Ada had no particular love for universities-in fact, she had only ever fed herself intellectually through online databanks like most people-but she knew how to recognize a situation descending into despair when she saw one.
The last time she had passed through, the professors were speaking loudly about resistance or erecting barricades. Now, there were holes in the ground and the walls, suspicious traces of blood and projectile impacts everywhere; the rooms were empty, soldiers patrolled the campus, and the main entrance was guarded by a massive robot brought in from an industrial district.
She entered an office whose walls were lined with books, where the old academic who had once helped her was hastily gathering archives and stuffing them into a large dark bag. He looked up at her:
- "Our Xeno planet explorer," said Aloysius. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
From the way he paid attention to her, it was obvious he didn't give a damn about the answer.
- "Yeah. The Drift coordinates work."
- "From the monograph? That declassified Fleet document? They calculated every Drift from every planet? But how? Damn. What was it again?" he asked, turning toward the relevant shelf.
- "Habitable and Uninhabitable Worlds Based on Xeno Expeditions, by Andrei, captain of the Stellar Fleet. I think I know that guy."
He pulled the book-which existed as a single copy-and stuffed it into the bag with the others. She held a terminal up to his face, displaying a photo and various data.
- "I want to go to this star."
- "What star?"
- "I have no idea. It doesn't have a name!"
- "And what do you know about it, besides the fact that it's..."
He squinted at the screen.
- "...a blue giant?"
- "I've got its coordinates relative to another Xeno world."
- "Is it in Andrei's monograph?"
- "No, no one's ever been there. No humans, at least."
- "And you want the coordinates?"
- "Yeah."
Aloysius's tension eased, and he chuckled. Then, after a moment of stillness, he resumed collecting books.
- "My dear, there are three ways to go about it: you can do it randomly and hope for the best, like our good old Drift pioneers from the 2000s, and you'll have a one-in-a-million chance of making it. Or you rent a quantum computer and let it run for eight years. Or, like everyone else, you ask Leonardo. But I warn you, the waiting list is long and the Fleet locks everything down."
- "What is Leonardo?"
- "The computer planet, kid. Ask your LE. A Transient artifact, ideal for calculating a Drift. That's all it's been doing since we discovered it-no rest at all. But I don't want to throw you into a trap: you need a permit to land on Leonardo. No permit, and they'll seize your ship and throw you into their damned administrative detention centers. I wouldn't wish that on you."
- "I know it well, thanks."
He zipped his bag shut and hoisted the strap over his shoulder.
- "Did the soldiers let you in?" he finally realized.
- "I didn't ask them."
- "Best way to deal with the army. Well, if you're not afraid to die. Miss, I have to go."
- "Where are you headed?"
- "Lodovico."
- "You're not seriously going to work for the Aleph?"
- "What do you think of the Aleph?"
- "I think he's a clown, and I'm going to settle his score."
Aloysius stepped closer and placed a hand on her shoulder.
- "Be careful. When everything calms down, will you come back here? I've got tons to teach you. And vice versa."
- "About prime numbers?"
- "Ah, the pillars of the cathedral of numbers. A fascinating field. We can talk about it if you like. But you need to stay alive. So once again… be careful. Don't speak ill of the Aleph. If you need to scream, do it in your head-or at least, far away from Earth."
He walked through the door, startled upon seeing Alpha, then continued on his way. Ada looked at Alpha.
- "The world's going to shit, my friend Alpha. You know what? We're going to find an old friend of mine. He owes me big, and I need to get paid."
There had been no new regulations since the arrival of the Aleph-in fact, there were fewer. The laws were falling away one by one. Citizens were experimenting with their new spaces of freedom like a cat exploring an unfamiliar garden, cautiously. All public servants and authorities were suddenly occupied with other matters (notably with discussions about their future), and everything was handed over to drones. It was an unprecedented liberation of the market, which led to insecurity and all kinds of "enterprises."
Various establishments known as "long houses"-paid meeting places where one could find anything-were flourishing on the second-to-last floor of Prospero, where the light of the lava from the lowest level filtered through the floor, providing the only illumination in a darkness and industrial racket conducive to secrecy. This long house had no name; it was run by a former pilot with chrome prosthetics on his legs and arms. It was filled with other pilots and people looking for pilots, and it was carved into the old hull of a Colossus, giving it a thousand isolated alcoves where anything could happen. Even if one came for business, there was also food, distractions, and pleasures. Dense industrial smoke mingled with Xeno hookahs. Hypnotic music, dating from the 2200s-the century of melancholy.
In one alcove, Sky was facing a couple of bourgeois from sector 888, almond-eyed and covered in gold and red. With them was a fat, round Xeno the color of a potato.
- "It's an era where you can make a mountain of cash if you've got capital and a ship," declared Sky, puffing on an illegal cigar made from Valentine mangrove leaves. "And it just so happens I've got a ship. The most profitable route is Tybalt – Ur – Booz – Jerimadeth – Prospero – Francisco – Lennox. We call it the million-thaler route. It's long, but with the right timing, you can do it in three days. On Tybalt, I get you fractal artifacts-I fill my Adventura with them. On Lennox, we sell them to guys who then sell to the army. And the army, thanks to that Aleph bullshit, is the most reliable customer the HS has. And guess what? They want fractal artifacts."
The woman in the couple spoke a dialect from sector 888 that was nearly incomprehensible, but a portable LE translated:
- "All ships get robbed by the Brotherhood of the Two Worlds on the way to Booz."
- "Well in that case, I die, and you just lose your money. I'd say the risk distribution is a little lopsided, don't you think?"
- "How much do we give, and how much does it earn us?"
- "I take 50% of the profit. You give a million thalers, I think I can make 10. So you make four-fifty in three days. Actually, wait-the round trip… ten days."
- "Why are you here in this crummy dive if you have deals like that?"
- "Because it's only possible since Aleph messed everything up."
- "We're interested."
The barrel of a magnetic acceleration rifle lowered onto the table, making the guests cross-eyed with fear. Ada, Alpha, and Kukth.
- "Get out," she ordered.
The LE translated, and the couple stood up instantly, nearly tripping as they fled among the other patrons. Their fat Xeno rolled after them.
Ada took their place. Sky looked delighted:
- "Ada, you've become a real woman. Still with the trusty Alpha-hey there, old friend-and your little Clélia lizard. And your cute little plushie."
- "And a rifle, motherfucker."
- "You came to thank me for saving you from Clélia? Forget it. We're even, babe."
- "You owe me a shit-ton of money, and you have no idea how good I am at math."
- "Oh yeah? I thought that was ancient history. You've been hunting me all these years?"
- "It took me ten minutes to find you-with a tech from Orion Prime. They really like me on Orion Prime, especially since I personally killed dozens of soldiers to liberate it."
- "Okay, okay, you're a real badass. So what, you gonna shoot me? This is Prospero. It's not the Prefecture Tower, but the cops don't mess around with assaults."
- "Oh yeah?"
She nodded slightly, and Alpha slid one of his sharp hands between Sky's fingers and sliced off his ring finger. He screamed in terror, then in pain-but it was barely louder than the music and the machines. A server android turned toward them with a blank stare, and Ada answered with an innocent smile.
- "I'd love to chop you into little pieces like that."
- "Fuck, I'm going to throw you back into that detention center for the rest of your life, bitch."
- "Freedom of religion, old Sky. The HS is obsessed with that. And there's that Transient religion from the Gobbo plains."
She rolled his severed finger across the table.
- "To move up in the cult, you have to cut off pieces of your body and offer them to their god. My buddy signed you up. I think it's a dumb religion, but now all the LEs are convinced it's your true faith and that you believe in it like crazy."
- "You're not really gonna cut me to pieces, are you? Come on, I saved your ass! Even Alpha-your life-and-death buddy-I'm the one who brought him to you!"
- "Very debatable. By the way, where did you find Alpha? Everyone keeps asking me where he comes from."
- "If I tell you, will you leave me alone? I don't have your money."
- "If you tell me, no one cuts off another finger in the next thirty seconds."
- "You're really dumb, you could've just asked nicely-I would've told you everything. Hand me that glass, I need to disinfect-fuck. Alpha, I found him in the wreckage of an ancient Colossus that crashed on the wild continent of Titus. The Colossus was coming back from an expedition at the far end of the universe."
- "Okay," said Ada, almost gently. "I don't need the money. I've adopted your philosophy: when I want something, I take it. I need you to come with me to Leonardo."
- "Fuck, this hurts so bad… Leonardo? You can't land on that fucking planet."
- "Yes, you can. They just arrest you after you land."
- "And what good does that do?"
- "Not your problem."
- "Leonardo is a MILITARY planet, top secret, like Lodovico. Since it's a Transient artifact, you can see it from a tourist ship, but landing there means you spend the rest of your life in a detention center. Great. FYI, in two months I get my citizenship back. Two months, Ada. Please."
- "You were just scamming chumps out of millions, and now you're whining about your citizenship card?"
- "Millions go fast. I want my After secured. Especially with the new HS boss changing his mind every five minutes. What am I gonna do with one finger missing, damn it…"
- "Cut off your hand and get a synthetic one. With luck, it won't steal other people's money."
- "Listen, Ada, forget Leonardo. You want Drift coordinates? No problem. I can find you a Transient who knows how to do that."
- "Where's this Transient?"
- "On Booz."
- "On Booz. How convenient. Alpha, slice off another finger."
- "NO! NO!" screamed Sky, hoping to be louder than the music-vainly-as Alpha approached.
- "On Booz, where all your Brotherhood buddies are, Sky? You think I'm some rookie, pal? You know all the Xenos on Booz love me, right?"
"So first off, I know there's no Xeno there capable of calculating Drift paths. And second, you're going to try to double-cross me and they'll all kill you."
- "Please don't cut off my finger… I just don't want to go to prison… damn it, you've been there…"
- "So here's what we'll do about Leonardo. You'll tell the truth. You'll say I'm holding a gun to your back and hijacking your ship. That way, they arrest me and you get away with an interrogation."
- "That's your plan, really? Until you change your mind again."
- "Or we can stay here and chop you into pieces one bit at a time. Your call."
Sky closed his eyes, dipped his bleeding stump into a glass of nebula liquor, and downed it in one shot.
- "Alright, let's go. Leonardo's Drift opens every day at dawn."
They left the long house as if they were good friends-more or less true now that they spoke the same language. On the walkway leading to the inter-level elevator, lit by magma, they passed the couple that had been at their table earlier. Holding his bloodied hand and looking pale, Sky called out to them: "Hey, I'm just wrapping up some business and I'll be back tonight-we can talk more then. Think about my offer." And they looked at him, scrutinizing him in silence.
In the elevator, accompanied only by drones roaming the lower levels to collect usable waste, Ada said to Sky:
- "If they come back to you after seeing your hand, they absolutely deserve to be scammed."
- "You have no idea, Ada. The richer they are, the dumber they get when it comes to making money. Tomorrow they'll give me the million. You know, with my smile and your blind violence, we could make enough to buy a Polylife."
Ada thought of the Wau from the Antioch League shows, handling his golden thalers with a maniacal grin-that was what got him killed. Those losers, and Sky… they had the same disease.
Once they reached the spaceport level, Sky led her to a magnificent Adventura-a plump red-and-yellow tourist ship, with a giant sun painted on its nose, bearing the name: Phebus. Prospero never slept, and even as dawn approached, activity was still intense.
The Adventuras, mini cruise ships, had an entire autonomous deck (which could detach from the ship in case of emergency) with bedrooms, a zero-G bubble pool, gourmet kitchens, libraries, and VR experiences. The upper deck, made of wood and dedicated to piloting, was large enough to host a dozen crew members-and in principle, it was meant to have them. Of course it was just like Sky to use a tourist ship for cargo runs…
Smooth takeoff from an experienced pilot. Ada remembered their last takeoff together. Silence. Then, the Drift engaged, and the Leonardo system appeared through the massive observation bay.
A red dwarf star, glowing quietly at the center of a system with no other celestial body… a few large Adventuras for tourists and some custom Ozy ships belonging to the wealthy came to observe one absolute marvel: Leonardo-1, which the HS called the computer planet.
Mouth twisted, Sky veered the ship and dove toward it; Ada slowly discovered the astonishing artifact. As large as a gas giant, but with no rock or gas-just a mesh, a metallic skeleton that looked like a ball of yarn. With magnification tools, she could make out the structure: simple iron rails, carrying metal spheres.
The ship's LE explained to Ada that Leonardo was a simple mechanical computer using its own gravity to operate. It was essentially hollow, since the apparent mesh, when viewed closely, was an interweaving of quintillions of rails on which rolled, fell, and rose metal spheres the size of a human head, made of indestructible alloy. No one had ever been able to fully analyze one of those spheres, because if even a single one went missing, who knows if the calculations would remain accurate?
Probably operated remotely by Transients, humans had established a base in low orbit where gravity was present-but roughly lunar. This base interfaced digitally with the mechanical core of the HS's mathematical "questions," and the planet worked full-time.
It was also a military zone, as the comms echoed:
- "Adventura Phebus, I don't know what you're doing, but you're entering a military zone," said a stern voice. "One light-hour more and we will open fire. Turn back."
- "Uh, no, don't shoot!" replied Sky immediately, glancing at Ada. "I picked up a passenger for a job and this person has gone crazy and is holding a gun to my back, forcing me to head for the planet. Don't shoot!"
- "Disengage your clamp and turn back, Phebus. Our missiles are locked on you."
- "For God's sake, I don't know who you are, but I'm totally a victim here! Let me land and you can deal with the hijacker… we can sort this out without killing anyone!"
Ada nodded slightly, and the voice fell silent.
- "May we speak with your hijacker?" asked another voice.
Ada shook her head.
- "No, but she's jamming the rifle into my back."
- "Can you identify this person?"
- "Yeah. Her name's Ada. She's a former League member, did time in your detention centers. I think she holds a grudge against you guys."
- "Can Ada hear me?"
- "Yeah, go ahead."
- "Ada, you have three options. You can turn back immediately and escape with just a report to the LEs and HS justice. Or you can land, and I have an elite commando here who will take you in. We get unstable individuals trying what you're doing from time to time. They never leave Leonardo, if you get my drift. Finally, if you have an explosive aboard, we have scan satellites inbound in a few light minutes, and if your approach speed is deemed dangerous, believe me, we will fire without mercy. We have never missed a target. You've been warned."
And he fell silent.
The Phebus descended toward the base in extremely low orbit, just five hundred meters above Leonardo, heading for a cleared landing pad outlined by blinking lights. The guy on comms hadn't lied: thirty-six soldiers in exoskeletons and black armor, with magnetic rifles, were waiting in a circle all around.
They stormed the Adventura the moment its doors opened, sweeping through all the quarters they had already scanned with their satellites.
- "Where is your hijacker?" shouted the commando leader to Sky, who was kneeling before the observation bay, hands in the air, motionless.
- "Right there," he replied, turning and pointing to the back of the ship.
But there was no one there anymore.