Embedded by Dan Abnett Read Free Book Online

arrives during your lifetime," he said.
      A waitress brought wine and a warm dish of re-baked bread rolls.
      "I don't know what you expect me to be able to do for you," Tedders said.
      "Just talk."
      "Seriously, Falk, if your complaint is that the SO isn't giving you the access you need, the best I'm going to be able to do is listen and nod sympathetically."
      "That was a pointless excursion we went on," he said.
      "Yeah, it was. Isn't it always?" She stared across the table at him. "It always surprises me when the media is shocked that the Office can manage its own message. It's like you think that because we wear uniforms and drive tanks we must be too dense to know about subtext and nuance. The SOMD looks like a modern army should, but it's just a very, very slick PR company with added guns."
      He didn't answer. He was waiting to hear what she said next.
      "Someone once told me that back in the day, the Queen of England used to think that the world smelled of fresh paint, because everywhere she went a team of workers had been there the day before pimping the place up for her. That's all we do, Falk. We paint over the rough patches and make everything user-friendly."
      He split a roll with his bread knife.
      "Sometimes, that's not in the public interest," he said.
      "Not your call to make," she replied. "Really, not in this day and age, not in situations on this magnitude."
      "Let me ask you this," he said. "Just for my own interest. Do you personally know something and are just not telling me, or do they keep you in the dark too."
      She smiled a quick version of her compact, portable smile.
      "Need to know, and I don't need to," she said.
      "Listen, I never thought you'd be able to do anything for me or tell me anything," said Falk, "but I wanted to cover all the bases. You're going to urge me, advise me, to go through official channels and see what extra cooperation I can coax, and I am going to do that. Really, I am. I am absolutely going to do this the way a correspondent should. But, and I'm not being defeatist here, I have a feeling it's not going to work, and after a month or two, I'll be right back here, scratching around to find an unofficial channel. I just thought I'd try and save myself a little time and set both things in motion at once. Start both balls rolling."
      "And?"
      "If you suddenly change your mind, or your conscience suddenly gets the better of you–"
      She laughed.
      "Or you run across something, or someone, you think it wouldn't hurt to pass my way, please do. It can just be general background, colour stuff, anything. Your name won't be in it. There won't be any comeback."
      "You say that. There always is."
      "You've done this before then?"
      "No. But once or twice I've seen SO people like me lose their jobs because they've been dumb enough to develop relationships with the wrong people. People they thought they could trust. People they thought they could relax and be off the record with."
      "That's not me. I promise. Won't happen."
      "It can't," she said.
      "Why?"
      "This weekend pass. I got given it because next Friday I rotate into the field for six months. Routing orders. Active detachment."
      "Where to?"
      "Yeah, I'll tell you that and point to it on a map."
      "Okay. Damn. Okay."
      "Sorry," she said. "You look all sad now. Like I've scored a dinner on false pretences."
      "Are you kidding? Anyway, look."
      The chicken-effect had arrived.
     
     

SIX
     
 
    On Seventy-Seven, he'd lived on the coast for a few months, in a fabric house on the point near Beakes. At night, the ocean would crash against the foreshore, a hard boom followed by a long, clattering hiss of withdrawing surf dragging shingle back with it. The crash and draw punctuated his work and his sleep. He'd wake up to a chime on his celf, another link or edit from Cleesh, and lie there, listening.
      The ocean had woken him, sudden,