Simon Morden - The Curve of The Earth

“Is it him?”

“Unless you’ve got his gene sequence and a portable DNA tester, I’m going to have to do this old-school. I can pull his dental records, but yeah…” He adjusted himself on his perch. “No rings, no jewellery that I know of. Even his mother’d have trouble recognising him.”

Petrovitch looked to see if he could get any closer. Snow had forced its way through the shattered glass of the windscreen and side doors. He stamped some of it down and moved on to it.

He looked up into the rictus grin. He had Fyfe’s picture in his databanks, and used some software to overlay it on the tootight skin.

“Yes, no? What do you reckon?”

[The low light levels and the damage to the gross facial features introduce error, but we can confirm with a high degree of confidence that this was Jason Fyfe.]

“I remember once before being shown a body and I leapt to all sorts of conclusions that weren’t helpful. Or even right.”

[Then a full investigation must be carried out by the relevant authorities before the identity of the body can be established for certain. However, as a working hypothesis, it would be reasonable to assume that it is Fyfe.]

“Yeah.” He huffed. Moisture from his breath collected on the frost-rimed burns. “If things had worked out differently, this poor bastard could have been my son-in-law.”

He straightened and judged his journey back.

“I’m coming up.”

Petrovitch held his arms up: his weight proved difficult for the wiry Josie and the athletic Newcomen to manage, but they struggled on and got enough of his torso through the window that he was able to drag himself clear.

“How heavy are you?” asked Josie.

“Couple of hundred kilos. Titanium’s dense compared with bone.” Petrovitch sat down on the snow and used handfuls of it to scrub as much of the soot off his parka as he could. “So, George. Any idea what you’ve got yourself mixed up in?”

“No one said anything about dead guys. Just the RV.”

“This was Jason Fyfe, a Canadian citizen. He worked with my daughter. He was going to rescue her, because she’s missing up on the North Slope. Seems she saw something she shouldn’t, and some people are desperate that she doesn’t pass that on. Desperate enough to kill this good man.”

Josie hunched over and looked sourly at the black hole of the RV’s back window.

Newcomen cleared his throat, and pulled his collar away from his mouth. “Did you, uh, see anything? In the sky, on the ground?”

“Might have done. Depends how much more trouble it gets me into.”

“We know a lot about it,” said Petrovitch, “except we don’t know what it actually looked like. So we’d appreciate it if you just said what you saw.”

The Inuk carried on thinking about it, so Petrovitch tried again.

“Yeah, we’re trying to stop World War Three here, amongst other things. No pressure, though.”

“War?” Josie looked up sharply. “Who said anything about war?”

“We’re not the only ones interested in what happened that night. The Chinese, for one.”

“The Chinese?” Josie looked down again. “This is crazy.”

“You Yanks and the Chinese knocking the crap out of each other might be amusing to watch, but I’m very aware that fallout doesn’t respect national boundaries.”

Josie glanced at Newcomen, almost as if he were asking permission. Newcomen shrugged in his dense coat.

“It doesn’t look good,” he said. “Anything you can tell us might help.”

“It was after midnight. Bright light in the sky, going from east to west. Brighter than any shooting star, sharp enough to make shadows, almost like you couldn’t look at it. It seemed to flicker, then there was one big burst of light before it went out. We lost our TV signal, some of our computers stopped working. Radio still isn’t fixed.” Josie jerked his head towards his sled. “They gave me a new one.”

“And you saw this yourself?” said Newcomen.

“The dogs started barking, so I went to the window: couldn’t see it from there, but I could see something. I went out, and there it was. Lasted maybe twenty, thirty seconds.” Josie shrugged. “Could have been less, but it seemed that way. I was standing out in the street with some of the others, and we were talking after the flash. There was this sound, like thunder. That went on and on. Bouncing off the mountains, I guess. It must have been a real big bang.”

Petrovitch looked away to the north. “You were this side of the Brooks, right?”

Josie nodded. “Something fell from space, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Something Chinese?”

“We’re trying to work that out.” Petrovitch straightened up and patted away the snow still clinging to him. “Looks likely, though.”

“So why is it just you two out looking? Why isn’t everyone working on it?”

“I’m sure they are, but not only is no one telling me anything, they seem determined to make it as difficult they can. Like this.” Petrovitch pointed at the RV. “What was the point in killing Fyfe? They could have slashed his tyres in the night and had done with it. There was no need. No need at all.” He reached down for Josie’s arm, and pulled him upright with seemingly no effort at all. “That’s the sort of person you’re working for, George. I’m not impressed.”

“They never said anything about dead Canadians. Just stopped me in the middle of nowhere, up where Bettles used to be, told me where to wait during the day.” Josie looked grim. “I don’t get what I’m supposed to do now, though.”

“You do what you’ve been told to do. Tell your handler that we were here, and we’ve seen Fyfe’s body — you might want to add that you didn’t enjoy that little surprise — then forget you ever saw us.”

“Hold on,” said Newcomen. “You want to give our position away?”

“If George doesn’t tell Ben and Jerry we were here, how can we go on to report the location of Fyfe to the Canadians?”

“Why do we have to tell them? Can’t we just…?”

“No. I’m thinking about Fyfe’s parents. Not about us.” Petrovitch realised he was still holding on to Josie’s arm. He let go with a murmured apology.

“I’m sorry too,” said Josie. He nodded at Newcomen. “He’s right: this isn’t good.”

“There’s still a chance to redeem yourself,” said Petrovitch. “You could tell your friends — your real friends, not the ones that give you expensive toys and lie to you — that we’re on our way. We need help finding Lucy, and they’ve been on the ground throughout: ask them to let me know what they’ve seen and heard.”

“Will they get into trouble if they do?”

“I can’t promise that they won’t. But I can promise it won’t be me giving them grief. I’m not a bad man, George, no matter what you’ve heard.”

Josie didn’t say what he’d heard. Up in Alaska, Reconstruction hadn’t bitten quite as deep, and for men like him, the border with Canada didn’t have the same iconic status as it did for most Americans.

Petrovitch was counting on swaying the man, turning him to his cause.

“Bear in mind what I’ve said, George. It’s just me and Newcomen searching for my girl, and frankly, he’s not much use. Some say she’s dead already, but I’m certain she’s not. The faster we find her, the better, and the more eyes and ears we have, the happier I’ll be.”

“I can’t promise you anything useful will happen, but,” Josie nodded slowly, “I’ll do what I can.”

“Give him his rifle back,” Petrovitch said to Newcomen.

“Are you…?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Newcomen wasn’t, but he lifted the strap over his head and passed the gun into Josie’s waiting hands. He kept hold of the breech. “Do you know how lucky you are?”