Guardians of Paradise (Hidden Empire)

by Jaine Fenn

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE:

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Jaine Fenn from Gollancz:

  Principles of Angels

  Consorts of Heaven

  Guardians of Paradise

  JAINE FENN

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © Jaine Fenn 2010

  All rights reserved

  The right of Jaine Fenn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

  Gollancz

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper St Martin’s Lane,

  London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  This eBook first published in 2010 by Gollancz.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 5750 8905 1

  This eBook produced by Jouve, France

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.jainefenn.com

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  James: this one’s for you. For past and future friendship and for years of technical advice, some of which I’ve even listened to.

  ‘Strike dear mistress

  And cure his heart’

  ‘Venus in Furs’, The Velvet Underground

  ‘We are no monsters, we’re moral people

  And yet we have the strength to do this

  This is the splendour of our achievement

  Call in the airstrike with a poison kiss’

  ‘Nemesis’, Shriekback

  PROLOGUE:

  NERVES SHEATHED IN SILVER

  Above, golden sunlight sparkles off an azure sea. Down here, white light shines on clean, cold surfaces. The green-and-orange robes of the woman walking between the sealed tanks, monitoring stations and interface consoles are a splash of colour in the otherwise antiseptic lab. The hem of her robe has a subtle batik pattern on it picked out in white and midnight blue: a breaking wave against a starfield.

  The same design appears as a logo on the breast pocket of the older man who walks beside her, though he’s dressed in a white shirt and grey slacks. His skin is several shades lighter than hers, and has an unhealthy pallor due in part to spending too much time under artificial light. She has listened to what he has to say, and now she responds, ‘So this last one is definitely viable?’

  He nods. ‘The transference is almost complete; I’ll be starting the first test runs today. We have a ninety-seven-point-five per cent chance of a completely successful encoding.’

  ‘Good. That’ll give us twenty-eight from the original thirty-five. ’ She smiles mirthlessly. ‘Five fewer than last time; good job it’s a seller’s market.’

  ‘Will the buyers want to come down here? Last time, one of them did.’ He shivers at the memory, decades-old but still enough to thrill and chill him in equal parts.

  ‘So Mother said. Frankly, I have no idea. It’s not like we can tell them what to do.’

  ‘How about the new batch? Any word yet?’

  ‘No.’ Her reply doesn’t invite further conversation and he draws back, expecting her to leave. Then she says, ‘I’ve seen your latest test results.’

  ‘Which tests?’ he asks warily.

  ‘Yours. Not the project’s.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You should have told me yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I . . . I probably should.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and makes to put a hand out to him, withdrawing it when he flinches away.

  ‘I need to get on,’ he says, not looking at her. ‘If that’s all right.’

  ‘Of course.’ She walks back towards the elevator, leaving him alone in the lab.

  He returns to his workstation, the only one active. He spreads his hands over the console’s tactile interfaces, then blinks to co-ordinate his optical displays with the tank readouts. He feels a momentary disorientation as his consciousness enters a limited unity with the machinery and what is held within—a state few human minds can achieve. The sensation passes and his view of the featureless black oblong in its nest of wires and cables is overlaid with a familiar pattern in glowing silver: a central column emerging from a rough-edged oval, and a tracery of fine lines branching out from the column. The dark patches in the cortex are in the usual areas: memory, sensation, emotion, all functions now surplus to requirements.

  His hands dance over the controls, programming the test. After forty years’ experience he can almost do this in his sleep, but he still barely catches a nutrient-feed imbalance which, left unchecked, could disrupt the final transition.

  The irony that his own brain is degenerating beyond science’s ability to heal is not lost on him. He is determined to complete this last encoding before he succumbs, just as he has said he would.

  Finally the parameters for the current test are set. He applies the stimulus slowly, with an instinctive feel for how much is required when. How much what, he is careful not to consider. Not only because this is where science shades into more arcane disciplines, but because then he would have to think about the reactions he is producing in human terms, and that would mean using words like distress and pain.

  He makes the final adjustments.

  The tank shimmers, as though straining at the edge of reality, then flickers out of existence. Almost before his dual sight registers the disappearance, the tank is back in the real world. By the time he’s dealt with the brief backwash of nausea, his overlays are back online too.

  He calls up the results. The test was flawless. He was being pessimistic when he said ninety-seven-plus per cent: it will be more like ninety-nine-plus.

&
nbsp; He smiles, though with his own mortality catching up on him, he finds himself briefly thinking about what he’s doing, and who he is doing it to.

  As he has hundreds of times before, he reminds himself to take the long view. In effect, they are already dead before they arrive at his lab.

  And what he does here, though unseen and uncelebrated, is essential to the human race. It is vital work.

  Holy work.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Taro was watching clouds. He loved the way they shifted and evolved, like they were alive, and he still couldn’t get over the sheer scale of these great floating masses of water vapour.

  Nual had suggested, with a rare burst of dry humour, that it was a good job he liked clouds, given that Khathryn’s sky was usually covered in them. Apparently, sunny days were few and far between here. That was fine with Taro. He’d spent all his life, up to a couple of weeks ago, in an artificial environment less than twenty klicks across. He was still getting used to the idea of an infinite universe. Looking up into an empty sky made his balls twitch.

  Right now, standing in scrubby grass on the cliff-top near the house that had belonged to Nual’s one-time guardian, he was giving the clouds more attention than they deserved. He could’ve stayed inside: it was cold and damp out here, and Nual hadn’t asked him to follow her. But she hadn’t forbidden him either, and he wanted to be there for her if she needed him.

  Even though he knew this was a moment he couldn’t share, his eyes kept straying to the lone figure at the edge of the cliff. Nual had been standing there for a while now, looking out over the heaving grey sea, her body held rigid, her mind locked tight. When she raised her arms, Taro’s resolve not to intrude on her grief wavered. He watched as she opened the urn, though he was too far away to see the ashes fly off on the wind.

  He’d met Elarn Reen briefly, when they’d both been scared and on the run. He’d tried to help her. He’d failed.

  Nual had once told him that Elarn was the last person she’d trusted, seven years before she met - and chose to trust - Taro himself. Given the unpleasant end Medame Reen had come to, that wasn’t a very reassuring thought. It was one of many worries Taro didn’t allow himself to dwell on. Over the last few weeks he’d experienced changes he could never have imagined back in Khesh City: big, scary changes. At least he no longer had to worry about where the next meal was coming from, and, as far as he knew, no one wanted him dead - both major improvements on the recent past.

  At the cliff edge Nual lowered her arms, then turned and started back towards the house. Taro went to meet her, but when she looked up and saw him, the surprise on her face jolted him; she must have been so wrapped up in her mourning that she hadn’t even sensed him. Tears glistened on her cheeks. For a moment he felt an odd mental jostling, his desire to get close warring with her half-apologetic exclusion. Though the sensation was familiar, this time she’d have to be way more forceful if she wanted him to back off. He half expected she would, but she stopped and waited, letting him come up and put his arms around her. He pulled her to his chest, her head tucking in under his chin.

  Taro felt a surge of emotions: sorrow for her pain, helplessness at not being able to do more to help her, joy that she’d let him in this far, and that familiar dash of lust.

  They stood there in silence while the mist turned to rain. Taro felt the heavy drops hit his head, soaking his hair, dripping off the ends and under the collar of his coat. He didn’t care. He’d stay there until he drowned if she needed him to.

  Nual pulled back, but kept hold of his hand as they walked back to the sprawling house perched on the cliff-top. The nearest door opened for them as they approached, and lights came on in the glass-roofed room full of plants - most of them dead or dying - that Nual had called the conservatory.

  The house still amazed him: so many rooms, so much stuff, all for one person. And now, even more amazingly, it belonged to Nual. The old cove she’d visited when they’d first arrived on Khathryn had told Nual that Elarn Reen had never changed her will - so everything that had been hers was now Nual’s. Taro was still hazy on exactly what the relationship between the two women had been. He’d asked Nual, and she’d said Elarn had been a lonely person who’d projected her needs onto those around her. That hadn’t exactly cleared things up.

  They walked from the conservatory into the lushly carpeted hall that ran through the centre of the house to find the wallscreen at the far end flashing and chiming to itself. Taro felt a tinge of fear as Nual went over to read the display.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s just the autopilot on the aircar.’

  ‘Right.’ Taro exhaled. ‘What’s it saying?’ Dealing with machines was one of many new skills Nual was teaching him.

  ‘Apparently the rental agreement will be invalidated if we attempt to fly after dark in this weather,’ said Nual. ‘I suspect the autopilot won’t even let us take off. And neither of us actually knows how to fly an aircar manually.’

  ‘Does that mean we’re staying here tonight after all?’ Nothing would make him happier than the two of them spending some time here alone, but the Sidhe knew about Nual and Elarn, and once they realised she’d left Vellern this would be one of the first places they’d look for their renegade. Although their enemies’ reach was limited by their need for secrecy, Nual was paranoid enough that she hadn’t linked her personal coms device into the local network - and the com wasn’t even registered in a name the Sidhe knew. Now she’d laid Elarn Reen to rest, they’d be stupid to hang around here for long.

  ‘We don’t have much choice. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.’

  Taro allowed himself to hope that her idea of getting comfortable might finally match up to his. Though their impressively believable IDs claimed they were brother and sister, and they’d had separate cabins on the starliners, that was just their cover, and Taro had noticed that the late Medame Reen’s house had several large, comfortable-looking bedrooms.

  But Nual actually meant they should get something to eat. She led him into a spotless kitchen full of wooden cupboards and shiny tech. Taro knew two ways to cook food: you put it in a pot on a firebox, or you cut it up and put it inside the firebox. He didn’t want to risk breaking or burning anything, so he sat at the central table and left Nual to it. Elarn must’ve changed her kitchen round after Nual left, and it took her a while to find stuff. She didn’t like him watching her, so he stared at the rain streaming down the outside of the window. She didn’t want to talk either, so he kept quiet.

  The house had a room just for eating in, but the kitchen table was way big enough for the two of them. ‘It’s curried mince and noodles,’ said Nual as they tucked into the steaming food. ‘An odd combination, but there wasn’t much choice.’

  ‘Tastes great,’ he said through a mouthful of noodles. And it did, especially compared to a lot of things he’d eaten. He remembered how Nual had bought him a meal when they’d first met, though back then he’d been in no position to appreciate it. Hard to believe that was only four weeks ago.

  He stopped short of licking the plate, now he knew that wasn’t acceptable behaviour in polite society. Nual ate her food more slowly, and left some noodles, which she offered to him. Taro was pretty full, but a lifetime of borderline starvation had left him with a lot of catching up to do. Once he’d finished, he thought about offering to clear up, though he was feeling a bit bloated.

  Before he could say anything Nual leaned forward on her elbows, not quite looking at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Fer—For what?’ He was trying hard to stop using Undertow patois; what was cool as fuck in Khesh City got him funny looks everywhere else. Even Nual had started to say ‘yes’ instead of ‘aye’ sometimes.

  ‘For excluding you. Stopping you getting close - no, Taro, not just in that way. Since we arrived on Khathryn I’ve been projecting misery, making myself unapproachable - forcing you away. I mustn’t do that.’

  ‘By forcing me away, d�
��you mean using your evil alien mind-powers on me?’ He tried to make a joke of it, but it sounded feeble.

  ‘Maybe I am,’ said Nual miserably. ‘I’m not sure. Half the time I don’t even know I’m doing it.’

  ‘If you can’t help it, then it ain’t your fault, right?’ He wasn’t scared of her. Perhaps he should be, but he wasn’t.

  ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘’Course it is. So you’re Sidhe, and you can fuck with people’s heads. Most of the time you don’t, ’cause you keep all that stuff bottled up. But with me . . .’ He paused. Now they were getting to the heart of it, sidling up to the conversation she’d been avoiding ever since they left Khesh. ‘With me it’s different, ain’t it? ’Cause we’ve been . . .’ He searched for a way to describe the strange bond they shared.

  Nual whispered, ‘In unity. We’ve been in unity.’

  ‘Aye—I mean, yeah. So it’s all right. I know you won’t screw with my head on purpose. But sometimes you can’t help influencing me a bit, even when you don’t know you’re doing it. I don’t mind. Really, I don’t.’