The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [106]
‘Well, I’ve had the security filter switched to low priority so now would be a good time to be on our way.’
‘What’s the next step?’
‘Down to Earth, a domestic droid repair facility in Delhi,’ Harry said. ‘The facility AI runs a clandestine transit network for one of the techtriads, strictly a business arrangement.’
‘Which the facility owner knows nothing about.’
‘Sometimes criminality is in the eye of the beholder, Ms Bryce.’
‘Then let us be sure to evade such eyes,’ she said. ‘Do we have to go to another location to transvector out?’
‘Remain seated – I can initiate the process quite easily from here.’
Again, her awareness was compacted and spiralled through the transvector bottleneck, then unwound into new surroundings that flickered into existence all around them. Only they seemed to have arrived on an expanse of empty grey tiles while some distance away a datatropolis of neon towers and spindles sprawled across their field of vision, matched by a similar towerscape that covered the ceiling directly overhead. That one, however, had no grey expanse and when she looked back down Julia saw a flock of red caltrops, nullors, settle on a blue tower, all glowing and glossy. It only took a few seconds for webs of cracks to spread over every surface and less than a minute later the tower fell apart in grey blocks and slabs that bounced and faded, leaving more grey tiling and a jumble of pale shapes which the nullors then pored over and sorted through.
‘Perhaps we should think about exiting the area,’ she said.
Harry was staring intently at his glowing palm.
‘Not an option, I’m afraid. All access to the repair facility system has been locked down. It’s a netlaw sweep and purge – I don’t know if I can even grapple us to another part of the system … uh-oh.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve just been spotted by a netlaw unit, damn. But our miragers have just turned us into an archive of genome maps of the entire Kiskashin genus … ’
The unit came into view, a spinning white toroid. As it hovered a short way off, it emitted needles of amber light that flickered and probed Julia and Harry’s shared illusion. Then a machine voice said:
‘Composite object in subsector A31 displays irregularities. Shall convey to Local Holding 72 for scrutiny.’
The amber beams disappeared, an opaque red box snapped into place around them and suddenly they were shooting away on another blurred succession of sharp turns. When she glanced at Harry he seemed quite relaxed and unconcerned, at least outwardly.
‘I hope you have a plan,’ she said.
He gave her a sly glance. ‘As a matter of fact, I do. Just watch.’
Seconds later their headlong plunge changed in an eyeblink to a slow forward glide along a silver-grey corridor. A flickery blue veil appeared before them and as they passed through it a tenuous image of themselves appeared behind them, almost as if they were leaving behind a ghost. Harry laughed out loud, just as they accelerated away again. This time their dizzying hurtle ended with a plunge into total blackness. Julia spoke but heard nothing, not her voice, nor a sound of any kind.
Then the blackout flowed away like angular shadows being sucked into a plughole. She and Harry were standing at the top of stone steps leading down to a laboratory set in what looked like a castle vault. Flagstones, masonry block walls, rough archways, iron wall lamps, workbenches cluttered with archaic paraphernalia, spark-gap equipment, elaborate arrays of glassware with gas burners heating bulbous bowls while various spouts discharged droplets into beakers.
‘Finally,’ said a querulous voice. ‘Thought you’d never get here.’
What looked like a brain in a bottle drifted in on a squat a-grav platform fringed with a variety of work arms, jointed and tentacular. It approached a circular table full of bulky objects concealed by a grubby sheet which was lifted, wrapped in a ball and volleyed into a corner. Revealed were several ceiling-mounted displays and several pieces of mystery apparatus.
‘My thanks for extracting us from a fate worse than corruption,