Peter Hamilton - Judas Unchained

***

It was dawn at the Tulip Mansion. Justine sat in the big octagonal conservatory in a mauve sweatshirt and baggy jeans, curled up on her battered leather couch as if it were a child’s comfort toy. She couldn’t stop her hands from stroking her belly, giving reassurance. To herself or her child, she wasn’t sure which.

Gore walked in, dressed in a simple white shirt and dark brown pants. He leaned over the couch and gave Justine a light kiss. She gripped his forearm. “Thanks, Dad.”

He gave a shrug, as close to embarrassment as she’d seen him in the last two hundred years. “Nothing to it. His wetwiring was all cheap black market shit. You could have beaten him off with a wet towel.”

“I was in a wet towel,” she said sardonically.

“Well, there you go then, you didn’t even need me.”

There was a small cough, and Justine looked up to see Paula standing at the entrance. “Senator, I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

“No thanks to your bunch of asshole incompetents,” Gore snapped. “What kind of piss-poor operation are you running? I’m not surprised Columbia kicked you out of the navy if this is an example of your results.”

“Dad,” Justine scolded.

“Your father is correct,” Paula said. “The lapse in security is completely unacceptable. It appears that the Starflyer agent was waiting in your fridge; most of the food inside had been consumed. He must have been in there when the Senate Security team installed the upgrade. They will be suspended pending a disciplinary hearing.”

“And that will help how, exactly?”

“Dad, just drop it.”

“Ha.” Gore waved a hand in disgust. “Thanks to the Investigator’s screwup I’ve got to put up with every news show on the unisphere showing the recording of me walking around Park Avenue with my dick hanging out.”

“And executing the assassin,” Paula said.

Justine gave the mansion’s array an order, and the octagonal room’s glass walls vanished behind a gray haze.

“That motherfucker was trying to kill my daughter; he’s already killed my son, and countless others. You think I’m upset about killing him?”

“No. But the NYPD must show due process.”

“I talked to the detectives on the scene. If they want to know anything else they’ve got my lawyer’s unisphere address.”

“Enough,” Justine snapped. “Both of you. I’m shaky enough without you two shouting at each other in front of me. The big question is if we now have enough evidence to force the Senate to take notice of the Starflyer.”

“The proof is certainly building,” Paula said. “We’ve exposed Tarlo, which will help convince the Halgarths that this is not some personal power struggle. And people will be curious who sent the assassin against you, Senator.”

“Damn right,” Justine said. She’d already had several calls from her fellow senators, and one from Patricia Kantil, who’d expressed the President’s concern at the incident. “They’ll expect a report from Senate Security.”

“So what are you going to say?” Gore asked.

“It still depends on Nigel Sheldon,” Paula said. She peered in at the crescent-shaped aquarium, watching the fish gliding around. “If we announce the Starflyer’s existence based on the evidence we have, we have to have at least one Dynasty supporting us. If the Sheldon Dynasty goes against us, we’ll have lost every advantage we have. I know Admiral Kime believes it is real, but he has his hands tied by corrupted evidence.”

“Wilson knows it’s real?” Gore asked. “That’s got to be a big bonus.”

“But I don’t understand Sheldon’s position,” Paula said. “Everything he has done points to him being concerned for the Commonwealth. Yet Thompson was convinced it was his office that had blocked the Far Away cargo inspections I’d been pressing for.”

“I’m sorry,” Justine said. “But I still can’t lock that down.”

“Confront him,” Gore said. “Put him in a position where he has to make a hard choice. That should tell us who he’s playing for.”

“That seems reasonable,” Paula said. “We still don’t know exactly how the Starflyer controls humans. I’m expecting an answer to that shortly.”

“I hope you’re not relying on Senate Security to supply it,” Gore said.

Justine gave him a fierce look.

“No. We secured Isabella Halgarth. Her mind is being examined by the Raiel for me.”

“Oh,” Gore said, slightly taken aback. “Okay, that’s a decent pedigree.”

“Do you have any ideas how we can approach Sheldon?” Paula asked.

Gore gave Justine a hard look.

“Me?” she asked.

“Yeah, you. Nobody in the Commonwealth is going to say no to meeting you right now.”

“I’m not sure we should be exposing the Senator to any further possible confrontation with Starflyer agents,” Paula said.

“Hear hear,” Justine muttered.

“Campbell,” Gore said quickly. “Use him. He’s senior enough to get a direct line to Nigel.”

“All right,” Justine said. “I can probably arrange that.”

“Have you got any idea what the Starflyer’s next move will be?” Gore asked.

“Not specifically,” Paula said. “I can only go by earlier Guardian releases. If they are correct it will return to Far Away. I already have a Senate Security covert observation team in place on Boongate watching for just such an attempt.”

“I’ll reinforce it with our own people,” Gore said. “If we don’t gather enough open political support to force Doi into acknowledging the threat we may have to shut the wormhole down by ourselves to prevent it going through.”

“That’s risky,” Justine said.

“Better than being dead, girl.”

“Where is Mellanie right now?” Justine asked.

“She went to LA with a Senate Security escort,” Paula said. “She said she had to collect Dudley Bose. She was worried about him.”

“The reporter whore has got her claws into Bose?” Gore said. “Christ!”

“I think she should be brought in,” Justine said. “Investigator, if you’re finally satisfied she’s not working for the Starflyer, she could be helpful to us. She obviously has connections of her own. We need information as much as we need allies, however unlikely they are.”

“I’ll certainly suggest that to her,” Paula said.

“And I’ll call Campbell,” Justine said.

***

Stig rolled out of bed just before dawn. His e-shielded room at the top of the rental house was almost empty; whitewashed plaster walls, bare carbon floor panels, a crude dresser with a big china bowl and a jug of water on top. Shuttered doors opened onto a tiny Juliet balcony that gave him a view over the red tile rooftops of Armstrong City’s Scottish district. Grime-laden solar-charged globes rested in a series of alcoves at shoulder height around the walls, their glow diminished to a moonlight spark after eight hours of darkness. As he always left the balcony doors closed during the day, there was never enough light to fully recharge them.

He crossed the room and swung the thick burgundy curtain away from the arch that led to the tiny bathroom. A couple of polyphoto bulbs came on as he stepped in, filling the room with green-tinted light. Because of the city’s lack of basic infrastructure, the toilet was a self-contained unit, an algaereactor made by an EcoGreen company on Earth over a century ago. Whatever biological processes went on in the compostor chamber behind the wall, the algae and bacteria certainly needed refreshing. The smell that drifted up made Stig’s eyes water every morning. He peered at himself in the mirror, not liking the face he saw. It had been reprofiled after the Oaktier to LA run, giving him small flat ears, a squashed nose, and skin that was a couple of shades darker than his original tone. The thick stubble was now ebony, while his close-cut hair remained mouse-brown. His own mother really hadn’t recognized him when he returned.