Fallen Fragon

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Instead, as Hal made a frantic dash for the ball, two of the lads they were playing against tackled him. For a moment Lawrence thought they were playing rugby by mistake. Hal hadn't quite reached the ball, and they were high, legs lashing out.

  Hal yelped as he fell, his shoulder taking the full impact. "Fuck me," he grunted under his breath.

  The ref blew his whistle.

  Hal looked up at him expectantly.

  "Free kick," the ref grunted reluctantly.

  "What card are you showing them?" Hal asked indignantly. The ref walked away.

  Lawrence and Wagner got their hands under the kid's shoulders and lifted him up. "He's got to be kidding," Hal cried. "That was a yellow card at least."

  "Slightly different rules here," Lawrence said, hoping it would calm the kid down. Hal looked as if he was about to start a fight.

  The two lads who'd tackled him were grinning happily. One of them showed a finger. "KillBoy says spin on it."

  Hal lurched forward, snarling. Lawrence and Wagner just managed to hold on to him. There were a few desultory cheers from the touchline where the locals were gathered.

  It wasn't different rules here at all. For the tenth time since the goodwill game started, Lawrence's Loafers versus the Avenging Angels, Lawrence wondered if this had been such a good idea after all. The locals saw this purely as a way to legitimately hack Z-B squaddies to pieces with the strangely long studs on their boots and tackles that would make a kung-fu master wince.

  Just before kickoff, Ebrey Zhang had come over for a quiet pep talk with the team. After he'd finished spouting on about opportunities and enhanced community relations, he'd said to Lawrence: "We don't want to cause any sort of commotion here, Sergeant. Let's just take it easy out there, shall we?"

  "Are you ordering us to lose, sir?" Lawrence had asked. He supposed in a way it was flattering, their commander assuming they would automatically win. But he'd seen some of the youths they were up against. Big and fit-looking. It should be quite a tight game.

  "No, no," Ebrey said softly. "But we wouldn't want a walkover, would we? Bad feeling and all that."

  "Got you, sir."

  "Good man." Ebrey slapped him heartily on the shoulder and joined the rest of the Z-B supporters.

  Goodwill had run out in the first five minutes. Not that the Avenging Angels had ever brought any to the pitch in the first place.

  Hal took the free kick, sending the ball in a long arc over to Amersy. The corporal began his run down the wing. Lawrence ran level with him on the other side, two Avenging Angels marking him close all the way. Close enough to mistakenly knock into him when the ref happened to be looking the other way.

  Lawrence skidded along the mud, almost losing his balance. Amersy had raced on ahead now, leaving Lawrence hopelessly misplaced to receive a pass. "Damn it," he growled. His markers were surprised when he elbowed them aside. Fortunately the ref was still watching Amersy as the corporal was tackled.

  "Support!" Lawrence screamed at his team. "Support him, for fuck's sake, you pitiful assholes."

  "Now, Sergeant," Captain Bryant's voice carried in faintly from the touchline. "No need for that sort of language."

  Lawrence glared, managing to force out a few words under his breath.

  Amersy was trying to lift himself off the ground as the victorious Avenging Angels made off with the ball. The hulking hooligans actually had good ball control, Lawrence admitted grudgingly. They nudged it between them, easily beating their way around the one midfielder who tried to intercept them.

  Where the fuck was the rest of the team?

  "Defense," Lawrence shouted desperately. His arms semaphored wildly.

  At least his backs had some understanding of tactics. Two were coming forward to take on the Avenging Angels with the ball. Three were guarding the goal area. A midfield duo were heading to the other wing, marking the Avenging Angels striker who was dodging forward into position. Lawrence saw one of their midfielders heading for an open space in the center circle and ran to cut him off.

  Not such a bad game after all, and his men could play tough too.

  The land mine went off under the Lawrence's Loafer defender on the right of the goal area. It blew him three meters straight up into the air, taking off his legs and shredding his lower torso. Lawrence dived to the ground at the dull thudding boom of the explosion. An eerie moment of silence followed. Then the defender's upper torso thumped down, lifeless arms flopping about grotesquely from the jarring impact. His head twisted around to stare blankly at the goalmouth. Lawrence recognized Graham Chapell, a squaddie from Ciaran's platoon. Blood and gore splattered across half of the pitch. There was still no sound; everyone was too shocked even to scream.

  Lawrence looked around wildly, seeing the steaming crater that had ripped out of the ground, understanding immediately what had happened. Everybody else had flung themselves down. He watched in horror as the ball rolled on, bouncing and juddering across the rucked grass field.

  Stop, he implored it silently. Oh fuck, stop. Stop!

  The damn thing was easily big enough to trigger another mine if it passed over one. It was rolling toward Dennis Eason, who was watching it coming, his face drawn into a rictus of terror and fatalistic expectation.

  The ball stopped half a meter from him. He let out a sob of relief as his head dropped back to the mud.

  People were yelling and screaming now, spectators as well as players; they were all flat on the ground. Z-B personnel were all shouting at everyone not to move, to stay exactly as they were. Help was on its way.

  Lawrence clenched his fists, pushing them into the mud, furious at how helpless he was. Waiting with every muscle locked tight in fright and suspense. Supremely vulnerable without his Skin. Open for death from any passing student revolutionary with a whim to be a hero that day. He hated KillBoy right then. Hated this whole fucking world. That had never happened before. Not ever. The best he'd ever come up with before today was animosity and contempt.

  All they were doing here was playing soccer, for God's sake. Soccer. Their own people as well, few of whom were out of their teens. He could hear the young Avenging Angels around him, whimpering in terror, several of them crying.

  What the hell was wrong with these people? He wanted to shout it out at them. They'd hear. They'd be here watching, relishing the distress and dread they'd created. Gloating as the knife was twisted.

  But all he could do was grit his teeth and lie still, the muddy water seeping into his shirt and shorts. Waiting for the glorious sound of the helicopters.

  Seven platoons were rushed to the park where the soccer game was being played. Their helicopters landed on the roads around the outside. The Skins advanced cautiously, sensors probing the ground as they came.

  They reached Ebrey Zhang first, leading the commander away down a safe path marked out by beacon tubes that flashed a bright amber. His helicopter thundered away overhead as the remaining Skins spread out over the park, sensors playing back and forth. People were slowly led away one at a time, shaking with relief as they leaned on the squaddies. They reached Lawrence forty minutes after the helicopters arrived. He stood unsteadily, staring around. A confusing grid of amber lights were flashing all across the pitch. Three red lights gleamed bright among them. One was four meters away from where Lawrence had lain.

  A medic squad was picking up pieces of Graham Chapell from cleared sections of the pitch, putting him in thick black polyethylene bags.

  "Bastards," Lawrence hissed as the Skin eased him toward the waiting jeeps. "You utter bastards."

  Dean Blanche was ushered into the mayor's study by one of Ebrey Zhang's aides. The commander only needed one look at the carefully blank expression on the internal security captain's face to know it was going to be bad news.

  "So?" he asked when the doors were closed.

  "They were our land mines," Captain Blanche said.

  "Shit! Are you sure? No, forget that, of course you are. Goddamnit, how could
that happen?"

  "We don't understand yet. According to the inventory they're still in storage. We did a physical check, of course. Eight are missing."

  "Eight?" Ebrey asked in alarm. "How many were planted in the park?" He was never terribly at ease with land mines. Z-B policy required them to be available in case the situation on the ground became troublesome, and the squaddies had to protect strategic areas from outright aggression. Effectively that meant the spaceport during their retreat. He was thankful that he'd never had to order their deployment. The damn things were a lethal legacy that could last for decades, completely indiscriminate in choosing their victims.

  "We found five. With one detonated..."

  "Oh, Christ." Ebrey went to the small drinks cabinet on the rear wall and poured himself what the locals laughingly described as bourbon. He didn't normally drink in front of his junior officers, and certainly not those from internal security, but it had been a long, bad day, and this wasn't a happy ending. "Want one?"

  "No, thank you, sir."

  "Your choice." He stood at the French windows, looking up into the night sky. It was three o'clock in the morning, and the stars were twinkling warmly. After today, he was seriously beginning to wonder if he'd ever make it back up there among them. "So we've got three mines planted out there somewhere in town waiting for us to step on them."

  "Two, sir."

  "What? Oh, yes. Two unaccounted for. Any chance the platoons could have missed them in the park?"

  "It's possible, sir. I'm going to order another sweep in the morning, when it's light."

  "Good man. Now how in Christ's name did they get them out of the armory?"

  "I'm not sure, sir." Blanche hesitated. "It would be difficult."

  "You mean difficult for anyone outside Zantiu-Braun."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I can't believe one of our own people would do this. There's no grudge or vendetta worth it." He looked around sharply at the deeply uncomfortable captain. "Is there?"

  "No, sir. Nothing that serious among the platoons."

  "We're missing somebody. Jones Johnson, the one whose blood they found. Could he have... I don't know, defected?"

  "Possible, sir."

  "Is Johnson capable of getting into the armory?"

  "I don't know, sir. A lot of the squaddies tend to know shortcuts through our software."

  "Damnit. We have safeguards for a reason. Especially on weapons."

  "Sir. I do have one possible lead."

  "Yes?"

  "The other mines were on standby, and the soccer teams were running all over that field for thirty minutes before the explosion. It must have been activated just before Chapell ran over it."

  Ebrey brightened. "KillBoy transmitted a code."

  "Yes, sir. If it went through the datapool we can try to trace it. Of course, it could have been an isolated transmitter. In which case, someone had to be close enough to send the code. I can review all the memories from every sensor in the district. The AS may be able to spot someone who fits the right behavior profile. But somewhere in today's data there should be some evidence."

  "Whatever you need, as much AS time as it takes, you've got it. Your assignment has total priority. Just find this piece of shit for me. I don't care how long it takes, but I'm going to see Mr. KillBoy swinging from the top of this Town Hall before we leave."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Earth. Once more.

  The brilliant white-and-blue world continued to fascinate Lawrence as much now as it had during his first arrival five years ago. As always during the transfer flight down from Centralis to low orbit, he spent as much time as possible staring at the real-time images provided by the interorbit ship's visual sensors. As they curved in over the Americas he watched wide swirls of cloud twisting with soft grace out across the western Atlantic, congealing into a single storm spiral, pure white around the ragged edges, but darkening swiftly toward the dense high center as if night were erupting out of its heart. Within days the Caribbean islands would be cowering from winds and waves and stinging rain, unbound elements stripping the leaves from every tree and washing the land into new shapes. Once again their population would hunker down and wait for the howling winds to pass. And then afterward they'd carry on anew, treating the event like an unwelcome holiday. The palms would sprout new fronds, and people would sport and swim on the clean white sands. He smiled down at them from his angel's perch. Only on a world so teeming with life could such acclimatization occur, he thought. A world where life belonged, where symbiosis between nature and environment was the governing evolutionary factor. Unlike Amethi.

  He still held a nest of feelings for his old homeworld. They weren't as strong now as they had been when he first arrived, and most of them remained antagonistic. But every now and then, he could recall times and places from that world when he'd actually been happy, or enjoyed himself. None of those times were with Roselyn. He still shielded himself from those recollections. There was too much pain involved, just as sharp and bright now as the day he left.

  His hand went to the pendant under his shirt. He'd almost flung it away the day he left Amethi. Then he decided to keep it so he would never forget all of the treachery at loose in the universe. Nowadays it was a kind of talisman, proof he'd survived the very worst life could throw at him.

  The Xianti 5005 carrying them down landed at Cairns spaceport in the middle of another of Queensland's bakinghot afternoons. There was no one waiting to meet Lawrence. He walked past his platoonmates as various families rushed forward in the arrivals hall. Wives and long-term girlfriends flung themselves at their menfolk, clinging tightly and trying not to cry. Until the starship arrived back from Quation two days ago, none of them had heard how the asset-realization campaign had gone; who was alive, who was injured, who wasn't coming back. Relief and fear echoed through the big air-conditioned hall. Children milled around the embracing couples, smiling and happy that Daddy was home again.

  There had been a local girl called Sandy whom Lawrence could reasonably claim to be a regular girlfriend in the time between Floyd and Quation. Sandy had promised to wait for him, but that was just over nine months ago now. She was twenty-one; he never seriously expected her to hang around.

  So he walked out of the terminal building into the clean sea air, taking a long minute to look around at the scrub-covered hills behind the spaceport, looming dark as the sun sank behind them. The humid breeze blowing in from the ocean. Gulls squawking. Another spaceplane splitting the air overhead like slow thunder. He smiled around at all of it, welcoming the scene as he might an old friend. He would always associate the sea and its smell with Earth.

  The taxi rank was at the south end of the terminal. Lawrence walked down to it and slung the only luggage he had, his shoulder bag, into the backseat of the elongated white bubble. It had a human driver rather than an AS, an old Chinese man who wanted to talk about how Manchester United was playing this season. He thought Lawrence's accent was British.

  "Never been there," Lawrence had to admit.

  "But you know about Man-U?" the driver asked anxiously.

  "I've heard of them."

  "Of course you have. Most famous team on the planet I access every game. I installed a horizontal hologram pane in our apartment so I can watch the whole pitch. My wife doesn't like it."

  "No kidding?"

  "Yeah, she wanted a new sofa. I access through membranes as well. The last three seasons I've paid the team's media agent for multi-player-viewpoint feed. It costs, but it's worth it. This way I can see what's happening on the ground as well as get an overview. I like to stay with Paul Ambrose as my viewpoint when the first eleven play, he's got good ball sense."

  "Sounds great."

  "First eleven only play once every four days. I have to make do with second eleven and third eleven in between."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Afternoons, I access the under-twenty-one side. Sometimes I have to record them when I'm working. My friends in the o
ther cabs, they have fun trying to tell me who wins. I turn my datapool access off and they drive up next to me and shout the result. I always have to shut my ears those afternoons. One day, when I save up enough, I'm going to Europe to watch them play live. My wife, she doesn't know that."

  "Really." They had cleared the spaceport to merge with the short highway into town. To his left, Lawrence could see the thin strip of protected mango swamps running along the coastline. On his right, suburban apartments had colonized the land almost up to the foothills.

  "You just down from Quation?"

  "Yep."

  "Your wife not meet you?"