“And the Sun?”
“Follows a path in space-time dictated by the gravitational distortion of the entire galaxy.”
“And the galaxy? No, don’t answer that. I get the picture.”
“You get half the picture,” Auger said. “What we’ve talked about so far is a permanent bending of space-time around a massive object. But there are other ways to bend space-time. Imagine two stars swinging around each other, like waltzers. You got that?”
“Sure. I’m admiring the view as we speak.”
“Make those stars super-massive and super-dense. Make them whip around each other like dervishes, spiralling in towards an eventual collision. Now you’ve got yourself a pretty fierce source of gravity waves. They’re sending out a ripple, like a steady note from a musical instrument.”
“I thought you didn’t like music.”
“I don’t,” she said, “but I can recognise a useful analogy when it comes along.”
“OK—so two stars circling around each other will give you a gravity wave.”
“There are other mechanisms for producing such a wave, but the point is that there are a lot of binary stars out there: a lot of potential gravity-wave sources dotted around the sky. And they all have a unique note, a unique signature.”
“So if I pick up a tone—”
“You can work out exactly where it originated.”
“Like knowing the flash pattern of a lighthouse?”
“Exactly that,” Auger said. “But now comes the hard part. Somehow you have to measure those waves. Gravity is already the weakest force in the universe, even before you start worrying about measuring microscopic changes in its strength. It’s like trying to hear someone whispering on the other side of the ocean.”
“So how can you do it?”
She was about to tell him when movement from above caught her eye: a glint of polished metal against the low grey sky. There was just enough time to register the small figure crouched on one of the overhead pipes, and the nasty little weapon it clutched in one clawlike hand.
“Floyd…” she started to say.
The gun fired, making a rapid, high-pitched laughing sound. Auger felt a sudden warm pain in her right shoulder, and then she was on the ground and the pain became worse. She was still looking up. The child stood balanced on the pipe, seemingly unfazed by vertigo. It held the gun aloft, releasing a sleek sickle-shaped clip from the grip and inserting another.
Floyd took out the automatic she’d given him. He thumbed off the safety catch and took a two-handed stance, squinting against the sky.
“Shoot the fucker,” Auger said, grimacing against the pain.
Floyd fired. The gun jerked in his hand, the bullet winging off the underside of the pipe. The child began to lower its own weapon, taking careful aim.
Floyd emptied another two slugs into the air. This time they didn’t hit the pipe.
The war baby toppled from its perch, shrieking as it dropped to the ground. Its thin little arms and legs wheeled as it fell. It hit the ground, bouncing once, and then lay quite still.
It was a boy.
Floyd spun around, scanning the buildings for evidence of more children. Auger pushed herself up on her good elbow, and then touched the wound in her shoulder. She pulled her fingers away. There was blood on the tips, but not as much as she had expected. It still felt as if someone was twisting a hot iron poker around in her shoulder. She reached around the back and felt more wetness under her shoulder blade.
“I think that was the only one,” Floyd said, crouching over her.
“Is it dead?”
“Dying.”
“I need to talk to it,” she said.
“Hold it right there,” Floyd said softly. “You’ve just been shot, kid. There are other priorities just now.”
“There’s an exit wound,” she said. “The bullet went through me.”
“You don’t know how many went in, or whether they fragmented. You need help, and you need it fast.”
She pushed herself up and then struggled to her feet, using her good arm for leverage. The war baby lay where it had fallen, quietly gurgling in a pool of its own blood, its head twisted towards them. The eyes were still open, looking their way.
“It’s the same boy,” she said. “The one that stabbed the waiter in Gare du Nord.”
“Maybe.”
“I got a good look at its face,” she said. “I know it’s the same one. It must have followed us here.”
She hobbled over to the boy and kicked its gun away. The head moved, swivelling around to keep her in view. The mouth lolled open in a stupefied grin and blood drooled from the smoke-grey lips. The black tongue moved, as if trying to form words.
Auger pressed her foot down on the war baby’s neck. She was glad she hadn’t managed to snap the heels off her shoes now.
“Talk to me,” she said. “Talk to me and tell me what the fuck you are doing building a resonant gravitational wave antenna in nineteen fifty-nine, and what it has to do with Silver Rain.”
The black tongue oozed and wriggled like a captive maggot. The child made a liquid gurgling noise.
“Maybe if you took your shoe off its neck,” Floyd suggested.
Auger reached down and picked up the war baby’s weapon. She reminded herself that it had a full clip and that the baby had been ready to use it just before it had fallen from the pipe.
“I want answers, you shrivelled-up piece of shit. I want to know why Susan and the others had to die. I want to know what you fuckers intend to do with Silver Rain.”
“It’s too late,” the child said, forcing the words out between gurgles of blood and bile. “Much too late.”
“Yeah? Then why are you in such a hurry to stop anyone getting too close to this shit?”
“It’s the right thing to do, Verity. You know it in your heart.” The child coughed, spitting blood in her face. “These people shouldn’t exist. They’re just three billion dots in a photograph. Dots, Verity. That’s all they are. Pull away and they blur into one amorphous mass.”
She thought of her dream, of the Silver Rain falling on to the Champs-Elysées. Of the beautiful people picking themselves up and thinking that life was about to go on, and being so terribly wrong. She remembered trying to warn them. She remembered the little drummer boy stepping through the bones.
Dizziness washed over her. She suddenly felt very cold and very weak.
Auger squeezed the trigger and did something abominable to the war baby.
Then she slumped to her knees and was sick.
Floyd gently drew her to her feet and steered her away from the bloody mess she had made.
“It wasn’t a child,” she said. “It was a thing, a weapon.”
“You don’t have to convince me. Now let’s get out of here before those shots attract the wrong kind of attention. We need to get you to a hospital.”
“No,” she said. “You need to get me to Paris. That’s all that matters.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Floyd stood in a public telephone kiosk just outside Gare du Nord. It was Tuesday morning and his head didn’t feel any better. With both of them injured, but not wanting to have to deal with helpful or inquisitive strangers, the train journey back from Berlin had been a long and wearying one. There had been tense moments while their documents were inspected, neither of them daring to say a word until the officials had moved on. Floyd doubted that his own injuries were any cause for concern, but he was extremely worried about Auger. He’d left her in the waiting room, bandaged and drowsy, but still adamant that she didn’t want to be taken to hospital.
“Maillol,” a man said on the other end of the line.
“Inspector? It’s Wendell Floyd. Can we talk?”