Deceit

by Peter Darvill-Evans

  ‘You don’t mean... ?’

  ‘They are plague carriers. Everyone must die.’

  There was a long silence. Francis had almost forgotten his personal fears. He knew that he should be appalled, horrified; in fact he was excited. Something was going to happen – something big, something unprecedented.

  He looked through the knot-hole. The Prince was slumped on the throne. ‘We have had so many centuries of peace,’ he said slowly. ‘And now violence has come at last to Arcadia.’

  Stronty Lopecs and her field artillery team had been drinking vodka and Burn-up. They were standing on one of the few upright tables, supporting each other, and bellowing the artillery chant.

  ‘We’re going to grill the Daleks,’ they bellowed, ‘we’ll fricassee the Daleks, we’ll roast them, we’ll bake them, we’ll boil them in a bag.’

  The same thing, over and over again.

  Sitting in a corner in a pool of spilt beer, one of the troopship mechanics was bawling a tuneless rendition of My Dalek Lover is a Sex Machine, his voice rising to a crescendo on the filthiest words.

  Everyone else was just yelling, laughing, or breaking furniture. The decibel level was dangerous. A whole troopship-load of auxiliaries were celebrating their last night before embarkation and warp. The space station’s canteen wasn’t big enough to hold them, but they were determined to soak up every drop of alcohol they wouldn’t be able to smuggle aboard ship.

  There wasn’t room to lift a plastic beaker without losing half of its contents. Second Tracker Reynald Yesti was elbowing his way through the shifting jungle of bodies. He’d collected four cans of Triple-Z, and he was determined that most of the liquid should go down his throat and not down the front of his shirt. He barged towards the exit.

  The corridor was scarcely less crowded. To the left, a crowd had gathered to watch a fire-extinguisher duel between Bodylouse Oboke and The Fur-lined Zapper. Yesti would have put money on the Zapper, but he turned away. In the other direction the corridor was passable, because a lot of the bodies were horizontal. Yesti stepped over outstretched legs and arms. The four cans were still almost full.

  He reached a man-sized piece of wall. It was clean; there was no blood or vomit on the floor here, and only a little beer. He put his back against the paintwork and slid down until the seat of his pants rested on the short-pile carpet. One by one, the four cans were arranged in a neat row between his knees. He picked up the first, and began to drink.

  After a while, when the roof of his mouth felt comfortably numb and a tingling vibration had reached his extremeties, Yesti looked around. On one side of him, a wired-up named Tragg was snoring. Someone had painted a lipstick kiss on the metal plate in his forehead. Yesti turned his head. He could still do that, and the world didn’t spin. He needed another Triple-Z.

  On his other side, he could see over the rim of the second can, was a more attractive prospect than Tragg. This trooper was awake, female, and quite a looker. Yesti was a sucker for dolls with big brown eyes.

  She noticed him. ‘Have I got two heads?’ she said.

  Yesti considered this for a moment – a moment too long.

  ‘So stop staring. I didn’t ask for company.’

  Yesti liked a challenge. ‘Don’t mope, kid. You didn’t get to go tomorrow, right?’

  She looked at her boots, ran a hand through her long dark hair. She had a wide mouth, and full lips. She was sort of pouting, and Yesti thought it suited her. He wanted to see her smile, too, and then he started to wonder what those lips would be like to kiss. He took another gulp from the can. She seemed to have forgotten him.

  ‘You good with your mouth?’ he said.

  ‘You what?’

  He grinned. He had a grin that could charm the ladies, he knew that. He waved the can. ‘The booze talking. Ignore it. Listen, doll, we can’t all get picked for this trip. Some you win, some you lose. I’ve seen you around, but I don’t know you, do I?’

  She turned to face him. Now she was holding a stun-gun in her right hand. ‘You don’t know me, creep, and you’re not going to get the chance – unless...’

  It was as if she had only just seen him. Her big eyes widened, and adopted a puzzled expression. Yesti smiled and winked; he had that effect on women, sometimes, when they looked him in the eye for the first time.

  ‘Are you going, tomorrow?’ she asked. Her voice was softer.

  ‘Sure. No better Tracker than Reynald Yesti. They can’t do without me.’

  ‘A Tracker? Hey, that’s something. You must be a clever guy.’

  Play this very cool, Yesti told himself. No more Triple-Z. I’m going into warp tomorrow, and I want so badly to get lucky tonight. What do I do next? Think! Wow, those lips. Yeah, got it – be interested in her. ‘And so what d’you do in this bunch, pretty girl like you?’ he said.

  It looked like she was giggling. Maybe she was on something. All the better.

  ‘Explosives,’ she said. ‘I’m on – er, secondment, I suppose you’d call it, from IMC. Now in Special Weapons, attached to the First Infantry. Or I was until now.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ No, she wasn’t. Don’t get her angry. ‘Well, that’s great, doll. Because I like a big bang myself.’ He winked again.

  ‘I bet you do,’ she said. ‘And you’re really on the ship tomorrow?’

  He fumbled in his breast pocket. ‘I got the papers, see? Signed by ice-queen Defries herself.’

  She took the document, looked at it, handed it back, and gazed at him. ‘They say it’s going to be rough. This could be your last night of fun, soldier.’

  ‘I guess so.’ It didn’t worry him. But she seemed pretty worked up about it. She wanted him, he could see that. There was something in her eyes – something feral, a deep hunger. The twins he’d met in that bar on Novaport, they’d been wild. But this woman was something else again.

  ‘This place stinks,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to my cabin.’

  It took a while to register. He took a gulp of Triple-Z. ‘Now?’

  ‘Now. Come up and see my etchings.’

  She was already on her feet. He took her outstretched hand. ‘What?’

  ‘A very old joke. Come on, soldier. I need you.’

  She needs me. You’re a clever bastard, Yesti. You’re going to get yourself one hell of a send-off tonight.

  Far away – five weeks away at warp speed – Francis was feeling ridiculous. And hot. He was sheltering from the hazy sunlight in a grove of apple trees beside the road, but he was still too hot. He hated the prickly sensation of perspiration breaking out on his skin, but he couldn’t risk doffing his incognito. The long robe and wide-brimmed hat were damnably uncomfortable.

  He peered once again between the grey-brown trunks towards the russet walls and shimmering rooftops of Beaufort. And this time he saw, emerging from the shadow of the gatehouse, a trap pulled by two black horses. The driver shook the reins, and the trap sped towards the grove.

  Francis stepped out on to the raised kerbstone and watched the trap approach. Christina, resplendent in a hooded cape of aquamarine, handled the vehicle with confident ease. She reined in the horses, and Francis leapt on to the seat beside her. She threw back her hood, kissed him, and cracked the reins. With hardly a tremor, the trap accelerated along the highway, the paving stones blurring to an unbroken grey beneath the clopping hooves.

  With one hand holding his hat on his head and the other resting on Christina’s knee, Francis stared without interest at the passing countryside. Fields of wheat and maize gave way to terraces of vines. They passed cottages with neat gardens. They crossed a bridge; next to it a millwheel turned slowly. Chickens, goats and pigs foraged beneath plantations of olives and walnuts. There were a few carts on the road, laden with produce and pulled by donkeys or oxen. Farmers were walking or riding to and from their fields. The horns of huntsmen sounded in the distant parkland. Everything was as it had always been. Francis glanced up at the misty blue sky: what would a ship from another world loo
k like? What sort of plague could it bring?

  The trap slowed as the road wound up into the hills. Here the fields were smaller, partitioned by hedges and low walls of stone. Cows and sheep grazed unconcernedly. Dark woodlands concealed mysterious depths.

  Christina urged the horses off the road and on to a rutted track between tall hedgerows. This was the way to the Clearwater Cataract. This was not the first time she had brought Francis to this secluded corner of her family’s estate.

  They trundled beneath trailing boughs and into the forest. Christina, laughing, ducked her head to avoid pen¬dant clusters of wild cherries. The horses were walking now, and the path was becoming steep. Christina steered the trap off the track and into a clearing. The horses knew the place, stopped, and began to nibble the sun-dappled grasses and the loganberries. Christina jumped from the seat and loosely tied the reins to the loganberry bush.

  Francis watched the horses’ nodding heads for a while before following his blue-green mistress along the footpath.

  They stopped, as usual, in the middle of the bridge that arched over the cataract. Far below them, water was tumbling over rocks, making a continuous noise but hardly visible through the leaves and fronds that overhung the stream. Before them and behind them the gorge widened from this narrow chasm. Behind them the banks fell away and opened into the Clearwater Vale, whose waters fed the Slow Brochet that wound round the walls of Beaufort; in front of them the cliffs rose like walls, dripping with foliage, parting to reveal the glittering spout of ice-cold water falling vertically from a tree-shrouded source and landing with a roll of unending thunder in a turbulent pool of inky blackness.

  They held hands and watched the water plummet. At last, she turned to him with shining eyes. He felt his heart falter. Was this sorrow, or premonition, or guilt? He didn’t even know which of the two of them he felt more sorry for. He had never before experienced such disquiet at finding and taking an easy way out.

  ‘This place is so exciting!’ she whispered. ‘Come on – let’s go down to the bottom.’

  After a scramble up and down a narrow path, they reached a greensward beside the dark pool. The roar of the waterfall filled the funnel of vegetation that yawned above them. Here, the pool was almost unnaturally calm, a black mirror sprinkled with gently bobbing lilies; only a stone’s throw away, it was a maelstrom of falling, churning water, throwing up a fine mist in which miniature rainbows lived and died in seconds. Quicksilver fish leapt and dived in a complicated dance.

  They stood a little apart. Francis knew she was trying to catch his eye. It was up to him to make the move now and he couldn’t. He would have to tell her. He couldn’t.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘maize. It must have seeded itself. Funny to find it down here. Are you hungry?’ He tugged the head from the stalk.

  ‘Francis,’ she said, ‘don’t be silly. Come here.’

  He peeled away the leaves. ‘It’s not ripe. It should be, by now. Everything’s late this year, have you noticed? Even later than last year. If it carries on like this they say there’ll be only one harvest next year.’

  ‘Since when did you take the slightest interest in raising crops?’ She had moved closer, behind him. He felt her hands slide under his arms. ‘The grass is quite dry. Now come here!’

  She pulled, and they fell down together, laughing. She landed on top of him and sat on his stomach, pinning him down. He watched, feeling strangely indifferent, as she unlaced her cape and then the bodice of her gown.

  He ran his hands from her shoulders to her hips, then tightened his grip to stop her moving.

  ‘It’s no good, Christina. Stop it, you incorrigible woman. I don’t think I can...’

  ‘Francis! And you’re always such a reliable little cock sparrow.’

  ‘I mean it, Tina. Stop that.’ The thundering waters made everything seem distant. ‘The Prince is sending me to Landfall.’

  ‘Oh.’ She rolled sideways and lay beside him. Her hand found his.

  After a while, she said: ‘Have they found out –’

  ‘About us? I don’t know.’

  ‘My father used to go hunting with the old Prince. Edward wouldn’t dare make a fuss about anything I want to do.’ She moved her head on to his shoulder and started to kiss him.

  Francis closed his eyes. Christina was beautiful and playful, as well as, wealthy and well-connected, but for some weeks he had been trying to think of a way to loosen the seductive silken robes which she had entwined about him. At least he no longer had to worry about that.

  ‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with us,’ he said. ‘It’s just me. Percy let me help him with writing reports and writing letters. And there are books in the Master Scribe’s library that I’m not supposed to see...’

  ‘You and your secret books.’ She nuzzled his neck and ran the back of a fingernail down his ribs. ‘Sometimes I think we’d all be better off if you Scribes were as uneducated as the rest of us. There are some things you can’t learn from books, you know. Like this...’

  He sat up. ‘The volumes I gave you – they’re still safe? I know Percy hasn’t missed them.’

  ‘They’re at the bottom of my linen chest,’ she said, ‘hidden underneath my finest silk unmentionables. Even Elaine won’t find them there.’

  He stroked her hair. ‘That sister of yours is capable of anything. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to finish teaching the two of you how to read now.’

  ‘But when you come back from Landfall...’

  ‘If I come back. How many Apprentice Scribes are there? And how many Masters? Something must happen to the – unsuccessful candidates.’

  ‘You’ll come back. You’re so clever.’

  ‘Is Percy clever? He’s always in a daze. If I come back, I’ll be different.’

  ‘You won’t be my clever little cock sparrow?’ At last she seemed to realize that he was saying goodbye. She stood suddenly, shrugging off her unfastened garments as if they were the inconvenient complexities of her life. Her golden skin glowed in a shaft of sunlight.

  She had never looked more beautiful. Francis felt his eyes sting with incipient tears. ‘Thank you for – for everything, my Lady,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. She paced back and forth beside the pool. ‘I won’t let this happen. I’ll talk to Edward. You’ll see.’

  ‘The Counsellors want me,’ he sighed. ‘There’s nothing the Prince can do about it.’

  She spun to face him. ‘We’ve got to try something. Or are you expecting help from the people on those other worlds that you’re always talking about? Is a Prince from another planet on his way to save you?’

  ‘It’s all in the books, Christina. The ones I gave to you. You can read them for yourself. How old are you?’

  She shook her head, surprised by the question. ‘I’m getting on.’ She pulled a face. ‘I’ll be thirty soon. Not long to go, I suppose.’

  ‘On other worlds, Christina, men and women live for a hundred years.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘It’s true. Or it used to be. It’s in the books. That’s one of the things that the Counsellors don’t tell us. They say they’re protecting us, but what are they really up to? Why do people on Arcadia die so young? What are they doing to us?’

  And none of it matters anyway, he thought. The plague’s coming. Or is it? ‘Christina, I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Well I do. Hand me my things. We’re going back home. And I’m going to have a few words with the Prince.’

  Francis supervised her dressing. Normally, he delighted in adjusting the pleats and laces. This time, nothing. Nothing but fear and foreboding.

  The dark-haired doll had disappeared into the wash cubicle to freshen up. Yesti could hear running water, and splashing. He liked a woman who took care about personal hygiene.

  The cabin was exactly the same as all the others on the station. Just about the same as all the others on every other station and every s
hip, too. As much character as a plastic cup, and room for two people if they didn’t mind being very intimate. Yesti didn’t mind at all.

  He sat on the bunk, angled his head, and pulled open the overhead locker. Empty. He reached down and tugged at the drawer units under the bunk. Nothing but trousers and shirts and vests, old but clean and carefully folded. This baby travels light, he thought. Then he saw the backpack, hanging on the back of the door.

  On target. All women carry tons of junk around with them, Yesti knew that. This one just kept it all in a battered old bag. It was all in here: badges, coins and tourist tat from dozens of worlds. Some of the stuff looked ultra-weird, even to Yesti, who’d done quite some travelling. There was a small arsenal of hand-delivery bombs and grenades: timed, heat-seeking, programmable, and just plain powerful. There was a strange metal box.

  He was staring at it as she emerged from the cubicle to stand next to him.

  ‘What is this thing?’ he said, and then looked up. The first thing he saw was that she wasn’t wearing anything except a towel; then he noticed that she wasn’t looking friendly.

  ‘Put it back,’ she said, with a smile that didn’t reassure him.

  ‘Just looking, OK? What is it, anyway? It’s metal, right? But it’s transparent – except you can’t see through it. What the hell is it?’

  ‘It’s called a tesseract. It was a present. From a guy I travelled with for a while.’

  Yesti felt that he was back on familiar ground. ‘Sister, if that’s all you got, you got yourself screwed. You could hold out for heavy credit with a body like yours.’

  He made a grab for the towel. She let him take it. He watched her body as she pushed it against him and folded her arms around his neck.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ruffling the spiky hair on the back of his head, ‘until now I really hadn’t decided about you.’

  ‘But you’re sure now, right?’ he said thickly, into her damp and sweet -smelling hair.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure now,’ she said.

  He felt a sharp pain on his right shoulder. ‘What’s happening?’ he said. His legs felt unsteady. He dropped to the bunk. Looking up was difficult. The girl was still there, in front of him.