In the library shacks, the Carriers slept, indistinguishable lumps beneath sackcloth and wise old words.
But not Carla. Finn paced and sulked in her hair.
“Don’t you see? He’s goading me!”
“We don’t know anything for certain,” she whispered.
“He can’t help himself. He’s here because of Baptiste,” said Finn. “He thinks I’m here – and he’s up to something down there! We’re going to have to destroy him. It’s our destiny.”
“Our destiny? My destiny is extra cello lessons,” said Carla.
After walking out on the feast, she’d holed up in the cellars until Olga found her, by which time the show was over.
“Kaparis himself, just the other side of some rock … Do you know what Al or Delta would give to be here now?”
“We’ve got to try and stay calm, and we’ve got to try and get some sleep, in case we have to make a run for it in the morning. Don’t let him get inside your head,” said Carla.
Finn flung himself down in Carla’s head instead, in a tuft behind her ear, and lashed himself into place with some of the hair. He closed his eyes, but there was Kaparis, looming large.
“Do you know what he’s done to my family? He kidnapped my grandma, he tried to ruin my parents, he’s tried to blackmail my uncle, he’s tried to kill me – a lot – and he’s got this report on my dad,” said Finn.
“Or he’s forgotten all about you,” said Carla.
“If that Boldklub henge is operational, he’ll find me in no time.”
“How?”
“Nano-radar. He just has to shrink a conventional radar and he’ll find me. Everything nano is super-dense. Anywhere out in the open, I’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Well then, he would have found you already, so either it can’t be operational or he can’t be looking for you.”
“Or he’s just a sick bully and he’s keeping me dangling and getting ready to pull the trigger any second,” replied Finn.
“If he is, then you’re giving him exactly what he wants,” said Carla. “Stop thinking about him. Relax – that’s the only thing that will infuriate him right now. There are only three ways to defeat a bully: imagine them on the toilet; imagine going to the toilet on them; and never give them what they want! Now go to sleep.”
Deep beneath in the belly of the mountain, the white Boldklub orb spun and glowed, and Kaparis worked his new magic, bringing the future hurtling towards the present, breaking the received laws of physics and recasting them, testing them to the limit, and finding there was no limit to what this technology could now do …
“Reductio ad infinitum8,” he breathed.
He could see a world without end … but he had to start somewhere.
Drake.
“Bring me my champions.”
The C-130 Hercules transport planes began to lose height as they descended to what was about to become the G&T Romanian Command at the National Air Defence Base outside Kluge.
As they touched down, an official reception committee sent by the Romanian president was waiting on the tarmac. While Commander King got out to shake hands, everyone else remained inside the mobile headquarters – technical and military experts brainstorming the options, satellite specialists ordering ground-penetrating radar to overfly the site, drone specialists wanting to create a swarm.
Al offering to give people back rubs.
“Fifteen … fourteen … thirteen … twelve … eleven …”
At a cruising altitude of fifty thousand feet, six members of the équipe bleu of Le Commando Hubert9 prepared to jump from the cabin of an Airbus A300 airliner travelling at 450mph.
Just eight hours before, Commander Henri Clément had been pulled out of the final of the Declasse cup, Europe’s premier fencing competition.
“Ten … nine … eight … seven … six …”
He was joined by five of his top operatives. The Commando Hubert was a strict meritocracy (what had the revolution been for, after all?) – it just so happened that every member was staggeringly good-looking, with high-maintenance hair, esoteric pursuits, and an appreciation of the very finest food and wine.
“Five … four … three … two … one …”
The target was to be approached with the utmost caution – a HALO10 drop from a regular commercial flight, modified and fitted with a catapult to spit them clear of the fuselage.
“Zero.”
“Allez!” said Henri Clément to the drop master, as casually as if signalling to a waiter that they were ready to move on to the next course.
The catapults fired – THWABOOOINGK!!!
Santiago made his silent way across the wood. As the ground became steeper, he had to grab at the thick branches and haul himself forward. He was worried about getting caught, but if the Siguri did find his tracks and follow him, he would say he was checking his traps.
Eventually he reached the foot of the cliff and started to pick his way up the ice-slick slope. After a minute or so, he reached the base of the fissure that ran up through the rock like a black bolt of lightning.
Was this the place? “Si,” Santiago confirmed to himself.
He took off his bow and started to search. He grubbed around in the depths of the fissure, sparking a flint and steel striker for stinging, momentary illumination.
He had to find it. For the angel and the miracle in her hand – the boy he was convinced must be some kind of saint, no matter what he said. Sacred, yes. Not “science”, whatever that was.
The Primo would be angry if he found out, but if Santiago could be swift, the Primo wouldn’t know.
He could feel a presence in the woods. Had even seen tracks. Had more angels arrived? Nothing surprised him any more. He would have to return and investigate. But now he had to work fast.
The bright moon gave the night a cosmic glow.
The fissure was wide enough to climb right into when you got this low down. It was as if he had walked into the mountain; the two sides might bite him.
Santiago scratched at his flint. The fissure seemed vast and the task impossible. The mix of forest litter and snow would take days to search, but Santiago tried not to cry, tried to keep his eyes open and fixed on the task.
He searched for nearly an hour, moving up the cliff until he was well above the tops of the highest trees on the valley floor. Behind him the silhouette of the monastery loomed across the valley.
Then Santiago spotted something.
A dent in the snow, in a cleft like a basin carved into the side of the rock. He flicked the snow away, just to check, and there was … something.
He picked it up. It was a thing for sure, not a leather collar like the ratters had, like he had expected, but something smooth and made of some other material. And with a thing attached …
“Angelli?”