The Abyss Beyond Dreams

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Narnik’s subversive, life-wrecking appeal had resulted in the Captain’s Council banning its use outside medicine during the reign of Captain Leothoran, two thousand two hundred years ago. Which of course meant there was a lot of money in its underground trade.

  ‘The farmers, they bale it,’ Tovakar said. ‘Big bales, sir.’

  ‘Ah. Big enough that you’d need a stone boat to carry one?’

  ‘Can be, sir. Or so I’ve heard.’

  Slvasta grinned understandingly at the trooper’s anxious face. ‘Thank you, Tovakar.’

  They were almost back into the wretched purple-tufted bamboo again. Slvasta pushed the first stems aside automatically. It was hard to believe Nigel was a narnik trader. Unless, of course, he was the junior son of some noble estate family who didn’t want to let go of his expensive lifestyle. Narnik was easy money if you had the nerve to go for it. Even so, that was a hard stretch. Nigel just didn’t seem the type; that self-belief of his was like nothing Slvasta had encountered before. Though he was something of a rebel. Or at least preached it. Which might have been part of his cover.

  What in Uracus was on that third boat?

  Slvasta was desperate to find out. He certainly had enough leave time built up, as the regiment’s adjutant was always pointing out. You didn’t rise from the ranks to reach lieutenant inside five years without putting in some long and difficult hours. It would be easy for him to take a month off any time he wanted.

  Somehow, he just knew, you didn’t find a man like Nigel in a month. Not unless Nigel wanted you to find him.

  *

  ‘Fallen egg!’

  The ’path shout from corporal Kyliki came down the line like wildfire. Good training and better discipline saw the squads close on the egg’s location in the pattern Slvasta had drilled them in. Nobody, nobody, was to approach within two hundred metres alone: those were his standing orders. So they formed up in a circle, two hundred and fifty metres away. Only after a check to make sure everyone was present, did Slvasta ask: ‘Where’s the goat?’

  ‘I have it, sir,’ Trooper Jostol answered.

  ‘Keep a good hold,’ Slvasta replied. ‘Sergeant, move us in.’

  ‘Aye, sir. Everyone, mod-birds back and on the ground. Once they’re down, move forward. Watch your advance-partner for signs of lure.’

  Slvasta ordered his mod-bird back with the rest. Through its eyes, he’d seen the tear in the bamboo’s purple canopy, sent the bird skimming fast for a confirmed sighting. The egg was there, sitting at the centre of a small impact zone. What he saw could have been a piece of ridiculously elegant artwork, with the dark globe of the egg in the middle, surrounded by bamboo stalks flattened radially, as if they’d transformed into some kind of freakish earth flower.

  It was invisible to his eyesight as he pushed forwards through the thick stalks, but his ex-sight remained fixed on it during his approach, alert for any treachery. The squads emerged cautiously from the upright bamboo into the impact zone. Slvasta felt it then. An aroma that made you want to step forwards and get a better smell, then a taste – all you had to do was lick the dark surface. A sensation hinting of unparalleled joy if you just stepped forwards and reached out. An elusive melody so sweet that you had to hear it properly, if you just stepped close enough to put your ear to the surface of the sphere it emanated from. As always, his heart began to race as his body reacted to the promised pleasure of the lure. If only someone had taught him this was what happened when you encountered an egg. Then Ingmar would still be alive – and Quanda with her devious incitement, manipulating the lure with the addition of sexual provocation, would have died in a blaze of flame and pain. If only . . .

  ‘Hold fast.’ Yannrith’s stern warning barked round the small clearing.

  Slvasta hadn’t quite been going to take a step, but the appeal the egg’s strange thoughts radiated was darkly enticing every time. ‘Remember this, all of you,’ Slvasta said. ‘Look at your enemy and know its treachery, know its lust for your flesh.’ He glanced round the faces of the troopers, seeing each of them fight their own battle to resist. The new recruits were having the worst of it. Several were having to be physically restrained. ‘I need you to be strong enough to resist this bewitchment every time. We are going to stand here until you learn to scorn its trickery and lies. That promise you feel is death. It will kill you forever; it will consume your soul. If you Fall, there will be no fulfilment, and you will never be guided to the Heart of the Void. The Skylords do not come for the Fallen. They come for humans alone. They come for the worthy. And that is who I want in my squads. So will you show me that? Will you show me you are worthy?’

  ‘Yes, lieutenant,’ they chorused.

  ‘I cannot hear you. Are you worthy?’

  ‘YES, LIEUTENANT.’

  ‘Do you wish to discover the false wonder it offers?’

  ‘NO, LIEUTENANT.’

  ‘Good.’ He looked around the clearing again. The new recruits were standing firm. Nobody moved. ‘Trooper Jazpur.’

  ‘Yes, lieutenant?’

  ‘Release the goat.’

  Jazpur let go of the leash. The goat, which had been silent as soon as it emerged into the impact zone, trotted forwards. It reached the egg and looked up at it, then pushed the side of its head affectionately against the dark surface. And stuck.

  ‘Now watch,’ Slvasta commanded.

  The egg’s powerful psychic lure died away as the goat’s grubby hide began to sink below the surface. As always, Slvasta moved closer, probing with his ex-sight, trying to sense what was happening, trying to understand the process. As always, he was baffled. He perceived the surface structure, the thick living fluid inside. The strange uniform thoughts circulating within. The fizz of activity around the goat’s skin and skull as it sank into the bizarre yolk.

  ‘Once you have touched that surface, you are stuck,’ Slvasta said. ‘You cannot pull away.’ He thrust his stump out. ‘You can be cut free, but only if your friends are quick. If your chest is eggsumed, you are Fallen. Once your head is inside, you have Fallen. Now, despite the rumours you have heard, no cloth you wear can prevent eggsumption, no herbs can make it spit you back out, no teekay can lift you free. Fire will not make it let go. If a friend is Falling, be a true friend and kill him!’ Slvasta drew his pistol and shot the placid goat in its head. ‘Sergeant, axe the egg.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  The recruits were given the first chance to swing their axes. It was hard work, for the blackened, rumpled surface was tough enough to survive a plummet through the sky. But they persisted, hacking away until cracks began to appear. Dribbles of pale white goo started to leak out. Then the second batch of troopers moved in and began swinging. The cracks were widened. The goo began to spray out in thin jets.

  After twenty minutes, the holes were large and the internal pressure had been released. The peculiar substance of the egg simply poured out, forming big puddles on the ground.

  ‘Burn it,’ Slvasta ordered.

  Five troopers with flamethrowers moved in. They began to play their fierce arcs of flame over the egg. The stench of burning jellyoil and roasting egg churned through the air. Slvasta had smelt it enough times before, but several of the troopers were gagging.

  ‘We’ve found one,’ Slvasta announced to his squads as the hot stinking flames incinerated the dead egg. ‘That means there will be another three or four somewhere close by, maybe even more. The eggs never Fall alone. So we’re going to go back out there, and we’re going to sweep this whole county if we have to. We will find those eggs, and they will be axed and burnt before any human Falls. Now, let’s get to it!’

  *

  Thirteen days later, Slvasta stood outside the tall glossy double doors of Brigadier Venize’s office. He was still in his field uniform, filthy from travelling and camping. The NCOs had led their squads back to the barracks to unpack and clean up and get themselves a decent meal in the headquarters’ long mess hall. They were the last of the regiment�
�s troops to return from the sweep. It had been a civilian passenger train which had brought them back to Cham; the troop train with the rest of the regiment had returned a week before.

  One of the doors opened, and Major Rachelle came out. She was the regiment’s adjutant, in her late nineties, with silver-grey hair wound into a tight bun. Her skin was leathery from decades spent out in the sub-tropical sun commanding sweeps. Slvasta had to respect the service she’d put in. But that time was over, and now she was just another outdated officer clogging up headquarters. There were dozens of them, soaking up the region’s budget to pay for their extravagant salaries – money that could have been better spent on front-line troopers, in his opinion. And as for the regulations they invented that sapped the regiment’s operational performance . . .

  ‘He’s ready for you,’ she said curtly.

  Slvasta followed her back through the doors. Brigadier Venize’s office was another indulgence. A huge tiled room with arching windows that reached up to the high roof. Large fan flaps swung gently above the open shutters, their cord pulled by a mod-dwarf who sat in the corner, rocking back and forth. More irrelevance, Slvasta thought, as he walked the length of the room to the brigadier’s desk. It wasn’t as if the fans made any difference to the heat. But he kept his shell smooth and impregnable, unwilling for anyone to know his sense of frustration and disappointment at the failure of the sweep.

  ‘Sir.’ He reached the desk and stood to attention, saluting.

  Venize was pretending to read a thick folder. The previous month had seen a regimental dinner celebrating his one hundred and twentieth birthday, with the nobility from across the county filling the officers’ mess and two pavilions set up on the parade ground. Slvasta had seen the final bill, which presumably was one of the major reasons the regiment hadn’t yet bought terrestrial horses to replace all the mod-horses.

  The brigadier looked good for his years. Still fit and active, with a set of thin wire-rimmed glasses to compensate for shortsightedness, and a slim moustache to add to the dignity of age. He looked up from the folder and extended a finger, pointing to one of the two chairs in front of the ancient leather-topped desk. ‘Sit down, lieutenant.’

  There was nothing in the voice to give away what tone the meeting would take, and his shell was even sturdier than Rachelle’s.

  Slvasta sat, keeping his back straight. Major Rachelle sat in the other chair, looking at him.

  The brigadier slid the folder onto the desk, next to a pile of similar ones. ‘So, lieutenant, would you care to tell me what happened?’

  ‘Sir, we intercepted some kind of criminal called Nigel operating in our designated sweep area. It’s my belief he’s captured some Faller eggs.’

  ‘Indeed, and why is that?’

  ‘He was dragging something behind his horses. He claimed it was their own camping equipment, and that they were helping with the sweep. I couldn’t prove otherwise at the time, so I let him go. Then we found an egg.’

  ‘Well done. Go on.’

  ‘One egg. We both know that never happens.’

  ‘Nobody escapes from eggsumption,’ Rachelle said. ‘Another well-known fact. There are always exceptions.’

  Slvasta gave her an irritated glance. ‘We swept that area thoroughly. There were another two impact zones, but there were no eggs in them. However, each zone had been visited; we found the tracks. He took the eggs.’

  ‘So this Nigel is actually a Faller?’ Venize asked.

  ‘Sir. Not him personally, no. His blood was red.’

  ‘Then the people with him are?’ Rachelle pressed.

  ‘No,’ Slvasta said. ‘I checked them all. But one of the boats he used was downstream. We didn’t know at the time.’

  The brigadier blinked. ‘I can accept that a nest could reach the eggs before our squads. You of all people are aware of that behaviour. But what kind of criminal gang takes Faller eggs? They have no black market value. Not that I’m aware of. Do they, major?’

  ‘No, sir. They do not.’

  ‘Lieutenant, are you aware of their having any monetary value?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Slvasta admitted.

  ‘Then why would Nigel take them?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘The only humans who ever move an egg are the Marines, nobody else is qualified or authorized. And that’s a rare event; they only ever take one back to Varlan when the Captain’s Faller Research Institute needs one to examine. Isn’t it more likely that a nest got to them and carried them away?’

  ‘It is possible, sir.’

  ‘And you’re using Nigel as an excuse for your failure to find them?’ Rachelle said.

  ‘No! There was no other activity in the whole area. Nigel took them.’

  ‘If you’re right, then we must assume he is such a piece of lowlife that he’s actually in the pay of a nest,’ Venize said. ‘How extraordinary. I never thought I’d live to see such a thing.’

  I . . . know that’s not true, Slvasta thought. Nigel is no one’s puppet. ‘That is an explanation, yes, sir.’

  ‘Very well,’ Venize said. ‘We will alert the Captain’s Marines that a nest has acquired a Fall. I hope you understand what such a notice will do to this regiment’s reputation and status.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I do.’

  ‘Now, moving on. Tell me about the Bekenz farm, please, lieutenant.’

  Slvasta did his best not to wince. ‘That was where we discovered one of the empty impact zones, sir, in the wild just outside the farm’s boundary.’

  ‘How did you confirm that?’ Rachelle asked. ‘You just said there were no eggs.’

  ‘I know what an impact zone looks like, thank you,’ Slvasta said.

  ‘It was quite a long way from the Bekenz farm’s boundary, actually, wasn’t it?’ Rachelle said.

  ‘The farm was the closest human habitation,’ Slvasta replied tightly. ‘I had a duty to ensure they were safe.’

  ‘And you checked everyone in your usual fashion, correct?’ Venize asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. They were all human.’

  ‘Yes, they are human, and Bekenz, it turns out, is the seventh son of Hamiud, the largest estate owner in Prerov county.’

  ‘So he claimed, yes, sir.’

  ‘In fact, he told you that when you ordered your troops to slaughter every neut and mod-animal on the farm, is that correct?’ Rachelle asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yet you still went ahead with the slaughter?’

  ‘Sir, the Fallers can control the mods much better than we can. I know that for a fact. There’s no telling what kind of orders the egg might have given the mods. They could have murdered every one of Bekenz’s family. There were children on that farm.’

  ‘Lieutenant, I have lost count of how many times I have had this conversation with you,’ Venize said. He patted the pile of folders on the desk. ‘Others, however, have not.’

  ‘Sir, the way Fallers can control mods is on record—’

  ‘I know. But are you aware of how much compensation the county council has been obliged to pay out recently, thanks to your dogmatism?’

  ‘I’m saving lives, sir. I’m sorry if that’s not popular.’

  ‘Lieutenant, I have every sympathy for you, and everyone admits you are one of the best officers we’ve had in a generation. It’s just that some of your methods are too severe for this part of the world. You have your critics, and they include some very important people. Even the mayor’s office has been in touch, expressing concern at your culls.’ Venize held up a hand to stop the protest Slvasta was about to make. ‘Not me. I appreciate what you’ve done for the regiment, and we’ll be adopting your methods in future – the fitness, the training, all that stuff. In addition, twenty terrestrial horses are to be purchased at the town beast market next week.’

  ‘That’s good news, sir,’ Slvasta said.

  ‘Absolutely. That’ll show those damn civilians I will not be pushed around. This is my command and it will remain
so until they prise it from my cold dead hand, eh?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And you, Slvasta, are to be promoted.’

  ‘Uh, sir?’

  ‘You heard.’ He picked up a scroll from the desk; the regiment’s waxed and ribboned seal was affixed to the bottom. ‘I’ve already signed the warrant. Congratulations. Captain.’

  ‘I . . . Thank you, sir.’ He accepted the scroll, bewildered and happy.

  ‘My pleasure. After all, we can’t have a lowly lieutenant as our liaison officer, now can we?’

  Slvasta’s delight vanished instantly. ‘Liaison?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rachelle said. ‘You will be our representative in the capital. You’ll sit on the Joint Regimental Council and contribute to policy. You can explain all about your methods and have them applied across Bienvenido. When you arrive, you’ll also notify the Marine commandant about this Nigel fellow.’

  ‘Sir, no, please. I need to be out in the field. I can’t—’

  Venize’s expression didn’t falter. ‘It is a considerable honour to be appointed to this important post. Don’t let the regiment down. You are dismissed, captain.’

  Slvasta just stared at the brigadier for a long moment. He’d lost and he knew it. The only question now was how badly he let them beat him. If he protested, refused the posting, they’d have an excuse to bust him down to the rank of trooper for insubordination. All he could think of was Nigel’s words about unsettling his superiors; the man had practically predicted this.

  So he got to his feet, saluted, and said: ‘Thank you for the opportunity, sir. You won’t regret it.’

  Venize’s urbane composure remained unblemished, while Rachelle’s shell couldn’t quite contain her suspicion at his easy submission.

  Slvasta turned and marched out of the office. When I come back, he promised them silently, it will be to fling you straight into the depths of Uracus itself.

  4

  The study was as extravagant as only those in the Captain’s Palace could be. Bright and cool in even the worst of Varlan’s summer days, it was on the first floor in the state wing, with huge arched windows providing a view along Walton Boulevard and the sprawl of the city’s roofscape beyond. Chandeliers like crystal moons hung the length of the study, interspaced with huge eight-blade fans turned slowly by mods in a hidden cable room. Oil paintings depicting heroic scenes of earlier Captains leading regiments against Fallers covered the wall, their gold frames glinting in the sunlight that was streaming in.