Janus (18 page)

He nodded, rubbing his cheek in her hair. “We both are. Come on.”

Two streetlights faded behind them, and doubled moon-shadows accompanied them up the slope. The stream sounded faintly among the rush of air through refurling branches. A four-winged creature like a silver bat, with its crested rider, swooped low over their heads and was gone. Above the clouds a sheaf of rose light shook open into a great orchid.

And then Elinda was fumbling for her key again, awkward with one arm still around his waist, and the previous evening was recreating itself.

“Take off your coat.”

“Yes.”

They spoke in whispers and moved slowly, putting their coats on chairs, then clinging to each other again; but still stiffly, inert.

“Last time, you were going to offer me a drink.”

“All right,” she said, and did not move. “If you’ll help me look for it. And you’ll have to make do with a cup.”

“Maybe we should have stayed in the tavern then.”

“You’d have to sleep on one of those benches. You’d get a stiff back.”

In the dark, they found their way to the kitchen, and she produced a bottle and two ceramic cups. “I never did show you the house, did I? This is the kitchen. And through here, as you see, we have the bedroom.”

“That’s nice.”

They were going through the motions, flirting until tensions relaxed.

They sat on the bed and poured whisky for each other. Leaning together, they took turns to sip from a single cup, one holding it to the other’s lips, while the other’s unencumbered hands explored and caressed.

At some point, when the cup was put down to be refilled, it disappeared. Turning to look for it, they fell against each other, giggled and kissed and toppled sideways on the bed. And quite suddenly their need sharpened and focussed. The play became urgent.

Elinda felt her body being caught up in familiar aching rhythms. The hidden, night side of her knew this version of the dance. That knowledge laboured within her, climbing towards the light, bringing its dark and fearful joy.

And Grebbel, with her face filling his sight, his skin tingling with the sensation of holding her and being held, felt a moment’s pause.
Wait
, said his mind,
touch her there and she’ll beg.
But then being inside her overwhelmed everything else, and when the climax came, it annihilated all awareness.

He was adrift in a place between sleeping and waking. He could no longer tell where his body ended and hers began. Their breathing sounded together in his ears, the fathomless sound of the ocean waves. He was a wrinkled creature, washed free of grit, wounds bathed and soothed, drifting on the edge of the ocean until the tide should roll in again and carry him back to the quiet dark.

Sluggishly he rolled in the water.
On his back
, said the waves,
turn him on his back. Turn him on his back. Turn his belly to the light, so we can see where he’s hurt.

Sea—where he’s hurt, there he’s hurt, there he hurts. In the white, in the light. It’s the light, in the eyes, it’s the sounds, in the ears, that’s what hurts. Come to sleep in the deep, in the dimness and the peace. Heal the hurt.

It’s too late now—see the wound. The wound. The wound.

. . . severe laceration about the umbilicus, damage to the peritoneum, large and small intestines, lesions to the liver and pancreas. We’ll need plasma—thirty units—dialysis. . . .

The ocean had vanished. He lay in the dark, his limbs tangled with hers, and stared toward the ceiling. His hands had come together and locked their fingers and begun to squeeze. When he made the effort to exhale, the air rasped in his ears.

He whispered, hardly daring to formulate the certainty that had appeared in his mind. “I was—a doctor.”

She turned in his arms and muttered without waking. He peered at the blur of her face, a few centimetres from his own. Her breath was warm on his shoulder, her breast soft against his upper arm. His eyes tried to recreate details that had been familiar during the day. He ached. She stirred again, and he realised his body was damp with sweat.

He let his head fall back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

A doctor.

Chris glanced up as Elinda went into the office. “Early again,” he said. “This whole place is turning upside down. Maybe even the boss’ll take a day off.”

The wind moaned about the building. Dry leaves rattled on the window.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “I’m just passing through. I’ll be back, but there’s order in the universe yet.” She had sat down without taking her coat off and was entering commands through her keyboard.

As she was about to call up the residence directory, she suddenly realised that if Security was ahead of her, any attempts to reach Strickland might be monitored. She decided to gamble. She called up the directory and asked for addresses for half a dozen surnames at random, throwing in “Swale” and “Stackpole” as well. “Swale” proved to be the name of a real person living in the lower blocks, but “Stackpole” drew a blank. The system then displayed a block of names in alphabetical order centred on “Stark,” the closest it could get. “Strickland” was third from the bottom of the list, with an address in one of the original settlement buildings off the Square. She memorised the address rather than writing it down, completed her search of dummy names, adding Jon Grebbel’s as an afterthought, printed out a couple of the results for show, then said good morning to Chris and set out into the wind.

She found half the Square roped off. A battery of lights had been set up near the Tree and focussed on the buildings at the far side. Militia in white jackets and gas masks patrolled the barrier, with riot guns in their gauntleted hands. She stopped. The wind surged and the icy waters of the river seemed to roil about her. Then she braced herself and walked up to the nearest of the militia and asked what was happening.

The hidden eyes swung towards her. It was probably someone she passed on the street almost every day—and the mask must be there for that reason as much as for protection.

“Keep back, please.” A man’s voice, but distorted beyond recognition. The furled tree fronds rustled and stirred above them, reminding Elinda of pinioned, groping arms.

“But what’s happening?”

From the far side of the Square, someone shouted. A whistle blew. Three of the militia ran to one of the buildings and hurled something through a window, then forced the door and ran inside. After a moment there was a muffled thud and more shouting. Smoke streamed out. Then there was quiet. Elinda’s eyes began to smart.

“Who is it?” she asked. “Who have they caught?”

But the mask was turned to the house across the Square and made no response.

The door opened again. The three militia emerged, two in the lead with a tall man in a dark green sweater between them. He walked heavily, seemingly unaware of the cold, his shoulders slumped. In front of the building, he twice bent forward and was shaken by coughs. His face was red; it looked swollen, and it was several moments before Elinda could be sure the man was Robert Strickland.

Another of the militia in the Square went forward to meet the three. He exchanged words with them, then said something to their prisoner.

Strickland leapt forward, was caught by his two guards. Elinda could see his face thrust up at the officer even as his arms were twisted behind him to force his body forward. His mouth was a black gash uttering sounds that were made unintelligible by wind and his own rage.

The officer turned away and Strickland fell quiet, letting himself be bowed forward, and coughing. Then he twisted his head up and shouted, and this time she understood his words. “You know why! Because of her! Erika! You know!”

One of the guards made a sharp motion, and Strickland fell to his knees. The guards began to drag him away.

“There was no need to hit him like that.” She started towards him.

Strickland sprang to life. One of the guards fell and the other staggered against the wall. Strickland was crouching between them with one of their machine pistols in his hands. Now she could see him easily. “I remember your type,” he was shouting. “Just fit for beating up grandmothers.”

The militiaman dragged at her arm. “Get down!” The muzzle of Strickland’s gun was swinging back and forth. If he pressed the trigger, he would probably cut her in half. “Get down!”

She dropped and put her cheek to the icy ground. As she covered her head with her arms, someone screamed. There was a brief clatter of shots. Then more screams.

For a long time it seemed that nothing was happening. She raised her head. Strickland lay crumpled at the base of the wall. His chest and the side of his head were crimson. There was a short chain of bullet holes in the wall where he had been standing. As she watched, a woman wearing a Red Cross armband went and bent over him, then stood up and shook her head. The two guards went to pick up Strickland’s body.

Elinda pushed herself to her feet. The militia were taking down the rope barrier and the battery of lights and vanishing into alleys and side streets. People flowed back onto the Square.

She worked her way towards the building they had stormed. Now the tear gas was stronger, rasping at her eyes and the back of her throat. She stopped and wiped her eyes, coughing.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Carlo when she looked up. Through wide goggles he was staring at her with an intensity she could not interpret. Awkwardly he added, “The gas won’t clear for another five or ten minutes.”

“I’ll be okay. I want to find out what happened.”

“They got the one who planted the bomb. There were traces of blasting compound in his room, and some spare wire and batteries.”

“So it’s over, then. It’s all solved.”

Carlo hesitated. “It looks like it.”

“Assuming,” she suggested, “he really did do it, and alone? But why would anyone do a thing like that?”

“Who can say?” Carlo looked away from her and peered across the darkened Square. “He might have been crazy. He was so easy to trace, they say, he might have wanted to be caught. And the way he stood there at the end, waving that gun, just inviting them to shoot him . . . Who knows what drove him to it?”

Someone knows
, she thought, remembering Strickland’s words to the officer. “He mentioned a name just now. Erika. That was the missing woman, wasn’t it, the one mentioned at the newsfeed the other night? Do you think she was part of it?”

He turned to look at her, but then only shrugged. “What we’ve found is one man with some sort of chip on his shoulder; the rest is just moonshine. Sorry, now, but you’ll have to excuse me. I’m wanted.”

She watched him go, wondering if she was being paranoid or if he did know more than he had told her. Then either the tear gas or delayed shock made her eyes burn, and she hurried away.

“You’re back, I see,” said Larsen, as Elinda came in, without adding “finally.” Then: “Is something wrong?” They were alone in the office.

“I saw a man shot ten minutes ago.” She told him what had happened on the Square. “It was a friend of yours. Robert Strickland.”

Larsen faced her expressionlessly, and she realised she had been hoping to jerk some kind of reaction out of him.