“Why is this heart stolen every couple of centuries?”
“It is placed upon a blasphemous travesty of an altar, before which an arcane and eldritch secret society performs bizarre sexual acts. This sets the rest of the body spinning in its grave with such ferocity the Earth stays on its axis; we’d be fucked without these people.” Reb narrows her eyes.
“You think the Earth rotates?”
“Our clients do.”
“And what? The stars just sit there?”
“No; they move as well, try to keep up.”
“Even the fixed ones?”
“Fixed ones still move, just altogether.”
“What keeps them together? If you say gravity I will make you drink the oven cleaner.” Charlie laughs.
“Right so I’m spinning you a yarn, but I do know it’s a wait and return; whatever it is, it takes all of twenty minutes.” Reb extracts herself from a now gleaming oven and sits on the sodden floor, glaring at the polished steel monster. She feels the need to assert herself in the world.
“If it fucks shit up, I’m all for it.”
Two nondescript tourists arrive separately, and before closing time are concealed within the cathedral. It is so much easier to get out of a locked building than in; it’s very often the last thing they’re expecting. The last thing Reb and Charlie were expecting was three Royal Navy troopers apiece waiting with charged rifles as they left their hiding places at the appointed time. There is a whirr of propellers somewhere outside, faintly at first but fast approaching. It doesn’t sound like a helipod; for one thing the sound isn’t coming from above. They are marched to the nave, where an officer is seated in the crepuscular glow of field lights. He has a cage in his hands and is examining the heart shaped box contained within.
“Could be anything in there” He looks to Reb “How d’you know you have the real thing?” Reb shrugs.
“Define ‘real’ in this instance; what now?”
“Your man here is going to deliver his package. Don’t look so surprised; we know where to find him if it doesn’t come back, and we’d rather your clients know nothing of our involvement. We’re asking you nicely to play ball; Mum’s the word, you two stay out of a particularly nasty prison we have hidden away and we’ll all go our separate ways in the morning, agreed?”
“What’s the catch?”
“No biggie; we just need to borrow you for a couple of hours.”
“Catering goes through the restaurant.”
“You have other talents; these have not gone unnoticed.”
“I would imagine I have no choice.” The officer throws the heart to Charlie.
“You get along now lad; we’ll replace it when you’re done, and Miss Sunbury here will be back for breakfast before you’ve smoked a kipper.” Charlie looks questioningly to Reb, who nods and he backs out of a side door a soldier has unlocked; she turns to her captor.
“You have the advantage of me.”
“Commander Gregory Pearson of the Royal Navy Space Fleet; we have been observing you for some time and I would heartily advise taking some time off from your more clandestine activities, right after this one little thing you can do for us.” A further man detaches himself from the shadows and extends a hand with a smile; he has fully the most impressive moustache Reb has ever seen, and sports a British accent straight out of a made-for-America rom com.
“James Nugent, Brotherhood of Stellar Friars; it’s a privilege to make your acquaintance, Miss Sunbury.”
“What is this, nice cop nasty cop?” Nugent laughs.
“Oh, Greg here would be nice cop; I’m lovely cop. Round about now I’d say you’re rather hoping somebody might tell you what this is all about, eh?”
“Something along those lines, but with more expletives.”
“We require the services of a burglar, Miss Sunbury, and you have proven yourself a particularly adept one.”
The Brotherhood of Stellar Friars is an admittedly awkward anachronism, a relic of the ties between Church and State which seemed to retain a foot in each camp and a back door to both. While still officially an Anglican organisation and devoid of State funding, they were vital cogs in interplanetary diplomacy, and first responders for eventualities so esoteric no government would dare put its name to them. As we have seen, it is a co-dependent arrangement; the Order may be desirous of Reb’s assistance, but were unlikely to get it without a collection of pulse rifles aimed at her head.
The Brotherhood strives by prayerful contemplation to divine the Almighty’s will, which it then enacts. Well, it doesn’t enact anything straight away; monthly councils are held, at which God’s will is considered on the basis of available resources. God can will all He likes, but if a Christian soldier is expected to walk on water, he or she may require worldly assistance.
It was an imposing vehicle; save for the word ‘Hovercraft’ incongruously painted in large white capital letters across what Reb assumed must be the bow. They revolved a hundred and eighty degrees and shot off across an immaculate lawn, traversed the rubble of the old municipal buildings with barely a judder and splashed down into the Liffey heading east at fully sixty knots. Conversation was conducted by shouting over the insane roar of the turbine engines.
“Why is the word Hovercraft painted on your Hovercraft?”
“Because it’s a Hovercraft.”
“Which is exactly my point; a motorcycle doesn’t have ‘motorcycle’ written on it because any idiot can see it’s a motorcycle.”
“Regardless, all Hovercraft have Hovercraft painted on them.” Reb thumbed her interface.
“This one doesn’t, or this one, or this one.” Nugent glances across from the helm and shakes his head briefly.
“They’re not Hovercraft; they’re air cushion vehicles or ACV’s. Hovercraft is a trademark, like Tarmac or Tannoy, or Dumpster in your country. The Hovercraft was invented in England, and anything worth the name is still built there.”
“That’s incredibly pedantic.”
“Not if you’re any kind of Englishman.”
“It is, then, my good fortune not to be either. Where are we going?”
“We’ll be stopping in the middle of the Irish Sea, where we will exchange our conveyance for a flying saucer.”
“An actual flying saucer? What’s it like?”
“Incredibly responsive, absolutely the fastest thing you’ve ever flown and a bit whiffy; comes from being built in an acid atmosphere, the aroma never completely goes away but you get used to it. At least you’re inside something which could theoretically fly through the sun.”
“Theoretically?” Nugent laughs.
“Nobody’s ever had the nerve to try it. I mean, would you?” It occurred to Reb she absolutely would, given half a chance, but that didn’t make her crazy, right? She just had these adrenaline issues.
Inter-system trade being what it is, the same technology underpinning the saucers’ controls had later been licensed to the Erik Buell Motorcycle Company. As Nugent took the craft out of Earth’s atmosphere Reb was interested to note many commands were similar, and others at least made some sort of sense. She wondered if she’d be capable of taking the helm, should the need arise; saucers are notoriously over-responsive, operating on the very edge of being torn apart by gyroscopic forces. The first human to master one is legendary for many reasons; during his career as a Royal Navy test pilot, Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown flew more varieties of aircraft than anyone before or since, but his strangest achievement was only declassified decades after his death. His name now adorns the flagship gun cruiser of the Royal Naval Outer Infantry and his saucer, the Evelyn Macrory, now occupies the entrance hall of the Imperial Massive War Machine Museum in London.
Once aboard the Friars’ ship, Reb is given a file to read; it is big and thick and it has her name on the front.
“I don’t get it; there’s hardly anything about me in here, just endless theories and diagrams; why does chaos keep coming up?” Nugent smiles.
<
br /> “Well, Chaos is what we rather think you may be; if so you predate Gaia, and rest assured I can vouch for his authenticity. You are, in essence, captive to a force older than time, and its personification within these four dimensions.” Reb laughed out loud.
“I run a restaurant! If I was some sort of… goddess of chaos…”
“You’re not a goddess” Nugent interrupts firmly, without looking up from his instruments. Reb feels a little deflated; if the Friars are Hell bent on involving her in this bollocks they could at least let her be a goddess.
“Am I not?”
“No; you’re elemental. Goddesses are Divine, which is to all intents and purposes completely the opposite.”
“So I’m a demon?”
“Only if you want to be difficult about it.”
“Oh. Well, if I was really Lady Chaos, Whoppers would be a smoking hole in the ground.”
“Ah, but what excites you about the job, Miss Sunbury?” Reb stares incredulously at both the man and his question.
“Nothing! It’s the dullest, most tedious…” she tails off. Just on the edge of self awareness, something is tapping at a window with a delivery; Nugent reads her mind out loud.
“It’s the knowledge you have ultimate control, isn’t it? At any time you alone can send it all spinning into thrilling, beautiful chaos; customers poisoned, tills empty, the building locked, over capacity and on fire! The sky’s the limit; I’m surprised you haven’t done something along those lines already.”
“I, um… I was saving it for my thirtieth birthday; I always planned to go travelling before I got too old, and it would be sort of a leaving present to myself.” Now she said it out loud it did seem… inhuman.
“May I ask an extremely personal question, Miss Sunbury?”
“Give it a go.”
“Are you a virgin?” There is a silence.
“Well, that’s a bit more personal than I was expecting!” It was a ridiculous question; she was a grown woman and hardly unattractive. Then she thought, and it had never occurred to her before but… No, it was stupid! There had been… Oh no, that was someone else. A ton weight of lead penny dropped and a chill ran down her spine; how could she have just assumed something so fundamental? Nugent is watching her closely, and if Reb hadn’t been ever so slightly freaked out she would have noticed him nod as her face revealed her confusion.
“I understand. Please accept my apologies, but the question was prompted by more than idle curiosity.” Reb rallies.
“What does it have to do with you?”
“Another clue. It’s circumstantial, but chaos would engender celibacy; conception is the ultimate triumph of order. Of course, there are many reasons why people choose to abstain so it’s far from conclusive.”
“It sounds ridiculous, but I never realised I was abstaining.”
“Well, you’ve had a lot on.”
“Oh come on! People maybe don’t get around to things like making a will or clearing out the attic; nobody just forgets to have sex for twenty four years! It’s this chaos thing, isn’t it?” A tone sounds, indicating the saucer should be detached from the string it is currently riding unless they want to overshoot their destination by several hundred billion miles. Nugent takes the ship onto manual and Reb re-opens her file.
“What’s ‘temporal agility’? The phrase comes up a lot.”
“It’s the ability to borrow parts of what we think of as the future, perfectly achievable with study of course, but I’d wager that would surprise you.”
“Well yes, we don’t need to study the future; it’s right in front of us.”
“Confirming a future event is comparable to glancing out the window to see if you need a coat, yes?”
“More like sticking your head out and seeing how cold your ears get, but yes. If I’d have thought there was any possibility of an ambush tonight it I would have known; as it was, I didn’t check.”
“Nobody has even a trace your ability without years of study. In terms of temporal agility, Miss Sunbury, you are several hundred years ahead of the human race. You already know exactly what we’re looking for, where it is secured, and how to get it out, am I right?” Reb nodded.
“What does Charlie have to do with this mythology?”
“Nothing at all; your young man is very much flesh and blood. I would imagine he has his own reasons for following wherever you lead.”
“He’s not my young man.”
“I was merely referencing your status as his employer.”
“Charlie’s an adrenaline junkie; if he wasn’t raiding tombs he’d be base jumping or some such foolishness. The first day I met him we flooded a sports hall.” Reb smiled at the memory; they had been eleven years old and she’d been kicked off the roller derby team that very morning. She couldn’t have done it without him; Charlie was her tech guy, her problem solver. Nugent breaks her fond reverie.
“You should smile more, Miss Sunbury; puts us mortals at our ease, don’tcha know." He performs some calculations on an older console; it is a device for rendering the craft undetectable, and its metal keys put Reb in mind of the noisy mechanical typewriter Emmy insisted was essential to her journalistic endeavours. Her sister sent reviews and opinions to inky underground fanzines, composed by candlelight for some reason. With the saucer cloaked they descend to the Martian surface.
It’s OK on Mars, but wrap up warm and take a snort of oxygen every now and then; some parts of the east may look welcoming when the sand storms stop, but the deceptively blue skies have thin air and the bracing chill you first feel on stepping outside will freeze your blood so slowly you won’t even notice it’s happening. A native lets Reb through the back door of a dome as arranged, and she follows directions to a municipal building in the centre of the hive. Human settlements on Mars are a loose end in manifest destiny; they’d just about got viable and the infrastructure was still temporary when the StringStreamer drive pulled the rug from under them, bringing inter-system bounty within the reach of man. The proposed aerogel ecodomes never materialised as investment was redirected towards the Outer Colonies, and housing crept up the walls of inferior silica glass structures in which humanity huddled; imagine Detroit with chronic overcrowding and you’re almost there. Reb is heading for an Angonist arms dump, but her target is something far more explosive; Angon Duke’s plans for the End of Days are secured within. They contain notes on the chemical composition of the French Plague and the Friars intend to destroy the document, along with all others in danger of falling into the wrong hands; until the Defence Science Lab at Porton Down can create a viable antidote, the wrong hands means everyone.
Reb is in and out in an instant, as per usual given her immense tactical advantage; it’s only when cloaking fails on the way out of the atmosphere they’re rumbled, and a single elderly interceptor comprising the entire Angonist response force is sent after them. Reb has to take the controls while Nugent restarts the device; nothing too involved, just hold the current course and don’t touch anything. There is a bang and a flash and Nugent is thrown across the ship, unconscious; the saucer loses speed and the interceptor is gaining. Reb sees the tail end of the Sirius string on the display, thing is it peters out only five thousand miles from the solar surface. A StringStreamer drive will take you through planets unharmed; you are moving too fast for classical physics, and celestial bodies are nothing if not conservative, but this string is the end of a fifty trillion mile waterslide opening onto Hell. The one thing Reb could say for it was there wouldn’t be a whole lot of piloting involved; given the last maintained leg of the stream terminates at Venus, the probability of something going badly wrong with raw energy almost precluded any chance of fiery death.
She punches autoride and they’re still alive, but the white sun is all there is. Reb can’t tell if they’re inside yet or just so close she can’t see the edges. Nugent groans and pulls himself unsteadily to his feet; he stares at the window then staggers to the display, where he attempts to make sens
e of the readouts. The readouts are struggling manfully, but haven’t been briefed for this kind of thing.
“We’re halfway through and decelerating, hold on!” There is a lurch as the aft thrusters initiate and the craft picks up speed. He feels the hull “Well I never! Not even warm; I take it this was an unavoidable evasive tactic, and not merely idle curiosity?” Reb shrugs, a huge grin on her face as she stares into the heart of life on Earth.
“Bit of both; are we really the first people to do this?”
“Oh yes. Enjoy it while you can” Nugent is studying the display “We’re due out round about…”
Blackness.
“…now.”
The saucer lands beside the restaurant; it should stick out like a sore thumb, but in the shadow of Mama Whoppers it could be taken for a particularly imaginative child’s play area. Nugent shakes Reb by the hand.
“Britain is grateful for your services, Miss Sunbury. We’ll be in touch.” Reb recognised the management style; once an underling performs one miracle they’re marked as third reserve Jesus for life, and the authorities clearly felt they had the goods on her. She should feel indignation at the Damoclean sword of bonded labour hanging overhead, but the prospect was exciting. Tonight she’d flown a saucer through the sun, and discovered some elemental force from the dawn of time fancied its chances of running her life; the Brotherhood had opened her eyes, and as such they had earned her. There was still the question of the secret prison mentioned by the Navy officer, after all.
When she gets in Charlie and Emmy are waiting. Well, Charlie is waiting; Emmy is having a bath and singing loudly through the partition wall. He jerks his thumb in the direction of the racket with a pained look.
“It’s been going on relentlessly for over an hour now; am I going mad or does she have a harmonica in there with her?”
The Only War Page 14