“Maybe, but we have to watch for the possibility. And with Kime removed, we’ve lost a major potential asset. Oscar won’t have anything like the same influence with Columbia.”
“Has he uncovered anything in the Second Chance logs yet?”
“I don’t know. He’s spent so much time on board his ship, I haven’t been able to contact him.” Adam’s e-butler told him Marisa McFoster was calling. “Yes?” he said.
“We’re on Boongate,” she told him. “Victor Halgarth has gone into a station warehouse belonging to the Sunforge company. Sir, there’s a lot of police-type observers following Victor as well as us.”
“I’m not surprised. The authorities were watching Bernadette on Illuminatus. You’ll find some of them are from Halgarth Security. Can you fit yourselves into a secure location?”
“I’m not sure. It’s a real mess here. The station is nearly in anarchy. After Doi’s announcement, everyone left on the planet is heading right for the terminal building; but the rest of the station is deserted. We’re not going to be able to do much without being seen.”
“I understand. We’ve got several teams on Boongate. I’ll authorize them to contact you and provide as much backup as they can afford. In the meantime keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Victor Halgarth on Boongate, and the whole planet about to be evacuated,” Bradley mused. “This is a remarkable opportunity for us, Adam. We might be able to intercept the Starflyer here in the Commonwealth. It hasn’t returned home yet, and it has only the shortest of times to get back to Boongate. CST won’t risk opening the wormhole for ordinary transport again for fear that there’ll be a stampede through.”
“Mellanie left Illuminatus with Paula Myo,” Adam said. “Shall I try calling her again, and see if she can convince the Investigator?”
“No, we’ll use Senator Burnelli; she’s better placed than Myo, and she has the necessary political strength to place a complete block on the Boongate wormhole.”
“How long do you think it will take CST to modify the wormhole generator to do this time travel trick?”
“Sheldon spoke of a week. I suspect it’s a question of programming rather than any physical modification—everything important is a software problem these days.”
“Okay, while you do that, I’ll prepare our train. We might need it yet.”
“Of course.” Bradley stirred the dregs of his coffee. “You know, it’s highly probable that the Starflyer is also in the Narrabri station, preparing to crash through the Boongate wormhole, just as we are. How ironic is that? I wonder if it has rented the warehouse next to ours?”
“It hasn’t.”
“If you say so, Adam. But we must reorganize our teams to watch the Boongate gateway ourselves.”
“I’ll put some people on it.”
“Have we got any? I understood we’re short, post-Illuminatus.”
“I can spare enough for a simple operation like this. We’re only going to notice the lack of muscle if we do have to crash through.”
“Well, as of now, you have one more piece of ‘muscle.’ I shall be joining your team permanently now. There is little else I can do in the Commonwealth anymore. And it is time I went home to face our nemesis.”
“That’s good; having you on board will be a big morale booster for the Guardians. They need a pick-me-up now we’ve lost contact with Far Away.”
***
CST’s Newark station had wormholes connecting it to over twenty planets in phase one space, including three wormholes to Augusta. Its terminals and marshaling yard squatted on the site of the old airport, sending out an arterial maze of road and rail connections into the surrounding sprawl of urbanization. Nigel gazed out of the manager’s office on the top floor of the station’s administration skyscraper, seeing the New Jersey Turnpike curving around the station’s perimeter. The ancient route still carried huge amounts of freight and passengers in and out of the station, though it was now being supplanted by the new tunnels that CST had drilled to carry trains directly to Manhattan and along the East Coast. Beyond the road the cold gray waters of Newark Bay surged against the shore of Staten Island. Today, the shimmering dome of the force field arched above the island’s buildings and parks, giving the air a filmy hue, as if a faint sea fog had settled over the land.
Nigel’s e-butler showed him security sensor images of Campbell greeting his visitors down in the lobby. Justine Burnelli unbuttoned a snow-white fur-lined coat and gave Campbell the demure kiss of a trusted friend. Nigel had only just realized Justine was pregnant when she arrived for the emergency War Cabinet meeting; now the little bump was quite visible under her stylish gray cashmere dress. It surprised him; someone of her age and status nearly always used a womb tank. When he checked with Perdita she hadn’t known either, let alone who the father was—also unusual—the Grand Families always had strong financial agreements concerning their children, yet nothing had been filed in the New York legal registry. The security sensors showed him her inserts were maintaining a heavily encrypted link to the unisphere, which he guessed led directly back to Gore.
Investigator Myo was exactly as he remembered, her lovely face forever cursed with a slightly melancholic expression, wearing a well-cut charcoal and blue suit with a salmon-pink blouse, her hair brushed to a gloss. Nothing to indicate that less than thirty hours ago she’d been crammed into an armor suit, in the thick of a firefight on Illuminatus.
His real attention, though, was reserved for Mellanie. Her wavy golden hair had been given a cursory brush, leaving it mildly unkempt; that and the way she kept clenching her jaw in a resentful fashion gave her an aggressive appearance. A dramatically short white skirt, long suede boots, and simple thin blue denim shirt managed to be both trendy and trashy. Dudley Bose stuck to her as if there were some kind of membrane holding them together. The petulant anger leaking out over his youthful face was exactly the same as Nigel recalled from the notorious “welcome back” ceremony.
Nigel faced the office door as the lift arrived. He noticed that Campbell had managed to stand as far as possible from Mellanie during the ride up in the small lift. Perdita was right, then.
“Ready?” Nelson asked. The Dynasty security chief had also picked up on the implications of the meeting, but then he’d been observing events on Illuminatus a lot more closely than Nigel.
“Be nice to get a few answers, finally,” Nigel said. He pulled his suit jacket straight. Stupid vanity.
He greeted Justine and Paula formally, then turned to Mellanie. “At last.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Excuse me.”
“I’ve been following your recent activities with a lot of interest. It’s very exciting for me to finally meet you in person.” Which was an understatement. In the flesh she was fabulously attractive, great figure, slightly wild appearance, as if she’d just finished having sex—and wanted more. He held on to her hand. She didn’t try to pull it back, just twitched her lips roguishly as she reviewed him.
“Me, too,” she said; her voice must have dropped a couple of octaves.
“Hello again,” Dudley said. He somehow slid in front of Mellanie to stick his own hand out.
“Dudley; glad to see you’re recovering.” Nigel avoided any inflection in case the neurotic astronomer picked up on the irony.
“That’s all thanks to my Mellanie.” His hand went around her shoulders. She didn’t try to hide her look of disapproval.
Nigel offered them all seats as the e-seal came on around the office. “Well, this is all very serious, Justine. It can’t just be about your committee battle with Valetta.”
“In a way it is,” Justine said. “The Halgarths now have control of the navy.”
“Yes, but I have the nova bomb. And the rest of us have a great deal of input into the navy budget. Heather is balanced. That’s the way the Commonwealth works.”