by Patty Jansen
He indicated for me to sit down on the white leather couch opposite him.
I sat, keeping my back straight.
“Mr Spencer,” he said and then he laughed. “British scientist. Geologist, studying the rising of the water. I like that. It’s one of the better excuses I’ve seen for people spying on me. It’s not really necessary, you know, because I give out information freely. You want a tour of the site? Simply ask me.”
His reply puzzled me. I couldn’t believe that he didn’t know who I was, but he acted like he didn’t. Maybe he was trying to get me to walk into a trap. Maybe I was already in the trap.
Way back in the farmhouse outside Athens, we’d agreed that we’d stick to the visiting scientist story for as long as possible.
So I said, “I didn’t come here to spy on you. I’ve come here to check up on projects we completed five years ago.” I wanted to get out of this room. This man could tell me nothing that would incriminate him further. We already had all the juicy details.
But I played the scientist role and asked him about the site and his plans as if I knew nothing. He explained that he had specially bred crops that were adapted to the heat and that this would allow people to live in their homelands again. I might even have believed it. I asked him to show me those plants, but none of the pictures he showed me included close-ups of the plants. To my questions of what sort of crops they were, he was evasive, saying that his people would get back to me with all the details.
I wasn’t going to argue with him, because that was the task of others. I was meant to collect information, nothing more. If he was going to play this game, I was ready to play it. He showed me maps of all the places where he’d planned to grow crops.
A lot of places, most of them in the region’s most vulnerable countries.
“Do you have permission to use all that land?”
He grinned. “We own that land. Given to us by people or governments grateful for the opportunities we give them. That land is worthless to them.”
Given to him under pahemin, except those innocent government people didn’t understand the rules of pahemin, which were heavily skewed towards the buying and selling of debt. They might merely think that they could finally put useless land to a good purpose. Would anyone have explained to them that once the land was improved, it automatically became the property of the creditor? And he was going to grow crops there that were imported directly from Asto? Once Nations of Earth got onto this, all of northern Africa would belong to him, and he could do whatever he wanted with the people who depended on him for their food.
I had trouble keeping my innocent persona. “Have you started to cultivate the land? I should like to see the desert turned green.”
“We started with a few fields around here last year. Most of the seeds are still in storage ready to go out for the summer. Most farmers grow winter crops. Now they can grow summer crops as well.”
And I truly couldn’t believe that he believed my scientist story. All through his talk about new settlements in the desert, I felt like screaming, Do you even know that I am the guy you tried to kill? but he showed no sign that he did. That sickening feeling of doubt returned: we had a hunch that the krayfish had shot the jet in Rotterdam, but we still didn’t know that for sure.
He stuck to the promotional storyline. It sounded incredible. Green deserts, industry, jobs for local people. I was itching to ask him how happy the workers in the gun factory were, when they’d last had a good meal or had seen their families.
A noise of a slap drifted in from the foyer. Someone screamed, the sound cut off suddenly.
Mr Kray stopped talking. His gaze darted to the door.
My heart was thudding. The voice hadn’t sounded familiar. I hoped it meant that my team was getting on top of the guards.
Mr Kray turned around and opened the door to a cabinet at his back. “I appreciate that you’re busy and I think it is time we got to business.”
“I don’t have any business here. We have the right to visit this area, and the research station still belongs to the university. I apologise if we accidentally crossed onto your land—”
“Yes, we have business.” He turned back, and pointed a gun at my head. “I think I might finish what we failed to complete in Rotterdam. Did you really think that we didn’t know who you are?”
Oh, shit.
Thayu.
Yes. We’re busy.
Hurry up.
Mr Kray tensed the muscles in his arms. I could see the tendons move where the sheen of the skin changed. I groped for anything I could reach. The times I spent with Thayu training for this kind of situation kicked in.
My chair—
Was made from hardwood. I sort-of half-rolled, half-fell off the seat behind the backrest. He hadn’t counted on that and the discharge went over my head—
Picked up the chair. Lifted it to protect myself.
Oof. It was heavy. This was where the slightly higher gravity at Ceren came in handy. I shuffled backwards in the direction of the door.
A second charge engulfed the chair. The whole thing disintegrated, leaving me with hands full of wood fragments and the cloth-covered seat and backrest, which fell on my toes.
I vaguely registered that the door opened—and a gun discharged. Evi ran into the room, brandishing one of the giant guns.
“Hands up. Put the weapon down!”
I was surprised that Mr Kray put his gun down, slowly. As soon as he did so, I understood why. It was only a small weapon, and because he’d discharged twice in close succession, at the highest power, the ready light was still off.
Evi darted across the room and flicked the weapon off the desk. The ready light came on while it bounced a few times on the carpet.
“Careful, Evi,” I said in a low voice.
Evi didn’t react, so I picked the gun up, taking care to keep my hands away from the barrel, which would be hot.
Mr Kray said something in Indrahui. I didn’t count myself an expert in the language, but I understood enough that he was trying to sell Evi something. You’ll get a share of my profits if you don’t kill me sort of thing.
Evi laughed, not in a nice way.
Telaris had also come into the room. His gun was smaller than Evi’s, probably one of the guards’ weapons. In the glimpse of the hallway that I could see through the open door, a body in sand-coloured clothing lay face down on the ground. I could hear Thayu’s voice.
Evi spoke, choosing the words deliberately. “I speak to you in this tongue because I will not debase my language further by using it for you. I let you live long enough to tell you that from the day that you came into our village as Romi Tanaqan, and you murdered my sister, I have waited for this day. This is for my people, my friends and family you have killed. For my uncle, for my cousin, for my sister Remani and her unborn child.”
His hand tightened around the discharge button—
I called, “No, Evi!—”
The charge released and zapped through the room—
Mr Kray’s eyes widened—
And the charge hit him in the head—
And again—
There was a sickening wet squelch, and a spray of moisture. I fell back with the shockwave.
Evi fired again—
Another squelch and spray.
Someone yelled, “Evi! Stop!”
The chair behind the desk, with its occupant, had fallen backwards, but there was blood and unmentionable gore all over the pristine white wall behind the desk.
Charge guns, I’d been told, worked by cooking the target from the inside. Repeated strikes at the same spot led to explosions.
Even the carpet, under my hands, had acqui
red a dusting of the stuff, as had the front of my shirt, my hands, and, when I wiped my forearm across my face, it came away with pink smudges.
Telaris grabbed his brother’s shoulder. “Come on, come on. He won’t be going anywhere anymore.”
“It is for Remani.” Evi’s hands trembled. There were flecks of blood on his clothes.
I climbed to my feet.
Blood and bits of unidentified tissue were everywhere. On the walls, on the carpet, on the desk. On the carpet on the other side of the desk lay a hand with only two fingers attached, torn from the rest of the body. I had to look away from the unidentifiable lump of cloth and blood and guts that had once been a body.
While people walked around in the room—I thought I heard Nicha come in—I gulped air, hearing the blood roar in my ears, trying to get my breathing and stomach under control.
Telaris managed to prise the gun out of Evi’s hands. “Come, let’s get out of here, if you want to tell the family this news.”
Evi wiped his face. But his eyes were wet with tears. His hands trembled.
Thayu came into the door, holding another fearsome gun with plasma whirling in the chamber, ready for use.
“Shit.” She looked at the carnage, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. A disturbed expression ghosted over her face. Then she recovered. “So we’re going for the ‘raze to the ground’ approach? Suits me. Let’s tell my father.”
At the same time that I said, “No,” Nicha said, “Yes.”
We looked at each other.
“Please, Cory.” He only used my name when he was angry or wanted to beat me against the wall for stupidity. “I understand what you’re objections are. Really, I do. OK, go back to Nations of Earth. Give your presentation. Ask them to send troops. They may do it, or they may not, because are they going to understand the risk? But even if they send troops as soon as possible, there is an election on and armed action never looks good for the sitting candidate, or any of the candidates. So they’ll wait. Someone will get elected. Danziger or anyone else, it doesn’t matter, because half their supporters won’t have been re-elected and they will have to start the process from the ground up. By the time something is finally done, what do you think will have happened to the settlements here? How much will they have grown? How many locals will have gone under pahemin?”
I thought bleakly, In how many areas will these crops have been sown?
Nicha continued, “We have everything here at the moment. None of the other settlements have gotten very far off the ground. The only crops that have been planted are around here. Tanaqan may be dead, but others would be keen to take over. For one, the Zhori clan would be in an excellent position to do so. They take over leadership, return freedom to all those who have sold their life savings to Mr Kray. Then those people will be loyal to Zhori forever. We have a chance, a short window to deal this movement a fatal blow and save everyone a lot of trouble. If we have to wait for permission, we’ll miss it.”
We met each other’s eyes.
He said nothing. I said nothing. I wanted to say things about act of war and sovereignty and other noble concepts that, at the end of the day, meant nothing if one of the parties fought dirty. Indrahui were experts at fighting dirty.
Thayu held out her hand. “Give me the feeder. I’ll do it.”
I looked at Telaris. He nodded.
My mind went through all the scenarios. The constant news feed of battles won and lost as there had been from Kazakhstan. The assembly in uproar over how this could have been allowed to happen yet again. The whole of northern Africa in Coldi or Indrahui hands. Diseases coming in with illegal crops, destroying much of Earth’s plant species, becoming poisonous weeds.
I blew out a breath. “I’ll do it.”
And another breath. This could potentially be the most stupid thing I’d ever do.
Thayu and Nicha and Evi and Telaris looked on, solemnly. We still stood in the room with that scene of blood and gore that served as a reminder: if we didn’t do anything now, then there might be a lot more of this.
I willed the feeder to contact Asha. I request that this building and surrounding fields be destroyed.
We can look after that. We’ll see to it that the dealing will be sufficient. I hoped I only imagined the glee in his voice. He thought I was amusing.
We’re going to clear this area as much as we can. This building project needs to be utterly destroyed. I need your word that it will affect just this single locality. Only the areas of crops, this underground settlement and especially the storage where they keep the seeds. I will evacuate everyone.
From our point of view, I am only interested in eliminating the elements that we judge to be a threat: anything that points to Coldi involvement, or any offworld involvement that could be misinterpreted as representative of Asto.
He informed me that the ship would be ready for action within an equivalent of about an hour and a half. When he signed off, I felt numb. The team was right: it was the best way to deal with the plans set in motion by Tanaqan, but this was going to be very, very risky.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER 27
* * *
WE LEFT THE SICKENING scene in the office for an equally sickening scene in the foyer. There was blood everywhere: in big dark puddles around the motionless bodies of guards, soaked into their uniforms, sprayed on the floor, and spread around as boot-shaped footprints.
“They attacked us with machetes,” Nicha said by way of explanation, or apology, I didn’t know which. He used the Isla word.
They were machetes, big, ugly blades that looked a lot blunter than they probably were, seeing the amount of damage my team had been able to do with them.
I wanted to ask, Did you really have to make such a mess? But they probably did, because I knew they did not attack easily, and I had never known Nicha to have killed anyone before he became my zhayma.
That was because we were never in situations of danger.
“Did any of you get injured?” I had to look away. My stomach still felt queasy. I found it comforting that at least Nicha also looked a bit pale. The unemotional expressions of Thayu, Evi and Telaris disturbed me.
“We fight Indrahui-style,” Evi said, his voice dark.
And Indrahui-style fighting was dirty, rough and relentless. It was about breaking as many standards of common decency as possible when your enemy least expected it so that you could defeat a soft enemy in all sorts of sickening ways. I wouldn’t have judged the krayfish soft, but Evi had judged differently. He was probably right. This was a rough place, but not half as rough as Indrahui.
Carrying that fearsome gun, with his sleeves rolled up, his clothes dusty and flecked with gore, he looked like the dirty fighter who had seen horrible deaths from a very young age. Not many places on Earth could compete with that.
I didn’t know how many rules of security personnel protocol the two of them had broken, but someone was going to have to sit Evi, and Telaris to a lesser extent, down and give them a stern talk. That someone was probably going to have to be me.
Thayu took off across the foyer and back down the stairwell where we had come up. The guard at the bottom of the stairs didn’t get to finish his question before he, too, was on the ground, courtesy of Thayu’s excellent aim. She divested him of his weapons.
We ran through the passage. A lot of people were in the main thoroughfare. Most of them were guests carrying suitcases going in the direction of the car park.
A couple of krayfish guards tried to stop them, but they were too few, and they were arguing amongst themselves. The guests they had stopped, two tribal elders in long robes, were arguing with them in turn. I heard Mr Kray’s name mentioned a few times.
“Mr
Kray is dead!” I shouted at them. “There is . . . a counter-strike on this settlement about to happen. Help everyone get out, if you intend on staying alive.”
People stopped and turned to me. Several faces displayed alarmed expressions. They were civilised, clean people, wearing suits or tribal wear, or dresses and pearl necklaces. We looked like we’d come from the abattoir. The guards glanced at each other, also alarmed.
The leader came towards us, while his mates held their hands on their guns.
The man lifted his chin in an attempt at a tough stance, but his dark eyes with blood-stained whites went from me to Thayu, to Nicha’s sleeve which had a big blood stain, to Evi with the gun and back to me. “Eh, what’s going on?”
“Tell everyone that they have an hour and a half,” —a bit less by now— “to get out of here.”
“Eh, man, it’s not your job to tell people what to do.”
“I’m telling you anyway, because we know what is about to happen. Everyone needs to leave this place now. Go outside, as far away as you can get.”
A good number of people had gathered around us.
The krayfish were all surrounded, and kept looking over their shoulders, their hands on their weapons. One krayfish man at the back of the group was motioning people away from him with his gun. The guests stumbled back, but still more people were coming from the accommodation wing and pool hall and everyone was bunching up with nowhere to go. Panic could break out any moment, with disastrous results.
“Mista, you go over there with the others,” the krayfish leader told us.
Evi and Telaris pushed in front of me. “You listen to the delegate,” Telaris said. His clipped accent gave his words more punch. “You let people out, in the trucks. You don’t want to die, no?”
I glanced at the time. One hour and fifteen minutes now. “We don’t have time for this. Can you lift me up?” The latter to Evi and Telaris.
