The Baba Yaga (32 page)

About half an hour later, Maria was led towards the great hall that Walker, Larsen, and Heyes had visited only a few days ago. A much smaller group came to hear Maria, however; most of the people of the settlement were busy organising the defence of the town, or else involved in the clean-up. Maria found herself facing no more than fifteen or twenty people, Vetch and human. They were stern and unfriendly. One of the women, an older human, stood to speak at once.

“Why has this violence been brought down on us?” she said angrily. She seemed to be addressing the room at large, or else making sure that an opinion was heard. At any rate, Maria sensed that she was not being asked to respond, not yet, only to listen and to hear. So she kept her peace, for the moment, and listened, and heard. “We have lived peacefully for many years,” the woman went on. “We have kept ourselves isolated from the wider universe so that we might avoid the grief and bloodshed that seems to be the way that others work. And now this has been forced upon us!”

“Remember that we kept hidden away to protect ourselves!” another person cried. “Beyond Stella Maris, some of us are still owned! Some of us are still considered property! Does this mean that our isolation is over? Does this mean that Stella Maris is no longer secret? Will our old masters and owners be coming for us?”

There was a general sense of dismay at this. Maria, thinking that her moment might have come, spoke up. “It’s worse than that, I’m afraid,” she said, lifting her voice above the confusion. Hearing her, people turned, some calling out, “How? How could it be worse?” Slowly the room settled into silence, and someone gestured to Maria to continue. Her voice trembling, she started to speak.

“I know that you met Walker and Larsen,” she said. “I know that they warned you that people might be coming here to find them. You have to understand why.”

“We told your friend that we were not interested in her wars,” someone called out.

“Then I am going to have to
make
you interested,” said Maria. “A crime has been committed—a terrible, monstrous crime. A whole world—millions of people!—has been murdered so that a few people could make sure they stayed in power.” A few more voices began to rise, calling out
We don’t want to hear any of this!
and
These are your affairs, not ours!
But Maria kept on speaking, her voice becoming stronger as she did.

“It’s a world called Braun’s World. The government of the Expansion claimed there was a Weird portal there, and they sealed off the planet and killed everyone there; to stop infection spreading, they said. But there never was a Weird portal on Braun’s World. It was a lie told to make people afraid, and to put the perpetrators of that lie in power. And everyone who knows this secret—they’re being killed in turn!”

The anger in the room was now palpable.
Why have you told us this? Why have we been made a party to this?
Maria forced herself to keep on speaking.

“It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know! It’s enough that you ever spoke to Walker and Larsen! That’s enough to condemn you in the eyes of these people! Even if I hadn’t told you—you’re guilty by association! They can’t let you live, in case you know!”

They might ignore us! There are so few of us, hardly any of us!

“They’ve killed millions!” Maria cried back. “Do you think they’ll hesitate to murder a few thousand more to keep their secret? Those people who came today”—she gestured back towards the gate—“they’ll be back, very soon, and they’ll be armed again. They won’t stop until you’re all dead!”

All around her, Maria could hear the rage at the news washing around the room like a great tsunami; rage that this had all been brought upon them unwillingly, and that they were now in such danger. But the people of Stella Maris, like all those who’d known oppression, were nothing if not practical, and they had the will to survive. In among all the anger, Maria heard concrete plans being made: the people pulling together to preserve themselves. She heard plans for an evacuation being mooted, and then outlined, and then actioned. She heard names of people put forward to lead on this. She saw people start to leave to begin work.

“Please,” she called out, “I know you have no reason to help me, but there is something you can do. Something that will truly wound this enemy of yours.”

“What can we do?” someone called to her.

“You can help me get this message out—back to the Expansion. The people who want to kill us will be exposed, and destroyed.”

She felt the hesitation in the room, and a kind of debate seemed to ripple around her. “We cannot contact the Expansion,” someone said. “There are no communications systems here on Stella Maris with the range.”

“There are on the
Baba Yaga
,” said Maria. “On my ship.” She felt odd claiming it in this way, but she supposed she was the last of them. “Help me get back to my ship.”

“We cannot help you! The enemy is at the gate!”

“You have evacuation plans,” Maria said. “I know you can leave the settlement. I know there are safe routes out. This is your way to fight back!”

But people were rushing past her, and she was not sure that she was being heard.

T
HROUGHOUT THE DAY
Walker and her party journeyed up the pass towards the mountain where the portal lay. Their pace remained slow: they did not know what weapons their pursuers were carrying or what their range might be, and so they tried to keep to the cover of the trees. Every so often, one of Feuerstein’s people would look back to check on their pursuers’ progress at the river. As they went on, Walker began to feel an overwhelming sense of dread; her journey was surely hastening to its inevitable end—an ignominious end, on a forgotten planet, with nobody to remember her, and her mission unfulfilled. The rest of the party too seemed sombre. Larsen was silent. Heyes kept her head down and plodded onwards.

Late in the afternoon they stopped to rest and eat. Walker sat a little distant, as if trying to prevent the direction of her thoughts from dispiriting the others. At length, Larsen sought her out and sat down next to her.

“I think we should try to speak to Mark again,” she said.

“I’ve tried that already,” said Walker. “I got nowhere.”

“I don’t mean you,” Larsen said. “And I don’t mean over a handheld. I mean face-to-face.”

Walker looked back down the pass. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I mean it, Delia. I can’t believe that Mark is party to any of this. I can’t believe he would betray us like this.”

“They’re down there shooting at us. He’s there with them. How much more evidence of treachery do you need?”

“I heard him,” Larsen said. “He sounded as bewildered as you and I. When he spoke about Andrei, he sounded bereft.”

The thought of Andrei, murdered by these people, was almost too much to bear. Angrily, Walker said, “He thought we were responsible, Kay. You and me—guilty of Andrei’s murder! I don’t know what’s happened to Mark Kinsella, but he’s not the man that I...”

“That you loved?” said Larsen. She was sitting in the half-light, and it seemed to Walker all of a sudden that they were mirror images. Larsen looked so tired, wearied from the uncertainties of her recent life, running towards nowhere with assassins at her back; shocked by her sudden exile from her old way of life; knowing she had made the right decisions, but terribly conscious that a high price was being paid by everyone around her.

“I did love him,” Walker admitted. “But that’s over now.”

Larsen gave a bitter laugh. “Then you’re lucky,” she said. “I never quite got over the whole affair. He did. Quite quickly, I thought. But then he never knew... He never knew the half of it.”

Walker had known, if she hadn’t admitted it to herself, that Larsen had been pregnant once upon a time. And she’d known who the father was.

“I don’t regret my decisions,” said Larsen. “Not even here, and now...” She looked around them. “Especially not here and now. But I wish that Mark and I had managed to remain friends.” She stared past Walker, on down the pass. “I don’t want to think that he’s fallen in with Grant,” she said. “I don’t want to think that he’s sold out, and so badly, and for so little. I wonder why I don’t want to think that. Is it because I loved him, and I don’t want to think that I’m the kind of person who would fall for a complete bastard?”

“None of us want to feel we’ve been taken for fools,” Walker said. “I think... No, I don’t think that Mark has betrayed us. I think that’s he’s found himself in a harder position than he ever expected. Andrei murdered, Grant running the show—and you and I gone. I imagine Mark had to make some tough choices to prove his loyalty to the Bureau. A little like the choice you made, to tell Latimer about the baby. And I don’t think he knows in full what the people he’s serving are really like.” She gave a wry smile. “Because I don’t want to think that I’m the kind of person who would fall for a complete bastard either. And I’d rather remember how he was, when I loved him—or thought that I loved him.”

They heard footsteps coming towards them, and both turned at once. It was Feuerstein. Quietly, she said, “I’m sorry to disturb you both, but they’re crossing the river. It’s time we made some decisions about what to do next.”

Walker, turning away from Larsen, nodded. “I need to press on,” she said. “With Heyes. On to the portal. We’ll need a guide.”

Feuerstein nodded. “That will be me.”

“And the rest of us?” asked Larsen.

“Provide cover,” said Walker. “Hold them back for as long as you can.”

“Oh, good,” said Larsen. “That was what I was hoping you would say.”

“Wait till you hear what’s coming next,” said Walker. “We only have three weapons between us.”

“I’m guessing you’re not going to let go of yours,” said Larsen.

Walker smiled.

“There are four of them,” said Feuerstein. “When the three of us leave, that leaves you, Larsen, and two of my people.”

“And two guns,” said Larsen. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t look delighted at those odds.”

Walker studied her carefully. “You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you?”

“More stupid than anything else I’ve done in the past few months?”

“I was thinking on the lines of trying to speak to a mutual friend of ours in person.”

Larsen began to walk back to the camp. “If I do decide to do that, Delia, it will be my own decision.”

Walker followed her back to join the others. Feuerstein went to brief her people and say her farewells, and Walker, Larsen and Heyes stood together in an awkward trio. At last, Larsen spoke. “Well, Hecate, I know you don’t have much time for her, and I can hardly blame you, but please take care of her—take care of both of them.”

Heyes rested her hand gently upon Larsen’s arm. “You know I will. You don’t need to worry.”

“I do worry,” said Larsen, “not least because I intended to be there when the time came...” She sighed. “Oh, God, Delia. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t think we’re going to get out of this alive, either of us. And yet... I can’t help imagining her, all grown up, with a mind of her own, her own voice...”

She stopped speaking, and Walker drew her into a rough but deeply heartfelt embrace. “I’ll take care,” she promised. “I’ll do my best. Perhaps I’ll get back and perhaps when I do there’ll be doctors down there, and she’ll come out and be fine, and she’ll live here on Stella Maris and be happy...”

Feuerstein came back. “We have to go,” she said. “They could be halfway across the river by now.”

Reluctantly, Walker and Larsen let go. Heyes said goodbye to Larsen, quickly and quietly, and then, following Feuerstein, they left the doctor behind in the darkness.

A
LL DAY THE
crimopaths had worked on building a raft and, as the sun set and the whole of this remote part of this remote world was bathed in glorious golden light, they set off to cross the river on their mission of murder. By the time it was full dark, they were well on their way in pursuit of Walker and Larsen. Conway, satisfied again that they were making headway, went on ahead with one of her team.

And then the firing started. The battle that followed was scrappy and short, and, at the end of it, two people lay dead, and one of their assailants had been captured. One of the dead was one of Feuerstein’s people. The other was Conway.

Kinsella watched as two of the crimopaths brought their prisoner forwards. It was Vetch. His gut clenched in fear and pity. Conway was the only thing that had been controlling them. Now they were free to act upon whatever impulses grabbed them. This Vetch they had captured would be dead, eventually, but it was going to be agony. Realising that the crimopaths had their attention entirely on their prey, he turned away and, as quietly as he could, slipped away beneath the trees. When the screaming started, he sat down, put his hands against his face and began to whisper to himself. Snippets of poetry. Witty responses he had never made in arguments long lost. Bits of songs. It blocked out hardly anything, and nowhere near enough, but it did mean he didn’t hear the person coming up quietly behind him. The next thing he knew there was a knife against his throat and a voice whispering in his ear.

“Hello, lover-boy,” said Larsen.