The operations room was busy when Jenifa walked in just before midday. She glanced around at the rows of desks, each with an investigating officer deeply involved in sifting through paperwork. Clerks from the records division were bringing in yet more files. The air was filled with the clatter of typewriters as the secretaries typed up reports, which more clerks smoothly carried away.
To someone who didn’t know better, it would have looked like the nest alert case was proceeding efficiently to a successful conclusion.
Chaing was standing beside the wall map; arm in a sling, uniform tunic sleeve pinned neatly on the side, eye patch in place. She’d made sure he looked right when he left the flat this morning, as smart as a high-flying PSR officer should be.
Major Gorlan was with him, sticking a purple pin into the map. Jenifa went over to them and saluted. “Sir, reporting for duty.”
“Corporal,” Chaing said tonelessly. “Welcome back. Director Yaki has reinstated you pending the report on your conduct yesterday.”
“Thank you, sir.” If only you knew, she thought. I am going to enjoy taking you down when this is over. I’m going to enjoy it a lot. Because Castillito has something on you, and I want to know what it is. Rotten officers cannot be allowed to contaminate the PSR.
“We need all hands on this,” Chaing said.
“Has there been any progress?”
“We’re concentrating our efforts on Eliters known to be connected to the underground railway.”
“Good idea.”
“Thank you, Corporal,” Major Gorlan said scornfully.
“But we’re getting some strange reports,” Chaing said.
Jenifa frowned. “Strange, sir?”
“My informants have reported that a jamming signal has been operating in the city this morning,” Gorlan said.
“Jamming signal?” Even as she said it, Jenifa cursed herself; repeating things just made her sound stupid.
“Someone is blocking Eliters from communicating with one another. It’s localized, but apparently one hundred per cent effective.” The major pointed at a purple pin, which was stuck into Stower Road. “First one appeared here a couple of hours ago.”
“I’ve sent a team to investigate,” Chaing said. “And in the meantime I told technical services to scan the bands the Eliters use. They’ve just notified us that another jamming signal was transmitting here.” His finger tapped the second purple pin.
“Midville Avenue,” Jenifa read. She studied the old dock area. “Nothing much there.”
“The signal didn’t last long,” Chaing said. “They only just managed to triangulate before it switched off.”
“Why would anyone want to block Eliter gossip?”
Chaing pulled a face. “We’re searching for anomalies. This is unusual.”
“And Florian is an Eliter,” Gorlan said. “It might be something for you to look into,” she told Jenifa.
“Go and talk to technical support, Corporal,” Chaing said. “Get me a report. We need to know more.”
“Yes, sir.” Jenifa didn’t know if she was being sidelined or not.
“Sir!” One of the secretaries was standing up, holding a telephone. “Captain Chaing, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Phone call for you, sir. It’s urgent. The main switchboard put it through.”
“Who’s calling?”
“Says he’s Major Ry Evine, sir. He knows something about Florian, but he’ll only talk to you.”
The operations room fell quiet. There had been a notification about Major Evine three days ago, that he was AWOL. All PSR officers were required to apprehend on sight. Force was authorized.
Chaing hurried across the room and snatched the telephone. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Tell the switchboard to trace the call,” he told the secretary, then took his hand away. “This is Captain Chaing.”
“Captain, I have some information for you.”
“Who is this?”
“Ry Evine, but that’s irrelevant. I’ve just seen Florian. He had a few days of stubble, but I’m sure it was him.”
“I see. Why don’t you come in and tell us about it?”
“Don’t patronize me, Captain. There’s a girl with him, a young girl. She looked ill. They’ve both been forced into a club called Cameron’s by very well-armed gangsters. I’m really worried. I think it’s Roxwolf’s headquarters.”
“Crudding Uracus! Where are you?”
“Midville Avenue.”
The bolts on the inner vault door withdrew almost immediately and it slowly swung open. Florian peered into the chamber beyond.
He was expecting something like the lounge he’d just left, but this was almost like the nave of a Church of the Return. A wide double-vaulted hall, with a line of pillars running down the center. Electric lights hung on long hoops of cable strung between the pillars, sending out a sharp blue-white glare. Bizarrely out-of-place household furniture was clustered together on one side, while on the other side of the pillars, long benches had been laid out, cluttered by what appeared to be laboratory equipment, both chemical and electrical. Next to them was a telephone exchange cabinet, studded with buttons, winking lights, sockets, and braided cables ending in jacks. Ten telephones were lined up on a shelf underneath it, and below them was a row of tape recorders, their big reels turning slowly.
At the far end of the hall, a stream ran along a channel set into the flagstone floor, emerging from and vanishing into low arches. A three-meter-wide wooden waterwheel was fixed to the wall, turning slowly as the stream shoved its paddles around. Gears linked it to a dynamo.
“Come in,” a voice said.
Florian took a few nervous steps, passing through the vault door. That voice was wrong somehow, husky and gurgling, as if the speaker had a cold.
An electric motor hummed, closing the vault door. The bolts clunked into place.
“Just so you understand, I am the only person on this planet who has the combination for those doors. If you shoot me, this will become your tomb.”
“Okay.” Florian tottered over to the nearest settee and put Essie down on the cushions. She curled up, her eyes closed.
“Good,” the voice said. “Now, please don’t get hysterical.”
“What?”
Roxwolf emerged from behind a pillar. Florian couldn’t help it. He let out a wail and stumbled backward.
The figure that emerged was human in shape, although easily a head taller than Florian. He had lopsided shoulders and walked with an odd limp, one leg dragging behind the other. His head was misshapen, the back of the bald skull distended, curving downward over the top of the neck. A wide mouth had lips that could never fully close over a massive set of fangs.
But it was the arms that drew Florian’s attention. The man-thing was wearing a loose red shirt. One arm was normal, though the skin was shaded a faint blue, as if his flesh were freezing. The other arm was an animal limb, covered in gray-bronze fur and ending in a paw with four thick claws.
A roxwolf foreleg, Florian realized. He’d caught glimpses of them in Albina Valley, skulking about amid the deeper forests, preying on the native wildlife and terrestrial goats. Heavily muscled, yet incredibly graceful; some had been timed sprinting at ninety kilometers an hour on their attack runs.
Now he was clued in, Florian glanced at the creature’s legs. Sure enough, one was a regular human limb and the other a roxwolf hind leg.
“What the crud are you?” Florian shouted.
Roxwolf laughed. It sounded like a beast tearing flesh apart. “A mistake.”
Florian brought his arm up, fist clenched. Targeting graphics circled the creature. “Stay back.”
“Ah. The lightning bolt weapon. And you claimed your backpack has Commonwealth machines. The same source, I take it? The spaceship that fell into your valley?”
“What are you?” Florian yelled. He gasped as his u-shadow reported a link opening.
“The same as you,” Roxwolf sent through the link.
“No!”
“The Eliter macrocellular clusters are interesting,” Roxwolf continued over the link. “Humans added them to their DNA at some point. They’re unnatural. Like us.”
“Us?”
“You call us Fallers.”
Florian’s arm trembled. “Stay back!”
“Or what?” Roxwolf asked. “You’ll condemn yourself and the child to a slow miserable death by starvation?”
“I won’t be eaten, not by you. You—You’re a breeder Faller, aren’t you?”
“I’m not going to argue semantics with you, so I’ll just say yes. But as I told you: I’m a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“My species has the biological ability to shape ourselves. When we encounter a world, we mimic the dominant life-form, then eliminate it. It’s a war that takes many forms; therefore, we need to constantly adapt. So somewhere deep in our history, we gave ourselves this chameleon ability. We can consciously shape our offspring, providing we have a template. And to obtain a local template, our first colonization wave absorbs the local animals, giving us their physiological pattern.”
“You eggsume us,” Florian groaned. His arm had dropped to his side as he made the connection. “Rasschaert.”
“Yes. The version you saw outside is a Faller.”
“You’re not gangsters. You’re a nest.”
“No. Not true. Most of the infamous Roxwolf gang are genuine humans.”
“You’re lying. You eat us. No human would work with you—not even gangsters.”
“The human members of my organization are unaware of their colleagues’ nature, obviously. Their reaction would be the same as yours. That’s why I rule them through lieutenants like Shaham. I am the guiding hand; the smart one. The one with the political insights; the one with insider knowledge. The one who is unafraid to order hits against our opponents.”
“How can this happen?” Florian implored. “The PSR should have discovered you.”
“Ah, but you see Roxwolf hides in plain sight. Everyone knows I am a mere gangster, including the PSR. I find it ironic, as much as I can understand the concept. For at the heart, I remain unseen, at least by my criminal associates.” He gestured at the telephone exchange cabinet. “They receive all their orders by telephone.”
“They’ll work it out in the end. They’ll expose you.”
“Several already have. They were all taken out by rival gangs—apparently.”
“You…You—”
“Ate them? Yes. I worked hard to achieve this position. I’m not going to relinquish it.”
“Why? What’s the point?”
“Colonizing a new world is a complex process, especially one with a dominant sentient species. First we must learn of you, and mimicking you is only part of the solution. Once we’ve arrived, we move invisibly among you, to explore your civilization, to seek out its strengths and weaknesses. There are specific tasks that require specific forms. Strength, agility, intelligence—all these can be crafted. We gave ourselves that flexibility. I am a product of it.”
“So which are you? Strength?”
“Parentals normally craft and gestate two embryos in their wombs, but we are not parthenogenetic. Two adults exchange and create the new templates within a neural connection. This mental pattern is transferred to the embryo, which incorporates its structure. A neurological equivalent of your DNA, if you like.”
“Mods,” Florian said suddenly. “We had neuts back in the Void. Our telepathy allowed us to shape their embryos.”
“One of our more useful servant species,” Roxwolf acknowledged. “Designed to be redesigned in whatever fashion we required. The seeders bring them with us.”
“Seeders?”
“The Trees you see in the Ring. Before we were captured by the Void, they flew between stars, expanding our species across the galaxy. The Skylords you so venerate are merely versions who self-evolved, adapting to the strange conditions in the Void. Ironic, no?”
“The Ring Trees are starships?” Florian asked weakly. “Faller starships?” He didn’t want to believe it.
“Yes, but our kind of starship; they’re nothing like your Commonwealth’s technological vehicles. These are living entities that embody our essence. They are the pinnacle of our species. Our triumph. They carry us forward forever.”
“Oh, great Giu! You really are monsters.”
Roxwolf laughed again. “Especially in my case. I told you I was a mistake. My parentals messed up the pattern they were formulating. They wanted a roxwolf for an established nest of the animals; they also wanted a human-mimic with Eliter macrocellular abilities. The patterns were merged somehow, for even our biology is not perfect. I am the result. An abomination.” He snarled, his long fangs clashing. “I am nothing—not to them, not to anybody. They discarded me. Now I reject them as I reject you.”
“What do you want with us?”
Roxwolf stared at Essie as she lay shivering on the settee. “This girl is the end of the world. That makes her the most important person alive.”
Florian sat on the edge of the settee and stroked Essie. “What do you mean the end of the world? She’s going to save it.”
“For humans, possibly. What about Fallers?”
“This is our world. We will burn you from it.”
“She might well do that. That is why she is so valuable.”
“I won’t let you touch her.” He deliberately avoided looking at the backpack. The power cells in the Commonwealth gadgets still had a large charge left in them, and the roof of this underground lair couldn’t be that thick. “Can the food processor power cells be rigged to explode?” he asked his u-shadow.
“Yes,” it replied.
“Assume the stone ceiling is a meter thick. If I detonate the power cells against it, could they blast a hole through?”
“Yes, assuming you placed them correctly. But the concussion wave within the hall would present a considerable danger to you.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Yes.”
The knowledge allowed Florian to gather some confidence. There was a possible way out; that gave him an edge.
“I’m sure you’re an excellent protector,” Roxwolf said. “After all, not everyone could elude the PSR for nearly ten days. Congratulations.” He began to walk around the edge of the furniture, keeping the same distance from Florian and Essie.
Florian watched him carefully; he felt like he was being stalked. “What do you want?”
“I offer you a deal. I am in touch with my own kind. My current activities make me extremely useful to them. They consider me completely expendable, of course, but I can achieve many of their goals—for a price. By now they will know I have acquired her.”
“Rasschaert,” Florian murmured.
“Indeed. An interesting constant is Rasschaert, an asshole in both his incarnations.”
“So what do the Fallers want with Essie?”
Roxwolf emitted a soft hiss of amusement. “Why, they will feast triumphantly on her flesh, of course.”
“They are monsters!”
“When faced with genocide, a species will do whatever it needs to in order to survive. And to me, your death is necessary; it is how the universe works. You occupy a planet where we could be living. There is no question, no ambiguity. Our life is superior in so many ways. It is right that we emerge victorious.”
“Monster!”
“I love studying humans. So few of my kind bother. I love your anger. It is supremely irrelevant, yet you all possess it. I find that so curious. Why has evolution not eradicated it? It is not a survival trait, not in a true sentient. Do you know what my conclusion is?”
“Do I crudding care?”
“I believe it is a short circuit. It allows you to overcome your vaunted ethics, to justify your own horrific behavior in extreme situations.” Roxwolf smiled, exposing even more of his fangs. “And I have seen a great many of you in extremis.”
“You think you’re so clever?” Florian raised his arm. Targeting graphics focused on Roxwolf. “Think you can outsmart me?”
“You haven’t heard my deal. But I’m interested in this development, your resurgence of confidence. Do you believe you have a way out? What could it be?” He turned to the backpack. “What are the machines you said were in there, I wonder? Weapons? No. Something you can modify after you’ve killed me?”
“What deal?”
“Ah, now that, you see, my creepy alien friend, that is your survival instinct coming to the fore. Sentience mixed with animal desperation, analyzing the options. But first you need to know all those options. So you tell me, what is it that you want, Florian? I live in both worlds, human and Faller. There is nothing I cannot acquire for you.”
“You know what I want: to be free.”
“Free of what, though? The PSR? The Fallers? Me?”
“Yes! All of you. Just let us go. Leave Essie alone.”
Roxwolf nodded. “A reasonable request. I presume this freedom is for the duration of your infamous ‘month,’ until Essie has finished growing. Until she is a fully developed Commonwealth human. Until she declares war on the Fallers.”
“How do you know about the month?” Florian gasped.
“My position is not dependent on violence and intimidation alone.” Roxwolf gestured at the telephone exchange cabinet with his animal arm. “Knowledge, you see, is the true power in any society. And that power is how I survive. I’ve been listening to Captain Chaing’s phone calls to his section seven superior: Stonal. You should hear Chaing making the most pathetic excuses for his lack of progress finding you; I can play you the tapes if you’d like. Essie was mentioned a lot. Someone called Joffler said she grew quickly.”
Florian gave the tape recorders with their slowly revolving reels an astonished glance. “You bug the PSR phones?”
“Absolutely. Among others. A most useful source of information. The PSR’s arrogance forbids them to believe anyone would dare attempt such an action.” Roxwolf bent down and picked up the backpack.
“Hey,” Florian cried. “You leave that alone.”
“Would you like to hear my offer?” Roxwolf held out his human arm, dangling the backpack by one of its straps.
Florian stared at him, breathing heavily. His old anxiety reaction was returning; he could hear his heart hammering. Exovision medical displays were flicking to a mild amber. A list of suggested medications popped up. “What’s your offer?”
“The spacecraft. It gave you Essie and the machines. What else?”
“Nothing. That’s it.”
“You’re lying again, Florian. For a start, it gave you the weapon. Perrick described it in great detail for me.”
Florian shrugged, wishing he didn’t feel so light-headed. The stress of negotiating with Roxwolf was terrible; his skin was growing ice-cold as he started to sweat. “Well, yeah.” He shrugged.
“What did it tell you, Florian? You have Eliter abilities for communication and memory. It gave you information, didn’t it? It gave you files that came from the Commonwealth itself.”
“No.”
Roxwolf raised the backpack. “Then how do you know how to operate the machines?”
The blood was roaring in his head, heartbeat pounding like a hammer. “Well, it gave me those instructions, but that’s all.”
“They’ll do for a start.”
“What?”
“You have information that is unique, Florian. Knowledge that humans lost when they were captured by the Void. Technology that has passed into legend. Tell me what you have.”
“None of those things,” he said, starting to panic.
“You are a terrible liar. Think what we could build together. Anything Opole’s factories can produce can be brought to us here within a day—any piece of engineering, any electrical component; chemicals, metals. I can acquire it all. First we make the tools that make the tools. You just have to share the knowledge.”
“I don’t want to build anything.”
“Are you sure, Florian? Look into your heart. Look into your Commonwealth knowledge. What could be done to improve the life of every human on Bienvenido? Are there medicines in there? Eliters always claim Commonwealth humans can live forever. Can you give that to your family, your friends? Would they thank you for keeping it to yourself?”
“If I had that kind of knowledge, it would be used to destroy the Fallers!”
“Yes, but if I had it, I would be able to survive. I told you, that’s what I am. Every day of my life is a battle to survive. And I have won. I am alive. I live against every obstacle and challenge this world has thrown at me, despised and shunned by my own kind, hunted by yours. I will not give up my life simply because she has arrived. Why should I?”
Tremors were running along Florian’s limbs as Roxwolf’s words beat against him. It would be so easy to give in, to make some kind of deal. Say anything just to make this torment stop, to walk out with Essie. “You can’t offer us sanctuary.”
“Oh, but I can.” Roxwolf threw the backpack. It took Florian completely by surprise. He cried wordlessly as it tumbled through the air. It was a powerful throw, taking it the length of the hall. Exovision graphics sprang up, projecting the territory. “Nooo!” The backpack landed in the stream with a loud splash. It sank as the current carried it sluggishly to the drain arch.
Florian sprinted along the line of pillars, desperate to reach it before it was swallowed by the black drain hole at the end of the channel. His targeting routines picked up Roxwolf’s movements from his peripheral vision. The malformed Faller was leaping toward Essie as she lay dozing on the settee.
Florian fired a stun pulse. I can’t kill him, he’s the only way out now! The slender dazzling beam flashed out, missing Roxwolf by centimeters. Hitting the wall, and blowing a small crater out of the stone.
Roxwolf landed beside the settee and rolled fast, his animal arm curling around Essie, pulling her with him. Using her to shield him from Florian. There was a pistol in his human hand, swinging around to slap its muzzle against her head.
Jerked so savagely from her slumber, Essie started to wail.
“She would have wiped us out,” Roxwolf said. He pulled the trigger.
Florian began to scream. His u-shadow accelerated his perception. There was a flash from the pistol muzzle that seemed to ripple out at right angles, rising to a searing white wavefront. The sound of the shot pummeled his ears, numbing him. Then Roxwolf’s hand was snapping backward, breaking the wrist bone. Confusion bloomed across the Faller’s features as his grisly mouth opened; the roar that emerged was almost as loud as the pistol shot, combining pain and dismay. He staggered backward.
And Essie was standing there in her disheveled green dress, completely unharmed. A tiny haze of purple light covered her entire body.
“Force field,” Florian said dumbly as secondary routines dumped the information into his mind.
He shot Roxwolf with another stun pulse. The Faller shrieked, and collapsed to the ground, spasming.
An incredulous smile lifted Florian’s face. “You have an integral force field. Biononics!” Then his knees gave way, pitching him onto all fours, and he threw up.
There were seven cars and four vans in the convoy that raced across Opole. The cars carried most of the investigation team while the vans held Captain Franzil’s entire assault squad.
Chaing sat in the front passenger seat of the lead Cubar, urging his driver on through the traffic on the main road to the river Crisp.
“Do we sneak up on them?” Jenifa asked from the rear seat as they neared the intersection with Midville Avenue.
Chaing looked around. She was sitting on the backseat next to Nathalie Guyot. When he mobilized the assault squad, she’d eagerly exclaimed: “I’m coming with you.” But the deal he’d made with Yaki was that she’d be restricted to office duties. He hadn’t mentioned that to her as they all hurried down to the garage.
“Nathalie?” he asked.
“This is Roxwolf,” Nathalie Guyot said. “He’ll know you’re coming by now. Most of the city knows with this racket.”
“Okay.” He raised the radio microphone to his mouth and pressed the button on top. “Franzil, we’re going in hot.”
“Roger that.” Franzil’s voice crackled out of the dashboard speaker.
The driver turned into Midville Avenue.
“Crud,” Chaing grunted as he tried to study the tall buildings that were obscured by the big walwallows. “Which one is it?”
Nathalie pointed ahead. “There.”
Chaing saw the gap where a couple of the trees had been removed. “Pull in just past it,” he told the driver. That would allow the vans to stop directly in front of the club, enabling Franzil’s people to deploy quickly.
He had a brief flash of a nice old brick townhouse with a stylish neon sign above the front door. Then the Cubar stopped with a hard lurch. He opened the door as fast as he could and got out, pulling his pistol from its holster. Behind him, the vans were braking to a halt. “Move in,” he called.
“Chaing!” Jenifa yelled. She barreled into him, knocking him to the ground. As he went down he saw three men racing off the top of some metal stairs that led down into a narrow sunken courtyard at the side of the townhouse. They were carrying semi-automatic rifles.
As his shoulder slammed painfully into the cobbles, the rifles opened fire, strafing the assault squad vans. Answering fire erupted from the PSR officers and squad members already out of the vans.
Glass shattered above Chaing as the Cubar’s windscreen was hit by bullets. He cowered down, pressing himself into the uneven cobbles as gunfire raged and agonized screams cut through the air. His pistol had skittered away. He could see it a meter away, and reached for it.
The gunfire ended. Chaing snatched up the pistol, then risked a glance around the front of the car.
He saw five black-clad, helmeted members of the assault squad lying on the road, one of them with his legs still inside the van. Screams were coming from inside the vans, which were riddled by bullet holes. Two PSR officers were facedown on the street, unmoving.
The three gangsters were dead, their bodies torn apart by bullets, blood spreading around them. “Oh, great Giu,” he moaned. One of them was surrounded by a pool of blue blood. “Nest. It’s a crudding nest!” Then he saw the face of the Faller gangster and started in shock as he recognized it from the records division photo. “Rasschaert?”
“What do we do?” Jenifa shouted. She was still crouched down behind the car, shaking violently.
“Cover the club,” Chaing said. He realized he could barely hear his own voice above the ringing in his ears, and shouted: “Cover the club. All active squad members, cover the club! Jenifa, find a radio. Call for ambulances. And get us some crudding backup. Franzil? Franzil!”
“Here.” The assault squad captain scuttled out from behind one of the vans, keeping low.
“We’ve got to get down there.”
“Okay.” Franzil started shouting orders to survivors. Four squad members took cover behind the vans and watched the club, carbines held ready for any sign of movement—hostile or otherwise. Chaing split the PSR officers. Half were designated to help the wounded, the rest to provide cover as Franzil led ten of the assault squad down the metal stairs.
They deployed perfectly, the two taking point duty edging up to the railings along the top of the sunken courtyard, swinging their carbines over the top as they scanned around.
“Clear!”
Franzil led eight squad members down the metal stairs. A shotgun took out the hinges on the door at the bottom. A barrage of semi-automatic fire slammed out from the gangsters in the basement corridor.
Chaing flinched back from the railing along the top of the sunken courtyard. Franzil himself flung two grenades through the ruined door. Chaing took a couple of paces back, waiting for them to go off.
The explosion was immense. A lethal high-velocity plume of smoke and debris slammed out of the basement doorway, billowing upward. Chaing felt the ground quake, knocking him down. Cars and vans rocked about. Every window in the front of the townhouse shattered, and the entire building sagged downward. Cracks split the brickwork, ripping right up to the eaves.
“What the crudding Uracus?”
A dust cloud was mushrooming up from the sunken courtyard, shooting out across Midville Avenue. He staggered over to the buckled railing and leaned over. “Franzil?” His ears were ringing, but he thought he heard cries from somewhere below. The seething dust was too thick to see through. He started to cough as he breathed it in. A couple of roof tiles smashed on the pavement barely a meter away.
“Crud!” He looked up through the haze to see more slates skidding off the roof. The building let out an ominous creak. A second wave of fissures were splitting open, multiplying out from the initial cracks.
“Back,” he yelled and started to run. “Get back. It’s going to go!”
Jenifa came running through the swirling cloud, dust coating her uniform and hair a sickly gray. “What happened?”
“Grenades,” Chaing coughed. “Franzil used grenades.”
“Grenades?” she bellowed. “Crudding grenades didn’t do this.”
The old townhouse collapsed in on itself with a drawn-out rumble. Shattered chunks of masonry went flying across the street, smashing into the PSR’s cars and vans. More dust flooded out to choke the air.
Someone was calling his name. It was a sweet voice, filled with anxiety and fright, coming from a long way away.
“Florian? Florian, help me.”
Florian sucked down some air, an action that made his whole body judder. Two more breaths and his heart started to calm. The blurs of orange in his exovision started to come into focus. He jerked his head up. “Essie?”
She was sprawled on the floor five meters in front of him. The ion haze of the force field was gone. He scurried over to her and cradled her, a hand stroking her head where Roxwolf’s pistol had fired. There was no damage.
“Oh, great Giu, are you okay? Sweetheart, speak to me.”
“Everything fucking hurts,” she said, and started sobbing. “I can’t switch off the pain. I’m not fully integrated yet. Oh, fuck. It’s too soon. Fuckity fuck.” Her mouth opened to let out a pitiful mewl.
The sight of her anguish made Florian weep. “I wish I could take your pain from you.”
A bell started ringing. Up on the wall beside the telephone exchange, a red bulb flashed.
“What now?” Florian grunted.
“Alert,” Roxwolf grunted.
“You bastard!” Florian shouted. His arm came around, targeting graphics locking on the teratoid Faller. Hot thoughts ordered the bracelet power up to maximum, ready to kill this time. Ready. Yes, ready.
No way out!
He yelled wordlessly in frustration.
Roxwolf rolled over and sneered at Florian. “You know the routine, moron. Kill me and you die, slow and bad.”
“What alert?” Essie moaned.
“Can I find out?” Roxwolf mocked. “Please?”
“What do I do?” Florian pleaded.
“Let him ask,” Essie said.
Roxwolf walked unsteadily over to the telephone exchange cabinet and flicked a switch that killed the bell and flashing light. He picked up a telephone. “Speak to me.”
Florian hugged Essie. “He threw the medical kit into the stream. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“Ozzie fucking wept.”
Florian was about to chide her for using that kind of language, but gave up with a bitter snort. She seemed different somehow, more aware—more controlled.
The memories, Florian realized; her true memories must be waking up.
“Crud!” Roxwolf exclaimed. “Don’t let them get in or you’ll be visiting me first,” he bawled into the handset. Then he was hurrying over to a set of thick brass pipes that emerged from the wall to one side of the vault door. Each of them ended in what looked like a set of binoculars.
“What is it?” Florian said.
Roxwolf bent down and peered into the lenses. He spun a small iron wheel at one side of the pipe, which turned the whole apparatus. “Your friend Captain Chaing has found us.”
“Chaing?” Amazingly, that actually seemed like a welcome development.
“Yeah. Come on, boys, hit them—oh, yes! Go, go! That’s it. And again. Ah, crud!”
“What’s happening?”
“My people are defending their turf.” Roxwolf stood up. “They have to; there’s no way out past Chaing now, and the only other door is into here.”
“You’re trapped,” Florian said victoriously.
“And you’re a crudding moron. Last chance to deal. I can get you to a safe haven. Just give me the spaceship’s files, everything you’ve got.”
“There is a way out,” Essie said. “Nobody locks themselves into a place like this without an escape route.”
Roxwolf gave Essie an admiring stare. “Smart girl.”
“Where is it?” Florian demanded.
“Even if you use it, you’ve got nowhere to go,” Roxwolf said. “Without me helping you, the PSR will grab you within an hour.”
“You tried to kill Essie!”
“You’re not going to hold that against me, are you? I failed. So now go to plan B.”
“Not going to hold…” Florian spluttered in outrage.
“How safe?” Essie asked.
“No!” Florian shouted. “Absolutely not.”
“Ten years in preparation,” Roxwolf said. “But I want the files. I want to be able to protect myself from the Commonwealth fury you’re going to unleash on my kind.”
“So Fallers can fight back!” Florian said.
“To Uracus with them! I want the knowledge for me.”
“I can offer you a degree of protection,” Essie said.
“You can’t do that!” Florian said. “Not him.”
“I want the knowledge,” Roxwolf insisted.
“No!”
There was a tremendous bass thud that Florian felt as much as heard, and the ground juddered. A web of splits appeared in the wall around the vault door. Dust and flakes of stone snowed down from the vaulted ceiling. One of the pillars snapped with a violent crack, the bottom third shifting out of alignment. The lights flickered and went out as the waterwheel’s axis emitted a terminal metallic grinding. Small emergency bulbs in each corner came on, casting a pale yellow glow that left most of the hall in shadow.
“What the crud—?” Florian gasped.
“You were told the lounge was rigged with explosives,” Roxwolf said. “I wasn’t bluffing. Chaing and his team have set them off. Some stray bullets, no doubt.”
More flakes of stone fell from the ceiling. Florian noticed that Essie was wrapped snugly in the pale-violet glow again. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, but we need to get out. I can’t protect you as well.”
Roxwolf was heading toward the far end of the hall. “Last chance to make a deal, Florian.”
“Never!”
“Moron to the end.” He did something at the base of a pillar. A flagstone dropped out of the floor, and Roxwolf jumped into the hole it exposed.
A deep rumbling started somewhere above. Rivulets of gritty mortar poured down out of widening gaps.
“Quick!” Florian shouted. He gripped Essie’s hand tight and started to drag her along toward the hole in the floor.
She stumbled, crying out in pain. “Oh, crap, it hurts!”
Florian scooped her up and ran for it across the shuddering ground. The rumbling became a constant roar. Large lumps of stone rained down.
His enhanced eyesight revealed practically nothing below the hole. He jumped in, bending his knees, praying it wouldn’t be too far. Infrared gave him a brief glimpse of a gray surface that had to be the floor. He hit painfully, toppling to one side and letting go of Essie, who shrieked as she went tumbling. His legs were agony, and he was sure one ankle was cracked; the pain signals the exovision displayed were peaking. Nausea rose in his gullet.
“Essie?”
She groaned somewhere in the gloom. Infrared revealed her—a salmon glow, huddled on the floor a couple of meters away. Above them the hall collapsed. Debris plummeted down through the hole. Florian crawled desperately across the slimy ground, feeling stones hit his back. He curled around Essie to try to protect her. All he could think was that the hall’s floor would surely collapse, crushing them.
The cascade of rubble stopped. He looked up. All his infrared showed was an indistinct gray smear in every direction—except for the mound of debris that had come through the hole, which glowed a feeble amber. Dust swarmed up his nose and down his throat. He started coughing.
His u-shadow reported Essie was opening a link. “Don’t try to talk,” she sent. “Put some fabric over your mouth to breathe through. The dust density is getting dangerous in here.”
“Okay,” he sent back, and brought up a corner of the furry kaftan to wrap over his nose.
“We need to move. Ozzie knows how long this cellar will last. The whole house must have collapsed on top of us.”
“Okay. Where?”
“Just follow Roxwolf’s footprints.”
“How in Uracus do I do that?”
“Can’t you see them in infrared?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll feed you my vision.”
A small pink icon popped up in his exovision, and he allowed it to open. It showed him the cellar in grainy green-and-black detail. It was about two and a half meters high, with pillars in every direction like a forest of brick trunks. The viewpoint swung around, and he saw himself lying on the ground, kaftan over half his face. The picture wasn’t favorable. Another shift as she turned her head. And there on the dank floor was a series of dimming red patches snaking off into the distance.
“See them now?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Florian, I’m really sorry but can you help me again, please? My limbs are agony.”
“No problem.” He tried to stand. Pain shot up from his damaged ankle—pain so strong he had to open his mouth in a soundless shout, determined she shouldn’t know just how much he was hurting. Steeling himself, he hoisted her up, grimacing at the additional weight. Then he started tottering off, following the glimmering footprints.
He had to stop and lean against several pillars, steadying himself, building up the determination to overcome the pain every time. Then launching himself forward again, sometimes managing seven or eight steps before he had to rest again.
“Florian, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. The dust, and I picked up some bruises. That’s all.”
There was a wall ahead that was covered in a thick web of tough roots. The footprints led to a ragged gap. When Roxwolf had forced his way through, some of his body heat had transferred to the gnarled woody fronds. Essie’s superior infrared vision showed them flushed as if they were smoldering embers.
They had to duck down and squeeze their way past the clawing vertical thicket. The corridor on the other side was completely covered in the same roots, turning it into a knotty arboreal tunnel. The air was damp, but finally devoid of rubble dust. Roxwolf’s footsteps led straight for ten meters over the tangled cords before twisting off through another gap.
“We’re not going to catch him,” Essie said. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine,” he said, even as he faltered, his ankle giving way on the treacherous snarled surface.
“Let go of me,” she said.
“No.” He gritted his teeth and carried her another few meters before pitching forward onto his knees.
“Florian!”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“This is ridiculous. We can get into an underground culvert through that hole on the left. It has to be the main one under the road.”
“How do you know that?”
“Field function scan.”
Secondary routines produced the appropriate files. He dismissed them. Irrelevant.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I can break us out from there.”
“You can do what?”
“Come on, together now.”
He tried supporting her as best he could. They staggered forward, pressed against each other. No longer trying to hurry, just to minimize the discomfort.
It was a thin hole. Florian went first, pushing at the thicker roots, tearing the smaller lace-like filigrees.
The culvert was about three meters high and five wide. It must have been larger when it was built, but the original brickwork was smothered by the ubiquitous roots. Drains and sewers emptied into it through slimed apertures in the chaotic weave. Half a meter of water gurgled along the bottom.
Mostly water, he realized in disgust as his feet squelched down.
Essie wiggled through the hole, and he helped her lower herself down.
“Stay here,” she said, and shuffled forward a little. “Face away from me and curl up tight.”
“Why?”
Her force field came on.
“Oh.” Florian did as he was told.
There was a bright flash of light, and something exploded. The pressure wave sent Florian sprawling. Cold fetid water soaked into all his clothes.
“Hold on,” she said. “Another coming.”
He gripped one of the roots.
The second explosion slapped him hard. There was a colossal crashing sound, and sunlight was abruptly shining all around him. He turned to see a ragged hole in the apex of the culvert, with a pile of smoldering roots and rubble forming a steep ramp up to the surface.
They clambered up together, coming out in Midville Avenue about a hundred meters past the ruins of the Cameron club. Languid swirls of dust hazed the air, caged between the giant walwallow trees. A cluster of PSR officers were tending their wounded colleagues beside a line of smashed-up cars and vans. They were all staring at Florian and Essie. Standing slightly apart from the others, caked in ocher dust, his arm in a sling and wearing a black eye patch, Captain Chaing was pointing a trembling finger.
“Florian!” he bellowed.
Ry Evine had been impressed by how quickly the PSR arrived. After he phoned them from a grocery shop at the end of Midville Avenue, he’d parked the tuk-tuk in an alley near the club where he had a reasonable view. A position that gave him plenty of opportunity to leave fast if anyone spotted him.
The convoy arrived with the arrogance of all PSR operations, sirens wailing and lights flashing, demanding total priority from hapless citizens. And all Uracus erupted. Ry hit the ground fast as stray bullets zipped through the air. A couple struck the tenement on the corner of the alley, wheeeing away in ricochets. Then just as he peered around the corner again, there was a massive explosion. Nearby windows cracked. Walwallow branches flapped as if caught in a zephyr. He watched in stunned awe as the whole townhouse came tumbling down. Dust obscured most of the carnage. There was a lot of shouting.
He could hear sirens in the distance, getting louder. The dust thinned, revealing the bodies and their traumatized comrades.
Another dull crump of an explosion sent Ry cowering. It sounded close, but muffled somehow. He could feel the vibration through his boot soles, but there was no sign of a fireball anywhere. Then another detonation came, and ten meters away the middle of the road suddenly cratered down. It split open to reveal a deep pit. Dust jetted up.
Ry watched in trepidation as two figures clambered up out of the hole. He recognized Florian and the fleshy girl who’d been in the van with him earlier. Both of them were soaking wet and smeared in shit. Something was badly wrong; they didn’t seem able to stand up properly. The girl was sniveling as if she was in far too much pain for one so young.
“Florian!” Chaing shouted furiously. The PSR captain started to run forward.
Ry saw Florian thrust his hand out. A slender incandescent beam stabbed out from his dripping wrist and a big walwallow branch crashed down in front of Chaing, who had to fling himself out of the way.
Florian looked around wildly. Ry was close enough to see the desperation in his face. The rest of the PSR officers started to move. It was like watching the start of an avalanche.
“Need a lift?” Ry sent across the general band.
Florian and the girl turned to gape at him, and Ry smiled in mad exhilaration as he slung a leg over the tuk-tuk saddle and twisted the throttle. The little machine zoomed out into Midville Avenue and skidded around beside the fugitives. Behind him, the PSR officers were shouting in anger, pelting forward en masse.
“Zap more trees,” Ry yelled.
Three white beams flashed out simultaneously. Then three more. Branches smashed down, forcing the officers to scatter for safety.
Florian lifted the girl onto the tuk-tuk behind Ry. She groaned in distress as she flopped against Ry’s back. He could feel her whole body shaking. Then Florian was clinging to Ry, sandwiching the girl between them.
“Hold tight!” Ry gunned the throttle, sending the tuk-tuk angling across the road. There were gunshots behind. A bullet thudded into a walwallow trunk as they flashed past it, bumping up the curb and slaloming along the pavement. Ry jerked the handlebars hard, and they careered down an alley, more bullets slamming into the wall behind them. He turned again, then they were racing down one of the back roads, bursting out onto Tolsune Road with its busy traffic. A sheriff car swerved to avoid them, horn blaring. Ry could hear its brakes squealing.
“Take it out,” he yelled.
Florian raised his arm, and the beam punched through the sheriff car’s hood as it was in the middle of a U-turn.
“Where to?” Ry called out.
“I don’t know,” Florian replied. “Everyone’s hunting us. And who are you?”
“Ry Evine. Ex-astronaut. Pleased to meet you. I followed the alien spaceship here.”
“Crudding Uracus,” Florian grunted.
“Who’s she?”
“Essie. She’s from the Commonwealth, I think. Sort of.”
Vindication was the sweetest-ever feeling, Ry decided. “Is there a plan?”
“No. Sorry.”
Behind the tuk-tuk, the sirens were getting louder. With the wind blasting Ry’s face, the little machine felt as fast as a Silver Sword burning into orbit. Poor illusion, Ry thought; in truth, any sheriff car could catch it easily. And every sheriff car in the city was about to attempt just that.
Then the strongest link transmission he’d ever known broadcast a signal right into Ry’s macrocellular cluster.
“Talk about upsetting a warren of mad bussalores,” the general link announced. “You three have the city’s entire sheriff department heading your way.”
“Who is this?” Ry and Florian demanded together.
“The one person who can help you. Here.”
A file downloaded into Ry’s storage lacuna. It opened into his exovision, displaying a map.
“Head for Hawley Docks. I’m waiting there. And hurry. I’m listening to some very aggravated radio chatter.”
Ry studied the map. Hawley Docks was barely a kilometer away, a tiny green icon winking at one end of it. Red route guidance lines sprang out from their current position, snaking their way through the streets to it. His mirror showed him a sheriff car streaking out of a side road and curving around in pursuit. “Do I go for it?” he asked Florian.
“There’s nothing else.”
Ry dodged around some cars, ignoring the blast from their horns. Tuk-tuk drivers glared at him as he wove through them. Pedestrians were stopping to stare. Flashing red and blue lights filled the tuk-tuk’s wingmirrors as more sheriff cars joined the pursuit.
The route guidance led them off Tolsune Road, into Marine Drive. Ry followed it loyally. Marine Drive was the original thoroughfare to Hawley Docks. A wide road with rusting tramlines running down the center. Old merchant offices and warehouses loomed up on both sides, their windows boarded up, grass and long woody weeds sprouting from clogged gutters.
And it was completely deserted. The sheriff cars seized the moment and surged forward.
“Pull over,” a tannoy-boosted voice demanded over the howling sirens.
Two sheriff cars drew level with the tuk-tuk. Ry tried to turn the throttle farther, but it was already fully open. The cars actually began to pull ahead. He knew what was coming next: They’d box him in.
Florian shot the rear tire out of the one on the left. It veered sharply and began a skid. Then the other car was slowing. Ry could see the anger on the driver’s face.
A hundred and fifty meters ahead, a tall chain-link fence had been thrown across Marine Drive, sealing off the disused Hawley Docks. Sturdy gates in the middle were closed, a heavy padlocked chain holding them secure.
“Florian,” Ry shouted. “Gates!”
The beam took out the chain and padlock.
Ry couldn’t help it; he actually closed his eyes as the tuk-tuk smashed into the gates. He heard the front tire blow, and the handlebars were almost ripped from his grasp. The tuk-tuk wobbled forward on its bent wheel as the gates were shoved aside, and he regained control, throttling back drastically. His body was being shaken so violently he was worried he was going to fall off.
“What now?” he broadcast into the general link band.
“I see you,” the stranger replied. “Keep going.”
The exovision map showed him the green icon, two hundred meters ahead. He looked up. A pair of big cranes stood at the end of wharf three, their rusting arms drooping. The icon marked a spot between them.
A procession of sheriff cars poured through the open gates and spread out to form a line. They slowed, keeping level with one another to follow the damaged tuk-tuk as if herding an injured animal.
Cracked concrete and tufts of grass continued to punish the tuk-tuk as Ry drove it to the end of wharf three. He braked four meters from the edge, exactly where the icon glowed in his exovision.
In front of him and ten meters below, the deep muddy waters of the river Crisp flowed past wharf three. Yigulls flapped languidly overhead, squawking in complaint at their usual peace being wrecked by the massive intrusion of sheriff cars.
“But there’s nothing here,” Florian said.
Jenifa drove. Chaing didn’t complain about that; his cast meant he wasn’t able. But he did want to shout at her to drive faster, despite how unfair that was. Wind shrieked through the Cubar. Bullets and the explosion had taken out all the glass; he seemed to be sitting on half of the shards. The front tire was getting progressively flatter, and something had happened to the stalwart engine. It was misfiring constantly, sending little gouts of flame belching from the exhaust.
Despite all that, she kept her nerve, steering perfectly around the traffic that had stalled in the wake of the pursuit, even overtaking a couple of the sheriff cars as they turned into Marine Drive.
Up ahead, the white beam weapon struck the gates.
Chaing thumbed the button on his microphone. “We’ve got him; there’s no way out of the docks. Spread out and block him. Don’t overtake, just corner him. And don’t get too close.”
They drove into Hawley Docks and joined the rank of sheriff cars advancing along wharf three. He watched the juddering tuk-tuk come to a halt between the two rusting cranes.
“Stop here,” he ordered. “Cover the targets. Do not shoot. Repeat, do not shoot. They are to be taken alive.”
Jenifa stopped the Cubar. Chaing climbed out. On either side, sheriffs were crouching behind their cars, aiming pistols, carbines, and shotguns on their trapped quarry sixty meters ahead. A second batch of patrol cars halted behind the first; more guns were lined up.
“Make crudding sure no one gets overexcited,” he instructed Jenifa.
“Got it.”
He turned to face Florian and held his good arm up. “I’m coming over,” he announced clearly. “Unarmed. I only want to talk.”
Very conscious of just how many guns were deployed behind him, he walked slowly forward. Ry Evine was standing beside the tuk-tuk. The little Commonwealth girl was slumped in the saddle, with Florian holding her.
“It’s finished,” Chaing said. “You understand that, don’t you?” He kept walking, only fifty meters short of them now. “That’s an amazing weapon you have, Florian, but look what you’re facing. And I’ve got reinforcements coming. I can bring the whole crudding Opole Regiment down here, if that’s what it takes. So why don’t you just come with me? Nobody’s going to hurt you. You have my word on that.”
Forty meters. Close enough to see the anguish and uncertainty on Florian’s grimy face.
Chaing smiled. “Come on. What do you say?”
The Warrior Angel rose up from nowhere at the end of wharf three and stepped onto the decrepit concrete. Dark leather coat open to flutter behind her in the breeze, hat at an angle. Exactly the same as she’d appeared at Xander Manor. Long red hair rippled gently as she walked toward the three startled fugitives.
“I say they’re with me, Captain,” she said.
Chaing whirled around to face the shaken sheriffs. “Hold your fire,” he demanded. The memory of the Warrior Angel’s weapons, the slaughter she could unleash, was chilling him to the bone. And the sheriffs were abruptly, shockingly confronted with the nemesis of myth. It would only take one petrified, trigger-happy kid…“Do not shoot. Put your weapons down. Down! Now!”
And Jenifa was shouting, too. Ordering them to stand down.
Chaing turned back to face the Warrior Angel. “What’s happening?” he implored.
She was going to talk to him, to explain, he was sure of it. Then he saw her frown, her face hardening. He followed her gaze and saw two sheriffs lifting a long tube out of their patrol car’s trunk. Bazooka! “No!” he yelled, and started to run. “No, no! Stand down. Do not fire!” Other sheriffs were turning to stare. Jenifa was yelling at the two mavericks. But Chaing could see they weren’t listening, faces rigid with determination. One of them knelt, the bazooka resting on his shoulder—leveling it at the Warrior Angel.
“No!”
The bazooka fired. Chaing saw the explosion bloom. It surged wide across an invisible wall that materialized around the tuk-tuk, flame and thick black smoke churning ineffectually three meters away from a cowering Florian.
It was strange. He witnessed the whole scene unfolding, but there was no sound. He was flying back through the air, arms and legs flailing, yet he felt nothing. Then the ground descended on him, and there was only blackness.
Glass from the windscreens of the patrol cars shattered in a blizzard of shards. Jenifa was knocked off her feet by the blast as the tiny crystalline splinters scythed through the air. Several of them sliced through her uniform to slash her skin.
A mushroom of flame and smoke surged up into the sky where the bazooka shell had detonated. She squinted, trying to bring the world back into focus. The Warrior Angel was carrying the girl, while Florian was leaning on Ry Evine for support. They walked to the end of wharf three and jumped off.
Jenifa groaned. Every part of her ached. Her ears were ringing painfully. Around her, sheriffs were clambering to their feet. She blinked, seeing Chaing’s prone body lying on the concrete. His left leg was bent at an impossible angle. “Oh, great Giu,” she moaned, and slowly stood up.
“We need an ambulance,” she announced, but no one paid any attention.
Angry, frightened shouting broke out. She turned, seeing the sheriff who was still holding the bazooka. The glass swarm had cut his face, leaving blood to run down his cheek. Blue blood.
Jenifa snatched her pistol up and started firing—her and ten other sheriffs. Pulling the trigger again and again and again until the pistol was empty. The two Fallers bucked and juddered as the bullets ripped into them, then toppled to the ground. Sheriffs gathered around, pistols pointing down at the dead bodies, still cautious. Everybody was looking around, hunting for anyone else with blue blood leaking from a cut.
Jenifa hurried over to Chaing. A bone was sticking up out of his left leg, just above the knee, but he was still breathing. Medic-trained sheriffs arrived and started to sort out the leg. An ambulance was on its way, they assured her.
When she looked around she saw the abandoned tuk-tuk, completely unharmed by the bazooka. She walked to the end of wharf three, where she’d seen the Warrior Angel disappear, and peered over.
There was nothing there, no boat, nobody swimming. Just the calm brown water of the Crisp flowing smoothly past the disused docks. “Impossible,” she whispered.
The submarine’s cabin was small, about the same size as the inside of a car, but with much more elaborate chairs. Florian sat in one, looking around with a goofy, delighted smile lifting his lips. A submarine! The Warrior Angel! Great Giu, Essie will finally be safe.
The Warrior Angel was bending over Essie, applying a small green hemisphere to the side of her neck. Essie let out a long sigh of relief.
“Thank you,” Florian said. “For everything.”
The Warrior Angel turned to him. “I think that ankle of yours could do with some medical help, too. And then a shower—big priority for you there.”
He smiled shyly. “Yes, but don’t worry about me. I know how to operate a medical kit.”
“Really?”
“The space machine gave me copies of all its files when it asked me to protect Essie.”
“So, let me get this straight. A Commonwealth spaceship just dropped out of the sky one day and asked you for help?”
“Um, well…Yes.”
“Ha! I had a day like that myself, once. Long time ago.”
“You did?”
“Yep.” She winked and dropped a medical kit box on his lap—a larger version of the one the space machine had given him. “I’ll leave it to your expertise, then, while I concentrate on getting us out of here.”
“Where are we going?” Ry Evine asked.
“Port Chana,” the Warrior Angel told him. “You’ll be perfectly safe there with me.”
Florian stuck a diagnostic pad on his badly swollen ankle. Even that featherlight touch was painful. Results zipped across his exovision. He selected a series of treatments for the medical kit to produce. “Essie, sweetheart, how are you doing?”
Essie gave him a sad little smile. She reached up and slowly peeled the shriveled memory organ from the side of her head. It left a nasty-looking weal on her skin. “I’m sorry, Florian. I know you meant well, but that’s not actually my name.”
“Oh. What is your name, then?”
“Paula Myo.”