Звезда Пандоры

He had spent years working here. If the Guardians could be said to havea regular base of operations in the Commonwealth it was at LA Galactic. It was the perfect, and essential, place for them. Hundreds of thousands of tons of industrial and consumer products were routed between its gateways every day. Food imports came to over a million tons, while raw materials in transit accounted for an even bigger market. Thousands of import-export companies, from the Intersolar giants to virtuals that were no more than a coded array space and a numbered bank account, had their offices and warehouses and transport depots within the city-sized station compound. Each one was plugged into the giant network of rails and CST cargo-handling facilities, both physically and electronically. Each one with multiple accounts in the finance network. Each one with links to the Regulated Goods Directorate. Each one with offices, from entire skyscrapers to suites of leased rooms. They grew, shrank, went bankrupt, floated and went Intersolar, moved headquarters from one block to another, changed personnel, merged, fought each other bitterly for contracts. It was supercapitalism in a confined pressure-cooker environment that was merciless to any weakness.

Over the decades, Adam Elvin had formed and folded dozens of companies at LA Galactic. He wasn’t alone. The number of companies that came and went within a single month could often be measured in hundreds. His were hidden amid the flow, no different from all the other chancers who set themselves up to supply markets they either knew about or believed in. He would create identities for himself, along with all the associated datawork, and use the name to register a company that wouldn’t be used for years. When he did start it up, it would be as a legitimate business competing for trade along with all the others.

It was a process that had served the Guardians well. Every operation to deliver armaments and equipment to Far Away involved a front at LA Galactic. It allowed him to track the shipments passively. And at some time all the items would pass through for checking, or switching, or to be disguised. As far as Paula Myo and the Serious Crimes Directorate knew, they were just another rented warehouse in the chain.

This time, with Johansson embarking upon his planet’s revenge project, and the navy becoming perilously efficient in pursuing them, the scale of the operation was larger than ever before, and its focus expanded. After Venice Coast, Adam was developing his paranoia to new heights.

Lemule’s Max Transit had leased an entire floor of the Henley Tower, an unimaginative thirty-five-story glass and carbon and concrete building on the San Diego side of LA Galactic, standing in the forest of similar office towers that made up one of the station’s commercial administration parks. Twenty Guardians worked in its offices. Four of them were occupied by the shipments of illicit goods to Far Away, while the rest devoted themselves to security.

As soon as Stig bought his ticket for the loop train he sent a message to a onetime unisphere address. Kieran McSobel, who was on duty at the Lemule office, received it, and as procedure required, launched a battery of onlook software into the planetary cybersphere. The programs installed themselves in the nodes that served the loop train Stig was using. They began analyzing the data flowing through the nodes.

The results flipped up across Kieran’s virtual vision. “Damnit. Marisa, we’ve got internal encrypted traffic in Stig’s train. Five sources, one in his carriage.”

On the other side of the open plan office, Marisa McFoster accessed the onlook information. “That doesn’t look good. It’s a standard box formation. The navy’s burned him. Shit!” She called Adam.

“We need the software he’s carrying,” Adam said. “Can we go for a dead recovery?”

“The bots are in place,” Marisa said. She ran diagnostics on the little machines, bringing them up to operational status. “We’ve got time. Gareth is covering the Carralvo. He can walk by.”

“Do it.”

“What about Stig?”

Adam kept his face composed, not showing the youngsters how worried he was. How the hell did the navy find him? “We can’t break the box, that’ll alert the navy and betray our own capability. He’ll have to do it himself. Send him a discontinue and break order when we’ve confirmed recovery. And activate the Venice safe house. He’ll have to undergo reprofiling if he makes it there.”

“Yes, sir,” Marisa said.

“Don’t worry, he’s good, he’ll make it.”