Great North Road (120 page)

“To do what?” he snapped.

“To make a name for yourself. To become the next chief constable.”

“Pet, you have got to be kidding.”

“No I’m not, and neither are a lot of other people. That’s why I’m here. We have faith in you. This is exactly what you need to position yourself in the public perception. Haven’t you earned this? Haven’t you served your time, been treated like shit long enough?”

“Yeah, mainly by O’Rouke. And you.”

“Time to cash in.”

“Really?” It was nonsense, and he knew it was. Yet some persistent little thought worried away at his conviction. He’d burned his bridges with Northumberland Interstellar, and Ian had died following their case to its conclusion. No one else was stopping off to say:
Good job, thank you
. Some little part kept reflecting on that, like the one that kept him on the case, kept chasing down the facts from places he had no right to be. “I don’t see how.”

“First, even O’Rouke didn’t know you were still part of this. Was it off-log?”

“Yeah. We had a whisper about gang involvement, I decided to follow up.”

“Excellent, that means Milligan cannot take any credit, because he didn’t even know what was happening. It was your initiative, your success. You saved the city from a D-bomb detonating.”

“I don’t know …”

“You’re here tonight. You were injured on the front line. You’re a hero, Sid. Milligan is a lard-arse office squatter. You’re a regular policeman who gets out on the streets to protect the citizenry, and puts his own life on the line to do it. We need you. Who would make a better chief constable, who would have more support, who would make the people feel safer?”

“I don’t have the political contacts to pull this off.”

“You have a foundation, and tonight can build high on that, very high indeed. I can help you with that. Hate me and despise me all you want, but it’s what I do. And I’m damn good at it. I understand the media. I know who to talk to, what angle to spin. You have to control the news, Sid, or it will sweep you along out of control; rule the transnet, dictate the information cycle, don’t let the sites use you.”

“How?”

“We can start with a press conference. I’ve seen you do them before, you’re good. And we have the ultimate knowledge monopoly here tonight. The mayor doesn’t know anything; neither does Market Street. HDA isn’t saying a damn thing. You can be the city’s representative right here and now, you can make sense of all this for people, make them feel safe again. People are worried out there, Sid, they know about the spaceship and they don’t know what to think. There are a hundred rumors, and they’re breeding worse ones every second. That’s all anyone’s listening to because there are no facts. Help correct that.”

He nodded his head slowly as the options began to crystallize in his mind. There were opportunities to be had here. It would be a very foolish man who thought otherwise, a man who didn’t understand how the world worked. “I’ll need some guidance on how to say all that.”

Chloe Healey smiled shrewdly. She held up the long protective bag that clearly held all the kingdoms of the world. “First we make you look good. I’m not having you stand up in front of everyone in a clinic gown that shows off your underpants at the back.”

Sid took the bag from her. No need to ask what it contained, she would have chosen the perfect attire for the occasion. “Aye, I’d best get changed, then, pet.”

F
RIDAY,
M
AY 3, 2143

General Khurram Shaikh, the supreme commander, Human Defense Alliance, walked into the Trans-Stellar Situation Center underneath Alice Springs, accompanied by Majors Vermekia and Fendes. Officers at the Sol section saluted quickly as he came over to them and sat at the chair at the head of the consoles. None of them could recall him looking so angry before.

“Are we ready?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Captain Toi replied. “Cape Town is standing by.”

“Very well, proceed with the war gateway opening, Captain.”

Captain Toi turned back to her zone console and let the slim screen curve around her face. “Power it up,” she told the Cape Town base commander.

General Shaikh watched the big wall pane that was displaying all the information being gathered by the five HDA satellites closest to Jupiter. It wasn’t nearly as much as he would have liked. Providing a full range of high-resolution optical sensors wasn’t a priority to the design geeks and budget lords of the deep-space satellite warning network that orbited Sol; the technological sentinels were intended to watch for any perturbation of quantum fields, that inevitable precursor of Zanth activity. The images that the Sol station team had pulled out of the quintet showed the North constellation as little more extensive than a blurred patch, like a dull silver nebula; it was difficult to make out the individual elements apart from the main habitat amalgamation. Even so he was surprised by the size of the constellation.

“How many … components in the constellation now?” he asked.

“Over a hundred, sir,” Toi replied. “Plus some large chunks of asteroidal rock; we’ve identified both metallic and carbonaceous chondritic types, as well as a sizable iceberg. Presumably they provide a full range of metals and minerals to process into raw. They’ve been busy.”

“Indeed.” The general watched the data gliding down the side of the pane, showing him the Cape Town war gateway powering up. The trans-spatial connection was reaching out to compress the forty-light-minute distance from Earth to Jupiter down to an effective zero. It was almost insulting to ask the fabulous machine to perform a connection over such a short length—it was designed to extend out to the very stars themselves, to help humans fight off the most terrifying foe in the universe. Now he wanted to use it to have an angry conversation with a stubborn recluse.

Several sections of the data turned red. Captain Toi’s back stiffened. She began a fast conversation with the Cape Town technicians controlling the gateway. The data flipped back to amber, then went red again.

“Captain?” the general asked in a low voice.

She turned around to face him, a line of perspiration on her brow. “Sir, we can’t open the gateway close to Jupiter. Something is blocking the connection at the other end.”

“Do we know what?”

“The gateway technicians think it might be something equivalent to our EarthShield quantum-warp stations, sir.”

General Shaikh gave Fendes a cool look. “How in Allah’s name did Constantine get hold of that technology?”

“Industrial espionage, I would suggest,” the major replied.

“I disagree,” Vermekia said. “Either Jupiter developed it on their own, like the reactionless space drive, or they’ve harvested it from an advanced sentient race.”

“On St. Libra?”

Vermekia shrugged. “That would be the logical conclusion.”

“Captain,” Shaikh said. “How close to Jupiter can the gateway open?”

“We think about seven million kilometers, sir.”

“Very well, I suppose that will have to—” He stopped in shock as his e-i sent him a grade-one alert. Two of the Sol section wall panes were changing, bringing up emergency situation charts. Earth’s high-orbit sensor satellite armada was registering a change in spacetime fifty thousand kilometers above the Pacific Ocean.

“Not a rift,” Captain Toi barked. “Repeat, not a Zanth rift.”

“What is it?” Shaikh demanded.

“Sir, it’s a trans-spatial connection. It’s holding remarkably stable—there’s barely a emergence jitter. And it’s approximately one meter in diameter.”

“What?”

“I think the mountain just came to Mohammed,” Vermekia said quietly.

“Sir.” Captain Toi turned to the general, looking astonished. “It’s emitting a comm link, interfacing with our strategic communication satellite squadron. Incoming call, using Jupiter diplomatic encryption.”

“Use my key,” Shaikh told his e-i. “Route the call to this station.”

Everyone at the Sol station watched Constantine North’s youthful face materialize on the screen in front of General Shaikh.

“General.”

“Mr. North.”

“You wanted to talk to me?”

“I certainly did. You seem to have developed some remarkable technology out there.”

“Thank you. As have you. I’m a great admirer of EarthShield.”

“I was referring to the spaceship drive.”

“Of course.”

“Your agent took
something
from Newcastle.”

“My son took an alien into custody, an alien that may well have been the one who killed my brother and my nephews.”

“This isn’t the time to get personal, Constantine. That is the first sentient alien we have ever encountered. We need to establish a dialogue, not wreak vengeance. We cannot afford another interstellar enemy.”

“I am sorry that you judge me in that fashion, General. The dead are dead, nothing can bring them back; I am concerned solely with protecting the living, all of the living, wherever and whoever they may be.”

“As am I. The reason the Human Defense Alliance exists is to safeguard our species.”

“General, please understand I have no quarrel with you. I simply believe I am better placed to manage this incursion. It is us Norths that have attracted its attention. We are what it wants.”

“You have no right to monopolize this. We have to know what we’re dealing with.”

“I have no intention of monopolizing whatever information this contact produces.”

“Good. Can I send a team to Jupiter to verify the encounter?”

“Regretfully, no.”

“Why not?”

“The HDA does not enjoy my full trust.”

“I find that insulting. My people are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect humans wherever they are, including Jupiter, if you were ever in need.”

“Please, General. You knew the alien was real. You knew twenty years ago, yet you deliberately kept that information to yourselves. I’ve seen the recordings of poor Angela Tramelo’s rather brutal interrogation. I saw what you pulled from her memory. Yet you filed it in the deepest cache you have and conveniently forgot about it. Do not presume to lecture me on responsibility.”

“Images from a disturbed girl’s mind do not constitute proof of anything. They could have been a zone drama she fixated on, a nightmare, a psychosis. We didn’t know. Coming out and officially claiming the monster existed would have caused panic and fear. Our protection is not just physical. Civilization requires order to continue functioning. That, too, must be maintained.”

“Indeed. You are responsible to your political paymasters, and their eternal quest for the status quo. I am not. I will find out exactly what this creature is and where it comes from. I will also discover its intent. When that information is available, I will make it freely available to everyone. With or without your consent and approval. I believe we are approaching a time of profound change, both materially and philosophically. I hope you can adapt, General, I truly do, for I see you are an honorable man at heart, and such people are few and far between in these times.”

“Constantine—”

“I’ll contact you when we have some information. You have my word on that.”

The link ended. Up on the big panes, the sensor satellites were reporting that the trans-spatial connection had closed.

“Now what?” Captain Toi asked.

“We wait,” the general said. “And possibly pray.”

*

Constantine took the transit pod over to toroid three by himself. The rotating wheel was at the end of the habitat amalgamation next to the original hostel wheel, separated by a latticework spindle three hundred meters long. Constantine didn’t want to place the rest of the inhabitants in danger when the encounter finally occurred. The spindle even had explosive separation bolts. Just in case.

Toroid three had been built more than eight years ago out of a superstrength carbon-titanium compound developed at Jupiter. That shell remained fixed, but its internal systems were in a permanent state of rebuild, ensuring that the most advanced technology was always available in anticipation of this moment.

Constantine made his way to the reception chamber’s supervision center, a simple circular room with a single simple black leather office chair in the center. He didn’t need the paraphernalia of consoles and screens and zones embraced by the rest of the human race, not with his resequenced brain’s multitude of connections and visualization routines. He sat down in the old chair he’d brought all the way from Earth fifty-five years ago, and waited. On the other side of the metamolecule wall, the main reception facility was a hemispherical chamber ten meters in diameter. The surface of both the floor and walls was currently configured to be soft, like a layer of sponge. Its only solid artifacts were a cot bed, a basin, and a toilet. A ring near the ceiling apex glowed with a blue-white spectrum matching Sirius under more normal conditions.

Satellites swirling around the constellation fed their senses into Constantine’s brain, showing him the lightwave ship’s arrival. It docked at toroid three’s spindle port.

Constantine opened a link to Clayton. “How are you doing?”

“This is definitely the way to travel,” Clayton replied. “Good job I don’t get vertigo, you could actually see the sun shrinking behind us.”

“And your guest?” It was a courtesy question, as more than half his augmented receptors were linked with the scanners that encaged the alien.

“It’s been a good boy. Are you seeing that internal structure?”

“Yes. Most interesting.”

“Can I come down with it?”

“You know the answer. This is where I get to come out and play.”

“Father.”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

“I don’t believe this situation will be settled by violence. But, yes, I will be careful.”

“We’ll have the medics and space marines standing by anyway.”

“Aye, space marines! Hopefully the time of such nonsense is coming to an end. I said much the same to General Shaikh.”

“How did he take it?”

Constantine smiled wryly. “I don’t think he was best pleased.”

“No kidding? Are you ready?”

“Yes, send it down, please. And good job, by the way.”