To his relief, the Captain shook his head without rancour.
‘You’ve seen all that I have, Titus. We really don’t know anything more. I’m afraid those rumours encapsulate as much knowledge as we really have.’
‘An expedition would settle the matter.’
‘As you never tire of telling me. But consider the risks: yes, she’s just within range of one our shuttles. About half a light-second behind us the last time we took an accurate radar fix, although she must have been a lot closer once. It would be simpler still if we could refuel when we got there. But what if they don’t want visitors? They’ve maintained the illusion of non-existence for more than a generation. They might not be willing to give that up without a fight.’
‘Unless they’re dead. Some of the crew think we attacked them, and then erased them from the historical record.’
The Captain shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s what happened. If you could erase a crime like that, you would, wouldn’t you? Some of them might have survived, though, and chosen to lie low, so they can spring a surprise on us later in the voyage.’
‘You think this message from back home might be enough to make them break their cover?’
‘Perhaps. If it encourages them to fiddle with their antimatter engine, and the message really is a trap . . .’
‘They’ll light up half the sky.’
The Captain chuckled, a wet cruel sound, and that seemed to be the cue for him to doze off properly. The rest of the journey passed without incident, but Sky’s mind was racing anyway, trying to digest what he had learned. Every time he said the words they were like a casual slap against his cheek; punishment for his own presumption in doubting Norquinco and the other believers. The sixth ship existed. The sixth damned ship existed . . .
And that, potentially, could change anything.
EIGHTEEN
They took me down to the Mulch again. I woke up in the cable-car as it was descending through night, rain hammering against the craft’s windows. For a moment I thought I was with Captain Balcazar, escorting him across space to the meeting aboard the other Flotilla ship. The dreams seemed to be getting more insistent, pushing me ever deeper into Sky’s thoughts, so that they were harder to shake off when I came around. But it was just me and Waverly in the cable-car’s compartment.
I wasn’t sure it was an improvement.
‘How does it feel? I did a good job, I think.’
He was sitting opposite me with a gun. I remembered him pushing the probe against my head. I reached up to touch my scalp. Above my right ear was a shaven patch, still scabbed with blood, and the feeling of something hard encysted beneath the skin.
It hurt like hell.
‘I think you need some practice.’
‘Story of my life. You’re a strange one, though. What’s with all the blood coming out of your hand? Is that some medical condition I should know about?’
‘Why? Would it make any difference?’
He debated the point with himself for a few moments. ‘No, probably not. If you can run, you’re fit enough.’
‘Fit enough for what?’ I touched the scab again. ‘What have you put inside me?’
‘Well, let me explain.’
I hadn’t expected him to be so talkative, but I began to understand why it might make sense for me to know some of the facts. It must have stemmed less from any concern for my wellbeing than the need to have me primed in the right way. From previous games, it had become clear that the hunted made the whole affair more entertaining if they knew exactly what was at stake, and what their own chances were.
‘Basically,’ he said urbanely, ‘it’s a hunt. We call it the Game. It doesn’t exist, not officially; not even within the relatively lawless environs of Canopy. They know about it, and speak about it, but always with discretion.’
‘Who?’ I said, for the sake of saying something.
‘Postmortals, immortals, whatever you want to call them. They don’t all play it, or even want to play it, but they all know someone who has played it, or has connections with the network which makes the Game possible in the first place.’
‘This been going on long?’
‘Only in the last seven years. Perhaps one might think of it as a barbaric counterpoint to the gentility which pervaded Yellowstone before the fall.’
‘Barbaric?’
‘Oh, exquisitely so. That’s why we adore it. There’s nothing intricate or subtle about the Game, methodologically or psychologically. It needs to be capable of being organised at very short notice, anywhere in the city. There are rules, naturally, but you don’t need a trip to the Pattern Jugglers to understand them.’
‘Tell me about these rules, Waverly.’
‘Oh, they’re nothing that need concern you, Mirabel. All you need do is run.’
‘And then?’
‘Die. And die well.’ He spoke kindly, like an indulgent uncle. ‘That’s all we ask of you.’
‘Why do you do it?’
‘To take another’s life is a special kind of thrill, Mirabel. To do it while being immortal elevates the act to an entirely different level of sublimity.’ He paused, as if marshalling his thoughts. ‘We don’t really grasp the nature of death, even in these difficult times. But by taking a life - especially the life of someone who wasn’t immortal, and who therefore already had an acute awareness of death - we can obtain some vicarious sense of what it means.’
‘Then the people you hunt are never immortal?’
‘Not generally, no. We usually select from the Mulch, picking someone reasonably healthy. We want them to give us a good chase for our money, of course, so we’re not above feeding them first.’
He told me more; that the Game was financed by a clandestine network of subscribers. Mostly Canopy, their numbers were rumoured to be augmented by pleasure-seekers from some of the more libertarian carousels still inhabited in the Rust Belt, or some of the other settlements on Yellowstone, like Loreanville. Nobody in the network knew more than a handful of other subscribers, and their true identities were camouflaged by an elaborate system of deceits and masques, so that no one could be exposed in the open chambers of Canopy life, which still affected a kind of decadent civility. Hunts were organised at short notice, with small numbers of subscribers alerted at any one time, convening in disused parts of the Canopy. On the same night - or no more than a day before - a victim would be extracted from the Mulch and prepared.
The implants were a recent refinement.
They allowed the progress of the hunt to be shared amongst a larger pool of subscribers, boosting the potential revenue enormously. Other subscribers would help with ground coverage, risking the Mulch to bring video images of the hunt back to the Canopy, with cachets to those who obtained the most spectacular footage. Simple rules of play - which were more strictly enforced than any actual laws which still prevailed in the city - determined the accepted parameters within which the hunt could take place, the permitted tracking devices and weapons, what constituted a fair kill.
‘There’s just one problem,’ I said. ‘I’m not from the Mulch. I don’t know my way around your city. I’m not sure you’re going to get your money’s worth.’
‘Oh, we’ll manage. You’ll have an adequate headstart on the hunters. And to be frank, your not being local is actually something of an advantage to us. The locals know far too many shortcuts and hidey-holes.’
‘Pretty unsporting of them. Waverly, there’s something I want you to know.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m going to come back and kill you.’
He laughed. ‘Sorry, Mirabel, but I’ve heard it all before.’
The cable-car landed, the door opened and he invited me to step out.
I started running as the cable-car damped its lights and climbed above me, heading back to the Canopy. Even as it ascended, a dark mote against the milky strands of aerial light, more cars were descending, like fireflies. They were not headed straight for me - that wouldn’t have been
sporting - but they were certainly headed for my general part of the Mulch.
The Game had started.
I kept running.
If the area of the Mulch where the rickshaw kid had left me was a bad one, then this was something else: a territory so depopulated that it could not even be termed dangerous in the same sense - unless you happened to be the unwilling participant in a night’s hunt. There were no fires burning in the lower levels, and the encrustations around the structures had a look of deserted neglect: half-collapsed and inaccessible. The surface roads were even more dilapidated than those I had travelled earlier, cracked and twisted like strips of toffee, apt to end abruptly in mid-span as they crossed a flooded abyss, or simply to plunge into the flood itself. It was dark, and I had to constantly watch my footing.
Waverly had done me a kind of favour, dimming the interior lights as we dropped, so that my eyes had at least accustomed themselves to the darkness, but I didn’t feel an overwhelming rush of gratitude.
I ran, glancing over my shoulder to watch the cable-cars as they sank lower, dropping behind the closest structures. The vehicles were close enough now that I could see their occupants. For some reason, I’d assumed that only the man and the woman would be chasing me, but obviously this wasn’t the case. Maybe - in the way these things were handled in the network - it was just their turn to find a victim, and I had strolled blithely into their plans.
Was this how I was going to die, I thought? I’d nearly died dozens of times in the war; dozens more times while working for Cahuella. Reivich had tried to kill me at least twice, and had nearly succeeded on both occasions. But if I hadn’t managed to have survived any of those earlier brushes with death, I would at least have admitted some grudging respect for my adversaries, a sense that I had chosen to do battle with them, and thereby accepted whatever fate had in mind for me.
But I hadn’t chosen anything like this.
Seek shelter, I thought. There were buildings all around me, even if it wasn’t immediately clear how to get inside any of them. My movements would be limited once I was inside, but if I stayed outside there would be plenty of opportunities for the chasers to get a clear shot at me. And I clung to the idea - unsupported by any evidence - that the implanted transmitter might not function so well if I was concealed. I also had a suspicion that close combat was not the kind of endgame my pursuers really wanted; that they would rather shoot me from a distance, crossing open ground. If so, I was more than happy to disappoint them, even if it only bought me minutes.
Up to my knees in water, I waded as quickly as I could to the unlit side of the nearest building, a fluted structure which climbed for seven or eight hundred metres above my head before turning mutant, fanning out into the Canopy. Unlike some of the other structures I had seen, this one had suffered considerable damage at street level, punctured and holed like a lightning-struck tree. Some of the apertures were only niches, but others must reach deeper, into the structure’s dead heart, from where I might be able to access higher levels.
Light scythed across the ruined exterior, harsh and blue. Crouching into the flood so that my chest was fully submerged and the stench almost unbearable, I waited for the searchlight to complete its business. I could hear voices now, raised like a pack of jackals in musk. Man-shaped patches of utter blackness flitted between the closest buildings, beckoning each other, arms laden with those instruments of murder permitted by the Game.
A few desultory shots rained against the building, dislodging shards of calcified masonry into the flood. Another patch of light began sweeping the side, grazing only inches above my head. My breathing, laboured as it was by the pressure of the filthy water, was like a barking weapon itself.
I sucked in air and lowered myself into the flood.
I could see nothing, of course, but that was hardly a handicap. Relying on touch, I skirted my fingers against the building’s side until I found a place where the wall curved abruptly in. I heard more shots, transmitted through the water, and more splashes. I wanted to vomit. But then I remembered the smile of the man who had arranged for my capture and realised I wanted him to die first; Fischetti and then Sybilline. Then I’d kill Waverly while I was at it, and piece by piece I’d dismantle the entire apparatus of the Game.
In that same moment I realised that I hated them more than I hated Reivich.
But he’d get his, too.
Still kneeling beneath the waterline, I closed my fists around the edges of the aperture and thrust myself into the building’s interior. I could not have been beneath water for more than a few seconds, but I slammed upward with so much anger and relief that I almost screamed as air rushed into my mouth. But apart from gasping, I made as little noise as possible.
I found a relatively dry ledge and hauled myself from the murk. And there, for long moments, I just lay, until my breathing settled down and enough oxygen reached my brain for it to resume the business of thinking, rather than simply keeping me alive.
I heard voices and shots outside, louder now. And sporadically, blue light stabbed through rents in the building, making my eyes sting.
When the darkness resumed, I looked up and saw something.
It was faint - fainter, in fact, than I had imagined any visible object could possibly be. I had read that the human retina was in principle capable of detecting only two or three photons at a time, if conditions of sufficient sensitivity were reached. I had also heard - and met - soldiers who claimed extraordinary night vision; soldiers who spent every hour in darkness, for fear of losing their acclimatisation.
I’d never been one of them.
What I was looking at was a staircase, or the ruined skeleton of what had once been a staircase. A spiral thing, ribbed by crossmembers, which reached a landing and then climbed higher towards an irregular gash of pale light, against which it was silhouetted.
‘He’s inside. Thermal trace in the water.’
That was Sybilline’s voice, or someone who sounded very much like her, with the same tone of arrogant surety. Now a man spoke, knowingly, ‘That’s unusual for a Mulch. They don’t like the insides, usually. Too many ghost stories.’
‘It isn’t just ghost stories. There are pigs down here. We should be careful, too.’
‘How are we going to get in? I’m not going in that water, no matter what the bloodmoney is.’
‘I have structural maps of this one. There’s another route on the other side. Better hurry, though. Skamelson’s team are only a block down-trace, and they’ve got better sniffers.’
I heaved myself from the ledge and moved towards the lower end of the ruined staircase. I hit it too soon, judging the distance poorly. But it was growing clearer all the time. I could see that it climbed ten or fifteen metres above me before vanishing through a sagging, doughlike ceiling which more resembled a stomach diaphragm than anything architectural.
What I could not tell, for all my visual acuity, was how near my chasers were, or how structurally sound the staircase was going to be. If it collapsed while I was climbing, I would fall into the flood, but the water would be too shallow for the drop to be endured without some kind of injury.
Still, I climbed, using the ghostly banister where it existed, heaving myself across gaps in the treads, or where there were no treads at all. The staircase creaked, but I just kept on - even when the tread on which I’d just placed my weight shattered and dropped into the water.
Below me, light filled the chamber, and then black-clad figures emerged through a hole in one wall, trudging through the water. I could see them quite clearly: Fischetti and Sybilline, both masked and carrying enough firepower for a small war. I paused on the landing I’d reached. There was darkness on either side of me, but even as I looked at it details began to emerge from the blackness like solidifying phantoms. I thought about going left or right rather than higher, knowing that I’d have to make the decision quickly and that I didn’t want to get trapped in a dead-end.
Then something else emerged fro
m the darkness. It was crouched, and at first I thought it was a dog. But it was much too large for that, and its flat face looked a lot more like a pig. The thing began to stand up on its legs as far as the low ceiling would allow. It was roughly human in build, but instead of fingers on each hand it had a set of five elongated trotters, both sets of which were gripping a vicious-looking crossbow. It was clothed in what looked like patches of leather and crudely fashioned metal, like mediaeval armour. Its flesh was pale and hairless and its face was somewhere between human and pig, with just enough attributes of each to make the composite deeply disturbing. Its eyes were two small black absences and its mouth was curved in a permanent gluttonous smile. Behind it I could see another couple of pigs approaching in the same four-footed manner. The way their back legs were articulated seemed to make walking awkward at best.
I screamed and kicked out, my foot connecting squarely with the pig’s face. The thing fell backwards with a snort of anger, dropping the crossbow. But the others were armed as well, both holding long curved knives. I grabbed the fallen crossbow and hoped that the thing would work when I fired it.
‘Get back. Get the hell away from me.’
The pig I’d kicked started up on its hindquarters again. It moved its jaw as if trying to speak, but all that came out was a series of snuffles. Then it reached out towards me, its trotters clasping the air in front of my face.
I fired the crossbow; the bolt thudded into the pig’s leg.
It squealed and fell back, clutching the end of the bolt where it protruded. I watched blood trickle out, almost luminously bright. The other two pigs moved towards me, but I shuffled backwards with the crossbow still in my hands. I pulled a fresh bolt from the cache in the bow’s stock and fumbled it into place, winching back the mechanism. The pigs raised their knives, but hesitated to come closer. Then they snorted angrily and began to drag the wounded one back into the darkness. I froze for an instant, then resumed my ascent, hoping to reach the gap before either the pigs or the hunters got to me.
The Revelation Space Collection Page 100
