‘Who the crud knows, fella? Why are you asking?’
‘If they don’t, we have to find the Commonwealth. We can’t go on living like this.’
‘Are you an Eliter?’
‘What? No!’ Even as he said it, he was surprised by how guilty he felt at the denial.
‘Sounds like Eliter bollocks to me. Look, fella, the Church of the Return wants us back in the Void, the Eliters want us to go back to the Commonwealth. Why can’t everyone just chill out, and be happy with what we’ve got here and now? We’ve got narnik, there’s a sweet new music scene coming on strong, and more and more people are telling the PSR to crud off. This is a cool and beautiful world, and it could be more so.’
‘Apart from the Fallers, you mean?’ Florian scoffed.
‘The regiments stop them spreading, and all those super-duper tightarse astronauts are nuking the Trees for us. We’re beating the Fallers, fella. Another fifty years, maybe a hundred, and there won’t be any more of them. Dig that?’
Florian frowned. Didn’t Joffler know about the Faller Apocalypse? I guess he’s not the type to think about stuff like that. Or maybe it’s just the Eliters who worry about it. ‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right.’
‘You know I am.’
‘Joffler, I have to get to Opole. Do you know someone who can take me? Someone who won’t ask questions?’
Joffler glanced down at the baby. ‘Just how big is this trouble you’re in, fella?’
‘I’m not in trouble, not big trouble. I just want to lie low for a month. That’s all I have to do. One month. Then it’s over.’
‘Over, huh? Did you take her from the mother?’
‘No! Really, no. It’s just complicated, that’s all. I need to get to Opole. I’ve got money there, and people I know. Uracus, in a month I’ll be back in the valley and things will all be normal again. I swear to Giu.’
Joffler scratched the back of his neck and gave the toddler another curious glance. ‘Okay, fella. There’s someone I know, Lukan. He runs cargo all over the county for the city boys. He’s the one who takes the waltans back to Billop for me. Drives a big old Coperearl saloon car – crudding thing is as rusty as Uracus, but you’ve got to dig that engine. He and his cousins rebuilt that thing from the ground up; you wait till you hear it purring like the king of the beasts. On the flat he can top that machine out at two hundred klicks per hour, easy. The sheriffs don’t have a single thing on the road that can catch him. He’ll get you to Opole.’
‘That sounds . . . flashy. I don’t want any fuss.’
‘No fuss. He will get you there or your money back. Guaranteed.’
‘I don’t have any money on me.’
‘Figure of speech. Lighten up, fella. We just need to get you and the waltans to Billop and everything will be fine. Trust me. I’ve got a stake in this too, remember? I want you happy and back in the valley. I really do.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll make a phone call.’
*
Florian gave the toddler her first ever bath that afternoon – in the kitchen sink. She loved it, splashing water and suds everywhere. He was as wet as her by the end. For her afternoon meal she drank two bladders of richmilk and chomped down seven carrot sticks.
When she was clean and dry he took her back into the living cavern. She crawled over to the settee. Florian watched nervously, but she hauled herself up and used the settee to cruise, walking along beside it, holding on to the cushions with a marvellously serious expression of concentration on her plump little face.
‘You’re going to be walking by yourself tomorrow, aren’t you?’ he said softly.
She turned to face him. ‘Dada play?’
‘You bet.’ He smiled happily, and held up the soft ball. ‘Catch?’
The evening meal saw her eating a bowl of chopped vegetables he’d prepared, along with a bladder of richmilk. Florian had to feed the little cubes to her, and a good quantity wound up mashed over her face, her bib, the table, the floor . . . But she ate it eagerly enough. Then she got it into her head that she should be using the spoon.
Florian had to wash the stuff out of his hair before he went to bed. She slept fitfully, crying out several times in the night as if she was in pain. He soothed her back to sleep, cuddling up to her in the bed, holding her tight, murmuring soft promises that he was there and everything was going to be all right. She needed feeding twice, just straight richmilk.
He was woken just before dawn by demands of: ‘Hunquee, hunquee, Dada. Hunquee!’ She’d grown another five centimetres, but was starting to get quite podgy with it. Her breakfast was porridge made with richmilk, two full bowls.
After that he took her into the living room so they wouldn’t wake Joffler and Rohanna. When he drew back the curtain, dawn was just starting to create a pale haze above the horizon. Essie left cruising the furniture behind and began to walk, managing a few steps each time before falling over in a fit of giggles. The third time she landed on her bottom there was a ghastly squishing sound. Mortified, Florian knew it was time for potty training.
4
The big mobile command post arrived at the Albina valley warden’s lodge forty minutes after Chaing discovered the nappy, roaring along the chewed-up mud of the track. It was followed by a long procession of regiment vehicles, bringing a lot of troopers who had just been ordered to stop their sweep of the Naxian valley.
Colonel Hokianga had spent most of the intervening time in the Terrain Truck, issuing orders through the radio operator. The vehicles he’d dispatched across roads and tracks beyond the lake were told to make for the next junction and establish a roadblock, locking down the whole area’s traffic. Nothing was to pass, and use of deadly force was authorized.
Chaing spent the time going through the lodge. Picking through the contents of the wicker basket in the bedroom wasn’t fun, but he laid out the tissues and nappies on a table in the living room. The nappies were a kind of shiny absorbent substance that he’d never seen before – which helped confirm that the baby had been brought to this world in the space machine.
With that settled in his own mind, he set about examining the living room. The two bookcases were large, which wasn’t entirely unexpected for a man who lived completely by himself. Chaing started pulling books off the shelves. Nearly a third of them were folders containing mimeographed copies of technical manuals, mostly mathematics texts and electrical systems.
‘Find every machine and electrical device,’ he told the troopers. ‘I want to inspect them. He must have been building some kind of gadget.’
‘Communicating with the alien?’ Hokianga asked.
‘There’s no such thing as coincidence,’ Chaing said automatically. Even so, the man he’d met in this lodge earlier didn’t strike him as some kind of Commonwealth secret agent. But then what does one look like? And if he is, then he managed to fool me easily.
Chaing fetched a screwdriver from the work shed on the side of the lodge and started to take the radio apart. He wasn’t an expert, but the valves and capacitors inside didn’t look like they had any other function. The troopers started to pile up the power tools they’d found.
He’d opened up about half of them, and was just unscrewing a big air compressor when the mobile command post showed up. It parked in front of the lodge, along with a dozen support vehicles. The chief communication officer plugged the command post into the sweep-coms box. Every farm and isolated home on Bienvenido had one. It gave regiments multiple telephone lines to the local exchange, enabling them to talk directly to their county headquarters, allowing them to coordinate sweeps with district authorities and reserve platoons.
‘I’ll call in a Fall alert to headquarters,’ Hokianga said when the communication officer gave him the thumbs-up.
‘No,’ Chaing said. ‘This is now a nest alert. It’ll provide us with a plausible cover story and gives us the authority to call in the sheriffs.’
For a moment he thought Hokianga might argue, but the colonel gave him a tight
nod, and made the call.
Regiments were tasked with finding and eliminating Faller eggs – motionless targets. But a nest alert, with Fallers moving about, that put the PSR in charge.
The plan he and Hokianga came up with would see sheriff offices in every town out to a hundred kilometres from Albina valley establish roadblocks on the major roads that evening. Off-duty sheriffs were to be alerted overnight, who would then set up more roadblocks at dawn. Once that was organized, a second tier of sheriffs, from a hundred to two hundred kilometres away, were to repeat the procedure. They would have to be run by the regiment headquarters in conjunction with the Opole PSR office; that size of operation was just too big for the mobile command centre.
Also at dawn, the troopers would start sweeping the entire Albina valley.
‘He’s gone,’ Hokianga protested. ‘They should be helping extend the roadblocks.’
‘He fooled me once,’ Chaing replied. ‘This time we are going to be completely certain.’
After that it was the bad phone call. The communication staff managed to track down Stonal at the Opole Air Force squadron aerodrome, where a transport plane was assigned to take him and his consignment back to Varlan. Chaing accepted the telephone handset from the operator with a sinking sensation; the wretched thing felt as heavy as lead.
‘What is it?’ Stonal asked.
‘Sir, your suspicions were correct. The machine had someone in it.’ Chaing closed his eyes, waiting – the pause lasted several seconds.
‘Do you have them in custody?’
‘Not yet, no. Sir, I believe it’s a baby.’ He didn’t want to say anything more; it was a regiment telephone line, but he had no idea how many people could overhear the conversation.
‘A baby?’
‘Yes, sir. An Eliter called Florian is on the run with it.’
‘Florian? Isn’t that the forest warden in the next valley?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I thought you visited him?’
Chaing grimaced. ‘I did, sir. But the baby was hidden when I was here, and he misled me completely; by the time I realized what had happened, he’d gone. I apologize for the mistake. I’ve instigated a county-wide nest alert.’
‘I see.’
Chaing waited, wondering if he was going to be relieved of duty on the spot. Perhaps Hokianga would get a phone call and the troopers would line up in a firing squad . . .
‘Who else was involved, captain?’ Stonal asked.
‘I’m at the warden’s lodge now, sir. We’re examining the whole place. So far there’s no evidence of anyone else working with Florian. He was in the Naxian valley last night rustling sheep. It’s looking like his encounter was purely chance.’
‘If this visitor is from where we think, then Florian must not reach the radical Eliter movement. That is imperative. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. So what is your course of action?’
‘It’s unlikely he’ll head south; that’s into the mountains. But I’ve ordered the colonel to deploy the regiment in a sweep through Albina valley starting first light. Florian’s Openland is missing, so the regiment and sheriffs are coordinating roadblocks to the north. Regimental vehicles will patrol all night, trying to spot him on the roads.’
‘How long has he been a warden?’
‘Seven years.’
‘He’ll know all the back routes in the area.’
‘Yes, sir. But if he uses them, he’ll be travelling slowly. The roadblocks are being set up for a hundred kilometres outside the Albina valley. Tomorrow I’ll extend them further.’
‘Do it tonight, captain.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I’m going to requisition all the Opole PSR office’s files on this Florian, find out who his friends and family are. Who he’s likely to turn to for help.’
‘Proceed, captain. The Air Force plane should take eight hours to reach Varlan. I want a progress report as soon as I arrive. Don’t use radio to contact the plane unless it’s urgent.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Chaing took a moment to steady his nerves after the phone went dead. ‘Get me the Opole PSR office,’ he told the operator.
*
His name was Minskal, and according to Yaki he was the leader of the three-strong Section Seven team Stonal had brought to Opole to monitor Captain Chaing. Jenifa stood beside the dresser in his hotel room, with her bare back pressed to the wall, and watched him screwing the teenage Eliter girl. For a forty-two-year-old he had plenty of stamina.
The honeytrap had been closed perfectly. It shouldn’t have been, not on anyone from Section Seven. But Jenifa had been wearing her PSR uniform when she and the Eliter girl had walked into the hotel bar where Minskal was sitting by himself. With Chaing called out to the countryside so unexpectedly, the team had been left with nothing to do. Minskal was killing time with a drink and a news-sheet while he waited for instructions.
Jenifa chose the table next to him. He knew her, of course – that helped close the trap. The junior corporal who had been in Frikal Alley, who had obediently excluded any mention of a strange creature from her report (the Section Seven team had checked the records division), the corporal who had slept with Chaing (they’d been watching his flat). A good little PSR agent. No risk – and her young friend was very pretty, too.
There were smiles. A few tentative words exchanged, quickly becoming a conversation. Drinks ordered.
An hour later they were upstairs in Minskal’s hotel room. It was a suite, of course, befitting someone of his status, with a high bay window in the bedroom. Jenifa made sure the curtains were open, allowing bright afternoon sunlight to splash across the bed. Then she and the Eliter girl put on a show undressing each other that matched any you could find in Opole’s private clubs.
Jenifa took him first, delighting in using her strength to excite him, and through that to control him. Her only regret was that he didn’t realize how much she’d played him, how superior she was – but that knowledge would come later, and she would get to see his stricken realization.
When she finished with Minskal she rolled off the mattress so the other girl could begin. There was a mirror fixed to the wall above the dresser, overlooking the bed. Jenifa stood beside it, watching for a while to see if she would have to intervene, but the girl did what she’d been instructed, and started talking, admitting how turned on she was by him being a PSR officer, and what did he do exactly . . . ? Tell me about the bad guys you’ve caught. Have you actually seen a Faller?
Jenifa slipped away into the suite’s lounge, and picked up her clothes. Carrying them, she walked down the corridor to the next room. It had a number on the door, but it was never used by residents. There was no furniture other than a couple of wooden chairs. The curtains were closed, keeping it dark.
She went into what used to be the bathroom. The plumbing had all been taken out, providing space for the substantial cinecamera on its tripod. Its wide lens was pointing through the small square hole in the wall which had the mirror on the other side. Thanks to the bright sunlight pouring through the bay windows, Minskal’s bed was perfectly illuminated even through the misty one-way glass.
Major Gorlan was peering through the camera’s viewfinder, one hand clamped on her headphones so she could hear everything the concealed microphone was picking up. She gave Jenifa a sardonic look.
‘Has he given away any state secrets?’ Jenifa asked as she started putting her underwear back on.
‘No. He might be crazy-horny but he’s not completely stupid. Besides, I made it very clear to Lauraine: don’t press for anything detailed, keep it to generalities.’
‘Lauraine?’
Gorlan pointed through the mirror. ‘Your new best friend on Bienvenido.’
‘Oh. Right.’
Gorlan patted the film drum contentedly. ‘He’s said enough to make him ours. Yaki will be satisfied.’
‘Good.’ Jenifa buttoned up her blouse
. ‘You didn’t film me, did you?’
‘No.’
‘I want to see the film after you have it developed.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘No.’
*
Jenifa put a civilian coat on over her uniform, and slipped out of the back of the hotel. One of Yaki’s fleet of private cars drove her home – her real home, not the small flat she maintained, which was appropriate for her corporal’s salary.
Real home was an elegant, old four-storey townhouse on Deral Avenue, where she had her own apartment on the third floor. After she handed her uniform over to a maid for laundering and showered, she went down to the gym in the basement.
That was where Yaki found her that evening, straining away on the bench press.
‘You need to be careful,’ Yaki said as she checked the weight Jenifa had loaded. ‘This is very heavy.’
‘I can take it,’ Jenifa shot back, and defiantly lifted again. ‘And you take risks.’
‘Do I?’
‘That Lauraine girl is an Eliter. You can’t trust them, no matter how much pressure Gorlan applies. Suppose she linked to the radicals and gave them Minskal’s identity, or even mine?’
‘She can’t. This operation was a strategic advance, not a risk. Lauraine is a mule. Just because you have Eliter parents doesn’t mean your macrocellular clusters actually work. The PSR has plotted a small but noticeable decline in functionality in the Eliter population over the past century.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Did we get what we wanted?’
‘Yes. Once I’d banged him his brain was so fevered he couldn’t stop bragging to Lauraine about the Fallers he’d killed. It’s total bollocks, I reckon; he’s internal security, not a field agent. But we have it all on film.’
‘A Section Seven officer telling an Eliter about his missions. Excellent.’
‘But you just said she’s a mule.’
‘That part isn’t on her official file.’
Jenifa grinned maliciously. ‘Neat. So how are you going to use him?’
‘Strategically. Someone in his position hears a great deal more than his pay grade clears him for. I need eyes and ears in the capital.’
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