Strata (19 page)

Tell him, Kin.’

I’d better join in, she decided, otherwise they’ll think I’m nuts … What do I mean,
they
?

‘The Company put a lot of research into straight matter transmission,’ she said. ‘In theory it ought to work, it’s a logical extension of strata machine or dumbwaiter operation. Trouble is, it takes power. Far too much. And the best anyone managed was a two-millisecond displacement, then the subject just snapped back to the
here
.’

‘Aye, I heard about that,’ said Silver in Marco’s voice. ‘The continuum is very anti sneaky stuff like matter transmission. Starhopping it has to put up with because we go through the Elsewhere, but straight teleportation is like trying to throw away a ball that’s tied to your hand by elastic.’

‘Yes, there seems to be rules that say you stick to your predestined space-time point.’

‘What’s that got to do with the demon?’

‘He’s transmitted. Something transmits him out maybe a hundred times a second, just as fast as the continuum snaps him back. That’s how he can fly. They just move the focus of the transmitters. He’s here, he can see and hear and touch, but he’s not
here
. I don’t know why he stays tied up,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘They could move him outside the ropes.’

‘Then the sooner we get back—’

There was a scream.

When they arrived breathless at the doorway Marco was standing with all four hands clasped around a bundle of black feathers. Two small shining eyes watched them intently.

‘It just sauntered in through the door,’ said the kung.

‘What was all the business with the candlesticks?’ said Kin. Silver snorted.

‘Marco deduced the creature must have phenomenal sound detection apparatus,’ she said. ‘It seemed logical that if it heard three of us climbing the tower—’

‘It’s far too heavy for a bird,’ said Marco. ‘It must be a machine. Now we can talk to the disc controllers and explain—’

The raven turned its head one hundred and eighty degrees. Marco’s mouth closed like a clam.

Quoth the raven: ‘You’re the bastard that dumped me in vacuum. You’re going to find out what happens to people who don’t act respectful to one of the Eyes of God.’

Marco’s mouth opened and shut.

‘Heaven help your hands if you’re still holding me in five seconds,’ the bird added conversationally. ‘Four, three, two—’ A thin wisp of smoke escaped from the feathers.

‘Marco!’

His hands jerked back. The raven stayed in mid-air, balanced on a thin actinic flame that filled the hall with shadows and set the flagstone below cracking like springtime ice.

Then it wasn’t there. Kin had just enough sense to throw herself backwards as pieces of roof rained down. They looked up at the ragged hole, far above, and heard the cry:

‘
You’ll be sorreeee!’

‘Talk,’ suggested Marco.

‘
I
PLEAD
.’

‘Who runs the disc? Where are they? How may we contact them? We shall require adequate directions and a detailed assessment of probable risks.’

Kin stepped forward and smiled reassuringly at the tethered giant. ‘Where did you come from, Sphandor?’ she said.

‘I
HAVE
ALWAYS
UNDERSTOOD
THAT
A
DOG WITH
STOMACH
GRIPES
PAUSED
NEAR
A
LOG AND
THE
SUN
HATCHED
ME
OUT,
LADY.
DO
NOT LET
HIM
NEAR
ME!
I
CAN
SEE
HIS
THOUGHTS AND
—’

‘I won’t let him hurt you—’

‘Oh yes? Just how?’ Marco began angrily. Two of his hands were heavily bandaged.

‘There is an island at the hub of the disc,’ said Kin sweetly, ignoring the interruption. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘GREAT
LADY,
GREAT
BEASTS
ROAM
THERE
OR
SO IT
IS
SAID.
NONE
OF
US
MAY
GO
THERE
ON
PAIN
OF – OF
—’

‘Of what?’

‘
AGONY,
LADY.
PAIN.
THE
WORLD
DISAPPEARS, AND
THEN
ONE
IS
IN
A
NEW
PLACE
AND
THERE
IS AGONY
.’

‘But you have attempted to go there?’

‘
THERE
IS
NOTHING
THERE
BUT
BLACK
SAND, LADY,
AND
THE
BONES
OF
SHIPS,
AND
IN
THE CENTRE
A
DOME
OF
COPPER,
AND
TERRIBLE ENGINES!
THEY
CANNOT
BE
TRICKED
!’

Kin kept trying for another ten minutes, then gave up.

‘I believe him,’ she said, joining the others and dialling for coffee.

‘He’s manifestly a product of complex technology,’ said Marco.

‘Yah, but he
thinks
he’s a demon. What am I supposed to do? Argue?’

‘If I chopped a foot off perhaps he would think differently?’ said Marco, reaching for a knife.

‘No,’ said Silver, drumming her fingers on the dumbwaiter’s dome. ‘No. I think not. Marco, we must assume that the disc builders tend to think like human beings, and humans set great store by mercy and fair play, at least when it does not conflict with their interests. Let us therefore set the creature free, thus demonstrating our moral superiority. The action will declare us to be merciful and civilized. In any case,’ she added, and they instinctively looked up for ravens as she lowered her voice, ‘I fail to see any further use in him.’

Kin nodded. Silver walked and pulled at the knots in the cable and let it fall away. Sphandor stood up, looked at them solemnly, and walked out into the light.

He raised a cloud of dust as he took off, jerking upwards like a man heron, and hovered fifteen metres up.

‘
ZAIGONEN
TRYON
(TFGKI)
BERIGO
HURSHIM
!’

‘So much for gratitude,’ said Silver.

‘You understand the language?’ said Kin.

‘No, but I think I got the drift of that.’

‘
ASFALAGO
TEGERAM!
NEMA!
DWOLAH
NARMA! WHERE
ARE
YOU,
SOIGNATORIE,
USORE,
DILAPI-DATOR
–
NOOOOOOOO
—’

For an instant the demon was a black cloud that filled the sky, a fog of flickering, fuzzy images – each one staring in terror. Then he was gone. There was a
thump
of inrushing air.

They flew higher and fast over forests flattened by the falling ship. The smoke column was thinning, but now they were within miles of it the sky was all smoke.

Marco aimed directly at it, daring it to contain enemies. Ahead of Kin, his suit glittered like a silver spark against the darkness.

Once inside, Kin was surprised that she could still see. It might have been better if she could not. Between billows was the landscape of hell.

After five minutes inside the smoke Marco spoke.

‘I don’t understand it,’ he said. ‘There’s no radiation. There
shouldn’t
be. But there’s far too much damage. Silver?’

Below them a drunken forest burned. Before the shand answered the ground below them disappeared abruptly, as if there had been a cliff.

‘I can see nothing in this gloom,’ said Silver. ‘Can you?’

Marco could. Kung eyes had better night vision. He swore, and slowed his suit. The others did the same, drifting together so that the suits bobbed as in trio in the smoke. Marco was still staring down.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said softly. ‘Let’s go down.’

‘I’m flying blind,’ complained Silver. ‘You must direct me so that I don’t hit the ground.’

‘You won’t,’ said Marco.

Kin let herself drop, tensing herself for the crash until she came out of the smoke into moonlight.

Shining upwards
.

Vertigo gripped like a wrench. She could take space, because everywhere was down and direction lost its meaning. Skimming over a landscape was fine, it was no different than driving an aircar.

But not this. Not hanging legs down over a hole in the world.

The moon was directly below, hovering near infinity at the bottom of a tunnel that went down and down and down …

‘Five miles deep, wouldn’t you agree, Silver?’ said Marco in the distance. ‘And at least two wide. Are you all right, Kin?’

‘Hunh?’

‘You’re still descending.’

She fumbled dizzily for the suit controls. On a level with her eyes, a quarter mile away, was the lip of the hole, striated with bands of rock. Lower – she forced her eyes to move slowly. More bands, then a line of something metallic.

And a pipe, gushing water. Kin started to laugh hysterically.

‘We’re fine!’ she giggled. ‘We don’t need to go any further, all we have to do is wait for the repairmen! You know what it’s like with plumbers, when you want one they’re never—’

‘Cease gibbering. Silver, see to her,’ snapped Marco. Kin saw his hand poised over his chest panel. Then he dropped, fast. Her eyes started to follow him down before Silver’s gloved paw jerked her round. She felt motion, and realized dimly that she was being steered away from the hole.

After a while she heard Marco say, ‘There’s a pipe thirty metres across. Guess what? The water’s pooling about two miles down – on air. That’s why we’re not in the middle of a descending hurricane, there’s some kind of a gravity base down there. There’s going to be one hell of a lake there soon.

‘I’ve gone down forty metres. It looks like an explosion in a power station. There’s sheared – cables, I guess, multicored, and what could be waveguide tubes or access tunnels or something. Silver?’

‘I hear you. I suggest the ship impacted on top of one of the disc environmental machines, which blew up,’ said the shand.

‘It looks like it. There’s a lot of fused stuff and – scrub that. Here’s a tunnel, a real tunnel. Can you hear me? I’m hovering in front of a semicircular tunnel, it’s even got rails in it! The whole of the interior of the disc is one big machine! You should see this hole, it’s big enough for a spaceship. There’s, uh, eighteen rails across the floor. Access for machinery repairs. I assume, but it’s half choked with rubble.’

‘The ship impacted five days ago,’ said Silver sombrely. ‘They have had five days in which to effect repairs. The disc builders are dead, Marco. There can be no other explanation.’

‘I can see no signs of repair,’ came the voice from the pit.

‘Quite so. Something has gone wrong somewhere, just as the seas are erratic and the heavenly bodies misbehave. Which way does the tunnel run? Is there a continuation on the further side of the pit?’

There was a pause.

‘Yes, I can see the other mouth of the tunnel. It runs direct from the rim to hub,’ said Marco. ‘I had considered suggesting we continue our flight along the tunnel but—’

‘—it would be better to face any dangers in the open sky. Precisely.’

Kin opened her eyes. She was hovering over blessed earth – scorched, maybe, baked and half molten, but solid.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Stupid, wasn’t it? My forebears used to hang from trees by their knees.’

‘No shame,’ said Silver. ‘I do not like darkness. We all have our phobias. Kin? You look a little pale …’

Kin didn’t try to speak. She knew she couldn’t. She managed a strangled grunt, and pointed.

Something was rising out of the pit, with difficulty. That difficulty arose because it was almost too big. All she could think of was the Mt Tryggvason Memorial.

It was one of the Valhallian tourist attractions. Someone had carved the high-relief heads of Presidents Halfdan, Thorbjorn, Weasel Moccasin and Teuhtlile out of solid rock a few hundred feet high in the side of the mountain.