Queen of Nowhere

by Jaine Fenn

  The hall was empty. Seeing her gaze slide towards the closed door to the dining room, Tierce said, ‘Administrator Valdt has left a message at his office saying he’s been taken ill. However, when he was, ah, speaking to me a little later, he claimed to have an important meeting tomorrow as a result of which someone is bound to com him in the afternoon.’

  ‘Was he telling the truth?’

  ‘Mainly he was trying to save his skin, but I think what he said about the meeting was true. By that point he was pretty much beyond lies.’

  Bez suppressed a shudder. ‘So we need to be on the next flight out.’

  ‘Yes, we do. But first we have to get what you came for.’

  They said nothing as they exited the building. Bez kept expecting some alarm to sound or the local law to turn up, but all was quiet.

  In the upper lobby they encountered a couple of residents; Bez kept her head bowed and hurried past.

  Outside, night had fallen. The world’s single large moon had risen and painted the barren landscape in silver. For the first time, Bez looked up; the starry night sky was a lot less intimidating than the burning daytime one, even if the horizon was too far away and the stars twinkled disconcertingly.

  As they walked through the silent garden to the taxi she felt compelled to ask, ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And Khea? Did he kill her?’

  ‘Eventually.’

  Bez tried not to think about the footage in Valdt’s personal files.

  ‘And is the dataspike he hid in the terrarium a list of all the fake IDs he fabricated?’

  ‘Indeed it is. One hundred and eighty-two of them, covering nearly forty years.’

  ‘So he planned to visit SA-I9 to purge the original records?’

  ‘That was his intention. Up until recently, he wasn’t unduly worried about the archived data. No one had any reason to access it, so no one would ever know it had been tampered with. Once he interrogated your agent and discovered what she was after, he changed his mind. He requested a visit to the archive facility, but he wasn’t in a hurry because he didn’t want to arouse any suspicions. That’s how I knew he was telling the truth about the meeting tomorrow, by the way. He told me all about his current project, how he was going to wait until that was out of the way, then arrange for a little bit of data destruction.’

  They reached the gate, which opened automatically. The cab arrived a few moments later. As with the journey here, Tierce paid. She was happy to have his ID be the one linked to the scene of the crime. Once they had pulled away Tierce said, ‘Do you reckon you could hack a set of comshades?’

  Bez looked at him sharply. ‘I’m not sure we should be-‘ She gestured to take in the taxi.

  ‘Don’t worry, no one’s monitoring us.’

  ‘I’d still rather not talk in here.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Rather than returning directly to the hotel, they visited a mixed-sex tourist bar. Bez positioned herself carefully so as to have as good a view as possible of the main entrance and as bad a view as possible of the show being staged in the centre of the room. This was not sacred ground, so at least they wouldn’t be expected to participate. ‘In answer to your earlier question,’ she said, speaking just loud enough to be heard over a soundtrack of chanting and primal sleaze, ‘I’m sure I can hack a pair of shades. Presumably we just need to fake an ID?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So you, uh, persuaded Valdt to arrange his visit to the archive facility for tomorrow.’

  ‘Indeed I did.’

  ‘What if someone cross-references his request for sick leave with the visit?’

  ‘Not a problem: he’s not going. He’ll be sending a minion.’

  That made sense; after all, Valdt’s face might be known. ‘So you’ll be posing as someone from his office?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Tierce. ‘You.’

  Bez stared at him. ‘No,’ she said.

  Tierce reached forward. ‘Leaving aside the fact that you’re eminently equipped to deal with any data issues, there’s two reasons why you’re the right choice. Firstly, gender - these are women’s records - and secondly, colour.’ He pointed at his hand. ‘Tourist,’

  he said. Then, briefly touching her paler one, ‘Local.’

  Bez pulled back, saying nothing. He was right, damn him to the void.

  UNRELIABLE SENSES

  I realise there is a possibility that, should we succed, the surviving Sidhe might mount a raid into human-space. That would be bad news fer whichever system they picked on, but it would be a desperate strategy.

  Peopie would certainly mobilise against them if turned up in force, and even if the Sidhe numbered severa! million they’d be facing trHlions of humans united by a haired of their old oppressors.

 

  Back at the hotel, she turned down Tierce’s suggestion that she come back to his suite, and renewed the reservation on her room.

  She went to work on the set of comshades they had used to get into Valdt’s apartment. Tierce had persuaded Valdt to make an appointment for a Gena Markin, a statistician from his department, to visit SA-I9 as his deputy. Bez’s job was to make sure that the woman who tU1”ned up at the archive facility in the morning would be ID’d as Markin.

  Comshades were relatively primitive, little more than ports into Gracen’s comnet, with the additional ability to transmit an ID

  and tap into the owner’s verified funds. Given Bez only needed to make the shades ping-back a false ID, not actually access Markin’s personal data, the job did not take long. She commed Tierce to tell him she had succeeded.

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘You can come and have dinner with me.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not? It would reinforce our cover. We are meant to be married.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit pointless, given I’ve taken a separate room? And why do you think it’s so important to maintain the charade anyway? Is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘Not at all. I just thought you might like to go out for a meal.’

  ‘We’ve got an early start tomorrow. I’d rather get an early night.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  The call did remind her that she needed to eat. She commed room service. Her meal arrived with a human waiter rather than on a bot trolley, and Bez realised afterwards she should probably have given the girl a tip. This business with Tierce was damaging her ability to present a non-memorable front. But whether she liked it or not, they were now linked by their complicity. This thought was not unbearable, provided she didn’t dwell on what he had done to Administrator Valdt. Allying herself with Tierce was achieving her aims, however dubious his methods. She wondered if her uncharacteristic lack of caution was due to one uncertainty too many recently. Was she losing her objectivity? Perhaps, but she was also getting results.

  Valdt had not only confessed to Khea Foelin’s murder, he had told Tierce where to find the body: he had buried her out in the desert, near the remote racing station where he kept his yacht.

  Bez’s half-remembered dreams that night were filled with moonlit chases ending at a shallow grave.

  She awoke to the sound of her alarm, and met Tierce in the atrium at the prearranged time.

  Their taxi initially took them to the only cultural attraction open this early - a museum which the guidebooks suggested as a side trip for any tourists interested in the elements of Graceni society not devoted to sex or religion. The establishment still displayed an assortment of Aesir reliquaries and a collection of shrines to the various incarnations of the Manifest Son.

  They spent a few minutes wandering round in uneasy silence.

  Bez had not wanted Tierce to come along, but he insisted on accompanying her and paying for the cab, just as he had yester-day. Although this was a weight off Bez’s mind, she wondered at his motivation: it was almost as if he didn’t care if he left traces.


  Unless he was trying to protect her? But even if his peculiar attempts to initiate intimacy were genuine, such ridiculous selfless-ness belonged in romance holodramas. For now, she would take advantage of his foolish generosity, however distasteful she found the implicit debt.

  Having established basic cover, they ordered another cab to take them out of town. The change from urban to rural was gradual, with wider spaces between surface structures, less cultivated areas and, finally, an end to the fences that kept the food-stock animals off the roads. As the already minimal data in her overlays dwindled further, Bez grew increasingly nervous.

  The terrain changed, undulating with gentle hills. In the distance she saw tracts of yellow grassland with brown and black dots on them - presumably more farmed animals. On the flatter sections they passed fields of monocultures: long lines of bushes with silver-green leaves shading bright clusters of red berries, gnarled trees whose entangled branches formed a canopy hung with pendulous fruits, and tall strands of green-and-russet grasses with hand-sized golden seed heads arranged in spirals round their stems. They encountered occasional ground vehicles, some quite large; one slow-moving truck was pulling a trailer containing about a dozen long-necked ungulates with patchwork hides; the animals swayed in time and looked around curiously. Overhead, the turquoise sky remained bright and empty.

  With the exception of brief identifiers when she focused on passing vehicles, Bez’s overlays were entirely empty now. She reminded herself that this was how humankind had lived for most of history, but not having any input beyond her unreliable senses made her feel untethered and unreal. Rather than stare at anunaugmented world, she reviewed her research data. Tierce made no attempt at conversation, for which she was grateful.

  After three hours, the cab began to slow down. Its synthesised voice stated that authorisation was required to complete the journey. Hired transport would either take passengers to a named location or to a grid reference; Tierce had used the latter request when he ordered the cab, but the machine’s primitive brain must have finally registered where they were heading and was querying the request.

  Bez donned the hacked corns hades then used the Markin ID to instruct the cab to continue its journey. Although she was confident she had managed to spoof the shades, this was the first test.

  She was relieved when the cab acknowledged her authority and began to accelerate.

  The archive facility itself was a typical Graceni building, complete with perimeter fence. Bez’s comshades listed it as a ‘government storage facility’.

  As the cab slowed outside the gate, Tierce hunkered down.

  There was no obvious surveillance but it was a wise precaution.

  ‘You’re not going to stay like that the whole time, are you?’ asked Bez out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Only until you get out. Then the cab will go wait in the vehicle depot round the back of the complex.’

  Bez should have known that; she had read up on this place too.

  She cursed her slip, born of nerves.

  The gate opened when she transmitted ‘her’ ID. She tried to stride confidently up the path, but she was sweating hard enough to test the cooling abilities of her robes.

  The building had two doors, one for each gender. The women’s entrance brought her into a small lobby. The guard sitting at the desk had her hood down, and smiled when she saw Bez. Bez located and kissed the reliquary, after which the guard said, ‘Greetings, sister.’

  Bez replied, ‘And to thee.’ At least she would not be expected to kiss the guard.

  ‘Thou art early.’

  ‘Is that a problem?’ Bez winced inside, unsure of her intonation.

  ‘No,’ said the guard slowly, ‘it is not.’

  ‘If thou would be kind enough to show me to the correct vault.’

  Bez had practised that sentence, along with others she expected to use.

  ‘As thou wishest.’

  When the guard got up she noticed a miniaturised holoset at her station, its volume muted, showing a cheesy-looking drama.

  Spending your days in a place like this on the offchance some bureaucrat wanted to access offline storage had to be a pretty boring job. And thanks to their stupid gender laws, there would be an equally bored male guard on the far side of that wall. What a way to run a world.

  The elevator arrived. Bez followed the guard inside.

  ‘I have a cousin in Administrator Valdt’s office,’ said the guard conversationally.

  Bez stared at the guard, dumbstruck, then made herself say, ‘Really?’

  ‘Aye. Her name is Mila. She is a researcher. As art thou, I believe.’

  ‘I am newly come to my position.’ Tierce had made sure she would be impersonating a recent employee, but even though that was a sentence she had practised; Bez was sure the guard suspected something.

  ‘I ask because she is a statistician by training, which I thought thou might be also. I know ‘tis often said that numbers are man’s work. So I just thought thou and she might have met-‘

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  A nasty silence fell. Bez, expecting the guard to draw her weapon at any moment, made herself ask, ‘Did thou see that holo on Saint Leta last night?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  “Twas on Prime. Quite early.’

  ‘I was on lates. It was good?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Bez as decisively as she could. “Twas excellent.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the guard.

  The elevator stopped. The guard did not draw a weapon or say anything. Bez exhaled quietly as she was led out of the lift. She stayed a step behind the guard as was proper, and memorised their route through the near featureless corridors. The guard stopped at a door labelled:

  CRECHE MORTALITY (FEMALE, PRE-PUBESCENT) c.880-c.950

  As the door opened the guard said, ‘I shall leave thee to thy work.’ Then she turned and walked off.

  Inside the room were racks of storage devices: not dataspikes but cubes, an older, less efficient technology that was neverthe-less highly resilient. Information could be stored on a cube for a thousand years with little risk of degeneration; add the protection of several hundred metres of rock and a controlled environment, and the info in here might still be accessible when Gracen’s sun finally swelled to make this dustball entirely uninhabitable.

  The racks had hardcopy labels, faded strings of letters and numbers. There was a small, primitive comp on a spindly table at the end of one rack. Bez tried to interface with it using her shades before realising it actually had an ON switch. The screen sprang to life, displaying a simple search menu: touch the criterion required (date, region, creche, cause of death or other) and speak the parameter. Bez investigated the other option and confirmed that it was possible to name the person in question. Good: searching through every dead child in the period covered by the false IDs was impractical.

  Even so, the work was slow: the comp gave her a cube reference for a name on Valdt’s dataspike; she then had to find the cube, mount it in the comp’s reader and scroll through to find the info she wanted. Fortunately, the set-up assumed users would want to take a copy, so that required just a single voice command.

  Valdt would have been trying to actually delete this info in order to stop anyone doing what Bez was doing now. Unsurprisingly, there was no delete option, which was probably another reason the late Administrator had not managed to destroy the evidence yet. Perhaps he had been trying to hire a female databreaker who could delete the data for him. It was even possible that, had events gone differently, he might have ended up paying Bez herself to do it.

  She reined in that disturbing thought and got back to the job in hand, applying the best-case principle to any stray flashes of paranoia: Tierce had abandoned her; the guard had checked with Valdt’s office and discovered the deception; the info she was accessing wasn’t really offline and was triggering an alarm.

  She and Tierce had nominally agreed a base time of four hours. It took three hours to get the fir
st hundred names. But she persevered: every name represented one of the Enemy who could potentially be removed from human-space. And, by the same token, every name she didn’t match was a Sidhe who would probably escape justice. She carried on.

  She got back to the elevator five hours and thirty-four minutes after first arriving. As soon as the elevator neared the surface, her headware pinged. It was Tierce; she acknowledged the contact.

  The security guard raised her eyebrows when Bez emerged, then asked distantly if she had got everything she wanted. ‘Aye, I did,’ said Bez, heading for the door. Any moment now she’s going to tell me to stop and turn around-But she didn’t. Bez walked out into the sunlight, its spectrum reddened with the advancing day.

  The taxi was waiting for her at the gate. She glimpsed the top of Tierce’s head as she approached.

  As the cab pulled away she said, ‘You see, you didn’t need to come after all.’

  ‘I was beginning to worry,’ he said, getting back up on to the seat.

  ‘I wanted to be thorough.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that about you.’

  His comment made her face feel hot.

  Her thoroughness made them late. Their luggage had been safely despatched to the starport, and they commed to pay their hotel bills as the cab carried them through what passed for rush hour in Meneske’s evening streets. Bez found herself looking over her shoulder every time they turned a corner.

  They reached the starport to find the reception area empty. The tail end of the queue on the far side of the barriers disappeared as they entered. By mutual consent they ran, side-by-side.

  The ship was still loading, and the starport staff hurried them through. Bez took one last glance back before turning the corner, but no one was coming after them.

  As she set foot on the starliner she smiled to herself. She - they - had done it.