Great North Road (78 page)

“I don’t know,” Saul replied, mesmerized and alarmed by the transformed sea. Occasionally, when out surfing, he’d wound up with an acrid mouthful of jelly bubble shards as the swell dunked him under. It was a vile taste, and if you swallowed the stuff then you had to get ashore quickly, because it invariably acted as an emetic in a human stomach. But it wasn’t lethal, at least not in the usual small doses surfers suffered. But this … happy, friendly Camilo Beach was now besieged by a sea of mushy poison.

“We need to warn the neighbors,” he said sorrowfully. “Maybe fence it off, make sure the kids stay out.”

“They’re good kids,” Emily said automatically. “They won’t go into this.”

“Yeah. I certainly wouldn’t.”

“What’s happening, Saul? It’s not the Zanth, is it?”

He knew that apprehension only too well. If it was Zanth, they’d never make it to the Highcastle gateway. His eyes closed against a dark fear stirring, one he never thought he’d feel again. As if to emphasize the worry, he heard a distant sonic boom as some plutocrat’s private jet streaked south to safety. “This isn’t the Zanth,” he said with as much confidence he could gather. “The plants here have clearly evolved to cope with the sunspot outbreaks. This is what they do when it redshifts. They survive. And we will, too.” He eyed the silent majestic rivers of light cavorting across the sky, disturbed by their size and intensity. This was only the first day of the flares, and the sunspots had still been multiplying when he went to bed last night.

“Survive what?” Emily asked. “How badly do the sunspots affect St. Libra?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. It wasn’t a question he was comfortable thinking about.
But you’re going to have to,
he told himself sternly.
You have a family to consider. To protect. Like before.
“Let’s get back inside. I’ll call Otto and Kelly for starters. We should maybe think of teaming up, pooling resources. The village is reasonably isolated.”

“Just what are you expecting?”

Saul gave the auroras a suspicious stare. “I’m just trying to think ahead a bit, that’s all. And face it, Abellia isn’t exactly self-sufficient at the best of times.”

“If it’s not the Zanth, then we can go through the gateway. It would be hard, but we could start over on another planet.”

“Maybe. If the GE lets us back. They weren’t allowing any travel yesterday, remember. And there aren’t that many planes available.”

“I thought I married an optimist?”

“Don’t worry, you did.”

Saul started calling the neighbors as Emily busied herself making breakfast. The children were all subdued as they came into the kitchen. They, too, were in tune with the rhythm of life in Camilo Beach; the changes manifesting outside were unsettling. They didn’t understand what was happening. Emily made them eat, making fresh waffle mix and allowing then to pour their own maple syrup as a treat.

Otto, Kelly, and five other neighbors answered Saul’s call. They were all equally perturbed by the turn of events, and started calling their neighbors in turn—a chain reaction resulting in a meeting of Camilo residents arranged for ten o’clock that morning.

Duren called Saul just after seven. “Disturbing times, my friend. I hope you’re all right.”

“Not really. The sea is full of jelly bubbles.”

“Yes. That aspect of the uprising is just starting to feature on the news. Most odd. The planet is clearly making it known we are not welcome, just as brother Zebediah predicted.”

“Really? I thought it was the star that was the problem.”

On the other side of the kitchen, Emily asked: “Who?”

“Duren,” he said quietly, which produced an instant scowl.

“The star and its planets are parent and child,” Duren said. “You cannot be surprised at their anger; they are simply responding to our violation of their sanctity.”

Saul was starting to miss the old Duren, the one to whom any argument was settled by smashing someone through the nearest wall. “Sure. I’m kind of busy today. What did you want?”

“It is time.”

“Time for what?”

“For the end of our occupation to begin. The planet is driving us off into the great blackness from which we came.”

“Seriously, I’m busy.”

“I know. I will only take a brief moment of your time. We’d like you to bring us the items we requested earlier.”

“Oh, come on! Today?”

“Especially today, Saul. You do have them, haven’t you?”

“Yes. I’ve got them.” Once he had the raw, Zulah had given him some simple microfacturing details that the 3-D systems at the back of the Hawaiian Moon had no trouble following. When he told Emily about the request, they’d talked about whether he should do it or not. In the end, as the cylinders didn’t seem to have any dangerous function, he’d gone ahead and produced them. Pressure vessels with internal bladders weren’t anything he could go to the Abellia police with. They had to know what Zebediah was going to use them for before that particular anonymous call was placed. Saul had even set up an untraceable address to make the call—just like the old days.

“Then please bring them to us,” Duren said. “This is our address.”

An icon popped up into Saul’s grid, unfurling to reveal a location off Rue Turbigo on the outskirts of town. “I’m not sure I can do that today.”

“I understand. I see you’re at home right now, aren’t you?”

A simple question that sent a cold flush along Saul’s spine. Duren’s e-i must be more advanced than he suspected. He didn’t answer.

“Shall I send Zulah to come and collect our items?” Duren inquired.

Saul nearly shuddered. “No. I’ll bring it all to you.”

“This morning, please.” The call ended.

“You can’t go today,” Emily said.

“I’m not having that woman here at the house. You haven’t met her, you don’t understand what she’s like.”

“She doesn’t know what I’m like.”

“No, please, Emily. I have to go. This ends today. Whatever they’re doing, I’m going to tell them this is the last time I help them.”

“I think we should call the police now.”

“And tell them what? Come on, darling, we’ve been over this a hundred times. We can’t even figure out what those cylinders are for.”

She gave him a reluctant pout. “Well, okay. But I want some safeguards. I’m going to ride your bodymesh.”

Instinctively he didn’t want it. Not to be dependent on her for help. Not to involve her. But there was also a guilty relief from knowing that she’d be with him, that she’d be able to call the police if things went bad, if they started pushing him around, demanding he give more. “Okay,” he said.

He drove the Rohan out of Camilo Village and onto the Rue du Ranelagh. That was when the first glitch of the day hit him. The car’s auto flashed a warning in his grid that its link to the road’s macromesh was intermittent. Saul switched the auto off and took full manual control. Up above, Sirius was burning bright in the sky, its intensity not noticeably different from any other day. But the borealis strands were visible even in the star’s full glare, winding with serpentine agility through the air high above. With the car’s top down, he could feel the static in the atmosphere making his hair crawl.

There was little traffic on the roads. Even the center of town was practically deserted. He pulled up into the reserved parking slot behind the Hawaiian Moon and climbed out. Both Rico’s Bar and the Cornish Ice Cream Shop were shut, along with most of the stores along the promenade.

The three cylinders were in the back room, resting in full view on the shelves that lined one wall. The two smaller ones had a two-liter capacity, and contained the bladders. Valves were fitted at both ends, which made the principle easy enough to understand. Fill the bladder with some fluid, then push air into the cylinder at the other end, which would squeeze the bladder, emptying it. Saul didn’t get why you couldn’t use a pump, but then he didn’t know what the overall operating requirements were. The third cylinder had a four-liter capacity and two inlet valves, so no prizes for guessing what that would be filled from.

He hadn’t known what to expect when Zulah gave him the specifications. And he still didn’t understand them. They weren’t even designed to take much pressure. The valves, though, were high-precision, providing very accurate flow regulation. He suspected that was the real reason they’d come to him: There weren’t that many microfacturing systems around that could build the valves.
Not with owners they could push around.

The cylinders went into an old canvas backpack, and he returned to the car, half expecting the police to come crashing out of the shadows to arrest him. But nothing happened, no cars screeching out of side alleys to block the Rohan, no armored team yelling at him to surrender. So the backpack sat on the passenger seat as he drove through the streets of the old town, hitting the on-ramp at the big Osorio Plaza junction. And for the first time that morning he was moving through normal traffic, having to concentrate on steering and keeping his distance from the others. All the other vehicles had their green taillights on, warning they were being driven manually. After decades of relying on auto it was a nervy few minutes until he got used to it again. He gave the cars around him a bemused look, wondering where they’d suddenly appeared from. Then he remembered that Rue Turbigo was the road to Abellia’s airport. The city’s residents weren’t waiting to see the outcome of the sunspots and the HDA’s investigation into possible Zanth activity. They were heading for the gateway as fast as their credit rating would get them there.

Duren’s address turned out to be a whitewashed villa in a small development halfway up the side of Huerta valley. The grass peeking out of the slope’s reddish flinty soil was wispy and dry as Saul drove up the switchback. This far from the coast the hot air lacked the humidity he was used to. There were about twenty villas packed together on the terrace carved into the mountainside, giving their occupants a fantastic view of the landscape falling away below them. He couldn’t see anybody moving around as he pulled in. Only Duren’s villa had a vehicle parked in front of it, an Alfa Romeo eight-door Tuzan limousine with deep chrome-blue paintwork and black alloy wheel hubs.

“The whole place is deserted,” Emily said.

Saul looked around slowly for her, gazing at the neat little development with its irrigated shrubs and trees. The only sound was the wind gusting along the valley. “Okay, let’s get this over with.” He walked across the baking asphalt to the villa. Before he got there, the middle door of the limousine slid upward.

Duren was sitting inside. “Man, good to see you again.” He held out a big hand in welcome, fang teeth overhanging his lower lip. “You, too, Emily, even though we’ve never actually met.”

“Shit,” Emily said in Saul’s ear. “They’ve found the link.”

Saul held up the backpack. “I brought your stuff.”

“Thank you. Come on in.”

It took a nerve he didn’t know he had to climb into the limousine. The door swung down smoothly behind him, and he found himself sitting on a curving seat next to Duren. The interior was decorated in tasteless purple and gold fabric with black furniture, including a bed that took up the rear quarter. He was facing a young woman in her midtwenties, wearing gray-green overalls with a small topaz-yellow hoop and triangle corporate logo on the arm. She had the kind of perpetually serious expression that belonged to a sixty-year-old, betraying her as another of Zebediah’s devout disciples.

“Saul, this is Catrice,” Duren said. “She believes as we do.”

And I don’t.
“Where’s Zebediah?” Saul asked, while what he was really pleased about was the absence of Zulah.

“Did you wish to speak with him?”

“Not particularly.” He held up the backpack. “Look, I made what you wanted. I’m out of here.”

“Does it fit?” Duren blinked, and for an instant his demon-eye tattoos glimmered at Saul.

“Fit?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Duren took the backpack from him and handed it to Catrice.

“Thanks,” she muttered, and removed one of the two-liter cylinders, placing it on the bench seat beside her. A slim black case was opened.

Saul watched with interest as she carefully threaded a section of pipe to the cylinder valve, nodding in satisfaction. “I have to tell you something,” he said.

“And what’s that?” Duren said in his annoyingly equitable tone, the one that said whatever Saul thought was completely irrelevant.

“I won’t be seeing you, any of you, again. I don’t care about what you’re doing, or your beliefs. You should look up at the sky sometime. Sirius is going crazy. You might want to think about that.”

“Perhaps you should consider why it is going crazy, Saul. This planet does not want us here, especially now.”

Saul found talking to someone who spoke like this to be very difficult, someone whose irrationality manifested in a calm reasonableness. “It’s a sunspot outbreak, Duren, not a political protest. And what do you mean, especially now?” He could have kicked himself for asking, for involving himself.

“The expedition,” Duren said. “They came here prepared to kill this world, Saul. The HDA has brought a great evil with it. Zebediah warned us. He knew this would happen.”

“Nobody’s killing anything.”

“They can, Saul, and they will if their arrogance decides it is necessary. There is no crime they will not commit, sheltering under the perverted guise of protecting their interests. That is why the star is answering their violation the only way it knows how.”

“Right.” Saul was getting edgy now, anxious for this bizarre torment to end so he could just get the hell out of the limousine. Opposite him, Catrice was now plugging fiber optics and power cables into the valve actuator.

“I know how this will end, Saul,” Duren said. “I know St. Libra will triumph, because this has all happened before.”

“What?”

“An age ago. Others came to this world, to try and claim it for themselves. Can you imagine such conceit? To claim a world, a life, that does not belong to you.”

“What happened?”

“They left. It is the fate of all ephemeral animal life when the sun grows cold. We all seek its warmth to nurture us; without its bounty such small weak creatures as ourselves cannot survive.”