Judas Unchained

The image that rose up into his virtual vision showed him President Doi sitting at the head of an imposing table, flanked by Nigel Sheldon and Heather Halgarth. Edmund pursed his lips: Impressive indeed. Captions labeled the other cabinet members for him; the amount of political power gathered together was an indication that whatever had been decided was definite. He leaned back against his Honda to listen to his fate.

“My fellow citizens,” Doi said, “I will start by telling you that the Prime incursions into Commonwealth space have now ended, at least for the immediate future. A frigate managed to get through to Hell’s Gateway and destroy the wormhole generators there. I cannot give you details about the ship or the weapon used for obvious security reasons, but suffice it to say we now have at our disposal a weapon of truly formidable power. Sadly, as I’m sure you are all aware, this does not eliminate the Prime threat entirely. There are many thousands of Prime warships already in Commonwealth space which will have to be dealt with. In addition, the Primes deployed flare bombs whose effects are still being felt on the Second48 worlds. There is nothing we can do to deflect the radiation saturating those planets. In short, their biospheres will in all probability be rendered uninhabitable. Even if a regeneration program were possible, as it may be on Wessex, all these worlds will see battle again as the navy combats the remaining Prime ships over the coming weeks. It is therefore with huge regret that I have informed the planetary leaders we have no choice but to evacuate their worlds.”

“Shit,” Edmund muttered. He’d known in his heart that the address was going to say something like that, but even so the enormity of what the President was saying was only just registering. But where are we all going to go?

“As accommodating an estimated thirty billion dispossessed people is a practical impossibility even for our society,” Doi said, “we will have to adopt a rather novel solution.”

Edmund didn’t like the sound of that at all. Then his e-butler told him a vehicle had just passed through the level two security cordon around the Far Away gateway section. He frowned. Who the hell was visiting this part of the station, especially now?

Nigel Sheldon leaned forward, taking over from the President, his expression earnest and supremely confident. “When we were building our first wormhole, Ozzie came up with some math for manipulating the internal temporal flow dynamic of exotic matter. We ran a small test a couple of centuries ago using one of CST’s exploratory division wormholes, and the concept worked. It hasn’t been used since, because we haven’t had a practical or commercial application for it. Until today. What we will do is modify the wormholes leading to the planets whose biospheres are dying. Within a week, they will be opened to the entire population in an exodus that will be organized by your national government. You will not be using trains to travel through; instead you will be asked to walk or drive, or take buses—you can even cycle if you like. The other end will emerge on a fresh H-congruous planet in phase three space; however, it will not emerge for another ten or fifteen years, or even longer if necessary. For you, only a few seconds will have gone past, but outside, the rest of the Commonwealth will have had enough time to build new basic cities and towns with a functioning infrastructure to accommodate you. I know this will seem shocking, but the worlds you are on now are dying, and we have to move quickly to insure against further loss of life.”

The car was a Mercedes registered to Grand Triad Adventures. Edmund stood up, staring out across the vast station yard to the road leading away to the terminal. He could actually see the car, a sleek burgundy-red limousine speeding along. It was under manual control, and it drove straight past the junction where it should have turned toward the single passenger platform. Not that anyone was using the Half Way wormhole anyway. Instead it was heading for the office block and the parking lot where Edmund was standing. Something was very wrong about that. He retained enough of his policeman’s instinct to check the small ion pistol he carried, then hurried toward the far end of the building.

“All of us pledge ourselves to seeing this rescue operation through to a successful conclusion,” President Doi said. “Senators, planetary leaders, the Dynasties: we are united in our determination. No matter what the cost or the effort, we will not fail you.” She sighed in compassion. “Godspeed, all of you.”