‘The technology is well established,’ Renne said. ‘Some of the refinements didn’t even come out of corporate research. The first thing criminals do after they’ve committed a big crime is pull the whole memory of the event out of their brain. They don’t even know they’ve committed the crime; which is kind of weird; but that way we can’t read their memories and use them as evidence in court.’
‘You know I think I hate that part more than anything, more than being seduced, or having my certificate used. It’s just awful. They could have done anything, anything; I’ll never know. I can’t believe I don’t remember.’
‘We’ll need to run some tests on you,’ Renne said. ‘Our forensic team will take some blood samples. Given this only happened a couple of days ago, we’ll be able to find traces of whatever drug they used. They’ll also want to run some calibration programs through your inserts. Do you think you’re up to that for us?’
‘Yes,’ April said. ‘Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.’
‘Thank you. We’ll use a characteristics sketch program to get a picture of them. You and your friends can contribute to that.’
‘Are you going to catch them? Realistically?’
‘It will be tough,’ Tarlo said. ‘The Guardians wouldn’t have shotgunned their message until after their team was off Nzega. By now they could be on any world in the Commonwealth. They’ll use cellular reprofiling kits to change their appearance. Our best chance of arresting them is when we break the whole Guardians group.’
‘You’ve been after them for a long time, haven’t you? Everyone knows that. It’s Paula Myo’s only unsolved case.’
‘Nobody can run for ever,’ Renne said. ‘Today will have brought them a little closer to justice. They will have left clues and evidence. Their DNA will be in the cottage, their software patterns will be all over Nzega’s cybersphere, in the finance for renting the cottage and hiring transport, their communications records. I know it doesn’t sound like much to you, especially now, but believe me, every little does help us.’
Renne and Tarlo left through the veranda window, sending the bodyguard back in. They walked over the spongy lawn towards the cottage the Guardians had used. Both of them had to slip their sunglasses back on against the glare of the hot sun.
‘That was kind of you,’ Renne said. ‘Telling her they would have used a date rape drug. I wondered what you were doing telling her about the hack.’
‘She’s suffered enough,’ Tarlo replied.
Renne stopped and looked out to sea, a humid breeze toying with her thick auburn hair. ‘Bastards. Fancy doing this to a first-lifer. Even without the memory, she’ll be screwed up about it for decades.’
‘I hate memory edit,’ Tarlo said. ‘Every time we come up against it, it gives me the creeps. I mean, suppose we already solved the Guardians case, started to round them up, when they turned it on us. We might have arrested them a hundred times already. I mean, it is goddamn strange that the boss has never got one of the principals.’
‘You’re starting to sound like Alessandra Baron, always criticizing the Directorate. If anyone invented a memory edit you fired like a laser, we’d know about it.’
‘That’s the whole point,’ he said, shrugging, his arms held wide. ‘We did know about it, and the inventor fired it at us.’
‘Stop it. You’re getting paranoid.’
He grinned ruefully. ‘You have to admit, something’s not right about this whole Guardians situation. Hell, you were there on Velaines. Did we make a mistake? Come on, I mean did we? We played that so by the book we got paper creases, and they still found out.’
‘They got lucky.’
‘They’ve been lucky for a hundred and thirty years. That ain’t natural.’
She gave him a troubled glance. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’ He sighed. ‘Come on, let’s go find out what forensics turned up.’
‘It’ll be nothing.’
‘Optimist. Ten dollars that this is the time the Guardians made a mistake and left a decent clue behind.’
‘You’re on.’
7
The CST exploratory division wormhole on Merredin had been down for fifteen months while it was given a class five overhaul – complete energy focusing structure maintenance, and upgrading all the level beta support systems. It was no small job servicing a half cubic kilometre of high-energy physics machinery. Oscar Monroe had been on site for ten months, managing the crews as they crawled around the wormhole generator armed with screwdrivers, arrays, pro-grams, and every conceivable type of bot. Three more months had been spent training with his ground crew, after all most of the systems were new, and that meant learning a whole new set of procedures. Six weeks had been spent with the forward crew as they got to grips with the latest marques of their equipment and software during innumerable simulation runs. That left him with an entire fortnight’s holiday.
He took off for Earth, and spent the first ten days alone, e-butler address deactivated, sitting in a fishing boat on Lake Rutland in England at Easter time. It rained for seven of the ten days, and he caught a total of eleven trout. Those were probably the most relaxing days he’d enjoyed in eight years. Not that he wanted to make a habit of loafing around.
The last four days were spent in London, where he was determined to catch some of the quaint live theatre shows amidst all the rest of the slightly-too-nostalgic culture which the grand old capital offered its visitors. On the very first night, during the interval of a ‘reinterpreted’ Stoppard, he met a handsome young lad from some aristocratic European family, who was curious and impressed with him and his job. With a shared taste for art and opera and good food they were inseparable for Oscar’s remaining three days. They waved goodbye at the CST London station and his express started the thirty-three-minute trip back to Merredin, two hundred and eight light-years away.
Next morning, they began the wormhole generator power-up; done correctly it was a slow process. Six days later, Oscar was ready to start planet hunting.
The exploratory division base was visible while he was still five miles away, occupying three square miles on one side of the CST planetary station. Such prominence wasn’t difficult. Merredin was the new junction world for phase three space in this sector of the Commonwealth. In anticipation of the fifty gateways which would one day connect it to those distant stars, the planetary station was a cleared area over a hundred and fifty square miles on the side of the capital city. So far, it had one standard-size passenger terminal, a small marshalling yard, and three gateways, one back to the Big15 world, Mito, the other two out to the phase three frontier worlds Clonclurry and Valvida. The rest was just weeds, grass, drainage ditches, and a few roads leading nowhere. A month ago, most buildings had flown the green and blue national flag, but since Merredin’s team had been knocked out of the Cup halfway through the first round they’d all been taken down. Disheartened janitors had locked them away, muttering about next time.
The exploratory division base was laid out around its own wormhole, which was housed in a windowless concrete and steel building eight hundred metres long that ended in the spherical alien environment confinement chamber, a hundred metres in diameter, two thirds of which was above the ground. A little town of industrial-style buildings surrounded it, containing offices, laboratories, workshops, training facilities, and the xenobiology department. Power came from the nuclear plants on the coast.
Oscar’s Merc 1001 coupé drove him through the main gate at seven forty-five and slid right into the Operations Director parking slot. He smiled at the few envious stares the car earned him from other members of the team as they pulled up outside the administration block. He doubted there were many, if any, others like it on Merredin. It was his one foible; changing the car once every twelve months (or less) for whatever the hottest new sports model was that year. This one had been imported specially from the Democratic Republic of New Germany, the Big15 planet where Mercedes had reloc
ated its factories when it left Earth. He’d never decided, given his first-life background, if that consumerist extravagance was ironic, or if he was subconsciously distancing himself from that very same past. The only reason he hadn’t wiped the memories entirely when he rejuvenated was so he could be on his guard against any kind of relapse into the stupid idealism which his younger self had embraced. These days he was a fully paid up member of the establishment, and finally at ease with himself and his role.
He made his way through the administration block and straight into wormhole control centre. The prime ground crew was already starting to assemble at the back of the big theatre-like room. He said his hellos and swapped a few jokes as he made his way down the sloping floor to his console at the front. The control centre had eight tiered rows of consoles looking towards the broad molecule-chain reinforced sapphire windows that made up the front wall. Beyond that was the alien environment confinement chamber; in its inactive state a spherical chamber fifty metres in diameter with dark radiation-absorptive walls. The wormhole gateway mechanism itself was directly opposite the windows, an oval fifteen metres wide, with a ramp leading up to it from the base of the chamber. Ranged around the walls were various airlock doors. The ceiling had a bright polyphoto ring, which was currently illuminating the chamber by emitting the same spectrum as Merredin’s sun. Around that were sealed recesses which contained a range of scientific and astronomical instruments. They had also undergone a major revamp during the down-time, and the prep crew had just finished testing them during the night.
Oscar sat at his console and told his e-butler to log him in with the centre’s main array. His console portals lit up, delivering simplified schematics of the gateway, while his e-butler established voice linkages to every console operator as they slipped into their seats and logged in. As he acknowledged their inclusion in the communication loop, the prep crew chief came over and briefed him on the state of play. As the handover progressed, the prep crew left the room; several of them went into the observation gallery at the rear, jostling for seats with reporters, CST’s local executives, and various VIPs who’d wangled an invitation.
By nine fifteen Oscar was satisfied that the wormhole generator was ready for an opening. He went round the loop one last time, personally checking with his station heads that they were equally satisfied with the situation: astrogration, power, focusing, main ancillary systems, sensors, short-range astronomy, confinement chamber management, emergency defence, forward crew, planetary science, alien encounter office, xenobiology, base camp equipment quartermaster, and finally the medical staff. One by one, they all gave him a green light. Finally, he checked with the Restricted Intelligence array which would handle integrated procedures. It said it was ready.
‘Thank you, people,’ he said. ‘Chamber management, please take us to status one. Astrogration stand by. RI, I’d like the gateway brought to full activation readiness.’
The overhead polyphoto strips in the control centre began to dim, putting the room in a twilight glimmer. Holographic displays inside the console portals cast an iridescent glow over the faces of their operators. On the other side of the thick sapphire windows, the alien environment confinement chamber’s big polyphoto ring also shed its intensity, sinking to a weak red radiance which barely illuminated the gateway oval.
‘Internal force field activated,’ chamber management said. ‘All airlocks closed and sealed. Walls to neutral. Thermal shunts on line. We have status one.’
Oscar could just see the ramp in front of the gateway sinking back down into the chamber floor. He felt an electric tingle begin deep in his stomach. No matter how long the human race had been doing this, how far they’d travelled into the universe, opening a door onto the unknown was always an exciting risk. ‘Astrogration, I want a wormhole destination on star AFR98–2B, five AUs galactic north from target.’
‘Yes sir, loading now.’
He watched the RI portal display as it registered the coordinate lock. AFR98–2B was an F2 spectral-class star, twenty-seven light-years out from Merredin. CST’s long-range examination from the orbiting telescope indicated the existence of a solar system of at least five planets. With the coordinate confirmed by astrogration, the RI took over the opening procedure, a vast program composite capable of handling the billion variable factors which governed the gate-way machinery and power flow. Normally, software that powerful would swiftly evolve itself up to full SI status, but this one had been formatted by the SI with strategic limiters written in to prevent any outbreak of self-determination. Even though it incorporated genetic algorithms the RI was essentially stable, it would never develop alternative interests and goals in the middle of its operations as some large array software had done in the past, with often disastrous consequences.
Behind the window, the dull-silver rim of the oval gateway began to flicker with dusky turquoise shadows. They quickly expanded to merge together, at which point focusing on them became immensely difficult for the human eye. They shifted constantly while staying in the same place. In the centre of the gateway, depth arrived with a giddy lurch. As always, Oscar got the impression he was abruptly hurtling forwards through an infinitely long tunnel. Not a bad interpretation for beleaguered human senses. He knew he was holding his breath just like any rookie console operator. But this was the moment of greatest reward, the reason he committed himself to his job with such passion, the reason he’d made it all the way up to Operations Director. Despite all the commercial and political crap that was CST, this was a new world they were searching for today. Chances were, the human settlers would make it just another poor clone of the majority society within the Commonwealth. But there was always the possibility it would be something new and inspiring. It can’t always be the same.
The instability at the centre of the gateway mechanism stabilized and cleared, darkening immediately. Stars appeared amid the blackness. A beam of brilliant white light stabbed through the opening, angled so it struck the chamber to the left of the windows.
A few digits jumped on the digital displays, registering the small electromagnetic infall. ‘Have we got a clear exit?’ Oscar asked.
‘Negative on gravity distortion sweep,’ sensors said. ‘There’s no solid matter above particle-level within a million klicks of the opening.’
‘Thank you. Chamber management, vent the chamber, please.’
A hole opened at the centre of the secondary force field covering the gateway, and slowly expanded back towards the rim. The chamber’s atmosphere streaked out. It was visible at first, a thick jet of grey vapour playing across the starfield. After a minute, and with the force field withdrawn, there was nothing left but a few glittering grains of ice slowly dispersing.
‘Vacuum confirmed,’ chamber management said.
‘Sensors, deploy the star tracker,’ Oscar ordered. ‘Astron-omy, tell us where we are, please.’
One of the recesses on the chamber ceiling silently irised open. A long tentacle-like arm of electromuscle uncoiled out of it, holding a two-metre metal bulb on the end. It was studded with small gold lenses. Oscar watched the arm slowly reach forwards, its careful sinuous motion pushing the star-tracker mechanism out through the open gateway and into space beyond. A standard camera on the collar of the star tracker sent its image up to one of the five big screens above the windows. An ordinary star was revealed, its small disk shining bright amid the constellations. To Oscar it looked about the right size for an F2 at five AUs. Nonetheless, he waited patiently as information flowed in from the star tracker. One of the main requirements of his job was to keep calm in all circumstances, hasty decisions were just as dangerous as hesitation. That was a trait he’d learned early in his first life, it just got misapplied back then.
‘The spectrum matches AFR98–2B, sir,’ short-range astronomy said. ‘Acquiring marker stars and measuring emergence point location.’
Oscar could remember the first stellar exploration he’d worked on, decades ago back on Augusta; as one of t
he junior prep crew he’d stood in the observation gallery for nine hours after his shift ended at hand-over. Nine hours that passed in no time, the excitement he felt was so strong. It was the day he knew he’d made the right choice, that in some obscure way this was how he could make amends for what he’d done. This way he could bring the hope of a fresh start to other people’s lives as well as his own.
‘Confirming location of wormhole exit,’ short-range astronomy said. ‘Distance to AFR98–2B is seventeen-point-three million klicks out from the projected coordinate.’
Oscar allowed himself to relax a little, seeing the smiles springing up around the ground crew. That wasn’t a bad margin of error for a newly recommissioned gateway, well within acceptable limits. ‘Well done astrogration; load in the new figures please. Sensors, let’s get the planetary survey scope out there.’
While the new, bulkier telescope mechanism was deployed out through the confinement chamber, Oscar went round the control centre loop again, verifying that everything was holding steady. Then it was an hour-long wait while short-range astronomy analysed the images from the planetary survey scope. The procedure was simple enough – they scanned the plane of the ecliptic for any light source above first magnitude. When it found one, the telescope observed it for movement. If it was a planet, then its orbital motion should become apparent almost straight away.
The results flashed up on the screens above the window. Short-range astronomy located five planets. Two were gas-giants, Saturn-sized, orbiting eleven and fifteen AUs out from the star. The inner three were solids. The first and smallest, a Lunar-sized rock a hundred and twenty million kilometres out from the star, had a high-viscosity plastic lava mantle moving in sluggish ripples generated by the star’s massive tidal pull. Second was a large-solid, seventeen thousand eight hundred kilometres in diameter, and orbiting a hundred and twelve million kilometres out. With its high gravity, Venusian-style atmosphere, and close proximity to the sun, it didn’t come anywhere near qualifying as H-congruent. But the third was a hundred and ninety-nine million kilometres distant from the star, and measured fourteen thousand three hundred kilometres in diameter. Cheers and a patter of applause went round gateway control as the data slowly built up. Spectrographic results showed a standard oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, with a high water vapour content. Given its distance from the star, it was somewhat cool, with the equator having the same temperature as Earth’s temperate zones in autumn or spring. But the information was sufficient for Oscar to award it a preliminary H-congruent status, which brought another round of applause. First time out with a recommissioned gateway, and they’d struck gold already. A good omen.