Angel Stations (12 page)

He took some of the money accumulated and paid to have Hollis iced for at least a week, allowing enough time for him to get away. There were those who knew how to track the streams of data passing through the complex computer networks of the City Authority, and they confirmed what Elias had found on the diskette Josh had given him: Trencher was still alive, iced down, and already offworld.

Trencher was on his way, in fact, to the Kaspian system. It was as far from Earth as it was possible to get. But if that was where Trencher was going, Elias would go after him. He couldn’t even begin to guess why anyone wanted to take Trencher there, or to what purpose. He owed it to the old man to find him, and bring him back.

And so Elias found himself, here and now, on a landing pad on top of one of the mighty towers of the city, surrounded by helicopters and VTOL craft. A cold February wind whipped across his face like a frozen blade. Smelling smoke, he peered out across the great, semi-translucent panels that partially roofed over the streets of London, separated by dully gleaming metal interstices.

Dozens of other buildings rose above him, their windows now reflecting the early morning sun. The smoke, he realized, was drifting up from campfires below, and he could see a huddle of makeshift dwellings erected between two great exhaust towers. Although Elias knew about these rooftop shanties, this was the first time he’d ever seen one. It made the city seem that much more forbidding, even more like a medieval walled fortress surrounded by starving supplicants being refused shelter.

A sign pointed to an office where someone in the uniform of the city’s militia came out and studied the smartsheet with Elias’s passport details. Elias waited, not sure if his fake ID would pass muster, but all that happened was that he was escorted to one of the larger VTOLs, a great black aircar with curving mirrored windshield obscuring the cockpit.

Stubby black wings protruded towards the rear of the craft, and the fuselage flared outwards at four points, partially shielding from view enormous jet nozzles, now folded neatly away but still visible. The vehicle rested on four fat wheels.

As Elias got in, he found Vaughn inside, waiting for him. Elias stared at him for a long, long moment then took a seat across from the ghost, but ignored him. Vaughn seemed happy to say nothing for the moment. The pilot was separated from them by a blank wall.

The aircar banked as it lifted, so Elias could see London shrinking away below him. He had now accepted that his chances of ever seeing the city again were slim, but he didn’t feel as depressed about that as he’d imagined. It was a place he had lived in for much of his life, and when he’d been younger, the city had seemed a complete universe in itself. Now, as it fell away, it seemed to fade in his memory as well, becoming merely a part of the past.

The curved glass of the exterior looked almost transparent from the inside, and every time the aircar tilted in its flight Elias found himself gripping the material of the couch, as if he might fall out.

Vaughn observed this reaction with a bemused expression. ‘Don’t worry, Elias, I’m only here to give you some advice.’

‘Oh, lucky me.’

‘Always so hostile.’

Elias looked out of the window rather than reply.

‘You owe those people nothing,’ Vaughn continued, adopting the same light conversational tone as before. ‘The unaltereds, I mean. To them you’re nothing but an Illegal, a criminal simply for existing – the product of dangerous alien biotechnology.’

Elias felt his face grow hot. ‘I’m not a criminal. And I didn’t ask to be this way.’

‘Really? I thought you’d volunteered. But as far as the people back there are concerned’ – he pointed over Elias’s shoulder, as if back at the city of London – ‘you may turn out to be a vector for something they can’t predict. Nobody expected the Blight either, and that came about as a result of meddling with Angel biotechnology.
You
, Mr Murray, are the result of Angel biotechnology, and that makes you dangerous – to them.’

‘Fuck them. I’m gone now. You might as well go away too, Vaughn. I can make my own path through life.’

Then, to Elias’s confusion, Vaughn started to laugh. ‘What happened to you back there in that Arcology wasn’t an accident. There
are
no accidents. Everything that happens, occurs because it’s part of a plan and, unlike most, you’re privileged to see glimpses of that plan, some little brief snatches of the future. And you still persist in thinking you can change things? Why is that?’

Elias pursed his lips, studied the smartsheets he had brought with him. Kasper – Trencher’s destination – was the seventh solar system to be discovered by humans exploring through the Angel Stations’ network. It was the only system in which intelligent life had been found. The Kaspians themselves had been declared off-limits in order – so went the official line – to allow their culture to evolve uninterrupted. They had been studied ever since nonetheless, either by long-range satellite or by microscopic spycams that could eavesdrop on their daily lives.

It was also publicly known that researchers landed in unpopulated areas there, to collect flora and fauna or retrieve artefacts from abandoned buildings and ruins. Yet the Kaspians had no idea they were no longer alone in the universe. However, Elias continued reading, those studies had been interrupted by the Hiatus until someone managed to figure out the arcane alien technology of the Oort Station, thereby re-establishing its singularity.

Elias glanced out of the window. All he could now see below was endless grey sea, cut through with long pink streaks which glittered and undulated through the water.

‘You won’t find any details of that in those smartsheets,’ Vaughn said. Elias glanced up to find the ghost was still there.

‘Details of what?’ Elias asked, not sure if Vaughn was referring to the pink streaks he had noticed below.

‘Details of the Blight. It’s everywhere, Elias. It’s gone too far. Pollution, environmental disaster after disaster, and now the Blight spreading across the globe, and either transforming or killing everything it touches. There’s no turning back – not now. The Primalists have known this for a long time.’

Elias stared down at the Atlantic far below, not wanting to believe what Vaughn was telling him. ‘What does that have to do with Trencher?’ he asked uncertainly.

‘You care about him? I suppose he was the nearest thing you had to a real father.’

‘He saved my life,’ said Elias, ‘more than once.’

‘But you let him go, let him get captured. Not a good way of demonstrating your gratitude.’

Elias struggled not to let Vaughn see how deeply he was affected by these words. The worst thing Elias could think was that, somewhere down in that drug-induced state, Trencher himself believed Elias had betrayed him.

‘Since you know so much, then I’m sure you know exactly what happened.’

‘Trencher was a failure: he betrayed the Primalists, and he betrayed himself. Mentally unbalanced, all he could tell you was the vilest nonsense.’ Vaughn leaned forward then, as if peering into Elias’s soul. ‘You still see glimpses of things to come, Elias? Tell me what you see.’

Nothing, bleak, dark nothing, an absolute negation.

‘Nothing,’ Elias said carefully. It was probably the truest thing he could say.

‘I see things, too,’ said Vaughn. ‘Sometimes it’s one thing, sometimes it’s something else, only
slightly
different. That’s the problem with being one of the chosen, one of God’s true children. All you see are glimpses of the truth, of the grand masterplan. He allows us that much. Sometimes what you see seems to confound more than inform. We are still only mortals, tiny things in the eyes of God.’

‘I’m not a Primalist,’ Elias replied. ‘I don’t think Kasper is the new Eden. I don’t think it’s anything other than what it is.’ Elias looked at the Ghost with tortured eyes. ‘Why me, Vaughn? Do you think any of this stops me wanting to look for Trencher? Or is this the only way a sick fuck like you can enjoy any kind of entertainment?’

Vaughn leaned back and gazed at him coolly for a few seconds before replying. ‘Because it’s been seen, Elias. It’s been seen. God has chosen us. Godless you may be, but nonetheless you do God’s purpose, as do we all. Remember that when the time comes.’

And then Vaughn was gone, and Elias found himself staring at an empty seat.

Sam Roy

Sam tasted blood on his lips. He could see his own essence, red against stark white, where blood had touched snow and ice.

‘Go to hell,’ he said weakly. He lay half stretched out across the boulder that was his world, his universe. Blood ran down his back and his body from the fresh wounds. He was past the threshold of being able to feel anything now, and Vaughn knew it. He’d wait for a while, until he was sure Sam would be able to feel again.

‘You think I didn’t know?’ rasped Vaughn. ‘You thought I wouldn’t find out?’

‘Of course I knew,’ he said weakly. ‘More than you ever could understand.’

Vaughn coughed in the chill mountain air. He’d pushed Sam and the boulder back down the steep path that led to the top of the plateau; he lay crumpled like a rag doll.

Vaughn coughed, was silent for several minutes. Sam waited, something he’d become very good at. ‘You were behind it,’ Vaughn said, more quietly now. ‘You pushed them to it, turned them away from the path they should have been on.’

‘I didn’t,’ said Sam when he felt he had the strength. His bones had begun to knit back together, with extraordinary speed. It was quiet, the night as still as death, and Sam imagined he could hear his own bones creaking like oak trees swaying in a heavy wind as shattered fragments found each other, re-knitted.

Vaughn cocked his head towards Sam, in a motion that was extraordinarily bird-like.

‘I had nothing to do with it,’ Sam said, forcing the words through his throat. ‘I only advised them. As I knew I would. As I always have known. The impetus, the desire was theirs. They would have done it anyway.’ He tried to clear his throat, spat blood onto pristine white snow. ‘Or couldn’t you see it coming?’ Sam said, unable to keep the taunt out of his own voice.

Several of the conspirators were dead. Sam had heard a scream, far into the night, abruptly cut off; had immediately known it was Marjorie, Vaughn’s young wife. She’d fallen in with them, of course. After all, one of the conspirators was her own son, Matthew. Now . . . she was in that place neither Vaughn nor Sam seemed able to reach. He thought of the people who had created them, Vaughn and Trencher and himself, and wondered at the blindness of their fanaticism. Marjorie’s death at the hands of her own husband was just one more reason to hate them all the more.

He glanced at Vaughn, saw the briefest flash of real fear deep in his eyes. Vaughn turned, climbing the path back up to the plateau, back to the light and warmth of an everyday life Sam hadn’t experienced in an eternity.

Roke

‘Master Roke,’ said Utma, walking towards him as he entered a courtyard within the Emperor’s Palace and passed into the inner ring of buildings, a storm of kitchen staff and servants hurrying around them. ‘Are you well?’

‘As well as I can be,’ wheezed Roke. ‘Are you attending this meeting of Xan’s?’

Utma blinked, taking on a more furtive expression. ‘Master Roke, please. Who knows who may be listening?’ Utma took Roke’s arm and spoke into his ear as they walked rapidly towards Xan’s Sanctum at the heart of the Palace.

‘Nobody’s listening, Utma,’ Roke said wearily. ‘And even if they were, I haven’t said anything about the meeting. Xan does have a lot of meetings, I might remind you.’ But Utma didn’t look comforted, just apprehensive.

More guards swept the Sanctum’s great doors open and they entered, seeing other Masters favoured within the court standing some distance away, sunlight streaming down from the windows near the ceiling, far above. Roke could see Feren, the Emperor’s Spymaster, who gazed in their direction for a few moments, before looking away.

‘Backstabbing widow-makers, the lot of them,’ muttered Utma. ‘If I thought I’d end up consorting with people like that when my mother gave me away to the priesthood, I’d have run away and joined the tribes.’ Roke nodded in agreement. He counted few true friends within the court, but Utma was one of them. They approached the other Masters, also waiting for their audience with Xan. Mostly they made cordial small talk, and Roke heard some news about the siege against the northern city, Nubala.

‘A shitstained hovel, been there once, never again,’ muttered Riteyan, who maintained Tibe’s great book. ‘And cold, too. Very cold.’ He shivered, as if in illustration.

‘I hear they have as yet failed to retrieve the city’s god,’ Roke interjected mildly.

‘But nothing insurmountable,’ argued Feren, stepping up to stand by Riteyan, a cool expression on his face. ‘I’m sure the Emperor will have no trouble completing his great Plan. What do you think, Roke?’

Roke noted the way in which distant walls and ceilings suddenly became the objects of great fascination for his fellow Masters. ‘I would say that none have greater faith than I in the Emperor’s Plan,’ said Roke, ‘but I would not wish to insult other members of the Court with such an arrogant conceit.’ He smiled, taking pleasure at the flash of anger in Feren’s one good eye. Oh, but I must be losing my love of life to take chances with Feren, thought Roke. Or perhaps I have simply ceased caring.

‘Riteyan,’ said Utma, ‘I might remind you that Master Roke comes from one of those shitstained Northern hovels. Your own Great Book tells us it used to be just as cold here as there, and colder, only a few generations ago.’

‘Enough, gentlemen,’ said Roke wearily, as the doors to the inner court were opened by the Palace Guard. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

It was dark enough within the court that the other-wordly light that surrounded the form of the Pale Ghost – the Shai – was very apparent. Pink and hairless, with tufts of fur where its flesh was visible outside of its garments, the creature’s head was disturbingly lacking in ears until you noticed the tiny, shell-like shapes on either side of its skull. They looked strange, malformed. It stood close to an enormous map of the world, which rested on a wide table half as long as the chamber itself.