The Line of Polity

‘Something’s tearing this ship apart,’ she said, more puzzled now than fearful. ‘It must be in gee . . . a black hole? They can’t have got too close to a planet. Even they could not be so incompetent.’

  The ceiling then split, and something surged through: a tentacle as thick as a man’s body, and terminating in a flat cobra head with a single blue eye where a mouth might have been.

  ‘Dragon,’ said his mother. ‘Run!’ But where was there to run to? Apis saw it happen, along with many others: the buckling and splitting of the ceiling had pulled open the back doors of the bay. Beside his mother, Apis was one of the first to reach those doors.

  ‘Soldiers,’ he said, after sticking his head through the gap, and seeing uniformed men half running and half dragging themselves down the corridor by the evenly spaced handrails. Turning to his mother he said, ‘They don’t have grav-plates out there.’

  ‘Primitive,’ she replied as other Outlinkers pushed up behind them. They all turned and looked up, as another pseudopod squirmed through the split in the ceiling. The ship shook once again; emergency lights began flashing in the corridor. Apis checked the corridor once more and saw the last of the soldiers disappearing around a bend in it. Again the ship lurched, sending people floating – observed by the blue eyes of Dragon – towards the broken ceiling.

  ‘We can go through!’ Apis yelled, and hauled himself into the corridor.

  ‘No, not yet!’ his mother yelled too late.

  Apis was halfway to the bend when the others began to follow. His mother reached him ahead of the crowd. Most of them did not reach him. To one side, something distorted and broke, and fire spewed through – flame hanging in the air like layers of fog, with no gravity to give it shape. Apis heard screaming, saw shapes . . .

  ‘Come on.’ His mother grabbed his shoulder and pulled him onwards. With others, they reached a side shaft that ran through the ship. Uniformed people were floating and propelling themselves up it, aiming for an access way above.

  ‘They’ll be heading for craft to escape in,’ she said. They flung themselves up the shaft, and followed the crowd. No one took any notice of them. Terror had become a taste in the air. Vacuum could claim them all at any moment. The access way opened in another corridor leading to an airlock. Apis and his mother followed the uniformed personnel through it. Three others also in uniform followed them, before a sucking explosion and the sudden slamming of the airlock. One got halfway through, but he did not stop the lock from closing.

  The hull of the landing craft clanged as the clamps let go, and all was free-floating chaos as it dropped away from the mother ship. Orders were bellowed and soldiers pulled themselves down into seats and strapped themselves in. Apis and his mother did the same, and only now that the craft was moving away from the ship did they get some strange looks. Glancing back he took in the soldiers there, the mixture of uniforms – in some cases the lack of a uniform, in other cases uniforms soaked with blood. Forward, some sort of commander floated between the passenger area and the cockpit, surveying the cabin. Behind him the pilot and navigator sat at the controls, the curved chainglass screen before them displaying pinpricks of stars and the occasional hurtling pieces of wreckage. Apis stretched himself up to try to get a view of the camera-fed screens below this – those that showed other views. He glimpsed fire, and the hardly recognizable shape of the ship that had ostensibly come to rescue them from Miranda, a chaotic tangle of pseudopods, and the dark-scaled moon that was Dragon. When the commander’s gaze fixed on him and his mother, he pulled himself back down in his seat.

  ‘Secure those two,’ said the man, pointing. Heads turned in their direction and soldiers came towards them with plastic ties to bind their hands and feet.

  ‘This is not necessary,’ said Apis’s mother. ‘We can cause you no harm. We have not the strength—’

  A soldier struck her across the face to silence her. It was a blow any normal-gee human could have taken with ease, but it knocked her unconscious. The soldier stared at her in surprise, then turned to his commanding officer, who merely nodded for him to continue. Apis held out his hands to be tied, and looked worriedly at his mother. It was only when he was certain she was breathing that he took any further notice of his surroundings. She needed medical attention, that was all he could think. He had to find a way to get it.

  The dark-otter facility sat on the edge of the papyrus-choked bay, before a backdrop of rounded mountains that resembled crouching animals. These slopes were predominantly mottled with heathers, bracken, and other Terran plants that filled the few niches not already occupied by native species. With a few exceptions adapted to a sea full of copper salts, the water beyond the papyrus swarmed with all the strange creatures found on Cheyne III when it had been colonized centuries before. The flatlands that curved back from the bay, on either side of the mountains, grew only papyrus and other native species that could tolerate the poisonous soil.

  The killer set up his tripod on a raft of stone protruding from the side of one of the mountains. Bushes lush with cloudberries surrounded him and, up behind him, thick bracken hissed in a constant wind blowing down from the higher slopes.

  Sure that the tripod was firmly set and unlikely to rock, the killer – whose name was ostensibly Stiles – stooped down to his case and began to lovingly assemble the weapon it contained. It looked like a hunting rifle, yet the barrel was a metre long and as narrow as a pencil, and the stock and main body were inset with digital displays and touch controls. Stiles mounted the weapon on the tripod and peered through the X10000 image intensifier, before locking the small motion dampers in place. He then scanned the facility.

  The perimeter fence stood half a kilometre from the buildings, and he knew the intervening ground was loaded with motion sensors capable of picking up even the breath of any intruder who might penetrate beyond the autogun towers. Guards, and one or two of the new security drones, irregularly patrolled the area outside this fence. But no security was sufficient to prevent someone such as Stiles from taking a four-kilometre distance shot. He grimaced to himself, and directed his weapon towards the facility’s back doors.

  Now sighted in, Stiles had nothing to do but wait. He lit up a cigarette and gazed out at the adult dark-otters sporting in oily grey water beyond the papyrus. He was well aware of the two watchers hiding in the bracken on the slope, but not worried about them. They would have nothing damning to report to their masters, and he would comment on their presence later to show just how professional he was – all part of the image.

  The doors opened and two women in monofilament diving suits wandered out, carrying haemolungs and separate recycling packs for deeper work. They headed for one of the facility’s antigravity cars and loaded their stuff up. Not them he was waiting for. John Spader would not be out for another twenty minutes at least. The chief of the facility was very regular in his habits – not a safe way to be for anyone in authority on a world like Cheyne III; it made one a viable target for assassination, kidnapping, whatever the Separatists were into at any particular time. Assassination today, and unusually an outsider was being employed for the hit, but they knew Stiles by reputation and had wanted him signed up.

  Spader stepped out of the building precisely to the minute. Stiles sighted on him, got the man’s head easily centred in the intensifier, initiated one of the touch-pads on the side of his weapon, and waited until the word ‘acquired’ appeared below the targeting frame. When he fired, there was no sound, and no immediate effect. Stiles kept Spader centred, and waited. It took a long moment for the subsonic bullet to reach its destination and, even though Spader moved in the intervening time, it remained on target. Stiles watched Spader’s head gout a cloud of bone and brain, while his scalp and the remaining side of his face spun away. As the target went down, Stiles smiled and scratched at his Van Dyke beard. When he smiled like that, he looked truly evil. Those who were watching from the slope felt a certain amount of fear of him, and hoped he would not spot them. It was rumoured that befo
re he went private he had been Sparkind – not someone to mess with.

  After packing away his weapon and folding up its tripod, Stiles trekked back over the mountain, giving every appearance of being an enthusiastic bird-watcher – had there been any birds on Cheyne III. In half an hour he arrived at his antigravity car and, below a sky scudded with sooty clouds, headed back to the city. Police AGCs passed him from the other direction, but he was now one of many, and the police would assume that all AGCs were logged with the AI, so they could easily get a checklist.

  Gordonstone consisted mainly of ground-level arcologies seemingly nailed in position with plascrete towers – usually of hotels or the offices of wealthy Polity corporations. Stiles brought his AGC in at high speed, as to travel any slower would betray the fact that it was not under city control. He brought it down in the park next to the swimming pool of his arcology hotel, and was careful to set the vehicle’s security device when he climbed out. Should anyone try to break into it, a brief plasma fire in the boot would turn the weapon concealed there into unidentifiable slag.

  The man and woman, in appearance members of the runcible culture, watched him from the bar by the pool. Stiles noted the scaled augs they wore as he went directly to the bar counter beside them and ordered himself a cips from the metalskin barman. The ice was astringent on his tongue as the mild narcotic, which gave it its rainbow hue, melted out. After he had paid for the drink and received his chipcard back, he turned to the couple and held the card out to them.

  ‘I believe you have something for me,’ he said.

  The couple glanced at each other. Then the woman removed her sunglasses and turned her attention to Stiles. She was an attractive sort, but then, any woman could be. It was the ones who did not bother with surgery you had to watch.

  ‘What makes you think that?’ she asked.

  Stiles put his card on the bar, waving away the chromed hand of the metalskin bartender.

  ‘You work for Brom and you’ve been watching me for ten days now. Have your two operatives at the otter facility reported in yet?’

  The two did not manage to conceal their annoyance. Perhaps they had thought their surveillance invisible. Stiles did not betray the contempt he felt for them. Amateurs – how they had managed to survive for so long was a wonder.

  ‘You think you’re really good, don’t you?’ said the man, his head jutting forward. Stiles considered dropping him there and then, but rejected the idea: he did not have his money yet. He shrugged, keeping his expression blank. The woman shook her head and reached down into her bag to remove another chipcard. She stepped closer to Stiles and pressed her hand against his chest.

  ‘A job well done,’ she said, before taking his card, pressing her card on it, and tapping an amount across to his account. Stiles finished his cips, retrieved his card.

  ‘Wonderful place,’ he said after he had checked the amount. He turned to go.

  ‘We’ll be in contact. We may have something more . . . challenging for you,’ said the woman.

  Stiles nodded once and continued on his way. Passing the pool, he studied with interest the naked bodies sprawled under the sun-tubes, before sauntering into the arcology hotel and heading to his suite.

  Once within, he locked the door and placed a sensor device against it. Any movement outside it and he would have plenty of warning. A quick scan of his rooms revealed five bugs, two of them microscopic. He disabled them all, including the one the woman had placed on his shirt. A small vibrating pad against the window glass prevented any possibility of his speech being read by laser-bounce. Another scan: no optics in the wall. His final precaution was to take a shower, as he was old-fashioned about such things. Under the spray of water he activated his wristcom.

  ‘Thorn here. Has the death been reported?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the Cheyne III runcible AI, its voice faint since Cereb, the moon on which it was situated, was now only just above the horizon. Use of a satellite to bounce the signal would have been too risky.

  ‘They’ll be in touch. Apparently something more challenging for me.’

  ‘Another killing?’

  ‘Maybe. If it is I may have to refuse it, as that gets me no closer to Brom.’

  ‘That is your decision,’ the AI replied – its voice clearer now. ‘Understand though that your mission is now of limited duration, since you may be required elsewhere.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘An Outlink station has recently been destroyed and one of the Dragon spheres may be involved.’

  ‘Cormac?’

  ‘Is on his way.’

  Thorn whistled then said, ‘Layer upon layer. I wonder if there’s some connection to the Dragoncorp augs, or to that other tech?’

  ‘Dracocorp,’ the AI corrected. ‘The name of the corporation was changed.’

  ‘Is there a connection?’ Thorn persisted.

  ‘Almost certainly, but your primary mission here is to locate Brom’s hideout and call in your team to . . . deal with it. Let others deal with the bigger picture.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t forget,’ said Thorn, switching his wristcom to another channel. He smiled to himself, thinking how euphemistic AIs became when discussing these matters. It surprised him that the Cereb AI had not used that other favourite: ‘field-excision’.

  ‘Thorn speaking. Where are you now?’ he asked.

  ‘Floor below you,’ replied the leader of the four-man team that was covering him in the hotel.

  ‘Okay, stay close and wait for my signal. If I do give that signal, I want you to come in hard and fast. None of this “You are under arrest” bollocks.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ came the reply.

  After shutting down com, Thorn finished his shower and, again as Stiles the wealthy killer, went to find some entertainment with one of the bodies lying by the pool. It was not the same as in the old days. It would have been just he and Gant covering each other. But in the old days he had been a soldier, not an undercover agent for Earth Central. He missed Gant, he missed the way things used to be. Samarkand had changed him.

  With increasing confusion, Apis listened in to the sporadic talk around him. Who were these people talking to? Did they not have the facility to run silent queries through their biotech augs? His education was broad enough for him to know of prayer, but his experience was narrow and he did not immediately recognize it. He stared at the man seated next to him, who was holding a blood-soaked wad of cloth to his stomach. In his left hand the man held a ring of beads fashioned in the shape of tiny skulls. These were caked with dried blood, and hung still on his fingers. He was muttering to himself in a language Apis did not understand, so he tried to ignore it. Madness. Speaking to gods? It was only real conversation between individuals Apis was prepared to acknowledge:

  ‘How long?’ the commander asked another officer, who seemed all efficiency as he ran through some sort of inventory – kneading at his aug as he checked lockers and displays.

  ‘A year, nominally, though there are alternatives.’

  ‘Lang, I don’t want to hear about alternatives. It is Masada or nothing. How are we for supplies?’

  Lang said, ‘The water we can recycle indefinitely. With fifteen in the cryopods, the food should get us through – just. There will be deficiencies.’

  ‘Hardship refines the faithful,’ said the commander.

  His way of speaking confused Apis. The man seemed to use a whole sentence to say one word, when not using a whole sentence to say nothing.

  ‘Yes, I imagine it does, but we have more than hardship,’ said Lang.

  ‘With prayer no problem is insurmountable.’

  Lang stared at his commander and it was evident that some silent communication passed between them. After this, the commander swung his attention to the wounded soldiers, then to Apis and his mother. The Outlinker was young and inexperienced, but he immediately knew he was in danger, just as others on that ship knew they also were. The prayers got louder and louder and some men
were on their knees working themselves into a frenzy. The commander turned back to Lang and paused for a moment before nodding. Apis shoved at his mother to try to rouse her, but she would not be roused, not then – nor when the four soldiers grabbed them and dragged them to the airlock. Perhaps it was the arrogance of assumed superiority that made Apis speak out, even though he knew a casual blow from them might kill him.

  ‘We mustn’t die in bonds,’ Apis said to the white-faced soldier who held his frangible arms in hands like steel clamps. They were now at the airlock, where another soldier was spinning the wheel. A wheel? A manual airlock! Madness. Apis improvised in the pause his words had caused. ‘Would you have us come before Him in bonds?’ It sounded right anyway. With his expression revealing shame, the soldier drew a knife and severed the plastic ties on Apis’s wrists and ankles. The same was not done for his mother, though. Together they were shoved into the cramped space, the door wound shut behind them.

  Apis hyperventilated at a rate abnormal in any normal human being, and wished his mother could do the same. He was dizzy by the time the air started to be pumped out of the lock – his cells now fully charged with oxygen. He linked one arm round the tie on his mother’s wrists and linked the other round one of the bars set in the side wall of the airlock. It was good that those inside were so short of air, otherwise they might have opened the outer lock directly, and nothing would have stopped him being sucked out into void. He allowed the small amount of air in his lungs to eject, then closed his nostrils, ears, rectum. His saliva turned to resin and sealed his mouth. He inflated, and his nictitating membranes closed over his eyes. Against him his mother grew to twice her normal size as her body did those same things unconsciously. She would have forty or fifty minutes. He would have a little longer. Now, as the outer lock opened onto vacuum, he considered what he must do with that time.

  Apis wanted to act immediately, but knew that this would gain him nothing. Instead, he thought his way through it. If he and his mother were found still alive inside the airlock, the soldiers would likely make sure they were not alive the next time the lock was opened. Apis studied the interior and noted a storage space set in the wall. He opened it to find inside two emergency suits with small oxygen packs, some lines, and a couple of large canisters of breach sealant. He pulled out the two suits and two lines, and was about to pull one of the suits onto his mother when he saw the outer lock closing. He quickly towed her through it and outside.