The Line of Polity (21 page)

In the picture, the great fat Brother had not managed to haul his bulk up onto either of the large beds, and so chose a small bed that sagged under his weight and out of the end of which stuck his feet clad in filthy socks with red and white stripes.

The mountains were close enough now for Eldene to discern snow on their upper slopes and dark occlusions of vegetation fingering up from the plains that abutted below. From the slope they stood upon — a rampart of earth that divided croplands from the wilderness of Masada — she gazed out upon this scene with some trepidation. It had taken most of the day to get this far, and as yet there had been little danger of note. However, she wondered if the heavy mesh fence that now stood behind them was there to keep people in or to keep something out — something it was obviously ineffective at doing, as they themselves had scrambled over it in minutes. Her worries increased when Fethan took the stinger from her and handed her Proctor Volus's gun in return, then instructed her in its use.

"It's powered up for one magazine, but that's okay because that's all we've got. There are five rounds in each disc of the magazine, and seven discs in total," Fethan said, displaying the cylinder he had extracted from the butt of the gun before clicking it back into place. "Simple firing mechanism: the trigger's electrical, so it's very light and easy to use. You hold it down on one pull to get continuous fire for each disc — that's the five rounds. One press and release gives you one shot. Double press and hold down, and the gun will empty its entire cylinder — that's thirty-five shots discharged in about five seconds. Be very careful with this. I don't want to be picking bullets out of my syntheskin every time you get a little nervous." He handed the weapon over and Eldene accepted it as if she was taking a poisonous snake.

"Why am I likely to need this now?" Eldene inquired. "Surely I needed it more back there."

Fethan grinned at her. "Oh, it's not exactly a halcyon wilderness out here."

"Any safer than back there?" Eldene asked, gesturing with the gun.

"Safer, mostly — and at least out here there's no chance of you getting trigger-happy and killing innocent workers."

"What am I likely to have to defend myself from, here?" Eldene asked as they descended the slope into head-high flute grass.

"Heroynes, siluroynes and mud snakes," Fethan replied.

Eldene snorted, remembering a book of fairy tales amongst the precious few books the orphanage had possessed. "Yes, and no doubt there's gabbleducks and hooders that I'll need to use one of my precious three wishes against," she said.

Pushing into the grass, Fethan replied, "
Quince Guide
has those last two both listed, along with pictures of them, and Gordon tells of a hooder attack on one of the first survey teams. I myself have only ever seen gabble-ducks, though I know of others who have lost friends to hooders, and some who are convinced that they are destined to go the same way."

"You are kidding?" said Eldene.

Fethan glanced back at her. "Oh no, it's all part of the cycle of life here: the tricones feed on decaying matter filtering down through the soil, mud snakes feed on tricones that get too close to the surface, and heroynes feed on them in turn. Gabbleducks, siluroynes and hooders apparently feed on the many different varieties of grazers that eat the flute grass. All the predators I've named, if large enough, will take a stray human if he's careless, though human flesh tends to make them ill."

"You
are
kidding," said Eldene, thinking she really did not ever want to run into anything capable of feeding on that huge tricone they had seen earlier.

"Keep your weapon handy and your eyes open," Fethan replied.

Travelling along gullies and across the occasional flats — in which black plantains and the volvae nodules of rhubarbs sprouted from mats of roots — was easiest, but to remain on course they did have to push their way through stands of flute grass. However, closer to the mountains, the stands became less numerous and they were able to pick up their pace. Twice they crossed flattened trails through the vegetation, and on both occasions Fethan pointed to the ground and said, "Mud snake." By midday the ground began to rise and dry out, and here sparse stands of grass contained sprouts of new growth that were waist-high. Here the blister moss grew in clumps as large as footballs and there were occasional lizard-tail plants curving five metres into the air. These were clad in scales coloured in a clashing combination: purple at the tips, ranging to green, then orange at their roots. Some hours into evening, Fethan called a halt at a rocky outcrop where the ground was at its highest before dropping back into another plain of flute grass.

"Best we stop here," said Fethan. "I can hear if something approaches, but mud snakes tend to hunt at night and one could easily grab you from below."

"Or you," Eldene suggested as she wearily sat down on a contorted stone.

"Or me, yes, but I'd still be in one piece after their attack."

Eldene unstoppered her water bottle, flipped her mask down, and took a drink. Opening and closing the mask was now becoming second nature to her, and curiously, she no longer felt that nakedness at the absence of her scole. She felt free.

Studying the stone she was sitting on, she saw that it was covered with small translucent hemispheres that she at first took to be some sort of mineral. On closer inspection, she saw that something was moving inside each hemisphere, so she quickly stood and moved away.

"They're all right," Fethan assured her, reaching over, snapping one of the things from the rock with his thumb, and showing Eldene the underside. A greenish fleshy sucker clenched at the air for a moment and a single globular palp-eye extruded. When Fethan returned it to its place the creature turned round once as if getting comfortable, sucked its eye back in then pulled down flat against the stone. "If you start to run out of food you can give 'em a go," he added. "They're a delicacy in the Underworld, though they tend to cause flatulence, which is not an admirable condition for someone sharing a cave."

Eldene giggled, then giggled again — then found she could not stop laughing. She sat down with her back against the stone and tried to get herself under control. Looking up at Fethan's puzzled expression, she completely lost it and was laughing so much she had tears running down her face. When finally she got a grip on herself — mostly because her laughter was now hurting the injury her scole had left on her chest — she glanced up to see Fethan squatting on the ground before her.

"You better now, girl?" the old man asked.

Eldene nodded and looked around as night sucked the last dregs of light out of the twilight. Shadow surrounded her, and a touch of a breeze was eliciting faint music from the grasses.

"I never thanked you for saving me," she said.

"It's what I do," Fethan replied, standing and unhooking the pack to drop it beside her. "You get some rest now, and I'll watch over you."

Eldene removed from the pack the tarpaulin she had taken from the tool shed they had stayed in the night before, and wrapped herself in it. Again, sleep seemed to elude her, but then crept up behind her with a brick.

In the Security Area, Cardaff sent two diagnostic programs into the system. One came back with nothing, and the other with a corrupted locking code from one of the outer sections: SA34. Had the corrupted code been in SA1, Cardaff would have been worried, as that was where they held the thirty prisoners. He glanced at the relevant screen and saw that the men and women there, in their ship-issue overalls and security collars, were still in conference. Occam assured him that these people could not link with their biotech augs outside SA1 — the walls were so heavily shielded and the augs had no underspace facility.

"Anything on what they're discussing?" he asked Shenan.

The Golem Twenty-seven turned from her console and screen, exposing needle fangs in a smile, and not for the first time he wondered why she had chosen the outer appearance of an ophidapt.

"Their conferencing link is deeply coded and the technology, as we know, alien. Occam estimates it will take two days to crack the codes. Meanwhile we are recording everything," she explained.

"Best guess?" he asked.

"Probably discussing how they might escape, whether or not they will be sentenced to mind-wipe, and how best to retain whatever secrets they have. No doubt fanatics amongst them are putting forward the idea of mass suicide."

"Completely crazy," muttered Cardaff.

"Did you trace that glitch?" Shenan asked.

"Yeah, corrupted code out at 34 ... shit! I've got another one in SA20." Cardaff punched up views of the relevant section and got nothing but empty corridor, an open security door, and an empty confinement section beyond. "What the fuck is going on here?"

Shenan moved over and stood at his shoulder. Reaching down past him, she punched up a floor plan of the relevant sections and pointed. "The two doors that opened are in a line to the centre here, but SA26 is between. Have you had anything from the security door there?"

Cardaff brought up a view of that door, and checked the readouts before him. "No, nothing. No problem at all," he said.

Shenan tapped a sharp fingernail against the screen. "Except," she said, "that your readout indicates the door as closed and it quite evidently is not."

"Great." Cardaff hit the panic button and the response, rather than the flashing of lights and the squawking of klaxons he had hoped for, was that the console and screens before him went offline. He turned and stared at Shenan.

"I can't transmit out of here," said the Golem. She glanced across to her console, and almost as if in response to this, it too went offline.

Cardaff stood, marched across the room and palmed the touch-plate of the weapons locker. This at least did work and the door sprang open to reveal riot stun-guns, two pulse-rifles, and an assortment of hand weapons. He pulled out one pulse-rifle and tossed it towards Shenan before selecting the same for himself.

"Looks like we got problems," he commented.

"Yes," said Shenan, turning as the door to the room slid open onto the darkened corridor beyond.

Cardaff dropped down behind his console and sighted his rifle on the door. Shenan merely moved back, with her weapon held loosely. It was all right for her, thought Cardaff: Golem Twenty-sevens did not have much to fear in this world. There was a flicker, some sort of distortion in the air, then utter stillness, and Cardaff could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He had seen nothing come through that door, but this particular nothing certainly had presence.

"Chameleon—" Shenan managed, before something picked her up and slammed her into a wall of screens. She dropped out of their ruin with clothing ripped and syntheskin torn from her cheek. She fanned fire before herself, and her shots must have hit home for there came a bubbling snarl from the air and something searing hot gripped her head and yanked her from the ground.

Cardaff had never heard a Golem scream, and never seen one taken out so quickly. Shenan was discarded and thumped to the floor like a sack of tools — her head a blackened and misshapen thing. Cardaff opened up, fanning his own fire in the area where ... it had been. There were a few hits, clearly, and again that snarling, then all that was happening was that he was trashing the systems mounted in the wall beyond. Half a second after he ceased firing, something feverishly warm pressed against the side of his head, and that warmth spread into his head, and grew hooks.

Cardaff reached up and slapped his hand against another hand — febrile and slippery to the touch. Suddenly his head felt full of hot wires and he screamed, turning as he did so. Now he saw who was standing behind him.

"Interesting," grated Skellor, tilting his own head as best he could.

Cardaff could feel himself going, draining away through that hot touch. The sight faded from his right eye, then his hearing went. He groped for Skellor's arm with his other hand, tried to bring his pulse-rifle to bear. Skellor shook his hand as if to dislodge an irritating insect. For Cardaff... nothing.

"Well, it didn't get away unscathed," said Gant.

They all looked at the view projected on the screen in the bridge pod. The Dragon sphere hung, apparently lifeless, in space — a damaged moon of glittering jade and charcoal. A large segment of it had been charred, and huge black bones protruded into the void like the ruins of some vast cathedral. Around it orbited shed scales and other fragments of its body that had broken away, and this debris was now settling into an orbiting ring. There were no other signs of movement.

"The damaged area is highly radioactive," said Tomalon.

Cormac glanced at him then around at the others seated in the arc of command chairs. The presence of such chairs told him how old the
Occam Razor
was, since obviously it had been built when such ships required pilots, navigators, gunners and the like, and in subsequent refittings the chairs had not been removed. Tomalon's presence told him that the
Occam Razor's
AI was also old, for the newer battleship AIs did not require human captains to implement or make judgements on their decisions. It was not that AIs were now more trustworthy; it was simply because humans no longer controlled the Human Polity.

"
Only
the damaged area is radioactive," said Mika.

Tomalon did not deem this as a question, so Cormac asked of him, "Is that so?"

"Yes, it would appear to be the case. And that is not normal."

Cormac studied Tomalon. While all of them were looking at the screen, the Captain turned his head aside, his eyes unseeing opaque, and his mind linked to the ship's sensors.

Mika said, "This means it is either dead or has shut down its circulatory system to those areas. Any living creature receiving a radioactive wound soon ends up with the rest of its body contaminated as well."

"It has a circulatory system?" asked Cormac.

"Yes — though what circulates is not blood as we recognize it. Much more complex. Dracomen have the ability to consciously alter what their circulatory system carries, so we can presume Dragon has the same ability. I would very much like a sample of that substance now."