“Just trading ships, we hope. An interdiction order has gone out for the
Samaku
, all voidhawks and Confederation Navy ships are alert for it.”
“Good. Look, Samuel, I don’t know what your orders are—”
“Originally: find Mzu, prevent her from handing over the Alchemist to the Garissan partizan movement, retrieve the Alchemist.
That’s the soft option. If we can’t do that, then I was instructed to terminate her and destroy her neural nanonics. If we
don’t get the Alchemist, no one else must have it.”
“Yeah. Pretty much the same as mine. Personally I think the second option would be best all round.”
“Possibly. I must admit that even after seventy-five years in the job I am reluctant to kill in cold blood. A life is a life.”
“For the greater good, my friend.”
Samuel smiled sadly. “I know both the arguments and the stakes involved. However, there is also a new factor to consider.
We absolutely cannot allow her or it to fall into the hands of the possessed.”
“God, I know that. Capone with antimatter is bad enough; give him the Alchemist and the Confederation Navy might not be able
to contain him.”
“Which means, we really don’t want to expedite option two, do we?”
Facing him was the same as receiving a stern glance from a loving grandfather who was dispensing homely wisdom. How infuriating
that she had to have the obvious pointed out to her in such a fashion. “How can I argue against that?” She grunted miserably.
“Just as long as you appreciate all the factors.”
“Sure. Consider my wrist firmly smacked. What have your lot got planned for her, then?”
“Following acquisition, Consensus recommended placing her in zero-tau. At the very least until the possessed situation is
resolved. Possibly longer.”
“How long?” Monica almost didn’t want to ask, or know.
“Consensus thought it prudent that she remains there until we have a requirement for the Alchemist. It is a large galaxy,
after all; there may be other, more hostile xenocs than the Kiint and Tyrathca out there.”
“I was wrong, you’re not an evangelist, you’re a paranoid.”
“A pragmatist, I sincerely hope; as are all Edenists.”
“Okay, Samuel, so pragmatically, what do you want to do next? And please bear in mind that I am a loyal subject of my King.”
“Concentrate on finding her first, then get her away from the Dorados. The argument over custody can come later.”
“Nine-tenths of the law,” she muttered. “Are you offering me a joint operation?”
“Yes, if you’re willing. We have more resources here, I think, which gives us the greater chance of launching a successful
extraction mission. But neither of us can afford to dismiss any avenue which will locate her. I am sure your Duke of Salion
would approve of any action which guaranteed her removal from the scene right now. You can accompany her on our evacuation
flight; and afterwards we would allow a joint custody to satisfy the Kingdom we have not acquired Alchemist technology. Is
that reasonable?”
“Yeah, very. We have a deal.”
They touched bottles.
“The local partizan leadership has been called to a meeting here tonight,” she said. “Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly
where that is in the asteroid. I’m waiting for our asset to get in touch as soon as it’s over.”
“Thank you, Monica. We don’t know where it is, either. But we’re assuming she will be there.”
“Can you track any of the partizans?”
“It is not easy. But we’ll certainly make every effort.”
• • •
For three days the rented office suite which had become the new Edenist intelligence service headquarters in Ayacucho had
been the centre of a remarkable breeding program. When the agents of the “defence delegation” team arrived they brought with
them seventy thousand geneered spider eggs. Every arachnid was affinity-capable, and small enough to clamber through grilles
and scurry through the vast mechanical plexus of lift shafts, maintenance passages, environmental ducts, cable conduits, and
waste disposal pipes which knitted the asteroid’s rooms and public halls together into a functional whole.
For over seventy hours the tiny infiltrators were coaxed and manipulated along black pipes and through chinks in the rock,
slipping around cracks in badly fitted composite panels. Thousands never made it to their required destination. Victims of
more predatory creatures, of working insect grids, of security barriers (most common in the corporate areas), sluices of strange
liquids, smears of sticky fluids, and the most common failing of all: being lost.
But for every one which didn’t make it, five did. At the end of the deployment period the Edenists had visual coverage of
sixty-seven per cent of Ayacucho’s interior (which was how Samuel found Monica Foulkes so easily). The three voidhawks perched
on Ayacucho’s docking ledges, along with the ten armed voidhawks holding station inside Tunja’s particle disk, and the agents
reviewed the spiders on a snapshot rotor, managing a complete sweep every four hours. As a method of locating one individual
it was horribly inefficient. Samuel knew that it would only be pure chance if Mzu was spotted during one of the sweeps. It
was up to the agents on the ground to lower the odds by procedural work; their dull routine of researching public files, bullying
assets, bribing officialdom, and on occasion outright blackmail.
• • •
For thirty years the Garissan partizan movement had pursued a course of consistently lacklustre activity. It funded several
anti-Omuta propaganda campaigns to keep the hatred alive among the first of a new generation born to the refugees. Mercenaries
and ex-Garissan navy marines were recruited and sent on sabotage missions against any surviving Omutan interests. There were
even a couple of attempts to fly into the Omuta system and attack asteroid settlements, both of which were snuffed by CNIS
before the starships ever left dock. But for the last decade the leadership had done little except talk. Membership had dropped
away steadily, as had funding, along with any real enthusiasm.
With such shoddy organization and defunct motivation it was inevitable that any intelligence agency which had ever shown an
interest in the partizans had collated files on every person who had been a member, or even attended a fringe meeting. Their
leadership was perfectly documented, long since consigned to the semi-crank category and downgraded to intermittent monitoring.
A status which was now abruptly reversed.
There were five people making up the executive of Ayacucho’s partizan group. In keeping with the movement’s deterioration
none of them followed the kind of security procedures they had obeyed so rigorously in the early days. That sloppiness in
conjunction with an encyclopedic knowledge of their daily activity patterns allowed the Edenists to position spiders where
they could provide a comprehensive coverage of the leadership’s movements in the hours leading up to the meeting.
Samuel and the voidhawks were presented with eyeblink pictures of the partizan leaders making their way through the asteroid.
Respectable middle-age professionals now, they all had escorts of bodyguards, keen for any sign of trouble. These entourages
were unmistakable, making them easy to follow.
“It looks like either level three or four in section twelve,” Samuel told Monica.
She datavised her processor block for a schematic of the asteroid. “It’s all offices there, corporate country. That makes
sense, it’s more secure, and they are all rich. It wouldn’t be suspicious for them to be there together.”
“Unfortunately it makes life complicated for us. We’re having trouble infiltrating that area.” He was watching an inverted
image of Ikela walking along a corridor at the centre of five boosted bodyguards. They were approaching a junction. A fast
check with the voidhawks revealed that there were no more spiders left ahead. He ordered the one he was using to scuttle along
the ceiling after Ikela.
There are UV lights ahead,
a voidhawk warned.
The spider is approaching a grade-five clean environment.
I know, but I need to see which way he turns.
It was a strange viewpoint; to Samuel the corridor wasn’t particularly large, to the spider it was vast. The two visual interpretations
tended to clash confusingly inside Samuel’s cortex unless he maintained a high level of concentration. Drab whiteness slid
smoothly past galloping legs. Far above him was the sky of hazel carpet. Footsteps crashed against the spider’s pressure-sensitive
cells. Stalactite mountains clad in expensive black silk marched on in front of the racing arachnid, becoming difficult to
resolve as they approached the fork. He just needed a hint…
The affinity link vanished amid a violet flash.
Damnation!
A further review showed Samuel no spiders had managed to penetrate the area.
“What is it?” Monica asked as he flinched in annoyance.
“We just lost them.”
“So now what?”
He looked around at the other agents in the office suite. “Kit up and move out. We’ll cover as many approaches as we can.
Monica, are you sure your asset is reliable?”
“Don’t fret; we’ve got him hoisted by the short and curlies. He won’t be able to datavise during the meeting, but as soon
as it’s over we’ll know where it was and if she’s there. Did any of your infiltration systems see her going in?”
“No,” he admitted. “Not even a fifty per cent characteristics match.”
“I’m not surprised.”
The Edenist agents were putting on slim equipment belts and strapping up shoulder holsters. Monica checked her own maser pistol
and ran a diagnostic program through her implants.
“Monica,” Samuel said.
She caught the tone. “I know: I’m not in your command network, I’d be in the way if I try to front-line. It’s all yours, Samuel.”
“Thank you.”
Stand by,
he told the voidhawks waiting on the docking ledge,
if we do grab her we’ll need to exit fast.
He led the team out.
• • •
There were only five people in the Tunja system who knew the real reason for forming the Garissan partizan movement. None
of them lived on the same asteroid, so that if disaster did strike the others would be there to carry on with the plan.
In Ayacucho it was Ikela, the nominal head of the original five. It suited him to be one of the partizan group’s executives
rather than the leader. This way he kept up-to-date on the movement’s activities while staying out of the limelight. His position
was due principally to his financial support rather than any active participation. Again, according to plan.
Dan Malindi, the Ayacucho group’s leader, was the first to arrive at the secure conference office of Laxa and Ahmad, the legal
firm they were using as cover. He gave Ikela a puzzled, vaguely annoyed glance as he entered. No one knew why Ikela had demanded
the meeting at seven hours notice. And the executives weren’t people used to being kept in ignorance, not by one of their
own. The sight of the normally composed industrialist sitting mutely at the table looking as if he were suffering some kind
of fever with the way he was sweating did nothing to ease the tension.
Kaliua Lamu was the second to arrive; a financier who made little secret about his growing ambivalence to the movement. Partizan
membership didn’t sit well alongside his newfound respectability.
Feira Ile and Cabral arrived together, the most senior ranking figures in the Dorados administration. Feira Ile had been an
admiral in the Garissan navy and was now Ayacucho’s SD chief, while Cabral had built himself the largest media group in the
Dorados. His company’s growth and popularity were due to the tabloid nationalism of its editorial policy, which made him a
natural choice for the partizans. Most of the executive staff suspected his support was strictly for appearance sake.
Bodyguards and assistants left the room. Dan Malindi glared at the small woman sitting quietly behind Ikela, who obstinately
refused to be intimidated into moving.
“She’s with me,” Ikela said.
Dan Malindi grunted in dissatisfaction and activated the office’s security screen. “All right, Ikela, what the hell is this
about?”
Ikela gave the woman a respectful gesture, and she stood up, walking to the end of the table opposite Dan Malindi. “My name
is Dr Alkad Mzu, I’m here to finish our war with Omuta.”
Dan Malindi and Kaliua Lamu both gave her a nonplussed glance. Cabral frowned, ordering a neural nanonics file search. But
it was Feira Ile who produced the strongest reaction; he half rose to his feet, openly astonished. “The Alchemist,” he murmured.
“You built the Alchemist. Holy Mary.”
“The what?” Cabral asked.
“The Alchemist,” Alkad told them. “It was our super-weapon I was its designer.”
“Feira?” Cabral prompted.
“She’s right,” the old ex-admiral said. “I was never given any details, the project was classified way above my security rating.
But the navy built this… thing, whatever it is, just before the genocide. We were going to use it against Omuta.” He drew
a long breath and looked at the diminutive physicist. “What happened?”
“Our flight was intercepted by blackhawks hired by Omuta,” Alkad said. “We never got there. The Alchemist was never used.”
“No way,” Dan Malindi said. “This is complete bullshit. You appear on the scene thirty years after the event and spin some
crap about a missing legend you heard about in some bar. I bet the next stage is asking us for money to search for this Alchemist.
In fact, I bet it’s going to take a lot of money to find it, right?” He was sneering contemptuously at her when he finished,
but somehow her cold smile managed to rob his anger.
“I don’t need to search. I know exactly where it is.”
“It wasn’t lost?” Kaliua Lamu asked. His enthusiasm bought him a disgusted look from Dan Malindi.
“No, it’s never been lost. It’s been kept safe.”
“Where?”
Alkad merely smiled.
“Maybe it does exist,” Cabral said. “And our illustrious admiral here was right saying someone called Alkad Mzu built it.
How do we know you’re her? We can’t make the decisions we need to make on the word of some stranger who turns up out of the
blue, especially not at this precise time.”