CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EMBERS
KAT KNEW STRAIGHT away that she didn’t have much time. Standing in the airlock of the Ameline, she could see greasy black smoke belching from the site of the crashed starship debris. It had been a big ship, probably a container carrier of some sort. Sliced apart and half-vaporised by the Dho weapon, fragments of the vessel had fallen to the ground, ploughing into the desert that covered most of the planet’s solitary supercontinent, flaming like meteors. By the time she’d followed them down, huge tracts of scrubland were already ablaze. Now, surveying the impact crater from a dozen kilometres away, with her eyes on full magnification, she could make out grain-sized specks of red in the smoke: clumps of infected matter from the ship riding the hot air like embers, using the updraught to spread themselves across the landscape.
Embers on the wind.
This was exactly what she’d been trying to prevent. From bitter experience, she knew the specks contained tightly-packed clusters of aggressive nanomachinery. Where they landed, the ground turned red. Spreading stains of wine-coloured destruction bloomed as the tiny machines ate into the surface of the planet, turning rock and dust into more machines, exponentially swelling their numbers.
The ship had been a seed pod: its systems hijacked by the contagion, its hold full of seething red nanomachines ready to split the hull and burst forth in an orgy of destruction.
Kat felt her lips harden. Her little fleet might rescue a couple of thousand people; but there was nothing she could do for the rest of the population. She was five light years from the Bubble Belt. By the time she jumped there and came back, a whole decade would have passed, and this world would have fallen. She thought of the tortured, wailing minds she’d encountered during her own brush with The Recollection; of her mother, pinned like a butterfly in its virtual storage spaces, with nothing to look forward to but an eternity of torment.
She turned back into the familiar confines of the Ameline.
“We should have been quicker,” she said.
In her mind, she heard the Ameline’s reply.
> WE HIT THAT SHIP WITH EVERYTHING WE HAD. THERE WASN’T ANYTHING ELSE WE COULD HAVE DONE.
“We could have rammed it.”
> AND WHAT WOULD THAT HAVE ACHIEVED? IT WAS TOO BIG. IT WOULD HAVE FLATTENED US AND KEPT RIGHT ON GOING.
“I know, but still.”
> THIS IS A WAR, AND WE’RE LOSING. CASUALTIES ARE INEVITABLE.
“We should be doing more.”
> THE FREIGHTERS WILL RESCUE SOME OF THE POPULATION.
“A tiny fraction.”
> BETTER THAN NONE.
She let out a long sigh. This was the third world she’d seen fall to The Recollection. First Djatt, then Inakpa, then her home world of Strauli. Now this place, New Cordoba.
Just another apocalypse.
Before it arrived at Djatt, The Recollection had been drifting through space for thousands of years, the relic of an ancient and long-forgotten alien war. Now it had access to human ships, it could spread unstoppably from world to world, consuming everything it touched. And all humanity could do was fall back.
As the airlock door slid closed behind her, she turned for one last glimpse of the redness spreading across the land, the widening circles meeting and merging, growing with obscene haste. She’d seen this happen before. With nothing to stop it, she knew the infection would cover the entire surface of the globe within days.
There was nothing she could do.
Except...
She gripped the gun.
“Take me to Vilca,” she said.
THE AMELINE DROPPED onto the desert sand a dozen metres from the edge of the canyon, directly above Vilca’s compound. The old ship came down with a whine of engines and a hot blast of dirt. As the landing struts settled and the engines whined into silence, Kat unhooked herself from the pilot’s chair and made her way down the ladder that led to the rest of the ship’s interior.
At the foot of the ladder, opposite the door of her cabin, the ship’s locker held a rack of weaponry picked up on half a dozen different worlds. She reached up and pulled a twelve-gauge shotgun from the wall. It was a gas-powered model, fully automatic and drum-loaded, capable of delivering three hundred flesh-shredding rounds per minute. She hefted it in one hand, resting the stock on her hip as she picked up a couple of extra magazines and pushed them into her thigh pocket.
> I HOPE YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON DOING ANYTHING STUPID.
“Define stupid.”
WEAPON AT THE ready, Kat stepped from the bottom of the Ameline’s cargo ramp. Her boots crunched into the coarse desert sand. Tough little grass tufts poked through here and there, stirring in the thin, scouring wind. Overhead, the sun burned blue and hot. Ahead, the canyon lay ragged and raw like a claw mark in the skin of the world; and over the lip, Vilca’s compound.
She took three quick steps to the edge and looked down. As she’d expected, a metal fire escape led down to an armoured door in the side of the building. A razor wire gate blocked the top of the staircase. She considered cutting her way through; then decided it wasn’t worth the bother. The people inside must know she was here. They would have heard the Ameline set down, and they were sure to be watching her, even if she couldn’t see any cameras.
She held the shotgun across her chest and raised her chin.
“I’m here to see Vilca,” she said.
A minute later, she heard the sound of scraping bolts. The heavy door hinged open. A gun appeared from behind it, clutched in the fists of a young kid gaunt with malnourishment.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Katherine Denktash Abdulov, of the Strauli Abdulovs, and I am here to request an audience with your esteemed Capo, the Right Honourable Lord Vilca.”
Beneath the rim of his cap, suspicion screwed the kid’s face into a wary scowl.
“Huh?”
Kat sighed. Young people today... She licked her lips, and then tried again.
“Take me to your leader,” she said. The kid’s eyes scanned the canyon’s lip, alert for treachery.
“You alone?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her shotgun, then down at the pistol in his hand, transparently calculating the difference in their relative value and firepower.
“You’ll have to give me your weapon.”
Kat shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
The kid scowled. “Give me the shotgun or I won’t take you to Vilca.”
She looked him up and down: just another armed street thug with bad teeth and delusions of competence. A few years ago she would have been intimidated; now she couldn’t care less. She cleared her throat.
“You saw my ship land?”
The kid’s eyes narrowed further. “Yeah.”
Kat took a step closer to the razor wire gate.
“You saw its fusion motors?”
The barest nod.
“They spew out star fire, son. That’s fourteen zillion degrees centigrade. What do you think will happen if I let them hover over your little citadel?”
Behind her, she heard the Ameline’s engines whine into life. The ship was monitoring her conversation via her neural implant, and this was its idea of theatrics. Suppressing a smile, Kat took another step forward, so that her stomach pressed up against the spikes on the wire gate. At the same time, she brought the shotgun to bear, pointing the barrel at the bridge of the kid’s nose.
“Open up,” she growled. The kid’s eyes went wide. He knew he was out of his depth. He looked at her, then over her shoulder at the rising wedge of the Ameline. She saw him swallow. Without taking his eyes from the looming ship, he reached for a button inside the door and the gate drew back. Kat stepped forward, shotgun now pointed at his midriff.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Faro.”
She raised a finger and waggled it, telling him to turn around.
“Never try to out-negotiate a trader, Faro.”
FARO LED HER down a set of pleated metal steps. His trainers dragged on each stair. She kept the shotgun trained on the small of his back.
“How old are you?” she asked. He didn’t answer. His vest and jeans hung off him, several sizes too large for his half-starved junkie frame.
“Down ’ere,” he muttered.
At the foot of the steps was an iron door. Beyond that, a poorly carpeted corridor that stank of incense. Faro flapped an arm at a pair of rough pine doors that formed the corridor’s far end.
“Vilca’s office.”
Kat gave him a prod with the shotgun barrel.
“Why don’t you knock for me?” She followed him to the doors. “Go on,” she said.
Faro tapped reluctant knuckles against the wood. From inside, a voice called: “What is it?” Faro glanced back at Kat, his eyes wide, unsure what to do. She nudged him in the kidney with the tip of the shotgun.
“Open the door,” she suggested.
Inside, the office was as rough and raw as the rest of the building, but the rugs on the floor were thicker and newer than elsewhere, and there were curtains at the windows. A heavy-set bald man sat behind a scuffed steel desk.
“I said I wasn’t to be disturbed. Who the devil are you?”
Kat took Faro by the shoulder and pushed him aside. She drew herself up.
“My name is Katherine Denktash Abdulov, master of the trading vessel Ameline and scion of the Strauli Abdulovs. Are you Earl Vilca?”
The fat man frowned.
“You’re a trader?”
Kat lowered the shotgun so that the barrel pointed at the floor.
“As I said, I represent the Abdulov trading family.”
The man eased back in his chair. He gave her an appraising look.
“And what can I do for you, Miss Abdulov?”
Kat took a pace towards the desk.
“That’s Captain Abdulov, and you have a friend of mine. I want him released.”
Vilca chuckled. He folded his hands over the bulge of his stomach. Gold rings glistened on his sausage-like fingers.
“Very good,” he said approvingly. “I do so like a woman who comes straight to the point.”
According to the profile the Ameline had been able to piece together from information retrieved from the local Grid, Earl Vilca was one of the most powerful men on Nuevo Cordoba. His operation dealt in drugs, prostitution and extortion. He had politicians and high-ranking police officers in his pocket, and a seemingly endless supply of teenage muscle. On a world of high-piled shanties and meagre mushroom harvests, he lived like a king. But when Kat looked down at him, all she saw was a white, bloated parasite: a puffed-up hoodlum in a cheaply-fabbed suit.
“I know who you are, and what you are,” she said. “And I’m not impressed. So if you’d be kind enough to release Napoleon Jones, I’ll be on my way.”
On the opposite side of the desk, Vilca pursed his lips. He drummed his fingers against his belt buckle.
“Jones, eh? Well, well, well.” He shook his head with a smile. “You’ve come bursting in here to rescue Napoleon Jones? He’s nothing but a two-bit hustler. What do you want with him?”
Kat gripped the shotgun.
“As I said, he’s a friend.”
Vilca narrowed his eyes. He ran his tongue across his bottom lip. Then he sat forward, hands resting on the desk.
“All right, Captain. I’ll make you a trade. Jones for some information.”
“What kind of information?”
The fat man waved his hand at the sky.
“I hear things. Rumours. Shipments have disappeared. Scheduled deliveries from Strauli have not arrived. Ships are overdue.”
Kat felt her pulse quicken. She knew where this was going and she didn’t have time to waste playing games.
“Strauli has fallen,” she said bluntly. “Inakpa, Djatt and probably several others.”
Vilca blinked at her.
“Fallen?”
“Gone, destroyed. No more.”
The man’s brows drew together. He plainly didn’t believe her.
“I am serious, Captain. I have been losing money—”
Kat stepped right up to the desk and glared down at him.
“They’re gone.”
“Gone?” Vilca’s cheeks flushed. His fingers brushed his lower lip. “But what could do such a thing?”
Kat used her implant to signal the Ameline.
“I’ve asked my ship to download all the information we have to the local Grid. See for yourself. It’s all tagged with the key word ‘Recollection’.”
Vilca gave her a long look. He was getting flustered.
“Go on,” she said. “Check it out. I’ll wait here.”
“No tricks?”
Kat nodded in the direction of Faro, still cowering in the corner of the room.
“Your boy here can keep an eye on me.”
Vilca looked up and to the right, accessing the cranial implant that connected him to the vast cloud of data that formed the planetary Grid. Kat stood watching him. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other. After a few seconds, she saw the colour drain from his cheeks. She knew what he was seeing. She’d seen it herself firsthand: the destruction of Djatt, the boiling red cloud that seemed to emerge from the fabric of space itself, closing like a fist around the planet.
His eyes snapped back into focus.
“Madre de Dios.”
“Quite.”
“What can we do?”
“Give me Jones.”
Vilca’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What’s to stop me killing you and using your ship to escape?”
Kat hefted the shotgun.
“You try to kill me and I’ll use my ship’s fusion exhaust to scour this canyon back to the bedrock.”
Vilca gave a snort. He seemed to have recovered his composure.
“You wouldn’t. You’re not the type.”
Kat leaned toward him.
“Check the data, Vilca. Look at the fall of Strauli Quay.”
“Strauli...?”
The man’s eyes flicked away for a second.
“You fired on the Quay?”
Kat set her jaw. “I had no choice.”
“But there were more than a million—”
She raised her shotgun, pointing the barrel at his chest.
“Do you still think I’m bluffing?”
Vilca swallowed. She could see a damp sheen on his bald pate. After a moment, he let his shoulders slump.
“All right,” he said. “You win. Faro, would you please fetch Mister Jones?”
Kat realised she’d stepped too close to Vilca’s desk. She hadn’t kept track of the boy. As she turned, she saw him raise his gun. Her finger yanked the trigger. The shotgun jumped in her hand. Faro jerked backward, chest shredded by three rapid-fire blasts. She turned back to Vilca, and caught the fat man in the act of reaching for the pistol in his desk drawer. She fired into the surface of the desk and he jerked his hand back, eyes wide.
“Okay, that’s enough!”
Kat’s pulse battered in her head. She didn’t know if she was angry with Vilca, Faro or herself.
“Get Jones up here, right now!”
Vilca knew he had been defeated. He sent an order via his implant. Moments later, a pair of wide-eyed teenagers brought Napoleon Jones to the door. They were half-carrying him. He couldn’t walk by himself. They looked down at Faro’s smoking corpse and turned questioning eyes on their boss. Vilca waved them away with a flap of his meaty paw.
“These people are leaving,” he said.
Kat looked at Jones. His arm and leg were bandaged. His coat was torn. The antique goggles still hung around his neck.
“Kat?”
“I’ve got a ship up top. We’re leaving.”
Jones shook his head, as if trying to clear it. He’d been beaten. His lips and eyes were swollen; his moustache caked with dried blood.
“What about Vilca?”
The man behind the desk looked up at him.
“You should not have come back, señor. People love a daredevil because they are always awaiting his death. If he lives too long, well,” he spread his hands, “they become resentful.”
Kat pulled on Napoleon’s sleeve.
“Leave him. He knows it’s all over.” She picked Faro’s pistol from the dead boy’s fingers.
“What’s over?”
“His little empire.” She glared at the fat man. “This whole planet.”
Vilca put his head in his hands.
“Go now,” he said.
Kat put an arm around Napoleon and he leaned his weight on her shoulder. They backed out of the room. When they reached the door at the far end of the corridor, the one that led to the roof, Vilca raised his head.
“Captain?” he said, his voice hoarse.
Kat paused.
“Yes?”
“What can we do? About The Recollection, I mean.”
She took a deep breath. She owed him nothing. Further down the canyon, the freighters were filling their holds with refugees. She’d done all she could.
She looked him in the eye.
“Pray it doesn’t take you alive.”
WITH GREAT EFFORT, Katherine helped Jones up the metal stairs. When they got to the surface, it was snowing. Blood red flakes fell from an otherwise clear and empty sky, whirling around on the warm air rising up from the canyon.
“Oh hell.” The outbreak had spread faster than she’d expected. Using her implant, she told the Ameline to warm the engines. If they hurried, they might still have a chance.
“Come on, Jones.” His arm lay draped across her shoulders. She gripped it and pushed upwards with her legs, taking as much of his weight as she could.
> TOO LATE.
Ahead, at the lip of the canyon, a scarlet slick covered the Ameline’s upper surfaces.
“No!”
One of the red flakes stuck against her right thigh. Another hit the back of her hand. She looked at Jones. He already had half a dozen in his hair, more against his shoulders and back.
“Damn it.” She let go of his arm and brushed at her trousers. For each flake she dislodged, another three attached themselves. Where they touched her skin, she felt a sting like the bite of a tiny insect. Her movements became more frantic, but to no avail.
No, it can’t end like this...
She thrashed impotently at the storm, trying desperately to brush herself clean. As the blizzard intensified, she lost sight of her ship, lost touch with Jones. All she could feel were a thousand needle-like stings all over her body; all she could think of were the millions of dead on Strauli Quay; and all she could see were bright red sparks—billions of them, shredding and consuming her limbs, roaring through her head and heart like a fire. Reducing her every cell to ash and embers.
Embers on the wind.