Earth, and ten thousand flying saucers carry the demons down to massacre us. They don’t call the giant wormhole that for no reason, you know. Johansson’s Guardians are right, we’re in deep shit, and our corrupt politicians don’t help.”

Coincidence, Hoshe told himself sternly, though it was an unsettling one. “Okay, so are you leaving tonight, or can you help me out?”

Kareem waved a hand at the crates. “I haven’t got everything yet. There’s a lot of medicine and shit I need. Books, too. The paper ones are hard to get hold of these days, and expensive. Did you know Ozzie’s got a library of all human knowledge printed out and stashed away somewhere on his own planet? That’s one guy who’s ready for the apocalypse.”

“So you can help, then?”

“Depends what you want, man.”

“Giscard told me you’re the man to come to for software fixes.”

“Yeah. Maybe. I know some moves. Place I work at, we got us some private teams for solving private problems, you catch?”

“Caught. I’m paying too much tax.”

“Ho, brother, we all do.”

“I own a company that imports spare parts for the auto trade, and the government is killing me for it. I’m just trying to earn a living, feed my family, but those bastards …”

“Yeah, right!”

“What I need is a fix that covers over some of my trading. If I could just shift ten or fifteen percent of my stock without them penalizing me for it I can keep afloat. What I need is some safe encryption that can resist the Revenue Department’s audit engines so I can run the money through offworld accounts.”

“Sure, I can do that. Hell, I don’t even need to bring the guys in. What accountancy software are you using?”

Hoshe held up a memory crystal disk. “System and network is all in here.”

“Excellent. A man who is prepared, I respect that.” Kareem took the memory crystal and smiled. “That’ll be a grand for a full fix, payable in advance.”

“Two hundred now.” Hoshe slapped the notes into his hand on top of the crystal. “The rest when the installed fix is running.”

“Okay, man, I’m cool with that.” The notes were shoved into the back pocket of his jeans. “Must be my lucky week. This is the second private contract I’ve had.”

“Oh, really?”

....

To the Commonwealth’s general public, it was as if their new navy appeared by magic. One day President Doi announced its formation, and within a week it had become a physical reality. Ships were already being put together over at High Angel; planetary security teams started assembling wormhole detectors on the worlds closest to the Prime threat. Things were safely under control. Even Alessandra Baron was moderately complimentary on her show, though possible tax raises received a detailed analysis.

Admiral Kime was surprised by how smoothly the transition went. Of course, it helped that the personnel and equipment from Anshun had all been transferred to High Angel while he was flying the scouting mission to the Dyson Pair. That left him free to concentrate his staff on the huge expansion of capacity and capability that turning the Agency into the navy entailed. In fact, precisely the kind of large-scale managerial role that had taken up ninety percent of his adult life.

Navy Base One was primarily a cluster of freeflying starship assembly platforms holding station thirty to forty kilometers away from the High Angel in their own little archipelago. They’d kept the basic malmetal globe design used above Anshun; although these didn’t have a wormhole connection. A fleet of new cargo shuttles swarmed between them and the vastly expanded and upgraded wormhole station linked to Kerensk, ferrying out the components that would form the next generation of starships. Passenger commuters carried the freefall workforce between the assembly platforms and High Angel, where they’d taken over a considerable portion of the freshly grown Babuyan Atoll dome. The dome’s young buildings were also where Kime had set up his office along with the major part of the navy’s administration, design teams, crew training facilities, and research bureaus. At the center of the parkland campus was a thirty-story tower that had five concave-curving sides surrounded by a DNA helix of skyway rails—dubbed Pentagon II by Alessandra Baron, a name that was catching on rapidly among the media shows and reporters.

Wilson’s office was on the top floor. He didn’t like it. While he was away on the scout mission, the designer had gone for a retro-modern image: slick flow-curving furniture of white tragwood from Niska, monochrome illumination floors and walls. It was like working in an operating theater. The one redeeming feature was the view it gave him out over the compact ecology of his new domain. Only a third of Babuyan Atoll had any urban structures, the rest was burgeoning parkland, with saplings and young bushes pushing up eagerly through the lush grass. Between the paths and lakes were flat patches resembling pearl-textured concrete, which would one day grow into buildings. He enjoyed the panorama, not least for the nightly sight of Icalanise and its fast-moving bands of tawny cloud as it drifted high above the dome’s crystal. It was surprising just how much the last few years had rekindled his old first-life wanderlust. Every time he looked out and saw the exotic gas giant he was less sure he could ever go back to his old job at Farndale.

Anna was first into the conference meeting that was scheduled to draw up the navy’s rules of engagement, but then she had the shortest distance to travel. With her promotion to lieutenant commander, and her position as his chief staff officer, she had the office next door, where she organized his days and acted as a filter against everyone who wanted his personal attention directed to their own particular project or cause. She came in with Oscar; Wilson heard them laugh together as they came through the door.

“Kantil’s commuter shuttle docked a few minutes ago,” Anna told him. “She’ll be up here soon.”

“Right.” He canceled the data filling his virtual vision. She smiled warmly at him, which he returned. Her engagement ring shone brightly as she waved her hand teasingly at him. He’d proposed as the
Conway
docked. She’d said yes. Oscar said about time. They still hadn’t set a date for the actual ceremony, a classic case of work pressure, although they had taken a lavish apartment together in a block near the edge of the dome.

Rafael Columbia arrived, dressed immaculately in his black uniform. He quickly asked if they’d set a date yet. “My own engagement record was fifteen years,” he said. “I’m sure you can beat that if you set your minds to it.”

Wilson gave him a martyred smile. The lack of a firm date was turning into a standing joke around Base One.

Columbia had become Vice Admiral and Wilson’s second in command when President Doi formed the navy, taking over responsibility for the planetary defense operation. He’d sited his division’s office on Kerensk, and was rapidly assimilating the various Commonwealth Directorates and agencies that now formed the basis of his expanding empire. Given the more political nature of pressuring planetary governments into installing or upgrading force fields around their major population centers, it was a task he was eminently suited to. The only real argument to date between him and Wilson had been about who had direct control over Natasha Kersley’s Seattle project.

Columbia had argued for it to be incorporated within his planetary security division, and the project sited on Kerensk. Wilson eventually overruled him, pointing out that Kersley’s systems would ultimately be carried by starships, and should therefore be part of Base One’s operations. A quick call to Sheldon had secured executive support, and confirmed the decision. Columbia hadn’t challenged him again.

Daniel Alster was shown into the office with Dimitri Leopoldovich.

Wilson was mildly surprised, he’d expected Alster to share the commuter shuttle with Patricia Kantil. Both of them were representing the oversight committee during the meeting, while Leopoldovich was an academician specializing in tactical analysis at the StPetersburg Institute for Strategic Studies. It was a field with few practitioners, used mainly as an advisory and research service by the Commonwealth when secessionist and national autonomy movements started to use physical force against their legitimate planetary governments. During his time on Farndale’s board, Wilson had often heard senior politicians and their staff disparagingly refer to tactical analysts as war games nerds with a history degree. But then astronomy was a minority profession before this, he thought in amusement.

Dimitri had undergone his third rejuvenation a few years back, leaving him with a mid-twenties body whose lank blond hair had already begun to thin out. His skin was pale verging on albino-white, which combined with a diet of fast food and total lack of exercise gave him the appearance of a podgy vampire. He nodded at Wilson and took his usual seat, which left him facing away from the broad window.

“How was Bose?” Anna asked Daniel Alster.