by Sean Stewart
“Oh, well,” Raining said. “Any skull can grin.”
They picked up speed, running now, the tracker Johnson first, then Raining with Captain Ranford, then six enlisted men in loose single file. The path was very muddy, and dotted with pools of standing water. Raining’s dress was soaking wet and filthy. It stuck to her legs as she ran. It made her furious that her best silk dress should be ruined like this. Heavy boots pounded through the puddles at her back.
They came to a fork in the path, but Johnson barely hesitated before taking the right-hand way. Rather than having the usual HUD contacts, his familiar had been augmented with a special visual array. The lenses were the size of glasses, with IR and UV emitter penlights attached. The whole assemblage was bolted to his face with screw-plates attached directly to his bones. Raining had never seen a tracker in action before, but she’d met a couple off duty. They tended to be a little flamboyant; good fun compared to the average stuffy Southsider. The one she remembered best used to wear little pieces of steel jewelry screwed into his faceplate when he wasn’t on duty.
“Let’s go,” Ranford said. “Emily’s prints will get harder to follow if the rain picks up any.”
One of the enlisted men said, “Where are Bishop and Ozolinsh?”
“What was that, Mister Lubov?”
“Bishop and Ozolinsh, sir. And Smythe. And Grant.” Private Lubov kept his voice steady. He seemed poised and professional, like the rest of them. But young, so young. He couldn’t be more than a year or two past his Compulsory, Raining thought. Twenty-three years old, maybe. Body like a god, no doubt, beneath his mud-splattered uniform whites. But such a young man. “Maybe they took the other fork in the path back there.”
Ranford stared down the path behind them. “What in hell…Johnson?”
The tracker turned and loped twenty paces back along the way they had come. “No sign, sir.” His voice was a little shaky, but he steadied it. “No tracks, no traces. No IR signatures within visual range.”
“That’s impossible. We’ve only been on the trail three or four minutes.”
“I know that, sir. They’re just…gone.”
Ranford stared at Raining. “Where the fuck are my men?”
“I don’t know.” She kept her voice very low and steady. “You would be making a mistake if you thought I controlled this wood, Captain. I do not. I don’t know where your men are. If I did, I would tell you. Please remember that seeing you out of here is my only hope of getting my daughter back.”
“Fuck.” Ranford turned away. “Shit. Shit.”
“Sir?”
Ranford waved Johnson back. “Yes, come on. They’ll have to make their own way out. We can’t let Emily make up too much time on us.”
They went fast. Raining had expected the Southsiders to be slowed by the twists and turns in the path, the sudden dips and puddles, the roots and deadfall that cluttered the trail. She should have known better than to underestimate the Southside soldiers. Nick’s familiar had been so full of crusty humor, salvage lore, chemical specs, and site information that she had forgotten what five years with a familiar devoted to physical optimization could do to a man. The Southsiders’ reflexes were unbelievable, their movement through the wood fluid and incredibly fast. No doubt they could keep at it for hours too. Raining was quickly gasping for breath. She wondered how long it would be before she was picked up and carried.
If the Forest was going to let them find Emily, they would be on top of Ms. Thompson very, very fast.
“Help!”
The line of running figures froze.
“Who the hell was that?”
“Samuels, sir!”
The voice seemed to be coming from a few dozen meters away.
“How the fuck did you get off the path?” Ranford demanded.
“I don’t know, sir!”
“Calm down, son. Yelping won’t help. Are you standing still?”
“Yes, sir. Didn’t want to risk getting lost, sir.”
“Good man. Now listen, Samuels: can you fire a burst straight up to give us your exact position? I think I can spot you, but I’m not quite sure.”
A railgun hissed somewhere to the right. Raining thought she caught a glimpse of the beam between some branches.
“Johnson?” Ranford said quietly.
“Got him, sir. Twenty-seven meters along this line.” The tracker pointed. His lenses were cloudy with green shadows.
“But he was right behind me,” Lubov said quietly. “I mean right on my tail. His splash was on the back of my leg.”
“Cut the chat—Samuels, we’re going to fire a burst. Tell me when you see it.” He nodded to Lubov.
“Got it,” Samuels called.
“All right. I want you to take five steps through the forest towards us. Go around a tree if you have to. Cut through any underbrush, though; try to keep a straight line. When you’ve taken five steps, I want you to stop and fire again to give your position. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, go ahead. I’m going to keep talking now, so you can use the sound of my voice to orient by. Nice and easy. Don’t panic and you’ll be fine. A little wet in the pissing rain, but—”
A line of tracers flared in the undergrowth. A moment later they heard a branch come crashing down. “Shit!”
“You okay, Samuels?”
“Yes, sir. Barely.” Samuels laughed shakily. “Nothing spooky, sir. I cut the fucking branch off with the gun and it just about brained me falling down.”
Ranford grinned. “Watch your fire there, Mister.”
“Sir? He isn’t any closer,” Johnson said quietly. He scratched at the side of his face as if brushing away a cobweb.
“What?”
“Samuels is now at twenty-eight point five meters, this line.” He pointed.
“Goddammit.”
Ranford turned on Raining. “You go get him.”
“Sir?” the ensign said.
“What the fuck is it, Lubov?”
“If she goes off the path for Samuels, that leaves us on the path without her. Sir.”
Ranford swore. “Right. Shit.”
“Samuels, are you holding your position?” Johnson called.
“I can hear you better,” Samuels called. “Hang on.” Shambling noises came muddily from the undergrowth.
“Don’t move!” Johnson yelled, and Ranford added, “That’s an order, Mister!”
“What?” It was harder to hear Samuels’ voice.
The soldiers with Raining shouted. “Don’t move—stay still you stupid fuck—stand and fire, dammit!”
The movement in the undergrowth stopped. Another burst from the railgun. “Thirty-eight meters from this position,” Johnson whispered. His lenses were green discs now, set flush into his face. In this light, Raining thought, he looked as much like a creature of the Forest as her mother. Rain crept in tracks down his flat green eyes.
“Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy,” Lubov said.
They kept trying until Samuels panicked.
When the last sounds of the lost soldier had faded into the Forest, Ranford turned and spat. “We’re going back.”
“Thank you,” Raining said.
Ranford nodded tightly. “I am not an idiot. Or such an asshole as you think. If Emily is in here, she’s either coming out when the Forest wants her to, or not at all.” He looked at Raining. “This place is like the North Side, isn’t it?”
“I tried to tell you.”
He nodded. “That you did, Ms. Chiu. But I had my orders. You’ll have to accept that.”
“Tell it to your men, Captain. They’re the ones who are paying for it.”
Johnson moaned. Lubov looked sick but determined. “There’s the matter of your daughter too,” Ranford said. “Or had you forgotten?”
“I hadn’t forgotten.”
Ranford took a deep breath. “Well my lads, here’s for it. Everyone hold hands now; no more getting separated. We�
�re going to head back the way we came and hope Ms. Chiu can get us out of here alive. If not, I’ll see you on the North Side in a few days’ time, eh?” He shook his soldiers’ hands, Lubov first, then Johnson. “Are you all right there, Mister Johnson? You feel a little shaky.”
“I don’t—I think I’m getting sick,” Johnson said, breathing raggedly. “Get me out of this hellhole and I’ll be fine, sir.”
“Good man.” Ranford clapped him on the back. His eyes were anguished.
They had just made it back to the original fork in the path when Johnson dropped to his knees, whimpering. “Oh God, Oh God, leave me alone!”
“Christ, Johnson. Johnson! What’s wrong?”
Johnson’s body convulsed. He shrieked and started tearing at his face. Ranford grabbed his hands but Johnson bucked, throwing him aside. He had dug bloody welts into his face. Blood and mud were smeared on his lenses. His fingers clenched as if trying to pluck the lenses out, but slid down their smooth surface. He shrieked again and again.
Lubov and Raining watched in horror.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Ranford shouted. His railgun was trained on Raining’s face. “Make it stop.”
“I can’t!”
“If he goes, I swear to God I’ll kill you too. Do you hear me?” Ranford yelled at the Forest. “Leave Johnson alone or your pet human buys it. Are you listening?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Raining was crying. “It’s not a person, Captain. You can’t bargain with it. It doesn’t understand anything you say. All it knows is that you might hurt me, and you made Lark sad.”
Johnson stopped clawing at his eyes. Gurgling, he smashed his head into the ground, once, twice, again, again. Finally his body slumped and stilled. Ranford looked from it to Raining. Tears mixed with the tracks of rain on his face. “All this? All this because a little girl might be sad?”
“Mercy is a human thing,” Raining whispered.
“Oh my God,” Lubov said.
Green shoots and little white runners had pushed out from under Johnson’s lenses. A faint green blush of something like moss showed in the bloody runnels around his eyes.
Ranford looked at Raining. “You’re dead.”
She screamed. Shadows burst from the forest as a line of white fire tore steaming through the wet air.
Ranford blew apart.
Raining gasped.
Beside her, Lubov put his steaming railgun gently on the ground. Then he popped out his contacts. Holding them in one hand, he unzipped his uniform jacket and unwound the computer-gel pack from around his waist. He put the components of his familiar on top of the gun. He rolled up the leg of his uniform pants and unbuckled a knife sheath from around his calf. He dropped that on the pile too.
Then he looked at Raining. “Please, miss. Can you get me home?”
“I’ll try,” she said.
She prayed for him and she held his hand, she did everything she could, but finally she stumbled over a hidden root. She let go of his arm as she fell and the Forest swept between them like a river and carried Lubov away.
Two minutes later the path turned a corner and she was home.
Chapter
Seventeen
David Oliver waited at the edge of the wood for Captain Ranford to return. They were very close to Wire’s apartment, so he sent Corporal Arnott there with Lark and Wire and a couple of extra guards. He stayed at the edge of the Forest, pacing back and forth under the blossoming cherry trees, wondering if he should have let anyone go in there. A light, steady rain was falling.
After a time he heard what sounded like railgun fire. Dread crept into him. His worst fear was that Raining had been killed, that Lark had been orphaned because of him.
More waiting. Then more shots. Then there was only the rain.
An hour passed. There was no sign of Ranford and his men. David posted two pickets to watch the path, in case anyone should come out. Then he walked to Wire’s apartment to collect her and the girl. He called for a helicopter and in a few moments they had been flown to Government House, where the Southside forces had set up their temporary base of operations with the support of Huang Ti.
He felt terribly weary.
After seeing that Wire and Lark were safely under guard in a small shrine room on the first floor, David turned his attention to Emily’s governess, Claire.
Claire had turned up rather by accident. Huang Ti had told the Southsiders the location of Li Bing’s house. David had immediately detailed some men to see if Li Mei was there. In fact, she had come and gone again, but when the trackers arrived, they had found Claire asleep on a couch in the front room.
David spent more than an hour going over Claire’s story, trying to sift through what she remembered of Li Mei’s comments for any extra clues to Emily’s movements or motivations.
“Christ have mercy, how many times have we covered this?” Claire said wearily.
“I sympathize with your frustration,” Major Oliver said. “I’m tired too. Let’s try leaving the question of Emily and going back to the massacre at the barracks.”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“Try to sympathize with the families of the men and women who died.”
“That’s a cheap shot, Major.”
“Is it? They died. You didn’t. Naturally we are curious. Now, you said you had a dream.”
“Not a dream. A vision.”
“Could you explain the difference?”
“A dream comes from inside. A vision is sent.”
“Thank you. And you believe The Harrier sent you this vision?”
“To get me out of the barracks. Yes.”
“In your mind, then, your survival was not a matter of chance.”
“No.”
“And then you followed your mother—The Harrier is your mother, correct?”
“Can’t you tell by looking? I have the family nose.”
“Mm. You ran after her, turned the corner, and found yourself face to face with our Chinatown liaison. Water Spider.”
“That is correct.”
The man from Intelligence looked up at Claire. “You are convinced that your mother acted deliberately to save you. Presumably she also meant to bring you together with the Minister for Borders. Can you tell me why she would have done that?”
Claire remembered Water Spider, standing on the sidewalk in his elegant silk robes, all his arrogance gone. Eyes defenseless; his life unfolded by The Harrier’s touch.
For the first time, Claire wondered what it had been like for her nameless father to be borne up by The Harrier and joined to that clear infinitude. Like falling toward the white stars, maybe. Like falling between them.
“Ma’am?”
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “Why Water Spider? I never thought of that. I truly don’t know.”
The Intelligence officer looked at her. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
In two hours of questioning, Claire hid nothing…but she was disturbed to find how much she wanted to hide. She did not want to tell Major Oliver about the little dead boy haunting Emily’s dreams, or her mother’s visitation, or what she knew about Water Spider and Li Mei. The urge to conceal these things made her feel guilty and uneasy. So she washed out her memories of the last few days with truth as if with iodine, hoping that after the sting would come healing.
“All right,” Major Oliver said at last. “That will do for now. You will be reassigned to light duty, but I will request that you be stationed here, where we can talk to you immediately should the need arise. Accommodations have been arranged for you.”
“Thank you, Major.” Claire rubbed her face with her hands. “Was I hallucinating, or did I really see Jackson’s ghost this morning?”
“In my professional opinion?”
“Yes.”
“At the time you saw Lieutenant Jackson’s ghost, you had barely slept for twenty-six hours. Under extreme stress for the last seven. Could it have been a hallucination? Of course. But I wouldn’t ru
le out other possibilities. Vancouver is a funny place. Eight of our men were swallowed whole by a forest this morning. You have a very odd history yourself, Claire.” He shrugged.
“In other words, you have no idea whether I’m crazy or not.”
Major Oliver gave her a tired smile. “You are welcome to seek out a second opinion.”
The Southsiders had taken Wire and Lark to Government House—in a helicopter yet, though it couldn’t be more than a mile and a half from where the Snows had ambushed them on the edge of the Forest—and put them in what must have been a little altar room cluttered with Buddhas, and left them there so long that Lark finally fell asleep on the couch. With infinite caution Wire eased her lap out from under Lark’s head, terrified the girl would wake up, but badly needing to stretch her legs. She had just managed to shift Lark’s head onto the couch and stand when the wooden door of their little holding cell slid open and David Oliver walked in.
Wire held a finger to her lips. Major Oliver nodded. Silence hung heavily in the air. The long night without sleep had finally caught up with Wire, leaving her limbs feeling heavy and slow, her skin sensitive, almost feverish. Gold and blue peacocks peered up from the gorgeous carpet underfoot. “What time is it?” She murmured, the words thick and muzzy in her mouth.
“Almost noon.”
Wire wondered if there was still a guard outside the door with Major Oliver here. Probably. “Funny place to keep your prisoners,” she said.
“The dungeon’s full up.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
The first time Wire had called them prisoners, back at the edge of the Forest, Major Oliver had argued with her. That was before the railgun fire had started inside the wood. It seemed like a long time ago. But Captain Ranford’s men had not come back, and neither had Raining. There was no question that she and Lark were anything but prisoners now.
“We have an arrangement with the Mandarinate,” Major Oliver said. “Is there something I can get you?”
“Out of here.” No response. “Water, then.”
Oliver slid back the door and said a few words to the guard. (Aha! There had been one out there.) Footsteps hurried in the corridor, voices called in Cantonese. Wire couldn’t hear anything clearly enough to make sense of it. Someone beat a small gong. Then the door slid shut and the noise fell away as if cut with scissors, leaving the same heavy Buddha silence behind.