Текст книги "The Abyss Beyond Dreams"

Автор книги: Peter F. Hamilton

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Текущая страница: 37 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

The cells chosen were from the top layers of the network: people who had been recruited right at the start, those who had proved themselves to be loyal time and again, as well as being totally committed. Weapons caches were finally broken open, and explosives distributed. Nine groups met up for the first time in the late afternoon five days after Varlan’s water supplies were disrupted. Each of them took a cart out of the capital, riding them to railway bridges, not just on the four main lines but on the nearby branch lines that could be used as alternative routes into Varlan.

After darkness, they crept across the supports and arches, placing bundles of explosives precisely in the places they’d been told – locations that Skylady had worked out were the maximum load points. At two o’clock in the morning, fuses were lit. Ten minutes later, explosions crippled seven bridges.

News seeped into the city as the dawn cast a crisp light across the buildings and waterlogged streets. As before, it was markets such as the Wellfield that alerted friends and business colleagues to the absence of trains. Ex-sight began to scan round, perceiving marshalling yards full of the trains that should be heading out. Railway workers were summoned in early, and packed into special trains that headed cautiously along the tracks. Head office staff were called in and swiftly dispatched by horse and cab to further assess the damage. The chief sheriff of every borough was roused; they converged on the Justice Ministry offices, along with senior government officials and Trevene’s lieutenant. By seven o’clock in the morning all of Varlan knew the rail bridges north, east and west of the city had been sabotaged. No natural collapse, no derailment blocking the lines, no water surge washing away supports, no structural failure of ageing structures. They’d been blown up. Giftings from people who’d travelled out and returned were shared across the whole city, confirming the destruction. The only communications left open were the roads, the river and the Southern City Line.

‘I cannot get anyone to respond,’ Bethaneve said in frustration. She was sitting at the kitchen table in Number Sixteen Jaysfield Terrace, fingers pressed against her temple as she sent ’path after ’path into their network. ‘I just don’t understand what’s happened.’

‘The trains from Willesden station are leaving on schedule,’ Slvasta confirmed, as ’paths came slinking through the complex network strung across the city, relaying messages directly from five separate cell members at Willesden, sent there specifically to tell them what the Southern City Line managers were doing and saying. ‘The company’s been ’pathing out general reassurances since six o’clock. Three teams of sheriffs have been sent to guard the closest bridges.’

‘Uracus! They can’t have intercepted all our demolition squads – they just can’t. That makes no sense. Trevene either knows all about us or he doesn’t. He wouldn’t have arrested just two squads and left the rest alone. Where are they?’

‘Maybe running for cover. Or they had some kind of accident. It was a lot of explosives they had piled up on those carts.’

‘I don’t like it.’ For the first time, Bethaneve actually showed uncertainty. ‘We would have heard about it if the carts exploded.’

‘So they didn’t explode. They threw a wheel, or a horse spooked and bolted. Who knows?’

‘I need to know!’

He wanted to tell her to calm down, but that would be a mistake, he knew. She was running on raw nerves now. And terrified. ‘We’ll know soon enough. At least they haven’t been arrested.’

‘How do you know that?’ she shouted.

‘Because we haven’t been arrested.’

‘All right. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’ He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I have to go.’

She nodded, her hair falling down over her face to hide a forlorn expression. ‘Be careful.’

‘I will, but I need to be at the National Council.’

‘Everyone’s in place. They’ll gift your message out uncensored.’

They embraced. He could feel her trembling, and assumed she knew he was equally scared behind the hardest shell he’d ever manifested. His ex-sight perceived Andricea, Coulan and Yannrith waiting for them in Number Sixteen’s entrance hall below. ‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s go. I want to know you’re at the safe house before I make the denouncement.’

‘Let’s hope it is safe.’

‘Ha! Now who’s the cynic?’

She smiled and hugged him closer. ‘Please be careful.’

‘You too.’

It took a long moment for them to let go of each other.

At the bottom of the stairs, Coulan and Yannrith looked equally pensive, while Andricea looked positively gleeful.

‘How’s it going?’ Slvasta asked. He and Bethaneve had been so busy with the rail bridges and preparing his National Council appearance they’d left the other half of the operation to Coulan and Javier.

‘Distribution’s been running pretty smoothly,’ Coulan said. ‘The caches were opened at four o’clock this morning, and we’ve armed the majority of grade threes.’

‘What are grade threes?’ Slvasta asked.

‘The comrades we believe can be trusted with weapons,’ Bethaneve said as they went out into the road where two cabs were waiting. ‘After all, we can’t supply every grunt on the street. That would be anarchy, and we want precision.’

‘Right,’ Slvasta frowned. Something she’d said bothered him, and he couldn’t figure out what or why. ‘What about the snipers?’ He hated the idea of that – it was cold murder – but the others had talked him round.

‘They’re all active and ready,’ Yannrith said.

‘Okay, then.’ He looked at Bethaneve as she stood poised beside the cab – wearing a simple burgundy-red dress, her hair held in place with clips, those broad features burning with concern – working hard to memorize the image perfectly. Because if this all went straight to Uracus, it would be the last time . . . He grinned at his own pessimism.

She mistook it for encouragement. ‘See you tonight, my love.’

‘See you tonight.’

Coulan and Andricea climbed into the cab with Bethaneve. Slvasta shut the door, and the horse started off down the street at a fast pace, with Andricea’s mod-bird zipping through the air high above. He and Yannrith got into their cab, fuzzing the interior.

‘Crud!’ Yannrith grunted.

‘I know. Every day I have to ask myself if this is real.’

‘It doesn’t get any more real, captain. Not today.’

Their cab made good time across the city. It was a cloudless cobalt sky vaulting the capital, with the hot sun glaring down. Slvasta didn’t know if that was auspicious or not. The morning’s river mist began to clear urgently, evaporating out of the wider boulevards and avenues. It exposed the deep puddles and long streams running down the middle of streets, still lingering six days after the pipes had burst and the reservoirs discharged into the city. The water was dank and sluggish now, steaming slightly under the morning sunlight. Whole boroughs were still without fresh water; those living closest to the river took buckets to the quayside and hauled them back home just like people from the Shanties. The northern boroughs had laid on emergency tank carts, rationing each household to two buckets a day. The silt and filth that had been swept along by the tide of water had been deposited in rooms and along roads as the levels fell. Borough council work crews struggled to clear the stinking mess away. Fire carts were helping to drain basements and cellars with their mobile pumps. People were starting to mutter about how it would have been so much easier if they had mod-apes and dwarfs to help. Every engineer employed by the water utilities was working sixteen-hour days as they strove to repair the network and restore supplies.

Two days ago, Captain Philious himself had toured the worst afflicted areas. He even climbed down from his carriage to talk with flooded householders and the owners of ruined businesses, offering sympathy. ‘I know exactly what it’s like: we have no water in the Palace, either.’ Which was a politically astute lie; the Palace had its own freshwater spring. He also promised to punish ‘those responsible’ and get the city and National Council to pass much stricter regulation so this could never happen again.

The atmosphere of misery and resentment pervading Varlan was as thick and toxic as the stench of the sewage layer clogging the streets. And now with news of the rail bridges percolating between the residents, uncertainty had supplanted stoic misery. Several of the large wholesale markets had shut their gates that morning; without trains coming in, they simply had no fresh food to sell. All the food in city warehouses dramatically increased in price and became difficult to obtain. Retailers that did open sold out fast, although most kept their doors closed. Crowds began to gather at the borough markets, their vocal complaints escalating fast at the sight of empty stalls. Sheriffs arrived, to be goaded by strategically positioned cell members. What started as worry and dissatisfaction began to grow into something more ugly.

As the shock of the transport failures sank in, so businesses large and small began to realize the true extent of the problem. A lot of private ’paths began to flash out. Banks found queues materializing outside before they opened. Sheriffs were called to keep order as the queues steadily lengthened. The first customers that rushed in as soon as nervous clerks opened the doors demanded huge cash withdrawals. Banks didn’t keep large amounts of cash at individual branches. On the emergency instructions of the Treasury, managers were told to limit withdrawals to fifty silver shillings per customer. Nice middle-class people got very cross about that. Arrests were made. Branches tried to shut, only to find people forcing the doors open. More requests for sheriffs were hurriedly ’pathed.

By ten o’clock, Varlan’s mighty economy was grinding to a noisy and unprecedented halt. Real fear was beginning to gain momentum. It was everything the revolution wanted. Fear was a state easy to exploit.

‘Did you know about the grading?’ Slvasta asked as the cab arrived at the central government area. Here the avenues were clear and clean, untouched by the flood and disruption – deliberately so, to help encourage resentment.

‘Captain?’ Yannrith said.

‘That we’d graded cell members to find the ones we could trust?’

‘I knew instructions had gone out to help decide who to give the guns to. Bethaneve is right; you can’t just give them to everybody. Why?’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t know. Or I forgot; Giu knows, there’s been a lot of planning. Coulan chose his palace militia carefully. I helped him and Javier with the bridge teams – we can’t have mistakes with the critical parts of the plan. There are so many details . . .’ Yet he knew that wasn’t what bothered him.

Two kilometres past the palace, Byworth Avenue ended at First Night Square – a huge expanse of cobbles encircled by snow-white riccalon trees, where it was said the passengers of Captain Cornelius set up camp the night they landed on Bienvenido. The circular National Council building stood at the far end, dominating the whole square with its eight blue-stone fresco rings wrapped round the rust-red brick wall. The green copper dome on top shone a hazy lime in the morning sun. Native birds sat perched on the lip, staring down at the large crowd milling round the square. Over two thousand people had already gathered, mostly men, and definitely no children. The instructions which had come buzzing through the cell network as they woke had been very clear about that. No one wanted another Haranne incident.

The grim psychic aura they gave off matched their demeanour. It was stifling, as if the air temperature had risen ten degrees. Cabs delivering National Council members to the morning’s emergency debate were booed and jostled with teekay, making their horses skittish. Badly unnerved representatives hurried into the sanctuary of their grand building, carefully avoiding glancing at the forest of banners with crude slogans and cartoonish images of the Captain.

The horse pulling Slvasta’s cab grew panicky as it trotted round the road at the edge of the square. Slvasta dropped his fuzz, allowing ex-sight to pervade the inside of the cab. It was a perception that was quickly gifted round the square. The cheering began.

He opened the door, and grinned round at the smiling faces, raising his arm. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he ’pathed wide. ‘Thank you for adding weight to my lone voice in this nest of ugly bussalores. I’m here to tell the First Speaker and Citizens’ Dawn that their way, their privilege and arrogance, is coming to an end. They must listen to you, they must act upon your grievances. You have a RIGHT to be heard. They cannot ignore you forever. Today, they will be made to LISTEN.’

A renewed wave of cheering swept over First Night Square like a gale, breaking upon the walls of the National Council building. Slvasta pumped his fist into the air, then hopped down and strode through the main entrance. Yannrith walked alongside him, motioning the Council guards away. They were mostly ceremonial officers, positions awarded to troopers retiring from regiments so they might spend their last decades in fine scarlet and navy-blue tunics, living in neat apartments and being given three full meals a day before accepting Guidance. They certainly had no contingency to repel large angry mobs.

‘Sheriffs are on their way, captain,’ the master at arms told Slvasta as he made his way across the ante-chamber. ‘Don’t worry.’

He nodded briefly, and carried on towards the central amphitheatre.

‘Slvasta,’ Bethaneve private ’pathed. ‘The Meor is mobilizing.’

‘Crud.’ He couldn’t help a worried glance at Yannrith. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. They’re coming out of their barracks. Two ferries have been taken out of public service, and they’re docked on the south bank waiting for them. The crowds must have frightened the First Speaker. There’s a lot of discontent coming to the boil in the city.’

‘It’s supposed to, but . . . Crud, I thought we’d have more time.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll deploy some grade three comrades to the quayside to pin them down. We have several allocated for it. They won’t get into the centre of the city today.’

Slvasta knew they had contingencies for everything – well, every screw-up they could think of. So stick with the plan and trust your people. ‘Okay.’

He made it into the huge amphitheatre, where several hundred councillors were taking their seats. But it was by no means a full session. The disapproval of the crowd outside was penetrating the thick walls, contributing to the worried and sombre mood gripping the tiers of desks. Nobody knew what to make of the city’s economy crashing.

Down on the floor of the amphitheatre, Slvasta saw Crispen, Trevene’s lieutenant, in a huddle with the First Speaker, who still hadn’t taken his polished throne on the podium. The two of them were having an intense discussion. The First Speaker glanced up at Slvasta, then hurriedly away.

‘Congratulations,’ someone said.

Slvasta turned round to the tier of desks behind his. Newbon, the councillor for Wurzen, inclined his head. ‘That was a nice chunk of theatre outside. Well played.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What comes next?’

‘I meant what I said. I will give those people a voice in here. They can be denied no longer.’

‘Quite right. Though I’m curious that they have an opinion on bridges being blown up.’

‘Suppressed anger finds many outlets.’

‘You really do have integrity, don’t you?’

‘I try.’

Newbon pressed his lips together and ’pathed privately, ‘Be careful. There are powerful people watching you today.’

‘Thank you,’ Slvasta said quietly. He took his seat, with Yannrith sitting behind him.

It wasn’t just the emotions of the crowd outside which could be felt in the chamber; their chanting too was audible, faint but ever present as a disconcerting tremble in the air.

‘Sheriffs are moving into First Night Square,’ Yannrith murmured.

Slvasta opened his shell to receive various giftings, and watched through another’s eyes as long carts filled with squads of sheriffs began to arrive at the back of the National Council building. On the other side of the Colbal, the Meor regiment was marching down to the jetty where the ferries Alfreed and Lanuux were berthed, waiting for them. ‘Uracus,’ he muttered. ‘There must be over a thousand of them. Their full strength.’

‘They can’t cover the whole city,’ Bethaneve ’pathed privately. ‘There are trouble spots erupting everywhere. People are angry and afraid. We were . . . more successful than we expected.’

The First Speaker took to his throne on the podium and held up the gavel of silence. ‘I call this honourable assembly to order. You have been summoned to debate the unprecedented acts of sabotage perpetrated against the main railway lines vital to this city, and how we are to advise the Captain to respond. I call upon the representative for Feltham, who sits upon the Captain’s security committee, to give us an account of the night’s events.’

‘There’s still nothing from our Southern City Line teams,’ Bethaneve ’pathed as the councillor walked down to the podium. ‘I’m worried.’

‘They must have been arrested.’

‘There’s nothing from any sheriff informant about that. They’ve vanished. There were twenty people and a lot of explosives on those carts. How can they just vanish?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.

‘Our agents confirm the bridges are still up, and now heavily guarded.’

‘Uracus! Should we send more teams, take out bridges further down the line?’

‘I talked that through with Coulan. We can’t see the point, not now. Trade is completely paralysed, everything is shutting down. We’ve got the anarchy we wanted.’

‘Okay. I’m about to make my stand.’

The Feltham representative was finishing his account. It was clear that he knew only the barest details, just which bridges were down, and how it was triggering great economic hardship to everyone, not only the merchants. ‘So I would ask my honourable colleagues to unequivocally condemn those who perpetrated this appalling crime against all of us. The sheriffs and other government forces should have full authority to search out and apprehend these terrorists, and sentence them to take immediate Guidance. Let them swiftly discover for themselves if the Heart will accept them, or if they are bound for Uracus.’

‘They’ve done it,’ Javier private ’pathed as the Feltham representative walked up the aisle to his desk. ‘The Captain signed a suspension order. It’s starting to arrive in government offices. Trevene’s people are already in sheriff stations, telling them who to arrest.’

‘Do we have names?’ Slvasta asked as he dropped the red ball into his desk cup.

‘Union officials and Democratic Unity officers. They’re coming for us.’

‘Make sure that goes out across the network. Tell every cell member.’

‘We’re on it.’

‘I call the representative for Yeats to address Council,’ the First Speaker announced.

Slvasta stood up at the same time as the Yeats councillor started walking down the aisle. Councillors behind their desks looked quite shocked.

‘Captain Slvasta,’ the First Speaker exclaimed loudly, ‘you have not been called.’

‘Nor am I likely to be,’ Slvasta declared. ‘For I know who is responsible.’

Outside, the crowd in First Night Square was cheering.

The representative from Yeats had stopped halfway down the aisle, looking uncertainly at the First Speaker. ‘I yield the floor to the representative from Langley,’ he said.

Slvasta ignored him and walked over to the First Speaker’s podium. Every councillor was silent, leaving the muffled cheers and chanting of the crowd as the only sound in the cavernous amphitheatre.

Slvasta paused, and slowly looked round the tiers of desks, his uncompromising stare demanding the attention of everyone in the amphitheatre. ‘I lost my arm in defence of this world. It is a small price to pay for ensuring another nest of Fallers was thwarted. But as to why I lost it? That is down to a multitude of compromises made by my regiment – compromises to the front-line budget necessary so barracks officers could live a comfortable life. Compromises which continue to this day. Compromises supported by the Treasury, desperate to maintain the status quo. Hundreds of people in New Angeles lost their lives – no, that is how the gazettes report it. Hundreds of people in New Angeles were eaten alive by a nest. Why? Because the Captain’s uncle was a corrupt, debauched bastard who cared only for his own welfare, and that of his family cronies.’

Cries of protest rose from the desks, ’pathed calls of shame swatted against his shell. Slvasta remained resolute, buoyed by the swell of approval from the massed minds outside.

‘Alfreed and Lanuux just started across the river,’ Bethaneve reported. ‘I’ve got some armed comrades in place on the quayside, but I don’t know how long they can delay the Meor.’

‘Almost done,’ Slvasta ’pathed back to her. He caught sight of Yannrith, who had risen from his seat. He nodded at Slvasta.

‘The water utilities debacle?’ Slvasta declared angrily. ‘Not a product of sabotage, as conveniently declared by this very assembly. No. It was caused by greed, by the privileged caring only for themselves. And now, now we are summoned here to make grand empty statements denouncing the destruction of the rail bridges. Well. I. Will. Not. This desperate act was inevitable. This act is a direct result of the oppression, both political and economic, imposed by our government. You crush hope. Yes, you! You destroy opportunity. You eradicate dignity. You do all that so you may maintain your filthy bigoted anti-democratic society. You leave the rest of us no choice. We are not allowed to protest. Any complaint sees you marked down for life as a troublemaker by that tyrannical murderer Trevene. Those explosions today, they are the true voice of the people. And they are loud voices – voices you will not be allowed to ignore, voices you cannot smother, not this time. This is the day the disenfranchised, the weak and the persecuted find their will and say: No more. You will listen to us! You ask who is responsible for blowing up the bridges, for hurting the government in the only place it values – its wealth, the method by which it maintains control? I tell you: it is you. You: the rich, degenerate, privileged filth. And for that, for your eternal crime against this beautiful world of ours: I denounce you. I will have no part of this assembly, which I declare unlawful.’

The shouts of fury from the desks rose above the jubilant clamour from outside.

‘A new parliament will be formed!’ Slvasta shouted and ’pathed above the bedlam. ‘The Captain’s dictatorship will end. I ask all decent people of this world to join me in a democratic congress to establish a fresh constitution. Together we can build a new world based on fairness and democracy. Join me. Everyone.’

His rallying cry was gifted across the unquiet city. Supporters, goaded by cell members everywhere, added their emotional blasts of enthusiasm and confirmation to the psychic maelstrom.

Slvasta turned and gave the First Speaker an obscene finger gesture. Then he opened his mouth to deliver a final insult—

An explosive in the keel of the Alfreed detonated when the ferry was halfway across the three-kilometre span of the Colbal. The burst of terror and shock from the seven hundred Meor troopers on board washed across Varlan, swamping the giftings from the National Council. Everybody was suddenly there, on board as the ferry broke in two uneven halves. Through multiple viewpoints everybody seemed to be hurled about by giant forces, slamming them into bulkheads and decks. Lucky ones were tossed overboard to be engulfed by brown river water, arms thrashing frantically as saturated clothes abruptly seemed to be made of lead. People felt them open their mouths to scream, felt the water rushing in, felt them choking. Those still alive on board were overwhelmed by giant waves of water seething through the decks as the halves of the boat sank with incredible speed. The boiler plunged below the surface, and exploded in a giant plume of steam and spume, its blast wave pummelling the hysterical survivors struggling to stay afloat.

The Meor troopers on the Lanuux were watching in horror as their squadmates floundered in the treacherous surging water; they started to combine their teekay to pull people from the river. A second explosive blew the Lanuux’s hull open beneath the waterline, though it didn’t succeed in breaking the ship in half. Thick river water surged in, geysering up through the deck hatches as the ferry rolled alarmingly and began to sink. The aether was filled with anguish and fear as the Lanuux slid down, portside first. Troopers jumped to safety, only to be sucked under by the fierce swirling currents of water created by the descending hull. River water slammed into the Lanuux’s boiler. The explosion heaved the ruined hull up out of the river, echoing the death throes of some giant creature. It quickly slipped back under, pulling dozens of helpless troopers with it.

Within minutes, both ferries had fallen below perception, leaving the lethal whirl-currents of their descent stirring the surface. Over two hundred troopers were still straining to stay afloat. They were the ones who’d successfully shed their equipment and weapons. Now they had to battle the inordinately fast flow of the Colbal itself. Dangerous undercurrents belied the smooth surface, tugging more to their deaths, their minds gushing out the atrocious sensation of drowning for all to perceive. Desperate panic clogged the aether, reinforcing the feeble screams that washed across the banks on both sides. All around them, ferries and barges and fishing boats tooted whistles and horns as they converged on the survivors. Varlan perceived every nuance of their weakening battle against the devouring water in stunned horror as the whole disaster swept rapidly downstream.

‘What the crud happened?’ Slvasta demanded as he and Yannrith hurried out of the National Council building by a small lower level service door – an exit route they’d scouted weeks ago.

‘I don’t know,’ a mortified Bethaneve ’pathed back. ‘It wasn’t us, Slvasta, I swear on Giu itself. We didn’t plan this!’

‘Fucking Uracus! There were fifteen hundred people on those ferries.’

‘Fifteen hundred armed troopers,’ Javier ’pathed. ‘Deploying to kill us.’

‘Did you do this?’

‘No.’

‘Who? Who could plan such an atrocity?’

‘I don’t know, but it is a considerable help to us. And people, smart people, will want to know why the Meor was coming over the river. Don’t ignore such gifts.’

‘Uracus. It just seems . . . wrong.’

‘There is no good way to die. What we have started will kill many more.’

‘I know.’ Slvasta and Yannrith slipped through the door, into the bright morning light. A cab was waiting, driven by a cell member. They got in and fuzzed themselves. The driver set off down Breedon Avenue.

Giftings from cell members in First Night Square showed the sheriffs moving round the National Council building, their faces angry, thoughts eager for revenge, for vengeance.

‘It’s starting,’ Bethaneve ’pathed in wonder and dread.

‘Then we must control it,’ Slvasta replied. Strangely, after all his doubts and hesitancy, he had never been more certain than he was now. He ’pathed to the members of the level one cells.

‘The code is: Avendia. This is our day, comrades. Be bold. Be strong. Together we will succeed. Go now. Liberate yourselves. Reclaim our world.’