Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“Not exactly. This is a … portion of what you know as the Conservative Faction; think of me as the executive.”

“All right. So how can you communicate through the force field?”

“I can’t. I’m outside it.”

“But the faction is part of ANA.”

“Could we just move past the definitions stage, please? Take it as read; this is the Conservative Faction speaking.”

“Is there any way to get through the barrier? I have to talk to my family.”

“Forget it. The bastards were smart mapping out Dark Fortress technology. ANA and Earth are going to be sitting on the sidelines for the duration. It’s down to us now.”

The Delivery Man frowned. “Bastards,” he mouthed. This wasn’t the way the Conservative Faction spoke. Secondary routines dug up the “sidelines” crack; it was an old sporting reference. Very old. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Like I said: the executive. What? You think we’re all equal in ANA?”

“Well … yes. Of course.”

“Nice theory. Okay, then, the executive is all nice and homogeneous and glowing in love from everyone else involved in the faction. Happy now?”

“But you can’t be in ANA.”

“No. I’m taking a short sabbatical. Lucky for us. Now, are you with me? Are you going to help stop Marius and Ilanthe?”

“Just so you understand my position, I’m going to require proof of what you are before I do anything.”

“Sonofabitch Highers. You’re all fucking bureaucrats at heart, aren’t you?”

“What the hell are you?”

“I’ll give you proof I’m what I claim, but you’ve got to come and collect it.”

“Listen, my priority-actually my only concern-is taking down that barrier. Nothing else is relevant.”

“Brilliant. And how do you propose to do that?”

“Somewhere in the Commonwealth there will be an Accelerator with the knowledge. Once I track them down, I will extract the information. I am prepared to use extreme methods.”

“I think I misjudged you. That’s not a bad idea. I’m almost tempted.”

“What do you mean ‘misjudged’?”

“Face it, son, you don’t exactly have a double-O prefix, do you? You just deliver things for us, with a bit of low-level covert crap thrown in to bolster your ego.”

The Delivery Man’s u-shadow couldn’t find a reference to double-O, at least not one that made any sense. “I’ve gone up against Marius before,” he said, bridling.

“You had a cup of hot chocolate with him before. Come on, let’s get real here.”

“Well, what’s your proposal?”

“First off, get back to Purlap spaceport and pick up the starship you dumped there. Trust me, the person it was intended for isn’t going to be using it now. And we’re going to need some decent hardware to pull this off.”

“Pull what off?” But he was obscurely heartened by the “executive” knowing about the starship. It meant that the thing was genuine or that the entire Conservative Faction was a broken joke; if it was the latter, the Accelerators wouldn’t be toying with him like this. That wasn’t how they worked.

“One stage at a time. Go get the starship.”

The Delivery Man reviewed the spaceport’s network again. “The commercial lines are shutting down all their scheduled flights. And not just here by the look of it.” His u-shadow was tracking data from across the Commonwealth. Nobody wanted to be flying when the Accelerators were out there unchecked by the navy.

“Boo hoo,” said the Conservative executive. “You just claimed you were prepared to use any method necessary.”

“To get me back with my family.”

“This will, like nothing else. Now think: Where are you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re in the middle of a spaceport with three hundred and seventeen starships currently on the ground around you, according to its official registry. Pick a good one, take it over, and get your ass back to Purlap. You’re a secret agent, remember? Earn your double-O status.”

“Take it over?” the Delivery Man repeated.

“Good man. Call me when you get there. And don’t take too long. Marius was on Fanallisto for a reason, and given what’s just gone down, it must be a hell of a good one for him to be off center stage. He’s near the top of their hierarchy.”

The call ended, leaving a new communication icon gleaming in the Delivery Man’s exovision. “Take it over,” he said to himself. “Okay, then.”

He started to walk back down the length of the arrival hall. His u-shadow extracted information from the registry and produced a short list. There were some navy ships, including a couple of scouts, which were almost tempting, but that would require a little too much bravado, and he didn’t want to have to bodyloss anyone. Especially not now, when the navy was going to need every asset it had. Instead he picked a private yacht called Lady Rasfay .

It was cool outside, with high clouds stretching across the early-morning sky. Dew slicked the spaceport’s concrete roadways and the red-tinged grass analogue. It even deposited a layer of condensation on the taxi capsule the Delivery Man took out to pad F37, a couple of miles away from the main passenger terminal. He climbed out, shivering against the chilly air. The Lady Rasfay was ten meters in front of him, a blue-white cone with an oval cross section, like some kind of ancient missile lying on its side. He never did get why so many people wanted their starships to look streamlined, as if they were capable of aerodynamic flight. But the owner, Duaro, was clearly one who favored image.

The Delivery Man’s u-shadow had already performed a low-level infiltration of the ship’s network. Nobody was on board, and the primary systems were all in powerdown mode. A quick scan of the drive performance figures backed up what he’d guessed from the physical profile. Duaro had invested a lot of energy and mass allocations (EMAs) and time on the hyperdrive, which could now push the ship along at a fraction over fifteen light-years an hour, as good as a hyperdrive could get.

His u-shadow put a civil spaceworthiness authority code into the ship’s network, and the airlock opened. A metal stair slid out. The Delivery Man walked up it, not bothering to scan around, an act that might betray him as a guilty party. That was the beauty of a Higher world: No one really thought in terms of theft; if you saw someone entering a starship, you just assumed it was legitimate. Thanks to EMAs and replicator technology, material items were available to all; certainly a starship was hardly a possession to envy.

Not that Duaro was completely guileless. The network had several safeguards built in. After several milliseconds analyzing them, the Delivery Man’s u-shadow presented him with eight options for circumventing the restrictions and gaining direct control over the smartcore.

Dim red lighting cast a strange glow along the narrow central companionway. The yacht had a simple layout, almost old-fashioned in nature, with the flight cabin at the front, a lounge behind that in the midsection, and two sleeping cabins aft. Once he was inside, the Delivery Man’s biononics performed a short-range field scan to find a suitable point where he could physically access the network’s nodes. That was the same time he heard passionate groaning from the portside sleeping cabin.

The door flowed aside silently. Inside, the sleeping cabin’s decor was ancient teak, carved to cover every curve and angle of the bulkhead walls and lovingly polished. Two figures were in flagrante on the narrow cot.

“Duaro, I presume?” the Delivery Man said loudly.

The man squirmed about in alarm. The woman squealed and scrabbled frantically at the silk sheets to cover herself. She was exceptionally beautiful, the Delivery Man acknowledged, with a mane of flame-red hair and a face covered in freckles. She was also very young; a Firstlife if the Delivery Man was any judge.