The Long War

33

THE LAST STEP across was a sudden transition from a dune field, just inland from a grey ocean, the local copy of the Irish Sea, into what looked like a rudimentary industrial park, a place of gleaming tanks, rusty gantries, smoke stacks, blocky concrete buildings. There was nothing very space-age about it as far as Jansson could see at first glance.

‘Come on.’ Sally shifted her pack and led the way.

Jansson followed, walking steadily across grass-covered ground that gradually gave way to lumpy dunes. The morning was dry and bright in this world, one step away from the Gap. She could smell salt and rotting seaweed in the wind off the sea. She tried to visualize where she was: tried to imagine that there was vacuum, space, a void, just one tap of the Stepper at her waist away from this mundanity. Tried and failed.

They hadn’t covered a hundred yards when the landscape was illuminated by a blinding light, coming from the rim of the development ahead, like a droplet of sunlight brought down to the Earth.

Without hesitating Jansson pushed Sally to the ground, lay on top of her, and pulled her jacket hood over her own head. Jansson had been in the world next door when the Madison nuke went off; she hadn’t forgotten. The noise of the explosion hit them, then a hot wind, and the ground itself shuddered. But it passed over quickly.

Cautiously Jansson rolled off Sally, wincing as her enfeebled body protested with a chorus of aches. They both sat up and looked west. A cloud of white smoke and vapour was rising up from the explosion site.

‘Not a nuke,’ Sally said.

‘Not this time. Some kind of chemical factory blowing up? Sorry to jump you.’

‘Don’t be.’ Sally got up and brushed away sandy soil. ‘This place is going to be a playground for tech-boy nutjobs, who may or may not know what the hell they are doing. Let’s watch our backs.’

‘Agreed.’

They walked on, eyes wide open, alert for more problems. A fire guttered at the destroyed plant; as they approached they could see steam rising from amateurish-looking attempts to douse it.

There was no security here that Jansson could see, not even a fence. But as they entered the sprawling facility they were noticed. Jansson saw workers staring at them.

At length a man walked out to greet them. In his fifties perhaps, he was not tall but very upright, wiry, tanned, with greying crew-cut hair. He wore a blue jumpsuit with a faded NASA logo and a name tag: WOOD, F. He grinned at them, welcoming enough. ‘Ladies.’

‘Gentleman,’ Sally snapped back.

‘The name’s Frank Wood. Formerly of NASA, and now of – well, whatever you want to call us here. GapSpace will do; we’re incorporated under that name. Can I ask why you’re here? We don’t get too many casual visitors this far out. Are you volunteers? If so, give me a hint of your technical specialities and I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Journalists?’ Ruefully he glanced over his shoulder at the rising cloud of steam and smoke. ‘You’ll see we just had an incident with a lox storage tank, but that’s not so unusual.’

Jansson flashed her badge and warrant card. ‘I’m police. Madison, Wisconsin, specifically.’ He glanced at it, but she put it away before he had a chance to figure out she was long retired, and shouldn’t have kept the shield anyhow.

‘Oh.’ He looked disappointed in her. ‘Frankly, Lieutenant Jansson, that kind of Datum authority doesn’t have a lot of purchase out here. Even if we were in the US Aegis, which we’re not. I guess you’re here about the troll thing, right?’

‘Afraid so, Mr. Wood.’

‘Call me Frank . . .’

‘I think I recognize you,’ Sally said.

‘You do?’

‘The video clips. It was you who stopped that tech guy putting the troll down on the spot.’

He actually blushed, and looked away. ‘Well, I never wanted to be famous. Look, the guy you want to see about all that is called Gareth Eames. Nearest thing to a chief executive we got here. English guy. If I’m honest with you, if not for the fuss in the outernet – yes, we get the news even out here – the troll would have been put down by now. But even guys like us take notice when we’re in the middle of a flame war. Come on, I’ll take you to Eames—’

‘No need,’ Sally said briskly. ‘I’ll find the way.’

Wood looked dubious, then shrugged. ‘OK.’ He pointed to a low, squat concrete building. ‘That’s the admin block, or the nearest we have to it. We build everything like a blockhouse here; living with rockets you learn to be cautious. You’ll find Gareth in there. And that’s where we’re holding the troll too, in the calaboose.’

‘Great.’ Sally turned to Jansson, and whispered, ‘Let me get over there and scout it out, without Buck Rogers here hovering over me.’

Jansson was doubtful, but this was Sally’s modus operandi, she was learning. Always keep the other guy off balance. ‘OK. And as for me—’

‘Distract this guy. Let him show you his toy spaceships, or whatnot. I think he has his eye on you, by the way.’

‘Garbage. Also, let me remind you, my personal rocket ship takes off from a different launch pad.’

‘So he’s no more perceptive than most men.’ Sally winked. ‘Undo a button or two and he’s your slave for life. See you later.’