The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (115 page)

“So where did you two finish up last night?” Antonia Clarke asked from the seat opposite.

“I have no goddamn idea,” Oscar grunted. “There was a band there. I think. Maybe jazz?” He picked up the cup of black coffee that the steward had just poured, looked at it, felt strange fluids start to churn in his stomach, and hurriedly put it down again.

Antonia laughed. She’d already had to baby-sit him through the freefall commuter flight from High Angel to the Kerensk wormhole station. Keeping his uniform clean under those circumstances had been tricky; then there had been the complaints from their fellow passengers.

“Have you got your speech ready?” she asked.

“Fuck off.”

“You want another tifi hit?”

“Look! Just shut—Oh, God, yes please.”

Grinning, she took out the packet of tubes and pressed one to his neck. There was a capacitor whine as the membrane pad on the end fast-tracked the drug into his bloodstream. “That’s your limit. No more for another six hours.”

He touched his fingertips delicately to his sweating forehead, testing to see if the pain was abating. “They only print that to keep the lawyers quiet. You can take at least twice the dosage before anything bad happens.”

“Ever the optimist. How do you feel?”

“I think that one might actually be working.”

“Good.”

The express went through another wormhole gateway, and the light became even brighter, a sharp blue-white. Antonia looked out of the window. “We’re here. New Costa Junction. Let’s go.” She stood up.

Oscar gave the cup of coffee a last longing glance, and decided against.

A senior manager from the clinic was on the platform to greet them. He had a car for them, which slid smoothly onto highway 37.

“Ten-minute trip from here,” the manager promised. “We’re between shifts, so the traffic is light.”

The Nadsis Hotel was set back off the freeway, a twenty-story X-shape, with five separate conference facilities. Over a thousand media reporters were packed into the Bytham auditorium where the welcome-back ceremony was to be performed. Both of the honored guests and all the VIPs walked en masse onto the stage, to considerable applause. Dudley Bose, a lanky adolescent with a stock of ginger-blond hair that refused styling, broke his sulk to grin around before eventually giving the thumbs-up that had been his interview trademark. Emmanuelle Verbeke was a surprise to those who had accessed her file for background information. On the
Second Chance
she’d been sober and professional to the point of dullness, a woman with rather bland features who didn’t care about appearances. Today she was almost indistinguishable from a genuine first-life eighteen-year-old. She’d chosen a strap-top purple dress with a short skirt to show off long legs that had been toned to perfection by the clinic’s physiotherapists. Her dark hair, still shortish despite the accelerated growth phase of cloning, was arranged in neat curls that emphasized her youth. Her perpetual gleeful smile and very girlish giggles illustrated a rare case of someone being highly suited to the whole re-life procedure.

It was Oscar who was scheduled to make the initial speech. He said hello to everybody. Then he had to perform the introductions—a stupid thing to do. After that was his own quick “personal” welcome to his former crewmates. He told a happy anecdote from the
Second Chance
to show what great friends they all were; while what he wanted to do was blurt out the story of how Bose had managed to screw up the shower filtration unit for his deck.

After five minutes of torture he sat down to polite applause and Antonia’s mocking smile. Vice President Bicklu was next, making the formal welcome back speech. A tall man whose features were sequenced and profiled to produce a bland handsomeness, along with Nordic white skin to contrast with Doi’s African ethnicity. Oscar had to sit with a fixed smile as the VP made a very good speech, with plenty of easy jokes that had the media laughing and the other guests smiling appreciatively. He made Oscar look like the amateur warm-up act.

When it was her turn, Emmanuelle got up and gave the VP a sweet kiss on the cheek. She smiled at the big audience, said how nice it was to be back, how she was impressed by the progress the navy had made, how she wanted to join up again as soon as she was old enough—applause and a few whistles—and a big hello to all her friends and thanks for all the support they’d shown while she was in re-life.

She gave Dudley Bose an encouraging wink as he went to the podium. “I’ve heard a lot this afternoon about how dedicated and friendly everyone was on the
Second Chance
,” Dudley said. A hand came up automatically to play with his ear. “What a great ship, what a good job it did flying that mission. I’m puzzled by that. Because I haven’t got a fucking clue which
Second Chance
they’re talking about. It certainly isn’t the one I flew on. The bastards I was crewing with LEFT ME THERE. ALONE! Our great so-called captain didn’t even check to see if we were still alive, he was so desperate to save his own arse.” His arm shot up, a rigid finger pointing at the ceiling. “I’m still out there, you know. Somehow. Some alien has kept me alive, or bits of me. So why am I here as well? What are you doing to me, you
shits
?” He stomped off the stage, leaving all the VIPs staring at each other in embarrassment.

“Do something,” Antonia said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Why me?” Oscar mumbled back. Every reporter in the audience was looking at them expectantly, relaying the image through the unisphere. Many of them were smiling. It wasn’t in sympathy.

“You’re the MC.”

“Ohshit.” Oscar walked slowly over to the center of the stage, where the main lights were focused. He cleared his throat. “Kids today, huh?” He’d never known a silence so deep, so unbroken. “Look. Okay. I’m sorry Dr. Bose feels the way he does. Had we stayed at the Watchtower, we would have died. It’s that simple. The Primes were firing nuclear missiles at us. You can’t hang around philosophizing in circumstances like that.”

At the front of the audience, Alessandra Baron stood up. “Captain Monroe, the
Second Chance
had FTL capacity. The Primes did not. So why didn’t you circle back and make a final pass to see what had happened to your crewmates?”

“Our primary mission was to report our findings back to the Commonwealth. Everybody on board knew that, Dr. Bose included. We all accepted the risks.”

“But didn’t your actions increase the risk factor in this case? One check wouldn’t have endangered anybody on board. Didn’t you care about your crewmates?”

“They screwed up,” Oscar snapped back, angry at the allegation. He remembered only too well what it had been like on board at the time. Now this moron prima diva was questioning their decisions from the safety of time and distance. “Or at least Bose did. He wasn’t properly trained to join the exploratory team. Nobody wanted the old idiot on board in the first place.”

This time the silence that opened up was even deeper. Then a thousand questions were shouted at once.

Antonia’s arm came protectively around Oscar’s shoulder. “Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen,” she bawled through the PA at full volume. “Drinks and canapés are now served in the lounge. Enjoy.” She physically hauled Oscar off the stage in something approaching a wrestling lock. He got one glimpse of Baron’s diabolically victorious smile before they reached the wings.

Vice President Bicklu’s white skin had turned puce. “Why didn’t anyone brief me this was hostile?” he was shouting at his aides. He caught sight of Oscar. “You! What the hell was that?”

“Later,” Antonia sang out cheerfully, still pushing Oscar along. They reached one of the hotel’s service corridors and came to a halt.

Oscar put a hand on his forehead. It was hot and sweating. His headache was back again, big time. When he pulled his hand away, he half expected the dampness he’d felt to be blood. “OhmyGod, did I really say that?”

“Yep,” Antonia said, she sounded inordinately pleased. “And it was about time somebody did.”

“Oh, God. I think I just blew the
Defender
captaincy.”

“Don’t be so stupid. Come on. This is a hotel; there’s got to be a bar somewhere. I’ll buy you a hair of the dog, you need it.”

Dudley ignored everyone: the government officials, hotel staff, even the nurse from the clinic. As soon as he left the stage he ran, blundering through the maze of corridors until he came to a big deserted kitchen. Only then did he stop and draw a very shaky breath. He pressed his head on the side of a big refrigeration cabinet, enjoying the feel of the cool stainless-steel surface against his skin. His heart was pounding and his hands shaking. It wasn’t entirely due to running.

“I did it,” he whispered, and smiled to himself. Told them what he thought in front of every reporter who counted in the Commonwealth—and the Vice President. Just the thought sent another tremble along his limbs.

Somebody started clapping in a slow almost derisory fashion.

Dudley straightened up. He almost expected it to be the Vice President’s bodyguards coming at him with ion pistols blazing.

Instead it was a beautiful young girl with wavy golden hair that came down over her shoulders. She was wearing a scoop-necked top of some rust-pink gauze with a silver leaf pattern, and a pair of clinging faded blue jeans that had a small silver M on one of the belt loops. There was a lopsided approving grin on her lips as she approached. She had very white teeth, Dudley noticed—that and the top was translucent. His face began to redden.

“That took a lot of courage to say what you did,” she said. “I respect that.”

“Thank you.” It didn’t quite come out as a stutter. He knew he was staring, and just couldn’t help himself. She was more than attractive, her body had this
healthiness
about it that was intoxicating. His own body was getting uncontrollably hot. He hadn’t managed to have sex yet, not in this body. Just a whole load of lonely nights spent masturbating since he’d been physically able, which wasn’t long. Memories of women he’d been with kept flashing up through his mind, as well as all the ones he’d never had the guts to ask. His old self would never ask a girl like this for a date, he knew.

“It must have been awful for you to realize what they did,” she said. “Coming to terms with how they betrayed you.”

“Yes. Yes, it was.”

“Without you none of this would be possible, none of the starships they’ve built. The important new positions your ex-shipmates have carved for themselves.”

“I can’t believe they did it. They left us there to die.” Even now, after all the months thinking about it, trying to come to terms with the flight, his bitterness and shock were as strong now as the day he’d found out. “They didn’t care about me, not one of them.”

“I know,” she said softly. “A lot of us know.” Her smile was enchanting. “I remember when you discovered the envelopment. I used to access reports of you when I was at school. I used to think I wanted to be an astronomer because of you.”

He twitched his shoulders around awkwardly. Her closeness was dangerous. He could feel his erection growing because of that. He was frightened she’d see it. He wanted to see her naked. He wanted them to be screwing like demons on overdrive. “Did … did you? Are you one? An astronomer?”

“No. I’m not the intellectual type I’m afraid. I chose a sports curriculum in the end, I was on a diving team.”

“Ah.”

“You know, I can hardly believe I’m talking to my old idol.”

“I’m nobody’s idol. I’m not even sure I’m me.” The base of his fist knocked against the refrigeration cabinet, again and again. Even talking to her couldn’t divert his thoughts for long. “You know the real Dudley Bose is still out there. Still looking at alien stars, but from a much closer viewpoint these days.” His laugh was high-pitched, almost out of control.

Her hand caught his fist, and held on, preventing him from moving it. “I’m Mellanie.”

“Pleased to meet you.” All he could feel was her fingers gripping his wrist, her strength and warmth. She had dabbed on the faintest of perfumes. He breathed in deeply, knowing a scent that was so very different to the filtered conditioned air of the clinic, a human scent.

“I have a rented car outside. And I also have a room in this hotel.”

Dudley found it almost painful to say anything. “Yes.”

“So. I can either drive you to the nearest Silent World. Or we can go upstairs. Now. Right now.”

The hotel room was as mass-produced and indistinguishable as any other Augusta product, a long L-shape with a balcony at one end, and the marbled bathroom at the other. The big double bed was on a raised level, with curtains that could close it off from the rest of the room.

It was dark outside when Oscar finally opened the door and stumbled in. He’d spent two hours in the small fifth-floor residents-only cocktail lounge with Antonia before the reporters tracked them down. That had been the end of that party.

He left the lights off and went over to the kitchen alcove. There was enough illumination coming in through the wide glass patio doors to see the beer bottles in the fridge. He chose one and popped the top. Antonia had been right, a hair of the dog always worked a lot better than a tifi hit. His hangover had completely vanished now. The hotel menu was on the counter; he picked it up as he went out and stood on the narrow balcony. There had been a formal banquet planned for this evening to finish the whole welcome-back event, which was why he had the room. But the meal had been canceled. If he was going to get anything to eat it would have to be room service.

Outside, New Costa gleamed brightly under the night sky, as if it were an amplifying mirror for the constellations above. Inland, to the north, the horizon was glowing a deep-hued amber where the steel smelters were stretched out amid the Colrey hills. A genuine false dawn. The corona was actually brighter than the sky of a world with an orange dwarf star he remembered exploring eight–nine years ago. Highways were slow-moving pyrotechnic rivers, winding through the sparkling grids in perpetual motion. Narrow strips of darkness cut across the city, rail tracks where long glimmering trains rolled endlessly between yards and stations and factories.