"Use of Weapons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Banks Iain)

1: The Good Soldier

One

She made her way through the turbine hall, surrounded by an ever-changing ring of friends, admirers and animals — nebula to her attractive focus — talking to her guests, giving instructions to her staff, making suggestions and offering compliments to the many and various entertainers. Music filled the echoing space above the ancient, gleaming machines, sitting silently amongst the chattering throng of gaily dressed party-goers. She bowed graciously and smiled to a passing Admiral and twirled a delicate black flower in her hand, putting the bloom to her nose to draw in its heady fragrance.

Two of the hralzs at her feet leapt up, yelping, fore-paws attempting to find purchase on the smooth lap of her formal gown, their glistening snouts raised to the flower. She bent, tapping both animals gently on the nose with the bloom, making them bounce down to the floor again, sneezing and shaking their heads. The people around her laughed. Stooping, gown belling, she rubbed her hands through the pelt of one of the animals, shaking its big ears, then raised her head to the major-domo as he approached, deferentially threading his way through the crowd around her.

"Yes, Maikril?" she said.

"The System Times photographer," the major-domo said quietly. He straightened as she rose, until he was looking up at her, his chin level with her bare shoulders.

"Admitting defeat?" She grinned.

"I believe so, ma'am. Requesting an audience."

She laughed. "So well put. How many did we get this time?"

The major-domo sidled a little closer, looking nervously at one of the hralzs when it snarled at him. "Thirty-two moving-picture cameras ma'am; over a hundred still."

She brought her mouth conspiratorially close to the major-domo's ear and said, "Not counting the ones we found on our guests."

"Quite, Ma'am."

"I'll see… him? Her?"

"Him, Ma'am."

"Him, later. Tell him ten minutes; remind me in twenty. West atrium." She glanced at the single platinum bracelet she wore. Recognising her retinae, a tiny projector disguised as an emerald briefly displayed a holo plan of the old power station in twin cones of light aimed straight at her eyes.

"Certainly, Ma'am," Maikril said.

She touched his arm and whispered, "We're heading over to the aboretum, all right?"

The major-domo's head barely moved to indicate he had heard. She turned regretfully to the people around her, her hands clasped as though in pleading. "I'm sorry. Will you all excuse me, just a moment?" She put her head to one side, smiling.

"Hi. Hello. Hi there. How are you." They walked quickly through the party, past the grey rainbows of drugstreams and the plashing pools of the wine fountains. She led, skirts rustling, while the major-domo struggled to keep up with her long-legged gait. She waved to those who greeted her; government ministers and their shadows, foreign dignitaries and attaches, media stars of all persuasions, revolutionaries and Navy brass, the captains of industry and commerce and their more extravagantly wealthy shareholders. The hralzs snapped perfunctorily at the heels of the major-domo, their claws skittering on the polished mica floor, all ungainly, then bounding forward when they encountered one of the many priceless rugs scattered throughout the turbine hall.

At the steps to the aboretum, hidden from the main hall by the easternmost dynamo housing, she paused, thanked the major-domo, shooed the hralzs away, patted her perfect hair, smoothed her already immaculately smooth gown and checked that the single white stone on the black choker was centered, which it was. She started down the steps towards the tall doors of the arboretum.

One of the hralzs whined from the top of the steps, bouncing up and down on its forelegs, eyes watering.

She looked back, annoyed. "Quiet, Bouncer! Away!"

The animal lowered its head and snuffled off.

She closed the double doors quietly behind her, taking in the quiet extent of luxuriant foliage the arboretum presented.

Outside the high crystal curve of the partial dome, the night was black. Small sharp lights burned on tall masts inside the arboretum, casting deep jagged shadows amongs the crowded plants. The air was warm and smelled of earth and sap. She breathed deeply and walked towards the far side of the enclosure.

"Hello there."

The man turned quickly to find her standing behind him, leaning against a light-mast, her arms crossed, a small smile on her lips and in her eyes. Her hair was blue-black, like her eyes; her skin was fawn and she looked slimmer than she did on newscasts, when for all her height she could seem stocky. He was tall and very slim and unfashionably pale, and most people would have thought his eyes were too close together.

He looked at the delicately patterned leaf he still held in one fragile-looking hand, then let it go, smiling uncertainly, and stepped out of the extravagantly flowered bush he'd been investigating. He rubbed his hands, looked bashful. "I'm sorry, I…" he gestured nervously.

"That's all right," she said, reaching out. They clasped hands. "You're Relstoch Sussepin, aren't you?"

"Umm…, yes," he said, obviously surprised. He was still holding her hand. He realised this, and looked even more discomforted, quickly letting go.

"Diziet Sma." She bowed her head a little, very slowly, letting her shoulder-length hair swing, keeping her eyes on him.

"Yes, I know, of course. Umm… pleased to meet you."

"Good," she nodded. "And I you. I've heard your work."

"Oh." He looked boyishly pleased and clapped his hands in a gesture he didn't seem to notice himself making. "Oh. That's very…"

"I didn't say that I liked it," she said, the smile hovering only on one side of her mouth now.

"Ah." Crestfallen.

So cruel.'But I do like it, very much," she said, and suddenly she was communicating amused — even conspiratorial — contrition through her expression.

He laughed and she felt something relax inside her. This was going to be all right.

"I did wonder why I'd been invited," he confessed, the deep-set eyes somehow bright. "Everybody here seems so… , he shrugged, "… important. That's why I… , he waved awkwardly behind him at the plant he'd been inspecting.

"You don't think composers should be regarded as important?" she asked, gently chiding.

"Well… compared to all these politicians and Admirals and business people… in terms of power, I mean… And I'm not even a very well-known musician. I'd have thought Savntreig, or Khu, or…"

"They've composed their careers very well, certainly," she agreed.

He paused for a moment, then gave a small laugh and looked down. His hair was very fine, and glinted in the high mast light. It was her turn to fall in with his laugh. Maybe she ought to mention the commission now, rather than leaving it to their next meeting, when she would reduce the numbers — even if they were distant numbers, at the moment — to something a little more friendly… or even leaving it to a private rendezvous, later still, once she was sure he had been captivated.

How long should she spin this out? He was what she wanted, but it would mean so much more after a charged friendship; that long, exquisite exchange of gradually more intimate confidences, the slow accumulation of shared experiences, the languorous spiralling dance of attraction, coming and going and coming and going, winding closer and closer, until that laziness was sublimed in the engulfing heat of requital.

He looked her in the eyes, and said, "You flatter me, Ms Sma."

She returned his gaze, raising her chin a little, acutely aware of each nuance in her carefully translated body language. There was an expression on his face she did not think so childish, now. His eyes reminded her of the stone on her bracelet. She felt a little light-headed, and took a deep breath.

"Ahem."

She froze.

The word had been pronounced from behind and to one side of her. She saw Sussepin's gaze falter and shift.

Sma kept her expression serene as she turned, then glared at the grey-white casing of the drone as though attempting to melt holes in it.

" What?" she said, in a voice that might have etched steel.

The drone was the size — and near enough the shape — of a small suitcase. It floated in towards her face.

"Trouble, toots," it said, then moved briskly to one side, angling its body so that it appeared to be contemplating the inky heights of sky beyond the crystal semisphere.

Sma looked down at the brick floor of the arboretum, her lips pursed. She allowed herself the tiniest of shakes of the head.

"Mr Sussepin," she smiled, and spread her hands. This pains me, but… will you…?"

"Of course." He was already moving, and went quickly past, nodding once.

"Perhaps we can talk later," she said.

He turned, still backing off. "Yes; I'd… that would…" He seemed to lose inspiration, and nodded nervously again, walking quickly to the doors at the far end of the arboretum. He left without looking back.

Sma whirled round to the drone, which was now humming innocently and apparently staring into the depths of a gaudily coloured flower, its stubby snout half buried in the bloom. It noticed her and looked up. She stood with legs apart, put one fist on her hip and said, " " Toots"?"

The drone's aura field flashed on; the mixture of purple regret and gunmetal puzzlement looked distinctly unconvincing. "I don't know, Sma… just slipped out. Alliteration."

Sma kicked at a dead branch, fixed the drone with a glare and said, "Well?"

"You're not going to like this," the drone said quietly, retreating a little and going dark with sorrow.

Sma hesitated. She looked away for a moment, shoulders suddenly slumping. She sat down on one of the tree roots. The gown crumpled around her. "It's Zakalwe, isn't it?"

The drone flashed rainbow in surprise; so quickly — she thought — it might even have been genuine. "Good grief," it said. "How…?"

She waved the question away. "I don't know. Tone of voice. Human intuition… Just that time again. Life was getting to be too much fun." She closed her eyes and rested her head against the rough dark trunk of the tree. "So?"

The drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw lowered itself to the same height as the woman's shoulder and floated near her. She looked at it.

"We need him back again," it told her.

"I sort of thought so," Sma sighed, flicking away an insect which had just landed on her shoulder.

"Well, yes. I'm afraid nothing else will work; it has to be him personally."

"Yeah, but does it have to be me personally?"

"That's… the consensus."

"Wonderful," Sma said sourly.

"You want the rest?"

"Does it get any better?"

"Not really."

"Hell," Sma clapped her hands on her lap and rubbed them up and down. "Might as well have it all at once."

"You would have to leave tomorrow."

"Aw drone, come on!" She buried her head in her hands. She looked up. The drone was fiddling with a twig. "You're kidding."

"'Fraid not."

"What about all this?" She waved towards the turbine hall doors. "What about the peace conference? What about all the froth out there with their greased-up palms and their beady eyes? What about three years work? What about an entire fucking planet…?"

"The conference will go ahead."

"Oh sure, but what about this "pivotal role" I was supposed to be playing?"

"Ah," said the drone, bringing the twig right up to the sensing band on the front of its casing, "well…"

"Oh no."

"Look, I know you don't like…"

"No, drone; it's not…" Sma got up suddenly and went to the edge of the crystal wall, looking out into the night.

"Dizzy… , the drone said, drifting closer.

"Don't you «Dizzy» me."

"Sma… it isn't real. It's a stand-in; electronic, mechanical, electro-chemical, chemical; a machine; a Mind-controlled machine, not alive in itself. Not a clone or…"

"I know what it is, drone," she said, clasping her hands behind her.

The drone floated closer to her, putting its fields to her shoulders, squeezing gently. She shook its grip off, looked down.

"We need your permission, Diziet."

"Yeah, I know that, too." She looked up for stars that were twice hidden, by cloud and by the lights of the arboretum.

"You can, of course, stay here if you want to." The drone's voice was heavy, remorseful. "The peace conference is certainly important; it needs… somebody to smooth things through. No doubt about that."

"And what's so goddamn crucial I have to high-tail it tomorrow?"

"Remember Voerenhutz?"

"I remember Voerenhutz," she said, voice flat.

"Well, the peace lasted forty years, but it's breaking down now. Zakalwe worked with a man called…"

"Maitchigh?" she frowned, half turning her head to the drone.

"Beychae. Tsoldrin Beychae. He became president of the cluster following our involvement. While he was in power he held the political system together, but he retired eight years ago, long before he had to, to pursue a life of study and contemplation." The drone made a sighing noise. "Things have slipped back since, and at the moment Beychae lives on a planet whose leaders are subtly hostile to the forces Zakalwe and Beychae represented and we backed, and who are taking a leading part in the factionalising of the group. There are several small conflicts under way and many more brewing; full-scale war involving the entire cluster is, as they say, imminent."

"And Zakalwe?"

"Basically, it's an Out. Down to the planet, convince Beychae he's needed, and at the very least get him to declare an interest. But it may mean a physical spring, and the added complication is Beychae may require a lot of convincing."

Sma thought it through, still regarding the night. "No tricks we can play?"

"The two men know each other too well for anything other than the real Zakalwe to work… likewise Tsoldrin Beychae and the political machine throughout the entire system. Too many memories involved altogether."

"Yeah," Sma said quietly. "Too many memories." She rubbed her bare shoulders, as though she was cold. "What about big guns?"

"We've a nebula fleet assembling; a core of one Limited System Vehicle and three General Contact Units stationed around the cluster itself, plus eighty or so GCUs keeping their tracks within a month's rush-in distance. There ought to be four or five GSVs within a two-to-three-months dash for the next year or so. But that's very, very much a last resort."

"Megadeath figures looking a bit equivocal are they?" Sma sounded bitter.

"If you want to put it that way," Skaffen Amtiskaw said.

"Oh goddamn," Sma said quietly, closing her eyes. "So; how far away is Voerenhutz? I've forgotten."

"Only about forty days, but we have to pick Zakalwe up first; say… ninety for the whole outward journey."

She turned around. "Who's going to control the stand-in if the ship's taking me?" Her gaze flicked skyward.

"The Just Testing will remain here in any event," the drone said. "The very fast picket Xenophobe has been put at your disposal. It can uplift tomorrow, a little after noon, earliest… should you wish."

Sma stood still for a moment, feet together and arms crossed, her lips pursed and face pinched. Skaffen-Amtiskaw introspected for a moment, and decided it felt sorry for her.

The woman was immobile and silent for a few seconds; then, abruptly, she was striding towards the turbine hall doors, heels clattering on the brick pathway.

The drone swooped after her, falling in at her shoulder. "What I wish," Sma said, "is that you had a better sense of timing."

"I'm sorry. Did I interrupt something?"

"Not at all. And what the hell's a "very fast picket" anyway?"

"New name for a (Demilitarised) Rapid Offensive Unit," the drone said.

She glanced at it. It wobbled, shrugging.

"It's supposed to sound better."

"And it's called the Xenophobe. Well that's just fine. Can the stand-in pick up immediately?"

"Noon tomorrow; can you de-brief up to…?"

"Tomorrow morning." Sma said, as the drone flicked round in front of her and sucked the tall doors open; she strode through and leapt up the steps into the turbine hall, skirts gathered in front her her. The hralzs came skidding round the corner from the hall and gathered yelping and bouncing around her. Sma stopped, while they milled around her, sniffing her hems and trying to lick her hands.

"No," she told the drone. "On second thoughts, scan me tonight, when I tell you. I'll get rid of this lot early if I can. I'm going to find Ambassador Onitnert now, have Maikril tell Chuzleis she's to get the minister over to the bar at turbine one in ten minutes. Make my apologies to the System Times hacks, have them taken back to the city and released; give them a bottle of nightflor each. Cancel the photographer, give him one still camera and let him take… sixty-four snaps, strictly full permission required. Have one of the male staff find Relstoch Sussepin and invite him to my apartments in two hours. Oh, and-"

Sma broke off suddenly and went down on her haunches to cradle the long snout of one of the whimpering hralzs in her hands. "Gainly, Gainly, I know, I know," she said, as the big-bellied animal keened and licked at her face. "I wanted to be here to see your babies born, but I can't…" she sighed, hugged the beast, then held its chin in one hand. "What am I to do, Gainly? I could have you put to sleep until I come back, and you'd never know… but all your friends would miss you."

"Have them all put to sleep," the drone suggested.

Sma shook her head. "You take care of them till I get back," she told the other hralz. "All right?" She kissed the animal's nose and got up. Gainly sneezed.

"Two other things, drone," Sma said, walking through the excited pack.

"What?"

"Don't call me «Toots» again, all right?"

"All right. What else?"

They rounded the gleaming bulk of the long-stilled number six turbine, and Sma stopped for a moment, surveying the busy crowd in front of her, taking a deep breath and straightening her shoulders. She was already smiling as she started forward and said quietly to the drone, "I don't want the stand-in screwing anybody."

"Okay," the drone said as they went towards the partying people. "It is, after all, in a sense, your body."

"That's just it, drone," Sma said, nodding to a waiter, who scurried forward, drinks tray proffered. "It isn't my body."

Aircraft and ground vehicles floated and wound away from the old power station. The important people had departed. There were a few stragglers left in the hall, but they didn't need her. She felt weary, and glanded a little snap to lift the mood.

From the south balcony of the apartments fashioned from the station's admin block, she looked down to the deep valley and the line of tail lights strung out along Riverside Drive. An aircraft whistled overhead, banking and disappearing over the tall curved lip of the old dam. She watched the plane go, then turned towards the penthouse doors, taking off the small formal jacket and slinging it over her shoulder.

Music was playing, deep inside the sumptuous suite beneath the roof garden. She headed instead for the study, where Skaffen-Amtiskaw was waiting.

The scan to update the stand-in took only a couple of minutes. She came round with the usual feeling of dislocation, but it passed quickly enough. She kicked off her shoes and padded through the soft dark corridors towards the music.

Relstoch Sussepin drew himself out of the seat he'd been occupying, still holding a softly glowing glass of nightflor. Sma stopped in the doorway.

"Thank you for staying," she said, dropping the little jacket onto a couch.

"That's all right." He brought the glass of glowing drink towards his lips, then seemed to think the better of it, and cradled it in both hands instead. "What, ah… was there anything, in particular you…?"

Sma smiled, somehow sadly, and put both hands on the wings of a big revolving chair, which she stood behind. She looked down at the hide cushion. "Perhaps, now, I'm flattering myself," she said. "But, not to put too fine a point on it…" She looked up at him. "Would you like to fuck?"

Relstoch Sussepin stood stock still. After a while he raised the glass to his lips and took a long slow drink, then brought the glass slowly back down again. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I wanted to… instantly."

"There's only tonight," she said, holding up one hand. "Just tonight. It's difficult to explain, but from tomorrow onwards… for maybe half a year or more, I'm going to be incredibly busy; two-places-at-once sort of busy, you know?"

He shrugged. "Sure. Anything you say."

Sma relaxed then, and a smile grew gradually on her face. She pushed the big chair round and slid the bracelet from her wrist to let it fall into the seat. Then she gently unbuttoned the top of her gown, and stood there.

Sussepin drained his glass, placed it on a shelf, and walked towards her.

"Lights," she whispered.

The lights slowly dimmed, right down, until eventually the softly glowing dregs of the finished drink made the glass on the shelf the brightest thing in the room.