Ally (22 page)

“It's about the Corps, ma'am, not the government,” Ade said quietly. “We'll always owe the Corps.” He liked to make the point. “With your permission, we'll start removing a few essential plants.”

Cargill's face creased in a brief smile. “See the duty maintenance manager in block nine alpha and tell him I gave you instructions to do it. Whatever it is.”

Cargill was all right. Ade and Qureshi went in search of the manager, commandeered tools and empty storage drums, and began digging up fruit trees. It was amazing the kind of things he ended up doing as a Royal Marine. In the general ebb and flow of bodies trying to strip a structure for a fast exit, their pillage of the shrubbery went unnoticed, or at least nobody tried to stop them. Eventually Eddie showed up with Sue Webster. The pockets on Eddie's vest and his battered messenger bag bulged with promising cartonlike shapes.

“What you got, Eddie?” asked Qureshi, hardly looking up from the delicate root ball that she was easing out of the soil. “Any good rabbit?”

Eddie had the glow of satisfaction that must have been familiar to his hunter-gatherer ancestors. “Curry concentrate. Cumin and coriander seeds. Pepper. Saccharin. Rice, ration-prepped
and
seed grain. Coffee, cocoa powder and oatmeal.”

He might as well have said he had all the gems of the Orient. “That's bloody good rabbit, Eddie. All donated?”

He grinned. “More or less.”

Ade wrapped the banana's root ball in composite sheet and secured it before sliding it into one of the small drums. “See how bloody fast we plummet into anarchy.”

“I'll stick a pig's head on a pole later and we can dance around it in primal abandon.”

“You're a natural born baron-strangler, mate.”

“What?”

“Good at taking advantage of hospitality.”

“I'm a journo. We do that.”

“I'm glad you're on our side.”

Eddie's knuckles showed white as he kept a ferocious grip on the straining strap of his bag. “Yeah, I am. Looks like you're liberating a few assets yourself.”

“Doing a bit of jungle training. Identification and utilization of native tropical food plants for survival in the field.”

“Uhuh…”

“Nicking the fucking banana tree.”

“Ah, the endless possibilities of the English language…”

The next challenge was to find a secure holding area for the plunder while they awaited extraction. Sticking it in a quiet corner with Mart Barencoin was probably the best option to stop some other bastard trying to walk off with it. They were discussing the logistics when the Regulating Branch chief jogged up to them, and they instinctively formed a protective circle around the growing pile of looted items. The man was a “crusher,” the ship's police.

“Your Boss is on the ITX, Royal. Cleared the bloody office out too, so make it snappy.”

Ade found himself reaching without thinking for his beret and slipping it two-handed onto his head. “Come on, Izzy. Let's see what he's got to say for himself.”

“Her,” said the chief. “It's a
her.
”

“Can I watch?” said Eddie.

“Yeah, why not?” Ade heard a faint alarm bell, the kind that made him a witness who wasn't in uniform. “Keep your trap shut, that's all.”

Qureshi didn't seem bothered. Eddie was a tame embed as far as she was concerned. Cargill held the office door open with an emphatically blank expression. “Screen's on standby. Green key, when you've got yourself looking all lovely. Call me when you're done.”

Ade closed the door behind her and gestured to Qureshi and Eddie to stand out of the range of the cam. He did it without thinking again, but it wasn't his Royal Marines drill that was driving him—it was Shan's legacy in his genes, and
he knew it as surely as if she'd tapped him on the shoulder. He settled himself at the console, then removed his beret to fold and slide it under the shoulder tab of his shirt.

This had better be a fucking apology.

He pressed the green key. The screen switched from the pale blue UN holding portal to a tidy desk dominated by a female brigadier—not a marines officer, but one in army drab. She looked like she could even take on Shan and last a few rounds: spare, cold-eyed, maybe forty, and with short blond curls that weren't remotely girlie.

“Yes ma'am,” he said. “Bennett, ma'am. Former Five-Ten Troop.”

There was always several seconds' delay even with the instant relay of the ITX. The last relay of the entangled photon link was a little way from Earth and had to limp the last leg at light speed. Ade counted.

“Brigadier Harrison,” she said. “I see the service might have dispensed with you, but you haven't dispensed with the service.”

“Is that what you wanted to discuss with me, ma'am?”

“Yes. We need to do some administrative resolution if you're all returning to Earth at some stage.”

Here we go.
Ade avoided catching Eddie's eye even in his peripheral vision. “You'll have to be specific.”

“The Defense Ministry reopened the case. The senior Judge Advocate feels that the hearing was wrongly convened and that the finding of guilt can't stand.”

Ade chewed the words carefully and extracted a faint and grudging flavor of apology from them. It was a start.

“What does that mean exactly, ma'am?”

One, two, three, four, five…

“That you may be eligible for reenlistment with your good names intact, with no loss of privileges.”

He waited. Qureshi and Eddie, leaning against the wall behind the screen, were doing a good job of holding their breath. The pause was far longer than the delay on the ITX router.

“Ma'am,” he said at last. “What's the condition attached?”

Harrison lost her glacial detachment for a moment and the quick compression of her lips said she was reluctant to tell him.

“My intelligence colleagues tell me one of their number is still in theater and he hasn't reported in for some time. They'd like to talk to him.”

“Dr. Rayat? No need to be discreet, ma'am. Everyone knows he's a spook, including the Eqbas.”

Shit.
He'd used the present tense. That was no big deal for Harrison, but Qureshi thought Rayat was dead.
Oh shit.

“Very well, and I make this offer on behalf of my colleagues, who appear to be above me in the food chain these days…find Rayat, and we can discuss your futures.”

“They want him back.”

“Yes.”

Shan would have been proud of him. “Do they think he's misbehaved, or are they just worried for his safety?”

“One never knows with the intelligence community.”

“Very good, ma'am. I'll report back as soon as I can.”

“Please do, Mister Bennett.”

Ade killed the link before Harrison got the chance to. The silence hung over the room, building like a storm.

“Mister
Bennett, my arse,” Ade muttered. “Don't try to psych me, missus.”

“Oh shit,” said Eddie. Ade willed him not to say the
c'naatat
word in front of Qureshi. “That does it, then.”

Qureshi folded her arms and shrugged. “What do we do, dredge up the Rayat bits and bag them? Do you remember where you dumped him?”

“How badly do you want to be reinstated, Izzy?”

“Pretty badly, if only to avoid having
war criminal
on my résumé. Won't proof of death do?”

“How do we prove that?” Jesus, this was getting stupid. Ade couldn't keep it up much longer. First rule: you trusted your mates and they trusted you. You watched each other's backs. Arses were covered. You'd put your life on the line for them because they'd do the same for you. Armies ran on that simple act of faith and personal trust, and if you didn't live that principle, you weren't just fucked—you were scum.
“Izzy, go and round up the lads and find somewhere private we can talk. This is messier than it looks.”

Qureshi paused for a second then walked out without a word. Ade wrestled with reality. Eddie stood next to his seat and put on hand on the back of it, leaning slightly over him.

“You can't tell anyone about Rayat. Or Lin. They haven't asked about her, have they?”

“Eddie, they won't want Lin back in the shape she's in now.”

“I thought she was alive.”

“She is. She's just changed a lot.”

“Oh God.”

“C'naatat
does that.”

“What happened?”

“Christ, Eddie, she's been living under water. Use your imagination. It's not her I'm worried about. It's that bastard Rayat.”

“Do you know where they are?”

“Maybe.”

“Ade, I've known about this since Christmas and I haven't said a word. I learned my lesson with Shan. Do you reckon they know about Rayat?”

“How could they? He hasn't had any comms access since he caught the bloody thing.” Ade couldn't recall if Shan had explained exactly how Rayat and Lin had acquired
c'naatat
: as usual, Eddie had put two and zero together, made an intuitive leap, and worked out that there were now two more carriers. Ade wasn't going to fill in the details. “And he isn't going to be handed over to anyone, so we're stuck. Problem is…look, I have to tell them. I can't do this to them. They have to know why I can't deliver Rayat.”

Eddie straightened up and adjusted his bulging pockets. “And you've got no guarantee that the Ministry's going to keep their promise. Jesus, if they want him back—it'll be between twenty-five and seventy-five years before they get their hands on him. Nobody who can sign an authorization is going to be around then, and even if they make you all Major-Generals with knobs on today, what's to say that'll be honored when you get back?”

“They,
” said Ade. “When
they
get back. I'm not going. You know I can't.”

“What a fucking mess.”

“Not if they'll forego their chance to get back in.”

“What else are they going to do?”

“You reckon any Earth government is going to argue with Esganikan ‘Read-My-Lips' Gai? There's another way to do this.”

“Yeah.” Eddie began counting off on his fingers. “One, tell them he's dead. Two, wait until you get back to Earth and challenge the verdict in the courts. Three…”

“You've got a three, have you?”

“Give me time.”

“You can't cover things up forever, least of all with people you're close to.”

“You've never had an affair, I take it.”

“Fucking right I haven't.”

“You think Shan tells you everything?”

“I know she does.” Oh yes.
I was pregnant and now I'm not.
She could have kept it to herself, but she couldn't live with the secrecy. Sometimes people unburdened themselves to share the shit, and sometimes they just did it because it was right at some instinctive level. “And…well, sex with
c'naatat
carriers…okay, we share genetic memories. If an event is big enough and bad enough, you can't hide it.”

Eddie looked as if he was going to bite back with some cynical disbelief, but his expression sagged into sad realization. “You're a matched pair, you two. Bloody scout's honor, I-might-be-some-time, death before dishonor.”

“I like honesty. It's easy.”

“I didn't say it was wrong. Just that you're an endangered species. Ade, you've got to discuss this with Shan. You
have
to.”

The door swung open with some force and Sophia Cargill loomed in the doorway.

“I hate to interrupt, gentlemen, but shift it, will you? Got work to do.”

“We're gone,” said Eddie.

As they walked across the open plaza in the center of the
dome, Ade marshaled his thoughts and he fumbled in his pouch belt for the
virin,
the wess'har communications device that he was only just beginning to get the hang of. He tried to get a link through to Shan, but the sequence of finger positions defeated him and he slowed to a stop to concentrate on it. He ended up getting the Eqbas ship on station above him.

“I must speak to
Shan Chail,
” he said in his best wess'u. “I have a problem.”

“We'll contact her,” said the bridge officer. “Did you understand that? We…will…call…her.”

“I understand.”
Just about.
“Tell her it concerns Rayat.”

Eddie stared at Ade as he slid the
virin
back in his belt.

“You can do the two voices.” Eddie sounded envious. “That's amazing. I've tried for months to do it.”

“It's the genes in me,” said Ade, embarrassed. “It's nothing clever.”

Ade began walking again, dodging bots and small loaders. He wondered if Cargill had a realistic view of how much the Eqbas were prepared to transport, and how much the colony on Mar'an'cas could deal with. But that wasn't his main problem right now: he had to decide how to make things right for his detachment, the men and women who were his personal responsibility whether they were still technically marines or not. They'd do no less for him. Wherever Qureshi had found a secure space, she'd spotted him because he heard a sharp whistle and looked around to see her beckoning to him from a service area.

There was a time when all he had to do was glance at the living computer grown into his palm to see the vital signs of the whole detachment, all of them linked through the bioscreen system implanted in them—data, communications, health monitoring, the works. Even Lindsay Neville had one. Now
c'naatat
had purged him of it and all the implanted links in his eyes, ears and organs, another reminder that he wasn't really one of them any longer.