Infernal Devices (16 page)

The Stalker Grike patrolled the silent corridors of the Jade Pagoda, his night-vision eyes probing the shadows, his ears detecting conversations in a distant room, a gust of laughter from the guardhouse, the woodworm busy in the paneled walls. He roamed through galleries decorated with ancient carvings of monsters and mountain demons, none of them as scary as himself. Relishing the grace and power of his retuned body, he checked with all his many senses for the faint chemical signature of hidden explosives, or the body-glow of a

lurking assassin. He hoped that soon some foolish Once-Born would try to attack his mistress. He was looking forward to killing again.

A cold breath touched him: a faint change in air pressure that told him of an outside door being opened and closed four floors below. He moved quickly to a window and looked down. A forked blob of body heat was moving through the shadows of the courtyard toward the checkpoint at the gate. Grike measured its height and stride against the data he had gathered during his time as bodyguard, and recognized Dr. Zero.

Where was she going on such a cold night, with curfew due in less than an hour? Grike pondered the motives of the Once-Born. Perhaps Dr. Zero had a lover in the lower city. But Dr. Zero had never seemed interested in love, and anyway, this was not the first time that Grike had caught her acting strangely. He had noticed the way her heartbeat raced when she was near the Stalker Fang, and smelled the sharp scent that came from her sometimes when Fang glanced her way. He was surprised that his mistress had not noticed these things herself--but then, Fang did not share his interest in the Once-Borns and their ways. Perhaps she did not realize, or did not care, that her surgeon-mechanic was afraid of her.

Grike's eyes, on maximum magnification, watched Dr. Zero show her pass at the checkpoint and followed her until she was lost to him among the barracks and banners of Tienjing. Why was she so frightened? What scared her so? What was she doing? What was she
planning
to do?

Grike owed her everything, but he still knew that it was his duty to find out.

***

Down through the steep, stepped streets Oenone Zero went hurrying in her silicone-silk cloak, hood up, head down. The sky above the city was full of the running lights of carriers and air destroyers taking off from the military air harbor, carrying yet more young men and women away to the west, where their deaths were waiting for them on the Rustwater salient.

Guilt welled up inside Oenone, but she was used to it. Every morning she tended the Stalker Fang's joints and bodywork, and placed her instruments against the Stalker Fang's steel breast to check on the strange Old Tech power source that nestled where Anna Fang's heart had once been. Every morning she told herself,
I should do it now, today.

She would not be the first to try. All sorts of fanatical peaceniks and die-hard supporters of the old League had attempted to destroy the Stalker Fang, only to have their knives snap on her armor or watch her walk unscathed from the ruins of bombed rooms and the wrecks of airships. But Oenone Zero was a scientist, and she had used her scientist's skills to devise a weapon that could destroy even the Stalker Fang.

The trouble was, she hadn't the courage to use it. What if it didn't work? What if it
did
work? Oenone was sure that without the Stalker to lead it, the Green Storm regime would fall apart--but she doubted it would fall apart so quickly that the Stalker's supporters would not find time to kill her, and she had heard rumors about the things they did to traitors.

Lost in her thoughts, she did not notice that she was

being followed as she crossed Double Rainbow Bridge and turned onto the Street of Ten Thousand Deities.

Over the centuries, Anti-Tractionists from all over Europe and Asia had fled into these mountains, and they had brought their own gods with them. Packed side by side, the temples seemed to jostle one another in the dying light. Oenone pushed her way past two wedding processions, a funeral, past shrines decked with lucky money and clattering firecrackers. She passed the Temple of the Sky Gods, and the Golden Pagoda of the Gods of the Mountains. She passed the Poskittarium, and the grove of the Apple Goddess. She passed the silent house of Lady Death. At the end of the street, sandwiched between the temples of more popular religions, stood a tiny Christian chapel.

She checked to make sure that no one was watching her before she stepped inside, but she did not think to look up at the rooftops.

Oenone had found the chapel by accident, and was not certain what kept drawing her back to it. She was not a Christian. Few people were anymore, except in Africa and on certain islands of the outermost west. All she knew of Christians was that they worshipped a god nailed to a cross, and what on earth was the use of a god who went around letting himself get nailed to things? It was small wonder that this place had fallen into disuse, its roof gone, weeds growing through the rotting pews. But on nights like this, when she felt that she must get out of the Jade Pagoda or go mad, this was where Oenone came to calm herself.

Snowflakes sifted down on her through a sagging sieve of rafters, settling on her green hair when she threw back her

hood. Running her hands over the walls, she read with her fingertips the texts carved in the old stone. Most were illegible, but there was one that she had grown fond of. It was an old fragment from before the Sixty Minute War, and Oenone was not sure what it meant, but there was something consoling about it.

Oenone knelt before the bare stone altar and bowed her head. She didn't believe in him, this ancient god, but she had to talk to someone.

"Help me," she whispered. "If you are there at all, give me strength. Give me courage. I'm so close to her. I could use the weapon now, if only I were brave enough. And it wouldn't be murder, would it, to kill someone who is already dead? I would only be smashing a machine, a dangerous, destructive machine...."

She spoke softly, barely moving her lips. No human ear could hear her. But her prayer was heard, just the same. Crouched like a gargoyle on the chapel's ruined steeple, the Stalker Grike listened carefully to every word.

"Have I the right to do it? It all seemed so clear before, but now I have seen her; how clever she is, and how

strong.... Maybe it
would
be murder. Or am I just making excuses for myself? Am I just looking for a reason not to do it so that I can live? Send me a sign, God, if you're up there; show me what I should do...."

She waited, and Grike waited with her, but no sign came. The noisy, popular gods of the neighboring temples seemed to dish out comfort and counsel like advice columnists, but the god of this place was less scrutable; maybe he was asleep, or dead. Maybe he was busy with some better world off at the far end of the universe. Oenone Zero shook her head at her own foolishness and stood up, making ready to leave.

Grike climbed quickly down the chapel wall and waited in an alcove by the entrance, where perhaps a statue of the Christians' nailed-up god had once hung. His suspicions had been right. Dr. Zero was a traitor, and although he had grown fond of her in his Stalkerish way, he knew that he must eliminate her before she could harm his mistress. His circuitry hummed and tingled at the prospect of a kill. She had taken his claws from him, but he was still strong, and merciless. One blow from his fist would end her easily.

A footstep on the threshold. The young woman stepped out of the chapel, pulling up her hood against the cold wind. She did not see Grike. She went past him and walked quickly away along the Street of Ten Thousand Deities, hurrying back to her quarters in the pagoda before the curfew bells were rung.

Grike lowered his fist, feeling startled and slightly foolish. What had happened to him? He was a Stalker, a killing machine, and yet, when his quarry's eggshell skull had been in reach, he could not strike.

I must warn the Green Storm's secret police,
he thought, jumping down from the alcove and following Oenone out into the crowds on the street. He would let the Once-Borns deal with her themselves, down in their white-tiled torture rooms beneath the Jade Pagoda. But after a few strides he halted. He simply didn't have it in him to betray Oenone Zero.

She has done this to me,
he thought, remembering all those lonely night shifts in the Stalker Works. Somehow, the young surgeon-mechanic had built a barrier in his mind that made it impossible for him to harm her, or tell anyone what she was planning. He had been part of her plans all along. She had given the Stalker Fang a bodyguard who was not capable of guarding her.

He should have hated Dr. Zero for using him like that, but he did not have it in him to hate her either.

He barged through a festival procession outside the shrine of Jomo and climbed homeward through the darkness and the snow. He was not the puppet of Oenone Zero. He could not harm her, but he would keep her from harming his mistress. Somehow he would learn the nature of her plan, and put a stop to it.

***

AS SOON AS HE had locked his friends and the children inside Gargle's quarters, Caul sprinted back up the stairs to the chamber of screens. He was shuddering slightly, and half inclined to go back down and unlock the doors again. He kept telling himself that he hadn't chosen Uncle over Freya and the others; he would find a way to stay true to both of them.

"First thing we must do," said Uncle when Caul rejoined him, "is to get rid of those women. Bad luck, they'll be. You'll see." He had filled his screens with images of the captives in the room below: big, grainy close-ups of Hester and Freya. He said, "They look very pretty, I'm sure, and no doubt you think they're very sweet, but they'll twist round and betray you, like my Anna did me all those years ago. That's why I've always made it the rule that there ain't no girls in Grimsby."

Caul put down Hester's gun. He felt stupid, standing there holding it. "But what about the girl who was aboard the
Autolycus
with Gargle?"

"Young Remora?" Uncle snatched the gun and stuffed it away inside his filthy clothes. "I know what you mean. Odd-looking lad. High-pitched voice. Long hair. Too much makeup. I had my doubts when Gargle first introduced me, but Gargle assured me he was a boy. A fine burglar. Poor Remora. I suppose he's dead too?"

"Uncle, there are girls among those poor children we found downstairs. Lots of them are girls."

"Girls? You're sure?" Uncle started thumbing his remote control, hunting for close-ups of the children. Caul saw his friends on the screens look up nervously as crab-cams spidered around on the ceiling above them, jangling Remora's mobiles. Uncle saw only grayish, face-shaped blurs. "Maybe Gargle's kidnapping squads
have
grabbed a few girls by mistake," he muttered grudgingly. "We'll have to get rid of them, too, if we're to make a new start. And we will make a new start, Caul, my boy. We'll rebuild Grimsby, stronger and better than it ever was before, and you'll be my right hand. You can move into Gargle's pad and look after things for me like Gargle used to do."

One of the banks of screens behind him suddenly died, leaving the room even more dimly lit than before. There was a smell of burned wiring, and when Caul went to investigate, he saw that water was flooding down the surfaces of the screens and pooling on the floor below. He touched some to his lips and tasted brine.
Uncle Knows Best,
he told himself, and he wanted to believe it because it would have been good

l62 to go back to the old days, when he had been so certain about everything. Everybody had to believe in something better and greater than themselves. Tom and Freya had their gods, and Hester had Tom, and Caul had Uncle. He would not let Uncle down again, even though he was old, and blind, and confused; even though there was probably nothing that could save Grimsby from the sea.

But he would not let his friends drown with him.

"You look tired, Uncle," he said gently. It was true. How long had the old man been alone in this room, staring at the treacherous message from Brighton on his walls of screens? Caul touched his hand. "You should get some rest, now that I'm here to keep an eye on things."

Uncle's head jerked round to stare at him, his eyes glittering with something of their old cunning. "You trying to trick me, Caul? That's what Gargle did. 'Have a nap, Uncle dear,' he'd say. 'Lie down for forty winks, Uncle.' And when I woke up, some of my stuff would be missing, or another boy I'd trusted would be dead, and Gargle would be telling me it had been an accident...."

"Why did you let him get away with it?" asked Caul.

The old man shrugged. '"Cos I was scared of him. And 'cos I was proud of him. He was a sharp one, that Gargle, and it was me who made him that way. He was like a son to me, I s'pose. I like to think that me and Anna might have had sons, if she hadn't tricked me and flown off in that homemade airship of hers. I like to think they'd have been as sharp as Gargle. But I'm glad he's gone, Caul, my boy. I'm glad it's you here now."

Mumbling quietly to himself, Uncle let Caul lead him up

the steep stair to his bedchamber. The midget engine pods of the old cargo balloon whined and clattered as the ball of screens went with them, hanging a few feet above their heads so that Uncle could keep staring up at it, his half-blind eyes flicking nervously from one screen to another. The entrance to his bedroom had been made higher and wider to let the balloon squeeze through. "Gotta keep watching them, Caul," he muttered. "Never know what they'll get up to unwatched. Gotta watch everybody. Everywhere. Always."