Simon Morden - The Curve of The Earth

[He may yet surprise you.]

“Which is the only thing keeping him alive. I don’t need a bomb next to his heart any more. Up here, I could shoot him in what passes for daylight in front of a dozen witnesses, and all the response I’d get would be ‘Where’s the girl?’ ”

[As you have adequately demonstrated. Although the probabilities have shifted, my analysis indicates he is still a significantly positive factor when measuring possible outcomes.]

Petrovitch heard Newcomen’s footsteps ping down the metallic steps, and the cold began to seep into the cockpit. “If you mean having him around is keeping me alert and angry, sure. I still reckon I can maintain the required level of rage all on my own.”

[He raises your chances of success from zero to almost zero. That might be the best anyone can offer.]

“Then I’ll suppose I’ll have to take it.” He roused himself. “This isn’t getting fuel in the tank.”

Petrovitch dressed for the outside again, and went in search of the bowser. Up here, in the high Arctic, no one was going to do it for him. Everyone was expected to be capable, or have someone with them who was. Winter was no place for tourists.

The electric cart that pulled the tank of fuel was stored away from the aircraft — of course it was, because anything else would have been stupid — so he had to trek to a separate building and wheel it back. He’d got there, nodded at Maintenance Guy, who wasn’t on his roll call of genuine people, and was halfway back when Newcomen ran up to him, breathless and shaking.

He looked around for a fire. There wasn’t one. Yet.

“Yeah, when you calm down, that sweat’s going to freeze hard.”

Newcomen gasped and blew. “Come and see.” He leant down and braced his hands against his knees.

Petrovitch looked around at the several thousand litres of fuel he was towing. “It’s going to have to wait.”

“But… you have to come now.”

“Yeah. Your priorities are not my priorities. I’m going to refuel the plane, then I’ll come. It’ll wait, right?”

Still shaking, Newcomen looked around at one of the other hangars. “You don’t understand.”

Petrovitch followed the direction of Newcomen’s gaze. There was nothing to differentiate that building from the ones either side. Something inside, then. He had a pretty good idea what.

“Seriously. I want to keep the plane topped up, for all sorts of reasons, and I won’t be deflected from that by some wild goose chase they’ve dreamed up for me.” He thumbed the button on the handle, and the bowser swayed and sloshed its way towards its destination.

Newcomen, agitated and upset, trailed along behind. He watched Petrovitch wheel the tanker into place, then wrestle with the hoses until he was satisfied with his connections.

“I could do this quicker if you helped.”

“I wouldn’t know how.”

“And learning is against your religion?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Uh-huh.” He got the fuel pumping, and watched for leaks.

“I’m going to be dead soon. Why do I need to know how to put aviation fuel in an aeroplane?”

“If not curiosity, what about necessity? It’s the mother of invention.” The mechanical counter clicked over — gallons and parts thereof — as the pump whirred. “So, what have you found? Scary?”

“I’ve seen them on the news, and at the movies. That one at the airport. They’ve always been on my side before.”

“And now they’re not. Maybe next time-”

“If there is a next time.”

“Next time, you’ll have a little more empathy with their victims.” He checked the counter. He didn’t want to overfill, but he needed enough for what he’d planned, and maybe a little more for emergencies. Not that the whole situation wasn’t a big bag of pizdets anyway. “How many were there?”

“I don’t know. The hangar door was closing as I walked past. The guards with them stood in the way and made it difficult for me.”

“More than one, though.”

“Three, at least.”

“Uplink stuff? Relay station? The jockeys themselves?”

“I, I don’t think so.”

Petrovitch glanced at the counter again. A little more. “Yeah, those guys will be in some warehouse in Nevada, getting hyped up on battle drugs and heavy rock. No one’s going to put their meat on the line: way too valuable to lose.”

His hand hovered over the cut-off switch. In the distance, a door slammed shut. Newcomen started, but it was just one of the Inuit workers taking a short cut. He had a bag heavy with tools and a metre-long adjustable wrench slung over one shoulder.

He nodded under his furred hood at Newcomen, and then at Petrovitch, as he passed by.

“Real,” said Petrovitch, when the man had gone through the door at the front of the hangar. He flicked the pump off, then began the laborious task of unscrewing the hoses and coiling them back up, ready for the next user.

Newcomen was in an agony of impatience. “Tell me you don’t have to take that back across the airfield.”

“I ought. But I don’t have to. No one’s going to say anything to my face.” He patted the side of the tank. “I’ll leave it here.”

“So you’ll come now?”

“I’ll get my things.” He trooped back up the steps, gathered his bag from the cabin, and on a whim scooped up the axe he’d bought too. He met Newcomen back in the hangar. “Let’s go and see what we’re up against.”

Once outside, Newcomen pointed to the next hangar but one. It looked locked down, no lights showing, no one hanging around. Petrovitch searched for cameras, telltale signs of digital transmissions: they were there, and there, and there too, and those were just the nearest ones. As they walked, images were sent and commands were received, broadcasting from a building the other side of the runway.

He glanced up as a camera’s housing turned slowly to face him. He wondered if Ben and Jerry were hunkered down over the monitor, maybe a coffee in hand, watching him back, wondering what he was doing.

They weren’t going to have to wonder for long.

“This one?” Petrovitch rattled the door.

“They’re not just going to let us in, are they?” Newcomen looked around nervously.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” He dropped his bag in the snow and rolled the axe off his shoulder. The lock was just below the door handle. “We can do what the huy we want.”

He kicked the lock with the heel of his boot. Not only did the door give, it bent. It shuddered back on its hinges and banged against its stops. The cold, dark space beyond beckoned.

Finally there was some activity behind him. He could hear motors starting up: two, three petrol engines. They weren’t going to get to him before he’d had a good look around. He swung his bag through the opening, and held the axe loosely in his left hand.

He switched to infrared as he stepped over the threshold. There were the softly glowing shapes he was expecting, but what he was really looking for was the light switch.

There, the other side of the main doors: a big board, complete with fuses. “Wait here,” he said to Newcomen, and navigated his way over to the still-warm switches.

He clicked them on, one by one. The lights in the high ceiling flickered on in banks, slowly illuminating the scene. When he’d done, he saw that they’d sent thirty-two fully armed and armoured teletroopers after him.

They sat in neat rows, crouched over and dormant. Their heads rested on their massive chests, and their gun arms pointed at the ground. Their reversed knees were bent slightly. Whip aerials extended over their backs, and cooling fins radiated like coral growths from their spines.

“Ugly bastards, aren’t they?”