Time's Chariot

‘You do remember I wanted that computer back,’ Rico muttered.

‘You mean,’ Scott said, incredulous, ‘this man became involved in this whole business because he wanted his novel back?’

But Rico wasn’t listening. With a flood of relief, he remembered what had been bothering him.

Orders! Wait for orders!

Su Zo sat on her rock and wrapped her arms round herself. The fieldsuit was keeping her perfectly warm but she felt cold. The rocks were jagged and sharp around her. The solid bulk of the cliff rose straight up behind her into the night and freezing cold waves were breaking just below her — solid masses of water breaking down into seething foam that sucked and gurgled as it ran in fractal shapes back into the sea.

Why does everything involving Garron have to be complicated? she thought. A simple investigation turns into a major crime that needs uncovering. A simple withdrawal turns into sitting at the foot of a cliff and feeling bored. And Rico wasn’t talking to her: she had sent several symbs over the last couple of minutes and got nothing but silence. She could take the hint.

With her suit’s night vision she looked sardonically at a seagull perched a safe distance away from her.

‘What are you looking at?’ she said.

‘Su! Get up here now!’ The symb was such a relief she wasn’t even bothered by the lack of a ‘please’.

‘At last!’ she symbed back. ‘I’m on my way.’

The agrav carried her straight up, the rock of the cliff-face blurring as it scrolled rapidly before her eyes. She came to the top of the rock wall, and a black mass of machinery and howling turbines and lethal whirling blades came straight at her out of the night.

Su cut the climb just in time and yelled as she thumped painfully into the ground.

‘Garron!’ she symbed furiously. ‘I just almost got cut in half by a helicopter…’

‘And I’m on it! Follow it before it gets up to full speed.’

‘Do what?’ But she had already pushed off the cliff top after the flying machine. Rico’s point was valid: the agrav’s full speed could never match a helicopter going at much more than a crawl. The two were designed for different things.

‘And when you get here, hang on,’ Rico added.

‘I would be so lost without you to explain things,’ Su symbed back, but she was already reaching out for one of the helicopter’s struts, a few feet away. The agrav harness around her was growing warm as it fought to keep up and match the buffeting of the helicopter’s rotor, and the noise was deafening. Her fingers brushed the metal just as the helicopter tilted slightly further forward and increased speed. Su lurched forward with the last reserves of her agrav’s power and her outstretched hand caught hold of the strut. She grabbed it with her other hand and ordered the fieldsuit to lock both gloves, and there she was, being towed by a helicopter at five hundred feet over the open sea.

Did the helicopter swerve slightly? Rico kept an eye on the two pilots. They glanced at each other and said something, but he couldn’t hear what. Through the seat of his pants he felt the machine give a couple of experimental wiggles as they tested the controls. Yes, they had felt something, but hopefully a mid-air interception by a flying woman from the future wouldn’t have occurred to them and they would put it down to mechanical causes, to be looked into the next time they landed.

‘I’m here, Garron, and it’s bloody uncomfortable,’ Su symbed.

‘Hang on,’ he symbed back, and was taken aback by the sheer, livid fury in her reply.

‘What do you think I’m doing? I’m—’

‘The first thing,’ Rico said out loud, ‘is to take out these goons. Mr Scott, you sit tight for the time being. Mr Daiho, when I give the word, you take the one next to you. I’ll be responsible for the other one — I can get these cuffs off in no time. Count of three: one, two…’

The Home Timers were staring at him without even thinking of moving: the guards were looking unconcerned out of the window.

‘Take out?’ Daiho said, as if Rico had suggested he fly to the moon. Rico smiled.

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Just testing.’ So, the guards didn’t speak their language. That was a start.

‘Do you have a plan?’ Scott said scornfully, apparently dismissing Rico’s earlier advice about silence. Rico just looked at him coolly, silently, just long enough to get Scott thinking that maybe it had been good advice after all.

‘Rico…’

‘I hear you, Su. It would be lovely if you could join us.’

Su Zo had swung her legs up and wrapped them around the helicopter’s skid, locking the suit there for good measure. Now she pulled herself upright, hand over hand, through the freezing gale of black air. Release glove. Move hand, take new grip. Lock glove. Release other glove, take new grip… It was slow and uncomfortable but it was sure. She had set her agrav to support only, cancelling forward motion: it would save her if she fell but it could never catch up with the helicopter again. So, don’t fall.

‘I’m standing,’ she symbed. ‘With you in a moment.’

Her feet were planted on the skid and she was leaning against the helicopter’s sleek fuselage. Up here there were fewer things to hold on to, which made things more problematic. At least she could see and breathe: the suit had grown a transparent mask across her face to protect her from the rush of air and the burning blast of the engine’s exhausts. She inched her way forward until her hand was on the door and peeked through the window. The two bygoner guards Rico had told her about were the nearest passengers to her.

‘Playback,’ she ordered her suit, and in a corner of her vision it displayed the movements she had just programmed in.

‘Instructions confirmed,’ she said. ‘Rico, I’m coming in… now.’

With one yank she had the door open and the gale blasted into the interior of the helicopter. Su let her whole body go limp as the fieldsuit took over. She felt her wrists lock on the edge of the door, the suit tightened around her, and her whole body swung round and into the cabin. Her feet together caught the rear-facing guard on the side of the head and knocked him back.

Rico sprang forward between Scott and Daiho and brought his arms over the head of the right hand pilot, pulling back so that the chain of the cuffs pressed against the man’s throat. Momentum had carried Su into the cabin and the other guard was fumbling for his stunner. The suit returned control of her own body and she raised a hand towards him. A stun charge from her fingertips struck him in the chest and he crumpled, sagging in his seat.

Su reached out and pulled the door shut, then turned back. Rico winked at her.

‘Great! Now get these cuffs off me.’

First, Su picked up one of the stunners and gave it to the nearest Home Timer. Who, she saw with a sudden shock, was Daiho.

‘Long story,’ Rico said.

She thrust the stunner into Daiho’s hand. ‘Just point it at the pilots,’ she said. ‘Let go, Rico.’

Rico lifted his arms up and released the neck of the pilot. ‘Just keep flying,’ he ordered in English. ‘Keep your hands on the controls and nowhere else. Come round to bearing two hundred and forty degrees, height two hundred feet.’ The helicopter began to bank. ‘You, guy on the left, put your hands on your head.’

The co-pilot did as he was told. Su was checking the pockets of the two unconscious guards. She found the key and quickly released Rico; then they put the cuffs on the guards, binding them to their seats. Rico took the stunner from Daiho and Su picked the other off the ground. They looked at each other.

‘Thanks,’ Rico said with a warm, quiet smile.

‘Are there any more of you?’ Daiho asked. Su looked at him askance.

‘You’re meant to be dead,’ she said.

‘But as you can see, I’m not.’

‘It was a clone,’ Rico said. ‘A sentient, self-aware clone,’ he added, just to make sure she was getting it.