But he can’t stop himself from thinking about all the things that might lie behind those instructions. The margin of victory in the secret war is clearly coming down to zone. Autumn Rain’s ability to penetrate that zone is the reason the world was forced to the brink four days ago. It’s the reason the world remains on the very edge. How do you stop an infiltrator with the ability to turn defenses against those they would protect? How do you shield yourself against those who may already be inside your shield?
The Operative doesn’t know. But he’s guessing he’s caught up in somebody’s attempt to answer. And now suddenly more pieces of the puzzle are bubbling up, rising into his mind like a submarine surfacing—recollections of what they told him when he was in the trance. The larger map of the place they’re in clicks on within his head. He gazes at the blueprints and feels his heart accelerate as he realizes what they’re caught up in. He signals to Sarmax that they’re turning as he opens a door.
The far wall of the room within is barely visible through a mass of conveyor belts. Freight containers are stacked along those belts—containers like the ones in which the two men woke. The Operative moves past Sarmax and leaps onto one of those pallets. Sarmax does the same. They start moving at speed along that belt, keeping their weapons at the ready.
“I give up,” says Sarmax. “Where the fuck are we?”
“In neutral territory.”
“In space.”
“Obviously. We’re in the Platform.”
“We’re inside the Platform? But that’s—”
“Insane? I think that’s the point.”
The bridge of the Larissa V isn’t small. Its crew attends to two levels of instrument-banks. A large window cuts above those banks, sharpens to a beak where the room protrudes farthest forward. And in that window …
“Spencer? You there?”
“Shut up.”
“You wouldn’t believe what’s going on down here.”
“Shut up,” replies Spencer, and disconnects. Looks like his integration with the bridge’s wireless node reactivated his link with Linehan. Which is a really bad idea right now, particularly since another voice is whispering in Spencer’s head, telling him to sync with the primary razor.
Which must make him the secondary razor. The one no one here has seen yet. The one who’s been shipped in special—part of the larger crew that’s been assigned to this ship, woken up in preparation for the start of active operations. Spencer takes his seat near the room’s rear, next to that primary razor. He reaches for the duplicate ship-jacks, leans back, and stares straight ahead as he slots those jacks in. He feels the razor watching him. He feels like the whole bridge-crew’s watching him—the captain and his executive officer on the second level, the gunnery officers on the room’s left side, the telemetry and navigational officers on the right. He wonders how much of what he’s feeling is paranoia and how much is real. He resolves not to let such questions show on his face. He gets busy running zone-routines, trying to act natural.
Which isn’t easy, given what’s in the window.
The largest space station ever built shimmers in the sun. The Europa Platform consists of two O’Neill cylinders and their attendant infrastructure. Both those cylinders are clearly visible, connected to each other at both poles, slowly rotating in opposite directions to maintain a stationary position vis-à-vis one another. Each is just over thirty klicks long.
The nearer cylinder’s about five klicks distant, taking up most of the view, one of its outlying mirrors glimmering alongside it. Part of one of the cylinder-windows can be seen just beyond that mirror, a slice of green shimmering within translucence, but most of the visible structure is grey shading into black—though on the zone it’s lit up in every color, shot through with data overlays. The cylinder-ends that are nearest to Spencer are designated NORTH POLE , and the walls that curve out from each point house the cities of New London and New Zurich, respectively, along with their accompanying spaceport-freight yards.
But it’s the opposite ends that really get Spencer’s attention. Beyond the point labeled south pole on each cylinder is a massive sphere—each as wide as the cylinder against which they abut—mostly rock, but studded with a great deal of metal as well. From where Spencer’s situated they look like moons rising above some strange metal landscape. They’re habbed asteroids—and the zone within what have been labeled as aeries is dark, concealed behind the ramparts of the firewalls of the Euro Magnates. Five years ago the Treaty of Zurich confirmed L3—the most isolated of the libration points, the Earth directly between it and the Moon—as a neutral possession. The Euro Magnates have made good money from it. Ten million people make the Platform one of the largest off-planet settlements. But the Rain co-opted the neutrals on Earth. So why not here?
At least, that’s what Spencer is starting to wonder. He can see now that the specs of the ship he’s in are those of a European freighter. He can see, too, seven more such ships—also in close vicinity to the Platform, also manned by Praetorian crew, all decked out in neutral colors that allow them to blend in with the other freighters nearby.
Of which there’s no shortage. Another screen in Spencer’s mind shows the larger view around him. The Europa Platform is at the center of a grid. Ships are lined up for approach into its spaceyards for hundreds of kilometers out. Several mass-catchers are about fifty klicks away, receiving ore from asteroid-harvesting operations farther out. Processing stations float nearby, along with a number of mass-drivers. More than a hundred klicks off the “north” end of the Platform is Helios Station, several kilometers of solar panels clustered around microwave and laser projectors that beam power to the Europa Platform and the other structures. Spencer notes that Praetorian units have covertly taken custody of the Helios’s control center, along with that of the mass-drivers. He can see quite clearly that all such deployments are aimed at the Platform—that the heart of neutral activity is now under the watchful eye of the Praetorians.
He shifts his focus back to the Platform itself. He’s guessing that the ultimate aim of this operation is one of the areas on the Platform that’s opaque on his zone-view—the farther cylinder or the two asteroids. According to the blueprints, the farther cylinder’s pretty much like the nearer. So Spencer’s focusing on that nearer one now, staring at the zone compressed within it—the tens of thousands of cameras that show the bustling streets of New London, along with all the landscape that lies beyond.
Which suddenly clicks in his head.
“Confirm contact,” he says.