‘He’s good,’ Nigel admitted as the ex-sight swept along the street, as it did every couple of minutes. Their fuzz deflected it easily, but they were still forty metres away.
Someone was awake in the Hevlin’s lobby, faithfully watching out for trouble. Ma had too many enemies to leave the place unguarded, even on a night like this.
‘Akstan?’ Nigel queried.
‘It’s probably Snony,’ Akstan said. ‘He’s got good ex-sight. Reliable, too.’
‘We need to get inside without anyone raising the alarm.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Akstan said eagerly.
Kysandra had to press her teeth together and strengthen her shell so her feelings didn’t betray her. It had taken Nigel twenty minutes to turn the surly Akstan into an over-friendly eager-to-please disciple. She’d watched all of the sullen, sulky brothers start to behave with the kind of adoration that a puppy would exhibit.
Akstan and his brothers deserved no less; she wasn’t arguing that. But it was a sharp reminder than the man who treated her so kindly could also be completely ruthless. It made her glad she had been shown trust. But equally, she wondered if that appreciation was all her own. Had he used domination on her while she slept that day after their wedding? But . . . if he’d done that, would I ever question if he had? Unless that was part of it, making me doubt so I think I am free . . . Uracus.
‘Did you do that to me?’ she blurted as Akstan walked steadily towards the Hevlin.
Nigel turned and frowned. ‘What?’
‘Did you use Tathal’s domination procedure on me?’
‘No.’
Infra-red showed him grinning, his teeth glowed ruby red under the wide brim of his hat.
‘But I get that making you believe that is practically impossible,’ he said. ‘Ask yourself: why would I give you the Commonwealth memory implants?’
‘So I’m more useful.’
‘Ah, okay; good answer. So the second question is: why would I risk leaving you free?’
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘Because I have great-great-great-great-great-granddaughters your age or younger. Because I am many bad things, but enslaving teenage girls isn’t one of them. Because I won’t have many genuine friends here, but you could be one. And, face it, I am kind of overwhelming, which is a sort of domination.’
She nodded slowly. ‘Are you really that old to have great-great – whatever – granddaughters?’
‘Oh, yeah. They’re all out there, on the other side of the barrier. Judging me.’
‘Uracus. So what bad things?’
Nigel chuckled. ‘I used my power and money to build an empire. Opponents got pushed aside. Pushed hard.’
‘You ruled people, like the Captain does?’
‘It was a commercial empire. Which, given its size, translates into political power. So yes, I ruled people. Just like the Captain does here. I choose to believe I was a reasonably benign dictator. Hardass, fanatical dictators never accomplish anything, and for all my faults I’m proud of what I achieved. Along with my friend Ozzie, I helped open the stars for our whole species, Kysandra; I was one of the founders of the Commonwealth. Long time ago, though.’
‘If you’re really that important, why are you here? Why did you come into the Void?’
His glowing grin widened. ‘Who else you gonna call?’
Her own lips lifted in response. That was Nigel. Odd yet reassuring.
Akstan walked into the lobby. The man behind the reception desk looked up, jerked his head in recognition. Akstan pulled out the air pistol Nigel had given him and shot the man in the throat. The sedative in the pellet worked fast. Surprise and shock had just registered, he was starting to ’path out an alarm, when his eyes rolled up and he collapsed.
‘Good work,’ Nigel ’pathed.
Akstan looked ridiculously pleased with himself.
‘Gas masks on,’ Nigel said.
Kysandra took out the slippery triangle of fabric and pressed it to her face. It adhered to her skin, covering her mouth and nose. She took a cautious breath; the filtered air was very dry, but apart from that perfectly normal.
‘Let them go, Russell, please,’ Nigel said.
It had taken Skylady’s synthesizers most of the afternoon to produce components to graft onto the small semiorganic ge-cats it had in storage. But after a solid three hours work, eight of the slick little creatures were now rodent-like enough to pass as bussalores. They were in a box carried by Russell, who put it down on the wet cobbles.
Kysandra’s ex-sight followed them scampering over to the Hevlin. Three of them went in through the front door Akstan was holding open. The remaining five veered off down the alleys on either side of the hotel. They entered through air bricks set level with the pavement, through cellar windows, through drainpipes. Pre-loaded directions sent them racing along corridors and through rooms. As they went, gas sprayed out through their anus vent, permeating the entire building. Sleepers drifted into an even deeper sleep, unaware as their dreams faded to nothingness.
Nigel waited outside in the rain, observing the creatures’ progress with his ex-sight. Ten minutes after the last artificial bussalore entered, he said: ‘All right, let’s go.’
He started to walk towards the Hevlin Hotel and the unconscious bodies it contained. Kysandra and the others followed.
3
Kysandra was desperate to start the expedition to the Desert of Bone. She’d never even seen a train before, let alone travelled half the length of the continent on one. And then an adventure was waiting for her at the far end. Yet at the same time, it was so hard to leave Blair Farm. In the six months since Nigel had arrived, crashing into her life, turning her existence into something extraordinary, the farm looked as she’d always imagined it would be if Dad had come back and run it properly. Teams of perfectly coordinated mod-apes and mod-dwarfs had built a waterwheel-powered timber mill beside the river. Then with the planks and posts cut from trees they’d felled, new barns were constructed. Hedges had been hacked back into shape, and fields ploughed and drilled ready with the seed crops they’d bought from town. Sheep, pigs, cows, chickens, goats, llamas and ostriches had been delivered from the local livestock market, and thrived under Skylady’s excellent proxy husbandry. The stable of mods expanded constantly. Machine shops were being put up. Each day there was something to help with and accomplish.
There were some days when she looked round at what they’d achieved and wondered if it was all real. But, of course, it was all Nigel. He knew exactly what to do, how things were built, the components, the tools they’d need. He knew how to handle people. He wasn’t afraid of being forceful when he had to be. He was focused in a way she knew she’d never be, not even with all her bright bubbling Commonwealth knowledge. Which made her slightly envious.
She found herself watching him more and more. He was over a thousand years old – so he claimed – even though he didn’t look much over his mid-twenties. That youthful appearance was . . . nice. It helped conjure up certain daydreams. Not that they were anything but daydreams.
He teased her a lot, which was cool that he felt so comfortable with her. It meant she could tease him back, ask questions she’d never dare ask Mrs Brewster. She’d never known that kind of honesty before. It made her feel good, on a lot of levels.
It was a time she’d have been happy to stretch on and on, but Nigel was keen to find out what had caused the peculiar signal from the Desert of Bone. So with Blair Farm functioning smoothly, they set off as the dry season arrived, leaving Skylady and three ANAdroids in charge.
They had to take a boat to Erond first, which had the closest branch-line station. Nigel hired the whole longbarge to ferry them and their luggage along the Nubain tributary from Adeone. Before they started, he’d ordered five brand new trunks from the general store, which had taken three weeks to arrive from Varlan. Lovely brass-cornered boxes with heavy-duty Ysdom locks, so large Kysandra could practically fit into one if she curled up tig
ht.
Russell and Madeline came with them, as valet and maid respectively, along with two of the ANAdroids who had now modified their faces, giving them real human characteristics. One had acquired Asian traits and had aged himself to about eighty, complete with a receding hairline – nice touch, she acknowledged. Who would ever suspect anything abnormal about that? The second had turned his skin as pale as the Algory mountains’ snowcaps and toned his hair to a matching light sandy shade. She’d spent a few days suggesting facial elements he might want to incorporate, watching in delight as they slowly manifested, until a week later they’d wound up with a wonderfully handsome twenty-year-old’s countenance. Sure enough, every time he visited Adeone, all the girls directed sight and ex-sight his way.
‘You’re projecting,’ Nigel had commented, in not-quite-disapproval.
She and the ANAdroid had laughed at that behind his back. All the ANAdroids had distinct personalities, and this one had a dry sense of humour she enjoyed. ‘What do I call you?’ she asked. Because now that he had a real face, it was impossible to think of him as a machine.
‘I am Three.’
‘That’s not a proper name, and I can’t call you a number in public. Nothing that draws undue attention, remember?’
‘I can’t forget anything, remember?’
Kysandra giggled. ‘Then I’m going to call you Coulan, after one of Mum’s nephews. I always liked him.’
‘I accept the name with gratitude.’ He gave her a short bow. ‘What are you going to call the rest of my batch?’
So it was Demitri, Marek, Valeri and Fergus.
‘Fergus?’ Nigel sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes, Fergus.’ She linked arms companionably with the newly named Fergus, who generated a quick pulse of smug amusement from his bioconstruct brain.
‘All right. But when I start using them as embedded scouts, he might have to be called something else if that’s what it takes to blend in.’
‘Fine,’ she said airily.
But he was Fergus when he accompanied them on the expedition. With their luggage and servants and first-class tickets, they really did fit the ideal of an aristocratic couple taking a grand trip.
The first train took them all the way up the Southern City Line and into Varlan’s Willesden station, which stood on the Colbal’s southern bank. Kysandra had pleaded to spend a few days in the capital before setting off east. Surprisingly, Nigel had agreed easily enough. ‘I need to look around at some point,’ he said. ‘Can’t put it off forever.’
So they booked in to the palatial monolith that was the Rasheeda Hotel on Walton Boulevard, with its diamond-patterned bricks and stone oriel windows, where their fifth-floor suite had a balcony that overlooked Bromwell Park. Kysandra laughed in delight at the ornate rooms, which had wood panelling and lush gold and scarlet wallpaper, then gasped at the size of the four-poster bed in the master bedroom. She couldn’t resist running across the room and jumping onto the vast mattress, giggling as she bounced about. ‘This bed is the same size as my whole bedroom back home!’ She rolled over and ran the tip of her tongue along her teeth. ‘It’s a perfect bridal suite, don’t you think?’
Nigel gave her a faux-lofty glance. ‘I’m sure a lot of brides have had a happy time here.’
‘You say you’re a thousand years old,’ Kysandra retorted with her best coquettish pout, ‘so you must have had a lot of wives.’
‘Kysandra: you’re seventeen, I’m a thousand. That’s just wrong on every level. Just keep thinking of me as your big brother guardian and you and I will be fine. I’ve told you before, when you see a nice boy who’s close to your age, then take him to bed and have as much fun as you want.’
‘I don’t want a nice boy.’
‘That’s an old argument which isn’t actually true. Trust me: you do.’
‘Don’t,’ she insisted stubbornly.
‘And I recognize the way that jaw is firming up, so let me tell you now before you turn any more daydreams into plans: I get that this is all tremendously exciting for you, but I will not offer you any kind of false happy ending. I may have to leave, I may get imprisoned or lynched, I just don’t know. So understand this: you and I are not going to grow old together and watch our grandchildren take over the farm. I’m glad I met you, and I’m pleased that your life has improved because of that, but I have obligations to the Commonwealth and the Raiel that have to be met. Everything else is secondary.’
Her pout turned grouchy. ‘Fine. Okay.’
‘Damn, I’d forgotten what teenagers are like. I love that you know everything and don’t need any help in the world.’
‘Stop being such an arsehole.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He gave her that grin that admitted he was actually really fond of her. ‘You know, if they’d chosen Ozzie instead of me, it would have been very different. He would have taken you to bed without any hesitation.’
‘Is he likely to come? After all, you crashed on the wrong planet. Will he come and rescue you?’
Nigel burst out laughing. ‘Hell, no. Sorry. I’m all you’ve got.’
‘So who is Ozzie, anyway? You keep mentioning him.’
‘My oldest friend. I can’t even begin to tell you all the things we’ve done together. Not that you’d believe them anyway.’
‘Try me.’
‘Maybe on the train to Portlynn. It’s going to be a long trip.’
‘And he really won’t come to rescue you?’
‘No. He’ll likely laugh and say: I told you so. But he won’t come. I’m on my own.’
*
For two days Kysandra toured the centre of the capital, relishing every moment. The huge stately buildings, the wide tree-lined boulevards, public parks, galleries, theatres, the people, rich and poor – there were more walking along a single street than lived in the whole of Adeone. But as much time as she could wrangle out of Nigel was spent visiting the grand department stores and couture houses. She was dazzled by the furnishings and fittings the stores offered, and constantly asked Nigel if they could have pieces for the farmhouse. Nothing the county carpenters produced could ever come close to this elegance and comfort. He laughed and said perhaps they could order some on the way back.
And the clothes. Oh, the clothes! She could have emptied every trunk of their silly expedition equipment and filled them with fashionable gorgeous clothes to take home.
However, there was a price to pay. Nigel insisted they take a look at the government institutes and offices. ‘To get a feel of their abilities.’ It turned out that half of Varlan’s central district was a government building of some kind.
They started by strolling up Walton Boulevard to the granite statue of Captain Cornelius that stood outside the palace gates. There they joined the schoolkids and curious tourists lining up outside the four-metre high iron railings that surrounded the broad cobbled ground in front of the palace. Several Palace Guards patrolled the perimeter in fours, marching along like heavily ordered mods, humourless, perfectly shelled, the silver buttons on their yellow and blue tunics shining in the morning sunlight, rifles shouldered.
Nigel ignored them, staring at the six-storey façade on the other side of the open ground. This section of the palace was over three hundred metres long, built from a stone that had an odd blue hue. Tall Italianate arched windows surrounded a grand archway in the centre which led into the first of many courtyards. There were several ornate turrets and domes rising amid the steep roofs.
‘I wonder what it’s like living there?’ Kysandra mused wistfully.
‘Pretty awful. I’ve lived in mansions this size myself. Ninety-five per cent of it is given over to staff and offices. You spend so much time mediating their internal politics, you get distracted from the real job. And it’s no place for a family. I wound up with some pretty screwed-up kids at one point. Five of them still aren’t talking to me.’
‘You lived . . .’ Kysandra’s hand gave the palace a limp wave.
‘Oh, yeah. Won’t make that mistake again. This Sun King monstrosity tells me all I need to know about how wealth and power is consolidated on this planet. My guess is that the court here will exercise absolute power. And to do that you have to have a political system that doesn’t permit dissent. Give the people the illusion of democracy, with a few elected councils that’ve been given power over local trivia, while you control anything that really matters directly through the economy. He who pays the piper calls the tune; then, now, and forever. The Treasury will be the true seat of power on this world, trust me. And somewhere in the Captain’s multitude of honourable titles will be something like: Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Lord of the Treasury, or Governor of the National Bank or Chief Revenue Officer. That’s how it’s done.’
She looked from Nigel to the palace and back again. ‘You know all that by how big and gaudy the palace is?’
‘Yeah. Pretty much. I’ve seen it enough times to know what I’m facing.’
‘But we have elections.’
‘I wasn’t criticizing. Given the Faller threat, you’ve got a pretty good arrangement here. Government is always a balance between liberty and restriction. Back in the outside universe, political systems evolved as technology and understanding grew, and that generally brought a liberalizing democracy with it. The problem here is a near-perfect status quo – though perfect isn’t quite the right word for it – and all the Shanties are a new development that can’t be helping the economy or the crime rates. The Fallers aren’t ever going to stop Falling. If anything, they have the advantage. Your society is probably stagnating in a lot of subtle ways that’ll start to mount up, and with that comes decadence and corruption. The Fallers only have to wait until your vigilance falters.’ He pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Then again, fear keeps you on your toes, and you have kept society going for three thousand years.’
‘You think the Fallers will win in the end?’
‘Time and human nature is on their side. But only because the Void restricts us. If we could get up there to the Forest and deploy some decent Commonwealth technology, it would be a very different story.’
The Abyss Beyond Dreams Page 43
