Watcher's Web (15 page)

Just
bloody shut up, right!
A decision was a decision.

“How long is
this trip going to take?”

Brian didn’t
reply and motioned for her to be silent. He scanned both
riverbanks, the forest and the tops of the escarpment, his face
tense.

The boat
drifted past the solar station. Beams of light intersected the air
like needles. Here on the river, they were too far away to feel its
power.

Only when the
boat had drifted well out of the river mouth did he speak.

“First, let me
apologise for not being straight with you before. I’ve been rude to
you.”

“So—where did
you go when I went down the rock slide and where are we now? Who
came for you? Who are you?”

“A lot of
questions.”

“Yes. I think
I have a right to know, because your name sure as hell isn’t Brian,
and you’re not from New Zealand, either.”

He slowly
shook his head. “I’m sorry about that, too, but you have to
understand. According to the law we have to hide ourselves, so on
the plane I was Brian, because I was on business and that’s how
people know me.”

“You are
saying that . . .” Heck—these alien people lived in
Earth cities?

“We are
required to have a local identity. I have a passport in the name of
Brian O’Malley.”

“But your real
name is. . . ?”

He dug in the
pocket of his trousers and pulled something out that glittered in
the sunlight.

“My name is
Iztho Andrahar. Trader.”

He held out
the glittering object—a medallion of some sort. There was a symbol
on it, and writing she didn’t recognise. Some kind of proof for his
statement probably, never mind that she had no idea what it
meant.

It shook her.
There was no denying that. To accept that she had somehow ended up
on another world was one thing, but to suggest that there were
people who regularly did this . . .

Her heart
hammered.

“Can you say
that name again?”

“Iztho.”

She
repeated it a few times.
Iztho, Iztho.

“You are from
here?”

“No. If I was
a local, I would have recognised immediately where we were. I would
have spoken the local language. I would have known who those
gun-happy rogues were.”

“Can you tell
me where we are?”

“The
city-enclave of Barresh, jurisdiction of Miran, colony of
Ceren.”

“What
. . . what does all that mean?”

“Barresh is
the name of the island city. I presume you have seen it.”

She nodded.
“And where is that? Not Earth obviously?”

Sunlight
glinted in his hair with the barely perceptible shake of his head.
“Ceren.”

Blue eyes
examined her face, his expression guarded, as if he expected some
kind of horrified reply. He wasn’t going to get it. Not from
her.

“You
. . . you’re taking this well.”

“I’ve lived
with the Pengali. I’ve seen the two suns in the sky. Am I still
supposed to be surprised?” She pushed down the rest of her
irritation. Of course he didn’t know about the cave and about all
the things that had made the truth easier to accept.

“Well, no, I
guess not . . . not exactly. It’s just that—”

What did he
expect then? That she was a helpless damsel in distress pleading on
her knees for him to help her?

He spread his
hands in a helpless gesture.

Awkward, she
thought.

“I apologise
for all this, for getting you involved. It’s been such a grave
mistake.”

“Mistake?”

“A mistake
indeed. A stupid, silly mistake made by the local node of the
Exchange—that’s how we travel from one inhabited world to another.
I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.”

She shook her
head. “How does it work?” She knew it was impossible to travel
faster than light. Even so, what had happened to the plane could
hardly be called travel. “Is it like a wormhole?”

“In a way,
yes, ‘wormhole’ is probably a good description of the process.
Wormholes large and small occur naturally where anti-energy that is
plentiful in the universe coalesces into strands and meets normal
energy. Remember that all objects are made up of potential energy,
which is the energy that went into creating those objects. The
Exchange shapes that anti-energy. The Exchange network nodes are in
constant contact with each other, and create holes where they are
needed. All wormholes, natural or artificial, form a flux strong
enough to carry messages, images or objects over huge distances
with little loss of time.”

“You’re saying
that our plane accidentally got caught in this . . .
network?”

He
hesitated, glanced at her, probably thinking his explanation made
no sense to her. But it did. It made far too much sense. It
described more accurately than any previous explanation she had
heard what her web did: strands of energy that connected with other
strands, and occasionally with other places and other people. The
man Daya was clearly in another place. Maybe on this world, maybe
another. That’s what Ikay had tried to teach her, the weaving, and
forming the strands into a ball that became a light. Concentrating
energy, which they called
avya.

Hadn’t
he felt the pricking of this cross-dimensional-whatever energy that
made the web? She thought back to the few seconds before the
accident. The businessman—asleep; the pilot—humming to himself; and
Brian—Iztho, whatever his name was—reading, without the slightest
care in the world. Because he
hadn’t
felt it, or because he pretended he hadn’t?

He gave a grim
nod. “There’s going to be trouble. It should never have happened.
There should have been three checks carried out before the
translocation was completed. By the look of things, none of them
were done. They picked up a craft on a domestic flight in a
non-Union world. It’s a disgrace. There’s going to be an
investigation. The city of Barresh could lose its Exchange Node and
that will stop everything: trade, export, travel. The whole economy
of the city depends on it. Worse—its independence. That’s why they
want to get rid of us. That’s why those guys came after us in the
forest: to get rid of the proof of their mistake, to shut us
up—forever.”

“
Kill
us, just to save their economy?” Because of something
she
did?

“I’m afraid
so.”

“But—hang on,
let me get this straight. You’re saying that the people in this
city want us dead. So what is the logic in travelling there? We’ll
be going right where they want us. Shouldn’t we be going somewhere
else?” Maybe that was what Ikay had been trying to tell her.

“Where to?
Barresh is surrounded by water. On the other side of the city is
nothing but a sandbar and beyond that, the sea. Behind us is the
rainforest all the way to the border. There are no other towns in
the enclave and you can’t cross into Miran on foot anyway; the
border is sealed. As dangerous as it is, to travel into Barresh and
leave by air is the only way out.”

“And you can
arrange that for me?” She wasn’t sure if she meant it to sound as
sarcastic as it did. He didn’t pick up on it, or ignored it,
whatever was the case.

“I have to.
Don’t think I’m doing this for pleasure. My name is on the line,
too. We’re lucky those rogues who came to the plane didn’t find
either of us. They were sent by the people in the council.
Mercenaries, to kill us. The council now thinks that all the
passengers are dead and the situation has been dealt with. You
didn’t make it easier when you decided to run off when I was
telling you not to. Not to go down those rocks. The people who
caught up with us were a search party, but now the whole tribe
knows as well.”

“You could
have told me all this a bit earlier.”

He snorted. “I
knew as little as you. This backwater of a town is not that
familiar to me.”

If she
hadn’t gone down, she wouldn’t have found out about the Pengali, or
the frieze. The meeting with the Pengali
was
accidental, wasn’t it?

Jessica
muttered, “I’m sorry,” and a bit later, “Thanks for coming.”

He sniffed,
but she guessed the apology was accepted.

“How would it
work, getting home?”

“The actual
process is not the problem.”

“But I’ll have
to get onto some sort of spaceship.”

“Aircraft.”

“OK, aircraft.
And then?”

“You’d be
transferred by the Exchange.”

“You
mean . . .” That was absurd. To go into some kind of
alien craft, which would then land somewhere on Earth. “Why doesn’t
anyone on Earth know about this?”

“There’s a lot
of sophisticated technology involved. There are craft with engines
that make no noise at all and that run a current through the outer
shell of the craft, making it near impossible to see, even by
radar. The Exchange is well-hidden. Plus they only fly out at
night. And a few people know—only they’ve sworn not to reveal
anything. No one would believe them if they did, anyway.”

Something,
something
about his words didn’t quite add up. The process sounded
too easy. His words seemed rehearsed. Who was deceiving
whom?

Chapter
13

T
HE TRIP TOOK a
few hours, according to Jessica’s best guess. She wished she still
had her watch, but it had disappeared with her clothes. She stared
at the passing water, reeds and floating weeds in uneasy
silence.

How long was
the day on this world, she asked, and Iztho produced a little
gadget that told her twenty-eight hours. That explained how her
watch had seemed to lose huge chunks of time each day.

At long last,
the boat glided into the long shadow cast by the island. On both
sides of their watery thoroughfare, small figures waded through
fields of grey grass or floating lettuce, cutting or picking crops
and loading them onto barges.

The clattering
sound that had been so incessant since she had stumbled down from
the escarpment died away. Other noises took its place. People
talking in the Pengali language, voices of children, footsteps on
timber, thuds, hammering.

A sea of
flat-roofed buildings rose from the waterline to form an anthill of
civilisation, dotted with pinpricks of light.

Hundreds of
boats lay tied up along the timber platforms of a jetty. An
overwhelming smell of fish drifted from the shore, occasionally
mixed with whiffs of rotten eggs.

The Pengali
youth in the bow stopped splashing his stick in the water. In a
purposeful glide, the boat drifted sideways and clunked into
wood.

“Here we are,”
Iztho said. Jessica stretched her stiff legs. With an inelegant
step, waving her arms, she half-fell onto the jetty.

The sound of
heavy booted footsteps and a deep voice made her look up, straight
at a fearsome metal arrow perched on a crossbow held in the crook
of a man’s arm.

He inclined
his head, blond curls tumbling over his forehead, framing an
angel-like, heart-shaped face with eyes of the clearest cobalt
blue. Human and yet strange.

He was dressed
in a long-sleeved grey tunic and leggings with a white sleeveless
tunic over the top. It reached halfway down his upper legs and was
held by a belt around his waist. A red and silver emblem adorned
the centre of his chest. If it hadn’t been for his strange face, he
might have been an actor in a medieval play. A horse, a helmet and
chain mail would have made the picture complete.

Jessica
climbed to her feet, while the man spoke in a language with rolling
r-sounds to Iztho, who climbed out of the boat. He replied, in a
confident tone, friendly almost.

Jessica held
out the zapper. “Do you want me to walk ahead with this?”

“No, we’ll be
right.” He glanced at the soldier. “He’s here to keep an eye on
us.”

“A guard?”

Jessica’s gaze
returned to the arrow on the crossbow. Nothing like any arrow she
had ever seen, this was a shaftless construction of two very long
double-edged blades crossed length-wise. From the needle-sharp tip,
serrated edges ran down each of the four flanges. Take a hit from
that and you would be cut into ribbons. The arrow sat at the end of
a metal slide. Two thick metal springs, stretched taut, strained to
hold it in place.

“What good is
a crossbow against some sort of laser gun?”

He gave her a
sharp look. “Take it from me: never underestimate the power of a
Mirani crossbow.”

OK,
wrong remark, Jess.
Geez, the guy had toes from here to Timbuktu.

The planks of
the jetty creaked under their feet as they walked towards the
shore, the soldier first, Iztho and Jessica directly behind him.
Their approach put an end to many waterside conversations.
Fishermen dragged their nets aside and put down their baskets. They
were all Pengali, but their hair was cut short and their skin
patterns covered with shabby clothing. Jessica looked at their
backsides, but could see only one, a young male, whose trousers
clearly hid a tail.

A young boy
pointed at Jessica, but the adult male who sat next to him pushed
his hand down, and went back to mending the net on his lap. His
eyes, though, glanced at Jessica from under hair swept over his
forehead.

Jessica asked,
“Is the whole city like this?”

“No. This part
of the city is a separate island called Far Atok. Any Pengali
without a high-class family to look after them live here. Barresh
proper is very different.”

“Are all of
the people in the city Pengali?”