The Dreaming

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Then after that, after the passion, they’d still enjoy each other’s company. Salrana was the only person he could ever really talk to. They understood each other. Two hick kids against the city. Future Mayor. Future Pythia.

  He smiled warmly.

  “—of course, I could just talk to myself instead,” an irritated Macsen said.

  “Sorry, what?” Edeard asked, banishing the smile.

  Macsen glanced over at Kanseen, who was standing beside Dinlay, the pair of them looking down on a gondola full of crates, calling something to the gondolier. “Boy, she really worked you over, didn’t she?”

  “Who? Oh, no. There’s nothing wrong. Kanseen and I are fine.”

  “I’d hate to see you un-fine.”

  “Really, I’m good. What did you want?”

  “The shopkeepers in Boltan Street keep saying strangers are walking along, checking out the buildings with a strong farsight. They’re obviously a gang taking a scouting trip. So if we pitch up there in these uniforms we’ll scare them off and they’ll just come back in a week or a month—whenever we move on. But if we were to loiter around in ordinary clothes they wouldn’t know we were there, and we could catch them at it red-handed.”

  “I don’t know. You know what Ronark is like about wearing the uniform on duty.” As they were starting their third patrol, the captain had unexpectedly appeared and performed a snap inspection. Edeard had almost been demoted for the ‘disgraceful lack of standards’. Since then, he’d made sure his squadmates were properly dressed before leaving the station.

  “Exactly,” Macsen said. “If you’re a constable in Jeavons you have to be in a uniform, everyone knows that. So they won’t be expecting us out of uniform.”

  “Humm, maybe. Let me talk to Chae first, see what he thinks.”

  “He’ll say no,” Boyd told them. “You know procedure. If a crime is suspected, then you use ge-eagles to observe the area while the squad waits out of farsight range.”

  “We don’t know how long we’ll have to wait,” Macsen said. “And Edeard only has one ge-eagle.”

  “You can sculpt more, can’t you?” Boyd said. “You told us you used to be an Eggshaper apprentice.”

  “He can’t sculpt without a Guild licence, not in Makkathran,” Macsen said. “It’s the law; we’d wind up having to arrest him. You know how keen they are on maintaining their monopoly. In any case, this is going to happen soon. We don’t have time to sculpt ge-eagles. That’s why we have to go patrolling in disguise.”

  “Ordinary clothes aren’t a disguise,” Boyd protested.

  “It doesn’t matter what clothes we wear, as long as it’s not the uniform,” Macsen said, his temper rising. “Dress how you want. Maybe in a dress—you’re certainly acting like an old woman.”

  “Good one, smartarse. If this gang’s as clever as you say, they’ll know all our faces anyway.”

  “Enough,” Edeard said, holding up his hands. “I will speak to Chae as soon as we get in. Until then I’ll keep my ge-eagle close to Boltan Street. I can’t do anything more in the middle of a patrol, so drop it for now, please.”

  “Just a suggestion,” Macsen grumbled as he started to walk away.

  “Are you deliberately winding him up?” Edeard asked Boyd.

  The lanky boy gave a sly grin. “I don’t have to answer that, I’m not under oath.”

  Edeard laughed. The Boyd of six months ago would never have dared any mischief at another’s expense, let alone a friend.

  The squad set off along the canal again, following the gentle curve northwards. Edeard’s plan was to stay on the side path until they reached its junction with the Outer Circle Canal, then turn back in to Jeavons. He sent his ge-eagle swooping low over the roof and towers of the district, guiding it towards Boltan Street. It was a damp grey morning, with the last of the night’s rain clouds still clotting the sky as they slid slowly westwards. Every surface was slick with rain. However, the indomitable citizens of Makkathran were out in force as usual, thronging the streets and narrow alleyways.

  Edeard’s ge-eagle flashed silently above them, ignored by most. Then he caught a movement that was out of kilter. Halfway along Sonral Street, someone in a hooded jacket turned away from the eagle and adjusted their hood, pulling it fully over their head.

  It could have been nothing, the ge-eagle was still over fifty yards away. And it was damp, the air chill. Perfectly legitimate for someone to pull their hood up in such circumstances. A lot of people in the same zigzagging street were sporting hats this morning. The man wasn’t even alone in wearing a hooded jacket.

  It’s wrong though, I know it.

  “Wait,” he told the squad. He swept the street with his farsight, searching for the one suspicious figure. The man’s mind was shielded, though the tinge of uncertainty seeped out. Again, perfectly legitimate, he could be worrying about anything, from a bad quarrel with his wife to debts.

  Edeard observed the direction he was taking and ordered the ge-eagle round in a long curve. It settled on the eves of a three storey house at the end of Sonral Street out of sight from its target. As he waited, Edeard realized the man in the hooded jacket wasn’t alone; he was walking with two others. Then the ge-eagle caught sight of him on the street as he came round one of the shallow turns. By now, the hood had slipped back slightly.

  “Oh yes, Lady, thank you,” Edeard said.

  “What’s happening?” Dinlay demanded.

  “He’s back,” Edeard growled. “The thief from Silvarum market, the one who was holding the box.”

  “Where!” Kanseen demanded.

  “Sonral Street. Top third.”

  The squad registered annoyance. “We can’t farsight that far,” Boyd complained.

  “Okay, here you go,” Edeard gifted them the ge-eagle’s sight.

  “Are you sure?” Macsen asked.

  “He’s right,” Kanseen said. “It is him, the bastard. I can just farsight him.”

  “There are two others with him,” Edeard told them. “And he’s nervous about the ge-eagle, so they’re not here for anything legitimate. Let’s spread out and surround them. Keep a street between yourself and them the whole time. I’ll track them with farsight, I don’t want to risk him seeing the ge-eagle again, that’ll scare them off.”

  They all smiled at each other, edgy with nerves and excitement.

  “Go!” Macsen cried.

  After five minutes steady jogging Edeard wished he paid more attention to keeping fit. As before, Makkathran’s citizens were reluctant to give ground to anyone in a hurry, least of all a red-faced, sweating, panting young constable. He dodged and shoved and wiggled his way along streets and through alleys, ignoring the whingers, and glaring down anyone who voiced a complaint. His uniform made it worse with its hot, heavy fabric restricting his movements.

  Eventually he got himself into position a street to the west of the trio. His farsight showed him his squadmates taking up positions all around. “Got them,” Dinlay’s longtalk announced as he slowed to a walk.

  “Me too,” Boyd reported.

  “What do you think they’re here to steal?” Macsen asked.

  “Small enough to carry easily, valuable enough to be worth the risk,” Dinlay replied.

  “Another one been paying attention during our lectures. But unfortunately that covers about ninety per cent of the shops around here.”

  “Could be something in one of the storerooms, too,” Boyd suggested.

  “Or a house,” Kanseen added.

  “Let’s just keep watch on them,” Edeard told them. “When they go into a building, we close in. Remember to wait until the crime has been committed before arresting them.”

  “Hey, never thought of that,” Macsen said.

  Edeard let his farsight sweep through the buildings around the trio, trying to guess what they might be interested in. Hopeless task.

  The suspects turned off Sonral Street into an alley so narrow one person could barely fit. Edeard hesitated,
they were heading towards his street, but it was a blind alley, blocked by a house wall twenty feet high. His farsight probed around, revealing a series of underground storerooms beneath one of the jewellery shops on Sonral Street. There was a passage leading up to a thick metal door in the alley.

  “At least they’re consistent,” he remarked. “That’s a jeweller’s shop on top.”

  “On top of what?” Boyd asked.

  “There’s some kind of passage leading off the alley,” Kanseen told him. “It leads downwards somewhere. Edeard, can you actually sense what’s there?”

  “A little bit,” he admitted reluctantly. “Just some kind of open chamber. I think.” For a moment he wished everyone had his ability—life would be a lot easier.

  “So now what do we do?” Macsen asked. “We can’t rush them, not down that alley.”

  “Wait at the end,” Dinlay said. “They can hardly escape.”

  Edeard’s farsight was showing him a whole network of interconnecting passages and rooms running under the row of shops. The passages all had locked doors, but once the thieves were inside, there was a chance they could elude his squad within the little underground maze.

  “The rest of you get into Sonral Street,” he ordered. “I’m going round the back to see if I can find another way down there.”

  “You’re not going in alone?” Kanseen asked. “Edeard, there’s three of them, and we know they carry blades.”

  “I’m just going to make sure they don’t have an escape route, that’s all. Come on, move.”

  He was faintly aware of his squadmates hurrying to the broad street beyond the alley. One of the thieves had bent down beside the small door, doing something to the first of its five locks. From what he could sense of the locks, Edeard knew he wouldn’t like to try and pick them open. He concentrated hard, pushing his farsight through the city’s fabric to map out the buried labyrinth of rooms and passages. In truth there were only three exits in addition to the one the trio were currently trying to break through.

  Below that level, though, Edeard sensed the web of fissures which wove the city structures together. Several twisted their way up past the storerooms, branching into smaller clefts that laced the walls of the buildings above. He tracked back, finding a convoluted route that led to the street he was standing in. His third hand reached out, probing the fabric of the wall at the back of a tapering alcove between two shops. Nothing, it was as solid as granite.

  Please, his longtalk whispered to the mind of the slumbering city. Let me in.

  Something intangible stirred beneath him. A flock of ruugulls took flight from the roofs above.

  Here, his mind pressed into the rear of the alcove. Something pushed back. Colourful shapes rose into his thoughts, swirling so much faster than the birds overhead. In his dazed state he thought they resembled numbers and mathematical symbols, but so much larger and more complex than any of the arithmetic Akeem had ever taught him. With these equations the universe could surely be explained away. They danced like sprites, rearranging themselves into a new order before twirling away.

  Edeard gasped, struggling to stand up as his legs shook weakly. His heart was pounding far harder than it had been from his earlier run through the streets. He felt the structure of the wall change. When he peered forward it looked exactly the same as before, a dark-purple surface with flecks of grey stretching all the way up to where the curving roofs intersected three storeys above him. But it gave when his third hand touched it.

  There were people on the street around him, strolling along. Edeard waited until a relatively clear moment, and stepped into the little alcove. Nobody could see him now. His hand touched the section of wall at the back, and slipped right through. The skin tingled round his fingers, as if he were immersing them in fine sand. He walked into the wall. It was a sensation his brain interpreted as a wave of dry water washing across him. Then he was inside. He opened his eyes to complete darkness. His farsight cast around, and showed him he was suspended in a vertical tube. Even without visual sight, Edeard instinctively looked down. Farsight confirmed his feet were standing on nothing.

  “Oh Lady!”

  He started to descend. It was as though a very powerful third hand was gently lowering him to the bottom of the fissure which snaked away horizontally under the buildings. Yet he was convinced it wasn’t a telekinetic hold. He couldn’t sense anything like that; some other force was manipulating him. Oddly, his stomach felt as though he was plummeting even though he was moving relatively slowly.

  His feet touched the ground. That was when whatever force had gripped him withdrew, leaving him free to sink into a crouch. When he touched the wall of the fissure, he felt a slick of water coating it. A rivulet was trickling over the toe of his boots—he could hear it gurgling softly.

  “It’s a drain,” he said out loud, astonished that anything so fantastical could actually exist to serve such a mundane purpose.

  Despite perfectly clear farsight, he patted round with his hands. The drain fissure was slightly too small for him to walk along it upright. Its side walls were about five feet apart. He took a breath, none too happy at the claustrophobic feeling niggling the back of his mind, and started to move forwards at a stoop.

  The thieves had got through the locked door at the top of the passage. An impressive feat in such a short space of time. Two of them were descending the curving stairs to the door which sealed off the bottom, while the third stood guard outside. Edeard moved faster, navigating several forks along the drain fissure. He observed the thieves manipulate the locks on the second door, and go through. Then he was directly underneath the storeroom they were ransacking. The layout was distinct, the wooden racks laid out in parallel. Small boxes piled up on the shelves. A large iron box in one corner, with a very complicated locking mechanism. They were ignoring that.

  Edeard looked up as his farsight pervaded the city’s substance above him, a solid mass of rock-like material five yards thick. He concentrated. Closed his eyes—stupid but, well… And applied his mind. Again the equations rose from nowhere to pirouette breezily around his thoughts. He began to rise up, slipping though the once-solid substance like some piece of cork bobbing to the surface of the sea. Once again his stomach was convinced he was falling, to a degree which brought on a lot of queasiness. He had almost reached the floor, when he realized the thieves would sense him the second he popped up. Quickly, he threw a concealment around himself. Then he was emerging into the storeroom, with a weak orange light shining all around. The floor hardened beneath his boots.

  “What was that?” a voice asked.

  Edeard was standing behind the rack at the back of the storeroom, out of direct sight. He held his breath.

  “Nothing. Fucking stop panicking will you. There are only two doors, and the other one is locked. Now help me find the crap we came here for before someone senses us down here.”

  Edeard slowly walked round the end of the rack. He could see the pair of them, moving along a rack, taking boxes off the shelf and prising them open with some kind of tool. A quick look inside, and the box would be tossed aside. Most of them seemed to contain little bottles. Dozens of them were clinking as they rolled about on the floor.

  “Here we go,” the one in the hooded jacket announced. He’d just forced open a box full of tiny packets. One was opened to reveal a coil of metal thread. Edeard wasn’t sure in the storeroom’s low orange light, but it might be gold.

  “I’ll check out the rest,” the other one said.

  The one with the hooded jacked began stuffing the packets into an inside pocket.

  Edeard dropped his concealment.

  “What the fuck—” Both thieves swung round to face him.

  “Hello again,” Edeard said. “Remember me?”

  “Edeard!” Kanseen’s panicky longtalk reverberated in his skull. “Sweet Lady, where’ve you been? We’ve been going frantic. How did you get in there?”

  “It’s the little shit from the market,”
the thief in the hooded jacket spat. “I fucking knew that ge-eagle was on the prowl.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a long blade. At the same time his third hand tried to push into Edeard’s chest for a heartsqueeze.

  Edeard laughed as he deflected the attack. Then his own third hand slipped out and crushed the blade the thief was holding. The metal rippled, then warped into a slim bent spike. Edeard twisted the tip round into a U-shape. “You’re under arrest for theft and the attempted assault on a constable.”

  “Fuck!” the other one yelled, he raced for the door.

  “One coming out,” Edeard’s longtalk told his squadmates.

  “Are you all right?” Dinlay demanded.

  “Never better.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the hooded thief.

  The man held up the ruined knife, and gave an admiring grin. “Tough guy, huh. Are you smart with it? There’s enough precious metal in here to make everyone happy.”

  “You want attempted bribery added to the charges?”

  “Idiot.” The thief turned his back on Edeard, and walked casually towards the doorway out to the passage.

  “Stop right there,” Edeard ordered.

  The thief’s third hand lifted one of the small bottles into the air behind him. Edeard frowned uncertainly. Another bottle rose, accelerating to crash into the first. Glass shattered.

  A fireball spewed out, dazzling white in the gloomy storeroom. Edeard twisted away instinctively, his shield hardening. Flaming globules splattered against it.

  “Edeard!” the squad longtalked in unison.

  “I’m all right.” He was blinking his eyes furiously, trying to get rid of the long purple glare-blotches. An acrid smell was growing strong, yet his farsight revealed just a few flickers of flame on the racks closest to the fireball. His third hand swatted them, snuffing the flames before they posed any real danger. Then he noticed the black holes in the boxes scattered across the floor, as if flames had burned through very quickly. The raw edges were still smouldering. When he looked closer, he saw they were coated in some kind of tar which was bubbling away. He shook his head in bewilderment.