Seeds of Earth (31 page)

The woman, whose full name was Corazon Talavera, shook her red- and black-furred head. 'If they've left, they are no use to me.'

'I have a copy of their course data,' Yolog said. 'They're going to Bryag Station and I had one of my remotes put a tracker on their ship while they were over here.'

'Better, if not ideal,' said Talavera. 'What are their names?'

'The man is called Kaar-Chee and the mech is Drazuma-Ha*.' With a shaky hand he fingered the silvery bead-keys. 'I'm sending you all the data I could obtain on them, image files and statistics as well as the parameters of the tracking signal.'

'Bryag Station, eh? Not easy to get there before them.' Corazon Talavera glanced down, no doubt seeing the data packet arrive, then gave Yolog a hard, appraising look. 'But when I return we are going to have a little talk, just to remind you how our agreement is supposed to work.'

Then the screen was blank, leaving Yolog trembling and sweating. For a second he sat there, utterly relieved that she was gone, then anger welled up and he raised his exo-clad arms, clenching his fists.

Gods of infinite space, how he hated Humans, and the Talavera woman especially. Were all their females so cruel and pitiless? Many years past, he had made a small, very small mistake which had led to the tragic death of one of the aged and venerable Henkayan Abstainers, all purely through a chain of chance and accident. He thought that only he knew the truth until that cursed Human had turned up and showed him the damning evidence which she had locked safely away, so long as he did what he was told.

Yolog thought about packing his essentials and valuables and fleeing Tagreli, off into the depths of known space, but that was a well-worn fantasy, just like the one where he fled instead to the Aranja Tesh, to some world near the Yamanon border, and helped build combat droids for the struggle against the Hegemony and their despicable Human lackeys.

He uttered a bleak laugh, knowing that only imminent, life-threatening catastrophe could make him leave. On the other hand, it was not impossible that the imposing mech Drazuma-Ha* might deal fatally with Talavera should a confrontation take place.

With that happy thought, he put his earpieces back in and began checking shipment manifests while the sweeping rhythms of a song called 'Kashmir' filled his head.

29

CATRIONA

From her viewport she could see glimpses of Nivyesta's single massive landmass through breaks in the cloud cover as the shuttle made its banking, spiral descent. The green of Segrana was rich, dark and mysterious from this height, yet the clouds looked soft, inviting. Whenever she saw them during a shuttle journey she imagined them to be a strange, floating terrain of pure whiteness with its own flora and fauna . . . until the shuttle scythed through them. Then there were only moisture droplets crawling across the outside of the viewport while steely-grey fog rushed past.

As they swept on through cloud, her thoughts drifted back to her encounter with that apparition which looked so like a Pathmaster, or how she imagined one would look.
Seek out a
vodrun
and undertake a vigil all will become clear to you,
it had said in a sighing, sibilant voice, but why would it say such a thing? And had it been real or had she just imagined it? If the latter, it called into question her mental stability and fitness for her position and responsibilities ... and if it
was
real? She knew from research with male and female Uvovo that those who underwent the
vodrun
vigil said that they experienced the feelings of Segrana and heard her thoughts, so perhaps she should attempt it, although how she would obtain permission from a Listener was as yet unfathomable. She would ponder this - later, when she got back to the enclave.

Soon, the cabin staff announced the final approach and everyone strapped in to their couches. Catriona's fellow passengers numbered eleven, mostly ecologists and biologists with a pair of Uvovo scholars well into their maturity going by the grey tufts behind their ears. In addition there was one mystery man, seated a row in front and on the other side of the aisle - during the ninehour flight he had eaten nothing and drunk only a few cups of water, spoken to no one, read nothing, listened to nothing on his couch phones and watched nothing on the overhead display. All of which convinced Cat that he was one of the Enhanced. She didn't recognise him, but then the project directors had rigorously segregated all the coactiles of students with the aim of enforcing a tight group loyalty. The faces of her own coactile were vividly and accurately recollectable, yet others who were there at the same time were scarcely more than vague blurs.

The dear brothers and sisters of my coactile,
she thought sourly.
A smothering straitjacket of peer pressure, all individuality subsumed to the group, an identity controlled by those directors, who were interested only in creating living processors capable of high-level computation. Walking calculators ...

Sighing, she relaxed back into the comfort of the couch and wondered how to find out his name, maybe even discover what an Enhanced was doing on Nivyesta.

From that early, cloistered part of her life she knew that many Enhanced ended up working for the government in their Special Designs Division. But what would the SDD be doing here on Nivyesta?

The approach and landing took another twenty minutes. Vibration came in successive waves, as did the loud moan of the engines applying staged braking. The impact of landing on water made the craft shudder and the pitch of the engines altered. Soon they had taxied up to Pilipoint Station's floating dock, a large, curve-roofed structure capable of accommodating two shuttles. As the passengers gathered their belongings and donned outdoor garments, Cat found herself wondering, not for the first time, what Greg was up to back at Giant's Shoulder, knowing full well that for him the temptation to go back into that puzzle-trap corridor would be irresistible. As it would be for her.

Please stay out of trouble,
she thought.
Or at least go looking for it with someone you can rely on.

She grasped her holdall and was quick to get behind the mystery man as the cabin lock cycled open. Slowly trooping to the exit, she overheard the steward call him Mr Yurevich and saw him take two substantial pieces of luggage from the stowing booth before stepping through the airlock. One was an ordinary barkleather suitcase but the other was a tall, grey case on small wheels; its sides had stickers saying HANDLE WITH CARE - PHOTOGRAPHIC DEVICES but she recognised it as a standard transport case for lab equipment as used in the Enhanced project.

A moment or two later she emerged from the shuttle's smelly recycled air, setting foot on the combiplas decking of the dockside and taking a deep breath of Nivyesta's atmosphere. Yurevich was hurrying away but that was okay - his name and description and the 99 per cent certainty of an Enhanced status was more then enough to trace him through the whisperway. Now, however, she faced the onerous duty of reporting to Professor Forbes, who had no doubt seen coverage of the shooting at Giant's Shoulder and probably read the preliminary reports.

What she had to do was put herself in a resilient, unflappable frame of mind. It was not a question of whether or not Forbes would be objectionable and mean-spirited, merely a matter of how it would show itself.

But all this was forgotten as she entered the lowceilinged, slightly shabby transit lounge. The lounge had two vees, usually tuned to sports and light entertainment, but right now both were showing news and were surrounded by dozens of anxious-looking people. On the screen was one of the better presenters, grey-haired Jan Kronagen, addressing viewers from the studio, so she paused to see what it was all about.

'.. . but members of the Sendrukan Hegemony delegation have still declined to make any comment, and since there is as yet no Brolturan Compact representative on Darien we must gather viewpoints from where we can. Let us return to the
Heracles,
where our spot reporter, Serj Tanilov, has obtained more views of the Brolturan vessel, as well as some hard data. Serj?'

'Yes, Jan, thank you. More information on the Brolturan ship, which is called
Purifier,
by the way - its official designation is a Tactical Dominance Enabler ... Ah, we have it now? . .. Right, we can show more vid as supplied by a Gomedran freelancer who was on board one of the
Heracles's
atmosphere boats when this leviathan took up stationary orbit above Darien.'

The screen abruptly switched to a view of the stars from orbit, the nearest of them blurred by the dustclouds of the deepzone. But the foreground was filled with an immense, gleaming, fabulously ornate ship, its forward sections bearing a passing resemblance to a sweeping, stepped pyramid while the stern tapered slightly towards the blocky main drive manifold. The view swayed a little and suddenly zoomed in on the prow, where a huge statue of a Brolturan in archaic battle armour emerged from the hull. In one hand it cradled a mirrored polyhedral while the other held out a long, straight sword, pointing forward.

The Gomedran freelancer then panned slowly up the length of the warship, showing decks, launch bays, weapons arrays, missile batteries, all amid the most incredible embellishment Cat had ever seen outside some of the Rus chapels. During all this, the reporter was reeling off statistics - the
Purifier
was nearly 700 metres long, had a crew complement of 12,000, a support and interceptor complement of 2,800, a troop transport capability of 10,000 alert or 20,000 cryo, and the commander probably held the rank of father-admiral... Tanilov added that these were not official figures, having been gleaned from various tiernet sources, and a few enthusiasts from amongst the
Heracles's
crew. Back in the studio, Kronagen reminded the viewing audience that an ambassador had been expected from the Brolturan Compact, though not in such an imposing ship.

Shaking her head, Cat shouldered her holdall and headed for the shuttle-dock's small lobby.

They might have sent an ambassador,
she thought,
but that ship constitutes undiplomatic language. Maybe we're supposed to be intimidated by its scary ornaments or something; if so I think they're in for a surprise ...

The way to the exit led past a small bar, and as she drew near she noticed Yurevich, seated in one of the easy chairs, talking to someone. Walking further on she saw that it was a woman with short dark hair whose face slowly came into view past the foliage of a plantpot. She was just a few paces away when recognition hit her so forcefully she almost stopped in her tracks. At that moment the woman looked round, saw her, straightened, put out a hand to silence Yurevich then rose and came over.

'Catriona! - it's been many a year. How are you?' 'I'm well, Julia, I'm fine. How are you? You're looking . . . well.'

Julia Bryce, Julia of the warm camaraderie smile and the icy, disapproving stare, ruler of their nine-strong coactile, her tiny empire, ruthlessly manipulative and tactically generous. She was taller than Catriona, pale skin accentuating her elfin good looks, dressed in a long, dark coat over fashionable dark green formals.

'Certainly, Catriona, I keep active, as always. I'm here to work on a research project, very dry and unexciting but worthy. I have Albrecht and Gustave working with me - they'll be delighted to know that you're on Nivyesta.'

Cat made herself smile. So the ice-queen still had her two favoured minions in tow - Albrecht and Gustave had played the role of willing instruments who were also clever enough to conduct their own little psycho-dramas from time to time. It was unimaginable that they would be 'delighted', considering what she had called them on her last day as an Enhanced.

'You must pass on my fond regards.'

'Of course. So tell me, have you work here?'

'Oh yes, eco-social studies of the native Uvovo, including cultural and biological aspects. It's cross-disciplinary and very demanding but I enjoy it.'

'That is fascinating.' The look of bland regard in Julia's face didn't change. 'You know, it's such a shame that your enhancements failed at the last - poor Catriona, it must have been such a struggle. But you have work and that's so important. Well, I must say goodbye - perhaps we'll run into each other again.'

A smile tinged with satisfaction, a nod, and Julia Bryce was strolling back to Yurevich. Cat kept the fake composure plastered on until she had turned the corner out of the lobby and into Pilipoint Station's narrow concourse.

Bitch! She's working 'on a research project' but I 'have work' — makes it sound as if I pour the tea and deliver the mail. Chrome-plated bitch!

Then she slowed down, in her thoughts as well as the furious pace she was marching along at, while comprehension dawned. Eighteen years on from that tight, fevered hothouse of a coactile group, and Julia could
still
prod her temper and stir up feelings of low self-esteem. She had nothing to be ashamed of and every reason to feel good about her achievements, yet self-justification was not what she needed, rather it was a tougher skin.

Then she stopped entirely, realising that she had walked right past the entrance to the small foyer where an elevator gave access to the floor where Forbes had his office. And on the spur of the moment she decided no, she wasn't going to go up there and endure Forbes's verbal thuggery. If he truly, urgently, needed a report she would be more than happy to send him a text version via the satgrid.

Feeling liberated, at least for the time being, Catriona strode along the low-ceilinged concourse, past the small shops and empty cafe, heading for the main security doors beyond which lay Segrana. Or rather a small community of Uvovo traders dealing in fresh fish and fruit, and a couple of
trictra
sheds. She knew that the security autosystem would sense her ID tag and log her out when she left, and that Forbes would find this out not long after. But she was eager to get back to the trees, back to Segrana to see if there was anything on the file from Galyna, but most of all to ponder the Pathmaster apparition's words.