Peter Hamilton - Reality Dysfunction - Expansion

When Candace Elford came into the office Colin Rexrew was behind his desk as always, gazing vacantly at the window strip and the luckless city outside. Terrance Smith gave her a fast, expressive grimace, and they both sat down.

“I’m afraid I have now effectively lost control over a third of the city,” she started.

It was the nightly situation briefing. Or the nightly crisis meeting, depending on how cynical Colin felt. The intensifying pressures seemed to make it hard to concentrate at the very times he needed his full mental resources. He would have given a lot to be able to run a stimulant program through his neural nanonics, or even escape into a MF album for a few hours like he used to in his adolescence. It would have made the strain a little easier to bear.

Not even his neural nanonics with their top of the range managerial programs were much help. There were too many unaccountable—downright weird—factors cropping up to apply standard responses. Had there ever been a stage one colony governor who had lost all control of his planet? The memory cells held no record of any.

What a way to get into the history books.

“Is it the invaders?” he asked.

“No, as far as we can make out they are still some distance away. What we’re dealing with here is mainly opportunist looting, and some organized grabs for power. Nothing political, but there are some strong criminal gangs who have been quick to take advantage of the unrest. I’d point out that most of the districts my sheriffs have been excluded from are on the south-eastern side of town. Those are the newest and poorest; in other words the most disaffected to begin with. The heart of the city, and more importantly the merchant and industrial sectors, remain stable. If anything, the older residents resent the lawlessness. I’m looking to recruit more deputies from them.”

“How long before you can start to regain control of the south-east districts?” Terrance Smith asked.

“At the moment I’m just looking to contain the trouble,” Candace Elford said.

“You mean you can’t?”

“I didn’t say that, but it isn’t going to be easy. The gangs have captured two dumpers, and their fusion generators. We can’t afford to damage them, and they know that. I lost a lot of good people in Ozark and on the Swithland fiasco. Plus we have to deal with the transient colonists. They seem to be the biggest problem right now; they’re holed up in the docks and I can’t shift them. There are barricades across every access route and there’s a lot of wanton destruction and looting going on. So half the port is currently unusable, which has antagonized the boat captains; and I have to deploy a lot of people to keep an eye on them.”

“Starve them out,” Colin said.

She nodded reluctantly. “That’s one option. About the least expensive at the moment. But it will take time, there was a lot of food stored in those warehouses.”

“The merchants won’t like that,” Terrance Smith said.

“Screw the merchants,” Colin said. “I’m sorry about the transients’ gear being looted, but that doesn’t excuse this kind of behaviour. We can help them eventually, but not if they’re going to hamper every effort with petty-minded belligerence.”

“Some families lost everything—”

“Tough shit! We are in danger of losing an entire planet of twenty million people. My priority is to the majority.”

“Yes, sir.”

There were times when Colin just felt like telling his aide: here’s my seat, you take over, you with your situation summaries and cautiously formulated response suggestions. Instead, the Governor walked over to the drinks cabinet and searched through the bottles for a decent chilled white wine, and to hell with the chief sheriff’s disapproval.

“Can we defend Durringham from the invaders?” he asked quietly as he flipped the neck seal and poured out a glass.

“If we had enough time to prepare, and you declared martial law, and if we had enough weapons.”

“Yes or no?”

Candace Elford watched the glass in the Governor’s hand. It was shaking quite badly, the wine nearly spilling. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Whatever it is that’s out there, it’s strong, well armed, and well organized. The Confederation Navy office thinks they are using some kind of sequestration technology to turn colonists into a slave army. Faced with that, I don’t think we really stand much of a chance.”

“Sequestration nanonics,” Colin mumbled as he sank back into his chair. “Dear God, who are these invaders? Xenocs? Some exiled group from another planet?”

“I’m not one hundred per cent certain,” she said. “But my satellite image analysis people found these this morning. I think it may throw a little light on the situation.” She datavised an order into the office’s computer. The wall-screens lit up, showing a blank section of jungle fifty kilometres west of Ozark.

The satellite had passed over in the middle of the afternoon, giving a clear bright image. Trees were compacted so tightly the jungle looked like an unbroken emerald plain. Five perfectly straight black lines began to probe across the green expanse, as if the talons of a huge invisible claw were being scored down the screen. The satellite cameras zoomed in on the head of one line, and Colin Rexrew saw trees being bulldozed into the ground. A big ten-wheeled vehicle rolled into view, grey metal glinting dully, a black bubble-cab protruding from a flat upper surface. It had a blunt wedge-shaped front that smashed through trunks without the slightest resistance. Viscous sprays of red-brown mud were being flung up by its rear wheels, caking the metal bodywork. There were another three identical vehicles following it along the track of shattered vegetation it was ripping through the jungle.

“We positively identified them as Dhyaan DLA404 landcruisers; they are made on Varzquez. Or I should say, were made. The Dhyaan company stopped producing that particular model over twenty years ago.”

Colin Rexrew datavised a search order into the office computer. “The LDC never brought any to Lalonde.”

“That’s right. The invaders brought them. What you’re seeing is the first definite proof that it is an external force behind all this. And they’re heading straight towards Durringham.”

“Dear God.” He put his empty wineglass down on the desk, and stared at the screens. The enemy had a physical form. After weeks of helpless wrestling with an elusive, possibly imaginary, foe, it was finally real; but a reason for the invasion, logical or otherwise, was impossible to devise.

Colin Rexrew gathered up what was left of his old determination and resolve. Something tangible gave his psyche a fragment of very welcome confidence. He accessed the one neural nanonics program he had thought he would never have to use, strategic military procedure, and put it into primary mode. “We have to stop deluding ourselves we can handle this on our own. I need combat troops backed up with real fire-power. I’m going to blow these invaders right off my planet. We only need to locate the headquarters. Kill the brain and the body is irrelevant. We can see about removing the sequestration nanonics from people later.”

“The LDC board will need convincing,” Terrance Smith said. “It won’t be easy.”

“They will be told afterwards,” Colin said. “You’ve seen those landcruisers. They’ll be here in a week. We must move fast. After all, it’s the board’s interest I’m ultimately protecting; without Lalonde there will be no LDC.”

“Where can you get troops from without going through the board?” Terrance asked.

“The same place they would ultimately get them from. We buy them on a short-term contract.”