by Adam Roberts
‘You have come to arrest me,’ said Iago.
‘I have. The authorities have you now, my friend. They’ll torture you, and probably kill you, and that will be your end. But you’ve known for a long while that that’s where you’re heading. No need for me to Tiresias excessively on that score.’
‘You haven’t taken me yet, Bar,’ said Iago. But he spoke without defiance. He sounded, on the contrary, rather worn down and weary.
‘True! Somehow, despite our stealth approach, you spotted us a little ahead of time. My plan was to board you, utilising the element of surprise – burn through some emergency entrance holes and rush you. But you spotted us! Well done.’
‘If you didn’t want to be spotted, why let off that flare?’
‘Flare?’ said Bar-le-duc. ‘We let off no flare! Do you think we’re idiots? I assumed you let off that flare, to inform us that you had seen us. I’m more interested in – what gave us away? I was coming in, silent running, very cautious. Another few minutes and we would have had you.’
‘Serendipity favours the angels,’ said Iago.
‘I congratulate you, anyway,’ said Bar-le-duc. ‘I can afford to be magnanimous, now! Now that I have finally caught you!’
‘Your career hasn’t suffered, Bar, since the last time we met?’ Iago asked, with mock solicitude.
‘What?’
‘I was anxious that our previous encounter might have harmed your prospects. Perhaps you have heard about Ms Joad? She used to be one of the Ulanovs’ favoured agents. Then she failed to arrest me, and now she’s been banished to the outer darkness.’
‘I heard about her, yes,’ replied Bar-le-duc, with respectful gloom in his voice. ‘A shame. To go from being a somebody to being a nobody would be hard for anyone; it is doubly so for her. Well, thank you for your concern, my friend! Having you slip through my fingers certainly didn’t help my promotion possibilities.’ He spoke with a slow, deliberate, rather depressive intonation, as if any kind of communication with other people was a mournful duty. ‘Still,’ he added, smiling thinly, ‘I have you now.’
‘Who is this man?’ Diana asked.
‘You haven’t heard of the celebrated Bar-le-duc?’ said the hologrammatic representation of the celebrated Bar-le-duc, mournfully.
‘He’s police, is who he is,’ said Iago.
‘Really!’ objected the head. ‘Much more than police.’
‘He works for the Ulanovs. He specialises in arrests. Search and capture. He tried to arrest me once before. He failed, though.’
‘I’ve tried more than once, dear man,’ said Bar-le-duc.
‘And you failed more than once, too. Maybe you’ll fail again.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Bar-le-duc murmured. ‘Not this time. You can’t run. You can’t fight. There’s nothing you can do.’
‘I could match your bounty, and pay you more,’ suggested Iago. ‘Pay you – shall we say, three times?’
‘No,’ said Bar-le-duc, simply.
Something structural in Iago’s spirit sagged, visibly; you could see it in his face. ‘Well, here’s another option. I simply shan’t let you into my house. Huff and puff all you like.’
‘I think you will let us in,’ said Bar-le-duc, sadly. ‘From where I’m sitting your bubble looks eminently poppable.’
‘Pop the bubble?’ Iago said, peering through the window to get a glimpse of the sloop. ‘Do that and we’ll die, and if we die you get nothing.’
‘I’m confident we could fish you out of the vacuum. Though I couldn’t say the same for your friend. Or we could harpoon you. This sloop has Tachyon Thrust you know – plenty powerful enough to tow you all the way back Lagrangeward.’
‘You try that, and I’ll burst the bubble myself,’ Iago warned.
‘I believe you would, too,’ said Bar-le-duc, in his slow, mournful voice. ‘You’re very blinkered when it comes to the possibilities of life, Jack. In that respect you’re almost a child. One thing at a time in your mind, eh? Oh so ignorant about life; although of course there’s nothing about death you don’t know. Of course you’d kill yourself. But – her?’
Iago glanced over at the her, and Diana felt a ghastly tightening in her stomach. It occurred to her suddenly: this is really happening. It had crept up so unexpectedly; and her life lately had been such a succession of weird meetings and unexpected developments that it took an effort to persuade herself this was different. But, suddenly, Diana was aware of the possibility that she could die. They could all die, here and right now. This could be where it ends. She tried to think through the options – that being her speciality, of course – but she couldn’t see past it. There are only two ways this plays out, she thought: either the police arrest us, and turn us over to who-knows-what horrors; or we all die, right here and now.
Neither alternative was good.
‘How do you know about her, anyway?’ Iago snapped. ‘How did you find out where I live? How have you done this, Bar?’
‘I have my sources,’ said Bar-le-duc. ‘You don’t need to worry about them. But you do have to come along with me, my little thomas-rhymer. You have to harp-and-carp. Options exhausted, I’m sorry to say.’ He did sound sorry, too.
Iago looked about himself, turned himself entirely about in mid-air. He appeared to be surveying his domain. But there was nothing in here that could help him. ‘It was foolish of me to come here,’ he said, perhaps to himself. ‘We should simply have gone on from bubble to bubble – we should have kept moving. If I could turn back time I’d do it differently.’
‘Not even you can turn back time,’ said Bar-le-duc.
Iago faced the hologram again. ‘I want this absolutely clear,’ he said, decisively. ‘I will go with you so long as you guarantee that she be untouched – left alive, and free.’
‘Iago!’ said Diana.
‘If,’ Iago said again, not looking at her. ‘She can go free.’
‘Free,’ said Bar-le-duc, as if the word were literally incomprehensible to him.
‘You know what I mean. Able to go where she chooses, at liberty.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because otherwise I’ll kill us all.’
‘But if I agree to let her go?’
‘Then,’ said Iago, ‘I’ll come willingly with you.’
The projection was of a head weighing up his options. Then, Bar-le-duc smiled his thin smile. ‘By all means,’ he said. ‘If that concept means anything to you – or to her – then fair enough. But after all, we’re all in prison. What is it the old poet said, about the solar system being a prison, with many cells in it, existentially equivalent to living inside a walnut shell? Who was that – Shakespeare? It’s usually Shakespeare.’
‘No equivocation,’ said Iago. ‘I’m happy to agree the Solar System is, in the largest sense, a prison. But you must agree that you will permit Diana to go into whichever portion of it she chooses, unmolested.’
‘Very well. But do you know what, my friend?’
‘What?’
‘If what they say about you is true – why, then the System will no longer be a prison! You can open the door, and humanity can flood out into the cosmos as a whole!’
‘I wouldn’t believe everything they say about me,’ Iago muttered. Then, speaking directly: ‘how shall I trust you? Do you have a RACdroid aboard that sloop?’
‘Of course I do. I am an accredited senior officer of the Lex Ulanova. It can witness our contract. Still: a contract to let a wanted criminal go free? I’m not sure that’s wholly legal.’
‘It’s not the legality I’m worried about,’ said Iago. ‘It’s having it recorded. So that, at a later date, it is not simply your word against mine.’
Even Bar-le-duc’s laugh sounded sad; a slow series of clucking noises. ‘And you think there will be any later date, for you! My poor friend.’
‘Just bring the RACdroid with you.’
‘So then we are clear,’ said Bar-le-duc. ‘I shall leave your Clan Argent friend to
her own destiny, and in return I shall take you off to the authorities, and they will dismantle you organ by organ, in a welter of blood, to get at what is in your head. You’re quite sure you want to go ahead with this? I ask, for old time’s sake.’
Iago took a deep breath. ‘Just bring the RACdroid. I’ll deal with, with the rest of it if-and-when.’
‘Deal with it!’ repeated Bar-le-duc, chuckling sorrowfully. ‘My dear friend. I’ve spent such a portion of my life hunting you! I’m almost sorry it comes to this.’
‘You can come through, Bar. Bring the droid. There’s only one entrance to this globe, and my sloop is already docked there; so you’ll have to dock with the rear hatch of my ship and come through that to get inside. I’ll instruct the AI to unlock it.’
‘Very well.’
‘Come alone, Bar. Just you and the RACdroid.’
‘No, my dear man, no! Come alone into your lion’s den? You think I don’t know how many people you have killed? No. I shall bring four people with me, to protect my tender flesh against your glass knifeblade.’
‘You can bring two,’ said Iago.
‘Four.’
The hologram vanished. The conversation was at an end.
‘Iago,’ Diana said. ‘Jack, I mean – you’re not really thinking of giving yourself up to him? You heard what he said!’
‘Right now,’ he said, glancing over at Sapho, ‘the choices are: either I go with them or everybody inside this bubble dies.’
‘Only Ra’allah can help us now,’ said Sapho.
‘I need to know how they found us!’ Iago said. ‘I make it my business not to be found, and yet – here they are.’ He looked at his two companions. ‘Don’t worry about me; I’ve escaped from prison before. I can do it again.’
4
The End of Bar-le-duc
Bar-le-duc’s sloop was much larger than the Red Rum. Diana, Iago and Sapho watched it manoeuvre cumbrously to present one of its doors to the little craft’s rear lock. It was not well done. At one point the flank of the sloop banged against the walls of the house, causing the whole structure to deform and bulge, ringing with a resonant, deep boing sound and shaking leaves and debris into the central space to float and swirl.
‘Steady!’ muttered Iago.
But eventually it was done. The great sword-shaped length of the police sloop dominated the view from the house windows; a fat tangent line drawn off the curve of the sphere. The sound of Red Rum’s back door being opened echoed around the space.
‘Here they come,’ muttered Iago.
The first thing to emerge from the airlock was the RACdroid itself; a circular silverblue face, blankly inexpressive, above an ovoid torso and four flexible gel limbs; it clambered into the sphere and made its way along one of the guy-cables, stopping halfway along. Bar-le-duc came next. In person he was a tall, distinguished-looking man. His long hair floated distractingly bouffant in zero-gravity and perhaps his features were slightly too large for his pale brown face. But his triangular wedge of a nose was certainly impressively aristocratic-looking, and his eyes had an eagle’s directness. He was carrying a gun which he kept unerringly directed at Iago as he negotiated the airlock and came into the larger space. ‘Jack!’ he said, smiling. But then his face grew stern. ‘Three of you? I thought it was just you and Ms Argent?’
‘Your sources are not infallible, then,’ said Iago. ‘I’m pleased to hear that. This is Sapho. She’s no threat to you.’
‘Ra’allah protect us,’ muttered Sapho.
‘No threat?’ repeated Bar-le-duc. ‘Well, well, perhaps so. Nonetheless, I must ask you, Ms Sapho, to go away – go over there, to where those purple-leaved bushes are. Stay visible, if you please, but do remove yourself from my immediate vicinity. I will shoot you if you make any sudden moves – believe me.’
‘I believe you,’ said Sapho, and pulled herself along a guy-rope until she reached the wall over by Bar-le-duc’s left. When he was happy she was far enough away, he called to her to stop.
Meanwhile, Bar-le-duc’s four figures (all men) were coming through one after the other. Diana’s heart was beating more rapidly. It was actually happening. It was really happening. She had no weapon; and she could not see how Iago could take on five armed and trained commandos. It was starting to look as though he was actually going to be taken into custody. And then, what followed? Hadn’t Bar-le-duc said it himself? The authorities would dismantle him organ by organ, in a waterfall of blood, to get at what was in his head. ‘Iago,’ she said, urgently. ‘What shall we do?’
‘We shall stay calm,’ said Iago, levelly.
‘Good advice, Ms Argent,’ said Bar-le-duc. He kicked off gently from a guy-cable, and floated through plain air towards them. Ten metres away to the left, a little below them, the RACdroid perched, recording everything.
‘I brought the droid, as you can see,’ said Bar-le-duc. ‘Though now that we’re here, I’m not sure we really need it.’
‘This is the deal,’ said Iago, in a clear, loud voice, for the benefit of the Droid. ‘It takes the form of a contract. You, Bar-le-duc, agree, by the legal powers invested in you, to let Ms Diana Argent go free. You will leave her in this place with her companion, Sapho, and the functioning space sloop currently docked – the ship is called the Red Rum 2020. Both the two of them, and the ship, are specifically identified in this contract. You agree to leave this sphere and this ship in good order, and you agree to leave both Ms Argent and her friend unmolested, cleared of legal taint. In return, I agree to go with you without violence.’
‘No violence,’ repeated Bar-le-duc, forcefully.
‘None. I contract to make no assault upon you, your men or your equipment, and to accompany you to whichever destination you choose.’
‘I could simply take you, Jack,’ said Bar-le-duc, wagging a finger.
‘You could try,’ said Iago. ‘But you cannot afford to kill me, since you need what is in my head. And I am very skilled at causing death and damage to other human beings. This means I could make the passage very . . . troublesome for you.’
Bar-le-duc looked at him. His eyes, a striking violet-blue, neither blinked nor wavered. ‘And if I agree to your contract?’
‘Then I shall come with you, as I have specified, and do you no harm. The details are in the RACdroid now.’
‘RACdroids can be destroyed,’ Bar-le-duc said.
‘If that happens then Ms Argent’s legal immunity is destroyed too. Believe me, that’s the last thing I want to happen. So I have no incentive to do you any harm, or to damage the droid. I’m proposing to legally link my good behaviour to her immunity. That is the contract. Do you agree to it?’
After a pause, Bar-le-duc said: ‘yes.’ Then speaking more loudly, for the benefit of the droid, he said: ‘I, André Bar-le-duc, contract as Jack Glass has specified.’
‘Iago,’ said Diana. ‘You can’t go with him. You’re going to your own death!’
‘It looks like a heroic gesture, doesn’t it?’ said Bar-le-duc, speaking not with sarcastic mockery, but rather with a dignified and mournful precision. ‘Self-sacrifice. But I have known Jack for longer than you. He is planning something – he has something up his sleeve. Isn’t that so Jack?’
‘All I care about,’ said Iago, ‘is that Diana’s legal immunity is assured.’ He was looking at each of the men Bar-le-duc had brought in, one after the other, as if sizing them up. But what could he possibly do? All were armed, trained, and loyal to their master – their loyalty reinforced with CRFs.
‘It is done,’ said Bar-le-duc. ‘The RACdroid has the contract. I must say, Jack, this has gone smoother than I thought it might.’
Diana felt panic rising inside her. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said.
‘You are free, Diana,’ Iago said. But he didn’t look at her.
Bar-le-duc shook his head. ‘It’s poor form of you, Jack – toying with this girl’s heart!’
‘Oh, what do you mean?’ Iago snapped at him. ‘Don’t talk nonse
nse.’ He sounded genuinely annoyed.
Bar-le-duc, addressed Diana. ‘Ms Argent, my dear,’ he said. ‘Believe me when I tell you: Jack Glass looks at people in the way an artist or an architect looks at his raw materials. He is not interested in them – in you – he is only interested in what he can do with them, with you. Now, perhaps he feels that what he is going to do with these people, these trillions of human beings, is worthwhile, or virtuous, or in the service of the greater good. Maybe he genuinely thinks so! But it seems to me that this does not excuse his behaviour. Means do not justify the end. People must not be used as tools. They must, rather, be treated as people.’
‘You intend to treat me as a person, do you?’ said Iago, evidently annoyed by this lecture.
‘That is different. You know it, just as I do. I serve justice, and the law – order. If we did not have strict and just punishment for transgression, then what would we . . .’
That was the precise moment Bar-le-duc was cut in two – slain, killed, destroyed.
Everything inside the bubble went crazy. Explosive decompression. All the air inside the globe convulsed with a great recursive lurch.
Diana was wrenched and dragged sideways. She wheeled dizzyingly full circle and kept on spinning. The abrupt rapidity of the motion threw her arms and legs out, starfishwise.
Chaos.
It was chaos, and old night.
Despite the unexpected suddenness Diana instantly understood what was going on. As she shot through the air and bounced hard against the fabric of the bubble, knocking the breath from her, she realised that the side of the bubble had split open. She realised that Bar-le-duc’s torso had been turned into an expanding cloud of red droplets.
Uh!
There was something more, immediately before the explosion, something else. Who was it said it originally? – Shakespeare was it? Searching her bId-less memory for the source of the quotation, she alighted on Shakespeare: the code got all weird. That was the best way she could think of describing it. She felt some strangeness, some occlusion in her ability not just to process but even to parse reality. For a moment, reality had acquired the unmistakeable flavour of a Worldtuality; before snapping (almost tangibly snapping) back to actual reality. A bulge, or shrinkage; fear clutching the brain. Perhaps, she thought, it was her own senses, so finely tuned, so thoroughly bred into her. They gave her an intimation that this thing was about to happen. And it did.