Zero (55 page)

The wine was good. It tasted sweet and light and danced on Hugo’s tongue just as the music from the orchestra rose and fell in his ears and the couples in their fine suits and gowns swung around the polished dance floor. He took another mouthful then tipped his head back and drained the glass earning a reproving look from Harvey.

“If you pass out I'm not carrying you home,” she mumbled.

H
e didn't answer, just carried on staring round the room. “It's wrong, isn't it?”

“
What is?”

“
This,” Hugo said, gesturing around the ball room whilst grabbing another glass of wine from a passing waiter.

Harvey shrugged.
“They want to believe things are changing. Is that so bad?”

“
Things won't change.”

“
They will if you make them,” she said, sliding up next to him. Her hair had grown out long enough to be mustard-coloured once more and was clipped up from her face with diamond slide. Her gown was rich and black and swept the floor but she stood like a spacer and her eyes were wide and open and knowing. It comforted him. She smiled and took his hand then looked back over the ballroom. “So how many people in this room are you related to?”

Hugo grimaced.
“Altogether? About thirty.”

“
Fuck,” she muttered and he felt her hand tighten in his. “Do I have to talk to them?”

“
Don't bother,” he said with a half smile. “I don't.”

His mother stood near the platform
spot-lit from the medal ceremony, resplendent in silver silk, talking with his father and Giles and two more of his brothers. Giles saw him looking and raised a glass in his direction. The smile on his face was genuine. Hugo lifted his glass to his brother in return before draining it and grabbing another.

“
If you hurl on my dress I'm never speaking to you again.”

Hugo smiled, twirling the glass between his fingers and enjoying the burn of the alcohol in his throat.
“I think I need some fresh air,” he said. “I'm okay,” he added, seeing the concerned purse of her lips. “I'll be back.”

“
You better be,” Harvey muttered. “I still have no idea how to talk to these Service types.”

“
Relax,” he said, bending in and kissing her on the temple. “You're going to be great at this.”

She muttered something into her wine glass that he didn't hear. He smiled and strolled away, skirting the edge of the dance floor and moving out the arching doors and onto the terrace. The night breeze was cool and real, like nothing any colony system could replicate. Sydney was a stretch of lights blinking below the glittering bands of the skyways and beyond them, the stars.

He ambled further down the terrace, trying to get away from the music and climbed a fire escape to the next level of the Memorial Music Hall. He emerged onto a smaller terrace that was dark, the ballroom beyond it locked up and silent. The breeze was even stronger up here and it swept away the cheerful tune from below out into night. Hugo sighed and loosened his collar, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.

“
Nice suit.”

Hugo started, clutching at the wall.
He blinked into the gloom and froze. “What are you doing here?”

“
I was invited,” Webb chuckled, straightening up from where he'd been leant against the fire escape and pacing forward.

“
Invited to the ceremony,” Hugo mumbled. “For your medal. Not to skulk about on the roof and scare me to death.”

Webb shrugged as he came out into the pale light from the skyways.

“Funny, isn't it?” he said “They want to give me a medal for the same thing they arrested me for.” His hair had grown long enough to tuck behind his ears. He looked more like the man Hugo remembered first showing him around the
Zero
, though there was something different. There was more tension in his poise, not so much of the easy grace. His smile was still ready, but it was harder.

“
You're a hero of the New Age,” Hugo mumbled, looking away over the stretch of lights into the darkness on the horizon. “Don't you want to enjoy it?”

“
I'll believe in the New Age when I see it,” Webb muttered, leaning on the barrier, the breeze ruffling his hair. “Do you believe in it, Hugo?”

Hugo came forward and leant on the rail beside him. He looked into himself, chasing the emotions rolling around his gut like mercury dropped in a bowl.
“Yes,” he said suddenly. “At least... I believe it's possible.”

“
'A new vision, a new future, a new Service'?” Webb said with a grin.

“
That's the propaganda,” Hugo replied. “That's the pretty face.”

“
And the reality behind it?”

“
Me,” Hugo said with a shrug. “And Luscombe. Wilson too. Maybe General Ling, though I'm not convinced he has the...”

“
... capacity for creative thinking?”

Hugo smiled.
“Something like that. There's such a thing as too much honour.”

“
Any honour,” Webb grinned, “is too much honour.”

Hugo sighed.
“We'll see. Anything could happen.”

“
If they listen to you?”

Hugo looked at him.
“Yes.”

“
How's that going so far?”

“
Still a way to go,” Hugo hedged.

Webb grinned again. Then he gestured at his face.
“Didn't you want to get that fixed?”

Hugo touched the scar. It still burned sometimes
and he occasionally woke up in the night scratching at it just like he had in those waking days in the brig after the battle when it had been fresh.

“
For a long time,” he fumbled. “For a
very
long time... every time I looked in the mirror... I didn't know who I was looking at.”

“
Know the feeling,” Webb said quietly.

“
No matter what happens now though, no matter what they end up making me do... I will know. I will remember the
Resolution.
I will remember what really happened. I...” he paused again, shaking his head. “I couldn't move forward unless I had a way to make sure I never lost my way again.”

Webb nodded.
“I suddenly have more hope for the future,” he said with a more genuine smile.

There was a pause whilst Hugo stared into the night and rubbed the scar on his face without thinking.

“It’s hard to believe she’s gone,” Webb said quietly. Hugo looked at him. He was frowning slightly and staring at nothing. “The
Zero
, I mean. I can’t figure out which are my feelings and which are his. But wherever they’re coming from…” Webb shook his head.

“
Did you hear the tribute?”

“
Yeah, I heard it. More’s and Sub's too. Along with those of all the other poor bastards that are no longer breathing.”

“
Things could change,” Hugo said, very quietly. “You could help.”

Webb shook his head.
“I've had enough of the Service for two lifetimes,” he said, the edge in his smile harder than ever. “Good luck to you, Kaleb Hugo. And watch your back. Remember what these people do when you don't fall in as they like.”

“
You could be a part of this,” Hugo dogged on. “Very few people know who you really are. Even fewer know what happened to you. You're still your own man and you could make a difference. Rami and Bolt have found places where they can.”

“
What about Spinn?”

“
He's been pardoned in exchange for evidence against Pharos and been shipped off to the
Endeavour
to carry on with research.”

“
Out of your sight?”

Hugo ground his teeth but didn't reply.

There was a pause. Snatches of violin music wafted up to them. Hugo breathed in the scent of the wind, concentrating of the feel of the metal rail under his elbows and the silence filled with understanding that engulfed them both.

“
I'm going to make it illegal, you know,” he said a few heartbeats later.

“
What?”

“
Cloning,” Hugo answered. “I'm going to make sure this never happens to anyone else.”

“
Is that supposed to win me over?”

“
No. I just wanted you to know.”

Webb nodded. His face was turned away, a shifting
plane of shadows in the wan light, but Hugo could tell he wasn't smiling.

“
I once told you... him... that I knew soldiers like you. That they didn't last.”

“
You were right,” Webb said with another nasty smile.

“
You have a chance to prove me wrong.” Hugo looked out over the bay. “It's too late for him...” Hugo paused to steady his voice. Webb's gaze was calm and measured. “And you can't unload what you've been given. But if you go blasting into the future not caring where you end up, like he did...”

It sounded lame even in his own ears. There was so much more he wanted to say, wanted to make this man understand
and ask his forgiveness for. He knew at least some of it was what he wished he'd said to the real Webb. The futility of the whole thing welled up in his throat. He nearly turned and walked away but Webb put a hand on his arm.

“
Do you want to know the real reason I didn't talk?” The clone’s voice was so quiet it was almost swept away in the breeze. “On the
Tide
? Do you know what the real reason was?”

Hugo held his tongue. The hand on his arm tightened.

“I wanted....” he paused, shook his head, pulled away and straightened up. He sighed and looked up at the sky. “I wanted to believe that if I could convince the blade I wasn’t made of someone else… that maybe I could make that true.”

Hugo swallowed a few times.
“You can't.”

“
I know that. I can't get rid of it. So I have to own it. Is that right?”

“
Use it,” Hugo said.

For the briefest of
moments Hugo dared to hope he'd convinced him. But then he shook his head and the hope evaporated.

“
Not for the Service,” he mumbled.

“
Then for yourself. You have a chance to live the life he could have had. But it's only you that can make it work.”

They stared at each other in the darkness. The seconds were swept away in the wind and
more music reached them, along with the sound of Harvey's voice calling his name.

“
Why did you come here?” Hugo muttered, already knowing the answer.

“
To say goodbye,” Webb said, quietly. He held out his hand and Hugo took it. It seemed an empty and useless gesture considering everything it stood for. “Both versions of me have said it, Hugo, but it's true. You're a good man. If anyone can drag this Orbit into any sort of New Age, it will be you.”

“
Thank you. For everything. You saved me.”

Web
b’s grip tightened a moment then his hand dropped away. “Take care, Hugo.”

“
Webb,” Hugo called at the last minute before the younger man disappeared down the steps. “If you ever need help... if you're ever lost or in trouble...”

In the shifting light from the skyways Webb's old grin spread over his face.
“When am I ever not?” he said, but his laugh lifted some of the bleakness from his words. “Look after yourself, Hugo. Promise me that.”

“
I will if you will.”

Webb paused
and smiled wider. “Deal.”

And then he was gone. Harvey was still calling him and the wind brought the smell of the water to him. He looked up at the stars glinting between the skyways and the moon
, gleaming and pale, and marvelled at how peaceful it could look.

END

Acknowledgments

So many people have encouraged and supported me to get to this point that I’m quite overwhelmed. I am thankful to every last one of you, whether it was just for putting up with my disappearing into my anti-social writing cave for weeks at a time or suggesting spaceship names, every last one of you helped this happen and have my gratitude.

I would like to thank in particular my parents, Ann and Phil and my brother Christopher for never doubting that one day I would release a book, even when I doubted myself. I’d also like to thank them and my other relatives Adam and Cheryl, Stephen and Linda and Derek and Sheila, for the emotional and financial support that got me through my university degrees which helped me get further towards this goal.

I also want to convey my undying gratitude to the other writers in my life who have never hesitated in answering my questions, offering advice and helping me learn. In particular I have Matt Wesolowski to thank for his unswerving support and encouragement, as well as George Green, Jo Baker, Ray Robinson and Catherine Spooner, my tutors from university who helped me to learn there is always more to learn.

I also want to thank Anna for her eternal enthusiasm and excitement for my projects’ success, especially during conversations when I talked of little else and Reg, without whom this book would never have happened.

I would finally like to thank my partner, Andy, who has survived being in a relationship with a writer for eight years and counting which is an achievement in itself and his family, Stuart, Angela, Valerie, John, Gen, Jennifer and Andy who provided everything from encouragement to contributions to writing retreats.

Zero
would not have happened without the support of all my family and friends and I shall continue to try and become a better and better writer and make you all proud.