“Might be worth it.” He didn’t sound very certain.
“Just say the word. I owe you.”
“No you don’t.”
“A month’s unisphere access, and a week at a B and B if I remember rightly. There’s a lot of interest piling up in that account, Hoshe Finn.”
“Another time, another universe.”
“I’d still like to repay you.”
“I’m not sure it’s worth it. Look, this is just about over now. Sheldon will destroy the Prime homeworld; Paula and the Guardians will track down and eliminate the Starflyer. Everybody needs to start thinking what they’re going to do after the war, because life is going to be a whole lot sweeter then. After what we’ve all been through, it can’t be anything else.”
“God, I hadn’t even thought about afterward. I’ve been so scared since Randtown. Trying to keep one step ahead takes up every moment.”
“You’re a damn good reporter. I bet you wind up with your own show.”
“That’d be nice,” she said, and it was a comfy thought, the kind she had before the ships flew down out of a clean Randtown sky, and her world turned upside down. Again. “I could do with something that’s going to last.”
“Well, there you go then.”
“There’s just one thing I’ve got to do first.”
Hoshe gave a mock-groan. “What?”
“I’m going to cover Alessandra Baron’s arrest. I want to see her led away in chains. I want to show the entire Commonwealth that most beautiful sight.”
“They don’t manacle people anymore. Besides, if she’s a Starflyer agent it’s likely to get violent.”
“Here’s hoping,” Mellanie muttered with a wicked smirk. “Who’s going to be the arresting officer?”
“Hasn’t been assigned yet,” Hoshe said, with an eye on Nelson and the Raiel.
“But you could put in for it, couldn’t you? You could do that while I speak to Nigel. How about that? A trade, not a repayment.”
“Done.”
***
The maglev express was almost empty. After all, who in their right mind would travel to Wessex right now?
Alic walked out of the first-class carriage onto the nearly deserted platform in the Narrabri station’s Oxsorrol terminal. The three cases carrying his armor suit and weapons followed loyally a few meters behind. Vic Russell was close on his heels, eager to get going. Matthew Oldfield, John King, and Jim Nwan formed a rearguard group, trying to keep their conversation lighthearted. It wasn’t going well, every movement agitated some injury sustained on Illuminatus. Alic knew they shouldn’t be going into combat again so soon, but this mission overrode any kind of by-the-book protocol. Besides, he kept telling himself, there were five of them, and they’d raided the Paris office armory for some serious heavy-caliber hardware. There would be no repeat of Treetops no matter what Tarlo was equipped with this time.
Two men were waiting for them on the platform outside their carriage. One of them was in a navy captain’s uniform. Alic recognized him immediately. “Captain Monroe?”
“Pleased to meet you. Daniel Alster here is our liaison with CST for this operation, and we have some very good news for you.”
“We can go?” Vic demanded.
“Yes,” Oscar said.
“All right!” Vic high-fived with John King.
“We have some transport for you gentlemen.” Daniel gestured at a big Ford ten-seater Holan parked on the side of the platform. “It’ll take us over to the station’s track engineering facility.”
“What’s there?” Vic asked.
“A train that will take you through the wormhole.”
“How long before we go through?”
“Once you’re suited up, we can take you straight to the gateway,” Daniel said, unperturbed by the big man’s attitude.
“Thank you,” Alic said before Vic could make a scene. He was already regretting agreeing to the big man coming on the mission. Even if they were successful in engaging Tarlo he wasn’t sure they could get him into the cage they’d brought.
“You should know the gateway will only be opening once,” Oscar said. “After you’re through, you will be evacuating into the future with the rest of the population.”
“We accept that,” Alic said. He wondered if he should give Vic another chance to withdraw. Once the mission was over, the big man would be separated from Gwyneth for a long time.
The Ford drove them to one of the eight long sheds that housed CST’s Wessex track engineering division. A single gentian-blue carriage was waiting for them, which looked like it had been in service for a century at least. There was a tiny cabin at the front, with five rows of bench seats giving the track crew a view through grimy windows. Three-quarters of the spartan metal-panel interior was simply storage space for bots and equipment. Long doors at the rear had their own lift platforms, which were folded up against the sides.
“It’s not fast,” Alster said as they climbed up the ladders to the cabin. “But it is reliable, and it can get you there easily enough. The drive array has modern software; traffic control can take you straight across the station yard to the gateway. I’ll be in the control center myself to supervise the opening.”
“Thanks,” Alic told him. The rest of the team was climbing up to see what they’d got.
“Your cases can come up on the door elevators,” Alster told them. “If you’d like to get suited up now, we can begin.”
“Keep a communications link open to me from now on,” Oscar said.
“Will do,” Alic said. “And thank Nigel Sheldon for the opportunity. It means a lot to us.”
“I know.” Oscar backed out of the door, and went down the short ladder to the ground.
“All right,” Alic said. “Jim, get the doors open and our cases inside. We need to be ready. Matthew, establish a link to Edmund Li. Let’s find out what the bastard’s up to. Then we can finalize our game plan.”
The Ables ND47 was fully automatic, of course. New arrays had been installed during its refurbishment; the drive software was capable of controlling it through the maze of tracks that made up all of CST’s planetary stations and then taking the engine out on the main lines of whatever planet it was visiting.
There were manual systems fitted, but they were there to comply with safety regulations rather than necessity. Adam gazed over the broad console that took up the entire front portion of the tiny cab sitting atop the huge engine. The two narrow windows in front gave him a view along the top of the engine, where the darkish purple metal segments were riddled with long black grilles and stumpy tarnished-chrome vent pipes. When he turned around, the single rear window showed him the two long wagons pressing up against the engine. Display screens along the back of the console filled with graphics that illustrated the coupling integration diagnostics at work, checking the integrity of the connections. The left-hand side of the console was a burgundy color, containing all the nuclear micropile controls and readouts. A completely new console section, which was fixed to newly welded brackets on the wall, presented the control systems for the force field and armaments the Guardians had grafted on in the last few days. That was why they’d agreed someone should be in the cab, though again with modern control arrays it wasn’t strictly necessary. They all just felt more confident with someone up there.
Adam saw the last of the mobile gantries lower its platform, and roll away from the engine. When he stuck his head out of the cab door, he could see Kieran walking among the engineeringbots as they fussed around the wheels.
His e-butler told him a call was coming in from Marisa McFoster.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Victor’s on the move,” she said. “There’s a whole load of vehicles driving out of the Sunforge warehouse. Vans and small trucks, all shielded—we can’t see what’s inside.”
“Where are they going?”
“It looks like they’re heading for the gateway. They’re not using any of the yard’s service roads, they’re just driving right across the rails.”
“Don’t expose yourself,” he told her. “Just maintain the observation.”
“Is this it, is the Starflyer coming?”
“I don’t know. But we’re ready for it.” Adam sounded a single blast on the engine’s horn that reverberated around the big shed. He couldn’t resist; he leaned out of the cab door and bellowed: “All aboard.”
Wilson knew he should dump his irritation toward Dudley Bose; it really wasn’t helpful. But there was just something about the astronomer that rubbed him the wrong way. He’d been furious when the old man lobbied himself onto the Second Chance; he’d been exasperated with the young re-lifer who hadn’t adjusted to his new circumstances, and now the man had all his memories back and seemed a whole lot more rational, he was still irritating, still pressing for attention, getting in the way.
It had seemed like a good idea while they waited for the various arrest squads to bring in known Starflyer agents, and Paula and Nigel began their search for the actual alien itself. Wilson and Anna had gone over to the Bose motile when it finished talking to Qatux, and asked if it had accessed the signal that the Far Away flare had broadcast.
“No,” it said, “I haven’t.”
“The Commonwealth has never been able to translate it,” Wilson said. “But if you’re right about the Starflyer being an alienPrime—”
“I understand,” the Bose motile said. “I should be able to translate it for you.”
“I’d like you to try,” Wilson said. “It’s been bothering me ever since we found out what the Starflyer is. Suppose it was talking to another ship?”
“That’s unlikely,” Dudley Bose said. He’d inched his way closer to them as soon as Wilson started talking to the Bose motile.
Wilson pressed his teeth together, then smiled tightly. “Why’s that?”
“The flare emission was omnidirectional.”
