Peter Hamilton - Pandora's Star

“That Baron woman is still using the phrase,” Mark said. “According to her show all of Randtown is antihuman.” Everyone in the district was worried about the effect Baron’s propaganda would have on their small economy. So far it hadn’t been bad. After a five-day standoff, the navy trucks had eventually retreated back down the highway, and the tourist buses had returned. Of course, the summer bookings had been made months before; it was too late for anyone to cancel. The true test would be next season’s bookings. A surprising number of visitors had congratulated the residents on making their stand—Mark’s interview was politely never mentioned. In the meantime, people were watching to see what would happen to their small export trade of wines and organic food.

“Nobody on Elan is going to organize a boycott, for heaven’s sake,” Liz said. “In any event, half of the wine we make is sold right here in the district; and the kind of people who buy proper organic produce support what we did anyway.”

Mark nodded glumly, and poured himself some more Chapples wine. “I might have got away with it, then.”

David leaned over and touched his glass to Mark’s. “I’ll drink to that. Come on, the future’s looking good. Liz has almost cracked the Kinavine’s rhizome sequence; once we have that fixing its own nitrogen we can sell it for cultivation right across the valley. People will be ripping up their old vines and replanting. There won’t be a vineyard on Ryceel that can compete against that wine when it crops.”

“It’s going to take a little while yet,” Liz said.

Mark put his arm around her. “You’ll do it,” he said softly.

She grinned back at him.

“What in God’s name are those?” Lydia asked. She was shielding her eyes with one hand, pointing back toward Randtown with the other.

Blackwater Crag dominated the skyline behind the town, then there was a short break in the mountains to the west of it where the highway valley led back into the Dau’sings. After that the rugged peaks rose again to stand guard over Trine’ba’s shore. One of the tallest peaks on the western side was Goi’al, the southernmost of a cluster collectively called the Regents, where the district’s snow bike sports and racing was based. Only now, in midsummer when the ice and snow finally lifted from the sheltered high ground, did the little machines pack up for a few months.

Black specks were circling slowly to the side of Goi’al. To be visible from this distance they must have been huge.

“Bloody hell,” David muttered. He went straight to the cabin, and brought back a pair of binoculars from the locker. Electromuscle pulleys began to furl the sails, reducing speed to make the catamaran more stable. “Helicopters,” he said. “Bugger, but they’re big brutes. I’ve never seen anything like them before, they’ve got double rotors. Must be some kind of heavy cargo lifter. I make that at least fifteen of them up there, could be more.”

He offered the binoculars around to the others. Liz took them. Mark didn’t bother, he slumped down into the middeck’s semicircular couch. “It’s the detector station,” he said in dismay. “After everything we did, everything we said, they brought it in anyway. The bastards.”

Liz handed the binoculars to Lydia. “You knew it was going to happen in the end, Mark. Something that big isn’t stopped by a bunch of people standing in the middle of the road.”

“I thought we lived in a democracy.”

“We do. We exercised our democratic right to protest, and they ignored us. Ultimately, the navy is a government department, what did you expect from them?”

“I don’t know. Would a little sensitivity be too much to ask?”

She went over and sat beside him. “I’m really sorry, baby. I don’t want them here any more than you do. But we’re going to have to knuckle down and live with it for the duration. These are strange times, we have to make allowances for that. Once this whole Prime thing is over, and the warmongers and profiteers have finished frightening the life out of everyone, then the station will be gone. We’ll make damn sure they take all their crap with them, as well, I promise that.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, conscious how he must be coming over as a petulant brat to the Dunbavands. “Yeah, I guess so. But I don’t have to like it.”

“Nobody’s asking you to.”

He drained the last of the Chapples wine from the glass, and looked back across the cool calm waters of Trine’ba. The helicopters had already begun to land on the other side of Goi’al.

…

“Our worst fears have been proved right,” the Guardians’ spokesman said in a calm, significant voice. “The Dyson aliens are preparing to invade the Commonwealth. They have an overwhelming force pouring through Hell’s Gateway which will be unleashed against us any day now. We warned you this would happen, and now sadly, millions if not billions of citizens will be killed to confirm everything we have always said is tragically true. They will die because our Commonwealth’s defenses are completely inadequate. We know that every person serving in the navy will do their utmost when the invasion begins—we support them wholeheartedly in their awful task—but there are too few of them, and not enough ships. If we could provide them with assistance, we would, but that is not our arena.

“We will carry on our own lonely fight against the Starflyer creature who has brought about this disaster. It is not often we are able to expose one of its agents, for they are normally hidden and protected. However, in this case, the evidence is overwhelming. One person put forward the proposal to launch a starship to investigate Dyson Alpha. One person now governs the size of the navy budget. One person knows the true size of the resources we need, and continually denies us those resources. One person sends their murderer to kill their opponents. This one person is the most powerful puppet the Starflyer has ever used against us. It is President Doi herself.

“Be warned, and remember the true crisis we are facing is not the physical one from the Dyson aliens. It is the one corrupting us from within. We have always been honest with you. Now, in humanity’s darkest hour, we ask you to believe in us this one last time. Doi and her master are our enemy, she will obliterate us if left unchallenged.

“Challenge her.” The spokesman bowed his head. “I thank you for your time.”

…

The whole office was spending the morning filing reports and filling in finance department forms to cover the cost of the LA deployment. Thankfully, Paula just had to skim the summaries and attach her authorization code. That left her with some time to contemplate what had happened, although all she could really think about was Thompson Burnelli’s murder. Tarlo and Renee were busy sifting through the pitifully small amount of leads resulting from the pursuit so they could draw up an action plan. Alic Hogan had chosen to examine the camera images from LA Galactic in a virtual projection to see if the software had been handed over inside the station terminal. She didn’t object; for all he was Columbia’s placeman, Hogan was relatively efficient at his job, and it would keep him away from her for most of the day.

As so often happened with the Johansson case, LA had become a problem that had multiplied unexpectedly, and always in the wrong directions. Although on the positive side, she at least knew that Elvin was putting together another smuggling operation.

At eleven o’clock Rafael Columbia appeared in the office. He was dressed in his full admiral’s uniform, with several staff officers in attendance. Everyone in the office stopped what they were doing to look at him.

Paula stood up just as he reached her door. “Wait for me,” he told his officers, and closed the door.