Here We Stand, page 76




“He just showed up and settled on the goalpost,” Hiyashi said. “We thought he was Rikayl at first. Then the real Rik arrived and knocked ten bells out of him.”
Ingram grimaced at the increasingly gory spectacle on the grass. “So we’re back to square one. We assumed teeriks were native to Opis. Then they said they weren’t. But the best explanation for this one here is that they are. If so, Fred’s going to be terribly disappointed that there isn’t an ancient teerik civilisation to be restored.”
“He might know that and be lying for some reason,” Alex said.
“No.” Solomon had to set the record straight, even if Fred despised him now. “We talked about how they didn’t know where they originated and he was absolutely sincere. But it might explain why they ended up here, and why Lirrel did too.”
“What, some kind of homing instinct?” Ingram asked. “Across light years?”
“Perhaps. They do have extraordinary visuospatial skills. And their genetic memory — they might have a subconscious memory of where Opis is.”
“I just want to know what’s in the gap between the super-smart black teeriks and these guys,” Chris said. “And yeah, I know they’ve been selectively bred and that can make really big changes to how animals look and behave in a relatively short time, but like I say, turning them from dog-smart to Einstein is another matter. We don’t even know if the dead guy is as intelligent as Rikayl.”
“I smart, he thicko,” Rikayl said. He seemed to have tired of mangling the intruder. Solomon took the opportunity to move in and scoop up the remains for analysis. “So I win.”
“Okay, Rik, next time you find one, don’t kill it until we’ve given it an IQ test,” Alex said.
Ingram folded her arms and looked worried. “Assuming there are more of them.”
“In a way, I hope there are,” Marc said. “Because the other options on Professor Montello’s list of theories are much more worrying. Eh, Chris?”
“Yeah. Basically more lies, or more things Gan-Pamas left behind.”
This was a zoological curiosity, not the discovery of a new enemy to add to their growing list, but Solomon felt uneasy about everything that hadn’t shown up on the original surveys of Opis. He knew he hadn’t overlooked the teeriks when he analysed years of satellite imaging. There wasn’t an indication of even the most primitive of societies. If there were wild teeriks here, they built nothing and left no mark on the world. They were just one of potentially millions of undiscovered and uncatalogued species on this planet.
“I suppose I’d better find Fred and tell him,” Ingram said. “Still, it’ll probably answer the origin question for him, even if it’s not the answer he wants.”
“Does this mean Opis is rightfully theirs?” Marc asked. “Just as well they don’t have lawyers.”
“Even if they did, we’re here now,” Chris said. “And here we stay.”
Jeff squatted to look Rikayl in the eye again, then took a tissue from his pocket and wiped the blood and debris from the feathers around the teerik’s beak like a father cleaning up a chocolate-smeared toddler. He seemed totally unafraid of a creature that had shown again how efficiently it could kill. Rikayl tolerated the attention.
“Are you home, then, mate?” Jeff asked. “Is this where you all come from?”
Rikayl shook his head like a human. He’d learned the gesture fast.
“Dunno, but same,” he said. “I not weird. I not alone.”
EPILOGUE
Potsherds gallery and artists’ colony, ten miles north of Gosford, Australia: December 1, Earth calendar.
Jimmy Mun can still surprise me.
In this business, you have to be creative when you need a private meeting away from the prying eyes of those whose business this is definitely not. But the last place I’d imagined catching up with Jimmy is an art gallery.
Off-duty Jimmy is a different man to the one I last saw during the mission at Ainatio’s headquarters. He’s wearing a casual beige linen suit with light blue deck shoes, and to the rest of the world he looks like a successful chef on his day off, a man who knows hard physical work and suffers no fools, and appreciates the fine things in life and has the money to indulge in them when he can make the time. But they do say special forces can pass themselves off as anybody. Jimmy is a master of the knife, just not the nakiri or the santoku.
“I didn’t know you liked ceramics, Jimmy.”
He’s scrutinising an asymmetric bowl that’s rather pretty — sea green with a curtain of translucent amber around the rim in what I think they call drip glaze — but there’s no way I’d pay that much for a box of them, let alone a single piece.
“I’ve been away a lot this year,” he says. “As you know. So it’s a Christmas present for the missus to make it up to her. She collects this guy’s stuff.”
“First things first. Am I still a valued customer of Mr Lake?”
“He’s still pretty bloody mad about the helicopter.”
“And the personnel who were lost, I hope.”
“He’s not sentimental, boss.”
“Well, then, as he’s been paid, I assume I’m still on his Christmas card list. Not that he knows where to send it, or who to address it to, but metaphorically speaking.”
Jimmy nods, still not looking at me. “Yeah, he’ll provide whatever you need next. Is that what you really wanted to see me about?”
“Of course not.”
“Did APS notice what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Do I need to know the rest?”
“Maybe not, but for the record, I told them it was classified prototype tech that went wrong and apologised to Fiji for crashing in their territorial waters.”
Jimmy’s still studying the bowl. “Do you ever wonder if we imagined it, boss? You know. That thing.”
“We didn’t. They used it again. They vanished.”
He sighs, then takes out his wallet. “Excuse me for a moment. I’ve got to actually buy this.”
So I wait. Nobody takes the slightest bit of notice of me and I like that. The useful thing about APS politics is that very few normal people recognise any of their representatives and most can’t name them even if they vaguely know the face, which in my case they won’t, especially not since I grew this beard. And I’m amazed how little work you can get away with doing, which is how I’ve got time to pursue Ainatio. Any political structure that can allow a bloke like me to do as he pleases deserves to be toppled.
Terrence knows I’m still raiding Ainatio’s cupboards. He just doesn’t know that the contents are going to be used against him and his kind. I think that if I sat him down and told him, he still wouldn’t believe me.
“Done,” Jimmy says. He’s got a green carrier bag that he’s carrying like it’s a live grenade. “I can’t believe the price, but it makes her happy.” He pauses. “I saw Les’s widow the other day.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Not good. But at least she’s not starving and she had a body to bury. That’s something.”
I’m reliant on contractors like Jimmy and former colleagues in the intelligence service who are probably risking even more than I am. Les Davis died on another planet and I can’t even tell his widow the truth. That’s the hard bit. The least I can do is make sure she’s provided for by calling in favours, of which I have a very long list. It’s not the unpleasant stuff I’ve had to do in my service that keeps me awake at night. It’s anger about the shit people get away with. But it also keeps me going.
“Time for a beer,” I say.
It’s only a figurative beer. We order melon sodas and sit out on a deck overlooking the water, trying to discuss a complicated situation in euphemisms. Jimmy’s soda has an ice cream float and an unnaturally red cherry on top. You’d never know the world thinks it’s ending.
“The portal’s real, Jimmy.” I tell him about the soil tests on Les’s clothing the same way I told Stu, but instead of Stu’s disbelieving dread, Jimmy’s reaction looks like relief.
“I’m glad,” he says. “I thought I was losing my mind. But that doesn’t make it any easier to get hold of. Or the AI. You still want that thing taken down, right?”
“Yes. I do. Even more now after what it did.”
“I’ll do what you ask, boss, but I don’t see how we’re going to get access to any of this now. The AI and everyone involved are probably light years away and it looks like they can pop back here any time and be gone again in an instant. And you still want to carry on with this?”
“Knowing what we know now, Jimmy, could you walk away from it and pretend it isn’t out there?”
“It’s not about that. It’s about a whole new scale of operations.”
“London,” I say. “London’s not light years away.”
Jimmy thinks it over while he fishes the cherry out with a straw. “Y’know, I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid. What about London?”
“The whole Nomad thing has to have a back end somewhere and it’s too big a project for anything but a nation state to handle. I still say it’s Britain. So we find our weak link there.”
“Have you got people over there?”
“Of course.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“If we can’t seize it, we sabotage it. But I’m going to see what shakes out. It’s going to be a lot more productive than trying to lure the likes of Gallagher back here.”
There are other options to seizure and sabotage. There’s mutual interest, in that Britain doesn’t like APS as an entity any more than I do, and wouldn’t mind crimping its dominance. There’s information sharing. There’s probably a whole new angle I haven’t even considered yet. It all depends on what Britain plans to do with its new treasure, if it has the resources to do anything at all. If I had use of that portal, I know what I’d be doing with it. I’d be shipping in all the metals and minerals I can’t source on Earth any more, for a start.
And I’m betting that AI has a presence in London, if nothing else. We’ll see.
“You know my chances of getting into Britain are about zero,” Jimmy says. “You can’t just creep in. The bastards shoot you.”
“You won’t need to. I just need someone who can tackle the AI remotely.”
Jimmy picks up a long spoon and starts eating the scoop of ice cream that’s now near the bottom on a thin layer of emerald green soda. “As long as I don’t miss this Christmas at home. Just this once, in case it’s my last.”
He’s taken Les’s death worse than I expected. “I don’t expect we’ll be leaving Oz at all.”
“One question.”
“Yeah?”
“You think that hitman Montello was serious about the aliens?”
“He was just goading me. I’ll be bloody surprised if it’s true.”
“Me too. But I’m surprised about a lot of things these days.” Jimmy scrapes the glass clean and looks at it for a while as if he’s recalling something. “Okay, I’m in.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
I’ve got a lot of ground to cover now. I’m going to have a chat with Stu McCabe about who we have in London at the moment, and if we can trust them. I could think of a lot of things that would be easier to achieve that would still put a dent in APS, but it’s like I said. What I’ve seen, what I know is out there, is so world-changing that I can’t afford to say we’re just Australia and we’re too small to think on that scale. Britain won’t. It’s something so rare and powerful that I have to try to grab it, and at very least junk that AI.
And aliens?
Aliens my arse.
* * *
THE NOMAD STORY CONTINUES IN BOOK 4
COMING SOON
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen Traviss is the author of a dozen New York Times bestsellers, and her critically acclaimed Wess’har books have been finalists five times for the Campbell and Philip K. Dick awards. She also writes comics and games with military and political themes. A former defence correspondent, newspaper reporter, and TV journalist, she lives in Wiltshire, England.
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ALSO BY KAREN TRAVISS
NOMAD
The Best of Us
Mother Death
RINGER
Going Grey
Black Run
WESS’HAR
City of Pearl
Crossing the Line
The World Before
Matriarch
Ally
Judge
COLLECTED SHORT STORIES
View Of A Remote Country
HALO
Glasslands
The Thursday War
Mortal Dictata
GEARS OF WAR
Aspho Fields
Jacinto’s Remnant
Anvil Gate
Coalition’s End
The Slab
STAR WARS
Republic Commando: Hard Contact
Republic Commando: Triple Zero
Republic Commando: True Colors
Republic Commando: Order 66
Imperial Commando: 501st
Bloodlines
Sacrifice
Revelation
The Clone Wars
No Prisoners
Karen Traviss, Here We Stand