They twisted over a junction to another skyway, which sent them arching around and down toward a building that looked like a silver clamshell. The pod zipped into the huge lobby on the eighteenth floor, and stopped by a white pillar where several others were clustered, waiting.
“Better than your Merc, huh?” Mac said as they climbed out.
Oscar pulled a face. “Just different.”
One of the Chairwoman’s political staffers was waiting for them, a young-looking woman in an expensive business suit. “Welcome to city hall, gentlemen,” Soolina Depfor said. “Ms. Gall is expecting you.” She led them straight into the office of the Chairwoman of the Human Residents Association, a huge oval room that had to be inside the building’s largest central rib. Its ceiling was a half cone of stained glass whose colors undulated in a long perpendicular wave pattern. There was only one piece of furniture, a desk right at the far end; an arrangement that made it seem like an old-fashioned throne room. But then, Oscar knew, Toniea Gall had been Chairwoman of the Residents Association for over a century. Few of history’s absolute monarchs had reigned for that long.
The Chairwoman, a tall woman with blue-black skin, dressed in a traditional African tribal robe, rose to greet them as they approached. With less than a decade left before her next rejuvenation, her face was dignified and solemn. Gray strands had infiltrated her tight-cropped cap of hair. It said something of the confidence she had in herself that she didn’t bother having it dyed. But then she won every election with a substantial majority. Her few critics and opponents claimed it was because nobody else really wanted the job; it was nothing other than a figurehead position; the High Angel ran all the services in the domes with peerless efficiency. To say that was to badly underestimate her ability. The High Angel might have started off simply as a convenient dormitory town for the astroengineering companies, but now the three domes—New Glasgow, Moscow Star, and Cracacol—were home to over fifteen million souls. Two new domes, New Auckland and Babuyan Atoll, which the Chairwoman had negotiated with High Angel, were now almost fully grown and ready for human occupancy. The freeflying factories outside manufactured a small but significant overall percentage of the Commonwealth’s high technology systems. By any measure, the High Angel was a big success story, and Toniea Gall, who had arrived as a company-contract ion thruster technician with the first wave of residents, was both a mirror and champion of that success story. She was also one of the longest serving heads of state, and lately the political media had begun to talk of her as a serious potential candidate for the presidency.
Oscar clasped the hand that the Chairwoman proffered, feeling dry, cool skin. “Thank you for seeing us, ma’am.”
“I was in two minds if I should,” Toniea Gall said. Her voice lacked any trace of humor or welcome. “Along with the rest of the residents, I felt quite insulted that Nigel Sheldon ignored us as a location to build his starship.”
Oscar’s smile tightened; he didn’t dare risk a glance at Mac. “I’m confident that no insult was intended, ma’am.”
“Then why not build it here?” she asked, genuinely puzzled. “We have all the facilities, as well as a huge pool of experience and knowledge. Building it at Anshun must have added a considerable amount to the cost of the project. Why would he do that?”
“Anshun is somewhat closer to the Dyson Pair—”
“Pah.” She waved a hand dismissively. “As if that would make any difference, a few days travel time at best. Is he trying to establish a rival space industry?”
“I assure you, ma’am, the only thing being built at Anshun is the starship. There are no freefall industrial facilities. A great many of our componants are sourced from the High Angel.”
“Humm. I’ll accept that for now, but you can tell Mr. Sheldon directly from me, I am extremely displeased by the decision. The next time his proxies need support for a close vote in the Senate, he need not come looking for it here.”
“I will let him know,” Oscar said meekly.
“So what are you here for?”
“We would like to ask the High Angel what it knows about the Dyson Pair. Any information, however small, would benefit our mission.”
“We are connected to the unisphere, you know.”
Oscar managed to avoid her piercing stare. “My immediate boss favors a very hands-on personal approach for something as critical as this, and the Residents Association has a permanent open link to the High Angel’s controlling intelligence.”
“It doesn’t know anything about the Dyson Pair.”
“We’d like to confirm that.”
Her lips pressed together in a thin smile. “The horse’s mouth, eh, gentlemen. Very well.” She gestured at the vaulting window behind her. “Did you see all the domes on your approach?”
“Most of them, yes.”
“The Raiel live in one. We know that because they consented to contact with humans. As to the other eight original domes, nobody knows who or what they house. Three of them contain cities or structures of some kind; they light up at night but nothing has ever been seen moving inside. One dome seems to be filled with mist; people claim they’ve glimpsed lights and shadows in there, but there’s no proof. One is permanently dark, though it does emit heavily in the infrared spectrum, indicating an internal temperature higher than an H-congruous world. One is permanently opaque and illuminated. And the last two have a thirty-seven-hour day-night cycle, but also remain opaque. So you see, gentlemen, after two centuries living here we don’t even know who our neighbors are. The High Angel prizes privacy above all else. Now you’re here to ask it about a species that has deliberately locked itself away from the rest of the galaxy.”
“It is a long shot, I admit,” Oscar said. “But we have to ask, you can understand that.”
“I understand your motives, but I don’t approve. We have to safeguard our own position, a priority which I place at the top of my list. However, you are welcome to use the Association’s open channel to our host.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
They retreated from her office, following a couple of paces behind Soolina Depfor as her heels clicked loudly on the polished floor. Oscar could feel the Chairwoman’s eyes staring into his back the whole way out. As soon as the tall doors closed, they exchanged a glance. Mac puffed his cheeks out. “Jeeze, what a ballbreaker,” he muttered.
At which point Soolina Depfor turned around, raising an eyebrow. Mac’s face turned a heated red.
“Our official channel is through here,” Soolina Depfor said. She showed them into a windowless conference room off the reception hall. It was built on a considerably less grand scale than the Chairwoman’s office, with a slim oval table in the middle that had six high-back leather chairs around it. “Just talk,” she told them. “The High Angel can hear you.” The door closed behind her.
“Make that two ballbreakers,” Mac said as they sat at one end of the table.
Oscar gave him a warning glance. “Hello?”
The featureless wall at the far end of the room glowed blue, then cleared to show a mirror image of the conference room. A man was sitting about halfway down the table. He wore a black V-necked sweater and dark trousers, his broad face had a couple of days’ stubble, and the hair above his forehead was receding. It was an image aimed at reassurance, the kind of senior executive you could trust. “Hello.”
“You’re the High Angel?” Mac asked.
The man shrugged. “I find this representation helps your species. Just showing an image of my hull and habitation section seems a bit pretentious, somehow.”
“Thank you for the consideration,” Oscar said.
“After meeting with our dear Chairwoman, making life easy is the least I could do for you. You were right, Mac, she is a complete ballbreaker. I guess that’s why you people keep voting for her—who’d dare vote against. Of course, she does do a good job as well.”
“You heard what we said in there?”
“I hear what I want to inside myself. As I did explain to your Commonwealth leaders right at the start, I’m here to learn about different species; you can only do that through observation.”
“I know this isn’t quite on topic, but why are you collecting information?”
“Why does your species spend so much time obsessing about sex, politics, and religion? We are what we are, no matter what our appearance, nature, and size. My priority is gathering information on alien species, I’m an explorer and social anthropologist. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“Okay,” Mac said amicably. “Who are you collecting it for?”
“I’m not even sure anymore, I’ve been doing it so long now. Then again, that might be a lie and I’m actually feeding information on this galaxy and its defense capabilities to a fleet of warships that are thundering in from Andromeda. One day, my kind will regroup at the center of the collapsing universe, and carry the seeds of a new evolution into the next universe to be born, a mix of the best of what’s gone before. Or, I watch the planetborn for entertainment here in my Olympian orbit. Pick your reason, gentlemen, your species has forwarded all those and more.”
“Why are aliens all intent on being enigmatic?”
“You’re not classing me in there with the Silfen, are you? It’s really very simple, as I said, this is what I do. I gain, I suppose, satisfaction from meeting you and learning from you. I regret I teach very little in return, but that, too, is my nature. Maybe one day I will decide to do something with all the knowledge I have acquired, and transform or even transcend; but for the moment I haven’t reached anything like a data saturation point. I remain curious about the universe.”
“Did that curiosity ever take you to the Dyson Pair?” Oscar asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. Our Chairwoman was being truthful with you; I have no information on either star.”
“Aren’t you curious, though? Surely a species which can erect a barrier around a star would be worth studying?”
The High Angel grinned broadly. “If they’ve put up a barrier, how would I study them? No, you’re right, they would make a most interesting addition to my little menagerie. But I’ve only just encountered you.”
“Fair enough,” Mac said. “But aren’t you interested in the reason why the barriers went up?”
“Of course I am. But again, I can’t help you. I don’t know the reason, I’ve never visited that sector of space.”
“What about observation? Did you ever sense any kind of conflict going on out there before the barriers went up?”
“No, I didn’t. That whole section of space is unremarkable as far as I know. Certainly there have been no unnatural alterations made on a stellar level, no stars extinguished or turning nova; nor am I aware of any planets physically annihilated.”
“What about in general? Even you admit you’ve been around for a long time, have you ever encountered anything that would require a barrier like this to defend a star? Are there species out there that would attack a star or obliterate an inhabited planet?”
“Intent and capability are not the same thing. There are many humans throughout your history who have shown no compunction about unleashing death and disaster on a massive scale; if they had possessed a device capable of exterminating a star they might well have used it. And in the past I have observed species who
