Neal Asher - Cowl

‘And everyone is now aware of the location of their nearest displacement generator?’

At this, Theldon looked round. ‘We are… you are expecting trouble?’

‘That last torbeast attack was a little too close to our vulnerable time. I think we managed to stop Palleque from passing on that we do have a vulnerable time, but it is best to be cautious.’

‘That’s all right for all of you,’ grumbled Silleck. ‘You don’t have to detach vorpal interface nodes before hitting the generator. Anything goes wrong and I doubt I’ll get the time.’

Goron winced. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said, putting as much confidence in his voice as he could. ‘Now, keep an eye on things for the moment. I have something I need to do, but I shouldn’t be away long.’

He turned away from his control column and headed for the lift platform, aware that his fellows were watching him curiously. Dropping down from the control room, he felt like a traitor.

Via moving walkways and ramps he quickly reached one of the supply centres that dotted Sauros, observing as he went the city’s various citizens about their various tasks. He had a bitter taste in his mouth because what he had set in motion so long ago was now coming to fruition. Reality now bore a hard edge.

The supply-centre door opened when he palmed the lock, without requiring further confirmation of identity. Inside he walked along the racks of replacement items needed for the many different systems the city contained, until he came to a rack of empty containers—empty all bar one. This, too, opened when he palmed it, and inside rested a single device. It was heavy, the shape of a transformer with rounded edges, and it fitted his palm. He took it out, weighing it in his hand, then slipped it into his belt pouch before exiting the supply centre.

Further transit of walkways and ramps finally brought him to a residential section of the city. The door he sought was different from all those which opened automatically as soon as their residents approached, being heavily armoured and its frame recently welded into place. Reaching it, he again pressed his hand against the lock and to his satisfaction received no reaction. He took out a small key and inserted it into the manual lock beside the security lock. One turn and the door whoomphed off its seals. He dragged it open, stepped inside, and quickly closed it behind him, before turning to the apartment’s only resident.

‘I noticed the security system go offline,’ said Palleque, banging a fist against the mesh that covered the single window out of which he was gazing. Just an hour earlier the charge the mesh was carrying would have thrown him across the room. ‘I wondered if you expected me to try and escape.’ Palleque still did not look round. ‘Had I tried, I doubt I’d have survived long out there. It would seem a lot of my fellow Heliothane dislike me and they wonder why you are delaying the interrogation.’

‘Ostensibly I am too busy with organizing our push into the Triassic. Anyone not satisfied with that explanation would put my delay down to a certain squeamishness.’

Palleque turned at last. ‘The push… it is imminent?’

‘One hour, even less now.’

Palleque let out a tense breath. ‘Then it will soon be over.’

‘Not for you.’ Goron removed the device from his belt pouch, and put it down on the single table before Palleque’s couch.

‘Displacement generator. What location?’

‘The same as all others now,’ Goron replied.

‘That is risky and may give the game away.’

‘A risk I am prepared to take.’

‘But am I? The torbeast swept up my sister as if she was nothing, and I am prepared to die to exact vengeance.’

Goron stared at him directly. ‘Yes, I know your commitment.’ His gaze strayed down to Palleque’s arm, then his hand.

Palleque glanced at the dressing, then held up his hand covered in a surgical mitten. ‘For veracity, as always, it had to be done. I’ll heal soon enough as I have the rejuvenation gene, though I never expected to have the chance to do so. Let’s hope you didn’t underdo things by not killing me outright.’

‘We are now not long away from that point when all such subterfuge will be irrelevant. I have no doubt that already Cowl has extracted the required information from the torbearer. Now all that remains is for us to perform our duty at this end.’

Palleque came over and picked up the displacement generator. ‘I’m surprised you had any of these to spare.’

‘I made sure there was one,’ replied Goron. He waved a hand around Palleque’s erstwhile apartment—now his cell. ‘You deserve better than to die here.’ He turned to go.

‘Goron,’ said Palleque, halting the Engineer’s departure. ‘Good luck.’

‘Let us hope that is something we don’t need too much of,’ Goron replied as he left the cell.

Palleque:

As if he too would not sacrifice his life to that end, my brother Saphothere feels I too fanatically seek to avenge the death of our sister, Astolere. That I have become Cowl’s agent he attributes to Coptic and Meelan. But those two are not really accepted by the other Umbrathane. It is fortunate that my ostensible fanaticism prevents him from asking further questions. I was always Cowl’s agent, and have remained in communication with him. The destructive war between Umbra and Heliothane is an utter waste, and I considered the preterhuman the ideal candidate to rule us all. It was I who passed on the displacement technology to the Umbrathane, to enable them to escape Heliothane oppression, and much else have I done. Cowl was suspicious at first but, upon discovering that I supposedly did not know what had happened to my sister, concocted the story that she, along with the entire population of Callisto, is with him behind the Nodus. I was wrong: Cowl is too careless of human life to rule us. And at the least he must be made powerless—the very least.

When they got him ashore and Tacitus started work on getting the water out of his lungs, Polly stepped back, her hand dropping to her taser in its waterproof pouch at her hip, then sliding across to the sheath knife beside it. Tacitus did not notice this movement as the rescuee now coughed sea water and blood from his lungs and the Roman, as he had been taught, turned him into the recovery position.

‘It is surprising that this man is still alive,’ commented the Roman—in the Heliothane language they all now spoke after an instructive session connected to Aconite’s Pedagogue machine. Tacitus then grabbed hold of the man’s arm, putting a foot in his armpit then pulling and twisting, relocating his shoulder joint. The rescued man groaned, fell back into his prior position and curled up his legs.

‘His name is Tack. He is the man I told you about a while ago—the killer I dragged back with me for a few shifts,’ Polly told him.

Speaking out loud through a link established to Wasp shortly after Polly’s rescue, Nandru interjected, ‘And now things become clear. You recollect that a piece of your tor, in its still nascent stage, was left embedded in this U-gov bastard’s wrist?’

‘I still can’t see what’s worth saving here,’ said Polly.

‘Things have changed and we all know so much more,’ said Tacitus, looking up. ‘I would even save enemies of Rome, here and now, should they survive Cowl’s ungentle ministrations.’

‘You hear that, Polly?’ Nandru asked. ‘I hope so, because I’ve just informed Aconite that friend Tack here is still alive. Come on, you know U-gov assassins aren’t my favourite playmates, but I damned well want to hear what this one has to say for himself.’

Polly let her hand slip away from her knife, not exactly sure what emotion she was feeling. There was anger, yes, for earlier this man had been intent on killing her, but that anger was no longer a savage thing within her. Where, in the end, would she be now without Nandru and then this one? Rotting in her bedsit, and perhaps moving onto the needle like Marjae had, blowing U-gov officials in back alleys when not being screwed up against a wall, dropping her price as the goods became more shoddy. The more she thought about it, the more ambivalent her feelings became.