Great North Road Read online

  They made their way back to the rover. Once they were inside the decontamination chamber the airlock door swung shut. White walls shone violet, and a thick oily mist sprayed out of the vents. They both stood still, holding their hands up like ballerinas caught in mid-pirouette. The oil formed a thin skin over the suit, and started dripping onto the floor. Then static arced through the chamber, producing a muffled roar as it strobed madly. Antrinell flinched, just like he did every time. There was enough voltage out there to knock him dead if the outer suit developed a break.

  The vents reversed, pumping out the atmosphere. Antrinell could feel the inner suit stiffen as it kept him safe against the vacuum. The cycle was repeated three times, which should flush any Zanth substance molecules back out of the rover. No one had ever seen any evidence that Zanth could expand itself out of a microscopic fragment, it always seemed to achieve active status in chunks weighing in at over two hundred tonnes, but HDA wasn’t going to take any chances.

  As a final precaution, Antrinell and Marvin stripped off their outer suit layer and disposed of them through a chute. Another flush cycle began. Only then did they take off the inner suit. Those got dumped outside as well.

  Dressed in fatigues again, Antrinell sat in the driver’s seat, and fed power to the hub motors. It was always an anxious moment, finding out if the Zanth had begun to absorb the tyres. Fortunately, if that happened, they could shed the external layer of metallasized silicone tread like a snake skin.

  The excursion rover moved away smoothly, and the team’s tension drained away. They spent another hour driving carefully along the entangled strands to reach the end of the Zanth; arriving as dusk began to claim the already leaden sky, though they had another two hours of sunlight left. Zanthworld 3 used to have a day which lasted twenty-three hours and forty minutes; now with the Zanth somehow impinging on local gravity its rotation was slowing, already giving it thirty-seven-hour days, and the process still hadn’t stopped. Dusk, like dawn, was a lingering affair.

  Antrinell drove the rover down onto the natural land beyond, feeling an unexpected flush of relief. He knew the gouge they’d skirted was just one of hundreds of similar wounds that must have been sliced deep into the world. It wouldn’t be much longer, a few years at most, before maintaining a gateway here would be too dangerous.

  Five kilometres ahead, the gateway shimmered like a circle of entombed moonlight. Antrinell aimed the rover straight at it, eager to be home, to leave the Zanth’s victory behind. A wave of rain lashed against the rover. Air temperature outside was only a couple of degrees above freezing. He could see now that the plants had given up. Their cyan leaves were growing flaccid as they shaded down to lime-green, with withered brittle edges flaking off. New shoots lacked vigour, more often pushing out malformed bracts. Native grass was patchy.

  ‘Isn’t that Okeechobee?’ Marvin asked. He was leaning forward, craning to look up into the leaden sky.

  Antrinell followed his gaze. The wispy clouds had parted, taking the rain with them and revealing a broad patch of clear sky. Almost directly above, blocking his view of the twilight stars, was a weird purple-green blob. The oddity was a rough sphere of loosely wound gossamer, with hundreds of spiky protrusions soaring outwards, like spume from clashing waves. Some were as long as the core’s diameter.

  ‘Yeah, that’s Okeechobee,’ he grunted. The smallest of the planet’s original three moons. Zanth had completed its transformation of the dusty ball of regolith, now the structure was slowly growing as the strands of Zanth realigned themselves. Within a few decades, when Zanthworld 3 itself had stopped spinning and achieved tidal-lock with the star, Okeechobee and the other two moons would have shifted orbit until they all became stationary relative to each other. Once that configuration was achieved, they would slowly merge, then keep expanding until the whole local region of space was suffused by Zanth in the form of a diaphanous tangle of alien matter.

  No one knew exactly what would happen after that. But then no one, theologians and cosmology theorists alike, could explain the origin or purpose of the Zanth. All they could do was shout questions into the sky like some pre-history priest asking his deity to explain the world he saw yet didn’t understand.

  Was the Zanth limited to this galaxy alone? Was it a runaway doomsday weapon? Or was it something more, an invasion from another universe, seeking to convert ours? A crusade which would take billions of years. Was there purpose? Or worse, was it accidental? And the biggest hope of all: was there another sentient species out there to join in battle against it?

  The excursion rover passed through the gateway, emerging onto the wide concrete reception apron on Frontline, a reassuringly safe twenty-seven lightyears from Zanthworld 3. Frontline was a rock planet orbiting a red dwarf star, chosen because the strategists guessed, or prayed, that it would present an unattractive target to the Zanth. Antrinell believed they might just as well have sited it on a tropical paradise world, for all the difference that would make to Zanth motivation. If Zanth was attracted to gateways, Frontline was doomed anyway. Its personnel might at least benefit from a decent beach to relax on between shifts.

  But nobody had asked him.

  He drove the rover over to the first of the giant geodesic domes anchored to the rock. There were over twenty domes now; thick metal at the base, rising to a reinforced glass cap shielding circular patches of parkland which needed a lot of artificial lighting in order to grow properly. That white nurturing light glared out of each one, creating a thin haze in the minuscule atmosphere of freezing argon.

  They passed through three separate sensor arches before they even reached the airlock’s outer door. Inside, the robot systems of the decontamination area sluiced them down with a variety of chemicals. Smartdust dispensers fired jets of motes which settled on every surface and began scanning round. Molecular samplers ringing the drains analysed the effluent for the sign of any exotic molecules. The whole procedure took over an hour.

  Eventually they were cleared to leave. A lab team came on board to retrieve the samples Antrinell had taken. Engineers began reviewing the rover’s mechanics.

  Antrinell and Marvin left it all behind, and took a tube train over to dome eight where there was a decent bar. It was ritual now after every mission. Tomorrow there would be a full debrief, but for now they were allowed some self-time.

  The inside of the dome with its windowless metal-walled compartments and maze of corridors all lined with pipes and cables was how Antrinell imagined warships and submarines used to be like. Only when they got up to the upper park did the mild feeling of claustrophobia abate. Even then, the plants weren’t exactly vigorous; they survived the strange environment rather than flourished. And it wasn’t so much a park as a reasonable-sized garden.

  But there was terrestrial greenery, and humidity, and flower scents, and even a few confused parrots flapping about between trees. The bar was a wide patio with tables that had tropical thatch parasols. It was all very laboured. Antrinell didn’t mind, as it provided a pleasant counter to Zanth, and even Frontline itself. He just wanted to sit down with a beer and bitch about the mission, and command, and the lab which concocted the useless molecular virus.

  Instead, when he came up the stairwell into the bar he saw who was waiting at the counter and his shoulders dropped. ‘Oh hell,’ he grunted.

  Major Vermekia grinned broadly, and raised his fruit cocktail in greeting.

  ‘So what’s the mission?’ Antrinell asked once he and Marvin had claimed their beers and allowed Vermekia to guide them over to a table on the edge of the patio.

  ‘You’re going to be looking for an alien,’ Vermekia told them. ‘A sentient. We believe it to be hostile.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Marvin. ‘I haven’t heard of anyone building a new gateway in five years.’

  Vermekia’s annoyingly superior grin broadened. ‘St Libra.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Antrinell said.

  ‘Not at all. There’s some uncomfortable evidence
emerging that there might be some kind of sentient population hidden on Brogal – the northern continent.’

  Antrinell sipped his beer as he listened to the major explain about the murder in Newcastle, and the connection to Bartram North’s slaying. If it hadn’t been for the major’s immaculate uniform, reminding him this was coming directly from General Khurram Shaikh himself, he might have dismissed the whole notion. Although, he had to admit it was strange. And he was wearily familiar enough with HDA and high-level government bureaucracy to know that once a project acquired enough momentum at the top it became unstoppable. Shaikh was involved, as were the Presidents of the GE and USA along with the Chairman of the Unified Chinese Worlds; which alone guaranteed this wasn’t going to be a ten-day digital exercise to be filed and forgotten. It was going to be big; short of an actual Zanthswarm, the biggest operation HDA would mount in a decade – in itself a telling point. Even in his short service time he’d noticed how brass-heavy the agency was becoming, how expensive civilian consultants were brought in to advise on everything, how essential equipment projects had fallen behind schedule and grown massive cost overruns. Depending on the outcome of the St Libra mission, some people were going to emerge from the other side with promotions and a massively enhanced career trajectory. Others were going to crash and burn. Quite a lot of others if the results weren’t positive enough – about which he had his own suspicions. Clearly, Shaikh was going to prove that HDA had a vital non-Zanth role to play in human affairs, an expediency that would help keep all those grudging national treasuries in line.

  ‘So what’s our role?’ Marvin asked.

  ‘Genetic analysis,’ Vermekia said. ‘As the expedition makes its way north we need to know if evolution is starting to vary from the St Libra norm. You sample every odd-looking leaf to see just how odd it actually is, and if it’s a progression.’

  ‘We’re looking for their equivalent of the Burgess Shale,’ Antrinell decided.

  Vermekia frowned. ‘The what?’

  ‘Burgess Shale. It’s an area in Canada that preserved some unique species from the Cambrian Explosion. That was an evolutionary episode five hundred million years ago, basically the greatest biological diversity event which Earth has ever known, when unicellular organisms evolved into the kind of biologically complex animals and plants we are today. The fossils found in the Burgess Shale region gave palaeontologists a huge window into that period, allowing them to see the ancestors of nearly every species on Earth. But there were also others which have no modern descendants. The Shale had a boundary called the Cathedral Escarpment, so a lot of those unknown species never made it past that and out into the wider world. That’s probably what Shaikh’s advisers think has happened here – after all, Brogal covers an area greater than every one of Earth’s continents put together. There’s got to be a lot of isolated areas beyond Abellia.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re so receptive to the notion,’ Vermekia said. ‘And you’re right; HDA is calling it enclave evolution.’

  ‘But it’s pretty weird that there’s been no sign of any animal life anywhere on St Libra, not even an insect.’

  ‘And that’s a huge jump from nothing to a full sentient,’ Marvin said.

  ‘Well you might just be the ones who find the answer. They might even name them after you.’

  ‘Wonderful, that’s what I want to be known as for the rest of human history, a two-metre-high monster with knives for hands who goes around massacring people.’

  ‘Ah,’ Vermekia glanced round, checking the nearby tables were empty. ‘That’s the second part of your mission.’

  *

  Corporal Paresh Evitts of the Legion, the elite regiment of the GE Interstellar Defence Agency, was sorely puzzled by his charge. At twenty-five, Paresh had visited several planets for evacuation training exercises, including Wuchow in the Unified Chinese Worlds, which gave him a reasonable belief that he understood the way humanity’s worlds worked, thus allowing him to be a decent judge of character.

  Angela Tramelo sat on the other side of the aisle from him in the black fourteen-seat HDA minibus that was leading the convoy of ten identical vehicles up the A1, and he couldn’t get a grip on her at all. Hot-looking, with her fuzzy blonde hair and elfin-delicate features; she wore standard-issue HDA fatigues: a dark-grey one-piece overall. It was too big for her, but not baggy enough to disguise a decent body when he glanced at her in the moments he thought she wasn’t watching. A trim figure was to be expected, she was about twenty, maybe twenty-one max. Which was the first mystery. Her file, which was incredibly small – little more than an identity confirmation certificate to make sure they got the right person – said she was forty. No way.

  Then the second enigma: why exactly was his entire squad assigned to pick her up from Holloway Prison at seven o’clock in the morning? She hadn’t been designated a prisoner status. Strange, because Lieutenant Pablo Botin had ordered them to treat her like one; they were her official escort, and they had to get to Newcastle without ‘incident’. But she wasn’t dangerous; not dangerous enough to warrant issuing them with sidearms, apparently. So why then had Botin said: ‘Watch the bitch close. She’s fucking lethal when she wants to be.’

  Sideways glances didn’t give Paresh a clue where that warning came from. Fit she might be, but any one of his squad could snap her in two if she was dumb enough to try getting physical; even Private Audrie Sleath, who was a lot shorter than the not-prisoner. And thinking of physical . . . Paresh let his gaze linger a while. She was looking out of the window as the snow-coated outskirts of London slid past. Those legs would be quite something wrapped round his neck. Oh yeah.

  ‘What?’ Angela asked. She was still looking at the window.

  Too late Paresh realized his faint reflection on the glass was betraying him. ‘Just trying to figure you out, is it,’ Paresh explained. The rest of the squad roused themselves with a little flurry of grins and nudging elbows as they focused on the corporal and the babe. Question was: could he score? Cynics and supporters alike settled back to enjoy the show.

  Angela turned, and gave him a smile which he couldn’t quite believe was sincere. But it did bump her up still further on the beauty-scale. She really was a heart-buster – if they’d been in a bar he’d be pleading to buy her a drink. But the voice gave it away: steel hard. He’d seen that aspect of her this morning when they arrived at the prison to collect her. She hadn’t been ready to leave.

  Orders had them collecting her at seven sharp. Not a chance. When he and the other two in the handover detail had arrived at the administration block she was arguing with the governor and two guards. Not arguing by shouting, but boy could she out-stubborn a cat. Insultingly slow words, and a body-pose that could be read as ‘immovable object’ by a blind dude.

  ‘I have worked three days every week,’ she said. ‘I have spent at most ten per cent of that on your pitiful good behaviour store. Therefore this institution still owes me for ninety per cent of my hours. And I believe GE minimum wage legislation is fifty-eight Eurofrancs an hour.’

  ‘You only get to spend that in here,’ the disturbed governor protested.

  ‘But I don’t belong in here, do I? That’s why we had yesterday’s meeting. That’s why you just extracted my smartcell tags.’

  The governor tried to glance at her assistant, who managed to avoid all eye contact. ‘I’ll refer it to the Justice Department, first thing. You have my word.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The governor gave a relieved smile, and gestured at Paresh. That was when Angela looked round at the detail, feigning interest. Then she addressed the governor direct: ‘I’ll wait.’

  Paresh almost laughed at the stricken expression crawling across the governor’s face.

  ‘But they won’t be in the office for another three hours,’ the governor protested.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Angela.

  ‘Do you actually want to get out of here?’ the governor snapped.

  ‘I am getting out
of here. We know that now, don’t we? The question is: how? Do I go quietly now, as agreed? Or do I delete yesterday’s agreement and wait until the expedition proves I’m innocent? After all, they’re not going to keep the result quiet, now are they? Not with so much riding on this. Reputations a lot more important than yours are gambling on the outcome. Do you think the Justice Department will thank you for the publicity a month from now when I walk out of the front gate into a pack of transnet reporters? Exactly how much compensation will that kind of miscarriage of justice net me do you think? And you could have bought me off with the money you owe me anyway. How’s that going to scan?’

  Paresh watched in admiration as the two women stared at each other. There was only ever going to be one result. The governor didn’t even last a minute.

  ‘All right! I’ll authorize payment.’

  ‘You can issue me with a European Social Bank account,’ Angela said calmly. ‘The standard for paroled criminals, I believe. Your office has the authority to do that. You see, allowing us access to education is a benefit.’

  ‘Get it done,’ the governor hissed at her assistant.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do it!’

  It had taken another thirty minutes for the process to be completed. Angela never moved from the spot the whole time. Paresh had to complain twice to the furious governor to try and speed things along.

  ‘Not your concern,’ Angela said without even turning to him. ‘I either go back to my cell, or I leave with my money.’

  Paresh didn’t know how the hell to break the impasse – ordering his detail to physically lift her out was about the only option. He was nervous about that, his corporal stripe was only two months old. Screw the lieutenant for not making things clear.

  Eventually, the assistant scuttled back into the room, and handed Angela a biometric card. She checked it registered her thumb, then they had to go over to a zone console and activate the account. Codes were assigned.

  ‘Can we go now?’ Paresh asked witheringly.