Spheres of Influence-eARC by Ryk E Spoor Read Free Book Online

is he’ll come, after a little thinking. I couldn’t check on too many of the others and…well, I wasn’t ready to try any of the other sleepers yet. As for K, I checked but she’s been deployed elsewhere, and you know she never leaves a forward.” He made a handwave as if to shoo away the subject. “Anyway, Mentor kept us up to date on the situation. They’re nearly ready, and Naraj is setting up his own expedition to try to clean up what they see as our mess.” The huge Hyperion’s gaze snapped to Simon. “How are we set?”
    “Now that you’re here? We can leave within a few hours, I think.”
    “Are you coming with us, Saul?”
    The older man shook his grizzled head. “A part of me would love to see this Arena—and one day I am sure I will. But I am still Commander of the Fleet, and that is now, as your friend points out, a vastly more real position now than it was a few weeks ago. I have to prepare for a potential war…and try to minimize any damage our own politics might do here.”
    “Right. In that case you should probably prep your ship, because we’ve got to get out of here so that we’ll hit the Arena before anyone else does.”
    “I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that,” Simon said.
    “WHAT?”
    “No need to bellow, Marc. I mean that we just recently registered a transition. And judging from the path, the ship itself was completed two weeks or so ago—far earlier than I would have thought possible.”
    “Who the hell… Dammit ! That throws a new monkeywrench into the works.”
    Simon had been thinking. “You know, Saul, there just aren’t very many people who could have done this. It would have to be someone familiar with my work, considerable reserves of power or Interest or other value, and since no one picked up on this, someone very good at working under full anonymity. But even so…there were key elements of the designs that I kept fully proprietary, so only your study groups were given access.”
    “I see where you are going, Simon. Let me check to see if we have any candidates from the engineering and science group that was tasked with the construction of the Duta .” A pause; his AISage Elizabeth seemed to be paging through a book. “Hm. There does appear to be one possibility, but I would have thought someone you recommended would be a reasonable risk.”
    “One of my recommendations?” Simon said.
    “Doctor Shoshana,” Saul confirmed. “She left the SSC workgroup only about three days after joining, apologizing but citing some personal reasons.”
    “How…odd. She was always reliable when I worked with her—she had to leave the project shortly before the end, but I never had any problems with her or her work . ” He thought for a moment. “I suppose—if she had the resources—she would possibly be capable of this, although I had not thought her quite able to make that many leaps of design and judgment by herself…”
    DuQuesne stood up slowly, his face a shade paler. “Simon, who is this person you’re talking about?”
    “Dr. Marilyn Shoshana, a—”
    “SON OF A BITCH!”
    The bellow was so loud that everyone—even Sun Wu Kung—jumped. DuQuesne continued with several outdated curses. And as he did so, Saul suddenly went pure white. “Oh, no. Not her.”
    “What’s wrong, Marc?” Ariane looked grim, recognizing that only something cataclysmic could possibly make Marc C. DuQuesne react like that. In response, the Hyperion turned to Simon.
    “This Doctor Shoshana—young-appearing woman, maybe twenty five, delicate, extremely beautiful, golden hair—”
    Simon didn’t wait for the rest. “You obviously know who we’re talking about. What’s wrong, Marc? Who is Marilyn Shoshana?”
    “Just the most dangerous psychopath in the entire solar system,” DuQuesne said quietly, grimly. “The one Saul’s people have been chasing for fifty some-odd years and never caught.”
    “God, no,” Gabrielle whispered in disbelief. “The renegade Hyperion.