Gemsigns

by Stephanie Saulter

*

  Far down the sweep of the great river, where the new finger of forest stretched through abandoned industrial neighbourhoods to kiss its shore, Aryel Morningstar stepped softly under leafless boughs and thought about another forest, a long long time ago. She could not shake the sensation that she was being hunted, again, as though this moment were just a brief respite before she must break cover; and the bleak awareness that this time instead of fleeing she must break towards her pursuers, and be caught. She wondered if the tinge of despair was linked to the distant sound of a helicopter, no doubt a press drone sent up on the news that she had been spotted.

  Her companion walked close beside her, unawed by the wings she had fluffed up around herself for warmth, and seemingly unaware of her mood. He was an old man, tall but beginning to stoop a little, dressed in an ancient, ragged coat that she thought she remembered from their first meeting at the foot of that mountain gorge a lifetime ago. For a while there was a peaceful quiet between them. He was the first to break it.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think you did as well as you possibly could have under the circumstances. But did you underestimate them, Aryel?’

  ‘I underestimated her. But then she didn’t do so well herself. She lost control of her own plan.’

  ‘Though the consequences will fall on others, I understand.’

  ‘As ever. Not that Felix Carrington is an innocent. I can’t find it in myself to have any regrets for him.’

  Once the crime scenes at the Squats and Newhope Tower were under control and Masoud had had a chance to glance through the Gabriel file, he had invited Felix to assist the police in their inquiries. The Bel’Natur chief executive had brusquely declined, whereupon Masoud had made clear the nature of the request by arresting him. For an hour or so last night the streams had been alive with pictures of him being bundled out of the Bel’Natur offices and into the back of a police transport. Aryel had looked for the standard, strident denials from press officers and corporate counsel. She found instead a cautious statement of surprise, concern, and an unqualified commitment to assist the authorities with their investigation, and had known who was now in charge.

  ‘Ah, your redoubtable Commander Masoud of the Met. He’s quite sharp, you said. Any chance he might reach the right conclusion?’

  ‘I doubt it. Zavcka knows how to cover her tracks. Even Henderson didn’t know about her, did he?’

  ‘Not according to our contact.’ The man’s lips twisted in distaste. Aryel caught the look.

  ‘I didn’t ask for him to be killed, Reginald.’

  ‘No, Aryel, you did not.’ It was neither criticism nor praise, just a statement of fact.

  ‘You know there’s going to be a lot of attention on you now. A lot. The whole Remnant angle is going to be scrutinised closely. There’s nothing I can do to prevent that.’

  ‘I know. It’s fine, we’re prepared. The only thing we can be accused of is giving you refuge, and I think they’re unlikely to give us a hard time about that at this point.’ He shot her a wry smile. ‘We can honestly say we know very little about where you came from, which will only make you even more glamorous.’

  Aryel made a face. ‘Don’t rub it in.’

  ‘Sorry. What happens now?’

  ‘Now I have to play the game. Be what they want me to be. I can’t see a way out of it, not if we want to secure our future.’

  ‘You’ve led such a lonely life, Aryel,’ he said gently. ‘What you risked coming to this city, forcing yourself to live in a strait-jacket … might this new situation not have its compensations?’

  ‘I haven’t been lonely these past few years. Not much. And they’ve worked so hard to make things easier for me. Gaela mapped the surveillance so I could fly a little at night, not to mention nicking the fabric for my cloak. Bal and Mikal knocked a whole floor through to give me a flat I could stretch in. I thought, if I could just make it happen without becoming the focus myself maybe I’d be able to slip away quietly afterwards, go back to Brecon—’ She broke off, shaking her head. ‘Some of them might even have come with me. Bal and I talked about it.’

  ‘You could still come back to Brecon. So could Bal and his family.’

  ‘I’ll be travelling with a bit more of an entourage from now on, I think.’ Again the buzz of the helicopter intruded and this time he seemed to register it, and to understand.

  Bells began to ring somewhere far away, high and clear in the cold air. Aryel stopped and cocked an ear to listen.

  ‘Christmas morning. Feels wrong somehow.’ She started moving again, heading back towards the river. ‘We’d better go.’

  ‘Yes. No point wasting the moment.’

  They walked in silence for a minute or two before Reginald said, ‘She’ll be watching of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Aryel sighed it out, resigned, bitter.

  ‘Aryel. You know you did the right thing.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Ask me how much it helps to know that.’

  The old man sighed in his turn, and said nothing. They walked side by side under the barren trees, feet crunching softly on a deep, frost-rimed carpet of leaves, until they came to a sudden widening of the tributary, a little above where it met the main channel. Centuries-old buildings crumbled along the edge. One of them looked to have been a warehouse, built right over the water.

  Aryel and Reginald stepped inside, through a gaping hole where part of a wall had fallen away. Two gillungs lounged at the edge of the pool. Eli, had he been there, would have recognised one of them as the woman Lapsa, and the other as the outspoken man from the community meeting. They were having a quiet conversation with several norms who sat or crouched near the water, and who wore the same rough, patched, outmoded clothing as Reginald.

  ‘All set?’ asked Aryel.

  ‘Just waiting on you,’ said the man. He pushed himself half out of the water with one brawny arm, reaching up to clasp hands with the norm closest to him and waving farewell to the others. He and Lapsa slipped quietly below the surface. They would wait until the watchers above were fully focused on Aryel, and then shadow her home.

  Aryel said her own goodbyes, and Reginald pulled her into a rough embrace. She stepped clear, blue eyes blinking a little, and they watched from the shelter of the old warehouse as she walked out from under the trees and sprang skywards.

  *

  They were gathering on the quayside, the service originally intended for Nelson expanded now to mourn the six gems and one norm lost to the godgang’s rampage. The sweet, sad notes of a guitharp rippled over the growing crowd as the residents of the Squats drifted down the high street, others joining them from the alleys and passages that led back to the boulevard. It was choked with uplink vans, and reporters with vidcams wove through the slowly moving stream of people. They appeared not to be intruding on anyone, but Mikal was keeping an eye on them nonetheless. Looking out over the patchwork sea of glowing and dull heads, he saw Eli Walker and Robert Trench arrive flanked by the Secretary of State and a squadron of aides.

  He waded through the growing crowd to where Tobias stood, black-robed and sombre, clutching his book. He was surrounded by what seemed like the entire contingent of UC faithful; not just the local congregation but from across the city as well. He craned back to look up at the giant gem. Mikal answered the question he could see in the priest’s eyes.

  ‘She’s on her way. You’re okay with it not being quite what you’d planned, right? All the others …’

  Tobias was nodding vigorously. ‘Of course. This is so much bigger now.’

  Mikal agreed with a small smile and turned away, privately wondering if Tobias’s estimate of bigger had more to do with Aryel’s gemsign than with the preponderance of the dead who had not shared his faith. He found that Sharon Varsi had appeared beside him, and his battered heart lifted a little.

  ‘I wanted to come. Is that okay?’

  ‘It’s better than okay.’

  They stepped onto the quay itself, close to where the young mu
sician sat with his instrument. A loose circle was gathered around him, listening to the lament that flowed from his fourteen fingers. His blonde girlfriend stood nearby, among a cluster of gem youths. She seemed easy enough with most of them, but Mikal noted how she glanced askance at Jora’s warped features and edged away.

  Across the circle he saw that Eli was also watching, and caught the scientist’s eye. Eli nodded grimly in acknowledgement. Beside him Sharon sighed.

  ‘It’s funny, but I feel bad for him too. Seems he was really trying to be rational and balanced, get the right decisions made for the right reasons …’ She shook her head.

  ‘He’ll get over it. He knows Aryel, and Gabriel too. He’s going to be in too much demand to spend time worrying about what went wrong.’

  Beyond the sound of the music he began to hear faintly the whir of a helicopter, and looked downstream. He spotted the machine well before he saw her, and bit back a surge of anger, as it edged up the river, at the noise now starting to overtake the sound of the guitharp. Whatever press organ was controlling it must have realised, though, because the drone banked high and retreated.

  Aryel came into view, wingtips flicking up droplets of water as she soared out from under the arches of a bridge whose span was lined with staring faces and pointing arms. Mikal saw the vidcams swing as one towards her, the clasped hands and hungry stares of the norms, heard the sudden hum of prayer. He saw how his own people looked up with a sigh of relief but without reverence at her return, felt their quiet ripple of welcome that was so far from worship, and felt a pang of sorrow and regret that had nothing to do with the dead.

  Sharon’s gaze swung slowly around the gathered throng, and back up to rest on him. There was a new, sober understanding in her face, but all she said was, ‘I hope she’s ready for this.’

  He gazed steadily down at her. His strange eyes blinked once.

  ‘Love lies less in awe than in acceptance, I think. Though neither is all that one might hope for.’

  She smiled, though in truth she looked closer to crying, and took his hand.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My first and forever thanks to Anna and Alison, who read five rough chapters and said to keep going; and to the rest of the ®Evolution Readers: Cherryl, Joad, Pete, Jon, Matt, Betty Ann, Alf, Rachel and Enrique. Your comments and critiques were invaluable.

  I’m deeply grateful to Jo Fletcher, Nicola Budd and everyone else at Jo Fletcher Books and Quercus, and to Ian Drury and his colleagues at Sheil Land Associates, for making it better and making it happen.

  And to Millie, for the