The Line of Polity (16 page)

"Ian Cormac," he said. "I knew a day like this would come, but I did not expect it so soon."

"That day being?" asked Cormac, advancing into the room as Alvor and Lons moved back to stand by the balcony door.

"Drink?" Dreyden asked, gesturing to a nearby cabinet.

Cormac contained his impatience and nodded briefly, watching while Dreyden poured two whiskies from a crystal decanter, then added rainbow spheres of cips ice. Taking the drink proffered, he felt disinclined to sample it.

"You know, it's taken me two years and about a billion New Carth shillings to get this place organized." Dreyden led the way to a seating area and plumped down in an armchair. Cormac perched himself on the edge of a sofa, placing his drink on a coffee table, the top of which was a polished slab of green tourmaline, apparently found on the asteroid that had made Dreyden his first billion, or so said holographic text scrolling round in the mineral.

"And this is relevant to me how?"

Dreyden drew hard on his cigarette. "Because you're Earth Central Security, and don't tell me that ECS doesn't intend to subsume
Elysium
."

"Maybe so, but that has nothing to do with why I'm here," Cormac replied.

Dreyden looked doubtful as he went on, "You know, because of the security service I formed here, crime is down to Polity levels and the standard of living is very high. In fact higher than on many Polity worlds. A lot of people here are making a lot of money."

"Admirable," commented Cormac dryly.

"If ECS come in here then many people will die. They'll fight to keep you out; they like things the way they are," Dreyden told him.

Cormac twirled his glass on the tourmaline and noted that the biggest smelting complex in
Elysium
was Dreyden's property — apparently it could turn a million tonnes of asteroidal steel into foamed-metal construction members in less than a solstan day. Cormac was impressed, but no less irritable and bored.

"You're not listening to me," he said. "I'm not here to conquer your little empire, Dreyden." He looked up. "Though I may yet give the matter some consideration if I'm delayed any longer."

Dreyden stood, and Cormac observed the beads of sweat dotting his brow. The man was twitchy — either angry or scared — as revealed in his sneering tone when next he spoke.

"I have something to show you," he said.

With weary impatience Cormac followed him to the centre of the room, then up yet another spiral stair leading to a platform positioned directly below the chainglass roof. Climbing through the hatch and onto this platform, they came into a smaller glasshouse protruding up from the roof itself. All around, they had a perfect view of
Elysium
. Dreyden gestured to the ships crowding the floating docks, then beyond them to where the
Occam Razor was
clearly visible.

"Big bastard, that ship, but it probably doesn't mass much more than the asteroids we regularly bring in," he said. He now pointed to the habitats and smelting complexes that formed almost a tangled wall in space beside them. "You know, we don't have Separatists here because essentially most of
Elysium
is not actually in the Polity. Though being upon the Line as we are, we share many of the benefits of Polity membership. It's a situation we do not really want to change, either through annoying you people by harbouring criminals or by pushing for full membership."

"Your point?" Cormac asked.

Now Dreyden indicated the huge sun mirrors. "I have complete control over
those
now. The grabship captains have to buy time on them from me, as do those corporations that own the few furnace satellites that I myself do not own," Dreyden said.

Cormac remained silent, waiting for the man to make his point — he now had some intimation of what that might be, but he wanted it clearly stated.

Dreyden went on, "It only takes a minute to shift the focus of those mirrors. You can't see from here, but there is a ring of them, each capable of covering its nearest partner within a matter of seconds. They can also cover all possible approaches to our... community."

"Very cosy. So you would be well defended should a stray asteroid head in this direction," said Cormac sarcastically.

Dreyden dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it out on the platform. After taking a swallow of his drink he glared at Cormac. "You know, we don't even use the tightest focus to melt asteroids. If we tried that on an asteroid it would vaporize and obliterate the furnace satellite it was lodged in. On the tightest focus we can get heat levels — if the conditions are just right — high enough to start a fusion reaction. There's no known substance that can endure that for long, and no field technology that can withstand it."

Cormac wandered over to the glass wall and gazed down at the
Occam Razor
. Dreyden's message was quite clear, but utterly irrelevant considering what he knew of ECS policy concerning this place.

"Last count as I recollect," said Cormac without turning from the glass, "there were two hundred million people living here." He turned now to face Dreyden. "ECS just isn't interested ... you want the figures? AIs have calculated that with the people here living in such
fragile
circumstances the losses during a takeover would be something in the region of twenty per cent. And to gain what?" He gestured to the nearest giant smelting complex. "The whole infrastructure would probably be destroyed as well, and the Polity would basically end up with a refugee population in the tens of millions. Probably the smelters and mirrors would be destroyed too, so there would be nothing to gain, and anyway most of what is made here is sold to the Polity, and most of the money used to buy it is spent on Polity goods. I'm not here for this, Dreyden."

Dreyden continued to glare and Cormac realized that the man would just never believe what he was being told — he had too much invested here and was evidently too frightened of Earth Central Security to trust any of its agents. In reality his attitude was perfectly understandable: the Polity had without compunction absorbed worlds into itself when that best served the interests of its entire population, and for the same reasons empires like Dreyden's had been undermined, or obliterated.

"I've no time for this," said Cormac, heading for the hatch.

"What do you want with this Asselis Mika, the life-Coven woman?" Dreyden asked suddenly.

Cormac turned as he began to climb down. "Her expertise. And we will leave with her — understand that."

"So long as you do leave." Dreyden gulped the rest of his drink. "Perhaps, after you are gone, you can pass on the message that Polity battleships are no longer welcome here."

"Oh, I'll pass
that
on," said Cormac, departing.

Jarvellis was probably the most smoulderingly sexy woman Thorn had ever met. She had long straight black hair, a face that seemed perpetually cheeky, as if she was just about to say something quite shocking, and a figure that was well emphasized by the ersatz acceleration suit she wore. Thorn also understood, even on such very brief acquaintance, that she was completely and utterly in love with John Stanton. She did not give a swooning display in his presence, nor did she simper; it was just a sense of connection between the two of them. He had caught it in that one glance exchanged between the two when he and Stanton had entered the bridge sphere of this trispherical ship. It was a personal connection that completely cut anyone else out of the circuit.

After strapping himself in, Stanton gestured back the way they had entered. "That's cargo, as you saw, and the other sphere is the living quarters. We've got a small galley and a machine shop just behind here as well."

As he too strapped himself into one of the two acceleration chairs immediately behind Stanton and Jarvellis, Thorn considered the hold he had just seen. He'd noted the four cryopods fixed upright to one wall and been unable to miss seeing the racked cargo of weapons crates and other less easily identifiable items.

"What I could do with is an autodoc," he said, delicately probing his broken teeth.

"We've got one, but you'll have to wait. All consoles are DNA-keyed to me and Jarv. Also,
Lyric II
is run by an AI, and she tends to trust people even less than I do."

That figured.

Thorn turned his attention to Jarvellis as she piloted
Lyric II
up and away from the planet. The rumbling of acceleration through atmosphere was growing less now, and the middle one of the three screens showed whitish sky diffusing away over starlit space. The right screen displayed a view of the rapidly receding world.

"Ooh, those ECS boys know some dirty words," said Jarvellis, her head tilted towards her earplug.

"And what words are they saying?" asked Stanton.

"Well," said Jarvellis, turning to give Thorn an estimating look, "the gist is 'Stay where you are and wait to be boarded', but the language is much more colourful."

"They'll think you're escaping Separatists," said Thorn. "Which of course you are not."

Stanton glanced back at him. "No, we are not." He returned his attention to Jarvellis. "What about the 'ware?"

She shook her head. "The runcible AI will be on us now and we'll not hide the AG signature from it."

"Can we outrun them?" Stanton asked.

"Oh, pleeaase," spoke a voice from the console in front of Jarvellis.

Jarvellis patted the console. "I think Lyric can handle a couple of rusty old ECS attack boats — can't you, dear?"

"I should think so," replied the voice of
Lyric II
's AI.

Just then there came a deep roar from within the ship, and subscreens displaying outside views of the ship whited out. Thorn surmised, by this sound, that a powerful engine had just been put online.

"The language just gets worse and worse," said Jarvellis. "Here we go." She touched a control and the view on one of the main screens changed to show Cheyne III's only moon, Cereb, and two much closer objects — identifiable only as being vaguely wedge-shaped — quickly receding. Jarvellis ran her fingers expertly over some more controls, then pulled her earplug. She turned and again looked back at Thorn. "Now, what do we do with your friend here?" she asked.

Before Stanton could say anything, Thorn asked, "You're going after this Deacon character, I take it?"

"Yes," said Stanton, his face assuming the same hardness that Thorn had earlier seen at any mention of the Deacon.

"Then let me come with you. That barge back there will soon become a reef, if it isn't already, and any mission I had there is over."

"Why would you want to come with us?" asked Jarvellis.

"Because whoever that guy was, he was supplying the Cheyne Separatists and I'd like very much to find out more about
that.
"

"We don't work for ECS," said Jarvellis.

"It is also worth bearing in mind," added Stanton, "that ECS has a reward out for our capture."

"I've no intention of trying to claim it," said Thorn. "You saved my life and that might not count for much on a policy level, but it sure as hell means a lot to me."

"Academic, really," said Stanton. "If we try to stop off at any Polity-controlled world or station we'll have ECS over us like worms on a turd — one of Brom's charming expressions, that — so there's no way we'll be dropping you anywhere."

"What about this Deacon — will you be able to track him?" Thorn asked.

"No need," Stanton replied. "He'll head for his rat hole at Masada. That's where we intended to go next anyway, and that's where I'll kill him."

"Masada?" Thorn queried.

"Yes," said Stanton. "Let me tell you about my home world."

The grapes were hard and green and, being a long way from ripeness, only the size of eyeballs. As she chewed on another of the sour fruit, Eldene tried not to think about nut-potatoes and bread and the occasional luxury of meat.

"Do you ever need food?" she asked, after lowering her mask and spitting out a mouthful of green goo.

"Small amounts of nutrients sometimes," replied Fethan, "otherwise my source of energy is somewhat hotter."

Eldene hinged her mask back up into place and spoke through it, having earlier discovered that some device in the collar prevented the muffling of her voice. "Why were you ... a worker? How did you become a worker?"

"I came here about four solstan years ago at the behest of Earth Central Security, to bring certain devices and make an assessment of the situation down here. Infiltrating the city was not difficult, as to the Theocracy even the citizens are not individuals — just people to be used up. I completed my assessment in two years, by which time I'd found out about the Underground and made contacts there. I've since been working for one Lellan Stanton — the leader of the rebellion — gathering intelligence on the worker situation, and gathering opinions." Fethan shrugged. "It is easy to get defectors from the city, especially from the processing plants, but not so easy out here, and she wanted to find out how best it might be done."

"And have you succeeded?"

Fethan reached into the pocket of his coverall and removed a short plastic tube of pills that Eldene immediately recognized as those used to prevent a scole rejecting and dying.

"Once we've had these analysed," he said, "we have an opening. It seems the only way now. We'll distribute these through those agents we have placed, and when the time is right have a mass breakout."

"Then what?" asked Eldene, looking pointedly up into the lurid sky.

Fethan put away the pills. "You have to understand, girl, I was not sent here by ECS on a purposeless assignment. When the time is right this world will become part of the Human Polity, whether the Theocracy likes it or not."

"When is the time
right?
Why is this injustice allowed to continue?"

"It continues because of politics. The Polity takes control of Line worlds, subsumes them, by consent of eighty per cent of the planetary population — or in cases when there has been a complete breakdown of control and they have been asked for help. If ECS came in here with a shitload of warships and blew the Theocracy to hell, that would cause fear on many other Out-Polity worlds, and that fear might prove a uniting force. Last time ECS got that heavy-handed, it upset the balance on a world that had joined the Polity only a few months before. That world then seceded from what was described there as 'the rule of AI autocrats', its government was subverted by Separatists, and the entire planetary population forced into a war they did not want, against their nearest Polity neighbour. So you see; we have to be very careful."