City of Pearl (11 page)

Rayat wasn't giving up. “Who decided what's of note?”

“The intelligent species here. No point rushing things.” She rocked back on her heels a few times as she spoke, arms folded across her chest. Her forearms were hard muscle, and obviously not acquired by playing tennis. “On this world, the dominant philosophy is non-interference. As I understand it, the surface is pretty much run by the wess'har, so they're the people to humor first. They're like vegans. They make no use whatsoever of other species beyond food plants, and they have no tolerance of anyone who does. The colonists are wholly vegan too. You have to rethink the way you work if we're to achieve our mutual objectives.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Rayat demanded.

“I want to get out of here without making new enemies. You want to get out of here with knowledge you can turn into money. I also want to get out of here without having to cart you back in a body bag, Dr. Rayat. Do you grasp that concept?”

“You're talking as if these wess'har are dangerous.”

“They are. If you need supporting evidence for that, I can show you a site where there was once a city. It's not there now. It didn't fall into ruin. They erased it. Just think that one over.”

Shan had a way of seeming enormously threatening just by lowering her voice. Rayat dropped his head and Hugel glanced away, clearly embarrassed. Lindsay fumed silently. Shan should have told her about the military risk. It wasn't something to lob into a casual briefing and leave her looking like a fool.

Shan looked around the group. “We're used to life being plant or animal. It's not that clear-cut here. I don't want you pissing off the natives by cutting a chunk from what you think is a radish and they think is a sentient animal. I'm sure you can see the potential for misunderstanding. Any questions?” There was silence. She turned to Lindsay. “I'm done here, Commander.”

Lindsay managed a nod. And this was the woman she was supposed to tell that she was pregnant. She watched her disappear out the door and wondered how the hell she ever would.

 

The mission party was now ready to venture out, two weeks after landing. The payload had their plans drawn up and each was rostered with a marine overseer. The marines were amused at having to enforce the sanctity of the local flora and fauna; one of them had carefully stenciled
PARK KEEPER'S HUT
on the lintel over the entrance to their quarters. Other than that, they were taking the role as seriously as if it had been a beach landing. Shan found Mart Barencoin and Ismat Qureshi poring over a guide to biology field practice. It was disturbing to watch them reading off the screens embedded in their palms. They looked like earnest fortune-tellers.

“You'll be a PhD at the end of this deployment,” Shan said.

“Got to know what they're doing, ma'am,” said Qureshi, and went back to her studies on headspace capture and noninvasive tissue sampling. “No risks, right?”

“No risks,” Shan agreed.

She began walking the length of the perimeter, which was not a fence but had every sense of being one. Even Champciaux, who had plenty of rock to occupy him, had spent the last three days trying to establish how it worked and exactly what it did. Occasionally Shan would reach out her hand to feel a charge in the air. It raised the hairs on her arm, reminding her of the barrier keeping the two ecologies apart.

As she walked, she saw a camouflage uniform in the distance. It resolved into Adrian Bennett. Maybe he hadn't been prepared for clothing that needed to blend into an orange-and-blue terrain. In his jungle camo he was as conspicuous as a flare.

“I thought you wore that chameleon fabric these days,” she said.

“Good day, ma'am.” He always saluted her. When he raised his arm, she could see the bioscreen in his palm, looking unhealthily translucent in the daylight, and she averted her eyes. Even if it wasn't recording, it felt intrusive. And if you had that much biotech grafted into you, were you really human anymore? She dismissed the thought. “Haven't activated it. Thought it looked a bit aggressive, trying to conceal yourself here.” He pressed his palm against his breast pocket and the jungle greens danced indecisively between shades before settling into a random mottling of blue and amber. “See? It's not my color.”

The suit faded back into its default green. For a moment he looked uncertain, not quite the invulnerable booty she expected, and stood awkwardly still. Shan broke the silence more out of embarrassment than a wish for conversation.

“What's your speciality, Sergeant?”

“Mountain and arctic, ma'am.”

“Out of luck here, then.”

“Feels like mountain, though.” He gave her an anxious smile and they began walking back towards the camp. “And it
is
extreme.”

“How do you feel about serving under a commander of a different uniform?”

“No problem. We've worked with civilian police loads at times. Anti-terrorism, humanitarian aid, evacuation—”

“I meant Commander Neville.”

“We always work with the navy, ma'am. Goes back a long time. A sort of miniature ship, if you like. Navy commands it, drives the thing, deploys us. No different here, except we were all selected for multiple specialities on account of the limited logistics. I'm pilot-trained. Qureshi's a comms specialist as well as EOD. And so on.”

“E.O.D.?”

“Bomb disposal.”

“Lovely. Let's hope that doesn't come in handy. Just how tooled-up are you people?”

“Multifunction ESF670 rifles, close-in defense and a bit of housekeeping ordnance.”

“Which is?”

“Grenades and plastic. For blowing holes, really. We weren't kitted for a combat mission. Just general eventualities.”

She must have looked dubious. Bennett laughed. He was a totally average man, and you had to look carefully to see just how hard-trained he was under that uniform. His hair was mid-brown and his eyes were dull hazel and he was mid-height, mid-build and totally forgettable. He struck her as slightly nervous, even afraid. But he was a marine, and Extreme Environment Warfare Cadre at that. You didn't get that cap badge for embroidery. She treated him with due respect.

“Must be frustrating. You came expecting to evacuate or recover bodies, right?”

“There's still plenty to do. Maintenance, cleaning, fitness, victualing—we're okay.”

“I think we all have to play it by ear.”

“Never known an operation to go to plan yet, ma'am. Way of the world. That's why they sent for us. It's what we do. Anything and everything.”

He set off down the perimeter at a steady pace and Shan watched him dwindle and disappear. He had his purpose, and so did the payload.

She just wasn't entirely sure what hers was now. She ambled on, letting her thoughts drift in case some SB memories surfaced, but there seemed to be little in the way of a mental itch there any longer. There was something, something important but not colossal in import, and she let it ride. So maybe this was all that had convinced her: Perault had played to her green side, and told her to save the last precious remnants of rain forests and chalk meadows and savannahs and coral reefs, a gene bank guarded by a bunch of religious nutters light-years from home.

As missions went, it was a noble one, and one her parents would have applauded. It beat staying home to grow old. And as god-botherers went, these Christians seemed pretty sensible and tolerant.

All she hoped was that the facts Perault had not known—the complexities of alien politics—would not get in the way. If they did, she would have to find another way to preserve Constantine's legacy.

Josh called at the compound next day unannounced. He could see knee-high structures the shape of old-fashioned skep hives at intervals across the grass, and walked up to one to inspect it. The thing looked like a nest of smooth bronze tubes studded with disks, and there was an opening at the top. As he moved round, it made a faint whirring sound. A rapid flash of light from it startled him.

“It's all right, sir, we've disabled it.” Soldiers. He hadn't heard them come up behind him. One of them was a very dark young woman who looked far too slight for combat. She and her male companion had rifles slung on webbing across their chests. The weapons didn't look much different from those he had seen in old videos. “Can we help you?”

“What is it?” Josh asked, glancing away from the guns and back to the machine.

“It's a defense system. It just tells us if we have visitors.” She was not relaxed about it, that was for certain. Had he scared them? “I'll take you to Superintendent Frankland.”

He tore his attention from the defense hive and followed them to the collection of square green buildings standing conspicuously alone in the grass. Inside, the corridors were plain and polished, and the translucent walls gave the interior a sense of being under water.

Frankland was on all fours in the mess. She was wiping the floor with a wad of cloth. The woman soldier stared at her, clearly taken aback. The superintendent didn't look up.

“Yes, Qureshi, what is it?”

“Visitor, ma'am.”

She knelt back on her heels and looked up at Josh. “Cozy, isn't it?” she said. “Not quite home comforts.”

“You clean floors?” he said.

“There's a rota.” She put the cloth aside and got to her feet. “I might as well be useful.”

“I need to talk to you.”

Qureshi and the other soldier disappeared without prompting. Frankland dried her hands on her pants and motioned Josh to sit down. Floor cleaning didn't fit into his image of secular command—or, judging by their expressions, the soldiers'.

“I've arranged for you to talk to one of the wess'har representatives,” he said.

“Here?”

“Probably best to meet in my house.”

“What do I need to know beforehand?Anything to avoid?”

“He's used to humans. He speaks excellent English. He's a little different from the rest of his people.”

“Is there a greeting in wess'har that I can learn?”

“He won't expect that. We're not physically equipped for some of the sounds anyway. We've known Aras for many years, and you can be completely honest with him. In fact, I would suggest that you are. Wess'har are a very precise people.” He got up to go; there seemed no point making small talk, although he was now intensely curious about this officer. “When he gets here, I will let you know.”

Shan saw him to the entrance, but not before she had retrieved the cloth from the corner of the room. Josh turned at the doorway. “You've set up defenses,” he said.

“The marines want a little security. But it's just an alarm. They disabled the close-in cannon.”

“I don't think anyone will harm you here.”

“Neither do I. That's why I told them to disable it.” She gave him a rueful smile. “It's just that territorial dispute. It makes the military jumpy.”

“The isenj? The wess'har would never let them land here again. You have only yourselves to fear.”

Go, please go,
he thought as he walked away.
Go back home and say that it's too much trouble to try to get a foothold here. Say it's not economically viable. Just let us get on with what we have to do.
Josh walked back the long way, through the patches of crops, picking his way between the newly sown beans that were already breaking through the soil. He could see James alongside his friends, chatting while they planted hemp. In fewer than a hundred days, they would be harvesting it.

At that moment, he feared change more than death. He had never known which generation would ultimately be the one to restore Earth, but he had known this colony was not meant to be permanent from the day he was old enough to talk. Right then he wanted it to last forever. Who needed Earth? You could serve God and his creation anywhere.

But it was the hand of the wess'har and not God's that made it practical for them to live here. Without alien benefactors, the colony would have dwindled and died and the precious cargo of Earth's species would have been lost. Faith was one thing; and maybe God had ordained the intervention of the wess'har. But it was wess'har technology they relied on nonetheless.

Deborah was playing with Rachel when he reached home. The little girl held up a sheet of hemp paper crisscrossed by blue and green lines. “Look, Daddy!” she said, crowding round his legs and nearly tripping him. “I drew the fields. It's for Aras.”

“That's lovely, sweetie. I think he'll like it.” He scooped her up in his arms and stood over Deborah, who was packing brushes and paints back into their box. “He called, then?”

“He'll be here tomorrow. He didn't say much.”

“Well, the Frankland woman is ready.”

“She's all right. I think you should put some trust in her.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She cleaned up her room before she left. Very thoroughly, I might add. That tells you something about a person.”

Josh laughed. “Yes, I imagine she's someone who always cleans up after herself.”

“Why's Aras got claws?” Rachel cut in.

“Because he's Aras,” said her mother.

“He says his people don't have claws.”

“Well, Aras is very special, even for a wess'har, darling. Don't talk about that when the visitors are around, though, will you? You know it's our secret.”

“Yes, Mummy. Is he an angel?”

“No, he's someone who takes care of us. And we'll take care of him, too, won't we? We'll keep his secret.”

Rachel put her finger to her lips in a mime of silence. Then she wriggled free of Josh's arms and skipped off with her drawing.

“Whatever happens,” Deborah said, “we'll all come through it. The hardest part was staying alive this long.”

Josh gave her a weak smile and sat down to the tea and citrus cake she placed on the table in front of him. Deborah was usually right. It was just the “it” they would have to come through that worried him.

 

“Take care with the roads,” Josh said, striding confidently. “They're alive.”

Shan trailed behind Bennett, Becken, Mesevy and Rayat, mirroring their steps along the slight convex curve of the matted vegetation. Ahead of them, Josh picked out the path.

“The wess'har build organic roads?” asked Mesevy.

“No, the firm ground through the marshy areas is made up of colonies of organisms. We just use them as paths.” Josh had that patient tone of someone used to dealing with small children asking the same question for the fortieth time. “The tracks move around from time to time. Look out for the darker moss. That's where the boggy ground is.”

“How deep is it?” Shan called.

Josh didn't turn his head. “Meters,” he said. “Fall in and you'll be gone.”

Mesevy and Rayat said nothing, but Shan noted they hitched their backpacks a little as if to make absolutely sure of their balance. Bennett and Becken both carried metal poles in one hand, apparently standard survival kit in treacherous terrain. It wasn't the sort of precaution Shan was used to in urban Europe, although the poles looked handy enough to give a troublesome yob a quick whack round the ear.

“What's it for?” she whispered to Bennett. He exuded soap and tidy determination. “Testing depths?”

“No, ma'am. For getting out of a tight spot.”

The bog—or quicksand—looked deceptively solid. In places, it was almost as lush and velvet-perfect as a bowling green, but liquid pooled in places and gave a hint of the real danger there. Without the network of tangled plant-life that formed a substantial but gradually shifting web across its surface, the bog would have formed a natural barrier between the colony and the rest of the island.

From time to time, Mesevy and Rayat paused to place a probe into the ground and take readings. Josh stood over them, watching carefully: Mesevy unfurled a roll of white tape, tore off a ten-centimeter strip with gloved hands and dragged the tape with slow care across the surface of the bog. “Is this okay, Josh?” she asked. “I'm just picking up surface cells for analysis.”

Josh seemed satisfied it was non-invasive. The bog didn't seem to care. “Fine by me,” he said, and from then on Mesevy stopped at every color change on the route to swipe her tape across it and bag the samples. Rayat simply followed her, looking unhappy. Then he stumbled.

“Careful,” called Becken. “Slow down. Don't want to have to fish you out, do we?”

I wouldn't bother, that's for sure,
Shan thought.
Miserable sod
. She reached for her swiss and stood still to check the transmission digest back at camp. Eddie was busy on the line, uploading voice copy. God only knew how he managed to make so much story material simply out of building a camp, installing plumbing and seeing orange grass in the distance: she had to give him credit for ingenuity.

Bennett turned and waited for her. He smiled nervously and let her catch up before resuming his careful progress. The living road was about a meter and a half wide.

“Wow,” said Mesevy. She pointed. Ahead of her, flashing out of the surface of the bog like a leaping salmon, was a glistening sheet of something transparent. Shan held the swiss up to catch a few images.

“Aras calls that a
sheven,
” Josh said. “Stay clear of it. They hunt by enveloping prey and they can be big, really big. Then they digest you.”

“Like being sucked dry by cling-film,” Shan said.

“Does everything here do that?” Bennett asked. Shan had mentioned the rockvelvets to him, and it did not appear to fascinate him at all. He almost shuddered visibly. “Don't they have harmless furry things?”

Josh didn't answer.

They watched the
sheven
flapping around like a plastic bag and then it plunged back below the surface with a slurping noise. It had probably found some unnamed and unknown victim in the depths of the mud. Shan felt a familiar uneasiness at the thought of unseen misery.

“Like you said, Superintendent, we can always use the database,” Mesevy said, and seemed relieved not to have to tackle the
sheven
with a swipe of tape. Shan pocketed the swiss. Maybe the prospect of wildlife with nasty eating habits would encourage the payload not to push their luck over samples.

The road began to narrow. Josh paused and looked around. “I'm sorry,” he said. “It's moved since last week. There was a path through here before but it's gone now. Turn around slowly and stand still while I pass you.”

They tried to present as narrow a profile as they could to allow Josh to retrace his steps and take up the lead position again. Shan could feel a slight bounce as the live road sprang like a rope bridge at every step. Josh stepped carefully in front of Shan and looked around again.

“Sorry,” he said. “It looks like we'll have to double back the whole way. Next time I'll use the surface craft. This is getting too risky.”

It was only a single yelp that made them turn. And there was no Mesevy, at least not on the path. She was knee-deep in the bog, then waist-deep in a second, struggling but silent.

“Jon!” Bennett shouted, pointing and holding his arm like a compass as he made his way back towards the end of the line. “Overboard—
there.
”

Shan wondered where the
sheven
had got to.

Becken shook the pole out into its full length and lay flat to slide it out towards her. Bennett squatted beside him and drew a length of line out of his jacket. Mesevy was treading water in slow motion. She had also found her voice.

“Oh, god I'm going down I'm going down I'm—”

“Stay still,” Bennett said, very steady and controlled. “Just stop struggling. Stay still.”

“I can't.”

“Over on your back. Go on. Just let go and pretend you're lying down on grass.”

“I—”

“Now. On your back.”

She managed to twist and lean back, eyes wide in terror. Becken pushed the pole under her spine. “Try and slide it under your hips.”

Shan stepped forward. She knew there wasn't anything she could do that the marines couldn't, but it felt odd not to take control of an emergency. Where was that
sheven
? Everybody must have been thinking the same thing. Nobody said a word.

Bennett was still trying to get the pole positioned under Mesevy. “Stop struggling,” he said. “Faster you move, higher the viscosity. You know about shearing forces, don't you? Talk to me, Sabine. Shearing forces. Look at me. Just relax.” He turned to Shan and handed her the end of the length of line. “Anchor this, ma'am. Can you tie a bowline?”

“Just about.” Shan detached from the reality. She fumbled the line into place round her waist. And the old mnemonic came back to her, as surely as the SB ever did: she was suddenly with her dad at the seaside, watching him show her how to tie knots, studying his hands.
Rabbit comes out the hole—round the tree—down the hole
.

She tugged on the knot and it held fast. Detached or not, she also recalled how to release it if she had to. Bennett paid out the line in his hands and edged down next to Becken. Mesevy began thrashing around again, unable to control her panic enough to lie still and float with the pole lending more buoyancy to her hips. She was going under.

There was a plastic-bag flash a few meters away.

“Shit,” Bennett said.

If he hesitated, it was for a split-second, no more. He rolled onto the surface of the bog with his pole and let himself float, pushing slowly towards Mesevy and grabbing her hard. The whole sequence was slow and almost silent, except for Mesevy's sobs. Bennett got the line round her and Becken began reeling her in slowly.