The Night's Dawn Trilogy (357 page)

Whatever did I do all day back then?

“Louise?” Genevieve asked cautiously.

She raised an eyebrow at the girl’s tone. “What?”

“Promise you won’t get mad if I ask?”

“I won’t get mad.”

“It’s just that you haven’t said yet.”

“Said what?”

“Where we’re going after we touch down.”

“Oh.” Louise was completely stumped. She hadn’t even thought about their destination. Getting away from High York and Brent
Roi had been her absolute priority. What she needed to do was find somewhere to stay so she could think about what to do next.
And without consulting her block there was really only one city name from her ethnic history classes which she was certain
would still exist. “London,” she told Genevieve. “We’re going to London.”

______

The African orbital tower had been the first to be built, a technological achievement declared the equal of the FTL drive
by the Govcentral committees and politicians who’d authorized it. Typical self-aggrandising hyperbole, but acknowledged to
be a reasonable comparison none the less. As Aubry Earle had said, it was intended to replace space-planes and the enormously
detrimental effect they were having on Earth’s distressed atmosphere. By 2180 when the tower was finally commissioned (eight
years late), the Great Dispersal was in full swing, and the volume of space-plane traffic had become so injurious to the atmosphere
that meteorologists were worrying about elevating the armada storms to an even greater level of ferocity.

The question became academic. Once the tower was on line, its cargo capacity exceeded thirty per cent of the world’s spaceplane
fleet. Upgrades were being planned before the first lift capsule ran all the way up to Skyhigh Kijabe. Four hundred and thirty
years later, the original slender tower of monocarbon fibre was now nothing more than a support element threading up the centre
of the African Tower. A thick grey pillar dwindling off up to infinity, immune to the most punishing winds the armada storms
could fling at it. The outer surface was lined with forty-seven magnetic rails, the structure’s maximum. It was now cheaper
to build new towers than expand it any further.

The lower five kilometres were the fattest section, providing an outer sheath of tunnels to protect the lift capsules from
the winds, enabling the tower to remain operational in all but the absolutely worst weather conditions. Exactly where the
tower ended and the Mount Kenya station started was no longer certain. With a daily cargo throughput potential of two hundred
thousand tonnes, and up to seventy-five thousand passengers, the capsule handling infrastructure had moulded itself tumescently
around the base, a mountain in its own right. Eighty vac-train tunnels intersected in the bedrock underneath it, making it
the most important transport nucleus on the continent.

To keep the passengers flowing smoothly, there were eighteen separate arrival Halls. All of them followed the same basic layout,
a long marble-floored concourse with the exit doors from customs and immigration rooms on one side, and lifts on the other,
leading to the subterranean vac-train platforms. Even if an arriving passenger knew exactly which lift cluster they wanted,
they first had to negotiate a formidable barricade of retail stalls selling everything from socks to luxury apartments. Keeping
track of one individual (or a pair) amid the perpetual scrum occupying the floor wasn’t easy, not even with modern equipment.

B7 left nothing to chance. A hundred and twenty GSDI field operatives had been pulled off their current assignments to provide
saturation coverage. Fifty were allocated to Hall Nine, where the Kavanagh sisters were due to disembark, their movements
coordinated by an AI that was hooked into every security sensor in the building. Another fifty were already on their way to
London within minutes of Louise saying that was her intended goal. Twenty had been held in reserve in case of cockups, misdirection,
or good old fashioned acts of God.

The arrangements had caused more arguments among B7; all of the supervisors remained extremely proprietorial when it came
to their respective territories. Southern Africa, in whose domain the Mount Kenya station fell, disputed Western Europe’s
claim that he should take personal command of the surveillance. Western Europe counterclaimed that as the tower station was
just a brief stopover for the sisters, and the whole operation was his anyway, he should have the necessary authority. The
other B7 supervisors knew Southern Africa, renowned for the tedious minutiae of procedure worship, was just going through
the motions.

Western Europe was given his way over the tower station, as well as gaining concessions to steer the operation through whichever
territory the Kavanaghs roamed in their search for Banneth.

Southern Africa acceded to the decision, and withdrew testily from the sensenviron conference. Smiling quietly at his inevitable
victory, Western Europe datavised the AI for a full linkage. With the station layout unfolding in his mind, he began to designate
positions to the agents. Tied in with that was the lift capsule’s arrival time, and the departure times of each scheduled
vac-train. The AI computed every possible travel permutation, plotting the routes which the sisters would have to walk across
the concourse. It even took into account the types of stalls which might catch their eye. Satisfied the agents were placed
to cover every contingency, Western Europe stoked the logs on his fire, and settled back into a leather armchair with a brandy
to wait.

It was probably the ultimate tribute to the fieldcraft of the GSDI agents that after all fifty of them took up position in
Hall Nine, Simon Bradshaw didn’t notice them, not even with his hyper instinct for the way of things on the concourse. Simon
was twenty-three years old, though he could easily pass for fifteen. Selected hormone courses kept him short and skinny, with
soft ebony skin. His large eyes were moist brown, which people mistook for mournful. Their endearing appeal had salvaged him
from trouble countless times in the twelve years he’d been strutting the concourses of the Mount Kenya station. Local floor
patrol cops had his profile loaded in their neural nanonics, along with hundreds of other regular sneak opportunists. Simon
used cosmetic packages every fortnight or so, altering his peripheral features, though his size remained constant. It was
the act you had to vary to prevent the cops from putting a comparison program into primary mode. Some days dress smart and
act little boy lost, dress casual and act street tough, dress neutral act neutral, pay a cousin to lend you their five-year-old
daughter and come over as a protective big brother. But never ever dress poor. Poor people had no business in the station,
even the stall vendors had neat franchise uniforms below their shiny franchise smiles.

Today Simon was actually in a franchise uniform himself: the scarlet and sapphire tunic of Cuppamaica, the coffee cafÉ. Being
unobtrusive by being mundane. Nobody was suspicious of station workers. He saw the two girls as soon as they emerged through
the customs and immigration archway. It was like they had a hologram advert flashing over their heads saying: EASY. He couldn’t
ever remember seeing such obvious offworlders before. Both of them gawping round at the cavernous Hall, delighted and amazed
by the place. The little one giggled, pointing up at the transit informatives, baubles of light charging about overhead like
insane dragonflies, shepherding passengers towards the right channels.

Simon was off immediately, coming away from the noodle stall he’d been slouching against as if powered by a nuclear pulse.
Moving at a fast walk, the luggage cab buzzing incessantly at his heels as its small motors strained to keep up. He was desperately
trying not to run, the urgency was so hot. His principal worry now was if the others of his profession saw them. It would
be like a feeding frenzy.

Louise couldn’t bring her legs to move. Her fellow passengers had swept her and Genevieve out of customs, carrying her along
for a few yards before her surroundings exerted a grip on her nerves. The arrivals Hall was awesome, a stadium of coloured
crystal and marble, saturated with noise and light. There must surely have been more people thronging across its floor than
lived in the whole of Kesteven island. Like her, they all had luggage cabs chasing after them, adding to the bedlam. The squat
oblong box had been supplied by the line company operating the lift capsule. Her bags had been dumped inside by the retrieval
clerk, who’d promptly handed her a circular card. The cab, he promised, would follow her everywhere as long as she kept the
card with her. It was also the key to open it again when they got down to their vac-train platform. “After that you’re on
your own,” he said. “Don’t try and take it on the carriage. That’s MKS property, that is.”

Louise swore she wouldn’t. “How do we get to London?” Gen asked in a daunted tone. Louise glanced up at the mad swarms of
photons above them. They were balls of tightly packed writing, or numbers. Logically, it must be travel information of some
kind. She just didn’t know how to read it.

“Ticket office,” she gulped. “They’ll tell us. We’ll have to buy a ticket for London anyway.”

Genevieve turned a complete circle, trying to scan the Hall through the melee of bodies and luggage cabs. “Where’s the ticket
office?”

Louise pulled the processor block out of her shoulder purse. “I’ll find it,” she said with determination. It was just a question
of accessing a local net processor and loading a search program. An operation she’d practised a hundred times with the tutorial.
Watching the graphics assemble themselves in the display as she conjured up a welcome feeling of satisfaction.

I’ve got a problem and I’m solving it. By myself, and for myself. I’m not dependent.

She grinned happily at Gen as the search program interrogated the station information processors. “We’re actually on Earth.”
She said it as though she’d only just realized. Which, in a strange way, she had.

“Yes,” Genevieve grinned back. Then she scowled as a scrawny youth in a red and blue uniform barged into her. “Hey!”

He mumbled a grudging apology, side-stepped round the luggage cab and walked away.

The block bleeped to announce it had located the vac-train ticket dispensers for Hall Nine. There were seventy-eight of them.
Without showing any ire, Louise started to redefine the search parameters.

Easy, easy,
easy
. Simon wanted to yell it out. That jostle with the little kid was the modern equivalent of the shell game. Visually confusing
as their respective luggage cabs crossed paths, and allowing his grabber to intercept their tag card code at the same time.
He fought the impulse to turn round and check the new luggage cab at his feet. Those girls were in for a hell of a shock when
they got to their platform and found only a pile of beefbap wrappers inside it.

Simon headed for the stalls at a brisk pace. There was a staff lift at the middle. Route down to a quieter level, where he
could examine his prize. He was ten metres from the front line of stalls when he was aware of two people closing on him. It
wasn’t an accidental path, either, they were coming at him with all the purpose of combat wasps. Running wasn’t going to do
any good, he knew that. He pressed the release button on the grabber hidden in his palm. The girls’ luggage cab swerved away,
no longer following him. Now, if he could just dump the grabber in a waste bin. No proof.

Shit. How could his luck turn like this?

One of the cops (or whoever) went after the luggage cab. Simon hunted round for a bin. Anywhere there was a fast food bar.
He ducked round the first stall, making one last check on his pursuers. That was why he never saw the third (or fourth and
fifth, for that matter) GISD agent until the woman bumped right into him. He did feel, briefly, a small sting on his chest.
Exactly the same place she was now taking her hand away from. His guts suddenly turned very cold, then that sensation faded
to nothing.

Simon looked down at his chest in puzzlement just as his legs faltered, dropping him to his knees. He’d heard of weapons like
this, so slim they never left a mark as they punctured your skin; but inside it was like an EE grenade going off. The world
was going quiet and dim around him. High above, the woman watched him with a faint sneer of satisfaction on her lips.

“For a couple of bags?” Simon coughed incredulously. But she’d already turned, walking away with a calm he could almost respect.
A real pro. Then he was somehow aware of himself finishing the fall to the floor. Blood rushed out of his gaping mouth. After
that, the darkness rushed up to drown him. Darkness, but not total night. The world was only the slightest of distances away.
And he wasn’t alone in observing it from outside. The lost souls converged upon him to devour the font of keen anguish that
was his mind.

“That way,” Louise said brightly. The block’s little screen was showing a floor layout, which she thought she’d aligned right.

With Genevieve skipping along at her side she negotiated the obstacle course of stalls. They slowed down to window shop the
things on display, not really understanding half of them. She also thought there must be a subtle trick to negotiating the
crowd which was eluding her. Twice on the way to the dispenser, people banged into her. It wasn’t as though she didn’t look
where she was going. The block had told her there was neither a ticket office, nor an information desk. A result which made
her acknowledge she was still thinking along Norfolk lines. All the information she needed was in the station electronics,
it just needed the right questions to extract it.

A vac-train journey to London cost twenty-five fuseodollars (fifteen for Gen); a train left every twelve minutes from platform
thirty-two; lifts G to J served that level. Once she knew that, even the transit informatives whirling past overhead began
to make a kind of sense.

Western Europe accessed an agent’s sensevise to watch the sisters puzzle out the ticket dispenser. Enhanced retinas zoomed
in on Genevieve, who had started clapping excitedly when a ticket dropped out of the slot.