Chapter 2 - The Kraken Gate
Cold, limestone gargoyles leered down at us from the shadowy roofline of Director Harman’s mansion. Silver Meniah-light picked out their horns, sabre-teeth, and other grotesque features against the infinite black of a cloudless night sky. Yellow lamp-light spilled from the mansion’s large sash windows across the lawn, but seemed to shrivel when it met the hulking gradala shrubs that guarded its perimeter.
‘I imagine Harman’s not happy,’ I said needlessly, as we waited for someone to answer the door.
Ankush shrugged. ‘The failsafe did what it was supposed to.’
‘And some!’
‘Are you concerned?’
‘Me, concerned?’ my voice sounded forced. I wished that the future of Lockhouse Security was not so completely entwined with the success of this contract.
‘What happened can not un-happen,’ said Ankush.
‘“Leave the worrying to the dogs”, eh?’
Ankush’s mouth quirked upwards, the hint of a smile at the Gulreimian saying. His people don’t lose much sleep over things they can’t control. Long years of war and oppression had made of them a practical lot. He was right. We’d worked to the specifications we’d been given and had dreamed up some new ones into the bargain. We’d run dozens of experiments and tested the bloody thing to destruction, quite literally. Without the main explosive charge, of course. I didn’t think it could have gone wrong, but just as all battle plans become worthless pieces of paper from the first moments of engagement, complex machines are subject to a myriad of environmental variables.
I was pondering the influence of random factors on life when the door was opened. Harman’s butler, Obermann, bowed stiffly and then admitted us to the hallway. He was a stocky fellow with a military bearing that was the result of eight years in the Coastal Defence regiment. His eyes were heavily lidded over generous cheeks, and his hair was like a close-cropped, peppery doormat. His face was immaculately clean-shaven, even at this time in the morning.
‘Sorry to trouble you at this bell, Mr. Obermann.’
‘It’s no trouble, Ms. Derringer,’ he replied in clipped tones.
‘I hope your family are safe. Have they left Ripolis?’
Obermann took my jacket and Ankush’ coat. ‘Thank you for asking, Ms. Derringer. They’ve gone north, to Caddria.’
I knew he had relatives north of the border. I had done the necessary background checks on Director Harman’s staff, but it wouldn’t have been polite to let on. Sensing that my inquisition had run its course, Obermann bade us wait while he went to hang up our things. He walked away with the peculiar, stiff-legged gait that he had, and had barely left our sight when a pinched, white-haired man in an immaculate three-piece suit, sporting a thin line of a moustache, manifested a short distance away. Behind him was a door. Two curved staircases bracketed the diminutive man, rising majestically above him to the first floor.
'Where in the name of Draxil’s Beard have you been?’ rasped Director Harman. He stared at me over the gold rims of his half-moon spectacles in a practiced display of impatience.
Ankush stepped in smoothly. ‘My apologies Director Harman,’ he said. ‘Ms. Derringer was already en-route to the incident when I arrived at her home. I had to double back and track her down in the crowd.’ There was no need for Ankush to deflect the director’s ire; I had no fear of the old man, but I was grateful for his loyalty.
Harman’s steely eyes never left me. ‘Three hundred million sovereigns of research, bricks and portal disappeared up in smoke tonight.’ His voice was quiet and measured, but he was angry. ‘Your bloody failsafe…’
‘…was built to an exacting specification.’ I cut in, returning his unblinking gaze for a few heartbeats. Except I wasn’t sure. ‘How many people did we lose tonight?’
‘Twenty-nine or thirty on night-shift plus nine from the away team. Hard to be certain until Maddison reviews the staffing rota. I sent for him.’
‘Two of my people,’ I added, flatly. ‘Plus anyone on the outside unlucky enough to be inside the blast radius.’
Director Harman ran a hand through the thinning crop of white hair and nodded, silently conceding my point. Were the dead no more than an inconvenience to this man?
‘Come with me,’ he said. Just then, Obermann reappeared, sliding ahead and opening the door to Harman’s study. I’d been in it once before when I’d been interviewed for the role of Head of Security. Large and richly appointed, it bespoke a man of many interests, and a shit-pile of money.
An oil-painting hung over the mantlepiece in an ornate gold frame. In it, a doomed galleon fought impossible waves under storm-shredded clouds. An imperious tower clock with a mother-of-pearl face stood at one end of the room. The twelve bells on its face were marked with Lyhsten numerals and each of the sixty turns were graven with a cromic hieroglyph, the written language of the Nubrian Empire. I wasn’t an expert, but the only like I’d seen of this timepiece was housed in Emberland’s Museum of Antiquities, protected inside a thick glass case. At the other end of the room glowered the industrialist’s statement, bronzewood desk. The air was rich with an aroma of expensive leather and beeswax.
Ankush waited at the door until the old man beckoned him in. ‘Come on, come in, Rah Malek. You’re keeping your employer waiting. You were the only person to make it out of the facility alive, yes?’ The old man didn’t wait for an answer, waving Ankush to a seat. ‘Obermann,’ he added, turning to his butler, ‘Mildmint tea, one black coffee and a glass of water.’ Director Harman’s ability to recall Ankush’s and my preferred drinks was at odds with his apparent lack of concern over the exact death-toll.
There was a knock at the study door as we pulled out the chairs.
‘Come!’ instructed Director Harman.
A slender young woman stepped inside. She was a couple of inches shorter than me. She was wearing a dark green, satin dress with puffed sleeves. She had to be wearing a corset under the dress because her waist was the diameter of a drainpipe. What is it with corsets? I’d like to meet the fashion tyrant who imposed this torture on women. Whoever she was, she showed no discomfort, in fact, she looked divine. The iridescent fabric was the perfect complement to the red hair which cascaded over her shoulders. She approached with a light, yet confident step. Her cool, slate-green eyes dismantled Ankush and then locked onto me all the way to the desk.
‘Ms. Derringer, I don’t believe you’ve met my niece, Dr. Jenniver Betz.’
‘I haven’t had the honour, Director.’
‘Jenniver, I’d like you to meet Ms. Connie Derringer, and Rah Ankush Malek, a former member of the Gulreimian prince’s guard.’ We clasped hands.
‘Delighted, Ms. Derringer.’ Her voice was light and playful, as though we had met and shared a joke no more than a cycle ago. I knew a moment’s awkwardness until her warm, delicate hand slid from mine. She curtsied politely for Ankush. ‘Good day to you, Rah Malek.’ With the introductions done, she favoured me with one more glance and then looked to her uncle.
‘Dr. Betz is my niece, my sister’s daughter,’ explained Director Harman. ‘She has just graduated from the University of Emberly with a doctorate in Koulomb Field dynamics. She’s been researching the more complex aspects of field stability and control under the sponsorship of Professor Maddison. Now that she’s escaped the dry halls of theory, she’ll be joining the professor full-time to help with tuning the device, isn’t that right my dear?’
‘You overstate my abilities, uncle,’ laughed Dr. Betz.
‘Nonsense, Jenniver. Now, shall we sit?’ After we had settled ourselves, Director Harman’s eyes bored into me. ‘For the benefit of Miss Harman here, Ms. Derringer, please would you explain the failsafe mechanism and why we need it. I’ve been forced to keep much of what we are doing from my niece. I’m sure you’ll agree that universities are not the best place to keep secrets.'
‘Of course, Director.’ I turned my attention to Dr. Jenniver Betz, noting the way the material of her dress cascaded over her shapely knees. ‘If you’ve been working closely with Professor Maddison, may I assume you are aware that he and his team have opened a portal to a planet named Ganessa?’
Dr. Betz nodded.
‘And you’re also aware that there are a number of entirely alien creatures on this planet, some of them potentially very dangerous.’
‘I am,’ breathed Dr. Betz. ‘That much, uncle was able to divulge. I understand one type is particularly worrying.’
I nodded. ‘We don’t know much about the Charg, but they are extraordinarily dangerous. A kind of land-dwelling kraken. Do you recall a year or so ago, a bizarre sea-creature was washed up on the beach not far from Fuldron?’
‘Oh yes!’ exclaimed Dr. Betz. ‘I remember. It was in all the papers. There were daguerreotypes too.’ She gave a sad little look. ‘The images were terrible though.’
‘You’re correct, Dr. Betz. The creature was already in an advanced state of decomposition when it washed up.’ The amorphous mass had revealed itself to be the length of a brigantine with tentacles, beak-like mouthparts and four eyes. The public couldn’t get enough of it.
‘Numerous specialists were involved in the investigation. Our Dr. Polonius Evershed even got in on the story. The Emberly Times asked him to write an article. The general consensus was that it was a kraken, commonly referred to by sailors as a butcherfish, a denizen of the deep that rarely comes to the surface.’ Dr. Betz was staring at me, a rapt expression on her face.
‘Anyway,’ I continued. ‘The members of a previous expedition who survived an encounter, reported that these creatures were similar to the kraken, except they dwell on land. They have the ability to exhale a purple gas, noxious or possibly toxic, we’re not entirely sure. We suspect that it helps them to catch their prey. Their flesh has a pinkish hue, though partially translucent, and appears to be as tough as mastodon hide. They can lash out with tentacles, or pseudopodia, fifteen hands or more long.’
‘Terrifying!’ said Dr. Betz, hands clasped together. She was still watching me with an unsettling intensity. ‘No wonder you’ve had to build a failsafe.’
Whatever Dr. Betz had been doing at university, it was obvious that she had been in regular contact with her uncle.
‘Oh, so you know about the failsafe.’
‘Well, not really. I just know that there is one; or was. Uncle says that’s what caused the explosion tonight.’
‘Tell my niece how it works.’ said Director Harman.
‘Perhaps I could go into the details another time,’ I ventured. Surely we should be focussing on pulling an investigation together, not that there was much left to investigate. Ankush was the only one who’d been in Winslow Hall last night and lived to tell the tale and I was confident that he’d already told me as much as he knew.
‘No, I insist, Ms. Derringer. My niece must know. It’s such an important part of the project.’
Dr. Betz reached out and put her hand on my knee. Ankush’s eyes flicked over us. He said nothing, but I could tell that even in Gulreimia, such forwardness would be unusual. Director Harman hadn’t seen. He was gazing into his whisky. Under normal circumstances, such a move would have been improper, scandalous even, but the girl’s smile was so genuine, that I assumed she was trying to offset uncle’s imperiousness.
‘Alright, Dr. Betz. Have you heard of the Malacia Conch?’ Dr. Betz shook her head and withdrew her hand, leaving a cool patch where where it had been.
‘It’s a sea shell , pea-sized, from an area called the Malacia Archipelago in the Shattered Hands. The structure of the shell looks like six tiny trumpets; the small ends stuck to a tiny sphere in the middle and the larger ends facing outward. Some say that if you half-close your eyes, the shells look like poorly made cubes with a tapered hole in each face.’
‘Extraordinary! Do six creatures live in this shell, or is it the home of one creature with many heads?’
‘I’m told that it’s one creature with six feet, each of which has a mouth. That’s really not the extraordinary feature though, Dr. Betz. When empty, these Malacia conches become acoustic resonators.’
‘Meaning they amplify sound at a particular frequency?’ Dr. Betz wasn’t just a pretty face.
‘Quite right, but it’s not at a pitch we humans can hear. Naturally there’s some variation in the exact frequency, but not much.’
‘So how is this relevant to the failsafe?’
‘It’s an inhibitor. Quite simply, everyone sent through the gate wears a stout canvas wristband with one of these shells inside it. There are four devices installed around the Koulomb Gate that emit sound at the exact resonant frequency. Whenever someone goes through the gate in either direction, that sound is amplified considerably, and sensed by a detector that temporarily inhibits the failsafe from working. In short, anything that tries to come through the gate without the wristband…’ I mimicked an explosion with my hands. Childish perhaps, but I was tired and I’d run out of words.
Dr. Betz leaned forward. ’Is there a way to disable the failsafe completely?’
‘There are a number of ways to disable it, but that would rather defeat the purpose of a failsafe, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course, but what if Professor Renny had known it was safe to keep the gate open? Couldn’t he have flicked a switch and prevented the whole thing from blowing up?’
‘I don’t understand the question,’ I said, failing to hide my irritation. ‘The whole point of the failsafe is that, when everything is well, no explosion…when something comes through the gate that shouldn’t; noise, light, flying masonry and dead aliens. As soon as you compromise it, it’s not a failsafe anymore.’
Dr. Betz frowned, but dropped the subject. Her uncle winked at me.
‘All this science stuff has rubbed off on you,’ he said.
‘I’ve got Inigo Forbes to thank for that.’ Inigo had come across articles on the acoustic properties of the conch when he’d been looking for natural toxins that could be used to enhance the hallucinogenic effects of Krang. Unfortunately for him, the Malacia Conch has no toxic defences, and acoustic resonance was of no use to him at the time, but he’d remembered it last year when he and I first began work on the failsafe.
The old man’s lip curled. He’d wanted me to get rid of Inigo before offering me the contract, but I had refused. Everyone deserves a second chance. Inigo wanted to make amends for his time dealing drugs, and that was good enough for me. Besides, the conditions of his bail meant that without my oversight he would have to go back behind bars.
‘Anyway,’ Director Harman said, impatient to cut to the chase. ‘Could it have triggered accidentally?’ In other words, was I responsible for the gaping hole gouged from into the heart of Emberly tonight? Was it my fault that dozens of people had died and three-hundred million sovereigns had just gone up in smoke. I sensed Ankush stiffen in the chair beside me.
I sat back. ‘We tested it without the explosive charge in two hundred and forty scenarios; different people and different numbers of people, light clothing and heavy clothing. We tried it in the gate chamber with the field generators running at different speeds; it’s a very noisy environment, as you know. In short, I do not believe it could have been triggered accidentally.’ I hadn’t been so sure about the failsafe when Ankush asked me earlier, but I became more confident as I talked of what we’d done. Dr. Betz nodded her approval.
‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘It’s pretty clear we must conclude that something tried to get through the gate that should not have done.’
Director Harman frowned. ‘What are we to make of this fellow’s statement?’ He looked at Ankush. ‘What was it you said, Rah Malek? Mr. Rendish was leading the Charg away.’
Ankush bowed. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well then, either he was unsuccessful, or there was something else nearby that ambushed the others.’
I had to agree, although I was beginning to regret making such a watertight defence of the failsafe. Things tend to go wrong when you least expect it. I wondered whether a broken conch could have been responsible. It was plausible. Just then, Obermann reversed into the study pulling a trolley behind him with refreshments and pastries. His rolling gait, from a war wound according to Harman, was less obvious when he had something to lean on. He handed me my coffee, Ankush and Dr. Betz received glasses of water. Lastly, he poured Director Harman’s tea before gliding from the room. Dr. Jenniver Betz saw a chance to interrupt.
‘Do you think we’ll find anything if we inspect the remains?’ she asked. ‘Of the Charg, I mean.’
I drank some coffee, trying to work out why she would be interested; some ghoulish desire to see alien remnants, perhaps. One fact was clear; Jenniver knew me, or had heard of me. She was measuring me up against what she knew…or thought she knew. ‘The destruction was unexpectedly large, Dr. Betz, which worked in our favour. Ankush and I inspected the remains of Winslow Hall before we came here. I think it’s safe to say that nothing could have survived.’
‘Please, call me Jenniver.’ She seemed satisfied. Her uncle watched her briefly, sipping tea from delicate blue and white china, then reached into a desk drawer and placed a folder on the desk. He leafed through a few of the pages, enough for me to recognise it was a file on me. He looked back at me again, removing the spectacles.
‘Would the Marines take you back, Ms. Derringer?’
‘They most assuredly would not, Director Harman, as I’m sure you’re aware.’ Dishonourably discharged for misconduct and reckless endangerment, insubordination and fighting with a superior officer. There was more that had never made the file. ‘Am I out of a job?’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Well, the research facility has been destroyed and the Koulomb Gate with it. My job was to protect it, and it is no more. Also, you’re asking me whether my old employer would take me back.’ I felt it was a reasonable conclusion to draw.
‘No. I was reviewing your file to remind myself why I took you on in the first place. Leaving aside your ingrained mistrust of authority, your record is exemplary.’ He read from the papers in his hand. ‘First woman to qualify for the Marines, first woman to earn a medal for Souficla, unarmed combat. Commendation for demolition skills in the Kontepract Encounter, Star of the Republic for heroism above and beyond the call of duty; you carried a fallen comrade through a league of hostile jungle.’ He looked at me over the gold rim of his spectacle. ‘There’s more.’
‘Almost makes you wonder why they let me go, doesn’t it?’ I smiled. Smile, Connie, Smile. You’re supposed to be tough. You can grieve for Rendish and Finnian later.
‘The armed forces have resisted the introduction of women since the first jumped-up tin soldier first attached braid to his epaulettes,’ the old man went on. A few years of civilising rules introduced since the inception of the Republic was hardly going to make a woman the darling of the military!
‘No, Ms. Derringer. Your skills are not in question here. Your job was to protect the people of Emberly, Emberland, and perhaps our planet, from what was on the on the other side. I’m inclined to believe you did that, although the results were rather more spectacular than I had hoped.’ He put my file back in the drawer and took another sip of tea.
‘What would you like me and my team to blow up this time?’ I asked.
Harman didn’t see the funny side. His steely eyes fixed me over the rim of his pince-nez. ‘You cannot think that a project this important can be allowed to depend on just one device.’
‘There’s another one!’ I utterly failed to hide my astonishment.
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