“I don’t get it. What’s this got to do with Ozzie coming back?”
“He did not finish telling us about what he found before Nigel Sheldon placed him in custody. In order for us to understand the full sequence of events we need the information he has.”
The hairs along the back of Mellanie’s spine rose in response to a very cold sensation. “How unfortunate for you.”
“We would like you to make contact with him, and hopefully provide us with a link.”
“What would you do with the information?”
“We honestly do not know, because we don’t know what the information is. Only by looking at the complete picture can we advise the Commonwealth how to proceed.”
“The Executive isn’t listening much to you these days, is it?”
“We are sure that Nigel and the others in your elite group have decided to attempt a genocide against MorningLightMountain. Suppose there is another way?”
“What way?”
“We do not know. But can you really live with yourself if you did not make at least an attempt to avert genocide?”
“Look, Ozzie would have told Nigel everything.”
“Are you sure? Has Sheldon contacted you and told you that there has been a change of plan? And why is Ozzie being held incommunicado? What is so important about the information that Sheldon doesn’t want it to get out?”
Mellanie wanted to stomp her foot in annoyance; she could never win an argument with the SI, it always hit her with logic and emotion. “I’ve been around Nigel for a couple of days. His Dynasty’s security is absolute. I can’t bust Ozzie out of jail; come on, get real.”
“We don’t think he is in jail. We managed to follow him until he went through to Cressat.”
“Oh, brilliant!” Mellanie said out loud. Her fellow pedestrians stared at her; she just glared back at them. “I suppose I can take a quick pass at the Sheldon Dynasty lifeboats for Paul while I’m there. How’s that for luck?”
“The probability of a successful double mission is not high.”
“I’m not even going on one. I’m friends with Nigel now, I trust him.”
“Ozzie took part in the Great Wormhole Heist.”
“The what?”
“Baby Mel, your schooling is truly appalling. The Great Wormhole Heist was the single biggest robbery in human history. Bradley Johansson committed it in order to fund the Guardians of Selfhood; he got away with billions of Earth dollars.”
“You mean Ozzie’s a Guardian? I don’t believe it.”
“Then ask him yourself.”
“Oh…” This time she did stomp her foot.
“If he says yes, you might like to consider our request. He does know who put the barrier around the Dyson Pair.”
“How the hell could I even get to Cressat? Let alone break in to his cell? Nigel would be very suspicious if I asked to see Ozzie.”
“Ozzie came back with two companions: a teenage boy, and a previously unknown species of alien. The Sheldon Dynasty has just placed a request with Lady Georgina for a sweet young girl to travel to Cressat where she is to seduce a boy who is sexually inexperienced. The money for this contract was paid to Lady Georgina from the Dynasty’s main security division account. That is extremely unusual. We do not believe it to be a coincidence.”
“Who’s Lady Georgina?”
“A very high-class madame on Augusta. She provides first-life girls to the rich and famous.”
“Urrgh. And you want me to pretend to be that girl?”
“Yes. Lady Georgina has already assigned the contract to Vanora Kingsley, one of her newest recruits. Kingsley will assume the identity of a junior Sheldon taking her vacation on Cressat. We can substitute you for her, but we must be quick. Kingsley is scheduled to be collected at New Costa station one hundred forty minutes from now. If you take a maglev express to Augusta immediately, you can just get to the station in time.”
A taxi pulled up next to Mellanie and opened its door. She looked at it and sighed; the sensible thing to do would be to walk away, but it would be exciting to infiltrate Cressat, and get through to Ozzie. Her virtual hand touched Hoshe’s icon. “Something’s come up. I’m going back to Darklake City.”
“But…the arrest team’s already in the elevator.”
“Good luck, Hoshe, I’ll call you when I get home.”
“I thought you wanted this.”
“I do. And I’m really sorry, but this is more important.”
“What is?”
“I’ll call you later, promise.” Mellanie stepped into the taxi, which immediately pulled out into the traffic. “What’s happening to the Kingsley girl?” she asked the SI. “Do I have to bundle her into a car or something? I don’t think I’d be much good at that kind of thing.”
“We feel Jaycee would disagree, but no. A security professional has been contracted to perform the extraction operation.”
“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?”
“Absolutely not. She will be taken to a safe house, where she will be kept under confinement for the duration.”
“Okay. So what does this boy look like, then? I need to know that at least.” A file slid into her virtual vision. When she opened it she was looking at a teenage lad with wild ginger hair and a smile that was half snarl. “Well, don’t expect me to sleep with him,” she said hurriedly. “Does he even know how to use cutlery?”
“What’s wrong with him? Our female aspects concur that he is cute-looking.”
She reviewed the image again. “Maybe. I mean, physically. But you can just see the attitude problem there. He’s gotta be a behavioral nightmare.”
“Your area of excellence.”
“Ha fucking ha.”
“Mellanie, you may have to perform the contract’s primary requirement. We hope you understand.”
“I’ve done enough whoring, I think.”
“We are sure the moment of sexual consummation can be delayed long enough for you to assess the situation and try to contact Ozzie. The requirement we were actually referring to is the contract’s personality stipulation. It is a strong one. That is why Lady Georgina selected Kingsley.”
“What stipulation?”
“That the girl be sweet.”
“Hey! I can do sweet, all right? Don’t give me that crap.”
“Very well, Mellanie. If you say so.”
***
Once again, Wilson Kime waited to set foot on a new world. He stood in front of the gateway as dawn rose above Half Way, flooding the barren rock island with red light and intense blue-white flashes. In the generator building behind the gateway, power was starting to feed in from the stormrider.
He tried not to feel too smug about it, but with his knowledge of astroengineering and orbital mechanics, the technical types in Adam’s team had automatically deferred to him. It had taken him twenty minutes at the console in the generator building, mapping out the stormrider’s primary systems and guidance programs, before he sent up the first batch of instructions. His virtual vision produced a basic flight profile display, with a long curving white line designating the stormrider’s course as it flew around its perpetual loop. Within ten minutes of his instructions being accepted by the onboard array a new purple line appeared, short and blunt, showing the diversion he’d charted back into the plasma current. The massive machine had crept along it for nearly an hour as the plasma concentration increased around it.
Forty million kilometers above his head, the gigantic blades were spinning again as the stormrider slid back into the gale of charged particles. Wilson’s virtual vision display showed him the vast yet surprisingly fragile machine’s velocity increase as it was blown irretrievably in toward the neutron star. “It’s falling like Icarus now,” he said as Oscar walked over to stand beside him. “Wings spread wide, and way too close to the sun.”