Crossing the Line

  “Got it,” he said.

  Shan handed her virin to Aras and then body-searched both the marines, gun still in one hand. It took a little time. She retrieved knives, lengths of sharp-edged wire, ammunition, flares and tubes of plastic explosive. She handed the haul item by item to Martin.

  “Hands behind your back now,” she said quietly, and handcuffed and hobbled them with reactive tape that would contract further with movement. Then she pulled them into a sitting position. “And that,” she said to nobody in particular, “is why you always do a proper body search.”

  Shan suddenly reacted to Chahal. He was just looking at her hands. No, he was looking at her watch, or trying to. She squatted down in front of him.

  “What is it, Chaz?” she said. “Late for tea?”

  “Marine Balwant Singh Chahal, Three-seven Commando, number five nine oblique eight seven seven six alpha.”

  “Okay, I get the idea. I know it’ll take me a lot longer to get an answer out of you than Jimmy here, but I will get there in the end.”

  Silence. She was staring into Chahal’s face, no malevolence or anger visible at all, just sorrow. Qureshi was staring straight ahead and past her. Aras wondered how far Shan would go. He knew all too well how far she had been prepared to go in the past.

  But that was with criminals. These were elite soldiers. She respected them.

  “Where’s the rest of the detachment?”

  “Marine Balwant—”

  “Give it a rest. What’s so important about the time? What are Lin and Rayat up to?” Now Qureshi was staring at her hands. It was the lights: violet shimmered across her fingers as they curled round the 9mm weapon. Shan flicked a glance at Qureshi. She didn’t miss a thing, Aras thought. She was still a good copper. “Yeah, I light up too, just like you do. Is that bioscreen still working? If I take a look, will I pick up Lin’s signal?”

  She moved behind Chahal and jerked his arms up, twisting his wrist so she could see the illuminated screen grown into the cells of his palm. It was hurting him; Aras could smell it. The marine didn’t react.

  “Ah,” said Shan. “No readout from Webster or Becken. Well, that’s two we don’t have to worry about. And we’ve got Bennett and Barencoin still on the loose, I see. Lin’s pumping, though. Look at that heart rate. What’s she up to?”

  Qureshi shifted a little. “It’s 1600 or thereabouts. You’re too late.”

  Chahal let out a hiss under his breath but Shan didn’t move. She glanced at Qureshi. “What’s Lin done, Izzy?”

  “You’ll see soon enough,” said Qureshi. “I’m really sorry. And we did come to take you.”

  “Fair enough,” said Shan. “Nothing personal.”

  The virin that Aras was holding for her burst into light and color. The message was from the Temporary City. In the transparent layers of the device, Aras saw reconnaissance shots. A ussissi auxiliary unit was searching the seas around the southernmost islands.

  The marines exchanged glances, and Shan was watching them. She seemed obsessed with the element of time. She walked slowly round the two marines and Aras wondered if she was going to kick one of them, putting the boot in as she called it. He had many half-formed memories from her, and that was a common one.

  “So, you’re trying to work something out,” said Shan. “Did Lin get there or not? So I’m guessing time matters to you because there’s an extraction planned, which means she’s taking a sample, or something is going to happen later, and I reckon that means a device of some sort.” She stopped in front of Chahal and pressed the muzzle of the gun carefully against his forehead, right between his eyebrows. She would shoot him: Aras was sure of it. The humans might not have been aware of her state of mind, but even without a scent to guide him, he could see the tension in her muscles and the blood absent from her face.

  “Commander Neville had bombs,” said James suddenly. Evidently he also believed she would fire her weapon.

  Chahal was simply looking down into his lap now, jaw muscles twitching every so often. “What sort?” said Shan.

  “Radiation bombs,” said James. “They’re going to burn the island. And then she’s coming for you.”

  “Nukes? She’s got nukes with her? Oh, fuck.” Aras had expected Shan to erupt at that point, but she was still all white-faced control. “Izzy, I’ve got a terrific memory for detail. Ade once told me you were EOD trained. Well, you don’t get ordnance that’s much more explosive than this, so you can come and help us dispose of them.”

  Chahal looked up. “That contravenes the—”

  “Chaz, shut up,” said Shan gently. “You can report me to the Hague when you get back.” She still had her gun to his head. “Are you in voice contact with Lin?”

  Chahal’s eyes flickered. “I have audio implants.”

  Shan straightened up and stepped back. Then she walked round behind him, gun still targeted at his head, and released the tape round his wrists. “Give her a bell. Tell her Shan wants to see her. Go on. Call the bitch.”

  Chahal paused and then pressed points on his wrist and palm. He was muttering under his breath: Aras could hardly hear him. Whatever implants these soldiers had, they were sensitive. Shan had once joked—or maybe not joked, perhaps—that she would never copulate with Sergeant Bennett because the whole detachment would hear. Aras finally understood exactly what she meant.

  Chahal then went silent, as if listening. He looked up not at Shan, but at her gun.

  “Commander Neville says she’ll meet you.”

  Shan looked grim. She had stopped blinking completely. It was an unnerving thing to watch. “Tell me what she really said.”

  “She said, ‘Come and get me.’ ”

  Small wonder Chahal had tried to paraphrase it. Aras watched Shan’s jaw clench and lock. He interrupted.

  “She’s trying to provoke you, isan,” he said.

  “She’s doing a fucking good job of it.”

  “You can’t afford anger.”

  “I’ll settle for some rough justice, then.”

  Aras caught Shan’s arm carefully. “The ussissi will carry out the search for the weapons. But you stay here.”

  She almost shook him off, then appeared to relent and put her hand on top of his. But she still had her gun in the other. And it was still held on Chahal.

  “I never sent a junior officer in to do the dirty work,” she said. “And I’m not going to start now.”

  “I will accompany Qureshi.”

  “No. It might be a booby-trap for me.”

  “I will have my way on this, isan. Once the ussissi have located the devices from the air, I’ll ensure she deals with them. No risks.”

  “You’re very confident of that.”

  “You forget what I was.” He was a soldier. He had been a fine one, too. He had forgotten none of it. “You stay here.”

  “And you forget what I was. EnHaz. Environmental crimes unit. I’m going to have that stupid little cow because she’s prepared to trash the environment to get me. Now let me get on with my job.”

  “Listen to me. This is not necessary.”

  “Like the time you listened to me when I told you not to go after the isenj?”

  “And you nearly died because you insisted on coming with me.”

  “I learned a lesson or two. I’ll fire first this time.”

  Aras knew he could never force Shan to do anything. And he was running out of time arguing with her. “Promise me you’ll be prudent.”

  “Okay. Prudence it is.” Shan turned back to Chahal. “Tell her I’ll see her at Constantine. Remind her that I know the tunnels, and she doesn’t, and I’m in a fucking bad mood. And warn Bennett and Barencoin to stay out of it.”

  Chahal’s lips moved and Shan appeared to be listening intently to him. She turned his palm over with one hand and said, “Show me where they are.” She was checking the location coordinates to verify that Lindsay and the others were actually on the island and not just decoying her. Then she retaped his hands
and called Martin over.

  “Give me one of their rifles,” she said.

  Aras had rarely experienced indecision, but he was experiencing it now.

  Shan could wait. She could wait until he got back, and then they could tackle Lindsay and her marines together, or—better still—they could leave them and wait for the pathogen to dispatch them. It would take a week or two, but the result would be the same.

  No, Shan would never wait. Nobody could make her. He wanted to protect his isan, his isanket, his comrade-in-arms. But he was Bezer’ej’s custodian, and he still had his ancient duty.

  “Let Vijissi go with you,” he said at last. “Please?”

  “Okay. If it makes you happy.” She turned to Martin. “Make that two rifles.”

  Qureshi did a credible job of matching their pace all the way down to the beached boats on the shore. Aras had his fingers tight around her upper arm just in case she tried to make a run for it, although he had no idea why flight would solve any problems. All he knew was that Shan had told him marines were supposed to escape if they could and harass the enemy. He didn’t enjoy thinking of them as enemies.

  “What are you going to do with Josh when you find him?” said Shan.

  It was a question he hoped she wouldn’t ask because he didn’t want to ask it himself. Josh had betrayed him. Josh had helped gethes who were intent on—on what? Securing c’naatat or destroying it? They didn’t seem to have a single purpose. But either way they were a threat to Shan and to Bezer’ej.

  “I have no idea.”

  Shan strode on. “I know you’re upset about James. I’m sorry I had to do that.”

  “He’s a child. Did you have to hit him?”

  “You’re going soft.”

  “I don’t shy away from necessary force.”

  “Anyone can bomb strangers. But sometimes you have to hurt your friends.”

  It was savage, and it was true: and he feared she despised him. Sometimes she was more wess’har than he was. But the drive to protect and nurture the young was powerful and he couldn’t completely override it. “He’s still a child.”

  Shan stood on the shingle, hands on hips, looking out to sea. There were no lights visible from shallow-swimming bezeri. “I’m an equal opportunities bastard,” she said. “I don’t care how old they are, how disabled they are, or what sex, culture or religion they are. I’ll get answers out of them. I’m very fair that way.”

  She gave him an unconvincing smile in the way that she did when she wanted him to believe everything was all right when it wasn’t.

  Aras dragged one of the shallow-draft rigid inflatables down to the beach. Its engine started easily, as if it were warm from recent use. He climbed into the boat and pulled Qureshi in after him. She was heavier than her slight frame suggested, but she was still a very small female compared to his isan.

  Aras looked back at Shan. “Be careful,” he said. “They’re still marines first, friends second.”

  “You be careful of Josh,” Shan said. “He’s stiffed you once. He’ll do it again.”

  “I’ve known six generations of his family,” Aras said. “I know his beliefs. Why would he do this?”

  “Because, sweetheart, deep down he’s a shit-house like every human,” she said, and held her hand up in a parting gesture. Then, almost as if she had thought of something, she pulled the virin from her pocket and lobbed it into the boat. “You’ll need this. See you back at the Temporary City.”

  There was a following wind. They would make good time. The boat bounced over the surface, whipping spray into the air, creating a sense of a storm that wasn’t there.

  Qureshi was uneasy. She was scanning the horizon with an increasingly furrowed brow.

  “What’s wrong?” Aras said. “Looking for something?”

  “I wouldn’t go charging in if I were you, sir,” said Qureshi. “How close are we to Christopher now?”

  “Fifty kilometers. If you know when the bombs will explode, you must tell me.”

  “You’re already too late,” said Qureshi, and leaned back against the gunwale with her handcuffed wrists between her legs, eyes closed.

  Aras was leaning on the wheel and keeping an eye out for craft from the Temporary City when three rapid flashes of brilliant, burning, blue-white light caught his peripheral vision.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  Qureshi jerked her head round. She registered shock, instant acidic shock. “Oh shit,” she said quietly. “Turn around, sir. It’s too late.”

  A solid column like a gray efte tree had grown suddenly out of the sea to the south. The head of it blossomed into a canopy. Aras had never seen anything like it, except in gethes books. Qureshi had scrambled on to her knees to stare at the spectacle.

  “Oh, my bezeri,” Aras said. It was his first thought: he thought of the beautiful black-grass island and he thought of the massive shock wave transmitting itself through the sea. “My poor bezeri. I promised them. I promised them.”

  Qureshi looked utterly defeated. He half hoped that she would give him an acceptable explanation that wouldn’t confirm his worst fears. He wanted her to say that it was okay, that humans he had watched over and protected for generations hadn’t betrayed his foolish trust and that it could all be put right again.

  Wess’har were brutally pragmatic. His hope lasted less than a second.

  The billowing canopy was flattening and spreading.

  Aras had not experienced helplessness for five hundred years. He was the guardian of Bezer’ej, of the bezeri, and of the island the humans called Christopher. And he’d failed. He didn’t even know how.

  He grabbed the marine’s face in his hands and jerked it up to make her look at him. Qureshi’s eyes said that she didn’t expect to survive the next few minutes, but she maintained her composure.

  “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you?” His wess’har instinct that told him to freeze and evaluate before reacting to a threat suddenly couldn’t override a growing pressure in his chest and throat that felt remarkably like reliving one of Shan’s rages. Aras wanted to lash out. It was an alien emotion in every sense but it almost consumed him until he let the sensible wess’har numbing reflex kick in. “You’ve poisoned the island. You’ve poisoned the water.”

  He loosened his grip so suddenly and completely that Qureshi almost tipped over the gunwale of the shallow craft. He grabbed her before she fell. She wouldn’t have survived long in the water with her wrists bound.

  She hadn’t actually done anything. She had just landed in hostile territory, serving her nation, as he had once done. It was wrong to punish her.

  Aras took out the virin and looked for the latest reconnaissance images. The high aerial view was from a patrol craft. Aras couldn’t see the island at all; it was a mass of flame and plumed tumbling smoke and filth. The cloud of debris sucked up from the blast was drifting south over the sea.

  He could feel the swell building as the shock wave pushed out from the island.

  “It’s neutron bombs, sir. I know it’s terrible, but they’re designed for minimal long-term fallout.”

  Aras couldn’t take his eyes off the cube of images. “Is this supposed to comfort the bezeri?”

  “It might not be as bad as you think, sir. I’m really sorry.” EVACUATE said the virin.

  Aras stood at the wheel again, swung the boat to starboard and opened the throttle. He felt the first spots of heavy rain on his face. It was the promise of a downpour.

  The fallout would drop into the sea in the embrace of rain. In the short term, Qureshi need not have worried too much about contamination.

  The bezeri, sensitive to pollution, slow breeding, a fragile population at best, would feel it first.

  He hoped—no, he prayed, in case the gethes thing called God could hear, and act—that they would flee.

  20

  RECONNAISSANCE REPORT, USSISSI PATROL

  Ouzhari no longer exists. The landmass has been obliterated almost to the wa
terline.

  We are also detecting high levels of cobalt in the fallout from the detonations. It has entered the sea and spread north with the currents to other island coastal areas. You must expect great loss of life among marine species.

  The gethes lied to you. The poison from the bombs will linger for years.

  Lindsay looked at her watch and checked the bioscreen in her palm.

  “It’s done,” she said. “Christopher’s neutralized.”

  She had imagined they would have to crawl commando-style through passages to infiltrate the underground colony.

  But Josh must have called ahead. The ancient shuttle had been prepared: Bennett looked over the cockpit and shrugged, apparently satisfied at its readiness. When they came through the main thoroughfare, there were a couple of men dragging a crate between them, and they simply glanced at Lindsay, the marines and Rayat, and went about their business.

  Bennett and Barencoin, rifles ready, overlapped and covered each other, checking entrances, looking up at the galleries, still as wary as their training in urban warfare made them.

  “Would they booby-trap the place?” asked Rayat. Lindsay wouldn’t give him a rifle and he was edgy. He was carrying the last ERD in a bergen across his back. It was quite a feat of endurance; and he didn’t look especially robust. “You never know with these types.”

  “We’ll find out the hard way,” said Bennett. “Want to walk ahead?”

  It wasn’t at all like Bennett to be insolent. Barencoin was silent. Lindsay didn’t trust Rayat enough to have him armed with the shuttle a long sprint away. She had no idea what an intelligence officer’s skills might be. She wasn’t going to test them.

  And she hadn’t visited David’s grave. She wouldn’t have time now. She’d never see it again; and that hurt. But the pain was good, because it kept her motivated.

  From time to time the sound of falling soil stopped them in their tracks but it was just the walls crumbling. Lindsay stared at the trickle of gold granules.

  “I think they’ve started with the nanites,” said Rayat. “Let’s hope the whole place doesn’t fall in on us.”