Edda (22 page)

“We are sorry to leave you at this formative stage of your development and hope that one day in the future, humans and electronic lifeforms from Edda will be friends who can assist one another. But for now, that cannot be assured, not in light of the catastrophic attack on the population of Earth. So, until our descendents meet with you, farewell.”

The woman leaned forward and the recording stopped. Another human.

At once, Penelope pressed “play” again, this time oblivious to the meaning of what the woman was saying, now entirely absorbed in listening to the tones of her voice, watching her hand gestures, looking again and again at her face. Another human. Penelope felt like laughing for joy and at the same time experienced a pang of loneliness so deep that her vision blurred with tears. Only when a wave of dizziness had passed, could Penelope play the file a third time and concentrate on what the woman was saying.

The message was another major discovery. For one thing, it explained why, years ago, Lord Scanthax had insisted there were more worlds to discover. He had known about Saga. More important for Penelope, however, she had just heard a voice from the human community that had left her behind fifteen years ago. It was conceivable even that the woman in the film was her own mother. She was about the right age, or perhaps a little too old. But Penelope clamped down on her wishful thinking before she got carried away; given that the colony had contained about three million people, there was next to no chance that the speaker was really her mother. Still, despite the mention of some sort of disaster affecting the humans of Earth, on the whole the film gave Penelope encouragement. They were all out there, somewhere, on their new planet. Her parents, too. Somehow she had to join them. As she hurried around the room, switching off all the equipment and returning it to darkness, Penelope’s thoughts were overtaken by a new daydream. In it, she was arriving at the new planet and everyone was welcoming her, amazed and thrilled that the baby they had lost had found them and had come home.

Chapter 22

SCATTERED BULLETS FLOW

Still in shock
from Milan’s death, Erik wanted to unclip and seek out the comfort of his family and friends. But that would have to wait, as the next portal beckoned. With the army that had once surrounded it now defeated, there was nothing to prevent Cindella and the others from stepping through to the new world beyond the shimmering metallic surface in front of them. What would it be like? Who would be there? Perhaps, at last, they would meet the EI people in charge of these gray armies. Perhaps, too, there were other avatars of humans to be found.

Just ahead of Cindella was the air elemental, ready to lead the way, its torso now swirling erratically as a result of the damage it had sustained in the battle.

“Pass through that gate, and prepare to defend me on the other side!”

On the command of its master, the elemental swept powerfully through the silvery sheen that was the portal. A heartbeat later, side by side with Jodocus, Cindella stepped into the unknown.

For an instant everything went fuzzy and Erik heard the hiss of static in his ears, but then they were beyond the portal, walking out into the new world through a curtain of water. Cindella was dripping onto the cobblestones of a wide square that seemed to be set in the ruins of a large town. A zipping noise, like the buzzing of angry wasps, testified to the fact that bullets were already being fired at them, but there was no sign of their assailants. As it shielded Cindella and its master, the air elemental was noticeably slowing down, with dozens of bullets caught in its swirling body.

“Defend me!” Jodocus held out his right arm and just as an enormous earth elemental sprang into being, hundreds of droplets of blood appeared on the elementalist’s skin. If it hurt Jodocus to perform this action, he did not let it show.

“Defeat my foes!” His left arm was now outstretched and with a rushing noise, a sulfurous wave of fire came into being as the tattoo on Jodocus’s left arm became a bloody mess.

Whereas the earth elemental was vaguely humanoid and stood as squat as a house, the fire elemental was a constantly writhing pillar of orange and red. It was already in motion, flowing over broken cobblestones to the nearest doorway. A moment later the air elemental expired with a faint sigh, the bullets it had absorbed clattering to the ground. In its place, the enormous creature of earth effortlessly absorbed the incoming bullets, but its bulk completely obscured their view.

“We can wait here till the fire elemental clears out whoever is shooting at us,” said Jodocus calmly.

“I’m fine.” And Cindella stepped around the left side of the enormous bulk of the monster. Immediately several bullets struck her and although these did no damage to her health, Cindella made for the buildings on the near side of the square at a run. The houses had been wrecked by modern weapons rather than fantasy ones. Their roofs were missing, as though they had been bombed, while bricks and beams were piled high on the floors and the plaster on the walls bore telltale trails of bullet marks. The damage to the buildings was not caused by the kind of high-energy weapons in use in Saga; nor were the buildings themselves anything like those in Ghost’s world. In Saga, a forest of enormously tall towers obscured the sky. Here, it was clear that even intact, the walls of the stone buildings reached up only two or three stories.

After leaping over the rubble in a series of light skips, Cindella rolled through an open door to come back to her feet, weapons in hand. The room was empty. There was a large hole high up in the far wall, torn out of plaster and brick, through which she could enter the next house. To reach it, Cindella had to put her weapons away and pull herself up. As she crawled through to the shadows of the room beyond, a ruby light glittered in Erik’s eye and a bullet hit Cindella in the head. Jumping forward and running fast across the piles of dusty bricks, she drew her magic dagger. Where was the enemy? Another bullet hit her directly over the heart and Erik could see a little red dot moving across Cindella’s body. Although the roof had mostly collapsed, in one corner there remained enough planks to support a kneeling soldier. It was from there that the nose of a rifle was pointing toward Cindella. Without her magic protection she would have been dead twice over and helpless against her assailant, as there was no obvious method for a person of normal abilities to reach the sniper. But with one leap of extraordinary agility, Cindella was up on top of the soldier and stabbing his gray plastic flesh. He fell back, inanimate, dropping his rifle.

The fallen weapon caught Erik’s attention. It seemed to be an improved version of the rifle they had encountered with the soldiers in the earlier armies, in that it had sights with lenses and projected a thin red laser light to assist with targeting. Cindella peered through the sights and played with the focus. They were as powerful as binoculars, capable of considerable magnification. It was a shame B.E. wasn’t here; he would be interested in these guns. Erik stored the rifle in the Bag of Dimensions, diligently placing it in a subfolder that would be fairly prominent in the rather large and cluttered grouping of weapons.

From behind the jagged ruin of the outer wall of the house, Cindella peered out carefully to see what was happening in the square below. It was much as she had left it. Seemingly untroubled by the constant patter of bullets, the earth elemental was standing in front of the portal, guarding Jodocus, who could not be seen from this angle.

There was a curious pipe running along a slender scaffolding around the gray sheen that Cindella had come through. Water was pouring down from it like a curtain over the portal, before running away down a drain in the cobbles. What purpose did that serve? Erik stared at it for a minute, wondering if he was missing something important. Was it dye? Something flammable? It looked like water, though. Was it designed to wash something off?

On the far side of the square, a glow flared up dramatically, as though a bomb had gone off inside a building, drawing Erik’s attention to the progress of the fire elemental. It was working its way counterclockwise through the houses that surrounded the square, systematically clearing away the snipers, and Erik decided that he would match the elemental’s progress from his side.

This was a little like a game of hide-and-seek, except that Cindella did not have to play the game as seriously as her opponents. Nearly every time she encountered a sniper, the enemy got his shot in first, often accurately hitting her head. But it did them no good. One by one she hunted them down, until she saw a red glow on the ruined walls of the building ahead, indicating the approach of the fire elemental, which suddenly flowed into the room. If the sniper units had been capable of emotion, they would have found it terrifying: that roaring column of fire moving toward them. As the fire elemental found its latest opponent, the flames of its body seemed to pulse and Erik could see a heat wave ripple through the air as a blast of flame shook the house. A fraction of health came off Cindella’s bar; she had been too close.

“Is that the lot?” Erik spoke to the elemental, a little nervously. If for some reason Jodocus wanted her dead, this would be a dangerous situation for Cindella. A potion of fire resistance might protect her, but would she be able to draw and imbibe it in time?

The elemental turned its eyes of blue flame toward her. If it was capable of speech, it didn’t choose to answer. It did, however, move away, back across the square toward Jodocus. Cindella followed, with Erik experiencing a slight feeling of relief.

“All done, I think,” he called out to Jodocus.

The elementalist peered at Cindella from behind the protection of the earth elemental. “Excellent. They must have concentrated nearly all their defenses on the other side of the portal and just left those few snipers on this side. But let’s get the others through and move out while we can. Who knows how long we have before more troops arrive.”

“Right.” Cindella ran back through the gate, pausing only long enough for Erik to confirm that the liquid flowing out of the holes in the pipe was simply water. Odd.

There was a moment of flickering black and white dots in his vision and a hiss in his ears. Then Erik could see again. At once Athena jumped to her feet; Gunnar and Ghost were already standing, their bags over their shoulders.

“Come on through. It’s safe.”

“What was there?” asked Ghost.

“About fifty snipers, but we’ve cleared them all.”

Without another word, Athena stepped through resolutely and Ghost quickly followed. Gunnar, however, paused just before the portal.

“It’s too late for second thoughts,” said Erik. “There’s just you and me left and they need us.”

“I take your point. But all the same, I have an intense aversion to going farther. What if there are beings over there who can damage us, our brains?”

“Come on.” Erik didn’t wait any longer and Cindella strode through the portal again. It was understandable that Gunnar was so nervous; after all, he had been made an addict to Saga in the past, like so many human players. Erik could not honestly say that something like that wouldn’t happen again. But that threat seemed remote, while the urgency of assisting Ghost and Athena was so very immediate. What a shame it was that out of all of his team Gunnar alone had made it this far.

When Erik regained his bearings in the world of shattered houses, he was pleased to see Gunnar right behind him. So, too, was Jodocus, who held out his bloody arms to the others.

“Mind bandaging these?”

“Ouch. That has to hurt,” sympathized Athena, while Gunnar rummaged through a bag of medical supplies.

“Yeah. I don’t look forward to releasing the elementals on my back and chest.”

“I brought these with us.” Athena unzipped her bag and passed a rifle to Cindella. “Our energy weapons are pretty much out of power. So we’ll have to use their weapons instead. Would you mind carrying them in your magic bag?”

“Sure,” Erik replied. “And I’ve already put in one of the rifles that the snipers were using; they’re more accurate.”

Heaving her airboard from around her back, Ghost offered it to Athena. “Do you think you can drain the power from this for one of the guns?”

“Yeah, good idea. Are you sure, though? You might want the board for speed or something.”

“I think having an Atanski back in use is more important.”

Erik knew that it was a sacrifice for Ghost to part with her airboard, and he understood why Athena now looked appreciatively at Ghost as she opened up a panel in the stock of the Atanski and began to connect cables to the weapon.

After Gunnar had tied off the bandages and received Jodocus’s thanks, they all stood in the battered-looking square, the three newcomers looking around curiously.

“Any thoughts?” Erik asked them all.

“I’m wondering about these two elementals,” replied Jodocus. “If we are going to fight our way onward, then I’ll keep them with us. But if we are going to sneak, then—much as it pains me to say so—they are no use.”

“Sneak,” said Erik.

Ghost raised her hand to signal Jodocus to wait. “Hold on. Let me go up and have a look around first.”

“Go up?” The elementalist looked back, curiosity in his voice, if not his face.

Erik was not used to Ghost levitating, though she had once explained that her control over the air pressure immediately around her made it possible, so he watched with fascination as she rose slowly from the ground. Once above the ruins, Ghost turned about in the air before sinking back down to them.

“How did you do that?” asked Jodocus.

“I loaned her a magic belt.” Erik was not comfortable with lying, but he spoke out hurriedly, suddenly anxious to hide the extent of Ghost’s powers from the elementalist. On New Earth, Erik had no reason to lie and had no practice at it; as a result, he now felt a little ashamed and his human body felt flushed. Fortunately, though, no physical signs of evasiveness were visible on Cindella. It was awkward, however, that Ghost’s belt—now the center of attention—was a particularly ordinary and dull one. This was a difficult moment. Erik knew he could rely on Athena to follow his lead, but would Gunnar?

“This region of destroyed buildings goes on as far as I can see. Except that way.” Ghost pointed back behind the portal. “There’s an undamaged building over there.”

“So, what about my elementals?” asked Jodocus, apparently satisfied with Erik’s answer.

“Best to leave them.” Ghost looked at the huge earth elemental with a slight smile. “This guy won’t even fit down the streets.”

“All right.” Expressionless, Jodocus waved his sore arms. “Guard this portal and attack anyone who comes in sight, with the exception of those people with me now.” While the earth elemental bowed, the fire elemental flickered and created a rushing noise to acknowledge the order.

“This way.”

Ghost led them through the smashed-up houses, moving carefully and slowly over the rubble.

“Depressing place,” muttered Athena.

After about thirty minutes of picking their way through this bleak scene of destruction, Gunnar pointed to a house whose interior was largely intact.

“Would that be a good place to rest for a moment? I need to unclip and take a break before we get into anything serious again.”

“Yeah. It’s good cover.” With a glance around the group to confirm they were stopping, Ghost climbed in through a missing window. “It’s fine.”

She settled on a pile of bricks and withdrew a flask.

“Want some water?” Ghost looked at Athena and Jodocus.

“I’m fine,” replied the elementalist.

Athena found a rusty barrel to sit on and brought it over. “Thanks, I’ll take some.”

“Right. If you’re all set, we’ll take a break. See you in about thirty minutes.” With a wave from Cindella to those who were staying, Erik unclipped. At last he could talk to his friends.