So Vile a Sin (30 page)

223

She leant against the glass, closing her eyes for a moment, suddenly aware of how tired she was. She’d come home, and she’d brought the monsters with her.

‘They were after me,’ he said.

Roz’s eyes snapped open. She’d almost fallen asleep. ‘What?’

‘They wanted me. Instead, they killed Leabie’s children.’

‘That can’t be right,’ said Roz. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘And what am I going to do about it?’ said the Doctor. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Nothing,’ said Roz. ‘You’re wrong. This wasn’t about you.

This was an attack on the family. No, you
are
going to do something.’

‘What am I going to do?’ said the Doctor.

‘You’re going to help me find out who was behind this.’

224

Meanwhile

Mont Blanc, Europe, 17 July 2982

Duke Geoffrey Armand looked up at the Alps. Naked of trees, naked of snow. Barren. Waiting for the time when the pines would once again march up the valleys and the winters would be soft and white. Waiting the way he was waiting.

Armand was tall and handsome, very aristocratic-looking, dark-skinned and curly-haired, and it wasn’t a bepple. He came from some of the best stock. The High Sheriff had come from his family for three generations.

He had walked five kilometres along the valley floor, beside a crisp and freezing stream. His estate was a ten-kilometre-wide strip of preserved land, although some of the mountains had needed repairs after a local war in 2547. It was a shame the water wasn’t safe to drink. He sat down on a rock, wiping the sweat from his brow.

In the distance, his personal home was a vast structure, built into the side of a mountain. A beautiful wooden structure that looked out over the valley. The bulk of the house was inside the mountain, including the family archives and a survival unit that could handle a nuclear strike.

His harem were fighting again. He’d left the servants with strict instructions to prevent any physical violence, and walked out of the house, not even telling security where he was going.

225

You’d think they’d show him a little respect. He kept them in luxury – they could go wherever they liked, do whatever they wanted. They didn’t even have to sleep with him. You’d think they’d listen when he shouted at them to shut up. Maybe they’d show him a little more respect. Soon. When his plans came to fruition.

His personal secretary would be in a complete flap by now; Armand had given him the slip. After an hour’s walking, he was reasonably sure he wasn’t being followed. There’d be a search party soon, though.

He got up again, stretching, noticing the ache in his thighs, just over each knee. He really ought to get more exercise.

‘Greetings Duke Geoffrey Howard Armand of Europe, Lord High Sheriff of Earth,’ said a dozen voices.

Armand looked around. There was a woman standing not ten feet away. She had delicate cheekbones and large, dark eyes, but he could see trained muscles under the sleeves of her white jacket. Her face was utterly blank.

‘I speak for the Brotherhood,’ said the woman. He could hear one voice – twelve voices – a hundred voices – echoes at the edge of his consciousness.

‘For the Grandmaster,’ he said.

‘Yes. I have been sent to inform you. The attack was partly successful but the objective was not achieved. Further plans are in progress.’

‘Not achieved!’ Armand stood up, poking his finger into the woman’s face. As he’d expected, she didn’t react. 'Not achieved!

Do you realize how much danger we’re in because you bungled that attack! I want full details sent to me immediately.’

‘That will be done when the situation becomes clear,’ said the woman.

‘We should attack,’ said Armand. ‘An outright attack while they’re at they’re weakest. The Council are in turmoil. Walid and Leabie are hurt even if they’re not dead. It’s time I did something positive.’

The woman held up a hand. ‘The war must remain in the shadows for now, Duke Geoffrey Armand of Europe.’

226

‘When do I get a say in this?’ said Armand. ‘When do all the promises come true? I’ve helped you from day one – when is it my turn?’

‘You are the channel through which our plans flow, just as I am the channel through which the leadership speaks. When you are Emperor you will speak for us.’

‘When I’m the Emperor,’ said Armand.

‘Yes.’

‘And when will that be? How close is it, now?’

‘Very close. There will be further information and instructions soon. Return to your house. Wait for our messages.’

Armand sighed. ‘All right. You know what you’re doing. All right.’

He turned to go back. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘What about –’

But she’d gone. He looked around. Teleportation? Telepathic invisibility? ‘Ah, cruk it,’ he said.

He headed back for the house. The first thing he was going to do when he was the Emperor was get himself a new harem.

227

4

Europe

Kuleya had been watching them for half an hour. Either they hadn’t noticed her, or they were very, very good at not letting on they knew they were under surveillance. But then, a fourteen-year-old girl by herself, trying on hats, doesn’t look that strange or threatening. Which was, of course, the whole reason to give her the mission in the first place.

She’d picked up some bits and pieces from the two humans’

surface thoughts. The shopping trip was a deliberate attempt to attract attention. A desperate last bid, thought Kuleya. She hadn’t dared to probe further, in case she alerted them.

The three of them had gone to ground after the attack on Kibero. Some very serious searching had been done, but they’d been almost invisible for a month. Traces here and there suggested they were investigating the boss. Which was as it should be. But the fact they hadn’t taken any action suggested they weren’t getting very far with the search. Which was as it should be.

And then, one hour ago, Roz Forrester had used her newly created family credit account to buy a jacket.

Kuleya had started her search in the tailor’s, following the faint trace of memories through the crowds and shops, each brain softly being asked,
Have you seen these people?
It hadn’t taken long.

228

Now she had to decide between acting right away and waiting, making doubly sure they weren’t aware of her presence. Of course, the longer she waited, the greater the chance of discovery.

Decisions, decisions.

‘I’m keeping count, you know,’ said Chris.

The Doctor picked up a dark-brown fedora. ‘Hmm?’

‘And this is the twenty-seventh shop we’ve been in.’

The Doctor popped the hat on his head. ‘What do you think?’

‘It doesn’t go with what you’re wearing,’ Roz pointed out. She was sitting on a padded seat nearby, wearing a red and purple dress and a pair of sandals.

She was also wearing an enormous, wide-rimmed straw hat, festooned with bird-of-paradise feathers. The price tag hung down in front of her face. She flicked it away. ‘And since you never wear anything else, you’d better buy something that matches.’

The Doctor stood in front of a full-length mirror, fingering the crumpled material of his clothes. ‘I don’t always wear the same thing,’ he protested.

‘What, you’ve had that jacket cloned?’ said Roz.

‘It’s not the number of shops I mind,’ said Chris. ‘So much as the fact that neither of you ever buy anything.’

Roz waved a red and grey sleeve at him. ‘What about this jacket?’

‘I
like
this jacket,’ protested the Doctor.

Roz put a finger to her lips. Chris looked around. A shop robot was meandering up to them, rolling on a single ball under its conical base. ‘You want jackets?’ it murmured.

‘Hats,’ said the Doctor.

‘We got hats. What do you want?’

Chris sat down, sighing, as the Doctor and the robot got into a complex argument about synthetic rabbit felt. At least he hadn’t been stuck with carrying the shopping bags, since there weren’t any.

He looked at the printed map of the galleria, feeling his heart sink. It took up more than a block of the overcity. There were 229

five hundred shops. More than a hundred of them were listed under
clothing, footwear and millinery
. ‘I’m doomed,’ he said.

‘No,’ Roz was explaining to another of the robots. ‘What I want is genuine leather. Yes, these shoes are lovely, but I want actual tanned dead animal skin. Upstairs? Chris, can I borrow that map?’

He passed it over. ‘I’m definitely doomed,’ he said.

The Doctor wandered over as Roz was putting the outrageous feathered hat back. ‘And a good thing too,’ he said. ‘That’s far more Benny’s style than yours. Would you believe that robot had never even heard of Jimmy Stewart?’

‘Do you think we’re attracting enough attention?’

‘Why don’t you buy that hat?’ said the Doctor.

‘Where now?’

‘Imports, apparently,’ said Roz. ‘The only way to get genuine leather shoes is to have them sent over from the Crow Nation.’

‘Bison leather?’ said the Doctor.

‘Apparently.’

‘Here we go again,’ said Chris, trailing after them.

Groenewegen’s department store filled twenty floors of the galleria, crammed with merchandise, music, mirrors. On floor seventeen there was a beautiful vase, not an antique, but a new work of art.

They took the escalators up from the headwear department on floor six, passing through scents and bathroom accessories. Roz identified the smells almost subconsciously as they rode those moving stairs. Sandalwood, rose, lavender, smoke, peppermint, frangipani.

It was like being inside a HeadStop sim. So much sensory input you won’t be able to think, they promised. Guaranteed to shock that monkeymind. Your head will stop or your money back.

She could picture the vase, made from electrically fired silicon, some new technique from the colonies. Swirls of hot blue colour trapped in glass so clear it was almost invisible.

Up through music, sabasaba clashing with the Hithles. Roz had tried a few of those HeadStops after Martle had died. After she’d killed Martle. She’d tried a lot of things in those heavy days 230

before she’d found Doc Dantalion and his memory-cutting knife.

Anything to replace the worn, jumping and stuttering sim of the moment she’d thrown that vibroknife, puncturing his eye, his skull, his miserable crooked life.

The vase, in a hundred pieces, like an eggshell. She could see it so clearly, now, riding up and up towards the roof, where the light would break in, letting the light in, cutting through her skin to let the light in, like having her excised memory forced back in by Dantalion, smiling an insect smile.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She could breathe, but only through one nostril. She needed to open her mouth. She wanted to use her hands to pry her mouth open so she could get a decent breath, but she couldn’t move.

She could move, rolling over, blood pouring down her face.

Her head was surrounded by pieces of glass, blue and clear.

‘Here,’ said the Doctor. He handed her a clean hanky.

‘Shit!’ she said, catapulting off the floor and feeling her neck, her head still full of the image of cutting, slicing through the tough walls of the vein and artery in her throat.

‘It’s all right,’ said the Doctor. He was quivering with energy, pale as a ghost. ‘Chris! Look for someone with a matching nosebleed.’

‘I’m on it,’ said the boy. ‘I see her!’ He pushed through the crowd.

Roz looked at the vase. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ the Doctor said.

‘It’ll go on my credit card. Chris will be pleased.’

‘What?’

‘We bought something.’

Chris pushed through the crowd, using size and determination to get people out of his way. He broke free of the circle of onlookers.

There! The girl he’d spotted, fighting her way through the crowd with panicked movements knocking people and shopping bags flying. Chris thundered after her, shouting ‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’

The girl glanced back – she was so young, no more than sixteen! – and hurled herself down a narrow passageway. Chris 231

passed a VIEWING AREA sign as he followed her, stumbling over a cleaning robot.

The girl ran smack into a crowd of tourists, standing about in a cool blue lounge, staring out at the overcity. She looked back once more. Chris saw a flash of dark eyes, desperately afraid.

‘No!’ he shouted.

The girl hurled herself at one of the great rectangular windows.

She bounced off the hyperglass, flung backward into a row of chairs. They scattered in all directions as the girl tumbled down.

Chris was running up when someone else grabbed her. The girl kicked and screamed, but couldn’t get loose.

It was Iaomnet. She looked at Chris. He looked at her.

‘Oh no!’ they both shouted. ‘Not you again!’

An extremely nervous truce found them sitting in Iaomnet’s rented apt half an hour later, the would-be assassin still unconscious after the double-eye had pressed a Sleepybye derm against her neck.

It was a low-level, grungy room. The Doctor had sent Chris to the level’s common room to filch enough chairs for all of them.

‘You were following us,’ said Roz.

Iaomnet shook her head. ‘I’m off your case. I was following her. Suspected Brotherhood operative.’

‘You know about them?’ said Chris, surprised.

‘Of course. Not much, but we know they’re there.’

The assassin was asleep on the narrow bed. A thin girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, with pale skin and tightly curly hair.

Iaomnet tilted back her head, pinched her eye open, and used a retinal scanner. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’m going to run this through records. It’ll take a few minutes.’

‘Wake her up,’ said the Doctor.

‘You don’t want to give her a second chance.’

‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘This won’t work if she’s unconscious.’

He took something out of his jacket pocket. It was an insect –

no, Iaomnet saw, it was a bot in the shape of an insect. Like a moth. ‘What is it?’ she said.