Guardians of Paradise (46 page)

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Authors: Jaine Fenn

BOOK: Guardians of Paradise
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Jarek made his way down the passage, back against the wall, needle-pistol in hand. The Sidhe didn’t move.
 
Halfway along he stopped, then in one quick movement held out the gun and fired.
 
From where Taro was standing he didn’t hear the gun go off, but he saw the Sidhe collapse, her head jerking backwards in a shower of dark drops as she fell.
 
‘Shit!’
 
Jarek looked over his shoulder at Taro’s oath. His face was blank.
 
‘What the fuck d’you do that for?’ called Taro.
 
‘Had to get in range.’ Jarek’s voice showed no emotion. ‘We can carry on now.’
 
Taro joined him and they made their way past the body. Taro managed not to look too closely at the dead Sidhe. In this light the stain spreading out from under her looked more black than red.
 
Around the next corner, Jarek relaxed slightly and turned to Taro. ‘I know that shocked you, but you’ve never met them, never fought them. I have. I know what they’re like.’
 
‘Yeah, but she . . . I don’t think she’d’ve attacked us. She looked pretty fucked-up.’
 
‘Yes, and from what I saw on the mothership, I was probably doing her a favour.’
 
Taro had nothing to say to that.
 
The next one they saw, not long afterwards, was standing against a wall, staring vacantly into space. She was hugging herself and swaying slowly from side to side, dragging her head along the wall, sobbing and muttering. Taro let Jarek go past and deal with her. This time he kept quiet as they passed the body.
 
In the next corridor they found their first corpse - not a Sidhe, but a man in a short grey tunic. His head was caved in on one side. ‘Is that a mute?’ whispered Taro as they edged past.
 
‘Yes,’ said Jarek shortly.
 
‘I thought this thing only attacked Sidhe.’
 
‘Mutes are Sidhe. Besides, we don’t know what happened here.’
 
Taro tried not to think about Jarek’s comment about Sidhe and humans being almost the same. It wasn’t like they were going to turn back now.
 
Jarek’s com had a download of the basic layout - apparently the ship was a standard starliner design - so they shouldn’t get lost. Finding Nual was another matter. Though they were back in range of Kama Nui’s comnet here, there wasn’t much likelihood that she still had her com, and a pretty high chance that someone bad did. Taro wondered if there was some way he could tune into Nual’s mind, but he had no idea how to go about it. They’d just have to keep their eyes and ears open, and hope luck was with them.
 
The next Sidhe they found was lying across the corridor, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. She looked dead, but Jarek shot her anyway.
 
As they picked their way round the body Taro heard a
swoosh
and looked round in panic. They’d triggered a door sensor. Beyond the door was someone’s sleeping room. One Sidhe lay on the floor in front of the bed. Another straddled her chest. The upright one had empty, bloody sockets where her eyes should’ve been; she was banging the head of the other one against the floor, a wet rhythmic thudding that sent up little sprays of dark liquid from a pool of nasty wetness.
 
As Taro stared in horror, the upright Sidhe began to turn her eyeless gaze on him. Jarek stepped past him and shot her -
it
. The thing’s face transformed into a mosaic of bloodied meat and it toppled over.
 
Jarek reloaded, then they carried on without a word or a backwards glance, though Jarek wore an expression of self-disgust and Taro kept having to swallow against the urge to puke. He’d just about got control of himself when Jarek stopped again. Taro halted too, though he couldn’t hear or see anything odd.
 
‘What is it?’ he whispered.
 
‘Not sure. I thought there was someone behind us.’
 
Taro looked back. The corridor was empty. ‘Can’t see anyone.’
 
Jarek shrugged. ‘Probably just this place getting to me.’
 
‘No shit,’ muttered Taro.
 
‘
Attention all passengers
.’
 
Taro jumped as the calm, sexless voice filled the corridor. ‘
We are experiencing some technical difficulties—
’
 
The voice sounded a lot like the com on the starliner from Vellern.
 
‘
All passengers are advised to report to their steward. If he or she cannot be found please follow the indicators to your nearest assembly point and await further instructions. Kindly do not stop to collect personal belongings. Thank you
.’
 
Pale green arrows sprang to life on the walls, pointing back the way they’d come.
 
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ asked Taro.
 
‘That was an automated ship-wide warning message,’ said Jarek. ‘As for what triggered it . . . if I had to guess, I’d say someone’s screwing with the ship’s systems, and they’ve just managed to break something important.’
 
‘How worried should we be?’
 
‘Not sure. But it certainly isn’t good news.’
 
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
 
If the abomination found her now, she was lost. Nual had squeezed just about everything she could from her body, but after days with virtually no food or water, and with her system messed up by the shot from the stunner, she was going to have to stop soon. She wasn’t sure if whoever - whatever - had opened the airlock had come after her, but by the time her flight had been reduced to a loping stagger, she decided to assume it hadn’t. When she passed an open door to what must have once been a passenger lounge, she decided to risk going in. She would be trapped if she was being followed, but if so then at least she would meet her end somewhere comfortable. She collapsed onto a lounger, listening for sounds of pursuit over the rasp of her breaths.
 
When she neither heard nor saw any immediate threat, and had got her body back under control, she looked around.
 
The room boasted some of the amenities she’d used on her previous starliner trips, including a small bar area. She could see there was no stock behind the bar, but it might have water; worth a look. When she found a working spigot, she almost cried in relief. She cupped her hand under the flow and lapped up the water, stopping only when her stomach began to complain. She had just stood up again when a calm toneless voice filled the room:
 
‘
Attention all passengers
. . .’
 
As she listened to the less-than-reassuring announcement she looked for its source, and spotted the clear hood of a com-booth on the far wall. It looked like a proper com, not just an internal data-console like the one she had used earlier, which meant it might allow communication off the ship. When the voice fell silent she lurched over to the booth.
 
Inside, it came to life, and she selected touch control. With trembling fingers, she tried to call the
Judas Kiss
. The call went out, and she held her breath. The response came back a few seconds later:
No such vessel in system
. It looked like Taro had done the sensible thing and fled. At least he would be safe. For her, though, the last hope was gone. She sagged against the hood. Even if there had been someone else to call, she didn’t remember any numbers; why would she? She always called com-to-com, and hers had been taken when she was captured.
 
Except . . . she did know one number. She remembered the number of the com she’d bought for Taro back in Stonetown, because it was a cheap model, and she’d had to programme the number manually into her own com. Not that there was much point calling a short-range com when he probably wasn’t even in the system any more . . . but she decided to try anyway, for the unashamedly sentimental reason that if he still had his com registered with a local messaging service, then she might at least hear his voice one last time.
 
The call was picked up at once. ‘Hello?’
 
It was him! ‘I—Taro, is that really you?’
 
‘Yes! Shit and blood, Nual, where are you?’
 
‘On the Sidhe ship—’
 
‘So’re we. We’ve come to rescue you!’
 
Nual felt the crushing exhaustion and fear lift for a moment. ‘That’s crazy—That’s
wonderful
.’
 
‘Yes, yes it is. Wait . . . Jarek asks, what colour are the corridor decals there?’
 
‘What? Oh, I see. Blue, but I’m not in a corridor, I’m in a lounge.’
 
She heard Taro talking to Jarek, then he said, ‘Is there a location ID anywhere on the booth you’re calling from?’
 
‘Ah - yes, on the screen.’ Nual read it off.
 
‘Jarek reckons he can find you! Stay where you are.’
 
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
 
‘Nual? Are you all right?’
 
‘Yes, I—’ She kept blinking, but the tears still came. ‘I will be. Keep talking to me.’
 
‘’Course I will. Just try and stop me.’ He sounded like he was simultaneously laughing and crying. ‘What happened? I mean, you said, in the dream, about one of the Court coming for you. But this is something else, ain’t it?’
 
‘I think – I think the message to the Court must have been intercepted. ’
 
‘By this . . .
thing
? What is it?’ Taro sounded worried, as well he might.
 
For a moment Nual wanted to admit her part in bringing the entity into being. But now was not the time. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I think it might be some sort of hive mind. It wants to absorb Sidhe consciousnesses, but most of them aren’t strong enough to handle it and they end up going mad, destroying themselves.’
 
‘No shit. This place is gonna give me nightmares for weeks.’
 
You and me both
. ‘You should be safe. Infected Sidhe don’t seem to notice humans.’
 
‘That’s what we’re assuming.’ Taro didn’t sound entirely sure. ‘So this is the same thing that invaded the ship you used to live on; I thought that ship got trashed, and left dead in space? How did the thing get here, pretending to be one of the Court?’
 
‘I’m not s—’
 
‘
Attention all passengers. We are experiencing multiple systems failures. Please remain calm but be prepared for the order to evacuate. Repeat: all passengers and crew are to prepare for evacuation
.’
 
‘Taro? Did you hear that?’
 
‘Yes! Shit. Nual, we’re coming as fast as we can—’
 
‘Good, good. Keep talking to me, please.’
Because I’m scared.
 
‘You bet. Ah, Jarek says this thing turning up might be his fault. The Sidhe who interrogated him at Serenein must’ve worked out where the mothership was and sent someone to investigate. When they got there, they found these whatever-they-ares waiting for them.’
 
‘They call themselves avatars. Of what I’m not yet sure.’
Destruction. Chaos. Entropy.
‘The one I met wasn’t from my ship: the infection must have spread.’
 
‘Can the infected Sidhe still do the scary mind-stuff ?’
 
‘I’m not sure. They can read surface emotions and strong thoughts, but they don’t appear to have the finesse for anything subtle. As for control over others . . . I don’t think so, otherwise the one I met today would have tried it on me. But it did do something I’ve never seen before: they can affect nearby matter. She - it - managed to unmake a chair.’
 
‘That don’t sound good.’
 
‘No, I—’ Nual stopped and looked up. Her first thought when someone came into the room was relief, though Taro should have said he was that close.
 
But it wasn’t Taro.
 
 
‘Nual?’ Taro looked at Jarek. ‘Something’s wrong!’
 
‘We’re nearly there - just round the next corner.’
 
Taro forced himself not to run ahead. When they reached the lounge the door was open, but they couldn’t see inside without breaking cover. Taro listened as hard as he could, and thought he caught the rustle of cloth. He looked at Jarek who whispered, ‘In after three, all right? One . . . two . . . three . . . !’

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