Kay took a quick breath. She rose, hugging herself, and went to the window. Finally she turned and faced him. “I had to,” she said. “Mac, I promise…it’s for the best. Our Harmonic society depends on it.”
Kay sat across from him, the two armchairs in her office drawn close together. She huddled in her seat as words spilled out from her.
It had all started nine months previously, she said. Vancour had been on the run, with evidence proving Gunnison had orchestrated the thrown Peacefights. Kay had found herself in disgrace for not flagging Vancour as a danger to start with. Then Kay had “discovered” that Amity Vancour’s birth chart shared a karmic link with Gunnison’s.
“There’s a karmic link between her and Johnny?” Mac’s stunned look wasn’t an act. What a ballsy move.
Kay pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Yes, but I – I think I overestimated the importance of it,” she said faintly. “And Johnny…well, once he started thinking about it, he really latched onto the idea. You know: how can the two of them be karmically linked, when he’s a force for Harmonic good, and she’s a traitor? Does that mean he could be a traitor? Or that she really isn’t? And so on. And on. He…” She trailed off, hugging herself.
Mac sat staring at her, taking in the implications of what sounded like Gunnison in the grips of an obsession. Remembering that he was being supportive, he rose and squeezed her shoulder. He started to pour two glasses of water from the jug on her sideboard.
Kay smiled weakly. “Something stronger?”
He poured them both a swig of Scotch, though he had no intentions of losing his wits just now. Kay took a quick, tense gulp. It was the first time since he’d known her that she’d drunk anything stronger than champagne.
“So how long has this been going on?” Mac asked.
Kay grimaced. “Since I told him, I think. But I only knew about it after Vancour was found guilty. That’s when it really seemed to hit him – remember, he stopped presiding over the World for Peace trials back in June? The thought of their karmic link just kept preying on him, worse and worse. So I looked at the charts again. And I realized that their karmic link was a kind of…inverse one.”
“Inverse,” repeated Mac.
Kay gave him a quick look. “When his luck is up, hers is down. So the fact that she was in a correction camp actually meant that Johnny’s luck was on the upswing.”
Ups and downs. Holy hell, thought Mac. Gunnison had been talking about his supposed link with Vancour – the need to keep her “down”. This has been preying on the man’s mind for months.
He cleared his throat. “So…let me get my head around this. If Vancour were to die…”
“Oh, that would be wonderful!” gasped Kay. “But she hasn’t. She just keeps hanging on, and now Johnny’s latched onto that as well. He’s convinced that so long as she’s still alive, even if she’s in dire straits, his own fate can never achieve its true glory.”
The dark mirror taunts me I am in despair. It had been Gunnison’s handwriting after all on the strange birth chart Mac had seen on his desk. The man had to be completely breaking down.
Mac pushed the electric thought away and kept his expression concerned. He leaned forward. “Listen, kid, have you never thought of…well, I don’t know, hastening Vancour’s demise? If it would ease Johnny’s mind?”
“I can’t! Johnny’s determined that no one should interfere, that fate has to speak for itself. He told the directors of Harmony Five not to treat Vancour differently to any other prisoner. I’ve tried to get past them, but…” Kay shook her head miserably.
Mac had known there was a reason. Otherwise Kay would have ensured that Vancour didn’t last a day. How can I use this? he was thinking frantically.
Kay took another quick sip. “Anyway, I’ve been hoping that the Day of Three Suns will jolt Johnny back to his old self. Oh, Mac, it has to! Thousands of people cheering him, taking another country into the Harmonic fold…”
“But now Vancour’s escaped,” said Mac intently. “Which means…what? That the dame’s on an upswing?”
“Yes.” Kay gave Mac a wretched glance. “He doesn’t know yet. The call came through to me. I told the Harmony Five director that he was dead if Johnny found out Vancour was gone. So for now, he’s still telling Johnny that the numbers haven’t changed – but it’s been almost a week and I don’t know how much longer I can keep it quiet before Vancour maybe surfaces somewhere and—”
“Wait. Numbers?”
“Johnny doesn’t want them to know he’s especially interested in Vancour, in case it affects how they treat her. So he waits for the call from Harmony Five every day, after they count the prisoners. Mac, if he finds out she’s gone…”
“What?” Mac leaned forward. “What do you think he’d do?” If she thinks he’d commit suicide, I’d tell him right now – even with Cain poised to take power.
Kay slowly shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think he could become violent – lash out, try anything to restore the balance. It wouldn’t be good, not for any of us.”
Mac sat motionless. No. That didn’t sound good at all.
“If Vancour’s alive, she has got to be recaptured,” went on Kay. “And then it’ll be all right, because they’ll put her to death just like any other runaway. I’ll have proof I can show to Johnny.”
“What can I do?” said Mac urgently.
“Be a pal and cover for me?” asked Kay. At his quizzical expression, she said, “I’m travelling to Harmony Five tomorrow to make sure they’re doing everything possible to find her. I’ve told Johnny I’m checking on something else in the area.”
“Something else?”
Kay shrugged dismissively. “Just an industrial site nearby. I’ll stop there on my way home. But if I need you to back me up, will you do it?”
What industrial site? Was this the major thing his lost airwave spies had caught hints of?
Mac’s expression didn’t change. “Of course I will,” he told Kay softly. “You can count on me, kid. You go get Vancour back so we can all rest easy again.”
Kay let out a breath. She kissed his cheek. “Thank you. Now what do you want?”
“Me?”
“You’re doing me a pretty big favour, Mackie – keeping quiet. So let me do something for you too.”
“Not necessary. We’re friends, remember?”
She playfully shook his arm. “Please? If there’s nothing you want, what about Sephy?”
“What about her?”
Settling back more easily in the armchair, Kay reached for the cookie and bit into it. “Mmm – I’m impressed. She’s a state astrologer? Is she any good?”
“Well, of course.” Mac offered his relaxed grin. “I’m only attracted to women who are smart as sin, you know.”
Kay smirked as if the compliment had been meant for her. “All right, how would she like a pretty big promotion?”
Here it was, what he’d been so carefully angling for. Mac felt both despairing and grimly jubilant. He and Sephy had at times discussed this for hours: argued about it, shouted about it. Protecting her couldn’t be a factor.
“She’d like it,” he said.
When Mac finished work, he made sure he wasn’t being followed and then went to Walter’s. Sephy was already there. Opera played on the phonoplayer, the disc scratching slightly against the soaring voices.
When Mac explained what had happened, Sephy gave a relieved gasp. “Oh, finally! When do I start?”
“Tomorrow.” Mac looked down at his iced tea. “And Pierce is away for at least a week. With luck, you can work on Gunnison about how the comet affects the Day of Three Suns.” His tone was flat.
Sephy rubbed his arm. “Mac, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
He gripped her hand hard. “She has already gotten rid of almost all the astrology staff,” he said. “Once you’re in, I can’t help you; that department has nothing to do with me. Be careful. Come off like you’re a threat and you’l
l be killed.”
“I know, baby,” Sephy murmured. She slipped her arm around his waist and pressed close. No one spoke for a moment as the music warbled on.
In his armchair, Walter was frowning at the ceiling, contemplating all of this. “What about the Vancour information?” he said. “Is it time for me to blow my cover? Let the Times announce to the world that Wildcat’s on the loose?”
Sephy’s head snapped up. “No! That puts Mac in too much danger. The Pierce woman would know it came from him.”
“I’d say it came from Harmony Five, or that she’d been spotted somewhere up there.”
“And then you’d be shot and that would be the end of it!” Mac raked both hands through his hair. “We don’t know how Gunnison would react, Walter. From what Kay said, it could make things worse.”
“How the hell could they be worse?”
Mac’s voice rose. “Are you kidding? We’re sitting here listening to opera and drinking iced tea! Imagine the city in total lockdown – tanks everywhere, people being beaten in the streets—”
“You’re being a little hyperbolic there, boy.”
“Oh, you think? I’ve seen the footage from the Western Seaboard attack! I know what Johnny Gun’s capable of when his back is up.”
“So have I, and—”
“Stop!” cried Sephy. “Both of you, stop. Walter, Mac’s right. Gunnison’s a maniac; putting this information out there could backfire. Let me try to get the Day of Three Suns changed. Maybe we can still get rid of him and Cain at the same time.”
The disc reached its end and the needle bounced gently back and forth, whispering static. Finally Walter lumbered to his feet. He changed the disc and put on a string quartet.
“Something more soothing,” he said gruffly. “You’re both right. I just hate not being able to act yet.”
Sephy went and hugged him. Walter clasped her to him briefly. “All right, what about this mysterious industrial site?” he said, releasing her.
“Somewhere near Harmony Five,” said Mac. “Mining, I’d bet, since it’s the Yukon. What, though?”
“I’ve got an atlas in the library – wait a minute.”
Walter left the room. Mac heard Walter’s wife letting someone in. A moment later Collis appeared, still in his double-breasted suit from work. His cheeks were rosy from the cold.
“Hey, Mac, Sephy,” he said.
“Hey there, yourself,” said Sephy. She liked Collis. She said he seemed sweet and shy and a little lost – all adjectives that Mac would never have applied to the guy before, but he knew what Sephy meant. Collis was less brash now; much more genuine.
The liquor levels in the bottles in his office hadn’t changed since he’d joined the Resistance.
“Just thought I’d stop by in case you were here.” Collis shoved a hand through his wind-tousled hair. “Mac, listen, I’ve worked out a cover story for why I should go to the Western Quarter—” He stopped and glanced at Sephy.
She waved him on. “Oh, I already know. The man has no secrets from me.”
“It’s true,” said Mac with a grin. “Go on, Collis, what have you got?”
Walter shambled back into the room, gazing down at a large, open book he was carrying. “You know, if Vancour really has escaped, she’s probably dead by now. Hell of a place to—”
Mac spoke quickly over him: “Walter, Collis just dropped by to give me some information. Would you excuse us?”
Walter looked up and saw Collis. He winced.
Collis’s face had slackened. He stood motionless. “Amity’s escaped?” he whispered.
The room had gone silent, apart from the soaring notes of the string quartet. Sephy stood stricken. Collis spun towards Mac, fists clenched. “Mac, tell me!” he cried. “I have to know!”
“This way, Collis.” Mac took him by the arm and led him into the library. He shut the door behind them. The music faded.
Collis stood stock-still. “Is it true? Has she really gotten out of that place?”
Mac sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Yes,” he said. “Whether she’s still alive, I don’t know. Pierce is looking for her.”
Collis was practically quivering, as if electricity was coursing through him. “Weren’t you going to tell me?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Absolutely not. And whatever you’re thinking—”
“I have to go up there,” broke in Collis. He started to pace. “I have to try to find her – to help her—”
“Oh no you don’t,” said Mac. “Sorry, but that’s the last place you’re going, buddy-boy.”
Collis whirled towards him. “Are you crazy? Mac, I love her! It’s my fault she was in that place! Imagine if it were Sephy; would you just—”
“Will you shut up and start talking sense?” snapped Mac. “She’s probably already dead and if she’s not, you couldn’t find her without a small army.”
“I have to help her!”
“You can’t! It’s a thousand square miles of snow! And how would you explain it if Pierce found out? This is deeply classified info, pal. You’re with us now, and you will not do anything to endanger us.”
The ex-pilot stood glaring, looking ready to take a swing at Mac. “You can’t stop me,” he said hoarsely. “To hell with this. I quit.”
Collis started for the door. Mac was a head shorter, but grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall. Collis’s eyes flashed; he started to struggle. The look on Mac’s face stopped him.
“Make one more move and I’ll tell Cain you can’t be trusted,” Mac said in a low voice. “Then you can travel up to the camps by train like everyone else.” He shoved him hard and stepped back. “Don’t test me, Collis. Too much is at stake. Think about it for more than two seconds and you’ll agree.”
The fight seemed to sag out of Collis. He started to speak, then stopped.
Slowly, he slid down the wall to the floor and put his hands over his face.
Mac sat beside him. Distantly, he could still hear the music – Sephy and Walter talking. “And you can’t quit, by the way,” he said, only half-joking. “Your soul belongs to us now, buddy.”
Collis let his hands fall and dropped his head back against the bookshelf. He stared at the ceiling. His eyes were red. “I’m not quitting,” he said finally. “Sorry. I just…”
“Skip it.”
Collis swallowed and looked at his hands. “If she’s still alive…isn’t there anything we can do to help her?”
“Not really. I’m sorry.” Mac thought it better not to mention the cut-off northern airwave spies – the only ones who might be able to do something, if Vancour was alive to be helped. He prayed that they might get word of her.
Mac cleared his throat. “Listen…I understand how you feel,” he told Collis. “And to answer your question, if it were Sephy, you’d have had to restrain me too. But you’d have done it.”
“I know.” Collis rubbed his eyes. He gave a hollow laugh. “I’m probably the last person she’d want to see anyway.”
Mac looped his arm around Collis’s neck and squeezed roughly. He scrambled to his feet. “Come on, tell me about your Western Quarter plan, pal. Let’s save those two, at least.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
December, 1941
I woke up and there was sunshine.
I straightened slowly, blinking. The mining-office window, not quite covered by snow, showed a stripe of blue at its top. Light angled in, revealing the room’s barrenness. By then we’d burned almost everything. Only the metal had survived.
I nudged Ingo’s still-sleeping form. “Hey,” I said weakly.
He prised his eyes open, looking bleary. Then he saw the sun and sat up too. We glanced at each other.
If we planned to get out of this place, this was our chance. Yet if another snowstorm came like the one that had chased the Guns away, we’d be caught in the open. We wouldn’t find a shelter like this twice.
Ingo staggered as he got to hi
s feet. His dark eyes burned. “Onwards,” he said.
“Onwards,” I agreed.
When we swung the door open, a mound of snow blocked the doorway. We angled the desk against it and crawled out; we emerged shivering into a sparkling world of white. Even the rock crusher was a thing of glory, crusted with icy diamonds.
The storm had lasted four days – our fuel only two. No other rat had appeared to feed us. We’d talked little, hunched into our heavy coats on the floor. Having had one good meal made the hunger even harder. It felt as if my stomach was my enemy, determined to destroy me.
I refuse to die, I’d told myself over and over. I have to get to Madeline and find out the truth.
Though weak and famished, Ingo and I broke into all the buildings we could. Most held nothing of use. Then in a long, low building we found abandoned tables stacked against one wall and a kitchen behind a door.
A kitchen.
We rushed into it. Ingo started feverishly opening cupboards while I rifled through drawers.
“Anything to eat?” he gasped.
“No, nothing…there are some knives though.”
“Good. Next time we need to kill each other, we can do it in style…” Ingo banged a cupboard door closed. “Come on, Cook! Dave left his precious whiskey! What did you leave?”
I pulled open another door, exposing a small room lined with shelves. “Here! The pantry!”
Ingo was at my side in a moment. Tucked away in a corner was a mouldy cardboard box that fell to pieces when we tore it open.
Inside were a dozen tin cans, their labels faded and discoloured. I grabbed one up; I squinted to make out the wording.
“Beef stew, I think,” I said, my voice trembling.
Ingo was back at the drawers, searching them in a frenzy. “I don’t give a shit what it is, so long as it’s edible. Bring it here.”
There was no can opener. We hacked into one of the cans with a knife, producing jagged metal edges that could have sliced a finger off.
Chunks of beef – potatoes and carrots in a congealed sauce. The rich smell of it wafted out, making me feel faint. We took turns with a wooden ladle, wolfing it down. Then we prised open another can and ate that one too.