by Jaine Fenn
His fingers brushed cold, dead metal and he let his breath out, a subconscious sigh of relief. Long before he’d been born, this part of the fence had been cut to allow downsiders like him into the City proper. Unlike the semi-organic material of the vanes, this would never grow back. He moved the flap away from him and climbed carefully through the gap. Once on the other side he pushed the fence back into place, lining up the edges so the exit was hidden again.
In the sidestreets the light levels dropped to a more comfortable level. The walls were covered with cryptic graffiti and as he made his way down the narrow alleys, he stopped to check over his shoulder every now and again. The wedges between the main Streets were home to some smoky coves, citizens whose business made them as dangerous as any gang-lag in the Undertow.
This route topside brought him out in the wedge between Soft Street and Amnesia Street. Soft Street was where the rollers came for pleasures of the flesh, but every pitch was owned. Amnesia Street was largely free territory but he didn’t fancy being a punter’s drugged fantasy. Best idea would be to head for Chance, the next Street sunwise from Soft, though it was a long walk.
He turned a corner and spotted a group of topsiders unloading crates from a cart into the back door of a dingy building. Intent on their business, they hadn’t seen him.
He doubled back and picked another route, taking him past one of the automated waste-reprocessing plants that lurked in the centre of the wedges, away from tourist eyes. The deep rumble of machinery was less of a give-away than the rotten-sweet smell drifting from inside. He looked down at a rustling by his feet; a rat sped by along the base of the building, intent on its own business.
Thanks to the distraction, he didn’t see anyone step out of the door opposite the waste plant until it was too late. As soon as he registered movement he froze, and focused on the lone figure looking straight at him. He knew he should turn round and get out of there, but he couldn’t run for long in this gravity. Besides, they might not be alone.
Then he recognised the person blocking the alley.
The man had a fleshy, almost jovial face, and no hair on his head other than girl-thin eyebrows. He wore a narrow-brimmed black hat and an improbably smart but unfashionably cut dark grey suit. He was as short as a topsider, and a little porky, but this was no ordinary cove. There was only one person in the world who looked like that, and though Taro had never met him, he had heard the description enough times. He was looking at the most powerful man in the City: the Minister, the head of the Kheshi League of Concord.
Taro stepped forward, crossed his wrists over his chest and bent his head, the downsider gesture of submission and respect.
The man approached. ‘ Taro sanMalia?’
‘Me life is yours, sirrah,’ he croaked. The Minister had called him Taro sanMalia, though he no longer had a right to that name; Malia had been his aunt, not his birth-mother, and though she had adopted him, with her death his lineage name should revert back to his dead mother’s. Was it possible that the master of the Angels didn’t know that one of his agents was dead?
‘Your life? Indeed it is,’ the Minister replied. ‘But all I require is your service. I wish you to witness a removal.’
‘Witness a removal? Aye, sirrah - to make sure it’s legal?’ By the rules of the Concord there needed to be ten witnesses, but they weren’t usually downsiders. Removals were topside business, and the witnesses were most often tourists; that was what a lot of the rollers came here for. Taro was not sure why the Minister wanted him.
‘There will be plenty of people watching the mark. I want you to watch the Angel. Or rather, to report on her performance and when she returns to the Undertow, to follow up on her movements down there. Do you think you can manage that?’
Taro’s head was reeling. He couldn’t believe he was here, having this conversation. After three days of hell, he was standing in a topside alley being given his first mission by the Minister, who knew nothing of Malia’s fate.
He said the only thing he could. ‘Aye, sirrah. I’ll do me best to serve you an’ me City.’
‘Good. The Angel in question is Nual. I expect you’ll need to do some research.’
Though any personal fame among the Angels was discouraged by the Minister, who preferred them to be held in awe and viewed from afar, Taro knew the names of all thirty-three Angels currently in the service of the City. He searched his memory for some fact about the Angel Nual, to show the Minister he knew his stuff.
‘She lives under the Merchant Quarter, don’t she?’ he asked after a short pause.
The Minister nodded, waiting for Taro to continue.
‘An’ . . . I don’t think she’s a pureblood downsider.’
The Minister gave the ghost of a smile. ‘You could say that. Nual is scheduled to remove Salik Vidoran, Second Undersecretary for Offworld Trade, in Confederacy Square later this morning. I expect she will take the shot from a vantage point beyond the City’s rim, and she won’t hang around afterwards, so you are unlikely to see her, but you will be able to watch the crowd and check the reaction of the mark to the threat. I would also like you to note any unusual occurrences in the aftermath.’
Should he tell the Minister about the unusual occurrence in his own life, the death of his line-mother? Surely he must know—No, let the Minister bring it up. Stick to the task at hand. ‘Nual’s one of the best, ain’t she?’ he asked.
‘She never misses,’ the Minister agreed. ‘She is also one of the most reclusive. I want to know anything you find out about her current activities downside. Quietly, and without attracting undue attention. I will expect full details after the removal, and updates every morning. You can make your reports from any public com booth in the Leisure Quarter. Just go in and ask to be shown the one who has everything. You’ll need this to get into the State Quarter.’ The Minister held out a small strip of pale grey plastic. Taro stepped forward, nervous of getting so close to this legendary figure, and took the credit bracelet. The Minister continued, ‘The ID is valid for 24 hours, and there is enough credit for the circle-car fare there and back, plus a little extra. There will be more once you start delivering useful information. Any questions?’
‘No, sirrah.’ He should tell him now, tell him what had happened to Malia.
‘Then go. I am a very busy man.’ The Minister nodded in dismissal and stepped back to let Taro pass.
Taro had betrayed his line-mother. He had betrayed his City. He must confess.
But he found himself already walking away from the Minister into an uncertain future.
CHAPTER TWO
Elarn woke to silence. No, not quite silence; there was the near-subliminal hum of the life-support systems, a constant reminder that she was in space, a long way from home. Back on Khathryn she would wake to sea and wind, natural sounds, louder, more chaotic, but real, and comforting.
She has been dreaming again, the ever-present nightmare at the edge of consciousness. In the dream, she is in her house, her lovely safe spacious house. But she is not alone. Her visitors have disabled her security and let themselves in, and now they are coming for her. She is hiding, crouched in a wardrobe like a naughty child, but she can’t hide from them forever. For years she thought she could, but they have finally caught up with her.
She had always managed to wake herself before the sinister visitors found her, thank God, but she suspected that might not always be the case. Though she had risked spending the interstellar transits in stasis, rather than dealing with the reality-twisting horrors of shiftspace with drugs, the dreams had been getting worse ever since.
She got up and dressed slowly, paying attention to the details: fair hair piled artistically, clothes smart and formal, cosmetics applied with caution to flatter the stern lines of her face. Must present a good impression. Confident, competent, but not to be approached too closely. Today, for the first time in her life, she would be walking on a new world - or rather, on a massive construct floating above an uninhabitable plan
et.
As she got herself ready, she had the com-unit play back news-casts from Vellern. She had requested downloads as soon as the starliner emerged into Tri-Confed space three days ago, hoping to learn something more about her destination. Initially she’d had trouble finding anything useful among the welter of adverts, local scandals and unregulated mass entertainment, but digging revealed some in-depth political analyses, sufficiently sophisticated that she had trouble picking up the nuances, ignorant as she was of the background of the situations being discussed. The level of detail should not have been much of a surprise, given the bizarre and brutal process of government in the Confederacy of Three. When a mistake by those in power could lead to them getting their heads blown off, political analysis became strangely popular.
The Tri-Confed system was ancient, one of mankind’s oldest territories. The originally settled planet, referred to simply as the homeworld and not even graced with a capital letter any more, was barely habitable, scarred by environmental mismanagement and centuries of warfare between the three main continental nations. The three power-blocs had extended their conflicts, alliances and uneasy truces into the rest of the system thousands of years ago. By this point, their different homeworld environments had already impacted on their genetic make-up. Kheshi tended to be sallow-skinned and dark-haired, Yazilers were pale and Luornai were darker-skinned, with red or dark hair. Or perhaps, Elarn had thought when she had first read this, they had come from original Old Earth stock, back when skin shades were associated with political or cultural groups.
Some time during the dark days of the Sidhe Protectorate, the three sides had reached a compromise. Vellern, a mid-system rock too small for terraforming and long since stripped of any resources worth fighting over, was chosen as the site of a new unifying government. So they had built the Three Cities, expending massive resources to out-do each other in scale and grandeur, and had begun sharing power according to a complex process codified down the centuries and referred to as the Concord.
A soft chime announced that breakfast had now finished, but a light brunch was available in the day lounge. As though it was anyone’s business when she ate! That was another thing she hated about space travel: you were always on a schedule. It wasn’t as though anyone needed to go anywhere in person these days; beamed virtuals were as good as being there in the flesh. They had certainly been enough to let her have a profitable and fulfilling career without having to leave the world she had been born on. She could transmit a concert via beevee direct from the studio in her house, her producer adding acoustic tweaks and whatever backdrop he felt suitable for the particular market: space scenes for non-planetary nations, natural beauty for the urban fan-base, ecclesiastical architecture for the devout . . .
Still, whatever she felt about being told when to do it, as she had no idea what the arrangements would be once she was down on Vellern, she should eat soon. She made her way down the corridor to one of the luxury ship’s three lounges, where a selection of light mid-morning snacks were laid out, just in case any passenger experienced hunger pangs in the three hours between breakfast and lunch. There were perishable delicacies including fruit, a sweet-leaf salad and a tray of semi-crystallised flower-petals among the usual cornucopia of dried meats, cheeses, pastries and cakes. Presumably they had picked up fresh supplies when the ship made a brief stopover on the Confederacy homeworld yesterday morning; ecological wreck or not, homeworld would want to make sure an élite interstellar liner had everything its occupants might possibly want. Vellern was a popular tourist destination, not just for those from the three Confederacy nations, but from everywhere in human space, with all the attendant wealth that brought in. There were plenty of affluent people who found the idea of a place where everything was available and nothing - allegedly - forbidden very appealing, even if Elarn did not share this view.
She began to browse along the buffet, picking out a couple of pastries and a savoury roll. She still needed to pack, which would give her an excuse not to take lunch with her fellow travellers. The only thing worse than being enclosed in an artificial environment for two weeks was being forced to share it with strangers.
‘Will you be visiting Khesh City, Medame Reen?’
Elarn jumped, almost dropping her plate. The speaker lounged on a comfortable couch under a currently blank screen, one of several dozen people she had been introduced to and promptly forgotten. When the ever-changing seating plan had brought them together for dinner, he had flirted with her in a desultory manner; her and every other woman at the table not physically holding on to a partner.
‘I mean, obviously I’ll be taking trips to Luorna and Yazil too,’ he continued, as though she had already replied, ‘but with Khesh coming into Grand Assembly, removals will be at the highest level for years. That’s where the real action will be.’
‘I’m sure,’ she said, turning her attention back to the buffet.
‘I ask because I wondered if you had any plans for your stay.’
So he hadn’t had any luck with the other unattached women. Good.
‘Actually I do,’ she said, hoping that would be the end of it.
He sniffed, and raised an eyebrow. ‘Concerts, you mean.’
At dinner on the second day out of Khathryn, one of the other passengers had asked Elarn outright if she was that un-augmented singer of ancient religious chants who did all those charming plainsong recordings. She had resented the woman’s patronising tone, and would have liked to have denied her identity, but she was a lousy liar.
As a result she had found herself reluctantly agreeing to give an impromptu concert, which she treated as practice for Khesh City, where she would be performing live in front of paying audiences. The evening had gone fairly well, despite her nerves. This man had not, as far as she could remember, been in the audience.
‘That’s right,’ she said brightly, ‘concerts.’
He frowned. ‘I must admit, I would have thought singing religious songs to audiences used to unrestricted pleasure and legal murder might be a case of—well, how does that ancient proverb go? Pearls before swine?’
‘Possibly,’ she conceded, wishing there was some polite way she could end the conversation.
He gave a nasal laugh. ‘Oh Medame Reen, please don’t take offence. It’s just that you’re so, well, unusual. Not the kind of person one normally meets in one’s travels.’
To hell with polite. She had had enough of these people. ‘You mean I’m not a more-money-than-sense thrill-seeker who thinks they’re better than the rest of humanity just because they can afford the unnecessary luxury of interstellar travel?’
He sat up straighter. ‘My, my, that sounds like a nasty case of parochialism. Not everyone is content to live their lives at the bottom of a gravity well, only ever seeing the universe via beevee, you know.’
‘Most people don’t have the money to do anything else.’ Elarn knew she shouldn’t argue, shouldn’t risk making enemies, but anachronistic snobs like him annoyed her and before she could stop herself she added, ‘Or would you rather we were still under the dominion of the Sidhe? Plenty more shiftships around back then, and no beevee to mesmerise all us planet-bound hicks.’
That got him. He looked shocked. ‘Of course not! Goodness, woman, I’m not saying we should go back to living under the rule of those despotic bitches - I’m as grateful as you that they’re all long dead!’
Elarn’s brief triumph dissolved into dismay. Rather than continue the conversation, she snatched up her plate and walked off, not trusting herself to reply to the wretched man.
Two words echoed round her head as she fled back to her cabin.
If only.
CHAPTER THREE
So this was how the other half lived. So far, Taro wasn’t feeling that impressed. Mainly he was feeling sick, ’cause the circle-car changed speed so smooth-and-easy that his guts reckoned he was hardly moving while the rooftops whizzed past scary-fast. It was bad enough being topside where there was no ce
iling; up here on the circle-car rails there were no walls either. Though he was sitting down, he kept thinking he was about to fall over.
At least he hadn’t had any trouble getting a seat. When he boarded at the end of Amnesia Street, the carriage’s other occupants had stared at him with a mixture of fascination, fear and, in the case of the coves, disgust. For the rollers, the romance and danger of the Angels rubbed off on all downsiders, but locals thought everyone who lived in the Undertow must be filthy thieving scum. Several rollers had stood up to give Taro a place to sit. When he took his seat, those near him had edged away, leaving him plenty of space. He probably didn’t smell too good to their delicate topside noses, but that wasn’t the only reason they were wary of him. He knew what they must be thinking: you need ID to get on the circle-car, but downsiders aren’t citizens. They don’t get ID unless they are agents of the Concord; if not an Angel, then at least someone with official standing with the Minister.
