‘So you’d rather be urban myths? Hackers’ tall tales? What are you anyway?’
‘I told you. I am Nuada Airgetlaa.’
I took another step back. Despite the odd way I seemed to be hearing him, he seemed to be trying to keep his tone as even and emotionless as possible. I just couldn’t shake the feeling of enormous rage being held back just below the surface.
‘Okay. With all due respect, what do you want from me?’
‘You must have them remake Pais Badarn Beisrydd.’
I looked over at Morag questioningly. She was crouching down and backing into the shadows. There was something odd and primal about her movements. What the fuck was going on?
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘If you are a warrior then we will share blood.’
With his silver hand he wrapped his fingers around the sword’s blade, barely touching it. His hand started to bleed what looked like smoking mercury. I looked at Morag again. The shadows in the tunnel seemed to be elongating to engulf her. They moved across her naked skin like they were alive. I began to feel dislocated like I was on a good but frightening psychotropic. It was as if it wasn’t happening to me but I was somehow witnessing it.
‘It’s only information,’ Morag whispered.
I could only see her as a shadow now, though the shadow’s teeth and eyes seemed to burn. I swallowed and reached out for the sword. I didn’t even realise I’d touched it until my hand came away wet with blood. Nuada grasped my hand. My blood and his mingled. It burned, it burned so much. It took me a moment to realise the discordant screaming that was so jarring, even in this part of this place, was me. My flesh glowed from the inside through translucent skin.
I awoke in the pool. My body felt like a rough-edged machine. It was awkward and painful to live in. Of course it would have been less painful if I hadn’t stabbed myself in the arm earlier. I felt feverish and was surprised that the water wasn’t bubbling. Morag was holding me, cradling me like I was a sick or frightened child.
Later in the grotto I was still shaken and didn’t feel right. I was too hot. A diagnostic check of all my internal systems found no trace of any information exchange.
‘Did you take me there?’ I asked.
She didn’t answer straight away. I think she was trying to work out if there was any accusation in my question. There wasn’t. I’d worked hard to make sure there wasn’t.
‘It wasn’t an ambush. I knew there were things there. I’ve spoken with some of them but I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘They’re AIs, aren’t they? Powerful self-aware ones masquerading as old gods. That’s why they’re so frightened.’
‘Maybe,’ she said.
‘You can’t believe they’re gods, can you?’ I said incredulously. Maybe I was just trying to convince myself. It had seemed pretty real at the time.
‘They’ve been here a while if they are.’
‘They must have come when we were colonising.’
‘Its difficult to understand Their way of measuring time but They encountered whatever that was before They encountered us.’
That shut me up until I eventually asked, ‘So what do you think they are?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe they’re aliens searching for a way to communicate and then the way home, or maybe they’re the real deal — whatever that means. Pagan thinks that they are a reflection of us, our subconscious projected onto the net and somehow given form and independence. He calls them ghosts of our imagination.’
‘So?’ I finally asked.
‘So what?’
‘So what does it all mean?’
‘Fucked if I know.’
‘Brilliant. Just more religious bollocks.’ Morag opened her mouth to say something. ‘Don’t tell me to have faith.’
‘I was going to tell you to speak to Pagan — he knows more about this sort of thing.’
‘Oh he’ll fucking love that, me getting religion. Has he seen them?’ I asked, trying to change the subject.
‘Back on Earth he has. He hasn’t been in Their mind yet. I’m going to take him in next.’
‘Yeah? Good, he’ll like that. Hold on. Does that mean he’ll see you naked?’ I demanded. She was laughing. I still didn’t like the idea. ‘Will you see him naked?!’ I demanded. She grimaced.
I awoke to the reassuringly distant scream of the sub-orbital military transport’s engines. Akhtar had laid on the aircraft and after some arguments with the crew I’d even managed to get my bike on board.
I hadn’t spoken to Pagan about my religious experience of course, meeting Nuada. I tried to ignore the whole thing. I didn’t understand it, therefore it was meaningless. I convinced myself that it really didn’t matter what they were. The whole pretending to be gods and spirits thing was just another snow job to try and get people to do what they wanted them to, probably for some inhuman reason. Maybe it was just entertainment for them. Besides, I had decided I was through, that I was going to retire.
We went home. I think I could have stayed or even gone on with Them if Morag had been with me, but Mudge really wanted to get back and get high. Besides, we needed to see how much damage we’d done.
The last we’d seen of Them was huge engines pushing cored asteroids out of their place in the Dog’s Teeth. Each asteroid was honeycombed with Their energy storage matrices. Energy harvested from the twin stars to sustain Them on their exodus. The massive convoy of ships surrounding the asteroids seemed to stretch out for thousands of miles as They prepared to flee the neighbours.
They got us home by using a variant of Their infiltration crafts. It was basically an engine with re-entry needles. Except this time when we came in-system we were broadcasting using the salvaged comms units from our Mamluk exo-armour suits. The good thing about the design of the needles was that we didn’t get to see how close we got to dying. We were intercepted by a Ugandan ship, and during the initial debrief we each had four Ugandan special forces pointing weapons at us at all times. It was quite tense.
We got passed from pillar to confused post as the authorities tried to decide whose problem we actually were. The debriefs got less combative and Mudge got in less fights with our interrogators. I had tried telling them that if they wanted his co-operation all they had to do was give him drugs, but nobody listened to me.
The Dog’s Teeth, Maw City — it all started to seem like a dream. Parts of it too pleasant and other parts too unreal to have any relation to the grind of being back in the real world and dealing with the imminence of a war that could split humanity in two. Assuming that it didn’t just destroy it.
Eventually Air Marshal Kaaria intervened on our behalf and everyone heaved a sigh of relief as we became someone else’s problem.
Mudge’s drugs had made me feel better and I was healing faster. I should still get someone to look at my spine.
As I looked out over the desert I had some time to think. Leaving aside the suicidal aspect of the job, it still did not feel right getting ready to kill innocent soldiers. I guessed this is what war had been about all through the ages. Was it any different from the streets? I’d mainly killed people who’d been trying to kill me. Or maybe that was just what I told myself to get to sleep at night. This was going to be more proactive. I guessed it wouldn’t be any different from what we’d done when we’d busted Gregor out, but then that was when I decided that I didn’t want to kill any more.
Except Rolleston. And Cronin. Rolleston had to die because he deserved it. Cronin I didn’t hate, but he had to go because he was so much part of the problem. Of course they’d be the most difficult to get to, assuming we could even find them.
Then there was Josephine, the Grey Lady. No real hate there. Just fear. To deal with Rolleston we’d first have to deal with her. Why the bond? I wondered. All our heavy hitters were gone as well. Balor might have been able to deal with Josephine, though even he’d implied that he was scared of her. Hybrid Gregor could have dealt with her if he hadn’t ended up on the other side. Though even then Rolleston and Josephine had all but walked through us in the media node. Rannu? He was a solid trooper, very skilled, but I didn’t think he was in the same league as the Grey Lady.