‘Of course. Yes.’
The blue light went off. Jenifa stared at the dead handset for a long moment before replacing it in the cradle. ‘Crud!’
*
Chaing got back to the safe house an hour after sunset. The wind from the sea had been constant all day and now clouds were scudding in, blocking any view of the Ring glinting across the night sky.
He found Jenifa sitting at her usual chair, the living room illuminated by five wall lights that seemed dimmer than usual, casting long shadows off the piles of paperwork. For once she wasn’t reading through files. He took one look at her pensive expression. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell, but he knew her well enough to see the burning anger held back like a beast in a cage.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘I found something, today, sir. It might be our first lead.’
‘Excellent.’ He slung the briefcase on the table and sat beside her. ‘Show me.’
Reluctantly, she handed over a slim folder. There were only four sheets of paper inside, a ship’s manifest. He skimmed through the typed lines. Shrugged. ‘Looks okay to me.’
‘Does it, sir?’ The tone was pure aggression.
‘Is there a problem?’ His leg had been aching all day, the painkillers were making him feel queasy, and the sense of frustration from the going-nowhere investigation was turning him tired and short tempered. What he wanted was a rest, a quiet meal, and a decent sleep.
‘I don’t know, captain,’ she replied levelly. ‘Read it again, please.’
To duck out of an argument he glanced at the file again. The manifest was for the Gothora III, which had just arrived in the harbour – a small independent ship that carried cargo up and down the coast, with agents in every port pushing their contacts for consignments. One of hundreds of similar ships, whose captain-owners were up to their eyeballs in debt and struggling to pay the state maritime enterprise office its percentage.
Gothora III had arrived from Helston, delivering crates of spare parts to several Port Chana companies that specialized in servicing agricultural vehicles. It was due to depart in a few days for Perranporth, after taking on supplies and a new cargo.
‘I still don’t see anything wrong,’ he told her.
‘The cargo has been changed,’ she said.
Another glance at the papers, exasperation building now. ‘Yeah, it was due to take timber along to Lynton. The agent switched it. Perfectly normal for this kind of small-time operation. Someone undercut them, or the Perranporth contract pays better.’
‘The economic investigation team at the PSR office is supposed to be on the lookout for change.’
‘Something out of the ordinary is their actual brief.’
‘Which is why they singled this out in the first place. An unexplained change.’
‘And why they haven’t followed it up. It’s perfectly normal.’
‘It’s the only one.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve looked through hundreds of transactions, every type of company for fifty kilometres – chemicals, ores, engineering, agricultural, electrical, cars, lorry haulage firms, train freight, even banks. All the abnormal orders and cancellations and alterations. Thousands of the crudding things. This is the only ship that’s changed everything. You’re quite right: other ships have added to their cargo, they’ve had orders withdrawn and given to other captains, it happens all the time. But the Gothora III’s entire cargo has been changed, along with its destination. All in the last three days.’
Chaing frowned, his finger tracing down the manifest. ‘Engineering supplies for Rodriguez Tooling, and Katina Precision Milling, type not listed. Hmm. The order was put together by South Coast Wide Shipping.’ He glanced up at Jenifa. ‘Are they legitimate?’
‘I checked with the state enterprise register. South Coast Wide is over forty years old, founded and owned by someone called Lubbeke, employs nine people in its office. All perfectly normal.’
‘Well, they would have to be,’ Chaing murmured.
‘So?’
‘Unusual,’ Chaing agreed. He opened the bottle of painkillers and popped a couple of pills. ‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. If it is something the Warrior Angel is involved with, I don’t want to warn them off, so we don’t tell Director Husnan’s people.’
‘You want to keep it from the PSR?’
‘I want to keep it from the Warrior Angel. That’s why you and I are here boring ourselves stupid with this cruddy paperwork. Stonal doesn’t trust the Port Chana PSR, remember? Tomorrow we make some quiet enquiries. We’ll need the Gothora III’s registry documents from the marine registry, and a listing for Rodriguez Tooling, and Katina Precision Milling from the state enterprise office. I also want PSR files on the crew.’
‘If they have any,’ Jenifa said.
‘Route that request through Section Seven in Varlan. They can pull the information from their central records; that way, no one else will know we’re asking.’
‘All right.’
‘Then first thing tomorrow, you and I are going down to the docks and taking a look at the Gothora III for ourselves.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘So we’re not doing anything tonight?’
‘No more paperwork, no.’ He unbuttoned his uniform jacket and slipped it off. The painkillers were dulling the ache in his leg, and interest in the Gothora III had banished his lethargy. ‘But you and I are going to draw up a strategy to monitor this curious ship. And then we’re going to bed so I can thank you properly.’ He knew he was playing with fire, but he just couldn’t stop.
*
Jenifa bit back on her impatience as they climbed the eternal spiral stairs up the inside of the lighthouse that perched on the end of Port Chana’s harbour wall. When they arrived at the docks that morning, they quickly identified three decent observation points. Two of them they ruled out on grounds of practicality; both were in wharfside buildings with a lot of people. Chaing in his current state would always draw attention. So . . . the lighthouse it was. The keeper was startled when Chaing showed his PSR badge, but smart enough not to complain. As Chaing pointed out, he was the only person who knew they were here, so if that knowledge leaked there would only be one arrest.
Chaing took the stairs so crudding slowly, his crutch clattering on the stone steps, and had to stop for a rest every couple of circuits. They reached the lantern room seventeen minutes after they started up.
Jenifa shrugged out of her backpack, and started setting up the tripod. Chaing opened a window and trained a powerful pair of binoculars on the Gothora III, which was berthed two wharfs down the harbour from their position.
‘I am crudding shattered,’ he complained.
Jenifa nodded as if being sympathetic. She was pleased with herself for containing her hatred last night. But her strength had allowed her to overcome any emotional weakness, so she held her tongue, biding her time as they worked out how best to mount an observation on the Gothora III. Thanks to Yaki’s scepticism, she still wasn’t a hundred per cent certain about his heritage, which was deeply frustrating. Part of her was so sure. She needed absolute proof, though. It was a real shame the link detector wasn’t going to arrive until tonight. Her discovery of the Gothora III was exactly the kind of thing he would warn the Warrior Angel about. She’d even considered holding off telling him, but that was an outright dereliction of duty.
She fixed the camera with its huge telephoto lens onto the tripod, and focused it on the Gothora III. The mid-deck cranes were offloading its cargo, winching the heavy wooden crates onto waiting flatbed trucks. She zoomed in on the crew members standing round the open holds, and waited patiently until they were facing her before snapping off several shots.
‘Looking pretty normal,’ she muttered.
‘Our targets aren’t going to march on board in broad daylight.’
‘You think they’re already there?’
‘I don’t
know. I doubt it, though. Not enough escape routes if we do raid the ship.’
‘So they’ll come aboard last minute?’
‘Impossible to say. You told me they all just vanished after Hawley Docks. That kind of target is hard to capture.’
‘Then we just give up?’ she taunted.
‘Not at all. Once we understand them, we’ll know how to approach. They must know the PSR is hunting them.’
Jenifa was glad he was still peering through the binoculars so he couldn’t see her guilty flush. Castillito had clearly known every aspect of their mission. But he must know that. So he’s playing a double bluff, right? ‘You’re probably correct. But you and I are still one step ahead.’
She waited for him to respond. When she looked up from the camera, she saw his back was rigid. His binoculars weren’t pointing at the Gothora III any more, either.
‘Chaing?’
‘We’re not alone.’
It was the dead tone he used which sent a chill down her limbs. ‘What?’
‘Warehouse five. Remember it? The one with the offices along the front? We considered it when we arrived.’ He handed her the binoculars. ‘Good vantage point, but too many people would have seen me struggling up to the fifth floor. Take a look.’
With a growing sense of trepidation she swung the binoculars round to warehouse five, concentrating on the highest row of windows. It was a big building with granite walls and a curving corrugated-iron roof. A huge sliding doorway dominated the end, with flatbed trucks and forklifts moving in and out constantly. The opening was framed by offices. She could see through the windows on the three lower floors. People were sitting at desks, answering telephones, calling to each other, hurrying out to the warehouse floor carrying batches of urgent papers. The fourth-floor windows were grimy, the rooms inside given over to storage of some kind, while the fifth was practically deserted. She almost missed it – a single small pane had been removed from one of the iron-framed windows on the fifth floor. Someone was inside, standing a metre or so away from the gap, a pair of binoculars pressed to his face.
‘Crudding Uracus,’ she hissed. She took a step back, filled with a horrible vision of the other watcher taking a photo of her face.
‘So . . .’ Chaing said. ‘Either Section Seven is running another dark operation just like ours that they haven’t told me about, or the Fallers are also curious about the Gothora III. And I don’t think it’s Section Seven.’
*
Captain Fajie’s office was on the third floor of the PSR offices. Naturally, Chaing thought petulantly as he wheezed his way up the final flight of stairs. He’d taken some painkillers on the taxi ride back from the harbour. They didn’t seem to make much difference.
Fajie looked up as he limped in. She didn’t even bother to put on a pleased-to-see-you expression.
Chaing used his crutch to push the door shut, and sank into the chair. ‘We have a problem,’ he said.
‘My team is working as hard as they can, Comrade,’ Fajie said defensively. ‘You can’t expect instant results, not with this much paperwork involved. They’re dedicated people.’
‘I’m sure they are,’ Chaing said. He took out his small Section Seven badge and pinned it to his lapel.
Fajie stiffened. ‘I did wonder,’ she said sullenly.
‘Relax, I’m not here to deliver a reprimand.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘So much cynicism. I need you to arrange a new squad for me.’
‘What’s the operation?’
‘No operation. We’re not even having this conversation. There is no paperwork. Do not use the telephones to call people.’
‘You want me to run a dark operation? Crud, Chaing, I’ve got to clear it with Director Husnan.’
‘Answer me this: how many nests are active in Port Chana right now?’
‘None. We have a good record on that front, at least.’
‘Wrong answer. I’ve just encountered one.’
‘You can’t . . .’ She looked seriously worried. ‘There’s a nest?’
‘Yes. And for one to exist without this office even picking up a hint is something I find deeply disturbing.’
‘Right.’
‘So no Director Husnan. You will hand-pick five of your people that you personally can vouch for and allocate them some aspect of the current investigation that requires them to be reassigned outside this building. We will convene in the Decroux Cafe in two hours, and I will brief them. We’re going to run an observation on the nest; follow its members, find out where they’re based. Then they will be taken out. I’m calling my director to get a detachment of Marines down here.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Fajie said. ‘You can depend on me.’
5
Stonal was hoping for something impressive when he walked into the crypt. New computators, their magnetic spools spinning fast. Big exotic instruments clustered round the Commonwealth machine. Dramatic, dynamic progress. Faustina had certainly sounded animated enough on the phone.
Instead there was the maser, which looked like a fat telescope fixed to the end of a hospital X-ray machine. It wasn’t even plugged in; big coils of cable lay on the floor next to its pedestal. Apart from that, all he could see was a small table with what looked like a home-built radio sitting on it. There was no casing, just a metal frame supporting naked electrical circuit boards and glowing cathode tubes. Faustina was standing beside it. She was the only person in the crypt.
‘Where is everyone?’ he asked. The advanced science division normally had about twenty technicians and researchers in the crypt.
‘I have them working in our other laboratories this morning.’
‘And the reason for that . . . ?’
‘Is for security,’ she said, as if trying out the word for the first time. ‘This is possibly a little sensitive. Politically, that is. I may be wrong, of course.’
Now Stonal was deeply curious; Faustina simply didn’t do political at any level. ‘When you called me, you said you’d made progress.’
‘I said there had been a development,’ she countered.
‘Please, no semantics. What’s happened?’
‘We were calibrating the maser when I noticed some interference.’
‘From the machine?’
‘Yes. The emissions were very fast and very regular, operating in the microwave band, not the link frequencies the Eliters use – which is what we’d expect from Commonwealth technology. I had a theory.’ She rested her hand on the newly assembled radio apparatus. With a rather too-knowing smile, she flicked a toggle switch, cleared her throat portentously, and picked up a microphone. ‘Are you receiving me?’
‘I can hear you,’ a voice replied from the circular speaker fixed to the contraption’s frame.
Stonal gave the Commonwealth machine a shocked look. ‘Is that . . . ?’
Faustina nodded, her smile insufferably proud. ‘Oh yes.’ She held out the microphone. ‘Try it.’
He took the microphone. ‘Hello?’
‘Greetings, human. We come in peace. Take me to your leader so I may serve you.’
‘What?’
‘Fried or baked?’
‘Uh—?’
‘Serve, get it? That’s a first-contact joke. Mind you, it is several thousand years old, and probably wasn’t all that funny back then, either. So I guess the old ones aren’t always the best ones after all.’
Stonal gave Faustina a bewildered glance; this was so not part of any scenario he’d rehearsed in his mind.
She just shrugged. ‘Think of it as a very smart and precocious thirteen-year-old.’
‘I heard that.’
He brought the microphone up to his lips. ‘What are you?’
‘You’re looking at a custom-built life-support pod with enhanced medical capabilities. In other words, I keep people alive in space emergencies.’
‘Custom-built? In the human Commonwealth?’
‘Correct.’
‘Uracus!’
/>
‘That’s your local bad-god, right?’
‘Uracus was . . . a dangerous part of the Void.’
‘Well, thank crap we’re not there any more, huh?’
‘Are you alive?’
‘Ah, a philosophical question. Okay: I was born human. My thoughts were placed in this machine for safekeeping after my body started to be eggsumed. So you tell me if I’m a living thing. Personally, I think I’d pass the Turing test with ease.’
‘The what?’
‘It’s a test to examine an entity for sentience.’
‘Wait – you were eggsumed?’
‘Yes, all of us were. Except for Laura, of course. Nigel managed to rescue her.’
‘You knew Mother Laura?’ he whispered in awe. ‘Who are you?’
‘Joey Stein. Hyperspace theorist, at your service.’
‘You were one of Laura’s companions in the Forest!’
‘Is there an echo in here? Yes. I was trapped in a timeloop for three millennia, then jailbreaked just in time to get the shit kicked out of me by the quantumbuster. If there are any media companies still active back in the Commonwealth, they’re gonna be bidding trillions for my story.’
‘So you’ve been watching us from space since the Great Transition?’
‘As best I could. Plenty of my sensors were damaged in the blast. Plus, I collided with a Tree, and stuck to it.’
‘3,788-D,’ Stonal said quickly.
‘That’s the one.’
‘It was you. You diverted the Liberty missile.’
‘Yep. Got it to strike where it would do the most good. Smashed that fucker apart like it was made of glass.’
‘And flew down to Bienvenido afterwards.’
‘Flew is a bit of an exaggeration. Plummet is closer. I had a tiny bit of thrust left, so the impact didn’t break me apart.’
‘And you brought her with you,’ Stonal said coldly. The wily friendliness of the machine was starting to annoy him.
‘Yes.’
‘To subvert our whole society. I should have you dropped into the deepest ocean, or buried at the bottom of a mine shaft.’
‘Whoa there, big fella. Nobody’s subverting anything. I exist to sustain my cargo’s life, period.’