Scavenger Alliance

by Janet Edwards

  He let his arms drop to his sides. “Then, in 2206, your ancestor used a portal to transport himself from one end of his laboratory to the other. Within ten years, there were portals on every street corner. People could take one step through a portal and travel between streets, between cities, or deep into the heart of the countryside. Vehicles vanished from the streets, and a lot of people moved away from the cities.”

  I’d been aware of sounds behind me, the door opening and shutting several times. Now I heard Julien’s voice. “We’ve left the other two locked in their rooms.”

  I glanced round, and saw that both Luther and Julien were standing with Machico. The three shadowy shapes beyond them looked like Aaron, Vijay and Weston, so all six of Donnell’s officers were here.

  Donnell ignored the interruption and kept talking. “New York adapted to the new way of life, streets were turned into gardens, several apartments were knocked together to become one, but then came the intercontinental portal. You couldn’t just portal from one end of the Americas to another now. You could portal to one of a dozen Transits, and then join the queue for an intercontinental portal to anywhere in the world.”

  Donnell stabbed an accusing finger at Tad’s chest. “Less than forty years later, countries had become irrelevant because your family owned the world.”

  Tad was standing on the edge of a roof with a furiously angry man targeting him with an Armed Agent weapon. If he had any sense, he’d keep quiet rather than arguing and making things worse, but Tad had no sense at all. I cringed as he opened his mouth for what would probably be the very last time.

  “It wasn’t really like that. My family was …”

  “Your family owned the Wallam-Crane Portal Company, and had direct control over every portal on the planet, able to order them to self-destruct at any moment.” Donnell yelled the words at him. “Any countries that tried to stand against the Company were defeated by sheer logistical reality. They couldn’t trade, because they had to ship goods by road, rail, air or ocean, while their competition could deliver within minutes at a fraction of the transport cost. They couldn’t fight, because their armed forces had no chance against enemies who could instantaneously portal troops anywhere.”

  He shook his head. “One by one, the countries surrendered to the might of the Company. We had the era of the United Earth, with its five great Regional Parliaments, free to vote for whatever they wanted so long as your family approved. We had the officially imposed global culture and common Language, which was a deliberate attempt to obliterate all the glorious diversity of Earth.”

  “It was a deliberate attempt to break the cycle of warfare that was ravaging Earth and wasting countless human lives,” said Tad.

  Donnell ranted on, ignoring him. “But your family weren’t satisfied with ruling the Earth. They had to invent interstellar portals and destroy it!”

  “Humanity desperately needed new worlds,” said Tad. “There were far too many people for Earth’s resources back then. Competition for food and power was generating conflict. Pollution was causing huge damage to the environment. The air was so bad that it was poisoning people. Using portal transportation helped a little, but it wasn’t enough.”

  He paused. “Humanity needed new colony worlds, but my family never intended there to be hundreds of them. The original plan was sensibly unambitious. First colonize Adonis, then expand to twenty or thirty more colony worlds, gradually relieving the population pressure on Earth.”

  “But things didn’t go according to that plan, did they?” demanded Donnell. “The colonists of Adonis were proud and independent people, selected from every region of Earth. In 2340, they formed their own government, declared themselves a free world, and the first of their laws was that no Earth company could own property on Adonis. Everyone expected your family to react to the rebellion by sending self-destruct commands to every interstellar portal on Adonis, but they didn’t.”

  “My family couldn’t order those portals to self-destruct,” said Tad. “The other colony worlds were already joining Adonis in declaring independence. Cutting off supplies to all of those worlds would have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, destroyed decades of work, and endangered the future survival of humanity.”

  “What you mean is that your family had decided to relocate to Adonis, and didn’t want to destroy their new home. Just when Earth most needed the Company to keep control of the colonization process, your family made a deal with Adonis, and handed the new worlds their freedom. Those new worlds formed the Parliament of Planets, started making their own decisions on how many colonists to admit, and the floodgates opened.”

  Donnell gave another of those terrifying laughs. “New worlds with clean air, pure water, and uncontaminated land were only one step away through an interstellar portal. There were far more people eager to take that step to a better life than the existing fledging worlds could cope with, so there had to be more colony worlds, until Earth was crumbling under the strain of settling two hundred of them.”

  Donnell’s voice changed from bellowing fury to quiet mourning. “And that was when the Earth Loyalist Party recruited me to sing their songs and try to save our world. We won the vote in 2365, but failed to achieve our pledge to restore law and order in the cities. Five years later, the Expansionist party defeated us, and the relentless colonization of new worlds resumed.”

  He paused. “I was nineteen years old, and my war and my world were both lost, but I couldn’t accept it. I organized protests, I formed the Earth Resistance, and in 2375 I led the occupation of this building and raised that flag.”

  Donnell turned to point at the flag of the Earth Resistance, a vague shadow at the top of the flagpole. “That flag kept flying here while the number of new worlds increased from two hundred to five hundred, and New York went through its death throes.”

  “‘Earth in chaos, weeping tears of blood,’” murmured Tad.

  Donnell whirled round to face Tad again. “Don’t you dare quote the words of Okoro’s Requiem For Earth to me! You’ve no idea what they mean to someone who loves this world, because you’re no son of Earth. You were born on your bright, new, prosperous Adonis.”

  “But Adonis isn’t prosperous.” Tad’s voice was urgent, gabbling out words so fast I could barely understand him. “The newer colony worlds were always struggling from lack of resources, but even Adonis is in crisis now. That’s why I had to come to New York. You said you lost access to the Earth data net in 2389. You don’t know about the problems the colony worlds have suffered since then. They never had time to establish a proper industrial and technological foundation of their own. They depended on Earth to supply key electrical components. Now Earth can’t do that, all the old equipment is breaking down.”

  Donnell shrugged. “Do you expect me to be broken hearted that Adonis may have to cope without new wall vids?”

  “I’m not worried about the wall vids, but the interstellar portals,” said Tad. “They’re breaking down and can’t be replaced. The colony worlds are being cut off from each other and that’s disastrous.”

  “I don’t care about your interstellar portals,” said Donnell. “All that matters to me is that the lights in New York have gone out forever, and I’m standing under the last flag of the Earth Resistance and facing my enemy. You talk a lot, Thaddeus Wallam-Crane the Eighth. Talk to me now. Look at the ruin your family have made of my city and my world, and tell me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you off this roof.”

  I held my breath. Tad had a habit of saying the wrong thing and he was bound to do it now. I shouldn’t care about that. I should be stepping forward to push him off the roof myself. Only days ago, I’d stood on this roof, seen the aircraft arriving, and been eager to go to Manhattan and fight the faceless enemy. Now the enemy had a face, and somehow that made a difference.

  “You said the reason yourself,” said Tad. “Earth was lost when the Expansionist party won the vote in 2370. Am I responsible for something that happe
ned long before I was born?”

  “Your ancestors are responsible. Your family were drunk on power.”

  “If I could go back in time, I’d tell my ancestors to do some things differently, but I can’t. Imagine how you’d feel if someone made your daughter suffer because of your choices.”

  Donnell’s voice held an even more bitter note as he replied to that. “You think I need to imagine that, Thaddeus Wallam-Crane? Every day of my life, I see my daughter suffer for my decisions. I see the children of everyone who was fool enough to follow me suffering too. This winter I watched thirty-two people die of winter fever, seven of them my own Resistance members, and knew it was my fault. My people are paying the price for my actions and my choices, and I know the future won’t get better but worse. No wonder my son chose to betray me.”

  There’d been odd background noises until now. A whisper or two. The occasional muffled cough. The crunching of frost when someone moved their feet. Now there was utter silence for at least a minute before Donnell groaned.

  “I need a drink.” He walked swiftly towards the door to the stairs, pausing as he opened it to say a single sentence. “Someone deal with that boy for me.”

  A second later, Donnell was gone. There was another brief silence before Julien spoke.

  “Did Donnell mean we should kill this leech?”

  I waited for Machico to say something, but he didn’t. Nobody else was saying anything either.

  “Perhaps we should kill all three of them,” added Julien.

  There were times when I couldn’t help myself speaking instinctively. This was one of them. “No!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  In the darkness of the rooftop, the shadowy figures of six men turned to look at me. I could back down, say I hadn’t meant it, let them do whatever they wanted to Tad, but …

  If I did that, how would I live with the memory afterwards? Only yesterday, Tad had saved me from a falling star. However annoying he was, whatever the crimes of his ancestors, Tad didn’t deserve to be murdered, and after he was dead then Phoenix and Braden would be next.

  I could imagine Braden holding fast to his pacifist principles, and standing stoically still while he was murdered. That was admirable in its way, but Phoenix … Oh, Phoenix would fight a hopeless battle for her life until the last breath was beaten out of her body, and that was something that struck an answering chord deep inside me.

  “No,” I repeated. “Donnell just meant someone should take Tad away and lock him up.”

  “It didn’t sound like that to me,” said Julien.

  I was still waiting for Machico to intervene in this, for Luther to speak up, for anyone else to do something, but they were all just standing and watching me and Julien.

  “Donnell said to deal with the boy,” continued Julien, “so I’ll deal with him. After we’ve disposed of him, we can decide what to do about the others.”

  He made a movement towards where Tad was standing at the edge of the roof. Julien could brush me aside like an ant, but I stepped forward to block his way anyway.

  “I said no!”

  Julien loomed over me, twice my size. “I should have guessed you’d defend the off-worlders. You’re as big a traitor as your brother.”

  “I’m not like Seamus,” I said. “I’m loyal to Earth and to the Resistance.”

  He laughed. “Really? If you’re loyal to the Earth Resistance, why are you protecting our enemy?”

  “Because I won’t let you bring dishonour on the name of the Earth Resistance. I won’t let you shame us by murdering prisoners of war.”

  Julien hesitated, frowning, and someone else finally spoke. Not Machico, or Luther, but Aaron. “Blaze is right. The Earth Resistance doesn’t murder prisoners of war.”

  I had someone on my side. I had to take advantage of that before anyone started supporting Julien. “I’ll take the prisoner and lock him up. Give me the keys to the off-worlders’ rooms.”

  Julien stood motionless for a nerve-wracking, endless second, then silently took three keys from his pocket and put them into my outstretched palm.

  I clenched my gloved fingers tightly round them, and turned towards Tad. I still had to get him off this roof without the situation exploding. I daren’t call him Thaddeus Wallam-Crane, or even Tad, and I didn’t trust him not to open his big mouth and get us both killed.

  “Leech, don’t say a single word, just come with me.”

  I held my breath as Tad walked across to stand next to me, and Aaron grabbed his arm. It was only then, when the battle was already won, that Machico finally spoke.

  “Donnell’s daughter is right. Donnell was lost in emotion when he said those words. I doubt if even he knew precisely what he meant by them, but I’m very sure how he’d feel if he woke up tomorrow to find that we’d made him a murderer.”

  There was an instant of pure relief, before my mind started frantically worrying about the next problem. Donnell had gone off to his room for a drink, and we all knew what that meant. Every month or two, Donnell would be hit by depression and try drowning his mood in alcohol. Everyone was used to him doing that, and to Kasim keeping order during his absence, but we didn’t have Kasim any longer.

  “Donnell won’t appear again this evening, and we can’t count on him being around tomorrow either,” I said. “This is the first time he’s been … absent since Kasim’s death. Things will be tense without him, so we can’t afford to have any rumours flying round about Tad.”

  “I hope everyone here knows better than to gossip about Resistance secrets,” said Machico.

  “There’s no need to hide the fact that Donnell lost his temper with the off-world boy,” I said. “In fact, it’s best if everyone hears they had an argument. Nobody will find it at all surprising, and it will explain why Donnell has gone off to get drunk. The only thing we must keep secret is Tad’s full name.”

  Machico nodded, and went over to hold the door to the stairs open. I went through first, with Tad and Aaron following me, and Machico bringing up the rear. As the door was closing behind us, there was an angry comment from Julien.

  “So we’re expected to take orders from a girl now?”

  It was best to pretend I hadn’t heard him, rather than go back on the roof for a second argument that I might lose. I headed to corridor B6, unlocked Tad’s door, and opened it. Aaron thrust him inside, and I locked the door again.

  There was a muffled sound from my right, which had to be Phoenix calling out from inside her room, but I didn’t reply. The top floor rooms had been designed to hold confidential meetings, so they were solidly built and sound proofed. If I tried shouting a conversation to Phoenix through her door, I could attract unwanted attention.

  Machico turned to Aaron. “Get back to the others and tell them to go downstairs now. The bell for dinner will be sounding soon. With Donnell missing, the rest of us need to be conspicuously present.”

  I watched Aaron head off down the corridor, then leant my back against the wall opposite Tad’s door. I felt terribly tired, so I let myself slide gradually down the wall until I was sitting on the floor. It was a moment before I realized Machico was still standing there watching me.

  “Shouldn’t you be going to check on Donnell?” I asked.

  “And do what exactly?” asked Machico. “Tell him that getting drunk won’t change history? Stand there while he yells insults and throws things at me?”

  I frowned. “Does he get that bad? I know people keep out of his way when he’s drinking, but …”

  “Oh, Donnell throws things to vent his temper, but he’s always careful to miss his target.”

  There were a couple of minutes of silence. I finally gave in and asked the question that was bothering me. “Why didn’t you say something when Julien suggested killing Tad?”

  Machico laughed. “Partly because I’ve a few grudges myself, and enjoyed watching the heir of Thaddeus Wallam-Crane sweat in fear for a few minutes. Mostly because it was a golden opportunity to see how o
ur younger officers reacted in a real crisis.”

  “Oh.” I thought that over.

  “Donnell chose Aaron, Julien, and Luther to be officers because they’re all the sons of people who played key roles in the early days of the Resistance. He had especially high hopes of Luther because he’s Kasim’s son.”

  Machico sighed. “You’d think that Donnell would have learned by now that there’s no guarantee a son will be like his father.”

  I bit my lip. “Because of what happened with my brother?”

  “Yes. The way those three behaved on the roof was deeply revealing. Julien let his temper rule him, and demonstrated he’d picked up far too many ideas from his friends in the other divisions. Aaron was reliable following your lead, but made no attempt to take the lead himself. Luther, chaos take the boy, just stood watching events in total silence.”

  Machico shrugged. “I’ll have to discuss that with Donnell when he sobers up. Are you planning to sit there on guard duty all night, Blaze?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sitting here until ten minutes after the dinner bell rings to give everyone time to go downstairs. After that, I’m taking the off-worlders to my apartment and barricading us in there until the morning.”

  Machico smiled. “A good plan. I’d better get downstairs now. I’m sorry I can’t bring any food up for you, but …”

  I shook my head. “We can’t risk causing trouble while Donnell is unavailable.”

  Machico walked off, and I sat there trying to think through the situation. My immediate priority was keeping the off-worlders alive until Donnell was sober and back in charge. I hoped that would be some time tomorrow. If Donnell reappeared and announced he wanted the off-worlders dead after all, then there was nothing I could do to save them, but I didn’t believe Donnell would murder someone, even Thaddeus Wallam-Crane’s heir, in cold blood. More importantly, Machico didn’t believe he would, and Machico knew my father far better than I did.