Read Principles of Angels Online
Authors: Jaine Fenn
Principles of Angels (5 page)
The queue started to move and Elarn shuffled along with it. The shuttles were tight on space, so no personal luggage was allowed. She had to trust that her possessions were on their way to her hotel in the freight shuttle.
When the queue reached the airlock, an insincerely smiling steward bid the passengers goodbye. Ingrained politeness made Elarn return his smile.
The shuttle was cramped, and the screen at the front played an endless loop of adverts for hotels, bars, massage parlours, specialist shops, dance clubs and restaurants. Elarn stared at the backs of her hands.
‘Excuse me, medame?’
She looked up to see another steward bending over her.
‘I have a message for you. The message had to be re-routed to the shuttle, as you don’t have a com.’ The woman made not having a com sound like an offence committed only by the ignorant or stupid.
‘Well?’
‘It’s from a’ - the stewardess checked her wrist and Elarn thought how she’d take an attention-span over a piece of tech any day - ‘Medame Shamal Binu. Is this person known to you?’
‘Yes, sort of.’ Shamal Binu was the local agent Elarn’s manager had assigned to handle her professional engagements. Elarn had seen a holo-pic of the woman - she looked every inch the kind of impresario Elarn would never normally have allowed near her - but she had yet to speak to her directly.
The steward continued, ‘The message reads: “Apologies, I have been unavoidably detained and may be a little late meeting you at the transit hall.” Did you wish to send a response?’
‘No, no. That’s fine.’ Actually it was far from fine. After days alone in the opulent confinement of the starliner, she was now being left in the lurch by her only contact on this planet.
‘Medame? Are you all right?’ The steward was still hovering.
Elarn waved her away.
I’m scared and homesick, and I don’t want to be here at all, not that you care
. She looked up at the screen. At least the adverts were gone now, replaced with pictures showing their steep descent towards Vellern’s barren surface. As Elarn watched, the disc of the City became visible as a dark smudge beneath the translucent force-field. Before she could make out more detail the screen went blank. The adverts were back briefly, followed by an announcement telling passengers to remain seated until instructed to disembark. The image of the approach to the City must have been a recording, probably typical of the kind of tricks and illusions she expected here.
I’m scared and homesick, and I don’t want to be here at all, not that you care
. She looked up at the screen. At least the adverts were gone now, replaced with pictures showing their steep descent towards Vellern’s barren surface. As Elarn watched, the disc of the City became visible as a dark smudge beneath the translucent force-field. Before she could make out more detail the screen went blank. The adverts were back briefly, followed by an announcement telling passengers to remain seated until instructed to disembark. The image of the approach to the City must have been a recording, probably typical of the kind of tricks and illusions she expected here.
She waited while the other passengers filed off, running the words of one of her favourite songs through her head to try to relax herself - words with lost meanings, in a lost language, intended to celebrate a religious ecstasy she had never experienced. But the alien, ancient shape of the sounds calmed and relaxed her.
By the time she followed the tail-end of the crowd out there were only a dozen or so people left with her. She entered a great circular hall, decorated with a complex spiral-pattern in black and red on the ceiling and with black doors all around the windowless grey walls. She followed her little knot of tourists through one of the doors which had tell-tales blinking green, and gasped. She and her fellow tourists were standing in a transparent bubble clinging to a thin spine running from the shuttle-pads down to the middle of the massive disc of Khesh City.
As the elevator descended she was treated to a panoramic view. The first thing she noticed was that there was no sky. After a life spent under the dramatic open horizon of Khathryn, she found her mind rebelling at the idea of being stopped by the orange force-field. The sun was visible only as a small bright patch high in the wall of static, but there were no clouds, no horizon. While the ‘sky’ was featureless, the disc of the City itself was intricate with detail. She knew it was ten kilometres across but she could see nothing to give it any scale. Only as the elevator dropped lower did the thin lines radiating out from the centre of the disc resolve into boulevards dozens of metres wide, and the jumble of shapes between them into low, close-packed buildings. She gripped the handrail and leaned against the elevator wall as she looked down. The greenery directly below - the famous Gardens, presumably - was shrouded in a faint mist and broken up by various structures. She spotted one big building, a sports stadium, maybe, and what looked like an amphitheatre, and a cluster of buildings round a large pool. The view disappeared and the elevator went dark for a brief moment before they emerged into light again. The elevator was inside now, decelerating through a high-ceilinged hall whose floor was alive with figures and holo-projections.
When the door opened she followed her fellow travellers through an ornate free-standing arch. Elarn’s suspicion that the structure was not just ornamental was confirmed when two gentlemen in red uniforms decorated with black piping stepped forward to accost the idiot who had pestered her that morning. Elarn, already through the arch, slowed down to overhear what was being said by the men, who she assumed to be the Khesh City militia, the nearest this place had to formal law enforcement.
‘We have reason to believe you may be carrying a propellant pistol, sirrah,’ one said, his hand firm on the tourist’s arm.
‘What? How do you—? I mean, what makes you think—?’
‘You have been scanned, sirrah.’
Much as she enjoyed seeing the man discomfited, Elarn couldn’t help wondering what other, less orthodox checks might have been carried out on Khesh City’s visitors. The man protested, ‘I was told that personal weapons were legal here. In fact, I was
advised
to carry one.’
advised
to carry one.’
‘Yes, sirrah. You may buy or carry non-projectile or gas-powered weapons for self-defence purposes. However, if you wish to bring your own weapon into the City, you’ll have to pay import duty. That was clearly written in the small print of your travel documents.’
The man spluttered, but held out his credit-bracelet.
Elarn allowed herself a small smile and joined the trickle of tourists sauntering across the open area beyond the arch towards a line of floating grey batons. The area on the far side of the batons swarmed with people, many of them pressed up against the barrier, trying to attract the attention of the new arrivals. Tacky holo-adverts flashed above the crowds: ‘Diamond Mall - jewellery from across the universe’; ‘Try a bodysculpt for a You you’ve only dreamed of ’; ‘Whatever your pleasure, you’ll find yourself fulfilled on Soft Street’. The graphics on that last one stopped Elarn in her tracks: apparently there were no laws against public obscenity here. The human hucksters beneath the holo-ads were also trying to sell things - weaponry, narcotics, maps, trinkets, themselves - and as she passed through the gap in the barrier, the sound of the competing sales pitches melded with the soundtracks of the holo-ads into a barrage of noise.
Elarn recoiled from the onslaught. Even if her agent had been here, she doubted she would have found her. But she couldn’t stand around in this place all day either. The best thing she could do right now would be to find somewhere quiet to wait, somewhere she could keep an eye out for Medame Binu. She lowered her head and started to push through the crowd, muttering apologies that no one noticed. She found herself constantly jostled by the press of people, but her obvious lack of interest meant no one bothered her directly.
A hand shot out and grabbed for her wrist. Elarn snatched her arm back and looked up. Standing in front of her was a fearfully pale girl well over two metres tall, wearing a mismatched collection of ragged, ill-fitting clothes, and plenty of dirt. Instead of shoes she had strips of fabric wound round her feet. Orange and dark-green rags had been plaited into her otherwise unkempt hair. Her dark eyes were huge, and the left one was made even bigger by a curved pink scar that pulled down the outside corner. Elarn realised that this was someone to whom the concept of personal hygiene was obviously unknown. She drew a quick, frightened breath.
The girl put out a hand in a warning, shushing gesture. The other hand performed a complicated flick and when Elarn’s eyes followed the movement, she saw that her attacker was holding a short, jagged-edged grey blade.
She managed to look away from the knife, hoping to find help. Now, finally, people were avoiding her. She was an island of calm in the sea of hustlers as people passed by quickly and avoided looking her way.
She must not panic. The relative safety of the arrival area was only a few metres behind her. She took a step back, then another.
Her heel hit flesh.
The gravity was only a fraction more than she was used to, but it was enough to make a difference. She toppled backwards, falling hard. As soon as she hit the floor an arm snaked out from behind her and clamped across her neck. Something dug into the small of her back and foul, hot breath fanned the side of her face.
Elarn froze. Though she was terrified, some detached, analytical part of her mind recognised her attackers from recordings: they were
downsiders
: exotic, brutal and immoral. Deep inside she felt the scream building, the scream she must not allow to escape.
downsiders
: exotic, brutal and immoral. Deep inside she felt the scream building, the scream she must not allow to escape.
She needed to stay calm, to try to reason with them, convince them to leave her alone. If she panicked now, they would be more likely to hurt her. And if she let the scream out, she wouldn’t stop screaming until everyone here was dead.
She took a couple of rapid breaths and forced herself to speak ‘Wh—what do you want?’ she panted. Perhaps if she kept the downsiders occupied long enough the militia would see what was happening and come over to help her.
‘Bracelet, please, medame,’ said the downsider in front of her in a matter-of-fact voice.
‘Bracelet?’ echoed Elarn stupidly, until she realised the girl wanted her credit bracelet. There wasn’t much on it - the guidebooks had advised against carrying too much stealable credit - and though it also held Elarn’s City ID, this skinny thief was welcome to it. Chances were she’d let her go once she had the money. ‘Yes, of course, but I need—’ She shifted, and the pressure round her neck tightened. She struggled to speak. ‘You’ll have to let me sit up to get it off.’
The girl crouched down and Elarn flinched: for a moment she thought the downsider was going to use that vicious-looking knife on her, but instead the girl looked past Elarn and nodded.
The pressure on Elarn’s neck relaxed, although she could still feel a knife pricking into her back. She sat forward and reached over to thumb the clasp on the front of the bracelet.
She just had to do what they said and she would be fine.
She could panic later.
She just had to do what they said and she would be fine.
She could panic later.
Sudden movement made her look up.
The downsider girl was scrabbling backwards, staring up at something behind Elarn. In her terror she suddenly looked very young. She swore under her breath -
Shit and blood!
- then turned and was gone in a flurry of scrawny limbs.
Shit and blood!
- then turned and was gone in a flurry of scrawny limbs.
From behind, Elarn heard a sharp crack, followed by a soft sighing sound. Somehow she knew that however bad the attempted mugging had been, this was worse. She threw herself forward, away from the sound, her heart in overdrive, and started to crawl away, but she had to look back, even though she knew she’d regret it.
A downsider boy was sprawled in front of an athletically built young man with a handsome, cruel face and blond hair swept back over his shoulders. The man held the boy’s head in his hands; the boy’s neck was bent sharply to one side, his eyes were wide with surprise and the tip of his tongue protruded from his lips. He wasn’t moving. Elarn looked from the boy to the blond man and met the calm, dead eyes of a killer.
For a second, she thought she was going to lose control of her bladder, but she couldn’t - wouldn’t - let herself do that. She couldn’t faint, either, much as she wanted to; a lifetime of being in control wouldn’t let her take the easy way out.
She tried to gather her legs under her to stand, but, no matter how strong she was in her head, her body refused to co-operate. All she could manage was to twist herself off her knees to a sitting position. She had never expected to die this way, killed by a random lunatic on an alien world.
‘Are you all right?’
Something was being held out to her.
A hand?
A man’s hand, clean, elegant. Not the hand of an enemy. She grabbed the hand without thinking. It was firm and cool.
A hand?
A man’s hand, clean, elegant. Not the hand of an enemy. She grabbed the hand without thinking. It was firm and cool.
‘Here, let me help you.’
Elarn let the man pull her to her feet. Even through her fear she could see he was immaculately groomed: his dark hair and small beard were cropped and shaped, and his red-trimmed dark green suit looked made-to-measure. He had a narrow, aristocratic-looking nose, dark brown eyes and lips which, though thin, had a sensuous twist to them. It was the most wonderful face in the world.
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