“Are you sure you don’t wanna talk about it? I lost a few people myself, you know. Along the way.”
Ed curled his hand into a fist on the tabletop. Otto Krous, Kristin Cole. All he wanted was to wipe their images from his memory. He took a mouthful of beer, rinsed it around and swallowed. Then, with as much energy as he could summon, he said:
“Are we going to sit here all night, or are we going to place some bets?”
Jones cracked a smile.
“Okay, hotshot.” He tossed a stack of chips into the centre of the table. “Let’s play.”
The game went on for several hours. At one point, not long before daybreak, as Ed rose from the table to refresh their drinks, Napoleon Jones said: “If you love her, Ed, you gotta tell her.”
They’d been talking about Alice, and the situation with Verne.
Ed said: “I think she knows.”
The other man raised his eyebrows doubtfully.
“She’s still looking for her husband, ain’t she?”
“Yes, but—”
“You ain’t the first person to fall for someone you shouldn’t have, Ed. Hell, we’ve all been there. But if you truly love her, you gotta fight for her.”
Ed filled the glasses, one after the other, from the beer tap.
He said, “It’s not as simple as that.”
Jones picked up the cards and started dealing the next hand.
“Ain’t it?”
“No.”
Ed came back to the table, handed one beer to Jones and set the other down next to his own stack of betting chips. By his standards, he wasn’t doing too badly. He was almost five hundred up, doubling his winnings from earlier in the evening. Now, though, he was getting tired, and wanted to wrap things up, so he could go home to Alice.
They played on for a few minutes in silence, until Ed had a promising hand. Then, when it was his turn to bet, he pushed half his chips into the middle of the table.
Napoleon Jones raised his eyebrows.
“I can’t match that.”
“You could go all-in,” Ed said.
The other man gave him a sly look. “Or I could raise you.”
“With what?”
Jones reached down and pulled off his cowboy boots. He slapped them on the table.
“These are handmade,” he said. “Genuine American lizard skin. They’re worth ten times what you have there.” He gave a wide grin. “And I’ll bet them against everything you own.”
“Everything?”
“Yep, every penny you have.”
“Are you crazy?”
Jones shook his head, eyes shining. “Life’s a gamble, Ed. You’ve just gotta learn to go with it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Hell, every time I fire my ship off into the unknown, I’m laying a bet with fate. One day, I just won’t come back.”
Ed squirmed on his chair.
“Are those boots really worth that much?”
“Take it or leave it, Ed. That’s my bet.”
Ed took a deep breath. The room felt suddenly very warm. The sky outside had started to get light. Elsewhere in the hotel, people were moving around. Guests were rising to catch their early morning flights. Breakfast was being cooked. Pipes clanked as baths were run.
Ed screwed his eyes tight shut. His heart was beating hard. He knew he held a good hand: a full house, three jacks and two aces. The only way he could lose would be if Jones held a royal flush or four of a kind.
“Okay, then,” he said, mouth suddenly dry. “I’m calling you.”
Ed laid down his cards. Jones considered the full house and gave an appreciative nod, his green eyes giving nothing away. Then slowly, he peeled off his cards and, one by one, laid them face-up on the table.
Four queens.
It was the game with the Serbians all over again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
RETURN OF THE TRISTERO
Napoleon Jones left the bar as dawn broke, taking his boots and his winnings, leaving Ed with nothing.
Ed sat at the table and looked at his reflection in the window. The rising sun threw long shadows across the runways of the Downport. The arc lights by the hangars were going off, one at a time. His shift had finished and his replacement had already installed herself behind the bar, but still he couldn’t leave. He knew Alice was waiting, and he was too ashamed to face her. All he had left was his pack of cards, a plastic comb he’d stolen from the hotel, and the St. Christopher medal his brother had given him, which was on its chain around his neck.
Maybe I can sell a kidney, he thought. The idea was a desperate one, only half serious.
With one hand, he fished the St. Christopher medal out from beneath his shirt and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. As he did so, Verne’s words came back to him:
“This is typical of you, Ed. It’s just one disaster after another. When are you going to grow up?”
When indeed?
Deserts, beaches, savannahs. He’d fought through them all to be here. He’d even killed a man. And yet here he was, falling back into old patterns, repeating the same stupid mistakes.
Maybe I am just a fuck-up, after all?
He still had half a beer left. He watched the bubbles clinging to the inside of the glass. Around him, the day began: guests came down and ordered breakfast, people wrestled suitcases from the lift to the checkout desk, the other tables in the bar became slowly occupied. The place started to smell of coffee. Ed hardly noticed. All he could think of was Alice. She’d been counting on him and he’d let her down. He’d gotten greedy when he should have backed off, and he’d paid a hefty price for his impatience.
He banged his fist against his forehead.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Now they wouldn’t be able to catch the shuttle up to the Quay to meet Verne. There wasn’t time to start saving again. They’d had their chance, and he’d blown it for both of them. All he could do now was hope that Verne would pick up the messages they’d left for him on the planetary Grid, and that he’d come down from the Quay to find them.
Ed clasped his hands on the table and let himself tip forward until his hair touched the knuckles of his thumbs. A small, frustrated moan escaped his lips.
Couldn’t he do something right, just for once?
He closed his eyes.
Around him, the sounds of the bar continued. No one paid him any attention. They assumed he was drunk.
Eventually, two men walked into the bar, and instead of ordering drinks, strode straight across the room.
“Edward Rico?”
Reluctantly, Ed looked up. What new trouble was this?
One of the men was dressed as an Acolyte, clad in the black robes of the order. Age had tightened the skin of his face, giving him a skeletal aspect and whitening his fair hair to the point of invisibility. The other wore a chocolate-coloured leather coat, the seams of which had been abraded by age and wear to the colour of weak tea. He had wide, brown eyes and hair just starting to grey at the edges.
“Mr. Rico,” he said, “my name is Tobias Drake. This is Mr. Hind. We need to talk to you, urgently.”
Tobias Drake glanced warily round at the drinkers on the other tables.
“And in private,” he added.
They led Ed out onto the hotel steps and into the chill morning air. The freshness of it hit him like a glass of ice water to the face. It had a clean and invigorating quality to it. Even this far inland, it smelled of the sea.
“What do you want?” he asked.
They were out on the street now. Cars and trucks whispered past. Across the road, a chain link fence topped with razor wire separated them from the Downport’s main runway, reminding Ed of Heathrow. Shuttles came in one after another, scramjet engines whining. Whale-like cargo zeppelins nosed their way in and out of docking cradles on skeletal, kilometer-high towers set at the far side of the port. As he watched the trucks scurrying to and fro between the ranks of arches, Drake said to him, “You are Edward Jason Rico, born in Cardiff in the yea
r 1990?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Mr. Rico, we desperately need your help. Would you be willing to come with us on a matter of utmost urgency?”
Ed frowned. The man seemed sincere. The Acolyte still hadn’t spoken. “You want my help?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Where would we be going?”
Drake flicked a hand at the sky. “First to the Quay, and then, later, on to the Dho Ark.” He looked at Ed expectantly, gauging his reaction. “You’ve heard of it, of course?”
Ed gave a bemused nod. He’d seen footage of the diamond-clad behemoth on the Grid, but knew little beyond that.
A thought occurred to him.
“Alice—”
“Alice Jayne Rico?” Drake smiled. “By all means, bring her along if you want to.”
An hour later, Ed and Alice walked into the Downport’s departure lounge. They had a small suitcase each, containing everything they owned. Ed had changed out of the white cotton shirt and black trousers he’d been wearing to serve behind the bar, into a pair of new blue jeans and a red t-shirt. His black leather work boots were scuffed and frayed, but still serviceable. He carried his combat jacket over his shoulder. Verne’s rusty glasses lay zipped in an inside pocket. Alice, still cranky at being woken early and bundled into a cab, wore a cotton summer dress cut just above the knee in the local style, white trainers, and a silver vinyl jacket. She had her auburn hair pulled back in a loose ponytail.
Drake met them at the gate and led them to a private shuttle. He hadn’t given them much more of an explanation. All they knew was that they were going to the Quay, and that Ed’s eventual presence on the Ark was essential to ward off a coming crisis. They had no idea what that crisis might be, or why Ed was so important.
Once on board the shuttle, Drake helped stow their luggage and showed them to their seats.
“Have you ever been into space before?” he asked.
Ed and Alice both shook their heads. Aside from Drake and the Acolyte crew, they were the only people on board.
“Well, it’s not so bad,” Drake said. “The first few minutes are the worst.” He took position on the other side of the aisle. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
“Are you okay?” Alice asked him. “Only you seem nervous.”
Drake finished fastening his seatbelt and turned to her.
“I’m not a very good flyer,” he said sheepishly. “I’ll be all right once we’re up there, it’s just the takeoff that scares me.”
At that moment, Francis Hind walked up the aisle from the cockpit, one hand to his hairless temple as if listening to something he alone could hear.
“We have incoming,” he said.
Drake looked up. “Is it Kat?”
“No, it’s the Tristero. She’s back. Jumped in a few minutes ago on an inbound course, and she’s not answering hails.”
Drake made a face.
“That doesn’t sound good. Can we stop her?”
Ed sat up. “What do you mean, stop her? That’s my brother’s ship!”
The Acolyte ignored him.
“I’m afraid we won’t be in time. She’ll have docked at the Quay by the time we get up there.”
Drake put his fist to his lips. “Damn.”
The shuttle’s engines whined into life. Hind swung into a seat in front of Drake’s. He spoke over his shoulder, through the gap between the headrests.
“I’ve already relayed the information to our people on the Quay,” he said. “They say the port authorities are arranging a reception committee. They want to arrest the captain, Luciano, for all the good that’ll do.”
Drake rubbed his chin. “And the authorities still won’t consider an evacuation?”
“No.”
With a jolt, the shuttle backed away from the terminal and began to taxi toward the runway. Ed leaned out into the aisle, catching Drake’s arm.
“What reception committee, what are you talking about?”
Tobias Drake turned to him, his large brown eyes full of sympathy.
“I’m sorry, Ed,” he said, “but if our suspicions are correct, then in all likelihood your brother’s already dead.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
STRAULI QUAY
The Ameline flared into existence above Strauli, every instrument straining for traces of the infected Tristero. Jacked in to the ship’s sensors, Kat fearfully scanned the sky ahead, half expecting the rose-coloured bloom of a new cloud above her beloved home world.
“Any sign of the Tristero?” she said.
> Got it. Can’t miss that drive signature.
The ship zoomed the view onto the orbital Quay. The Tristero floated outside the clamshell doors of one of the larger docking bays. Port Authority tugs surrounded her, guiding her down under close escort.
> Comms says the ship’s been impounded. They don’t know about the infection. They think Captain Luciano’s still aboard and they want to arrest him for the way he jumped out of here last time.
If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Kat would have smiled at the hint of reproach in the ship’s tone. Instead, she said: “Get on to them, warn them.”
> I’m transmitting a complete sensor record of everything we saw in the Djatt system.
“Download it to the Grid as well. Everyone needs to know.”
> Doing it now. But I think we’re too late.
The screens cleared to show a view patched in from one of the tugs. Wearing spacesuits, half a dozen armed Port Authority personnel were attempting to open the Tristero’s outer airlock. Kat opened her mouth to order the ship to transmit another warning, but even as she did so, the lock puffed open, and The Recollection burst forth like a spray of blood.
The spacesuits stood no chance. They were overwhelmed and eaten alive in seconds. Caught in the blast of the red jet, suit material fell apart like tissue paper; the flesh beneath frayed from bones, and the bones themselves were scoured to nothingness. Over the comms channels, Kat heard confused, short-lived screams. Two of the tugs were caught in the cloud. They jerked erratically, systems compromised. The others tried to move away on awkward evasion vectors, afraid of colliding with each other and afraid of hitting the side of the Quay.
“Oh, shit.”
And still more of the arterial cloud pumped from the guts of the infected ship, giving it the appearance of a wounded fish. Every cubic centimeter of space within its hull must have been packed with nanomachines, and now the hull itself was dissolving, devoured from within and converted into more drones for the swarm.
Then, with little more than the engines left, the ship leapt forward. Like a dagger, it drove through the clamshell doors of the docking bay, into the interior of the Quay itself.
Appalled, Kat unplugged from the Ameline’s sensors and turned to Victor.
“It’s happening,” she said.
Victor said nothing. His mouth was a hard line, his eyes hooded. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists.
> Distress calls coming in.
“Put them on the screen.”
Strauli Quay had no defence against the tide of blood-red malevolence boiling from the carcass of the Tristero. As soon as they hit the walls and floor of the docking bay, the tiny machines started chewing into the metal, just as they’d done with Kat’s hand before being stopped by the Dho pendant. Unstoppable and merciless, they burst through into the rooms and corridors beyond, their numbers swelling with every passing second. People unlucky enough to be in those spaces died quickly as the weakened walls blew out, spilling air into the void.
On the bridge of the Ameline, Kat listened to the voices that were shouting and screaming on the local channels. She saw security camera footage of troops running back and forth, trying to find something to shoot at. The populace, over a million of them, milled around in alarmed and frightened confusion. Most of them didn’t know what was happening. A few logged onto the Grid for information and accessed the Ameline’s sensor logs from Djatt. Others simply ran for
the nearest hangar hoping to escape, but more often than not simply hastening their own demise as they ran into infected areas.
Kat watched it all in horror. Those were her people down there. Friends, strangers and, god forbid, family. Her cheeks felt warm. She put a hand to them and realised there were tears running down her face.
Feliks Abdulov was in his office, catching up on admin, when the first alarms sounded. He’d been away for a few months, and now he had forms to sign, reports to read. The work wasn’t hard but it was time consuming. Mostly all he had to do was check boxes on a screen, signifying his consent for this or that action. Any recommendations he might have would be delegated, either to automated back office software or to one of his human assistants.
It was very different from his days in the field, commanding his own trading ship; then, he’d had to do most things himself. He hadn’t been afraid to roll his sleeves up and get his hands dirty. If the engines broke, he’d be there helping the mechanics. If a deal needed to be made, if a seller haggled over the price of the cargo, he’d stand at the foot of the cargo ramp and look that guy in the eye. Back in those days, he was his own boss. He owned the company. Now, with all this work clamouring for his attention, it sometimes felt as if the company owned him.
He sighed.
Along with his wife, Scarlett, he’d been spending three months out of every four on their private yacht, jumping six light weeks out into space and then turning around and jumping straight back. They’d been doing it for the past twenty-four years, fast-forwarding themselves into the future, waiting for Kat to return from Djatt. They’d jump out and then arrive back on the Quay twelve weeks later, having only lived through a few hours of that time. It made the waiting easier, and when Kat finally came home, she’d find them still fit and able rather than aged or infirm; or worse, dead. The only drawback was the three months of accumulated admin work he found on his return from each trip: shipping manifests, requests for specific cargoes, personnel issues.
When the alarm went off, he was working his way through the mountain of backlogged invoices requiring his electronic signature. He had a container full of live goats that needed transporting to a start-up colony world three jumps beyond Inakpa; several tonnes of fresh fish bound for the desert world of Catriona. Old habits die hard, though, and as soon as the klaxon went, he was out of his chair and looking for the emergency pressure suit in the cupboard behind his desk. As he pulled it out, he used his implant to access the Grid’s emergency channel. Bomb scare? Meteoroid strike? Hull failure? By the time he found and replayed the security footage from the Tristero’s bay, he was fastening the suit and sealing it against the possibility of air loss.
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