Century Rain Part 44

"What are you doing here?" Auger asked.

In rasps, the child answered, "You don't need to know."

"I know what you are. You're a military abomination, something that should have been wiped out decades ago. The question is, why weren't you?"

Mouthfuls of fluid spilled through the broken portcullis of the child's teeth. "We got lucky," the child said, gurgling with what was either a slow choking death or mocking laughter.

"You call this lucky?" Auger asked, nodding towards the wound she had put in the child's stomach.

"I've done what I was put here to do," the child said. "I call that lucky."

Then it died, its head lolling back suddenly and its eyes freezing in their sockets. Auger reached out in the darkness, feeling here and there until her hand closed around the weapon that the child had carried. She was expecting another automatic-another E2 artefact, at the very least-but the shape of the thing felt unfamiliar and alien. Standing up, she slipped the child's gun into her handbag and stepped away from the corpse.

She heard sounds behind her: frantic sc.r.a.ping and rustling noises. She whipped the torch around, expecting to see rats. Instead, she picked out a boy and a girl crouched near Aveling's body. They were rummaging in his clothes. As the light fell on them, they looked at her and hissed in anger.

"Get away from him," she said, pointing the automatic. "I've already killed one of you and I'll kill the rest of you if I have to."

The boy flashed his teeth at her, pulling the wad of papers from Aveling's jacket. He was completely bald, like a miniaturised version of an old man. "Thank you," he said nastily. "We can't have this falling into the wrong hands, can we?"

"Drop the papers," Auger ordered.

The girl snarled something at the boy. She had something in one hand as well, glinting silver. She pointed it in Auger's direction, but Auger fired first, the automatic dancing in her hand as she discharged three rounds. The boy hissed and dropped the papers. The girl made another angry sound and s.n.a.t.c.hed the papers from the ground, but as the torchlight played over her, Auger saw that she had hit the girl as well-more by luck than skill, certainly.

"Drop the papers," she said again.

The girl pulled away from the circle of torchlight. The boy moaned, pawing at a star-shaped wound in his thigh. There was something horrible and doglike about his movements, as if he did not quite grasp the significance of his injury. He tried to stand, but his injured leg buckled under him in a way legs were never meant to buckle. The boy let out a high-pitched shriek of anger and pain. He reached into his little schoolboy blazer and began to pull out something metallic. Auger shot him again, this time putting a bullet through his chest.

He stopped moving.

She waved the torchlight down the tunnel, but there was no sign of the girl. Shocked and breathless, Auger stumbled after her until she saw something fluttering on the ground. She picked it up, recognising one of the doc.u.ments she had just given to Aveling. There was no sign that the girl had dropped anything else. Auger jammed the paper inside her own coat, making a mental note to examine it later-if she survived that long. She returned to the boy, made sure that he was dead and then did the same for Aveling, shining the torch into his face until she was certain that there would be no reaction.

She heard movement further down the shaft: a dragging sound. Crouching low, she held the automatic at arm's length and tried to locate the source of the sound with the torch.

"Auger?" The female voice was weak and hoa.r.s.e.

"Who is it?"

"Skellsgard. Thank G.o.d you're still alive."

A short figure emerged from the darkness, using the wall of the tunnel for support. One leg was a stiff, bloodied ma.s.s, flesh the texture of raw hamburger visible through the ribbons of her trousers. Seeing the state Skellsgard was in, Auger caught her breath. She lowered the muzzle of the automatic, but didn't put it away.

"You're in a bad way," Auger said.

"I'm lucky," Skellsgard said, with a defiant scowl. "They thought I was dead. If they'd had any doubts, they'd have finished the job properly."

"Stay where you are. We have to get you back to the portal."

"Portal isn't safe."

"It's got to be safer than this tunnel." Auger pushed herself to her full height, then quickly covered the distance to the injured woman. "Oh gosh, look at you," she said.

"Like I said, I'm the lucky one." Her voice was like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other. She had ripped one of her sleeves off and used it as a makeshift tourniquet around her upper thigh, just below the groin. "I was bleeding badly, but I don't think they hit anything vital."

"You need help-and not the kind you're going to get on E2." Auger looked around, suddenly disorientated. "Do you think they've all gone?"

"There were three of them."

"I killed two. The third must have got away." Auger thumbed the automatic's safety catch on and slipped the gun into her waistband. It jabbed painfully into her side, but she wanted it where she could get hold of it quickly if she needed to. "Here, lean against me. How far is it to the censor?"

"About fifty metres back that way." She gestured vaguely behind her with a toss of her head.

"Can you make it?"

Skellsgard transferred her weight to Auger. "I can try."

"Tell me what happened. I need to know everything."

"I can only tell you what I know."

"That'll do for now."

"What did you get from Aveling?"

"Not very much," Auger said. They were making slow progress, with Skellsgard's movements restricted

to small, agonised hops. Auger didn't want to think about the pain she must be experiencing from her shredded leg. "Aveling knew more than I did, obviously. I got the distinct impression that he knew there were Slasher elements already here. What I don't know is whether or not he knew how they'd got here."

"We had suspicions," Skellsgard said, "but this is the first clear look we've had at them."

"You want to hazard a guess as to how they got here?"

"There's only one way into E2," Skellsgard said. "We're sure of that. It's our portal, and it's been under

our absolute control since we opened it. Anything foreign in E2 has to have come through the portal, and it has to have pa.s.sed through the censor."

"So I was told," Auger said, "but that didn't stop these...things."

"War babies are biotechnological weapons, sure, but there's nothing mechanical about them-nothing that the censor should have rejected. I can believe they got through, somehow or other."

"Recently?"

"No," Skellsgard said. "There's no way those children came through while we've been running the portal. Slasher agents might have penetrated our security, might even have pa.s.sed themselves off as Threshers. But children? I think we'd have noticed."

"They got here somehow. If the portal's the only way in, that's how they must have arrived."

"Then there's only one explanation," Skellsgard said. "Do you mind if I stop for a moment? I need to rest."

"Be my guest."

Skellsgard paused for a minute before speaking again, keeping her eyes closed for much of that time. "They can't have come through the portal while we've been running it. Which leaves only one possibility: they must have come through before that." She screwed up her face, her eyes watering. Auger guessed that shock must be setting in.

"Do you have any idea when?" she asked gently.

"Mars has been under our control for around twenty-three years, ever since the armistice. We didn't discover the portal until two years ago, but that doesn't mean anyone else could have been secretly using it during all those years. We'd have noticed something going on. Just the power drain required to keep the portal open-"

"But clearly someone did use it."

"In which case it must have happened more than twenty-three years ago. Just before the armistice, there was a period when Mars and its moons were under Slasher authority. It didn't last very long-about eighteen months, give or take."

"You're saying those war babies have been in Paris for twenty-three years?"

"It's the only explanation I can think of. Any Slasher agents on E2 would have been stranded here once Mars was handed back to us. Actually, that would explain a lot. War babies were infertile, and they were never meant to grow old."

"Aveling said something about a shelf life."

"They were supposed to be 'decommissioned' before senescence set in. Gotta love those Slasher euphemisms. But these war babies have been left to grow old on their own. That's why they look the way they do."

"So what have they been doing all this time?"

"That's a very good question."

"Can you move again?" Auger asked. "I think we need to be on our way."

Skellsgard grunted in agreement and resumed her hopping progress. "We lost control of Susan White," she said, between ragged breaths. "One explanation is that she was working for the enemy. Having known Susan, I don't think that's very likely."

"I don't think it's very likely either."

"I'm more inclined to believe that she figured out part of what was going on here-that there was already a Slasher presence on E2."

"Did she report this back to Caliskan?"

Skellsgard shook her head. "No. I think she must have been worried about blowing her own cover. She

may not have been working for the enemy, but she might have had her doubts about someone else on the team."

"I sort of arrived at the same conclusion," Auger said cautiously.

"Really?"

"Yes," Auger said. "Why bring me into the operation, unless she was unwilling to trust an insider to get the job done?"

"I think you could be right."

"It means I have to make a decision about who to trust. With Aveling and Barton it's not exactly an issue any more. That leaves you, Maurya."

"And?"

"I don't know what Susan thought about you. For better or for worse, I don't think I have much choice

but to trust you."

"Well, that's a resounding vote of confidence."

"Sorry-I meant it to sound a bit more positive than that. Not that it makes much difference now that the

papers are gone."

"But you looked at them, right?"

"Glanced through them," Auger said.

"Better than nothing. At least you have some idea about what was worth killing for. If we can get that news back to Caliskan, maybe he can put the pieces together."

"And if Caliskan is the problem?"

"All Susan's letters were addressed to him," Skellsgard said. "Right until the end. That suggests she still trusted him, even if she had her doubts about everyone else."

"Maybe."

"We have to start somewhere."