Skyfall (10 page)

‘What was all that about?' Lari turned on his father the moment Dernan Mann's office door slid shut behind them.

‘Calm down, Larinan.'

‘Calm down? The city Prelate just welcomed me to DGAP as a member of the project and told me how thrilled she is to see me taking “my rightful place” here. What's that supposed to mean?'

‘It means you've finally received your placement, Lari. I should have thought that was obvious. You knew the city wouldn't allow you to sit around burning up resources forever.'

‘What if I don't want to accept?'

‘You already have. I told Lan to make sure you were officially approved and signed in before he permitted you into the meeting with the Prelate.'

‘You mean those documents he made me sign?'

His father nodded.

‘Your official acceptance-of-placement documents, assigning you to research division here.'

‘But I've never shown any interest in working here.'

‘You've never shown any interest in anything much, Larinan. In any case, you know this is our family field, so I don't understand why you're so surprised.'

‘I'm not surprised.' Lari shook his head, angry. ‘I just feel … cheated.'

‘Trust me, copygen, you're not the only one.' Janil rose from a chair beside their father's desk, where he'd been sitting.

‘That'll do, you two,' Dernan Mann snapped. ‘Janil, you made your feelings on the matter quite clear in the meeting.'

‘Not clear enough, obviously.' Janil snorted in disgust and stood to leave.

‘Sit down, Janil.'

‘Why? Obviously my opinions carry very little weight around here.'

‘They carry as much as they ever did.'

‘There was no need to bring the copygen into this, and you know it.'

‘That's what you believe. I happen to see it differently and I'm still the head of research around here!' It was as sharp as Lari had ever heard his father speak to Janil.

‘I don't need to hear this.'

‘Janil, I won't ask again. This involves you just as much as it does Larinan. Now sit!'

Janil flopped sullenly back into his seat.

‘You still haven't told me what's made you suddenly call me in,' Lari observed. For a long moment his father stared at him, then at Janil, and then he looked away, fingers massaging his temples as he did so.

‘A ghost, Larinan.'

‘Excuse me?' Lari thought he must have misheard, but his father repeated it.

‘A ghost. Someone we believed was dead a long time ago.'

‘Do you mean Mum?'

His father shook his head. ‘No. Though she's an important part of this.'

‘Then what?'

‘I know you've both often wondered why your mother and I chose to break protocol and have a second son, instead of following it and having a daughter.'

‘I always presumed you were just looking for more ways to make us popular with the rest of the city,' Janil muttered, but their father didn't rise to the bait.

‘As I'm sure you can imagine, it wasn't easy, choosing to set ourselves apart from such long-established social rules, but we had to make our decision quickly, and the more we thought about it, the more we came to the conclusion that there wasn't any alternative.'

‘That's not surprising. There's never any alternatives with you, is there, Father? You always know what's best for everyone.'

‘Janil, if you'd be quiet and listen, you might realise that even you don't have all the pieces to put together.'

‘Then tell me, Father! Tell me what's so important about
him
that we should put everything we're doing here at risk just to include him in it? I'm the one who's done all the work, I'm the one who's spent my whole life filling Mum's place, but now that we've finally – unbelievably – found what we need to bring this thing to a close, you suddenly call little Larinan in for his share of the glory. Explain that to me!'

‘Is that really how you see this, Janil? That's what you think we're doing here? Sharing out glory?'

‘Isn't it?'

Lari stared from his father to his brother and back again. They'd never argued like this, never. Janil had always been the shining star – the one who'd followed compliantly into the family field, the son Dernan Mann never criticised.

‘You know it's nothing to do with praise or reward, Janil. What we're dealing with here is bigger than mere recognition. Your entropy report made that perfectly clear.'

‘Are you suggesting he's got something to do with that, too?' Janil's tone was a mixture of scorn and incredulity.

‘He's got everything to do with it, son. He was conceived on the chance, however remote, that he might be able to stop it happening.'

Janil's retort died in his throat. He stood, mouth half open, staring in disbelief while their father continued.

‘The entropy scenario isn't new, Janil. You didn't invent it. You were just the first to give it a name – to codify and give voice to what we all knew was happening. But it's not a new idea, and your brother was your mother's and my last attempt to deal with it, to create within our family's field of expertise the resources we knew we might need to face what's coming. He was a tool we created in desperation and without even being certain that we'd get a chance to use him. And now, when it's almost too late …'

‘You don't need to go on. I get the picture.' Janil slumped back into his chair.

‘What do you mean, I was born to be a “tool”?' Lari didn't try to hide his anger. ‘Is that all I am to you?'

‘It's not like that, Larinan.' Dernan Mann turned back to his younger son. ‘That was an unfortunate choice of words, but this is a complex situation and it's not easy to know where to begin to explain.'

‘I know where to start.' Janil spoke quietly, soft malice behind his words. ‘I still think you're being deluded and I think you're clutching at straws, Father. You're letting your emotional desperation override your scientific training, and it's going to undermine everything we've been working towards.'

‘Janil—'

‘But, as you made so clear earlier, at the moment there isn't a damn thing I can do to stop you, so for what it's worth, if you're serious about bringing the copygen into this project, I know where to start.'

Their father raised his eyebrows, questioningly. ‘Where?'

‘Out there.' Janil nodded towards the eastern wall of the office.

‘What?' Lari stared at Janil, wondering if his brother had gone even more mad than usual. Their father, however, looked thoughtful.

‘He has to do field acclimatisation if he's going to be inducted,' Janil continued, ‘and it seems to me that he needs to see the wider perspective. You and I both know that starts out there.'

Dernan Mann nodded.

‘You're right, of course.' It was the first time since entering the office that Lari had seen anything like the normal relationship between his father and his brother. ‘We'll have to move fast, though. We really don't have time to waste.'

Janil looked at the timer on the wall.

‘It's coming up on third shift. Sundown's in a little over fifteen minutes. I can get prepped and we can be gone within ten minutes of the sun hitting the low horizon.'

‘Do it.'

Without another word, his brother left. As the door slid shut behind him, Lari turned on his father.

‘So are you going to tell me what's going on? All afternoon people have been talking around me and it's getting tiresome. Where's Janil gone?'

‘To prep a flyer.'

‘A flyer?' Lari stopped. He'd never been in one. Most people never would. Intercity services had been shut down centuries ago. As each of the skycities reached stability, hundreds of years earlier, most people had quickly decided that the risks of travel, of exposure, outweighed the benefits, and soon the only flyers still in service were those used by DGAP. ‘Why?'

‘We're going on a field trip, Larinan. It's something you'd have to do anyway as part of your induction. Every member of DGAP does at least one, so we might as well get yours done now.'

‘So we're going to the Darklands?'

‘Janil still doesn't really understand why it's so important that we bring you into DGAP, but even so, he's right when he says that everything I need to explain starts out there, so that's where we'll go.'

‘But a flyer …'

‘Don't worry, we'll be safe. Your brother is an excellent pilot and DGAP has been flying out to the subjects for a lot longer than either of us has been around. We know what we're doing, and it's a routine procedure with very little danger.'

‘It's not that,' Lari replied, but they both knew it was a lie. The silence grew between them and Lari fancied he could almost hear his mother's voice, laughing at him from the past.

You shouldn't be so worried, Lari. They're the same as every other machine. As long as I follow the protocols, I'll be perfectly safe …

But she hadn't been. Lari recalled that night – the last time she'd flown out – so well it might have been yesterday. One glance at his father's face told him that Dernan Mann was thinking about it too. No doubt the final conversation between him and his wife was etched as deeply into his memory as it was in Lari's.

When he'd come down for dinner, he could tell they'd been arguing again. It was always clear from the way his mother sat at the table with her back straight and her chin defiant, and from the way his father talked as though there was nothing wrong – while every word dripped with fake, exaggerated politeness.

‘Are you working tonight, Mum?' Even Janil, usually oblivious to tensions between their parents, had realised something was wrong.

‘Yes, darling. I'll be heading out after dinner.'

‘Eyna, I wish you'd stop and think about this.'

‘We don't need to discuss it now, Dernan.'

‘Then when, Eyna?' His father put his knife and fork down just a little harder than was necessary, and pushed away his plate of hydro and synthetein meat. ‘If not now, when? After you've gone? After you've flown off again to put your life at risk chasing a ghost?'

Lari and Janil made startled eye contact across the table. Even in their worst fights, their parents had always been careful not to actually argue in front of the boys.

‘I've told you, Dernan, she's out there.'

Their father rolled his eyes.

‘If she is, we haven't been able to find her. Not with scans, not with skyeyes, not with patrols. If – and I don't for a moment believe that she is – but
if
this girl is out there, Eyna, then someone or something is hiding her so well that even with all the resources of DGAP we haven't been able to track her down. Which is unlikely, you must admit.'

‘Only in your limited, scientific imagination, Dernan.'

‘Don't start that!' their father snapped. ‘Eyna, isn't it time you admitted that you've been chasing a shadow these last six years, and no matter how much you believe in this little bit of mythology, that's all it is? A story told to you by a bunch of illiterate savages who've been forgotten by evolution.'

‘Forgotten?' Now their mother stood up, her eyes ablaze with an anger that Lari had never seen there before. ‘Forgotten? That's rich, coming from the man whose entire career is being built on fixing up our genetic mistakes by using these so-called savages any way he can.'

‘Eyna, enough.' Suddenly their father became aware of Lari and Janil watching in wide-eyed astonishment. ‘There's no point going over all this now.'

‘You're right, there isn't. So don't bring it up again. I'm going to get ready.'

Their mother strode from the room, leaving her meal half-eaten, and as soon as she'd gone the two boys stared at their father.

‘What savages?' Janil's eyes had narrowed. ‘Do you mean the subjects?'

‘I shouldn't have used that word, Janil.' Their father rubbed two fingers in small circles over his temples, as though trying to relieve pressure. ‘They're not savages. They're just people who haven't had a chance to develop with the rest of the world and who could be very dangerous to our culture. You know the story.'

Janil nodded. Being children of DGAP parents, both boys had been brought up knowing about the importance of maintaining genetic stability, and the risk posed to it by those people who'd been exposed.

‘Why is Mummy angry?' Lari asked, still confused at her outburst and sudden departure.

‘Shut up, copygen!'

‘Janil! You do not talk to your brother like that, even if you're upset. Apologise.'

‘Sorry.' His brother had the false apology down to an art form. Lari knew there was nothing behind it.

‘That's better.'