by Mark Henwick
Carranza runs a shaking hand through his hair as he looks at the details of the message. “We can’t afford this.”
“We must, but we won’t have to for much longer,” Loiola replies. “Primer Ministro Eneko and I are planning a fund-raising trip to visit other member planets of the movement. It’s in their interests. The establishment of Newyan as a member of the Inner Worlds will more than repay—”
“Out of the question. You can’t,” Berges interrupts him. She’s the only one who speaks to him like that on a regular basis. “You’re needed here.”
Sánchez ignores the byplay as they argue. He knows the movement’s other planets have no capability of raising the funds that Newyan is going to need, what with replacement of satellites, bigger bribes for the Commissioners, and the Syndacian mercenaries’ costs, let alone prosaic matters such as securing food supplies and restarting their agricultural industry before the relief efforts are exhausted.
Loiola and Eneko aren’t going to get more funding.
It comes as a small shock that he is no longer able to be angry as he realizes what Loiola is doing is simply ensuring he and Eneko have an escape plan in place if things get worse. The ‘well motivated’ populace that are shouting their slogans and giving their support will turn on them in the blink of an eye.
Eneko will probably commandeer the Biháriz. It may even be the reason he persuaded Berges to arrest the ship’s commanding officers and order the destroyer to remain in orbit.
Sánchez can’t back away like that. He can’t leave. Newyan is his planet. This nightmare, although he never intended it to be this way, he acknowledges is partly his responsibility. He has to prevent it becoming worse, to fix it, whatever it takes.
For all his careful wording earlier, he’s convinced that Aguirre has survived the destruction of the helicopter and is making her way down the River Sakon right now. Given her record so far, he doubts that the Syndacians will find her.
But what has she got that’s so important to deliver to Iruña?
What have she and Delegate Hwa concocted between them?
Enough to topple the government and expose the Hajnal?
Even if they have, how is Aguirre going to get into Iruña?
And why has Yarritu suddenly woken up in meetings and started to interrupt him?
What is the man hiding?
What does he need to do about it?
His stomach clenches again. He has no answers.
Chapter 55
Zara
The river water is spring run-off from the high sierras. It’s cold.
The River Rescue Service depot Hwa directed us to had been damaged by the shockwave from the Biháriz’s broadside. Windows were blown in and fallen trees had broken the roof, so getting in was easy.
However, the boat that should have been there... wasn’t.
Talan told us she wouldn’t have taken the boat anyway. Too exposed, too visible.
So we’re swimming alongside a jury-rigged raft built around life-jackets from the depot. The bright colors of the lifejackets are covered with some tattered green ponchos we also found, and all lashed together with matted branches and twigs covering it. The river is full of debris that looks similar. Banks have collapsed under the shock of the plasma cannon’s strike, carrying whole lines of trees and shrubs with them.
We’re in slate-gray wetsuits, also from the depot, and without which we couldn’t manage to stay in the water at all. It’s still cold and the fins on our feet do nothing to protect the toes from going numb.
Our backpacks, with the data modules, food, a few extra supplies and weapons are safe, dry and hidden in the center of the raft, where there’s also room for one person to lie on top.
Ruslan can’t swim, but he can kick. He boasts he can kick all day. He’s at the back, half-on, half-off the raft, providing the raw power. The other three of us take turns: one on the raft resting and warming up, the other two guiding the raft and adding a bit of kicking of our own.
Our first destination, according to the information Hwa put on my pad, is the junction of this river, the Sakon, with the River Argo. Then we have to walk upstream along the banks of the Argo to where the Neve joins it, at the point where they both appear from deep channels created underneath the city. That’s our way in, according to our map.
It’s going to take us at least a full day in the water, plus time for rests, to get to the Argo.
So long as there aren’t any rapids or blockages.
Or pursuit.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
About midday, just after we launch, a helicopter goes overhead. We only see it as a shadow, because the grey ash cloud is still hanging in the air.
Ruslan shakes his head. “Mistake. Bad for engine.” He wipes his hand on the branches above him and holds it up, smeared with grey and black flecks. “Turbine breathe,” he says. “Run bad. Can break little blades inside.”
Two hours later Kat, swimming on the right, hisses and dives under the raft, coming up on the left. On the right bank, about two hundred meters ahead, the helicopter we saw has landed. It’s stationary, with panels off the side of the turbine engine and the crew working on it. There’s a fire on the beach, and some mercenaries are sitting around it. Others stand on the bank, carrying plasma rifles and occasionally using their scopes to inspect the larger pieces of drifting wood that pass them.
Talan takes one look and pulls all of us underneath the raft.
There’s a tiny space between the life jackets. Just enough to get our heads in and breathe.
“Stay still,” she hisses. “They’ll be watching from both banks.”
With nothing out of the water but his head, Ruslan panics and starts to struggle. His foot kicks up, waving the bright blue flipper above the water. Kat gets her arms around him and speaks to him, urgently and very quietly. Talan has a grip on her. I have a grip on Talan.
I’m very aware that Talan’s knife is in a sheath on a lanyard around her neck, and she wouldn’t hesitate if it meant saving the rest of us, but Ruslan calms down, and the knife stays in the sheath.
“Just around the next bend,” Talan whispers. “Then we’ll all get out of the water. We’ll warm up and eat some food. Just the next bend. Another ten minutes.”
With all of us dragging through the water, our raft slows.
“Kick,” Talan says. “Low and slow.”
I have a tiny gap I can look out of, toward the left bank, between one poncho-covered lifejacket and the next. My teeth are chattering so loud I wonder if they can hear me at the helicopter. In contrast, the riverside woods and dry ground seem so inviting. The sun is trying to shine through the cloud of ashes. It makes the trees and leaves look a little brighter, more welcoming.
And almost hidden in the spray of leaves, there’s a glint of sunlight reflecting off something polished. Something like a plasma rifle scope sweeping the river, concentrating on anything that seems to be keeping away from the mercenaries on the right bank.
I catch a glimpse of a shape behind the leaves. The rifle starts to swing back. He’s going to see there’s something suspicious about this debris. Then a large tree floats into the way, hiding us from the watcher. We steer a middle course, shivering, keeping behind floating trees and over fifty meters away from both banks, drifting by with everything else on the river.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
The river’s too straight for Talan’s estimate of ten minutes. It’s nearly twenty minutes before a bend puts us completely out of sight, and we can steer our makeshift raft to a sloping bank. It’s beyond our strength to lift it out of the water. We manage to tie a rope around it. Kat’s legs are so numb, she can’t even crawl to cover. Ruslan’s legs have been in the icy water for the longest, but he’s strong and between us we manage to lift Kat. We stagger until we’re beneath the dense foliage higher up the bank. Talan brings the backpacks. She’s blue and shivering with cold too, but she keeps going. She gets the emergency blankets out from the packs and we
wrap up. Then she gathers dead branches around us until we’re invisible to anyone passing on the river.
“It’ll only take a few hours for the Syndacians to find a boat or bring one here from their HQ,” I say. “That’ll make it a lot harder to hide if they’re on the river with us.”
Talan nods. “Lots to worry about. The good thing is the ash cloud is going to protect us from scanners and helicopters for another day or so, and the wind seems to be blowing it downriver with us. But they can fly around it and be waiting lower down. Or they can get hold of skimmers. Skimmers don’t care about ash.”
“Cheerful,” I mutter.
In the meantime, it takes an hour for us to thaw out, and every second of that hour brings Hwa’s deadline closer.
She has to launch her court case before the relief convoy arrives, so she can continue to use it as a threat. Once launched, there will be a struggle over the timing of the case. We have to arrive at exactly the right moment. Every time we stop and rest like this makes it harder.
Despite the worries, I still drop off into a doze. I dream of Bleyd and Rhos and Alexis—of holding them tightly to me in the bright afternoon sun. I try to explain why I left them. That it wasn’t just the balance of my family in Newyan against my family in Kernow. That it wasn’t just honor and duty. That it was all families under threat. That I should have trusted them, and told them before I left. And that I would give anything to hold them to me again.
Talan shakes me awake. I catch a look in her eyes before she turns away to give me the opportunity to wipe the tears off my cheeks.
As we slip back into the water, a skimmer passes unseen high overhead.
The ash cloud itself is beginning to thin.
We spend a lot of time underneath the raft.
Chapter 56
Hwa
“These proceedings are now open for the preliminary session.”
Hwa’s surprised that Sánchez himself is opening the case. Surprised and worried that not only is he here, but so are Commissioners Taha and Ivakin. This is a formal opening of the case, supposedly with no more function that to set an ongoing schedule.
Everything is at a precarious balance point; the least disturbance has such power to change things.
Delay the court case by a week and she will have lost the threat to withhold relief supplies, so Sánchez will be under no pressure to progress. Worse, it’s entirely possible the response from the Terran Council will come back, making the court case subject to the whim of the Commissioners. She has no doubts the schedule will recede into the vanishing point if that happens.
On the other hand, if the court case goes ahead and if Zara is near to Iruña, then within two days, Hwa could be presenting the evidence that will destroy the Hajnal.
It’s tense back at the delegation. Senior Delegate Keo is angry at being kept out of the decision process. Captain Desud is angry at being pressured by Xing, and Xing has been split in two by the Hajnal breaking the permanent narrow beam link between the delegation building and the Wújìn. The freighter’s hosting processors are too old and slow for the Xing in space to be much use to Desud, but the delegation’s processors are vulnerable to an attack by the Hajnal, which Xing assesses is a distinct possibility. Xing might survive, after a fashion, from the image of himself on the Wújìn’s computer systems, but it would kill more than half of the essence that makes him Xing.
He’s trying to ignore the danger by keeping busy. He’s receiving recordings from four provincial cities, all documenting the abuses of the ‘police’. He adds anything he can extract from the government’s own systems, then he edits, compresses and encrypts it all.
Raul takes those files across the plaza to the Bureau of Industry, who are still, grudgingly, offering their comms facility. Raul sends the files to the Wújìn, and the Wújìn transmits them on a continuous loop to the planar zenith, where the arriving Xian convoy will receive them as soon as they emerge.
Xing’s also trying to keep the scattered resistance from launching too early. He’s put groups in touch with each other and their natural caution has slowed things down. That is, except for Cabezón, which, after sending a wealth of documentary evidence about the actions of the police, has gone utterly silent.
She puts these distractions out of mind and concentrates on Sánchez, Taha and Ivakin.
Ivakin stands. She should have no role here until Hwa demands it.
Hwa reminds herself to remain calm.
“The content of this court case falls within the remit of the Enquiry—” Ivakin begins pompously.
“We had this argument,” Hwa says. “Only comparable cases after the establishment of the Enquiry fall under its remit. This case was formally acknowledged at the same time.”
“Claiming equivalent starting dates is a trick.”
“Like trying to announce the start of the Enquiry while still in transit is a trick, Commissioner Ivakin. You’ve sent a drone to request the Terran Council’s ruling on which trick is valid and which is not. In the meantime, I believe we’re proceeding with this case, so let’s get going.”
“You blackmailed Ministro Sánchez into agreeing with a lie. You wouldn’t dare stop the relief.”
Hwa smiles and takes out her pad, and connects to the delegation on full holo-projection, placing the pad flat on the table.
“Delegate Hwa.” An image of Keo appears above her pad, looking somber.
“Senior Delegate Keo, it appears that the undertakings given will not be honored.”
“I understand.” Keo sighs. “Well, you were right and it appears I have no choice. I will interrupt Delegate Raul’s transmission and send orders for the relief convoy to return to Xian as soon as they arrive—”
“No. Wait.” Sánchez holds up his hand. “I undertook to open this court case, and it is declared open. And to avoid any further doubts, the scheduling of the hearings will be determined by Delegate Hwa, or whoever she appoints to represent the Fortunate Stars Hong.”
Ivakin slips back down in her chair with a face looking as if she’s just been slapped.
It’s not Keo on Hwa’s pad, of course—it’s Xing, creating the image and voice of the Senior Delegate perfectly.
The image raises his eyes in question to Hwa and she gives him a small bow from her seated position. The image disappears.
Hwa’s about to set the date for the next session when Taha interrupts.
“As it addresses core issues of the Enquiry, we require to be present at sessions,” he says. “Also, we require reasonable notice and briefing.”
This is an unexpected gift: Commissioners have permanent recording devices with them in any meeting or official engagement of the Enquiry. With Taha or Ivakin in the courtroom, as soon as Hwa presents the evidence, it will be on the Enquiry’s record.
The basic problem remains—Zara has to be here, with the evidence. And Sánchez has to remain willing to proceed.
Hwa nods, as if reluctantly conceding. “Tomorrow, then, at 9 a.m. Briefing notes will be with you in an hour.”
The briefing notes will be masterfully vague.
Sánchez logs the time and closes the meeting.
As Hwa leaves the Bureau of Justice, she looks down at the ground beneath her feet as if she could see deeper, though the layers of stone and neo-crete, to where the Rivers Argo and Neve run silent through forgotten caverns.
Time for you to arrive, Zara. Please.
Chapter 57
Zara
We’re at the junction of the Argo and Neve—the point where the rivers emerge from beneath the city. We’re exhausted but we need to keep going.
Iruña is built on what is essentially a flat-top mountain, and we’re standing at the base of a cliff on the south-east side, the most impossible way to approach the city. The waters of the Argo and Neve erupt from a huge grille, about ten meters high and forty across. It’s five meters higher than we are and it forms a waterfall.
Above the waterfall and entirely hidden from us is a
gate which will give us entrance into the tunnels beneath the city.
It’s going to be a climb to get to the gate, and Talan has ordered us to rest a few minutes.
What do we do with Ruslan?
I’m too tired to think clearly, so I ask him instead.
He grunts. “Not go back. Go back—die.”
“They’d kill you because you were forced to fly the helicopter?”
“Da. It...” He frowns and searches out the words. “Bad discipline? Bad for others see. Syndacian die, not surrender, is good.”
“Goddess,” I mutter, before pointing out: “You understand, you might die with us?”
He chuckles, his eyes roving over the three of us. “Might not, too. You smart. Strong.”
My turn to laugh. I feel about as strong as an overcooked noodle.
“And afterwards? If we win on Newyan? Could you go back to Syndacia?”
He shakes his head, frowning again. “Can maybe. Not want. Not good.”
Syndacia is one of those marginal planets, deeper in the Frontier. The sort of place that never quite worked for humans, other than as a trap for a shrinking, remnant population of colonists. I remember what the dying mercenary in Berriaren said. Is hard winter ’05. No food. Spring come, no family. He’d had to bury the rest of his family in the frozen earth. And his friends? Gone. Not know where. Home bad place. All go.
No wonder so many joined the mercenaries.
“Why did they ever settle on Syndacia?” Kat says. “It’s frozen most of the time, isn’t it?”
Ruslan grimaces. “Colony ship little break many time. Not sure good reach next place. Syndacia not good, not bad. Next place maybe more bad.”
We wait while he struggles with words.
“Planet in good place.” He uses his fists to show Syndacia orbiting its sun. “Lot ice, okay problem. Sun okay warm. But hot inside planet.”