'He strikes a stone in the forest,' she chanted, 'stone bleeds blood. He dances savagely in the courtyard of the impertinent. He sets the liar's roof on fire.'
'Who is he?'
'He is the leopard with flaming eyes.'
'Who is he?'
'He is in the discharge of a laser, in the lightning flash of the semiconductor.'
'Tell me his name?'
'He is the bow wave across the ocean of time.'
'His name!'
'He is Shango, god of lightning,' said the major.
'All things to all cultures,' said Kadiatu.
'Stand up,' said the major.
Kadiatu checked in the mirror. Her hair was tied into a severe series of bundled plaits that rested on the nape of her neck. Hair was important to the Yoruba - how they wore it was once a matter of social importance - but this style was severely practical. It kept the hair out of the eyes and protected the vulnerable portion of the neck.
Fighting style, her mother would have called it.
The major gave Kadiatu a leather jacket that clinked when it brushed against a locker.
'Kevlar lining,' said the major.
'He's not a god,' said Kadiatu.
'His temples are the preserve of priestesses,' said the major. 'It's women who dance for the Lightning God. His spirit possesses them through the dance.'
'Why me?'
'Don't ask me that,' said the major. 'Ask the dead.'
Acturus Station (Stunnel Terminus)
The other floozies reminded Blondie that as the youngest he was still honorary dogsbody and sent him off to get food. He didn't mind, it beat welding the barricades together.
They'd all pulled in at least two drones to do the work. When he saw them collected all in one place Blondie realized that over the years more than just the drones' personalities had been taken from their operators. Credit Card's drones were so customized that it was almost impossible to determine the original make. Honda perhaps, from the early 2000 series, but Blondie wouldn't bet money on it.
Lambada's drones were painted a rainforest green and were, well,
aggressive.
They had to be segregated from the Dogface drones or they spent more time fighting than working.
Old Sam's drones were barely visible, backgrounds sliding across mimetic polycarbon shells. Tools and manipulators emerging from jack turrets when they worked. The drones had more hatches than tools and Blondie wondered what was hidden behind the spares. Maybe they should have brought in a few more of those.
Blondie felt that he should do something about his own unfashionably pristine units. He considered painting a black rose on their flanks. Would she understand that? he asked himself. Would she approve? More importantly: would she notice?
The KGB went in for on-site catering, a portable canteen was set up in one comer of the galleria. Old Sam didn't approve; he'd have been happier if the KGB troops had been eating vacuum-packed Erations. Preferably tearing the foil packages open with their teeth. He called them a bunch of FNGs and didn't rate their chances in a real fight.
Blondie didn't think they looked that bad; certainly their hardware was impressive. Some of the troopers turned to watch him as he picked his way over to the canteen. They were field stripping their pulse rifles, neat rows of components laid out on white linen sheets. A collection of faces above the raised neck guards of their armour.
The canteen was the size of a commercial freight module, the kind that fit on a transit flatbed. When mobile it ran on small rubber wheels, half a dozen on each side, now locked into their up position. A fold-down counter ran a third of its length.
Blondie bought four big bucket meals from a European Muslim woman. Two for him. Credit Card and Lambada, and two for Old Sam. The Muslim woman processed his moneypen and handed over the litre-capacity buckets. Blondie thought she might have smiled at him but under the veil it was hard to tell.
'Have a nice day,' said the woman.
STS Central - Olympus Mons
'There she is,' said Zamina pointing.
The screen showed the view from a scanning security camera on the TransOlympia platform at Olympus
Mons.
Benny was clearly visible alighting from a train, a pink found icon hovering over her head. The data square in the right-hand comer of the screen put the time at 11:45 GMT, five minutes past.
Ming looked over at Dogface. 'Got that?'
'Where's she going?' asked Zamina.
The internal phone chimed. It was the sector manager from the pit. 'Yes?' said Ming.
'We've got a problem,' said the manager. 'Half the trains in the northeastern sector have stopped.'
'Technical fault?' asked Ming.
'Signalling failure,' said the manager.
Ming put the sector up on her big repeater screen. The affected area formed a rough semicircle around the Acturus Station.
'Work on it,' Ming told the manager and cut the link. 'Do you see it. Dogface?'
'I see it.'
'What do you think?'
'I think someone's fucking with our signalling,' said Dogface,
Ming linked back with the sector manager. 'Try back-up,' she said. 'If that doesn't work go to manual, keep at least some of the trains running.'
'There she is again,' said Zamina. Live feed from a camera in the Rancher's Market area. 'Hey,' said Zambia, 'I've worked that place. It's only six levels down.'
Ming turned to her phone and punched in the direct line to the Nueva Lubyanka. 'KGB,' said their reception program in an unnaturally bright voice, 'Sword and Shield to the people since Nineteen Seventeen.'
'This is Ming, armed response team to Rancher's Market. . .'
'She's gone into a lift,' said Zamina.
'Fugitive now in one of the passenger lifts,' said Ming. 'I'm downloading the likeness.' She pressed a button and shot the videofit image to Nueva Lubyanka. 'Down or up?' she asked Zamina.
'Down.'
'She's going for Fusion Corp,' said Dogface.
'You must contact the Doctor,' said one of the Yak Harrises
'You're back,' said Ming. 'You call him.'
'There have been difficulties,' said the construct.
'Isn't that Yak Harris?' said Zamina.
'No,' said Ming, 'it's
a
Yak Hams.'
'You must contact the Doctor.'
'I'm on it,' said Ming, raising Jacksonville. 'Give me a break.'
The Doctor wasn't at Jacksonville, but Ming managed to trace him to a VIP shuttle on its way to Olympus
Mons.
Kadiatu answered the phone.
'Benny's back,' said Ming, 'and heading straight for Fusion Corp.'
'He's way ahead of you,' said Kadiatu. 'That's where we're going.'
There was a squawk from the Yak Harris monitor.
'Hey people,' said one of the Yak Harrises, 'I think you've been compromised.'
The monitor screen imploded.
The Doctor appeared on the phone. 'It's penetrated your computer network. It'll try to prevent anyone getting to the Stunnel gateway.'
'You were expecting this?'
'I suspected it.'
'Well, thanks for telling me.'
'I can't be everywhere at once.' The Doctor looked out of shot. 'This is our stop. Whatever you do don't panic.' The link terminated.
Out in the control room the big holograms derezzed into clouds of silver static.
'That's easy for you to say,' said Ming.
Fusion Corp - Olympus Mons
'Have you noticed,' said the Doctor, 'how much time we've spent in lifts recently?' He kept his eyes fixed on the level indicator.
'Back there,' said Kadiatu, 'the major seemed to think you were Shango.'
'Who's Shango?'
'Yoruba thunder god.'
'Oh,
Shango,'
said the Doctor. 'Did you know the Yoruba have over two hundred deities?'
'Are you?'
'Mind you, Shintoism has thousands.' The Doctor turned to look at her. 'Do I look like a thunder god?'
'How would I know?' said Kadiatu. 'I've never met one.'
'Faced with the unexplained,' said the Doctor, 'people have a tendency to let their imaginations run wild. There are no gods. I should know, I've met a few.'
'The Shango cult is almost exclusively female.'
'People get the wrong end of the stick.'
'I'll bet.'
'It's true,' said the Doctor. 'I was in Ife during the tenth century and there may have been some static electricity involved. I was also in Mesopotamia in the time of Gilgamesh and I've visited all three Atlantises. It's not my fault. It's the planet, things happen there.'
'Why?'
'I don't know,' said the Doctor. 'Your planet just seems to be a major time-space nexus.'
'Lucky us,' said Kadiatu.
She realized that the Doctor was staring intently at her.
'Shadows,' he said, 'forced evolution. Spirits, demons, gods. Coincidences. I'm missing something. Do you dream?'
'Of course I dream, everybody does.'
'Your father didn't,' said the Doctor. 'Any that reoccur?'
'Some,' said Kadiatu, 'when I'm stressed out.'
'Describe one.'
'Beach,' said Kadiatu, 'dead people dancing.'
'No, not that one.'
'I can't remember any of the other ones.'
'Look at me,'
said the Doctor.
Kadiatu looked into his strange eyes.
'Basket,' she heard herself say. 'Old woman in a basket over a big pit. Something's wrong with her eye. I think she's a witch.'
'Does she say anything?'
'She's cursing, about children, it's a
bad
curse.'
'Then what?'
'She cuts the rope that's holding the basket up and falls into the pit.'
The Doctor clicked his fingers. 'The Pythia,' he said. 'Interesting. You and I might have more in common than I first thought.'
'Who's the Pythia?'
'The ancient line of seeresses who once ruled my home planet Gallifrey. When the last of the line was overthrown she cursed the entire population of Gallifrey to perpetual sterility. No children. Ever.'
'Has this got anything to do with the transit system?'
'Nothing at all,' said the Doctor, 'for which we should be profoundly grateful.'
'Then why's it so important?'
'Have you any idea what kind of power a curse like that represents?' asked the Doctor. 'It creates shock waves and patterns within the metafabric of the space-time continuum. The procreative impulse of an entire species can't just dissipate, it has to go somewhere. It must have been channelled by the Pythia's curse, and she knew we were in contact.'
'Knew what?'
'Something I forgot a long time ago.'
'What, for God's sake?'
'I don't know,' said the Doctor. 'I forgot it, didn't I?'
The lift stopped and its doors opened. In the distance they could hear a siren wailing.
'Too late,' said the Doctor.
'Where the hell are you going?' asked the technician.
Benny flexed her wrist back and shot him through the chest.
The power plant had maroon carpeting and cream walls hung with framed abstract paintings at regular intervals. The thick shag absorbed any ambient noise and produced a kind of breathless hush. There had always been debate about the iconography relating to fusion power plants in the pre-expansion era.
Benny followed the signs to the control centre. The decor was obviously designed to be as calming as possible. This hinted at a deep-seated anxiety about the forces they were unleashing within the generator.
The corridor opened into an informal refreshment area. A cluster of easy chairs and sofas were centred around a freestanding entertainment console. A couple were sitting on a sofa watching television, a man was in the kitchen area pouring himself a coffee from a stainless steel jug. Benny shot him first. The jug made a hollow ringing sound when it bounced on the counter top.
The situational realists maintained that the period's apprehension about their power systems stemmed from the primitive safety standards. Benny herself had defended that position during a drunken argument that followed a conference at the Institute of Human Ecology on Cygni VI.
One of the couple on the sofa made the mistake of standing up to see what was happening. The shell blew the top of her head off.
The Silurians felt that it was the manifestation of humanity's deep-seated guilt complex about their ruthless exploitation of the homeworid. But then, the Silurians said that about everything.
The remaining woman on the sofa was a bit more experienced and rolled out of Benny's line of fire. The first shot blew a fist-sized hole in an easy chair.
Benny had read a paper that attributed it to the upheavals following the first ecological crisis. She'd read it because it came at the extreme end of her own period. The title had been
The Role of the Butler Institute in the Terran Post-Nuclear Period.
The woman tried to scramble behind the entertainment console. Benny stepped to one side and shot her in the back before she could get up.
She couldn't remember who wrote the paper.
The control room was protected by double doors of plexiglass. Through them she could see the technicians panicking at her approach. One of them was talking urgently into a phone, someone was shouting, she could hear it as a murmur through the doors.
Professor Beal-Carter-Kzanski, she remembered, that's who'd written the paper. She'd read it while travelling middle berth to Heaven; she usually caught up with the journals in transit There had been some interesting stuff about youth gangs and eco-terrorists.
Benny didn't bother with the nine-digit security keypad by the doors. She just stood there and waited patiently for them to open of their own accord. There was a high-pitched sound filtering through the sound-proofed doors.
Inside the control room someone was screaming.
Kadiatu pulled the pistol from the holster after they encountered the first body. The Doctor gave her a hard look but said nothing: what could he say?
There were more bodies in a small refreshment area. Kadiatu recognized the signature of the exit wounds, the way the ragged edges of the wound pushed through rents torn in the clothes. She concentrated hard on the injuries to avoid looking at the people. There was a strong smell of cordite, blood and coffee.