The Red Queen (107 page)

This made me think again of Hannah telling Cassy that the Balance of Terror computermachine was on the moon. It sounded the wildest fantasy, and yet I found myself wondering it if were possible, for I had always wondered why my quest concerned itself with Sentinel, rather than the Balance of Terror computermachine, which directly controlled the ancient weapons of the Beforetimers. And certainly some of the teknoguilders had spoken of humans flying to the moon, though I had always discounted that as an exaggeration. But if it were true, it would perfectly explain Maruman’s loathing of the moon.

‘Elspeth!’ A familiar piping voice called. I saw that it was the Land slavechild, Sheena, who had shared her bun with me. She was sitting on the same stone bench as when I had first seen her, and when she came to me, I introduced Merret as my friend.

‘I thought your friend was a man,’ she said, staring up at the big coercer with slight trepidation.

‘Good day, young Sabra,’ Merret said, so formally and bowing so pompously that the child burst into irrepressible giggles. ‘I am not a Sabra. I am plain old Sheena.’

‘And I am plain Merret, though not so terribly old.’

Sheena giggled again happily and asked Merret if she would like to come to her house and meet her mother.

‘Sheena, I need to visit Councillor Telluride,’ I told her.

‘Hope said you came to her house looking for him,’ Sheena said, looking disappointed, but Merret said earnestly that although
I
had some serious business to conduct, it was her deepest desire to be introduced to Sheena’s mother. Sheena burst out laughing and caught hold of the coercer’s hand, chattering happily as we made our way through the streets, but her spirits visibly dimmed when we entered the street where she lived, and she muttered that maybe it was not a good idea for Merret to meet her mother, for she was not in a very good mood.

‘It is because of my da being taken away by the emissary.’ For a moment her face was terribly sad, but then she said eagerly, hopefully, ‘I could show you our roof garden. It is not a real roof garden but it is almost as nice as a real one.’

Merret touched my shoulder and farsent to me with painful coercive directness that she would go with the child and meet her mother, and then leave Redport. I nodded and aloud said that there was a very good view of the street from the roof garden. The coercer nodded and let Sheena lead her off, now explaining some terrible misdeed of her brother, Hil.

I turned to knock at the yellow door.

It was answered once again by the enormous Harym.

‘It is you, and alone this time,’ he said in his strange singsong voice. He closed the door and ushered me before him through the building to the same windowless inner chamber where the old woman, Maginder, was sitting alone drinking a mug of some steaming, rather medicinal-smelling liquid.

‘Do you come to us seeking Matthew again? Or do you have news of our queen?’ she asked.

I gaped at her, for a moment unable to take in the meaning of what she was saying.

‘You look exhausted,’ she said, frowning. ‘I am drinking a tisane that helps me stay alert, but you need sleep. Have you slept at all since you were here last night?’

‘I . . . I slept for an hour in a safe house,’ I said, feeling stupid with weariness. ‘But . . . are you saying Matthew is not here? That he did not bring Dragon to Slavetown?’

‘I have not seen either of them and the coming of the Red Queen is not the sort of thing that would remain secret for long,’ she said. ‘No doubt all the fuss connected to this masked ball has made it hard for them to get here, and the gates have only just opened. But fear not, there have been a constant stream of people coming since yesterday who dreamed of the rising of the Red Queen, and two people who claimed to have seen her. None of us doubts her existence, but we cannot
do
anything until she comes.’

I told her what Murrim had learned from Matthew’s friend Vadim, and then what Merret had said about Quarry and about Dragon. I said nothing of Maruman or Luthen’s crypt, only that Dragon had gone to Palace Island and had been saved from an Ekoni by Matthew, and that they had gone to ground for a time, before setting off for Slavetown. Maginder asked me shrewdly how I knew that, if I had not seen Dragon or Matthew, and lifted her brows when I told her my informant had been a cat.

‘If I had any doubt – that, more than anything you have said would convince me that she is truly the Red Queen,’ Maginder said. She shook her head wonderingly. ‘And of course it is significant that she should be drawn to Palace Island, though she has never been in the Red Land. But your Merret is right in saying a meeting between Redland and Quarry is needful, and it is not only wise but vital that it happen this very night, since the slave soldiers are to be taken aboard tomorrow night, after curfew. It is unfortunate that we cannot reveal the Dragon Queen to a good gathering of her people in the Infinity of Hope after the gate is shut, as we have always planned, for our people will not rise until that happens. It is strange that she should come to us on the one night the Slavetown gate is to be left open, so that she cannot be revealed. Of course she can reveal herself the very next night, though that would be even as the Quarry folk are being boarded, but if enough see her, there is still time to stop the ships, as long as we are ready to act. Of course, she has not even come to us yet, so neither I nor Murrim nor Rymer can swear we have seen her.’

‘Murrim is here?’ I asked. ‘He can tell you of people who have seen her!’

‘He is
not
here and you need not fulminate at me, young woman. I have told you already that I do not doubt the Red Queen has come, nor do many Redlanders, now. But she must proclaim herself our queen before we can act.’

I stifled a yawn, my weariness growing now that I had stopped, despite my dismay at finding Dragon had not yet come to Slavetown. If only Darga would come, he might be able to track her. And what of Maruman? The old cat had been injured, but after my immediate alarm, I realised his body would heal as mine did. His mood might take longer to mend, however. I yawned again.

Maginder tutted and said, ‘I will have Harym fetch hot water and make you a tisane.’ She went out and I tried to think what to do next. I ought to tell Merret that Matthew and Dragon were not in Slavetown after all, and I needed to make contact with Ana and Dameon just in case, by some chance, Dragon had taken Matthew to the dome camp. I could only pray Swallow was there, too.

Maginder returned, frowning. ‘I have been thinking of the ships and I know Rymer agrees with you about their strategic importance. Indeed it is very ill luck that the emissary’s ship is in port, for while it must be dealt with, we cannot afford to have any harm come to him or his people, for fear of the vengeance of the emperor of the land of the white-faced lords. As it is we will have to find a way to deal with the fact that we are not providing him with an army, but hopefully he will accept that we are not the Gadfians with whom that bargain was made. Our strongest bargaining chip will be the produce of the ilthum mine.’

Harym returned with a mug of steaming water and Maginder thanked him and set it on a tray. Maginder began adding a pinch of this and that to the mug of hot water as she continued. ‘That said, if there is no possibility of taking control of the ships, it seems to me the only thing is to take the emissary and his entourage and hold them hostage. At least that will prevent the emissary’s ship firing on Redport, and if we are clever we can present it to the emissary as a way of keeping him and his people safe.’

I was impressed with her strategic ability but I said, ‘What of Salamander?’

She frowned and nodded. ‘He is a problem and no mistake. It is unlikely we will be able to get anyone on the
Black Ship
, and he will care nothing for any hostages. But he will only care if the weapons on the emissary’s ship are turned on him. But it may not need to come to threats, for he will be unlikely to come ashore so he will not know immediately what is happening.

‘He has always been a person who knew things he ought not to have been able to know,’ I said.

‘In your Land, but here he can have no means of gaining information, for neither he nor his crew comes further ashore than the pens allotted to him, for the immediate storage of the slaves he brings to offer the Gadfians. They are on the shore near the slave pier and that area is somewhat impenetrable because of all the coming and going from the Ekoni barracks nearby. Nor does he conduct the sale. The Gadfians buy the slaves as a lot, having calculated their value, and then they are led in shackled groups to the Infinity of Obedience near the second scythe, where they are sold to individual Gadfians. Those not sold are returned to the Obedience pens, and remain there until the Gadfians buy them or they are taken for resale on the next Spit-bound greatship.’

‘Are any slaves sold directly from Salamander’s pen?’ I asked, thinking of Rushton, for Merret had said her people kept an eye on the slave intake, but given what Maginder said, she could only have meant those that came to the Infinity of Obedience.

‘Perhaps,’ Maginder said, giving me the mug of steaming liquid and bidding me drink.

I was so fatigued it was hard to think clearly. I took the tisane with thanks, hoping it would wake up my wilting mind. Ahmedri’s tisanes had always been very useful. I sipped and found the taste elusive and delicately bitter, in contrast to the strong scent it gave off. Then I asked, ‘What of Ariel? If he is here, he will be able to get information quickly to Salamander, including a command to attack Slavetown directly.’

The old woman shrugged. ‘I do not know. The pale man may well be here, but I have not heard anything of him going to the Prime’s compound. He may still be aboard the
Black Ship
or even in the preparation chambers within the slave pens.’

I wondered suddenly if the blocking machine could possibly be located in Salamander’s pens, and made a mental note to mention it to Merret.

‘The other thing that needs to be taken into account are the weapons in Redport,’ Maginder went on, taking up her own mug and sipping at it. ‘Rymer and Murrim have never given enough thought to that matter, in my opinion, and the Ekoni have some very nasty little devices, aside from their knives, which they would not hesitate to use on Landfolk.’

‘Maybe you should try to draw the Ekoni out of Redport so that Merret and the others with Misfit powers can use them,’ I suggested.

‘That is a good thought,’ she approved. ‘But first I think we must persuade Quarry to hold its hand, lest some disaster erupt on the eve of the coming of the Red Queen. Accidents and mishaps can slow the loading of the slaves – Rymer and I have calculated that we can slow it to such an extent that it will take the whole night to load the first batch of warriors. They are supposed to sail on the morning tide, but we could strive to make them miss it. A delaying tactic can only work if some of the slaves will board, of course, to maintain the illusion that all is well.’

‘It means the Quarry slaves will have to trust that you will make sure they are not carried off,’ I murmured, sipping at the cooling liquid.

‘Exactly. Quarry will have to trust that a people they see as meek and spineless will rise.’

‘Maybe the answer is to bring Dragon to the Quarry folk,’ I said. I drank the last of the liquid, grimacing at the bitter dregs and wondering how long it would take to wake my wits, for what I felt like doing more than anything was lying down on the seat and sleeping.

‘That is a good notion,’ Maginder approved. ‘If she comes tonight she can be presented to the meeting your Merret suggested. That might bring them to trust us,’ Maginder said with a sigh. ‘For most of them, the Red Queen seems nothing more than an excuse for our cowardice. Indeed, that is what the Gadfians think, though they imagine we do not know it. To see her, and especially if she looks as Matthew claims, will likely be a shock to them.’

I yawned again and complained, ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open. This tisane of yours has not invigorated me much.’

‘But it was not meant to,’ Maginder said placidly. ‘You are exhausted. You need sleep. Now you will sleep.’

‘No! I need to go and tell Merret about . . . about . . .’ I said, and tried to rise, but my body would not obey me. I tried to muster a coercive net, but I had consumed too much of the potion and it was already working its way through me.

‘Sleep,’ said Maginder gently. ‘No harm will come to you, Elspeth Gordie. Nothing will happen before tonight.’

I fought sleep, but it flowed over me in a soft black wave that reminded me of the inexorable power exerted by the cryosleep machine. I tried to draw on the black spirit power, but it was too late. I slept.

I dreamed of fumbled movements in the red-tinged darkness, the smell of smoke and the distant sound of explosions. Someone coughed.

‘Are you sure about this?’ I recognised the voice, but it was not until a light flashed that I saw in the brief startling brightness the dark, gleaming face of the Beforetimer Cassy, a young Cassy, though not as young as when I had first seen her.

There was another flash of light and I recognised the room she was in as part of the govamen complex at Inva, which I now knew bore the name Hegate. Cassy had been in it before with one of the white-coated teknoguilders of the Beforetime – Doktaruth, the woman with a mannish manner and short hair whose project had concerned the freezing alive of beasts in cryopods, and who had known Erlinder who went to Eden, who had known and corresponded with Kelver Rhonin.

The connections dizzied me.

But there was no sign of Doktaruth now. There was only Cassy and whomever she was speaking to. But even as I thought this, it seemed to me that there were other people moving about in the darkness, moving closer. Then the light flickered momentarily, and I was shocked to see Hannah was with Cassy. The older woman lifted a blood-smeared hand and even as the red light winked out, something she was holding glowed warmly to life – a ball of light akin to the lightsticks Ana had taken from the storages in Midland, save it was soft and golden.

‘I am not sure of anything, Cassy,’ Hannah said, ‘except that we cannot survive in any other way. It is fortunate there are still a few human-sized pods here.’

‘You said you dreamed of us looking for Sentinel,’ Cassy said. ‘How can that be when we have just seen its destruction?’

‘We saw the destruction of the computer in which the prototype of the Sentinel program was developed, not the final version of the program with its closed and impenetrable link to the BOT computers on the moon!’

‘I know there is a state-of-the-art super computer in some remote secret base, all ready to be programmed with the full and finalised Sentinel program, but Sentinel’s destruction means it can never be relocated,’ Cassy said.

‘A cloned and completed Sentinel program already be loaded into that supercomputer in its secret base,’ said a man’s voice, rich and musical. I recognised it at once as Ishmael, the old black man who had gone with Cassy to free the flame bird.

‘But the tests have not been completed yet!’ Cassy said, looking appalled.

‘The cloning and installation were done before this final round of tests began. They were just for the holovids, girl. After months of testing with not a glitch in sight, everyone felt Sentinel was perfect.’

‘But that is outrageous!’ Cassy said. ‘Well at least this other Sentinel is not active, and even if it were, it can’t link to BOT, since BOT was linked to the prototype.’

‘The Balance of Terror program is designed to seek a certain signal. That is what Sentinel sends out, but when the prototype broke connection, BOT was designed to start searching for that same signal and to go on seeking it. Were Sentinel activated, and it will be, the Balance of Terror program will immediately respond and engage, the result being what their makers intended – a full, closed link between the two programs,’ said Hannah.

‘But the Sentinel prototype didn’t sever the connection,’ Cassy protested. ‘It was sabotaged.’

‘A destruct will look the same as a shut-down to Sentinel Two, kiddo,’ said another voice, young and female but hard-edged and harsh. I had heard it before, too. Violet.

‘Look,’ Hannah said to Cassy, ‘this is not something we can think about now. But console yourself that the remaining Sentinel program can’t be activated remotely and the handful of people who have the authority and know its location are like as not dead.’

Cassy looked confused. ‘Are you saying Sentinel cannot be woken?’

‘I am saying it should not be possible,’ Hannah said gently. ‘I thought that we were making it impossible because I made the mistake of thinking there was
only
the prototype. But I know now that the terrible destruction I foresaw was not this holocaust, awful as it is, but a future and more terrible destruction that will leave nothing in its wake. Yet there is hope, too, because my dreams tell me that it can be averted. Not by us, but by one yet to be born.’

‘Is it the girl you dreamed of? Cassy asked. ‘The one whose face you showed me in my dreams?’

Hannah nodded. ‘I dreamed of her and I understood that she would be born with an extraordinary array of paranormal abilities that will give her the potential to reach and access Sentinel and shut it and the Balance of Terror program down once and for all. I thought it was the prototype she would be able to destroy, if
we
failed. But it was Sentinel in its remote base, now sleeping, that she must ensure can never wake. Yet she cannot succeed without our help, and we cannot help her if we do not survive.’

‘A child,’ Cassy said dubiously. ‘And you have not said how Sentinel is to be activated?’

‘You were very young when you came to me first,’ Hannah said. ‘And the Seeker I have seen will not
be
a child when she faces Sentinel. I have seen her as a woman, clad in a red gown speaking the name of Sentinel. But as to how Sentinel is to be activated, that I have not seen. I only know it will happen if the Seeker fails.’

‘Even if we live through this crazy cryopod scheme of yours, this country will be poisoned for generations to come,’ said another voice.

Hannah said, almost dreamily, ‘Our world and all of its foolish false divisions is passing away. Much of the land and water that remains will be damaged beyond redemption for unthinkable centuries to come, but there are places in the world too remote and unimportant, too small and insignificant, to have been targeted, and people will survive there as well. It may even be that some of them will find their way to those places designed by the people of our world with courage enough to have vision: habitats that will preserve or restore life, like the Whelmer Dam project or the Pellmar Quadrants, or Eden. That I have not seen either, but I have seen that the Seeker will be born in a place that is uncontaminated.’

‘Have you seen that we survive this cryosleep?’ someone asked.

Hannah lifted the lightball and looked around at the anxious, dirt-streaked faces I now saw too, most as dark as teak, a few pale and ghostlike. ‘I have told you that I had seen that we will find our way to one of those clean places and live and work and prepare the way for the Seeker who will come, capable of ending the threat that is Sentinel.’

‘But how can she do that if the base has defences and is designed to resist human interference . . .’ someone began.

Hannah looked in the direction of the speaker. ‘Thanks to Masterton’s greed, there is a secret back door into the program which he had his tame programmers introduce so that his arms manufacturer friends could manipulate the final test, causing Sentinel to attack. We were able to prevent it, but that caused Sentinel to destruct and the Balance of Terror computer to retaliate, as much as it was enabled to do. But that back door exists in the cloned program as well, and it will provide the means by which the Seeker can reach Sentinel’s vulnerable core and shut it down.’

‘What about BOT? Won’t it just start looking for another signal?’

‘It will, but we have the hacker’s key Masterton had Ulrik make, and if our Seeker manages to shut down Sentinel, she can then use it to ping BOT and manually instruct it to shut itself down.’

‘She would need a chamber prepared to enable that communication, and what about the perimeter defences?’

‘We could easily generate a second hacker’s key made to the same specifications, but calibrated to interface with the perimeter defence program,’ said the pale-skinned, spike-haired Violet. ‘But your Seeker would need a computer and she would need a way to power it and be capable of using it in order to create a unique identification code that would enable both keys to serve as access codes. How is she going to do any of those things in the world that you have foreseen where the knowledge of such things is all but lost?’

‘You got to leave her them hacker’s keys, a computer and detailed instructions,’ said Ishmael, glancing down at something cradled in his arms.

‘How is a primitive to understand even the most explicit directions? And given the picture your dreams have painted of the time to come, there will be no fusion generators. Even if you find some way to power a computer, how can we leave your seeker any message or a computer, when we don’t know what state the world will be in, let alone where she will be?’ asked a woman.

‘I know where she will be and we will go there, Lavender, all of us, when we emerge from cryosleep,’ Hannah said calmly. ‘And the answer to how she will manage her task – our seeker’s abilities will help her bridge the gap between this lost world, and hers.’

‘If we sleep in cryopods and wake when the world is safer, we will still need messages that will stand the test of time, if she is to be born far in the future,’ Cassy said thoughtfully.

There was the muted sound of an explosion and then a long wailing cry. A red light played over all of their faces.

‘It is now or never,’ Hannah said. ‘We have been safe in here, but I have foreseen that it will not last, and once the protection is breeched it will not be long before we are contaminated. If we are going to do this, it must be done now.’

Cassy drew closer saying, ‘If we do not submit ourselves to the cryopods, we have no future. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Hannah said. ‘But more – if
you
do not live, my dear Cassandra, the world will have no future. Where there is life, there is hope.’

‘Let’s do it then,’ Cassy said, her voice echoing slightly. She moved forward and climbed into something and I realised they were in a chamber with cryopods! I recognised them from Midland and from my dream of her, waking in this very cryopod.

‘Will you take him?’ asked Ishmael, looking at Hannah. ‘He suffered something terrible and he deserve to live. You know somebody got to close up the last one, Hannah, an’ it better be me. But you do this one thing. Take him.’

Cassy had lain down in a pod but now she sat up looking distressed ‘But you . . .’

‘I will go down with the ship, Cassy girl. That be fitting ’cause I bear some responsibility for all of this mess, even though I meant no harm,’ Ishmael said, watching Hannah enter the cryopod next to her. ‘It right that I do this and I am glad to have the opportunity to atone. Only, this little guy . . .’

‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said doubtfully. ‘The cryopods are made for humans and the drug doses are configured for humans. He may get nothing or he will receive a human-sized dose. He may never wake.’

‘He might die if he goes with you, but he surely die if he stays with me,’ the man said.

‘Give him to me then,’ Hannah said, holding her arms out, and the man placed a tiny bundle of fur into the pod. I saw mottled fluff the colour of smoke with a dash of sulphur yellow, a bandaged head, and a tiny drooping tail.

‘I called him Merimyn before the doctors were at him,’ Ishmael said. ‘He was such a lively, courageous little mite. I felt bad seeing him all limp and bandaged up like that. Funny thing is, I was going to sneak him out of here and home with me today an’ I would have forgot all about him if Cassy didn’t insist on freeing that flame bird. Only this poor little man don’t have no wings.’

‘Hush little Merimyn,’ Hannah said softly. ‘Sleep now and let us share this long dream.’