Crossing the Line (19 page)

“No problem,” she said, humbled.

After a while she nodded off. She still slept during darkness, although her wess'har genes were rapidly turning that into naps. Wess'har didn't sleep continuously. Their not-sleeping kept her awake anyway most nights; F'nar was a natural amphitheater, and the enveloping sound of their randomly busy lives and the occasional yawling tremolo of matriarchs declaring their territories made sure her
c'naatat
got on with the job of reworking her melatonin cycles.

She snapped awake.
Completely
awake. These days she never woke with a stiff shoulder or a fuzzy head or a brief failure to recollect if it was the weekend or not. She woke cleanly and instantly, ready to function. It was still dark and Aras was sitting with his chin resting on his hands, reading from the display that occupied a door-sized chunk of one wall.

“Please look at this,” he said, not turning to her.

Shan stood behind him and started reading. The fish-bone diagram was a wess'u summary of concerns raised by ussissi in F'nar and one of the other wess'har city-states, Pajatis. The nonlinear structure of the script felt much more natural now, but she still had to consciously translate each word from the vast wess'har vocabulary she was assimilating. Key words didn't yet leap out and sock her in the eye like a casual glance at an English document would.

But there were still a few phrases on the screen that got her attention fast.

One was
retrieved soldiers from
Thetis.

“Oh shit,” she said. There were a lot of things the complex wess'u lexicon didn't stretch to, and expletives were most of them. “I hope that's not what I think it is.”

The other phrase that added to the sinking sensation in her gut was
concern among the matriarchs of Pajatis.

Shan was so occupied with F'nar that she hadn't yet thought to ponder on how the rest of the Wess'ej world felt about the
gethes
situation. She was English again, the center of the empire, and foreigners were just a detail of the landscape. Besides, she knew that F'nar was held responsible for dealing with off-world policy.

But if every city-state was full of Mestins and Chayyases, and they now wanted to have their say, things were becoming a little too interesting.

Aras inhaled her anxiety scent pointedly. “Yes, I was worried by that too.”

“If they're recalling Royal Marines, it's not because they're short of cooks,” said Shan. She read on, tilting her head this way and that. “Oh Christ.
All
the humans? They've extracted the bloody payload as well?”

“It was foolish to leave the ussissi behind with the isenj. Very foolish. They jump to suspicious thoughts quickly.”

“They obviously know us well, then. So where's
Thetis?
”

“Still on course for Earth, apparently.”

“I think I'm with the ussissi on this one. There's something really odd about this.” She read on, struggling with technical terms. “What's
chak velhanan geth'sir?
”

“Human manifestation in moving light.”

“Holograms?”

“Television news.”

“Oh my God. Let's see that. Come on.”

Shan had watched several days' worth of news from
Actaeon
's intercepted ITX links home when she arrived, but she had tired of it rapidly. She didn't care what was happening on a planet she could never see again, and there were far more pressing things to deal with in her new world. But that had been a mistake. TV news was her only
snout,
the only informant she had out here. She leaned across Aras and touched the areas of screen that would summon the material that had added to the ussissis' anxiety.

There was plenty of it.

It was mainly protests. Protests always looked the same: they certainly did if you were the one behind the riot shield trying to maintain order. People milled around the grand doorways of embassies, consulates and government buildings, some in tropical climates, some in snow, but they were chanting and stamping and raising their fists about one unifying thing.
Aliens
. And they weren't clamoring to be the first to shake their hands.

“There are many stories from Eddie here about the isenj,” said Aras. “I think he's upset people.” He leaned back, and Shan could have sworn his expression was one of vindication. “I told you that your people were foolish to take the isenj back to Earth, but I had no idea you would tear yourselves apart without their aid.”

“Yeah, I don't think there was global consensus on the invitation somehow.” Shan could add up. She added two and two and came up with the same total of ten that the ussissi probably had. The isenj delegation wasn't going to be universally welcome: and so the humans had pulled their own kind off the vessel carrying them.

“If we were stupid enough to blow
Thetis
to Kingdom come, how do you think the ussissi would react?” she asked. She thought of their Beatrix Potter dressed-up-animal charm and their little girly voices and their savage, serious teeth.

“They would react very badly indeed,” said Aras. “Every single one of them.”

Eddie had never been used to sleepless nights. These days he was experiencing them more often, and it wasn't the round-the-clock activity that passed his temporary cabin in
Actaeon
. Today his head was buzzing with the insistent fatigue of insomnia.

I could forget about
Hereward.

News would get out sooner or later and absolve him of responsibility for doing something.
I'm not scrabbling around for stories any more: I can sit on it.
He repacked his grip for the third time that morning and checked his hair again. The kid in Environmental Controls hadn't made a bad job of cutting it. Eddie refused to have it clipped as short as a marine's, just as he wouldn't affect paramilitary garments like some wannabe war correspondent. Ade Bennett had called it
looking warry.
He was a
reporter
, for Chrissakes. He had to be clear about that.

But you know about
Hereward.

That was the trouble with knowledge and information. It didn't heal and it didn't sort itself out, and even doing nothing with it might have consequences.

And you know it's a bad move
.

He really did care what happened here. He couldn't root for the home team because he wasn't sure who the home team was any more, not this far out, and not this unwelcome. And he thought about a couple of paragraphs in a history book on journalism in wartime; he remembered a place called San Carlos Water, from a forgotten war between what had been Britain and Argentina, and there and then he made a choice that was personal rather than professional.

It was the problem with getting older in this game. Your conscience grew like your prostate, an inconvenience that woke you up at night but was seldom serious enough to kill you.

It had taken Eddie a week to get clearance for the trip to F'nar. He suspected that he wouldn't have received it at all had Shan not exerted her influence at one end and Lindsay at the other. That alone told him he was being used. Okurt allowed the ussissi shuttle to dock, only the faintest expression of resentment betraying his reluctance.

“Journos are like children,” Eddie told the commander cheerfully. “We get away with murder because nobody thinks we're dangerous.”

“Oh,
I
think you're dangerous,” said Okurt, and personally dogged the hatch closed behind him.

It was a day for staring and being amazed. Eddie set the beecam to divert on any significant movement, and just to be on the safe side he dusted off the manual cam and packed that too. The bee-cam had been fine on Bezer'ej. Any movement in the wilderness that caught its attention was worth filming, but in a city there were too many distractions and he didn't want to spend all his time barking orders to bring it to heel. He'd let it roam.

Being searched by the ussissi pilot on boarding reduced him to helpless giggles, and the bee-cam captured it all. Eddie thought it might make a light piece to end today's package. The pilot watched the cam in that same predatory way that Serrimissani did, then gave him a long stare and went forward to the cockpit.

Eddie slid his hand into his holdall to check that the precious cargo was intact. His fingers slid over three real glass bottles of wine, paper-wrapped amber jaggery sugar, a flask of live yeast, six bars of lavender oil soap and a big bag of tea leaves, some of the roving correspondent's universal currencies that could buy you rescue in any country. Cigarettes rated the highest exchange rate, of course, but spacecraft and illegal combustibles never mixed.

The booty wasn't to placate any locals, even if they had any use for the commodities, but gifts for Shan. He'd missed her. She wasn't the most lovable person he'd ever met but he did enjoy her company, and—privately and perversely—he liked people who couldn't be bought, threatened or flattered, especially by him.

The shuttle landed on an anonymous stretch of stony soil devoid of anything Eddie could recognize as an airstrip. It looked like the middle of nowhere, and he had seen plenty of nowheres with more infrastructure than this. A wess'har male was waiting for him. The creature was pacing round a vehicle that looked like a futon wearing a valance. It didn't inspire confidence.

Eddie glanced at the departing ussissi, who was still keeping an eye on the bee-cam. At least he didn't hang around for a tip.

He followed the driver's lead and sat on the futon. It shaped itself up round him: the flapping valance became a rigid hover-craft skirt. He felt better already. The vehicle skimmed alarmingly over rocks and hummocks, and what looked like soft sage-colored moss rolled underneath him in dry waves. There was no road that he could see.

“We go overland because of pictures,” the wess'har driver said, like two voices were talking at once. “We build roads underneath, so nothing to picture. Understand?”

“Fine,” said Eddie. “Thanks.” The bee-cam hovered happily, immune to the swoops and climbs of the vehicle as it swept along in an unnatural quiet. The wess'har's openness took him aback. He'd known too many human minders over the years whose main goal had been to stop him recording anything at all, an aim often reinforced by a gun. “Can I film anything I want?”

“If your eyes can see it, you can make images.”

“I love this place already.”

They were skimming between larger clumps of vegetation now, not trees but growths that looked like huge yellow bromeliads, gold and fleshy and covered with crawling things that were striped in red and white. The land rose gently ahead. The vehicle slowed to walking pace and then it rested on the ridge.

“You look,
gethes
. Look now.”

“Wow. Oh
wow
. Sweet Jesus H. Christ.”

The city of F'nar nearly blinded Eddie.

It was beauty made solid. The color and the light and the sheer impossibility of it took his words away and he almost fell out of the passenger seat to stand and stare.

He'd have to redo the soundtrack later. He didn't want to sound like a tourist.

“F'nar,” said the driver. “
Shan Chail
said you say
fuck me
when you see it, you be so amazed.”

“How long have you been speaking English?”

“Four days.”

“Well, I say
fuck me,
then.” He checked that the bee-cam was equally riveted by the view and got out the hand cam, just to be doubly sure of getting those first shots. “The City of Pearl indeed.”

The vehicle could take Eddie no further than the center of F'nar. He stood at the bottom of the caldera and stared up at row upon row of terraces dotted with vegetation, an inside-out ziggurat or hanging garden: the pearl coating iced almost every surface. He was fresh out of words. He followed his wess'har minder and started to climb the terraces, trying to nod politely at any wess'har whose disturbing patterned eyes he caught.

It was typical of Shan to be living as far from the center as it was possible to get. Eddie, leg muscles screaming for a rest, paused for breath outside an iridescent door set in a wall of ash-lars whose irregular lines were almost obscured by the ubiquitous pearl-pebbled coating. It eased open.

“Eddie,” she said. “Just in time for tea.”

Shan, filling the doorway, looked well. She looked different somehow, and even more dauntingly athletic than he remembered, but she still looked fundamentally human. Eddie held out his arms to hug her. It was an instinctive gesture, but she didn't move.

“I'm not after any epithelial cells,” he said, remembering.

“I'm sure you're not.” But she didn't concede even a restrained embrace. He had no doubt he would be screened before departing. If they didn't, he'd ask them to. He didn't want to be the vector for any more catastrophic change in human society. Aras was arranging bowls and food on a table, and gave him a respectful nod. He didn't look happy to see him, but then it was hard to tell with the wess'har. He was a grim, quiet, frighteningly large creature.

Eddie smiled anyway, and opened his holdall and pulled out the
efte
fiber bag of rare gifts. “Look, Shazza—wine, soap, and enough yeast and sugar to get some brew going,” he said proudly. “And
tea.
”

She didn't smile and he wasn't sure if he'd gone too far by letting one of his many nicknames for her slip out. At least he hadn't called her
Genghis
to her face. Then she grinned, almost girlish. “Thanks. I can't get drunk, but you'll never know how welcome that tea is.”

“Ha, you're not pregnant, are you?”

“Not even slightly funny, Eddie.”

Whoops.
He switched fast. “Nice sofa. Isn't white going to get grubby, though?”

She did laugh then, and Eddie was relieved if puzzled. Aras gave him a sympathetic look. “She'll explain later,” he said.

Eddie followed Shan out onto a terrace that wrapped round the cliffside. He forced himself to look away from the dazzling cityscape: how quickly could he get to the main point of his visit? There were ways of imparting sensitive information and Shan could grasp the oblique as well as anyone. He just wanted to get it over with.

“This is just the most amazing view I've ever seen in my entire life.”

“Beautiful, isn't it?” She still seemed wary. “It's insect shit.”

“Sorry?”

“The nacreous coating. It's a deposit left by little buzzy things. Not real insects, of course, but it's what fills the niche here.”

“Shit doesn't look that good on Earth.”

“Yeah, I thought that too.”

“So you're okay, then.”

“Yeah. Great.”

“Good.” They sat down on the ledge that ran round the terrace and Eddie leaned back against the wall, not caring whether it was feces or the finest creation of Ottoman tile-makers. It stunned him with excitement.

Shan had her arms folded loosely across her chest, sleeves rolled back. Light flickered. He glanced over his shoulder to see what was making the reflection dancing on her hands, and then he realized there was nothing, not even that fabulous city below, that was causing it. The light was
in
her hands, under the skin.

“Oh Christ,” he said, and stared.

“It's really handy when you can't find your keys.” She looked resigned. “And every copper needs their own blue flashing light, eh?”

“What is it, for God's sake?”

“Bioluminescence.”

“Does it go with the recovery from fatal head wounds?”

“All part of the package. But let's not talk about it right now.”

He struggled for calm. He had more pressing matters, that was true. “Can we get the interview over with first? Then we can socialize.”

“Ask away. Don't be offended if I tell you to sod off.” She said it with a smile. “Nothing personal. You're all right, son.”

He grabbed the bee-cam out of the air beside him and stuffed it in his pocket to make his point.
I'm not recording this. Trust me
. Her gaze followed his hand. He really didn't want to say out loud that he was doing this as a favor. That would have been amateurish.

“Just one question, Shan. Any comment on the fact that the FEU has diverted the
Hereward
to Cavanagh's Star? I might eventually ask the same question of the isenj, because they're unaware too.” He couldn't believe he was sacrificing a story for a second time. He was going soft. But he had made his decision. “I also hear there may be a few more to follow.”

Shan closed her eyes. It was a few seconds before she spoke. He sneaked another look at her hands. The lights had stopped.

“If you're pissing me about, Eddie, you know what I'll do, don't you?”

“I've nothing to gain from this.”

“You're sure?”

“Unimpeachable source.”

“Okurt, maybe?”

“No. Someone much lower down the food chain.”

“And why are you telling me?”

“Because I think it's a provocative act and I think it's wrong.”

“Shit,” she said, and closed her eyes again. He knew it was a hot story, but he hadn't expected her to react quite so strongly. “Fucking idiots. And you want what, exactly?”

“Not to make matters worse than they are.”

Shan got up and made as if to pat him on the shoulder, but stopped short. He had expected bright anger: instead she looked suddenly exhausted. “There goes my retirement again,” she said. “You haven't broadcast this yet, have you? We would have heard.”

“I'm not sure if I ever will.”

“When will you tell the isenj?”

“I have no idea. I hadn't thought that far ahead.”

“So what
do
you want in exchange?”

“I'm not trading favors, Shan. I really thought you all had a right to know.”

“And I don't know how else to say thanks.”

Eddie smiled weakly. It was hard being instrumental in history. But he had blown the secret now. He had to live with the consequences.

“It was the Falklands,” he said.

“Eh?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Shan gave him exactly fifteen more seconds and then said, “Excuse me for a while.” She disappeared into the house and a few moments later Aras came out with a tray of bowls and cups and sat down pointedly next to Eddie. It was compulsory hospitality: he wasn't going anywhere for the time being.

Aras held out a cup to Eddie with an unfathomable expression. He held it in both hands, and Eddie could see that he had claws. The sun was full in his face: the irises of his otherwise charcoal-black eyes revealed not those weird four-lobed wess'har pupils, but single and almost reassuring oval ones. Eddie had never looked at him that closely before. And he'd never been alone with him, never with the alien between him and the only exit.

“Please, make yourself at home,” said the Destroyer of Mjat, and handed him a cup of tea.