Christopher Evans - Aztec Century

‘Father said I would be king after him.’

‘You’re his successor,’ I agreed. ‘But I don’t think he imagined our country would be under armed occupation. If you let these people make you king, you’ll be accepting their authority over us. You’ll be confirming their right to make decisions for our people.’

‘It’s my duty to be king.’

‘You have to try to put your own feelings to one side and think about the consequences.’

It was clear he didn’t like the sound of this. Even pitched so plainly, the argument was probably too subtle for him. Then something took his eye through the cockpit window.

‘Look!’ he said, brightening. ‘Buckingham Palace!’

We were tracking westwards again, and the palace was directly below. At first glance it looked intact, but then I saw it was roofless, its walls blackened.

‘It was gutted during the fighting,’ Extepan remarked. Throughout my conversation with Richard, his eyes had been on me.

‘Do you plan to restore it so you can install Richard there?’

His forbearing look seemed to say he was prepared to tolerate all my immoderation.

‘I know this is very difficult for you,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it would be easier if the decision were taken out of all our hands. We could let your people decide for themselves.’

‘And how would you propose to do that? By popular vote?’

‘Exactly. I think you call it in your country a referendum.’

In the middle of the night I rose and unlocked the door which gave access to Bevan’s apartment. For several moments I hesitated. Then I turned the handle and crept in.

Bevan’s apartment was in darkness, redolent of maleness and stale tobacco. His bedroom door was ajar.

‘That you, is it?’

His voice startled me. I swallowed, said, ‘Yes.’

He sat up blearily. By night our rooms were bathed in the soft radiance of the generators, and I could see he was wearing striped pyjamas.

‘This is an honour,’ he said, making it sound anything but.

‘Bevan, I need to talk to you.’

He stretched luxuriously, stifling a yawn. ‘Righto.’

He never made any compromises to my position, and I have to admit that on this occasion it annoyed me.

‘In private,’ I said quietly. ‘Where we can be sure no one else is listening. Perhaps you’d like to get dressed and meet me in the garden.’

Without waiting for a reply, I returned to my own suite and donned boots and a lambskin coat. Much of my former wardrobe from our house in Marlborough had been transferred to the suite. The house itself was now apparently the headquarters of a local Aztec army division.

I slipped out on to the balcony, choosing a seat in a sheltered corner of the garden screened by buddleia and frost-resistant bamboo. The still night air was filled with musky fragrances despite its coolness.

At length Bevan appeared, a gaberdine buttoned up over his pyjamas. He perched himself on the arm of a bench opposite me and lit a Raleigh.

‘So what’s it all about, then?’

I decided to match his bluntness. I took the disk from my pocket.

‘This.’

Bevan eyed me over his cigarette. ‘Important, is it?’

‘Very. My husband gave it me for safe-keeping just before we were captured. Do you know what it is?’

‘Software.’

‘It’s more than that. My husband was working for the MoD before the invasion.’

‘Director of Informational Research.’

This was public knowledge, but I was surprised he knew.

‘Do you think we could load it into the system here, get it working?’

‘What sort of program is it, then?’

‘I’m not sure. That’s what I need to find out.’

I wasn’t prepared to tell him any more at this stage because I still didn’t know how far I could trust him. But I had to enlist his aid if I was to make use of the disk.

‘There’s a terminal in my living room. I thought we might be able to use it. If we’re careful.’

‘Might be possible,’ he conceded.

‘Would you give it a try? I’m hopeless with computers.’

I couldn’t tell whether he looked contemplative or calculating. I often had the feeling he considered me tiresome or even an outright nuisance.

‘Alex told me the disk’s very important. It might be a weapon we can use against the Aztecs.’

‘Bring their empire tumbling down, will it?’

Was he teasing me, as I had teased Alex? It was no longer a joking matter as far as I was concerned.

‘My husband was engaged in highly classified work.’

‘Well, he would have been, wouldn’t he? At the MoD.’

He squashed his cigarette under the heel of his slipper.

‘Of course, our rooms might be bugged,’ I said.

‘There’s ways round that.’

‘Such as?’

‘We work at night for a start.’

‘What if they’ve got cameras monitoring us?’

‘Cameras are hard to hide. I took a look around – your place as well as mine – while you were out yesterday. You’d left the door unlocked, see. There was nothing.’

I was amazed at his presumption, yet also grateful he had taken the trouble. He really was a law unto himself.

‘What about microphones?’

‘Trickier. You can put them anywhere – under floorboards or in your plumbing. And there’s directional equipment that can eavesdrop a hundred yards or more. But even that’s not much use if you play music loud enough.’

‘You seem to know a great deal about it.’

‘Never know when it might come in handy, do you?’

‘So they could be listening to us now?’

‘It’s possible. But, then, you’re never going to do anything worthwhile if you don’t take a few risks, are you?’

His tone was lazily challenging, as if he really couldn’t have cared less either way.

‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘why don’t we start tonight?’

My suite was equipped with an entire cabinet of laser-discs, and I put an Oppenheimer violin concerto on the player while Bevan sat down at the terminal and loaded the disk. His high forehead shone in the screen’s livid glow, and his stubby fingers moved with nimble assurance over the keyboard.

For a long time nothing meaningful happened. Columns of electric-blue numbers and letters dropped like waterfalls on the screen, cursors blinked and darted, rows of nonsense swelled in ranks, halted, vanished. Bevan quickly grew rapt in his task, studying the screen with the earnest fascination of someone faced with a thorny but ultimately tractable problem. If it was a performance for my benefit, an attempt to display his competence, then it was a convincing one.

After a while he became aware of my presence at his shoulder.

‘Chance of a cup of tea, is there?’

I went to the kitchen and brewed a pot of Earl Grey. When Bevan took a sip of it, he grimaced and set the cup down in its saucer.

I returned to the garden, walking to the balcony’s edge through grass that gleamed in the light of the generators. They topped the subsidiary pyramids like stylized suns, circular crystals surrounded by florets of concentrators, all now awash with light. The Aztecs, loving display, were profligate with their energy sources, illuminating not only their buildings but also their craft with excess energy from the sun crystals, adding spectacle and drama to their technological accomplishments. An Aztec ship in flight never looked more fearsome than when it shone.

Below me, the gardens were spread out, tier upon tier, planted with all kinds of shrubs and flowers, a plethora of shadowy foliage holding all the fruits of Aztec bioengineering. Across the river, the city slept, wrapped in its threads of sodium street-lamps, neon signs flickering messages for Cola Cacao and the latest Corona Sola saloon.