Peter Hamilton - Fallen Fragon

"How did they know about Santa Chico?" Amersy asked. "We damn well didn't until after we landed."

"We didn't know how far they'd carried the modifications," Lawrence said. "We knew about the modification project. It was the big difference that the settlers were so proud of. Santa Chico was not going to be colonized the same way as every other planet. They made that very clear right at the start and went out of their way to advertise the fact. Even on Amethi I'd heard of Santa Chico."

"All right, maybe you did, but a bunch of willow web farmers?"

"They had datapool access and money. It's a wonderful combination; it always gets you what you want in the end."

"I don't believe hundreds of people can keep a secret that big for so long. One of them would come down into Memu Bay and blow his wad in a marina club. Word would leak out."

"Nobody knows about them," Lawrence said. "So the secret has been kept. Simple logic."

"I don't see how."

Lawrence didn't know what else to say to convince him. You couldn't dispute the plain facts.

"Hey, Sarge," Karl said. "What do you reckon this motherlode is?"

"That's where it gets interesting. The survey satellites never came up with anything on the plateau other than the bauxite. So, geologically speaking, it's got to be something that shouldn't be there, an anomaly. Expand on Arnoon," he told the desktop pearl AS. The picture flowed. Snow-capped mountains rippled up as the focus shifted past them. Huge tracts of forest swept by until the AS centered on a valley with a circular lake. There was a small island in the middle. "I saw this, too, when I was there last time. I didn't recognize it then, because you don't often see these all covered in trees and grass."

"Oh, my goodness," Odel murmured. "It's a crater."

"You got it. And it's impact, not volcanic. That island is the central peak. A chunk of some asteroid or comet hit the plateau a few thousand years ago, maybe less. The cliff on the west side is still almost sheer. There's been very little movement or erosion since it happened."

"So what hit it?" Karl was leaning forward, staring intently at the pane.

"I'm betting on metal," Lawrence said. "A near-solid lump of it. That would survive the flight through the atmosphere, and the impact. It also gives the Arnoon villagers something to mine."

"What kind of metal?" Karl wanted to believe. Manna from heaven mixed in with a great treasure hunt. He was buying in heavily.

"I don't know for sure, but it's got to be one of the precious ones. Gold, platinum. Or maybe I'm wrong, and it was an ordinary carbonaceous chondritic that fused into diamond from all that heat and pressure during the impact."

Karl slapped Odel's shoulder. "You hear that? There's a diamond mountain in them there hills, and it's all ours."

Odel gave him a pitying look.

"Maybe it's there," Lawrence said. "And that's what you've got to decide. By yourselves. I need to know if you're in or out. All I know for certain is there's evidence of a lot of money up on that plateau, and there's an impact crater in the same place. To me that's more than coincidence, but I can't guarantee anything."

"What sort of proposition are you offering, Sergeant?" Odel asked.

"Equal share for everyone who goes up there with me. We also have to pay off my contact and a spaceplane pilot."

"How do we get there?" Amersy asked.

"We've been assigned a hinterland patrol, leaving oh-eight-thirty tomorrow. Estimated duration two days."

"Jesus." Amersy gave a surprised, slightly troubled grin. "That's some contact you've got. Our assignments come out of Zhang's office."

"I've been planning this for a while" was all Lawrence said. Even now he wasn't about to trust anyone else with Prime.

"Man, we're covered," Lewis said as his smile broadened. "We're going to be up there on an official mission. And the villagers are going to be the last people to protest about some private asset realization. They can't let on they had anything worth taking in the first place." He looked at Lawrence in admiration. "Fucking-a, Sarge. Count me in."

They all turned as Hal began his loud grunting. "I'm. With. Sarge," he ground out. "Need. Money. To. Be. Better. Not. Live. Like. This."

Edmond patted his friend. "It's okay, man. You get a share anyway."

"Actually, if we go we have to take him with us," Lawrence said. "There's nobody here to give him the kind of care he needs. He can ride in the back of the jeep."

It surprised them, but they didn't object.

"I'm on for it," Karl said. "Fucking Z-B. If there's really any of that metal up there, I can walk away from the bastards."

"Sign me up," Odel said.

"Me too," Edmond agreed.

"You're not leaving me behind," Dennis said.

"Congratulations," Amersy said. "That makes it a full set."

Denise had managed to keep her emotions in check for so long now, she'd almost forgotten they were there, squatting at the back of her mind. She'd told herself her immunity from distraction was due to the d-writing she'd undergone; that objectivity and rationality had been installed along with all the other enhancements. The news about Josep had exposed that for the self-deception that it truly was. Ray had called her an hour after he was supposed to have left the spaceport, saying he hadn't reported in. Then his Prime started intercepting heavily encrypted messages flashing between the spaceport and the East Wing of the Eagle Manor, where Z-B's intelligence staff had set up office. Several of them referred to "the prisoner"; they covered requests for personnel and equipment, mainly from the medical department.

"They're getting ready to interrogate him," Ray said.

Denise fought hard to suppress the dismay that had risen from nowhere. "Do you mean torture?" she asked levelly.

"No, it'll be drugs and brain scans. That's why they want the medical people."

"Can you get him out?"

"I don't even know for sure where he's being kept, yet, but I'm pretty sure it's the spaceport. They disconnected it from the datapool fifteen minutes ago. Which gives us a problem in trying to track down his physical whereabouts inside. And even if I did, it would take time to retrieve him. He'll be under the heaviest guard they have. Denise... I don't think I'll be able to get him out and safeguard the mission as well."

"I see."

"He knew that. You and I both knew this was a possibility, too. We've always accepted this risk."

"Yes." Stick to the mission, she told herself. "So now what? Do you think you can get hold of a key?"

"I'll have to wait and see. I need to know where they caught him, and if they have any idea what he was doing at the spaceport. That's what I don't understand, Denise, how the hell did they catch him? We know their security, there was nothing left to chance when we planned this out."

"Another Dudley Tivon," she said. "A random event. Someone caught him red-handed."

"Then why wasn't there any kind of alert? If anyone does anything against Z-B's interests they send up a barrage of red rockets. This time, without Prime intercepting their communications I would never even know they'd taken anyone prisoner."

"So what do you think?"

"The way it was done, the fact he never managed to load a warning into the datapool, I'd say they were waiting for him."

"They can't have been, Ray! That would mean they know about us."

"Yeah. Not a nice thought, is it?'

"I don't believe it. There has to be another explanation. There has to."

"I don't want to believe it, either. But we can't afford to ignore it, not now."

"Ray, we have to get a key for one of the Xianti flights. Without that, we've failed."

"Not yet we haven't, not by a long way."

"If you can't get him out..."

"I know. He'll never let them discover what he's become, nor what he was doing. At least we have that option."