She drove around the next day, slowly. There were cages everywhere, some of them immense and gothic. There were new ponds, and short bursts of trees. A huge, exquisite ceramic beehive stood next to a garage. She heard the trumpet of an elephant down the next road, and the scream of a peacock.
As she drove, heads poked from the corners of garages and from behind gazebos, some of them not yet completely determined. She made a mental note to remember where they were, in case she needed them. For Yagel.
Sometimes the changes were slow, and sometimes the changes were fast. Yagel stood up again and walked like a little girl—stubby, but a little girl. She described every event of her day, repeating the things the other little girls had done, describing how one of them grew a bandit mask on her face and sometimes washed her food before eating.
“She’s all right,” Simyon said stubbornly.
“I’m afraid for her,” she said, and her voice sounded thick. Simyon’s hard, bushy eyes stared at her, ticking down her body, studying her.
Maybe Yagel would never change; maybe this was just her version of a little girl. Some evolved early; some evolved late. Every morning she counted Yagel’s fingers and toes, and then she counted her own. She longed for nighttime and the rise of the wind, for the moment of freshness at the start of a storm.
She was beginning to sense her own change and was surprised one day to look at Yagel and consider how fragile she was, how available and simple her neck looked, how fatty her arms and how ample her thighs. She caught new angles when she saw her face in the mirror, a starkness that hadn’t been there and now struck her as cunning. She went to the top of the stairs and stared down them; she looked out the windows and her eyes caught the blur and skitter of countless beings, hiding behind and under things. She no longer cooked her food and finally Simyon coaxed her out with promises of meat, and locked the door against her.
She had skin stretched tight across the bones that pulled out from her shoulders, a hard elastic that wrinkled only when she pulled in her elbows firm against her ribs. When she stretched her arms out it was not possible to fight the tug, stronger than blood, that lifted her, or dropped her from great heights when she’d already been lifted. When she fell, it was with a liquid plummet, streamlined and terrible, her jaw slicing the air, her eyes tricking out every detail. Each movement in the air was adrenaline: she was pure and fast and vastly hungry. When she sighted her prey she started out silent and swift but just before she struck a large chaotic cry burst from her, turning the prey’s eyes up, freezing their limbs. Just like that, food.
Small and furry; fat and hairy; clothed and crying; it didn’t matter. The power was hers and in the air and right; what she could take was meant to be taken. High up, on the tips of the buildings, she could feel it all move beneath her, each little tiny patter, each needless drumming word. They soon took to rifles and guns and arrows, and she slipped behind buildings, faster than they were, and took them out when they pointed to where she’d been. As if she would ever stay where she once had been.
This was what she was meant to be and she filled her throat with the joy of it.
CATHERINE DREWE
PAUL CORNELL
Hamilton could hear, from the noises outside the window, that the hunters had caught up with their prey. There was a particular noise that Derbyshire Man Hounds made seconds before impact. A catch in their cries that told of their excitement, the shift in breathing as they prepared to leap at the neck of the quarry the riders had run in for them. He appreciated that sound.
He looked back to where Turpin was sitting in a wing chair, the volume of Butriss he’d taken from Sanderton’s library in the early stages of the hunt still open on his lap. The skin on Turpin’s face was a patchwork of different shades, from fair new freckles that would have put an Irishman to shame to the richer tones of a mulatto. This was common in the higher ranks of the military, a sign that parts of Turpin’s body had been regrown and grafted back on many different occasions. Hamilton saw it as an affectation, though he would never have said so. He had asked for his own new right arm to match the rest of his body completely. He’d expected Turpin, or one of the other ranking officers who occasionally requested his services, to ask about it, but they never had.
The noise from outside reached a crescendo of cries and horns and the sudden high howl of one dog claiming the prey and then being denied more than a rip at it. Turpin opened his eyes. “Damn,” he said. He managed a slight smile. “Still, five hours. They got their exercise.”
Hamilton reflected the smile back at him, shifting his posture so that he mirrored Turpin’s nonchalant air more exactly. “Yes, sir.”
Turpin closed the book. “I thought they had me an hour ago, which is why I sent for you. How’s your weekend been? Has Sanderton been keeping you in the style to which you’re accustomed?” Turpin had arrived unannounced and unexpected, as he often did, late last night, sitting down at the end of the dinner table as the gentlemen were about to adjourn and talking only about the forthcoming day’s hunting, including asking his host for Hamilton to be excepted from it.
“It’s been a most enjoyable house party, sir. Dinner was excellent.”
“I heard you bagged your share of poultry.”
Hamilton inclined his head. He was waiting for Turpin to get to the point, but it wouldn’t be for a while yet. Indeed, Turpin spent the next twenty minutes and thirty-three seconds asking after Hamilton’s family, and going into some of the details of his genealogy. This happened a lot, Hamilton found. Every now and then it occurred to him that it was because he was Irish. The thought registered again now, but did not trouble him. He had considerable love for the man who had ordered him to return home from Constantinople when it became clear the only good he could do there was to remind the Kaiser that every disturbance to the peace of Europe had consequences, that every action was paid for in blood. Hamilton would have done it, obviously, but it was one fewer weight to drag up the hill when he woke each morning.
“So.” Turpin got up and replaced the book on the library shelf. “We’ve seen you’re fit, and attended to your conversation, which rang like a bell with the white pudding crowd. We have a job for you, Major. Out of uniform.”
Hamilton took that to be the royal we. He found that a healthy smile had split his lips. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Turpin touched his finger to the surface of the table, where the imprint glowed with bacterial phosphorescence. Hamilton leaned over and made the same gesture, connecting the receptors in his skin with the package.
“Nobody else knows about this,” said Turpin.
The information rolled into Hamilton. It exhilarated him. He felt his nostrils flare at the smells and pictures of a land he’d never been to. New territory. Low white newly grown wood buildings, less than a day old by the look of them, with the banners of imperial Russia fluttering gallant. That is, fluttering not entirely through the progression of an atmosphere past them. Near darkness. Was it dawn? Not unpleasant.
And there was the woman. She stood on a bluff, looking down into a dark grey canyon, looking at a prize. He couldn’t see what she was looking at; the emotion came with the package, and Hamilton reacted to it, making himself hate her and her prize for a moment, so if anything like this moment came in the world, he would be in charge of it.
She wore her hair green, but bundled in the knots that suggested she rarely had to unfurl it and take the benefit. Her neck was bare in the manner that said she was ready for the guillotine, the black collar of her dress emphasising her defiance. Hamilton let himself admire that bravery, as he did the martial qualities of all those he met in his work. Her gown was something that had been put together in the narrow hell of the foundry streets of Kiev, tiny blue veins of enforcement and supply across Imperial white, with the most intricate parchment wrinkles. It looked like she was wearing a map.
Her hands were clasped before her, and she was breathing hard, controlling her posture through an immense effort
of will. She wanted to exult, to raise herself in triumph.
Hamilton found himself wishing she would turn around.
But the information froze there, and the rare data tumbled into his mind. He sent most of it into various compartments, for later examination, keeping only the index in the front of his attention.
“Catherine Drewe,” said Turpin. “Ever meet her?”
Just because they were both Irish? Hamilton killed the thought. “No.”
“Good. We got that emotional broadcast image by accident. From someone standing behind her—a bodyguard, we think. One of our satellites happened to be passing over the Valles Marineris at the right moment, three days ago.”
Hamilton had already realised. “The Russians are on Mars.”
Turpin nodded. “Terrifying, isn’t it?”
“Is her army—?”
“Down there with her, because if so, we’re acting with a criminal disregard for the safety of our allies in the Savoy court?”
Hamilton acknowledged Turpin’s smile. “Thought you might be ahead of me, sir.”
“We hope not. And we don’t see how. So we’re not getting Chiamberi involved as yet. She’s probably down there on her own, either negotiating a rate to take the Russian side in whatever their long-term plans against the House of Savoy might be, or already part of those plans, possibly as a consultant. Now, the mercenary armies alarm us all, but the good thing about them is that we’ve sometimes been able to use them as passive aggregators of intelligence, allowing them to serve a side to the point where they’re trusted, and then buying them off, netting all they know in the process.”
“Is that the mission, sir?”
“No. We’ve created and are ready to plant chaotic information of an unbreakable nature strongly suggesting that this has already happened, that we have paid Miss Drewe in advance for her dalliance with the bear. Your front cover will be as a serf, your inside cover as a deniable asset of the Okhranka. Your mission is to kill her and any associates in one move.”
Hamilton felt himself take another deep breath. “So the world will think the Russians discovered her treachery and covertly executed her.”
“And botched the cover, which the world will enjoy working out for itself. Miss Drewe’s mercenaries are tremendously loyal to her. Many of them declare themselves to be in love with her. Doubtless, several of them are actually her lovers. They will not proceed with any contract should she die in this way. Moreover, they may feel obliged to expose the Russian presence on Mars—”
“Without us having been involved in exposing it.”
“So the czar’s state visit at Christmas and the superconductor trade talks won’t have any awkwardness hanging over them. Savoy won’t ask and won’t tell. They’ll be able to bring pressure to bear before the Russians are anywhere near ready to tussle. There will be no shooting war, the balance will be preserved, and even better—”
“Miss Drewe’s disaffected mercenaries may actually give us the information on Russian arms and intentions that we’re alleging she did.”
“And other such groups, irked at Russian gall, will be less disposed to aid them. It is rather beautiful, isn’t it?” Turpin held out his hand, the ring finger crooked, and Hamilton touched fingertip to fingertip, officially taking on the orders and accepting them. “Very good. You leave in three days. Come in tomorrow for the covers and prep.”
There was a knock on the door. Turpin called enter, and in marched a hearty group of hunters, led by Sanderton, the mud still on their boots. At the front of the pack came a small girl, Sanderton’s daughter. She’d been blooded across the cheeks, and in her right hand she held, clutched by the hair, Turpin’s deceased head. “Do you want to eat it, Uncle?” she asked.
Turpin went to her, ruffled her hair, and inspected the features of his clone. “Yes, I’ll take my prion transmitters back, Augusta. Can’t be spendthrift with them at my age.”
Sanderton advised him that his chef was used to the situation, and would prepare the brain as a soup.
Hamilton caught the eye of the girl as she hefted the head onto a plate provided by a servant. She was laughing at the blood that was falling onto the carpet, trying to save it with her hand.
Hamilton found that he was sharing her smile.
Hamilton made his apologies to his host, and that night drove to Oxford in his motor carriage, a Morgan SixtySix. The purr of the electrical motor made him happy. Precision workings. Small mechanisms making the big ones tick over.
It was a clear run up St. Giles, but glancing at his watch, Hamilton knew he wasn’t going to make it in time for the start of the service. He tore down the Banbury Road, and slowed down at the last moment to make the turn into Parks, enjoying the spectacle of the Pitt Rivers, lit up with moving displays for some special exhibition. The Porters, in all their multitudes, ran out of their lodge as he cut the engine and sailed into the quad, but the sight of the Fourth Dragoons badge had them doffing their caps and applauding. After a few words of greeting had been exchanged, Loftus, the head porter, came out and swore at Hamilton in her usual friendly fashion, and had her people boost the carriage onto the gravel just beyond the lodge.
Hamilton walked across the quad in the cold darkness, noticing with brief pleasure that new blades had appeared in neon scrawl on the wall of his old staircase. The smells of cooking and the noise of broadcast theatric systems in students’ rooms were both emphasised by the frost. The food and music belonged to Musselmen and Hindus and the registered Brethren of the North American protectorates. Keble continued its cosmopolitan tradition.
He headed for the chapel. As he passed the main doors, the bells that had been sounding from inside fell silent. He put his hand to the wood, then hesitated, and went to sit in the hallway outside the side door. He listened to the start of the service, and found his heart lifted by the words, and by the voice that was saying them. “Your world turns as the solar system turns as the universe turns, every power in balance, for every action an opposite, a rotation and equalisation that stands against war and defeats death, and the mystery of what may happen in any moment or in any space will continue. . . . ”
He waited an hour, until the service was over, enjoying the cold, listening to that voice through the wood of the door, intimate and distant.
As the congregation came out, Hamilton stepped through the mass of them, unnoticed, and past churchwardens putting out candles and gathering hymn books. There she was. She had her back to him. Annie. In the gleaming vault of the chapel interior, dominated by the giant depiction of God with a sword for a tongue, reaching across time and space with his Word.
She turned at the sound of his footsteps. She was as lovely as he remembered. “Jonathan,” she whispered, “why are you here?”
He took her hand and put it to his face and asked for a blessing.
The blessing only gave him an edge of 0.2 percent. Annie checked again, in his head behind his eyes, and for a moment he thought how splendid it would be to show her all his old covers, to share. But no. He could not. Not until this part of his life was over.
“It’s a very slight effect,” she said. “Your prayers have hardly provoked the field. Are you contemplating murder?”
Hamilton laughed in a way that said of course not. But really his laugh was about the irony. It wasn’t the first time the balance had stood against he who sought only to maintain it.
They went into the side chapel where The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt was kept, the one on display to the empire’s gawkers in St. Paul’s being a copy.
Places like this, to Hamilton, were where the sons of empire returned to after they had done terrible things, the clockwork pivots about which their dangerous world turned, where better people could keep the civilisation that they did those things for. Annie, his old tutors like Hartridge and Parrish, the architecture and custom, the very ground were why he went to work. On his way from here, he would look in on the Lamb and Flag and drink a half of a beer with the
hope that he would return to drink the other half. As had many before him, for all the centuries.
After the churchwardens had left, Annie did him a certain service behind the altar, and Hamilton returned the favour.
And then he left holy ground, and went out into the world that wasn’t England, equipped only with a tiny and ironic blessing.
At the square, anonymous offices off Horse Guards Parade, they armed him and briefed him. He looked out from the secret part of his mind and saw that he was now Miquel Du Pasonade, a bonded serf of three generations. He let Miquel walk to the door and bid farewell, only leaning forward to take over during weapons familiarisation.
He let his cover take the overnight to Woomera, switching off completely, waking only as he was paying in Californian rubles for a one-way ticket up the needle.
Hamilton always preferred to watch the continents drop below him as he ascended. He mentally picked out the shapes of the great European Empires, their smaller allies, colonies, and protectorates. The greater solar system reflected those nations like a fairground mirror, adding phantom weight to some of the smaller states through their possessions out there in the dark, shaming others with how little they’d reached beyond the world.
Hamilton waited at Orbital for two days, letting his cover hang around the right inns, one of the starving peasantry. He let himself be drunk one night, and that was when they burst in, the unbreachable doors flapping behind them, solid men who looked like they should be in uniform, but were conspicuously not.
His cover leapt up.
Hamilton allowed himself a moment of hidden pride as they grabbed his hair and put their fingers onto his face. And then that was that.
Hamilton woke up pressed into service, his fellows all around him celebrating their fate with their first good meal in weeks. They sat inside a hull of blue and white.
The Years Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2009 Page 61
