Helena looked at him, struck again by how attractive she thought he was. ‘Does it matter?’
He smiled dryly. ‘It’s not over yet.’ And he put his hands in his pockets.
‘We’re in-between the announcement and the actual placement,’ said Helena.
‘Even then things can change,’ said David.
‘You don’t know people then,’ said Helena. ‘Once the troops are in motion, no self-respecting commander ever stands down until after they’ve engaged.’ The business metaphor, borrowed from warfare, was too snug a fit for comfort. She looked away from his face to avoid their shared gloom.
David paid Analise no attention and, for her part, she said nothing, standing quietly a few feet away from the two of them. She watched the other Normals as Jane arranged them into small groups. Helena saw her nodding to herself as she observed Jane’s arrangements.
‘She keeps surprising me,’ said Helena.
‘Yes,’ said David. ‘She always insisted you weren’t dead. She would have come looking for you alone if your mother and I hadn’t kept our eyes on her.’ Momentarily confused, Helena looked at David then realised he was talking about Jane rather than Analise.
‘She’s a good friend for you to have,’ said David. He turned to look at Jane who, seeing them gazing in her direction, smiled grimly, making a face of mock despair at the Normals surrounding her before getting caught up again in what she was trying to achieve. Helena watched his face as he acknowledged the humour and felt her heart ache. She caught hold of herself for being so reckless to even consider competing with her friend for David’s attention. Perhaps I’m tired; the thought of imminent death will have an effect too, I suppose.
Her AI laughed openly as she tried to take her mind off her emotions.
‘I know why you didn’t come for me, David,’ said Helena. Yet she wanted to ask why they hadn’t tried. Instead, keeping her eyes on Jane, she said, ‘The Normal girl I brought with me, her father led a resistance to the Indexiv soldiers.’
She turned to look at Analise who was smiling at something Helena couldn’t see. ‘He stayed in Skagen until it was overrun, ensured the spire was demolished. He sacrificed his life to get his remaining family out of danger.’ She shrugged. ‘I know it was a futile gesture, but he made it in spite of that, knowing full well it was only buying his daughter a few more hours.’
Helena toyed with telling David about the dream but, hearing how strange the words sounded in her own ears, knew she wasn’t ready to share with another Oligarch.
‘I know you think you’re the first,’ said David, ‘and please don’t take this the wrong way, but you can be very arrogant sometimes.’
‘What?’ said Helena, feeling as if he’d just slapped her across the face.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,’ said David.
‘How did you mean it then?’ she asked.
David opened his mouth but nothing came out. He pulled one of his hands out of his pockets and smelt the tips of his fingers.
Eventually he managed to mumble, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I’d rather know what makes me so arrogant,’ said Helena crisply.
David sighed but, catching her eye, said, ‘OK, I know you were trying to pay the girl a compliment, but all you really said was “didn’t the simpleton do well.”’ With another sigh he continued. ‘They’re not idiots, Helena. They’re not fools, they’re adult human beings.’
His words had burnt her and she stood up, turned and walked inside the house, leaving him there on the porch alone.
‘Helena,’ called David from outside, but he didn’t follow her in.
She sat down at the kitchen table and began to cry. Tears fell across her skin and she started as they tingled sharply like hail. She wiped her cheeks and then looked at the backs of her hands, not knowing what to expect. To her rising horror, she saw nothing more than salt water moistening her skin.
Why does it burn? she asked her AI, hoping its answer would be different from what she already believed.
You pushed your nervous system too far Helena, said her AI.It is in a state of hypersensitivity. You felt its onset during your engagement with the officer. It was what finally overwhelmed you.
How long will it last? she asked hesitantly.
I do not know. Your body may take some time to heal itself. There is nothing I can do to help it readjust.
May?
It may not recover,said her AI. A long shadow fell over her mind with the finality of its tone.
‘Crying won’t help you live through this,’ said a voice dripping with contempt. Helena lifted her head to see her mother standing by the door in to the main hallway.
Helena gazed at her through bleary eyes and said, ‘Where is the diary?’
‘You still want it?’ asked her mother with an air of faint surprise.
‘Is this what you expected?’ asked Helena.
Edith shrugged, her succulent lips pouting before she replied. ‘It was a risk.’ She crossed the room and took a seat at the table opposite Helena. Lacing her fingers together on the table top, she grimaced. ‘I must confess, however, that our best estimates gave us another month before Indexiv started a land war in northern Europe.’
‘You would have been gone by then,’ stated Helena.
‘I’m bold but not stupid, my girl,’ said Edith. Running her fingers through her hair with both hands, Edith shook out the knots and looked at her daughter. ‘I didn’t think I’d die with you by my side.’
‘I didn’t think I’d die,’ blurted Helena without thinking.
Her mother cocked her head to one side and smiled. ‘To the young, the possibility of their own demise is inconceivable.’ Edith stood, moved over to the cupboards, opened them and then rearranged the contents: moving first one bottle of herbs then another, stacking them in neat little rows like miniature soldiers preparing for combat. ‘The diary is in Seattle. I have a small apartment there in the GSM aeronautics complex.’
Seeing her daughter’s questioning face, she said, ‘I was seconded to them a couple of decades before you were even a twinkle in your father’s eye. We were sharing technology. Not important really; they were more interested in determining whether we should merge. You know the end of the story.’ The two companies were still separate entities, although Helena wasn’t aware of any current interests in aviation where either company was concerned.
‘When your father erased himself from our lives, I knew someone would be looking for the diary.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I do dislike it when busybodies assume they have a right to what’s yours.’
There was a knock on the door leading in from the porch. The two women looked over and Edith moved away, towards the hallway. When Helena realised her mother was leaving, she said, ‘Come in.’
She couldn’t watch both doors, but knew her mother was going anyway, so she concentrated on her visitor. It was Analise. She stood shyly on the threshold and leaned in without stepping into the room.
‘Are you sad?’ she asked.
‘I’m OK,’ said Helena, immediately setting her secondary AI the task of drying her tears.
Analise stepped gingerly into the kitchen, keeping her arms by her side as she came to the table, lest she touch anything forbidden. Feeling Helena’s eyes on her, she rested her hands, closed into small balls, on the edge of the table.
‘I was sad before we left my family behind. I thought I would feel better when we left.’ Helena saw in the girl’s glistening eyes that she didn’t. ‘Why are you sad?’ she asked Helena gently, her voice soft and sure.
Helena thought about it and couldn’t see a reason not to answer her. The consequences of letting her guard down in front of another condemned person seemed negligible.
‘Partly because I’m tired, because all I’ve done since I got here was fight people: your people and my people. Partly because I’m sick of people dying, sick in my soul. Partly because I’m coming to realise I’ve not seen the world as clearly a
s I thought I had.’ She paused as the impact of her words sank into her own consciousness. She had one last item on her list. ‘But mainly because I don’t want to die.’
‘Have you seen a lot of people die?’ asked Analise.
‘Too many,’ said Helena, thinking first of the Amazon Fell, then of Southern Africa, of London and now Jutland. Of all those who had died, only Mbeki’s face stayed with her, his dying entreaty that she save his parents from execution. Thinking of him reminded her of her traitorous pilot, Denholme. She wondered how long it would take the security services to capture him. It wasn’t right that he should outlive her.
‘I’m not scared,’ said Analise.
‘Aren’t you?’ asked Helena.
‘I’m not going to die here,’ said the girl so matter of factly that Helena almost believed her. Out of dull curiosity, she asked why.
‘The man wants me to go to London,’ came the simple answer. She was talking of her dream again and Helena wondered now if the trauma of seeing her family slowly fall to pieces around her had left its mark.
‘Is that right?’ she said soothingly.
Analise frowned. ‘You don’t believe me. Why did you bring us here if you didn’t believe me?’
Helena left her expression warm and said, ‘I didn’t want to die in Skagen.’
Tears rolled down Analise’s face. ‘It doesn’t matter. Lysander will help us. It doesn’t matter that you don’t believe me.’ Helena noticed Analise’s hands were curled up so tightly they had gone white.
‘I’m sorry, Analise,’ she said. ‘We are going to die here.’ Analise’s tears rolled down her face; her hands couldn’t wipe them away fast enough to stop them reaching her chin and neck.
Helena felt her heart soften towards the Normal and, holding out her arms, she said, ‘I promise you that we’ll die together. I won’t leave you alone when the soldiers come.’ Analise stepped into Helena’s arms and sobbed. Helena stroked her hair, not caring that the girl in her arms was as worthless to her as her father’s diary. Helena’s own tears ran themselves dry. She wasn’t ready to die, but it was inevitable and so she brought her emotions under the control of her will like a vice holding a spring closed, its potential energy compressed and denied.
Another knock came at the door to the porch.
‘Come,’ said Helena, pushing Analise away from her gently but without hesitation. One of Edith’s concubines entered the room, stopping just inside the doorway, his eyes fixed on Analise.
‘Lady Priestly has requested the presence of all the Normals. We were tasked with finding those not yet gathered.’ Analise looked up at Helena, her eyes asking to stay. She felt awkward for a moment before she realised that the girl knew what was required. Analise had turned to go before she nodded her assent and the two Normals left the room together.
Helena sat there for a few moments, thinking about Analise. Then she felt the absence created by David; he hadn’t come into the house to find her. As if all was already over, she lifted herself from the chair with a sigh and walked across the kitchen towards the sitting room. Beyond the windows, she could see Jane running round an ordered knot of Normals, another group looking apprehensive just removed from them. Busy watching Jane calmly going about her business, Helena almost walked into David who was coming through the door as she tried to leave.
Looking into his face, she apologised.
‘No, I’m sorry, Helena; I shouldn’t have been so blunt.’ At the sight of her bitterly set face, he continued with an embarrassed smile, the corners of his mouth pointing down even as his lips moved up. ‘The last thing you needed was me circling around my own guilt.’ Helena shuffled back to allow him into the kitchen, away from the window, lest Jane see them talking.
‘That’s alright,’ said Helena carefully.
‘Good,’ said David, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘You’re an important woman, Helena Woolf.’ Even as her heart rose, she couldn’t bring herself to believe her ears. She stayed silent, knowing that he’d see that as a sign he hadn’t been clear enough, that he should keep speaking, fill the space.
David’s pupils widened slightly as he spoke; his words unnecessarily frantic. ‘Helena.’ He looked away, unable to meet her gaze directly. Helena couldn’t help but smile. After he’d been so insensitive, she felt like making him struggle on through, but they didn’t have time for that.
‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘If we were leaving here alive, I would have asked if you wanted to spend some of your life with me too.’
David’s face went slack; Helena felt herself slipping into his soul. ‘To be honest I had begun to think you were more attracted to Jane.’ She laughed with relief but stopped herself when he didn’t laugh with her.
They watched each other in silence.
‘I’ve just made a complete fool of myself,’ said Helena flatly.
‘No. You haven’t,’ said David quietly. ‘I’m sorry Helena, I didn’t realise.’
Helena felt suddenly spiteful. ‘I was right with my first guess then.’
‘Hey?’ said David, then involuntarily looked out at Jane through the window.
‘I wish you all the best,’ said Helena.
‘I didn’t come in to talk about Jane,’ said David, refocusing on the woman in front of him. ‘I came in to apologise.’
‘No need,’ said Helena.
‘Listen,’ said David. ‘I really didn’t know that was how you felt.’ He stopped and looked down. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘Isn’t it?’ said Helena harshly.
‘No,’ said David, refusing to back down. ‘I came in here to tell you who I am, what I do.’
‘And what’s that?’ said Helena, still reeling from her own failure to read him effectively, from seeing that he wasn’t interested in her at all.
‘Helena, I work for Euros. I also work for GSM and Indexiv. I work for the European Parliament; the list goes on. I’ve been hunting the telepaths for months. Somehow I found you and here we are.’ He frowned.
Helena thought quickly. ‘Why did you come out here?’ she asked.
‘Your mother knows where your father’s research papers are hidden, that much is obvious. I needed to get that information from her. Believe it or not, I’d planned to return and solve the rest of this puzzle later.’
‘Instead we’re going to die,’ said Helena.
‘Tasteful,’ said David. She bristled with anger but knew he was right: whoever he was, she didn’t need to respond like a petulant Normal.
‘How did you know about them?’ she asked.
‘No one can keep something like that a secret. None of the companies working on it were able to stop people who wanted to know from finding out.’ He shrugged as if it was no different from opening a book and discovering everything had already been written down for easy access.
‘You’re not a policeman then,’ she said.
‘I am, more than I can explain.’
‘That flat wasn’t yours,’ said Helena, thinking of the stinking pit of a nanofactory next door.
‘Actually it was, at least one of them. I go there to think; the photos remind me of home,’ said David lightly. Helena said nothing, waiting for more, presuming that since they were about to die, he didn’t need to worry about her knowing too much. She folded her arms and picked at imagined pieces of dry skin on her lips.
‘You were happy for me to remain ignorant of what you were doing.’
‘Part of the job,’ said David wearily.
‘What were you going to do with Isaac and the others?’ she asked.
‘Once I’d heard their side of the story, I figured something else was going on, that the Companies were working against themselves in a way that could pose a long-term threat to the stability pact they’ve abided by for centuries.’
‘This war doesn’t count then?’ she asked.
David looked around, as if seeing their situation for the first time. ‘No. Takeovers are a natural part of the process. The inefficient, the
ineffective are swallowed up by the productive. It’s an integral part of the stability we’ve all enjoyed for so long.’
‘Stood here right now I find that hard to agree with,’ said Helena.
‘No you don’t,’ said David. ‘You know as well as I do that people die in these low intensity conflicts. Indexiv and Euros are simply engaging in a healthy struggle for supremacy and survival. The world won’t end because of it.’
Helena listened to him repeat back to her the economic mantra of her college days. She had lived and breathed his words for decades, assigning entire treaties, negotiations and trade agreements their priorities based upon the words David was now using against her self-pity. He was right.
‘It doesn’t stop me feeling abandoned by my own family,’ said Helena, noticing what made her feel so sick about dying here in Jutland. David looked at her strangely, his expression reminding her of a man who’d just been told a joke he only recognised at the punchline.
‘You should consider yourself lucky to have come this far,’ was all he said.
Helena felt an eyelash come loose and fall past her face towards the floor. Her skin itched as if she was covered in a rash. When she looked down at the backs of her hands, she could see her veins, her skin and nails, but no sign of irritation. Something was wrong and she couldn’t see what it was.
‘So what is going on?’ she asked David.
He laughed, a short sharp bitter bark of resignation. ‘I don’t know. I was hoping your father’s diary would help me, but even were we to get away from here your mother won’t tell me where it is.’
‘Does she know you?’ asked Helena impulsively.
David looked away for a fraction of a second, his eyes finding a spot to Helena’s left before returning to her. ‘No.’
She knew he was lying but was at a loss. This was just another revelation among many. David had to be older than she’d guessed. Hell, she thought, I don’t even know who he is. She felt a fool for having believed she was falling for him.
‘You brought some soldiers with you?’ he asked.
Helena had forgotten about the sergeant and his men. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking round to find the soldiers gathered outside. David had seen them through the window.
A People's War (The Oligarchy Book 2) Page 24
