Звезда Пандоры

Dudley hurried over to them. The image quality was flawless. He gazed at the starfield, noting the minute variation from the patterns he was used to. “What sort of linkage have we got?” he asked his e-butler.

“The planetary cybersphere is negligible; however, there is a landline to the CST station. Available bandwidth is more than capable of meeting your stated requirements. I can open communication to the unisphere whenever you want.”

“Good. Begin a quarter of an hour before estimated enclosure time. I want full SI datavault storage, and a unisphere legal verification of the feed.”

“Acknowledged.”

LionWalker had stopped his gyrations, allowing the telescope to rest. He raised an eyebrow. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” A datavault store and legal verification were expensive. Along with his ticket, the cost had taken quite a chunk out of their carefully saved holiday money. Something else Dudley hadn’t told his wife. But it had to be done, with the telescope sensor feed authenticated the observation would be beyond dispute.

Dudley sat in a cheap plastic chair beside the telescope, his chin resting on his hands, watching the holographic light within the portals. He watched the dark sky obsessively as the Dyson Pair rose above the horizon. LionWalker made a few small adjustments and Dyson Alpha was centered in every portal. For eighty minutes it remained steady. A simple point of ordinary light, each spectrum band revealing an unwavering intensity.

LionWalker made a few attempts to talk to Dudley about what to expect. Each time he was waved silent. Dudley’s e-butler established a full wideband link to the unisphere, and confirmed that the SI datavault was recording.

It was almost an anticlimax when, right on time, Dyson Alpha vanished.

“Yes!” Dudley yelled. He jumped to his feet, sending the chair tumbling backward. “Yes, yes, yes. I was right.” He turned to LionWalker, his smile absurdly wide. “Did you see that?”

“Aye,” LionWalker grunted with false calm. “I saw that.”

“Yes!” Dudley froze. “Did we get it?” he asked his e-butler urgently.

“Unisphere confirms the recording. The event is logged in the SI datavault.”

Dudley’s smile returned.

“Do you realize what that was?” LionWalker asked.

“I realize.”

“It was impossible, man, that’s what. Completely bloody impossible. Nobody can switch off a star like that. Nobody.”

“I know. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

TWO

Adam Elvin walked out of the CST planetary station in Tokat, the capital of Velaines. He took his time as he passed the sensors that were built into the fluted marble pillars lining the concourse. If he was going to be arrested, he would rather it be now, before the rest of the mission was exposed.

The average Commonwealth citizen had no idea such surveillance systems existed. Adam had dealt with them for most of his adult life. Understandably paranoid about sabotage, CST used them to monitor everyone using their facilities. The sensor’s large processor arrays were loaded with visual characteristics recognition smartware that checked every passenger against a long long list of known and suspected recidivists.

Adam had used cellular reprofiling to change his height and appearance more times than he could remember; at least once a year, more often twice or three times. The treatment could never cure the aging process that was starting to frost his joints and organs; but it did remove scar tissue, of which he’d acquired more than his fair share over the decades. It also gave him a wide choice of features. He always felt that trying to disguise his seventy-five years was a pointless vanity. An elderly person wearing an adolescent’s face was truly pitiful. The rest of the body always gave them away: too bulky, too slow.

He reached the departure rank outside the station’s passenger terminal and used his e-butler to hail a taxi. There had been no alarm. Or at least nothing detectable, he told himself. You never could tell when you were up against her. She was smart, and getting closer to him as the years wore on. If she had prepared a trap for him on Velaines, it wasn’t to be sprung today—the time he would prefer.