Ambassador 1_Seeing Red Page 8

  Blocks of units lined the street, with only a few scattered lights. Most of the windows were dark, the glass broken. Discarded furniture and rubbish lined the street, leaving barely enough space for vehicles. A tram rumbled in front of us, honking its horn. It slowed, and slowed even more.

  “What’s all this about?” The driver threw the guard a glance and craned his head, but even in the back I could see that there was no room to overtake the tram.

  From further down the street came shouts and the tinkling of breaking glass. People ran across the road. A couple of figures threw rocks at a building on the right. Their faces lit up with flashes of orange. Fire?

  There was a “poof” of an explosion and a group of young men rushed past, some of them weaving their way between rubbish piles in homemade wheelchairs.

  The guard next to me unclipped one of his guns from its bracket, his dark face all tension.

  “Mashara?”

  He shook his head, pressing his free hand to the earpiece; he glanced over his shoulder. A taxi and a bus waited behind us. No white cars.

  The tram stopped in a small square. I realised this was a regular stop, because there was a platform with a sign on which I could just make out the letter L; the rest had broken off. Sure enough, this was the suburb of Lombardijen, hotbed of illegal and riotous activities.

  Behind the tram stop were a couple of shops, and flames billowed from one of them. Silhouetted against the orange glow, figures ran towards the tram, carrying burning pieces of wood.

  The tram’s passengers rose from their seats and crammed towards the back. A woman screamed.

  “Get ready to take us out of here,” the guard next to the driver said.

  I couldn’t see how; we were stuck. My heart was thudding in my chest. As long as no one discovered who, and what, we were . . .

  The guard next to me nudged the control button for the window so it opened a slit. He pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead and with the other hand raised the gun so the barrel stuck out between the glass and the window frame.

  Two figures in black ran past the side of the tram, holding burning pieces of wood. Eyes glinted in our direction. One of the men shouted, “Chans!”

  The guard tensed.

  I yelled, “Don’t shoot!”

  The other guard bellowed, “Now!”

  The guard next to me stiffened.

  I ducked.

  I felt, rather than saw, the weapon discharge. The air crackled and chilled my skin.

  The engine roared like I didn’t know electric engines could. Tyres screeched. The car shot forward, bumped one wheel onto the kerb. The wheels crunched through rubbish, slipped. The engine churned and screamed. Something hit the side door with a thunk.

  Then the car shot away and the glow of fire and the screams faded. Sirens wailed somewhere close, came towards us, and passed.

  Still the car gathered speed. I didn’t know there were city cars that could go this fast; the Coldi owner had probably inserted some non-Earth technology.

  Slowly I raised my head from my knees.

  “Are you all right, Delegate?” the guard next to me asked. He still held the gun. The metallic smell of discharge filled the car. I felt sick.

  “You didn’t. . . ?”

  “Mashara aimed away from live targets.”

  Meaning what? That he hadn’t deliberately shot at people but might have hit some by mistake?

  Oh shit, oh holy shit.

  “To clear the way for the vehicle, Delegate.”

  I blew out a breath.

  I could still hear a tinny voice somewhere, but a glance over my shoulder only revealed an empty street. Dilapidated apartment blocks, crossings, trams whizzed by. The driver and the guard were talking about directions, arguing over the navigator screen about the best way to go.

  Then I realised that the muffled voice I kept hearing was Amarru’s. My earpiece had fallen onto the seat between my legs.

  I fumbled to pick it up—damn, my hands hurt—and reattached it to my ear.

  “Amarru?”

  “Cory, are you still there?”

  “I’m sorry. We just hit . . . one of the riots . . . I think.”

  “Are you all right? Did I hear a discharge?”

  “Yes. I don’t think any damage was done. I think we have gone off course a bit. Where are we?” It was dark on both sides of the car.

  “Diversion,” the driver replied, his attention firmly on the road. He was swerving around obstacles and, every now and then, there was the sound of the tyres hitting water. Definitely still outside the White zone. “Ask her where else there is trouble.”

  Amarru said, “Put me on to him.”

  She gave me the code to patch his feeder through the unit. A data-transfer icon blinked in the middle of the holo-screen; Amarru’s voice fell quiet. The piece of Earth technology wasn’t rigged up to deal with both types of communication at the same time. I cursed myself that I couldn’t listen. This would have been so much easier if I still had my feeder.

  For a few minutes, no one said anything. The driver sat silent, his eyes on the road, while trying to break the speed record for electric cars on badly-maintained roads that were half underwater.

  Then the car charged up a dike. A gate materialised out of the dark and behind it, a well-lit road with blinding headlights of buses and taxis. The driver thumbed his comm unit, and the gate swung open. He steered the car through, looking in the rear-vision mirror.

  I glanced over my shoulder; between the gates which were closing again, the road was empty.

  The car swung onto the main road, following the fence line. On the other side moonlight glimmered on water.

  The icon at the unit blinked off and sound returned to my earpiece.

  “We’re going to the airport, aren’t we?” I asked Amarru.

  “That’s where I’ve directed him to go.”

  “Do I get a say in this?”

  “I’m offering a way to safety, Cory. Take advantage of it. I can’t guarantee no one will kill you if you stay here. We both know it’s the right thing to do. Gamra has no responsibility for the attack on the president. You haven’t done anything. Nicha hasn’t done anything. We are not letting Nations of Earth suggest we did, or letting them dictate the terms. We will talk, but on our terms, and not under threat. Iyamichu ata.”

  That was it then. She threw the gauntlet, asked me to repeat the pledge to follow her, as I’d heard Coldi soldiers did before going for a mission. She could demand that of me; she was my superior in the loyalty network. What else could I do? If what had happened to Nicha was a guide of what I could expect, my options were limited.

  Still, I stalled. “Is there a point in trying to get through customs? If the police want to intercept me, I won’t be allowed to leave the country.”

  “I said that our bugs are better than theirs. We guarantee this flight only. Get out, Cory, while you can.”

  No other option. “Iyamichu ata.”

  “Good. Have a nice trip. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  7

  THE AIRPORT.

  Glaring lights reflected in puddles outside the terminal. Taxis and buses waited for bleary-eyed passengers who streamed out of the building, suitcases in tow like little doggies.

  I stumbled out of the car at the drop-off area, the meal and alcohol consumed at Eva’s house heavy in my stomach and my decision heavy on my mind. Did pressure exerted by Amarru justify leaving Nicha? Would Nicha forgive me? Was I doing the right thing? I didn’t know.

  As diplomat, I was supposed to have carefully considered answers, but right now, I had none. I longed for a shower and a clean bed. I was a buggered-around runty pig that had missed the feed trough.

  One of the guards took my luggage and led the way into the harsh light of the terminal. I fiddled with my comm unit. “Mashara, can I at least let Eva know that I’m leaving?”

  The guard shook his head ever so slightly. “With respect for you safety, Delegate,
not now.”

  “I have to let someone know, or everyone will think that this is a kidnapping. Gamra will be blamed even more. How about my father?” The guards would know my father wouldn’t run to the press. He was retired, a New Colonist himself, and didn’t hold much love for suspicious media.

  “Mashara regrets not. Chief Delegate Akhtari’s orders. Until gamra sources establish responsibility, it will be assumed that since the first attempt on the Delegate’s life failed, the perpetrators will try a second time. Since we are now in hostile territory, let us move.” He gestured at the flight counter, where a smiling, blue-eyed girl was staring at our extraterrestrial party.

  Hostile territory?

  All right—it was a form of kidnapping then. You’ll take one of ours—we’ll take one of yours. While Nicha was held by the police, I was to face the wrath of gamra’s Chief Delegate Akhtari, a dragon with a reputation of spitting fire. On the other hand, I’d get more information out of her than the police would get out of Nicha. Information that might be useful in getting him released.

  I nodded to the guards. “Let’s go then.”

  True to Amarru’s word, my ID scanned without hitch. Right now, I didn’t want to know how she achieved it, but I’d long suspected that all those computer chips, especially ones made in Japan and China early in the 21st century, had been seeded with little Coldi routines that no one noticed but could be called up with special commands. Those commands Amarru had activated on my behalf, and if this came out . . . I didn’t want to know, I just didn’t.

  From the customs gate, the guards led me straight to the plane. My hasty entry, while the engines were already running, caused raised eyebrows. Some passengers elbowed each other. Others pointed. Cory Wilson had become a celebrity for all the wrong reasons.

  The airhostesses shut the door after me and bustled us to an empty row of seats. One of the guards sat next to the window; I, in the middle; the second guard in the aisle seat.

  During taxi and take-off, I stared out the window at the few pinpricks of light that pierced the rain. Down there, Eva was asleep and knew nothing. Tomorrow morning, a few hours away, Delia would call to bluster at me over the meeting I was late attending, and Vice President Danziger would find his representative gone.

  And a whole lot would fly besides this plane, but in one way or another, I would find a way to deal with that. I had one chance to prove myself worthy of this job, and this was it.

  Into the lion’s den, the cliché said.

  By now, clouds obscured the last few lights and I leaned back in my seat.

  The guard next to the window pretended to be asleep, but I didn’t mistake the sensor behind his ear for a music player.

  The other guard had taken out a pocket reader. He scrolled through text, but his eyes didn’t move behind his sunglasses. Listening to something, it seemed.

  I tapped the man’s arm. “Mashara, can I have my reader, please?”

  The guard passed me the padded bag.

  I put the reader on the folded-out table. While I flicked through the menus a hostess came with coffee, which I accepted gratefully.

  Ah—the news. I skipped sections about rioting, deliberately, because there was nothing I could do about it, and Eva was down there. . . . Deep breath, Mr Wilson.

  . . . Meanwhile, sources close to the family have confirmed that the president has responded to the presence of people around his bed. . . .

  Well, that was a bit of good news. Maybe Danziger would not captain the ship just yet.

  I flicked through the other news items.

  Another transport strike.

  Housing problems on Taurus to be fixed. An article by freelance journalist Melissa Hayworth.

  The housing shortage in Arcadia worsened as desert sands claimed another suburb. This came at the time that the Taurus governor-elect Marius Sena announced a project to protect the outer suburbs of the city. . . .

  So . . . Melissa Hayworth specialised in non-Earth affairs. Interesting.

  A link on her name brought up her personal information. Single, no children. She had grown up in Germany, where her mother, after divorcing her first husband, had married a businessman by the name of Ludo Chan. Ah—that explained a lot.

  I know what it is like, she had said.

  She did know what it was like, living in two worlds. She was not so very different from me, having acquired a Damarcian stepmother when I was ten.

  Melissa had done well at school and later won prizes for journalism. Frankly, she deserved better than Flash Newspoint.

  The biography listed recent articles she had contributed, not just to Flash, but other news services as well.

  Union toys with us. That gave her opinion loud and clear.

  It’s official: believers are out. That was not true, and I would have to fight to counter this perception, that somehow gamra thought that religion was primitive and needed to be renounced before Nations of Earth had any chance of full membership of gamra. It was the Coldi perception, emphatically not the gamra stand on the matter, and the two were not the same.

  This morning’s article was: Vanished scientist had many secret ties.

  Did this have something to do with non-Earth affairs? I followed the link.

  Most people in weather forecasting know British scientist Elsi Schumacher for her Earth-spanning climate models which won her the prestigious Selinger Prize for Scientific Excellence two years ago. People would not associate her with dealings with powerful extraterrestrial governments. Yet this is what seems to be the case, and these ties may yet prove the key to her disappearance.

  After Dr Schumacher failed to turn up for work on Monday, investigators have delved into her life for possible clues to her disappearance. She is unmarried, and a possible unconfirmed love interest is a colleague of hers who has repeatedly denied any involvement. Dr Smith says that their relationship was platonic, as “Dr Schumacher seemed always far too busy to invest time in personal relationships.” It seems likely that the clues to her disappearance lie in her professional life. Recently, another side to this life has been revealed. Dr Schumacher had been working on a project funded by sources within the Union of Planetary Entities. . . .

  Now that was interesting. Never mind that I got increasingly irritated with the insistence of the press on using that outdated and incorrect translation. It gave the impression that gamra was an equivalent of Nations of Earth. It wasn’t. Gamra eysh’ zhamadata meant network of settled worlds, literally. Gamra maintained the network, the Exchange, the only possible means of interstellar travel between the members, and all member entities had a say in its running, or, more precisely, who could use it and who couldn’t.

  I clicked on a link which showed pictures of Elsi at a dinner function with Coldi delegation members—I recognised none of them. Another picture had her sitting at the table next to, of all people, Sirkonen. The pair were deeply engaged in conversation, Sirkonen holding a glass of wine. What was he doing there? The caption said the picture was taken at a prize-giving ceremony. Perhaps Sirkonen had been there to hand out the science prize Dr Schumacher had won. Maybe. It seemed to me that he was far too much of a heavyweight to be present at a smallish ceremony, let alone to chat so informally with someone not in a high political position. I let it slide.

  Back to Melissa’s article.

  No one at the Dawkins Centre for Climatic Research could confirm the exact nature of the project, only that Dr Schumacher had recently come under funding stress, and that she had perhaps over-stretched herself and her project members in order to secure funding. A colleague, who did not wish to be named, mentioned several visits from extraterrestrials—confirmed to be Coldi—at the scientist’s lab. After at least one of these visits, she appeared to be agitated. However, searches on the Centre’s computer have found nothing out of the ordinary. . . .

  I linked through to the Dawkins Centre, where I found the scientist’s name listed on the staff. Her personal area listed her prize and a description
of the research, but there was also another link: whole-planet modelling.

  That brought up a selection of maps with coloured areas. One was of Taurus, sections of the continent shown in red and orange hues. That summed up how I felt about the four years I had lived there. Hot, hot, and hotter.

  There was a map of Mars, too. New Taurus even, although that one had large areas of white.

  Descriptions of weather patterns, air streams and weather trends. All based on the models that described the process of global warming as it had happened on Earth. Oh, I could well see the value of the expertise. Apparently, if fifty-year trends were to be believed, Taurus was in the process of becoming hotter, if that was at all possible. Just the thought made me sweat. A small ice age was expected for Earth within the next thousand years.

  Wow. Interesting stuff. Bring on the mammoths.

  I went through a few more screens. Coloured blotches superimposed over maps. Oceans, continents, mountain ridges.

  Hang on—hadn’t I seen a map like this before—in the information Sirkonen had given me?

  I dug the datastick from my pocket and inserted it in the reader. The first page still came up empty. My mind filled in the blanks—A report written by Elsi Schumacher of the Dawkins Centre?

  Yesterday, I had been too tired to notice much. Now the lines underneath the coloured sections stood out clearly. I was looking at a map of Asto, the Coldi home world. Two continents curved towards each other in mirrored moon shapes, a mountain ridge along a land-locked ocean. The continent on the left was home to the mega-city of Athyl, the epicentre of Coldi society. Beratha, the other major settlement centre, was on the second continent.

  What did all these colours mean? Purple, blue and green, a bit like the reflections in Coldi hair. I flicked to the legend predicted rainfall changes.

  It rained little on Asto; large areas of the planet were dead and uninhabitable even to heat-adapted Coldi, and no other people could visit the planet. Asto’s people found water in deep fissures that ran through the desert like lashes of a whip. They irrigated the desert, and grew mushrooms on the fissure walls, but much of Asto’s food was imported these days, mostly from Ceren, the second world in the system, green and lush, and the home of the city-state of Barresh, gamra headquarters.