Judas Unchained

“Not voluntarily,” Gore said. Even with his golden skin making any normal expression impossible, it was obvious the notion troubled him. “But as I understand it, Bradley Johansson always claimed he was enslaved by the alien.”

“I’ve replayed the recording of Kazimir’s last minute in the Carralvo terminal several times now,” Paula said. “He appeared to know the assassin. In fact, he was delighted to see him. It was almost as if they were old friends.”

“No.” Justine shook her head, rejecting the whole idea. “I can’t believe anybody could get to Sheldon. The security our family has around us and at our rejuvenation facilities is phenomenal. Sheldon’s will be even stronger.”

“The Guardians claimed that President Doi was working for the Starflyer,” Paula said.

“And what a load of crap that was.” Gore grunted. “If this Starflyer bastard can cut through Senate Security and Sheldon’s protection, it wouldn’t need to skulk about in the shadows; it’d already be our Führer.”

“Then why was your son killed?” Paula asked. “Just for implementing the cargo searches? Or because he uncovered the co

“All right,” Gore said reluctantly. “Assume Thompson came across some information which made him believe it. Did he say who gave him Sheldon’s name?”

“No. He said the whole area was very unclear, it was politics at the highest level.”

“Politics doesn’t have a high level,” Gore muttered; he turned to Justine.

“This is down to you. We need to find out where Thompson got his information from.”

“Dad, I don’t have anything like his contacts in the Senate.”

“Jesus Christ, will you stop selling yourself short, girl? If I want to hear whining that pitiful I’ll visit a human rights lawyer on Orleans.”

She threw up her hands. “Fine, I’ll go blundering around shouting out questions in a loud voice, and see if anyone comes to take a shot at me.”

“More like it,” Gore said, his metallic lips lifting in an approximation of a smile.

“To what end?” Paula asked.

“What do you mean, what fucking end?”

“What will you do if the Senator confirms it was Sheldon who has been blocking my requests?”

“If it’s true, we’ll need to go to his senior family members and show them what’s happened. I expect they’ll have him re-lifed and updated from a secure memory store that predates his corruption—whenever that was.”

“Do you think the Sheldon family will support you?”

“They can’t all be Starflyer agents.”

“Indeed not. But how will we know which are?”

“We’re being very premature,” Justine said. “Let’s try and establish what we suspect first. After that, we should have a clearer picture of what to do.”

“We also need to create some reliable alliances,” Gore said. “A kind of political resistance network to counter the Starflyer’s influence. I’ll make a start on that.”

“Watch out for Columbia,” Paula said. “Now he’s aware you’re my sponsor, he’ll be gu

“Don’t you worry yourself about that. Hell would have to freeze over for a long time before some Halgarth stooge outsmarts me.”

***

The little Boeing 44044 VTOL plane landed on the observatory pad amid a swirl of air from its electric jets, which stirred up quite a storm of sandy ocher soil and filthy ice granules. It fell away quickly as the fans slowed, and the flight attendant opened the hatch. Re

Two officers from the Lima office of navy intelligence were waiting for her on the ground, wearing dark green jackets that looked more like space suits than severe weather gear. Getting down the five aluminum steps left her gasping for oxygen.

One of the men came forward and extended his arm. “Lieutenant Kampasa, welcome to Antina Station. I’m Phil Mandia. I was part of the team boxing McFoster on his way up here.”

“Great,” she wheezed. She could barely make out his face behind a protective amber-tinted goggle mask. Her heart was hammering away hard inside her chest. They had to walk very slowly over to the observatory buildings, a line of squat boxes made from dark plastic, with windows like portholes. Only one had any lights on inside. The three main radio telescope dishes were sitting on the big rocky field behind the buildings, huge white saucers balanced on improbably thin spires of metal. As she watched, one of them turned slightly, tracking along the northern skyline.

“How’s my prisoner behaving?” she asked.

“Cufflin? He claims he knows next to nothing, that he was on some security contract from an anonymous agent. For what it’s worth, I believe him.”

“We’ll know for sure once I take him back to Paris.”

“What are you going to do, read his memories?”

“Yes.”

Even with his face shielded by the mask, Phil Mandia’s grimace of disapproval was quite blatant.

Re

“You came in those?” Re

“Yeah.” Phil Mandia nodded at the single bleak road winding away from the observatory. “It was a brute of a drive up here.”

“How the hell did you manage to avoid being seen by McFoster?”

“With difficulty.”

Re

They reached the main building and went inside where the world was warm again. It didn’t make any difference to Re

“Doesn’t this altitude bother you?” she asked Phil Mandia.

“Takes a while to adjust,” he admitted.

Re

“Okay, let me start with the Director,” she said.

Je