Звезда Пандоры

“Are you testing me? If Alessandra had run a genuine check, she would have found what I told her. The Starflyer would never have had time to cover its alien ass; a fraud this elaborate would take time. It had to have been given a direct warning so that the cover-up would be in place in case I survived and started yelling allegations. The only person I told was Alessandra. It is her! She’s working for it, isn’t she? Alessandra is one of the people Johansson warns us about, like the President.”

“We don’t know for certain. However, given the sequence of events, it is highly likely.”

The lift doors opened. Mellanie peered out into the lobby. There didn’t seem to be anybody waiting for her. She hurried over to the main entrance, where there were some taxis waiting. “I’ve got to get back to Dudley,” she said.

“An excellent notion. Then what?”

“Tell Paula Myo what I’ve discovered. Do you know where she is?”

“Yes.”

…

Kazimir stood close to the end of platform 34 in Rio’s planetary station, with people swarming around him as they waited for the next train. The trans-Earth loop trains had carried on running almost continually during the invasion crisis—though even that service had stopped when Nigel Sheldon diverted the lunar power to Wessex. But they were up and running again within hours, unlike CST passenger trains to other planets.

Kazimir had been reassured by the way Earth’s infrastructure underwent only the minimum of disruption. What outraged him was the population’s attitude. The residents of Santa Monica seemed more upset by the temporary power loss than they did that twenty-three planets had been lost to alien monsters. And the Mayor certainly hadn’t allocated any civic buildings to the refugees riding around the Intersolar train network looking for accommodation, unlike civic and regional leaders on the other worlds. Earthlings appeared to regard the invasion as just another news event that happened to someone else a long way off. He wasn’t sure if that was ignorance or arrogance. Whatever, it was certainly a chilling example of how different their shared mindset was to his own.

The last few days had seen at least a degree of awareness creeping in. Kazimir had hung around the waterfront in Santa Monica, watching the news in bars, or accessing in his little hotel room while he waited for things to calm down so he could resume his mission. Local media shows reflected a lot of anxiety that a second wave of planets would suffer invasion, a progression that would one day lead to Earth itself being on the front line.

So far there had been no sign of any alien activity anywhere other than on the original invaded worlds. Now the evacuation of civilian populations was effectively complete, available data was in short supply as the Primes continued their inexorable advance. The navy was maintaining small fighting forces on Anshun, Balkash, and Martaban; aerobots and professional combat-wetwired troops conducted a guerrilla harassment campaign against the new installations the aliens were constructing. Everyone knew it was a token gesture. The buildup of Prime forces was increasing at a disturbing rate as they managed to open gateways on the planetary surfaces. Admiral Kime was expected to order a withdrawal soon, and the final wormholes would be shut down. Analysts on most of the news shows were predicting that the deserted capital cities would then be destroyed by fusion bombs.

The navy’s remaining scoutships had returned, and were now performing regular flyby patrols of the invaded worlds, supplementing the degraded detector network. So far, the aliens hadn’t opened any new wormholes to replace those destroyed by the Desperado’s last flight. Some of the technical experts and tacticians on the news shows were hinting that the remaining starships might well be automated, for use in similar relativistic assaults on other Prime wormholes. The navy had publicly refused to comment on the possibility. Commentators were saying that as the biospheres of the invaded worlds were so badly damaged, the Commonwealth had effectively written them off. It wasn’t worth sacrificing their last starships to destroy something humanity would never regain. They were being held in reserve in case of any new assault.

Whatever the official reason, that one substantial human victory on the invasion day had already reached an almost legendary status, its crew subject to intense praise on every current affairs and news show. That contrasted sharply with the vitriol and vilification that the rest of the navy was receiving, along with President Doi’s administration.