Transition (46 page)

From the vantage point of a terrace a few metres higher and fifty metres away, Madame d’Ortolan, with Mr Kleist at her side,
watches the little party as it meanders closer. From a distance, Bisquitine looks quite normal, just a pretty plump blonde
in a rather old-fashioned long white dress, attended by four gentlemen and a lady-in-waiting.

“There are other people we might employ, ma’am,” Kleist says.

He has been waiting to say this. He might have said it a dozen times in the last day, but has held his tongue. She has been
waiting for him to say it.

“I know,” she tells him, still watching the sauntering progress of the little group. Bisquitine does not appear to have noticed
her yet. Her escort – handlers and guards – should have noticed them, if they are doing their job, but they show no sign either.
Madame d’Ortolan takes two steps back on the pink stones, only just keeping the approaching figure in sight. “How are Gongova
and Jildeep?”

Kleist ignores the question because he knows it is rhetorical, a comment rather than a request for information. “There are
others besides, before we need to resort to this… thing.”

“Indeed there are. But it will all take time, no matter what we do, and the next team we send, if we do not use our little
blonde friend here, will be seen as just another incremental escalation. He will probably be expecting that. We need to send
him somebody who will come as a deeply unpleasant surprise.”

“I am in no doubt that her deployment will produce a deeply unpleasant surprise or two.”

Madame d’Ortolan still doesn’t look at him, still keeps her attention focused on the distant white figure. “Possibly on our
own side as well, you mean.”

“That was what I wished to imply.”

“Message received, Mr Kleist.” Madame d’Ortolan squints, tips her head fractionally. “You know, I’m not sure I’ve seen her
in sunlight before,” she says, so quietly that Mr Kleist is not certain that she even means him to hear.

He supposes that what she says it true. They have seen the creature in laboratories, strapped to things like dentists’ chairs,
confined in small rubberised cages or tied to hospital beds, sometimes weeping, sometimes hysterical, more lately in states
of humming, unconcerned calm, or babbling nonsense, but always surrounded by muttering technicians wielding clipboards, electrodes
and meters, and rarely with a window even in sight, always in artificial light. And always, until now, physically restrained.

It has not always been pleasant to watch, but the girl’s powers – evident from birth but beyond control – have been heightened
and honed over time. Weaponised, you might say. Personally he thinks a little less time might have been devoted to raising
those abilities to their present admittedly formidable heights and a little more to making them easier to predict and control,
but Bisquitine, in her present form, is very much Madame d’Ortolan’s creation, and such timidity – as she would see it – is not
Madame d’Ortolan’s way.

“Hmm,” Madame d’Ortolan says. “She looks as though she has a touch of the mongrel about her, in this light.” She looks at
Mr Kleist. “Don’t you think?”

Mr Kleist makes the motion of looking. “I couldn’t say, ma’am.”

Madame d’Ortolan turns to look at the distant group again. She nods, shallowly. “An octoroon, or thereabouts, I’d say.”

There is a pause, then a sigh before Mr Kleist says, “Well, in any event, ma’am, if you truly are decided on this course,
we should waste no further time.”

Madame d’Ortolan flashes him a look, then relents, shoulders falling. “You’re right. I’m procrastinating.” She nods at the
steps leading down from the terrace. “We must seize the day,” she observes, patting her blouse frills flat against her jacket
lapels. A flower, gelded by Mr Kleist, lies limp upon her jacket breast. “And the nettle.”

As Kleist and Madame d’Ortolan approach, it becomes clear that the Lady Bisquitine has been collecting insects, snails and
little lumps of soil from the flower beds, and eating some of them. The rest she deposits in a drawstring posy purse hanging
from her waist. Her pretty little face, surrounded by a nimbus of bouncily blonde curls and kept clean and minimally made-up
by her forever fussing lady-in-waiting, sports brown streaks at the corners of her mouth until the lady-in-waiting – a thin,
black-dressed figure who moves like a stalking bird – wets a handkerchief with her mouth and, tutting, cleans the lips of her
charge.

Bisquitine stands still, staring at Madame d’Ortolan open-mouthed. Her face looks provisionally blank, as though she is a
young child confronted with something new and surprising and is trying to decide whether to put back her head and laugh, or
burst out crying. Two of her attendants, robust young men in a special uniform of dark grey and maroon, armed with automatic
pistols and electric shock guns, touch their caps to acknowledge the approach of the older and more senior woman. The other
two are more slight in comparison, informally dressed, and look bored. Both nod, all the same. The lady-in-waiting curtsies.

“Bisquitine, my dear,” Madame d’Ortolan says, stopping a couple of metres away and smiling at her. She never knows quite what
to do with her hands when she meets Bisquitine. To touch her, of course, could be dangerous. “How are you? You look well!”

The Lady Bisquitine continues to stare at Madame d’Ortolan. Then she looks absolutely delighted, her already pretty face splits
in a guileless smile and in a clear, bell-like, childish voice she sings:

“Ugby Dugby bought a new ball, Ugby Dugby played not at all. Ugby Dugby went for a spin, Ugby Dugby couldn’t get in!” She
nods proudly, once, for emphasis and then sits down where she stands, the skirts of her white brocade gown pooling around
her like spilled milk. With her tongue out of the side of her mouth, she takes a beetle out of her posy bag and starts to
pull its wing casings open, letting them click back while the protesting insect buzzes and jerks in her chubby, grubby fingers.

One of the bored, skinny attendants looks at Madame d’Ortolan and sighs. “Sorry, ma’am. Bit worse than usual recently.” He
shrugs, gazes down at Bisquitine, who has pulled one of the wing casings off entirely and is studying the wing inside, cross-eyed
with concentration. The young man smiles uncertainly at Madame d’Ortolan. He appears to be vicariously embarrassed.

“But still,” Madame d’Ortolan says, “potent, yes? Proficient. Capable.”

The other skinny young man blows out his cheeks and shakes his head. “Oh, be under no illusions, ma’am,” he says, “the lady’s
skills remain undiminished, oh yes.” He is squinting in the sunlight, rather as Mr Kleist is doing.

The first young man rolls his eyes. “We’ve had to stop her flitting half a dozen times since breakfast, ma’am.” He shakes
his head.

Bisquitine pulls the beetle’s other wing casing off and puts it between her teeth, tasting it. She makes a sour face and spits
the wing casing out onto the path, then leans over to let some spit dribble from her hanging-open lips. She wipes her mouth
with her sleeve, grunting.

Madame d’Ortolan looks measuredly at the lady-in-waiting. “Mrs Siankung, isn’t it?”

“Ma’am.” She curtsies again.

“We have need of the Lady Bisquitine’s services and unique talents.”

Mrs Siankung swallows. “Now, ma’am?”

“Now.”

“This is… more training, evaluation, yes?”

“No, it is profoundly not.”

“I see, ma’am.”

The lady-in-waiting, Kleist thinks, looks surprised. One might even say startled. And possibly also more than a little afraid.

The beetle is vibrating its wings noisily in a vain attempt to escape. Its large hornlike mouth parts, spasming in frantic
pincering movements, connect with one of Bisquitine’s fingers and nip. Bisquitine winces, frowns severely at the creature
and then pops it whole into her mouth and starts to eat, grimacing only a little. There are crunching noises.

The Transitionary

Something very fucking weird happens as I sit there in the main kitchen of the Palazzo Chirezzia, the spoonful of peas poised
in front of my mouth. I get the most transitory glimpse of something like a vast explosion – it looks frozen at first, then
I plunge into it or it whirls out to meet me and I can see its surface is a boiling mass – then I’m like some particle in a
cloud chamber battered by Brownian motion, trilling down through an infinitude of worlds all riffling past too fast to see
properly or count and then wham, I’m here, except I seem to have bounced part-way back out of where I really am, because I
swear I can see myself sitting there in the kitchen.

And I can see the whole palace. In three dimensions. It’s like the entire building is made of glass: roof tiles, stones, beams
and floorboards, carpets, wall coverings, furniture and even the piles that the whole place rests on – ancient warped tree trunks,
densely packed, twisted into the mud metres and metres beneath. I’m aware that all the components are there and I can still
tell what colour each is and see the patterns on things like the Persian rugs scattered through the building, but at the same
time I can see through everything. I can see the immediate surroundings, too: the buildings flanking the palazzo, also facing
the Grand Canal, the small canal to one side, the calles on the two other sides, plus I have a vague impression of the rest
of the city, but the fabric of the palace itself is patently where all my attention is focused.

Who the fuck is doing this? Am
I
doing this? It looked like I zoomed in from the outside of the whole meta-reality there, pinpointing in to this world, this
city, this building right here and now, all in under a second. I’ve talked to the top brain boys and girls at the Transitionary
Theory department in the Speditionary Faculty and what I saw looked like what they imagine in their heads all the time but
have great difficulty explaining. But it honestly felt like I was seeing it properly, truly, for real.

I inspect my newly revealed panorama and discover that I am not alone in the palace. There are some people entering from a
boat moored at the private jetty and what looks like another team bursting in through the front doors. I can even see the
air movements: the draught I felt a moment ago came from the canal-jetty doors. Then that detail disappears. Two teams, six
people each. They each have a team member capable of damping down the capacity to transition anywhere near them. I’m already
within both volumes of affect. More personnel: there are another four people guarding the ways out of the palace, and two
more in a second launch holding station in the Grand Canal just off the palace.

How did—?

I was out for nearly two hours after I performed my odd, inadvertent flit from the room with the chair and the quietly spoken
man and his sticky tape. Two hours; I had no idea I had been out so long. I also have no idea how I know this so certainly
now, but I do. Anyway, the point is that they’ve had plenty of time to prepare.

I wonder if my call to Ade, in London, pinpointed me. The thought has barely formed in my mind when I know that it didn’t;
using the phone from the supposedly deserted palace only confirmed what they already knew.

Both teams are splitting up, four members of each jogging and running through the palace in a clearly predetermined pattern,
heading for every part of it. Two people in each team stay together, near where they entered. They’re communicating by some
form of digital radio, encrypted. The transition-damping fields – in both cases coming from one of the two people in each team
who stayed near their point of entry, I can see now – stop them using any techniques exclusive to us. The comms equipment will
be local, just below the latest military spec in this world, to reduce the awkward-questions factor if they encounter any
local officialdom.

One of the men near the front doors, the one not responsible for the damping effect, is called Jildeep. He is operations commanding
officer as well as team leader. The woman standing near the jetty doors with the other blocker is called Gongova. She is Jildeep’s
deputy and second in command. Oh, and lover. Interesting but probably not relevant.

Somebody from Gongova’s team will burst into the kitchen where I am in about eight seconds. She is called Tobbing. Like the
rest she has some tracking ability. She will know that I’m the one they’re all looking for possibly even before she sees me;
she only needs to get to within about four metres of a transitioner to sense them. My, how high-powered this all is. I should
feel flattered.

Would you apply such a serious concentration of resources just to grab one off-message transitioner? I suppose you would,
if the “you” involved meant you were Madame d’Ortolan, you were trying to dispose of everybody on the Central Council who
disagreed with you – probably with the intention of mounting an utterly illegal and completely unprecedented coup – and the first
assassin sent to accomplish this dubious mission (I assumed I was the first, anyway) promptly made a start at bumping off
the people on the Council whom you regarded as your allies. You could see how that might make her cross.

But now I have this weird new power to add to the bizarre over-real flashbacks I’d been experiencing recently, not to mention
the still-lingering suspicion that I’d flitted without the benefit of septus the wonder drug. All somewhat confusing, but
highly interesting too.

I wonder, can I use my strange new sense to my advantage? I mean, you’d imagine.

How can this turn out? What can happen next?

The view of the palace splits suddenly into a blurring stack of further palaces, each subtly different.

I can concentrate on any one I wish to inspect. Ah. They’re alternative paths, different futures, the most likely quite clear,
the less and less likely more and more blurred until they’re just snow, pointless. I look at them each in turn. The people
in them – the members of the two teams searching the palace – are moving very slowly now, I notice, which is handy. Ms Tobbing
is very close to the kitchen door, all the same. I can hear a slow, heavy thud back in what we’ll have to call physical reality.
That’ll be one of her footsteps, that will. I can hear the echoes of the previous one still resounding.