Steel Beneath the Skin (28 page)

Aneka walked away hoping really hard that he was wrong and they would not. Mostly she had been wandering around saying hello to people and fielding the odd question, almost universally about how she was coping with her new environment. It seemed like no one really knew how to talk to her unless they had an agenda. She had been billed as the woman from the past, and she was not wearing animal furs and speaking in grunts. Expectations had not been met and no one knew what to do with her. Picking up a glass of wine from one of the tables, she smiled at a couple who were watching her as though she might suddenly revert to walking on her knuckles, and turned to find her vision filled with blue sparkles.

Adjaxis, the torem ambassador to New Earth, was tall the way Abraham Wallace was. She came up to the torem’s shoulder, barely. Torem came from a low gravity world, originally, and followed the tall, slim model of body design. They took it somewhat to extremes with extended fingers which Aneka reckoned could have wrapped comfortably around her skull. Adjaxis’ face was relatively featureless, small, but with slightly enlarged, entirely black eyes. He was wearing a thick, blue and white bodysuit made of iridescent fabric. Even his head was encased in it with only his face showing.

‘My apologies, Miss Jansen,’ he said, stepping back. He had a soft, pleasant voice, deeper than Aneka expected. ‘Torem spend much of their time on spaceships and habitats. We forget jenlay concepts of personal space at times.’

Aneka looked up and gave him a smile. ‘It’s more a question of neck strain, sir.’

The ambassador made a guttural noise which Aneka took to be laughter. ‘But one of the results of coming from a species born in low gravity. The other is that I find moving painful without this suit. I won’t ask how you’re settling in, you must be utterly tired of that question.’

‘I’m running out of ways to say “fine” in more than one word.’

‘Quite. I am interested, however. What do you think of this new world you find yourself in?’

Aneka frowned, considering her answer. ‘When I was… taken by the Xinti, we had Global Warming, various states building nuclear weapons, wars, developing biotechnology that could have created lethal viruses. I was hoping I’d be dead before we wiped ourselves out. Now look at us…’ She waved her hand at the people in the Grand Hall. ‘Mankind, out among the stars. It’s different, but we haven’t evolved into something I don’t recognise. Jenlay are brighter, live longer. They’ve conquered disease, and they’re basically at peace. And I’m alive to see it. It’s better than I could have hoped for.’ She grinned. ‘Of course, my ancestors seem to have become mildly sex-obsessed peacocks, but I can learn to live with that.’

He gave her a quizzical look. ‘I’m not exactly sure what a peacock is.’

‘It was a large, flightless bird. The males had huge, multi-coloured tails which they showed off to the females as a big fan.’

‘Ah, I believe I take your meaning.’

A voice came from behind the torem, ‘Ambassador, Ambassador Adjaxis…’

Adjaxis closed his eyes and his head dropped slightly; it was a rather human gesture of resignation. ‘Sadly,’ he said quietly, ‘some of your fellows can try the patience.’

A man in a long, white robe appeared beside them. Aneka had never seen a modern jenlay male who looked so effeminate. He was good-looking enough, but shorter than was typical and young-looking to the point of cute. He had blonde hair, cut short, and sparkling blue eyes, and he carried himself with the kind of posture you saw on camp comedians in the eighties. He even had heart-shaped, pouting lips. ‘Ambassador,’ the man said, ‘we were interrupted…’

‘Mister Smart,’ Adjaxis said, ‘have you met Miss Jansen yet? Miss Jansen, this is Wallander Smart the leader of the Children of the Universe.’

Smart gave Aneka a smile; he was so not interested in her it was almost refreshing. ‘Good evening, Miss Jansen. I hope you’re settling in well.’

‘Quite well, thank you. I understand the Children of the Universe is a jenlay adaptation of torem beliefs?’ She was keeping him focussed on her; Adjaxis looked immensely relieved.

‘Yes. The basic tenets of the faith are that all life in the universe comes together in Vashma, the Universal Mind. When the first life began, so did Vashma. It is our duty to live as Vashma wishes us to live, treating all living things with respect, ensuring that living things progress and evolve. Through adherence to our faith we will learn our purpose, come to know Vashma and The Plan.’

‘The latter part,’ Adjaxis said, ‘is where we diverge. Torem are generally comfortable with knowing that everything is connected, everyone is part of the Mind. By living we serve Vashma. We see no reason to follow a specific, ritual adherence, or to proselytise our beliefs. Obviously, if asked, we explain.’

Aneka nodded. ‘Human religion has always been a search for purpose, some greater meaning to the world. Even in my time. Of course, in my time and before it, religion has been an excuse for conflict, prejudice, persecution.’

‘You’re not religious yourself, then?’

Aneka shook her head. ‘I believe in living my life the best I can. I’m… I
was
a soldier. I’ve killed people because I was told to, or to save other lives. I don’t think I’ve ever killed an innocent person, but I can’t be absolutely sure. One of the reasons I left the Army and got into private security work was that I could pick my own missions. I tried to stick to rescue work.’

‘A worthy mission,’ Adjaxis said, ‘and something there is still need of. I understand you were on Harriamon when the spaceport was attacked and hostages taken.’

‘Huh, yeah. We got stuck on the planet until someone went in and neutralised the terrorists.’

‘Someone, yes. If you’ll both excuse me, I see Senator Ollander over there and I really must talk to her.’ The tall man turned and walked away toward a tall, attractive woman in a white, translucent gown a little like Greek robes.

‘Nice meeting you, Mister Smart,’ Aneka said, and she turned away herself, heading for Gillian and Ella. There was no way she was going to keep chatting to Smart either.

Yorkbridge North Beach, 11.6.524 FSC.

The beach which ran up from Mid-town and the monorail line was, Aneka had to admit, a good place to run, or to sunbathe. Katelyn was alongside her, barefoot, but dressed in relatively modest running gear. They had left Ella a few kilometres back, lying on a towel in the sun.

They were headed north. On their left, the city was masked by high dunes. Aneka could almost have believed they were somewhere isolated, except that they kept coming across people who did not look like they would travel miles for a beach. There were couples and families, out for a day at the beach just as Aneka would have expected to see in her time. More or less anyway; the level of intimacy between some of the couples was a little more than she would have expected at home.

The families were interesting. Generally there was only one child, and where there were two there usually appeared to be several years between them. When you had voluntary control of your reproduction and a long lifespan, you tended to space your kids out, she guessed. Here on New Earth, those children seemed terribly well behaved too. She did see some of the older ones looking very closely at the two fit women running past, but then teenagers probably had not changed that much in a thousand years.

Aneka had set a fair pace, even if she was running barefoot in a string bikini. Katelyn had instructions that she was to call a halt when she needed to rest, but Aneka knew her running partner would collapse before she did. Katelyn was a competitive woman; she wanted to show that she could keep up, no matter what. Aneka felt a little sorry for her since keeping up with a synthetic body was unfair, but she had said she wanted to improve her stamina.

They were getting close to the point where Aneka was going to turn them around anyway when she saw the two men atop one of the dunes. She saw the rifles they were aiming and started to call out, but it was all a little too late. Katelyn let out a shriek and fell, sprawling in the sand. Almost at the same instant Aneka’s ears started ringing and her vision actually blurred as some sort of sonic blast hit her in the head. Katelyn was clutching her leg, but there was no blood; they were using non-lethal weapons. A robbery? No, that was stupid; what were they going to steal? A capture mission?

Range: 20 metres. Two targets. Available weaponry: integral.
The messages flickered past in-vision as Aneka started across the sand.
Time to target: 4 seconds.
They would be able to get more shots off; her left hand raised, her fist clenching as the force shield sprang into existence. She heard the buzz of the sonic beams as they ripped past, none impacting her shield, and hoped Katelyn was too busy with her leg to notice. The gunmen were panicking, not taking proper aim, and their targeting was off because of it.
Time to target: 2 seconds.
A pulse slammed into her shield, not close enough to hit home, but enough to make her react. She reached toward the shooter, fingers spread. The aiming was less than perfect, but the little force weapon was point-and-click and the gunmen were not expecting anything ranged to be thrown at them. Even from here she heard the “oof!” as the presser-pulse hit its target’s chest, but even she was surprised as he was slammed back by the force of it, tumbling out of sight behind the dune.

A last pulse of sound battered her shield before she rammed it into the second man, pushing the barrel of his rifle aside. She had a feeling that it hurt her more than him, but it closed the distance and got her inside of the effective range of his weapon. Dropping the shield, she brought her knee up, slamming it into his stomach and heard the grunt as the air left his lungs. Aneka felt another sting as his friend fired again, clipping her left shoulder, and stepped around her current victim as he made a wild attempt to hit her with the barrel of his rifle. Her hand snapped into the side of his neck and he fell face first into the scrubby grass at the top of the dune.

Another blast of sound hit Aneka in the chest and she turned, glaring at the second gunman. He was still prone after the shock she had given him, and her foot lashed out as he took aim once more. There was a dull ache in Aneka’s chest and she was feeling pissed off. Folding her hand into a fist, she dropped to one knee and slammed her hand down like a hammer onto the man’s chest. Once, twice, and the man stopped moving. She was not sure, but she thought she had heard ribs breaking.

‘I called the Peacekeepers,’ Katelyn said as Aneka got back down the dune to where she was lying. ‘They’ll be here… well, shouldn’t be long.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Bloody stunners. My leg’s paralysed.’ She gave her left leg a slap. ‘It’s like when you sit on your foot for too long, but more long-lasting. I’ll be fine. What about them?’

‘They’ll be fine, when they wake up.’

Katelyn looked at her, frowning. ‘I don’t know how you managed that, but it was amazing.’

Aneka shrugged. ‘Ex-soldier. I’m used to being hit with concussion grenades.’

Anything Katelyn might have said in reply was cut off by the roar of turbofan engines as a Peacekeeper vertol aircraft swung around and landed on the beach.

Yorkbridge Mid-town.

The Peacekeeper station in Mid-town was clean to the point of sterile and the air conditioning was on too high, and Aneka was sitting in an interview room in a bikini. Score one for a body designed to operate in sub-zero temperatures, but she was getting fed up with talking to people who clearly were more used to dealing with traffic problems, crashes, and the occasional fire. They just did not get the kind of crime that provided experience with violence, and they had no idea what to do with Aneka and her attackers. She had put both of them in the hospital.

There was the amusement of watching people walking in and out of the observation room. It was hidden behind a panel like the mirrors you saw in TV programmes, except that this appeared to be a solid wall. It functioned well as a barrier to normal light, but it transmitted infra-red just fine. Aneka was sat facing it on a chromed metal seat so there was nothing to do but watch the comings and goings, which was why she noticed when the room emptied. Frowning, she looked up in time to see the lights on the four cameras go out. Somehow it was not much of a surprise when the door opened and Winter walked in.

‘Can’t stay out of trouble, Miss Jansen?’ the woman said as she took the seat opposite her. She was dressed in a Peacekeeper uniform; the same flack-jacket and slacks arrangement as the men had been wearing on Harriamon.

‘You were the one who dropped me into the spaceport business.’

‘True. You’re sure no one there would have been able to identify you?’

‘I had a mask on the entire time.’ Aneka’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

‘The men who attacked you have been identified. They were Knights of the Void, the same group who staged the Harriamon spaceport incident.’

‘I left one of them alive. Did you get anything from him?’

Winter’s nose wrinkled. ‘The Knights operate in cells of from three to about twenty. Communication is by anonymous file drop. The entire cell was involved in the attack on Harriamon. We got a couple of weapon caches and the location of their file drop server, but no useful information. Forensic analysis of the server gave no indication that they knew about you. We got a deleted file with the orders to attack the spaceport, but nothing to identify its origin.’

Aneka shrugged slightly. ‘Intelligence analysis isn’t really part of my skill set, but that sounds like a whole lot of nothing, and a well organised partisan movement.’

‘We prefer to call them terrorists.’

‘Terrorist, partisan, freedom fighter. All depends on whose side you’re viewing it from. Why would they be trying to kidnap me?’

Folding her arms under her breasts, Winter said, ‘An interesting question, and one I have no answer for. We have to consider the possibility that they will try again, however.’

‘Fanaticism isn’t usually so quick to give up, no. What do you want from me?’