‘Any sign of Muz?’
Jez shook her head, her lips compressed. She took Fleare by the shoulder and steered her off. ‘Come on. Let’s start the resting.’
The search for rest had taken them to the Mud Resort. Now Fleare turned over lazily, feeling the hot mud sucking and sliding over her. The change in position brought Kelk into view. He was waist-deep in the mud, his upper body fitted between the widely splayed float-roots of an immature Signal Tree. He had a plain grey ring on his middle finger, and now and then he twisted it distractedly. Fleare didn’t remember seeing it before. It suited him, she decided. Jez was further along one of the roots, submerged except for her head.
The sun was sinking, and the surface of the mud was beginning to glisten with the mixed bluish light of the overhead space trash, accented by the low-angle red glow from the lava wall. Kelk’s tree was throwing a long blue shadow across a field of purple. The mud seemed to soften his voice.
It appeared he had been busier than Jezerey had realized.
‘It was the end of the war. Muz was still in his jar and Fle had just been hauled off to the Monastery. Jez and I were stuck on that fucking ice planet with nothing to do but think. So I thought.’ He shrugged. ‘Once I’d started thinking I couldn’t stop.’
Jezerey looked at him. ‘I know what you thought,’ she said. ‘You thought we’d been betrayed.’
‘Yeah. Someone inside Soc O.’ He held her eyes for a moment, and then looked away. ‘And you didn’t.’
‘No, I didn’t. Never mind, we’ve done that one.’
‘So we have.’ He was quiet for a moment and his fingers caressed the ring again. ‘Well, then they announced the amnesty. Just like that. Free to go and make a wonderful new life. Jezerey headed off to be a shipping tycoon. I had a lot of big drinks, hitched a few rides, more or less woke up in the Curve.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And I found something.’
Fleare looked at him. ‘A traitor?’
‘No. Not yet, anyway. I got distracted. The Curve does that.’ He looked round at them. ‘Ever think what it means, the Curve being where it is?’
Jezerey shook her head. ‘Trade,’ she said. ‘We know that, Kelk. So?’
He grinned. ‘Half right, but not the good half. If you want to trade you have to pass information, but the Cordern is in quarantine as far as everyone else is concerned. Most people never think about it, but that’s where the Curve makes its money. It’s the biggest firewall in the Spin. And the most important thing about firewalls is that they are full of all the really interesting data. It occurred to me that while I went traitor hunting, I could make some money on the side. So I went into business, data mining.’
‘I begin to see.’ Jezerey gave a lopsided smile. ‘This business. Did it have anything to do with those two women on the airship?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And Fleare?’
‘Not to start with. I guess you got bolted on afterwards, Fle. You were probably seen on the way through Thale, or somewhere. After that it can’t have been hard to work out who you’d be looking for.’ Kelk ran a hand through his hair. ‘You got any ideas who might want to shoot you?’
Someone who knows me too well, she thought. Very few options there. She shook her head and kept her mouth closed. Kelk watched her for a while, until she felt uncomfortable and looked away.
Jezerey patted her shoulder. ‘Hopefully the doc was right and it wasn’t anything. But Kelk, you haven’t finished explaining your own stuff. Tell us straight: have you pissed off a gangster?’
‘No. Well, not exactly.’ Kelk looked uncomfortable. ‘Actually I think I may have pissed off three. Plus the guys I won the money off, of course.’
Jezerey gave him a sour look. ‘Can you un-piss them off somehow?’
‘I doubt it.’ Kelk’s voice was flat. ‘There’s more. Like I said, I found something. I was just browsing, really. Down pretty deep, but still browsing. I found what I thought was an old cloud of servers. I nearly didn’t check it out but then something spooked me and I had a better look. It wasn’t an old cloud. It was a very new, very smart cloud trying not to look like it. And it was full of sims.’
‘Really?’
‘Yup. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands.’ Kelk took a long breath, and let it out. ‘Someone was running a whole pile of full civilizations in there. All different settings, stages, maturities. I went for the one with the deepest security, obviously.’
Fleare smiled a little. ‘Obviously.’
‘But why?’ Jezerey began to heave herself out of the mud. It made a sucking noise; she grimaced. ‘I mean, not why did you go snooping. Why was whoever it was running these things?’
‘Why do you think?’ Kelk gave a short laugh. ‘Money, in the end. Some of it’s research. Quasi-legitimate stuff, for university sociology departments, you know? Or grey-area modelling for governments. Some of it’s just leisure. Whole dodgy universes where wealthy perverts can get their virtual rocks off. Ever heard of sim-fuckers?’
They nodded.
‘Well, that’s where they go to fuck. But, that wasn’t the good bit. While I was checking out the security of this grey-area sim I found a back door, right at the base code level. I got interested, set a subroutine to watch it. And while it was watching, something went in.’
Jezerey had got enough of her torso out of the mud to be able to stretch. She pushed her arms out straight above her head, fingers interwoven. ‘So what? Probably a sim-fucker. Or whatever.’ She finished the stretch, turning it into a swatting gesture as one of the dragonflies whirred close to her face. ‘You’re losing my attention, is what I’m trying to say.’
‘I noticed.’ Kelk shook his head. ‘It wasn’t a sim-fucker. It was something much cleverer. It headed for a particular part of the sim, and it subverted it. It hid something.’
Jezerey swatted another fly. ‘How can you hide something in a sim?’
‘Easily, if it’s simulated itself. It’s like hiding a picture in a museum.’
Fleare glanced around. There was no one in sight, and the only sound was the almost subliminal whine of the dragonflies, but somehow that made her feel more exposed. ‘Look, Kelk, should you be talking about this out here?’
‘Why not?’ He brushed one of the flies aside. ‘I’m not giving anything away really.’
She frowned. ‘All the same, if this stuff is important enough to get you in the sort of trouble you’re in . . .?’
‘Nah, I’m not saying the sensitive bits. They’re stored.’ He grinned. ‘Nice little nest egg.’
Fleare smiled back, but it felt forced. Something was definitely troubling her. She fretted for a moment, and then it occurred to her. ‘Hey, guys,’ she said, ‘is this mud supposed to vibrate?’
Jez patted the surface. ‘I can feel it too. Kind of humming.’
Then, with a hiss that became a deafening roar, the dragonflies took off in a single, flashing, multicoloured cloud, and swooped away towards the shore.
Fleare hadn’t realized how noisy they had been, until they were gone. She cleared her throat. ‘Does that mean anything?’
‘Yeah.’ Kelk pointed towards the border. ‘Look.’
She followed his gesture, and squinted. There was no way her eyes would enhance, but they didn’t need to. She could see two bright dots. ‘So, what are those?’ she asked.
‘Mudcats. Shit.’ Something in Kelk’s voice made Fleare look back at him, and she swallowed again. He looked scared. She couldn’t remember seeing that before.
She tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Is that bad?’
‘Yep. They’re the only way of travelling fast over this stuff. And, ah, most of the people who use them aren’t official.’ Kelk’s voice was flat. ‘I’m not sure who they are but I’m guessing this is Round Two. I’d really like to know how they found us so quickly.’
‘Can we do anything?’
He shook his head. ‘Not a thing. No point trying. Just keep still. Stay in the lee of the trees. Whoever they are,
I’m guessing they’ll be after me, not you. They’ll only look if you’re obvious.’ His voice left no room for doubt.
Jez was watching the two dots, which were already beginning not to be dots. ‘Are those skis?’
Kelk nodded. ‘Skis at the front, tracks at the back.’ He pulled himself out of the mud and leaned against the trunk of the Signal Tree. ‘They’ll be here in a minute.’
Fleare bit her lip. ‘Look, there must be something—’
‘There isn’t.’ Kelk looked down at her and, to her amazement, grinned. ‘This time it’s your turn to stay behind and pick up the pieces, babe. Make sure you don’t miss any.’ He turned back towards the mudcats, waded towards them and stuck an arm in the air. ‘Okay, shit-heads, come and get me!’
The two vehicles were closing very quickly. They were slowing now. From behind her tree Fleare could see the single, wide, flat track at the back, connected by a skeletal frame to two long, upward-curled skis. It made her think of a kneeling insect with swords for arms. Even the rattling buzz of the tracks sounded insectoid. They drew up by Kelk, their skis and tracks leaving complicated furrowed tracks that collapsed slowly. The mud stopped humming.
Open-sided two-person pods hung from the frames. The front seat of the nearest cat was occupied by a woman in what looked like vintage combat leathers. The rearward seat was empty. The woman lifted one hand off the controls, drew a short, jagged-bladed knife out of a pocket-holster and gestured with it towards the empty seat. Kelk shrugged, took a couple of ankle-deep steps through the mud and climbed awkwardly into the seat. The cat began to move. As it drew away Kelk turned towards Fleare, mouthed something, and then looked away.
Fleare kept her eyes on him until he was out of sight. He didn’t look back again.
Jez had hauled herself upright against the Signal Tree. When the cats had disappeared she turned to Fleare. ‘We can’t, we really cannot just leave it at that,’ she said.
‘I guess not.’ Fleare felt a flicker of pain in her arm. Not now, she thought. Please, not now. Out loud she said, ‘Have you got any network?’
Jezerey half closed an eye. ‘Yeah. I’ll call the Port cops. I mean, shit, those guys have to be the easiest thing to track.’
Fleare nodded. The pain was growing, not the lightning shock she had felt on the Ground Engine but a slow, inexorably consuming ache that radiated from her arm into her torso, making her want to curl up and howl. ‘When will they come?’ she asked carefully. Then she collapsed, her teeth clamped in a snarl of pain, her hands clawing and grabbing at the mud where Kelk had been standing.
There was something small and hard beneath her fingers. She gripped it, closed her hand on it. She was still holding it when hands lifted her, and a stab in her upper arm became a spreading warmth. The feeling relaxed her a little and she raised her hand to her eyes and uncurled it.
The hard thing was the ring that Kelk had been twisting. Pick up the pieces, she thought. That was what he had mouthed. She slipped it muddily on to her own middle finger. Then the warmth reached her head, and everything faded.
When she woke she lay for a while without opening her eyes. Sight would have been one sensory input too many.
She was lying on a sort of couch with a loose cover over her. A quick audit of her body produced nothing much. She was tired with the sort of residual aches that could have come the day after a long run, and the tips of her fingers felt faintly fizzy. She had a slight headache, but again, nothing much. Then she reached into her mind for the virtual equivalent of a dashboard, a map of her body and its enhancements, and found nothing at all. Not even dormant or powered down. Just gone.
She opened her eyes. She had expected generic medical. Instead she got some sort of oasis. It seemed familiar, and after a moment she placed it. She was back on the old Orbiter.
She sat up, and cleared her throat. ‘Hello?’
‘Ah! Welcome back.’ It was Jezerey. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Okay, I guess.’
‘More than you deserve. This started when you were shot, right? Why didn’t you say something, you silly girl?’
Fleare smiled a little. ‘Sorry.’
Jezerey sat down next to her and hugged her. ‘No problem. We’re just glad to have you back. We kept you under until we got well off planet. Muz thinks you’re stable for the moment.’
‘Muz?’ Fleare jumped to her feet. ‘Is he . . .?’
‘Yeah, he’s back. He caught up with us at the spaceport. He’s around somewhere.’
Fleare felt light-headed. ‘Where? What happened to him?’
Jezerey smiled. ‘I’ll let him tell you. Listen, sit down.’ She gave Fleare a gentle push, and Fleare allowed herself to sag backwards into the couch. ‘You were out for a long time. Don’t rush it.’
‘I won’t.’ Fleare knitted her fingers together. Then she looked down at them. ‘There was a ring,’ she began. Then she remembered. ‘Oh. Kelk. Jez, what . . .?’
‘I’ve got the ring.’ Jezerey held it out. ‘It was stuck on with dried mud. It’s clean now.’
Fleare took it. It seemed natural to slip it on to her finger. ‘What about Kelk?’
Jezerey shook her head. ‘Nothing yet.’
‘Did the Port cops trace those cat things?’
‘Only to the boundary of the Port land. Outside that, there’s only privateers. Muz hacked a couple of weather satellites and had a look, but the tracks just stopped dead in the middle of nowhere. Looks like they got lifted.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry, Fle. Our shuttle hire was running out of time, people were asking questions and you were sedated – in the end we couldn’t hang around any longer.’
Fleare nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘So, where did you say Muz was?’
‘I’m here. Hi, Fle.’ She turned and saw, not the cloud she was expecting, but the tight shiny globe she had last seen on the Ground Engine. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Muz? You’ve changed.’
‘Yeah. It’s probably temporary.’ The globe floated up to her, stopped, and gave a sideways waggle that looked like a shrug. ‘Like it?’
‘I guess.’ She seemed to have a lump in her throat. She swallowed. ‘It’s really good to see you.’
‘You too. Sorry I went missing.’
‘What happened?’ She held out a hand.
The globe hesitated, and then settled in her palm. ‘Well, that last fragment was coming down like a fucking missile. I conned it into thinking it had impacted, fifty metres up. Huge air burst. I didn’t have time to get out of the way. I got dispersed.’
Fleare frowned at the globe. ‘Huh?’
‘Blown halfway across the lava field.’ It wobbled in her palm. ‘I ended up being twenty klicks across. It took me a while to find all of myself. Then Tail End wouldn’t let me into their airspace. After that I got fed up with being a cloud.’ It rose from her palm to hover at eye level. ‘Now, how are you doing?’
‘Okay, I guess.’ She shrugged. ‘For a given value of okay. Jez said you thought I was stable?’
‘As far as I can tell.’ Another shrug-wobble. ‘Those attacks you had were the new fibres pulling free. That should be over now.’
‘And afterwards?’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, but she knew she had to ask the question.
‘Nothing fast. Look, Fle, you just woke up. Maybe you should eat something, get some rest . . .’
Fleare shook her head. ‘Just tell me, will you?’
‘Okay. Well, like I said, nothing fast. Slow muscle wasting. Weight loss. Poor coordination and balance. Probably over weeks, maybe months.’
‘Right.’ Fleare stood up and brushed her hands down the light shift. ‘So, I’m going to die, slowly. Yes?’
Jez took her hands and squeezed them. ‘No, you’re not, because we’re going to find a way to stop it. Right, Muz?’
‘Yeah. Sorry, just a minute. Picking up some news; I’ll put it on screen.’ The globe dispersed, spread, and became a gauzy plane about a metre across. It fuzzed and then cleared t
o show a newsroom.
‘. . . coming in that a body has been discovered on the outskirts of Catastrophe. We have a report from Fessas an ’Galf. Sensitive viewers may want to look away; as for the rest of you, fill your boots, guys, it’s a good one. Fess, what do you have for us?’
The screen flicked to a skinny male with purple-black skin. ‘Well, this one is going to keep people talking for a long time. The body was found in three, that’s right, three separate locations, all within the same part of Catastrophe, not far from the Trashwards airship landing station. And here’s the thing, Vek. The body wasn’t just in pieces, it was in mutilated pieces. We don’t have many details but I’m told that it seemed almost as if it had been ransacked. Organs removed, muscles dissected. The security services aren’t saying anything officially but in private I’ve been told they think the attackers were looking for something.’
‘Two questions, Fess. Did they find it, and who was it?’
The skinny man smiled ruefully. ‘Well, the answer to the first question is we don’t know. But there might be an answer to the second. All three parts of the body gene-match to someone called Kelk vena Kelelal, and he is a truly interesting character.’ The view switched, first to a head and shoulders shot of Kelk that looked several years old, and then to three irregular lumps of something, set out on a low table.
For a horrified moment, Fleare thought it was a market stall. Then her stomach heaved. ‘Muz,’ she said unsteadily, ‘stop it.’
The screen faded, collapsed and turned back into the globe, which dropped on to a low table, rolled a little way, and was still.
Jezerey let out a breath. ‘Oh fuck,’ she said.
There had been near silence on the old Orbiter for over twenty-four hours. Eventually Jezerey had broken it, by announcing that she wanted to head back to Thale for a while. ‘I’m crap at mourning in company,’ she said. ‘And if I don’t get back there soon I’m going to wind up bankrupt as well as miserable. I’ll contact you again when I’ve fixed things up.’
They scanned around and found a ramshackle tramp freighter heading in roughly the right direction. The freighter sent an even more battered shuttle which bumped up against the Orbiter like a drunken lover. It was over an hour before Muz was satisfied that they had a halfway vacuum-tight seal. When he finally gave the go-ahead, Fleare followed Jezerey to the lock door. ‘You going to be okay?’ she asked.
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