Judas Unchained

The boy nodded. “I think Tochee was worried, but I told him we’d be all right. He doesn’t understand how important you are.”

“I’ll try and explain to it later.”

“Ozzie,” the boy said quietly. “She’s really nice. We talked a lot. She’s called Lauren. She was really interested in the Silfen paths and where we’ve been.”

Ozzie glanced around at the security team member Orion was surreptitiously indicating. “Uh, okay; again, she’s polite in that serial-killer fashion because that’s her job. Don’t ask her to marry you or anything.”

“All right, Ozzie.” The boy pouted.

The hypersonic came down on a landing pad behind the station’s cluster of administration buildings. There was no one around to see them disembark and hurry over to the sleek private maglev express with its two carriages.

“Just us?” Ozzie asked when he looked down the deserted front carriage. There were big spherical chairs set along the length of the carriage, with a bar at the far end.

“Just you,” Nelson confirmed.

Ozzie took one of his new cases into the washroom to change. His attempt to interface with the unisphere was completely unsuccessful. His inserts reported the train was efficiently screened.

Back out in the carriage, Ozzie raided the bar for some sandwiches, then went to sit near to Tochee and Orion. He acted as tour guide as the express hurtled along, pointing out the worlds they passed through. The Big15 planet Shayoni first, which led to Beijing, followed by a fast trip around the trans-Earth loop to New York, and finally Augusta.

“Your transport is so much more efficient that the Silfen method,” Tochee said. “And your worlds so ordered. Do you disapprove of disarray?”

“Don’t judge us on what you’ve seen so far,” Ozzie told it.

At New Costa station their train peeled away from the main area of the yard to slide through a lone gateway.

“And this has to be Cresset,” Ozzie said. “I haven’t been here for a while.”

“Seventy-three years,” Nelson said as the maglev glided in to Illanum station. More dark cars were waiting for them.

“Where now?” Ozzie asked.

“One of Nigel’s residences just outside the town.”

“All of us?”

“Yes, all of you. We have suitable rooms prepared.”

“Okay then.” Ozzie was giving the station’s cargo handling sector a suspicious look. Its capacity had jumped up by an order of magnitude since he’d last visited.

The “residence” was a big mansion of pale stone modeled on the stately homes of eighteenth-century Europe. It was several kilometers out of town, and surrounded by towering trees that were oppressively dark in the deepening twilight.

“You’ll be all right,” Ozzie told his companions when they walked into the big entrance hall. Orion’s expression was dropping into a sullenness that Ozzie recognized only too well. “Get some sleep, we’ll talk in the morning.”

Nelson led the way through the mansion to a study overlooking the front lawns. There was a greenway outside, barely visible now the sun had set. Ozzie wasn’t sure if he remembered it or not; it did seem vaguely familiar. He resented not having access to the unisphere after only just being reconnected.

Nigel was waiting in a big leather armchair. “Thanks, Nelson.”

Nelson smiled tightly and left, closing the door behind him. Ozzie’s inserts told him a strong e-seal had come on around the room. “Just us, huh?”

“Just us.” Nigel waved a hand at a chair identical to his own.

“Shouldn’t the fire be blazing away?” Ozzie said as he sat down. “With like maybe one of those big hairy dogs stretched out in front of it.”

“Irish wolfhound.”

“And you an’ me jiving away with some brandy.”

“You’ve had enough to drink today.”

“Okay, Nige, so what’s with the big CIA spook operation? My unisphere address is open. You could have called.”

“Better this way. That kid you’ve turned up with tells an interesting story. And the alien; nobody’s seen anything like it before. Communication by photoluminescent visual signals in the ultraviolet spectrum. The xenobiologists are going to love that.”

“Tochee’s an okay dude, sure.”

“So you walked the Silfen paths?”

“Yeah, man. They are the most incredible wormhole network imaginable. I think they’re sentient in their own right. That’s why we can never quite track them down, they move the whole time, opening and closing, timeshifting, too.”

“Figures. Incorporating a wormhole’s control routines into a self-sustaining exotic energy matrix is one of our research projects.”

“Clunky, man, so clunky compared to this.”

“So what did you find? Have they got an SI equivalent?”

“Yeah, something like that. It has a shitload of data, like a galactic library. I know who put the barriers around the Dyson Pair.”

Nigel listened silently while Ozzie told him about finding the Ice Citadel, and Tochee, and seeing the ghost planet’s history, and finally ending up in the gas halo. “So this Anomine species isn’t going to help us?” he asked.

“No,” Ozzie said. “Sorry, man.”

“That was a well-spent time away, then. Are you happy?”

“Hey, fuck you!”