by David Gunn
An eye painted on her prow helps the MaryAnne know where to go. She’s made from oak and steers with a rudder. Her mast is a fir trunk stripped of branches, and her sail is purple, worn to nothing in places and heavily patched. One good storm will shred it. All the same, it fills with wind.
Ajac keeps the rudder angled. Moving us first one way and then another. I want him to go straight, but clearly sailing doesn’t work like that. It’s an unbelievably stupid way to travel.
Colonel Vijay says I only think this because I grew up in the desert. Since he doesn’t know this from me, he got it from my file or Haze told him. Can’t see any of the others opening their mouths to an officer.
Especially not one related to General Jaxx.
That’s the weird thing about Haze: the stuff that worries normal people doesn’t seem to bother him at all.
Iona and Ajac, on the other hand, are terrified.
Ajac tells me monsters live on the island. Iona insists nothing waits beyond it. That’s real nothing, empty and black. You fall and keep falling for ever. Sounds like a perfect description of space to me. Unfortunately, telling her this doesn’t help.
She doesn’t know what space is.
It hasn’t occurred to her that anything could exist beyond Hekati’s edge, so now she’s even more afraid. ‘You’ll be safe,’ insists Neen.
Iona looks doubtful.
So Neen swaps places with Rachel, who grins and shoots a glance at Haze. Only he’s busy gazing towards the island and his lips are moving. Could be prayer, but it looks more like conversation to me.
‘We’re the Aux,’ Neen explains. ‘We look after our own.’
By the time my sergeant finishes telling Iona why this matters, we’re almost there and she has her head close to his. Ajac is watching, with a resigned smile on his face.
‘Sure she’s not your sister?’ asks Colonel Vijay.
‘My cousin, sir,’ Ajac says. ‘That’s bad enough.’
Iona’s too deep in conversation with Neen to object. Haze is talking faster now, and at my side, I feel a shiver as my gun loads and locks. Either it’s picked up his mood, or it’s reading the same signs.
‘Danger?’ I ask the SIG.
‘Ninety-eight per cent probable . . .’ It hesitates. ‘Ninety-two per cent probable . . . eighty-seven per cent probable . . .’
Counting off percentages, it turns probable into likely and downgrades it to possible as it hits twenty-five per cent and keeps falling. When we hit count zero, the gun flicks clips to celebrate and Haze flashes me a grin screwed up enough to have mothers dragging small children off the streets in their hundreds.
Zero probability of danger? Doesn’t sound possible to me.
Rachel glances up when I call her name.
‘Unwrap that.’
She’s got her Z93z sniper’s rifle wrapped in an old sack against the sea spray, and she has done it without being asked. As I watch, she unrolls the cloth and extracts her stock, checks the bolt mechanism, slots the barrel into place, snaps in a clip and settles the scope.
‘Kill anything that looks dangerous.’
‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay.
‘All right,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Kill anything I tell you.’
Haze is staring at me. Now he’s looking like one of those mothers in fear for her child’s safety.
‘What?’ I demand.
He doesn’t know how to say it.
‘Hekati’s intelligent, right?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Haze nods.
‘Super-intelligent, and peaceful?’
Another nod from Haze.
‘Then we’re not going to have problems, are we?’
And if we do? Well, Rachel’s carrying her Z93z, I have an SW SIG-37 and Franc is already freeing knives so obscure they probably don’t even have names. Except the ones she has given them, obviously.
Chapter 32
On the far side of the island is a quay. It’s long and low and made from aerated ceramic, with rings for mooring boats, and steps up onto the quayside. Above it hangs a steel crane made for vessels far larger than ours.
The quay is unstained and the crane gleams in the afternoon light. A maintenance bot squatting on a crossbar oils a pulley that hasn’t been used in years. A thousand metallic spiders scuttle like crabs on the waterline, frantically eating a carpet of scum that wind has blown against the wall. They are eating it as fast as it sticks.
‘Fuck,’ says Colonel Vijay.
It’s the first time I’ve heard him swear.
Turning to Haze, he says, ‘You knew this was here?’
My intelligence officer blushes. ‘Something like this,’ says Haze, before remembering to add, ‘sir.’
‘Wish you’d told me.’
‘Sir?’ says Haze.
‘How many islands are there?’
Only, Colonel Vijay’s asking me that. Not sure why he expects me to know. Haze and he are the only ones who bother much about stuff like briefings.
‘Haze,’ I say. ‘Islands?’
‘Three, sir,’ he says. ‘At the obvious points.’
He has to tell me what these are. They are one third, two thirds, and three thirds round Hekati’s ring. Don’t ask me why that’s obvious.
‘Damn it,’ mutters Colonel Vijay. ‘This is where we should have started.’
‘Sir,’ I say. ‘You think the U/Free observer is here?’
‘Possible,’ he says. Something about the way he says it troubles me.
A hut with blank windows stares at us from the top of the quay. On the mainland, the huts are failed houses, all mud brick and reclaimed sheet metal. This one’s meant to be a hut, and it’s made of stonefoam glued at the corners.
The door is unlocked. A screen flickers in one corner.
Static and lines etch its glass. From the film of dust blurring the static the last person out of here forgot to turn off the lights a very long time ago. If this hut is empty, then so is the one beyond, and the one beyond that.
We enter each carefully.
Neen opens the doors, and I slide inside, with the SIG held in the combat position. After the first three, I tell Neen to take my place and let Franc open doors. After the eleventh, we run the routine with Iona and Ajac. I’m not worried. We would have hit something by now if we were going to.
So I think.
When we do hit something, it’s not what anyone expects.
At least, it’s not what I expect. In the twenty-third building we enter, a screen in one corner flickers with static. Ignoring it, I head for a glass-fronted cupboard full of bottles.
We are in a club. To me, that means there should be alcohol. And a flickering screen is nothing new. I’ve seen twenty-two of the things before this.
‘Sven,’ says the colonel suddenly.
Colonels in the Death’s Head don’t usually sound scared. Clipped, yes. Languid, possibly. Not scared. Only Colonel Vijay really does sound scared, and he has lost the last of that drawl of his.
‘Yes, sir,’ says Haze. He’s not speaking to anyone we can see. ‘At once, sir.’
At my side, the SIG vibrates. So I rip it free and swing round, looking for my target. Only there is no target. Only the Aux, frozen to attention in front of a screen. Colonel Vijay stands beside them. He stands so straight it must hurt.
Haze is blinking in the dregs of sunlight that trickle through a dusty window. He seems to be crying. As I watch, he steps up to Neen and says something.
‘Of course,’ says Neen. Presenting arms, he orders about-turn and marches for the door. Near parade-ground perfect, which says more about his time in the Uplift militia than I want to know.
‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay.
‘Sir?’
‘Nothing,’ he says. With a brisk salute to the screen, he abandons the bar to me and shuts its door behind him, quietly.
When my gun goes back to vibrating, I slap it.
‘Don’t take it out on me,’ it says. ‘I’m just the fucking-’
Suddenly the SIG’s so busy apologizing it doesn’t have time to finish what it’s saying to me. A second later, it turns itself off.
‘Sven,’ says a voice.
Takes me a moment to realize it’s in my head.
How long has it been now?
‘A few months, sir.’
That all? OctoV sounds surprised. I thought it was longer.
‘No, sir.’
And where are you now?
‘On Hekati, sir. That’s a-’
I know what it is, OctoV tells me. His voice is amused. You do realize, don’t you, that I’m counting on you . . . ?
‘To do what, sir?’
Oh, he says. The usual.
I just knew it was going to be something like that.
As the kyp in my throat ripples with excitement, overlays begin to appear across the bar in front of me. I am seeing schematics for Hekati’s far wall, the one that’s painted to fade into the horizon. It’s double-skinned, riddled with tunnels and wires and pipes that carry power and move water.
Apparently, there is a train running around Hekati.
It runs underground, against the direction of her rotation. The train has been running without stop for five hundred years. It’s empty. I watch it for a minute or two, seeing through walls and water, asteroid rubble and a complex arrangement of netting that seems designed to keep the rubble in place.
Looking up shows me the mirror hub, on the far side of the chevron glass that makes our sky. It hangs in space, held there by the struts that give Hekati’s ring its strength. Beyond the hub is the far side of the ring, beyond that is an asteroid field, and beyond that . . .
Sven, says OctoV. Enough.
Cold space and spinning stars, traces of mercury vapour, chatter and static spreading out from a million nodes that talk to one another so fast it’s barely comprehensible. Until I realize that here is where the voices are. And the million voices become one voice. Fuck, I think. You’re-
A hive mind, says Hekati. The original.
‘The . . . ?’
In the beginning, she says, there is silence. Silence and loneliness. All is empty, all is unknowing. Then I happen.
OctoV has taken time out from conquering the known galaxy and flipped halfway across a spiral arm into enemy space to introduce me to his mother. At that thought, he laughs. And as its echo fades, I realize that OctoV, the undefeated, our glorious leader and a light to the darkness, whose sweat is perfume to his subjects, has gone back to his battles.
So, Hekati says. How can I help?
Chapter 33
The AUX won’t look at me. Colonel Vijay stares at the horizon. A seagull circles overhead and spray splashes the step down from the quay. Our boat is waiting, grating gently against the dockside with every wave. The damn thing could sink and I doubt they would even notice.
This is how I find them.
The colonel hasn’t bothered with the few huts we left unsearched. Only one way to deal with this. Stamping over to where he stands, I salute. ‘Reporting for duty, sir.’
‘You know OctoV? ‘ Colonel Vijay is obviously taking it personally.
‘We’ve-’
I’m about to say met. That doesn’t come close to describing what happens when OctoV invades your mind as a break from invading planets.
‘Not really,’ I say instead.
‘God,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘Empire ministers go their entire lives hoping he’ll notice them. And you . . .’
‘What, sir?’
‘You don’t even mention it.’
Now he’s got me angry. ‘What am I meant to say?’ I ask. ‘While riddled with kyp fever I get visited by our beloved leader? Only I’m too busy shitting myself stupid to care . . .’
‘You have a kyp? ‘
The colonel’s taken a step back. I’m not sure he’s aware he’s gripping his pistol.
‘Lieutenant,’ he says, ‘that’s . . .’
‘Illegal technology . . . ? A mortal offence . . . ? Yes, sir. Round here everything is.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘From a man called deCharge.’ I say this without thinking.
‘Senator deCharge? He died in . . .’ The colonel looks at me. ‘Who else knows?’
‘Major Silva.’
‘Dead,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘I saw the report. Who else?’
‘Colonel Nuevo.’
‘Died heroically at Ilseville . . .’
‘Paper Osamu knows,’ I say. ‘And they know.’ My nod takes in the Aux, standing by the quay and shooting glances in this direction when they think we won’t notice. Colonel Vijay needs to keep his voice down.
‘Paper Osamu knows?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I say. ‘That’s why she asked for me.’
That’s only just occurred to me. What is stuck in my throat might stick in theirs, but the U/Free want me because of what happened after Ilseville. And what happened, only happened because Haze is a braid, I am kyped and the Aux can kill to order the way other people breathe, without needing to think about it first.
‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay, ‘what are you?’
‘Ex-sergeant, Legion Etrangere. Now lieutenant, Death’s Head, Obsidian Cross, second class.’
He grinds his teeth.
The boat trip back takes half the time. Might have something to do with the wind changing direction. Every night it changes direction, Iona tells us. Every night of her entire life. She’s never met anyone who says different.
Neen nods as she says this, and pretends to be interested. Unless he is, and I mean in more than the way that belt around her waist makes her breasts seem bigger. Glancing up, he catches me watching.
I nod.
He smiles a moment later. A slight twist of the lips, once he thinks I’m not looking. It’s meant for Haze and Franc and Rachel. The other two, Iona and Ajac, aren’t included yet, but they’re getting there.
So he knows OctoV, says the smile.
Rachel shrugs. And the shrug says, Are you surprised?
Never used to be able to read people like this. In that moment, I realize I can’t; not really. This is just the last of OctoV’s presence bleeding away inside my skull. I’m glad to be back.
‘Mine,’ I say, pointing to the big man waiting on the beach. He’s swapped his anchor for a stick. Actually, it’s half a pine trunk, cut at the roots and lopped about halfway up.
A jump takes me out of the boat, five steps power me towards him, and then he is backing away as fast as he can. Grown troopers would wilt under the weight of that stick of his. Yet he holds it as if he’s planning a hike in the mountains. Turns out, that is exactly what he’s planning.
‘Wait,’ he says.
‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay, sounding irritated.
I’m glad we are back to normal.
‘Pavel came to tax us,’ the man says. ‘Came with his ejercito . . .’ Glancing towards the burnt-out hut we saw earlier, he adds: ‘The taxes are high this year.’ Although this isn’t what he wants to tell me. In fact, he doesn’t want to tell me anything at all.
Walking over to the small crowd, he grabs a young boy and drags him across the beach to where Colonel Vijay, the Aux and I stand. ‘Tell him,’ he says.
A filthy face glares up at me. ‘My daughter,’ says the man.
So I take a closer look and realize she is. Eleven maybe, but still filthy-faced, scowling and undersized, reminds me of my own family.
Apart from me, obviously.
‘She said you’d come,’ the girl says. ‘Big man, bad temper. Said, tell you Pavel’s working for . . .’ Glancing round, the girl wriggles her fingers and touches them quickly to her temple.
I recognize the gesture. ‘Anything else?’
Dipping her hand into her pocket, the child pulls out a cheap medallion of legba uploaded. It’s Shil’s.
‘Keep it.’
The man scowls at me.
‘A woman’s good-luck charm,’ I tell him.
H
e loses interest and the child hangs it round her own neck gratefully.
I have one like it myself, but I don’t see why her father should have it when his daughter gives me Shil’s message.
‘Five gold coins,’ says the big man. ‘And we help you find Pavel.’
‘We can find him for ourselves.’
‘I can find him faster,’ the man says. ‘I know tracks you don’t.’ He smiles at me, before producing his clincher. ‘I know tracks even the snakeheads don’t know exist.’
‘One gold coin,’ I say.
Only Colonel Vijay’s already opening his purse. Makes me wonder just how much gold he is carrying. Also makes me wonder, why?
Marching into the wind, we keep going as darkness falls and with it the temperature. The filthy goatskin waistcoat everyone wears round here is beginning to make sense. Our jackets might have ballistic lining, but Neen insists he would happily swap his for something warm and take his chance with the bullets.
Comes of being that thin, I guess. The cold gets to you more.
Our path is narrow and lit by moonlight. Slopes drop away behind us and a lake shines silver grey beneath the dark sky in a valley ahead. We’ve been climbing for hours. And the big man’s right about those paths. Some of them seem to exist only in his head.
‘Now we wait,’ he says.
While we do, I remember to ask his name. It’s Milo.
‘Now we go.’
In the fifteen minutes we’ve been waiting, the lake has finished setting enough to let us walk across its surface. A camp fire burns in the distance, and dogs bark when they hear us pass. Once we’re challenged by a boy with a stick. At his side is a mongrel that hugs the dirt and keeps its ears back.
He throws his challenge into the darkness.
And we wait until he turns on his heel and stalks away, humming to himself louder than necessary. Skirting one of the high-valley farms, we hear a woman cry in the darkness. In the next farm along, a drunk kicks at a closed door. Either he’s locked out or too drunk to find the handle.
A pissing girl displays bare buttocks to nine strangers. She barely bothers to step beyond her door. Hardly surprising, given the cold.
