“So when we turned up, you really thought it might have been us?”
“What else was I supposed to think?
“Okay. I can understand that. How did you do it?”
“Preparation. We set up an apartment, made it look lived in, created the electronic trail in an office and shops and everything. I had to have acting lessons as well.”
“How—?”
“Interactive software. I wasn’t very good. I ended up pretending to be someone from work.”
“I see…”
“There was this woman called Galts. She was so annoying… everyone in the office could do an impression of her, she was such an idiot. I shouldn’t talk like that about her, I mean she’s dead but… well, she was an idiot.”
“If it’s any consolation, we believed the performance.”
“Huh.”
“You fooled everyone. The clothes were a very nice touch as well. Perfect distraction.”
“That’s nice. Do I get an award?”
“We’re still looking at whether or not we can bring you back to the group.”
“Oh, great.”
15. Group
“I think, in conclusion,” said Iokan, “We don’t know enough about Liss to really judge her.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Olivia.
“I believe, however, that she is acting from an honest wish to do good.”
“So you don’t think she is on a quest for revenge?” said Kwame.
Iokan looked at him. “She may be.”
“And you count that as ‘good’?”
“If that’s what needs to be done.”
“Is she coming back?” asked Pew.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“Is it even possible?” asked Kwame.
“It may be. How would you feel about that?”
“Huh. Bloody good riddance, that’s what I say,” said Olivia.
“You’re assuming she’s who you thought she was,” said Iokan. “What if she isn’t?’
“Then she can bloody well go to prison for messing us about.”
“Don’t you want to know what she was up to?”
“Couldn’t care less.”
“I want to know,” said Pew.
“And I also. I would like to have a very long talk with her,” said Kwame.
“Dirty old man,” said Olivia, getting an irritated look back in return.
“Olivia. Please,” I said. She huffed and folded her arms. “Elsbet? How would you feel if Liss returned?”
She was still submerged in her own worries. “I don’t know… why do you need to ask me?”
“You’re a member of the group.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. We’d value your opinion.”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged.
“Okay. Iokan?”
“Of course. I’d love to see her come back. I think she needs us. It’s a terrible strain to work undercover like that. She needs our support.”
16. Liss
“Do you want to come back?”
“Is there anywhere else to go?”
“Only prison. We’d like to have you back, if you’re willing to come.”
She sighed. “What do they think?”
“They’ve agreed to it. You’re one of them.”
“I’m not.”
“They’re the only people who’ve been through anything like what you’ve been through. I said this when we started the group: you’re not exactly the same, none of you are. But you all have more in common with each other than anyone else.”
She didn’t reply.
“So do you want me to put things in motion?”
Grudgingly, she nodded.
PART EIGHT — DESIRE
1. Kwame
Liss waited in a holding cell while Security went through their procedures to decide whether or not they’d let her come back to us. I visited Dawa Dorje to explain what Liss had been through, and that she too was the last survivor of a dead nation. Dawa had, as a young man, harboured his own fruitless desire for revenge against those who destroyed Tibet, and withdrew his complaint against her. The Refugee Service offered generous compensation for the damage to his bar, and he was even allowed to keep his business licence on condition that he named his smuggling accomplices and agreed to thorough surveillance to prevent any relapse. Security were left with only the criminal charges to hold Liss on, but since psychiatric care was one of the prescribed sanctions for this sort of crime, it seemed likely she’d be back with the group fairly soon.
The summer went on at the centre. The colours of the forest grew richer while the rain dried up. The trees could cope, but Olivia wasn’t happy with the damage a couple of weeks of drought did to her garden. She spent ever more time among the shoots with a watering can, or plucking out the weeds that kept creeping up even when other plants were suffering.
The forecast for evacuations stayed quiet, though a new world had been added to the apocalypse watch: three commercial factions on the recently discovered world of Kreg were fighting a war that had been going on for centuries, and around which their entire economy revolved. They treated our emissaries with contempt, but were running out of resources to prosecute their pointless war. Their world looked grey and battered from space, the seas an oily poison. Even so, it might be decades before they finally faced up to the inevitable, and no one in the Refugee Service seriously expected an evacuation in the near future. I still had the time I needed to work with the group.
No word came from Bell until a brief message arrived saying he would be returning in a few days — just that, with nothing to explain why he’d been away so long, or any show of affection. But still, interversal messages are expensive, so perhaps he just wanted to keep his credit balance from plunging too far. Or maybe he was finding a way to leave me. Or he could have found someone else already. I theorised altogether too many reasons for his behaviour before I told myself to stop being a fool. I had to get on with my job, and there was news for Kwame.
We’d been monitoring his dreams for a few weeks, and had finally managed to piece together enough images to have something worth showing him. He was understandably nervous when I invited him to my office, and unable to keep his non-spill cup steady in his hands as I lowered the lights and activated the wallscreen.
“I have to warn you, this isn’t what you were expecting. It’s not what we were expecting either…”
“The process did not work?”
“The process worked. I’m not sure we got any images of your wife.”
“But I dreamt of her. Every night you were monitoring…”
“It’s probably best if I just show you what we have. If you’re ready.”
He nodded, and I went on. “This is the most complete sequence, although you’ll notice it’s very fuzzy round the edges, and we lose resolution several times. Are you sure you’re ready?”
He nodded. “I am ready.” I pressed play.
The video was silent. We had only been able to decipher the visual element, and even then the image quality was poor, with faint, washed-out colours. But unlike most dreams, the setting and scene were constant. This was not a spontaneous creation of the unconscious, but a memory stuck on playback.
The setting was a cell; filthy, rust-blotched metal walls and a heavy door that did not need a soundtrack for you to hear weighty clanks and slams. An industrial-age dungeon.
The point of view was locked in one place, but the eyes we saw through could look around, showing us the terrible, stained concrete floor and scratches in the walls where someone had tried to keep track of time before losing all hope. When the dream persona looked down, we saw he was sitting on a chair by himself, wearing mudstained green trousers of cheap cloth. Some of the stains might have been blood. His arms were not visible. They seemed to be bound behind his back in some way. I remembered how Kwame’s arms had gone around his back when he had his flashback in my office, and had little doubt he’d relived the same thing then.