Guardians of Paradise

by Jaine Fenn

  Nual said, ‘I wanted to bring Elarn home - her ashes, at least. I owed her that much.’

  ‘Oh.’ He was surprised and a little dismayed at how quickly he was adjusting to the idea that his sister was dead. Though in some ways she’d been lost to him years ago, in his heart of hearts he’d always hoped they might eventually be reconciled. ‘You mentioned her lawyer. Does that mean she never changed her will?’

  ‘No, so in theory I am rich. However, if I claim my inheritance now it will become known that I survived the attack on the house.’

  ‘The authorities will realise that when they don’t find a body inside.’ Then Jarek remembered the panic over the com: Control’s down! ‘Except they will find one, won’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nual, ‘they will. And I intend to be far from Khathryn by the time they realise that it’s not mine.’

  ‘You sound like you’ve got a plan.’

  ‘Not really, beyond trying to discover what the Sidhe are up to and finding a way to curb their influence.’

  You and me both, thought Jarek.

  ‘We got licences,’ said Taro, ‘so we can get ourselves hired by any law enforcement agency authorised to use external agents deploying lethal force.’

  Jarek suppressed a smile. The boy was obviously quoting that from somewhere. ‘I didn’t think - what’s the phrase? Agents of the Concord? - ever got to leave Vellern.’

  ‘Normally they don’t. The Minister owed us, big time.’

  Taro’s tone of voice was begging Jarek to ask more, but he didn’t feel inclined to indulge the kid’s ego just now. ‘I can’t help noticing you’ve only got one gun between you. I thought Angels had one each.’

  Taro’s expression implied he’d rather not discuss that.

  Nual said, ‘We share the laser. The Minister is somewhat jealous of his technology.’

  Another awkward silence. This time, somewhat to Jarek’s surprise, Nual broke it. ‘You know why I came back. Why are you here? Were you hoping enough time had passed for Elarn to forgive you?’

  Jarek grimaced. ‘Yes - but that’s not why I came. I wanted to warn her. I tried to contact you too, but I wasn’t really surprised my message bounced; after all, you did go to Vellern to hide. When Elarn didn’t reply either I assumed she was still angry with me, so I came in person. I had to make her listen - even if she wasn’t interested in my crusade against the Sidhe, you’d lived here with her for a while, and she had to know that they’d want to talk to her about that. Looks like I was right.’ He sighed. ‘Just too late. And—’ He stopped, trying to restore his equilibrium. He wondered if he’d ever get used to this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought about Elarn being dead.

  ‘And?’ prompted Nual gently. ‘Was there another reason?’

  ‘Yeah. I found something out about the Sidhe, something big.’

  ‘What sort of something?’ Nual leaned forward between the seats.

  Jarek realised that she probably knew as little about her own people as the average human, who was happy to believe the Sidhe’d died out a millennium ago.

  ‘I found half a conspiracy. The kind of thing put about by those unreasoning paranoids who believe the Sidhe lived on after the Protectorate just because they have to believe in something. Except I’ve only got part of the story.’

  ‘Explain, please.’

  He stared out into the darkness. They had plenty of time; he’d programmed an indirect course back to Kendall’s Wharf to avoid running into anyone coming out to investigate the incident at the cliff-house. He just wasn’t sure he was ready to discuss his recent experiences. But he’d invited these two on board, and maybe talking it through with others might help him work it out in his own head.

  Still not looking at his passengers he began, ‘After I left you on Vellern all those years ago, I tried to find out more about the Sidhe. I made discreet enquiries and collected what data I could. I hoped I might find allies, but most people were the kind of nuts I mentioned earlier: never mind finding evidence or coming up with reasons, let’s just blame everything on unseen monsters. The Sidhe must love people like that: there’s nothing like an endorsement from a kook to make the truth seem kooky.

  ‘Anyway, I kept my eyes and ears open, but freetrading’s a marginal living at best and I couldn’t afford to go off chasing rumours all the time. Then, a few months back, I made a killer deal - the kind that doesn’t come along often in my line of work - and that gave me a bit of freedom to poke around, follow some stuff up. To be honest, the lead I was investigating wasn’t directly related to the Sidhe; I’d heard about this freetrader outfit who left the shipping lanes every twenty-five years or so and I thought they might be using an unregistered beacon.’

  ‘Unregistered beacon?’ interrupted Taro. ‘So what’s one of them?’

  ‘You know what a beacon is?’

  ‘’Course I do,’ Taro said. ‘You need beacons to transmit beevee communications and to allow ships to make transits between star systems.’

  That was memorised too. The boy must’ve led a very sheltered life. Jarek went on, ‘Well, in some ways a beacon is more like a door between reality and shiftspace, one that’s been left ajar. You’ve been through shiftspace to get here, so you know what a fun place that is.’

  ‘We spent the transits between Vellern and Khathryn in stasis,’ Nual broke in.

  I’ll bet you did, thought Jarek, and now I know why. ‘Given how chaotic things were after the fall of the Sidhe Protectorate, there’re plenty of rumours about beacons - whole systems, even - whose locations have been lost. Finding just one would open up new shipping lanes and beevee capacity, not to mention new resources and markets, and for a freetrader that’s real treasure! This ship I’d heard about only took its little trip every couple of decades, which sounded a bit odd if it was exploiting an untouched system, but I decided it was worth looking into. So I lurked around in the system they made their transit from, and a few weeks later the Setting Sun - that’s the name of the ship - turned up. When it went into the shift, I slipstreamed it.’ He’d only found out how big a risk he’d taken later. ‘I was right, sort of. It did go to a lost system - except it wasn’t exactly lost, more like deliberately hidden.’

  ‘By the Sidhe?’ asked Nual.

  ‘By the Sidhe. There’s an inhabited planet there, really lo-tech, and with no idea the rest of the universe exists. Unfortunately, before I could investigate further the Setting Sun tricked me into docking with them, and I was captured by the Sidhe on board. They—’ Jarek stopped and coughed, trying to clear his suddenly tight throat. ‘They found out everything I knew, eventually, even about you. I guess they passed that on to their sisters elsewhere, and decided to use Elarn to draw you out. Was that how it was?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Nual in a small voice. ‘That was how it was.’

  No one said anything for a few moments. Then Taro asked, ‘How’d you escape?’

  ‘The ship had a human crew. Mostly mutes - conditioned slaves. One of them managed to break her conditioning, and she freed me.’ He addressed Nual over his shoulder, ‘That’s something I’ve been thinking about: given how much control a Sidhe can exert, I was surprised a mute could do something like that.’

  ‘So am I. Did you give her a reason to disobey her mistresses?’

  ‘I guess I showed her kindness when she would’ve expected abuse. The urge to fight back must’ve already been there though.’

  ‘My sisters tend towards arrogance. Perhaps they assumed her obedience was total, and so failed to spot the signs of rebellion.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ Taro interrupted.

  ‘They must have caught her, so I imagine she’s dead now, poor cow. When she let me out of my cell I was half-crazy. All I could think of was getting away. I took a solo evac-pod to Serenein - that’s the name of the planet.’

  ‘Did the Sidhe come after you?’ asked Taro.

  ‘No. They’d got what they wanted; after that I was more trouble than
I was worth. They’d have freaked the locals. And—’ Jarek hesitated, unsure how to summarise the strangest three months of his life. ‘It took me a while to get over what they did to me. They’d messed up my memory. And then I had to find a way to get back up into orbit. I finally managed that, thanks to some local help, and we took out the Sidhe.’

  ‘You killed them?’ Nual sounded understandably surprised.

  ‘Like I said, I had help.’

  ‘And this lost world is the big secret you wanted to tell Elarn?’ Taro’s tone of voice implied he wasn’t sure why a recluse like Elarn would care about such a place.

  ‘There’s more to it than that. The reason the Sidhe kept Serenein isolated was that they were manipulating the genetics of the population to produce certain . . . talented individuals. Then they shipped them out - that’s what the Setting Sun was there for, to pick up these boys, who’d been put into stasis for easy transport. They’ve got the whole culture geared up for it—’

  He broke off: a blinking light was indicating an incoming message from local traffic control. He hesitated, then hit Receive; not answering would only make him look suspicious.

  Before he could say anything a man’s voice said, ‘Good job you’re on your way back.’ After a moment he recognised the chatty evening-shift operator who’d been happy to accept Jarek’s incentive to keep him informed of anything interesting on his watch.

  ‘Really?’ he said with forced casualness, ‘so why’s that?’

  ‘Well, I’ve just cleared a whole load of vehicles heading out to your last known co-ordinates: police, fire-tenders, ambulances, press and all the other chasers, quite a party. And I notice that you’re taking a roundabout route back. You know, if I’d had any idea how much interest that neck of the woods would be receiving tonight . . .’ He let his voice trail off.

  . . . you’d have asked for more money up front, Jarek thought, and said, with all the sincerity he could muster, ‘Given how helpful you’ve been, I’m truly sorry to have put you to any additional inconvenience. ’ ‘How sorry?’ asked the other man bluntly.

  ‘I’m not sure we should be discussing this right now—’

  ‘Don’t worry, our com system’s been a bit flaky recently. The call-logs don’t always record cleanly . . . . So, I ask again: how sorry?’

  Jarek weighed up his options. Finally he said, ‘About another twenty per cent.’

  The traffic controller grunted, then said, ‘Forty.’

  Which was robbery by any other name. With Nual on board he couldn’t take any risks, so, ‘Done,’ he said, knowing he had been. ‘Though of course it’ll be a case of as and when.’

  ‘Meaning?’ The man’s previously friendly voice had an edge to it now.

  ‘Meaning that as soon as I’m safely up in orbit, that’s when you get your bonus.’

  Silence. Eventually the traffic controller said, ‘All right. But nothing gets deleted until we’re straight, understand?’

  ‘Got you.’ Jarek cut the connection.

  He felt oddly unclean. For the last few months he’d been living a very different life. Not that there wasn’t corruption and deception on Serenein, there was, and sometimes on a breathtaking scale. But he was finding something petty-minded and rather grubby about the necessary small lies and greasing of palms that came with the freetrader lifestyle.

  ‘Right,’ he said to his passengers, ‘I need to focus on getting us away safely. We’ll talk again later.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  One of the first lessons Taro had learnt when he left Vellern was that he had no chance of faking it out in the real world. If he didn’t know something - and there was shitloads he didn’t know - he’d save himself a lot of grief if he just asked. Ideally he’d ask Nual, but if she didn’t know, or wasn’t around, he’d bother anyone who might give him a useful answer.

  He soon found that people - at least the kind of people he met on starliners - assumed that not knowing something everyone else knew meant he was stupid. So, just because he had no idea what terceball was (one of the most popular sports in human-space, apparently), or why the cap-index influenced how much stuff his credit would buy (because even though cap just meant the capacity of beacons to transmit data, it was the universal currency that all local currencies were rated against), they assumed he was some kind of idiot. At first he’d been insulted, then he’d tried to prove the fuckers wrong; finally he’d decided he didn’t much care what those rich dicks travelling between the stars for fun thought of him.

  Now he wanted to ask if Jarek would carry on from where he’d left off before the com-call, but before he could open his mouth Nual stopped him.

 

  With his friendly, slightly lopsided smile and expression suggesting that while he was giving you all his attention, he was not intruding, Jarek was, Taro reluctantly admitted, a personable-looking sort of cove. He was also a good ten years older than Nual, and Taro had no doubt he knew what was what in the world. But Nual was right; for all that self-confidence he oozed, there was an underlying uneasiness about him, like he was putting on a brave face. Hardly surprising given he’d just lost his only relative - Taro knew that feeling all too well. Looked like they were going to be hanging round with Jarek for a while; they could catch up fully later.

  For the rest of the journey to the starport the three of them sat wrapped in their own thoughts. Jarek occasionally checked his console, and he made another couple of com-calls, all routine-sounding stuff to do with getting off-planet.

  As Taro had discovered when they first arrived on Khathryn, starport was a generous term for what was basically a patch of flat ground with a few basic buildings off to one side. Compared to Vellern, this world was a backwater. Tourist liners only stopped at Khathryn so the punters could see something called the Rainbow Falls. Taro wouldn’t have minded seeing them himself, but he and Nual had parted company with the tourists as soon as the two shuttles had touched down. The rest of the passengers had been whisked off to the hospitality - such as it was - of Kendall’s Wharf. Taro hadn’t been sorry to say goodbye to their recent travelling companions.

  Their starliner must have moved on: its shuttles were gone and the starport looked deserted, except for a small round craft parked away from the buildings. The flattened disc tapered slightly towards the edges, and there was something Taro immediately labelled a tit on the top. The ship had probably been white, once.

  Jarek landed the aircar neatly next to it and they got out into the cold night air. At least it’d stopped raining. The darkness beyond the perimeter lights was total. Jarek went up to a door set in the rim of the disc and looked into a blinking green light on one side. He stepped back, the door slid open and a short ladder folded out.

  They followed Jarek up the ladder and crowded into a tiny room, like a cheap version of the elevators on the starliner. The outside door closed, then another door opposite opened to reveal a short corridor leading into a large, semi-circular room, twice the size of the common room in Taro’s old homespace. There was a thick column bulging out of the middle of the shorter inside wall, with a ladder in front of it leading upwards. There were a couple of closed doors on either side of the column.

  Jarek cleared his throat and said, ‘Welcome to the Judas Kiss.’

  Taro had spent a little time in other people’s personal space - most often in hotel rooms, and he’d been there on business - but he’d never been anywhere quite as lived in.

  The smell wasn’t strong, but it was distinctive: a mixture of food, drink, laundry and human male. An open galley area curved along the wall on the left; plates, mugs, drinks-bulbs and food containers covered most of the surfaces. On the right was an impressive set of entertainment units - looked like they included holo, flatscreen, gaming, audio, the works. A couple of large plush couches were perfectly positioned to watch, play or listen from; it was obvious which seat Jarek usually
used, as only one was free of debris. Beside the couches was a multi-function fitness station, like those some of the passengers had used on the starliner; Taro hadn’t bothered to try one himself; the ability to run for a long time seemed a bit pointless when you could fly.

  Taro was discreetly trying to work out what was draped over the fitness station’s handlebar when Jarek said, sounding at once irritated and embarrassed, ‘I wasn’t expecting visitors.’ He headed across the room as he added, ‘I need to get us off-planet before the authorities decide they want to talk to us.’ He gestured vaguely around. ‘Make yourselves at home.’

  ‘I’ll find out what the newsnets have to say about the cliff-house,’ said Nual.

  ‘Good idea. I’ll be on the bridge.’ He started up the ladder.

  The bridge must be in the tit on top, Taro thought, looking around again.

  Nual wandered over to the lounge area and fired up the holo. Over her shoulder she said, ‘If you are tired, you can rest in the spare cabin. I’m sure Jarek won’t mind.’