Century Rain

by Alastair Reynolds

  “Susan knew she was on to something big, something worth killing for. I think she was scared by the scale of it.”

  “Were the two of you both working for the same government?”

  “Yes,” Auger said carefully. “And it is the United States.”

  Floyd returned carrying a double-handled canvas bag of dubious condition. It was brimming with clothes, almost all of them black or shades of purple and blue so close to black as to make no practical difference.

  “But you were never sisters, were you?”

  “Just colleagues,” Auger said. “Now stay put and kick the bag in my direction.” He complied. “That’s good.” She picked it up, taking both handles in one hand. “Thank your girlfriend for this. I know she wasn’t crazy about lending me her clothes, but it’ll all be worth it in the end.” She kept the gun pointing at Floyd. “I’m sorry it had to happen this way. I hope things work out for all of you.”

  “Why can’t you just tell me everything you know and let me be the judge?” Floyd asked.

  “Because I’m not that cruel.” Auger started backing towards the elevator. “All right, here’s the deal: I’m leaving now, and I don’t want anyone following me. Is that understood?”

  “Understood,” Floyd said.

  Auger stepped into the elevator car, dropped the bag by her side and slid shut the trelliswork gate. “No funny tricks on the way down this time, all right?”

  “No funny tricks.”

  “Good.” She pressed the lowest of the brass buttons. “I said it before, but I’ll say it again: it’s been a pleasure doing business.”

  The car began to descend.

  “Wait,” Floyd called, his voice almost drowned out by the whining racket of the elevator. “What did you mean by ‘not that cruel?’ ”

  “I meant exactly what I said,” Auger replied. “Goodbye, Wendell. I hope you have a long and fulfilling life.”

  TWENTY

  Auger hailed a taxi on boulevard Saint-Germain. By then she had exchanged her ripped and soot-smeared coat for a hip-length black jacket, with a matching hat tilted low to disguise her grubby face and hair. She would not bear up to close inspection, but in the twilight of late afternoon the transformation was adequate.

  “Gare du Nord,” she told the driver, before showing him the paperwork she would need to cross the river. “As quick as you can, please.”

  The driver grumbled something about not being a miracle worker, but before very long they had crossed the river and were haring through the narrow backstreets of the Marais, dodging the thickening flows of Saturday traffic. Auger felt an absolute exhaustion looming over her like a crumbling precipice, ready to fall and crush her at any moment. She leaned her cheek against the rattling window of the taxi and through blurred eyes she watched the lights of shops, neon signs and cars slide by in hyphens of red, white, frigid blue and gold. The city looked as untouchable and unreal as a hologram; as fragile as the glass she was resting against. She was very tempted to think of it that way. None of it mattered, she told herself: nothing that happened here could have any consequence for her life, back in Tanglewood. There was no need to continue with the investigation Susan White had started, for nothing that came out of that investigation could possibly affect Auger’s existence back home. Even if something terrible did happen here (and she could not quite shake the feeling that something terrible was indeed going to occur), then it would be no more tragic than the burning of a book or, in the worst case, a library of books. E2 might be lost, but a month ago she had not even known of its existence. Everything and everyone she really knew would continue unaffected, and within a few months the ordinary grind of her life, with its ebb and flow of routine pressures and crises, would have reduced these memories to a thin, dreamlike paste. And it was not as if everything from E2 would be lost for ever if something bad happened, for much had undoubtedly already been learned from the documents that had been smuggled back to Antiquities. And though she would feel some sympathy for the people trapped in E2, the trick was to remember that they were not really people at all, but the discarded shadows of lives that had already been lived 300 years ago. Feeling sorry for them would be like feeling sorry for the images in a burning photograph.

  Auger felt her resolve collapsing by the minute. She did not want to get on the overnight train to Berlin, not when there was the much simpler option of staying in Paris and waiting for the ship to return. She had been sent here to do a job, and she had done it to the best of her ability. No one could possibly blame her if she stopped now, and thought only of her own preservation.

  The taxi slowed and pulled up in the station forecourt, its engine still running while the driver waited for payment. For a moment, Auger could not move, frozen in a lull of indecision. She thought about asking the driver to turn around and take her to another hotel somewhere else in the city, where Floyd and the others would not think to look for her. Or she could follow through with her plan, go into the station and catch the train to Berlin, thereby heading deeper into Europe and deeper into E2. Just the thought of taking the train made a lump rise in her throat, as if she was being asked to step close to the edge of something high up that made her dizzy. She had not been trained for such a mission. Caliskan had primed her—barely—to recover the paperwork, but not to go deeper into E2. Surely there were other people who were bound to be better qualified for it than her…

  The thought that this might be true stung her like a lash.

  “You can do this,” she said to herself, repeating it like a prayer.

  The driver turned around in his seat to face her, the hairs on his neck bristling against the collar of his shirt. He didn’t care how long she took. The meter was still running.

  “Here,” Auger said, thrusting some notes at him. “Keep the change.”

  A minute later she was inside the iron and glass vault of the station, looking for the ticket office. The platform swarmed with travellers, jostling and orbiting each other like a mass of grey bees, each knowing their mission and utterly oblivious to anyone else. Beyond, the trains waited with snorting impatience, pushing quills of white steam up towards the roof. Even as she watched, a sleeper drew out, headed for Munich or Vienna or some other city even further into the European night. Its red tail light spilled blood on to the polished surfaces of the rails.

  First things first. Auger found the ticket office and was relieved to see that the line for international connections was much shorter than the others. She had already vowed that if there was no accommodation left on the night train, then she would simply board it and argue her case later. Bribery was always an option, as was theft. But there were still couchettes available on the seven o’clock service—later than she would have liked, but better than nothing.

  She handed over the money, the ticket clerk barely batting an eyelid at her blackened hands and dirt-encrusted fingernails. She imagined that the clerks had learned not to bat their eyelids at many things.

  “What platform?” she asked. The clerk told her, also warning her that the train would not be ready for boarding until thirty minutes before departure.

  That gave her nearly an hour before she could get on the train. She used the first twenty minutes of that period finding a ladies’ washroom and attending as best she could to the dirt and damage she had sustained in the tunnel. By the time she was done, she had turned the bar of carbolic soap black and the basin looked as if it had been used by a party of miners after a shift down the pit. But she looked and felt human again, and by the time she had changed into more of Greta’s clothes, stuffing her own soiled and ripped garments back into the bag, she had also begun to feel that she was less likely to be recognised. With over an hour remaining before the train was due to depart, Auger was tempted to leave the station entirely to seek the comparative anonymity of a local bistro or brasserie. She had not eaten since breakfast, and her hunger was beginning to catch up with her. But she knew that if she left Gare du Nord, she might not have the courage to
return, no matter how much money she had spent on the couchette. Instead, she settled on a restaurant inside the station, and within its mirrored labyrinth of an interior she found a secluded booth where she could watch whoever came and went without being the object of attention herself. She ordered a sandwich and a glass of wine, and willed the hands on the restaurant clock to whirl around to half-past six.

  Through the glass doors of the restaurant, far across the concourse, she saw a man in a grey raincoat and hat pause at a newspaper concession. As he fiddled in a pocket for change, he looked around, like a tourist taking in the station for the first time. After making his purchase, he turned from the concession stand, pushing owlish glasses back up his nose. He flicked open the paper and started reading. It wasn’t Floyd.

  Auger’s food arrived. She sniffed the wine, drank half the glass down in short order and for the first time since waking that day permitted a temporary calm to flow through her. In a little while she would be on the overnight train, safe in her berth. It was no more dangerous than staying in Paris—less so, perhaps, since she would be putting increasing distance between herself and the war babies. Once in Berlin, she would follow up on the address for the Berlin manufacturing firm and see where that led. At no point would she put herself in harm’s way, or do anything that she felt might expose her true identity. Even if all she came back with was a description of the firm’s premises, she would have achieved something useful. Caliskan would undoubtedly rebuke her for exceeding the terms of her mission, while expressing private gratitude for what she had done. And even as she followed up Susan White’s aborted line of enquiry, Auger would be observing more of this world than she ever could if she stayed locked up in a Paris hotel room, cowering from every shadow.

  Another man in a raincoat pushed open the doors to the restaurant. He was hatless, but for a moment—as the steam from the coffee machine blocked her view—it could also have been Floyd. But the man had no sooner stepped inside than a slender woman in a body-hugging emerald dress stood up from her table, and the two of them kissed like the illicit lovers Auger was sure they were. The man had a gift for the woman, which she opened with a gasp of nervous delight. It was some kind of jewellery. He ordered a drink and the two of them sat there holding hands for ten minutes, whereupon the man kissed her goodbye and vanished back into the bustle of the station. A minute later, Auger heard the whistle of a departing train, and knew with absolute certainty that the man was on it, heading back to his provincial house and his provincial family, that ten-minute assignation as much a routine as brushing his teeth and kissing his wife goodbye each morning. For a dizzying instant, the people around her suddenly felt as real as anyone she had ever known, and it was only by a supreme effort of will that she was able to reduce their lives once again to something more manageable, like an echo or afterimage.

  Auger checked her watch. In a few minutes she would be able to board the train and find her couchette. An hour from now she would be halfway to the French border, and by the time she awoke she would, for better or worse, have arrived in Berlin. She signalled for her bill, then began gathering her things. Perhaps it was the wine, but now she felt a steely resolve to complete the investigation Susan White had begun.

  A waiter in a white cummerbund brought the bill. Auger dug through her coinage, satisfied when she found enough to include a reasonable tip. Smiling, she slid the money towards the waiter and made ready to leave, deciding she would be better off not finishing the wine.

  It was then that she saw the children.

  There were two of them, standing quite still next to each other in the middle of the concourse. The boy held the lank thread of a yo-yo, while the girl carried a toy animal that looked as if it had been rescued from a dustbin. The boy wore a red T-shirt and shorts, with white socks and buckled black shoes, the girl a dirty yellow dress and the same kind of shoes. It was only when one really looked at them that it became clear that they were not really children at all, but ghouls in the rough shape of children. The rain had distorted their make-up, making it sag and run. Travellers pushed around them, but gave the children a certain distance, perhaps without realising it.

  Auger lost sight of the diminutive figures as a group of people blocked her view. She swallowed and tried to keep her nerve. Her imagination might be running ahead of her. They might just have been street urchins, after all.

  When the group dispersed, the two children were gone.

  She closed her eyes in relief, then quickly finished what remained of the wine. She told herself to get up and leave the restaurant, while the train was still waiting. There was no point reacting in horror every time a child walked by. Paris was full of strange little boys and girls, and they were not all out to kill her.

  A couple of businessmen moved away from the front of the restaurant. There were the children again: standing perfectly still, but now much closer to the door. They were not looking at her, but they were regarding something or someone with the unblinking attention of snakes. Another group of passers-by obstructed her view, and when they had moved away, the children were even closer, their attention clearly directed at the restaurant itself. A moment ago she might have stood a chance of leaving without them noticing her, but now she was trapped.

  Auger looked down at the remains of her sandwich, then pretended to read the menu again. The last thing she wanted to be seen to be doing was taking an unusual interest in what was going on outside. The children might not necessarily know exactly what she looked like any more, after all.

  When she risked another glance towards the door, only the little girl was standing outside. The boy was now inside the restaurant, waiting by the illuminated counter where freshly made cakes were laid out for inspection. A pair of flies hovered near the boy, seemingly more interested in him than in the sugary delicacies.

  Auger sank down into the booth. She had a clear line of sight to the boy, but he did not appear to have noticed her yet. Staying rooted to the same spot of floor, his head was rotating in a slow and level arc, like a tracking surveillance camera. She was tempted to move behind the cover of another of the mirrored screens separating the booths, but knew that the boy would probably notice. His eyes blinked but rarely, as if he had to remind himself each time. In a few seconds he would be looking directly at her unless she moved. Belatedly, she remembered that she was carrying two weapons: the automatic and the sleek gun that she had taken from the war baby in the tunnel. The knowledge gave her a flicker of confidence, but she soon dismissed any thought of using the guns. The children were probably armed themselves, and there might be more of them than the two she had noticed. Besides, even if she dealt with the children, she would stand little chance of leaving this busy station without being apprehended and arrested.

  The boy’s gaze had almost speared her. Frozen, she knew that her only hope lay in his failing to recognise her. Perhaps he would not, given her state of dishevelment and the fact that she was wearing someone else’s clothes. She had no sooner clutched at this straw than she forced herself to dismiss it, for the boy was obviously looking for her specifically, and would not be fooled by a few superficial changes.

  Auger’s hand reached under the table for the automatic. Perhaps she would have to use it after all, regardless of the consequences.

  The boy looked at—or more exactly through—her. She felt as if a searchlight beam had swept over her. The smooth rotation of his head continued, taking his attention beyond her. His head had turned through nearly ninety degrees from the starting position of its arc and showed every indication of continuing, impossible though such a movement would be for a human child. Auger wondered how long it would be before someone else spotted the peculiar little boy, but as far as she could tell the other people in the restaurant had noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

  Then the child’s head stopped and reversed, until the boy was looking towards her again. This time she felt the focus of his attention: he wasn’t just looking in her direction, but was concentr
ating on the booth in which she was sitting. A barely recognisable change came across the powdered and smudged mask of his face, the tiniest widening of his mouth suggesting a smile of triumph or gluttony.

  The boy’s head snapped back towards the restaurant door and he opened his mouth to emit a single shriek. To any casual bystander, it would have sounded like a meaningless, yodel-like exclamation—evidence, perhaps, of idiocy on the child’s part. But Auger knew that the shriek was crammed with sonic information, and that the other child was fully capable of deciphering it.

  Stiff-kneed, like a puppet that wasn’t being worked properly, the boy began to walk towards Auger’s booth. She tried not to react in any way, keeping her own attention on the clock, hoping that the boy would have second thoughts before he reached her. He had pocketed the yo-yo and now something gleamed in his hand, mirror-bright and sharp as glass.

  A hand touched the boy’s shoulder. The boy yanked his head towards the adult in fury and incomprehension, his face twisted into a scowl that served only to crack and dislodge the remaining scabs of make-up covering up his true appearance. The hand emerged from the dark sleeve of a suit belonging to one of the waiters. The man was large even amongst adults, and towered over the boy. Still trying not to look directly at what was happening, Auger saw the man crease himself down the middle to bring his moustached, fat-necked head into proximity with the boy. The man started to say something, his lips working silently across the room, and then there was a quick flash of silver and the waiter stepped back from the boy with a look of mild surprise on his face, as if the child had sworn at him in an ingenious and adult way.

  The man crashed back into the display of cakes, sprawling across the zinc-topped surface. In the pure white of his cummerbund was a little spreading star of red, where he had been stabbed. The man dabbed at the wound with his fingers and lifted their reddened tips to his face. He started to say something, the words jamming in his throat. Around him, some of the other diners dropped their cutlery and started talking in alarmed voices. A man shouted something and a woman screamed. A glass went crashing to the floor.