Glorious Angels

by Justina Robson

  TRALANE

  Tralane allowed herself to pause only once on the journey back up to the top. She sat for a moment on the lip of the hole she had shot in the structure and looked at the neat shear line it cut through the thick metal. It clearly had a range limit – on the far side of the hole beneath there was only a circular smear effect visible now that the lighting had come on and illuminated patches of the structure in yellow brilliance. She checked the aperture setting on the gun’s barrel lens and widened it out, then made a reduction in what she thought, from reading the sigils, was the penetration depth of the beam. Then she got up and moved along.

  As she had expected, once she got within a reasonable hearing range of the top team camp the male Karoo came out to see what was going on. He came by himself, not invisible, but very strange to see nonetheless. What would have been superb camouflage in the thick forest was not much help in the regulated geometries and flat expanses of colour inside the artefact. She could see him perfectly well. He didn’t take any evasive action during his accelerating approach as she stood and took aim. She had bargained on that, since he had no idea what the gun was. She breathed out, held her breath and pulled the trigger.

  There was a soft whooshing noise, brief and gentle, a thump as one unvaporised leg fell over on to the floor and then a gentle patter of a few larger pieces descending. A foul mist began to slowly drop towards the ground. Tralane pulled up her neckerchief over her mouth and nose as she walked around it and into the team room. She wasn’t noticed for the first couple of strides – everyone was looking at the pane where Soros was talking insistently, Tzaban visible in the background on the floor.

  Tralane walked directly to the Karoo queen and took hold of her by the high collar at the back of the flightsuit just as she began to turn around. She put the gun’s cold barrel against the side of the dark head. ‘I killed your champion with this weapon and I will kill you too if you don’t do exactly as I say. Stand still and shut up. If you move I will kill you.’ Her voice left no room for doubts.

  The queen stood still. Tralane smelled the first sweet tint of something like violets. ‘Stop that immediately. I’m counting to three and when I do you better not smell of more than sweat. One, two, three.’

  The smell had stopped getting stronger. Even so Tralane felt her resolve wander for a moment and her hand on the collar loosened a fraction. How could she threaten someone so vulnerable? She forced her grip to tighten.

  ‘Don’t hurt her!’ Minna said. It was the first thing out of her mouth as she turned around too, slower to react and then struggling for a second with the shock of seeing her mother in such a position.

  The other engineers stood aghast by this turn of events though Micklas said, ‘’Laney, are you sure about this?’ and because she was first and most trusted they waited on the answer.

  ‘She’s mind controlling you with this smell,’ Tralane said. ‘I’m sure. Minna, come here and let me look at that belt. Everyone else move away from your stations, hands in your pockets, sit on the floor. Do it now.’ To forestall any discussions she shifted the gun barrel for a moment fractionally and shot past the queen’s face into the pane. A hole appeared next to Soros and smoke and a vile stink of chemical burning followed. The barrel was back in place before the queen felt it go.

  ‘They put it on me in Spire,’ Minna said, tears forming in her eyes as she put her thumbs under the belt and showed it. ‘I think she has a detonation switch. I’ve been using a disruptor but I don’t know how much longer it will work.’

  ‘Micklas come here,’ Tralane said as the others slowly crept forwards, their loyalties and feelings still torn. She knew she was only moments from a mutiny if she was not careful. ‘Can you find some connection threads and get it off without breaking the round?’

  ‘I think so,’ the older woman nodded after a moment’s study. Within moments she had organised the others into the tasks necessary. Obeying her was the easiest thing for them – it was a job, a problem, they could solve it and it helped one of their own – in any war of loyalties for them, that was a winning condition.

  The Karoo queen took the moment to say, ‘I am open to a bargain. There’s no need to be hasty. We have nothing like this weapon. I am unarmed. But not without influence.’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ Tralane said. ‘I have no power to deal with and no interest in a bargain. Where is the switch you carry?’

  ‘I believe it is on my front right under the collar of the suit – a squeeze thing attached to the fabric, covered in a plate of something hard.’ The queen’s voice was even, but a measured kind, about as regulated as Tralane’s was. In the pane, Soros had stopped talking and was only observing. Behind him she saw Carlyn bending over Tzaban.

  ‘Minna,’ Tralane said, looking at her daughter. ‘Reach in and take it out, see if it is.’

  Minna obeyed her and after a moment of difficulty held up the item.

  ‘Go throw it down the big hole off the balcony,’ Tralane said.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Now.’ She had her most severe voice on, the one she had, to her shame, used to crush rebellions of any kind when they were at home. Minna was proud but Tralane’s rage could ruin her composure.

  She went to obey.

  ‘Micklas, search her for more.’ Tralane concentrated on reading the queen’s body language as the search went on but there was no resistance, no telltale relaxations. Maybe the threat of having your head vaporised and Tralane’s own state were enough to stop it until this Dahn had some better idea, but Tralane dreaded that better idea.

  Micklas found nothing. She stepped back and Tralane hit Dahn as hard as she could in the side of the head with the butt of the gun. The woman went down and out in a moment.

  ‘You said you wouldn’t hurt her,’ Micklas said, though not objecting.

  ‘I said I wouldn’t kill her,’ Tralane corrected. ‘Bring some of that spare cable and let’s tie her up.’

  They finished securing her as Minna arrived back, pale and nervous. As she explained how she had been fooled into making the spell locks Tralane and the others determined that even if they couldn’t undo the closure, they could expand the belt by weaving in extended threads on to the warp holding everything together so that the flow of symbols would not be broken. The technicalities of doing this with the belt tightly fastened on to Minna were awkward but not impossible. After about twenty minutes of splicing, soldering and tinkering they had a good solid set of connections and then it was only a matter of moments to cut through the original wefts and the belt’s physical structure before removing it.

  ‘Over here,’ Tralane said, and put it on to Dahn instead. She passed the disruption unit to Micklas. ‘Now you’re going to take her up and out of here, all of you. If the team from Glimshard are at the door you hand her over and if they’re not then you put her outside and shut the door. Mick you’ll hang the disruptor over the door higher than she can reach it and use the internal connection to tell the Glimshard guard what you’ve done.’

  ‘What if she wakes up?’

  ‘If she does you tell her what’s going on. If she doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. Minna, you come with me and help me gather up the things from below. We’ll wait for the Glimshard crew there. It’s safe now. No more Karoo around.’

  ‘Wh-what about Tzaban?’ Minna said.

  ‘Aunt Carlyn shot him,’ Tralane said. She waited until she was sure all the crew were on their way to the door, bearing the heavy, awkward Dahn with them. Then she looked down into her daughter’s face and snatched her into a bonecrushing hug.

  After a few moments they let go of each other but Tralane held Minna’s hand and Minna clung on to it as they went down again, beginning to talk of the artefact as neither of them could bear to speak of anything else.

  As they reached the print room Soros had established a speaking connection to the outside world. They could hear him exchanging information with Isabeau and Micklas too, attempting to explain the situation with the Ka
roo queen at the door. Both of them rushed up to add their voices, if only to hear Isabeau speak and to let her know they were there. Tralane imposed order on the connection by flipping the signal tone in the engineer’s emergency code, which gave her the right of speech and thought nothing of leaning past Soros to take over.

  ‘Issa, it’s so good to hear you!’

  ‘And you, Mom.’

  ‘Minna’s here. But listen, the woman at the door is our prisoner, she is Karoo and cannot be trusted.’ She explained exactly all she had learned of the way that the queen would attempt to gain control of any human she was near, and how to forestall this with the bomb threat, if need be. Then she added, ‘Isabeau, I need you to study some schematics I have found as a matter of urgency. Thread your pane into the loop and as soon as you are done I want you to signal me with your report. We are all preparing to exit immediately unless we receive counter orders but Carlyn and Tzaban must go now and we need medical support.’

  Once she had dealt with all the necessary matters she turned, still holding Minna’s hand, and crossed to where Carlyn sat down next to Tzaban.

  ‘I think he’s dead,’ Carlyn said. She looked up at Tralane, then Minna, hopeful for forgiveness. Minna rushed into her arms and she was left looking at Tralane over Minna’s shoulder.

  Tralane put her hand to Tzaban’s neck and felt the faint movement of a pulse. ‘He’s not dead yet.’ He was unconscious, however, his breathing so shallow it was all but invisible. She knew there was nothing she could do for him except hope that the Empress sent a healer quickly. It seemed inadequate, after all he had done for her. She sat back on her heels and met Carlyn’s eye.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that! Like you’re so – disappointed,’ Carlyn said.

  ‘I am disappointed,’ Tralane said.

  ‘You weren’t here the last weeks. You don’t know what those things did,’ Carlyn said. She let Minna go reluctantly with a shaky smile that thanked her beyond measure for the hug. ‘They turned people against each other. They ate us. Their whole behaviour system lets you befriend them. It makes you. How could I be sure it wasn’t like that and he wasn’t going to kill us all?’

  Tralane thought it over. ‘You couldn’t,’ she said, and got up.

  ‘But you’re still acting like I’m the one who did wrong!’

  ‘If he’d ever…’

  ‘How can you take the high ground? How dare you take it! Like you had a special insight or like it makes you better. You had the gun, and that’s what you have now. That’s what you got. Don’t think this is your superior knowledge because it isn’t. It’s just the gun talking.’

  Minna shrieked over the last of Carlyn’s words, ‘Stop it! Stop it! They’re winning when we fight each other. Whoever they are. Whatever they want. Stop.’

  Tralane felt furious but she did stop, in that no more words came out of her. She felt the gun under her hand. ‘What if I throw it away and it’s all that stops them? Don’t you think that’s why Alide wanted those cannons here? Whatever else we do has no impact at all.’ She heard the irony in the silence that followed her.

  ‘So now the pacifist asks for weapons?’

  ‘Should I put them down and let us be consumed until there are no more of us left, then?’ Tralane asked. She didn’t know the answer. Once she would have said, yes, let it be then, let us move on into other forms and be ended rather than clash and prolong the hatred, but in those days she had lived in Glimshard in a house that nobody bothered with.

  ‘Nobody is suggesting that as the alternative, I hope,’ Soros said. He and the other engineers were all looking on now.

  Tralane looked at all of them. ‘We’ve been here for hours now,’ she said, gesturing at the room. ‘We’ve had a good look at this. Does anyone have anything to say about it?’

  Glances flashed between people, knowing, wary.

  ‘A lot of the spells I’ve seen here are corrupted,’ Soros said. ‘They seem to be part of a larger whole…’

  ‘A whole system of related instructions or schematics for making or printing. The words are hard to understand but…’

  ‘…for making living things out of some base material. Always the same substrate, the same alchemical start ingredients, these white basalt, black camphoric, scarlet rye… And other things which are treated like dyes, colours in a factory…’

  ‘…a huge number, a huge variety of things. There are all these references to cauldrons though where they are I don’t know – cauldrons of making and cauldrons of brewing…’

  ‘…some of the things look like people. Like it was making people. But how could that be?’

  Minna looked up then from Tralane’s pane which she had been using while the engineers all spoke. ‘This is a ship,’ she said.

  They turned to look at her, six heads as one.

  ‘Look, it’s a piece of this much larger whole. It has propulsion systems, sixty different kinds of engines but basically it’s an airship, only without a balloon.’

  ‘How could it be that big? It’s more than two klicks long.’ But Soros sounded all too sure, excitement rising.

  ‘This is only one part,’ Tralane said. ‘Where’s the rest?’

  ‘What if that stuff we pick up all over the continent is the rest?’

  ‘The bits are too small to be sure. They could be anything, not necessarily fragments of one object. And if it is as you say, why don’t any of us remember such things or have any records of them?’

  ‘Any records of what?’

  The new voice made them all start and turn, guiltily, as if caught in a conspiracy. Zharazin Mazhd stood in the doorway. He hesitated a moment, catching Tralane’s eye and a smile flickered on his face. Then he moved aside and two medics and a group of armed guards moved past him into the room. They made Tralane and Carlyn step back as they took over Tzaban’s care and began to strap him to a stretcher.

  ‘I’m afraid to tell you that all your work is confiscated by the Infomancy as of this moment,’ Mazhd said in a businesslike tone. ‘I am sure that once an initial assessment has been made you will have it all returned to you for further research, some of you at least.’ Now he definitely didn’t catch Tralane’s eye or anybody else’s. ‘Please give your personal recording devices to my assistants, making sure each is easily recognisable for its swift return.’

  Even Tralane wanted to protest but Soros said it for them as he folded his arms and glowered. ‘You fuckers think you’re above everyone else don’t you? Well good luck with reading it. I hope your eyes fall out.’ He shoved his tablet at the downcast assistant – a grey-robed neophyte, pale and sickly with nerves – and then set about gathering his tools.

  ‘Professor Huntingore if you would be so kind as to close down the devices as for now,’ Mazhd added, as if he didn’t know her. Tralane wondered at it and stared at him, feeling a pang as Tzaban’s shrouded body was hauled out of the room, the stretcher-bearers already puffing and complaining under his weight. The assistant infomancer arrived before Minna and looked up at her.

  ‘I don’t have anything!’ she snapped, shaking, her arms crossed. ‘Can’t you see I’ve been kidnapped and everything? Nnnhhh…’

  They were of an age, Tralane smiled for a second as the boy cringed and had then to step in front of her. ‘Here you go,’ she said, in as kind a voice as she could muster. He took her tablet and placed it with extreme reverence into his carryall. She wondered if she’d ever see it again.

  ‘And the gun,’ Mazhd added, as the boy was about to move on.

  No! Tralane’s gaze said as she flashed a look at him, furious.

  Yes, his cool reply in kind said, though there was an edge to his expression that was almost pleading with her to obey, as if he had a lot more to say but couldn’t.

  She knew the Infomancy could bury whatever they wanted if they thought it compromised Imperial benefit. They could kill without weapons. It wasn’t as if they were going to start carrying guns themselves. Even so, it felt wrong as her fingers
unclipped the holster and slid the gun out. She turned it off, applied the safety warding, and then put it into the sack, keeping her eye contact with him all the while.

  ‘And now, if you have all gathered your personal belongings, we will adjourn to the surface and the city directly. You will be debriefed at the palace.’

  He needed say no more. The notion of safety, shelter and a return home, albeit a moved home, was too much for them. They couldn’t get out fast enough. Only Carlyn lingered as Mazhd waited for Tralane and Minna, neither of whom had moved.

  ‘You go on with Aunt Carlyn,’ Tralane said to Minna, giving her a push. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  Minna looked surprised, raised an eyebrow and then pulled a face as if to say – oh not at a time like this! She looked thoroughly disgusted and shook her head, sullen as she went to Carlyn’s side. Once they had gone, Tralane looked back at Mazhd.

  ‘How much can you remember?’

  Mazhd’s pretty face became arch although his tone was wry. ‘I take it you’re not referring to our evening? No. Well then. I remember everything I witness.’ He seemed patient, his hands folded in front of him, still playing his role.

  ‘I’m going to show you each of these devices in turn,’ she said. ‘Prior to turning them off. I want you to look at everything I show you very carefully. Do you understand?’ She was praying that now he’d be her memory bank, one she needed, if not entirely trusted. ‘Doing your duty by the Empire most thoroughly.’

  ‘Yes Professor, I understand very well.’

  ‘Get over here.’

  She kissed him first and when she felt better she showed him everything she could pull out of the weave. She didn’t know how long they had, so she went at random without trying to get anything in particular, screen after screen, watching his eyes track across the symbols, the minute nod of his head when he was confident of each batch. At last his face began to fall in its expression, a chaos overtaking it like shadow and she knew that even he had had enough. Without looking at how much she had left out, she closed it down.