Cloud Castles

by Michael Scott Rohan

  She rubbed a hand across her lips. ‘God, why am I telling you all this? Only, when you could have put me out of the way so easily … when I tried to shoot you … you would have. If you’d been von Amerningen’s man you’d have done it in a second, you wouldn’t have dared do anything else. But you didn’t. You even gave me my pistol back.’ She slumped down in her seat. ‘I nearly used it on myself. I didn’t understand, I couldn’t grasp a thing, and yet I knew I’d been wrong, wrong, wrong. That was the last straw. I quit, I moved out, I ran. I ran to the Graal, and it took me in, and healed me. It gave me back myself, the self I should have been. The years since then have been just—’

  ‘Years?’ I barely stopped myself letting go the throttle. ‘My God, that was just a couple of nights ago to me! I haven’t even caught up on my sleep since then … though that nap in the valley was amazing.’

  ‘It would be,’ she said, and her face softened suddenly. ‘I remember the first time I slept there. But you know what the Spiral’s like. It’s been five years for me.’

  ‘Yes, I know. If anything you look younger.’

  Suddenly she did smile, and that alone was the biggest transformation yet. But before I could tell her that, the navcom chimed softly through my phones. We were getting near Stuttgart, and I had to begin the long sweep down out of the clouds that would keep us clear of other flight corridors. I switched on to the local tower, and was about to start paging their controllers when the woman – no – Alison put a hand on my knee. The sudden intimacy was so unexpected I froze, though she only wanted to interrupt.

  ‘Not at the heliport,’ she said over the link. ‘Can’t you put us down as near as possible to wherever the Spear is? It’ll be far safer.’

  I winced. The days when you could muck around like that were long gone; there’d been too many aircraft accidents over cities. On the other hand, we were headed for the edge of town; and it might be easier than trying to get a pack of hussars through airport security. I turned away to circle the city, and ducked down as if I were headed away again, lower and lower. If only the bloody landscape hadn’t been so flat I could have got off radar more easily. I had to go a long way out and then come hedgehopping back by a zigzag route, praying I saw all the power lines, wind farms and similar obstructions in time. But at last the geometric patterns of the industrial development opened up before me, alongside a venous bunch of railway tracks, and I brought the little craft side slipping in behind a conveniently large warehouse.

  ‘We can’t leave it here long,’ I hissed as we bumped down into the empty parking lot, the downdraught tipping a stack of empty cartons and whipping up a faint haze of spray. ‘Somebody’s bound to report it and we’ll have a police chopper overhead or on our tail. But we shouldn’t need long!’

  I slid back the door onto cool, rain-washed night air. Dragovic and the guards spilled out, groaning with relief and sticking fingers in their ringing ears. As the woman called Alison stepped down Dragovic moved swiftly to her side, and loomed there protectively when I ducked out. Was that the way the wind blew? It might explain his ruthless drive for success. ‘How far is it?’ he growled.

  ‘Two minutes,’ I said, and turned to the complex of lower buildings just across the lot.

  ‘You know your way?’ she demanded, as we padded swiftly across the slick tarmac, Dragovic and the guards casting dark glances around them. ‘Won’t there be trouble with security men? Alarm systems? We know a few useful tricks for dealing with those.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t. There won’t be any trouble. I own this place – my company, anyhow.’ I fumbled for my key-case, hard to get out of these tight pockets, and fished out a strip of plastic with the spidery outline of a chip embedded into it. When we reached the gate I shoved it into a slot, spoke a few words into the shielded microphone and clapped my palm to the green-lit panel that uncovered below. There was an instant’s delay, and the courtyard lighting went on. ‘Bugger! The local manager’s been adding refinements, I didn’t want that. Come on!’

  I went through the same routine at an inner door, though this time I had to speak rather longer, and touch my index fingers to the panel as well. ‘ID, voice and print,’ nodded the woman. ‘Not bad. All the usual alarms, too?’

  ‘The lot.’ We opened the building door and slipped inside, boots squeaking on the glossy black flooring with its broad coloured stripes, eccentrically set. ‘But the main thing to watch out for is the automatic pallets – here’s one now.’ Along the yellow line in front of us glided a low rectangle, edged with yellow stripes, topped with a pile of small crates and packages, plus its unloading arms and the gas supply for its ground-effect flotation pucks. Hissing faintly, it swung cumbersomely around to follow the inlaid line in the floor, and vanished among rows of stacks. Over to one side the arm mechanisms that had loaded it clacked back into their racks. The others watched it go, obviously impressed. I turned to the woman. ‘Lutz was even talking about getting those American guard-robots, too, for some buildings. Basically a mobile infra-red scanner with programmable discrimination and patrol patterns, plus built-in high voltage stun-guns. Or a Colt .35 auto mechanism, if you really want to be left alone; but I wouldn’t have that, and nor would the local cops. We tried one stun model. The second night somebody left a nice warm computer running and the robot shocked the bejasus out of it. Shorted the whole network. Back it went.’

  The woman – no – Alison chuckled. ‘What on earth is this place?’

  ‘The local C-Tran depot. I’ve never been here, but they’re all to the same layout, more or less. What we need is a local terminal for the main freight computer – should be one right by the heavy-duty conveyor that brings in really massive pallets, machinery and so on, see there? And here it is. All the symbology’s German, but that doesn’t matter …’

  It stood on a pedestal to the side of a long conveyor used for really heavy pallets, machinery and so on. I began tapping keys, and somewhere else in the warehouse we heard another pair of arms clack out, ready to shift a new load. Machinery hummed softly, and a pair of pallets swung into view, clearing the most direct path.

  The others were visibly nervous, Dragovic tugging at his collar, Alison fidgeting with the panel’s corner moulding. ‘It’s here, then?’

  ‘Yes. Just a minute or two now. Damn!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she spat.

  I glared at the blinking characters.

  ** URGENT**IN IMMINENT EVENT SYSTEM WIPEOUT*INTERFACE PORT S WITH PORT G**URGENT**

  ‘Nothing, nothing. Just some programmer playing silly buggers. It’s here.’

  She sagged slightly. ‘Thank God. So you just parcelled it up and sent it off down your freight system. You didn’t know any better, but it was a terrible risk you took, even using a roundabout route. They could just have got into the computer and traced any packages sent from that office around that time. Lutz could do that, or somebody else; they can get real experts. Or they could just have forced you to give away the route.’

  I grinned. ‘No, they couldn’t. They couldn’t force me, because I never knew; and the computer couldn’t show any such package because there wasn’t any.’

  ‘Then how—’

  I chuckled. ‘You know how the system works? No? The idea’s not so complex. I was getting fed up with all the delays in international shipping – consignments spending ages waiting for clearance or trans-shipment to road or rail or air, or just till somebody can fill a container or guarantee a return load, that kind of thing. Even when the EC brought down customs barriers they were replaced by a battery of checks that were ten times worse, security, health, you name it. Plus consignments would get lost, sidelined, mishandled; every delay increased the chances of that happening. I spent a lot of my time wishing the whole thing could be simplified, that the consignments could look after themselves. And I began to see how they could. A single freight network, in continuous motion, each road or rail or water or air link co-ordinated and continuously monitored by computer syst
ems. And smart packaging – each consignment, even the smallest parcel, with its own on-board computer instead of a label. A pretty simple job, sturdy, fail-safe, but smart enough to know its own identity, contents, despatch and delivery addresses and any other special conditions, and stay in touch with the main network. That way the network knows where each consignment is, each parcel knows where it is, and between them they choose the most efficient route, even from one end of a warehouse to the other – and if anything goes wrong on the way they can modify it. So our freight-carriers are always used to maximum capacity, nothing has to hang around, and we always know exactly where it is and when it’ll get anywhere, when it leaves the system and so on. And it has total integrity, because the computer knows when it’s being mucked about. And you can’t get at the computer without destroying the packaging; and you can’t do that without alerting the main computer. You can’t even identify a consignment without alerting the main computer. That let us negotiate international agreements so that each consignment only needs to be checked at despatch and delivery, when the label is programmed. Hey presto! No checks, no pilfering, no delays. Interfere with a consignment and it screams for help. Delay it, and it finds its own way around. Dead simple. All you need to do is make it work.’

  Alison grimaced. ‘Right. That’s all. And how often’ve you reeled off that little spiel?’

  I grimaced back. ‘You mean, apart from in my sleep? I’ve lost count.’

  ‘But if you say there wasn’t any parcel or whatever …’

  Between the two diverted pallets, their unloading arms raised as if in salute, glided another, empty except for a large plastic case, elegantly striped with the C-Tran logo and slogans in a host of languages, but already looking rather battered. ‘Pity I can’t ever use this in an ad. You see, a system like ours depends one hundred per cent on efficient circulation. One log-jam somewhere, one undetected breakdown and we lose a huge part of our advantage over more conventional methods. So it has to be monitored constantly, by including test loads in the system, always in motion, always circulating, never unloaded, reporting their progress and all the other conditions by onboard computers and telemetry gear, which is normally all they contain.’ I grinned. Till now. Of course we have to divert them now and again to repair the gear and so on, but that’s listed under maintenance, not freight. And they get checked to see they’re not used for smuggling – but not within the EC, naturally. In the day or two since I put it in there your Spear’s been on a free tour of Europe and back, untraceable and inaccessible except by someone who thought of the maintenance system and knew how to get into it – something my dear partner Lutz would never dream of dirtying his hands with. And who knew which of all the various test loads it might be, and had the skill to trace it. Force wouldn’t leave me in any state to do that. Some kind of possession might, but not if I’m on my guard.’

  Alison the Graal Knight perched on the broad ledge alongside the conveyor and watched wide-eyed, swinging her legs, as the pallet sighed to a halt at her feet. ‘I read up on all this for your dossier,’ she said. ‘Never a word about test loads. And you know what? I should’ve realized you knew about the Spiral and the Core, too. You’ve gone and created a sort of microcosm here, a secret world, in constant flux.’

  I leaned over the case, slid another chip-key into its lock and popped open the lid. Alison gave an excited gasp. There, across a tangle of ribbon cables linking various sullen beige instrument boxes, lay the long metal casing Le Stryge had provided for the Spear. I was just stretching out a hand to lift it when I heard a metallic click that wasn’t any of the usual warehouse noises – too close. My eyes flicked from one image to another, at the extreme edges of my vision.

  Alison, mouth open to shout, grabbing for her sword hilt – which at that angle, even if she had Mall’s bullet-splitting speed, she could never hope to draw.

  Dragovic’s hand half-way from his holster, thumb still resting on the safety catch he’d flicked, not realizing how loud it’d sound in that breathless instant. He’d alerted us both and he knew it. There’d be no stagey preliminaries; he was going to shoot, at once. He had to.

  I froze, one hand hovering in mid-air, the other on the edge of the terminal. I thrust out those fingers and clamped down hard. I felt a function button in the top row give and click, but it seemed an eternity before anything happened, while the gun swung up to face us. Then an alarm shrieked, a red light flashed, and the conveyor lurched into life. In the same instant I threw myself forward, vaulting the case, cannoned into Alison and knocked her sprawling from her perch, right over the conveyor. I caught one topsy-turvy glimpse of Dragovic, mouth agape; then we were rolling entangled across the floor. He loosed off an echoing fusillade just as a high packing case chugged into his path; the bullets thudded hollowly, and kicked up a cloud of chips and splinters. The guards came running to his side, tugging out their heavy revolvers. Hardly a surprise: he’d chosen them.

  We staggered to our feet, ducking from side to side, keeping behind the boxes as they bumped past, playing peek-a-boo with the guards. They snapped off a couple of shots which hit nothing but the merchandise and the frame of the conveyor. One, realizing he’d get nowhere, leaped up onto the side ledge to see over. I reached between packages and lunged at his foot, almost slashing the toe off his boot. He staggered, loosing a shot at the roof, and fell back with a heavy thud, triggering another wild shot. The other emptied his gun into the general area of the cases, and I scurried away with wood and shredded cardboard packaging flying around my ears.

  The guards were yelling at Dragovic, demanding he finish us and fast; they sounded suitably rattled. He kept some semblance of brains and ordered them to jump across the belt further along, while he kept us pinned down. He glimpsed us and loosed another burst; we ducked down behind a tall heavy machinery case, while the guards scrambled noisily up onto the ledge and through a gap in the loads. One reached an arm round and fired twice, at random, to give them a clear moment to jump down. We weren’t there. Without a word spoken – a look had been enough – we were both of us scrabbling up on top of the tall packing case, tipping it forward. The captain barely hopped away in time as it loomed over him, and we sprang free; it hit the floor with a booming thunderclap, he skidded back, collided with the first row of racking and dropped both the case with the Spear and his gun, which skidded away under the racks. He ducked after it. We went for him, only to jump back as a laden pallet slid innocently into our path, resuming its old preoccupations. A bullet bounced off it; the guard was firing from behind the conveyor. Then he threw down the empty pistol and they all jumped back across, drawing their sabres. We turned, and they were on us.

  It was me they both went for, parrying Alison’s swift lunge and ducking by, aiming a furious rain of cuts and slashes at me. They thought I was the weaker one, they meant to fell me fast by main force and leave themselves free to take her on. She didn’t buy it; instead she was suddenly back to back with me, a supple, twisting presence, as they circled around us like snapping dogs. They were tough nuts, and fast, one of them almost as good as the captain. Evidently Alison thought I was the weak link too, because she wheeled us around after him, which wasn’t getting us anywhere.

  ‘Sod that!’ I yelled – as good a battle cry as any, probably – and went for him, leaping forward into his attack with a swift stabbing lunge. He took my blade deftly and launched a hissing swipe at my face, I stopped it with a parry quarte and disengaged with what seemed to me deadly slowness; yet somehow my blade was on the other side of his, still across his body, and he was just bunching his arm for the riposte. I threw all my weight into a thrust that went right across his sword and drove down under his breastbone, pinning him to a neat pile of plastic sacks. I yanked loose and he folded with a groan as the heap collapsed on him. I whirled just in time to see why they’d been scared of Alison. She danced forward with a flickering attack that made her sabre look light as a foil, lanced past her opponent’s guard and stabbed once and tw
ice into his chest. He roared and lunged at her, she skipped away and abruptly parried with a circling, irresistible swing whose sheer strength flung his sword wide and wild, leaving him open to a leaping strike, a classic fleche that ran her blade deep under his armpit and killed him where he stood.

  But even as she pulled free of the falling body a shot plucked at her sleeve, and another smacked off the shelving. The captain had got his gun back. I meant to haul her back behind the racks, but she hauled me. ‘Pinning us down—’ she panted. ‘Going for door! We jump him – wide apart! You take the left. Ready?’ I nodded. ‘One – two – go!’

  We dashed out together, but I jumped across the wide trackway, while she sprinted down the right flank. If the captain had delayed an instant longer he might never have got out; but he was already at the door, his hand on the handle, his gun levelled – and the metal case under his arm. It was Alison’s turn to launch herself at me; I fell, and the spray of fire splattered into stacked packages where I’d been that half heartbeat before. Then abruptly it stopped with a clicking snap. The Mauser had jammed; either that fall on the floor had done it no good, or he’d misloaded a clip in his haste. Complex machinery is hard to maintain on the Spiral, where industrial societies can’t flourish. We were up and after him in the instant; but the door slammed behind him.

  He might have been waiting outside to snipe at us as we emerged, but somehow I didn’t think he’d risk lingering to clear the jam. We rushed out into the bleak white lighting of the yard, and saw the fence wire still vibrating where it had been scaled, the shreds of black material on the razor-wire along the top. Footsteps rattled away into the distance with frantic haste. Unlike the inner door, the gate needed a key from both sides, and that cost us a few more seconds. We rushed out; but whichever way we looked, there were only the bare brick and aluminium flanks of the buildings, smoothly sterile, and the empty rain-puddled streets between.