Crossing the Line (34 page)

Then it dissolved into small cries, and then screams, and the ussissi turned as one and rushed at the huddle of colonists, scattering them.

They were simply holding them back. But it all fell into chaos, children crying and screaming, men running. Aras stood looking down at Josh's body, only half aware of the panic and noise around him. He wasn't about to repent and he felt no guilt.

He was wess'har. He had done what he should have done many, many years ago.

But it hurt him in a way that shooting Surendra Parekh never had. He could feel shaking starting in the pit of his stomach and the pain in his eyes had grown from prickling to stabbing.

The ussissi female trotted up to him, head lowered in appeasement.

“Go,” she said. “We will deal with this.”

This time he accepted her help. “Be careful of the blood,” he said. He noticed he had a great spray of it down his tunic and he could smell it. “He has been to Ouzhari. Or I might have caught him with my claws.” He doubted that even
c'naatat
could survive decapitation, but Aras was taking no chances. “Burn his body.”

Fire was a prudent move. But Aras also remembered all that Ben Garrod had told him about Hell, and the image distressed him.

Aras walked down to the cliffs again and searched for the lights. His
tilgir
dangled from his hand. He'd clean it later.

It wasn't unknown for the bezeri to go deep at times of threat and crisis. He hoped that was what they had done, but he doubted it in that core of him that understood and accepted reality. He'd watched the single, unbroken mass of green light fade and die, and that was what he knew had happened to the bezeri.

Those were the ones who had died quickly, closest to the fallout from
Actaeon
's bombs. There were other bezeri settlements further from the chain, but in time the contamination would travel further and drop silently into the sea with each rainstorm. It would seal the fate of the remaining bezeri population and the other life on which they fed and depended. They were tied to place. They could never flee.

Now there was Rayat to hunt down.

Aras would
have a go,
as Shan called it. He would also
have a go
at that little female, the one Shan called Lin, if Shan had not already killed her. It had been her doing as well. Perhaps he would turn Rayat over to the ussissi. It would appease their rage for a while.

And where was Shan?
Isan
or not, he would give her a piece of his mind for worrying him so.

He was still contemplating how much he needed her to tell him it would all be fine when one of the young Cetekas males approached him, reeking of anxiety. He thought for a moment that the boy had heard—or seen—that he had balanced the crimes of Josh Garrod.

The boy stopped three meters short of him.

“What is it?” asked Aras. It would be more dead bezeri, he knew. They would congregate around stricken comrades rather than flee, just like the ussissi, but quite unlike humans or even wess'har. They would come to the source of the pollution. “How many this time?”

The boy looked puzzled. “I was told to let you know the ussissi are talking about a ship.”

“What ship?”

“A small vessel that left here some hours ago. One of their Umeh-based pilots has been asked to rendezvous with it and transfer passengers. His destination is
Actaeon.
He is hesitant.”

Aras was silenced by how wrong his expectation had been. He knew at that moment that his carefully reconstructed world of relative normality had been fleeting and was now crumbling apart. He knew what the boy was going to say before he said it. He could feel his freeze instinct gripping him even before the words emerged.

“They have a prisoner,” said the boy.

Aras wanted to scream. He tried to form a sound. But nothing came out.

Had he known, he would not have given Josh such a quick end.

 

Lindsay sat in the aft section with her head in her hands for at least ten minutes before unlocking the inner hatch and hauling herself back down the passage into the forward compartment.

She was shaking. Her mind was completely empty, unable to grasp anything. She hoped it would stay that way for a while.

She tried to think of David for a moment and found she couldn't recall his face or his smell. She wished she had kept the clothing he had been buried in.

Aras had interred him, and now Aras would know what it felt like to lose someone you loved.

Bennett and Barencoin were talking very quietly, head-to-head in the two cockpit seats. Rayat was staring at the port bulkhead, turning his text pad over and over in his hands.

They stopped instantly as if someone had thrown a switch.

“So it was all for bloody nothing,” said Rayat. “You have no idea what you've thrown away.”

“I do,” said Lindsay. “And it wasn't.” Neither marine said a word. That was frightening. “How long to rendezvous?”

“Eleven minutes,” said Barencoin, not looking up from the steeple of his fingers.

“You killed her,” said Bennett.

He seemed remarkably subdued for a man who had seen the object of his affections step calmly to her death. He was fingering the bridge of his nose, still covered with the pressure dressing. He hadn't cleaned his face: the blood had dried into flaky streaks from nostrils to chin. Perhaps he was making a point.

“It was her choice,” said Lin. “If you'd let me set the bloody grenades, she'd have been spared this.”

Bennett didn't answer. He turned away and took out his camo compact again and seemed to be checking his nose. For some reason it was really bothering him. Lindsay was starting to realize the intensity of his crush on the late superintendent. She'd butted him with every scrap of force and venom she could muster. It wasn't quite the romantic memory a man could hang on to in the dark days ahead.

“I wish the sodding pilot would get on the voice channel,” said Barencoin, and not to her. “I think he's shitting himself and waiting for incoming. I expect the wess'har know we're off-planet by now. There's a hell of a lot of chat from them on the ITX but I can't understand a word of it.”

Lindsay leaned back on the bulkhead out of habit, because nobody needed to lean anywhere in zero g. It was hard to find you were hated even more than Mohan Rayat.

She could hear Bennett and Barencoin talking in very low voices. She caught the words
bloody hero.
They might have been saying that they weren't going to play the
bloody hero
to save her arse, but she doubted it.

She knew damn well who they were talking about.

“
Gethes
shuttle,” said a voice from the ancient console. “We are from Umeh. I am Litasi.”

“Shuttle Charlie five niner echo, Umeh shuttle this is Shuttle Charlie five niner echo,” said Barencoin. “About time, over.”

The ussissi wasn't any better at radio procedure than Rayat. “I have a problem,
gethes,
” said the little reedy voice. “What have you done?”

“Umeh shuttle, I've got a 9mm round in my right quad and I want to go home,” said Barencoin. He looked at Lindsay: it was her job to do the diplomacy. “Want to talk to our boss, over?” There was no response, just the vague background sounds of cockpit activity. He eased himself out of his seat with some difficulty. The medication was wearing off. “Over to you, ma'am.” He pronounced the
ma'am
with the clear meaning of
arsehole.
“Don't forget to ask what's happened to Izzy and Chaz.”

It was coming her way. She never thought it was going to be easy. What was really bothering her was that she almost felt regret that Shan was gone. She didn't want to feel that at all.

“This is Commander Lindsay Neville, European Federal Navy. What's your problem, pilot?”

“We are neutral, perhaps in a way you cannot comprehend.”

“I know that.”

“But we are not fools.”

“Spit it out.”

“What?”

“Come to the point of this conversation.”

“You have used cobalt weapons and there is talk that your prisoners are
Shan Chail
and Vijissi.”

Lindsay paused. And this was the point at which she knew hell was about to shrug its shoulders and wander out for a spot of bother. She heard the word
cobalt.
For some reason it was more insistent than
prisoners.

“We have no prisoners,” she said at last. “They're dead. What did you say about cobalt?”

“You destroyed Ouzhari with a poisoned bomb. The bezeri are dying in great numbers. Now repeat what you said about prisoners.”

There was a very long silence. It was what Eddie called
dead air.
Lindsay felt her face become numb but her lips moved and she heard her own voice above the pounding in her temples.

“We used neutron devices. That's to confine the damage to the island. The area should be pretty well clear in a couple of days.”

“You lie. And I ask again, where are your prisoners?”

“They're dead.” It slipped out. She was more fixed on the word
cobalt.
“They're gone.”

The line went almost completely silent save for a slight crackling sound. “
Gethes,
I cannot receive you. You ask too much.”

Lindsay turned and looked at Rayat. It was all tumbling out of control too fast. “You heap of shit,” she said. “
That
was your straight ERD? What the hell have you got us into?” And before she knew what she was doing, she had spun to aim a roundhouse punch at him, a touch too fast in zero g. Barencoin caught her as her fist cracked against Rayat's face with half the force she had wished for. He grabbed her arm. “You bastard. You
lied,
you bastard.”

Rayat looked unconcerned. “You're naive, Commander. Never take vague assurances about technology. Remember how Frankland insisted on checking the camp defense cannon herself?” He pushed himself further away, as if reassured that Barencoin would stop her reaching for a weapon next. “And you punch
straight
for power, not round. You're confusing it with a
slap.
I would have thought you'd seen Frankland do
that
properly, too.”

I don't need reminding.

Lindsay held her free hand away in concession. Barencoin still had a tight grip on Lindsay's other forearm: a small cockpit was a dangerous place for a brawl.

“Cobalt? Fucking floor-cleaners?” he said. It was their tag for BNOs. He let go of her arm. “Oh boy. Are we in the shit now.”

Litasi's voice interrupted. “I suggest you set a course for your mother-ship now. Or perhaps the isenj will accept you on Umeh.”

Lindsay struggled to stop her voice cracking. “You work for the isenj.”

“And you have killed a ussissi. You make your way there alone.”

“We didn't kill him. He…”

“What,
gethes
?”

“He chose to stay with Shan Frankland.”

There was more dead air, dead
dead
air. Lindsay wished more than ever that she'd had the balls to pull those pins and blow her and Shan and anyone nearby to pieces. She'd been duped into using salted nuclear weapons. She'd unleashed an environmental catastrophe. She had all kinds of questions but right then the sheer enormity of the disaster overwhelmed her. The fact that she'd denied
c'naatat
to humanity was lost, buried under the tumbling rocks of realization.

“Will you accept a surrender?” said Bennett suddenly.

“Ade?” said Lindsay. Even Barencoin looked shocked. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Not you,” said Bennett. “
Me.
Pilot, I want to surrender to the wess'har authorities. Will you take me inboard?”

“Why?”

“I want to be tried for involvement in the death of two civilian prisoners.”

“Ade, for fuck's sake,” said Barencoin. “It was that stupid cow, not you. We stay together and we find Izzy and Chaz.”

Bennett pulled his bottle-green beret from his jacket. “Sorry, mate.” He shaped it on his head and hauled himself over to the hatch. He turned to look at Lindsay. “You going to stop me, ma'am?”

She had no idea what he was playing at. It wasn't a generous gesture to save them. She knew what he felt for Shan. This was revenge. She just didn't know how or why.

“They'll cut your bloody throat the minute you land,” she said. “We nuked Bezer'ej.”

“Fine by me, ma'am,” said Bennett.

Barencoin let go of her. “If we wait any longer, we'll have a wess'har patrol up our chuff. Let's thin out.
Now.
”

It was just Bennett. He could go, for whatever stupid sentimental reason he had to sacrifice himself. They could make it back to
Actaeon
under their own steam now. She knew it. One fewer pair of lungs to exhaust the oxygen. Fine. She had to concentrate on something.

“We accept his surrender,” said the child's voice that Lindsay knew belonged to a creature that could tear out her throat. “We will transfer him to the appropriate authority.”

Lindsay turned to Bennett. “Sod off, then.” He didn't matter. It was Rayat she needed to fix. She couldn't even begin to imagine what to do with him now, or what his objective really was. “Get a move on.”

Bennett saluted her mechanically. “You can't even swear like her,” he said. He adjusted his beret and pulled back the handle that opened the hatch to the lobby. Then he stepped in and closed it behind him. He appeared to be fumbling with it and there was a hiss of air on the intercom.

Lindsay stared through the softglass at him, uneasy.

“Bastard,” she said.

The next minute was a very, very long one. Eventually there was a faint scraping along the hull: the ussissi shuttle was docking, forming a temporary seal with the top hatch. Bennett began wiping his face clean of dried blood with the antiseptic pad from his medical kit, checking in the mirror of his camo compact like a girl.