The Ascendant Stars (17 page)

‘Stop,’ said a man’s voice from in front. ‘Stop – there!’

The man pushing the barrow stopped. Theo heard a steady mutter from him, low and semi-audible.

‘Turn left, no, to the left – is correct. Now continue further along.’

The shaking, lurching progress resumed. The other voice belonged to Strogalev, Theo was certain of it. Strogalev was a recent arrival yet Theo had seen him in Vashutkin’s company several times, usually when Vashutkin’s supporters were not around.

Until three days ago his uncertainty about the Rus politician had rested only on intuitive suspicion, nothing more. He had heard Vashutkin’s account of the perilous mission to Giant’s Shoulder, the battle against the rogue combat mechs, how the Zyradin helped Greg survive the onslaught, then how Greg made it to the Brolturans’ fortification and took a lift down to the warp-well. Or so Vashutkin reckoned. The Rus escaped the main force of mechs by descending the southern face of Giant’s Shoulder to a natural recess in the rock from which he was rescued by the zeplin
Har
not long after.

Everyone who heard it marvelled at the bravery and good fortune of those involved and was impressed by Vashutkin’s modesty and charisma. But Theo remained … uncertain. He had listened with the rest, took in the same dramatic tale and found himself unconvinced. He had wondered if it stemmed from the fact that he simply didn’t like the man (or did his dislike stem from his distrust?). In any case, this nebulous suspicion had hung over Theo’s
thoughts, neither intensifying nor dispersing until three days ago when he was approached by a Uvovo scholar, one of Chel’s secretive Artificers.

The Uvovo, whose name was Jofik, had asked Theo if Vashutkin suffered from any kind of mental illness, or perhaps some physical condition that would affect his personality. Mystified but intrigued, he had said he knew nothing about the man’s health or state of mind. Jofik had accepted this with a nod and seemed to consider it for a moment before explaining.

Some other Uvovo, he told Theo, had noticed oddities in Mr Vashutkin’s behaviour since his arrival at Tusk Mountain. Most Uvovo were curious to some degree about what Humans did and why, and a couple of chance observations of Mr Vashutkin had revealed an unusual trait. Nearly all Human faces, Jofik went on, were expressive of their thoughts, even when asleep. Mr Vashutkin’s face was strangely blank, though only when alone or asleep – when someone came to see him his features changed completely and were full of expression, only to lapse into slack blankness once he was alone again. And this was accompanied by long periods of inactivity, of him just sitting doing nothing.

Theo had been troubled by this. After returning from space, he had heard from one of the surviving Diehards about what the Hegemony ambassador had done to Greg during that brief incarceration, how he had been dosed with some offworld drug which loosened his tongue and turned him into a docile servant. Luckily, after Greg’s rescue, the Uvovo Chel had used strange forest roots to clean the drug out of his system. And after hearing Jofik’s account Theo started to wonder if the same thing had been done to Vashutkin. While speculating, he also found himself imagining the very worst possibility, that Greg’s body was lying among the jagged rocks at the base of Giant’s Shoulder.

Then yesterday came the news that the Forerunner platform down in the Hall of Discourse had apparently reactivated itself, and a grim anxiety had sent him straight there. Jofik had gone with him, insisting that if communication with Nivyesta was possible then perhaps they could find out if Greg had actually made
it safely to the moon. Once he was there, he found himself in a dialogue with a voice claiming to be that of the Zyradin entity (Theo had heard the tale of Robert Horst’s appearance, mortally wounded, carrying the Zyradin container). Although it was less a dialogue than the bodiless being delivering a set of coordinates and the command that the Tygran ship be sent to pick up Greg at a specific time the next day.

And that was today, which was also the day of the assault on the northern Spiral garrisons. Theo had persuaded Lieutenant Gideon to let him tag along and had looked forward to hearing the news of Greg’s safe retrieval via the Tygran’s field commset.

Instead here he was, bound and hooded, being wheeled into the wild to be shot in some secluded spot. He doubted very much that they were going to keep him prisoner.

Sorry, Greg, sorry, Rory, I should have been more careful. Sorry, Solvjeg, looks like I’ll not be coming home with my shield after all
…

Roughly ten minutes later Strogalev ordered a halt then told the other man to get Theo out of the wheelbarrow. After some clumsy manhandling he ended up sitting on damp, lumpy ground with his back against what felt like a tree trunk. The hood came off and he saw that they were slightly upslope from a shallow stream, and deep within dense forest. The humid dimness was relieved by the profuse clumps of glowing roots or insects clinging to trees and webs of vines, while the coin-shaped leaves of a nearby nighteye plant gave off a pale, milky radiance. Some creature high up in the canopy uttered a soft whooping call and insects swooped and spun, creaked and hummed.

Strogalev was standing beside the nameless mumbling man, showing him how to use a long-barrelled handgun. Seeing how difficult this was proving, Theo decided to do some stress-testing.

‘So what am I having for my last meal?’ he said. ‘Baro steak would be nice, maybe washed down with some Black Mountainside ale, eh?’

Strogalev gave him a dark look but continued trying to get the other man to understand his instructions.

Theo shrugged. ‘Hey, well. Condemned man, he is supposed to be allowed a final request, you know … ’

No response.

‘How about a pipe? Do you have a pipe and some tobacco? Or even a cigarette would do.’

Nothing.

‘Well, do you have some pen and paper? – I said,
do you have any

Strogalev’s head snapped round, fury in his face.

‘I heard you! And no, there is no pipes or cigarettes or pen or paper so shut your mouth!’

‘Shame, that. I really want to make up my last will … ’

‘Okay, okay, now I’m going to shut you up!’ Strogalev gestured at the other man, who was holding the gun in both hands. ‘Do it now – shoot him dead.’

The other man, who was wearing only a shirt and trousers, stumbled forward, waxy face slack, the eyes full of confusion, outstretched hands holding the gun. The mouth worked, muttering, ‘Kill him, shoot him, pull the trigger, just pull it, fire the gun, shoot him.’ Then he slowed, the arms lowering, the mouth gaping in a soundless cry, eyes spilling tears as he began shaking his head. Strogalev uttered an angry curse, wrenched the gun out of the strange man’s fingers and from about ten feet raised and aimed it at Theo’s head. Theo stared back at him.

Strogalev spat on the ground. ‘Couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could … ’

Theo was on the point of desperately throwing himself sideways when a shot rang out, blood sprayed from Strogalev’s right temple and he spun and sprawled on the grassy slope. Theo stared at the corpse for a frozen second before looking across the stream, searching the undergrowth for signs of the shooter. For a moment he thought he saw a form ducking behind curtains of greenery, then he heard movement from nearby. Looking back, he saw the other man sitting next to Strogalev with the gun in his hand once more.

There were footsteps behind him, rustle of grass, a hand on his
shoulder. He glanced and was amazed to see his sister, Solvjeg, crouching down next to him. She forestalled his first words with a finger raised to her lips then pointed. Theo looked round and saw a man in dark hunter greens approaching with a rifle aimed at the man sitting by Strogalev’s body. Still muttering to himself, the man suddenly put the gun down. Solvjeg meanwhile had severed the bonds at Theo’s wrists and gave him a short knife with which he freed his ankles. The man with the rifle drew nearer, still holding it on the mumbling man. He wore a black woollen cap and had several days of stubble but Theo suddenly recognised him – it was Ian Cameron, his nephew and Greg’s older brother.

‘Nice to see you again, Ian,’ he said.

‘Aye, likewise, Uncle … ’

Then the man picked up the gun again. Holding it two-handed with the barrel dipping, his intense, panicky gaze switched back and forth between Theo and Ian.

‘Put down the gun,’ said Ian. ‘Put it down and move away.’

‘Easy, it’s easy, shoot him, pull it, easy … not easy, not good, not right, don’t pull the trigger, don’t shoot … ’ The gun was being lowered shakily to the grassy ground. ‘ … it is easy, it is good, the right thing, pull the trigger, good and easy, shoot him, kill him … ’ Fingers tightened and the gun came back up again.

‘If you don’t put it down,’ said Ian levelly, ‘I will shoot and kill you.’

The man looked up at him, suddenly cold and focused.

‘You may not. Only I am permitted.’

Before anyone could react, the man jammed the barrel under his chin and pulled the trigger. The report was loud and a sickening gout of gore sprayed the undergrowth behind him. The bullet’s impact knocked him onto his back. Ian lowered his weapon, walked over and crouched between the two bodies. To Theo’s surprise, Solvjeg went to join him and displayed no signs of squeamishness.

Well, now, sister, what’s happened to you in the last few weeks?

Moving to peer over their shoulders, Theo saw that Ian was ignoring Strogalev and instead examining the suicider’s corpse,
prodding the skin around the neck and shoulders, then chest and back. After a few minutes of this Ian straightened, frowning.

‘No sign of any implant,’ he said.

‘But the behaviour is the same,’ said Solvjeg. ‘There was control, and he was fighting it throughout.’

Ian shrugged. ‘No implants or grafts as far as I can see without an autopsy. If he was under control then it was something different.’

‘Would anyone care to explain this to me?’ Theo said.

Solvjeg stood and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Of course, Theo, I’m sorry.’

He smiled at her. ‘You look too grim, sister, which means that the meaning of this is grim enough to suit the times, eh?’

‘That is putting it mildly,’ she said.

‘Back in the Eastern Towns,’ Ian said, ‘we had discovered a few spies working for the Brolts, unscrupulous backwoodsmen usually. Then we cornered one who died in a shootout and when he was autopsied the surgeon found webs of fine wiring running from subdermal implants to the brain stem and the optic centres. We had never seen anything like this before, and we guessed that the Brolts had wired them up as intelligence gatherers.’

‘A couple of days ago,’ Solvjeg said, ‘we heard that a bomb went off at a boatyard in Byelygavan, killing four people and almost destroying the yard. They found a body in the wreckage, which turned to have several implants in its chest and arms. It made me think of the AI War waged by the founders … ’

‘But that’s not what we’re dealing with here, is it?’ said Theo, who then went on to tell them about the deadly enslaving dust that Kuros had used on Greg and which, he now suspected, had been used on Vashutkin too. ‘My guess is that Vashutkin, or the thing controlling him, transferred some of that dust from his bloodstream to that of this unfortunate.’

‘If Vashutkin is using this stuff to create a web of spies,’ Ian said, ‘where did our implanted spies and bombers come from?’

Theo frowned. ‘That drittsekk Kuros is apparently holed up in a base north of Trond – perhaps he’s responsible.’ He looked
down at the two bodies. ‘Strogalev didn’t seem like the other one – have you looked him over?’

Ian shook his head, checked the Strogalev corpse, head, neck, chest and arms like before, then shrugged. ‘Nothing. Looks like he was a voluntary minion. Is Vashutkin up at Tusk Mountain the now?’

‘No, he’s going along on the raid,’ Theo said. ‘The plan was to reach the northern farms by late afternoon so they’ll be away by now.’

‘Theo, it’s late afternoon now,’ his sister said. ‘What time did you think it was?’

Theo was startled at this, then alarmed as he fumbled for the watch he kept in an inside pocket. And there it was – 5.23 p.m.

‘My God, they’ll be passing the Glensturluson daughter-forest by now. I should have been with them to keep my eyes on Vashutkin!’ He buttoned his jacket. ‘We have to get back to Tusk Mountain – I need to know that nothing has gone wrong, and we need to tell the others about these spies. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

There was a grimness in Ian’s face, while Solvjeg seemed burdened and pale. ‘That is part of the reason,’ she said. ‘We’re also here to explore a possible pact with a splinter group of the Spiralists. But mainly we’re here to see Greg, if he’s … ’

‘That’s another reason for us to hurry back,’ Theo said, summarising what he had learned about how Greg ended up carrying the Zyradin to Nivyesta. Solvjeg relaxed a little on hearing that her son was due back on Darien soon. ‘I know that he’ll be very happy to find you waiting for him, although it must be important for you both to leave the safety of the Hrothgars … ’

Solvjeg exchanged an anguished look with Ian and Theo knew.

‘It’s Ned,’ Ian said. ‘He was one of the ones who died at the boatyard.’

Theo sighed – Ned, the youngest of the three Cameron boys, Ned the doctor, who was also Ned the poker player and Ned the cartoon-drawer. And Ned the home help for seniors, a side of himself he’d shared only with his uncle. Now gone, effaced, erased.