Free Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley Page A

punitive expedition to Uranus?’
    ‘Military command and the Senate have vetoed it; he is threatening to do it anyway,’ Loc said. ‘And you know what? He’s right. We know that every kind of Outer malcontent is skulking out there. And every day we leave them alone they grow stronger and bolder. We have to deal with them now, before they decide to deal with us.’
    ‘Don’t let anyone in the security service hear that kind of talk,’ Yota said. ‘It’s defeatist.’
    ‘It’s the truth.’
    Yota shrugged. ‘Even so, it could get you sent back to Earth.’
    ‘Nothing could get me sent back to Earth. It’s punishment enough that I remain here,’ Loc said.
    ‘Now your grievances are showing again,’ Yota said amiably.
    ‘There has to be more to it than this, Yota. You deserve more. I deserve more. And most of the people who are making good, they don’t deserve it at all.’
    Loc was thinking of Colonel James Lo Barrett, the officer in command of the salvage yard. A lazy, self-satisfied bully of a man with no regard for schedules or the minor details that kept the project running right, bombproof because he was one thirty-second consanguineous with the Nabuco family. The latest slippage in the salvage work had been entirely due to Colonel Barrett’s laissez-faire attitude, but it was Loc who’d had to explain it to the subcommittee of the Economic Commission.
    Yota took a sip of brandy from his oversized glass and said, ‘Here’s something that might please you. It seems that Professor Doctor Sri Hong-Owen is increasingly out of favour with General Arvam Peixoto. She’s spending too much time out in the field, working on those exotic gardens, when she should be providing the general with technological miracles he can profit from.’
    Loc had already heard about this, but it was good to have it confirmed from another source. As far as he was concerned, it was not only important to succeed - it was also important that your enemies should fail. And he believed Professor Doctor Sri Hong-Owen shared a large part of the responsibility for his present plight, for she’d whispered poison about him in the general’s ear after the gene wizard had escaped, when in truth it had been entirely her fault. She was obsessed with the hunt for Avernus, and it was a delicious irony that this obsession, coupled with her self-regarding arrogance, might yet be her downfall.
    He said as much to Yota, hinting about the small part he’d played in cutting her down to size, smiling and shaking his head when Yota asked him to elaborate. He liked secrets; liked to make people think that he had an inside angle on everything.
    ‘I have allies in unexpected places,’ he said. ‘One day soon, perhaps, I’ll be able to tell you more. But not yet. It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Yota. But I don’t want to put you in danger.’
    ‘Of course not,’ Yota said, clearly believing that this was another of Loc’s revenge fantasies.
    It was and it wasn’t. After the humiliation of his appointment, Loc had reached out to a cousin and rival of Arvam Peixoto. He’d met the man before the war, when they’d both been involved in one of the projects of the failed and little-mourned peace and reconciliation initiative meant to enhance trade, cultural exchange and mutual understanding between Greater Brazil and the Outers. The project had failed; Loc, working clandestinely for Arvam Peixoto, had played a small part in its failure. But when it became clear that he would never be properly rewarded despite all he’d done, he had begun to make tentative approaches to Arvam’s rival, feeding him little bits of information, such as the truth about the hero-pilot who was promoting the war back in Greater Brazil, and doing a few minor favours. Nothing much so far, although one errand had been amusing - slipping a handwritten note to Sri Hong-Owen that suggested it would be in her best interests for her to look for a new sponsor. Luckily, the