Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest (11 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

P
aul and Steven had been separated from their mother. Their last glimpse of her came as she was being helped into a regular police patrol car, the copper placing his hand on her head so that she wouldn’t injure herself. That, at least, was cause for hope: she was with the Lothian and Borders Police, not the Securitat. The Lothian and Borders didn’t torture women, or lose them in their secret prisons.

Not yet.

The armored Securitat transport had two metal benches along either side of its interior, and a pair of cages at the end. The boys were spared the cages, but their heads were covered by hoods as soon as they sat down, and magnetic collars were placed around their necks and activated, holding them uncomfortably upright against the body of the truck as it wound its way through the city streets.

It was Paul who risked speaking. He could hear wet breathing nearby: one Galatean at least, maybe two.

“Are you okay, bruv?” he asked.

The reply came not from Steven, but from their captors. Paul’s body jerked as he was tapped in the side with an electric baton, and a white light exploded in his head. It lasted only a second or two, but it was long enough for Paul to bite his own tongue. When the baton was removed, his body still trembled. He fought the urge to be sick. He didn’t want to vomit in the hood. He brought his breathing under control, just as he had been taught to do, and just as he had taught others. They had all been questioned in the past, usually in the course of the random searches and street sweeps that the Illyri regularly conducted. Routine questioning was carried out in the backs of vans, or sometimes at one of the L&B police stations. Paul had even spent a night or two in the cells, but he’d always been released once dawn came. This was different, though: these were Vena’s Securitats. He and Steven weren’t going to be held for a couple of hours at the station in St. Leonard’s Meadows, or the West End, or Portobello, and offered a cup of tea by a decent human in a uniform. No, they could only be going to one of two places: the Securitats’ special interrogation center in Glasgow, or the castle.

The truck slowed, then ground to a halt. Paul heard the doors open, and his collar was deactivated and removed. Hard hands dragged him from the van, and he briefly tasted night air through the hood before the atmosphere around them changed, becoming dank and noisome. He gave a little whistle, and his brother answered in the same way, but then there was the sound of something hard impacting on soft flesh, and Steven cried out in pain.

“You leave him alone!” said Paul. “He’s just a kid.”

He waited to receive another jolt from a baton, but none came. He was simply hustled silently along until he was forced to turn to his right, and a hand pushed him forward. For a moment he had an image of himself standing at the edge of a huge pit, about to tumble into a void, his hooded form falling forever. Instead, he hit a stone floor, followed seconds later by another body. He heard Steven sobbing.

“Don’t cry,” said Paul. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

The door slammed shut behind them.

•••

Paul had no idea how long they were left there. It might have been an hour, or it could have been three. Once they had established that they appeared to be alone in the room, the boys found a wall and leaned against it. When Steven tried to speak, Paul said only one word: “Careful.”

The Illyri would be listening to them: listening, and watching.

With the index finger of his left hand, Paul began tapping softly on the wall: two short taps, two long, two short. It was Morse code for a question mark.

After a moment, Steven replied with three long taps, followed by long-short-long.

OK.

The Resistance had learned too late that the Illyri were embedded in all forms of electronic communication, and many groups around the world had lost operatives in the early days. The Internet still functioned, although it had more bugs than an ants’ nest; the Illyri had guessed, correctly, that if they allowed the flow of money, and permitted business to proceed worldwide with some degree of normality, then much of humanity would fall into step. But every keystroke was monitored, and only fools transmitted essential information through the Net, or spoke and texted on telephones of any kind. Thus the Resistance had fallen back on simpler means of staying in touch. They used dead drops, secure locations where paper messages could be left and collected. They sent signals and instructions over short-wave radio, just as spies had done in the Second World War.

And they relied on Morse code. It was one of the first things that young people learned when they joined the Resistance. Sometimes Paul and his colleagues didn’t even have to go through the basics with new recruits, for older brothers and sisters had already taught the code to their younger siblings, as had parents who had not succumbed to the Illyri methods of subduing them, chemical or otherwise.

Now slowly, painstakingly, the boys contrived a cover story. They kept it to simple keywords.

Exploring. Vaults. Storm pipe. Adventure.

Nothing.

We saw nothing.

The hoods began to stink. They had grown moist from the boys’ exhalations, and very, very hot. Paul began to feel that he was suffocating, and he could hear Steven’s breathing growing panicked.

“Easy,” he said. “Easy.”

Their arms ached, and their circulation was being cut off by their restraints. Paul could no longer feel his fingers.

A door opened. There came the sound of metal objects being placed on the floor. A table and chairs, thought Paul. Maybe they’re going to give us dinner, a real slap-up meal with beef, and roast potatoes, and gravy. Even though he was frightened, he was also very hungry. They had not eaten since they’d shared that fruitcake with those two funny girls, the ones with the old-fashioned names and the layers of clothes, their hats and glasses encasing them like swaddling so that all that could be seen was smooth tanned cheeks and chins and foreheads, no eyes, no hair. . . .

Oh! Paul thought, as he realized that the “girls” might not have been girls at all. I’m a fool. I’m such a fool. I was so caught up with the explosions, and not being caught, that I never stopped to think. . . .

But any further regrets were halted as hands pulled him to his feet, and then led him to a chair. He sat down and his hood was removed. He blinked hard at the fluorescent lights, and for a few seconds he could not see anything at all. Gradually his vision adjusted, and he took in the table and chairs, and his brother seated beside him, also blinking, his eyes watering.

Sitting across from them was Vena. Her head was bald, and her scalp was adorned with silver stripes. She was not finished with them, not by a long shot. Paul had feared as much when he saw her standing in their home. Even by the brutal standards of the Securitat, Vena was regarded by the Resistance as psychopathic. On the list of targets for assassination she even ranked above Governor Andrus. As far as the Resistance was aware, Andrus was not in the habit of using skimmers—so-called because they skimmed the limits of Earth’s atmosphere—to take captives to high altitudes and then toss them out. For Vena, it practically counted as a hobby. She was also believed to report all she saw and heard in the British Isles to her lover, Sedulus. She was his second-in-command in all but name.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” said Paul.

“No,” said Steven.

“You’re lying,” said Vena. “I’ll record every lie that you tell, and I’ll cut off one of your fingers for each one.”

Neither of the young men responded. Well done, little bruv, thought Paul. She’s fishing. Stick to the story, and we’ll be okay.

“What were you doing in our tunnels, and who are you working for?” said Vena. Clearly there were to be no serious preliminaries, no getting-to-know-you questions, no “you may be wondering why we’ve brought you here.” That was for films. The Securitats had a reputation for getting down to business.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” said Steven.

They had discussed this in their coded exchange. They had to find a way to leave the cell, even if only for a short time, so that they could get some sense of their location, of security, of guards. In here, they were blind.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Vena.

“I need to go
bad
.”

“When you tell me what I need to know, you’ll be made comfortable. Until then, you’ll stay where you are.”

“I’ll wet myself,” said Steven.

Vena smiled at him, and leaned across the table.

“If you do, I’ll slice off the organ responsible and give it to the Agrons as a treat. They’ll eat
anything
.”

Steven went quiet. He didn’t think the bathroom ploy was going to work, and he wasn’t prepared to risk losing his manhood on the slim chance that it might.

“Again: what were you doing in our tunnels?”

There was no point in denying that they’d been there. The Agron had given that much away by telling Steven that it had followed his scent.

“It was an accident?” said Steven. His voice went a little high at the end so that it came out sounding like a question, which he hadn’t intended.

“An accident?” said Vena. “Really? You can’t do any better than that?”

“Yes, an accident,” said Steven. “I was just messing about in the Vaults when I found a new pipe and followed it.”

He stopped talking then; the Resistance had taught them to keep lies short and succinct so as not to trip themselves up on the words they were weaving. But he had slightly changed the story that he and Paul had agreed on, and Paul wasn’t sure that was wise.

He had said “I,” not “we.”

Vena frowned, and Paul knew then that Steven had made a mistake. He’d told him over and over again: the best lies were the ones wrapped in the thickest of truths. You hide the lie, and you don’t adorn the truth.

“But surely your brother was with you?”

Paul bit his lip.

“No, it was just me. My brother wasn’t there.”

“Odd,” said Vena. “That’s not what your friend Knutter told us. I suppose we could bring him in here and ask him to confirm his story. Oh wait, we can’t, because he’s
dead
, and so will you be if you keep wasting my time. Even if your friend
had
tried to conceal the truth, your scents would have given you away. The Agrons have five hundred million olfactory receptors. You have only five million. Do you think they can’t tell the difference between your stink and your brother’s?”

“I can,” said Steven. “He smells worse than I do.”

Even in this terrible situation, Paul couldn’t help but smile. His little brother was baiting the Illyri. His mother had always told them they were both too smart for their own good. Perhaps she’d been right.

“You’re a funny little boy,” said Vena. “Unfortunately, you both smell the same to me. You smell of fear, and desperation, and falsehoods. What did you see in that tunnel?”

“Nothing,” said Steven.

Vena turned her attention to Paul. “Are you going to let your little brother take all the heat for you? Are you going to let him fight your battles? What a coward you are, letting a boy do the talking while you sit back and try to save your own skin.”

“Like he told you,” said Paul, “we saw nothing. We were exploring the Vaults, we found a new pipe, the smell made my brother sick, and we left. That’s it. He was just trying to protect me by saying I wasn’t with him. We’re sorry.”

Vena considered what Paul had said, then nodded.

“Bring it in,” she said. The microphones hidden in the room picked up her words, and the door opened. A Galatean entered, carrying a wooden box. Its lid was perforated with air holes, and it had a hinged lid. He placed it on the table, and Paul was certain that he heard something move inside.

Two more Galateans entered. They freed Steven’s arms, but only for long enough to place them flat on the table. From its previously smooth surface emerged a pair of metal bands that slipped over Steven’s wrists, securing them in place.

Vena looked at Paul. “Since you seem to prefer letting your brother do most of the talking, maybe you’d like to let him do your screaming for you, too.”

The Galatean handed her a gauntlet of metal and thick leather. She put it on her right hand, then lifted the lid of the box and carefully reached inside. Whatever it contained seemed to strike at her, for she flinched and almost withdrew her hand. Eventually, though, she got a grip on the thing, and lifted it from its prison.

It was about a foot long, its armored body purple and red like an exposed muscle, five heavy jointed legs at each side. Two large bulbous eyes, like those of a mantis, stared unblinkingly from its skull, and between them was a long pointed mouthpiece with a barbed sucker at the end. As it struggled in Vena’s grasp, two thin black whips unfolded from the sides of its jaw and struck vainly at the air, splashing the table with clear liquid.

“Have you ever been stung by a bee or a wasp?” asked Vena. “It can be quite painful. It can even kill you, if you have a particular allergy. This little monster is called an icurus, and it’s mostly harmless. It just wants to be left to go about its business. But those stinging strikers deliver a powerful dose of neurotoxin similar to the apamin found in bee venom. I’ve heard it described as feeling like acid burning through your flesh.

“The icurus does have one nasty little attribute. During mating season, those stingers serve a dual purpose: they inject not just venom, but icurus larvae, which breed in the host organism and consume it from within. On its home planet, it breeds only at very specific times of the year, but Earth has thrown its biological clock right off. Frankly, I don’t know whether this one is in season or not. There’s only one way to find out, I suppose.”

She placed the icurus on the table, and eased it toward Steven.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “that this is going to hurt.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

F
or Syl, it had been a confusing, uneasy meeting in her father’s rooms. All thoughts of birthdays were forgotten, as were all concerns about her narrow escape from the bombings being discovered by her father. Meia had made it clear that she would not tell Lord Andrus about what Syl and Ani had been up to that day, including their trip to the Royal Mile and their bout of eavesdropping, as long as Syl gave her no reason to do so. Syl knew that she was now in Meia’s debt, but as she sat in one of her father’s armchairs and listened to what he and Danis and Meia had to say, she understood that they needed her, and that their debt to her would be at least as great as hers to Meia.

Syl had never been needed before, not in this way. For so much of her life she had been dependent upon others. Yes, her father needed her, but it was an emotional need, born out of love. To be needed because of something she alone could do, something practical, something dangerous, was different. And while she was frustrated at her father’s caution—for it was he who kept returning to the risks involved—she was secretly grateful to him for caring, even as he drew closer and closer to using her as a pawn in his game with the Diplomatic Corps and the Sisterhood.

“I still don’t understand why it’s Syl she wants to see,” he said at last, as it became clear that he was going to allow her to enter the Red Sister’s presence.

Syl could have told him, even if it was only a suspicion. So too could Meia, but she remained quiet. Syl recalled the way that Syrene had tried to seek out whatever had disturbed her in the Great Hall, and how she had finally fixed upon the ornate fire surround concealing the little slits through which Syl and Ani were watching her, as though willing her gaze to assume a physical form and insinuate itself into the gaps like a serpent.

Lord Andrus approached Syl and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said. “Nobody will think any less of you if you would prefer not to spend time in the company of Syrene.”

“I understand,” said Syl. “I want to do it.”

Andrus looked to Meia. She stared back at him. There was no need for her to speak. She had considered the problem, and offered her opinion based on her analysis.

“Meia thinks you’re clever enough to joust with Syrene for a time, and I agree. But remember: she is dangerous, and cunning, and she has no love for this family.”

He paused.

“You should know that your mother rejected the Sisterhood’s advances when she was young,” he said.

Syl was surprised. She had not known this.

“She did so for many reasons,” continued Lord Andrus, “some of which I understood, and some of which I can only guess. I was one of those reasons, if it’s not too vain of me to think so. Orianne and I were in love from a very early age, younger even than you are now. Ezil and Syrene took her rejection very personally, in part because it was I whom she loved, and even as a young soldier I had already been branded as an enemy of both the Corps and the Sisterhood. It was why your mother chose to wander the stars with me and leave her home forever. She was convinced that some harm might come to her if she stayed—to her, and to any children that she might have. So you were born far from Illyr, and far from the reach of the Red Sisters. But now the Sisterhood is here, and it may be that Syrene wishes to meet you because she wants to look at last upon the daughter of the Lady Orianne.

“Yet if that were all she desired, she could stare at images of you until her eyes fell from her head. Unusual though you may be, Syrene did not travel halfway across the universe simply to admire your features. There is another purpose at work here, and we need to establish what that might be. So spar with her, and debate with her, for she may reveal to the daughter what she wished to conceal from the father. We’ll be watching, and listening.”

He took Syl’s right hand. Encircling her index finger was a ring of white gold with a red crystal set into it.

“If at any time you feel threatened, or afraid, you know what to do.”

“Yes, Father.”

The ring functioned as her personal alarm. Pressing down hard on the crystal activated the device. It would bring help in seconds, but only within the castle precincts.

Andrus kissed her gently on the forehead.

“This isn’t quite the birthday that I would have wished for you,” he said.

“Thank you for my gifts,” she whispered.

“Gifts? I only gave you one.”

“Two,” said Syl. “The bronze cast, and your trust.”

Andrus smiled. “Meia will take you to Syrene, and she’ll stay outside until you emerge safely.”

Meia stepped forward.

“Come, Syl,” she said.

“Time to dance?” said Syl.

“Yes, time to dance.”

•••

In the interrogation cell, Steven’s head slumped to the table. The icurus had been restored to its box, its venom seemingly inexhaustible. The fingers of Steven’s left hand were swollen badly, the tips purple and bleeding from the icurus’s strikes.

“Nothing,” he whispered, for what seemed like the hundredth time. “We saw nothing. . . .”

He was beyond weeping. He had exhausted his capacity for tears, but his brother had not. Paul was crying: for his brother, and his mother, and for his own inability to distinguish between strength and weakness. By remaining silent, he was allowing his brother to suffer. If he spoke, if he admitted what they’d seen, he could make Steven’s pain stop.

But if he told Vena what they had seen, they would both die. He was certain of it. Something terrible was happening beneath the city, something that the Illyri wished to keep hidden. Paul’s duty was to keep himself and his brother alive, and to report what they knew to those who might be able to investigate further.

“Stop hurting him,” said Paul. “Please. Hurt me instead. Just leave him alone.”

The little receiver in Vena’s ear lit up, and after a pause to listen, she stood and left the room without a word. Paul wanted to hug his brother, to hold him and tell him that he was sorry, that everything would be okay, but his hands were still bound behind his back. Instead he leaned over and placed his head against Steven’s.

“You did well,” he whispered. “You’re brave. You’re braver than anyone else I know.”

“Is it true?” said Steven. The words caught in his throat, like dry sobs.

“Is what true?”

“What she said about that thing, that it injects its young into people?”

“I don’t know,” said Paul. “I think she was just trying to frighten you.”

“Well, it worked. I am frightened.”

“We’ll have a doctor look at you once we get out of here.”

“Great. When do you think that might be? Because I don’t think it’s looking so good for us right now.”

The boys sat up. Steven stared at his deformed hand.

“It burns,” he said. “I can feel it spreading up my arm.”

He was right. The swelling was not limited to his hand. It was moving along his forearm, and was now halfway to his elbow.

“We’ll fix it,” said Paul, but he didn’t know if that was true. He wondered how much Knutter had told the Illyri. Knutter wasn’t clever, but he had a degree of animal cunning, and he hated the Illyri. He wouldn’t have told them much at all, if he could have helped it. At the very least, any admission of involvement with the Resistance would have put himself at risk. They had used him as a distraction, but it was the Agron who had followed the scent. No, Paul believed that Knutter would probably have kept quiet and hoped for the best. If they stuck to their story, there was still some hope for them.

The door opened again. This time it was not Vena who entered, but a medical officer in blue scrubs. He examined Steven’s hand, and injected his arm, but Paul noticed that he then cleaned the needle on a wipe, which he placed in a sterile specimen bag.

“That will take the swelling down,” he said.

“What about larvae and stuff?” said Paul.

The medical officer looked puzzled. “What about them?”

“The officer who did this said that the icurus injects its larvae into its host.”

“Did she now? She’ll be telling you that it delivers parcels to human children at Christmas next.”

“So it’s not true?”

“No.” He lowered his voice. “The icurus lays eggs, thousands of them, but only on the leaves of one specific plant. Your brother has venom in his system, but nothing worse. Then again, the venom is bad enough. He’s been badly stung. If the poison were allowed to spread, it would eventually start shutting down his respiratory system. I’ve seen grown men killed by those things during interrogation.”

He glanced at the box. It didn’t look as though he approved of Vena’s methods.

“Thank you,” said Paul.

“For what?”

“For treating my brother.”

“I’m a doctor. It’s what I do. Illyri, humans, terrorists, it makes no difference to me.”

“We’re not terrorists,” said Paul.

“Whatever,” said the doctor. “It’s not my concern.”

He unwrapped another needle and took a blood sample from Paul.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s just a precaution. Nothing to worry about.”

But once again he cleaned the needle with a wipe, and that went into its own specimen bag. He then took skin swabs from each of them before departing.

After some time, three Galateans came in and released the boys’ hands. They were brought soup and some dry bread.

In the silence of the interrogation room, they waited for their fate to be decided.