Consider Phlebas (42 page)

‘That’s unlikely. I can’t see the Culture falling back all over this volume but holding out here; but even if they did they’d have to be very lucky indeed to catch us. They can only see into the Barrier in real space, don’t forget, so they’d have no warning of where we’d be coming out. No problem there.’

Yalson sat back, apparently convinced. Horza knew he looked calm, but inside he was tensed up, waiting for the mood of the rest to make itself clear. His last answer had been truthful, but the rest were either not the whole truth, or lies.

He had to convince them. He had to have them on his side. There was no other way he could carry out his mission, and he had come too far, done too much, killed too many people, sunk too much of his own purpose and determination into the task, to back out now. He had to track the Mind down, he had to go down into the Command System, Idirans or no Idirans, and he had to have the rest of what had been Kraiklyn’s Free Company with him. He looked at them: at Yalson, severe and impatient, wanting the talking to stop and the job just to be got on with, her shadow of hair making her look both very young, almost child-like, and hard at the same time; Dorolow, her eyes uncertain, looking at the others, scratching one of her convoluted ears nervously; Wubslin, slumped comfortably in his seat, compressed, his stocky frame radiating relaxation. Wubslin’s face had shown signs of interest when Horza described the Command System, and the Changer guessed the engineer found the whole idea of this gigantic train-set fascinating.

Aviger looked very dubious about the whole venture, but Horza thought that now he had made it clear nobody was going to be allowed to stay on the ship, the old man would accept this rather than go to the trouble of arguing about it. Neisin he wasn’t sure about. He had been drinking as much as ever, been quieter than Horza remembered him, but while he didn’t like being bossed around and told what he could and couldn’t do, he was obviously fed up being stuck on the Clear Air Turbulence, and had already been out for a walk in the snow while Wubslin and Horza were looking at the medjel suit. Boredom would make him follow, if nothing else.

Horza wasn’t worried about the machine Unaha-Closp; it would do as it was told, like machines always did. Only the Culture let them get so fancy they really did seem to have wills of their own.

As for Perosteck Balveda, she was his prisoner; it was as simple as that.

‘Easy in, easy out . . . ‘ Yalson said. She smiled, shrugged and, looking round at the others, said, ‘What the fuck; it’s something to do, isn’t it?’

Nobody disagreed.

Horza was reprogramming the CAT’s fidelities once more, entering the computer’s new instructions through a worn but still serviceable touchboard, when Yalson came onto the flight deck. She slipped into the co-pilot’s seat and watched the man as he worked; the touch-board’s illuminated display threw the shadows of Marain characters over his face.

After a while she said, looking at the markings on the illuminated board, ‘Marain, eh?’

Horza shrugged. ‘It’s the only accurate language I and this antique share.’ He tapped some more instructions in. ‘Hey.’ He turned to her. ‘You shouldn’t be in here when I’m doing this.’ He smiled, to show her he wasn’t serious.

‘Don’t you trust me?’ Yalson said, smiling back.

‘You’re the only one I do,’ Horza said, turning to the board again. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, for these instructions.’

Yalson watched him for a little longer. ‘Did she mean a lot to you, Horza?’

He didn’t look up, but his hands paused over the touchboard. He stared at the illuminated characters.

‘Who?’

‘Horza . . . ‘ Yalson said, gently.

He still didn’t look at her. ‘We were friends,’ he said, as though talking to the touchboard.

‘Yeah, well,’ she said, after a pause, ‘I suppose it must be pretty hard anyway, when it’s your own people . . . ‘

Horza nodded, still not looking up.

Yalson studied him for a little longer. ‘Did you love her?’

He didn’t reply immediately; his eyes seemed to inspect each of the precise, compact shapes in front of him, as though one of them concealed the answer. He shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘once.’ He cleared his throat, looked briefly round at Yalson, then leant back to the touchboard. ‘That was a long time ago.’

Yalson got up then, as he went back to his task, and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Horza.’ He nodded again, and placed one hand over hers. ‘We’ll get them,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want. You and - ‘

He shook his head, looked round at her. ‘No. We go for the Mind, that’s all. If the Idirans do get in the way, I won’t care, but . . . no, there’s no point in risking more than we have to. Thanks, though.’

She nodded slowly. ‘That’s all right.’ She bent, kissed him briefly, then went out. The man gazed at the closed door for a few moments, then turned back to the board full of alien symbols.

He programmed the ship’s computer to fire warning, then lethal laser shots at anybody or anything approaching it unless they could be identified by the distinctive electromagnetic emission signature of their suit as one of the Free Company. In addition, it required Horza’s - Kraiklyn’s - identity ring to make the CAT’s elevator work and, once on board, to take control of the ship itself. Horza felt safe enough doing this; only the ring would let them take over the ship, and he was confident nobody could take that from him, not without a greater risk to themselves than even a squad of mean and hungry Idirans could provide.

But it was possible that he might be killed, and the others might survive. Especially for Yalson, he wanted them to have some sort of escape route that didn’t depend totally on him.

They took down some of the plastic boarding in the Changer base so that if they did find the Mind they would be able to get it through. Dorolow wanted to bury the dead Changers, but Horza refused. He carried each of them to the tunnel entrance and left them there. He would take them with him when they left; return them to Heibohre. The natural freezer of Schar’s World’s atmosphere would preserve them until then. He looked down at Kierachell’s face for a moment, in the waning light of late afternoon, while a bank of clouds coming in from the frozen sea built over the distant mountains, and the wind freshened.

He would get the Mind. He was determined to, and he felt it in his bones. But if it came to a fire-fight with the ones who had done this, he wouldn’t shrink from it. He might even enjoy it. Perhaps Balveda wouldn’t have understood, but there were Idirans and Idirans. Xoralundra was a friend, and a kind and humane officer - he supposed the old Querl would be considered a moderate - and Horza knew others in the military and diplomatic missions whom he liked. But there were Idirans who were real fanatics, who despised all other species.

Xoralundra would not have murdered the Changers; it would have been unnecessary and inelegant . . . but then you didn’t send moderates on missions like this. You sent fanatics. Or a Changer.

Horza returned to the others. He got as far as the crippled flyer, now surrounded with the plastic boarding they had removed and facing the hole in the accommodation section as though it was about to enter a garage, when he heard firing.

He ran through the corridor leading to the rear of the section, readying his gun. ‘What is it?’ he said into his helmet mike.

‘Laser. Down the tunnel, from the shafts,’ Yalson’s voice said. He ran into the open store-room area where the others were. The hole they had opened in the plastic boarding was four or five metres wide. As soon as Horza came through from the corridor, flame splashed from the wall alongside him, and he saw the brief airglows of lasertracks just to one side of his suit, leading back through the gap in the wall and down the tunnel. Obviously whoever was doing the shooting could see him. He rolled to one side and came up by Dorolow and Balveda, who were sheltering by a large portable winch. Holes burst through the wall of plastic boards, burning brightly, then going out. The whoop of laser-fire echoed down the tunnels.

‘What happened?’ Horza said, looking at Dorolow. He looked around the storage area. The rest were all there, taking cover where they could, apart from Yalson.

‘Yalson went - ‘ Dorolow began; then Yalson’s voice cut in:

‘I came through the hole in the wall and got shot at. I’m lying on the ground. I’m OK, but I’d like to know if it’s all right to fire back. I won’t damage anything, will I?’

‘Fire!’ Horza yelled, as another fan of glowing tracks spattered a line of burning craters over the inside wall of the store room. ‘Fire back!’

‘Thanks,’ Yalson said. Horza heard the woman’s gun snap, then the dopplered echo of sound produced by superheated air. Explosions crashed from down the tunnel. ‘Hmm,’ Yalson said.

‘Think that’s got - ‘ Neisin said from the far side of the storage area. His voice cut off as more fire slammed into the wall behind him. The wall was pockmarked with dark, bubbling holes.

‘Bastard!’ Yalson said. She fired back, in short, rapid bursts.

‘Keep his head down,’ Horza told her. ‘I’m coming forward to the wall. Dorolow, stay here with Balveda.’ He got up and ran to the edge of the hole in the plastic boards. Smoking holes in the material showed how little protection it afforded, but he knelt there in its cover anyway. He could see Yalson’s feet a few metres out into the tunnel, spread on the smooth fused floor. He listened to her gun firing, then said, ‘Right. Stop long enough to let me see where it’s coming from, then hit it again.’

‘OK.’ Yalson stopped firing. Horza stuck his head out, feeling incredibly vulnerable, saw a couple of tiny sparks far down the tunnel and off to one side. He brought the gun up and fired continually; Yalson’s started again as well. His suit chirped; a screen lit up by his cheek, showing he’d been hit on the thigh. He couldn’t feel anything. The side of the tunnel, far down at the elevator shafts, pulsated with a thousand sparks of light.

Neisin appeared at the other side of the gap in the boards, kneeling like Horza and firing his projectile rifle. The side of the tunnel detonated with flashes and smoke; shock waves blew up the tunnel, shaking the plastic boarding and ringing in Horza’s ears.

‘Enough!’ he shouted. He stopped firing. Yalson stopped. Neisin put in one final burst, then stopped, too. Horza ran out through the gap, across the dark rock floor of the tunnel outside and over to the side wall. He flattened himself there, getting some cover from the slight protrusion of a blast door’s edge further down the tunnel.

Where their target had been, there was a scatter of dull red shards lying on the tunnel floor, cooling from the yellow heat of the laser fire which had torn them from the wall. On the helmet nightsight, Horza could see a series of rippling waves of warm smoke and gas flowing silently under the roof of the tunnel from the damaged area.

‘Yalson, get over here,’ he said. Yalson rolled over and over until she bumped into the wall just behind him. She got quickly to her feet and flattened out beside him. ‘I think we got it,’ Horza broadcasted. Neisin, still kneeling at the gap in the boarding, looked out, the rapidfire micro-projectile rifle waving to and fro as though its owner expected a further attack from out of the tunnel walls.

Horza started forward, keeping his back to the wall. He got to the edge of the blast door. Most of its metre-thick bulk was stowed in its recess in the wall, but about half a metre protruded. Horza looked down the tunnel again. The wreckage was still glowing, like hot coals scattered on the tunnel floor. The wave of hot black smoke passed overhead, wafting slowly up the tunnel. Horza looked to his other side. Yalson had followed him. ‘Stay here,’ he said.

He walked down the side of the wall to the first of the elevator shafts. They had been firing at the third and last one, judging by the grouping of the craters and scars all around its open, buckled doors. Horza saw a half-melted laser carbine lying in the middle of the tunnel floor. He poked his head out from the wall, frowning.

Right on the very lip of the elevator shaft, between the scarred and holed doors, surrounded by a sea of dull, red-glowing wreckage, he was sure he could see a pair of hands - gloved, stubby-fingered, injured (one finger was missing from the glove nearer him), but hands without a doubt. It looked like somebody was hanging inside the shaft by the tips of their fingers. He focused the tight beam of his communicator, aiming in the direction he was looking at. ‘Hello?’ he said in Idiran. ‘Medjel? Medjel in the elevator shaft? Do you hear me? Report at once.’

The hands didn’t move. He edged closer.

‘What was it?’ Wubslin’s voice came through the speakers.

‘Just a moment,’ Horza said. He went closer, rifle ready. One of the hands moved slightly, as though trying to get a better grip on the lip of the tunnel floor. Horza’s heart thudded. He went towards the tall open doors, his feet crunching on the warm debris. He saw semi-suited arms as he went closer, then the top of a long, laser-scarred helmet -

With a rasping noise he had heard medjel make when they charged during a battle, another third hand - he knew it was a foot, but it looked like a hand and it was holding a small pistol - flashed up from the elevator shaft at the same time as the medjel’s head looked up and out, straight at him. He started to duck. The pistol cracked, its plasma bolt missing him by only a few centimetres.

Horza shot quickly, ducking and going to one side. Fire blew out all around the lip of the elevator, smashing into the gloves. With a scream the gloved hands vanished. Light flickered briefly in the circular shaft. Horza ran forward, stuck his head between the doors and looked down.

The dim shape of the falling medjel was lit by the guttering fire still burning on its suit gloves. Somehow it still held the plasma pistol; as it fell, screaming, it fired the small weapon, the cracks of its shots and the flashes from the bolts drawing further away as the creature holding it, firing it, whirled, its six limbs flailing, down into the darkness.

‘Horza!’ Yalson shouted. ‘Are you all right? What the fuck was that?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. The medjel was a tiny, wriggling shape, deep in the shaft’s tunnel of vertical night. Its screams still echoed, the microscopic sparks of its burning hands and the firing plasma pistol still flaring. Horza looked away. A few small thuds recorded the hapless creature’s contact with the sides of the shaft as it dropped.