«You love me?» She sounded even more frightened than before.
«Yes. Now you and I are going to take the rest of the afternoon and evening off, and spend it in here. If your mother doesn't like that, then she should seriously start to think about leaving the island.»
Eason had never been in Althaea's bedroom before. When he woke up the next morning he looked round blearily. Wan white walls were hung with holographic posters, one of which gave the bed a panoramic view over rugged snowcapped mountains and a magical Bavarian castle. He turned over. Althaea was missing. Her ageing Animate Animal bear was on the floor along with the white silk negligée. Last night she hadn't quite dropped her reserve completely, but he was definitely making progress. And the seeds of rebellion against her witch mother had been firmly planted. Another pleasurable day at Charmaine.
He pulled on his jeans and went down to the kitchen. Althaea wasn't there either, which was unusual. She normally made breakfast for everyone.
He started opening cupboards, then he heard her screaming for help. Tiarella was already charging down the stairs as he rushed out of the back door. It sounded as though she was down at the jetty. He pounded along the path, wishing to Christ that the fluxpump wasn't back at his chalet. If that damn snake had run amok . . .
When Eason burst out of the trees, the scene he found was nothing like what he expected. Althaea was lying on the grass right on top of the coral wall, stretching out desperately. There was a wooden dinghy in the water, being tossed about by the current. It smacked into the coral wall with a nasty crunch. Althaea tried to grab the arm of the single occupant, but the dinghy twisted and surged backwards.
Eason ran forwards and threw himself down beside her. The dinghy had been holed on the vicious coral teeth surrounding the wall, and was sinking fast. Another swell rose, pitching it forward again. His synaptic web came on-line, calculating the approach vector and projecting the impact point. He shifted round fractionally, stretching out—
A wrist slapped into his waiting palm. He grabbed tight and pulled. The dinghy was dragged back, sharp spears of coral punching through the hull as it sank below the foam. Tiarella landed on the grass beside him with a hefty thump, reaching out to grasp the shoulder of the lad Eason was holding. Together, the three of them hauled him up over the top of the wall.
Eason blinked in surprise. It was Mullen.
«You idiot!» Tiarella yelled. «You could have been killed.» She flung her arms round the dazed lad. «Dear God, you could have been killed.»
«I'm sorry,» Mullen stammered. He was shaking badly. There was blood oozing from his palms.
Tiarella let go, as self-conscious as Althaea had ever been, then sniffed and wiped away what Eason swore were tears. «Yes. Well, OK. It's a tricky approach, you'll have to learn about the currents round the island.»
«Yes, miss,» Mullen said meekly.
Eason took one of the lad's hands and turned it over. The skin on the palm had been rubbed raw. «What happened?»
«It was the rowing. I'm not used to it.»
«Rowing? You mean you rowed here from Oliviera?»
«Yes.»
Eason's immediate response died in his throat. He glanced at Althaea who was looking at Mullen with an expression of surprise and wonder.
«Why?» she asked timidly. «Why did you come?»
«I wanted . . .» He glanced round at Eason and Tiarella, panic-stricken.
«Go on,» Tiarella said gently. «The truth never hurts in the long run.» She smiled encouragement.
Mullen took a nervous breath. «I wanted to see you again,» he blurted to Althaea.
«Me?»
«Uh-huh.»
Her delicate face betrayed a universe of delight. Then it crumpled to guilt, and she looked at Eason, almost fearful.
His own emotions were almost as confused. What a ridiculous romantic the lad was. Small wonder Althaea was flattered. However, right now he was not prepared to tolerate a rival.
«Eason,» Tiarella said sharply. «You and I have to talk. Right now.»
«We do, yes, but now is not the time.» He said it politely, making an effort to keep his temper in check.
«I insist. Althaea.»
«Yes, Mother?»
«I want you to treat Mullen's hands. You know where the first aid kit is. Do it in the kitchen, I expect he'll want something to eat after that voyage.» She patted the surprised lad's head. «Silly boy. Welcome back.»
Eason closed the study door, cutting off the sound of Althaea and Mullen chattering in the kitchen. When he faced Tiarella he knew that somehow she'd undermined him. Mullen's arrival had changed everything. Yet he didn't see how that was possible.
«Just what the fuck is going on?» he asked.
Tiarella's expression was glacial. «I warned you. I told you your time was up, but you wouldn't listen.»
«My time is just beginning.»
«No it isn't. And as from now, you're not to sleep with Althaea again. I mean that, Eason. And I will enforce it if you make me. Solange is quite capable of dealing with you, and that's just the creature you know about.»
«You're bluffing.»
«Am I? Then it's your call.» She opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a finger-length cylinder with wires trailing from one end. «This is out of the fluxpump. I visited your chalet yesterday evening, just in case.»
«You would seriously set that snake on me for loving your daughter?»
«I would now, yes. Force is all you know, Eason. It's what you'll use if you think Mullen threatens you. I won't tolerate any violence against him.»
«Oh, come on! You honestly think she's going to choose that boy-child over me?»
«She chose him before she was born.»
«This is your cards shit again, isn't it?»
«Far from it.» She walked round the desk and pointed up at the big family print. «Who is this?» A finger tapped impatiently on Vanstone.
He gave an exasperated sigh. Crazy bitch. Then he looked, really looked at the man's features. All the confidence, all the anger inside him started to chill. «It's . . . But it can't be.»
«Yes, it is,» she said wistfully. «It's Mullen. About ten years older than he is now.»
«What have you done? What is going on here?»
Tiarella grinned ruefully. «Small wonder he frightened the life out of me in that dinghy this morning.» She cocked her head to one side, looking up at Eason. «There's just one last thing to show you.»
He hadn't even known the house had a cellar. Tiarella took a torch to lead him down the slippery stone steps. There was a metal airlock door at the bottom. It was open, leading into a small decontamination chamber. The door at the far end was shut.
«This is Dad's old lab,» Tiarella said as she pumped the manual handle to open the inner door. «The electrics fused in a storm years ago, but it's all still functional, I think.»
Inside, Eason found a world completely removed from the rest of Charmaine. Benches of glassware glinted and sparkled as Tiarella swept the torch beam round. Dead electronic modules sprouted wires and optical fibres to mingle with the tubes, bulbs, and dishes. Autoclaves, freezers, synthesis extruders, and vats stood around the walls, along with cabinets he couldn't begin to understand. Two large computer terminals occupied the central desk, a high-resolution holographic projector on the ceiling above them.
«Most of Charmaine's foliage was spliced together in here,» Tiarella said. «And those pesky firedrakes.»
«Right.»
She came to a halt in front of a large stack of machinery. «What I'm trying to show you, Eason, is that Dad knew what he was doing. He took his master's degree at Kariwak University. Several bitek research labs offered him a position, but he came back here.»
«OK, I believe you. Nyewood was good.»
«Yes. So have you worked it out yet?»
«Tell me.»
«He cloned Vanstone for me. A parthenogenetic clone, identical to the original. There was enough of him left after the accident.»
«Oh Jesus wept. Rousseau said you gave one of your babies away. Twins! He said you had twins.» Then he realized.
«That's right. Dad cloned me as well. He engendered them in here.» She tapped the stack of machinery. «And I nurtured the pair of them in my womb. A second little me, a second little Vanstone, growing together even then. After they were born I kept Althaea here, and gave Mullen to the Church orphanage. He grew up in exactly the same environment as Vanstone did.»
«You really think she's going to fall in love with him, don't you?»
«She already has; she couldn't do anything else. The love between us is too strong, too beautiful. I couldn't let something that wonderful die, not when I had a chance to see it renewed.»
«You used me. You crazy bitch, you used me. You had a lover before Vanstone. That's why you let me come here; to make the conditions for Althaea as close as possible to your time.»
«Of course I did. As you used us to escape whatever it was you were fleeing. Althaea had to learn the difference between a meaningless sexual infatuation and the true love which only Mullen can provide.»
«Crazy bitch! You can't dictate her life like this.»
«But it's my life. And you know she doesn't belong to you. You saw the effect Mullen had on her, and her on him.» She smiled, distant with recollection. «Just like me and my Vanstone. He sneaked back to Charmaine from his parish, you know. Only he did it on a regular trader.»
«It's different this time,» he snarled. «This time, I'm here. She loves me, I know she does.»
Tiarella started to put her hand out towards him, then drew back. «Oh, Eason, I never meant for you to get hurt. What the hell is someone like you doing falling in love anyway?»
«Someone like me?»
«Yes. I thought you were perfect when you turned up at the harbour. A thug on the run; selfish and iron-hearted. Why couldn't you treat her the way you treated everyone else in your life?»
He glared at her, helpless against her sympathy, then ran from the laboratory.
«Don't touch her!» Tiarella shouted after him. «I mean it. You leave her alone.»
Eason didn't need the warning. It was obvious within hours that he'd lost. Althaea and Mullen were so besotted with each other it was scary. The one person he'd ever loved was gloriously happy, and anything he did to stop that happiness would make her hate him for ever.
He didn't know whether to call it destiny or history.
They went to bed together on the second night, the two of them bounding up the stairs after supper. Althaea was in front, carefree and eager.
He watched them go, remembering that night after the funeral, the wretched difference. Tiarella was watching him, her face showing compassion.
«If it means anything, I am sorry,» she said.
«Right.» He rose and went out into the gloaming. Rousseau's stock of despicable home-brew was where he'd left it.
Althaea found him the next morning, sitting on the jetty, looking down at the water. A few scraps of the dinghy's timbers were still wedged between the coral spikes.
She settled down beside him, her face anxious. «Are you all right?»
«Sure. I'm just amazed Ross survived as long as he did. That stuff really is dangerous.»
«Eason. Mullen and I are going to get married.»
«Tough decision, was it?»
«Don't. Please.»
«OK. I'm happy for you.»
«No, you're not.»
«What the hell else can I say?»
She stared out across the ocean. «I'm almost frightened of myself, the way I'm behaving. I know how stupid this is, I've only known him for two days. But I feel it's right. Is it?»
«Know what I think?»
«Tell me.»
«I think that your body is the focus for your mind on this journey. It's guided you home through an awful lot of fog, and now it's time to make a safe landing.»
«Thank you, Eason.»
He put a finger under her chin, and turned her head to face him. «I want to know one thing. And I want you to be completely honest. Did you ever love me?»
«Of course I did.»
Tiarella gave him a quizzical glance as he came into the kitchen and flopped down at the table.
«You'll be happy to hear I'm leaving,» he announced.
Her blatant relief made him laugh bitterly.
«I'm not that heartless,» she protested.
«Oh, yes you are.»
»Orphée and I will take you wherever you want to go.»
«How very conscientious of you; but it's not that simple.»
«What do you mean?» The old suspicion resonated through the question.
«I've thought this through. Wherever I am, I will always think of Althaea. You know that. Which means you and I will always worry that I might come back. Because I know I'll never be able to trust myself, not completely. So what I propose is that I go somewhere that I can't come back from. I'll pay you to take me there, give Charmaine a proper contract to maintain the ride. God knows you can do with the money despite all those ridiculous ideals of yours; it'll be a nice dependable income for Althaea and Mullen to start with, too.»
«What are you talking about? Where do you want to go?»
«The future.»
The zero-tau field was nothing more than a grey eyeblink. An eyeblink that was giddily disorientating. The laboratory instantly changed to a dark, cool room with an uneven polyp ceiling.
Where Tiarella was leaning over him to switch on the pod a moment before, another figure now straightened up as her finger left the control panel. They looked at each other suspiciously. The girl was about twenty, undoubtedly related to Althaea. He could never mistake that fragile, narrow chin; her skin was ebony, though, with flaming red hair trimmed to a curly bob. Geneering trends had changed a lot, apparently.
«Hi,» he said.
She managed a strong echo of Althaea's shy grin. «I never quite believed it,» she said. «The man in the basement. You're a family legend. When we were little Dad told us you were like a sleeping knight ready to defend Charmaine from evil. Then after I grew up I just thought they were using the zero-tau pod to store botanical samples or something.»
«I'm afraid I'm not a knight, nothing like.» He swung his feet out of the pod, and stepped down. The floor was raw coral. Large cases and plastic boxes were stacked up all around. «Where am I?»
«The basement. Oh, I know what you're thinking. They dismantled the old lab fifty or sixty years ago. The family has membership in an agronomy consortium back on Kariwak. They provide upgrades for Charmaine's groves these days.» She gestured at the stairs.
«What's the date?»
«April nineteenth, 2549.»
«Jesus Christ, a hundred and two years. Is the Confederation still intact?»
«Oh yes.» She gave him an awkward grimace. «Mr Eason, Grandma's waiting.»
«Grandma?» he asked cautiously.
«Althaea.»
He stopped at the foot of the stairs. «That wasn't the deal.»
«I know. She says she'll understand if you want to jump back into the pod for another few days. She doesn't have long to live, Mr Eason.»
He nodded thoughtfully. «Always knew what she wanted, did Althaea. I never said no to her back then.»
The girl smiled, and they started up the stairs.
«So you're her granddaughter, are you?»
«Great-great-granddaughter, actually.»
«Ah.»
He recognized the layout of the house, but nothing more. It was full of rich furnishings and expensive artwork. Too grand for his taste.
Althaea was in the master bedroom. It was painful for him to look at her. Two minutes ago she'd been a radiant seventeen-year-old a week from her wedding day.
«Almost made a hundred and twenty,» she said from her bed. Her chuckle became a thin cough.
He bent over and kissed her. Small black plastic patches were clinging to the side of her wrinkled neck. He could see the outline of more beneath her shawl.
«Still want to fight dragons for me?» she asked.
«'Fraid not. I was rather impressed by that great-great-granddaughter of yours.»
She laughed and waved him into a seat beside the bed. «You haven't changed. Mind you, you haven't had the time.»
«How's Mullen?»
«Oh, him. Been gone five years, now.»
«I'm sorry.»
«We had a century together. That's why I wanted to see you again. I wanted to thank you.»
«What for?»
«For doing what you did. For leaving us alone.» She tilted her head towards the open window. «I loved him, you know. All the time he was alive, and even now, a whole century of love. It was an excellent life, Eason, truly excellent. Oh, I wasn't a saint; I had my share of fooling around when I was younger, so did he. But we stayed together for a hundred years. How about that?»
«I'm glad.»
«I lied to you about the children. Remember the day after you arrived I said I wanted ten.»
«I remember.»
«Course you do; it's only been two months for you. Well, I only had eight.»
«That's a shame.»
«Yes. But, ah, what they achieved. Take a look.» She flicked a pale finger at the window. «Go on.»
So he did. And there was his dream waiting outside. The neat ordered ranks of fruit trees stretching right round the island, a fleet of tractors buzzing down the grassy avenues, and Edenist-style servitor chimps scampering through the branches in search of the bright globes. The red-clay rooftops of a small fishing village; boats bobbing at their moorings along the seven jetties. People walking and cycling everywhere. Adults and children setting up tables and parasols in the garden ready for a party. And, as ever, the firedrakes, noisy flocks of them spiralling and wheeling overhead.
«That's all thanks to you,» she said. «I don't know what would have happened if you'd stayed around. I was so torn. I loved Mullen for a century, but I kept the guilt, too.»
«It's beautiful,» he said.
«You can stay if you want. I'd like you to enjoy it.»
«No. My time here is over.»
«Ha! That's Mother talking.»
«She told you?»
«Oh yes. Mind you, I never told Mullen. It was too weird.»
«She was right, though, wasn't she? You two were made for each other.»
«Yes, damn her, she was right. But that guilt always made me wonder.»
It was called the Torreya Memorial Clinic, a mansion sitting astride the foothills above Kariwak. Long since converted from a private residence, its main wings provided free health care for the city's poor. Of course, such charity was expensive, so the foundation which ran it also provided first-class treatment for those who could afford it. As well as standard medical facilities there was an excellent rejuvenation centre, and for those who wished to give their offspring the best start in life, a geneering department.
Eason waited for Dr Kengai to complete his credit checks, remembering the last time he was in an office, facing down agent Tenvis. The doctor had a much better view over Kariwak than the old Kulu Embassy provided. Although the city was much the same size as it had been a century ago, he was disappointed to see the number of skyscrapers that had sprung up. The sequoias were still there along the central boulevard, and prospering, tall green spires waving gently high above the clutter of white buildings.
«Your financial status appears quite impeccable, Mr Eason,» Dr Kengai said happily.
Eason grinned back with equal sincerity. «Thank you. And you'll have no trouble providing the service I want?»
«A parthenogenetic clone is a relatively straightforward procedure. It poses no difficulty.»
«Good.» He unclipped the silver chain around his neck, and handed over the locket. «Is there sufficient genetic material here?»
Dr Kengai removed the tuft of gold-auburn hair it contained. «You could reproduce several million of her from this.» He teased a single strand loose, and returned the locket.
«I only want one,» Eason said.
«I understand you don't intend to raise the girl yourself?»
«That is correct. I'm going to be away travelling again for a few more years, my ride isn't quite finished.»
«Unfortunately, we do have to reassure ourselves that the child will have a viable home to go to once she is removed from the exowomb. The clinic is not in the business of producing orphans.»
«Don't worry. My lawyer is currently seeking a suitable set of foster parents. A trust fund will pay for her to be brought up out in the archipelago for seventeen years.»
«Then what will happen to her?»
«I'll come back, and she'll marry me. That's when she loves me, you see.»
Timeline
Sonora Asteroid, 2586
«Yes. Now you and I are going to take the rest of the afternoon and evening off, and spend it in here. If your mother doesn't like that, then she should seriously start to think about leaving the island.»
Eason had never been in Althaea's bedroom before. When he woke up the next morning he looked round blearily. Wan white walls were hung with holographic posters, one of which gave the bed a panoramic view over rugged snowcapped mountains and a magical Bavarian castle. He turned over. Althaea was missing. Her ageing Animate Animal bear was on the floor along with the white silk negligée. Last night she hadn't quite dropped her reserve completely, but he was definitely making progress. And the seeds of rebellion against her witch mother had been firmly planted. Another pleasurable day at Charmaine.
He pulled on his jeans and went down to the kitchen. Althaea wasn't there either, which was unusual. She normally made breakfast for everyone.
He started opening cupboards, then he heard her screaming for help. Tiarella was already charging down the stairs as he rushed out of the back door. It sounded as though she was down at the jetty. He pounded along the path, wishing to Christ that the fluxpump wasn't back at his chalet. If that damn snake had run amok . . .
When Eason burst out of the trees, the scene he found was nothing like what he expected. Althaea was lying on the grass right on top of the coral wall, stretching out desperately. There was a wooden dinghy in the water, being tossed about by the current. It smacked into the coral wall with a nasty crunch. Althaea tried to grab the arm of the single occupant, but the dinghy twisted and surged backwards.
Eason ran forwards and threw himself down beside her. The dinghy had been holed on the vicious coral teeth surrounding the wall, and was sinking fast. Another swell rose, pitching it forward again. His synaptic web came on-line, calculating the approach vector and projecting the impact point. He shifted round fractionally, stretching out—
A wrist slapped into his waiting palm. He grabbed tight and pulled. The dinghy was dragged back, sharp spears of coral punching through the hull as it sank below the foam. Tiarella landed on the grass beside him with a hefty thump, reaching out to grasp the shoulder of the lad Eason was holding. Together, the three of them hauled him up over the top of the wall.
Eason blinked in surprise. It was Mullen.
«You idiot!» Tiarella yelled. «You could have been killed.» She flung her arms round the dazed lad. «Dear God, you could have been killed.»
«I'm sorry,» Mullen stammered. He was shaking badly. There was blood oozing from his palms.
Tiarella let go, as self-conscious as Althaea had ever been, then sniffed and wiped away what Eason swore were tears. «Yes. Well, OK. It's a tricky approach, you'll have to learn about the currents round the island.»
«Yes, miss,» Mullen said meekly.
Eason took one of the lad's hands and turned it over. The skin on the palm had been rubbed raw. «What happened?»
«It was the rowing. I'm not used to it.»
«Rowing? You mean you rowed here from Oliviera?»
«Yes.»
Eason's immediate response died in his throat. He glanced at Althaea who was looking at Mullen with an expression of surprise and wonder.
«Why?» she asked timidly. «Why did you come?»
«I wanted . . .» He glanced round at Eason and Tiarella, panic-stricken.
«Go on,» Tiarella said gently. «The truth never hurts in the long run.» She smiled encouragement.
Mullen took a nervous breath. «I wanted to see you again,» he blurted to Althaea.
«Me?»
«Uh-huh.»
Her delicate face betrayed a universe of delight. Then it crumpled to guilt, and she looked at Eason, almost fearful.
His own emotions were almost as confused. What a ridiculous romantic the lad was. Small wonder Althaea was flattered. However, right now he was not prepared to tolerate a rival.
«Eason,» Tiarella said sharply. «You and I have to talk. Right now.»
«We do, yes, but now is not the time.» He said it politely, making an effort to keep his temper in check.
«I insist. Althaea.»
«Yes, Mother?»
«I want you to treat Mullen's hands. You know where the first aid kit is. Do it in the kitchen, I expect he'll want something to eat after that voyage.» She patted the surprised lad's head. «Silly boy. Welcome back.»
Eason closed the study door, cutting off the sound of Althaea and Mullen chattering in the kitchen. When he faced Tiarella he knew that somehow she'd undermined him. Mullen's arrival had changed everything. Yet he didn't see how that was possible.
«Just what the fuck is going on?» he asked.
Tiarella's expression was glacial. «I warned you. I told you your time was up, but you wouldn't listen.»
«My time is just beginning.»
«No it isn't. And as from now, you're not to sleep with Althaea again. I mean that, Eason. And I will enforce it if you make me. Solange is quite capable of dealing with you, and that's just the creature you know about.»
«You're bluffing.»
«Am I? Then it's your call.» She opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a finger-length cylinder with wires trailing from one end. «This is out of the fluxpump. I visited your chalet yesterday evening, just in case.»
«You would seriously set that snake on me for loving your daughter?»
«I would now, yes. Force is all you know, Eason. It's what you'll use if you think Mullen threatens you. I won't tolerate any violence against him.»
«Oh, come on! You honestly think she's going to choose that boy-child over me?»
«She chose him before she was born.»
«This is your cards shit again, isn't it?»
«Far from it.» She walked round the desk and pointed up at the big family print. «Who is this?» A finger tapped impatiently on Vanstone.
He gave an exasperated sigh. Crazy bitch. Then he looked, really looked at the man's features. All the confidence, all the anger inside him started to chill. «It's . . . But it can't be.»
«Yes, it is,» she said wistfully. «It's Mullen. About ten years older than he is now.»
«What have you done? What is going on here?»
Tiarella grinned ruefully. «Small wonder he frightened the life out of me in that dinghy this morning.» She cocked her head to one side, looking up at Eason. «There's just one last thing to show you.»
He hadn't even known the house had a cellar. Tiarella took a torch to lead him down the slippery stone steps. There was a metal airlock door at the bottom. It was open, leading into a small decontamination chamber. The door at the far end was shut.
«This is Dad's old lab,» Tiarella said as she pumped the manual handle to open the inner door. «The electrics fused in a storm years ago, but it's all still functional, I think.»
Inside, Eason found a world completely removed from the rest of Charmaine. Benches of glassware glinted and sparkled as Tiarella swept the torch beam round. Dead electronic modules sprouted wires and optical fibres to mingle with the tubes, bulbs, and dishes. Autoclaves, freezers, synthesis extruders, and vats stood around the walls, along with cabinets he couldn't begin to understand. Two large computer terminals occupied the central desk, a high-resolution holographic projector on the ceiling above them.
«Most of Charmaine's foliage was spliced together in here,» Tiarella said. «And those pesky firedrakes.»
«Right.»
She came to a halt in front of a large stack of machinery. «What I'm trying to show you, Eason, is that Dad knew what he was doing. He took his master's degree at Kariwak University. Several bitek research labs offered him a position, but he came back here.»
«OK, I believe you. Nyewood was good.»
«Yes. So have you worked it out yet?»
«Tell me.»
«He cloned Vanstone for me. A parthenogenetic clone, identical to the original. There was enough of him left after the accident.»
«Oh Jesus wept. Rousseau said you gave one of your babies away. Twins! He said you had twins.» Then he realized.
«That's right. Dad cloned me as well. He engendered them in here.» She tapped the stack of machinery. «And I nurtured the pair of them in my womb. A second little me, a second little Vanstone, growing together even then. After they were born I kept Althaea here, and gave Mullen to the Church orphanage. He grew up in exactly the same environment as Vanstone did.»
«You really think she's going to fall in love with him, don't you?»
«She already has; she couldn't do anything else. The love between us is too strong, too beautiful. I couldn't let something that wonderful die, not when I had a chance to see it renewed.»
«You used me. You crazy bitch, you used me. You had a lover before Vanstone. That's why you let me come here; to make the conditions for Althaea as close as possible to your time.»
«Of course I did. As you used us to escape whatever it was you were fleeing. Althaea had to learn the difference between a meaningless sexual infatuation and the true love which only Mullen can provide.»
«Crazy bitch! You can't dictate her life like this.»
«But it's my life. And you know she doesn't belong to you. You saw the effect Mullen had on her, and her on him.» She smiled, distant with recollection. «Just like me and my Vanstone. He sneaked back to Charmaine from his parish, you know. Only he did it on a regular trader.»
«It's different this time,» he snarled. «This time, I'm here. She loves me, I know she does.»
Tiarella started to put her hand out towards him, then drew back. «Oh, Eason, I never meant for you to get hurt. What the hell is someone like you doing falling in love anyway?»
«Someone like me?»
«Yes. I thought you were perfect when you turned up at the harbour. A thug on the run; selfish and iron-hearted. Why couldn't you treat her the way you treated everyone else in your life?»
He glared at her, helpless against her sympathy, then ran from the laboratory.
«Don't touch her!» Tiarella shouted after him. «I mean it. You leave her alone.»
Eason didn't need the warning. It was obvious within hours that he'd lost. Althaea and Mullen were so besotted with each other it was scary. The one person he'd ever loved was gloriously happy, and anything he did to stop that happiness would make her hate him for ever.
He didn't know whether to call it destiny or history.
They went to bed together on the second night, the two of them bounding up the stairs after supper. Althaea was in front, carefree and eager.
He watched them go, remembering that night after the funeral, the wretched difference. Tiarella was watching him, her face showing compassion.
«If it means anything, I am sorry,» she said.
«Right.» He rose and went out into the gloaming. Rousseau's stock of despicable home-brew was where he'd left it.
Althaea found him the next morning, sitting on the jetty, looking down at the water. A few scraps of the dinghy's timbers were still wedged between the coral spikes.
She settled down beside him, her face anxious. «Are you all right?»
«Sure. I'm just amazed Ross survived as long as he did. That stuff really is dangerous.»
«Eason. Mullen and I are going to get married.»
«Tough decision, was it?»
«Don't. Please.»
«OK. I'm happy for you.»
«No, you're not.»
«What the hell else can I say?»
She stared out across the ocean. «I'm almost frightened of myself, the way I'm behaving. I know how stupid this is, I've only known him for two days. But I feel it's right. Is it?»
«Know what I think?»
«Tell me.»
«I think that your body is the focus for your mind on this journey. It's guided you home through an awful lot of fog, and now it's time to make a safe landing.»
«Thank you, Eason.»
He put a finger under her chin, and turned her head to face him. «I want to know one thing. And I want you to be completely honest. Did you ever love me?»
«Of course I did.»
Tiarella gave him a quizzical glance as he came into the kitchen and flopped down at the table.
«You'll be happy to hear I'm leaving,» he announced.
Her blatant relief made him laugh bitterly.
«I'm not that heartless,» she protested.
«Oh, yes you are.»
»Orphée and I will take you wherever you want to go.»
«How very conscientious of you; but it's not that simple.»
«What do you mean?» The old suspicion resonated through the question.
«I've thought this through. Wherever I am, I will always think of Althaea. You know that. Which means you and I will always worry that I might come back. Because I know I'll never be able to trust myself, not completely. So what I propose is that I go somewhere that I can't come back from. I'll pay you to take me there, give Charmaine a proper contract to maintain the ride. God knows you can do with the money despite all those ridiculous ideals of yours; it'll be a nice dependable income for Althaea and Mullen to start with, too.»
«What are you talking about? Where do you want to go?»
«The future.»
The zero-tau field was nothing more than a grey eyeblink. An eyeblink that was giddily disorientating. The laboratory instantly changed to a dark, cool room with an uneven polyp ceiling.
Where Tiarella was leaning over him to switch on the pod a moment before, another figure now straightened up as her finger left the control panel. They looked at each other suspiciously. The girl was about twenty, undoubtedly related to Althaea. He could never mistake that fragile, narrow chin; her skin was ebony, though, with flaming red hair trimmed to a curly bob. Geneering trends had changed a lot, apparently.
«Hi,» he said.
She managed a strong echo of Althaea's shy grin. «I never quite believed it,» she said. «The man in the basement. You're a family legend. When we were little Dad told us you were like a sleeping knight ready to defend Charmaine from evil. Then after I grew up I just thought they were using the zero-tau pod to store botanical samples or something.»
«I'm afraid I'm not a knight, nothing like.» He swung his feet out of the pod, and stepped down. The floor was raw coral. Large cases and plastic boxes were stacked up all around. «Where am I?»
«The basement. Oh, I know what you're thinking. They dismantled the old lab fifty or sixty years ago. The family has membership in an agronomy consortium back on Kariwak. They provide upgrades for Charmaine's groves these days.» She gestured at the stairs.
«What's the date?»
«April nineteenth, 2549.»
«Jesus Christ, a hundred and two years. Is the Confederation still intact?»
«Oh yes.» She gave him an awkward grimace. «Mr Eason, Grandma's waiting.»
«Grandma?» he asked cautiously.
«Althaea.»
He stopped at the foot of the stairs. «That wasn't the deal.»
«I know. She says she'll understand if you want to jump back into the pod for another few days. She doesn't have long to live, Mr Eason.»
He nodded thoughtfully. «Always knew what she wanted, did Althaea. I never said no to her back then.»
The girl smiled, and they started up the stairs.
«So you're her granddaughter, are you?»
«Great-great-granddaughter, actually.»
«Ah.»
He recognized the layout of the house, but nothing more. It was full of rich furnishings and expensive artwork. Too grand for his taste.
Althaea was in the master bedroom. It was painful for him to look at her. Two minutes ago she'd been a radiant seventeen-year-old a week from her wedding day.
«Almost made a hundred and twenty,» she said from her bed. Her chuckle became a thin cough.
He bent over and kissed her. Small black plastic patches were clinging to the side of her wrinkled neck. He could see the outline of more beneath her shawl.
«Still want to fight dragons for me?» she asked.
«'Fraid not. I was rather impressed by that great-great-granddaughter of yours.»
She laughed and waved him into a seat beside the bed. «You haven't changed. Mind you, you haven't had the time.»
«How's Mullen?»
«Oh, him. Been gone five years, now.»
«I'm sorry.»
«We had a century together. That's why I wanted to see you again. I wanted to thank you.»
«What for?»
«For doing what you did. For leaving us alone.» She tilted her head towards the open window. «I loved him, you know. All the time he was alive, and even now, a whole century of love. It was an excellent life, Eason, truly excellent. Oh, I wasn't a saint; I had my share of fooling around when I was younger, so did he. But we stayed together for a hundred years. How about that?»
«I'm glad.»
«I lied to you about the children. Remember the day after you arrived I said I wanted ten.»
«I remember.»
«Course you do; it's only been two months for you. Well, I only had eight.»
«That's a shame.»
«Yes. But, ah, what they achieved. Take a look.» She flicked a pale finger at the window. «Go on.»
So he did. And there was his dream waiting outside. The neat ordered ranks of fruit trees stretching right round the island, a fleet of tractors buzzing down the grassy avenues, and Edenist-style servitor chimps scampering through the branches in search of the bright globes. The red-clay rooftops of a small fishing village; boats bobbing at their moorings along the seven jetties. People walking and cycling everywhere. Adults and children setting up tables and parasols in the garden ready for a party. And, as ever, the firedrakes, noisy flocks of them spiralling and wheeling overhead.
«That's all thanks to you,» she said. «I don't know what would have happened if you'd stayed around. I was so torn. I loved Mullen for a century, but I kept the guilt, too.»
«It's beautiful,» he said.
«You can stay if you want. I'd like you to enjoy it.»
«No. My time here is over.»
«Ha! That's Mother talking.»
«She told you?»
«Oh yes. Mind you, I never told Mullen. It was too weird.»
«She was right, though, wasn't she? You two were made for each other.»
«Yes, damn her, she was right. But that guilt always made me wonder.»
It was called the Torreya Memorial Clinic, a mansion sitting astride the foothills above Kariwak. Long since converted from a private residence, its main wings provided free health care for the city's poor. Of course, such charity was expensive, so the foundation which ran it also provided first-class treatment for those who could afford it. As well as standard medical facilities there was an excellent rejuvenation centre, and for those who wished to give their offspring the best start in life, a geneering department.
Eason waited for Dr Kengai to complete his credit checks, remembering the last time he was in an office, facing down agent Tenvis. The doctor had a much better view over Kariwak than the old Kulu Embassy provided. Although the city was much the same size as it had been a century ago, he was disappointed to see the number of skyscrapers that had sprung up. The sequoias were still there along the central boulevard, and prospering, tall green spires waving gently high above the clutter of white buildings.
«Your financial status appears quite impeccable, Mr Eason,» Dr Kengai said happily.
Eason grinned back with equal sincerity. «Thank you. And you'll have no trouble providing the service I want?»
«A parthenogenetic clone is a relatively straightforward procedure. It poses no difficulty.»
«Good.» He unclipped the silver chain around his neck, and handed over the locket. «Is there sufficient genetic material here?»
Dr Kengai removed the tuft of gold-auburn hair it contained. «You could reproduce several million of her from this.» He teased a single strand loose, and returned the locket.
«I only want one,» Eason said.
«I understand you don't intend to raise the girl yourself?»
«That is correct. I'm going to be away travelling again for a few more years, my ride isn't quite finished.»
«Unfortunately, we do have to reassure ourselves that the child will have a viable home to go to once she is removed from the exowomb. The clinic is not in the business of producing orphans.»
«Don't worry. My lawyer is currently seeking a suitable set of foster parents. A trust fund will pay for her to be brought up out in the archipelago for seventeen years.»
«Then what will happen to her?»
«I'll come back, and she'll marry me. That's when she loves me, you see.»
Timeline
2550 — Mars declared habitable by terraforming office.
2580 — Dorado asteroids discovered around Tunja, claimed by both Garissa and Omuta.
2581 — Omutan mercenary fleet drops twelve antimatter planet-busters on Garissa, planet rendered uninhabitable. Confederation imposes thirty-year sanction against Omuta, prohibiting any interstellar trade or transport. Blockade enforced by Confederation Navy.
2582 — Colony established on Lalonde.
2580 — Dorado asteroids discovered around Tunja, claimed by both Garissa and Omuta.
2581 — Omutan mercenary fleet drops twelve antimatter planet-busters on Garissa, planet rendered uninhabitable. Confederation imposes thirty-year sanction against Omuta, prohibiting any interstellar trade or transport. Blockade enforced by Confederation Navy.
2582 — Colony established on Lalonde.
Sonora Asteroid, 2586
Escape Route
Marcus Calvert glanced at the figures displayed on the account block, and tried not to make his relief too obvious. The young waitress wasn't so diplomatic when she read the amount he'd shunted over from his Jovian Bank credit disk and saw he hadn't included a tip. She turned briskly and headed back to the Lomaz bar, heels clicking their disapproval on the metal decking.
It was one of life's more embarrassing ironies that the owner of a multi-million fuseodollar starship didn't actually have any spare cash. Marcus raised his beer bottle ruefully to his two crew-members sitting at the table with him. «Cheers.»
Bottle necks were clinked together.
Marcus took a long drink, and tried not to grimace at the taste. Cheap beer was the same the Confederation over. He was quite an expert on the subject now.
Roman Zucker, the Lady Macbeth 's fusion engineer, shot a mournful look at the row of elegant bottles arranged behind the bar. The Lomaz had an impressive selection of expensive imported beers and spirits. «I've tasted worse.»
«You'll taste a lot better once we get our cargo charter,» said Katherine Maddox, the ship's node specialist. «Any idea what it is, Captain?»
«The agent didn't say; apart from confirming it's private, not corporate.»
«They don't want us for combat, do they?» Katherine asked. There was a hint of rebellion in her voice. She was in her late forties, and like the Calverts her family had geneered their offspring to withstand both free fall and high acceleration. The dominant modifications had given her thicker skin, tougher bones, and harder internal membranes; she was never sick or giddy in free fall, nor did her face bloat up. Such changes were a formula for blunt features, and Katherine was no exception.
«If they do, we're not taking it,» Marcus assured her.
Katherine exchanged an unsettled glance with Roman, and slumped back in her chair.
The combat option was one Marcus had considered regrettably possible. Lady Macbeth was combat-capable, and Sonora asteroid belonged to a Lagrange-point cluster with a strong autonomy movement. An unfortunate combination. But having passed his sixty-seventh birthday two months ago he sincerely hoped those kind of flights were behind him. His present crew deserved better, too. He owed them ten weeks' back pay, and not one of them had pressed him for it yet. They had faith in him to deliver. He was determined not to let them down.
Part of his predicament was due to the ruinous cost of cryogenic fuels these days. Starflight was not a cheap venture, consuming vast quantities of energy. Maintenance, too, cut savagely into profit margins. Flying to Sonora without a cargo had been a severe financial blow. It was a position Marcus had constantly reacquainted himself with throughout his career; the galaxy didn't exactly shower favours on independent starships.
«This could be them,» Roman said, glancing over the rail. One of Sonora's little taxi boats was approaching their big resort raft.
Marcus had never seen an asteroid cavern quite like this one before. The centre of the gigantic rock had been hollowed out by mining machines, producing a cylindrical cavity twelve kilometres long, five in diameter. Usually the floor would be covered in soil and planted with fruit trees and grass. In Sonora's case, the environmental engineers had simply flooded it. The result was a small freshwater sea that no matter where you were on it, you appeared to be at the bottom of a valley of water.
Floating around the grey surface were innumerable rafts, occupied by hotels, bars, and restaurants. Taxi boats whizzed between them and the wharfs at the base of the two flat cavern walls. The trim cutter curving round towards the Lomaz had two people sitting on its red leather seats.
Marcus watched with interest as they left the taxi. He ordered his neural nanonics to open a fresh memory cell, and stored the pair of them in a visual file. The first to alight was a man in his mid-thirties; a long face and a very broad nose gave him a kind of imposing dignity. He wore expensive casual clothes, an orange jacket and turquoise trousers, with a bright scarlet sash that was this year's fashion on Avon.
His partner was less flamboyant. She was in her late twenties, obviously geneered; Oriental features matched with white hair that had been drawn together in wide dreadlocks and folded back aerodynamically. Her slate-grey office suit and prim movements made her appear formidably unsympathetic.
They walked straight over to Marcus's table, and introduced themselves as Antonio Ribeiro and Victoria Keef. Antonio clicked his fingers at the waitress, who took her time sauntering over. Her mood swung when Antonio slapped down a local 5,000 peso note on her tray and told her to fetch a bottle of Norfolk Tears.
«Hopefully to celebrate the success of our business venture, my friends,» he said. «And if not, it is a pleasant time of day to imbibe such a magical potion. No?»
Marcus found himself immediately distrustful. It wasn't just Antonio's phoney attitude; his intuition was scratching away at the back of his skull. Some friends called it his paranoia program, but it was rarely wrong. A family trait, like the wanderlust which no geneering treatment had ever eradicated.
«Any time of day will do for me,» Roman said.
Antonio smiled brightly at him.
«The cargo agent said you had a charter for us,» Marcus said. «He never mentioned any sort of business deal.»
«If I may ask your indulgence for a moment, Captain Calvert. You arrived here without a cargo. You must be a very rich man to afford that.»
«There were . . . circumstances requiring us to leave Ayacucho ahead of schedule.»
«Yeah,» Katherine muttered darkly. «Her husband.»
Marcus was expecting it, and smiled serenely. He'd heard very little else from the crew for the whole flight.
Antonio received the tray and its precious pear-shaped bottle from the waitress, and waved away the change. She gave him a coy smile, eyes flashing gamely.
«If I may be indelicate, Captain, your financial resources are not optimum at this moment,» Antonio suggested.
«They've been better. But I'm not desperate. Any financial institution would fall over themselves to advance me a loan against my next charter if I asked them for it.»
Antonio handed him a glass. «And yet you don't. Why is that, Captain?»
«I might not have a good cash flow, but I'm hardly bankrupt. I own Lady Mac , and it took me a long time to achieve that. That means I fly her as I want to, how she's meant to be flown. I've taken her on scouting missions beyond the Confederation boundaries to find new terracompatible planets, risked my own money on cargos, and even piloted her into battle for dubious causes. If I want commercial drudgery I'll sign on with a line company. Which is what I'd be doing if I took out a loan.»
«Bravo, Captain!» Antonio raised his glass in salute. «May the grey men be consigned to hell for all eternity.» He sipped his Norfolk Tears, and grinned in appreciation. «For myself, I was born with the wrong amount of money. Enough to know I needed more.»
«Mr Ribeiro, I've heard all the get-rich-quick schemes in existence. They all have one thing in common, they don't work. If they did, I wouldn't be sitting here with you.»
«You are wise to be cautious, Captain. I was, too, when I first heard this proposal. However, if you would humour me a moment longer, I can assure you this requires no capital outlay on your part. At the worst you will have another mad scheme to laugh about with your fellow captains.»
«No money at all?»
«None at all, simply the use of your ship. We would be equal partners sharing whatever reward we find.»
«Jesus. All right, I can spare you five minutes. Your drink has bought you that much attention span.»
«Thank you, Captain. My colleagues and I want to fly the Lady Macbeth on a prospecting mission.»
«For planets?» Roman asked curiously.
«No. Sadly, the discovery of a terracompatible planet does not guarantee wealth. Settlement rights will not bring more than a couple of million fuseodollars, and even that is dependent on a favourable biospectrum assessment, which would take many years. We have something more immediate in mind. You have just come from the Dorados?»
«That's right,» Marcus said. The system had been discovered six years earlier, comprising a red-dwarf sun surrounded by a vast disc of rocky particles. Several of the larger chunks had turned out to be nearly pure metal. Dorados was an obvious name; whoever managed to develop them would gain a colossal economic resource. So much so that the governments of Omuta and Garissa had gone to war over who had that development right.
It was the Garissan survivors who had ultimately been awarded settlement by the Confederation Assembly. There weren't many of them. Omuta had deployed twelve antimatter planet-busters against their homeworld. «Is that what you're hoping to find, another flock of solid metal asteroids?»
«Not quite,» Antonio said. «Companies have been searching similar disc systems ever since the Dorados were discovered, to no avail. Victoria, my dear, if you would care to explain.»
She nodded curtly and put her glass down on the table. «I'm an astrophysicist by training,» she said. «I used to work for Mitchell-Courtney; it's a company based in the O'Neill Halo that manufactures starship sensors, although their speciality is survey probes. It's been a very healthy business recently. For the last five years commercial consortiums, Adamist governments, and the Edenists have all been flying survey missions through every catalogued disc system in the Confederation. As Antonio said, none of our clients found anything remotely like the Dorados. That didn't surprise me, I never expected any of Mitchell-Courtney's probes to be of much use. All our sensors did was run broad spectroscopic sweeps. If anyone was going to find another Dorados cluster it would be the Edenists. Their voidhawks have a big advantage; those ships generate an enormous distortion field which can literally see mass. A lump of metal fifty kilometres across would have a very distinct density signature; they'd be aware of it from at least half a million kilometres away. If we were going to compete against that, we'd need a sensor which gave us the same level of results, if not better.»
«And you produced one?» Marcus enquired.
«Not quite. I proposed expanding our magnetic anomaly detector array. It's a very ancient technology; Earth's old nations pioneered it during the twentieth century. Their military maritime aircraft were equipped with crude arrays to track enemy submarines. Mitchell-Courtney builds its array into low-orbit resource-mapping satellites; they produce quite valuable survey data. Unfortunately, the company turned down my proposal. They said an expanded magnetic array wouldn't produce better results than a spectroscopic sweep, not on the scale required. And a spectroscopic scan would be quicker.»
«Unfortunate for Mitchell-Courtney,» Antonio said wolfishly. «Not for us. Dear Victoria came to me with her suggestion, and a simple observation.»
«A spectrographic sweep will only locate relatively large pieces of mass,» she said. «Fly a starship fifty million kilometres above a disc, and it can spot a fifty-kilometre lump of solid metal easily. But the smaller the lump, the higher the resolution you need or the closer you have to fly, a fairly obvious equation. My magnetic anomaly detector can pick out much smaller lumps of metal than a Dorado.»
«So? If they're smaller, they're worth less,» Katherine said. «The whole point of the Dorados is that they're huge. Believe me, I've been there and seen the operation those ex-Garissans are building up. They've got enough metal to supply their industrial stations with specialist microgee alloys for the next two thousand years. Small is no good.»
«Not necessarily,» Marcus said carefully. Maybe it was his intuition again, or just plain logical extrapolation, but he could see the way Victoria's thoughts were flowing. «It depends on what kind of small, doesn't it?»
Antonio applauded. «Excellent, Captain. I knew you were the right man for us.»
«What makes you think they're there?» Marcus asked.
«The Dorados are the ultimate proof of concept,» Victoria said. «There are two possible origins for disc material around stars. The first is accretion; matter left over from the star's formation. That's no use to us, it's mostly the light elements, carbonaceous chondritic particles with some silica aluminium thrown in if you're lucky. The second type of disc is made up out of collision debris. We believe that's what the Dorados are, fragments of planetoids that were large enough to form molten metal cores. When they broke apart the metal cooled and congealed into those hugely valuable chunks.»
«But nickel iron wouldn't be the only metal,» Marcus reasoned, pleased by the way he was following through. «There will be other chunks floating about in the disc.»
«Exactly, Captain,» Antonio said eagerly. «Theoretically, the whole periodic table will be available to us, we can fly above the disc and pick out whatever element we require. There will be no tedious and expensive refining process to extract it from ore. It's there waiting for us in its purest form; gold, silver, platinum, iridium. Whatever takes your fancy.»
Lady Macbeth sat on a docking cradle in Sonora's spaceport, a simple dull-grey sphere fifty-seven metres in diameter. All Adamist starships shared the same geometry, dictated by the operating parameters of the ZTT jump, which required perfect symmetry. At her heart were four separate life-support capsules, arranged in a pyramid formation; there was also a cylindrical hangar for her spaceplane, a smaller one for her Multiple Service Vehicle, and five main cargo holds. The rest of her bulk was a solid intestinal tangle of machinery, generators, and tanks. Her main drive system was three fusion rockets capable of accelerating her at eleven gees, clustered round an antimatter intermix tube which could multiply that figure by an unspecified amount; a sure sign of her combat-capable status. (By a legislative quirk it wasn't actually illegal to have an antimatter drive, though possession of antimatter itself was a capital crime throughout the Confederation.)
Spaceport umbilical hoses were jacked into sockets on her lower hull, supplying basic utility functions. Another expense Marcus wished he could avoid; it was inflicting further pain on his already ailing cash flow situation. They were going to have to fly soon, and fate seemed to have decided what flight it would be. That hadn't stopped his intuition from maintaining its subliminal assault on Antonio Ribeiro's scheme. If he could just find a single practical or logical argument against it . . .
He waited patiently while the crew drifted into the main lounge in life-support capsule A. Wai Choi, the spaceplane pilot, came down through the ceiling hatch and used a stikpad to anchor her shoes to the decking. She gave Marcus a sly smile that bordered on teasing. There had been times in the last five years when she'd joined him in his cabin, nothing serious, but they'd certainly had their moments. Which, he supposed, made her more tolerant of him than the others.
At the opposite end of the spectrum was Karl Jordan, the Lady Mac 's systems specialist, with the shortest temper, the greatest enthusiasm, and certainly the most serious of the crew. His age was the reason, only twenty-five; the Lady Mac was his second starship duty.
As for Schutz, who knew what emotions were at play in the cosmonik's mind; there was no visible outlet for them. Unlike Marcus, he hadn't been geneered for free fall; decades of working on ships and spaceport docks had seen his bones lose calcium, his muscles waste away, and his cardiovascular system atrophy. There were hundreds like him in every asteroid, slowly replacing their body parts with mechanical substitutes. Some even divested themselves of their human shape altogether. At sixty-three, Schutz was still humanoid, though only twenty per cent of him was biological. His body supplements made him an excellent engineer.
«We've been offered a joint prize flight,» Marcus told them. He explained Victoria's theory about disc systems and the magnetic anomaly array. «Ribeiro will provide us with consumables and a full cryogenics load. All we have to do is take Lady Mac to a disc system and scoop up the gold.»
«There has to be a catch,» Wai said. «I don't believe in mountains of gold just drifting through space waiting for us to come along and find them.»
«Believe it,» Roman said. «You've seen the Dorados. Why can't other elements exist in the same way?»
«I don't know. I just don't think anything comes that easy.»
«Always the pessimist.»
«What do you think, Marcus?» she asked. «What does your intuition tell you?»
«About the mission, nothing. I'm more worried about Antonio Ribeiro.»
«Definitely suspect,» Katherine agreed.
«Being a total prat is socially unfortunate,» Roman said. «But it's not a crime. Besides, Victoria Keef seemed levelheaded enough.»
«An odd combination,» Marcus mused. «A wannabe playboy and an astrophysicist. I wonder how they ever got together.»
«They're both Sonoran nationals,» Katherine said. «I ran a check through the public data cores, they were born here. It's not that remarkable.»
«Any criminal record?» Wai asked.
«None listed. Antonio has been in court three times in the last seven years; each case was over disputed taxes. He paid every time.»
«So he doesn't like the taxman,» Roman said. «That makes him one of the good guys.»
«Run-ins with the tax office are standard for the rich,» Wai said.
«Except he's not actually all that rich,» Katherine said. «I also queried the local Collins Media library; they keep tabs on Sonora's principal citizens. Mr Ribeiro senior made his money out of fish breeding, he won the franchise from the asteroid development corporation to keep the biosphere sea stocked. Antonio was given a fifteen per cent stake in the breeding company when he was twenty-one, which he promptly sold for an estimated eight hundred thousand fuseodollars. Daddy didn't approve, there are several news files on the quarrel; it became very public.»
«So he is what he claims to be,» Roman said. «A not very rich boy with expensive tastes.»
«How can he pay for the magnetic detectors we have to deploy, then?» Wai asked. «Or is he going to hit us with the bill and suddenly vanish?»
«The detector arrays are already waiting to be loaded on board,» Marcus said. «Antonio has several partners; people in the same leaky boat as himself, and willing to take a gamble.»
Wai shook her head, still dubious. «I don't buy it. It's a free lunch.»
«Victoria Keef's star disc formation theory sounds plausible, and they're willing to invest their own money in the array hardware. What other guarantees do you want?»
«What kind of money are we talking about, exactly?» Karl asked. «I mean, if we do fill the ship up, what's it going to be worth?»
«Given its density, Lady Mac can carry roughly five thousand tonnes of gold in her cargo holds,» Marcus said. «That'll make manoeuvring very sluggish, but I can handle her.»
Roman grinned at Karl. «And today's price for gold is three and a half thousand fuseodollars per kilogram.»
Karl's eyes went blank for a second as his neural nanonics ran the conversion. «Seventeen billion fuseodollars' worth!»
He laughed. «Per trip.»
«How is this Ribeiro character proposing to divide the proceeds?» Schutz asked.
«We get one-third,» Marcus said. «Roughly five-point-eight billion fuseodollars. Of which I take thirty per cent. The rest is split equally between you, as per the bounty flight clause in your contracts.»
«Shit,» Karl whispered. «When do we leave, Captain?»
«Does anybody have any objections?» Marcus asked. He gave Wai a quizzical look.
«OK,» she said. «But just because you can't see surface cracks, it doesn't mean there isn't any metal fatigue.»
The docking cradle lifted Lady Macbeth cleanly out of the spaceport's crater-shaped bay. As soon as she cleared the rim her thermo-dump panels unfolded, and sensor clusters rose up out of their recesses on long booms. Visual and radar information was collated by the flight computer, which datavised it directly into Marcus's neural nanonics. He lay on the acceleration couch at the centre of the bridge with his eyes closed as the external starfield blossomed in his mind. Delicate icons unfurled across the visualization, ship status schematics and navigational plots sketched in primary colours.
Chemical verniers fired, lifting Lady Mac off the cradle amid spumes of hot saffron vapour. A tube of orange circles appeared ahead of him, the course vector formatted to take them in towards the gas giant. Marcus switched to the more powerful ion thrusters, and the orange circles began to stream past the hull.
The gas giant, Zacateca, and its moon, Lazaro, had the same apparent size as Lady Mac accelerated away from the spaceport. Sonora was one of fifteen asteroids captured by their Lagrange point, a zone where their respective gravity fields were in equilibrium. Behind the starship Lazaro was a grubby grey crescent splattered with white craters. Given that Zacateca was small for a gas giant, barely forty thousand kilometres in diameter, Lazaro was an unusual companion. A moon nine thousand kilometres in diameter, with an outer crust of ice fifty kilometres deep. It was that ice which had originally attracted the interest of the banks and multistellar finance consortia. Stony-iron asteroids were an ideal source of metal and minerals for industrial stations, but they were also notoriously short of the light elements essential to sustain life. To have abundant supplies of both so close together was a strong investment incentive.
Lady Mac 's radar showed Marcus a serpentine line of one-tonne ice cubes flung out from Lazaro's equatorial mass driver to glide inertly up to the Lagrange point for collection. The same inexhaustible source which allowed Sonora to have its unique sea.
It was one of life's more embarrassing ironies that the owner of a multi-million fuseodollar starship didn't actually have any spare cash. Marcus raised his beer bottle ruefully to his two crew-members sitting at the table with him. «Cheers.»
Bottle necks were clinked together.
Marcus took a long drink, and tried not to grimace at the taste. Cheap beer was the same the Confederation over. He was quite an expert on the subject now.
Roman Zucker, the Lady Macbeth 's fusion engineer, shot a mournful look at the row of elegant bottles arranged behind the bar. The Lomaz had an impressive selection of expensive imported beers and spirits. «I've tasted worse.»
«You'll taste a lot better once we get our cargo charter,» said Katherine Maddox, the ship's node specialist. «Any idea what it is, Captain?»
«The agent didn't say; apart from confirming it's private, not corporate.»
«They don't want us for combat, do they?» Katherine asked. There was a hint of rebellion in her voice. She was in her late forties, and like the Calverts her family had geneered their offspring to withstand both free fall and high acceleration. The dominant modifications had given her thicker skin, tougher bones, and harder internal membranes; she was never sick or giddy in free fall, nor did her face bloat up. Such changes were a formula for blunt features, and Katherine was no exception.
«If they do, we're not taking it,» Marcus assured her.
Katherine exchanged an unsettled glance with Roman, and slumped back in her chair.
The combat option was one Marcus had considered regrettably possible. Lady Macbeth was combat-capable, and Sonora asteroid belonged to a Lagrange-point cluster with a strong autonomy movement. An unfortunate combination. But having passed his sixty-seventh birthday two months ago he sincerely hoped those kind of flights were behind him. His present crew deserved better, too. He owed them ten weeks' back pay, and not one of them had pressed him for it yet. They had faith in him to deliver. He was determined not to let them down.
Part of his predicament was due to the ruinous cost of cryogenic fuels these days. Starflight was not a cheap venture, consuming vast quantities of energy. Maintenance, too, cut savagely into profit margins. Flying to Sonora without a cargo had been a severe financial blow. It was a position Marcus had constantly reacquainted himself with throughout his career; the galaxy didn't exactly shower favours on independent starships.
«This could be them,» Roman said, glancing over the rail. One of Sonora's little taxi boats was approaching their big resort raft.
Marcus had never seen an asteroid cavern quite like this one before. The centre of the gigantic rock had been hollowed out by mining machines, producing a cylindrical cavity twelve kilometres long, five in diameter. Usually the floor would be covered in soil and planted with fruit trees and grass. In Sonora's case, the environmental engineers had simply flooded it. The result was a small freshwater sea that no matter where you were on it, you appeared to be at the bottom of a valley of water.
Floating around the grey surface were innumerable rafts, occupied by hotels, bars, and restaurants. Taxi boats whizzed between them and the wharfs at the base of the two flat cavern walls. The trim cutter curving round towards the Lomaz had two people sitting on its red leather seats.
Marcus watched with interest as they left the taxi. He ordered his neural nanonics to open a fresh memory cell, and stored the pair of them in a visual file. The first to alight was a man in his mid-thirties; a long face and a very broad nose gave him a kind of imposing dignity. He wore expensive casual clothes, an orange jacket and turquoise trousers, with a bright scarlet sash that was this year's fashion on Avon.
His partner was less flamboyant. She was in her late twenties, obviously geneered; Oriental features matched with white hair that had been drawn together in wide dreadlocks and folded back aerodynamically. Her slate-grey office suit and prim movements made her appear formidably unsympathetic.
They walked straight over to Marcus's table, and introduced themselves as Antonio Ribeiro and Victoria Keef. Antonio clicked his fingers at the waitress, who took her time sauntering over. Her mood swung when Antonio slapped down a local 5,000 peso note on her tray and told her to fetch a bottle of Norfolk Tears.
«Hopefully to celebrate the success of our business venture, my friends,» he said. «And if not, it is a pleasant time of day to imbibe such a magical potion. No?»
Marcus found himself immediately distrustful. It wasn't just Antonio's phoney attitude; his intuition was scratching away at the back of his skull. Some friends called it his paranoia program, but it was rarely wrong. A family trait, like the wanderlust which no geneering treatment had ever eradicated.
«Any time of day will do for me,» Roman said.
Antonio smiled brightly at him.
«The cargo agent said you had a charter for us,» Marcus said. «He never mentioned any sort of business deal.»
«If I may ask your indulgence for a moment, Captain Calvert. You arrived here without a cargo. You must be a very rich man to afford that.»
«There were . . . circumstances requiring us to leave Ayacucho ahead of schedule.»
«Yeah,» Katherine muttered darkly. «Her husband.»
Marcus was expecting it, and smiled serenely. He'd heard very little else from the crew for the whole flight.
Antonio received the tray and its precious pear-shaped bottle from the waitress, and waved away the change. She gave him a coy smile, eyes flashing gamely.
«If I may be indelicate, Captain, your financial resources are not optimum at this moment,» Antonio suggested.
«They've been better. But I'm not desperate. Any financial institution would fall over themselves to advance me a loan against my next charter if I asked them for it.»
Antonio handed him a glass. «And yet you don't. Why is that, Captain?»
«I might not have a good cash flow, but I'm hardly bankrupt. I own Lady Mac , and it took me a long time to achieve that. That means I fly her as I want to, how she's meant to be flown. I've taken her on scouting missions beyond the Confederation boundaries to find new terracompatible planets, risked my own money on cargos, and even piloted her into battle for dubious causes. If I want commercial drudgery I'll sign on with a line company. Which is what I'd be doing if I took out a loan.»
«Bravo, Captain!» Antonio raised his glass in salute. «May the grey men be consigned to hell for all eternity.» He sipped his Norfolk Tears, and grinned in appreciation. «For myself, I was born with the wrong amount of money. Enough to know I needed more.»
«Mr Ribeiro, I've heard all the get-rich-quick schemes in existence. They all have one thing in common, they don't work. If they did, I wouldn't be sitting here with you.»
«You are wise to be cautious, Captain. I was, too, when I first heard this proposal. However, if you would humour me a moment longer, I can assure you this requires no capital outlay on your part. At the worst you will have another mad scheme to laugh about with your fellow captains.»
«No money at all?»
«None at all, simply the use of your ship. We would be equal partners sharing whatever reward we find.»
«Jesus. All right, I can spare you five minutes. Your drink has bought you that much attention span.»
«Thank you, Captain. My colleagues and I want to fly the Lady Macbeth on a prospecting mission.»
«For planets?» Roman asked curiously.
«No. Sadly, the discovery of a terracompatible planet does not guarantee wealth. Settlement rights will not bring more than a couple of million fuseodollars, and even that is dependent on a favourable biospectrum assessment, which would take many years. We have something more immediate in mind. You have just come from the Dorados?»
«That's right,» Marcus said. The system had been discovered six years earlier, comprising a red-dwarf sun surrounded by a vast disc of rocky particles. Several of the larger chunks had turned out to be nearly pure metal. Dorados was an obvious name; whoever managed to develop them would gain a colossal economic resource. So much so that the governments of Omuta and Garissa had gone to war over who had that development right.
It was the Garissan survivors who had ultimately been awarded settlement by the Confederation Assembly. There weren't many of them. Omuta had deployed twelve antimatter planet-busters against their homeworld. «Is that what you're hoping to find, another flock of solid metal asteroids?»
«Not quite,» Antonio said. «Companies have been searching similar disc systems ever since the Dorados were discovered, to no avail. Victoria, my dear, if you would care to explain.»
She nodded curtly and put her glass down on the table. «I'm an astrophysicist by training,» she said. «I used to work for Mitchell-Courtney; it's a company based in the O'Neill Halo that manufactures starship sensors, although their speciality is survey probes. It's been a very healthy business recently. For the last five years commercial consortiums, Adamist governments, and the Edenists have all been flying survey missions through every catalogued disc system in the Confederation. As Antonio said, none of our clients found anything remotely like the Dorados. That didn't surprise me, I never expected any of Mitchell-Courtney's probes to be of much use. All our sensors did was run broad spectroscopic sweeps. If anyone was going to find another Dorados cluster it would be the Edenists. Their voidhawks have a big advantage; those ships generate an enormous distortion field which can literally see mass. A lump of metal fifty kilometres across would have a very distinct density signature; they'd be aware of it from at least half a million kilometres away. If we were going to compete against that, we'd need a sensor which gave us the same level of results, if not better.»
«And you produced one?» Marcus enquired.
«Not quite. I proposed expanding our magnetic anomaly detector array. It's a very ancient technology; Earth's old nations pioneered it during the twentieth century. Their military maritime aircraft were equipped with crude arrays to track enemy submarines. Mitchell-Courtney builds its array into low-orbit resource-mapping satellites; they produce quite valuable survey data. Unfortunately, the company turned down my proposal. They said an expanded magnetic array wouldn't produce better results than a spectroscopic sweep, not on the scale required. And a spectroscopic scan would be quicker.»
«Unfortunate for Mitchell-Courtney,» Antonio said wolfishly. «Not for us. Dear Victoria came to me with her suggestion, and a simple observation.»
«A spectrographic sweep will only locate relatively large pieces of mass,» she said. «Fly a starship fifty million kilometres above a disc, and it can spot a fifty-kilometre lump of solid metal easily. But the smaller the lump, the higher the resolution you need or the closer you have to fly, a fairly obvious equation. My magnetic anomaly detector can pick out much smaller lumps of metal than a Dorado.»
«So? If they're smaller, they're worth less,» Katherine said. «The whole point of the Dorados is that they're huge. Believe me, I've been there and seen the operation those ex-Garissans are building up. They've got enough metal to supply their industrial stations with specialist microgee alloys for the next two thousand years. Small is no good.»
«Not necessarily,» Marcus said carefully. Maybe it was his intuition again, or just plain logical extrapolation, but he could see the way Victoria's thoughts were flowing. «It depends on what kind of small, doesn't it?»
Antonio applauded. «Excellent, Captain. I knew you were the right man for us.»
«What makes you think they're there?» Marcus asked.
«The Dorados are the ultimate proof of concept,» Victoria said. «There are two possible origins for disc material around stars. The first is accretion; matter left over from the star's formation. That's no use to us, it's mostly the light elements, carbonaceous chondritic particles with some silica aluminium thrown in if you're lucky. The second type of disc is made up out of collision debris. We believe that's what the Dorados are, fragments of planetoids that were large enough to form molten metal cores. When they broke apart the metal cooled and congealed into those hugely valuable chunks.»
«But nickel iron wouldn't be the only metal,» Marcus reasoned, pleased by the way he was following through. «There will be other chunks floating about in the disc.»
«Exactly, Captain,» Antonio said eagerly. «Theoretically, the whole periodic table will be available to us, we can fly above the disc and pick out whatever element we require. There will be no tedious and expensive refining process to extract it from ore. It's there waiting for us in its purest form; gold, silver, platinum, iridium. Whatever takes your fancy.»
Lady Macbeth sat on a docking cradle in Sonora's spaceport, a simple dull-grey sphere fifty-seven metres in diameter. All Adamist starships shared the same geometry, dictated by the operating parameters of the ZTT jump, which required perfect symmetry. At her heart were four separate life-support capsules, arranged in a pyramid formation; there was also a cylindrical hangar for her spaceplane, a smaller one for her Multiple Service Vehicle, and five main cargo holds. The rest of her bulk was a solid intestinal tangle of machinery, generators, and tanks. Her main drive system was three fusion rockets capable of accelerating her at eleven gees, clustered round an antimatter intermix tube which could multiply that figure by an unspecified amount; a sure sign of her combat-capable status. (By a legislative quirk it wasn't actually illegal to have an antimatter drive, though possession of antimatter itself was a capital crime throughout the Confederation.)
Spaceport umbilical hoses were jacked into sockets on her lower hull, supplying basic utility functions. Another expense Marcus wished he could avoid; it was inflicting further pain on his already ailing cash flow situation. They were going to have to fly soon, and fate seemed to have decided what flight it would be. That hadn't stopped his intuition from maintaining its subliminal assault on Antonio Ribeiro's scheme. If he could just find a single practical or logical argument against it . . .
He waited patiently while the crew drifted into the main lounge in life-support capsule A. Wai Choi, the spaceplane pilot, came down through the ceiling hatch and used a stikpad to anchor her shoes to the decking. She gave Marcus a sly smile that bordered on teasing. There had been times in the last five years when she'd joined him in his cabin, nothing serious, but they'd certainly had their moments. Which, he supposed, made her more tolerant of him than the others.
At the opposite end of the spectrum was Karl Jordan, the Lady Mac 's systems specialist, with the shortest temper, the greatest enthusiasm, and certainly the most serious of the crew. His age was the reason, only twenty-five; the Lady Mac was his second starship duty.
As for Schutz, who knew what emotions were at play in the cosmonik's mind; there was no visible outlet for them. Unlike Marcus, he hadn't been geneered for free fall; decades of working on ships and spaceport docks had seen his bones lose calcium, his muscles waste away, and his cardiovascular system atrophy. There were hundreds like him in every asteroid, slowly replacing their body parts with mechanical substitutes. Some even divested themselves of their human shape altogether. At sixty-three, Schutz was still humanoid, though only twenty per cent of him was biological. His body supplements made him an excellent engineer.
«We've been offered a joint prize flight,» Marcus told them. He explained Victoria's theory about disc systems and the magnetic anomaly array. «Ribeiro will provide us with consumables and a full cryogenics load. All we have to do is take Lady Mac to a disc system and scoop up the gold.»
«There has to be a catch,» Wai said. «I don't believe in mountains of gold just drifting through space waiting for us to come along and find them.»
«Believe it,» Roman said. «You've seen the Dorados. Why can't other elements exist in the same way?»
«I don't know. I just don't think anything comes that easy.»
«Always the pessimist.»
«What do you think, Marcus?» she asked. «What does your intuition tell you?»
«About the mission, nothing. I'm more worried about Antonio Ribeiro.»
«Definitely suspect,» Katherine agreed.
«Being a total prat is socially unfortunate,» Roman said. «But it's not a crime. Besides, Victoria Keef seemed levelheaded enough.»
«An odd combination,» Marcus mused. «A wannabe playboy and an astrophysicist. I wonder how they ever got together.»
«They're both Sonoran nationals,» Katherine said. «I ran a check through the public data cores, they were born here. It's not that remarkable.»
«Any criminal record?» Wai asked.
«None listed. Antonio has been in court three times in the last seven years; each case was over disputed taxes. He paid every time.»
«So he doesn't like the taxman,» Roman said. «That makes him one of the good guys.»
«Run-ins with the tax office are standard for the rich,» Wai said.
«Except he's not actually all that rich,» Katherine said. «I also queried the local Collins Media library; they keep tabs on Sonora's principal citizens. Mr Ribeiro senior made his money out of fish breeding, he won the franchise from the asteroid development corporation to keep the biosphere sea stocked. Antonio was given a fifteen per cent stake in the breeding company when he was twenty-one, which he promptly sold for an estimated eight hundred thousand fuseodollars. Daddy didn't approve, there are several news files on the quarrel; it became very public.»
«So he is what he claims to be,» Roman said. «A not very rich boy with expensive tastes.»
«How can he pay for the magnetic detectors we have to deploy, then?» Wai asked. «Or is he going to hit us with the bill and suddenly vanish?»
«The detector arrays are already waiting to be loaded on board,» Marcus said. «Antonio has several partners; people in the same leaky boat as himself, and willing to take a gamble.»
Wai shook her head, still dubious. «I don't buy it. It's a free lunch.»
«Victoria Keef's star disc formation theory sounds plausible, and they're willing to invest their own money in the array hardware. What other guarantees do you want?»
«What kind of money are we talking about, exactly?» Karl asked. «I mean, if we do fill the ship up, what's it going to be worth?»
«Given its density, Lady Mac can carry roughly five thousand tonnes of gold in her cargo holds,» Marcus said. «That'll make manoeuvring very sluggish, but I can handle her.»
Roman grinned at Karl. «And today's price for gold is three and a half thousand fuseodollars per kilogram.»
Karl's eyes went blank for a second as his neural nanonics ran the conversion. «Seventeen billion fuseodollars' worth!»
He laughed. «Per trip.»
«How is this Ribeiro character proposing to divide the proceeds?» Schutz asked.
«We get one-third,» Marcus said. «Roughly five-point-eight billion fuseodollars. Of which I take thirty per cent. The rest is split equally between you, as per the bounty flight clause in your contracts.»
«Shit,» Karl whispered. «When do we leave, Captain?»
«Does anybody have any objections?» Marcus asked. He gave Wai a quizzical look.
«OK,» she said. «But just because you can't see surface cracks, it doesn't mean there isn't any metal fatigue.»
The docking cradle lifted Lady Macbeth cleanly out of the spaceport's crater-shaped bay. As soon as she cleared the rim her thermo-dump panels unfolded, and sensor clusters rose up out of their recesses on long booms. Visual and radar information was collated by the flight computer, which datavised it directly into Marcus's neural nanonics. He lay on the acceleration couch at the centre of the bridge with his eyes closed as the external starfield blossomed in his mind. Delicate icons unfurled across the visualization, ship status schematics and navigational plots sketched in primary colours.
Chemical verniers fired, lifting Lady Mac off the cradle amid spumes of hot saffron vapour. A tube of orange circles appeared ahead of him, the course vector formatted to take them in towards the gas giant. Marcus switched to the more powerful ion thrusters, and the orange circles began to stream past the hull.
The gas giant, Zacateca, and its moon, Lazaro, had the same apparent size as Lady Mac accelerated away from the spaceport. Sonora was one of fifteen asteroids captured by their Lagrange point, a zone where their respective gravity fields were in equilibrium. Behind the starship Lazaro was a grubby grey crescent splattered with white craters. Given that Zacateca was small for a gas giant, barely forty thousand kilometres in diameter, Lazaro was an unusual companion. A moon nine thousand kilometres in diameter, with an outer crust of ice fifty kilometres deep. It was that ice which had originally attracted the interest of the banks and multistellar finance consortia. Stony-iron asteroids were an ideal source of metal and minerals for industrial stations, but they were also notoriously short of the light elements essential to sustain life. To have abundant supplies of both so close together was a strong investment incentive.
Lady Mac 's radar showed Marcus a serpentine line of one-tonne ice cubes flung out from Lazaro's equatorial mass driver to glide inertly up to the Lagrange point for collection. The same inexhaustible source which allowed Sonora to have its unique sea.