He flicked a nervous glance at her. She thought, with a frisson of satisfaction, that he was worried about setting her off again.
He plunged ahead anyway. ‘The thing is, ma’am, it could be a real positive, him participating in the project. Working with Bel’Natur, bringing a gem and a gemtech back together, brokering a new relationship …’
There was a pleading, slightly puzzled look to Khan’s face as he described the golden opportunity that Eli Walker represented. This must be what he’d thought when he saw the message from Morningstar, the reason he’d skipped in here smiling with delight only to catch the full broadside of her wrath; and she finally understood how very strange it must be for this young man, filled with the indoctrination and idealism of a new age, to discover that it had not been immediately obvious to her.
*
The mellow twilight had long since drifted into night by the time Zavcka made her weary way home; a clear, cool stillness washed by the rising moon. She rested her head against the cushioned panel of the car, watching the brighter splashes of streetlamps flash past, and wondered whether the compromises she had been forced to make really would, in the end, be worth it.
On the other side of the city from her plush apartment every light blazed in a small flat close to the river, cluttered with the debris of travel. Bethany poured the dregs of a bottle into her glass and stabbed out another caustic post to her favoured stream. She gulped the wine down as she watched responses ping back, taking lonely comfort in the thought that a great many people were keeping themselves awake so as not to miss whatever she might have to say next.
Down on the streets of the Squats, the bustle and hum of evening revelry was finally fading. Occasional bursts of laughter split the air as the last customers spilled out of bars and clubs to make their way home. Music welled up, a sudden flood of melody as a door opened to let a trio tumble out onto the pavement, turning back to shout slightly drunken farewells at those who remained inside. Gwen waved goodbye to them, catching a glimpse of the moon before the door was pulled shut; turning away to nod at Lyriam and the percussionist and come in on the beat as they ran through the phrase again.
A few blocks away, on a dark and sleeping street, a light breeze stirred the curtains that hung before a bedroom window on the fourth floor of Maryam House.
Rhys came awake so slowly and gently, with a feeling of well-being so completely and utterly enveloping, that it took him some time to realise that he was not in fact dreaming. He became aware gradually of the surface on which he lay, soft next to his bare skin, and the silkiness of the sheet that covered him. The sense of bliss was so complete that he held back from full wakefulness, wallowing in perfect peace.
A sound intruded, someone breathing regular and slow, and he blinked his eyes open into a dimness that was faintly tinged with red. The hue seemed brighter than his own wine-dark glow. Memory washed over him, along with a faint, sour-sweet tang of sex, and he turned his head.
Callan was asleep, his face relaxed, lips parted a little. The scarlet shimmer of his hair cast a flush over his pale skin. Rhys felt his throat constrict at the sight. He rolled over onto his side, acutely aware of his own body, the resting strength of it, the lack of tension or pain. He thought fleetingly that having woken up, perhaps he should now do something; snuggle closer and stroke him awake for more, or else slip quietly away to his own bed in Aryel’s flat. He rejected the latter notion in the instant of having it.
Instead he lay quiet, watching, letting the moment cradle him; knowing, without knowing how he knew, that something big and dangerous and precious was beginning, and that he was being swept away by it, and could not have helped it even if he had wanted to.
CONJUNCTIONS
14
Sharon Varsi wondered if it was an inevitable part of every officer’s career: for a moment to come when the actions she was obliged to take would appear to contradict the motives behind them. It was not the first time the thought had occurred to her, but as she sat with Mikal and Aryel in his office in the Squats, briefing them on her investigation, the sense of conflict was starting to become acute.
Though she had previously said nothing to Aryel herself, had not even seen her since the concert several days previously, she was unsurprised to learn that news of the genestock theft had already been broken to her. In the same way Masoud had known that she would tell Mikal, she discovered that she had known Mik would tell Aryel. She could not find it in herself to be annoyed. This was the way their world worked. It might even make things easier, although at the moment it did not feel easy. Their reactions so far had been predictable: anger, anxiety, and now, she feared, outrage. She was explaining why she was forced to bring the investigation home, and trying hard not to feel like a traitor.
They were discussing Herran.
‘I haven’t said anything to Masoud,’ she told them quietly. ‘And I really hope I never have to. But I can’t not ask the question. He put me in charge of this case – put a lot of noses out of joint in the department as well, it turns out – because of my supposedly greater insight. Into the gem situation, quote unquote.’
The words tasted bitter in her mouth. She looked sideways at Mikal, who sat hunched, elbows on knees, hands clasped and pendent in the air above his massive feet, his few fingers and many thumbs woven together in a basket-like symmetry. It looked as though he had folded himself into too small a space, his bowed back on a level with her head and his eyes staring vacantly at the floor. Her heart lurched. She reached out and tucked her hand under his arm.
‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry. What can I do? I can’t even ask to be taken off it, Masoud would be furious and whoever took over would just wonder why …’
‘Would you rather not have the case?’ Aryel asked curiously.
‘It’s not that. It’s a great case career-wise – assuming I solve it – and I want to solve it. I want to know what’s going on, I want to track down whoever did this and find out why. If someone’s out there doing illegal gemtech with human stock I want to land on them like the proverbial ton of bricks.’ She spread her hands in a plea for understanding. ‘But I can’t be half-arsed about it, Aryel. I’m not saying I believe Herran is involved. I can’t imagine why or how he could be. But the fact is, things were done here that as far as I’m aware only he can do. I know if I were any other cop the question wouldn’t arise. I wouldn’t be aware of his existence, much less be in a position to make the connection. But I’m not another cop. I can’t just pretend not to know what I know.’
Aryel met her eyes and then looked away, up at the ceiling, leaning into the lowbacked chair she favoured. Her wings brushed the floor behind her and she shook them irritably. Sharon could hear her breathe out, a faint sigh that was almost a snort, over lips compressed into a tight line. It was body language familiar to her friends, a subtle sign of swift and worried thought; rarely visible except to her inner circle. Sharon hoped she still numbered among those few, but it was not her most pressing concern.
Mikal’s arm flexed under her fingers as he stirred.
‘You’re a good cop.’
‘Yes … ?’
‘You’re a good cop and I wouldn’t want you to be anything less.’ He gathered her hand up and interlaced his fingers with hers, gave a brief squeeze and let go. ‘I’m sure Aryel doesn’t either.’
He wrinkled his brow across the room at her. She replied, ‘No, of course not,’ as though it hardly needed to be said, while Sharon felt herself go limp inside with relief.
‘I don’t think Herran has anything to do with this,’ Mikal went on. ‘Do you?’
‘No. I’m absolutely certain he doesn’t.’
‘But Sharon can’t just take our word for it. She has to eliminate him. Properly.’
Aryel was nodding agreement, though a tiny frown had taken up residence between her brows. ‘I understand that. I’m just worried … how disruptive does it have to be? He can’t handle an onslaught of strangers, you know that. He’ll shut down. He
’s already letting himself be put through a lot for the Bel’Natur deal. And we’ve been keeping his involvement there quiet, for obvious reasons, but if he’s suddenly in the frame of a police investigation …’
‘It’ll be kept confidential. I promise. He’s a vulnerable person, he’ll be very carefully treated, no matter what.’ Sharon was aware that she was perilously close to gushing reassurances and checked herself. Things needed to be done, as Mik said, properly.
‘He has to be questioned. Protocol says he should come to the station and be interviewed by someone he has no prior history with, but given his autism I can get around that. It needs to be a proper police interview, though. I can tailor it for his condition, but there are things I’m going to need to press him on. I’ll have to have another officer there to vouch for me doing my job correctly, and there can’t be more than two people supporting him.’ She glanced at her husband again. ‘And one of them can’t be you, babe.’
‘Fair enough.’ He finally straightened up on the chair, stretching. His spine cracked, and his fingertips almost touched the ceiling. He cocked his head at Aryel. ‘Callan? And you?’
‘Callan definitely. Not me.’ Aryel’s posture had relaxed too, arms resting along the sloping back of the chair, slim legs stretched out and ankles crossed. The tips of her wings were fanned along the floor now, but she seemed not to mind. It dawned on Sharon that their earlier anxiety had been no more than fear for Herran, and she felt a stab of guilt for ever imagining otherwise.
You should’ve known they’d be upset at the situation, not you, she thought, and was comforted. But she thought too that their freedoms had been won as much by the cohesion Aryel had forged, the rock-solid loyalty the gems of the Squats felt for each other, as anything else; and it was perhaps not unreasonable to wonder whether that would ultimately always win out.
Aryel was still speaking, eyes back on the ceiling, thoughtful but no longer tense. ‘Eli would be better. That’s the configuration Herran’s becoming accustomed to, himself with Callan and Eli in unfamiliar situations. This could help to reinforce that, instead of being purely a stressor.’ She glanced at Sharon. ‘And it would be better for your report if I wasn’t there. No undue influence.’
Sharon shrugged and stretched. It seemed to be infectious, as they all eased into a familiar camaraderie. ‘It’s not like anyone would object, but yes. Callan to help him communicate and Eli as impartial observer are the logical choices. It needs to be today if possible. I’ll set it up.’
‘Fine. He should be starting at Bel’Natur in another week or two, assuming we get all the terms and conditions sewn up, and it’ll be best if there’s nothing else he has to contend with by then.’ She shot her one-sided, ironic smile at Mikal. ‘What do you think? Is she going to throw her toys on the floor and storm off, or stick with it?’
He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Are you referring to Zavcka Klist? The most amenable woman in London? Surely not.’
‘I detect a note of sarcasm, Councillor.’
‘Only because I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve never been pleased and thank-you’d so much in my life.’ He shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen her again, which is fine by me. The Bel’Natur ethics committee are all puffed up about having executive authority, and they didn’t object to anything I put on the table. Not much anyway. I did suggest they endow a chair at Oxbridge especially for Eli, but I knew that was pushing it.’
Aryel chuckled. ‘She’s not fond of him – I can tell she has to hold herself back every time his name is mentioned. I am seeing her, which delights neither of us, but I’ve made it clear I’m not prepared to negotiate with anyone else. We’re on the home stretch now, though. The lawyers will be there today.’
‘Who’ve we got?’
‘Jeremy Temple. Dropped everything, doing it for free.’
Mikal hooted with laughter. ‘Oh, how she must love you.’
Jeremy Temple had been the architect of the legal equalisation of gems with norms throughout Europe; a clever solicitor who freely admitted that his allegiance to his gemtech clients had been turned, along with his head, years before when he met the woman who would later become his wife. They now had a child, who struggled with the legacy of his mother’s modifications. Jeremy Temple was, along with Eli Walker, the gemtechs’ equivalent of the Grim Reaper.
‘I did think that might be the last straw. But she hasn’t actually objected to his presence, or Eli’s.’ She smiled. ‘Not so we’ve heard, anyway.’
‘Does it really need to be this complicated, Aryel?’ Sharon asked. ‘Getting into bed with Bel’Natur for the long haul seems …’ she trailed off, grimacing.
‘I’m not sure about that either, which is where Eli comes in.’ Aryel sighed. ‘The trouble is that we desperately need gemtech expertise. The reproductive assistance the health services can provide is too limited. You know the guidelines: when they run up against an incompatibility they just strip out the engineering, splice in some baseline genestock and revert to the norm standard. If that’s what the parents want, then fine, and goodness knows it makes the Reversionists happy. Most of them. But think about someone like – oh, maybe like Jora. It would be great if her children could inherit autonomic tissue regeneration – but probably not the overgrowth that she suffers from. That has as many consequences for her health as it does for her appearance.’
A picture of Jora floated into Sharon’s mind: a simple, sweet-natured girl, a face that should have been pretty marred by extra lumps of lip and nose and chin. Aryel was shaking her head. ‘And what if her partner’s genetype complicated things further? Suppose he was a gillung, for example? And they risked having a child in whom gill tissue might overwhelm lung tissue? Or vice versa? Do we want to have to tell people in that position that their kids can only be healthy if they are as unlike their parents as possible?’
‘We don’t,’ said Sharon, with conviction. She felt Mikal shift beside her. ‘I just didn’t realise it was possible to deal with problems that complicated.’
‘Oh, it’s possible. The gemtechs have the technology, but no incentive to use it. The government hasn’t made up its mind whether to buy it, and we can’t afford to, not for a while yet. Public policy is moving too slowly, some of the Reversionists are proving too influential. We need a solution, and we need it quickly.’
Sharon chewed at her lip. ‘How long does this intervention go on for, though? If your self-regenerating waterbreather grows up and has kids with a high-altitude hyperspectral hybrid, say … and then their kids …’
‘Exactly. Either we do what the hard-core Reversionists want, letting our abilities die out – or not reproducing at all – or we face the fact that the legacy of gemtech is going to be with us for generations, and we need an equally long-term strategy for dealing with it.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not certain this is it. Bel’Natur may not really be reformed, or reformable. But if they are, it’s the quickest, simplest solution I can see.’
Sharon turned this over. Aryel’s reasoning, as always, made sense. But she could also see the implications, far-reaching and transformative, as engineered anatomies combined into new forms, and supernormal abilities became diffused throughout the human gene pool. There was a part of her that understood the concerns, the hesitation, the outright fear that fuelled the Reversionists, as well as many more who would not wish to bear that label. She flipped them an ironic mental salute, and moved on. Her own choice in such matters had been made long ago.
‘Is Jora seeing a gillung? Just curious.’
Aryel laughed. ‘Jora’s not seeing anyone, as far as I know. She’s only just stopped carrying a torch for Callan, poor girl. But she’s only twenty; as long as they harvest her regularly she’ll probably outlive us all. It’s bound to come up at some point.’
*
Eli went through his lists again, carefully, thinking that if Aryel really was going to seal the deal that afternoon there would be little chance in the future to fix any mistakes. He had brains
tormed exhaustively with her and Callan and Herran, trying to imagine all the possible scenarios, all the protections and guarantees they would need. A reminder began to pulse in the corner of his tablet, but he ignored it for a few minutes, until he was certain that everything was in order. Then he tapped open a vidpanel that he could monitor while he composed a covering message to Aryel.
The interview was being streamed live, but not from the usual chic studio whose ever-changing décor was endlessly imitated by the legions of the hip. Eli recognised the comfortable interior of a decidedly more well-worn club near the Squats.
Bloody hell. She got them to come to her.
The most popular street-culture host on the trendiest socialstream sounded even more star-struck than usual. Eli had for years made a practice of keeping an eye on even the silliest of the streams, having learned too well that that was where changes in moods and attitudes would manifest first. This one was both reasonably intelligent and hugely influential; whatever it touted today was likely to be on everyone’s lips tomorrow, and ubiquitous by the end of the week. They had just about given up begging Aryel to be a guest, although that might be about to change.
The host, a waif-thin norm who was known, among other things, for only using his first name, was in full flow. ‘… she shares with her even more famous foster sister another thing that’s rare for gems: a surname. Do you prefer Ms Morgan?’
‘No,’ said Gwen. ‘Just Gwen.’ She flashed a smile at him. Even through the tiny square of the vidpanel, Eli felt dazzled.
It appeared to stun her interviewer as well. ‘Right. Beautiful,’ he mumbled, then recovering himself, ‘that’s beautiful. Well, I’m not sure it’s fair to call this your debut performance, Gwen. Many of us had the pleasure of hearing you sing at the Festival opening a few days ago …’
‘Oh, please.’ She was charmingly dismissive. ‘That was an improvised response to an unpleasant situation. Not my usual thing at all!’
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