Land and Overland - Omnibus (92 page)

"I believe it's called rafter wood, sir," Steenameert said, coming to his side. "You can see why it was favoured by builders."

"How do you know what it's called?"

Steenameert blushed. "I have read descriptions of it many times in the—"

"Oh,
no
!" The voice was that of Lieutenant Correvalte, who had been walking around the perimeter of the chamber, opening the doors into side rooms as he came to them. He was backing off from a doorway, shaking his head, and Toller knew at once that he had witnessed a great obscenity.
This,
Toller told himself,
is what I have been expecting since we entered the village. I knew something bad was in store for us, and I have no wish to set eyes on it.

He knew, also, that he could not avoid personally inspecting the find lest the word get about among the crewmen that he had become soft. The most he could do was to delay the grim moment. He stooped over a control lever and ratchet and brushed the dust away from them, pretending to take a special interest in the precise carving, and while doing so watched his men. Their curiosity aroused by Correvalte's reaction, they were taking turns at venturing into
the
room. None stayed longer than a few seconds, and—professionally callous though they were—each looked subdued and thoughtful as he returned to the main chamber.

I have an appointment in that room,
Toller thought,
and it would be unseemly to delay any longer.

He straightened up, hand unconsciously falling to the hilt of his sword, and walked to the waiting doorway. The room beyond resembled a prison cell. It was devoid of furniture, and was cheerlessly illuminated by a broken skylight in the sloping roof far above. Ranged around the walls, in the seated position, were perhaps twenty skeletons. The wispy remnants of dresses and skirts, plus the presence of necklaces and ceramic bangles, informed Toller that the skeletons were the remains of women.

It isn't all that bad,
he thought.
It was a fact of life, a fact of death, that the plague was impartial. It struck down women just as readily as men, and since arriving on this unhappy world I have seen many, many…

His mind seized up, chilled, as he absorbed a fact which had not been readily apparent at first glance. Curled up in the pelvic basin of each of the skeletons was another skeleton—a tiny armature of fragile bones which was all that remained of a baby whose life had ended before it had properly begun.

Yes, the plague had been
very
impartial.

Toller longed to turn and flee from the room, but the deadly coldness in his mind had percolated down through his body, immobilizing his limbs. Time had become distorted, stretching seconds into eons, and he knew that he was destined to spend the rest of his life frozen to the same spot, on that threshold of pessimism and pure despair.

"The villagers must have put all their pregnant women in here, hoping these walls would protect them," Lieutenant Correvalte said from close behind Toller. "Look! One of them was having twins."

Toller chose not to seek out that refinement of horror. Breaking free of his paralysis, he turned and walked away from the room, acutely aware of being closely scrutinized by every member of his crew.

"Make a note," he said over his shoulder to Correvalte. "Say that we inspected the pumping machinery and found it to be in good condition and capable of being restored to working order in a short time."

"Is that all, sir?"

"I haven't noticed anything else that our sovereign would regard as important," Toller said in casual tones, walking slowly towards the station's entrance, disguising the anxiousness he felt, the pressing need to reassure himself that the sanity of sunshine could still be found in the outside world.

The Migration Day celebrations had taken Toller completely by surprise.

He had completed his survey mission and arrived back at the base camp in Ro-Atabri less than an hour before nightfall, having lost track of the date. Unusually for him, he felt deeply tired. The news that it was Day 226, the anniversary of the first touch-downs on Overland, had failed to strike any spark within him, and he had gone straight to bed after signing his ship over to Fleet Master Codell. Even the word that Vantara had returned to base earlier in the day had not roused him from the pervasive lethargy, the weariness of spirit which was taking the light out of everything.

Now he was lying in darkness in his room, which was part of the quarters which had once housed the guard of the Great Palace, and was quite unable to sleep. He had never been given over to introspection and soul-searching, but he understood very well that his tiredness was not physical in its origins. It was a mental tiredness, a psychic fatigue induced by a long period of doing that for which he had no taste, of going against his own nature.

Before leaving home he had visualized Land as one vast charnel house, and the reality of it had more than conformed to his expectations, culminating in the grisly find at the Sty-vee pumping station. Perhaps he was being self-indulgent. Perhaps—as one born into a privileged position in society—he was having his first taste of what life must be like for a common man who was forced to spend all his days in a kind of toil he detested and which had been forced on him from above. Toller tried reminding himself that his grandfather, that other Toller Maraquine, would not have allowed his composure to be so quickly disturbed. No matter what fearful sights and experiences the
real
Toller Maraquine had had to contend with he would have deflected the force of them with his shield of toughness and self-sufficiency. But … but…

How do I find room inside my head for twenty skeletons neatly ranged against a wall, with another twenty skeletons curled up inside them in the pelvic cradles? Another twenty-one skeletons, I should have said. Didn't you notice that one of the women was having twins? What are you supposed to do about two little manikins, with whitened twigs in place of bones, who kept each other company in death instead of life?

An extra-loud burst of laughter from somewhere in the palace grounds brought Toller to his feet, swearing in exasperation. Men and women were getting drunk out there, getting themselves into a state in which they could exchange handshakes with skeletons, return the grins of skeletons, and pat unborn babies on their still-bifurcated craniums. It came to Toller that his only prospect of sleep that night lay in dosing himself with large quantities of alcohol.

Welcoming the positive decision, his inner tiredness abating slightly, Toller pulled on some clothes and left the room. Finding his way through unfamiliar corridors with some difficulty, he reached the garden on the north side of the grounds which was the centre of the festivities. It had been chosen because it was mostly paved and therefore had stood up to decades of neglect better than the others. Even the parade ground at the rear of the palace was waist-high in grass and weeds. Several small fires had been lit in the garden, their orange-and-yellow rays partially obscured and softly reflected by ornamental fountains, statues and shrubs, making the place look much larger than it did in daylight.

Couples and small groups strolled through the spangled dimness, while others stood near the long table which had been set up for refreshments. Males outnumbered females by about three to one on the expedition, which meant that women who were in the opposite mood that night were enjoying a surfeit of romantic attention, while males who were redundant in such respects were concentrating on food, drink, song and the telling of bawdy stories.

Toller found Commissioner Kettoran and his secretary, Parlo Wotoorb, standing behind the table serving food and drink. The two old men were obviously enjoying the menial task, proving to all of the company that in spite of their exalted rank they still possessed the common touch.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome," Kettoran called out when he espied Toller approaching. "Come and have a drink with us, young Maraquine."

Toller thought that the commissioner was slightly overplaying his role—perhaps afraid of somebody missing the point—but it was a harmless enough foible, not one he found objectionable. "Thank you—I'll have a very large beaker of Kailian black."

Kettoran shook his head. "No wine. No ale either, for that matter. A question of useful payload on the ships, you see—you will have to settle for brandy."

"Brandy it is then."

"I'll let you have some of the good stuff, in one of my best glasses."

The commissioner sank down to his knees behind the table and a moment later stood up with a glittering crystal filled to the brim. He was handing the glass over when the jovial expression abruptly departed his face and was replaced by one of mingled surprise and pain. Toller took the glass quickly and watched with some concern as Kettoran pressed both forearms against his lower ribcage.

"Trye, are you unwell?" Wotoorb said anxiously. "I
told
you 'you should take more rest.'"

Kettoran inclined his head briefly towards the secretary, then winked knowingly at Toller. "This old fool thinks he is going to live longer than I am." He smiled, apparently no longer in distress, picked up his own glass and raised it to Toller. "1 bid you good health, young Maraquine."

"Good health to you, sir," Toller said, unable to muster a reciprocal smile.

Kettoran studied his face closely. "Son—I trust you will not think me impertinent—but you no longer seem the young game-cock who captained my ship on the voyage to Land. Something seems to have taken the starch out of you."

"Out of
me
!" Toller laughed incredulously. "Put your mind at ease, sir—I don't soften up so readily. And now, if you will excuse me…"

He turned and walked away from the table, privately disturbed by the commissioner's comments. If the effects of his malaise could be discerned so quickly by one who scarcely knew him, what chance had he of keeping the respect of his own crewmen? Maintaining discipline was difficult enough at times without having the men begin to regard him as a hothouse plant who was likely to wilt at adversity's first cold breath. He sipped some brandy and walked around the garden close to the perimeter, keeping away from noisier centres of activity, until he found an unoccupied marble bench. Grateful for the solitude, he sat down.

Above him the narrowing crescent of Overland was nested near the centre of the Great Wheel, that enormous whirlpool of silver luminance which dominated the night sky in the latter part of the year. Several comets were splaying their tails across the heavens, and myriads of stars—some of them like coloured coachlamps—added to the splendour, burning with an unwinking permanence which contrasted with the brief dartings of meteors.

Toller addressed himself to his outsized goblet, which must have contained close on a third of a bottle of brandy, downing the warming liquor in patient, regular sips. It was a night on which it would have been good to have female companionship, but even the thought that Vantara might be only a few dozen paces away in the scented gloaming failed to elicit any response from within him. It was also a night for facing up to truths, for discarding illusions, and the plain facts of the matter were that he had made an enemy of the countess on their first meeting as adults, that she despised him now and would go on doing so for as long as he stayed in her memory.

Besides,
came the slithering thought,
how can you even think of courting a woman when there are twenty-one miniature skeletons watching you?

Toller kept on with his methodical drinking until the goblet was empty, then assessed his condition. In spite of the tiredness he had not yet succeeded in stunning himself with alcohol. There was a perverse wakefulness at the core of his mind which told him that at least one more brimming crystal would be necessary if he were to escape the reproachful gaze of the twenty-one bone-babies and sink into unconsciousness before deepnight engulfed the world.

He stood up, as steady as a well-rooted tree, and was starting in the direction of the table to avail himself of Kettoran's generosity when he saw a woman approaching him. She was slim and dark-haired, and he knew before being able to see her face properly that she was Vantara. She was wearing full uniform—no doubt her way of distancing herself from those officers who were prepared to forget about rank for the sake of the revel—and Toller braced himself for a verbal skirmish. He did not have long to wait.

"What's this?" she said lightly. "No sword? Of course! How silly of me to forget—there aren't any kings ripe for skewering at this little gathering."

Toller nodded, acknowledging the reference to his grandfather, who had been dubbed Kingslayer by the populace of his day. "That's very funny, captain." He made to move past her, but she halted him by placing a hand on his arm.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"No." Toller was disconcerted by the unexpected physical contact. "1 would add that I'm going to replenish my glass."

Vantara looked up into his face, frowning slightly as she scanned his features. "What's the matter with you?"

"I fail to understand the question."

"Where is the great warrior, Toller Maraquine the Second, who is immune to bullets? Is he off duty tonight?"

"I was never one for riddles, captain," Toller said stonily. "Now, if I may be excused—I'm ready for another of the commissioner's sleeping potions."

Vantara transferred her grip to the hand in which he held his glass—the warmth of her touch like ambersparks playing on his flesh—and briefly bowed her head over it. "Brandy? Bring one for me, please. But not on such a gigantic scale."

"You want me to bring you a drink?" Toller said, aware of sounding slow-witted.

"Yes—if you don't mind." Vantara sat down and made herself comfortable on the bench. "I'll wait here for you."

Feeling slightly bemused, Toller made his way back to the refreshments table and obtained another huge bumper of brandy for himself and a normal-sized one for Vantara, to the accompaniment of much nodding and winking from Kettoran and Wotoorb. While he was on his way back to the bench a ptertha came drifting across the garden, its bubble-like structure glinting but scarcely visible in the uncertain light. It was ascending in the updraught from one of the fires when it was noticed by a group of the revellers. Whooping with glee, they began throwing large twigs and pebbles at it. One of the sticks flailed through the ptertha and it abruptly ceased to exist. A cheer went up from the onlookers.