World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) (14 page)

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m glad it didn’t succeed.”

“That’s sweet. You almost sound sincere. Now, I happen to take very personally an attack on myself, and very, very personally an attack on my subordinates. That’s why I’m going to overlook your sheer blatant inadequacy so far and give you a second chance. Because I don’t know jack-shit about Plussers, whereas you, for better or worse, do.”

“More than I care to.”

“Yes, you faced them in the war. You know what they’re about. Like it or not – and I don’t – you’re our best bet for dealing with them if they’re trying to establish a foothold on Alighieri.”

“Which they are,” said Dev. “All that lovely helium-three. It’s like honey to a bear.”

“So let’s get cracking, shall we?” Kahlo rubbed her hands together demonstratively. “Up and at ’em, soldier.”

Dev levered himself off the bunk. It wasn’t the finest ever example of standing up. Kahlo caught him by the arm and steadied him, and he didn’t quite collapse.

“And this is the watchman on the Border Wall,” she said with a despairing roll of the eyes. “Patrolling the perimeter of the Diaspora to keep us all safe.”

“At your service, ma’am,” Dev said with a wonky salute.

“We are so fucked.”

16

A
N ENERGY DRINK
and a Blitz-Go pill later, Dev felt marginally more human. Kahlo gave him a tube of topical curative gel which he slathered over his tender areas. The endocannabinoids and regenerative proteins went to work, combating inflammation and boosting the rate of tissue repair a hundredfold.

Spruced up, hungover no more, he was a new man.

“Where to?” he asked Kahlo.

She consulted her commplant clock. “As it happens, we’ve a meeting scheduled. Word came down an hour ago.”

“Sounds important. Who with?”

“The governor.”

“Ah. What’s he want?”

“Unclear. He’s the one who put in the application for ISS intervention, so I imagine he’d like to scope you out. Can’t help but think he’ll be disappointed. Patrolman Utz is taking us there.”

In short order, they were scooting along maglev rails in a police pod.

“I see yesterday hasn’t put you off driving after all,” Dev said to Utz.

“I figure the same thing can’t happen to the same guy twice. The odds against must be astronomical.”

“Sensible man.”

“Besides,” said Kahlo, “the rail network server’s proofed against another malware attack of the same kind. ISS bundled a shield in with the Polisware scan.”

“Even better,” said Utz. “Let’s all sit back and enjoy the ride.”

The governor’s residence had its own station and was ensconced within a high rock arch that, though a natural formation, described an almost perfectly symmetrical parabola. The entrance foyer was suspended from the underside of the arch, a disc of glass and concrete with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panoramic view. There was hardly an inch of Calder’s Edge that couldn’t be seen from it.

Governor Graydon kept them waiting several minutes, but finally his personal assistant arrived to usher them up to see him. Only Dev and Kahlo went; Utz stayed downstairs.

“Above my paygrade,” he said with a shrug.

The personal assistant, crisp but amiable, made small talk as the elevator rose. She apologised for the delay. The governor – such a busy man.

She seemed to know Kahlo well, treating her as a close colleague. Kahlo’s answers, however, were stiff and curt. Dev got the distinct impression the chief of police was ill-at-ease. If Graydon had the power to unnerve someone like her, then he must be a formidable proposition.

In the event, the man who greeted them in his office couldn’t have appeared less intimidating. He was short and thickset, like any Alighierian, but he had a bonhomie and a polish that most of his kin lacked.

What also set him apart was his entirely bald scalp. Treatment to regrow dermal papillae was inexpensive; no one need have no hair. Graydon therefore either chose to shave it off or else didn’t mind that it had all fallen out.

The effect was striking. You looked twice at him. You wouldn’t forget him in a hurry.

Governor Maurice Graydon was a canny operator, that much was clear to Dev.

Yet his smile seemed genuine. Nothing of the usual politician’s disingenuousness about it.

“Astrid, come in. And you must be Mr Harmer.”

The handshake was brisk but firm.

“Drink? I have Japanese whisky. Single malt. Import. Not the stuff we distil on-planet, and all the better for it.”

He held out the bottle for inspection. Dev let out a low whistle. It was the real deal. Yamazaki, all the way from Osaka.

“Yes, hideously pricey. Transportation costs alone make every drop worth rather more than its weight in gold. My one small luxury. Some say only Scotland knows the art of producing good whisky, but Japan has it down to a science. Tempted?”

Dev was. Sorely. But he recalled the previous night. The hangover might be gone and the aches and pains from the fight fading, but the memory still lingered.

With some regret, he shook his head.

“And you won’t, Astrid,” Graydon said. “Not on duty. So I won’t even ask.”

The governor helped himself to a couple of fingers of the whisky and returned the bottle to the sideboard. Then, cradling the tumbler as though it contained the secret of happiness itself, he led the way across the expansive office to the picture window filling the far wall.

The panes retracted at the touch of a sensor, giving access onto a broad balcony perched on cantilevered struts. Graydon stepped out and, with a small gesture, invited Dev and Kahlo to follow.

“I like to get outside as much as possible,” he said. “I realise it’s not
outside
outside, Mr Harmer. Not outside as you would understand the term. But this is Alighieri. The concept of the great outdoors is relative here, and tends not to involve such things as sky and trees.”

The cavern echoed to the sounds of life and industry, a soft reverberant hubbub.

“That,” said Governor Graydon, “is the hum of Calder’s Edge as it should be. Everything functioning. A city going about its daily business. It isn’t a perfect place, as I’d be the first to admit. But when it works, it works.”

He took a sip of whisky.

“Ahh, pleasures of the flesh. Never to be underrated. When
we’re
gone,
they’re
gone. Best enjoy them while you can. Where was I?”

“The city doing its business,” said Dev.

“Yes. Too often lately, things haven’t been going so smoothly. Even if you can’t hear it, there’s tension down there. People are on tenterhooks, waiting. They don’t know if, when, another earthquake will strike. They don’t know how severe it might be. They’re scared it might be a big one – an earthquake that will bring everything crashing down. The end of their world.”

Another sip. Dev’s eyes lingered on the amber elixir.

“There’s no saying that’s a likely outcome. We’re in uncharted waters. Nothing like this has happened in the city’s – the planet’s – history. Perhaps, as some are claiming, it’s a natural cyclical event, Alighieri going through a period of stretching and groaning, like an old man with creaky joints, working out the knots of arthritis. The geological record would appear to suggest that it isn’t, but we can’t rely on that.”

“You don’t think it’s a natural event any more than I do, sir,” said Kahlo.

“As I’ve told you countless times, Astrid, there’s no need to call me ‘sir.’ Not when it’s just us here, you, me.”

“I understand, sir.”

Graydon grinned wryly, indulgently. “No, I don’t think it’s natural at all. But I can’t for the life of me figure out what else it is.”

He swivelled to face Dev again.

“Which is where you come in, my good man. Believe me, it wasn’t something I did lightly, going to the Terran Consensus on bended knee, begging for help. We’re a fiercely independent little world, Alighieri. We like to look after our own. But I couldn’t just let the situation continue as it is. We needed a troubleshooter. A professional.”

“That’s me,” said Dev.

“That’s you. And please don’t be offended when I say I’d rather you hadn’t had to come.”

“I won’t. I’m used to it. ISS consultants tend to be called in only as a last resort. And usually only when covert enemy activity is suspected.”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know if this is enemy activity, but at the same time I can’t rule it out. Alighieri is in a vulnerable position, stuck out at the further extremity of the Border Wall. We’re several hundred light years from the next Diasporan solar system. We’ve got Polis Plus worlds closer to us than human worlds. It’s a precarious position to be in.”

“And your helium-three deposits make you a juicy prospect.”

“We’re a ripe apple the Plussers would love to pluck,” said Graydon with a nod. “An apple they would suck the marrow out of in no time, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor. So when something untoward occurs, something worrying and unprecedented, like now, then I can’t help but think that Polis Plus must be behind it.”

He studied both their expressions.

“As, it would appear, do you,” he said gravely.

“It’s looking that way, sir,” said Kahlo.

She summarised the evidence: rail network takeover, Polis+ malware bot, Plusser agent somewhere on-planet.

“They took a bold step,” she said. “Whoever it is, they must have realised that doing what they did was effectively an announcement of their presence. Like hoisting a big damn flag. Which tells me that they’re confident and they’re well-hidden.”

“Or perhaps desperate,” said Graydon. “So frightened of our Mr Harmer that they’ll stop at nothing to eliminate him, even if it entails compromising their own security and anonymity.”

“You can call me Dev.”

“Thank you, Dev. I will. And you can call me Maurice. At least with you I can be a little less formal, unlike with Captain Kahlo.”

Dev had offered Graydon the option to use his forename only out of a sense of mischief. He couldn’t fathom the relationship between the governor and the police chief, the reason for Kahlo’s frostiness towards Graydon; but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun putting himself on friendlier terms with Graydon than she was. It was likely to annoy her, and that made it worthwhile.

Dev revelled in getting under Kahlo’s skin. It didn’t help that she made it so absurdly easy. She was accustomed to deference and obedience. He enjoyed bringing a little anarchy into her life.

Knowing she was being provoked, Kahlo shot him a disdainful glance, then said to Graydon: “I imagine the prospect of an ISS operative on the ground alarmed the Plusser. ISS have a reputation. Polis Plus have had reason in the past to fear them. In this instance, though, it led to an unfortunate overreaction.”

Touché, thought Dev.
Overreaction
. Implying that he himself was not up to the standard of his ISS peers.

“What it also tells us,” Kahlo continued, “is that the Plusser agent knew Harmer was coming. That in turn indicates that they’re resourceful and may have backdoor access to some of our securest servers, not just at rail network control.”

“How so?” said Graydon.

“Isn’t it obvious? How many people knew that an ISS consultant had been called in? You. Me. A couple of other police officers. Probably a few of your staff. That’s it. So either the Plusser is one of them, someone in the Calder’s Edge upper echelons...”

“Unthinkable.”

“Let’s hope so. Or they intercepted a communiqué about Harmer.”

“An internal one?”

“Maybe one of your or my memos.”

“Or, possibly, the request I sent to TerCon in the first place. Can they do that?”

The question was directed at Dev.

“Polis Plus listening posts have been known to hack ultraspace messages,” Dev replied.

“But what about encryption?”

“There’s nothing we’ve been able to come up with that they can’t crack. That’s the trouble when you’re dealing with beings who are pure information themselves. They have an affinity for data. It’s their language, their essence. Even our most complex quantum-key ciphertext algorithms can’t keep them out. They pick them apart as easily as unravelling yarn.”