Crossing the Line

  A very young male, Litiat, came up to her, smelling submissive and agitated. He beckoned to her.

  “The gethes want to speak with you,” he said.

  “Josh?”

  “No, a gethes. Okurt.”

  “He knows I’m here, then.” Thanks, Eddie, she thought. But that didn’t matter: they couldn’t touch her. She wondered what last-minute bargain Okurt was trying to strike, and rather relished the prospect of a verbal tussle. She didn’t envy him his task.

  Litiat led her to the screen in the lobby of the Temporary City and stood back at a respectful distance. Shan stood, arms folded, hands concealed, and waited for Okurt’s image to resolve. He looked a lot thinner than she remembered from the last video link. She wondered if she looked very different to him.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “Good morning, Superintendent. You’re evacuating Constantine?”

  “You know we are.”

  “I’m formally offering assistance.”

  “Oh yeah. You would. Thanks, but we’ve got a lift.”

  Okurt paused. “I wondered if you might reconsider your position regarding returning home.”

  Shan paused too, just a couple of seconds longer. “Okay, I’ve considered it. I’m just fine here, thanks.”

  “I assure you no action will be taken against you if you cooperate. And the asset wouldn’t be made available to commercial interests.”

  “And that’s supposed to reassure me, is it?”

  “We could make it worth your while. You would be able to free up your considerable personal assets on Earth as well.”

  “D’you know, son, it’s been years since anyone tried to threaten me with losing my pension.” He really didn’t get it at all. “So they’ve frozen my funds. I’m on a planet 150 trillion miles from home and there’s no shopping mall here. Try again.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “Commander, nothing could induce me to turn myself in. And you can tell that to whoever put you up to asking me. Haven’t you got the picture yet?”

  Okurt was fidgeting: he was moving almost out of frame at times, shifting in his seat and leaning back. He was working up to saying something.

  “Anything else?” said Shan. Okurt paused just one fraction of a second too long. You could spot that sort of thing with ITX: there was no transmission delay. He looked grim. Shan felt he was trying to keep her talking, fishing for something else. Her copper’s instinct was fine-tuned and she was proud of it. It had now started screaming in her ear. “Want to apologize for letting a shuttle stray a bit close?”

  “Perhaps I should simply apologize and leave you to your task.”

  “No, hang on, you’ve got my interest now. I’d hazard a guess that you don’t know something you need to know, and you’re checking. Now, what could that be?” No response: if she’d been Okurt, she’d have been off the link by now, but he was desperate to know something. It was just like old times, an interrogation, and she was good at that. She let her instinct drive. “You’re checking. What would you be checking? Something you can’t verify by technology. So…let me see…” She dared not blink. She needed to see every muscle, every twitch of his face. “I reckon…ah, you want to know if something got through. Something you can’t contact or verify. You tried to do something daft, didn’t you? What was it?”

  “The pilot was off course. He’s got no nav beacons he can log into out here.”

  “Oh, please. Don’t insult my fucking intelligence. Haven’t I explained the wess’har mentality to you? Make a bloody good note of this—they don’t have rules of engagement. It’s total war or nothing with them. Just go. Go home. Whatever it is you’re doing, just stop and leave now. You have no idea who you’re provoking.”

  She punched the link closed and sat for a couple of moments with her forehead in her hands. Litiat hovered.

  “Get Aras,” she said quietly. “I think Actaeon is about to take us over the brink.”

  Christopher was the smallest and southernmost island in the chain. It was flat and black.

  The wind had dropped a little but billowing storm clouds were beginning to gather. As the boat drew closer to the shore, Lindsay could see that the blackness was actually grass, and the shoreline was pure white sand. Shafts of sunlight punched through the cloud, making the sand look almost illuminated. It was extraordinarily beautiful in its unnatural palette of monochromes. It looked like ideal landing terrain.

  More detail emerged as the distance closed. There were small thickets of purple foliage now, looking funereal against the glossy black grass that was swaying like a crop in the breeze.

  Twelve square kilometers.

  Then a thought that should have been obvious struck her a little too late.

  “If we land, are we going to be infected too?” she asked.

  Rayat looked up from the text pad in his hand. “The only tests we have for this are going to be pretty conclusive.”

  “Sorry?”

  “We’ll shoot you. If you survive, you’ve caught it. Then we’ll have to try something more permanent. We have six on board.” He looked at Josh. “Ever been tempted, Mr. Garrod?”

  “That’s not the kind of eternal life we seek,” said Josh, still with a white-knuckled grip on his elderly rifle even after several hours of being buffeted by waves. “We know what it does.”

  “And you knew about it, Rayat, didn’t you?” said Lindsay. Maybe it was the prospect of imminent death that had clarified her thinking and sharpened her memory. “That’s what you were always looking for off-camp.”

  Rayat, still unperturbed, said nothing and steadied himself on the plank athwart the boat. He was first out, picking his way through the surf and up the beach. Lindsay had every intention of following his every move even if Josh shot her. She didn’t trust him then, and she didn’t trust him now, whatever he said and whoever he was working for.

  “Get back here and help get these scoots ashore,” Josh yelled. “Now.”

  It took all four of them to lift the scoots and carry them to dry land. It was the sort of thing the Booties did well, but they were a hundred kay behind her, and she hoped they were ready to blend into the beige mass of colonists and get to safety.

  “I’d suggest placing the devices in a three-by-two pattern, maximum two kay apart,” said Rayat. “Purely for coverage.”

  “You’ve got five to play with,” said Lindsay. “One’s for insurance.” She beckoned to Jonathan to help her lift one clear of the scoot’s floor plate.

  “I’ll set them to ground-burst. On their legs, about a meter.”

  “You sure they’ll burn hot enough?”

  “Thousand meter fireball each, down to a depth of three meters. Charcoal.” Rayat shrugged. “I would have preferred double the number for certainty, but believe me, this won’t be a popular tourist destination for a while.”

  Josh and Jonathan had their heads bowed, both absorbed in their own worlds. Then Lindsay realized they were praying. She found it more uncomfortable to realize that than to contemplate detonating neutron devices. Josh looked up again.

  “We do a terrible thing,” he said. “It’s to prevent something worse. But let’s recognize the sin we’re committing, shall we? We have to answer to God, and I also have to answer personally to Aras in this world. He will vent his rage.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” said Lindsay.

  It was a small island, easily covered by two scoots in less than an hour. It was also exquisitely beautiful, and the knowledge that she was helping devastate it was starting to eat away at her. The two scoots stayed within visual range of each other. It would have been a pleasant excursion had the pillion riders not been carrying rifles.

  The black grass flattened beneath them like dark sea, and Lindsay found herself holding her breath. It was pointless but instinctive: if she were going to be contaminated, it was too late to stop breathing. She didn’t even know if the organism was airborne anyway.

>   “Josh,” she said, uncomfortable at having him sitting close up behind her. “I still think Rayat’s planning to get a sample off the planet.”

  “And were your orders any different?”

  “No. We were told to grab it for the military and stop commercial companies getting it.”

  “So you deceive your own comrades too.”

  “Yes, I do. Much as it sticks in my throat to admit it, Frank- land was right. It’s a plague.”

  “Be sure that’s why you’re doing this,” said Josh, and they lapsed into silence.

  It took under an hour to place and prime all the devices. Lindsay held onto hers. She had grenades, but she hadn’t come this far to take chances. Shan had to be obliterated. They stopped the scoots on the beach and got their breath back.

  It really was a lovely spot.

  The four destroyers of Christopher stood on the idyllic white beach, taking in a magnificent pre-storm cloudscape as dramatic as any William Blake woodcut. Four was an apocalyptic number; and the shafts of sun piercing the cloud were so unnaturally sharp and bright that Lindsay feared seeing the hand of God reaching through in cartoon retribution. She glanced at Rayat.

  I have to be right about this. “So this is what they mean by limited damage,” she said.

  “Yes, it’s beautiful here. It’s a terrible and necessary shame.”

  They walked down the perfection of Christopher’s icing- sugar sand and pushed the boat back into the water.

  She was sure why she was destroying Eden. Wasn’t she?

  18

  There’s risk inherent in trying to reverse-engineer the isenj ITX relay. If we examine it and make our own prototype, we’ll be independent of them. If we screw up and damage it, they’ll know all about it. Ripping off new allies is suicidal. Let’s wait.

  Professor S. D. GALLAGHER,

  special adviser to Secretary of State for Technology

  Shan was angry. She had been angry all the way back to Constantine from the Temporary City and she wasn’t bothering to conceal her scent.

  The boat journey hadn’t helped her mood. Vijissi had insisted on coming with them: Mestin had ordered him to look after her, he said, and so he would.

  It was rather touching. He moved closer and Aras thought for a second that he was going to rub against her legs like a flattering cat. He didn’t. He just sat very close, looking in the same direction as her.

  It was a gesture of solidarity. Ussissi mirrored each other, whole packs moving as one. Shan appeared to realize that, because she almost smiled and sat still for a few moments as well.

  It was the only thing she would have to smile about for a while.

  Aras couldn’t imagine how any gethes could land. They were technically limited, even compared to the isenj. And the defense net was now set to destroy—not immobilize—any incoming craft that came in range and didn’t transmit a friendly signal. “Why do you think they would target Constantine?”

  “They’re looking for me,” she said. She was fidgeting, meshing her gloved fingers hard together and stretching the fabric taut. “They think I’m there.”

  He walked behind her through the fields and down the ramp into Constantine. There were small groups of men in beige and taupe work clothes carrying crates and studying pieces of hemp paper. The final check was being carried out before Constantine was abandoned forever.

  But they couldn’t find Josh. And nobody would tell them where he was.

  “I don’t like this,” said Shan. Aras was surprised how very fast she could move now. “Where’s Josh? Something’s gone bloody wrong.”

  “I fear he might be trying to solve a problem without bothering us.”

  Shan stopped abruptly and he nearly collided with her. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Nothing, except Josh. He can be foolhardy.”

  “I’ll give him foolhardy.”

  They reached Josh’s house. Shan shoved the door open and went from hall to kitchen. They found Deborah, Rachel, and James packing. James flinched visibly. Deborah and the little girl just froze, bewildered.

  Shan fixed on James immediately. There was something in his reaction that triggered the hardened police officer in her. Aras knew that persona was in there: he had simply never seen it. “Deborah, take Rachel and get in the bedroom.”

  “Shan, what—”

  “Just fucking do it. Now.” Deborah snatched up Rachel and the door slammed behind her. Shan rounded on James. They had never seen her like this, and neither had Aras. “Where’s your father?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “You’ve got three seconds to tell me.” Shan was nose-to-nose with the boy, leaning over him, white-faced and terrifying. “What’s happened?”

  James stood his ground in silence. Shan grabbed his collar and slammed him to the wall, cracking the back of his head against it. “You tell me and you tell me now.”

  “No.”

  She drew back her arm and backhanded James so hard across the face that he fell. No, Aras had never, ever seen her like this. She dragged the boy to his feet again and pressed him to the wall. His nose was bleeding. Aras wondered if he should intervene before she killed him.

  “Now,” she said. She had her forearm pressed across his throat. There was blood on her gloves. “Plenty more where that came from.”

  James struggled to speak. “Dad’s trying to protect you.”

  “I don’t need protection.”

  “They landed soldiers.” He could hardly get the words out. “They landed. We saw them.”

  Shan slackened her lock a second before Aras would have pulled her off James. “You tell me everything you know.”

  “They landed the soldiers from Thetis, and Miss Neville. The soldiers are here. Dad’s taken Miss Neville and Dr. Rayat.”

  “You’ve disarmed marines?”

  “They came on parachutes in these cocoons. We tracked them all the way down.”

  Shan was all cold fury. “Fucking idiot. That’s just great. We’ve got bloody Royal Marine commandos on site plus my biggest fan and that little shit Rayat. Why?”

  “They’re trying to stop anyone getting hold of c’naatat.”

  “Where’s Josh taken them?”

  “To Christopher Island.”

  “Shit. Aras, let the Temporary City know we’ve got a breach on Christopher.”

  Aras could hear Shan but he was instantly not quite there, not quite hearing. Josh had gone to the only environment where the c’naatat organism existed naturally. He had taken two gethes with him. Aras couldn’t imagine what game he was playing. James’s chin was trembling.

  “Why?” Shan asked.

  James seemed on the edge of tears. He was just a child. “To destroy it for good.”

  Shan marched James to the door by the scruff of his neck. “Take me to the marines.”

  “You’re on your own now,” said Josh.

  Lindsay stumbled into the shallows and lost her footing. If Barencoin hadn’t stepped in and hauled her to her feet again, she felt she would never have had the strength to stand upright. Bennett stood on the shore, rifle clutched across his chest, with an expression that said he was rapidly losing what little enthusiasm he had for the mission.

  Rayat tumbled out after her. Nobody made a move to help him but Barencoin watched him carefully. Lindsay checked the seal on her rifle, making sure the water hadn’t seeped in to the targeting mechanism. Josh stood in the bobbing vessel as if he was looking for a reason not to leave.

  “What are you going to do now?” Lindsay asked.

  “When your bombs detonate, I’ll go and answer to Aras.”

  “And you trust him, do you?”

  “He was my great-great-great-grandfather’s friend,” said Josh. “I suspect he merely tolerates me.” He paused and pulled his messaging device from his pocket. He frowned at the small screen and let out a long breath. “My wife says Shan has paid us a visit. She’s on her way to question your soldiers.”

 
That was just fine. Lindsay looked at her watch and then at the bioscreen in her palm: even if Shan got any information out of Qureshi or Chahal, it was too late for her to do anything about it. And they could pass on a message for her, at just the perfect time.

  Come and get me.

  19

  We can see no activity on Ouzhari but we will continue to scout the area. We have no idea what to look for. We are reluctant to land because of the quarantine of the island. Inform us if you wish us to breach it.

  Ussissi reconnaissance pilot

  to Temporary City

  Aras’s instinct to defer to a large, angry female had kicked in completely. He trailed behind Shan and the stumbling, terrified James, knowing he would find it hard to intervene now. They reached the drying barn. Inside, two soldiers he knew as Qureshi and Chahal were sitting on the dusty floor, cross- legged, looking unconcerned while Martin Tyndale stood over them with a rifle.

  In the corner was a mound of glossy white fabric streaked and smeared with black charring.

  “What’s that?” asked Aras.

  “Landing craft,” said Martin. “One-man suits.” His expression said he was thinking the same as Aras. It was unbelievable. “You got to hand it to them. They’ve got guts to attempt that.”

  Aras was shocked. He had no idea that humans were that reckless for their own safety. That was why they hadn’t detected them.

  Shan dropped James and shoved him over to Aras, then took her gun out of her waistband and held it on the two marines. “Have you searched them?” she asked.

  “We’ve got their rifles,” said Martin.

  “Sweetheart, these are Royals. Booties.” She stopped two meters from them. Her tone was incongruously kind. “Come on, fellers. You know the drill. Face down, on the floor, hands behind your heads, and don’t piss me about.” The marines obeyed without a word. She beckoned Martin forward. “If they move, shoot. Got that?”