Blue Remembered Earth

They were all shaking. Sunday glanced at her friends and wondered why they couldn’t keep it together, not look so visibly nervous in front of Gleb. Then she caught the adrenalin tremor in her own hands and knew she was just as culpable.

‘It won’t take them long to find out who he is,’ Gleb said. ‘Chama’s not one for rules, but he’d still have had to file some kind of flight plan before taking out that hopper.’

Sunday exhaled heavily. ‘I feel terrible. We should never have got you mixed up in all this.’

‘Chama took this initiative on his own; you weren’t holding a gun to his head. And it’s not as if there wasn’t some self-interest involved as well.’

‘None of which we signed up to,’ Geoffrey said.

‘Shut it, brother. Now is emphatically not the time.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, and for a moment appeared willing to hold his tongue. ‘But look,’ he went on doggedly, ‘we didn’t ask Chama to put his neck on the line, and now we’re worse off than we were before. We still don’t know what Eunice buried, and in all likelihood we never will. And mark my words: this will break system-wide. Exactly how long do you think it’ll be before the cousins put two and two together?’

Jitendra’s eyes were glazed. ‘I’m scrolling newsfeeds. Nothing’s breaking yet.’

‘Because it only happened five fucking minutes ago,’ Geoffrey said.

‘Maybe it won’t break,’ Sunday said. ‘The Chinese don’t publicise every incursion. They don’t want to give the impression they can’t police the Ghost Wall.’

‘The policing looked pretty effective from where I was sitting,’ Geoffrey countered. ‘And what’s this with you being an expert on international affairs all of a sudden?’

‘No need to be snide, brother. I’m just saying things may not be as bad as you want to make them.’

‘Let’s hope they aren’t,’ Gleb said.

‘Did you get a good look at whatever was in the box?’ Jitendra asked brightly, as if they’d just turned the conversational page onto a happy new chapter.

Sunday shook her head. ‘Not really. Just a glimpse. Looked like junk, to be honest. Some mechanical thing, like a component from a bigger machine. Could’ve been one of your robot parts, for all I know.’

‘That’s not going to get us very far,’ Geoffrey said.

‘Chama saw more than I did. Maybe it was enough.’

Geoffrey put his hands on the table, fingers spread as if he was about to play piano. ‘OK. Let’s take stock here. We just participated in a crime.’

Sunday had to admit that the very word had a seductive glamour. To have succeeded in committing a crime, even in the Descrutinised Zone – or from within it, at least – was a rare achievement.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We did. A crime. That makes us criminals.’ The word tasted odd in her mouth, like an obscure oath. ‘But it was a small crime, in the scheme of things. No one was hurt. Nothing was damaged. There was no malintent. We just wanted to . . . retrieve something that belonged to us.’

‘Are we definitely safe here, or will the Chinese be able to backtrack the ching packets?’ Geoffrey asked.

‘They’re good,’ Sunday said, ‘but our blind gateways should keep us anonymous. At international level they could apply for a retroactive data injunction, but I don’t think it’ll come to that – we trespassed, that’s all; it’s not like we were trying to bring down the state.’ She paused and swallowed. ‘Of course, they could simply ask Chama . . .’

‘I wonder how long he’d hold out against interrogation,’ Geoffrey mused.

Gleb shot him a look. ‘Please.’

‘Sorry. But I think we have to ask that question.’

‘Unfortunately my brother’s right,’ Sunday said. ‘Chama might not be put through anything unpleasant, but there’s not much he’ll be able to keep from them if they go for full neural intervention. Still, it might not come to that. The Chinese aren’t idiots. They won’t want to make any more of this than they absolutely have to.’

‘Let’s hope,’ Geoffrey said.

A ching icon popped into her visual field. Caller: Hector Akinya. Location: Akinya household, East African Federation, Earth.

She groaned. ‘Oh, this couldn’t possibly get any better. Now Hector wants a word with me.’

‘Any reason you wouldn’t normally take that call?’ Geoffrey asked.

‘On the rare occasions when Hector and I need to talk, we usually ching into neutral territory. But it’s going to look odd if I don’t pick up. Jitendra – go and make some coffee. Gleb, maybe you could help him? Think we could all use some fresh.’

As they headed to the kitchen, she voked the figment into being, making sure Geoffrey was able to see it as well. Hector’s standing form smiled, taking in his surroundings with something between horror and detached anthropological fascination. ‘This is a rare privilege,’ he said. ‘I’ve seldom had the pleasure of the Descrutinised Zone before, much less your lodgings.’

‘My home,’ Sunday told him. ‘And you’re here under sufferance.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s any point in being a struggling artist unless you go the full hair shirt. How are you, anyway? And how are you, Geoffrey? We were beginning to become slightly concerned. It’s been a while since we heard anything from either of you.’

‘You needn’t lose any sleep,’ Geoffrey said.