Guardians of Paradise (5 page)
Read Guardians of Paradise Online
Authors: Jaine Fenn
They took off, and Taro had a brief snapshot of tree branches caught in the lights before the view settled into rainy darkness. ‘Ship? Like at the port at Kendall’s Wharf?’
‘Not that kind of ship,’ said Jarek. ‘A shiftship. For travelling between the stars.’
Taro was confused. The two starliners he’d travelled on had been huge and luxurious, and just getting from Vellern to Khathryn had used up nearly half their credit. Someone who owned one of those surely wouldn’t be driving around in a car that looked like it was hardly worth jacking.
From the back, Nual said, ‘Jarek is a freetrader.’
Before Taro could ask what a freetrader was, Jarek, his voice all comradely-like, said, ‘I used my inheritance to buy myself into a partnership running a small tradebird, and when my partner retired I bought him out. I’ve been travelling the shipping lanes ever since.’
Taro had been staggered to discover that there were hundreds of different places beyond the small, closed world of Khesh City, and he’d already resolved to see as many of them as he could - in Nual’s company, of course. ‘Right,’ he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Elarn was dead. Jarek had expected to find her still pissed off with him, or shit-scared after a visit from the Sidhe. Not dead. And though the Sidhe had sent her to her death, ultimately it was his fault.
Was that why he’d offered to help Nual and her companion, despite having problems of his own? That old sense of responsibility getting him in trouble again.
As the silence stretched, Jarek stole a look at the boy sitting next to him. His extreme height must be a result of being born in a low-g environment, but the rest of his look - tight leggings, loose shirt, oversized dark jacket and scruffy collar-length hair with one longer strand plaited with red and black - was all artful contrivance. Taro’s reaction to finding himself in the company of a man Nual cared for told Jarek all he needed to know about their relationship: this was a lad well under Sidhe glamour. But he was also an Angel, a member of Vellern’s élite assassin caste - as was Nual. That was somehow fitting. He felt something not entirely unlike fatherly pride for a moment before catching himself; now she was a murderer, for God’s sake, on top of being a Sidhe.
But none of that changed the fact that he’d been delighted to see her. Sometimes he wondered if he was as free from her influence as he thought he was.
He had a brief urge, borne of stress, to ask how the two of them met, as though they were just a pair of young lovers he was giving a lift to on a rainy night. But right now he had more important questions. Turning his head to make it obvious he was speaking to Nual he asked, ‘What brought you back here now?’
He saw Taro’s lips thin at being excluded.
Grow up, kid
, he thought, even as he noted how the sour expression leant an interesting touch of hardness to the boy’s exotic looks.
Grow up, kid
, he thought, even as he noted how the sour expression leant an interesting touch of hardness to the boy’s exotic looks.
Nual said, ‘I wanted to bring Elarn home - her ashes, at least. I owed her that much.’
‘Oh.’ He was surprised and a little dismayed at how quickly he was adjusting to the idea that his sister was dead. Though in some ways she’d been lost to him years ago, in his heart of hearts he’d always hoped they might eventually be reconciled. ‘You mentioned her lawyer. Does that mean she never changed her will?’
‘No, so in theory I am rich. However, if I claim my inheritance now it will become known that I survived the attack on the house.’
‘The authorities will realise that when they don’t find a body inside.’ Then Jarek remembered the panic over the com:
Control’s down!
‘Except they
will
find one, won’t they?’
Control’s down!
‘Except they
will
find one, won’t they?’
‘Yes,’ said Nual, ‘they will. And I intend to be far from Khathryn by the time they realise that it’s not mine.’
‘You sound like you’ve got a plan.’
‘Not really, beyond trying to discover what the Sidhe are up to and finding a way to curb their influence.’
You and me both,
thought Jarek.
thought Jarek.
‘We got licences,’ said Taro, ‘so we can get ourselves hired by any law enforcement agency authorised to use external agents deploying lethal force.’
Jarek suppressed a smile. The boy was obviously quoting that from somewhere. ‘I didn’t think - what’s the phrase?
Agents of the Concord?
- ever got to leave Vellern.’
Agents of the Concord?
- ever got to leave Vellern.’
‘Normally they don’t. The Minister owed us, big time.’
Taro’s tone of voice was begging Jarek to ask more, but he didn’t feel inclined to indulge the kid’s ego just now. ‘I can’t help noticing you’ve only got one gun between you. I thought Angels had one each.’
Taro’s expression implied he’d rather not discuss that.
Nual said, ‘We share the laser. The Minister is somewhat jealous of his technology.’
Another awkward silence. This time, somewhat to Jarek’s surprise, Nual broke it. ‘You know why I came back. Why are you here? Were you hoping enough time had passed for Elarn to forgive you?’
Jarek grimaced. ‘Yes - but that’s not why I came. I wanted to warn her. I tried to contact you too, but I wasn’t really surprised my message bounced; after all, you did go to Vellern to hide. When Elarn didn’t reply either I assumed she was still angry with me, so I came in person. I had to make her listen - even if she wasn’t interested in my crusade against the Sidhe, you’d lived here with her for a while, and she had to know that they’d want to talk to her about that. Looks like I was right.’ He sighed. ‘Just too late. And—’ He stopped, trying to restore his equilibrium. He wondered if he’d ever get used to this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought about Elarn being dead.
‘And?’ prompted Nual gently. ‘Was there another reason?’
‘Yeah. I found something out about the Sidhe, something big.’
‘What sort of something?’ Nual leaned forward between the seats.
Jarek realised that she probably knew as little about her own people as the average human, who was happy to believe the Sidhe’d died out a millennium ago.
‘I found half a conspiracy. The kind of thing put about by those unreasoning paranoids who believe the Sidhe lived on after the Protectorate just because they have to believe in something. Except I’ve only got part of the story.’
‘Explain, please.’
He stared out into the darkness. They had plenty of time; he’d programmed an indirect course back to Kendall’s Wharf to avoid running into anyone coming out to investigate the incident at the cliff-house. He just wasn’t sure he was ready to discuss his recent experiences. But he’d invited these two on board, and maybe talking it through with others might help him work it out in his own head.
Still not looking at his passengers he began, ‘After I left you on Vellern all those years ago, I tried to find out more about the Sidhe. I made discreet enquiries and collected what data I could. I hoped I might find allies, but most people were the kind of nuts I mentioned earlier: never mind finding evidence or coming up with reasons, let’s just blame everything on unseen monsters. The Sidhe must love people like that: there’s nothing like an endorsement from a kook to make the truth seem kooky.
‘Anyway, I kept my eyes and ears open, but freetrading’s a marginal living at best and I couldn’t afford to go off chasing rumours all the time. Then, a few months back, I made a killer deal - the kind that doesn’t come along often in my line of work - and that gave me a bit of freedom to poke around, follow some stuff up. To be honest, the lead I was investigating wasn’t directly related to the Sidhe; I’d heard about this freetrader outfit who left the shipping lanes every twenty-five years or so and I thought they might be using an unregistered beacon.’
‘Unregistered beacon?’ interrupted Taro. ‘So what’s one of them?’
‘You know what a beacon is?’
‘’Course I do,’ Taro said. ‘You need beacons to transmit beevee communications and to allow ships to make transits between star systems.’
That was memorised too. The boy must’ve led a
very
sheltered life. Jarek went on, ‘Well, in some ways a beacon is more like a door between reality and shiftspace, one that’s been left ajar. You’ve been through shiftspace to get here, so you know what a fun place that is.’
very
sheltered life. Jarek went on, ‘Well, in some ways a beacon is more like a door between reality and shiftspace, one that’s been left ajar. You’ve been through shiftspace to get here, so you know what a fun place that is.’
‘We spent the transits between Vellern and Khathryn in stasis,’ Nual broke in.
I’ll bet you did
, thought Jarek,
and now I know why
. ‘Given how chaotic things were after the fall of the Sidhe Protectorate, there’re plenty of rumours about beacons - whole systems, even - whose locations have been lost. Finding just one would open up new shipping lanes and beevee capacity, not to mention new resources and markets, and for a freetrader that’s real treasure! This ship I’d heard about only took its little trip every couple of decades, which sounded a bit odd if it was exploiting an untouched system, but I decided it was worth looking into. So I lurked around in the system they made their transit from, and a few weeks later the
Setting Sun
- that’s the name of the ship - turned up. When it went into the shift, I slipstreamed it.’ He’d only found out how big a risk he’d taken later. ‘I was right, sort of. It did go to a lost system - except it wasn’t exactly lost, more like deliberately hidden.’
, thought Jarek,
and now I know why
. ‘Given how chaotic things were after the fall of the Sidhe Protectorate, there’re plenty of rumours about beacons - whole systems, even - whose locations have been lost. Finding just one would open up new shipping lanes and beevee capacity, not to mention new resources and markets, and for a freetrader that’s real treasure! This ship I’d heard about only took its little trip every couple of decades, which sounded a bit odd if it was exploiting an untouched system, but I decided it was worth looking into. So I lurked around in the system they made their transit from, and a few weeks later the
Setting Sun
- that’s the name of the ship - turned up. When it went into the shift, I slipstreamed it.’ He’d only found out how big a risk he’d taken later. ‘I was right, sort of. It did go to a lost system - except it wasn’t exactly lost, more like deliberately hidden.’
‘By the Sidhe?’ asked Nual.
‘By the Sidhe. There’s an inhabited planet there, really lo-tech, and with no idea the rest of the universe exists. Unfortunately, before I could investigate further the
Setting Sun
tricked me into docking with them, and I was captured by the Sidhe on board. They—’ Jarek stopped and coughed, trying to clear his suddenly tight throat. ‘They found out everything I knew, eventually, even about you. I guess they passed that on to their sisters elsewhere, and decided to use Elarn to draw you out. Was that how it was?’
Setting Sun
tricked me into docking with them, and I was captured by the Sidhe on board. They—’ Jarek stopped and coughed, trying to clear his suddenly tight throat. ‘They found out everything I knew, eventually, even about you. I guess they passed that on to their sisters elsewhere, and decided to use Elarn to draw you out. Was that how it was?’
‘Aye,’ said Nual in a small voice. ‘That was how it was.’
No one said anything for a few moments. Then Taro asked, ‘How’d you escape?’
‘The ship had a human crew. Mostly mutes - conditioned slaves. One of them managed to break her conditioning, and she freed me.’ He addressed Nual over his shoulder, ‘That’s something I’ve been thinking about: given how much control a Sidhe can exert, I was surprised a mute could do something like that.’
‘So am I. Did you give her a reason to disobey her mistresses?’
‘I guess I showed her kindness when she would’ve expected abuse. The urge to fight back must’ve already been there though.’
‘My sisters tend towards arrogance. Perhaps they assumed her obedience was total, and so failed to spot the signs of rebellion.’
‘What happened to her?’ Taro interrupted.
‘They must have caught her, so I imagine she’s dead now, poor cow. When she let me out of my cell I was half-crazy. All I could think of was getting away. I took a solo evac-pod to Serenein - that’s the name of the planet.’
‘Did the Sidhe come after you?’ asked Taro.
‘No. They’d got what they wanted; after that I was more trouble than I was worth. They’d have freaked the locals. And—’ Jarek hesitated, unsure how to summarise the strangest three months of his life. ‘It took me a while to get over what they did to me. They’d messed up my memory. And then I had to find a way to get back up into orbit. I finally managed that, thanks to some local help, and we took out the Sidhe.’
‘You killed them?’ Nual sounded understandably surprised.
‘Like I said, I had help.’
‘And this lost world is the big secret you wanted to tell Elarn?’ Taro’s tone of voice implied he wasn’t sure why a recluse like Elarn would care about such a place.
‘There’s more to it than that. The reason the Sidhe kept Serenein isolated was that they were manipulating the genetics of the population to produce certain . . .
talented
individuals. Then they shipped them out - that’s what the
Setting Sun
was there for, to pick up these boys, who’d been put into stasis for easy transport. They’ve got the whole culture geared up for it—’
talented
individuals. Then they shipped them out - that’s what the
Setting Sun
was there for, to pick up these boys, who’d been put into stasis for easy transport. They’ve got the whole culture geared up for it—’
He broke off: a blinking light was indicating an incoming message from local traffic control. He hesitated, then hit Receive; not answering would only make him look suspicious.
Before he could say anything a man’s voice said, ‘Good job you’re on your way back.’ After a moment he recognised the chatty evening-shift operator who’d been happy to accept Jarek’s incentive to keep him informed of anything interesting on his watch.
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