‘I hear you.’ The demolition expert’s voice came thrumming back on the rig, detached and edged with a smirk. ‘There’s nothing back here.’
‘Of course there isn’t,’ commented Wardani, to nobody in particular.
‘…some kind of circular clearing, about twenty metres across, but the rocks look strange. Kind of fused.’
‘That’s improvisation,’ said Hand impatiently into the rig mike. ‘The MAI’s guessing at what’s in there.’
‘Ask him if there’s anything in the middle,’ said Wardani, kindling her cigarette against the breeze off the sea.
Hand relayed the query. The answer crackled back over the set.
‘Yeah, some kind of central boulder, maybe a stalagmite.’
Wardani nodded. ‘That’s your gate,’ she said. ‘Probably old echo-sounding data the MAI reeled in from some flyby area recon a while ago. It’s trying to map the data with what it can see from the orbital view, and since it’s got no reason to believe there’s anything in there but rocks—’
‘Someone’s been here,’ said Hand, jaw set.
‘Well yes.’ Wardani blew out smoke and pointed. ‘Oh, and there’s that.’
Anchored in the shallows a few hundred metres along the beach, a small, battered-looking trawler wagged back and forth in a longshore current. Her nets spilled over the side like something escaping.
The sky whited out.
It wasn’t quite as rough a ride as the ID&A set had been, but still, the abrupt return to reality impacted on my system like a bath of ice, chilling extremities and sending a shiver deep through the centre of my guts. My eyes snapped open on the expensive empathist psychogram art.
‘Oh, nice,’ I grumbled, sitting up in the soft lighting and groping around for the ’trodes.
The chamber door hinged outward on a subdued hum. Hand stood in the doorway, clothing still fully not closed up, limned from behind by the brightness of normal lights. I squinted at him.
‘Was that really necessary?’
‘Get your shirt on, Kovacs.’ He was closing his own at the neck as he spoke. ‘We’ve got things to do. I want to be on the peninsula by this evening.’
‘Aren’t you overreacting a li—’
He was already turning away.
‘Hand, the recruits aren’t used to those sleeves yet. Not by a long way.’
‘I left them in there.’ He flung the words back over his shoulder. ‘They can have another ten minutes – that’s two days virtual time. Then we download them for real and leave. If someone’s up at Dangrek ahead of us, they’re going to be very sorry.’
‘If they were there when Sauberville went down,’ I shouted after him, suddenly furious. ‘They’re probably already very sorry. Along with everyone else.’
I heard his footsteps, receding up the corridor. Mandrake Man, shirt closed up, suit settling onto squared shoulders, moving forward. Enabled. About Mandrake’s heavy-duty business, while I sat barechested in a puddle of my own unfocused rage.
PART THREE
Disruptive Elements
The difference between virtuality and life is very simple. In a construct you know everything is being run by an all-powerful machine. Reality doesn’t offer this assurance, so it’s very easy to develop the mistaken impression that you’re in control.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There is no subtle way to deploy an IP vessel across half a planet. So we didn’t try.
Mandrake booked us a priority launch and landing parabola with the Cartel’s suborbital traffic arm, and we flew out to an anonymous landing field on the outskirts of Landfall just as the heat was leaching out of the afternoon. There was a shiny new Lockheed Mitoma IP assault ship dug into the concrete, looking like nothing so much as a smoked glass scorpion someone had ripped the fighting claws off. Ameli Vongsavath grunted in approval when she saw it.
‘Omega series,’ she said to me, mainly because I happened to be standing next to her when we climbed out of the cruiser. She was fixing her hair reflexively as she spoke, twisting the thick black strands up and clear of the flight symbiote sockets at her nape, pegging the loosely gathered bun in place with static clips. ‘You could fly that baby right down Incorporation Boulevard and not even scorch the trees. Put plasma torpedoes through the front door of the Senate House, stand on your tail and be in orbit before they blew.’
‘For example,’ I said dryly. ‘Of course, with those mission objectives, you’d be a Kempist, which means you’d be flying some beaten-up piece of shit like a Mowai Ten. Right, Schneider?’
Schneider grinned. ‘Yeah, doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘What doesn’t bear thinking about?’ Yvette Cruickshank wanted to know. ‘Being a Kempist?’
‘No, flying a Mowai,’ Schneider told her, eyes flickering up and down the frame of her Maori combat sleeve. ‘Being a Kempist’s not so bad. Well, apart from all the pledge singing.’
Cruickshank blinked. ‘You were really a Kempist?’
‘He’s joking,’ I said, with a warning glance at Schneider. There was no political officer along this time, but Jiang Jianping at least seemed to have strong feelings about Kemp, and there was no telling how many other members of the team might share them. Stirring up potential animosities just to impress well-shaped women didn’t strike me as all that smart.
Then again, Schneider hadn’t had his hormones wrung out in virtual that morning, so maybe I was just being unduly balanced about the whole thing.
One of the Lock Mit’s loading hatches hinged up. A moment later Hand appeared in the entrance in neatly pressed combat chameleochrome, now smoky grey against the prevalent hue of the assault ship. The change from his usual corporate attire was so complete it jarred, for all that everyone else was similarly dressed.
‘Welcome to the fucking cruise,’ muttered Hansen.
We cleared for dust-off five minutes before Mandrake’s authorised launch envelope opened. Ameli Vongsavath put the flight plan to bed in the Lock Mit’s datacore, powered up the systems and then to all appearances went to sleep. Jacked in at nape and cheekbone, eyes shuttered down, she lay back in her borrowed Maori flesh like the cryocapped princess in some obscure Settlement Years fairytale. She’d scored perhaps the darkest, slimmest built of the sleeves, and the datacables stood out against her skin like pale worms.
Sidelined in the co-pilot’s seat, Schneider cast longing glances at the helm.
‘You’ll get your chance,’ I told him.
‘Yeah, when?’
‘When you’re a millionaire on Latimer.’
He shot me a resentful glance and put one booted foot up on the console in front of him.
‘Ha fucking ha.’
Below her closed eyes, Ameli Vongsavath’s mouth quirked. It must have sounded like an elaborate way of saying not in a million years. None of the Dangrek crew knew about the deal with Mandrake. Hand had introduced us as consultants, and left it at that.
‘You think it’ll go through the gate?’ I asked Schneider, trying to extract him from his sulk.
He didn’t look up at me. ‘How the hell would I know?’
‘Just w—’
‘Gentlemen,’ Ameli Vongsavath had still not opened her eyes. ‘Do you think I could have a little pre-swim quiet in here please?’
‘Yeah, shut up Kovacs,’ said Schneider maliciously. ‘Why don’t you get back with the passengers?’