Takeshi Kovacs - Broken Angels Part 23

"Because whatever killed them has something to do with this." I tapped the gla.s.s of a monitor where the gate loomed close up. "And this is like nothing any of us have seen before."

"You think something came through the gate at the witching hour?" she asked scornfully. "The vampires got them?"

"Something got them," I said mildly. "They didn't die of old age. Their stacks are gone." got them," I said mildly. "They didn't die of old age. Their stacks are gone."

"Doesn't that rule out the vampire option? Stack excision is a peculiarly human atrocity, isn't it?"

"Not necessarily. Any civilisation that could build a hyperportal must have been able to digitise consciousness."

"There's no actual evidence for that."

"Not even common sense?"

"Common sense?" The scorn was back in her voice. "The same common sense that said a thousand years ago that obviously obviously the sun goes round the earth, just the sun goes round the earth, just look look at it? The common sense that Bogdanovich appealed to when he set up hub theory? Common sense is anthropocentric, Kovacs. It a.s.sumes that because this is the way human beings turned out, it has to be the way any intelligent technological species would turn out." at it? The common sense that Bogdanovich appealed to when he set up hub theory? Common sense is anthropocentric, Kovacs. It a.s.sumes that because this is the way human beings turned out, it has to be the way any intelligent technological species would turn out."

"I've heard some pretty convincing arguments along those lines."

"Yeah, haven't we all," she said shortly. "Common sense for the common herd, and why bother to feed them anything else. What if Martian ethics didn't permit re-sleeving, Kovacs? Ever think of that? What if death means you've proved yourself unworthy of life? That even if you could be brought back, you have no right right to it." to it."

"In a technologically advanced culture? A starfaring culture? This is bulls.h.i.+t, Wardani."

"No, it's a theory. Function-related raptor ethics. Ferrer and Yos.h.i.+moto at Bradbury. And at the moment, there's very little hard evidence around to disprove it."

"Do you you believe it?" believe it?"

She sighed and went back to her seat. "Of course I don't believe it. I'm just trying to demonstrate that there's more to eat at this party than the cosy little certainties human science is handing round. We know almost nothing about the Martians, and that's after hundreds of years of study. What we think we know could be proved completely wrong at any moment, easily. Half of the things we dig up, we have no idea what they are, and we still sell them as f.u.c.king coffee-table trinkets. Right now, someone back on Latimer has probably got the encoded secret of a faster-than-light drive mounted on their f.u.c.king living-room wall." She paused. "And it's probably upside down."

I laughed out loud. It shattered the tension in the 'fab. Wardani's face twitched in an unwilling smile.

"No, I mean it," she muttered. "You think, just because I can open this gate, that we've got some kind of handle on it. Well, we haven't. You can't a.s.sume anything here. You can't think in human terms."

"OK, fine." I followed her back to the centre of the room and reclaimed my own seat. In fact, the thought of a human stack being retrieved by some kind of Martian gate commando, the thought of that personality being downloaded into a Martian virtuality and what that might do to a human mind, was making my spine crawl. It was an idea I would have been just as happy never to have come up with. "But you're the one who's beginning to sound like a vampire story now."

"I'm just warning you."

"OK, I'm warned. Now tell me something else. How many other archaeologues knew about this site?"

"Outside of my own team?" She considered. "We filed with central processing in Landfall, but that was before we knew what it was. It was just listed as an obelisk. Artefact of Unknown Function, but like I said, AUFs are practically every second thing we dig up."

"You know Hand says there's no record of an object like this in the Landfall registry."

"Yeah, I read the report. Files get lost, I guess."

"Seems a little too convenient to me. And files may get lost, but not files on the biggest find since Bradbury."

"I told you, we filed it as an AUF. An obelisk. Another Another obelisk. We'd already turned up a dozen structural pieces along this coast by the time we found this one." obelisk. We'd already turned up a dozen structural pieces along this coast by the time we found this one."

"And you never updated? Not even when you knew what it was?"

"No." She gave me a crooked smile. "The Guild has always given me a pretty hard time about my Wycinski-esque tendencies, and a lot of the Scratchers I took on got tarred by a.s.sociation. Cold-shouldered by colleagues, slagged off in academic journals. The usual conformist stuff. When we realised what we'd found, I think we all felt the Guild could wait until we were ready to make them eat their words in style."

"And when the war started, you buried it for the same reasons?"

"Got it in one." She shrugged. "It might sound childish now, but at the time we were all pretty angry. I don't know if you'd understand that. How it feels to have every piece of research you do, every theory you come up with, rubbished because you once took the wrong side in a political dispute."

I thought briefly back to the Innenin hearings.

"It sounds familiar enough."

"I think," She hesitated. "I think there was something else as well. You know the night we opened the gate for the first time, we went crazy. Big party, lots of chemicals, lots of talk. Everyone was talking about full professors.h.i.+ps back on Latimer; they said I'd be made an honorary Earth scholar in recognition of my work." She smiled. "I think I even made an acceptance speech. I don't remember that stage of the evening too well, never did, even the next morning."

She sighed and rid herself of the smile.

"Next morning, we started to think straight. Started to think about what was really going to happen. We knew that if we filed, we'd lose control. The Guild would fly in a Master with all the right political affiliations to take charge of the project, and we'd be sent home with a pat on the back. Oh, we'd be back from the academic wilderness of course, but only at a price. We'd be allowed to publish, but only after careful vetting to make sure there wasn't too much Wycinski in the text. There'd be work, but not on an independent basis. Consultancy," she p.r.o.nounced the word as if it tasted bad, "on someone else's projects. We'd be well paid, but paid to keep quiet."

"Better than not getting paid at all."

A grimace. "If I'd wanted to work second shovel to some smooth-faced politically-appropriate f.u.c.k with half my experience and qualifications, I could have gone to the plains like everybody else. The whole reason I was out here in the first place was because I wanted my own dig. I wanted the chance to prove that something I believed in was right."

"Did the others feel that strongly?"

"In the end. In the beginning, they signed up with me because they needed the work and at the time no one else was hiring Scratchers. But a couple of years living with contempt changes you. And they were young, most of them. That gives you energy for your anger."

I nodded.

"Could that be who we found in the nets?"

She looked away. "I suppose so."

"How many were there on the team? People who could have come back here and opened the gate?"

"I don't know. About half a dozen of them were actually Guild-qualified, there were probably two or three of those who could have. Aribowo. Weng, maybe. Techakriengkrai. They were all good. But on their own? Working backwards from our notes, working together?" She shook her head. "I don't know know, Kovacs. It was. A different time. A team thing. I've got no idea how any of those people would perform under different circ.u.mstances. Kovacs, I don't even know how I'll I'll perform any more." perform any more."

A memory of her beneath the waterfall flickered, unfairly, off the comment. It coiled around itself in my guts. I groped after the thread of my thoughts.

"Well, there'll be DNA files for them in the Guild archives at Landfall."

"Yes."

"And we can run a DNA match from the bones-"

"Yes, I know know."

"-but it's going to be hard to get through and access data in Landfall from here. And to be honest, I'm not sure what purpose it'll serve. I don't much care who they are. I just want to know how they ended up in that net."

She s.h.i.+vered.

"If it's them," she began, then stopped. "I don't want to know who it is, Kovacs. I can live without that."

I thought about reaching for her, across the small s.p.a.ce between our chairs, but sitting there she seemed suddenly as gaunt and folded as the thing we had come here to unlock. I couldn't see a point of contact anywhere on her body that would not make my touch seem intrusive, overtly s.e.xual or just ridiculous.

The moment pa.s.sed. Died.

"I'm going to get some sleep," I said, standing up. "You probably better do the same. Sutjiadi's going to want a crack-of-dawn start."

She nodded vaguely. Most of her attention had slipped away from me. At a guess, she was staring down the barrel of her own past.

I left her alone amidst the litter of torn technoglyph sketches.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

I woke up groggy with either the radiation or the chemicals I'd taken to hold it down. There was grey light filtering through the bubblefab's dormitory window and a dream scuttling out the back of my head half seen...

Do you see, Wedge Wolf? Do you see Do you see?

Semetaire?

I lost it to the sound of enthusiastic teeth-cleaning from the bathroom niche. Twisting my head, I saw Schneider towelling his hair dry with one hand while he scrubbed vigorously at his gums with a powerbrush held in the other.

"Morning," he frothed.

"Morning." I propped myself upright. "What time is it?"

"Little after five." He made an apologetic shrug and turned to spit in the basin. "Wouldn't be up myself, but Jiang is out there bouncing around in some martial arts frenzy, and I'm a light sleeper."

I c.o.c.ked my head and listened. From beyond the canvasynth flap, the neurachem brought me the clear sounds of hard breathing and loose clothing snapping repeatedly taut.

"f.u.c.king psycho," I grumbled.

"Hey, he's in good company on this beach. I thought it was a requirement. Half the people you recruited are f.u.c.king psychos."

"Yeah, but Jiang's the only one with insomnia, it appears." I stumbled upright, frowning at the time it was taking for the combat sleeve to get itself properly online. Maybe this was what Jiang Jianping was fighting. Sleeve damage is an unpleasant wake-up call and, however subtly it manifests itself, a harbinger of eventual mortality. Even with the faint twinges that come with the onset of age, the message is flas.h.i.+ng numeral clear. Limited time remaining. Blink, blink.

Rush/snap!

"Haiii!!!"

"Right."

I pressed my eyeb.a.l.l.s hard with finger and thumb. "I'm awake now. You finished with that brush?"

Schneider handed the powerbrush over. I stabbed a new head from the dispenser, pushed it to life and stepped into the shower niche.

Rise and s.h.i.+ne.

Jiang had powered down somewhat by the time I stepped, dressed and relatively clear-headed, through the dormitory flap to the central living s.p.a.ce. He stood rooted, swivelling slightly from side to side and weaving a slow pattern of defensive configurations around him. The table and chairs in the living s.p.a.ce had been cleared to one side to make room, and the main exit from the 'fab was bound back. Light streamed into the s.p.a.ce from outside, tinged blue from the sand.

I got a can of military-issue amphetamine cola from the dispenser, pulled the tab and sipped, watching.

"Was there something?" Jiang asked, as his head s.h.i.+fted in my direction behind a wide sweeping right-arm block. Sometime the previous night he'd razored the Maori sleeve's thick dark hair back to an even two centimetres all over. The face the cut revealed was big-boned and hard.

"You do this every morning?"

"Yes." The syllable came out tight. Block, counterstrike, groin and sternum. He was very fast when he wanted to be.

"Impressive."

"Necessary." Another death blow, probably to the temple, and delivered out of a combination of blocks that telegraphed retreat. Very nice. "Every skill must be practised. Every act rehea.r.s.ed. A blade is only a blade blade when it cuts." when it cuts."

I nodded. "Hayas.h.i.+."

The patterns slowed fractionally.

"You have read him?"

"Met him once."

Jiang stopped and looked at me narrowly. "You met met Toru Hayas.h.i.+?" Toru Hayas.h.i.+?"

"I'm older than I look. We deployed together on Adoracion."

"You are an Envoy?"

"Was."

For a moment, he seemed unsure what to say. I wondered if he thought I was joking. Then he brought his arms forward, sheathed his right fist at chest height in the cup of his left hand and bowed slightly over the grasp.

"Takes.h.i.+-san, if I offended you with my talk of fear yesterday, I apologise. I am a fool."

"No problem. I wasn't offended. We all deal with it different ways. You planning on breakfast?"

He pointed across the living s.p.a.ce to where the table had been pushed back to the canvasynth wall. There was fresh fruit piled on a shallow bowl and what looked like slices of rye bread.

"Mind if I join you?"

"I would be. Honoured."

We were still eating when Schneider came back from wherever he'd been for the last twenty minutes.