FALLEN DRAGON (96 page)

"You mean we can't trust you?"

"You got it, girl. Denise cannot trust me, not now, not ever. I do not like her. I will never like her. I will, however, respect her abilities. And I expect a similar respect in return. What you can have from me is reliability. I am dependable in this in a way none of you are. I will hijack that starship, and it will fly to Aldebaran. Of that you can be certain."

"I'm not sure I can be, Lawrence."

"This is for me, now. Not you and your ideals. That's why you can be certain. I finally,
finally,
have a chance to put my life back together and live it the way I was born to live it. To cancel out the last twenty miserable years. After Aldebaran I'm going home. That's all: home. And nothing and nobody can stop that from happening."

The sound of the hovercraft approaching made both of them turn and look out across the crater lake. Lawrence couldn't help a derisory laugh at the absurdity of the vehicle. It was made from wood, Arnoon's lightest, hardest timber, crafted into a simple oval platform with a cabin grafted onto the prow. Two big steerable propellers stood high on smooth, tall fins at the rear. The skirt was willow wool, a fine tight weave easily holding in the cushion of air on which it rode. Electric motors powered the propellers and impellers, salvaged from an assortment of heavy machinery across the plateau.

It swept lightly across the water, with a thin haze of spray escaping from underneath its skirt, and a creamy V-shaped wake spreading wide. When it reached the island it rocked slightly as the front skirt rode up the shingle and onto the scanty grassmoss. The propellers reversed pitch, bringing it to a halt. It sank down with a prolonged wheeze of escaping air.

The heavylift robot carrying the dragon trundled over to it. A ramp was deployed in front of the propeller fins, enabling it to climb up onto the deck.

"We're ready," Denise said. She gave Lawrence and her sister an anxious glance, aware that they'd been quarreling.

"Sure," Lawrence said brightly. "Is that thing really going to work?"

"Certainly." Denise sounded offended. "We've practiced the route a dozen times. The river is the easiest way out of Arnoon. The hovercraft will take us straight to Rhapsody Province. One of the articulated trucks from Dixon is already at the rendezvous point. It'll take the dragon all the way down to Memu Bay's airport. We'll be there in fifteen hours. After that, it's all up to you."

"Don't worry, my contact has sent a plane to collect us. Where's the cargo pod? We can hardly load the dragon into a Xianti as it is."

"The cargo pod is with the truck. An RL-thirty-three, industry standard sixty-ton capacity. We'll put the dragon inside it when we get there."

"Okay. Let's go."

* * *

Simon was appalled to discover that there was no supersonic transport on Thallspring. He wound up commandeering the presidential jet, which could barely reach Mach 9. It was a converted fifty-seat medium-range commuter jet that had a flight time of four hours to Memu Bay.

He spent the time working with his personal AS, dropping hundreds of askpings into Memu Bay's datapool. The leisure company that Michelle had signed up with to go diving among the atolls had no file on any employee called Josep, nor on Raymond, who was supposed to be his friend. The AS trawl couldn't find any abnormalities in the company's memory blocks. No substituted files, no gaps in the daily boat trip logs for a month either side of Michelle's visit; even the financial accounts were in order.

"Arrest them," Simon ordered Ebrey Zhang.

"Who, exactly?" Memu Bay's governor asked.

"The company's senior management. Their diving gill instructors. Boat crews. Bring them all in for questioning. I want them in custody by the time I arrive."

"Yes, sir."

The governor's noticeable reluctance made Simon review the current situation report for Memu Bay. "For God's sake," he muttered as the indigo script scrolled down. And to think, he'd warned the SK2 to keep an eye on the place.

Memu Bay had gone into meltdown over the last week. Asset realization was down to 50 percent of estimated targets. Two-thirds of the settlement's factories had some kind of strike action going on. The entire mayor's office had walked out and refused to work with Ebrey Zhang following the Grabowski rape case. The rest of the civil sector was reduced to emergency services only. Platoon morale was rock bottom, with charges accumulating against 30 percent of Z-B's personnel. TB cases were still being reported; immunization implementation was slow. Sabotage against utilities was a daily occurrence. Several districts had become no-go zones—and that included for Skin platoons. Collateral no longer worked. There were reprisals every time. Zhang was afraid to use any more necklaces for fear of making the situation even worse.

The more Simon studied the breakdown and its history, the more interested he became. Essentially, Z-B had lost control of the settlement. The resistance group led by KillBoy had waged a beautifully orchestrated campaign against the invasion, building to this climax of near anarchy.

"Why, though?" Simon asked a dismayed Braddock Raines. "How does this help our alien? Wiping out Zhang's little command is hardly going to cripple Zantiu-Braun."

"I'm not sure they could even do that," Braddock commented. "Physically eliminating every Skin stationed in Memu Bay would be difficult even for them. They can force the platoons off the streets and back into their barracks, maybe even make them fall back all the way to the airport. But if you hit those lads too hard, they'll hit you back. Part of the problem is Zhang holding back."

"You might be on to something there," Simon said. "With the platoons off the streets, the alien is free to do what it wants in Memu Bay without us noticing. But we still don't know what that is."

The presidential jet landed without incident. There was very little activity at the airport. Half of its buildings were operating on reserve power supplies, thanks to the resistance group severing a set of superconductor cables two nights earlier. Skins patrolled the perimeter.

A helicopter was waiting for Simon. He climbed in as a big Pan-Skyways cargo jet took off, heading for Durrell with a hold full of assets.

Skins had to clear the square in front of the Town Hall so the helicopter could land. The displaced protesters jeered and threw stones over the barricades. Simon's Skin escort closed in around him. He never normally noticed them, but today he was grateful for their presence. He didn't often get this close to physical danger. The clamorous hostility of the crowd made him distinctly uncomfortable.

Ebrey Zhang had a huge number of valid reasons why Memu Bay was in its current perilous state. He was very eager to tell Simon each and every one of them.

"Forget it," Simon said curtly. "I know exactly why this mess has built up. Not that knowing is going to help you much before the board of inquiry."

Ebrey Zhang did his best not to scowl.

"Did you round up the leisure company people?" Simon asked.

"Yes. And it wasn't easy. My platoons get into difficulty every time they step out of their barracks."

"I'm not prepared to tolerate this situation. It will interfere with my investigation. Can you enforce a proclamation of martial law?"

"Probably," Ebrey Zhang said. "It'll be difficult in some districts."

"Declare it. Order a curfew for six o'clock that will be in place for twenty-four hours. Authorize the Skins to dart anyone found on the streets after that time. Close down all vehicle traffic, and limit domestic datapool access to entertainment and official calls only. Any acts of resistance or aggression against us are to be suppressed by lethal force. One collateral necklace will be activated per incident."

"Very well. But we'll probably have trouble getting people back to work afterward. We might not be able to meet our asset quota."

"Irrelevant; I've already written it off. Now, I want to see the prisoners."

The interviews followed a pattern. Initial superficial defiance, which swiftly faded when the interviewee realized just how serious Simon was. He began to learn what had happened.

Josep Raichura and Raymond Jang had been taken on at the start of the last season—popular guys, who never lacked for female company. Management couldn't explain why there were no files. With their cooperation Simon's personal AS swiftly tracked down the substitutions. Implantation of the ghosts was little short of miraculous: they had birth certificates, school grades, parents (who had similar digital histories), bank accounts, credit coin bills, medical records, tax records, insurance policies, apartment rent agreements. They were more real to the datapool and the AS than half of the people belonging to Memu Bay's underclass.

Verbal interrogation confirmed Josep and Ray had left the company around the time Z-B's starships had arrived. No one could remember the exact date. It had been a confused time.

They'd not been seen since. Nobody had managed to contact them.

The instructors who were friendly with them believed they were from out of town. One of the hinterland settlements. Definitely not local, though.

Someone thought they lived in a suburb close to the Nium estuary. They certainly had a female housemate; several instructors had hit on her in the marina bars. Possibly called Denise. The AS immediately began generating an image of her from their descriptions.

"Find the house," Simon ordered. "I want every estate around that estuary visited by Skins. Physically verify the occupants of each house, apartment and hole in the ground. I want a complete verbal history of occupancy for the last five years, which they're to cross-reference with the AS."

The curfew had been in place for two hours when fifteen platoons began the door-to-door search. So far the proclamation of martial law had proved remarkably successful. Memu Bay's inhabitants had realized from Zhang's announcement that he wasn't bluffing. Most people started heading home by four o'clock. The fact that the roads really did shut down at six caught a few motorists out. The traffic regulator AS disabled every vehicle other than bicycles. Drivers hurried home on foot. Several were darted by Skins. Die-hard protesters outside the Town Hall and various Skin barracks were darted without warning at one second past six.

Simon and Braddock received a call about a possible suspect location at eleven-fifteen and immediately took a helicopter out to the Nium estuary estate. It was a bungalow rented from a property agency. Nobody answered the door when the Skin had rung the bell. When he asked a neighbor he was told that a girl called Denise lived in it by herself; her two male housemates had left several weeks ago. None of that corresponded with the information that the AS trawled out from the datapool concerning the bungalow.

Five Skins were standing guard in the garden when Simon arrived along with a small team of Z-B technicians. A further three Skins were inside. Simon and Braddock gave the bun
g
alow a quick inspection. Someone had abandoned their breakfast. A dish of cereal and a mug of coffee were left on the table in the kitchen. Two slices of toast stood in a stainless-steel rack, untouched.

Braddock sniffed at the coffee mug and pulled back fast, his nose wrinkling in disgust. "Several days old, I'd say."

"We'll go for an expert opinion." Simon told one of the technicians to analyze the food to see if he could determine how long it had been standing. "It would have been early morning here when Josep was captured at the spaceport," he mused as the technician took a sample of the semisolid cereal.

Another technician was examining the bedrooms and bathroom for skin and hair samples.

The very frightened neighbor said she thought Denise worked at a school. No, she didn't know which one, but it could be a playschool.

"I want every head teacher in the city brought in," Simon instructed Zhang. "Right now."

"I've got a DNA match," the technician reported. "A skin sample from one of the disused bedrooms belongs to Josep."

"Excellent," Simon purred. It was coming together beautifully. Of all the challenges, puzzles and pursuits he'd been involved in over the years, nothing had given him greater satisfaction than this. Some small part of his mind was childishly excited by the prospect of encountering an alien, even though that encounter would bring enormous upheaval, possibly even war, given the alien's recent actions. That made him pause. Interstellar war was impossible, surely? If commerce was impractical, then invasion and conquest must surely be out of the question. Then why was the alien so hostile?

He knew the answer was close. If the facts could just be put together in the right order...

Mrs. Potchansky was the nineteenth head teacher to be brought before Simon. It was half-past-three in the morning, and he'd resorted to far too much strong coffee. The caffeine was slowly abrading his temper, and contributing to a subtle depression. It was one thing to be the butt of smartmouth insults; but he could actually sense the naked thoughts of each teacher, know how much he was genuinely despised and hated. That could wound a man's soul.

"Does Denise work for you?" Simon asked as the old woman stood in front of him.

"I don't know any Denise." It was a perfect schoolmistress voice, instantly instilling a sense of complete inferiority in any listener. She was one of the few teachers to arrive fully dressed. Simon imagined even the Skins would be made to wait until she had chosen appropriate clothes and put them on in her own time.