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 o
f 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?’