“No, we’re fighting for the Starflyer,” Nigel said. “We’re its storm troopers, whether we like it or not. If what Dudley has told us about the original Primes is true, then the Starflyer knows they will never allow the alienPrimes to survive. It’s using us to fight them, and conveniently ourselves, into destruction. We’re the new class of motile, to be manipulated and sent out to die while it remains intact behind the battle lines.”
“That’s why MorningLightMountain had flare bombs,” Wilson said in a relieved tone. “The technology didn’t leak from us to Dyson Alpha; the Primes had it all along. The Starflyer fed the theory to us. Oh! Wait. When the barrier fell we detected an unusual quantum signature inside the Dark Fortress. It wasn’t there before.” He turned to Nigel. “Have you got secure access to navy records?”
“Yes.”
“Get your physicists to compare that signature to the flare bombs.”
“Good idea.” Nigel’s expanded mentality extracted the records and began running comparisons. He still found it amusing the way people always forgot what he was before everything else; all they ever saw today was the imperial Dynasty leader, never the old physicist pushing back the frontier of human knowledge.
“This still doesn’t make sense,” Anna said. “The Starflyer obviously has the ability to switch off the barrier. Why didn’t it just do that when it arrived at Dyson Alpha in the Marie Celeste and launch the flare bomb? Or go back to Dyson Beta and let its own kind out?”
“The barrier builders were still around, maybe?” Wilson said. “It needed a decent interval to elapse before it could risk any kind of rescue attempt. That’s probably why it fled so far in the first place.”
“Even so, it engineered the Second Chance mission; why not have us sent to Dyson Beta and release the alienPrimes? The original Primes would remain locked up.”
“It didn’t know what would happen any more than we did,” Paula said. “This way it wins whatever the outcome. If the barrier builders were still around and it had tried to switch off the barrier around Dyson Beta, they would have detected the attempt and stopped us. By making the attempt at Dyson Alpha, it gets to see if the barriers are still guarded. If not, it releases an ultra-hostile species directly into conflict with us, a race with a proven record of warfare and a technology base advanced enough to construct the kind of weapons necessary to fight an interstellar war. The two of us fight and weaken ourselves, leaving it free to unlock Dyson Beta so its own kind can emerge into a galaxy where the two nearest threats have blasted each other to the edge of extinction.” She pursed her lips ruefully. “Almost exactly what Bradley Johansson claimed all along.”
Results slipped into Nigel’s virtual vision. “The quantum signatures are similar,” he told the room. “Not identical, but they’re certainly based around the same principle. From what we could determine, the Prime flare bomb works by altering the properties of the surrounding mass, which in itself is a none too distant relation to our own quantumbuster. We can surmise that if you change the properties of enough components in the Dark Fortress, then they’ll simply be incapable of performing their intended function: the barrier will fail.”
“So we finally know what we’re facing,” Justine said. “I take it nobody minds if I tell Johansson.”
“As long as he keeps quiet about it until the Starflyer problem has been dealt with,” Nigel told her. “This still isn’t for public release.”
“Well, how much of a problem have we actually got left?” Justine asked. “We have a weapon which in all probability the Starflyer didn’t expect us to produce. Your nova bomb will give us a total victory over MorningLightMountain. Now we know it exists, we can effectively neutralize it.”
“Paula?” Nigel asked. “Can we neutralize it?”
“I’m not certain. Qatux, do you know how far its influence extends?”
The portal image showed the Raiel watching them patiently. “This is obviously exciting for all of you,” it said in its soft wind-chime voice. “I wish I could share the experience.”
“Qatux, please answer the question,” Paula said sternly.
“Isabella Halgarth came into contact with many people who suffered the same compulsion overlay. They are arranged in a three-person structure based on the old human spy cell system. The controller can put them in touch with each other for specific operations, but apart from that they operate in isolation.”
“So you understand the method which the Starflyer uses to control her and the others?”
“It is a sophisticated technique, indicating the controller has a great deal of experience in manipulating the thought routines of other creatures. A Prime-type entity would have an obvious advantage over singleton mentalities; its understanding of mental constitution operates at an instinctive level.”
“What did it do to Isabella?” Mellanie asked, her voice heavy with trepidation. She obviously feared what she was about to hear, but had to know anyway.
“Her thought routines, what you would term the personality, were infiltrated with alien behavioral modifiers. She performed as a normal human under everyday circumstances, but within that framework she acted solely in the interests of the Starflyer. Think of it as having your mind cored like an apple, and the hole being filled with the Starflyer’s desires.”
“How old was she when this happened?” Paula asked.
“Five or six. The memory is hazy. She was on Far Away with her parents. They took her into a room that resembled a hospital; she was scared. After that, her mind was no longer hers.”
“Urggh.” Mellanie wrinkled her nose up. “It did that to a six-year-old? That’s so shitty.”
“Ahh,” Qatux sighed. “Sentiment. I have experienced it often in human memories. It is one of your more exquisite feelings. Would you consider sharing yours with me, Mellanie?”
“Uh. Like: no!”
“So you don’t actually know what the Starflyer is thinking?” Paula said.
“No,” Qatux said. “However, there are residual traces of its presence within her mind which betray certain aspects of its character.”
“Such as?”
“Alterations made to the original directives. Isabella and other agents very abruptly received new instructions when the Commonwealth first announced it was building a starship. They were originally working on the assumption that a series of wormholes would be opened to Dyson Alpha. Its whole strategy had to be altered to incorporate the development of superluminal travel. Isabella was also unaware of your quantumbuster weapon, she was expecting the navy to use flare bombs against MorningLightMountain’s second invasion. That was the information which her kind were supplying to the Seattle team.”
“And we improved on it,” Wilson said tightly.
“Has Isabella got any memory of Alessandra Baron being a Starflyer agent?” Mellanie asked eagerly.
“Yes. Isabella was brought into the operation to hide the New York lawyers when Alessandra Baron learned you were investigating them.”
“Gotcha, you bitch!” Mellanie punched the air. “Yes!”
“Not relevant at this point,” Paula said dismissively. “Qatux, does Isabella know where the Starflyer is, or will be?”
“No. She only knows what she is supposed to do. She was on Illuminatus to join up with the lawyers after they had been given new identities. They would all receive their assignment then.”
“Johansson says it will now return to Far Away,” Justine said.
“It can’t,” Nigel told her. “Not unless it’s already on Boongate, in which case it might stand a chance. The wormhole from Wessex to Boongate will not be opened to transport again.”