The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (102 page)

“Paula.” He gave her a relaxed smile. “No uniform?”

Anyone else would have earned a crippling stare for that dig, the Senator merely got a raised eyebrow. “It must be in the wash,” she said. The formation of a Commonwealth navy had caught Paula by surprise; she wasn’t prepared for the brand-new Planetary Security Agency to be switched to naval funding and change once again. But like it or not, she was now in naval intelligence with the rank of commander. The day after the changes had been announced to the Paris office, Tarlo had saluted her as he came in to work. Nobody would be doing that again. Nobody in the Paris office wore uniforms, either, although they were technically entitled to. Office rumor said that several members of the staff changed into them before going out for a night clubbing in town, testing the ancient theory that every girl loves a sailor.

Uniforms were the least of her worries. To start with Mel Rees had told them the whole office would be moving to Kerensk, where Vice Admiral Columbia was establishing his administration. That led to a showdown between her and Rees where calls were fired off to political allies with the speed of Prime missile salvos. Mel Rees desperately wanted the move to the navy’s planetary defense headquarters where his chances for promotion inside the new navy were considerable; Paula threatened to resign if any kind of relocation or team alteration went ahead.

Rafael Columbia solved the problem with his usual political deftness. Paula was appointed commander of the Johansson project, which would remain in Paris for strategic reasons. Mel Rees was also promoted, and would run a new unit on Kerensk dealing with the deployment of the wormhole detector network. She was rather pleased to find that her contacts outweighed his family connections.

“Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you on this,” Thompson said. “Life in the Senate hasn’t been this exciting for … well, I don’t ever remember a session like this one before. Kime’s second flight really stirred things up. I never really thought we’d have to form a navy, and I was heavily involved in the early preparation work.”

“Did you know the old Serious Crimes Directorate would end up as navy intelligence?”

“No, Paula, I didn’t realize quite how ambitious Rafael was going to be. I heard about your fight with Rees. I’m glad they managed to work out a compromise that allowed you to stay on. Hell, we only just managed to hang on to Senate Security. Can you believe Columbia wanted that as well?”

“It can’t last, Thompson. We still need some kind of Intersolar department to track down criminals. Apart from Johansson, there is nothing for navy intelligence to do. My former colleagues are still working on their old cases. They just wear uniforms to do it.”

Thompson smiled sadly. “Not quite. There is a small amount of opposition to the navy taking shape. Disaffected hotheads for now, but they need to be monitored, those that don’t go and join the Exodus.”

“Local police can handle that.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Paula. I’m calling because I have news.”

“I’m sorry, go ahead.”

“Okay, first, there is no secret security department run by the executive. That’s a definite. I did consult my father. Whoever it was that made the hit at Venice Beach, they weren’t authorized by the President or Senate Security.”

“Thank you. What about Boongate and the Far Away cargo?”

“Ah.” Thompson shifted around uncomfortably. “This is where it gets interesting. I spoke to Patricia Kantil about that myself, pointed out that we really needed to inspect everything going to Far Away. She said she agreed, and she’d put it on Doi’s agenda. Since then all I’ve had is memos about how the proposal is under active consideration. Even before your suspicions I would have been curious about that. Something this trivial should be easy for me to arrange; normally I’d just tell an aide to sort it out. The fact that I can’t swing it is very suggestive.”

Paula felt a cold shiver run down her chest, despite the warmth of the chocolate she’d been sipping. The decades she’d spent filing requests for this very action with every new boss in the Directorate, to see them come to nothing every time. All of them must ultimately have been blocked by the executive office. “Who is opposing you? Surely not Doi herself?”

“No. This is Newton’s law of politics, for every action … Somebody will be lobbying the executive office to allow the cargo to go through unchecked.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. It’s the arena of whispers and spin we’re dealing with here. At this level of the game, your opponents don’t reveal themselves, that’s part of the game. But, Paula, I’ll find out. You’ve got me worried about this, and that’s not easy.”

....

Warm summer sunlight poured through the circular windows above Mark Vernon’s head, diffusing evenly across the hemispherical study. The illumination was brighter than he’d envisaged when he and Liz had sat down to plan their new home together. Not that he didn’t want his study properly lit, it was just that he’d always had an image of a slightly darker room, maybe a little cluttered with his personal stuff; the kind of room a man could happily use to retreat from his family on occasion. But with its airiness and pearl-white drycoral walls, he never felt happy allowing any mess to build up. So his desk was clear, and his stuff was all neatly organized in big alvawood cabinets. Given that Barry and Sandy had free run through the rest of the house, it made the study the tidiest place inside.

He stood just inside the frosted glass door, and looked around in confusion. The short coat he knew was in there wasn’t.

“Dad! Come on!” Sandy shouted in the main hall behind him.

“It’s not here,” he called, hoping Liz would take pity on him.

“It’s your coat,” Liz called back at him from the hall.

He gave the study another perplexed glare. Then Panda, the family’s young white Labrador, came in pulling his favorite woolen coat along with her. Her tail wagged happily as she stared up at him.

“Good girl.” He started to approach her. “Drop it. Drop it, girl.”

Panda’s tail wagged even faster in anticipation of the game; she started to turn.

“No!” Mark shouted. “Stay!”

Panda bounded out into the hall, pulling the coat with her. Mark ran after her. “Come back! Stay! Drop it!” He tried to think of the other commands they’d gone through together at obedience classes. “Heel!”

Over by the front door, Liz was pulling Sandy’s windbreaker on over her head. Both of them turned to watch.

“Stay! Stop that. Come here!” Mark had got halfway across the hall when Barry emerged from the kitchen and said, “Here, girl.” He patted his knees. Panda scampered over to him and dropped the coat at his feet. “Good girl.” Barry made a fuss of her, letting her lick his face and hands.

Mark picked up the coat with as much dignity as he could muster. There was a big soggy patch on its shoulder from the dog’s jaw. They’d got Panda nearly a year ago when they’d finally moved into the drycoral house. A family dog. She only ever did what Barry told her. “That’s because she’s still a puppy,” Mark had been claiming for the last three months. “She’ll grow out of it.” To which Liz simply replied, “Yes, dear.”

Although he’d never owned a dog before, Mark had always enjoyed the idea of them having one; envisaging long rambles along the Ulon Valley with their pet trotting beside them. Such an animal would be loyal, obedient, and loving, an excellent companion for the children. And anyway, most of the homes in the Ulon Valley had dogs. It was part of the whole Randtown ideal.

The owner of the pet shop on Main Mall had assured the Vernon family that white Labradors had all the breed’s natural friendliness, but with a higher intelligence sequenced into their DNA along with the snow-white coat. Mark thought that had sounded perfect. Then Sandy had spotted the fluffy white puppy with its black-circled eyes, and the choice had been made before Liz and Barry got a say.

Mark draped the coat over his arm. “Everyone ready?”

“Are we taking Panda?” Barry asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re in charge of her,” Liz said sternly. “She’s not to be let off the lead.”

Barry grinned, and hauled the dog along out of the front door. Liz checked that Sandy’s windbreaker was on properly, and ushered the girl out after her brother.

“Barry has got coursework, you know,” Liz said. “And the nursery is short-staffed enough without me taking afternoons off.”

“If you want him to get on with the work, then he doesn’t have to come,” Mark said. “But you know I have to do this.”

She sighed and looked around the hall with what could have been a nostalgic expression. “Yes, I know.”

“We’re protecting our way of life, Liz. We have to show the navy they can’t push people around like this.”

Liz gave him a fond smile, a finger stroking down the line of his cheek. “I never realized I married someone with so many principles.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I think it’s admirable.”

“So should we take the kids?” he asked, suddenly uncertain. “I mean, these are our views, and we’re forcing them to take part. I keep thinking about children who are vegetarians or religious, just because that’s what their parents are. I always hate that.”

“This is different, darling. Going on a blockade protest is not a lifelong vogue for them. Besides, they’ll love it, you know they will.”

“Yeah.” He tried not to grin, and failed miserably. “I know.”

The Ables’ pickup was parked next to Liz’s small four-by-four on the patch of compacted limestone where the old temporary house used to stand. Although the building was long gone, Mark had never quite got around to programming the bots to clear the stone away.

The kids were already in the backseat, arguing. Panda was barking happily as she tried to clamber up with them.

“Straps on,” Liz said as she got in the front.

Mark led the dog firmly around to the back and shoved her into the covered cab before climbing up into the driver’s seat. “All ready?”

“Yeah!” the kids chorused.

“Let’s go.”

They drove out along the Ulon Valley into Highmarsh, then turned onto the highway, heading north, away from Randtown. After a few kilometers the valleys began to narrow, and the four-lane highway was climbing up the side of the mountains where it ran along a broad ridge cut into the rock. Thirty kilometers out of town they passed through the first tunnel. There was no traffic at all coming the other way. When the road straightened out, Mark could occasionally see a vehicle of some kind up ahead of them.

It was early summer, so the multitude of streams running down the side of the mountains hadn’t dried up yet, though the flow was noticeably reduced from the spring deluge. The Dau’sings were rising high on either side of them as the highway wound its way northward. Often they’d have a sheer fall of several hundred meters at the edge of the road, with only a thick stone wall as protection. On the lower slopes, boltgrass was turning from its usual wiry yellow to a richer honey color as it approached its week-long spore season.

Fifty kilometers out of town, they passed by one of the abandoned JCB monster roadbuilders that Simon Rand had used to carve his highway through the mountains. It was sitting on a wide patch of broken ground that one of its cousins had hacked into the side of the slope beside the road. Decades of fierce southern continent winters had reduced its metal parts to melted-looking chunks of rust, while the composite bodywork was bleached and cracked. The huge solid metal tracks had sagged on their runner wheels, allowing its belly to settle on the ground where it had bent and buckled. Souvenir hunters had picked most of the smaller components away, while the glass of its insect-eye cab at the front had been smashed.

Both kids got excited at the sight, and Mark had to promise to bring them back sometime for a better look.

Eight kilometers beyond the roadbuilder, on the high shoulder of MtZuelea, the highway was clogged with stationary vehicles. Napo Langsal waved them down. He owned one of the dive tour boats in Randtown. Mark had never seen him anywhere other than in the town or on his boat; he wasn’t even sure Napo owned a car.

“Hi, guys,” Napo said. “Colleen’s about to head back to town, so if you could slot this in where her truck was parked we’d be grateful.”

“No problem,” Mark said. “We brought some lunch, but the kids will need to get home by tonight.”

“I think there’s some vehicles coming out about seven o’clock, they’re going to take the night shift.”

“Right then.” Mark eased the pickup forward, driving down the narrow zigzag gap between the vehicles that were parked at right angles across the lanes, most of them pickup trucks or four-by-fours, the kinds of vehicles driven by Randtowners. People walking along the road saw the Vernons and gave them a wave or thumbs-up. A section of the central barrier had been removed, and he went over onto the southern lanes. Colleen’s big truck was easily visible; the sides were painted in the bright pink and emerald logo of her precipitator leaf business. Since they’d arrived, Mark had had several arguments with her about the semiorganic equipment she’d supplied, but now they both smiled cheerily at each other as they passed.

“Community spirit is high today,” Liz murmured slyly so the children couldn’t hear. They grinned at each other.

Mark parked in the gap Colleen had left. They walked up to the head of the blockade, where big civic utility trucks, bulldozers, tractors, snowplows, roadsweepers, and double-decker buses were parked end to end, as tight as any mosaic. Simon Rand himself came to greet them, a tall figure in an apricot Gandhi-style toga made from semiorganic fabric that swirled around his limbs as he moved, always covering the skin and keeping him warm in the fresh mountain air. His apparent age was approaching sixty, an aging that had produced long distinguished creases in his ebony face. He fitted his role as nature’s guru perfectly, charismatic and passively stubborn, traits that provided universal reassurance to anyone engaged with his ideals.

A flock of people trailed along in his wake, an entourage like that of the staff of any major politician, except these were more like acolytes. Some were intent and focused, while others moved as though in a daydream. Over half were women, and all of them were attractive, either rejuvenated or first-lifers. Simon’s commitment to his own ideals drew him a lot of admirers from the people who came to live the Randtown life; and as he kept saying, he was only human.