His breath was knocked out of his lungs, winding him. Several ribs cracked. Hind legs scrabbled frantically for purchase to try and buck the Ivet off.
An excruciating lance of pain fired into Powel Manani’s brain. He yelled out loud, stumbling around. He felt one knee give out, and pitched over.
For a moment the affinity link wavered, and he saw a ring of villagers gazing down in dismay. Hands reached out to steady him.
Vorix had frozen in pain and shock. There was no feeling at all from one of his hind legs. The dog squirmed round on the rucked loam. His leg was lying on the bloody grass, twitching and jerking.
Lawrence cut the second hind leg off with his fission knife. Blood hissed and steamed as it bubbled over the radiant yellow blade.
Both of Powel’s legs were being squeezed by tourniquets made from bands of ice. He fell leadenly to sit on his rump, breath wheezing out of parched lips. His thigh muscles were spasming uncontrollably.
The fission blade penetrated Vorix’s left mandible joint, skewering through muscle, bone, and gristle. Its tip emerged into the back of his mouth, severing a large portion of the tongue.
Powel started to gag, fighting for breath. His whole body was shaking wildly. He vomited weakly down his beard.
Vorix was emitting a harrowing whining from his ruined jaw. Sallow eyes rolled round, glazed with pain, trying to find his tormentor. Lawrence aimed a blow at each of his forelegs, slicing clean through the knees, leaving the dog with stumps.
At the far end of a murky whorled tunnel, Powel saw the sandy-haired teenager walk round in front of the dog. He spat on Vorix’s squat muzzle.
“Not so fucking smart now, are you?” Lawrence shouted. Powel could barely hear him, his voice sounded as though it was coming from the bottom of a deep rocky shaft. “Want to play chase again, doggy?” Lawrence did a little jig, laughing. Vorix’s stumps knocked feebly against the soil in a parody of walking. The sight sent him off into another bout of laughter.
“Walkies! Come on, walkies!”
Powel groaned with helpless fury. The affinity bond was weakening, stretching the dog’s pain-lashed thoughts to a tenuous thread. He coughed some of the bile out of his mouth.
“I know you can hear me, Manani, you superfuck,” Lawrence called. “And I hope your heart’s bleeding out through these cuts. I’m not going to kill your hound, not all quick and clean and neat. No, I’m going to leave him here rolling round in his own shit and piss and blood. That way you’ll feel him dying the whole time, however long it takes. I like that idea, cos you really loved this dog. God’s Brother always takes his retribution on those who displease him. Vorix is kind of like an omen, see? I did this to a dog, think what Quinn’s gonna do to you.”
It was raining steadily when Jay led Sango, Powel Manani’s beige horse, from the lean-to at the back of the supervisor’s cabin which served as a stable. Mr Manani had been true to his word back on the Swithland, he had let her groom Sango, and help feed him, and take him for exercise. Two months ago, when the frantic urgency which governed Aberdale while the cabins were going up and the fields were being levelled had abated, he had taught her how to ride.
Aberdale wasn’t quite the dreamy rural existence she had expected, but it was pretty nice in its own fashion. And Sango played a huge part in making it right. Jay knew one thing, she didn’t want to go back to any arcology.
Or at least she hadn’t before today.
Something had happened out in the jungle this morning that none of the adults would talk about. She and all the other kids knew that Carter was dead, they’d been told that much. But there had been the awful fight down by the jetty, and a lot of the women had cried, the men too though they tried to hide it. Then twenty minutes ago Mr Manani had some kind of dreadful drawn-out fit, howling and panting as he keeled about.
Things had quietened down after that. There had been a meeting in the hall, and afterwards people had gone back to their cabins. Now though she could see them congregating in the centre of the village again; they were all dressed like they did when they went hunting. Everyone seemed to be carrying a weapon.
She knocked on the front stanchion of Mr Manani’s cabin. He came out dressed in navy-blue jeans, a green and blue check shirt, and a fawn waistcoat that held a lot of cylindrical power magazines for laser rifles. He carried a couple of slate-grey tubes fifty centimetres long, with pistol grips at one end. She had never seen them before, but she knew they were weapons.
Their eyes met for a moment, then Jay looked at the muddy ground.
“Jay?”
She glanced up.
“Listen, honey. The Ivets have been bad, very bad. They’re all funny in their heads.”
“Like waster kids in the arcologies, you mean?”
A sad smile flickered on his lips at the bright curiosity in her voice.
“Something like that. They killed Carter McBride.”
“We thought so,” she admitted.
“So we’re going to have to catch them and stop them from doing anything like it again.”
“I understand.”
He slotted the maser carbines into their saddle holsters. “It’s for the best, honey, really it is. Listen, Aberdale’s not going to be very nice for a couple of weeks, but afterwards it’ll get better. I promise. Before you know it, we’ll be the best village on the whole tributary. I’ve seen it happen before.”
She nodded. “Be careful, Mr Manani. Please.”
He kissed the top of her head. Her hair was sprinkled with tiny drops of water.
“I will be,” he said. “And thank you for saddling up Sango. Now go and find your mum, she’s a bit upset about what happened this morning.”
“I haven’t seen Father Elwes for hours. Will he be coming back?”
He stiffened his back, unable to look at the girl. “Only to pick up his things. He won’t be staying in Aberdale any longer. His work’s done here.”
Powel rode Sango over to the waiting hunters, hoofs splattering in the mud. Most of them were wearing waterproof ponchos, slick with rain. They looked more worried than angry now. The initial heat of Carter’s death had abated, and the shock of killing the three Ivets was percolating through their minds. They were more scared for their families and their own skin than they were bothered about vengeance. But the end product was the same. Their fear of Quinn would compel them until the job was done.
He saw Rai Molvi standing among them, clutching a laser rifle beneath his poncho. It wasn’t worth making an issue over. He leaned forward from the saddle to address them. “First thing you should know is that my communication block is out. I haven’t been able to tell Schuster’s sheriff what’s been happening here, or the Governor’s office in Durringham. Now those communication blocks are more or less solid chunks of circuitry with all kinds of redundancy built in, I’ve never heard of one failing before. The LED lights up, so it’s not a simple power loss. It was working when I made my routine report three days ago. I’ll leave it to you to work out the significance of it failing today.”
“Christ, just what are we up against?” someone asked.
“We’re up against waster kids,” Powel said. “Vicious and frightened. That’s all they are. This sect crap is just an excuse for Quinn to order them about.”
“They’ve got guns.”
“They have eight laser rifles, and no spare power magazines. Now I can see about a hundred and twenty rifles just from here. They aren’t going to be any problem. Shoot to kill, and don’t give any warning. That’s all we have to do. We don’t have courts, we don’t have time for courts, not out here. I sure as hell know they’re guilty. And I want to make damn sure that the rest of your kids can walk about this village without looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? To get away from all this shit Earth kept flinging at you. Well, a little bit got carried here with you. But today we finish it. After today there won’t be any more Carter McBrides.”
Determination returned to the gathering; men nodded and exchanged bolstering glances with their neighbours, rifles were gripped just that fraction harder at the mention of Carter’s name. It was a collective building up of nerve, absolving them of any guilt in advance.
Powel Manani watched it accumulate with satisfaction. They were his again, just like the day they came off the Swithland, before that dickhead Molvi started interfering. “OK, the Ivets got split into three work parties this morning. There’s two out helping the savannah homesteads, and one lot with the hunting party to the east. We’ll split into two groups. Arnold Travis, you know the eastern jungle pretty well, you take fifty men with you and try and find the hunting party. I’m going to ride out to the homesteads to try and warn them. I expect that’s where Lawrence Dillon is headed, because that’s where Quinn is. The rest of you follow after me as fast as you can, and for Christ’s sake don’t get spread out. Once you get to the homesteads, we’ll decide what to do next. OK, let’s go.”
Enlarging the Skibbow homestead’s stockade was hard work; the wood for the fence had to be pre-cut in the jungle, a kilometre away, then hauled all the way back. The ground was difficult to prepare for the posts, with a vast accumulation of dead matted grass to scrape away before the hard, sandy soil was uncovered. Loren Skibbow’s lunch had been cold chikrow meat and some kind of flaccid tasteless stewed vegetable which most of the Ivets had left. And on top of all that, Gerald Skibbow was off on the savannah somewhere looking for a lost sheep, which left Frank Kava in charge, who was a bossy little shit.
By midafternoon Quinn had already decided that the Skibbows and Kavas were going to be playing a very prominent role in his next black mass ceremony.
The lengths of wood they had cut that morning were laid out across the grass, marking out a square of land thirty-five metres a side next to the existing stockade. Quinn and Jackson Gael were working together, taking it in turns to hammer the upright posts into the ground. The other four Ivets in the work party were busy nailing the horizontal beams into place behind them. They had already completed one side, and were three posts along the next. It had rained earlier, but Frank hadn’t let them stop work.
“Bastard,” Jackson Gael muttered as he took another swing with the sledgehammer. The post shook as it thudded another three centimetres into the soil. “He wants to have this finished by tonight so he can show Gerald what a good keen little boy he’s been. Means we’re gonna be walking back in the dark.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Quinn said. He was kneeling down, holding the black post upright. The mayope wood was wet, difficult to grip.
“This rain makes everything slippery,” Jackson grumbled. “Accidents come easy, and on this planet you get damaged, you stay damaged. That drunken old fart of a priest don’t know shit about proper doctoring.” The sledgehammer hit the post again.
“Relax. I been thinking, this place would be a good target for us.”
“Yeah. You know what really pisses me off? Frank climbs into bed with that Paula every bloody night. I mean, she’s not got tits like Marie had, but God’s Brother, every night!”
“Will you stop thinking with your dick for one fucking minute. I let you have Rachel, don’t I? That’s as well as our girls.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Quinn. Sorry.”
“Right, we’ll start working out who we want to bring, and when we’re going to do it.”
Jackson tightened the scraps of cloth he had wrapped round his palms to give a tighter grip on the sledgehammer’s handle. “Tony, maybe. He’s pretty easy around the village; talks to the residents. Think he could do with reminding where his loyalties lie.”
“Could be.”
Jackson swung the sledgehammer again.
Quinn caught a flash of motion out on the vast plain of rippling grass back towards the thin dark green line which marked the start of the jungle. “Hold it.” He upped his retinal implant to full magnification.
The running figure resolved. “It’s Lawrence. God’s Brother, he looks about dead.” He scanned the land behind the youth, looking for a sayce or a kroclion. Something must be making him run like that. “Come on.” He started trotting towards the floundering teenager.
Jackson dropped the sledgehammer and followed Quinn.
Frank Kava was measuring out the distance between the posts, setting them up correctly for the Ivets. Not that those idle buggers would appreciate the effort, he thought. You had to watch them the whole time, and they had no initiative, everything had to be explained. He strongly believed most of them were retarded, their sullen silence certainly indicated it.
He leaned in on the spade, tearing out the knobby roots of grass. This stockade was going to be a mighty useful addition to the homestead. The original one was far too cramped now the animals were reaching adult size. They’d need the extra room for the second generation soon.
Certainly the sheep would be mature enough to be inseminated in a few more months.
Frank had been faintly dubious about coming to Lalonde. But now he had to admit it was the greatest decision he’d ever made. A man could sit back every evening and see what he’d achieved. It was a tremendous feeling.
And there was Paula, too. She hadn’t said anything yet. But Frank had his suspicions. She looked so vital of late.
The sounds made him look up—something wrong. Four of the Ivets were still hammering away at the horizontal bars, but there was no one using the sledgehammer. He cursed under his breath. Quinn Dexter and the stalwart Jackson Gael were a hundred metres away, running through the grass.
Unbelievable. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, but they either didn’t hear him, or they just ignored him. Probably the latter, knowing them. Then he saw the figure running in from the jungle, the erratic stumbling gait of a desperate man on his last legs. As he watched, the figure fell, arms windmilling; Quinn and Jackson increased their pace. Frowning, Frank started towards them.
The voices led Frank for the last twenty metres. All three of them were crouched below the wispy grass.
It was another Ivet, the young one. He was lying on his back, sucking down air in huge gulps, trying to talk in a high-pitched choking voice.
His feet were reduced to bloody meat. Quinn and Jackson were kneeling beside him.
“What’s going on here?” Frank asked.
Quinn glanced back over his shoulder. “Take him out,” he said calmly.
Frank took a pace backwards as Jackson rose. “Wait—”
Paula and Loren were in the homestead’s living-room, waiting for their freshly prepared elwisie jam to boil. The elwisie was one of the local edible fruits, a dark purple sphere ten centimetres in diameter. A whole cluster of the small, wizened trees grew on the fringe of the jungle; they’d had a long picking session yesterday. Sugar was going to be the main problem; several people grew cane in the village, but the few kilos they’d traded weren’t particularly high quality.
It would get better though, Loren thought. Everything about Aberdale was slowly getting better. That was part of the joy of living here.
Paula took the clay jars from the oven where they’d been warming.
“Could do with a minute longer,” Loren said. She was stirring the mixture that was bubbling away inside the big pan.
Paula put the tray of jars down, and looked out through the open door. A party of people were coming round the corner of the stockade. Jackson Gael was carrying someone in his arms, a teenage boy whose feet were dripping blood. Another two Ivets were carrying the unmistakable figure of Frank.
“Mother!” Paula charged out of the door.
Frank’s face was terribly battered, his nose squashed almost flat, lips torn, eyes and cheeks swollen and bruised. He groaned weakly.
“Oh my God!” Paula’s hands came up to press against her face. “What happened to him?”
“We did,” said Quinn.
Loren Skibbow almost made it. There was something about Quinn Dexter which had always made her uncomforta
ble, and the sight of Frank had set every mental alarm ringing. Without hesitating she turned and raced back into the house. The laser hunting rifles were hung up on the living-room wall. Five of them, one each. Gerald had taken his with him this morning.
She reached for the next one, the one that used to be Marie’s.
Quinn punched her in the kidneys. The blow slammed her into the wall. She rebounded, and Quinn kicked her on the back of the knee. She collapsed onto the floorboards, moaning at the pain. The rifle clattered down beside her.
“I’ll take that, thank you,” Quinn said.
Loren’s vision was blurred by tears. She heard Paula screaming, and managed to turn her head. Jackson Gael had dragged her inside, holding her under one arm while her legs kicked wildly.
“Irley, Malcolm; I want the guns and every spare power magazine, any medical gear, and all their freeze-dried food. Get to it,” Quinn ordered as the other Ivets piled in. “Ann, take watch outside. Manani will be coming out here on his horse, and keep an eye out for Gerald as well.” He threw the rifle to her. She caught it and nodded crisply.
Irley and Malcolm started to ransack the shelves.
“Shut up,” Quinn yelled at Paula.
She broke off screaming, staring at him with huge, terrified eyes.
Jackson Gael shoved her into a corner, and she shrank down, hugging herself.
“That’s better,” Quinn said. “Imran, put Lawrence down in the chair, then search out the boots in this house, as many pairs as you can find. We’re gonna need ’em. Got a long way to go.”
Loren saw the young Ivet with the ruined feet being lowered into one of the chairs around the square kitchen table. His face was grey, sweating profusely.
“You just find me some bandages and some boots, I’ll be all right,” Lawrence said. “Really, Quinn, I’ll be fine.”
Quinn caressed his forehead, fingers teasing back the damp strands of blond hair. “I know. That was a hell of a run out here. You did great, Lawrence. Really. You’re the best.”