The Temporal Void (50 page)

Corrie-Lyn lost her hold on the galley section to be tossed about. She felt her arm break as she hit the external door. The pain was awful, dulling her mind, even the cabin dipped into grey. She actually thought:
This is the end
.

A couple of miserable breaths later and she was still whimpering where she’d fallen. The ground crawler had stopped moving.

‘Hang on,’ Inigo called above the constant clamour of the blizzard. ‘I’m coming.’

She watched him through a haze as her stomach grew very queasy. He had to climb up the side of the forward cabin, twisting round the front chairs with a contortionist’s agility. Somehow the ground crawler had finished up standing on its nose, with the deck inclined.

Inigo wound up sitting on the back of the driver’s chair, cradling her. She stared up at the bulkhead above with its small storage locker doors swinging open.

‘My arm,’ she cried. The dull pain was rising to hot agony. Her exovision medical displays were flashing up tissue damage summaries.

Inigo looked round the cabin. ‘These crawlers always have medic packs; there’ll be one around somewhere. Get your nerves to shut down the pain.’

She nodded, which nearly made her squeal. Concentrating on the physiological icons was difficult, but eventually her secondary routines were closing off nerves to her arm. Her ankle was damaged, too, though that was minor compared to the arm. She let out a huge sigh as the pain faded. Nothing she could do about the queasiness, however.

Inigo left her to rummage through all the junk that was cluttered round them. He found a first aid pack. The case started to analyse the data her macrocellular clusters gave it, and opened up various plyplastic appendages which wiggled across her shoulder. Inigo cut away her sleeve to give it access to her skin.

‘Now what?’ she asked.

He glanced at the portal display, which remained resolutely blank. ‘We’re wedged into a fissure, with our arse sticking up into the air. How’s that for dignity.’

‘Can your field functions get us out?’

‘Not easily. I suppose I can give it a go, though.’

‘That’s good. I was almost worried there.’

He chuckled, and stroked her face. ‘We’ll just wait a minute. I want to be certain you’re all right before I leave you.’

‘I don’t want you to leave right away,’ she said shakily.

‘Then I’ll stay. We’re not in any hurry. Not today.’

*

The
Alexis Denken
was only ninety minutes out from Arevalo when Kazimir called.

‘We just lost our communication link with the
Lindau
,’ he said.

Paula, who was sitting at her piano trying to master ‘Für Elise’ yet again, let her shoulders slump. ‘Oh, crap. I thought you were going to warn them to be careful.’

‘I did. Evidently I wasn’t clear enough.’

‘So now Aaron has a Navy ship?’

‘A scout ship. And it might be Inigo.’

‘Or the Waterwalker himself. Or Nigel’s come back. Or maybe . . .’ But she didn’t finish that one.

‘There’s no need to be cruel.’

‘We’re getting stretched very thin, Kazimir.’

‘I know. But there is some good news. The
Lindau
might not be communicating, but I can still keep track of it.’

‘How?’

‘There’s a secondary transdimensional channel generated by all Navy ship drives. It’s used for one thing only, to supply us with their location for precisely this reason.’

‘I never knew that. So where is it now?’

‘Still on Hanko.’

‘Interesting. If you’re Aaron and you’ve got yourself a lifeboat, why wait around on a planet that’s about to implode?’

‘To find what you originally came for.’

‘Exactly. Keep me updated.’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you going to send another ship?’

‘The
Yangtze
is already on its way; I doubt it will get there in time.’

‘A River-class no less? You are taking this seriously now. Let us hope it has better luck than the
Yenisey
.’

‘And the
Lindau
.’

*

It was raining outside Colwyn City, turbid clouds drizzling the fields and hills with a slick of cold water. A morose day whose lack of wind condemned it to suffer under mist which stifled the land and obscured the upper skies with their pink cirro-stratus clouds. However, inside the force fields, it was dry and sunny as the gloom was diverted round the curving protective barriers.

The woman was making the most of the artificial climate, walking in a leisurely way up Daryad Avenue’s pronounced slope to window shop. Almost half of the stores along the avenue were open, though most of the bars and restaurants were shut. Supply deliveries were non-existent in Colwyn now that the invaders had shut down all capsule flights.

Most people in the city centre that morning were heading down the slope towards the river. It was the day the Senate delegation was due to arrive. The residents wanted to give them a welcome they couldn’t ignore as their starship touched down at the docks. Already, the crowds were swelling round the sealed-up perimeter.

The woman either didn’t care or didn’t know. She was young, and attractive, wearing a fashionable grey-blue dress whose skirt showed off long legs. Men making their way down the slope cast admiring glances and pinged her. She smiled loftily, ignoring the attention. She also somehow managed to ignore the Ellezelin paramilitary capsules racing low overhead, their sirens screeching and dousing the pavement with strobing lasers.

Ignoring them to a degree that she was unaware of three larger capsules prowling the sky above the avenue’s rooftops. Unaware as they suddenly stopped their circling to powerdive. She was still unaware right up to the moment when their seven-gee deceleration smacked them down beside her with such force their pressure waves burst the glass window she was looking through. She screamed as she was shoved painfully to her knees amid the glittering shards, her arms folded round her head to try to protect her. The big capsules halted, floating ten centimetres above the concrete. Their malmetal doors opened fast, and Major Honilar jumped out, leading his welcome team into a surround and secure formation, putting the woman at the centre of a circle produced by the nozzles of fifteen high calibre energy weapons. She was screaming incoherently as they encircled her, blood running from a hundred tiny glass nicks, her dress all but shredded.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Major Honilar bellowed at her.

Everyone on the outside of the three capsules who had flung themselves flat, lifted their heads to see what in Ozzie’s name was going on. They saw an armour-suited figure grab the woman’s hair and lift her brutally to her feet. Saw the agony on her mutilated face. Saw the horrific amount of blood saturating her clothes, dripping liberally on to the pavement. Several of the more astute ones delivered what they were seeing directly to unisphere news stations.

‘Araminta, you are now in the protective custody of the Intermediate Ellezelin forces.’ The suited figure pushed her towards the nearest capsule.

‘Hey!’ someone on the street protested.

One of the welcome team fired a small enhanced explosive projectile over their heads. The detonation forced everyone to cower on the floor again.

‘If anyone attempts to interfere with our operation they will be shot,’ Major Honilar announced loudly. He pushed the bloody, sobbing woman into his capsule, which lifted immediately, its malmetal door still closing as it reached rooftop height. The remainder of the welcome team retreated back into their capsules, covering the prone bystanders in a classic hostile withdrawal protocol.

Sitting drinking their morning tea on the balcony of the cafe opposite the drama, Oscar and his team watched the last capsule lift hurriedly into the city’s artificially clear sky.

‘Good deployment,’ Beckia said with grudging admiration. She was wearing a silver-edged beret in the local style, helping to make her look even more beguiling.

‘As subtle as a kick in the balls,’ Tomansio retorted dismissively. ‘Look at them.’ He waved a hand towards the stunned citizens who were slowly picking themselves up. There was a lot of anger on their faces.

Oscar watched several of them shaking their fists at the sky, shouting obscenities. He was glad he was back wearing civilian clothes. It wasn’t going to be pleasant for any of the Ellezelin troops caught alone after today.

‘I think Major Honilar is getting somewhat aggrieved,’ Beckia said. ‘What’s that, the fifth Araminta the recognition programs have found for him this morning?’

‘Liatris is doing well,’ Tomansio said.

‘I doubt the latest victim thinks that,’ Oscar said. He couldn’t drink his cinnamon-flavoured espresso now. The callousness he’d just witnessed was triggering a lot of guilt. The poor woman was perfectly innocent, her only crime to have roughly the same dimensions and features as the real Araminta. That way the whole incident could be blamed on the recognition software that had plucked her image from one of the street-watch sensors along Daryad Avenue, alerting the welcome team to her location.

‘This is your operation, Oscar,’ Tomansio rebuked. ‘You knew what would have to be done. Don’t go soft on us now.’

‘Of all the people in the galaxy, I am the one who
really
understands the concept of collateral damage best of all,’ Oscar announced.

‘So you are. Then you know she was a necessary casualty.’

‘That doesn’t make it right.’

‘Oscar, Ellezelin invading Viotia isn’t right. Hunting Araminta isn’t right, but we’re all doing it because we all know she has to be found.’

‘What was her name?’ Oscar asked, staring down on the broad avenue. More people were heading down the slope now, marching to the docks to make their demands heard by the Senate delegation. It was all futile, he knew. Living Dream didn’t care for their opinion, nor that of the Senate. The delegation and talks with Phelim and the Prime Minister were just buying the welcome team more time to find their target.

‘Does it matter?’ Beckia asked.

‘Yes, actually, it does,’ Oscar said. ‘We used her.’

‘I’ll have Liatris check it out when he has a moment,’ Tomansio said.

‘Thank you.’

Tomansio and Beckia finished their drinks. Oscar still couldn’t bring himself to touch what was left of his. People were getting hurt, and he was the cause. He knew it was stupid, but he really hadn’t considered that aspect of the operation when he agreed to help Paula. Dushiku’s unisphere interface code hung in his exovision, so very, very tempting. Talking things through with his calm, rational partner would make things feel so much better. It was also a sign of weakness which the Knights Guardian wouldn’t take too kindly. So he sighed when Tomansio and Beckia rose from the table and gave him an enquiring glance.

‘Coming,’ he said.

They took a public cab from outside the cafe. It rode quickly and smoothly along the metro track that ran down the middle of Daryad Avenue, taking them up the slope into the grid of taller modern buildings. Ten minutes later it dropped them off in the Palliser precinct, where they walked into a bar that was several social levels below the cafe they’d just left. It was wedged in between a trike repair garage and a wholesale packaging store. A cheap framework of composite which was supposed to have aircoral grown over it, only someone had messed up the pruning hormones leaving one corner and half the roof misshapen, with lumps and cracks. Plastic sheeting had been epoxied over most of the splits decades ago, sealing it against the elements, but they didn’t look good. A lot of the patches were peeling away. The current owner had pushed them back and held them down with thick black tape. Sallow fungal weeds were growing out of the pocks on the roof, parasiting the aircoral’s paltry nutrients.

Oscar glanced down to the far end of the street where the Colwyn City’s big confluence nest building stood at the intersection, squat and aloof, looking fortress-like compared to the shabbiness of the structures around it.

Inside, the bar was little better, with the windows obscured by ancient hologram adverts, and fading overhead lighting strips adding little to the illumination. Tables were scattered about on the ancient wood floor, interspaced with pool tables and tri-gamer stations. Only the counter had decent lighting, with suspended white globes projecting a monochrome glow across the beer pumps.

There were less than ten customers in total. Two hardcore barflies up on stools lining up shot glasses and aerosols, one loner sitting at a tri-game feeding it with his cash coin, and the others huddled round tables. They all ignored the newcomers.

Tomansio gave the bartender an order for four beers and they claimed a corner table. A service bot trundled over with their glasses. Two minutes later Cheriton sauntered in. He did draw some glances, with a big grey coat buttoned up tight so he didn’t show off his ‘native’ Ellezelin clothes. Nothing he could do to disguise the hat, though, which he held in one hand.

‘So?’ Tomansio asked as Cheriton sat down.

The gaiafield expert raised his glass as they used their bio-nonics to establish a screening field. ‘Paranoia reigns supreme. They’ve got the building net scanning and logging all calls. If I’d encrypted anything I sent they would have dropped a cage over me.’

‘Are they suspicious?’

‘Not of us, but they know someone is messing with the welcome team’s search. We’re not the only covert team here.’

‘Liatris has spotted at least two other infiltrations,’ Beckia said.

‘Well between us we’re certainly stirring up a yarsnapper nest of distrust. The Third Dreamer hasn’t helped.’

‘I would have thought they’d enjoy that,’ Tomansio said. ‘A near real-time connection into the Void that shows we can get inside, and we have psychic powers when we do get there.’

‘Living Dream certainly welcomes that, but it does raise questions about why our dear Cleric Conservator hasn’t been chosen for any communing, nor the rest of the Cleric Council for that matter.’

‘Are they chasing after the Third Dreamer now as well?’ Oscar asked.