Orion Arm Read online

  ORION ARM

  The Rampart Worlds

  Book II

  Julian May

  A Del Rey® Book

  THE BALLANTINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  NEW YORK

  Copyright © 1999

  ISBN 0-345-39519-0

  First American Edition: April 1999

  CONTENTS

  By Julian May

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  By Julian May

  The Saga of Pliocene Exile

  Volume I: The Many-Colored Land

  Volume II: The Golden Tore

  Volume III: TheNonborn King

  Volume IV: The Adversary

  Intervention

  Volume I: The Surveillance

  Volume II: The Metaconcert

  The Galactic Milieu Trilogy

  Volume I: Jack the Bodiless

  Volume II: Diamond Mask

  Volume III: Magnificat

  The Rampart Worlds

  Volume I: Perseus Spur

  Volume II: Orion Arm

  Prologue

  His Daimler-Tori hoppercraft hurtles down from the ionosphere on its programmed course. The time is 0247 hours and the appointment with Alistair Drummond is at 0330. Below, the land is hidden by a thick layer of clouds, but the ship's ground display shows the enormous expanse of the capital conurbation and its satellite residential communities, spread along the entire northern shore of Lake Ontario.

  The hopper joins a sparse swarm of other light aircraft hovering within a holding pattern at nine thousand meters. The ship's navigation unit says: "Now arriving Toronto Conurb ATZ. Please supply next routing."

  He has dozed fitfully most of the way from the Sky Ranch in Arizona, exhausted by the stress of the general board meeting and fearful of the challenge that lies ahead. Rousing with a muttered curse, he removes the templets of the dream machine and says: "Wait."

  The navigator acknowledges.

  He leaves the flight deck and enters the Daimler's tiny lavatory. After relieving himself, he fumbles at the convenience console and calls up shave-gel, mouth rinse, an astringent towel, and a mild stimulant. As he completes the grooming ritual and the drug takes hold, his reflection in the mirror changes. The features lose the blotched puffiness of fatigue, becoming keen and judicial, and the sunken, haunted eyes take on a counterfeit sparkle. He combs his hair low on his forehead and to the side, concealing the prominent widow's peak that characterizes so many members of his famous family.

  Returning to the flight deck, he opens a locker, removes a hooded featherweight soft-armor jacket with a one-way visor and puts it on over the tropical business suit he had worn to the board meeting. The personal weaponry can wait until he's on the ground.

  He addresses the ship's navigator again. "Go to Blue Disenfranchised Persons Reserve. Prep for manual touchdown at junction of Mamertine and Borstal streets."

  "Warning. This area is outside the jurisdiction of Toronto Conurb Public Safety-"

  "Cancel advisory."

  "Warning: Touchdown in a DPR is at your own risk. No aid units will respond to emergency summons—"

  "Cancel."

  "Warning. Touchdown in a DPR will render all vehicle insurance coverage null and void. The following precautions are— "

  "Cancel all advisories and go."

  "Air access to Blue DPR visitor landing sites requires barrier override code. Please enter code."

  His fingers tremble only slightly as he plugs in the data-dime furnished by Galapharma's Arizona covert op. The navigator blinks in approval.

  "Confirmed. En route."

  The hoppercraft drops through the cloud deck to an altitude of less than five hundred meters. It comes in from the south, over the dead-black lake. Rain is falling heavily, blurring the pinpricks of colored light delineating the cityscape below. Only the Toronto core and its adjacent maze of islands to the east are clearly visible, shielded in the tenuous golden glitter of a Class One force-umbrella nearly forty kilometers in diameter. Protected from the weather, handsome government buildings and the proud bright crystalline towers of the Hundred Concerns defy the stormy summer night.

  The panorama is gorgeous, but he is in no mood to appreciate it. He calls up a triple-shot espresso with a tot of cognac and sips it, speaking the magic words aloud: "Calm. Competence. Courage."

  He possesses all three qualities in abundance, and they will carry him through the upcoming ordeal. However, since he is the bearer of disappointing news, he rehearses the spin angle he has calculated will be most effective with Alistair Drum-mond. Galapharma's CEO will probably be furious at the setback, but Drummond is no fool, and he'll have to concede that the Rampart takeover can be leveraged only with inside assistance.

  His assistance.

  There is really nothing for him to be afraid of.

  Coventry Blue is finally gone, along with the other wretched excesses that were tolerated by a compliant CHW government under the corrupt thumb of galactic Big Business. Nowadays, white-collar criminals—like him—get their comeuppance in a more humane, if less colorful, manner.

  Too bad.

  He deserved Coventry Blue if anyone did, the treacherous bastard. But I suppose I'm prejudiced...

  Before the Haluk War, the penal institution that combined the worst aspects of an ancient Soviet gulag with anything-goes 2050-vintage Las Vegas was situated on the western outskirts of Toronto. It was the largest and most flagrantly mismanaged Disenfranchised Persons Reserve in the Commonwealth. Nobody seems to know how the dark carnival aspect first invaded this particular Coventry, but it undoubtedly persisted because the Hundred Concerns found it useful as a tangible deterrent to corporate disloyalty. Among other things.

  The DPRs were originally designed as walled, self-contained penitentiary villages, providing their lifer inmates with an environment that was supposed to allow them a limited amount of independence and dignity. Self-government by the highly educated felons was one of the prime organizing principles, and in most of the Coventries the system worked well enough. Guards kept order, but under the original charter, they operated more like a small-town police force than like jailers. The convict population lived in apartments instead of cells. They didn't have to wear uniforms. There was no onerous regimentation. The prisoners had ample opportunity for gainful employment and recreation, and according to regulations, they were allowed visitors once a week. Life in a conventional Disenfranchised Persons Reserve wasn't all peaches and cream, but it wasn't a lunatic jamboree of Neronian depravity, either.

  The same couldn't be said about Coventry Blue.

  Most of the luckless felons sentenced to permanent residence there (some having been apprehended by me, when 1 was an enforcement agent for the Interstellar Commerce Secretariat) would have sold their souls to be elsewhere. At the same time, naughty-minded free citizens on the Outside were paying good money to get into the damned place!

  Blue's transient clientele came from all over the home world and from adjacent planets of the Orion Arm. The goal: to party down and dirty. Libertine tourists romping along the notorious Blue Strip could count on rubbing elbows— if nothing else—with distinguished local citizens, many of them members of the capital's political and corporate upper-crust who might deplore the place's wickedness in the public forum but didn't hesitate to indulge illicit Blue itches when the need arose. To the more vicious variety of well-hee
led thrillseeker, the sort who could afford the stiff bribe for the night entry code and the outrageous fees charged for the unique attractions, Coventry Blue was the carnal cruise destination of choice: zero-K cool, the ultimate hoot, where vile amusements weren't bloodless virtual reality, but shockingly, deliciously, perilously actual.

  And legal, within the walls. After all, the inmate purveyors were Thrown Away, stripped of citizenship, nonpersons. In law, not even the probationary disenfranchised—such as I was, in those days—had any civil rights. Throwaways condemned to Coventry Blue were the lowest of the low, officers and middle management employees who had violated important statutes of their Interstellar Corporation or Amalgamated Concern, threatening the very economic foundation of the Commonwealth of Human Worlds.

  A certain percentage of Blue inmate newcomers— especially naifs who had disbelieved the dire rumors they'd heard about the place—committed suicide when they realized that the prison was under the absolute control of exploitative convict gangs; but the majority just caved in to the inevitable and decided to go with the flow, accepting employment in the illegal enterprises operated by inmate kingpins. If life became too unbearable, oblivion was available in the form of cheap drugs, buzzheadmg, or old-fashioned alcohol that could be purchased with the monthly dole if one skimped on frivolities such as food and clothing.

  Religious leaders, left-wing media pundits, Reversionists, and other powerless moral guardians of the time called Coventry Blue a pervert's playground, a stinking sore on the backside of the capital conurbation, the epitome of everything that was rotten in the Commonwealth of Human Worlds during those bad old days of yesteryear. Right-thinking citizens were gratified when Blue was finally shut down during the sweeping reforms that followed the war and the downfall of the Hundred Concerns.

  Lots of wrong-thinkers were relieved, too. Including him.

  But I still get a smidgen of wicked satisfaction imagining how it must have been on that night of January 18, 2233, when he visited the infamous den of iniquity—under strong protest, of course.

  He prided himself in knowing almost nothing about Coventry Blue. Its sordid activities went unreported by the legitimate media, and he would never have dreamed of entering its restricted-access smutsite on the PlaNet. He wasn't interested in that sort of thing.

  The quest for power was his besetting sin, and in pursuit of it he had conspired to betray his own family's Starcorp to a predatory business rival, allying himself with a megalomaniac who might or might not decide to feed him to the wolves when his usefulness was over.

  Corruptor and corruptee had conferred face-to-face only once before, at the very beginning of Galapharma's bid to take over Rampart Starcorp. Since then the two men had communicated via intermediaries, covert ops belonging to the big Concern's security organization who would mysteriously appear to request progress reports or deliver instructions. He had no idea why Gala's capricious CEO had elected to set up this meeting in Coventry Blue instead of in a more seemly venue.

  Unless he'd done it for educational purposes.

  So here goes our corporate antihero, an upright, uptight respected executive of Rampart, on a quickie tour of hell. His perilous game is approaching its climax. If he wins, he'll get everything he's ever wanted. If he loses, he could come to Coventry Blue to stay... for the rest of his life.

  The hoppercraft flies slowly at a low altitude, reined in by the computers of Traffic Control. Even in the wee hours the Shore Freeway and Queen Elizabeth Way are crowded with cars and transit vehicles flowing in orderly streams to and from the radiant central umbrella. Luminosity reflects from low-hanging clouds, revealing the residential districts and industrial parks of Mississauga and Etobicoke, their wet streets gleaming beneath neatly spaced streetlamps.

  To the north is a less tidy enclave of about nine thousand acres. Its irregular perimeter is outlined by bright sapphire lights that surmount a ten-meter-high wall topped by razor-wire and Kagi guns on pivoting stanchions. At the eastern side of the complex is a gatehouse and security checkpoint. A single garishly illuminated thoroughfare—Peel Road, a.k.a. the Blue Strip—leads from the gate into Coventry's interior.

  The main drag of the prison village is solidly packed with upscale cars. The byways, almost deserted, have meager streetlighting or none at all. There are no trees or other ornamental vegetation anywhere. Except for the bizarre come-hither architecture of the clip joints, pusher palaces, and bordellos along the Strip, the structures of Coventry are built of drab plascrete—dismal apartment blocks and jerry-built flops for the more peaceable Throwaways, lockups and warehouse facilities for the wig-outs and immobile sickies, un-sanctioned fortified town houses inhabited by the convict elite who exploit their lesser fellows, and a guard barracks near the prison entrance. Smaller boxy units accommodate inmate services, tacky small shops and take-out food joints, storefront churches and charitable institutions, and the innumerable enterprises of Blue's illegal economy. Windows of the off-Strip buildings are mostly dark, in obedience to the selectively enforced midnight curfew regulations. In a few, oleum-flame lanterns and even candles cast a wan yellowish glow. Burnt-out ruins and heaps of rubble occupy some of the weedy open areas. Others serve as parking accommodation for visiting hoppercraft or cars and have bonfires burning to signal available space.

  His Daimler reaches its destination and hovers until he takes over the controls. Borstal Street runs parallel to the Blue Strip. Its intersection with Mamertine is at the western end of the penal complex, nearly five kilometers from the gate. He descends toward the parking lot designated by Alis-tair Drummond.

  The Daimler's terrain-scan monitor shows a level area crowded with at least sixty expensive hoppers, incongruous amidst the squalid surroundings. Their security shields throb faintly crimson in the rain, warning that intruders will be shocked into insensibility. Only a handful of the private aircraft show visible registration alphanumerics on the roof. The rest have ID illegally obscured for the duration of their stay in Coventry.

  For a brief moment he hesitates. (Calm! Competence! Courage!) Then he lands in a space as near to the lot's bonfire as possible. A parking attendant comes out of a shanty and slowly approaches over the muddy ground. The figure waits at a safe distance for him to emerge.

  He buckles on twin holsters, checks the load in his Ivanov stun-gun and the charge indicator on the Kagi photon pistol. He programs the remote control gorget for the hopper and locks it around his neck, zips the armor jacket and pulls down the visor. He stuffs his wrist wallet with cash and a single blind draft credit card, then pulls on zapper gloves.

  The Throwaway attendant stands motionless as he climbs out and touches his gorget to lock the aircraft and engage the security system. He can hear the noise of the Strip a block away: high-db rock music with yelping electronic toms and seismic bass, obbligato horn honks from the traffic jam, a volley of mystifying animalian howls. Underlying it all is the roar of carousing humans.

  "Morning, guv," says the attendant. "That'll be two hundred fifty."

  He can't help being outraged. "So much!"

  The convict shrugs. "Take it or leave it, citizen. That's the fee. You have a complaint, file it with King Kwadena Akosu. The lot belongs to him. You'll find him at Casino Royale."

  "Hmph. I suppose you want a tip as well."

  "Your gratuity would be deeply appreciated. And bless you, guv."

  A barely legible name badge identifies the Throwaway as gavin d. He is gaunt, scraggily bearded, and his grin reveals two chipped front teeth. Between his glazed red-rimmed eyes is a metallic button identifying him as a buzzhead, addicted to electronic stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain. His rainsuit is old and ill-fitting, patched with duct tape, smudged in soot, stained repugnantly about the crotch. Only his voice, hoarse but still retaining the inflection of an expensive education, reveals that Gavin D. was once more than human debris.

  Who was he when he lived Outside? A too clever corporate lawyer? A financial officer
caught with his hand in the till? A data thief? Another faithless executive who sold company secrets to the opposition?

  Gavin D. waits patiently, holding out a filthy hand with broken black fingernails. "Cash or plastic. Your first visit to Coventry Blue?"

  "Yes," he growls. Sort out the money, fork it over. A grudging twenty for the tip. The man's stink penetrates the closed visor. He backs away in distaste but Gavin D. follows, rummaging in the side pocket of his rainsuit.

  Is he going for a weapon? Panic! Drag the Ivanov out of its holster. "Stand back, damn you!"

  "Easy—easy does it, guv." A contemptuous snicker. "No one here will hurt you." Wink. Grin. "Unless you pay them to." The convict pulls a cheap e-book from his pocket and proffers it. "Complimentary guide to the local scene. What sort of action are you looking for? Sex? Dope? Gladiators? Gaming?"

  He waves away the book. "Which way to a place called the Silver Scybalum?" This is the rendezvous specified by Alis-tair Drummond.

  Silenced in mid-spiel, the attendant's eyes show a spark of revulsion before reverting to practiced blankness. "So you're one of those ... Well, different strokes for different folks. I hope you brought your niobium Visa card. You're looking at ultra-pricey show biz at the SS."

  "Never mind. Just tell me how to find it. And what's a scy-balum, anyhow?"

  "Look in the display window when you get there." The Throwaway hesitates and then the grin returns, sly and vindictive. "I wouldn't want to spoil your fun, but you ought to know that the performers there are genengineered humans, not the real thing. Neither are the baby ho's in the shorteye joints. Genen adult inmates, every last one. No real kids in Coventry. The female cons—"

  "Which way, goddammit?"

  "Don't get your twat in a twist. Go down to the Strip, hang a left, go two blocks. You can't miss it." Gavin D. turns away and shuffles back to his hovel to await the next customer.

  He sets off, moving cautiously on the broken pavement and repeating his soothing mantra over and over. Calm, competence, courage! This is a test He'll ace it, and to hell with Drummond's mindfucking control games.