Seeds of Earth (51 page)

The temptation to wait here in Glenkrylov for further news was strong, yet he knew that he and the forest scholars must lay plans for a swift retreat. He was sure that if Greg had spilled all that he knew, then the Hegemony envoy Kuros must now suspect something of the Uvovo connection with the temple and the well chamber, not to mention the ancient covenant with Segrana that went back to the oldest times. As well as the tales of detentions and beatings, Chel had heard an unconfirmed rumour that Buchanskog, the daughterforest east of Hammergard, had been invaded by Brolturan troops who destroyed the meditation retreats, the
vodrun
and the scholar abodes before carrying off every Uvovo they could seize. If the offworlders were ready to raid one of the daughter-forests so soon, it was only a matter of time before they moved against the others.

With one last glance at Waonwir, now growing dark as the sun dipped towards the horizon, Chel began the descent, keen to check on Greg's progress but also impatient to plan for the worst outcome. At least that way anything less dire would feel like a reprieve, or even an opportunity!

50

THEO

It was early evening by the time they reached Akessonhold, a rambling farmhouse west of Landfall and their third safe house in the last twenty-four hours. Theo, Donny and Solvjeg were ushered into the hallway. a wood-panelled, L-shaped room with several passages leading off, some up a few stairs, others down a few. Arne Akesson himself was there to greet them, a bald, broad-chested man with a wrestler's build that had earned him the nickname 'the Bull', but among the Diehards he had a reputation for foxy cunning.

'Theo, Donny, and Solvjeg,' he said, shaking hands and giving a courteous bow to Theo's sister while his attendants took care of the newcomers' hats and coats. 'Dearest Solvjeg, it is good to see that you are safe - I heard how these two heroes plucked you from perilous captivity. Please be welcome in my house; these are evil times and friends must stand by each other.'

'Thank you so much, Arne,' said Solvjeg, smiling tiredly. 'It has been a trying day.'

Theo nodded. 'And a hungry one.'

Akesson grinned. 'Ah, I know I am playing host to a famous trencherman so have no worries on that score. I have set aside the small parlour which is just up those stairs and on the right, and will have some provender sent there straight away.'

'So shall we go on up now?' said Theo.

'Let Solvjeg and Donny go,' Akesson said. 'There is someone through in the back room who needs to speak with you, Theo.'

Theo smiled - Arne's back room was an adjoining hut at the rear where he kept his radio equipment.

'I'll be back in a few minutes,' he told Donny and his sister, then followed Akesson out of the hallway.

A narrow passageway lit by oil lamps ran back for several yards, down some steps into a newer wing of the farmhouse then through a large kitchen where pots gave off steamy vapours, stew, baking bread, and something cooking in wine. From the main store at the rear a curtained archway led into another narrow, undecorated wooden corridor and finally a creaky door opened into the hut.

A skinny youth got up as they entered and handed Akesson the headset. 'He's still'there, sir.'

'Thank you, Gennadiy. Is the signal encrypted?' 'It is, sir.'

Nodding, Akesson sat down at the radio, an obsolete DVC model whose wooden casing was scored and battered, despite a recent dark blue paint job. The transmitter next to it was a nondescript grubby green unit with what looked like a leather suitcase handle bolted to the side.

'Hello?' Akesson said into the headset's stalk microphone. 'Yes, he's here.' He passed the headset to Theo, who put it on.

'This is Karlsson.'

'Great tae hear yer voice, Major.'

'Rory!' Hope and trepidation leaped in him. 'How's Greg? Last I heard, they handed him over to Kuros.'

'Oh aye, but we busted him outa there with some help from that Uvovo, Chel, and a road digger that Mad Davey got his mitts on. Greg was kind of wounded but not badly - we spoke tae him before we left and he's doing fine.'

Theo grinned. 'Well done, Rory - you've earned your pay for the week. Where are you now?' 'In Rullinge, at Kruger's.'

Rullinge was a boatyard town a few miles down the coast from High Lochiel, and Kruger's was an alehouse of the 'dive' variety.

'And have you been keeping an eye on the news, Rory?'

'Ye could say that, as well as helping it along, like!' 'Well, it looks as if we have just become the official resistance ...'

'Suits me fine, sir!'

'... but until we hear from Pyatkov,' Theo went on, 'we won't know if there are any others that we need to link up with, like former DVC or disgruntled police ...'

Akesson leaned closer. 'Pyatkov is coming here - he's due in about half an hour.'

Theo nodded. 'Okay, Rory, it seems that Pyatkov will be with us in thirty minutes or so, then we'll know where we stand. But I'd like you and the others to head south and meet us at Membrance Vale. There's a picnic and observation point overlooking the
Hyperion —
that will be the rendezvous, but I want you to keep to cover.

We don't know if the Brolturans have the colony under satellite coverage, but we'd best be wary.' 'Right ye are, Major.'

'Good. By the way, what's the mood like in Rullinge?'

'Eh, they're no happy, sir. Kinda goes from the simmering angry types to the full-on, carpet-chewing berserkers. Some of them want to barricade all the roads in and out, some others want to load up the trucks with guns 'n' molotovs and head out to find some Sendrukans tae fight, while the rest are busy getting hammered.'

'They might be a good source of recruits later on. For now, be as low-key as you can when you leave. Be cautious on the roads and watch out for roadblocks - go cross-country if you have to.'

'Got it, Major - we're on our way.'

Theo took off the headset and laid it on the table.

'You look tired, my friend,' said Akesson.

He shrugged. 'This time yesterday we were upstairs in Chyornilov's, that restaurant in west Hammergard, when it was raided by armed police - we got out through a passageway that led through the attics of the next two buildings. We found a garage, hired a rattling old hillcar and got to the Martensson fish farm by about midnight

'I think I know it - coast road, a few miles south of Tort Gagarin...'

'That's right. Well, we snatched a few hours' sleep in an empty worker cottage before being woken at five by our main contact - turned out that two military intelligence officers and six Brolturan soldiers had arrived and were questioning everyone. The main gate was blocked so we had to head across a boggy field to the road, carrying bikes that our contact had dug out of the farm stores for us. After that we kept to the farm roads and hill paths and eventually got here in one piece.'

Theo remembered again the desperate and fearful escape under a troubled night sky with an icy breeze buffeting them as shower squalls flew in from the sea.

'Your sister was arrested and questioned, yes? But she seems to have come through it.'

Theo gave a sad smile. '/<3, she was always the tough one - never lets any situation get the better of her, or anyone. Although she has been very worried about her boys, Greg especially.' He stood. 'We should return so I can tell her that he is safe.'

Akesson nodded and led the way, pausing in the kitchen to make sure that the food and drink had been sent to the small parlour. Donny and Solvjeg were sitting in armchairs either side of a table crowded with plates of cold meat, cheese, butter, small savoury pas tries, and a jug of mulled wine that gave off a heady vapour. A good-sized wood fire blazed in the hearth while generations of Akessons gazed down from the walls. Solvjeg looked up as they entered and when he passed on the news about Greg she put her hand to he'' mouth and closed her eyes.

'Thank God,' she whispered, then lowered her hand, which she clenched, and nodded at Theo. 'They are all safe, Theo.' During the stopover at Martensson's, word had reached them that Ian and Ned had made it to Invergault and were heading south into the Hrothgar Mountains, thinking to hide out in one of the trapper camps.

Theo and Akesson dragged a couple of wicker chairs closer, poured out mugs of hot wine, then the four of them pooled their knowledge to try and gain a fuller picture of the situation. First, it was now certain that Sundstrom and his cabinet were dead, killed outright by the missile attack. A government of national unity had been formed in the Assembly within hours, although the tiny Foundationist and Redemptionist parties refused to take part, the latter being Viktor Ingram's old party and comprising five Legators. Together with the Foundationists, they represented an official opposition totalling eight Legators, as opposed to the Unity government's 104.

This new Assembly swiftly passed a batch of draconian laws, including several emergency powers which handed huge discretionary powers to the executive, and in charge of that executive was Dugald Kirkland, leader of the Consolidation Alliance and now president pro tem of Darien. And all of it had been conducted with almost no reportage or comment, since many journalists had also been killed in the attack on the Assembly building; in addition, the police were ordered to shut down all newspapers, all vee stations (except Starstream), and all radio stations (except the government information service, which gave out no useful information).

There was just one fly in the greasy ointment of this ruthless stealth coup - Alexandr Vashutkin, Sundstrom's transport minister, was still alive. Having broken a leg while visiting Trond on official business, he had sent his deputy to attend the cabinet's crisis meeting on the disappearance of Ambassador Horst. A decade and a half ago, Vashutkin and Sundstrom had become close friends in the Progressive Dispersalists, but several years back policy differences had come between them, causing Vashutkin to resign from the PD and join the Union for Land Party. Which later became part of Sundstrom's Civic Coalition, thus forcing the two former friends to work together once again.

And Vashutkin was using Trond as his base, from where he made live radio speeches denouncing the Hegemony and its envoy Kuros as tyrants and aggressors and describing the Unity government as spineless collaborators. He reserved his choicest vitriol for Kirkland himself, saying that his motto should be 'No Boot Left Unlicked', and that he lived in fear of his own intestines which, out of shame, might one day reach up through his throat and throttle him to death.

Vashutkin's tirades, combined with the formal re establishment of the Northern Towns League, had already made Trond a focus for dissent, protest against and mockery of the assembly in Hammergard. The new laws were being ignored and Hammergard officials bear ing enforcement orders had this evening been politely but firmly shown the door. Twenty-four hours since the missile attack the colony was split down the middle; Hegemony advisers seemed to be present at every level of government and Brolturan ground and air patrols maintained a high profile in Hammergard and the major towns, apart from those in the north. From Nivyesta, there was no news.

'What about Earth?' Theo said, draining the last of his wine then reaching for some bread and cheese. 'Have they made any comment?'

Akesson smiled sourly. 'They have not even appointed a new ambassador. That captain of the
Heracles,
Velazquez, was interviewed on Starstream just after Kirkland was confirmed as president, saying how it was a new start for Darien and how we should support the new government, and how grateful we all were that the Brolturans and the Hegemony were helping to stabilise the situation.'

'Aye,' Donny said bitterly. 'Stabilising it with a boot on our necks.'

'He didn't manage a smile once during the interview,' Akesson said. 'He really looked like a man who was carrying out orders that he loathed.'

Donny snorted. 'But he still carried them out. He's still got his men patrolling with the Brolturans.'

'What about Horst?' Akesson said. 'What's happened to him? Did you really kidnap the man?'

Theo shook his head. He had already told Donny and Solvjeg a truncated version of the story, shorn of the Uvovo chamber disappearance, on the principle that what they didn't know couldn't hurt them

'No, no, I saved him from a Brolturan interrogation,' he said. 'I knew he had nothing to do with the bombings so I got him away to Giant's Shoulder, then left him with friends there when I had to go and free my sister. Since when .. .' He shrugged. 'I don't know if he's hiding somewhere or if they caught him. The former, I hope ...'

'The Brolturans are doing something up on Giant's Shoulder,' Akesson said. 'Machinery working round the clock, big floodlamps lighting it up at night.'

'I heard that they were building a prison or a fortress, or both,' Theo said, then fell silent when one of the attendants came in and murmured to Akesson. The big man nodded and as the attendant left he turned to the others.

'Pyatkov will be here in about ten minutes - he just left the wayhouse on the Midgard Road. And he's not alone, apparently.'

'That'll be the Enhanced, then,' Donny said, matterof-factly.

They all stared at him. Enjoying the attention, he refilled his mug and chewed on a savoury pastry.

'Ye know about them, eh?' he went on. 'The kids that they

'Yes, we know who they are, Donny,' Theo said. 'Why don't you just tell us what Pyatkov's up to, since you seem to know more than we do.'

'Och, I don't know that much,' Donny said, sipping wine. 'But I do know that of the government's secret, hush-hush projects, there was one whose success rate was way out in front, and that's who I think Pyatkov's got with him. Probably wants them moved to a safe house near Trond, or further north, knowing my luck.'

'Enhanced,' Akesson muttered darkly. 'It was terrible what they did to those children.'

Solvjeg sat forward. 'When I was young and still at school, one of my closest friends got herself pregnant by a young man from a neighbouring town, a very pretty boy who could dance most dashingly and play the bala . . . anyway, she and her parents were distraught, but at that time Zhilinsky was promoting his New Children's Programme, with government backing, encouraging women not to have abortions but to donate the unwanted offspring to his Programme, even before they had reached full term.