War in Heaven (24 page)

‘They’ve been here a while if they are.’

‘They must have come when we were colonising.’

‘Its difficult to understand Their way of measuring time but They encountered whatever that was before They encountered us.’

That shut me up until I eventually asked, ‘So what do you think they are?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe they’re aliens searching for a way to communicate and then the way home, or maybe they’re the real deal – whatever that means. Pagan thinks that they are a reflection of us, our subconscious projected onto the net and somehow given form and independence. He calls them ghosts of our imagination.’

‘So?’ I finally asked
.

‘So what?’

‘So what does it all mean?’

‘Fucked if I know.’

‘Brilliant. Just more religious bollocks.’ Morag opened her mouth to say something. ‘Don’t tell me to have faith.’

‘I was going to tell you to speak to Pagan – he knows more about this sort of thing.’

‘Oh he’ll fucking love that, me getting religion. Has he seen them?’ I asked, trying to change the subject
.

‘Back on Earth he has. He hasn’t been in Their mind yet. I’m going to take him in next.’

‘Yeah? Good, he’ll like that. Hold on. Does that mean he’ll see you naked?’ I demanded. She was laughing. I still didn’t like the idea. ‘Will you see him naked?!’ I demanded. She grimaced
.

I awoke to the reassuringly distant scream of the sub-orbital military transport’s engines. Akhtar had laid on the aircraft and after some arguments with the crew I’d even managed to get my bike on board.

I hadn’t spoken to Pagan about my religious experience of course, meeting Nuada. I tried to ignore the whole thing. I didn’t understand it, therefore it was meaningless. I convinced myself that it really didn’t matter what they were. The whole pretending to be gods and spirits thing was just another snow job to try and get people to do what they wanted them to, probably for some inhuman reason. Maybe it was just entertainment for them. Besides, I had decided I was through, that I was going to retire.

We went home. I think I could have stayed or even gone on with Them if Morag had been with me, but Mudge really wanted to get back and get high. Besides, we needed to see how much damage we’d done.

The last we’d seen of Them was huge engines pushing cored asteroids out of their place in the Dog’s Teeth. Each asteroid was honeycombed with Their energy storage matrices. Energy harvested from the twin stars to sustain Them on their exodus. The massive convoy of ships surrounding the asteroids seemed to stretch out for thousands of miles as They prepared to flee the neighbours.

They got us home by using a variant of Their infiltration crafts. It was basically an engine with re-entry needles. Except this time when we came in-system we were broadcasting using the salvaged comms units from our Mamluk exo-armour suits. The good thing about the design of the needles was that we didn’t get to see how close we got to dying. We were intercepted by a Ugandan ship, and during the initial debrief we each had four Ugandan special forces pointing weapons at us at all times. It was quite tense.

We got passed from pillar to confused post as the authorities tried to decide whose problem we actually were. The debriefs got less combative and Mudge got in less fights with our interrogators. I had tried telling them that if they wanted his co-operation all they had to do was give him drugs, but nobody listened to me.

The Dog’s Teeth, Maw City – it all started to seem like a dream. Parts of it too pleasant and other parts too unreal to have any relation to the grind of being back in the real world and dealing with the imminence of a war that could split humanity in two. Assuming that it didn’t just destroy it.

Eventually Air Marshal Kaaria intervened on our behalf and everyone heaved a sigh of relief as we became someone else’s problem.

Mudge’s drugs had made me feel better and I was healing faster. I should still get someone to look at my spine.

As I looked out over the desert I had some time to think. Leaving aside the suicidal aspect of the job, it still did not feel right getting ready to kill innocent soldiers. I guessed this is what war had been about all through the ages. Was it any different from the streets? I’d mainly killed people who’d been trying to kill me. Or maybe that was just what I told myself to get to sleep at night. This was going to be more proactive. I guessed it wouldn’t be any different from what we’d done when we’d busted Gregor out, but then that was when I decided that I didn’t want to kill any more.

Except Rolleston. And Cronin. Rolleston had to die because he deserved it. Cronin I didn’t hate, but he had to go because he was so much part of the problem. Of course they’d be the most difficult to get to, assuming we could even find them.

Then there was Josephine, the Grey Lady. No real hate there. Just fear. To deal with Rolleston we’d first have to deal with her. Why the bond? I wondered. All our heavy hitters were gone as well. Balor might have been able to deal with Josephine, though even he’d implied that he was scared of her. Hybrid Gregor could have dealt with her if he hadn’t ended up on the other side. Though even then Rolleston and Josephine had all but walked through us in the media node. Rannu? He was a solid trooper, very skilled, but I didn’t think he was in the same league as the Grey Lady.

I watched Mudge dance by, singing along with some music he was listening to on his internal systems. He was naked and covered in body paint. That at least explained the unconscious airman on the bench opposite. It seemed I could sleep through anything.

‘Mudge?’

He turned to look at me. He seemed really jittery. He held out his hand as if he could take hold of me from the middle of the cargo hold, his hand grasping and relaxing.

‘We need more shooters,’ I told him. ‘Give it some thought.’ He nodded and then smiled.

I wasn’t sure if the escorts who took us from the airfield to Limbo were the same ones as before, as the entire security detail looked the same to me. They certainly didn’t seem happy to see us. Mudge being naked and blissed out hadn’t helped. Sometimes I felt that people didn’t take us seriously.

I was looking out of the window as we sank down into the silo. Mudge came over and put me in a playful headlock. He must have been coming down, as he was now able to communicate with us humans. Sadly.

‘Wow,’ he began. ‘You’re really going to have to eat some shit when we get there.’ Which is why I wasn’t looking forward to getting back to Limbo. ‘That’s going to be really humiliating.’

There was no point talking to him when he was like this.

I ended up carrying Mudge’s stuff. I agreed to be checked for God and surveillance but cheerfully refused to allow them to take my weapons and pointed out I had more than the last time I came. All the while Mudge was dancing around listening to music on his internal systems. He was still stark naked and covered in body paint. I let them check his gear. He just giggled whenever they tried to speak to him. Mudge certainly picked his time.

The Limbo staff just stared at the naked, painted, dancing Mudge as we entered the nerve centre, or what I had come to think of as the long metal mesh tube. Sharcroft advanced on me with the strange metallic, insectile gait of his life-support chair.

I pointed at him. ‘And you can fuck off.’ I threw two vials to one of his aides. One was a DNA swab and the other was blood. ‘That’s all you’re getting; don’t ask for more.’

‘Sergeant Douglas, may I remind—’ his modulated electronic voice started to say.

‘No, you may not. I’m going to speak to my people and find out what the score is. We’ll take objectives off you and all the resources we need; the rest goes dark for operational security.’

‘Breaking laws in the hot sun!’ Mudge shouted. I think it was supposed to be singing. It was very off-key.

‘So you’re taking over now?’ Morag asked.

I turned. I tried to ignore how good it felt to see her. Tried to ignore how good she looked with longer hair and in the white one-piece. Tried to ignore how nervous I suddenly felt.

Pagan stood next to her, looking out of place and uncomfortable without his staff and other accoutrements. I didn’t pay any attention to him. She looked me up and down, raising an eyebrow at my battered state.

‘I fought the law and the law won!’ Mudge shouted again. He advanced on Morag for a hug.

‘Mudge, you’re naked,’ she said by way of hello. Mudge gave her a hug and smeared body paint all over the front of her suit. ‘Och, you’ve made me all mucky!’

We all watched as Mudge boogied over to Pagan.

‘I approve of the body paint,’ Pagan said by way of a greeting and hugged Mudge, who then started dancing towards me.

‘See the way I diffused a potentially tense situation there through the medium of dance?’ he asked loudly as if talking over music in a club.

‘And nudity. That’s brilliant, Mudge. Thanks.’ He was getting closer. ‘Don’t hug me …’ Naked Mudge gave me a hug. Morag was laughing and Pagan was smiling.

‘So is your holiday over?’ Pagan asked as I patted Mudge on the head and tried to disentangle myself while getting the minimum of paint on me.

‘Yeah. I didn’t enjoy it. The world is still full of arseholes and now they’re queuing up to meet me.’

‘You look like you shouldn’t be out on your own,’ he said.

‘There’s an argument for that.’

I glanced over at Sharcroft. As ever, his corpse-like pallor betrayed nothing. I looked back to Morag, who was gazing at me coolly. She hadn’t rushed over to hug me, but neither had she started shouting at me, which I considered a small victory.

‘Is there someplace we can talk?’ I asked.

Pagan nodded and we followed him. Mudge leaped up onto a desk and started dancing.

‘I should be kept apprised—’ Sharcroft started.

‘Fuck off unless you want to get shot,’ I told him. I wasn’t just being obnoxious; I was eager to make sure I remembered just who the enemy was.

Pagan led us into a smaller chamber. It was pretty much empty except for a plain desk, two uncomfortable-looking skeletal chairs, a high-resolution monitor, a holographic projector and some thinscreens. It had a similar metal mesh around it to the main room outside but something about it looked makeshift, scrounged and scavenged.

‘You do this?’ I asked. Pagan and Morag both nodded. ‘Look, I haven’t—’

Morag turned round and glared at me and held a finger over her lips. I felt very green just then. Pagan and Morag swept the place for bugs and found a couple.

‘Little pricks.’ Pagan cursed into the bug before turning to me. ‘In the minute or two we came out to speak to you.’

They both then checked us and took a couple more off me that must have been slipped in when I was being searched. I felt more embarrassed.

‘But I thought this was a what-do-you-call-it cage?’ I said.

‘It is. These are recorders.’

He stamped on them. Morag set up a white-noise projector.

‘Fuuuck!’ Mudge screamed and turned to glare at her. ‘What a fucking comedown. What did you do that for?’

She gently slapped him on the side of the face. ‘Focus, Mudge.’

Then Morag took my head in her hands and kissed me. It’s difficult to describe how good it felt. Afterwards she looked up at me. I could see myself reflected in her replacement eyes. I was a mess but I’d looked a lot worse. Then she hit me squarely on the nose. She was a lot faster and stronger than she had been. It actually hurt. A lot. I reeled back, more from surprise than anything else, and grabbed my nose. She was staring at me, arms crossed.

‘What?!’ I managed.

‘Since talking to you does no good, I thought I’d demonstrate how pleased I am to see you and how pissed off I still am with you.’

Pagan was grinning. Mudge was looking pained. ‘Always the negativity with you two,’ he said despairingly, shaking his head.

‘That may be partially my fault,’ Pagan said.

‘Well I may fucking punch you back.’ I’d been having a much better day until about thirty seconds ago.

‘I merely expressed the opinion to Morag that when you returned we might not have time for her and your normal decision-making process.’

‘Oh brilliant. So now we’ve moved up to violence?’ I asked Morag.

‘Only when talking doesn’t work,’ she said, grinning at me. How very Dundonian, I thought. I blamed Rannu completely for the speed and the strength of the punch. ‘Besides, you’ve been a dick and you’re not taking over.’

‘I’m not here to take over, and where’s Rannu? I want to discuss his hand-to-hand training.’

Pagan and Morag exchanged a look. I groaned inwardly.

‘He went ahead,’ Morag finally said.

This was bad news. I’d had a feeling he would probably go ahead but was hoping that he hadn’t. We could have used him, regardless of what we were going to end up doing.

‘Okay, my suggestion is this: we talk broadly about objectives, we discuss the operating conditions, terrain and details en route, where nobody who can overhear will be able to do any damage. Agreed?’