For all the harsh beauty of the exotic landscape, Ozzie wanted to curse it. There was no hope here. They were going to struggle just to reach the end of the forest, a few hundred meters ahead where the crystal trees were nothing more than spindly dendrites of clear crystal strands sticking out of the iron-hard ground. Any notion of traversing that vast bleak and empty land to the other side was unthinkable.
Perhaps this is why so many who sought the deep paths were never heard of again. Our perception of the Silfen as gentle and kind is our own stupid, convenient illusion. We wanted to believe in elves. And how many human bodies lie out there under the snow because of that?
“It’s a desert.” Orion said. “A desert of ice.”
“Yeah, ’fraid so.”
“I wonder if Mom and Dad got here?”
“Don’t worry. They’re not stupid, they will have turned back, just like us.”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
Ozzie saw a flash of near-blue light out across the plain. He pushed his sunglasses up, heedless of the sharp pain from the terrible air gusting against his exposed skin. The flash came again. Definitely emerald. The contrast was astounding on that vista made up entirely from shades of red. Green had to be artificial. A beacon!
He dropped his sunglasses down again. “Maybe not.” The distress flares were nestled in hoops on each pack for easy access. He pulled one of the slim cylinders out, twisted the safety cap off, and held it at arm’s length to pull the trigger. There was a loud crack, and the flare zoomed off into the sky. A dazzling star of scarlet light drifted over the edge of the crystal forest, lingering for a long time.
Orion was staring at the slow pulse of the green beacon. “Do you think that’s people?”
“It’s got to be someone. My handheld array still doesn’t work, so the Silfen are screwing with the electricity. That means this is definitely one of their worlds.” He waited a couple of minutes, then fired another flare. “Let’s try to walk to the edge of the trees. If we haven’t seen an answer by then, we’ll turn back.”
Ozzie hadn’t even fired the third flare when the beacon light started flashing faster. Laughing beneath his mask, he held up the cylinder and triggered it. As it sputtered out overhead, the beacon light became constant.
“It’s a beam,” Orion cried. “They’re pointing it at us.”
“I think you’re right.”
“How far away is it?”
“I’m not sure.” His retinal inserts zoomed in, compensating for the emerald glare. The resolution wasn’t great, but as far as he could make out, the light was coming from the top of some mound or small hillock. There were dark lines on it. Terraces? “Ten or twelve miles, maybe more; and there’s some kind of structure around it, I think.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. But we’re stopping here. If they’re used to people they’ll know we need help.”
“What if they don’t?”
“I’m going to put the tent up. We’ll use a heatbrick and get warm, we both need a proper rest. When the brick’s finished we’ll know what to do. If nobody’s arrived we turn back.” He started to tug at the big knot he’d tied in the strap that secured the tent onto the lontrus.
“Can’t we go there?” Orion asked plaintively.
“It’s too far. The state we’re in it’d take another couple of days. We can’t risk that.” He unrolled the tent, and let the inner lining suck in air, raising itself into a small elongated hemisphere. Orion crawled inside, and Ozzie handed him a heatbrick. “Rip the tag,” he told the boy. “I’ll join you in a minute.” He lifted his sunglasses again, and zoomed in on the mound below the beacon light. Then he fired another flare. In answer, the green light blinked off three times in slow succession before returning to a steady glare. In anybody’s language that said: We’ve got you. He still couldn’t make out what the mound was, except it actually had quite steep sides.
Three hours and four hot chocolates later, there was a great deal of noise outside the tent. Ozzie unzipped the front to peer out. Two big creatures were slogging their way up the last section of slope in front of the crystal forest. They were quadrupeds, about the size of terrestrial rhinos, and covered in a straggly string-thick fur similar to the lontrus. Steamy breath whistled out of a stubby snout on the bottom of a bulbous head that bristled with short prickly spines. He’d seen uglier animal heads, but it was the eyes that were strange, long strips of multifaceted black stone, as if they too had crystallized in this deadly climate. Both animals were harnessed to a covered sledge; a simple framework of what looked suspiciously like bone, with cured leather hides laced to it. As he watched, the side was pulled back, and a humanoid figure climbed down. Whoever it was wore a long fur coat with a hood, fur trousers, fur mittens, and a fur face mask with hemispherical goggle lenses bulging out of it like fish eyes. The figure strode toward them, raising a hand in greeting.
“I thought it would be humans,” a female voice called gruffly from behind the mask. “We’re the only people tasteless enough to use red light for emergency flares around here.”
“Sorry about that,” Ozzie shouted back. “They don’t stock a real big range of colors at the store.”
She stopped in front of the tent. “How are you coping? Any frostbite?” Her voice had a strong northern Mediterranean accent.
“No frostbite, but we’re not prepared for this kind of climate. Can you help?”
“That’s why I’m here.” She ducked down, and pulled her mask free to look inside the tent. Her face was leathery brown, engraved with hundreds of wrinkles. She must have been in her sixties, at least. “Hello there,” she said cheerfully to Orion. “Cold here, isn’t it?”
The boy just nodded dumbly at her. He was curled up in his sleeping bag again.
She sniffed the air. “God in his heaven, is that chocolate?”
“Yes.” Ozzie held up his thermos. “There’s some left if you want.”
“If we ever had elections around here, you’d be emperor.” She took a big swig from the thermos, sighing pleasurably. “Just like I remember. Welcome to the Citadel. I’m Sara Bush, kind of unofficial spokesperson for the humans here.”
“Ozzie Isaac.”
“Hey, I’ve heard of you. Didn’t you invent the gateways?”
“Uh, yeah.” Ozzie was a little distracted. A block of fur had appeared from behind the sledge. This time it definitely wasn’t a biped in a fur coat. More like a tall rectangle of the fluffiest fur he’d ever seen, with wide dark eyes visible near the top, about eight feet from the ground. There were ripples in the fur that suggested legs were moving somewhere within as it glided forward. It gave off a loud hooting that rose and fell, varying in pitch, almost like a chant.
“All right, all right,” Sara said irritably, waving a hand at the creature.
“What’s that?” Orion asked timidly.
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Sara said. “That’s old Bill, he’s a Korrok-hi. More like a yeti if you ask me.” She broke off to warble a long verse back to her companion. “There, I’ve told him we’re coming. Now let’s get you packed up and on the sled. I think you two could do with a hot bath and a drink. Not long to cocktail hour now.”
“You’re shitting me,” Ozzie exclaimed.
....
Paula spent most of the night reviewing the old AquaState accounts. The verification she wanted was easy enough to find, you just had to know what you were looking for to make the facts fit. Like every good conspiracy theory, she told herself. And no doubt that would be the angle that the defense counsel took.
When she arrived in the office the next morning, she was surprised that Hoshe was already behind his desk and running through forty-year-old files from City Hall. Even staying awake for half the night, she wasn’t exactly late.
“I can’t believe how much construction work there was in the city forty years ago,” he complained as soon as she’d sat down at her desk. “It’s like half of Darklake wasn’t he
re. I don’t remember it being so much smaller, and I’ve lived here for sixty years myself.”
Paula glanced over to the big wall-mounted portal he’d activated. It showed a detailed map of Darklake City, with a lot of green lights pinpointing building activity forty years ago, both civic and private. “Don’t forget to include things like roadworks for at least a couple of months after the murder. I know that will increase the search area dramatically, but that uncertainty makes them a prime possibility.”
He didn’t say anything, but his expression soured further.
“I’ve finished my analysis,” she said. “I’ll help with your search. Divide the city into two, and I’ll take one-half.”
“Right.” Hoshe instructed his e-butler. “What did you find in the accounts?”
“It confirmed my theory. But it’s hardly evidence we can take to court, at least not alone.”
“You mean, we need the bodies?”
“They’ll certainly help. Once we’ve established it’s a murder, then the circumstantial evidence will be enough to convict him. I hope.”
Hoshe looked up at the map in the portal. “This is an awful lot of fieldwork for our forensics people. They’re good, but there’s only so many available. It could take months. Longer.”
“It’s taken forty years so far, they’re not going anywhere. And once we’ve locked down every site, I’ll call in some teams from the Directorate. That should help speed things along.”
Mel Rees knocked on the open door and came in. Paula gave him a surprised look, then frowned. The Deputy Director always handed out her assignments in person. For him to visit a field operation, it had to be something big. He looked nervous, too.
“How’s the case going?” he asked.
“As of yesterday, I have a suspect,” she said warily.
“I’m glad to hear it.” He shook hands with Hoshe. “I’ve had some good reports about you, Detective. Do you think you’ll be able to close this one by yourself now?”
Hoshe glanced at Paula. “I suppose so.”
“He will,” Paula said. “Why are you here?”
“I think you know.”
....
After the Second Chance launched from the assembly platform, it had taken the SI a further three minutes to crack the last fireshield in the gateway control center datanet. The CST security team had marched in twenty minutes after that, once Rob Tannie had agreed to an unconditional surrender. The only promise CST made was not to shoot him and his colleagues on the spot. As it happened, the other two chose to suicide before the team got through the door, wiping their memorycells as they did so.
A fresh group of wormhole operation technicians rushed in as Rob was unceremoniously hauled away in handcuffs, leg restraints, and neural override collar. They took two hours to run checks on the systems and reopen the gateway next to the starship in its new, highly elliptical orbit. By then, what remained of the complex was under the strict control of CST security forces. The surrounding area was isolated and swept clean by the Commonwealth Security Directorate. A squadron of FTY897 combat aerobots had taken up patrol of the perimeter; the smooth dark ellipsoids were ultra-modern and equipped with the kind of weaponry capable of taking out pitiful antiques like Alamo Avengers with a single shot.
The assembly platform survivors were brought back down to the planet. Fresh crews were taken up to assess the ship’s status and secure exposed equipment against further vacuum degradation. Procedures were drawn up to establish a new assembly platform around the ship.
Five hours after the first explosion signaled the start of the assault, Wilson Kime stepped out of the gateway to spontaneous applause and cheers from the complex’s staff, and a bear hug from Nigel Sheldon. The CST media office broadcast the captain’s triumphant return to an audience almost as big as the assault itself had attracted. After that, he gave half a dozen interviews, thanked everyone involved for their tremendous effort, cracked a few jokes, didn’t speculate too hard on who had launched the attack but said he was fairly sure it wasn’t the Dyson Alpha aliens themselves, promised that he’d come through the ordeal more determined than ever to complete the mission, and finished up saying he’d donate his hazard bonus to a local children’s medical charity. Anshun police gave his car an escort of eight outriders back to his flat in the city.
Wilson woke with a smile on his face. When he turned over, Anna’s dark hair tickled his nose. She was curled up on the jellmattress beside him, one arm around her head like a small child warding off bad dreams. A whole series of delightful memories—and a deliciously wicked one—drifted through Wilson’s head. He kissed her shoulder. “Good morning.”
She stretched with a cat’s lethargy, giving him a sleepy grin. “That’s a horribly smug smile you’re wearing there, mister.”
“Yeah? I wonder what could have put it there?”
She giggled as he slid his arms around her. One hand stroked down her spine until it came to rest on her rump. “Was it this?” His other hand squeezed a small beautifully shaped breast, mercilessly tweaking the nipple. “Or this?” He kissed her neck, moved around to her mouth to smother the giggling. “This?”
One of her hands wriggled down between them, gripping.
“Wa-how!”
“Might have been that,” she said with a laugh.
“Oh, yeah?” He started to tickle her ribs. She retaliated. It turned into a mild wrestling contest, which soon developed into a much more intimate body contact sport.
In the end she grinned down victoriously from her position straddling his hips. “Well, whadda ya know: it is true what danger does to a man.”
He could hardly deny it. Last night had been all about survival, his body celebrating with its most basic physical reaction. The amount of relief he’d experienced when the Second Chance had risen above the spaceplanes had actually produced the shakes (which thankfully only Anna had witnessed). The others on board—the youngsters—had been delighted, ecstatic even, with their dramatic escape; but the prospect of dying hadn’t been too much for them to stand.
Wilson had never quite realized before how scared he was of dying, especially now. It wasn’t something today’s society could understand, not with all the expectation of rejuvenation and re-life procedures instilled from birth. The post-2050 generation knew they could live a good chunk of forever, it was their right. He thought his fear might have come from growing up in a time when there was only one life and then you died. The idea that memories could be saved and downloaded to animate a genetically identical body was a reassuring crutch for everyone else. But he couldn’t quite convince himself that was a continuation of his current existence. There would be a discontinuity, a gap between what he was now, and what that future Kime would remember being. A difference; a copy that was flawless was still a copy, not the original. People got around the dilemma by saying that every morning when you woke the only link to your past was memory, therefore waking in a new body was just an extended version of that ordinary nightly loss of consciousness. It wasn’t enough for him. His body, this body, was his life. The longer he lived in it, the more that identifying link was hardened. Three hundred plus years had produced a rock-solid conviction that nothing could break.
“I don’t think I’d survive another dangerous night like that one,” he told her, still panting slightly.
She folded her arms across his chest, and bent forward until her chin was resting on her hands, putting their faces inches apart. “What’s ship regulations about the captain sleeping with the lower ranks?”
“The captain is very much in favor of it.”
A finger tapped on his sternum. “You do have a sense of humor.”
“Carefully hidden, but cherished nonetheless.”
“So what do we do tonight if there isn’t an attack?”
He pursed his lips in mock thought. “Practice just in case?”
“My diary’s free.”
“You don’t have anyone?”
“No. Not fo
r ages, actually. Too damn busy with my new job. You?”
“Not really. I haven’t been married since my last rejuvenation. Some affairs, but nothing serious.”
“Good.” She straightened up. “I’d better get a shower. Do you really want to meet up again tonight? Last chance for a clean getaway.”
“I would like to meet up again tonight.”
“Me, too.” She gave him a quick kiss. “Life’s too uncertain not to try and keep hold of something good. Yesterday really made that clear to me like nothing else. Nobody’s ever tried to kill me before.”
“You did a magnificent job up there. Combat stress is hardly something you’re used to. I’m proud of you.”
“Have you been through something like that before?”
“Not exactly. But I’ve seen active military service. It was a long time ago, though. Not that you ever really forget, not even with rejuvenation editing.”
“Did you—” She hesitated. “Kill anyone?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure. I certainly shot at a lot of people. You don’t hang around to see the result. Slam on the afterburners, and head for home almost before the missile’s left the rail.”
“It’s hard to think how old you are. I just know you as a corporate chief. I had to run a search program to dig up the Ulysses story.”
“Ancient history. If you accessed it recently you probably know more about it than me.”
“But you did it, though. You traveled through space in a ship. It can be done.”
“I wouldn’t call that mission an unqualified success.”
“Oh, but, Wilson, it was! You reached Mars. Millions and millions of kilometers from Earth. It doesn’t matter that Sheldon and Isaac found another way. Don’t denigrate what you did. After all, look who needs you now.”
“Sheldon. Yeah, I suppose that’s poetic justice. You know what he said to me yesterday after we got back? He just fixed me with that smartass smile of his and said: You’re having a ball, aren’t you? He was right, too, the bastard. It felt so right flying the starship. We did it on a wing and a prayer. And we won! It’s like everything I’ve done since Ulysses was an interlude; I’ve been marking time for three centuries.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 42