Empire of Light Page 5

  ‘I’m disappointed, Mr Whitecloud.’ Ty looked up at Kosac. ‘I don’t know much about Uchidanism, but I know something about personal faith. I believe we pay for what happens in this world in the next.’

  Bleys had turned away slightly, reaching up to touch the side of his head. Ty noticed for the first time the man wore a comms bead in one earlobe.

  Ty looked back at Kosac. ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’

  ‘Because I’m probably the last person you’ll ever speak to, and I wanted to know what kind of man does the things you’ve done.’

  Ice gripped Ty’s heart. ‘I’m to be arraigned. Taken off the coreship to be tried.’

  Kosac smiled sadly. ‘In a less imperfect world, perhaps.’

  ‘Sir?’ said Bleys, and Kosac turned to him. ‘We got a report that the Authority’s people are on their way here. I think we should hurry.’

  The ice spread long frozen fingers deep into Ty’s bowels. ‘I’m too valuable for you to just shoot,’ he croaked.

  ‘No, Mr Whitecloud, you’re not going to have a chance to escape a second time.’

  Ty stared backwards and forwards between the two men. ‘Escape?’

  A moment later two armed and visored guards appeared at the cell door, and Ty knew the worst was yet to come.

  The two guards entered the cell and dragged Ty out into the corridor, where one slammed a shock-stick into the back of one knee. He collapsed on to all fours. A second blow sent him sprawling on his belly.

  A moment later his arms were twisted painfully behind his back, and he felt the plastic ties being clipped into place around his wrists. He was pulled upright a moment later and pushed towards a service elevator at the far end of the corridor. His legs gave way under him, but the guards dragged him along between them, regardless.

  They pushed him inside the elevator and forced him to his knees, then hauled him back out, once they had arrived at the ground floor. Ty managed to find his feet, and was shoved towards a steel door at the far end of the corridor, a thin but freezing trickle of cold air seeping past its frame and carrying with it the scent of oiled metal and decay. One of the guards stepped forward and unlocked the door, revealing stacked pallets as it swung open.

  Ty clenched his teeth at the blast of frozen air and tried to hunch up, his paper uniform providing him with so little protection that he might as well have been naked.

  He realized he was weeping as they dragged and shoved him out into the courtyard. Everything seemed to get a little farther away, as if he were experiencing the world at one remove, reduced to being a passenger within his own skull.

  They pulled him towards the wall at the rear of the courtyard. He was close enough now that he could make out the dark stains where the wall met the ground. For the first time, he saw a door set into the wall over to his right, where it had been hidden from his view in the cell by a pile of crates. It stood open, a military transport parked on the street outside. A guard stood by the door, his visor pushed up, arguing with two men who looked too healthy and well fed to come from Ascension.

  One had a thick woollen hat pulled down over his stubbled skull, but Ty still saw the irregular grooves and bumps disfiguring his cranium, which marked him out as a machine-head. He was tall and gangly, with a worried expression, whereas his companion was small but wiry and muscular-looking. The second one’s gaze locked on to Ty the instant he came into view.

  ‘That’s him,’ Ty heard him say, over the unending hubbub of activity. The machine-head glanced first at his companion, then at Ty. Then they both pushed past the guard they’d been talking to and headed straight for him.

  ‘Hey!’ the guard shouted, dropping his rifle from his shoulder and following them. ‘You can’t—’

  ‘The fuck?’ said the machine-head’s companion, stopping for a moment to glare back at the guard. ‘What was it about our authorization you didn’t understand?’

  Ty’s own guards had halted at the commotion, but then they seemed to come to some mutual, unspoken decision and resumed pushing him towards the wall.

  ‘Hey, stop right there!’ shouted the small, muscled man. ‘Don’t take another single fucking step. Do you understand?’

  ‘We have orders,’ one of Ty’s guards grated. ‘If you’ve got a problem with it, take it up with Director Kosac’

  ‘Oh, we will,’ said the other man, coming closer. ‘You,’ he said, turning back to the guard who’d tried to stop them. ‘Tell them who I am.’

  ‘Commander Willis, sir,’ the guard replied with clear reluctance. ‘Head of Ocean’s Deep security.’

  ‘That makes me one of the people responsible for the entire relief operation out here. And that,’ he continued, coming up closer to one of Ty’s would-be executioners, ‘means you do exactly what I say. So here’s the deal,’ he continued, his voice softening now into an agreeable we’re-all-friends-here tone of conciliation. ‘We want this man for questioning.’ He glanced briefly at Ty. ‘Your name is Ty Whitecloud, isn’t it?’

  Ty managed to nod.

  ‘Those aren’t our orders, sir,’ one of Ty’s guards said. ‘Our instruction is immediate execution.’

  ‘Who told you that? Director Kosac?’

  Ty glanced to one side, just in time to see the guard nod.

  ‘Well, Director Kosac is about to get a spiked boot up his ass that’s going to bounce him all the way out of Ascension and into a job someplace that’s going to make his time here look like a fucking holiday.’ Willis smiled broadly. ‘And if you don’t do exactly what I tell you, and I mean to the fucking letter, I’ll make sure you’re there to keep him company. Now,’ he added, gesturing to Ty, ‘since you’ve already seen our credentials, how about you do precisely what we tell you to, before you make things worse than they already are?’

  Ty felt the grip on his shoulders tighten for a few seconds, then relax.

  ‘Sir,’ said one of his guards, before letting go of him altogether.

  ‘This way,’ said Willis, taking Ty’s elbow and leading him towards the waiting vehicle.

  Ty followed in a daze, as the machine-head moved up on his other side.

  ‘Mr Whitecloud,’ said the machine-head, leaning down a little to speak to him, ‘My name is Ted Lamoureaux and you are a very, very lucky man. I hope you’ll be grateful enough to be as cooperative as we’re going to need you to be.’

  Lamoureaux touched a panel on the side of the transport and a door slid open, warm air wafting out from within. Ty drew in the smell of oiled leather and cheap plastic, and felt tears prickling the corners of his eyes.

  Lamoureaux gestured inside.

  ‘My hands,’ said Ty. ‘Please.’

  ‘Shit,’ he heard Willis mutter behind him, and a moment later he felt the plastic ties fall away from his wrists. He brought his arms back around, wincing at the pain in his shoulders, and climbed inside the vehicle.

  The interior was cramped, and the air felt hot and close to him, after being out in the freezing cold. There were two rows of seats facing each other, and Lamoureaux and Willis sat down opposite Ty. The transport started to move a moment later.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Ty asked.

  ‘Well, that depends on exactly how cooperative you’re feeling,’ Lamoureaux replied.

  ‘Kosac told me someone was coming for me, but he wasn’t going to let me escape.’

  He watched the two men exchange glances.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ Willis muttered. ‘I’m going to get a kick out of burying that little shit up to his neck in trouble.’

  ‘Mr Whitecloud,’ said Lamoureaux, his tone dry, ‘can you tell me if the term “Mos Hadroch” means anything to you?’

  Ty nodded slowly. ‘It’s an Atn term: a transliteration based on an analysis of ancient Atn sound recordings. It means a machine for passing judgement.’

  ‘And you’ve been living under the “Nathan Driscoll” identity for some years now, isn’t that correct?’ Lamoureaux prompted.

&nb
sp; Ty nodded slowly, unsure what to admit to just yet.

  ‘We’ll stick with the Driscoll identity for now,’ said Willis. ‘Seems you’ve had quite the varied career, haven’t you, Ty?’

  Ty shrugged uneasily and still said nothing.

  Lamoureaux’s eyes became momentarily unfocused. He’s accessing data from somewhere, Ty realized.

  Lamoureaux blinked and looked at Ty. ‘You have an implant,’ he remarked.

  ‘You can tell?’ Ty asked.

  Lamoureaux shook his head. ‘No, not that it stopped me trying to detect one. But it’s noted in your records. Is it still active?’

  ‘No,’ Ty replied. ‘The Uchidan authorities disabled its higher-level functions before I was to be handed over to the Legislate. You should know that Uchidan implants aren’t programmed like the machine-head variety. Spontaneous networking isn’t what they’re designed for.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, Mr Whitecloud.’

  ‘Why are you asking me questions about the Atn? Nobody cares about them except a few underfunded university departments.’

  Lamoureaux responded by pulling a case out from under the seat beside him. He opened it and extracted a bundle of printouts and handed them to Ty.

  ‘Can you identify these?’ he asked.

  Ty studied the documents for a good minute or two before looking up again. ‘These are the spiral forms of the wall-glyphs found inside almost every Atn clade-world,’ he said. One set of glyphs – a crescent placed next to a full circle, both of them at the centre of a tight spiral of lines and squiggles – was immediately familiar. ‘If all you wanted to do was identify the Atn clade-family concerned, I could have told you as soon as you said the words “Mos Hadroch”.’ He tapped the crescent and circle. ‘This is the identifier for Crescent-over-Moon. They’re the only clade with which that term is associated.’

  Willis leaned forward. ‘What exactly is a “clade”?’

  ‘The Atn have clans, or clades, distinguishable by small differences in their written languages. They appear to be quite distinct from each other, and rarely interacting.’

  Lamoureaux fixed him with an intense stare. ‘What we want to know, Ty, is whether the Mos Hadroch is a tangible artefact. Can you tell us that?’

  A tide of fatigue threatened to swamp Ty. Living in a state of perpetual terror, he had found, required a great deal of constant energy. ‘Look, Mr . . .’

  ‘Lamoureaux.’

  ‘Mr Lamoureaux, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for what you did back there, but what happens if I answer your questions? Are you going to take me back to be executed, once you’ve got what you need?’

  ‘No,’ Willis replied. ‘You’re under our jurisdiction now, but we’re going to have to get you out of Ascension before Kosac or someone like him figures out a way to change that. But in return we expect your full and unhesitating cooperation. If we think you’re holding out on us, or being less than honest for one second, then, yes, you go straight back where we found you.’

  ‘Why,’ asked Ty, ‘is it so important that you know about the Mos Hadroch?’

  ‘Tell us exactly what you think it might be, for a start.’

  The transport took a series of fast turns, slinging the three men from side to side. Whoever was in the driver’s seat – assuming the vehicle wasn’t automated – was in a hurry to get to their destination.

  ‘I said it referred to a machine for passing judgement, but the modifier “Mos” could mean “weapon” equally as much as it does “machine”. The Atn are a notoriously uncommunicative species, and that fact unfortunately means that sometimes all we have to go on is educated guesswork.’

  ‘There are academic papers that seem to suggest the Mos Hadroch is some kind of god,’ said Lamoureaux.

  Ty made a dismissive noise. ‘Laroque’s idea. The man’s an idiot. There’s nothing to suggest the Atn share our concept of deities. I’m not sure they’re even really sentient, at least not in any way we ourselves can understand. Where I do agree with Laroque is that they’re an artificial species of some kind, but if there was ever a purpose behind their creation, it’s either been lost to time or they just don’t want to tell us. All the evidence suggests they haven’t evolved or changed in any significant way in millions of years. They’re more akin to intelligent space-going termites than anything else.’

  The transport came to a sudden stop, and Ty nearly slid out of his seat. The hatch clanged open and Lamoureaux climbed out first, while Willis gestured for Ty to follow the machine-head into the bustling noise beyond.

  He saw they were at an airfield, where the cold hit him like a wall. Helicopters were parked in ranks, and guarded by rover-units whose electronic eyes constantly scanned the nearest rooftops. A world-pillar rose in the near distance, dwarfing the buildings clustered around its base. Near the helicopters were several heavy air-transports, from whose open bellies packages and crates were being lowered to waiting trucks. There were even a few dropships nearby, the concrete beneath them blackened and cracked.

  The driver turned out to be a guard wearing a Legislate trooper’s uniform. He exited the front cabin and took hold of Ty’s right arm.

  Willis led the way, and it was soon clear they were heading for one of the dropships.

  Lamoureaux kept pace with Ty and his guard. ‘Remember, as far as anyone’s concerned, your name is still Nathan Driscoll.’

  ‘I’ll need a change of clothes,’ said Ty. He could hardly speak for his teeth chattering.

  Lamoureaux and Willis exchanged a glance. ‘Should have thought of that,’ Willis muttered, as if it were the machine-head’s own fault.

  ‘Okay,’ said Lamoureaux, looking annoyed. ‘There’s probably spare engineering jumpsuits on board the dropship. If I can find one, you can use it.’

  Ty nodded in a daze, half-convinced some unbelievably cruel trick was being played on him.

  Either that, or he really was about to finally leave Ascension behind for ever.

  Chapter Five

  The dropship lifted from the concrete not long after they boarded, accelerating hard until it passed through an open portal in the coreship’s ceiling, more than a dozen kilometres overhead. A screen mapped the dropship’s progress for the benefit of the three men, now strapped into couches in a space not much larger than the rear of the transport that had brought them from the compound. Half an hour later the dropship rendezvoused with a cargo ship that had been commandeered by the Consortium for the relief effort.

  Four men were waiting for them as they disembarked. They were all dressed in plain clothes, but their muscular physiques, air of watchful attentiveness, and the zippered jackets that failed to conceal the bulge of holstered weapons, all strongly implied a career in security. Ty himself had been given a jumpsuit three sizes too big for him.

  ‘You’re on your own for the next couple of days,’ Lamoureaux told him. ‘But there’s some material I want you to look over in the meantime. You’ll find it waiting for you in your berth.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Ocean’s Deep.’

  Ty was then quickly escorted through the vessel’s narrow, claustrophobic passageways. It had been some years since he’d last experienced zero gravity, and at first he sprawled about clumsily. By the time his body started to remember how to manoeuvre, he found himself deposited in his home for the next seventy-two hours: a single private berth containing only a heavily padded acceleration seat and a voice-controlled comms unit.

  The berth was cramped and utilitarian by most standards, but after the deprivations of life in Ascension it felt almost decadent in its comfort. Ty wedged himself inside the awkwardly tiny toilet and pulled off his jumpsuit, quickly sponging the grime and urine from his skin.

  The water was warm and, as he washed himself, he felt some of the tension and horror of the past few years – the slow dying by cold and starvation – begin to drop away like a second skin he could finally slough off.

  He then pulled the oversize
d jumpsuit back on, and tested the door into the berth. He was far from surprised to find it had been locked from the outside.

  After a few minutes’ experimentation with the comms unit, he discovered that it was linked into both local as well as interstellar public tach-net relays. Before very long, he’d managed to navigate his way to a live feed that showed the coreship’s surface.

  He gazed down on a forest of shattered and twisted drive-spines. Other ships were visible closer at hand, scattered through the surrounding void, and most were clearly of human construction, but mixed in with them were a few quite unlike anything Ty had seen before.

  These latter were equipped with drive-spines that curved out and then forward from a bulbous central hull. Ty realized, after a moment, that these must be the alien Magi ships, news of which had arrived with the first rescue and relief missions.

  A heavy cargo lifter drifted in front of the nearest Magi vessel, giving Ty the perspective he needed to see how truly immense the alien craft were. A thrill of awe burned its way up his spine and into his brain. There was a sinuous, organic quality to them that made them look less like something manufactured and more like something that might have evolved in some limitless ocean.

  After a while, he managed to drag his eyes away from this spectacle long enough to pull up whatever details he could find concerning the destruction of Night’s End, and everything that had happened since. He absorbed the details with the ferocity of a man starved for knowledge, learning of the Fleet Authority based at Ocean’s Deep, along with what little was known of the Magi starships – and the rumour and conjecture surrounding those directly or peripherally involved with their discovery. Lamoureaux and Willis’s names turned up frequently, though not nearly so often as those of a Dakota Merrick and a Senator Lucas Corso.

  He checked the external view to see if anything had changed, and realized the nearest of the Magi ships was drawing closer. By the time it was almost abreast of the cargo ship, the stars were obscured by an energy field.