Event Horizon (Hellgate) (125 page)

“I’m sure many people do believe that.” Shapiro sat back, only toying with his food now. “Even before the Lai’a expedition left, we were being demonized as the lowest, nastiest kind of barbarians. If that’s what they want to think, I can live with it. The knowledge that the Deep Sky is free, and worlds like Omaru can get on with their business, is enough. Etienne, give me whatever you have on Omaru.”

Again the files played out, and this time Travers indulged himself in rich sounds of satisfaction. The city of Hydralis had begun to rebuild, and constructor drones were making short work of it. Engineers had broken two city builders out of museums in the Middle Heavens. After centuries mothballed as standing exhibits on Haven and Louverne they once again towered over the skyline, churning out the buildings and infrastructure that would have Hydralis operating properly in six months. The finer touches – parks and gardens and public art – would come later, when the population had licked its wounds and found the energy, the inspiration, to drive on. But Hydralis was being reborn while they watched.

There, Tully Ingersol stopped the presentation and gave Vaurien a smug look. “You like? That was us, Rick.” He tapped his chest. “Alec Tarrant called me, asked who I’d recommend for a towing job. I said, yeah, me,
whaddaya
need? He said, hustle on over to Louverne and Haven, bring me the city builders they just broke out of storage.” His smile was beatific. “We rigged ’em with the biggest Aragos we could lay our paws on – more than twice as many as the load needed, to keep the insurance company happy. Lifted ’em to orbit and fed ’em into an old freighter hull that’d been moldering on one of Haven’s moons for years. The engines were burned out, so the Haven techs couldn’t do the job themselves, but after we got the machinery locked down it was just a routine towing assignment. Omaru,” he added, “made a sweet down payment on a big, fat fee.”

“Nice,” Vaurien approved. “I told you, Tully.”

“Told me what?” Ingersol was on his way to the ’chef.

“You’re ready for this.” Vaurien sat back and flexed his left side again. “You’ve got your teeth into the job now. Enjoying it?”

“When things work out,” Ingersol admitted.

Bill Grant had aimed a handy at Vaurien and asked quietly, “You want a shot, Rick? You’re hurting.”

But Vaurien gestured with his empty glass. “I’ll take another of these. Sorry, Bill, but I’ve had all the drugs I want for one lifetime.”

“Here, let me.” Jazinsky took his flute.

The presentation began to play again as she filled it, and Travers divided his attention between the food and the politics. Shapiro was more interested in this part of the news, but Marin made a murmured comment about it all being predictable, and he was right. The ‘Nine Worlds Commonwealth’ had accepted eleven more member colonies, and the name had to change.

In the interim it was being called the ‘Deep Sky Commonwealth,’ but even this was far from appropriate, since seven of the eleven recently joined members were Middle Heavens worlds. Robert Chandra Liang appeared, addressing the general assembly in Elstrom and suggesting the name be changed to the ‘Celestial Commonwealth.’ The suggestion was not widely approved, since the word also meant divine, godly, heavenly – and few colonies were ‘celestial’ in that sense.

Some had been laid waste by rioting and mutiny; three were punished by ruinous Fleet blockades. Omaru itself had only just stopped smoldering, and the air over Hydralis was thick with the dust and stink of construction. Travers sat back, amused by the passion aroused by the struggle to find a single name everyone could agree on. It seemed such a trivial thing … such a
civilized
argument, he decided.

And then his amusement dwindled, and Vidal swore in a harsh whisper as a face they all knew appeared. Senator Charleston Aimes Rutherford had been delivered first to Borushek, on the
Mercury
, and then transferred on a civilian vessel to Omaru. He stood trial in an open court before the cameras of CNS and CityNet, and the proceedings were held in a prefabricated shack atop of one of the few buildings left standing and sound in Hydralis, so he was imaged against a backdrop of devastation.

The evidence was ironclad, and was presented by the leading public prosecutor from Velcastra. Here, Mark Sherratt leaned forward for a better view of the screen. Dendra Shemiji sources had made sure every skerrick of information was delivered, with named sources, data channels charted all the way back to the offices on Earth where the death of Hydralis – and most of Omaru with it – had been planned. The people behind it were identified; the method was described, and an edit of the live vidfeed from the Delta Dragons and the
Kiev
on the Omaru blockade was shown several times.

Guilt was in no doubt but when Rutherford was invited to plead, he remained utterly silent. He had aged, Travers saw. He was small, sunken,
shriveled
as a walnut. He cut an almost birdlike figure in the court, dressed in a priceless silk suit and a lot of platinum jewelry which could not disguise how he was failing.

The court found him guilty and sentencing was deferred. Emotions were running too high, too hot, across Hydralis. Two months later sentencing was due, and Travers knew what it must be. “They’ll execute him,” he growled. “What else is there?”

“Yeah – if he doesn’t die first,” Bill Grant retorted. “You didn’t see him? The man’s on for a dramatic face-plant. Back home, they’d have had him in the hospital months ago, fiddling with nano, prolonging the agony. Maybe buying him another five years, maybe even ten. But he’s on his way out, Neil. All we’re doing is making it sooner rather than later.”

“I saw,” Marin said musingly. “And I don’t suppose the public of Earth will think any more kindly of us, for executing their ambassador.”

“He’s a war criminal, convicted on bulletproof evidence. It doesn’t matter what
Earthers
think.” Shapiro stood and headed for the ’chef. “We can’t afford to worry over much about how they characterize us in their media. We did what we had to do, and we won. Good enough.”

“Good enough,” Mark Sherratt echoed. He looked at his chrono and then at Vidal. “I hate to leave you, but I’ve work waiting for me. Dario and Tor should be loading Lai’a in about half an hour, and my lab should be arriving – well, now. I want to see it set up properly.”

“You want some help?” Vidal offered. He gestured with his glass. “I’m only drinking juice and tonic.”

“If you have the time – of course.” Mark dropped a hand on his shoulder, graced him with a smile. “I’ll be busy for a few hours, Richard. I know you want to ship out quickly … I’ll let you know when.”

“Take your time.” Vaurien was gazing out at the vista of Hellgate. “We’ll be transferring the stasis chambers to Decon 4, for safety’s sake – Tully, you could wrangle that for me, if you don’t mind.”

“Stasis chambers?” Ingersol’s eyes narrowed. “You mean, like Zunshu tech – coming aboard?”

Vaurien looked up at Sherratt. “Have Mark brief you. It’s a long story. In fact, if you want to give Mick a hand setting up the new lab, he’d probably enjoy telling it.”

“All right, I will.” Ingersol hesitated, and clicked his combug up several channels. He listened for a moment, and then, “Sure, Roark. Great to hear you, man … you and Asako have a good flight, and I’ll break out the cold ones when you get back.” He stood, and clicked back down to the
Wastrel
’s own local loop. “That’s the
Harlequin
launching … something about laying down a chain of comm buoys?”

“Come on, make yourself useful – I’ll bring you up to speed,” Vidal promised. Mark had already stepped out, and Vidal paused only to give Travers and Marin a wave.

Travers felt himself winding down, felt the yawn beginning. The combination of home, safety and a lot of champagne were wreaking havoc with his thought processes. Vaurien’s eyes had already closed while Jazinsky was investigating a bottle of Velcastran chardonnay. Rusch had begun to talk politics with Rabelais and Shapiro, which only made Jo Queneau heave an enormous, and infectious yawn.

“You want to get out of here?” Marin’s voice was soft as crushed silk. “I could use a little quiet, and they’ll talk politics all night once they get going.”

Just six hours ago they had been flying transspace, and Travers was aware of a powerful sense of dislocation. He followed Marin aft, back to the stateroom they had occupied for so long. Their baggage was stacked in the open doorway; the lights were low, the threedee idling, the bronze sheets crisp and cool, so familiar, Neil almost groaned.

He had not realized how tired he was until he set spine to mattress. With Marin lying in the curve of his right arm he might have made conversation, or sought easy, gentle lovemaking, but sleep overtook him too soon. His dreams were a tangle of concepts and images into which the comm intruded a long time later.

Half-awake, he listened as Joss, Etienne and Ingersol shared data. The tech gang on the driftship had torched the ruined Ops room apart. They had found Jon Kim, crushed by unspeakable gravities and just barely recognizable as a suit of Zunshulite armor. He and Tonio Teniko were transferred to a low-level hazmat locker, where they would remain until they were repatriated for interment.

A moment of grief barrelled into Travers and followed him back into dreams. He felt Marin’s arms go around him, and buried his face in the warmth of Curtis’s shoulder.

They woke again, briefly, when the threedee whispered a
shipwide
Weimann alert, and the deck thrummed as the engines came online. The
Wastrel
turned her sterntubes to Hellgate, and three days away were the bright lights of the Deep Sky.

2: Riga, Borushek

Cold. The most defining characteristic of Riga, Marin thought, was the arctic chill of the place through so much of the year. Riga did have a warm season but it was so brief, it was easy to miss. He wore a breathmask over his face, boosting oxygen to his starved lungs, and a powered thermal suit without which his extremities would be frostnipped in minutes. UV glasses on the nose of the breathmask, the hood of a parka pulled up around his face, gloved hands thrust deep into pockets, and he was comfortable enough to take a turn around the town under a morning sky so dark blue, it was almost black.

Riga remained utterly deserted. The ghost town was only barely ticking over, with a few little drones trimming a hedge here, changing the power cells on the garden lights there, servicing the main snowblower which kept streets and driveways clear every day, though they were never used. The weather would change in the afternoon, Marin knew without looking at a forecast. The evidence was on the horizon, with gold-tinted clouds coming up over the shoulder of Mount Kepler, heavy with snow.

Down in Sark it was raining, as was usual this season. The winds dropped, the sea became a leaden, molten cauldron, the humidity soared and rain fell in heavy curtains, veiling the spaceport, the old DeepSky Fleet compound and the hills of Quorn and Carmichael behind them. The news this morning was filled with local politics, celebrities, sport … the business of a world that was no longer at war.

Yesterday had been almost spent when the Capricorn skimmed in over the city of Sark, but it did not land there. Shapiro had no reason to go down. Everything he must do, he could do from Mark’s house here in Riga. His old office in the Fleet tower was occupied by another commander; the forces administrated out of the compound were in the service of the new government. The banners flying over Sark now were those of the Commonwealth, and Shapiro was content to pass by like a wraith.

Leaving the city behind, the Capricorn turned north, following the shore of the Challenger Gulf as afternoon slid rapidly into evening, then climbed up over the snow-topped spine of the mountains. The sun cast a last brilliant ray across the heights before it was gone. It was late in the year here, and this far north sundown came early.

Riga
was offline, silent, dark. The AI idled in an almost vegetative state; but it was waiting. At a coded signal from Etienne, Joss came awake in the big white-roofed house on the east side of the town; and Joss woke the town AI moments later. Lights came on along the winding streets and in a hundred windows, including Mark’s own. From the copilot’s seat, Marin looked down across a landscape where a fine powder snow had fallen not long before and the dark figures of Jupiter spruce tossed in a westerly breeze.

This morning the sky was so clear, it almost hurt the eyes. Snow had fallen overnight but the streets were always blown clear, no matter that no one had lived here in many months. Security systems flashed subtle red warnings from a gate, a door; the town could be reborn in a day. If the Resalq came back. But Marin was far from sure they would.