The Dreaming Void (24 page)

Sholapur was one of those Commonwealth planets that did not quite work. All the ingredients for success and normality were there: a standard H-congruous biosphere, G-type star, oceans, big continents with great landscapes of deserts, mountains, plains, jungles, and vast deciduous forests, handsome coastlines, and long meandering archipelagoes. The local flora had several plants humans could eat, and the wildlife was not wild enough to pose much of a threat. Tectonically it was benign. The twin moons were small, orbiting seven hundred thousand kilometers out to produce the kinds of tides and waves that satisfied every kind of marine sports enthusiast.

Physically, there was nothing wrong with it. That left the people.

Settlement began in 3120, the year ANA officially became Earth's government. It was the kind of incentive that flushed a lot of the remaining political, cultural, and religious malcontents out of the Central worlds. The greatest machine ever built was obviously taking over, and Higher culture was now so dominant, it never could be revoked. They left in the millions to settle the farthest External worlds. At four hundred seventy light-years from Earth, Sholapur was an attractive proposition for anyone looking for a distant haven.

To begin with everything went smoothly. There was commercial investment, the immigrants were experienced professionals, cities and industrial parks sprang up, and farms were established. But the groups that arrived from the Central worlds weren't just dissatisfied with Higher culture; they tended to be insular, intolerant of other ideologies and lifestyles. Petty local disputes had a way of swelling to encompass entire ethnic or ideological communities. Internal migration accelerated, transforming urban areas into miniature city-states, all with massively different laws and creeds. Cooperation between them was minimal. The planetary parliament was “suspended” in 3180 after yet another debate ended in personal violence between senators, and that more or less marked the end of Sholapur's economic and cultural development. It was regarded as hermetic by the rest of the Commonwealth; even the External worlds with their attitude of forthright independence viewed it as a kind of embarrassing dropout cousin. The nearest settled worlds called it Planet of the Hotheads and had little contact. Despite that, a great many starships continued to visit. Some of the micronations had laws—or a lack of laws—that could be advantageous to certain types of merchants.

Five thousand kilometers above the planetary surface, the starship
Mellanie's Redemption
fell out of hyperspace amid a collapsing bubble of violet Cherenkov radiation. There was no single planetary traffic control Troblum could contact; instead he filed an approach request with Ikeo City and received permission to land.

Mellanie's Redemption
measured thirty meters long, with a sleek flared cone shape with forward-curving tail fins that looked functionally aerodynamic. In fact, they were thermal radiators added to handle the extensively customized power system. The cabin layout was a central circular lounge ringed by ten sleeping cubicles and a washroom. Hyperdrive ships did not come much bigger; they simply were not cost-effective to build. Starline companies used them almost exclusively for passengers wealthy enough to pay for fast transport. Most starships used a continuous wormhole drive; they were slower but could be built to any size and carried the bulk of interstellar trade around the External worlds.

Originally,
Mellanie's Redemption
had been a specialist craft built to carry priority cargo or passengers between the External worlds—a risky proposition at the best of times. The company that had commissioned her had lurched from one financial crisis to another until Troblum made them an offer for their superfast lame duck. He claimed she would be refitted as a big personal yacht, which was a white lie. It was her three large cargo holds that made her perfect for him; their volume was ideal for carrying the equipment he was working on to re-create the Anomine “one shot” wormhole. Marius had agreed to the acquisition, and the additional EMAs materialized in Troblum's account. Although the ship was supposed to remain on Arevalo until Troblum was ready to move the project to its test stage, he found it indispensable for some of the transactions in which he was involved. The addition of a navy-grade stealth field was especially beneficial when it came to slipping away from Arevalo without Marius being aware of anything untoward.

“City” was a somewhat overzealous description for Ikeo, which comprised a fifty-mile stretch of rugged subtopical coastline with a small town in the middle and a lot of mansions spread along the cliff tops on either side. Ideologically, the province could best be described as a free trade area, with several individuals specializing in artifact salvage. It did have a resident-funded police force, which its poorer neighboring states referred to as a strategic defense system.

Mellanie's Redemption
descended at the focal point of several ground-based tracking sensors. She landed on Pad 23 at the city's spaceport, a two-kilometer circle of mown grass with twenty-four concrete pads, a couple of black dome-shaped maintenance hangars, and a warehouse owned by an intersolar service supply company. There were no arrival formalities. A capsule drew up beside the starship as Troblum walked down the short airstair, puffing heavily from the rush of heat and humidity that hit him as soon as the airlock opened.

The capsule took him several miles out of town to a Romanesque villa atop a low cliff. Three sides of the single-story building surrounded an elaborate pool and patio area festooned with colorful plants. Several waterfalls spilled down large strategically positioned boulders to splash into the pool. The view down onto the white beach was spectacular, with a needle-profile glide-boat anchored just offshore.

Stubsy Florac was waiting for him by the bar at the side of the pool. Not that anyone called him Stubsy to his face; Florac was sensitive about his height, sensitive that he didn't get it changed during rejuvenation therapy because to do that would be to admit that he was a head shorter than most adults and that it bothered him enough to do something about it. He wore knee-length sports trousers and a simple pale blue shirt open to the waist to reveal a chest covered in hair and a stomach that was starting to bulge. When Troblum appeared, he smiled broadly and pushed his oversize sunglasses onto his forehead. His hairline was a lot higher and thinner than Troblum was used to seeing even on External world citizens.

“Hey! My man,” Florac exclaimed loudly. He held his arms out and shifted his hips from side to side. “You been dieting or what?” He laughed loudly at his own joke. All his companions smiled.

There were seven of them visible in the pool area, either lying on sunloungers or sitting at the table in the shallow end of the pool, sipping drinks that were mostly fruit and ice. Troblum was always slightly uncomfortable about the girls Stubsy kept at the villa—not quite clones, but there were standard requirements. For a start they were all a lot taller than their boss; two were even taller than Troblum. Naturally they were beautiful, with long silken hair, bodies toned as if they were part of some ancient Olympic athlete squad, and wearing tight bikinis—dressing for dinner here meant putting on a pair of shorts and sandals. A low-level field scan revealed them to be enriched with several advanced weapons systems; half the muscle ridges etched beneath their taut skin were actually force field webbing. If they ganged up on Troblum, they probably could overwhelm his biononic defenses. They acted like a hybrid between floozies and executive assistants. Troblum knew the image the arrangement was supposed to convey but didn't understand why. Stubsy must have had a lot more insecurities than his height.

Troblum's worn old toga suit rippled around his vast body as he raised his arms. “Do I look smaller?”

“Hey, come on, I'm just fucking with you. What I got, it entitles me.”

“What you claim you've got.”

“Man, just shove that stake in a little farther; I don't think it went right through my heart. How are you, man? It's been a while.” Stubsy gave Troblum a hug, arms reaching almost a third of the way around, squeezing like he was being reunited with a parent.

“Too long,” Troblum suggested.

“Still got your ship. Sweet ship. You Higher guys, you live the life, all right.”

Troblum looked down on Stubsy's head. “So come and join us.”

“Wowa there! Not quite ready for that. Okay? Man, don't even joke about it. I'd need to spend a decade wiping all my bad memories before they'd let me set foot on the Central worlds. Hey, you want a drink? Couple of sandwiches, maybe? Alcinda, she knows how to boss a culinary unit around.” He lowered his voice and winked. “Not the only thing she knows her way around, huh?”

Troblum tried not to grimace in dismay. “Some beer, maybe.”

“Sure, sure.” Florac gestured to some chairs beside a table. They sat down while one of the girls brought over a large mug of light beer. “Hey, Somonie, bring the case out for my man, will you.”

A girl in a vivid pink bikini gave a short nod and went inside.

“Where did you find it?” Troblum asked.

“A contact of mine. Hey, have I been retrofitted without a brain and somebody not tell me? If I tell you about my people, what's left for me in this universe?”

“Quite.”

“You know I've got a network pumping away down there in the civilized Commonwealth. This week it's some guy; next it's another. Who knows where shit is going to appear? You want to stab me in the back, first you got to build your own network.”

“I already have.”

Florac blinked, his best-friends smile fading. “You have?”

“Sure. Hundreds of guys like you.”

“You kill me, you know that?” He laughed too loudly and raised his glass. “People like me. Ho, man!”

“I meant, what planet was it recovered from? My record search confirmed Vic Russell handed it back in to the Serious Crimes Directorate when he returned from the Boongate relocation. It was obsolete by then. The SCD would have disposed of it.”

“Beats me,” Florac said with a shrug. “Guess there were people like you and me around even back in those days.”

Troblum said nothing. The salvager could be right. For all his personality faults and distasteful lifestyle, he had always provided bona fide items. A large number of artifacts in Troblum's museum had come from Florac.

Somonie returned from the villa carrying a long stable-environment case. It was heavy; her arm muscles were standing proud. She put it on the table in front of Troblum and Stubsy.

“Before we go any further,” Troblum said, “I have the SCD serial code. The genuine one. So do you still want to open the case?”

“I don't give a shit what fucking number you think you got, man. This is for real. And hey, guess what, you aren't the only asshole in the Commonwealth that creams himself over this shit. I come to you first because I figure we got a friendship going by now. You want to call me out, you want to crap all over my reputation, and you know what, fat boy, you can roll all the way back to your ship and fuck the hell off this world. My fucking world.”

“We'd better look at it, then,” Troblum said. “I'd hate to lose your friendship.” He did not care about Stubsy Florac; there were dozens of scavengers just like him. But it was an interesting claim; he'd never really thought there were other collectors outside museums. He wondered idly if they could be persuaded to sell. Perhaps Florac could inquire.

Florac's u-shadow gave the case a key, and the top unfurled to reveal an antique ion rifle. A protective shield shimmered faintly around it, but Troblum could clearly see the meter-long barrel that ended in a stubby black metal handle that had several attachment points and an open induction socket on the bottom.

“Yeah, well,” Stubsy said with a modest grimace that almost could have been embarrassment. “The other bit is missing. Obviously. But what the fuck, this is the business end, right? That's what counts.”

“There is no ‘other bit,' ” Troblum said. “This is designed to be used by someone in an armor suit; it clips onto the lower arm.”

“No shit?”

It was an effort for Troblum to speak calmly. The weapon certainly looked genuine. “Would you turn off the field, please.”

The shimmer vanished. Troblum's field function swept across the antique rifle. Deep in the barrel's casing were long chains of specifically arranged molecules spelling out a unique code. He licked the sweat from his upper lip. “It's real,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Yo!” Stubsy slapped his hands together in victory. “Do I ever let you down?”

Troblum couldn't stop staring at the weapon. “Only in the flesh. Would you like payment now?”

“Man, this is why I love you. Yes. Yes, please. I would very much like payment now, please.”

Troblum told his u-shadow to transfer the funds.

“You want to stay for dinner?” Stubsy asked. “Maybe party with some of the girls?”

“Put the protective field back on, please. This humidity is inimical.”

“Sure thing. So which one do you like?”

“You don't have any idea how important this artifact is, do you?”

“I know its value, man; that's what counts. The fact some policeman shot an alien with it a thousand years ago doesn't exactly ding my bell.”

“Vic Russell worked with Paula Myo. And I know you've heard of her.”

“Sure, man, this planet's living nightmare. Didn't know she was around in those days, too.”

“Oh, yes, she was around even before the Starflyer War. And it wasn't an alien Vic shot, it was Tarlo, a Directorate colleague who had been corrupted by the Starflyer and betrayed Vic and his wife. Tarlo is one of the most arguably important Starflyer agents there ever was.”

“Ozzie, now I get it: This was the gun that killed him. That connects you.”