The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (114 page)

Justine neither heard nor saw any of the Tolthorpe troupe’s finest hour. In the darkness and peace of her bedroom, her own body was performing the most erotic, sensual acts she could physically achieve. She had forgotten what it was like to be adored so completely, so unselfishly. He was so much more responsive now, matching the pleasure she gave with ease, willing and eager to satisfy her. They could be gentle and slow with each other, moving in tender rhythm, or fierce, almost fighting to bring themselves to climax. It didn’t matter, both kinds of lovemaking were right for them. Time after time amid the silky shadows she watched his enraptured straining features soften into a smile of unbearable joy, only to lose herself in the same delirium. For once there were no chemicals or programs to help. This was real.

When the dawn cast its bland gray illumination into the bedroom she smiled at their bodies, still wrapped together, sweat mingling on their skin, faces inches apart, sharing perfect secret contentment.

“I love you,” he said fearfully.

“I love you.”

“I won’t let you go again.”

She smiled in admiration at the conviction in his voice. “What are you doing here on Earth?” She knew the answer she wanted, that it was for her and her alone.

“There was a chance that I could see you. How could I ever let that go by?”

“My wonderful love.” She put a finger on his thorax and slowly drew a line down his sternum, playfully following the ridges of hard muscle. His body was fabulous. How long would it have taken a boy born into low grav to build himself up to handle standard gravity? The effort he’d made, the determination. She was rather glad she’d kept up her own aerobics classes and maintenance diet, still slim and trim.

“It will be difficult to get away to see you, but I will manage it.”

Her finger stopped just as it reached his navel. Already, she knew this was going to be bad news. “Get away from whom?”

“The Guardians, of course. I’m here on a mission.”

“Oh, Christ.” She pushed at him, slithering herself over the sheets until she was an arm’s length away, and stared at him in dismay. Already his youthful sympathetic face had produced a puzzled expression.

“A mission,” she croaked. “You’re here on some kind of Guardian mission?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Kazimir, no; no you can’t do that kind of thing here. This isn’t Far Away. You have to stop.”

“I cannot stop. This is our time. This is when the planet will have its revenge on the Starflyer. I’m a part of that, Justine. Bradley Johansson chose me.”

She wanted to put her head in her hands, or maybe belt some sense into him. “Kazimir, listen to me. We have a navy now, which has a branch dedicated to stopping Johansson. Hundreds of officers are working on the case. They will catch you. They will.”

His kindly smile was one that told her she simply didn’t understand. “They won’t. We’re perfectly safe.”

“Kazimir, this is not a game.”

“I am the one who has always known that. And now you have become a victim of the Starflyer, too. I wept when I heard its creature had murdered your brother. How cruel that fate: that of all the people in the Commonwealth, it hurt the only person I love.”

“No, God no, this isn’t happening. Kazimir,
please
, there is no Starflyer. My brother was killed by his rivals. It’s ugly, and brutal, and shocking, and it’s never happened in Commonwealth politics before. But it is not the fault of a secret alien.”

“Politicians are its creatures, too. They are the easiest of all humans to corrupt.”

“Listen to yourself. You’re just repeating student slogans. Johansson is an evil old man who’s using you, and all the other clans back on Far Away.”

“Justine, I’m sorry, but it is you who cannot see the truth in this.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this argument. You have to stop, Kazimir, just walk away. I’ll clear any problem with your involvement. God knows, you’ve been indoctrinated since birth. Nobody will blame you.”

“How could you ask me that?” he demanded, shocked and hurt. “I had hoped you would help us. The planet’s revenge can be your revenge as well, if you let it. You can make sure the Starflyer is defeated.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Get the cargo inspections lifted.”

“What?”

He couldn’t have appalled her more if he’d slapped her. “Is that why you came?” she asked.

“No!” he protested. “I risked everything to come to you. Everything. I love you, Justine, I am fighting to save your world.”

She leaned forward and grasped his hands, desperately conscious of how young and idealistic he was, how much he had to prove himself. “I don’t want you to, not like this. Kazimir, it is a far braver and nobler thing to admit you are wrong. I know, I’ve had to do it many times. Please, just consider leaving the Guardians to manage without you for a while. You and I can talk this through.”

“You can browbeat me, you mean.”

“That’s not what I mean at all. I just want you to learn that there are other viewpoints than the Guardians’.”

“I cannot desert my comrades. You should not ask me this. I watched my best friend die in front of me; I have lost many others. Now you say it was for nothing.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What are you going to do?” he countered. “Will you try and stop me returning to my comrades? I will not let your security people interrogate me.”

“Calm down,” she said hurriedly. “Nobody’s going to stop you leaving. I don’t want you to leave, but that’s the only chain around you: how much I love you, and don’t want to see you harmed.”

“I have been through many battles. I have no fear of my enemy.”

“God!” she growled through clenched teeth. “Men!”

He gave her a twitchy smile and rolled off the bed.

“Where are you going? You’re not going now?”

“I have to.” He shrugged, almost blushing. “I hadn’t expected to spend the night.”

She felt her own cheeks coloring at that. “I want you to spend every night here, Kazimir. I want every night to be like last night. I don’t do this anymore … Damnit, I thought … I didn’t think I could care for someone like this, not anymore. But you …”

“When this is over, when nothing lies between us, I will be yours for as long as you’ll have me.”

“Damnit.” Her eyes were watering.

“Don’t cry. I won’t have my beautiful angel cry for me. I’m not worth it.”

“You are. You are so worth it. You have no idea.”

He finished dressing, then held her for a long moment. “I will come back for you,” he promised gravely. “I swear it.”

She nodded, too exhausted emotionally and physically to do anything else. After a while, with fresh tears running freely down her cheeks, she placed a call to Alic Hogan at his Paris office.

....

It started raining an hour before dawn, cold drops splattering down on the cobbles to form grubby rivulets racing down the gutters. Tired, miserable, and hungry, Mellanie stood in a doorway three down from Paula Myo’s Paris apartment as the sun rose, exposing the narrow street to a gray shading that belonged to the Middle Ages. The time-bowed wooden lintel above her was dripping steadily on her head, wrecking her expensive hairstyle. There had been no time for her to prepare properly; she knew Alessandra wouldn’t allow her a second longer than the two days unless she got a real story. So her jacket collar was turned up in a grim attempt to keep some of the cold out, because the 1950s party dress she wore under it was certainly no good for that. Both feet were soaking inside her handstitched Italian leather shoes, which were now ruined.

The early-morning monotony was occasionally broken by a civic GPbot rolling past her. By six o’clock people had started using the street. She received a few curious glances. Their eyes soon slid away, deciding she was some hooker waiting for her pimp or pusher after a bad night.

Close,
she told their backs as they hurried away.

At half past seven Paula Myo walked out onto the street. She wore a long raincoat, unbuttoned to show her usual business suit; her feet were protected by calf-high booshide boots, and she switched on a plyplastic umbrella stick that flowed out into a wide black mushroom shape.

Mellanie waited until the woman had almost reached the end of the street, and left the scant cover of the doorway. Her virtual vision displayed a simple map of the area. As she’d expected, Myo was walking to the nearest Metro station. She kept twenty meters or so behind her, trying not to be too obvious. The wider streets had some traffic and pedestrians, making cover easier. Headlights cast bright reflection ribbons on the black tarmac, while their tires produced a thin dirty spray. The smell of fresh-baked bread emerged from patisseries that were opening their doors. Mellanie’s stomach growled from the temptation.

Ahead of her Myo turned a corner. Mellanie hurried forward. When she turned the corner, the Metro station sign gleamed brightly fifty meters ahead. Myo had vanished.

“Where …” Mellanie scanned around. The woman hadn’t crossed to the other side of the road. None of the shops were open, so she couldn’t have hidden inside anywhere. “Damnit.” In her mind the plan had been perfect: follow Myo to wherever she was working. That would give a clue what she was working on for the Burnellis, or even if it was the Burnellis. Whatever, it would give her enough interesting questions for Alessandra to keep her on Myo.

“You would make a dreadful field operative.”

“Huh.” Mellanie spun around.

Myo was standing there, umbrella held straight, giving her a quizzical look. “It is illegal to run search programs through restricted city listings. Paul Cramley, the hacker you used to gain access, is old enough to know that.”

“What are you going to do, arrest us?”

“No. He will have a formal charge filed against him. It will probably result in a fine and confiscation of his equipment.”

“Bitch!”

“He broke the law. So have you. Being a reporter does not place you above the law, Ms. Rescorai. You have to obey the rules like every other citizen, however inconvenient that is to your so-called profession.”

“I’ve never heard of this Paul Cramley. You can’t prove anything.”

Myo’s stare hardened. “I don’t have to. You are interfering with a government official, which is also an offense.”

“You’re not, you got fi—” Mellanie drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I was desperate for an interview with you.”

“I don’t give interviews. Everyone in your profession knows that.”

“But you must be able to tell me if there are any suspects in the Burnelli murder.”

“Ask the navy intelligence media office for an update.”

“They’re not as good as you. If they do catch anyone it’ll be on the foundation you laid. I want the whole story.”

“I don’t respond to flattery, either.”

“I’m not flattering you. I despise you. But I’m also a realist.”

A dark gray limousine drew up to the curb beside them. Its rear door opened. “You’re wasting your time following me,” Myo said. Her plyplastic umbrella flowed back into a simple fat stick. “Even if you were any good, you wouldn’t find anything of interest where I’m going.”

“Where would I find something interesting?”

“In truth, I’m not sure. You might try space, deep space.” She got into the back of the limousine, and its door closed.

Mellanie stood shivering in the rain, watching the plush vehicle’s scarlet taillights merge into the Parisian traffic. “Is it true she never lies?” she asked the SI.

“It is true she never tells a direct lie; though she is capable of modifying the truth if it will forward her investigation.”

Hell. Deep space? Who knows about deep space?

....

There had been quite a celebration on High Angel last night.
StAsaph
had returned from another flight, scouting eleven stars. Captain McClain Gilbert had reported that they hadn’t encountered any Prime wormhole activity. Then along with Admiral Kime and Captain Oscar Monroe he’d gone to watch the
Dauntless
disengage from her assembly platform. The warship was a distinct design change from the
Second Chance
and the earlier scouts. She’d been built inside a single three-hundred-meter-long hull, shaped like a stretched teardrop, with eight blunt thermal radiator fins at the rear to complete the aerodynamic illusion. A crew of thirty were in command of a marque 4 hyperdrive, with a top speed of one light-year per hour; a seven-tier force field complemented with a locked molecule hull field; fifty missiles containing fifteen independent twenty-gee sub-warheads carrying hundred-megaton charges capable of diverted energy functions; and thirty directed energy beam weapons. To supply power for the hyperdrive and the combat systems, fifteen high-capacity niling d-sinks had been installed. Charging them up to flight readiness was now beyond the generator capacity of Kerensk, which was already supplying power for the entire scoutship fleet. CST was laying in superconductor power lines from other planets to supply the anticipated fleet. The construction of new generators was providing a bull market for power bonds right across the Commonwealth as entrepreneurs and existing utility companies bid to supply the navy with gigawatts.

Dauntless
had disengaged right on time, small blue ion flames around her base pushing her slowly away from the open assembly platform. She’d curved around the High Angel, giving the people in the crystal domes a good view of her size and shape as she traversed Icalanise, before switching on her hyperdrive and vanishing in a burst of violet light.

“Three completed, another ten authorized,” Wilson had said as the big ship slipped over Babuyan Atoll. “
Defender
is next out. She’s yours if you want her,” he told Oscar.

“Oh, I do. Yes, indeed, I truly do.”

Mac had laughed delightedly and congratulated his old friend. Then the pair of them had gone out and hit the town, such as it was in Babuyan Atoll, to toast the new command and the successful return.

Oscar groaned miserably as the express shot into strong lemon-yellow sunlight, which shone through the first-class carriage windows. He reached for his sunglasses.