by Jay Aspen
Rhangarian medics are rushing casualties inside for emergency treatment as Saroyan and I run back to the rock shelf to see what is happening with the two captured shuttles.
Severin hovers above the shelf for a moment before landing the recon close to the cliff, leaving as much space as he can for the larger shuttle to float in and offload passengers. He joins Aluna’s team of guards keeping the prisoners at gunpoint as they climb out of their damaged craft.
It seems that only four of the kidnappers have survived the fight in the replicator station. Aluna waves the three technicians to move away from them. Her guards step forward and tie the kidnappers’ wrists, moving them out of the way as the second vessel, the small recon, is hauled in on the end of its line. The pilot and co-pilot step out onto the flat rock and toss their weapons aside before waiting to be checked and tied by the Rhangarian guards.
Something doesn’t feel right. I’m trying to focus on the prisoners I’m meant to be keeping at gunpoint. When I see movement out of the corner of my eye I can’t quite figure out what its significance is without taking my attention away from the prisoners I’m responsible for. I shake my head irritably. It’s difficult to concentrate. This is getting to be as bad as when I first took that irretrievable dose of ayan. A quick glance around the assembled people on the rock slab––
Aluna––look out!
Saroyan’s warning takes over my mind again. I throw myself at the guard captain as the crack and whine of a bullet zips above my head and ricochets off the cliff wall, spraying rock splinters across the open space of the ledge. I roll and spring back to my feet just in time to see one of the technicians swing his gun round and aim at Saroyan.
‘No!’ I start to run towards my new friend but I’m too far away. The sharp report of the gun echoes again off the towering cliff and I see Saroyan fall, but it seems like there is someone else pushing her to the ground...
The technician drops his gun and sinks to his knees with Severin’s dart in his neck. I reach Saroyan to find her kneeling by the cliff wall, cradling Olewala’s head in her arms. Blood is pouring from a bullet wound in his chest. Saroyan is inconsolable.
‘Why did you do that? I was too slow... You shouldn’t have needed to save me...’
Olewala’s breath is bubbling with blood leaking into his lungs.
‘Saroyan. You hold our future in your hands. Save our people from being blamed for this plot. Make Rhangaran a place to be proud of...’
His voice trails off. A breathless medic arrives and feels for a pulse, running his quantum over Olewala’s neck and chest. He shakes his head.
‘Too late. He’s gone.’
It all happened so fast. I stand rooted to the spot, unable to believe it. Aluna takes my arm.
‘Come inside. Leave Saroyan for a while. She needs time to come to terms with this. Olewala has been her inspiration and idol, ever since she was a child studying his books and teaching vids.’
I follow Aluna towards the arched entrance in the cliff wall, wondering bitterly why she and Saroyan were attacked. I hear steps just behind me and turn to see Severin. He looks as shocked by what happened as I am.
‘Severin? Who is that technician with the gun?’
‘I’m guessing he’s one of the Rhangarian traitors. They’ve taken him inside and I’ve given them my tranc antidote if they want him conscious in less than a couple of hours. Amazing, the way you spotted what he was doing in time to save Aluna.’
I sigh in exasperation. ‘Trouble is, I didn’t! I remember now. I saw the recon pilot throw away his weapons and the technician sat down and started edging towards them before Aluna could order one of the guards to collect them. But my focus was off again. I was finding it hard to concentrate on watching the prisoners and I didn’t take in the significance until it was too late. Then Saroyan warned me. She must have either seen him move or picked up his intention to shoot Aluna.’
Severin looks puzzled. ‘So why couldn’t she save herself?’
I go through my memory of her previous warning.
‘Back in the replicator station she warned me of the explosion. Afterwards she said that throwing all her focus into warning me somehow blanked out other things going on at the time. I suppose this time her concern blocked her from noticing when the technician suddenly decided to aim at her instead. If I’d been more alert, she wouldn’t have needed to warn me and Ollie wouldn’t have needed to throw himself in front of her and...’
‘Hannik. Stop. Don’t start blaming yourself for what happened. It’s not your fault. You’re exhausted. We all are. You can’t expect to be perfect all the time.’ Severin wraps an arm around my shoulders as we walk into the leaf-shadowed space of the Rhangarian courtyard.
I lean against him, reassured by his strength and resilience and remembering how tired I am.
Yet knowing deep down that something really had been off in my ability to focus.
17
With her usual efficiency Aluna manages to get dry clothes brought over so we can all peel ourselves out of the clinging wetsuits and rebreather packs. By the time we’ve done that she has food and drink for the returning warriors set out on tables in the leafy courtyard above the waves. We eat in exhausted silence for a few minutes before I notice several fresh cuts on Severin’s arms and hands.
‘What happened to you? I thought you were in the recon the whole time we were in that fight?’
He glances morosely at the damage to his hands.
‘I was. These cuts aren’t serious. My co-pilot didn’t make it though. One of the enemy recons put a bullet straight through the front screen into her. All I got was a few pieces of flying fragments.’
With a shock I remember that I hadn’t even thought about what might be happening in the sky above the shark team’s efforts beneath the waves.
‘Wh... what happened to the others?’
He stares at his hands, knuckles white with tension as he relives the desperate struggle for survival in the sky.
‘We took out four of their recons and lost two of ours in the air-fight while you were underwater. Their last surviving shuttle turned tail and disappeared, heading for Merkaan. When you had trouble with the two you’d captured, we had a choice of following it or staying to give you backup. With only two pilots left it was a no-brainer that only just paid off, but we’ve probably lost the ringleaders in the shuttle that escaped. They’re always the ones who stay in the background while others do their fighting for them.’
I scramble to my feet. ‘Which means we go after them now! We have to stop them before they go dark again and recruit another batch of gullible fighters like Gram who just think it’s a shortcut to getting rich––’
I hear someone approach and turn to see Mebele standing behind me. The loss of his old friend seems to have aged him by years.
‘Saroyan has been listening to Aluna’s interrogation of the rogue technician and she already discovered who the other two traitors are. If Severin has the strength to pilot back to Merkaan, please go now. Try to catch the conspirators who escaped. Ollie gave his life to save Pangaea from this war... and to save Rhangarians from taking the blame.’
My gestalt is still functioning through the exhaustion, but only just.
‘Would Saroyan come back to Merkaan with us? We need a truthseer to interview the police commissioner and discover who the others are in his network. It would save waiting another two days for Alis’ truthseer contact to get there from far west Karesh.’
‘I’ll go find her. I’m sure she won’t refuse.’ Mebele hesitates. ‘They’ll have to find another sensei for the combat classes in Merkaan. Would you take this back there as a tribute to Ollie and everything he’s done?’ He holds out the neatly folded blue-green robe that Olewala wore for the gestalt-mapping. I take it carefully.
‘Of course. I only knew him for a short time but his judgement and integrity made a deep impression on me.’
‘I’ll fetch Saroyan.’ Mebele turns away hastily, rubbing
his eyes as if they are stinging.
Severin gets wearily to his feet. ‘I’d better go see if they’ve finished repairing my recon. The plas-resin front screen was too full of spider-cracks to make it back to Merkaan after we took that hit.’
I follow him back to the port. The recon is swarming with technicians putting the finishing seals on a replacement screen and cleaning the blood off the co-pilot’s seat. I lean back against the cliff wall and close my eyes.
‘Do these plotters ever stop to think about how many lives they ruin with their grand plans for money and power?’
He watches the Rhangarians at work for a few moments without really seeing them.
‘I think having that sort of plan is only possible for people who don’t care about what happens to anyone else. I picked up a few more bits of intel on the com while we were out there. Mebele found a capsule of data-notes on one of the dead enemy rearguards in the replicator station.
‘You were right about that tunnel not being for access. They were planning to extract a huge cluster of valuable minerals from under the seabed, using the islands as a base for their drilling rigs. Mining would have caused most of the Rhangarian island chain to collapse into the ocean so they would need the tunnel to transport the minerals to the processing plant they planned on Eden.’
I stare out to sea, in the direction the sharks disappeared.
‘Even so, I can’t help wondering if we should have used sharks the way we did. It wasn’t their fight.’
Severin shakes his head. ‘It was their fight as much as ours. It wasn’t just minerals that were the prize here. The plan was to extract what they called best-value, not just from the Pangaean landmass but also out of all the sea-life in the ocean, including sharks. Everything from shark-fin soup to a list of products made from their oil, skin, teeth, and just about everything else. Their survival was on the line as much as ours.’
I frown. ‘The Webdancers would warn everyone about the disruption to the resonance from that level of interference! Everyone would get sick...’
‘They’re planning to disband or arrest the Webdancers, remember?’
‘Doesn’t make sense, though. Who would want to live here if they knew they’d get sick?’
‘Unless they plan to grab the profits and run?’
‘Off-world?’
‘Maybe.’
It all seems too big, too insane, especially while I feel so exhausted. It’s more than ordinary tiredness after a heavy day. I feel as if that incredible heightened awareness from the resurgence of ayan-effect has used up all the energy I need for the next few days, leaving me wrung dry and threadbare like a worn-out sock.
Saroyan is approaching with Mebele so Severin climbs into the pilot’s seat while I scramble into the back and hastily rebuild my squirrel-nest on top of the stacked emergency gear.
Mebele clasps Saroyan’s hand, his words calm but his eyes pleading.
‘Do your best for us.’
Saroyan gives him a hug. ‘Of course. I know how serious it is. Even if we avoid this war, it’s the end of us on these islands if the authorities believe we’re responsible for planning it.’ She climbs awkwardly into the passenger seat as if she’s in pain, but I’m too exhausted to ask if she’s all right. As the darkness of sleep closes around me, I try to make a mental note to ask when I wake up.
Severin keys the controls and the shuttle lifts off, rising in a steep curve alongside the cliff before heading out to sea and turning west towards the setting sun.
I WAKE TO THE COMPELLING aroma of ayan infusing the small cabin of the recon. It’s dark outside. I must have slithered off the comfortable pile of gear in my sleep and have to spend a few awkward minutes disentangling cramped limbs from the narrow gap behind the front seats. I lean forward, still only half awake.
‘Severin, where are we? Any news? Is that ayan you’ve got in that thermo-cup?’ It’s an effort of will to stop my hand reaching out and grabbing it, as if it’s the only thing that can fill this energy-vacuum I seem to have inside me.
He deals with the questions in reverse order, hurriedly gulping down the last dregs of the ayan as he reduces the recon’s airspeed.
‘Sorry about that. Thought you were asleep. Didn’t want to make things difficult for you but the last four cups of it were the only way I could stay awake long enough to get us here. There’s other stuff to drink in the recon’s emergency rations if you’re thirsty. Will pinkleaf do?’ He takes my sleepy grunt for assent and pulls another thermo-cup out of the ration compartment. He keys the heat-trigger and hands it to me.
‘And to answer your other questions, we’ll be in Merkaan in about five minutes. Still another three hours till daylight. I’m about to wake Alis earlier than she’d like, so brace yourself for a seriously grumpy reception.’
He brings the recon into a long curving approach to the city, readjusting his headset and searching the airwaves for the first connection on the five-mile transmission limit.
‘Recon Four-Seven requesting permission to land Delta-Three. Repeat. Alis? You there? Don’t make me circle again!’
There’s a moment of crackly silence before Alis replies, sounding as if she’s reached for her holo-com at the side of the bed before she’s woken up properly. Which is probably exactly what she has done.
‘Four-Seven! Don’t be ridiculous. No way are you landing in Delta-Three! Go park at the university and walk.’
‘Alis, we’re all exhausted, we’ve brought you a truthseer, and the sooner we get her on the case the sooner we might catch up with the rest of your Commissioner’s plot network.’
More crackling, probably because Alis is waking up enough to switch encryptions as an extra precaution. Much to Severin’s disappointment it doesn’t change her landing permissions.
‘Severin, there is no way you’re bringing that recon into Delta-Three! There’s barely a finger-width to spare, top and bottom and anyhow the wasp’s already in there.’
‘Is Delta-Three that place above her apartment?’ I’m well awake now and squeaking with alarm. ‘If it is, she’s dead right about––’
‘Shh!’ Severin cups a hand round his headset mic. ‘Alis, I’m really tired and we’re in a hurry. Stick the wasp onto the back wall. I know it’ll leave enough space, ‘cause I worked it out last year!’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘I’ll damn well land in the street outside with the emergency sirens going and it’ll wake up the whole street.’
‘Ugh. Sometimes you really are totally unreasonable, Severin. You take one chip of abali-coating off my entrance gate or scrape camo-paint off the recon, you’ll be on repair detail for the next six months.’
There are background noises that probably have something to do with Alis scrambling out of bed, hurrying up to the second floor and persuading the wasp to stick itself onto the back wall of the upstairs hangar. More background noises of the gate grumbling slowly into action.
Alis grumbles into acknowledgement.
‘Delta-Three open and ready. For chaos’ sake take it slowly! I’m baling out while I’ve got the chance. See you downstairs. Maybe.’ There’s a dull thud, probably the internal door slamming.
‘I think you’ve annoyed her,’ I say, watching the white tower get horribly closer.
‘Annoyed-Alis sounds a lot worse than that.’
‘In that case Severin, please don’t provoke her any further.’
He aligns our flight path with the tower that houses the apartment.
‘She’ll be going straight down to sort things ready for this interrogation. Saroyan, I hope you’re ready for this?’
‘Uh, yes, of course.’ Saroyan has been listening to the whole conversation in silence. Now she’s staring ahead at the dark hole in the side of the abali-coated wall. It does look very inadequate.
Severin glances at the wind meter. Luckily, only a light breeze. He reduces speed again and aims straight at the dark horizontal slot. I fight the urge to close my eyes. If we’
re going to make it through, this is something I want to see.
If we don’t make it, maybe that’s worth seeing as well.
18
There’s a scraping sound above our heads as we glide through the opening.
‘Chaos!’ Severin brings the craft to a neat and abrupt stop barely a handspan away from the perched wasp, muttering a few far worse expletives under his breath. ‘She’ll have me repainting that roof hatch for hours!’
‘I thought it was a very precise landing maneuver,’ says Saroyan diplomatically.
The recon is such a tight fit in the space it’s only possible to get one of the doors half open. The three of us scramble untidily out of the co-pilot’s side and run down the stairs to the living quarters. Alis already has a line of thermo-cups racked on the table. She’s obviously been expecting us back before now.
Severin waves Saroyan to step forward.
‘Alis, this is Webdancer Saroyan. Truthseer to the Rhangarians. Where are you keeping the Commissioner?’
Alis gives a disdainful snort. ‘The only place possible till we know who his wretched contacts are. In the basement. And I am heartily sick of his constant complaining I can tell you.’ She rummages through a pile of clothes in one of the closets and tosses a small pile to Saroyan.
‘Put these on. You’re an extra security guard I’ve brought in after his last attempt to escape. Try not to look like a truthseer.’
Saroyan shows nothing more than mild amusement at the lack of deference usually shown to Webdancers and shrugs into the police uniform. I wonder sleepily what a truthseer is supposed to look like. Maybe it’s something to do with appearing a bit too interested in the questions being asked––or more likely in the false answers being given.
