by Jaine Fenn
‘I was not sure, though I strongly suspected it. I do know that if I had gone ahead without telling you what I was doing, you would never have forgiven me.’
He was right enough in that. ‘Is my opinion really that important to you?’ She knew they shared the same goals, but their very different backgrounds meant they had different ideas about how to achieve them – or rather, Kerin had very little idea. And that ignorance chafed.
‘It is. I see in you something I lost many years ago, before I climbed upon the backs of my fellow priests to reach my current position. In some ways I envy your purity of vision. In others . . . it frightens me, for if we are to succeed then you must learn to accept some bitter truths – such as the need to sometimes allow innocents to suffer and die in order to safeguard the future.’
‘Oh, I am learning.’ Her earlier ire shamed her now. She saw how Urien’s choice to keep certain details from her was a mercy; those burdens he did put on her were intended to teach hard but necessary lessons. ‘I am sorry I have been such a surly student.’
‘It is understandable.’
‘Have you ever lied to me, Urien?’ Again it was not an accusation; she knew in her heart that he would not deceive her without good reason. But she needed to know.
‘No.’ His answer was emphatic. ‘And I never will. However, on occasion I have chosen not to expose you to certain truths. I am sorry to do even that, and I look forward to the time when I will not need to.’ He looked up at her. ‘You are the map to my moral heart, Kerin.’
Kerin felt herself blush. How hard his job was! One man trying to comprehend, and ultimately control, everything that went on in the Tyr . . . not just hard, all but impossible. Yet she had to believe he – they – could succeed. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Did you— Did you get anything of use from Captain Siarl in the end? Did he mention this Aelwen again?’
‘He did: I think she is someone he and his mysterious friend knew when they were a lot younger, a woman of higher status his friend had feelings for.’
‘And did he name his friend?’
‘No. Siarl’s link to this man ran deep. I got the impression they had known each other for a long time, and Siarl was the older of the two: Siarl said something about trying to keep him out of trouble even as a boy. I also believe he has recently fallen out with his friend, though I am not sure why. I thought it might be over a woman, possibly this Aelwen, but he also appeared to think his friend was going against the will of the Skymothers. From the intelligence I have so far gathered, I believe there is a priest of Fenland origin amongst Siarl’s associates, though I cannot immediately see how a priest would fit either of those possible causes of conflict. I need to do further research.’
‘And do you think there is a conspiracy?’
‘The one good thing to come of this evening is that we have not uncovered any indication of organised dissent. Siarl doubted, and so, I believe, does this friend of his, but I think that is as far as it goes. Of course there may be other threats, but we need not fear these Fenlanders.’
‘What about the house Siarl visited?’
‘Aye, we should send— What is that?’
Kerin turned in her chair to follow the direction of Urien’s gaze. The screen on the console was blinking. She puzzled out the text: Incoming message. ‘Someone from above is trying to contact us,’ she said.
‘So it appears. You cannot find out who, can you?’ asked Urien.
‘Not without Damaru’s touch to wake the console.’
Urien stood. ‘I will go and look for him,’ he announced, and left without another word.
Kerin found herself staring at the flashing words, mesmerised by the mindless rhythm. She was not ready for another crisis, not yet. Maybe when she had had some sleep . . .
She jerked awake as her half-closed eyes let in the image of Captain Siarl’s broken body.
A short time after that, Damaru burst into the room and headed straight for the console. As he leaned over her, Kerin got a whiff of a sweet, fruity smell and noticed something sticky smeared around his mouth. ‘Damaru,’ she said.
He paused, possibly expecting to be scolded.
‘I need you to find out who that is before we, uh, accept their message. Do you understand?’
Damaru nodded, and pressed a couple of keys on the control pad.
As he did so, Urien spoke from behind her. ‘I have had reports of him wandering into the kitchens late at night in search of treats, so I looked there first.’
Kerin turned and gave the Escori a brief smile of thanks, then looked back at the console. Most of the text now displayed meant little to her; Heart of Glass was the only thing she could read; the rest looked like random letters and numbers. Then, in smaller letters at the bottom she made out the words Captain Jarek Reen – the name the Sidhe had called Sais.
Sais had shown her how to use the ‘com’ function. She accepted the call herself, earning a mildly annoyed ‘Huh!’ from Damaru as he realised he was not going to get to play after all, even though the console was finally doing something interesting again.
The text disappeared and she found herself looking at the man she had married a scant season ago. He smiled his engaging, lopsided smile, and relief flooded her soul. ‘You came back,’ she said warmly.
For the space of several heartbeats he did not respond. Then he said, ‘I did. It’s good to see you, Kerin. Is that Damaru I can see half in shot?’
‘It is.’ Kerin found such disembodied conversations odd, and this one had an additional peculiarity, for Sais’ image froze after he spoke.
She was about to speak again, when he said, ‘How’s the good fight going?’
‘I – we are making progress. Sais, is something wrong? You are pausing before you speak.’
Again his image stayed unmoving for several heartbeats. Then he said, ‘Sorry, Kerin, I should have explained. There’s a time delay because I’m still a long way out.’
‘How far?’ Not that his words would mean much to her; her only understanding of the concept of ‘space’ was to acknowledge that it was too big for anyone to fully comprehend.
‘We’re outside the range of the orbital defences,’ Sais said. ‘I transmitted the override code, but I didn’t get an acknowledgement. Is something wrong with the weaponry?’
‘Aye, I think there is – the Sidhe came back, nearly a season ago now, and they wrested control of the sky-weapons from Damaru. He has not been able to regain it again, though he has tried. He says that he can no longer see the rock-throwers.’
Another pause, then, ‘That’s not good – but presumably he managed to trash the Sidhe first, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘He says he burnt them with, uh, cutting light. Do you know what that is?’
The face on the screen looked quizzical for several moments, then Sais nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve got an idea, but I’ll need to check. Listen, Kerin, does Damaru know if the weapons are still offline?’
‘Off—? Ah, if you are asking whether they will turn on you . . . I am not sure.’ She turned to Damaru, who had been following the conversation with interest, and said, ‘Damaru, is it safe for Sais to approach? Will the weapons try and hurt him if he does?’
‘Do not think so.’
‘He needs you to be sure.’
‘Cannot be sure.’
‘Can you find out?’
‘I told you, I cannot see them.’
Kerin turned back to the screen, but Sais was already speaking again. ‘It looks like you’ve lost contact with the weaponry. Kerin, I came here to give you something, but if Serenein’s defenceless, we need to sort that out first. Assuming those defences really are down and we can approach safely . . . Listen, we need to discuss our next move. Can you stay near the console and wait for me to get back in touch?’
‘I will remain here and hope to hear from you soon, husband.’
It was only after she had ended their contact that she wondered who he had meant by �
�we’.
CHAPTER FORTY
‘“Husband”?’ Taro said incredulously. ‘Shit and blood, she’s your wife?’
When Jarek had told them about his adventures on Serenein, he’d missed out that particular detail.
‘Yes, Taro, technically Kerin is my wife.’
‘Fuck me.’
Jarek said defensively, ‘We were married under Serenein law—’
‘So, is there like, some little baby – what’d she call you? Oh yeah, Sais. So are there like l’il baby Saises running around?’ Taro knew he shouldn’t be finding this funny, but he couldn’t help it.
‘No, Taro, there aren’t. I’ve only known Kerin about six months. It was a marriage of convenience, for both of us.’ He held up a hand as Taro opened his mouth. ‘And no, I didn’t go to bed with her.’
Taro decided to let that one lie.
Nual asked, ‘What are we going to do now? Will you risk going closer?’
‘I could try and ping the weapons again, but I didn’t get a response the last three times, so there’s no reason to expect one now. Something’s definitely up; I just don’t know what. Everything was working fine when I was here a few months ago; in fact, according to the Setting Sun’s ship’s log, the crew ran a major diagnostic on the system and found everything in good order.’
He added, ‘Though I’ve only scanned a fraction of the decoded data, it looks like the Setting Sun’s memory-core includes full specs for every artificial object in orbit around Serenein – which makes sense, given that ship used to maintain the tech around here. There’s bound to be full details of the planetary defence system in the files somewhere.’
‘Would it help if we looked?’ asked Nual.
‘Yeah, it would: it’s a hell of a lot of data, and the indexing’s a little idiosyncratic, but if both of you see what you can find out, we can cross-reference our findings.’
Searching through data wasn’t Taro’s idea of fun, especially as he was still a pretty slow reader – up until a few months ago he’d never needed to do much more than recognise the names of bars and count the punters’ money. But though the stolen download from the Setting Sun’s comp had some prime info, like Jarek said, there was a shitload of data to wade through to get to what they needed. He joined Nual in the rec-room and left Jarek to bring the Heart of Glass up to the edge of the area covered by the orbital weaponry. Taro soon found that Jarek hadn’t been kidding about the arse-backward indexing.
They’d been scanning the files for more than an hour when Nual said, ‘I can’t find anything in here to cover this situation; how about you?’
’Nothing—’ and she was a lot more comp-savvy than him, Taro thought; she’d’ve used search-agents and all that shit.
‘Let’s see how Jarek’s getting on,’ Nual suggested.
Back on the bridge, Jarek agreed. ‘I’ve had another look too: it appears that the only way to shut down the weapons is to transmit the override code or to use the console in the Cariad’s room – and neither of those options are currently working.’
‘What about this “cutting light” Kerin mentioned?’ asked Nual.
‘I reckon that’s the point-defences.’
‘That’s different to the orbital defences, ain’t it?’ Taro asked. He thought he’d come across a reference to that somewhere.
‘It is. The orbital defences are mass-drivers mounted on launch platforms. They fire high-density projectiles – not actual rocks, but I can see how Damaru got that. The defence grid is made up of thousands of these platforms orbiting Serenein, forming a halo that stretches out from the planet for half a light-second.’
‘Pretty solid cover, then?’ said Taro, trying not to think about what would happen if they got in range and the weapons were working.
‘Oh yes. The point-defences are more local: they’re laser emplacements on the counterweight at the top of the beanstalk and on the transfer-station partway down. There’s a fair amount of debris in this system – the locals actually have a religious festival when the rain of “falling stars” is at its heaviest – so the Sidhe had to put in measures to protect the beanstalk.’
‘And it’s those defences that shot down your evac-pod when you were escaping from the Sidhe ship, which is how you ended up on Serenein in the first place?’ Taro asked, fitting the pieces into place in his head.
‘Yeah. Fortunately the point-defences are orientated to deal with stuff coming in from space, rather than dropping off the transferstation and heading down to the planet, so they just ripped my smartchute, rather than holing the capsule itself. Still led to a pretty rough landing . . . Actually, I’m surprised those lasers were powerful enough to destroy a shiftship, but I guess if Damaru waited until it was close, then managed to get all the weapons to turn on it together, and kept them focused until he got through in multiple locations—’
He paused, frowning, then said, ‘Shit! I’ve just had a really nasty thought. I need to speak to Kerin again.’
‘So, have we decided whether we’re going in or not?’ Taro didn’t remember them actually discussing that.
‘Do we really need to, given the risk if the defence grid is active?’ said Nual. ‘After all, we have planted the beacon; correct me if I’m wrong, but linking it into the beevee system requires us to return to human-space anyway.’
‘It does,’ said Jarek, tapping one finger on the console, ‘but that’s not the point. Kerin has got to have control of the defence grid if she’s to stop the Sidhe retaking Serenein.’
‘She said her son destroyed the last Sidhe ship with the point-defences, and those do work,’ said Nual.
‘They did, but the point-defence system isn’t designed to take out whole ships, which is why I need to speak to Kerin again.’
As Jarek reached for the com, Taro said, ‘You gonna introduce us to your wife this time?’
Jarek hesitated. ‘I guess I should.’ He didn’t sound eager.
‘Both of us?’ asked Nual softly.
‘Yeah,’ said Jarek a little reluctantly. ‘Both of you.’
Kerin answered his call at once. ‘Are you coming here?’ she asked.
‘Still working that out. Uh, Kerin, can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’ Jarek had the call on flatscreen, so Taro couldn’t see Kerin clearly, but she didn’t sound too happy.
‘When Damaru used the cutting light to destroy the Sidhe ship, did you see anything from down there?’
‘I did not, but there was much talk of a light, high up in the sky, on that night.’
‘Right. And how abo ut since?’
‘It is odd that you should ask that, for there have been reports of flashes in the sky ever since.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
‘What do the lights signify? They have caused much confusion here. People believe them to be portents of doom.’
‘They might be right. Damaru wouldn’t have been able to completely destroy the Sidhe ship, but he must have done it enough damage that it broke up. The problem is, the bits are still in orbit – floating around in space above you – and those flashes you’re seeing are the point-defence lasers – the cutting lights – going off, to destroy any of the debris that gets too close to the beanstalk – your silver thread. If they don’t, one of the bits might hit it.’
‘And that would be bad?’
‘Yes, very bad.’
‘But we still see the lights: surely that means these point-defences are continuing to do their work? Though . . . the lights have become less frequent of late.’
‘They have? That’s my worry: the point-defences aren’t designed to fire continuously; they’re only meant to cope with occasional small stuff. Anything big, like the Sidhe ship, should have been trashed by the orbital weapons before it got anywhere near Serenein.’
‘You are saying these point-defences are failing?’
‘Not exactly failing, but as the system loses power it has to become more selective about what the lasers f
ire on.’
‘Can you fix this?’
‘I’m— We can try. But we’ll have to come in and dock with the beanstalk.’
‘Sais,’ asked Kerin, ‘you have twice said “we” now. Who is with you?’
‘Ah, yeah. Sorry: I’m being rude. I have a couple of friends here – allies in our fight.’ Jarek motioned to Taro, who came over and smiled at the tired-looking woman on the screen. She might have been pretty once, but she’d obviously had a well shitty life. ‘Kerin, this is Taro.’
There was still some signal-lag, so it took a moment for Taro to see Kerin’s expression change. He’d bet she’d never seen anyone quite like him before. ‘Hi,’ he said, giving her a big, friendly grin.
She got over her initial surprise and smiled back gravely. ‘Good evening to you, Taro.’
Taro stepped back to let Nual come forward. ‘And this,’ said Jarek, ‘is Nual.’
Kerin was silent for longer than the second or so it took for a message to get there and back. Then she said, ‘Forgive me, but . . . the way you look, I am reminded of the Sidhe I have seen.’ She spoke hesitantly, trying not to offend.
Nual said evenly, ‘You are correct, Kerin, and it is because I am Sidhe – but I am working against my sisters, with Taro and Jarek.’
Jarek added hastily, ‘Nual really is on our side, Kerin.’
Kerin said, ‘I need to think about this.’ Then she ended the call.
Jarek swore under his breath.
‘So, what now?’ asked Nual. ‘If she doesn’t want our help because of me, then I’m not sure we have any choice but to leave.’
‘Kerin’s a smart woman,’ Jarek said. ‘She hates the Sidhe, but she trusts me. She’s just a bit surprised, that’s all.’
‘It ain’t like Nual could influence her over the com,’ said Taro, ‘but I guess she don’t know that.’
The incoming call light came back on a few minutes later. Taro and Nual moved back to let Jarek take the call.
Kerin said, ‘I am uncomfortable that you have an ally who is Sidhe, but I have had to accept a number of things I am uncomfortable with lately. If you are willing to help, then I would be grateful for your aid.’
