Great North Road (24 page)

“I simply can’t imagine why he would be bothered with us anymore,” Augustine said. “His techno-Marxist ideology looks down on my old-fashioned market commerce with great disdain. He simply wouldn’t bother himself with corporate or financial activities anymore. I appreciate your candor, Detective. Aldred has told me about you, how you understand the way the world works. Whatever the outcome, you have my word this case will not screw up your record.”

“Thank you, sir.” Having the same guarantee made twice in two days by two of the most powerful Norths in Europe was astonishingly reassuring. It almost elevated it to believable. “What will you do now?”

“Me?” Augustine seemed mildly surprised by the question. “Well, until the murder is solved one way or another political expediency means I’ll be cooperating with the HDA, and allowing their ridiculous expedition through to St. Libra to hunt for killer monsters in the wilderness. Brinkelle has also agreed to them using Abellia as their base—she has even less choice than I.”

T
HURSDAY,
J
ANUARY 17, 2143

Home capsules were slowly replacing the older, static residences in the newest and largest section of the Jupiter habitat amalgamation. Constantine had been the first to adopt one, leaving behind the elaborate truncated pyramid he’d built in the first torus habitat they’d constructed. Walking out on it had been quite symbolic, casting aside everything that had come before, physically, mentally. Now a single room was his whole house, moving slowly around the interior of the massive cylinder like the VW camper van of a bygone era. Physically it was a mélange of metamolecules, the most advanced material to come out of the constellation’s zero-g nuclear extruders. Its boundary was defined by soft glowing lines that twisted, expanding or contracting as he required. The walls they described could be varied from matte black to completely transparent. Furniture, too, was ephemeral, matte-black shapes outlined in slender threads of purple or orange luminescence.

He lay on the incredibly soft mattress waiting for Reisa to come out of the bathroom that had inflated out from the side of the main chamber. Women, like the items he’d brought from Earth and was kept in storage compartments beneath the home capsule, were something he hadn’t shaken off in his new life. Not that he’d ever intended to. But the relationships were mature ones now, based on respect and admiration and possibly even love, rather than the exploitative conducts he and his brothers had pursued throughout his first eighty years. Reisa had been with him for eleven years now. A record he was rather proud of.

His e-i informed him Coby was calling. He let it come through, and his son’s head materialized at the foot of the bed, indistinguishable from a solid object.

“You have a call from Earth,” Coby said.

“Another one. Whatever does Augustine want now?”

Coby’s smile was sly. “It’s not Augustine. This is General Khurram Shaikh himself, using the diplomatic circuit encryption …”

“Ah yes, that was inevitable I suppose. Have you accessed the message?”

“Yes, he’s very formal, and very polite, and yet very insistent.”

“Of course he is. All right, let’s take a look.”

Khurram Shaikh’s head replaced Coby’s. It tilted in a slight bow of respect. “Constantine North. Thank you for taking the time to receive this message. I understand you’ve been informed that a North clone has been killed in Newcastle, with a method similar to the one employed against your brother Bartram and his household twenty years ago. First, my condolences. We are of course expending considerable resources trying to find the perpetrator, alien or human. There are some factors that are unknown at the moment, and I respectfully request your assistance in enlightening me where you can. The investigation we are mounting is enormous, and I cannot afford it to be compromised. Everything you say will of course be classified as top secret. So I urgently need to know if the Norths discovered an alien species on St. Libra, and if it is the one performing these murders. I am not concerned with any conflict you have with Augustine or Brinkelle’s side of the family, but the existence of another sentient species is profoundly important to the entire human race. I am charged with protecting all of us, and I take my position most seriously. If there is another potential threat out there, I must know. Constantine, we need your help with this; if the human race is to survive in this universe, we must do so collectively. Do not abandon us; we would never abandon you. I look forward to receiving your answer.”

“And if I don’t get it I’ll come up there and rip it out of you,” Reisa said scathingly. She’d emerged from the bathroom just after the message started playing. “They never change, do they?”

Constantine smiled and held his hands out to her. “They’re upset. I’m very upset—after all, one of my nephews has been murdered. This isn’t how I expected the endgame of the mystery to play out.”

“But they suspect your involvement. After all, you’re different. You turned your back on their civilization, and that makes you the unknown, which always scares them. Fright and envy is never a good combination for planet humans.”

“Their suspicion was completely predictable. And please stop the ‘them and us’ analysis. Ultimately our sojourn here at Jupiter will be temporary.”

“Constantine, I love you dearly, but if you think their civilization will ever adopt our philosophies you are delusional. They’ll grab the weapons, say thank you, and career onward in their own psychotic fashion.”

“The Zanth has forced them to change their perception of the universe.”

“It gave them an excuse to build HDA, the biggest military force we’ve ever known, and the greatest drain on resources. All it does—really does—is provide the masses with the most monumental false hope since religion reared its ugly head.”

He gave her a gentle squeeze. “I can never give you a diplomatic posting, can I?”

“Constantine … is there a sentient alien species on St. Libra?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been searching for the answer to that question for twenty years now. In all that time I’ve accepted only two things: that it’s a very big planet, and that something killed Bartram. Something very odd. And now I’m ready for it.”

“And you’ll tell the HDA?”

“Ah, now that’s the big question. I can’t answer that until I know for sure what it is.”

“So what are you going to tell General Shaikh?”

Constantine banished the image of the general’s head, and ordered the home to turn completely opaque. “Let me sleep on it.”

*

A North being murdered could never be kept quiet forever. It didn’t matter how much you pleaded or threatened people involved with the case, it was simply too big. Besides, with the no-limits budget, a whole new level of agency personnel were involved. There must have been more than a hundred in total; then there were those they shared offices and labs with, and of course pillow talk. Transnet reporters, too, had an extensive network of contacts among Newcastle’s government employees whom they bought drinks for and arranged favors in return for the occasional indiscreet word.

Sid had his suspicions about where this leak had originated. O’Rouke had really not appreciated having his hand forced over the zone theater; he’d been out to bust Felltech Zone. Partially, Sid heard whispered, because they’d never come through with certain promises made just prior to the contract being awarded.

Wherever the leak came from, it began to surface on Thursday morning. Chloe Healy had spent an hour briefing and preparing him for the two o’clock official media conference. It wasn’t just local reporters he was up in front of, but the big national media groups from across the trans-stellar worlds. A dead North was Big News. So much so, Sid even allowed himself to be coaxed into the station’s makeup suite before facing the cameras and battering-ram questions.

It was, he said with a straight, somber face, Albert 3North who was the tragic victim of a carjacking that had gone wrong. The police were looking for the stolen VW Ropolis—he released a flood of data about the car to the station’s public site. And yes, the raid on the Fawdon GSW area on Tuesday night was connected, a taxi used in the carjacking was recovered.

A lot of colleagues had come up afterward to tell him how well he handled it. He even got a short congratulatory call from O’Rouke. Despite how successful the media conference was—and he was pretty pleased with himself—he resented the time it consumed. Office3 on the third floor was buzzing today, and he didn’t want to be away from it. Everyone was excited by the prospect of a full-city virtual. And everyone apart from Lorelle and Ari was working on the project, pulling in Sunday’s surveillance memories on a district-by-district basis. They were also transferring the entirety of the civic traffic management data into the dedicated AI they’d bought time with. Even Sid had helped, using his somewhat rusty programming ability to define geographic coordinates to the AI. Dedra and Reannha were supervising the dataflow from the city planning office, generating a graphic skeleton of Newcastle’s street and building layout onto which the AI would project mesh data and vehicle logs. Unless there was a major glitch, the virtual should be up and running by midday tomorrow.

Sid had let everyone home at seven that evening apart from Reannha, who would supervise the AI as it compiled the results. Her relief would take over at midnight. After reviewing the last batch of forensic data to make sure there were no revelations, he’d said good night to Reannha and left. Even Ralph Stevens had gone back to whatever hotel he was staying in.

He turned into Falconar Street and parked close to the bottom end. The whole of one side was a single terrace of two-story houses, built from a dark brown brick with painted stone window mullions. A market man’s ideal of middle-class aspiration. Naturally, the row was well maintained, with tiny neat little front gardens behind a low wall, all of them swamped by snow with paths cleared to the front doors. Sid could never remember exactly which one Ian lived at, so he walked along the street content to let his e-i guide him. Purple and yellow graphics winked urgently in his grid: Ian rented the upper floor of a house close to the center. The door lock flashed green as Sid’s e-i gave off a proximity quester.

There were three rooms: a decent-sized front lounge with built-in kitchenette, a bedroom that was the same size, and a compact en suite bathroom where every shelf and cabinet was filled with male grooming products. Ian rented the place purely for its location, close enough to Market Street station that he could walk to work in summer, and equally adjacent to the city’s main clubs and pubs. He’d lived in it for two years, and the only furniture he’d bought in that time was a bed. As he said, “I won’t be using anything else.”

Eva was already there when Sid arrived. She always refused to sit on the bed, disapproving as she did of the weekly parade of girls Ian brought back to the flat. Instead she’d snagged a pillow and sat with her back to the wall in the lounge. Ian had claimed the marble-top surface of the kitchenette’s breakfast bar.

“Beer?” he asked as Sid walked in.

“Sure.”

Ian took one from the small fridge. Ian could only see bottles in there; it certainly wasn’t chilling any food.

The flat didn’t have built-in wardrobes, so Ian hung his clothes on a long metal rack he’d bought from a retail store. Sid sat on the floor beside it and took a sip from the bottle. “If we meet in the pub, the meshes have enough definition to run lip-reading software.”

“Crap on it, boss,” Eva muttered. “Who are we bumping off?”

“We’re saving our careers.”

“Away wi’ you, man,” Ian said. “You think we can’t solve it? We’re building a city virtual for crap’s sake. A city! We’ve got an unlimited budget, a real one. Aye, there’s some pricks looking over our shoulder for sure, but they’re not interfering. This is the chance in a lifetime, man. We can solve this. It’s gonna be colossal.”

Sid was surprised at the level of passion in his deputy’s voice. Since when had Ian turned careerist? “Solve it? Really? The outcome we have to produce is an alien with knives for fingers. That’s what the politics requires. So hands up, who thinks that’s what we’re going to parade in front of the press next time we have a conference like today’s?”

“Crap on it, they know that’s not going to happen,” Ian exclaimed. “Ralph understands; he’s a twat but he knows what’s real. He accessed the forensic reports on the taxi and Elswick Wharf, he knows this was some corporate shit that went bad.”

“You’re not listening. This isn’t about what
happened,
this is about what’s
expected
from us. Governments are putting together an expedition to St. Libra, the HDA is throwing everything into this. Let me show you something.” He told his e-i to access the site.

Ian’s wallscreen started playing the introduction to the Gospel Warriors. It was childish, ridiculous, simplistic. It was the devout belief that the Zanth was Lucifer’s agent, and the followers of the church were blessed by Jesus. Only HDA members were entitled to become Gospel Warriors. There were testimonials from the congregation, accounts of how they’d been spared during the New Florida Zanthswarm, sincere, earnestly spoken tales of tragedy and death narrowly averted as the Zanth missed them or their vehicle by centimeters, how the arms of Jesus had embraced them and moved them out of danger, how angels had pushed lethal Zanth masses onto a new trajectory so they fell clear.

Sid canceled the link. Ian was laughing openly, while Eva wore a more troubled expression.

“That’s the kind of mentality we’re up against,” Sid said.

“Aye, man, they’re a bunch of fucking religious nutters,” Ian said. “So what?”

“Elston: He’s one of them, isn’t he?” Eva asked.

“Yeah,” Sid admitted. “And he’s not alone. I checked around some of the unlicensed political blogs. The Gospel Warriors are widespread in the HDA officer class. Secularists are concerned that they see the Zanth conflict as some kind of crusade.”

“But it is,” Ian said.

“Not a spiritual one. Look, the point is these people are expecting one outcome. Everything—our case, the expedition—is geared around that outcome. If we screw it up for them, we’re going to get royally arse-fucked.”