Stealing Light

Corso’s own grandfather, Silas, had been working at the university in Port Gabriel when the massacre there took place. A Consortium ship had come thudding down in the Square of Heroes, a few blocks from the campus. They’d had to identify him later from DNA analysis of his remains, after they finished digging through the rubble. Silas wasn’t the only person Corso had known who had died during the horrific assault. Most people belonging to the Freehold knew someone, or was related to someone, who’d been injured or killed at that time.

Images of the dropships falling on Port Gabriel, like avenging angels, had played on Freehold news networks for months afterward, entirely uncensored.

An angry silence passed between the two men, before Kieran finally sucked it up. ‘I apologize, Senator. I didn’t mean to question your authority.’

‘Accepted. But your point is taken.’

‘Actually,’ said Gardner, speaking into the silence that followed, ‘while we’re on the subject, I’ve been looking further into what happened in that mog bar.’

Arbenz groaned. ‘We’ve been over this, David.’

‘Well, I’ve been making my own enquiries, Senator. I’ve managed to identify the man who attacked Udo.’

Arbenz looked disbelieving. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find out everything I can about him, but none of the General’s people could discover anything.’

‘I have my own sources,’ Gardner continued, ‘and it seems the assassin’s name was Hugh Moss, an employee of Alexander Bourdain.’

Corso looked down at his hands where they were clenched together on the tabletop, and saw his knuckles were white with tension.

A look flashed between Kieran and Arbenz. ‘How did you come by this?’ demanded the Senator, turning back to Gardner.

Gardner smiled tightly. ‘I had my own suspicions, and I’ve friends in the Consortium Legislate who owe me favours. It turns out the General has a profitable long-term working relationship with Bourdain, based on the trade and gene-cultivation of mogs, so it’s hardly surprising he didn’t want to tell you anything that might compromise his relationship with one of his best customers.’

‘But why would Bourdain send someone to try and stop us?’ said Kieran, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. ‘Or are you telling us Bourdain already knows about the derelict?’

Gardner shook his head. ‘You’re looking for the wrong answers. Let’s recap on some recent events: first, Bourdain’s new world detonated in an act of apparent terrorism. Then Mala Oorthaus showed up looking for work that would take her safely out of the Sol System.’

Arbenz didn’t look convinced. ‘You were the one responsible for hiring her, David. Why didn’t you check all this out back then?’

‘I did,’ Gardner stated flatly. ‘But we were pressed for time, and machine-heads aren’t easy to come by any more, remember? All I knew about her came through Josef Marados, and it turns out he was murdered just before our departure from Mesa Verde.’

As Corso listened to this in mute shock, Kieran suddenly leaned forward, tapping at the air. Corso’s solar system disappeared, to be replaced by screeds of media information: news feeds regularly updated via the tach-net transponders. Corso watched as Kieran ran a fast search through the Mesa Verde public archives.

He looked up again with a shake of his head. ‘Senator, I’ve been constantly monitoring events back on Redstone and within the Sol System, and can find no reports of any such incident. Something like that couldn’t possibly have escaped my attention.’

‘News feeds can be falsified,’ Gardner pointed out. ‘Marados was in charge of a major financial operation working in and out of the black market, and when someone like that dies, particularly when it’s a nasty, violent death, word gets out one way or another. And remember what I said-I have my own sources of information, outside of official cha

Arbenz looked thunderstruck. ‘But why would Bourdain send someone to… are you saying she might be responsible for what happened to Bourdain’s Rock?’

‘Why not say just that? But we don’t know for sure, of course.’ Gardner’s smile was as dry as his voice. ‘But, you said it yourself: we still need her. Whether she likes it or not.’

On the edge of the Nova Arctis system, the coreship dropped out of transluminal space for a bare few minutes, but long enough for the Hyperion to lift up from its docking facility on a shimmering platform constructed of shaped fields and artificial gravity, before finally exiting through one of the many openings in the coreship’s outer crust.

The frigate went into immediate deceleration as it pulled away from the vast Shoal vessel, which dwindled rapidly as it accelerated back to jump speed.

Dakota sat in a web of data at the heart of the bridge, watching the way space warped around the coreship as it slipped back into transluminal space in a flurry of exotic particles. At last, she knew their destination: Nova Arctis. This system had only been a number in a catalogue until the Freeholders decided to give it that name.

In the meantime, there were questions for Dakota to ponder, that in turn raised more questions rather than answers.

Such as, who had killed Severn?

Severn had obviously survived his encounter with Moss-if he hadn’t, she would have known, immediately. Yet several days ago, his life-signal-dim as it was, given he was some kilometres away in the heart of Ascension-had ceased. She’d woken from a dream at the time, her own heart pounding, filled with an inexplicable sense of loss, until she had realized what her Ghost was telling her.

It was hard to believe. They’d hardly set eyes on each other more than a few times in the years since Port Gabriel, but the knowledge of his death gripped her i

Chris, dead.

At first she assumed he must have finally died of the injuries sustained during his fight with Moss. But then she’d had the Piri Reis worm its way into the maintenance programs for a local medical storage facility in Ascension, and then discovered the truth. Severn had been messily executed by unknown assailants, after being hauled out of his medbox.

Whoever was responsible, they’d been thorough, and particularly brutal.

It was possible Arbenz was behind this, or perhaps Moss hadn’t been the only agent Bourdain had sent aboard the coreship. But also Severn had led a dangerous life, and had any number of enemies in a city still deeply divided by the aftermath of the civil war. Any one of them could have been responsible.