by Allen Stroud
‘Come with me.’
Henry took him by the hand and led him out of the room through the dorm corridor towards the classroom. The artificial lights clicked on as they walked.
‘Shouldn’t we be asleep?’ Harry asked.
Henry looked down at him and smiled. ‘No, we have permission, we’ll be fine.’
They went past the classroom and kept going. In the eight years of his life, Harry hadn’t been this far from his bed. ‘Are you sure it’s okay?’ he said.
‘Relax,’ Henry urged. ‘When you’re bigger this won’t be such an adventure. Only a little further ... ah, here we are!’
The corridor opened out and there was a door at the end, with a window beside it. Henry touched the control plate on the wall and a light came on, revealing the room beyond.
Another boy sat alone on a chair, with an empty chair next to him. He glanced up, looking surprised. Harry flinched and stepped back.
‘It’s all right, he can’t see us,’ Henry said reassuringly.
Harry sighed with relief and moved forward again, peering at the boy curiously; older, but not as old as Henry. ‘What’s wrong with his face?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s strange, not like us,’ Harry raised his hands to his own cheeks and nose. ‘It’s not right.’
Henry laughed. ‘Oh! No, he’s fine, not everyone’s like us.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they aren’t,’ Henry said. ‘You’ll get a dataslate soon and you’ll see lots of strange faces.’ He pointed at the boy in the room. ‘The Elders want you to talk to him.’
Harry took another step towards the window. The boy had strange hair, a lighter shade of brown than Henry’s or his. His eyes were odd too, a different colour. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Henry said. ‘They just told me what they wanted.’
‘What would I talk to him about?’
‘Anything,’ Henry smiled again, but seemed irritated. ‘He’s very clever. The Elders say he’s the most intelligent boy they’ve ever met. They want him to stay, but he’s different and shy, so they asked me to get someone to talk to him, someone near his age.’
‘Me?’ Harry said.
‘Yes. You.’
Harry stared at the boy. He didn’t seem shy, but his eyes roamed all around the room. ‘Where will you be when I go in?’
‘Out here,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll make sure you’re safe.’ He opened the door and the boy immediately glanced up. ‘In you go.’
Harry walked through, over to the empty chair and sat down. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ the boy said, staring. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Harry, what’s yours?’
‘James.’
‘How did you get here?’ Harry asked.
‘I don’t know,’ James said. ‘I was asleep. I woke up here.’
‘Where were you before?’
‘With my Mum and Dad.’
Harry frowned. Mum and Dad weren’t words he understood, but he guessed they were titles of people who James thought were important. ‘They told me you were clever,’ he said.
James shrugged. ‘Dad says I am.’
‘They want you to stay,’ Harry added, ‘because you’re clever, even though your face is weird.’
James’ hand touched his cheek. ‘What’s wrong with my face?’
‘It’s weird,’ Harry repeated. ‘Not right, different, not like everyone else.’
James frowned, his forehead crinkling with lines, like one of the Elders, making Harry smile. ‘What is this place?’ he asked.
‘It’s the school,’ Harry said, ‘where we learn.’
‘Learn what?’
‘Tone and inflection,’ Harry explained. ‘We do memorising too, remembering the speeches.’
‘Speeches?’
‘Yes,’ Harry was puzzled. Henry said James was intelligent. Why didn’t he know what the speeches were? ‘They’re important,’ he said. ‘I’ve memorised thirty-seven of them. You’ll have a lot of catching up to do.’
James bit his lip and his gaze went roaming around the walls again. ‘I don’t think I want to stay here,’ he announced.
‘Why not?’ Harry asked. ‘We’d have lots of fun.’
James stared at him. ‘I don’t think we would,’ he said.
Henry came in after that and took Harry back to his dorm. As he walked away Harry remembered the strange look on James face. He’d stared at Harry as they left, until the light went out, leaving him in the dark.
The next day, the boy was gone and no one spoke about him. When Harry asked Henry quietly he just shook his head. ‘We don’t talk about that, Harry,’ he said.
Harry never saw James again.
* * *
‘Ident please.’
Pietro put down his briefcase, fished in the pocket of his acquired leather coat and handed over his freshly modified ID chit to a bored security officer who dropped it into the reader without looking. Pietro held his breath as the retina scan flashed, bleeped and spat the chit back into his hand. The officer waved him past, her eyes already on the next in line. ‘Ident please,’ he heard her say again in the same bored tone.
Pietro walked from the docking bridge and towards the station interior. The generated gravity made him unsteady for a moment, but that quickly passed. His hands gripped the briefcase hard. Finch’s dead eyes were still fresh in his mind, with the gaping hole in his forehead. Pietro had never met a clone before and hadn’t expected to care about one dying but ...
Damn they were real!
He walked into the hub, straight past the trader’s lounge he usually frequented and into the bazaar, a maglock for tourists in Solati Reach, habitually crowded and noisy. Perfect place to meet someone who—
‘Nice coat.’
He turned, a girl stood behind him, pale face with a mop of purple hair bringing her up to his shoulder in height, dye or a modification? He couldn’t tell.
‘I like it,’ he replied, her eyes were purple too, modification then.
‘You’re to give me the gun and the box,’ she said and held out her hand.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’
The girl’s porcelain forehead creased. ‘Why not?’
‘There’s been a complication.’
‘What kind?’
‘The worst kind,’ Pietro said. ‘I haven’t been paid.’
The crease deepened. ‘You must follow protocol, otherwise ...’
‘Otherwise what?’
The girl glanced around and stepped in close, her lips inches from his. ‘Or else they kill you and me,’ she whispered.
Pietro smiled. ‘Take me to your contact.’
‘Doesn’t work that way,’ she said. ‘You can’t just—’
‘Change the rules?’ Pietro shrugged. ‘You need the gun to show up somewhere and the DNA wipe I took as proof of the kill. The way I reckon, I’m safe so long as I have them.’
The girl stepped back. ‘You realise they’ll shoot us both.’
‘They can try.’
Chapter 6: The Ambassador
‘Thank you for agreeing to speak with me Ambassador,’ Bertrum said.
‘I understand the matter is urgent, Prefect?’
1427 hours, mid-afternoon. Bertrum had worked until the last hour of the previous day, then activated and adjusted the sleeping compartment in his office to allow him six hours of rest. Whilst he slept, problems would not disappear. In fact, they could only get worse.
Now, after a busy morning, the face on his viewscreen was female, waspish thin and middle aged. Long ago, Ambassador Martha Godwina had played the political games of the Imperial court and lost, her reward, to be banished to a planetary backwater. It served her interests as much as Walden’s to perpetuate a view of Lave at the centre of galactic politics.
‘We are missing a trade factor,’ Bertrum explained. ‘He was last seen in Darahk.’
Godwina arched an eyebrow
. ‘That system is in Federation space, how do you expect the Empire to aid you in this, Prefect?’
‘I was hoping you had some connections,’ Bertrum said. ‘The more eyes available ...’ he left the sentence hanging.
Godwina’s lips quirked into a gloating smile. ‘The great Lave comes to my door begging favours. What has this world come to?’
Bertrum sighed and rubbed the hair on the back of his skull. ‘Ambassador let us be plain. To the rest of the galaxy, if they are aware of us at all, Lave is a dot amongst the stars. To us this is home, the home we know. Yet we are no different from you, merely more unfortunate. We had our time of glory and now it is gone. What will you do when the Empire crumbles and you are in need? Better not to grind your heel in those beneath you. You may want help on the way down.’
Godwina’s smile strengthened. ‘You admit Walden’s charade then? Delightful! Prefect, you make my day.’
Betrum’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of the table. ‘Ambassador, will you help us, or not?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ Godwina replied. ‘Imperial agents will be tasked to find this individual. I trust you have a briefing document for us?’
‘I’ll send it to you directly.’
Godwina snorted. ‘More detailed than the pointless dossier you posted on the station bulletin board I hope?’
Bertrum chewed his lip. ‘I’ll provide all the necessary details.’
‘See that you do,’ Godwina’s image vanished.
Bertrum leaned back in his chair, the click and whine of the servos on his hips angered him further. Years ago, a request from the prefect of Ashoria would have been a chance for Lave’s Imperial ambassador to resurrect her political career. Now, Lave was nothing to the Duval Dynasty. By asking her, I am desperate.
Bertrum’s eyes strayed to the flickering image of Walden on the wall. For nearly a hundred years, the Doctor had ruled Lave through a mixture of cunning, fear and force. You’ve always said there is a plan, he thought, talking silently to the recording. But what is it?
He keyed up the latest financial datanet. Lave led the region of space known as ‘The Old Worlds’. Diso, whilst peaceful and profitable was an agricultural system, Leesti, too divided between competing corporations, Riedquat too unstable, Tsionla ruined by economic depression, Reorte, corporate and competitive, Zaonce, too concerned with itself.
In the last three decades, Walden had ordered his prefects to buy up the agricultural exports of its neighbours and establish a market to the worlds beyond their region. The Empire of Achenar, the nearest galactic power was the obvious choice for a burgeoning mercantile relationship, but Walden insisted on deals with the Federation, centred on Earth, and the far away Alliance of Independent Systems, based around Alioth. The effort was ambitious. Lave could not profit from such a distant trade route directly and all of Bertrum’s projections indicated ruin for the planetary economy. Walden would have the same figures and wouldn’t make the venture unless he was mad, or knew something ...
Bertrum sighed. No matter how long he stared at the data, the unknowable remained unknown.
‘Niamh, display the Atticus Finch dossier, please.’
More information flashed up on the screen, everything LaveSec had gathered on the missing trade factor, his movements and his past appointments. Bertrum frowned. There was something odd, something too neat.
‘Niamh, display facial profile.’
A green light winked on in the ceiling and after a moment, a three dimensional hologram of a man appeared next to Bertrum’s screen on his desk. He stared at the face as it rotated; somewhere between fifty and eighty years of age, with something familiar about it. He checked the records once more. Atticus Finch had never been to Ashoria and never spoken to Bertrum or the Ashorian Administration.
Once again, the answer was out of reach.
‘Niamh, put a call through to my wife, please.’
‘Acknowledged.’
The hologram and dossier vanished and the picturesque image of the Kadia Sea, lapping against the beach of Kowl Island coalesced on the screen in front of Bertrum. After a few minutes, a tired looking woman dressed in a light shirt appeared. Dark brown eyes and a face that made Bertrum’s heart lurch everytime. Her long brown hair was wet and wrapped in a towel.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello Leyla, it’s me,’ Bertum said.
‘Oh,’ the woman’s expression clouded with concern, a thin angular face, vulnerable without makeup. ‘What’s wrong?’
Bertrum sighed again. ‘Nothing, well no, something, I’m not sure.’
‘Will you be coming home?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Can’t be that serious then?’
Bertrum shrugged. ‘I guess not.’
‘Was there another reason you called?’ Leyla asked. ‘Sorry, just I have an appointment ...’
‘I understand,’ Bertrum said shortly. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ He pressed the side of the viewscreen and broke the connection.
He sat in silence for a further twenty minutes, barely breathing or blinking.
Movement on Walden’s screen drew his attention again. The Good Doctor was meeting military officials in Ardu after arriving in a transport shuttle.
Bertrum stood up, ignoring the whir and click of his cybernetic supports. He walked stiffly to the automatic door and out into the main administrative office.
Rows upon rows of tables, stretching away for more than three hundred square metres of bureaucracy. Desk after desk of government machinery, populated by Colonial citizens who’d likely achieved the pinnacle of their life’s ambition to get here, to work in the Interstellar zone of Ashoria.
As always on the few occasions he ventured into the public space, everything stopped. People stood and bowed their heads as he walked past, another mechanism amidst everything else. He could feel the emotions; awe, hatred and pity, the sneaked sidelong glances and the unspoken whispers, waiting for when he’d gone. His aide looked at him in silent appeal, he waved her away.
By the time he reached the elevator he was bathed in cold sweat. The exertion was nothing, the attention, everything. By comparison, the small space was a welcome cocoon. He inserted his ID chit and the lift came alive, dropping swiftly into the depths beneath Ashoria.
Eight floors down and he walked out into a darkened corridor. No lights flickered on down here, no lights ever did. He didn’t need them. The last visit remained fresh in his mind. Nine years since he’d been here, no reason to return before now.
Thirty-six steps to the seat placed facing a locked door. Bertrum eased himself into the chair and activated the speaker panel.
‘Can you hear me?’ he asked.
‘Who’s that?’ said a hoarse voice.
‘That doesn’t matter Ambassador, what matters is, I’m here and I need answers to a few questions ...’
Chapter 7: The Prisoner
‘Wake up.’
Heldaban Kel opened his eyes, blinking slowly to let them acclimatise. Harsh artificial light, white walls, white ceiling and gravity, which meant he was on a station or a planet, bonus.
He was strapped in a chair. On the floor, a discarded remlok survival mask slick with moisture and a puddle of plasifibre. The modern units were designed to sense a life form, attach and deploy the nanosecond they hit hard vacuum. Last thing I remember ... that frakking pilot!
He shivered. No sign of his gun or leather coat.
‘Mister Kel? We need to ask you some questions.’
Kel smiled. The voice came from a speaker plate on the wall; a woman, all business and procedure. He ignored it and tested the straps, locked tight with no wriggle room; wrists neck and ankles, with one around the waist for good measure - professionals.
‘The sooner you answer Mister Kel, the sooner we can move this forward.’
A little irritation in the voice now; perfect. He raised his head.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Your employe
r will have given you clearance codes, we need them.’
‘What’s my incentive?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Payment, what’s the reward?’
Silence. She might be professional, but she still had to think.
‘Mister Kel, you’re in no position to negotiate.’
He shrugged as much as the straps would allow. ‘Fine then, no codes.’
Everything went quiet. He looked around. No visible camera, so he guessed one of the walls was transparent from the other side, made sense to be the same one as the speaker.
‘Mister Kel, you need to understand, you aren’t getting out of this.’
‘We’ll see,’ he replied. He glanced down at the remlok. The units were viable so long as they held charge. It would be a calculated risk, but ...
‘Mister Kel, we can leave you here indefinitely.’
‘If you need codes you can’t.’
Another pause. ‘What do you want Mister Kel?’
‘That’s obvious.’
‘We cannot let you go.’
‘Find someone who can or your agent, Pietro isn’t it? Yeah, he’s dead as soon as he puts a foot out of line.’
* * *
The girl led Pietro from the station bazaar back to the hub, her purple hair bouncing as she walked. They passed another ident swipe and her name flashed briefly on the screen ‘Linley Taim’. Fake or not, anything was better than ‘purple hair’ and he could run a check when he reported in.
Pietro curled his tongue around a molar on the back of his upper jaw, feeling a slight tingle as the location homer activated. Things had moved a little too fast and disappearing before the local agent worked out where he’d gone would be a bad idea. He kept one hand in the leather coat pocket on the metal chit Kel had taken from Finch, an access ID of some sort, but for what? He’d never seen anything like it.
‘We’re here.’
They were standing by a chipped bulkhead hatch marked ‘No Admittance’. Pietro guessed it led into storage compartments. In some stations they ended up homes for the worst kind of people.