Peter Hamilton - Neutronium Alchemist - Conflict

“Don’t be so grumpy. It’s unbecoming. Besides, you should be grateful. My instinct is very protective towards you. That might give me an edge.”

Joshua’s retort was lost somewhere in his throat.

The lift’s doors opened on a public hall in the asteroid’s commercial district where several late office workers scurried to work while a pair of mechanoids cleaned the walls and floor. It was less spartan than the axial chamber, with a high, arched roof and troughs of plants spaced at regular intervals. But it was still only a tunnel through rock, nothing exuberant. Unfortunately the serjeant didn’t have lips that could easily be compressed into a pout, otherwise she would have done it. She really wanted to see the biosphere cavern.

Joshua started off down the hall.

“What do you hope to accomplish here?” she asked.

“T’Opingtu is a big company; someone will have been appointed to run it straightaway. And Ikela would make sure his replacement is someone he can trust, someone from his immediate circle. It’s not much, but it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

“I really don’t think you’ll be able to get an appointment today.”

“Don’t be such a downer, Ione. Your trouble is Tranquillity is incorruptible and logical, that’s all you’re used to. Asteroids like Ayacucho are neither. The size of the contract I’m going to dangle in their faces will get me straight into the top office. There’s an etiquette to this kind of business.”

“Very well, you get in. Then what?”

“I won’t know until I get there. Remember this is strictly a data acquisition mission, everything is helpful even if it is only negative. So keep your senses open and your memory on full record.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Okay, now we’re primarily interested in anything we can learn about Ikela’s life. We know he was an Garissan refugee, so who did he move with from the past, was he a strong nationalist? Names, contacts, that kind of stuff.”

“My personality didn’t suffer any damage during the replication process, I can think for myself.”

“Wonderful. A bodyguard with an attitude.”

“Joshua, darling, this isn’t attitude.”

He stopped and jabbed a finger at the husky construct. “Now look—”

“That’s Pauline Webb,” Ione said.

“What? Who?”

Three people were marching down the public hall towards Joshua. Two African-ethnic men flanking a white woman. He didn’t like the look of the men at all; they were wearing civilian suits, but combat armour would have been more appropriate. Boosted, and no doubt containing a wide variety of extremely lethal implants.

Pauline Webb stopped a couple of metres short of Joshua and gave the serjeant a curious glance. “Your appointment is cancelled, Calvert. Collect your crew, get back in your starship, and go home. Today.”

Joshua produced his most nonchalant grin. “Pauline Webb. Fancy seeing you here.”

Her narrowed eyes gave the serjeant another suspicious glance. “This situation is not your concern anymore.”

“It is everybody’s concern,” Ione said. “Especially mine.”

“I didn’t know you things could operate independently.”

“Now you do,” Joshua said politely. “So if you’ll just step aside . . .”

The man directly in front of Joshua folded his arms and planted his feet slightly apart, a true immovable object. He smiled carnivorously down at Joshua.

“Er, perhaps we could come to an arrangement?”

“The arrangement is simple,” Webb said. “If you leave, you get to live.”

“Come on, Joshua,” Ione said. The serjeant’s all-too-human hand closed on his shoulder, forcing him to turn.

“But—”

“Come on.”

“That’s smart advice,” Webb said. “Listen to it.”

Ione let go of his shoulder after a few paces. A fuming Joshua allowed her to escort him back down the hall towards the lift. When he glanced over his shoulder Webb and her two troopers were standing watching him.

“This isn’t her turf,” he hissed at the serjeant. “We could have caused a scene, made trouble for her. The police would have sorted her out as well as us.”

“Any incident with the authorities here would have been resolved in her favour. She’s a CNIS officer assigned to Mzu; the local Navy Bureau would have backed her, and you and I would be in deep shit, not to mention jail.”

“How the hell did Webb know where I was going?”

“I imagine Lady Mac ’s crew is under clandestine surveillance right now.”

“Jesus!”

“Quite. We will have to withdraw and come up with a new strategy.”

They reached the lift doors, and Joshua datavised for a ride back to the axial chamber. He cast another glance over his shoulder to check on Webb, a sly smile germinating on his face. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“What?”

“The agencies don’t have her yet. We’re still in with a chance.”

“That’s logical.”

“Of course it’s logical. We may even be able to turn this to our advantage.”

“How?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re back in Lady Mac . Everyone’s going to have to undergo decontamination first. Christ knows what sort of covert nanonics they’ve stung us with. We’ll be broadcasting our own thoughts back to them if we’re not careful.”

The lift doors opened and he stepped inside. Someone had slapped half a dozen twenty-centimetre circular holomorph stickers at random over the walls, with a couple more on the ceiling. One was at head height; it started its cycle, a tight bud of lavender photons swelling out from the centre into the form of a scantily clad teenage cheerleader. She shook her silver baton enthusiastically. “Run, Alkad, run!” she yelled. “You’re our last hope; don’t let them catch you. Run, Alkad, run!”

Joshua stared at it in stupefaction. “Jesus wept.”

The cheerleader winked saucily, and syphoned back down below the sticker’s surface. Three more began their cycle.

Arnstadt fell to the Organization fleet after a ninety-minute battle above the planet. The Strategic Defence network was hammered into oblivion by Capone’s antimatter-powered combat wasps. There had been some advance warning from the Edenists, giving the local navy time to redeploy their ships. Three squadrons of voidhawks had arrived from the habitats orbiting one of the system’s gas giants, reinforcing the Adamist vessels.

None of the preparations altered the final outcome. Forty-seven Arnstadt navy ships were destroyed, along with fifteen voidhawks. The remaining voidhawks swallowed away, withdrawing back to the gas giant.

The Organization fleet’s transport starships moved unopposed into low orbit, and spaceplanes began to ferry a small army of possessed down to the surface. Like all modern Confederation planets, Arnstadt had few soldiers. There were several marine brigades, which were mainly trained in space warfare techniques and covert mission procedures. Wars in this era were fought between starships. The days of foreign invasion forces marching across enemy territory had vanished before the end of the twenty-first century.

With its SD network reduced to radioactive meteorites flaring through bruised skies, Arnstadt was incapable of offering the slightest resistance to the possessed marching down out of their spaceplanes. Small towns were infiltrated first, increasing the numbers of possessed available to move on to larger towns. The area of captured ground began to increase exponentially.

Luigi Balsmao set up his headquarters in one of the orbiting asteroid settlements. Information on the people captured by the advancing possessed was datavised up to the asteroid where the structure coordination programs written by Emmet Mordden decided if they should be possessed or not. Organization lieutenants were appointed, their authority backed up by the firepower of fleet starships in low orbit.