The Commonwealth Saga Page 4

  “See the way they laid the road well inland?” LionWalker called over the wind. “Plenty of prime real estate between it and the coast. Thirty years’ time, when the city’s grown up, that’ll sell for ten thousand dollars an acre. This whole area will be covered in rich men’s beach houses.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Not for me,” LionWalker said with a laugh. “I won’t be here.”

  It was another fifteen kilometers to LionWalker’s house. He’d taken over a curving bay that was sheltered by dunes that extended for several kilometers inland. His house was a low bungalow of pearl-white drycoral perched on top of a large dune only a hundred meters from the shore, with a wide veranda of decking facing the ocean. The big dome of the observatory was a little farther back from the water, a standard concrete and metal design.

  A golden Labrador ran out to greet them, tail wagging happily. LionWalker fussed with it as they walked to the house. Dudley could hear the sounds of a furious argument while they were still twenty meters away.

  “Oh, Lord, they’re still at it,” LionWalker muttered.

  The thin wooden shutter door slammed open and a young woman stormed out. She was startlingly beautiful, even to Dudley, who was used to a campus full of fresh-faced girls.

  “He’s a pig,” she spat at LionWalker as she hurried past.

  “Aye, I’m sure,” LionWalker said meekly.

  The woman probably didn’t hear, she was already walking toward the dunes, face set with a determination that made it clear she wasn’t going to stop until she reached the end of the world. The Labrador gave her a longing look before turning back to LionWalker.

  “There, there.” He patted the dog’s head. “She’ll be back to give you your supper.”

  They’d almost reached the door when it opened again. This time it was a young man who came out. With his androgynous features, he was almost as beautiful as the girl. If it hadn’t been for the fact he was shirtless, Dudley might even have questioned his gender.

  “Just where does she think she’s going?” he whined.

  “I don’t know,” LionWalker said in a resigned tone. “She didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, I’m not going after her.” The youth set off for the beach, slouching his shoulders and kicking at the sand with his bare feet as he went.

  LionWalker opened the door and gestured Dudley inside. “Sorry about that.”

  “Who are they?” Dudley asked.

  “They’re my current life partners. I love them dearly, but I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it, you know. You married?”

  “Yes. Several times, actually.”

  “Aye, well, you know what it’s like then.”

  The interior of the house was laid out in a classic minimalist style, which suited the location perfectly. A big circular fireplace served as the focal point of the living room. Tall curving windows revealed an uninterrupted view of the bay and the ocean. Air-conditioning provided a relaxing chill.

  “Sit yourself down,” LionWalker said. “I expect you could do with a drink. I’ll take you over to see the telescope in a minute. You can check it out then. I’m confident you’ll be satisfied.”

  “Thanks.” Dudley lowered himself into one of the big sofas. He felt very drab and colorless in such surroundings. It wasn’t just the richness of the house and its setting, but the vivacity of the people who lived here as well.

  “This isn’t what I was expecting,” he admitted a few minutes later, when he’d drunk some of LionWalker’s very agreeable fifty-year-old scotch.

  “You mean you thought I’d be somebody like you? No offense, my man.”

  “None taken. So what are you doing here?”

  “Well, I was born with a reasonable trust fund; then I went and made even more money for myself in the commodities market. That was a couple of rejuvenations ago. I’ve just been loafing ever since.”

  “So why here? Why Tanyata?”

  “This is the edge. This is as far out from our starting point as we’ve got—well, with the exception of Far Away. That’s a wonderful thing, even though everyone regards it as commonplace. I can sit here at night and look where we’re going. You look at the stars, Dudley, you know what marvels there are to be seen out here. And those cretins behind us, they never look. Where we are now, this was what our ancestors thought was heaven. Now I can look out from their heaven and see where our future lies. Do you not think that’s a thing of glory?”

  “Certainly is.”

  “There are stars out here that you cannot see from Earth with the naked eye. They shine down out of the sky at night, and I want to know them.”

  “Me, too.” Dudley saluted him with the crystal tumbler that was a hundred years older than the scotch it held, and gulped it down in one.

  The two youngsters returned after a couple of hours cooling off by themselves. LionWalker introduced them as Scott and Chi as they sheepishly greeted Dudley. As a penance, the two of them set about building a bonfire on the beach, using the local driftwood that had a curiously matted texture. They lit it as the sun sank down toward the ocean. Bright orange sparks blew out of the flame tips to swirl high above the sand. Potatoes were pushed into the heart of the fire, while a makeshift barbecue grill was prepared for when the flames died down.

  “Can we see the Dyson Pair from here?” Scott asked as the stars began to appear in the darkening sky.

  “No,” Dudley said. “Not with the naked eye, they’re too far away. You can barely see Earth’s star from here, and the Dyson Pair are almost a thousand light-years beyond that.”

  “So when were they enveloped?”

  “That’s a very good question—we’ve never been able to pin down the exact construction time of the shells—that’s what my observation project is going to help solve.” Even now Dudley wasn’t going to admit what he’d observed.

  Astronomy post 2050 had effectively ceased to be a pure science. CST had long since taken over all major deep-space observation for purely commercial ends. In any case, when you could visit stars of every spectral type to observe them directly, there was little point in prioritizing astronomy. Few higher education institutions on Commonwealth worlds bothered building observatories; even Oxford’s telescope had been over a century old when it discovered the Dyson Pair.

  An hour after sunset, Dudley and LionWalker walked through the dunes to the observatory. Inside, it was little different to the one on Gralmond: a big empty space with the fat tube of the telescope in the middle, resting on a complex cradle of metal beams and electromuscle bands. The sensor housings surrounding the focus looked a lot more sophisticated than anything the university could afford. A row of neat, modern display portals was lined up along the wall beside the door.

  Dudley glanced around at the professional equipment, feeling a degree of tension ebbing away. There was no practical reason the observation shouldn’t occur. All he had to deal with was his own memory of the event. Could it really have happened like that? Five months after the fact, the moment seemed elusive somehow, the memory of a dream.

  LionWalker stood close to the base of the telescope, and began what looked like a robot mime dance. Arms and legs jerked about in small precise movements. In response, the doors on the dome started to peel open. Electromuscle bands on the telescope cradle flexed silently, and the fat cylinder began to turn, aligning itself on the horizon where the Dyson Pair were due to rise. LionWalker’s body continued to twist and whirl, then he was snapping his fingers to some unheard beat. The portals came alive one by one, relaying the sensor images.

  Dudley hurried over to them. The image quality was flawless. He gazed at the starfield, noting the minute variation from the patterns he was used to. “What sort of linkage have we got?” he asked his e-butler.

  “The planetary cybersphere is negligible; however, there is a landline to the CST station. Available bandwidth is more than capable of meeting your stated requirements. I can open communication to the unisphere whenever you want.”
r />   “Good. Begin a quarter of an hour before estimated enclosure time. I want full SI datavault storage, and a unisphere legal verification of the feed.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  LionWalker had stopped his gyrations, allowing the telescope to rest. He raised an eyebrow. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.” A datavault store and legal verification were expensive. Along with his ticket, the cost had taken quite a chunk out of their carefully saved holiday money. Something else Dudley hadn’t told his wife. But it had to be done, with the telescope sensor feed authenticated the observation would be beyond dispute.

  Dudley sat in a cheap plastic chair beside the telescope, his chin resting on his hands, watching the holographic light within the portals. He watched the dark sky obsessively as the Dyson Pair rose above the horizon. LionWalker made a few small adjustments and Dyson Alpha was centered in every portal. For eighty minutes it remained steady. A simple point of ordinary light, each spectrum band revealing an unwavering intensity.

  LionWalker made a few attempts to talk to Dudley about what to expect. Each time he was waved silent. Dudley’s e-butler established a full wideband link to the unisphere, and confirmed that the SI datavault was recording.

  It was almost an anticlimax when, right on time, Dyson Alpha vanished.

  “Yes!” Dudley yelled. He jumped to his feet, sending the chair tumbling backward. “Yes, yes, yes. I was right.” He turned to LionWalker, his smile absurdly wide. “Did you see that?”

  “Aye,” LionWalker grunted with false calm. “I saw that.”

  “Yes!” Dudley froze. “Did we get it?” he asked his e-butler urgently.

  “Unisphere confirms the recording. The event is logged in the SI datavault.”

  Dudley’s smile returned.

  “Do you realize what that was?” LionWalker asked.

  “I realize.”

  “It was impossible, man, that’s what. Completely bloody impossible. Nobody can switch off a star like that. Nobody.”

  “I know. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  TWO

  Adam Elvin walked out of the CST planetary station in Tokat, the capital of Velaines. He took his time as he passed the sensors that were built into the fluted marble pillars lining the concourse. If he was going to be arrested, he would rather it be now, before the rest of the mission was exposed.

  The average Commonwealth citizen had no idea such surveillance systems existed. Adam had dealt with them for most of his adult life. Understandably paranoid about sabotage, CST used them to monitor everyone using their facilities. The sensor’s large processor arrays were loaded with visual characteristics recognition smartware that checked every passenger against a long long list of known and suspected recidivists.

  Adam had used cellular reprofiling to change his height and appearance more times than he could remember; at least once a year, more often twice or three times. The treatment could never cure the aging process that was starting to frost his joints and organs; but it did remove scar tissue, of which he’d acquired more than his fair share over the decades. It also gave him a wide choice of features. He always felt that trying to disguise his seventy-five years was a pointless vanity. An elderly person wearing an adolescent’s face was truly pitiful. The rest of the body always gave them away: too bulky, too slow.

  He reached the departure rank outside the station’s passenger terminal and used his e-butler to hail a taxi. There had been no alarm. Or at least nothing detectable, he told himself. You never could tell when you were up against her. She was smart, and getting closer to him as the years wore on. If she had prepared a trap for him on Velaines, it wasn’t to be sprung today—the time he would prefer.

  For the moment he was free to go about his mission. Today he was a new person, previously unknown to the Commonwealth. According to his citizenship file he was Huw North, a native of Pelcan, a first-life sixty-seven; an employee of the Bournewell Engineering Company. To look at he was overweight; considerably so, given how seriously Commonwealth citizens took their health these days, weighing in at around two hundred thirty pounds. Accompanying that was a round saggy face that sweated a lot. Thinning gray hair was combed low across his forehead in an unfashionable style. He wore a baggy brown raincoat with wide lapels. It was open down the front to reveal a creased gray suit. A big man with a small life, someone nobody paid attention to. Cellular reprofiling was a cosmetic treatment for the poor and the vain, not a method of adding fat and giving skin a pasty pallor. As a misdirection it never failed.

  Which means it is probably time to change it, Adam thought as he eased his oversize frame into the taxi, which drove him to the Westpool Hotel. He checked in and paid for two weeks in advance. His room was a double on the eighth floor, with sealed windows and air-conditioning set too cold for him. He hated that; he was a light sleeper and the noise from the air-conditioning would keep him awake for hours. It always did.

  He unpacked all the clothes in his suitcase, then took out the smaller shoulder bag containing his emergency pack—two sets of clothing, one of which was several sizes too small, a medical kit, cash, a CST return ticket from EdenBurg to Velaines with the outbound section already used, a couple of very sophisticated handheld arrays containing some well-guarded kaos software, and a legal ion stun pistol with buried augmentation that gave it a lethal short-range blast.

  An hour later, Adam left the hotel and walked five blocks in the warm afternoon sunlight, getting a feel of the capital city. Traffic up and down the wide roads was close-spaced, with taxis and commercial vans dominating the lanes. None of them used combustion engines; they were all powered by superconductor batteries. This section of town was still respectable, close to the central financial and commercial districts. Around him were stores and offices, along with some small side roads of terraced apartments, none of them over four or five stories high. Public buildings built in a late-imperial Russian style fronted neat squares. In the distance, down the perfectly straight roads, were the towers that marked the heart of the city. Every few blocks he walked under the elevated rail tracks snaking through the city’s road grid, thick concrete arteries on high stanchions, carrying the major lines in and out of the planetary station.

  Velaines was in phase one space, barely fifty light-years from Earth itself. Opened for settlement in 2090, its economy and industry had matured along model lines ever since. It now had a population of over two billion with a proportionally high standard of living, the kind of world that phase two and three space planets aspired to become.

  Given the length of its history, it was inevitable that some strands of decay should creep into its society. In the fast-paced capital market economy model that Velaines followed, not everybody could make themselves rich enough to enjoy multiple rejuvenations. The areas they lived in reflected their financial status. Road surfaces became cracked and uneven, while the efficient citywide network of metro trams serving them offered fewer than average stops and ran old carriages. This was where the real rot set in, the despair and dead ends, where human lives were wasted, sacrificed to the god of economics. In this day and age it was an outrage that such a thing should happen. It was exactly the environment Adam had long ago committed himself to eradicating, and now the place he needed most for his other activities.

  He found himself an A+A hotel at the end of Fifty-third Street, and checked in, using his Quentin Kelleher identity. The A+A was a franchise of cheap fully automated hotels where the manager was also the maintenance chief. The reception array accepted the Augusta dollar account transfer from his credit tattoo, and gave him a code for room 421. Its layout was a simple square three meters on a side, with a shower/toilet alcove and a dispenser outlet. There was one jellmattress bed, one chair, and one retractable shelf. However, the room was on the corner of the building, which meant he had two windows.

  He asked the dispenser’s small array for a sleeping pouch, three packaged meals, two liters of bottled water, and a toiletr
ies bag, all charged to his account. The mechanism whirred smoothly a minute later, and the items popped out into the rack. After that he set one of his handheld arrays to sentry mode, and left it scanning the room. If anyone did break in, it would notify his e-butler immediately with an encrypted message from a onetime unisphere address. Such an act had a low probability. Velaines was proud of its relatively low crime index, and anyone staying in an A+A wouldn’t have anything of value. Good enough odds for him.

  That evening Adam took a metro tram across town to another slightly shabby district. In among the closed shops and open bars he found a door with a small sign above it:

  INTERSOLAR SOCIALIST PARTY

  Velaines, 7th chapter

  His e-butler gave the door his Huw North Party membership code, and the lock buzzed. Inside was pretty much what he expected, a flight of bare wooden stairs leading up to a couple of rooms with high windows, long since boarded up. There was a bar in one, serving cheap beer from microbreweries and lethal-looking liquors from ceramic bottles. A games portal took up most of the second room, with observer chairs packed around the walls.

  Several men were sitting on stools at the bar. They fell silent as Adam walked over. Nobody wearing a suit, even as cheap as his, belonged in that room.

  “Beer, please,” Adam told the barman. He put a couple of Earth dollar bills on the counter; the currency was accepted without question on most worlds.

  The bottle was placed in front of him. Everybody watched as he took a sip. “Not bad.” Adam even managed to keep a straight face. He could appreciate a Socialist club not buying from a big corporate brewery, but surely they could find a smaller one that actually produced drinkable beer.

  “New in town, comrade?” the barman asked.

  “Got in today.”

  “Staying long?”

  “A little while, yeah. I’m looking for a comrade called Murphy, Nigel Murphy.”