Shade's Children

by Garth Nix

  The tube ended in another hatch, which was closed. Gold-Eye hesitated for a moment, then knocked on it.

  There were a few clanking sounds as the locking wheel spun; then it opened outward, revealing a large, well-lit chamber—and Ninde, wearing only her underwear and a large white towel wrapped turbanlike around her head.

  Gold-Eye stared, then blushed and looked down as Ninde said, “Haven’t you ever seen a girl in a bikini before?”

  “Only pictures,” he croaked, sliding out of the tube and onto the floor. Trying not to look at Ninde’s body, he looked everywhere else, noting the towels hanging on hooks on one wall and various baskets and boxes lined up on the other.

  “We leave our outside clothes here,” said Ninde. “Get a bit dry and then report to Shade before we shower and eat. Come on—get those wet rags off.”

  “Nothing else on,” muttered Gold-Eye. He was confused. The sexes were segregated in the Dorms, except at mealtime, and they always washed separately. Petar and Jemmie had washed together—and done other things as well—but that was all just a hazy memory of half-seen sounds and misremembered images. He didn’t know how he was supposed to behave.

  “Here, I’ll help you,” said Ninde, coming up close and taking hold of one extremely grubby sleeve. “It’ll be interesting to see what’s under all this dirt….”

  “Ninde!”

  The voice was Ella’s, followed a moment later by the girl herself, leaping down from the tube like a dangerous cat.

  “Leave Gold-Eye alone—and put your towel on. You know the rules.”

  “I was just teasing,” said Ninde, letting go with a shrug.

  “He’s been out alone for a long time,” said Ella, with a nod to Gold-Eye to show she wasn’t talking over his head. “Years, probably. He’s got to get used to people all over again. Think of him as being much younger than he is…at least for a while.”

  “Yeah. Sorry, Gold-Eye,” said Ninde, complicating her apology by removing her towel with deliberate slowness and wrapping it around herself with equal deliberation. Then she tossed her head back and opened another hatch halfway, slipping through it even as it swung back and closed with a heavy crash.

  “Too many films from the old days,” said Ella with a sigh. “Okay, Gold-Eye, we leave our outside clothes in these baskets for washing, and hang up our belts and swords for cleaning here. Shade has robots—little machines that can sort of think and do things—that do the washing and cleaning. Now, I’m going to turn my back and you turn that way, so we can get undressed. Imagine it’s just like the Dorms, only the wall between the boys’ and girls’ washrooms is missing.”

  Gold-Eye obediently turned to face the wall and began to strip off the several layers of rags he used to think of as his clothes. At the same time, he fought off an urge to peek at Ella.

  Just when he thought he might risk a look, a clanging noise announced the arrival of Drum. He’d taken a long time to come through, Gold-Eye thought—and was very noisy coming along the tube as well.

  “Right, I’m ready,” said Ella loudly. “Gold-Eye?”

  “Yes,” said Gold-Eye, quickly cinching the towel tight around his waist. It was a very big towel, going around him several times. Which was probably just as well.

  “You go on,” whispered Drum as he lumbered down from the tube. “I won’t be long.”

  “Right,” said Ella. “Gold-Eye, follow me.”

  She opened the same hatch Ninde had gone through, spinning the locking wheel with one practiced flip of her hand. After Gold-Eye had stepped through too, she shut it behind them.

  “One of the rules,” she explained, as they continued down a long, narrow passage, pausing every now and then to go through another closed hatch. “All hatches have to be closed behind you, just in case some creatures get in. We’re in the central corridor here. It runs the full length of the Submarine. There are hatches off to the sides, above us and below us. It’ll probably take you a while to work out where everything is.”

  “Where now?” asked Gold-Eye.

  “You mean where are we going now? To report to Shade. His headquarters are in what used to be the engine room, till his robots cleaned it out.”

  She hesitated, then added, “Don’t be surprised by Shade. He’s not exactly alive…and not exactly human. Well, I suppose he is…anyway, you’ll see.”

  This didn’t exactly reassure Gold-Eye. He felt anxious about the coming meeting, but the feeling was curiously overlaid with something he hadn’t felt since the long-ago times with Petar and Jemmie. The sense that other, more capable people were taking care of everything.

  “This is it,” said Ella, pausing before another hatch. “Stand next to me and look up.”

  Gold-Eye looked up, meeting the glassy gaze of another silvery tentacle slowly uncoiling down from the ceiling. It looked at them for a few seconds, then coiled back up again. A loud click from the hatch announced that they’d passed its scrutiny and the way to Shade’s headquarters was opening.

  But Gold-Eye didn’t walk in. He stood where he was, just looking, till Ella gave him a bit of a push and he stumbled over the lip of the hatch and into the cavernous chamber.

  The room took up almost the entire aft third of the Submarine. The space once separated by bulkheads and partitions and filled with engines, fuel tanks, and machinery had been opened up by Shade’s robots. Now it was a large open space. A dark space, with a single pool of light right in the middle, about thirty paces from the hatch.

  Things the size of cats moved in the shadows and corners of the room, the light occasionally reflecting from their metallic sides. One scampered near the light and Gold-Eye saw it in its entirety—and shivered. It had a bulbous body, balanced lightly on eight segmented legs. Far too like a spider.

  “Robots,” whispered Ella, seeing him shudder. “They’re safe. They work for us.”

  The only visible furniture in the room—a broad, official-looking desk of dark-red wood and a padded leather chair—were right in the pool of a light.

  Two three-seater couches faced the desk at oblique angles. Ninde sat on one, draping her legs across to take up two places. Hearing the others enter, she looked around and sat up straight.

  “Where’s Shade?” asked Ella as she sat down next to Ninde. Gold-Eye sat too, on the same couch—but right at the front of the cushion, ready to spring up and run. He still didn’t like the look of this dark room, or the constant, peripheral movement of the spiderish robots.

  “He didn’t want to talk to me,” sniffed Ninde. “He said he’d wait for everyone. I suppose Drum is coming sometime?”

  “He’ll be along in a minute,” replied Ella, frowning.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later a loud click announced the hatch opening again, and Drum entered the chamber. Unlike the others he wore a huge toweling robe that covered him from ankle to neck. Without saying anything, he walked across and sat on the empty couch, its springs groaning under his weight.

  An expectant silence followed, broken only by the scrabble of the robots’ steely claw-legs on the decking.

  Then Ella stood up and said, “Shade. We’re all here.”

  VIDEO ARCHIVE—TRAINING LESSON A41

 

  Ella: Why do I always have to do these?

  Shade: You’re the oldest. You know the most.

  Ella: You’re older—and you could just generate the images anyway.

  Shade: But you’ve actually been out there. The others respect you.

  Ella: Do they? They’re frightened of me, perhaps. Except for Drum…

  Shade: That’s because you are single-minded. Most of them don’t realize that this is not a permanent refuge…that one day the Overlords will find us.

  Ella: Yes. I know.

  Shade: Well, we must prepare as best we can. Now, try not to sound bored when you’re doing this. Just matter-of-fact. Start in three…. One…two…three….

  Touch the screen to begin. Thank you.

  This is Lesson A41
of the First Series. Pay attention.

  There will be an exam following this session.

  The subject of this lesson is the organization of the Overlords’ creatures. The five basic creature types used by the Overlords in their battles are Screamers, Trackers, Myrmidons, Wingers, and Ferrets. These creatures are always found in groups.

  If you cannot accurately identify these creatures, then go back and study Lesson A2.

  The following simple verse will help you remember the number of creatures in a group and the name we give the group.

  Screamers scream singly, all alone;

  Trackers track in trios of three;

  Ferrets follow in fangs of five;

  Myrmidons march in maniples of seven;

  Wingers fly in flights of nine.

  It is important to know how many creatures there are in a group, because there will never be less than this number in any given area. If you see one Myrmidon, there will be six more somewhere nearby. If you see one Winger, the other eight will be in sight of the first.

  Only Myrmidon Masters and certain special creatures will be seen alone. These are covered in Lesson A42.

  Now, I will repeat the verse….

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “So you are. I will come down.”

  The voice, answering Ella, seemed to come from everywhere in the room. It was a deep, obviously adult voice, full of confidence and the echo of a different time. A time before the Change.

  It was followed by the sudden flash of a green laser shining down from the ceiling into the chair behind the desk.

  Tiny dots of light followed the beam down. They were many different colors and fell and swirled like kaleidoscopic snow. As they fell, they joined together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

  Then the laser flared still brighter, and Gold-Eye blinked. When he opened his eyes again, the laser beam and the falling motes of light were gone—and there was a man sitting behind the desk.

  A real, fully grown man. Thirty years old at least, or even more—if that was possible. He was smiling, and his teeth were whiter than any Gold-Eye had ever seen, his eyes bluer and more piercing.

  “Welcome back,” he said. “And welcome to you, too, Gold-Eye. I am Shade.”

  “Hello,” said Gold-Eye in an awed whisper. He felt like throwing himself at Shade’s feet, the way they used to do in the Dorms when an Overlord came.

  “I’ll have a talk with you later, Gold-Eye,” Shade continued, fixing him with a clear blue gaze that seemed to hold an equal mixture of distant affection and anger held in check. “But first I will hear Ella’s report.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Ella, standing up at attention. “A team consisting of myself, Drum, and Ninde left the Sub predawn two days ago on a routine patrol. We took the Main Drain and then Northwest Six to the Hospital Exit. Water level throughout was medium, with one nonthreatening surge.

  “At the Hospital there was no creature activity except for Winger patrols. Myrmidon Death Markers indicated that a battle had been fought in the Hospital gardens several days previously, between Red Diamond and Blue Star forces, with victory going to Red Diamond. There was also an unusual battle poem posted in the gardens, dedicated to the Red Diamond Overlord. It was written in English, not Myrmidon Battlespeech. I have a copy.

  “In the late afternoon, increasing Winger patrols suggested that the Death Marker truce period was over and that our presence was suspected. This was confirmed by Ninde, who looked into the minds of an approaching trio that had been sent to find us.

  “We then took West Drain Four into the city. This should be marked as dangerous till there is more rain—it was only just flowing.”

  “Noted,” said Shade, nodding his head but making no move to write in the thick leatherbound book that had appeared on his desk at the same time he had.

  “We exited the drain outside Central Fire Station,” continued Ella. “As it was almost dark, I decided we’d spend the night in one of the hose-drying towers, which we did. There was considerable Ferret activity below, but none tried to climb up even part of the way.

  “At midnight Drum had the watch. He woke me to advise that the lights along Park Avenue had come on and a fog was forming on the bay. Half an hour later the fog spread inland, the main mass seeming to be directed up Park Avenue. However, there were no visible Claim Fires out, so we presumed that the fog was being prepared early for a battle in several days’ time.”

  “Correct,” interrupted Shade. “I have a report that the fog was thickened and then moved farther west for a battle between Black Banner and Emerald Crown over the Williams River Raceway. They’re probably fighting now.”

  “Since the fog was still there the next morning without battle preparations.” Ella continued, “we decided to move aboveground and check out the railway yards between Central and Redtree. At the embankment on Shroveland Street, we heard Tracker pursuit whistles and Myrmidon battle sound in the fog. We then observed that they were chasing a human—Gold-Eye. He tried to climb the embankment but was in the wrong spot, and the Myrmidons were about to take him. So I used a flash bang—the last one, I’m afraid—and we pulled him up on a rope while they were disoriented.”

  Gold-Eye suppressed a shiver that ran right through him as Ella’s words brought it all back. If the others hadn’t been there, he would be in the Meat Factory now….

  “Excellent,” approved Shade. “And then you fought some Trackers, took refuge in a building that proved too low to be safe from Ferrets, and had to do some fancy rope work to get away.”

  “How did you…” Ella began, but Shade was laughing, obviously pleased with himself.

  “I have finally perfected my new Eyes,” he said, clicking his fingers.

  The click was answered by movement in the shadows, and a nervous shiver that rippled from Gold-Eye to Ninde. Characteristically, neither Drum nor Ella twitched.

  Shade’s new Eyes looked very much like large rats. In twilight or fog, they would be indistinguishable from the real thing—but as they scuttled into the light, their eyes and legs shone metallically and their bodies were too rigid to be flesh and fur.

  Three came from each side of the room; then all six ran in a line to the foot of the desk and turned to face Shade, their pink, rubbery tails draped out toward the couch. Ninde shuddered again and drew her feet up.

  Gold-Eye thought they were repulsive too, but for a different reason. He actually liked rats, and over the years had trained three of them as pets. They had been his only real friends, and he had cried when each one was lost in the all-too-frequent moves between hiding places. These robot rats reminded him too much of the Overlords’ creatures and their relationship with humanity. Like, but not like…

  “Can you see through them all at once?” asked Ella. There was no hint of revulsion in her voice—just the curiosity of someone shown a new tool.

  “Not yet,” said Shade. “My parallel-processing capabilities need further enhancement. I can use six at a time, switching between rats every millisecond. I should be able to reduce that to a switch every point-two milliseconds—which will effectively give me constant vision and allow me to use twelve of them at a time. Or more, if we can get the materials to make them.”

  “They should be very useful,” Ella said thoughtfully. “Can they carry anything? Do any manipulation with their paws?”

  “Not yet,” replied Shade. “Which may be a good thing. If they depart from typical rat behavior and are observed by a Myrmidon Master—or worse, an Overlord—he would quickly work out what they are. Then he need only scan the radio frequencies or check the old Comincsat satellites to discover that their controller is here. That I am here.

  “In any case,” he continued. “They are extremely useful and add greatly to my ability to gather intelligence. Which leads me to the next mission for your team, Ella. It will begin tomorrow—”

  “But we’ve only just got back,” interrupted Ninde. “Shouldn’t it be someone else’s turn?”

 
; Her words trailed off as Shade fixed her with a cold gaze, and Ella half turned toward her.

  “This is a reporting session,” Shade said sternly. “If you have something to add to Ella’s report, or a question for me, raise your hand.”

  Ninde didn’t reply. Gold-Eye looked at her out of the corner of his eye and for a second met her gaze. In that instant she curled her lip, obviously angry. Gold-Eye looked away immediately, but he had the irrational feeling that she had suddenly taken a dislike to him.

  “You must take your team out tomorrow,” continued Shade, ignoring the stiff body language that declared Ninde’s outrage, “because there has been a major battle at the University today between Blue Star and Silver Sun. The Death Markers went up an hour ago and will be up for two more days. This means that the Myrmidon barracks there will be deserted for that time—giving us a unique opportunity to get back to my original laboratory.”

  He paused as Ella raised her hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Rick’s team has far better knowledge of the University and that area. Why not send them?”

  Shade bowed his head and was silent. The others were silent too. Then Ella sighed, Ninde sniffed, and Drum leaned forward as if to hear Shade better. Gold-Eye realized that what they were all about to hear was bad news.

  “They were due back yesterday,” said Shade, looking up. He sighed too and ran his hands through his hair. “I sent my rats out this morning, and they found their weapon belts near some hedges that line the Old College grounds. There was Tracker ichor on the ground, and Myrmidon bootprints….”

  “They’re gone then,” said Ella. Slowly, matter-of-factly, she recited the names as if to fix them in her memory. “Rick. Nelo. Tanner.”

  “We will remember them,” said Shade, sitting up straight, his hands laid flat on the table. “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.”