by Paul McAuley
The Child waited a full two minutes before she got out of bed. Cracked the door and slipped through, tiptoed down the short hallway, peeked out. Ama Paulinho was sitting on the couch and rocking to and fro, eyes closed, hands twisted together in front of her face, a rosary caught between her blunt fingers. The Child tiptoed back to her room. She slept in a long T-shirt; all she had to do was pull on jeans, tie her sneakers together by the laces and hang them around her neck, and she was ready to go. Shivering with tension. Opening the window, stopping, coming back to the bed, arranging pillows under the sheet, one of her old dolls. It didn’t look much like someone asleep, but it would have to do.
She’d slipped out at night so many times that it was by now second nature. Climbing on to the sill of the open window, clutching the frame with one hand while reaching up with the other, finding the end of the knotted rope. Pulling it down and swarming up it, hauling herself on to the roof, which was still warm from the unrelenting sun of the day just past. She drew up the rope and put on her sneakers, looking all around.
The orange glow still lit the sky to the east. The Child drew warm night air through her nostrils, breathing deep, all the way to the bottom of her lungs. A faint sweet charred odour. She stepped quietly to the far edge of the roof and knelt there, watching the main hospital building, every window dark except for one in the top right-hand corner, the high-dependency ward, and the two windows of the emergency room on the ground floor.
She felt alive in her skin, every sense operating at full capacity. Suppose her mother had already left . . . But there she was, hurrying out of the hospital door with a man, one of the nurses, Raul, following right behind. The Child flattened herself against the roof like a cat. Watching as her mother and Raul opened the gate and went through, then pushing up and jumping from the roof, a sudden rush and a thump, landing on hands and knees on hard-packed dirt.
After that, it was easy. She’d long ago cloned a security dongle; now she used it to open the gate, slipped outside. There was a stand of ornamental bushes close to the gate and the Child crouched amongst their big leathery leaves, looking right and left, seeing a flicker of shadows under the big flame tree that stood in front of the house of the hospital director. Figures moving away, slipping into shadows beyond the house and the tree.
The Child followed. Glancing up at the window of Roberto’s bedroom out of habit, crossing the dark garden behind the house, easing through the little gate in the tall hedge, catching a glimpse of her mother and Raul following a slim figure into the shadows that drowned the service alley. It was easy to track them, even in the near-dark. Once, the Child heard something overhead and froze, remembering what the nurse had said about drones – but it was only a bat, attracted by the rank scent of a night-flowering yucca. She moved on, padding quickly and quietly. Stopping at the mouth of an alley when the trio waited at the far end as a jeep went past. Once she even got ahead of them, and crouched under a jacaranda bush as they went past, shadows on shadows. The Child caught a glimpse of the guide: a slight figure bulked out in a long, hooded garment that blurred its own outlines, but when the guide turned to beckon on the Child’s mother and the nurse, the Child saw the face framed by the hood. A young woman’s face. The Child was disappointed – she’d had the foolish notion that the guide might have been the jaguar boy.
They had cut across the western side of the little town, and were now making a wide loop around the rear of the docks towards the river. Past a shuttered manufactory, past low warehouse sheds, a fenced yard where old vehicles rusted amongst dry weeds. The Child watched the three figures cross the river-front road. Two of the street lamps were out, probably not by accident. The trio passed through the middle of this penumbra and vanished into darkness under the trees on the far side.
The Child knew that the strip of trees bordered a drop to a strand of pebbles and rocks exposed by the drought-shrunken river. If the guide was going to take her mother and Raul on to the river she had no chance of following them; she could turn back now, be back in her bed in less than fifteen minutes. But her ama had said that the boy had been too badly injured to be moved far, and this was more or less the closest point on the river to the army base. She imagined people carrying the wounded boy here, hoping to make a rendezvous that somehow failed, realising that his only chance lay with bringing a doctor to treat him on the spot because it was too difficult and dangerous to carry him through the town to the hospital . . .
She sprinted across the road, jumped the dry ditch on the far side, felt her way from tree to tree in the absolute darkness beneath them. Taking small steps, hands held out like a tightrope walker. She was scared of stepping on a snake, and when one of her hands brushed a heavy hanging loop she almost cried out. But it was only a vine. She moved on, step by step, towards the liquid sound of the running river. A murmur of low voices. A faint light for a moment defining the edge of the drop to the little beach. The Child heard her mother say that the boy was going to die whether he stayed here or was moved. Someone else started to say something, and her mother interrupted.
‘All I can do is make him comfortable.’
A woman said, ‘The boat will come.’
A man said, ‘The boat will never come now. The boat is lost. We must give up the idea of the boat.’
The woman said, ‘We can’t wait here long. They’re widening their search perimeter all the time.’
The Child’s mother said, ‘You can leave him with me. I will make him as comfortable as I can.’
‘It is not seemly to abandon him while he is alive,’ the man said. ‘But if his suffering is ended—’
‘I will not do that for you,’ the Child’s mother said.
‘Show us how to do it properly,’ the woman said. ‘So he does not suffer. If you are certain it is hopeless, it will be a mercy, yes?’
The Child had been edging closer all this time, and now she could see light below and off to her left, a faint red glow that illuminated her mother’s intent face as she knelt beside someone prone on the ground, the shadows of three other figures crouching beside her. They were under an overhang of roots and dirt, at the top of the slope of pebbles and boulders that dropped towards the wide black river.
The Child’s mother was talking quietly and urgently, saying she would be no part of a mercy killing, saying she would do her best to make the boy comfortable, and the man said he would make him comfortable himself and there was the sharp crack of a gunshot, winging out across the river. The Child cried out, scared that her mother had been hurt. Shadows moved under the overhang and a figure stood up, a man looking this way and that before starting towards her hiding place. She edged backwards and lost her footing and fell, rolling down a short slope into a breadth of empty air, landing with a shock. The man caught her by the scruff of her neck and hauled her to her knees, ripping her T-shirt. A light flashed in her face for an instant, and her mother said, ‘Wait! Wait. It’s all right. It’s my daughter.’
And things dropped down from the black sky and narrow lances of blue light shot out from them, probing the steep bank, lighting up naked rock and the rooted boles of trees, lighting up stretches of pebbly ground and the people under the overhang. The Child saw her mother’s face, saw the nurse, Raul, beside her, saw a young woman stand up, her arm coming up with a knot at the end of it, a pistol, and the woman was suddenly at the intersection of three overlapping circles of blue light and there was a snapping noise and she twitched and shuddered and fell down.
The man let go of the Child and she fell to her knees and there was another snapping noise and the man pitched backwards. Lights flashed in the trees above the shore; men shouted to each other. The Child dared to push to her feet, ready to run, and something swooped in front of her, a fat disc the size of a dinner plate that shone a pencil of blue light straight in her eyes, four fan motors humming and stirring the air.
Her mother called to her, told her not to move, and then the blue light went out and the drone dropped to the Child’s
feet and we lost control of the story.
No, we had already lost control. But now it became absolutely clear that we were no longer in charge.
The lights dancing through the trees were growing closer and brighter. A shadow stepped in front of their leaping glow. A slight figure with a small sleek head. The jaguar boy.
He held out a hand towards the Child and said, ‘Come with me if you want to be free.’
Maria Hong-Owen called and called to her daughter, but the Child was already running, chasing after the jaguar boy along the shoreline, into the darkness.
11
As we followed Prem through the big, dimly lit chamber, she explained that she and her friends had taken control of this pirates’ lair for the moment, but couldn’t hold it for long. I had a hundred questions to ask, but the one at the forefront of my mind was how she had found out about the connection with the Billion Blossoms.
‘That’s easy,’ Prem said. ‘They found me. Or rather, they contacted Lathi.’
‘I don’t think I understand,’ I said.
‘I do,’ the Horse told Prem. ‘The Billion Blossoms offered to sell Lathi Singleton information about her son. But the price was too high, and so she sent you and your friends to steal it.’
‘It wasn’t that the price was too high,’ Prem said. She did not seem to mind or notice his impudence. ‘It was a matter of pride.’
I said, ‘Am I to understand that I was not hired to uncover useful information, but to act as a diversion for you and your cousins?’
‘They were up for a bit of fun. And it was fun, as far as they were concerned.’
‘There will be repercussions. You have hit the Billion Blossoms. They will hit back.’
‘My cousins are shipping out soon. They won’t come back here, those of them that survive. And the Billion Blossoms has no real leverage or power outside Glitter Gulch. That’s why they made a big mistake when they chose to tangle with my clan,’ Prem said.
‘I believe I understand how they must feel.’
’Oh, don’t feel sorry for yourself. I admit that I needed you to keep the Office of Public Safety busy—’
‘They were holding me prisoner.’
‘And you saved me the trouble of freeing you by getting free yourself. You’re more resourceful than I thought, Isak. And I’m glad. Because we have much to do together, you and I.’
I stopped walking, drew myself up, and said as solemnly as I could, ‘You must understand that I am no longer bound by contract and convention, Majistra. The basis of that arrangement has proven to be false. And your actions here have put the honour of my clan at hazard.’
Prem Singleton studied me. I felt utterly transparent to her gaze. It was one of those moments when possibilities open on a variety of futures. I knew that the direction my life would take depended on what she did next, and I could see that the Horse knew it too. He was watching us with a sly and knowing look, as if we were actors in a saga he had devised.
After a moment, Prem said, ‘Any arrangements your clan made were with my aunt, not me. If I were you, I’d take it up with her.’
‘As I said, that arrangement is over. But I would like to suggest a new one.’
Prem smiled. ‘With me?’
‘Why not?’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘The Billion Blossoms has the records of the data miner your cousin hired. Perhaps some freelance exorcist or data miner can unriddle them. Although I doubt it, for otherwise the Billion Blossoms would have done it already.’
‘How did you know about the records?’
‘I persuaded the Office of Public Safety to allow me to examine the hell that your cousin found. It has been collapsed. Any information it contained has gone. But data miners always record their every action when they explore the Library. The one your cousin hired would be no different. After she examined that hell, she sold her records to the Billion Blossoms to cancel a gambling debt, and they killed her to make sure they had the only copy. You want me to riddle it for clues about what your cousin found, and why he disappeared.’
Prem stepped forward and seized me in a hug and kissed me hard on the lips and stepped back. For a moment, I felt that gravity had flattened out completely. The hood of her camo gear was thrown back, and she had a fierce and eager expression that made her look lovelier than ever. I confess that I was excited too. Primed, perhaps, by the trip through the gaudy temptations of Glitter Gulch, and the descent through the bloody offerings of the fighting arena. Triggered by the hard kiss that still tingled on my lips and fizzed in my blood.
The Horse was having a hard time hiding his glee. He knew that if he so much as smiled, I would have to beat it out of him, for form’s sake, and after a moment, he turned away and pretended to examine the shadowy vaults overhead.
Prem said, ‘You have your gear and your experience. I have luck, wit, and the help of some good friends. Anything we find helps your clan and the cause of my family equally. Do we have a deal?’
‘We do.’
‘Then let’s move on. We have business here, and little time.’
‘One more thing. Now that we are equal partners, you may remove the tracking device you secreted on my person. That’s how you knew I was coming here, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, that,’ Prem said. ‘You swallowed it during the picnic with my aunt. Your body will get rid of it in the natural way soon enough. Meanwhile, you have to admit it’s been useful.’
‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t express my gratitude.’
‘Don’t be so sniffy, Isak! We’re having fun, aren’t we? I bet even your kholop is enjoying himself, in his way.’
‘This one would not have missed this for anything,’ the Horse said.
A round doorway set in the high, wide wall at the end of the chamber gave on to a lighted room beyond, with glass panels on either side fronting cabinets in which armoured suits the size of Quicks stood. Another door stood open at the far end, leading to a walkway that stretched out across a huge cylindrical pod fitfully illuminated by lamps that floated here and there in the darkness like dim and wandering stars. Shapes shrouded in silvery cloth were stacked and racked in the open space beneath and a ceiling curved overhead: I realised that we had just passed through an airlock into the cargo space of a ship buried in the floor of Glitter Gulch.
Prem Singleton bounded along the walkway; the Horse and I followed with more care, looking all around. Below us, a string of flat-roofed cabins was set in the centre of the maze of shrouded shapes; Prem led us down a steep stair to a platform in front of the entrance to the first cabin, where ten men and women lay prone with their wrists and ankles bound by the kind of smart cord that contracts every time you make a movement. All of them were young, hardly more than children. Two man-sized shapes shimmered towards us. One exchanged a packet with Prem, who told the Horse and me that there’d been several attempts to probe the perimeter, and although her cousins had taken care of them, we should get down to business straight away.
‘The man you were going to meet?’ she said. ‘He’s through here.’
‘And the records of the data miner?’ I said.
‘They’re in the same place.’
Inside the first cabin, an old woman lay dead on a pale carpet amongst antique plastic furniture. Prem barely glanced at her as she stalked past, pushing aside a hanging at the far end and stepping through into the second cabin. Two dead men sprawled close together, one no older than me, the other an old man with halflife flowers braided into his long white hair. Ancient tapestries shrouded the walls, flickering with scenes of the great and glorious long-ago, when Trues had briefly ruled half of Earth. A patch of the white fur that covered the floor had been scorched by the discharge of an energy weapon and a man-sized vase standing in a corner had a fused hole punched through it and the cabin reeked of ozone and char.
I pointed to the old man. ‘Is that him?’
‘His son,’ Prem Singleton said, and led the Horse and me into the n
ext cabin.
It was a long room where creepers and fan palms grew on either side of a tiled pool. At the far end a large shadow floated in the cold blue light of a bubbling aquarium tank. As Prem led us down one side of the pool I saw it was a man: an incredibly ancient man, all leathery skin and prominent bones, netted in wires and tubing. Something crunched under my foot. The shell of a little camera drone. Others lay scattered on the floor.
Prem rapped on the tank’s thick glass, close by the head of the mummy-thing. ‘I told you I’d be back,’ she said. ‘And I’ve brought the man who can unlock your little secret.’
I felt as if I had stepped through what I’d thought was an ordinary door, and found myself in a saga. ‘That’s the leader of the Billion Blossoms?’
‘Another of your race’s great achievements,’ the Horse said. ‘An eternal living death.’
‘Oh, he isn’t dead,’ Prem Singleton said.
‘Kill me now,’ a voice said out of the air. It was as flat and flavourless as distilled water and seemed to speak directly in my ear. I looked around as anyone would, but of course there was no one behind me.
Prem Singleton’s camo shimmered and faded. She was dressed in a one-piece form-fitting black garment with armoured plates over her back and breasts, black boots, black fingerless gloves. She studied the mummy-thing, and said, ‘Give it up easily, and I’ll consider your request.’
‘You killed my children. Go to the Ghosts.’
‘They fought and died honourably. Honour their memory.’
The mummy-thing looked so absolutely dead, lips wrinkled back from yellow teeth, eyes blank as stones, that I felt a physical shock when its head turned amongst wires and streaming bubbles, jerking from side to side as if seeking Prem Singleton’s face. I suppose it had watched and acted on the world outside its tank through the drones, but they were gone now, and it was blind and helpless.