‘Would it be possible to land next to the underground silos?’
‘Not so. No clear ground, and the roofs of the buildings would never take the weight of this carrier.’
‘What’s the scale?’
‘Whole site’s about two kilometres across. Silos were for Hunter Tens, about fifty metres deep and ten in diameter, three of them. Don’t know anything about the bunkers . . . sir.’
Cormac nodded.
‘The description you’ve given is sufficient, Sergeant. Most concise. Put us down on the perimeter, wherever you deem suitable.’
The sergeant allowed himself a tight little smile.
‘Sarge, we got someone on the edge of detector range. Looks like they’re following.’
‘You know the drill, Corporal. Warn them off.’
‘They don’t respond. Shall I send back Cheng and Goff?’
Cormac leant forward. ‘Cormac here.’
‘Colonel, sir!’
‘What’s your name, soldier?’
‘Tarm, sir.’
‘Very well, Tarm, I want you and this Cheng and Goff to go back personally. Warn them off. Turn them if you can. If they fire on you, take them out. Otherwise I want them driven back a fair way, but not so far they won’t be able to pick up on us again. Do you understand?’
‘I think so, sir.’
‘Don’t be thick, Tarm,’ interjected the sergeant.
‘Oh . . . Oh, I see. On our way, sir.’
Cormac glanced out the window of the carrier and saw three of the sky-bikes peel away and accelerate on pencils of fire. He turned to the sergeant.
‘We’ll be at the ruins by nightfall, I take it?’
‘So too.’
‘Put us down as close to the storage buildings as you can. What will the light be like?’
‘Moon’s up, but the light’s deceptive.’
‘Good. When we get there, have your men leave their bikes, set up their tents and disperse into the buildings. Do anything else you can think of to make the camp appear occupied.’
‘A trap, sir?’ Arn smiled his tight little smile.
‘Oh yes,’ said Cormac. ‘But I want at least one of them alive. You have stun weapons?’
‘We’ve got an armoury, sir.’
‘Good, you’ll have opportunity to use it.’
* * *
‘He’s ECS and he’ll be running a team to shut down the local syndicates,’ said Corlackis.
The woman nodded, her comunit earrings glittering in the green light. Stanton knew the type: she wore a skin-tight shiny plastic from neck to feet and her thick brown hair spread in dreadlocks, plaits and artistic tangles across her shoulders and down her back. He could just make out a small aug in the shape of a star behind her right ear. At her hip was holstered a long-barrelled pulse-gun of the kind that fired ionized gas. Real fancy, but no range. She was obviously fascinated by the silent, glaring presence of Pelter, and by Crane who was crouching behind him. Stanton lowered the police-issue intensifier, its lenses whirring as it tried to compensate for this movement, and then he upped the gain on the directional microphone. That none of them had thought to use the damper showed Pelter’s arrogance had to be catching. That the local muscle chose to have this meeting on the veranda of this café bespoke another arrogance. They wished to demonstrate to the great Separatist leader that this was an area they controlled.
The three men and the other woman were much like their boss: the kind that Stanton had hired on many occasions. He judged them to be supporters of the Cause only in that it gave them an excuse for racketeering. Like so many would-be freedom fighters, they had probably found the attraction of easy money harder to resist than a few hazy ideals. They affected dress similar to that of Mennecken and Corlackis, but Stanton knew that the two mercenaries could go through them in a second. That of course was not their intention. These people were fodder. Stanton knew exactly what Pelter intended.
It had taken Stanton a day to find out where to look. It was the area of the city of Motford that had the highest crime rate, where weapons were worn openly, and where dubious characters loitered on the streets. After then asking a few questions in bars, he had found out who was running things in the area. Following the woman had been easy. Nothing about her was covert. She swanned about in an expensive Aston Martin replica as she and her heavies went on their collection rounds. Patient watching had finally produced this meeting.
‘Why did he head away from the city?’ the woman asked.
Corlackis replied smoothly. ‘To set up a base of operations. It’s his usual technique: use local forces to establish a base where least expected, then, when he starts hitting you, you just won’t know where to look. We saw it on Cheyne III. We spent months searching the most likely places and paying thousands in bribes to the local police. It was nearly all over before we discovered his base on one of the atolls.’
Stanton took his eyes from the intensifier and glanced behind, across the small AGC park on top of the building. Local police. He cursed the fact that they were so humanitarian here. This surveillance equipment, two stun pistols and a stun rifle had been the extent of his haul. The charge in the rifle he had used up at close range on the AGC, to burn the paint off. Not that it would have been much use to him. He could have been fairly sure of taking down the locals. But Pelter, Mennecken and Corlackis were another matter. Crane of course would have been unaffected. A stupid option, though. He wanted Pelter dead, not stunned.
‘We can take him down,’ one of the men drawled.
Stanton wondered how Corlackis kept a straight face at that.
‘Not so easy if he has ES regulars with him,’ he said.
‘They’re easy. Boys playing soldier games,’ said the woman.
Corlackis shook his head. ‘I admire your confidence, but would not want you to take on something you couldn’t handle, nor would I want you to go unrewarded.’
The hook was in. Stanton shook his head at the ease of it all. They hadn’t even asked why Corlackis and the rest would not be going in themselves. Corlackis now looked round at Pelter, who gave a nod. Corlackis tossed something on the table. One etched sapphire, Stanton bet. The woman snatched it up.
‘Three more when the job is done,’ Corlackis said.
‘No problem,’ said the woman.
The other four said nothing. They were too busy looking tough and confident behind their black eye-bands. Corlackis now reached under the table and picked up a cloth-wrapped bundle, which he placed before the woman. The woman reached across and flipped the cloth aside, completely unconcerned that anyone might see an assault rifle revealed.
‘We have seeker bullets as well,’ said Corlackis. ‘We would not see you go in unprepared.’
‘How many?’
‘You can have this rifle and a sufficient quantity of seeker rounds. We’ve got laser carbines as well. As many as you need. We also have a nice compact mortar you can use.’
Stanton saw the greedy expression on the woman’s face. She must think all her birthdays had come at once. Poor sap.
‘We get to keep them?’
‘But of course,’ said Corlackis.
Stanton lowered the intensifier and shut off the microphone. He had heard and seen enough. He gazed out beyond the city line to the slabbed land beyond. Svent and Dusache had gone that way, after the military carrier and that was where the action would take place. Right now Stanton did not have a way of getting close to Pelter and killing him. Others did have the means. It did not matter to him how Pelter died, just that he did. He crouched back from the edge, stood up, then walked over to his stolen AGC. Pelter would leave soon, but Stanton had no intention of following him. He’d follow the five below. He would have no problem trailing such amateurs.
25
Ian Cormac: Yet another mythical creation of hero-starved humanity. Earth Central Security does have its monitors, its Sparkind and troops, and, yes, it does have its secret agents. But let us be honest about these people: t
hey are, on the whole, grey and characterless. Again, this is all about what we want to believe. We want this superagent who so easily sorts out all the bad guys for us. Cormac is to ECS what a certain agent with the number 007 was to MI5. At best he is a fictional creation, at his worst he is a violent and disruptive role model.
From Quince Guide, compiled by humans
The light was like clotted blood and seemed to tangle the shadows in the chequer trees beyond the encampment in swirls and eddies, and strange globular buds glistened in the branches like molluscs. The encampment itself was lit by lights inside some of the tents. It had been Arn’s idea to inflate a couple of survival suits with crash foam and sit them inside the tents. With a radio playing some monotonous atonal singing, the whole was quite convincing. Crouched behind a crumbling wall, Cormac surveyed the trees through the night-setting on his visor. Amongst the native chequer trees, so named because of the pattern of their bark, were blue oaks: a variety much used in the later stages of terraforming projects, and called so because their acorns were blue. They grew very slowly, but were hardy enough to withstand extremes of weather not found on Earth. Beside Cormac crouched Thorn and the two dracomen. Aiden and Cento were somewhere in the trees, using thermal scanners to pick up on whoever might come. They had been gone for two hours.
‘Why’s the moonlight so red?’ asked Thorn.
Cormac had wondered that, too. The sunlight was turned a weak green by the atmosphere, yet under reflected light from the moon it took on the colour of old blood. He had asked Cento for an explanation.
He informed Thorn, ‘The green sunlight’s caused by the atmosphere—aerial algae apparently. The moon has huge mixed deposits of cinnabar and fluorspar on its surface. That’s where the red light comes from.’
‘How come?’
‘I asked the same question. Cinnabar is a red pigment; it’s also mercuric sulphide. Mining it is the chief economic resource here. There’s a runcible up there for transporting tankers of mercury all over the sector. The fluorspar is fluorescent. The combination of the two produces that red light, even when the daytime sky is green.’
‘Oh,’ said Thorn, and fell silent.
Cormac gave him an assessing look. Only as they had been speaking had he noticed that Thorn kept one of the proton guns resting against the wall next to him.
‘Little excessive?’ he said, nodding at the weapon.
Thorn picked it up and held it almost lovingly. In its main chamber the light was subdued: it writhed and shifted, a luminescent mist.
‘Well,’ said Thorn, ‘I do have to test this chap.’
Cormac reserved comment on that. There was little chance that any of the weapons provided for this operation would not work. They continued watching.
‘You are to be attacked by other humans?’
Cormac turned in surprise to look straight into the teeth of a grinning dracoman. It was the first question from one of them since they had been picked up by Hubris.
‘Yes,’ said Cormac, ‘killers out for vengeance on me.’
‘This would endanger mission.’
‘Yes, it—’
The dracoman slid off into the night. It was gone before Cormac could say another word.
‘Speedy chap,’ observed Thorn.
The other dracoman moved up beside Cormac and took hold of his biceps. Its hand was an iron manacle closing.
‘You will not be harmed,’ said the dracoman.
Cormac tried to free his arm. ‘Let me go, damn it!’
The dracoman lost interest in him and turned its head away. It did not release its hold.
‘You’re supposed to obey—’
‘Someone coming,’ came Aiden’s voice over com. ‘One figure approaching. Just walking in . . . Who is that coming from your direction? I thought—’ There was a pause of a couple of seconds. ‘I see. Did you send this dracoman out?’
‘I didn’t send it. What’s it doing?’
‘It’s lined up like a pointer to the trace.’
‘Just one figure approaching you say? You’re not missing anything?’
‘No, this scanner is the best, and Cento and I are also watching full-spectrum. There is no individual chameleonware that sophisticated.’
‘Could it be the android?’
‘No, not big enough and wrong heat emission for a metal-skin. It’s a man, heavily built. He could be nothing to do with Pelter.’
‘Aiden, I want whoever that is alive. If the dracoman goes for him, flatten it. Otherwise just keep watching and let him walk in.’
‘Will do,’ the Golem replied.
Cormac looked with irritation at the dracoman still clamped on to his arm, then watched the trees.
Aiden spoke over the com again. ‘Our dracoman just got a bit frisky,’ he said. In the background there was a sound as of someone shoving a knife into a tyre.
‘What happened?’ Cormac asked.
‘I’m sitting on him,’ said Aiden.
Cormac looked at the dracoman holding him. He could not help but appreciate the humour of the situation.
‘Where’s the man now?’ he asked.
‘Should be coming into sight.’
The figure that walked from the forest, with his shadow cast before him by the bloody moonlight, was immediately familiar to Cormac. He turned his attention to his shuriken holster. Its small screen was lit just enough in the darkness for him to make his selection of program, straining against the grip of the dracoman at every moment. When he had it set, he flipped the weapon into his hand and tossed it into the air. The shuriken shot away with a whickering sound. It stopped in midair only a metre or so in front of the man. The man halted, then he looked around.
‘This will fool them, Ian Cormac,’ he said, ‘but it won’t fool Pelter.’
Cormac pulled against the restraining hand and the dracoman reluctantly let him stand. It stood with him, baring its teeth at the shadowed figure.
‘It won’t fool who, John?’ he asked.
Stanton made a careful gesture towards the shuriken. ‘Can I come on in?’
‘Just walk. It’ll stay the same distance ahead of you. Don’t make any sudden moves, and don’t touch any weapons you might have,’ Cormac told him.
Stanton walked on into the encampment. As the light from the tents revealed him, Cormac saw a thinner-faced individual than the one he had known. Stanton was also decidedly battered.
‘I don’t have any weapons—only information,’ he said.
‘Why are you here, John?’
‘To see Pelter dead, that’s all.’
‘That’s far enough. Now explain yourself,’ said Cormac.
Stanton glanced behind him. ‘I don’t have much time to explain. You’re going to be hit very soon now.’
‘By Pelter, or by these others you refer to?’
‘The others. Pelter won’t come in here without some idea of what you’ve got. He hired people here, armed them, and promised them a shitload of cash. He’s going to use them as a probe, an expendable probe. You know what he’s like.’
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Because I walked in here unarmed. Because I just don’t care any more. You can take me, but just get Pelter.’
Cormac looked at Stanton estimatingly. There was something in his voice. Something he perhaps might not have been able to discern when he was gridlinked. It struck him that this was sincerity.
‘We have heat traces,’ came Aiden’s voice over the com.
‘That’ll be them,’ said Stanton.
Cormac hit the recall and shuriken grudgingly returned. He held up his arm and it snicked into place in the holster. ‘John, get over here, now.’
Stanton broke into a jog and ducked down behind the wall with them. He looked with a kind of tired curiosity at the dracoman clinging to Cormac’s arm. Cormac pointed at it.
‘This fella is very anxious about my security. Understand that he’ll rip you apart if you try anything.’ Cormac nodded to Thorn. ‘Sea
rch him.’
Thorn quickly and efficiently ran his hands through Stanton’s clothing. He pulled aside a ripped trouser leg to expose the empty sheath there, then nodded at Cormac before ducking back down. Stanton crouched as well.
‘What have you got now, Aiden?’
The Golem’s voice sounded different now. Cormac realized that this difference stemmed from the fact that it was no longer speaking. It was broadcasting directly.
‘Trace blurring now. They are dividing. Five bodies . . . Dracoman gone . . . We are going for cover now.’
‘Remember, fire only when they reach the camp. Which of you has that stun gun?’
‘I do,’ said Cento.
‘Well, put it away. We no longer need a live one.’ He turned to Stanton. ‘What will they have?’
‘Assault weapons, a mortar and a few laser carbines. One of them has a Devcon loaded with seeker bullets.’
‘Passing us now,’ said Aiden.
Suddenly there was a scream, then the stutter of a pulse-rifle. Garish flashes lit the trees. One tree was blasted to flinders. The scream ceased.
‘That cuts it,’ came Arn’s annoyed comment.
‘Damn! Hold fire until you’ve identified your targets. I don’t want one of you hitting Cento or Aiden.’
A flare went up through the trees and a man was halfway across the clearing before the light gave him away. He opened fire on the tents. Flames and smoke revealed the beam from a laser carbine. There was the blue flash of a pulse-rifle and he went facedown in the dirt. More firing, then a horrible hornetlike buzzing. Two explosions in the buildings to the right. A horrible sucking gasp over the com.
‘Shit! Seeker bullets!’
‘Heat flares!’ shouted Cormac.
Like the finale of a fireworks display, orange flares shot in every direction amongst the buildings. The buzzing continued. Two flares went out and a nearby explosion rained flakes of rubble down on Cormac’s head. The dracoman pulled him lower and he swore at it. Another stuttering pulse of light.
‘They’re back to the lasers,’ said Arn.