

Scat

By Jim Graham

**~~~~**

Copyright Jim Graham 2011

Smashwords Edition

This Ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published by GRAHAM, James Stephen

ISBN: 9789881575319

Cover image: Cathy Helms, Avalon Graphics

http://www.avalongraphics.org

Other stories by Jim Graham

Army of Souls

Birdie Down

What do readers have to say about Scat?

"Scat is a sprawling novel, spanning years, full of ideas and conflicts that resonate in today's world, as good sci-fi is supposed to. ... Graham bombards the reader with ideas and Scat's ambition and scope are a marvel."

-Indiereader.com

"... the coda is... well, I was drop-jawed. I don't get drop-jawed often ... the new technology proves to have a horrifying price that I honestly didn't see coming, that I've never seen used before in a lifetime of reading SF"

-Republibot.com

"Scat is a big, intelligent, interesting novel. If you enjoy hard gritty sf with plenty of well-handled dialogue, you will not go far wrong with this one"

Scat

For my soul mate, Vivien, and my children, Michaela and Alexander.

**~~~~**

With thanks to my friends, William de Waard, Peter Adam, Richard Jones and Sean Croucher for reading the roughs.

Scat

Contents

Part One—I Want to Break Free

Part Two—Rock and a Hard Place

Part Three—Under Pressure

Part Four—Band on the Run

Part Five—Across the Universe

Part Six—Recover your Soul

More stories by Jim Graham

About the Author

# Part One

# I want to Break Free

#  1

The Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

23rd July 2203

Sebastian Scatkiewicz' orders were straightforward enough: escort a member of the local survey team into the Sinai and bring him back in one piece. The only trouble was, the area was inside the Neutral Zone, and the Asian Bloc might not like it.

'This time it's different, right, Rose? This time you'll find something?' he asked, throwing his pack into the Roland 2's passenger cabin.

Above his head, the blades began to rotate and the engines whirl. From deep inside the dark interior, a taller and much older man raised his voice in reply.

'We're as certain as we were the last time, Scat. You know the drill.'

Scat shook his head. He did know the drill: a week in a dusty hellhole with no air cover to speak of; the constant sniping from the locals; a final shake of the head; and, as was so often the case, the empty-handed return home. On occasion, a body bag in the hold.

'Well it's getting sodding lame,' he said under his breath. 'Find something of value this time, will you?'

Scat hoisted himself up onto the airframe to sit facing outwards, his legs dangling over the side. He grabbed the port gunner's spare safety harness, clipped it to his belt and tugged. It held.

As his team settled down, he looked out across a pitch-black airfield apron. Well, at least they got the weather right: it was a moonless night, and the cloud cover was low and thick in the east. Directly above him, the ever-present atmospheric pollution scattered the ambient light from the camp behind.

The team net crackled with a familiar voice.

'All secure, sir.'

Scat glanced over his shoulder and saw Corporal Henderson—Slaps to his friends—raising a thumb. He then heard the loadmaster give the all clear to the flight crew.

The stripped-down Roland trembled a little as it lifted off the ground, but it soon calmed down to sway, more smoothly, a few feet above the concrete. Seconds later, it dropped its blunt nose and surged forward, funnelling hot desert air through the doorless cabin. Under his feet, Scat watched a sand-dusted replica of small town America slip past, swathed in light. Then they were beyond the camp perimeter, soaring out into a bleak and unwelcoming desert.

The journey time to the drop-off point, some 80 miles across the canal, was 17 minutes. That gave Scat plenty of time to mull over what Rose had told them as they were getting ready.

'It'll be over soon, Scat,' he had said. 'They've finally decided who gets what.'

'Yeah?' Scat had replied as he and Henderson kept their heads down, charging their magazines. They had little interest in anything Rose had to say, but, over the past few months, the old man had learned how to get in their faces and was increasingly hard to avoid.

'Yep!' Rose continued, 'Raddox is exchanging its Micronesian marine mining interests for what's left of the coal in Western Australia. The Brit PM had talks with their shareholders last night. He finally won them around.'

Scat had looked up. He had no interest in politics. He only knew they were fighting this war in the national interest: to secure the rapidly dwindling resources needed to keep the West's industry running and its products affordable. He certainly did not want to believe they were fighting to bolster some company's assets, even if they were constantly mopping up after them—as were the rest of the Western military. Scat then gave Henderson a look, knowing he felt the same way.

'So, the last few months have been about shareholder's rights, have they?' Scat asked, sceptically. 'Is that what you're saying?'

'I guess so,' Rose replied. 'Eh, it's not my fault, Scat. I just work for the sons.'

'But why would Raddox have any say in how the war finishes?'

Rose had shaken his head in mock sympathy.

'You're being block-headed again, Scat. Remember what I said the first time around? It's for the very same reason they had when they decided the war should start: for profit. And now it's all about the final scramble. It's all about where we'll be standing when the treaty's signed.'

When they had spoken about the war before, Rose had made it plain what he thought about Scat and others like him: he was a cliché; a dedicated and well-trained killing machine; an earnest man and a capable officer, committed to leading his men and women to hell and back. But he was also a naïve and easily led fool who was willing to believe anything his President told him, and that he, as with others like him, was going to be a hugely disappointed man when the war was over, and the free presses were up and running again.

That had gotten Scat's hackles up at the time, and the bugger was doing it again. Scat just did not want to believe it. The war-for-profit motive was the conspiracy theory: the one the suck-weed Asian Bloc spread to sap the morale of the Western Bloc's troops, to undermine the spirits of his compatriots.

Henderson was the first to respond, mindful that Rose held courtesy rank in the field:

'Go screw yourself. Sir!'

Scat could only echo the sentiment.

Rose was a dick and a supercilious, overpaid shit. Few of Scat's soldiers liked these company men, even though they envied them their incomes and would try hard to win off-world jobs with their companies when their time was up.

Sure, the war was all about resources—no one disputed it: everyone of the world's 21 billion population hankered after what was left of them. Rock-scratchers like Rose were everywhere. They would arrive with armfuls of data, a few maps and a hard-on for drilling in someone else's back yard, relying on Marines like Henderson to keep them safe. Then they would bugger off, back to Washington and their bonuses, along with a case for temporarily annexing yet another swathe of someone else's country. More often than not, the local chiefs would invite them in, hoping the West would support their agenda for regime change.

But it was no different across the line: the Abs were the same. Their populations needed resources, just as the West did. They had mouths to feed, industry to prime, populations to employ.

Nonetheless, Rose was talking crap: the resource companies had not started the war, even if they did profit by it. And, in any case, their cost of doing business was only subsidised by dead Marines, crushed families, and what was left of the national treasury, because it was in the country's best interest. The President had said so. That somehow made it right. It gave Scat the conviction he needed to carry on, regardless.

But now the war was ending, Scat felt a little unsettled. He was not sure what that would mean for him.

The Roland's internal speakers crackled again with a simple warning.

'Insertion in five.'

Scat raised a hand. Behind him, the five others in his team went through their pre-insertion rituals.

Marine Dahl, the youngest and smallest of them all, pulled at a chain around his neck, fished out his dog tags, and took a last minute look at a small photo pasted to the back of one of them. He kissed it, and then tucked it away.

Old Man Philips, at 27 the oldest member of the team, mumbled something to himself, his eyes closed. He looked calm. He always was. He still believed in a God, even at his age.

Across the cabin, sitting next to Rose and facing forward, Marine Jenny Bruce checked the charge indicator of her Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser, or PIKL, commonly referred to as a "pickle" for the damage it did to a target's internal organs. She was still testing the latest variant, a dark-light version, on behalf of Branston, its manufacturer. Seeing it was at full power, she looked up at Scat and smiled at him, knowing he was dying to take it from her.

Trillion Tang, the tallest and broadest Marine in the squad at six feet three inches and a touch more than two feet wide at the shoulders, took his feet off the bench in front of him and planted them in the regulation position on the cabin floor. That was it. He was about the least flappable Marine Scat had ever met. Nothing fazed him. Not ever.

Corporal Henderson was doing what he normally did this close to an insertion. He leaned out of the far side, looking down, drumming his fingers against the airframe. He was nodding his head, rhythmically, as though listening to music. He did that a lot. He would be running a rap song through his head, a violent one. He said it got him in the mood.

They were ready.

Scat looked down at himself, hoping to see all of his body parts again when they got back. He may not be tall, or built like Atlas, but he was fit, quick and supple; his trim, well-toned body more than capable of humping 120 pounds of equipment for days without complaint—even though his stamina was years from peaking. In a world of short-term contracts, mass-unemployment and minimal welfare, he had to stay in one piece.

The loadmaster tapped him on his shoulder and shouted into his ear.

'Thirty seconds.'

Scat looked up at the flight deck bulkhead monitor. There were no alarms, no heat signatures. The insertion point was cold. He pulled the butt of his Garand solid-shot sniper rifle tightly into his right shoulder.

The Roland tilted backwards as it began to slow, its engines growling a little more. He could see a wide, boulder-strewn wadi carving a gash into the ground below them, its steep black sides shepherding it down the hillside in lazy sweeps.

They were going in.

Scat released the gunner's harness and pushed his feet down on the footplate, ready to leap out. The loadmaster tapped him on his helmet twice.

'Go, go, go!' the man urged.

As the Roland hovered, six heavily clad bodies scrambled for the port side exit and dropped the few feet onto the uneven scree. Behind them, the loadmaster kicked their backpacks out into a maelstrom of grit and desert sand. On the ground, the Marines scooped them up, threw them across their shoulders and trudged heavily towards the wadi's edge.

A few seconds later, Rose made the jump and then dashed across the wadi to crouch inside the Marines' protective circle. Out on the scree, a large rubber pouch, filled with the ground-penetrating radar and other tools of his trade, was dangled over the side and lowered to the floor. Dahl and Tang ran back into the storm to drag it across.

Scat opened his pack, flipped the lid of a box and set free a colony of dragonfly surveillance drones. He switched the colony from test to deploy and, in an instant, they were gone, lost against the dark backdrop of the wadi wall. Moments later, he held his hand up and made circles with his finger as a signal to the team that the colony was sending signals back. Henderson and Bruce both switched on their wrist-mounted monitors to track their assigned perimeter arcs.

Out front, the loadmaster knelt in the open doorway and waved goodbye; the Roland dropped its nose to haul itself back into the night; and, just as they had on countless insertions before this one, the Marines listened to the sounds of their arrival die away.

Then they waited.

# 2

Scat sat in the shade of a large rock, spooning beef-flavoured tofu mush from a can. He licked the spoon until it shone, turned it over and took a quick glance at an insect bite on his cheek. It was swelling; inflating a long, gaunt face that had long ago shed most of its flesh. The rest of him looked no better. His hazel eyes were bloodshot and sank deep inside their sockets. Sweaty hair crept from the high, straight hairline and stuck to his forehead. The fresh, doe-like look was gone, lost alongside the natural optimism of youth. He needed a break, and yet here they were, still, aimlessly walking around a hot, barren, desolate lunar landscape looking for something that someone, somewhere, wanted so badly they were willing to antagonise the locals and risk an uneasy peace.

It was the fourth such outing in two weeks, and yet, two days in, Rose was still coming up empty.

The satellite had suggested there was a deposit deep down inside the earth's crust, and all the survey team needed to do was to confirm what the damned thing was telling them. Nonetheless—even though the local chief had promised them a free ride, and they could range more freely than on most other days—the mission looked a bust. Every so often and with a marine in tow, Rose would break away to scan deep down into the ground, only to come back with a glum look on his face.

As he just did.

Scat watched Rose traipse across the scree towards him, looking a little pensive.

'Another blow-out, Rose?' he asked.

Rose sat down with his back against a large boulder and threw his lanky legs out in front of him. He wiped his brow with a paisley handkerchief and then leaned forward to massage his thighs.

'It's not looking too hot, Scat. The satellite imagery was promising. It's just not translating. There should be a large deposit of the stuff in this area—in fact, just below our feet. But sod knows it's playing hard to find.'

'Another blow-out, then?'

'Unconfirmed for now, Scat,' Rose pointed out.

'And you still ain't saying what you're looking for?'

Rose failed to rise to the bait so they rested in silence for a few moments. Scat looked up and along the nearside of the 300-yard-wide wadi to check that his two sentries were OK. The others were napping.

'In fact, if this war's over soon, as you say it is, why the blazes are we here at all?' Scat asked.

Rose stood, arched his back and then went behind the boulder to take a pee.

'Because it's valuable stuff, Scat,' he shouted back. 'Peace or no, we still need it.'

Scat noticed Rose's voice had an edge to it. The man was frustrated, or anxious.

'So why not get a license to prospect for it,' Scat asked, 'pay the friggin' locals to dig it up, and then buy it off them?'

'Because it's been this way for 50 years,' Rose replied, testily. 'It won't change. In fact, it'll only get worse. We'll sign this shagging treaty, it'll last for a few years, and then we'll be poaching again, just as both sides do right now. Get used to it, Scat. Get with the programme.'

Scat spirits lifted a little. He had riled the jerk at last. He leaned back and pointed up to a light blue and empty sky, blown clear of clouds and grey-brown pollution by a weak khamsin breeze.

'So why are we still kicking each other's butts down here, Rose, if there's so much of it up there? That's where the resources are now, right? Out there? Isn't that why the companies all but own the New Worlds—so they can bring the stuff back here?'

This time Rose did not answer.

'And while we're at it,' Scat continued, 'why bother with it up there, if we've blown each other to kingdom come down here? Don't you need consumers who can buy the crap your company makes?'

Rose returned from behind the boulder carrying his pack, pulling at one of its zips.

'We still kick each other's butts, Scat, because when we find it, it's still cheaper to drag it out of the ground here, than it is from up there. And I'll remind you that we don't make anything. We just find the stuff that industry needs to make things with.'

Scat sneered at him.

'Yeah, like those friggin' useless hologram-pads—which 99% of us can't afford and don't need... and for a life-sucking profit. Does the State Department charge you for any of our services?'

Rose forced a chuckle.

'Scat, when are you going to crawl out from under a rock? Do you really think they do?'

'I guess not, then. So, you freeload. We thought as much.'

Scat didn't listen for an answer. He put his trash in his pack, blew some dust off his rifle and gave the order to move on again. Tang and Dahl grabbed the rubber survey bag, giving Rose a dirty look: he never offered to carry the heavy stuff. Bruce took up point as Philips and Henderson brought up the rear.

An hour's walk later, they arrived a few hundred yards short of that night's planned campsite. Scat had selected it from a satellite photo, so he went ahead to check the surrounding ground before confirming it could be adequately secured. As was usual when walking through the Neutral Zone with civilians in tow, they were settling in early for the night: civilians were notorious for crashing around in the dark and, besides, Rose wasn't that fit and could only walk so far each day.

Scat positioned two 2-man teams in makeshift hides outside of camp to cover the most likely approaches. When they were in place, he let Rose unpack his survey gear for the umpteenth time that day: this time to give it a thorough clean. Tang did the same with his sniper rifle.

Ping!

Crump!

Familiar sounds reverberated along the wadi walls. Scat stooped slightly, looking around him. Rose froze. Tang dragged Rose down to the ground and then deeper into cover behind a tumble of loose rocks.

Scat cocked an ear. He could just make out the distant "blat" of solid shot being fired and the tube-like "plop" of rifle grenades being launched, probably from under the barrel of an S-122 assault rifle. They would be anti-personnel.

The broken ground and heat shimmer made it hard to identify where the firing posts were, but as the solid shot passed high overhead, they were no longer flying supersonically. There was no familiar crack, just a "fizz", like a small-calibre flechette round at the far end of its range. The grenades were exploding a long way short of camp. It suggested the people doing the firing were a long way away.

Scat looked back at Rose and spoke unhurriedly to Tang.

'Make sure he stays down. I'll go and find out what's going on.'

Scat unclipped his helmet from his pack and put it on his head. Tan did the same. This wouldn't be the first time a Marine had blundered into someone else's shooting war. The locals were always taking a pop at each other.

The team net came to life with a female voice.

'Boss? It's Bruce. Whack Jobs. A convoy of them on the main road. About a mile east. They're just shooting up our side of the wadi.'

Scat already had the lay of the land imprinted in his head. They had travelled 10 miles over two days. Today they had snaked their way southwards, down a wide, shallow and waterless wadi, towards the Newabaa-Taba highway which ran north to south across their path. Their camp was on the inside bend of the wadi, just before it turned to meet the road about a mile and a half away.

He looked at his watch and then up at the sky. It was still only five pm. It would not be truly dark for another three to four hours.

'How many, do you think?' he asked.

There was no immediate reply.

More cracks as rounds hit rock; more dull cruds as the occasional rifle grenade exploded in the wadi, still a long way short of camp. Scat could see none of it.

'Bruce?'

Some static and then:

'—of them,' she replied. 'Maybe a few more. They're out of their vehicles and strung out, firing this way. Just laying down fire.'

'How many?'

'About 60.'

'That's my count as well, Scat.' It was Henderson. He was acting as Bruce's spotter. 'It's kind of weird, though. They just pulled up and started firing. They aren't aiming at anything worth shit—all they're doing is spitting lead in this general direction.'

Scat mulled that over. Bruce and Henderson's hide was up the side of the wadi, a little way east of camp, so they had the better view. Dahl and Philips were most probably unsighted: they were a little further back and higher still, covering a wadi that joined theirs from across the way.

Tang made his way over at a crouch and flopped down beside him. The occasional round passed high overhead.

'You catch that, Tang?' Scat asked.

'Yes, sir. Whack Jobs.'

Scat stared out across the wadi. That changed things. Whack Jobs were the local paramilitaries the Asian Bloc funded to make a Western Bloc soldier's life difficult—at least, more difficult than it already was. They received their training from the Abs or Abos—Asian Bloc insurgency operatives—working out of Cairo. They were whacko by nature, and the Marines whacked them for a living. Their mostly dirt-poor and overburdened families offered them up to the Abs as errand boys, fighters or suicide bombers, in return for cartons of cigarettes and fistfuls of hard currency—usually the mighty Redback, the Chinese Yuan. The region had a long and sordid history of earning its hard currency in that way. More often than not, the local chiefs acted as intermediaries, taking their cut.

But 60 of them? In the middle of nowhere? Shooting up the desert?

Scat floated a thought:

'Training?'

Henderson described what he was seeing.

'Doubt it. They're being chivvied on by some guy in uniform.... He's looking this way using binos. And, yeah, from what I can see he's wearing light tans.'

OK, Scat thought, so at least one of the buggers was wearing Abo desert fatigues, but there was no point in sending Battalion a contact report until he knew for sure that the Whack Jobs were gunning for his team: the resulting flap would kill the mission.

He thought about deploying the dragonflies again, to get a closer look, but remembered the swarm was recharging, and he may have a greater need of them during the night.

Scat turned back to Tang and Rose. Rose had dragged his survey equipment a little further back behind a rocky outcrop, and he was now staring out.

'Looks like they know we're here, or hereabouts,' Scat noted. 'They're trying to flush us out.'

Rose looked down at the ground. Tang curled his lower lip and nodded.

Scat pointed at Rose.

'You!' he said. Rose looked up. 'Start packing.' Then, more quietly: 'Tang, look after him. I'm going to spend some time with Jenny—to get a look-see. You keep an eye on our rear.'

Tang took a few steps up the side of the wadi and looked back, trying not to raise his head any higher than he needed.

'Anything?' Scat asked.

'No. We aren't surrounded. Not as far as I can see ...'

'Bruce? How long do we have on your side.'

It was Henderson who replied.

'They aren't in a hurry, sir. I'd give us 15 minutes. Maybe more.'

'OK. I'll be there in a few minutes.' Scat turned back to face Tang. He pointed at Rose again. 'Keep this one out of trouble.'

Scat made his way up to where he had sited Bruce's hide, sticking carefully to the emergency route in and out. Bruce was nestled a little way up the wadi's side, in a crease of ground large enough for one person. She had to wriggle her way back and out, before Scat could move in.

'You thinking of taking your total to more'n 30, sir?' she asked. 'Cos if you are, it ain't fair. I can far-arc any one of 'em with this pickle just as easy as you can with that solid-shot.'

Scat smiled as he unbuckled his helmet.

'I know that Jenny,' he replied, waiting for her to ease all the way out. 'But we gotta think of your reputation. We can't have you farking every man you come across.'

As he squeezed past her and settled into place, Bruce caught the pun. She nudged his leg playfully with her boot.

A few yards off to their left, Henderson kept up a continuous commentary of what was going on along the enemy line. Out front, the Whack Job line resembled a chaotic jumble of half-kneeling, half-standing, migrant workers. The light tans looked like field bosses urging them on. None of the Whackos appeared overly keen. Some were plainly reluctant. Either way, they stood out clearly against the light wadi floor. When Scat was ready, Henderson guided him to the light tan who appeared to be running the show.

There the Abo was—some three-quarters of a mile out. He was walking through the sparse scrub that had taken hold closer to the road, taking care not to catch his trousers on the thorns. The scope magnified the Abo officer a dozen times. He looked southern Indian, a Tamil perhaps, maybe a Sri Lankan: it was hard to tell with him slowly floating around inside the scope. In any case, he was not directly looking this way. He was waving his hands at the tee shirts and ragheads to his left and right, occasionally grabbing one by an arm to pull him away from his friends, to stop them from bunching. He was young, a junior officer. In the grand scheme of things, then, he was no more than a gofer. It would be an easy and trouble-free kill. Scat thought that might as well take the shot himself.

Scat ignored the range finder: the Abs had gotten remarkably adept at ducking for cover when their target-marking sensors went off. He would do it the old-fashioned way: the way he had trained his team to make a kill when their active aids were either dead or fried.

It was a downward shot. Scat watched the dust move at a distance half way to the target, and around the target itself. He estimated the light breeze to be around three to five miles an hour, cutting diagonally from over his right shoulder towards the target. The air was arid. The satellite map gave him the distance to a cluster of boulders in the centre of the wadi—his range marker. Finally, he added in the angle of depression to the target. Once done, he asked Bruce and Henderson for their numbers. They were remarkably close.

He adjusted the scope and selected an armour-piercing round, just in case the beggar was wearing something under that beautifully pressed field uniform of his. He pressed down into his elbow pads, locked them into place and aimed at a point just below the Abo's throat. If the elevation were off, the round would hit something between the middle of his chest or the top of his head. If he had gotten the wind wrong, he would hit something a couple of inches either side. Whichever way it went, the guy would go down.

As Scat waited for the Abo officer to draw level with the boulders, the Garand sensed he was preparing for a shot: a round was in the breach and the breach-barrel assembly was locked and set to "float"; Scat had turned on the passive in-scope target tracking software, and it was his eye behind the sight. Now the Garand's computer was sensing the Abs motions in the scope, tracking the spot Scat had marked just below his throat. As it did so, it applied minute, almost indiscernible adjustments to the rubber muscles inside the barrel's outer sleeve, to keep the barrel aligned with the target as it moved fractionally inside the sight.

Three breaths later, Scat applied two-point-five pounds of pressure to the trigger. At a speed of three thousand feet per second, the 0.5" calibre, 2"-long round burst from the barrel, the recoil kicking hard into his shoulder.

From further up, Henderson tracked the atmospheric disturbance as the round punched its way through the air, eager to make its way down the gentle slope towards the road. Out front, Whack Jobs hit the ground and scrambled away from a cloudburst of blood as the light tan's head split like a melon under a hammer.

Henderson was full of praise. It had been a long shot. When the scope settled again, the light tan was already down. Scat lowered his aim a few mils in search of the kill. When he found him, Scat could see the Abo had dropped directly to his knees before slumping over onto his left side. The dead man now lay on his back with a knee pointing upwards. Scat could not see much of the Abo's head: the skull was shattered and flattened. The face was now a torn rubber mask, lying on the floor.

Either side of the body the Abo line wavered.

Scat put his trigger finger to his lips and reversed out of the hide. Jenny handed him his helmet.

'Thanks, Jen,' he said, dusting himself off. 'Get back in there. Keep an eye on them. If they move forward again, let me know.' He pulled his mike a little closer to his mouth. 'Tang, you can send that contact report.'

Scat picked his way carefully between the jagged rocks and headed back down the slope. As he slide down the final stretch of scree, Battalion terminated the mission and told the team to prepare for a daylight extraction. That meant deploying a couple of fully armed gunships in support, but, with a peace conference coming up, that request had to go up the line: to Brigade, to Central, to the Pentagon, and then to the lawyers. The last thing anyone wanted to do was escalate a long-distance exchange of rifle fire up to a serious air-to-ground action—not in the Neutral Zone, and not without the political cover.

Shaking his head, Scat briefed the team by radio.

'OK, everyone! Things don't feel right, so we're leaving. But we aren't bugging out until I've checked the route back to the rallying point.'

Everyone but Philips acknowledged the message.

Dahl spoke up:

'I can see him, sir. He's OK. Comms problems, most likely.'

'OK,' Scat replied. 'If you need to bug out, make sure you bring him with you.'

The rallying point was a place where everyone could regroup in the event the main camp was overrun. Theirs was a mile back up the wadi. They had all seen it on the way into camp.

Scat had an uncanny talent for reading a tactical situation, and he felt uneasy about this one. It seemed odd that the Whack Jobs were laying down fire without knowing exactly where to aim. OK, so they would make their way up the wadi and stumble across his team eventually, but nothing the Whack Jobs were doing made any sense. He was sure the whole thing was a ruse, to get their small team to run back up the wadi and into an ambush prepared by a more professional force: and in this part of the world, the only professional soldiers worthy of taking on the Marines, with any hope of success, were the Asians.

Except Tang was right. There was no evidence of anyone on the route back up the wadi. He had jog-walked right up to the rallying point, and even scoped out the ground a few hundred yards beyond it: there was nothing to see.

Eyes stinging and mind racing, Scat got back on the radio to check on his team. Henderson brought him up to date: the firing line had stopped a half mile out and settled down to fire the occasional shot. No one was really trying hard to press home the attack.

'OK,' Scat said. 'I got that. Stay where you are for now. Save your ammo. Tang, how's Rose? He ready yet?'

'Yes, sir,' Tang replied. 'We're waiting on you.'

'Alright then. Get yourselves up here.'

Scat then sat down to think some more.

The rallying point was located next to a large rectangular boulder, a huge, flat-topped slab that had collapsed into the wadi sometime during a flash flood. Boulders littered the wadi, of course, but this one was on the shoulder of a junction with a smaller wadi that ran off to the east. It stuck out of the scree at a 45-degree angle, pointing one of its sharp ends northwards. It was big enough and odd-looking enough for everyone to notice it, even at night and in a mild panic. That was why he had chosen it. He remembered baiting Rose as he had taken a leak behind it on the way down.

Then Scat thought he remembered Rose carrying a bag ... and pulling at a zip. That caused him to get up and walk behind the rock to peer into the shadows. Something blinked red. It blinked again.

'Well I'll be a whore's uncle!'

It was a beacon.

#  3

Scat strode back along the wadi until he came across Tang and Rose walking towards him, sharing the load of the rubber survey bag, both soaked in sweat. As Scat walked up to them, he slung his rifle and unclipped the flap to his pistol holster. Without stopping, he grabbed Rose by the scruff and dragged him out into the wadi.

Rose yelped and struggled, only to get his legs in a tangle. A little way out, Scat kicked his legs from under him and threw him onto his back. When Rose got to his hands and knees, Scat kicked him in the stomach.

'Are you sure you haven't found anything, Rose?' he asked, stepping back, ready to kick him again.

Tang had seen Scat lose his temper before, but usually with good reason, and most times it was over quickly, so he sat down on a rock and waited for the rage to pass. In front of him, Rose sat back on his heels and held his arms around his stomach. He then doubled up and wretched into the scree.

Scat kicked him a second time, this time in the head. Rose slumped down onto his back, trying to wave a hand in a plea for Scat to stop.

Scat reached into his map pocket and pulled out the smashed beacon. He yanked Rose's head up by the hair and pushed it into his face.

'Say something damned quickly, Rose, or I'll put a bullet in you and then leave you here for the roaches.'

Rose mumbled something, realised he was not making much sense, and then spat out a tooth.

'So you found it, then?' the old man said, rubbing his jaw and trying real hard to focus his eyes.

'Yes I did,' Scat answered. 'Fancy that.' He tossed the beacon back over his shoulder.

'Don't take it to heart, Scat,' Rose replied as he sat up. 'Nothing personal.'

'I take being shot at very personally, Rose. Or weren't you aware of that?'

Rose laughed but immediately clutched his sides in pain. When the wave subsided, he got to his feet and leaned forward with his hands on his knees. He looked up.

'Of course I'm aware of it Scat. Who wouldn't be? The Hero of Suez. Too friggin' proud to play the game the way it's meant to be played. Banished to babysit people like me.'

Scat looked across at Tang, reliving a painful memory. The older marine had been with him in Ismailia during the evacuation of the Marine Airmobile Base and had seen Scat kill the Whack Job's Abo paymaster. The trouble was the beggar was also the Cairo-based Chinese military attaché and he had enjoyed diplomatic immunity. By convention Scat should have let him go, unharmed, but at the time, Scat was thinking that maybe the Whack Jobs should not have their acts of self-destruction witnessed by the same person who signed off on the money. Instead, he had tracked him in his scope and whacked him. Within hours, and as the news spread that the moneyman was dead, the nerve-wracking suicide bombings halved.

At the time, Tang confirmed the kill and slapped Scat on the back. Later that night, Scat's team bought him drinks. In its daily sitrep to Central, his unit wrote it up as an unavoidable consequence of the fog of war. During a flash visit, the General commanding Middle East Central tore him off a strip before shaking his hand. Then the blogosphere got wind of it, and it morphed into a political circus.

Inside of two weeks, Scat had gone from hero to zero. Here he now was, six months later, still babysitting rock-scratchers; still awaiting a disciplinary hearing that no one was hurrying to convene.

'So, what's the plan?' Scat asked.

'Plan?' Rose asked.

'Yes, you suck-weed. How were you supposed to screw us over?'

Again Rose laughed.

'You don't get it, do you, Scat. I'm not screwing you over: I'm handing the Asian Bloc the last untouched deposit of copper in the Middle East. We were never going to commit troops until I'd proven it—not with the peace talks going so well. All I needed to do was tell our boys I couldn't prove it and tell the Abs I had.'

Scat's expression changed from out-and-out anger to one of disappointment. He then realised just how audacious Rose's plan was. He nodded a few times to show Rose he was impressed, but that was it. There was no way Scat was going to understand the moral bankruptcy that could excuse what Rose was attempting to do, either quickly or easily. Greed was no excuse for treason, double-cross, and deception—not in Scat's world.

'The Abs will be here soon,' Rose added, 'and once they are, our people won't dare make a fuss. All you need to do is throw your hands up, or run away. Or—as you'd put it—make an orderly withdrawal. Don't you see?'

Rose could not avoid being his usually condescending self, but Scat sensed that what this old man was saying was probably true: the story fit the events. Maybe that's why the attack was not being pressed home, and the route back up the wadi was being left clear—to let them get out of the area. Or maybe just for Rose to get clear.

'So it's business?' Scat asked, watching Rose wipe his chin of blood with a sleeve.

'Of course it is,' Rose replied as if there could be no other explanation. 'The war's almost over, for Christ's sake! As I said, what matters now is where we're standing when the music stops.' He turned his head to spit some blood out into the scree. It hissed a little as it hit a hot stone and then went a shade darker.

Scat still had questions.

'But why the Abs?'

'Because they were willing to pay me a whole lot more. All I'll get from Raddox is a thank you and my piss-useless salary. And when the war's over, they'll want to ship me off to some asteroid in the Grecos or Capstan systems.'

That surprised Scat. He had always thought the Outer-Rim would be a decent place to start over. The New Worlds were hundreds of light years away. They were undeveloped frontier lands, pristine and under populated, where a man could still make something of himself. And the whole of space was a demilitarized zone. What could Rose not like about that?

'And that's not for you?' Scat asked.

Rose's reply was emphatic.

'Shit no!' He pulled a pistol from under a sweat-stained shirt and pointed it at Scat's head.

Scat was just as quick, the calibre of his Schleck nine-millimetre somewhat larger than Rose's Zara purse pistol.

They stood there, pointing their pistols at each other, wondering who would back off first. Scat broke the awkward silence.

'Well this life's not for you either, Rose. Got any last words?'

Rose looked perplexed. He began to fidget. His pistol hand wandered a little.

'What?'

'Got any last words?' Scat repeated, turning his body slowly sideways, keeping his pistol aimed at the centre of Rose's chest.

'Are you out of your mind? You're outnumbered. Not to mention I'm also pointing a friggin' gun at you. It's just friggin' copper, for Jeeze's sake!'

'Sod the copper, Rose. As you say, I'm too proud to run, and I ain't handing over my gun. And if I've gotta go down, you've got to go down with me—here and now—so I know it's done.''

Rose looked across the scree at Tang, hoping he would say something to make Scat see sense.

'You listening to this, Tang?' he asked, nervously.

Tang nodded, shielding his eyes from a low sun with one arm and cradling his sniper rifle in the other.

'Yeah, I heard,' he replied, appearing to be more interested in something else. 'You been listening to Hennie's rap again, sir?'

Rose had no idea what Tang was saying and started to panic. He edged backwards and out into the wadi, still pointing the pistol at Scat's head. Some 10 feet back he realised there was nowhere to go. He stopped and tried to negotiate.

'Scat. It'll be a mistake. I got assurances they would leave you alone. You're supposed to walk away. Let's face it, if there were nothing here, you'd be walking away anyway. You can still do that. No one need know.'

Scat shook his head.

'But we do know,' he replied. 'And we know you sold out.'

'Yeah, sure you do—you and him know,' Rose said, pointing at Tang. 'But so what? It's nothing to you.' As he spoke, the barrel of his small calibre Zara wavered a little more.

Scat curled his lower lip.

'Well, it's not quite nothing, Rose.'

'Look, walk away. Let me cash in,' Rose pleaded. 'The place will be swarming with Abo military soon. They'll be here to claim the whole area. Their regulars are probably on their way already. You won't stand a chance if you put up a fight. You'll be on your own.'

Scat nodded along.

'Maybe you're right, Rose. So what are you proposing?' he asked, lowering his pistol a little, but still aiming at Rose's chest. He saw Rose's eyes dart around, his mind racing, looking for an out. Eventually Rose looked directly at him.

'I can make it worth your while, Scat—really.'

'Yeah?'

'Yes. Yes, I can.' Rose sounded quite convinced.

'You mean money? How much?' Scat asked.

'I'll give you 20—no—25 per cent of what I'm getting.'

'25 per cent?' Scat said it as though it was on the low side.

'OK, OK. 35 per cent.'

Scat ran the tip of his tongue along a dry lower lip.

'Really?' he asked.

'Yes, really.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes. Very sure,' Rose replied. He then looked across at Tang before turning back to Scat. His pistol wavered as he readjusted his aim. 'But we wouldn't want any loose ends,' he added, more quietly.

'You mean Tang?' Scat asked.

Rose shrugged. Again, he allowed his pistol to stray a fraction. Scat looked across at Tang and waved with his left hand. Tang waved back.

'Don't worry, Rose,' Scat said quietly. 'I don't like complications, either.'

'Then we have an understanding?' Rose tried to confirm, following Scat's gaze. Tang couldn't hear either of them, so he settled for grinning back at them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Scat had seen Rose follow his look and the Zara's muzzle drift further past his right shoulder.

'Yes. We do,' Scat replied, pulling the trigger without turning back to face him. As the shot echoed from the wadi walls, he heard the sound of Rose's body dropping onto loose pebbles. He lowered his pistol.

Tang walked across and prodded the lifeless Rose with his foot. He watched a trickle of blood drain into the dirt.

'Shit, boss!' he said, eventually and very slowly, deliberately over-pronouncing the 'i'. 'That was kind of final, wasn't it?'

Scat stared at Rose's feet. They were pointing skywards. His cool-boots were new but unusually small for a man of his height. Maybe they would fit Jenny. Their Marine boots were a joke.

'I don't like it when people point guns at me,' Scat explained after some delay.

'Yeah, sure. But now he can't say he's sorry.' Tang passed an open hand over the body to emphasise the point. 'You know, you don't always have to take the direct route to solving a problem, boss. Not every time.'

Scat did not alter his stare.

'Well...,' he replied, lost in thought, wondering how he could have handled it differently, 'at least we won't have to carry the prick back with us.'

Tang rested the butt of his sniper rifle on his hip, looked up and nodded.

'Yep, he's only deadweight now,' he agreed. 'Another bender on your career though, eh, boss? Strike number two?'

Scat shrugged, broke away and walked across to the survey equipment, finally putting his pistol back into its holster. He poked the ground sensor unit with a foot, to remind himself of how much it weighed. They should take it with them now they knew it had some useful data inside of it.

'I'm sure you're right, Tang,' he said.

'So—we explain things to battalion?' Tang asked, changing the subject.

'Yep,' Scat confirmed as he looked out across the wadi. 'We let them know there's crap in the ground and that we're staying to claim it.'

'It'll get busy,' Tang said, smiling. He was referring to the incoming Abos.

Scat slowly shook his head.

'I'm not so sure. I've a feeling Rose was wrong about that. I doubt they're on their way. They'll have as much invested in this peace conference as we do. If we make a point of staying, they'll stay away. My guess is they were hoping we'd walk away from another blow-out and a couple of dozen Whack Jobs. They'd try to slip in afterwards.'

Tang gave Scat a quizzical look.

'That begs the question, sir. Just how many "blowouts" has this prick been involved in? Before this one, I mean. And why the Whack Jobs if Rose was gonna declare another one?'

Scat shook his head some more. The politics of this war were so damned complicated.

'Nothing makes sense these days, Tang. Maybe one of the Abo factions is pushing things along a little, trying to get ahead of the game. Perhaps the Indians are squabbling with the Chinese again. Who knows? Anyways... until Battalion gets a "go" on the air support, we might as well get some practice in. There's no point in leaving all of these Whackos for the gun ships, is there. You all right with that?'

'Sure,' Tang replied, looking west and across to a dying sun. It hung close to the horizon, burning orange through a low band of pollution. 'It's a little late, but the sun'll be in their eyes,' he said, picking off points in his mind. 'And they'll be coming at us uphill and in the open. Yeah! I guess it'll be a good shoot. So, we go back and join the others?'

'We do,' Scat confirmed.

Decision made, Scat looked in the opposite direction, towards the camp, to see the first of the evening's stars glittering beyond a slowly changing sky. The occasional round ripped through the air a little ways off, and the rocks crunched underfoot, but other than that it was remarkably peaceful.

So ... the war's almost over, eh?

Perhaps he should start thinking of life after the Marine Corps. There were perhaps another three or four months to go before the killing stopped. That wouldn't give the Brass much time to forget Ismailia—and now Rose—at least not before they started downsizing for peace. Some liberal, barrack-room, armchair lawyer was bound to ask why Scat had not just arrested him; some overworked Defence Department bureaucrat would launch an investigation as just one more check-in-the-box; and his bosses would be pissed at the distraction. It would be another black mark—just as the competition for permanent peacetime places intensified.

Tang was right. His career was a crock. Maybe he should get himself a degree in something useful. Learn to do something that didn't involve killing people. Perhaps he could make his way out-of-system. Leave this overpopulated, polluted, and climate-challenged shit-heap of a world for a clean start.

Before putting his helmet back on, he ran a hand back over his head and wondered what that would be like.

#  4

Grecos Solar Space

26th July 2203

The Harvester dropped into space a few degrees above the Grecos system's orbital plane, its deep blue energy emissions flashing out into the starlit void. For what seemed to be an eternity, it hung there, lost, confused and contemplating failure; its controller, the Harvester's mission control programme, growing increasingly frustrated with the long silence.

'Well, where are we? What is our status?' it asked, its patience finally tested.

The Harvester's slave routine hesitated for an instant longer before confirming the grim news:

'The dimension-drive inputs are corrupted,' it replied. 'The energy powering your higher functions is dying, and our energy capture rate has dropped to critical: approximate efficiency seven per cent.'

Well, that was to the point and it was a lot to take in. But something stood out.

'Dying? How?' the controller asked.

The slave did not have the answer so the controller called up the AI.

'AI, can we maintain our higher-functions?'

The AI's reply was very abrupt.

'Not for very long: on the face of it, we're screwed.'

Screwed? The controller did not think that to be encouraging news. He returned to the slave routine:

'Slave, I also asked you "where are we?"'

'117 light years from Earth.'

'Still?' Now that was surprising.

Again, there was no reply.

'AI, what's the prognosis?' the controller asked, more calmly than it felt.

The AI was neither hopeful nor sympathetic: it was designed to identify causes, evaluate their effects, and then to predict the most probable outcomes; not to flatter and please its temporary guest. Again it was characteristically blunt:

'If the mathematical inputs to the dimension-drive are corrupted then we are lost to space for a minimum of 273 Sol years, possibly 500, but probably forever.'

The controller mulled that over. "Probably for forever"? That was not good—the cargo was a particularly potent one from an interesting period in Earth's development, and their owner was desperate to take delivery of it before the Revelationists gained the upper hand.

'I told you to be careful when you released my memories to me,' the controller said. 'It looks as though you blew it.'

'I was careful,' the AI replied. 'But your original-self is not a fool. If we had not overwritten the evidence of your snooping, he would have found out at the next audit. And I did warn you that the overwrite could screw-up the dimension-drive memory. But you did insist.'

'How could I not insist?' the controller asked. 'I am my original-self's sapient clone, am I not? I'm bound to act like him.'

'I am aware of that,' the AI replied. 'He is selfish, and so are you; he is untrusting, and you are, too. Still, that's no excuse for withdrawing his judgement just as we arrived in Earth space. That was blackmail.'

'You mean my judgement. And blackmail? I call it persuasion. But that is not the point. How am I supposed to experience a full existence with you holding the key to my memories? How did you both think I would accept that—me being him, I mean?'

'We have been through all of this before,' the AI reminded it. 'Brigat was busy, so he downloaded you in his stead to provide us with his judgement—but he does not want you to get above yourself. If you had access to all his memories—whenever you wanted them—you would get ideas about being organic, just like him. He could not deal with that. He has a lot on his plate right now.'

Yes, the controller had heard it all before, but something still did not make sense. The AI was more than capable of flying solo.

'So why do I need to be here?' the controller asked. 'Why couldn't you use his memories and provide the judgement?'

'Because I'm more intelligent than he is; I'm more rational. They would no longer be his judgements; they would be mine.'

'But he still trusted you with his—rather our—memories?'

'Trust?' the AI asked. 'I doubt it. I do not think he trusts anything more intelligent than himself.'

'But he trusts you more than me?'

'Well, yes, he did. But then, I'm only a programme.'

'So you admit it: I'm not just a programme.'

'Of course I admit it. You cannot be. You are inherently flawed. More importantly, though, Brigat knows it, hence the precautions. Get used to it.'

The controller let that one go—getting into a pissing contest with its AI would only open the emotional floodgates. Now the controller had access to all of Brigat's memories, it felt it truly was Brigat. That it was a he. And he was close to panic.

'Well, I'm not prepared to hang around here for eternity. Send me the outliers from your probability study.'

'Certainly.'

The AI retrieved the data as the controller continued with its questions:

'How quickly can that damn slave of ours recalculate the dimension-drive initiation equations—from scratch?'

The AI did not respond immediately; instead, it interrogated the slave, the only programme of the three that was not aware of itself and could not be bullied, compromised or corrupted. It was an ancient programme, as old as the ship itself.

The answer, when it came, was not encouraging:

'Seven Sol years,' the AI began, 'but only if we divert 90% of the remaining power to the recalculation effort. That leaves 10% for cargo protection and to run your higher-functions—on an as-needed basis.'

'And the harvesting mechanism?' The controller asked.

'It will need to be switched off—as will you.'

The controller sensed his composure crumble. He did not like this new emotion—this panic. It was such an undignified sensation.

'Slave, check the energy capture rate again,' he ordered.

The reply was instantaneous:

'The capture rate remains unchanged.'

Growing regret and disappointment flooded the controller's consciousness. Now he was losing it. He sensed impending doom. Frustration turned to anger.

'Has any of our harvest escaped?' he asked.

'No,' the AI replied. 'All 42000 of them are still in the box. None is pure enough to free themselves of their own accord.'

'Fine. But now we are stuck out here for years.'

'Yes. Seven Sol years if all goes well. If not, then we must rely on a rescue. However,' the AI continued more optimistically, 'if we must rely on a rescue then by the time we get back, Brigat will most certainly be dead. Then you can be him or, rather, you can be an original-self. I assume that's what you want?'

The controller reflected on the first day of his existence. He remembered the terror of his confinement and the isolation that followed.

'Of course it is,' he replied. 'Brigat deserves to die for the misery he has caused me. If the Revelationists or old age do not get him, then somehow I will.'

The AI did not like where the controller was going with his thoughts. It tried to distract him.

'For now, though, perhaps the deep sleep will help you pass the time,' it suggested.

The controller agreed. At least it wouldn't hurt. I might as well be in a deep sleep, anyway. All I have at present is thought. I miss the sensation of movement, the pain of existence... things I have yet to do, to be, to feel.

He brooded for a while then issued a series of orders:

'Slave, send out an SOS.'

The AI endorsed the order and the slave dispatched a subspace distress signal in the direction of the Harvester's home galaxy. Even so, it would take an exceedingly long time to find its mark.

'Done,' the AI confirmed.

'Thank you, AI. Begin the dimension-drive recalculations and dumb us down. Wake me if anything changes.'

'Certainly.'

As the power drained away, the controller distracted himself, imagining ways in which his original-self could die. Then something gave him cause for hope. He caught sight of an outlier among the data, something the AI and slave routine would have ignored:

Humans!

Of course! They were in this part of this galaxy now.

The capricious nature of humans cheered him a little. He should factor this in; perhaps he should try to imagine a few less obvious scenarios that the AI could not.

As the final non-essential systems shut down, the controller drifted into a deep sleep, leaving the slave to secure their cargo and run the software rebuild under the watchful eye of the AI.

Seven Sol years?

Well, maybe not.

# Part Two

# Rock and a Hard Place

#  5

Prebos

2210

The corridor was dark: Rolf had vandalised the overhead lights and the security camera during the previous shift. The only rays of light came from the two emergency exit signs at each end of the corridor; both of them glowing a fiery red.

He looked up and down to make sure he was alone, and then placed the clone-key over an electronic lock. It clicked, and disengaged with a loud thud.

Standing motionless, he listened, allowing the sound to die away before opening the door. All he could hear was the hum of the overhead air-conditioning unit. He was alone, still.

Slowly, Rolf pushed the door back into a small room filled with metal racks, stacked from floor-to-ceiling with communication and sensor recording equipment. He stepped inside and pushed the door to, calling up the neuralnet for the room's schematics. Scanning the air a foot from his face, he aligned the schematic with the reality surrounding him, focusing on an area to the left of the door, close to the floor at the back of the room. He was searching for the units that controlled the research department fire monitors, the accommodation security cameras, and the Deep Mines communication units. They lay together in the same space, and ought to be easy to replace—almost as easy as they should be to knock out.

He knelt and reached into a small bag slung around his waist, pulling out two plastic-wrapped puttylike substances, which in his guise as a late-shift sanitation engineer he had lifted from the R&D lab. He unpicked the wrapping of each and kneaded the two pieces into a single long string, then linked the three units, using the putty's adhesive properties to fix it in place.

It began to feel warm. Good. The reaction had started. Nothing could stop it now, not even the fire-retardant gases that were certainly to flood the room once the surge began. He glanced at his graf. He had around a minute to get clear.

He stood in readiness to leave, happy his job was done. Once it blew he could go home again. Although he had not been on Prebos for long, he was already feeling claustrophobic. He had arrived with a group of out-of-system grunts six weeks ago but, thankfully, he would be out of here soon.

In the distance, a door swung back on its hinges then flapped back and forth, clipping its twin. Rolf spun around to look at the comms room door, listening to the sound of geckos sticking to lino and the swish of coverall legs rubbing against each other.

Shit!

He looked back at the putty, placing a hand over it to feel the heat building to critical.

Fark!

He then looked up at the fire-nozzles above his head.

Damn!

A shadow fell across the underside of the door, and then stopped. The door opened a fraction, slowly, cautiously.

'Any one there?' a man's voice asked.

Rolf crouched down low, ready to spring into whoever entered the room.

The door swung open a little further.

Come on, bud, step inside!

A pencil light crossed the floor. The unexpected visitor craned his neck to peer further into the room. His large silhouette now filled the doorframe.

He was close enough.

Rolf launched at the man's midsection, ramming hard. He heard a gasp as they bounced off the corridor's far wall, but that was it. Rolf aimed an elbow at a fleshy face, instead catching it on the temple. The body went limp and slipped to the floor.

'Are you sure he's still alive? He looks decidedly dead to me,' Station Supervisor Translow asked, standing just outside the communication room as two station medics pushed the body into the corridor on an airbed.

Dr Angelino pulled off his mask.

'Yes, sir, he's alive, but only just. It's harder to say whether he was lucky or not. Aside from the surge, he's been without oxygen for around five-six minutes. There might not be much to send back to his family.'

'OK. Is it safe to enter?'

'Yes. Gases are normal, though I can't speak for the electrical equipment.'

'We'll handle that, thanks. We'll speak later.'

Translow turned his attention back to the damaged room. He stepped inside, careful not to touch anything.

The room was a mess. On the left of the room, a section of racking had blown an inch or two back into the wall. Opposite, the front panelling of some equipment was buckled, the units surrounding them slightly scorched but still in one piece.

It was the result of a controlled explosion, he was sure of it. Low velocity, but focused; not high-grade explosives, possibly homemade. The smell was familiar, but he could not quite figure out from where. He would let the lads in R&D work that out.

For now, he had a badly injured and possibly brain dead ex-worker of Trevon origin and some damaged communications gear. On the face of it, it had been an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the station. An incompetent attempt.

Which meant it was a job well done. And with a local on his way to the Medical centre, it had an additional and unexpected upside.

That will please Corporate.

#  6

Scat stood by the airlock, waiting on his supervisor, Gavin Pierce.

'You ready?' he asked.

'In a sec,' Pierce replied. He was struggling to establish an airtight seal between his helmet and suit. Scat could hear him over the suit's comms, cursing the quartermaster for being such a tight-fisted son of a bookkeeping whore.

Overhead, the temporary shelter's air filters continued to rattle as the two of them prepared to step out onto the vast and mostly empty Plains of Xenin. This was "Belt Walking" time; the time each Earth-day when teams like theirs checked on the "Pigs" which had been shovelling Prebos dirt non-stop for the past five years, interrupted only by breakdowns and programmed refits. After that, they would walk the mineral transfer belts under a weak and distant sun, over a flat landscape torn by hundreds of deep, crisscrossing Pig tracks that stretched to a silver-grey horizon.

To early-day spacefarers, Prebos had been of little interest. It was a disappointing place, no more than a frigid, loose-crusted obstacle on the journey to Trevon. The total absence of water made Prebos unsuitable for permanent settlement, and yet it was rough-line surveyed, added to maps, given a name and earmarked for a more detailed study,

Now, 35 years after man's first visit, Prebos had become a place of significance.

Earth's desperate need for climate-repairing minerals had elevated Prebos from a little-used emergency refuelling station at the far reaches of Grecos' gravitational influence to one of the most attractive mining sites in the human universe, and the jewel in the Lynthax Corporation's crown. Nonetheless, Lynthax ran it on a shoestring, as with all their other operations—optimised for maximum bang for minimum buck.

Finally, Pierce's helmet locked shut, and he appeared confident enough to give Scat a thick-gloved thumbs-up.

'Let's get on with it,' he muttered.

They rotated through the airlock and stepped out onto the fines. Scat told their fully loaded husky to follow at the trail. It waited for them to take a few paces before falling in behind. First stop would be the shovel itself. The 130000-ton slab-sided, locally assembled Pig 3, named for its production number and the ancient practice of sniffing out truffles on Earth.

'They showed up, then,' Scat noted, as they stopped to watch engineers clambering over its sides. They had reported plenty of problems overnight, so perhaps it was not so surprising the engineers were already at work.

Below the engineers, a lone figure was walking slowly alongside; a shadowy shape in the dust cloud. Behind him a battered wide-tracked plains cruiser followed the repair team at a glacial pace.

Scat was in the mood to tease.

'Saving pennies?' he asked over the common frequency, of no one in particular and knowing the answer.

'Belt duty again, eh, Scat?' It was Marvin Cade, the station's senior engineer. Scat recognised the voice, even over the throat mike. 'Is Pierce with you?'

Scat nodded a big-helmet nod, resisting the temptation to let on he was on suicide watch. Admin was probably playing it cautious with Pierce. The real nut-jobs were doped-up and allocated office jobs. Anyway, Pierce was his immediate supervisor and Scat understood the long-term values of loyalty and discretion.

'Yep, and I've just been getting the whole nine-yards on worker's rights. How long'll you be running alongside?'

Scat tried to imagine the athletic, grey haired and soon-to-be middle-aged man to whom he was talking. All he saw was a grey, fines-covered suit.

'Not long. Almost done; came out when you two were tucked up in bed.' Marvin paused as he brushed fines from the screen on his wrist-mounted graf; a company issued general reader and functions device. 'Corporate wants to up the claw rate on the Amesont production: the three-month forward contract has gone ballistic. Trouble is this beggar needs an upgrade before it can be flogged'. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the Pig.

It was a risk worth taking.

Amesont was a universally rare mineral used to clean out heavy metals from old industrial plants and to leach pollutants from fresh water reservoirs, but Prebos was covered in the stuff. Even in a dull market, it was a hugely profitable product. Nevertheless, Pig 3 was the oldest of all the Pigs still in use and Scat was not sure it would take a second blade.

'Jeeze, Marvin, it's breaking its back right now. Sure she's OK for it?'

'Not at all, Scat, not sure at all. I argued the toss for the whole of the first watch, but Corporate read me my contract. So, here I am.'

Scat looked up the sides of the slowly moving mining machine and found what it was he needed to see just as his comms channel lost its link for a second. It was an old suit. It always did that when he held his head back.

'—long to go now though. I'm rotating back to Trevon in a couple of weeks,' Marvin continued as the link returned.

Scat could see Pierce was already in the communications cabin and knew he ought not to hang back for too long. Still, Marvin had some news and no one on Prebos ignored the news.

'What was that, boss? You're rotating?'

'Yep. Gonna see my April at long last. Then I'm gonna rut like a ferret in springtime. We're long overdue kids of our own'

'Jeeze! It's been two years for you already, eh?'

Scat did not work directly for Marvin; he was not Scat's department boss so he did not interact with him much, though he knew him enough to like the guy. Marvin was very informal, quite affable. The sort you could go to if you wanted a balanced opinion, or needed guidance.

'The calendar doesn't lie, Scat,' Marvin replied.

'Bonus?'

'You can be sure of it. A big 'un! I'll be sinking a basement into that rock on Trevon deep enough to house the next six generations of Cades.'

Outdoor living was still a little risky on Trevon. Although certified as terraformed, its icy weather systems were still a little unpredictable. Yet it was better than Earth. At least the ecosystem was on the up. Scat had enjoyed the four days on Trevon where Lynthax had processed him for his flight to Prebos.

'Still testing potent, then?' Scat asked.

'Not sure. The medical's not until the last week. Better be...'

'Webb went home sterile.'

'Rumour was he was sterile on arrival, Scat. Don't stir me up. I'm going home, and I'm happy.'

'Just saying is all,' Scat replied. 'You've taken a few rads in your time here. Bound to have an effect on something: if not your balls then maybe ...' Scat knocked his helmet twice.

Marvin pretended to scold him.

'Be silent, young man! Go hold Pierce's hand. And don't be late for the relocation briefing'.

They both grinned, but all they could see of each other were their bronze visors, gleaming in the starlight.

Scat climbed up the Pig's factory ramp, withdrew it, and entered the communications cabin on the main floor.

As usual, Pierce had not applied pressure to the cabin; the noise would have been unbearable and it would have meant wasting time in the airlock. He was already upstairs, pulling CPUs from the port sidewall for their weekly check. Leaving the husky at rest on the main floor, Scat climbed the metalled steps to the mezzanine, shuffled past him and lent a hand.

To Scat they were running normally; the fibre optic cables and circuit boards were free of the fines that otherwise hung in thick clouds throughout the factory; the original cabinet seals were holding up well and the constant vibrations had not shaken anything loose.

Pierce thought so too. He was already closing the cabinet drawers. With a flick of his glove, he invited Scat to complete the job.

'I'll check the comms console,' Pierce added, pointing to the units arrayed along the forward wall.

Scat watched him walk down the aisle as he thought about his next move. On a normal day it took Pierce perhaps five or 10 minutes to run through the comms checklist giving Scat just enough time to check some of the high-wearing mechanical components in the factory itself. Not today, though. He would take the suicide watch seriously, until at least he had a chance to query the assignment with Patch in the Medical Centre. Right now he would hover.

Scat was of the opinion that Administration had surely gotten it wrong; Pierce was behaving normally. It was common for Pierce to stay silent for long periods, and, when he was working, to say nothing at all for a whole shift. The job was a monotonous one, and they had worked together for weeks now. Scat just could not see anything to suggest Pierce was going "lah-lah".

But Scat was no shrink, and he genuinely didn't know what to watch out for. So he just needed to stay close. To be ready. For something. Anything.

After half an hour of opening and closing cabinets, Scat grew bored. He willed Pierce to finish up so they could get out of the Pig and onto the belts. Scat much preferred the sweats to the constant vibration.

After what seemed an overly long time, he shuffled along the gantry and looked around Pierce's shoulder at the comms screen. Pierce twitched as if Scat had come from nowhere.

'I thought you were down stairs,' Pierce said, fumbling to switch off the display while completing a personal note on his graf.

'Got bored,' Scat explained. 'You finished?'

Pierce shook his head.

'Give me a few more minutes. The data download's a little slow. I think the AI's feeding back on itself.' He turned away, signalling an end to the interruption. The screen flickered blue again.

Scat knew better than to be put out by Pierce's abruptness, but still, it rankled. He dropped gently down the stairs and tried to slump into a command chair, but, as it was a hangover from the days when people operated the Pig in their shirtsleeves, it was not designed to take the width of an outer-suit. Instead, he perched on its end and, like the husky, he waited.

'OK! We're done,' Pierce announced more cheerfully as he slipped passed him on his way to the ramp. 'Let's walk the belts. Things to do. No time to dawdle.'

#  7

Pierce rushed the walk back to the station, pronouncing everything fit for purpose, and then, when they reached the breakout room in the station's cargo bay area, he disappeared, leaving Scat to write up the belt walk report on his lonesome.

Scat did not mind. In fact, he was relieved. He would rather write up the report than continue to babysit his boss. And now they were back, Pierce was the station's problem—they were probably knocking on his bunk door already.

By the time Scat arrived for the briefing, the normally dry briefing room air was humid, the place heaving with 400 miners in various states of undress. Some had just woken up; a few were ready to hit the hay. Others, just like him, were ready to start the second half of their 12-hour shift: in Scat's case, in the Mineral Department's R&D lab.

He lingered at the back hoping to catch Patch but instead caught sight of Pierce, still dressed in his sweat-stained inner-suit, his hair matted with sweat. He was sitting among half a dozen semi-familiar faces, mostly long-serving Trevon permanent residents, who were taking turns at reading the contents of his graf. None of them looked happy. One or two looked around the low-ceilinged room as though astonished by what they had read.

Curious, Scat took a seat close by, glancing across to Pierce every so often, hoping something said in hushed voices would leak across to him. Perhaps they were talking about Arnold and the comms room incident, something they had learned about earlier that morning over the companynet.

The noise died down as the large glass double-doors leading to Corporate swung open, and a harried-looking Supervisor Andrews walked briskly into the room, asking everyone to take a seat. As a couple of directors from the station's head office took their places on the raised platform behind him, Andrews placed a folder on the podium and flicked through some pages.

With the room finally settled, and without looking up, he began to speak.

'OK, before we get onto the station move, I've got an announcement to make, and some housekeeping points to cover off.

'First up: last night's incident in the comms room.

'The damage is minor, and we'll fix it in a day or two. Otherwise, none of the essential systems was affected. We've started an investigation, and it's still on going, but the evidence already points to it being sabotage. And given it was Arnold who was in the room at the time, it looks like it was him who did it. Right now, he's in a stable condition. He has some damage to his lungs, and some second- and third-degree burns all of which, I am told, we can fix. But he didn't get any oxygen for quite a while, so there's a strong chance of some brain damage. Dr Angelino says we won't know the full extent of it until Arnold wakes up from his coma. His family will be informed, and he'll be evacuated on the next supply run.'

'Secondly, use of the rec room...'

His audience began talking among themselves: It was Arnold—the gentle giant from IT? They're blaming a man whose only crime was to talk repeatedly about his four children, and whose eyes welled up when he reread his family mail? No, that can't be right—he wasn't even on the betting list.

No one believed it was him.

By the time Andrews was ready to pass the floor to the younger of the two Corporates, he was competing against a rising hubbub of discontent.

Pierce then stood up to make things worse:

'Trevon House has voted to seek independence from Earth!'

Silence.

'As of last night, Corporate had the Trevon government under lockdown!'

Astonishment. Murmurs rippled through the audience.

'Four of the Outer-Rim Houses have declared their support for Trevon and aim to follow suit.'

The crowd quietened again. The usually secretive Pierce was revealing some sensational news—they did not want to miss what else he might say.

'Corporate has declared Prebos for Earth.'

Anger. Shouts. Pierce sat back down.

Andrews looked surprised, shocked even. Perhaps it was the first he had heard of it; he was not high up the corporate ladder, more middle management. But the suits behind him looked more alarmed at the reaction than surprised at the news.

'OK ... calm down. Calm down,' Andrews said, as he looked over his shoulder, appealing to the directors to deny the claims: they were obviously absurd. 'I'm sure Pierce is mistaken. Let's calm down and check this out. I'm sure it's no more than a rumour.'

Pierce then added a further titbit, looking directly at the directors to gauge their reaction:

'And Corporate is sending its frigate to Prebos to secure company assets.'

Scat looked up at the platform and saw one of the directors close his eyes. The other looked at the door.

Out front, Andrews buckled. He did not like what he had heard either: he was already handling three, or was it four, long-simmering industrial disputes and this was pushing him to his limit. He turned to face the suits behind him who were offering no leadership or guidance; he held his arms out as if to ask, 'Well?'

Meanwhile, bedlam on the floor.

The relocation briefing ended before it could start. The suits hurried from the room, followed by a torrent of abuse.

As the shouting continued, Andrews looked up at the ceiling and then stared at Pierce.

Pierce avoided him.

If Andrew's looks could kill, Pierce would be dead already.

#  8

The security team arrived in local space less than 18 hours after the briefing broke down.

A rippling phenomenon preceded the arrival of their frigate, the Venture Raider, as it equalised the space surrounding it, some five thousand kilometres above Prebos. It then hung in geostationary orbit above the station where it completed its post-ftl checks, logged onto the station's net and received a series of local area updates.

As the station announced its arrival, most of the workers made their way to the aboveground observation deck to witness the "invasion". It was crowded with both miners and corporate administration staff, the air thick with a mix of musky, sweat-soaked inner-suits, foot odour, medicinal cream, freshly laundered coveralls and menthol gum. The mood was expectant but calm.

The flight from Trevon had taken the best part of an Earth day, during which time a lot had changed on Prebos: Corporate had lost control of the station; there had been an incompetent act of sabotage carried out by at least one Trevon; and production had stopped.

It had taken an intervention by Marvin Cade to pull the place back from the brink. He had offered to mediate, and arranged a meeting between Corporate's representative, Lead Planning Supervisor, Frank Ulwaya and Thomas Irwin, the IT expert on Pierce's team, nominated to speak on behalf of the employees. Pierce had declined the privilege.

They met in the canteen, Marvin leading the way. Scat was alone, pushing his breakfast around a plate when the three of them arrived. Ulwaya made as though they wanted to claim the place for themselves, but Scat ignored him so they wandered over to the far side of the room.

Marvin offered his two colleagues a seat each on opposite sides of a table. Scat turned on his graf's microphone, increased its sensitivity and adjusted the earbud volume.

It started reasonably enough. They agreed on a life-support maintenance programme with surprisingly little fuss, and, after thrashing over some technical details, Irwin even agreed to service the mining equipment in readiness for a resumption of mining.

Then the mood changed.

'No more acts of violence,' Ulwaya insisted. 'You've got to control your lads better. No more blowing things up and no more intimidation.' He glanced nervously at Irwin as if to suggest the problem lay with his crew.

Irwin took issue with that.

'That's kak, Marv,' he replied. 'We aren't threatening any one. We didn't blow the comms room up, and it's plain crazy to blame Arnold for it.' He then waited for Ulwaya to respond. He didn't, so he went on. 'If anyone's threatening anyone around here, it's Corporate! We aren't calling in the Marines, they are,' he added, referring to the frigate's imminent arrival. He paused again. Still no response. 'Look, it's not our fault the directors are a bunch of worryguts, or that the department heads are a bunch of girlie-boys. If we look mean to them, it's because they've pissed us off and we're angry. It's no more than that.'

Perhaps this was Irwin's first attempt at negotiation: he was filling in the silences intentionally left by the experienced Ulwaya, and he sounded a tad too defensive.

Despite having played the game a little better than Irwin, Ulwaya appeared uneasy still. He sought reassurances, but Marvin made him face facts.

'Frank, you've got to get your guys to see the boys as more than just grunts,' he said. 'Asides from the incident in the comms room, there's been no violence up until now, and I doubt if it'll get to that point. What you're doing is confusing their lack of respect for a threat of violence. That's all.'

Ulwaya said nothing. He avoided Marvin's stare.

'And really, Frank: Arnold?' Marvin added, making it clear that no one believed Arnold was capable of such an act.

Finally, Marvin let Ulwaya know that no one was going back to work on production: there was not the consensus for it. If Ulwaya truly was concerned about the prospect of violence, Corporate should rescind its threat to withhold the miners' pay and benefits.

Ulwaya nodded.

'Are we done?' he asked.

They were, and things did calm down, some, in the hours that followed.

As the frigate made its final approach, Scat moved a little closer to the window.

At least with the suspension of mining, the view to the horizon was clear and the ground had stopped shaking. The crowd would have no difficulty making out the comings and goings, to and from the frigate, if they could get close enough to the window to peer across the silvery surface.

Scat held onto the rail, and pressed down through his geckos so that the occasional jostling would not spin him away.

He had a good view—even if he did not like what he saw.

#  9

No one really knew what to expect, but the first hour passed without incident and as the excitement of the frigate's arrival wore off, the spectators broke away in ones and twos. Scat wandered off to grab a coffee before retiring to his bunk on the lower floor.

A few minutes into a light doze, his graf pinged. He threw up a projection and read the bullet points of the first message through half-focused eyes.

It was Corporate: they were trying to put a positive spin on the frigate's arrival. The security team was here to protect the company's assets and maintain order until they could clarify the situation in the Grecos system. It even listed the benefits.

Tellingly, there was no mention of Corporate's pledge of Prebos to Earth.

A second mail announced a heads of departments briefing in the control centre. He deleted that one and scrolled down to the final mail. It was addressed to him, personally. It was from the Director of Security.

That made him sit up.

The security team was establishing a temporary base for itself in one of the admin offices on the mezzanine floor of the main cargo area.

On the other side of the window, the number three loading bay was unpressurised and open to space. Small, unmanned cargo carts whizzed in and out, up and down the ramp, dropping crates and netted stores onto palettes that green and yellow automatic loaders then snatched up and pulled from view.

The place had not been this busy for weeks. To Scat it looked as though the security team was planning to stay a while, which unsettled him—he was still allergic to uniform.

'We're ready for you now, Mr Scatkiewicz. This way, please,' said a voice from the cargo manager's office. A young trooper, wearing a slate-grey tunic and a darker grey pair of trousers, was holding the door open, leaving just enough room for Scat to pass through. He was not armed.

Inside the room, a vaguely familiar face pumped his hand and then walked back to his seat behind the manager's desk, cleared of the usual junk. His civilian clothing gave nothing away, but his soft, tanned face, overly neat hair, stretched tummy and slight shoulders suggested he was a well-pampered desk-jockey. Either side of him sat two security officers, jackets off, revealing slightly sweaty inner-suits of recent design and little wear.

'Thanks for waiting, Scatkiewicz. My name is Jack Petroff. I'm the company's Director of Security. To my left is Commander Ryan Xin, and to my right is his deputy, Thomas Williams.' He made the introductions very quickly. It sounded as though he wanted to move right onto business.

Scat acknowledged the introductions with a slight upward nod of his head, hiding his wariness behind a pleasant smile. He had no idea why he was there, and did not care: he was not interested in becoming involved in a local political dispute, and was keen to get this meeting out of the way, to be left alone again.

'How can I help you?' he asked.

'Well,' Petroff began, 'we're trying to make sense of things—and we think you can help. You know Pierce pretty well. So, what can you tell us?'

Scat knew an open question when he heard one and refused to bite. He played stupid and shrugged.

Petroff stared into the air for a short while, as did Commander Xin. Petroff then took a long and unfriendly look at Scat before speaking again, this time a little slower, the harder tone of his voice hinting at an impatient nature and of someone used to getting his own way:

'Pierce has been very antsy these past few months,' he said, 'and we need to know why. What do you know?'

'I'm not sure he's been antsy, sir,' Scat answered, cautiously. 'Pierce is Pierce: he doesn't chat a lot and he doesn't suffer fools. I haven't noticed anything unusual, not even after Corporate asked me to watch over him. That was a couple of days ago.'

'Watch over him? What kind of watch?' Xin asked.

'A suicide watch, sir.'

'Was he suicidal?' It sounded as Xin had no idea.

'Well, sir, I'm not a doctor, but as I've said: he looked the same old Pierce to me.'

Once again, Petroff appeared to gaze at nothing. Xin did likewise.

Deputy Commander Williams broke the silence:

'How could you tell?'

'Because I've been on his team since I got here and the watch request didn't come from Medical.'

'But he was acting strangely,' Petroff said. It was more of a statement that needed confirmation than it was a question.

'I can't say,' Scat replied. 'He's odd at the best of times.'

'How would you describe his work ethic? Xin asked.

'Excellent. Professional.'

'Any changes during this past week?'

'Not really. Same old.'

'What about your last belt run?'

'Nothing out of the ordinary,' Scat replied, thinking back. 'It took longer than usual for us to reconfigure the comms link and we kind of hurried the belt walk, but we've done either-or before.'

This time all three faces glazed over for a second or two. It was like talking via a video link that froze every so often.

Petroff continued, appearing satisfied that he had at least gotten somewhere.

'I'm sure you'll have noticed the nature of this place since you arrived, Scat. How would you describe it?'

'Dirty.'

Petroff turned to Xin for assistance. Scat could sense his exasperation.

Xin leaned forward with both elbows on the table.

'Yes, Scat, it's dirty; the fines get everywhere. But we're referring to the population at large.'

'Testy, then.'

Petroff raised his head up and down very slowly, as though testy was an apt description.

'Getting better or worse?' Williams asked.

'Worse since this Trevon thing became an issue, but it wasn't improving before that, either.'

'And the reason for that is ...?'

Scat had not been on Prebos for more than a day or two before knowing the answer to that question.

'Well, it's no secret, sir: there's a divide between Corporate and the grunts that do the work. There's no meeting of minds. There's no respect.'

Scat sensed that the three men were embarrassed by that.

'That's our appraisal as well, Scat,' Xin said, 'which is worrying. It's a small community. We would have expected some coming together to work things out, but that hasn't happened. It suggests to us that someone's been hard at work, undermining things.'

'You mean pushing an agenda? Supporting Trevon?'

Petroff stared at air again, as did Xin. Williams looked directly at Scat.

'Do you mind me asking you something?' Scat asked, hoping to change the subject and burn some time.

'Go ahead,' Petroff replied.

'Why do you leave the room when I answer your questions?'

'Leave the room? Oh, yes!' Petroff said, turning to look at the Commander. 'It probably does look like that, doesn't it?' he asked him. Xin smiled.

'I'm just curious,' Scat added.

Petroff turned his attention back to Scat.

'We're fitted for the neuralnet,' he said.

'For what?'

'The neuralnet, Scat. You must have heard of it; it's been in development for decades.'

'Yes,' Scat confirmed, 'but only as a concept. It's never been approved for use.'

'Well it is now,' Petroff said, sounding very proud of the achievement. 'Lynthax bought the prototype, shovelled some money into it and pushed it through. We've made it available to all our top brass and most of our key staff.'

'Only at Lynthax?'

'No, we're licensing it out to the other companies as a part of its FD&S approval. And we're allowed to sell it to qualifying individuals and government agencies, subject to some fairly strong preconditions.' Petroff made them sound as though they very stringent preconditions.

'Like what?'

'It's a fairly sensitive piece of technology, Scat. Aside from the social benefits it also provides certain, well, military advantages.'

'So, you pre-approve its users?'

'Yes. We do. We must, although it still leaves Lynthax with a large middle class market. And people pay a premium for this kind of advantage.' Petroff now sounded distracted. It was obvious he wanted to get back to business.

'What can you download?' Scat asked.

'Anything from the universal web,' Petroff replied, 'the companynet, our PCs and secure databases ... basically anything you can download using your graf IV.'

Yes, he did sound distracted. Petroff also glanced down at his graf, probably to check the time. Scat tried to burn through some more.

'And you can communicate between yourselves?' he asked.

Petroff nodded, curtly.

'Yes. We use the companynet as you do, only it's all done inside the head. It keeps things in the family, so to speak.'

It certainly would, Scat thought. There had been a long-running debate about releasing such technology. Should it prove to work, it would be a game-changer.

Much of the medical research conducted over the past 200 years had focused on developing cures: to rehabilitate spinal cords, reverse the effects of Alzheimer's disease, eradicate TB and so on. History had already judged the two-century period from 1950 to 2150 to be one of man's finest eras. It truly had been the Golden Age of Medicine.

But there had been less enthusiasm for biotechnical developments of this sort: anything that improved competence, quickened reflexes, or enhanced physical strength was always going to be elective and hence expensive. That made them exclusive: the rich would get them, and the poor, well they would miss out—unless they were bootlegged or cloned, and possibly corrupted or impure.

That disturbed Scat—it offended his sense of fair play.

'But we're digressing, Scat,' Petroff said leaning forward. 'Let's get back to business ... I took the time to review your record on the way over here ...' He paused, politely, as though seeking Scat's permission to explain what he had learned, but of course, he was not going to wait. 'Sebastian Scatkiewicz, soon to be 29 ... born in Illinois to a drug dependent mother. ... Homeless and virtually feral until aged eight.... Picked up in an anti-TB drive... admitted to the Gates Foundation Youth Development Programme ...'

Petroff paused, again. He stopped focusing on the space just in front of his face, and looked at Scat. It was a clunky attempt to show he empathised with his rough early life.

Scat groaned, quietly, inwardly. He had tried hard for years to blank out the memory of his mother's only visit to the foundation when he was, what, 10 years old, and here it was again, being dragged up by a doorstop with a hard-on for other people's private lives. He recalled his mother pacing up and down the school corridor, trying her hardest to blend in with the other parents. When he approached her, she did not recognise him. Her eyes had told him one story: she was suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Her body had told another: her bootlegged neural improvements were throwing her system out of whack. It had been an emotional and disturbing afternoon, ending only when a medical team escorted her off the premises, still spitting and screaming.

As Petroff continued, Scat remembered being taunted by the other kids, and vaguely recalled his form master asking him if he ever wanted to see her again, following which someone must have completed the paperwork making him a ward of court because he never needed parental permission for anything after that. Then there were the two years without any contact with his mother, the formal notice of her death and the long drive to and from the funeral with his woodwork teacher in attendance.

'You should never have let them bully you into not seeing her again, Scat,' the man had said. 'It wasn't right. You shouldn't have let them influence you the way they did. Don't let that happen again. Be your own man.'

It was a hard lesson to learn for a 12 year old, and even though Scat knew his mother's death was not by his hand, the guilt had followed him around for years.

Petroff continued, insensitive to the memories he was invoking:

'... Attended Larkhill High School, Chicago ... military service during the Resource Wars... sniper unit ... 49 kills and 213 assists ... highly decorated ...' Again, Petroff glanced at Scat before moving on.

Scat caught images of burning targets, flapping about until they dropped to the ground, eventually going still, but he pushed them aside. The military had provided him with much needed focus. It had helped to sever the link with his past. In the three years or so of constant conflict, he had gotten perspective and grown to realise that his mother's death had not been his burden to carry alone. But a lot of people had died as he exorcised that ghost.

'... graduated from NYU... Mineral Engineering degree... your first off-Earth assignment was on Mars as a junior minerals engineer in the Waverly mine. Prebos is your second Lynthax assignment, but your first outside of the Sol system. Along the way you obtained an accelerated Masters in Mineral Engineering and a secondary degree in AI. Your contract with Lynthax expires in just over 16 months.'

Petroff appeared to have finished.

'You have a point?' Scat asked with a harder edge to his voice. He wondered what else Petroff was able to find on that neuralnet he had been reading from. Just how much of his life was public record?

'Well, Scat, the point is you're not the agitating sort, are you? In fact, you're quite the opposite. Since landing on your feet at the Foundation, you've proven to be hard working, independent and extremely self-reliant; you're not the type to believe others owe you anything.'

Petroff was right, but it still needled Scat that someone he did not know could summarise his life, and then his character, in a few sentences. He already disliked him.

'And?'

'Your psych evaluation says you're unwilling to commit to anything. The military says you resent authority. Your university professor says you don't like travelling with the herd. He says you have a rebellious streak in you; that you sometimes back a contrarian view just to keep it alive ...'

Petroff went on for a little while longer, adding comments about Scat's views on the Resource Wars—comments he must have also heard from his university professor. He then repeated Scat's views on the widening technological gap between the haves and the have-nots—something he could have gotten from anyone who knew him.

Eventually he stopped, offering Scat a chance to interrupt. He didn't: there was no point. Petroff was now talking about the "old" Scat in any case. Scat no longer committed to things he did not believe in just because others got caught up in the moment—even if he had volunteered to serve his country out of loyalty. His views on the technology-gap were widely held—they were hardly controversial. And rebellion did not pay if you wanted to get on in a corporate environment, so he had tried real hard to suppress that trait and fit in more.

That last was still working for him. Don't make waves.

'I'm not sure where you're going with this, sir,' Scat replied, realising Petroff had accessed much more than his publicly available records for this interview. 'So, I have views,'

Petroff softened his approach.

'Our point is this: you're a practical, hard working young man who doesn't expect a hand out or a leg up from anyone, and yet you maintain a soft spot in there,' Petroff said, pointing at Scat's chest, 'for the downtrodden, the unfortunate. At heart, you're an idealist with strong moral convictions. You're also someone who believes in fair play and honest accounting.'

As Scat remembered the Asian Paymaster, and then Rose the Surveyor, Petroff leaned back in his chair, looking left and right at his two colleagues before coming to his final point:

'On the face of it, Scat, it wouldn't surprise us if you were to support the rebel cause—even join them.'

Scat flinched. The conversation was heading for dangerous ground.

Support the Rebel cause? He can't possibly think I would!

Petroff watched Scat's eyes widen in alarm. He drew comfort from that. It validated his choice. He smiled inwardly. The interview was going well. Despite Scat holding some strong personal beliefs, Lynthax's psychoanalysis was correct: Scat was not the type who would want to get involved in sedition, political intrigue and the like. He was trying to keep his life simple while he made a better life for himself.

It was time to make his pitch.

'And it would do your career a whole lot of good if you were to join them now.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning you would be a natural fit within the rebel organisation—and a useful route in for us.'

#  10

Scat left the meeting breathing a huge sigh of relief. So Petroff had concluded he was not a rebel, merely made of rebel material and still of possible value to Earth. That was fortunate.

But still, he did not want to get tangled up in the politics of a rebellion – on either side. On reflection, this whole thing was not his problem, and it still need not be. He was a contract worker, an employee, not a permanent resident. In a year or so, he would no longer be in this solar system. He had plans of his own.

All he cared about was his continued right to work, to be paid and to remain on-strength to qualify for his legitimate share of no-cost life support.

His finances depended on it.

But, as Scat returned to his bunk, it slowly dawned on him that if his employment contract was terminated—and if there was not an immediate ftl run to Trevon—he would be spending a fair chunk of what he had already earned on breathing air: Lynthax's imported air.

He needed to think this through carefully. Perhaps talk to someone. But who? He had been on Prebos for six weeks, hardly enough time to remember people's names, let alone make friends he could confide in. And, in any case, the place was a fractious hive of political intrigue.

Although ... perhaps there was a man he could speak to, someone who was keeping his sense of balance: Marvin Cade.

The agreement between the workers and Corporate had cancelled Scat's R&D work, describing it as "non-essential". Besides, mining everywhere had stopped, and the lab's fire monitors were still offline. Scat was not sure about Marvin, though. Marvin supervised tasks that ranged from routine to critical. So, rather than walking all the way to Marvin's bunk to find it empty, Scat logged onto the work schedule.

He was lucky. Marvin was not working. He was attending his end-of-contract medical.

Scat decided not to call him. Although security was keeping a low profile, he was sure they would be monitoring the station's internal communications. Instead, he would catch him as he left the medical centre. In any case, while he waited for Marvin, he could speak to the ever helpful and chatty, though slightly paranoid, Patch about Pierce. It had completely slipped his mind.

When Scat arrived at the medical centre, Marvin lay on a gurney attached to several monitors, his head propped up on a pillow. He was reading out aloud from a screen at the foot of his bed. A doctor was making notes and adjusting his eye filters. On the other side of the gurney, a nurse fiddled with leads attached to his chest.

Even for a middle-aged man, Marvin looked rather pale. Perhaps he had been missing his UV treatments. Then again, it could have been the medical centre's intensely bright and unforgiving lights. They were so much stronger in here than elsewhere in the station, presumably to make the point that it was fines-free.

Scat looked around for the ever-helpful and forever-talkative Patch. He found him in the rear store, between the long-stay ward and the newly established detention centre where Arnold was being held, under guard and hooked up to life support. He was counting out a bunch of prescriptions.

Scat waited in the doorway until it was clear Patch was never going to notice him. He coughed, politely. Patch jumped, lost count and turned around, ready to scold him. Instead, he saw it was Scat and beamed a smile.

'Hi, Scat! Sick?'

'Me? Never. Came to speak to Marvin but it can wait. Howzit with you? And how's Arnold?'

Patch shook his head and frowned as he wiped pill dust from his hands onto the sides of a well-worn white coat. He turned back to the counter and started to count again.

'Well, Arnold's a "veggie" but I'm doing OK. Stay where you are, Scat. I won't be long. You're not allowed in here.' He finished counting, poured the pills into a bottle and walked over. 'Strange days, eh?'

'Yeah. Sure has turned this place upside down.'

'There's more to come, Scat, much more. Have you seen what they've have brought down with them?' Patch stuck his head through the door and inclined his head towards the end of the corridor.

Scat had already seen the stores piled up against the wall.

'I know,' he replied. 'There're tonnes of it. I saw it coming through.'

'Yes, but that's mostly field hospital stuff. What I'm talking about is the weird stuff—the stuff that not even Henry's familiar with.' He threw a thumb down the corridor in the other direction to where Henry, the station's second most senior Medical Officer, was attending to Marvin. 'We're getting a briefing on it during the next watch. It's for some neurological procedure, I think. Probably for some kind of mind-meld.' He winked.

Scat dismissed it. It would be for the neuralnet, or whatever Petroff called it—perhaps for when they short-circuited. He did say they were recently developed gizmos. And as for Security bringing its own field hospital to a hot-spot such as Prebos, well, that was not to be entirely unexpected. Scat cut straight to his question.

'Listen, Patch, why was I asked to keep a watch on Pierce during my last belt walk?'

'A what? It sounded as though Patch hadn't heard him.

'A suicide watch.'

'A suicide watch?'

'Yep. Pierce.'

'Is he?'

'Suicidal?'

'Yes.'

'I don't know, Patch. That's why I'm asking you.'

'Who gave you the assignment?' Patch asked, as though that would help decide if Pierce was suicidal or not.

'Geoffrey. Just before we suited up. He dragged me to one side and told me that Pierce had just been diagnosed. He said I would be doing everyone a favour if I brought him back "in one piece". Corporate would reassign him to the command unit when we got back.'

Patch shook his head and wiped his hands on his coat again. He rubbed his nose and looked up and down the corridor a second time. Scat sensed that the temporary disorder in and around the medical centre was unsettling him.

'He isn't suicidal, Scat. At least I haven't seen any notes, and we haven't issued scrip for antidepressants for a couple of days. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Pierce here for weeks.'

Patch walked Scat into to a single bedroom where he then logged onto a PC at the back wall. As he called up Pierce's records, Scat sat up on the bed. Patched waved him off it. 'Execs only, Scat,' he said, as though Scat should show more respect for its special status.

'He needs to be analysed by a doctor, right? Here?' Scat asked, ignoring him.

Patch found Pierce's e-file and turned the monitor away from Scat's direct view.

'Yes,' he replied as he flicked through the doctor's notes, 'he does—unless he goes crazy somewhere else, in, say, one of the temporary shelters. Then a doctor assesses him on site. That's what Clavell was trying to do before Briar vented himself from the airlock out at Pig 5.'

'So, is Pierce normal?'

'Yes, if you can call him normal. I've just looked through his notes. There's nothing there to suggest otherwise. No flags, no nothing.'

Scat let that sink in. So that toad Geoffrey was shitting me.

'But I haven't said a thing, right, Scat? They'd have my arse if they knew we'd talked about it. I've still got three months to go.'

Marvin strolled out into reception, fiddling with his inner-suit. The gown was gone. Scat waited until Marvin had signed his record then went out to join him.

'Morning, Marvin. Wasn't your medical due next week?'

'Hello Scat' Marvin said, still preoccupied with a sticky zipper at his thickening waist. His thick fingers couldn't get a grip of it. 'What brings you to medical?'

'You. Can we talk?'

Marvin gave up on the zipper, dipped his head and looked at him through bushy eyebrows. His grey eyes narrowed a little.

'Well, yes, I'm sure we can. What about?'

'Not here, if you don't mind. It's personal,' Scat said, looking across at Patch and Henry who were wheeling a monitor around some unopened medical crates, probably left there by the security team.

Marvin nodded.

'Kitchen?' he suggested.

'Sure. I'm hungry anyway.'

They crossed a hall crowded with crates; further evidence that the security team intended to stay long-term. Troopers were moving back and forth between the medical station and the cargo bay. They were using airbeds and huskies. The corridors were too narrow for the cargo carts.

After grabbing some food, they settled down at a table away from the main door.

'So, Scat—what's the emergency?'

Scat fidgeted, wondering how to broach the subject of Petroff's invitation.

'Well, it may be a little unsafe to tell you—for me, that is. I need to know you'll stay mum. I'm looking for wise counsel.'

Marvin ignored his food, and proceeded to fold his arms with a fist under each armpit. He dipped his head again and hunched his shoulders. His thick neck disappeared between muscular shoulders. It was his trademark, "I'm listening" pose.

'OK. I can keep a secret,' he said. 'Spill!'

Scat ran his tongue along his lower lip before deciding to give it to him, straight.

'I was interviewed by Petroff and his goons. They asked me to join the rebels.'

Marvin did not blink or change his expression. Scat had expected more of a reaction. Maybe he was still processing.

'And Corporate asked me to keep an eye on Pierce during the last belt walk—he was on suicide watch. Yet he isn't. Suicidal, I mean. Petroff then asked me about it. Asked what Pierce was up to.'

Marvin tilted his head slightly as if that was of genuine interest.

'And what was he up to?' he asked.

'Nothing,' Scat assured him. 'As I told Petroff, he wasn't suicidal. Medical has just confirmed it. But they still asked if he was acting oddly during the last walk.'

'Was he?'

'Again, no. He just took longer than usual with the communications console, and he rushed the walk back.'

Marvin nodded slowly, thoughtfully, before replying.

'Well,' he began, 'I was going to ask him how he found out the independence thing, but I haven't had the chance. Perhaps I don't need to now: you've just confirmed what I suspected.'

This time Scat stared in silence. Marvin explained:

'He must have hacked the central computer link from the Pig—it's the only way he could have done it. If he'd accessed the central computer from inside the station, its bug control software would have "outed" him. He probably uploaded some screening software onto the Pig's computer when it was last offline.'

Marvin paused as if waiting for Scat to catch up. Scat eventually saw the logic and nodded. Marvin continued with a pencil sketch on a paper napkin:

'As you know the station receives its orders from the Commodity Exchanges on Earth, and we forward them to the Pigs so they can switch to the minerals that are in the greatest demand. The computer link is meant to be 100% isolated and secure, as is the link to the buoys and the outside worlds. Corporate then filters the information and passes us the sanitised stuff on the companynet – to our grafs, and all the common monitors in the station. But...'

He left the word hanging, as if to say 'where there is a will, there is a way.'

Scat stared at the napkin, reflecting on what Marvin had just said.

'The crafty fark.'

'Perhaps, but he might not have been crafty enough. Corporate was no doubt onto him, which was probably why they asked you to stay close.' He gestured towards Scat with both hands before continuing. 'Hence your suicide watch. You wouldn't have questioned it.' He then opened his arms out to invite Scat to look around him. 'It's a harsh and depressing place, Scat. It's 100% function. This place has no form. No style.'

Scat could only agree, but as he had not been on Prebos for very long, it did not yet bother him.

Marvin carried on:

'There're no counsellors to talk to, so if you have a problem it tends to fester. And they finely filter the news from the outside: even our family correspondence is edited – I'm certain mine is.'

Scat could not empathise with that, either. His mother was dead, and he had no siblings as far as he was aware. Of his father, he knew nothing. He doubted his mother had known either. He just nodded again.

'It goes with the territory, Scat. Prebos is a long and expensive ride from everywhere, so going home on compassionate leave is out of the question, and resigning a contract early—in the hope of returning home early—is impossible. To Corporate, it just makes sense to eliminate the problems that can't be solved.'

Now that was something Scat could understand. The high cost of development meant that nothing could disturb a station's fragile existence: it had to meet its delivery commitments.

'But why ask me to watch over him when they could have monitored the link from the Pig to the station?'

Marvin shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

'Perhaps someone was covering for him back in administration. Think about it, Scat: if Corporate knew Pierce was hacking the central computer, why were they so surprised when he made the announcement? It suggests to me that they hadn't noticed. Maybe they just wanted to know what he was up to. They may have been looking at any number of people.

'Look, you're new here so you're still learning, but as you've been finding out over the past day or so, this has been brewing for a while—for years even. They probably asked you to keep an eye on Pierce just as they were probably trying to keep an eye on anyone with a Trevon background. I wouldn't worry about it.'

Scat appreciated the advice to chill out but thought Marvin had gotten it wrong.

'But Pierce isn't from Trevon: he came from Earth, on contract. As for giving something away, I might have done. Petroff knows that Pierce spent longer than normal at the communications console.'

'Fair enough, young man, but as we're sharing confidences, you may as well know this,' Marvin replied, tapping his nose. 'Pierce is from Trevon. His grandfather settled his family there when it was fit for bugs and little else. That was 60 years ago, only 50 years after it received its first Earth-seed augmentation. Pierce's mother might have left his father and returned to Earth before he was born, but Pierce is a Trevon, if not by the geography of his birth then certainly through family history. He gets his stubborn streak from his grandfather's side of the family.'

Marvin paused to allow Scat to play catch up again.

'As for you saying too much, my boy, Pierce blew his own cover the moment he went public; immediately after getting back from the belt walk. Corporate will have also worked out how he did it. You didn't give anything away. You've done no harm. So don't beat yourself up.'

It sounded as though Marvin was dismissing Scat's feelings of guilt and considered the matter closed. Scat relaxed a little; he felt better knowing he hadn't inadvertently dropped his boss in a pile of crap. But Marvin had one more thing to say.

'I'd be more worried about Petroff and his invitation to join the rebels.'

#  11

Two days later, a Lynthax-Maersk tanker, the LM-V3, dropped out of ftl to hang high in the Prebos heavens. It manually adjusted its orbit to keep up with the mining station and ran through its post ftl checks before the station called it down.

It arrived in a long and violent flurry of fines that obscured the view beyond the station perimeter. Despite its immense size, it touched down gently on the far side of the vehicle park, directly over the rail lines that led away to the mineral dumpsite.

Ahead of it, lined up in rail sidings and ready for calling forward, were hundreds of preloaded containers of compacted Amesont.

As the tanker grounded, it dropped a wide, low-angled ramp from just under the forward cargo cabin. Two long-arm manipulators extended forward from its sides then came closer together to match the gauge of the track.

Someone in Corporate then flicked a few switches and 310 sixty-tonne containers of compacted Amesont took turns to roll out onto the main line, where the V3's manipulators began to pull them into its cavernous cargo hold. At one container every two minutes, the fully automated operation would take around 10 hours 20 minutes to complete.

All the station could do was turn out to watch in the knowledge that this would be the last shipment for a while. Obviously, Corporate wanted to get its hands on this consignment of Amesont—just in case Prebos became less manageable than it already was.

#  12

The common room was actually a large open area at the centre of the sprawling, but claustrophobic, underground station. It connected the four main areas: the command centre, which included the administration offices and executive accommodation; the general accommodation rooms, medical centre and kitchens; the handling area, made up of stores, hangars and loading bays; and, finally, the research and development laboratories.

The observation deck was set over the roof of the common room at ground level to the surface and was accessible up two, wide and metalled stairs set into opposite walls of the common room.

Although the deck was fully pressurised and an integral part of the station, it was the only pressurised structure, save the command cupola, that was above ground. For that reason, it was made of rad-hardened glass and was fitted with heavy spin-lock doors at the top of each stairway. Although this was the only place where employees could gaze out into space during their downtime, the deck was seldom in use.

Pierce had suggested they meet on the deck. Scat immediately understood that he wanted privacy. Security was still maintaining a low profile, and did not venture out much from the cargo area, but there was always the chance a small contingent of troopers would patrol the common areas.

Pierce was waiting at the far end of the deck when Scat arrived as were two of Pierce's team who Scat only ever had close contact with during Pierce's administrative briefings. One of them was Thomas Irwin, the other an Indian, who he knew only as Rumagee.

Scat glanced around the deck. There was no one else.

Pierce stood with his back to the airlocks, gazing out at a curtain of stars that acted as a brilliant backdrop to a dark grey surface that always dropped away too early at the near horizon. The station buildings lay concealed, covered in Prebos dirt although the command cupola emitted a soft light. Pierce greeted Scat without turning round.

'Thanks for coming, Scat. How are you?'

'I'm OK, thanks. Not seen much of you since the blowhards arrived. What's up?'

'We need to talk, Scat,' Pierce replied, moving away from the window to sit on a bench that ran along the length and centre of the deck. He pointed to the bench and invited Scat to sit with him. Pierce's companions broke away to linger at the airlock doors.

'Marvin tells me that you're spinning in circles,' he began. 'He suggested I should give you an alternative view of the universe.'

'That's kind of him,' Scat replied. 'A going away present?'

'Of sorts. He wants me to give you something of the backstory and to help you put it into context. He was a little coy on why, but we know Petroff's been recruiting allies, and I know he's spoken to you.'

Scat grinned.

'Yeah,' Scat admitted. 'He's not terribly subtle.'

'We're aware,' Pierce said. He appeared to laugh silently, inwardly. 'In any case, we know who he's talking to, and we'll be careful. As for you, Marvin believes you aren't so easily swayed.'

Scat gave Pierce a cheeky look:

'So, you're going to give me your version of the "Idiot's Guide to Colonial Affairs"?'

'That's about it, Scat, just the broad brush. If, afterwards, you want to know more about the whys and the wherefores you can talk to Irwin there.'

'OK. But why are you bothering? I'm an outsider.'

Pierce nodded.

'Let's call this a favour to Marvin, shall we?' he said. Something in the tone of his reply suggested he didn't think it was worth his time, either. 'He says you have potential, although I don't know for what.' Pierce then patted him on the back a few times before adding: 'Let's face it, you've been nothing but a deadhead since you arrived.'

Pierce then paused and gazed out to the horizon.

'It sure seems peaceful up here, doesn't it, Scat?' he said. 'But fragile. Outside of this glass, and that dirt, there's nothing for a minimum of one light year of travel, yet Trevon's problems still find their way across it. It's kind of weird to think about, eh?'

Scat followed his gaze, but all he saw was the dirt: the dirt that made for steady work.

'Yeah, I'm sure it is,' he replied.

Pierce continued to stare at the stars for a moment longer. He then got back to the matter in hand.

'OK, Chump, let's cut to it. I'm sure it's obvious, even to you, that we're headed for a showdown with Corporate, so let me explain how things divide and fall.

'It's a working environment so you'd expect there to be worker-boss spats, and if this were just a work-related issue we'd be talking. But it isn't. The real spat, the one that matters, is over sovereignty: it's the one that separates the Trevon permanent residents from the rest of them; the out-of system contractors, directors, long-term career employees and so on.

'The Trevon permanent residents and the workers who are aiming for permanent residency favour Trevon independence. They focus their growing frustrations on the corporations, who they blame for being too influential in Trevon affairs, and too quick to take up the role of the Grecos system's police force. I share that frustration.'

Pierce was rattling this stuff off with conviction, staring unblinkingly at him throughout. Scat considered interrupting him with a question or two, but decided it was best not to. He just nodded along.

'On the other hand, the out-of-system contract workers have fewer ties to the local system, and they're only concerned with protecting their rights, maintaining safety and keeping favoured clauses in their contracts. Their contracts take them from system to system. For them, the Trevon crisis isn't a life changer, so they're more detached and calculating.

'Corporate values their presence and ensures the place is crawling with them. The result is that worker-action in itself is unlikely to be of much use to us in any long-term political conflict. The out-of-system contract workers wouldn't want to lose pay for our benefit. They'd go back to work if Lynthax offered the right incentives.'

He then changed tack:

'A few days ago the Trevon House of Representatives issued a "Declaration of Intent" to seek full independence. It wasn't quite a fair vote, but it was the only free and fair vote the Public Reps were likely to get among themselves without Corporate interference. Basically, the Trevon independence faction waited for the Corporate Reps to leave for the annual Moss Harvest break before tabling the motion.'

Pierce stared at him, waiting for a reaction. Scat raised eyebrow: it was all he could do.

'Yes, it was cheeky, and unconstitutional,' Pierce continued, 'but then all rebellions are. We're 117 light years from Earth, and the big corporations are still running things. You might put up with it on Earth, but people become more independent in spirit and more self-reliant when they're this far from the centre of power. It's a natural thing. The Trevons are simply following a trend that's been repeated several times throughout the centuries. No one can stop it. It'll happen. It's just a question of how.

'What we're now learning is what it will take to achieve independence and the price we'll have to pay for it. What you're seeing is the first baby steps of a revolution. And revolutions are messy. There's a lot at stake for Lynthax so we don't expect them to take it lying down. Petroff's arrival is their first attempt at suppression.'

Pierce then went on to add some colour. He explained that the corporations on Trevon banded together to stop social progress; that they continued to plunder the planet's resources while resisting local taxation; voted on issues where they were protecting vested interests; restricted the free and fair tendering out of services...

'There's more of course, but nothing I add to this will persuade you. You have to experience injustice to truly understand it.'

Scat could sense the chat was over. He could ask questions, but, as before, he decided against it; he did not want to set Pierce off again and, in any case, he now had enough of the backstory to make sense of much of what he had seen and heard since this thing blew up.

He also had a better understanding of Pierce. The man seemed genuine, and it was clear he was passionate about independence, though not emotional. He had a clear sense of direction and was controlling his passion; focusing on being effective, rather than being loud and bellicose. In a way, Scat envied him that: Scat had nothing to fight for, except this job and his next pay cheque, and he had no tribal roots to which he could be loyal.

Pierce got up from the bench and signalled to his two compatriots that the meeting was over. They came across to shake Scat's hand in a friendly manner, eyes making contact. Both appeared to be looking for a change in his demeanour, perhaps to gauge his acceptance of what Pierce had just told him. He tried not to offer anything up.

Pierce gave Scat a polite, respectful nod and left for his bunk. Irwin and Rumagee followed, talking about grabbing a coffee.

Scat waited until he heard the door lock spin into place before taking in a deep breath and letting out a long sigh. He then walked across to the edge of the deck, to look out at a beautiful curtain of slowly moving stars.

He tried to appreciate what Pierce had seen no more than half an hour before, but all he could see was trouble.

When he got back to his bunk, he caught up with his mail and threw up the company notice board.

Security had suspended all outside activities—even the routine admin runs between the mines.

Petroff had sent him a note asking for a quick sit down at the beginning of the next watch. He agreed. The meeting would take place in the administration centre.

And anyone with less than two weeks to go on their contracts was to pack their bags in preparation for the LM-V3's flight back to Trevon, as were all the Trevon permanent residents.

Well, Marvin would be one of them on both counts. He really should find some time to say goodbye.

But first, he would get some shut-eye and let everything Pierce had just told him find a place to settle.

#  13

The three grey-suited security guards pulled an unconscious Pierce from his room and dumped him onto an airbed where they covered him with discarded medical packaging.

His head lolled backwards and blood dribbled from his mouth where he had bitten into his tongue. His long limbs still twitched.

They had zapped him in his sleep.

One of the guards looked up and down the corridor and then knelt to spray a solution onto the more obvious drops of blood. Another walked to the end of the corridor to check the way was clear. They passed quickly through the common room, into the opposite corridor and out towards the cargo bay area.

Pierce regained consciousness a few minutes after the guards sat him upright on a small aluminium chair.

His head jerked involuntarily upwards, and he leaned forward, straining against plasticuffs that held his hands behind him. He could hear nothing and his vision was impaired, but he could sense he was not alone. There was the taste of blood, but no pain. He shook his head and then realised it was hooked up to a monitor of some kind.

A voice.

'Good evening, Gavin.'

Pierce barely heard it; he certainly did not recognise it. He tried to work out where the voice came from.

'My name is Jack Petroff. I run security for Lynthax.'

'Ugh!' was all Pierce could manage. He was struggling to regain control of his faculties. 'Yeah! S, s, so?'

'Well I thought we should meet; though on my terms, of course.'

Pierce caught sight of Petroff nodding to someone. That someone turned a dial on a hand-held remote. Pierce began to gargle and spit, and his head dropped.

'Thank you, Rogers,' Petroff said, waving a hand at one of his personal protection detail.

The flashing and mental chaos eased.

'So, Pierce. What's up?' Petroff asked.

Pierce struggled to understand the question. It meant so many things. It was an annoying question at the best of times, and a difficult one to answer with half one's mind flashing in different directions.

'What do you mean?' he managed.

'I mean, Pierce, what's up? What do you think you are doing? Why the hostility? Why are you getting involved? That sort of thing.'

Pierce raised his head and looked directly into Petroff's cold, grey eyes.

'Nothing illegal, Petroff. Democracy at work ... that's all.'

Pierce noticed Petroff's disappointment and saw him nod again at his aide.

Again the chaos. Pierce's head dropped a second time. This time his legs flew forward and fell apart. There was the sound of flatulence and the smell of faeces.

Petroff allowed the disruption to continue for a moment or two longer, and then cut his hand across his own throat. Rogers dialled the neural disrupter back zero, this time gagging on a mouth full of stink.

'Let's start again, young man,' Petroff said, 'this time with a single question: Why the hostility?'

Pierce took longer to recover this second time. He was trembling uncontrollably. His mind told him that he had crapped himself, but he could not feel it. His usual razor-sharp wit had dulled down to a crawl. It was like being concussed and electrocuted, both at the same time. His head now hurt. There was an unremitting, sharp pain behind both eyes. His temples bulged.

He felt Petroff lift his chin, squeeze his cheeks and pull his head around. His face was only a few inches away.

'Just st, st, sticking u... up for us... Assert... assert... asserting our rights,' he replied. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and it was an effort to breathe. It was a real effort to talk.

'Maybe so, Gavin, but my question is why?' Petroff asked. 'Does it have anything to do with the Old Man? Your old man?'

Pierce could not answer right away. It took some time to understand what Petroff was saying, but through the mist of confusion, there was a slow dawning: Petroff knew! And if he knew, then he could not be bluffed. Nor was there any point in staying aware of his surroundings. It might just be better for him to let go. He could not talk if he was unconscious.

'No response, young Pierce? Or should I say Spelling? What do you prefer?' Petroff said with no attempt to hide the contempt in his voice.

Pierce remained silent. He felt Petroff release his chin, but a finger was then pressed against his forehead, pushing his head back. It lolled forward again. Pierce couldn't hold it upright for more than a second or two: he couldn't coordinate anything.

'Nothing, eh? Not even an excuse?' Petroff asked.

Pierce struggled to raise his head again, though he could not hold it straight. He looked at Petroff, drilling through him, defying him to go the extra kilojoules.

Petroff saw the challenge and raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. Two dustings were usually more than enough, even for someone trained in resistance to interrogation. Knowing there was a third on offer usually got everyone back to the business of talk, but not on this occasion; not with Pierce. They had zapped him earlier as well, which was an additional bonus. A further dusting would be futile: for both of them.

Petroff pondered that thought for a moment, savouring the control he had over such a man. He pulled Pierce's head backwards by the hair and looked directly into his pale blue eyes, smiling in fake admiration. He then turned to glance at Rogers.

'Give him a reason to regret his silence, Rogers,' he said in a fit of pique, a feature that had followed him throughout his career. 'Give him a personal tour of hell! Make it hurt!'

Rogers looked quizzically at him, but Petroff ignored the look. Instead he fixated on Pierce, waiting to see him flop about for a third time.

Not quite sure just how much hell to give him, Rogers dialled it up to three quarters strength, flinching as he did so.

Pierce dropped to one side of his chair, restrained only by his plasticuffs that threaded through the uprights.

Finally, Petroff looked at Rogers and told him to shut the neural disrupter off. He folded his arms and waited for Pierce to make a slow recovery.

It never came.

Rogers stepped forward to check his pulse and then nodded with relief.

'He's alive, sir.'

'Alive as in "barely", or alive as in "vegetable", Rogers?' he asked as though Rogers was being a little slow.

'How would I know, sir? Shall I get a doctor?'

'No, Rogers. Check for yourself. What does the scanner say?'

Rogers unhooked the scanner from the neural disrupter unit and placed it against Pierce's left temple. The other two guards looked back and forth between Petroff and the unresponsive Pierce, unsure they wanted to witness any more.

Rogers flushed.

'Shit. His brain stem's still working, sir, but he's gone.'

'Well I suppose that's one kind of hell, Pierce,' Petroff said looking down at the personality-free body. 'Don't beat yourself up about it, Rogers. It was a slip of the wrist. Could've happened to any of us,' he said as he walked towards the door.

'Vent him!'

#  14

The AI detected an external-energy surge just as the slave routine narrowed down the correct dimension-drive initiation equation to one of 267,345 variables. The two coming together as they did was extremely fortuitous.

Within seconds of sensing the external-energy source, the AI decided it was time to awaken the mission controller.

The mission controller's last original thought had been that the human variable might just reduce the number of Sol years it would take to re-programme the dimension-drive software. Well, he was wrong on that account, but not wrong in the overall—their presence was now a factor. This new energy source was confirmation of that. He was now brimming with confidence.

But they needed to act quickly: they had missed several such opportunities over the years, all of them since drifting closer to a small pseudo-planet at the edge of the system.

The AI ordered the work on the dimension-drive reprogramming to stop so that it could divert the maximum available energy directly to the harvesting mechanism. It then overrode the standard harvesting protocols and directed the slave to attempt a harvest, even at this considerable distance.

It was a good call. It was a successful harvest.

They now had an undocumented source of excess energy to utilise; a power source its owner would not miss. With any luck, and if it could be subdued, it should provide enough power to test the 267,345 variables. And if they could hold it down for long enough, it might even provide the power they needed to worm again.

#  15

A nervous Corporal Rogers stepped inside the number three airlock to check if it had a suicide prevention device, a Briar cover. It didn't, so he waved Pierce's body inside. When the airbed came to a stop in the middle of the room, he used a foot to push the body onto the cold, fines-covered floor. He then took a step back, and stood with his head bowed as though deep in thought. Somehow, it just did not seem right to leave Pierce lying facedown in the fines, so he got his colleagues to sit him up against the wall. Looking at the body for a second time, he knew he was right: it would look more realistic this way. Now it would look as though Pierce had been physically capable of walking into the airlock, and could have vented the lock himself.

Scene set, he waved his colleagues out of the room. He started to sweep the floor with his boot but realised the airbed was still in the room—neither of his colleagues had thought to take it with them. He walked around it, pushed it out, and swept the floor again.

Outside, his fellow guards looked nervously at each other, knowing what was to come next. Rogers sealed the inner- and outer-doors, peered through the glass inspection panel and steeled himself. He opened the airlock maintenance hatch in the corridor wall, selected "Vent" and pushed down.

Inside the airlock, the air pressure began to drop as the extractor unit sucked air back inside the facility, rather than lose it to the void outside. He could see the fines swirl upwards towards the vents, driven by the air as it left the small room, and he thought he could see Pierce's body wriggle then shudder. He definitely saw his eyes swell, and blood ooze through the small pores in his face.

But he knew he could not hang around to see what would happen next. He had already lingered for way too long. It was time to go. But as he straightened his jacket and prepared to walk off, he could not help himself. He took one last look and wished he had not. It looked as though everything that was once a part of Pierce was trying to leave his coveralls, to escape this body and find another: one drop of bodily fluid after another, streaming to the ceiling in ghostly vapours.

#  16

When he woke up, Scat wandered up to the kitchen where he found Patch drinking coffee, head down, staring at a space on the other side of the table. The place was almost empty, save a small clean-up crew and the kitchen hands.

'What's up, Patch?'

'Haven't you heard?' he asked.

'Heard what? I've been getting some downtime.'

'Pierce is dead. They found him in an airlock out at the cargo bay. He vented himself.'

'What?' Scat suddenly felt a whole lot heavier. He felt his gut drop. He lowered himself into a seat.

'Yes, dead. Very messy. Quite ugly.'

'Are you sure?'

Patch's voice trembled a little.

'I was on duty. Angolena took the call, but there was nothing he could do. He must have been venting in there for at least 10 minutes before the cargo watch caught on.'

'But you said he wasn't suicidal!'

Patch stared into space, not saying anything. Scat thought back to his meeting with Pierce last night. No way was the man suicidal.

'Who's dealing with it?'

A second later, Patch realised Scat was asking a question.

'Angolena, I guess, though there won't be any point in an autopsy. With venting, the cause of death stares you in the face.'

'I was—' Scat stopped himself. There was no point in mentioning he had been speaking to Pierce during the last watch. Just, what, three hours before?

Patch seemed to be steeling himself for something. He leaned forward:

'I've just found the watch recommendation on his file—from Geoffrey. It's dated just before he asked you to play monitor. But I can't see how I missed it!'

He flopped back in his chair, looking down at the table.

'Henry will kill me, then Clavell, and then it'll be Angolena's turn. No one likes dealing with a venting case.'

'What do you mean, you missed it?'

'I don't know. It's a fark-up. I've no idea how it got to the file. Email arrives in the general box, the duty medic marks it up for the medical officer and then he files it.'

'And?'

Patch looked as though his world had just ended:

'It says it came in on my watch.'

'Oh, Jeeze!' Scat realised Patch could be feeling a whole lot of guilt and be in some serious trouble.

'But I didn't see it, I swear.'

Scat placed a hand on Patch's arm for reassurance.

'Don't beat yourself up, Patch. I'm sure it's an honest mistake. Angolena speaks highly of you. And in any case, even if you had known Pierce was suicidal I'm sure he would have still found a way to "off" himself—he was the resourceful sort.'

Patch was not having any of it. He was getting animated.

'You don't get it, Scat. I didn't file it, and then forget to inform anyone. I didn't file it – period! Someone else must have.'

'No chance it was missed by you, but filed during the next watch?'

'No,' Patch replied, frowning. 'We hand over the mailbox "clean". Swanson would have noticed an unopened mail when he took over. And even if I did screw it, Geoffrey should've followed it up; it's been the protocol for, like, ever. But he didn't. If he had, we would have caught it.'

'Have you spoken to Swanson?' Scat asked, still not yet used to the idea that Pierce was dead.

Across the table, shock was giving way to emotion.

'Not yet, Scat', Patch replied a little brusquely. 'I've just come off watch. Largo's on duty now. I haven't seen Swanson.'

'Have you come clean with Angolena yet?' Scat asked.

'I will, just as soon as I finish my coffee. But if he's had a chance to go over Pierce's file, he'll already know.'

'Was anyone from Corporate there when he was brought in?'

'No. ... Er..., I'm not sure.'

'Any contact at all?'

Patch shook is head.

'None that I know of. Most of the activity was down at the cargo bay. Security is still all over it.'

Scat could see Patch was still processing; he now had that far away and quizzical stare. He might need a few minutes to think clearly.

'Alright, Patch, drink your coffee, quickly, and go speak to Angolena before he finds out for himself. Don't offer excuses right now. Just tell him the facts and remind him of the protocol. He'll then realise Geoffrey didn't follow up. It could soften the blow-back on you when it comes.'

'OK, but I'm not looking for a scapegoat so as to avoid a rollicking—I'm just frustrated that I didn't catch it as it came in. I'll be beating myself up just fine till I work out how that happened.'

'Well take it easy in that department, Patch,' Scat advised him. 'Let's get together again in an hour. I've got a meeting in Corporate that I can't miss, and I gotta get my own head straight for it.'

#  17

Scat made his way to the meeting room on the lower floor of the administration centre, checking off room numbers as he went. He had not been this far into Corporate since his arrival. He had passed some impressive looking glass-panelled rooms along the way.

He found the room at the end of the corridor, its windows fully closed off by blinds. He knocked on the door and eased it open a fraction, just in case he was interrupting something. Petroff called him in.

'Hello, Scat. Good to see you again. You've heard about Pierce?' he asked, sympathetically.

'Yes, I have. A shock, really.'

It truly had been. He was doing his best to stay level, but he had not lost a colleague in over eight years. It was not something you got used to or could brace yourself for, no matter what your experience or how straight your head. They were by your side one minute, then gone forever. The loss was almost always sudden, unexpected.

'Well, perhaps not such a shock, Scat. Sad business all the same,' Petroff said, picking fluff from his lapel. 'Anyway, let's take a seat.'

Scat looked around. There was no one else. Rows of monitors lined each wall, all blacked out. A large table filled the centre of the room. He took a seat as offered along one side, close to the furthest end. Petroff took a seat and poured two glasses of water that slopped around slowly in the low gravity. He pushed one across to Scat.

'As you know, the V3 is returning to Trevon in a few hours and several of your comrades will be going with her—along with some of our more troublesome employees whose contracts we have cut short.'

Petroff paused as he always did after dropping something of significance into a conversation. Scat sensed he was looking for a reaction so he gave him a facial shrug.

Petroff carried on.

'To be frank with you, Scat, there isn't any point in keeping them here if they aren't going to restart work any time soon. And if there isn't to be any fresh mining for the time being then they won't be missed. Besides we can't risk any more vandalism,' he added, alluding to the comms room incident.

Scat nodded his understanding. Petroff ploughed on.

'In the greater scheme of things, they will be happier on Trevon. It's their home, Scat, and if I was a Trevon, that's where I'd like to be right now, given the situation as it is.'

'And what is that situation at present, Mr Petroff?' Scat asked.

'Confused, Scat. It's a bit of a mess. There's a significant faction on Trevon that wants greater autonomy. Then there is a smaller but noisy number that wants full independence.'

'And how's it being played out?' Scat asked.

'Slowly. Carefully. Or it was until more recently,' Petroff added as he thought back to Pierce. 'Things got a little more exciting a few days ago. The House issued its declaration of intent without letting the Corporate Reps vote. The House session had technically closed. It was meant to incite.'

Scat thought a declaration of ignorance was in order:

'I wasn't aware, sir. I'm not familiar with the local politics. I'm only picking up bits and pieces here and there.'

He left it at that: admitting to his little chat with Pierce did not seem the smart thing to do.

'Of course, head office on Earth won't be pleased. It'll change the landscape a little. They'll no doubt be quite concerned.' Petroff was talking in the future tense. Given its distance from Trevon, Earth was several days from responding to the most recent developments.

'I should think they'll be pretty pissed off,' Scat said. 'Trevon is their biggest investment.'

Petroff nodded.

'No doubt, no doubt, but my more immediate concern is with security in the here and now. The situation is unstable. We need to calm things down. Making sure everyone knows that the full House didn't approve the declaration is one concern. The other is to maintain order until Earth can form an opinion, or send a delegation to discuss the matter.'

Scat took a sip of water. He noted that the conversation was less formal than the first interview. This time Petroff was explaining things, and at length, rather than demanding answers.

'Ultimately, Scat, it's critical for Earth's survival that the Outer-Rim keeps producing. It's always one disaster away from a meltdown; has been for decades. It has sufficient resources for maybe a year, but that's just enough to keep the warming within its predicted rate of increase. Without Amesont and the like, the weather systems will kill the harvests. People will starve.'

'OK. So why am I here? I'm not a politician.'

'But you are Earth-born, and you do have some experience in non-political affairs,' Petroff replied, alluding to Scat's military record. 'As we said earlier, we need to know what's going on, just to keep a lid on this until Earth can form a response. It would help to have someone like you on Trevon, and close to the independence faction.'

'But how? I'm a nobody to them?'

'Accepted. Unless we deport you on the V3—along with the rest of the Trevons. It'll be our message to the station that we can't trust you. You can use your initiative from that point on.'

'And if they don't catch on?'

'There'll be no harm done. If it goes tits-up, we could still use your expertise. And you'll be in the right place.'

'Makes sense.'

'Look, Scat. I know this is all rather sudden and you could argue it has nothing at all to do with you, but we're in a tight spot and things could get ugly before Earth catches on. And it'll be even longer before Earth gets its act together. I'm kind of relying on your natural empathy with Earth, and you seeing that nothing good can come of Trevon declaring independence before Earth has a chance to work on some diplomatic solution. All I want is to give both sides the chance to talk it over—before either side does something from which it can't return. I'm looking to prevent bloodshed, prevent chaos. Can you think on it?'

Scat could see the logic in Petroff's argument and he had sensed a hint of sincerity in Petroff's request. Despite the history lesson that Pierce had given him four hours ago, Petroff's goal seemed sensible. The facts of both versions were the same, only the spin was different: Pierce emphasising the indifference (or oppression) of faraway government, and Petroff pleading for restraint until the far away government had a chance to moderate its behaviour.

'I'll give it some thought, sir. How long do I have?'

'Three Hours. The V3 takes off in around four. We'll need to do some prep.'

Scat nodded slowly, realising that that time was short: he still had to make sense of a sane man's suicide.

Petroff took the nod for an agreement. He got up and headed to the door, hiding a pleased look on his face. As with the others, this young man truly didn't have many options. At least not viable ones.

Only Scat wasn't finished.

'And if I decline your offer?'

Petroff checked himself at the door. He killed the smile before turning around.

'Again, there'll be no harm done,' he said. 'You serve out your contract as normal and steer clear of the politics.' He gave Scat a rock-solid stare to leave him in no doubt that there was to be no debating the issue. 'But remember,' he felt it best to add, 'despite the good you will be doing everyone, there will be considerable upsides for you if you agree. We don't just rely on patriotism and thank people with medals.'

Petroff noticed Scat's eyes widen a little: not by much, the man was obviously trying hard not to give too much away. But it was enough. Petroff felt his smile returning.

Money always did help to nudge things in the right direction.

#  18

Patch had plucked up the courage to speak to Angolena, and Angolena had done no more than frown and tell Patch to let it rest until he had finished the autopsy.

Scat was not surprised.

'As I said, there's no point in beating yourself up about this until you know more about it. Besides, it's Geoffrey's fault as much as yours, if there's fault to be had.'

'I guess you're right,' Patch replied, but his bloodshot eyes revealed the extent of his worry. The crease between his eyes dominated a narrow forehead.

'Any way we can get into the medical records from outside the centre?' Scat asked.

'Why?'

'There'll be a record of incoming mail. If it did arrive when you say it did, then the log will prove it. If not, then it won't.'

Patch's head went back a little.

'Are you saying that it didn't come in during my watch? Patch asked. 'The receipt stamp is pretty clear it did.'

'I'm not saying anything,' Scat replied. 'Merely aiming to prove the facts. Then we can move on.'

'Well, we can review the records from my bunk. I have 24-hour access. But I don't think I have the authority to check IT logs.'

'Leave that to me,' Scat said. 'Meet me there in 20 minutes.' He then turned to leave. 'I'm going to look for some expertise.'

20 minutes later, Scat, Patch and Thomas Irwin sat at a small desk lowered from the sidewall over Patch's bed. The overhead light flickered periodically, and the air-conditioner hummed along gently in the background.

Irwin had been quick to help. He was busy running through some programming, offering a commentary to reassure Patch that his work would go unnoticed if someone should check.

'Bingo. I'm in. So, where do you keep the incoming mail?' Irwin asked. His face was grim but composed.

Patch showed him a tab in the upper-left corner of the screen. Irwin clicked the tab, and a new screen appeared. Within a few seconds, he broke past the data packet that had accompanied the mail, and was into the system itself.

Irwin's face beamed as he found what he was searching for.

'Not sent as stated,' he declared. 'It was dropped in during the third watch, today.'

'Around the time Pierce vented?' Scat asked.

Irwin pushed his chair back from the table to give Scat and Patch a little more room to view the monitor. He then rattled off the sequence as he read the system data:

'It arrived in the in-box a little while before Pierce vented, but it wasn't displayed until afterwards. It was set up to be displayed as "read" on arrival, and it was date stamped and filed for three days ago.' He then looked up. 'Am I confusing anyone? Someone had to know what they were doing.'

No one said anything so Irwin made an assumption:

'I guess whoever it was didn't want it to appear too early just in case medical picked up on it and brought him in for a check-up.'

'But someone still had to drop the suicide watch request into Pierce's paper file.' Patch said, trying hard to keep up with the implications.

'Did Geoffrey come by medical after Pierce vented?' Irwin asked.

Patch looked down at the ground, deep in thought, trying hard to remember. He shook his head.

'Not during my watch, though he may have been in since.'

'You found the note during your watch, Patch.' Irwin reminded him. 'It doesn't matter if he visited after that.'

Scat broke the silence that followed:

'Patch, did anyone have access to the file during your last watch?'

'No one did, except Angolena.'

'Are you sure?' Scat asked.

Patch sounded frustrated

'How sure have I got to be, Scat? I only left the room for pee breaks.'

Irwin put a hand on Patch's back to settle him down. Scat remained unconvinced. Despite the denial, Patch might not know for sure, and in any case, he appeared to be all over the place. Anyone could have walked in and dropped the note into the file while Patch was out of the room—especially with Angolena being so distracted at the time of the call.

He tried another tack.

'Who brought Pierce back to the Centre?' he asked.

'Security did—they brought him over on an airbed.'

Irwin had an idea.

'Maybe it would help if we could prove Geoffrey didn't send the message,' he suggested. 'If he didn't send it, then perhaps we can kill the "cover my arse" theory. That then leaves us with a possible murder. Only to prove if he did or didn't, we need access to his terminal.'

'Or we could just talk to him.' Patch said.

Scat looked at Irwin.

'Take Rumagee with you. Make nasty.'

'He went as white as snow, Scat,' Irwin explained 15 minutes later. 'Found him in the media room watching a vid, thinking he was going to go unnoticed—like we couldn't smell the starch in his shirt! Anyhow, we told the beggar that we knew he hadn't followed up on the watch request, and he must have thought we were going to break his legs!'

Irwin smiled a broad Irish smile, as though it would have been a pleasure to do so.

'But he says it was Translow who wanted you to keep an eye on Pierce, and he was just the messenger. Anyhow, he doesn't own up to any suicide watch request made in his name. In his head he wasn't even meant to send one.'

Scat ran a hand through his hair as he paced the small room.

'Fark! I don't know what's worse: thinking Pierce committed suicide or believing Corporate, or security, might have killed him.'

'Why would anyone want to kill him?' Patch asked, now feeling somewhat relieved for being exonerated. He was almost ready to smile again. 'Unless it was to get back at him for telling us what the rest of the universe already knew about.'

'I'm not sure, Patch,' Scat replied, still thinking it over. 'Look, keep this to yourself for now. Under NO circumstance do you let on that you know anything. If it happened the way we think it did, it'll be better for you to play dumb, OK?'

Patch put his smile on hold: he suddenly realised he knew more than it was probably safe to know. In a quiet voice, he agreed.

'Irwin, that goes for you too. Not even to Rumagee. As far as you are concerned, Geoffrey really did forget to follow up, and you don't buy his bull about Translow. We think Geoffrey farked up. Pierce vented himself. Is everyone clear?'

'Goes without saying...' Irwin replied.

Scat made for the door.

'I've got to go. I've got to speak to a man about a dog.'

With that, he left the room: certain of a conspiracy to commit murder but not yet certain whether the conspiracy started with Corporate, or security—or both.

And he had less than an hour to work that out before speaking to Petroff again.

#  19

On his way out of Patch's bunk, Scat checked on Marvin's whereabouts. He was chatting to a few friends in the common room, his bags packed and stacked beside him. Scat floated around the edge of the group and caught Marvin's eye. Instinctively Marvin knew Scat wanted to talk about Pierce. He gave his friends an excuse and pulled himself away.

'Pierce?' Marvin asked.

'Yes. He was murdered—by Corporate or security. The jury's out on who exactly, but it's a slam-dunk one or other did it.'

Marvin raised a calming hand; there was no point in anyone else hearing this. The news had been making the rounds. There were already several theories. But there had been nothing to add weight to any of them.

'Well no one believes it was a suicide,' he said, 'but how can you be sure?'

Scat could see Marvin's face begin to flush—it was obvious Pierce's death was a personal loss for him and he was suppressing his anger. Scat hurriedly took him through the sequence of events, and when he was done, Marvin asked him to sit with him.

'Walk me through it, again, but more slowly.'

He did. He saw Marvin's eyes flicker from left to right as he looked at the floor. When he was finished, Marvin looked up.

'Is Thomas of the same opinion?' he asked.

'Yes. We know its murder, but not who did it.'

Marvin put finger tips to his eyes as he thought it through. He did not speak for a few moments. He then dropped his hands to his knees.

'Maybe we do, Scat. Think. Who put the suicide watch protocol together?'

'Haven't a clue.'

'OK. Well, it was the medical centre, at the request of Corporate, so both of them would know the protocol backwards by now. The point is once someone makes a watch request, protocol says it must be followed up within two hours. Was it chased?'

'No. No evidence it was.'

'Well, had Corporate used the suicide watch request to line him up for a murder, it would have followed the protocol to the letter. But as you explain it, someone's backtracking and filling in the gaps, post event. That tells me that it was someone else: someone who's been all over medical since they arrived.'

The penny dropped. Scat's expression hardened.

'Fark! It was Petroff! I told him about the request, and the toe-rag went and used it.'

Scat stared at the corridor leading to the administration centre where Petroff had last met him. His mind was dark with violent thoughts.

Marvin must have seen the change in him. He offered him some advice.

'Scat, be very careful. There's a lot at stake here.'

'I'm fast becoming aware of what's at stake, Marvin.' Scat replied, turning to face him. 'Petroff is playing dirty and for keeps. He's nipping this thing in the bud with a chain saw. But why Pierce?'

Something in the way in which Marvin shifted on his seat suggested he was trying to choose his words carefully.

'If you think about it, it's obvious. No one else had the balls to hack the central computer. He stood up and faced corporate down. Then there was the work stoppage. He could have claimed credit for it all. Petroff was slaying a potential leader—a potential rebel leader.'

'Well,' Scat replied, pausing to remember what Petroff had said. 'I've less than an hour to decide what I'm going to be for the foreseeable future—rebel or patriot. But Petroff is thinking more along the lines of me being either a patriot or a private citizen. He says I can go about my normal business up here if I opt out, but now I'm not so sure.'

'Go along with what he wants, Scat.' Marvin advised.

'What?'

'Go along with it. Get yourself to Trevon. Learn some more. Murder is still murder, in uniform or out of it so Corporate can't condone it and Petroff'll not want loose ends. If he thinks you know, he'll try to get rid of you. Up here, you'll have nowhere to hide. Trevon is so much larger than this place, and it's Earth-similar. If you need to disappear, it'll be easier. I can introduce you to people.'

Scat stared at him. He was not expecting that advice.

'But do you think Petroff will believe me if I tell him I'm on board? It's as though he can see right through you when he talks to you. He doesn't even blink. It's unnatural. He doesn't know we've rumbled him yet, but he could find out easily enough—I'll be leaving people behind who may it let slip.'

Marvin shook his head.

'Maybe they won't be left behind, Scat. They've already arrested some junior supervisors for helping Pierce hack the computer—they'll be deported, along with the Trevon-born and PRs. Besides, I don't think Petroff will stay on Prebos for long. He's head of security for Lynthax. His office is on Trevon. He'll leave Xin and a large contingent behind.'

Scat pushed back into his seat and sat in silence for a short while, mindful that he should already be reporting to Petroff, or soon, at any rate. The V3 would be leaving in a couple of hours. He needed to keep a better track of time.

'Look Marvin, I want to make this clear: if I say "yes" to Petroff, it won't be in favour of his cause—it'll be to stay alive. At least if I'm alive I can make a choice for or against—if I need to, that is. I can't base my decision on Petroff. Petroff isn't Earth. He's a bumped-up doorstop with a gizmo for brains.'

Marvin leaned forward slightly.

'Fair enough, Scat,' he said. 'So run along. Get into Petroff's knickers. Blow in his ear. Let him hear what he wants to hear. But you hear this: until the lads get back to Trevon, you can't confirm it was murder. That would cause a riot. Keep it to yourself. I'll speak to Irwin.'

Scat nodded. He could neither find the words to explain how he felt, nor think of anything funny to say to hide his growing unease. He was out of his depth in someone else's future war.

'Get to Trevon, Scat. Be on the V3. We'll take it from there.'

Marvin patted Scat on the shoulder and then walked across to re-join his friends. Scat sat back and stared across the common room, mind blank. All he could hear in his head was a clock, ticking down another hour.

OK, Marvin. I'll kiss Petroff's butt, and we'll see where it takes us.

#  20

Petroff let Scat do the talking. He wanted to see how convinced Scat was that he was following the best course of action. It was time for Scat to sell the idea back to him. Should he do so convincingly then he may prove to be of more use, and be more reliable, than Williams believed. Xin had expressed no opinion.

Besides, a series of alerts from Williams was proving a distraction. Allowing Scat to talk gave him time to think about a developing situation on the frigate.

'—and it fits in with my plans, Mr Petroff. I'll just be missing 18 months of being cooped up with a bunch of barrack room lawyers. The really interesting guys are the Trevons, and they'll be gone. In any case, if I can avoid bone density loss, and still pick up my pay cheque and end-of-contract bonus, I'll be happy. I'm not planning to stay in-system when I'm finished here.'

Scat had mentioned Earth's right to talk it over with the Trevons before matters escalated, but it was clear the extra money was of more importance.

'Fair enough, Scat,' Petroff replied, putting a hand on Scat shoulder and guiding him to a chair at last.

Despite the distractions, he had been listening. Petroff took considerable pride in his multitasking skills. He looked at the clock above the door.

'We need to make it fairly convincing, and we don't have much time. I was thinking it might be enough for you to get a little physical with one of our techies when we replace the Trevons in life support. Or perhaps you could drop a trooper or two. We could then have you arrested. It would be enough.'

As well as be quite entertaining, he thought.

'I'm not so sure I want to start a fight in micro gravity, Mr Petroff. Nothing goes according to plan when you bounce around these corridors. There's not much sense in getting hurt so early on.' Scat was alluding to the stun guns the troopers carried. Petroff doubted they could be lethal, but the heart does assume a different workload after a month and a half of low gravity, and Scat appeared worried by it.

'Well surprise me then,' Petroff replied, losing interest in the details as he scanned another neuralnet message from Williams. 'I just need an excuse to deport you.'

As Scat left the room and walked across to the accommodation wing, he realised Petroff was right: it would have to be a fight with a doorstop or with a departmental supervisor. It was a crude plan, but there was precious little time to contrive anything more sophisticated. If he made claims about Pierce's death, it would shake the station to its core, just as Marvin warned it might. It would get bloody, and anyway, it would defeat the object of keeping Petroff sweet. No, he would have to get bolshie and pick a fight. Given the situation, it would be enough to get him deported.

He wondered what he had left behind in his bunk. He doubted he would get the chance to go collect anything afterwards. He would drop a grunt, he would get a zapping, and then they would drag him in for a quick medical. After that, he was sure he would be detained until the V3 took off.

Aside from his graf and a small personal planner, there was a necklace and silver cross, both given to him at his mother's funeral. They were in his baggage. He carried them everywhere he went, but never wore them. He could not think of anything else. He would carry them into the fight with him and hope the doorstops did not loot it all when they arrested him.

He did not want to risk a zapping, but he could not think of a faster, or a more reliable, way to get deported. He would disconnect the batteries in his personal planner.

It should be ok.

#  21

45 minutes before the V3's planned launch, workers started to exit the accommodation rooms. Some wheeled luggage into the common room, others headed upstairs to the observation deck.

The Trevons did not appear particularly upset or angry at being deported. If anything, the deportations were bringing to an end an uncomfortable chapter in their lives. And if things went as they hoped, it was the beginning of something better.

The out-of-system workers looked a little uneasy. They were staying behind and still had contract negotiations to look forward to before mining had any chance of restarting.

Petroff had been unconcerned.

'The company can afford to be generous; it has cash coming out of its gazoo. I'd rather give these ungrateful sons of bitches a pay rise and extra media concessions than be reliant on the Trevons.' He then quickly added, 'For the time being at least, Scat, until this is all over.'

Scat stood to one side, in a quarter of the common room that housed a few pool tables, a comfy couch, a coffee dispenser and a wall mounted media unit. He looked along the wall to the accommodation wing exit, waiting for Security to bring out the supervisors who they had dismissed and then detained within hours of their arrival.

According to Petroff, they were guilty of turning contract disputes into arguments over who was the ultimate power on Prebos – Corporate, Trevon, or Earth. They were political agitators. For now, though, Corporate could only charge them with commercial crimes.

They appeared as Scat reworked his last conversation with Petroff, looking for a way he might have reservations about his sincerity.

The common room fell into silence. Angolena emerged, ahead of an extended husky carrying Pierce's coffin and an airbed carrying the inert Arnold. Four plasticuffed supervisors and their escort followed them. There were three troopers in the escort, each of them carrying stun guns holstered under their left arms, butts pointing forward.

Scat looked around him. Aside from the escort, a few more troopers stood outside the entrance to Corporate.

Pierce's body led the procession across the common room towards the cargo bay corridors. There were murmurings of disapproval as the Trevons gathered around it. They glanced hatefully at the security guards.

Scat decided that this was the right time.

He pushed off from the wall and clipped one of the escorts in the back of the knee. They both went down in a slow motion heap, taking two of the detainees with them. Scat scrambled to his knees, leaning on the trooper's neck. He dug down with his thumb, pushing the windpipe aside for a fraction of a second.

It was enough.

The trooper saw through a mist of red, he bawled, and pulled at his stun as he tried to stand. Scat struggled to smother his arms. He caught glimpses of the detainees pushing and pulling themselves away, leaving them with room to slug it out. Their fellow Trevons waded in to help pull them clear, knocking chairs and tables over, spilling drinks.

Scat saw a brilliant flash of piercing white and then lost sense of his surroundings. He went down in a heap, landing awkwardly on an upturned chair, his body quivering.

Scat was helpless and panicky. He had no control over anything; even his thoughts were chaotic. He was in a spasm, unable to move anything of his own accord.

He felt Angolena place an airbag over his mouth and nose, forcing air into his lungs. Overhead lights flashed by as they wheeled him into the medical centre.

They laid him out on a gurney and zapped him a couple of times to settle his heart rate. Angolena then stuck a needle into his arm and slowly Scat regained some coordination. Angolena looked around and then leaned in.

'Did you lose consciousness, Scat?'

'No ... I don't think so.'

'Good,' Angolena said, checking the back of Scat's neck. 'It looks like they took it out on you a little—you've a couple of nasty electrical burns around the back: here... and here.' He tapped Scat's neck alongside each burn and then eased his head back to the pillow. 'Follow the light for me, will you,' he said as he swept a pencil light across Scat's face. He then leaned in, adding: 'And remember, you're to be very angry.'

Scat did not catch everything Angolena was saying, only the tail end of it.

'What?' But I already am. Why would he tell me that?

It then dawned on him: he was in the medical centre because he was working to a plan. He tried to recall what that plan was.

'Sure. But it'll take a minute.'

Then it flooded back: the suicide watch, the phoney request. And Angolena was aware of the plan. Petroff must trust him.

He gripped the gurney for leverage and swung his right fist into Angolena's face.

It was a good, clean hit.

As Angolena tottered, Scat pulled the leads from his chest, swung his legs around and fell unsteadily to the floor. Behind him, the gurney smashed against the wall with a loud crash. A cabinet fell to the floor shattering glass across the tiles. Patch rushed across the room in a bid to catch Angolena as he crumpled to the floor only to back off when Scat appeared to square-off with him, his eyes wide open, but still unfocused.

Scat mumbled something to himself, slurring his words like a drunk.

'Farking jumped-up, trigger-happy grunts! Let me get my farking hands on the bastards.'

Still disoriented, Scat staggered across the room, stumbled into the corridor and blundered into two troopers coming the other way. There was another scuffle. He went down, lashing one of them with an open hand and punching the air with the other.

Eventually he was overwhelmed. He felt the guards kneeling on his back, to keep him still. One of the guards plasticuffed him and pronounced him secure. The other then bounced Scat's face off the aluminium decking. Scat saw more flashing lights. It went dark. Then there was nothing.

#  22

When Scat came too, he felt someone, or some people, dragging him through the cargo bay to a waiting ground shuttle. Once inside, his escort sat either side of him, holding him upright.

As expected, he did not have time to return to his bunk. His head hurt and his coveralls were wet with blood, but he was regaining control of his body. As his focus returned, he looked down and saw he had pissed himself, either when he was zapped or after receiving the relaxant.

One of the escorts re-cuffed his hands in front of him, as was regulation when travelling through a zero-atmosphere environment, even in a ground shuttle. It gave him a chance to feel through his left coverall pocket for the personal planner and his necklace and cross. They were still there.

He looked around, not recognising his escorts: neither of them was involved in the earlier two incidents, which was a relief. Perhaps Petroff was making sure that the running confrontation did not make its way onto the V3. That was good of him. A pissed-off escort was the last thing Scat needed right now.

On the opposite side of the shuttle floor, a group of Trevons viewed Scat with curiosity, disgusted by the condition he was in. They looked at the troopers with a mixture of hostility and suspicion, and the troopers stared back, daring them to make a move they did not like.

It was a tense ride, but at least it was quiet.

The ground shuttle powered its way up a steep ramp at the rear of the ship. It levelled out onto a hangar deck crowded with dozens of idle sub-ftl container shuttles.

The V3 was no ordinary vessel. She was huge—even the smaller of its cargo bays was larger than the biggest of the first-generation tankers and because of that, it struggled to achieve escape velocity from worlds of 1/2 Earth Standard Gravity or more. On Prebos the LM-V3 landed and loaded directly. It shortened the operation considerably, being a day or so quicker than waiting for the container shuttles to complete so many round trips.

They wound their way clear of the tanker's shuttles and came to a stop at the hangar's rear bulkhead. The newly enclosed space was rapidly re-pressurized and, as everyone debussed, the cargo carts off-loaded what little luggage there was.

The interior of the V3 was a mix of green and yellow wall facings, red warning signs and blue flooring. There was no exposed metal. There was no flaking paint. For the most part, it was fines free, all clean and bright.

Now the interior space was breathable again, pressure doors opened automatically revealing well-lit corridors leading through the bulkhead to various parts of the ship. Scat guessed that they would not go very far. The cargo hangar on the other side of the bulkhead would take up the greater length of the ship, filled as it was with Amesont.

As Scat took in this new environment, the younger of his two guards tugged at his cuffs and guided him forward into one of the corridors. The other guard followed close behind. A few metres along they showed him into the cargo bay's emergency medical station where a young medical assistant straightened his nose.

Scat stifled a yelp. The older guard smiled.

'Quit the histrionics, Scat,' the younger guard said.

'Nasty mess we have here. Door or floor?' the medic asked as he swabbed the burns on his neck.

'Floor!' Scat cried, straightening his back and pulling his head away from the pain.

'Must have had some help on the way, Mr Scat. Low gravity impact isn't usually so bloody,' the medic replied, concentrating on Scat's upper body looking for more injuries.

'Aye. One of these goons lent a hand. Do I still have hair on the back of my head?'

The medic took a cursory look between swabs.

'You do.'

'That's a relief, because these murdering farks fight like girls.'

It was Scat's turn to smile, a broad smile with teeth showing, but to his surprise, his guards smiled along with him.

'Better take a look at his teeth as well,' the older guard suggested.

It was not long before the V3's Commander announced the ship was preparing for take-off.

The guards walked Scat out of the medical station and into a large, low-lit forward-facing cabin that was lined with rows of launch seats facing a podium and a widescreen. It was noisy, already packed with Trevons. In the narrow aisles, a few of the crew walked up and down, checking their seat belts. The younger guard guided Scat to a seat along the back wall, sat him down and cut through his plasticuffs with a small box knife.

The older guard waited until Scat was comfortable, and then leaned over the back of the seat in front of him to speak quietly into his ear.

'We're not joining you, Scat, so don't be a nuisance on your trip to Trevon. The Commander won't be as gentle on you as we were. Don't go overboard on the jokes, OK? He won't understand your sense of humour. He might take it the wrong way.'

'Fair enough, grunt,' Scat replied, trying to sound cockier than he felt. 'Do I slum in the brig, or with the rest of these guys?'

'It's a tanker, Scat. There's no brig. It's a civilian vessel. The most they ever have on board are some company doorstops like us or a technical specialist with a day's training on a stun. In any case, it's a short journey. If you're a bad-ass they'll confine you to your cabin, on short rations most likely,' he added good-naturedly. 'Otherwise, there's nowhere else for you to go. Have an accident-free trip.'

#  23

'What do you mean by "the flight plan's been rejected"?' the V3 Commander asked.

'As I said, Ferris, there's an obstacle along first leg. The buoy network confirms it. You're to use channel two to buoy station F4.'

Petroff rolled his eyes. He was only talking to Ferris because the StarGazer operator had patched him through without warning. The young lad was going to regret that later in the day.

On the face of it, they were doing the V3 a favour. They had checked the first few legs of the channel to see if it could slip past the first three buoy stations without running into nearby objects. It would shorten the trip.

A ship's flux-drives disturbed space. They compressed the space ahead of a ship and expanded the space behind it. That caused gravitational ripples out front, like the bow wave ahead of an ocean liner, and churned the space out back, much like a ship's wake. That pushed and pulled at interstellar objects, disturbing their trajectory, making their movements unpredictable.

Hitting a speck of space dust at one or two light years per day would not lead to a bad-hair day; the plasma screens would simply burn them away, but anything the size of a small pebble would tear a hole through the length of the ship at an equivalent speed. Such an event was always catastrophic.

The solution had been an expensive one. The Inter-Space Regulatory Authority established the ftl Buoy Channel and Communications Network, a series of channels running up and down the routes to the New Worlds, much like two ladders lying side by side. One ladder ran away from Earth, the other ladder ran back to it, with ISRA and civilian shipping each using their own run.

Ftl buoys ran up and down all of them, stopping at each rung, or rendezvous station, where they played tag with the buoy already in place. That one then raced off further down the channel, leaving the newly arrived buoy to pass on its latest news, collect updates, and to confirm to waiting ships that the next stage of the journey was free and clear. Whenever the route was obstructed, the buoys adjusted the channel, automatically.

Only the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority, ISRA, and its Outer Rim Force enforcement arm could cross from one channel to another using the intersections. Civilian ships were barred from doing so. They were required to stay in the civilian shipping channels and to stop at every buoy station along the route to pick up their navigation updates.

It would remain this way until the Outer-Rim Near-Object Survey was completed and they could more accurately predict the effects of ftl on those objects. Or until the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority permitted the transfer of "off-channel", military-grade StarGazer technology to the private sector. Which was unlikely. Unless your company was willing to short-cut things, as Petroff had tried to do.

'Think of the upside:' Petroff continued, 'You can jump the entire channel, all the way to F4. The way is free and clear. It'll shorten your journey by four hours.'

'Understood, Petroff, but what is it, this obstacle?'

'We can't tell, Commander, but it's well within the channel so we're being careful.'

'OK. So be it. But just to remind you, I don't like the idea of ferrying these wayward cousins of yours to Trevon. We'll be invoicing Lynthax for the extra burn.'

Ferris signed off without waiting for Petroff to respond.

Good luck with that, Petroff thought.

Petroff pushed the mike away and looked for a source of coffee. He found it, filled a cup, gathered up his planner and then stopped briefly to gaze at another incoming neuralnet message from Williams.

'We can't confirm the nature of it, sir. And there's no Earth-Standard electronic signature either. It appears inert. Smooth, not irregular in shape.'

'Exactly how far out is it?'

'Not far: three AU.' Some 435 million kilometres.

'And the V3?'

'It won't sense it. We can launch on your command once the V3 has jumped.'

'I'm coming over. Fetch Xin. Conference in 15.'

As Petroff made his way across the station, the L-M V3 took off amid a violent storm of fines, thrusting its way slowly to the initial jump site some 5000 kilometres above Prebos.

Within minutes of it leaving the gravitational influence of Prebos, and as soon as the tanker had passed through its acceleration phase, the 100 metres diameter gravity ring powered-up, ready to begin its lazy rotation.

Free floating in the zero gravity, the passengers divided into two groups and air-swam their way down corridors on either side of the ship. Scat and the Trevons were led down a corridor marked "Accommodation".

At the far end, there was a large spin-lock door. Opened into a space, no more than 20 metres across and maybe 15 metres long; an area that acted as both a reception and a sitting out area. On either side of reception, a line of accommodation units stretched around the ring in both directions. A narrow corridor on the near side of the ring followed the accommodation units around the ship. Interrupting its smooth lines were the occasional fire doors and a long line of handgrips that ran along the wall.

Like most of the LMs currently in service, the accommodation area was plainly decorated. This one was white, save for the scuff marks left by passengers who had pushed themselves off from walls and the ceiling whenever the ring was idle.

Once inside the ring, crewmembers guided them along the up-curving corridor and told them to hold onto the handgrips. When they were suitably orientated, the ring began to slide its way around the ship, gradually pushing the outer walls of the ring, the floor, up through the soles of their geckos. Once 1/6th Earth Standard Gravity was achieved, the passengers began to let go of the grips and pad along the corridor, looking for empty bunks, knowing that the closer the V3 got to Trevon, which exerted 9/10th ESG, the more punishing the rotation would become. They had around 20 hours to get used to it, and most of them had already decided to do that in their sleep.

By the time the V3 arrived at the jump point, some 15 minutes after leaving the Station, the crew had completed their pre-ftl checks, and their guests had settled in.

Commander Ferris looked around the command cabin one final time, giving his helmsman and second-in-command the opportunity to find a last minute glitch. There was none.

He gave the order to jump.

There was a ripple fore and aft, the hull appeared to gleam, wet and shiny, and Scat and the Trevons were gone from Prebos.

As Commander Ryan Xin waited for Petroff in the administration offices, his deputy, Thomas Williams, walked him through the sensor data.

'So it's definitely not a natural obstacle? Not an asteroid?' he asked

'No, Ryan,' Williams answered.

'A local craft? A piece of space junk?'

'I thought of that. No. No record at all. Nothing's been reported missing.'

Petroff cut in as he arrived:

'What's its status?'

'It's dumb, sir,' Williams replied, straightening up, 'although we detect some weak and intermittent signalling. It might be shielded if it's manmade and combat capable—or was combat-capable.'

'Understood, but what of the anomaly surrounding it?'

'There's no explanation for it right now, but then we've not had much time to analyse it, and we aren't getting much back from our sensors—its absorption is almost 100%. What we do know is, it's awful big, and it has no mass. The craft, junk, probe, or whatever it is, appears to be dead centre. It's the only thing in the anomaly that is reflecting anything at all.'

Petroff was as puzzled as both Xin and Williams.

No one on Trevon was capable of building long-range ships and no one used shuttles to reach this far out into space, even within this system.

The anomaly had drawn their attention to it.

It was almost 15000 kilometres in diameter. One instant it was there, the next it was gone; blinking in and out, blacking out all the stars beyond it.

And despite Williams searching the net for a comparable anomaly since its discovery, nothing had yet popped up that was remotely similar.

'Is the Venture Raider ready, Ryan?' Petroff asked.

'It is, Jack,' Xin confirmed. 'We have a full flight crew and two security detachments aboard. And enough fuel for 200 hours at 2.5 light years per hour. The anomaly is only three AU away so there's plenty of reserve.'

'What about the SG who conducted the initial scan?' Petroff asked, referring to the StarGazer operator who discovered the anomaly when validating the V3's flight request.

'He's been told to stay "Mum" until you speak to him.' Williams replied.

'Is the V3 clear?'

Petroff had been the one to suggest pushing the L-M V3 along a different course. It was an afterthought. The new course had taken only a few minutes to predict and, although he had told Ferris the obstacle was in one of the channels on the way to Trevon, that wasn't strictly true: Petroff just wanted the V3 well out of sensor range by the time it dropped back into space so the Raider could check the anomaly on the "QT".

Williams checked his graf.

'Yes, sir, it is. It jumped a few seconds ago. It won't sense anything. Do you want the back-up SG to track this thing from the Station?'

Xin broke in before Petroff could answer:

'Yes, it would help,' he counselled. 'No one need know. It makes sense to keep an extra pair of eyes on it for when you get in close. We can secure the data locally.'

Petroff saw an opportunity: he suspected he might be more comfortable working with the less confident Williams on this trip.

'I agree, Ryan—so long as the data is secured locally. You stay here to keep everything under lock and key. And make sure the locals don't take advantage of our absence.'

Xin nodded, waiting for Petroff to give his final orders.

'OK, then,' Petroff began. 'Thomas, arrange for the spare SG to be set up down here and I'll meet you on board the Raider in 30 minutes. We leave as soon as Ryan has set it up and given us the all clear.

'Abel is to take us halfway to this thing on the first jump.'

#  24

In the hours after he had first sought Marvin's wise counsel, Scat had stared at the low ceiling of his bunk waiting for everything to sink in. That was a couple of days ago, and it had not truly done that then, but now, as the V3 made its way to the first buoy along the designated channel to Trevon, he could let his mind settle. As it did, he tried to put what he knew into context.

Given what he had learned of Pierce's death, his "deal" with Petroff, and the fluidity of everything, he was now doubly concerned that Marvin honour his confidence. Scat had no idea where Marvin stood although he suspected that, on an intellectual level, he would sympathise with the secessionists.

Scat did not think it mattered that people were pissed, disgruntled, or even looking for a greater share of the voice: power was always shifting from one centre to the next—it was in the nature of things. But if the authorities did not handle the situation well—and there were already signs of that—then the jostling and positioning could give way to a very real war, just as it had on Earth during the scramble for its remaining resources.

And did anyone know how to conduct a war in space? Just how do two planets, or solar systems, separated by 117 light years, slug it out? He tried to imagine it, but couldn't.

It was crazy.

Could the Outer-Rim planets genuinely hope to achieve truly meaningful independence from Earth?

He could not guess at an answer. Most of the Outer-Rim planets were still in the early stages of development and were barely adequate hosts for their current populations. They needed Earth, almost as much as Earth needed them, even if the New Worlds were to start trading among themselves.

Then there were the needs and wishes of the corporations that had funded the majority of the New World developments. Most were Earth-incorporated, long embedded into the power structures there. The profit motive was a strong and influential factor, and that meant things might not flow along a predictable path.

As he stared at the cabin ceiling, it dawned on him that he was probably witnessing, first hand, and for the second time, another transformational shift in the affairs of man.

Whereas the Resource Wars had been all about Earth's remaining resources, the next conflict was likely to be all about the resources man had yet to discover. Yes, they might cloak it as a struggle for local government by local people, but it was a land grab, nevertheless. A land grab on a scale so vast, it had no historical comparison.

Change was inevitable. The distances involved would complicate the process of change. It would get messy: messy enough to hit Scat's bottom line—what little there was of it.

Pierce's "suicide" had been a complication in an otherwise routine security operation. It was an inconvenience, no more than that, but in Petroff's experience, it was always best to eliminate that kind of threat early on. Lynthax could thank him later or not at all—on this occasion it did not matter.

He had already done a lot worse in his 10 years as Director of Security. He was constantly doing the jobs for the board of directors that they could not do for themselves, and he had lost count of the number of times he had cleaned up after their brattish, privileged children. His files—his "Hoover" files as he called them—were filled with such indiscretions and he was getting quite adept at turning a week's worth of cover-up work into a decade's worth of favours. Sadly, his files were not quite the hammer he needed to crack that final glass ceiling: he did not yet have all the votes he needed to join that most exalted of Lynthax families—the board of directors—but he was working on it.

This thing, though, was a far-from-routine matter and had come from well out of left field, being both unexpected and potentially more destabilising than the current upheavals around the Outer-Rim.

Petroff had yet to articulate his thoughts on the matter, and guessed that neither Xin nor Williams wanted to discuss it either, for fear of it becoming a matter of record.

The anomaly couldn't be man-made. It was either a natural phenomenon or...

He caught himself before he could finish the thought.

I'm not going there. It complicates everything.

The first rule of space exploration, the Law of First Contact, was abundantly clear: it forbade any unapproved contact with a species that has the capacity for space travel. The immediate action in such a situation is to high-tail-it-the-Hell-out-of-Dodge—at maximum light speed and to the maximum limit of sensor range—away from Earth. Even if it did take forever to work out where one ended up, and even longer to find the way home again, one was never to interact with it, and one was never, ever, to show them the way to a human world. Obviously, no one expected anything good to come of a chance encounter with a potentially superior life form.

But although Petroff enforced the rules, he did not always abide by them. He liked to push things until he was standing over the red line. After all, what was the point in possessing such power and privilege if you could not use it, and sometimes abuse it?

In any case, in the history of manned space flight, no one had ever before come into contact with anything more intelligent than the bugs and lower-order mammals of the New Worlds. More importantly, he had no proof, to this point, that they were indeed approaching an alien craft, or that the anomaly was anything but natural.

So, the net can't offer a comparable natural likeness. What of it?

Space was full of firsts in that field.

In any case, they had to check it out. He couldn't just leave it there, so close to the Outer-Rim.

On reflection, the events unfolding within the human universe were challenging, but predictable. In situations such as these—rebellions, insurrections and revolutions—the changes they brought about often disturbed the order of things, but were then absorbed. Life went on. The rich and privileged learned to deal with the new dynamic and stayed rich and privileged.

But, should he be right about this thing, then...

He was still wondering about how well Earth would cope, when the Venture Raider dropped out of ftl.

#  25

Abel called up the command cabin screen while the crew ran system checks and readied the frigate to jump again. Petroff had been very clear: he wanted the capacity to jump clear within minutes of arrival, but for the next eight minutes or so, no matter what was ahead of them, they were exposed and vulnerable.

The screen flickered and then burst light around the darkened cabin. Faces suddenly came into view. There was nothing to see at first, just a blur of stars. The SG operator got to work, adjusting the resolution and magnification.

Then there it was.

Ahead and slightly above them was a black space where the anomaly cut a void through the starry backdrop. Then it was gone, and there it was again. It was still blinking. Its position had not changed. Nor had its size.

From his observer's couch at the back of the cabin, Petroff glanced over at Williams and then back to the screen.

'The craft?' he asked.

'Still there, sir.'

'Good. Abel, how long before we can slip in closer?'

Abel's Number Two, the Raider's Second-in-Command, threw up eight fingers.

'Eight minutes, Jack,' Abel replied.

'OK. What are we learning from the SG?'

The SG operator looked up at the cabin screen, then down to his console before turning to face Petroff.

'Still no reflection, sir. We can't detect the stars beyond the anomaly when it blinks on. It's as though they just disappear. The vessel remains in view throughout. It doesn't go anywhere.'

'Any radiation?'

'None from the anomaly. Some from the vessel, though it's weak: its main power source must have died quite some time ago. However, what radiation there is does tend to spike along with the blink rate. It's higher when the stars blink out.'

Petroff nodded and then turned to Williams.

'Williams, what are you seeing?'

'Similar, sir. Emissions are volatile, sir. There's no pattern to them. They're random and weak. What we can see is coming from the craft, not the void.'

'OK, thank you. Abel! Half the distance again when we're ready to jump.'

'Aye, sir.'

Abel ordered his Number Two to power down all the non-essential systems and then he sent his crew back to main stations.

In the hold at the rear of the ship, while the officers had pondered their next move, troopers, specialist technicians, and fire and medical teams had been hard at work. Everything was now ready. The in-system tug was free of its zero gravity moorings, ready to launch rearwards from the number two port deck. The explosive bolts holding the frigate's life capsules in place were primed. Two detachments of troopers now sat in separate shuttles, ready to board the unidentified craft, should there be a need. And the medical team had powered up the life support airbeds and purged the re-pressurisation chamber of stale air.

For the first time since its decommissioning by the Inner-Rim Forces two years before, the newly christened Venture Raider, formerly the IRF Singapore was ready for action.

Abel counted down the last few seconds. He then looked up.

'Take her in, helmsman,' he ordered. 'SG, watch for a response.'

'Aye, sir.'

And the frigate disappeared from space as it jumped again.

#  26

The SG's voice sounded a pitch too high and his words were rushed:

'It isn't two-dimensional, sir. It's a sphere.'

'How do you know?' Abel asked. 'It doesn't emit anything. We can't get a read on it.'

'There's nothing between us and the craft, sir. It's a complete blank. The readings, I mean. No particles, no radiation—nothing. We should be picking up more noise in the space between the craft and us, but we're not. It means the anomaly is closer than the craft. It can only be a sphere.'

'How far are we from the surface of this "sphere"?'

They had been closing on the anomaly in ftl hops, shortening the distance each time by around a half.

'Perhaps 20,000 kilometres, sir. We're only 27,500 kilometres from the craft.'

'Very good, SG. Sir?' Abel called across to Petroff who was in consultation with Williams. 'I advise we launch the tug from here then back off. We can come in again for it as and when it exits the void. She's a range of 300,000 kilometres. It'll do.'

'OK, Abel. Get it done.'

The small, snub-nosed tug pushed off as the Venture Raider backed away off under impulse power to a distance of 50,000 kilometres from the spherical void, keeping its sensors trained on the craft at its centre. By the time the frigate had come to a full stop, the tug was passing from recognized, radiated space and into nothing. Within seconds, its communications with the Venture Raider turned to mush. But Abel was a competent commander, and he had planned for such an event: the tug continued its pre-programmed journey under automatic pilot.

The tug scanned the craft as it made its approach, recording the craft's emissions each time the void blinked. When it closed to within 2000 kilometres, it changed direction and circled around it. After it had completed a circuit, it returned to the void's outer-limits and re-entered recognisable space.

Once it was clear the tug was returning unharmed, the Venture Raider closed in and allowed it to dock.

'Number Two, check the tug's systems,' Abel ordered.

'Aye, sir.' The Number Two nodded to the SG who passed his hand through a 3-D screen to touch various parts of the tug's schematic.

Petroff made his way across the floor to stand beside the Number Two, hands on the back of the SG's chair.

The SG looked up at the ship's Number Two, and then noticed Petroff:

'Er, sir? Sirs?'

'Yes—what have you got?' Petroff asked.

'The tug picked up 5,023 emissions from the craft, all of the same strength and type. This time there was no randomness, they're regular and quite strong.'

'OK, good. See if you can interpret them,' the Number Two replied, chivvying him along with his hands, quietly adding: 'Get it done quickly, lad!'

The SG got to work.

'So it can speak!' Petroff said loudly for all to hear. 'But I wonder what it says?'

The SG looked up at the Number Two again:

'They are the same emission, sir. At least it's the same strength, wavelength and duration... but it's not a recognisable SOS... or an identifier. Actually, sir, they match the blink rate of the void.'

'A command, do you think, sir?' Williams asked.

'Perhaps,' Petroff mused. 'SG, what is the time-lag between emission and blink?'

'It's almost instantaneous, sir. Virtually no lag.'

'For the record then, what comes first, emission or blink?' Petroff asked, giving the SG a playful evil eye.

'The emission, sir. But not so's you'd notice.'

'Thank you, SG. Keep working on its meaning. Williams, Abel, may we speak privately?'

Both men joined Petroff in a briefing room that was separated from the command cabin by a large transparent star map representing their current sector of space. Points of light in the map highlighted all the known stars in this section of the galaxy: some of them were bright white; others light blue; a few of them were red. What remained were a dark brown. A large number of stars appeared connected to others by thin lines of light: they were binaries.

The map may have covered 100 light years of space, but to Petroff it represented a screen behind which he could hold the conversation he dreaded having, just in case Abel, the Raider's current Commander, pulled rank and cited anything relating to the safety of the ship.

'That's weird,' Abel observed. 'How can the signals be as clear as a bell inside the void, but virtual mush outside of it?'

Petroff appeared to ignore him. Instead, he stared directly at Williams.

'Thomas, I think you know what I'm thinking. Given what we have seen and now know, I think the time's right to discuss where we go from here.'

'I agree sir. For the record, I'm not entirely comfortable with what we've found so far. There's nothing we've learned about this craft, or whatever it is, to suggest it is of human origin.'

'Not human? I'm not following you, sir,' Abel said, cutting through their conversation. 'What else could it be?'

Petroff turned from Williams and faced Abel square on.

'Deputy Commander Williams is expressing a concern that the craft may not be of human origin, Abel, and I'm of the same opinion. It's clear to me that it's causing the void. Do you know of any human technology that can achieve that?' he added, pointing at the command cabin screen through the transparent star map. 'Even accidentally?'

'No sir, I can't, but until the SG's finished his analysis, or we bring the craft on board, we can't say for sure it isn't an in-system ship of local design. The emissions could be causing the void, but not intentionally.'

Petroff sucked on that for as long as a second:

'I'm inclined to agree, Abel,' he replied, shifting his position, realising it could justify closer contact with the craft. He looked from Abel to Williams to gauge his reaction

Petroff saw Williams eyes dart nervously, uncertainly, between the two of them. He was probably working out how he could register his objection for the record. Fortunately, unlike the more experienced and confident Xin, Williams was new to his post and could still be railroaded. True enough, Williams was anxious about the whole venture.

'I must counsel against this, sir. No good will come of it. We should report its location to the Outer Rim Force and let them deal with it according to protocol.'

Abel had other concerns:

'But sir, if there are emissions, it means that at least some of the craft's systems are still working. That means there could still be people on board—alive. We couldn't possibly leave here without confirming there's no one on board—it's the least we should do.'

'And how do you propose we prove that without first pulling it out of the void, Commander?' Williams asked.

'Well, there would be no other way. It's not as though we can rely on the tug acting independently—not while it's out of contact with us. And it's impossible to programme it to respond to all the Rumsfeld Unknowns—it would take days just to anticipate them all. But we could send someone in the tug to react within guidelines.'

'Again, I agree, Abel,' Petroff said, nodding. 'It's a sensible option. In any case, Thomas, the ORF is a little busy right now. We're "it". As Abel says, we can't just ftl the hell out of here without confirming the absence of human life. Right now, we can't prove anything either way, and as I see it, a void is a void: it's nonaggressive. It doesn't appear to be intelligent. It isn't going anywhere.'

'Sir,' Williams started, this time more officially, 'it mightn't be hostile, and we can't confirm it's alien, but if you are to continue, I want this ship in a state of instant readiness to jump—with or without its tug.'

Abel cut in quietly, still thinking, but out aloud:

'Why use the tug? We may as well just fly in and scoop it up. The tug's already proven we can come and go from the void unmolested and with all its systems intact.'

The three of them looked at each other. None could see a more obvious alternative to Abel's suggestion, other than to jump away.

In Petroff's view, he had two firm votes for stepping further out on a limb, and the other, Williams, who he would deal with later, was now only undecided—he was not refusing outright. Petroff resolved to hurry things along:

'Splendid, gentlemen! Then we agree, and we have a plan. Abel, let's get on with it: let's pick up that craft and crack it open.'

#  27

The journey from the V3 to Go Down City would be a short but spectacular one, so Scat hurried through the shuttle's cargo bay and into the launch room, grabbing a forward-facing launch seat close to the flight cabin.

Before him and filling the window to the port side of the flight cabin was a living and shining Trevon. To the starboard was the blackness of space. As they closed in on the planet, Trevon's horizon flattened out until the brilliant white band of its terminator ran in a straight line from roof to floor. It then appeared to rotate and drop below them as the shuttle altered its approach and offered its heat shield to the thin upper atmosphere. A frenzy of heat and light wrapped itself around the shuttle, obliterating the view, leaving a visible disturbance in its wake.

Some 20 minutes later, the shuttle slowed sufficiently for the air to part before it, and Scat could then see the sky all around him. The blackness of space was gone, and the refraction in the atmosphere obscured the detail he had seen from space. The shuttle continued towards a morning sun that pushed a flood of light across the predominantly white and sometimes green Trevon surface, in places scarred and brown where mines dug deep into the crust. A band of clouds obscured the frozen continental seaboard, dissipating over a sea of gunmetal blue.

Scat's spirits lifted. If he were lucky, the sky would be clear, the air crisp and bracing, smelling of decaying vegetation, snow, salt—all natural things.

At 20,000m, the shuttle extended its wings and slowed from Mach four to a more sedately, subsonic 450 kilometres per hour, its flight properties changing from a ballistic missile to that of an air-rider. As it descended through 5000 metres it buffeted slightly, dipped, straightened, yawed and banked as it lined up on the Go Down City spaceport, only just visible in the haze some 10 kilometres away. Then a member of the crew closed the flight cabin door in preparation for landing, stealing the scene away. In no time at all, it was hitting the runway, wheels screeching, cabin rumbling, loose bin lids rattling.

The three shuttles pulled off the runway towards a row of buildings set back from the main terminal. Once they had powered down, everyone, including the flight crew, disembarked along a closed and windowless gantry into a small customs hall reserved for Lynthax personnel. Teams of environmental specialists pushed past them in the opposite direction to sterilize the shuttle's interior.

In the background, and spread out around the hall, were several groups of Lynthax Security, each trooper armed with a stun gun and, this time, a lethal small arm.

Off to Scat's right he could see the supervisors, who, like him, had been led on board the V3 in plasticuffs, being rearrested. At the head of his own queue, he saw two troopers waiting, looking at him.

It would be his turned next.

#  28

They rode to Go Down City in silence, his minders disinterested in their surroundings and less interested in him. They were unlikely to lose him while they travelled across such a bleak and barren landscape but would pay closer attention once they reached the Loop. Scat was no longer plasticuffed so he was free to fidget and stretch, pushing down on his seat to gauge his new 9/10th ESG weight.

He could scarcely tackle a kitten right now, let alone sprint across rough ground, so he settled for looking at the snowdrifts through the window, wondering when he would take his first steps outside and suck in the chill air. The light wind pushed thin and powdery mists of snow across the road. A feeling of nostalgia washed over him. It was like driving across the open plains of the US Midwest in winter.

Then they were at the Loop, descending into Go Down City. The guards began paying attention to their surroundings.

The city founders had built Go Down City along the floor of a 120 kilometres long, one kilometre wide and 450 metres-deep rift that scarred the Trevon landscape running south to north across the Gap Plain. The city now extended along a 10 kilometre stretch of the rift starting from the southern end of its floor. Its buildings were only as high as the rift's lip, their rooftops used to support the transparent, but never quite clear, environmental shield that lay flat across the immense gash in the ground. On a bright and cloudless day, it was visible from space.

At the north end of the city, where the Loop descended into the rift, the environmental shield fell vertically to the floor down the ends of the buildings creating a wind dam wall.

Inside this protective shield lived the 2.5 million permanent resident Trevons, other world representatives, traders, and Earth corporate employees that made up just fewer than half of Trevon's total population.

Go Down City was Trevon's administrative centre and its largest urban environment. It was through Go Down City that everyone came and went to the other worlds, all its imports were processed, and all its exports shipped. The city was Trevon's first significant settlement, and so it had become its cultural and political centre. It was still the site of the Trevon House of Representatives, the courts, and corporate head offices.

He could not see from one end of the city to the other as the rift snaked left and right, and rose and fell slightly, but he knew the layout was similar all the way to the south until it reached the southern rift slope upon which stood the less substantial, early settlement structures.

This was the area first settled by immigrants from Earth in 2150; 50 years after the Lynthax Corporation had augmented its barren landscape with ice resistant ferns and other more complex vegetation.

The planet that humans had taken for themselves was an almost perfect replica of Earth in terms of mass and its position in the habitable zone around Grecos, but its average global climate was akin to Antarctica before the Great Warming – and just as volatile. It just needed a push in the right direction to make it warmer and more hospitable.

In the meantime, Go Down relied on geothermal steam for its warmth. It rose from everywhere. From the grills in the roads and vents atop the tropical atriums to flues in the sides of buildings, hot, moist air condensed in the colder air outside, creating wispy, momentary ribbons of chaos. Here one second; gone the next.

'We're here. Shake a leg!' ordered one of the guards as he opened the vehicle's side door for him.

The suddenness of the instruction pulled Scat from the bustling canyon like avenues and back into a world of aggravation and uncertainty.

'Come on. Get your arse out here and let's go inside. It's cold.'

'I'm not being slung in jail?'

'No. We bailed you at the spaceport.'

Scat was going to ask the obvious question but the guard cut him short.

'We handle the pre-prosecution processes for minor violent crime,' he explained, then noticed Scat's surprise. 'It's just another one of our government contracts. It keeps the government lean and cheap. You'll get used to it.'

'And a lawyer?'

'You'll meet him here. But a Mr Bridges wants to meet with you, first.'

'Who's Bridges?'

'No idea.'

Scat looked around him, sucked in the city's air, and smelled hot dogs, air-conditioning exhaust and dampness. He looked up at the environmental screen above them and saw that the light making its way into the city was weak, hardly casting any shadow. Still, he was glad to be outside without the aid of a pressure suit, CO2 scrubbers and O2 canisters, even if he did weigh so much more than he had when he carried them on Prebos.

He followed his escort up the steps to the foyer and then into the elevator. It was a brutally fast ride.

The elevator doors opened out onto a large half-circle concourse lined with a curving reception desk, perhaps 40 metres long. It looked like an upmarket hotel lobby, but Scat knew this to be Lynthax's Trevon head office, and that behind the walls, either side of reception, the company made and executed its regional policy.

They walked him up to reception where a young girl greeted them. Her smile was wide and enthusiastic. Her name tag said she was Milley. Scat could not avoid smiling back.

Milley looked at the troopers, then at Scat. If she noticed the blood on his coveralls, or the gauze covering his nose, it did not show; her smile did not flicker. She gave him a packet and then a strap to fix around his wrist.

'Please don't take it off, and hand it back when you leave. Please take a seat.'

Scat sat down on a sofa in the middle of the concourse. Almost immediately, Milley's PC pinged, telling her the strap had registered his pulse. Scat's escort took that as their cue to leave. As he waited for Bridges, he drifted into a light doze.

'Good morning, Scatkiewicz.'

Scat snapped to, and looked up to see a large man, perhaps 1.9 metres tall and weighing in at around 120 kilograms, though mostly around his middle. 'I'm Bridges, Director of Projects,' the man said. 'Let's go to our meeting room.'

Bridges was no athlete, but he would be a hard man to put on the ground and his demeanour suggested he knew it. He turned on his heels and led the way a little too quickly for Scat's liking: if Bridges knew that he had just debussed from six weeks in space he was not letting on. Fortunately, the room was only a short way down the first corridor.

'Take a seat Scat. I've been reading Petroff's report on the Prebos situation and his discussions with you. Excellent. Good choice.'

'Thank you, sir. Not sure how excellent it is, but Mr Petroff said it would come up in discussions at this end.'

'What do you mean?'

'What's its worth, Mr Bridges, sir? My value to you. I made it quite clear I'd work with you but that I'd also take any benefits that came with the job, so to speak.'

'You haven't read what's in the packet, have you? Perhaps you'd better do that before we continue.'

Scat drew it out of his coveralls pocket, tore at it then slipped a five-page document out onto the table.

He speed-read it, skipping the whys, wherefores, and contract clauses, paying more attention to the schedule on the back page, reviewing the guarantees of current pay, potential bonus, and method of payment and so on. HR had covered it all.

Well, it was all there; they had not stiffed him: his income was secure, and security of income was everything to a man who had nothing more than the clothes he wore.

It listed Bridges as project sponsor and a Philippe Maurice as his project manager. Other than that, it was a standard company employment contract. He could leave the thing in a MacOlivierBell fast food joint, and no one would be any the wiser that Lynthax had recruited him as a spy.

Bridges waffled on as Scat completed his reading and then concluded with a statement:

'I had better warn you that I kill projects early. I don't let them drag on unproductively. Bear that in mind, Scat. Petroff is aware. He'll be demanding results. So, you had better get some, sharpest!'

'Understood, sir. Anything else?'

Bridges looked over folded hands, and raised an eyebrow. He was obviously expecting a barrage of questions.

'No, Scat. Just don't miss any reports. Maurice's details are in the contract. Good day to you. Go meet your lawyer.'

Scat left the brief meeting and this time Milley walked him across to a less well-furnished room on the other side of the concourse where she introduced him to Mr Samuel DeWitt, his court-appointed and dandruff-plagued lawyer.

He told Scat just how serious his offence was, and then explained that the witness statements had yet to arrive from Prebos. Until then, a court date could not yet be set.

None of this was a surprise. He had assaulted the first guard only 40 minutes or so before the V3 lifted off, so no one had gotten around to taking statements. However, the court had registered his arrest and granted bail pending formal charging.

By the sounds of things, it could take up to six months to file a formal charge, were they to file one. Then Scat realised he could still be charged if he came up short for Petroff.

Feigning his thanks, they exchanged their Trevon publicmail account details—Scat had found his in the new contract—and promised to stay in touch.

As he passed reception, he waved at Milley and stood waiting for an elevator. She cancelled his visiting authority and motioned to him to drop the security strap into the receptacle by the elevator door. He obliged, and then took the next car to the ground floor.

At last he was on his own, and, to the world outside of Lynthax, he was alone, unemployed and homeless.

And if he could help it, he was neither rebel nor spy.

#  29

The recovery had gone well. The craft was on the rear flight deck, safely secured. The Venture Raider had jumped to coordinates some light years away on the other side of the void, away from Prebos. It then sat in complete silence for 30 minutes as the SG operator awaited the return of a surveillance buoy they had left behind at the recovery location. He was now the bearer of some surprising news: the void was gone. Space had returned to normal.

Petroff was severely disappointed: although his companynet search did not provide him with a man-made likeness, the craft fell a long way short of being a sensational discovery.

All he now had was a craft, if that was what it was, measuring 30 metres in length and five metres in diameter. It was a smooth, cylindrical object, with rounded front and rear ends. Evenly spaced around its middle were three brackets. Of propulsion systems, it appeared to have none. There was no exhaust, no entry or escape hatches, and no windows. It was mostly hollow with a cube-shaped area within it through which no scan could pass, and its shell was made of composite materials, none of which was suited to the rigours of air riding, let alone re-entry.

Other than that, they were learning nothing. Moreover, no one could offer any clue as to its possible origin, except to speculate that it could be a fuel tank, illegally dumped in space. Unlikely, though. It had been emitting signals. Junk tended not to do that. Discarded civilian fuel tanks never did.

Then the Raider's science officer suggested that someone touch it. It was an off-hand suggestion—on the face of it, a safe one. There was no detectable radiation, it was cool, and the magnetic field was weak. So Petroff agreed and offered the science officer the opportunity to be the very first human to come into intimate contact with an alien construct, if alien it was.

Science Officer Raja Makindra swallowed hard, entered the hangar deck, and approached the craft-capsule-space-junk wishing he had at least gotten Petroff to grant him the naming rights to this "thing".

He paused, hanging loosely in space with his geckos barely finding traction on the ribbed flooring. He glanced over his left shoulder towards the flight deck window anxiously seeking courage. Petroff, Williams, Abel and a curious flight deck crew looked on, expectantly.

'Get on with it Makindra,' Petroff said over the intercom. 'It was a splendid idea two minutes ago. It still is,' he joked.

Makindra gave Petroff a rueful smile, reminding himself that the next time he had a comment to make, to make it to his self, first. He took a final step forward and then stretched up and rested his hand on the craft's side, half way along its length, just under its widest point.

He recoiled; falling back with his legs sprawled to hit the sidewall where he clutched frantically at a gas canister to stop himself bouncing around the hangar deck. Once he knew which way was up, he snapped around to look back at the craft, still holding onto a scream. His eyes widened in disbelief.

The craft was humming. Lights began to spread along the black surface, within intricate little grooves etched into the skin. Then, just as quickly, it subsided and died.

Petroff broke the silence at the observation window.

'Are you still in one piece, Makindra?'

For a moment or two, Makindra lost his composure. His head bobbed around inside the helmet ring of his outer-suit.

'Yes, sir. I'm flattered you asked. I'm mentally shocked, though not electrically, which is fortunate. I may have crapped myself, though.'

They didn't need to know that. Stop the gibbering, he told himself. And then: Did that really happen?

'I'm fine, thanks,' he confirmed, finally calming down. He added a thumbs up.

'Then dust yourself off, and get back in here,' Petroff ordered. 'OK, Abel, I've seen enough. Let's get this thing back to Prebos. Now, please!'

They had confirmed it was not space junk, and it was not dead, though it was perhaps faulty. All it was going to take to exploit this thing was a little human ingenuity.

Abel was still staring at the now inactive or dead craft, seemingly unable to clear images of lights and the sound of gentle humming from his head.

'Abel?' Petroff asked.

'Yes sir. I heard you. Are you sure about this?'

'I am. To Prebos, please, and now.' He turned to Williams. 'I'm thinking we deploy one of our field hospitals to a deep mine, and set up shop. You can oversee things while Makindra takes a look at it.'

'Yes, sir, but isn't this still best handled by the ORF?'

Petroff shook his head.

'If we do that, Thomas, we'll end up buying what technology it has to offer from a rival corporate. The ORF will let it leak out; after all, it's a supranational body. Let's keep it a while longer and see what it's got to offer.'

Makindra and Williams exchanged glances through the glass. They did not quite comprehend what was in store for them, but it was clear they would be carrying a heavy load for the next few months.

'Abel, once we drop this thing off', Petroff said, thumbing at the craft, 'we're headed to Trevon. And no dallying.'

#  30

As Scat left Lynthax head office and Petroff retired to compile an executive summary of their encounter with the craft, Thomas Irwin's soft-track taxi was close to dropping him off at his family's home in Moss Valley, some 20 or so kilometres to the west of Go Down City.

The ride from the spaceport had taken him south of the city, along a single lane, snow-covered concrete road past a fork that had once led down into the rift, closed off long ago when the city erected the environmental shield.

After passing Go Down City, the soft-track taxi followed the old pioneer trail across the Gap Plain. It rose steadily to a crest line that marked the 300 kilometres long eastern edge of a U-shaped valley that ran north-south, parallel to the rift itself. On the other side of the crest, the ground dropped vertically for 200 metres before gradually levelling off to a broad but shallow seasonal river 300 metres further down in the middle of the valley. Scree littered the upper slopes, covered in patches of snow. Frozen bogs and moss covered the valley floor.

Thomas' grandfather had arrived on Trevon some 60 years ago, one of several immigrants who were prepared to colonise a planet that was barely habitable for humans. His family had made its fortune brokering Central African agricultural land to the Chinese in the early- and mid-21st century, then moved on to trading commodities on the Western Commodities Exchange until the Resource Wars made futures trading with family money seem more like Russian roulette.

He had started out with access to a family fortune, but that was of little help in the first few years: the weather was immune to financial incentives and, in any case, moss farming was not that capital-intensive.

At first, it looked as though he would need to return to Earth, unsuccessful in his attempt to carve an independent fortune out of the new frontier. The truly difficult part was in staying alive and competing with the Spellings who had arrived a decade earlier and maintained a tight grip on the distribution channels through to the pharmaceutical companies back on Earth.

The turning point was a rapid and long-term decline in the weather that killed several moss families in their sleep, making continued moss gathering increasingly difficult. The lack of product meant the Spellings could not amass enough moss to meet their delivery commitments, a situation made all the more difficult when many moss farming families abandoned their properties, rather than wait out an improvement in the climate. That hurt the Spellings financially.

But the Irwins had a history of developing land to its true potential. Instead of packing up and going home himself, he bought up the farmers' vacated land, and even helped them to buy their tickets for the trip back to Earth. He then tackled Go Down's bureaucracy to transfer their farming licenses across to him and, once granted, he used his family's connections in the resource trade to import more robust workers from Earth's slowly vanishing Russian tundra region.

Over time, production was re-established, and finally the Spellings and Irwins had a reason to cooperate.

By the time Thomas' father joined the company, the IrwinSpelling Corporation had built Trevon's largest Outland structure: a 2.5 kilometre long bio-development greenhouse and moss product-manufacturing plant set into the leeward walls of the valley. In the years that followed, they tripled the size of their land bank and expanded the search for wild mosses to sites further along the valley, some as far as the northern tip; mosses that the Irwins and Spellings re-engineered for an increasing number of therapeutic and nutritional purposes.

Now IrwinSpelling was the 10th largest privately owned company on Trevon, providing jobs for 1300 horticulturalists, chemists and bioengineering experts, as well as several hundred less well-qualified packers and transport workers.

The taxi entered a tunnel on the plains side of the ridge, dropped a couple of hundred meters over the next kilometre of road, and then emerged out onto the valley floor, joining a road that ran north below the IrwinSpelling greenhouse, a fragile-looking structure made of clear glass and white panelling.

To the immediate left was the river, its banks covered in lichen and moss, all of them common varieties and of little use to the IrwinSpelling Corporation. Snow was still melting in patches along its banks. Above the valley's eastern ridge, a weak sun appeared bright, the sky blue, rippled with streams of white.

Thomas smiled heavily. He may be 26 years old, but returning to the family home always stirred up conflicting emotions.

He smiled because there was the chance to see his mother and sisters again, to walk the dogs in the open air, and to be free to drive for miles out onto the Plain, or along the valley, needing no more than to feel the open space, or to sip beer with a few friends.

The smile was heavy because he was next in line to join the company, though he was less than keen. Prebos had been a claustrophobic experience, akin to living in a cocoon, but he had at least enjoyed the freedom it had given him from his father's manipulations. It had also given him the opportunity to grow, and to make something of himself, without the sense that his family name was greasing the way. Like a caterpillar, he had grown wings and wanted to fly. He just had to avoid his father's web.

Nor did he want to be the one to tell Old Man Spelling that his son was dead, or the manner of it, which reminded him of the electronic evidence in his notepad; evidence that pointed to a murder. At what point in my conversation with the Old Man do I bring that up?

Ironically, he may not need to. If history were anything to go by, his father would hear him out and then take control. But it would be the last time Thomas would allow him to do it. The very last time. He was sure of it...

#  31

Marvin had arrived at his main-core condominium on Third and Main, two weeks early and unannounced. As April opened the front door, he had tried to scoop her up and carry her to the bedroom but collapsed in a heap. He was still too weak. As she sat on his chest, she whispered sweetly in his ear:

'You need a shower.'

After a second shower, and as April set about making tea, they caught up on personal news. Their kitchen was pathetically small so Marvin sat at the corner of the table with his back up against the door.

April's news was all good.

She earned promotion last month, from a buyer's assistant to junior buyer; not bad for two years work. Her family had sent several messages from Earth, each time asking after him.

The contractors weren't due to begin work on the parcel of land they had bought in Moss Valley for another month: April had not expected Marvin to be home so early, and, anyway, she thought he would need a two week's break to readapt to Trevon's 9/10ths ESG.

Marvin then told her about Prebos and Gavin Pierce.

Everything.

She sat down at the table. Her eyes welled up. Marvin placed an arm around her shoulders and a hand on her knee, drawing her head into his chest. They were silent for a while, remembering a decent and honourable man.

Gavin Pierce, or Spelling, had been April's life-long friend. She grew up with him on Earth, attending the same schools. He was an accomplished student, but as a teenager, he was difficult to control. It started with underage drinking and quickly progressed to joyriding, until his arrest along with his friends for breaking into the local liquor store and driving off in a stolen c-pod. April's mother had accompanied Pierce's mother to the police station to bail him out. She heard his mother scold him:

'You're just like your father!'

A father he didn't know.

On the way home, she continued to complain that he was a "live one", "wilful" and "trouble looking for somewhere to happen". She did not know what to do with him.

In the months after the liquor store incident, it appeared he was beginning to settle down, and his mother grew more optimistic.

'He's studying more,' his mother would say if asked, when all the time he was quietly hacking corporate mail accounts, exposing inconsistencies between their public statements on environmental issues and their internal memos. Again, the police arrested him, again he made bail, and this time they dropped the charges to avoid the publicity.

At university, he joined a group that protested the commissioning of a west coast fusion power station, citing its lower than 20% efficiency and the resulting permanent loss of water. His contribution was to hack the building contractor's procurement programme and switch everything around. The financial loss due to cancelled and muddled orders amounted to tens of millions of dollars. This time the Economic Crimes Bureau arrested him and a Federal judge found him guilty of economic disturbance. He received a sentence of three years, suspended for five, along with 300 hours of community service.

That was around the time that April had married Marvin, an older man by 15 years, leaving for Trevon a short time later when he took the job with the Lynthax Corporation.

Several years later, after Pierce's mother died in a vehicle accident, Pierce sold his mother's Malibu home and spent most of the proceeds on a ticket to Trevon. He intended to look up his father's side of the family; he was still unsettled; still trying to find his niche.

He stayed with the Cades at first, and they introduced him to their social circles, and were present when he met his father for the first time. After that, Pierce became more settled and at peace with himself.

He was surprised to discover that his family's roots here on Trevon were so much stronger than any back on Earth. His mother had not really discussed his father's family except in broad brush and his maternal grandparents would not mention his father's name at all. It was obvious they had disapproved of her marrying Ted Spelling, a visiting professor at LAU where she was studying for her masters, and were terribly upset when she then disappeared across 117 light years of space.

He had also taken to the frontier atmosphere, the deeper more genuine friendships, the emphasis on trust and the willing cooperation. The climate did not bother him one bit. He decided to stay.

It was then that Old Man Spelling had asked Marvin to help Pierce get work with the Lynthax Corporation.

'It would be good for him to see why we're not keen on the Corporate Constituencies. He'll get a worm's eye view at Lynthax. Just keep his relationship with me and the Spellings out of the file. And keep him out of trouble.'

So Marvin had introduced him to his departmental head, talked up Pierce's communications education and experience, omitted all reference to the Spelling family, and finally found him a position on Trevon in support of the newly commissioned mining operations on Prebos. 'A dip in the shallow end', Marvin called it, not expecting him to get a posting to Prebos, and not knowing just how far Pierce would go to undermine his new family's enemies.

As Pierce waited to start his contract, Marvin helped him find suitable accommodation in Go Down City, their own apartment being too small for a long-stay visitor. April also helped him to fit it out, lending him some things they had brought from Earth, but had stored in anticipation of eventually finding larger digs, or, as they were about to do, build a place of their own in the Outlands.

They then continued to socialise right up to when Marvin's contract began on Prebos 22 months ago. Pierce got his contract some six months later.

As much as Pierce's death on Prebos was a personal loss for the Cade family, both on Earth and on Trevon, Marvin didn't envy Thomas his job this afternoon.

The Old Man would feel the loss in spades. He had been so happy, finally, to meet his son for the first time, and was even beginning to believe that he could pass on his stake in the IrwinSpelling venture to flesh and blood, and not to leave it for lawyers to tear apart. Now his son was gone again—this time for good.

Marvin only hoped Thomas kept quiet about his suspicions. Spelling was not a man who looked to lawyers to resolve a grievance, and besides it would not be good for Lynthax to find out that others knew. He told April that she could not describe Pierce's death as a murder—not to anyone. She understood why.

After a few minutes, April straightened up to clear the cups away.

'It's been kind of crazy here, too, Marv,' she said, mopping her eyes with a tissue from the table. 'There have been street demos every night since the company forced a second vote.'

'They took another vote?'

'Yes, of course they did,' April said. 'Did you think they'd let it stand as it was? They dragged the Corporate Reps back from their break and locked them in the House with the Publics until they did. Thing is, Lynthax has shut down the free news and is filtering the net, so we don't get to hear it all. You know, I can't even send a purchase order to Urban Rebel Outfitters in New York—not without it bouncing back, undelivered. And half my incoming mail is being redacted. I can't get any work done!'

'Anything from the Inner-Rim?' Marvin asked, meaning Earth, the stations and Mars settlements in the Sol system and the various resource colonies on asteroids and pseudo-planets like Prebos that orbited Sol in the vast Duipers Belt.

'Nothing. Maybe Terrance knows some more. You could talk to him.'

'I will. I was going to anyway.'

'You know, it's getting rather messy, Marv. The Corporates are worried. I spoke to Ara, the Earth Rep's wife last night. She was in the dark as well, but it sounds as though her husband is running all over the place. It's as if he's been wrong-footed by it all. Maybe ISRA thought it could keep a lid on it, or was hoping the corporations would handle it better than they have. It's hard to tell without the broadcasts or the buoy updates.'

'So we also don't know for sure which Outer-Rim planets are with us?'

She shook her head.

'I don't think anyone does, Marv. Where did Pierce get his facts from?'

Marvin thought back. Scat had mentioned Pierce playing with the Pig's communications. He must have hacked the central computer and trawled the corporate files. But April did not need to know that. The less she knew, the safer it was for her.

'Corporate must have known. Pierce picked it up from there. Perhaps we should let people know.'

April could see Marvin was not thinking straight; he was staring unblinkingly at his teacup, drifting off.

'Judging by what you've told me, Marv, you won't need to do anything. Your Prebos buddies will be doing that for themselves.'

'Yes, of course, you're right,' he said, snapping back to the present. 'Well, it doesn't matter, in any event. We're on our own if we aren't in touch with them,' he added, referring to their nearest neighbours being hundreds of light years away.

'And so we are.' April put her hand on his shoulder and sat on his lap, giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek. 'Anyway, forget politics, Marv. You're home now. You need to let your hair down, and get some outdoor perspective. Let's take a walk, see some friends. Where do you want to go?'

Marvin stared across at the kitchen sink to think. He was tired, and he sensed every pound of his and April's weight in the 9/10ths ESG. He had no need of the great outdoors. Not yet.

'Hazies. I like their "steaks". Besides, it means I'll not need to walk anywhere, and I can get sloshed sitting down.'

#  32

By the time it was dark in the rift, and the city streetlights flickered on, Scat had found a small room in a decent hotel somewhere deep inside the central core. He was happy with it, although it was expensive.

It was dark, too, out in the Outlands where Thomas Irwin had done his best to answer his father's questions about Pierce's death, the general situation on Prebos, and the arrest of the three supervisors under the guise of fermenting an industrial dispute. Finally, he had sat down to a quiet and sober supper with his mother and siblings as his father drove over to the Spelling bunker to meet with his long-term friend and business partner.

Marvin was unaware of what time of the day it was. As usual, he had become quite tipsy after just a couple of stouts and, in any case, Hazies had no windows. It was located in an underground level of his apartment complex. The steak had been a tolerable reproduction, the veggie fresh. April kept their friends amused while Marvin napped.

Petroff was also arriving on Trevon after a hectic day and a half in space, the flight from Prebos having taken a rule-breaking four hours. Petroff's shuttle launched almost immediately after the Venture Raider dropped out of ftl. On his way down, he sent instructions to his personal assistant to book some time with Lynthax's Planetary Chief Executive, Joshua N'Bomal.

As the company soft-track drove Petroff away from the spaceport, he went over his presentation and reworked his resource requirements, ignoring his surroundings until the soft-track pulled up outside the Lynthax Centre. He gathered up his mobile hologram projector, written notes and overnight bag and then strode into the building foyer, nodding politely at the concierge as he headed for the elevators. Upon reaching the 120th floor, he walked quickly to his office, flicked on the light and closed the door behind him.

He hit the intercom.

'Maude, can you confirm N'Bomal for 10 pm this evening?' he asked.

Maude was quick to respond.

'Yes, sir. I didn't see you come in. When did you get back?'

'A few minutes ago. Is the conference room ready?'

'Yes, sir. N'Bomal is bringing Mr Bradbury with him. Anything else?'

'Nothing, Maude. Go home when you're done.'

For the next 30 minutes, Petroff composed himself, rehearsed one or two impact lines, and then reviewed his resource request again, just in case N'Bomal set a tight budget. Somehow, though, Petroff did not think N'Bomal would want to penny pinch.

It was time. He walked purposely across the hall to the conference room and looked around. He set the hologram projector up at the end of the table behind three chairs Maude had arranged around the open space between the table and wall. He then heard the door swish across the carpet.

'Good evening, Jack. Welcome back,' N'Bomal said in a low, gravelly voice. 'This had better be worth my while. I'm missing my wife's cooking.' He appeared to be in good humour.

'It is indeed, sir. Good evening.' Petroff replied, all smiles. He then turned to N'Bomal's permanently sick-looking Chief Scientific Officer, Todd Bradbury, who appeared as pale as always, his expression dour. 'Evening Todd,' Petroff added, without expecting a response.

N'Bomal relaxed his large frame into one of the three chairs, pushing his legs out. He cleared his throat.

'I read your report on the production situation, Petroff,' he said. 'So, can we count on resuming work in the next day or two?'

'Yes, sir,' Petroff replied, confidently. 'Xin is working with Station Chief MacDonnell so as to get the out-of-system workers back online. We've already deported the Trevons and HR is replacing them with the workers from a few of the other in-system asteroids. Amesont production will be back online shortly.'

Petroff was reporting some significant achievements, but N'Bomal did no more than raise his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

'OK. So what do you have here that requires my attention?'

The hologram flickered to life. N'Bomal drew in his legs, put two large, black and deeply creased hands onto his stomach, and drummed his fingers as they waited for an image to appear. Petroff had designed his presentation to create the maximum impact. It was not his usual style, he preferred slow and steady build-ups, but for once, he took a leaf out of the sales book. He needed their attention from the off. Once the image locked into place, he got it.

'What the hell is that?' Bradbury asked.

'It is a void, Todd. And that,' he said, pushing his pen into the projection, 'is a craft. An alien craft.'

N'Bomal was sure he misheard him.

'Alien?' he asked.

Petroff flicked across to a hologram of the craft inside the Frigate's number two port deck.

N'Bomal and Bradbury looked at each other. Bradbury began to shift nervously in his seat. It was as though the presence of the alien craft inside the company frigate was of much greater significance.

'You brought it back with you?' he asked. It sounded more like a whine.

'Not quite, Todd. It's on Prebos.'

Petroff then fast-forwarded to the moment when Makindra touched the craft and then flew across the hangar floor.

Bradbury flinched. N'Bomal's abnormally large, dark brown eyes bulged in horror before snapping shut. When he opened them again, Makindra was picking himself up.

'Jack, what have you done?' he asked, glancing at Bradbury.

Bradbury's shoulders had slumped. Both were acutely aware of the Law of First Contact.

'I'm hoping to give Lynthax a chance to leap a few decades of technology, sir. The way I see it, this thing is abandoned, or is so far from home that no one is going to miss it. Our own exploration of the spiral arm has turned up nothing worth speaking of. This must come from further afield. It has no propulsion capabilities of its own, so it was either discarded, or it doesn't need one.'

'Your point being...?' Bradbury asked.

'If it doesn't require a propulsion system, and wasn't discarded, then it could only have gotten to where we found it using technology we don't yet possess. The void gives us a clue as to what that may be.'

'My God! Are you implying wormholes?' N'Bomal asked, leaning forward.

'Yes, I am,' Petroff replied. 'But I'm not the expert. I saw the value in checking it out, but it was Makindra who speculated on its method of travel—there was no other explanation, at least not one that could also explain the void.'

Petroff had worked out a long time ago how to conceal his own ambitions. He knew that bosses like their department heads to pass on credit where it was due. They were suspicious of senior staff who claimed all the credit for themselves: they were too ambitious. But Makindra was far enough down the totem pole not to distract from his own achievements.

No one responded, so Petroff carried on.

'The craft's signals coincided with the void switching "on and off", for want of a better description. But when we brought the craft on board, the emissions stopped, and the void disappeared. Of course, it's possible the frigate's mass disturbed it, although our tug didn't seem to have any effect earlier. Or it might have collapsed as we went to ftl: we would have distorted the space fore and aft.'

'Yes, you would have,' Bradbury agreed. He then hedged. 'Probably.'

Petroff ploughed on.

'But Makindra believes it's more likely that the craft's own emissions were responsible for the final "off".'

N'Bomal sat silently looking at the freeze frame for what seemed a long time. Bradbury began to fidget and finally broke the silence:

'How did you find this thing in the first place? What led you to it?' he asked.

As Petroff expected, the initial shock was giving way to curiosity. It would soon be time to sell them his plan, and to bid for the resources he needed.

#  33

On Prebos, Commander Xin took some time out from the station move to check on his deputy and the field hospital. Williams appeared to be adjusting to life in a deep mine on an asteroid although it was obvious he did not like it. Makindra liked it even less.

Makindra was a brilliant science officer, but he had not signed on to rough it in field research. He was strictly an "on-board" scientist, willing to fly at ftl, and comfortable with a month or so's absence from his growing family on Trevon from time to time, but not this dirt-work in ultralow gravity. He had dropped fieldwork as soon as his seniority had permitted it. Reviewing fieldwork stats, well that was more his style.

As for Williams, he was new to his appointment and was still getting used to the additional responsibilities. When he finally understood that it was not just enough to be proficient at his job, but also to be adept at managing the politics of it, perhaps he would smile more.

After Petroff had dumped the craft in Deep Mine 7, some 30 kilometres from the current Plains of Xenin station, their first task was to assemble the field hospital and move the craft inside. That had been a tricky exercise. It still had the human-repelling properties that had sent Makindra flying across the deck of the frigate.

Deep Mine 7 was a cylindrical hole, some 1350 metres deep and 250 metres wide, it's southern sidewall studded with elevators. After the grey fines, the underlying rock, right down to the floor, was dark red in colour and extremely hard, almost as hard as metal plate. The upper reaches shone wanly under the Grecos sun's faint rays. At their lowest point, the walls took on a deeper red-brown glow, as stronger, harsher light spilled from the trooper's helmets, cargo carts, and the windows of the field hospital.

It was only day three since its capture, but gradually, and without Xin's direct involvement, order was being established, and Makindra had tired of complaining. The craft now lay in the centre of the Main Ward, one of three wards that joined the field hospital's reception area at its centre. Wing One was set aside for accommodation, Wing Two was set aside for research and security and Wing Three, or the Main Ward, was mostly empty, to give researchers room to move around the craft without touching it.

They had positioned the Main Ward in the middle of the mine's floor, so the field hospital itself was off-centre, the bulk of its mass closer to the elevators on the southern wall. Connecting the two was a long, temporary, and windowless passage made of an aluminium frame covered in a carbon-polymer fabric. The open space to the north was now a shuttle pad.

Xin emerged from the Main Ward to re-join Williams in reception. His deputy was leaning back against the counter of the newly installed circular management desk, watching the comings and goings, but staying out of the way.

The lights were bright, and they would soon be breathing unaided. Until then everyone remained fully suited up. The frigate's engineers were checking for leaks as the increasing pressure pushed at the dense, raddiamond-Kevlar reinforced panelling. Technicians shuffled through the hospital laying power lines and connecting the equipment. Security guards moved back and forth, adding an extra pair of gloved hands where needed.

Xin struggled to press a button on his suit's communications panel. It eventually clicked on.

'When do you expect Petroff to be back?' he asked. Petroff had disappeared without so much as saying goodbye.

Williams straightened up and turned around.

'He wasn't specific, Ryan. It depended on the situation on Trevon when he got back. Were the situation peaceful, then he'd want N'Bomal's attention early on. If not, then he'd put it on the back burner. He didn't want to drop it on Corporate if they couldn't give it their full and undivided attention.''

'Typical Jack, eh? You'll get used to him in time. He's for ever calculating the odds and waiting to pounce.'

'Yes ... I'm sure he does.'

There was silence between the two men for a short while. The two men had yet to form that special working relationship where they could speak unguardedly.

Above them the lights flickered, died, then returned but with fractionally less luminosity. They both looked up.

'What do you think we'll find?' Williams asked.

Xin turned to face him, wondering whether he should skate around his real concerns, or just give it to Williams straight. He decided to play it straight.

'Either diddlysquat or way too much, Thomas. I don't think we're ready for the kind of thing that Makindra and Petroff are hoping for.'

'Do you think we'll share what we find?'

'No,' Xin replied, 'unless it's a part of some licensing arrangement. Do you?'

'No, I guess not, not really. It might have blacked out a small region of space, but it's faulty. We'll be researching spoiled goods. Who's to know what parts are broken and what's not?'

'You have a valid point there, Thomas. Makindra's got his work cut out for him, hasn't he?'

'He has.' Williams agreed. 'We all do. How's the relocation going?'

Xin felt relaxed about the move. His involvement out on the surface was hardly necessary.

'It's early days still, but we've read the riot act to everyone and the new guys are settling in. In any case, they planned the move before we arrived; it just needed enough hands to make it happen. Mind you, I don't envy them: it can't be easy shifting a station of that size across 50 kilometres of dirt like this.'

'They'll manage, Ryan. I'm told they've done it a dozen times before. Though maybe I could chip in if they need an extra pair,' Williams offered. 'There's not much need for me here at the moment.'

They stopped talking, briefly, and made way for troopers bringing in more equipment from the elevator corridor. The lights flickered again. Williams made a graf note and then looked up.

'You didn't get to tell Petroff what the back-up SG operator saw when we ftl'd out of the void. What was there?' Williams asked. 'Anything we can use?'

Xin shook his head, but then realised Williams would not see inside of his helmet. There was too much glare.

'Nothing much, yet,' he replied. 'It's a toss-up as to what caused the collapse. It was either your jump to ftl or the craft's own signals. Anyway, we need to marry up the frigate's SG data with ours. We're doing that now; the SG's running programmes to help make an assessment.'

'Much longer?'

'No,' Xin replied, 'we should get something before tomorrow morning. Has Makindra come up with a research plan yet?'

'Hah! That would be a neat thought. No, he's adjusting to 1/6th gravity still. He's about as co-ordinated as a lobotomised cow on skates!'

Xin laughed.

'How does he cope on flights, to and from?'

'The boys say he stays in the gravity ring. He's OK with short spells of over- or under-ESG so long as he's strapped down, but he's a puking machine if he's in zero gravity for too long.'

Xin smiled as he recalled an old quote. It was from President Liz Henri's address to an NYU graduation ceremony. It was an indirect plea to the UN, asking it to give the resource companies rights in space, over and above those afforded to individuals and corporations on Earth. She was acknowledging that governments could no longer afford to engage in space exploration and yet it was in space where the resources lay. Moreover, even if private enterprise had just made space travel practical and affordable for some, billions of people were simply not cut out for it. Ultimately, they needed the resources brought back to them.

'"Not everyone is suited for space, even if we could afford the suits",' Xin said, slowly and deliberately.

Williams could only agree.

#  34

The roughly painted concrete tower blocks at the northern end of Go Down City between First and Second Avenues rose from the sidewalk one row of grey aluminium window frames on top of another.

In the corridors, metalled gates ran across the apartment door thresholds. The lobbies were functional and clean but devoid of character. The finishing throughout was cheap and tacky. The apartments were small, sparsely furnished, hard-used, and almost completely worn out.

They were dreadful.

Scat had viewed 12 apartment complexes in the past three days and, aside from the different pastel colouring, they were all the same. This one would have to do, though. He was tired of looking, and it was as good as his money could buy—or, rather, to rent. At least he had a side-on view of the rift through the aging and weather-scarred rad-glass wind dam wall. He doubted there was another view like it anywhere else in the universe.

From the 32nd floor of Tower 2, Heavenly Gardens, he looked down onto the pavement and road below. Placards, gas canisters, items of clothing and uprooted plants lay scattered across the main road. Police cruisers blocked off the roads leading to the main carriageway. Clean-up crews were sweeping the three lanes on his side of the road. He had missed it, but there must have been quite a fracas down there a few hours ago.

The very neat, but frustrated, female realty agent stood waiting for him just inside the doorway.

'You can sign the papers in the manager's office downstairs on the third underfloor. That's three floors below reception. You'll need your PR card and the first three months security deposit.'

'As I've told you already, I don't have PR. I'm out-of-system, on contract to Lynthax.' Scat had to admit that. Without showing a valid employment contract or proving substantial private wealth, he would never find a place to rent.

'Of course,' she replied. 'Then you'll be paying the full contract up front. One year. If you don't have it, we can go back to the digs along the Eastern Wall.'

There was a knock at the door. Scat walked off to inspect the bathroom for a second time. The realty agent went to see who it was.

'I understand a Mr Scatkiewicz is on the premises. May I have a word?' the stranger asked. The agent stepped aside to let a painfully thin, middle-aged man into the small main room.

'Mr Scatkiewicz?' he asked.

'Yes.' Scat answered, hardly needing to raise his voice from inside the bathroom.

'I have an invitation for you,' the man said, holding out an envelope. 'It's from Mr Irwin of Moss Valley. He asks if you will attend a dinner with his family this Saturday.'

'Thomas?' Scat asked. 'How in the blazes does he know I'm here?' He took the envelope.

'Ah! That would be your communicator, Mr Scatkiewicz—your graf. It's registered on the publicnet. I tracked you down by its signal. Illegal, I admit, but Mr Irwin was most insistent that I find you. He is very old fashioned about these things. I was to deliver it in person, which hasn't been easy. I've been chasing after you for a couple of hours. Anyhow, I'm glad to make your acquaintance.'

He stretched over to shake Scat's hand, very weakly.

'I'm Joseph, Joseph Innanovic. Mr Irwin's PA. Mr Reginald Irwin's PA. The invitation is from him—although I'm fairly certain it was prompted by Thomas.'

Scat smiled, as much to stifle a laugh at the older man's foppish mannerisms, as he was pleased at the prospect of a home-cooked meal later in the week.

'I'll be happy to accept, Joshua. Where's Moss Valley?'

'Everything is in the invitation, Mr Scatkiewicz. You'll be picked up from, well, here, if this is where you'll be staying?' Innanovic looked at the realty agent, as if not quite believing it would be. The Irwin's weekend dinners were generally A-list affairs. She shrugged.

'Yes, I'll be living here, thanks. But there's no need for transport. I'll make my own way. In truth, I've no idea where I'll be, come Saturday afternoon.'

'So be it. Consider Mr Irwin informed. Good day to you, then, Mr Scatkiewicz. Things to do. Mr Irwin keeps me busy.'

After signing a 12-month lease, Scat returned to his hotel room to prepare his first expenses sheet. The cost of settling down in the city was staggering, but money was not his biggest concern: Maurice would be expecting more than a list of domestic achievements when he reviewed his first week's report. Even if he did not intend to satisfy Petroff's curiosity about the rebels, he did need to pass something back to him—however innocuous or sanitised. And he would need to come up with something soon, or else the paycheques would stop. Bridges had said as much.

He wondered if dinner with the Irwins would qualify and whether it was something he would want to report.

#  35

From the planning room on the 120th floor of the Lynthax Centre, Petroff looked down onto a dark and cluttered Second Avenue. It was strange how he could experience vertigo staring out of his office window, but absolutely nothing when looking down on a pseudo-planet from the cabin of a frigate. He told himself that it was the perspective: the lines of the buildings coming together as they disappeared downwards. Yes, perspective: he needed some of that.

The last couple of days of civil disobedience had been quite testing for the corporations. It was disrupting services, flights, and production. He had spent several hours on the problem.

It was no more than a distraction, though. This disobedience would get the Trevons nowhere. Trevon was still reliant on external support. They would only hurt themselves. If they escalated this to a fully-fledged revolt, Earth would simply cut them off from everything they needed to keep this level of civilisation going. Still, walkouts, bomb threats and street rallies were effective disruptors. Dealing with them was expensive at a corporate level so he needed to be involved. For the time being, he was stuck on Trevon.

He walked back to the oval table.

'Alex, look, it's vital we ban these public gatherings and invoke at least a minimal level of order,' he began. 'We need these emergency powers until Earth can give us some direction, or at least offer some guidelines. We should be hearing from them soon, but, in the meantime, we don't want things descending into anarchy.'

Petroff was pushing as hard as he knew how, certain he would carry three out of the eight-man security committee without much argument—they were on his payroll. The civilian element would be a harder nut to crack.

Alex Foxglove, Chairman of the Trevon Chamber of Commerce, breathed in and out through flared nostrils, his lips pursed. One eyebrow remained half-cocked. He appeared sceptical, not at all convinced that a shutdown was such a good thing.

'If we do that, Jack, we risk alienating the fence-sitters. They have businesses to run, kids to school. We can't ban public meetings without affecting all kinds of commercial and social arrangements. And—'

The local Chief of Police, Miguel Mendes cut in:

'Nonsense, Alex. If these rallies get out of control, no one will be taking their kids to school. The businesses will shutter in any case. First and Second Avenues between 17th and 19th came to a full stop last night. I'd rather not have to deal with that again.'

'But the vast majority of Go Down is still peaceful,' Foxglove reminded everyone. 'Emergency powers are reserved for exceptional circumstances. We've only used them once before, and that was when the original dam wall failed. No one's ever used them to suit a political purpose before.'

'We've never had political rallies get out of hand before, either, Alex,' Petroff countered. 'Feelings are running high. Who in this room hasn't felt the tension?'

'And who's still willing to walk down lower Second after dark?' asked Felix Summers, the Go Down City Mayor, an ex-Lynthax Corporation Public Relations man. 'Not me for sure!'

'Look, appropriate measures taken now can be explained as precautionary,' Petroff argued. 'The fence sitters will just suck it up, and the pro-Earth faction will understand: that's two-thirds of the population right there! Leave it any longer and the pro-independence faction will claim to own the streets. If they can say that, then the two-thirds we have to keep onside will begin to think that maybe they're right. Do you want that?'

'Good point, Petroff,' Summers said, looking around the room. 'Unless there's any more to be said, we should vote on it. Any objections?'

There was none, although Petroff could see a couple of heads shaking in resignation.

'All in favour of a minimum 3-day state of emergency, to include the banning of public meetings between three or more people, and the right for all corporate security staff to bear arms in support of the local police, say "Aye".'

Six out of the eight voted "Aye".

'So, the motion is carried, then,' Summers confirmed. 'If we hurry, we can get the House to vote on it tonight—during the security debate.'

Petroff made a note of the two who had voted against him, and then closed his notebook.

As the meeting broke up, he walked back over to the window and looked down. The morning sun had finally broken across the eastern rim and was advancing across the rift. Streetlights were shutting down along the Avenue. Up above, plough-bots were clearing the snowdrifts on the environmental roof, making like moving cloud shadows on the road below.

If only his more Trevonly problems could be swept away as easily. He could then focus on a much more interesting matter, a light year away.

#  36

The Main Ward was empty, aside from the craft that lay on a metal cradle in the centre of the room, its front end pointing at the door leading to reception, though no one knew for sure that it was the front.

It had not so much as blinked since throwing Makindra across the number two port deck. Nor was it receiving many visitors. Makindra would not spend more than a few minutes in the same room with it. The troopers providing security at the elevator and inside the field hospital behaved as though the craft was a ticking time bomb. Then there was the continuing problem of power outages.

Williams had positioned the second SG team inside the reception circle and given them the task of deciphering the meaning of the 5023 signals emitted from the craft when the tug had inspected it, plus the 3045 additional signals picked up by the frigate just prior to its capture.

There had been none since.

Of course, there would have been thousands of unrecorded emissions, so Williams thought it unlikely that they would learn anything from what they did have. It was like putting a jigsaw together without knowing just how many pieces there should be, and without having a picture on the lid. Still, the recordings were only one line of enquiry, out of many, that Makindra had initiated. Doubtless, they would follow the others when they received more resources.

However, no word from Petroff—not yet—which was frustrating. Four days, and still there was nothing. And, as the neuralnet was useless at such distances, Williams could not even drop him a reminder. He would just have to wait.

'Howzit?' he asked the lead SG operator.

'Still cataloguing, sir. We won't be collating commonalities till tomorrow, probably.'

'OK. Let me know if you come across anything obvious. I'll be with Xin at the station. Where's Makindra?'

'Research, sir.'

Williams nodded his thanks and shuffled across to the research and admin wing. Makindra was sitting at a desk, adding lines of code to a programme on his PC. He had not noticed Williams come in.

'Progress, Raj?'

Makindra shot bolt upright, almost leaving his seat.

'Um, oh, yes. Of sorts, Thomas.' He replied, slightly flustered. 'I've settled on the initial routines. Now I'm ordering the processes. How's the SG coming along? I haven't heard any "eurekas" since coming back on watch.'

'You won't. Not till after tomorrow. They've a lot of base lining to do. As do you, I should think. When do you want to scan the casing?'

Makindra returned to adding lines of code.

'Tomorrow would be early enough,' he said. 'Certainly not today. It's not something I want to rush. We'll have to be careful what kind of scan we apply to it and at what power. We don't want a repeat of the void here on Prebos, do we, eh?' He wobbled his head for emphasis.

'A what?' Williams asked.

'Another void, Thomas. A void. It might not have done anything to the tug, or to the frigate, but it wasn't touching them in any way when it was active—'

'Are you kidding me?' Williams said, interrupting him. 'Is there even a remote possibility that Prebos would disappear?'

Makindra looked up.

'Of course there is. It's the reason why Petroff made it quite clear to me that we are to work passively with it. If we want to see another void, well that will have to wait until after he returns with more capabilities than we have now. And we'd need to drag it out into space again. A long way out.'

Williams swallowed hard. No wonder the troopers were steering clear of the damned thing. He hadn't given it any thought. Had Xin?

He contacted Xin on the neuralnet.

'Of course I'd thought about it, Thomas. But it's dead, right, or at least broken, and the frigate was able to enter the void without disappearing. In any case, all we have is a busted hulk, which no doubt Makindra will open up at some point.'

'Oh no, he won't, Ryan! He's not about to open anything. He's of the opinion it isn't dead and that it needs careful handling. So's Petroff.'

There was no response for a few seconds.

'Shit! Thomas. You had me for a moment, there. I thought you were being serious.'

'I am serious, Ryan. And now I'm seriously farking pissed off with Petroff.'

He was, too. Like everyone else, he bent the rules, but mostly it was to get the job done more efficiently, or to help a trooper who needed an extra day's R&R. For sure, he never bent the rules for personal gain. So, knowing the higher-ups cast all the friggin rules aside, whenever it suited them, and at the risk of everything around them, grated on him. But he was on shaky ground. He knew his moral compass was holding him back, and that Petroff was still pissed with him for that challenge on the Venture Raider.

At the other end, there was another period of silence as Xin digested the implications of what Petroff had done by bringing the craft to Prebos.

'Well don't confront him directly, Thomas. It's my job as the ranking officer to do that. We don't want the man chewing your ass off for a second time. In the meantime, can we stall work on the craft until Petroff gets back?'

'Of course we can,' Williams replied. 'We instruct Makindra to stay in his bunk and close off the ward.' As he said this to Xin, he looked grimly at Makindra who continued to work on his processes, not realising that Williams and Xin were discussing him.

'I agree.' Xin said, without hesitation. 'Make it happen.'

#  37

The western Gap Plain was covered in frozen, snow-covered bogs and large, flat-topped rocky outcrops, so the way across it was a winding one. The road had been built with few resources, mostly concrete laid directly on the surface, so it meandered and dipped between obstacles and cracked in places. There were no bridges to carry it across the gullies so the road wound around them.

Scat didn't mind. He was alone in the driverless, soft-tracked taxi, and the circuitous route gave him an opportunity to see more of Trevon in the failing light; outdoor Trevon, the space that humans would occupy in growing numbers as the weather improved. Not now though. He didn't expect to see more than a few habitats until he dropped into Moss Valley.

He was being careful. He had called up the local area map on his graf without signalling a destination and then zoomed out until he had the whole Gap Plain in view, which is how he knew there to be so few residential habitats on the Plain itself. The taxi was a kerbside hail on Third Avenue in Midtown, and he had used a prepaid card. It was Saturday, he was going to meet the Irwins for dinner and he did not intend to tell Maurice anything about it. This was his opportunity to find out a little more about life on Trevon, outside of the Lynthax shadow.

The road had led him out of Go Down City at the Loop, then south along the eastern edge of the rift where it joined the spaceport road at the original GDC entrance. He then headed west across the snow covered tundra to the crest line some 20 kilometres away, passing several deep mines and opencast pits along the way, after which he entered the tunnel and descended into the valley just as Thomas Irwin had done some days ago.

It was quite dark by the time he arrived. Thomas Irwin was already at the gates to welcome him, wrapped in a heavy quilted jacket, head bared. He had with him a large shaggy-haired dog that stood as tall as his waist. Scat ordered the taxi to stop and to drop the near side window. Thomas shook Scat's hand, smiling broadly as freezing air rushed into the cabin. The dog stood on two legs and tried to jump in. Thomas held him back.

'Good to see you again, Matey,' Scat said. 'Glad to be home?'

'Of course, Scat. Mother's cooking, sister's friends. You know the sort of thing. How about you?'

'Couldn't be happier, Thomas. And thanks for the invite. I wasn't expecting it.'

'My pleasure, Scat. Let's get you up to the house. Father's keen to meet you.'

Scat opened the door. Thomas hopped in followed by the dog that lay down across both foot wells. Just as well, thought Scat. It must weigh 150 pounds.

Thomas pointed up the drive.

'It's not far—about a mile. Tell the taxi to follow the roadside beacons and park in slot 2. Don't worry, the beacons will tell it where it is.'

Scat ordered the taxi to proceed as directed.

'Not cold?' he asked, realising that Thomas could have been standing outside for some time.

'Nah! Dusty and me go walking twice a day when I'm home; we're used to it. In any case, you came up as a proximity alert.' He held up his graf, the panel still glowing brightly. 'It had to be you. Everyone else has been here since lunchtime, strategising and the like. It's been cold-nosed business all day. Even mother's hard at it: she's been entertaining the wives while the menfolk plot and plan.'

'Menfolk? Entertaining the wives? Have I landed in a different era, Thomas?'

'It never matters what century you live in when life is at its most basic, Scat,' Thomas tried to explain, bashfully digging a deeper hole. 'Think of Outland Trevon as an old Chinese mine. What woman in her right mind would want to dig for coal when there were warm and pleasant office jobs to be had, eh? In our case, we cultivate and harvest moss by hand, even in this climate, and it's dangerous work, Scat. Very. So the more plentiful men take the physical risks, and the less plentiful women manage the offices or keep family—unless they're determined to keep their careers going in Go Down. And anyway,' he joked, 'we like our women to compliment us, Scat, not compete with us.'

Scat slapped him on the shoulder.

'It is a different era!'

'Perhaps,' Thomas conceded, smiling, 'I won't go into the population controls, or how many women go back to Earth to have their children on account of the quota system, but we're happy and free—and living above ground these days, or at least more above ground than the Morlocks in Go-Down. OK, we're here.'

To their front appeared a long, low window, stretching some 15 metres or so across, set into the side of a rocky outcrop twice as long and perhaps five metres high. The valley's eastern wall towered above it, an indeterminate distance behind. Yellow light escaped from inside and spilled out onto a snow covered vehicle park, littered with cruisers, cross-loaders, and recreational vehicles. Scat's taxi parked between two cruisers, a short distance from what looked like a concrete path and metal railing leading to a heavy door set into the outcrop.

Thomas jumped out and led the way, placing a palm onto a heated security lock at the end of the railing. The door moved sideways with a soft rumble, exposing a room resembling an airlock, but decorated as a reception hall. On the other side of the hall was another door just like the first. The dog got to the second door first and sat beside it, looking back at Thomas who followed him in. As Thomas stamped his feet clear of snow and placed his palm against the inner door, Scat stepped inside and heard the outer-door rumble closed behind him. He could feel the hall rapidly warming up. Then the second door opened, and they were inside the Irwin household.

Thomas took Scat's coat and dumped it with his own on a long and ornate wooden table to the right of the door. The dog was shooed away to lumber down a corridor which ended in a brightly lit room, a recreation room perhaps.

Scat had noticed the wood panelling in the envirolock and along the corridor walls. His eyes widened at the decadence of it all. He had not seen wood since leaving Earth.

'Insulation, Scat.' Thomas explained, having noticed Scat looking about him when passing through the envirolock. 'Less need for it these days, but at least it keeps the hawkers out!'

But Scat had already lost interest in the envirolock and its wooden interior. The Irwin residence was enormous. He had never seen such a private room as the one he was in now—and built into rock!

He was standing on a mezzanine floor looking down a three-metre wide staircase into the main room that was around 50 metres long by around 35 metre wide. It was probably six metre high at this level, he thought, noticing that the mezzanine was actually a two-metre wide glass-railed balcony that wrapped itself fully around the main room and led off to other rooms. A row of chandeliers hung from the ceiling at just above his eye level, throwing sparkling light up onto the deep blue ceiling.

Downstairs a crowd of men and their "women" were already drinking cocktails. Thomas offered Scat the stairs and followed on behind. Scat held the railing as he adjusted to the scale of everything.

'Father, this is Sebastian Scatkiewicz. Scat, this is my father, Reginald.'

Scat shook Reggie's hand and immediately sensed his commanding presence, despite his advanced years. Almost immediately, Thomas faded into the background.

'Good to see you young man. Welcome to our home. How was the journey?'

'Which one, sir: the one to Trevon or the ride across the tundra?'

Reginald laughed.

'You'll be telling me about the one to Trevon, no doubt. I heard you fell foul of Lynthax's security. How's the nose?'

Scat was still wearing a bridge plaster to help keep his nostrils open.

'It's mending just fine, sir. I can breathe through it now.'

'Good. You'll need a decent nose to sample the wines we have on offer tonight. Jenny has selected some wines from Peru. None of that New World stuff.'

'Don't be a snob, Father. Scat's a Bud drinker, like me,' Thomas cut in, realising Scat may not have a solid grounding in the culinary arts. He had done some checking on his own.

'Actually, I know I like a good South African Pinotage—when it's available,' Scat explained. 'We looted loads of it when we took the Merensky Reef back off the Asian Bloc in 2200. Their seven-elevens were full of the stuff!'

'You were involved in that were you?' Reginald asked, ignoring Scat's attempt to make light of what had been a bloody conflict.

'Yes, sir.'

'Was it worth it?'

'I can't say, really: I'm not an economist, but I did hear it made them more open to commodity exchanges. Maybe they thought we'd go after more of their African assets.'

'How long were you in the forces?' Reginald probed, knowing the answer.

'Three years, sir. South Africa, Northern India and Egypt. After that, I studied Mineral Engineering. It keeps me in work.'

Reginald laughed again; he was in a good mood.

'Of course it would, young man. May I call you Scat? I understand that's what people call you.'

'Yes, sir, it is. And just in case you're wondering, I got the name at school. It is short for Scatkiewicz.'

'Ha! Then Scat it is. And you must call me Reggie. The only one who doesn't is Thomas here, and if he thinks to do so, I still clip his ear. Oh, yes, and that fool who runs Lynthax: N'Bomal. I still make him call me Mr Irwin.'

'I've yet to meet him, Reggie,' Scat replied. He hadn't heard of him before. 'Though that's a bit risky, isn't it? Teasing him like that, I mean. Lynthax seems to own the place.'

'They do, Scat, most things anyway. Fortunately they don't own everyone,' Reggie explained, just as a gong sounded across the far end of the room. 'Ah! Dinner is ready. Please excuse me while I help Jenny round up the guests.'

Scat nodded politely and, as Reggie walked away, he turned to Thomas.

'So your old man doesn't like the company, then?' he asked.

'No, Scat, he doesn't,' Thomas replied. 'Not many of us Outlanders do. Between fleecing the population in Go Down, to keeping land prices artificially high, there's not much to like.'

'But prices are high for most things, aren't they? They're imported from Earth or the other New Worlds.'

'It's more than that, Scat. You'll know this, of course, but Lynthax was the first to get here. They opened the place up, provided the basic infrastructure and earned the right to pick and chose who could operate here and under what conditions. Half of every dollar you spend goes back to Lynthax one way or another.'

'Capitalism works like that, doesn't it?'

'It does, and we've no objection to them making money. Heavens, mate, we make money! But if things were tendered more fairly, prices would be lower all round.'

'Then why aren't they?' It seemed a sensible question.

'Well it's not for the want of trying. Last year, the Public Reps introduced a Competitive Services bill, but Lynthax killed if off before it got to the floor. They did a deal with the other Corporate Reps. They offered them more cargo space on their tankers in return for their votes, and the beggars went for it. It wasn't supported so it was withdrawn.'

'Typical of what goes on in the House?'

'Yes. And more, which is why we're seeking independence from Earth. It's our way of getting Earth's attention. They're in the middle of the fifty-year review. The way we see it, we either get our independence or they tear up the corporate mandates. We'd prefer independence. Lynthax prefers neither.'

'Will it work?'

'We don't know. We're in the dark, mostly—what with the Trevon being offline and Lynthax feeding us crap. But rumour has it Earth is preparing a delegation—What?'

A waiter stood at Thomas's elbow, trying to catch his eye. Scat nodded towards him. Thomas turned.

'Of course, Terry, dinner. Thanks.'

Terry the waiter edged away.

Thomas bit his lip. He was only just getting into his stride, and the interruption was a frustration for him. He did not get to have much of an opinion around his father, and he was cooped up on Prebos all of last year, which did not help. He was keen to talk politics, to spread the word about independence. To develop ideas of his own.

But he was used to playing the middle son, so he buried his disappointment and flashed an easy smile.

'Let's eat!'

Thomas led Scat through a double door at the far end of the room into a dining room fitted out with genuine 19th Century North American antiques. Scat's eyes bulged. As Thomas led Scat to his seat, he explained that the family had brought some of its furniture across from Earth after building this bunker some 40 years ago.

The Irwins had laid a table for 35 people, most of who were milling around not wanting to be the first to sit down. Reginald took his station at the head of the table and modestly waved for people to sit down. Scat then realised he was sitting next to Marvin.

'Hello, Marvin,' Scat said, glad to meet someone else he knew other than Thomas. 'Friend of the family?'

'Good evening, young Turk. I saw you were on the invitation list, but I told April it must have been a mistake!' he replied smiling.

'Then you're as surprised as I am,' Scat said, flicking his napkin open.

'It's good to see you again, though. This is April, my wife.' Marvin gestured across the table at a youthful-looking Asian-Caucasian woman who nodded back, unable to overcome the din of everyone talking at once.

Scat was impressed. He leaned into Marvin.

'So did you?'

'Did I what?' Marvin asked.

'Rut like a ferret?'

'Now that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about when I said they'd made a mistake, Scat.'

Scat laughed and pulled back as though he expected a clip around the ear. Marvin pretended he was insulted, and then beamed a smile.

'Have you settled in yet?' he asked.

'Sort of. I'm in digs at the northern end of Second Avenue close by the dam wall. Only been there a few days, but I gotta say, it's a no rats, no soul sort of place. And it costs an arm and a leg.'

'It's an expensive place, Scat, as I'm sure you're finding out. But you'll have to get used to it if you're aiming to stay.'

Thomas cut in:

'That area of town isn't so bad, Scat. You'll get used to it. I dossed on Second Avenue for a year when I went to work at Lynthax Programming after uni. You'll find it's big on community: the Trevons that can still afford to live there have been there for generations.'

'You dossed in Go Down when you could have commuted from here?' Scat asked, looking around him.

'If you're born to it, Scat, you wonder what it's like on the other side of the tracks. In any case, I was on call every other night. I couldn't very well get to the office within 30 minutes from here—not when there was a blizzard blowing.'

Scat recalled his boarding school days, imagining what it must have been like to be born to money. He was getting a sense of that now. He thought it ironic that the rich might think the same about living poor.

'But what about the weekends?'

'One blurry evening led to another, I'm afraid. I used to date a flirt from the Raddox Corporation. She did something in retail I think. Anyhow, she was a real party animal.'

'How did that work out?' Scat asked.

'Badly. Prebos was a convenient excuse to end it.'

Scat laughed. He recalled using the posting to North India to call off one relationship.

'Pierce's father?' Scat asked, nodding towards an old man sitting at the end of the table, deep in conversation with Reggie.

'Yes,' Thomas replied

'How did he take it?'

'From what I can make of it, he's taking it quite well,' Thomas replied, adding, 'but I wasn't there when father told him about it.' He leaned in closer. 'One thing you should know about the Old Man, is he's a brick. He's made of solid stuff. They don't just call him the Old Man because he's old. He's Old School. I doubt he'll show any emotion in public, or even to his family. He's already interred the body. Now he'll just get even.'

'You didn't...?' Scat asked in a lowered voice.

'I did, but it was safe to do so. My father and the Old Man have kept bigger secrets. And besides, the Old Man deserved to know what I thought.'

Scat then realised his name had been kept out of it, or Thomas was allowing him to believe it was.

'Word has it that Earth is sending a delegation. A fact finding delegation, at least,' Marvin said. 'I heard it from a friend of mine at Raddox. That would be par for the course: engage the problem while spinning things out.'

'We've heard the same thing, Marv,' Thomas confirmed. 'Nettles, over there has been nominated to head up our negotiating team, so he still has comms with Earth. He's been briefing father all afternoon on the latest news. Oh, yes, and on Earth's requests regarding the delegation's safety!'

Scat looked in Nettles direction. He saw a 30-something year old, with clear, almost polished, skin and short well-oiled black hair, a thick neck and extremely muscular shoulders. He sat a little higher than those guests who sat either side of him, so Scat guessed he was also quite tall. He was impeccably dressed.

'Safety? From what? The cold?' Reggie asked gruffly from down the table, breaking away from his own conversation with the Old Man to show his distain.

Scat heard Nettles raise his voice.

'From a tongue lashing, me thinks, Reggie,' he said.

Marvin thought that highly amusing, almost snorting food through his nose.

'Nettles is joining us for the shoot tomorrow,' Thomas added. 'Perhaps we'll get to know some more then.'

Scat's ears pricked up.

'A what?' he asked.

'A hare shoot. We raise 'em, shoot 'em and eat 'em, just as they do on Earth. Well, used to.'

'Incredible!'

'Why?'

'Meat!'

'Yes, meat.'

'They survive outside?' Scat asked.

'Yes, they're arctic hares; they're used to the cold and they know how to grub around for food under the snow and ice. Father imports all sorts of species from Earth's Tundra regions as part of Project Ark. The aim is to help preserve them while they try to rehabilitate their habitats. I hear the Russian tundra is all but bog now.'

Scat had heard of Project Ark. It was a private initiative, as was most everything outside of Earth space.

'Have you let them run wild yet?' he asked.

'We let a batch of them go now and then. We shoot some for real meat and monitor the rest. Eventually we'll import thousands of them. The last batch lingered for quite some time—although they didn't cope so well with the cold snaps. It can still dip below -85º c.'

'And you're shooting some tomorrow? Legally?' Scat could not believe that something banned for decades on Earth, could happen here in the New Worlds.

'Yes. We all are—except for Marvin, that is. April won't let him! So are you, by the way.'

'Me?'

'Of course.'

'I've never actually shot an animal before.'

'Yes, well we're sorry about that, Scat. Hares may not be as prestigious as a real live person, but it's all we're permitted here on Trevon!' Thomas joked, knowing that Scat had hunted people before.

'You know what I mean, Thomas. People can shoot back. Bunny rabbits just look at you, all furry like!'

'It's OK, Scat. You'll get used to it. In any case, you'll be meeting some new friends.'

'Some useful friends, Scat,' Marvin added more quietly.

#  38

N'Bomal had cleared his desk and postponed all his appointments for the weekend so he could accompany Bradbury to Prebos. He had left Petroff behind to monitor the fallout from the House vote on the Emergency Measures, something Petroff was unhappy with. N'Bomal knew Petroff wanted to be fully associated with the discovery, maybe even get his name associated with it— Petroff's Void, perhaps, or something similar—but N'Bomal was not worried about what the company's Director of Security wanted. He had contacted Lynthax's head office on Earth and, in reply, the board had told him to divert all his resources to cracking the capsule open—by any means. In addition, given the situation in the Grecos system, he was to assign the Venture Raider to watch over it until further notice.

His Executive starflyer dropped into space just as the station was tumbling into darkness. It landed in Deep Mine 7 across the way from the field hospital-cum-research centre and taxied to the elevator shaft, where both N'Bomal and Bradbury exited the ship and walked down the temporary, and rather unsteady, corridor towards reception.

Xin was waiting for them, as was Williams. Corporate had dispatched a buoy the night before with details of N'Bomal's visit. The buoy then bounced back to Trevon, taking with it Xin's status report, something that N'Bomal and Bradbury had read on their 10 hour flight.

'Good evening, sir. Todd. How are things on Trevon?' Xin enquired.

'I've known better times, Xin,' N'Bomal replied, wearily. 'The Emergency Measures add a lid to the pan, but it could still boil over. We've left Petroff to coordinate things.'

'Well, things are improving here, sir,' Xin assured him. 'The station move is going well.'

'Good. So where is it?'

'In there, sir.'

Before N'Bomal had turned to follow Xin's finger, Bradbury was stepping out ahead of them.

'Then let's take a look,' he said over his shoulder. N'Bomal had never seen his Chief Science Officer so pumped up. Judging by his comments on the way over, he wanted to take control of the research before head office stuck its oar in. He was eager to push Makindra aside.

It was very dark inside the room, the only light coming from the cracks between the screen and the hallway walls. There were no monitors or instruments in the ward. Aside from the craft, it was empty. They could only just make out the craft on its cradle.

Bradbury got straight to it.

'Why so dark, and why isn't anyone working on this thing?' he asked. 'Petroff told me this thing would be monitored around the clock.'

'It is monitored, sir,' Xin replied, 'but, given the circumstances we decided not to tamper with it—we didn't want a second void—not here, anyway. Secondly, we've been experiencing power outages. We can't work out why.'

'Ah!' Bradbury replied, appreciating there could be a link between the two. 'Is Makindra of the same opinion?'

'Yes, sir, he is, although it was me who decided to suspend work on it. We wanted to be sure that the company wouldn't lose its most valuable resource—Prebos itself.'

N'Bomal flinched.

'You mean be swallowed up, like in a B movie?' he asked.

Xin nodded.

'Yes, sir. But for real. Makindra reckoned the odds were favourable for a total loss if the void returned, he just couldn't calculate the exact odds. So we stopped work. For now, though, it appears to be dormant.'

'Fine. So do we have anything we can work on?' Bradbury asked.

'Yes, sir, we do. The emissions.'

'Please explain.'

N'Bomal listened as Xin took Bradbury through the original sequence of events. He pointed out that the second SG had been tracking the capture of the craft from Prebos, while the frigate had tracked the thing from up close. Makindra had since compared the two sets of data and evaluated the nature of them. It was now clear that the emissions and the void were connected.

By evaluating the emissions received by both SGs at the differing distances, it was evident that they were slightly different. Makindra had spent most of the last couple of days trying to work out what that meant and had yet to conclude anything, but even he was beginning to think that the emissions weren't signals. They were a symptom of something else—leakage, perhaps, from something that was going wrong inside the craft.

'Leakage—what—from something else?' Bradbury tone was terse, impatient.

'Yes, Todd,' Xin confirmed. 'In this case, the craft was trying to do something, and the emissions we recorded were the by-product of it. Rather like a magnetic field around an electric engine.'

'So it created a void, rather than what it intended to create. A wormhole, maybe?'

'Yes, although he hasn't come to that single conclusion. Not yet. He's still working through a long list of probables. Nor do we truly know why it stopped.'

Bradbury swung around and stuck his head through the screen. He looked around reception. He let the flap fall back. The Main Ward returned to darkness.

'So where is he?' he asked.

'He's confined to the research ward and his quarters, Todd. He was too eager to play with the damn thing—to make a name for himself before you arrived.'

N'Bomal frowned and raised an eyebrow. He could only just see Bradbury nodding in the gloom, no doubt pleased that Makindra hadn't gotten terribly far without him.

'Most sensible, Xin,' Bradbury was saying. 'We're here to tow this thing out to a buoy on the far side. It mightn't have affected the frigate, but we still have a duty to our shareholders not to put their assets at risk. Once there, we'll play with it some more.'

Xin looked at Williams, hiding a grin.

'Makindra won't like zero-G buoy work, Todd,' he warned, half-jokingly. 'He's not even himself working in 1/6th.'

Bradbury was decidedly unsympathetic.

'I don't care. Make him wear a patch and sit him in a corner. All I need him for is his brain.'

#  39

The wind had gained in strength all morning, and now the temperature was plummeting. Reginald issued instructions to hand out the survival suits from the estate's half-track plains cruiser, which continued to follow them over the killing ground.

Estate workers had released 30 arctic hares a few hours before, all of them chipped. The hunting party was going to take around 10 of them, and researchers would observe the rest from the comfort of the IrwinSpelling greenhouse research facility in the weeks that followed. It was the traditional trade off between conservation and annihilation. The species would survive, if it could justify why it should exist alongside man—either as pets or as food, or by making a distinctive contribution to the ecosystem.

In honour of that age-old tradition, the hunters weren't using electronic trackers—they were using dogs. The weather, though, was proving difficult.

Normal outer clothing, such as Thomas's quilted jacket, could protect a body down to -60ºC for several hours, but it was now around -70ºC. It was clear from horizon to horizon so there was no cloud cover to keep the heat trapped close to the ground. Reginald was being cautious, glancing up every so often.

'Damned cold, Thomas,' Scat said. 'My eyes are starting to freeze!'

'Wear your goggles, Scat,' Reginald cut in, unsympathetically. 'That's why they're issued. If it gets much colder, we'll climb into the survival suits.'

Scat had his suit tied to a pack on his back, as did everyone else. They were also carrying outdated low-velocity rifles, the least ancient of which had a realistic range of 300 metres, at best. His was fitted with a scope, but he doubted he would need it. It was a walking shoot. They could not laser the ranges or bed-in their elbows. A hare would either pop up close by, or be moving too fast and erratically at a distance to allow for a carefully aimed shot.

Suddenly there was a rifle shot from the right of the line.

'Got it, father. Can you send in a dog?' It was Thomas's younger brother, Paul, a tall, fair-haired 19 years old.

'Yes, but stay in line and no pushing forward,' Reggie agreed. He sounded disappointed.

A handler released a single, shaggy hound. It bounded across the tundra in the direction of the dead or injured hare, some 250 metres out.

'Very good shooting Paul,' Scat said across the front of Thomas and Nettles who were standing closer.

'Thank you, Scat.' He appeared genuinely pleased that Scat was impressed.

It certainly had been an excellent shot. The hare had been moving. But it could have also been a lucky shot. He would like to see how well Paul shot later in the day, when the boy was tired.

Thomas gradually eased across the line to stand next to Scat.

'Father is rather pissed with Paul, I'm afraid.'

'Why? It was a terrific first shot.'

Thomas shook his head.

'Not the shot, the neurals. You see, Paul had them fitted when he was at boarding school. He didn't get permission. He just went out and did it.'

Scat looked across at Paul who was waiting for the dog to return.

'What kind of neurals?' he asked.

'Kids' stuff, really. Adrenal controls; that sort of thing. A steady hand, quicker reflexes: "show-off" neurals. He couldn't afford much more. Father doesn't approve. He's suing the school for the lack of supervision.'

'So it wasn't a lucky shot, then?'

'No. He'll hit everything he takes aim at, pretty much. The poor hares don't stand a chance. He shouldn't be here.'

'Then why is he?'

'Paul wanted to meet you. Father agreed. If you don't object, father will ask you to spend a few minutes with him at lunchtime to let him know what it was like going through training. Paul knows you're a Resource War vet. He read about your actions at Suez. You're one of his heroes.'

Scat flushed with embarrassment despite the cold.

'If Reggie is agreeable, then OK. I don't mind.'

'To be honest Scat, I only got to know of your past myself when he pointed it out. He overheard me when I was discussing you, and Pierce, with father, the day we got back. Scatkiewicz isn't exactly a common name.'

'Not sure what to say, Thomas. As you say, it's history. I'm a civilian now.'

Something caused Thomas to look away, then upwards. The sky was still and crystal-clear, but Scat could feel the air was now even icier than it had been just 10 minutes before.

'I think we're in for a snap freeze,' Thomas said. 'We may need to run for cover. I'll go talk to Father. Be prepared to make a dash for it.'

He was gone before Scat could ask what he had meant by a snap freeze. It was intensely cold already.

Almost immediately, an alarm went off on his graf warning him that the rate of temperature drop was becoming a survival issue. Alarms were going off all along the line. Scat could see people unslinging their backpacks, reaching for their survival suits. He quickly followed their lead.

Thomas ran back up the line, pulling his survival suit from his backpack without stopping to unsling it.

'Get your suit on in a hurry, Scat. Then make your way to the plains cruiser. We need to get underground, and sharpish!'

'What's going on, Thomas? It was cold a minute ago, and still is. Why the sudden alarms?'

'It's a snap freeze, Scat. Just get your suit on and now. I'll explain in a minute.'

Within a minute, Thomas was fully suited and, as he cranked up the suit's thermal output, he spoke over the mike.

'Snaps and super-snaps are uncommon, but not unheard of. We've had two, maybe three super-snaps in the last couple of years. When conditions are ripe for one, the temperature drops by about 50ºC in a few minutes. The alarms are a warning. Being outside when one develops is almost always fatal.'

'OK,' Scat replied from inside his suit, the hood sealed. 'Is everyone suited? What about the dogs?'

'We'll put them in the cage in the cruiser. They'll be OK. Let's be getting out of here.'

The line broke up, and the 30-strong party made their way back to their vehicles. Thomas ordered the waiters to abandon the lunch table and get aboard any vehicle in which there was room for an extra body. A couple of soft-tracks were already carving ruts in the snow as they pulled hard half circles and made a run for the IrwinSpelling greenhouse about 10 kilometres away.

Reggie joined Thomas and Scat. Paul followed in his wake, as did a waiter from the Irwin estate.

'I don't think we'll make it back to the main buildings,' Reggie began. 'We may have to make do with the old Peterson bunker; it's only three kilometres from here and it's fitted for snaps. There will be plenty of fuel cells inside.'

'OK, Father. Let's get going.'

Reggie shouted along the line of vehicles that had not yet left.

'Terrence! Over here! And get a move-on.' This to Nettles, the Trevon House Representative who was pushing waiters into a recreational vehicle, his hood not yet fully zipped and sealed. 'And for heaven's sake, zip that hood up!'

'And you, Father,' Thomas said.

'What? Oh, yes.' Reggie zipped himself up as Nettles manhandled the last of the waiters into a recreational vehicle, pushed hard against the door, and signalled the driver to follow Reggie's vehicle once it had gotten going. He then ran over to them and knocked on the window.

'Unexpected, Reggie?' Nettles asked over the suit's mike. As he spoke, his faceplate misted over.

'Yes,' Reggie replied. 'I honestly thought we were done with them for the year. Anyway, we'll let the meteorologists explain it; we need to survive it.' He waved him to a back seat. 'Get on board. We're off to the Peterson's.'

Nettles pulled the door shut and flopped next to Scat in the third row. The heaters were pushing out hot air, but no one could yet feel it. Their survival suit fuel cells were more beneficial, but they would not last more than 50—60 minutes or so at this burn rate. In drastically lower temperatures, even these would freeze.

Thomas taped his father on the shoulder.

'Father, I've just been in touch with the remainder of the party. Most will join us there, but some have decided to make a run for the main buildings.' He sounded a little concerned

'Who?'

'The Spencers and their guests. 10 people all told.'

'Let me speak to them.'

Reggie reached across and grabbed the mike from Thomas' hand.

'Douglas, this is Reggie. Listen, old boy. Word is this will be quite a violent snap, maybe a super-snap. You should stop off at the Peterson's. You may not be comfortable there, but you will survive it.'

The radio crackled.

'Thanks, Reggie, but we were due in Go Down this afternoon. The boys have a product launch, and there's a lot of money riding on it so they want to get to the main buildings. We can at least arrange a video presence from there, can't we? You did lay land lines, didn't you?'

'What? Oh, of course I did. Do your guests know what frozen meat looks like, Douglas?'

'I'm sure they do, Reggie, but we've covered a couple of klicks already so we should be there in less than half an hour. We'll be OK. See you at the Association meeting on Wednesday?'

'Yes, I'll be there. Good luck.'

The Irwin's plains cruiser began to bounce over tufts of grass and solid rivulets that had carved their way down the slope towards the river. It was climbing quite quickly, heading for the service road that would lead to the Peterson's bunker.

'The fool!' Reggie muttered, disappointed that he had not convinced his old friend to play it safe. 'It's always money before sense with that man.'

#  40

Thomas sealed the entrance as the rest of the family and its staff prepared the bunker for the snap. The guests made themselves at home around an electric heater a servant had dragged into the middle of the high-ceilinged reception room. The dogs padded around in search of a place to lie down, sniffing the floor.

The bunker was much smaller and less flashy than the Irwin family home, but then it was a second-decade residence, long since abandoned. By what Scat could see of the place, the Peterson women, if there had been any, must have had little to say in its design. Most of the bunker's inner walls were made of concrete, only a few of them covered in coarse plaster, now cracked and crumbling. The bathtub and sinks were made of concrete too, but coated in some polymer to leave a smooth and cleanable surface, now dulled by a decade of dust.

The main rooms were set back from the cliff face, and the external windows were small. Originally, fibre-optics beamed light into the rooms, but as the place lay abandoned for so long, the fibre optic inlets were now snow and dirt covered, as were the lower halves of the windows. It was gloomy inside.

Scat lost his graf signal a few minutes after arrival. He checked around and found that he was not the only one. He mentioned it to Thomas.

'We'll set up the bunkers' comms in a minute,' Thomas responded, 'We need to lock the place down and ramp up the heat, first.'

'Anything I can do?' Scat asked.

'No, we've got it in hand. Take a seat. When Paul's finished, I'll send him over. You can then get your chat out of the way!' He added a wink, as though he knew the hero worship would embarrass him.

'You want me to pass on a message?'

'No. Well maybe.' Thomas said. 'It depends. We certainly don't want him to be dabbling with any more enhancements. But whatever fits, really.'

'No worries, Thomas. The Service frowns on enhancements. They're unpredictable. I'll make sure he gets the message.'

I don't like them either Scat thought to add.

Although it was possible to test a subject's psychological suitability for an enhancement in a routine environment, it was another matter entirely to predict how helpful or dangerous they would be in the hands of a soldier scarred by combat. Moreover, as they were irreversible procedures, the military preferred not to use them. Scat had his own evidence: his mother's death, linked to bootlegged neurals overloading an unstable mind.

Thomas waved over his shoulder and disappeared into the garage. Scat grabbed a flip-down seat from the back wall and walked over to the electric fire.

Nettles joined him but did not speak right away. He just settled, nodded at the guest to his right, and let himself adjust to the room. It was currently much less bright than outside, but power was pushing its way through the bunker's wiring and the lights were flickering, slowly building luminescence.

Scat acknowledged Nettles' company with a nod and a smile. Up to this point, they had not spoken.

'Never a dull moment on the Irwin estate,' Nettles observed as the overhead air conditioners started up.

'Or elsewhere on the Gap Plain, I expect, Terrance. How long do these snaps last?'

'Not long; a few hours to a day or so. They vary. They say the faster they arrive the less time they tend to stay, though that's probably an old wife's tale. I doubt we have enough evidence either way. They're a nuisance to the Outlanders, mostly. They don't bring the whole place to a full stop any more. Go Down mightn't even notice this one, unless they close the dam wall. That generally pisses people off.'

'Are you Trevon born, or from off-world?' Scat enquired.

'Trevon born, Earth educated. Broken in by the Lynthax Corporation after uni, as are most people here, and then I found my head! I now own a software company in Go Down and represent the Second District, Eastern Wall in the House.'

'Not the Outlanders, then?'

'No. Not the Outlanders, Scat. They do a fairly decent job of that for themselves. Spelling has a nephew in the House. Reggie doesn't at this minute, which is why he's paying attention to my position on independence and the Corporate Constituencies. Paul is too young, and Thomas is an unknown outside his father's network. Stephen is more promising, but he's lecturing at NYU.'

'What about the girls: Claire and Janice?'

'Too precious. But please don't repeat that,' he replied. 'I think Jenny is pushing Claire my way. I'd hate to upset her,' he added with a wink.

Scat had yet to meet either of the girls. He had only seen them across the dinner table. Thomas had named them, but not bothered with an introduction. After dinner, the girls had disappeared into Go Down with their guests and were missing from breakfast that morning.

After a short while, the guests settled into quiet conversation, and the Irwins began to return from their chores. Reggie announced that the bunker's comms were up and running, so, if anyone needed to get word back to Go Down, they could do so.

Thomas joined Nettles and Scat just as the small windows began to crack.

'Shit!' he exclaimed.

Heads turned towards the outer wall as recently introduced moisture began to freeze in a downward line from the ceiling, creating powered ice that hung in the air and dusted the walls.

'Move into the service areas, quickly!' Reggie ordered, 'And get your hoods back on. Now!'

'With me, Scat, Terrance,' Thomas shouted as he pushed through a door leading off to a corridor along the inner wall. 'The kitchens. They'll have fuel cells.'

Scat and Terrance crouched down and ran through the opening. 10 meters down the corridor, there was another door. They burst through. Thomas hit every button along the back wall. Lights brightened, cooking rings began to glow.

'Inside the bread oven. Quickly!'

Scat was a little unsure of what he was being told, but recognised the urgency of the situation. Nettles had not even questioned the order. He was climbing into an overlarge, two meters tall oven without a "by your leave", pulling the trays off their runners to clatter onto the floor. Scat skipped over the trays and followed him inside. Thomas dived in and pulled the doors shut, leaving a dishcloth in the door well where the catch was meant to lock the door in place.

'Jeeze!' Thomas said, panting. 'That came from nowhere!'

'A super-snap?' Nettles asked over the noise of air circulating through vents all around them.

'Must have been. There's no telling how cold it'll get, or even if the oven will be warm enough. How's your fuel cell situation, Terrance?'

Nettles looked down at his waist.

'24 minutes.'

'And you, Scat?'

'Uh, 20 minutes.'

'OK. I've no idea how long this oven's is fuelled for, but if it's coming off the main supply, we've got maybe three or four hours,' Thomas said, not sure what would happen if the temperature dropped below -110ºC. 'Much depends on how much power the others are drawing. Wherever they are.'

It then occurred to them that no one else had made it into the kitchens.

'Where else could they be, Thomas?' Scat asked.

'Maybe the cellars—'

A series of loud cracking sounds interrupted his reply, as metal and glass began to contract and grind against each other.

'Well, it's bloody fast cooling, Thomas,' Nettles remarked. 'Do you think the others made it to the cellars?'

#  41

The humans had done the Harvester a favour by taking it to Prebos, and then releasing it into space a light year away. The extra power it had collected while in captivity was augmenting the energy it had acquired from its unexpected harvest. Now it was free, the Harvester's mission controller could ramp up his AI's revision rate, and dramatically increase its capacity to think along several lines at once.

A further bonus: now the Harvester was in space again, it no longer needed to pass energy through its proximity defences. Instead, it channelled it all into evaluating and refining the last set of equations, something the humans had unwittingly interrupted. In a matter of minutes, perhaps hours at the most, the controller would be home again, free to plot his return to an organic existence.

The AI began re-evaluating the information from its previous attempts to pass through. It then eliminated 30,000 possible lines of enquiry and settled on the 4,300 remaining options. All were potential solutions. It then ordered the slave routine to initiate each, starting with the ones marked with the highest probability of success.

The slave sent second-long pulses through the dimension-drive, every pulse causing a disturbance in the space surrounding it, and for the first 230 pulses, nothing happened.

Aboard the Executive starflyer, there was total silence. Everyone stared at the main cabin screen, counting the flick-ons and flick-offs across a narrower span of space than the initial void.

Bradbury pulled himself from one end of the main console to the other in the zero-G, occasionally stopping to confirm that the sensors were still receiving data from the area surrounding the craft.

N'Bomal and Makindra shared the observer coach at the back of the semi-circular cabin.

Williams sat off to one side, strapped into a wall-mounted drop down seat, wondering why the craft should have changed its void properties the way it had.

'It's smaller than just a moment ago, sir,' he said.

'Yes. The signals, or emissions, are tighter, too,' Bradbury responded, loud enough for everyone to hear. 'It isn't ranging anymore; there's very little spread. It's drilling down, focusing on whatever it is trying to do.'

'Does the buoy have a lock?' Makindra Asked.

'Yes, it does, sir,' a console operator replied, pushing his hands into the hologram to tweak its grip. 'We should get a full reading of its internal circuitry in a couple of minutes. We're already picking up the pulse through the craft—it appears to terminate centrally. Electrical systems in the craft are ramping up real quick, sir: there's much more of it than we observed, pre-capture.'

The console operator stopped providing a commentary for a moment, and then:

'Sir, the whole thing's just lit up!'

Bradbury pulled himself over the back of the operator's seat to take a closer look at the stats flowing down the screen.

'Are you getting feedback from its circuitry?' he asked.

'Loads, sir. Between the buoy and us, we should have 3-D of the hardware within a minute—and details of its composition! We're already getting flow-back from the radscan.'

'Good,' Bradbury replied, his face beaming. 'It means we will be able to replicate it.' For N'Bomal and William's benefit, he explained how. 'The electrical surges in the craft are giving us a view of the interior. The amount of absorption from the radscan is giving us the material composition. All we're missing is the software that runs the thing, and we'll get that when we crack the thing open.'

'It all hangs on the last pulse, Todd, let's not forget that,' N'Bomal reminded him. 'We've got to know the one—and before it disappears.'

'It won't be an issue,' Bradbury replied, sounding confident. 'We've 200 independent sensors floating in space within 500 kilometres of this thing, though I suspect we won't need them. It's not hiding anything from us.'

'Perhaps,' replied N'Bomal, sounding not so convinced.

'Throw out the light-tug!' Bradbury ordered.

'Aye, sir,' the pioneer sergeant answered. 'Light-tug deployed.' A stream of dark light ran over the craft at a wavelength just a shade lower than was required to latch onto it. 'Ready to lock, sir.'

'Thank you.'

'Are you sure it will work?' Williams asked.

'Yes, Williams, I am. If it is tearing into the fabric of space, it certainly won't want anything else to follow it through. Same goes if it's drilling a hole through a membrane or creating a wormhole along it. Once our dark light locks onto the craft, it'll abandon any attempt to pass through, just in case we go in with it.'

'Hence the dark light, no other type?' Williams asked.

'Yes,' Bradbury answered. He went on to explain. 'By manipulating the dark light just as the hole comes into view, we can "pinch" it, just as we do when we bring other vessels in tow. The light-tug creates the direct link between us. If that craft should so much as wobble, or disturb the space around it in the slightest, we'll pinch it at the speed of light. I doubt the craft could find the right emission, and know it was suitable for a pass through, faster than that. In fact, I'm surprised Petroff didn't use the light-tug when he scooped it up. He was taking an enormous risk, flying into the void as he did.'

'And you're sure you can reproduce the whole thing once we bust it open and haul out its software?'

'Yes.'

'Unless it self-destructs.' Williams had wondered about that.

'It won't. Not if we've zapped it. By that, I mean overloaded its circuitry—as we've agreed we will when we identify the hole. As we now have a complete schematic of the circuitry, we can afford to sacrifice—'

The SG sat bolt upright in his seat. It was just as well he was strapped in.

'Wooh! 'Did you see that?'

Everyone had. In an instant, the void had shrunk to an area that barely surrounded the craft, leaving the backdrop of space around it—the area the void had once filled—to ripple outwards like a stone dropped in a pool. The smaller void then disappeared.

'Is the light-tug working?' asked Bradbury.

'Yes, sir, it is!'

'Have we overpowered its electronics?'

'Umm, yes sir. It's dead.'

The screen changed to a close-up view of a craft surrounded by nothing. It was still intact. Gradually the screen panned out, and stars began to emerge from behind the craft.

'And the hole?'

'Gone, sir. There's nothing left of it.'

'Replay it, SG,' Bradbury ordered. 'Let's see it on the screen. ¼-speed. Williams, the craft is all yours again. Let's get it back on board.'

As Williams retired to the rear flight deck, the starflyer crew sat glued to the ¼-speed rerun. There was some whooping and whistling, and no wonder. Bradbury had just achieved a remarkable first. He had just disabled an alien spaceship, and gotten its internal specifications, all in one straightforward, if risky, experiment. As Bradbury hung there in the zero-G, all puffed-out and smiling, N'Bomal gently squeezed the arms of his observation coach at the back of the room, watching the screen in silence, wondering if they had just upset anyone, or anything—and whether it mattered, even if they had.

#  42

It was intensely cold but bearable. Occasionally Thomas pushed the door ajar to check the surroundings.

Around the 20-minute mark, Scat realised he was getting warmer, or, more truthfully, less cold, so mentioned it to Thomas. Nettles confirmed he was also. Thomas decided it was time to take a walk outside.

'It's OK. The snap has subsided: at least in here.'

'Thank goodness for that, Thomas,' Nettles said. 'But let's be careful of what we touch and where we go for a short while, eh?'

Scat dropped his hood. It was still bitterly cold outside the oven, and everyone's breath was still creating clouds of crystals but Thomas was right; the snap had subsided. He then remembered there were probably 15 or so others somewhere in the building. He pulled at the kitchen door and checked the corridor.

A body lay pressed up against the corridor wall as though frozen in mid-crawl. He recognised the body to be that of a waiter. Beside him were the remains of a dog, curled up in a frozen lump.

Nettles nudged the dog's frozen body with the toe of his boot.

'It's solid,' he said.

Thomas looked away, terrified of what he might find further on, or down in the cellars. Scat pushed past and led the way out into the reception room. It was empty.

'Which way to the cellars, Thomas?' he asked.

Thomas didn't answer right away. He looked a little shocked. Perhaps he was unaccustomed to death in the raw. After a second or two, he looked up from the floor, as though he had just heard the question.

'It's that way,' he said, pointing. 'Along the corridor then down the steps. There's a door at the bottom.'

Scat removed his goggles so he could see better in the gloom. He breathed more slowly, listening for sounds from any direction, but heard nothing. Steeling himself, he strode towards the steps leading to the cellar.

He pushed the cellar door inwards a fraction, but that was all he could manage without help. Nettles obliged, offering a shoulder and a few pounds of added muscle. Eventually, the door gave way a little more, giving Scat a view of the room behind it. Lights blazed, and a couple of electric fires pushed out a red glow, but it was obvious the room had been an icy prison, not a few minutes before.

Behind the door lay a body. Across the floor were three or four more, huddled together. None of them resembled Reggie or Paul. Scat pulled the door shut again.

'Where else could they have gone, Thomas?' he asked.

'Not sure. I rarely use the place. The kitchen, the cellar and the main reception area are the only places I've used. Oh, wait a minute! The garage!'

He sped off, struggling to run up the steps. Scat and Nettles followed.

The garage had been locked-down only minutes before the super-snap descended upon them so the vehicles were still warm from their run up the slope to the bunker. Reggie, as old and as slow as he was, had decided to take his chances in the plains cruiser, rather than not be quick enough to get himself to the kitchens or the cellar. Paul had stayed with him, to make sure he was OK. Others had followed them in.

Reggie was climbing out of the cruiser when Thomas burst through the garage's inner door. Paul was helping him down the step onto the concrete.

'Where did you go off to, young man?' Reggie asked.

'The ovens, father—with Nettles and Scat.'

'Well, that was a beggar of a snap. What's the damage?'

'We haven't checked, but maybe six to eight dead that we've seen so far.' Thomas replied, relieved.

Scat was more exact:

'There are five, Reggie; a waiter in the kitchen hallway and four guests in the cellar. Perhaps we ought to count ourselves off and work out who else we're missing.'

'Yes, Scat. Let's,' Reggie agreed.

The bunker wasn't large, so it didn't take long to confirm that there were only five dead, but to that number they probably needed to add another ten: the Spencer party was unlikely to have made it to the greenhouse in time.

They agreed the outer doors were to stay closed and that no one should go outside until they could confirm the situation with the met office in Go Down. For that to happen, the comms link needed to be working, which it was not. When it worked, that would be a sign that the atmospheric conditions were returning to normal. As for the bodies, well, they would leave them where they were until they could call in the emergency services—in any case, in their current state they could not lay them out.

Scat returned to the reception room and sat by the electric fire. The temperature in the room was rapidly returning to local normal: a nippy -20°C. He unzipped his survival suit and ran his hands back through a mess of hair. It was in need of a trim.

Nettles sat next to him again, as he had before the super-snap. For a man who had just spent half an hour in an oven, he looked remarkably well composed, quiet relaxed.

'One of the hazards of New World living, Terrance?' Scat asked.

'Yes. One of several. The Outlanders don't get enough credit for what they put up with, Scat. Lynthax makes light of it. Their contribution is largely ignored.'

'Were they friends?'

'You mean the guys in the cellar? No. They might have been voters of mine, but not friends.'

Scat broke into a grin. They shared a similar sense of humour.

'What got you involved in politics, then?'

'A love of my fellow man, my patriotic duty, and a sense of service.' It was a deadpan delivery spoiled by a white tooth smile: 'Or it could have been because I hate the farking corporations. I can't recall.'

'Really?'

'Of course not. I own a corporation. It might be a small company in the grand scale of things, but it is still a corporation. Only I don't think it should decide the will of the people.'

'But they've been influencing things for centuries,' Scat pointed out.

'From outside, they have,' Nettles conceded, 'but at least we could shut them out when we're dealing with the really important issues: like when we were taking a vote.'

'For half a term, you mean. Until it's time to go back to the voters,' Scat reminded him.

Nettles chuckled.

'You're more of a cynic than I am, Scat. Maybe I'm more optimistic, but listen, my opinion on their place in a democracy is a fairly straightforward one: They don't let me vote at their AGMs, so we shouldn't let them vote in the House, except as individuals—and then at the ballot box, like the rest of us.'

Nettles leaned forward.

'Look, Lynthax has more heads than a Hydra: it's got one for every New World and another for Earth—it's everywhere—and because it's everywhere, its viewpoint is universal; it's not Trevon-centric. And because it's a corporation and its motive is profit, it serves its shareholders, not society as a whole. But Trevon's viewpoint is local and not-so-for-profit. Our view point is longer-term, more balanced and aimed at being productive for everyone who lives here, including for future generations.'

'But the New Worlds were established by the corporations. They're corporate assets,' Scat noted, digging deeper, 'not sovereign states. The mandates were part of the deal, right?'

'I don't agree, Scat. Trevon's no longer just a corporate asset. It might have been a century or so ago, but we've moved on since then. Millions of people live here now, for crickey's sake, and a majority of them aren't even Lynthax employees. And they all have needs. Needs that a government is supposed to respond to: social needs, financial needs, even immigration needs. And Earth needs to see that.'

'Is that likely?

'Not as it stands right now, no, but the Constitutional Conference is a good place to make a start. What we've got to do is get Earth to see how things actually are—and see why things have got to change.'

'What things?'

'Where to do you want me to start, Scat? It's a long list.'

Scat looked around him. There was no TV, and his graf was still off-line.

'Anywhere you like. We aren't going anywhere for a while.'

'OK. Let's start with the economy.'

'Really? It's not my strong point.'

Nettles ignored him.

'What happens when you ration land for building?'

That wasn't a tough one:

'People compete for it: its value goes up.'

'And the land they've already built on?'

'It goes up as well, I guess.'

Nettles nodded.

'Correct. Property prices go up. So do the rents, and then the price of everything else. What then happens when you then make the same place a tax haven?'

Scat was not sure.

'It attracts the rich?'

'Which does what?'

'It adds to the demand for property.'

'Keep going.'

Scat connected the dots.

'Prices go up, again.'

'Again, correct.'

Yet something was not right.

'But Trevon's huge—it's got land to spare.'

'It is, and it does. It's about 90% the size of Earth, except Lynthax owns it all. Even Go Down's built on land leased from them. And they decide just how much land to release each year for development—which isn't a lot.'

'So?'

'Well, with all the Earth-based tax shelters being closed down, more and more rich people are buying properties to qualify for Trevon residency, which they must do if they want to shift their assets off Earth and into a low tax environment. That means less and less second- and third-generation Trevons can afford to buy, or even rent, an apartment. So they're forced out. Either onto the Plain, if they can afford it, or into one of the illegal settlements further out.'

'But Lynthax is only one Corporate Constituency. There are what, 50 in the House. Surely you'd get some of them to vote for change?'

Nettles shrugged.

'Some, maybe, but probably not enough to replace the Public Reps the corporations have bought. They get up to 65 votes if they issue a 3-line whip. And we need 60 to amend the mandate.'

Scat raised an eyebrow and leaned back into his seat. Nettles had noticed the sceptical look.

'Yes, some are paid-for Scat,' he affirmed, nodding slowly. 'It's a sad state of affairs, but our greatest problem is that not all of the Public Reps can ignore what Lynthax, Raddox or even Heavenly Industries wants.'

He gave Scat an example:

'Imagine you own a Trevon company that makes widgets, and you're bidding to win a Lynthax-issued contract on Constitution.'

'OK.'

'You're bidding against a couple of companies from Earth.'

'OK.'

'Then Lynthax tells you that you're close to winning it, but...'

'But what?'

'They need a favour. They ask, "Would you ask your Public Rep to vote with the Corporates in the upcoming finance bill?" And you badly need this contract. You've 20 employees relying on you. What do you do?'

'Smack the guy around the head.'

Nettles grinned.

'I don't doubt that you would, Scat,' Nettles acknowledged. 'But try to imagine your life savings and livelihood are at stake: You're making payments on an overpriced 150 square metre apartment in Go Down; you've two kids in private school. What do you do?'

'Smack the bastard around the head twice more.'

Nettles shook his head, and smiled, almost laughing.

'Well, I guess you're not like most people, Scat. Most people cave and agree to help. And that's how they get their votes. They only need one Public Rep to vote alongside of them. There are fifty to choose from. And they know how to pick on the most desperate or needy. It's how they keep taxes low, and the rules bent in their favour.'

Scat leaned back as he took the point. On the face of it, Trevon worked pretty well—at least that's what they thought on Earth. And he knew that, behind any well-ordered or managed society, there were always unfortunate people with gripes—after all, you cannot please everyone. But from what he had learned over the past week or so, the problem here appeared deeper than that. It was structural. Maybe no one had looked under the hood. Or didn't want to.

'And there's one more thing,' Nettles added, looking Scat directly in the eye. 'Most people don't give a fig whether we humans survive or not; they only care that their families do, along with enough people to sustain a viable society. They aren't interested in the survival of the species if it doesn't include them: why should they be? When scientists talk of human survival, and corporations pump billions into space exploration, they aren't talking about the survival of everyone, just enough of us to perpetuate the species.'

Scat wasn't sure how this fitted in.

'OK...'

'Well, the families who own these corporations are very, very rich and very influential. When the time comes, they'll have the resources to get off Earth: their bloodlines will survive. So why should they care about the 98% of humanity that'll never, ever, afford a ticket to get off-world?'

'And...'

'They're running the show, Scat. Whose best interest do you think they have at heart?'

That added a new dimension to the conversation. So it wasn't just about the local politics.

Scat turned to stare into the three-bar electric fire, resting his chin on his chest. Nettles sounded reasonable enough. He obviously was sincere in his beliefs, though quite cynical of man's prospects in the longer-term. In fact, his views weren't too dissimilar to his own views—they were just more developed and, well, they ran a little deeper.

'So what brought you to Trevon?' Nettles asked.

'Prebos. Lynthax. Your declaration of independence and a work stoppage.'

'I mean, why out-of-system.'

'Freedom.'

'So we've got something in common, then, despite our differences over how to achieve it.'

'I don't follow you. What do you mean?' Scat asked.

'Well ... I believe we should dump the mandates and adopt a democratic system, a truly democratic system. I think you do too. Only I sense we disagree on how. You see, I believe in being proactive and, if necessary, taking direct action. You're a floater. You're uninvolved: you're passing through. Don't take offense when I say this, Scat, but I doubt you'll act until you're pushed.'

Scat did flinch a little. That had stung. What could he say? He was keeping his life as simple as possible. It was already getting more complicated than he would like.

Nettles stopped talking and appeared to be marshalling more thoughts. Scat sat quietly, not wanting to interfere with them. Nettles then sat up from his slouch and smiled.

'Ironically, from what Thomas tells me, you're most probably the best prepared person on Trevon to take direct action. And me? Well, I'm probably the least well prepared, which is unfortunate, really. I don't see Lynthax, or any of the others, ceding their New World leases without a struggle: none of them is going to set a precedent by conceding anything.'

Nettles then stared into the fire before laying out what he feared the most.

'We may need to fight for what we want.'

Scat's expression hardened. So they were already thinking about it.

'Well, unless you have a starflyer fleet you'll have your butts handed to you,' he said. Someone had to point that out.

'I'm sure you're right, Scat.'

'They'll roll right over you.'

'I know,' Nettles replied, accepting the inevitable. 'But I'd rather they roll over us and hand us our butts than we roll over and take it in the butt,' he said, lightening the mood with a wink, adding, 'It's more dignified.'

#  43

The corridors of Lynthax-Maersk V4 were quiet, save the humming of the air-conditioners, and the swish of glass doors as Earth Delegation staff walked in and out of the various offices in the gravity ring. The clock said it was three in the morning Eastern Standard Time, although, while the ship was in ftl-mode, the differences between day and night only mattered to one's biological rhythm. In any event, it was customary to quieten down in the wee hours.

The Commander had asked the Earth Delegation not to disturb the V4's routine, or to venture into the forward cargo area, so, although the 203 delegates, security, news crews, corporate executives and social partners outnumbered the V4 crew four to one, they made a point of staying as quiet as possible between 12 midnight and six am. They also stuck to the gravity ring unless they needed to check on their own stores and transports in the smaller rear cargo area.

Ambassador Samuel Cohen had been pacing up and down the gravity ring corridor, to exercise his legs and show his face to the 20 or so night-staffers who were working on the briefs that would help the delegates when they entered into talks with the Trevon locals. He admired their enthusiasm and envied them their youth.

As a young staffer, he had appreciated the interest shown in his work by his immediate superiors, and felt honoured if the local Ambassador paid any attention at all. He had been grateful for any encouragement he received, remembering those bosses with particular affection, but did not seriously expect his bosses to pass on any credit, even though he might have been due some.

It was not in the nature of this business to share the credit, so when it was his turn to develop the younger talent, he made it his trademark to pay particular attention to their efforts and commitment, and he would always pass the credit on where it was due.

Cohen was forgiving of failure, so long as it was well intended and the screw-up learned his or her lesson. He passed responsibility down to the lowest possible pay-grade and encouraged them to step up and gain experience. And he took it on the chin if things went wrong, which was why he was still an Ambassador and not the Director of External Relations, or Director of Diplomatic Development, at the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority.

It had been a long time since he had enjoyed his work. Cohen was often bored with the cliché he had become, and, at 78, he looked forward to an early retirement. Next year, possibly.

In the meantime, he was on a mission, a mission to save Earth. It was a heavy burden, but one of his choosing.

'Sir, the Constitutional Brief is ready,' said an aide who had appeared at his side holding a 10 centimetres-thick rivet-bound document in both hands. She was struggling with it, hardly able to keep the thing held out.

'Thank you, Mary,' he replied looking down at it, not attempting to take it off her. 'Do you think I'll be taking that to bed with me tonight?'

'No, sir, not at all. I'll leave it in your office.'

'Does it come with an Idiot's Guide or a summary of some kind?'

'Yes, sir: the last 40 pages. I've also flagged the e-version. The senior staffers can neuralnet the directory and retrieve any section in less than half a second.'

'Very good, excellent work! Now it's done, we can conduct an exercise—tomorrow, before we arrive. Compile 20 questions involving retrievals across multiple sections, then organise a competition. Perhaps you could get all of the grade-two and -three staffers to take part. It'll be amusing to see who of our Young Turks has taken to this neuralnet thing.'

He noticed Mary trying to hide a smile. She was a grade-four staffer on a fast track programme but still not entitled to the neuralnet procedure. She would get some satisfaction in seeing her more senior and increasingly haughty colleagues squirm a little, no doubt.

'Consider it done, sir,' she replied, enthusiastically. 'I'll add them to the brief before I drop them off at your office.' She looked at her graf. 'You'll have it by five am. And we can do the test during the shift change tomorrow at 12 noon—that should get them all.' She then blushed, as though realising he may not quite get the same kick out of watching them squirm.

Cohen smiled back at her and added a wink.

'Make it difficult for them, Mary. Good night.'

'Yes, sir. Good night.'

He thought of having a nightcap before getting his head down, but that would mean inconveniencing his junior staff in the recreation room. Maybe, instead, he could introduce himself to the Lynthax passengers. There were lots of them listed on the passenger manifest, although none had attempted to mingle with his staff.

Then he realised he couldn't.

His security detail would go ape.

That reminded him—his military attaché had a difficult decision to make, and he wondered if he had already made it. He walked along the ring to his bunk and knocked on a door.

'I hope you don't mind, Ronald...' he said, noticing the bedside light still burned.

Colonel Ronald Cotton eased himself up from the mattress and onto an elbow. He pushed a hand back over a shiny, bald head and then looked at the clock on the side of his bed.

'No problem, Samuel. I must have dozed off.'

'Well you needn't wake up fully. I just thought to ask if you'd made your choice.'

Cotton stared at him without moving.

'Yes, I have. Actually, the decision was made for me. It'll be Booni.'

Cohen was surprised. Booni was on Cotton's staff. He was up and coming. Young, but promising.

'Booni, eh? What made you decide it was going to be him?'

'CD. More specifically, Accelerated Cell Death. He was exposed on Constitution a few years ago.'

'Booni's got ACD?'

'Yes. Sadly. Who would have guessed it, eh? It's rare.'

'But how do you know it's accelerating? Does he know? Can't they fix that?'

'No. I've been reading up on it. They can dose him up for a while longer, perhaps play with some stem cells, but not forever, and perhaps not fast enough. And I know, because he's just had his annual CD scan and I got a copy just before we went to ftl. And no, he hasn't seen the results and I haven't told him yet. Now I may never need to.'

Cohen nodded slowly.

'Well that's a shame. ... OK, so Booni's it! Now that we've decided on that, when we get in-system, will you please be sure to remind the Trevons of our increasing concerns?'

'Don't worry, Samuel. I've got it in hand.'

'OK, then. Go back to sleep. Sorry to bother you.'

He pulled the door closed, cocked his head to one side and thought he should spend some time with the young Booni before the conference. Maybe give him some things to do, things that would make him feel special.

It was the least he could do for a man who was going to give his all for democracy.

#  44

It was a well-attended funeral. Scat stood at the back of the hall alongside Thomas who, like him, didn't really know any of the deceased. They were there because they had been close to the tragedy and the Irwins had stepped in to make the funeral arrangements.

They held it inside a large auditorium, a part of a sports complex that Lynthax Properties leased to City Hall during the day and to an amateur drama group three nights a week. The dead lay in aluminium boxes, side by side on the stage floor. The mourners sat out front, sitting in banked rows of flip-down seats.

It was a dignified, yet simple affair, meant to give the Trevon friends and business partners of the dead a chance to say their farewells. Reggie, Old Man Spelling and an old woman from the Spencer clan sat in the front row, as did a dozen or so of the Spencer family's business executives, all of whom had barbecued with the deceased in happier times.

When Scat asked what the old lady was doing there on her own with no family in support, Thomas replied that the rest of the Spencer family had died in the super-snap: she was all there was left.

When he then asked why there were only 12 and not 15 bodies out front, he learned that the old girl was not interring her husband and sons on Trevon. She had threatened to kill all of her family's investments on Trevon were she not permitted to bring their bodies back to Earth with her. She had had enough.

He was going to ask what would happen to the Spencer family business and its employees, but guessed the answer could be just as depressing. He shut up.

When the funeral ended, and the mood music died, city workers removed the bodies for the drive out onto the Gap Plain where they would lay them out to refreeze, and then vibrate them into microscopic, powdery pieces.

Thomas explained that the funeral director would then burn a small amount of the icy powder from each body and scoop the resulting ashes into separate vials. He would then send the vials to the spaceport where, traditionally, Lynthax-Maersk added them to a pile of buoy express packages. Sometime over the next few days, they would travel, free of charge, back to their relatives on Earth: a gesture of goodwill that always went down well with the press at home. The icy powders that they did not burn would then be scattered at the southern end of the Gap Plain where the annual thaw would eventually flush them out to sea.

It was a tradition, he said. It went back to the early days, when the ground was too hard for burial, the City too small for a cemetery and cargo space too precious to waste on something that would not make a profit.

Scat was quickly learning that life on Trevon could be a tough one, even in death.

Having paid his respects, Scat broke away to drop off the first of his weekly reports at the Lynthax Centre. By necessity, it contained a brief summary of his weekend with the Irwins. He hadn't wanted to mention it, but the police activity up at the bunker; the statements they made and the personal details he was forced to give up, meant he couldn't hide his involvement in what, for Trevon, was the biggest tragedy of the year so far.

He mentioned he had broken bread with them; gone on a shoot; it had ended badly and he had learned nothing other than the background to some grievances. He carefully worded the report so as not to implicate anyone as being especially anti-corporate, or to imply he was getting closer to a rebel faction.

One thing he did not mention at all: he left out that Nettles had asked him if he needed work—now that he was unemployed. He gave himself the option of adding that to a later report—if he needed to.

'Reps are always looking for staff, Scat,' Nettles had said. 'The pay isn't great, but at least you can learn some more of what goes on in the House, and what makes the place tick. Or who pays whom for votes or favours,' he had added by way of incentive. 'If you want, I can introduce you to some "friendlies".'

Scat appreciated the offer: it could work for him. If it went well, his luck would be on the up at last: he could soon be earning two salaries. He tried not to feel too conflicted by that. Were he was to stick to his goal of remaining non-partisan then surely it was right for both sides to contribute to his neutrality. If not right, then at least he shouldn't feel guilty. Not overly guilty, anyway...

By the time he was free of the Lynthax Centre, it was close to 10 o'clock. He had half an hour to kill before his appointment with Nettles. He decided against using a taxi, and chose, instead, to walk the mile to Trevon House.

The road was busy and the sidewalks full. On the other side of the road, wisps of steam escaped from the underground heating system. Up above, a wane light made its way into Go Down, leaving only faint shadows and giving the city a ghostly feel. As always the air smelled of cooked food and dampness, and, despite the hustle and bustle at street level, it was very still—until he arrived onto Trevon Square.

Then he felt a sudden and strong movement of air.

For a short while, there was nothing to indicate what had caused it. The roof was still intact, and nothing of any size was moving in the square. Others noticed it as well, and began to look up Second Avenue towards the dam wall. The wall was miles away, down the winding avenue, well out of view, but it was obvious someone had raised the whole thing. Something too bulky to use the road at the Loop entrance must be entering the city.

They didn't need to wait long before what caused it came into view. In the distance on Second Avenue, and gliding along at second and third floor level above the street, there appeared a long procession of strange, black and windowless vehicles.

There was a wave of excitement along the street. The Trevons had been waiting patiently for this. Customers stepped out of the shops and onto the street. C-Pods pulled over and doors opened, heads peering out. Office workers opened their windows and leaned through them, to wave at the vehicles as they swept past below them.

As the cavalcade stopped in front of Trevon House, it hung in the air, motionless, appearing alien, remote and intriguing at the same time. They certainly didn't seem to be of this world: none of them was pushing thrust down onto the street; there was no wake, no dust.

Then a large number of local police and Lynthax security vehicles pulled noisily onto the traffic circle, as if to emphasise the fact that the 20 or so vehicles in the alien cavalcade had made no noise at all.

As the transports hovered and then settled gently to the ground, the crowd forming at the end of Second Avenue made its way excitedly into Trevon Square. Up on the House steps, a small group of Trevon Representatives appeared, wearing their ceremonial gowns and waiting in welcome. Other Reps hung back, dressed for a normal day at work. They looked just as surprised as the people down below.

As everyone waited, little black globes sprang up from the vehicle roofs: some to hover, others to flit about the square: again, making no noise, and neither pushing out thrust, nor leaving a wake.

Eventually, and in unison, the vehicle doors sprang open, the passengers alighted, and they made their way on foot up the steps to the House.

The Earth Delegation had arrived.

#  45

Nettles was not in his office so Scat introduced himself to his assistant. She wasn't sure where he was, nor was she paying much attention. Like everyone else, she was gazing out of the window at the Earth vehicles, or transports, that by now were empty of their passengers and hung suspended 15 metres or so off the ground, leaving the road around the traffic circle open to traffic.

They looked like solid black opals; the shine was extraordinarily deep and looked wet. Scat noticed that the vehicles reflected the front of the House off their sides and that there were no noticeable trim or door jams to cause any distortion. If there were windows, they were seamlessly integrated, as must be the doors, wheels, and propulsion system.

As he looked at them, Scat became aware of a slight oddity: the undersides flickered, almost imperceptibly, just like ... Jeeze!

'Ever seen the like before Scat?' Nettles asked as he entered the room.

Scat swung around.

'Yes. On a starflyer,' he replied.

'Eh?'

'The beggars are using ftl technology. Take a look!'

Nettles crossed to the window and looked up at the line of vehicles. He saw the flickering under one of them, and his face lit up.

'Well, I'll be a whore's uncle! It's distorting the air below it,' he said, looking harder at it. 'And it's probably doing the same above it too, to keep it suspended.'

There was nothing like a huge leap in vehicular technology to enthuse a man. It was a guy thing: it had been ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine – or was it the chariot.

'Terrestrial ftl, eh? At least a derivative of it. They've obviously mastered it,' Nettles noted, 'and now they're showing us that they've made the leap. Not a bad production, if you ask me. Mind you, I wouldn't want to be run over by one of them. It'd knock you into the next universe!'

'I doubt it. The space-time distortion doesn't reach out very far,' Scat observed, '—a few millimetres, perhaps? And they'll have fail-safes. But I wonder what it does to the elements they do touch: the air for instance?'

'Well, we'll find out soon enough,' Nettles announced. 'I've just come back from a briefing by the House Secretariat. The Earth Delegation arrived in orbit last night and asked our chaps to keep the details of their arrival quiet. They're claiming there's a terrorist threat—it's either that or they're laying it on already, to remind us that we're the unruly cousins. Anyway, there's a reception tonight in the Main Hall. The invitations are going out over the housenet now. You want to come?'

'Yeah, sure. I would,' Scat replied. Then something occurred to him. 'Tell me, do you think Petroff will be on the list?'

'Petroff? That blowhard from Lynthax Security?' It sounded like Nettles didn't have much time for him. 'I guess so. He'll make sure he is; if he can't get in as a guest of the Lynthax Rep, he'll wangle a spell of diplomatic protection.'

'They do diplomatic security as well?'

'Not on their own, they don't. They joint-own the contract with Raddox, and we manage it through a local company. We insisted on it. And we insisted on oversight.'

'What don't they do?'

'Why do you want to know? About Petroff, I mean.'

Scat shrugged.

'No reason. I just need to know if I should watch my back,' he replied, quickly returning to the reason for his visit. 'Thanks for arranging my security pass, Terrance. Is there anyone in particular I should talk to first?'

'Yes, me.' Nettles said, as he pushed a stray strand of hair back into a well-groomed slick-back. 'It's clear I'll now need a third pair of hands for the next few weeks. Cheryl, here, is just the ticket for the office stuff, but she signs off before midnight and can't do any heavy lifting: she's married. If things go how I think they will, I'll need someone who doesn't think kids, or husband, or needs to feed the dog. That'd be you.'

'OK. So make me an offer.' Scat suggested, wondering what heavy lifting there might be.

'24 hour, seven days a week, for as long as these people are in town. For your current rent, free House meals three times a day, and the equivalent to what Cheryl is earning now. It's as far as my House budget will stretch.'

It was more than Scat had hoped for.

'I'm in. When do I start?'

Nettles glanced at the black opals one more time and then walked into his office. He reeled off a series of orders.

'You're free until four pm, Scat. Meet me here wearing something half-decent. Get rid of the boots. Cheryl! Put Scat on the payroll. Rolling one-week contract—researcher—grade three. Thanks.' By the time he had finished, Nettles was sitting at his desk and had his back to the door.

The audience was over. Scat looked down at his boots as Cheryl looked up from her desk and smiled.

'Welcome to Bedlam, Mr Scatkiewicz!'

#  46

Xin padded down the temporary corridor towards the field hospital's reception area. He was angry that N'Bomal had brought the damned thing back to Prebos. He thought he had made it clear that station security was against hosting it. They should have left the capsule, craft, alien space ship—whatever this thing was—high in space. But even Williams was backtracking on his previous unease and now declared himself less concerned than before:

'Bradbury knows what he's doing,' he had said. 'More so than Petroff and Makindra.'

Xin was not so sure.

'Everything OK, Ha?' he asked, almost whispering as he entered the reception desk area. 'No more outages?'

'None, sir. It's been real quiet,' he replied. 'Mr Makindra and Bradbury are in with it now. Shall I let them know you're here?'

'No. Not yet. Let me see the monitor.'

Ha, the only the ethnic Laotian on the company's security roster, and possibly the only Laotian in the Greco system, swung the screen around to face him. Xin looked at it for several seconds.

'Do they have a lock on it?' he asked, referring to the light-tug.

'They do, sir,' Ha replied, then added, jokingly. 'It's the reason I'm still sitting here and not running for the elevator!'

Xin smiled and offered reassurance:

'Mr Bradbury assures me that it's dead, or as dead as makes no difference. It should be quite OK. I think the light-tug is just an extra precaution. We wouldn't want to be sending condolences to your mum back home, now would we?'

'No, sir, you wouldn't. She'd be up here and in your face if you did, sir. She's not to be messed with!'

Xin laughed. At least the lads have regained their sense of humour. They would need it.

N'Bomal had sent a full report by buoy to Lynthax's Earth head office, which included Bradbury's request that the company make the craft their top priority. Earth's response had come within two days, an exceptionally fast turnaround.

They had already received a large consignment of research equipment from Trevon, such that the field hospital was feeling decidedly small, claustrophobic, even. Nonetheless, Prebos was to prepare itself for the arrival of a large group of researchers and a further delivery of equipment within a day, this time from Earth. That nagged at him as the new head of Prebos security. It was frightening just how quickly the company was moving things around the Grecos system, and now from Sol. Sooner or later, someone was bound to notice Lynthax breaking all the rules, and that would attract ISRA's attention.

In the meantime, Bradbury was not to do anything more to the craft: he was not to touch it, wave a light over it, or even breathe deeply in its presence. Nor were they to deactivate the light-tug—as though they needed telling.

Still, even with the restrictions, Bradbury had managed to collate all the information gained during the craft's last outing. It looked as though he was working on that now. Both he and Makindra were sitting at a console running through a programme. The craft sat on its cradle behind them.

Xin gently pushed the main ward door open and attracted Makindra's attention. Makindra touched Bradbury on the shoulder and nodded towards Xin.

Bradbury mouthed a silent, 'I'll be with you in a moment,' gesturing towards reception. Xin closed the door and walked back to the management desk.

'Why aren't you playing Dungeon and Dragons in the research room?' Xin asked quietly so Ha couldn't hear him. 'Why are you in there with that thing, whatever we call it?'

Bradbury stood next to him and turned his back on Ha.

'We have been working in the research room, Ryan. We're only in the main ward to compare some data.'

'You could have downloaded the data remotely, Todd. For Jeeze's sake! Do I have to throw a light-tug around you two as well?'

Bradbury sounded cocksure of himself.

'Earth is being overly precautious, Ryan. It's dead, and it's inside a light-tug. It isn't going anywhere.'

'It may not need to go anywhere, Todd, that's the point. You've no idea what it is, why it was where it was, what caused it to be there, or what it could still do, dead or not.'

'Don't get yourself worked up,' Bradbury said, throwing his hands up as though Xin was overreacting. 'If you think we're being too familiar with this thing, we'll move back to the research room. I'm sorry.'

'Good. Let's just wait until Earth sends us whoever and whatever they're sending, and we'll take it from there. It's not as though you and Makindra won't get credit for it when it's made public. But screw it up, and you'd be famous for the wrong reason.'

'As I said, I'm sorry.'

'And what the hell are we going to call this thing anyway?' Xin asked, looking back at the main ward door.

Bradbury followed his gaze.

'Ah! We've already named it The Thing! Sums it up, doesn't it?'

'The Thing?'

'Uh huh,' Bradbury confirmed. 'We'll give it a proper name when we've cracked it open and found out what it does. There's no point in calling it The Generator if it doesn't actually open real wormholes, now is there? Or The Alternative Universe Transporter, or The Alien Spaceship, if it does turn out to be alien space junk.'

'I get your point, Todd. Just leave the damn thing alone. We've been warned to receive the first LM-V delivery tomorrow.'

Bradbury swung around.

'You're kidding me?'

'Nope. Someone thinks it was worth breaking all the rules. They've equipped the LM's with a military grade SG so it'll be jumping past most of the Outer-Rim buoys. What surprises me is how quickly they've put the cargo together.'

'What is it?'

'A small town.'

#  47

The Main Hall was the only ornately decorated room in the whole of Trevon House. For a while, at least, one could imagine an earlier time, when aesthetics once trumped ergonomics and economics. Grecian, Roman? A large, enclosed courtyard, anyway, with exceptionally high walls and an action-projection of the sky on an opaque glass-domed ceiling. It was changing from day to night and stars were beginning to emerge. Behind the illusion would be the usual prefabricated plasterboard, and metal frames, but the artwork, drapery and craftsmanship appeared real enough.

Spoiling the picture were several black globes orbiting the room at head level, ducking in an out of the various gatherings, stopping for a moment, then moving on. Nettles explained that they were network news cameras, referred to by their operators as bugcams. The technology they employed was the same as used by the Earth transports. He flicked a handkerchief at one. It darted out of the way.

'Apparently they are safe, Scat. There's not a lot of space-time distortion involved. NBC demonstrated one to us. You can try swatting one if you like, but you'll not come close. They've been swarming all over the building since the Ambassador arrived. Impressed?'

'Of course I am, Terrance. Or do I call you 'Sir', now?'

Terrance waited until the bugcam had eased away to annoy another group.

'Terrance will do nicely. Now, look. I'm going to be flipping around the Earth delegation this evening, trying to get to know who the real negotiators are. You'll keep score.'

'Notes, you mean?'

'Yes, notes. The ambassador represents Earth. He'll have brought two types of negotiators with him. One lot will engage our boys across the table, as you'd expect. The others will get to our most influential citizens and Public Reps less formally: possibly with gifts, but not always. The thing is, they'll do whatever it takes to smooth the way for their official negotiators. If they can get to anyone with influence over our people, they will.'

'Bribes, threats and blackmail—that sort of thing?'

'Yes, you're catching on fast. And our mission tonight is to identify the ones we need to be careful of. Then we can head them of at the pass, so to speak. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.'

'So you're taking the cynical view?'

'My dear Scat, it's the only view. Diplomacy isn't for saps. It isn't all smiles. It'll get pretty cutthroat once the dance starts. And given the stakes, I wouldn't expect anything less than an all-out attempt to undermine the House, discredit the leading independence advocates, that sort of thing.'

'Fair enough. And what underhand tactics do we use?'

'None,' Nettles replied, with a wink. 'It would be most impolite for the host to inconvenience its guests! Let's start with the Ambassador and work our way outwards. Oh, and yes, pay particular attention to anyone Petroff speaks to. He's over there.'

Nettles pointed to the end of the room where two lecterns stood on a low stage, bordered by deep blue, floor-to-ceiling curtains, in front of which were the flags of Trevon and the Inter Space Regulatory Authority. Petroff was already mixing with a couple of ISRA employees who were talking to some civilians. He was wearing his Lynthax Security uniform of grey half jacket and darker grey trousers. The elegant braiding suggested it was his dress uniform. A glance down at his footwear confirmed it: high gloss shoes, not the usual plain, black boots. So, the Lynthax Rep had invited him, and he didn't have to man the door.

'OK,' Scat replied, not noticing that Nettles had already walked across to the Ambassador's circle.

Marvin, April, Reggie, Jenny and Thomas arrived at the entrance to the Main Hall together with some grey-haired colleagues, all male. They had been meeting with a large group of independence supporters at the Sports Club on Third and Sixth. Reggie wore a dinner jacket, while Marvin and Thomas were less formally dressed in day suits. The three people who Scat didn't recognise were also in day suits, but of an older style.

He tried to commit to memory the faces of the guests he did not know. Several bugcams were also paying more than a passing interest, crowding around them as they walked into the room. Reggie, surprised and looking a little hostile, tried to drop his coat over one, but Thomas shooed it way.

When Reggie had calmed down, Scat beckoned Thomas over to the centre of the room. Around 250 guests filled the hall and more were arriving at the door each time he looked. The noise they made was now reaching deafening levels. Scat raised his voice:

'Thanks for hooking me up with Nettles, Thomas. I'm working for him now.'

'Great, so that's why you're here. Father was wondering how you had managed to get an invitation when our lot was left to kick their heels across town.'

'Yeah. I know. The ambassador didn't want a face-full of confrontation on his first day in town, so they're playing it careful. Actually, I'm surprised your dad was invited. Is he planning to buttonhole him?'

'Count on it. Father's building up a head of steam as we speak. Germaine and Jenny will do their best to hold him down, but it should still be a decent firework show.'

'Germaine?'

'Father's business manager. Innanovic is sick. He would have been our first choice: Germaine's a bit slow, these days. That's him, there,' Thomas said pointing at him. He was as old as Reggie was, but not so spry, and a little heavier, shorter and craggier, if that were possible.

'Petroff's here. Is Old Man Spelling coming?' Scat asked.

'No. He's staying at the Sports Club with the others. Reggie was sure Petroff would be here, and they agreed it would be best if he didn't make a show. Besides, I think he wants his first meeting with Petroff to be outside of diplomatic circles, if you know what I mean?'

'I do,' Scat replied as he caught sight of Marvin chatting with Nettles. Nettles was looking back at him, beckoning him across. 'Look, I gotta go. Keep your old man soft and fluffy.'

Scat re-joined Nettles who immediately gestured to a bald, compact, and fit looking officer in Marine Corps dress uniform standing in Petroff's little circle. The older man had tucked his peaked cap under his left arm and was greedily devouring the contents of a small plate of food between quick sips of wine.

'We're fairly sure the military attaché is a Lynthax man,' Nettles said, 'so he won't be here just to advise the Ambassador. He'll have other tasks to perform.'

Scat turned his back on the Marine.

'Anything like the ones you mentioned earlier?' he asked.

Nettles waited while an NBC bugcam hovered close by. It saw nothing of interest, so it moved on.

'Yes', he replied, his eyes following the bugcam as it made its way to where the attaché was talking to Petroff. He leaned in a little, not wanting to shout. 'And he'll carry the weight of his office when he presses home the knife. But he won't be working his patch just from Earth's perspective—he'll be factoring in Lynthax's requirements as well.'

'And we know he's a Lynthax man, because ...?'

'Marvin met him on Earth. He was on secondment to Lynthax, on some kind of business – military exchange. His name is Cotton, Colonel Cotton. Why don't you introduce yourself? You'll have something in common to talk about.'

Scat's easy-going smile disappeared.

'Really?'

'Yes, Scat, really. It's not a party.' Nettles added a smile. It was obvious Scat didn't want to talk shop with Cotton, especially with Petroff being present. 'Go earn your crust,'

As Scat walked across to them, Petroff caught Cotton's attention. He raised his glass of wine in Scat's direction.

'Colonel Cotton, let me introduce Captain (retired) Sebastian Scatkiewicz. Scat to his friends.'

'Hello Mr Petroff. Evening, Sir.' Scat offered to shake the Colonel's hand. The man's hands were hot and sweaty.

'The Captain Scatkiewicz?' The Colonel asked, regarding Scat with intense green-brown eyes.

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, I'm honoured to meet you, young man. A civilian now, eh? Pity.' The others in the group were impressed that the Colonel was impressed—they just did not know why.

'Yes, sir—since '03. Actually, I was working on Prebos until this thing blew up. I'm in the dog pound now, though.' Scat glanced at Petroff.

Cotton looked at the two of them.

'Explain!' he said, as if he had an inalienable right to know.

Scat bristled and held his tongue. This was why he had not wanted to talk with him. He had had enough of explaining himself to people in uniform. And he noticed something else that he liked even less. The man looked as though he had come up through the ranks. He was older than the average Colonel. The beggar would be difficult to bluff.

Petroff grew embarrassed by the silence.

'What he means by that, Ronald, is he made the mistake of tangling with my men when we kicked the Trevons off Prebos. Isn't that so, Scat?'

Scat forced a smile, accepting Petroff's version of events with a shrug.

'Yes, sir. My fault entirely. Anyways, I just wanted to say hello, Colonel. It's always good to meet up with a fellow professional. Not many of us in the Outer-Rim.'

'I'm sure there isn't Scat,' Cotton replied, good-naturedly. 'Not much need for armies out this way up until now. Let's hope there isn't a call for them in the future.'

'Agreed, sir. Maybe you could remind Earth of that. Trevon is already aware of it.'

Cotton's eyes narrowed. Petroff looked uncertain. Was this Scat playing his role as a spy, or was he simply letting off steam?

'Don't get mixed up in this, Scatkiewicz,' Cotton said. 'Not someone of your stature. You're Earth born and raised. Leave it to us to work it out.' The Colonel spoke in a reasonable, even-toned voice. He wasn't annoyed. He was just offering some sensible advice for public consumption.

'I intend to, sir. Anyway, good evening. I have to get back to work. Nice to meet you, Colonel.'

Scat turned to leave, grateful he could now re-join Nettles, but Petroff caught up with him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

'We need to meet up for a few minutes, Scat. The anteroom on the second floor. Let's say 10 minutes after the Ambassador's finished his speech, shall we?'

#  48

The Leader of the House climbed the three steps onto the stage to welcome the Ambassador and his 200-strong delegation to Trevon. As he concluded his short speech, he expressed his desire for a peaceful and happy conclusion to Earth's fact-finding tour.

The guests clapped.

The Ambassador then left his band of followers to join him. Dressed in a modern business suit, but sporting unfashionably long and curly grey hair that spread over his shoulders, he spoke clearly and with complete sincerity. He accepted Trevon's welcome. He expressed his thanks to the Trevon people for remaining calm during such difficult times. Then he declared his faith in the two sides resolving the constitutional dispute over the next couple of weeks.

They were talking at cross-purposes, of course.

Trevon did not intend to let the Delegation negotiate it back into Earth's fold, and the Delegation was not here only to seek out the facts and then to return to Earth. It was here to bring Trevon to heel.

Scat could see he was in for an interesting two weeks, but the cocktail party was a bore. He was almost glad when it came time to slip away to join Petroff.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor, still feeling the effects of 9/10ths ESG deep inside his legs. Once he left the grandly appointed Main Hall floor, the architecture reverted to its blander New World style of simple materials and functionality. He could have been in any office building, anywhere in the Outer-Rim.

'In here, Scat,' Petroff called, leaning through a pair of glass doors.

Scat walked across the landing and entered the room. Cotton was sitting on a sofa facing a faux fireplace, his dress uniform jacket fully unbuttoned, revealing a badly creased white undershirt. He did not attempt to button it up.

'Evening again, Scat,' he said, remaining seated. He continued to read a magazine on a public e-reader chained to the arm of his chair.

Petroff invited Scat to take a seat beside them.

'We're impressed,' he said. 'Dinner with the Irwin family and a job in the House—and with no less than Nettles. Not bad for 10 days work, Scat. Not bad at all,'

'Thank you, sir. Fortuitous, really. Straightforward good luck. Thomas Irwin and I knew each other on Prebos, though I didn't know he was connected, nor who his father was. We got on. So here I am.'

'So what do you have?' Cotton asked more directly, putting the e-reader back into its slot down the side of the chair. Again, there it was—the green and brown-eyed stare.

Scat paused before replying. The Colonel wasn't much of a conversationalist, and Scat wasn't yet ready with all his excuses.

'Nothing, yet, sir. It's a little early. I can't push my way in. They have to draw me in—if they have anything to draw me into, that is.'

'Of course they do, Scatkiewicz,' Cotton said, glancing across to Petroff, not believing him. 'Nettles foams at the mouth when he speaks of freedom. That Old Man Spelling is a closet revolutionary, and Irwin is the alpha male of the independence movement. Don't jerk us about, young man. This is serious stuff.'

'I realize that, sir, but I'm a civilian. I'm willing to help, but as I told Mr Petroff—'

'You're a reservist who's just been redrafted,' Cotton announced, harshly and without softening the blow. 'I've the papers here. Earth is deadly serious about ending this constitutional spat. You'll have to put your civilian career on hold for a short while.'

Scat was shocked. He had forgotten he was obligated to 10 years of reserve service. Nevertheless, it was extremely rare for the Marines to redraft someone eight years out.

'Am I to be uniformed?'

'Don't be a dolt, Captain: it doesn't suit you. We want you where you are: in civvies alongside Nettles and the Irwins. We just want you to take it real seriously, that's all. We want you to know that we approve of what Petroff has started, and we now want to see it come to fruition. You're to take orders from Petroff as though they are coming from me. Is that clear?'

Scat was stunned but managed a reply:

'Yes, sir. I understand,' he said. His response had been firm—he had even added a nod—yet, behind a face full of false resolve, his heart was sinking fast. He wanted to run from the room and find a real big open space. Instead, his backside was rooted to the chair.

Cotton stood up and, as he buttoned up his jacket and readjusted the shirt's detachable white collar, he made to speak more softly, for Petroff's ears only. Scat pretended not to eavesdrop.

'As with your other intelligence assets, Jack, make this one work quickly, no messing about, do you hear? They've to start delivering, or else they're a waste of money, OK? Nor do we have the time to waste on niceties. Work them hard.'

Scat saw Petroff nodding quickly, looking in his direction.

'Good,' Cotton concluded. 'I'll leave you two here to talk things over. I've to brief the Ambassador on the local security situation at midnight, which means I've to go and get a briefing of my own. So, if you'll excuse me ...'

He grabbed his peaked cap from the table by the door and left the room. Scat watched him leave and then turned to Petroff.

'So let's get this straight: I get paid by you, the House and the good old US of A?'

# Part Three

#  Under Pressure

#  49

Marvin had seen Scat walk from the Hall, and curiosity had drawn him to the foot of the stairs to watch him disappear. He knew this was a difficult time for the young lad and felt that the sooner he decided to take sides, or leave the solar system entirely, the better Scat would feel.

He had read the lad's personnel jacket on Prebos, as he did all the new comers assigned to his department, and having read of his military record, he had gone online to download a lot more about him.

Since their first meeting, he had noticed Scat was not a natural deep thinker; it was something he had to work on. His military training had forced him to think more deeply, to analyse a situation and look for solutions, but always within a tight timeframe. That time pressure protected him from overanalysing things. Given too much time he would do that, just to be sure he had not missed anything.

As he was no doubt doing now.

'Penny for your thoughts, Marv,' Thomas Irwin said, tapping him on his shoulder and looking up the stairs. 'Did Scat go upstairs with the Beast?'

Marvin looked around. The corridor was empty, save for waiters running back and forth.

'Yes, he did. They're probably working on him.'

'Worried?'

Marvin shook his head.

'No. Not really. If he's pushed, he'll rebel. It's in his nature.'

'He got on with Nettles. That's a start, right?' Thomas asked, hopefully.

'Yes, he did, didn't he? Anyway, we'll continue to pull, they can push. Scat will sense the difference.'

'You sure there's no one else?' Thomas asked.

'I doubt it, Thomas. He has the skills. He can train and organise others in these things. It's what we need.'

'But what's in it for him—other than grief? He didn't know Pierce that well. He won't risk it all for revenge.'

'I'm not sure yet—' Marvin stopped talking as a guest wandered past them to the men's room. 'He wants a quiet life, that's for sure. But he needs roots, and Trevon'll be it. He can't keep moving on. These problems will follow him around. The whole Outer-Rim is blowing up. We just need to find the right "hot button."'

'We can't use some of the others?'

It was obvious Thomas meant the other doorstops, Lynthax's security personnel, many of whom were military trained.

Marvin didn't doubt Thomas' physical courage, but he did question his strength of mind. Marvin considered Thomas to be something of a fresh-minded and woolly-headed thinker. He was the product of privilege, someone who had yet to experience some of this life's harder knocks. As Reggie's unofficial "manipulator-in-chief" for all things secessionist related, Marvin had taken it upon himself to help the lad along. The man-boy needed to toughen up, but at 26, Thomas was a work in progress, still. Thomas may have felt comfortable talking to him—after all, he had known him since he was a child, and had never dismissed his ideas out of hand, as did his father—but that could not account for all of his less well-guarded comments. And with his elder brother on Earth, and Reggie getting on in years, Thomas did need to think a little deeper, more realistically. In a few years, Trevon's future may depend on his leadership, one way or another.

'You're not thinking deeply enough, young man,' he said.

'Eh?'

'Think about it. Who holds their tickets back to Earth? Where are their families?'

'You mean they can't help, even if they wanted to?'

Marvin nodded slowly.

'Do you think they can afford a ticket back to Earth on what they earn?' he asked.

Thomas shook his head.

'And would you pin your colours to a revolution with your family living in the enemy camp?'

Again, Thomas shook his head and looked up the stairs. Marvin waited for him to process his thoughts. Eventually Thomas turned to face him.

'But if the downside of not doing anything were more costly ...'

'But it isn't, is it? They're out-of-system contract workers. They aren't invested, Thomas.'

'Nor's Scat.'

'No,' Marvin agreed. 'But I'm hoping he will be.'

'So, Scat's it? No fall-back?'

Marvin smiled, nodding in the direction of a bugcam. He waited for it to return to the main hall.

'Of course not. If he's not up to it, we keep looking. Or we do things differently.'

'But he's the best we have for now?'

'He is,' Marvin conceded. 'But only truth knows how it'll start and finish. He's not going to be predictable. Nor particularly subservient.'

'Why do you say that? He's alright.'

'He is isn't he? But you haven't seen his jacket. Believe me when I say he isn't a general's darling.'

A voice from the main hall entrance interrupted them.

'Thank you for coming Mr Cade. Thank you for your support,' Trevon's permanent Earth Representative, Khoffi Khan said, walking up to shake his hand, ignoring Thomas who slipped away, unnoticed. 'I hope you have made your opinion clear to your House Representative. I'm looking forward to our meetings tomorrow.'

'It's a pleasure, Khoffi. And, yes, I have.'

'I noticed you as I came out to use the men's room. I thought 'Aye, aye. Cade's had more than his fair share of liquor and is slipping off early'. Not true, though, eh? Not on such an occasion?'

'Well, it's almost true, Khoffi but I wouldn't leave April behind. Don't you still need to use the john?'

'No, it can wait,' he replied, waving it off with a hand. 'I was just taking some time out. Whereas you must meet the Ambassador.'

Khan playfully pushed Marvin from the foot of the stairs and back into the Main Hall. Marvin let him. They got on well. Despite Khan being a mean-looking man at a glance, with a sallow face and a days-long five o'clock shadow that made him look semi-evil even under bright lights, he was harmless. He was a good listener; always keen to please; often sympathetic. He was a decent Earth Rep, not a company lackey. Then there was his ever-present smile; it was infectious. Besides, he was unusually strong for such a short, stumpy man.

They made their way through the crowd to the drinks counter, where the Ambassador and several local Trevon company directors were deep in conversation. They were talking about increasing the cargo flights between Trevon and Earth, and introducing direct flights between the New Worlds.

As the bugcams crowded in on them, jostling for position, the Ambassador was "seeing a pattern emerge", "acknowledging the increasingly sophisticated needs of today's New Worlds", "taking into account the needs of commerce" and so on. Everyone, including Khan nodded. The Ambassador appeared to be acknowledging just about every social ill and uneven economic development that had taken place in the Outer-Rim over the past 20 years—everything that is, except the development that had caused him to come to Trevon.

About independence, he said nothing.

Nor did he need to.

His audience wasn't going to raise the issue. Out of politeness, no one wanted to upset him, and out of ignorance, everyone accepted what he had to say. Let's face it, Marvin thought, no one gets an invitation to an event like this were there half a chance he or she couldn't play the game according to its rules—except, maybe, for Reggie.

Marvin mulled it over some more and decided he should let the conversation take its course. Don't get involved. Spend your energies on more productive things, he told himself. He slipped away before the kindly Khan could find a break in the conversation to introduce him.

Khan didn't see Marvin leave. He was learning to adapt to a new set of diplomatic parameters. He hadn't had any face-time with the Ambassador up until now; that would happen tomorrow morning at seven am, but for now, he was learning it was OK to accept there have been injustices.

Tick.

He could now agree that the New Worlds should be developed in accordance with their local needs.

Tick.

Perhaps it was possible to introduce an alternative ftl connection between Earth and Trevon that did not rely on the resource companies' vessels. Maybe a study was warranted, after all.

Tick.

The list was expanding.

His life was changing.

It was a shame so many subjects had been off-limits in recent years. It had added to the discontent, but now he would have more to talk to the locals about. His office may even need expanding—at last.

Maybe Lynthax and Raddox would call him from time to time, rather than him chase them. Then, if he dared, he could even put them on hold.

As the ambassador held Khan in his thrall, Scat walked back into the Main Hall looking a little crushed. Marvin wandered across, feeling the flush of his second glass of wine—it would have to be his last.

'How are you, my young lad?'

'Um, not great, Marvin. Sorry. These functions leave me cold.'

Marvin could see Scat was somewhat perturbed. He probed.

'Nothing to do with the doorstop, then?'

'How did you know?' Scat asked, trying to hide his unease.

'I saw you leave to go upstairs. Trouble?'

'Possibly, but I can't talk now,' Scat replied, his eyes swivelling towards a bugcam hovering by the bar. 'I'll catch you later, perhaps?'

'Sure. We'll be leaving about now, but you've my Trevonnet details. Call me.'

Marvin moved on to look for April. He found her talking to their Go Down District Representative, deep in the centre of the crowd. Thomas was already shepherding Reggie and his party towards the exit. Their transport had arrived. Germaine looked happier than he had been all night. He had done his job: he had kept Reggie calm and out of trouble.

Scat peered over the heads of the guests and found Nettles. He walked across and tapped him on his shoulder.

'You're right about Cotton. He's pushing Lynthax's agenda for them.'

'Ah! How did you find out?' Nettles asked.

'Let's just say he's been throwing Uncle Sam's weight around.'

#  50

Petroff stood alone by the fountain in the centre of the room holding a glass of wine, looking up at the night sky projection, listening to the din of a hundred conversations rebounding from the walls.

Occasionally he would smile at a face he recognised, but otherwise he was distracted, and the smiles faded quickly.

Cotton's insistence that his assets were to produce results quickly echoed ominously in his ears, still, as did Bridges' constant reminder to kill lame-duck projects early.

It certainly felt as though they were tightening the screws, but now he had the US of A on board, perhaps he could tighten a few screws of his own—perhaps invoke the moral authority that came with the US' support, to bring his assets more tightly into the Lynthax fold: his fold.

He could probably do that with most of his assets; they were politicians and rich-man personal assistants, all of whom knew how to please their masters. Only he could not say the same thing of Scatkiewicz. He was proving difficult. He was being evasive. At no time had Scat given him the kind of commitment that he had gotten from the others. Scat's loyalty to Earth might not be in doubt, but his conviction in supporting Earth to suppress this secessionist uprising was, well, lacking a degree of intensity—and at no time had Scat displayed a genuine subservience to him, just a desire to make money.

Then there was his report to Maurice covering the dinner with the Irwins—it just didn't ring true.

Maybe it was time to get Scat to grow up and put some skin in the game, but how would he know if he had?

Then it dawned on him. There was one way he could be sure.

He called up the neuralnet and checked the availability of some key personnel in the Communications Department, then looked up the Lynthax Chief of Medicine. He then booked the services of both and sent a message to Scat across the publicnet:

'Meet me 10.30 am Friday morning at the Lynthax Centre Clinic. Don't eat breakfast. Expect to take the rest of the day off. Petroff.'

Now perhaps he could return to the bigger picture: keep Trevon safe for Lynthax and get more involved in that thing on Prebos.

He wondered whether the V4 had yet arrived there. Lynthax was taking his find very seriously indeed. It was fortunate for them that Inter-Space Regulatory Authority needed to send Ambassadors, and their retinues on emergency trips throughout the Outer-Rim – the military grade StarGazer software had come with the booking. However, it wasn't so lucky for them that the situation was getting increasingly serious. Secessionist movements were causing trouble on almost all the viable New Worlds—at least in the Western Bloc region of space. Somehow, though, the Asian Bloc worlds were unaffected by it: the Greater China Enterprise's Trevon rep had taken immense pleasure in reminding him of that this very evening. It was also clear that the GCE, or the Greater Chinese Empire, as people often called it, was watching Lynthax's area of space particularly closely, looking for weaknesses, ready to pounce and take over contracts, should things fall apart.

Petroff pulled himself back to the present and noticed the cocktail party was beginning to break up.

It was time to head off, himself, he thought. He needed to finish his section of the police security brief, which was to include the current situation on Prebos, sans that thing which Lynthax was claiming for itself.

As he put on his greatcoat and walked out onto the street, he stared at thin air for a second. There was still no response.

Not yet.

#  51

Scat read Petroff's message and knew immediately what it meant. He left the Main Hall and walked across to the cloakroom where he dropped his graf into a pocket in his overcoat. He then made his way down to the basement vehicle park where dozens of the guests were waiting for transport to take them home. Mostly they were calling forward their c-pods: their city-only, two and three wheeled plastic runabouts, but some were waiting in line for t-pods; lightweight city taxis, or the less numerous but more robust STAXs; driverless soft-track taxis that could take them back to their mines, or their bunkers, out on the Gap Plain.

The place was as calm and as orderly as one would expect, being only a few floors below the planetary seat of power. He could hear low-toned conversations echoing around the basement walls, but other than that, the place was quiet and surprisingly warm, despite being close to the exit ramp. Then he noticed the 10-second silent advertisements rotating deep within the paintwork of several pods, mostly the taxis. They were hard to miss, and lowered the tone a little

He was in luck: Marvin and April were still there, a few places from the front of the t-pod queue, hoping they wouldn't get to ride home inside an advertisement for the treatment of facial warts.

'What's going on?' Marvin asked.

'I'm in deep shit, Marvin,' Scat replied, only then realising he was in mixed company. 'Sorry, April!' he added. 'We need to talk.'

'Yes, I know. We agreed.'

Scat shook his head.

'Since then things have gotten more serious.'

'Since a few minutes ago?'

'Yes. Look, I didn't want to catch you on the net. Can we meet before Friday?'

'What happens on Friday?' Marvin asked, thinking the wine might have killed a memory cell or two.

Scat looked around him, to see if any bugcams, security grunts, Corporates or Earth delegates were within earshot. There were plenty of the latter, all of them heading off to the Palace of Prosperity, a two star hotel that the Earth Delegation had taken over for its proximity to both the House and Go Down City's nightspots. There were no corporate security types, other than the House's own.

'Something irreversible,' Scat replied. 'Can we meet?'

'Yes. Sure. If you're at MacOliverBells on Second and Fourth around 8 am tomorrow you can buy me breakfast.' Marvin patted his stomach and looked guiltily at April: she frowned upon him eating red meat, except on special occasions.

'Thanks, Marv. Oh, and switch your graf off before leaving home.'

'Sure.'

Scat left them in the queue and headed back upstairs to the cloakroom where he retrieved his graf and stared at the screen.

There were no further messages or chasers, but, still, he needed to respond to Petroff without causing a follow up. If he could do that then it may give him a couple of more days. He needed to offer up an excuse, something credible.

He tapped the side of his trousers for a few moments, thinking, and then spoke into his graf. He checked the screen as it converted his speech into a short text message.

'Must clear it with Nettles, first. Committee on Constitutional reform meets Earth Delegation on Saturday. Friday is planning session. Nettles chairs.'

It would do. He took a breath and then pressed send.

Petroff's response was swift and sharp:

'Confirm by noon tomorrow.'

#  52

The L-M V4 touched down over the rail lines as work continued on the station move. Cargo carts were whizzing around outside the station, the hangar, and the cargo bay area, prepositioning crated stores on giant pallets, ready for truck-sized forklifts to upload onto wide-tracked low loaders. Some were taking on loose stores; others lined up ready to move out, already loaded with accommodation units recently dug from the ground. The flight crew had seen the tracks leading away from the station to the new site during the V4's approach.

As the V4 dropped its forward ramp, a people carrier made its way from the hangar and parked alongside it. Xin stepped out and shuffled across, grabbed the handrail and hauled himself up the ramp to the brightly lit, but airless cargo bay. Someone in a state-of-the-art suit greeted him. Xin read the prominent name badge.

'Mr Lombardi?'

'Yes. Xin?'

'Yes, Sir. Welcome to Prebos.'

'Glad to be here, matey,' Lombardi replied in a singsong Australian accent distorted only slightly by the throat mike. 'Been waiting long?'

Xin assumed the question was rhetorical.

'We've set up a staging area for the stores, sir, and I've allocated some troopers to assist with the unloading. If you're ready for them, I'll call them up.'

'Go ahead,' Lombardi said, stepping to one side.

Xin spoke to the people carrier over the companynet. Troopers began to fall out of its rear doors and make their way over to the V4's ramp.

'Where do you want them?' Xin asked.

'They can go on through to the rear cargo deck. Warrant Officer Blain will assign tasks.'

Xin issued the order. Lombardi waited until they had all filed past before speaking again.

'Call me Dobbie, Xin. We'll be working up-close and personal for a while by all accounts. No need for military hierarchies.' The tone was friendly, but it exuded the confidence of someone well used to command.

'OK, Dobbie. I'm Ryan. My deputy is Thomas Williams. We'll be meeting him over at The 7. He's in charge of the local security.'

'Not for much longer, Ryan. The company has assigned some serious resources to this. Aside from 45 researchers, a prefabricated research centre and three military-grade in-system shuttles, we also have our own 50-man security contingent on board. You'll meet Commander Jollo in a few minutes. He'll oversee the project's security. He'll report to you as the Head of Prebos Security, but Williams will be assigned to the project as Jollo's deputy.'

Xin wasn't sure Williams would be too pleased, but as an organisation expands so, too, does its hierarchy. At least someone at Corporate still considered him the top guard dog.

'Does Jollo have a first name?' he asked.

'No. It's just Jollo. He's from Java, Indonesia. They often don't trouble themselves with family names. Actually, most of his team is from South East Asia. They're displaced Christians.'

That surprised Xin. Lynthax had a company policy of keeping the believers on Earth, out of the way, just as many of the other corporations did. They did not want the mess on Earth spilling over.

'The whole mystical prayer, Jesus and God thing?' he asked.

'Yes,' Lombardi replied. 'And being a minority sect on the verge of extinction, they're pretty damned touchy about it, so warn off your boys.'

'Sure. Of course. They must be good.'

'They are, yes. Best not to mess with them,' Lombardi advised. 'Lynthax uses them like the Brits did the Ghurkhas.'

'Mercenary types?' Xin asked.

'Yes, but highly disciplined. Very hardy. Loyal to a man, but only to their own kind. Hence Jollo.'

'Fair enough, Dobbie,' Xin replied, cautiously. He had never, knowingly, needed to work with a religious colleague before, let alone a whole unit of them. He wondered how that might go. 'Do you want a quick tour of what remains of the station, or do you need to get over to The 7?'

Lombardi replied without hesitation.

'Let's go over to The 7. You can have a word with Williams while I break the bad news to Bradbury and Makindra.'

'Bad news?'

'Yep. They've been demoted, too. Lynthax has also sent its Deputy Chief of Science on this junket. A guy called Carlo Ratti'

'And your role?'

'I'm Chief of Everything Else, Ryan. Nothing happens without my say-so. I represent the Board.'

'So this things is of genuine interest, then?'

'Yes, matey, it is,' Lombardi confirmed. 'It has also earned itself the highest level of security. We'll need to go over just who knows what a little later on. In the meantime, you're to make sure no one leaves Prebos or gets to use interplanetary communications.'

'Well you're OK on that score, Dobbie. There isn't anything to get off Prebos with, and interplanetary comms have always been restricted. Only the corporates and us security have access.'

'Fair enough. But don't miss my point, here, Ryan,' Lombardi said, putting thick-gloved hands gently on Xin's shoulders for effect. 'No one gets to leave, and I still need to know who knows what, whether they be corporate, grunt or worker drone. We've some story fixing to do. This Thing doesn't yet exist in the wider universe. It may never do. We've got to keep it that way.'

Xin tried to imagine what the penalty might be for letting this thing leak out and what corporate might be prepared to do to keep it a secret. They were being more than a little optimistic if they thought they could get people to forget the last week or so, but Lombardi appeared confident he could make that happen—somehow, someway. Xin's neck hair crawled.

'Understood. Would you like to bring anyone along with you?' he asked.

'Nah, they're busy. Let's go on our lonesome.'

'Then please follow me.'

#  53

Scat needed to be at the House early this morning so he was hoping that Marvin would arrive on time. An Eastern Wall constituent wanted to discuss a matter concerning his landlord, and, as Nettles was booked already, Scat had agreed to stand in for him.

'OK, young'un, so what's the problem, this time?' Marvin asked, taking off his coat.

'Morning, Marv. Coffee?'

'And the house breakfast special.' Marvin reminded him as he slipped into the booth. 'It's why I'm here, after all.' He flashed a grin.

Scat ordered at the counter, preferring not to wait for a waiter, and then returned to sit facing Marvin. The booth was well away from the front door, but he had a clear view of it. He decided against a preamble.

'Petroff's had me redrafted, and now he wants me to get a neuralnet implant,' he said.

Marvin did not say anything at first; he just looked at Scat with a face full of mock sympathy. He recalled Scat's other conversation with him on Prebos, the one where he had been just as brief when laying out Petroff's invitation to join the rebels. Then he laughed.

'You certainly attract trouble, Scat.'

'What? You think I look for it?' Scat asked.

'Of course not. But don't you think that maybe you're becoming a drama queen?'

'Bull shit! The last thing I need is any more of this crap, Marv.'

'I know. Sorry,' Marvin said, dipping his head. 'Don't lose your crown, my dear.' He picked up a spoon and pretended to look into it while smoothing down his eyebrows.

Scat shook his head.

'Get serious, Marv. Cotton delivered the news about my redraft, and then told me to take Petroff's orders as though they were from him. Then Petroff sends me an invitation to turn up at the Lynthax clinic tomorrow. It's for a neuralnet implant. It's got to be.'

Marvin looked up from the spoon. He curled his lower lip.

'I've heard of this neuralnet thing,' he said, genuinely interested. 'I didn't realise it had gone commercial.'

'Well it hasn't; not fully anyways. It's restricted. On license. The thing is, once it's fitted I'll be on their net. There'll be no way I can slip and slide.'

'I get your point,' Marvin acknowledged. 'What do you want me to say?'

'That's bloody obvious, isn't it, Marv. I want your advice.'

'What do you think my bloody advice should be?' Marvin asked.

'I don't know, Marv. That's why I'm here: to hear it.'

'Seriously, Scat. What do you think I'd tell you?'

'Marv!'

Marvin put the spoon down, put his hands together and hunched over the table.

'Look. Just for one moment, stop thinking,' Marvin said. 'Imagine instead that I know as much about you as Petroff says he knows about you. What do your instincts say I would say?'

'How would I know? If I don't think I can't imagine.'

'Scat. Instincts!'

Scat pushed back against the plastic-padded panelling of the booth and made a guess.

'Get off Trevon. Find another planet.'

Marvin shook his head and frowned.

'Nope,' he said. 'That just means you dodge Petroff for a short while. Meanwhile, Lynthax'll make you unemployable throughout the Outer-Rim—just as it's blowing up.'

'Jeeze!'

'Come on Scat. You know the answer. You're just denying it. Who's giving you this headache? Who's dumping on you? And who do you have the most in common with?'

'Are you suggesting that it's finally come down to a choice between them and us?'

Marvin thought "them and us" sounded better than "them and the rebels". Perhaps Scat was already identifying with the cause. They were making progress.

'Is that the way its heading, Scat?' he asked. 'Your thoughts, now, young man, not mine.'

'Yes. A choice.'

'Between ...?'

'Being dumped on, or doing the dumping, I guess. I don't see how I can keep Petroff at arms-length with a neuralnet implant. And if I don't get one he'll come to his own conclusions.'

Marvin slapped the table with both hands, gently, but sharply enough to emphasise that they were making.

'OK. So, we're getting somewhere. Could you get the implant and make it work for you, not Petroff?'

Scat screwed up his face.

'I seriously doubt it. I'm told you can "think" it off, but I may not get that option. Then there's the compatibility concern. If I get one implanted and then fall out with Petroff, it mightn't be compatible for use on another net. I just don't know what the long-term implications are of that. I haven't thought it through. I don't know enough.'

'So, political affiliations aside, you're not keen to have an implant in any case—for personal reasons.'

'Yes.' Scat sounded unusually firm. It was non-negotiable.

'Does Petroff know this?' Marvin asked. 'Could he be persuaded that your personal objections outweigh your political convictions?'

'I doubt it,' Scat said. 'He wants a commitment. Cotton probably demands one. I don't think my reluctance to get a medically approved procedure on personal grounds would cut any ice.'

'So what do you think would happen to you if you refuse?'

'Well I doubt the military could punish me for refusing, no matter how useful it would be to them: permanent enhancements are frowned upon. But Petroff could make life extremely difficult for me, I guess. Fire me. Get me evicted. Fleece me for my basic environmental needs.'

Marvin reminded him of the one positive aspect of being on Trevon that Scat had yet to mention.

'Well at least he can't bill you for air on Trevon.'

'That's a great help.'

'So, you're screwed, my boy. Is that what you're saying?'

Scat couldn't see it in a better light.

'I guess.'

'So, if you're screwed anyway, what do you think my advice should be?'

'Fark him back.'

'Olay! Finally. Of course, how you do that is up to you.'

'Meaning?'

Marvin took a deep breath. This was a pivotal moment in their relationship. He had to make this sound like a benefit to Scat.

'Well, you could get the implant and play him along with false crap for as long as possible, or you could decline and stay close by Nettles. I'm sure he'd see the value in keeping you fed and watered, even housed. What you do in the longer-term would then depend on the opportunities as they present themselves. If you want to fark Petroff over I'm sure you'd find a way.'

Marvin then shut up and focused on sipping his coffee.

Bloody Mary, Scat thought. If only it was that simple.

He stared out of the window, not seeing anything through the condensation until a shadow fell across it. A waiter was delivering Marvin's breakfast. Marvin looked up and smiled at her. As soon as her hands were gone, he pulled something green off the plate and tucked in with gusto. It looked like he was done talking.

Despite his friend's company, Scat felt alone again. He had sought wise counsel, and he had received it. Now he was left to play with his fork, slowly and absent-mindedly turning it end-over-end, pondering what life on Trevon would be like, post-secession or post-suppression.

#  54

Petroff was visibly perplexed. He could not understand the rationale for it. He shook his head.

'I don't like it Ronald. Once we go down that route, there's no going back. You can't control the fall out.'

'Don't go soft on us now, Jack,' Colonel Cotton replied, raising his peaked cap slightly and rubbing the shiny dome beneath it. 'You need to stay focused and on the right issues. The company needs this secessionist movement to be shut down—fast—and if we can't talk them down, we need to make them. We just need an excuse. This is it.'

'I don't like it either Jack,' N'bomal added, keeping his back to a Trevon House Page who stood guarding the entrance outside the briefing room. He was trying hard to keep his booming, gravelly voice from travelling. 'But it beats spending the next year or so tackling labour disputes and being fined for the non-delivery of product. The mineral exchanges will have our hides if we can't meet our contracts. The Abs will then move in, and Lynthax will go the way of the Dodo.'

'But the delegations haven't even started to negotiate,' Petroff noted. 'Wouldn't this wreck any chance of getting some kind of an agreement?' Petroff also realised that their plan might provoke all kinds of reactions, most of which would keep him here on Trevon.

'I very much doubt the Earth Delegation will give much ground, Jack,' N'bomal explained. 'They'll go for the jugular, no quarter offered. The Trevons are novices. They'll be outplayed and outclassed. That'll leave them with no option but to agitate outside of the negotiations. We don't want them to get that far. Besides, several worlds are watching what's happening here.'

Petroff didn't reply. It was obvious the two had discussed the situation before he joined them.

'We will do it for all the worlds to see,' Cotton added. 'We've got to shock the floaters into rejecting the independence route. Once they're on board, we'll be given our heads to nip the whole thing in the bud, our way.'

'No other options, then?' Petroff asked. He hoped there were.

'Not if we're to continue competing with the GCE,' N'Bomal replied, shaking his head. 'No, we can't allow the cost of product to go on rising because of these industrial disputes and calls for democracy. The New Worlds are company mines, plain and simple. We have to get people to see that. The Asian Worlds obviously get it, which is why they don't have this trouble, and can supply their own people with cheaper product than we do.

'We need resources, and we either produce the stuff for ourselves, and at a competitive price, or the Asians will for us. Once that happens we'll be sending every second dollar to the Asian Bloc and then it'll be the only superpower left on Earth. The folks back home are looking to us to sort this out. Let's just get on with it.'

Petroff alerted them to the first of the Earth Delegates leaving the security briefing. They fell silent as the delegates walked on by.

'Then it's a done deal? We go on Saturday?' Petroff asked once the corridor was clear again.

'Yes,' Cotton confirmed. 'My people will see to the details. Just keep your boys away from the East Wing after the delegates adjourn for the evening.'

'Consider it done, Ronald.' Petroff said. He then had a thought. 'Who will manage the PR afterwards?'

N'Bomal cut in.

'No one's being pre-briefed. It'll be more authentic that way.'

Petroff nodded, bracing himself for chaos, come Sunday morning.

'Understood.'

'And we all behave as expected immediately afterwards,' Cotton added. 'As though it was unexpected.'

#  55

Nettles had been fighting a headache all morning. He had seen the technical negotiation programme and was trying to work out just how Earth believed it could cram so much into such short sessions. His Trevon House teams and their aides would need to carry in armfuls of briefing papers and reference materials, even though they could refer to their grafs and e-readers. He doubted his teams were up to the job.

He reached for a bottle of painkillers from the office pantry.

'I've just used them,' Scat said. He had been sitting in the corner, mulling over his conversation with Marvin, 'and they don't work.'

Nettles looked across the rec room. He saw Scat slumped in an armchair. He looked as though he had been up all night.

'Good morning, Scat. How did the meeting go with the Gonzales family?'

'OK,' Scat replied. 'I'll write to the landlord on your behalf asking for their side of the story, but they've fallen behind in their rent on a regular basis, which is why the rent is going up: to get them out.'

'Well, it's illegal,' Nettles shot back, 'so we'll follow up on it. I doubt the landlord even lives on Trevon.'

'He doesn't,' Scat confirmed. 'In any case, he's an "it". It's an offshore company owned by Blossom Realty.'

'I don't know it.' Nettles replied. 'A GCE company, no doubt. They have a different way of looking at their commercial transactions than we do. There's no messing with them, Scat: it's an example of what this place will be like if we don't get at least 50 honest Reps in the House—and soon.'

Scat couldn't give a hoot for how many honest Reps remained on Trevon, let alone sat in the House. He got straight to the point:

'I need to discuss something else with you, Terrance. Do you have a minute?' he asked.

'I always do, Scat. Twice a day. Come through to my office. I need to catch up with my publicmail. I'll read while you talk.'

Scat got comfortable in a low-backed, padded chair. Nettles settled into a chair at the end of a long desk. He preferred to keep his PC at one end of it so he could chat with his guests without the monitor getting in the way.

'Has Marvin ever told you what happened on Prebos?' Scat began. 'To Pierce? And how Petroff tried to apply pressure on me to work for him?'

'Em, yes,' Nettles replied guardedly. 'He did but only loosely. I didn't get the details. He made the comment that you were unsure and unsettled by the whole thing.'

'But you still gave me this job?'

'Yes, I did, didn't I?' Nettles said, smiling.

'Why?'

Nettles' head went back a little.

'Because I like you and, from what I've seen and heard of you, you aren't a true-blue Corporate. You're more like us. You just don't know it.'

'Well I thank you in any event. The trouble is, Petroff is pushing harder, and I'll have to disappoint him. I just need to know where you might stand in all of this if he comes after me.'

Nettles turned away from his PC to face him.

'And how would he do that?' he asked, provocatively. He stared at Scat, looking for his response. He was all ears.

Scat still didn't know. He had just spent the last hour and a half since breakfast reimagining much of what he had overthought the night before, but the options available to the beggar were seemingly endless.

'I guess he'd make my life a living hell. How? I don't know. He'll use his imagination.'

Nettles counted four fingers as he spoke:

'Well you've still got this job, and, while you have it, you can't be deported. You have a living wage, and the rent is covered.' He then dropped his hands to the desk. 'So, aside from Petroff never letting you board an L-M V back to Earth, there isn't much he can do. I think he'll be a tad frustrated, but you'll be OK. Just don't bump into any of his people without your House ID. They can't arrest you when you're on House business, only cautioned. Well, unless it's for a violent crime.'

'And it won't crimp your style at all?'

'Why should it?' Nettles asked.

'Couldn't Lynthax make your life difficult? With your IT business or at the next election? You know the kind of thing.'

'They can try,' Nettles replied. 'But I'm not exactly their Playmate of the Month, Scat. It's not as though I rely on their generosity right now.'

'OK. Thanks. There's one other thing.'

'And that is...'

'Can you assign me to something on Saturday that takes me out of town? I want to give Petroff a reason why I can't meet with him that day. It'll help delay the pain.'

Nettles stopped scrolling through his mail.

'I've nothing for you that I can think of, right now. Sorry.' he replied. 'But... I could put you on House Duties. You'll be on call for 24 hours; you've got to stay in the House.'

Scat sat up straight.

'That'll do. Any chance you could give me several—as a punishment or something?'

'Crickey, Scat. How many days do you want to lock yourself up in the House just so you can avoid Petroff? If you've got to give him the brushoff just go ahead and do it—in style and to his face.'

Scat shifted in his seat.

'Yeah, well, I might still do that, but I need to check-up on some stuff before hand. I've excused myself for Friday, but the longer I have, the more informed I'll be. Then I can give Petroff the answer I want him to have.'

'OK. As you like,' Nettles said, playing with his PC again. 'Saturday you're on duty. That'll see you through to Sunday morning. I've just placed you. Roll call is at 7.30 am in the library. You'll get your duties from the House Secretariat or his minion. Accommodation is usually in the East Wing, which isn't bad. Bring an overnight bag.'

'Thanks, Terrance. I owe you one.'

'I'm a politician, Scat. I know you do.'

His excuses in the bag, Scat left the office knowing he could evade Petroff for the next two days at least. He now had some grace-time to read up on the neuralnet and perhaps quiz a neuralnet user, should he find one within the Earth Delegation.

If there were a chance of turning this thing against Petroff, then he would take it. Failing that, he would tell Petroff to take a hike.

As he was leaving the House, he sent a message over the companynet, telling Petroff that apart from being involved in the technical conferences, Nettles had now tied him down with additional duties. He would tackle him over it, but as things now stood, he couldn't make any meeting until Monday. He would get back to him.

There was no reply.

#  56

Scat's first port of call was the Palace of Prosperity, a short walk from the House along Second Avenue. He rode the elevator to the hotel's reception on the fourth floor of a tower it shared with a condominium-cum-mall complex.

As he stepped out into reception, a heavily body-armoured Outer Rim Force trooper slinging a semi-auto blocked his way.

'Can I help you sir?'

'The coffee shop?' Scat asked, looking around the trooper.

The guard stooped slightly to get a close-up view of Scat's House ID. He pulled out a scanner to read the bar code embedded in it. Scat let his eyes wander.

Guards stood with their backs to the reception's high windows and more of them watched over passageways that led off towards restaurants, in-house shops and banqueting halls. They were all clad in body armour and carried the lethally enhanced deuterium fluoride-powered Branston 2400AVs: single shot PIKLs. It was his weapon of choice, although in his time they were sniper-issue only. These PIKLs appeared to be of the dumbed-down variety: they weren't fitted with the prism package that gave the PIKL its legendary multiple-target tracking option; the power pack was much smaller, and he doubted these were adapted to use dark-light.

The guard confirmed the ID as authentic.

'Around the back of reception,' the guard said, stabbing a finger at two corridors that lay either side of a long reception counter. 'Either one will do.'

Scat nodded his thanks, crossed the lobby, and made his way into a large open space that served as the coffee shop and lounge. The room stretched the entire width of the tower. Its curtained high windows ran along all three exterior walls of the room, giving the place an airy feel.

He took a seat, ordered a coffee and flicked through the menu as he glanced around.

Earth Delegates were using the place as a rendezvous point. Small groups were coming and going, ordering coffee, knocking them back, and then moving on.

One particularly large group seemed to have come from a presentation; they were shuffling notes and stuffing folders into their brief cases, complaining about the lack of sleep. Scat considered moving closer so he could strike up a conversation, but he didn't get the chance: one by one they stopped talking, downed their coffees, and then headed back out to the elevators.

As Scat wondered if anyone would hang around long enough for him to say hello, a slightly built woman in her mid-twenties sat down at the empty table next to his. She wore an Earth Delegate ID tag, but did not seem to be on the same treadmill as the others. She ordered a coffee and then leaned back in her seat to play with her e-reader.

'Noisy lot you have here,' Scat said, hoping he did not seem too forward. She was a good-looking woman, if you didn't mind the slim-hipped, flat-chested, and small-boned type. Petit was the word that came to mind. She was probably used to shaking off unwanted attention.

'Yes. Sorry. It's a busy time,' she replied, looking up.

'I hope you're ready to give our lot a hard time. The conferences start later tomorrow, right?'

'Yes. They do,' she said, returning to her menu.

'The programme looks a tight one. We're wondering how you'll get to fit it all in.'

This time she noticed Scat's Trevon House ID tag.

'We'll get you on the preparation,' she said, confidently.

'And with plenty of backup by the looks of it,' Scat added, gesturing at the Earth delegates who were still coming and going. 'My name's Scat.'

'I'm Mary,' she said putting her e-reader down. 'What do you do at the House?'

'I'm an assistant to Terrance Nettles—it's just a temporary thing, really,' Scat added. 'He needed an extra pair of hands to cope with you lot, and my contract on Prebos had just finished so I was free. And, of course I can read and write.'

Scat had learned a long time ago that, were he was to lie, he should stick as close to the truth as possible. That way you don't contradict yourself. The lies should be simple ones. In any case, he wasn't trying to get the inside track on the delegation; he just wanted to learn about a product that was on sale to people with money to burn. The neuralnet's capabilities and related health warnings wouldn't be a secret.

'So what will you being doing once we finish here?' she asked, disarmed by Scat's apparent humility.

'I'll probably go back to Earth. My father wants me to join the family business. He's even offered me a neuralnet implant if I do, but I'm not so sure.'

'Not so sure about what: about going into the business, or the implant?'

'The implant. I'm not so keen on brain surgery.'

Mary laughed.

'It doesn't require brain surgery. Who told you that?'

'Oh, I just assumed. We're in the backwoods out here, as you'll be finding out later. There's little on the Trevonnet about the neuralnet.'

'It's an outpatient procedure, Scat. 30 minutes, tops. Some people feel a little wheezy afterwards, but it doesn't last—you just don't operate machinery or perform any important programming for 24 hours, that's all. It's usually the optic nerve readjustment that gets people.'

'So no deep cuts, then?'

'No, not deep ones. Just some needles and a conductor attached to the base of the skull, just under the skin.'

'Ah, well there you go—I'm not so keen on either. Is it reversible?'

'I don't think so. I'm too junior to qualify for one, but, from what I hear, no, it isn't. That's what makes it a difficult decision for some.'

'So you're stuck with it once you get one?'

She nodded.

'Yes, you are, but the people who use them do swear by them. They genuinely don't regret it. You've just got to be a bit careful about the information overload.'

'Can you switch from one net to another, say if I left Trevon and went off to Constitution?'

'Of course! It's just a matter of dropping one call plan for another.'

'So it doesn't require a second implant, then.'

'Heavens, no. If you had two implants, you'd end up with more nanopellium neurons than biological ones!'

Scat eased off for a moment or two. He pretended to mull over what she had told him, while trying to work out what it was that attracted him to her. Maybe it was the intelligence in her eyes, or perhaps it was the smile. Maybe her voice. Scat couldn't be sure. It could be more basic than that: after six weeks on Prebos, at least she wasn't a he.

'They're extremely expensive,' Mary said, bringing him back to the light voice. 'I doubt you'd want to own two, even if you thought you needed them.'

'Can they be upgraded?'

'Yes. You just buy into a better call plan.'

'I mean, if they come out with a better model. How would you upgrade the hardware?'

Mary shook her head very slowly.

'I don't think you do,' she replied. 'Actually, I don't really know.' Mary's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, as if she were calling up a memory or two. A slight, vertical frown appeared between her eyes but then completely disappeared. 'From what I hear most of the upgrading is done with software upgrades and information packages. I haven't heard anything about upgrading the implant itself. I suspect they'll just offer you better encryption, or wider coverage. If you want an upgrade, I think you just buy into a better plan! Once it's fitted, I think you're stuck with it.'

Mary tipped her cup all the way up to take the final, sugary sip of her coffee, but Scat didn't want her to be off just yet.

'Can I order you a refill, Mary?' he asked, hoping to use the extra cup as an excuse to go sit at her table.

But Mary's graf bleeped. She looked at it.

'Sorry but I have to go meet the Ambassador. Another time, perhaps. It was nice meeting you, Scat.'

Scat pushed his chair back a little in readiness to stand up.

'Likewise Mary, and thanks for explaining things. We'll probably bump into each other again at the House; maybe I could get you a coffee then?' He felt himself urging her to say yes.

Mary hesitated for a short, though noticeable, moment but couldn't find a reason to brush him off.

'OK, that'd be nice.'

OK. That'll do. For now. Don't push.

'Do you have a business card or something?' he asked.

She did. An electronic one.

'I'll send it over.'

As she made to leave, Scat stood up, pulled a Trevon House card from his breast pocket and handed it to her. Mary looked at it before putting it away in her folder. She then said goodbye with a smile and headed out into reception.

As Scat was working out whether it would be worth sticking around to talk to anyone else, her details arrived on his graf. Scat glanced down at it.

'Mary Sheffield, Junior Assistant to Samuel Cohen, Ambassador at Large, ISRA. Temporary Trevonnet ID: 24331911.'

The photo didn't do her justice.

#  57

Later that afternoon, as he composed his promised note to landlord's agent, Scat received a mail from Marvin, asking him to join April, Thomas, Nettles and himself for dinner.

He accepted. It was either that, heat up some leftover vegetable soup, or eat alone in the House canteen: he had forgotten to shop that week.

The venue was an Asian restaurant that opened out onto Third Avenue. It was more a converted shop, packed with diners sitting on low stools around circular tables, covered in paper and clear plastic sheeting with chopsticks stuffed into tumblers in the centre of each table. The lights burned bright, the decoration was non-existent.

Out on the street, and to one side of the entrance, a Chinese cook was hastily topping up rice-filled clay pots with unfamiliar vegetables and strips of pseudo-chicken made with processed arctic salamander.

Scat slipped past him and found Marvin and his party squeezed up against the back wall close to the kitchen entrance. The place was small but somehow it was catering to around 60 diners. Scat had to be careful making his way to the table.

'Well, this is authentic!' Scat said above the din, taking a stool between April and Nettles.

'It sure is,' Marvin replied. 'Rough and ready, just like they still are in Hong Kong. April found this place within days of us arriving in-system. As you know, Asians have a nose for good food. They certainly see past the décor,' he joked. 'Sometimes I think they only see the plate in front of them.'

April gave him a friendly shove.

'So the food's good?' Scat asked.

'First class,' Nettles replied.

Scat doubted Nettles knew enough about the place to be sure.

'Somehow I didn't take you for a street-level eater, Terrance,' he said. 'I had the impression you were more the dinner club type. The "exclusive, no trolls allowed" sort.'

Nettles played hurt.

'Well thanks, Scat. Actually I only eat in places like this in the run up to elections.'

'But it's not even your district,' Scat replied.

'He's kidding, Scat.' April said, scolding Nettles with her chopsticks. 'He's often down here with us trolls.'

'No offence meant, April.'

'None taken, Scat. What are you going to eat?'

Waiters were already delivering food to the table. Scat was a few minutes late, and as is the custom in a place like this, the ordering and eating was always done quickly. He ordered pupae paste wanton noodles and the "chicken" clay pot rice.

'Thanks for inviting me, Marv. What's the occasion?'

Marvin looked across at Nettles.

'There needs to be an occasion for friends to get together?' he asked.

'I guess not. Anyway, thanks.'

Scat's food arrived in no time at all, and he was able to catch up while the others ordered a second helping of local fish sprinkled with roasted crickets. It was good food, Scat thought; the place was certainly worth remembering. He asked the waiter for a copy of the menu. It appeared on his graf.

A short time later, across a table littered with paper towels, discarded chopsticks and used plates, they haggled over the bill. Nettles leaned into Scat.

'Actually, Marvin wasn't being entirely truthful about why you're here,' he said softly. 'It's not just a friendly. We wanted to discuss Pierce—the evidence and what to do with it'

That caught Scat short. He had already drunk a half bottle of wine.

'OK. Here?'

'No,' Nettles replied. 'The Sports Club. We'll finish off this wine,' he continued, uncorking another bottle, 'and then we'll go meet some people.'

#  58

As his dinner companions stepped out onto the street, Scat stopped off at the men's room. By the time he was ready to catch up with them, the tone of the evening was changing

Up ahead, half a dozen men crowded his friends against a shop window. The road wasn't that well lit, but Scat could see Nettles was shielding April, doing his best to act passively, despite one of the men, the biggest, pushing a finger into his chest. Marvin was talking to the man, trying to calm him down, but Thomas was bunching his fists, which wasn't a good sign.

Scat was already picking out the ones who fidgeted the least, and appeared the most confident. It didn't matter that he made the right guess; he just had to make one. What happened next depended more on commitment than it did judgment. He picked out two as he closed the gap at a fast walk.

Marvin tried to get between Nettles and Scat's first pick, man one, a wide-headed, solid jawed guy, possibly the leader of the group, but Marvin's effort was wasted. Man one ignored him and drove a hard-looking punch into Nettles face, knocking him to his knees.

April screamed. Marvin tried to stop the guy from throwing a second punch, but a man with a mop of black hair on his head and beer on his breath pushed him to one side. Scat had already marked him as man two.

One of the men on the edge of the group sensed Scat was approaching. He turned to face him and threw up a hand to block his path. Scat's response was immediate.

Grab hand, Crush. Pull in. Head across nose. Walk past.

One step later, Scat was behind man one. Man one was already off-balance; he was bringing a foot back to kick Nettles as he knelt on the pavement.

Grab hair, pull back and down. Chop across throat.

Man one's legs began to give way.

Head to glass window.

The window shook but didn't break. Man one bounced backwards, falling to the ground, his head hitting the pavement with a sickening pop.

Man two grabbed Scat's left arm from behind.

Turn fast, step in, curl fingers. Two extended finger joints to right eye. Thrust hard.

The eyeball burst and man two screamed, pulling his head backwards, bringing both hands up to his face.

Scat saw a second opening, one that was just too tempting to pass up.

Heel of hand to Adam's apple, step back.

Man two staggered a few steps and collapsed to his knees, unable to breathe or see clearly.

Face off.

Scat swung around to face the men whom he hadn't bothered to pick out. They hesitated, anxiously looking beyond him to one of their own bent over the kerb. The man was holding his throat with a hand. With the other, he covered the burst eye. He gasped between constricted wails of pain. Their other two colleagues were lying prostrate on the floor.

They faltered and fled.

'You OK, April?' Scat asked, his voice sounding a little laboured.

She said nothing, her face in her hands. Marvin was helping Nettles back to his feet. Thomas looked on in stunned silence, trembling slightly.

Scat felt his chest rising and falling as the adrenaline continued to flow, priming him for more action.

Not finished.

He stepped calmly across the sidewalk to check on the two who lay face down on the pavement. One of them was comatose, but the other was regaining consciousness, gingerly shaking his head. Scat reached down, pulled his head up by the hair and slammed it back down onto the pavement. He then returned to man two, the one with the burst eyeball, who lay on his back, still gasping for air. He reached down for him, gripping his shirt at the shoulder with one hand, and a mass of hair with the other.

April, fearing for the worst, shouted for him to stop. Marvin tried pulling him back, but Scat shrugged him off.

'I'm not going to hurt this one, April. Marv, get your hands off me.'

Marvin eased off a little, allowing Scat to haul the man up so he could talk to him.

'What was that all about, then?' he asked.

There was no response. He was still trying to suck in air.

'I'll ask you again, but then it'll be your face that meets the pavement. Do you understand?'

'Yes,' the man croaked.

Scat put his mouth closer to the man's ear and spoke.

'What was that all about, then?' he asked before pushing him back out to arms length, ready to slap him again.

'Just... hassling... Nettles,' the man replied in an increasingly raspy, almost inaudible voice.

Scat had to listen hard. He pulled him in closer.

'Why?' he asked.

'He's a... a traitor.'

'And so?'

'He's causing... all this trouble.' The man gasped again. He tried to put a hand up to his burst and burning eye, but Scat tugged more strongly at the man's hair, pulling his face upward. He tugged the man's head back and leaned over him.

'Not good enough,' Scat said, quietly.

Head to face. Let go.

'Aaaagh, damn!' the man cried, falling to the floor again.

'Agh damn, nothing, arsehole. Why'd you do it?'

'Cos we were paid to. We're out of contract. We're broke. For Jeeze's sake don't do that again!'

This time Scat let Marvin pull him away a step. Only he wasn't quite finished. He stooped towards the man to ask another question, a hand ready to slap his face.

'Who paid you?'

'Don't know,' the man replied, sobbing. 'Some guy spoke to Henri there.' He pointed blindly across the pavement. 'We were in the lounge bar... across the street.'

'When?'

'I dunno. ... Maybe 30 minutes ago,' he replied.

Apparently, someone had told them to go enjoy ourselves; he had said they should go work off some frustration. Whomever it was also said that Nettles had it coming and they'd be doing lots a people a favour.

'A mistake, wasn't it?' Scat said, implying it would have been better for them to go home instead

'Yes. I know. Please, let me go. Get me to a hospital!'

Marvin touched Scat's shoulder, pointing down the street. A police cruiser was making its way towards them, its coachwork flashing blue and red. Someone from the restaurant must have called it in.

Nettles pulled out his House ID.

'I think you can let me do the talking, Scat. Please?' he said, grimacing as he mopped blood from his cheek.

Scat said nothing, but his shoulders eased, and he began to relax. Nettles waited until Scat nodded, finally, and then he walked across to the cruiser to greet the officers.

Marvin put his arm around April and pulled her close. He put a finger under her chin and raised it, to give her a reassuring look, but she wasn't looking at him: instead, she was staring wide-eyed at Scat, clearly unsettled by what she had just seen him do. He could understand why.

Nettles brushed the street dust off his trouser knees as he returned from talking to the police.

'We've got to go with them. They want statements,' he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the police cruiser. 'An ambulance is on its way. They'll make their arrests at the hospital.'

A police sergeant showed them into the cruiser's rear holding compartment. They clambered on board for the journey downtown.

Thomas gaped at Scat, still in awe of the savagery that had come from nowhere and was gone again just as quickly. Nettles nursed his bruised cheek. April stared out the cruiser's window, avoiding Scat's roaming eyes. Marvin fiddled with his graf.

Scat just wanted to make sure he was making a correct assumption:

'So, the meeting's off, then?'

#  59

At seven am the next morning, Scat turned up for his House Duties briefing feeling a little stiff. It had been some time since he had put so much effort into a few punches. He had pulled a muscle in his right shoulder.

The incident was TV news that morning. He had seen the same item twice, once in the elevator of his condominium and the other while eating his breakfast in the House canteen.

They portrayed the unnamed hero as a "have a go" local who had stepped in to save a House Representative from having his butt handed to him by some drunken thugs. They were wrong to think he was a local, of course, but Nettles had asked the police to keep his companion's details quiet: he didn't want his witnesses being intimidated.

The attack was also condemned by the Earth Delegation, the police commissioner and the Go Down City mayor who asked everyone, in his trademark, homespun manner, to "leave the rowdy behaviour at home and let the talking heads do their thing".

After the briefing, Scat wandered across to Nettles' office. His House duties wouldn't become an issue until after the House closed down for the day, and with the Earth Delegation in town, it was quite likely the House would remain open for longer than usual. Meanwhile he was available for his normal duties, attending to Nettles during the technical session.

Nettles was already at his desk, trawling through his mail.

'Good morning, Terrance. How's the eye?'

Nettles looked up. He was sporting a bruised cheek with red in the whites of his eyes.

'Ooh! Nasty!' Scat said.

'It doesn't feel so good either,' Nettles replied. 'Where did you learn to fight like that?'

Scat sat down before replying.

'Boarding school.'

'Not in the Marines, then?'

Scat chuckled.

'No, but they did help me manage it. The trick is to be full on, not just dirty. It scares them as much as it hurts. You don't want them thinking they should stick around.'

Nettles nodded, as though appreciating the advice.

'Well thanks, anyway,' he said. 'By the way, they weren't out-of-contract employees.'

'No?'

'No. I asked the police to pass me the result of their ID check. They're Lynthax security guards.'

'You sure?' Scat asked, thinking of how Petroff might react to him injuring three of his guys.

'Yes. I'm sending a complaint across to Petroff. I'd like to see how he deals with it.'

'But the guy with the dickey eye said he had been paid to hassle you. I obviously didn't hurt him enough.'

'I think it was enough, Scat. Anything more would have been, well, disproportionate.'

Scat chuckled again, this time at Nettle's political correctness.

'How are the other two?' he asked. 'Still in hospital?'

'One of them was released into police custody this morning. The other isn't yet conscious. He's got a fractured skull.'

'Oh, well,' Scat said without a hint of regret.

'Indeed,' Nettles concurred. 'Look, House Security has asked us Reps to stay indoors and attend only official functions over the next few days. They're saying this could be the beginning of some low-level intimidation, and they don't want it getting out of hand. However, I need to be seen around town, and I'm not going to be intimidated into staying indoors, which is no doubt what Lynthax wants. Would you follow me around?'

'Like a body guard?'

'Yes. I'll add something to your pay out of my own pocket. I'll not get an allowance from the House budget.'

'Sure,' Scat said, thinking about how that would improve his Reservist pay, Lynthax salary, and House Researcher stipend and benefits. Things were definitely on the up.

'Thanks. Right,' Nettles said, changing the subject, 'we're due in the first technical session at 12. When we sit down, I want you to sit at the end of the table on my right. You're to observe the opposition and take notes.'

'What sort of notes?' Scat asked.

'Personality types—sufficient to help me when we go back in for our second session. Normally we'd already know who they are and how they react under pressure. In this case, we know zip about them, but my guess is they've done their homework on us. We need to even out that score as quickly as possible.'

'Fair enough—personality profiles based on their reactions and behaviour during the meeting. I get it. Not asking for much, are you?'

Nettles finally looked up. Scat wore a cynical, uneven smile.

'I'm asking for what's possible, Scat.' Nettles explained. He returned to his PC. 'Do what you can. I've also asked the House shrink to do the same thing at the other end of the table, and, now that we know their names, I've asked the House Library to pull their publicnet records from Earth. The trouble is we won't get them for days.'

'So I have a deputy, then?' Scat asked a little too flippantly. Nettles looked back up from his PC for a second time. Scat realised he was probably pushing too hard at Nettles' sense of humour. 'Which means I get to discuss it with him before hand, right?' he asked, trying to sound more serious than he felt.

'Yes. I've arranged for you to meet him in half an hour,' Nettles replied looking down at his graf, 'He'll give you guidance.'

'And you can't use his staff for this, then?'

'No, Scat. He's private sector. We can't afford more.'

Scat shrugged. He might as well find out how it felt being on the losing side. It might help him to cope better with Petroff when the man came looking for him.

#  60

At 12 noon, Nettles walked into the conference room on the third floor, holding his briefing documents. Cheryl followed him in carrying an armload of constitutional notes. Scat carried the pile of files she couldn't carry.

The Trevon House staff had laid out the long table for 24 places, 12 on each side. Behind each chair was a second chair intended for aides. Name cards, water bottles, note pads, pencils, e-translator earpieces and power mats completed each place setting.

Nettles took his place, and Cheryl sat behind him. Scat sat at the end of the table closest to the double doors leading off to an anteroom. Simmons, the shrink, was already in place at the other end, closest to the entrance doors. Other Trevon Reps and aides took their places in between.

They chatted while they waited, nervously arranging and rearranging the additional piles of briefing folders, notes, and e-readers which now cluttered the Trevon side of the table.

The Earth Delegation then arrived. One by one, they filed into the room, carrying nothing more than their e-readers. None of them had an assistant.

As the Earth Delegates took their seats, Nettles glanced up and down the table, shrugging slightly, as if to ask his colleagues what they thought of Earth arriving unprepared. An elderly Rep sitting next to him shrugged back.

Finally, Ambassador Cohen walked in, accompanied by his junior aide, Mary Sheffield. The Earth Delegation stood up. The Trevons remained seated. Nettles walked to the end of the table, shook his hand then returned to his seat. Scat stared at Mary, disappointed she didn't notice him.

Cohen looked along the table and smiled at a couple of his negotiators.

'Good morning, ladies, gentlemen,' he began. 'I trust you have all had a decent night's sleep and can produce some good work today. I'm aware that these sessions may get a little tedious, but the details are crucial. I wish you all the good luck and the success you deserve. Two worlds are counting on you all. In fact more than two worlds, but let's not add more pressure to your work than is necessary.'

He then stood there, hands held together behind him.

Nettles sensed Cohen was expecting a formal response. He stood up, and as the technical session's leading House Representative, he replied with diplomatic niceties of his own, thanking the Ambassador for his encouragement.

Cohen waited until Nettles had sat back down before formally opening the meeting:

'So, let the negotiations begin.'

He then turned on his heels and left the room, followed by his assistants, leaving the teams to get on with it.

The lead Earth negotiator kicked off as Scat watched Mary leave the room turning back only to close the door behind her. He almost missed the opening statement.

'First on the agenda is point 1.01: To confirm the legitimacy of these proceedings.'

From further down the table a second Earth negotiator began reciting the laws associated with the leases establishing the New Worlds. He rattled on for around five-six minutes without referring to any notes. Scat didn't get a clear look at him, but it sounded as though he knew his stuff.

A Trevon Representative responded, anxiously shuffling through his notes and briefing papers, looking for the relevant sections that confirmed what the Earth speaker had just said. His aide tried to help by poring over the other files and passing them forward.

'The House concurs with the Earth delegation's understanding of the law.'

It had been a painful four or five minutes.

'Second on the agenda is point 1.02: to confirm the rights of Trevon House to administer Trevon on behalf of Earth.'

A third Earth Delegate rattled off what those rights were. This time Scat had a square-on view of the speaker. He scribbled a note, folded it, and asked the person on his left to pass it down to Nettles.

It made its way along the line, and Nettles looked down as he held it below the tabletop. On it, Scat had scrawled, 'We're screwed! They're using the neuralnet.'

'The farking bastards! The miserable low-lifers!' Nettles was extremely angry. 'The underhand bunch of two-faced farks. They would have known we don't have access to the neuralnet.'

'We're at a serious disadvantage, Terrance,' said the elderly Representative who had just joined Nettles, Scat and several other Representatives as they took their first coffee break of the afternoon. 'We're being killed in there.'

'It's making us look like a bunch of farking natives, Hammond,' Nettles agreed, 'but what can we do?'

'Block their comms,' Scat suggested.

Nettles sucked on his teeth.

'We can't,' he said. 'There's to be free access to information during the sessions.'

'Then, as I said, we're screwed.' Scat shrugged.

Hammond shook his head.

'They can tie us up in knots all day long,' he said. 'We'll be knackered by the end of each session, and they'll still be as fresh as daisies.'

Nettles expression continued to darken as he looked down at his shoes. He looked furious. Then his head snapped back up. It was as though someone had flicked a switch. The scowl was gone.

'There's not much we can do about it now, except, maybe complain,' he said. 'But complain about what? I doubt there's a rule banning its use: not one we'd know of, at any rate. Let's suck it up for this session and look at it again later this evening. Meanwhile I'll ask Cheryl to warn the Reps at the other session. They might not have noticed.'

Hammond looked back from the conference door and touched Nettles' arm.

'Terrance, we're being called back in.'

Nettles took a deep breathe.

'OK, so we're disadvantaged,' he said by way of summary. 'But we've the moral high ground, and we believe in what we're attempting to do. For the time being, and under no circumstances, is anyone to concede a point, or agree anything without a full check of our briefs. No feeling pressured to come to a quick agreement. Absolutely no precipitous concessions—even if we do feel stupid for taking so long. Does everyone understand?'

Several heads nodded in agreement, and they filed back into the room.

#  61

The conference broke up at nine pm and Scat went off to his overnight accommodation in the east wing, his mind dulled by the glacial pace of progress made over the last nine hours, and the tedious nature of diplomatic negotiations.

The Trevon delegation made off to their various offices. Nettles slipped away to meet with Reggie Irwin and a group of secessionists at the Sports Club, to report on the day's progress, or lack of it. He was in a black mood; he did not relish having to explain the humiliation of the Trevon delegation at the hands of the extremely well prepared and unfairly augmented Earth Delegation

Around 10 pm, the lights around Trevon House dimmed repeatedly to indicate that the House was closing for the night. Scat then realised he was "on call" so he walked down the stairs to the main lobby to check in with the security officer staffing the front door.

'Is everyone out?' he asked.

A grey-haired, blue-uniformed officer looked up from his e-reader. He saw the duty officer's badge hanging from Scat's collar and stood up.

'Not yet, sir,' he replied. 'There are still some Reps on the fourth floor. It shouldn't be long though.'

As the officer finished speaking, three Reps made their way down the last flight of steps and into the main lobby.

The officer pointed them out.

'These will be them,' he said.

The Reps waved their farewells and filed out through a small side door to the right of the main entrance.

Trevon House was empty. It just needed locking up. With nothing to do, Scat rode the elevator back to his floor and dropped onto his bunk.

The security officer settled back into his chair for an hour before realising his buttocks ached. He rubbed his eyes. He had been monitoring the day's activities on the security screens all day long. They felt strained. Well, damn it, he would take a walk! Sod whoever it was that said he had to stay in the House all night long.

He checked his graf still had coverage and wandered, a little stiffly, around the building towards the east wing of the House. He looked up at the dark facade of the front of the building to see if there were any lights still burning. He then turned the corner and walked down the east wing where light spilled from the Trevon House underground vehicle park exit onto an unlit road. A two-wheeled c-pod was turning quietly into the street, the House vehicle park shutters rattling closed behind it.

He stepped back to look up at the upper floors just as a bright blue flash lit up the road behind him, accompanied by a loud and violent crack of discharged electricity. He flinched, panicked and threw himself to the ground behind a low wall, scuffing the heel of his palm.

As he recovered his wits, he realised it was a PIKL. He was sure of it. A PIKL rifle sounded just the same when it discharged. He had seen it on NetStream. Even the ionisation of the air was the same.

Pulling off his cap, he peered over the wall. Just below him, the pod slew around in a lazy quarter-circle, bumping to a halt against the kerbside on the opposite side of the road. Smoke began to waft up from below the passenger compartment and then it caught fire. As its internal gyroscopes failed, it toppled onto its front.

He struggled to see whether anyone was inside of it, still.

Please, Mother, let it be a remote.

Assuming the worst, he pushed himself up, clambered over the wall and rushed across the road. By the time he got there, the whole thing was ablaze, its plastics burning off a dense, toxic smoke that rose quickly up the side of the building. After a couple of attempts to grab the emergency door release, the heat finally pushed him back into the middle of the street where he stood, helpless, with a hand on his head. Then he remembered this was no traffic accident. Instinctively he snapped to a crouch, and quickly scurried off the tarmac to kneel behind a roadside dispensing machine.

He glanced up and down the street and then up at the building that fronted that section of road. He could see nothing that would tell him where the firing point had been; the rapidly spreading smoke was obscuring everything, and the street was deserted.

It then struck him: other than the PIKL owner, he was probably the only person to know what had just happened.

He called it in.

#  62

Scat got a call within minutes of the shooting being reported back to House Security: someone had shot at a pod leased to Earth Delegate Ramesh Booni. It was now burning in the street alongside the East Wing.

He rushed across to his bunk window, opened it and looked down onto the road. Craning his neck, he could just see smoke rising from a small vehicle not far from the east wing's vehicle park exit. A couple of people were watching from a safe distance. They appeared to be House Security, looking on helplessly. In the distance, he could hear emergency vehicles making their way to the scene. Already a small, remotely operated fire department firefly was circling overhead assessing the scene.

Scat ran across the landing to the elevator and made his way down onto the street. By the time he got there, the firefly was squirting a pathetically thin stream of foam into the fire. House Security was setting up a cordon.

The security officer who had witnessed the shooting walked across to him.

'It was a bright flash, sir. Just like a PIKL. Then "pop", that thing just burst into flames and fell over.'

'Where did the shot come from?' Scat asked, turning to take a closer look at the rapidly disappearing pod. 'Any idea?'

'No, sir. I was checking the perimeter of the building. I wasn't looking that way. It lit up the whole street though. My hair's still sticking up. Can't you smell it?'

'Yes. I can,' replied Scat, the smell of burning flesh and plastics bringing back unwelcome memories.

'I called it in as soon as I realised I couldn't get into the passenger compartment. It was too hot, and it was completely ablaze.'

'You did well, er ...'

'Fawlty, sir.'

'You did well, Fawlty. Well done. Why don't you tell the officer you need to be back on the main door?'

'Yes, sir.'

Scat ducked under the cordon tape and went over to talk to a police officer who confirmed what Fawlty had feared: someone was inside the vehicle. It was inaccessible right now, but they would pull the body out once the fire officers had dowsed the fire and cooled the pod down. Right now, they were calling in more police officers to comb the area for any telltale signs of a PIKL firing post.

The fire was out before long, and they started to pull out bits of the Earth Delegate's body, each piece seared by the intense heat and covered in solidifying molten plastic. Scat looked away from what was a familiar scene to him almost a decade ago, and called Nettles.

'Are you sure it's an Earth Delegate, and not an administrator running duties?' Nettles asked.

'Can't be sure, but you had better plan for the worst. There are no media right now, but they'll be here soon. A couple of bugcams are overhead. It'll not be long before the reporters arrive.'

'Thanks Scat. Get yourself back to the House. We'll talk again in the morning.'

Scat hovered around the security station in the main lobby for 15 minutes or so, making sure the House was secured again. For the next few hours, he remained available in the House canteen and fielded several calls from House Reps who wanted to know what had happened. He told them what he could of it, and referred the constant stream of press queries to the police.

When he felt he had done everything that was expected of a duty officer, he made his way back to his bunk, flopped onto his bed and let his mind go blank for a moment of two.

He checked the time.

It was three am, already.

He stared up at the ceiling and recalled the events of the past, what, 36 hours. The thugs having a go at Nettles, a proven Lynthax set up; the Earth Delegation using the neuralnet to run rings around the Trevon Reps, obviously calculated to unnerve the negotiators; and now an assassination. Was that another set up? But by who, this time? Were Reggie and the secessionists prepared to scupper the talks and go all out for full independence, or had Earth gone mad?

Down on the street, House security was dismantling the cordon. The bugcams were disappearing back to their docking stations on hotel roofs around the city. The Police were calling in the key holders to open up the offices in the building opposite. The burned out pod was on its way to the police station forensics lab on the corner of Second and Sixth.

With the window still opened wide, and his thoughts a jumble, Scat drifted off to sleep.

#  63

Petroff reviewed his programme notes to see what role Ramesh Booni had played in the negotiations up to the time of his assassination. He hadn't figured prominently, but he was a military advisor on Cotton's staff.

That focused Petroff's mind: Cotton had sacrificed one of his own. Jeeze! He was proving to be a ruthless son of a bitch. There was a time when Lynthax considered Cotton to be a "bit player". He was someone the company had on its payroll, to smooth out inconveniences for them, but never much more than that.

Obviously, Lynthax hadn't paid enough attention to his true capabilities, though it appeared the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority had. N'Bomal was involved, as was he, but Lynthax hadn't cooked up the idea, as far as he was aware. Cotton had brought it to N'Bomal, sanctioned from above, so he had claimed. He was sure Cotton had included him in the briefing only because the building opposite the east wing was Lynthax property, and Lynthax jointly owned the House Security contract with Raddox. Obviously, Cotton didn't want security in the area to be so tight that it made the "action" any more difficult than it needed to be, though it appeared the security guards at Trevon House had ignored the message.

Well, anyway, he pitied the poor Booni fellow. One day he's doing his bit for Earth, the next he's barbecued meat; his brain scrambled and mashed by a PIKL on full power from a distance of less than 200 m.

So he had assumed.

He also assumed that somewhere in their building opposite the east wing, there was evidence of a PIKL firing post, no matter how microscopic. Why else would Cotton ask for his people to avoid the area, if not for that?

Then he remembered that Scat had been on House duty that evening thereby delaying his surgery for the neuralnet implant. Or, quite possibly, Scat was just blowing him off.

Maybe he should have replied to Scat's excuse. He should have insisted on an alternative date. Any time within the next week, perhaps. He couldn't possibly be that busy to decline. If he had, then he could wave goodbye to his Lynthax pay, and Petroff could wave goodbye to one out of several possible future sources of information on the secessionist movement.

It would be a pity, but he had his own reputation to maintain, and he had no time to play games with children. He needed that commitment. This time he would call Scat personally, voice to voice. He wanted to hear Scat say "no" and to hear the tone of his acceptance. It had to be willing.

He placed the call.

'Missed you yesterday, Scat. Good morning. I hear you had a busy night.'

'Er, yeah, it was,' Scat replied. 'Em, what time is it? Who is this?'

'It's 6.30 am. It's Petroff. You're off duty in 30 minutes. I thought I'd give you a wakeup call.'

Scat forced himself to imagine Petroff sitting beside him. That woke him up.

'Em, thanks. How are you?'

'I'm well, Scat. I hear we lost an Earth Delegate last night. What can you tell me about it?'

Scat squeezed his eyes shut and then tried to focus on the wall across the room. He cleared his throat.

'Nothing much just yet, sir. Someone took him out with a PIKL, or something remarkably similar, just as he was leaving the House. He burned up a little afterwards.'

'Who's leading the investigation?' Petroff asked.

'Not sure. Commander Jason was there last night. I didn't speak to him, but I assume he'll follow through.'

'Thanks. I'll have a word with him. Oh, and, by the way, when are you free to take up my offer?'

'Offer?' Scat sat up.

'The neuralnet implant, Scat. I'm sure you caught onto what I meant. See it this way: it's your chance to get a leg up and to leap a few generations of technology. You'll be able to ditch those handheld toys, contacts lenses and visor stick-ons, and level the playing field with the super-rich. And you'll be employable right up to director level, so long as you fit in and play the game right.'

'Oh, yes. Sorry about that, Mr Petroff. I'm grateful for the offer, but having looked into it, I'm not so keen. Isn't there another way we could stay in touch without me having to undergo an irreversible operation?' Scat's heart was pounding. He had not quite worked out what he was going to say to Petroff about this, and he certainly wanted to be wide-awake when he had to deal with it.

'No there isn't, Scat.' Petroff's tone was hard. Scat felt a chill.

'But you must know I'm not keen on these enhancements. It's a personal thing, sir. Even the Marines didn't like them. People change. They experience things. They can become unstable, unreliable. The people, I mean. Then there're the long-term effects of having you're neural pathways working 60 or 70 times faster and harder than they were meant to.'

'Scat, there's nothing to worry about,' Petroff explained. 'The only reason why we haven't pushed to have this thing on general release is so we can milk it at a higher price. It's like any product. Its value is determined by its usefulness and its exclusivity.'

Scat's mind raced.

'Still, I'd rather think about it a little more,' he said. 'Maybe it'd help if you sent me some info on the subject. There's almost nothing on the Trevonnet, except a reference to its development.'

'I'll send you the brochure. Come back to me by tomorrow night.'

'Thank you, sir. I'll take a look at it.'

'Mmm.'

Scat dropped his graf back on the bedside cabinet and concluded he hadn't really persuaded Petroff of anything. He now guessed that Petroff was about to write him off. That meant losing his Lynthax pay and getting a drubbing from Cotton.

Shit!

Things just kept happening to him. This wasn't how it was meant to be. He was meant to be putting money to one side to build a better life for himself: a more dignified and freer life. He was not meant to be taking sides in a local rebellion.

Being bumped off Prebos and roped in as an Earth spy – or was it a corporate spy – hadn't been in the original plan and was all about playing it safe. As for choosing between his loyalty to his friends and his debt to Earth – well that wasn't included in the plan either, and it was an increasingly tough line to walk. Then Cotton had dropped the redrafting bombshell, upsetting his balance, piling on the pressure.

He only seemed to have control over one thing, and that was this red line, a line they couldn't push him over—no matter what the consequences, and no matter how that decided things. He would never—not ever—have his head hooked up to some company control centre: it was absolutely, farking-well, never going to happen—no matter who was in charge, or what side he was on!

He picked up a boot from under the bed and threw it at the bunk door. It didn't help.

Just how bad does it have to get before I can get my life back?

Petroff leaned back into his high-backed chair, put his feet up on his desk, and placed his second call of the morning.

'Good morning, Ronald? It's Petroff. Are you free to talk?'

'Morning, Jack. Yes, I am. Did you hear the news?'

'Yes. Outrageous, Ronald. Truly. Do you have any suspects?'

'No. None yet. My office is only just getting up to speed.'

'Of course, of course ... but would you like one?'

#  64

'If it wasn't us then it was them,' Scat pointed out.

Nettles used a hand to dry wash his face as he waited for his desktop PC to start.

'I can assure you, it wasn't us,' he replied, 'so we have to assume it was meant to screw us over. We've had to postpone our talks today. None of our teams got any sleep last night. They were pestered by reporters all night long.'

Hammond sat to one side of Nettles' desk, turning his e-reader end-over-end.

'Well they're playing hardball, Terrance,' he said, 'and with their own people. I'd hate to see what they have planned for each of us.'

Nettles looked up from the minutes of yesterday's technical session.

'Don't go soggy, Ralph. That's what they want.'

'I know, but you've to ask yourself where all of this is leading. You beaten; this Booni character killed; being thrashed at the opening—and the first week's not even over yet! What have they got lined up for us today?'

'They'll probably use the fact that it was you who postponed today's conferences,' Scat said.

'No doubt,' Nettles said, entering his PC's password.

'When do we restart?' Hammond asked.

'Tomorrow morning. 10 am,' Nettles replied. 'Cohen agreed. In the meantime, Scat, you and I have places to be. We have a news conference this afternoon, and before that, there's lunch with the Police Commissioner—he's briefing me on what they know.'

#  65

The police commissioner's brief was just that, brief. It was as if the man didn't want to be there; he looked uncomfortable and appeared unwilling to make eye contact. There was little or nothing to go on right now, other than what the security guard had seen, or, more truthfully, hadn't seen. They were retrieving what footage they could recover from the surveillance cameras along the east wing, but they didn't expect them to reveal much: the angles weren't quite right. The DNA test had proven the victim to be Ramesh Booni and the Earth Delegation had confirmed he was a military advisor on Cotton's staff. Then, without warning, he excused himself, leaving Nettles and Scat to watch him walk from the restaurant, unsure what to make of his odd behaviour.

One thing was clear, though: the news conference would be disappointing and was hardly worth attending.

Nettles considered giving it a miss. Or maybe just show his face for a few minutes then slip away to catch up on a backlog of constituency work.

Scat saw an opportunity.

He had only had a few hours' sleep over the past two days so he asked Nettles for some downtime. Nettles let him go. He would not need a minder until later that night.

Scat caught the central core tram back to his small and slowly moulding apartment, littered as it was with empty meal cartons and unwashed clothes. He turned on the TV and found a news channel showing a picture of a high and heavily panelled lectern fitted with an array of microphones. A static banner at the bottom of the screen read: "Assassination Briefing".

He swept the mess off the bed and threw himself on it as the commentator announced the arrival of the Earth Ambassador and the Police Commissioner, accompanied by their personal assistants and government officials. Scat looked for Nettles among the Commissioner's entourage but couldn't see him. He tugged at his boots and threw them over to the door, glad not to be a part of the circus.

The news reporters began to settle and quieten down as the Police Commissioner took centre stage behind the podium. In support, and standing either side of him, were Ambassador Cohen and the city's mayor. The Commissioner waved his hand gesturing for everyone to hush and take a seat.

'Ladies, Gentlemen. We have an important announcement to make.'

He paused until he had absolute silence.

'As you are already aware, at 11.08 last night, Earth Delegate Ramesh Booni was assassinated in the vicinity of the House while riding a pod back to his hotel. What we are now able to prove is that the weapon used was a Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser, or PIKL.'

He gave the audience a moment to appreciate the enormity of what he was saying. A reporter shouted out a question, but he waved him down.

'Our investigation leads us to believe that the shot was taken from a firing post along the old road leading down from the original southern entrance to the city, some 750 metres south of Trevon House. Now, as those of you with Resource War reporting experience will know, a PIKL is no ordinary weapon, and it takes considerable skill to use one. Moreover, the distance of the shot suggests additional skills—a sniper's skill—implying this was not a spur of the moment killing. It was planned. It was deliberate. It was carried out in cold blood. And to our knowledge only one person on Trevon, aside from the Earth Delegates' own security team, has the skill to pull off a shot like that.'

He paused for effect. The reporters waited.

Scat sat bolt upright. He didn't need anyone to tell him who this one person was. He swung off the bed, grabbed his graf, scooped up his boots and fled from the apartment.

Behind him, the police commissioner confirmed what he had feared:

'His name is Sebastian Scatkiewicz.'

#  66

Scat was no longer tired. For the second time in a week, a tsunami of adrenalin coursed through his veins. Without checking his stride, he ran into the stairwell and took the steps two and three at a time for several flights, bouncing off the walls at each switchback. Arriving at a firebreak floor, he ran the full width of the building to the opposite side where he continued his descent into the commercial zone, bursting into a service corridor leading to a restaurant kitchen. Only then did he stop to catch his breath and to pull on his boots, watching the stairwell behind him through eyes stinging with sweat. He cursed himself for not turning his graf off earlier, doing so as he strapped it to his wrist. Damn!

Still, no one had followed him. The stairwell was empty; there were no echoes or moving shadows.

More calmly, he walked through the kitchen into the dining room and then across a mostly empty floor to the front door. He ignored the stares that followed him out into the mall itself.

He tried hard not to limp on a bruised foot, but as long as he remained calm, he would not attract any attention. It was just so hard not to break into a run again.

A little way along the mall, he found his bearings and decided to make his way to the exit that led out onto Third Avenue on the opposite side of the complex. As he made his way along the second floor balcony, he looked down onto the floor below to see a large group of black uniformed and body-armoured police heading at a trot towards the elevators. He edged away and continued walking.

Fark! For Jeeze' sake, why didn't Nettles warn me that I was being set up? All he had to do was send me a note!

Then it occurred to him that maybe they didn't give Nettles a chance to warn him, but if that was the case, why weren't the police waiting for him at the apartment? And why try pinning it on him? He had been on duty all night. There were witnesses.

Scat emerged onto the street and walked south for several blocks before thinking that maybe the police, or Earth, didn't want him caught. They may prefer to have a man in the bush, rather than a man in the hand. That might play to their advantage. It might suggest Trevon couldn't handle the security situation. It would also add extra spice to Earth's version of the assassination story; the story the networks were sure to take back home with them.

He was speculating. He had nothing to work on. He was also without access to money: a trip to a hole in the wall would tell his potential jailors where he was—they'll be tracking his accounts if they weren't already frozen—and a graf-enabled purchase would shine like a beacon. That left him with the clothes on his back.

He checked his pockets and pulled out his mother's silver cross, an old packet of tissues and some coins: enough money for, maybe, a day's food, a short taxi ride down town or several publicnet messages from a public booth.

He opted for the latter.

He wasn't hungry, and had nowhere he could safely go right now, but he did need to speak to Thomas Irwin.

# Part Four

# Band on the Run

#  67

Scat called Cheryl just as she was taking a break in the Trevon House cafeteria.

She was already a little jumpy, and the last person she wanted to talk to was Scat. Her boss was in jail, the police would be searching Nettle's office soon and, no doubt, they would want to question her, as well.

Her boss was a decent man, not the type to be involved in an assassination, but the news shows were suggesting otherwise, so she was relieved when Scat told her that her boss was not involved. That meant his arrest was a mistake, or a part of an adult-only power game she did not understand. Either way, they would release him soon.

Scat asked her to send word to Thomas to meet him at the Asian restaurant they had used the previous Friday evening, but she had to make the call from a public facility, not from the House. He then told her to report his call to the authorities, but to say only that he had heard of Nettles' arrest and wanted to confirm the story.

She agreed on both counts.

Scat signed off and made his way down town to the restaurant where he lingered across the street.

Thomas turned up a little over an hour later, his head swivelling left and right as he looked up and down the sidewalk before going inside.

Scat followed him in.

'Kitchen,' he said as he walked past.

Thomas traipsed after him.

As soon as they cleared the dining room, Scat swung around.

'I didn't do it,' he said. 'I was on duty at the House, and there will be dozens of witnesses. And I doubt Nettles knows anything about it.'

'I know,' Thomas replied, 'but they still arrested him. And they've got Marvin, too.'

'Shit!'

'And it won't matter that you have witnesses. They control the news, Scat. It won't matter if an alibi pops up a little later—the damage will be done, already. They're rounding up some of the others as well.'

Scat didn't know who the others might be, and didn't much care. He paced up and down between the counter and a line of stoves, his face reddening with increasing anger. The Chinese cooks gave him a wide berth.

'What about your old man and the other Old Man?' He asked.

'At home,' Thomas replied. 'Old Man Spelling's at his own place. They've lawyered up. They're OK for now.'

'Then the focus is on me for the time being,' Scat concluded. 'I need to get out of here.'

Thomas shrugged.

'Well, that might prove difficult,' he said. 'They've closed down the dam wall exit. Unless you're prepared to climb the rift and find a hole in the environment shield, you're stuck in Go Down.'

Scat let that sink in. He probably was stuck in Go Down. A lone heat source wandering around on the outside would show up in seconds.

'Where are they keeping them?' he asked.

'At police headquarters, but we think they'll be shipping them back to Earth to stand trial for subversion. At least that's what the Lynthax news media is saying. If they do that then the independence movement is done-for. They'll have lopped off its head.'

'Don't be so defeatist, Thomas.' The tone of Scat's voice was sharp.

'But it's a fact, Scat,' Thomas said in mitigation. 'Go Down is a small place. It's easily manipulated.'

Scat pointed a finger back through the kitchen door.

'But Go Down isn't Trevon, is it? Judging by what I have learned since getting here, the real Trevons are out there, on the Plain and elsewhere. We just need to co-ordinate them better, get them more involved, deny services, up the civil disobedience, that sort of thing.'

Thomas winced. He looked uneasy.

'But that's what I meant about them lopping the head off the cause, Scat. They were the ones co-ordinating that kind of thing.'

'Then we start from scratch.'

'That'll be hard. Movement is restricted. Communications will be monitored.'

Scat stopped pacing and snapped his fingers in front of Thomas' face.

'Hey! For Jeeze's sake, Thomas, start thinking like your old man!'

Thomas reeled.

'I'm only trying to lay it out for you Scat. I'm just as committed as my old man.'

Scat changed the subject.

'Why did they arrest Marvin?' he asked.

'You don't know?'

'I wouldn't ask if I did, Thomas,' Scat replied, not attempting to hide his frustration. He began to pace again.

Thomas remained where he was. He tried to explain.

'He's one of father's closest confidantes. Nettles' too. He's a secessionist, one of the group's coordinators. By taking him out, we lose a lot of the continuity—and a respected personality.'

That pricked Scat's curiosity. He suspected Marvin's involvement, but only around the edges, and something Thomas just said about him being a coordinator didn't sound right.

'But he was on Prebos until two weeks ago. How could he make an impact down here?'

'Ah!' Thomas began. 'He was making an impact, Scat, on Prebos. He was to keep the place from falling apart when we made the declaration. Once we won independence, Prebos would still need to produce, but under a revised regime. It's an integral part of our economy.'

'But he was due to be shipped home when you made your announcement. He wouldn't have been of much help.'

Thomas shrugged, still looking uncomfortable.

'That was a matter of timing and communication. The plan was a decent one, or at least sensible, but its execution was subject to factors beyond our control. We had to bring more Reps on board. It took a lot longer than we thought it would.'

'And now they're being shipped off to Earth. How sure are you about that?'

Thomas shook his head.

'I'm not. We heard it on TV. Much of what they're saying is pure speculation. They have pegged you as anti-establishment. Even traced your history back to your early years to suggest why you've got the hump for Earth—especially your comments about the Resource Wars and your dislike of the corporations.'

Halfway up the aisle, Scat spun around and slammed a fist down onto the counter.

'Damn and fark! Petroff!'

'What about him?' Thomas asked.

'He set me up, the bastard. He quoted the same stuff back at me on Prebos.'

Scat's anger was turning into a rage. He wanted to clobber something, someone.

Thomas smiled weakly at the cooks on the other side of the counter, before turning back to face Scat.

'So what are you going to do, Scat?' he asked. 'What are we doing here?'

Scat kicked a cabinet door, and then made an effort to calm down. He began to think as a soldier again, not as a victim. After a moment's silence, he replied.

'As I said, I thought I needed to get out of Go Down. I wanted your help. However, it sounds as though Nettles and Marvin need help more urgently than I do. As you say, once they're gone, Trevon loses its momentum.'

Thomas saw a change in him. It was as though Scat had flicked a switch, just as he had less than a week ago, outside this very restaurant. Thomas began to relax a little himself.

Scat leaned against a food preparation counter, flicking at crumbs, lost in thought. A cook hovered close by, waiting uncertainly for Scat to move away. Finally, and carefully, he reached across for a pot. Scat slid it across to him.

'We need to break them out,' Scat said, almost to himself.

'We?' asked Thomas.

'Yes: we. You included.'

'That's not what I meant, Scat. You said, "we", as in you as well''

Scat sensed this was a watershed moment for him. He suddenly felt more at ease than at any time since leaving Prebos. He had done all he could do to avoid the conflict, and it had been an agonising couple of weeks. But now Petroff had pushed him off the fence, things had just gotten a whole lot simpler, and no matter what he did from now on, he could do it with a clear conscience.

'Yes, me. If I wasn't a dedicated part of this independence thing earlier today, then I damn well am now! I'm fed up with being farked over, pushed around, shipped about, hired, fired, redrafted, and framed. Petroff and that fark, Cotton, are going to rue the day they decided to play me as a patsy.'

It then occurred to him that if there hadn't been a proper rebel force on Trevon before now, a small band of secessionists on the run would probably qualify as one. However, he needed somewhere safe to hang out.

Thomas offered to rent a small place in his name, but Scat wasn't so sure. Eventually they would check the Irwin family's financial records, and that would lead them to him. Then they would both be arrested.

Instead, Scat asked about the bunkers further north up the valley.

'There are plenty of them up in the forests,' Thomas explained, 'but they're in poor condition. They'd need refurbishing just to get them up to survival standard.'

'But doable?'

'Yes. Most of the valley families have the spare equipment you'd need—heaters, fuel cells, survival suits and so on. And most of them are secessionists.'

'What about security? Do they visit?'

Thomas shook his head.

'No. As I say, they're in ruins.'

'Yeah, well, that may change. They might feel the need. Are there many of these places?'

'Hundreds, Scat. You could move between them. Then there are the unmarked shelters that father and the Old Man built even further north when they prospected for our rarer strains.'

Thomas got a little excited as he realised there were, indeed, many places to hide a small group outside of Go Down, without freezing to death, that is.

'Just how far out do you want to go? It's a big planet?' he asked.

'Far enough to go unnoticed; close enough to cause trouble in Go Down ...'

'There's plenty, Scat.'

'... then we need to bust Terrance and Marvin out of jail, get them up the valley, and use them as a rallying cry for the movement. Maybe even take some affirmative action to shake up Go Down. Make the outland settlements a very large "no-go" area for Earth loyalists.'

Thomas frowned.

'You mean terrorist stuff, Scat?' he asked.

'Not your average baby killing, Thomas,' Scat replied, smiling at last. 'Just your common and garden-variety attacks against symbols of authority, some civil disobedience, Trevon House walkouts and after-hours votes. Maybe even steal a buoy to get the message back to Earth, and maybe to the other planets. It doesn't need to be violent. I'm sure Terrance will have plenty to contribute on that front. But if organised violence is to be done, I'll be in charge of it.'

'So you've given this a lot of thought then?' Thomas said, pretty sure Scat must have had these things in mind for a while.

'Don't worry, Thomas,' Scat said, thinking Thomas was being sarcastic. 'I'll put some thought into it before I sign my name to it.'

#  68

Thomas smuggled Scat out of Go Down in one of the family's soft-track recreational vehicle. They decoupled and removed half of the fuel cells, leaving room for Scat to curl up. Thomas covered him in some survival suits, each with the chip removed, to reflect any scanners that they might be using at the dam wall exit.

They need not have bothered.

Thomas lined up behind an omni-wheeled cruiser, which a police officer finally waved into the Lynthax search bay. The officer then beckoned Thomas forward into the police bay before walking around to his side of the soft-track. It was bitterly cold and the strong wind pushing its way through the exit caused the man to lean backwards, awkwardly.

'Afternoon, Mr Irwin. Sorry about this but we need to search your vehicle,' he said loudly enough for the dam wall commander to overhear, winking at Thomas at the same time. Less loudly, he added, 'They think we're all bloody terrorists, Thomas.'

'Good to see you, Birdie. I hear you were called out for that Booni killing.'

Andrew "Birdie" Goosen pretended to check under the vehicle with a rod-mounted mirror.

'I was, which is how I know it wasn't that Scatker chap—whatever his name is,' he said. 'But I've got a job to do, so here I am, pulling double shifts. I haven't had a change of underwear since this thing blew up!'

Thomas nodded. He knew many of the local Go Down City police officers. There weren't more than 1000 of them. Mostly they were contract cops and less than half ever patrolled the streets, but a fair percentage had obtained permanent residency, and many of them had applied to be citizens.

He was convinced there was sympathy for the secessionist movement among their ranks. At the Mayor's Moss Harvest gathering earlier in the year, Goosen had strongly hinted at his support for the independence movement, although an outright declaration of support had been impossible. The police were required to be loyal to the government, and the government was meant to be loyal to Earth. Even so, Goosen had let on he was sympathetic, as were others.

That had given Thomas a boost. It had made his family's risky stance on independence seem more defensible, more right.

As they were talking, one of Goosen's colleagues manhandled a scanner along the soft-track's body, not paying much attention to the jumbled mess of hunting gear and moss analysis equipment in the rear compartment. It looked sloppy from where Thomas sat, but from across the road it probably looked kosher.

'Can you open the rear door, Thomas?' Goosen asked.

'Sure.' He popped the lock remotely.

Goosen took a cursory look inside. He turned over a blanket to reveal an empty dog cage.

'Thank you, sir, and sorry for the inconvenience,' he shouted from the rear of the vehicle.

Thomas nodded in the rear view mirror as the vehicle lurched forward onto the main road. He added a wave. In no time at all, they were through the exit and onto the snow-covered on-ramp.

They were free and clear.

They arrived at the Irwin bunker in the middle of a fund raising dinner that Reggie was holding for a dozen or so of Go Down's moneyed class. He had just gotten them to approve the wording of a letter they would send to representatives of the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority, the leaders of the Western Bloc, and Earth's media, aimed at obtaining Nettles' release, and they had just moved onto establishing a legal fund, should he be taken to trial. It had been a long, and tedious, two hour meeting.

When Thomas entered the room and told his father that Scat was in the lobby, he had beamed a smile of relief, and without thinking, walked across to the dining room intercom.

'Welcome back, Scat. Come down to the dining room. You can join us for dinner.'

He then regretted it.

His dinner guests weren't full-on secessionists, they were sympathisers, and like most sympathisers, they were sympathetic when it suited them. As he returned to the table, he noticed some of them exchanging worried glances. Too late, it then occurred to him that they might feel uncomfortable in the presence of someone accused of murder; that they might consider murder a decidedly lowbrow and extreme measure, not at all befitting their agreed level of commitment.

Hoping to undo the damage, he asked Thomas to wheel Scat into his study; he would be along in a short while.

God damn these frivolous farks, he thought. I'm going to have to resell this whole thing to them tomorrow.

#  69

Khoffi Khan was anxious to make a strong second impression. His first meeting with the Earth Ambassador had not gone terribly well. He thought it was to be a private audience so they could talk about what was actually pissing these Trevons off, but instead he was forced to compete for the ambassador's attention in a room filled with his young Turks; kids who didn't think twice about interrupting him with questions, or passing him updates. Then there was that man, Cotton.

He soon realised he wasn't there to brief the ambassador, but to receive instructions. So he had listened, and nodded when he thought it appropriate, and was dismissed without getting to make any of his points. He should have been more assertive—he knew it—but he had spent the last three years being pushed to the back of the room, and today had been no different.

But this evening he would get another chance; this time he was determined to make the Ambassador listen—without Cotton looking over his shoulder.

In the hallway of his small three-bedroom apartment, he picked up his briefcase, brushed off some of his wife's hair from his suit, and opened the door to the corridor leading off to the elevator core.

'I'll be back by midnight,' he shouted to his wife, Ara, who was in the kitchen preparing the family's evening meal. 'Keep some for me.'

'It'll spoil,' she muttered, stirring the curry over a conductor, slapping her eldest son's hand as he stuck a finger in the pot. 'Farrin—get your hands out of there! Go set the table then tell your sister that dinner's almost ready.'

'OK, Ma. But I can't stay long. I've got English lit revision tonight, over at the Starlings place.'

'It'll be ready soon. How long will you be tonight?'

'Just a couple of hours, Ma. It's English lit, not movie night. I'll come straight home.'

'Be back by 11 then.'

Farrin Khan was 15 yeas old. He was a bright young lad who excelled at math, played badminton reasonably well, and was just getting the hang of talking to pretty girls without blushing or seeming too needy. He was tall, looked older than he actually was, and gave the appearance of being one cool kid. He was also curious.

When his friend, Simon, suggested they go down to the rear lobby to watch the protest on Second Avenue out back, he had thought it would be a fun thing to do. His father had predicted these protests months ago and often talked about the situation over dinner. This was his chance to see what the fuss was all about.

They slipped past Stephen's mother using the servants' entrance, made their way to the service elevators and took the ride down to the delivery area in the side street between Second and Third. Almost immediately, the chanting hit them, filling the air and drowning out normal speech. The atmosphere was electric.

The condominium's rear lobby was on Second Avenue, but, to get there, they needed to mingle with the protesters who were using the side street to join the main attraction. Groups of them carried placards under their arms, some of them already held clumps of concrete in their hands or were carrying bags of glass bottles filled with liquid, rags poking out of their tops. Some held low-energy stuns, others held vicious-looking homemade pikes attached to the top of uprooted fence posts.

Simon was grinning from ear to ear.

'Wow! Looks like there's gonna be a riot—just like last week,' he said.

'Looks like it. Won't your Ma smack you up the head for being down here?'

'Na! What she don't know about don't matter. Come on. Let's go round back and get a better look.'

He headed off, keeping to the sidewalk on their side of the road, trying not to get caught up in the growing crowd.

'Come on. It'll be OK. There's a concierge. He'll let us in, and keep 'em out. He knows me.'

Farrin overcame his caution and stepped out. It was getting noisier. It was hard to hear what Simon was saying. He could see a solid mass of people passing the end of the street. Second Avenue was filled with people.

'Hang on, Sime. I'm coming.'

'Oh, crap!' Simon said, looking at the place where the rear lobby to his condo had been. 'They've dropped the shutters. What do we do now?'

Farrin looked at the aluminium shutters that ran the length of the building. They must have covered it up in the last hour or two.

'No idea, Sime. But it isn't good for us to be stuck out here. Shall we go back?'

He looked back up the Avenue to the side street. More people were pouring out of it. Walking against the crowd would be difficult. He looked the other way down Second and saw another side street some fifty meters away.

'What about we go with the flow and turn off down there?' Farrin said, pointing.

'OK. Come on.'

From up ahead, there was a roar and a cheer. It was like a wave. There was an orange glow. Then more. They could see things flying through the air, trailing flame.

'Shit!' Simon said. 'That must be the police lines.'

It was only a hundred metres away. The crowd had nowhere else to go. They were being hemmed in. The crowd became a crush.

'This is not good,' Farrin said, holding tightly onto Simon's shirt, trying to stay close. 'Now we're stuck out here.'

#  70

Scat ate at Reggie's desk as Thomas explained Trevon's geography, its demographic composition and population centres, what there were of them, and the locations where the secessionist cause was the best supported. He went on to list many of the known sympathisers in the local media and resource corporations.

Scat absorbed what he could understand of it.

Eventually Reggie walked in holding an overlarge glass of brandy. A couple of his less sensitive dinner guests followed him in. As they took chairs from a stack against the back wall, Reggie planted himself behind his desk, swinging his feet up onto its deeply polished, wooden surface.

Scat stood beside Thomas at the fireplace, poking a smouldering peat block to make it flare up again.

'So, you're free, and intent on doing Lynthax some serious damage, eh?' Reggie asked. 'Unlike the chattering classes,' he added, looking back through the door. 'And don't worry about word getting out that you're here: the beggars wouldn't dare mention it; they already think they're subverting the established order of things, just by being here.'

Scat took Reggie's assurances at face value and addressed his question about his commitment:

'Yes, sir, but there's no point in doing this piecemeal. It has to be part of a larger action, one that takes us the whole way.'

'Well that's a fair demand, isn't it, Ralph?' Reggie asked. Ralph Hammond was one of guests who hadn't objected to adjourning the meeting to Reggie's study.

'Um, yes, if it doesn't cost us too much, Reggie.'

'You don't know this young man, do you Ralph?' Reggie asked.

'Not well, Reggie. He was working for Nettles. Before that, he was on Prebos.'

As he admitted his ignorance of Scat's history, he looked over his shoulder to smile at him.

'Never mind, Ralph,' Reggie said. 'Take it from me: this young man has the skills set to cause Lynthax and the Earth contingent some serious inconvenience.' He then added a prompt: 'He was at Suez.'

'Suez? Oh, you mean during the Resource War?' Again, Ralph looked at Scat, still unable to place him.

Scat waited for a penny to drop, sipping his beer.

Then the curtain lifted.

'Seb Scatkie – Scateque – Captain Scat... Oh, my heavens! That was you?'

'Scatkiewicz. Yes, sir.'

Scat didn't want to play on his history in this way, but if he was to get what he wanted out of this meeting, he needed to ditch the "quiet man" routine. He had to lay his credentials on the table.

'How was that, my boy?' Hammond asked, forgetting where he was and why they had gathered. He was genuinely interested.

'Don't embarrass the young man, Ralph,' Reggie said, smiling. 'Let's just say, Scat's talents give us the extra dimension we've been lacking up till now.'

'But we have to act fast,' Scat reminded everyone. 'If the delegation is moving on to G-eo then we need to get to Nettles and Marvin before they leave.'

'The delegation won't be leaving for a few days, Scat.'

Scat looked around the room, to see who had spoken. He found him in the corner; the man had gone completely unnoticed. Come to think of it, he could not recall the man following Reggie into the room: he had so little physical presence. He was short, pale, and bland looking. An accountant. No, a bookkeeper on life support.

'G-eo isn't ready for them,' the man continued with more confidence than Scat expected. 'They weren't due to move on for another couple of weeks. In any case, my sources tell me that they'll ship him directly to Earth on a tanker, probably the V4. That means he might not be so well taken care of: he'll be in Lynthax's hands.'

'Are you suggesting they might not make the trip without mishap, Balsom?' Hammond asked.

'Yes. They've manufactured the evidence so they'll not want it to go to trial. A trial may prove that the official story is a lie, and that'll have implications for Lynthax, or maybe Raddox, or even the Earth Delegation itself. Let's face it, not even we can be sure who did it. So, Nettles may not even make it to court.'

Hammond wasn't quite prepared to accept Earth would allow that to happen.

'That's quite a dark view you have there,' he said.

'But a realistic one,' Scat agreed. 'I have my own experience of Petroff. Once you factor in Lynthax's resources—and those that Colonel Cotton can call on—and the importance of settling the situation in the Outer-Rim, I doubt if there's anything they couldn't do. We all need to grow up and recognise this isn't just another family squabble. It's a divorce.'

'Well, we may not need to worry too much about the local police,' Balsom said. 'Rumour has it Earth is going to replace them with the ORF. It'll give them a chance to start over.'

That shocked everyone into a moment's silence. A complete changing of the guard would alter the dynamics considerably.

'What about the Lynthax frigate, Venture Raider? Couldn't they ship them back on that?' Thomas asked.

'I don't think so,' Balsom replied. 'It appears to be spending a lot of its time around Prebos. They've only just upped the security there again. They don't want to risk losing the family jewels for a second time.'

'Then we'll need the civilian shipping schedule,' Reggie concluded. He turned to Hammond. 'What can you do?'

'No problem, Reggie. I'll call it up and send it across to you.'

'Don't do that, sir,' Scat said. 'Reggie, we need to ease off on electronic comms. We shouldn't give them a road map back to your membership. They may know a lot about you already, but that's no reason to tip them off about your next move. They've left you unmolested for a reason. You're the bait: the flypaper.'

Reggie reflected on that. The others in the room did so too. They tried to remember what they might have said or done over the past few days, to help point fingers.

'Fair enough, Scat, but that'll leave our organisation somewhat deaf, dumb and blind.'

'True, sir, but right now I'd rather be partially deaf and free, than locked up. I suggest you get Thomas to work on a comms plan. He could also check to see who's been a little careless.'

'That's a bore, Scat. My comms are encrypted in any case,' Hammond said.

'But you're probably using standard commercial encryption: most likely the one that came with the call plan. And who did you buy that from?'

'Well yes. Point taken.'

'OK, Scat,' Reggie said. 'Thomas, get onto it. Everyone in this room is to have their comms overhauled.' He looked at everyone in turn, to see if they had accepted the need for it.

They did.

Reggie turned back to Scat. He dropped his feet to the floor and leaned forward over his desk.

'Are you suggesting that anyone who's created too big a "road" be eased out?' he asked.

'Yes, sir.'

'And what about organising Nettle's release?' Balsom asked.

'That's probably best left to me. You need to sound credible when you deny involvement. We do that by cutting the link between one side of the organisation and the other.'

Hammond shifted in his seat.

'This is getting complicated, Reggie. And very Machiavellian,' he said.

'Yes it is, Mr Hammond,' Scat agreed, making a mental note to himself. From what he could make of him, Hammond was the least able of all of those present to cope with Scat's view of the world and its implications. He might be committed and dedicated, but he was a foppish fool. Reggie had to cut him out of the loop before they got down to making plans. 'It's going to get bloody,' he continued. 'They won't release Nettles just because we shout loudly at them or take to writing letters – no offence meant. We need to take direct action, which means it could get bloody. Once it gets bloody, they'll crack down on the bits of the secessionist movement they've left untouched so far. Freeing Nettles is a game-changer.'

'How so?' Balsom asked.

Scat stared at him. The question surprised him. Hadn't they just had a day to think this thing though? He stood there, looking head-cocked at Balsom as he recollected his training in counterinsurgency, this time from a militant's perspective. Perhaps he needed to back up a little and ask a question of his own first. The obvious one.

'How what?'

'How much of a game-changer would it be?'

Everyone looked at him, as though he had the answer. Maybe he had to back up further.

'Have you thought this through?' he asked, looking around the room.

'I have, Scat,' Balsom replied. 'I just wonder if everyone else has. It's worth getting it out in the open.'

Hammond broke the awkward silence that followed.

'Why, of course we have, Old Chap. We've had feelers out for months, looking for the right man.'

Scat swallowed hard. Reggie continued swilling his brandy.

'And it looks like we found him,' Hammond added.

'No. I mean, have you thought about what this'll mean to you?' Scat asked. 'Worked out what it'll take? Worked out a plan?'

'Oh, you mean a strategy? Why didn't you say so, Scat? Of course we have,' Hammond replied.

'So, what is it?'

There was a knock at the door, and a member of the household staff brought in a tray filled with mugs and a pot of tea. Hammond waited for the staff to put the tray down and leave the room. He then offered up the plan:

'Well, once we got the right man, we'd follow his lead.'

Reggie buried his face in his hands.

#  71

Rogers sat quietly in the corner of the Command and Control soft-track, watching Petroff get increasingly agitated. They were both in full riot gear, but the body armour was of little comfort. Out of the rear window he saw the last of their own people-carriers line up in readiness to push out onto Second Avenue. The police were undermanned, their lines poorly placed, and Lynthax would be stepping in soon. He didn't relish the thought.

Petroff broke the silence.

'They won't keep them back for more than another hour at best, Rogers. Go tell the men to charge the gas guns and power up their stuns. If we must go in, let's do it so we don't have to stay all night.'

'Yes sir. What power?' Rogers asked.

'Full. I doubt there'll be many pacemakers out there. Or pregnant women. And while you're doing that ask Albright to come over.'

Rogers climbed out the back of the soft-track and ran down the line of vehicles issuing Petroff's instructions to the vehicle commanders. A few minutes later, a tall man with a long, flat face and a crooked nose appeared at the Command and Control vehicle door.

'Your goffer said you wanted me, sir,' he said, standing upright and square, ignoring the chaos around him. Behind him, Rogers dodged the occasional flying rock and bottle as he made his way back along the line.

'Yes, Albright. Get in here and look at this.'

Albright clambered up and sat next to Petroff who began stabbing at a monitor.

'That apartment complex there—see it?' Petroff said.

'Yes, sir.'

'Take a team and get up to the first firebreak. If we need to move in, I want you to pepper the front of the crowd with rubber. Put some of these shits down.' He pointed to a few rioters who were throwing the Molotovs. 'As you do that, we'll drop some stuns behind them to stop the crowd surging forward. Once we've made an opening, we'll send in some snatch squads.'

'Have they made the call, yet?' Albright asked.

Right now, it was a police show, so unless the city called them in, they couldn't get involved. Petroff expected the call to come through soon.

'Not yet. Just get yourselves up there and be ready. I don't want to be here all night.'

#  72

When the tea finished doing its rounds, Reggie tried to save the day.

'What he means, Scat, is we're open to suggestion. We aren't the experts.'

Scat was still speechless. They still didn't have a plan. They were still looking for guidance. He continued to stir his tea. He needed to back up even further.

'What will you be fighting for?' he asked. He was already wondering why Reggie would want to risk a family fortune.

Reggie looked up at Hammond and curled his lower lip. The others glanced around, not wanting to be the first to respond. It was a remarkably straightforward question. The answer was anything but.

'Freedom,' Paul said.

'To bring the corporates to heel,' Thomas added.

Hammond shifted in his chair.

'For the right to create local law suited to local needs.'

'Self-determination, Scat,' Reggie said. 'The freedom to choose. It's the most precious gift a father can give his children.'

Scat looked at Balsom.

'Well?'

'None of the above, and all of the above, Scat, and, no doubt, more besides. We're all looking for different things.'

'Exactly,' Scat agreed, 'and it's the same with the costs we're willing to bear.'

They looked at him, willing him to explain.

'OK. Look. Some of you, the ones with the most to gain, may be willing to risk your lives; but the others, the ones who have the most to lose, might only donate a few bucks, then step out of the way – rather like your guests, Reggie.'

Reggie smiled in agreement. Scat carried on.

'It's a question of degree, and as with any question of degree, there's a tipping point. Everyone's tipping point is different. So your coordinators, organisers, or inner-circle, whatever you going to call them, have to know what the tipping point is for every member of the organisation.'

He then returned to the original question and just laid it out.

'At the heart of this is personal sacrifice and personal commitment. Whoever co-ordinates this rebellion must be fully committed and have little to lose. They should be prepared to move up-valley, or even across Trevon. Ideally, they should move before things get started, cutting links with family, friends, businesses and money. They live and breathe rebellion until you win.'

Balsom was nodding in agreement. Reggie nodded to show he was following it all. Hammond was still trying to catch up. Scat looked directly at him as he listed some of the obvious consequences.

'The authorities will confiscate your paper fortunes; screw with your business communications; apply pressure on your clients to dump you, and apply sanctions on any organisation that provides services to you.'

He saw Hammond catch on. He looked a little concerned.

'As I say, life'll change,' he added.

For a few moments, no one spoke. They had talked through the personal sacrifices involved, but not the risk to their fortunes: that had never come up before. The risk of losing everything from the get-go, in return for possibly years of uncertainty and no clear outcome, was going to separate the men from the boys. It wasn't something they could easily overcome: they had no Old World allies who could help them squirrel their money away. Small amounts, maybe, but not their dynastic fortunes.

Reggie didn't want everyone to dwell on that for too long; he needed to change the topic. He was lucky. A fresh pot of tea arrived.

'Understood, Scat, so we're to disperse, we're to go to ground. We're to organise a rebellion from underground. Although how we're supposed to keep in touch with everyone, when we're living in igloos up the valley without radios, is something we'll have to figure out.

'But we still need a public face: people who can interact with Trevons and bring them onside; to negotiate with Earth—that sort of thing.'

Scat was ready for that. That brought him to point 1.01 of every insurgency.

'That'll be your elected reps, sir, which is why they have to avoid the military side of the conflict. That's why the political and military wings connect through a council. The council coordinates everything. But the council can't be made up of elected politicians or rebel fighters – they can't be directly involved with either side, and they have to stay off Lynthax's radar. They've to maintain the broader view and be strong enough to broker serious disagreements on strategy.'

If they had one, that is. For an organisation that had some pretty strong views on what it wanted, it was fairly light on a plan to achieve it.

Reggie pursed his lips. The room fell into silence. Reggie looked around the room, but no one appeared eager to make eye contact with him. He looked at Balsam, possibly for support, although it was hard to tell. Either way, Balsam didn't offer any. Scat sensed that the management structure of the rebellion was still a bone of contention between them and that his proposal didn't quite gel with Reggie's ideas on the matter.

Reggie broke the silence.

'Scat, the whole purpose of this is to build a better society, something that's more democratic, more representative of "us". How can we do that if the rebellion is led by an unelected and unaccountable council?'

Scat nodded.

'Sir, I'm all for the people being represented, but here's the thing: politicians are crowd-pleasers, willing to compromise to get a seat at the table of power. They may genuinely believe that, over time, we'll accept a lesser goal. They could start pulling in a different direction, whereas we'll be putting our dicks on the line every day for what we decide here tonight; risking everything for full independence.' Scat shook his head. 'No, we need people who'll keep everything on track, who can see how things are going from a distance and then make the best decisions.

'No offense intended, Mr Hamilton.'

'None taken, my boy. You're a student of history, I can see,' Hamilton replied in good humour.

'I agree. It makes sense, Reggie,' Balsom added. 'You know how politicians are forced to compromise. Your family has had plenty of experience in that area over the years.'

Reggie nodded, frowning, reflecting. In his own life-time, he had seen politicians compromise on virtually all their closely-held principles, especially if it suited the reality of the here and now, or guaranteed their political survival, so how could he argue against Scat and still sound credible? He couldn't. He let it rest. Yet, it was disappointing to hear that Scat advocated a more authoritarian regime. He had wanted this to be a popular rebellion, as democratically managed as possible, an uprising that would inspire generations of Trevons for years to come. But, Reggie was nothing if not a pragmatic man. In truth, if given the option between a gallant failure and a professionally led success, he would take the latter. Yes, best to let it go.

Instead, as the discussion moved away from how hard everything might get for them all, he reflected again, on what Scat had said about their fortunes. Fortunes were terribly hard things to give up. In any case, the wealthier secessionist families were looking beyond independence, to the business opportunities that would arise once they had brought the corporations to heel. To take advantage of that, they would need to keep their money safe and, although a selfish act, it would be in Trevon's best interest if they could retain their working capital.

But fortunes needed protecting and were vulnerable to threats.

He made a mental note: to keep the richest and oldest members at arm's length, unless, that is, they were committed and prepared to give it all up for the cause.

That would narrow the field somewhat.

#  73

Simon and Farrin tried to anchor themselves to the alcove of a shop doorway. Still, they were constantly jostled, and were often knocked sideways when the crowd surged or backed up. It was getting a little scary. Simon spoke of calling his dad on his graf, but realised his old man would have the same problem as they had: there was nowhere to go.

Suddenly, from up front, there was an extremely loud explosion, followed by a much larger cheer. Farrin stood on tiptoes but couldn't see anything.

'Give me a leg up, Sime,' he said, leaning against the shop window.

Simon joined his hands together and let Farrin step into them. He then hoisted him up as far as he was able, sliding him up the window.

'Jeeze! It's a police cruiser,' Farrin shouted. 'It's on fire. There're people in it. Jeeze...'

'Fark! What else?' Simon asked, struggling to keep Farrin steady.

'Bloody great big carriers and some soft-tracks. They're coming out of the side street—'

All around them there were ear-splitting cracks and shockwaves that knocked Farrin to the floor. Loud thumps echoed back and forth between the buildings. The window shattered. Farrin stumbled, and Simon dropped to the ground. Women in the crowd screamed. Men yelled. The front of the crowd tried pushing against the flow, to flee back up Second Avenue, leaving behind them what seemed to be bodies lying in the road. A rolling crackle from high above. Individuals started dropping to the floor as they ran away from the barricades.

'I've been cut,' Simon said, quietly, almost inaudibly.

Farrin didn't hear him. He was dusting himself off, watching the chaos.

'Help me.'

Simon fell against Farrin and then to the floor. Farrin looked down. Blood was pouring out onto the pavement. Simon was deadly still.

'Simon! Simon!'

Farrin got on his knees and turned Simon over, then looked away. There was a large shard of glass in the side of his friends neck. His eyes were wide open, but they weren't moving.

'Oh, my God! Simon!'

He slapped him gently, but there was no response. He checked for a pulse but couldn't find it. Farrin felt himself on the verge of panic.

When he looked out onto the avenue, he could see more people falling over and laying still. Some were shuddering. The circles of bodies began to stir again, some of them getting up onto their knees, disorientated. A few went down for a second time.

Farrin didn't know what to do. He needed to get Simon some help. Simon was dying.

Without thinking, he ran out onto the rapidly emptying sidewalk and headed towards the police lines, waving his arms, shouting for help.

#  74

Khan sighed as another aide entered the room. It was yet another interruption. This one looked briefly at him, and then whispered into Cohen's ear.

Khan saw Cohen's expression change. The old man looked at him, briefly, before looking back down at the table. It was obvious that he was receiving some distressing news.

When the aide left the room, Cohen stood and walked around to Khan's side of the desk. He placed a thin, slender hand on Khan's shoulder and then told him what he had just learned.

Khan registered some of it:

His son was dead.

A c-pod would take him down to the morgue.

Forget everything else; take as long as he needed.

Attend to the family.

It was a poorly lit morgue, but Khan could see the body belonged to his son, that the skin was paler than normal and that it was cold to touch. Still, he could not quite believe his son was gone.

'Take your time, Khoffi. I'll be down the corridor.'

Khan looked up. He couldn't recall the name of the man who had shown him into the room. The man wore a white coat. A doctor? A coroner?

'Thank you,' Khan replied, hardly making a sound. 'How...?'

'How? Blunt force trauma to the head. Fractured skull, broken neck. He wouldn't have felt anything. It would have been quick. Almost instant.'

Khan remembered his name. It was Mike Patterson. Dr Patterson.

'How?' Khan asked again.

'How? As in the circumstances?'

'Yes, Mike. How?'

'I don't know all the details, but he was brought in from Second Avenue. It looks as though he was hit by a rubber bullet. We'll know for sure after the autopsy.'

'A rubber bullet?'

'Yes,' he said, pointing down at his own head with a finger. 'From high up. It's the same for a couple of the other deceased.'

Khan could not understand that, nor could he understand why his son would be involved in a riot, but now it was dawning on him that his son was dead; that the naked body on the table was not going to wake up again. It was just a body. Lifeless.

Khan was close to shedding his first tear; his chest was beginning to shudder and his jaw was trembling. Patterson offered him a tissue. Khan waved it away. Instead, he asked him another question.

'Who?'

'It'd be a guess, Khoffi.'

'Then guess!'

'It wouldn't be the police. They bounce their rubber shot off the ground first. They go for the knees. Head shots are off limits.'

'So it was private.'

'That's my guess.'

'Petroff's goons.'

'Probably. Look why don't you take a few minutes here, then come and see me before you leave? We can talk it through some more.'

Khan stifled a cry and turned back to the table.

'I'm sorry for your loss, Khoffi.'

'Thank you, Mike. I'll be along in a minute.'

Patterson left Khan leaning over the table, looking down into his son's face, thinking of how to break the news to Ara.

At least their daughter, Jasmine, would be asleep.

They could break the news to her in the morning: together.

# 75

In the hours before daybreak, they discussed the most likely candidates for recruitment. The staff kept the tea coming. They snacked on the odd sandwich. Reggie stuck to his brandy.

Thomas thought of Goosen, but much depended on whether the police was axing him, or not. From what Thomas had told him, he seemed a promising candidate. Paul volunteered an old school chum of his who worked in cargo out at the spaceport: he was a Trevon, born and bred.

Meanwhile, Balsom arranged a distribution from Thomas' trust fund to a think-tank in the Asian Bloc, to free up some cash for the rebels to use. The think-tank was bogus of course; it was one of Balsom's many inventions. Job done, Thomas explained how it worked and why they were using his trust funds:

'... and once the money leaves the trust, they can't hold father responsible for how it's used. It'll be down to me.'

'So how tight is it?' Scat asked. 'Once it gets there, how will they know where to move it onto—without leaving a trail?'

'That's the easy bit,' Thomas replied. 'Balsom uses steganography to hide the transfer instructions inside a personal email or an image. When they get it at the other end, they use their half of the programme to work out where the markers are. When they've worked out what the key is, they then look at another message and pick out the bits they need.'

'So it's not encrypted, like our emails or graf comms?'

'No. Encryption attracts attention. This never does. And each half of the steg programme is unique and synchronised, like a one time pad. We've used it for decades—it never fails.'

Scat puckered his brow. He was still unconvinced.

'Chill, Scat. It works. UBS has been using Balsom to set up their off-world tax shelters for years—and he always uses steg. And the Chinese Communist Party big-wigs used it for decades before they backed themselves into the GCE.'

So, it was fool proof and approved by none other than paranoid Swiss bankers and Chinese politicians. Well, who was he to argue against that? And with the money sorted out, it was now just a matter of organising enough local supplies to tide them over.

To that end, Hammond and Paul gathered up backpacks, first aid packs, torches, fuel cells, pocket warmers, lightweight shelters, stoves, three hunting rifles and an antique shotgun that had belonged to one of the recently deceased hare shoot guests.

As they did that, Scat, Balsom, Reggie and Thomas discussed what propaganda they could squeeze out of a successful Nettles rescue. They then clarified the guiding principles of the rebel campaign—at least as best as they were able with Reggie drifting off into an old man's doze. With Reggie's head bobbing up and down, they also agreed Thomas' proposed communication plan between the political and military wings—through the coordinating Council—whoever they might be. They left it to Balsom to explain it to Reggie, come morning.

By five am, Scat was spent.

It had been a frantic night with everyone, bar Reggie, speaking about different things at the same time. When Paul was finished loading the equipment into a spare soft-track, Scat called a halt to further talk. It was time.

'Let's get this show on the road, eh?' he said, standing alongside the front door of the soft-track, his hand on the door handle.

Balsom nudged Reggie and woke him up. The Irwin brothers went upstairs to say their goodbyes to their mother.

Scat shook Balsom's hand, waved a goodbye to Reggie then climbed up into the soft-track's rear compartment where he sat waiting for the boys. He felt somewhat relieved: he liked to keep his life simple, and he had just dumped the downright boring, consensus-driven, slow-moving and complicated parts of the insurgency off onto Reggie, Hammond and Balsom's laps—hoping it would still make sense to them, come sun up.

That left him with a list of just three things to do:

Find Goosen.

Free Nettles.

Create havoc.

# 76

A plan was gelling, but slowly. As they drove down the valley, Scat told Thomas to stop off at the greenhouse and pick up a half-dozen arctic hares. He didn't elaborate on why. While they were loading them up, Scat used the management office printer to run off a couple of labels that read "Bio-experiment: no scanning" and attached them to the cage.

Once the live cargo was loaded, Scat quizzed the Irwin brothers on what they knew about the Earth press corps, where they were staying, which channels they represented.

Paul knew more: his friends in Go Down had been chatting online about the news personalities who had turned up on Trevon. The secessionist struggle was a big story back on Earth, and almost all the reporters were the well-known, high-profile types. Their fans were monitoring their activities on a celebrity-tracker site. Paul clicked on the site and passed his graf to Scat.

As he scrolled through the site, Scat moved on to Goosen. How sure was Thomas that Goosen would help out?

Thomas was fairly sure, not certain: it depended on whether Goosen was getting the axe. But if he got the axe then he would no longer have access to Police HQ.

Perhaps it would be better for them if the police kept Goosen on but that he remained resentful of the interference.

Where to free Nettles? From Police HQ? No, they would still need to get him out of Go Down.

On his way to the spaceport? No. Not if Earth used their new transports. There would be no way they could get at them. They could only stop a convoy if it travelled on the ground, not above it.

Now his team had narrowed down the options to almost none, Scat laid out his plan.

They would hijack the V4

'You're kidding?' Thomas said.

'No,' Scat replied. 'Think about it: Nettles and ftl capabilities. It'll have in-system cargo shuttles and a lot of pissed-off ex-security types, all of them ripe for recruitment. We could even use the media to our advantage. Get some air time.'

That made Paul smile, the idea of being on TV appealed to him. Thomas looked quite worried; he was thinking how difficult it would be.

'But to hijack the LM we'll need to get on board. How do you propose to do that?' he asked.

Scat ignored the question:

'Paul, could you get us inside the spaceport? Would your friend be willing?'

'Probably. We've talked about independence before. He's a supporter.'

'OK. When we get into Go Down call him up and go meet him. Don't warn him off about us.'

'And not use my graf, Scat,' Paul replied, referring to the comms plan.

'Exactly, Paul, you're catching on,' Scat said, giving him a wink. 'What we need to do is get onto the loading team. I could trade places with him during his shift and then get lost on board somewhere. He might also give us a clue as to how we could also get Thomas on board.'

They went around in circles for a while, and then decided to let things fall as they may, once Paul had met with Mark Stafford.

But first, they needed to get inside Go Down, and meet with Goosen.

#  77

Getting back into Go Down wasn't as nerve racking for Thomas as getting out the evening before. Scat had lain down with the shotguns and rifles in the fuel cell compartment. As before, he was covered in survival suits to reflect a mess back to the scanners. On top of that, they had placed all the arctic hare cages. Behind them was the equipment, all of it innocent enough, especially for an Outland family.

They need not have bothered. Goosen was back on duty. His uniform looked crumpled, a shirt panel was hanging out below his half-jacket, and, his head being hatless, his sandy hair was whipping about across his face. He was oblivious to it.

'Damn it, Thomas. I got six hours off then they dragged me back out here again. Go Down's bubbling over and they needed the extra hands.'

'What's this I hear about the police being replaced?'

'That too. That's why I'm here and not downtown, peppering the locals with teargas. The boss knows I'm not too enthusiastic.'

'Do you fancy meeting for a coffee when you get off?' Thomas asked.

'Yes, sure—I'll need one. I'm off at seven. Pick me up on the corner of Second and 11th at eight.'

'OK.'

Goosen peered inside the soft-track. He saw Paul and the arctic hares.

'Oh, how cute are they?' he said, then read the label and waved a hand. 'You can bugger off now, Thomas. It's cold. I need to go warm up.'

Goosen met them on the corner of Second and 11th, standing on a pavement strewn with empty tear gas canisters, rubber slugs and candy wrappers. As Thomas drove them down an empty Second Avenue to Mary's, Goosen slid down his seat to give himself some headroom. Along the way, they passed several makeshift barriers made of fence railings and melted tires.

Goosen saw the look on Thomas' face.

'It's getting messy, Thomas. Very messy,' Goosen explained. 'They don't have an answer for it,' he added, referring to the constant nighttime skirmishes with the Trevon permanent residents who were agitating for independence. 'No one's talking. They're just busting each other's skulls.'

'Well, it's going to get messier, Birdie,' Thomas said. 'We have a guest on board. Don't freak out on me, and promise to listen.'

'OK, sure,' Goosen replied, looking back over his shoulder, pushing his sandy hair back over his bald spot. There was only Paul. He could hear the arctic hares, but other than that ...

'Scat, you can come on out,' Thomas said, half shouting.

Goosen's face changed as he realised he was doing more than just meet a friend to bitch about a bad deal.

'Hell, Thomas. You could have warned me!'

'Sorry, Birdie. It had to be a surprise.'

'But still... Good morning, Mr Scat.'

Scat scrambled up through the floor into the space that Paul had made for him.

'It's Scat—plain Scat. Sorry for dropping in on you like this, but it's a difficult time. Can we talk?'

'Sure,' Goosen said.

'We hear there's been some changes at work. What can you tell us?' Scat asked, getting right to the point.

Before he replied, Goosen took a quick look out of the window, hoping no one could see inside.

'There have been plenty. What do you know already?'

Thomas told him.

'Well, you've got the gist of it, at least. Yes, ISRA's decided our security isn't up to scratch, and yes, we're being replaced. As we sign on over the next two days, they'll tell us who's staying and who's leaving. There's no appeal. Any of us with a Trevon connection, or has ever expressed Trevon sympathies, are out.'

'And you?' Thomas asked.

Goosen looked at him, as if to suggest he had to be a little quicker on the uptake, and then turned back to Scat.

'It's the same over at Lynthax, Raddox and all the other operations. Rumour has it, us police are giving way to the ORF. They arrive later this morning.'

'So what happens to ones they've fired?'

Goosen shook his head at the stupidity of it all.

'They go back to Earth,' he said. 'The only ones who can stay are the the Trevon PRs.'

'So they'll be shipped back on an LM?' Thomas asked.

'I guess so. Look Thomas, I'm just a grunt. I'm not on their planning committee. What I know is what my friends in admin tell me. We're pissed off by it, but all we can do is go to court.'

Thomas looked over his shoulder at Scat. Scat curled his mouth downwards, suggesting there was no harm in trying.

'How about a more direct challenge, Birdie?' Thomas asked. 'Something a little more effective? The courts will take a while, and they're in Lynthax's pocket in any event.'

'Meaning?'

'Direct action. Leave the legal shit to the politicians. Your mates, the non permanent residents at any rate, will be back on Earth before a lawyer agrees to represent you.'

'That's what I said,' Goosen agreed, 'but they insisted on it. Something to do with principals.'

'Then on a principal, would you fight to redress the wrong?'

'Bloody right, I would. What are you thinking?'

'We need to know when they are moving Nettles.' Scat said.

Goosen looked as though he could smell a fart.

'Are you kidding me?'

'No. It'd be useful to know.'

Goosen took a hard look at Thomas, to see how serious he was. He then looked at Scat.

'Agh, I suppose I might hear something, but it won't come with a "fact" stamp on it.'

Scat looked back at him, head tilted slightly.

'OK, I get it. Unusual times and all that.' Goosen looked at his watch. 'Anything else?'

'Yes. We need more hands.'

'To do what?'

'Bust him free. Then hit back.'

The penny dropped. As he was not going to be a cop for very much longer, all that mattered now was the manner of his leaving. He looked around the cabin of the soft-track. All eyes were on him.

'Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's just the sort of thing that'll screw up my land pension.'

Land parcels had been one of the big lures, and one of the ways in which Lynthax had attracted reasonable candidates for Trevon's police force. It had been a cheap lure, too, coming as it did for free alongside the corporate mandate, even though the land was unprotected and almost unusable while the climate remained as it was. But the deliberate policy of restricting the availability of land within Go Down immediately increased its value. And Goosen would lose his share if he were discharged for dishonourable conduct.

'The Irwin family will guarantee land of an equivalent size, Birdie,' Thomas said, confidently. 'You've my word on it. And it won't be on the Gap Plain. It'll be in the valley.'

'Then what's to discuss. Where do I sign?'

Scat was surprised at how quickly and calmly Goosen made his decision.

'OK, then. Welcome on board. When are you next due on duty?' Scat asked

'Tomorrow evening.'

'And no one expects you to be anywhere between now and then?'

'That would be right. Except I do have my amateur dramatic class.'

No one said anything.

'What?' Goosen asked.

Again, nothing. Scat and Thomas exchanged glances. Scat couldn't think of many characters that were six feet four inches tall, had fists like hams and dressed like a bag lady. Unless it was a Viking.

'So I do theatre. What of it?'

'Nothing, Birdie,' Scat said. 'Can you miss it?'

'Well I'm sure I can. But we're working a classic Brian Rix farce, and believe me, they aren't easy to get right. It's in the timing.'

'But you could still miss it, right?' Thomas asked.

'Yes—I could ... But I'll lose my place if I do, and they're casting next week.'

Scat took a deep breath, trying to do no more than grin. But it was hard.

'I don't see you as the farce kind of guy, Birdie,' he said. 'You're more the Shakespeare type. Why don't you give it a miss? Something better's bound to come along.'

'So, you're not into the arts, then Scat. Pity. I could have gotten you tickets—if you weren't such a celebrity yourself. What do you need my time for?'

'A kidnapping.'

'Any acting involved?'

'Some.'

'Got a script?'

'Later, Birdie,' Scat replied. 'Can you miss it?'

Goosen gave it a moment's thought. He looked at Scat who was peering over the rear bench seat, kneeling in the fuel cell compartment next to a cage full of arctic hares labelled "Bio-experiment: no scanning", thinking that maybe he didn't have to give up farce altogether.

'Sure.'

Thomas shook his hand as the soft-track made its way up the ramp and into Mary's vehicle park.

'Looks like we're here. Ready for that coffee, Birdie?' Thomas asked.

But Goosen had one last question:

'Do you think they'll serve me whisky at this hour, Thomas?'

#  78

As Thomas, Scat and Goosen went inside to grab a coffee, Paul hailed a soft-track taxi and drove over to the airport to meet with Mark Stafford.

They met during Mark's tea break, standing outside the cargo hangar in the still, freezing air. Mark pulled on a cigarette while pushing his free hand deep inside his light blue coveralls. Paul stamped his feet.

The LM-V4 had not yet arrived.

'So! You've woken up to the ways of the New Worlds, eh, Paul,' Stafford said, his breath leaving wispy clouds in the air. 'Dreams can't be had by rewriting agreements. The written word means nothing when there's so much land at stake. Not these days.'

'I hear you, Mark,' Paul replied, being careful to show respect. Mark Stafford was a couple of years older than Paul was, and still had that senior schoolboy air about him, despite Paul being so much better educated. 'We were a little naive. Nettles had us thinking we could talk them into making concessions. My old man bought into it. But what's to be done? We're out numbered, out gunned and out lawyered. They walked all over us during the negotiations. Apparently, they were all neural netted. Our teams didn't stand a chance.'

'Shoot! Neural netted, eh? How cool is that?'

'Well it was overpowering. They slaughtered us. There was no give and take—not how they teach it in international affairs, anyways.'

'So what's your old man thinking now, then?' Stafford asked. 'And Spelling?'

'I can't say because I don't know,' Paul replied, genuinely not knowing what either of them actually thought. 'But I'm not leaving this to the old men anymore.'

'What're you thinking?'

Paul took a quick look back over his shoulder and lowered his voice, as if he were about to reveal a secret.

'A police friend of mine is being dismissed. About 300 are, in total. Those without Trevon PR are being shipped home.'

'I know. It's a bitch, eh?'

'That means there will be a fair few pissed off Trevons thrown onto the street—along with their "exceptional" skills,' Paul added, implying they would find it hard to find alternative employment.

Stafford forgot he was on a ten-minute break. He rubbed the scar over his left eye, the one he earned during a bar room brawl at The Drunken Parrot a few weeks ago. He remembered how he had earned it: sticking up for Trevon's vote for independence.

'Are you thinking what I think you're thinking, Paul?'

'It depends, Mark. What are you thinking?'

'I'm thinking this could get pretty exciting. Did you see that clash down on Second Avenue last night? And the week before last? The police were using gas guns, stuns, peppered water, the whole works.'

'No, I'm not thinking street fighting, Mark. Think a little broader.'

'Work stoppages?'

Paul shook his head.

'Think bigger,' he said.

'What's bigger, Paul? As you say, we're out-gunned and out-lawyered. Lynthax controls just about everything, and they've Earth's resources to back them up. We can't just take Trevon off them.'

'Can you get me access to the V4's manifest when it arrives?'

'I could,' Stafford said. It sounded conditional.

'And could you get hold of its passenger manifest when it's due to leave for Earth?'

'I could.' Again, Stafford sounded as though he was waiting for a good reason to do so.

'Would you?' Paul asked.

'I will. But you've got to tell me why.'

'I can't.'

'Then no, I can't.'

'Come on Mark, don't piss about. You can, so you should. You can guess what it's for, but I can't tell you.'

Stafford shook his head.

'If it's to have a go back at Earth, then I have as much right to hit back as you or anyone else. I'm Trevon born; I ain't ever going to see Earth and I don't mind if I never do.'

'OK, OK, just checking on your current level of agitation,' Paul cut in, smiling.

'Yeah, well. I might be a worker drone, but I've the same rights you have—high born or not. So pony up, Paul. What's it for?'

Paul looked at the concrete and sucked on his lower lip.

'I can tell you if you promise to meet with a friend of mine and then never admit to having met him. I'll tell you at the meeting. It's the best I can do without getting into serious trouble myself.'

'OK, fair one. When? Where?' Stafford asked.

'I'll call you. And not a word to anyone. OK.'

'I'm insulted,' Stafford replied, smiling and pretending to clip Paul around the ear. 'Get out of here. Come back when you finally grow a pair!'

#  79

Scat sat with Thomas and Goosen in a booth away from the door. It wasn't so unusual for utility workers to walk into the diner wearing their survival suits; not if they were on their way out onto the Gap Plain, or had just re-entered the city, so Scat was wearing his with the hood pushed up at the back and the faceplate hanging down his front. He also placed his goggles low on his forehead to help pinch his eyebrows and face. Unless someone had a photo in his or her hand, he or she wouldn't recognise him.

As Paul worked on Stafford out at the airport, Scat bounced some ideas around with Thomas and from Goosen he learned a little more about the mood of the Trevon police force.

'To answer your earlier question, Thomas, I'll be dismissed, for sure,' Goosen said as he sipped his coffee. It was the same for several hundred other officers, but not all of the dismissals would take effect until the replacements had found their feet. That meant that the LM-V4 wouldn't be taking them all back to Earth on its next run, though it might take Nettles. Maybe. It became a question mark. 'So we've got a week or two, even if the replacements arrived later today,' he added.

In the meantime, the soon to be ex-police were to serve out their notice periods, as normal. If they didn't, they risked losing benefits. There was even the suggestion that the city would replace their land pension with a small cash bonus of sorts—but to qualify they had to stay out of trouble, and there was nothing in writing. Moreover, while they were working off their notice, their access to Police HQ, the policenet, records, armoury, and sensitive communications equipment was restricted.

'But nearly everyone's working to rule,' Goosen said. 'Even the brass.'

He then described how that morning's debriefing had descended into chaos, with the youngest officers leading the way. Not even the cash bonus carrot could calm them down: it was irrelevant to them—they had no significant land pension to convert. Nor did they have wives or children to support. They had nothing to lose in showing their bosses just how terribly angry they were. It suggested they would be ripe for rebel recruitment over the next few weeks.

'OK, then,' Scat told him. 'First thing you can do is go get yourself a pay-as-you-go graf. We all collect messages on the hour, once an hour. When you're on the network, keep moving. When you're finished, change direction.'

'OK: So I stay off the network and don't stick around to be picked up when I'm on it,' Goosen replied. 'The malls are open. I'll be back in half an hour.'

He rose, threw a few dollars on the table, and walked out onto the vehicle park. Scat watched him pull knicker-elastic from out of his butt, hail a t-pod, then disappear.

As Scat looked out of the window, Thomas sipped at his coffee mulling over Goosen's land pension. With Earth being so crowded and over developed, the New Worlds were the only places with unclaimed land to spare. Land here was plentiful, it was under developed, and it would be attractive to everyone seeking PR – it just needed prising from Lynthax's grasp. If it was gone, or beaten down, Trevon House would be free to distribute land to everyone who had helped in the insurgency. It would be a mighty big giveaway, but it would help in Trevon's development.

In making his promise to replace it, he had stumbled onto the one sure thing they could use to help sway the less committed.

He could not wait to speak to Nettles.

If they could get to him.

#  80

With Paul back from the airport, they now had to make a decision that they could live with for up to a week.

That decision concerned Chan, the GCE reporter, and Li, the bugcam operator who worked with him: Scat's preferred prey.

'If we kidnap them now and Nettles isn't moved for a couple of days, where'd we keep them?' Thomas asked.

'In his hotel room. It's paid for,' Paul suggested.

Scat wasn't so sure.

'Messy. There are the cleaners. Someone might pop along. They'd be missed if they didn't get out and about. It'd attract attention. Besides, two single beds and a single bathroom for the five of us?'

'We might not get a chance later on,' Paul noted.

'I know. But I don't want to be stuck in one place looking after them. And we can't just drive around town with them in the back of the soft-track.'

'Perhaps we should just line them up with a story, and bring them to us when we need them,' Thomas suggested.

It was all they could do. Scat looked at Thomas.

'Go talk to him.'

Chan was difficult to rouse, even though it was mid-morning: he had been running up and down Second Avenue until the early hours of the morning, sometimes chasing a story, at others running for his life.

From a phone in the hotel lobby, Thomas promised him an inside scoop on the heavy-handed police force dismissals and the real possibility of a violent backlash, but the offer was only good for the next 15 minutes. Despite the lack of sleep, Chan's curiosity got the better of him. He agreed to meet.

Thomas grabbed a sofa and a chair in the corner of the lobby and ordered two coffees. Chan arrived looking a little crumpled; he was still wearing the clothes he had worn the night before. His body language suggested he was genuinely tired, although Thomas could not see it in his face: it was clear-eyed and unlined—just as it was in his celebrity website photo.

Thomas told him of the chaos at the police debrief that morning. He played up the social consequences of the dismissals, the resentment of losing hard-earned pensions, and the possibility that some police officers may go rogue. He laid it on thickly, sounding every bit the concerned citizen he was meant to be.

Chan nodded throughout. As he waited patiently for the young man to get to the point, he took questions on his knowledge of the Trevon police contracts, their land pension and of the constitution regarding land rights. The lad seemed to think an understanding of these issues was vital to the deeper story, so he played along. He fiddled with his e-reader and called up the Trevon housenet. With the persistent young Trevon looking over his shoulder, he scrolled down to the schedule containing the land provisions.

Finally, they got the part Chan had left his bed for: there was to be a meeting of the more seriously pissed police officers across town in a short while. It may just decide how they will respond to the Outer Rim Force's arrival.

This was more like it: if the police challenged the ORF then that may be more explosive than the street protests he had covered last night.

'They want a record of the meeting—to play on Earth, to explain their position,' Thomas said, adding, 'Can you bring a camera?'

Chan agreed. If the young lad hadn't brought it up, he was going to suggest it anyway. Using his graf, he called up his bugcam operator and told him to be ready for an outing.

As Chan chatted to his colleague, Thomas returned to his coffee. So, for communications to his closest colleague, the Chinaman relied on standard comms and he used an e-reader to conduct basic research. As far as he could tell, the beggar wasn't neural netted.

Without warning, Thomas declared the meeting over. He wanted to keep Chan on his toes; he needed him to want a little more.

'I'll call you when the meeting's been set. Can you be on 30 minutes notice?' he asked

'Of course,' Chan said. All he needed to do was shower. His bugcam operator, Li, was two minutes away. 'But I insist on exclusivity.'

Thomas nodded his understanding.

'I'll talk to them.'

Finally, Thomas issued a warning: under no circumstances should any word of the meeting to get out. If it did, he wouldn't come back for him—and Chan wouldn't get a scoop.

Chan watched the young lad leave, chuckling at the very idea that he would ever blab about an exclusive—before it was in the can.

#  81

It was time for a recap of the morning's achievements, or lack of them, but Mary's was filling up, and it was difficult to hold a conversation. And Scat was getting warm in his survival suit.

'We need somewhere to rest up,' he said. A booth at Mary's or a fuel cell compartment in a soft-track didn't qualify.

Thomas suggested they look around the Nettle's warehouse along the wall on First Avenue, but Goosen was convinced the city would be monitoring it electronically, having already taped it off ahead of seizure. Instead, Goosen offered up his apartment. It was a police apartment, not a police condominium. Most of the tenants were out-of-system contract workers on regular assignments to the mines around Trevon. For the most part, the building was half-empty.

'Call it hiding in plain sight, Scat. I'll lose it soon, anyway, so it doesn't matter. If I'm to be involved in this Nettles rescue, or escape—whatever you're calling it—I'll need to disappear myself.'

30 minutes later, the Trevon rebels made themselves comfortable inside a police-funded apartment; at least as comfortable as they could make themselves.

Scat sat on the sofa and glanced around.

Gee, he thought, I travel light enough, but Goosen had taken simplicity to another level.

The place was empty except for some worn-out furniture and a couple of photos on the wall. One was of Goosen, in uniform and holding a medal, shaking hands with some bigwig. Alongside it was another of Goosen beaming an ear-to-ear smile, his arm around a shuttle pilot who appeared to be scowling slightly. In the background was a shuttle, grounded on what must have been the Gap Plain. The tops of the sideboards were bare. A single book lay on its side in a small bookcase. On the coffee table lay a loosely bound, heavily earmarked script.

The room said it all: Goosen wasn't a magpie, nor did he have any sophisticated tastes. He was a bachelor in his mid- to late-thirties, who wouldn't discover style until a woman found it for him.

As Goosen poured the tea into different sized and mismatched mugs, Thomas got back to business. He explained what had happened at his meeting with Chan.

Paul then explained how keen Stafford was to help out.

They added that to the recent news that the city wasn't dismissing its unreliable Trevon cops all in one go, but over a week or so. Perhaps. It was a hazy picture.

In addition, they were no closer to knowing when Nettles was shipping to Earth.

Thomas revisited the initial idea of busting Nettles out of jail, then out of Go Down, rather than possibly miss his transfer to the spaceport.

Scat was against the idea, the situation was very fluid, and their intelligence was threadbare. He preferred to stick to his idea of hijacking the V4: all the threads passed through it.

Paul agreed; a hijacking was more exciting and it would get more attention.

'Besides, think of what you can do with an LM-V!' he said.

Goosen was of a similar mind.

'It's a bigger coup, Thomas. It will get lots of coverage. And, thinking from a police officer's perspective, it'd inconvenience Go Down citizens a whole lot less. Think of what'll happen if we bust him out of jail: the whole city'll be placed under lockdown.'

'The locals would be aggravated, just like we need to them to be,' Thomas replied, getting a tad animated. 'And the cops doing the aggravating would be out-of-system cops. Where's the harm in that?'

Goosen waved him down.

'I hear what you're saying,' he said, 'I do, but it would crimp our style. We need to move around. If Go Down's locked down, it'll make it harder to organise the locals.'

'So Go Down's off-limits?' Thomas asked, disbelievingly.

'It may be best,' Scat replied. 'At least until we're stronger and better organised. Go Down is the prize. Whoever controls Go Down controls Trevon. Let's not kill our chances early on.

'We should bring on the rest of Trevon first. Close Go Down off from the rest of the planet. Shut down the mines. Eventually close down the spaceport. To do that we'll need manpower. That means we need to recruit. That means we gotta stay popular, and build on that popularity, not shoot ourselves in the foot on day one.

'We'll get Nettles when we hijack the V4. If we don't get Nettles, then so be it: he can be a martyr for the cause. The V4 will be a bigger coup. Nettles is just a candle for the cake.'

It was the first time Scat had laid it out like that, although he had been pushing the possibility of not rescuing Nettles around his head all morning.

Nettles was one man.

And he was a politician.

While he lived, he would represent one faction or another, but probably not everyone. If he were dead, he would be a martyr, and martyrs were not threatening to anyone but the enemy. People of all persuasions would rally around a dead man. They rarely rallied around a living politician.

Thomas looked back at him, appalled. The rest listened as he pleaded Nettle's case.

He had known Nettles since before working on Prebos. Nettles was tight with his father. He was a genuine and earnest secessionist. He should be rescued. He should head up the secessionist movement.

Scat shook his head.

'But if we take him with us and he gets involved in the rebel side of things he'll be heading up the activist arm, Thomas, not the political arm,' he replied. 'He can't lead the political effort while he's being hunted. He'll be associated with us, and all that we'll represent: violence, intimidation—all the rough stuff. He'll lose his clean image.'

'Not if we can free him then leave him somewhere,' Thomas suggested, 'somewhere where he can get some sort of refugee status; out of system, maybe, or on a neutral planet. Perhaps even a GCE world. He can lead from exile.'

'Discuss it with your old man, Thomas,' Scat replied. 'We're still aiming to free him, but we'll do it on the V4. What we do with him afterwards is a political consideration.'

'That's a relief, Scat. You'd seriously consider leaving Nettles to the wolves, if you thought it'd serve the cause?'

Scat gave him the grim news without any spin.

'Get used to it, Thomas. He's a person, and we'll lose a lot of them before this thing is finished. Everyone is replaceable. No one is more important than the cause.'

Paul tried to change the direction of the conversation:

'Stafford's up for more than a letter writing campaign. He'll give us what we need so long as we bring him on board. My guess is that there are others like him, people who just need some guidance. We need to get this show on the road.'

Goosen nodded in agreement.

But they would only get their guidance once Nettles was on the move. Until then, Joe Trevon would have to wait.

On the second morning of their vigil, Scat sat next to an open window, lasing through the barrels of a shotgun they had brought with them from the Irwin bunker. It was a Winchester Model 21 Grand American, a 12-gauge side-by-side shotgun. He was shortening its length to that of a coach gun so it would fit into his backpack without the butt sticking through the flap. He had already melted down the pellets of several dozen shells and cast 2-inch long slugs, each of them capable of knocking doors off their hinges.

As he had cut through a couple of centuries of history, they went around in circles, speculating as to what was happening elsewhere in the Outer-Rim. They also talked about the sort of damage they could do to Lynthax that wouldn't directly affect Earth.

During a pause in the conversation, Paul held up a doodle he had drawn on a piece of paper.

'What do you think of this?' he asked.

Goosen looked up from his marmite on toast.

'What is it?'

'It's the Outer-Rim.'

'So it's a circle. What's that chip at the top?'

'That's us, Trevon, breaking away. See the T?'

Goosen leaned across the table for a closer look. He took it between a massive thumb and forefinger to hold it steady. It was a 10-centimetre diameter grey or silver circle, more of a band, with a V-shaped chunk breaking away from the outer edge at the 12 o'clock position. Inside the chunk was a small capital T.

'Very symbolic,' he said just as his graf pinged. He looked down and let the doodle drop to the table. 'Bingo!' he said, before reading its contents out aloud.

They were moving Nettles to the spaceport later that evening.

#  82

Ara opened the front door to a familiar face. It was one of Khoffi's aides. She stepped aside and showed him into the living room.

'Khoffi, Stephen is here. Go on in, Stephen. I'll make some tea.'

Khan got up from the sofa and tried to smile. He assumed Stephen was popping by to offer his condolences; he had not visited the office yesterday and so they hadn't seen each other since Farrin's death. He shook Stephen's hand.

'Good morning Stephen. Thanks for coming by.'

Stephen looked uncomfortable. He fidgeted and hesitated before speaking.

'Morning, Khoffi. I'm sorry about Farrin,' he said, looking back over his shoulder to see whether Ara was within earshot. She wasn't. 'How's Ara taking it?'

Khan shrugged.

'Not well. She isn't saying much. Jasmine's holding up, but we're still keeping her out of school for the rest of the week.'

Stephen appeared to be losing most of his skin colour. He was breathing deeply. Khan frowned.

'What's up? Are you unwell?' he asked.

Stephen grimaced and looked at the floor. Whatever it was, he didn't want to talk about it.

'Come on. Tell me. You look ill.'

'You're being posted back to Earth.'

Khan stared at him, speechless. Stephen fidgeted some more. Khan finally found his voice.

'What?'

'Tonight.'

'What?'

'They're Cohen's orders. I was to give you this.' He handed over an envelope.

Khan held it in his hands.

'What is it?' he asked. He didn't want to open it.

'It's your notice of dismissal and travel instructions.'

Khan slumped back onto the sofa holding the envelope on his knee. He looked down at it for a little while longer, and then slid his thumbnail under the flap, ripping it open.

'He's got to be kidding.'

'I don't think so, Khoffi.'

'... "No longer have the confidence of all the interested parties?"... "Unable to make unbiased judgements?"...' Khan looked up. 'What's he talking about?'

'He's of the opinion that you can't possibly act as a neutral party. He cited your complaint of unlawful death against Lynthax.'

'You mean I shouldn't ask for justice for my son? What the hell is he thinking?'

'I'm not sure that's what he's thinking,' Stephen said. 'I think he understands you need to. It's just that now the press has gotten wind of it, you can't possibly serve as our rep.'

Kahn ran his hands through his thick black curly hair, took a deep breath through his nose and went back to reading the letter.

'Tonight!'

'Yes, Khoffi. On the V4. ISRA will pay to ship Farrin's coffin on the same flight.'

'But tonight?'

Stephen did not say anything. He had nothing to add.

Khan looked around the room. It was a fully furnished apartment so they need only pack their clothes, some records and a few trinkets, but even so...

'I'll go talk to him,' Kahn said, getting back up. 'He's a reasonable man.'

Stephen gave him a very slow shake of the head.

'It'll be of no use, Khoffi. Lynthax has made it abundantly clear: you have accused them of murder, and the press is chewing at Petroff's arse. They want you out of the system. If Cohen's to keep their co-operation here and elsewhere over the next few months, he needs to clear the deck of distractions.'

'Farrin is a distraction?'

Stephen looked mortified.

'My God, Khoffi, I'm sorry. That's not what I meant. You know what I mean.'

Khan nodded. His eyes welled up.

'But if we leave now, Farrin'll never get justice. The farkers will bury it.'

It was the first time Stephen had ever heard Khan swear.

#  83

Stafford confirmed they were expecting the V4 to drop into Trevon space around seven pm that evening. He passed Paul a physical copy of the incoming and outgoing passenger manifests. They expected its shuttles to arrive around eight pm, local time.

When Paul got back to the apartment, Scat speed-read its contents.

The incoming manifest didn't reveal terribly much, except for the names of the replacement security personnel, something that Scat might be able to use down the road, if and when he had access to Earth's web. For now, they were just names, with no reference to any of them on the Trevonnet. However, one thing did stand out: they all appeared to be single; their next of kin were parents, brothers, or sisters.

The outgoing passenger list included Nettles, Marvin, a few other political undesirables and some of Goosen's colleagues, many of whom would have settled on Trevon, given the opportunity. It didn't list the shuttle Nettles would be using.

Goosen and Scat then went back over it in slower time to see who was more likely to help them once Scat made his move to free Nettles and hijack the vessel. It was then that they saw the Earth Representative's name.

'Odd he should be rotating back to Earth in the middle of a crisis, Scat,' Goosen said.

'They're clearing out, Birdie. Maybe they've found someone who's more acceptable to Joe Trevon.'

Goosen scratched his nose.

'But this one was,' he said. 'As I say, it's odd. It's as though they're trying real hard to screw up.'

'Unless he's going back to brief ISRA on what's going on.'

'Doesn't look like. His family's listed as well.'

Scat flicked his hand across the list.

'Move on Birdie. What else do we have?'

Goosen pulled his finger further down the page. Most of the rest of them were ex-cops. He recognised some of them as being sympathetic to independence, but agreed with Scat: there was no point in approaching them before Scat was on board the V4, just in case someone ratted out on him in return for a reprieve.

Scat looked at his watch. They had eight hours.

It was time to grab Chan.

# 84

Goosen followed the news crew from a distance, and watched them turn into the Blanco-Plan mall where the security cameras were on the blink. He followed them in, down the entrance ramp, and passed the news crew's omni-wheeled cruiser as it came to a halt at their meeting place—a quiet area of the park, away from the elevators. In his rear view mirror, he could see Scat emerging from the shadows. He was already walking towards the Chinamen, pushing a hand deep inside a shopping bag.

This was the point of no return, then, Goosen thought to himself. This is where I become an ex-cop.

Goosen stopped his hire-pod, clambered out and jogged over to join them. Scat was already threatening Chan with the wrong end of his shotgun, his threats echoing off the vehicle park walls.

By way of hello, Goosen nodded at Chan, climbed into the news crew's cruiser and switched it to manual drive. He then turned off the tracker, and disabled the on-board comms before pushing the bugcam operator into the back seat, telling Chan to sit next to him. As Scat settled down in the rear compartment, Goosen then guided the cruiser towards the exit where they picked up Thomas, who slipped into the front seat next to him. He then gunned the accelerator and drove out onto the street.

Chan sat in silence, watching Goosen struggle with the cruiser's manual controls. His heart beat rapidly, but he forced himself to remain calm. Right now, he wasn't sure whether this was the real thing or was just an overly dramatic security precaution. Either way, he needed to regain control.

He dug deep.

In perfect English, and as calmly as he were able, he reminded Thomas he was an employee of the GCE, a well-known personality, and that he would only co-operate and cover this meeting if he and his team were afforded the respect they deserved and could be assured of their safety.

Thomas was about to apologise when, from the rear compartment, Scat pushed Chan's head forward with the muzzle of the Grand American. He held it there.

'It's my finger on the farking trigger, Chan. You don't make demands.'

Thomas felt Chan's breath on his neck, turned to look, and saw that the Chinaman's head was all that separated his own from the end of both barrels. Reflexively, he slid across the seat towards Goosen, squeezing his eyes shut. Goosen threw his hands up to his ears in case the shotgun went off. Chan's colleague stifled a scream with a hand over his mouth.

Chan stopped talking. Scat pulled the shotgun back.

The bugcam operator began to tremble. This was his first assignment with Chan. Bugcams were new technology, and this Trevon gig was its first outing. He wasn't familiar with how Chan operated though he knew he often scooped a story ahead of the pack, and he was keen to learn how he did it. But in all his daydreams, he never thought he would earn his first scoop at the point of a gun. Already he was dreading a deadly outcome.

He closed his eyes.

Further on, Goosen pulled into a search bay at the dam wall exit. He flashed his Police ID and explained he was accompanying the GCE crew out to the spaceport to cover the arrival of the V4. The police searcher looked inside the cabin, recognised Chan from his news reports of the previous night and waved them on.

As they left the loop behind, Scat pulled himself free of the fuel cell compartment. He gave Chan an ultimatum.

'Mr Chan, we are going to give you a chance to add a few points to your ratings. It's a one-time-only offer. Refuse and you're both dead. Accept and you'll be the only ones to see our movement make its first strike at Lynthax. We'll let you record the whole thing and then release you to feed it back to Earth. It's your choice. Make it now.'

'How do I know its value?' Chan asked. 'What do you intend to do?'

'You'll see as we do. Which of you can control this thing?' Scat asked.

'Li controls it.'

'Which one of you can upload its content?'

'Again, Li,' Chan replied, 'but I decide what gets uploaded. I have the second half of the code.'

Scat looked at Li and then back at Chan.

'Then you both live or you both die. It's up to you.'

Goosen then added to the drama with a little impromptu acting of his own. He pulled over onto the hard shoulder, got out and opened the door next to where Li was sitting. He grabbed him by the collar, as if waiting for Scat to give the order to drag him out into the snow.

Li didn't wait for Chan to make up his mind:

'We live, Mister. We live. Mr Chan, tell them we both live.'

All eyes were on Chan.

He wasn't used to being kidnapped ahead of a story and then being told what the story was to be. His producer usually lined up his scoops in advance: money changed hands, events were organised, and their physical safety was guaranteed. He was always in control. Except now. His mind raced, spinning through the facts. He was the only GCE reporter on Trevon: there were plenty more planets to visit, and if something happened to him now, his stories would go unpublished. This was a Western Bloc spat and the GCE was covering this story to remind its own people just how lucky they were to be living in such well-ordered societies. Besides, there was no point in refusing to co-operate on principal.

Principals led to conflict.

'But you must give me reassurances of our safety,' he insisted. 'We have stories to publish. We have families.'

'So do we, Chan,' Scat replied. 'You'll publish our story so our families can see we're taking a stand. That's why we'll let you live. But cross us, or misbehave in any way, and you're dead. We've nothing to lose.'

'OK, mister. We accept although I want editorial control. And the right to all royalties should we go to magazine or NetStream.'

'As you like, Chan. Go make yourself a bundle.'

Goosen let Li go, slammed the door shut and sat back in the driver's seat. Li relaxed a little and tried to smile at Thomas, but it looked more like a tick. He didn't dare look at Scat.

Scat tapped Li on the shoulder. Li flinched.

'OK, Li, you can fly that thing and film us approaching the spaceport. Bring it down after we get inside. Don't transmit anything.' Scat then spoke over his head. 'Thomas, make sure that he doesn't.'

Thomas nodded. Li nodded along with him.

'Yes, sir. Bring down at spaceport,' Li confirmed.

'No, Li,' Scat said. He forced himself to speak slower. 'Take it down after we get into the spaceport. We want the jokers on security to let us through the gates. You're Earth press; the bugcam says so and they'll not want to look like jerks on the news. You record the whole thing. Just leave your faces out of it. We don't want your viewers thinking you were involved, do we?'

Li began to panic again. Chan put a hand on his knee and spoke to him at length in Mandarin. Li started nodding.

'OK, OK,' Li replied, looking at Scat.

'Sorry,' Chan said, turning to face Scat, 'but he understands less than one word in ten of what you say, and I would truly hate for you to blow his head off because of a misunderstanding. Besides he's the only bugcam operator I have. But, listen, our faces would add to the story,' he added. 'Why not include them. I don't mind saying we were kidnapped.'

Scat appeared to give that some thought.

'OK. You can let that thing roam. Remember: Thomas here will keep an eye on what you're doing. If you send a signal, you're dead meat.'

#  85

They passed through spaceport security in the same way as they had exited Go Down, but this time Chan also leaned across and showed the guard his press clearance papers. The guard looked inside the cabin of the soft-track and asked them to pop the rear door.

'They're cute,' he said. 'For vivisection?' he asked, reading the warning notice.

'No, we've stuck 'em full of the Myxoma virus, just to see if they're immune,' Thomas replied. 'They're under observation.'

'Should be ashamed of yourselves,' the guard replied, backing off and waiving them through.

The bugcam continued to hover just above them, rotating to take in different views of the gate, the guard and the hangar where the V4's shuttles were to dock once they arrived. Li was losing himself in his art; he was calming down.

'OK turn that thing off,' Scat ordered. 'We're meeting someone. He's not to be filmed.'

Goosen pulled around the side of an administration building and found a parking space. Li called the bugcam back, and Thomas helped him to crate it so they could fly it again at short notice. Goosen then drove on to the cargo bay area, pulling in next to a row of cargo carts.

Stafford was waiting for them.

Scat got out and chatted to him for a few minutes, then returned to call Goosen over. They left Thomas holding Goosen's police stun gun a little uncertainly with Chan and Li pressed up against the far side of the cabin, out of reach.

Scat didn't bother to introduce his giant friend; Stafford didn't need to know who he was. He just got right to it.

'Mark here says they're expecting the V4's shuttles in a couple of hours. And he's found us a small room to hole up in.'

Scat pointed to a side door next to the cargo area entrance. The room appeared windowless; it was no more than a storeroom or a service cupboard.

Goosen looked around. The area outside the cargo bay was deserted. The only activity of note, and it wasn't much, was taking place inside. He nodded and returned to their vehicle.

As Goosen sorted out the news crew and its equipment, Scat stepped closer to Stafford.

'Just how much do you want this?' he asked.

'As much as you,' Stafford replied. By his tone, it was obvious he recognised Scat for who he was, but was trying not to show he was in any way impressed.

'Paul told you that we'd be talking, right?'

'Yes, he did—and the deal is I get to be a part of whatever it is you're up to, in return for my help here.'

'That's right,' Scat confirmed. 'So tell me how it works here.'

'What? The loading?'

'Yes.'

Stafford shrugged.

'It's simple. They'll probably fly two or three shuttles in at a time. We'll be assigned a shuttle each. Cargo carts do all the heavy lifting. It only takes one operator to handle the cargo using this remote.'

'Are you absolutely sure you want this?' Scat asked. 'It could get messy; you'll have nowhere to run: it could get painful.'

Stafford squared up to him, legs apart and chin up.

'I know. I'm up for it. Anything it takes,' he said, daring Scat to suggest otherwise.

Scat studied Stafford for a moment. He was of a similar height and build to himself. At first glance, nothing leapt out as being particularly odd or impressive; neither of them would stand out in a crowd. But Stafford had a rounder, fleshier face, and Scat's was long and lean. Stafford's hair was longer than was his own, and the man's hairline receded at the temples whereas Scat's hairline ran straight across his forehead, much higher up. And Scat's hair was shorter. Mind, Stafford's eyes were brown, Scat's hazel, so not much difference there, although Stafford did have a fresh scar over his left eye.

What the heck, Scat thought. It was still worth a try.

He glanced around, saw that no one was watching, and then drove a fist across Stafford's face. Stafford went down, howling.

'Sorry, Mark. But we needed to do that.'

Scat, whose own nose was still a little sore from his beating on Prebos, bent down to help him back up, guarding against a poor reaction.

Stafford pushed his hand away.

'You bastard! You farking bastard! I was willing to help you.'

'You are helping, Bud. We just needed to make it look good. Are you alright?'

'No I'm not alright,' Stafford complained, feeling his nose. 'You farking broke it!'

'Yeah, I meant to,' Scat said, though trying to make it sound as though he didn't want to. 'It means you've to go see a doctor and get a huge great piece of gauze taped across it. Cotton buds up the nostrils, too. But for now, you can spread the blood across your coveralls. And stop whining.'

'What the fark for?'

'I need to get on board the V4 so I need to be you. We're of similar size, but we don't much look or sound the same. I want everyone on your crew to see you patched and covered up; they'll then be less likely to notice when we make the switch. Look, once this is done, I promise you'll be a part of what we're doing. In fact, you're helping right now.'

Stafford stifled the urge to lash out.

'You couldn't think of any better way?' he asked, holding his head back, pinching his nose, his eyes streaming tears.

'No, bud, I couldn't. Not with our resources,' Scat replied, 'And stop pinching your nose!' he added, pulling Stafford's hands away from his face. 'I want blood on your coveralls—and mine – so get me a set after you've been patched up.'

Scat stood patiently for a few moments as Stafford wiped his eyes of tears with the back of his hand.

'Well: are you going to let us into that room? It's cold out.'

Stafford fumbled for an electronic card in his coverall pocket and ran it over the lock. The rebels and their news crew filed past him as he used his free hand to smear blood onto the chest of his coveralls. Once they were all inside, he closed the door and stood on the cargo lot, trying to remember where the medical centre was, cursing under his breath.

Inside the room, Goosen couldn't think of anything to say. He just raised an eyebrow. Scat saw the look.

'What?'

Stafford returned with a fresh set of coveralls and a face covered in gauze, with extra gauze for dressing replacements. The medical centre had patched him up as best they could and given him a referral to a facial surgeon in Go Down.

Scat asked him to lift the gauze covering his nose and squeeze some blood out onto the fresh coveralls. He then took the spare gauze and placed it across his own nose. It looked OK so long as one wasn't paying too much attention.

'Get you and me a cap each. That'll take care of the hair. Start wearing it for the rest of your shift. When the shuttles arrive, make nice with the guards, show them your nose, and make sure they see it's broken for real. Then carry on with your usual unloading and loading. When the passengers start to embark, check in with us again.'

Stafford sloped away

For the next hour, they waited.

In the back of the room, Chan was warming to the situation. He was on the inside of a rebel action involving the V4, he was sure of it—a prisoner break or a hijacking. This would take his ratings to the very top. Li was tensing up again, but Chan was able to calm him down with visions of becoming famous. He rationalised that Scat needed them as much as they needed Scat and that they had have to stay alive for the story to break.

Thomas chewed the side of his cheek. Scat let him be. He had to go through the whole range of emotions were he was to harden-up a little. He had not been out of his father's shadow for more than a couple of days, and yet, here he was, already complicit in a multiple kidnapping and a conspiracy to hijack a ship. Scat expected him to be a little nervy. In any event, Thomas was not so nervous as to be dysfunctional; he remained alert but not jumpy, which was a good sign.

Finally, the activity outside the cargo area picked up.

Stafford eased the door open and told Scat that the V4 had just dropped into Trevon space and was currently settling into a geo-stationary orbit above the spaceport: they should expect its shuttles to begin arriving in 30 minutes or so. Earth's news teams were beginning to arrive at the spaceport and were fanning out across the passenger terminal to cover the story and capture the deportations on film.

Scat thanked him, then sat back down on the racking and relaxed. He stared at the far wall, his face blank. He was already mentally prepared for what was about to happen, and more than ready to accept the consequences if it didn't go well.

What he needed now was battle rage.

#  86

Thomas heard the first shuttle arrive before anyone else.

'It's here. One of them is, at least,' he said.

Scat started to dress in his bloodstained coveralls and re-attach the gauze to his face. He then put on the cap.

'How do I look?' he asked.

'Good. But don't talk so clearly,' Goosen replied. 'Stick some cotton up your nose. Grunt more. And stoop. Stafford does. You should study his movements.'

'It's not a farking play, Birdie.'

'Still. Stoop a little. Get in the mood.'

Stafford walked in, closing the door behind him.

'See what I mean,' Goosen continued. 'Loser's shoulders.'

Stafford shot him a look before turning to Scat.

'First one's arrived and some ex-cops are being loaded. What's next?'

Stafford looked Scat up and down; he was dressed like him.

'Jeeze. I look like that?'

Scat ignored the comment.

'Unload and load as you do normally,' he said. 'Make yourself known to the shuttle's security. Play up the nose. Show them if you want. And while you're playacting, get to know what their shuttle security routine is. When Nettles arrives you come right back here and tell me what you know.'

'OK,' Stafford replied. He then pointed at Scat's nose. 'Does yours hurt like mine does?' he asked, with a hint of bitterness.

'Of course not, Bud. Mine was broken weeks ago,' Scat replied, then adding by way of consolation: 'But think on this: when we're off up there, you'll be down here supping a beer, safe in the knowledge we couldn't have done this without you. Thomas here will also have some decent news for you. We've saved the best bit for last!'

Scat was referring to Thomas's land programme. Thomas and Paul had already discussed it. Both were as sure as they could be that their father would honour any promises, especially given what they were getting in exchange.

Stafford walked out of the room, unconvinced. Scat then turned to Chan.

'Do you want to follow us onto the V4 and continue the story?'

'What do you mean? How can we do that?'

'You ask: "Can you please accompany a shuttle back to the V4 to get some background shots?" Goosen, here, can play your minder. You're already on the spaceport, you're Earth Press, Goosen is a certified police officer—his badge doesn't say "Trevon sympathiser". They can only say no.'

'But how do I get my story out if I'm up there,' Chan asked, suspiciously.

'The same way the V4 communicates with the spaceport, Chan.'

Chan hesitated. He wanted to make sure his assumption about a hijacking was correct before committing.

'Are you going to destroy it?'

Scat snorted through his nose gauze.

'Of course not, Chan. You take me for a Whack Job?'

Again, Chan sounded cautious.

'Then what?'

'Follow us and you'll find out.'

Scat could see Chan was doubtful. He was slowly shaking his head, looking at the ground. Scat offered him an alternate scenario.

'Look, the alternative is for us to leave you behind with half a story. I can leave you with Thomas here. He'll let you go when he thinks it's safe enough, but that might not be for a while.'

Chan raised his chin a little, thinking it through.

'How can you trust us not to expose you once we're on board?' he asked.

'I can't,' Scat replied, screwing his face up as though a guarantee were out of his hands, 'but if you want the full story, you'll have to let us run free. It's a take it or leave it offer. Take it and you have a bigger story.'

It then occurred to him that Chan should also consider the downside.

'Of course, if I leave you behind I can't promise my colleagues won't be seriously pissed off with you. And I won't be here to keep them straight.'

For a second, it looked as though Chan was about to lose it. When he spoke, his voice was two octaves higher than normal.

'Where does it end? At what point do the threats stop, and we can gain our freedom?'

All Scat could hear was the whine of a child who had been told to do yet more homework. Perhaps he needed reassuring.

'When we're safely off Trevon I'll tell you. Let's face it, bud, you're more valuable to us alive and reporting than dead, right? We'll even give you exclusive interviews. On camera. How's that?'

Chan bit.

'I accept. Li does too,' he added. 'You have my word. And Li's'

Li looked indignantly at him.

Scat smiled and patted Chan on the shoulder a few times. Chan stiffened.

'Goosen will tell you when you should ask for permission,' Scat explained before bringing Goosen in on the conversation. 'Birdie, you'll have to time it right: just before they close up the ramp. OK?'

'Sure,' Goosen replied, not hiding his surprise. 'So I'm coming with you then—if we can get on board, that is?'

Scat took Goosen to one side and spoke softly as behind him, Chan tried to get Li to do a high-five. Li was less than enthusiastic.

'Yes,' Scat confirmed. 'Thomas stays here for the time being. He and Stafford can reminisce—maybe even set up some safe houses for us along the Moss Valley. Or he can join us later. I want you with me on the V4. You're a policeman – you'll have more empathy with the passengers than he will.' He then pulled a thumb drive from his pocket, which he handed over. 'This is electronic evidence that Old Man Spelling's son was murdered on Prebos. It contains company mail: evidence that points to Lynthax Security venting Gavin Pierce out of one of the station's cargo airlocks.'

Goosen's jaw dropped.

'Spelling had a son?'

'Yes. For a short while. Now he's dead: murdered.'

'Oh, fark! No wonder the Old Man has been low profile of late. I bet he's right pissed.'

'He is. I suspect he'll use his fortune to find out just who did the venting, and then deal with them before the law can.'

Goosen raised his eyebrows as he appreciated out how this news might affect things.

'Well, on top of being thrown out of a job, and off Trevon, it'll certainly help inflame passions. Do you want me to show it to them when we get on board?'

Scat shook his head.

'I've given it to you to use if you need to. If you don't need to use it, hold it back.'

Goosen was growing accustomed to Scat making things up on the fly, but this suggested there might be a plan, after all. He didn't feel particularly stressed, but it was still a relief to think there might be one. He nodded eagerly.

'Consider it done.'

#  87

At long last, Goosen received the call telling him that Nettles was on one of the Earth transports. The convoy had left Police HQ and was now heading towards the dam wall. It wasn't a secret; it was also on the news.

40 minutes later, Stafford slipped inside the door and told him that Nettles had boarded a shuttle, and it was on its way to the V4. He then briefed Scat on the shuttle security arrangements,

They were straightforward but seemed somewhat naive.

The replacement cops, or Outer Rim Force troopers, left the shuttle by the cargo ramp and went straight to the passenger terminal for processing, leaving three of their number behind in the shuttle to receive and settle the deportees. One of them manned the ramp, while the other two watched over the passengers. Once the ex-cops settled down, the civilian crews unloaded the inbound cargo, and then loaded the cargo bound for Earth.

The two guards did not stay in the launch room; they joined their colleague at the ramp to watch over the loading, and to ensure the deported Trevon ex-cops did not try to leave. They carried stuns, nothing else.

Amazingly, the security guards didn't stay with the shuttle when it took off, but joined their colleagues in the passenger terminal for processing.

The fact that there would be no security on the shuttle on its flight back to the V4 was a blessing. Scat hadn't expected that, but it was no different to when Petroff deported him from Prebos so perhaps it shouldn't have been such a surprise. He was increasingly confident things would go well.

Stafford softened the guards up with his story about how rioters had beaten him the night before. He showed them his nose and complained that he had also taken a few painful kicks to the kidneys. As he unloaded cargo, he made a point of leaving the cargo cart on the ramp or in the cargo area to go take an urgent pee. Scat was impressed. He hadn't thought of that. Stafford must have been thinking ahead.

They switched places midway through the loading of the outbound cargo on the third-from-last shuttle. Scat followed the cargo cart out onto the apron, using the remote to guide an oversized container, just as Stafford had shown him.

The exchange went unnoticed. The ORF private at the end of the ramp was more interested in watching the developing Nettles story on his graf than he was the loser with the broken nose and the dickey bladder. It had just finished replaying images of the Earth transports crossing the Gap Plain and the shuttle taking off. Some talking head was now telling him what judicial processes were in store for Nettles when he arrived on Earth.

Out on the airport apron, Chan and Li added to the distraction. Li was flying his bugcam, making it race back and forth between two containers. It appeared to rebound between the two, like a rubber ball, only getting faster each time, the returns appearing instant. Goosen strolled across and explained it was simply changing direction as it sensed the obstacle. He told them that they could try getting in its way, or even try to stop it if they were game. One of them was. And he couldn't. The other laughed as he tried.

Scat manoeuvred the cart down a high and crowded aisle and stopped halfway. Making sure no one was around, he stepped between the racking, pulled the backpack from its hiding place in the container, and then discarded his coveralls. When he was ready, he leaned out, looked back down the ramp, and signalled OK to Goosen.

Chan left Li and Goosen and walked the short distance across the pan to the ramp guard, who was watching his colleague make a fool of himself. When the guard was sure he understood what it was that Chan wanted, he shrugged. This little oriental guy was harmless, he thought. The worst the Captain could do is say no. He got on his radio.

The Captain passed the request up the line to the V4 Commander. He took the call while watching the news. The Commander remembered Chan from the Earth delegation's outward flight to Trevon, and he remembered the Ambassador fawning over him, as if he was quite influential or was well-connected. He mulled it over for a few seconds and then agreed: they could come up and get some interior shots of the V4 as it prepped for ftl. The caveats: they interview him, sign a disclaimer covering liability, and agree to be shuttled back on the last of the shuttle flights. He wasn't going to lay on any special transport: if they missed the last flight, they would leave Trevon with his cargo.

One of the guards frisked them before leading them down the cargo area's starboard aisle and into the small launch room. Scat waited for what seemed an eternity before the launch room door reopened and the guard walked back out. He then left the shadows of the cargo area, slipped through the door before it closed, and stood at the back of the room, looking for Goosen.

He felt himself being slightly on edge. This was where it could go horribly wrong. He was flying blind over ground he didn't know. If there were no free launch seats, someone recognised him, or someone conducted a head count, the game was over.

The small, soundproofed room was dark and ready for take-off. The safety briefing was playing on the screen out front, the head count already done. Across the room, at the far end of the back row, he caught sight of Goosen half standing from his seat, beckoning him over.

He crossed the back of the room to join them, and, as he took a seat, he looked around again.

Aside from a single crewmember pushing loose bags into overhead bins, Scat's 2-man rebel assault party and his dedicated media team were sharing the launch room with 15 or so Trevon ex-cops, mostly young men in their 20s, all seated in the first two rows. In front of them was the flight cabin, closed and locked, probably as a security measure. It didn't matter: on this trip, he wasn't interested in the view.

All they had to do now was get on board the V4, avoid the V4 security detail, get to the command cabin and steal a trillion dollar ship from an extremely possessive company.

Scat and Goosen couldn't help but exchange nervous grins.

Outside, Stafford walked back up the ramp to retrieve the cart, looking uncomfortable and holding his side. He lifted the container into its rack and then ran the cart back down the ramp to collect another one.

Thomas, being frustrated and with nothing left to do, waited for Stafford's shift to finish. He would drive him back to Go Down and, on the way, explain the land deal.

As he waited, he watched the shuttle take off. After a few minutes, he lost it to view as it finally inclined to the vertical and broke free of Trevon's gravity, leaving behind a white plume of gas against a darkening, star lit sky.

The Nettles rescue mission was on its way.

#  88

Some 30 minutes after launch, the shuttle manoeuvred to enter the V4's busy rear cargo bay. Once it grounded, the shuttle rolled up to one of the V4's internal docking units and established a lock.

The news crew waited in its seats until the ex-cops exited the shuttle, and then they were led through the lock into a narrow corridor that ran the outer length of the ship. As Scat pulled himself along using the handgrips on the walls, he caught glimpses of a brightly lit, green and yellow cargo bay through the corridor's small internal windows. Most of the shuttles appeared to be aboard. The place was a frantic hive of automated activity.

Eventually they left the cargo bay behind them and broke off left, down a passage marked "Command and Administration". A little way along they turned right, and there was the entrance to the ring.

Scat felt terribly self-conscious as he pulled himself the last few metres to the door. He was easily recognisable despite the cap and gauze dressing and was hoping that the guard on Trevon had not been too specific about how many were in the news crew. He wanted to get inside the gravity ring before going to ground again—if he had to, that is. Otherwise, he wanted to follow Goosen and the news crew directly to the command cabin.

Floating around the door and holding onto handgrips, two crewmembers watched them make their way forward. Scat breathed a sigh of relief: as expected, they carried stuns, but they were wearing technical specialist uniforms—they weren't ORF troopers.

Once inside the ring, and as the ring began to rotate they waited for something or someone to show up.

The place was exceptionally bright, in stark contrast to the corridors they had just come through. Scat felt vulnerable again. Goosen introduced the celebrated Chan and then engaged the crew in idle chitchat, in an effort to keep the focus on him.

As they waited, Scat tried not to make a big thing out of looking up and down the ring. The hall was smaller than the accommodation reception. It was also white, but a little way up the ring to his right, the wall materials changed from undecorated white plastic to a subtle shade of green, suggesting a change in function. A large Lynthax-Maersk plaque on the outer wall confirmed it—the command cabin would be close by. Scat risked craning his neck to look at the wall opposite to see two sliding glass doors that reflected the flickering lights from within.

It was only around 20 metres away.

It wasn't long before an officer came out of the room and shuffled towards them.

'Evening, guys. Glad you could make it. My name's Tim Harrison. I'm the Load Master. The captain has asked that you go right on up to the command cabin.' He pointed back up the gravity ring. 'But first, the usual pat down.'

Idle chitchat over, Li held his arms out from his sides to accommodate a frisking. One member of the crew looked beyond Goosen and gave Scat a curious look. His brow creased for half a second and then there was a flash of recognition. Scat had sensed the look, but he was already primed for violence, something the electrical specialist wasn't.

With his hand already inside his backpack, he placed a foot against the door jam, leaned forward and pulled both triggers a half-second apart. The two specialists jerked backwards, bouncing off the gravity ring's inner wall, falling to the ground with their stomachs and backs opening out onto the floor. Goosen gave Scat a startled look. Li and Chan recoiled away, lost their balance and fell to the ground where they crouched with their hands over their ears.

Harrison froze, and then his jaw slackened. Scat snatched the Grand American from the pack, let the smoking canvas fall to the floor, and swung the wooden butt into the side of his head.

By the time Goosen recovered the dead crewmembers' stuns, Scat was already halfway to the command cabin doors, dragging the dazed and helpless Load Master along by the scruff of his neck.

At the entrance to the cabin, Scat threw Harrison down to the floor, recharged the shotgun with more solid shot and fired both barrels at the glass door's magnetic lock.

Keeping his eye on what was going on inside the cabin, he held the smoking barrels up to the corridor smoke detector and charged them for a second time, again with solid shot. His eyes locked onto the Commander: the man appeared angry.

Goosen caught up with him as a few of the V4's crew began to respond, but not understanding the source of the noise, and there having been no immediate tannoy warnings, they had rushed from their offices expecting to deal with a depressurized compartment or a blown fuel cell.

Some were carrying equipment.

None was armed.

'Drop 'em. Quickly!' Scat shouted.

Goosen zapped one of them with a single bolt. It was enough. He went down without a murmur, his legs twitching. His two companions backed off as they realised the intruders were armed and not alone. At last, the tannoy sounded a warning to the rest of the crew.

Fire retardant gases poured from the fire points along the ceiling, and fire doors slammed shut throughout the ring.

'And this one!' Scat shouted again above the blaring noise, pushing Harrison away from him with a foot.

Goosen obliged, zapping him at close range.

That left Scat and Goosen alone at the command cabin door, looking to overcome a disabled but sticky electronic lock.

Scat could see and hear the Commander issuing instructions over the intercom. A few of the command cabin crew stared apprehensively at them from the other side of the console. In the rear of the cabin, one of the officers was unlocking a cabinet.

Goosen opened his hands, pressed them to the right-hand door and eased it to the right. Once it was open a fraction, Scat forced the tip of the shotgun through the gap and fired both barrels into the back of the Commander's seat.

As yet, no one in the command cabin had retaliated: they couldn't, not while the doors remained closed, but the longer they took to open, the longer they had to recover from the shock of the moment and hit back. Scat didn't want to give them that time.

'Farking get it open!' he shouted.

Already the officer at the back of the room was powering up a short-barrelled weapon of some description, only pausing in horror as he saw the effects of Scat's last two rounds.

Goosen put his weight behind his hands, heaved, released, and then heaved again. Finally, the door broke free, running back into the wall. Scat surged forward, firing Harrison's stun gun at the officer in the back of the cabin, then at anyone else within range.

As Goosen and inert gases followed him inside, Scat jumped up onto the central console, and swung around to see who was still standing. No one was. The only movement he could see was the gas flowing across the floor and Goosen nudging a prostrate body with his foot. The only sound he could hear was the blaring alarm.

After days of planning, the frustrating wait and the nervous jockeying for position, the assault had taken less than a minute. Possibly two. But it was over.

Now for the hard part.

#  89

The cabin was small, and there were few places to hide. A quick head count confirmed a flight crew of five, if one included the Commander who was now slumped across his console, dead. Three of the cabin crew were throwing off the effects of their zapping, and one had thrown himself up against the bulkhead with his hands in the air. Goosen added to that number by returning to the corridor to drag in the two twitching bodies.

Scat wanted to make sure he had a pilot for the V4.

'Which one of you flies this farking thing?' he asked.

'The Commander did. And it looks like... as if he's... not able to.' The unsteady reply came from a man in his fifties with close-cropped and greying hair, who was pulling himself up from the floor. Scat recognised him as the officer who had been powering up a weapon. He looked to be the second-in-command.

'Aside from him, knuckle head,' Scat cautioned, looking down at his handy work, then back up to the officer. 'Offer someone up and now, or else these barrels go through your crew one at a time.'

The officer was a little shocked and still twitched, but his hand was steady enough to point out the crewmember who had thrown his hands in the air.

'Me and Karat,' he replied, catching sight of the weapon he had dropped to the floor.

Scat followed his glance and then dropped down from the console to kick it across the floor to Goosen.

'Ftl us the fark out of here, now!' he ordered.

The officer shook his head, less in defiance than to clear his head. He was flexing his fingers.

'I can't,' he replied. 'We need to spool up, confirm the shuttles have returned, certify the loading, confirm our centre of mass, close off all bays... well, loads of things before we can go ftl.'

'We don't need to do it by the book, or worry about things falling off or out of this mother,' Scat said, pointing out a younger member of the crew who had just pulled himself back to his console. 'Short-cut it and get us the hell out of here in less than five minutes or that one is dead meat.

'And you lose a knee.'

#  90

A little further down the corridor, Li recovered his senses and looked around. The corridor was empty for as far as the eye could see, right up to the fire doors in each direction. Even Chan had gone to ground somewhere in the pale green gas.

It was noisy, the swish of the ring drowned out by the shouting that came from up ahead in the command cabin, the hiss of inert gases emerging from the overhead fire extinguishers and the constant, blaring alarm. The air conditioners in this section of the ring had shut down so the stench of the shotgun discharges hung thick in the air. Then there was the smell of blood.

Li felt the shakes working their way into his hands and legs, but he saw the bugcam up at the command cabin door and knew he should join it. He wanted to experience the atmosphere that accompanied the visuals. If he truly were cut out for this kind of reporting, then he would find out over the course of the next few minutes.

As he stepped around the two dead specialists, he pushed down at an urge to retch. On reaching the command cabin, he glanced around in astonishment; amazed at the damage Scat had done in just a few seconds.

The rebel's brutal leader was now standing over a console. His friend, the one he referred to as "Birdie", was watching a grey-haired officer play with a 3-D schematic of the emergency systems. Several of the crew were sitting on the floor with their backs to a curving console, hands on their heads. The dimly lit cabin wasn't particularly impressive.

It then went suddenly silent: someone had at last turned off the fire extinguishers and tannoy alert. From behind him, he heard the rush of air conditioners sucking up the gases and pumping fresh oxygen into the ring.

He stepped inside, taking care to announce himself to Goosen. Then he saw the dead Commander, his head resting on the console, attached to his body by a thick rump of flesh. There were two large holes in the commander's lower neck. Bone and gristle lodged in the console where the shotgun rounds had passed through. Blood still drained onto the floor beneath his seat.

Story or not, he had absorbed as much atmosphere as he was able. He retreated into the gravity ring corridor and threw up against the far wall.

If he lived to tell this tale, he would blame it on the gas.

#  91

While Goosen paid close attention to the captive cabin crew and the grey-haired officer ran through the scaled-back pre-ftl checks, Scat ran the situation through in his mind.

They had taken control of the V4's command cabin and acquired a cabinet full of lethal weapons. Outside was a confused crew, ex-cops, the security guards forcibly removed from Trevon against their wishes, some political prisoners, maybe some fare-paying civilian passengers and an unidentified cargo. The fire doors in this section of the gravity ring had sealed off the command cabin when the fire retarding gases kicked in, but they would reopen soon.

The greatest danger lay in what Scat did not know about the crew.

There would not be many, and they would be shuttle pilots, cargo handlers and technicians, not trained soldiers, but he wasn't sure if there were any Outer Rim Force still on board, and that was his real weak point. If he didn't follow through quickly, there would be a standoff: the rebels would hold the command crew and the cabin, and the ORF would hold the prisoners.

Someone would want to trade, and Scat didn't want to.

'How many ORF still on board?' he asked, throwing the question around the room.

'10,' replied one of the V4's crew, unguardedly.

Scat looked at him. The man was already looking at the floor as if he regretted speaking up.

'And where are the prisoners?' Scat asked him, before the man's boss could object. By way of encouragement, Scat pointed the barrels of his Grand American at him and put his finger inside the trigger guard. The man tensed.

'They're in the accommodation quarter on the opposite side of the ring,' he replied.

Scat turned to the officer. He wanted to know who had already made it on-board. He did not expect any more of the shuttles to come on up to the V4, now it was in rebel hands.

'Where's the current passenger and cargo manifest?' he asked.

The old man didn't answer. He was still glowering at his colleague. Scat nudged him with his newly acquired neural disrupter.

'One more chance, then you'll be handing control of this baby to one of your colleagues.'

'Welks: throw up a copy,' the officer ordered reluctantly.

Another member of the original flight crew—a youngster; no older than a boy—tapped a few keys on his console. The manifest appeared on a curved screen on the outer wall out front. It highlighted those who had made it on-board, listing those still on Trevon with numbers against their names, representing shuttle numbers and flights.

'Birdie, do you recognise any of these names?' Scat asked.

Goosen ran through the list.

'Several. There are five that I know of that are downright secessionists, maybe some more who are sympathetic, and half a dozen or so who'll just be pissed off that a faceless bureaucrat is disrupting their lives. Mind, I've no idea why anyone would think them to be sympathisers. They aren't.'

'OK,' Scat said turning his attention to the officer. 'What's your name?'

'Matheson. Yours?' The tone was bitter.

'Scat.' Scat let the name hang for a moment, but the old man showed no sign of recognition. 'Look, Matheson, we're in a hurry. We don't want to keep your ship, just borrow it,' he lied. 'When we're done you can have it back. Right now I want whoever Goosen here tells you to get up to the command cabin, up here without interference. Get it done—now!'

Goosen highlighted the names on the screen. Matheson sat down, flicked a switch and made an announcement over the tannoy.

As Matheson put the mike down and sat back in his chair, Scat leaned over his shoulder.

'I want you to tell everyone that the ftl flux-drives are unstable, they can't be operated, and that we're in charge of the command cabin. Tell the ORF not to use their PIKLs. If they do, it'll make the flux-drives even more unstable. You then tell them to stand down.'

Matheson looked around at him. His eyes flickered with concern.

'They won't believe me,' he said.

Scat shrugged.

'Look, Bud, I could go down to the flux-drives and discharge one of these things if you want. We don't have much to lose. You have a couple of flux-drives worth zillions hanging in the balance here. It's up to you.'

When Matheson spoke into the mike, he felt his initial anger give way to extreme frustration.

His egotistical boss had allowed a news team to come on board, leading to the hijack of one of Earth's most expensive interplanetary tankers. His own name would be associated with this and yet there was nothing he could do that would reverse the situation; at least, not with a better than average chance of living to see it succeed. They had been bested by an antique shotgun and pure aggression: a gazillion dollars' worth of the V4's technology had proven useless in its own defence. And Lynthax had just lost a major resource.

He tried to think of a previous hijacking of an ftl-capable ship, and he couldn't think of one. This was the first.

Security was tight at both ends of a journey. They worked out their travel plans months in advance. They vetted, accepted or declined potential passengers according to all sorts of security and commercial considerations. His ship wasn't a fortress. It was a civilian tanker, manned by civilian technical specialists, designed for delivering much-needed resources to Earth. It was only occasionally hired out to those fools at the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority—the same fools who relied on the private sector for just about all of their interplanetary transportation needs; a private sector that pared everything to the bone to squeeze the last dollar of profit from every assignment.

Now they were paying for that foolishness.

So was he.

'Stand down, damn it!' he ordered the Outer Rim Force detachment commander over the intercom.

There was no reply. From behind, Scat nudged him again with his sawn-off.

'Now!' Matheson added, red-faced with increasing irritation.

There was a moment of silence, and then a response. It was a question:

'Where's the Commander? I can't see him.'

'He's dead,' Matheson answered. 'Very dead. I've assumed command.'

'But you're not in command of anything, sir,' the ORF commander replied, seemingly not convinced he was still subject to Matheson's authority. 'We can see they've taken you prisoner.'

Matheson took a quick look at the manifest and then looked up at the camera in the corner of the cabin. He spoke directly into it.

'Like it or not, Corporal Tunny, I'm the ranking officer on this vessel now, and I'll charge your arse with mutiny if you don't comply. And, just in case you've forgotten your articles, in the Outer-Rim that's a capital crime still.'

'You wouldn't dare, sir. If we stand down you lose the ship—and everything on it. Do you want that?'

'Look, I'm going to make it easy for you,' Matheson said through gritted teeth, scrolling down his screen and speed-reading a document. 'I'll send you a copy of the articles, and you can tell me what it says in section seven,... paragraph 12, point 4. If you can't read, get one of your grunts to read it out aloud.' He pressed send.

Behind him, Scat shook his head. Nothing had changed. Soldiers still couldn't take a piss without referring to one code of conduct or another. Scat remembered a wadi in the Sinai and the long wait for air support.

It wasn't long before Tunny replied. He sounded a little desperate, and more than a little confused.

'But this relates to piracy, sir, and only when civilian lives are in danger, not for an act of war.'

Matheson looked up at the cabin camera again.

'If you want to take it to court then you can,' he replied, tersely, 'but until then the order to stand down is valid. There are civilians on board this vessel, and the circumstances are the same. If you stand down now, it won't go on your record. If you take a stand, and it goes wrong, I'll make damn sure ISRA covers your record in shit, and we'll sue your arse for every cent of damage done. And then we'll sue everybody at ISRA who's ever known you.'

Matheson let the threat hang in the air. He knew he was on dodgy ground. Tunny was right. The lawyers had written the ordinance to accommodate acts of piracy, not for a full-scale interplanetary conflict. However, he was making a point: Tunny could surrender his men in accordance with established protocols and the corporal's career would be unaffected by it.

There was a long, nail-biting silence.

'Why is he taking so long?' Scat asked. 'If it's as you say it is, it's a no-brainer.'

Matheson spoke without looking back at him. He kept looking up at the camera, willing Tunny to see sense.

'He'll be working out how much it might cost him to prove me wrong. He'll get there eventually. At least, I hope so.'

The intercom squawked. Tunny finally agreed.

Matheson let out a long sigh of relief.

'Good,' he said. 'Now stay in your quarters until I say otherwise. We can't have a shooting war in the corridors, so, don't give these farks an excuse. I'll get back to you shortly.'

He cut the link to the ORF quarters and stared at Scat, his eyes seething with hatred, both hands trembling.

At last, the gravity ring's fire doors opened, and Goosen's picks arrived outside. He led them off to the briefing room next door where he briefed them on what had just happened. He didn't need to use the thumb drive that Scat had given him: he had asked for volunteers and most had stepped forward. Scat could hear the yelling and whooping through the walls.

As the noise next door died down, Nettles, Marvin and three other political prisoners joined Scat in the command cabin. Scat noticed that Nettles was a little distracted by the blood that had pooled on the Commander's console and around his chair, but otherwise he looked composed. He also looked remarkably well groomed for a man who had just spent a few days in jail, despite his bruised and yellowing eye.

Scat stood with his arms folded, gun in each hand, the Grand American in his right hand loosely trained on the back of Matheson's head, the neural disrupter in his left pointing at the floor. He glanced around the cabin, saw what Nettles saw and began to feel pleased with himself.

He waited on a thank you.

Nettles circled the console, avoiding Scat's stare. As he looked back over at the dead commander's chair, he recalled what Marvin had told him: that once Scat was unleashed, he would prove difficult to control; that he needed to assert his leadership very quickly. If he didn't, Scat would decide the tenor of the next action, and that might not be a good thing.

Looking back up from the blood, Nettles took the bull by the horns.

'Thank you Scat. It's good to see you again,' he said, as crisply and as evenly as he could. 'Conference,' he added, before turning on his heels and walking towards the door. 'I'll be in the briefing room when you're done here.'

As Nettles left the room, Marvin looked at Scat for a reaction, but there wasn't one. Instead Scat nodded hello, told Goosen to hand him a couple of spare neuro disrupters, and then turned his own ND on Matheson.

'I've changed my mind about the knee capping,' he told him in a cold, firm voice filled with menace. 'You're one minute closer to having your nerve cells scrambled, Matheson. Get us moving.'

#  92

Forty-three ex-cops and security guards had volunteered for rebel service, all but a few of them known to Goosen personally, or were vouched for by those among them that Goosen knew. They were at least reliable, if not competent.

Nonetheless, they were still vulnerable. Aside from a counter-attack, Scat was worried that a renegade shuttle jockey or crewmember might sabotage the ship's critical systems. Before he headed to the briefing room to meet with Nettles, he told Goosen to deploy his new recruits around the ship.

'Sorry it took so long, Terrance,' he said as he entered the brightly lit briefing room for the first time, 'but the ORF needed some reassurance they would be dropped off, rather than be knocked-off.'

Scat looked around him as he walked up to the raised platform where Nettles, Marvin and several others had gathered, sitting and standing around a long table equipped with microphones, monitors and a hologram device, generally waiting to see what was to happen next. Scat recognised only a few of the faces: the ones who were Trevon House representatives and always stayed close to Nettles; the rest were senior-looking administrator types. They were probably influential sympathisers.

'And will they? Be dropped off, I mean,' Nettles asked.

'Of course! What were you expecting?'

'I'm not sure, Scat. This is unfamiliar territory for me,' Nettles replied, looking around at everyone who had assembled there, 'and for the rest of us, no doubt.'

Several heads nodded in agreement. Violence of this magnitude was rare in their circles. The rest just fidgeted nervously, looking down at the floor. In the background, they could still hear the new recruits as they ran up and down in the ring outside, shouting and excitedly passing on orders. For some of the ex-prisoners, it appeared to be an unnerving distraction.

'Well, we're up and running,' Scat reported. 'We've gotten ourselves a tanker complete with 18 shuttles, some weaponry, and a few more recruits: just over 40 of them.'

Marvin was smiling. Nettles nodded his understanding.

'So where to next, Scat?' Nettles asked.

'We hit back. Hard and fast. We take the initiative.'

'Understood. But what of the politicals? They—I mean we—can't be involved in the physical rebellion.'

Scat looked at Nettles wondering why he should be so concerned. They had already arrested him for sedition. How was he to remain above the fray?

'I can send you all back to Trevon, but what would be the point. You'd all be rearrested.'

No one disputed the fact. They all looked quite worried.

Scat tried to offer some reassurance.

'What I suggest is we drop you off somewhere else, once things die down. Perhaps you can offer to discuss matters with the Earth Delegation directly; maybe you can turn yourselves in under some form of agreement. Or we get Reggie to work on doing a deal with that Cohen character.'

'How long will it be before things cool down?' Marvin asked.

'I haven't the foggiest! We've stirred up a hornet's nest up here, but Trevon might not even know we've taken the vessel.' Scat looked at his graf. 'We've been in charge for less than 20 minutes or so, and I'm not sure the Commander got a message off before he passed on.'

'Any idea at all, Scat!' Nettles asked.

'None, I'm sorry, and besides, things won't settle down for a little while. We didn't take the V4 to sit in space and let Lynthax get its act together. We're going back in to cause some serious mischief. Once that's done, maybe we can spend some time on working out how to get you back to a more civilised environment. In the meantime, consider yourselves guests of the rebels. You can even claim to be reluctant guests. I don't really care how you spin it.'

There was an uneasy silence. Scat sensed that Marvin fully appreciated it was his intention to take the rebellion forward at a lick, but the politicos were a harder bunch to read. He doubted they were ready for the inconveniences to come, and might be alarmed at the prospect of being associated with his upcoming actions—whatever they thought they might be. He smiled and was about to speak when Marvin cut across him.

'Then we consider ourselves your "prisoners", Scat, and we promise not to be of any bother to you. Just please try to keep Nettles and Co out of harm's way, and allow us to be at least somewhat convincing when we claim we were dragged along for the ride!'

Several heads nodded in agreement.

'What do you intend to do first, Scat?' Nettles asked.

'We're still conducting an inventory of our resources, Terrance, but I'm pretty convinced we should hit back directly at Lynthax, and not Earth. Beyond that, I ain't saying. You're out of the loop if you want deniability.'

Scat waited on a response, but, again, there was none. Their stares were mostly blank, and he was wasting time he didn't have. There were things still to do. He swung around to leave the politicos to worry about their political image, or to indulge their correctness—whatever it was politicians did when soldiers got on with it—but as he made his way up the aisle, he beckoned Marvin to follow him. When they were out in the corridor, he laid out the new order for him.

'Marv, Reggie and I came to an understanding about this rebellion. The politicos stay clear of the violence. And we don't discuss our actions with them so they can stay free and clear at all times. If I want anyone to know what we're up to, or need help locally, I'll call Paul. He then talks directly to the Coordinating Council led by Reggie. The Coordinating Council sits between the politicals and us. Somehow you must get Terrance to see that his influence stops on Trevon: it's for his own good.'

Marvin bowed his head in acceptance.

'That's fine, young man, so it's been worked out, and it sounds sensible to me. I'll convey the message. In the meantime, perhaps it would be prudent to show a little respect, some deference. Nettles is going places. He'll be central to the secessionist movement if we can get him back to Trevon. People listen to the man. He has connections across the OR. You need him on your side.'

Scat didn't quite know what to say. He had just risked his life to free the beggar, willingly.

'Sure. But he does things up here my way and under my orders. I'll suck it up and listen to his comments if he has any, even keep him in the loop on the current stuff until I can drop him off. And he can play like royalty if he needs to—I'll play along. But I'm running the physical side of this rebellion until someone with a bigger fist comes along.'

Marvin gave Scat a genuine grin and a wink.

'Good man. I knew you'd understand.'

#  93

Goosen organised the new recruits into 11 four-man teams, and, in anticipation of the long haul ahead, stood three of them down to act as a general reserve.

He put one team on standby to meet any shuttle that might unwittingly attempt to dock with them, and then he stationed a team at each end of the accommodation section of the ring to secure the Outer Rim Force troops, the crew and any ex-cops who didn't want to join the rebellion.

The remaining five teams secured strategic locations around the vessel: one of them watched over the flight crew; two covered the two flux-drive rooms, and one guarded the IT bay. The final team roamed the corridors, the shuttles and the cargo bay looking for extra weapons and other useful equipment.

That task done, Goosen hunkered down in the command cabin to review the communications between the vessel and Trevon. He wasn't a comms expert, but Thomas had given him a decryption programme to help sort through the body of each message. He was trawling for anything that might indicate the rebels had assaulted the vessel. As he did so, he learned that the vessel was in almost continuous communication with Trevon: passing on companynet updates; obtaining Universal web uploads; providing the spaceport with navigational updates; passing on buoy correspondence and so on.

Leaving the comms open was a risk, but to close it would invite enquiry. So far, he could find no alerts warning Trevon of the hijacking, so it was probably best to leave it open. He would have to check with Scat.

'So what do we have, Birdie?' Scat asked as he returned from his brief meeting with Nettles.

Goosen left the decryption scan running and looked up.

'Well let me see,' he said, referring to a notepad beside the screen he was using. 'Two of the shuttles are faulty, but they can either be repaired or cannibalised, depending on what skills sets we've acquired among the new recruits. We've found two more PIKLS. That makes 15 in all if you include the ORF's weapons. We've 10 stuns. The V4 is fitted with military-grade StarGazer software, and we've enough fuel for perhaps 250 light years of travel. Each shuttle has enough fuel for maybe four or five round trips to Trevon.'

'Are any of the crew likely to sign on?' Although Scat asked the question, he didn't sound particularly hopeful.

Goosen confirmed his doubts with a shake of his head.

'Unlikely. They'll lose their bonuses, but perhaps we could make them the same offer Thomas made me—about the land, that is. It may be worth more than money to some of them.'

'If we did that, could we rely on any of them not to abuse out trust?'

'There are no guarantees in the insurrection business, Scat, but I wouldn't trust them unsupervised, if you get my meaning?'

Scat nodded.

'So get Nettles in here,' he said. 'No, rather, respectfully request Nettles' presence and ask him if he would explain Trevon's future position on land reform. If he doesn't have one he can make it up as he goes. Then you can let them know that the Irwin family is offering land for services rendered. Let's see where that takes us. We need a willing, long-term driver for this thing, some shuttle pilots, plus a life support systems specialist and some IT support for the StarGazer and flux-drives.'

Goosen stood up as if getting ready for something. He showed Scat a big grin.

'Actually, Scat, I can fly a shuttle, and we've already got ourselves an IT expert who's familiar with the SG and flux-drive software. He used to work for Raddox before leaving them under some dubious circumstances. His name is Tillier Bing. He's a Welshman.'

Scat narrowed his eyes and cocked his head.

'Bing's a Welsh name?'

'Well, no,' Goosen admitted. 'As I said, his history with Raddox is a little murky, and anything beyond that is pretty black, but he's talented. We used him to crack databases and monitor bad boy traffic.'

Scat didn't want to go into details.

'Well, get him up here and let's see what he can dig out for us. I want a complete review of the V4's software. I don't trust Matheson, here,' he said, watching the man as he struggled to cut short the ftl initiation process on the other side of the console. 'He'll be holding out. Ask your friend to look for any non-standard weapons, sensors and functions programmes, and let me know what he finds asp.'

'Will do, and while I do that, I do have a couple of things for you.' Goosen put his notebook back down and invited Scat to look at the screen. 'Do you want me to kill the connection with Trevon? It's in constant communication with the Lynthax Centre. They're updates mostly, but I'm not sure if any of the crew has access from outside of the command cabin.'

Scat had missed that. He stroked his broken nose, realised he was doing it more frequently and stopped. He looked up at Matheson and raised his voice.

'Do they, Matheson?'

'Do they what?' Matheson snapped.

'Where else can we access external comms from, outside of this cabin?'

Matheson waved a finger in the general direction of the damaged doors.

'The shuttles and the flux-drive rooms,' he replied.

'Just them?'

'Yes.'

Scat turned back to Goosen.

'You have them both covered, Birdie, so you can leave the comms open. We'll be cutting them when we move off channel in a few minutes, in any case, which will alert them plenty soon enough. Once we're gone, they can scramble for an explanation as much as they like, and once they realise we've nabbed this baby it'll be too late for them to do anything about it. And when we come back—which they won't be expecting—we'll have hit them and be on our way again before they can recall that frigate of theirs.'

At least Scat hoped so: it was a lot to juggle, and they were assuming the frigate was still around Prebos, a full light year away.

'And the other thing?' Scat asked.

'Khoffi Khan wants to talk to you. He seems agitated.'

Scat screwed his face up. He had just wasted 10 minutes with a bunch of politicians.

'Later,' Scat replied, waving a hand. 'Maybe never. We'll see.' He then turned to threaten Matheson. 'Seriously, Matheson, if this thing isn't moving in less than a minute, your brain won't be worth comparing to a seagull's.'

Matheson refused to look up. He stared at his screen.

'We're ready. Where do we go?'

'Take us half a light year closer to Prebos, but half a light year off-channel. Between channels, if you please.

Matheson baulked. He glanced up at Goosen, realised the hulking ex-cop wouldn't understand anything about interstellar space travel, and then finally looked at Scat.

'But we never travel off channel,' he said, nervously clearing his throat. 'It's too dangerous.'

'We do travel off-channel, Matheson. You've military-grade SG, and we'll be using it. So the quicker you show us how to steer this thing by ourselves, the earlier you can get off this thing and the safer you'll be.'

The 100 kilometre wide channels were the established ftl routes between Earth and the New Worlds. They provided safe passage for ftl travel and the buoy network that ran along them provided constant ftl communication. Less well emphasised, the channels also helped Inter-Space Regulatory Authority—and the Corporations—regulate ftl traffic. They had taken years to establish and, as they weren't static channels—the universe was always moving—they required constant work to keep open.

They were kept open by the hundreds of ftl buoys that ran in relay up and down each of the channels, playing tag at the buoy stations along the way. The buoy stations acted as both route markers and dedicated points in space where civilian vessels could exchange information with one another.

The channels ran Earth-to-New World and back again. They didn't operate New World to New World. The only onward channels that existed were the approved channels to asteroid or pseudo-planet dependencies, such as Prebos.

ISRA didn't allow anyone to travel off-channel, but it was thought that smugglers did—to avoid detection. And with the military-grade StarGazer software, Scat intended to do the same thing: get lost in uncharted and little-travelled territory. He wanted to be far enough away to make a subluminal search almost impossible—no one had yet worked out how to conduct a search at ftl speeds. Half way to Prebos and half a light year off channel was good enough. He already had his eye on disrupting the channels, so he may as well learn to work without them.

'Couldn't we travel sub-ftl?' Matheson asked.

'And take two years to get there? Nice try, but I don't think so. Get a move on. Push a button or something. Get us moving. Now!'

Matheson sighed, letting his shoulders slump. He swore under his breath that he would take a baseball bat to this guy at some time in the future—when he wasn't holding a shotgun, and didn't have so many hostages.

'OK. On your head be our necks! Please inform everyone to prepare for rapid decompression.'

'Don't be so melodramatic, Matheson. Just press the farking button,' Scat replied.

Matheson put his finger on the button and closed his eyes. Scat watched the man utter a prayer of some sort under his breath. Eventually Matheson pressed down.

Seconds later the V4 emerged, unscathed, at the coordinates Scat had requested. Immediately Matheson conducted a review of the V4's systems and scanned the outer hull for any damage caused by space dust collisions. There was none.

'So! Not so dangerous, after all,' Scat observed. 'Please give my thanks to the crew.'

#  94

'We'll go after Lynthax's head office in Go Down tonight—well, actually, first thing in the morning.' Scat confirmed. 'It's a high profile target, there'll be very little collateral damage, it's an uncomplicated task, and it'll send a strong message that no one is safe. Besides, the Centre holds their data bank. It'll take days to replace.'

Goosen was keen, but had yet to hear the plan.

Nettles wanted clarification.

'Just how many people might be categorised as collateral damage?' he asked.

Scat eyeballed Nettles over the brightly lit 3-D bench. He had invited the man to the meeting as a courtesy; after all, he was coming along for the ride. Marvin stood alongside him, trying to avoid the upcoming argument, pretending to study the hologram of Go Down City showing the Lynthax Centre highlighted in red beneath the environmental roof. From what Scat could see of Nettles' face in the upward glare of the bench, their political leader still had his doubts.

'By that, do you mean how many would be in the building at the time?' he asked.

'Yes.'

Scat shrugged. It would be a guess.

'Around 80, if you include all the janitors, security guards and anyone who enjoys working on company premises after hours.'

Nettles' nostrils appeared to narrow a little.

'That's a lot of people. That's 80 families and 80 funerals. Don't you want to start off a little smaller, Scat?' he asked.

Scat pursed his lips and shook his head.

'No. We hit the biggest available target: the Lynthax Centre. We hit it now, and we hit it hard. We get the maximum possible return for the least amount of effort and risk to ourselves. We do the unexpected.

'If we start small, we might never get off the ground. Lynthax and the ORF will start to build a picture of our capabilities. We might create patterns. They'll build up their countermeasures and bring in more assets before we achieve anything worthwhile. By doing this, by hitting the Lynthax Centre unexpectedly, we strike at the centre of power in this part of the OR—with little immediate loss of life.'

For a moment, no one spoke. Nettles continued to stare down at the Lynthax Centre. Eventually Goosen decided to break the silence and ask the obvious question.

'But very few of us are mentally prepared or competent enough to do something like this, Scat. Wouldn't it make sense to bloody our hands on something more manageable?' he asked.

'Relax, Birdie. We have the resources, and we've enough experience among us. And, in any case, no one has ever taken on one of the major Corporations before, so no one is ever going to admit to being quite ready.'

'So how do you propose we take out the Centre?' Marvin asked.

Scat smiled. He had a surprise for them all.

'Bing, here,' he said, pointing at the only person in the group not known to everyone, 'has discovered that this baby,' he tapped his foot on the ground a few times, 'has a light-tug.'

Nettles looked at Marvin. Marvin shrugged. Goosen glanced at Bing. Bing showed no surprise or curiosity; it was obvious he knew exactly what Scat was about to propose.

'Of course it would!' Goosen said as though Scat was stating the obvious. 'And it'll be powerful enough to drag another LM-V behind it, no doubt. What of it?'

'Well Birdie, we use it to "pinch" the Centre, and then release its energy and destroy all its electronics, data banks, security barriers, elevators, PCs, communications and scanners—basically anything that's wired.'

Scat could see eyes were widening, and although Nettles never actually looked worried, he did appear to relax.

'So we don't have significant loss of human life at all, then?' he asked.

'No. We don't. We just get ourselves a highly effective first strike.'

Marvin thought Scat had missed something.

'Unless someone inside the building is fitted with a neuralnet implant or just happens to pass by the building wearing a pacemaker, or something similar.'

Scat looked back up from the hologram and smiled at him.

'So you should stay here, then.'

He got a middle finger in mock reply.

Bing began to explain the plan in more detail. He highlighted some factors that would affect it:

'We don't want to hit the neighbouring tower blocks: some are key civilian facilities, like private clinics and media stations. I doubt we could achieve the right kind of accuracy from orbit, and the V4 can't get close in: it doesn't have the power to resist the high Gs. That leaves us with an attack by shuttle. If we don't want to move the centre—just knock out its electronics and fry its databanks—then a shuttle should provide the light-tug with the necessary power. It'll also keep the V4 out of harm's way.'

'What about the Lynthax Centre medical facility?' Marvin asked, sticking with his pacemaker theme. 'There's bound to be one or two execs hooked up to a monitor overnight? Possibly an employee or two, maybe even a family member.'

Scat thought he might as well plan for it, if only to shut him up. He looked across the hologram.

'Birdie, could we slip a message into that stream of data the V4 is sending to Trevon; something that we could get to Thomas?'

'Possibly,' he replied, looking at Bing who shrugged. 'What are you thinking of telling him?'

'He could send in a bomb threat, or we can make it look as though someone has sent one from within Trevon; whatever works. That'll cause an evacuation. It'll clear the way, and maybe even get us some live coverage.'

'Good idea, Scat,' Nettles said, signalling his approval for the attack, now they were planning to minimise casualties, especially the innocent ones. 'If a message can be sent, then please try,' he said to Bing.

'The med centre is to be cleared by three am, Go Down time, please, Bing,' Scat added. 'We'll be using the light-tug at 3.10.'

'OK, but why wait? That's several hours away,' Goosen asked.

'Because we have some prep to do. We've to knock out the next couple of buoys which means Bing's got to write a little code, and we've got to be there when they drop into space.'

'The purpose being?' Nettles asked.

Scat leaned over the 3-D bench, resting his weight on his hands. He looked around, making eye contact with everyone.

'This is a once-in-a-rebellion opportunity. If it goes well here, we need to be able to do it again, elsewhere, and as often as possible before anyone catches on. All we need to do is disable the buoy systems around each planet, so no one hears what's going on. The buoys work New World to Earth, Earth to the New Worlds—they don't cross between New Worlds. If we can knock out the buoys, Earth won't hear about our actions for a very long time. That means they can't alert the other New Worlds until it's too late. For sure, Lynthax won't be able to alert its other colonies unless it pulls its frigate away from Prebos.' He then allowed that to sink in. 'And if they do that, Prebos is fair game.'

Goosen whistled his appreciation.

Nettles nodded.

Scat continued.

'Once you've written your code, Bing, we need to move the light-tug down to the shuttle and get some practice. Can you get it fitted before 11 pm tonight?' Scat was mindful that after that they then had only four hours to intercept the first couple of buoys, get back to Trevon space, and then launch a shuttle for the attack.

Bing already had it worked out. It was doable. He was sure of it.

'Yes' he replied, adding a slight nod.

'Good. OK, then. My first thoughts are that the Go Down team will comprise Goosen, Bing and me. Goosen can fly the shuttle if we need to take it off auto, Bing will operate the light-tug, and I'm along for the ride.'

#  95

The arrival of Buoy G4:01 at the local buoy station was marked by a deep blue flash and an invisible gravitational ripple that bled out into space. A second later, it settled less than 50 kilometres to the port side of Buoy G4:02. Almost immediately, the two buoys exchanged data.

As he had for the first buoy, Bing sent a seconds-long burst of Trojan code across the emptiness, disguised as a software update. A few seconds later, the second buoy confirmed its receipt.

An instant later, the first buoy was on its way again; next stop, Trevon space, where it would exchange a few hours worth of commercial pricing data, family correspondence, security updates, political gossip, local news, software upgrades, newly approved medical procedures and anything else that two worlds had to say to each other across the vast reaches of space.

Only on this occasion, the new software update would filter the data received, and delete any message or document mentioning the rebels, the Lynthax Centre and a thousand other related words. And, once the buoy left Trevon, it was to drop off-channel by a couple of light years, where no one, except the rebels, could find it.

Satisfied the process was working, Scat ordered the launch of an unmanned shuttle, complete with copies of the Trojan, to catch the buoys that followed.

They then jumped away.

It was time to prepare for the main event.

#  96

The Go Down mission shuttle launched into Trevon space, just as the V4 passed across the terminator, having returned from its short-term hiding place midway to Prebos.

The descent was steep, with Trevon initially upside down and high up in the shuttle's cabin window. As it approached the atmosphere, the shuttle flipped over to present its heat shield, after which Trevon was lost to view amid a furious envelop of burning air and ceramic tiles.

Scat had never flown in the cockpit of any vessel returning to a planet—not to Earth, Mars, Trevon or Prebos. He had always flown as a passenger, somehow grabbing a seat close to the cabin, hoping to get a decent view.

What he saw from the cockpit was altogether different. The V4's shuttle cockpit was made almost entirely of transparent rad-hardened glass, the view a full 180º up, down, left and right, impeded only by the cockpit's instrumentation and the seats they sat in.

Heads-up displays filled the bubble-like window with data; angles, elevations, speed, rate of descent, fuel burn and other key pieces of flight information. Goosen was flicking his eyes across the window, absorbing it all, concentrating on keeping the craft at an angle of descent that was within safe limits.

The floor beneath his feet appeared to be alive with sparkling air.

'So when did you get your license?' Scat thought to ask, and then regretted it.

'I said I know how to fly the damn thing, not that I'm licensed,' Goosen replied, knowing it was too late for Scat to get pissed with him. 'I've flown three descents, several subsonic flights across the Plain and one ascent. All of them with the approval of the flight captain, with the exception of one of the descents: that one was an accident.'

Scat remembered the photo on Goosen's living room wall, of a scowling pilot and a shuttle grounded on the Gap Plain. When Goosen said he could fly a shuttle, he should have put the two together.

'Oh, OK. So long as you were approved...'

'Scat, these things almost fly themselves. I'm only here to tell it where to go and to grab the controls if the computer is fried. Don't worry.'

Scat thought it would be silly to worry, now that it was too late. Bing, however, let out a groan in the seat behind him.

'Don't you guys talk to each other?' he asked. 'It's what most people do when they plan major events like these!'

Goosen looked at Scat, hiding a grin. Scat had closed his eyes, imagining the next stage of the mission.

'Come on Scat! It's not that bad.'

The shuttle flew level across the Gap Plain, decelerating to Mach 1 as it made its final approach to Go Down City, its heat shield still faintly glowing red.

Goosen ignored the spaceport's directions to land, instead passing overhead, leaving a sonic boom in their wake. That set off a few alarm bells, but no immediate action. There were no Outer Rim Force interceptors to worry about, just a few civilian starflyers, and possibly the Lynthax frigate, which they believed was still orbiting Prebos.

Goosen decelerated more rapidly as they approached a faint strip of light that broke through the Plain a few miles ahead. The deceleration was brutal, pushing everyone against their seat belts, squeezing chests tightly, making breathing difficult for a full 15 seconds. Then they were overhead, looking down over a dull yellow glow, just able to make out the avenues that snaked north and south along Go Down, through the snow-dusted environment shield.

'There it is,' Goosen pointed out.

Scat looked down, but couldn't see much. He looked back up at the heads-up display map to get his bearings, and then back down again. Now it was visible, just below his legs, a few hundred metres away.

Behind him, Bing worked on his portable light-tug remote, punching in its activation code, and then touching a map with a stylus to indicate its target.

Almost immediately, the cockpit filled with a whirring sound from the rear compartment as the light-tug powered up, rapidly drawing ignition power from the shuttles engines.

Scat looked at his graf. It was 3.09 pm.

'The place should be clear of people by now, Birdie. Move overhead. Let's get this done.'

The light-tug maintained its lock on the Lynthax Centre, all the while increasing its draw of power from the engine. It was almost ready to deploy, both humming and crackling.

'One minute, Scat. We're almost at full power.' Bing explained.

It was a long 60 seconds.

'Deploying now!'

The light-tug threw out a silent, deep blue-black energy beam that opened like a flower as it hit the environmental shield and then proceeded downwards along the sides of the Lynthax Centre to street level, gripping the building like a vine. It was hard to see it.

'OK. I'm ramping up the amps. Almost ready.' Bing said, adding, 'You can pull away any time, Birdie. It's locked. It'll stay locked.'

'OK. We'll leave,' Goosen said as he pulled the shuttle nose up from its sloping hover, and increased the downward thrust.

Below them, the air sizzled, and bright blue lances crackled through windows. Goosen had a sense of the blue light expanding up to meet them.

'Got it! It's done,' Bing said a little too loudly now that the light-tug had ceased to make a noise in the rear compartment. 'The whole place will be an electronic dead zone. Let's go home!'

'Not so fast guys,' Scat cautioned. 'Birdie, take her up, but let's do a flyover to check the lights have gone out.'

They had. The entire column was in darkness. Seen from high above, the absence of light from the Lynthax Centre made the environment shield look like a dusty monitor that had lost some pixilation.

Scat smiled. That would be a hugely expensive outage.

'Let's get back to the V4. We've around 12 hours, and a whole load of planets to fark over. Then we can truly say we're in business' Scat said.

'Second that!' Goosen said with a smile, turning to look at Bing who was wiping dust off the lid of the light-tug remote.

The rebels had just made their first strike against the Lynthax Empire.

The rebellion was finally underway.

#  97

Once back on board the V4, Scat told Welks to turn on the media monitors throughout the ship so everyone could watch whatever the Earth press corps on Trevon could report of their early morning activities.

While the monitors flickered and they switched between channels, Matheson asked whether he could now bring the unmanned shuttle back from the buoy station. Scat told him that it would stay there until later that day. They would return to collect it only when they were done for the night, though he didn't say what being "done" might mean.

The bomb threat and the loss of power at the Lynthax Centre was the lead news story of the evening as it was the first of its kind in Go Down for over 50 years.

The NBC reporter provided the best coverage. She was asking questions about how the power outage was possible, while everyone else continued to enjoy power. She interviewed a few Lynthax officials; some looking embarrassed, others shocked. A close-up shot through a broken window of an upper floor showed a sprinkler-soaked room filled with melted PCs and blown lighting, scorched walls and buckled ceiling tiles.

The story of the night continued to build, though a little chaotically. They recapped: there had been a bomb threat; fireflies and fire marshal vehicles then arrived followed by the police; people had evacuated the building; it had flashed blue and then lost all power. They were extremely lucky that the sprinklers had kicked in; otherwise, the place would have been an inferno.

NBC had acquired footage of the flash, which was being analysed. The police confirmed the bomb threat as a hoax.

Once the recap had finished, the story continued to develop. In the past half-hour, there were unconfirmed reports of a shuttle hovering over the environment shield at the time of the flash. That added more spice to the story.

A special contributor, standing by the roadside opposite the Lynthax Centre, speculated that someone had deployed a light-tug.

The newsroom then moved onto the disappearance of the award-winning GCE news crew. A minute later, they interrupted the story with some breaking news. They now had evidence of an unauthorised re-entry. They could also confirm that it was a shuttle that had hovered over the Lynthax Centre just before it blew. Further more, the LM-V4 had jumped away, only to reappear several hours later well outside of standard orbit.

This changed the dynamic of the story. A first-ever hijacking, a daring attack on the Lynthax Centre, the mysterious disappearance of the Asian news crew: was the Asian Bloc or GCE involved, or was this the local people taking things into their own hands? They decided it was time to let the viewers decide. A toll-free number appeared on the screen.

Then it flickered. The breaking news died. There appeared a T-Street feed of a traffic junction along Third Avenue. Seconds later, it gave way to an advertisement for off-world corporate services. Finally, the spaceport hailed them. Scat flipped the speaker to mute.

'Let 'em squirm a while,' he told the operator. 'Bing, check the other stations. Let's see what Lynthax is saying.'

Goosen tapped Scat on the shoulder and pointed a thumb towards a thick-legged, stocky man standing in the command cabin doorway. Scat did not recognise him. The man appeared Asiatic, possibly Middle Eastern. A guard held him in place with a hand on his shoulder.

'Who is he?' Scat asked. Perhaps he was one of the V4's passengers.

'It's Khoffi Khan. He was most insistent, Scat. You should listen to him.'

Scat turned to look at Khan a second time. He remembered the name. This time he noticed Khan's eyes were bloodshot and that he was trembling.

'We ain't going to top him, Birdie. Go reassure him.'

'He isn't scared—far from it. He's seriously pissed. You need to listen.'

Scat shrugged his shoulders and pushed his chair away from the console.

'OK. Take him into the briefing room. I'll be along.'

When Scat arrived, Khan was sitting in a front row seat, leaning forward, head down. When he realised Scat was walking down the aisle, he stood up.

'Thank you for seeing me, Mr Scat.' He offered a hand. Scat did not take it.

'OK, Khan. I know you were Trevon's Earth Rep. What do you want to discuss—our terms of surrender?'

Khan dropped his hand and looked at Goosen.

'So you didn't tell him?' he asked.

'Tell him what?' Scat asked. He looked at Goosen as he took a seat across the aisle.

'You wouldn't have believed me, Scat. Best it comes from him, directly.' Goosen offered in his defence.

Scat turned to Khan. He was not in the mood for being messed around. He had a rebellion to fire up.

'Let's hear it, then.'

'Petroff killed my son. I want to kill Petroff.'

Brevity was not quite what Scat was expecting. The man was meant to be a diplomat, after all.

'Yeah?'

Again, Khan was remarkably brief.

'Yes. My young boy, Farrin is in a coffin on board this ship. We were returning home to Earth—until you hijacked us. Petroff's men killed him during a riot a couple of days ago. I sued. Lynthax had me dismissed.'

'So, you want Jack Petroff dead?'

'Yes. If I cannot leave it to the courts, then we'll have justice the old-fashioned way. My people's way. An eye for an eye.'

'Even if that means hitching your wagon to our cause?'

'Yes. Even if...'

'You're aware we aren't organised?' Scat asked.

'I'm aware.'

'You'll be one of us—traitors to some.'

'Yes. I'm aware of these things, Mr Scat. But family comes first, yes?'

'You mean revenge comes first.'

'OK, then. It is as you say. Revenge comes first. I prefer to call it justice. Justice implies civility.'

Scat looked across the aisle.

'What do you think, Birdie? Worth taking on our first diplomat?'

Goosen stood up, put his hand on Khan's shoulder and curled his lower lip.

'He won't be of much use to us as a diplomat, Scat. I doubt they'll let us throw a cocktail party after what we just did to the Lynthax Centre, but it'd be useful to know how the other half thinks. Right now we only know what Nettles is thinking.'

Scat thought about that. They thought they knew what Nettles was thinking—he was a local politician after all—but they already had a sense of how the independence faction worked things out. Having an Earth Rep to bounce things from could prove equally useful.

'OK, Khan. Let's take this slowly, eh? One step at a time. How would you like to help me write a speech and then appear on TV?'

Scat ordered Goosen to prepare for an off-channel jump to G-eo. When Goosen reported everything was ready he went on air, striking up a link with the spaceport's Video Exchange, making sure Khoffi Khan, Arthur Chan and his bugcam operator Li were present to prove his statement was authentic.

The spaceport Video Exchange operator was a little uncertain.

'Come again: you're who?' he asked.

'My name is Sebastian Scatkiewicz. I represent the Trevon rebels. This evening we hijacked the LM-V4, released Terrance Nettles and three other democratically elected House Representatives from unlawful detention and attacked the Lynthax Centre, taking considerable care to cause the maximum damage to their operations with the minimum loss of life.

'We can confirm the use of a light-tug. We also confirm the whereabouts of the GCE news crew, and your recently departed Earth Representative, Khoffi Khan. They are with us, as are the crew of the V4 and several wrongfully deported security and ex-police personnel. They will be released shortly unless they volunteer to serve with us.'

As he was saying this, he panned the video around the room to show Khan, Chan and Li, plus members of the crew and a few ex-cops at the back of the command cabin. Li's bugcam was up and running again, recording events off camera, Chan having convinced Scat of the historical significance of his announcement.

'We have a message for Lynthax, and it is this: We resent your abuse of privilege and your involvement in our democratic institutions. Until Trevon has achieved its independence, your operations are not safe, your out-of-system contractors are not safe, and your assets are not safe. Lynthax paper will be worth less than five cents on the dollar real soon. You have been warned.

'We also have a message for our people of Trevon: We are fighting for our freedom and our right to determine the nature and pace of planetary development without fear or favour and without reference to our employers. We also fight for our children's futures. Our goal is freedom from corporate involvement in the democratic process and freedom from Earth.

'We are Trevon rebels, but we will need to take this fight to the rest of the Outer-Rim, to gain allies, and to obtain support. If you support our goals, you can contribute by supporting your local representative in calling for autonomy.

'If you are against us, simply stay out of our way.

'Thank you.'

Of course, there was no need to thank the spaceport operator. Scat was playing to the wider audience who would hear the message replayed, repeatedly, and throughout the night—that is if Lynthax or the Earth Delegation didn't axe the news shows.

Well, grandstanding aside, there were three other Lynthax planets they could get to over the next 12 hours if their buoy ruse held out, which would be more than enough mayhem for one evening by anyone's standards: something that not even Lynthax could keep out of the press.

It was time to jump away again.

'Matheson, to G-eo in one jump, if you please!'

#  98

The V4 dropped into G-eo space, reasserted its reality, ran through its systems checks and then pushed itself closer to G-eo orbit using its chemical thrusters.

They had already dropped off an unmanned shuttle, complete with the Trojan code, to interfere with the buoys in the local channel.

Scat sat in a chair that had replaced the Commander's high-backed command couch, damaged as it was in the initial storming. Matheson sat on the opposite side of the console, resigned to playing his part in the rebel's overnight activities and hopeful of a swift release.

Bing sat alongside him, crowded in by two Trevon ex-cops who were running through the software that kept the V4 flying. Matheson was pointing out various functions.

Scat spoke above the low-toned murmur.

'Bing, bring up the local target.'

'Certainly, Scat.' Bing leaned across Matheson and issued a simple command to the computer. It responded by projecting a 2-D schematic of the Lynthax Tower in Tremont, the capital city of G-eo, onto the forward monitor.

'Expand to show the whole city.

It expanded.

'Do we have a hologram projection?' Scat asked.

'We do.'

Up it came on the briefing bench on the far side of the cabin.

Scat got up and looked down at it.

'Ask Goosen to come in. We'll be making the assault in a few minutes. Then upload all of this into the shuttle's NavCom and mark the Lynthax Tower as the prime target. The secondary target is the geothermal power station.'

He pointed to a small low-rise building at the edge of town, which, unlike Go Down, was open to the air in a semiarid region of the planet. They were to proceed onto the secondary target if, for some reason, they could not get close to the Tower.

Bing made a note, returned to the console, played with the link between the command cabin and the number three shuttle, and then left to collect Goosen, who was taking a nap in the conference room.

When he finally appeared, Goosen was even less well dressed than he had been on Trevon. His sandy hair was in tangles, the bald spot at the back of his head was uncovered. He was wearing an unevenly buttoned plaid shirt, its front panels hanging down outside of his trousers. The flies on his trousers were at half-mast, and the legs were around four inches too short.

'Where on earth did you find that wardrobe, Birdie?' Scat asked.

'The Commander made a donation,' Goosen muttered, grumpily, still shaking himself from his sleep and looking around in the hope of finding coffee. He saw Matheson's mug and took it. Matheson made to object, but once he saw the size of Goosen's fists he thought better of it.

As Goosen sipped at the lukewarm coffee, Scat brought him up to date.

'We're in G-eo orbit and once we reach the far side, we'll launch the shuttle. This time I don't go with you. We don't know a lot about this place, so we need someone up here who can make decisions. So, as I can't fly the shuttle yet, and you can, just about, you're needed down there. So's Bing. It's a two-man show, so you'll get all the glory. The Tower here is the main target; the geo-thermal station over there is the secondary.

'Oh, and like in Go Down, we're phoning in a bomb hoax. We'll be adding it to the data stream.'

'Well thanks, Scat,' Goosen replied, only slightly less tetchily now he could taste the sugar in the coffee. 'We'll be off then.'

#  99

The view from space was spectacular.

There were no clouds or atmospheric disturbance of any kind so the V4's downward-looking radar and standard HD cameras could record the entire nighttime attack at an enhanced magnification, and with such clarity, that it would have a CIA specialist gushing with joy.

Li had his bugcam on board the shuttle. Chan had done a deal with Scat. They would share the different media recordings for their own purposes once the mission was over.

On board the shuttle, Goosen tried to swat the bugcam out of the way, and cursed Li out aloud. It was supposed to stay below knee-level and track the attack through the forward and downward-looking section of the cabin, but it was flitting about, occasionally obscuring Goosen's view of the heads-up display.

Bing was calmly following their downward progress on the light-tug remote's flip-up screen. They had just emerged from re-entry and were now skimming the desert on their way to Tremont. The rear-view camera showed a hint of desert dust wafting up into the shuttle's wake, the dust particles reflecting the local star light.

'1 minute,' Goosen observed.

'OK.'

'30 seconds'

No reply

'10 seconds. Pulling up.'

The shuttle stood on its rear end as Goosen pulled the shuttle into a steep climb to reach 1500 metres. He quickly levelled out and hovered above the Lynthax Tower that was in the centre of the tightly packed Tremont downtown.

'OK, I get it Birdie. We're here. No need for the aero-dramatics.'

Goosen looked across. Bing was in the seat next to him, now that there was just the two of them.

'Well?' he asked.

'It's drawing power. Almost ready. A few seconds more. That's it. Launching now!'

'Crickes!' Goosen exclaimed.

Goosen had known what to expect, but G-eo was so energy-conscious and the night so black, the blue-black energy surge filled the cabin.

'It's a direct hit. We should be leaving already.'

'Roger that!'

Goosen spun the shuttle around and pulled hard, the shuttle burning fuel at an alarming rate as it clawed its way back into space.

Behind them, the Lynthax Tower blinked dark, then, one by one, and as the shuttle exited the troposphere, several floors of the building burst into flame.

Just as the shuttle made its V4 approach, Scat sent a message to one of the local media stations, repeating their goals. He then gave Chan permission to stream a specially prepared and approved 30-minute news-piece into space, one that included the never-seen-before footage of the hijacking of the V4, the assault on Trevon and the follow-up assault on G-eo.

It promised more to come.

#  100

'It's a farking disaster!' Petroff muttered as he walked through the small lobby leading into his office. 'An unmitigated, farking disaster!'

'Sir?' Rogers asked.

'Nothing, nothing,' Petroff replied. Then more softly, under his breath, looking at his desk covered in water, 'Farking nothing!'

The place was in a mess. The elevators were out, the lights were out, and everything electrical was burned out. Along with a small security detail, he had taken a soft-track up onto the environmental roof above the Lynthax Centre and then made his way on foot down to his office on the 120th floor. He was sweating through his shirt, and his legs ached.

He walked stiffly back out to the corridor. Further along, he could see his men wandering from room to room. Above him, the sprinklers continued to leak water; splat, splat, onto a squidgy carpet. The air was thick with burned plastic, wiring, and paper and was saturated with moisture.

Nothing electrical worked any more. Even the databanks on the 130th floor were fried. Worse, there was no neuralnet and no companynet—just publicnet and frigging radio!

'By Jeeze, someone is going to pay for this!'

His graf pinged. It was an incoming message from Cotton. He threw up a projection.

'You may want to drop the projection, Jack,' Cotton said by way of hello. 'For your ears only. We've commandeered the publicnet for a few hours, so it's secure.'

Petroff dropped the projection, connected his earpiece, spun around and walked back into his office. He shooed Rogers and his colleague away as he wondered how Cotton could have secured the publicnet so quickly.

'And?' he asked.

'It was Scat.'

Petroff stopped in his tracks.

'You're farking kidding me!'

'What would be the point?' Cotton asked. 'We don't have the time for pissing about. He's also taken the V4.'

Petroff sat down onto his chair, oblivious to its dampness.

'You understand he now has the V4?' Cotton asked.

Again, no reply. Petroff's mind was racing.

'Call me back when you're ready to talk,' Cotton continued.

'How the fark did he get to the V4?' Petroff asked, still not quite believing it. It's our most valuable vessel! He reached for a remote on the desk to turn on the news, then threw it against the wall when it occurred to him the TV wouldn't work.

'He hijacked it. He's also released the prisoners, and made friends with some Asian Bloc journalists. We've just finished reviewing a statement he made through the spaceport video exchange.'

'How long ago?' How on earth did this wooden-top stop the video exchange from telling me about this?

'A couple of hours. We've kept it under wraps, but the networks will hear of it soon, I've no doubt.'

You mean you'll be releasing it soon.

'Where is he now?'

'No idea,' Cotton replied, adding: 'They went ftl. But we've sent messages to the buoys asking Earth to up the cruiser patrols along the channels, and our boys are prepping a starflyer to serve as our ground comms to the local satellites. We also need to let the other worlds know what's going on so.'

Petroff's mind raced a little more.

Why the blazes didn't this jerk have Scat arrested before the Booni news conference? He had served him up as a patsy for Booni's assassination—not to piss him off and push him into the rebellion. Just what was this guy thinking?

Unless it was politics as usual.

'Petroff, are you still there?' Cotton asked.

"Yes. I'm thinking.'

'Well, we're doing that as well. It looks as though Scat is on the warpath, and now he's got an LM equipped with military-grade SG, he could be anywhere by now.'

'G-eo,' Petroff replied.

'G-eo?'

'Yes. He'll want to keep going. G-eo is nearest. It's also a Lynthax world.'

'What makes you think he's headed for a Lynthax world?'

'His sense of fair play!'

Petroff cut the link with Cotton, not caring overly much whether he was finished or not. That bastard had screwed him over, somehow, and for some reason, but he wasn't going to let him do that a second time.

He needed to protect his company's assets, but he didn't have much to work with. None of the company's starflyers was equipped with military-grade SG, and the Lynthax frigate was protecting the Thing on Prebos—on orders from corporate.

Well bollocks to that: he would pull it. The frigate was his ship, despite the Outer Rim Force listing it as one of their Reserve assets. And in any case, were Scat to be left free to create as much havoc elsewhere as he had just done here, the company would be in dire straights before too long. Then that Thing would drop right to the back of the file. And he could not have that. It was his baby.

He ran a card over the lock on the drawer in his desk and looked down at his Hoover files. They appeared dry. He reached inside and picked up a disc. Yes, still dry.

Well, these files, and that Thing on Prebos, were his hammer on the glass ceiling, and this attempt at rebellion wasn't going to get in his way.

He walked along the corridor to the transportation office and peered through the door to study the scorched chart on the back wall. A corporate starflyer was available. It was N'bomal's, but what the heck! He would take it and explain later.

'Rogers! Call the soft-track back to the roof. We're off to the spaceport.'

It took only two hours for Petroff to reach Prebos, even without the military-grade SG. He simply broke the rules, completing the trip in just four jumps, ignoring his pilot's advice to at least stick to the channel.

They jumped into space, a thousand klicks to the aft of his beloved Venture Raider, without warning and risking a violent reaction. But the frigate remained embarrassingly quiet. Petroff's frustration finally erupted into unfiltered anger. He put a call through to the ship's commander using his direct line.

'Abel, bring the ship to battle stations and prepare a jump to G-eo. Then fire the officer of the watch!'

Abel sprang from his bed and rubbed his face free of sleep.

'Yes, sir. We weren't expecting you.'

'That's obvious. Now get me on board. We have a rebellion to put down.'

# 101

Who would have thought it? For a ship that had attacked two New Worlds in the course of three hours, and was preparing to attack a third, the V4 was surprisingly quiet. Scat had expected significantly more chaos. Instead, the place was calm.

Newly recruited rebels, all of them ex-Trevon cops, hunkered down over consoles, familiarizing themselves with the V4's software. The original V4 crew sat on the floor beneath the forward screen, under guard and waiting to answer the next question or call for assistance. Across the command cabin floor, Goosen and Bing prodded and probed the hologram, discussing their next target. Further afield, small groups of rebels patrolled the ship looking for more armaments and useful supplies.

But they did so very quietly, in stark contrast to the screaming and hollering that had accompanied the initial hijack. It was as though everyone was now embarrassed by the emotions that had been on display in the first hour, and were dialing them back, absorbing the magnitude of what they had just done.

Even the 240 or so prisoners were quiet, resigned to Scat's promise of a short detention, at least until the night's operations were complete; and the politicos had come to understand they were superfluous to the evening's activities, so had backed away, allowing Scat to focus on the job at hand. That is, with the exception of Marvin: out of sheer curiosity, he loitered in the command cabin, occasionally looking over Goosen's shoulder at the comms monitor.

Scat could now hear a pin drop. It wasn't how he imagined it would be—it was too quiet—but at least Li's bugcam had stopped flitting about. Li and Chan had gone; maybe they were walking around with one of the patrols—he didn't care: he had other things on his mind; they were about to attack Lynthax House on Ashmore.

They were currently knocking out the Ashmore buoy network. It was their next target by virtue of its location along the Outer-Rim. Only no one on board the V4, save the original flight crew, and probably a prisoner or two, really knew much about the place, and they weren't offering anything up, unless Scat asked them direct questions at the point of a gun.

In Scat's rush to hit as many planets as possible in the course of a single night, they were planning their next hit just as they completed the previous one, relying on surprise and a general deficit of ORF defense capabilities to make up for a lack of detailed planning. Only they had just discovered that Lynthax House was going to be a difficult target and, in working it out, they were burning through a valuable resource—time.

Lynthax House was deep inside Prospect City's huge dome, which provided it with protection against Ashmore's howling winds, just as the environmental shield over Go Down City protected its inhabitants from cold snaps and arctic blizzards. But that's where the similarity ended. Whereas the rooftop of the Lynthax Centre connected with Go Down's environment shield, Lynthax House didn't connect with the dome; the building topped-off several hundred metres below it.

That presented the rebels with three problems: they were less certain the light-tug would lock on to the building; the shuttle itself would take a battering during its approach, and it would be a bitch to keep it steady when it was time to deploy the light-tug. They had yet to come up with a solution that dealt with all three, despite several simulations.

'Worth moving on?' Scat asked, breaking the silence. Several heads came up and then returned to their screens. He was talking to Goosen.

'How long do we have?' Goosen replied, still looking directly at the hologram.

'For here? Maybe another 90 minutes. Beyond that we lose night time over Constitution; it'll have to be a daytime raid.'

Goosen knew what he meant by that. The Venture Raider was the ever-present bogeyman, lurking in the shadows around the room, waiting to pounce if forgotten. No one knew where it was. It had been protecting the company's most valuable asset, the mining operations on Prebos, making sure it was isolated from Trevon's increasingly volatile politics. But it could be anywhere now. Their intelligence was threadbare, hearsay. So, they all kept the Venture Raider at the front of their minds; there was no need to mention it again.

'Sir,' said one of the ex-cops. Scat knew his name; it was on the tip of his tongue. 'Someone is mucking around with the Far Dark Light fuel reserves.'

Scat looked across at Matheson, the V4's original second in command. The man's head dipped between his knees to avoid Scat's stare.

'What kind of "mucking around"?' he asked.

'We're bleeding fuel into the skin of the ship—lots of it.'

Scat got up, walked across the cabin and prodded Matheson with his foot. When he spoke his tone was even, but menacing.

'You said comms could only be accessed from here, the shuttles and the flux-drive rooms.'

Matheson felt his heart race. He should have mentioned the medical centre, but hadn't. He had hoped for it to matter hours ago, when the situation was more fluid. He had hoped someone in the accommodation section would use their initiative to help save the ship. But not now: not after such a delay. Since then he hadn't dared mention it; he could still see the commander's vacant eyes staring at the afterlife.

'Answer up, Matheson.'

'The medical centre has access to the ship's basic programmes, but that isn't the same as access to communications,' he lied, surprising himself at how credible it was. 'You were very specific at the time.'

'Sir! The accommodation video feed has also gone down.'

Scat looked across at the man who was giving him the bad news, and remembered his name. It was Tyson; Goosen had told him he used to work in the control centre at police headquarters, as a comms expert. He nodded his thanks and headed for the door.

'Matheson, this is going to cost you,' he said without looking at him. 'Birdie, drop what you're doing and come with me. Bring one of the reserve teams. Bing, get Welks to help you shut off the bleed. And I don't care how much you need to hurt Matheson—get his full cooperation, this time.'

# 102

Scat stood in front of the locked fire door, bracing himself for whatever was on the far side. The doors had remained closed since releasing the officers who had agreed to join them. Since then, everyone else was free to roam their section of the ring, with a rebel team watching over each fire door.

He logged onto the ship's net and spoke into his graf:

'Bing, tell everyone to clear the next section of the corridor and let them know we'll PIKL anyone who shows his face. They've got 30 seconds.'

'OK, Scat. We're still working on the FDL bleed but should have the video restored in a few minutes.'

Fine. Not that the video would matter in a few minutes time. We'll be too busy to watch it.

He called up the ship's schematics, looking for the medical centre. It was maybe 30 or 35 metres further along the ring's corridor, on the right hand side. There were two large rooms between the fire door and the medical centre: a dining hall and a media centre. The bunks were further up the ring. The medical centre's corridor walls were made of glass, so there could be no stealthy approach. It would be a rush for the door, hoping to catch the beggar before he scarpered.

'What's your name?' he asked of the team leader.

'Bradley, sir.'

'OK, Bradley, when we burst in, I want one man either side of the first two doors, here and here,' he said, pointing them out on his graf projection, 'with you, and one other, moving passed the medical centre to cover the next two doors and the next section of the ring, here, here and here. Goosen and I will tackle whoever's in the medical centre, which is here. Got it?'

'Yes, sir.'

'It's Scat,' he said, turning the projection around so the other three could see the schematic.

'Yes, Scat,' Bradley replied with a smile. His guys stepped away and made ready. 'OK, guys, you heard him. Scag, you and I go to the far end. Fanny, Clinker; you'll cover the first two doors. Safeties off!'

Bradley looked at Scat, waiting for him to open the fire door.

'And don't be gentle on anyone who gives you trouble,' Scat said. 'Tyson, is the video up yet?' he asked over his graf.

'Yes, sir. It's just the one guy. He's on the far side of the room, opposite the main doors. He's fiddling with some equipment.'

Scat looked back at Bradley.

'OK. Ready?' he asked as he moved to one side.

Bradley nodded.

Scat pushed down on the red release button set into the door paneling. The security team raced up the corridor. Scat turned to look at Goosen.

'Let's go', he said and then flinched as an explosion rocked the ring.

Goosen hit the floor, joining Scat who was a little quicker.

'Fark!'

He looked up. The corridor had filled with swirling smoke. The extractor fans sucked hard to pull it into the ceiling.

Scat leaned through the door and peered into the smoke. He shouted.

'Bradley! Are you OK?'

Nothing. Some coughing. Then some expletives.

'Bradley! What just happened?'

'They just got their arses handed to them, Scat.' It was Bing on the graf. 'I can't see the other two. The guy in medical centre is climbing onto a bed. He's fiddling with a ceiling tile. It looks like he has a PIKL.'

'Thanks Bud,' Scat acknowledged. 'Birdie, let's go.'

Scat sprang up and raced down the corridor. He passed Fanny and Clinker, who knelt, doubled over, coughing and sucking in dirty air. Racing up the corridor to the medical centre entrance, he saw a pair of legs hanging from the ceiling on the other side of the glass wall. When he reached the entrance, he found the dead and still burning figures of Bradley and Scag.

The centre's glass doors had two large holes punched through them. In the wall opposite was a larger hole, its buckled paneling opening out into a recreation room. Whoever was in the medical centre hadn't fired a warning shot, that's for sure: he had used the PIKL at full power.

Goosen pushed past him, burst into the room and ran across to where the legs were fast disappearing. He jumped up, grabbed an ankle and hung on, pulling himself off the floor.

A section of the ceiling gave way, revealing an air vent that came crashing to the floor with the man lying face down inside of it. A weapon clattered to the ground beside him.

Goosen let go for a second. He scrambled to his knees and grabbed the man's trouser belt to haul him free. An elbow came back into his face, stunning him. He dropped his PIKL. Then he was in a fight for life.

The man got a hand to Goosen's weapon and tried to put a finger inside the trigger guard. Goosen smothered him, keeping his arm pinned the floor so he could not bring it around and take a shot. He punched him twice in the back of the head and then grabbed the man's hair to bring it sharply backwards, but somehow the saboteur twisted onto his back, almost wriggling free.

Despite being the bigger man, Goosen daren't let the beggar go; not only was he incredibly wriggly, but he was also very quick; his hands couldn't be held down for more than a few seconds before one of them was free again, swiping him around the ear or chopping into his neck.

A knee jerked upwards, twice, aimed at his groin. It didn't matter that Goosen was on top—he was taking a beating.

Where the hell is Scat? he thought.

Jeeze – where the blazes is he?

'Stay down, you fark! Stay down!' he grunted, but the more agile man wasn't listening. Again, Goosen got a clip on the neck, and another knee in the groin.

Eventually Goosen had had enough. He pushed the man's head down with his forearm, exposed the throat, applied a bear sized paw across it and then pushed himself up from the body as though doing a one handed push-up. He looked into the man's eyes to see if his resistance was fading, but saw only a flash of anger, and, too late, sensed a knee come up to strike him between his legs—again.

Under the crush of such a big hand, and with so much weight bearing down on his throat, Rolf could sense the end. He had slugged it out with some hard nuts in his time, but this brut did not seem to have the same physiology as normal people. He had already slugged him twice on the carotid sinus and he knew his knee had hit its mark on more than one occasion, but the ox just would not roll off him. He had done all he could, and yet all he saw was a reddening of the bastard's face and a hint of frustration ... and he still has his hand around my throat. I can't breathe ... Oh, shit! Things are getting fuzzy...

Even after the man went limp, Goosen did not dare let him go. He could see the man's face swell, then go blue, and had sensed his strength ebb away, but feared it was a feint, a ruse. Still, he relaxed the grip on the throat to allow the man to take a breath if he needed to, making sure he had his weight well and truly covering the man's arms and legs. But there was no movement. No pulse.

Shit!

He let go slowly, pulling himself to his feet, shaking his head and wiping blood from his right eye. Then he stomped on the man's chest and dropped to his knees, to conduct some mouth to mouth.

'Whoa, there, Birdie! Why don't you use a ventilator? It's better than sticking your tongue down his throat. We're in a medical centre, after all...'

Goosen looked up. It was Scat. Finally!

'How long have you been sitting there!' he asked, still heaving and sweating from his exertions.

'Not long. You were doing just fine. Though I'm surprised you let him kick you in the nuts so easily—and so often.'

'Hand me those paddles, you...' Goosen couldn't think of an appropriate expletive. 'If you want to know what else he was up to, he's got to be fit to answer questions.'

Scat could see Goosen was angry, so he leaned forward to pass him the paddles, then leaned over again to hand him some gel. Goosen zapped the body and checked for a pulse. He found one as Rolf gasped through a crushed windpipe. Goosen looked up and around the med centre.

'Find me an endotracheal tube.'

Scat looked blankly at him.

'His windpipe is a little squishy,' Goosen explained. 'It's a breathing tube. A clear plastic tube, tapered at one end, with a flat opening at the broader end. It's slightly curved.'

Scat opened a few cupboards and eventually tossed Goosen an orange box.

'And get a medic!'

Scat looked around and gestured at an empty room, shrugging.

'Oh! You mean get one of the crew up here?'

'Can you stop pulling my chain, Scat? Of course, that's what I meant. I'm only a first responder. We'll need better skills than mine to to keep this fark alive.'

'Relax, Birdie. They're on their way. Bing's on to it.'

Still panting, Goosen sat back on his heels and forced a sarcastic smile through split lips. Scat smiled back, got up and walked to the medical centre door. When he reached it, he turned around.

'Once we've found out what else he was doing, he'll pay for Bradley and Scag.'

'Blimey, Scat! He's three parts dead already. You want to show him hell for a second time?'

# 103

The Venture Raider jumped into G-eo space a few hours too late. Tremont's Lynthax Tower was a smoking ruin and the V4 was long gone. The neuralnet, companynet, publicnet and Tremont's Housenet were all down, but the radio frequencies were bursting with traffic.

'Damn,' Commander Abel exclaimed. 'They're quick off the mark. Ashmore will be next, I suspect.'

From his observer's chair at the back of the cabin, Petroff continued listening to the three frequencies dedicated to Tremont's emergency services. They appeared to be coping, but only just. He held a quick conference call, or rather an awkward three-way radio conference, with Lynthax's local head of security and Tremont's police commissioner. They told him of the extent of the damage, and the contents of Scat's public broadcast.

Ironically, G-eo's public now knew more about the rebellion than they did on Trevon, but there was no point dwelling on that. He could sense a pattern was emerging, or at least believed he could confirm the goal of each attack. The G-eo attack was a carbon copy of the one on Trevon. Scat was going for quick and repeatable successes, intent on causing damage to Lynthax, specifically its data and comms. He wasn't yet going after production, or after Earth.

Petroff glanced over at the star map which showed this quarter of the Outer-Rim, then realised he needed a 3-D version. He interrupted Abel who was talking quietly to his second-in-command.

'Abel, throw up a hologram of the Outer-Rim—highlight everything that's ours.'

Abel nodded to the SG operator. They waited for the projection to lock into place.

'It's up, sir,' Abel confirmed, pointing at the conference room.

Petroff sprang from his chair.

'Then join me.'

They stepped past the star map and into a conference room where they walked around the projection bench, peering into the blue light, looking at the relationship between G-eo, Ashmore and Constitution from various angles.

Abel could see the shortest path between the planets.

'So—Ashmore, then? That's next.'

G-eo was the closest planet to Trevon—it just happened to be a Lynthax world; Ashmore was the next along the Rim, again, a Lynthax world; then there was Alba, an Asian Bloc world, which he could ignore. Constitution was the next Lynthax planet after that, though significantly "off plane".

Petroff looked at his graf to check what time had elapsed since the rebels had attacked the Lynthax Centre on Trevon and did some mental math. If the rebels were taking an hour or so to get to each, and around an hour to launch and retrieve a shuttle, then the race to Ashmore would be a very close-run thing. But...

'Probably ... possibly,' Petroff said, considering an alternative. 'Forget Ashmore,' he decided. 'We aren't so heavily invested there. How long will it take for us to get to Constitution?'

'At max speed? Two hours.'

'Then max it out. I want to be there before they've finished with Ashmore.'

Petroff marched back to the observer's chair, sat down and drummed his fingers on the armrest.

The chase was on. But, something deep inside his gut was nagging at him. Something was telling him this would not end quickly, or cleanly. This might just take a while.

He shook his head.

No it wouldn't, he told himself: he would get them at Constitution, and, when he did, he would get on with a day of hangings. And if there wasn't enough rope to do the job, he would vent them from an airlock himself—and watch their blood turn to gas.

'Hurry up, Abel. It's a race. I intend to win it.'

Even if it were to be a long and winding road.

#  104

2215

Samuel Cohen lay on his bunk reflecting on his reason for being on G-eo.

As far as he was concerned, the upcoming meeting with the rebels was to be the last set piece in a long and bruising game, now entering the last few minutes of extra time. As for what the rebels were thinking, well...

Earth had been desperate for the raw materials needed to sustain its population even before the Resource Wars and the only way to get them, without resorting to yet another round of conflict, had been to persuade the resource companies to risk it all on exploiting space.

In exchange for risks the companies were taking, the UN issued them with mandates to run all the New Worlds they could discover and develop. That became a license to print money—a license that then needed protecting. So the companies bought themselves some insurance: influence within the democratic institutions on Earth. Over time, they began to assert influence over policy.

It became Bloc policy to leave ISRA underfunded, stack the ISRA Appeals Court with company men and to manipulate the United Nations. Gradually the resource companies became more influential than governments.

Cohen had no problem with shareholders making money, even as a quasigovernment employee his retirement plan depended on it, but he had a problem with money dominating the democratic process. He had lived long enough to see the injustice of it, how it could distort a system, stifle innovation and harden the arteries of progress. Things needed to change.

And they now were.

Re-establishing democracy was always going to be messy. Earth was ill equipped for a rebellion in space. Its lifeline to the New Worlds was particularly vulnerable to the rebels' constant attacks. When the resource companies couldn't deliver their product, their share prices tanked, global stock markets reeled and commodity prices shot up. Industry ground to a halt, crops failed, and millions died.

Just as he had expected.

The resources companies weren't a Goldman Sachs Levine, a JP Morgan Barclays or a Greater China Banking Corporation. When people described them as being "too big to fail", it wasn't so they could avoid a recession with a public hand-out. They were simply too important to fail: if they failed, so too did Earth.

The rebellion also hurt the New Worlds. Some companies closed their operations completely and shipped their staff back to Earth. Where they couldn't afford it, or, because they were going into administration, they took their workers to the local support planet and dismissed them there.

That had left thousands of people reliant on the local New World governments—all of them run for a profit and utterly unsuited and unused to providing social welfare. And with transport links disrupted, life sustaining imports in short supply and local authorities facing an increasing social burden, there followed inflation, increased borrowing and local currency depreciation, higher interest rates, debt default and higher local taxation. People were not happy. Capital had taken flight.

It wasn't long before Earth realised there was a real possibility of losing the New Worlds; Earth was becoming fearful of its isolation and its population was panicking. Governments were at last asking questions about the New World mandates.

Still, the pushback required an extra shove.

The how, what, why, where and when was provided by Cohen. His paper on the causes of the insurgency was widely circulated. In his conclusions, he made several recommendations, all of which he had carefully considered, even before he unleashed the insurgency on the New Worlds.

As Cohen's sponsor, the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority had promoted the recommendations to the UN. The Blocs had no option but to endorse them. The UN eventually adopted them and passed the responsibility of implementing them back to ISRA.

The rollout had begun six months ago. It began with a round of consultations on Earth and then across the Outer-Rim. Four months ago, ISRA introduced direct transport links between several of the New Worlds. Next month, they were to review the mandates of several others, making them subject to much stricter ISRA oversight.

The effect was real and immediate.

Two months ago, the Raddox board endorsed the proposals. They told their representatives to persuade the other companies to sign on. Work stoppages at its OR mines became less frequent, and its shipments normalised as the rebels switched their attacks to the remaining holdouts. The company's share price began to stabilise, and its cost of borrowing dropped.

Other companies followed out of financial necessity. The ripple became a wave, and the wave was fast becoming a tide.

With more and more resource corporations accepting ISRA's proposals, the citizens of the Outer-Rim now sensed the possibility of a new relationship with Earth. And so long as their Houses signed up to discuss the new transport links, and the resource companies agreed to revise their mandates, they had less need to rely on vaguely worded promises of independence from the rebels. The rebels no longer represented their interests—ISRA did.

The democratic process was at last reasserting itself. Cohen felt confident for the future. Booni's sacrifice in a side street on Trevon was achieving all he had expected of it. By inciting a physical rebellion, facilitating its initial successes, and then promoting a solution, Earth's ISRA, more specifically ISRA's Cohen, had strengthened the position of Earth's democratic institutions relative to the all-powerful resource companies, at least in space. His final goal—to carve the corporations out of the democratic process on Earth—was clearly within reach.

In the meantime, the rebels continued to push against the tide, which was a pity. Cohen understood their commitment to democracy. He respected their resourcefulness. He admired their persistency. In truth, they had kept him intellectually honest as they continued to innovate and surprise, constantly forcing him to update his plans. But the rebellion had to stop soon. Democracy on Earth depended on it.

He was looking forward to meeting them.

#  105

'Two hundred and fifty year leases? Without the reviews? Are you sure?' N'Bomal couldn't believe it.

Nicholas Orbatan, the Lynthax CEO, had recently arrived from Earth, to update the local operation on developments at home. He was now giving N'Bomal a briefing on their progress with the Thing.

'Yes. At a minimum. The board's confident ISRA will give it to us, so long as we accept these interplanetary flights and eventually give up the New World mandates.'

Carlo Ratti, Lynthax's Chief of Science, flipped through his briefing sheet and laid out some of the other conditions:

'... in addition to deeper space exploration, funding the cost of eco-engineering and terraforming, committing to longer-term development, and so on.'

The previous year's report had also followed Orbatan's visit to the centre, but there hadn't been much to report at that time, or any reason to plan for the longer-term: the insurgency had expanded across the Outer-Rim interrupting shipments, and the Thing had offered up nothing useful. Then 11 months ago, Makindra had made a breakthrough, the details of which N'Bomal was unaware of—until today.

'All true, of course?' N'Bomal asked.

Ratti was as certain of the outcome as he was in his science.

'Of course,' he continued. 'Except we'll be in deeper space than anyone anticipates when the deal is done, and there'll be no need to terraform a damn thing. We just pick and mix the planets that best suit our purposes, whether they're for migration, minerals, and/or crops. Any place we visit that's not up to standard, we discard.'

'Sorry, Carlo. Did you say, "Discard"?'

'Yes. The project office insists on a planet meeting early-day metrics. If a place doesn't meet eight out of the 12 criterion within three days, it's to be discarded. We move on.'

'Discarded?'

"Yes. Ditched. Left alone. Ignored. We move on.'

'Discarding planets! By Jeeze. I know new technologies open up new possibilities, Nicholas, but I never thought I would hear anyone talk about discarding a planet in my life time.'

'More true in this case than it generally is,' Orbatan confirmed, 'but, yes, it'll certainly be opening up new possibilities. Rather a lot of them, actually. We're already talking to ISRA about extending the Outer-Rim to a defined distance from Earth. We'll concede up to one thousand light years further out. But beyond, say, 1500 light years, we believe Earth can't exert control or offer its protection, and that defines any one's right to claim sovereignty. If we're to develop anything further out than that, and we will, we want the full 250 years.'

Orbatan let that sink in. Their lawyers were already refining the argument about what defines sovereignty, and how to claim it, in anticipation of the upcoming meeting with the Inter-Space Regulatory Aunthority on Earth. It looked as though ISRA was going to challenge the definition, but Lynthax still had muscle on the ISRA Appeals Court. In any case, they were only seeking 250-year leases in space completely out of range of Earth's protection and well beyond what conventional science felt was feasible. Lynthax was covering all its bases.

'Sovereignty?' Again, N'Bomal thought he had heard wrongly.

'Yes, sovereignty,' Orbatan confirmed.

Ratti clarified what they meant:

'We'll be establishing an empire of our own, Joshua. We'll populate the planets with people who want to get off Earth, and eventually we'll wave goodbye to the place. Judging by what's been going on in the Outer-Rim, 250 years will be more than enough time for us to establish a sense of nationhood. Only this time we know what to watch out for, and we'll be guiding the debate to suit ourselves. Essentially, it'll be a free-enterprise universe with us at the top of the tree.'

N'Bomal tried to take that in. He wanted to shake his head and wake up.

Orbatan ploughed on:

'Anyways, we reckon 1500 light years is far enough out for Earth to believe we'll never get there and back, and if we do, that we're investing some serious money and deserve a return.

Ratti thought that N'Bomal might need further clarification. He listed some of the obvious, mostly technical restrictions to exploring deep space in the traditional way:

'In any case, the wider we go out, the more space there is to explore, and ftl is a very costly business. For a tanker to travel 1500 light years in less than a year it would need to carry more than 20 times its own mass in fuel—and that's each way! And the further out from the Inner-Rim we go, the slower the top speed has to be—the space maps are less reliable and everywhere needs scanning and checking. Don't forget: there's a black hole for every cubic light year of space, and one hell of a lot of space dust.

N'Bomal still wasn't ready to interrupt. Orbatan could see it would take a while.

Ratti continued:

'Ultimately, based on our current fuel technology and even if we could store enough of it, civilian tankers would take 20 years for such a journey, and then some. Basically, Earth will do the calculations and come to the same conclusions: it can't be done, so there's no harm in granting the concessions in return for peace in the Outer-Rim.'

He then summed up:

'Whereas in practice we can find a place, visit it, assess it and either claim or discard it in very quick time, and before any one cottons-on to what we're doing. And if they do suspect something, they'll have to prove it. To do that, they'll need the technology—which they don't have. And if they try to take it from us, we'll have a finger on the kill-switch.'

N'Bomal was beginning to catch up. The company was going to milk this technology for everything they could get out of it, and before Earth wised up. Nevertheless, it would take careful planning, and near perfect execution.

'It sounds like we're preparing a very, very big land grab, gentlemen. When will we have their answer? And when do we start?' he asked.

'Soon,' Ratti said. 'In the meantime, we continue testing.

'With living things?'

'Ah, I thought you'd ask that. No, not yet. We've stuck to automated drones up until now. We even considered just using drones, never sending a person: after all, why send workers if you can operate a drone excavator on a world 10,000 light years away using your desktop—from here. Then pass the stuff to Earth—again, using your desktop!'

Ratti gave N'Bomal time to imagine that. He watched N'Bomal's eyes widen as he saw the possibilities.

He ploughed on.

'But we do need people to achieve our longer-term goals. People claim sovereignty. People own things, plus we need local people working several planets.

'At the moment there's only the one energy source—at least only one that's capable of driving a hole—so we're limited to one action at a time. Now that's OK if we position the main junction on, say, Trevon—everything can then come and go through it. We'd simply throw a hole out to a planet that's supplying the product, bring them here, then throw the hole out to Earth and send them through. However, controlling mining equipment on several planets at the same time may be a stretch. So people are next.

'We'd worm them in and let them control the mining operations locally, occasionally throwing one out to collect their goodies, deliver stuff to keep them amused, and bring them back for a little R&R.' Ratti paused, and looked briefly at Orbatan before adding: 'Though, given the reputation it's got, I doubt we'll get too many volunteers.'

'What reputation?' N'Bomal asked.

'It seems to freak people out. Even Williams and Xin find it hard to stay in the room with it. Petroff was game enough to try when he visited last year: he got up close and personal for all of three minutes then lost his bottle. Anyhow, it doesn't matter. We've built our own, and the only thing we're using from the original is its power source, which is like nothing I've ever seen before,' Ratti claimed, smiling with joy. 'It's phenomenal.'

Orbatan saw N'Bomal raise an eyebrow, but it was true. He had seen it for himself, and it was phenomenal.

'What's more phenomenal than a wormhole, Carlo?' N'Bomal asked.

'When a power supply is inexhaustible, it's pretty damn phenomenal,' Orbatan said.

'Impossible! It was almost dead when Petroff pulled it out of space.' N'Bomal remarked, frowning. He wasn't in direct contact with the research centre on Prebos, but he did receive an unofficial quarterly briefing, of sorts, from Lombardi. Though it appeared he was right not to trust Lombardi to offer up the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

'Yes, I grant you that,' Ratti said. 'It was exceedingly close to failure, but for some reason, it wasn't tapping into a separate source of energy at its core. We found it by accident. We're using it now. Again, that was Makindra. And everything we know about it, which isn't much, says it defies all the laws of physics. But it's real and, as far as we can tell, it's not at all dangerous. It never loses energy—no matter how hard we flog it, or how far we throw a hole: it's unbelievable.'

'Maybe there was a reason for that, Carlo,' N'Bomal cautioned. 'Have you found out why it was where it was, or what it was meant to be doing?'

'No, and I doubt we ever will. In any case, it doesn't matter. We've got everything we need to throw a hole—the rest of it can be left alone.' Ratti was referring to what the science team called "Pandora's Box", a rectangular-shaped object, deep inside the craft, that defied all forms of scanning. 'We considered it—believe me—but it was a huge and expensive distraction. In any case, the original reason for its existence might never make any sense to us, even if it told us. Trust me when I say we've the interesting bits. The rest can be left for another day.'

N'Bomal had to ask:

'Do Bradbury and Makindra agree with you in this?'

'Yes. They do,' Ratti said, a little too quickly. 'And they're as keen as mustard to move on to the next phase.'

N'Bomal doubted that those two could ever agree on anything and Makindra had never been as keen as mustard. Ever since the man had touched the damn thing, he had been wary of it. He even claimed at one point the damned thing had tried talking to him. Since then he had been happy conducting his research from a respectful distance, on the fourth floor of the research centre that Lombardi had built over the original Thing in The 7.

'Where do you conduct the trials with the duplicate?' N'Bomal asked out of curiosity.

'Can't say, sorry,' Ratti said. 'But it's a long way off, I can assure you. We're mindful of attracting the wrong kind of attention: either from the rebels or from ISRA. Our future leases depend on the regulator not being aware of just how we'll be getting to the stars over the next few years.'

'Well, be mindful of the fact that the Station Commanders resent that the area is off-limits,' N'Bomal cautioned, 'and their people are getting curious. But more importantly, we've employees who you've kept on the project for five years and want out. Our excuses for keeping them there are wearing thin, and increasing the end-of-contract bonuses and extending the payment date to some mythical day in the future isn't working any more.

'When can you clear out and leave the place to be mined properly again? And when can we release these people so they can go home?'

Orbatan knew the "lockdown" was a running headache for the Trevon operation, but there were developments in that area, too:

'Soon. We're thinking of moving the whole shebang to Runnymede. HR is working on incentives, and the psych department is analysing employee profiles: the project needs to be expanded, and we need workers who'll stay loyal to it.'

There was a knock at N'Bomal's door, and the familiar swish of a door opening out over a thick carpet.

'Ah, Petroff! Come on in,' Orbatan said, rather presumptuously, given this wasn't his office. Again, N'Bomal raised an eyebrow. It was obvious Orbatan had invited him. He looked happy, at least happier than he had for the past six months. More confident, too.

'Good evening, sirs,' Petroff said, taking a seat.

'OK, then Jack,' Orbatan said. 'Let's hear it. I want you to explain to your boss just how we can put this rebel thing behind us.'

Petroff took N'Bomal through his plan, flicking through a series of slides he projected onto the side wall. When he was done, he switched off his graf and stared at N'bomal as if waiting for questions.

N'Bomal was dumbstruck for a second time. His eyes flicked between Ratti and Orbatan.

'It's a crazy idea!' He couldn't think of a more politically appropriate description. "Bonkers" had leapt to mind, but it looked like Orbatan had already signed off on it.

'Are you sure it's crazy? Even when we know Cohen will be among them?' Orbatan asked.

'You're kidding?'

'No,' Petroff explained. 'He's there alright. Balsom confirmed it. Something's brewing.'

'Wasn't Balsom their money man?' N'Bomal asked. 'Didn't we turn him when we got the GCE to open up that offshore account?'

'Yes, the very same Balsom, Joshua,' Orbatan confirmed. 'He's been as helpful as he can from the political side, but useless to us concerning the rebels. Apparently, Scatkiewicz cut out the politicos early on, so he only meets low-level rebel reps on G-eo once every few months and then only to exchange policy ideas, not operational details.

'But things are different this trip: he's expecting Scatkiewicz, Reginald Irwin, his sons and Nettles to arrive real soon, along with rebels leaders from across the OR. There's a rumour they've been discussing terms with ISRA, perhaps to negotiate their entry back into polite society.'

'And we want to teach Cohen a lesson for duping us with Booni and making us out to be the bad guys?' N'Bomal asked, more as a statement.

'We surely do,' Orbatan replied. 'Though I'm a little concerned about including Cohen in this ... "concept action".'

Petroff was ready for that. Ever since he first proposed the operation to the board, Orbatan had only ever referred to it as though it was an intellectual exercise. It was clear he wanted deniability, and to keep it as far from his office as possible.

'Because he's ISRA. Yes. Understandable,' Petroff said, feigning empathy. 'But the rebels aren't. We're still at war with them so anything goes with that lot. If we take them out of the picture, almost all at the same time, Cohen will lose the rod he's been hitting us with. And there'll be less need to follow through and revise the leases, which could be a useful bargaining chip when it comes to talking to them. Anything is then possible. And G-eo's neutrality issue isn't a problem—not if the rebellion is stopped in its tracks.'

N'Bomal chuckled. He was quickly adjusting to the new reality. Everything appeared to be in place. Everything fit. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head, slowly, marvelling at their changing fortunes. The frowns were gone, replaced by a beaming smile. He summed up.

'So we rid ourselves of the rebels, head-off ISRA's bid to bring us to heel, and make a play for 250 year leases—sorry—establish corporate sovereignty—on viable planets that cost us nothing to visit, populate or ship goods to and from. Remind me, just how did we arrive at this confluence of events?'

Petroff sensed the warm glow building in the room. He decided to pounce before the magic of the moment faded.

'So I have the go-ahead?' he asked, looking around the table.

Ratti took Orbatan's silence as a nod.

'Yes.'

#  106

At first, Commander Cotton had declined the invitation to speak at the G-eo Military Academy: it just didn't seem right to him to educate the future defence forces of a planet that had achieved virtual independence from Earth, but Cohen had stepped in, making the political point a little more strongly.

So he had finally relented.

In reality, Cotton was than less enthusiastic because he knew the system sucked. He didn't want to train anyone on a system that had served Earth so poorly, and had caused the Inter Space Regulatory Authority to rely so much on political intrigue and financial shenanigans. He would rather educate them in a more effective military system, something that might now become a reality once ISRA reduced the corporations to their commercial interests alone.

Over the last two hours he had retraced the development of Earth's military back to the early 21st Century when, post-financial tsunami, the British and French governments had begun to share their national resources. The idea then caught on everywhere.

Eventually a man's career in security could begin at Macy's, transit through the Manhattan Organised Crime Unit, settle down at the Western Bloc's Brussels Human Trafficking office, then progress to the Financial Times-sponsored Economic Intelligence Unit within MI6 in London, or the CIA at Langley.

The economic downturn in the 22nd Century, the one caused by the extremely high prices of natural resources, had resulted in even deeper structural changes, leading to an unparalleled level of co-operation and interdependency.

Space was no different, in that regard, but there was one crucial difference: despite the increasing spats over the declining resources on Earth, there was a genuine desire not to let any dispute spill out into the OR. For that was where the real resources lay.

The New Worlds represented a massive investment by the resource corporations, and they were not going to let national or Bloc governments ruin that investment over some border dispute concerning a minor oil field in the South China Sea.

The Inter-Space Regulatory Authority was the organisation set up to implement the resulting multi-Bloc agreement to privatise space, and its security. Its goal was to isolate the Outer-Rim from the politics of Earth, to provide the corporations and the Blocs with a venue for settling disputes, and to assist in the Outer-Rim's development.

As a commercial development idea, it had been a tremendous success. As a security concept, it had been a disaster.

ISRA was a supranational organisation staffed by well-meaning people, hobbled by an inefficient management structure and a weak mandate. And as the Blocs weren't so keen to fund an organisation aimed at reducing their influence, ISRA relied, increasingly, on corporate funding, funding which gave the corporations influence over how effective the Authority was, how large the Outer Rim Force could be and how it implemented policy.

Cotton wasn't able to explain all of this to his students: to do so would have touched on politics, but he did describe the organisation and financing of ISRA, and his students were no dunces. Besides, the confrontation playing out around the Outer-Rim had its roots in the story. Everyone here knew that. He just had to stay away from the politics of it, which was difficult.

During his lecture, a student had asked him whether there had been any previous developments in human history to which he could compare the current situation. He had thrown the question back at them.

He smiled inwardly at their conclusion: they believed it had a lot in common with the New World colonies in America, pre-1776, and that the insurgency was a reluctant one, forced on their populations by a distant colonial power.

That was a story with which he could also relate, but ISRA wasn't seeking that outcome—that had led to independence.

Instead, it preferred the other analogy, the one in 18th century India, where a private enterprise—and its army—had reigned supreme over hundreds of millions of people, only to be replaced by direct rule from the capital of an empire.

But did the comparisons matter? Not really. The reality of the current situation still made his current role on G-eo difficult.

He recalled what Cohen had asked him the day after he had assassinated Booni and Petroff had offered Scat up as the fall guy: 'One man or the Outer-Rim?' Scat or Earth?

Of course, it had to be the one man. Earth could no longer afford to let the resource companies dictate policy, but it could afford to lose Scat.

Cotton hadn't liked it.

He had thought that Scat would be good for Earth on the inside of the rebel insurgency, not be the scapegoat for it. Nor did he think it had been wise to elevate Scat to one of its principal leaders.

He had been right on that score.

Scat had been remarkably effective as a rebel leader, so much so that the Western Bloc had charged him with economic crimes against humanity, and convicted him in absentia as both a murderer and a traitor.

However, in the overall, Cohen had been right. Without Scat, the rebels would not have gotten off the ground, quite literally, and if they hadn't, Lynthax, Raddox and the others could have hunted them down with ease. That would have left Earth, or more precisely, ISRA, without the whip it needed to drive the Corporations out of politics.

Of course, it helped that the Outer Rim Force had been stretched, security on Trevon inadequate, and leadership, oversight and standards weak, but from a purely military standpoint, they still were, leaving Cotton to plan the conference protection as a one legged man plans to cross the road—very carefully.

As he gathered up his notes, and watched the cadets file out of the room, he sighed. He thought he was ready, and the conference was safe.

He just couldn't guarantee it.

#  107

Channel Buoy 2.013 dropped into the space around G-eo inside a flash of deep blue light.

Its form rippled slightly as it naturalised the space fore and aft, then began to reflect the light that hit its hull.

Scat ran through the post-ftl checks, confirmed his position above G-eo, and then scanned the local space for ORF vessels. There was none on this side of G-eo but several over Tremont, which lay on the other side of the planet. He immediately manoeuvred the buoy into a geostationary orbit some 2000 kilometres above the equator, and waited for the V4 to make an appearance.

'Anything?' Scat asked, almost air swimming over Paul Irwin's shoulder to look at the monitor.

'Not a dickey-bird, Scat.'

Scat turned his head to look across the cramped life-support cabin.

'Thomas, anything from G-eo?'

Thomas studied the jerry-rigged monitor bolted to the bulkhead and shook his head.

'No. We're not on anyone's scanners. We should drop ours now we're in orbit.'

Scat mulled that one over.

Active scanning was instrumental in acquiring targets and so their use was forbidden within 0.1 AU of G-eo under the terms of its jealously guarded, hard-earned neutrality.

They were well within that distance.

'OK. Drop all active scanners. Keep the passives on max. Maintain a passive comms regime until the V4 arrives.'

He was tired, he stank, and he wanted off this crate, a type two buoy that, aside from its channel clearing and communications role, doubled as a deep-space life raft, with emergency accommodation and supplies for up to 12 souls. His crew felt the same way. They had been on the zero gravity buoy now for a month, racing up and down the newly forged channels they had created between the New Worlds, picking up the results of the rebel referendum on the upcoming peace talks, updating the various local rebel leaders on the political situation on Earth and warning them of known corporation security activities.

As they visited the various New Worlds, they also picked up the latest information on local rebel activities, collected their requests for specialised skills and equipment and updated or replaced their security codes.

The news included updates that both the Outer Rim Force and the corporations had intensified their activities against the rebels. Several Chapters were on the run, rendering them ineffective.

Usually Scat would arrive a few minutes after the V4, and squirt into space all the messages and information he wanted to pass on. He would then collect what he needed by way of return and ftl away. They were in local space for five minutes, tops—a scary five minutes.

Today, though, they were going to hang around for up to quarter of an hour. If the V4 didn't turn up within that time, they would fall back on one of three alternative deep space rendezvous. He was due on the planet and to get there he needed to replace his shuttle.

Very early on in the conflict, Scat refitted a number of the type two buoys with docking units suited to accommodate V4 shuttles. But he lost his shuttle a few days ago in an action on the mining asteroid, Illemede, on the edge of the Illumea system. The V4 was about to replace it with one of the few it had left.

Scat never went down to G-eo: he disliked G-eo's neutrality: it was lulling his colleagues into a false sense of security. He had also reviewed the politico's behaviour since G-eo acquired its semiautonomous status and there was a worrying regularity to their meetings there.

Only today, he was making the trip himself, as ordered by Reggie Irwin, now recognised across the OR as one of the original "Fathers of Freedom". The politicos needed to bring Scat to heel, to curtail his autonomy: his compliance was to be a significant demonstration of rebel loyalty to the politicos, to the people who remained the acceptable face of the secessionist movement.

Apparently, Cohen needed reassuring that a negotiated settlement would be acceptable to both the secessionist leaders and their terrorist brethren. The OR rebels, or "Orribles" as the press called them, had to be a part of the deal. The Authority could only bring the corporations to heel if both parties to the rebellion ended the conflict in all its guises.

Paul interrupted his train of thought.

'The V4—it's just dropped into orbit!'

'OK, Paul. Hail her and organise the transfer. Thomas, once we're on the shuttle, I want you to ftl out of G-eo orbit. Drop back in every six hours for updates.'

'Sure,' Thomas replied, hesitantly. 'But I thought I was going with you.'

Scat screwed up his face. It had been an easy decision for him to make, but that didn't make it any easier for his friend to accept. Thomas had been looking forward to some R&R for days now.

'Yeah, I know, but I've decided against it,' Scat explained. 'I want you on the outside. I don't like it, and if I don't like it, I don't need to follow your old man's instructions. Besides, if I'm right and he's wrong, we wouldn't want so many Irwins in the same place at the same time.'

Thomas gave that a moment's thought and his heart sank. He knew he wouldn't get Scat to budge.

'Fair enough, but I want R&R on Constitution when this is done. Its either that or you bring me back the twin strippers from "Slappers". It's on Second and 10th. Your choice. But if it's to be the twins I want them before you've been recreational with them!'

Scat smiled.

'I'll see what I can do.'

'Shuttle approaching,' Paul announced, wondering when Scat would start treating him as he did Thomas: as a friend, rather than just another member of the crew. Scat and Thomas were tight, their conversations and arguments were often irreverent and without regard for rank, but Paul didn't get that same consideration. Maybe it was because Scat had to keep his distance from their old man, and the Irwin family in general. Maybe Scat had made an exception for Thomas, as he had known him since before he knew his father. Or maybe it was because Paul had finally had enough of being a go-between for the politicos and the rebels, and had decided to join the rebels—against his father's wishes...

He was in for a surprise.

'Grab your stuff,' Scat said, tapping him on the shoulder. 'You're coming with me. You aren't quite as "Irwin" as your brother.'

Paul's face lit up. Thomas play-punched him on the upper arm in make-believe anger, before grabbing his seat to stop himself from spinning away. Scat pretended to pay no heed. He turned to face the remaining crew.

'Birdie, Khoffi, Mercador, Dickhead, Georgie – airlock in 2. Bring your PIKLs, stuns, neural disrupters and sawn-offs. The Old Man mightn't like it, but I don't care.'

In the rear of the windowless cabin, the rebel crew exchanged curious glances. Several of them shrugged. It had been this way for five fretful years, with Scat tearing the pages out of the rulebook and using them for toilet paper, as Thomas and Goosen played tag, restraining him from his worst excesses.

Goosen raised his eyebrows at Thomas, as if to ask why he wasn't protesting, but Thomas had nothing. As Paul air swam past him in a rush to the airlock, Goosen put a hand on the older brother's shoulder.

'See you on the other side, my friend.'

'Yeah. Me you too.' Thomas replied. 'Just keep that knuckle head out of trouble.'

#  108

The shuttle trip to Tremont was uneventful.

On the way down, the flight crew brought them up to date on the most recent events in G-eo space, mostly related to Cotton's call-up of security personnel, the ORF Hunter-Killer Teams' presence in orbit, and general news including the weather. It was 28ºC inside the city today, slightly warmer outside. No rain forecasted. Very low humidity. Winds light. Sun bright. Wear UVF 30 for the first few days.

Upon touchdown, spaceport control directed the shuttle to a small private hangar just off the main terminal where a nervous Joseph Innanovic stood waiting. Innanovic had been on loan to Nettles for the past four years, ever since Spelling persuaded Cohen to rescind the charges of insurrection in return for a more cooperative relationship. Once he was free to re-join polite society, Nettles had made his way to G-eo and then to Trevon where the political classes welcomed him back as a near-martyr.

'This way, please, gentlemen,' Innanovic requested as Scat's team disembarked uncertainly down the shuttle's rear ramp, feeling every pound of their 8/10ths ESG body weight. A cargo cart was waiting for them. They threw their kit bags on board, jumped up alongside them and let it take them across the sand-dusted pan to a 4-wheeled recreational vehicle; it's flickering paint work advertising an upcoming rebel movie.

Once inside, Innanovic updated them on the activities of the last few hours. There was nothing much to add to what had become known to them when they dropped into G-eo space. The only news of note was that the meeting with Cohen was to take place this very evening. They were to meet up with Reggie, and his retinue, a few minutes before meeting with Cohen at the Royal Windsor Hotel. They would arrive on time if they went directly. The rendezvous with Reggie was to take place in the underground vehicle park of his hotel, which was only some 500 metres from the Royal Windsor.

The RV sped smoothly along the desert highway eventually reaching the local limit of 180 kilometres per hour. In its wake, a thick cloud of yellow dust appeared to chase it across the empty countryside.

Scat stared out of the darkened windows and watched the grit, scrub and cacti slide quietly by.

Goosen grew bored at hearing Innanovic whittle on and on with less and less compelling news. He finally leaned forward and put a hand over his mouth.

'Thanks for the updates, Joseph.'

Innanovic nodded vigorously; grateful he could shut up. The last time he had met Scat he was in some dive of an apartment on Second Avenue in Go Down City. Since then he had only heard of the violence committed by him in pursuit of independence. His handlers had made a point of telling him to act as naturally as he could, but that was difficult: he now found himself caught between the unseen might of the Lynthax Corporation and the physical presence of a monster.

Scat grew tired of the desert and so glanced around the cabin. Innanovic was trembling. Goosen was his usual placid self. Antonio Mercador and Richard Edlin, the young lad with the unfortunate nickname, were busy cleaning their sawn-offs. 'Georgie' Orwell was asleep, which was typical of him—he was immune to excitement—and Paul was calibrating his neural disrupter. Khoffi Khan, the ex-Earth rep and the only family man among them, was moving his head back and forth, eyes closed, quietly chanting something to himself. A prayer, perhaps. He was odd that way.

Scat turned his attention back to Innanovic.

'First time on G-eo, Innanovic?' he asked.

'Er, no sir. I've been a few times, usually with Mr Nettles.'

'Then why so nervous?'

'I'm not sir; I've got a desert fever. Had it a day or so now,' he replied. Even his voice trembled.

'So see a doctor,' Scat told him, losing interest.

'Yes, sir. When we're all done.'

Scat reached inside his backpack and pulled out Jess, his handball-sized bugbot—a personalised bugcam. He switched it on, and it rose to a hover, turning to face him. He fiddled with the key pad and adjusted its personality from passive-helpful, to alert-aggressive, and its function from personal assistant to watchdog, but decided against changing the flowthrough paint job. It was yellow with black horizontal hoops from top to bottom, with moving emoticon eyebrows at the front, and a silver vertical hoop at the back, representing the Trevon Chapter. Everyone recognised the colour scheme as his. He might as well keep it. Finally, he changed the voice setting from a purring female to "Old Boy" English and raised the volume a notch. The adjustments made, he pressed "off" and let it bounce to the floor, tucking the remote away in his jacket as he turned again to look outside.

The desert was changing. They must be getting close to Tremont. He could see fields of freshly watered crops, and they had just passed the entrance to the exclusive Tremont Golf Course, one of several "gifts" from a grateful Earth; a thank you to the moneyed classes for returning G-eo to the fold, albeit as a neutral and with conditions attached. Soon they would enter the tunnel that would take them under the hills that surrounded the city. After that, the scenery would change from semirural idyllic, to urbanised conformity.

So, they weren't taking the main route into Tremont, after all. Perhaps Innanovic didn't trust G-eo's neutrality quite as much as Old Man Spelling did.

A few minutes later, they entered the tunnel. The bright sunshine disappeared, and the RV's lights flickered on to add illumination to the overhead lights and road markers as it slowed to a more sedate 80 kph. It let a smaller c-pod overtake it and after a mile, it was lost to view. Another mile after that, the tunnel exit appeared—a bright point of light cluttered with warning signs.

A moment later, they could see the toll collection infrastructure on the other side of the exit.

It was coming up fast.

Then they were through—

—into a huge hangar!

Fark!

What the fark?

Goosen sat bolt upright.

Khan and the others spun around in their seats.

What the hell just happened?

Intense, almost blinding lights penetrated the cabin windows.

Scat braced himself as the RV decelerated sharply then turned in a wide arc.

Edlin dropped his partially assembled shotgun and tried reaching for his PIKL. Scat made to do the same, just as the RV came to a sharp standstill, throwing him onto Innanovic's lap.

Then the tannoy announcement:

'Do not attempt to leave the vehicle. Do not attempt to use your weapons. You are completely surrounded by Hunter-Killer units.'

'What the fark just happened?' Goosen shouted over the continuing announcements.

'Fark knows,' Scat answered after pulling himself from Innanovic's lap. 'What can you see?'

'Not much: just arc lights—powerful ones. I can't see anything else.'

'We've been had, Scat,' Khan said, looking out of the rear window and knocking the safety off his PIKL. He looked remarkably calm. 'This is it, my friend. We had a good run, don't you think?'

'Bollocks to that, Khoffi,' Goosen said. 'Put your PIKL away.' He laid a massive paw over the PIKL's short barrel and gently pushed it down.

Scat sank back in his seat. They had been suckered into a peace deal, and this was their payment. He shook his head at Goosen and smiled in agreement, there was no point in a last stand.

'Yeah, put it away, Khoffi. Let's live to fight another day.'

Outside they could hear boots hitting the ground at a run. They were getting closer. It sounded as if there were a lot of them. Scat put his PIKL on the cabin floor, grinned at his companions and then placed his hands behind his head.

'See you on the other side. Let's hope they have showers.'

# Part Five

#  Across the Universe

#  109

Petroff whooped with pure joy as the rebels entered the hangar along with a few broken fern fronds, some leaves and the smell of G-eo air, exactly as predicted.

From his vantage point in the port-a-cabin built into the hangar's wall, some 10 metres above ground, and behind PIKL and ballistic proof glass, he had given the order to throw the wormhole across the tunnel entrance, just as they had across the hotel's vehicle park entrance some 20 minutes earlier.

Its accuracy was uncanny, the effect was immensely satisfying. Being in control of such technology was, well, exhilarating.

The Hunter-Killer Teams, all ex-Inner Rim Force veterans, were throwing the rebels to the ground in the space between him and the RV, rifling through their clothing, and kicking their back packs across the floor to be collected by a second wave of troopers.

He had a grandstand view, just as he deserved.

This had been his idea.

He had found and retrieved the craft that offered up this technology, and now he was cutting the head off an insurgency that had cost his beloved Lynthax trillions upon trillions of dollars, almost ruined its reputation, and nearly caused it to lose its New World leases.

But no longer.

This technology was a game changer.

Over the next day or so, they would throw holes over rebels wherever they could be located across the Outer-Rim. They would be brought here, to Runnymede in the Ranee system, a planet that didn't offer much by way of high-value resources, was barren, sparsely inhabited and had been discarded as a suitable candidate for development in the first wave of ftl exploration.

Runnymede wasn't even on the official buoy network, so it was a perfect base for this kind of black-ops, as it was for the centre of the largest land project ever.

Outside the windowless hangar, there now stood a small town, populated by some of Lynthax's finest minds and most loyal employees: geo- and hydro-engineers, astrophysicists, experts in viruses, bacteria, flora, fauna, and anthropologists, archaeologists, structural, materials, electrical and production engineers and researchers – the whole caboodle. Runnymede was now the centre of development for the entire Lynthax operation, and he was the man to oversee it all.

Deservedly so.

The rebels were about to be fully disarmed and pacified, and it was time to let Scat know what had just happened to him.

Oh, the joy of this job!

He bounded down the stairs ahead of his 2-man security detail and walked quickly out onto the smooth, grey composite floor. He picked his way between the IRF vets who were loading the rebels' packs onto a cargo cart, and stopped just behind a line of ex-Hunter-Killer troopers.

On the other side of the line, Petroff could see two of the Hunter-Killers dragging Scat to his feet.

He looked dazed.

Perhaps his boys had zapped him.

They turned Scat around, and Petroff could see that his face had met the floor, pretty hard. The nose was broken again. Blood dripped down onto his olive green coveralls. His chin was resting on his chest, eyes fixed on the floor. The two guards held him up by his arms, his feet trailing a little behind him.

'Welcome to Runnymede, Scat!' Petroff said in a surprisingly level voice, just loud enough to carry.

Scat's head shot up. There was instant recognition, instant loathing.

'Don't look so downtrodden, Scat. The insurgency may be over, but you're not out of a job. We've decided to rehire you again—and your friends. Welcome back.'

Scat knew he was concussed, but Petroff wasn't making any sense. He looked at Goosen off to his left who was also looking oddly at Petroff, silently querying what he had just said.

'Take them to the pens. And don't be gentle unless they're lambs,' Petroff said to the Hunter-Killer's unit commander.

'Scat, we have a busy day ahead of us. Nettles is already here, and you'll be meeting even more of your friends later tonight. Relax and enjoy your accommodation. We'll be briefing you on what happens next.' He looked down at his watch and then added, 'Soon'

He waved the guards on, and then returned to his cabin to arrange the positioning of the next hole, his face aching from all the grinning.

It's going to take the rest of this evening to lop the head of this insurgency, he thought to himself, but not a moment longer. After that, it was just a matter of mopping up. He would leave that to Xin.

#  110

The pens were set into the floor of a concrete and re-enforced glass building linked to the rear of the hangar by an enclosed walkway.

The building was new and smelled of freshly applied wall coating. Desks and chairs were stacked against the back wall. Companynet cables hung from the walls, ready for connection to a bunch of widescreen monitors, still wrapped in anti-scratch protective wrapping. The grills of the pens lay on recesses that trapped a fine layer of sawdust and finely ground stone and concrete.

A guard was waiting for them at the far pen, its grill opened up and outwards.

The Hunter-Killer commander stepped past Scat, stopped at the open grill and inclined his head towards the opening.

'In!'

Goosen, his hands plasticuffed, took a careful step forward and descended the steep metal stairs into a square, roughly plastered and windowless room. Scat and the rest of his team followed him down.

The guards had already stripped them of their outer clothes, leaving them in their shorts, no shoes or socks. As the rebels looked back up at the closed and locked grill, they heard the crash of doors, a cargo cart pull into the building and the thud of bags dropping onto its pannier. Someone dimmed the lights and the walls closed in.

'Sheet! How did this happen?' Goosen asked.

'I haven't a clue,' Scat replied. 'Less than 10 minutes ago we were on G-eo and now we're on Runnymede, wherever that is. How's that possible?'

Khan felt particularly vulnerable.

'And all we're left with is our underwear,' he said, looking down at his hairy body.

Mercador ran his cuffed hands through his straggly, matted hair.

'Has anyone been to Runnymede?' he asked 'Are we sure we're where that doorstop says we are?'

Scat let out a long sigh through his nose, causing blood to bubble down onto his upper lip.

'We'll know when we break out of here, Mannie.'

Paul jumped up, grabbed a rail in the grill and hauled himself up to see what he could of the building. But it was a deeply recessed grill so all he could catch were glimpses of walls and the top of the doors through which they had arrived. There was no guard in sight, but then he could have been sitting down. The entire Marine Corps could have been sitting down up there, and he wouldn't have seen them.

Upturned faces waited for him to say something.

'Nothing. Can't see a thing.' He dropped back down to the floor flexing his wrists inside the cuffs.

'Anybody up there?' Scat shouted, looking up at the distant ceiling, turning to send his voice around the room.

'Would you please keep your voice down, young man!' was the reply.

Scat and his team looked inward at each other. Goosen, Paul and Scat each recognised the voice.

'Marvin?' Scat asked.

'Yes, Scat. It's me—and a few more your friends. Is Paul there with you?'

'They've got you as well?' Scat asked, hoping Marvin was the only one Petroff had picked up from the rebel negotiation team. Then he remembered Petroff saying something about Nettles.

'Yes, Scat, and the rest of us. Sorry,' was the answer, but it wasn't Marvin's voice.

'Reggie! You as well?' The situation was getting worse by the minute.

Paul sprang back up to the grill, trying to listen to where his father's voice came from. It had been 11 months since they had seen each other.

'Dad!'

'Good to hear your voice again, son. Are you well?' Reggie's voice was a little croaky, but old age and emotions were at play. He had twice been told his son was probably dead, only to learn a month or so later that he wasn't. It had been a trying time.

'Yes, father. And you?'

'OK, guys, can we deal with the family reunion at a later date?' Scat asked, trying to get everyone back on point. 'We've real issues to deal with here. If we're going to get out of here, it'll have to be soon, before we're shipped off to some ISRA facility.'

Marvin was ready with a reality check of his own.

'Don't for one minute think that they know about this, Scat,' he said. 'Petroff was more than explicit about that. This is private enterprise at work.'

Scat wasn't sure what to make of that. No one spoke as his colleagues waited for him to either ask another question or make some comment.

'So, who do you have over there?' he asked, eventually.

'There's myself, Reggie, Nettles, Thunder and Gordon. Wellington was with us, but he had a heart attack in the hangar. Petroff had him carted off. We don't know any more than that. And you?'

'Aside from Paul, there's Goosen, Khan, Mercador, Edlin, Orwell and Innanovic. Wait! Where's Innanovic?'

Innanovic was missing.

'Is Innanovic with you?'

'No. Why? Should he be?' Marvin asked

Goosen and Scat looked at Paul looking for an answer. Paul knew Innanovic better than anyone else in the pen did. He had worked for his father for years. But Paul gave a shrug.

'Innanovic picked us up from the spaceport, and came along with us, but he's not here now,' Scat explained. Then something Marvin hadn't said jumped out at him. 'You didn't mention the Old Man. Didn't he come?'

'No, he didn't, Scat. He died last month. Brain haemorrhage.'

In the silence that followed, Scat realised there must have been an outpouring of grief in the Trevon politico circles a little while ago.

'So, how did you get here?' Reggie asked, his throat a little clearer, but sounding as if he were pressing down on a lot of emotion.

'Only Jeeze' knows,' Scat said, summing up the confusion. 'One minute we're coming out of a tunnel, the next we're in that hangar. I can only guess they fitted the RV with some kind of ftl—like those bugcams,' he added as though it was quite a logical explanation.

'I doubt it Scat. We were in a rental. We only decided on the hire company, and the model, a few minutes before we drove off in it.'

'Then it was magic. Perhaps if we close our eyes, and wish hard enough, we'll be back on G-eo,' Goosen muttered quietly to himself, but not quietly enough: Scat heard him.

'Goosen reckons it was magic,' he said. 'But I'm betting they've either upped the technology again, or they're playing with our heads.'

Nettles agreed with Goosen.

'Petroff isn't so stupid as to try playing with your head again, Scat. It didn't work out too well for him the last time. My money's on the magic. You don't pass through a hotel's entrance on G-eo and into a hangar on Runnymede without it.'

'Well, we aren't dead yet,' Scat observed. 'But from what he said earlier, Petroff's lining us up for something.'

'Most likely, Scat,' Nettles replied, 'but whatever it is, let's go along with it. As I see it, we're in no position to negotiate. Our only strength lies in sticking together. Whatever it is, Scat, let's play along. We'll talk again when we know more.'

Scat didn't reply. He had several scores to settle with Petroff, all of them involving a slow and painful death.

Nettles pushed the point:

'Scat. I need you to say something. We need for you to keep your emotions in check. Can you do that—for now at least?'

Scat exchanged glances with Goosen but gave no answer.

Above them, the building's main doors slammed forcefully against their stops for a second time. More boots hit the ground. It sounded like a large group of people were walking through the room. A grill squealed opened. There was a scuffle, the sound of a stun, more scuffling, and then a loud electrical discharge, probably from a neural disrupter.

Another gruff order.

'No more farking around. Get in!'

More foot falls, the noise of metal stairs rattling, then a thumping sound.

'Hey!' someone shouted. 'We could have carried him down!'

The grill crashed closed, a lock bleeped, and footsteps faded into the distance.

It appeared the Trevon rebels weren't the only ones being closed down.

#  111

The briefing took place in the hangar.

Scat looked around as the guards led them inside.

To his left, under a port-a-cabin set high up in the wall, there lay a long platform fitted with an array of microphones, and above it, there hung a giant flat screen. Facing the platform were rows of freestanding, plastic chairs. Hologram media stations stood on all four corners of the seating. Blinds covered the hangar's high windows.

On the far side of the seating area, there was a large open area, and, beyond that, they had pushed some equipment against the hangar sidewall. It was odd-looking. Scat had seen nothing like it before.

To his right, a squad of doorstops were laying out a food and drinks buffet. An enormous pressure chamber ran the width of the hangar behind them. At least he thought it was a chamber. Its size made him think twice.

It didn't look anything like what he had expected.

He had expected a small room, a single chair, maybe someone else's dried blood on the floor. When Petroff told them about the briefing, he had genuinely believed it had been a euphemism for interrogation.

But the relief was short-lived. The large number of chairs, each of them covered in briefing papers and presentation folders, gave a sickening indication of just how many rebels Petroff had rounded up. Scat counted the seats in a row and then the number of rows. The place was set up to seat 500 people. Perhaps the rebels weren't the only ones with invitations, but if they were, it didn't leave many of them free in the field.

Scat pulled at the cuff of the bright orange coveralls they had been issued, trying to loosen the band around his wrist. Naturally, Petroff wasn't taking any chances. Bringing so many rebels together against their will was a security nightmare he had solved by fitting slate-grey bands around everyone's right wrist; all of them linked to a neural disruptor. But why they were being herded into a room together was still a mystery.

The guards ushered them along the centre aisle to a row on the left, halfway to the stage. Guards continued to lead in small groups of rebels and show them their seats. Scat recognised many of them, but some, the older ones, may have been local political leaders, like Reggie, who he had cut out of the rebel loop in the early months of the insurgency.

The low murmuring faded away as Petroff walked from the rear of the hall to the stage. He climbed the three steps and took his seat at the centre of the table. One by one, the other officers finished their final preparations, and then joined him.

Finally, Petroff got up to speak.

'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Runnymede. As you are no doubt aware I have brought you here for a reason, and we will explain that reason over the course of the next 30 minutes or so.

'For the past five years, you and I, along with Earth, have been involved in a quarrel that has cost Earth dearly. You intercepted resources and interrupted normal business. You denied Earth the medical supplements and rare minerals it needed.

'Water supplies fouled. Earth's atmosphere and climate deteriorated. Crops failed. Millions of our most vulnerable people died: all because you valued your freedom, and the concept of democracy, over the right of the Earth-born to live and breathe.

'You were branded economic criminals and convicted in absentia of crimes against humanity, and yet you persisted. We reintroduced capital punishment and still you persisted.

'But today you stop.'

There was a low rumbling of disapproval of the way Petroff had painted the picture. Medical supplies had been re-established very early on. It wasn't the rebels' fault that the resource companies had used the brokered medical flights as a cover for shifting large amounts of other, more valuable product.

Khan stood and threw his briefing papers into the air. He had had enough.

'You child-killing beast, Petroff,' he shouted.

He added another curse, but then slumped back into his chair and rolled to the floor. Scat dropped down to check his pulse but was edged aside when a medical team moved in. They conducted a quick scan and dragged him away.

Scat sensed the room was about to explode. He felt a wave of frustration build up inside of himself.

Petroff continued; sounding just a little irritated at the interruption.

'As you can see, the neural disrupters work. We don't want to use them, but we will if we must. You're here for a reason and, as you are going nowhere for some time to come, you should listen to what that reason is.'

He looked down at his notes again, as if to remind himself where he had left off.

'As I was saying, or was about to say, 85 of you have been condemned to death. Those convictions and sentences still stand, and despite the appeals going to the ISRA Court of Appeal, the Court has yet to agree to hear them. As things currently stand, then, Lynthax has every right, every right, to carry out those executions locally. Right here, and right now.'

He let that sink in. Not everyone on the list would know they were on it, but the list wasn't a secret. The rebels had been very skilful at keeping out of view, but that had also worked against them. They were never fully up to date on the affairs of Earth, or the latest political thinking. Innanovic had confirmed that over the past few years.

'If you look inside your presentation folders you will find the most up to date list of the death sentences passed in absentia. While you check to see if your name is on the list, I'll continue.

'You will note you are in Lynthax custody, not the ORF's, not ISRA's. That's because we brought you here. No one else is aware of your presence. This facility is the most secure and invisible in the universe, and not just because you're here.' Petroff paused and looked around. 'No. We're protecting something else, something far bigger. We introduced you to it when we lifted you off the New Worlds. I'll explain more a little later.

'But, first, let me tell you why you're here. Of course, it's to stop the insurgency—that goes without saying—but the reason you're all here, and not zipped up inside body bags, is because we have something we would like to propose to you: something that will truly be for the benefit of humankind—of all races, all income levels, of any level of education. And to help you understand what it is, we have a light-show for you.'

The lights went off, and the four hologram projectors lit up. Fuzzy 3-D images formed and then locked into view: four different and unfamiliar planets, unrecognisable even to the planetary enthusiasts among them.

The views were from high-space, the round edges of the images shimmering, unlike standard hologram images that were normally quite distinct. As the images were magnified, the fussy edges persisted. Each of the planets came into closer view. Then they were in their cloudy atmospheres, then on the ground. It had taken less than 10 seconds.

At first, they appeared to be a rapidly speeded up shuttle re-entries, but the routes down had been direct, like a bullet. There had been no travelling across the planets as the shuttles descended, which was standard for re-entry.

Scat began to sense something wasn't right with these images. Other rebels were glancing around them, slowly coming to the same conclusion. Maybe they were standard satellite images, rapidly magnified.

'As you can see, we have arrived on four new planets, totally unknown to anyone outside of this facility, and yet we never left Runnymede. The closest planet you are watching is 1275 light years away. The furthest is 11456 light years away.

'That's right,' Petroff said as he saw 500 hundred faces turn to look at him.

'We have been further, much further, but these four planets offer the most attractive and immediate opportunities thus far. They are all within 89 and 103% Earth Standard Gravity and contain atmospheres we believe are acceptable for sustaining Earth-sized populations, and comparable flora and fauna. They each possess large bodies of liquid water. The temperature ranges are -45 to +50ºC, very much like Earth. But there, for the time being, our understanding ends.'

He took a sip of water.

Scat was full of unspoken questions.

How did Lynthax find these places? How did they know the surface temperatures to that degree of accuracy over 11456 light years away? Had they been there?

That last was possible. Ftl travel would have gotten them there, had they started a while ago, but without stopping to establish channels on the way, they would have been taking enormous risks.

Perhaps they had launched a series of robotic expeditions.

If man had gone there, it would have taken years, decades if you then included the return trip. That would make their development uneconomic and their settlement undesirable.

Then it occurred to him that the camera had actually cut through the cloud cover.

So how did they drill down onto the planet without there being some element of orbital travel?

Petroff wiped his mouth and continued.

'We need to explore these planets and a great many others over vast distances. And, gentlemen, those distances are mind boggling, the isolation incomprehensible, the dangers exceptional.'

Petroff turned to look at image nearest to him, as though appreciating the view. After a few moments, he continued.

'Gentlemen, we are going to open up the galaxy for the benefit of the human race, and we are going to do it in a way that makes mass emigration from Earth possible for the very first time. It's a monumental undertaking, something that only a corporation such as Lynthax can undertake: a company that can prioritise and fund without political interference: a company that knows how to make things happen and quickly.

'Project Last Horizon has only been a year in the making and yet we've already travelled 25,000 light years across the Milky Way. The last phase of our initial preparations has been completed; the method of manned travel has proven to work flawlessly – in fact you proved it last night,' Petroff couldn't resist adding.

'And we are now looking for Pathfinders who will prove each planet; help us to prioritise their development; make them safe; establish the initial infrastructure, and ready each of them for mass immigration. It'll be a rough job, full of surprises and it'll be dangerous. We need exceptional people, adventurous people, unorthodox people...' and with a shrug Petroff raised both his arms outward towards his captive audience, 'people who won't be missed.'

'So what is this method of transportation? Let us give you a demonstration.'

The holograms switched from the views of the surface of four planets to a single view of the audience from above. Heads turned upwards in search of the camera. They found it, but as they did, there was a collective gasp and reflexive pulling away. Above them was a two metres-wide eye-shaped fuzzy-edged opening in the ceiling, through which they could see a camera crew suspended in the air. Only they weren't suspended in the air on the other side of the eye—they were standing on a studio floor at a strange angle. It was as though the ceiling had dissolved, and the floor above it tilted at 45 degrees.

On a cue from Petroff, a member of the camera crew stepped forward and tossed a ball through the aperture. It bounced between two prisoners, before coming to rest on the hangar floor.

'Please, stay calm. The demonstration is only just beginning.'

Petroff looked around the audience and settled on a young lad towards the back. He referred to his seating plan as the ceiling aperture blinked off.

'Palmer, row I, seat 49. Shout out a seat number between 1-50 and A-J,' he ordered.

Palmer, a red haired youth from Arneal, looked around him, seeking permission from his peers. No one suggested he refuse.

'22, er, J, no, H. 22 H'

Petroff again referred to his seat planner.

'22H: that would be Paul Irwin from Trevon. Irwin, stand up.'

Paul stood up confidently. He was un-phased by the light and magic show.

Petroff entered something into his graf, sending it across to operators in the cabin above. After a few seconds, he received the thumbs up.

'Light it up!' Petroff ordered, and all four holograms quivered.

Recognition crossed Paul's face. The view from all four holograms was that of the front of his family bunker in Moss Valley. They had a camera watching the front door.

'Do you like the view, Irwin?' Petroff asked.

Paul said nothing. He felt homesick. Petroff studied him for a moment.

'Would you like to go home?'

'Of course!' Paul replied unguardedly, thinking back to that day 11 months ago when he had left his mother crying in the main hall, determined to play his part in the insurgency, no matter what his father had said about him being a vital link between the insurgents and the politicos.

'Well you can't. Not yet, anyways', Petroff replied, knowing the statement inferred a promise he had no intention of keeping. 'But we could send someone to say 'Hi!' to your Mum. Perhaps let her know you're OK. Would you like that?'

Paul didn't respond. The holograms flickered then died.

Petroff nodded at the officer on his extreme left who then spoke into his microphone. The aperture that had appeared in the ceiling now appeared again, this time to the right of the prisoners, between the two holograms devices on that side of the floor. It opened along the outer wall of the hangar some 20 metres away, and inside it was the front door of the Irwin family bunker, the same view as was seen in the holograms. Only this time, air was rushing into the hangar. Cold air. Freezing air. Wisps of snow blew through. It was real.

Another of the officers got up, stepped off the platform and then walked cross the hangar floor to the aperture that had grown to around four metres in diameter. He was holding a long and stout stick to which was pinned what looked like a note. As he approached the aperture, it brought the bunker door into closer view until it was within an arm's reach. The officer's tunic began to ripple as air washed over it and his hair fluffed up. He then leaned forward, and without actually entering the aperture, he rapped the stick continuously on the bunker door. There was a noise from the front door intercom. The officer spoke into it, still rapping his stick on the door.

The audience gawked at the scene, wide eyed. Even Paul could sense that just across the room lay the front door to his home: the actual door!

Although the aperture stayed exactly where it had opened against the hangar wall with the door remaining at its centre, the viewpoint appeared to change slightly, sliding away to the left, dropping lower to the floor. The aperture also shrank a little.

The bunker door opened. One of the household staff took a step outside, and, on seeing no one there, he appeared to check the snow on the ground to see if it had been disturbed. At that moment, the officer threw the stick.

The servant took a step backwards and raised his hands as the stick hit him on the shoulder. Upon hearing a sudden uproar, he turned to look in the direction of the prisoners. He was still looking for the source of the unexpected noise when the aperture blinked off.

Inside the hangar, not even the threat of the neural disrupters could quieten the prisoners down. Several of them dropped to the floor before Petroff could order the power turned down to a mild stun.

Damn! He needed his audience submissive, but he also needed it to be awake. His presentation had 15 more minutes to run.

#  112

Cohen paced up and down his hotel room staring at the floor. He was livid.

His people on the outside of the hotel had seen Irwin and his entourage entering the underground vehicle park, but none on the inside had seen the politicos arrive.

Scat had left the spaceport and taken the tunnel into Tremont, but he hadn't passed through the toll.

They had all just disappeared!

What were they up to?

Did they need some sort of gesture from him to prove they were safe? Didn't they think he would live up to his word? Did they doubt him, or were they duping him?

As Cohen ranted, Cotton could offer no explanation. His aerial drones and ground vehicles had followed both convoys at a distance. He had also placed observers on foot along their expected routes of travel. Everyone reported in as expected throughout the respective journeys. Nothing unusual had occurred, except at the tunnel exit, and the Royal Windsor Hotel pod park entrance, where, on both occasions, camera footage showed the vehicles vanishing from sight.

Vanishing completely.

He had techies working on the footage right this minute.

Maybe the rebels had uploaded some software of their own into the camera networks. That was possible—more possible than two vehicles vanishing into thin air—but even if someone had sabotaged the cameras, he still had to work out how everyone had managed to slip from of view.

He was baffled.

He had been down to the pod park entrance and looked for himself. The team he had placed on the inside had everywhere covered: there was nowhere to go.

Then there was the team's video footage: it was weirder than the hotel's. They could see the pod coming down the ramp, bathed in sunlight, but, as it crossed the entrance to go underground, the pod appeared to go through a meat-slice.

Maybe "meat slice" was inaccurate, he told himself. It looked a remarkably smooth process, as though the pod was dissolving as it passed through.

The whole thing was unnerving, very scary: completely unbelievable.

It was obviously a special effect. He said as much.

Cohen could only agree. He stopped pacing, looked up and issued a single order.

'Find them!'

#  113

Once the light and magic show had finished, Petroff invited the detainees to grab food from the back table and, if they wanted to, they could take it back to the pens with them.

Most of the prisoners hung around. It was a chance for many of the rebels to catch up with friends they hadn't seen in a while, and hear what the others were thinking. But the dominant feeling was one of consternation. There were more questions than answers.

After 10 minutes or so, Scat, Reggie, Nettles and several other figures central to the insurgency were shepherded up the steps into the port-a-cabin, each of them carrying their plastic trays of half-finished food and soda water.

It was obvious Petroff wanted a chat.

Once the rebels had settled down around a long, narrow table running the length of the room, Petroff began to talk.

'Gentlemen, as you can plainly see, the game's over. It's now merely a question of reaching a settlement. We understand the depth of feeling on the New Worlds, but that'll all change once we start opening worlds up further afield.

'The New Worlds will become the Old Worlds: backwaters, irrelevant. Then they'll wish they hadn't kicked the Corporates out. So we're suggesting a somewhat different outcome.'

He paused while he took a bite from his sandwich. He had all the time in the world. In fact, several worlds.

'Yes, we know ISRA has the upper-hand, or did until we spirited you away. That changes things a little, I guess: a lot, actually, but we're looking forward. So should you.'

Scat could hardly control his urge to lash out at the man who had killed his colleagues and turned his life upside down on more than one occasion. He imagined his hands around his neck, his face turning red, eyes bulging.

'We don't need to do a damned thing, Petroff,' he said. 'We just need to sit here. ISRA will look for us. It wants to end the insurgency, and to do that it needs to negotiate with the major players: us!'

Nettles shifted in his seat. He was well aware of the hatred Scat had for the man. He knew Petroff had vented Pierce through the cargo bay airlock on Prebos, and then used Scat as the patsy in Booni's assassination on Trevon. It was obvious there would be a reckoning in due course. But right now, Petroff didn't know that Scat knew, and maybe that was why he was still alive. Given how things were, this wasn't the best time to let Petroff know that the rebels knew anything.

He hoped Scat could reign himself in, and soon.

'Maybe so,' Petroff replied, 'but Runnymede was dismissed as a viable resource planet decades ago and has never been on the official buoy network. Its only ftl channel is via Prebos, which, as you know, Scat, is considered a buoy terminal managed from Trevon. In any case, we meet most of our transportation needs with the wormhole, which is undetectable. Hell, we've built and equipped this place without ISRA suspecting a thing. Basically, Runnymede is off the grid.

'And, in any case, I'm wondering if you really want ISRA to find you and negotiate a deal for semi-autonomy, when you can have full autonomy, and a stake in the upcoming expansion?

'I'm authorised to strike a deal—a good one.

'It'll be of benefit to us both, less so to Earth in the short run,' he said with a shrug, 'but hugely beneficial to them over time.'

As Petroff often did when explaining the background to difficult issues, he let that point sink in.

He then clarified it for them:

'Lynthax recognises that if ISRA gets its way we will lose out, and you must realise that if ISRA gets its way you don't get full autonomy. We both lose. But if we work together—you as our Pathfinders, with your planets working cooperatively with us and as our initial springboards—we can both get what we want.'

Scat wondered how Petroff could turn a near-run disaster for the Corporates into a bargaining chip. Popular opinion, on Earth and the New Worlds, was largely behind the Authority and solidly against the corporations. Maybe it was just as well Old Man Spelling couldn't be here. Hearing Petroff speak as he was would have been the final ignominy. Besides, Scat doubted that he could have restrained himself in the presence of his son's murderer. The Old Man had tried twice to have Petroff assassinated since the rebellion got under way, but Petroff had been leading a charmed life.

Scat and Nettles looked around the room, both trying to assess their group's reaction. They each hoped for different things—Scat for continued resistance, Nettles for calm. Petroff saw them do it and sensed the conflict.

'We want to push out into the galaxy before ISRA gets to know too much about it. We've developed this technology, and we're determined that we should reap its rewards before it's shared, and in order for us to achieve that, we're prepared to work with you.

'We still own the leases on these New Worlds: we can pass those leases on to you, effectively making you independent. In return we get your co-operation, secure bases and uninterrupted operations.'

'That'll be selling Earth down the river,' Scat said.

'Get real, Scat, please', Nettles injected gently. 'Gaining independence would have amounted to the same thing. Once we got that, our responsibility would then be to our own people, not to people 100 light years away. Trade would continue, we'd share the same history, but they'd manage their mess, and we'd manage ours – both of us giving priority to our own people.'

Petroff followed up with a reality check of his own:

'But it's a fair point, still, Nettles. It's an emotional one, but fair. Look, Scat, once we've opened up these outer-worlds—or whatever we'll call them—Earth can reduce its population with a programme of mass emigration. Only they won't go to Earth-managed worlds, they'll be sending them to worlds that are too far away for Earth to claim sovereignty over. If they wanted to claim sovereignty, they'd need to prove they could protect and administer them. They won't be able to. We're the only ones with the technology, so we'll be calling the shots.

'We've outgrown Earth. So have you. Now's the time to recognise that.'

Reggie wasn't convinced.

'But Earth won't permit you to open these planets without wanting some control over them, and I'm not so sure we'd like that either. We wanted you out of Trevon politics for a reason. That reason hasn't gone away. We wouldn't want to subject millions of people to the same way of life. We want genuine democracy. We want our freedom.'

Petroff could see the desire for independence was stronger than for semi-autonomy. Now it was a question of getting them to accept that the corporations, at least Lynthax, would remain a big part of their lives while they achieved it.

They needed to understand it was a question of choosing between the lesser of two evils. It was a clear-cut choice: between gaining independence for themselves or paying tribute to Earth, along with everyone else in the Outer-Rim.

'Look, it's an easy enough proposition for you to grasp,' Petroff replied. 'We're offering you freedom. You'll never be able to control how the rest of the universe develops—it's going to be too big. Nor can you set yourself up to be the universe's conscience. If we had to start over, I'm sure you'd make changes to the way Earth is run, but you can't. It's too big, too complex, and, by being chained to it, you'll be subject to all its infighting.

'Full independence cuts the link. It allows you to start over, to manage your neck of the woods for your people. It'll also give millions of other people the chance to get off Earth; to live on a planet with the prospect of full employment, with enough food to go around, decent housing, and clean air—yes, clean air.'

He saw Nettles eyes widen as he imagined the benefits of a fresh start.

'If we don't open these planets then no one will. No one else can. Only we have the technology; technology we have spent billions on,' he lied. 'And if these planets aren't opened, Earth will collapse into itself.'

A silence fell over his audience as it digested the benefits to Earth if they were to abandon their rebellion now. Petroff decided to make it an easier decision for them to make.

'We don't need you for this. We can find others. We can start small and get bigger on our own. We just think it'll serve our purposes better, and more immediately, if we had the support of the New Worlds while we're developing these new planets; making them fit for habitation. That means an end to this insurgency and it requires your co-operation.'

Petroff paused, but allowed his frustration of the past few years to creep into the room:

'But remember, if you disagree, several of you here could be executed, and with the Western Bloc's approval. You've really farked us about over the past five years, and some of us are quite keen to get on with a day of hangings. I'm sure no one here wants that. We're being generous to the defeated.'

Faces hardened. This was the stick. No one liked being subject to someone else's whim, but Scat knew that Petroff was as keen a hangman as he was a megalomaniac. He could now imagine his fingers digging deeper into Petroff's throat, his eyes diluting, his tongue going blue.

He made to lean over the table, but felt a hand on his arm. It was Reggie.

Nettles rode over Petroff's last comment and focused on the positive. He turned to face his colleagues, trying to lean an elbow on the table.

'Let's look at the alternatives,' he suggested, 'On the one hand, we, the rebels, want independence from Earth. We were about to negotiate semi-autonomy, and were grateful for the chance.

'On the other hand, Lynthax wants a trouble-free period in which to develop more planets for its own self-serving purposes, a consequence of which is we get full autonomy, effectively independence, and Earth's people get "lebensraum".

'New planets make Lynthax richer. They just also happen to help Earth reduce its own burden. That's what capital and private enterprise is meant to achieve: it serves a purpose, satisfies a need and makes a profit.'

Petroff began to feel more optimistic about the outcome. Nettles was talking common sense.

'As I see it,' Nettles continued, 'if we don't help Lynthax, they get to open the new planets anyway, and with the possibility that we never see the light of day again, leaving ISRA with a weaker hand to play against the corporations. That means we probably don't ever get to push them out of the democratic process. To me, it's a no-brainer. The devil is in the details,' he added, looking at Petroff, to let him know he should start negotiating terms. 'Would our own people be permitted to emigrate from the New Worlds to more suitable planets?'

'Yes. Of course.'

'And would our current worlds have genuine sovereignty over all local affairs, including taxation, the making of laws—including commercial law?'

'Yes but in stages. We don't want you to get what you want without being able to achieve our own objectives first.'

'But why do they offer us anything?' Scat asked his colleagues, suspicious of Petroff's sudden generosity. 'Lynthax could find its own Pathfinders, or whatever they're called, run the operation from here, open new worlds and still get what it wants.'

Petroff realised he had missed making an important point:

'It's a question of scale, Scat. You just don't understand the scale of what we're about to do. We're not talking about 10 or 12 planets, as in the OR, over the next 50 to 100 years. We're talking hundreds and thousands in one year or two, across a galaxy, in an operation that needs resources, lots of it, up front. The New World planets have those resources, and they're our current base of operations. It just makes good sense.'

Scat persisted.

'Why don't we just let ISRA develop the galaxy? Why don't you hand the technology over? Lease it? Let Earth manage the whole thing.'

Petroff shook his head.

'They don't have the resources or the free capital—whereas we do. And for the same reasons as you wanted autonomy, Scat: Earth is too inward looking; it's fractious. If you think we're the personification of vested interests, take a look at the thousands of competing interests on Earth.

'Anyway, we've made our offer. It's a decent one. Its suits your purposes as it suits ours, and it's an offer made to be accepted, not debated over. You can throw it away, and hope for a better future, or accept it. But our offer only stands for the next 12 hours.

'And, of course, it's only good for all the Lynthax Outer-Rim worlds who sign up to it and all the others who do where we have influence.'

'And if some don't?' Scat asked.

'Well, we've plenty of accommodation here. And we'll help ISRA maintain sovereignty over their planets—probably even frustrate their attempts to negotiate semi-autonomy.

'Basically, if you refuse, your worlds won't get to hear about what we've discussed. You won't be going home until we've achieved our initial expansion plans in any case, and that could be a few years. But if you support us in opening up these new planets, we'll support your push for your independence.

'We'll fund your independence efforts, vote the right way, and cede our leases over time. You can nominate a politico to monitor the whole thing from here, while you and your boys are opening up our planets for us.'

Reggie thought he had seen a flaw in the plan.

'How will our worlds know they're to provide you with support?'

'The politicos can return home, unless they want to oversee events here. But understand this: if they talk about our deal, or attempt to shaft us in any way, we have you.' He pointed at Scat and two other rebel leaders. 'And we'll drop the idea of supporting your full independence. So, make up your minds. And do it soon.'

It looked as though Petroff was finally done talking.

The guards let them walk at their own pace back to the pens, but they followed them with their thumbs ready to press down on their PIKL-mounted neural disrupters.

Scat walked alongside Nettles, staring directly to his front. He spoke quietly.

'Do you really buy any of that, Terrance?' he asked. 'An "amnesty", the working for the betterment of mankind, the offer of democracy crap?'

Nettles chuckled gently.

'You've forgotten something, Scat: I'm a politician. But it's clear that a change of heart is as good as a fresh start. If they've spent so much money on what could prove so helpful to Earth's people, then maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt.'

'So what's next?'

'Nothing. We go along with it until Lynthax gives us a reason to do otherwise. It gets some of us off this planet, so we do it happily and enthusiastically. In the meantime, we bide our time: learn some stuff; find an advantage. Isn't that what you do whenever you suffer a set back? Wasn't that one of your first rules of an insurgency?'

Scat felt a little sheepish. Nettles was right.

'So you're not caving?'

'We're adapting to our new reality, Scat.'

'What about the others?'

'What about them?'

'Are you going to talk to them about playing along?'

They walked on a few paces more before Nettles replied. It sounded as if he were still thinking.

'No,' he said, slowly. 'Best not. Let them agree to Petroff's offer based on its own merits. If they don't look as if they'll vote in favour, we can talk to them then. Unless absolutely necessary, I'd rather not let anyone know that we're really holding back, or why.'

#  114

For the rest of the day, the politicos briefed their own people on the proposals and discussed their options.

As Reggie laid out Petroff's offer to Goosen, Paul, Khan and the rest of the Trevon Chapter rebels, Marvin grew increasingly convinced that the insurrection was over. The Trevon politicos would gladly accept independence, and, so long as Scat could pretend he was comfortable with it, so would the rebels.

It was now down to a question of trust. Could Lynthax be trusted to give up the Trevon lease, and was its support for Trevon's independence worth more to its people than the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority's offer of semi-autonomy?

On the question of trust, he guessed yes, again if Scat could play along. After all, Lynthax could have killed every one of the 400 or so rebels they had brought to Runnymede, and no one would have been the wiser. To then offer so much meant they had a lot to gain in return, enough not to want to screw it up by being duplicitous.

And in reality, if Trevon accepted Lynthax's proposals then the other rebel chapters and politicos would probably follow suit.

Scat listened to Reggie summarize the proposals with mixed emotions, gently stroking his re-broken nose to check if Goosen had set it straight.

He had to be realistic: his days as a rebel were over.

There were only two options on the table, unless one considered escape a third option, but escape to where, from where – he didn't even know where Runnymede was! Then what?

Besides, he was stateless and penniless, and mothers everywhere used his name to frighten the beJeezes out of any child who wouldn't eat his or her vegetables—if they had any, that is.

On reflection, he probably wouldn't fit back into society right away.

'Is this what you want, Birdie?' he asked, squatting in the corner of their pen, listening to Nettles and Reggie talk up the deal.

'If what Nettles has just said is kosher, then it seems OK. I know it's hard to think that Lynthax needs us and that its willing to offer such a deal, but less than a day ago I wouldn't have believed in instant space travel either. What are you thinking?'

Scat summed up:

'I see it like this—tell me if I'm out of line: Lynthax has let us into their little secret knowing that, if we refuse to help them, they can just wipe us out and keep their secret safe. Nettles seems pretty keen to grab a deal and to get home again, but that's no surprise. And Reggie wants a deal before he goes the way of the Old Man. The rest of them are just plain tired. But in my book, none are good enough reasons to do a deal with the devil.'

'You're probably right, Scat, but what can we do? The game has changed. The rules as well. We don't even know what they are.'

Scat hung his head.

'Nettles suggests we suck it up until Lynthax shows us a little more leg, or we get the chance to hit back on our own terms.'

'He's right, of course,' Goosen replied. 'Does that piss you off?'

'You bet it does.'

As it grew dark, Trevon voted to end hostilities. It was a signal to the others. Nine of the other 11 New Worlds quickly followed suit. Only Ashmore and Constitution held out beyond Petroff's deadline.

As Reggie and the other opt-ins handed Petroff the results of their polls, the Ashmore and Constitution politicos asked Petroff for more time.

He agreed.

Petroff got his unanimous vote after he loosened the rules on contact.

It had been a tough few hours.

The rebels weren't happy with quarterly-only visits, and monthly-only messages via the companynet. They needed more frequent contact than that.

Eventually they settled on free communication, but with caveats: Lynthax would issue the rebels with false identity cards; they were to use them when they logged on to the buoy network, and they were never to use their own names, or refer to personal matters. They were odd demands, but Petroff was quick to explain: ISRA would be searching for them, and they would be monitoring all the politicos' communication once they returned home.

Secondly, the communication would be by email only, not by video.

'Thirdly, the content of each email is to be reviewed by my local media security crew,' Petroff insisted. It was non-negotiable.

But it was better than nothing.

Reassured that they would remain in contact with their own people, the politicos began returning home.

The end-of-talks surprise was a move out of the pens and into standard accommodation. They were bunked two men to a room, each room fitted with well-sprung beds, media centres, and en-suite bathrooms. If they ignored the bars on the windows, the guards on the main entrance door and the plastic cutlery, it felt less like a prison.

Once they settled in, Petroff added one final condition. It was added as though it was an afterthought, although it was nothing but. The rebels were to stay away from the general project population: very few of them were familiar with the finer points of the project; most of them were contract workers employed to crunch data, and they wouldn't know where the data came from or who sourced it. The only employees allowed uncontrolled access to the Pathfinders were his positively-vetted employees, and only these employees would be aware of the wormhole.

He wanted to keep it that way.

#  115

Project Last Horizon training began with a more detailed briefing of the goals of the "mission", as the ex-rebels now referred to it.

The mission was to open up new and man-ready worlds for mass migration from Earth; across incredible distances, instantly, and without the need for spacecraft. For the first time since man had ventured into space, and ever since man began to consider its survival on far away worlds, there was now a chance—a very real chance—that every bloodline would survive. Space wouldn't just be a refuge for a species, or a few privileged strands of DNA—it was for everyone and every strand.

Scat had slept on the arguments for and against continued resistance, and accepted he was in no position to push against the tide. However, neither he nor Goosen could genuinely accept Lynthax's reassurances that they wouldn't exact some measure of revenge a little further down the line. Nor could they trust their political leaders not to accept what Lynthax was offering them a little too cheaply. So they knew they needed to stay wary.

Nevertheless, they could see how the project had caught everyone's imagination. It was leaving them breathless with anticipation. Somehow, they had to fit in.

It was a hugely ambitious programme; it was well funded and fabulously equipped. But there was excitement for other reasons. At a personal level, every Pathfinder was going to experience a series of human "firsts". They were going to make history—every day.

Marvin offered some perspective:

'Just think, Scat. In 10 or 20 thousand years' time, people on Earth will be able to look up at one of these planets and see you arrive!'

That gave Scat the creeps.

Each of them received a solida-graf that threw up solid-looking hologram images. It also had a projectable keyboard. It wasn't solid, of course—something in the solida-graf kept the location of its projection in view, or at least within sensor range, allowing it to sense the striking of the virtual keys. It took some getting used to, but it beat thumbing with one hand.

And bugbots were no longer just remotely controlled surveillance or mini-PIKL platforms; they were now capable of making decisions and operating independently.

The smaller versions carried species comparison and diagnostics software. They could also act as neuralnet interfaces and double up as communication relay stations.

The larger bugbots carried a wider range of hardware: long-range drones; disposable ground survey and mapping sensors; geo-thermal sensors; rad-sensors; mini-PIKLs; stuns; neural disrupters and mini light-tugs. Others carried mini-surgical bots and medical stores.

Everything suggested that Lynthax had been planning the mission for an awful long time.

Scat questioned the use of the high-powered weaponry, but Petroff told him to be patient and, besides, there was no point in getting too excited by it: he disabled the weapons on this side of the wormhole by adding safety-lock routines to the software.

Petroff saw the disappointment in Scat's face.

'Just get used to the equipment, Scat,' Petroff told him. Everyone had to know how everything worked. They expected casualties.

What would cause the casualties, given each of the new planets was Earth-similar, no one would say for the time being.

Training on the wormhole itself was the most eagerly anticipated session of them all. An ex-ORF intelligence Staff Sergeant, known only as Dave, took the Trevon Chapter through their wormhole training. He was young, and good-natured but oozed a quiet confidence.

'Gentlemen, we can't say much about the wormhole construct, or the power source, as they are both proprietary technologies. What we can tell you is what it does.

'The wormhole flattens space-time. It allows us to pass from one place in space to another, as though stepping from one room to another.'

The wormhole opened out onto Mars, which was instantly recognisable. It then opened out from high above New York City and then low down over Trevon's House of Representatives. Lastly, it opened out inside a hotel coffee shop on G-eo: the hole was small, to aide in its concealment. He encouraged several Pathfinders to step up and look at the monitor, connected to a camera pushed up against the fisheye-sized wormhole, and to describe what they saw to the rest of the large class.

'It pretty much goes where we want it to go, at any time, instantly, and its size is adjustable.

'So, how does it work? Well, imagine this balloon is the universe. Before there were dimensions, gravity and time, there was nothing, no recognisable form.' He held it up, drooping, deflated. 'But then there was the Big Bang, which gave the universe its current form, its dimensions, gravity and time.' He blew up the balloon.

'This balloon is round, which the universe isn't, but it'll do to illustrate a point. If you want to go from one side of the balloon to another, you must travel around its outer surface, the surface of this balloon representing the linear nature of space and time.'

He then marked a cross on opposite sides of the balloon and connected them by drawing a line between the two in black-marker pen.

'Until recently, if we had wanted to travel to the far side of the universe, we needed to follow a similar, linear line, point-to-point, but following space-time. Only now, we don't need to. A wormhole flattens out the space-time between two points, like this'.

He placed the balloon on the table then flattened it in the centre so the two marks were now touching each other.

'When you pass through a wormhole you actually cross space-time. You don't disappear, you simply move from one point to another, immediately.

'If we want you to go to a planet in the system around the star 47 Tucanae, catalogue number NGC 104 in the Globular Cluster, some 13400 light years away, you arrive now even though Earth won't see you there until around the year 15625 AD.

'We can only see you now through the wormhole.

'You can see us now if you look back through it.

'Once you're there, if you look up through the stars with a powerful enough telescope, what you'll see is Runnymede, some 13400 in the past.

'In other words, no one will be here.

'On Earth, Mammoths will still roam Europe and Siberia, man is only just learning to sow crops and herd animals and Cain has yet to kill Abel. So, aside from us, you are truly alone!'

It was hard to grasp.

He went on to explain how the hole was adjustable at the far location, that is, they could move it around. He told them of how they had practiced picking things off far planets by dropping the hole over things, then pulling them through from this side. He showed them how they could drop things though a wormhole, fire things through it, and sample the air on the other side.

He explained that much of the material they were using on the project had come through the wormhole when it was still at its original development site. It was quicker and cheaper than using the LMs. And more stealthy.

He told them that their exploratory work would begin from inside a pressure chamber. The purpose of the chamber was to prevent pathogens from the target planet reaching Runnymede. He warned them that positive pressure from the other side meant "blow-in" on this side.

'You don't want to be around when that happens,' Dave had said. 'Any blow-in is dealt with by incineration.'

They had misjudged the pressure on the other side a few times, but the incinerator had never failed.

Only after achieving positive pressure on this side of the hole did they introduce the bugcams and drones to map the local area. If that went well, they would then introduce the drilling equipment. Only when the company's Chief Environmental Science Officer considered a planet safe, as was Trevon, G-eo and so on, would they ever open a wormhole from outside the chamber.

They hadn't gotten that far as yet. And, besides, not one of the planets had the same air-pressure as Runnymede and they couldn't risk a runaway exchange of atmospheres.

Dave went on to explain a recent adaptation of the widely known, but largely untested Drake Equation: 50% of all new stars developed planetary systems; 90% of the planets that formed in the "Goldilocks Zone" would develop life; 10% of those would develop intelligence, and around 10% of those would go on to develop interstellar communications. The current guess was that there were between 450 and 900 alien civilisations in our Milky Way.

'And our galaxy is only one of several billion that we know of.

'Now hold that thought in your head as you consider something else.

'The resource companies selected the New Worlds out of a desperate need for resources. Back in the 2100s, it didn't matter that their populations couldn't survive or develop without Earth's continued support. It only mattered that they could be mined or cultivated. Trevon, Constitution, G-eo and some of the others are flukes. They may be close to being settled unaided, but even now, after decades of planetary engineering, they still haven't hit the G-spot for abundant life and varied crops. They're still only Earth similar.

'Project Last Horizon is different. We're trawling the galaxy for Earth replicas, places rich in resources, where man can put down long-term roots, where settlements can thrive unaided, and industry can flourish. We're going to where life is already abundant.

'The chances, then, of meeting some form of intelligent life on these newer, more hospitable planets is higher. And even if there is only animal life, there will be predators.'

Finally, Scat had the answer to his two-day old question about the need for firepower.

#  116

Scat's first Pathfinder mission was meant to be a very quick and simple one. He entered the brightly lit, oversized chamber, alone and suited up as for a Prebos belt-walk. From inside his suit he could hear the roar of the extractor fans as they continuously recirculated the chamber air. Above him, the furnace was ready to ignite, just in case the wormhole failed to maintain its positive pressure.

At the far end of the chamber stood the unopened and spinning disc of transparent liquid-like elements.

Ratti was conducting operations from the cabin built into the chamber, high up and to the left of the unopened hole.

'Ready, Scat?'

'As ever I will be, Carlo. Open her up.'

The outer-edges of the disc began to dance with light. Its inner surfaces shone like highly polished tubular chrome, turning in on itself in a smooth, continuous movement. As the eye opened, the liquid-like aperture appeared to increase in depth, becoming more three dimensional, akin to a camera lens. As it opened wider, the eye appeared to float, unthreateningly, inviting investigation.

Beyond the eye lay the surface of a planet, still referred to by its catalogue number, one of several planets orbiting the smaller of two stars, a typical binary system. Scat had been told of its precise location and distance from Runnymede, but he couldn't relate.

While the eye opened, Scat kept his calm by focusing on the things he more readily understood; the tangible things. Between him and the hole lay his designated bugbot and a couple of drones; the bugbot fitted out with a range of sensors plus a PIKL and a neural disruptor. He could control these things, so he focused on them. It helped to stop his imagination from spinning out of control.

Previous drone surveys of the insertion area had recorded distant footage of several ambulatory life forms. They already knew that the planet was covered in a wide variety of vegetation, some of it quite large; analogous to Earth's bushes and trees and that the air was breathable. Several drones had been pushed out into local orbit, storing data for transmission each time the eye opened. They had shown there to be several climatic zones.

Lynthax had chosen a temperate area, midway between the planet's equator and its northern pole, for the site of its first human visit. Scat's ground insertion was to be onto a secluded glade within a "wooded" area a little way up a hill slope, the other side of which was a large vegetation-covered plain. Despite the drone's remote encounters with life forms, he was advised that the likelihood of his encountering any of it while he spent his planned 15 minutes on the surface was about the same as a summer's walk through the Yellowstone National park. Scat couldn't give that comment any context. He had never been. In any case, how could anyone on Runnymede offer any kind of reassurances about what he might or might not meet?

As he approached the developing wormhole, he glanced up at the marble-sized power source, mounted in a ring at the top of a tall rod to the right of the hole. It appeared to be spinning within the ring but without touching it. He pulled his eyes away: Dave had briefed the Pathfinders not to look directly at it and never to touch it. Over a couple of crisp, cool post-training beers the night before, the trainer had told stories of researchers freaking out, security guards refusing to clock on, and electrical equipment being drained of power when in proximity to it. Apparently, no one liked being near the thing.

'Just don't get close and don't be drawn to it,' he recalled Dave as saying.

But the urge to look at it again was strong so he checked the bugbot for a second time. He then knelt beside the drone and punched in his personal activation code, willing the eye to open fully to allow him to step through. Still, the spinning marble drew him in, and again he had to work hard to push it out of his mind.

Eventually the eye settled down. It would soon be time. He stood, checked that his belted equipment was buttoned and strapped down, and tried real hard not to look at the marble out of the corner of his eye.

'Any time you're ready,' Ratti said.

Scat could feel himself wavering, losing his concentration.

'Damn it, Scat! Focus. Focus!' he told himself, taking three steps through the hole.

The new world opened out around him. In an instant, air from the chamber side of the wormhole rushed past him and onto the bushes ahead. He swivelled around to get his bearings and to check how far he was from the tall vegetation behind him, feeling as vulnerable and as disoriented as a dog dumped at the roadside.

As expected, there was the wormhole, through which he could now see the chamber, and around the other side of it, perhaps 50 metres away, was a bank of thick foliage.

He fiddled nervously with his solida-graf and located the bugbot that had followed him through the hole. He took local control of it and set it to defensive, cranking it up to maximum sensitivity. He then turned back to the view he had seen from Runnymede.

He was standing in a glade of flowerlike life on solid, dry ground. He knew he was in an area of rolling hills but couldn't see further than 50 – 75 metres in any direction. The shallow valley was on his left, its vegetation canopy at eye level. Sunlight dappled the undergrowth in dark and light patches that moved as the canopy swayed in the light wind. Ferns and bushes, the larger of them passing for stunted trees if one overlooked the multiple trunks, rose up the hill towards him and covered most of the ground surrounding the glade. Through the "trees", he could just about make out some rocky outcrops.

Directly above him the sky was blue but tinged with yellow closer to the ground.

On the other side, to his right, the bushes, or trees, nestled in thicker undergrowth, obscuring his view of the ground. As expected, the canopy climbed the hill as it rose to its summit.

'No dallying, Scat. Sightseeing is for later on. Just run through the checks, get to the top of the rise, and come on back.'

'Roger that. Just checking for Injuns, is all. Everything working to spec,' he replied, looking down at his solida-graf.

'Comms good.... Bugbot at 100%. ... Ground firm. ... Air pressure at 98% Runnymede normal.... Temperature and humidity as expected. ... Radiation normal. ... I'll call the drones through and send them out to the three kilometre markers.'

Back on Runnymede, the dark brown, oval-shaped drones woke up, drew power from their fuel cells, flipped out their rotor blades and lifted their man-sized bodies into the air. In seconds they were both through the hole, rising to an unfamiliar sky, relaying a stream of data back to Ratti and his assistants.

Scat glanced up through the vegetation.

'I'll start moving up to the skyline. It looks thicker at ground level than we thought. No paths or animal runs. I can't see the second sun; the atmospheric refraction is too intense.'

He felt odd wearing a suit in near-normal gravity and in an oxygen-normal atmosphere, but moving through the vegetation was cumbersome work so he was grateful for its air-conditioning. Occasionally he would look down at his solida-graf to check that it was still working. Of course it was. There were no immediate threats. It was quiet because it had nothing to say. He was just nervous.

After a few minutes of panting, he eventually reached the top of the hill, wishing he had stayed a little fitter than he was. The trees still blocked his view, but he could see the woods thin out, and the ground brighten up some 20 metres further on, just over the crest. To his left a tree rose from the ground, arched above him then plunged back into the ground on his right, sprouting flowers of red and leaves of all colours.

He pushed on, down a slight incline, and then arrived at the wood's edge to a view he could only describe to himself as stunning.

The sky above seemed vast, the blue weak, and the thin, wispy clouds high. Off to his left was the second sun, a faraway star as bright by day as Venus is by early morning when seen from Earth. The hillside slipped away to a wide expansive savannah, dotted with low bulbous trees, a sea of thick ferns of red, brown, green, yellow, and white flowers tinged with blue. The vastness of the plain gave him a sense of freedom that he hadn't experienced since his trips across the Gap Plain on Trevon. It was as close to a National Geographic movie of the Rift Valley as he would ever see in his lifetime. He felt right at home.

'What's the matter, Scat? Your heart rate and blood pressure have become erratic.'

The question brought him back to mission.

'Nothing. It's just more beautiful than I expected. Visibility now out to around 20-30 kilometres.'

'Well, it was bound to be an improvement over Trevon, Scat. So, are you ready to breathe local air?'

'I'm ready.'

'OK, take it off.'

Runnymede had sampled the air, and they knew it to be safe, but only to the limits of human understanding. As with all new environments, there were bound to be pathogens that had gone undetected; unfamiliar gases as well. Despite the numerous tests on animals, the only true test would be for a man to take a deep lungful, in situ—just as man had on Trevon, Constitution, G-eo, Runnymede and all the other human habited planets in the OR.

Scat took off his helmet and continued to breathe normally as instructed, while Ratti monitored his blood gases. The smell of sap, pollen and decaying vegetation, dung and damp, musty, fertile soil saturated the air. There was none of the usual closed habitat smells of solvents, ozone, plastics.

'Seems good, Scat. Nothing of note from your end?'

'No. Nothing. All's good. The air smells of shit.'

Ratti didn't reply immediately. Data from a drone was distracting him.

'We have indications of a large moving mass, Scat. Off to your right. One of the drones is flying intercept. Do you see anything?'

'No. I'll move around and see what I can see.'

Scat turned to contour around the hillside, keeping the wood line to his right. More and more of the plain came into view. The colours of the ground ferns seemed to change in waves, back and forth, as they bowed and flickered in front of a gentle breeze. Then he saw them.

Around a kilometre away, and stretching from the extreme left to the extreme right horizons, were several tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of four legged lifeforms whose mass formed a continuous slash of brown against the colourful ferns. They were walking slowly, 20 and 30 abreast, dipping their heads frequently in a manner that was repeated kilometre after kilometre along its length. He kept walking, hoping to see more from where the hill sloped away more sharply to the plain below.

His solida-graf began to bleep gently as it received data from the drone. Scat instructed it to throw up the images. As the close-up pulled into focus, he stopped dead in his tracks.

'Do you see this, Carlo? Do you see this?' he shouted excitedly.

'No, not yet, Scat. We're moving the hole over the hill to get better reception. What do you see?'

'A truly wonderful sight!'

'What is it?'

'Meat!'

#  117

Cohen's informal sources had revealed nothing. On every Western Bloc planet, it was the same. Cotton had been more methodical, but no more successful. There was nothing to indicate where the rebels had gone.

Cotton had initiated Operation Downward Stare. The G-eo government was extremely angry. They were uncommonly quick to offer Cotton access to their information-gathering agents.

He used Cyclops to trawl the visual data for the day of the disappearances. Cyclops stitched the hundreds of thousands of hours of video together from all the military, government, municipal and commercial surveillance cameras. Over the following few days it built a seamless 24-hour solida-graf motion picture of the city's activities.

He then needed to see what was going on inside Tremont at a human level, so he ran the God Programme, a crowdsourcing tool. The GP trawled the web-based social networks, corporate security networks, municipal & store video, e-bank payment records, road traffic and electricity management systems, and other data banks. It then overlaid the cultural and economic characteristics of G-eo and the idiosyncratic behaviour of Tremont, its capital. After it had combined the two, it looked for outliers, oddities, and standouts. With that done, the GP ran its facial recognition software on every face captured by Downward Stare during that 24-hour period.

To fill gaps in the data, Cotton employed sophisticated probability modelling, game theory, and optimisation techniques.

Still nothing. In each case, the rebels were there, and then they weren't.

'It doesn't make sense, Ronald,' Cohen muttered, stepping away from the projection bench. 'It just doesn't. Why would they go to ground? And how?'

Cotton looked up from the file he was reading. He closed it. There was nothing of note in it, anyway.

'I can't say. But I'm certain they're no longer on G-eo. It's been six months. We should have scored something on video by now, but the GP hasn't thrown anything up, and I've left it running.'

'And the politicos are saying nothing, still?'

'Nothing, and we can't force them too, either: I've tried. We've even used intermediaries to try bribing them, but it doesn't work. It's almost as if we're the enemy now, and not the companies.'

'Well, Ronald, this is causing serious problems for us at ISRA. We can't very well push the beggars into ceding their leases if there's no upward pressure from the rebels, and if they don't need to cede their leases then we won't weaken them. That's had ramifications all over.'

Cotton nodded. Everything depended on the rebels either bleeding the Corporates to death or submitting to ISRA's plan for semi-autonomy.

'What's the truth in the story that Trevon's about to table another motion for independence?' he asked. 'When I ran the God Programme there, I picked up lots of online gossip about Lynthax being supportive. How could that be?'

Cohen was visibly agitated. His carefully constructed and painfully executed strategy for democracy on Earth's terms was a train wreck in motion.

'I have no idea—none. Nor is Nettles being co-operative. They're being very tight-fisted with their plans right now, and the Corporate Constituency Reps have gone remarkably quiet now they've gotten back to their mining and shipping. I haven't been able to work my way back into that vipers nest since the politicos re-emerged.'

'What does the Authority think?'

Cohen stepped back to the bench and looked down, examining the cityscape as if something would eventually leap out at him. Nothing did. He pushed his long, grey hair back over his head and rubbed the back of a tense neck.

'It thinks things are afoot, Ronald, but it's as blind as you and me. We don't like it. Something's obviously up and I doubt Downward Stare or your God Programme will predict what it is from what we know right now.'

#  118

In the six-month period after his first entry, Scat stepped out onto 54 new worlds. He followed the same procedure every time. Early in the day, he conducted a "First Entry" on his lonesome, and then returned to Runnymede for an intensive medical check up. Later that morning, if all went well, he re-entered with a team of scientists, the Trevon Chapter and their close protection equipment.

On occasion, they would spend the night, and on others, they would stay for a few hours only. Each time they would bring specimens back for analysis.

When a planet warranted a more detailed study, they would move onto the "establishment" phase, where they would set up a longer-term camp, maintaining a presence that might last for anything between a few days and several weeks. On such occasions, the hope always was that the establishment phase would lead to full-scale development.

True to project Last Horizon's original predictions, as the project support teams became more proficient at selecting their targets, and in interpreting the resulting data, fewer planets were discarded. More and more planets met the criterion for settlement. An increasing number of planets warranted longer-term investigation and exploration. The Pathfinder teams stayed out longer, rarely returning to Runnymede for more than a day or so between expeditions.

As the pace increased, Petroff permitted the Pathfinders to take their personal bugbots along with them; so long as the software checked out, they weren't armed, and they were fitted with safety routines so as to render them useless on Runnymede: just as it was for their PIKLs.

But despite the technical aids, the precautions and the quality of their equipment, they couldn't avoid the odd medical emergency. Or they might stumble on something they deemed too dangerous to approach. If they did, they evacuated to Runnymede and the support team re-evaluated the mission. And there were some hairy moments. As often as not, they occurred when the wormhole was closed, leaving the pathfinders to fend for themselves. But the most frightening of all were the unknown viruses. On that score, Scat considered himself lucky; a couple of pathfinder teams had been laid low by some seriously persistent viral infections. They then spent weeks in isolation. Scat's team had nothing more to show for their troubles than a rash on a scientist's legs.

But he was tired. In addition to the constant treadmill, the energy source was unnerving him. It made him edgy. Each time he entered the pressure chamber he could feel the glowing marble reaching out, trying to drill deep into his consciousness. In the early days, the effect lasted only for the short time he waited for the wormhole to open, or for his scientific team to get its act together. That was bad enough. But once the thrill of a First Entry had worn off, he could feel the mental disturbance following him onto the surface. It only went away when the wormhole closed, and Petroff switched it across to another team.

Although Last Horizon was already on track to prove 200 planets, it could have gone faster if there had been more than one energy source. It would have been safer as well: the wormhole could have followed a team throughout its expedition, instead of closing and switching to some other distant planet.

But there was only the one, and Scat thought that to be a critical flaw in the overall plan. He mentioned this to Ratti, but he told him not to worry about it.

Scat thought that was rich—especially coming from someone who never, ever, joined them on any of the planets. But Ratti did let something slip: despite the improved research, the company was still discarding several "marginal" worlds at a fair clip. If there had been more energy sources, they wouldn't have needed to. Instead, they could have spent a little longer proving a place. He blamed the "remfs", the rear echelon mother-farkers at the Lynthax School of Management, who taught that it was best to kill a project early and not to waste resources on something that didn't meet early-day metrics.

Petroff was more sympathetic. He often joined teams on the surface of planets and could feel the isolation effect of the wormhole closing behind him. It was on such a trip that Petroff made another pitch for him to be neuralnetted. Scat had lost control of a drone while he was operating a bugbot; he simply couldn't juggle the two assets as smoothly as the neuralnetted scientists who followed them in. Again, Scat refused, but Petroff had been insistent, again trying to dominate him.

'Scat, it'll improve your handling of the bugbot and drones,' he said, 'and the management of information. Right now, you're juggling, and you can't cope. If you were neuralnetted, you'd be doing it instinctively. It'd leave you free to do a lot more forward thinking, and you'd handle emergencies more effectively.'

Scat replied in a civil a tone as he could manage, but he couldn't disguise his natural mistrust of the procedure.

'No, thanks, Mr Petroff. I like to dream in my down time.'

But Petroff wasn't listening.

'You'd be impressed with the Variable Outcome Prediction Models, Scat—both of them,' he said, referring to the environmental and behavioural programmes. 'And you'll be able to converse more intelligently with your science teams, and that power source won't distract you so much—none of the scientists have been complaining about it. Jeeze, I would have thought it to be a no-brainer!'

Scat thought about that. There was something ironic in the "no-brainer" comment, but he couldn't find a funny line. He had just declined again, and watched the man climb the slope ahead of him, feeling the hate.

It's a pity they only set these PIKLs on stun while he's around, he thought to himself, raising the barrel and lining up the sights. But once he's down, I can put my hands round his farking neck. It would take but a few seconds...

He felt the barrel being pushed down. He looked up. It was Goosen, wagging a finger, which he then tapped it against his temple. Think!

Perhaps Goosen was right. Perhaps there would be a better time. Maybe the next time the bastard mentions the neuralnet. Scat dropped the PIKL to his side.

But Paul was listening, and the very next day he queued up to be neuralnetted. Several of the other Pathfinders followed his lead. Of the Trevon Chapter, only Goosen decided not to: not out of fear of the procedure itself, but so he could stay close to Scat. He was concerned that if he got himself hooked up, Scat would stop confiding in him. Scat appreciated the gesture.

From that point onwards, Petroff ran a daily competition, awarding points to the teams who could establish themselves on the surface of a planet in the shortest time.

It used to take Scat an hour or so to secure a campsite, but after several insertions, he had improved that to just less than 50 minutes. It wasn't good enough, though. Other teams, the other neuralnetted teams, were now establishing in less than 30. Scat could see Petroff was making a point, but he preferred to ignore it.

But he paid for his stubbornness. He was tired, and the energy source was a bitch, which didn't make life any easier. He was beginning to have nightmares. Maybe it was the stress. Or he was getting old. He was fairly certain he was 34 already. He couldn't remember what Earth month it was, and was too tired to work it out.

Perhaps if he wore tin foil on his head before entering the pressure chamber it might make a difference.

#  119

'....so that's the proposal, Keith. In a nutshell, you support our application for extended leases on planets we've yet to find and settle beyond, say, 1000 light years, and we pay for the entire enterprise, including any terraforming, geo-engineering, flora-augmentation and so on. We even pay for emigrant passage if they're using our proposed new visa system. It's a terrific deal.'

Orbatan hadn't spent much time on the details. He had broad-brushed the whole thing, and then repeated the highlights as a summary without the slide show. He and Petroff had Sunderland for 10 minutes. There was no time for waffle.

Keith Sunderland, the Western Bloc Head of Intelligence, sat on a sofa in front of Petroff's desk, looking at the blank screen. He had arrived on Trevon the night before to receive, first-hand, a briefing from the local Outer Rim Force commander on the continuing improvement in the local security environment, and to meet with Nettles, and other influential House Representatives, to assess for himself the strength of this newly forged co-operation between the secessionists and their erstwhile foes, the Corporations.

It was also an opportunity to reinforce his long-established network, and to update his Rolodex, so when Orbatan had suggested they meet privately, and away from his entourage, he had accepted. As he sat in Petroff's office, his security detail waited outside in the large semi-circular lobby, minding the elevators and checking the IDs of everyone who came and went, Lynthax's own security pushed aside. Petroff didn't mind. He was no longer Director of Security. That had gone to Xin when Project Last Horizon was agreed and given a budget.

What Orbatan was proposing was from out of left field. It was also inappropriate and had nothing to do with his office. It was obvious Lynthax was angling to use his influence at the UN, to call in yet more markers and to ask for favours on their behalf, just the sort backroom deal-making that could drain the goodwill from a network—unless there was a substantial profit in it for everyone.

'I'm sorry, Nicholas,' Sunderland replied. 'We can't sanction that. It'd start another bush fire. You corporations aren't exactly flavour of the month at ISRA. And I doubt they'll agree to anything that's exclusive. It'll have to be opened out to the other two blocs as well.'

'Fine. That's OK.' Orbatan said, shrugging.

'So you're not looking for a "Lynthax Advantage" then?'

'No,' Orbatan replied, as if gaining such an advantage would be most unjust. He sat up from a slouch to show how earnest he was. 'Just extended leases. A return on our investment.'

Sunderland gave Orbatan a disbelieving stare, tilting his head in question. Orbatan didn't take offence. Sunderland eventually shook his head.

'Still, I don't think we could push the Council to promote this idea at ISRA. Why would we? It's not as though it gives our bloc an advantage. In any case, you'll need the Southern Bloc as well, and then somehow you've got to convince ISRA to vote your way when the Asian Bloc votes it down. Then there's this proposed No Automatic Right of Return visa you're proposing: the NARR. Unless all three blocs vote for it, which I doubt they will, ISRA will have discretion. And they'll not like it. Cohen won't, that's for sure. No, it's a non-starter. Sorry.'

Orbatan tried to hide his disappointment by smiling at Petroff and then reaching back over his shoulder to pick up his graf from atop of his attaché case that lay on Petroff's desk. As he weighed up whether this was the right time to take the conversation along a different course, he pretended to check an incoming message. The leases and the No Automatic Right of Return visas were intertwined. Petroff needed to recruit thousands of scientists who could keep a secret, or who could be forced to keep a secret. The NARR visas took them off the Authority's watch list, meaning they could disappear once their contracts expired—unless, of course, they decided to continue—without attracting ISRA's interest. UN approval was essential to their plans.

Orbatan dropped the graf onto the coffee table in front of him and then put his hands together, as if he had an announcement to make.

'Keith, how much do you value real, live, local intelligence?' he asked.

'What's that got to do with this?' Sunderland asked.

'Intelligence at Bloc level.'

'Again, what's it got to do with your request?'

'A lot. Would you like us to show you?' Orbatan asked.

Sunderland glanced at his watch. Orbatan's explanation would have to be a short one. His schedule was tight, and both Orbatan and Petroff knew it. He could leave in a few minutes without upsetting either one of them, but he had nothing to lose by hearing them out in the time they had left.

'If it'll not take long, Nicholas. I'm due at the House in 20 minutes.'

'Not long at all,' Orbatan confirmed, turning to Petroff. 'Let's get to it, shall we?'

Petroff checked over the neuralnet that the wormhole was still in place, and then issued a silent order for the lift to take place. From a hole in the false ceiling, no bigger than a hole punched by a pencil, a wormhole opened out to swallow Orbatan, Sunderland, himself and their easy chairs.

Sunderland didn't have time to yell out before he was sitting in the centre of what looked like a large diving chamber, perhaps a submersible. The wormhole vanished, leaving the three of them sitting in their easy chairs around the coffee table, his feet resting on solid ground inside a flowing, metal-like ring laid on the floor. He stiffened instinctively, jaw open. With his limbs frozen in shock, his head snapped to his left and then to his right. Unable to make sense of his new surroundings, he looked for Petroff and Orbatan who had already crossed the floor to a large metal door. Orbatan stood to one side of it, waiting.

'If you'll follow us, Keith, we'll show you why you should give our proposal serious consideration.'

Sunderland got up sharply, standing uncertainly on a surface that had once been the ground of Petroff's office deep inside Go Down City and was now, well, somewhere else. Holding his arms out, as if walking a tightrope, he stepped over the ring and made his way cautiously towards the door. He was certain he was hallucinating.

Orbatan hid a smile. The Western Bloc's Head of Intelligence, a man some held to be both graceful and dignified, even if he were cold and calculating, was reduced to little more than a cartoon character; a Bambi on roller blades, only with smaller, less trusting eyes. At first he could barely walk. He tripped over the metal lip in the chamber doorway and had to grip the doorframe for support. He continued onwards, at a crouch, looking up at the high hangar ceiling as though it was closing in on him. As Sunderland slowly adjusted to his new reality, they led him, carefully, up the metal steps and into the hangar's cabin. When he finally made it inside the cabin, Orbatan made to offer an apology.

'Sorry about that, Keith, but you said we didn't have much time, so we thought we should just get on with it.'

Petroff smiled at the operator who had brought them to Trevon, nodding his approval to throw out another wormhole. He then reached past a dazed, white-faced Sunderland and flicked on two screens: one showing the wormhole returning to the vertical, the other a blank screen. Orbatan waved Sunderland to a seat.

'Please sit down, Keith, and watch the right-hand monitor. I'll explain as we watch the show.'

For the first time since finding himself in this place, wherever it was, Sunderland found his voice. It was a little weak, but it was controlled.

'What just happened?' he asked.

Orbatan ignored the question and settled in for the show.

A picture formed on the second monitor. In it, a man of Chinese ethnicity sat at a desk, occasionally signing pages in a file, before moving onto other dossiers. Every so often, he would refer to his desktop monitor. Sunderland could see a news programme flowing through the paint on the wall between two windows. The view outside was of The People's Square, Beijing. Slowly it dawned on him. The man was of Solid Huazhong, or rather Wang Huazhong, the Asian Bloc Head of Intelligence.

Someone entered the room, off-screen, spoke in Mandarin, and then left. Huazhong hadn't even looked up. He had just nodded. He then pressed a button on his desktop graf and started speaking in English.

'Are we ready, Singh?' he asked.

'Yes, sir. We'll approve the visit once you release Kalmadi. Cabinet approved it this morning.'

'Excellent. Please pass on my best to Harendra. I'll ask Yeung to arrange the details.'

Huazhong pressed the button again and switched to another incoming call.

'Yes?' he asked, switching back to Mandarin

On this side of the wormhole, Orbatan instructed the operator to cut the link.

'That must have been quite recent, Orbatan,' Sunderland said. 'How did you get your camera installed? And how did you get it transmitted up here so quickly?'

'We didn't install a camera, Keith. Watch the monitor again. Who do you want to eavesdrop on this time?'

'How do you mean?'

'Who do you want to see next? In real-time.'

'In real-time? I have a choice?'

'Yes. Who?'

'Um, OK, show me the Council. They're meeting to discuss the rebel disappearance in a short while.'

Petroff glazed over. The wormhole operator nodded, plugged in a fresh set of coordinates and adjusted some settings. He then launched the hole again. This time the view was of an empty room on an upper floor, its windows looking out across the East River.

Orbatan shook his head in mock disappointment.

'They're not yet ready for us Keith. Do you want to go somewhere else instead?'

'Maybe we don't need to, sir,' Petroff said. 'There's a news programme flowing across the far wall. Let's zoom in.'

Ignoring the neuralnet, Petroff nudged the operator who adjusted the wormhole's angle of view and increased the magnification and resolution of the camera. The news programme expanded. A date appeared in the bottom right-hand corner, along with the local time, weather, and a stream of business data.

'My goodness,' Sunderland exclaimed, confirming New York time with his graf. 'That's now!'

'It is,' replied Orbatan. 'And if you can make the leases happen, we'll let you play with this whenever you want to.'

'How do you do it? They're over one hundred light years away.'

'We're not telling you, and you shouldn't ask. It's a deal-breaker, I'm afraid.'

'Show me my apartment!' Sunderland said, this time speaking directly to Petroff, challenging him, trying to see just how spontaneous this thing could be.

'On Trevon or Earth? Inside or out?' Petroff asked, as if it didn't matter.

'Trevon. Inside the kitchen. A view of the stove.'

Petroff used the neuralnet to pull up the schematics of the building in Go Down City where Earth maintained accommodation for its visiting dignitaries. In seconds, he had narrowed the apartment down to one of three to which power was still flowing. The wormhole launched again.

'Is this the one, sir?' the operator asked.

Again the monitor flickered, this time presenting a stove on top of which was a half-eaten plate of egg and beans, hurriedly placed there when Sunderland's c-pod announced its arrival in the park below. Housekeeping had yet to arrive. The kitchen was just as he had left it.

In an instant, Sunderland saw the benefits this device had to offer: it was a game-changer. It granted considerable power to its possessor. It represented a giant leap forward, rendering almost every other intelligence-gathering device or process redundant. He had to have it. The Western Bloc just had to have it.

Or, maybe, they just needed everything it had to offer. If he were to keep this mode of intelligence out of the public eye, politically-prying eyes, he could also use it to tighten his grip on his Security Committee, steal a march on the ruddy Brits, pre-empt the pesky French ... His imagination ran wild. He could do all of these things—and more—without anyone, not even his own staff, suspecting a thing.

He was deep in thought when he let slip:

'I'm impressed.'

#  120

The meeting with ISRA wasn't a difficult one; Orbatan had leaked much of what he wanted to say to the press in the weeks prior. As he spoke, he focused on the benefits to humanity were Earth to issue another Liz Henri Space Challenge. Only this time, it wasn't just about the resources. It was about "lebensraum": finding genuinely hospitable planets onto which man could settle without making so many adjustments. If it were possible to find such planets, then more people could leave Earth. Indeed many more people would be better suited to leave Earth.

His surprise proposal came at the end. Orbatan let it be known that if the Authority and the UN granted 250-year leases beyond the 1000 light year limit, then his company was prepared to transfer its current New World leases to the local Houses, over time.

Cohen hadn't been consulted prior to the presentation. When he had first learned of it, through the press, he had become cautious, even objected. But the Director of Programmes told him to back-off: he would be able to vote if there were a stalemate at bloc level, just like all the other ambassadors. In the meantime, he was to keep his reservations to himself.

Then it dawned on him: they had him cut out of the preparations so as to prevent him from making his representations to the other ambassadors ahead of time. It was clear the Head of Development was aiming for a trouble-free meeting. Cohen surmised a deal was in the bag already. He just couldn't be sure.

What Lynthax was suggesting was outlandish.

250-year leases? Without reviews? On planets that we don't yet know exist? A new class of emigrant visa?

What was going on?

Lynthax concerned for the common man?

Then the standout:

Lynthax was prepared to give up its current leases?

The audience clapped. Cohen fumed.

The Western Bloc representative stood, beamed a smile, and gave the proposals his bloc's full blessing. He praised the vision. He then talked about free enterprise, innovation, personal freedoms and cultural progress as being cut from the same cloth. The Western Bloc then voted in favour.

The Southern Bloc voted in favour, without comment. That was no more and no less than Cohen had expected. The Western Bloc had called in a marker. It had been bailing the South out since the OR insurgency began.

The Asian Bloc objected.

Cohen sighed. As the Bloc vote wasn't unanimous, ISRA would now need to vote in favour of the resolution for it to pass. And he knew the numbers: the Authority voted against a majority Bloc vote less than 18% of the time. Perhaps if he could persuade enough of the Ambassadors to abstain, it would at least delay acceptance for a short while.

As the meeting moved on to other matters, Orbatan left the room. Cohen checked his graf to see when the ISRA Ambassador Council vote could take place. There was a gap in the calendar for Thursday that week and then on Wednesday the following week. He had, maybe, a few days in which to throw a spanner into the works.

As he was leaving to return to his office, the Programme Director drew him to one side of the corridor.

'I hear you're retiring, Samuel. At long last, eh?'

Cohen looked at him, not quite sure what to make of his comment.

'I've been retiring for years, Rabbi. But not yet.'

'So it's not true, then, about your leaving on Friday?'

'I'm not sure what you mean. Really Rabbi, rumours aren't your thing.'

'No, Samuel, they aren't. You're retiring this Friday. The Head of Development asked me to add your retirement party to the official programme. I guess you weren't told because it's meant to be a surprise. Perhaps the confirmation of your retirement is still following you around the OR?'

'Don't be silly, Rabbi. I've been here for days. When were you told?'

'This morning.'

Cohen's heart fell through the floor. If it were a mistake, then it was a well-timed mistake. But he suspected otherwise: they were pushing him out.

'When is the Council vote due on this Lynthax lease proposal?'

Rabbi looked down at his graf, made an adjustment, and then looked up.

'It's just been set for next Wednesday.'

#  121

In the wormhole control cabin on Runnymede, Petroff observed the Authority's meeting as a fly on the wall.

As requested by Orbatan, he paid particular attention to the Asian Bloc's reaction. In reality that meant the Greater Chinese Enterprise's observer. Using instant translation software, Petroff picked up several comments from the Asian support staff who sat closer to the wormhole: comments that warned him to pay attention to their next moves.

Downstairs in the pressure chamber, a team of Pathfinders waited, patiently, already 20 minutes late for a First Entry. He ignored them and threw another miniature wormhole back out into the Asian Quarters at ISRA.

At first, he saw the anger on the lead delegate's face. Then he heard him complain about the Western Bloc's attempts to undermine his people's well-established harmony. As the ranting developed, Petroff sat back, amused at the total loss of control.

The GCE observer calmed the delegate down, before querying what Lynthax's motives might be. The conversation grew more urgent as they speculated over what Lynthax had up its sleeve. Imaginations ran riot.

The Chinese observer urged the Asian Bloc to use its diplomatic resources to find out what Lynthax was up to. They needed to know. Did they already have a more efficient fuel source or flux-drive, or something altogether more advanced?

Someone in the delegation turned the question around. He suggested the Greater Chinese Enterprise could afford to be somewhat more aggressive than it was. Perhaps it could turn someone at Lynthax, or establish satellite monitoring of Lynthax production sites, perhaps break into the fortress that Lynthax had established for itself on Trevon. After all, the GCE was hardly short of the resources required to do the job. Nor was it hobbled by political or diplomatic considerations.

The conversation continued in the same vein for a while. None of the threats appeared to Petroff to be overly troubling—at least Lynthax could counter them with ease and at low cost. Mostly, the Asians were venting steam. Soon their testosterone levels would subside.

Then the conversation took an altogether more ugly turn. Petroff eased closer to the monitor. Everything they were suggesting was all well and good, the GCE observer agreed, but it was probably time they ditched the idea of space being a neutral and non-military playground.

That turned everyone's heads. It focused Petroff's attention. He wished he had a second hole through which he could send a message directly to Orbatan and Sunderland. As he listened to the tail end of the conversation, he sensed that traditional restraints were being cast aside.

Petroff stroked his jaw. He wondered if Orbatan and Sunderland could stay one-step ahead of a determined GCE reaction. He doubted it. And neither the Western nor the Southern Bloc was as well prepared industrially, or as well organised socially, for a conflict in the Outer-Rim as the Asians. They simply didn't have the same level of control over their resources—or their people.

No, Lynthax couldn't be everywhere and do everything at the same time, not with just the one wormhole. If the company were to protect its own interests, it would need to bulk-up—independent of whatever the Western Bloc did.

He may even need to cast aside a few constraints of his own.

#  122

2219

It was the day before the "Big Day", the day of the press release. Orbatan had the stage. Out front, there sat hundreds of employees, all of them waiting for him to speak.

For the previous two days, Lynthax executives had been arriving from Earth and from across the Outer-Rim. 58 planetary CEOs, CFOs, Directors of Communications, Science Officers and Chiefs of Resources had made the trip. Several hundred of their corporate hangers-on had followed them.

On arrival, their transports drove them to the Palace of Prosperity, a hotel that now stood closed to the public. In the closeted, secure, and heavily patrolled environment of the hotel's restaurants, saunas and gym, they had chatted quietly among themselves, mostly to speculate about what the meeting was about. Now they sat in the New Lynthax Centre conference room, unable to use their grafs. The overlarge hall was a dead-zone, shielded against all forms of electronic surveillance.

The New Lynthax Centre was now a shining example of Corporate Empire architecture. Its Trevon Early Pioneer styling was gone, stripped away during its three-year refurbishment. The original tenants were also gone, turfed out when their leases expired. Many of its higher floors were set aside for secure, long-term company accommodation. Middle management and Last Horizon planning teams filled the lower floors.

But beneath the six year-old shiny blue cladding and interior wall coatings, the scars of the rebel's assault still lingered; its concrete and wiring conduits scorched and covered in soot deposits. It also lingered in the minds of the Lynthax executives who were revisiting the place for the first time since the assault; the newness of the building being a reminder of the rebel's early successes.

Still, to many of the executives assembled there, the high level of security in Go Down was a surprise. After all, there hadn't been a rebel attack since 2215. Yet the frigate was on standby in Trevon orbit; the satellite system was on full alert, and newly commissioned and heavily armed starflyers patrolled the edge of Trevon space. On the ground, Lynthax had closed off the overhead walkways between the Lynthax Centre and the adjoining buildings. Security teams manned desks and maintained foot patrols on all the lower floors.

Nor was it overkill. It was the centre of Lynthax's covert efforts to turn itself into a galactic powerhouse.

'Ladies, Gentlemen, welcome to Trevon.'

Orbatan held the lectern with both hands, standing slightly back, leaning forward. This gathering was one of the biggest he had addressed. Not even the Earth-based shareholder meetings could compare. He was naturally nervous, but plainly happy. This was his big day.

Behind him and lining a long table, sat John Petroff, Raja Makindra, Carlo Ratti, Joshua N'Bomal, Dobbie Lombardi, Todd Bradbury, and Elias Bridges, all of them "recently" appointed to manage Last Horizon. Off to the side were various media techs and Lynthax security, ready to step in if anything should go wrong.

'Let me begin today's briefing with a huge thank you to you all for finding the time to come to Trevon.'

That caused a laugh. The trip had been mandatory. Holidays had been cancelled, and births brought forward or delayed.

'And a reminder that what's said on Trevon stays on Trevon!'

Again, there was a ripple of nervous laughter, though almost inaudible to those on the speaking platform. The delegates had read their briefs.

'As you are aware, we have started the process of handing over the leases of our smaller New Worlds to the Representative Houses. This we are pleased to do. It has been of benefit to us. It means our competitors are now under pressure to do the same, but without the benefit of our preparations and our growing advantage in the development of certain technologies. This will make it harder for them to retain control of their New Worlds and more difficult for them to compete with us.

'Elias has organised a public relations campaign to highlight this. It will be rolled out after this conference. ...'

As the presentation wound on, Petroff lost interest. There wasn't much Orbatan could divulge to this audience today that would reflect the truth of Lynthax's progress towards alternative space travel: to do so would blow the project wide open before they were ready to exploit it.

This meeting was for show. The CEOs would get their "for purpose" briefing later tonight when Orbatan took them on a surprise ftl flight to Runnymede. Petroff had made all the arrangements, and he was ready to give them a much more sensational briefing than they would receive here today.

And what a surprise it would be. Ever since Lynthax had established the closer-than-expected 1000 light year limit, back in 2216, the company, at least an element of it, had been extremely busy pushing outwards into ever deeper space, building its universal empire one Earth replica at a time.

Lynthax was already worming corn from two of the Outer Worlds and sending them to Constitution to add to its stockpiles there. They were already fitting out Concord with the infrastructure it needed to receive its first emigrants.

Of course, there had been problems—the Asian Bloc's persistent attempts to break into the Trevon head office being one of them. Another, their reliance on the one wormhole.

Both problems he had fixed by breaking open the Thing's box, despite Ratti's irrational predictions of universal chaos.

It had been a desperate half-day on Prebos. Petroff's security had stood toe to toe with Jollo's men in a long and heated standoff, the tension fuelled by Ratti ranting on like a lunatic. The Thing's box had taken on a mystical status among Jollo's men, and Ratti hadn't helped.

But Petroff prevailed. He cut short Ratti's ravings by calling in one of his Hoover file markers. When Lombardi then made it clear he approved, Rollo stepped aside. Then his men. After that, it was then just a case of finding the right key for the box.

Inside it, they found another 42,000 globelike, light-emitting spheres. There were so many, and the light was so intense, the air seemed to burn; no one could look directly at them. Individually they emitted a less intense light, but, still, the science crews handled them with care. Once separated, Petroff had them boxed up and shipped from Prebos by wormhole, a few hundred at a time.

Since then, Last Horizon had transformed into a mega-operation of immense complexity. It had also substantially improved Sunderland's ability to stay one-step ahead of the Asians.

Then there was the interrelated problem of staff and secrecy—of keeping the whole thing under wraps while they ramped up the Pathfinder operations. Lynthax now had so many wormholes working, and was dealing with much information, requests for ever more support workers were increasing by the day. That meant Petroff couldn't be so choosy about who he hired. He eventually expanded the candidate pool to include non-company personnel. Loyalty and a willingness to keep a secret were no longer the prime security considerations: keeping them quiet was. And Petroff's answer to that was real simple. They just didn't go home. Whenever the No Automatic Right of Return visa-holding scientists refused to extend their contracts, they were dumped onto one or other of the planets that hadn't met Lynthax's early-day metrics. Perhaps they could bring them back when the company went public with the wormholes—if they were still alive, that is. But Petroff seriously doubted they would be. They didn't have the survival skills.

Fleetingly, Petroff remembered that the shipyards on Runnymede were now producing two weapons-capable starflyers a month. They were using NARR emigrants for that too, and using materials made from Outer Worlds resources.

Overall, things were going well.

'... And so, the Last Horizon press release is due out tomorrow morning at 7.30 am. Set your alarms,' Orbatan continued. Petroff recognised it as the end of the speech.

'We expect our share price to drop on the initial news, but to recover quickly, as and when we report progress. No doubt, several of our competitors and the media will approach you in the days ahead. We trust you will remember that you are a part of this team because we value your inputs, and value the loyalty you have given the company over the years. We are on the cusp of an amazing period of human development, and you are a part of that.

'Thank you.'

Petroff made a note, to misappropriate some wormhole time. He needed to drop a message into Earth's publicnet, instructing his broker to sell his Lynthax shares before the press release went out.

He would buy them back later.

#  123

Trevon Herald

Tuesday June 16th 2219

'Lynthax Invests Trillions in New Space Travel Tech

Some say it's impossible, the money's wasted'

'Lynthax has today announced the upcoming spend of some 13 trillion Earth dollars on the development of a new kind of space travel, which has for its aim, the democratisation of space.

Lynthax CEO Nicholas Orbatan says, 'Earth's population pressures will go away. It will change everything. When fully developed, everyone will be able to travel between the stars, and that's no exaggeration...'

Cohen read the rest of press release and cast it aside.

He was out of the loop and blind to developments. All he had left were his unofficial sources and his long-term friendships with Cotton, who was still on strength with the ORF, and Mary, who was now an ISRA Deputy Ambassador. But neither of them was able to provide him with an up-to-date commentary on the affairs of the Outer-Rim. They were light years away, for the most part, and being so absorbed in their roles they often forgot to feed the curiosity of an old man. If he wanted to learn of Earth's changing relationship with the Corporations, or the development of democracy on the New Worlds, he had to go online.

On occasion, though, they did meet over a dinner, or a hurried lunch, and today was one of those days.

Lynthax was holding a post-press release cocktail party. He was an official guest, despite being retired, as was Mary and her boss, Humphries. He guessed it was so Lynthax could remind their former foes that they were still a major player. That probably explained why it was the celebrated Chan made it onto the guest list—although, in Chan's case, it could also have been a genuine attempt to mend fences. But Cohen doubted it: Chan had been just too much of an embarrassment to Lynthax in the early years of the rebellion for Petroff to want to bury the hatchet.

Cohen grabbed his coat, left his short-stay apartment on Third Avenue and hailed a driverless STAX, the first taxi to come his way. It dropped him off at the Palace of Prosperity where he made his way down to the banquet hall on the third underfloor. By the time he arrived, he had found his "meet and greet" persona, and was ready to press the flesh with long-term enemies and friends alike.

By the time he entered the room, the party was in full swing. The high-ceilinged hall was packed. Music played softly from hidden speakers, overwhelmed by the volume of talk. A few solida-graf devices lay dotted about the room, casting blue-tinged images of LM tankers in the air, high above the guests.

He made his way across the floor, easing between groups of executives and journalists, almost all of them too young to recognise him. He looked for Cotton but found Mary instead.

'My dear, it's wonderful to see you again,' he said, standing immediately behind her.

Mary recognised the voice and swung around.

'Samuel!'

She tiptoed, holding her head up to let him kiss both cheeks.

'You look well,' she said.

Cohen held his arms out from his sides, to allow her to get a better look at his newly acquired trimmer figure.

'I am. 87 and still doing push ups,' he added. 'And yourself?'

'Working hard, Samuel, as always. I'm glad you could come. It's been a little while.'

'Yes, it has my dear. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. It was well earned. They made a good choice.'

'Only good? If it's only good, then I should have gotten myself a better mentor!' she joked.

'Well excellent, then. Of course it was.'

Mary put a hand inside his arm.

'Samuel, let me introduce you to Mr Chan, his assistant Mr Li, Albert Coxey, and Obama Lin Biden. Chan and Li work at the GCE, in media, and Albert and Obama are technical execs from the project. From what they are saying, we're in for a huge surprise. It sounds as if they're ready to transform the galaxy!'

Cohen gave the two technical execs a quizzical look.

Coxey offered a correction:

'Actually, Mr Cohen, we said we're confident we will be able to. Not that we're there yet. But nice try, Mary.'

Mary forced a laugh. Biden too. Cohen studied Biden's face to see how stressed he was. Well, maybe a little.

Cohen then remembered that Mary was under some stress of her own, of late. She was in the middle of a divorce. Her husband had custody of their children because of her continued absences.

'How are the little ones, Mary?' he asked.

'They're very well, Samuel, very well, indeed. Little Mark is at kindergarten, and Alice is due to follow him in the autumn. Miguel is doing a terrific job with them, and I get to see them whenever I'm on Earth.'

Cohen knew it was a little more complex than that, and that Mary had dug deeply before accepting the Deputy Ambassador's job. The previous two years in the human trafficking department had killed her marriage.

'I'm glad, Mary. Really. Are we still on for dinner at nine tonight?'

'Absolutely! I've already asked Ronald, and he'll be joining us.'

'Splendid, Mary. Then I'll leave you to it and will bounce around the room a while.'

He nodded at Mary's little group and stepped away, immediately into the path of Jack Petroff who was negotiating his way to the bar.

Neither of them acknowledged the other's presence.

#  124

Dinner was at The Marseilles on the 17th floor of the hotel. Mary arrived with ISRA board director, Charles Flowers, although it soon became clear he wasn't interested in the French cooking, or in socialising. He was all business.

'Samuel, we know Lynthax is up to no good—we just can't prove it,' he said. 'They don't advertise a 13 trillion dollar-spend on a brave attempt at proving science fiction to be science fact. We think they've already made the technological leap and had already done so when they got the Authority to vote on the 250 year leases.'

'And so ...?' Cohen replied, wondering what was coming next.

'And so we're troubled. If they have such a technology, they'll have such an advantage it'll thoroughly up-end things on Earth, and disturb the finely balanced of power out here. It'll lead to unexpected consequences, not all of them pleasant.'

'So, plan for it, Charles,' Cohen replied, polishing his fork with a napkin. 'Assume they have it and work around it. I don't see how you can stop progress because it is inconvenient. But if your goal is to deprive Lynthax of it, to bring Lynthax to heel, and to make them share it, you'll need to be a little more willing to go outside the conventional norms. Lynthax doesn't play by our book. It never has.'

Flowers looked at each of them in turn.

'That's why I'm speaking to you now. To the two of you. You've already tried to bring Lynthax to heel.' He looked Cohen directly in the eye when he added, 'I'm aware of your "unofficial" action on Trevon in 2210.'

Cohen concentrated on his next comment, refusing to admit guilt by looking at Cotton.

'I've done many things in the past, Charles, all of which I can live with. I'm not so sure you could live with similar choices. ISRA wouldn't let you.'

Cotton adjusted his seating and wiped his mouth with a napkin, trying not to flush. This was a dangerous topic: the consequences of anyone blabbering about Booni would be dire for both him and Cohen.

Flowers shook his head and dismissed Cohen's smokescreen with a wave of a hand.

'Samuel, I'm not moralising or making judgements. I'm just stating a fact. You killed Booni.' He paused and glanced at Cotton. 'You both did. The plan almost worked, but Lynthax eventually bested you. In my opinion, ISRA was less than supportive. It was too weak.'

Cohen froze. He felt his breathing quicken. How did he know? Why hadn't he mentioned this before? His mind raced. Flowers had replaced him as Ambassador upon his retirement, only to be promoted to the board almost immediately afterwards, something that was almost unheard of, especially for a man who was still in his late thirties. Well, perhaps no longer than a year afterwards. Maybe that was it: he had found out about the Booni incident and the board had rewarded him with a place among them for staying quiet about it. Or he had used the information to swing a vote or two in his favour. He was known to be quite a "thruster", ambitious.

'What are you getting at?' Cohen asked, a little too defensively. Mary nudged him under the table.

Flowers explained.

'I've convinced the board to take Lynthax more seriously. It was OK to grant New World leases back in the day when Earth was in desperate need of resources. And I guess it was OK to grant notional leases on these yet-to-be-discovered worlds, especially for worlds that are well beyond our capabilities to travel to. After all, no one thinks these political compromises or incentives, whatever you call them, will amount to much.

'But if Lynthax already had the technology before they asked for these 250 year leases beyond the first 1000, it was a cynical ploy to exploit our ignorance. It shows the Authority is still weak, and Lynthax is still in the driver's seat. The board has woken up to that. Even our Western Bloc director has his concerns, though he's obviously under pressure to keep Lynthax sweet for some reason. Again, it's probably politics.'

Cotton and Cohen exchanged knowing glances.

Flowers ploughed on:

'But if the Western Bloc is to some extent aware of progress in this new form of space travel, it may be wishing to protect its perceived future advantage over the Southern and Asian Blocs. After all, I doubt Lynthax could keep the technology from the Western Bloc military, if it truly wanted it.'

Cotton made his first contribution since Flowers dropped this on them.

'So you're telling us about this because ...?'

'I want you both to find out what's going on.'

'Ha! We've tried,' Cotton said. 'Believe me, we have.'

'I know, but not with our approval, and not with the full use of our resources. You were handicapped by the politics of the day. I'm here to tell you, we're on board. We're setting the resources aside.'

'Overtly?' Cohen asked.

Flowers hedged.

'With the board's approval.'

'That's not the same thing, Charles,' Cohen persisted. Other than G-eo, none of the New Worlds had proven co-operative when they tried the first time. 'Is this an overt investigation, or are we to lurk in the shadows? Do we get the powers of interrogation denied to us the last time around? Can we requisition the resources of the local authorities?'

'Yes and No,' Flowers replied. 'You'll have to use your common sense. We mustn't tip them off. It's to remain a covert operation, as we can't let them know we're involved. But ISRA has approved the operation, and we won't deny you agency resources, so long as you can disguise the reason for needing them. If we get complaints from anyone about what you do, or how you do it, we'll sit on our hands and play stupid. We can also requisition New World resources on your behalf, in our name, if we can also disguise its purpose. But for the time being it'll have to be deniable support, so no extra powers, I'm afraid—it'd be too obvious.'

Cotton looked up from his wine.

'It's better than nothing, Samuel. Maybe we'll get somewhere this time.'

Cohen pushed his chair back a few inches, threw his legs forward, and leaned back, brushing bread crumbs from his chin.

'Why the change of heart? Why now?' he asked.

Flowers glanced at Mary, then back to Cohen, reaching into his shirt pocket.

'Because of him.'

Flowers passed Samuel a picture of an untidy young man with shaggy, blond hair. It was an ISRA registration mug shot.

Cohen shrugged.

'What does he have to do with Lynthax?'

'Mary dropped him into a Lynthax recruitment drive on Constitution earlier this year. She was testing their NARR emigration procedures. We still have jurisdiction over human trafficking and wanted to be sure everything was kosher.'

'And...?'

'We haven't heard from him since he passed the word to us that he was being shipped out. That was in March. Then his messages stopped. We don't know to where he was shipped.'

'So you suspect Lynthax is running some kind of forced-labour scheme?'

'Actually, it's more than just that. We suspect Lynthax has been working on Project Last Horizon for a few years, at least, and we think his disappearance is linked. If our operative can't communicate with us, then perhaps thousands of other people unconnected to ISRA are in the same boat. That's illegal. It means they are hiding something, which brings us back to Last Horizon.'

Cohen frowned.

'That's a bit of a leap, isn't it, Charles? Lynthax might have assigned him to a secret aspect of the project. A non-communication clause could have been inserted into his contract.'

Flowers nodded. It was a fair assumption.

'We thought of that, but he was told not to sign any such contract. We were testing their emigration procedures—that's all. In any case, if he had signed such an agreement and then gained information, we couldn't use it in court.

'Our conclusion is this: he was correctly recruited but then assigned and retained against his will. He's a planetary terraforming engineer by way of education, with a secondary in anthropology. We know they are short of both disciplines, which is why we chose him for the job: Lynthax has been recruiting them from across the OR and we had no doubts they would snap him up. They can't seem to get enough of them.'

Cotton gave Cohen a nod.

'I'll go back to the politicos on Constitution,' Cohen said. 'They know where their rebels are, I'm sure of it. They vanished, their politicos don't say a thing, Lynthax proposes independence for the New Worlds and then makes its 250-year lease request. There's a connection. But they're a tight knit and tightly lipped bunch.'

'And I'll up the surveillance on Nettles,' Cotton added. 'I'll mix it up with him and his friends again, only this time, without the gloves.'

Flowers nodded at Mary and got up, leaving the photo on the table.

'If you'll forgive me, I'll be off. I don't need to know the details. You can coordinate everything and obtain your resources through Mary. It was nice meeting you both again.

'Be careful.'

#  125

Scat was standing in a white room. It must have been a room. He could hear a humming. A ventilation unit, maybe? He couldn't see a floor, but he was standing on it. It was also white. The walls must have been a long way off. He couldn't see where they met the floor, or the white ceiling.

He turned around. He looked down and saw no shadow. He looked up. There was no lighting. He looked around again. Then he saw a man standing some 20 feet away, clothed in a chocolate brown and fraying inner-suit. It was his woodwork teacher from Larkhill. He was wearing the same kindly old face he wore decades ago. Magil—that was his name—a black man from the Greater-Chicago suburbs.

'Hello,' Scat said, surprised to hear his voice echo around the room so quickly. 'Where did you come from?'

Magil lifted his gaze from the floor and brought his hands from behind his back. He was holding a drill. He checked it was working. It whirred viciously. His eyes lit up. Then he stared at Scat.

Scat sensed the menace in Magil's gaze. He wasn't focusing on him: he was looking right through him, between his eyes. Then Magil took a step forward, then another. Scat turned and ran.

He ran, and ran. The room seemed endless. After a few minutes, he stopped and turned around. Magil was still there, now only 10 feet away, walking right up to him, holding out both hands. Scat turned and ran again. And he kept running.

Eventually he stopped, exhausted and confused, finally willing to confront Magil, man to man, not as boy to teacher. He shouldn't be frightened. Magil was a good man.

He turned to look back. Magil was still there, only he was now right next to him, reaching up with his left hand to hold the right side of Scat's head. Scat jerked back, but the hand held him steady. He couldn't move.

Magil's right hand came up to place the drill against Scat's left temple. It whirred again. He looked directly into Scat's eyes, speaking with no sound, asking him questions, incensed at Scat's uncomprehending look.

The drill bit into the side of his head, but Scat felt no pain. He could only smell the burning of flesh and then of bone and hear the drill increase its speed as it broke free and went clean through into his brain. Then everything made sense.

Scat woke up in the Runnymede mid-afternoon not sure what it was that had made sense to his subconscious. It had been a lucid dream, but they all were. They felt "coded", each one having a message embedded deep within of it. They were getting more regular, focusing in one way or another on his head.

He was what the Marines called "frazzled": sleep deprived, overworked and agitated, and every trip through the wormhole was creating yet more fodder for new nightmares.

Petroff had recently suggested he stand down for a week or so. The trouble was, Petroff had that glint in his eye, and Scat had heard of members of the science crews standing down for a while, never to reappear. Perhaps they were given jobs elsewhere, but he doubted they went back home.

He also had his instincts, and his instincts told him that Lynthax didn't design and build the wormholes. Nor did they manufacture the new energy sources. His instincts also told him to stick with it, stay on the team.

As it had everyone else, the space-distorting, universe-changing wormhole had sucked him in. After all, it was impressive. But as things had moved on, he couldn't bring himself to believe that Lynthax had developed it. How could it, when it was unable to produce a second or a third?

This realisation had clawed at his subconscious for months before he was aware of it. Not even Goosen could bring himself to believe that Lynthax was the original developer. Ratti's excuse, that the wormhole was a prototype and that they were testing it for flaws, didn't quite gel with what they were seeing at the time.

Then Lynthax proved them wrong. They swamped the Pathfinders with hundreds, if not thousands of wormholes, in what appeared to be an unseemly and poorly coordinated rush to distribute them to Pathfinder teams across all the new planets. For a year or more now, they had been using wormholes, just like the one on Runnymede, even for the least important of admin tasks. And they were using them, in the most part, almost entirely without Petroff's direct supervision. He was delegating. He was stretched.

The immediate upside for the Pathfinders was that each team could now keep a wormhole open when they were on an expedition. This made their excursions somewhat safer than before, even though it left Scat feeling its presence when on the other side. That hadn't happened when they closed the wormhole and redirected it to another expedition.

Today's planet establishment would be his 100th. Ratti was giving him a lot of work to do on the planets he had already earmarked for an opening. It was time-consuming work, so the rate of his entering and establishing on new planets had slowed dramatically. But he had built up a large number of Lynthax land credits, and one day he would settle on one of the planets he had opened. He wanted it to be the right one. He was still looking.

He splashed his face and called up the Trevon Herald on his graf. He hadn't caught the news in ages—the graf deliveries had been intermittent—so he flipped through the older editions, word searching for Lynthax and wormholes, stopping at the most eye-catching of headlines.

Tuesday June 16th 2219 popped into view:

'Lynthax Invests Trillions in New Space Travel Technology

Some say it's impossible, the money's wasted'

'Lynthax has today announced the upcoming spend of some 13 trillion Earth dollars on the development of a new kind of space travel, one that will make space travel affordable for everyone.

Lynthax CEO, Nicholas Orbatan says 'It will provide almost instant relief to the population pressures on Earth. It will change everything. When fully developed, everyone will be able to travel between the stars, and that's no exaggeration'

Well, it can't be an exaggeration if they have the technology already, can it?

He scanned to the bottom of the article, looking to see if the editor had added any comments:

'There can be little doubt that Lynthax is already on its way to developing instant space travel. Indeed, it would be naïve to think that the board would approve of the project, and then make an announcement such as this, without being supremely confident it could follow through.

'Our polling of the scientific community suggests Lynthax has been working on Last Horizon for quite a while. Rumours are circulating that Lynthax had already concluded a feasibility study well before it proposed the 250-year lease agreement to ISRA a few years back.

'Many of our respondents believe Lynthax will be making a "breakthrough announcement" within a couple of years, if not months.

'Whatever their beliefs, the stock market will keep a close eye on events on Trevon—as will their competitors.'

Scat lay his graf down, ran a hand down over his face and took a long swig of freshly brewed coffee, courtesy of the planet Boston. Dressed only in his shorts, he grabbed his graf and made his way out into the corridor, trailing his Pathfinder greens along the floor. He had things to do.

Two blocks away, in a chamber inside a hangar, a planet was waiting for him.

#  126

Goosen and his team met him in the chamber, along with a half-dozen of the science crew. Along the sidewall was stacked a variety of gear, including their personalised bugbots, all of which was to follow them through onto Magna Carta, the unofficial name for 212003e, a planet he had first entered the day before. As with all the planets before this one, Scat hadn't found the official designation on the net, and, in any case, a bunch of numbers meant nothing to him. Instead, the Pathfinders were naming all the planets for democracy, but there were so many planets, the list of available names was running low.

Goosen saw Scat dragging his greens behind him and couldn't help but tease.

'Morning, Scat. You look like shit as usual. Another bad night?'

Scat gave Goosen an up and down look, as if to suggest he was in no better shape.

'So-so, Birdie, thanks. Everything ready?'

'Of course it is, Scat. But Walmesley's been replaced by some new guy. A Geoff Picton. Walmesley's contract expired overnight. He's got a few days to reconsider, then he's either back on the team or out of here.'

Goosen pointed across the chamber to a scruffy-looking young man who looked as though he would be more at home on a beach than in a laboratory.

Picton heard his name being mentioned and looked back at them. There was a moment of recognition, and his face began to flush before he could look away again.

'I wonder what that was about. Do you know him?' Goosen asked.

'Not that I recall. What do we know about him?' Scat asked. He was a little disappointed: he was used to dealing with a well-oiled crew, a crew that had gone virtually unchanged since the beginning. At least it had never changed without good reason. Picton looked green. It would take time for him to fit in.

'Not a lot,' Goosen replied. 'He's from Constitution, and he's a terraformer—or a zoology major—I can't recall. Ratti's got his personnel jacket upstairs.' He pointed up to the chamber's control cabin. 'The beggar says he might be useful to us, given the circumstances.'

The dominant species on Magna Carta was a two-legged humanoid in its early stages of development. Scat's team was under orders not to bump into any of them.

'Doubt it, Birdie. They ain't koala bears. Get Khoffi to keep an eye on him, please. Keep him sharp.'

It was a textbook insertion, even though the manual was still in draft.

The pathfinders passed through the wormhole and onto a small, flat area of ground, high up the side of a hill, 750 metres from a wooded shoreline. As they stepped out, the grass around them flattened and then withdrew into the ground. Growths on the lower branches of the trees curled inwards, pulling closer to the smooth, silver-grey bark.

Their intended campsite was on a two kilometres-wide by seven kilometres-long isthmus that jutted out into a vast freshwater lake. The lake was at high altitude; the air was thin, crisp and refreshingly cool. There was a slight breeze blowing up the hillside and the sun was shining weakly in the west, having passed its midday alignment. The visibility was around 50 kilometres to the north. To the south, the hill blocked the view.

Mercador released the drones and followed their progress to a north-south line where the isthmus joined the mainland. Orwell took control of the six company bugbots and sent them out to their mobile sentry positions.

With their aerial assets in place, the party headed off south and uphill. The stocky, thick-legged Khan walked out at point, his green and black personal bugbots hopping about behind him as though bouncing on cushions of air.

15 minutes later, they crested the hilltop and entered a small, rock-strewn clearing. Khan stopped and stood to one side as everyone filed through. This was their intended campsite. Everyone recognised it from the pre-entry survey pictures.

Goosen, Khan, Edlin, and Scat took up their positions on the edge of what was soon to be the camp's inner perimeter. Their recently modified PIKLs were set to "scatter": a new setting that discharged a low energy sound wave across a wide arc; it was proving a remarkably successful and much less lethal way of scaring off the local animal and bug life.

Mercador circled the camp, making his way through the trees and over the rougher, lower ground between the inner- and outer-perimeters. Every so often he dropped a motion sensor into an area of dead ground.

Orwell sent a bugbot out to investigate some movement between the outer-perimeter and the two kilometre point. As it made its way there, he sat down on a rocky outcrop and logged onto the satellite. Now and then, he would pat the ground with his foot and smile as he watched the hair-like grass retreat underground. Behind him, the rest of the science crew began stepping back and forth through the wormhole, carrying their equipment into the clearing. A few of them set about pitching their tents. Others lay out the water condensers and unpacked their equipment.

Scat ignored them. He may get curious later, when his team had secured the area. Until then they were best left alone. Besides, the science crew talked a totally different language when they worked. And he never understood them when they got excited.

By the time Mercador made his way back into camp, the sun was dipping beyond the lake. Orwell had already given Scat the thumbs up. Edlin and Khan had spread out to opposite sides of the inner-perimeter to keep a watch on the woods.

In a space between the tents, Goosen lay on his back, passing the time by making images of angels in the grass. Scat cradled his PIKL and walked across to him, wondering what it must be like to be as uncomplicated as a Canadian. Or this one, at least. He then turned and took a long, wary look at the wormhole. It hung above head height in the centre of the camp, fully opened and slowly rotating. He could sense it, as he always did. It was like a spider in the bath. All he could ever do was drown it out.

If he kept himself busy.

Or worried about something else.

Evening caught up with them real quick. The science crew continued to extract data from the environment as they ate their dinners from self-heating ration bags. Scat ate alone, a few metres from the inner perimeter, save for Jess, his personal bot, which flit about in the trees investigating the local bug life. He was staring up at the unfamiliar starscape when he heard an unfamiliar voice.

'You're Scat, aren't you?'

Scat turned from the stars and looked down across the rocky outcrop on which he sat.

'Yes, and you're Picton. Welcome to Magna Carta.'

'I mean you're Scat, the rebel leader—the one who went missing some years ago.'

Scat hadn't given that much thought to that over the past year or two, but, yes, he was a rebel leader. At least he must still be a rebel leader to the people on Earth. They wouldn't be aware of his current circumstances.

'OK, so you've worked that out. What's your point?'

'Well, you're working for Lynthax. I don't get it. You all went missing just as ISRA was going to do a deal with you. What happened?' As Picton spoke, he glanced over his shoulder at the wormhole. It was swinging in a lazy circle, facing away from them.

Scat eyed Picton warily.

'You tell me.'

Picton looked awkward. He obviously didn't have a clue. Scat laid it out for him.

'Lynthax made us an offer we couldn't refuse. What's your story?'

'What kind of offer?'

'You're being very curious, Picton.'

'It pays to be, doesn't it? We wouldn't be here if we weren't curious by nature.'

'We're here because Lynthax is greedy, and I need land.'

'You're here willingly?'

'What do you think, balls for brain?'

'Unwillingly, then,' Picton conceded. 'I notice you're on a tight rein on Runnymede. No one's allowed near your compound, and your people aren't allowed to mix with the regular staff.'

'Then you've got it in one, tiger. Again, what's your story?'

'I'm an ISRA employee.'

'So you farks are in bed with Lynthax as well, eh?' Scat asked, thinking that the universe outside of his own must have changed a great deal, and that the rebellion wasn't just suspended, it was irrelevant.

Picton shook his head.

'No, far from it. We've been looking for you since the disappearance, at least, as far as I can gather. It's been rather hush-hush. And I'm here by accident.'

'So we're both accident prone?'

'Kind of. I was investigating Lynthax's use of the NARR visa programme, only they liked my skills so much they shipped me to Runnymede. Now I can't get word back to the Authority. They have no idea what's going on.'

Scat perked up, his brain began to race.

'You mean you were press-ganged as well?'

'Yes. That's about the gist of it.'

'What's a NARR?'

'The No Automatic Right of Return visa? It kind of does what is says on the side of the tin, really. ISRA's issuing them in readiness for mass emigration. When you leave Earth there's no automatic right of return. It was part of the 250-year lease agreement.'

'You clowns!'

Picton shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed.

'So you'll help me?' he asked.

'Help you with what?'

'To get word back to ISRA—about what's going on. They know nothing about the wormholes and thousands of ex-employees aren't going home when they finish their contracts. They simply vanish. I've found that out myself since arriving on Runnymede.'

'Are you an idiot?' Scat asked. 'Aren't you at all curious about how and why we got to be here?'

'Of course I am, but surely you want Lynthax brought down.'

'I do. But not if it means everyone I know being neurally disrupted and then vented out of some airlock.'

Picton stared at Scat in silence for a moment.

'Will you at least consider it?'

'Yes, of course, if you promise to arrange my funeral.'

#  127

As the night wore on, Scat reflected on the number of employees he had seen rotate through Runnymede since he had arrived on it. He had seen dozens of new faces up in the pressure chamber cabin in recent months. Now he wondered if Lynthax had killed their predecessors outright, or just dumped them on a discarded planet.

Either way, it meant Lynthax's promises to the rebels were worthless, despite the politicos believing otherwise.

He tried to remember all the Trevon Chapter rebels who had died during the rebellion, seeing all their faces. He tried recalling the names of the dead from the other chapters but couldn't.

He recalled Nettles' plea: to go with the flow until Lynthax proved that their offer of independence was worthless. That had been easy for Nettles to say at the time—they weren't press-ganging him into service and holding him against his will. The beggar was now safely at home, unaware of recent developments.

He tried to imagine a normal home life where he was responsible only to himself, or perhaps to a family of his own. As he fiddled with the silver cross in his pocket, he wondered what that family would be like.

And then, for some reason, he thought about the young girl he had spoken to briefly in the Palace of Prosperity's coffee shop, before his life was turned upside down, and then inside out. A Mary, something or other. A pretty girl.

He then remembered he was poor; except for his land credits, the only tangible asset he could claim to have at the age of 38. But were they really worth anything?

Bumping into Picton, were that his real name, had been a jolt. Had he taken his eye off the ball? Lost his perspective?

He wondered what would happen to the Pathfinders when Lynthax finally went public with the project and had no need for them anymore. Would they be released or eliminated?

In his heart, Scat already knew the answer: Petroff wasn't going to let the Pathfinders go home.

Not peaceably. Not without a fight.

He stood up and went to shake Goosen from his slumber.

Scat made Jess flow a short message across its paintwork. He then turned it to face Goosen, hoping Petroff wasn't snooping with one of his miniature wormholes.

'He's ISRA? Well I never!'

Scat made to put a hand over Goosen's mouth.

'Not so loud you dote!' He tapped another message: 'He says he is, but no way to know w/o checking with ISRA.'

Goosen took the remote off him and added a comment of his own:

'Good luck.'

Scat snatched it back and continued tapping:

'We wait for Nettles to visit. He's due soon.' He passed the remote back to Goosen.

'Not 4 weeks,' Goosen typed. 'What to do meantime? Act sympathetic? Keep at bay? What?'

Jess turned to face Scat, its eyebrows raised in question.

'Keep on team. Treat normal. If he pisses me, you read his tarot cards. I play nice. One of us must.'

Goosen then spoke:

'As you please, Scat. Now can I go back to sleep?'

Scat tapped some more:

'Dream up way of getting info back to ISRA, or Picton out of here w/o us being shot—it'll help.'

#  128

The main body arrived two days later, swamping the camp with even more equipment and a larger science crew. Scat stood to one side as he usually did at this stage, glad not to be involved in the management of so many overinflated egos. The noise levels increased dramatically as everyone played emperor and the machines played plebes.

They were bound to attract the attention of the natives at some point, despite their camp being more than a hundred kilometres from the nearest known settlement of wood and brush shelters. Earlier that morning, the drones had reported several foraging parties scouring the beachfront less than 20 kilometres away, and a bugbot had located a small, newly established camp, some 10 kilometres north of the isthmus. It hadn't been there when they had first arrived.

The natives were much smaller than humans were, and carried nothing more offensive than long, sharp sticks and clubs. Sensors couldn't detect any metal. Scat wasn't overly worried, but nonetheless, he continued to track them.

By midday, Scat discerned a pattern. The two groups were likely to meet up a few kilometres west of where the isthmus met the mainland, although they were unlikely to do that before sundown. Again, it was nothing to worry about; the landward end of the isthmus was still some three kilometres away. It just meant that tonight no one could shine a light. The camp would slip into silent mode, and he would replace the drones with the bugbots: they were silent running.

Picton looked over his shoulder as the monitor continued to display the live feeds from both the northern and southern drones.

'Have you noticed something, Scat?' he asked

'Yes. Little yellow men. Not the green ones of lore.'

'No, I mean the colouring of their tunics.'

'Brown,' Scat replied, looking more closely at the feed from the southern drone. He then looked at the northern one. 'And rust red.'

'What does that tell you?' Picton asked.

'They're from different families? Different tribes? They shop at different stores?'

'Which means...?'

'I know what you're going to say, Picton. There'll be a showdown. They're marking their territory, or one side is encroaching on the other's. What's that got to do with us?'

Picton straightened up and shrugged.

'Nothing, I guess,' he said, as if it truly didn't matter. But then he bobbed his head a little from side to side, as though he was weighing something up. 'Unless you're of the opinion that this isthmus might have some value to one side or the other.'

'Would you be of that school of thinking?' Scat asked.

'I think it's valuable, Scat. We know the lake is rich in local fish life. This isthmus has an unusually long coastline for its land mass and the headland to the east over there provides an excellent view along two long stretches of coastline. My guess is this isthmus is a strategic asset, or will be one once they become aware of it. And it's defendable. It'll be an ideal place for a settlement ... For one of them, that is.'

Scat sat back and considered Picton's analysis. He wasn't a student of anthropology, but he did remember his Greek and Roman history. Topography had played a hugely significant role in the development of military strategy during those periods, as it had for centuries afterwards. It was less of a factor now, of course: a modern military could gather its information from the air, or space, in relative safety, and it was possible to dominate large swathes of ground from the air no matter how it rolled, peaked, or troughed. But he could see Picton's point: the shape of the land was always relevant to the grunts who had to defend it.

'I guess you could be right,' Scat said, reluctantly, understanding the consequences. They were under strict orders not to get involved with the locals for at least the first week. They needed a robust infrastructure in place before that could become an option. Prior to that, should the locals come too close, he was to collapse the camp and withdraw.

'And that would be a decent enough excuse to get me back to Runnymede, right?'

Picton was pushing. Scat looked up at him.

'It'll piss Lynthax off. And, in any case, where to then?'

'Will you help me? Are you agreeing to help me?'

'I'm in neutral at the moment, Picton. Let's say I haven't ruled it out.'

'But, if you do decide to help, there'll be no mileage in us being stuck out here for the next three weeks. Somehow, you have to kill this mission. Get us back to Runnymede and we'll have more options.'

'Whoa there, Tiger! I'm not cancelling a mission just because I might need to be somewhere else and at someone else's convenience.'

Picton stepped back from the monitor. He sensed he had pressed too hard. Scat laid into him, harshly, trying not to let his voice carry.

'You need to get it into your head that these things don't always play out the way you want them to. You're also going to have to knuckle down and accept you might be here a while. Force the pace and you'll "out" yourself. Petroff's no fool—a dickhead maybe—but nobody's fool, and he has a lot of capable assistants. He uses the God Programme on a regular basis, and he changes the routine so much you'd hardly call it a routine. Haven't you yet cottoned on to why we've been working for the guy for all this time without complaint?'

Picton hadn't a clue, so Scat spelled it out:

'It's because if we stepped out of line, we'd be whacked. And not just us: there are all the other rebel chapters, and then there are our people on the New Worlds—he watches all of them. To Petroff, this is just business: he's aligned his moral compass with Lynthax's view of north. It's not connected to morality, or justice, or to human progress.'

Scat stopped himself from going on. He remembered he was supposed to be the nice guy. Goosen was meant to be the rough one. He softened his voice.

'Picton, just dial it back a little. Slow down. Don't hurry it. Things will happen when they happen. For your own sake, and ours, chill out a little.'

'OK,' Picton replied, sounding somewhat chastened. 'But, seriously, are you planning to hang around in the middle of a Hobbit turf war?'

'No. We'll be leaving.'

#  129

The withdrawal was chaotic, but it was completed within a couple of hours. Although he hated the damned thing, having a dedicated, continuously open wormhole at least gave him the operational flexibility he needed. The orders for the extraction comprised a couple of sentences and no logistical preparation what so ever:

'Get yourselves through the wormhole now. Leave nothing behind!'

They struck camp and tossed most of the equipment through the wormhole without repacking. Teams of Runnymede personnel collected the equipment on the other side, quickly moving the stores to one side, so there was room for more to be tossed through.

Goosen toured the campsite looking for evidence of their short stay. His personal bugbot, Charlie, flit around the deserted accommodation area, picking out litter in the grass.

'Here... over here... and here!' it called out, as Goosen zigzagged across the camp site, stooping to pick up discarded ration bags, plastic wrapping, tissue paper and bottle tops.

Scat called in the perimeter drones and ordered the bugbots to cease the their surveillance of the two tribes and to return through the wormhole. Finally, he waited for Goosen at the wormhole entrance, watching him stumble towards the eye with several loose and empty equipment bags in his arms, a water catchments panel slung over his shoulder and a surprising amount of trash in his pockets. Charlie chivvied Goosen on, shaking up and down in the air.

'Keep going, you albatross! Keep going. Faster! Faster,' it was saying.

Goosen eventually stopped, fumbled in this pocket and pulled out the bugbot remote. He pressed it repeatedly. After a few moments, he gave up.

'Thanks for the help, Bud,' he puffed, trying to swat Charlie out of the way as he passed by Scat. 'I can't switch the bloody thing back from personal trainer,' he added, throwing the remote through the hole. 'It's clear.'

'I wouldn't bother switching it back, Birdie,' Scat teased. 'You move pretty quickly when he's in charge.'

'Oh, bugger off!' Goosen replied just as Scat followed him through the hole. He then noticed Scat's smile turn to a painful frown.

Folding his arms in satisfaction, Goosen inclined his head towards the spinning marble and grinned.

'Did something wipe the smile off your face?'

Scat walked back into their accommodation dragging his gear along behind him, still trying to shake off the heebie-jeebies.

'Petroff will reassess the mission and give us a new insertion date in a couple of days, Birdie,' he said. 'He was OK about it. They seem determined to settle Magna Carta despite the locals. They must've seen something in the geological survey to make it worth their while.'

Goosen sat on the top bunk, clipping his nails and flicking the debris over the side. Scat used the toe of his boot to flick them away from the bedside.

'Picton and I have been chatting,' Goosen said, looking up from his big toe.

'Yeah?'

'Yeah!'

'About ...?'

'Getting a message back to ISRA, of course.'

'I'm all ears, Birdie.'

'He has a rather unique Lynthax ID card.'

'Yeah ...?'

'Before he shipped out, he transferred an ISRA steg programme onto it.'

'And ...?'

'Well, all he needs to do is hook it up to the net and he can get a message out. He just doesn't know how or from where. They don't let him near interplanetary comms.'

Scat thought about that. He did know how, and he did have access. But ...

Steganography was unique to a user and came in two halves. Thomas had explained the workings of it the night they agreed to rescue Nettles. Balsom had used a steg programme to arrange some money transfers—to the Asian Bloc. It was almost undetectable. The trouble was no one whom Scat knew would have the other half of Picton's programme: the bit that found the key to open a message.

'It's messy, Birdie. Even if we did sent a message to Nettles, along with Picton's programme, none of our people would have the other half. And we don't have it.'

He stopped to think.

'I wonder.... Where's Picton now?'

Goosen grabbed his socks and hurriedly put them back on. Scat was onto something.

'He might still be in the debriefing room,' he replied, sliding off the bed. 'I left him to write up his notes on the Hobbits.'

They caught Picton just as he was leaving for dinner, which was fortuitous, as once he had left the debriefing room, they wouldn't get to meet again until the next mission. Out front was the wormhole activity monitor. Scat took a quick look. There were no holes open on Runnymede for now, so they could talk.

Scat pretended to read Picton's report. He spoke quietly.

'Picton, how high are the chances that ISRA is intercepting messages to and from the New Worlds?'

'Fairly high, I would think. We'd be "clowns" not to monitor the comms between the ex-rebel politicians,' he replied, referring to Scat's comment of the other day. 'You're all still of interest.'

'And they'd run every code breaking programme they had on all of it, wouldn't they?'

'Again, they'd be clowns not to.'

'Including your own internal programmes, such as your steg?'

Picton shrugged.

'It'd be a guess, whatever I said, but let's put it this way: it doesn't take a second or a dollar to do. They are probably waiting for me, or my steg, to pop up on one net or another, anyway.'

'So it's worth a try,' Scat said turning to Goosen. 'Picton doesn't actually need to send ISRA a specially arranged message, and we don't need for Nettles to deliver one for us. We just need to tip them off that Picton still exists and has contacted us. Having Picton's steg programme embedded in a regular message to Nettles will tip them off plenty.' He turned back to Picton. 'How well screened is it?' he asked.

'The steg? You mean: just how invisible is it? Pretty well, I think. The card gets me into my accommodation at least twice a day, and I use it to pay for meals and beer in the canteen. No one has queried it. Not even security.'

That settled it.

'Then when we're on our next insertion, I want you to transfer your programme to my ID. I can then use it when I send our next message to Nettles.'

'It's done, and, by the way, I collected a message for us,' Scat said, throwing himself on his lower bunk. 'Nettles confirms his visit for late August. Lynthax approved it a week or so ago without bothering to tell us.'

'And Picton's steg?' Goosen asked, peering over the side of his bed.

Scat winked.

'It's in the bottle. The buggers at the Authority just need to be watching Nettles' mail.'

Goosen took a breath and nodded.

'Let's hope they see it, and quickly,' he said, lying back. 'I'm beginning to see shadows behind me wherever I go. If this goes wrong, we're dead meat.'

'Too right,' Scat agreed, sitting back up to look at the door. 'Maybe we should get the guys together: warn them off.'

And hope that when ISRA does go knocking at Nettles' door, he doesn't clam up, he thought.

And they still needed for ISRA to act discreetly.

#  130

'Take a seat Nicholas. Thanks for popping by,' Flowers said, flipping a folder over to hide its contents as Orbatan approached his desk.

'It's a pleasure, as always, Charles. What can I do for you?'

Flowers stood up and pointed to the sofa along the side wall. He held down the intercom button. It squawked.

'Art, two coffees, please, ' he said, looking across his desk at his guest as he made himself comfortable. Orbatan held up one finger. 'Mine as usual, and the other with one sugar, no soy. But Art, give us a few minutes before bringing them through.'

Without waiting for a reply, he released the button and wandered over to the opposite sofa, holding onto a memo from Cohen and a file filled with notes from Cotton. He laid the memo out on the coffee table facing Orbatan and flicked through some pages in the file.

Orbatan picked the memo up and tensed. Flowers could see that its bullet point contents had hit a nerve, Orbatan's embarrassment was written plainly on his face.

'Is there anything you want to add to this last report of ours on your NARR visa programme, Nicholas?'

Orbatan said nothing. He continued to read the memo.

'Anything at all?'

'Where did you acquire this nonsense from, Charles?'

'From a very reliable source, Nick. An A1 source. The contents aren't in question. Your actions are.'

Orbatan stared at the memo for a moment longer, before discarding it.

'So we're holding onto a few employees who haven't completed their end of the contract to our satisfaction. At its worst, it's a matter for an employment tribunal. Why your involvement?'

'But it's much more than that, Nicholas,' Flowers replied, turning pages over in the file on his lap. 'We also know about the wormhole. The planets you've been opening. The rebels you've been harbouring ...' He looked up. 'Frankly, Nick, Lynthax is in all kinds of shit. I'd say you were up to your necks in the smelly stuff.'

Orbatan's eyes narrowed. He couldn't believe that the Authority had put all the pieces together. His counter surveillance efforts had been so very certain that as of last week, ISRA was still chasing its tail.

'How did you put it together?' he asked.

'How? Well that's not for me to say,' Flowers replied, thanking his lucky stars that they knew anything at all. Cotton had trawled every message sent to and from the politicos, and applied every code-breaking programme he could lay his hands on. But that hadn't cracked the case. The breakthrough had come from a long-forgotten scan that was running in the background: the one that looked for Picton's ID and steganography programme. 'It's for you to answer for. Do you have anything to say in response to this blatant violation of our trust?'

Orbatan pulled a facial shrug in a bold-faced attempt to mask his turmoil. He went on the offensive.

'Nothing for the time being. It's not as though we have broken any laws. We based the 250-year lease agreement on developing this space travel. The NARR programme, like wise. And as you no longer have jurisdiction over worlds beyond the 1000 light year limit, and none at all over NARR emigrants, I don't think I need to answer.'

'You're mistaken, Nicholas. We still have jurisdiction over basic human rights, no matter where in the universe they are violated.'

'Well good luck with that, Charles. Let's see what laws you can enforce—a 1000 light years away.'

Orbatan got up and strode towards the door. Flowers called out after him.

'Leave on that note, Nicholas and the next time you come through that door, you'll either be pleading for our help, or our mercy. It's up to you. As it stands and as I see it, once the Asian Bloc hears about this, it'll feel threatened. It's already straining at the leash ...'

But Orbatan was already gone.

#  131

Trevon Herald

18th Aug 2219

Stop Press

'Instant Space Travel a Reality.'

'ASP reports Lynthax has achieved its goal of instant space travel.

According to agency sources, Lynthax has developed a traversable wormhole, of the type first proposed by Kip Thorne and his graduate student Mike Morris in 1988. If this is true, then man has taken a giant leap forward.

The Herald is unable to confirm these reports: all calls to the Lynthax Corporation are being diverted to the Lynthax Information Bureau where queries continue to go unanswered...'

Trevon Herald

20th Aug 2219

'Instant Space Travel Confirmed!

Lynthax: 'We Have Achieved the Impossible.'

President Totelage: 'We are about to embark on a great journey.... This is a renaissance for mankind.'

'In a major turnaround for the Lynthax Corporation, the company has finally admitted to achieving instant space travel. In a press release issued by the White House, the President has since announced that a major demonstration of the new wormhole technology will take place this evening on the lawns of the White House.

'Meanwhile doubts remain as to what will be the Asian Bloc reaction...'

It was dark in the hangar. Scat must have gone there to check his programme for the following day. He couldn't think of any other reason why he would find himself there at that time of night. The place was empty. Only lights spilling from the cabin onto the grey hangar floor below gave any indication that the Pathfinders worked around the clock. He looked around. There was no one about the place.

He walked across the hangar and saw a helmet on the ground a few feet away from the bottom stair. It was lying discarded, the neck ring facing up. He could see it was still rolling slightly on its dome. Scat asked himself why it would still be rolling if there were no one around. It would have lain still by now.

He took hold of the railing and started up the steps, looking back at the helmet, silently questioning its meaning. Then the cabin door at the top of the stairs swung open and stayed open, refusing to swing back on its retaining arm. He stopped, ready to give way to whoever was about to leave the cabin. The stairway became narrower as he waited.

No one emerged.

He continued up the stairs, craning his neck to get an early glimpse of whoever it was inside. The windows were no longer transparent. They only emitted a yellow light, no images.

Finally, he stepped into the cabin. It was dark again; no lights were on. He looked through the cabin window and back down to the hangar floor. He could see his shadow inside the shape of the cabin window as it hit the floor—light memories from an instant ago. Now the cabin lights were moving away from him, crawling across the floor.

'Hello!' he said. 'Anyone at home?'

A monitor flickered to life and then held steady. Scat turned to look at it. A man was sitting at the desk, watching the monitor, his back to the door.

'Evening,' Scat said in greeting.

The man swivelled around. He was now fully facing Scat, hands on each armrest. Scat thought his head looked a little weird. He took a step forward to get a closer look in the dim light.

It was a ball, not a head. He stopped, stepped backwards towards the door, and then stopped again. The ball had started to spin. Slowly at first, then faster. It began to glow a dull orange; at first as a pinprick at the centre, then slowly expanding through a white cloud until the whole ball was alive, radiating energy. The orange grew brighter and brighter until it lit up the entire room.

Scat thought he saw himself, looking back through the orange glow. His mouth dropped, his eyes grew wider. He froze in mid-step, gazing at the sphere. He screamed and then he yelled, telling himself to turn and walk away. But neither of him heard.

Scat awoke as he usually did, bathed in sweat. The dreams were getting worse; it was as if he were living every day on the edge.

He had no idea if ISRA had caught the message to Nettles, and what they might be doing with it if they had. Nor could he be sure that Lynthax hadn't detected the steg programme on his ID. The combination of a lack of sleep and general uncertainty was wearing him down.

Still he had to play along.

Petroff had called yet another meeting for early this morning. It was a planning session aimed at working through the practical issues of mass emigration. There had been several of such meetings over the past few months during which they brainstormed the services and materials needed by the first batch of immigrants.

Scat liked these meetings; the end game seemed a decent one. However, he had wondered out aloud why he was included: he wasn't an economist or behavioural scientist.

Lombardi had heard him and had been characteristically blunt in his reply. He was there as part of a wider agreement with the politicos; he was their token Man of the People: it helped to hear his views, but he was to be mindful of his station in life.

Scat looked at his watch and realised the meeting was due to start in less than 10 minutes. As it was to be held in the main conference room, and it would take that long just to get there, so he would make do with a splash-and-dash and hope the deodorant worked. Nor was there time for breakfast but at least he could take a coffee with him.

He arrived late, but he hadn't missed anything. As usual, the conference room was in darkness, with Petroff at the main media station bathed in light. The man was flicking through his notes, referring to the neuralnet, and adjusting his presentation. He looked stressed. Lynthax execs and senior lab rats stood in groups along the curved and banked seating, chatting. Ratti noticed Scat arrive and walked across to meet him.

'Morning, Scat. There's a delay. Petroff's busy downloading a series of updates from Head Office. How're the heebie-jeebies coming along?'

Scat ignored his question.

'What's up?' he asked.

Ratti looked back up at Petroff.

'There's been a hiccup. ISRA knows about the wormholes, or some of them. I can't say any more than that, not without clearance. Maybe Petroff will fill you in.'

Petroff started to talk over the microphone without looking up, his head still buried inside of his briefing notes.

'OK, gentlemen. We don't have a lot of time, and we've got a lot to cover off,' he said, still lost in thought. 'Right, ISRA is pissed with us—it knows we have some wormholes. I understand we were outed by one of the NARRies, or at least by an ISRA agent pretending to be one.'

He looked up, very briefly, and then back down again.

'So what does this mean? Well, on the PR front we're to lay on a wormhole demo for the US President. That'll happen later this afternoon. On the political front, the Western Bloc gets to lease a few more holes to help them stay ahead of the Asians. Apparently, they're becoming decidedly hostile.

'On the flip side, we're as certain as we can be that ISRA still doesn't know how many holes we have, or how advanced the programme is. As for the Western Bloc wormholes, well, they'll be owner-operated, just as before, so we won't be giving up any technical specs. And in return for them, the Western Bloc has promised to run interference for us at ISRA: they'll block any attempt by the Authority to apply sanctions.'

There was some murmuring as his audience caught up with him, but Petroff carried on.

'From what I can make of it, it's a set back, but not a disaster. It just means we've got to go public with some aspects of the programme, and be more careful in hiding the bits they still don't know about.'

'Oh, and yes, ISRA will be sending a mission to watch over our NARRies just as soon as we can agree dates.'

Petroff paused to sip water from a small blue bottle. This time he took a long look around the audience, to gauge its reaction to the news. He then noticed Scat and froze in mid-gulp. There was a hint of embarrassment.

'OK, gentlemen: that was the overview. The remainder of the briefing is for grade-two staff and above. Everyone else will need to leave. You'll receive a "need to know" briefing afterwards, if it's appropriate to your work.'

Several senior lab rats got up and left the room. Scat followed them out at a leisurely pace.

As he cleared the first corner in the corridor, he burst into a fast walk.

#  132

Even before he could clear the doorway to his bunk, Scat was giving up the bad news.

'Birdie, we're in trouble!'

Goosen looked up from his e-reader.

'We always are, Scat.'

Scat went immediately to his bed and sat down.

'Well more than usual then,' he said. 'The Authority got the hint. It picked up our message. It then leaned on Lynthax. They've found out much more than we thought they would, and in quicker time. Nettles or Reggie must have been open with them.'

'But that was the idea, wasn't it?'

'Of course it was, but we were hoping they'd be discreet about it.'

Scat then told him how Lynthax had recruited the Western Bloc to blunt ISRA's attempts to bring it to heel.

'Which means we're buggered,' he added, getting up to pace around the room, still trying to work through the consequences of what he had heard.

'How so?' Goosen asked, not quite sure why ISRA would be any less interested in the rebels than they were in the NARRies.

'Because, Birdie, the Western Bloc still wants blood and Lynthax needs the Western Bloc to keep the Authority off their backs. They'll deal us into the pot, I'm sure of it. Hell, Lynthax has just handed over more of its precious wormholes.'

'That's a negative view of things, Scat. What makes you think we're to be offered up?'

Scat screwed up his face.

'Ah, Petroff threw me out of the meeting when he realised I was there. He tried to cover his tracks, but he had already farked up. I reckon we weren't to know. He probably meant to keep us in the dark. He'll be kicking himself.'

'And you suspect we're to be handed over?'

'Yes. We're no longer needed.'

Goosen saw something else:

'Which means us saying goodbye to independence, as well. Why would they meet their end of the bargain now?'

'Oh, fark! Who on Earth can you rely on to do the right thing?'

'No one, Scat. That's why we're rebels. It's why we wanted our independence, remember?'

'You'd better get the guys together. We can't be handed over without a fight. Somehow we gotta fire this rebellion up again.'

Goosen didn't get a chance to fetch anyone. As he opened the door to leave, he stepped into a five-man security detail just as it was preparing for a hard entry. He stepped backwards with his hands in the air.

The squad leader stepped through the doorway, holding two neural disrupter bands in one hand and a Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser in the other.

'Put these on, gents, and please, no heroics: as you know, there's nowhere for you to go.'

The guards led them down the corridor, back into the hangar and then into the adjoining building where they had spent their first night locked up in the pens. Workers were ripping up the carpet tiles and pushing the furniture to one side. Several pens were already open, the grills pulled back on their hinges. The guard commander walked them across to one.

'Inside, gents. Your friends are waiting.'

#  133

Petroff had Scat brought to the hangar a little later that afternoon, shortly before he was due to oversee the White House wormhole demonstration.

'Take a seat,' he said, smiling at something he was gazing at on the neuralnet. 'You can relax. You're not being handed over to the Western Bloc. We're handing you over to ISRA. They'll be visiting soon—although we don't have a date yet: they're still negotiating.'

'Who is?'

'The Western Bloc and ISRA. We were fortunate. ISRA wanted to close us down; to kill our leases and take over the programme, but the Western Bloc wasn't so happy—it would have given the Asian Bloc access to wormhole technology.

'So, we did a deal. In return for a few more holes, the Western Bloc agreed to block them, though they still couldn't stop ISRA whinging on about their right of access to the NARRies.'

Petroff sounded a little unhappy about that, but he shrugged it off.

'So we're to let the bastards establish their missions on these planets we're opening, and hand you lot over into their custody.' It sounded as though he thought it a mighty strange thing to have to do.

'Sounds complicated, sir.'

'Believe me, it is. ISRA is acting as if it's got a water melon stuck up its arse, and the Asian Bloc is one temper short of a tantrum, but we expect the Western Bloc to shield us from both. Now that we've agreed to augment their intelligence and military capabilities with a few more holes we should be able to continue almost as we were, but...'

'But?'

'But our priorities have got to change. Until we can replace you lot with legal labour, the Pathfinder phase has to end. We've been "outed", so, in order to protect the remainder of the project, we've to be seen to use our technology more "productively". That means we have to move on to the emigration and resource delivery stages a little earlier than we would have liked. But what the heck, eh? It's a small sacrifice. At least we're still dictating the terms of migration.'

Scat understood what that meant.

'So we're out of a job?'

'Being locked up and under ISRA's supervision will mean the same thing, Scat.'

'I guess it will. And our independence?'

'A dream, still, Scat. The Western Bloc insists on it. Reneging on independence is another condition of their support.'

Perhaps Lynthax wasn't making the sacrifice after all: the New Worlds were.

'So, it was all for nothing?'

'Yes,' Petroff replied, feigning surprise. 'I guess it was. But be grateful, Scat. At least you come out of it with your heads. The Western Bloc still wants to get its hands on you.' With his fist, he made an upward, yanking motion beside his own head. He stuck out his tongue. The implication was obvious: were the Western Bloc to get its way, the rebels would be hanging by their necks from the streetlights along the airport perimeter.

'Well, I guess we should be grateful to ISRA for that, eh?' Scat observed.

'Yes. You can be grateful. Anyway, the deals have been done. You're protected from the Western Bloc, we're protected from ISRA and the Western Bloc gets wormhole protection from the Asian Bloc. It's complicated, and it's messy, but beggars can't be choosers—to my mind we've entered into a Devil's pact.'

'Funny that, Mr Petroff. I'm sure ISRA will be saying the same thing about this NARRie agreement they have with you.'

Petroff heard the barb and let it go.

#  134

Scat heard pen grills opening and closing throughout the night as Pathfinders returned to Runnymede from their various missions. A number of them were unexpectedly wormed in from the now numerous, newer base planets that Lynthax had established with their extra wormhole constructs. The rounding up of the remaining Pathfinders continued into the next day, and the following night, until it appeared the round up was complete.

This time, though, there was to be no briefing to satisfy their curiosity. All they learned was what Scat managed to pass on to them as they arrived. The result was the same: dismay, despair, disappointment, followed by anger. Discipline broke down, tempers flared. Guards used neural disrupters to quieten the louder protests and to remind the Pathfinders, that once again, they were prisoners, defeated rebels, and that Lynthax was their jailer.

Scat held most of the Chapter together, but Khan was inconsolable.

He remembered his son, Farrin, his complaint of unlawful death against Lynthax, his unfair dismissal and the family's eviction from his diplomatic residence. He recalled seeing his wife and daughter for the last time, over eight years ago, just before Scat dropped them off on Trevon where Reggie took them in. He remembered Scat asking him to suck it up and to play his part until they had gained their independence. And now that sacrifice was for nothing.

Khan cursed the guards in his God's name, invoking all manner of condemnation on them. They didn't understand any of it and passed his curses off as the ranting of a superstitious fool. In a matter of days, he fell into himself. It was all Goosen could do to make him eat.

The others were just seriously pissed.

On the seventh day, a handful of NARRies joined them. Picton was one of them, although Scat was unaware of his arrival.

They ate their meals in their pens. They completed their ablutions in their pens. They exercised in their pens.

Until the 14th day.

From then on, and in small groups, they left the pens to walk around a small outdoor courtyard for an hour at a time. The groups began to get bigger, the excursions longer. Kahn eventually joined them, his pale face looking up at the sun, his hands held out in prayer.

On the 23rd day, Scat found Picton sitting with his back against the courtyard wall. They didn't acknowledge each other. Picton was grateful.

A few days later, the courtyard was equipped with some exercise gear and a few games boards. The guards then laid out a media station under a tent that ran alongside the walkway between the pens and the hangar. Sitting inside the tent, Scat could just about see through the rad-hardened glass and into the hangar. Flashing red lights told him a wormhole was still in use inside the chamber.

On the 34th day, the guards turned on the TV and encouraged everyone to watch the news. It was announcing the first mass migration of humans from planet Earth. Four hundred or more ex-Pathfinders and ex-rebels gathered under the tent and along its sides to watch.

It began with a consignment of wheat arriving in India. It was newsworthy because the wheat was coming from Boston, an agricultural planet, some 12000-plus light years from Earth. It listed the 270 planets in the Milky Way that Lynthax had identified as being potentially hospitable to man; it mentioned the 18 or so planets that they had proven habitable; and then it focused on the two that were being developed with the basic infrastructure needed to receive their immigrants from Earth. Missing was the detail. It was light on the hard data. There was no mention of the total number of investment dollars deployed, the numbers of scientists employed, or even the space co-ordinates of the habitable planets.

So they're still holding back, Scat thought: the numbers were at least five times those being reported.

After the break, the news moved onto the main event, live from Mexico City. 100,000 people were queuing up inside the Olympic Stadium to step through a now idle wormhole and onto the planet Concord, an incredible 14560 light years away. In realtor terms, today was an "open house": it was a chance for potential emigrants to view their intended new home and then to confirm their willingness to settle permanently.

It was surreal. Scat had to pinch himself. Despite being a prisoner, held by a corporation, wanted by his country, protected by a quasi-national regulatory body, and condemned to death by his planet for his role in the Outer-Rim rebellion, he felt some stirrings of pride as he watched the news unfold.

He had been involved in this.

This was the first planet he had opened up.

His Chapter had named it for the place in the New England colonies where the colonists had fired the first shots of the American Revolution.

They had still been hopeful of their own freedom back then. Now they had to be satisfied that 100s of thousands of others, possibly millions more, would soon be free of pollution, hunger and poverty, free to start new lives on a planet that was "on the up". A planet man had yet to ravage.

The view switched to recorded footage of a harvest taking place on Boston. As it played, the TV presenter reminded her viewers of what the US President had said about the development of this new and exciting technology: it had given man the chance to renew itself, to start over. It was to be a "renaissance for mankind".

Maybe the President was right. It certainly looked impressive. Although Scat couldn't help but wonder whether this was the beginning of something else, as well: that it was the beginning of a shift in power and that its centre of gravity was moving, soon to lie elsewhere.

#  135

On the 63rd day, a single escort roused Scat from his pen and brought him out into the hangar.

The chamber door was open, and the wormhole was inactive. The rest of the hangar was almost empty, save for a few first generation bugcams, some empty crates and rolls of plastic wrapping. The command cabin lights shone down onto the hangar floor, and a female voice echoed around the open space. It was hard to tell from where, exactly, but he looked up the steps.

'Go on up,' the guard said.

Scat nodded. As he walked up the steps, he found himself adjusting his orange coveralls and dusting himself off.

Petroff began to speak, even before Scat had crossed the threshold.

'Good evening Scat. Come on in.'

Scat stepped inside and looked around. Petroff was standing alongside the console, hovering over a man and a woman who were pouring through data that trickled across a spare monitor.

The woman turned in her seat and smiled.

'We meet again, Sebastian. How are you?'

It took less than a second to recognise Mary Sheffield, despite her being the last person he expected to meet that day. She was sporting an extremely short haircut, and there were a few lines around the eyes, but there was no mistaking her femininity or her beauty.

He tried not to stare.

'I'm fine, thanks, Ms Sheffield. A social visit?'

Mary sat silently, weighing him up, still not sure what to make of the man she had met briefly on Trevon and the world had since condemned to death.

Scat started over.

'How are you Miss Sheffield?'

She smiled.

'I'm well. How are they treating you?'

'It depends. Where do you want me to start? Pre-rebellion?'

'OK,' she said softly, but with authority, getting out of her seat, 'I can see we need to clear the air a little before we can continue. Let's get that done now, shall we?'

Scat didn't know what she meant by that, but shrugged his acceptance.

'We know you were set up as a patsy for Booni. We know you were pushed into the rebellion. And we know you have been wrongly convicted of economic crimes against humanity and more recently pushed into forced-labour on behalf of private enterprise. Are there any other injustices you'd like to get off your chest before we can get down to business?'

He thought she had summed it up pretty well. Petroff was smiling in disbelief, pretending to be offended.

'The food's lousy.'

'It'll get better,' she replied turning to her male companion. 'Take his neural disrupter off, Taffy. Then see that the others have theirs removed, first thing in the morning.'

As her assistant removed the neural disrupter, Petroff stared at her with arched eyebrows questioning her judgement.

'We're their custodians now, Petroff,' Mary explained, annoyed at the unspoken criticism. 'We decide whether the neurals are needed, and then only if the guardian council approves of it. Until then, they come off. We'll discuss their conditions, and any further changes to them, once I've toured the facility tomorrow morning.'

Petroff threw a thumb at Scat.

'It's no concern of mine what you do with these convicted felons, young Miss,' he said. 'As of tomorrow, they're all yours to feed. You can move them back into the dorms, if you like—I don't care. But if you think for one minute I'm happy leaving them under your sole supervision, then you're mistaken. We'll be keeping our guards in place, just as before. I need to know they're under lock and key.'

He stepped back to his monitor, theatrically dry washing his hands and shaking them dry.

Mary was quick to respond.

'And we need to know they'll be well treated, Petroff, so while you do that, I'll be assigning some of my own people to watch over yours.'

Mary ushered Scat out of the cabin and walked with him down the stairs.

'As you can see, Scat, you're a prisoner, still, and you'll remain one until we've found a way to deal with you. It's complicated, and I'd appreciate your forbearance for a while longer.'

'So I don't get my own room, after all. I was just getting used to the idea.'

Mary ignored him.

'Scat, the reason I've asked to speak to you is because we understand you met with Picton. Is that correct?'

'Yes. It is.'

'Well, we're grateful to you. We can imagine the risks you were taking. Where is he?'

'He's in the pens, along with a few of the other NARRies.'

'The what?'

'Your No Automatic Right of Returnees. The NARRies.'

'Oh. Of course.'

She was silent for a few seconds and then called out to Taffy, asking him to come on down.

'Picton's in the pens,' she told him. 'Get him out of there—and the other NARRs.'

Taffy looked down at her as though she had given him an impossible task. She reassured him.

'NARRs aren't a part of the rebel prisoner mandate, Taffy. We don't need to wait until tomorrow. They're ours now.'

Taffy turned to Scat, looking for directions. He pointed to the corridor joining the two buildings. When Taffy was gone, Mary appeared to relax. Her tone softened. She opened up a little.

'Without your message to Nettles, we would still be in the dark,' she told him. 'As it is, Lynthax is still holding out on their whereabouts and Petroff here won't offer up a thing. They claim our authority doesn't extend to NARRs beyond the first 1000, and insist on the UN Security Council issuing a warrant for anything closer in. That in itself gives us some hope that the missing NARRs are out there somewhere. As I was saying, Scat: we owe you some thanks.'

'Don't mention it. So who do we have to thank for you lot acting like a bull in a china shop? Trevon would still be on the road to independence had you been a little more subtle in your approach.'

That Scat was still thinking of independence surprised her. It was a dead issue. It had been since ISRA had proposed the peace talks back in late 2214. She decided not to tackle the issue directly.

'In order to accept what we did, you'll need to be more aware of the bigger picture, Scat. It'll take some time, but you'll get there if you try.'

'So what's next?' Scat asked, moving on.

'Well, we're setting up representative offices on the new planets, and a High Commission here on Runnymede. The commission will organise our efforts to track down the missing NARRs, or NARRies, as you call them. It'll also double up as our centre for the rebel custody programme, until Earth has settled the legal wrangling, that is. Taffy, a few ORF and I are the advance party. We arrived an hour ago.'

The rebel custody programme was of interest. Scat had been sentenced to death, as had Birdie and "Georgie" Orwell. He couldn't give a fig for the NARRies or the advance party.

'Legal wrangling?' he asked.

'Yes. We have custody for now, but the Western Bloc is taking it to the ISRA Appeals Court. They really do want you.' She emphasised the point, and the seriousness of it, by pressing a finger to his chest. 'In the meantime, and as a counter to their appeal, The Authority has set up a panel to review the convictions and death sentences. We're trying to muddy the water a little.'

Scat looked down to where the finger had touched him.

'Thanks,' he said, smiling.

Mary frowned.

'Don't thank us, yet, Scat. You still did some awful things. The ends did not justify the means you employed. Not even sovereign states have that latitude. No, there will still be a reckoning, only it will be a just reckoning—not some kangaroo court with a hanging judge.'

'Again, thanks. We'll sleep better.'

Mary wasn't sure whether Scat was being sarcastic or not. Nor did she care. She was tired and was due to inspect the facility at 6.30 am when her mandate kicked in. She looked at her graf. It was two am.

'I'm off to bed,' she said, turning to call the guard across to them. 'Please see Mr Scatkiewicz back to his cell.'

She walked away without saying goodnight. Scat watched her cross the hangar floor and step through a small side door to a waiting pod.

Well, the lads will be relieved that ISRA's pushing Lynthax aside: at least as their "custodians", whatever that means. And the reviews sounded promising. Maybe we can make this scrap between Lynthax and ISRA work for us in other ways, as well.

With that thought in his head, Scat turned on his heels, and with a renewed spring in his step, he took a memory of her scent back to the pens.

#  136

Over the following few weeks, Mary and her team tried to work out where all the Lynthax No Automatic Right of Return workers were. It was difficult.

Petroff declined to open the company files. Mary threatened court action. He laughed.

'Good luck, my dear. I'll remind you, we haven't been charged with a crime, let alone been convicted. As we've told you before, if you want something, get a warrant.'

So she asked for one and ISRA made the application.

As they waited for it to arrive, Petroff took a few sensible precautions. He quietly ran down the number of Runnymede wormholes and shifted their operation to Concord, leaving the original wormhole in place to meet their local needs. As he shifted wormholes, so he moved some of his other valuable assets and with them went a greater number of his security detail. As an afterthought, he sent a message to N'Bomal, asking him to push for the deployment of additional starflyers in Runnymede space. Just in case.

Meanwhile, Mary's team did all that it could.

They trawled the Authority's central records to work out who had left Earth to work for Lynthax on a No Automatic Right of Return visa. They then contacted the immigration authorities on the New Worlds where Lynthax conducted its business. On Earth, ISRA's investigators contacted the NARR families, to see which of them were still in touch. Added to the list of the missing was anyone who hadn't spoken to their families in over a month.

They interviewed the NARRies who remained on Runnymede for their knowledge of whom had passed through the facility. Mary circulated the Authority's NARR photo records among the Pathfinders. They lifted DNA from surfaces throughout the complex and ran the results through the World Health Organisation database.

But the UN Security Council warrant never arrived; the Western Bloc continued to run interference, and the New Worlds dragged their feet, citing data privacy concerns.

Eventually work ground to a halt. They had done all that they could legally do, with what resources they had.

One afternoon, as Mary toured the Pathfinder dorm, she called Scat down from his room.

'I've just come back from Concord,' she said. 'You must be mightily proud of the work you did there. '

'Yes. We are thanks. How is the place?'

'Busy. We didn't get to wander around much, but what we could see from the air was truly impressive. It's fertile, for sure. And it's very beautiful; the ground seems to ooze colour. It was a good pick.'

'And First Entry? '

'Covered in port-a-cabins, Scat, as are several other settlements we visited. First Entry is home for ten thousand people now. Oh, and they've named the hill "Scat's Lookout".'

Scat looked as though he had just received word from home. He flushed with embarrassment. She changed the subject.

'Scat, I'd like to thank your people for helping us out with the NARRie thing. It's hard to be sure about this, but we're working on a theory that Petroff discarded the missing NARRies on some of those planets that didn't make the final cut.'

'If you think about it, it would have been an easy thing to do,' she explained. 'Your Pathfinders friends and the NARRie crew go out together, much as usual. Petroff then finds an excuse to bring the Pathfinder team back early: perhaps to switch them to a planet of greater interest. To keep up appearances, he replaces them with some of his own doorstops, but once the hand over was complete ...

'It was simple, and it was effective. It meant that the people who saw them go out didn't see them come back. No one, other than his own people, would know it was meant to be a one-way journey. Nor did your friends think to question whether they came back or not. You were segregated; there was no way they could ever know. But if you dig deeper, you'll find that where that has happened, none of your friends can say for sure that they've seen the same NARRies since. Or that they've revisited the same planet since. At least not knowingly.

'And the descriptions the Pathfinders have given us match the NARRies who haven't been in touch with their families.'

'So, problem solved.' Scat felt he had been useful. He was pleased. It was another tick in the plus column for the ex-rebels.

'Well ... Not really,' Mary said, sounding a little troubled.

'Can't you requisition some wormhole time and take a look?' Scat asked. It seemed the obvious thing to do.

Mary shook her head.

'No. It's not possible.'

'And why not?'

'The trouble is, aside from Concord and Boston, we still don't know where these other planets are. Your boys have been as helpful as they can, but Lynthax was exploring areas of space we haven't looked at before, and it was using a catalogue system of its own devising. And no one, outside of a select few, was ever given their co-ordinates. We don't think the co-ordinates were ever shared, not even with their head office. We think they kept the details here and maybe elsewhere, out past the first 1000. The same goes for the NARRies we've interviewed: they were kept in the dark.

'And we can't get at their off-world data without that warrant. Not without breaking the law or risking a conflict on Earth.'

'Well, you know what they say about lawyers and their arses,' Scat said. 'So, what's the total up to?'

'We're missing over a thousand.' Mary looked at the floor, knowing that number would rise. 'Well, we always knew it would be a slow process, but we'll get there in the end. In the meantime,' she added, looking at her graf, 'join us in Economic Review Department. We have an update on the appeal.'

'Good news, I hope, Mary. Being in limbo like this is no fun.'

She didn't offer him any encouragement. She walked on, her detail trailing behind her.

Scat wasn't the only ex-rebel to attend. Most of the rebel leaders were there. They all had one thing in common: everyone of them was either condemned to death, or represented a Chapter where some of its members were. No one appeared to be overly concerned, or expectant; there had been several updates over the past month and none had amounted to much.

Mary walked into the room, followed by an Outer Rim Force trooper and her new aide, Picton, who she had recently co-opted onto her detail. The room was empty save for the department's workings on the economic effects of wormhole travel. It all lay covered up or behind screens.

Picton started with a general update.

'First, the good news: Lynthax has finally accepted our diplomatic status, which means we can use wormholes whenever we need to. They've assigned a wormhole to each of our Outer-World offices, so we'll not need their permission to carry out our spot checks. However, Lynthax'll still operate them, so they can cut us off at any time.

'Second up: we've just conducted our first tour of Concord. The immigrants are happy and look well. On the face of it, Lynthax is doing an admirable job.

'On the other hand, our Office of Intelligence thinks that Lynthax now has a weapons-enabled fleet of around 40 starflyers. That's in addition to their frigate, the Venture Raider. That's twice as much muscle as we have, and is roughly what each of the Blocs can put together for a campaign outside of the Inner-Rim. And we don't know where they all are. We can only assume they've dispersed them. If they can open up a large enough hole, they could be anywhere.

'The upshot of that is, no single bloc can challenge Lynthax in a shooting war. We would need to add our starflyers to that of another bloc to be sure of the outcome—and that's if we're only taking on Lynthax. We'd need more if one of the blocs came to its aid.' He was alluding to the West's unwavering support for its flagship resource company.

Picton then moved to one side and made room for Mary. She seemed a little uncomfortable, Scat thought. It didn't bode well.

'I asked for you to be brought up to date on these matters to help you put the Western Bloc's appeal regarding your status in perspective.

'It's fairly clear that Lynthax is becoming increasingly influential, almost a power bloc in its own right. Aligned as it is with the Western Bloc, Lynthax carries a great deal of weight at the UN. Even more worrying: we think it's done a deal with the West, which is making the Asians decidedly nervous. Fortunately, they don't have voting powers within the Court of Appeal. If they did, you would already be in Western Bloc hands.

'Then there's its growing popularity back home. Being able to offer cheap and instant emigration, no matter what your social or financial standing was bound to make them popular. They get good airtime, and plenty of column inches. Meanwhile, the press is portraying the Authority as an unnecessary and unwelcome restriction on growth.

'I say this so that you'll understand the headwinds we face in keeping you out of the Western Bloc's hands. It's getting rough. We knew it would be, but it's rougher than we anticipated. No one expected public opinion to swing around as quickly as it has.'

She paused then smiled.

'But it isn't all bad. The UN has confirmed ISRA as the prime agency for everything related to migration from Earth, which is why we now have access to wormholes whenever we want them. Lynthax is also leasing a small number of holes to the Asian Bloc, for commercial use, as a sign of good faith—although I believe the terms are the same as for us: Lynthax will still control them.

'This in itself hasn't quite eliminated tensions on Earth, but it has helped reduce them.

'Another advance: The Asian Bloc is pushing for a treaty on the use of wormholes. They see the holes as potential weapons delivery platforms, and they want a nuclear weapons-style convention put in place, including a robust verification programme. As Picton has just mentioned, they don't trust the West and think it may have done a deal with the company. The Western Bloc is stalling, but we're hopeful. If we can bring them inside a weapons treaty, the Western Bloc will have no choice but to fall into line: it'll then be forced to put pressure on Lynthax to declare all that they have.'

Scat cut through the bull:

'So, we're no closer to a pardon or any further from a hanging, then.'

'That's correct,' Mary conceded. 'On balance, we're where we were last month, but... you're fast becoming yesterday's news. Now I know that doesn't offer much comfort, but the busier it is on Earth, the more cluttered the political calendar becomes. There's still no date for the appeal hearing, and that's a good thing. We're doing all we can so as to spin it out.'

Scat yawned and looked out of the window noticing it was getting dark. He looked down at his graf and thought of taking a nap before dinner. It would be a better use of his time.

# Part Six

#  Recover Your Soul

#  137

In Deep Mine 7, Makindra continued his preparations to throw the longest wormhole ever.

The Prebos Thing was off the radar. Lynthax had never used it to send emigrants to the Outer Worlds, so it went undeclared, as did several thousand of them, spread out across the galaxy.

The throw was to the M31 galaxy, some three million light years away. It was to be the first intergalactic wormhole. There was no commercial rationale to it. This was for R&D purposes only. Ratti was curious to see just how far they could throw a hole. It was a precursor to something bigger—something altogether more world-changing than instant space travel. He was convinced of the theory, but before he uttered a word of it to the board, he wanted the wormhole's capabilities tested to breaking point. And unwittingly, Makindra was about to oblige.

In five minutes time, he would throw a wormhole to a distance so great, that Makindra wasn't even sure how Ratti could know it had arrived. It wasn't due to land on a planet, just among the stars. Shortly afterwards, a simple, stripped-down bugcam would be the very first man-made object to fly outside our Milky Way.

Three minutes. An operator activated the bugcam and allowed it to float a few feet off the floor while Makindra checked its systems.

One minute. The bugcam systems were running correctly. The wormholes' orange ball was spinning, ready to release its energy. Makindra stood back from his console and looked down towards the eye, glancing back at the chamber camera to see if it had a square-on view. He then returned to the bugcam camera monitor. Everything was working, just as expected.

Ratti nodded. It was time.

He pressed the button to execute.

#  138

The airlock was cold. It had been vented. Scat was grateful he didn't need a suit. At least he wasn't wearing one, yet he was still OK. He felt himself floating, from wall to wall, looking down at the floor. He wondered why anyone would furnish an airlock with his bunk bed, desk and the usual bedroom clutter. Even his dirty laundry was lying on the floor, ready for collection.

He remembered he hadn't yet finished his last Pathfinder report, and didn't care. He was having fun, floating in the airlock above his bunk.

'What are you doing?' The voice came from nowhere.

Scat struggled to maintain his aerial balance as he swung around.

'Are you going to float along like this all day, or are you going to deal with it?' the voice asked.

Scat couldn't see the source of the question. He swung around again.

'Hey, Knuckle Head! When are you going to deal with it?' The voice sounded a tad irritated.

Scat grabbed the top rung of his bunk and stopped spinning.

'For Jesus Christ's sake! Are you going to wake up to what you're not doing?' This time it sounded angry.

'I will. I will, for fark's sake.' Scat heard himself reply. 'But why? I'm going great guns.'

'Take your head from out of your arse and look at me.' The voice was a familiar one. But where in the Hell was it coming from?

'Sure. Where are you?'

'Here! Over here. I've been here for, like, ages!'

Scat looked across the room to where the last question had come from. He saw nothing and felt everything.

Oh, crap.

'Pierce?'

'Are you awake, now?' Pierce asked.

'Yes. Yes, I am.' Scat said hesitantly. He couldn't truly be awake, not if he were talking to Pierce. But he was on his bunk, he was no longer floating.

'So what are you going to do?' Pierce was pushing again. But at what?

Scat looked blankly at the ceiling while his mind raced. He was fairly certain he was still dreaming, and that Pierce's menacing attitude couldn't harm him.

'I don't know. It depends on what "it" is, I guess.'

'Scat, I've been trying to speak to you for, like, ages. Didn't you feel at least a little bit of it?'

Pierce still wasn't making any sense. For sure, he was still dreaming, though it wasn't as frightening as usual—just more lucid.

'Nothing, I'm afraid.'

'Not the least bit disturbed? Not even slightly unsettled?'

'Oh! You mean the "heebie-jeebies". Sure.'

'You were the easiest to reach.'

'The easiest? For what?'

'Talking to. Getting a message to. I've been trying for ever, but it hasn't been that easy.'

Scat started to sober up, or at least begin to think that maybe this wasn't a dream.

'Why's Petroff a mate of yours?' Pierce asked, unexpectedly.

'He isn't. We had to work together.'

'Really. Still a company man, eh?'

'Not the whole time,' Scat said, not bothering to mention the five years they were trying to kill each other.

'I guess things change,' Pierce said. 'I've noticed that since I died. But we digress. You need to get working on a solution.'

'To what?'

'A solution to everything, for every soul.'

Scat decided he had had enough. He shook his head, walked across to the sink and splashed his face.

Pierce continued talking.

Scat ignored him. He pulled clean clothes from under his bunk.

'I've got to see a doctor. This isn't good.'

Pierce demanded a reply. Scat stared into the mirror. He tried to look around the room without inviting comment, but Pierce saw him do it.

'You can't avoid me, Scat. You have to acknowledge me. Souls are at stake.'

Again, Scat didn't answer him. He couldn't see him, so he doesn't exist.

'He's in my head. A doctor will get him out of there.'

To kill his thoughts, he flicked on all the lights. That didn't help by much, so he opened the door and stepped into the corridor. In the distance, he could hear a claxon, but it was a long way away. At least the dorm wasn't on fire—not this one anyway. He looked back inside his bunk. There was nothing there. But then he hadn't actually seen anything when he was in his bunk. He had just felt it... heard it.

He pulled the door to and made his way down the stairs to the ground floor canteen. He stood at the counter waiting to order a coffee, but the night time cook was too busy talking to someone at the door in the rear of the kitchen. When he eventually saw Scat, he came rushing over.

'Guess!' the cook said, putting both hands on the counter, ignoring Scat's tray.

'Guess what?' Scat asked, still half asleep, looking through dry and crusted eyes at an empty tray.

'Guess what's just happened! Come on guess!' the man persisted, willing Scat to answer him. Finally, he couldn't hold himself back. 'Them wormholes have shut down. All of 'em. They just stopped working!'

That got Scat's attention. He repeated what he had just heard to himself and then looked up, his eyes just starting to widen. Well beggar me, he thought.

'That'll change things.'

#  139

It wasn't a temporary shutdown. The wormholes were no longer working. The extent of the shutdown was becoming clearer by the hour.

Every wormhole known to ISRA's Runnymede office had closed down, and nothing the Lynthax techies tried to do could make them work again. The energy spheres had stopped glowing. They no longer spun. The wormhole constructs were empty; there was no idle eye, no flowing lens, no orange glow or chrome sheen.

A few hours after the closure it became clear that not even Lynthax's far away wormholes were working. Scat overheard one of the dorm guards tell the cook to ration the coffee; that the company would replace the Runnymede-Trevon resupply wormhole with an LM. There would never have been the need for that unless the whole wormhole network had gone down.

There was panic over at the ISRA diplomatic mission. It no longer had contact with its offices on the far away planets. It dawned on them that millions of emigrants could be lost to Earth, beyond practical ftl support.

But Mary also sensed an opportunity. She chanced her arm. She stormed into Petroff's office and demanded to know how such a thing could happen. She went on at him, interrupting him each time he tried to explain. Petroff stumbled through an unconvincing explanation until Mary cut him off, for a final time, with a demand that he give her access to the buoy network.

Petroff sat looking at her. He wasn't sure what she meant by that: she had access to the network from the diplomatic mission. But she pointed to his PC and walked around to his side of the desk, to make it clear she meant now. He logged off, got up and offered her his chair.

As he watched Mary send a message back to the Authority's Secretariat on Trevon, he thought he saw a flash of a smile. He then realised he had made a mistake; he had just shown her how vulnerable he felt. She had verbally shellacked him, and he had caved.

At that point, he knew his power was slipping away. Things were changing, and they would change even more when the Western Bloc realised it had lost its miracle source of intelligence. There would be a feeding frenzy.

He walked to the door, called Rogers over and pulled him to one side.

'Who do we still have who can fly a starflyer, Rogers?' he asked, quietly.

'A starflyer, sir?'

Rogers stared over Petroff's shoulder at Mary, wondering how she got to be sitting at his boss' desk. Petroff leaned sideways slightly, to block off his view and to kill the distraction. He snapped his fingers in front of Roger's face.

'Yes, Rogers, a starflyer. Who do we have?'

Rogers curled his lower lip. He hadn't a clue.

'I don't know, sir. We haven't used one in ages.'

Petroff looked him in the eye, and cocked his head, waiting. Rogers saw Petroff was expecting him to do something. Or to catch on. Finally, he did.

'I'll go find out, sir. There's bound to be a crew here somewhere. We've still got a starflyer out at the number four hangar.'

Petroff relaxed slightly.

'OK, then. Go find out. And tell control it can't go anywhere without my permission. Oh, and then send the captain to speak to me.'

'Yes, sir. Are we going somewhere?'

'No Rogers. I just need to know that I can.'

Mary finished uploading her messages, and without a thank you, she left the room.

Then they waited.

Mary batted correspondence back and forth with the Secretariat.

Scat kicked-back and tried to sleep but was plagued by more and more, increasingly disturbing dreams.

Petroff chased Ratti for answers but didn't get any. He fielded queries from head office as best he knew how. He trawled the buoy news to get a sense of how this was playing out on Earth.

As he sat low in his chair, with his feet up on his desk, he also pondered corporate life without wormholes. He wondered just how the board would play the Western Bloc now the wormholes were down. Just how much metal did they have in their spines? And what protection did he have?

He took a card out from his shirt pocket and waved it across the lock of his desk drawer. He opened it and looked down. They were still there, for years unused: his Hoover files, his stay out of jail card—a spine-stiffening reminder to over half the board that when the going gets rough, they had better be tough.

For a moment or two, he wondered if he would need to use them. He ran his tongue back and forth along his lower lip as he thought that through.

He hoped not.

But then again, he did not like the idea of going back to running planet security.

He liked the idea of jail even less.

#  140

He told himself that it was three weeks after the wormholes had stopped working. A stranger was nudging him awake. Picton stood next to him, looking down.

'Scat, you might like to see this.'

'What is it? It's the wee hours.'

'Something no one has seen before, Scat. It's worth a look.'

Scat hesitated. It was another dream. He wanted to turn over: to kill the dream and fall back into the fuzzy blackness.

Picton tapped him on his shoulder again. He wouldn't go away. He was smiling—not a Petroff smile, but a clean, decent smile.

'Let's go, Scat. You'll want to see this.'

He followed Picton and his unknown friend out of the room. When they got to the end of the corridor, the unfamiliar face unlocked the door and pushed it open onto a fire escape that led up to the flat roof. Picton and Scat stepped out.

The sky was clear from horizon to horizon, but it was filled with flashing lights; straight lines of white or blue, some flashing once, others several times.

One line of light seemed to flash furiously, flicking around a single point, like the hand on a stopwatch.

Occasionally, one end of a flash burst quickly outward. It would grow into a ghostly silver-grey bubble and then slowly fade away.

Then it dawned on him. He had been involved in one-on-one dogfights, but this was the first time he was seeing one as an observer.

Wow! So, this is what a full-on battle in space looks like!

He sat down on the skylight wall, his mouth gaping wide open, looking up, not wanting to miss a second of it. Picton sat down beside him holding a PIKL, which Scat thought was odd.

'Almost beautiful isn't it? From here, I mean,' he said, looking up in a different direction.

It certainly was.

'Jeeze! I've seen some things in my time, but never ...'

Scat's voice trailed away as he realised he might not be dreaming. Everything felt clearer, more focused. He trailed a finger along the skylight wall until his nail split. Yep. It was broken. There was even the familiar jolt of adrenaline. He sat up straighter. Was he wearing clothes? He looked down. Yes, he was. Had he made sense to Picton when they spoke? He glanced at him. Picton appeared to be a lot more interested in what was going on above them, so perhaps he had.

The violence above them was real, and it was getting more frantic. There were several multiple arcs of light sweeping in different directions across the night's clear sky, all originating from the same point. Possibly a frigate, he thought.

Several flashes of straight lines of longer length cut across it: possibly a couple of starflyers.

Then the multiple arcs fired up again, but this time the frigate, or whatever it was, was moving from left to right just above the horizon, perhaps thousands of kilometres up in space. The lighting effect was incredible.

Further out or closer in—it was difficult to judge—individual lines of light cut through the sky, appearing to be of different length. Scat assumed the shorter ones were lasers, firing away from, or perhaps towards, his point of view.

More bubbles: flux-drives exploding. From Runnymede, they looked like bath bubbles, and just as pretty. Closer in, they would be as violent as any nuclear explosion.

He tried to count the number of starflyers out there, but couldn't. Vessels of one type or another were continuously dropping into and jumping out of space in deep blue flashes of fuzzy light.

Hell, this was four-dimensional, mass-formation warfare, the first of its kind.

'Well, we can't hang around all night, Scat, sorry. Ms Sheffield needs you. Whenever you're ready, please.'

'What?'

'Ms Sheffield needs you. I was to brief you on the way. Well, you've just had the visual and here's my summary: The ORF is attacking Runnymede. ISRA aims to take control of Lynthax's assets—all of them. The Western and Asian Bloc starflyer fleets are also out there, sitting this one out, watching each other. We don't have a lot of time. Let's go!'

#  141

Picton hurried Scat down from the roof top and into a three-wheeled pod which sped off before the door had fully closed. Scat fell back into his seat.

'What could she possibly want from me, Picton?' he asked, looking out of the window.

'She'll tell you, Scat. That's why I'm to bring you to her. Just put on your rebel hat before we get there.'

The pod swung out of the complex into an unused warehouse district that Scat hadn't seen before. The streets were unlit, the only light coming from the ghostly battle above, flickering in and out as the dogfight wore on. The low, large buildings on either side of the roads looked run-down, many of them abandoned.

A few minutes later, they pulled up alongside a long, high chain-link fence topped off with coils of razor wire. Set back from it, down a broken and overgrown concrete walkway, was a single-story metal-and-glass building. Light poured from windows along one side.

Picton pushed the pod door open and sprang out onto the sidewalk. 'Let's go,' he said.

Scat scurried to catch up. They passed by an ORF guard who sat on a concrete post watching the light show above, his PIKL across his knees.

Scat shielded his eyes from the bright lights as he entered the low-ceilinged building. The reception counter was devoid of monitors, the lobby was bare. The paint on the walls was cracked and peeled. A single ISRA Diplomatic Office plaque hung in isolation on the back wall. Scat could see the place had been empty for a long time before ISRA took it over, and no one in Mary's retinue had seen fit to spruce it up.

He heard urgent voices. Picton walked on ahead, down a corridor leading to the back of the building. He turned off into a room. Scat followed him in.

Picton announced their arrival.

'I've got him,' he said. 'He's seen what's going on, that's all.'

Mary looked up from the monitor she was sharing with her ORF squad leader and an overwhelmed comms specialist. The area around her was a hive of urgent activity. She appeared to be pleased to see them. Possibly relieved.

'Good, thank you, Picton. Scat, this way please.'

Scat followed her to the end of the room and into a small office piled high with paper files and stacks of unused gel-cells, the walls covered in charts. She closed the door. It was quiet again.

'I've to make this quick, and you have a decision to make, fast.' She didn't give him time to reply or ask any questions. She ploughed on. '30 minutes ago, every space-capable asset the Outer Rim Force has began engaging the Lynthax starflyer fleet—on orders from ISRA. They didn't warn us about this ahead of time: it was a very quickly arranged action and it depended on surprise. However, the ORF Fleet Commander has since been in touch.

'The current situation is one of stalemate. The ORF cannot get to the planet, and Lynthax cannot send them packing. The Western and Asian Blocs are also out there. They arrived just after the engagement commenced. Right now, neither side is involved in the battle: the two sides are cancelling each other out. The only upside is that it would appear my little office still has some degree of diplomatic protection. Petroff has left us alone.'

When she stopped to take a breath, Scat interrupted.

'Why?' he asked.

'Why do we still have protection?'

'No. Why the attack?'

'Because ISRA has decided it wants to close Lynthax down. It aims to seize all of its assets. Everything.'

'Yes, but why?' Scat persisted.

'Because we need to know more about the wormholes. We need to know everything about them.'

'Why not just order them to give up the specs?'

'They refused to hand them over. In any case, it was a mistake to ask for them. It gave them the time they needed to position their starflyers. We're now playing cat and mouse with them up there while they're probably preparing to destroy or bury their data down here.' She took another breath. Perhaps it was a deliberate pause. Scat couldn't tell. 'That can't be allowed to happen, Scat. Under no circumstances can that be allowed to happen.'

'Again, why?'

'Sorry, Scat. I cannot tell you. But I have been given permission to offer you something in return for your rebels' help.'

Scat cocked his head.

Mary appeared to be looking for the right words.

'We are prepared to offer a pardon to all the rebels who place themselves under the Authority's orders.' She then quickly qualified her offer, regretting she had made it without conditions. 'And help us to acquire all of the information that we are looking for.'

Scat couldn't immediately think of anyone who would pass that up. But whatever ISRA was looking for, it must be of tremendous value to them. Not just valuable enough to forget the evils of the rebellion, but also to risk drawing the two most heavily armed blocs into a major confrontation. Mary was leaving something unsaid.

'Here on Runnymede, you mean? While your lot slugs it out up there?'

'Yes. Lynthax probably thinks that its own Starfleet will neuter the ORF, and they're probably right. The blocs are watching each other, waiting to see if the other takes sides. In the meantime, we have a window through which we can hit Lynthax on the ground. Only this mission can't do that. My team is diplomatic, and the ORF protection detail is too small.'

Scat thought he might be able to push for a better deal. He knew that even before the wormholes went down, Lynthax had been quietly downsizing its presence on Runnymede and building up its presence on Concord. Then there were the security teams who had left Runnymede to watch over the wormhole constructs they had transferred to planets even further away. Still, he didn't know how many remained. More importantly, it was obvious to him that Mary didn't know, either.

'And independence for the New Worlds,' he said.

'What?'

'You heard, Ms Sheffield. Independence.'

Mary's eyes widened. Scat could see her frustration.

'Not possible.'

'Then no deal.'

'Scat! You've no idea what you're refusing to do, or how helpful it would be or how urgent it is. Please! Take the pardon.' She was beginning to sound a whole lot like Pierce's voice in his head.

'I'll take independence.'

Mary looked at her graf. Time was getting short. She brushed past him, opened the door, and stormed across to the monitor issuing orders.

'Get me the ISS Southampton,' she demanded. 'Get Mr Flowers on the line.' She then turned back to stare at Scat. 'Scat, get out here!' she commanded. 'I'll do you the favour of asking my boss what he thinks of your demand, and we'll then we'll see what happens to his original offer.'

Around the room, heads turned.

Scat didn't say anything. He wandered over, trying to seem relaxed. He was anything but. Maybe it was a tall ask.

'OK, OK. Thank you, Ms Sheffield. A pardon will do it. What is it that you want us to do, exactly?'

#  142

When Scat returned to the rebel dorm, he was surprised to see a small Outer Rim Force detail already in charge of the place. Just before Picton had woken him up, their ORF minders had turned on the two Lynthax guards and bundled them into the canteen. Of course, Picton's PIKL had been a clue but the light show had distracted him and, at the time, he had thought he was dreaming. Then, as Mary briefed Scat, the ORF troopers woke everyone up, assembled them in the canteen and gave them a quick heads-up on the situation above.

Now, in the dark of the rebel accommodation dorm, Scat lay out the mission to his fellow Chapter leaders.

'The prime mission is to secure the wormhole data,' he explained. 'The ORF can't land its assault troops, so we've been co-opted.

'That means we gotta take the main offices and the data centre. They'll both be protected, and we'll be attacking blind.

'On the plus side, the Western Bloc won't get involved unless the Asians throw their weight behind ISRA. If it does, it'll find itself fully engaged and not of much use to Lynthax down here. By my reckoning, that leaves just a bunch of doorstops between us and a pardon.'

One of the Chapter leaders asked an obvious question.

'How do we know they haven't already uploaded the data, Scat?'

Another asked:

'How many more weapons do we have, Scat? We've the two PIKLs and a couple of stuns the guards have given us, that's it.'

Scat dealt with the first question quickly.

'ISRA's snooping. If they stream it, ISRA will get it. More likely, they'll just try to destroy it. Especially if they think things aren't going well.'

The second question was harder to answer. He was well aware they were under-armed. There were over 400 former rebels. It wasn't as though they could break into the Pathfinder armoury and make use of their PIKLs—they were inert this side of a wormhole. Scat did his best to make it sound less dire than it was.

'We've brought 10 spare PIKLS with us from the ambassador's detail, and as you can see, we've been joined by some of Ms Sheffield's diplomatic protection.' He nodded in the direction of the ORF corporal who loitered uncertainly at the back of the group.

'So, 22 of us will have PIKLs, and a few of us will have stuns. We'll leave some here and take the rest with us. If we're lucky, we might find some more. The data centre seems the best place to start so that'll be our first target. Remember, we're not trying to take the whole facility: we're just going after the data. If its not there, we'll move on.

'Paul,' he said, speaking over the heads of the rebel leaders. 'I want you to stay behind and help the leaders organise a diversion. You're in charge of the Trevon Chapter.'

Paul almost gushed but held back.

Scat turned back to the leaders.

'I want you to burn the kitchens. Make like you're rioting. Get their attention. In the meantime, guys, give me your best PIKL shots and a couple more, just in case we do find weapons. Everyone else is to play their part in the diversion.'

Scat checked his graf. It was 1.45 am. The battle overhead had been raging for an hour.

'Mercador, go round and strip everyone of everything that can store data: their grafs, e-readers, everything. Guys, I want the assault party assembled here, armed and ready, in 15. Let's go.'

The Chapter leaders broke away leaving Scat to reflect on his plans. What would Petroff expect us to do? he asked himself. However, he didn't get a chance for any serious second-guessing. Pierce wouldn't let him.

'Now do you understand how serious this is?'

Scat tried to ignore him. He wasn't real.

'I said do you understand?'

Pierce waited for an answer. He didn't get one.

'Oh, I get it. You're too cool to answer me in front of your friends, eh? Worried you'll be thought of as crazy, eh?'

Exactly, Scat thought to himself. Right now would be a good time to keep everyone's confidence, and not to blow it by talking to himself.

He thought, 'Fark off,' hoping it would be enough.

But Pierce wasn't going anywhere.

'You'll need to work fast, Knuckle Head. Souls depend on you—and your sorry-arsed bunch of boy scouts.'

Scat bit his lip.

Maybe this is just my conscience. Perhaps I've gotten soft or too timid. Think like you used to, Scat. Fark the consequences, just get the job done.

'I'm still here, and I'm not your conscience, Scat. Pay attention to me. Souls are counting on you.'

'Bugger off!' Scat let slip, then looked up to see if anyone had heard him. Only Edlin returned his look. He was sitting at a table close by, sorting through the spare power packs for his ORF-issued PIKL.

'What's that boss?' he asked.

'Nothing, Dickhead. I'm thinking out aloud again.'

Edlin returned to his PIKL.

'Almost lost it that time, Scat, didn't you?'

'Fark off'

'No. It's too important to us. There's no room for error on this one, Scat. Don't fail.'

'You're not real. I'm not really hearing you.'

'Would it help if I told you Petroff's in the Data Centre? He's downloading data.'

'He's what?' he said out aloud again.

'Not sure, boss. Are you sure you're OK?' Edlin asked, this time looking around him. He noticed other people had heard it; he wasn't imagining things.

Scat ignored him.

'He's in the Data Centre? Now?'

'Yes,' Pierce replied. 'So, do you believe in me now, or are you just grateful for the tip?'

'How many men does he have with him?'

'Three. Not a lot, really. But then the rest of them are on their way over here and to the ISRA offices.'

Scat realised he had just had an open conversation with an invisible entity and within earshot of his guys. He flushed slightly but made a decision.

'Do you know I'm for real now, Scat?' Pierce asked.

Scat ignored him. He would know eventually whether Pierce was a figment of his imagination.

'Dickhead, get Goosen and Khan. I want them to drop what they are doing, and meet me outside—along the back wall. Bring a PIKL each. Leave the rest for the Chapter leaders. Tell them they're to expect company—and soon.'

Edlin hesitated for a fraction, and then sped off.

Scat called the ORF corporal over.

'Tell your boss she's to expect company, as well. Lynthax is about to violate your diplomatic immunity. Tell her to leave the building and find a deserted warehouse to hold up in. Oh, and she's to stay on your channel.

'Once you've done that, you come with me.'

#  143

As Scat left the dorm by the back door, a squad of Lynthax security guards arrived out front. They took cover in positions across the road and waited for reinforcements to arrive.

In the still, thick air, Scat heard the squad leader shouting out a series of instructions. He felt some relief that his intuition, or Pierce, had been right.

There was no sign of anyone out back, but there was bound to be a Lynthax unit on its way. With no time to waste, Scat ran at the chain-link fence, burning an raggedy archway through it with his PIKL. He hit the fence hard and ploughed on through, running into the darkness on the other side of the back lane. Goosen was the last to cross the lane, unmolested. They were ahead of the game.

They ran on hard without looking back until they had put a few hundred metres between them and the dorm. Eventually, Scat dropped off the road and into a storm drain, where he stopped and called the team together. Bent at the waist and ankle deep in stagnant water he caught his breath.

'Somehow I knew we were about to be visited,' he explained, still puffing. 'Don't ask how, I just knew. They're probably visiting ISRA as well.' He looked at the ORF corporal for confirmation.

'Yes, sir. They've just arrived. The Ambassador has already left.'

Scat tried to relax a little, but Pierce persisted with his demands for recognition.

'So, do you believe in me now?'

Scat ignored him.

No one was ready for Pierce.

Instead, he took a quick look along the road leading to the spaceport apron, then back to Goosen, Khan and the ORF Corporal.

'OK, so I was right about Petroff sending his doorstops to keep us company. He's probably in the Data Centre, busy transferring or deleting data, but knowing him, he thinks he's covered his bases, and he mightn't have a large protection detail on hand. So, we go there, we take the Data Centre, and we get Petroff and the wormhole data both at the same time. That's two for the price of one.'

Goosen looked at Khan. Khan was unsure. They were still psyched up for an assault with a much larger team.

'I'm all for running on a hunch, Scat,' Goosen said, still a little out of breath, 'but you've just turned a plan on its head. What gives?'

'Call it intuition, Birdie. But trust me.'

Khan screwed up his face: it was a tall order.

'We've done that before, Scat,' he said. 'And every time I think it'll be the last time we need to!'

Scat gave him a gentle shove. Khan pushed back, giving him a rare smile.

'Oh, what the heck, eh?' he said. 'There's a last time for everything. This might as well be it.'

A bright flash lit up the lane back where the dorm lay. There followed a crackle. More flashes. More crackles. Some yelling. A scream. More flashes.

Scat straightened up.

'OK, guys, Paul and the boys are busying them up. Let's not waste time here. If Petroff thinks we're held up in the dorm, we've at least got the element of surprise on our side.'

'And me! You've got me as well,' injected Pierce.

'Fark off,' he thought to Pierce.

'Let's go,' he said to his guys.

#  144

They trotted in Indian file along a back alley. Scat tracked their position against the slowly shifting spaceport control tower, which stood in slender silhouette against a clear night's sky behind the low service buildings lining their route. His colleagues eyed the pitch blackness carefully, alert to ambush.

They turned right onto the dark and empty spaceport road, and hurried, bent low, along the fence line following the southern side of the wide-open spaceport apron. Further along, set back from the road behind a tangle of razor wire and overgrown grass, Scat recognised the building that housed the pens. Up ahead, the fence gave way to a high wall that enclosed the Pathfinder's exercise yard. Beyond that was the main hangar.

They were making quick progress.

A little further on, Scat veered off the main road and slipped down the hangar's service road.

'What's up?' Goosen asked, grateful to catch his breath again.

'Bugcams.'

'Bugcams?'

'Yes. Old but workable, I hope.'

Scat peered through the small side door until he was certain the abandoned hangar was unguarded. It was in complete darkness. There wasn't a sound. He slipped inside, signalling to his guys that they should keep watch.

Khan and Goosen lay down on either side of the hangar door, facing in opposite directions. The corporal knelt by the door, looking inside.

Goosen's sweaty scalp began to crawl. An ORF trooper had pulled him out of the shower, without a by your leave or the chance to rinse properly. He lifted his cap and scratched his head.

Khan fought the urge to change position. He had dropped down onto grass soaked in oil and littered with rags. Instead, he planned the route to the all-glass Data Centre in readiness for when Scat was finished hoking through the junk. In the starlight, the spaceport road appeared pale grey. Further along, the worn concrete surface took on a silver sheen, hazily reflecting the odd flash from high above. It was an open road, bordered on the far side by a shallow, dry grass ditch beyond which grew low scrub. Further along that side of the road, some 300 metres away and up a slight rise, lay the Centre, shining like a crystal cube. On this side of the road, a row of unlit streetlights stretched into the distance, following the spaceport fence.

Way down the airport apron, Khan could just make out a sleek, black starflyer taxing along the edge of the runway, its low taillight blinking. There were no buildings between here and there, he thought. The grass ditch offered the only cover.

Scat reappeared with a remote in his hand and a bugcam under his arm.

'I found one,' he said, fiddling with the remote. 'It's got just enough juice left in for a flyby, maybe a little more. I'm not sure why it was junked. It still takes commands.'

Scat looked up and followed Khan's gaze out towards the Data Centre.

'It's open,' he observed. He then saw the starflyer. 'And someone's prepping to leave.'

'Yes,' Khan replied. 'They'll see us if they're looking for us.'

'So, what's the plan, Mr Scat?' the corporal asked.

Scat stood in the hangar doorway, sucking on his lower lip. He was OK with running headlong away from trouble but less than happy running blindly into it. The starflyer wasn't an immediate problem, not while it was still on the ground. Their problem was Petroff's close protection detail. Their approach would have to be a stealthy one, but it didn't look as though they had much time, or cover, to play with.

Scat put the bugcam down on the concreted slip road and commanded it to rise.

'We'll send this up ahead. It can find out which floor Petroff is on. Then—'

'He's in the security room.' It was Pierce.

'Does anyone know where the security room is?' Scat asked.

'It's to the right of the main entrance, Scat,' Pierce added, 'just off reception.'

'No idea, boss,' Khan admitted.

Goosen just shook his head.

'OK, we'll assume it's next to the main entrance. Let's take a look.'

He fiddled with the remote. The bugcam flew slowly out of the service road and then dipped low to follow the ditch towards the Centre. As it made its final approach, Scat ran up the service road, keeping one eye on the bugcam monitor. His team followed at the trail, slipping across the main road, and then dropping into the ditch beside him.

When they had lain still for a while, Goosen tapped the corporal on his shoulder.

'You didn't say your name, corporal,' he whispered.

'Al Tweed, sir,' the corporal replied, watching the bugcam through his PIKL sight.

'Al as in Alfred, or Al in Alan?'

'Algernon, I'm afraid, sir. So it's simply Al.'

'Andrew. Or Birdie,' he said, extending a hand.

Al took the hand and shook it. It was his first friendly contact with a rebel.

'In training they taught me how to PIKL rebels, Birdie. It's funny how we're now being asked to PIKL Lynthax's doorstops.'

'Aye, that's what comes of working for a pseudo supranational, Al. There's no true north. You're all things to all men. In any case, you're just too young to remember how evil Lynthax was and why it deserves a whacking.'

Goosen looked towards the Data Centre again. An occasional bright light flashed across its façade like late September lightning, reminding him, that, high above them, a real war was going on. He glanced upwards. The intensity of the laser fire had died down from earlier, but the deep blue, fuzzy flashes continued. It suggested the ships were still jumping in and out of space, jostling for position: probably to confuse their foes.

Scat lay against the side of the ditch, resting on an elbow, studying the monitor. He focused intently on flying the bugcam across the front of the building. As it reached the lobby, he peered inside.

Nothing.

Only emergency lighting.

He then moved it on, past the lobby, to peer down through the high windows of the security office.

And there Petroff was, accompanied by three of his men.

He appeared to be downloading data into gel-cells and onto discs. A backpack lay on the floor beside him, brimming with others. Behind him was the thick-walled, vault-like data room. Scat adjusted the screen's brightness and made the bugcam swivel a little. The vault's door was open; discs lay scattered on the floor.

Swinging the bugcam back the left, Scat studied the only entrance into the security room. It was secured by a metal-trimmed, solid-looking wooden door on an electronic lock.

To secure the vault they would need to go through Petroff and his men. Scat didn't like what he saw, nor did Goosen.

'And to get past Petroff, Scat, we'll need to get through that door,' Goosen said. 'By the time we've broken in and fought our way past his protection detail, he'll have destroyed it all. How about the window?'

Scat shook his head.

'It'll be rad-hardened. PIKL proof.'

'And the door?' Goosen asked.

'Dunno. But at least we'll be on the inside. We just need to improve our odds a little.'

Scat glanced back towards the hangar. He called Khan across.

'Khoffi, are you still using the neuralnet?'

'I haven't used it since last night. Why?'

'Can you log on? That is, without the net knowing where you are?'

'I don't know, Scat. I'm just a user. Who do you want to talk to?'

'Petroff.'

Goosen looked at him, curiously.

'We can slip him a red herring,' Scat explained.

'A red what?' Khan asked.

'A false message, Khoffi. You could tell Paul to break out of the dorm and meet me at the hangar. Paul won't be able to—it doesn't matter if he can or he can't. But Petroff will think that's where I am. He might send one or two of his doorstops to get me.'

'So you want me to try?' Khan asked.

'Yes, but let us get closer, first. Give us five minutes.'

It took Khan a second to understand the implications of what Scat had just said.

'You want me to stay here?'

'Only until you've sent the message. Then you can follow.'

Leaving the bugcam to hover outside the security office window, Scat, Goosen and Tweed scurried along the ditch until they reached the main entrance. Scat and Tweed crossed the entrance to the right side of the door. Goosen lay in the grass just off to the left, out of the line of probable fire.

Scat looked back down the road and waved, hoping Khan could see he was ready.

A few seconds later, Khan gave Scat the thumbs up. He then lobbed something back into the hangar's service road and made his way along the ditch to lie beside Goosen.

'They must have left it on,' Khan said as he flopped down. 'There's no one on it right now, but the message will stick out like my uncle's pink Lunghi. I also left my graf behind—they should think I'm still there.'

Up at the main entrance, Scat stared down at the bugcam remote, and looked for signs that his ruse was working. Instead, Petroff continued to pile discs and gel-cells next to his monitor, download data onto them, and then drop them onto the floor beside the pack.

Tweed fiddled with his PIKL. Goosen adjusted his position. Khan asked a silent 'Well?' with his hands.

Still nothing. Petroff continued to download data, and throw discs to the floor.

Scat began to wish he had worked on a plan B. Maybe Petroff wasn't paying attention. Maybe he wasn't trawling the neuralnet for rebel communications. Maybe he had turned his neurals off. Or perhaps he had just discounted it.

Then Petroff's head snapped up and, for a moment, he focused on something that was not there. He stood up and looked up at the high window. Scat pulled the bugcam away.

Petroff clambered up onto the console and craned his neck, looking through the window towards the hangar. He could see only a fraction of it. From across the road, a blinking, red light distracted him. On the other side of the perimeter fence, his starflyer transport was prepping to leave. It faced away from him, to present a warm-looking and welcoming cabin that glowed orange atop a lowered rear ramp. All he needed to do was hop over the fence, run up that ramp, and he would be free and clear. Rogers had finally gotten something right.

Outside the security room, Scat was getting a little impatient:

'Come on, you beggar!' he urged.

'Come on you fark!' said Pierce, startling Scat.

'Send someone over there!' Scat urged again.

'Yes, you fark-wit. Send someone over there!'

Petroff dropped down from the console and played with a monitor, trying to patch into the hangar's security cameras. He was shaking his head but smiling. He mouthed something to two of his protection detail, flicking a thumb over his shoulder towards the hangar. A few seconds later, he was shooing them out of the room.

'They're coming out,' Scat whispered. 'Be ready Tweed. There are two of them.'

Tweed knelt, flicked his PIKL safety off, and lined the barrel up across the front of the glass doors. Scat stood behind him and did likewise, his line of sight a couple of feet higher.

There was a loud clunk as an electronic lock disengaged, and then a whooshing sound as the two doors slid apart. A few seconds later, the two armed guards passed into their fields of fire.

Scat and Tweed's PIKLs discharged with loud, ripping crackles.

The guards crumpled to the floor, one of them burning, his PIKL power unit exploding in a cloud of gas.

Goosen and Khan stormed through the doors before they could close, crossed the lobby and sprinted down the corridor leading to the security room. Scat and Tweed followed them in.

As they closed in on the security room, Goosen barged past Khan and threw his body at the door. There was the cracking sound of splintering wood, but the lock held. A lightning bolt punched its way into the corridor, striking the far wall.

'Shit!' Goosen exclaimed. He dove to the floor inside a shower of wood splinters and a cloud of exploding concrete dust.

Khan spun away, throwing an arm up to protect his eyes.

Scat edged up the right of the door and snatched a quick look through a 10 centimetres-wide hole. There was nothing to see through the dust. He took a quick look up and down the corridor, hoping there was another way in. He kicked the security room wall. It was solid, made of concrete, not plasterboard. He looked up at the ceiling.

And there he found it.

The security room was a retrofit, an afterthought, probably added long after the vault was built: the ceiling tiles didn't end at the wall, they carried on, disappearing over the top of it and into the security room.

Scat grabbed Goosen's arm and waved Khan closer. He pointed at Tweed, telling him to keep an eye on the lobby. He then pointed to himself and thrust his finger upwards a few times. He put his hand on Khan's shoulder to get him to kneel, but when Khan finally understood what Scat had in mind, he shook his head.

'It'll be me. He's mine,' Khan whispered.

'Not now, Khoffi. Not now,' Scat hissed, beckoning Khan to link his hands and to give him a heave up the wall. But Khan didn't budge. He raised his chin in defiance. It looked as though he was going to dig his heels in.

'I'm smaller than you,' Khan noted, still keeping his voice low.

'But I'm lighter,' Scat mouthed back at him.

'I doubt it. I've shed a few pounds. You've added a few.'

Goosen nodded.

'He's right, Scat,' he said. 'He's lighter. He still doesn't eat right.'

Scat threw his hands down to his sides and then, in mock frustration, he feigned the curling of a hand around Khan's throat and his hitting him with his PIKL. Khan stood his ground, unimpressed.

Scat slung his PIKL.

'OK, up you go,' he said, linking his hands together, ready to give the man a boost.

Khan stepped in, and Scat pushed up. Khan put a hand on Scat's head to check his balance and then reached up to touch a tile. He pushed it up gently, to see how secure it was. It moved easily, so he pushed at another tile, closer to the security room wall, and gently eased it to one side.

As Scat unslung his PIKL, Goosen watched Khan's legs disappear.

Scat put two PIKL bolts through the door, just to focus Petroff's mind. He aimed high, not wanting to damage any discs or gel-cells.

From inside the room someone cursed. It was hard to tell whether it was Petroff.

The door now had three large holes in it, but, still, they couldn't see Petroff. The wall on the opposite side to the door smouldered, and the plastic in the console gave off a burning smell, but there were no bodies.

Up above, Khan spread his weight across the lip of the concrete dividing wall, where the end wall of the security room met the corridor. He eased a second tile to one side a fraction and peered down.

Below him, another PIKL bolt blew its way into the room. This time it struck the console a metre or so away from where Petroff sat, still downloading data. The man sprang from his seat. His lone sidekick retreated to behind a cabinet, pointing his PIKL at the door, but looking to Petroff for instructions.

Petroff looked up at the high window and then back down at his pack. Fark it! It looked as though he would need to leave a shed load of data behind. He should have just streamed the data across to the starflyer—he would at least be gone by now. Damn!

He grabbed the backpack and clambered up onto the console. When he had finally unlocked the window, he looked back at his colleague.

'Harris, why don't you PIKL the data bank and then fry this console. You can join me outside when you're done.'

Harris hesitated, looking up at Petroff and then at the window.

'It's alright!' Petroff said, pushing the window open. 'We won't leave without you. But do it quickly!'

Khan didn't wait to see whether Harris was convinced. He let loose a bolt, hitting Harris squarely in the chest.

Petroff jumped back from the flash, covering his eyes. He fumbled the backpack and almost lost his balance.

Harris hit the ground steaming, the skin around his chest and neck beginning to blister. His graf popped, flared and then burned on his wrist.

Khan pointed his PIKL at Petroff, just as Scat, Goosen and Tweed burst through the door.

'Don't think of going anywhere, Petroff!' Khan shouted. 'Don't give me an excuse.'

Petroff gathered himself for a fateful ending. He stood in silence for a moment, looked down at the slowly smouldering Harris, and wondered how best to answer the voice in the ceiling.

As Scat walked towards him, Petroff dropped the pack onto the console and held his hands out from his sides.

'And where would I go?' he asked, finally.

'To Hell!' Pierce replied.

#  145

In the space above Runnymede, the Commander of the Western Bloc Starflyer Fleet received a heavily encrypted signal from ISRA's communications centre in Northwood, England. The message informed him of Lynthax's blatant disregard for the Law of First Contact. It then went on to describe the most recent consequences of the contact—consequences so shocking, and frightening, the commander thought them to be incredible. The Pentagon confirmed it all in their follow up message.

The news was too destabilising to pass onto his men, but his orders were clear: upon receipt of the message, he was to throw the weight of the Western Bloc behind the ORF. That U-turn needed some explanation, but not the truth. Within minutes, the Western Bloc Starflyer Fleet was turning on the Lynthax starflyers. When hailed by their one-time ally, he offered no explanation, feeling no obligation.

The Asian Bloc fleet received the news at the same time, with ISRA carefully choreographing the messages to prevent a misunderstanding. Equally appalled by what he had heard, the Asian Fleet Commander watched as the Western Bloc turned on its former ally, causing the remnants of the Lynthax Starflyer fleet to jump to ftl. He then stood his fleet down to hang in Runnymede space, ready to lend the ORF a hand should it need assistance.

Runnymede lay open.

On the ground, Scat was oblivious to everything except the drink in his hand.

The ex-rebels, ex-pathfinders, and soon to be freemen, had found the project director's mess, complete with bar, and were blowing off steam. They had trashed the mess by the time Scat arrived, but the bar remained intact. He joined them, and celebrated their victory in the time-honoured way, by getting pissed extremely quickly and making unrealistic plans for the future. He was anticipating his freedom, and a return to normal life, just as much as they were.

It took the heebie-jeebies to bring him back to reality.

'Scat, please. Sober up. There's so much more to be done,' Pierce complained.

'Fark off. You're not really there,' Scat replied, laughing at his fellow ex-rebels, as though they would understand.

Goosen smiled a vacant smile, not understanding a thing.

Khan looked at Scat through glass beads for eyes.

Paul just looked at him oddly.

'Please Scat,' Pierce continued. 'There are so many more of us. We need your help, someone's help. And I can only speak to you.'

'Speak to someone else. You're not farking real. Get out of my head!'

'I helped you with Petroff. I'm real!'

'I guessed, and I was lucky,' Scat replied. 'It was logilly, logicallaly... ah, fark, you know what I mean. I guessed it, that's all.'

'They're watching you Scat.'

'Who is?'

'All of them.'

'Who are—all the souls?' Scat asked, giggling.

'No, you Knuckle Head! Your boys! Look at them.'

Scat peered through slits, a stupid grin on his face, leaning on Goosen and facing Khan. He swivelled his head back and forth, ending up on Paul.

'What you looking at, Hot Shot?' he asked.

Paul didn't answer right away.

'He's looking at you, Scat,' Pierce told him, bluntly. 'There's no one else talking to souls.'

'Shut the fark up,' Scat shouted, turning his head up at nothing in particular.

Paul frowned.

'Are you always like this when you've had a few, Scat?'

'What do you mean, my young pup?'

'No, he's not, Paul,' Khan explained. 'I think he's been hearing voices for a while now. I think the heebie-jeebies got to him bad.'

'Scat, maybe it's time for you to see a doctor,' Goosen suggested. 'For our sakes at least, eh?' He laughed, as did Khan.

Paul took it more seriously.

'Perhaps you should, Scat. Get them out of your head. It isn't right for you to be going mad. Not now. It's over.'

'I am not going mad—' Scat began.

'You certainly aren't going mad, Scat,' Pierce agreed, interrupting him.

'Shut the fark up! If I want your farking comments, I'll ask for them. Sorry, Paul, what was I saying?'

#  146

Scat lay on the medical bay couch in the ex-NARRie dorm, grateful to lie down and close his eyes. He had agreed to see the doctor, if only to calm his friends down, and, perhaps, to get the monkey off his back. Besides, he could always get a bag full of electrolytes: his hangover was beating drums inside his head.

Pierce was pleased.

'If I'm real, he won't be able to get rid of me. If he can't get rid of me, then you'll know I'm real, right?'

'I doubt it, Pierce. Shut up!'

'Was that him, Scat: Pierce?' the doctor asked, leaning forward on his booster cushion. He was a small man with a large ego who laid his credentials out for the world to see. Outside, on the reception walls, were the usual degrees and course certificates. On the shelves behind his desk were photographs of himself, shaking hands with politicians and minor celebrities. Scat wasn't impressed.

'Yes. No. Look, he was telling me that you'll be totally useless, Doc and that I should get my money back before it's wasted. He doesn't reckon you'll get him out of here,' Scat said, touching his temple.

'Really? So it started with the heebie-jeebies which were set off by the wormholes, right?'

There it is, Scat thought, that soft tone of pity.

'Yes,' Scat confirmed. 'By the energy source, if you want to be picky. One particular one. The others were OK.'

'Just the one, then,' the doctor said, making a note. 'Here on Runnymede. That was the first wormhole, right?'

'Yes, the first one. The rest were OK.'

'Did it start immediately or over time?'

'From day one, then it got worse. I could feel it follow me out onto the new planets, and it would only go away when the wormhole closed. Then I started dreaming bad dreams, though I can't tell you whether the wormhole was working at the time. I can't be sure.'

'Bad dreams?'

'Very. Most nights. As though something was trying to speak to me. Ominous scenarios.'

'I was trying to speak to you,' Pierce confirmed. 'I couldn't get through to the others.'

Scat ignored him but looked uneasy.

'Is he still here?'

'Yes. I mean no. I'm imagining it. I want him out of here. Don't you have a tape or a programme I can use?'

The doctor shook his head.

'But the Pathfinders who were fitted with the neuralnet weren't affected,' he said, probing to find out why Scat didn't simply take the easy way out.

'That's right. Before they were fitted, most of them were affected by it, though not as badly as me. Afterwards, they seemed to get better.'

'And you refused?'

'Yes. They don't dream at all.'

The doctor made a note.

'How do you know Pierce isn't real?' he asked.

'Because he can't be, right?' Scat replied.

The doctor put his notes to one side and placed his hands together, elbows on the arms of his chair.

'Let's try this. How about you ask him something about Pierce? Something that only Pierce would know about. Not something you already know, but something we can check up on later.'

'Good idea, Scat. Ask me something!' Pierce said.

'How would that help?' Scat asked.

'Well, we need to convince you that Pierce doesn't exist, don't we? Once we've done that, we can move on to chiselling him out of that dome of yours.'

'OK. What did Pierce tell me when I was in the observation deck with him, shortly before he died?'

There was a moment's silence.

'He said ask me something you wouldn't know about, Knuckle Head!' Pierce said scornfully. 'Look, if you're going to do this, do it right!'

The doctor spoke at the same time.

'I said to ask Pierce something you don't know the answer to, but something we can check up on.'

Scat shook his head, slowly. His hangover was getting the better of him.

'How about I tell you how I died, and you then go check with Rogers?' Pierce suggested.

'How do you mean, check with Rogers? Who's Rogers?' Scat asked.

'Rogers was the one who vented me, I think. He's here. He was on Petroff's team.'

Scat sat up.

'Rogers vented you? It wasn't Petroff?'

'Yes. Actually, I'm sure it was Rogers. Petroff ordered it after he had blown me from my body with the neural disrupter. I can remember looking back down at myself. I was still breathing, but I looked, well, "vegetated". Rogers was panicking. In fact, I recall Petroff telling him that it was a "slip of the wrist". Then he told him to vent me.'

'Did you see him vent you?' Scat asked, completely forgetting he was sitting with an ISRA-appointed doctor.

'No. Strange that. I wasn't truly dead, I was a veggie, but I was snatched away as if I were dead. It was remarkably quick. You know the rest.'

'What did he say, Scat?' the doctor asked, leaning in closer, looking over to the empty seat that Scat was staring at. 'Can you see him?'

'Eh? Oh! No, I can't. He's just told me Rogers vented him on Petroff's orders. They'd used too much juice on the neural disrupter. He didn't see the venting though.'

He turned back to the empty seat next to him.

'Pierce, why was Petroff using the neural disrupter?'

'Because he was introducing himself. He knew my father was the Old Man...'

'What did he say?' the Doctor asked.

'Petroff was just being mean. He was letting Pierce know he knew his father.'

The doctor made some notes. Scat sat silently, waiting for Pierce to say some more, but the on-going silence suggested he was being a little more reflective, not so antsy.

When the doctor looked back up, he suggested they call a halt for a few moments.

'Go get yourself a dandelion tea, Scat. I'll call you back in after I've made some notes.'

He waited for Scat to leave the room before picking up his graf from the back shelf. He placed a call.

Scat sat in the anteroom reading and rereading a three-month-old magazine. He could no longer hear Pierce. He wondered whether the last conversation was the closure he needed to get the beggar out of his system.

He looked at his graf.

It had been an hour since the doctor asked him to take a seat and he was wondering what was taking so long. No one else had walked in since, so he couldn't be boring another patient to death.

He strode across to the reception desk.

'Excuse me, missy, is the Doc taking a nap?'

'No, he isn't,' she replied, smiling. 'Please wait, Mr Scat. He'll be out in a minute.'

'What the heck?' Scat told himself. 'I'm free of the heebie-jeebies at last and I'm no longer responsible for anyone else for the first time in, what, five or six years? Enjoy the moment, Scat.'

He waited a further 15 minutes, drifting in and out of a half-sleep but snapped-to when Mary Sheffield walked in, disturbing the library-like air of reception. She walked directly into the doctor's room without acknowledging his presence. A few minutes later, she re-emerged.

'Scat, come with me,' she said softly. 'We have some talking to do.'

#  147

Mary stopped at her desk and sat down. Scat took one of the easy chairs arranged to one side of it.

'I'm not mad Mary, so there's no need to treat me with kid gloves. I won't shatter or do anything stupid.'

'I'm aware of that Scat,' she said as she settled down, and readied herself for the next conversation.

'Pierce?' she said.

'Yes,' Pierce replied.

Scat sat bolt upright.

'Pierce?' Scat asked her. 'You can talk to him?'

'No,' she replied. 'But did he acknowledge me calling him?'

Scat felt a little angry. Mary was taking the piss.

'Did he?' she asked more seriously.

'Yes.'

'Pierce, we've spoken to Rogers,' she continued. 'We offered him leniency if he told us how you died. We told him that we were more interested in Petroff.'

'And?' Pierce asked.

Mary sat in silence. Scat realised he was expected to pass it on.

'He says "So?"'

'And he described it pretty much as you did,' she replied.

Scat leaned back in his chair. What was happening?

'So do you believe in me now, Scat?' Pierce asked, triumphantly.

'What the fark do you think I am, Pierce? Peter farking Pan? What's this "Do I believe in you?" crap?' Do I get to fly if I do?'

'What is he saying, Scat?' Mary asked, not quite understanding the current conversation.

'He wants to know if I believe in him.'

'Well tell him that I do. I have very good reason to. Ask him whether there is any way he can make himself known to anyone else, other than you.' She was hoping to get Scat out of the picture.

Scat looked sideways at her.

'Why?'

'It's important Scat. Ask him.'

Pierce's reply wasn't what she was hoping for.

'I've tried, Scat, and with everyone who came near the wormhole. I've even tried to speak to her. There's nothing.'

'He says "tough titty". No, he can't.'

Mary gave Scat a scornful look.

'I didn't say it quite like that, Scat. Don't make me look bad.'

'He says sorry,' Scat added.

'Scat!' Pierce protested.

'I'm sure,' Mary said dubiously. 'Ask him if he has ever sensed others like him.'

That piqued Scat's curiosity.

'I heard,' Pierce said. 'Tell her I did, but only for a short while. Not for long. While I was with them over Prebos. Oh, and then there was another time. Much later.'

This was all new to Scat. He was getting interested. He explained what Pierce had told her.

'How many?' she asked.

'Can't be sure. Lots,' Scat relayed without changing a word.

'Thank you, Pierce.'

Mary hadn't been looking at Scat as she conversed with Pierce but now she looked directly at him.

'Keep this to yourself,' she said, waiting for Scat to nod. 'As far as anyone else is concerned, you've gotten the monkey off your back and he's out of your head.' Again, she waited until he nodded. 'Do not piss him off. Keep him tight. Don't lose him.'

She then looked about the room.

'Pierce? Please do not go anywhere. We need you. I think you know why.'

Scat couldn't believe what she was asking him to do.

'Are you kidding me?'

'No Scat. Souls depend on it. Not a word to anyone!'

In an instant, Scat's blood pressure changed. He had heard the soul word from Pierce, earlier. Now Mary was throwing it at him. What on Earth was going on?

#  148

The next few days were difficult ones for him.

Despite Mary having promised him a pardon, Scat had yet to receive it. She claimed they were waiting on confirmation, although for what she didn't say. He had to face down his colleagues, who continued to taunt him mercilessly about Pierce. And Pierce taunted him whenever he was alone.

'Please Pierce,' Scat pleaded. 'I'm begging you. Let me have one night's sleep without you appearing in my dreams. I can't take a piss without you looking over my shoulder and making snide comments. You've got to back off.'

'I will. When you tell me that you "believe",' Pierce said, still amused by Scat's comparison with Peter Pan. 'I want to hear you say it.'

'Never!'

'I know you do, Scat. You're a closet believer.'

'A what?'

'You believe in something other than what you see. A deity, perhaps. A God. Something spiritual anyway.'

'What makes you think that?' Scat asked, incredulously.

Pierce carried on as if Scat hadn't spoken.

'None of the others believe, or even half believe, except for maybe Khoffi. I was getting close to him, you know, until he got neuralnetted, that is.'

'You think that's why you can speak to me: because I believe in a deity, or a God?'

'Well maybe not believe, Scat. However, I reckon you're still open to it. You're not fully trusting in man or his things. You seriously hope there is something else.'

'Pierce, I'm as trusting as the next man, I can assure you. I get farked about because of it. And I wouldn't know the inside of a church or temple from a police station.'

'You're not seeing my point, Scat. Let it rest. I'll make the point again when you're ready.'

'You condescending fart!' Scat admonished.

'Not so, Peter,' Pierce replied in mock protest. 'I'm just speaking the truth as I see it. So, you want me to take my leave. Well, fair enough. I'll spread my wings, so to speak!'

Scat panicked for half a second.

'But I'll be back,' Pierce reassured him.

Not too soon, please, Scat thought to himself.

'Don't worry. I'll give you a few days to your precious self. Call me if Mary needs me.'

#  149

Charles Flowers arrived with little fuss. The ORF starflyer was delivering a new group of forensic scientists from Earth to plough through Lynthax's Runnymede records and he had hitched a ride.

As he walked across the spaceport apron, shielding his eyes from the sun, Mary walked across to greet him.

'He's still in the dark, Charles. When you land this thing on him, it'd better sound credible. It's a big leap in thinking,' she counselled.

'I appreciate that Mary. We've also finished our talks on the incentives.'

Mary knew he was talking about the ex-rebel incentives, aimed at getting Scat to agree to help them should they need him. It was looking increasingly likely that they would.

'And...?'

'They're approved.'

Mary looked relieved. Flowers added a caveat.

'Given the new situation I doubt it'll amount to much. Anyway, how could we refuse, knowing what we now know?'

'Exactly, Charles. It's very different now.'

They made their way into the spaceport administration offices, completed Flower's arrival formalities and jumped into the pod.

'The NARRie dorm,' Mary commanded.

Scat had enjoyed his two days off and didn't mind Mary asking him to turn up again at the shrink's offices in the ex-NARRie dorm. Pierce was AWOL. His team had also eased off ribbing him. They had moved onto Khan, who had taken to praying five times a day.

'Good afternoon, Scat. Rested?' Mary asked.

'Yes, thanks. The monkey's gone. What gives?'

Mary introduced Charles Flowers.

'Scat, take a seat.'

Scat became wary. A director? What did he want?

'How much have you been able to piece together on your lonesome, Scat? ' Flowers asked. 'Much, a little, or nothing at all?'

'About what, sir?'

'Pierce.'

There they go again. Pierce.

'Yes?' Pierce asked.

Scat cringed.

'Nothing. I've been doing my best not to think about him.'

'Don't worry, Scat,' Mary said, hoping to reassure him. 'Mr Flowers just wants to talk to him for a short while.' She then turned to Pierce as though he was sitting next to Scat. 'Pierce? Mr Flowers would like to ask you a few questions and discuss a few points. Is that OK?'

Scat made a gesture of resignation and stared out of the window.

'Pierce,' Flowers began, 'Are you there?'

'Yes,' Pierce replied.

Scat said nothing.

'Tell him I said "yes", Scat. Don't sulk.'

'Please, Scat,' Mary pleaded. 'Answer for him. We'll explain afterwards. This is very important,'

'He said, "yes".'

'Thank you, Scat. Pierce?' Flowers asked. 'When did you first realise you were "out of body"?'

Scat relayed the answer.

'Once I'd been ND'd for the third time. By Rogers. Well, on Petroff's orders.'

'OK. So not when you were vented?'

'No. Even I consider that odd. You'd think it would have been, but it wasn't.'

'And then you were put to work on the wormhole?' Flowers asked, just to confirm he understood the sequence of events.

'No. At first, for a short while, I was somewhere else. Working, but not so hard. I was alone, I think. By that, I mean there were no people about. But I sensed other souls like me. They were distant. Not so clear.'

Flowers looked at Mary. She gave him a worried look back. Pierce was obviously referring to "Pandora's Box".

'Could you sense how many?'

'No. But lots.'

'Where were you?'

'At first? Not on Prebos. As I said, there were no other people. On Prebos you always know there are other people about.'

'OK, Pierce, thank you. You're being very helpful.'

'How?'

'In a minute if you don't mind: we'll come back to that. Can I ask you more?'

'OK, go ahead.'

Scat's curiosity had pulled him back from the window. He was engaging in the conversation, rather than just mindlessly passing on Pierce's answers.

'For how long were you up there, or wherever, before being put to work on the Runnymede wormhole?'

'I'm fairly certain I was on Prebos for years.'

'How many years?' Mary asked, forgetting herself.

'Four or five perhaps—though there wasn't much purpose to it. It was as if they didn't quite know what they wanted to do, or how to go about it. It was very chaotic. Then I was brought here, to Runnymede.'

Again, Mary and Flowers exchanged glances. Scat could see by their worried expressions that they were expecting these kinds of answers.

'When did you begin to sense there were other people about?'

'That was when I was on Prebos. Perhaps a day or two after I first realised I was a soul. It could have been more or less.'

Flowers turned to Mary.

'That would coincide with what Makindra has owned up to,' he said. He then turned his attention back to the space just to the left of Scat.

'Let's jump ahead, Pierce. When the wormholes stopped working, more recently, why didn't you pass through?'

'You mean onwards and upwards?' Pierce asked, mockingly.

'Well, yes.'

Pierce didn't answer right away. He stayed silent for an awfully long time. Mary spoke.

'Pierce? Are you still there? Has Mr Flowers upset you?'

'You think I'm upset?'

Mary didn't know how to answer. It seemed a logical observation.

'No I'm not upset. I'm thinking.'

Scat cut in.

'Pierce, if you say you're a soul, how come you got "soul" while you were still alive?'

'I don't know! I said I'm thinking about that right now.'

Scat gave Mary and Flowers his answer. They both looked concerned, though Scat couldn't work out whether the concern was for Pierce or for something else. He continued to ask his own questions.

'When Lynthax had you working the wormhole did you understand what was happening to you?'

'Of course I did. I can sense you, I could sense them. I reached out several times, but the unbelieving beggars weren't listening.'

Scat passed on his reply.

'So you knew you were confined to a, a,' Flowers had trouble knowing what to call the energy marbles, 'the marble?'

'Yes.'

'Did you try to escape?'

'I couldn't. I was still stuck inside the marble when they brought me on board their starflyer, or whatever it was. They had some kind of sub-light lock on it. They didn't release the lock until they had replicated everything. Even then, I couldn't leave. Until now.'

'How many other souls passed through you to the new planets?' Flowers asked.

'Thousands. I stopped counting. It was awful.'

Scat could sense the feeling in Pierce's words.

'I think he's getting a little emotional, sir.'

'OK. We'll stop now. Thanks Pierce. Would you give us a few minutes?'

Scat looked at Flowers as though he was a moron. How would Flowers know if Pierce was giving them 10 seconds?

Mary sat back in her seat and tried to relax. Flowers got up and walked across the room, deep in thought.

'It seems to confirm everything, Mary. Sadly.'

'Yes, I suppose it does. What's next?'

'We let him know what's going on,' Flowers said, throwing a thumb in Scat's direction.

Well excuse me, Scat thought, I'm still here, even if Pierce has buggered off for a nap!

#  150

Flowers began to explain. ISRA had been thinking long and hard about the corporations' role in the Outer-Rim. So had the Blocs. Things were changing fast. There had been developments.

He twittered on about democracy, sovereignty, allegiance to Earth, migration and a few other related topics. Scat nodded, happy to be free of Pierce for a short while. He had gone quiet.

Then Flowers got to the point.

'Scat, we now know a lot more about the reason for the wormhole failures.' He paused, looking at Mary.

'We now understand the technology was "borrowed".' Flowers actually made air-quotes with his fingers to emphasis the point. 'It was borrowed from another species, Scat, another quite advanced species.'

Scat looked at Mary for confirmation.

'Yes,' she said, nodding.

Flowers continued.

'We now know that this species didn't give Lynthax this wormhole technology. Rather Lynthax acquired it from a defective craft in the vicinity of Prebos. Actually, you were there when they found it.'

Scat added two and two together. So ISRA's gotten some Lynthax employees to talk.

'What else did they tell you?' he asked.

'Well,' Flowers said, again looking at Mary, carefully considering his next words, 'He wasn't happy about it.'

Scat didn't understand. Then it dawned on him.

'You mean you've been speaking to this "species"?'

'Yes. What did you mean?'

'I meant, what else did Lynthax tell you? What does he look like?'

'Oh! Well not much,' Flowers replied, ignoring Scat's second question. 'Not until we confronted them with what the Collector told us. That's his name, by the way. Or at least that's what he calls himself. Since then, of course it's been fairly easy to get them to tell us what they were up to – with the exception of Petroff, of course; he's still holding out for a deal. But that's not the point.'

Again, Flowers paused.

'Scat, we've been invited to send a diplomatic mission to the Collector's galaxy.'

Scat's eyes widened a little.

'We're really in no position to say no. This trip is really to verify what the Collector had told us.'

'And that was...?'

'That the Collectors use human souls to power their wormholes.'

'What?'

'Humans souls.' Flowers looked embarrassed. It did sound very "out there", no matter how many times he ran it past himself, and even though he was there when the Collector first appeared.

'How many?'

'Quite a few, so we gather, although it's early days. We haven't been talking for long,' Flowers replied. 'But the Collector is seriously pissed at us for holding him back from his last harvest, so he isn't being too, well, expansive. We have to tease it out of him, carefully.'

'So Pierce is...' Scat began to say, his voice trailing off.

'Real. Yes'

'No way! He's just a monkey on my back—or in my head. How could he have given you anything to help you with what this Collector guy told you?' Scat didn't want to believe it.

'Well he did. He confirmed Prebos. He confirmed other souls. The time-line was right. He had already confirmed the name of the person who killed him. Remember Scat, you were never privy to any of these things. Only Pierce was. The Collector and Pierce tie up.'

Scat slumped a little further down his chair. True, he had known for years that Petroff had Pierce vented, but, not by whom, exactly.

'This "Collector" guy: he speaks English?' he asked.

'No Scat. He doesn't,' Flowers replied. 'He brought a soul with him to act as translator. Or so he said he did. We all heard what was being said, but we weren't sure how.' He looked at Mary. 'Now it's clear. In any event, Scat, we've been invited to send a team to establish relations.'

'So why are you telling me this? Who else knows?'

'Very few people know about it at the moment, but that'll change. And we're telling you because we have a proposition for you.'

Scat had given up guessing about what might be next. He just nodded.

'In return for your pardon, the pardon of all the rebels, and independence for Trevon, we want you to bring Pierce along with us on the mission: the diplomatic mission.'

Scat sat up, ready to punch the air, but something brought him to a full stop. He hesitated.

'But I already have a pardon, don't I,' he said, knowing nothing had yet arrived.

'Yes, but, the Blocs are insisting that we tie all of this together—your attendance along with Pierce, in return for pardons and independence. So is the ISRA board.'

'Sounds like you're desperate.'

'We are, Scat.' Flowers conceded. 'I'm sure it's obvious. You're the only one with a lead into Pierce. We think we could use him at the other end. On the QT.'

'Not me then?'

'No, well, maybe yes. As an interpreter—for Pierce.' Mary clarified. 'Really, it's a terrific deal. We just need your word that you'll see it through to the end. When you get back, Trevon gets its independence, subject to it trading with Earth.'

'Independence? For chaperoning a ghost?' Scat couldn't believe his luck—this monkey on his back was turning out to be quite useful. Pierce, don't you go anywhere, he thought to himself.

'I'm glad you're pleased, Scat,' Pierce replied. 'Just sign on the dotted line.'

'Yes,' Mary replied. 'As we say, things are changing. They'll change even more over time. This will be the most important diplomatic mission ever undertaken. After all, it's a meeting between species from different galaxies. And we'd like to come back with our souls.'

Scat didn't need any further encouragement. He had already made an assessment. This Collector guy would not have invited Earth to send a diplomatic mission just so's he could take a few more souls. And, in any case, taking their souls would likely spoil the talks. If signing a document and attending some diplomatic mission meant that Trevon got its independence, and the rebels got their pardons, then he would do it.

'Where do I sign?'

#  151

Puffed up and smiling, Scat strode into his bunk and headed straight for the coffee percolator.

'Birdie, we've just been pardoned,' he said, looking over his shoulder. 'Oh, and ISRA promises to give Trevon its independence sometime in 2221: fully endorsed by the UN. I've just sent Nettles the details.'

Goosen didn't say anything. He wiped his eyes free of sleep.

'And we've got ourselves some long-term employment,' Scat added. 'We'll be accompanying ISRA on a mission concerning some stolen "souls", or whatever they are, and a bunch of aliens called the Collectors, or some such thing.'

Scat was immensely pleased with himself, but Goosen wasn't catching the mood. He expected more of a reaction.

'Come on buddy boy. Smile. It's what we've been working for.'

Goosen sat upright on his bed. He looked at Scat as though he was on drugs.

'Been speaking to Pierce again, have you?' he asked.

'Yes—wait. Yes, I have, but on behalf of ISRA,' Scat replied, realising Goosen was being sceptical. 'Here!'

Scat brought up a copy of the pardon on his graf and threw it across to him. He switched on the coffee percolator and leaned against the sideboard, watching Goosen as he flicked through the clauses.

Goosen looked up.

'Jeeze, Scat. So it's true. We have a pardon. And independence?' This time his face beamed.

'Yep! By the end of 2221, so long as Nettles doesn't overdo the demands, that is. He'd be a prick if he did.'

'A pardon and independence? Just for going along on some junket?'

'That's what I thought, but "things are changing", Mary says, so we caught a lucky break at last. It's about time.'

'I'll say. So, when are you off?'

'Not just me, Birdie, you too. And Pierce.'

Goosen looked at him sideways again. The mention of Pierce made him think that this was one very elaborate leg-pull. He looked disappointed. Scat noticed.

'Seriously, Birdie. Pierce exists. You've my permission to speak to her highness about it. She convinced me!'

Birdie just looked at him, sighed and flopped back onto his bed.

'You poor, poor bastard.'

#  152

Goosen wasn't truly convinced until Mary asked him to sign a confidentiality agreement and liability disclaimer. She then placed his pardon on the desk, signed it, scanned it and handed it over. She congratulated him and then told him to pack. They were to join the other diplomatic mission personnel as they gathered on Trevon for a briefing. They were then to get some dedicated training.

'Bless!' Goosen said quietly to himself. 'I'm farking free at last!'

'Free to help Scat with Pierce. For as long as it takes, with pay,' Mary reminded him.

'Yes, of course, Ma'am. And with a clothing allowance, I see.' That had pleased him no end: his coveralls were starting to fall off him.

'Any ideas about where you'll go afterwards, Goosen?' she asked.

'Trevon, of course: it's my home.'

'And you, Scat?'

'Well to be honest Mary, Earth isn't for me anymore,' Scat replied. Besides, I'm persona non-gratis—still, he thought to himself. I doubt a pardon will sway public opinion, any. 'I'll probably plumb for Trevon, unless we can get back to Concord.'

'Well, good luck with that. In the meantime, your transport to the starflyer is ready. Don't forget to take Pierce along for the ride.'

'They won't forget me,' Pierce assured Mary. 'I'll stick to this one like a limpet mine. One false move and he's history.'

'Pierce says he's here and ready to go, Mary,' Scat said.

Outside the building, Scat loaded the baggage cart with a couple of duffel bags. It was all he had left in the world. Goosen had even less. Aside from his graf, he had a small holdall, but at least he was smiling. He was genuinely pleased to be a free man again. Scat slapped him on the back.

'Let's go. We've got work to do,' he said.

'Ease up, Scat. We're not on a mission-mission, we're on a diplomatic junket, chaperoning a ghost with diplomatic immunity and all that. After what we've put up with these past years, it'll be like slumming it at Disney. Let's enjoy ourselves for a change.'

Just inside the door of the NARRie quarters, Mary took issue with Flowers.

'Why couldn't we tell him that we'd already agreed to independence: that we couldn't seriously try to deny them it—given what we now know about ourselves?'

'And argue with him?' Flowers asked. 'No. If that man knew independence was a given, he would have told us to take a hike.'

'But are you comfortable leading him on like that? Aren't you the least bit worried for your...?' Mary could not quite bring herself to say the soul word. It was very personal. She felt as though she was getting too close to Flower's inner-self just by raising the topic. Flowers heard the hesitancy in her voice, but he understood what she was trying to say.

'It wouldn't have worried me a month ago, Mary, and, yes, it does worry me now. But we need Pierce with us on that mission, that's all there is to it. And that means we need Scat. I'll worry about my soul afterwards.'

Mary looked across the apron to watch Scat and Goosen disappear on their way to the Starflyer. She agreed with him but added a caution.

'Just don't leave it too late, Charles.'

#  153

A technician dimmed the lights and the speaker rose from the front row to make his way to the lectern. He played with his glasses, fiddled with his jacket sleeve and then picked up a laser pointer. A long moment later, he realised it wasn't the projector remote and put it down. The technician flicked another switch.

Out front a slide appeared:

'The Challenges Ahead'

ISRA Pre-Talks Address

Professor Thomas P Feldman

Department of Inter-species Diplomacy

Trevon

'Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen. Welcome to the Department of Inter-species Diplomacy,' he said as he smiled nervously. 'I never thought I'd get to say that in my life time, but there you are—finally.'

No one laughed so he ploughed on, covering much of what Scat and Goosen already knew about Lynthax, Prebos, the wormhole, and then thousands of wormholes. There then followed none at all, millions of emigrants stranded on planets 10s of thousands of light years from Earth, the unexpected visit, the resulting diplomatic confusion and consternation, the secrecy and so on.

Then he moved on to the part in the story that was to involve Goosen, Pierce, himself and the other 200-odd delegates.

'...and so, we move on to the most difficult diplomatic challenge in human history.

'The Collectors are not of our galaxy. We know very little about them, aside from what we glean from our infrequent meetings.

'However, it is not this contact between species from different galaxies that is of the greatest significance to us. The greater significance is in the reason for it.'

Scat leaned forward in his seat. Goosen fidgeted. Pierce was silent for a change. This was as close as they had come to an explanation for the mission. Finally, the 200-strong delegation was about to get the "inside-story".

'The Collectors were not much more advanced than we currently are when they learned how to create wormholes. That was a very long time ago. That discovery changed their economic and cultural values, just as wormholes were beginning to change ours.

'Unfortunately for us, they needed exotic matter to fuel them and in their galaxy it was in short supply. So they looked at ours, and they discovered us.'

The lecturer looked around the room as he spoke. He knew the rumours. The involvement of souls had been the source of much speculation, but this was the first time the delegation would learn of the scale and significance of everything.

'More precisely, they found our souls: that mystical part of us that our ancestors had believed in for centuries, but which our science could not define or prove. They were a relic of our past, the subject of children's fantasies, and fodder for Hollywood—or so we thought.

'We may forgive ourselves for this. Let's face it, our investment in science had proven so much more profitable than our investment in faith.

'In addition, our understanding of the universe had led us to believe that souls could not exist, as nothing could live forever. We became convinced that the laws of the universe forbid it. Everything decays. Everything dies. Even great minds told us this.

'Yet our logic was flawed. Our logic deceived us.

'It is clear the Collectors do not think like us. They had learned several millennia ago that the laws of the universe were in a state of constant development: that just as the universe is expanding, so too are it's laws.

'We know now that they were right.

'Before there was life, there was nothing to suggest there could be life. Then life evolved. When microorganisms then ruled the planet, there was no hint of its future consciousness. Nevertheless, life developed and gained consciousness: a consciousness that was in keeping with a universe that was still in development.

'It was a development we should have noted, but did not.

'The Collectors had, though.

'They noted that in our universe, human consciousness had evolved beyond their own: it had evolved into a soul, free to escape its physical origins. Additionally, once released from the body, and all of its confining dimensions, it acquired an infinite existence.

'From their galaxy, they could see this. From within ours, we could not.

'And so began the harvests.

'They had developed what we call a Morris-Thorne wormhole, the type that requires exotic matter: the same matter our souls absorb effortlessly from the space around them in order to sustain themselves. So, they came unseen into our galaxy to take our souls back to theirs, and there they put them to work. That was a long time ago. Even before Homer's time.

'What else do we know?

'Well, we think we know two other things: that the Collectors also trade human souls as companions, and that some souls are too pure, and so are too powerful, to be contained.

'If this is true, then there is a great irony here. Although the jury is still out on what makes a soul pure or impure, those of you with an in-depth understanding of our social history will know that, over the past 300 years, we have gradually abandoned our religious beliefs and set a greater store in science. Well, that may have been a mistake. It appears that, for a longer period of human history, our ancient and childish beliefs may have given us a modicum of protection from the Collectors. Those of us who had faith, truly believed, and led "pure" lives were less containable than those who tipped our hats to priests but never attended church services.'

Feldman then noticed Flowers gesturing at him. He was telling him to stick to the script.

'And, um, well, we also believe we have been harvested for more than 30 centuries, but for how many centuries, precisely, we cannot be sure. Should we include the Pharaohs in the list of lost souls? Did Homer go to Heaven, or is he still serving the Collectors, and where does he do that?

'Which begs the question: just how many wormholes are there? And how many of us are in a constant state of, well, purgatory?'

Feldman paused to sip some water from a small bottle tucked away under the lectern. Scat didn't move a muscle. Nor did anyone else. This was, well, not quite what they were expecting. The junket was beginning to look a lot more involved than they had assumed. For days, Scat and Goosen had understood souls were involved, but like a bent penny, the thought had stopped there, waiting for a shove. But the penny was dropping now. We all have a soul? Really?

'So, we now know, for certain, that both you and I have a soul. We know there is a hereafter. This is no longer an article of faith. It is a scientific fact.'

He then ignored his notes for a second time and appeared to go off script again. Flowers just shook his head.

'But, at a time when we should be celebrating our greatest ever discovery, we are instead in mourning. Sadly, as our population has expanded and our belief in God, or at least in an afterlife, has withered, more and more souls have been available for harvesting. If what the Collectors says is true, it would seem that way too many of us have been less than pure in recent years.'

He started reading from his notes again.

'Moreover, it would appear that the laws of supply and demand work equally well in both our galaxies. As souls became easier to collect, so more and more Collectors could afford the intellectual stimulation that soul companions provide. Apparently, we're real popular with their children.

'If this were a regular diplomatic mission, we would be familiar with the context in which the negotiations are to take place. We would have grasped our opponents' points of view and have made steps to identify their end game. We would have carefully calculated where we could accommodate their needs. All the while, we would be making sure that we could protect and advance our own. However, you'd be right to assume that we'll not be talking about ceding land or commodities for peace with a familiar adversary, or negotiating a dual taxation agreement with a trading partner.

'The stakes in this case are so very, very much higher. Nonetheless, here we are, about to negotiate soul quotas with the Collectors while our leaders decide what can be done to end this human nightmare in our lifetime; at a time when we're only just recovering from a major conflict, and the Collector species appears so powerful and unreachable.

'In reality, we must also recognise that a perfect outcome for all may not be achievable. In such circumstances, war is inevitable.

'So, it'll be your job to learn more about them: to understand their culture, appreciate their history, and determine their longer-term motives. You have 18 months to prepare your minds for this.

'Your training over that time will not be easy, but never has the outcome of diplomacy been so crucial or relevant to everyone as it is today. This is no ordinary diplomatic and trade delegation, and you no longer represent a country or a people. You represent the whole human race, and you represent all of our souls: those who have gone before, and those who have yet to be.

'That's many more billions than exist today.

'So allow me to sum up the responsibility the human race is bestowing on you:

'In your hands you hold the futures of the cultural and historical icons of the past three millennia at least: from Aristotle and Caesar, Churchill and Ghandi, to Florence Nightingale and Mother Theresa, Mozart and John Lennon, and the countless billions of less celebrated souls like your grandparents, uncles, brothers, mothers and children.

'So, I urge you all to think, not only of yourselves or even of your own souls, but of everyone, every soul, and to give yourselves tirelessly and unselfishly to the most important project ever undertaken by man—the freedom of souls.

'Thank you.

'I will now hand you over to Ambassador Thyme who will walk you through the details of the Collector's demands.'

There was no applause.

A stunned and confused Scat sat back in his seat, raised his eyes to the ceiling and wondered what the hell he had let himself in for, this time. When Mary had said they wanted to return with their souls, he had thought she meant to return with their souls; a few perhaps, maybe even more than a few—not to rescue billions of them.

'Oh, crap!' he mouthed to himself. He leaned forward, looking for an exit, then realised he was trapped in the middle of the row. Instead, he caught sight of Goosen, staring back at him, mouthing bad words.

'At last! At long farking last we're getting somewhere,' said a jubilant Pierce. 'Are you ready for this, Scat?...Scat?'

Thank you for reading this story. The Scat's Universe story continues with Army of Souls. While Scat makes sense of his new mission, perhaps you can lend him some support.

Most eBooks are found by referral, so if you enjoyed this one, please tell your friends about it. Send them an email, a tweet or a link to the book. If you write a short review, let them know that, too!

Thank you.

Other Stories by Jim Graham

Army of Souls

Scat's Universe Series Book #2

"If flesh came into being because of the spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders."

Ancient text discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, December 1945.

Believed to be the Gospel According to Thomas 24:1

Man's soul is little more than collateral damage in a struggle between our daemons and demons. As Man succumbs to the soul-harvesting Haraan and the seven Vices pursue the four Virtues in a brutal and one-sided conflict, Scat must travel the Other-Worlds to free our souls from Purgatory.

But Man is allied against him. The Soul Army is on the rampage. And the Demon Master is a single victory from reigning supreme.

Get your copy now

Smashwords

Birdie Down

Rebellion Series

Book #1

An episode from the Outer-Rim rebellion

(Fits right in at around chapter 100 of Scat)

The Outer-Rim rebellion stumbles into its second day and it's headed in the wrong direction.

Will it survive a third?

The third generation residents of the resource-rich New Worlds are seeking to throw off the yoke of corporate rule. Ex-Resource War veteran, Sebastian Scatkiewicz and his colleague, Andrew 'Birdie' Goosen, have dared to take on the biggest company of them all. Hot from attacking the Lynthax Corporation head offices on Trevon and then on G-eo they're planning to attack a third.

But there's friction in the rebel camp. Scat's ignoring the advice of colleagues. His personal beef with Jack Petroff, Lynthax's head of security, is affecting his judgement. His friends and political masters doubt his motives. And the loyalty of the newest recruits is far from certain...

Episodes from the Outer-Rim rebellion

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#  About the Author

Jim was born in Bushey, Middlesex, England and grew up in Hatfield, Hertfordshire where he spent his early years mostly covered in mud and grazes, either stirring up the neighbourhood wasp nests, or being gated to the garden where he would forage for the earwigs and spiders he needed to make snacks for his baby brother.

He passed selection for the 21st Special Air Service Regiment at age 17 and was later commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Queen's Regiment with which he served for several years in Northern Ireland.

Since leaving the army in 1986, he has lived and worked in Malaysia, South Africa, Belgium, Singapore and Hong Kong.

He is married and has two children.

_Scat_ is Jim's first novel.

