‘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 a
nd 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.’