The Evolutionary Void (5 page)

“Right,” she said, relaxing slightly.

Ragnar leaned over the counter, speaking quietly. “You been out there
long?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Okay. Well, you’ve not chosen the best time to come back. These are
troubled times for the old Greater Commonwealth, yes indeed.” His eyes narrowed
at her blank expression. “You do know what the Commonwealth is?”

“I know,” she said solemnly.

“That’s good. Just checking. Those paths are pretty tangled, by all
accounts. I had someone once come straight out of a pre-wormhole century. Boy,
oh boy, were they confused.”

Araminta didn’t argue about how unlikely that was. She smiled and held up
her cash coin. “A room?”

“No problemo. How long will you be staying?”

“A week.” She handed over the coin.

Ragnar gave her clothes another skeptical viewing as he handed the coin
back. “I’ll give you number twelve; it’s a quiet one. And all our rooms have
complimentary toiletries.”

“Jolly good.”

He sniffed. “I’ll get you an extra pack.”

Room 12 measured about five meters by three, with a door on the back wall
leading to a small bathroom that had a bath and a toilet. No spore shower,
Araminta saw in disappointment. She sat on the double bed and stared at her
feet; the pain was quite acute now. It took a while for her to tackle the
problem of getting her boots off. When she did unfasten them, her socks were
horribly bloody. She winced as she rolled them off. Blisters had abraded away,
leaving the raw flesh bleeding. There was a lot of swelling, too.

Araminta stared at them, resentful and teary. But most of all she was
tired. She knew she should do something about her feet, bathe them at least.
She just didn’t have the energy. Instead, she pulled the thin duvet over
herself and went straight to sleep.

Paramedics were still working in Bodant Park ten hours after the riot, or
fight, or skirmish—whatever you called it. A lot of people were calling it mass
murder. Cleric Phelim had thrown the Senate delegation out of his headquarters
when they had leveled such an accusation against him, hinting broadly that the
Commonwealth would convene a war crimes tribunal with him as the principal
accused. But in an extraordinarily lame public relations exercise, five hours
after the agents had finished blasting away at each other, he had finally
lifted the restriction on local ambulance capsules. However, he wouldn’t switch
off the force field weather dome or allow the injured to be transferred to
hospitals in other cities. Colwyn’s own hospitals and clinics, already swamped
by earlier injuries from clashes between citizens and paramilitaries, were left
to cope by themselves.

Casualty figures were difficult to compile, but the unisphere reporters
on the ground were estimating close to a hundred fifty bodyloss victims.
Injuries were easily over a thousand, probably two with varying degrees of
seriousness.

Oscar had directly added two people to the bodyloss count. He wasn’t sure
about collateral damage, but it wasn’t going to be small, either; no one in
that fight had held back. On one level he was quietly horrified at his own
ruthlessness when he’d protected Araminta from the agents converging on her.
He’d allowed the combat programs to dominate his responses. Yet his own
instincts had contributed, adding a ferociousness to the fight that had
exploited every mistake his opponents had made. And his biononics were top of
the range, producing energy currents formatted by the best weapons-grade
programs the Knights Guardian had designed. It had also helped that Tomansio
and Beckia had bounced over to his fight within seconds, adding their firepower
and aggression. Yet he’d held by himself for those first few vital moments; the
feeling was the same as on the Hanko mission back in the good old days, flying
nearly suicidal maneuvers above the star because it was
necessary
.

Now, the morning after, guilt was starting to creep back. Maybe he should
have shown some restraint, some consideration for the innocent bystanders
trying to fling themselves clear—though a deeper rationality knew full well
that he had had to cover Araminta’s escape. The fate of the Commonwealth had
hung on that moment, determining which faction would grab her. Perhaps that was
why he’d fought so ruthlessly: He
knew
he had to
succeed. The alternative was too horrific to consider—or allow.

Certainly Tomansio and Beckia had shown a measure of respect that had
been absent before. He just wished he’d earned it some other way.

Their borrowed capsule left the Ellezelin forces base in the docks and
curved around to cruise above the Cairns, heading for the big single-span
bridge.

“Somebody must have got her,” Beckia said; it had almost become a mantra.
After they all got clear from the fight in Bodant Park, they’d spent the rest
of the night helping Liatris search for the elusive Second Dreamer. Her
disappearance was partially their own fault; Liatris had killed every sensor
within five kilometers of the park. They’d been so desperate for her to get
away that the measure was justified at the time; what surprised them again was
how well she’d done it. Their search hadn’t produced the slightest indication
where she’d gone since she’d run away from Oscar in the park. On the plus side,
no one else who was hunting her (and there were still five functional teams
that Liatris had discovered) had found her, either.

“Living Dream hasn’t,” Tomansio said calmly. “That’s what we focus on.
Until we confirm her situation, we continue the mission. Right, Oscar?”

“Right.” He saw her face again, that brief moment of connection when the
startled, frightened girl had stared into him with frantic eyes. She’d seemed
so fragile.
How on Earth did she ever stay ahead of everyone?
Yet he of all people should know that extraordinary situations so often kindled
equally remarkable behavior.

“Any luck with the image review?” Beckia asked.

“No” was Liatris’s curt answer. With Araminta dropping out of sight,
their technology expert had launched a search through old sensor recordings to
see if they could find how she’d arrived at Bodant Park. The Welcome Team had
been analyzing data from every public sensor in the city, trying to track her.
Liatris (and the rival agent teams) had glitched the input to their
semisentients, sending them off on wild-goose chases. But it was a telling
point that none of their own scrutineers had managed to spot her during the
day, not even approaching Bodant Park. The first anyone had determined her
location was when her outraged thoughts burst into the gaiafield at the sight
of her apartments going up in flame. As yet nobody had worked out how she’d
managed to conceal herself. Whatever method she’d used, it had proved equally
effective in spiriting her away during the height of the fight.

So now Oscar and his team were falling back on two things. One, she would
call him on the code he’d given her, possibly out of gratitude or maybe from
sheer pragmatism. Two, they were following leads like a professional police
detective.
Paula would be proud
, he thought with a
private smile.

Despite a barrage of urgent anonymous warnings, the Welcome Team had
arrested most of Araminta’s family, with the notable exception of the
redoubtable Cressida, who had pulled a vanishing act equal to Araminta’s.
They’d all been brought to the Colwyn City docks for “questioning.” Liatris
said Living Dream was bringing in more skilled teams from Ellezelin to perform
memory reads.

That just left them Araminta’s friends in the city, though, with the
exception of Cressida, she didn’t seem to have many. Which was strange, Oscar
thought. She was a very attractive young woman, free and independent. That
would normally imply a big social group. So far Liatris had uncovered very few,
though a building supply wholesaler called Mr. Bovey was a promising lead. They
were due to pay him a discreet visit right after their first appointment.

Tomansio steered the capsule away from the river and over the city’s
Coredna district. They landed on a pad at the end of a street and stepped out.
The houses here were all made out of drycoral, single-story and small; their
little gardens were either immaculately maintained or home to piles of rubbish
and ancient furniture. It was one of the poorer areas in the city. All three of
them stared at the Ellezelin forces capsule parked at the far end of the
street.

“En garde,” Tomansio said quietly.

They were all dressed in a simple tunic of the occupying forces, not
armor. Oscar brought his biononics up to full readiness. Defensive energy
currents and his integral force field could snap on with a millisecond’s
warning. He hoped that would be enough. As the three of them walked down the
street, he ran a field scan on the capsule up ahead. It was inert, empty.

“Assigned to squad FIK67,” Liatris told them when they relayed the serial
number to him. “Currently on city boundary enforcement duty.”

“Oh, crap,” Oscar muttered as they drew near the house they wanted. His
field scan had picked up someone with biononics inside. Whoever they were, they
also had their energy currents in readiness mode. “Accelerator?”

“Darwinist,” Beckia decided.

“Separatist,” Tomansio said.

“I’ll take a piece of that action,” Liatris said. “Put me down for the
Conservatives.”

Tomansio walked up to the aluminum front door and knocked. They waited
tensely as footsteps sounded. The door opened to reveal a shortish,
harassed-looking woman wearing a dark blue house robe.

“Yes?” she asked.

Oscar recognized Tandra from the employment file Liatris had extracted
out of Nik’s management net.

“We’d like to ask you some questions,” Tomansio said.

Tandra rolled her eyes. “Not another lot. What do you want to ask?”

“May we come in, please?” Oscar asked.

“I thought you Living Dream sods didn’t bother asking.”

“Nonetheless, ma’am, we’d like to come in.”

“Fine!” Tandra grunted and pushed the door fully open. She stomped off
down the small hall inside. “Come and join the party. One of your lot’s already
here.”

Oscar exchanged a nervous glance with the others and followed Tandra
inside. He reached the small lounge and stopped dead, emitting a potent burst
of shock into the gaiafield. The woman with active biononics was sitting on the
couch with a happy twin on either side of her. She wore an immaculately cut
major’s uniform and wore it well, the epitome of a career officer. Martyn was
bending down to offer her a cup of coffee.

“Hello, Oscar.” The Cat smiled. “Long time, no see. So what have you been
up to for the last thousand years?”

He let out a rueful sigh.
Come on, you knew this
would happen at some point
. “I was in suspension, where you should be.”

“Bored with it,” the Cat said. She glanced at Tomansio and Beckia. Oscar
had never seen the Knights Guardian so taken aback; they were even more
startled than he was. “My people,” the Cat said mockingly. “Welcome.”

“I’m afraid not,” Tomansio said. “We are working for Oscar.”

“Surely I override that. I created you.”

“They have conviction in their principles,” Oscar said mildly. “Something
to do with strength …”

The Cat gave a delighted laugh. “I always did like you.”

“What is this?” Martyn asked, looking from the Cat to Oscar. “I thought
you people were all the same.”

“Oh, we are,” the Cat said.

“We are not,” Oscar countered forcefully.

“Mixal, Freddy,” Tandra called. “Come here.”

The Cat’s smile was joyous as her hold around both children tightened. “I
like the twins,” she said mildly.

Martyn started forward as Mixal and Freddy began to twist about in her
unyielding grip. Tomansio intercepted him fast, restraining him. “Don’t move,”
he growled.

Beckia gripped Tandra. “No,” she warned as the woman tried to lunge at
her children.

“Let go of me,” Tandra shouted.

“If you move again, I will shoot you,” Oscar told her flatly, hating
himself for doing it, but he had no choice. Besides, it might just shock her
into obedience. She’d never understand that the twins’ only chance of surviving
the next five minutes was to let him and his team take charge.

“Big words,” the Cat said.

“I don’t have many options,” Oscar said.

“How’s Paula?”

“I thought you’d seen her.”

“Not quite. Not yet.”

“There’s always a next time, huh?”

“You should know that better even than I.”

“You know, last time I saw you on the plane to Far Away, you weren’t so
bad.”

“I assure you I was,” the Cat said.

“Strange, because that was you now. The you that founded the Knights
Guardian is in your personal memory’s future.”

“That sounds horribly convoluted and confusing, darling.”

“Thinking about it, you
you
never actually met
me on the plane to Far Away. Your memories come from the day before you were
sent to Randtown.”