by John Meaney
‘What’s your assessment,’ said Pavel, ‘of Clara James?’
‘I like her. Fast-thinking, decisive.’
‘Despite her place in the command structure.’
‘You mean’ – Clayton felt his mouth pull up to one side – ‘on account of her reporting to Colonel Garber, whose nose is permanently docked up Admiral Schenck’s rectum. Tell me this is not on the record, boss.’
Pavel did not respond to the humour.
‘We’re off the books down here. I need someone clear-sighted and professional, not irrational, revenge-oriented thinking.’
‘Sorry. Forget I said anything.’
‘Good. There are some questions to be asked about Admiral Schenck’s decisions.’ Pavel gestured, and a four-dimensional tree-structure rotated in a holoview. ‘Game-theoretic analysis of his objectives leads to some dubious results.’
Running operations off the books was neither new nor safe. Running them against stated policy could be considered treason.
‘Are we opposing Schenck in some way?’ said Clayton. ‘Forget emotion, but if that’s what you’re after, I’m in.’
They had worked together for years. Professional trust had always linked them.
‘I have – sources – within Internal Investigations,’ said Pavel. ‘There are certain enquiries I’ve been keeping track of.’
Espionage thrives on psychological paradoxes. Subverting the internal watchers, though: that was a covert pièce de résistance, the kind of victory every operative held dear: sublime, unshareable. Except that Pavel was revealing it now, exposing himself. If it were true, the revelation was a sign of trust; if false, a test for a potential traitor.
‘What enquiries?’ Clayton was not committing yet. ‘What’s going on?’
‘The response to Admiral Kaltberg’s death,’ said Pavel.
Clayton focused on everything he knew – and still remembered, despite Sapherson – about the case.
‘She was a good officer,’ he said. ‘Gould deserves all he gets.’
‘A little while ago, I would have rated Max Gould about as highly as I rated Adrienne Kaltberg.’ Pavel banished the holo diagram. ‘I’m not sure my opinion has changed.’
That was only a little indirect.
‘You think he didn’t do it?’ said Clayton. ‘Are you sure?’
‘No, I’m not sure at all. Not about that.’
There was an implied offering there, and Clayton took it.
‘What are you sure of, boss?’
Pavel turned. Off to Clayton’s right, the air shivered, wavered, and rotated.
Fastpath inside the core shield?
A small, thin, black-uniformed man stepped out, only a tiny golden collar-stud betraying his rank.
‘Admiral,’ said Clayton.
This was Admiral Asai, a man with a reputation for agile strategic thinking, and the ability to pull off astounding tricks of expertise, both as an individual Pilot and at the head of a fleet. Clayton had never met the man. Beyond the technical realm, Asai was an enigma, his political philosophy unknown.
‘I’m told you’re considered reliable, Mr Clayton.’
‘Sir.’ Clayton smiled. ‘That’s two layers of indirection removed from whether I actually am reliable.’
Asai raised an eyebrow, turning to Pavel.
‘It’s not his fault,’ Clayton went on. ‘I know a conspiracy when I see one. Likewise a deniable operation. It makes me nervous.’
‘So.’ Asai bowed his head, just a little. ‘If Boris Schenck is not a traitor, then what we propose will not affect him adversely. We are not moving against him personally, or those who support his ambitions.’
Clayton began to assess the implied information: that Schenck had an extended set of supporters, call it a political network; and there was another, possibly separate network with the potential for action.
‘And if he is a traitor?’
He threw the word back at Asai. Traitor could mean many things; it was specific charges that made the difference. Pavel started to speak; but Asai raised his hand.
‘If Schenck is a traitor and we do nothing, either Max Gould will disappear, or the personality inhabiting his body, when he comes to trial, will bear little relation to the Gould that some of us know and highly respect. Those who’ve served with him.’
This was manipulation on Asai’s part. The mindwipe that Sapherson had subjected Clayton and Boyle to, after they had learned ultra-classified secrets while interviewing Carl Blackstone, had caused more than the specific planned amnesia. Besides forgetting what he had learned from Blackstone, Darius had also lost all memory of his own sister – consistently, throughout his whole remembered life – and developed an ongoing inability to recognize her face. He had also suffered a form of aphasia that medics were working to cure, and believed they could reverse. But his sister would be a stranger always.
So Clayton could be expected to have sympathy for someone facing neurological re-engineering.
‘What is it you want me to—? Oh, no.’
Pavel was smiling now.
‘That’s why you’re the man we need. You see it straight away.’
‘You don’t even know where they’re holding him.’ Clayton shook his head. ‘No, of course you do. You’ve probably got a source right inside Schenck’s personal staff.’
Of course Pavel was not going to respond to that.
‘You think a solo operator can do the job?’ Clayton realized he was arguing practicalities, a signal he had decided to accept the task. ‘I’m assuming we’re talking about breaking a prisoner out of one of our own establishments.’
‘We think a second experienced case officer would do the trick,’ said Pavel.
‘And that’s why you’re asking about Clara James?’
Asai tipped his head forward. Clayton read the gesture as approval.
‘She has the expertise,’ said Pavel. ‘I think she’s feeling restricted by Garber’s management style.’
‘Has she tried to jump the chain of command?’
In the service culture, such acts had a flavour of disloyalty.
‘No, she’s too smart for that,’ said Pavel. ‘Smart or principled.’
Clayton nodded, acknowledging the problem: principled was good, while smart-but-self-serving could be utilized; but they required different recruitment strategies.
‘Let’s make it my initiative test,’ he said. ‘If I can recruit her for the op, then I’m the right person to carry it out.’
Asai and Pavel smiled.
‘Good man,’ said Pavel.
Clara watched the footage three times, rotating the angles and adjusting playback speed, reading Jed Goran’s body language as much as his voice. The images originated several hours earlier in Far Reach Centre, a fractal warren of commerce and bureaucracy responsible for all Pilot logistics: a major Labyrinthine institution, therefore monitored by the intelligence service always. In the holo, everything about Jed Goran indicated a controlled, muscular anger. He was angry because he believed the authorities had deserted Roger Blackstone when they declared the quarantine around Molsin.
A good man.
She placed her fingertip against the insubstantial image of Jed’s face. It would be nice to make a new friend outside the service, the problem – and opportunity – being that he had seen her on the interview panel, debriefing himself and Roger on the Fulgor escape. But she already had a backstopped cover identity as an ordinary Admiralty employee.
Or Jed Goran might be a useful asset: someone strong and used to acting in a crisis. That was the problem, because you could not consider someone as a potential boyfriend and later manipulate him for the good of an operation. At least, she could not work that way.
Her immediate superior, Garber, would not betray someone he cared for, either. But that was because the icy bastard had no emotions beyond his own self-absorbed career.
Shit.
With regret, she closed the holo down.
An hour late
r, she was watching another holo, this one rendered real time as a room-sized image, while Colonel Garber stood alongside her, and two specialists, Arlene and Michio, observed with the aid of subsidiary biometric displays. Reading micro-expressions and gesture-clusters formed part of every officer’s training; the specialists were expert even by service standards.
‘This is the third person to have seen Helsen at the relay station,’ said Michio. ‘Her name is Susannah Blaydon. The interrogator is one of ours, Tol Karden, under cover as a Far Reach distribution controller.’
‘All right,’ said Garber.
Unknown to the Molsin authorities, every ship with the exception of Jed Goran’s had made a stopover at a realspace relay station manned only by Pilots. There, the staff roused each med-drone occupant who was deemed safe to awaken, questioned and scanned them, then blanked their short-term memory before dropping them back into delta-trance, ready for their onward mu-space journey.
The difference in Jed Goran’s case had been that all of his comatose passengers were designated as high-probability severe trauma cases, who should be woken only in full-care medical facilities, and not returned to coma until their recovery was well under way, if not complete. The decision had been a balance of humanitarian versus security concerns; Garber had wanted everyone woken and examined regardless.
In the holo, the questioner, Tol Karden, gestured at an image of Petra Helsen – a holo within a holo – that had been created on the basis of Roger Blackstone’s debriefing session.
‘This was the main person,’ he said, ‘that you were tasked with looking out for.’
‘That’s correct,’ said Susannah Blaydon.
She looked tense but not overly so. Clara read it as innocent concern, faced with official questioning but harbouring no guilt. Arlene and Michio looked intent, too busy observing to give a verdict.
‘And you saw no sign of her on the day in question?’ Tol Karden leaned forward. ‘That would have been the third shipload you processed, is that correct?’
‘Absolutely.’ Susannah Blaydon rubbed her face. ‘We were tired, maybe. But none of the women looked much like this one.’
They had been instructed to watch out for a certain male also; but his bearded image was less reliable – Roger Blackstone had scarcely seen the man on Fulgor – so a negative result had been expected in that case.
Tol Karden gestured. ‘I’d like to show you this.’
Beside him, a moving holo-within-the-holo opened. Squinting, Clara could see Susannah’s image inside the new holo-volume, next to an opened med-drone, talking to the female occupant who was sitting up. Two other personnel stood off to one side, observing Susannah Blaydon.
As she talked to Petra Helsen.
‘No.’ Susannah Blaydon shook her head. ‘That’s not me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tol Karden’s voice held just the right tone: questioning without accusation. ‘Not you?’
‘That’ – pointing with a shaking finger – ‘is the woman we were told to look out for. But I never saw her. That … That’s not me in the image.’
‘It looks like you.’
‘But it can’t be me. I’d have remembered, wouldn’t I?’
Arlene turned round to Garber.
‘Immediate assessment, Colonel. She’s telling the truth, same as the others.’
Michio nodded, still watching the interrogation.
‘That’s not good,’ said Garber.
In the holo-within-the-holo, Helsen finished talking to Susannah Blaydon, then lay back down, delta-band across her forehead. The med-drone closed up as Blaydon stepped away, ready to process the next refugee.
‘Sophisticated mindbending,’ said Clara.
‘And now she’s loose on Molsin,’ said Garber. ‘Shit.’
Was that concern for a vulnerable planet or his own career? He had been instrumental in setting up the vetting procedure.
‘All right.’ Garber was summoning a fastpath. ‘I’ve seen enough. You stay here, on the off chance something interesting develops.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Clara.
As Garber disappeared, Arlene dropped Clara a wink.
‘Lovely man,’ she said.
EIGHTEEN
THE WORLD, 5563 AD
Harij stood in the doorway of the special classroom, teal-green patches of sadness shifting across his otherwise silver skin. All eight of the special pupils, shiny with concentration, rocked back and forth in time to the count, Ilara among them.
**Whorl one whorl three whorl five whorl seven whorl eleven whorl thirteen.**
The flux of their ritualistic counting formed a headache-inducing beat. They could go on like this from nightbreak to sunrise if the teacher allowed them to. Why his sister had been born like this while he was what people called normal, he had no idea. He believed Ilara cared for him in her own way, while he loved her more than their parents could manage.
This was midnight break and he was allowed out of school. He should eat – his desk contained a woven basket of fresh sweetfungus bread – but instead he went out through the side exit, and headed for the grey scree slope at the far end of the cavern, beyond the shell houses of their little town. Always, the outside drew him.
Vortices from deep within the rock tugged at his senses, but he climbed on and came out onto the familiar wide ledge. No one else was around. He had the landscape to himself: the mesa beyond the canyon, the distant aurora, and the silver-black filigree globe of Magnus high in the sky.
A trio of mating triblades hurtled past, swooping into the canyon. Motes of no-thought drifted peaceably. Harij sat down, his back against the rockface, opening himself up the sights and flux of midnight, everything peaceful and—
There.
He had to check twice, but he was right: far across the mesa, a lone robed figure was walking. Strong gait, upright and – even from here it seemed so – both courageous and open to all that was around, sensitive and determined. The second such figure he had seen within nine nights.
**I want to be like that.**
It was a private thought, and he kept the flux inside him, not allowing it to escape and drift away.
**Just like that.**
The distant Seeker passed behind a tooth-shaped outcrop, and beyond Harij’s perception.
Rather differently to the way he felt about Ilara, he was more than half in love with Mistress Ahn, his teacher. Occasionally he wondered if the rest of the class had similar thoughts; if so, they kept them tightly curled inside their heads.
They spent the next session resonating one of his favourite story crystals, [[The Strongest Dreamlode]], though it was not the lonely Seeker that the other children identified with, but the girl he saved. After the short break that followed, several of the bolder boys came up to Mistress Ahn before she called the class to order.
**Lintral saw tri-blades mating, miss!**
This was the kind of cheek that could cause Mother Zil-Grania, the head of school, to bring out her nastiest cane: the thin one with the heavy polarization that left weals for nights afterwards, and memories of pain that lasted longer still. But Mistress Ahn was different, which was why the boys dared so much. Still, Harij held his breath until she answered.
**But when you grow up, you’ll mate with only one other sex. Isn’t that right?**
The boys turned away, embarrassed orange patches showing on their foreheads. Mistress Ahn grinned, highlights shifting like liquid on her flawless silver skin.
Harij had no name for the desire inside him.
Later, he would fail to work out why this was the night, the point when his decision crystallized. Over a hundred nights had passed since the time the class discovered his dream of becoming a Seeker, after Vitril (so aloof, the swot) had led them in imagining [[My Family]] and Harij’s emotions had diverged and unravelled, picked up by even the least sensitive of his classmates.
Then, they had mocked him, their flux bouncing back and forth around the room, and he had run into the c
orridor. But Mistress Ahn’s rage had frightened everyone; and when he crept back to his desk, no one had even dared to glance at him.
Tonight, as he paused beside the spin-coils that kept the fungal farms productive, he looked back at the school where Ilara and her special classmates remained, and decided that everything had to change.
**I’ll get you out of there.**
He would save his sister from the town that failed to love her.
**I promise you.**
However dangerous the journey might be.
NINETEEN
MOLSIN, 2603 AD
The medic’s perfume was wonderful. Roger inhaled his way to wakefulness.
‘Welcome back,’ she said. ‘We’ve scrubbed your lungs out, and you’re going to be fine.’
‘Ugh.’
‘Try not to run too hard for a couple of days. And you might want to lay off the adventure sports, but that’s just my personal prejudice.’
Roger could not sit up. As he tried, the bed morphed, sinking and giving way to absorb the motion, leaving him nothing to press against.
‘Sorry,’ added the medic. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. You being an offworlder without control of– But look, your tu-ring appears to have access. You can use it to alter the bed.’
‘I just want to sit up.’
‘Here. This is all you need.’
She looked at the bed and it reconfigured, gently pushing up behind his back.
‘Thank you,’ said Roger.
The bed stopped shifting. He was in a private room, coloured lustrous green and icing-white.
‘Someone wants to chat with you, Pilot. A police officer.’ Again she smiled. ‘Just stay sitting as you are. I’ll come back later to check you out of here, OK?’
‘Er, OK.’
The wall melted open, allowing her to step out and Tannier to enter.
‘You’re back on Barbour.’ Tannier waited as the doorway flowed shut. ‘She looks nice, your medic. What’s her name?’
‘I don’t … If she told me, it was when I was only half awake.’ Roger thought back. ‘It seems as if I’ve been in and out of sleep.’
‘More than likely.’
