“Still think you can get us out of here?” Foluwakemi sneered.
* * *
—
Yuri looked around the domestic disaster zone that was Callum’s flat and wrinkled his nose, partly from the sight, but there was also a weird smell coming from the galley kitchen.
“Don’t we pay him enough for a housekeeping service?” Kohei asked.
Yuri grunted. “Apparently not.”
Two technical officers came in and went over to the small white block in the corner of the room, which was the G3Turing house manager.
“I want a complete memory download,” Yuri told them. “Unlocked files available to my desk in two hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
He walked across the living area, frowning in disapproval at the large number of empty pizza boxes scattered around. “Plenty of people were here,” he said. “He knew he was planning a one-way trip, so what’s the point of clearing up?”
“You think they planned it here?” Kohei said.
“Probably. It doesn’t matter now.”
“So why are we here?”
Yuri pulled a face, unable to fully explain his sense that somehow they’d lost, that Callum was laughing at them. After so many years in the job you got a feel for things, for people in all their crazy glory. His old training back in Russia concentrated on individuals, where everyone was considered suspect, untruthful, corrupt. Now his corporate staff were all strictly procedure-focused, utilizing data trawls and analysis matrices. If they wanted someone, they didn’t go out of the office and hunt them, they just waited until facial recognition algorithms pulled them out of a public street camera. There were no real chases, only drones auto-tracking their targets. It was one of the reasons he enjoyed running the undercover ops division; intelligence gathering was as close as he got to old-school these days. Until Callum Hepburn had come along.
Callum didn’t fit any profile they were used to. He wasn’t motivated by greed or ideology or religion; wasn’t mentally ill or drug addled. Didn’t want to rule the world. Callum was a man in love, and desperate. Best of all, he was smart and tough, unafraid to take chances.
“Do you not think something’s wrong with all this?” Yuri asked.
Kohei let out a small groan. “We got them all. What could be wrong?”
“Yes. We were always going to get them.”
“Not necessarily. It was only because you’re smart enough to work out what was going down that we found Phil Murray.”
“They stuck tape across his mouth. He’d have chewed through eventually.”
“In a disused warehouse.”
“Due a maintenance visit for the lights. And anyway, when Callum took a dive through the portal into exile, we’d have known Murray had been substituted.”
“They’re gone, chief. You need to close the file.”
Yuri stared at a large framed picture on the wall with an August 2091 date along the base. It was Callum and his team gathered around their Ducati 999, all of them with their arms around one another’s shoulders, smiling exuberantly. A tight crew.
“Would you do that for me?” Yuri asked his deputy.
“Chief?”
“If my fiancée had been renditioned, and I was planning to go after her, would you help me, knowing that help would be discovered, and the outcome would mean exile? Permanent exile in the most remote hellhole Connexion could find?”
“Well…I don’t know.”
“No, don’t flatter me; you wouldn’t do it.” Yuri’s forefinger tapped the picture. “Henry Orme’s partner is about to give birth, for God’s sake! Callum didn’t even let him go to the Gylgen plant; he sent him to supervise the Haumea end of the operation where he’d be safe. And the rest, they all care about one another. They’re friends, they face danger together on a weekly basis, they party together, they share the bike. But this…” He stared at the sunlit happy faces, trying to absorb the camaraderie. “To willingly go into an unknown exile together. To make that sacrifice, give up your whole life. Unanimously. I don’t believe it.”
“But…they did do it. They knew we’d send them after Callum, it’s the only way we could be sure this whole rendition thing didn’t leak to the media.”
Yuri moved his finger over to Callum’s head. “Yes. Why, though?”
“They owe him, maybe?”
“No, not owe. Trust. They trust him. Every time they face a disaster, they trust him with their life. He plans every operation. We think they take risks, but actually they don’t. Callum’s too clever for that. He’s got backups and fresh angles and cutoffs all worked out in his head long before they actually take that one step into a danger zone. And that’s what we’re dealing with here.”
“Sorry,” Kohei said. “I just don’t see it.”
Yuri smiled at the picture. “That’s it! We’re not seeing it.”
“Chief?”
His knuckles rapped the frame. “What’s missing? They’re all there. Callum, Moshi, Henry, Alana, Raina. The whole team.”
“Yes? So?”
“So who took the picture?”
* * *
—
It took half an hour, and a lot of shouted insults, but by then Donbul was simply going through the motions. Callum could see doubts troubling the man, that just because he’d come through wearing a guard’s uniform, that didn’t actually make him a guard. That and hope. A way out.
Callum strapped the guard uniform belt around his coat, checked the weapons, and cut the pair of them loose. He stood back, one hand very close to the pistol holster. “Just so we understand each other, I don’t trust you. So keep your distance and no fast moves. I’ve sacrificed everything to come here. Shooting you won’t even register.”
Foluwakemi stretched and rubbed her wrists. Donbul simply glared at him and went over to the drums to find himself new trousers and boots.
Now that the daylight had strengthened, Callum could see the lake was actually a rough circle a couple of hundred meters in diameter. Sitting on the rock shelf just out of the water was a raft made entirely of the yellow drums lashed together.
“It’s a volcanic caldera,” Foluwakemi said, watching him. “There’s a group of them in this section of the canyon. Without them, we’d be dead. They supply all our heat and water.”
Callum glanced up at the phenomenal walls of rock. “And the air? Do they vent that as well?”
“Only sulfur gas. We’re seven kilometers below the planet’s average ground level. That’s why we have air. It’s a tiny pocket, the last on Zagreus. It must have had a full terrestrial atmosphere at one time, maybe a million years ago. But now it’s as thin as Mars, that’s why no one bothered to try and terraform it. You’d have to import a whole new atmosphere. Too expensive, especially when exoworld astronomy has found so many worlds with a nitrogen-based atmosphere close by.”
“How long’s the canyon?”
“Three hundred kilometers, we think. A few of us remember the Orion survey images and news reports. But less than twenty percent is habitable, and this is the only cluster of geothermal vents.”
Callum squinted up into the sky. It had brightened to an astonishingly deep sapphire blue. “Where’s the portal?”
“It’s on some kind of drone blimp, we think,” Donbul said. “They lower it when they’re sending a batch of people through—which only happens at night, so we can’t ever see it. That way we can’t jump on board and go back through the portal. The rest of the time it stays up there somewhere, all nice and safe from us badboys.”
“Makes sense,” Callum muttered. “So it won’t come down again until tonight?”
“Never has,” Foluwakemi said. “But then we’ve never had anyone like you come through before, either.”
“It’ll take security a while to work out what’s happened. As soon as the
y do, they’ll round my crew up and send them through along with Dimon and Akkar.”
“Akkar?” she asked sharply, and crossed herself. “They caught Akkar? Well, shit.”
“They didn’t catch him. He went visible so I could position myself for this. Very visible, actually.”
“You are joking, detoxification man.”
“No joke.”
“Akkar’s coming?”
“Yes. And when he does, we’re all out of here. Everyone goes home.”
“I’ll take you to the longhouses,” Foluwakemi said. “You can see if your wife is there.”
“Thank you.”
“If she’s not…”
Callum grinned weakly. “Don’t worry, I’ll still get you all out.”
* * *
—
It wasn’t far to the collection of buildings that the exiles had built for themselves. Callum ordered Apollo to record everything his screen lenses were capturing. They would all be relying on the images for leverage when he got back to Earth. He didn’t know what to look for at first, so it took him a while to recognize what he was walking toward. In his mind he’d pictured a medieval-style village of circular huts with thatched roofs. Stupid, because Zagreus didn’t have any vegetation; there were no trees for wood or palms. Instead the outcasts had built themselves stone walls three meters high, forming long rectangles. They were roofed with sheets of transparent polythene.
“It comes in big rolls,” Foluwakemi explained. “They send it inside the survival barrels, like everything else. It’s thin, but really tough, thankfully.”
“What else do they give you?”
“Clothes.” She patted her coat. “Seeds, eggs, some tools, a few utensils, basic medicine. Food, of course—to start with. You get enough to last a few months, by which time you should be growing your own.” She shrugged. “At least, that’s the theory some desk expert worked out. In practice, it’s bloody hard. Poor nutrition causes a lot of health problems. And this air’s none too good for us, either. Then there are…disputes.”
There were plenty of people milling around outside. Five new longhouses were under construction. Callum stared at the wheelbarrows that stones were being carried about in, marveling at the ingenuity. Each was made of a barrel cut lengthwise, with a barrel rim as its wheel, strips of barrel forming the handles.
“They’re damn useful,” Foluwakemi admitted reluctantly as she caught him watching.
She went over to one of the crews building a wall. Callum’s hand stayed very close to his pistol as she talked to them. A group started to gather, inspecting him from a distance, their voices a low grumble on the verge of menacing. It was the weapons on his belt that made him stand out, he knew; everyone here would be up-close familiar with the types and who carried that particular combination. He kept his nerve and stared back levelly, as if they were of no consequence.
Then, as he dreaded would happen, someone was striding across the ground toward him, a big man with a dark beard that hung a good twenty centimeters down the front of his coat. He was carrying an axe, its handle made from thick strips of yellow barrel plastic, bound to a stone blade. His supporters in the watcher group started to flow after him.
Foluwakemi turned around. “Oh, shit,” she grunted.
“You,” the big man shouted. “Shithead. Who the fuck are you?”
Callum knew that being reasonable was never going to be an option. He drew the short carbine, switched it to single shot, and fired just in front of the man’s feet—not bothering to take good aim, just showing how nonchalant he was, how he was The Man now. The noise of the shot was astonishingly loud in the thin air. Everyone recoiled.
“I’ve got about seventy rounds,” Callum said clearly, “so I can probably kill about fifty of you before you reach me. Alternatively”—he raised the carbine and flicked on the laser targeting beam, slapping the red dot squarely on the man’s face—“I can take you all back to Earth. Your call.”
The man kept jerking his head about, trying to dodge the beam. Callum kept it aligned pretty well given the circumstances.
“Listen to him, Nafor,” Foluwakemi said. “He came through alone. They didn’t drop any survival barrels with him. That’s never happened before. He wasn’t renditioned. He came here because he wanted to; he’s searching for someone.”
“No way,” Nafor barked. He must have realized how much face he was losing in front of his followers.
“There’s a portal door in my backpack,” Callum said, raising his voice so everyone could hear.
That drew a universal gasp of surprise.
“Oh, yeah,” Callum said contentedly. “You heard that right.” He stopped and made an effort to dial down the arrogance. “I’m the only one who has the access code, so listen good. We are waiting until Connexion exiles my friends here; then—and only then—will I start the thread-up procedure. After that, if you want to come through after me, you’re welcome.” He saw Nafor draw a breath, his mouth opening to speak.
“No!” Callum bellowed. He raised the target dot slightly and fired another shot into the air. “No discussion! No arguing! That’s the way it happens. Now either accept that, or fuck off.”
Very carefully Nafor raised his arms. “You got it, buddy. Anyone who can get me out of here is my friend for life.”
Callum scowled, covering up just how shit-scared he actually was.
Foluwakemi cleared her throat.
“What?” Callum snapped.
“I think I know which longhouse your wife’s in. If you can calm down and not shoot me, I’ll take you there.”
She led him along the tracks between the longhouses, most of which seemed to have gullies of steaming water running alongside them. The gullies branched frequently, taking the water through low arches into individual longhouses. They’d only just started off when he realized that Nafor was following him, along with everybody else, all of them keeping a respectful distance. “I am not the messiah,” he grumbled under his breath.
Foluwakemi opened a door (made from sections of yellow barrel), and they walked into a longhouse. The air inside was thick with strong scents, and hot. The humidity was almost tropical. Hot water flowed down a shallow stone channel running the length of the building.
Callum checked that Apollo was still recording everything he was seeing. Sandy soil was banked up between the water and the walls, with densely planted crops growing out of it. The majority of vegetation was maize, but he recognized tomato plants and avocados, eggplants, breadfruit, dwarf bananas, as well as several varieties he couldn’t place. None of them looked particularly vigorous, as if they were suffering from a universal blight. When he looked up, he saw the polythene was coated in condensation that dribbled steadily toward the walls.
“How long is a day here?” he asked, looking at the sickly leaves.
“Nineteen hours thirty-two minutes,” Foluwakemi said. “It messes with us and the plants, along with the minerals we can’t filter out of the water. Nafor putting his Stone-Age axe through your skull can lower your life expectancy, as well.”
“Is he in charge?”
“He’ll tell you he is. This month, anyway. Someone as big and stupid will go for him soon, if we’re still here. It’s the worst kind of primitive. Frankly, I’m surprised we’ve lasted this long. Each new group that arrives brings their own set of opinions—with a capital O.”
Pens of close-spaced yellow plastic poles marked the end of the vegetation. Scrawny chickens pecked at the rough ground inside; Callum held his breath against the smell. Beyond the pens was a curtain of polythene. Foluwakemi pushed it aside.
Inside was a sickbay with a row of ten cots, all of them occupied. The smell of vomit and feces and diseased breath was a miasma worse than anything the chickens produced. Callum nearly gagged as he scanned along the figures wrapped in blankets. Apollo sent
out a ping for her grains, but there was no answer.
There. Halfway along the row. Thick, filthy, black hair hung limply over the side of a cot. He let out a sob and sank to his knees beside her.
Savi’s face was wrapped in crude gauze bandages, heavily stained with old blood and yellow suppurations. More bandages covered her arms. A leg was splinted. Her breathing was shallow.
The sight of her in this state was terrifying. “Wife?” he whispered.
She inhaled, coughing. “Cal?”
“Yes.” He smiled through his tears. “Yes, it’s me.”
Her head turned, and through the apertures in the bandage mask he saw her eyes open. One of them was a milky white orb. “How can you be here?” she asked.
“Better or worse, remember? I said I will follow you to the ends of the Earth—and beyond. I would never break that promise. Not to you.”
* * *
—
Kohei stood inside the Brixton facility’s Monitoring and Coordination Center, staring around at the wallscreens with their high-resolution images of potential ecological doom. He’d never really paid attention to the ancient industrial sites that human companies had abandoned all across the planet. Threats of midlevel disaster were a constant background buzz in his life, like taxes and online crime; you just lived with it. But now he was actually watching an unending parade of dilapidated tanks and pipes and storage bunkers flowing across the screens, with associated symbology highlighting impending problems.
“How much crap is out there?” he asked in dismay.
Fitz Adamova gave him a knowing grin. “Haumea station dumps about a quarter million tons a week. That’s mostly low-level contaminants and their secure containers.” He pointed to an Iraqi nuclear store. “And then there’s the containment vessels themselves, along with the buildings and local soil. It adds up, volume-wise.”