The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle by Peter F. Hamilton Read Free Book Online

unisphere, and confirmed that the SI datavault was recording.
    It was almost an anticlimax when, right on time, Dyson Alpha vanished.
    “Yes!” Dudley yelled. He jumped to his feet, sending the chair tumbling backward. “Yes, yes, yes. I was right.” He turned to LionWalker, his smile absurdly wide. “Did you see that?”
    “Aye,” LionWalker grunted with false calm. “I saw that.”
    “Yes!” Dudley froze. “Did we get it?” he asked his e-butler urgently.
    “Unisphere confirms the recording. The event is logged in the SI datavault.”
    Dudley’s smile returned.
    “Do you realize what that was?” LionWalker asked.
    “I realize.”
    “It was impossible, man, that’s what. Completely bloody impossible. Nobody can switch off a star like that. Nobody.”
    “I know. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

TWO
    Adam Elvin walked out of the CST planetary station in Tokat, the capital of Velaines. He took his time as he passed the sensors that were built into the fluted marble pillars lining the concourse. If he was going to be arrested, he would rather it be now, before the rest of the mission was exposed.
    The average Commonwealth citizen had no idea such surveillance systems existed. Adam had dealt with them for most of his adult life. Understandably paranoid about sabotage, CST used them to monitor everyone using their facilities. The sensor’s large processor arrays were loaded with visual characteristics recognition smartware that checked every passenger against a long long list of known and suspected recidivists.
    Adam had used cellular reprofiling to change his height and appearance more times than he could remember; at least once a year, more often twice or three times. The treatment could never cure the aging process that was starting to frost his joints and organs; but it did remove scar tissue, of which he’d acquired more than his fair share over the decades. It also gave him a wide choice of features. He always felt that trying to disguise his seventy-five years was a pointless vanity. An elderly person wearing an adolescent’s face was truly pitiful. The rest of the body always gave them away: too bulky, too slow.
    He reached the departure rank outside the station’s passenger terminal and used his e-butler to hail a taxi. There had been no alarm. Or at least nothing detectable, he told himself. You never could tell when you were up against
her
. She was smart, and getting closer to him as the years wore on. If she had prepared a trap for him on Velaines, it wasn’t to be sprung today—the time he would prefer.
    For the moment he was free to go about his mission. Today he was a new person, previously unknown to the Commonwealth. According to his citizenship file he was Huw North, a native of Pelcan, a first-life sixty-seven; an employee of the Bournewell Engineering Company. To look at he was overweight; considerably so, given how seriously Commonwealth citizens took their health these days, weighing in at around two hundred thirty pounds. Accompanying that was a round saggy face that sweated a lot. Thinning gray hair was combed low across his forehead in an unfashionable style. He wore a baggy brown raincoat with wide lapels. It was open down the front to reveal a creased gray suit. A big man with a small life, someone nobody paid attention to. Cellular reprofiling was a cosmetic treatment for the poor and the vain, not a method of adding fat and giving skin a pasty pallor. As a misdirection it never failed.
    Which means it is probably time to change it,
Adam thought as he eased his oversize frame into the taxi, which drove him to the Westpool Hotel. He checked in and paid for two weeks in advance. His room was a double on the eighth floor, with sealed windows and air-conditioning set too cold for him. He hated that; he was a light sleeper and the noise from the air-conditioning would keep him awake for hours. It always did.
    He unpacked all the clothes in his suitcase, then took out the smaller shoulder