Broken Angels

Hand gave me a strange look. “We’ll need to take him back.”

“Well, you can help me do it, then.” I walked back to the suited corpse and picked up one leg. “Grab a foot.”

“You’re going to drag him?”

“We, Hand. We are going to drag him. I don’t think he’ll mind.”

It took the best part of an hour to get the corpse back through the tortuous pipes and swooping chambers of the Martian vessel and aboard the Nagini. Most of that was taken up trying to locate the limpet cherries and illuminum arrows of our original mapping, but the radiation sickness took its toll along the way. At different points in the journey, Hand and I were taken with minor bouts of vomiting and had to give hauling the body over to Schneider and Deprez. Time emptying out for the final victims of Sauberville. I thought even Deprez, in his rad-resistant Maori sleeve, was starting to look ill as we fumbled the bulky suited burden through the last opening before the docking station. Now that I focused in the bluish light, Vongsavath too was starting to exhibit the same grey pallor and bruised eyes.

Do you see? whispered something that might have been Semetaire.

There seemed to be a huge, sickly sense of something waiting in the swollen heights of the ship’s architecture, hovering on parchment-thin wings, and watching.

When we were done, I stood staring into the antiseptic violet glow of the corpse locker after the others had left. The tumbled, spacesuited figures within looked like a gaggle of overly padded null G crashball players, collapsed on top of each other when the field goes down and the house lights come up at the end of the match. The pouches containing the remains of Cruickshank, Hansen and Dhasanapongsakul were almost hidden from view.

Dying—

Not dying yet…

The Envoy conditioning, worrying at something not over, not resolved.

The Ground is for Dead People. I saw Schneider’s illuminum tattoo like a beacon floating behind my eyes. His face, twisted unrecognisable with the pain of his injuries.

Dead people?

“Kovacs?” It was Deprez, standing in the hatch behind me. “Hand wants us all back on the platform. We’re taking food. You coming?”

“I’ll catch you up.”

He nodded and dropped back to the floor outside. I heard voices and tried to blank them out.

Dying?

The Ground is

Motes of light circling like a datacoil display

The gate…

The gate, seen through the viewports of the Nagini’s cockpit…

The cockpit…

I shook my head irritably. Envoy intuition is an unreliable system at the best of times, and sinking fast from the weight of radiation poisoning isn’t a great state to be in when you try to deploy it.

Not dying yet.

I gave up on trying to see the pattern and let the vagueness wash over me, seeing where it would take me.

The violet light of the corpse locker, beckoning.

The discarded sleeves within.

Semetaire.

By the time I got back to the platform, di

“Hey, it’s me.”

Grumbling and guns discarded again. I made my way into the circle, looking for a seat. It was a lounger each, give or take. Jiang Jianping and Schneider had both seated themselves on the floor, Jiang cross-legged in a clear deck space, Schneider sprawled in front of Tanya Wardani’s lounger with a proprietorial air that made my mouth twitch. I waved an offered pan away and seated myself on the edge of Vongsavath’s lounger, wishing I felt a bit more up to this.

“What kept you?” asked Deprez.

“Been thinking.”

Schneider laughed. “Man, that shit’s bad for you. Don’t do it. Here.” He rolled a can of amphetamine cola across the deck towards me. I stopped it with one boot. “Remember what you told me back in the hospital? Don’t fucking think, soldier—didn’t you read your terms of enlistment?”

It raised a couple of half-hearted smiles. I nodded.

“When’s he get here, Jan?”

“Huh?”

“I said,” I kicked the can back at him. His hand jumped out and snugged it, very fast. “When’s he get here?”

What conversation there was dropped out of the air like Konrad Harlan’s one and only attempted gunship raid on Millsport. Particle-blasted down by the rattle of the can and the sudden silence that found it in Schneider’s closed fist.

His right fist. His empty left was a little too slow, whipping out for a weapon fractions of a second after I had the Kalashnikov levelled on him. He saw, and froze up.

“Don’t.” I told him.

At my side, I felt Vongsavath, still moving for the stu

“No need, Ameli.”

Her arm dropped back to her lap. Peripheral scan told me everyone else was sitting this one out so far. Even Wardani. I eased slightly.

“When does he get here, Jan?”

“Kovacs, I don’t know what the fuck—”

“Yeah, you do. When’s he get here? Or don’t you want both hands any more?”

“Who?”

“Carrera. When’s he fucking get here, Jan. Last chance.”

“I don’t—” Schneider’s voice shrilled to an abrupt scream as the interface gun blew a hole through his hand and turned the can he was still holding into shredded metal. Blood and amphetamine cola splashed the air, curiously alike in colour. Flecks of it spotted Tanya Wardani’s face and she flinched violently.

It’s not a popularity contest.

“What’s the matter, Jan,” I asked gently. “That sleeve Carrera gave you not so hot on endorphin response?”

Wardani was on her feet, face unwiped. “Kovacs, he’s—”

“Don’t tell me it’s the same sleeve, Tanya. You fucked him, now and two years ago. You know.”

She shook her head numbly. “The tattoo…” she whispered.

“The tattoo is new. Shiny new, even for illuminum. He got it redone, along with some basic cosmetic surgery as part of the package. Isn’t that right, Jan?”

The only thing that came out of Schneider was an agonised groaning. He held his shattered hand at arm’s length, staring at it in disbelief. Blood dripped on the deck.

All I felt was tired.

“I figure you sold out to Carrera rather than go into virtual interrogation,” I said, still sca

“Do you have any evidence of this?” asked Hand.

“Apart from the fact he’s the only one of us still not going grey, you mean? Look at him, Hand. He’s held up better than the Maori sleeves, and they’re built for this shit.”

“I would not call that proof,” said Deprez thoughtfully. “Though it is odd.”

“He’s fucking lying,” gritted Schneider through his teeth. “If anyone’s ru

“Don’t push your luck, Jan.”

Schneider glared back at me, keening his pain. Across the platform, I thought I heard the songspires pick it up.

“Get me a fucking mediwrap,” he pleaded. “Someone.”

Sun reached for her pack. I shook my head.