Maxwell tried to protest, but it was too late. Argent had already pushed through the door and into the room beyond.
“What’s this?” Argent said, momentarily distracted by the profusion of sculptures. “And what the hell is that noise?”
Elke was not surprised at his reaction. The portal had been audible outside, but here, past the solid barrier of the front door, the sound was impossible to miss. It had built to a deep throb, with a subtle, fluttering overtone that teased at the edge of hearing.
“What the hell is going on here?” Argent strode deeper into the room, and came to a stop, staring.
The portal pulsed with silver light, and ghostly sparks crackled all along its edge.
Everyone crowded into the room behind Argent. Maxwell was huffing in outrage, and even Hugin looked flustered.
“What is this?” Argent pointed at the portal. “And where is Jinan?” He glared around at the room, as if he expected to find her hiding among the sculptures.
“I came all the way from the Babylon Eye, through the Gremium, by train and car, and through this bedamned place, to find you.” Argent glared at Elke, “And you won’t even tell me where my employer is? Where is Jinan?”
“She’s dead,” said Thandeka.
“She’s what?” Argent stared at her. “And who are you?”
“This is Thandeka,” said Elke. “This is the woman we came here to find. And she’s right. Jinan is dead. Noor saw her die.”
Meisje pressed herself against Elke’s legs, and Elke bent to caress her again. She noticed that Maxwell was looking shocked, and for the first time remembered that he’d known Jinan.
“Who’s Noor?” Argent, bewildered, glanced at the portal, which was whining louder than ever now.
“Noor is my daughter,” said Thandeka. “She came here with Elke and Kiran. She saw the guards kill Jinan. Culled, for being too old to be useful.”
“Or knowing too much, more likely,” Kiran said. “They wouldn’t have wanted an influential eidola like her stirring up trouble.”
Argent looked as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. “You’re— You’re sure?” He put a hand out to steady himself on a nearby sculpture of a nymph.
“I’m very sure,” said Thandeka.
“I—” Argent let go of the nymph and swallowed hard.
They all winced as the portal sparked all around its circumference.
“What is that?” said Argent. “What the hell is that?”
“That,” Kiran said quietly, “is a portal back to the Babylon Eye. A temporary portal, which is about to open.”
“You’re not serious.” Argent looked from face to face as if hoping that one of them would let him into the joke they were clearly playing on him.
Elke suddenly grabbed Thandeka’s arm. “Thandeka. Listen. I’ve just— I know how this could work. You’re going through, aren’t you? You’ve decided that already right, now that Noor’s gone? Well. What if Argent goes with you?”
“Him?” Thandeka looked baffled, and Argent, outraged, opened his mouth to argue.
“Wait,” Elke said urgently. “Let me finish. We need somebody to go back to the Eye, somebody with the clout and influence to put a stop to the slave smuggling there.” She turned to Argent. “You can do that, can’t you?”
“I— What?” Argent seemed to be having trouble absorbing her words.
“You’re a big deal in the Eye, aren’t you?” Elke insisted. “You know all the right people. We need somebody who can go through there, right now, into the Eye, and help Thandeka put a stop to the slave smuggling.”
This Argent clearly understood. “That is my plan. That’s the first thing I was going to do after— Jinan—” He looked doubtfully at the portal, which had begun to shimmer.
“Are you sure he’s any use?” Thandeka looked dubiously at Argent.
“Better than I ever could be,” Elke assured her. “And Dolly will help you too. First thing you do when you get there, find Dolly. Use my name, if anyone gives you any trouble about it. Go directly to her office in Short Storage.”
“But— Are you sure, that Jinan is—” Argent looked uncertainly at Thandeka. “I should really make sure, for myself— Make a report— Take statements—”
“If you don’t decide now, it will be too late,” Maxwell Jali said grumpily. “Portal’s about to open.”
“Well then.” Thandeka swallowed hard. “Let’s go.”
“Not quite yet,” Maxwell held out a hand to stop her, peering closely at the now undulating surface of the portal.
“I don’t understand.” Argent was quite pale now.
Hugin took him by the arm. “I will explain it all to you.” He had to raise his voice to be heard above the portal’s whine. “Once we are at the other side.”
The whining modulated into a hiss, and then cut abruptly into silence as the portal cleared, rippling outward into invisibility. The dull metal became a doorway to a perfectly ordinary living room, dust glinting in the light that filtered through shuttered windows.
“Go!” said Maxwell. “It will only last a few seconds.”
Hugin was already moving. He grasped Thandeka’s hand, tightened his grip on Argent, and pulled them through the portal.
For an instant, Elke saw them stumbling into the room beyond, and then the gap closed with a ringing snap.
Kiran made an inarticulate sound and sank down like a puppet with her wires cut. Elke was instantly at her side, crouching next to her. “Are you okay?”
Kiran wound her fingers into Elke’s jacket and stared at her.
“I’m going with you.” Elke wrapped her arms around Kiran and smiled as Meisje nudged a cold nose under her arm. “I mean, we’re going with you.”
The Rescue
The hours passed slowly for Isabeau and Ndlela. They stopped trying to guess why nobody had come for them yet, and neither felt ready to talk about Missy.
They had some food, but only salty things, like the biscuits and tinned fish, or very sweet, like the chocolate.
The bottled water was nearly finished, and the water from the basin in the tiny toilet cubicle was more like dilute hand sanitiser than water.
Isabeau slept fitfully, frowning and muttering in her dreams, and the little bit of sleep Ndlela managed to get just made him feel groggy.
When the outside hatch opened at last, they stared at one another, wide eyed.
“It— It’s not her, is it?” Isabeau spoke the thought that was in both their minds. “It can’t be Missy.”
They both watched the figure that came in through the hatch, but even before the airlock had cycled enough for him to take off his helmet, they’d both recognised Sparks.
Isabeau began to cry, and Ndlela had to bite his lower lip hard to stop himself from joining her.
“Hey!” Sparks said when he finally cracked open the inner hatch. “So here you are! And both of you. What on earth are you doing out here?”
He glanced up at the hatch in the ceiling, scanning the various indicators there. “I hope you’ve not been fooling around with Molly?”
“Molly?” said Isabeau. “Oh! You mean the ship. No—we just jammed the hatch open to stop Missy Cloete from flying away with it.”
“Who? What?” Sparks looked utterly bewildered.
“Missy Cloete,” said Ndlela. “But she’s gone, now. She, um, she—” He ran out of words, and just gestured out the view outside.
Sparks looked at him oddly. “Well. Clearly there has been a lot going on here that needs to be sorted. But first we must get you two back inside.”
When he found that Isabeau’s oxygen bottle was empty, Sparks simply opened a recessed panel they hadn’t noticed, and clipped her bottle into it.
“How did you know we were here?” Isabeau wanted to know.
Why did it take you so long was what Ndlela wanted to say.
“Well, that dog of yours, for one thing.” Sparks watched the gauge carefully as he held the oxygen bottle in place. “That Danger. He kept tryi
ng to drag us into Long Storage. Grabbed my arm. And then when that didn’t work, he barked his head off. Bloody nuisance.”
He unclipped the bottle and reached for Ndlela’s. “Might as well do yours too.”
While Ndlela’s bottle was busy filling, Sparks set about attaching the now full bottle to Isabeau’s suit, checking all the tubes and fasteners while he was at it.
“Of course, if we’d let him take us where he wanted, we’d have found Tomas, and figured out where you guys were. But there was all that shooting and shouting and running around...”
“Shooting?” said Ndlela.
“Is Tomas okay?” Isabeau stared at Sparks.
“He’s fine. Bit wobbly on his pins, but nothing the guys in the lazaretto can’t deal with.”
“But shooting?” Ndlela repeated.
“We had us a little war.” Sparks had finished with Isabeau’s suit and turned to Ndlela. “Here. Let me check you over.”
He fitted Ndlela’s oxygen bottle, and then began a full safety check of Ndlela’s suit.
“So, you know that Nexico and Torka? A group of them got together and tried to do a, what do you call it, coup. Tried to take over the Eye coalition by force. Stirred up a riot in Zero level, or at least, they did their best, and then tried to seize control of things while Dolly and the customs guys were distracted trying to calm things down.”
“Oh no!” Isabeau stared at Sparks in horror. “What happened? Was anybody killed?”
“Nobody. Well. Two of the Nexico thugs,” said Sparks, with deep satisfaction. “They barricaded themselves into a room, with hostages.” He gave a grim laugh. “They picked the wrong hostages. Got themselves pretty beat up. And then there was a bit of a stand-off at the realside portal, with some of their thugs trying to force the operators to open the portal and let a train through. At gun point.
“It looked dodgy, for a while, until some of the customs guys worked their way behind something or through something— Oh, and that dog, that gardag of yours, Danger, he was in the thick of it—anyway, they got in behind the thugs, and then it was all over in minutes. Especially when that Danger roared in the leader’s face.”
Sparks grinned as he tugged the last strap of Ndlela’s suit into place.
“You should have seen that. And then, with all that going on, you can understand that it took a while for us to realise that the two of you were missing, and the airlock all in a state. We couldn’t make head or tail of what Tomas was mumbling about. In fact, it was only when this woman came out of nowhere, asking Dolly where you were, that we twigged.”
“What woman?” said Isabeau, but Sparks was already pulling her mask into place, and fitting the helmet onto her suit.
“You can breathe?” he asked, and then checked Ndlela’s oxygen flow. When he was sure that both of them were ready, he clipped a tether from his suit to each of theirs and set the airlock cycling.
The journey back to the hatch into the Eye went surprisingly quickly. Sparks tugged them along from handhold to handhold with the ease of much practice. They’d hardly managed to orient themselves before they were at the hatch, and Sparks was pulling them inside.
They crowded into the airlock, a tight fit as it had been designed for only one person at a time. They were so squeezed together than Ndlela could feel Isabeau trembling, although he couldn’t guess whether out of fear or excitement. He was trembling himself.
What had Sparks meant, a woman asked Dolly where they were? Had Elke come back— But surely then he’d have called her by her name?
A dangerous hope blossomed in his chest, and he tried his best to smother it.
At last the airlock finished cycling and the inner hatch popped open. Isabeau squirmed through into the room beyond, and a moment later, Ndlela heard her gasp.
Ndlela blundered through himself, unclipping his helmet and dragging the mask from his face.
He knew his mother instantly, despite her shaven head, her strange and rumpled clothes, and the fact that she seemed so much smaller than he remembered. Isabeau was in her arms, her face buried in Thandeka’s chest.
“Ndlela!”
Thandeka pulled him into her embrace. Her voice buzzed in his ear as he hugged her as tightly as he could.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m back now. I’m back.”
Stepping Through
Maxwell Jali’s rooms seemed unnaturally quiet after the chaotic events of the past few hours.
The portal was hidden behind the panels again, and Maxwell had wheeled himself to bed, refusing Elke or Kiran’s help.
“I’m going to find some food,” Elke told Kiran, “and possibly a shower. One that doesn’t stink of disinfectant.”
She went exploring, with Meisje at her heel.
Maxwell Jali must have dismissed his servants before starting up the portal, as there was no sign of them in any of the rooms. Elke found what looked like the guest bathroom, and a little further on, the kitchen.
The kitchen was rather intimidating, filled with cabinets and large glass columns, some of them vibrating, some chilled.
It was not immediately obvious what was the equivalent of a fridge, and what might be for recycling or compost, or some other mysterious, strangeside convenience. Elke looked doubtfully at the various buttons, catches, and handles. They might open doors, or switch things on, or off, or start who-knew-what process, and she didn’t feel like experimenting.
Luckily, she found a loaf of fresh-looking bread, and a quick search through the cupboards revealed a bottle of oil that looked, smelled, and tasted exactly like olive oil. She also found a bowl of fresh tomatoes, and several eggs.
She tossed the eggs, one by one, to Meisje, who caught and ate them expertly, shell and all, without dribbling any yolk on the pristine floor.
Nothing else was suitable for the gardag, so Elke gave Meisje half the bread. She found some plates and knives and carried the rest of the food back to the main room, where Kiran had stretched out on the couch again.
“You want to go have a shower before you eat?” she asked Kiran.
Kiran groaned a little.
“You feeling okay?” Elke put the food down on a nearby table.
“Just sleepy. Those meds Hugin gave me.” Kiran pushed herself up into a sitting position and noticed the food. “Hey. Thanks! I actually think I might feel like eating.”
“Well, take that mask off, anyway. That can’t be comfortable.”
“You know, I think I’ll go for that shower after all.” Kiran yawned. “I’ve been in this bloody biosuit too long.”
“Good idea.”
When Kiran was done showering, Elke took her turn.
The shower was glorious. It took all her willpower not to just stand there for hours, letting the hot water pour over her, and fill the room with steam.
“Nice, hey,” Kiran said when she joined her out on the balcony again. “I hope you don’t mind, I started eating. Got my appetite back.”
“That’s a good sign.” Elke cut herself a slice of bread.
“What about Meisje?” Kiran looked at the gardag who had stretched out on the floor under the couch. “Isn’t she hungry?”
“Don’t worry, she’s eaten already.”
They ate, dipping pieces of the bread into the olive oil.
“You regretting your decision?” Kiran said as she swept the last of the crumbs off her lap.
“Hey?” Elke looked at her in surprise. “Why do you ask that?”
“You’re very quiet.” Kiran looked away. “It would be perfectly understandable.”
“To be honest, I was just spacing out,” said Elke. “Concentrating on the food.”
They smiled at one another.
“I just worry, that’s all,” said Kiran. “It was all such a rush, there in the end. I know you’d decided to go back to the Eye, and then, well—”
“I know.” Elke stretched, and rolled her shoulders to ease their stiffness. “It was pretty crazy. I guess I’ll sta
rt worrying when I have the energy to worry.” She yawned. “Once I’ve had some sleep.”
They curled up together on the couch.
Kiran was still concerned about the possibility of infection, so Elke got nothing more than a close-lipped goodnight kiss on the cheek.
As she was dropping off, Elke felt the warm weight of Meisje settling against her legs. Seconds later they were all fast asleep.
¤¤¤
Elke woke briefly the next morning as the two glim servants moved quietly about the room but sleep soon dragged her under again.
When she woke again, the sun was high in the sky.
Kiran sat with Maxwell Jali on the other balcony, talking quietly. From the sound of it, she’d managed to get Maxwell to forget his reticence about her illness, and he was regaling her with some long-winded story.
Elke made her way to the guest bathroom, and when she’d finished there, went to join them.
“Slept well?” Maxwell said as Elke stepped around their chairs. He patted a little box on the table in front of him. “Prepared this for you. All the med-patches you’ll need to keep you sane in the Fata Morgana.”
“That’s excellent.” Elke took the box. “Thank you.” She looked at Maxwell, who was cutting himself another slice of bread. “We are deeply in your debt.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Maxwell sounded rather grumpy again. “Anyway, Hugin would never forgive me, if he found I didn’t look after you properly.” He turned to Kiran. “Anyway, my dear. As I was saying,” and started on his story again.
Elke listened to them talk and ate a little. She didn’t feel quite awake yet, and her surroundings only added to her dreamlike mood. The world felt far away and unimportant. She’d made an irrevocable decision, but none of it seemed real.
Mack Jack, Diesel, and Tomas, lying in the lazaretto, sick with some mysterious disease.
The possibility that Missy Cloete might be hiding in the Eye. She hadn’t even thought about that for days.
Somebody else will have to deal with it, that’s all. Whether she’d made the right decision or not, there was no going back now.
“Is there any way to send a message to the Eye?” Elke asked, cutting into another one of Maxwell’s stories.
The Strange Page 44