Scavenger Alliance

  Time had been passing horribly slowly during the day, but now it started racing by. It seemed barely a couple of minutes before I was back at Parliament House with all three of the off-worlders clustered round me.

  “I need to take you upstairs right away. I’ve an important meeting with Donnell.”

  I hustled the off-worlders across Reception and upstairs to their rooms, then hurried to Donnell’s apartment. Once outside his door, I stopped, torn between reluctance to start this talk and eagerness for it to be over.

  The door looked exactly like genuine wood, except where one deep scratch showed the natural grey of flexiplas under the surface. Beside it was a golden metal plate. Six years ago, putting your hand on that plate had made it play a glorious medley of soaring notes. Since then, all the high notes had gradually faded out, so now it just made a deep grunting noise. Donnell said it sounded like a falling star with chronic indigestion.

  I took a deep breath and put my hand on the plate. I heard the grunting noise, and the sound of Donnell calling out in response. “Come in.”

  I opened the door and went inside. Donnell had been standing looking out of the window, but he turned towards me and gestured at a chair.

  I went and sat down. It was the same chair again, the one I always sat in during a crisis. I had a ridiculous urge to ask to sit somewhere else, in case there really was a curse on the thing.

  Donnell came to sit opposite me. “I talked to Cage as planned. He agreed to everything, but was stubborn about waiting until April for the wedding. We settled on a compromise of the middle of March if there was an early spring, and early April if there wasn’t.”

  I stared down at my hands. The middle of March was less than two months away.

  “We can’t let this situation drag on until March anyway,” said Donnell. “We have to be ready to take action against Cage by the end of February at the latest. Don’t you agree?”

  “Definitely.”

  Donnell leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Now I’ve made an actual agreement with Cage, I think I have to tell Machico the full story. Apart from anything else, I’ll need his help approaching possible blackmail victims and talking them into working against Cage. The question is whether I should tell the rest of my officers as well.”

  I pulled a face. I could see Donnell’s point about needing Machico’s help, but I hated the idea of all the rest of Donnell’s officers knowing about my fake engagement to Cage as well. I trusted Aaron, Vijay and Weston to be totally discreet, but I was less confident about Julien and Luther. Tad already knew I had a serious problem, and was trying to work out what it was. One unwary comment in front of him could give him the clue he needed.

  I wasn’t sure why I was so eager to keep the secret of my engagement from Tad. Perhaps it was because of the days I’d have to spend fishing with him, wondering what he thought about it, whether he understood it was a desperate response to a desperate situation, or despised me as a liar.

  “I agree you have to tell Machico,” I said, “but it would be less embarrassing for me if the rest of them didn’t know.”

  “It would be less embarrassing for me too. Chaos knows, I’m not eager to admit to my officers that I’ve been driven to lying to Cage because I’m struggling to hold the alliance together, but your safety comes first.”

  Donnell leaned forward in his chair. “If you find this situation getting too difficult for you, then you must tell me at once. If necessary, there’s another option I can use.”

  I guessed the other option was shooting Cage, and that would create as much havoc in the alliance as a leadership challenge. “I can cope with being engaged to Cage, so long as I don’t have to spend time alone with him. I couldn’t cope with being married to him though.”

  “You’re absolutely not going to marry Cage.” Donnell stood up. “I’ll get Machico to join us now so we can discuss what you’ve found out about the off-worlders, but I’ll leave explaining the Cage situation to him until after you’ve gone.”

  “I’ve been too worried about Cage to think about why the off-worlders came to New York,” I admitted. “It doesn’t seem very important at the moment.”

  “Any potential source of trouble is important at the moment. If the off-worlders do anything damaging, then Cage will blame me for trusting them, and try to seize control of the alliance.”

  Donnell went over to the door, opened it, stuck his head out into the corridor, and shouted. “Mac!”

  He came to sit down again, and a minute or two later Machico strolled in through the door. “You screamed, oh beloved leader?”

  Donnell pointed at a spare chair. “We’re having a conference about the off-worlder situation.”

  Machico picked up the squashed remains of a paper cup from the chair, threw it in the waste bin, and sat down.

  “Have people fallen for my act of being interested in that girl with the ridiculous bird name? I keep forgetting whether she’s called Griffin, Roc, or …” Donnell snapped his fingers. “Phoenix, that’s it!”

  Machico laughed. “You’re not just interested in her, Sean, you’re so jealous that you don’t even trust your own officers near her without either your daughter or my wife on guard.”

  Donnell made a choking noise. “Don’t spare my feelings here, Mac. Am I obsessed with the girl?”

  “You are totally and utterly besotted,” said Machico, in a solemn voice. “It’s because of your age, Sean. You’re making a desperate bid to reclaim your lost youth. You’re …”

  Donnell held up a hand to stop him. “I get the idea. Chaos weeping, all I did was play with the girl’s hair for a few minutes.”

  “You haven’t looked at a woman since you split up with Keira,” said Machico. “If you’d stopped to think about it, you’d have realized people were bound to over react, but you rushed into things as usual. Acting rapidly and decisively is a vital quality for a leader, but you always take things to extremes, and the rest of us have to pick up the pieces afterwards. I’ve no idea why I’ve put up with it all these years.”

  “Enough preaching about my faults,” said Donnell. “Is this causing trouble?”

  “Not exactly trouble,” said Machico. “Some of the Resistance women feel that if you’re finally going to marry again, then it should be to one of them rather than an off-worlder. You may get a few advances. I just hope Natsumi doesn’t start throwing herself at you again.”

  I gave him a shocked look.

  Donnell groaned. “There’s no need to drag up ancient history, Mac. Nothing ever happened between me and Natsumi. Anyway, what about the way you behaved on Year Day 2378?”

  “I was young, foolish, and I’d drunk four glasses of Kasim’s lethal fruit punch,” said Machico, in a dignified voice. “Getting back to more recent events, there’s a huge amount of gossip about Raeni joining the Resistance.”

  “How do our Resistance people feel about her?” asked Donnell.

  Machico shrugged his shoulders. “If you want Raeni to join us, people are willing to make the girl welcome, but they’re expecting some problems.”

  Donnell turned to look at me. “Blaze, you mentioned you were friends with Raeni. Perhaps you can help her settle into life in the Resistance.”

  There was something far too artificially casual about the way he said that. I frowned at him. “Did you invite Raeni to join the Resistance because you want her to replace Hannah as my friend?”

  Donnell looked evasive. “You told me that Raeni was hard working and had great integrity. Major was clearly discarding her from Queens Island as part of his feud with Rogue, so I invited her to join the Resistance to make sure she was safe. I admit the fact you liked the girl was an added incentive.”

  He firmly changed the subject. “I’d like your report on the off-worlders now, Blaze. I’ve tried talking to Braden, but I can hardly get a word out of the man. Natsumi doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere with Phoenix either. Have you found out anything useful from Tad?”

  I t
ried to thrust aside my worries about Cage, and focus on Tad. “Most of it seems more odd than useful, but you were right about Tad being someone very important on Adonis, because he mentioned having powerful friends. The off-worlders don’t all work together. It’s possible that Tad works with Phoenix, but Braden is just someone Tad met at a gym.”

  “At a gym,” Donnell repeated. “Why the chaos would someone very important on Adonis come to Earth with someone he met at a gym?”

  “Tad needed a pilot to fly the aircraft,” said Machico.

  “If Tad’s so important, he shouldn’t need to hire a random pilot at a gym,” said Donnell. “Anything else?”

  “Tad knows too much, and about things that don’t make any sense.” I tried to remember the mental list I’d been making. “He knows the districts of New York, can identify Canada geese, and understands Morse code messages. There was the strange way he reacted to the falling stars as well. He seemed to have no idea what they were to start with, but then he suddenly said they were starbirds from Danae, and started talking about them living on cliffs and hunting mice-like creatures.”

  “And he’s right,” said Donnell. “They are starbirds from …”

  He broke off and turned to Machico. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I know it’s impossible, but that boy’s acting exactly as if he’s webbed and his mind is pulling information from the Earth data net.”

  “It’s completely impossible,” said Machico. “Nobody has been webbed for over half a century. My older brother’s year group were the last of them; webbed when they were seven years old. The next year group had their webbing postponed for two years because of component shortages, and then there was the shock announcement. We couldn’t manufacture the web implants any longer. It was the first technology to be lost because of experts leaving for other worlds, and the first warning sign that Earth’s infrastructure was falling apart.”

  He gave a strange laugh. “I hated my brother for having what I would never have. He could access the Earth data net with a single thought, search through the accumulated knowledge of humanity, and view thousands of images directly with his brain. I had to work with a clumsy wall vid. I felt like a stupid tortoise chasing a brilliant hare.”

  He grimaced. “Then I found out I was the lucky one after all. Implanted webs needed retuning every year or so to compensate for changes in the brain. Earth didn’t have enough experts to make webs any longer, and it didn’t have the equipment or specialists to tune them either. I watched my parents and my brother go through torment as their links to the Earth data net grew erratic, and eventually broke down entirely. My brilliant brother wasn’t brilliant any longer, and I heard him crying at night for the visions he couldn’t see, and the voices he couldn’t hear.”

  “I’m the key few years younger than you,” said Donnell. “I don’t remember the last people being webbed, just the suicide decade when the webs were breaking down. It was a total nightmare as a child, never knowing which adult would crack next. My uncle seemed to have readjusted to life without a web perfectly well, but then …”

  He shook his head. “Never mind the past. The point is that if any world still has the technology to web someone, it would be Adonis.”

  “Yes, but even if Tad was webbed, he couldn’t be accessing the Earth data net from here,” said Machico. “None of the wall vids or other technology in New York can link to it any longer and …”

  He broke off and frowned. “Actually, I may be wrong about that. Webbed people would have a direct link to the main Earth data net, while the wall vids get their operating software from an entirely separate technical area. Not that it matters, because it’s impossible for Tad to be webbed. Perhaps he’s one of the rare people with an eidetic memory, who can remember everything they’ve ever read.”

  Donnell pulled a face of disbelief. “I could believe Tad had read a lot of information about New York before coming here, but why would he read about Morse code and the starbirds of Danae?”

  Machico waved his hands. “Those are just some things he read about years ago by pure chance.”

  “Pure chance.” Donnell stood up and headed for the door. “Let’s see just how many things Tad has read about by pure chance.”

  Machico and I stood up and hurried after him. When we arrived in corridor B6, Donnell thumped on Tad’s door, and all three off-worlders appeared from their rooms.

  “Have you been enjoying learning about hunting and fishing?” Donnell asked.

  Tad nodded, while Phoenix gave a depressed grunt.

  “I’ve always loved fishing,” said Donnell. “I lived in Ireland until I was eight years old. My parents had a house in a place called Durrow. It was right by the beach, we had our own boat, and once a week my father would take me sea fishing.”

  “But Durrow isn’t on the coast of Ireland,” said Tad. “It’s inland.”

  Donnell smiled at him. “I know it is. I just wondered if you’d know it too, and of course you did because you’re webbed. The moment you thought about Durrow, the information about it appeared in your mind. Now tell me who the chaos you are, and how you have fifty-year-old technology imbedded in your skull.”

  Tad glanced at Phoenix, then faced Donnell again and took a deep breath before answering. “I’m Thaddeus Wallam-Crane.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was aware of Donnell laughing, great booms of laughter that somehow weren’t funny but frightening. My eyes were fixed on Tad’s apprehensive face. My head was replaying memories of children weaving in and out of portals while chanting their ritual song.

  “Dial it! Dial it! Portal, dial it! We’re ordering you by Newton. We’re commanding you by Einstein. We’re conjuring you by Thaddeus Wallam-Crane!”

  Donnell’s laughter suddenly stopped, and he spoke in a voice that had the brittle edge of ice cracking under a heavy boot. “Thaddeus Wallam-Crane invented the portal in 2206 when he was sixty-four years old. If he was alive now in 2408, he’d be …”

  He hesitated, and Machico supplied the number for him. “Two hundred and sixty-six years old.”

  “I’m obviously not the Thaddeus Wallam-Crane who invented portal technology,” said Tad. “I’m his heir, Thaddeus Wallam-Crane the Eighth.”

  Donnell took a deep breath. “There are something like two hundred colony worlds in the star systems of Alpha sector, two hundred more in Beta sector, and a hundred in Gamma sector. Five hundred worlds to choose from, Thaddeus Wallam-Crane the Eighth. Every single one of them would welcome the heir of the fabulously rich and powerful Wallam-Crane family, but you chose to come to my world, to the world that your ancestor’s portals destroyed, to Earth!”

  Donnell’s voice was growing louder with every word. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and turned to see Luther and Julien watching us from the end of the corridor. They must have come to find out what all the noise was about.

  “And of all the cities on Earth, you chose to come to New York. My city!” Donnell was shouting now, his voice echoing down the corridor. “And of all the buildings in this city, you chose to come to this one!”

  “I had to come to Earth, and to New York in particular, because I needed a component from my ancestor’s original prototype portal.” Tad’s voice seemed like a whisper after Donnell’s shouting. “That prototype was stored in the Wallam-Crane Science Museum in Manhattan. I retrieved the component successfully, but then we found our aircraft was damaged, so there was no choice but to …”

  Donnell cut into his sentence. “Enough!” He stabbed a finger at Phoenix and then at Braden, the red targeting light of his gun flashing on each of them in turn. “Bird woman and Braden, into your rooms. Now!”

  Phoenix and Braden gave last anxious looks at Tad before obeying. Donnell slammed the doors shut on them, glanced round, and saw Luther and Julien. “You two, find the keys to those rooms and lock the off-worlders in!”

  He didn’t wait for a response, just grabbed Tad’s arm and towed him along the corridor. Mach
ico and I chased after them, and Luther and Julien hastily jumped aside to let us past.

  My stunned brain finally started thinking. As the heir of the inventor of portal technology, bearing the same name as his famous ancestor, Tad wouldn’t just be an immensely wealthy and privileged person on Adonis, but practically worshipped. If an ordinary off-worlder was an enemy of the Earth Resistance, then Tad was the enemy!

  Donnell took a left turn and then a right, dragging Tad along with him. I scurried after them, with Machico at my shoulder. I could hear running footsteps, but I didn’t bother to look over my shoulder to see who was following us. I was too worried about where we were going. If Donnell took Tad down to Reception, and told the division members who he was, then the boy would be ripped apart.

  Donnell took another right turn, and I let out a gasp of relief. We weren’t going downstairs then. Of course we weren’t. What had I been thinking, imagining Donnell throwing Tad to the division wolves to be torn apart?

  Donnell suddenly stopped, and opened a very familiar door. I was instantly tense again. I’d been both right and wrong earlier. Donnell was taking Tad to the stairs, but not the ones leading down to Reception. We were going up to the roof!

  Donnell still had Tad by one arm, yanking him up the flight of narrow stairs. Machico thrust his way ahead of me, his figure blocking my view until we went through the doorway to the roof. It was dark up here, the only light coming from the last red ribbons of the sunset fading in the west. I couldn’t see either Donnell or Tad for a second, then I spotted two dark figures by the edge of the roof.

  I took a few steps towards them, but was scared to go too close. If Donnell was considering throwing Tad off the roof, then my intervening might just …

  “Look at it!” Donnell released Tad and waved both his arms in an expansive gesture aimed at Manhattan. “Look what your family have done to New York, Thaddeus Wallam-Crane the Eighth. For centuries, this city was a magnificent place, packed with millions of people, illuminated by dazzling lights that could be seen from orbit.”