Horza looked down the platform to where the old man sat. ‘He’d better watch his radiation meter,’ he said to Yalson. ‘It’s pretty hot down there near the reactor car.’
Yalson gnawed at another ration bar. ‘Let the old bastard fry,’ she said.
Xoxarle woke up. Yalson watched him regain consciousness, then waved the gun at him. ‘Tell the big creep to head on down the ramp, will you Horza?’ she said.
Xoxarle looked down at Horza and struggled awkwardly to his feet. ‘Don’t bother,’ he said in Marain, ‘I can bark as well as you in this miserable excuse for a language.’ He turned to Yalson. ‘After you, my man.’
‘I am a female,’ Yalson growled, and waved the gun down the ramp, ‘now get your trefoil ass down there.’
Horza’s suit AG was finished. Unaha-Closp couldn’t have taken Xoxarle’s weight anyway, so they would have to walk. Aviger could float; so could Wubslin and Yalson, but Balveda and Horza would have to take turns riding on the pallet; and Xoxarle would need to foot-slog the whole twenty-seven kilometres to station seven.
They left the two human bodies near the doors to the transit tubes, where they could collect them later. Horza threw the useless lump of the Mind’s remote drone to the station floor, then blasted it with his laser.
‘Did that make you feel better?’ Aviger said. Horza looked at the old man, floating in his suit, ready to head up the tunnel with the rest of them.
‘Tell you what, Aviger. If you want to do something useful, why don’t you float up to that access ramp and put a few shots through the head of Xoxarle’s comrade up there, just to make sure he’s properly dead?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ Aviger said, and gave a mock salute. He moved through the air to the ramp where the Idiran’s body lay.
‘OK,’ Horza said to the rest; ‘let’s go.’
They entered the foot tunnel as Aviger landed on the middle level of the access ramp.
Aviger looked down at the Idiran. The armoured suit was covered with burn marks and holes. The creature had one arm and one leg missing; there was blood, dried black, all over the place. The Idiran’s head was charred on one side, and where he had kicked it earlier Aviger could see the cracked keratin just below the left eye socket. The eye, dead, jammed open, stared at him; it looked loose in its bone hemisphere, and some sort of pus had oozed out of it. Aviger pointed his gun at the head, setting the weapon to single shot. The first pulse blew the injured eye off; the second punched a hole in the creature’s face under what might have been its nose. A jet of green liquid splashed out of the hole and landed on Aviger’s suit chest. He splashed some water from his flask over the mess and let it dribble off.
‘Filth,’ he muttered to himself, shouldering his gun, ‘all of it . . . filth.’
‘Look!’
They were less than fifty metres into the tunnel. Aviger had just entered it and started floating towards them, when Wubslin shouted. They stopped, looking into the screen of the mass sensor.
Almost at the centre of the close-packed green lines there was a grey smudge; the reactor trace they were used to seeing, the sensor being fooled by the nuclear pile in the train behind them.
Right at the very edge of the screen, straight ahead and over twenty-six kilometres away, there was another echo. It was no grey patch, no false trace. It was a harsh, bright pinpoint of light, like a star on the screen.
12.
The Command System: Engines
‘. . . A sky like chipped ice, a wind to cut you to the body core. Too cold for snow, for most of the journey, but once for eleven days and nights it came, a blizzard over the field of ice we walked on, howling like an animal, with a bite like steel. The crystals of ice flowed like a single torrent over the hard and frozen land. You could not look into it or breathe; even trying to stand was near impossible. We made a hole, shallow and cold, and lay in it until the skies cleared.
‘We were the walking wounded, straggled band. Some we lost when their blood froze in them. One just disappeared, at night in a storm of snow. Some died from their wounds. One by one we lost them, our comrades and our servants. Every one begged us make what use we could of their corpse once they were gone. We had so little food; we all knew what it meant, we were all prepared; name a sacrifice more total, or more noble.
‘In that air, when you cried, the tears froze on your face with a cracking sound, like a heart breaking.
‘Mountains. The high passes we climbed to, famished in that thin and bitter air. The snow was white powder, dry as dust. To breathe it was to freeze from inside; flurries from the jagged slopes, dislodged by feet in front, stung in the throat like acid spray. I saw rainbows in the crystal veils of ice and snow which were the product of our passing, and grew to hate those colours, that freezing dryness, the starved high air and dark blue skies.
‘Three glaciers we traversed, losing two of our comrades in crevasses, beyond sight or sound, falling further than an echo’s reach.
‘Deep in a mountain ring we came to a marsh; it lay in that scoop like a cess for hope. We were too slow, too stupefied, to save our Querl when he walked out into it and floundered there. We thought it could not be, with air so cold around us, even in that wan sunlight; we thought it must be frozen and we saw what only seemed to be, and our eyes would clear and he come walking back to us, not slip beneath that dark ooze, out of reach.
‘It was an oil marsh, we realised too late, after the tarry depths had claimed their toll from us. The next day, while we were still looking for a way across, the chill came harder still, and even that sludge locked itself to stillness, and we walked quickly to the other side.
‘In the midst of frozen water we began to die of thirst. We had little to heat the snow with save our own bodies, and eating that white dust until it numbed us made us groggy with the cold of it, slowing our speech and step. But we kept on, though the cold sucked at us whether awake or trying to sleep, and the harsh sun blinded us in fields of glittering white and filled our eyes with pain. The wind cut us, snow tried to swallow us, mountains like cut black glass blocked us, and the stars on clear nights taunted us, but on we came.
‘Near two thousand kilometres, little one, with only the small amount of food we could carry from the wreck, what little equipment had not been turned to junk by the barrier beast, and our own determination. We were forty-four when we left the battle cruiser, twenty-seven when we began our trek across the snows: eight of my kind, nineteen of the medjel folk. Two of us completed the journey, and six of our servants.
‘Do you wonder that we fell upon the first place we found with light and heat? Does it surprise you that we just took, and did not ask? We had seen brave warriors and faithful servants die of cold, watched each other wear away, as thought the ice blasts had abraded us; we had looked into the cloudless, pitiless skies of a dead and alien place, and wondered who might be eating who when the dawnlight came. We made a joke of it at first, but later, when we had marched a thirty-day, and most of us were dead, in ice gullies, mountain ravines or raw in our own bellies, we did not think it so funny. Some of the last, perhaps not believing our course was true, I think died of despair.
‘We killed your human friends, these other Changers. I killed one with my own hands; another, the first, fell to a medjel, while he still slept. The one in the control room fought bravely, and when he knew he was lost, destroyed many of the controls. I salute him. There was another who put up a fight in the place where they stored things; he, too, died well. You should not grieve too much for them. I shall face my superiors with the truth in my eyes and heart. They will not discipline me, they will reward me, should I ever stand before them.’
Horza was behind the Idiran, walking down the tunnel after him while Yalson took a rest from guarding the tall triped. Horza had asked Xoxarle to tell him what had happened to the raiding party which had come to the planet inside the chuy-hirtsi animal. The Idiran had responded with an oration.
‘She,’ Horza said.
‘What, h
uman?’ Xoxarle’s voice rumbled down the tunnel. He hadn’t bothered to turn round when he talked; he spoke to the clear air of the foot tunnel leading to station seven, his powerful bassy voice easily heard even by Wubslin and Aviger, who were bringing up the rear of the small, motley band.
‘You did it again,’ Horza said wearily, talking to the back of the Idiran’s head. ‘The one killed while asleep: it was a she; a woman, a female.’
‘Well, the medjel attended to her. We laid them out in the corridor. Some of their food proved edible; it tasted like heaven to us.’
‘How long ago was that?’ Horza asked.
‘About eight days, I think. It is hard to keep time down here. We tried to construct a mass sensor immediately, knowing that it would be invaluable, but we were unsuccessful. All we had was what was undamaged from the Changer base. Most of our own equipment had been attacked by the beast of the Barrier or had to be abandoned when we set off from the warp animal to come here, or left en route, as we died off.’
‘You must have thought it was a bit of luck finding the Mind so easily.’ Horza kept his rifle trained on the tall Idiran’s neck, watching Xoxarle all the time. The creature might be injured – Horza knew enough about the species to tell that the section leader was in pain just from the way he walked – but he was still dangerous. Horza didn’t mind him talking, though; it passed the time.
‘We knew it was injured. When we found it in station six, and it did not move or show any sign of noticing us, we assumed that those were only the signs of its damage. We already knew that you had arrived; it was only a day ago. We accepted our good luck without second thoughts, and prepared to make our escape. You only just stopped us. Another few hours and we would have had that train working.’
‘More likely you’d have blown yourselves into radioactive dust,’ Horza told the Idiran.
‘Think what you like, little one. I knew what I was doing.’
‘I’m sure,’ Horza said sceptically. ‘Why did you take all the guns with you and leave that medjel on the surface without a weapon?’
‘We had intended to take one of the Changers alive and interrogate him, but failed; our own fault, no doubt. Had we done so we could have reassured ourselves there was nobody else down here ahead of us. We were so late in getting here, after all. We took all the available weaponry down with us and left the servant on the surface with only a communicator so—’
‘We didn’t find the communicator,’ Horza interrupted.
‘Good. He was supposed to hide it when not checking in,’ Xoxarle said, then went on, ‘So we had what little firepower we did possess where it might be needed most. Once we realised that we were in here by ourselves, we sent a servant up with a weapon for our guard. Unhappily for him, it would appear he arrived very shortly after you did.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Horza said, ‘he did well; damn nearly blew my head off.’
Xoxarle laughed. Horza flinched slightly at the sound. It was not only loud, it was cruel in a way Xoralundra’s laugh had not been.
‘His poor slave soul is at rest, then,’ Xoxarle boomed. ‘His tribe can ask for no more.’
Horza refused to pause until they were halfway to station seven.
They sat in the foot tunnel, resting. The Idiran sat furthest down the tunnel, Horza across the tunnel from him and roughly six metres away, gun ready. Yalson was by his side.
‘Horza,’ she said, looking at his suit and then at her own, ‘I think we could take the AG of my suit; it does detach. We could rig it up to yours. It might look a bit untidy, but it would work.’ She looked into his face. His eyes shifted from Xoxarle for a moment, then flicked back.
‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘You keep the AG.’ He nudged her gently with his free arm and lowered his voice. ‘You’re carrying a bit more weight, after all.’ He grunted, then rubbed the side of his suit in faked pain when Yalson elbowed him hard enough to move him fractionally across the floor of the tunnel. ‘Ouch,’ he said.
‘I wish I hadn’t told you, now,’ Yalson said.
‘Balveda?’ Xoxarle said suddenly, turning his huge head slowly to look up the tunnel, past Horza and Yalson, over the pallet and the drone Unaha-Closp, past Wubslin – watching the mass sensor – and Aviger to where the Culture agent sat, her eyes closed, silent, against the wall.
‘Section Leader?’ Balveda said, opening her calm eyes, looking down the tunnel to the Idiran.
‘The Changer says you are from the Culture. That is the part he has cast you in. He would have me believe you are an agent of espionage.’ Xoxarle put his head on one side, looking down the dark tube of tunnel at the woman sitting against the curved wall. ‘You seem, like me, to be a captive of this man. Do you tell me you are what he says you are?’
Balveda looked at Horza, then at the Idiran, her slow gaze lazy, almost indolent. ‘I’m afraid so, Section Leader,’ she said.
The Idiran moved his head from side to side, blinked his eyes, then rumbled, ‘Most strange. I cannot imagine why you should all be trying to trick me, or why this one man should have such a hold over all of you. Yet his own story I find scarcely credible. If he really is on our side then I have behaved in a way which may hinder the great cause, and perhaps even aid yours, woman, if you are who you say. Most strange.’
‘Keep thinking about it,’ Balveda drawled, then closed her eyes and put her head back against the tunnel wall again.
‘Horza’s on his own side, not anybody else’s,’ Aviger said from further up the tunnel. He was speaking to the Idiran, but his gaze shifted to Horza at the end of his sentence, and he dropped his head, looking down at a container of food at his side and picking a last few crumbs from it.
‘That is the way with all of your kind,’ Xoxarle said to the old man, who wasn’t looking. ‘It is how you are made; you must all strive to claw your way over the backs of your fellow humans during the short time you are permitted in the universe, breeding when you can, so that the strongest strains survive and the weakest die. I would no more blame you for that than I would try to convert some non-sentient carnivore to vegetarianism. You are all on your own side. With us it is different.’ Xoxarle looked at Horza. ‘You must agree with that, Changer ally.’
‘You’re different all right,’ Horza said. ‘But all I care about is you’re fighting the Culture. You may be God’s gift or plague in the end result, but what matters to me is that at the moment you’re against her lot.’ Horza nodded at Balveda, who didn’t open her eyes, but did smile.
‘What a pragmatic attitude,’ Xoxarle said. Horza wondered if the others could hear the trace of humour in the giant’s voice. ‘Whatever did the Culture do to you to make you hate it so?’
‘Nothing to me,’ Horza said. ‘I just disagree with them.’
‘My,’ Xoxarle said, ‘you humans never cease to surprise me.’ He hunched suddenly, and a crackling, booming noise like rocks being crushed came from his mouth. His great body shuddered. Xoxarle turned his head away and spat onto the tunnel floor. He kept his head turned away while the humans looked at each other, wondering how badly injured the Idiran really was. Xoxarle became silent. He leaned over and looked at whatever he had spat up, made a distant, echoing sort of noise in his throat, then turned back to Horza. His voice was scratchy and hoarse when he spoke again. ‘Yes, Mr Changer, you are a strange fellow. Allow a little too much dissention in your ranks, mind you.’ Xoxarle looked up the tunnel to Aviger, who raised his head and glanced at the Idiran with a frightened expression.
‘I get by,’ Horza told the section leader. He got to his feet, looking round the others and stretching his tired legs. ‘Time to go.’ He turned to Xoxarle. ‘Are you fit to walk?’
‘Untie me and I could run too fast for you to escape, human,’ Xoxarle purred. He unfolded his huge frame from its squatting position. Horza looked up into the dark, broad V of the creature’s face and nodded slowly.
‘Just think about staying alive so I can take you back to the fleet, Xoxarle,’ Horza
said. ‘The chasing and fighting are over. We’re all looking for the Mind now.’
‘A poor hunt, human,’ Xoxarle said. ‘An ignominious end to the whole endeavour. You make me ashamed for you, but then, you are only human.’
‘Oh shut up and start walking,’ Yalson told the Idiran. She stabbed at buttons on her suit control unit and floated into the air, level with Xoxarle’s head. The Idiran snorted and turned. He started to hobble off down the foot tunnel. One by one, they followed him.
Horza noticed the Idiran starting to tire after a few kilometres. The giant’s steps became shorter; he moved the great keratinous plates of his shoulders more and more frequently, as though trying to relieve some ache within, and every so often his head shook, as if he was trying to clear it. Twice he turned and spat at the walls. Horza looked at the dripping patches of fluid: Idiran blood.
Eventually, Xoxarle stumbled, his steps veering to one side. Horza was walking behind him again, having had a spell on the pallet. He slowed down when he saw the Idiran start to sway, holding one hand up to let the others know, as well. Xoxarle made a low, moaning noise, half turned, then with a sideways stagger, the wires on his hobbled feet snapping tight and humming like strings on an instrument, he fell forward, crashing to the floor and lying still.
‘Oh . . .’ somebody said.
‘Stay back,’ Horza said, then went carefully towards the long, inert body of the Idiran. He looked down at the great head, motionless on the tunnel floor. Blood oozed from under it, forming a pool. Yalson joined Horza, her gun trained on the fallen creature.
‘Is he dead?’ she asked. Horza shrugged. He knelt down and touched the Idiran’s body with his bare hand, at a point near the neck where it was sometimes possible to sense the steady flow of blood inside, but there was nothing. He closed then opened one of the section leader’s eyes.