The Elysium Commission (12 page)

Despite the freshness and fragrance of the light wind blowing out of the west, I'd closed the balcony doors in order to concentrate on the energy-balance calculations. The sounds of the nymphs and satyrs in the sycamore pool—and those with whom they played and pleasured—had been more than a little distracting. I much preferred the gently teasing invitations of Magdalena, far more entreating than the roistering of the pseudo-Grecians, but my personal enjoyments waited on the necessities posed by the projections hanging in the air of the suite before me, for I did not ever intend to be held green and dying, screaming in my chains like the sea of time beyond the branes of the present.

The prime sub-brane core system remained stable, but that stability was maintained only by the power links between the fusactors on Time's End and the one that supplied power to Elysium. Any expansion of the sub-brane required a full Hawking system, and even Legaar couldn't supply anything like that, and for that reason we waited on the offsystem delivery of just that system.

Maraniss, get down here now!
Legaar's words burned through the implant and my thoughts like fire.

Down where?

The defense control center, idiot!

I'll be right there.
Or as soon as I could get there, although I wondered what was so critical that Legaar was fuming and fretting in the estate defense center. I wasn't about to argue over the link. When an Eloi was angry, there was no reasoning anyway. Sweet reason overwhelmed by virtue's passion—or the passion of what he felt was virtue, which was not exactly the same thing, except in what passed for his mind.

The nymphs must have sensed my anger, or they were all occupied with Legaar's guests, mostly rank and file representatives elected to the planetary forum that advised the sisters, because I got to the grotto that held the maglev without being accosted by the curdling folly of the girls of Legaar's lights.

I'd had barely gotten to the top of the ramp in the defense center and stepped through the doors, when Legaar turned.

“You took too damned long! Idiot! You're a complete idiot. You're a slow idiot! Where are you when you're needed?”

“I was in the quarters you supplied, going over what's necessary to implement the next phase. What happened?”

Legaar glared at me, but I just waited for his reply.

“Your detectors picked up an incoming craft. It didn't register on the standard screens. That means it had to be military. The defense system launched three RP flitters. Because the standard detectors couldn't pick them up, we had to override and transfer input location, using the projection field detectors. That created response delays. I've played back all the data, but the attacker took out all three RPFs, somehow without any energy discharges. I tried to use your beam gadget, but the attacker was gone—or off the farscreens—before I got the hang of it. If you'd been here, it wouldn't have happened.”

“Legaar…” I kept my voice calm, although with his irrational childishness, it was more than a little difficult. “I was here almost all day. I need quiet and no distractions to plan the logistics and implementation. I don't get it here. That was why I instructed you and Chief Tech Dylane on how to use the beam for defense.”

“Who in the planetary self-defense force had any idea about the project? Who did you let it slip to?” His voice was querulous.

If anyone had let matters slip, it was likely to have been Legaar, but there was little point in making that comment. “I've been here for days or in Elysium. Exactly when could I have let anything slip?” Before he could answer, I went on. “Can we be sure it was the PDF? What about Assembly Special Operations or the Assembly space force?”

“They can't interfere with planetary governments.”

“They can if they suspect other systems are involved. If someone has let it out that the Frankans…”

“No! Don't even mention the name. Idiot!”

I was more than a little tired of his paranoia, but I needed him—as did the Frankans. “It's more likely to be a corpentity recon, possibly trying to get you to react.”

He stopped, and his eyes glazed. Unlike most intelligent beings, Legaar could not walk and do anything else at the same time, let alone link to his system.

Again, I waited.

His eyes focused. “You were right. We got a backlink and a pattern. It was in the system all the time. We've even identified the source, but not the operator. It doesn't matter, though. This time, we'll take care of the head, not the fingers.”

“A corpentity?”

“The head of a corpentity. I've got removals looking into a vanishing.”

“Just for snooping?”

“I should have done it sooner. I've also contacted Lamoignon. The RPFs went down on Thierry land, and RT will press for damages.”

“Guillaume Lamoignon?”

“Why not? It's better to have him representing Classic Research than attacking us. He's more ancient régime than any other opponents of the sisters.”

“I see.” I had my doubts, and I'd always had them where Legaar was concerned, but whether I had doubts or not, he was the vehicle necessary to assure the eternal solidity of Elysium. More important, once the Hawking system was linked and powered up, I would control Elysium—and its future.

Most of my body was sore when I woke on Domen morning. That was despite a hot shower and autotherapy in the villa's medcenter the night before. High-gee maneuvers against RPFs did have a price for the pilot. Another hot shower helped—some.

I ate breakfast in the sheltered garden corner of the courtyard, watching the holoscans of news and items Max thought would interest me. The only news that really intrigued me was one particular blurb, accompanying a talking head.

That was all.

Just what was going on at Time's End? I only had a tenuous and rumored connection between Legaar Eloi and Judeon Maraniss, and nothing at all that would link them to something called Elysium. I didn't even know what Elysium might be, except a guess that it was a project of some sort being undertaken by Classic Research requiring more energy than a handful of deep-space battle cruisers and that Maraniss had some special expertise necessary for the success of the project.

Then there were the complications from both Sephaniah and Tony diVeau. I'd neglected following up on them to see what connections they might have with Legaar. Their attempts to snoop and crash my systems hadn't happened until I'd gotten involved with Seigniora Reynarda's Elysium commission. I've never been a believer in coincidences. I still wasn't.

The “transfer” business from the limo to the reservoir also still nagged at me. If Legaar or Maraniss had done it, why hadn't they used it against the nightflitter? If they hadn't, who had? And why?

I was also still stiff and sore. The soreness would have made it somewhat easier to keep my vow not to get consumed with pending projects—until early afternoon, perhaps. But I didn't get that choice. I'd only finished handwriting a polite but warm note to Odilia and arranged for Max to send it by courier when the system alerted me.

Incoming from Lemel Jerome.

Have him wait one. I'll be right there.
I swallowed the last of the earlgrey and stood, trying not to wince. Then I crossed the courtyard to the study.

I'm a creature of habit. I prefer to handle business in the proper setting.

Once in the study, I pulsed Max.
Link.

Lemmy appeared before me. His black hair was plastered back. He was grinning. His brown eyes still looked flat. “You did it, Blaine. The conveyer of carnality is employing my patents, and I've got proof.”

“You got all that from the detector?” I knew Lemmy was bright, but applied science bright? “And you backlinked a burst transmitter direct to you?”

“How else would I find out?”

Lemmy might be science bright, legal bright, maybe even gadget bright. He wasn't survival bright. “Legaar could track that back to you, unless you used remotes, with drop filters.”

“So? Why would he bother? He can pay the royalties. He's got a massive jump-generator there, or something so close to it that it makes no difference.”

“Lemmy…you can't operate a jump-generator on a planetary surface. Not without—”

Oversurge
! reported Max.

The link was gone. So was a good chunk of system overload protectors, but that was what they were for. I also had a strong feeling that poor Lemmy was also past tense, courtesy of Legaar Eloi. I had a stronger feeling that I had best be very careful. Lemmy's detector needed to be thoroughly insulated—and then some. Immediately.

Max, status of Lemel Jerome's detector?

Isolated and damped, as you ordered, sir.

I
thought
I'd done that, but I needed to make sure.
Monitor all news sources for breaking information on Lemel Jerome. Inform me immediately.

I tried a relink to Lemmy. All I got was a stiff talking head that stated, “The link locale you have contacted is not responding.”

I knew that. My system would have reconnected automatically if it had been possible. Whatever had knocked Lemmy out of link—and probably worse—had to have come from Legaar. Legaar was doing something connected to Lemmy's patents. Lemmy had said that Legaar had a jumpship generator at Time's End, but jumpship generators couldn't operate in a gravity well—or even near one. Not without the power of a Hawking system. If Legaar did have a Hawking system, it would have registered on the nightflitter's systems.

Still…it made me nervous. Very nervous, because if someone had actually operated a jumpship generator in a gravity well, particularly a planetary gravity well, powered with a Hawking field, the result would have been instant obliteration, for the planet and a goodly chunk of space around it. Not obliteration, exactly, just the transformation of all matter into energy. That equated to obliteration for entities nearby. That included me and Krij and the Civitas Sorores.

That had been the fate of Salem. The Vishni Confederacy hadn't bothered with sending conventional warships against the rebel Christos Republic. They'd just assembled a Hawking system on the back side of an inner planet, linked it to two jumpship generators, and triggered both generators. Instant flare-nova, along with the destruction of the inner planet. That was the reason why the Assembly used EDI detectors to scan continually all its inhabited planetary systems. Hawking systems could be built anywhere in space, although they were too large and too unstable for continued jumpship usage, and the energy concentrations necessary for full operation took days to build before the system was stable and usable.

I knew the Assembly IS was continually monitoring for such a possibility. That knowledge didn't make me any happier.

Telling the Garda—even Colonel Shannon—about what Legaar Eloi had on his estate wasn't an option. They couldn't do anything because what Legaar had done, so far, wasn't illegal. Even informing them anonymously wouldn't be either anonymous or safe, because Shannon and Javerr would know I was the informer. They'd try to pin the destruction of the RPFs on me. Or Javerr would, and he'd inform Legaar. I already had enough trouble on my hands as it was without even greater interest and animosity from the Eloi group.

There was another option. It would take time, but I needed to use it.

I leaned forward and took out the stylus. Nothing was going into my system, anywhere, until the delays and blind links were set up. I had to call on old memories and near-forgotten codes. They'd be outdated, but that alone would create some attention.

In the end, the message was simple.

It went enrypt/unencrypt/re-encrypt through four blind links, two erase-delays to a temporarily co-opted burst sender belonging to a small commerce bank. From there, it went to the regional Assembly SpecOps HQ. Behind it, the tracks of its passage erased themselves.

For a moment, I leaned back in the chair and looked out the east windows.

I still had more work to do on the D'Azouza and Stella Strong commissions, as well as on the Tozzi chase—and a great deal more on the Elysium contract, if I could only figure out what else to do that wouldn't make me even more of a target.

I also needed to increase the security levels around the villa and in the comm system.