'Not again,' said a voice by her ear.
Acturus Terminal (Stunnel Terminus)
Old Sam was moving, really moving, way beyond the normal human range. As they moved up on the galleria he was almost too fast for the eye to catch.
'Jesus, Sam,' hissed Dogface, 'slow down, will you?'
Old Sam came to a sudden halt by the entrance and stood rock still. 'Slow enough?' There was a manic edge to his voice.
'Are you wired?' asked Lambada.
'Just some Doberman,' said Old Sam.
Blondie heard Lambada swearing under her breath. Ahead galleria was in darkness, the entrance a pitch black rectangle. Blondie didn't think it was a good place for Old Sam, not with him cranked up on Doberman.
'Don't worry,' said Old Sam, 'it's good stuff.'
'It's not the bloody quality I'm worried about,' said Lambada. 'Where's it from?'
'I scored it off Blondie's girlfriend,' Old Sam grinned at Blondie, 'didn't I?'
They all turned to stare at Blondie who blushed.
'Never mind that,' said Dogface to Old Sam. 'How are you feeling?'
'Fast and mean!' said Old Sam.
'You can go first then,' said Lambada.
'OK,' said Old Sam and vanished into the darkness.
Lambada glared at Blondie.
'How was I supposed to know?' said Blondie.
'He'll be all right,' said Dogface.
'It's not him I'm worried about,' said Lambada, 'it's us. What if he has a flashback?'
'I haven't had a flashback in ten years,' said Old Sam from just behind them. Lambada jerked round and grabbed Sam by his lapels.
'Don't do that!'
'Sorry,' said Old Sam and Lambada let go.
'Well?' asked Dogface.
'The galleria's clear of targets,' reported Old Sam. 'I haven't been into the station yet.'
'No people?' asked Lambada.
'That's what I said,' said Old Sam.
'You said targets.'
'People, targets.' Old Sam shrugged. 'What's the difference?'
Dogface linked with Credit Card back at the Olympus West and told him to put on the emergency lights.
'Up in thirty seconds,' said Credit Card.
Ming broke into the link. 'Well?'
'We're going in as soon as the lights are on,' said Dogface. 'Any word from the KGB?'
'Nothing from them or Viking Security.'
'Lights are up,' said Credit Card.
'Call you back, Ming,' said Dogface.
Old Sam led them across the empty galleria. Dogface and Blondie in the middle with Lambada bringing up the rear. Dogface kept his fingers in contact with the portable link box.
'What's that smell?' asked Lambada.
It came from the Kwik-Kurry franchise. A ten-litre pot of curried goat was beginning to bum. Lambada turned off the stove, 'No one here.'
Dogface stuck his finger into the pot and tasted it. 'Maybe they didn't like the goat.'
'Come off it,' said Lambada, 'everyone loves goat.'
'Goat Flavouring,' said Dogface.
'Whatever,' said Lambada.
'Did you check the concourse?' Dogface asked Old Sam.
'Nothing.'
'Credit Card,' said Dogface.
'Yo.'
'Tell Ming we're going in now.'
Kings Cross (Central Line)
'Where does that tunnel go?' said the voice at Kadiatu's ear.
'Let go,' said Kadiatu and the fingers relaxed their grip on her hair. In her mind Kadiatu had constructed a huge man with oiled biceps capable of lifting her one-handed, but when she turned his hat was level with her shoulders.
'Who are you?'
The man ignored her and gazed down to the far end of the station and the tunnel gateway. The tip of his red-handled umbrella tapped insistently on the platform. 'That tunnel,' he said, 'where does it go?'
Blue paint was splattered in a long irregular line down the length of the platform. Kadiatu squatted down and reached out a hand to touch it. Her hand was trembling.
'Don't,' said the man.
The paint was wet and sticky, roughened by the thin layer of grit that covered the formed concrete of the platform. She picked up a small lump between her thumb and forefinger. It felt like a hardened composite, the edges had run like wax. It was a chunk of the inspector's body armour.
Kadiatu stood up fast, the lump falling from her hand on to the trackway below to sizzle for a moment on the friction field. Her shoulders jerked backwards as if trying to distance her body from the stain on her fingers. Bile clawed its way up her throat as her body began to shake itself to pieces.
The slap was hard enough to snap her head sideways,
'Better?' asked the man.
Kadiatu nodded. Her cheek was stinging, there was a hint of blood in her mouth. 'Who are you?'
'I'm the Doctor,' said the man.
He was shorter than her but Kadiatu felt that he looked down on her from a greater height. In the flat station lights she couldn't tell what colour his eyes were.
'Doctor of what?'
'Everything,' said the Doctor.
She could see his eyes now, they were a vivid angry brown. They seemed to track across her face, as palpable as a rastascan. 'What are you staring at?'
'Nothing,' said the Doctor. 'Where does that tunnel lead?'
'Eventually?'
'That would do for a start.'
'Pluto.'
'How do I get there?'
'Wait for the next train,' said Kadiatu.
The Doctor looked back at the tunnel gateway. 'Next time I'm going to find a better place to park.'
'What?'
'Well,' said the Doctor. 'I've kept you long enough, I'm sure you have things to do, people to see.' He pulled out a gold watch on a fob chain and checked the time. He glanced idly down the platform again before looking down to examine his shoes. The umbrella restarted its tattoo on the grimy concrete.
'Why are you still here?' he said after a moment.
'I'm waiting for the train,' said Kadiatu. She risked a glance sideways at the Doctor. He was scowling at the wall opposite. He nodded in an abstracted fashion.
You saved my life, thought Kadiatu, and now you're pretending I don't exist.
'Sorry,' said the Doctor without looking round, 'It was an accident.'
'What do you mean, an accident?'
'It's a reflex of mine,' said the Doctor. 'I see someone in danger and I try to save them. I can't help myself.'
Kadiatu nodded at the blue splatter along the platform. 'What about him?'
For an instant a spasm of real pain crossed the Doctor's face 'You were closer,' he said. 'When's the next train?'
Kadiatu glanced at the indicator holo. It said 'Check Destination on Front of Train' - not a good sign.
'Don't hold your breath,' she told him.
'I'll try not to.'
'I need a drink,' said Kadiatu suddenly. 'How about you?'
Acturus Terminal (Stunnel Terminus)
The station had been swept clean of people. Blondie's shoes stuck with every step in the sticky blue stuff that covered the floor and splattered the walls. The Stunnel gateway was a spinning copper gong nailed to the far wall.
Dogface had his arm around Old Sam's shoulders. The veteran was shaking badly, there was a weasel madness in his slotted eyes. Dogface was talking low and fast, trying to get Old Sam off whichever memory shore he'd beached on Lambada was assembling an industrial calibre hypo, her face fixed into a concentrated grin as she clipped it together. When the device was complete she walked up behind Old Sam, placed its blunt head against his thigh and squeezed the trigger. The hiss went on for a long time, and when it finished Old Sam toppled over with a look of intense happiness fixed on his face.
'Doberman,' said Lambada disgustedly.
Blondie found something protruding from the blue.
'What's this?'
Lambada had a look. 'Portable comms link.'
'D
id someone drop it?'
Lambada and Dogface exchanged worried looks. 'Blondie,' said Lambada, 'it's an internal unit. It's implanted and runs parallel to the spinal column.'
Under the skin.
'What is this stuff?' asked Dogface.
'I don't know,' said Lambada.
'Look at the splatter patterns, they all radiated from the gateway.'
'As if something came through and ...' Lambada made a sweeping motion with her hands. They ended up looking into the entrance gateway to the Central Line extension.
'Yeah,' said Dogface, 'but why blue?'
'I don't know.'
'I don't get it,' said Blondie. 'Where is everyone, where's the President?'
'I think we're standing in them,' said Dogface.
Translonian
The Worthing-Le Havre branch line was operating close to normal so Kadiatu and the Doctor rode the train to Caen and changed on to the Fracais-Sardegna Feeder. People were riding the long blue commuter trains and Kadiatu began to feel normal again. The Doctor was quiet all the way to Porto Torres, which at least gave her a good ten minutes' thinking time. Not that she thought of anything much.
'Where are we now?' asked the Doctor.
'Sardinia.'
'Really?'
'Yes.'
'How extraordinary,' said the Doctor. 'Where are we going now?'
'We're going to ride the Connection.'
The Translonian should have been a feeder route, shiny blue trains should have shuttled commuters from the sea cities of the Ionian sea, but the floating cities were never built, just the anchor points and the transit stations underneath. Now it was good for nothing except a slow crawl to Athinai. Whatever had swept through Kings Cross wasn't going to travel this line. Only dealers and punters rode the Connection.
An ancient Korean single-carriage train was waiting with its doors open. Green paint peeled off the superstructure, its windows were opaque with dirt, the inside smelt strongly of sweat and urine.
Kadiatu warned the Doctor not to sit down.
At the rear of the compartment a filthy bundle of rags unfolded, and yellow eyes glared at them from under a leather slouch hat.
'Who's that?' asked the Doctor.
'That's the conductor.'
The conductor grunted in their direction before shambling over to the open doorway. When he leaned out Kadiatu caught a glimpse of gunmetal blue slung beneath his jacket.
'Anymore for anymore,' shouted the conductor.
Satisfied that no one else was boarding, the conductor collapsed back into his seat. The doors closed with a wheeze of ageing hydraulics and the train lurched off towards the gateway. There was a jolt as the carriage penetrated the interface, shafts of light strobed through the imperfect shielding. The seats were too sticky to sit on, so Kadiatu and the Doctor hung on to the straps against the train's erratic motion.
'First stop,' called the conductor from the back. 'Women's clothing, lingerie, pharmaceuticals.'
The train slowed as it entered the first station but it didn't stop. Instead the doors cranked open on override as they coasted slowly through. On the platform crowds of people milled around stalls and bundles of merchandise. The smell of cheap perfume wafted inside the carriage. A woman jumped nimbly onboard near the front of the carriage, and somebody on the platform started throwing bundles of cloth which she caught. By the end of the station she had a small pile stacked on the seats beside her. There was another jolt, the doors closed and they were in the tunnel again. The woman looked over at Kadiatu and the Doctor but didn't say anything. That was the cardinal rule of the connection - no business on the train.
'Second stop,' called the conductor. 'Sporting goods and leisurewear.'
Again the train coasted through a station with its doors jammed open. This time two Vriks jumped on, a boy and a giri high-caste Brahmin types with short black hair and grey eyes The girl stacked her long board along the seats, the boy kepi hold of his beatbox, hefting it like a weapon.
'Who are they?' asked the Doctor.
'Free surfers,' said Kadiatu. The Doctor must really be outsystem not to know that. 'What's the matter,' she called to the Vriks, 'cracked board or has the music stopped work ing?'
The girl snarled at Kadiatu who kissed her teeth in return.
'Manners,' said the Doctor to no one in particular.
The Vriks grabbed their straps as the train lurched off into the next tunnel. The Vriks had wild eyes from too muct unshielded transit, the rich kid's lifestyle, live fast and die flat against an oncoming train.
'Third stop,' called the conductor. 'Catamites, courtesans and computer processing.'
'Time to get off,' Kadiatu told the Doctor as the doors opened. With a brief wave at the Vriks she jumped from the carriage. She came down harder than she meant and stumbled; behind her the Doctor landed on the platform like a cat.
There were no stalls set up on the station platform, instead flickering holograms above the exits pulled at the eye. Looking at them made Kadiatu feel hot and bothered. Probably packed with subliminals, thought Kadiatu and glanced back to see how the Doctor was doing. He'd stopped to look at one of the holograms. It showed a woman in abbreviated Ice-Warrior armour chained against a wall of folded neon. The thrust of her hips promised aggression and imminent violation. 'Ice Maiden's' famous logo, the iconography of the thousand days war. The Doctor's face was intent as he examined the hologram, not aroused, merely curious as if the writhing figure was an anthropological exhibit.
'What about love?' said the Doctor.
What about love? Love was a black rose and a missing moneypen, a rip off waiting for you to drop your guard.
'Sex and death are pretty close. I guess,' said Kadiatu.
'Only in humans,' said the Doctor.
Ice Maiden's entrance was through the far exit and up a ramp. At the door a joyboy in leather skintights stood in their way. 'Buying or selling?' he asked.
'What do you think?'
The joyboy nodded at the Doctor. 'What about Daddy?'
'Who knows?' said Kadiatu and walked past.
The original Ice Maiden had been an R&R stop in Jacksonville - halfway up Olympus Mons. A good place for the grunts to chill out after their duty tours in the chaotic terrain and shrieking winds of the Valles Marineris. And Francine, who'd done two and a half tours with the 31st, had recreated it under the ocean, right down to the puff concrete walls and rusty blast doors.
'Interesting place for a drink,' said the Doctor.
'Not here,' said Kadiatu, 'Drinks later, business first.'
Behind the bar was a big woman, almost as tall as Kadiatu and dressed in the same stylized Ice-Warrior gear as the joyboy outside. 'Tasteless,' said the Doctor.
'Where's Francine?' Kadiatu asked the woman.
'Who wants to know?'
'A friend of the family.'
'I didn't know that Francine had a family.'
'That's why you're working the bar,' said Kadiatu, 'and I'm asking the questions.'
The antechamber round the back had a gun hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier. It was an electric autogun, a cluster of rotating barrels suspended on a gimbled stanchion. An unnecessary mass of pressure leads at the top hissed as the gun tracked Kadiatu and the Doctor around the room. Francine could have installed hidden lasers in the light fittings, but she wanted her visitors to know that they were under her sights. The gun was a fashion statement.
A door opened in the far wall.
Kadiatu told the Doctor to stay where he was and went in. Francine was lying with her eyes closed on a divan in the centre of the room.
'Hallo, Aunty,' said Kadiatu.
The mobile half of Francine's face formed into a smile.
'Kadiatu,' she said, 'you got big.'
Kadiatu knelt down by the divan and put her arms around the old woman. Francine caught hold other braids and playfully shook her head. 'I suppose it was bound to happen,' her hand traced the contours of Kadiatu's face, 'still got
your daddy's nose though.'
The angel Francine.
Falling from orbit with the thin Martian air screaming across her wings. Terminal dives into the twisting canyons of the Noctis Labyrinthus with a bellyful of tactical nukes. Knitted into the cockpit, her mind blitzed on Dobennan and Heinkel the air turbulence lit up like neon, doing the missions too dumb for the smart weapons.
Lost it in the east over the Gangis Chasma, shaking apart in the grip of a pop-up cannon - one of those little oversights by military intelligence. Francine fighting all the way down to the dunes, the violet sky whirling around her. Dying amidst her broken wings of carbon fibre.
It was Kadiatu's father that pulled her out, holding the LZ clear for a swift medevac back to the world. Riding up on the running board, so the story went, bagging Greenies all the way.
Francine opened white marble eyes and looked at Kadiatu.
'Who's the man?'
Rumour said that Francine's eyes were coded into the high ultraviolet and low infrared, nothing in the visible spectrum at all. Kadiatu wondered what it was like living in the world of the invisible.
'Calls himself the Doctor,' said Kadiatu.
'He the problem?'
'No.'
'Money trouble?'
Kadiatu told Francine about the deal with Max, about the moneypen gone missing in a park outside the Forbidden City. 'You want this Blondie bagged?' asked Francine. Kadiatu hoped she was joking and said no, she'd take care of that herself. Francine offered some walking-around money and promised to put a trace on the moneypen.
As Kadiatu was leaving Francine said one more thing. 'You might ask your friend what he needs two hearts for?'
The Stop
I'm not going to do that again, thought Benny, whatever it was that I did. She was unwilling to move her head just yet, above her a shaft three metres across vanished upwards into the gloom. It was lit by a single strip of xenon lighting that tinted the walls the colour of ancient gunmetal. Half way up, the xenon strip was broken by a rectangular shadow. Facing it on the other side of the shaft was an identical door-shaped hole. Even from where she was lying Benny could see that the edges of both holes were razor clean, the kind of cut a force field makes. They were two, maybe two and half metres tall, about a metre wide and at least twenty metres up the shaft.