Authors: Peter F. Hamilton
Five small passive sensor remotes slipped out of the sea to take up position on various high points around the estate, and she settled down to wait. Her piano slid out of its padded storage alcove; three hundred years old, made out of fiwood that glimmered with a soft red-brown sheen in the cabin’s subdued lighting. The instrument had been handcrafted in a workshop on Lothian by a Higher artisan who’d taken a hundred and fifty years to perfect his craft, exceeding even the quality of Earth’s legendary piano makers. Paula had commissioned it new, and the lush sound was well worth the ninety-year waiting list.
She sat at the velvet stool, pulled the sheet music out, and once again tried to play ‘Für Elise’. Her trouble was the lack of practice time. It would be all too easy to use a music program linked with a dexterity function. But Paula wanted to be able to play the piece
properly
. A piano as beautiful as this one deserved that level of respect and commitment. Fingers ruled by a program would be no better than simply playing a recording.
Curious native fish nosing round the unusual ovoid resting on the sandy seabed were subjected to the ancient melody repeated dozens of times, interrupted, and begun again with relentless determination.
A day later, when she was playing with a lot more confidence, Paula had to admit Troblum’s ship was extremely well shielded. She was caught off guard by the large figure in a shabby old toga suit riding a small scooter out of the forest on the far side of the Florac estate. None of her sensors had caught the
Mellanie’s Redemption
coming down out of orbit. Her fingers hung motionless above keys of vat-grown ivory as she waited to see what would happen.
The scooter stopped just outside the estate boundary posts. It wobbled oddly as Troblum opened a link to Florac. Then the perimeter disarmed, and Troblum flew on unsteadily to the villa.
Soon after he arrived at the front door and went inside, a force field came on over the villa. The leading edge of the monsoon had arrived.
Troblum called ANA:Governance security division, who relayed the call to Paula. Her remote sensors couldn’t quite get close enough to the villa boundary to give her a clear image of him standing beside the pool, but she could certainly see the line of exotic yellow and green flowering plants that hedged in the one open side of the pool area as she talked to him. She didn’t lie. She would definitely be at the villa within two hours.
Paula told the smartcore to retract the piano back into its alcove, climbed into her armour, activated three of the combat-bots stowed in the starship’s forward hold, and stepped out through the airlock. The suit’s regrav lifted her straight to the surface, emerging into driving rain as the heavy storm clouds raced overhead. She flew in a low fast curve to the top of the cliff above the white beach, landing beside one of the estate boundary’s silver pillars. The three combatbots hovered protectively overhead, difficult to detect in the deluge. Lightning flashed constantly. Sensors locked on to her, and the villa’s smartcore demanded she identify herself.
‘You are expecting me. I am Paula Myo, an ANA representative on official business. Let me in now.’
There was no reply. The boundary posts remained active, so she used a proton laser to kill the eight nearest to her. Her suit flew her towards the villa, keeping five metres above the ground. Ahead of her, the force field was hardening. She curved around until she was facing the open end of the three-sided building. Water rippled down the force field, blurring direct visual observation. However, she saw three Amazon-like women in bikinis hurrying round the pool to take up positions behind the waterfall boulders. The small intelligence file on Florac had mentioned the kind of bodyguards he favoured.
‘Oh,
come on
,’ she muttered. They weren’t even wearing armour. Stupid amateurs.
Their formation was a standard one, protecting access to the centre of the villa. Paula guessed that would be where their boss was cowering, along with Troblum.
Two of the combatbots dropped a flock of energy-dumps onto the top of the villa’s force field dome. The small dark spheres skidded and slithered down the curve. Bright energy flares whipped out around each contact point, and the dumps began to slow as if the dome had somehow become tacky. Lightning flashed out from the clouds overhead, attracted by the brawny spray of ions fizzing out from each dump to slam into the force field. The darkness surrounding the dumps began to expand and slowly sink through the force field, which was now sparkling a dangerous stressed crimson.
Hot, steaming water began to seep through the force field to splatter the pool area. The villa’s protective force field shone like a red dwarf sun that was being eaten by black cancers. Paula’s full field function scan was burning its way through the faltering dome. She could make out several weapons enrichments powering up in the Amazon women. But there was no sign of Troblum.
‘Where are you?’ she muttered. Another heavily enriched human was moving slowly inside the villa. Hard to pinpoint with the tormented force field still obstinately functional. Her field function still couldn’t locate Troblum, he must be deeper inside, possibly underground.
Lightning lashed down again. The combatbots added three proton laser strikes to the impact. It was too much. The force field collapsed in a devastating sonic shockwave that ripped the pool plants to shreds, sending a plume of smouldering leaves cascading up into the sodden sky. Windows burst apart, flinging long shards of glass across the paving slabs.
Paula swooped into the pool area as the downpour saturated the villa. The Amazon women fired a barrage of X-ray lasers and disruptor pulses at her. Jelly gun shots slashed harmlessly across her armour’s force field. She was puzzled by that. Surely Stubsy or whoever had blown apart the glide boat had stronger weapons that this?
‘Deactivate your enrichments right now,’ Paula commanded. The combatbots streaked through the deluge towards the women. Two of them fired at the hulking bots as they withdrew back into the villa. Paula pushed a disruptor pulse into one of the waterfall boulders just as the one in the bright green bikini left it to scamper through a ruined patio door. The boulder detonated into thousands of fragments which embedded themselves in the villa walls. ‘Halt,’ she yelled. But the women scattered inside what she took to be a long lounge. Again they were in a defensive formation. ‘Troblum, come out. I’m here at your invitation for heaven’s sake.’
Another fusillade of energy shots hammered into her force field. Dazzling purple static webs roared out from the impact points, vaporizing the rain pouring down her shoulders. Paula sighed, it was going to be difficult to neutralize the stupid women without damaging them. Her field function swept through the villa. The enriched person she’d spotted before was creeping along the back of the room the women were protecting. She still couldn’t locate Troblum.
‘Enough of this,’ Paula decided. The armour’s regrav lifted her off the ground, starting to power her forward. She fired a disruptor pulse, blasting apart the wall in front of her and half of the roof above, opening up the lounge. A cascade of debris came tumbling down along with the rain. The women dived for cover, immediately reorganizing their fire pattern.
The sensor remotes outside the villa reported something approaching the estate through the torrent of rain. A large craft, keeping very low, flying the same route as Troblum’s scooter out of the forest. His starship. Paula slowed abruptly, uncertain of the ship’s ability.
In front of her, yellow and purple petals of exotic energy erupted from the floor of the lounge. Eight of them, curving up like the jaws of some vicious predator. They swept past barely a metre from her armour, clashing together to form a broad column. It began to twist, the petals separating out again, stretching out towards her, elongating
fast
.
Paula’s suit regrav shoved at her violently, pushing her backwards as she gasped in shock. She and the three combatbots unleashed a torrent of firepower at the base of the exotic energy manifestation. Trying to kill the generator. The tip of exotic energy stroked the front of her armour’s force field. Weird warning symbols erupted across her exovision.
The ground exploded upwards.
Paula was flung high into the air above the villa, spinning out of control. For a second she thought she’d punctured the exotic energy generator. But the yellow spectres were still leaping around like flames in a hurricane. They lasted for a second before snuffing out.
Paula stabilized her tumbling flight fifty metres above the villa. When her sensors swept the scene below, she saw a huge crater had completely ruptured one side of the building. It was twenty metres wide, with walls of raw smouldering earth. The bottom was open, leading into some underground space. Twisted metallic wreckage lay everywhere.
‘Get here now,’ Paula ordered the
Alexis Denken
. She directed the three combatbots to attack the coordinate of the exotic energy generator. A lethal barrage of disruptor pulses and proton lasers lashed down, illuminating the broken villa with an incandescent nimbus far brighter than the lightning flaring overhead.
Paula was dropping fast now, anxious to escape any possible contact with the exotic energy. She’d been lucky before, but that generator was quite capable of caging her, suit and all. Someone was scrambling up out of the crater. Her field scan showed her a large person. Higher, with an integral force field that was barely functional.
‘Troblum,’ she broadcast.
He stumbled to a halt at the top of the crater. Head swinging round as if he were drunk.
The
Alexis Denken
broke surface and accelerated hard. Ten combatbots shot out of its forward hold to add their protective cover. And another craft was suddenly streaking in towards the villa at mach nine, slicing round the low surrounding hills in a cacophony of brutalized air.
Paula touched down on a patch of muddy soil that minutes before had been a pleasant herbaceous border. The first starship had reached the crater, its profile a classic rocketship cone with eight radial forward-swept tailfins. Its nose dipped down towards Troblum, an airlock irising open.
‘Stop,’ Paula told him. Then her field function showed her another figure emerging out of the ground into the ruins of Florac’s villa. This one was glowing white, completely impervious to any field scan. Paula instinctively ignored Troblum, knowing she was now confronting the real threat. They faced each other across the steaming remains of the swimming pool.
The
Alexis Denken
came thundering through the monsoon surrounded by its entourage of combatbots. It halted behind Paula, hovering a couple of metres off the ground, and extended its force field to envelop her. Enough firepower to vaporize a medium-sized city focused on the lambent figure standing calmly inside the shattered walls. Troblum vanished inside his starship’s airlock, and the craft swung through ninety degrees to point at the storm clouds. Then the third starship arrived. Paula expected it to fire on Troblum’s ship. But instead it took up position behind the white figure, mirroring Paula and the
Alexis Denken
. Troblum’s ship accelerated upwards at twenty-five gees. The
Alexis Denken
reported a great deal of powerful weapon systems in the interloper’s starship were powered up.
‘Marius, is that you?’ Paula asked.
The white figure pointed. Somehow Stubsy Florac had survived the carnage. He was crawling over the smashed wooden floorboards, blood seeping from dozens of lacerations.
‘Damn it,’ Paula hissed. If she slugged it out with her opponent the outcome was uncertain. ANA had equipped her well, but the Faction whose representative she was obviously facing had a pretty formidable arsenal, too. If she won, she’d never know who was challenging her, and through her ANA, so brazenly. There would be nothing left of the vanquished except a dispersing ion swarm. And whoever won, it would mean the certain bodyloss of Stubsy Florac, and probably his death. There might even be more survivors hidden in the villa’s wreckage; he did have several of the stupid Amazon bodyguards. Despite all the traits and qualities she had cast off over the centuries, her certainty of right and wrong remained absolute. She, Paula Myo, did not have the right to put civilians in danger, even civilians as repugnant as Florac. Her place in the universe was to uphold the law. However inconvenient Florac was at this moment, she could not risk allowing him to come in harm’s way.
In any case, Florac would be a valuable witness. An opponent such as a Faction was best dealt with by ANA, not herself and a representative clashing in this fashion.
She stood still, staring at the cold glowing figure on the other side of the pool. Her field scan probed at the lustrous force field, but couldn’t find a single flaw. One thing: it wasn’t Marius – too short.
The white figure was drawn up into its starship. A hand was raised in a mocking wave. A silly wiggle of the hips and then the airlock closed, cutting off the shining aurora. The starship slid smoothly into the storm clouds, creating a dark whorl as it vanished into the stratosphere. Paula used the sensors on the
Alexis Denken
to track it as far as possible. The stealth effect came on when it was clear of the ionosphere. There was a minute quantum signature which the smartcore could just detect as it accelerated high above the equator, then it must have dropped into hyperspace. The finest sensors ANA could devise picked up a tiny disturbance among the quantum fields which indicated an ultradrive. Then there was nothing.
Paula put her lips together and whistled a long single note. The combatbots hovering above the villa showed her Stubsy Florac writhing in agony on his decimated wooden flooring. She hurried over in time to see strange grey growths blooming from his mouth and nose.
Her u-shadow opened a link directly to his macrocellular clusters. ‘Florac? Can you receive this?’
The furry grey substance was emerging from his eyes.
‘Who was it, Florac? Do you know who did this?’