Gerard pinged his implant to remind him to call Gracie Lane when he got to the city. Vatta’s spy service, Stavros called her, though her title on the books was special assistant to the chairman.
“Expecting company?” the pilot asked suddenly.
“What?” Gerard turned; his pilot was staring into the limpid afternoon sky.
“My implant says the airfield’s scans have picked up two unidentified aircraft. Coming in from the east.”
From the great ocean? That made no sense. The regular inter-island passenger plane for the mainland had already been and gone, and anyway they didn’t overfly this end of the island. East of Corleigh, the next inhabited island chain was the Merrill Archipelago, and its air traffic avoided the fifteen-hundred-kilometer gap, flying south to the Rim Reef, then back west along it. Between Merrill and here were only a few uninhabited chunks of rock, recently emerged and sometimes temporary volcanic peaks.
His implant, not linked to the private airfield’s minimal scans, fought its way through the safety lockouts, but by the time he had access to the airfield scans, he could see the two tiny dots rapidly growing larger and hear their thin whine.
“Gaspard, do you have any idea—” he began; then his implant squealed a warning relayed from the airfield scans. Weapons. Those little flying things had weapons—he whirled, started to run toward the office building beyond the airfield.
“No! Sir, get down!” Gerard paid no attention, but his pilot, younger and faster, tackled him just short of the grass verge. He hit the ground hard, furious… the snarling whine overhead much louder now, coming at him. Fear soured his mouth; he covered his head with his hands, realizing how useless that was.
His implant threw up visuals of the things—windowless, short-winged, unmanned—just before the flash of light, the noise, the blow of rushing air and debris that rolled him over and over on the tarmac, then the second flash, the second boom and roar much fainter.
He blinked, rolled to his knees. Gaspard gripped his shoulders; the pilot, already on his feet, was pale as cheese curds. Ahead, the office building was a mass of flames and roiling black smoke. And beyond, to the right, where the house, the comfortable home had stood—a column of flame and smoke.
“Myris!” he said. “San!” He wrenched free of Gaspard and ran to the office first because it was closer. He was aware of Gaspard running beside him, though he could not hear his footsteps through the roaring in his ears and the clamor of the flames.
Someone staggered out, ahead of him, and Gerard slowed to look. One of the clerks, white-rimmed eyes staring out of a smoke-blackened face. “What—?”
“Take care of her,” Gerard said to his pilot. “Call—” But emergency services for this end of the island were housed in the other end of the building. If they had survived they’d already be at work. “Call back to the town. Medical. Call the city—warn Stav—” Two more figures staggered out, one half carrying the other; Gerard moved toward them.
“You have the skullphone,” Gaspard yelled to him.
He blinked against the stinging smoke. Yes. He did. Mental fingers fumbling with the shock, he called his brother.
“Gerry?” Stavros answered. “What’s wrong—aren’t you coming in this afternoon?”
“Evacuate the building,” Gerard said.
“What?”
“Someone’s just dropped bombs on us here on Corleigh,” Gerard said. “Some kind of drone plane thing. Clear headquarters—they’ll hit there next.”
“I just got an ansible call about some trouble on Allway,” Stavros said. “Connections?”
A burning cinder landed on Gerard’s hand; he flicked it off. “Certainly. Clear the building, damn it.”
“I’ve already hit the alarm, Gerry. They’re going. It takes time, you know.”
They didn’t have time. He knew that, even as he closed on the fiery maelstrom and tried to steel himself to go in and help survivors.
“Put out an allsystems warning. Let our people know…”
“Right. On it. Are you all right?”
“I’m alive. I’ve got to get in there and see if San—”
“Gerry—don’t. Let the rescue squad—”
“It’s gone,” Gerard said. As the afternoon breeze pushed the column of smoke to one side, he could see that the bomb had hit on that end of the office building.
“Myris?”
“The house was hit. I don’t know. She was going out to swim after lunch; I pray she did.” If even the pool would be enough protection. And that still meant the household staff, cleaning up after lunch. He squeezed his eyes shut a moment, and said a short, fervent prayer. “Stav—I heard what you said. They’re leaving. You leave, too. Get in the bunker.”
“I will,” Stavros said. “When I’m through. I’m sending out the allsystems warning now… all right. I’m leaving it to a volunteer, I’m moving.”
It was too hot, the flames burning his face meters from the fire itself. He had just remembered the fuel storage tanks for the emergency vehicles when the next explosion threw him off his feet, onto something sharp and hard, and the next three tossed more of the building his way, debris as effective as any other form of shrapnel.
He was just waking up when Gaspard and old George dug him out of the pile. His left side hurt with every breath. A rib, he suspected, or two. He coughed, and the pain stabbed deep. Smoke still billowed from the wreckage, but most of the flames had blown out… stubs of walls, spikes of unidentifiable framing members. With the survivors—pitifully few—he stared at the ruin. Somewhere in there was San, his only son onplanet. Surely dead… he turned away, unwilling to look anymore.
Gaspard stayed with him as he staggered toward the house. Here nothing was left but a hole in the ground; the gardens were covered with debris; a single flowering spray of luchis orchids curled up from beneath a window frame, still unwilted. They made their way around to the back, where parts of the roof had breached the garden wall. A mat of debris floated on the water of the big pool… shards of wood, sheets of paper, bits of cloth, fronds of jabla still pink with bloom, and wide leaves of the haricond like rafts, each with its own burden of grit and unidentifiable pieces. Some sank as he watched, as the wind ruffled the surface.
He was on his knees on the edge of the pool, mouth stuffed with fear and anguish, unable to call her name, unable to see. Someone was crying, someone was saying her name, someone’s hands were wet, the water stinging the burns. Someone was pulling at her shoulder, struggling to get her face out of the water, ignoring the red streaks turning pink in the dirty water.
And then he was lying back against someone, someone talking to him, and he could see her lying in the sun as it dimmed and brightened with the whirls of smoke blowing past. Water pooled under her, water stained red, and she did not turn her head to him, did not cry out, did not ask what happened.
Someone put a flask to his lips. He smelled the sharp edge of whiskey he didn’t want, but he sipped because his throat was dry and then nearly choked because it was raw, pain almost as sharp as that in his heart. He smelled clean earth and onions, and saw that the hands of the person he lay against were crusted with earth and a shred of green. A gardener. His mind seemed to float, slowly noticing, slowly combining what it noticed.
Then it all came together. Attacks. Explosions. The house and his wife gone. The office and his son gone. He had warned Stavros. He had to—he tried to sit up, and his ribs stabbed him again. The hands behind him helped, lifted.
“They’re dead,” he heard himself say. His ears still rang; his voice sounded tinny. “They’re all—who’s alive?”
Gaspard had the list. Soler, Tina, Vindy from the clerk’s section. Bonas, who had been in the toilets on the end not directly hit. Gaspard. Old George. All three gardeners. Little Ric, who had been sweeping the front porch and drive, and been blown into the ornamental grove of palms and jablas that the drive circled.
Everyone was watching the sky; he had to do something, start sorting things out.