In Heaven and Earth (17 page)

Everyone worked until
they dropped, building, pruning, healing, cooking. After the first
few accidents caused by careless commands to the still multiplying
nanites, the surviving police force put together a makeshift alarm
system, and Reuben found himself giving frantic lectures in how to
avoid unintentional creation.

By the third day, he was
exhausted, overwhelmed, and newly terrified of the power of this
technology. Even at the worst, though, he found himself looking up
and seeing Vairya smiling wearily at his people, and that little
sense of relief rose up around him again. They had done the right
thing.

By the fifth
day, most people were back in their own homes, and had water and
power. Repairs to the city net were almost complete, and the main
focus of their efforts was clearing trees from the roads and
turning the gleeful abundance of the city’s farms into a reliable
food supply. The city authorities took over, and the crew of
the
Juniper
finally got an evening off.

Vairya was
needed at the council meetings, so Reuben found himself with
nothing to do with his free evening except to go back to his cabin
on the
Juniper
to
collect a change of clothes. It seemed absurdly small to him after
a week under the arched ceilings of Vairya’s house, with its long
kitchen and wide lounge, its shady veranda and tiled roof
(“Gardener by choice,” Vairya had said when Reuben had commented on
the luxury of it, “not abstaining from all luxuries.”). Next to
that, his bare cabin seemed cramped and ugly, more like a cupboard
than a home.

Chanthavy knocked lightly
on the open hatch. “Packing up?”

“
Just some
clean clothes.”

She looked at him
thoughtfully. “If they don’t destroy us, if we are free to fly
again, will you still be coming with us?”

“
It’s my job!”
he said in surprise.

“
You have done
good work in the city. I hear they gave you an office in the
hospital.”

He had been working there
more and more. “Only so I had a place to keep my notes. Didn’t you
get one?”

“
Just you. They
would give you a job too, if you asked.” She smiled. “They might
even put you in charge.”

“
I hadn’t
thought of it.” He was thinking about it now, about staying in
Vairya’s garden, the real, complex one that needed his help,
thinking about staying with Vairya.

“
Really?” Her
next look made him feel like he was being measured. “The rest of us
moved back up here on the second day.”

“
I didn’t
notice.” He hadn’t even considered that, not when he could simply
sleep with Vairya.

“
I admit that I
was troubled at first. He was your patient and under serious
emotional strain. Nonetheless, I must consider that I could have
been too hasty.” She smiled faintly. “To quote your favourite poet,
‘let me not to the marriage of true minds admit
impediments.’”

Reuben could only stare.
Eventually, he managed, “I think that’s a little
premature.”

She smiled at him.
“Reuben, you have learned to smile this week. Do not rush to escape
that.”

“
It may all be
quite irrelevant,” Reuben said gruffly. “The Fleet isn’t here
yet.”

That evening, though, he
sat out on Vairya’s veranda, enjoying the dusk. The people of
Caelestia had shifted half their lives outside, preferring the new
glades to the disconcertingly transformed interiors of their homes.
They were still locked into a warmer orbit than before, and the
city’s atmosphere had become more humid. Reuben knew there were
meetings taking place about water consumption and environmental
systems, but he wasn’t invited to those. He just enjoyed the
experience of living such a verdant life.

He was alone for once,
and that too suddenly struck him as strange for the first time. He
hadn’t even questioned it before. In the middle of everything else,
he hadn’t thought twice about making himself at home in Vairya’s
house. Leaning back in his chair, he looked up at the stars and
allowed himself, just for a moment, to dream.

He was roused by the
sound of footsteps, and turned to smile at Vairya. “You’re
late.”

Vairya grimaced and
dropped into the chair beside him. “Committees.”

“
I’m happy not
to be dealing with that particular brand of idiot,” Reuben said.
“My lot are more easily intimidated.”

“
I’m sure that
says more about you than them,” Vairya said, grin flashing out.
“You’ll have to start giving seminars in that too.”

“
And give away
my secrets?”

“
There’s a
secret to it? I thought you just growled, loomed, and shredded
their self-esteem.”

“
No need to
sound so happy about it.”

“
I think it’s
charming,” Vairya said and leaned a little closer. “Feel free to
growl and loom as much as you like.”

“
It’s supposed
to scare them into using their brains.”

“
I always use
my brain.” He tipped his face up towards Reuben. “Among other
things.”

“
I’ve noticed,”
Reuben said and took the hint. Kissing Vairya was as easy as
trading quotations with him, and he sank into it happily. By the
time, Vairya rose up and offered him a hand to lead him into the
house, he had forgotten all his hesitations.

LATER that night, he was
woken by a sudden flash of light, followed by a low rumble in the
sky.

“
Thunder?”
Vairya said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“
Is that what
it sounds like?” Reuben asked, rolling out of bed to hurry to the
window.

Halfway there, another
flash lit the room, and the sky shuddered again. Then, as they
reached the window, it happened for a third time. They both leaned
out, staring up in time to see a jagged slash of light cut the sky
wide open as a battleship slid out of hyperspace right over the
city. As the city’s shields shook and reverberated under the shock,
the ship swam across the sky and took up a place beside its sister
ships. They were so low in the sky that Reuben could see their
weapons swivel down to face the city.

“
They’re here!”
Vairya gasped, grabbing his arm, and Reuben braced himself to
die.

But no lights kindled in
those dark turrets, and no splintering forces came crackling down
to destroy them. Instead the ships sat there, looming in the
sky.

“
What are they
waiting for?” Vairya breathed.

“
I don’t know,”
Reuben said. He was afraid again. For the last few days, caught up
in the rush of rebuilding the city, it had been easy to put the
Fleet out of mind, to pretend that this idyll would last forever.
But the Fleet had come, like all doom must, and they could only
have one purpose here.

Then, two rooms away,
music began to play softly.

“
My com,”
Vairya said, pulling away from the window with one last glance
upwards. “The mayor, I should think.”

Reuben stayed
where he was, willing the ships above to give them a chance, to
hear their story, even as he heard Vairya pad away and pick up the
com. “Mayor, I take it that…
Jibrail?
”

Reuben swung round, more
at the sheer shock in Vairya’s voice than anything else.

“
Yes, I’m
fine,” Vairya was saying. “Things got complicated, that’s how I’m
alive.”

Reuben lengthened his
stride. Whoever this was, Vairya hadn’t been expecting this
call.

“
No, I don’t
usually answer calls from the mayor in the nude,” Vairya snapped,
“but as you might have noticed, I just got woken up by someone
sailing gunships up to my harbour wall, so unless—”

He stopped, frustration
dancing across his face, and after a moment, rolled his eyes at
Reuben. “Jibby, you’re a prude. So, unless you want me to step back
from the screen and show you components of me you never wanted to
see, can we get back to the subject of the gunships?”

He glanced at
Reuben and tapped the wall for a blank page, writing with his
fingertip,
Get dressed, and bring me some
clothes. My brother is here.

Reuben did what he asked
and then hurried back. Vairya was standing still when he returned,
his forehead pressed to the com and his eyelids flickering. As
Reuben started forwards in worry, he closed his eyes with a sigh.
“Did you get that?”

“
Summarise.”
The voice was cool and sharp, with none of Vairya’s sly warmth, but
there was something familiar about it, a hint of the same
intonation.

“
No Terran
nanites are left, but we have a different nanite situation. Reports
of the dead were vastly overestimated, through no one’s fault, but
we all owe our survival to nanite-based medicine. We’re rebuilding
but in need of aid.”

“
Let’s decide
if your city survives first,” the stranger said and then paused. “I
hear an echo. Do you have me on speakers? Who is
eavesdropping?”

“
Yes,” Vairya
said, taking the clothes from Reuben, “because I need my hands free
to get dressed, and the only other one here is Reuben.”

“
And who
precisely is Reuben? Is this another of your foolish
affairs?”

Vairya rolled his eyes.
“They were in a rush when they built Jibby,” he said to Reuben.
“They completely forgot to include a sense of humour.”

“
Vairya.”

Reuben could empathise
with that particular note of frustration, at least. Vairya had
managed to pull his trousers up at least, although he still looked
like a ragamuffin, so Reuben said to the house computer, “Transfer
the com screen to the wall, Guillaume.”

It opened up swiftly, and
Reuben found himself staring at a slender, stern man seated at a
white console. He was as handsome as Vairya, in a lean, austere
way, and looked mildly irritated. Where Vairya was the colour of
marble and roses, this man was all bronze and copper, from the
colour of his skin to the tight curls of his hair. Even his eyes
were bright verdigris, too startling to be natural. He wore a plain
suit, but on the bulkhead behind him was emblazoned the symbol of
the Sirius Protectorate’s High Command, and to one side, Reuben
could glimpse a window that revealed the familiar stars above
Caelestia.

“
Still living
in that hovel, I see,” he said, pursing his lips.

“
Still too high
and lofty to actually set foot on real soil,” Vairya shot
back.

Reuben drew in a breath,
trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “Vairya, are you being
rude to the man pointing planet killing weapons at us? Please
don’t.”

Vairya shrugged. “This is
my brother Jibrail. He won’t blow me up without very good
reason.”

“
I wouldn’t
rely on it,” Jibrail said, and this time Reuben caught the humour
in it, dust-dry as it was. “I have often been sorely tempted.” He
looked up and away slightly, at some other part of his screen. “Dr
Cooper, I presume.”

“
Delighted,”
Reuben said.

“
I wish it was
mutual.” Jibrail frowned a little. “Vairya, I’m running your memory
files now, but this is all rather confusing.”

“
Head injury,”
Vairya said, waving his hand. “Not my fault.”

“
Yes, I’m past
that point. Dr Cooper, I will have some questions for you in a
moment.” His eyes widened suddenly. “Many questions, actually.
Revenants, Vairya?”

“
They’re not
zombies,” Vairya said sharply. “They live as they did before. Only
their bodies have been reassembled.”

Jibrail wasn’t listening.
Instead he had put his hand to his head and looked pained. “I have
no idea what to do with you. You know nanotechnology is banned and
why, more than any mortal. What possessed you to use it so
extensively?”

“
It was for my
city,” Vairya said. “What wouldn’t you do for Sirius, if you were
desperate enough?”

“
Having seen
this, we should pray I never find out.” He looked at Reuben. “Dr
Cooper, I will need to talk to you and your teammates further, as
well as the city authorities. Vairya, I will try to win you a stay
of execution, but do not hope for more than three days.”

Chapter Thirteen

THEN THE screen went off,
before either Reuben or Vairya could say anything else.

“
Not one for
the formalities, your brother,” Reuben said.

“
Not so much,
no,” Vairya said. “I love him, but he’s a dick. What did he mean,
three days?”

“
I don’t know,”
Reuben said and sighed. “Well, at least he didn’t come in
shooting.”

Vairya nodded. “He’s the
most rational man I know. I was teasing him, but it would have been
the most logical response to our original situation. There must
have been something in your captain’s report which stayed his
hand.”

“
Or he was
worried about his little brother. You are younger, I
assume?”