Peter Hamilton - Judas Unchained

“Yes, all of you. We have suitable rooms prepared.”

“Okay then.” Ozzie was giving the station’s cargo handling sector a suspicious look. Its capacity had jumped up by an order of magnitude since he’d last visited.

The “residence” was a big mansion of pale stone modeled on the stately homes of eighteenth-century Europe. It was several kilometers out of town, and surrounded by towering trees that were oppressively dark in the deepening twilight.

“You’ll be all right,” Ozzie told his companions when they walked into the big entrance hall. Orion’s expression was dropping into a sullenness that Ozzie recognized only too well. “Get some sleep, we’ll talk in the morning.”

Nelson led the way through the mansion to a study overlooking the front lawns. There was a greenway outside, barely visible now the sun had set. Ozzie wasn’t sure if he remembered it or not; it did seem vaguely familiar. He resented not having access to the unisphere after only just being reconnected.

Nigel was waiting in a big leather armchair. “Thanks, Nelson.”

Nelson smiled tightly and left, closing the door behind him. Ozzie’s inserts told him a strong e-seal had come on around the room. “Just us, huh?”

“Just us.” Nigel waved a hand at a chair identical to his own.

“Shouldn’t the fire be blazing away?” Ozzie said as he sat down. “With like maybe one of those big hairy dogs stretched out in front of it.”

“Irish wolfhound.”

“And you an’ me jiving away with some brandy.”

“You’ve had enough to drink today.”

“Okay, Nige, so what’s with the big CIA spook operation? My unisphere address is open. You could have called.”

“Better this way. That kid you’ve turned up with tells an interesting story. And the alien; nobody’s seen anything like it before. Communication by photoluminescent visual signals in the ultraviolet spectrum. The xenobiologists are going to love that.”

“Tochee’s an okay dude, sure.”

“So you walked the Silfen paths?”

“Yeah, man. They are the most incredible wormhole network imaginable. I think they’re sentient in their own right. That’s why we can never quite track them down, they move the whole time, opening and closing, timeshifting, too.”

“Figures. Incorporating a wormhole’s control routines into a self-sustaining exotic energy matrix is one of our research projects.”

“Clunky, man, so clunky compared to this.”

“So what did you find? Have they got an SI equivalent?”

“Yeah, something like that. It has a shitload of data, like a galactic library. I know who put the barriers around the Dyson Pair.”

Nigel listened silently while Ozzie told him about finding the Ice Citadel, and Tochee, and seeing the ghost planet’s history, and finally ending up in the gas halo. “So this Anomine species isn’t going to help us?” he asked.

“No,” Ozzie said. “Sorry, man.”

“That was a well-spent time away, then. Are you happy?”

“Hey, fuck you!”

“Why did you order the Dynasty political office to prevent anyone examining cargo sent to Far Away?”

“Uh.” Ozzie gave a sickly grin. That wasn’t exactly what he was expecting to talk about. “Well, man, you know, like, it was oppressive. I don’t dig that at all.”

“Ozzie, give the bullshit routine a rest, will you? There’s too much at stake. If you haven’t worked it out yet, I’m trying to decide whose side you’re on.”

“Side?”

“Are you a Starflyer agent, Ozzie?” Nigel asked quietly. There was a glint of moisture in his eye. “Damnit, do you have any idea how much it hurts just to have to ask you that?”

“You know the Starflyer’s real?” an equally astounded Ozzie blurted.

“Yeah, we know it’s real, we just found out. So, why the political restriction?”

“I didn’t know if it was real.”

“What made you even suspect?”

“I met this dude, Bradley Johansson, man, could he spin a story. He claimed he’d been to the gas halo, that the Silfen had removed his Starflyer conditioning. I’d never heard anything like it. He almost made sense. So I asked myself, what if he was right? You know? I mean, it’s a big universe out there, Nige, anything is possible.”

“So you took a chance, and threw in with him. It was fun, wasn’t it, Ozzie; fun being on the other side, sticking it to the man.”

“I’m not that shallow.”

“Yes you are.” Nigel narrowed his eyes. “When did you meet him?”

“God, man, I dunno, like over a century ago.”

“Before or after he founded the Guardians?”

“Same time. He was just getting his act together.”

Nigel tented his fingers in front of his face, staring hard at Ozzie. Suddenly his eyes widened in shock. “Oh, my God, you stupid, stupid son of a bitch. I don’t believe it.”

“What?” Ozzie asked, disturbed by his friend’s behavior.

“The Great Wormhole Heist.”

“Ah.” Ozzie couldn’t help a slight smirk. “That.”

“You helped him. I always wondered how the hell they got into the supercomputer routines we’d written; the access codes were all our personal encryption. You gave him the codes, didn’t you?”

“Better than that,” Ozzie said evilly.

“How better?”

“I was one of them.”

“One of…oh, fuck, Ozzie. You were part of the Great Wormhole Heist?”

“Sure, man, it was a blast.”

“A blast? Jee-zus, Ozzie, that was Paula Myo’s case. Suppose she’d caught Johansson? His memory read would have shown you taking part.”

“It was worth it. You have no idea how high I got creeping around that museum, giving the guards the finger when the force field came on around us. Then we just waltzed right into the Vegas vault. Shit, Nigel, even we don’t have that much money. It was stacked to the fucking rooftops, like a dragon’s bed of gold.”

“It’s less than an hour’s income for CST, you dickbrain, and we own half of Vegas anyway. Why didn’t you just give Johansson an open credit transfer?”

“I knew you wouldn’t get it. Nigel, man, we built that machine with our own two hands; it’s still our finest hour, not CST. That was the two of us against the world back then. That generator was built with love, it’s part of us, the kid our souls had together. It wasn’t fair leaving it to be gawped at by bunches of schoolkids like some freakshow exhibit. I gave it a swan song that’ll never be forgotten.”

“It wasn’t in danger of being overlooked; it’s the foundation for our whole society.” Nigel groaned out loud, and appealed silently to whatever rationality Ozzie believed in. “Why didn’t you just come and tell me about the Starflyer?”

“And you’d have listened, and taken it all seriously? Come on. Nige, you are The Man. You’d have told me and Johansson to go take a flying leap, then given me another lecture about being stoned.” He gave his friend a kindly smile. “How long have you known the Starflyer is real, Nige, I mean, really accepted it’s a genuine twenty-four-karat pain in humanity’s ass? Be honest.”

“We’ve suspected something weird’s been going on behind the scenes for a while now. I wasn’t sure if it was the SI. One of its agents was involved.”

“How long?” Ozzie chanted; he wasn’t about to let Nigel off this one.

“Couple of days.”

“Pretty good. Longer than I’d have given you credit for.”

“Oh, like you were sure,” Nigel snapped back. “You who were so confident you used Johansson as an excuse to play superthief for kicks. You know, I bet you’re secretly pissed Johansson hasn’t been caught. For a hundred thirty years you’ve been waiting for this little stunt to get added to the catalogue of Ozzie legends, haven’t you?”