Luke awoke again after they had refuelled and were crossing the Channel. The light was early-morning cold and grey. There was a door open in the side of the craft even though it was freezing, and Connie was peering through to the sea below. The waves were like nothing she’d ever seen before: a huge storm, crashing both coastlines. There wasn’t a ship to be seen out in the deadly night; vast, crested waves looked to be thirty or forty metres high – great, big mountains and furrowing troughs. Connie looked down, slightly fearful, but also fascinated by their motion.
‘I’ve never seen a storm like this,’ she murmured, then realised like an idiot she was talking to the soldiers who (a) didn’t speak English and (b) were trained to kill her.
Then Luke’s gentle voice came and she realised he was awake.
‘The moon’s disrupted the tidal systems.’
‘Please don’t make them knock you out again just to tell me about tidal systems,’ she whispered.
But the men were hypnotised by the storm too. The Chinook was being tossed about in the wind like a toy being manhandled by a toddler. Battle-hardened marines were looking profoundly uncomfortable. One was being quietly sick in a bag. Connie didn’t mind their discomfort. If she was with Luke, nothing of the sea could harm her. Suddenly, she wished the helicopter would crash, then felt awful for thinking such a thing.
‘What will happen with the weather?’ she whispered to Luke. ‘With the tides?’
‘It’s bad,’ said Luke. ‘Tides will fall. The ocean level will drop, maybe by two centimetres, because there’s less mass and less erosion…’
Connie looked at him open-mouthed.
‘You’re not serious’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘That’s…’
‘What my people have done to yours is unconscionable,’ said Luke.
Connie was momentarily side-tracked.
‘How come you know the word “unconscionable” and not the word for car?’ she said.
‘I like Jane Austen,’ said Luke.
‘Oh. Okay, but no, no, what I mean is, the sea level in the world is too high! Far too high! If this brings it down – even a tiny bit…’ Connie’s eyes were round. ‘Oh my goodness. No, but no, I mean, this could be a good thing. If this storm ever blows itself out.’
‘It will,’ said Luke. His face was confused. ‘Why did your planet let the tides rise so high? Don’t you know you have to look after the water?’
‘It’s…’
‘… complicated?’
The helicopter lurched from one side to another. Luke was thrown halfway across the space, and briefly, briefly, they managed to touch hands. A soldier growled at them and they pulled apart. When Connie glanced down at her palm, she saw there was something written on it in the faintest of sparkling lines.
eiπ + 1 = 0
‘That’ said Luke. ‘That is what you are to me.’
She beamed at him.
Anyali was grimacing at her phone again. ‘They’re reporting terrible weather conditions,’ she said. ‘But they’re coming in. The bird is coming in.’
The room straightened up nervously.
Nigel nodded and glanced around.
‘Have you a squad going to meet them?’
Nigel nodded.
‘Yes. The local boys have worked hard for this.’
The Chinook staggered to a halt at a landing field just outside the town. They had beaten the dawn, but only just.
Stiff, nervous, Luke and Connie were unbuckled at gunpoint by a slightly green-looking special forces soldier, and they staggered forwards on stiff legs, letting themselves down from the side. In the chill of the early dawn, the spires of the beautiful distant city rose out of the mist. Connie felt so strange to be back again, looking at the timeless golden brick, the flat lands, the damp, smoky green. Luke tried to take her hand, but the butt of a rifle held them apart. All she wanted, she thought crossly, all she wanted was time. To sit, to talk, to get to know one another more. A little time. She looked at him.
He must be planning something. He must be. He acted mild, but inside he was as strong as steel. Stronger. Connie racked her own brains to think if there was something she could do, but all she could come up with was Luke pulling off his handcuffs – which she knew he could do without breaking a sweat – grabbing her, and carrying her away again. And what good would that do? What would they do next? Blow up Australia? Thailand? What on earth was the point in them continuing to run when running in the end would do no good; would bring them no peace or contentment? There was nowhere left to run.
There must be another way.
DCI Malik strode out of his Black Maria towards the special forces men.
‘Morning.
‘I can handle it from here.’
The commander looked at him. ‘Who are they?’ he asked.
Malik tapped the side of his nose.
‘Big suspects,’ he said. ‘Murder case. Thanks for picking them up.’
Paviel, the Chinook commander, was puzzled. Picking up murder suspects was not generally special forces business. But on the other hand, asking questions was not really special forces business either. He nodded at his men, who escorted them roughly to the back of the police van.
‘Come on, in you get,’ said the DCI curtly, indicating where with a nod. ‘You two have caused us quite enough trouble already.’
They sat bowed in the back, holding hands tightly.
Malik glanced in the rear-view mirror.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘No,’ said Luke.
Connie shook her head. Sitting in the back of a police van back in England, back where they started, shivering in the chill, looking out of the barred windows and coming to terms with the consequences of what they had done – everything they had done, and what they were going to do, what they were proposing to do – had sunk her spirits, even as she tried to get as close as she could to Luke, to huddle in his warmth, to take in every bit of him.
Ignoring them, Malik pulled into a service station, parked in an isolated bay amid a copse of trees, locked up the van – Luke could have punched out of it in a second, but of course he did not – and returned five minutes later with three mugs of steaming coffee, a bacon sandwich and two salads.
Luke stared at him, confused, through the grille, as he unlocked the van door. Then he stood up and handed the salad to Luke.
As he did so, his hand touched Luke’s hand.
And, astonishingly to Connie as she watched, his hand passed into Luke’s hands, right through it, so the two of them were suddenly connected completely, like plasticine rolled into one another.
Luke dropped the salad and glanced up, astounded. Malik made a face at him to keep quiet.
‘I cannot find a word in this tongue,’ he said in a low voice. ‘But I think I shall call you “Brother-Sister”.’
Connie leapt up.
‘No way! You’re another one!’
The two men were staring at each other, their hands so intermeshed it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began.
‘Are you here to kill me?’ said Luke in a low voice. Malik shook his head. ‘No, brother. You don’t recognise me?’
Luke shook his head. ‘I can’t recognise anyone.’
‘No,’ said Malik. ‘I can’t believe they brought you in and I didn’t see it.’
‘When I broke the DNA machine.’
‘You didn’t break the DNA machine,’ said Malik. ‘The analyst didn’t understand the results. I told her we’d send it to someone else and it was all fine. For goodness’ sake I’ve been covering your arse for weeks. I was on my way to the college to get you out when you made a run for it. That was a pain in the bum, I can tell you. I sat on that Warsaw railway station thing for a solid ninety minutes. Myozr too.’
‘You came all the way to find me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘To warn you they were coming too.’
‘But did it
take you as long as me?’
Malik shook his head. ‘Oh no, things have improved a lot since your day. Cross-topographic border-working really brought the technology on a lot.’
Connie squeezed Luke. ‘Because you’re so amazing.’
‘When I heard they had tracked a signal down…’
‘Belarus,’ said Luke. ‘I was so, so careless. It was just after I’d landed.’
‘We knew they were coming,’ said Malik. ‘So I came too. A little quicker. I guessed you’d be where they would pick the signal up.’
He beamed proudly.
Luke removed his hand from Malik’s intermingling and looked at him.
Connie realised what he was about to say a split-second before he did so.
‘You killed the professor.’
Malik tilted his head to one side.
‘Of course.’
‘You killed someone.’
‘Someone who was going to have you chopped, stuffed and displayed,’ said Malik. ‘I needed the pigmentation to pass. I couldn’t tell which one you were, but I guessed you’d be where the signals were coming in. I kept you under surveillance – and as soon as I was sure… well, you needed me. You needed me. The prof would have shown you far less mercy than I showed him, let me tell you.’
Connie put her hand to her mouth. She was shocked.
‘He felt no pain.’
‘You can’t…’
It was strange to see Luke angry. He kicked the side of the van. The seat unhinged.
‘You can’t kill to stop killing! That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘My orders right now are to drive you straight back to the SCIF. And what do you think they’re going to do to you there? Bake you some scones?’
Luke shook his head.
‘No,’ he said.
‘And if you try to get away… you know bullets can kill you,’ said Malik. ‘Those little black things? That come out of guns? That you probably think wouldn’t bother you too much? Well, I can tell you, you’re wrong. They can and they will, and they are coming for you: our people and their people are both as bad as each other, all desperate to wipe you out after everything you did, because you upset the people in charge. Species are all the same. And I don’t even know how YOU got mixed up in this. You shouldn’t even be here.’
This was to Connie. She glared back at him.
‘Know a lot about Earth girls?’
‘I’m guessing not as much as him.’
Connie shot him a filthy look, even as she wondered if this man was their only hope of rescue.
‘What can we do?’ she said finally.
‘Our Extraction,’ said Malik. ‘The people don’t know that they’re still going to kill you. If we show them, if we tell them you’re here, and that the government still plans to kill you… there may be pressure. They may be able to exert pressure on the seniority.’
‘What’s an Extraction?’ said Connie.
Luke thought really hard.
‘Um. Family? Kind of. But bigger. Quite a lot bigger. Maybe a million or so bigger.’
‘Christmas must be tricky.’
‘They could do that?’ asked Luke. ‘The Extraction could challenge the seniority?’
‘You’ve missed sixty-eight years of politics. That’s forty Earth years,’ said Malik. ‘Quite a lot has changed you know.’ His voice softened. ‘But they still remember you.’
‘But without me,’ said Luke unhappily, ‘the professor would still be alive.’
‘Well, are you going to make something good come out of his death?’ said Malik impatiently. ‘Or shall we just have more pointless suffering? Most of it, if you recall, yours.’
Malik opened up his hand and the fluorescent information ran across his palm. Connie could only pick up little bits of it here and there, but Luke read it all and gasped.
‘I have done it,’ said Malik. ‘I have told them. I have told them everything.’
Luke nodded.
‘I have sent every piece of information I could get, everything in the SCIF, everything they are doing, every single word. Our people are motivated, Luke. Every mixed child, every Extraction working across borders, cooperating. They are very angry that they would do this to you. When they bring you back, there will be trouble. They will know you are there.’
Luke frowned.
‘I don’t want anybody to be angry.’
‘They don’t want you to be killed. They are making themselves known.’
‘Seniority won’t like that.’
‘The object is that seniority will have no choice when you are home but to set you free.’
Luke glanced up at Malik.
‘What do you mean?’
‘They will have to keep the Extractions happy.’
‘That’s never bothered them before,’
‘Things have changed,’ repeated Malik. ‘You have to believe that. And they changed quite a lot because you changed them. And they want you back – back and free.’
Connie breathed in.
‘But I don’t want to go back,’ said Luke.
Malik looked at him.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You will go back and you’ll be safe.’
Luke shrugged.
‘Maybe, maybe not. But I don’t want to go.’
‘Seriously? SERIOUSLY? You like being trapped in this thing? It’s AWFUL.’
He waved his arms around.
Luke shrugged.
‘You get used to it.’
‘And the GRAVITY. Doesn’t it drive you crazy?’
‘Uh, well —’
‘Don’t you want to see the world again? Go see the great jumping… argh, that doesn’t translate.’
‘It doesn’t,’ said Luke. ‘But I know what you mean.’
They were both lost in thought for a moment. Then Malik shook his head.
‘Don’t you just want to go home?’
Luke didn’t reply. Connie couldn’t breathe. Inside, her heart was almost breaking. Of course she had been kidding herself. Of course he wanted to go home, if he wasn’t in danger there. Of course he couldn’t stay here; it was ridiculous.
‘You have your ship here?’ she asked. Malik, who paid her barely any attention, waved her away.
‘He can’t come in my ship,’ he explained as if talking to a child. ‘He needs to be taken back in state and show himself to the Extractions and the seniority. Keep up.’
Connie narrowed her eyes at him and gave him the Vs in the full knowledge that he probably wouldn’t be able to make out what she was doing, and that even if he did he wouldn’t know what they meant.
‘We need to get a message back,’ he said to Luke. ‘A proper genuine message from you. That’s why I drove you here. It’s the noisiest quiet place I could think of.’
Sure enough, there was the thundering roar of the motorway, but nobody who could actually look at them.
‘Hang on,’ said Connie. ‘How come you can drive?’
Malik looked at her.
‘It’s not difficult.’
‘No,’ said Connie. ‘And how do you know all the police stuff?’
‘Again, not difficult,’ said Malik. ‘You’re not as complicated a species as you appear to think.’
‘He has trouble.’
‘Yes, but he’s a weird maths geek, isn’t he?’
Connie smiled and her hand went to her mouth.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, he is.’
Malik turned his attention back to Luke.
‘We don’t have much time,’ he said. ‘Can you do it?’
‘It’s… these vocal chords.’
‘I know,’ said Malik. ‘How on earth do they manage? God, I cannot wait to leave, I really can’t.’
He patted him on the shoulder.
‘Do your best.’
‘But what…?’
‘Just say what you think about what you did. Beg forgiveness. Talk about how much you long to see your beautiful homeland again.�
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Resistance is Futile Page 29
