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

bag containing his emergency pack—two sets of clothing, one of which was several sizes too small, a medical kit, cash, a CST return ticket from EdenBurg to Velaines with the outbound section already used, a couple of very sophisticated handheld arrays containing some well-guarded kaos software, and a legal ion stun pistol with buried augmentation that gave it a lethal short-range blast.
    An hour later, Adam left the hotel and walked five blocks in the warm afternoon sunlight, getting a feel of the capital city. Traffic up and down the wide roads was close-spaced, with taxis and commercial vans dominating the lanes. None of them used combustion engines; they were all powered by superconductor batteries. This section of town was still respectable, close to the central financial and commercial districts. Around him were stores and offices, along with some small side roads of terraced apartments, none of them over four or five stories high. Public buildings built in a late-imperial Russian style fronted neat squares. In the distance, down the perfectly straight roads, were the towers that marked the heart of the city. Every few blocks he walked under the elevated rail tracks snaking through the city’s road grid, thick concrete arteries on high stanchions, carrying the major lines in and out of the planetary station.
    Velaines was in phase one space, barely fifty light-years from Earth itself. Opened for settlement in 2090, its economy and industry had matured along model lines ever since. It now had a population of over two billion with a proportionally high standard of living, the kind of world that phase two and three space planets aspired to become.
    Given the length of its history, it was inevitable that some strands of decay should creep into its society. In the fast-paced capital market economy model that Velaines followed, not everybody could make themselves rich enough to enjoy multiple rejuvenations. The areas they lived in reflected their financial status. Road surfaces became cracked and uneven, while the efficient citywide network of metro trams serving them offered fewer than average stops and ran old carriages. This was where the real rot set in, the despair and dead ends, where human lives were wasted, sacrificed to the god of economics. In this day and age it was an outrage that such a thing should happen. It was exactly the environment Adam had long ago committed himself to eradicating, and now the place he needed most for his other activities.
    He found himself an A+A hotel at the end of Fifty-third Street, and checked in, using his Quentin Kelleher identity. The A+A was a franchise of cheap fully automated hotels where the manager was also the maintenance chief. The reception array accepted the Augusta dollar account transfer from his credit tattoo, and gave him a code for room 421. Its layout was a simple square three meters on a side, with a shower/toilet alcove and a dispenser outlet. There was one jellmattress bed, one chair, and one retractable shelf. However, the room was on the corner of the building, which meant he had two windows.
    He asked the dispenser’s small array for a sleeping pouch, three packaged meals, two liters of bottled water, and a toiletries bag, all charged to his account. The mechanism whirred smoothly a minute later, and the items popped out into the rack. After that he set one of his handheld arrays to sentry mode, and left it scanning the room. If anyone did break in, it would notify his e-butler immediately with an encrypted message from a onetime unisphere address. Such an act had a low probability. Velaines was proud of its relatively low crime index, and anyone staying in an A+A wouldn’t have anything of value. Good enough odds for him.
             
    That evening Adam took a metro tram across town to another slightly shabby district. In among the closed shops and open bars he found a door with a small sign above it:
    INTERSOLAR SOCIALIST PARTY
Velaines, 7th