Under the Eye of God (23 page)

Kask ignored her. He looked to Sawyer and Finn. “We must fight!”

“We can't win!”

“Then we'll die like heroes—with honor!”

“You can have my share of honor! I have other plans.” Sawyer said. He started looking around.

Kask expressed his opinion of that course of action. He spat at Sawyer's feet. Sawyer stepped back distastefully. The puddle of Dragon spit smoldered and smoked. “Nice,” he admitted, with wry admiration. “Very nice.”

A beam shattered the rocks overhead, triggering a small avalanche. They ducked out of the way as part of the cliff came sliding downward, missing them by only a few meters.

Finn Markham nudged his brother in the ribs. “I like this better. This looks like much more fun than shoveling shit for the rest of my life.”

Sawyer grinned back. “But at least this we have experience with.”

Finn grunted. “Well, I sure hope you have a Plan B—”

“
Me?
Why don't you come up with a good idea once in a while?”

“I did, remember? And we ended up here.”

Sawyer climbed partway up the cliff so he could look down the canyon. As bad as the carnage sounded, the view of it looked even worse.

The battle-robots had no compunction about killing. They shot prisoners and children with equal accuracy. They didn't care. They swept back and forth across the canyon, crashing through the rubble. They smashed and destroyed everything that lay before them. Their beams stabbed out with sudden fire, slashing and burning.

Sawyer jumped and skidded down from his perch. He'd already seen too much. But the terrible sounds continued—the screams of the injured and the dying, suddenly cut short by the higher, nastier screams of the beams of the battle-machines. They could hear them crunching steadily, nightmarishly after them.

“Come on!” shouted Slash. “Let's get out of here!”

For the first time, they all looked at her—a gender-female human boy? Giving orders?

“Well, do you want to get out or not? This way!” She pointed.

Sawyer and Finn exchanged a what-have-we-got-to-lose look, shrugged, and followed after. The others came behind them, even Kask; he still carried the struggling Ibaka.

“What did they do here?” Sawyer asked her.

“—drainage, for some kind of installation further up the canyon. Nobody uses it for anything anymore.” She led them quickly up to where the water fell from a series of broken pipes into a brackish catch basin. The water flowed over the top, down a scumble of white rocks and disappeared into the dark opening of a huge sluice tube. “Down that way!”

The growing crowd of prisoners pushed close, eager to get away; they looked fearfully back down the canyon. Lee held them back. “Where does it lead?” he demanded.

Slash shook her head. “To another catch-basin, and then another, and another, all the way down.”

“Down to where?” Impatience edged his words.

Harry stepped forward. “I know where—you won't like it. This goes all the way down to the tank at the bottom of the Old City detainment. You remember that, don't you? This water feeds the pool.”

“Ugh,” said Finn, wrinkling his face in disgust.

“Wait a minute—” said Sawyer. “We can get out before it empties into the pool.”

“I wish I had your faith in Ghu—” said Harry, “—so I could wish as eagerly to meet my maker.”

“I don't need faith,” said Sawyer. “I majored in urban plumbing.” He sat down on a rock and began pulling off his boots. “This thing has to have an access before it pours into the prison tank.” He tossed his boots into the sack he carried full of rations and tied it to his belt. He slung his rifle over his shoulder.

“And what if you've made a mistake?” asked Finn.

“Then, my dear brother, I won't have to worry about it, will I?”

“You, Soy, have taken all leave of your senses.”

“I know that. Do you have a better idea?”

“Yes! Let the Dragon go first.”

“Huh?”

“So he can catch the handle and open the access from the inside. What if you don't have the strength? He will. Then he can pull the rest of us out.”

Kask shook his head and rumbled unpleasantly. “No. I will not let go of the dog-boy.”

“Give him to me. I promise you, we'll bring him if you'll pull us out on the other end,” said Sawyer.

Kask frowned. “I have never trusted a human before. Why should I trust you now?”

In answer to his question, a sizzling beam came screaming through the air, slicing a great chunk of rock off the cliff above them.

“How about that for an argument?”

Kask grunted and nodded his head. He thrust Ibaka into Sawyer's arms. “If you don't bring the dog-boy with you, I'll kill you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it. Let's go.”

Kask grunted again and began lowering himself into the tube. Just before he vanished, Finn called to him. “The rest of us will follow at one-minute intervals. You've got to catch us.”

“I will.”

“Okay, then—”

But Kask had already let go. The pipe swallowed him up and he slid away into the darkness.

The air stank of smoke and burned flesh. The scorching beams came more frequently now. Rocks tumbled from the cliffs on all sides. The abrupt screams of the dying sounded frighteningly close.

“They won't stop until they've cleaned out the entire canyon—” Lee said. More prisoners kept arriving every moment. They crowded into the narrow space surrounding the catch-basin, shouting in panic.

“Wait!” said Sawyer. “We have to time this. One minute intervals!”

“But you have to go first,” Lee told him. “You have the dog-boy.”

“All right, all right. Make sure Finn gets sent down after me.”

“It'll happen. Get going!”

Sawyer handed Ibaka to Finn and climbed over the edge of the channel, a much harder step for him than for the big Dragon. The water churned coldly around him—and it stank! He gritted his teeth as he sat down in it. The wet chill seeped up into his pants and straight up his back. With his left hand, he held tightly to the edge of the channel—a task made all the more difficult because the cold rushing water pushed at him so strongly. Finn pushed Ibaka into his arms—“Good luck!” Sawyer managed a weak grin and released his grip on the rocks. The surging water swept him and the dog-child on his lap instantly away and down toward the blackness of the tube. He didn't even have time to wave.

Darkness swallowed them up. Ibaka screamed in terror. Sawyer screamed too—half in jest, half in sympathetic resonance. The dirty water pushed them headlong into total blackness. The light behind them vanished. Down the tube they hurtled. They had no idea what the channel held, what traps or twists or sudden drops.

At one time, this great channel had described a graceful course of loops and curves as it had wound its way gently down the canyon. At one time, it had fed a whole series of efficient drainage basins and beautiful green filtration farms. Now, it lay buried beneath rubble and debris, the detritus of the fabled city on the towering cliffs above. Now, it lay forgotten, its channels covered, its basins clogged, its fields filled with waste and wreckage. The city didn't even remember the river it had built here. But the water still rushed down and down, beneath the piled trash, beneath the dirt, beneath the heavily armored legs of the Dragon Guards and the cold spider-feet of the robots—all unnoticed—around the jagged hills and raw escarpments, the great channel sweeping down the gullies, looping, turning, curving, dropping suddenly, then rushing madly forward again for a sudden almost-level dash. The water rushed in liquid panic, headlong and always down.

Inside the sluice tube, Sawyer and Ibaka did not share the same joy of construction as the long-dead architect of the channel. In the darkness, all the terrifying loops and curves gave their ride down the conduit anything but a sense of grace and smoothness. Unexpected twists and turns punctuated their journey, always catching them by surprise. Sudden drops into nothingness left their stomachs clenching and their hearts pounding. And always, they hurtled on in utter blackness.

On and on, the water carried them. The ride went on forever. Sawyer began to fear that he had made a big mistake. His mind went into overdrive, summoning up one possibility after another. Suppose the channel had obstructions in it or sudden breaks? What if razor sharp pieces of jagged metal lay ahead, waiting to rip great slices out of them as they slid by? But, no—the Dragon would have cleared away anything in the channel, wouldn't he? His great bulk alone would push everything before him—

-- unless he had become jammed somewhere up ahead, unable to break free, drowned and clogging up the tunnel with his body, like an armored cork, and the water damming up behind him in the pipe. Sawyer's heart began to thud in panic at the thought. Everyone who came after Kask would come slamming up against him, adding their own weight to the dam, each one caught and drowning in his turn, with no way up or out, and the others piling up behind, no way to warn them. Sawyer could already feel the chilly water filling up his lungs. He gasped for breath and hung on tight, trying not to panic. But in the darkness, time stretched out forever.

The rushing water chilled and stank. Sawyer's mind raced almost as fast. He couldn't escape his own worst fears—all the things that might have gone wrong. What if Kask had missed the access? Or what if someone had permanently sealed it? Or what if the Dragon couldn't grab him fast enough? Or what if the battle-robots and the Dragon Guards stood waiting?

As they continued to bounce and tumble, the certainty grew in Sawyer that he had made a terrible misjudgment about the nature of this channel. Maybe it had no access to grab at all. Maybe it just led inevitably to the lake at the bottom of the Old City detainment. Maybe, one by one, all the terrified prisoners would jump into the tube, and one by one, each and every one of them would end up sliding right back down into the waters of the dungeon where they'd started, only this time the deadly mayzel-fish would fatten on their flesh.

Finally, even fear began to ebb, gave way to boredom, and then cold wet impatience. How far did this thing go anyway?

And then, just when he had given up all hope—light!—and a hand the size of a wall reached down and plucked them both from the stream. Sawyer gasped in surprise and almost let go of Ibaka, but the dog-boy clutched at him, and Kask pulled them both, dripping wet and starting to shiver, up from the access pipe with ease. The giant Dragon laughed with delight at his prize. His gleaming teeth and the booming roar from his chest terrified Sawyer and Ibaka both.

Kask grabbed Ibaka from Sawyer and started to rise. “I go now—”

“Wait a minute! You promised to pull us out!”

“I pulled you out.”

“All of us.”

“I made no such promise.”

“Then you have no honor!” Sawyer shouted at the Dragon's back.

Kask stopped. He whirled around, his tail lashing against the stanchions and rocks that surrounded the pipe. “I have honor!”

“No, you don't! If you don't pull every single one of us out of that pipe right now, I'll tell the world that Kask the Dragon lies like a—a lawyer.”

Kask hesitated, indecision struggled across his features.

“Now!” demanded Sawyer. “Get to the pipe!”

Holding Ibaka awkwardly in one hand, Kask squatted again by the access. He reached and scooped—and missed. The prisoner went screaming past. “Missed him,” Kask grunted. “Sorry.”

Sawyer stared at him, astonished at his indifference. “You did that on purpose!”

“No, I didn't. I'll get the next one,” Kask said, without much enthusiasm. He shifted his position, anchoring Ibaka under his armpit, and reached down into the pipe even farther than before. He yanked—and pulled out Harry Mertz. He tossed him aside like a flopping fish.

“Finn? Did Finn go ahead of you?” Sawyer demanded.

Harry finished coughing and shook his head. “No, he didn't. They started to panic up there. They don't want to listen to Finn and Lee. Finn had to use his gun. He promised to stand guard until Lee and the girl-boy got down, but some of the others jumped in anyway—” Harry glanced around in confusion.

“Kask missed ‘em. Once he had the pup again, he wanted to leave. It took a minute to convince him to keep his promise.” To Harry's curious look, he added softly, “I had to rub his nose in it.”

“Big job,” Harry acknowledged. “I'll never underestimate you again.”

Kask flipped another rider out of the sluice tube, this one skinny and shaking—Slash. She leapt away from the Dragon, glaring at him suspiciously. Ibaka yelped at her excitedly. She started for him, but Sawyer grabbed her and held her back. “Let him work—”

Kask grunted in annoyance. “Missed another one. They didn't space themselves out like you said.” The screams still echoed in the tube.

Harry and Sawyer exchanged a glance and shuddered. Harry whispered. “Kind of like watching election returns come in—” Then, seeing Sawyer's face, he added, “Sorry. I thought you liked jokes.”

“Ask me again after we get Finn out of there.”

Kask yanked another prisoner out of the tube, one that neither of them recognized. He fell wetly to the ground, then began to crawl painfully away. He looked injured. Another prisoner came flopping down almost on top of him. And then a third. The Dragon had found a rhythm to his task. He missed another prisoner—muttered something nasty in a language no one understood—then reached back in the pipe and pulled out Lee-1169. “Aha!” he laughed. “I caught a traitor!” But he tossed Lee aside like all the rest and bent back down to the access pipe.

“Stop missing them!” Sawyer shouted, terrified that Kask would let his brother slip by. “Let go of the dog-boy.”