Context

by John Meaney

  Tom nodded, walked on.

  ‘Sir...’

  Behind him: the mother.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My daughter.’ She was a large woman; when she swallowed, her jowls shook. ‘Would you take her with you, please?’

  ‘I can’t. I’m ...’

  The little girl’s eyes were blue and calm, as Sylvana’s might have been at that age.

  ‘... sorry.’

  It was Jay who conducted Tom’s final briefing, in a blue-grey chamber devoid of decoration. Both the table and the too-hard chairs were square-edged extrusions of the same featureless stone. Half-light came from dimmed glowglobes floating near the ceiling.

  It might have been an interrogation chamber: a reminder of failure’s price.

  But Tom’s healed skin remembered the open cuts across his stomach, the pain weals from the Grand’aume’s dungeons, the toxin-laden stings of the glistening red paraflesh which lined the—

  He forced his attention back into the moment.

  ‘No-one, old chap’—Jay’ s glance flickered towards Tom’s left shoulder—‘has done better in training. You’ve all the makings of an effective deep-cover operative.’

  Tom waited.

  ‘I’ve got to ask, though,’ Jay added, ‘why you’re doing it. Your tech skills are first rate, you can plan and—’

  ‘I’ve been over this with Psych.’

  Not to mention Corduven.

  ‘Your father was an artisan, is that right?’

  ‘A stallholder, many strata down, old chap.’

  ‘But he made things, too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Like his stallion talisman.

  The white-hot graser beam, the spattering of liquid metal and the strong smell of burning grease and oil. He could see it right now: Father’s strong, stubby hands manipulating the cutter, removing metal from the plain block, bringing forth the stallion’s magical form.

  ‘You’re asking’—Tom, with a faint ironic smile, raised his one hand palm up—‘whether I’ve a sublimated desire to make things with my hands?’

  ‘What I’m getting at is—’

  ‘All I ask, Jay, is that you use me effectively. Send me into a network where I can make a difference.’

  Not into betrayal.

  The subtext was obvious, and Tom had made subtle enquiries to verify his suspicions. Though not everybody agreed, it was known that Jay considered the Jephrin network in Realm Ruvandi to be blown: the agents-in-place sending back their encrypted reports under their captors’ supervision. Which meant that, for the sake of those captured men and women, he had allowed his own lover Lihru to meet her rendezvous.

  I’m no better than he is.

  For Tom had known, some part of him, that there was more to Jay’s shirking of responsibility for the final briefing than he had claimed.

  ‘Maybe that’s why I’m conducting this briefing, Tom.’

  Had Lihru failed to make contact as arranged, the Blight’s security forces might conclude that their subterfuge had failed; at which point, there would be no point in delaying execution for the agents already in their hands.

  Jay’s own superiors disagreed with his assessment of the Jephrin network’s status. But that did not excuse—

  ‘This particular assignment,’ Jay continued, leaning his elbows on the stone table, ‘carries an extra risk. If anyone -or any scanfield—recognizes you, they’ll shut down the surrounding tunnels immediately, before closing in.’

  ‘But the Aurineate Grand’aume is a large realm.’ Tom shifted on his hard stone seat. ‘I’ll be nowhere near the Core, or any of the upper strata where I was before.’

  Jay nodded, then tapped the tabletop for the briefing models to be displayed.

  ‘Just make damned sure of that, old chap.’

  Travel plans: itinerary, temporary cover ID. Once in place beyond the local realms’ borders, his short-term ‘legend’ would be switched for a new, deep-cover persona.

  ‘Your access phase,’ said Jay, ‘will take a little time. We’ve recruited some help, who are inclined to be a little, shall we say, spectacular. But they’ll get you there safely.’

  ‘All right.’

  Tom checked through multifaceted parole/countersign tricons; tight-beam ciphers (for short-range use) and entangled-crypto keys; ingress and egress of the holomapped target zone, until he was certain of every safe chamber and code drop location.

  Can I really maintain the subterfuge?

  In the past, as a Palace servitor, he had hidden his ambitions and plans for vengeance from his noble-born masters; but he had relied on his legal status rather than a fictionalized biography for his protection.

  ‘Here are your incidentals.’ Jay waved open a membrane-covered wall niche. ‘Check them through.’

  Tom fingered the garments: convincingly aged Grand’aumique clothing.

  ‘There are some crystal-stored personal messages,’ Jay added, ‘in convincing idiom, I’m told. You’re OK with tunnel-slang?’

  ‘No problem.’

  His cover persona’s first language was Belkranitsan, in the Middle Lintran dialect.

  ‘Corporal Wilnasz sang your praises.’ Jay smiled bleakly. ‘I don’t need to tell you how rare that is.’

  Wilnasz was Lintran-born, and she made a point of talking to both transient Lintran refugees and the local resettled populace, keeping up with current linguistic usage. She was a stickler for exactitude.

  ‘Please thank her for me. Have we finished the preliminaries?’

  ‘Very nicely.’

  The briefing’s final phase:

  A holo-tesseract shone steadily in the chamber’s gloom.

  ‘Let’s review objectives.’

  This was the crux of things.

  Under Tom’s direct local command would be two dozen agents, divided into two overlapping teams. The smaller team comprised resistance-fighter types (led by one Tyentro Liushkasz: a hard, driven man) whose role would be to take care of the rough stuff.

  The others were undercover agents-in-place: those who had infiltrated strategically useful positions to glean intelligence. Among them were a police officer, two demesne-administration servitor-bureaucrats, a baker, several cleaners, and two prostitutes.

  They could be classified in another manner, which cut across both groups: those who were Academy-trained, and those who were locally recruited inside the Blight-occupied Grand’aume.

  ‘Your first formal mission will be risk assessment of a potential defector.’

  When Jay gestured, it was a familiar image which hung above the blue-grey tabletop: a blond, bearded man with an amber ovoid inset below his left cheekbone.

  ‘Ralkin Velsivith?’ Tom shook his head. ‘This is a trap, I can tell you now.’

  Glistening blood-red, the torture chamber’s slick acidic walls—

  ‘Don’t make this personal, Tom.’

  With the man responsible for his arrest? But... No, this was a mission.

  ‘There’s no chance of that. He’s passed preliminary vetting?’

  ‘Correct. Your number two, Tyentro Liushkasz, has already made contact.’

  ‘An infiltration attempt…’

  ‘Our—your people have taken full precautions.’

  Quietly: ‘They better have.’

  There was a strange air in the cavern. Masses of movement, yet the huge crowds of people were quiet, disciplined: loading cargo, boarding arachnargoi and lev-transports. Emptying the Academy.

  ‘We always seem’—Sylvana’s voice sounded strange- ‘to be saying goodbye.’

  It was a line from a holodrama, but she meant it.

  I couldn‘t leave, he wanted to tell her, without seeing you again.

  But, ‘I know,’ was all he said.

  ‘Tom—’

  Gently, he took hold of her soft hand and kissed it.

  He pushed his way through the throng of people, holding his plain blue cloak tight around himself, hood pulled forward. Past queues, past cry
ing children and the adults who tried to calm them.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Then he passed into a narrow tunnel, where the air was cold, and the rough path led him into raw, natural caverns. He walked beneath an archway beside a ceramic guard-booth, but the place was empty, and the booth was unmanned.

  Abandoned, like the Academy itself.

  Tom pushed back his cloak’s hood. There was no-one here to recognize him.

  Pebbles scrunched underfoot as he walked on. Small echoes, answering back from broken stalagmites, sounded like a tiny distant marching army; but Tom Corcorigan was journeying to war alone.

  ~ * ~

  43

  TERRA AD 2142

  <>

  [14]

  There was a crump of sound. Over the roof of the old granite residence, a column of dirty smoke rose into the cold leaden sky.

  A military TDV, very long and low to the ground, swerved into the courtyard, spattering slush, whipped into position and hovered, quivering: a hound straining to be loosed. A side door snapped upwards.

  ‘Inside, now!’

  Zoë’s hands pushing against her back, Ro threw herself inside, landing sideways on a hard black bench, with Zoë following.

  Who was he working for?

  And why would the gardener be trying to kill her?

  They were already in motion as the door snapped downwards, locking, and the residence—pale watching faces of faculty and students at the windows—was fast receding behind them.

  ‘Could’ve done without the audience,’ muttered Zoë.

  Up front, the driver spun the TDV hard around, while the four soldiers—sitting in the central outward-facing seats, between the driver’s control seat and the rear bench where Ro and Zoë crouched—snapped their helmets’ flash-visors down, ran through capacitor-status and micromissile-mag checks on their lineac shoulder guns.

  The driver looked back—a dark red dagger symbol upon her cheek: special forces tattoo—and fired a sentence in rapid Russki.

  Zoë nodded, gave a clipped command, of which Ro picked up only one word: XenoMir.

  More than one assassin, then.

  Ro was not as scared as she ought to have been: things were moving too fast.

  Who are they? And now what?

  They were on the snow-laden Yeltsin Hills. Moscow lay to the south, on the other side of the icy river, as though nestling in a titanic crater.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Ro clutched her seat as the TDV tipped nose down, on the same slope where students had been sledding, and gunned downwards, accelerating hard, as the river’s churning metal-grey waves grew larger at sickening speed.

  I’m going to die.

  Waves, growing impossibly close ...then there was a swerve to the right, smashing into water with a white cloud of spume, jolting Ro’s spine as the TDV shot downstream, spewing water in all directions.

  Another swerve, and they were tearing upwards, into the city.

  Beside Ro, Zoë was clinging to a grab handle, white-faced, tears of fear unnoticed upon her bloodless cheeks.

  Someone’s trying to kill me.

  Past the stadium. Armoured bikes, strobing blue, fell into place beside them, matching the TDV’s velocity.

  ‘Police escort.’ Zoë stared at them. ‘If they can keep up.’

  As though responding to the challenge, the TDV’s driver maxed her controls, red-planing the output, zipping past pedestrians. Streets and people looked static—flicked past, were gone—like momentary snapshots, frozen glimpses of the world.

  Dzerzhinski Square, and they took the turn at frightening speed.

  Ground traffic used the centuries-old no-left-turn rule: use a designated U-turn gap, go back, turn right. But the TDV ignored the niceties, hooking across a hover-bus’s path, sending it into a panicked swerve.

  Then the bus was behind them—they had lost the police bikes—and an entranceway was looming.

  Slam of jet-brakes, a hard turn which sent Ro sliding across the bench, then snapping downwards, into the tunnel ramp which led into basement bunkers beneath XenoMir’s vast bulk.

  White lights strobing.

  Then a howling screech as they whipped into the floodlit underground garage and spun to a halt.

  A heavy clang, echoing: steel doors closing off the basement. But the sound failed to mask Zoë’s muttered: ‘... a Zajinet, sighting confirmed.’

  Clamour of soldiers running to their guard positions; but Ro’s hearing could be finer-focused than a normal person’s.

  ‘... saw its light traces, for sure.’ Zoë touched her throat: upping the volume of her embedded mike. ‘The escaped one, yes. It really is a renegade.’

  Then she caught sight of Ro observing her.

  ‘We’re going to talk to the ambassador, what else? Out.’

  Zoë beckoned Ro. ‘As of now, you’ve all-areas access. Come with me.’

  ‘Not until you tell me what—’

  ‘You’ll recall there’s a rogue Zajinet, one that’s loose outside the embassies without authorization?’

  Zoë was walking at a rapid clip; Ro hurried to keep up.

  ‘That story,’ Ro said, ‘was part of the bait that got me here.’

  ‘But very real. And it wants your life, girl, though I’ve only half an idea why. It has more than human assassins in its employ.’

  They stopped before a lift-tube.

  ‘It has something,’ Zoë added, ‘to do with mu-space, we think. All right? Now come with me.’

  The lift-tube door slid open. Stale warm air drifted out.

  ‘OK,’ said Ro.

  They stepped inside.

  Piotr, overweight and gasping, was waiting for them on the top floor.

  ‘The ambassador,’ he said, ‘is a little agitated.’

  Zoë grimaced. ‘Wait till we’ve had a word with it. Then you’ll see agitated.’

  Piotr handed a resp-mask each to Zoë and Ro, then pulled his own from a voluminous pocket.

  ‘We can take the quick route.’

  Through low-lit labs, to a background of gentle susurration, and bubbling from the long liquid-filled tanks. A whiff of ammoniac vapours, and Piotr’s cough was a sudden barking intrusion among the shadows.

  Inchoate purple shapes drifted in the tanks, but it was the crystalline sediments, growing and reconfiguring too slowly for human eyes to register, who were the Felakhim: the intelligent, dormant species of their world.

  Only stop-motion analysis revealed the coral-like pattern-language which greeted the first exploration station, and deciphered the initial question once the basics were established: Do you not hum the Earth-stones’ song, and dance the waltz tectonic?

  Twelve years later, semantic arguments among Terran translators and philosophers continued to rage.

  ‘This way.’

  The next zone was worse.

  Some rooms were dark, others brightly lit, but each was unsettling: whispers just beyond the edge of hearing, a sense of not-touch upon the skin—hairs rising—of almost-caresses upon cheeks, of brushing lips.

  When they exited, through an ultrasonic vibrashield, Ro felt as though she were being stripped clean, yet still felt violated. In the corridor, she stopped and looked back inside, trying to catch a glimpse of the Ephemerae, ghost-rulers of the world called Limbo, seeing nothing until she turned her head away. Then ... something.

  Hint of— No.

  ‘Come on, Ro. We’re in a hurry.’

  Nothing like that could exist.

  They made a detour around the Floaters zone—it would take too long to pull on the necessary env-suits—and left Piotr, wheezing, leaning against a pitted glass panel. Behind it, an eye sphere drifted among corrosive clouds.

  ‘I’ll catch you up,’ he said.

  ‘Take it easy.’ Ro thought of calling medics, but Zoë’ was already hurrying on. ‘You’ve got a strand?’

  Piotr nodded.

  Feeling slightly less guilty, Ro ran along the curving corridor until s
he caught up with Zoë.