The Neutronium Alchemist: 23 (Nights Dawn) by Peter F. Hamilton

Author:Peter F. Hamilton [Hamilton, Peter F.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780330466455
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2008-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

After seven and a half hours with over a hundred false alerts and not one genuine sighting, Admiral Farquar was considering running a suppressor program through his neural nanonics. He hated the artificial calm the software brought, but the tension and depression were getting to him. The hunt for the possessed woman was being run from the Royal Naval Tactical Operations Centre. It wasn’t quite the operation envisaged while it was being built, but its communications were easily reconfigured to probe the asteroid’s net, and its AI had been loaded with the tracker programs developed by Diana Tiernan to hunt the possessed across Xingu. Given the size of Guyana, and the density of electronic systems spread throughout the interior, they should have had a result within minutes.

But the woman had eluded them. In doing so, she had forced him to admit to Princess Kirsten that if one could, so could more. There might be any number running round Guyana. For all he knew the entire navy staff could have been possessed, which was why the Operations Centre kept saying they couldn’t find her. He didn’t believe it himself (he’d visited the centre personally) but no doubt it was an option the Cabinet had to consider. Even he must be considered suspect, though they’d been tactful enough not to say so.

As a result, Guyana had handed over Ombey’s strategic-defence network command to a Royal Navy base in Atherstone. A complete quarantine of the asteroid had been quietly enforced under the guise of the code two defence alert.

So far it had all been for nothing.

The office management computer datavised him that Captain Oldroyd, his staff security officer, and Dr Dobbs were requesting an interview. He datavised an acknowledgement, and his office dissolved into the white bubble of a sensenviron conference room.

‘Have you made any progress finding her?’ Dobbs asked.

‘Not yet,’ Farquar admitted.

‘That ties in,’ the doctor said. ‘We’ve been running analysis scenarios based on the information we’ve collated so far; and based on that I believe I’ve come up with a rationale for her actions. Extracting Skibbow from our medical facility was slightly puzzling behaviour. It was an awful risk even for a possessed. If the marines had been thirty seconds faster she would never have made it. She must have had an extremely good reason.’

‘Which is?’

‘I think she’s Loren Skibbow, Gerald’s wife, if for no other reason than what she said to Jansen Kovak: “You should try being married to him for twenty years.” I checked our file, they were married for twenty years.’

‘His wife?’

‘Exactly.’

‘OK, I’ve heard stranger.’ The Admiral faced Captain Old-royd. ‘I hope you’ve got some evidence to back this theory up with.’

‘Yes, sir. Assuming she is who we suspect, her behavioural profile certainly fits her actions to date. First of all, we believe she’s been in Guyana for some time, possibly right from the beginning when the Ekwan docked. She has obviously had enough time to learn how to move around without activating any of our tracer programs.

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