Great North Road (90 page)

“Don’t count on it,” Josh challenged. “Did you see? The civilians were almost in tears when our colonel gave us the good news. We’ll be eating shit stew for supper tonight.”

“How are they going to get resupplies in?” Omar asked. “The Daedaluses are all back at Abellia.”

“I talked to Ravi,” Angela said. “They can probably fly around the western end of the Eclipse Mountains between Edzell and Sarvar. Less dangerous.”

“Do we even know where the western end is?” Atyeo asked.

“Dunno. Ask the AAV team,” Angela grunted. She finished her asparagus soup and walked outside. For the first time in days the irritating vulgar pulsations of the borealis streamers were gone, blotted out by the continent of murky cloud that had slithered in from the northwest. The landscape was reflecting an unhealthy salmon-pink shade that came percolating through the cloud base. And it was calm. The wind had died away in the short time she’d been in the mess tent.

Angela rubbed her bare arms, finding goose bumps had risen. Slowly, and with an awful sense of foreboding, she tipped her head back to stare up into the strangely out-of-focus cloud. There was no thunder anymore, only emptiness as the atmosphere absorbed all sound.

“No,” she whispered in astonishment at the impossibility.

Snow had begun to fall gently out of St. Libra’s disfigured sky.

*

They finally cracked open the bottle of Brennivn when they reached Ian’s flat that evening after work. Sid thought it was worth celebrating. Even Eva agreed, taking a full shot glass from Ian before settling back against the lounge wall.

“I’m sorry about Ruckby,” she said. “The security at his place was just too good. I was picking up mesh emissions from outside—he must have covered every wall with smartdust. It’s like a digital fortress in there.”

“Aye, pet, don’t fret it,” Ian said. “I got Sherman, Sid got Jede, and between us we tagged five vehicles. If that ain’t enough, I don’t know what is.”

“It’ll do,” Sid agreed. “We don’t want to push our luck. I’m thinking we might even reduce our original observation programs. I don’t want to spook them now.”

“I’ll sort that out tonight,” Ian said as he hopped up on the counter. He took a sip of the Brennivn and tried not to grimace.

“So how long do we leave it before we download?” Eva asked. “Is there a capacity limit?”

“Theoretically, the microbe bugs will harvest their bodymesh emissions for about four months before they reach their limit,” Sid said. “Of course we don’t have that long. I reckon about ten days’ worth of calls should give us a proper picture of what the hell they’re involved in. Maybe a fortnight. I’d like longer.”

“Will they catch the download?” Eva asked.

“Hopefully not, but that’s part of the risk.”

“O’Rouke will crap on us from on high if he finds out what we’ve done, going behind his back and all,” Ian said.

“Screw him,” Sid said. “We’ve got the HDA behind us if we get a result. Besides, O’Rouke is on his way out.”

“Really?” Eva asked. “How do you know?”

“Ralph turned him down flat when he asked if Ernie and the others could just be shipped out to a penal colony; said they’re here to defend all humans, not act like his private Gestapo.”

“So?” Ian asked.

“So I had to send our files to legal. The lawyers O’Rouke retained say we’ve certainly got a case against the five suspects, but there’s a problem using evidence supplied by the HDA.”

“It’s a government agency operating inside its remit,” Eva said. “Even if we don’t like its methods.”

“Yes, but to prove it was a legitimate involvement, we’ll have to explain to the court how our first suspect was an alien monster. Market Street is going to look ridiculous. Worse, it could be played that we’re protecting the Norths.”

“That’s bollocks, man.”

“Aye, but it’s going to be said. The unlicensed sites are going to have a field day, not to mention conspiracy theorists. The whole Bartram North case will get reopened. It’ll be a high-order crapfest.”

“How long before the files go up to the Prosecution Bureau?” Eva asked.

Sid grinned. “With O’Rouke calling in markers, legal can delay it for a week or so. Statutory limit for internal review is nine days.”

“You’re evil,” she said, laughing. “The same time we pull in all Sherman’s calls.”

“Aye, if there’s anything there we might just be able to throw O’Rouke a lifeline. How grateful do you think he’d be?”

“Sod gratitude,” Ian said. “How much will he pay for it? Crap on it man, you could be the next commissioner.”

“I’m just back off suspension.”

“Aye, but, we’d really get those promotions. Probably a couple of grades.”

Sid downed the rest of his Brennivn in one. Pulled a face. “Let’s see what Sherman’s up to before we make any plans.”

After the other two had left, Ian sat on the bed and put on his netlens glasses. The case’s secure network was still open, Sid had made sure of that. On a technicality, they didn’t have to close it down completely before legal sent the files up to prosecution. Until then it was still registered as open. He used Vance Elston’s authorization codes to worm back into the station network and begin harvesting.

Tallulah Packer was twenty-five years old, though her face was so sweet she could pass for a good three years younger. She was living a little too high, like every other executive in Newcastle. Her bank accounts showed she earned a good salary—more than him—but each month she spent more than she earned. Clothes, shoes, evenings out, trips, rent on the St. James apartment; her main account had run up quite a deficit, which the bank didn’t complain about because of the magic Northumberland Interstellar account code on the monthly income payments—and the interest it charged her.

There were no medical bills, he saw delightedly, that amazing figure and beauty were 100 percent natural. She did have membership at Finely Toned, a spa in the St. James singletown, but that was all.

His e-i slotted a priority news icon into his grid, which he reluctantly opened. Tallulah was far more interesting than anything else in the world.

Eighteen major GE news sites were covering Vice Commissioner Charmonique Passam returning through the Newcastle gateway. Unlicensed sites factored in their information, that she’d flown back from Abellia on a private HyperLear, that every one of her staff had been left behind. Reports of snow from Abellia were confirmed with video shots of white flakes drifting to ground, kissing the lush tropical plants and turning to slush on the roads.

“Aye, you complete cow,” Ian murmured as Passam stood up at a podium that had the GE Alien Bureau seal on the front. Her smile was as brittle as antique porcelain. “I’m happy to announce that the St. Libra geogenetic expedition has been a complete success. Through the diligent, dedicated work of the forward-camp science teams we have confirmed that there is no genetic variance on St. Libra. No insects or animals ever evolved there. It is what we always thought, a world of beautiful and dynamic zebra botany. And I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the expedition for helping to make it the tremendous feat of accomplishment that we can all be proud of.”

Even the licensed reporters weren’t going to let her get away with that. What about the sunspots, they demanded, what about the weather, the snow—what about the people you abandoned in the jungle?

Passam’s formidable smile never faltered. “The sunspot outbreak was a simply astonishing coincidence. A natural phenomenon of the star that has only just revealed itself to us, but one that has historical validity. And my colleagues at the forward camps have not been abandoned, as you disgracefully put it. The forward camps have adequate supplies and emergency rations to continue operations for months without resupply. The personnel will of course be airlifted out as soon as there is a break in the weather. As you know, criminal elements on St. Libra severely restricted our Daedalus flights, killing the flight crew in an atrocious act of terrorism unprecedented in modern times. If any hardship falls upon the forward bases, these fanatics must take sole responsibility. Thank you.” Passam walked away from the podium, to be shielded from any further questions by a herd of assistants and press officers.

“Arseholing bitch,” Ian concluded. He put a block on transnet news and returned to his harvesting.

Boris Attenson was actually thirty-four according to government records, not the thirty-one his public profile claimed. A significant monthly payment went to a private and discreet clinic for follicle regeneration. Ian grinned at that. His expenses were also interesting. Plenty of money spent late at night in the restaurants and clubs of London, Brussels, Berlin, and Paris—signed off by his bosses as legitimate client entertainment costs.

The next part was tougher, cross-indexing bodymesh emissions with local cell records, with e-i coding. It took an hour, but Ian was in his element. By the end he had Boris’s secondary accounts in a Venezuelan bank. The amount of money was impressive. Every month Boris spent the equivalent of Ian’s salary on vices and luxuries for himself. Ian wasn’t envious about the money; there were always rich pricks like Boris pissing their life away, and there always would be, that was simply how the universe worked. What was intolerable was him taking Tallulah down that route with him. Tallulah who would be so much better off in Ian’s arms. In his bed.

Ian checked through the payments and linked them with Boris’s location. Experience again gave him an edge, knowing the signs that no AI could correlate. It was eight days ago, the week before Tallulah was questioned; Boris was staying in a London hotel on the south bank, and there was one last late-night purchase. Ian immediately pulled the hotel security files, knowing what he was going to find even before it materialized in the netglasses. As he expected, there was Boris climbing out of a taxi at quarter to one in the morning. And there was the girl who wasn’t Tallulah, smartly dressed, young and pretty, with the neutral-face boredom of everybody whose self-esteem was non-existent, waiting for this interminable night to be over, the same as every other night, waiting for the john to spend himself, bracing herself to listen to the I-love-my-girlfriend speech afterward, delivered with guilt and shame, the hunger for sympathy and understanding. She’d give Boris that, he’d paid a lot for it.

Ian froze the image of Boris disappearing into his hotel room, toxed up, almost indifferent to the hooker. The end of another day in the wonderful world of high finance, closing the deal, screwing your rivals.

“Not anymore, pal,” Ian told the image.

T
UESDAY,
A
PRIL 2, 2143

It was the screams that brought everyone running as fast as their armor and multilayered clothing would let them, not the bodymesh’s medical alert. Screams of panic and pain always cut clean to the center of a human brain, demanding attention and response. This was no exception, its siren call amplified by the nervy atmosphere that gripped Wukang, the fear the monster was among them once again.

At the time, Angela was helping carry a load of food packets from one of the 350DL pallets over to the mess tent. She and Roarke Kulwinder from the xenobiology team had spent quite a lot of the last three days bringing food in out of the snow. He was a cheery man in his late thirties, who was always linking to send her pictures of his wife and two small children; they were about his only topic of conversation. Once again he was telling her about the woodland den he’d built for the kids last summer when the screams began, hysterical, rising and falling as the victim desperately sucked down breath. Angela got a fix on the origin, which was immediately backed up by her e-i; a medical alert was coming from Luther Katzen’s bodymesh, about seventy meters away on the other side of the mess tent. She and Roarke stared at each other for a moment, then they both dropped the packages and started running as best they could in their bulging clothes.

It had snowed every day at Wukang since the first flakes appeared last Wednesday. The ground temperature was too high for snow to settle, though, and the flakes had turned to slush. Shallow streams of icy water had meandered across Wukang, soaking the detritus embedded in the mud following the hailstone tumult. There were tide rings of rubbish twirling sluggishly around the vehicles and domes and engineering shacks as the filthy water shunted lighter items about. Inventory became close to impossible. Angela and Forster faced a constant struggle to find items for the microfacture team.

Thursday was spent struggling to assemble the final pair of accommodation domes as snow swarmed through the camp. With six in total, the forty-eight remaining members of camp Wukang were crammed in eight to a dome. Cots salvaged from the tents were squashed up tight, leaving very little free floor space. Hooks and bands were fixed to the highest hexagonal panels, and kitbags hung up like massive, dowdy larval sacks. With light coming from lanterns wired up to the salvaged tent PV sheets and boosted by cables from the camp’s main fuel cells, the interior of each one was as gloomy as it was fetid. There was some warmth in there at night with so many bodies sharing such a confined volume, but that just simmered the smell of unwashed skin.

Once the domes were complete, the microfacture team set about producing thicker, warmer clothes for the camp personnel. Long parkas were the preference, big enough to be worn outside the armor vests; most people matched them up with quilted, waterproof trousers. Hats were also ejected from 3-D printers, along with scarves and gloves. They weren’t the best cold-weather clothing ever made, but they did give people a degree of protection from the bewildering winter.

By Saturday the relentless fall of snow and constantly dropping air temperature had finally sucked the last residual heat from the soil and plants; ground temperature fell below zero. The snow no longer melted; instead it started to build up. Puddles and rivulets that had formed their own flat marshy tributary network across Wukang solidified to precarious slicks of ice. Leaves on the smaller ferns and vines turned to mush as their cells froze to death, and they began to fall amid the flakes, adding a dangerously slippery layer of organic slime to the snow. Since Sunday, more than half a meter of snow had descended on Wukang. It had to be scraped regularly from the mess tent roof and the engineering shacks, lest the weight rip the straining sheets open. Paths were tramped down. Vehicles were started daily and driven around so they didn’t get snowed in. The kind of snow dumped on them varied; most nights it came as sand-like granules, getting everywhere; by day it was big sticky flakes that adhered to every part of the jungle’s trees and bushes, turning them into an alpine frost-forest. That same clingy snow smothered the surface of the camp’s equipment, buildings, and vehicles alike, cloaking the smartdust meshes with equal severity, so their reception was blocked across most spectra including the visible light that powered them, eliminating their sensor function, wrecking links, degrading the camp’s net further.