‘So the Rollestons were a wealthy family?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but that is not his real name,’ Sharcroft said.
‘What is his real name?’ I asked. I never knew Rolleston at all. Maybe when Demiurge possessed me I’d had the smallest insight.
‘His real name is George Connington. I think his family own half of Buckinghamshire in England. The nice half.’
‘What’d he do?’ Rannu asked.
‘Giving his proclivities, I’m guessing he killed someone, maybe more than one.’
‘And had fun doing it,’ I said grimly.
‘He was recruited a long time ago and we just needed someone who could do the things we required.’
‘Without being bothered by what they’d done,’ I said.
Sharcroft said nothing but even his inanimate form suggested impatience.
‘In fact you rewarded him with atrocities,’ Mudge said.
‘Look, people are desensitised to violence. We needed someone who would teach such object lessons that people would not dare oppose is. Now if there’s nothing else…’
‘Who’d know about him, his past?’ I asked.
‘Rolleston is well into his eighties,’ Sharcroft objected.
Mudge was concentrating. ‘There’s a sister,’ he said. ‘Still alive at the Connington estate in Bucks. She’s old enough. Looks like she’s another technological ghoul. She was on the periphery of the Cabal. Their father was a player before he died.’
Thank you, God.
‘And now I really must-’ Sharcroft began.
‘Where are Pagan and Morag?’ I asked.
‘You must know I won’t tell you that.’
‘God, where are Pagan and Morag?’ I asked out loud.
‘Their most likely whereabouts is on board HMS Thunderchilde,’ God told me.
This made sense. HMS Thunderchilde was a new super-carrier. It had been due to ship out to Proxima when all the unpleasantness with the Cabal had kicked off. Or rather we’d kicked it off. Most of the ships from the various fleets in-system were second generation or older. The best ships were used on the front line in the colonies. This meant that the Thunderchilde was the most modern and technologically advanced ship of its size and class in-system. Political wrangling aside, it was the most likely vessel to be used as the flagship in the coalition fleet that was rapidly being put together.
I’d always wondered that the best ship in-system was from a developing country. It was the same in the colonies. Not enough money to make sure that the population is adequately fed but we do like our weapons.
‘We need a shuttle and we need to get on board the Thunderchilde once we’ve been back to Earth,’ I said. It was more of a demand.
‘Why would I divert much-needed military resources-’ Sharcroft began, definite anger in his modulated voice.
‘Because we think you’ve done the maths and I think you know that you can’t win. I think that you know that in order for Pagan’s plan to work you need to get close to Rolleston,’ Mudge told him. Sharcroft was silent for a while. He flexed the metal legs of the spider chair.
‘Why send you? You’re burned-out messes. I can understand why you’d want to go, but why wouldn’t we send the best of our still serving special forces?’ he finally asked. Despite this, I was pretty sure he was intrigued.
‘Rolleston’s got a god complex, and we tore down one of his temples. He wants us as much as we want him,’ Mudge told Sharcroft.
‘You think he’s arrogant enough to let you get close to him?’ Sharcroft asked. Mudge and I nodded. ‘And how do you get close to him?’
‘You must have been working on a plan,’ I said.
‘Obviously, but I want to know what you had in mind.’
I told him.
Strapped into one of the seats in the cargo bay of an assault shuttle. It had been a choppy ride but we’d levelled out now. Mudge had his eyes closed and was concentrating. Every so often I could see his lips moving as he talked silently to himself.
I undid my straps and moved over to one of the windows. The shuttle was banking over London. It was a beautiful winter’s day. Pale sun, blue sky. Even the vast crumbling estates and long-abandoned suburbs looked tranquil from above. The centre of the city, with its promise of wealth and comfort, with its brightly glowing towers reaching for the sky, seemed so far removed from my life that it was more alien to me than Lalande or Sirius. The shuttle finished its turn and, as close as we were to the largest city in Britain, we were suddenly over green fields and bare winter woodland.
Before the shuttle had actually landed, the private security detail were sprinting towards us. Mudge, Rannu and I walked down the ramp to find a lot of guns pointed at us. They may have been pissed off by the four deep holes that the shuttle’s landing struts had put in the lawn. In front of me was a huge old house made of grey stone with a lot of windows. In Fintry it would have housed hundreds, if not thousands of people. Here it just housed one and a lot of staff.
I looked at the security detail. The guns they held were too expensive for use by front-line soldiers. I guessed because here they were protecting something valuable. I pointed up at the shuttle. ‘You know what this is, don’t you?’ The assault shuttle had enough firepower to level the house, pre-FHC or not.
‘What do you want?’ a voice used to giving orders demanded.
‘I want to speak to Charlotte Connington,’ I said.
‘Lady Connington is not receiving visitors today,’ the man answered. With his uniform-like suit and smart haircut he looked exactly the same as all the others.
‘Look, fuckwit, we’re not going to take much of her time, but we’ve come a long way and we’re going to speak to her. You decide if you all want to die and be responsible for the destruction of half the house first,’ Mudge said. The man did not look happy. I don’t think he liked the odds either. His frown deepened as he listened to some internal voice.
‘Did one of you order a delivery here?’ he demanded angrily.
Mudge brightened. ‘Oh yes, that was me. Let them in.’
The house was like one of the virtual museums I’d gone to when I’d been home-learning over the net as kid. Except this was real. Everything looked old, clean and expensive and yet the whole house seemed empty and still.
We were escorted by a lot of security people up a redundantly large staircase and then another and then through lots of different halls until I was quite lost. I couldn’t see how people could live like this. I think the size of it would frighten me. It must be really lonely. They took us into a room. I wasn’t expecting one wall of the room to be made of glass. Behind the glass was earth. There were tiny burrows in the earth. I zoomed in. Ants. A massive ant colony. The other three walls were covered with old paintings of twisted landscapes, strange creatures and horrible things happening to people. The room itself was ordered and neat in a military style.
‘It’s like his mind,’ Rannu said.
It took me a few moments to understand what he meant, but then I could see it as well. Rolleston grew up here. This was the environment he’d wanted to live in and nobody had told him no. The family had been rich enough to indulge his whims. I wondered at what point they realised that it was a mistake.
‘He’d trick me in here. Every time he’d say that he would be nice, and I wanted to believe him because he was my brother, and every time he’d hurt me or just terrify me.’
The voice surprised me so much I reached for my laser before I saw the holographic ghost. The ghost had the body of a beautiful young woman in a very old-fashioned dress. A leather mask covered most of her head.
‘It got so Father or the staff punishing him made no difference. I think he enjoyed the attention in some ways. Once when he was twelve, the body of one of our housekeepers was found in the pond in the woods. None of the staff ever tried to punish him again. She’d been dissected. Even Father left him alone after that and I hid. I live in metal now deep in the earth. Where it’s warm and safe.’