The Thousand Emperors (36 page)

Thank God he’d taken the opportunity to eat something at Maxwell’s library. If he was going to hide out here for any significant length of time, his first priority would have to be
locating a source of fresh water, followed by trying to work out what, amongst Vanaheim’s bio-engineered flora and fauna, might be edible.

And after
that
. . .

Maybe it was better not to think about
after
just yet.

He went exploring, making his way to the edge of a deep gorge that fell away to a river sluicing between dark granite walls on its long descent from the island’s central peak. He worked
his way deeper into the forest, keeping the gorge to one side, taking care not to stumble or fall in the permanent twilight beneath the canopy.

After a while he came across a shallow cave, and had an idea.

Making his way back to the flier, he guided the vehicle back above the canopy until it spread out below him like a sea of green, then flew low until he was hovering above the river gorge. He
followed the river upstream, then carefully manoeuvred the flier back through the canopy; and before long, he had parked it just inside the mouth of the cave. Even with the canopy covering the
flier over, it had still felt somehow exposed. There were no guarantees the Council didn’t also have access to surveillance technology that could see through rock, but he’d take that
chance.

He slept fitfully inside the flier, and found himself troubled by dreams in which he argued with Winchell Antonov. When he awoke, he could remember nothing of what they had said to each other.
Staggering back outside, he worked his way downstream until the gorge flattened out sufficiently that he could cup the lukewarm water in both hands, drinking down as much of it as he could.

Upon his return to the flier, tired, grubby and still hungry, he failed at first to register that a light on one of the cockpit’s virtual panels had begun to blink. He stared at it for
several moments, fatigue making him unsure if it had been blinking the whole time and he’d only just noticed it.

Tentatively, he reached out and touched the panel with a finger.

Luc let himself fall into the flier’s crash couch, a fat grin spreading across his features. It was Zelia.

he demanded. arrest.>

talked
to Javier? Where the hell
are
you?>

but Cripps is looking for me now.>

she sent back.

to find you. Now listen – I’m uploading coordinates to you. I need you to go to them and rendezvous with me there.>

he told her.

There was a brief pause before she replied.

She broke off for a moment, then came back.

Luc listened to the buzz of life from outside the flier’s open hatch, the wind rattling the high branches of the trees shielding the mouth of the cave from view.

lot
more.>

something in a Goddamn
dream
, but the next thing I knew Cripps had turned up out of the blue and I was being hauled off to Vanaheim to take a look at charred corpses on
your
behalf.
I’d have to be an idiot not to make the connection.>

He remembered the fleeting vision he’d had of her wearing a
contamination suit, and walking through a biome filled with corpses. staff died and the whole thing stirred up a huge scandal. You resigned from your post as Director of Policy for Thorne after the investigation into the whole mess collapsed without ever working out
who was responsible.>

I
caused that breach.>

something
must have been the containment accident. And the first thing that happened after I’d altered that record was you first bringing me to Vanaheim, then sneaking me off to your
own lab the instant I collapsed.>

she scoffed.

were
the one responsible for that biotech accident, but
after you covered it up, Antonov found out the truth and held you to ransom against the day he needed something from you. I also know there’s no way I would have been able to alter that
record without revealing my identity, and that’s why you brought me into the investigation – not just because you were desperate to avoid being exposed, but so you could try and figure
out how I fit into the scheme of things.>

Luc replied,

she hissed. was
an accident, but one that involved
secret research carried out on behalf of an internal committee of the Eighty-Five. They made me take a bullet when they removed me from my post, not that it would have made a difference to Antonov.
He thought I was little better than a butcher, same as you clearly do.>

one containing the proof of Ariadna Placet’s death – and Cripps murdered him for his efforts. And he would never have found that cache without Antonov’s help.>

working
together?>

You
were collaborating with Antonov, whether you liked it or not. But Vasili found much more than he’d anticipated in that data-cache, enough to exonerate you and get
me out of Vanaheim alive if I can find it. Which brings me to my next question – I need you to tell me how to find Vasili’s island.>

Luc’s fingers reached out and touched the edge of the book he’d taken from Maxwell’s prison, still tucked inside his jacket. He’d save the revelations about the Founder
Network for the moment.

she replied,

he responded, feeling his temper slip, help.>

He waited a long time before her response came. So long, in fact, he was starting to think she had cut the connection.

she said, when she finally came back.

Luc let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

He waited in silence.

She paused.

he said, and cut the connection. Despite his misgivings, he knew she was almost certainly right.

Luc reached Vasili’s island a little under two hours later, having travelled more than a third of the way around Vanaheim’s circumference. The flier dipped back
down through the cloud cover and dropped towards storm-tossed cliffs he had first set his eyes on just days before.

Words materialized in the air before him, floating against the dim light of the cockpit. UNAUTHORIZED APPROACH. PLEASE TURN BACK OR SEEK CLEARANCE.

Ignoring the warning, he guided the flier to a landing on a rocky beach by a cliff on one side of Vasili’s island before disembarking. He squinted into bright sunlight, then looked around
until he saw the steps cut into the cliff that he’d spotted on the way down.

Just before Luc reached the top of the cliff, something dark passed overhead. Immediately he froze, afraid he might have triggered the house security systems.

The dark shape resolved into a large craft, nearly twenty metres in length. It came to a halt over the roof of one of the buildings comprising Vasili’s home, turning through one-third of
its circumference before drifting a few metres to one side and settling down on a flat grassy area at the top of the cliff. The craft, he saw, had Zelia’s livery painted on its hull.

Luc pulled himself up the last of the steps and found himself standing at one end of a gentle, boulder-strewn slope, leading upwards from the cliff towards the nearest of the buildings. As he
watched, the rear of Zelia’s ship slid open, and over a dozen of her walking dead experiments emerged unblinking into the sunlight, shambling down a ramp.

Luc’s skin crawled at the sight of so many of them. He found he could make out subtle differences between each of them, although they all followed the same basic pattern: most of their
primary sense organs had been replaced; all had pin-studded structures where their eyes should have been; all wore loose, filthy clothing little better than rags. But they were also, Luc noted with
a mixture of alarm and relief, heavily armed.

He turned towards Vasili’s home in time to see one of the house mechants come rocketing over a rooftop. Before he could so much as react, one of Zelia’s monsters had fired off a
shot. The mechant wobbled in the air, then span hard as a second shot hit home.

Zelia was creating a diversion.

He ran upslope towards a narrow alleyway separating two buildings and ducked down it, emerging a moment later into a smaller version of the courtyard Zelia’s flier had brought him to on
his first visit. He glanced behind himself to see Zelia’s creations were now following him down the alleyway.

Two more mechants hovered into view above the courtyard, their weapons swivelling in different directions. Luc saw an open door to his left and threw himself through it, into a gloomy, unlit
hallway thick with dust, its walls damp and streaked with mould.

Explosive fire flared through the doorway behind him, and he made his way deeper into the building with considerable haste. He passed through room after room, each more desolate and ruined than
the last, making it obvious that outside of the library and perhaps a few other rooms, Vasili had let most of the island’s buildings fall into a state of considerable disrepair.

Luc came to a dirt-streaked window and peered out. A narrow strip of beach to his left was partly obscured by wild-growing bushes, but almost directly below his vantage point was a walled garden
in far better condition than anything else he had seen so far, and a set of patio doors that were immediately familiar. By the look of it, the drop to the ground was no more than a couple of
metres.

He looked around, then jogged into the next room to the left, finding a chair lying on its side. Carrying it back through, he slammed it against the window. The glass fractured and bowed
outwards, but it took several more attempts before it finally shattered.

Salty air flowed in through the window, stirring up dust and dirt. Something hummed from one of the other rooms, sounding like it was coming nearer. Luc used his elbow to knock out a couple of
shards of broken glass still sticking out of the frame, then scrambled over the window ledge, dropping down to land in the walled garden.

The landing knocked the wind out of him. Shots echoed over the rooftops, followed by the hum of another kind of weapon; light flashed in the air above a rooftop, and a thin trail of greasy dark
smoke rose up, only to be rapidly dispersed by the wind. He pushed himself to his feet and staggered towards the patio doors leading into Vasili’s library.