Peter Hamilton - Fallen Fragon

"What are you suggesting?"

"There's another factor here." A new file appeared, highlighted by the cross-reference program that the AS had run on Platoon 435NK9. Specific information scrolled down. "It would seem that the platoon's sergeant has been to Arnoon Province before. He was in a similar patrol the last time we were here. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"

"It's improbable," the SF9 admitted. "Can you datamine him?"

Simon instructed his personal AS to launch an askping trawl for all files concerning Lawrence Newton.

* * *

The TVL88s thundered in over the treetops to surround Arnoon village, weapons extended. Downwash from their powerful rotors tore at the mist, breaking through the central clearing in seconds. The last strands of cloying vapor streaked past the shaggy wooden A-frames, exposing them to the targeting sensors. A young woman in a cream sweater and dark jeans was standing on the balcony of one of the houses, gripping the handrail to steady herself in the miniature hurricane.

She was the only person the sensors could detect. The A-frames were all warm, their domestic appliances drawing power. But nobody was inside.

Five helicopters, including Simon's, landed on the dew-soaked grassmoss, while the others spread out and began scanning the surrounding forest. Skins deployed rapidly, fanning out across the meadow. Their carbine muzzles were extended; each of them had a rack of smart missiles.

Simon climbed down out of the helicopter, holding on to the front of his loose leather jacket as it flapped about. Three Skins fell in around him as he walked toward the woman.

She came down the steps from the balcony, her lustrous aura giving her the appearance of some biblical angel. "Simon Roderick, I presume. I'm Jacintha. Welcome to Arnoon village."

"I thought there'd be more people here."

"They're all out there in the forest somewhere. They ran away when we found out you were coming."

"Why?"

"We're frightened of you."

"Interesting. I find you quite daunting. You know you have a remarkable aura."

Jacintha frowned. "Oh, I understand. You must have a magnetic sense. Is that how you caught Josep?"

"Let's say it's how I learned to be very careful around him. Not that it was of much help ultimately. A lot of people were killed when he committed suicide."

"And your collateral necklaces kill a lot of people for no reason."

"I'm not here to justify what I've done, nor argue with you about who owns the moral high ground. I'd simply like to meet the alien, please."

"I'm sorry," Jacintha said. "You can't."

"You know I will. If you defeat all twelve helicopters and these platoons—which I doubt you're actually capable of— we will simply come back with more. And we will keep coming back until we finally get through to it."

It wasn't her rather pitying smile that disconcerted him, but her thoughts. She actually felt sorry for him. It was the kind of sympathy an adult would express during an infant's tantrum.

In return he couldn't help but admire her. It was nothing sexual, rather an appreciation for a perfectly balanced personality. The SK2 was right: if only everybody had her intellectual depth.

"You could send a thousand starships full of Skins and weapons," Jacintha said. "It would make no difference."

Finally, Simon began to understand. "It's not here." His mind began to meld all the information that he'd gathered with a speed that was almost vertiginous. "Memu Bay is an anarchistic mess; you can take anything through without us knowing. The spaceplane! You weren't going to blow up a starship..."

"Newton was here," the SK2 said. "Here at the spaceport. We medevaced him this morning."

Jacintha cocked her head to one side, listening to a silent voice.

"Shit!" Simon gasped, as his DNI scrolled the files. "Stop him," he told the SK2. "Stop the flight. Keep Newton away from the starship."

"Too late," Jacintha said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"I'm showing a level-two hydraulics failure," Lawrence reported. Prime converted his voice to an exact replica of Gordon Dreyer's clipped accent for the audio link with Koribu. "The payload bay doors aren't responding."

"God, Dreyer, can't you people stick to simple maintenance procedures?" the Koribu's flight controller complained. "You're supposed to oversee flightworthiness. There's no point to having pilots otherwise. Purge and reactivate the system."

"Copy that. Attempting reactivation."

Amber graphics began a slow dance on the console panes as Prime produced a digital simulacrum of the hydraulics system being reactivated. Lawrence let the phony procedure run twice so that the telemetry being received by the Koribu would show he was doing his best to rectify the problem.

Through the windshield he could see the massive starship floating 350 meters away. They were level with the fusion drive section, where sunlight broke apart into soft scintillations over the crinkled thermal foil that protected the deuterium tanks. Three more Xiantis were strung out in front of them, their payload bay doors fully open. The cargo pods that they'd boosted up to orbit had risen out on cradles ready for collection, as if they were some kind of offering held out by metal fingers. Engineering shuttles like black chrome beetles were sliding round the spaceplanes, puffs of dusty gray gas flaring out of their reaction control nozzles as they aligned themselves to pluck the pods away.

"Still no response," Lawrence said.

"Ah, goddamnit, all right, Dreyer," the Koribu's flight controller said. "Clearing you for docking. Bring it in to our maintenance bay. The AS is assigning you an approach path. And congratulations for screwing up today's schedule."

"Always a pleasure."

Prime acknowledged receipt of the new flight path. Hypergolic fuel ignited in the reaction control nozzles, gently pushing them around the starship. Lawrence saw ribbons of sulfur vapor flare out to envelop the entire nose as the Xianti began a slow roll. The starship gradually slipped from view through the windshield. Sensors showed him the Koribu's cylindrical cargo section drifting past below. Beyond the silos, the long maintenance bay doors were opening up. A row of small lights lining the rim came on, banishing shadows from the ribbed metal cavity.

With Prime controlling their maneuver, the Xianti glided smoothly into place directly above the maintenance bay. Its undercarriage doors folded back. The reaction control nozzles fired shorter and shorter bursts as they eliminated all momentum relative to the giant starship.

On the maintenance bay floor, mechanical mandibles flexed themselves upward, searching out the load pins in the Xianti's undercarriage. Latches snapped shut, securing the spaceplane.

"We're in," Lawrence murmured. The mandibles were retracting, pulling the spaceplane down. They both watched the rim lights slide up past the windshield.

Denise turned to the images from the spaceplane cameras. "Where are the umbilicals?"

"Just wait," Lawrence said.

The Xianti trembled slightly as they came to rest in the cradles. Secondary mandibles, coiled by tubes and cables, wormed their way up to nuzzle at the spacecraft's umbilical sockets. Power, data, coolant, communications and hydraulics were all connected and confirmed.

Prime used the datalink to load itself in the maintenance bay network, erasing the AS and establishing control over all the local systems. Subversion on such a massive level was immediately detected by the Koribu's principal AS, which threw up a firewall around the affected network. It also cut power and environmental feeds to the section of the starship around the maintenance bay and closed the first set of emergency pressure doors along the main axial corridor. The section's backup power supply cut in automatically, allowing the network and most ancillary systems to function. There was nothing Prime could do about recovering environmental feeds, although there was enough oxygen to sustain the crew trapped behind the sealed pressure doors.