by Майк Берри
Carver could feel the dragon’s excitement like a cloud that surrounded him, prickling his skin. It reminded him of the tension in the air before a storm, which had been a common, almost daily occurrence back on the electrically-volatile world of Aitama. ‘I’m ready,’ he breathed. He hit the pad to open the inner door.
The door slid slowly into the ceiling, spilling dusky reddish light into the corridor like blood, revealing a world of sanguine shadow and glass panels beyond. Moving nonchalantly, so as not to panic anybody who was watching him, Carver stepped into Macao Prison, the cutter held as out of sight as possible behind his back, checking from side to side for company. Somebody was crying softly down one of the glass-walled corridors. Another voice answered the crying — a woman’s voice. As quietly as he could, Carver crept down the passage towards it.
The first cell he passed contained a man lying naked in the middle of the floor, face down and unmoving. Carver didn’t linger to check if the man was alive or not — now was not the time. The second cell he passed contained a scrawny, balding little rat of a man who was sitting cross-legged on his crude prison bed, the back of his head against the wall and his eyes shut. That was good.
Carver crept on past, occasionally checking back up the passage behind him, closing in on the voice. He turned his suit-light on, but he kept it pointed down at the floor for now. Its little circle of brilliance skimmed along the pitted metal like an eye staring up at him from hell.
The next cell contained a smooth-looking, oldish man, who stood stock-still in the centre of his tiny cell, regarding Carver with reptilian eyes that glittered in the red light. Only those eyes moved, following him, as Carver stalked past. The man was smiling a neat little smile, but it wasn’t a smile that radiated any warmth at all — it looked like the smile of a crocodile that would be perfectly content to snap your leg off and eat it. Carver stared back at him, shaking his head, one gloved finger raised to his lips. The man made no acknowledgement, but he didn’t make any noise either, and that was the main thing.
Suddenly, the voice at the end of the passage stopped, and Carver heard an intake of breath. ‘Theo?’ called the voice, its owner the merest suggestion of a shape in the shadows. He dared not spot her with his light yet. The sobbing stopped as the crying person paused to listen, too. ‘Is that you? Man, you made me jump.’ Carver saw movement up ahead and the voice took on new tones of suspicion. ‘That is you, isn’t it?’
He saw the figure congeal out of the darkness — a woman in a space suit, but no helmet, coming towards him squinting. She was a large, strong-looking woman of the type that Carver naturally associated with penal workers, but she didn’t look too bright.
He splashed his light into her eyes, dazzling her, and making her fall back a step as he quickly covered the remaining ground between them, his huge boots ringing on the metal floor, the dragon leering over his shoulder ravenously, its breath a musky, charnel house stench that filtered even into his suit and filled his head with the taste of dead meat and ancient dust.
‘Yeah,’ he said, firing up the cutter, ‘it’s me all right.’
‘Oh good,’ said the woman, shielding her eyes, her words almost entirely lost in the rising bellow of the plasma cutter. The noise quickly swelled to fill the space with deafening volume, the sound echoing back hugely from the metal walls, layer on layer, loud enough to blot out all thought. ‘Hey — what the hell is–’ she shouted.
She got no further with the question, and her voice was all but inaudible anyway. Carver brought the cutter up in a smooth, controlled arc, not aiming for a killing blow just yet. It took the woman’s gloved hand off at the wrist just as she tried to pull it back. The hand went sailing gaily into the air behind her and was lost in the darkness of the passage. Carver could feel the eyes of the prisoners on him, awed and terrified in equal measure, staring out of their cages like the trapped, desperate animals they were.
The woman held the stump of her hand up in front of her face and looked dumbly at it for a moment. The cutter had cauterised it so neatly that there wasn’t as much as a drop of blood. Carver drew the weapon back and paused. The woman looked from her missing hand and back to him, her mouth hanging open and a thin trail of spittle depending from her lower lip.
‘Wait!’ she cried in a tone of dawning horror. ‘You’re not–’
‘Not Theo, no,’ Carver shouted, his grin stretching so wide that he thought the edges of his mouth might meet up at the back of his head. His brain felt like it was going to burst and rupture his skull like a fragmentation grenade.
He plunged the lance of blinding plasma into the woman’s chest, sending out a great gout of steam, then whipped the weapon upwards, virtually tearing her torso in half. He kicked out, sending her convulsing remains flying into the darkness, and roared with bestial triumph, shaking the cutter above his head like a caveman’s club. He felt exultant, wired, truly alive. This was what it meant to be free! The dragon twined around him, empowering and protecting him, phasing in and out at the edge of reality, a ghost of a dream of murder. Although it was distant, weakened in its cage of rock, for a moment Carver felt it there in the passage with him, relishing his triumph.
An eruption of noise came from the cells around him — cheers and cat-calls, whoops and crying, shouted reports that went rapidly down the line of cells as he turned in place with the cutter held aloft, revelling in the admiration of the dragon, his dragon, his dragon. Presently, he fell still, killed the cutter and stood breathing deeply, trying to regain his composure. He looked up and saw that he had gouged a thick, jagged line down the ceiling of the passage like a scar. Water dripped slowly from the cut like seeping blood in the red light, pattering softly onto his right boot. The suit felt like it was suffocating him, but he didn’t want to take the helmet off. All being well, he wouldn’t be here too long.
He went back to the cell he had passed where the man with the reptilian eyes still stood in the same place as when Carver had first seen him, smiling benignly. Carver shone his light into the cell, letting its beam play across the sparse furnishings and rusty walls. The man’s bed was neatly-made and the few personal items in the cell looked to have been carefully arranged. The metal toilet in the corner had been polished to a mirror shine. He saw that the notepads and pens on the table had been positioned at perfect right angles to the room.
‘Are there any more?’ Carver asked, looking into the man’s face.
‘No,’ said the man, his voice as prim and polite as his smile. He didn’t even narrow his eyes when the beam of Carver’s light fell across his face. ‘No more. And may I say — well done.’ He nodded once, agreeably, towards Carver.
‘What’s your name, Prisoner?’ Carver asked him.
‘Welby,’ said the man. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
That was a little odd, thought Carver, but never mind. The guy was probably just crazy, but that was okay, wasn’t it? If you bobbed for apples in the sewers, you came up with turds, right? He let the comment pass.
‘Welby, I’m here to set you people free, just like the dragon did for me. We have much work to do.’
‘The dragon?’ asked Welby politely.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Carver hurriedly. ‘The dragon in the asteroid sent me, I’m it’s emissary, and I’m here to set you free. But first–’
‘I knew it,’ said Welby, his smile widening, showing perfect white teeth. ‘The Old Ones sent you. An emissary. Of course.’
‘Welby, I’m gonna let you people out, but I need to know that you aren’t gonna fuck me around, okay? Is there anybody here who’s gonna fuck me around?’
‘I knew you would come,’ said Welby smugly. ‘I told the faithful as much. The time for vengeance is at hand.’
Carver felt himself smile too. He was already starting to like Welby. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘I guess it is.’
Chapter Forty-Two
‘Quiet!’ commanded Halman, holding up one finger. He looked ungainly in his space suit, huge and awkward.
Lina held him in her light, breathing in heavy, ragged chunks. ‘What?’ she whispered, head cocked. Whatever he had heard must have come through the comm-channel, because they were moving through a vacuum and there was nothing else to hear.
‘I thought I heard voices on the radio,’ he said at length, shaking his head. ‘Several of them. Faint, but. . .’
‘Ella’s team?’ suggested Lina uncertainly. ‘Or Si’s?’
‘I guess,’ he replied. ‘Almost too faint for them, I thought. Anyway, it’s gone now.’ They stood silently for a moment, oppressed by the darkness of the passage. Open, deserted doorways lined the walls around them and the metal panels of the corridor were crusted with ice. Lina, Halman, Waine and Theo stood for a moment, exchanging warning looks, their suit-lights turning the world around them to black and white, like some terrible dream sequence. The passage shuddered suddenly, dislodging powdered ice from the ceiling. It fell around them like snow.
Lina wiped her visor with one sleeve, clearing it. ‘Mass driver,’ she whispered, unsure of why she was whispering.
Halman nodded, towering over her. ‘Do you hear me, Ella?’ he asked into his mic. ‘Si?’
Their replies were clearly audible, if muddied somewhat by the radio.
‘Did you hear anyone else on this channel?’ Halman asked.
Ella’s voice said, quite understandably through the static, ‘No, Boss.’
‘Nope,’ said Si.
‘Are you at the prison yet, Ella?’ asked Halman.
‘Not yet. Something wrong?’
‘No,’ said Halman. ‘Don’t worry about it. But keep your ears open. I could have sworn somebody else was on this channel for a moment there.’
‘Okay, sure, I’ll. . .’ replied Ella, the tail-end of her answer tattered by interference.
‘Will do,’ said Si, slightly more clearly.
Halman visibly steeled himself. ‘Let’s continue,’ he said to Lina and the others, his jaw set determinedly.
Onwards through that surreal cavern of white ice, grey metal and thick black shadow. Lina felt the blood rushing in her ears, swarming through her veins, throbbing within her hammering heart. Where had the invader — Ronnie Carver — gone? Was he around the next corner? Within one of the rooms that led off this corridor, maybe lying in wait for them, cradling the plasma cutter? Even worse, maybe he had doubled back, got behind the teams somehow as they fanned out, made his way back to the offices where Marco waited for her to return. She didn’t think that last was likely — and he’d have quite a fight on his hands if he tried to breach the dorms — but her mind kept suggesting it as a possibility all the same. She was glad that someone was on guard inside the makeshift airlock. Marco, she swore to herself, I am coming back from this. But it didn’t sound that convincing, even to her. Death had proven itself to be easily obtainable of late. It seemed to be everywhere she went.
They rounded a corner where somebody had deserted a huge pile of rubberised pipework, presumably in the scramble to vacate the main body of the station. They stepped over its snakelike coils carefully, concerned that they might slip and damage their suits. Such an accident could easily prove fatal in this environment. A tiny rip in the fabric, or a knock to the famously unreliable control units could result in a rapid, unpleasant demise. Lina stepped cautiously through the pile, her boots feeling uncomfortably heavy on her feet, her calf muscles aching from walking in them. The laser pistol felt flimsy and inadequate in her hand. She had never even held a gun before. She’d never even struck anybody in anger before this nightmare, let alone shot them.
They continued to the end of the corridor, following those jinks and jags that the designers of Macao had felt necessary to incorporate into its construction, checking into the deserted living quarters that they passed. Each of these showed them a little sneak preview of somebody else’s life: a half-eaten apple left on a table, now frozen solid; two pairs of slippers arranged beside a door — his and hers; an unmade bed; a framed photograph of Aitama’s yellowed plains, its glass crusted with frost; a thousand relics of a time, not so long ago, when this frozen, empty space had been their home. A little twinge of sadness went through her, but it was only the merest spark beside the fear and trepidation that dominated her thoughts.
The notion of actually taking a Kay and returning to that dark and hulking rock where Eli had secreted their shuttle filled her with a chilling dread that increased in magnitude with every step she took towards the hangar. She wondered if she had been insane to volunteer. She couldn’t imagine how she’d ever arrived at that decision. She felt as if the intrinsic, inherent bond that joined mother to son like an unseen umbilical, was stretching, weakening, fading, as she picked her way deeper into the bowels of the station’s corpse.
They had long-since lost radio contact with Amy Stone, who had been left in charge back at the dorms. The construction of Macao virtually denied the use of internal radio altogether, and it hadn’t taken long for Amy to become inaudible as they ventured out, barring the occasional freak burst of signal here and there, which offered barely coherent snatches of speech and fizzing static that hurt the ears. Marco might as well have been on another planet. Lina felt a wetness developing in her eyes, and she blinked it away, unable to put a hand to her helmeted face, trying to clear her mind of all but the job at hand. Focus, she told herself. Focus, and come back from this. You cannot afford the luxury of screwing up and getting killed. Nor the luxury of crying like a little girl.
‘Lina, you want to go back?’ asked Theo, appearing at her elbow as they neared the steps down to the hangar level. He was smiling a small, concerned smile.
‘No,’ she said, a little offended. She affected looking into one of the rooms they passed in order to avoid his scrutiny.
‘It’s going to be okay, Lina,’ Theo said. Waine shouldered his way past them and stood at the top of the steps, peering down into the darkness below.
‘Sure,’ said Lina, blinking her eyes to clear them and treating Theo to what she hoped was an encouraging smile. Judging from his expression, it missed the mark somewhat. ‘I’m just a bit jumpy.’
‘Come on,’ called Halman softly, beckoning them onwards.
They descended the steps carefully, mindful of the slipperiness of the surface, gripping the hand-rail as they went, half expecting Ronnie Carver to peel away from the shadows and fall on them at any moment. Had he really killed Eli, as suggested by the fingers around his neck? Oddly, Lina didn’t seem to feel anything at all about that possibility. She supposed that she had already mourned Eli — the Eli whom she had known for so long — once it had become clear that the old Eli was gone, replaced by some drug-addicted psychopath. And now, if that new Eli really was dead, then what concern was it of hers? He hadn’t been her Eli any more by that point — he had been some sort of monster. It’ll eat you up, Lina! her mind sang. It had eaten him up in the end, she supposed, thinking of the shadow in the belt.
And what was that shadow? She thought she had almost seen it in the belt when she had been in pursuit of the ISL. But had she? She had seen it first in a dream, after Sal’s death. Maybe she had just imagined it in the belt. She suspected that it was simply an embodiment of her own fear. But a nagging, doubting little corner of her mind kept wanting to tell her that it was something real, tangible, maybe even evil. Who knew for sure? She hadn’t mentioned the shadow to Halman or the others, maybe for fear that acknowledging it would cement its reality, somehow give it substance. Whatever it was, she had agreed to go out there again. She shook her head, wondering at her own recklessness.
At the bottom of the steps, the passage continued straight for some fifteen metres, flanked by storage cupboards and tiny utility rooms, before angling to the left into the main part of the warehouse. They moved along in a fearful huddle, treading carefully. The airless space was eerily silent, a collage of grey and black. A water leak in the ceiling had formed stalactites of ice that stretched down to the floor like giant fangs, and the group unconscious
ly stepped around them as if afraid of being bitten. Lina’s boots slipped in the puddle of ice and she went painfully to one knee, cursing under her breath. Theo helped her to her feet again, lifting her by the arm as if she were of no weight at all. His compact body was obviously stronger than it looked. She thanked him and they continued.
Every nook and cranny of the warehouse was a hiding place from which the dreaded Carver might spring. Every outcropping piece of machinery, every tarpaulin-covered pallet, every massive spool of cable, was a skulking human form. Lina’s breathing seemed to fill the entire world. She held the pistol in front of her like a ward. Frost glittered everywhere like fairy dust, making the place into a sinister wonderland. There was only silence from the comm. Ella and Si were too far away to talk to now. Lina wondered if they were all okay, and who, if anyone, would find the escaped prisoner first. She hoped, for all her most altruistic desires, that it would not be her own group.
The hangar door was standing open, dangerously inviting. The lights were on inside, showing rows of gunmetal ship’s hulls and reflective cockpit glass. They crept inside, explorers in their own lost world.
The in-system loader loomed in the centre of the hangar like a vast beetle that had landed there, surrounded by its cowed harem of battered Kays, almost blocking the flight deck completely. The space door hung open at the far end like an unravelled tongue. It was disturbing to see it left like that, just hanging open, almost inviting the void to spill into the station, living shadows and all, to drown the remaining survivors like flood water.
‘My ship,’ said Lina, pointing towards K6-12 with her gun. It sat over on the right-hand side of the hangar, in the shadow of the loader, with just enough of an angle to be able to move it without moving the loader first. She was sentimentally glad that the incoming vessel had not damaged it. ‘I could just take it now and go out there. If Carver’s here, maybe there’s nobody alive on the shuttle at all.’ She looked at Halman, who froze in place, his face scrunched in thought. ‘I could just go, Dan.’
