Steel Sky (46 page)

The tank continues to fill. The scummy surface of the brown liquid rises slowly, swirling with bits of refuse. Alarm bells ring as the level of sewage threatens to exceed the tank’s capacities. Second Son leans over the railing, scanning the tank intently for any sign of his sister, to ensure that she does not rise again. The flashing warning lights suffuse him with an eerie red glow.

“Let me go!” Bernie shouts. “Do you want to kill us all?”

The men in the black and green uniforms release him, and Bernie rushes to the console. He throws the switch to the resting position. The gate grinds back into place. Sewage continues to pour through the gap. The level of liquid is now only a meter from the lip of the tank. The metal walls groan ominously under the weight, but Second Son does not move away from the railing.

Finally the liquid waste begins to recede. Second Son watches it dwindle, leaving the walls of the tank sticky and shiny with ooze, until the last of it gurgles down the drainage tubes. Bernie watches the expression on the bald man’s face as he intently scans the floor of the tank. With a deep breath, Second Son turns away from the tank, leaning back against the railing. His hands shake as he wipes the sweat from his brow.

“Well, Pinky,” he whispers to himself, “it looks as if you get me after all.”

FORBIDDEN GROUND

Only after the leader of the Rats grabs him by the arm and starts pulling him back toward the pit does Orel realize that they are expecting him to watch.

The other Rats follow their leader. Those with access to weapons pick them up: clubs, stone knives, or simple sharp rocks. They gather around the pit, squealing and waving their weapons, waiting for the alpha Rat to give them the sign. The men in the pit, weak with exhaustion and hunger, stare listlessly up at them. Orel can see Eno Selachian shivering in a corner, his thin arms crossed over his chest, hands tucked in his armpits. He looks up at Orel with a pitiful, miserable expression.

The Rat leader raises its axe with a loud squeal, and the other Rats jump into the pit. For a moment, the Rat’s grip loosens, and Orel breaks free and runs.

The leader screams at this desertion and sprints after him. Orel runs as fast as he dares in the darkness, keeping his eyes on his feet, fearful that he will trip and fall. Nausea and terror make him stumble, but he keeps running, ignoring the sounds of death behind him. He looks up and sees the cavern entrance to his left. A small group of Rats cluster around the entrance, guarding it. To his right are the giant elevator and its macabre altar. Orel looks back and sees the leader close behind him. Other Rats, infected by their leader’s outrage, are converging from all sides.

Hemmed in, Orel turns right and sprints as fast as he can, dodging a few Rats whose grasping hands miss him only by centimeters. As he crosses into the space defined by the framework of the gantry, the Rats squeal with anger. He is trespassing on forbidden ground. The Rats crowd around the perimeter, their heads bobbing up and down in unsyncopated indignation. Encouraged by their hesitation, Orel ventures further into the framework, looking for another tunnel out of the cavern or a place to hide. He finds nothing but girders and bones. A fresh outbreak of squealing from the Rats causes Orel to turn around. The Rat leader has stepped over the perimeter and is advancing slowly into the forbidden zone. Its head scans from side to side, drawing in huge lungfuls of air through its nostrils, tracking him by scent as much as by sight.

Orel searches desperately for a way out, but he is trapped. He has run himself into a corner. Looking up, he sees a black, inverted pit, dimly defined by the framework of the elevator. The effect, in combination with his hunger and exhaustion, is dizzying, and he reaches out to the iron of the framework to keep himself from falling. The Rat’s snuffling is growing closer. He has no choice. Using the crossbeams of the framework like the rungs of a ladder, Orel hoists himself up into the blackness.

His bare feet scrape flakes of rust from the cold metal. Alerted by the sound, the Rat leader rushes to the space at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Orel cannot see it — he does not dare look down — but he can hear the pad of the creature’s feet, the whistling rush of air in and out of its nostrils. Then he hears the sound he hoped he would not: the rasp of callused hands and feet on rock and metal as the creature begins to climb after him. Orel redoubles his effort, but he fears he is still not moving fast enough. He has never been athletic, and now he is weak with hunger, and he cannot see his fingers as he reaches for the next beam.

The girders grow further apart as he climbs higher. He has to move from one side of the framework to the other, inching his way up the diagonal crossbeams, or reach beyond the framework to the rock face behind it and grip outcroppings. His only consolation is that the Rat behind him finds the shaft as strange and confusing as Orel does. No one has ever traveled this way before; the beams are coated with a thick layer of stone dust that must have lain undisturbed for years.

The harsh breathing from below seems to grow closer and closer. Orel wishes the walls of the shaft did not echo and distort sound so much. It is impossible for him to gauge how far away the Rat is. It could be ten meters below, or just beneath him. The only thing Orel knows for sure is that he must keep climbing.

Suddenly Orel hears a squeal from close by and feels a thick-nailed hand grab at his heel. He screams — so full of terror that he sounds less human than the Rat itself — and kicks at the Rat’s hand. He loses control for a moment, wildly flailing his feet in the darkness, screaming till his throat is raw. Then he realizes his foot is not hitting anything. Has he knocked the Rat loose, or is it circling around him, trying to come at him from the side? He looks around, but it is too dark for him to see. Phantom visions swim around his head. He is completely blind.

He pulls himself up to the next girder and feels for a handhold on the rough wall. Below him the squealing begins again, coming closer. Orel climbs up the rock face, feeling with his hands for the next girder. The Rat no longer cares if Orel knows where it is. Its squeals are furious, filled with blood lust.

The rock outcropping where Orel has planted his left foot shudders and cracks. It begins to slide loose from the rock face. Orel loses his balance. His grip on the other rocks is not strong enough to keep him from falling. He grabs wildly with his other hand, reaching as far up as he can. His fingers brush against metal. The rock under his foot comes loose completely as Orel grabs one last time for the girder. The tips of his fingers grasp the edge of it. It is not much, but enough to hold him. The rock falls. Feet dangling in mid-air, he grasps the girder with his other hand and pulls himself up with his last bit of strength. The squealing below him is interrupted by a loud crunch, the sound of heavy rock striking flesh and bone.

For a moment, the shaft is silent.

Then the squealing begins again, softer this time, weaker. The sound seems to oscillate, growing fainter with each iteration. It takes Orel a moment to realize that the inconsistency is caused by the fact that the Rat is tumbling end over end as it falls down the shaft. The sound continues for a long time, then ends with an almost inaudible impact. Orel hadn’t realized he had climbed so high.

He sprawls on his back, stretched across the girder, weeping with exhaustion. There is no way to tell how long he lies there, and at times Orel cannot even say with certainty whether he is asleep or awake. Obscure, barely audible sounds echo up the shaft. The smell of calcite and corroding steel is almost refreshing after the stink of the Rats and their dung fires.

After a while, he stands, balancing himself precariously on the girder. He looks up, then down. The two directions are the same — utter blackness, distinguished from each other only by the pull of gravity. He considers the situation for a while. Up or down? He tries to analyze his position logically. There is, he decides, only one option. He begins to climb again.

CURIOSITY PIECE

Gloss ducks under the counter of his tinker shop and inspects the autowalkers he picked up earlier. He got a good bargain, he decides. He gives them a cleaning and sets them high on a shelf. Nobody uses autowalkers anymore, but they can always be knackered for parts.

Leaning back in his chair, he plays with a camshaft, trying to entertain himself. The electronics and re-engineering business is slow today. He wonders if the cave rescue party that people are talking about will mean more orders for sonar helmets. He makes a mental note to check on supplies.

He hears the buzzer that indicates a customer and threads his way through the over-packed shelves to the counter. A young woman, one of the Engineered, is looking around his shop. She wears a single stripe across each shoulder. Her clothes are finely made, but wrinkled and dirty. Gloss tries to size her up: a tersh pretending to be something she’s not? A primey fallen on hard times? She carries herself like a primey, but primaries do not usually come here unless they have some heirloom to unload, and her hands are empty.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

The young woman turns, and Gloss can see that she is indeed a woman in trouble of some sort. Her eyes are bloodshot, with dark circles beneath them. He beautiful green hair has been chopped short, apparently by herself, and apparently without the aid of a mirror. She steps up to the counter, still looking around at the shelves.

“I want to buy a soft gun.” Her voice is low and tight, as if she is forcing herself to be civil but wants to scream.

Gloss coughs. He wishes she would stop peering up at the shelves. She is making him nervous. “Miss, you don’t just walk into a store and buy a soft gun. Every one that’s made is registered and licensed. Accounted for. Not to be had at any price.”

The woman looks down, studying her hands. She turns them over. Studies the other side. “I see,” she says in that same quiet voice. She turns to leave.

“Wait! Wait!” Gloss says quickly. “That’s not to say I can’t help you. There may be something else here you want.”

She waits, her feet toward the door, but her head turned and her eyes focused on him.

“I take it you don’t need a soft gun
per se
? Looking for a weapon of some sort?” Gloss asks, stepping around the counter. “Not for the commission of a crime, of course. Couldn’t sell it to you if you were. Against the law. But you only want a curiosity piece, right? You’re a collector.”

She says nothing. Her gaze is unnerving: emeralds in pink marble.

He hurries to a shelf. He wishes he had dressed better today. He likes to cut his coverup and leggings short — he finds them too confining — but he knows he looks ridiculous, an old man with his knobby knees showing. “Perhaps I can interest you in this item,” he says, pulling a spikeflyer from the shelf. “Look at the craftsmanship. Every tooth is hand-carved. Not legal above Deck Seven, of course, but I have a special carrying case for it.”

She frowns.

“No, of course not,” Gloss says. He is feeling her out. He has a good idea what she will want to buy from him, but he wants to build up the suspense, pique her interest. He can get the best price that way. “You’re a sophisticated woman. You want something unique, something with a little history.”

“I don’t care about history,” she says, an edge creeping into her voice. “I want something that will . . .”

“Nit!” Gloss shushes her. He points surreptitiously at the camera on the ceiling, his hand close against his chest so the camera cannot see the gesture. “You say the wrong words,” —
like ‘kill a man’,
Gloss thinks — “and we can’t do business. Got it?”

Gloss is unprepared for the look of fury that sweeps over the woman’s face as she stares up at the camera. Her teeth clench, and her cheeks turn red. Her hands ball into tight fists. She actually seems to grow a few centimeters in height. She looked so frail when she walked in, but now she looks like a small killing machine.
What the hell has walked through my door?
he thinks.

“Show me what you have,” the woman says.

He nods, shrugging. Whoever she’s mad at, it’s not him. He steps into the back of his shop.

“Come this way.” He opens a cabinet and pulls out a Blue Sleeper. “Ever seen one of these before?” he asks, gripping the handles and adjusting the snout with his thumbs. “Koba was still alive when this beauty was made. An astounding piece of technology. Took it apart once. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The expertise we’ve lost since those days . . .”

The woman looks at the weapon. She runs her fingers along the air ribs.

“A wonder, isn’t she?” Gloss says. “Pacify an entire crowd in under ten minichrons.” The woman frowns again and looks around at the other shelves.

“No?” Gloss puts it back in the cabinet. “No. You’re looking for something more . . . personal. If you’ll wait just a minichron, I have something that may interest you.” He kneels by a small safe on a low shelf. Dust smears on the surface as he fiddles with the combination. At last, it opens. He reaches in and pulls out the gun, rubbing his thumb lovingly across the blue steel of the barrel.

“Do you know what this is?”

She shakes her head.

“It’s called a revolver. When you pull this trigger here, this hammer falls and causes a small explosion of sulfur and potassium nitrate inside the chamber. The explosion propels a cylinder of metal out of the barrel, this tube here. Not a very efficient system, but the slug travels fast enough to punch a hole right through a man.”