Aurora Rising

by Alastair Reynolds

  Reluctantly Mercier turned from the spectacle. He wanted to see the moment of reunion, but he had his own matters to attend to. He’d learned about Thalia Ng’s escape from House Aubusson, accompanied by a party of local citizenry. There were no reports of serious injuries amongst that group, but they would all benefit from medical attention when the deep-system vehicle redocked at Panoply, even if the worst Mercier had to deal with was a few cuts and bruises.

  He returned to his section of the infirmary. Through the windowed partition he made out the recumbent form of his only current patient, asleep on a bed. Mercier opened the partition. He stepped through and moved to the side of Gaffney’s bed, cradling a compad in the crook of his arm. He tapped a stylus and brought up a summary of Gaffney’s progress since the removal of the whiphound and his subsequent interrogation by trawl.

  Mercier did not approve of the way Dreyfus had insisted upon his patient being scanned so soon after the fraught process of removing the object lodged in his throat. Gaffney had been medically fit, traumatised yet otherwise free of serious injury, but the principle of it still galled Mercier. Now, however, he was forced to admit that Gaffney had no need of further medical supervision. He could be transferred to a normal holding facility somewhere else in Panoply, freeing up space that could be used when Thalia’s party arrived.

  “Sheridan,” he said softly. “Can you hear me? It’s time to wake up now.”

  At first Gaffney didn’t stir. Mercier repeated his instruction. Gaffney mumbled something and opened his eyes with resentful slowness.

  “I was sound asleep, Doctor Mercier,” he said, his voice still a painful croak.

  “I apologise. You still need rest.” Mercier tapped the stylus again, bringing up a different set of diagnostic summaries. “Unfortunately, I’ve got a ship coming in with an unspecified number of injured citizens aboard. I can’t afford to tie up this bed for much longer.”

  “Are you discharging me?” Gaffney croaked.

  “Not exactly. I’m still ordered to keep you under lock and key, but there’s no reason why you can’t be transferred to a normal detention cell.”

  “I’m surprised Dreyfus isn’t here to give you a helping hand.”

  “Dreyfus is outside,” Mercier said.

  “That’s a shame. Can’t say I really miss his bedside manner, though. You didn’t hear where he was headed, by any chance?”

  “No,” Mercier said, after a trace of hesitation.

  “Well, let’s hope he doesn’t come to grief, wherever it is. I think we still need to clear the air between us. Are you sure he didn’t put you up to this, Doctor?”

  “This has nothing to do with Dreyfus. I don’t approve of what you did, Sheridan, but that doesn’t mean I approve of the way you were treated, either.”

  “Aumonier, then? Did she issue the order?”

  “Jane’s in no fit state to issue any kind of order,” Mercier said, and then regretted it instantly, for Gaffney had no need to know of the operation in progress.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean… I’ve said enough.”

  “Where is she?” Gaffney cocked his head. “Has something happened, Doctor? Are they doing something to her? Come to think of it, this place has been a little quiet lately.”

  “Never mind Jane. I assure you that you won’t be any less comfortable in a holding cell than you are here, and you’ll be under constant machine observation. If you do experience any complications, someone can attend to you almost immediately.”

  “You put it like that,” Gaffney said sarcastically, “how can I possibly refuse?”

  “I wish there was another way, Sheridan.”

  “Yeah. So do I, son.” Gaffney set his face in a look of resigned determination. “But needs must when the devil calls. Can you help me out of this bed? I seem to have become a little stiff in my spine.”

  Mercier put down the compad and stylus and leaned over to assist Gaffney to his feet. In a flash Gaffney was standing by his side, twisting Mercier’s right arm behind his back, pushing the stylus hard against the side of his throat. The stylus was blunt, but Gaffney was applying so much pressure that the pain was unpleasantly sharp.

  “Got to admit, I was feeling a bit stronger than I looked,” Gaffney said. “Sorry about that, Doctor, but there’s no way you’re moving me to a holding cell.”

  The pressure on his throat made it difficult for Mercier to answer. “You can’t get out of here.”

  “Let’s take a stroll to your office.”

  With Gaffney still pressing the stylus into his neck, Mercier shuffle-walked sideways, his heart hammering and his breathing beginning to rocket. “My arm,” Mercier protested.

  “Fuck your arm. Open the door.”

  Mercier admitted the two of them into his administrative annexe. He held out a forlorn hope that there’d be someone in there who could pacify Gaffney or raise the alarm. But with all the other medical staff either participating in Demikhov’s operation or up in the bay awaiting the arrival of the deep-system cruiser, the medical centre was deserted.

  “Don’t even think about calling out,” Gaffney warned. “Now move to your desk. Pull out the chair and sit down.”

  Mercier’s office was all inert matter. The furniture was studiedly old-fashioned, the way he liked it. But even if he’d had the means to conjure one, he wouldn’t have had the necessary control or presence of mind to fashion a weapon or restraining device.

  “What do you want with me?” he asked as he sat down in the chair, with Gaffney still jamming the stylus into his neck. “You’re going to dislocate my arm!”

  “That’s what happens to arms. Now open the desk drawer on your right.”

  “My drawer?”

  Gaffney intensified the pressure on both the stylus and the arm. “I’m not really in the mood to say things twice, son.”

  With his left arm, Mercier opened the drawer. “There’s nothing in here except papers,” he said, tugging it open enough to demonstrate that this was the case.

  “You do like your paperwork,” Gaffney commented. “Now reach all the way to the back of the drawer.”

  “There’s nothing at the back.”

  “Do it.”

  Mercier started as his fingers brushed against something unfamiliar, lodged at the back of the drawer where it would not interfere with his beloved paperwork.

  “Pull it out,” Gaffney said.

  Mercier tugged and the item snapped loose. It felt heavy in his hand, like a bar of cold iron. Something about its shape was familiar, though he had never handled anything remotely like it. “This isn’t possible,” he said. “There shouldn’t be—”

  “How many times have you had this office swept by Internal Security?” Gaffney asked.

  Mercier’s hand emerged from the drawer. He was clutching the black shaft of a whiphound. “How did—”

  “I put it there. I put them in a lot of places, wherever I felt I might need one. The possibility of my being exposed and arrested was not something I could ignore. Matter of fact, there’s one in that holding cell you were probably intending to take me to. Impossible, you say. Security would never have allowed it! Getting the picture now?” Gaffney croaked out a guttural laugh. “Put the whiphound down on the table.”

  Mercier dropped the whiphound. It clunked heavily on the table, denting the polished wood surface beneath his writing lamp. In a single fluid movement, Gaffney released Mercier’s arm, alleviated the pressure from the stylus and snatched up the whiphound.

  He spooled out the filament.

  “You know what one of these can do in the wrong hands,” he said. “So let’s not dick around, shall we?”

  Pell brought the cutter to a halt on a ledge just under the rim of the canyon they had been following for the last twenty kilometres. He powered down the in-atmosphere engines, allowing the weight of the vehicle to settle onto its tripedal landing gear.

  “This is as close as I can get you.”

&nbs
p; Dreyfus felt an unsettling crunching movement as the gear forced its way though the ice crusting the shelf.

  “Are you sure?”

  Pell flipped up his goggles and nodded. “I’d caution against flying any closer, unless you have a burning desire to find out what kind of perimeter defences Firebrand have managed to get their hands on.”

  “Fair enough.” Dreyfus knew better than to debate the point with Pell, who he knew would have done the best possible job. “How long a stroll are we looking at?”

  Pell indicated a contour map conjured onto his flight-deck console. “You’re here,” he said, stabbing his finger at the head of the canyon. “Ops Nine is here.” He moved his finger a few centimetres to the right. “Ten or eleven kilometres as the crow flies. Good news is that the terrain’s pretty level between here and there, with only one crevasse you’ll want to avoid, so your route should be less than fifteen kilometres. Those surface suits have amplification, don’t they? I hope so, given the size of those rifles. With power-assist, I’m guessing you can keep to three or four klicks per hour. Say, four or five hours to the nearest entry point.”

  “If that’s the good news,” Sparver said, “what’s the bad?”

  “You’ll have limited cover, which is the reason we can’t fly any closer. You’ll have to stay low and avoid exposed ground. If something paints you, hunker down and don’t move for at least thirty minutes. The perimeter system may just assume it picked up a scavenger drone, wandering the surface looking for Amerikano trinkets.”

  “What about our way in?” Dreyfus asked.

  “Imagery points to several possible entry points. I don’t recommend going in through the front door.” Pell moved his finger slightly. “If you approach the way I’m suggesting, you should hit some kind of secondary access ramp about here. It’s all locked into your suits, so don’t worry about that.”

  “We won’t,” Dreyfus said.

  “That’s about all I have to say. You can get off the ledge easily enough: there’s a dried-up river bed that climbs up onto the plateau. Keep low once you’re up there, and exploit whatever natural features you can find for cover. You’ve got a good shot at getting to Ops Nine by sundown. I suggest you aim to achieve that objective.”

  “If we don’t?” Sparver asked.

  “It cools down pretty fast here. In infrared, those suits of yours are going to light up the landscape like a pair of beacons.”

  “Then we should move out right now,” Dreyfus said, readying his suit for exposure to Yellowstone’s atmosphere. He picked up the heavy bulk of the Breitenbach rifle and slung it over his shoulder. “Thank you for the ride, Captain. I appreciate the risk you took in bringing us this close.”

  “I’m not the one taking the risk here.” Pell touched a control on this console then studied a read-out for a moment. “We’re stable. You’re free to cycle through.”

  Dreyfus nodded at Sparver and the two of them moved towards the cutter’s suitwall.

  “One thing I forgot to mention,” Pell said. “When you were suiting up, word came through from Panoply.”

  “They weren’t supposed to contact us.”

  “They didn’t, not specifically. It was a general broadcast, to all assets. It sounded like a code. It meant nothing to me, but I thought you might know better.”

  “Tell me,” Dreyfus said, swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat.

  “The message was, ‘Zulu has occurred. Repeat, Zulu has occurred.’” Pell shrugged. “That was all.”

  Dreyfus moved to snap down his faceplate. “You’re right. It does mean something.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Too soon to tell,” he answered.

  CHAPTER 30

  Gaffney held the stiffened filament of the whiphound against Mercier’s throat in much the same way that Dreyfus had held the whiphound against his own. They were standing outside the operating theatre where the Zulu team were still at work.

  “I can’t let you in there, Sheridan.”

  Gaffney let the sharp edge of the filament draw a dab of blood. “It’s not a question of ‘can’t,’ I’m afraid. You’re going to do it, or they’re going to have another head to reattach when they’re done with Jane.”

  “I can’t allow you to hurt the Supreme Prefect.”

  Gaffney’s thumb caressed the handle of the whiphound. “Open the door. I won’t ask again.”

  Mercier palmed the door, ignoring the signs warning him against entry. The door slid open, revealing the gowned backs of Demikhov’s crash team standing at their pedestals with the medical servitors beyond them. For a moment all was deceptively normal. Mercier heard the urgent but calm voices of the surgeons discussing the progress so far; he saw gloved fingers reach out towards data panes, switching between display options. Then one of the gowned figures became aware that the door had opened. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes widening as she took in the spectacle of Gaffney holding Mercier hostage.

  “Is there a problem?” Demikhov asked.

  “What does it look like, shit-for-brains?”

  “We’re in the middle of a delicate procedure here,” Demikhov said, still keeping admirably cool. “If you’ve got a problem, if there’s something you want, I suggest you take it up with Senior Prefect Clearmountain.”

  “Tell your staff to suspend the machines and step away from their pedestals.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  “I’ll kill Mercier if you don’t.”

  “We’re trying to save the life of the supreme prefect. In case you haven’t been informed, her head and body were separated when we removed the scarab.”

  “I don’t like repeating myself. Tell your staff to do what I just said.”

  “Whatever you want, whatever demands you might have, we can’t give it to you.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Gaffney let the whiphound bite deeper, until blood began to trickle down Mercier’s throat in a continuous flow. “I won’t ask again. Do what I say and I promise that neither Mercier nor the supreme prefect will come to harm. Fuck with me and you’re going to be mopping up into the middle of next week.”

  “Please,” Mercier said.

  Demikhov breathed in deeply and nodded to his staff. Gloved fingers touched panes. The surgical robots halted.

  “Now step away from the pedestals,” Gaffney said. “As far as you can go.”

  The staff shuffled back until they had all taken at least ten paces. Gaffney pushed Mercier forward, keeping the whiphound in place. They walked between the pedestals, then eased past the poised medical servitors to stand by the patient. Since Mercier had last viewed the scene, the two tables had been brought closer so that the gap between head and neck was only ten centimetres. The complexity of the operation was even more humbling in close-up. Aumonier’s head rested in a padded cradle, with constantly swivelling trawl probes arranged around her shaven scalp in a barbed halo. Oxygenation of the head was being maintained by a tangle of arterial shunts inserted into the skin of the neck or up through the stump itself. A handful of nerves had already been rejoined across the divide, using jumper cables to bridge the gap between the quickmatter cylinders that tipped the end of each nerve.

  “You’re a doctor,” Gaffney told Mercier. “How long do you think she can last without those lines running into her head?”

  “Without blood? Not very long.”

  “Put some numbers on that for me. How many minutes are we talking about? Three? Five? Six?”

  “Four at the most. Why?”

  “Four it is, then. Snap off your bracelet and hold it up to my mouth.”

  Mercier did as he was told, fumbling as he released his bracelet.

  “Put me through to Clearmountain,” Gaffney said.

  The acting supreme prefect answered almost immediately. “This is Clearmountain. Is something the matter, Doctor—”

  “This isn’t Mercier. It’s Gaffney.”

  Clearmountain comprehended the i
mplications quickly enough. “This is unexpected, Sheridan.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not staying around.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m down with Demikhov, in the theatre. I’m standing right next to Jane. Nice work he’s done so far.”

  “Don’t lay a finger on Aumonier,” Clearmountain said.

  “Jane’s going to be just dandy. That is, provided you don’t do anything to annoy me.”

  “I’m sure we can work something out.”

  “Actually, I’m sure we can’t. I’m finished here. I’ve burnt my bridges. It might surprise you, but I’m a rational man. I did everything I did because I believed it was the right thing for the citizenry. I still believe that. I love this goddamn organisation, or at least what it used to stand for. But I know I have no future unless Aurora wins against Panoply.”

  “She’s a machine, Sheridan. You’ve been working for an alpha-level intelligence, the ghost of a girl who should have died fifty-five years ago.”

  “Aurora’s nature is irrelevant. It’s her intentions that count.”

  “She’s a mass murderer. We’ve received direct confirmation that all the citizens inside House Aubusson were murdered shortly after the takeover.”

  “Nice try,” Gaffney said.

  “It’s the truth.”

  Mercier thought he caught a twitch of hesitation before Gaffney answered. “She wants to protect people. She’d hardly start murdering them if that was her objective.”

  “Listen to me, I’m begging you. Aurora is not what you think she is. Her only goal is her own survival.”

  “You know,” Gaffney said, “I really think you could have tried a bit harder than that. I mean, honestly. Do you think I’m going to drop everything and roll over like a puppy just because you tell me some people have been murdered?”

  “I’ll show you,” Clearmountain said. “I’ll let you interview Prefect Ng as soon as she returns to Panoply.”

  “Sorry, but I’m not planning on staying that long.” Without warning, he released his hold on Mercier, pushing him away with such force that the doctor tripped over his own feet and fell backwards against one of the servitors, toppling it noisily. “Join the others,” he said.