Chapter Thirty-Three
Reputedly, Doge Lorenzo del Velli is the greatest patron of business and science in history … but this is his own propaganda, cleverly disguised as fact.
—Succession: a Concise History of the Doges
(one of the banned books)
On distant Canopa, Francella Watanabe rode a slideway from a shuttle depot to a white, bubble-shaped nehrcom transmitting station. In a hurry, she wore a simple black dress and no makeup, so that her bald eyebrows and forehead glistened in bright morning sunlight.
The cross-space transmission facility sat in a hollow at the perimeter of the Valley of Princes, and was protected from attack by an implosive energy shield that encircled it, both above and below ground. It was a new structure, replacing one that had been blown up by a Mutati suicide bomber. The landscaping and other finishing touches were still under construction.
As she stepped off the sliding walkway and climbed wide marble steps Francella felt the invisible electronic field all around her, and experienced a shortness of breath from the anxiety this always gave her. The system read her identity at every imaginable level, and she wondered if it would make a mistake and not recognize her. These highly sensitive security units required a great deal of maintenance; they were always breaking down and under repair. During one of the down-times at the former station, a disguised Mutati sneaked in and sent messages, before destroying the facility.
Because of the high degree of concern over security, there were stories of mistaken arrest, and even one instance where a noble-born prince was misidentified and died from the stress of it. Francella felt strong enough to endure any rigid, probing procedures that the mechanism might put her through, but she hated the thought of wasted time. She had so many important things to do, secret things, and hardly enough time to complete them.
The electronic system emitted a friendly beep, allowing her to pass. The rooms inside the building were a brilliant, almost blinding white, with complex geometric ceilings but few furnishings, as if the contents had not arrived yet, or as if the designer expected to receive additional objects at some later date. But she knew the interior was complete. All of the stations were like this.
In an immense room beneath a glax dome stood one of the ultra-secret, platinum-cased nehrcom transceivers, with chromatic surveillance beams darting in all directions around it. For a few seconds, a rainbow of color washed across her, then moved on. Reportedly Jacopo Nehr, ever paranoid about keeping his priceless business secrets, continually rotated his security systems, to keep potential thieves off balance. This particular apparatus looked the same as the last time she had been here, but she suspected subtle differences.
The platform on which the nehrcom sat resembled a religious shrine, and not by accident, some people asserted, considering the reverence with which the instantaneous communication device was held. Arguably the greatest feat of technology ever conceived by the galactic races, it was second in its impact only to a concoction that was generally attributed to the Supreme Being himself … an entire race of sentient podships.
In a new security upgrade, users of the transceiver were not permitted to touch it or even to go near it, and instead had to remain behind a glowing blue railing that encircled the center of the room. Francella stepped up to the electronic barrier and touched one of the buttons on a panel, indicating that she wanted to pick up a message.
Presently a hatch opened in the floor on the other side of the railing and a platform rose, bearing a nehrcom operator dressed in a black robe with a nebula swirl on the chest. When the mechanism came to a rest he stepped off and approached Francella.
“Here is your message, Lady Watanabe,” he said.
As she accepted a folded sheet of brown parchment it irritated her that she had been required to come here personally to pick it up, but the Doge sometimes made this a requirement when he sent transmittals, even the most innocuous of them. As a rule, nehrcoms were entrusted for delivery to messagèros, the bonded couriers who worked for the Merchant Prince Alliance.
While the operator waited, Francella read the Doge’s brief communication. He had consented to the audience that she had requested, and told her what time to appear for it.
“Please inform the Doge I will be there,” she said.
The operator nodded.
As she left and descended the steps outside, one of the CorpOne vice-presidents stopped her, a toothy man with a bald head. “Did you hear about the catastrophe?” he asked.
When she gazed at him blankly, he told her that Earth had been destroyed. “It’s gone,” he said, “with only space debris left.”
“What happened?”
“No one knows. A huge comet, maybe.”
“No matter,” Francella said. “It was only a backwater planet, of little concern to the Alliance.”
With that she hurried away, to complete her scheming tasks.