The Devil's Nebula (12 page)

Before them, hanging from the treetops, was the massive proboscis of a yeela. Twice as thick as a grown man and as tall as a tree, it hung a metre from the jungle floor, the questing snout of an animal that lived high above in the treetops.

It bulged, as if something was imprisoned within its skin.

She turned. The Sleer had emerged from the jungle and stopped dead, staring across at them with vast black eyes set in its bloody face.

She had seen Sleer in the clearing, of course, but never as close as this.

It was man-shaped, but bloody and blue, as if it had been freshly skinned. She knew the Sleer were immensely strong and did not require weapons to kill their victims. Its big, bare hands were powerful enough to crush a human skull.

It set off towards them, then stopped suddenly.

Something was protruding from its neck and a liquid – like blood, but much thicker – geysered from the wound.

Maatja turned. An Outcast knelt behind her, firing another arrow at the Sleer; behind him, a second Outcast dropped from the orifice of the yeela’s trunk.

Before her, the Sleer took a step forward, reaching out for them. Another arrow hit home, this time slamming into its great chest. The creature fell to its knees.

Maatja felt a hand grab her arm. She was dragged towards the yeela’s trunk, and a second later she was pulled up into the dark, fetid confines of the proboscis. It convulsed, and before she knew it she was being carried up, away from the clearing, in a great, muscular spasm.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about what the Sleer might have done to her and Kavan.

She wondered if she would find herself inside the stomach of the yeela and wondered how they might emerge. But a minute or so later she saw daylight above her head – a circle of red light. A face appeared and hands reached out for her, pulling her from the trunk; behind her, Kavan and the two Outcasts tumbled out.

She blinked. She was high in the treetops, standing on what looked like a great fungal platform lodged between the branches. As she watched, the hole from which she’d emerged irised shut.

Kavan smiled at her. “It’s how we get to the jungle floor so fast,” he explained.

One of the men looked from Maatja to Kavan. “So this is your little fissure friend,” he said.

Kavan said, “Maatja. She eats lakka.”

“You were lucky,” the Outcast said. “The Sleer swept through the jungle six hours ago, looking for us. They caught one of us, before the rest of us escaped. Then they went back to their fetid lair, apart from that one bastard.”

Kavan said, “I came to warn you, Maatja. The Sleer would have taken you for an Outcast.”

“What would it have done to me?” she asked in a small voice.

The man made a squashing gesture with his fist and a squelching sound with his lips.

Maatja looked around the platform. It was vast, extending for hundreds of metres through the treetops. Here and there she saw great hanging seed pods as big as huts, where Kavan’s people lived. Dozens of Outcasts sat on the platform, making things with vines and leaves; others came and went from the pod-houses.

The man smiled at her amazement. “We are civilised up here,” he said. “Not quite the savages your people would have you believe.” He paused, then said, “You should think about coming to live with us, Maatja.”

Before she could reply, the man spoke quickly to Kavan. Maatja didn’t catch his words.

Kavan said, “I must take you back now. This way.”

Maatja felt a moment of panic when she thought they were about to descend to the jungle floor, but Kavan took her hand and led her across the platform. The man nodded at her in silent farewell.

She tripped after Kavan; they passed families preparing fruit, and children playing. A minute later they left the populated platform and moved along a narrow, grey strip of material, slung like a bridge between the treetops.

She said, “And all this is a yeela?”

He nodded. “The yeela is nothing but a vast skin, with trunks that suck up food from the jungle floor. It absorbs insects and plants through the membrane of its trunks.” He laughed. “It doesn’t like humans.”

“How far does it stretch, Kavan?”

“Oh, kilometres and kilometres. In some places it’s wide like the platforms back there, in others thin like this.”

“And it doesn’t mind you living on its skin?”

The boy laughed. “Well, it’s never shrugged us off,” he said.

From the position of the great bloated sun hanging above their heads, Maatja could see that they were heading south, towards the fissure. They walked for an hour, stopping from time to time to stare across the canopy cover and admire the view. The jungle seemed to extend for ever, and from this vantage point, for the very first time, Maatja could see the series of fissures that split the skin of World.

Kavan stopped, touched her arm and said, “Look.” He pointed through the trees.

Far below was her clearing, a long stretch of sandy earth next to the fissure. She looked down at the line of huts in the shadow of the jungle and all her people going about their daily chores.

Kavan took her hand and led her towards another grey platform slung between high branches. At its centre was a dimple, which sprung open as they approached.

“How does it know we want to go down?” she asked.

“It doesn’t. It just opens in response to pressure, thinking we might be small birds or something. I’ll come down with you.”

He slipped into the trunk, taking her hand and helping her down after him. Maatja felt the tight skin constrict around her, then she was drawn down the trunk like a morsel of food in the throat of a giant.

As she dropped, she wondered if any of the fissure people had travelled like this before.

Minutes later Kavan was deposited on the jungle floor. He caught her as she fell from the end of the trunk.

He pointed. “Through there,” he said.

“Will you be at the ghala tree tomorrow, Kavan?”

He nodded. “Same time?”

She smiled, then raised her hand in a quick wave and hurried through the undergrowth. When she looked back, Kavan had climbed back into the yeela trunk and was a small bulge travelling up its grey length.

She hurried through the jungle, picking berries as she went, and came to the clearing a few minutes later.

She moved to her hut. Her parents were finishing off the thatch and Hahta was playing with her carved wooden jeera-pig. Her mother smiled at Maatja as she sat in the shade of the hut; it was as if she had never been away.

She thought of the Sleer and the Outcasts’ tree-top retreat and wondered what it might be like to live the life of an Outcast.

That night, as the sun went down, Maatja sat in her tree and watched a procession of a dozen Flyers, transiting the ruddy dome of the sun.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE TEST-FLIGHT
had gone well. Lania and Jed had taken the
Hawk
on a vast ellipse around the station, a team of armed guards on the flight-deck at all times, monitoring their every move. Lania had integrated seamlessly with the smartcore and Jed reported that the drives ran like a dream. She had emerged from the meld, hours later, in a state little short of elation. While she had loved the
Poet
, she had to admit that it had been a junk heap beside the
Hawk
.

An odd effect of melding with the
Hawk
was that, unlike her integration with the
Poet
, she lost all awareness of the passage of time. What had seemed to her like a flight of mere minutes turned out, when she emerged and consulted with Jed, to have lasted almost two hours.

Twelve hours later, she boarded the
Hawk
with Carew and Jed and was escorted by a guard to a suite of rooms adjacent to the flight-deck. Their berths were small but comfortable, and to her surprise she found all of the possessions she had assumed incinerated with the destruction of the
Poet
: her holo-cubes showing herself as a child with her father, her moving picture book of Xaria, the wardrobe of clothes which she hardly wore these days, thanks to her smartsuit.

She hurried from her berth and knocked on Ed’s sliding door. “Ed, they’ve collected all my stuff from the
Poet
.”

“Likewise,” Ed said. “I thought I’d never see my books again. They’ve brought over everything but our weapons.”

“Oh – and I thought you might like this.” She held out the Hhar statuette.

He took it, smiling. “Thank you.”

She shrugged. “Chances are they would have returned it anyway, but I didn’t know that, then.”

They were to be accompanied on the mission by six heavily-armed militia, outfitted in bulky golden armour. Lania wondered whether these hulking men and women – silent, surly types who seemed to be under orders not to speak to the flight-crew, never mind establish eye-contact – were there to monitor Carew, Jed and herself, or to provide security at journey’s end. She asked Ed.

“Both, I suspect,” he said as they walked onto the flight-deck.

Jed was already hammocked in his sling, going through pre-flight diagnostics. He smiled as they entered. “I could spend my life with these beauties,” he murmured as they took their positions.

Lania slipped into her sling and felt the ship fitting itself around her, much as the smartsuit enveloped and cradled her. She could almost feel the power of the
Hawk,
gathered in her belly, in her head. The ship was an extension of her body; she felt energised and in control.

Commander Gorley and Director Choudri strode onto the flight-deck and took their seats at the rear. “Estimated time of departure?” Gorley snapped.

“Fifteen minutes and counting,” Lania said. She went through routines checks with Jed and tried to ignore the presence of the Expansion officials.

The voyage through the void, transecting the outer edge of Vetch space, was scheduled to take a little over four days, if everything went smoothly and according to plan. The
Hawk
carried the latest weaponry, controlled of course by the complement of militia, and the Expansion officials were confident that they would outgun the aliens in any dog-fight. From the far edge of Vetch space to the fringe of the Devil’s Nebula was a journey of less than a day.

Lania would not be melded for the duration of the journey, only at departure and landfall and if anything untoward occurred in between. From time to time during the journey, she might integrate herself with the smartcore in order to ensure the smooth running of the ship, but for the most part the
Hawk
would be on automatic pilot.

Now Jed powered up the main drives and counted down from ten, and Lania eased the ship away from the station, allowing the drives to kick in incrementally.

“Phasing,” Jed said.

They made the transition from real space to the realm that underpinned reality, the grey non-space through which ships could travel vast distances, reaching far stars, without approaching the speed of light. Through the viewscreen, the sweep of stars that was Vetch territory disappeared, to be replaced by the swirling pewter monochrome of the void. The sight was familiar and reassuring; Lania felt herself smiling as she sank into the
Hawk
, lost all sense of self and the passage of time. She was the
Hawk
and they were arrowing through the void faster than any ship before it.

She came to her senses twelve hours later, feeling as if just an hour had elapsed. A smiling Jed, no longer in his sling, passed her a steaming mug of coffee. Ed was laid out on his couch, snoring gently. There was no sign of Gorley, Choudri, or the militia.

“Thanks.” She cupped the coffee and took a welcome sip. She felt drained but elated. The ship thrummed beneath their feet.

“How was that?” she asked Jed.

“Like a dream, Lania. You?”

She laughed. “That about sums it up, Jed. Like a dream. You think we can steal the
Hawk
when the goons aren’t looking?”

“I’ll work on it,” he said.

A little later, Ed woke up and stretched. He looked around. “How nice to be all alone,” he said. “Just like old times.”

Jed said, “Gorley and Choudri lasted an hour, then turned in. I slept for a few hours a while ago. We’re keeping station time, so it’s just about breakfast time.”

Lania laughed. “You think about nothing but your stomach, Jed.”

“Not quite true,” he said.

“Is,” she said. “I recall that time on Venson when all you wanted to do was eat the local truffles rather than go –”

“Well, they were rather good, Lania.”

“Will you two,” Ed said, “stop your squabbling.” He leaned forward and touched a control. On the viewscreen, the void was replaced by what looked like a yin-yang symbol.

“Human-Vetch space,” Ed explained. “We’re that flashing dot, see.”

She made out a blinking red light, crossing through the tail of the comma that was Vetch space. According to the diagram, they were about a third of the way through the alien territory.

Carew touched the controls again and the yin-yang symbol shifted to an edge-on perspective, so that the depth of the respective Human-Vetch space could be seen. Vetch space bulged, marked out in red light. By comparison, Human space was empty, just a thin blue wedge of stars settled on the edge of the space abutting Vetch territory.

“Makes one feel a little lonely,” Ed said to himself.

“I wonder how the human colonists in the Devil’s Nebula feel?” Lania said. “Really all alone out there.”

“If they survived,” Ed reminded her. “They sent out a mayday, after all.”

Jed shrugged. “If they did survive, then that’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? A place far away from the rest of humanity?”

Ed smiled grimly. “Well, they’ve certainly got that,” he said. “Anyone for breakfast?”

T
HEY ATE IN
a lounge at the top of the ship, a long room with viewscreens set in each flank, affording a view of the void. Gorley and Choudri were already there when the three arrived, seated at the far end of a central table with mugs of coffee. The Expansion men had been chatting quietly, but now they fell silent.