Total malevolence.

TWENTY-THREE

MOLSIN, 2603 AD

In the midst of the street party, there was Tannier. If Roger had been a spy, then Tannier would have been his handler; at least that was how it seemed to be playing out. Barbour’s police force numbered a thousand personnel, according to the public info services: a small number considering the size of the city; but this was a peaceful place with educated citizens. So if Tannier kept cropping up, it was because someone had assigned him to the role.

A group of older men and women, dressed in primary-coloured tunics, were dancing in a sprightly, coordinated way, the choreography intricate, the music too low-pitched for Roger to enjoy. The clothing hurt his eyes. Tannier circled them, a tankard in his hand, heading this way.

‘Leeja.’ Roger squeezed her hand with care. ‘Here’s the policeman I told you about.’

‘Where?’ Streamers flickered past overhead, distracting her. ‘Oh. The hard-faced man with the smokebeer?’

‘I guess.’ There was a pale cloud rising from Tannier’s tankard. ‘Scar below his left eye.’

‘Mm.’ Leeja squeezed his wrist. ‘I don’t like him.’

‘Er …’ Dad had always insisted on trusting intuition. ‘I do, actually.’

‘No, I mean … He looks at home with danger. I don’t want you hanging around with him.’

Who are you, my mother? But that was the one thing Roger could never say, not with the age difference. Then Tannier was in front of them, smiling, fumes rising from his tankard.

‘Smells pretty bad,’ said Roger. ‘The drink, I mean. This is Leeja. And this is … I don’t know your first name.’

‘I’m just Tannier. Ma’am. Pleased to meet you.’

‘Likewise, Officer. I admire the work you people do.’

‘Thank you.’ Tannier raised the tankard as though her words had been warm. ‘It’s always good to hear someone say that and mean it.’

Leeja leaned into Roger’s side.

‘Honestly? I’m scared of what you do,’ she said. ‘You’re brave to do it, but please leave Roger out of your world.’

Tannier pointed to a deserted balcony, high up, close to the concave, over-decorated ceiling. ‘Private talk? The three of us?’

‘All right,’ said Roger.

Leeja’s two arms encircled his right, like twin serpents wrapped in a helix.

What am I doing to her?

The floor cupped beneath them, twisted, and carried them up on a curving stalk. The balcony folded back to receive its three new occupants. When they alighted, the long stalk sucked back down to the main thoroughfare and disappeared. Soon the street party had spread to cover that area of floor.

‘Not long till the birth.’ Tannier looked down at the crowd. ‘The party will really kick into life then.’

How many of Fulgor’s refugees were going to feel like celebrating anything?

‘That’s nice.’ Roger looked at the lines in Leeja’s face. ‘We mostly wanted to spend time by ourselves. Quietly.’

Instead of answering, Tannier turned to stare along the broadway below. After seven seconds, by Roger’s infallible time sense, a series of giant holovolumes sprang into life above the crowd, each showing the same scene from varying angles, all centring on the long, complex shape of Deltaville. Across her dorsal surface, waves of streamers fluttered, while tiny attendant vessels floated in clouds around her, particularly towards the aft end, where even in the holos, the city’s quickglass showed waves of vibration, the ripples of impending birth.

‘The thing is’ – Tannier had turned back to face them – ‘there’s a city lottery in progress which you might have heard about. Two lucky winners get ferried across to Deltaville, to the posh celebrations. In the company of two of Barbour’s finest and richest political types.’

This meant nothing to Roger; but Leeja’s hand, holding his, began to vibrate.

‘Posh dinners, all very formal,’ Tannier went on. ‘And, like, watched by everyone. Broadcast here and Deltaville especially.’

He nodded towards the giant holos.

‘We haven’t entered a lottery,’ said Roger.

‘Well’ – Tannier’s scar twisted when he smiled – ‘that’s funny, because you and I are about to win it.’

Roger did what Dad would have wanted. He drew his somatic awareness inside, concentrating on proprioception and balance, centring himself. He exercised minute control, conscious of the curved horizontal sheet of muscle that was his diaphragm, the complex chained interplay of intercostals expanding his ribs.

Calm.

Breathing happens under conscious deliberation or while asleep, to equal effect; hence the importance of those neural pathways for mental control: the bridge from conscious to subconscious thought, to the myriad nuanced perceptions normally lost to the civilized mind.

What’s going on here?

Someone’s complex game of strategy was touching his life – except that where it impinged on him, it was really quite simple, wasn’t it?

‘A Judas goat,’ said Roger. ‘That would be me, wouldn’t it? Tied up and bleating, far too tempting for a hunter to ignore.’

‘You can’t go along with this,’ said Leeja. ‘Roger, you can’t.’

The voice in his throat felt alien. ‘Without Helsen, my parents and billions of people would be alive.’

Tannier’s eyes were hardened by whatever mental images they saw.

‘If she plans to do the same thing here, stopping her will save lives. Including yours, ma’am.’

‘Then give Roger an implant.’ Leeja gestured, and the quickglass balcony floor sprouted tiny stalks, rippling in a virtual breeze. ‘Something to make him less out of his depth.’

Was that how she saw him?

‘He’s not a citizen,’ said Tannier. ‘Naturalized or otherwise. Under the circumstances, implantation would be … irregular. Actually, illegal.’

‘Not like running a lottery whose result is fixed, then?’

Tannier’s face clenched in a muscular grin.

‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ he said. ‘Or better … Roger, I’ll meet you at Mass Centre.’

‘OK.’

The one place anyone could find was the city’s centre of mass.

‘See you.’

Tannier backed away and the balustrade melted. As he toppled, his body held straight, a quickglass tendril took hold and swung him down.

The balcony reformed.

‘It may not be for ever’ – party lights, reflected, were sparkling in her tears – ‘but we have a choice in how we say goodbye.’

‘What … do you mean?’

‘We can do it here and now, a clean break. Or back home and … gradual. Like weaning off each other, or something.’

Roger stood close, put his hands on her lower back, pulling in.

‘Home,’ he said.

‘Yes, my love.’

It was to be the longest, tenderest climb to weeping orgasm.

Mass Centre was a ten-metre hollow sphere, a complex concavity lined with baroque mathematical terracotta, while in the centre hung a three-way cruciform sculpture delineating vertical, vertebral and transverse axes. Compared to the immense bulk of the ever-morphing city, the sphere was the tiniest of bubbles, kept in position at the centre of gravity, the origin for every location reference. Outside the sphere, connecting corridors formed short arcs between linear thoroughfares: often used as meeting points, deserted today save for a few furtive couples.

Roger circumnavigated the place at several levels – you had to keep making switchbacks and cross-overs: there were no circular routes, only short linking corridors – with no sign of Tannier and no response to his tu-ring signal. Finally, he entered a corridor arc that was otherwise unoccupied, determined to make one more circular pass before giving up; then he stopped as both ends of the corridor sealed up, forming an isolated chamber.

It was the interior wall that melted open, revealing Tannier in the spherical central space, with the cruciform shape hanging behind him.