“Now what?” Bason asked.
“Now,” Gandicon said, setting the spare crystal back next to its fellow, “we wait for Grandix security to arrive, and we allow them to hear the full story. Now that the Bharriom phantom is manifesting to people other than me–”
“That still seems like a terrible risk,” Bason said. “Security is just as likely to suspect some sort of trick, a hoax. They have no reason to believe that this is actually a Bharriom phantom, no matter how honest Lawkeeps are. They’re not Lawkeeps themselves.”
“I didn’t think they would be,” Gandicon said, “but–”
“And they have experience with levels of technological sophistication from dissident groups…” Bason added, gesturing at the glowing blue child. “This is an easy enough effect to create artificially.”
Gandicon nodded slowly. “I have to admit,” he said, “I had the same suspicion when this started. But even so, there must be means of verifying … what is it?”
The glowing boy was looking uncomfortable. “They will not listen to me,” he said. “You forget, I have tried to talk to them many times before. I was unable to manifest to the Molren of this place, because their minds lacked the required qualities. Part of this is because, as Bason Karturi says, they are predisposed to interpret what they see in a different light, but there are greater complications. And even now that I can manifest to them through you, I cannot manifest indefinitely. Sooner or later, I will lose contact again and…” he shook his head. “They will not believe what is coming.”
“And besides,” Bason said, “I have no interest in meeting the authorities of this building.”
“You won’t be implicated,” Gandicon said. “I’ll explain the part you played, they’ll leave you alone – and I’ll get you to the asteroid belt, as I promised.”
“You need to go to the asteroid belt as well,” Bason said impatiently. “You need to get to the cargo section of the Grandis 459, with the hearts. That’s your job. You can’t trust the Grandix security goons to take up this … this mission.”
“Bason Karturi is right,” the Bharriom phantom said apologetically. “You must take the hearts and awaken the vessels that will carry your people to safety.”
“Vessels – you mean the storage pods?” Gandicon said.
“The hearts are needed for this,” the boy said stubbornly. “If you must steal them, and take them into the dark without the permission of their former custodians–”
“I can’t do that,” Gandicon explained, trying to keep his voice patient. “I’m a Lawkeep.”
The Bharriom phantom looked puzzled. “That is a cultural designation, is it not?”
“Cultural, yes,” Gandicon admitted. “And social. And psychological – and beyond that, it’s a behavioural shift that has expressed physiologically in some ways. I’m not a trained medic, but we’re built differently to normal citizens,” without really meaning to, he gestured vaguely at Karturi.
The boy looked at her, then back at Gandicon. His softly-shining blue face was unusually shrewd. “So a Lo-Rider, or a Wanderer, could steal the hearts and leave Dema … but could not speak with the crystal as you have?”
“I suppose,” Gandicon shrugged. “You’re the one with the whole who-gets-the-weird-blue-kiddy-visions manifesto, I couldn’t possibly say. It may have something to do with our focus, our clarity of mind … but yes, it does mean I’m not capable of stealing the crystals from their lawful place. I have to trust that if there is logic behind this need, if it is justifiable and the right course, then it is going to be a simple matter to prove it and gain the support of a wider infrastructure–”
“Did you spend the past five thousand years with your head under an excluding blanket?” Bason demanded. “How do you expect the Koi-Jack authorities – let alone the rest of Dema – to accept this and go along with it?”
“How do you expect to evacuate the damn planet without some sort of logistical support framework?” Gandicon snapped. “Just getting two million people into orbit and into storage–”
“Well obviously we need to be a little bit more ready before starting a full-scale evacuation,” Karturi replied heatedly. “You know, with a bit more to our story than just ‘we broke into the Grandix building and stole the heart of the starship’–”
“This is why my version of the story wouldn’t start with such a dubious premise,” Gandicon said, but waved a hand, knowing this was getting them nowhere. “We have to start somewhere, since I don’t exactly have a network of contacts. I’m not a popular man.”
“Yes,” the boy spoke up ingenuously, “it is unfortunate you were the only receptive mind we could successfully contact.”
“Sorry about that,” Gandicon said dryly. “But hey, at least Bason wound up with her own avenue of communication, and some prospect of seeing this project through.”
“To be honest I’m beginning to feel a little hurt that the Bharriom talked to you,” Karturi said, “and not me. I mean, I acknowledge that the machine and the crystal are two different things, and you’ve definitely got what it takes even if you’re a bit stuffy, but still…”
“She’s got a point,” Gandicon said. He was aware that whether or not the building’s security had been alerted by his interference with the heart case, at least one official knew they were down here looking at the Bharriom and they had to be running out of time fast.
“About you being stuffy?” Bason said.
“Well, yes,” Gandicon admitted, “but about the phantom contact,” he turned to the boy. “She has Lawkeep heredity, and she’s evidently broader-minded than I am, more adaptable, with a richer cultural legacy and skill-set … why not her?”
“I do not know the answer to this,” the Bharriom phantom said, sounding apologetic again. “It was your mind we found. You were ready. You were looking into the dark, and you had what we needed to make our voice heard.”
“Why do I get the impression you’re not talking about space when you say I was looking into the dark,” Gandicon said.
“I refer, I think the expression goes, to your linear mortality–”
“Yes, I got that,” Gandicon said while Karturi spluttered with laughter, “thank you. Linear mortality, I’ve got that covered. That was sort of what I was talking about, about Karturi being able to see this through. A process like this, a planetary-scale evacuation, it will take decades – maybe centuries. I’m very unlikely to still be around when the Grandis 459 is ready to fly again.”
“I’m pretty sure we don’t have centuries,” Bason said. “If this enemy is as fast as you say, and all they need to do is stumble over our trail…”
“It is true,” the boy said. “So far, it is the silence and simplicity of this world that has hidden it. The risk of this no longer being enough … it grows with every passing moment. I do not think you have centuries. I do not think you have decades.”
“Then we all die here,” Gandicon said. “Look, I’m not an expert by any means, but I can’t be the only sentient creature in this room capable of understanding that relocating two million people off the surface of a planet and into storage in the asteroid belt is not something we can do in an afternoon. Especially not once the billions of people on Dema figure out what’s happening, and all decide they want to be a part of it.”
“At least then you’d get that logistical support you need,” Bason pointed out.
“If by ‘logistical support’ you mean ‘mass hysteria and riots’…”
“Can you not … be something else?” the boy asked. “Drop the mantle of the Lawkeep? This is what is required now – this act. It begins with you taking the hearts. You must be capable of it, so perhaps a shift in behavioural patterning to enable that capacity…”
“Well, that’s not exactly how ingrained behaviours and inherited physiology work,” Gandicon said carefully, “but there’s no concrete reason why not – still, not an easy matter. Youngsters regularly cross cultures and adapt to one another if that’s what th
ey decide to do,” he gestured at Bason again. “But they haven’t had five thousand years to get used to being a certain way. My brain chemicals might as well flow through channels carved in stone.”
“If it were perhaps possible for you to amend your sense of cultural guardianship to encompass the prevention of an extinction event,” the boy started, “or the minimalising of the–”
“Oh, Vortex’s balls,” Karturi snapped, and stepped forward. She plucked up the two spare crystals, then crossed to stand in front of Gandicon and took the heart from his unresisting hand. “Now,” she said, “can we go?”
XIV
There was still no sign of security or pursuit, but Bason led them down rather than up.
“Even if the case didn’t register as opening, they will have some measure of security preventing our departure with the Bharriom,” she said. “The maintenance and transport tunnels will lead us out of the building and connect to the city-wide network.”
“Won’t they have security?” Gandicon asked in disbelief.
“Not as much. I can bypass it.”
“Are you saying people can just walk in and out of this place through the access tunnels?”
“Uh, people can just walk in and out of this place through the doors,” Bason said impatiently. “But yeah, if you want to get in and out without attracting attention, the tunnels are your best bet.”
“Why would anyone try to walk out through the doors with stolen property?” Gandicon demanded. “It makes no sense. If anything, the surreptitious access points should have more security aimed at preventing unlawful egress.”
“If you’d prefer to try our luck getting out through the main entrance–”
“I’ve told you what I’d prefer,” Gandicon couldn’t work the tension out of his shoulders, and it was lingering in his voice. He was so far outside his comfort zone at that moment, it was as though he was already in orbit. “I’m still an accessory to this theft,” he said, “I’m not comfortable with it and I’d prefer it if we handled this legally.”
“Of course you would,” Karturi said. “Look, you saw the security in place on the storage facility. The heart has been down here for the better part of ten thousand years. I can bypass the access tunnel security and they’re just not likely to have taken the possibility of theft into account.”
“I would,” Gandicon said disapprovingly.
“They’re not you.”
“And a good thing too,” Gandicon snapped. “If we–”
“The hearts must be taken to the vessels,” the Bharriom phantom interrupted as if he couldn’t even hear the ongoing argument. He was drifting along beside the two Molren like a ghost, feet dangling in the air. “It is the only way.”
Before Gandicon could ask any more questions, the child vanished with his usual flicker.
“Does he usually disappear that suddenly?” Bason asked, directing them down another passageway and into a narrow stairwell that wasn’t even mechanised. The floor here looked like stone.
“Generally,” Gandicon said. “To be honest, I was expecting him to disappear the second you took the heart of out my hand.”
“Are you willing to take one of the crystals again?” she held out the original heart. He looked at her, pained. “Just to see if he comes back?” she sighed. “Fine,” she went on, and continued down the stairs. “I’m sorry this is so difficult for you, Ghåål,” she said, quite sincerely. “Just … keep telling yourself it’s for a good cause.”
“Actually, this is better,” Gandicon had to admit. “Going underground instead of along the streets. I don’t know my way around Koi-Jack above ground, let alone below, but if you can get us to the city-wide network like you were saying, it might be the easiest way to get to the Old Enclave.”
“The what?”
“We need to get to the Old Enclave,” Gandicon explained. “It’s a Lawkeep military installation. It runs under Koi-Jack and extends up into the hills outside the city.”
Bason slowed. “A military installation?” she said. “And that’s something the Lawkeeps are allowed to do?”
“It’s been there since planetfall, in some form or other,” Gandicon said. “It’s not actual military – not active … it’s a mag-chute of sorts, but higher speed. A semiluminal launching rail.”
“The Lawkeeps haven’t got a rail-chute cannon under the city,” Karturi scoffed.
“It’s not a cannon. It’s not a weapon. It’s a research, transport and defence installation. Just not one that’s going to do much good against the enemy that’s on the way, apparently,” Gandicon added.
“And they don’t use it for anything?”
“It’s been decommissioned and placed in a storage state. Inactive, preserved, and ready to be restored at need.”
“And you think they’ll do that for you?” they’d reached the bottom of the stairs by now and she stopped again, and squinted. “Are you saying that this is your way of getting us into the asteroid belt? Your Lawkeep buddies are going to shoot us there?”
“They’re not my buddies.”
“I know, you said,” Bason sighed, and looked up and down the stretch of dank access passage way they’d descended into. “You don’t have friends. Well,” she went on, pointing with one hand and tucking the Bharriom crystals into pockets with the others, “this way ought to get us into the main sub-tunnels. You know, if your plan A is to give ourselves up to the Grandix authorities, and your plan B is to fire us into space with a millennia-old Lawkeep rail-chute cannon–”
“I told you, it’s not a weapon,” Gandicon repeated patiently. “It was actually still operational, in one of its redevelopment phases, when I was a young lad. I don’t remember what they were using it for then, I never came to Koi-Jack myself. Then, around my First Prime, cultural impetus moved our people further towards the simple,” he tried to keep the judgement out of his voice. “The project was closed up, but dismantling it entirely would have been a pointless waste of resources.”
“I’m never sure whether you approve of my upbringing, my … cultural legacy and skill-set, or disapprove,” Bason said.
“I’m not sure either,” Gandicon said. “Can we get on with this? I’m still not a fan of Plan B, but at the moment I can just about convince myself that I am keeping track of the location of a thief and ensuring you don’t pose a threat, since I lack the authority to detain you.”
“So nice to be part of a close-knit and committed team of would-be world-saviours,” Karturi muttered. “One Bharriom phantom whose brain isn’t even on the same plane of reality as the rest of us and who periodically vanishes into the liminal; and one sour-faced fossil who can’t seem to make up his mind whether he’s a bad Final Primer with access to rail-chute technology buried under the city, or a mild-mannered old man who just wants to leave it all to the authorities and go back to his gdaka pipe.”
“How did you know I had a gdaka pipe?”
“Oh wow,” Bason sighed.
They descended deeper into the bowels of Koi-Jack.
XV
The Old Enclave, when they found it, was at first glance rather more decommissioned than Gandicon had been expecting.
“Mag-chute?” the woman at the access checkpoint, a Lawkeep who looked almost as old as Gandicon himself until you saw the tell-tale signs that she was approaching Third Prime rather than descending from it, said with a suspicious squint at the two intruders. “Can’t say we’ve got one of those.”
“That’s not the same as you not having one,” Gandicon said. It was nice to be talking to Lawkeeps again. Proper ones, he amended a little uncharitably.
“It’s also not taking into account the fact that you kept on telling me it wasn’t actually any of those things I said it was,” Karturi added, showing that she too knew how to deal with Lawkeeps even if Gandicon would have preferred her to keep her sharp mouth shut at this point. “They might just be calling it something else.”
“The Old Enclave deep-system insertion facility
,” Gandicon said, and sighed mildly when the woman at the checkpoint cackled.
“I’ve always loved that name,” she confided. “It just sounds so saucy. Ah well,” she said. “Why are you looking for the facility?”
Gandicon extended a hand, palm-up, to Bason. She looked at him with a mingled look of curiosity and warning, but handed him the heart of the starship, keeping her fingers cupped to hide the crystal from view. She stiffened as Gandicon immediately set it on the table in front of the other Lawkeep, whose eyes widened.
“We’re taking Bharriom crystals into the asteroid belt,” he said, “on instructions from the consciousness of the Bharriom itself, to reactivate a derelict cargo vessel for the evacuation of as many Dema’i souls as we can from the planet.”
“Have you lost your Cath-stroked mind?” Karturi grated.
“A threat is approaching this planet that is going to completely eradicate us,” Gandicon concluded, picking up the Bharriom. “We’re here to save as many citizens as possible.”
The woman sat quite still behind the desk for a moment, then stood.
“My name’s Lau Sul Go’sana,” she said.
“Gandicon Ghåål,” Gandicon said. Go’sana didn’t react to the name, which was something he’d been watching for without really knowing why. He reminded himself that this was a Lawkeep of the old stripe, and was unlikely to provide many easy-to-read automatic responses. The thought, rather than annoying him, gave him a warm feeling of pleasure. “This is Bason Karturi.”
Lau Sul gave Bason a curt nod. “The shipyard isn’t in the asteroid belt,” she told them abruptly, and ushered them through into the drab, dusty space behind the checkpoint. There was a scooter-platform there and they stepped onto it. It hummed laboriously and hitched up onto its wheels, then accelerated into the dimly phos-panel-lit tunnel. “It’s on the far side of the system from Dema. There’s a debris field there where two planets collided and partially merged a billion years ago or more. It left a lot of rocks in this orbit, but all the ones likely to impact Dema had cleared by the time we got here. Some folks reckon all those strikes is what made this planet habitable, orbit- and climate-wise, but I don’t know about that. It’s like a big asteroid cluster right in Dema’s backyard. That’s where the shipyard is.”
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