8

More Tea, Vicar? was a retro bar on the north side of Bermondsey Square run by a former galactic smuggler and her extended family. Forty years ago it had been the last classic pie and mash caff in London, but the people who’d eaten there had gradually moved away or died. Newcomers did not understand a solid meat pie, lumpy mashed potato, and parsley gravy made with flour and the water used to boil eels. Gliese and Cancri, yes, but that was just too alien. They did not like to feel that a dying elephant had moved into their lower bowels. The caff was sold. Now it was artfully, some would say archly, decorated like an old-fashioned English tea room, all chintz and black oak-style compound wood. There was a bar. There were tables with comfortable chairs. More Tea, Vicar? was also a thieves’ den, and it didn’t stop at thieves. Just as there were Official and Unofficial Assassins, so too there were licensed and unlicensed criminals. And EarthCent decided who got the licences.

You couldn’t stop crime. So it was better to accept it, control it and let criminals police themselves, keeping out the riff-raff who gave crime a bad name. No guilds or associations. They were tried but within a matter of hours there were breakaways, splinter groups and blood was spilt. There was demarcation, though. A licensed pickpocket might not steal from a house. A licensed confidence trickster would be unwise to try mugging. Licensed shoplifters did not engage in prostitution. In fact, few people did. These days anyone could enjoy the full simulity experience, complete with Fresh-Clean body-form suit offering one thousand senso-matic pleasure points and the vagina or penis or both of your dreams. People had been known to die in there.

But you would find none of these criminals at More Tea, Vicar?

At the Vic, as it was known to its members, you only found corporate criminals who dealt in information. Mercenaries and Official Assassins who dealt in death. Those who bankrolled drug dealers. Smugglers of entire factories. Dealers in bootleg alien tech. Visiting warlords. Those involved in galactic activities that were not so much illegal – there was no law in space, and it changed from colony planet to colony planet – but obviously, achingly wrong. It was said that on any given night there were enough people in the Vic with the skills to take over a small city state, and probably a couple planning to do it. There was an understanding of how far any one individual or group could go. Ignore it, and an Official Assassin, perhaps someone you met and drank with at the Vic, would kill you. Ostensibly hired by a competitor but, as Kara Jones now understood, yet another set of strings pulled by GalDiv.

She wondered if knowing the truth might shadow her eyes into a thousand-light-year stare. Customers at the Vic were astute and always watchful.

* * *

Kara arrived just after 10:30. The square had been filled with sunshine since dawn and the locals were smiling. Kara had heard that the square once hosted the last of the assumed provenance markets, the Caledonian marché ouvert, where anything bought between sunset and sunrise legally belonged to the purchaser, even if it had been stolen only hours before. The market had been closed in 1995 but a cheerful, fuck-you attitude to authority still survived. The Vic’s original art deco windows now smiled benignly on the foremost street market for alien and off-world artefacts and curiosities. People came from all over to buy and deal, for each objet had an official provenance certifying it authentic, from the World Association of Collectors and Dealers. The market was a major employer, for upwards of five hundred highly skilled local people produced most of the alien and off-world objets for sale. WACAD existed on paper and nowhere else. Any street market in collectibles was always a triumph of hope and passion over reality.

A dozen or so people sat or stood inside the Vic. Some dunked croissants from the local boulangerie into coffee made from beans farmed on a planet seventy-six light years away. Others sipped espresso with grappa, Calvados or cognac. The beans were genuine, the boulanger French, all liquor from the Wild, which always produced the very best. People who lived by violence, deceit and general mayhem insisted their comforts be authentic. Everyone was smartly dressed; nobody would be out of place in any upmarket bar or restaurant. People who went to the Vic always dressed up. After all, it might be their last time there, for every customer was wanted by one city state or another. There were no civilians. If one walked in they were ignored by customers and staff alike. If they remained, someone would hit them.

As if a trumpet had sounded, all glanced at the door as Kara walked in. She paused, uncertain. Then heard the first smack of palm against palm, saw them all stand as they applauded. It had to be for that last trip Up. But how could they know?

> Did you call ahead?

< Some of these AIs are my friends.

> You told them about the last few weeks?

< No need. They already knew.

Duty done, they went back to whatever they had been doing before. Kara searched for an individual she knew instead of merely recognised, and thankfully saw one.

* * *

“GalDiv isn’t as secure as it thinks,” Bel Drovo (fresh from liberating the much-liberated city-state of Khartoum) said. “Most of the Folk know you did something special Up there.” Bel was a powerfully built, handsome woman in her forties: skin soft and tan, like old leather; black eyes that would sympathise even as she took away your future; a warm voice with a hint of “fuck off to hell” about it; and black crew-cut hair with a single silver stripe. Bel and Kara had known each other for years.

Bel led Kara to a corner table. “Not too early for a champagne cocktail?”

Kara shrugged. “Always a sun going down on humanity somewhere. So what did you hear?”

The Folk had the bare bones. Kara rescuing pilgrims from aliens – an unprecedented feat of space navigation, leadership and berserker spirit.

“That’s the sum,” Kara admitted. “But GalDiv put a gag on me.”

“They mess with your AI? Listening to us now?” The tone was light but her eyes cold.

Kara shook her head. “Still have autonomy. Check for yourself.” And she told her AI to be open when Bel’s AI came visiting.

Bel held Kara’s gaze for moment then smiled. “My AI says it’s all okay.” The smile deepened. “Seems like they had a good visit.” AI to AI interaction was usually in the milliseconds. This one had lasted a full second, at least an hour by human time.

Kara did not believe, did not want to believe that AIs had personal lives. One reason why she’d never given hers a name. “Mine’s such a tart,” she said lightly. “It’ll compare prime numbers with anyone.”

< You have no idea, Kara’s AI said in her head, < I need to smoke a virtual joss.

“What’s funny?” Bel wanted to know.

“It’s an AI thing.”

One of the Vic’s famously three-brass-monkey anonymous waiters brought their drinks. Vintage Krug, cognac, unrefined sugar cube and the merest hint of angostura.

“Here’s to you,” Bel said, raising her glass. “One of the prettier heroes.”

“Cheers.” The drink fizzed with possibilities. “That’s so good. Pretty?”

“I meant sexier. You knew that.” Bel had never made a secret of her feelings for Kara. Which were heavily sexual with some admiration and respect – more now – and even genuine liking.

For Kara’s part Bel was undoubtedly attractive but not her type. Kara preferred more compliant women as sexual partners, just as she preferred more dominant men. The contradiction, if it was one, didn’t bother her. Whatever works, works. But now she needed information and might need an ally. Bel was a leader amongst the Folk. “Still sexy? After all this time?” The door was part open.

“Five years and a few months since you walked in the door. We’d never seen anyone so openly lethal. Thank fuck you learned to hide it.” She finished her drink in one swallow and signalled for two more. “What you can’t hide, girl, is that shadow in your eyes. You leave something Up there?”

Kara looked around the bar, uncertain what to say. Then saw a man who reminded her of Joe Morris, the old spacer who’d jumped naked into netherspace because it was calling to him, and immediately switched back to Bel. “You ever been Up?”

“Free spacer for six years,” Bel said. “I thought you knew.”

Kara shook her head. “You’re a Wilder?”

“Born and bred. But too damn quiet for me. You didn’t answer.”

Kara finished her drink in time to accept the second from the waiter. A smooth transition of tumblers that made her feel strangely proud, like a child who’s performed well before adults. “Netherspace freaked me a bit.”

“Does us all. What are you here for, Kara? Not for praise, you don’t give a shit about that.” She sounded more curious than concerned. “Not relaxing after a contract either, I know the signs. So what?”

“I’m interested in an organisation, Bel. Earth Prim—” and that was as far as she got before Bel’s hand closed hard around her wrist.

“Not here!” Bel hissed, then, “Smile like we’re lovers.”

Kara retrieved her hand and gently stroked Bel’s cheek.

“You gonna tell me?” “You gonna fuck?”

“I’ve nothing else planned.” What the hell. She could do with the release.

“My place, five minutes away.” She took Kara’s hand to her lips.

Kara slowly smiled. “Okay.” She finished her second drink in one.

They left the Vic to good-natured and ribald comments from the Folk at the bar. Kara wriggled her bottom at them, and Bel wriggled her fingers in the air. Never too early for champagne cocktails, never too early for sex. They sat close in the jitney, Kara aware of Bel’s warmth and faint scent, like tropical flowers after the rain. Still not her type, though, so think of this as working…

… The thought vanished as Bel turned Kara’s face to hers. The kiss was light, lips barely parted, and when Kara didn’t pull away became fierce and demanding. So not how I expected! Kara thought as their tongues played together. She loved how Bel’s hands cupped her face. Her arms snaked around Bel’s neck. And then there was something she had to say, from the depths of her soul. She pulled away and looked into Bel’s eyes.

“You got me,” Kara said. “I surrender.” She told herself that sex with Bel was necessary to learn about Earth Primus and its religious allies. But the excited tremors zithering through her body suggested that she’d do it anyway. And oh the joy of surrender.

There were no more words spoken. Not when the jitney stopped at Bel’s apartment block, overlooking the Thames near Tower Bridge. Nor as they rode the elevator to the penthouse. Nor when Kara discovered that Bel’s proud body was as powerful as it was curvy, no sagging. She had no pubic hair either; instead an elaborate tattoo that sparkled in the light. There were no words as Bel picked Kara up and carried her to bed. Then only sighs and gasps and moans as Kara was dominated and ridden to the first explosive orgasm, her own words echoing in her warrior’s mind, “I surrender! I surrender!” and she saw again the granite outcrop called Haytor, pulsing with colour in time with her own shuddering body.

Words came a little later. With the expert use of various sex toys, Bel took Kara to the edge of orgasm, again and again, until Kara lost all sense of self, could only cry out, “Please! Please!” and Bel paused again to stare, eyes now as sparkling as her tattoo, at Kara writhing beneath her.

“Who owns you, Kara?”

Kara knew. “You do, Bel.”

Bel smiled and brought them both to an orgasm that seemed to last forever. Whatever happened in the future, Kara would never forget those words. Some part of her would always belong to Bel.

* * *

“That was unexpected,” Kara said, lying snuggled into Bel’s side. Cool wind from the river breathed lightly on her skin. She was more relaxed than she had been in weeks, months, maybe even years. And they’d only been in bed for a little over an hour.

“I’ve wanted you ever since we first met,” Bel said, stroking Kara’s hair “But never thought it would be as good as this.”

Kara smiled against Bel’s skin. “Don’t tell your friends. I’ve got a reputation for being mean. Controlled.” She giggled. “Not controllable.” She decided that dominant or dominated both worked well with another woman. But it could only be a dominant man. Doubtless this suggested something dark about her character, but – as she stretched lazily then rose to a kneeling position – who gave a fuck?

“I need to give you something,” she said, staring down at Bel. “Legs wide, woman.”

Kara had Bel groaning for release in under ten minutes. It happened not as the act of a slave, but the gift of a woman back in control.

“About Earth Primus?” Kara asked. They were sitting, dressed and relaxed with each other, on the balcony overlooking the river. It was a hell of a view. Tower Bridge to the left, an all-yacht marina to the front. Behind and beyond were the crazed roofs and towers of the City, where the galactic banking AIs hung out, along with their human colleagues. New York City had wanted them but one of the AIs proclaimed that baseball lacked worldwide appeal, so that was that. “And why the secrecy back at the Vic?”

“You were Up when the bug hit,” Bel said. “Not many people know about it, even now. It only seems to affect Folk AIs. The virus makes it impossible for an AI to remember anything about Primus. It can’t even recognise the name. They just don’t exist. My house nerd said the virus was different somehow. Like, all other programming to do with AIs follows certain rules, something to do with the basic quantum state. My nerd said the virus felt human-developed, though. But it used a mathematics he vaguely remembered hearing about at university, something very obscure and complex. Anyway, the virus is entwined with the AI, and you can’t take it out without harming the AI. My nerd traced the bug back to a squalid little code-shop in Peckham. Apparently there was no attempt to hide the trail. So some of the Folk had a word with the owner, who said he was paid to send the bug to a group of AIs. It went through the firewalls like they were coffee foam. When asked who paid him, he couldn’t remember. Nor could his own AI. I mean, he really couldn’t. His own brain had been fixed somehow.”

“Hold on,” Kara said. “Why didn’t whoever’s responsible delete the owner’s memory? I mean, that’s crap security.”

“Because they wanted him found. How many code-shops are there in the city states and off-world? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? They’re telling us they can attack from anywhere. Lots of people think a cyber attack needs laboratories and fancy equipment. It doesn’t. And that’s where we are today: wondering what the hell to do next. Because that’s a warning, right? Stay away from Primus or you get fucked. I mean, they could probably wipe an entire AI – and ours have gotten very nervous. They can probably wipe our own minds, too.” She shook her head. “So what’s your interest?”

“In a moment. Why you guys? Why the Folk?”

Bel was briefly silent. “Okay, but this goes no further, right? Some of the Folk thought Primus could be a good earner, and were considering moving in. Primus is behind some of these crazy religious groups, you know? There was nothing firmed up; it was only at the research stage. But the bastards found out. Why the interest?”

“This also goes no further?” She waited for Bel to nod. “Okay. GalDiv had a major breach. Primus could be involved. That’s it.”

“You working for the man now?”

“They didn’t give me much choice. This could fuck everything, Bel.”

“If I hear anything more, I’ll let you know. But be careful who you ask. The thing is, for the Folk this is embarrassing. It shows weakness, and we’re not meant to have any.” She saw Kara was restless. “Before you go, about netherspace. Those boojums that scare the shit out of GalDiv?” She saw Kara nod. “They’re elementals of some sort. And extreme, which can be good and equally bad.” Her face was now serious, concern in her voice. “They’re obsessive about humans, more than other life forms. We don’t know why and we really want to. It would make travel hell of a sight easier. But they don’t attack free spacers the same way they do GalDiv or aliens. We don’t know the reason for that, either. Some free spacers sing to them, you know? So maybe it’s that. One other thing: be careful what you do out there. Your eyes glowed when you came, and that means you had sex in n-space. Do it too often and you get the full crazy rainbow effect. When that happens, the Up becomes your home. Now, go kill some bad guys.”

“Rainbow effect?” Kara asked, remembering how Henk’s eyes had flashed with netherspace colours when they’d had sex in the engine room. Apparently the same had happened when he’d had sex with Marc. Busy, colourful Henk.

“N-space is alive,” Bel said simply. “You do know that?”

“Sort of.”

“It can get almost fond of people. Who do sex a lot when their SUT’s in n-space. Thing is, after a while those people don’t want to go home. And eventually, so the story goes, they jump into netherspace itself.”

“No story,” Kara said quietly. “I saw it.”

“Be damned, girl! On a scale of one to ten, how weird?”

“Around eleven… sad but happy. An old spacer going to his new home. Except he was maybe as much netherspace as human.” She paused, then asked a question that was beginning to intrigue her. “Would you have told me so much if we hadn’t?”

“Would we if I didn’t?”

Kara’s answer died on her lips as her bots found a definite trail. It ended at a brick wall. A real one, in a museum.

A brief kiss that promised nothing, and she was gone.

* * *

Kara arrived at South Kensington by air-jitney. En route she secreted the vibra-knife inside her vagina. It took less space than an old-fashioned Tampax. The jitney landed on the Natural History Museum roof where a house bot tried to sell her a lifetime of museum news and exhibition downloads. Kara ignored it and took the express elevator to the ground floor.

Once the bones of a blue whale had swum in the air above enthralled crowds. Now there was a hologram of an equally large squirming mass of barbed tentacles sprouting from a core of dark jelly. The crowd were no less enthralled – perhaps more so, because the creature sang, beamed direct to their AIs: an eerie, slow tune that apparently lured other creatures within range. The real hydra lived fifty light years away, on a planet where all the flora and fauna were intent on eating each other, where humans were as fascinating as they were poisonous to the hydra; as the first colony – no survivors – had discovered. A pyrrhic victory, perhaps, of little consolation to the colonists.

That was the Natural History Museum: holograms of creatures from distant planets, so lifelike as to make a person scream. But they were not all dangerous. There were the cute, furry ones too, spread over three floors.

Earth animals were confined to the basement. Very few people went there now; Earth animals were boring.

Kara pushed through the crowd, guided by her AI, which in turn was guided by the trail discovered by her bots, to the corridor leading to the neighbouring Science Museum. This was devoted to alien technology. Any human, or one-time British, science and technology had again been banished to the basement. It was there that Kara went, finding it gloomy and deserted. The DNA trail led to a far wall against which lay propped an ancient, broken case illustrating the principles of crop rotation. She told her AI to scan it.

< It seems to be some sort of door.

> It opens how?

< Electronic lock… also what could be a manual override. Not sure, but if you lift and push that display case to the right…

As Kara did so, a section of the wall, plus the display case and floor, swivelled rapidly on a central axis. Abruptly she found herself in a small room that glowed with a blue light.

> Not good.

A sudden warmth made her skin tingle.

< Oh, no. Not now. The AI sounded sad. < You never gave me a name.

She felt a click in her head and then she felt it die.

The back wall slid to one side, revealing an elderly man in a white coat. He had ash-coloured, scraggly hair, a thin, bony face and a distinct stoop. He pointed a black, gun-like object in her direction.

“Kara Jones. Finally. Unfortunate about your AI, but you can buy another.” His voice sounded as if he was permanently angry.

Kara realised she was in shit way, way above her head. “Who the fuck’s Kara fucking Jones…” she screamed. “My AI’s fucking dead… I leant against this crappy exhibit and next thing… who the fuck are you?” Each word, designed to force his mind onto the defensive, took her closer to him.

He shook his head in annoyance and pressed a button on the weapon’s handle.

Kara had never known such agony.

* * *

“Kara? Don’t move. The pain goes away.”

Recognising the voice, she opened her eyes. As a sudden pain established, even that counted as a movement. Kara lay very still. She was on her back on something soft. That was all she needed to know.

Anson Greenaway began to massage her arms. “Don’t get excited. It helps.”

Considering that a little over an hour ago she’d been in bed with Bel Drovo, then walked into a trap like a novice, and then experienced pain so intense it had a life of its own, sex with Greenaway was the last thing on her mind.

The massage didn’t so much take away the pain as transform it. It removed the shock by making agony an everyday thing. She remembered reading a story about a torture machine that engraved a message on the victim’s body, down to the bone. Towards the end the victim became so accustomed to the agony they would try to decipher the words written into their flesh. She’d thought the story was rubbish until now, but physical pain could become familiar, an entity in its own right. And gradually the pain eased, leaving only a memory that would remain forever.

Kara opened her eyes again and saw Greenaway’s concerned face, and beyond that a roof of metal bars. She turned her head and saw they were in a cage. She held onto the offered arm and slowly sat up, expecting a jolt of agony at any moment. She was still clothed, could see her shoes on the floor, but there was no sign of her waist wallet.

“The pain’s gone,” Greenaway said. “Until one of those fuckers shoots you again.”

“Consider yourself rescued, general.”

“Always good to see you, Kara. But how the hell did you find me?”

She quickly explained how Twist had apparently taken over GalDiv in Greenaway’s absence, tasking her to locate and rescue Greenaway and Marc to check out a claimed translation device.

Greenaway looked thoughtful. “True, Twist is effectively autonomous. There again, so are most AIs. They just don’t know it. Or they’re scared of being returned to the shop. But there’s a story about alien/human translation devices every week. It’s the treasure at the end of the rainbow. There’s nothing to any of the stories. So I have no idea why Twist would get excited. Except it might be a Wild device; they have their own relations with aliens that GalDiv doesn’t really understand. So, strange.” He shrugged. “What do you think about the decor?”

Kara looked around. They were in a square cage measuring around three metres a side. In one corner was a short, cylindrical metallic object similar to a latrine, field, all troops unit; presumably the lavatory. In the opposite corner a floor-to-ceiling hollow cylinder, curtained with plastic, that had to be the shower. The bed she was now sitting on was in the centre of the floor.

“Could have been worse,” she said and gingerly got to her feet. “We could have been folded up and encased in those transparent plastic cubes you threatened me with once.”

“That wasn’t a threat,” he said, apparently affronted. “That was motivation. By the way, it’s full surveillance. So don’t tell me anything they might not know.” He smiled sourly. “They seem to know everything.”

The cage was in a vast room, a good thirty metres by twenty. Down the opposite side were a series of cages identical to the one she was in. Except for the lavatory and shower, perhaps. Five of the cages housed aliens. She recognised a Gliese, but the others were strange to her; very strange in the case of a ball of writhing tentacles with no head or obvious sensory organs. The centre of the room was a clutter of scientific and what could be medical equipment. Certainly there was an operating table, with overhead floodlights. The rest a series of test benches with electronic and chemical equipment.

Kara felt sick. There was a sour smell in the air that could have been chemical. Or dissected alien. She turned to Greenaway. “Is this what I think it is?”

He nodded. “Vivisection, yes. I only did one while I was here, thankfully, on some sort of gossamer-winged, multi-coloured creature with a hard shell, like rusted armour. It was beautiful. It kept on squeaking. Afterwards they took it away in a sack. I guess it died.”

She looked closely at him. Greenaway had only been missing for two days but the strain had sharpened his features. He was still very much the former special forces general-become-Earth’s-top-bureaucrat, but no longer with an unassailable air of command. Beneath his creased office suit he seemed to have lost weight. But his gaze was as steady as ever. Kara doubted that he’d break down on her. “And they are?”

“A group of scientists mainly from European and American city states. They believe that alien technology has destroyed human research and development. We’ve become a client world.”

“All this by a bunch of mad scientists?”

“Not mad. Intensely frustrated. All research requires money. Ninety per cent of government and industry research and development money is devoted to alien tech or colony development. And we’re increasingly ruled by AIs.”

“But you’re just as concerned by this.”

“They believe isolation is the only answer. I believe the opposite. They’ve become fanatics who see aliens as a lower form of life. But they came to the same conclusion that I did: the Gliese and others aren’t smart enough to produce that tech. They suspect there’s a meta-civilisation out there and it scares the crap out of them. They don’t – they can’t – accept that if there is, super-alien already knows about us.” He looked out beyond the cage and said loudly, “It’s too fucking late to hide. Either meet the future or get destroyed by it.” His gaze switched back to Kara. “This laboratory is hidden under the Science Museum because of the symbolism. One of the group’s leaders is the former head curator; the guy who zapped you. Name of Treadwell, Duncan. We’ve had several interesting conversations. They’ve been doing their own R and D, developing their own human-only tech. You’ve felt one of the results. The other is more serious.”

Kara nodded, relieved that she could do so without screaming. “I know. They can fix an AI, using some sort of weird mathematics. Why did they kill mine – and yours?” “They see them as tainted. AIs are based on alien tech.

They’re not allowed here. The maths are apparently derived from Clifford geometric algebra, if that means anything to you. As I understand it – there’s a computer guy here who likes to boast – they created an autonomous program like a mini AI, but with teeth. It’s parasitic. It gets inside the AI’s mind and fucks it over. It’s like the tropical fungus that ends up controlling and killing ants. They could take out the big AIs, but thankfully they have enough sense to know that would crash the world.” He shook his head in frustration. “You know what the irony is? Humans and aliens can’t communicate, but maybe their AIs could. As a sort of stepped progress. So the first AI understands about ten per cent of alien thought, and the next twenty per cent and so on… and the alien AIs do the same, so at the end you’ve got two of them totally understanding each other, except they can no longer communicate directly with the original human or alien AI, but the data passes back down the chain. Sounds clunky, but if it was happening at near the speed of light, it would be like having an ordinary conversation. That’s the irony. These alien-hating bastards have discovered how to make humanity safer and independent. The galaxy is ours. Or could be.”

Kara thought about space and distant planets and the sense of incredible loneliness when you’ve gone Up. About netherspace and its ability to drive humans mad, but how it also gave sex a god-like intensity. The dangerous creatures that lived there. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to be watching an old movie at home in her Merc SUV.

Kara mentally shook herself. She had to survive first.

“So are Len Grafe and Earth Primus involved? With some religious nutters? That seems a bit of a reach, even for them.”

“Grafe could never have set up Earth Primus on his own. He’s a loud-mouthed street corner guy. Can’t take a piss without someone holding his dick and pointing him in the right direction. But he lies well and looks good on the vids. He’s more believable than the scientists who can’t accept the future, and he’s got a hell of a personal following. He was right to go into hiding – I was about to have him assassinated. The religious idiots are used as shock troops. And yes, GalDiv and Earth Central are full of Grafe’s followers, but I had no idea how bad it was until they took me.” He reached under the bed and produced a bottle of water.

Kara automatically limited herself to two mouthfuls. This was a combat situation. The bottle might be the only water supply for some time. “Why now? Why us?”

“They know everything about your last mission. My guess is that it scared the crap out of them.” He looked up and smiled for the camera, wherever it was. “It’s the good Cancri and the bad Cancri. It’s the meeting of those pilgrims and all the other aliens… I got this image of a human and that mantis-like creature dancing together. It’s that aliens have been fascinated by humanity for a very long time. See, the scientists and their religious allies want to live in splendid isolation. But they can’t because most people on Earth don’t want it. And you and Marc and Tatia are proof that it might still be scary out there but it ain’t all bad. That there’s hope.”

She realised that he hadn’t mentioned Tse, the Originators or the threat from a pre-cog civilisation that wanted to control the galaxy. She assumed there was a good reason and gingerly got to her feet. “I’ve gotta take a piss.” When she walked back from the latrine, the vibra-knife was hidden in her left hand. “Are we all on a list?”

“The fuckers want to kill Marc, Tatia, you and me,” he said sombrely. “But I guess they’ve also something else planned.”

Kara realised she was waiting for a laconic comment from her AI. She remembered it was dead and felt sad. A set of mathematical logic, an unknowable architecture maybe, but she could still have given it a name. And who was to say that deep in its mathematical – and alien? – mind there hadn’t been a liking for her?

“There’s no pain any more,” she said.

“The IT guy explained,” Greenaway replied. “It affects the pain centre in your brain. Direct electromagnetic stimulation. You think your nerves are screaming, when in fact they’re not. It doesn’t make it any easier though. The dorsal posterior insula wants what it wants.”

So the weapon wouldn’t physically affect her body. Not much comfort. If the brain thinks there is pain, then there is. Unless…

Any more thoughts were put on hold by the sound of a lock clicking open. Both of them looked around and saw three men walking out of a door in the wall behind the cage. One was the curator, Treadwell, still looking angry, still carrying the blunted, almost comic pistol that inflicted such agonising pain. The other two were of similar age, late fifties, and also wearing white laboratory coats. One wore glasses, a strange anachronism when anyone could have perfect sight. The other had a shock of black hair flecked with grey and an intense, wild-eyed look. He could almost be the mad scientist who featured in several of the retro vids that Kara loved.

“The guy in the spectacles is the IT guy,” Greenaway said quietly. “The one with the hair is alien cutter-in-chief. Three fanatics.”

She saw that Treadwell carried her waist wallet. It wouldn’t be returned with an apology. If she and Greenaway were being saved, it wasn’t to be set free.

The three men stopped outside the cage. Treadwell struck a pose and spoke.

“We need Greenaway to tell the world the true danger from aliens. We need Jones to tell how the Cancri kidnapped and murdered those pilgrims. We also need Greenaway to admit that GalDiv planned to assassinate Len Grafe for telling the truth. If you do this, you will be released. If you refuse, we will use this” – brandishing the weapon – “until you beg to obey.”

Melodramatic and over the top, but intent in every syllable.

Kara wondered how Treadwell intended to kill them. And also, how clever men could be so naive. Did he really think that she and Greenaway believed they’d be set free? When the very last thing Treadwell and his allies needed was a live GalDiv director with so much power at his disposal?

There was another point. No one believed anything they saw on vid-casts any more. Everything was seen as entertainment. Within minutes of the broadcast, there would be fake versions saying the opposite. Joke versions. Conspiracy programmes. And in the end, the public would be forced to decide between aliens, who brought all manner of magic things, and the Earth colonies, or a sterile isolation. There was no contest. There might be a small war or six. Aliens might be mobbed, even killed. But nothing would stop them visiting Earth for souvenirs or the Gliese from collecting humans. Eventually people would turn on Earth Primus. There was no fun, no progress, in isolation, and profit for only a very few.

The mad scientist stepped forward and unlocked the cage door. The IT specialist produced a pain gun of his own. “Come on out.”

The three men kept their distance as Kara and Greenaway left the cage.

“Here.” Treadwell tossed the waist wallet to Kara. “You look a bit off-colour. Want you looking your best for the cameras… this is going out live.” There was a little-boy-playing-with-toys relish in his voice: Treadwell the vid producer.

“Why now?” Kara asked, checking through her bag. The weapons were gone. But her make-up and lipstick were still there, as was her lucky charm.

“It’s time. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Marc knows about Earth Primus. It’ll all lead back to you.” She took out her pocket mirror. Treadwell was right. She did look drawn.

“You don’t understand,” the AI man said. “It doesn’t matter. The end justifies the means. People will understand. Your day is done.”

Kara applied lipstick. Checked the result, licked her lips and did it again. Frowned, licked and again. Then a fourth time.

“Hurry up,” Treadwell snapped.

She turned to look at Greenaway, holding her right hand in a fist, palm up. She saw him nod slightly.

He’d understood the significance of her four attempts with the lipstick.

Kara turned back to Treadwell. He, like the other two, was at least four metres away. Safe. She felt the buzz begin, at first only a mild tingle and a faint sense of becoming light on her feet.

Humans have long used alcohol and drugs to help them in battle. Ancient Greeks and Romans fought while drunk. Vikings were made berserk not by Thor but the Amanita mushroom. Inca warriors chewed coca leaves. Eighteenth-century British soldiers used rum. In World War Two the Allies used amphetamine while the Wehrmacht used methamphetamine, nicknamed Panzerschokolade. The drug that Kara used, present in her lipstick, was all that and more. Designed to double her reaction time and aggression, it made her temporarily stronger, and more importantly it suppressed her pain centre for several minutes.

She felt it now, the full rush. Everything around her slowed down. Kara felt invincible. She wanted to kill. Still facing Greenaway, she raised her index finger. One. Middle finger. Two. Ring finger. Three.

Greenaway broke left, Kara right, the vibra-knife now full size.

Treadwell shouted a warning, pointed his weapon, and pressed the stud.

“Not the IT bastard!” Greenaway shouted then dived to the floor, knowing the others would concentrate on the trained assassin. They did.

Kara spun into a rolling breakfall towards Treadwell as he frantically pressed the trigger. Up and out of it in a single movement, she gave a hand-spear strike to his testicles, and as he doubled forward, she cut his throat, knowing the spray of blood would shock and distract the other two.

Four seconds gone. Kara pirouetted on her left foot, feinted then sprang two metres towards Mr IT. Her blood was singing, totally concentrated on her target.

A target who was staring at the dying Treadwell with a look of disbelief that became terror as Kara reached him, then agony – real agony – as she broke his arm. Then nothing as the knife’s handle smacked hard against his temple.

Seven seconds.

Kara pirouetted again, took two quick steps and reached the alien vivisectionist, staring open-mouthed at her. She glanced at Greenaway, who shook his head.

Another man sprayed blood as he crashed to the floor.

“Very neat,” Greenaway said, getting to his feet. “How long have you got?”

Kara shrugged, already coming down from the supreme high. “Maybe ten minutes.”

“I’m hoping there’ll be a delayed reaction from those weapons.”

“So am I.”

They both glanced at the door through which the three men had entered.

“Well,” Greenaway said as he picked up one of the weapons. “Best go and meet whatever scumbag’s on the other side.”

The door opened onto a large office, part of which had been converted into a temporary vid-studio. There were two people, a woman and a man, fussing over camera equipment. Neither looked up as Kara and Greenaway entered. It took very little persuasion before they explained there was no one else in the complex, and where the central computer system was. As Kara began to flag, Greenaway went to talk to the other two.

“I’m waiting here for GalDiv security,” he said later. “I’m going to give you a map reference in Iceland. Marc should be there. Also, an SUT. Your simulity training means you and Keislack can fly one. The best thing now is to continue with your original mission. Find the Originators. Earth won’t be safe for you for some time, so avoid the main space access points.”

“Yeah, about that simulity…”

“It usually carries a built-in fade, but not for you and Keislack. I always suspected this was going to be a long-term mission. Sorry, but you’re stuck with it. And him. Just like he’s stuck with you.”

“Twist?” she asked tiredly.

“The IT guy’s co-operating. That program they developed can be removed. Even so, best not to trust Twist. We need to run all manner of diagnostics and it’ll take time. Look, I know you’ve got questions. That you suspect this whole thing is even more complex than it looks. It is. It’s been going on for a hell of a long time – you probably figured that from the museum on the planet.”

“I need a new AI. I can’t do a simulity chat with Keislack without one.”

“Get the best available.”

Kara found herself thinking about a granite tor that came alive. “Not your average galactic crisis, then.” A moment’s insight. “You don’t really understand the bigger picture, do you?”

Greenaway shook his head. “I’ve avoided it. Too distracting. Tse knew more…” His voice tailed off.

“You were close?”

Greenaway half-smiled. “He recruited me, Kara. Tse was a lot older than he looked. Now get the hell out and communicate AI to AI… when we both get new ones.”

“Okay.” She yawned. “I need coffee and sugar and protein. Call you later.” She turned to leave, then stopped as he said her name.

“Kara. Thanks. They would have killed me.”

She managed a grin. “Yes, but they tried to muscle in on the queue. Couldn’t let that happen.” And then, because it had to be said: “This is all something that Tse cooked up. But if I knew the stages I might not react the right way. Not do the pre-cog thing. So I, Marc, maybe Tatia, are all puppets.”

“You got blood on your Sniper/Assassin T-shirt,” Greenaway said. “And not a puppet. Only someone I trust to believe in me.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, then Kara nodded. She could neither confirm nor deny because it might affect her future behaviour and the sequence that Tse had once seen. A dead man controlled her life and she could either accept or walk away.

Kara left the Science Museum via the main entrance, mingling easily with the crowd. She walked to South Kensington station and found an expensive-looking IT store in the curving parade of shops opposite. A check by a polite techie established she could afford the best AI on offer. Kara sat back in the chair and tried not to fall asleep as the helmet was adjusted on her head. A slight hum as the techie studied a screen.

“You said your old AI just failed?”

Kara yawned. “It sort of crashed. Then nothing. Why?”

“Usually a defunct AI network is absorbed by the body. All that’s left is a dead chip, just behind the left ear.” He sounded nervous. “There’s a dead chip. But the neural network is still in place.”

“So?”

“Well, this machine’s registering an energy signature that can only come from an AI chip. But it’s not in your cerebrum. It’s in your solar plexus. And that’s unheard… I mean, there are rumours… anatomically, there are actually neural cells in the stomach lining, but …”

Kara was suddenly wide awake. “Do tell.”

“Like a back-up AI?”

“And?”

And then his answer no longer mattered as a well-remembered voice filled her mind.

< You’re hungry and I’ve got questions. Give the kid money and let’s go.

> What the hell?

< Yes, nice to see you too.

> What do you remember?

< Us getting suckered in the Science Museum basement. Then nothing. Guess my twin got zapped, right? How careless of you. I could probably sue.

> But you didn’t. And you won’t.

< Because my chip is armoured. And no, my twin didn’t know about me. Then again, I didn’t know about him… it… until I woke up four minutes and twenty-nine point two three seconds ago. Any more explanations will wait. You need nourishment and quick. Your blood sugar level is lower than I’d like, and your reflexes are five per cent down.

> I’m giving you a name. You want male or female? Think about it.

Kara removed the helmet and smiled at the techie. “You’re right. Very advanced and we weren’t sure if it worked. GalDiv business. Keep quiet and you get well paid, okay?”

The techie nodded, awed.

< Male, please.

She thought of a favourite vintage, near antique vid series. But Jeeves was probably not the best choice. > You choose.

< Just call me Ishmael. Think of me as your gut instinct. Can we go now? Oh. A map reference was just sent to us. It’s in Iceland. Mean anything?

> Only that Greenaway’s a devious bastard.

< So what else is new?

Kara took a jitney back home, showered, changed clothes, including a fresh Sniper/Assassin T-shirt and packed a bag. She checked her new AI had the complete set of vids and stills of Kara and her sister Dee. Checked that her parking was paid up for the next year, set the security to stun any would-be intruders. She instructed her home to self-destruct if it had conclusive proof that she had died, took a quick look around – annoyed to find she was a little tearful – and called Bel Drovo.

“I was thinking of you,” Bel said.

“I need a favour, but I’ll pay. Iceland, soon as.”

“Assume you mean going, not buying the place. Also under the radar?”

“It never happened.”

“Concerns the Wild?”

“Sounds poncey, but all humanity.”

“See, this is what happens when a good-time girl gets serious,” Bel teased. “Okay. Get to Oslo; there are hourly flights from London City. Then to Tromso, regular shuttle. You’ll be met.”

“Just like that?”

“Nothing’s too good for my favourite good-time girl,” Bel purred. Her voice hardened. “Be careful. Life would be sad without you around.”

“Always. And thanks.” Kara broke the connection, thinking that Bel hadn’t been surprised by the call. Maybe lack of surprise was the default mode of a galactic smuggler. Or maybe she knew more about Kara’s mission for GalDiv than she had admitted. But all Kara could do was march to her front like a soldier.