‘Ostensibly I am too busy with organizing our push into the Triassic. Anyone not satisfied with that explanation would put my delay down to a certain squeamishness.’
Palleque turned at last. ‘The push… it is imminent?’
‘One hour, even less now.’
Palleque let out a tense breath. ‘Then it will soon be over.’
‘Not for you.’ Goron removed the device from his belt pouch, and put it down on the single table before Palleque’s couch.
‘Displacement generator. What location?’
‘The same as all others now,’ Goron replied.
‘That is risky and may give the game away.’
‘A risk I am prepared to take.’
‘But am I? The torbeast swept up my sister as if she was nothing, and I am prepared to die to exact vengeance.’
Goron stared at him directly. ‘Yes, I know your commitment.’ His gaze strayed down to Palleque’s arm, then his hand.
Palleque glanced at the dressing, then held up his hand covered in a surgical mitten. ‘For veracity, as always, it had to be done. I’ll heal soon enough as I have the rejuvenation gene, though I never expected to have the chance to do so. Let’s hope you didn’t underdo things by not killing me outright.’
‘We are now not long away from that point when all such subterfuge will be irrelevant. I have no doubt that already Cowl has extracted the required information from the torbearer. Now all that remains is for us to perform our duty at this end.’
Palleque came over and picked up the displacement generator. ‘I’m surprised you had any of these to spare.’
‘I made sure there was one,’ replied Goron. He waved a hand around Palleque’s erstwhile apartment—now his cell. ‘You deserve better than to die here.’ He turned to go.
‘Goron,’ said Palleque, halting the Engineer’s departure. ‘Good luck.’
‘Let us hope that is something we don’t need too much of,’ Goron replied as he left the cell.
18
Palleque:
As if he too would not sacrifice his life to that end, my brother Saphothere feels I too fanatically seek to avenge the death of our sister, Astolere. That I have become Cowl’s agent he attributes to Coptic and Meelan. But those two are not really accepted by the other Umbrathane. It is fortunate that my ostensible fanaticism prevents him from asking further questions. I was always Cowl’s agent, and have remained in communication with him. The destructive war between Umbra and Heliothane is an utter waste, and I considered the preterhuman the ideal candidate to rule us all. It was I who passed on the displacement technology to the Umbrathane, to enable them to escape Heliothane oppression, and much else have I done. Cowl was suspicious at first but, upon discovering that I supposedly did not know what had happened to my sister, concocted the story that she, along with the entire population of Callisto, is with him behind the Nodus. I was wrong: Cowl is too careless of human life to rule us. And at the least he must be made powerless—the very least.
When they got him ashore and Tacitus started work on getting the water out of his lungs, Polly stepped back, her hand dropping to her taser in its waterproof pouch at her hip, then sliding across to the sheath knife beside it. Tacitus did not notice this movement as the rescuee now coughed sea water and blood from his lungs and the Roman, as he had been taught, turned him into the recovery position.
‘It is surprising that this man is still alive,’ commented the Roman—in the Heliothane language they all now spoke after an instructive session connected to Aconite’s Pedagogue machine. Tacitus then grabbed hold of the man’s arm, putting a foot in his armpit then pulling and twisting, relocating his shoulder joint. The rescued man groaned, fell back into his prior position and curled up his legs.
‘His name is Tack. He is the man I told you about a while ago—the killer I dragged back with me for a few shifts,’ Polly told him.
Speaking out loud through a link established to Wasp shortly after Polly’s rescue, Nandru interjected, ‘And now things become clear. You recollect that a piece of your tor, in its still nascent stage, was left embedded in this U-gov bastard’s wrist?’
‘I still can’t see what’s worth saving here,’ said Polly.
‘Things have changed and we all know so much more,’ said Tacitus, looking up. ‘I would even save enemies of Rome, here and now, should they survive Cowl’s ungentle ministrations.’
‘You hear that, Polly?’ Nandru asked. ‘I hope so, because I’ve just informed Aconite that friend Tack here is still alive. Come on, you know U-gov assassins aren’t my favourite playmates, but I damned well want to hear what this one has to say for himself.’
Polly let her hand slip away from her knife, not exactly sure what emotion she was feeling. There was anger, yes, for earlier this man had been intent on killing her, but that anger was no longer a savage thing within her. Where, in the end, would she be now without Nandru and then this one? Rotting in her bedsit, and perhaps moving onto the needle like Marjae had, blowing U-gov officials in back alleys when not being screwed up against a wall, dropping her price as the goods became more shoddy. The more she thought about it, the more ambivalent her feelings became.
‘Come on, let’s get him onto Wasp,’ she decided abruptly.
For Polly only, Nandru said, Of course, I don’t think he’ll live that much longer if Cowl or the Umbrathane realize he’s still alive. And if they don’t know yet, they can find out soon enough.
Between them, Polly and Tacitus picked up Tack and dropped him into Wasp’s rear compartment. Studying him, Polly saw that his injuries were extensive. He certainly had a compound fracture of his ankle, for bone was sticking out of his flesh. Deep wounds in his chest were seeping blood, and the medscanner Tacitus had pressed against his neck showed his vital signs on the wane. But it was unlikely he would die irrecoverably because, even if his heart stopped, Wasp possessed the facility to plug into a person’s neck and keep an oxygenated haematic fluid circulating around the brain, which was all Aconite needed to maintain someone’s life—other repairs she could perform in her surgical facility.
They headed back towards their hostess’s home, glancing back occasionally to check for any activity apparent in Cowl’s citadel, but all remained quiet out on the sea as if, having spat out the indigestible remains of some meal, the place was now contemplating what to eat next. As they reached her home, Aconite and the others came out to meet them.
‘Another man,’ snorted Cheng-yi, before heading back inside.
Lostboy stared long and hard at Tack before something seemed to go click in his mind. He jerked his head up, pointing out to sea. ‘The beast.’ They all turned to look.
Polly had wondered at the earlier stillness and now realized why. The Umbrathane customarily ceased their constant maintenance of the citadel and fled to its interior safety chambers whenever Cowl summoned all the energy from the geological taps for the purpose of linking to the torbeast. Now, the very air around the citadel seemed full of distortions and hints of nightmarish shapes, where the beast encroached upon the real.
‘Coming after him?’ Ygrol asked, stabbing a thumb towards the unconscious Tack.
Aconite shook her head. ‘Cowl would not expend such energy. He’d just send Makali out here, or fire a missile direct from one of the citadel’s emplacements.’
From Wasp, Nandru said, ‘But not a coincidence, I’d warrant.’
‘Certainly not,’ Aconite replied. ‘Cowl is no doubt acting on information obtained from this newcomer.’ She was studying her palm screen. ‘Our friend here has been comprehensively mind-fucked.’
They carried Tack inside and laid him down on Aconite’s surgical table. Polly was the last to leave the room as Aconite began pulling her medical machines into place.