Free Sacrifice of Fools by Ian McDonald

remember.’
    ‘Wettest I can remember too.’
    ‘I reckon it’s those big ships of theirs, coming and going all the time. I reckon it’s putting holes in the ozone, all that coming and going. Can’t be doing any good, and all that messing around with weight and things. Not natural.’
    ‘Gravity.’ He’s not going to explain Mach’s Principle to a city cab driver, especially because he doesn’t understand it himself.
    ‘Yuh. That.’
    They go another couple of miles and the driver tries again.
    ‘What’s this place you’re going to?’
    ‘It’s called South Side of the Stone. On Sketrick Island. You go down to Whiterock, and it’s just before you get there.’
    ‘Oh, I know where it is all right. Used to be a good pub on Sketrick, before.’ Gillespie makes no response. ‘So is it the Outsider place you’re going to?’
    ‘It is.’
    They’re into the country now. Green fields, cows, bare trees, tractors ploughing. Black crows pick over the fresh furrows, like fragments of broken storm.
    ‘Bad do back in the city, that Outsider murder. The whole family, Jesus.’
    ‘Bad do.’
    ‘Said on the news that they’d used some kind of gun makes heads blow up. The bodies had no heads, can you imagine that? Even the kids. What kind of person would do a thing like that?’
    ‘Lot of sick people about.’
    ‘Had this man on, some kind of expert, Jesus, they have experts on everything these days; anyway, he says that it’s impossible for these Outsiders to kill each other. Says it’s like impossible for their chemistry or something for them to do something like that. I don’t know, I mean, what do we know about them? What do we really know about them? Not exactly like they’ve gone out of their way to be friendly, you know, living out there in their weird hippy communes. Not that I’m saying they don’t have the right to believe what they want to believe, have their own religion or whatever, but they’ve not exactly gone out of their way to adopt our customs and ways and all, you know; live like us, be like us.’
    ‘I don’t think it’s that they don’t want to, but that they can’t.’
    ‘I’m telling you, they had that McIvor Kyle, the one gets on like he’s the new Paisley; I’m telling you, that man made a lot of sense to me. A lot of sense. I mean, what do experts know? You can’t believe them, I mean, what if they’re wrong? What if these Outsiders all of a sudden come out with guns and they start shooting everyone and everything? They don’t know, so I think it would be better to take them and put them all on some wee island where they can keep an eye on them until they’re sure they’re safe to be let loose on society. Better safe than sorry.’
    ‘This is that wee island.’
    The next mile is passed in silence. Gillespie notices the driver glancing repeatedly in his mirror.
    ‘Something the matter?’
    ‘You upset someone?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘There’s a blue Ford Escort been behind us since the city centre. Woman driver.’
    Gillespie looks out of the rear window. Blue Ford Escort. No danglies from the mirror. No trims, no direction finders stuck to the dash, no whip aerials. Mrs Beige Coat Lady Detective from last night at the wheel. Serious expression.
    ‘Slow down,’ he says to the driver. ‘About twenty.’
    The taxi slows to a crawl. The blue Ford drops gears to match.
    ‘She’s not going past,’ the taxi driver says.
    ‘Didn’t think she would,’ Gillespie says. ‘Looks like I’ve picked up a police tail.’
    ‘No shit?’ The taxi driver can’t keep the note of interest out of his voice. A real hood. In my cab. ‘What are they after you for?’
    ‘Those murders you were talking about.’
    ‘The Outsiders?’
    ‘With no heads. They think I did it.’
    A real multiple murderer. In your cab.
    The driver’s not quite so voluble after that, but he does dare to ask, ‘Did you do it?’
    ‘Think I’d tell you if I did?’
    The driver thinks about that for