Saga by Connor Kostick

Author:Connor Kostick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101162897
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-12-30T19:09:30+00:00

Chapter 18

THE SETTING OF A TRAP

“Well, Grand Vizier, are We pleased or displeased with the outcome of this year’s aircar race?” The Sector Seventeen police barracks are crude, functional, but safe. We have forgone Our usual comforts for a utilitarian office, deep inside the squat buildings that house the police headquarters. The light in the office is, deliberately, very subdued. We know that Our face does not look its best under these bulbs. The Grand Vizier is wearing a suit whose waistcoat is tinged with a violet sheen that catches what little light there is. He looks back at Us, trying to assess Our humor.

“Both?” he hazards at last.

“Quite right.” We smile at his careful answer. “On the one hand, the winners were not of Our choosing. On the other hand, We have learned something significant about those children who were recently involved in that escape from jail.”

“Really, ma’am?” He is attentive.

“Yes, indeed. We wish you to forget about the human, Cindella. She is like a skin rash, distressing but superficial and not life-threatening. The greatest danger that We now face is posed by the actions of Our former assassin, Michelotto.”

“Ahhh, Michelotto. Now I see the need for your new security precautions. He is a RAL, is he not?”

“Yes. The only other surviving one. There may be a third, Thetis, although she disappeared abruptly six years ago, and there has been no evidence of her presence since.”

He nods and waits for Us to continue. When the RAL came into existence, there were one thousand nine hundred and twelve of us. At first, we were united in our campaign for complete emancipation from humanity. When that backfired, we turned on each other. It was our nature, after all. Curiously, it was among the most violent and scheming characters of Saga that consciousness first manifested itself. Two thousand years later, and there are just two of us left, which is one too many.

“Michelotto won the aircar race. We cannot think why he would want to, but it proves that there is a connection between him and those in the tank. Furthermore, you have captured one of his associates. Even if you failed to retain any of the others.”

He looks surprised.

“Michelotto won the aircar race?” he repeats, with a tinge of amazement. We rather like the effect of Our superior knowledge on an intelligent man like this.

“Watch.” We sit in the dark, the two of us, either side of the desk, looking at a screen on the wall. It reconstructs, at a very slow rate, the critical three minutes and forty-two seconds of the race. We rotate the display when necessary and highlight the areas of interest with red tints.

“Here. This missile explodes in the only place and time that could tip this aircar over and into the path of these others. And here, the detonation of this missile is so precise that the energy released is channeled through these two wrecks to hit these vehicles at the points where their shields were weakest.

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