Jacob’s mind reeled. If Jonathan Kulic was telling the truth, his father – a Tian Di sleeper agent – had gone native, falling for the dictates of an extremist religious group existing on the very fringes of Coalition society. It said much about the moral corruption of the Coalition that such fringe cults were allowed to exist. But then again, groups such as the Left-Behind provided excellent cover for Tian Di agents.
‘And the others?’ Jacob demanded, stepping closer to Kulic. ‘Bruehl? Sillars? What about them?’
Kulic took a step back, looking frightened now. ‘Bruehl . . . changed. I don’t know as much about Sillars. I told the beacon everything I could.’
The beacon. He meant the transceiver, of course. ‘Then why are you here?’ asked Jacob, stepping forward and grabbing a fistful of the old man’s shirt. ‘You had nothing to do with any of this; you’re not from the Tian Di. Why did you come here?’
Kulic stared back at him with wide and frightened eyes, looking like he was on the verge of tears. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
Jacob reached behind his back, sliding a thin blade from out of a narrow sleeve situated over his lower spine. He brought it up to where the old man could see its razored edge glinting in the light of the world-wheel, then touched it to the side of Kulic’s throat.
‘Why didn’t you alert the Coalition authorities here that your father had confessed to being a spy?’
‘I was too afraid of them,’ the old man stammered, ‘of what they might do to me. I grew up with stories of the horrible changes they make to you when you join them, of the Fallen in the cities, demons pretending to be human. And, besides, the villages are all I’ve ever known. He told me – my father, that is – that the Tian Di would wipe Darwin and all the other Coalition worlds free of sin. So when he died, I decided to finish what my father could not.’
Jacob relaxed his grip on the old man. He was nothing more than a weak-willed old fool. In some ways that might make him dangerous, and Jacob knew the safest course would be to terminate him immediately.
Yet the fact remained that his mission so far had gone desperately awry almost before it had started. There was at least a chance Jonathan Kulic might actually be able to help him.
‘I need shelter, clothes, and food,’ he told the old man. ‘I also need a little time to regain my strength. Can you help me?’
The old man reacted with pitiful gratitude, his eyes shining as he sobbed. ‘Of course. Of course! You’re going back there, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘Back to Temur, through that new transfer gate.’
Jacob struggled to control himself. His training told him he should reach out and snap Kulic’s neck and be done with it; whatever madness had taken over Kulic’s father had caused him to share the intimate details of his mission with his son, an act that constituted an appalling breach of protocol.
But then he saw the old man’s eyes were again damp with tears. He’s been waiting all his life for this moment, Jacob realized with a shock – waiting for the day his father’s transceiver would activate, and give his life a purpose that had clearly been missing.
Jacob had been lucky to survive the journey across the light-years – and even luckier to have evaded the Coalition’s security forces on reaching Darwin. He could almost believe the God of the Left-Behind really had guided this old man to help him, when by all rights he should have been forced to fend for himself.
Jacob reached out slowly and put a hand on Kulic’s shoulder, patting it. From here on in, he was going to have to improvise.
‘If you ever again mention any of the details of my mission out loud,’ Jacob said quietly, ‘I will gut you and garland your village with your intestines. Do you understand me?’
The old man’s mouth worked. ‘I – I’m sorry,’ he managed to mumble. ‘I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.’ His eyes darted here and there, almost as if he thought someone might be hiding behind a tree or bush and listening. ‘But you could take me home with you,’ he added in a hoarse whisper. ‘Take me back to Temur, where there are at least real people, and not . . . monsters.’
‘Perhaps I could,’ Jacob replied with as much fake sincerity as he could muster.
The old man’s gratitude was rapidly becoming wearing. Jacob had him wait there in the clearing while he went back to the cave in order to fetch the case he had retrieved from the ship. Then he allowed Kulic to lead him back through the woods to a horse and cart waiting on a dirt path less than a kilometre away. The horse whinnied gently at Jacob’s approach, its hoofs pawing nervously at the dirt underfoot.
‘Why not use motorized transport?’ Jacob asked Kulic, as he climbed into the rear of the cart, which contained nothing but bags of dried hay and a large, tattered carpet with a faded pattern woven into it.
‘The Edicts,’ Kulic replied, as if that told Jacob everything he needed to know, before taking the reins and coaxing the horse into a gentle trot. They began to move at a steady pace, but Jacob could feel every bump where he sat crouched in the rear.
For the first time since he had stumbled out of his ship and watched it dissolve to nothing, Jacob allowed himself a faint sliver of hope. There was still a chance – small, but real – that he could find the weapon Father Cheng required him to locate, and carry it back to Temur.
Just days from now, and he, Jacob Moreland, would earn his place as one of the greatest heroes of the Tian Di. Millions might die as a result of his actions, but – as all truly good men knew – history was a tapestry necessarily woven from the bodies of the innocent.
EIGHT
At first, Luc thought Cripps had returned when he awoke to find a figure once again lurking in the darkness of his bedroom. But when it stepped closer, he saw instead that it was de Almeida’s data-ghost.
He had been dreaming that he was making love to her. He remembered clearly the way her lithe frame had moved above his in a room whose contours were unfamiliar to him. He recalled with astounding clarity the warm scent of her skin and the taste of her lips and tongue, and the urgent thrust of her hips against his own. It had felt so entirely real that upon seeing her data-ghost standing before him, he felt momentarily disoriented, not quite sure if he was awake or not.
‘Mr Gabion,’ she said, her voice low. ‘We need to talk.’
He sat upright amidst the tangled sheets of his bed, irritated and embarrassed, as if she had somehow been privy to his thoughts.
He waved a hand and the window de-opaqued, letting in the pre-dawn light. At least he was alone this time; Eleanor had spent most of the previous evening neck-deep in preparations for a pre-tribunal hearing concerning Aeschere.
‘What is it?’ he asked, making no attempt to hide his irritation.
‘It’s Sevgeny Vasili’s murderer,’ she said. ‘They’ve found him.’
His fatigue drained away. ‘Where?’
‘Downtown, here in the capital,’ she said. ‘Dead, unfortunately. Alive would have been better. Do you know Kirov Avenue?’
‘Yeah.’ Kirov Avenue was in one of the oldest districts of the city, an area heavily populated by Benareans like himself.
‘Meet me there,’ she said, flashing an address to him before vanishing.
Kirov Avenue was lined by tall apartment buildings that hailed from the days of vat-based architecture, when construction materials had been formed from slabs of fullerene grown in tanks of engineered microbes. There had been a scandal when the buildings had started sagging just a few decades after their construction, causing their once-gleaming facades to slowly melt. The internal skeleton of one fluted tower was clearly visible where the outer cladding had crumbled away. After that, Benareans dislocated by the repercussions of the uprising there had moved in, while everyone else had moved out.