A Night Without Stars (73 page)

She sat on the bed and dialed the number, then dialed the security code. The blue light came on.

“Hello, Jenifa,” Yaki said.

“Director,” Jenifa answered sharply.

“How's it going?”

“Not good. Chaing found the link detector.”

“That was careless of you. But it doesn't matter now.”

“How can you say that?”

“Adolphus is under house arrest. I've been quietly told it was Stonal who engineered that. And now that the new prime minister has signed a State of Emergency, he's more powerful than ever. So this particular game is suspended.”

“You can't mean that! I'm sure Chaing is one of them. He knew what I was looking for.”

“It's over. Chaing doesn't matter. Neither does Stonal, really. Our orders are coming in. The government is mobilizing everything we've got. Byarn is receiving its allocated personnel. You know what that means, don't you?”

“They can't just give up. You can't give up!”

“We need to be practical here, Jenifa.”

“The things I've done for you…the things you made me do! All of it, so you could revitalize the PSR.” Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.

“You did everything I asked because you are strong. I'm proud of that. I couldn't trust anyone else. Just you, my dear. It was all for you. But that life is over now.”

“No!”

“I have a travel warrant for Byarn. It will be with you by lunchtime.”

“Are you coming?” Jenifa asked dolefully.

“I hope so. One way or another, I'm not facing breeders again.”

“Mother—”

“Goodbye, my dear. And remember, always be strong.”

The phone went dead. Jenifa stared at the handset for a long moment before replacing it carefully. She looked around the bedroom until her gaze found the link detector, lying on the bed where Chaing had dropped it so disdainfully.

She picked it up, staring obsessively at the small green light on top, willing it to turn red, to prove her right. There was nothing else left now. “I will finish my mission,” she told the little device. “That's real strength.”

The curfew wasn't yet official, yet there was almost no traffic on Port Chana's wet streets, and no pedestrians anywhere. That didn't surprise Chaing; the Eliters would know what was coming. They'd probably known before Stonal told him.

Chaing used a Cubar from the local PSR office to take him to the marina through the miserable drizzle coming in off the sea, its wipers swishing across the windscreen with a monotonous squeaking. His driver parked by the gates, so he buttoned his coat against the damp air as he hobbled along to the Ankatra Café. At this time of night it was closed and shuttered, but Corilla was waiting under one of the trasla trees outside, wrapped up in a big ankle-length raincoat. He suspected she wasn't alone, but couldn't see anyone else.

“Now what?” she asked petulantly as he huddled under the short tree with her. “It's bloody freezing out here.”

“You know exactly what,” he said. “The Apocalypse is coming. Stonal needs to talk to the Warrior Angel.”

“I keep asking.”

“How urgently?”

The look she gave him was almost pitying. “Why am I here, Chaing?”

“The government is getting desperate.”

“I know.”

“So am I, so I'm going to trust you. Hopefully that'll liberate some reciprocity; we're going to need to be a real team now.”

She raised an eyebrow, skeptical in the extreme.

Chaing touched his thumb to his knuckle, just like the Warrior Angel told him. A rectangular grid of thin lines fluoresced a pale emerald just below his skin.

“Chaing!” Corilla's voice was loaded with incredulity. “Are you…No. You can't be.”

“Let's just say, the Warrior Angel and I have an agreement.”

She grabbed his hand and studied the lines as they faded. “What is this thing? It emitted a general link call for her.”

“She gave it to me. It's some kind of Commonwealth technology. So now tell me truthfully, is she answering?” He tried not to sound too desperate, but he knew that without the Warrior Angel everything was lost.

“No,” Corilla shook her head sorrowfully. “Nobody has heard anything from her since the
Gothora
sailed. We know the Fallers used atom bombs on Lukarticar.”

“Crud.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “I can't believe you're on our side.”

“Ha! You know, that's the second time tonight someone has said that? There are only two sides, Faller and human. There is no choice.”

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“All we can do is wait and hope that the Warrior Angel and Paula are still alive, and they can do something. Until then, we fight the bastards with everything we've got.”

Jenifa woke up with a feeling of disorientation that might have been the end of a dream. A dream where she'd been fighting with Chaing. With her strength she'd easily beaten him, then she'd reached into his head and pulled out the Eliter cells, holding them up in triumph while he regarded her with the dazed admiration she was so used to from him.

When she looked around, he was standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing his uniform trousers, face covered in shaving foam. “So?” he asked.

“So I'm still here,” she said aggressively.

“I see that. But I need you to understand something.”

“Crudding what?”

“I don't care that you don't trust me. What's important is that I don't trust you.”

“I get that.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“I hope so, Jenifa, I really do. Because we're about to face up to the Faller Apocalypse and I need a proper partner, not one who'll shoot me in the back.”

“We're on the same side,” she said solemnly. “We're both human.”

“Okay, then.”

Jenifa pushed the bedclothes down and sat on the edge of the bed. He gave her naked body a deliberately dispassionate glance, which infuriated her further. He might just as well have slapped her.

“How did it go last night?” she asked, carefully keeping her voice level.

“The Faller Angel hasn't been in contact with the Eliters since the
Gothora
set sail.”

And just a day ago she would have said: You trust Corilla, do you? Now she had to sit placidly and say: “Crud. So what's next?” It was demeaning.
But there will be payback. Oh, yes.

“Our duty. We find the nests in Port Chana and take them out.”

“Right.”

“Get dressed,” Chaing told her. “We're leaving in thirty minutes.”

The PSR Cubar picked them up at the end of Empale Street. Chaing still didn't want anyone to know the location of the section seven safe house; it was routine.

“The harbor,” he told the driver as they sat in the back.

Jenifa was silent beside him, her back straight, looking out the side window. She'd stopped speaking to him.

After visiting Corilla, he'd started considering how long Jenifa had suspected him. If it had been back in Opole, she probably wasn't acting alone, which would explain the link detector. It also meant all the sex was a lie, that she'd used it to get closer to him, oozing her way into his confidence. That hurt.

And he knew she didn't trust him. Even if she had back in Opole, the seed of doubt Castillito had planted was rooted deep by now.

Last night he'd barely contained his fury when he learned what Castillito had done.

“I want you to call Corilla in as soon as we reach the warehouse,” he told Jenifa. “She can work with us full-time, now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you brought the link detector?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”

“Good. Feel free to keep watching it.”

The Cubar made good time driving through the streets. Overnight, the sheriffs and several battalions from the Port Chana Regiment had set up checkpoints across the city. The martial law proclamation had been announced on the radio at dawn, along with instructions for all reservists to report to regimental headquarters.

Chaing was surprised how many residents had obeyed the instructions to turn out for duty, given the city's notorious reputation for nonconformity. Use of private vehicles had been prohibited as part of martial law, but a great many people were cycling to the major tram stations. The iron parking racks outside were jammed with bicycles, padlocked to the rails or one another in a giant mechanical clutter. All public transport had been commandeered by the city council's emergency committee, to be used ferrying the reservists to various regiment bases just outside the city.

Sheriff cordons had been established around the tram stations, with long good-natured queues snaking along the pavements. No one was allowed through to the platforms until they'd been given a blood test.

The cordon around the harbor had been in place since the night of the storm. Today, the sheriffs on the checkpoint insisted on a blood test before they let Chaing and Jenifa through. So he stuck his hand out and endured the needle pricking his skin. The red blood welling up satisfied the young sheriff, and she moved the barrier aside.

Captain Fajie and her expanded team of investigators had taken over the whole warehouse, using the huge enclosed space to set up dozens of trestle tables. Each one was piled with evidence bags the forensic teams had collected, from the warehouse itself and all the houses the nest had used. Clothes from dead Fallers, along with two of the huge pump-action bazookas, had their own section. The burnt-out vehicles from the fight on the docks had been towed in to form a line along the back wall, each with a semicircle of associated forensic bags.

Investigators were standing at tables, carefully cataloging each item, which would be filed and Rolodexed by the smaller team of clerks. Usually, senior investigators sat at a long line of desks across the front of the warehouse, trying to map out connections. Today when Chaing walked in, barely a fifth of the desks were occupied.

He walked over to Fajie's desk at the end of the row. A small tin first-aid box was open in front of her and she was flinching as she tried to wrap a bandage around her thumb. Spots of blood were glistening on her papers.

“Crudding sheriffs,” she muttered as Chaing stood in front of her. “I swear that one on the checkpoint is still a teenager. Hasn't got a clue how to do a blood test. Tiny needle puncture is what's supposed to happen. Look at this!” She held her thumb up; blood was leaking through the bandage's fabric. “The idiot jabbed the whole needle in. Hurt like Uracus's kiss.”

“Sorry to hear it.” Chaing tried not to show any amusement. Fajie had been in the thick of the firefight on the dock beside the
Sziu,
facing down the monster Fallers. Now she was whining about a needle jab. “They're just carrying out orders.”

“Ha! See if you're still laughing after a day of this. As of five o'clock this morning, they're blood-testing anyone going into a government building, a transport hub, or a utilities facility. They're also doing random street tests. Forget the Faller Apocalypse; we're all going to die in a blood poisoning epidemic by the end of the week.”

“I'm sure. Where is everyone?”

Fajie glanced around the warehouse. “This is all we've got, and all we're likely to get for the foreseeable future. Martial law has complete priority over every investigation. Director Husnan called most of our case officers back to the office.”

“But the PSR is supposed to be following every lead to suspected nests.” His arm swept around. “There is no lead bigger than this. This nest had nukes, for Giu's sake.”

“Not my decision. For what it's worth, I agree with you a hundred percent. But this is a huge investigation. Even with full resources, it was going to take months.”

And there it was, the unspoken worry:
We don't have months left
.

“Crudding Uracus!” Chaing gathered himself to shout, but the impulse died as swiftly as it came. This wasn't Fajie's fault. It was Director Husnan playing petty politics.

He stalked back to his own desk, ignoring the throbbing from his leg. All the files he'd been studying yesterday now seemed a complete waste of time.

“She's here,” Jenifa announced from her desk as she replaced the telephone handset.

“Who?”

“Corilla.”

“That was quick.”

“I never called her. She's coming through the harbor checkpoint now. It's like she knew when we arrived.”

He gave her a thin smile. Even now she kept on pushing.

Corilla came in, dressed in a blue blouse and black jeans—a simple combination, but one that made her seem quite different from the angry young radical with a persecution complex waiting at the outdoor café at Mckie College. Every time he saw her she seemed to have grown in confidence. She came straight over to his desk, giving Jenifa only a cursory glance. Chaing tried not to smile at that.

“Morning,” she said breezily.

“Morning.” He thought of asking Jenifa to fetch them some tea, but that was too childish. “Any news?”

“Not of the Warrior Angel, no. I came in because I have information for you that some of my friends consider very important.”

“What?”

“Roxwolf is back.”

“What?”

“In Opole. My old contacts there are seeing underworld faces reappearing, and they're back with a swagger. That can only mean they have his backing.”

“So? I have more immediate concerns.”

Corilla tilted her head to one side. “You don't know, do you? You never actually saw him when you raided Cameron's.”

“Know what?”

“He's a Faller. A weird one; some kind of mutation. Paula confirmed that for us, by the way. He's not part of any nest, but he does have connections with them.”