Iain Banks - Transition

“Aid?” I ask. This seems a little too obvious.

“Short for Adrian. What about yourself?”

“I assume you know the procedure.”

“What? Oh, yeah. I’m supposed to give you a name, that right? Okey-doke. How about Fred?”

“Fred? Is that common enough?”

“As muck, mate. Common as muck. Trust me.”

“Indeed I do, Adrian.”

“Brill. Consider yourself sorted. What can I do for you, mate?”

Madame d’Ortolan sat in the rooftop aviary of her house in Paris, listening to the flurrying of a thousand soft wings and looking out over the darkening city as the street lights came on. The view, graphed by the bars of the aviary, showed deep dark reds and bruised purples towards the north-west, where a recently passed rainstorm was retreating towards the sunset. The city still smelled of late-summer rain and refreshed foliage. Somewhere in the distance, a siren sounded. She wondered how big a city had to become, and how lawless and dangerous in this sort of reality, for a siren always to be heard somewhere. Here, the siren was like an audible signature of fragre.

Madame d’Ortolan took a breath and said, “No, he must have had another pill hidden somewhere.”

Mr Kleist stood in the shadows, behind and to one side of her seat, which was an extravagant work in bamboo with a great fan-shaped top. He looked about at the various birds still flying within the aviary. His head jerked as one flew too close and he ducked involuntarily. He shook his head.

“He did not, ma’am, I am sure.”

“Nevertheless.”

“He was fully restrained, ma’am. It could only have been in his mouth, and that was checked very thoroughly, both before the interrogation began and afterwards. Even more thoroughly, subsequent to his apparent transition.”

Madame d’Ortolan looked unconvinced. “Thoroughly?”

Mr Kleist produced a little transparent plastic bag from one pocket and placed it on the small cane table standing at the side of her seat. She leant over, looked at the thirty or so bloodstained teeth inside.

“They are all present,” he said. “They are just teeth.”

She looked at them. “The false one with the cavity. Was there room inside it for two pills?”

“No, and the septus pill was removed from it and the tooth itself extracted while he was still unconscious.”

“Some residue of septus left with the mouth or throat?”

“I have already asked our most knowledgeable experts. Such an effect is next to impossible.”

“Send these to be analysed, all the same.”

“Of course.” Mr Kleist picked up the plastic bag and replaced it in his pocket.

“Some sort of osmotic patch, or a subcutaneous implant?”

“Again, ma’am, we did check, both before and after.”

“Perhaps up his nose,” Madame d’Ortolan mused, more to herself than to Mr Kleist. “That might be possible. Ill-bred people sometimes make that ghastly snorting, pulling-back noise with their noses. One might ingest a pill in that manner.”

Mr Kleist sighed. “It is a theoretical possibility,” he conceded. “Though not in this case.”

“Did he make such a noise?”

“No, ma’am. In fact he was probably incapable of doing so or of performing the action you mention because his nose and mouth were both tightly secured by tape. No air movement would have been possible.”

“You checked for some infusionary device? Perhaps something concealed within the rectum, activated by…” She could not think how you would activate something like that.

“We checked the subject’s clothing and performed a second internal examination. There was nothing.”

“An accomplice. The septus delivered by a dart or some such thing.”

“Impossible, ma’am.”

“You were alone with him?”

“No. An assistant was present.”

“The assistant…”

“Is completely trustworthy, ma’am.”

Madame d’Ortolan turned to him.

“Then, unless you were somehow complicit yourself, Mr Kleist, it could only be that he was able to ingest a slow-release pill some time before.”

Mr Kleist displayed no reaction. “The arresting interception team assure us this would not have been possible. Also, we took blood samples before and after and there was no sign.”

“They must be wrong, all the same. The results must be wrong. Have everything analysed again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Madame d’Ortolan turned and gazed out over the city as it subsided into darkness, strings of street lights curving into the clear distance of rain-washed air. After some time she put one hand to her lower lip, pinching it.

“And if they are not wrong, ma’am?” Mr Kleist said eventually, when he began to think that perhaps she had forgotten he was there.

“Then,” she said, “we would have the most severe problem. Because we would be faced with somebody who can flit without septus, and, if they are capable of doing that, they could be capable of doing almost anything.” Madame d’Ortolan stopped and thought for a moment. “That would be a perfectly terrifying prospect even if the individual concerned was utterly loyal.” She turned and looked at Mr Kleist. She could hardly see him. “However, I do not believe that to be the case.”

“It might be wise to act as though it is,” he suggested. “Provisionally, at least.” There was a small light on the table by her side. She clicked it on. Mr Kleist still looked dark, dressed in black or something near black, his face paler but still in shade.

“That had occurred to me,” she told him. “Have the husk killed and a full – and I do mean full – post-mortem carried out.”

“The person is not a husk, ma’am.”

“I don’t care.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

“What about the trackers?”

“We have another two teams on him in addition to the one that found him after Lord Harmyle’s murder. There has been nothing reported so far.”

“Are they optimistic?”

Mr Kleist hesitated. “If they are, they’re being unusually reticent about it.”

“Well, never mind how we lost him initially. Now that he is lost, what if he stays lost? What will he do next?”

“He may already have warned those who were on the list marked for assassination. We think somebody must have. The back-up teams have yet to report a success.”

“Not even Obliq?” Madame d’Ortolan asked, pronouncing her name with the sort of acidic tone she usually reserved for Mrs Mulverhill. “I thought they definitely got her.”

“Ah,” Mr Kleist said. “The team report they now think she may have been flitted an instant before the hit.”

“So he did warn them.”

“Somebody did. We doubt he had time personally.”

She frowned. “Your assistant heard the names on the list, didn’t he?”

“As I say, ma’am, he is above suspicion.”

“That is not what you said, and nobody is above suspicion.”

“Then let me rephrase. I have complete faith in his loyalty and discretion.”

“Would you vouch for him with your life?”

Mr Kleist hesitated. “I would not go quite that far for anyone, ma’am. As you say, nobody is entirely above suspicion.”

“Hmm. That list, then, the people on it.”

“We are watching them as closely as we are able to, waiting for an opportunity, but it is not easy and it is not looking promising. Obliq and Plyte disappeared entirely, untrackable, and the rest are awkwardly located, or staying too firmly in the public eye for us to strike. The relevant teams are still primed and in place, ready to resume action on your command the moment we have a clear shot.” He left a pause. “Though of course we have lost the advantage of surprise and concurrency. Even if we are able to pick one off, the rest will become even more suspicious and hard to get at, the moment they hear.”