The shuttle crew knew about this one, though. How could they not? It hung square and box-like above their heads in the hold. They just didn’t know that Lars and the girl were here, and Lars wasn’t so sure about that, whatever she thought.
“Need to hide,” Lars insisted. The sandrat saw the slight, high scrape of his blade over polycrete as flashes, little purple sparks that vanished when the epoxy finally gave way. That was how Lars knew to move on.
“Move now,” said Lars, prising up the last corner with the edge of the blade and sliding his fingers under the mesh. He wanted to lever the grid away, but his arms weren’t strong enough. The girl could do it, though.
“Help...?” Lars suggested.
“Oh, fuck off, you freak...” LizAlec turned her back on him and got on with fretting about why the shuttle hadn’t begun its descent yet. She was hungry, hungrier than she’d imagined possible: her gut was hollowed out with vomiting. She’d had to crap in sight of Lars, squatting at one end of the air vent while he watched her idly, wondering why she was so angry. And just to finish everything off, cramp was punching waves across her abdomen.
Jude had given her a packet of Coag and also some Tampax, in case LizAlec hadn’t taken the Coag in time to stop her period and LizAlec wasn’t yet sure she had. If she didn’t get to a clean, decent bathroom soon she was going to end up killing the little shit. In fact, only the fact Lars wore that stupid ring stopped her doing it right now.
No, LizAlec caught herself, that wasn’t true. She didn’t have the guts to kill someone. Fixx did and so did her mothers, both of them. At least, thought LizAlec, tilting her head to one side, she’d always assumed Fixx did. The early levels of Fixx Laughs Last had certainly been bloody enough to rate the sim as 18R in the States and get it banned altogether in Britain, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Five weeks it had taken her to find a copy. Even the tomb sites on the Web hadn’t thought it worth including in their Retro Raves. She’d finally picked up a tatty pirate DVD-Rom on Rue Jean-Henri-Fabre, having already practically gutted the Marché Biron in her search. Another little trip out to the flea markets that Lady Clare didn’t know about. That was back last summer when the Azerbaijani virus worked when it was still just something that happened to other people somewhere hot and Islamic.
LizAlec shook her head crossly and watched in surprise as a large pearl flipped over to the wall of the shaft and fragmented like glass. It took LizAlec at least two seconds to realize she was crying and then it didn’t matter any more. Because the door below swung open and five people stamped in, ReeGravs slip/slopping and their soles stuck fast to the floor.
One was the goat woman, only this time she wasn’t holding her Hoover. Beside her, looking sullen, was the short bearded man with the grey ponytail, and behind him was Jesus Christ, or maybe his clone. The central figure was tall, with long raven-dark hair and a close-cropped beard so casual it had to take at least two hours each morning. A brown homespun robe was belted with rope round his middle and fell full-length to the floor. (Which was either pretty remarkable, given it was a zeroG environment, or the hem was weighted in some way with electromagnets.)
Beneath the robe he might have been shod in leather sandals and be defying gravity by will-power alone, but LizAlec guessed he was probably wearing ReeGravs like the rest of them. Flanking him were two women, their T-shirts, jeans and skin all black. Both carried Mobys.
Jesus Christ had to be Californian. Even squinting down at him through a grille, LizAlec could tell that his face was perfect. A thin nose led down to full lips. His brown eyes were deep set and framed by high cheekbones and perfect eyebrows. Of course, it could have been genetic, either natural or engineered, but LizAlec knew it wasn’t. She’d caught enough episodes of Other People’s Faces to recognize the cosmetic genius of Heinsik Jacob when she saw it. And besides, she knew that face...
LizAlec finally accepted what she already knew, that she wasn’t on a cargo shuttle bound for Seattle. The man nodded up towards the grille and it seemed to LizAlec that his eyes penetrated the gloom and looked straight at her.
“Come down,” he ordered, the sternness of his voice undercut with warmth, sincerity even. LizAlec was ripping up the grille almost before Brother Michael had finished speaking and was sliding through the narrow gap. She felt like a little girl caught searching her parents’ room.
“No.” Lars grabbed at her collar but LizAlec was gone, momentum carrying her down to the floor, where she grabbed a rail while trying to wrap Jude’s white cotton scarf round her shaven head.
Both guards moved in to grab her but Brother Michael quickly shook his head, one hand reaching out to take LizAlec’s face, turning it so LizAlec had no option but to stare into eyes as deep as the Big Black. This was the man whose God’s Family party held the balance in Congress. The Web evangelist who’d driven the last President out of the White House for an adultery committed fifteen years before she was even elected.
The man most Bible Belt Americans had believed would be their next President, until he announced he was renouncing the world, its temptations and sins. (He didn’t mention also avoiding the IRS.) Instead he would create an ark in space to take the godly out to the gates of Heaven where they belonged.
Insane and dangerous, was Lady Clare’s judgement: but then it would be, LizAlec decided, looking deep into his brown eyes. She was part of the ungodly that Brother Michael’s family were renouncing.
“Child,” said Brother Michael, letting go her face. “What are you doing here?”
“Following you,” LizAlec said as she wrapped the scarf still tighter round her head. She switched languages effortlessly, her accent obviously not US English but still rich with sincerity and echoes of old money.
Brother Michael smiled. “And the other?” The man looked towards the air vent where Lars still hid.
“He’s with me,” LizAlec said lightly. It was what Fixx said every time he took her to a bar in Bastille. And most times it worked except when fat and balding security men — and they were always both — got difficult about her age, but Fixx tended to avoid clubs where that happened.
“With you?” Brother Michael looked at LizAlec, his brown eyes assessing something. Whatever he was after, he found it, for the man nodded slightly. “So be it... You, come down.”
Lars poked his head uncertainly over the edge of the grille and one of the goats immediately bleated, twisting round to get a better view. Lars smiled, pushing himself out of the vent to land near the goat, petting it back into silence.
“Interesting,” said Brother Michael. His eyes looked at Lars and then at the tied-down animals. “You like my goats?” Lars nodded. The only animals he’d seen close-up before were rats. He liked those too, but the goats were more interesting.
“Good,” said Brother Michael. “You can look after them, it’s time Sister Rachel had a rest.” If the wide-hipped, olive-skinned woman had objections, she didn’t voice them. In fact, LizAlec noticed, no one tried to interrupt when Brother Michael was speaking.
“So you want to follow me?”
LizAlec nodded, violet eyes downcast, face mostly hidden in her cotton scarf. It was time she accepted the shuttle wasn’t going to Seattle. And looking at the tall man with his two bodyguards, LizAlec decided she could take a good guess where they were going — and she was a bit upset about it. It was just that... now didn’t seem like a really good time to say so.