Into the Light by Jane Wallace

Lauden and Sevin exchanged glances.

‘You’re a hard man to track down, Major Sevin, I kept losing you,’ the Gharst smiled regretfully. He wasn’t much more than twenty, the sprinkling of freckles over his high cheekbones made him look younger still. His face was open with all the promise and energy of youth and his manner was engaging. If it wasn’t for the red eyes and white hair, Sevin would have warmed to him instantly.

‘That’s the general idea if you’re being tailed,’ said Sevin.

‘Yes, well, looks like I’ve finally got hold of you. I’m Tove, by the way.’

‘Alright, Tove, what d’you want? We’re in a hurry.’

‘Yes, I know, your rendezvous is at 14:42. We have time enough.’

‘You know that too?’

‘We know most things, we have contacts everywhere.’

‘And “you” are?’

‘Ah, me? I’m nobody, it’s the organisation you need to know: the VLA, Viken Liberation Army.’

‘Liberation Army? Sounds like a resistance movement to me,’ commented Lauden with a broad smile.

‘Well, our aim is to overturn the current regime so, yes, I suppose we are.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Sevin. ‘We combed the grid, we’ve talked to people here. There is no resistance.’

‘Yes yes, I can see why you think that, we are very low-profile, but we are growing. We saw your requests, you see, on the grid, we knew you wanted to connect. They were tracking you, so we tracked them tracking you, as it were. We knew why you were coming here.’

‘Did you send the note about Singing Lark?’

‘Oh, you got that did you? Didn’t stop you turning up!’

‘I had to see for myself.’

‘Well, yes, fortunate that you got out because you really must speak to our leader. I have prepared a link to Queen Siri.’

‘Queen Siri?’ asked Sevin.

‘The true heir to the Viken throne, the rightful ruler of all the Gharst peoples! Come with me, quickly now, the force wall won’t last long.’

Sevin looked at Lauden who spread his hands. ‘We’re not giving up our weapons,’ he said, his hand on the rackarmen in his belt.

‘You won’t need to. Please, this way.’ Tove set off into the dead end, leading them past a handful of outlets selling pornography and sex toys. They stopped by the entrance to a walk-up plastered with bill-posters of girls in scanties or topless. ‘Feel-Ups’ was written in red electric tubing over the door with a prominent arrow marked 2nd Floor.

‘Up here,’ said Tove, apparently oblivious to the seedy backdrop. He loped down the long hallway and took the stairs at the back two at a time, Sevin and Lauden following cautiously, distracted by the progressively more lurid pictures stapled to the walls as they went higher. They reached the second-floor landing which was painted blue and tricked out with plastic fruits and flowers to look like a tropical paradise. The counter to buy tokens for the feel-ups was empty.

‘This way,’ said Tove, holding aside a bead curtain. They went into a blacked-out corridor behind with pinlights set in the floor to mark the routes to the different rooms. He opened the second door on the left.

‘In here.’

He stood back to let them into the darkened booth, then followed them inside, fussing over the single seat and wheeling the feel-up apparatus into a corner.

‘Please, Major Sevin, take a seat. Sergeant Lauden, are you okay to stand? Thanks.’ He turned to the single display window in the room, shuttered but with light creeping through the slats from behind. He bent down to place a token in the slot underneath it.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.

As Tove closed the door, the blinds in the window furled upwards with a deafening alacrity. Behind was a tiny room with an empty seat, no girl or even a morph. As Sevin and Lauden watched, a glimmer started in the air above the chair. An image began to form, a woman seated, wearing a long dress of shimmering blues and greens like a peacock’s tail. She too was Gharst, perhaps in her mid-thirties, her white hair arranged in a chignon. She looked directly at them and began to speak.

‘Major Sevin, Tem Sevin, can you see me?’

‘I can,’ he said. Suddenly a light switched on above his head, picking Lauden and himself out of the booth’s shadows.

‘Ah, I can see you now. I must be quick, there is not much time. Major Sevin, I am Siri, Queen of Viken, or at least I would be if the evil leaders of Rheged had not overthrown our kingdom. My father, King Gudrun, was captured and executed by the Rheged rebel leaders in the winter of 3041. My mother, Ragnilde, escaped captivity before they could kill her too, taking myself and my sister with her. I was only two years old at the time.’

‘The Rikke civil wars, I know the history,’ said Sevin.

‘What you probably don’t know is that we have lived in exile ever since, waiting for the day when we could return to Viken, to reclaim our throne and restore our people to their former status. My mother waited her entire life for that chance. We were close to it, we had an agreement with President Qiron. He promised that, when the Coalition triumphed, my mother would be brought back as queen.’

‘Of Viken?’ asked Sevin.

‘Of Rikke, all four planets. But he betrayed us. Part of the surrender deal was to release the secret of our hiding place. Our freedom is greatly inconvenient to the Reinn government who would prefer to see us dead! We were forced to flee again. The stress was too much for my mother, I am sorry to say she died a few weeks ago.’

Her last words broke up as the image wavered. They saw her lean forward and press something out of view. The picture came through stronger.

‘Major Sevin, are you still there?’

‘I am.’

‘I need to ask something of you. I promised my mother I would continue our fight, but how can I do that? Here, in the Known Worlds, we are friendless. However, I have relatives on Gaia who I know would help our cause. Will you go to them and ask for help?’

‘Go to Gaia?’ he said, shocked.

‘Yes, to Gaia, the cradle of all our civilisations. Go there, find my sister Eir and our cousins, ask them for help. Show them this.’ She held up an old-fashioned key made of gold, about the size of a man’s hand. ‘This is a copy. Tove has half of the original, he will give it to you. My sister has the other.’ She placed the key in her lap, folding her hands on top of it. ‘Reinn will get to Gaia eventually, his aim is to control the whole universe. If we do not stop him now, while his forces are relatively small, we may never have the opportunity to do so again. You must go before it’s too late!’

‘To Gaia? It’s three light years away. It could take six years to get there and back, maybe longer. Who knows what will have happened by then?’

’You have the fastest ship in the Known Worlds! Does Infinity not have hyperluminal capability? And the journey is not so long if you go into the light, if you go through the …’ Siri’s form trembled and split, reforming then dividing.

‘We’re losing you!’

‘… nexagraph … show you,’ they heard.

‘Say it again!’ shouted Sevin, standing up.

‘… with the Cas…’ The picture faded out and she was gone.

‘Grut and bloody scrit,’ he swore, kicking the token slot under the window.

The booth door opened. ‘Everything alright?’ said Tove, his pale face concerned.

‘It broke up, we lost her,’ said Lauden.

‘Oh no. Did you get all your questions answered?’

‘Not quite. You know anything about going into the light, about a nexagraph?’ said Sevin.

Tove shook his head.

‘Great. All the mission and none of the brief.’

‘I’m sorry. I know I have to give you this.’ He took half a large golden key out of his pocket and presented it to Sevin. ‘I don’t know what it does, but I know it’s important.’

Sevin took the key and examined the inscriptions on it. They looked like runes, ancient ones, decorated with the symmetrical patterns of native Gharst art.

An electronic trill sounded. Tove looked at the digi in his hand.

‘The Home Police have found the van and are spreading through the area, they’ll be here soon,’ he said.

‘How do we get out of here?’ said Sevin.

‘At the end of this street there’s a domebuster, the Astral Heights tower. Take the lift to the top floor, you’ll find a shaw station. There’ll be one waiting for you.’ Tove stuck out a hand. ‘Nice meeting you both. Good luck.’

Sevin shook the proffered hand, its grip was firm and warm. He looked into the youngster’s eyes, seeing they were honest. ‘Thank you.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘It’s everything.’ Sevin turned to Lauden. ‘We’ve got two hours, let’s go.’

ο

Sevin and Lauden didn’t speak until they boarded the fast lift to the 150th floor of Astral Heights, slumping against the inside wall to catch their breath.

‘Is all that scrit for real?’ asked Lauden, quietly enough so the dozen other passengers in the car wouldn’t hear.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sevin.

‘What makes you think it ain’t? Ah, I know, cos he’s a grib, right? Anyone else and you would’ve gone for it straightaway.’

Sevin paused before replying. ‘Her as well, both of them. If we join forces, we’d be working for the Gharst.’

‘Kinda weird.’ Lauden massaged his ears. ‘Wowsa, how far up are we?’

‘Above the dome, I hope. Here’s where we find out if Tove was telling the truth or not.’

The lift drew up at the top floor and the doors opened on to a rectangular concourse. It was lit with solar simulators, appearing like day even though the oncoming eclipse had turned the sky outside dark. Between themselves and the ticket office opposite, groups of people congregated, standing or sitting on the fixed benches arranged in a circle between two pairs of escalators. There were long queues by the doors to the shaw drop in each corner of the station.

‘Lords above, we’ll never get through this in time!’ said Lauden, counting forty in the nearest line. They watched one of the red-hulled craft reverse into the airlock tube of the far left-hand drop. The exterior seal of the lock had to close before the interior passenger entry doors could open. Only then could the shaw lower the back half of its scallop tail into the concourse for boarding. When the current fare had disembarked and the new one climbed in, the shell clammed together and the passenger doors shut. The shaw waited for the exterior seal to open and then shot down the tube into open space. The whole process took at least three minutes, the wait causing seven or eight shaws to back up at each drop.

‘This can’t be right,’ said Sevin, surveying the information board opposite. ‘Tove said the shaw would be waiting for us. All the drops here are public use, there must be a private one somewhere.’

‘And we’ve got company.’ On the upwards escalator of the furthest pair, four Home Police were scaling the moving stairs.

‘That’s all we need. Quick, over here, I think I can see something.’ Sevin strode off towards the right, where there was a break in a row of shops. Reaching the gap, they saw it was only ten metres deep and led to a viewing gallery, presumably for spotting shaws and other small craft which flitted around the tops of the domebusters and the CTE funnel.

‘It’s nothing. There must be another level above, let’s find a way up.’ Sevin made to leave but Lauden stopped him. A shaw was loitering outside the viewing gallery window, a golden key painted on its crimson belly with the registration number 2812 in black lettering underneath. The pilot was waving at them, then jabbing his finger forward.

‘That’s gotta be it!’ said Lauden.

‘He wants us to go to the drop in front, c’mon.’

‘How’s he gonna get in?’

‘I don’t know, but we need to get to the head of that queue.’ Sevin wrested the rackarmen from his belt.

‘They’ve seen us!’ The Home Police had reached the top of the escalator and they broke into a run towards them.

‘Out of the way, out of the way,’ shouted Sevin, shoving waiting passengers aside. ‘Hey, hey,’ they protested, until they saw the gun and dispersed of their own accord, some of the women screaming as he trampled past, Lauden in his wake. Through the empty airlock he could see the shaw outside barging the others off course and swooping into the tube ahead of the orderly line.

‘Get back, get back!’ Sevin reached the drop doors and threatened the head of the queue with the rackarmen. The front ranks of the crowd retreated in a lump, falling over each other in their haste to get away.

‘Stop, Police!’ A Home Police officer in black stood firm amid the dissipating throng. Their shaw was in the tube waiting for the passenger doors to slide apart. Sevin punched them, trying to make them open.

‘Put the guns down and your hands in the air,’ shouted the woman officer. ‘This is your last chance.’

‘Grut that,’ said Lauden, aiming a sizzling charge over her head. She hit the floor as other women shrieked and groups of people scurried across the concourse to find shelter.

‘Again!’ Sevin joined Lauden in shooting randomly at the ceiling, causing tiles and light fittings to fall down, adding to the confusion on the ground. By now the Home Police had organised themselves to attack and shots were squealing past to burn out in the entrance of the drop or the floor nearby. ‘Open, damn it!’ Sevin gave the doors one more pounding and mercifully they pulled apart. The scallop tail fell down and he and Lauden backed in, still firing.

‘Attention, doors are closing,’ said an electronic voice. The scallop snapped shut and the shaw popped out of the airlock, tumbling Sevin and Lauden backwards.

‘Oh man.’ Lauden heaved himself on to the starboard bench. There was room for three on the seat but he took up most of it.

‘We got our ride,’ said Sevin, settling himself on the bench opposite. ‘Tove was straight about it, that is, if we are going to Chengy.’ He slid forward along the bench until he was almost at the pilot’s shoulder.

‘You know where to go?’ he said.

The pilot, a middle-aged Tian with grey hair, looked around with a wide smile. ‘Space port? I got my instructions.’

‘That’s the one. How long till we get there?’

‘Oh, thirty minutes, sit back and enjoy the view.’

Sevin retook his place and watched from the window as they flew down the dark side of Delta Nine, the lights of Base glittering below, coldly beautiful like a tangle of diamond necklaces in a glass case. He turned back to Lauden, watching him clean the barrel of the rackarmen on his jacket pocket.

‘You got any ideas how to get to the ship?’ Lauden asked.

‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘Seems the whole universe knows the RV and they’ll all be waiting for us, the police, Reverre, maybe even Zendra.’ He gave his eyes a good rub before looking back at Sevin. ‘I still can’t believe it, Zendra, gone to the gribs.’

’Me neither. Sevin leaned forward to place a hand on Lauden’s shoulder, knowing how close he had been to her. ‘Now we have to look after what’s left.’

Lauden nodded dumbly.

‘We don’t need to worry about the homing signal, I programmed it to turn off at 14:42. The others don’t know about Zendra or that the RV is compromised but they didn’t get the signal so they’ll know something has gone wrong. Most likely they’ll take off.’

‘And we’ll have to find our own way out. Can’t this thing take us there?’

’Too far, plus we don’t know where Infinity is.’

Lauden shook his head in despair. ‘So Chengy just in case?’

‘It looks that way.’

‘The Gharst’ll be all over it, I’ll bet we won’t even get close.’

‘Sure you will,’ said the pilot, turning around in his seat.

‘Not possible, the gribs are on our every move. They’ll have all the drops and the Express station covered.’

‘Maybe. That’s why I brought a few friends along to help out.’

‘Whaddaya mean?’ Lauden crouched low to look where the Tian pointed through the forewindows. Then he laughed, slapping Sevin on the arm. ‘Check this out!’

Like a shoal of fish, twenty shaws were floating in a fan formation directly ahead. All of them bore the golden key symbol on their belly and the same registration number: 2812.

‘Safety in numbers,’ said Sevin, impressed by the strength and size of the organisation assisting them. The Viken Liberation Army had to have considerable reach to pull a stunt like this.

‘They’ll never find us among these guys!’ said Lauden.

‘That’s the idea,’ said the pilot, steering them into the midst of the group. He nodded at a couple of the other pilots as they passed and then, with a loud revving, the convoy turned as one and set off towards Chengy.

‘That’s smart, real smart,’ said Lauden. ‘So you’re gonna take us all the way in?’

‘Not exactly. See that tanker ahead?’

A rectangular hulk was plodding along the approach route to Chengy. Its high sides carried the purple logo of the Delta Nine municipality along with the legend ‘Waste Disposal Services’.

‘We’re going in on that.’ The Tian grinned before angling a microphone from the shaw’s ceiling closer to his mouth. ‘Red Comet to Star Storm, Red Comet to Star Storm, prepare to cluster.’

As the flotilla of shaws swept forward, the back plate of the tanker began to roll upwards, exposing a black chasm which could have swallowed three or four shaws. Sevin saw they were keeping pace with the rest of the fleet before their own pilot killed the power and they plunged into the open maw as the other craft scudded past.

They came to rest in the bowels of the ship.

‘This is where you get off,’ said the pilot, closing down the shaw’s engines. Its external lights switched off and they sat with the auxiliary lights on until torches outside beckoned them out. The pilot pulled a handle and the shell door fell back.

‘Thank you,’ said Sevin, stumbling out of the shaw and through the empty cargo hold in the direction of the joggling flashlights. Two uniformed Tians were waiting by an open hatch. As Sevin passed through, it felt as if they were egging him on, like a prize-fighter on the way to the ring instead of a desperado trying to flee. They marched down a murky gangway towards the bow where they ascended several levels in an elevator to the bridge itself, a compact turret high on the prow of the ship. There were two seats on the flight deck and most of the rest of the available space was taken by a briefing table for six. However, there were windows on every side of the cab house and the 360 degree views were breathtaking, especially of the school of shaws drifting between themselves and Chengy. A portly and dark-skinned Zudanese man in a purple jumpsuit bounded towards them, one hand outstretched.

‘Welcome, welcome! Now you’re really in the shit!’ he boomed. ’I am Captain Jengu and this is the Houyi. We are the largest of the fleet of fifteen tankers that remove sewage daily from Delta Nine, so you get my joke, eh?’ He grinned, showing a couple of gold-plated teeth.

‘Yes,’ said Sevin, unsmiling.

‘Ah, yes, well, I understand you need a lift into Chengy, under cover as it were?’ Jengu carried on, too excited to be perturbed by Sevin’s asperity.

‘That is correct.’

‘No problem, no problem at all.’ Jengu attempted to flatten the wiry coils of hair against his forehead. ‘We’re on the Chengy run today, due in real soon, about twenty minutes, going into Gate 105 above the pumping station.’

‘Can we get off then?’

‘As soon as we start loading, absolutely no problemo. We’ll dress you up as operatives and you’ll walk it, no questions asked. Like royalty we are, they’re so keen to get rid of their shit! Take you places you never dreamed of, that purple suit.’

‘We’ll be honoured to wear it.’

‘Alright!’ He waggled a finger at the two Tians who had brought them to the bridge. ‘Stewards, get them kitted up, they can get off with the pipe gang.’ Then his paunchy face turned serious. ‘We don’t hang around, we’ve got a fixed time to load up and fines if we overstay. You’ll get off my ship and fast, and, as far as I’m concerned, I know nothing about you. I don’t know your names now, I don’t wanna know them in the future, understand? I’m risking my life for this.’

‘We understand,’ said Sevin. ‘Thank you.’

‘S’nothing, since I never met ya!’ he hooted, turning back to the flight deck where he re-established himself by rattling off commands at the co-pilot.

Sevin and Lauden followed the stewards off the bridge, back into the elevator and down to the business area of the tanker. It wasn’t long before they were dressed in the garish purple overalls of Delta Nine’s municipal operatives and standing with the ten-strong pipe gang by the forehatch, each man holding a couple of coils of the thick white tubing they would need to transfer the ‘wet’ waste into the ship’s tanks while the bin gang filled the empty hold with solid rubbish. The cloying sweetness of chemical disinfectant saturated the air.

Sevin shifted the loops he carried from his left arm to his right in order to check his timepiece. He saw they had thirty minutes to go until the RV and got a short-tempered sigh from his neighbour who was forced to readjust his own load in the process. The gang leader, a great bear of a Borredan with a wispy beard and sunken eyes, sent a warning glance to Sevin with the clear message that as a new recruit he should not step out of line. Sevin took the hint, casting his eyes to the ground as the Houyi scraped into Gate 105. As soon as the ship had juddered to a halt, the hatch opened with a bang and the leaders were out and running towards the interior of the terminus, spooling out the tubing in their path.

Sevin and Lauden were next to disembark, screwing up their eyes against the strong light. The tubing dragged through their arms at a rate close to friction burn as they jogged towards the thin end of the wedge-shaped gate where two empty loaders circled the concrete floor. Throught windows in the wall separating them from the next gate, they could see a sperry unloading a consignment of business travellers.

Tantalisingly close to the gate’s exit, they had to stop by the open manhole down which the gang leader had disappeared. The tubing was sliding of its own accord, moving in fits and starts like an arthritic caterpillar into the depths of whatever lay below. On the signal of another operative, they dropped their own coils to the ground and stood back to watch them clank down the hole, banging into the metal rungs of the access ladder as they went.

‘Too obvious,’ said Sevin when he saw Lauden looking wistfully at the backlit blue sign to Arrivals. He bent down briefly to untwist a portion of tubing, easing its passage over the edge of the manhole. An idea came to him. ‘Let’s try down here,’ he whispered to Lauden. ‘C’mon!’

Sevin covered the few paces to the manhole and was descending the ladder before any of the other workers could stop him. Lauden chased after him, brushing off the hands on his shoulders trying to hold him back.

‘Get back up here,’ a voice bellowed behind them. ‘We’ve got to stay above in case of rupture!’

Sevin and Lauden carried on down into the netherworld regardless, the admonitions from above were lost in the grinding and chuntering of machinery below. They jumped the metre to the floor when the rungs ran out and looked around. From what they could see in the half-light, they appeared to be in the baggage handling bay. A humming behind Sevin forced him to step back as an unmanned loader pitched past, carrying a shrink-wrapped cube some four metres high on its forklift. It was headed for a knotted mass of conveyor belts where bags and boxes circulated in a constant stream like blood cells through veins. Fifteen or so other grey and white-painted loaders were also ferrying the lumpy cubes from the outer edges of the bay to the central belts, dumping them on to the highest level where they passed through a shredder. With their shrouds torn off, the individual pieces tumbled to the level below where they were sorted and redirected for onward transfer to the luggage carousels of Arrivals.

The white tubing of the sewage pipe ran off in the distance away from the main action, the gang leader well out of sight.

‘It’s all machines, ain’t no humans down here at all,’ said Lauden, observing the non-stop activity around him in awe.

The loader which had passed them earlier was coming back, empty this time. They stepped out of its way and watched it roll into a cage elevator several metres behind them marked 103. The cage doors grated shut and the entire contraption began to jolt upwards between a pair of free-standing steel runners, coming to a halt twenty metres up. A landing door opened, flooding light into the ceiling of the bay, and the loader drove out into the upper level.

Sevin looked to the left and the right. Cage elevators ringed the bay, all numbered consecutively. He nudged Lauden and pointed to the 103 cage. ’Look, all those cages, they all go up to the gates – that’s how the loaders get the bags down. The Houyi must be right above us.’

‘I don’t wanna think what they’re unloading from her!’

‘You don’t have to. C’mon, we’ve got to find cage number 89. That’s how we’ll get to our shuttle.’

π

‘Move the steerstick one more time,’ instructed Xin’s voice through the infinicom. ‘Gently, and tell me when you’re doing it.’

Marik, who had been confined to the pilot’s seat for the last two hours, sighed and did what he was told. His hands, dotted with the white sucker pads of motion sensors, grasped the control as firmly as was possible with a hologram.

‘Moving now,’ he said, manipulating the steerstick with enough force to send the shuttle careering forty-five degrees to port in real life.

‘I said gently!’ Xin’s reprimand came back. ‘Doesn’t matter, it’s working, Ludi is copying your movements exactly. Now, try thinking the manoeuvre.’

Marik pressed Xin’s silver torque firmly into his forehead and thought about driving the shuttle straight for Chengy space port.

‘That’s good!’

Marik rotated his shoulders, wondering if Xin would let him take a break even to walk around the bridge. Before he could ask, she said: ‘What can you see onscreen?’

‘Deep space, some stars, now the flight deck and, er, Ludi’s hand on the accelerator.’

‘Then we’re finished. Stay right where you are, I’ll be back in five.’

The infinicom clicked off.

‘She’s got it all going, has she?’ asked Hauki from the navdesk.

‘Looks like it,’ said Marik, standing up for a stretch. ‘It’s taken long enough. Still no signal?’

‘No. I’m hoping it’s not as bad as I think it is.’

’Send me down, I’ll get ’em out!’

Hauki shook her head. ‘I hope Xin’s on her way, we need to launch in the next ten minutes if we’re going to make Chengy on time.’

The iris behind them dilated and Xin marched through on to the bridge.

‘We’re ready for launch,’ she said, mounting the steps to the flight deck. She saw Marik was standing up. ‘I said to stay where you are!’

‘I’ve been sitting still for two hours!’

‘If you disturb any of those sensors, all the steering will need reconfiguring. We haven’t got another two hours, I advise you to sit down.’

‘I’ll be …’ Marik started, but fell silent after catching Hauki’s eye. He sat down sulkily. Xin said nothing but reached over his shoulder to key a command into the touchpad of his holostation. The picture on the viewer shifted from empty starfields to the panorama from the shuttle’s cockpit window.

‘There, you’re looking through Ludi’s eyes. Turn your head,’ she said.

The image on the screen changed to show the shuttle’s co-pilot seat. When Marik looked back at the holostation, the picture returned to its previous view.

‘Extreme,’ he said grudgingly.

’Whatever you do with your head or your hands, Ludi will follow exactly. So long as we keep the data connection with the shuttle, you will be flying it. Obviously if Infinity gets any further out from Delta Nine than fifty thousand linials, we’ll lose the connection. Ludi will return to autonomous once the shuttle has landed, but I anticipate we will still be able to see and hear the surroundings.’

‘Impressive,’ said Hauki.

Xin bowed her head. ‘As you said, we haven’t much time. Marik, are you ready for take-off?’

‘I’m ready.’

‘Launch program is initiated,’ said Xin, hitting the touchpad.

‘Good luck Ludi,’ said Hauki, mumbling a short prayer in Tarangan. ‘I think you’re going to need it.’

ρ

Cage elevator 89 had a manual override and delivered Sevin and Lauden to the top level without a hitch. They staked out Gate 89 for fifteen minutes, watching through the narrow windows in the landing doors on the right-hand side of the gate. They would have had a great view of the central and rear sections of a ship had any had been in. The gate remained vacant, no personnel or vehicles entered.

Sevin took a break from monitoring the dead zone to look over the baggage handling bay. High up in the girders, they had a bird’s eye view of the ceaseless turnings of the belts and the scurrying loaders, a continuous stream with no end or beginning, like the grinding of an infernal torture machine dreamt up by a spiteful god.

‘Nothing in and nothing out. They’ve stopped all deliveries at source in case we’re inside,’ he said.

‘Yeah, and closed off the whole area at the same time,’ said Lauden.

‘But not that well. There should be more security around.’

‘I think it’s coming now!’

Brilliant beams of flashlights were playing over the joists in the roof to their right. On the ground, silhouettes of armed guards stood by the central belts, shining the white eyes of the torches into the dark and hidden places.

‘Get down,’ said Sevin, falling to his knees and then lying flat. Lauden joined him, spreading his bulk as thinly as possible over the cage floor. The lights traced a zig-zag above them, paused trembling for a while then flicked away.

They stayed horizontal for a long time. Eventually Lauden lifted his head and saw the search party had left.

‘It’s clear,’ he said.

Sevin sat up. ‘That must have been the last sweep, there’s five minutes left.’

A hiss vented from the landing door. Sevin stood up to investigate. ‘Seal up,’ he said. ‘Something’s coming in.’

They sat with their fingers in their ears as the shearing crank of the exterior hatch lifting was followed by the roaring approach of a ship. The engines began a whine down as the craft entered the gate, the noise still loud enough to pierce the skin of the air locks. When the drone had reduced to a more bearable level, Sevin motioned to Lauden that he was going to take a look.

The recent arrival was indeed the Infinity shuttle, a diminutive replica of the mothership which took up a tenth of the area Houyi had required. For any normal arrival, a fleet of attendant vehicles would have driven out, loaders and refuellers busying themselves with servicing the ship. They were absent, reconfirming Sevin’s hunch that the Gharst had blockaded the spot.

The front hatch of the shuttle opened and the extendable staircase arched out. Expecting Marik, Sevin was alarmed to see the blond hair and stilted gait of Ludi disembark.

‘There must be something wrong, they’ve sent Ludi instead of Marik,’ he said.

‘Maybe the gribs have taken the ship.’

‘Maybe. Actually no, they would have stuck to the original plan so we wouldn’t be suspicious. Wait, what is it doing?’ The morph was on the ground and wandering around as if it was lost. In its right hand, it waved a sheaf of papers

Sevin fumbled for the rackarmen he carried inside his purple jumpsuit and looked down the telescopic sights at the morph’s papers. They were landing documents, nothing unusual. Still Ludi dawdled, making an inspection of the bow then walking a tour of the entire shuttle, the papers on full display, before seeming to find the exit and head towards it.

‘It’s like it wants to be seen,’ said Sevin, putting away the gun. Then he got it: the morph was trying to make itself visible, but to Sevin and Lauden. The fuss with the papers suggested it was headed for the port authority offices because that was where landing permits were certified. The morph was trying to get them to meet it there. Of course the Gharst would watch Ludi, but not that closely – after all, it was only a morph and carrying out a standard procedure. The majority of the effort would be concentrated on the shuttle and whoever else might still be aboard.

‘I think we’re supposed to meet Ludi at the port authority. It’s near Gate 55, we’ll go up from here.’ Sevin moved away from the window and hit the down button. The cage groaned and began to sink. As soon as it hit the ground, the two men jumped out and ran around the circumference of the baggage handling bay, keeping away from the illuminated centre. When they arrived at Gate 55’s cage, they saw a charged loader was riding down while an empty one waited at the bottom to take its place.

‘A flight’s just in, get on that loader,’ said Sevin, running to leap into its driverless cab before it could mount the cage. Lauden joined him as it rumbled forward and the door clanged behind them.

‘This’ll take us all the way to the hold. We need to get off before that,’ said Sevin.

’How ’bout soon as we get through the door?’

‘Make it subtle.’

The cage halted and the landing doors slid open on the starboard wing of a gaudy starcruiser painted in yellow and blue, large enough to accommodate several thousand holidaymakers. The loader nosed its way out of the cage, Sevin and Lauden falling away from its sides as it diverged to the cruiser’s stern. Passengers were flowing from a bridgeway suckered to the centre of the middle deck. Sevin and Lauden hurried across the twenty metres to join them, Sevin picking up a spare trolley on the way, low and flat on four wheels. It was heavy and needed two to shift it.

‘Help me with this,’ he told Lauden, ‘look like you’re doing something.’

They weaved the trolley in and out of the chattering tourists who appeared not to notice them, despite or because of the ostentatious purple of their clothes which branded them as municipal workers of the lowest grade. Trundling through the exit doors, the tourists headed into the central atrium for the escalators up to Arrivals while Sevin and Lauden forked to the right towards the less imposing shopfront of the Port Authority office to which Ludi was also walking, ten metres in front of them.

‘Mind your backs,’ shouted Sevin as he and Lauden thrust the trolley through the scrum of flight crew and uniformed ships’ captains gathered in and around the office. Hearing Sevin’s voice, Ludi stopped and turned around.

‘Greetings, Tem Sevin and Jes Lauden, it is my mission to find you,’ it said when Lauden and Sevin caught up.

‘Where’s Marik, what’s going on?’ said Sevin, scanning the scene. They were completely exposed in this thoroughfare of people.

’When we did not receive the signal, the professor decided the mission had been unsuccessful and the rendezvous possibly compromised. She sent me in place of Marik to fulfill the commitment. The shuttle is under surveillance, we will use teleport to return to Infinity, it is safer.’

Ludi opened the zipper of its flightsuit to reveal four breakers strung around its neck. It began undoing the clasps, handing the first one to Lauden.

‘Are you sure?’ said Sevin, mindful of what had happened to Wen last time they attempted teleport. He took the breaker nevertheless, fastening it around his throat then concealing it under the collar of his overalls, indicating the others should do the same. ‘Call the ship, tell them we’re ready.’

‘Negative, there are two personnel only. My instructions are to pick up three. We cannot progress until the third is located.’

‘What?’ Sevin looked at the morph in despair. Of course, Xin could not have known about Zendra but how the hell were they going to supersede Xin’s commands from the ground?

‘We need to leave now,’ he started before there was an ear-rending whine and the shouts and screams of pedestrians trampling each other to get away from the group of six sturmgangers emerging from the doors to Gate 89. They were led by a woman with long blonde hair in a ponytail and a blaster held aloft.

‘Enemy incoming,’ said Ludi. Then the morph’s visual recognition kicked in. ‘The last statement was an error. Leslandes Zendra approaches. I will deliver the third breaker.’

‘No, she is the enemy now!’ said Sevin, grabbing Ludi’s left arm. ‘Keep the breaker.’

‘She is a crew member and must be exited from Delta Nine.’

‘Not any longer and she stays behind.’ Sevin reached for his rackarmen. ‘You move a millimetre towards her and I’ll shut you down permanently, understand? Call the ship.’

The morph stared at him and seemed to be thinking. Another shot screeched over their heads.

‘Sevin! We gotta go, now,’ said Lauden from behind Ludi.

‘Stop right there, Sevin,’ sang out Zendra who had stopped ten metres away. ‘You’re surrounded.’

‘Go to hell.’

‘Oh scrit, there’s more,’ said Lauden wheeling around to face another patrol closing in from behind.

‘Override,’ said the morph. ‘Override.’ It fixed Sevin with its lifeless eyes. ‘I can accept commands from you now.’

‘Activate the teleport, get them to pull us in, now!’ said Sevin.

Ludi pulled a digi from its belt and began to hail Infinity.

‘There’s no point contacting the ship, Sevin,’ called Zendra. ‘We’ve just jammed all exterior comms.’

Sevin looked from her smug face to Ludi who was futilely punching numbers on the digi.

‘Face it Sevin, it’s game over,’ she said, striding forward. She stopped two metres away, the blaster levelled at Sevin’s heart. ‘Put down the weapons.’

Sevin stared at her, feeling a familiar tingling at the back of his neck. He looked past Ludi to Lauden who smiled back weakly.

‘I will never surrender, you know that, Corporal,’ he said, playing for time. ‘Never give in and loyal to the cause. That was the oath we took when we joined Special Operations, or have you forgotten already?’

‘Best of the best and all that other crap? Just words, Sevin, all it was then and all it is now. Events have moved on, the universe is a different place. It’s change or die. You, Sevin, are already extinct.’

Sevin opened his mouth to reply, discovering that he couldn’t shape the words. Heat flooded his body as his head began to spin. He heard Zendra cry out ‘they’re teleporting’ and was aware of her running towards them. Then he was rushing through grey mist towards a glint of light which grew and grew until the pain in his back was intense and he felt his very life being squeezed out of him. The light blazed and the clouds cleared and he was standing with his face pressed into a window, inside one of the teleport cabinets onboard Infinity. Xin opened the door.

‘Are you okay?’ she said.

Sevin felt his hands and arms. ‘Yes, fine. Where are the others?’

‘Over there,’ she said, pointing to the two cabinets opposite Sevin’s. ‘You were first, they’ve just arrived.’

Sevin looked past her to where Lauden and Ludi were squashed into the upright coffins. ‘Let’s get them out!’

Lauden was trying his door when Sevin pulled it open. ‘Kinda tight in there,’ he said as he hopped down. Then he spotted the morph slumped against the inside of the neighbouring cabinet.

‘Hey, did the tinnie make it? The little guy don’t look so good.’

‘Sevin! Lauden! You made it!’ Hauki bundled past the teleport console to embrace both of them in turn.

‘Well done, well done,’ said Marik, joining the group and slapping Lauden’s shoulders. ‘For a while I thought you’d be bringing Zendra too!’

‘You could see what was happening?’

‘Yeah, we got a connect to the ship from Ludi’s eyes and ears. You should’ve seen Xin’s face when Ludi insisted on getting Zendra!’

‘That wasn’t funny for us,’ said Lauden.

‘None of us were laughing, it took Xin forever to reset the command,’ said Hauki.

‘Yeah, and then they jammed the grutting comms – we were deaf and blind, couldn’t tell what was going on. We pressed go on the teleport and hoped for the best!’ said Marik.

‘Zendra, who’d have guessed? How long d’you think she’d been gone over?’ said Hauki.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sevin. ‘Since Operation Secret Strike, definitely.’

‘Y’had an idea something was up,’ said Lauden.

‘Yes,’ Sevin admitted, ‘but I didn’t know who was responsible for what. That’s why I persisted with the meeting with Singing Lark, it was the only way to flush out the spy.’

‘So they were waiting for you, at the RV, Xin suspected they might,’ said Marik. ‘That’s why we sent the morph.’

‘Did she?’ asked Sevin, pretending surprise. She of course had known about the presence of an informer.

‘Yes, it was all her idea,’ Hauki confirmed.

‘A damn fine one too.’ Sevin made a mental note to thank her properly at a later stage. He looked over to where she was helping Ludi dismount from the teleport cabinet. ‘Is it alright?’ he called.

‘I think so,’ she said, guiding the dazed morph down the steps. ‘Nothing a reboot can’t fix.’

‘There’s something hanging off its jacket,’ said Hauki, staring at an object swinging from a fold in the silvery jacket. She put a hand to her mouth. ‘It looks like a …’

‘Hand?’ Sevin strode forward to investigate. ‘Yes, it’s a hand, a human hand,’ he said, standing back.

‘Where?’ said Xin. Then she saw it. ‘Urgh, get it off!’

Sevin knelt down to inspect the grisly item which clung to the material with a superhuman tenacity. It was a left hand, raw and bleeding where it had truncated below the wrist. A ragged bracelet of blue and grey-striped material stuck to the oozing flesh.

‘Zendra,’ he said, standing up. ‘I hope it’s the only bit of her that came through.’

‘I saw her coming towards us,’ said Lauden, his face a mixture of shock and disgust. ‘Maybe she thought she could stop us.’

‘Or come with us. She didn’t quite manage it.’ Sevin looked around his crew, seeing the concern on Xin and Hauki’s faces and Marik’s lip curled. Lauden appeared completely drained. It occurred to Sevin that even he needed a rest.

‘Well done, everyone, for getting us back safely,’ he said. ‘A lot happened on Delta Nine, we’ll have a comprehensive debrief in a few hours once everyone’s fed and rested. Be on the bridge for 19:00.’

‘You look like you need a feed, my friend,’ said Marik, placing an arm around Lauden’s shoulders. ’Come to the ’fec and I’ll cook you up a storm.’

‘Thanks buddy, I will.’ The pair ambled off towards the exit.

Sevin turned to Hauki. ‘What course are we on?’ he asked.

‘The fastest way out, broadly in the direction of Charis. Why, you want to go somewhere else?’

‘Yes. Put us on track for Gaia.’

‘Gaia?’ Hauki was thunderstruck.

‘Right, Gaia. As soon as you can, it’s a long way.’