The Tabit Genesis (10 page)

Augustus was staring at him, waiting for an answer.

‘You still had more than most people ever get,’ Wyllym said carefully. ‘Are you sure you just want to throw it away?’

‘She’s the one who bailed out.’

‘You have no idea why?’ Wyllym asked, with a dangerous level of sarcasm in his voice. ‘She stood by your side through the darkest times. Katrin didn’t change at all. You, on the other hand—’

‘I don’t have to take this shit from you,’ Augustus said, standing up. ‘What would you know about having a partner, anyway?’

‘You don’t like hearing the truth, especially when you’re wrong.’

Augustus thumbed his own chest.

‘I’m never wrong.’

‘Well that part of you hasn’t changed. How goes the war on Ceti?’

‘The numbers speak for themselves, Wyll,’ he returned, his face darkening. ‘Inner Rim crime is down, illegal trade is down. We’ve got brave men and women fighting a covert battle to dismantle the cartels. I’d say the war has never gone better.’

‘That reminds me. There was an article in the Orionis Net, about this so-called war you’re waging.’

‘About some undercover agents that were executed?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘You really don’t want to know.’

Wyllym lowered his voice again.

‘Everyone knows about the gift-wrapped heads you received from Vladric Mors, and they want to know what you’re going to do about it.’

Augustus held his glare.

‘It was Jake.’

Wyllym felt a wave of nausea.

‘You mean, his head was in …’

‘He’s the one who sawed theirs off,’ Augustus said. ‘Our understanding is that Jake sold them out, then tortured and killed them.’

Wyllym was speechless. He had met Jake several times. The lad was a good man, had been a good husband. This had to be a mistake – but Augustus would never joke about something like this.

‘Did Katrin know?’

‘It’s better for her she doesn’t. Besides, I just put a large bounty on him.’

‘He’s your son-in-law.’

‘Was. Now he’s a top dog at Ceti with Navy blood on his hands. I don’t know what compelled him to kill those cops, and I don’t care. What he did was despicable. Dead or alive, Jake is coming home.’

‘You put him in that position,’ Wyllym pressed. ‘Was it worth his life?’

‘Undercover work is dangerous. He knew the risks. We put soldiers in harm’s way to protect Orionis. You weren’t overly concerned whether Lieutenant Vanders survived.’

‘It’s not the same and you know it,’ Wyllym countered. ‘If you came up here looking for someone to tell you you’re doing the right thing, you’re out of luck.’

The police chief nodded, ever so slightly, never once blinking. Wyllym only saw this face when Augustus was furious – it was passive, hiding his true intentions.

‘Why do you do this?’ Augustus asked quietly.

‘Do what? Confront you with the truth?’

‘
Sacrifice
,’ he said. ‘For the Navy. The Gryphons. Hedricks. What did you turn into, the day half the people you loved were buried alive?’

‘That’s low, Ty.’

‘Sixty years old, no wife, no children, no home to call your own. Look at you, back from the dead, and for what? What did you come back for? What reason do you have for actually living?’

Wyllym regarded his friend with cold, grey eyes.

‘When the
Archangel
has her Gryphons, I’m retiring,’ he said. ‘I was happiest when I was growing things. Nurturing life. I thought I’d lease a plot on Eris. Go back to being a farmer.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘So all you live for is dirt and solitude,’ Augustus said. ‘All I ever wanted was to be a grandfather. I lived for Danna. But to each his own, I guess.’

Wyllym took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

‘I won’t put Vladric Mors in front of a judge,’ Augustus continued. ‘I owe her that much.’

‘If you want to understand why Katrin left,’ Wyllym said, ‘think about what you just said.’

A soft tone interrupted the tension, followed by another. Someone from the rescue operation was trying to reach Wyllym. He plucked the headset floating nearby and put it back on.

‘Lyons.’

Augustus began making his way to the exit.

‘Just received word that Lieutenant Vanders will survive,’ Wyllym announced, raising his voice. ‘I’ll send you his files, but if anyone asks, you didn’t get them from me.’

His friend stopped at the door.

‘Keep them,’ Augustus said. ‘Might be he’s safer on the
Archangel
. Lord knows what I’d ask of him.’

There was no place left to hide, and Travis stalked her like a relentless predator, his eyes full of murder. She fought against him with primal desperation, but he laughed at her struggle, toying with her before one final shove sent her hurling through the airlock, falling into the atmosphere of Zeus. As she plummeted towards oblivion, the ship faded from view, swallowed up by the clouds. Terrible gusts of wind pummelled her. She tried not to scream, for there was no air to breathe. But her lungs betrayed her and she began to choke, clutching at her throat, thrashing to face the direction of her descent.

That was when she heard it:
music
, of all things, beautiful and dark and hauntingly hypnotic. And then they emerged from the red clouds beneath her – breathtaking, luminescent swarms of Arkady hunters; thousands of intelligent beings acting as one, enveloping her, offering comfort, singing her death song … Viola, Viola,
Viola!

‘
Viola!
’ Mighan shouted, her voice thundering through the ammonia clouds.

The dream collapsed and Viola’s eyes blinked open, focusing on the puddle of drool on her desk.

Mighan was standing just a metre from her.

‘Wake up!’ she demanded.

Viola sat abruptly, pulling strands of spittle-dampened hair from her mouth and tucking them behind her ear.

‘The hazmat crew would like a word,’ Mighan growled with blistering annoyance.

The time was 21:52. Viola had no idea how long she had been asleep.

‘What for?’ she mumbled, her voice dry. Reaching for her water jug, she tilted the end to her lips, but it was empty. So she held it out towards Mighan.

‘Do you mind …?’

Nostrils flaring, the assistant snatched the container from Viola’s hand.

‘Answer the damn call!’ Mighan bellowed.

That cleared the fogginess somewhat, and Viola returned fully to her desk at Merckon Prime.

‘Silveri,’ she said.

‘Hi, finally. Sorry to interrupt, but the sample we just brought in is enormous. It won’t fit in the lab unless we cut it.’

‘No!’ Viola shouted, wide awake now. ‘Don’t you dare! Let me see it.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ the hazmat crewman said. The camera display showed a large shipping container, one of the standardised ones that were stacked inside the modular nodes of freighters.

Normally, Arkady tissue samples came back in crates barely larger than her chair.

Dressed in airtight survival suits, the hazmat specialist and his colleagues began opening the container door. It hissed as cold air leaked out, and the camera began panning inside.

Viola gasped.

‘May I present one slightly decomposed, structurally intact hunter tentacle,’ he said. ‘It’s six metres long and weighs eighty kilos. The business end is missing, but it still has some of the thorax attachment tendons.’

‘Where did this come from?’ she breathed.

‘A Vulcan Dynamics freighter called it in. The captain said he bought it off a trawler operator at one of the Zeus exchange outposts. Apparently it changed hands several times before he acquired it.’

‘But you don’t know which trawler?’

‘No, ma’am, I do not. The captain mentioned that whoever was on the receiving end of that tentacle must either be dead or the toughest roughneck in Orionis.’

Viola would have given anything to interview the miner who had come face-to-face with a hunter. Getting close to one and coming out alive was considered miraculous. Surviving actual physical contact was unheard of.

‘Leave it right there, and keep it under guard,’ Viola ordered. It was so annoying that she couldn’t just go down there herself, but those were the rules. ‘Nice work, gentlemen.’

‘Thanks—’

‘Mighan!’ Viola shouted, whipping her hands about to manipulate new data imagery projections. ‘I need you to extend AR coverage to the freight container downstairs. There’s a specimen inside I’ll need scanned and modelled. Talk to engineering about getting drones in there, I don’t trust human hands for this. How soon can we run a preliminary—? What?’

The exasperated assistant was glaring at her.

‘It is almost 22:00,’ Mighan said in a calm, composed voice. ‘You haven’t left the building in three days, and you’ve been in this office for the last twenty hours.’

‘So?’

‘So get a life,’ Mighan snapped. ‘I’m shutting the office down.’

And with that, all of Viola’s airborne telemetry vanished. Before she could protest, Mighan held up a large hand.

‘My job is to protect your work, or more specifically Merckon’s work, and unfortunately that means safeguarding your well-being,’ Mighan said, tossing a tiny keycard onto the desk. ‘Take that and get out of here so I can leave.’

Viola eyed the card suspiciously.

‘What’s this?’

‘Unlimited VIP access for you and a friend to Sirkus,’ Mighan said, strolling towards the door, her feet cutting a path through crumpled wrappers of empty food containers and energy supplements. The accumulated detritus from working non-stop was alarming, but then Viola’s fascinating discovery several days earlier made all the sleep deprivation worthwhile. There was just so much more to learn that it was easy to block out everything else.

But Sirkus was an enticing distraction. It was the most exclusive nightclub at Merckon Prime, a playground for the rich and famous.

‘Why are you giving me this?’

‘Because Mr Mareck thinks you’re in danger of burning out,’ Mighan said. ‘Everything you order is on the company account, no questions asked, including transportation. He also said to take tomorrow off.’

‘I don’t want the day off, that specimen needs to be catalogued—’

‘It is
not
negotiable,’ Mighan spat. ‘The building won’t let you in. Find somewhere else to go.’

‘Why wasn’t I informed of this before?’

‘Because you didn’t ask,’ Mighan said. ‘Now get out before I remove you myself.’

The lights went out, and Mighan crossed her arms impatiently. Viola felt helpless for a few moments. Then she reached for her corelink and placed a call.

‘
It seemed like a good idea at the time
’ was the last thought Viola recalled before a ringing corelink reminded her that she had made plans for a late evening. There were no Arkady dreams – just blackness, and a disorienting inability to remember how she ended up in the women’s locker room at Merckon Prime. Her friend Carrie found her half asleep on a bench, and had to drag her into the shower to wake her up. The physical toll of so many hours and so little sleep was evident, but Carrie would hear nothing of it: no one passed up an opportunity for Sirkus, especially, as she described it, ‘a nobody that works in legal’. A fitness fanatic like Viola, the two had become acquainted in the Merckon gym; similar routines and schedules created opportune circumstances for them to become friends.

An hour after Carrie had helped her get dressed, they sat with eyes wide open within the opulent dreamscape of Sirkus, two cocktails and a potent psychostimulant into a fierce conversation about work. Their balcony table overlooked a dance floor packed with swank socialites who were partying without a care in the world. The bar itself was a fusion of twenty-first-century cyberpunk melded with French neo-classical architecture and matching burlesque attire for the employees. Volumetric light shows featured largely naked male and female dancers, performing on poles, soaring through the air on cables, and offering drinks, drugs, and sex to patrons in secluded rooms that could be rented for a small fortune.

It was an anything-goes party for the bourgeois at its finest, and darkest. Viola and Carrie had been thrice propositioned already – by professionals of both sexes, and one intoxicated executive. But Viola, now wired on the stims, found herself talking incessantly about the Arkady, oblivious to the temptations around her.

‘Music!’ Viola exclaimed, between sips of her third cocktail. ‘Don’t tell a soul this, but I think they actually compose music!’

‘Oh, really?’ Carrie said, her deep brown eyes twinkling at some male specimen offering drinks to the women at the adjacent table. ‘Like what, club, techno, classical—?’

Viola stifled a giggle.

‘I mean, I haven’t mapped the patterns to musical notes yet, but the point is only the most advanced kinds of intelligence can do this … like, communicate for reasons that aren’t directly relevant to survival.’

Carrie gave her a blank expression, and Viola set her drink down to gesture freely.

‘Okay, so, on Earth, birds – you know what a bird is, right? Well, most of them used a variety of songs to serenade potential mates, protect their territory, and so on. I observed different groups of Arkady sturgeons within swarms emitting identical light sequences at regular intervals … It was actual
tempo
, like notes in a measure, not the frantic pulses we usually see when they converse individually—’

Carrie snapped away from her indulgence.

‘Wait, wait, wait. You mean those things
chat
with each other? Conversationally?’

‘
Yes
,’ Viola said, taking an enthusiastic sip from her drink. ‘Well … strictly speaking, that’s just a theory.’

‘What makes you think they can?’

Viola’s eyes darted sideways, and she leaned forward again. Carrie rolled her eyes and followed suit.

‘I’ve seen footage from trawlers all over Zeus. Some of them are violent, even tragic … but it’s fascinating. You can see the Arkady trying to outsmart point defences. They work together, use tactics, even diversions. They are far more intelligent than anyone knows …’

Carrie looked past her and frowned.

‘I swear that hot waiter keeps looking over here,’ she said.

But Viola was on Zeus now.

‘Only miners think they’re intelligent creatures,’ she said, gulping down the rest of the cocktail. ‘Isn’t that ironic?’

Carrie’s face paled.

‘Oh my God, look who it is.’

‘Who? The waiter?’ Viola stammered, holding up her glass. ‘Oh, good.’

Her friend straightened up and spoke through her teeth.

‘No – Travis Mareck is heading this way.’

Viola’s muscles tightened as Carrie smiled uncomfortably. The Merckon CEO approached and looked down at them, resplendent in his form-fitting attire, his eyes a dreadful mix of greed and desire. Accompanying him were two bodyguards – augmented mutants, judging from their size, and the hardware covering their eyes and ears.

‘What a pleasant surprise,’ he remarked. ‘I hope you find these arrangements satisfactory?’

Viola’s heart was pumping in her ears.

‘Yes, sir,’ she mumbled. ‘Thank you for this.’

‘I should be thanking you,’ he said warmly. But his charm dissolved as his eyes shifted to Carrie. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t met.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Viola said. ‘This is Carrie—’

‘Lin, who works in my legal department,’ Travis said. ‘I know
who
she is. I just said we haven’t met.’

Carrie cleared her throat.

‘Hello, Mr Mareck,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘Nice to meet you?’

Travis regarded her with disdain.

‘Has Miss Silveri told you anything you weren’t supposed to hear?’

Carrie’s cheeks flushed as red as a rose.

‘Excuse me?’ she staggered. ‘No, sir, not to my knowledge.’

Travis shook his head.

‘Tsk, tsk,’ he said. ‘Bad enough you indulged her, Viola. Now you’ve made her a liar as well.’

Suddenly, Carrie winced and clutched at her temples. As Travis looked on, she began shaking violently, her eyes rolling upwards, her hands clawed and locked in a seizure. Viola stood to help her, but was forced down by a heavy hand on her shoulder. She watched in horror as Carrie locked up one final time, then slumped onto the table – alive, as far as Viola could tell, but unconscious.

Viola noticed one of the guards slip something into his pocket.

‘Too much to drink,’ Travis sighed. ‘Happens to a lot of people their first time here.’

Some staff approached and scooped Carrie off her seat, hauling her away quietly. Travis sat in the vacated chair.

‘What did you do to her?’ Viola demanded. ‘Where are they taking her?’

‘In a few hours she’ll awaken in her home with a fierce headache and some amnesia,’ he shrugged. ‘Which, as it happens, is necessary to protect my intellectual property. You
did
tell her too much, Viola. I find that upsetting.’

‘I didn’t say anything of consequence,’ Viola said.

‘That isn’t yours to judge,’ he said, leaning back into the seat. ‘You and I have a mutual interest in maintaining the widespread belief that our research subjects are mindless, savage beasts. It isn’t like you to be so careless. That’s a sign you’re working too hard.’

Travis rose abruptly, offering his hand.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must remedy this.’

Viola got up slowly, catching herself from losing balance. The alcohol had done its work. The floor wobbled beneath her as alarm bells blared through her impaired mind. Travis led her from the VIP area towards the dance floor, moving through the frenzy until they were completely surrounded by the celebration. He turned, grasped her by the hips, and began moving to the rhythm, eyes ablaze.

‘Let yourself go,’ he urged.

A burst of adrenaline compelled her to resist.

‘No!’ she protested. ‘Where did … what have you done … to Carrie?’

But for some dark reason, her willpower was overwhelmed.

‘
Let go
,’ he commanded.

Her body obeyed, gracefully matching his movements, grinding against him even as the skin on her neck tingled with anger. How could she feel so physically attracted to someone she loathed?

‘Your work is important to me,’ he said, so close that she could taste his breath. ‘But you need a release.’

His lips made contact with her ear lobe.

‘I can help,’ he said, running a hand up her back. Every fibre of her being was battling a primordial instinct to run. She gasped as he took her hands with a firm squeeze and led her off the floor, towards the restricted area of the club, where muffled sounds of pleasure rose above the thundering music. The host at the entrance smiled without making eye contact, as a couple brushed past them half undressed.