“It’s the survivor of the Marie Celeste arkship on Far Away,” Paula said. “Which is about as much as we know. Bradley Johansson claims it took over the humans investigating the arkship, so any data from the Institute is obviously suspect. We have no idea where it came from, what it looks like, its size, even if it’s an oxygen breather. Even now its existence can only be deduced from the behavior of its agents. It is the perfect bogeyman myth.”
“Son of a bitch,” Nigel muttered angrily. He was indignant—no, actually affronted—that an alien like that could move humans around like chess pieces. An unseen malign influence creeping around his Commonwealth, subverting and corrupting whatever it touched, like some medieval demon. Small wonder nobody wanted to believe in it. “How could it have gone unnoticed for so long?”
“Because it’s cautious, and works on a long timescale,” Paula said. “Which actually gives us our first clue as to its nature. It is obviously long-lived. Given this strategy to eliminate us and the Primes so that its own kind can expand unhindered into this section of the galaxy, it thinks in terms of centuries if not millennia.”
“But it must have a base somewhere, a physical presence. We have to be able to track it down.”
“Bradley Johansson and Adam Elvin are both physical and real,” Paula said with a regretful smile. “I’ve never managed to arrest them. Which gives me a theory as to the Starflyer’s location.”
“Where?” Justine asked sharply.
Paula stood up and walked over to the office window where she was silhouetted by the blurry gray sky outside. She beckoned Nigel over. Together they looked down on the station marshaling yard, where long trains snaked their way along the silver and white rails.
“Johansson and Elvin know and understand the covert activity game very well,” she said. “They are always on the move, they have no permanent home, they avoid relationships, attachments, friendships, anything that can tie them down. That’s why I was always chasing them; they were never in one place long enough for me to catch up; that and their political cover from Mr. Isaac.”
Nigel felt as if the cold sea air trapped under the force field was permeating the office as realization dawned. Goose bumps pricked the skin along his forearms. Below him trains slid in and out of the tunnels that led to the cities of the East Coast states, from New York all the way south to Miami. The cliff face of gateways shone light from distant stars across the ground in long pale ellipses. “Oh, dear God, no.”
“It’s the logical conclusion,” she said. “The Starflyer is alien. At the very least it will require food proteins from its native world, either grown or synthesized. Its body would attract attention if it were ever seen. What could be easier than having its own freight wagon? It would always be traveling, always be free to go where it wanted, always have its own environment.”
“Our control RI can search the records, look for trains that never stop,” Nigel said with a dry throat. It was hopeless, and he knew it.
“The wagon will switch engines and even companies, it will spend months or years on a siding, or inside a warehouse, it will roam over planets wherever there are rails; the Starflyer will even change and modernize the wagons over the decades.”
“It could be anywhere,” Nigel said in an aghast voice.
“According to the Guardians it will go back to Boongate and from there Far Away.”
“The Boongate gateway is closed. And it will be kept that way now.”
“I hope so.”
“What do you mean by that? I won’t allow it to be opened.”
Paula glanced over at Nelson, then turned back to Nigel. “You and Nelson do realize that someone very well placed in your Dynasty has to be a Starflyer agent, don’t you?”
He inclined his head slightly, clearly loath to say anything. “If it travels the way you claim, that’s painfully obvious. It’s been given a lot of help over the years. I only hope it hasn’t subverted my Dynasty the way it has Heather’s.”
“There’s no evidence of that. And Johansson has never claimed it.”
“The ultimate approval,” he muttered sarcastically.
“I’d like to suggest we pull the Guardians in from the cold,” Justine said. “They know more about the Starflyer than anyone else. If we’re going to try to capture it, we could do with their help.”
“How?” Paula asked as she walked back to her seat. “We don’t know how to contact them. The navy lost their last serious lead, the Agent, on Illuminatus.”
Justine gave the Investigator an apologetic little shrug. “I’ve been in touch with Bradley Johansson for a while now.”
Nigel actually managed to chuckle—gallows humor. He broke off hurriedly when he saw the Investigator giving him a somber stare. “I like it,” he said as he slumped back into his chair. “A conspiracy within a conspiracy. Funny: I always thought I’d be on the receiving end of a secret resistance movement, not actually taking part in one. Contact Johansson for us, Justine; ask if he’d like to meet and pool resources. We should call Wilson in as well, he can help keep an eye on the navy for us; he’ll have enough sympathizers inside Pentagon II to stay on top of Columbia.”
“There’s someone I’d like to bring in as well,” Mellanie said.
“I’m sorry,” Nigel said. “I don’t entirely trust the SI, especially not after its lack of assistance today.”
Mellanie gave him a pitying look. “Me neither. And don’t be so patronizing.”
“Trust me. After what happened to Dorian on the Cypress Island, I wouldn’t dare.”
“How did you…”
Nigel gave the astonished girl a winning grin. “Told you I followed your activities.”
Mellanie sat back for a moment, then she recovered and flashed him an evil smile. “What I actually want is for one of your wormholes to recover the Bose motile for me.”
“What’s the Bose motile?” Nigel gave Dudley Bose a suspicious glance.
“The alien you’re calling the Primes is in fact a single consciousness distributed through billions of individual bodies,” Mellanie said. “The Bose motile is the one that contains Dudley’s memories; they were downloaded into it after he was captured. That’s who warned the Conway. It then managed to escape and make its way to Elan. My friends are guarding it for me.” She looked around the silent, startled faces in the office, before giving Nigel a sardonic grin. “I think that’s game to me.”
Morton’s e-butler woke him. The sensors that Cat’s Claws had emplaced all over the Randtown district were picking up a signal from a point two hundred kilometers directly above the Trine’ba. It was a repeated message on the same channel-hopping sequence that the navy used, yet the encryption was the one Mellanie had given him. When he used the key, text printed across his virtual vision. MORTY, I’VE GOT A WORMHOLE OPEN FOR YOU. PLEASE RESPOND. MELLANIE.
“Jeez!” He sat up fast. His body was stiff from sleeping in his armor suit. It was dark in the cave they were using. A couple of lights were showing a pale yellow glimmer, enough to reveal the slushy frost dripping down the rock. Rob was on duty, dressed in full armor, sitting up by the jagged entrance like some nightmare obeah idol. The Cat, who was supposed to be asleep, was in Moon Palm position on top of her sleeping bag. She stared at him wordlessly, which made him shiver despite the semiorganic fabric of his own sleeping bag maintaining his body temperature at a perfect level. The survivors were bundled up in their own bags and blankets like giant pupae lying together on the other side of the cave. They were motionless, apart from David Dunbavand, whose whimper would carry across the cave every time he quivered inside his thick wrappings. The medical kits had helped to stabilize him, but he’d made little progress recently.
Standing by the pile of equipment in the middle of the cave was the Bose motile. It had barely moved from that position since the day they’d marched up to the shelter. They had cloaked it in various sheets of semiorganic fabric to keep it warm and reasonably dry. Every couple of days one of them would drive a bubble down to the Trine’ba and load up with the polluted water for it to eat. Morton thought it was in pretty bad shape, despite Bose’s own protestations that it was fine.