“Something like that.”
“Well, you got results. You know what you’re dealing with now. So maybe you should play ball. You’re ISS?”
“So I’m led to believe.”
“Enough of the smart-assery. Are you or are you not an Interstellar Security Solutions consultant?”
“Didn’t I prove that to you out there?”
“All you proved is that you’re tricky and have some training.”
“Some? How’s the thumb, by the way?”
Kahlo’s hand was partly encased in a clear gel bandage. The ball of her thumb was mottled purple and blue. Analgesics secreted by the gel would be holding the discomfort and inflammation at bay. Dedicated astrocyte cells would be repairing the damage tissue.
“Not bothering me in the slightest,” she replied. “How’s the head?”
“Gently ringing. Look, is it possible I could get something to eat? I’m starving. Haven’t eaten in forever. Literally.”
“That so? Funny, because I’ve just come from the canteen, where I had the best burger ever. Gherkin, relish, bacon, cheese, the works. Oh, and a mound of fries with a ton of ketchup on top. Yum.”
Dev’s mouth watered. It was almost embarrassing how delicious Kahlo’s meal sounded.
He affected nonchalance.
“I’m a steak man myself. Sirloin, flash-fried, seared on the outside, pink and oozing juices in the middle.”
“The meat we vat-grow on Alighieri is second to none. Honestly. Guys come here from the core planets and tell us they haven’t tasted better. The workforce gets fed well. It’s one of the perks.”
“Looking forward to sampling some, then.”
“If I let you out of here.”
“When you do. No reason you won’t. Technically, arresting me and holding me prisoner contravenes federal Diasporan law. ISS immunity supersedes all regional criminal codes. I could have your badge for this.”
“You’ve got me confused with someone who gives a shit. All I know is I’m looking at a man who ran when police officers approached him in the course of their duties. A man, what’s more, whose appearance gave me reasonable cause to suspect him of any number of infractions. Vagrancy, for starters. Possible sabotage, too.”
Dev cocked an eyebrow. “Interesting. And why would there be saboteurs on Alighieri? Got a terrorism problem on this world, captain?”
“Who’s interrogating who, Harmer?”
“Just data mining. I would have put the time you’ve left me hanging around in this room to good use, checking news feeds and conducting some research, but you’ve installed interference fields in your police HQ. My commplant’s fritzed. All I’m getting is static.”
“It’s standard procedure. We can’t allow crooks unfettered communications access.”
“I’m no crook.”
“You still haven’t convinced me of that.”
“I shouldn’t need to. By now you’ll have verified my credentials. Perhaps before you went to dinner you fired off an information request to ISS Central, and the reply only just pinged back. What’s the ultraspace transmission delay between here and Earth? An hour? Hour and a half at most.”
Kahlo poker-faced, but that alone told Dev he was right on the money, on every count.
“So,” he continued, “you have official confirmation that I’m the consultant who was booked to pay a call. They even sent you an image of my host form. It’s beyond doubt. I am who I say I am, and the only reason I’m still in custody is pure spite on your part.”
“Or that I don’t trust you.”
“The feeling is mutual. Already we have something in common; surely we can build on that.”
“Say I do let you go, Harmer. You’re implying you want CEPD to co-operate with you?”
“It’d make my job easier. Specifically, I’d like you to co-operate with me, Captain Kahlo. I don’t have an ISS contact any more, and it’d be good to partner up with someone from round these parts who knows the ropes and has some sway. Who better than a senior cop?”
“Out of the question. I’m far too busy.”
“Shame. Guess I’ll just have to go it alone. By the way...”
He raised his hands from his lap, laying them on the tabletop.
“I’ve saved you the hassle of uncuffing me.”
His wrists were bare, free, showing rings of chafed skin where the smartcuffs had been.
Kahlo’s jaw dropped just a fraction before she caught herself and recovered her composure.
“Clever,” she said. “I’ll bite. How did you manage it?”
“Old trick. If you rub the join between the cuffs up and down against a solid surface – a table leg, for example – you create a vibrational resonance, kind of like strumming a guitar string. Smarts a bit, but once you hit the correct frequency, it acts like the tone-generating key does. Design flaw. The cuffs disintegrate. If you look down by my feet, you’ll see what’s left of them.”
Kahlo glanced down. The floor around Dev’s chair was spattered with blobs of sticky milky-orange fluid.
“Polis Plus technology is a speciality of mine,” Dev said. “Particularly dismantling it. I hate the fucking stuff.”
“The guy monitoring the surveillance feed saw you moving your arms up and down. He assumed you were playing with yourself or had some kind of unfortunate rash.” She sighed. “All right. You’ve made your point. You’re Mr Super-Duper-ISS-Man and we should all bow down and give thanks that you’ve graced us with your presence. I have no option but to release you and send you on your way. As for helping you...”
“I’d be grateful.”
“It’s out of the question. We’re stretched as it is. I can’t spare anyone. We need all the manpower we’ve got.”
“ISS would be grateful, too. The kind of grateful that puts credit in a person’s bank account.”
“Is that some sort of cackhanded attempt at bribery?”
“Just offering you an incentive to do a little moonlighting.”
“Mr Harmer,” Kahlo said severely. “Unlike you, I work directly and exclusively for TerCon. I’m a public servant, not some freelance mercenary. I’m in receipt of a government salary and proud of it.”
“That’s fine. I’m sure you earn enough. Or is the job its own reward?”
“You can’t put a price on keeping the peace and upholding the law.”
“I used to think that too, once.”
“Well, whatever changed your mind, I’m sorry for you.”
Not as sorry as Dev was.
“Now, if you don’t mind,” Kahlo said, rising to her feet, “I’ve a police force to run. Don’t waste my time any further. Do what you have to, carry out your mission, but for your own sake, stay out of my –”
The door burst open, and a police officer leaned in.
“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am.”
“You’re not interrupting anything. What is it?”
“Got an emergency call from the Jansson Crossing township. Something about a train crash. Possible casualties.”
“Okay. I presume first responders are en route.”
“So I’m told.”
“I’ll go too. Someone has to supervise.”
Kahlo, halfway out of the room, turned to find Dev right behind her.
“What are you doing?” she snapped.
“Tagging along.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Weren’t you listening? Didn’t I just tell you to stay out of my way?”
“Well, to be honest, you didn’t actually finish the sentence. You could have been about to add ‘unless you see a pressing need to follow me somewhere.’”
“There isn’t any pressing need. This is official business.”
“Captain, I’m doing my best to get an overview of what’s happening on this planet,” said Dev. “Already I know you’re having unusual earthquakes. Now a train crash. You raised the issue of potential sabotage earlier. It’s all relevant, it all adds up to
something, and my job is to work out what and why and put a stop to it. Now, I could travel to this Jansson Crossing on my own, or I could cadge a ride off you. Either way, it’s my next destination.”
“I’m not going to get rid of you, am I?”
Dev smiled in what he hoped was a winning manner. For all he knew, he was pulling some hideous grimace. A host form’s facial muscles were always the hardest to master. Gross motor skills came first, fine motor skills second.
Kahlo rolled her eyes, resigned. “Very well. I suppose I’m better off keeping a close watch on you anyway, rather than letting you blunder around off the leash. You can come with. Just don’t get under my feet.”
“I won’t, trust me.”
“We’ve already established that I don’t,” said Kahlo. “I’d like to keep it that way, for my own peace of mind.”
5
THE POLICE POD shot across the city along the maglev track, accelerating easily to a humming, frictionless 200kph. Kahlo and a driver, Patrolman Utz, were in the front. Dev shared the back seat with Sergeant Stegman, who kept shooting surly, resentful glances at him.
“How long ’til we get there, captain?” Dev enquired.
“You sound like my cousin’s seven-year-old,” said Kahlo. “‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’”
“I ask because, if we’ve time, I’d like you to fill me in about the earthquakes.”
“We’ve got a few minutes.”
The pod shimmied slightly as it passed under an enormous arch formed by twin stalactites that descended all the way to the cavern floor. Their size – they were as big as skyscrapers – spoke of millennia of slow growth.
“So...?” Dev prompted.
“They started roughly a month ago,” Kahlo said. “The odd tremor now and then. Nobody thought much of it, at first. Mostly they were centred around the mines, and you do get the occasional rumble there. The digger rigs disturb the rock strata. There’s settling, subsidence. Par for the course. Miners call it ‘bellyaching.’”
“But it got worse.”
“We’ve had tunnel collapses. Equipment destroyed, some casualties. And it’s no longer confined to the mines. The quakes have spread outward, to the inhabited regions – the townships, Calder’s Edge itself. Which isn’t meant to be possible.”
“Because the inhabited regions were specially selected for their stability.”
“Exactly.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Alighieri was colonised back in the ’forties.”
“Part of the second wave of the Diaspora,” said Stegman, “when the next-generation Riemann Deviation drives came onstream and reduced infraspace journey times by half.”
“Thanks for the history lesson,” said Dev.
“Want me to mosquito you again?”
“As I recall, your boss did that last time, not you.”
“I’d quite like a turn.”
“Zip it, sergeant,” said Kahlo. “He’s only trying to get a rise out of you.”
“He’s succeeding.”
“So don’t let him. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
Stegman, cheeks reddening, folded his arms.
Dev said to Kahlo, “Back then there would have been a colonisation precursor survey, wouldn’t there?”
“Yes. Sonar and ground penetrating radar were used to determine which were the safest caverns to build in. Calder’s Edge and the outlying townships sit dead centre of a tectonic plate. We’re nowhere near any faultlines, and the bedrock surrounding us is pure igneous granite. Solid as a... well, as a rock.”
“So why earthquakes all of a sudden?”
“That’s the honking great question, isn’t it? That, and why are they getting progressively more severe?”
“You think there’s a chance some living agency might be responsible? It’s perhaps enemy action?”
“Maybe so, maybe not. I’ve not found any proof as yet, but my gut says it could well be. What I do know is that it’s got people scared and restless, not least the miners, and they’re a hard lot to frighten. Nobody likes going around thinking the world could fall in on their heads at any moment. We’ve seen a marked upswing in emigration applications and requests to terminate work contracts and ship out early. The next scheduled gulf cruiser isn’t due for another six months, but if one put in tomorrow, I reckon we’d wave ’bye-bye to a third of our population.”
A passenger train loomed ahead on the track. The pod, being smaller, lighter and faster, had to tuck in behind the tapered end of its rear carriage until a station appeared. The train pulled in at the platform while the pod leapfrogged around it on a passing siding.
“What do you mine here?” Dev asked. “Helium-three would be my guess.”
“Bingo,” said Kahlo. “Alighieri’s got it by the crap-ton. No atmosphere, so there’s been nothing to prevent the regolith soaking up solar radiation, for millions of years. The He-three deposits are distributed evenly throughout the crust, extending to a depth of two thousand metres and more.”
“Rick pickings. Fusion power for everyone.”
And, Dev thought, who was more energy-hungry, more rapacious when it came to power consumption, than Polis+? The artificial-intelligence empire relied not on agriculture, nor on physical labour, but on its machines, and machines guzzled electricity.
Alighieri, blessed with the raw materials to keep thousands of aneutronic nuclear reactors fuelled for centuries to come, was just the sort of world Polis+ coveted and would like to claim for its own.
The pod entered a tunnel bored into the far wall of the Calder’s Edge cavern. Outside the windows, ribbons of geological layers rippled up and down. Seams of quartz and feldspar flashed by like horizontal lightning bolts.
“We may be a small planet, but we punch above our weight economically,” said Kahlo.
“Any internal troubles? Civil unrest? Radical elements?”
“None to speak of. We have a pretty sensible citizenry, and I keep a tight lid on things. You get folks going on a bender every now and then, and the drying-out tank’s never short of occupants. Sometimes native Alighierians and itinerant workers clash, but it’s bar arguments, rowdy neighbours, that level of nuisance, usually. The unions get stroppy from time to time and call a strike, and we have to oversee the picket lines. Nothing we can’t cope with.”
“People come and go, though.”
“Yes. We get migrant miners dropping by to do tours of three or four years. There’s a constant turnover. Every gulf cruiser that comes drops off about twenty thousand of them and takes a similar number away. The total mining workforce tops out at a quarter of a million at any time. Another couple of million of us – second- and third-generation Alighierians – are in service industries that support the mining biz, or else in administrative roles. A million more are children or other dependents. That’s just Calder’s Edge.”
“There are other cities?”
“A couple. You’ve got Xanadu. That’s our nearest neighbour, about seven hundred kilometres due west. Then there’s Lidenbrock City, way over on the side of the world. We don’t have much to do with Lidenbrockers, or them with us.”
“Troglodytes,” muttered Stegman.
“Uncalled-for, Stegman,” Kahlo scolded.
“But it’s true.”
“Still uncalled-for.” She resumed her conversation with Dev. “Unlike with Lidenbrock, relations between Calder’s Edge and Xanadu are open and cordial. There’s a direct rail link, calling at all the major townships along the way. Lots of Calder’s folk have relatives there.”
“They having earthquakes, too? Over in Xanadu?”
“None that we’ve heard about.”
“And who runs Calder’s Edge?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone has to be in charge. You have a mayor? A prime minister? A president? Who’s top dog?”
Kahlo hesitated briefly, and Dev noticed Patrolman Utz aiming a sidelong look at her, as if intrigued to see
how she chose to answer.
“The highest civic political position is governor,” she said. “But if you want the honest truth, the mining corporations call the shots. The place wouldn’t survive – wouldn’t have a reason to exist – without them, and they know it. They say jump, the governor asks how high.”
Dev filed all this information away. It might be germane, it might not. He wouldn’t know until he had been here a little longer. The first day of any mission was a miasma of acclimatisation and intelligence-gathering. You could scour the local insite via commplant to find out when you needed, but it was usually better to get it first-hand. You learned more from someone with an opinion and an insider’s perspective than from ’pedia entries and officially sanctioned publicity material.
Townships whizzed by – smaller caverns than Calder’s Edge’s, with smatterings of habitats, some forested with lichen outcrops and gargantuan mushrooms. One, Loveville by name, was evidently a self-contained red light district. Huge garish floatscreen signs advertised burlesque revues and lapdance clubs.
“Jansson Crossing,” said Utz eventually, and he retracted the police pod’s electromagnet array, drawing it away from the propulsion and levitation coils embedded in the track. The vehicle’s progress slowed to a gentle glide, and finally the pod coasted to a hovering halt.
The township was centred around a busy, intricate rail intersection. The crash had occurred on a branch line just outside its station. An automated freight shuttle had been involved in a head-on collision with a commuter train. According to the chief rescue officer on the scene, there were two confirmed fatalities: the driver of the train and one of the passengers. There were also several injured, with three people on their way to hospital in critical condition and paramedics attending to the rest.
Freight shuttle and commuter train were locked together like a pair of animals who had died in the throes of feral territorial combat. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. A knot of tangled, tormented steel fused them, nose to nose.
Survivors, interviewed by Kahlo, said there had been no warning, just an almighty walloping impact that had hurled them from their seats. They had emerged from the wreckage, shaken and bloodied, glad to be alive.
World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) Page 3