by Neal Asher
The screaming dropped to an agonised gasping. It was coming from the cab of the other ATV, which was now burning too. Cormac pointed his twinned weapon at where the driver should be and fired. A double line of pulse-fire punctuated the air to that cab, punched holes through metal and sprayed burning debris all about, and the groaning abruptly ceased. Cormac quickly moved on, breaking into a trot.
Four bad guys down, but Carl and the other one, about a quarter of a mile ahead of him, had now been thoroughly forewarned. Cormac kept moving at a steady jog, following tracks made by their ATV. He hit an upslope through dead bushes of black convoluted twigs, brittle and crushed flat. Amidst these, knowing he was now close, he slowed, then got down on his belly and crawled. Finally reaching the head of the slope he could see down through the skarches to the ruin of a small composite dome house, but there was no sign of anyone nearby. Now, he should slowly and carefully work his way down there, crawling like this, but really, he didn't feel physically capable of doing that. He took one of the two explosives out of the tool bag, reset its timer to ten minutes, hit the button and shoved it into the bushes ahead of him, then crawled backwards until the ruin was once again out of sight. Standing up he ran to his left where the rise he was on sloped down again to the level of the ruin. It was counterintuitive, since the best tactical position would be to come down from higher ground to the right.
Running, he damned the dry skarch debris on the ground since it was near impossible to run on them without making a noise. Shortly he reached the level of the ruin, but it was not yet visible through the trees. He squatted down beside a multiple skarch stump coated in fungus like spilt custard and waited
The bomb went off with a satisfying flash and glaring explosion, with the added benefit that shortly afterwards a number of skarches started to fall. Cormac ran towards the ruin, using what cover he could and frequently altering his course. No sign of anyone. Shortly he arrived at the curved wall of the ruin and squatted down. His best course in any other circumstances would have been to toss his remaining explosive into the building, but if the CTD was in there such an action stood a chance of breaking the antimatter flask. What now? It belatedly occurred to him that Carl and his companion might have moved away from this building and now had it in their sights, knowing it would be the focus of anyone coming here—that's what he would have done in their position. He wasn't thinking straight. He should have waited out there, perhaps for hours, until one of them put in an appearance. Then again, he was in no condition to wait any length of time.
Carefully he surveyed his surroundings trying to work out where they might have hidden themselves. Two locations seemed probable: the bushes on the slope to the right where he had detonated the bomb, and an area to his left where a skarch had fallen and caught between two others—plenty of cover there. He chose the fallen skarch, since if they had been in the bushes they would probably have retreated from the smoke spreading from where a fire still burned. He selected a skarch with a trunk a yard thick in a straight line to that location, took a couple of paces to his left and ran for it.
Immediately pulse-gun fire stabbed across the intervening space, past him to the right and impacting the ruin wall. He had just moved in time—whoever was shooting at him must have had him targeted. He fired back as he ran, multiple shots exploding along the length of that fallen trunk, shearing off leaves and blowing up dusty clouds of burning fibrous pulp. The firing at him ceased momentarily, giving him just enough time to get to cover behind his selected skarch, then pulse-gun hits thrummed against the other side of the tree, flinging everywhere debris that looked like chunks of frayed rope and generating a cloud of dust and smoke, then they again ceased.
"It seems you are what we thought you were," Carl called.
Cormac did not want to bother replying, but he needed to know where both Carl and that CTD were; he was certain Carl's voice had not issued from nearby that fallen skarch.
"Wrong, Carl," he replied. "I'm just a grunt, which probably tells you something about the abilities of Samara and her crew." He paused deliberately for a moment. "Or rather, it tells you something about the abilities they used to have."
Carl didn't react for a moment, which Cormac hoped meant his jibe had struck home. Carl eventually replied with, "It doesn't matter. In a little while a great many trained ECS soldiers will be turned to ash, which will more than make up for Separatist losses here."
Where the hell was he? Cormac just could not locate the source of his voice—doubtless some effect of the surrounding vegetation.
"Seems to me your ash will be mixed in too—you don't have any transport out of here now," he said.
"Ah but I do," Carl replied. "I've got an ATV on the way in to pick us up. Tick tick tick, Cormac. It's a shame you won't feel the fire with the rest, since I'll shortly be in position to get a clear shot at you."
The comment was obviously designed to drive him from cover, but nevertheless it might be true. He surveilled everything within view, but could not yet see any sign of Carl. Where was the CTD?
"I won't let you detonate that CTD, Carl," he tried.
"Tick tick tick—there's nothing you can do to stop it now," he said.
Cormac unshouldered the tool bag, reached inside and set the bomb timer to three seconds.
"Where is it?" he asked, expecting no answer.
"Why it's in the ruin of course," Carl told him. "Do you think you can get to it in time? I suggest you start running now before I finish adjusting the sight on this knackered old pulse-rifle."
Another attempt to drive him from cover, but he had to do something. He did not know Carl's position, but he did know the position of the trooper who had opened fire on him earlier, and could maybe do something about him. He dropped his twinned pulse-rifle and stood, sliding his back up the tree and hanging the handles of the tool bag from his right hand. Reaching across he took a slow breath, reached in the bag and hit the priming button, then stepped out to the left, spun and hurled the bag like a hammer straight toward where the trooper was hiding. Pulse-gun fire cut past the other side of the skarch, then jerked across, slamming into fibrous wood just as he ducked for cover again. The trooper had targeted the side of the skarch to his own left, expecting that that would be the side a right-handed gunman would break cover from. Had he been any less proficient, Cormac might be dead now.
Cormac grabbed up his twinned pulse-rifle. The detonation immediately followed, blasting fire and debris past him. He waited a moment more, to be sure he wouldn't be hit by flying objects, then ducked from cover again, this time from the other side of the skarch.
The bomb had obviously landed by the base of the half-fallen skarch. Long woolly splinters of smoking wood were pointing at the sky. The blast had excavated a crater and fire was spreading through the papyrus-like leaf-litter surrounding it. The skarch, obviously released from its final attachment to the ground, had crashed down flat. Cormac circled it quickly, coming in behind. He saw a backpack by the fallen trunk and three other objects. One of these was a smaller pack of pulse-rifle forestocks—those containing the power supply and aluminium dust charge. The other two objects were feet, protruding from underneath the heavy trunk. Ducked low, because Carl was still out there somewhere. Cormac ran over, then quickly stretched upright to look over the fallen trunk. The man was scrabbling at the ground, but he wasn't going anywhere. Cormac considered putting a shot through his head when something smashed into the back of his own legs.
It felt as if the world had been pulled from underneath him and he crashed down beside the trunk. All the wind seemed to have been knocked out of him. Where was his gun? He looked around for it and realised he'd dropped it over the other side of the trunk. Then his attention focused on his legs. They were smoking. His left leg was bloody and charred, but his right leg was worse—all the flesh flensed away from knee to ankle, just the bones there, blackened.
"I told our friend there I was going to get round behind you," said Carl. "But I thought it better
to just step back and use him as bait."
Cormac looked up, just in time to get a rifle butt straight in his face. Next he felt hands checking over his clothing, flipping him over and checking again. All he could do was struggle ineffectually until Carl kicked him over onto his back again.
"So you escaped," said Carl.
Cormac dragged himself backwards. He needed to get up, needed to stop this… Carl was squatting in front of him, gazing at him curiously.
"But I don't think you are an agent, not now," Carl continued. "Running straight down to the ruin was a dumb mistake of the kind they don't make."
Cormac tried to shrug casually, but it didn't come off that well. The agony was rolling up from his legs in waves and he was starting to shake violently. Carl stood, walked over to the backpack and picked it up by its straps. He walked round Cormac, climbed up onto the trunk and walked along it to where it rested between two upright skarches, then, shouldering the pack, he found handholds on its scaly exterior and climbed. Twenty feet up he hung the pack straps from a large, dry leaf bud, then climbed back down again. Pausing halfway back along the trunk he drew his thin-gun again then jumped down on the other side. After a moment came a shot. A sound Cormac had only been half aware of from the other side of the trunk, ceased at once. Carl had just killed the trapped man. There came further sounds, then Carl dropped down beside Cormac.
"It's a shame," he said, "but I haven't the time to get him out from under there, and he would be a bit of a burden if I did." Carl checked the time display imbedded under the fingernail of his right forefinger. "My ride should be here shortly. In an hour we'll be beyond the blast perimeter." He gazed up at where he had hung the CTD from the skarch, took a remote control device from his pocket, pointed it up there and pressed a button. It beeped, then he hurled the remote away.
"I'm not going to kill you, Cormac," he continued. "In fact, if you can climb that skarch, you might even be able to save yourself and over a thousand ECS troops." He smiled. "Ciao," then he stood and walked away.
Cormac felt his consciousness fading. He tried to fight it, drifted, jerked back into a world of pain at the sound of an ATV pulling away. No chance of climbing that fucking oversized weed—he doubted he would be able to even get himself up onto the fallen trunk. But there was another option: his rifle. Laboriously, using one workable and one maimed arm, he began dragging himself along the ground to the other side of the fallen trunk.
Blackout.
Cormac recovered consciousness in a panic, having no idea how long had passed, for he possessed no handy timepiece under his fingernail. Dragging himself on he finally reached the crater. The ground all around was smouldering, and he must drag himself through embers to reach his goal. He did so, and it added little to the agony he was already suffering. The dead man came into sight and Cormac looked around frantically for his weapon, any weapon… They were gone. Carl must have picked them up and hurled them away. Cormac lay there with his face in the fibrous leaf-litter, swearing, but without much energy and with his voice slurred. It would be so nice just to stay in that position and wait until everything went away.
Cormac forced his head up, turned and began crawling away from the fallen trunk. Somewhere out here lay his weapon and maybe others. He couldn't see them, but surely there was a chance…
The thing crashed through the skarch canopy like a giant ingot of lead. Cormac gazed in bewildered recognition upon a nightmare iron scorpion scrambling through the leaf-litter towards him. It poised above him, silhouetted against the sky, huge, long claws each over a foot long opening and closing, then those claws came down and closed upon his body. Something groaned and he felt the hard metal digging into his torso as those claws tucked him underneath a head sporting lethal weaponry and green peridot eyes. Acceleration. The thing now crashed up through a canopy and Cormac glimpsed acres of dead forest below like a maize field long overdue for harvest. The last thing he saw was a searingly bright light igniting and the disc of a shockwave spreading out from it, shredding the skarches in its path.
8
The concourse, one of four leading in towards the lounges and runcibles of the Paris Runcible Port, had been stripped of its gardens and kiosks and a divider fence erected to separate the bidirectional flow of human traffic. Over the other side of the fence Cormac observed those newly arrived from offworld, and was reminded of scenes he had seen in historical films or interactives, for there was no doubt he was seeing soldiers and support staff returning from the front line. Most of the returnees were in uniform, some of them had arms missing and arm-caps in place; some were in hover chairs, their leg stumps also end-capped. Others had areas of their bodies clad in shellwear, a kind of exo-skeletal prosthetic that enabled wounded soldiers to keep functioning, while the damage underneath was healed by advanced medical technology. Often there were Golem, rendered either partly or wholly into macabre metal skeletons because some damage had removed their humanlike outer covering. And scattered throughout this crowd were numerous full-life-support containers drifting along on AG, some of which were burnished cylinders large enough to hold a whole body, while others were the size of hat boxes.
"You think they'd use two concourses for departures and the other two for arrivals," said Hannah.
Gazing across at the returnees, Dax shook his head. "The idea was suggested, but the AIs scotched it. The reason given was that though we face a vicious enemy in a costly war there will be no secrets and no massaging of casualty figures." Dax paused contemplatively. "Personally I think this is maintained so those departing to war will be reminded of what it's like out there, and be more cautious—the enthusiasm of many new recruits, or those returning after medical treatment or rest, tends to kill."
They continued to make their way slowly towards Dax's departure runcible, troops of soldiers all about them, others like Dax clad in the blue dress uniforms of ECS Medical, Golem, war drones and occasional units of Sparkind. Cormac, who until now had never thought more deeply about the war than wondering how many more Prador Jebel U-cap Krong had splattered, suddenly had a moment of realisation. What was happening here was happening at main runcible complexes all around Earth, up on the moon and out where similar complexes had been established on the worlds of the Solar System. It was happening beyond on populated worlds throughout the Polity. Trillions of people were on the move, marching to the beat of the same drum. And it had been happening for over thirty years.
Soon the concourse debouched into a wide runcible lounge in which the seating areas were wholly occupied and groups of people had made little camps on the wide carpeted floors as they awaited their runcible slot. They joined a queue to an information terminal mounted in one of the ersatz cast-iron pillars supporting the decorous cathedral-like roof of this lounge. They waited there only a moment before Dax turned to Cormac.
"Your p-top," he said.
Cormac handed the device over as the three of them stepped out of the queue. Dax flipped it open, tapped away for a short time, then abruptly snapped it closed and handed it back.
"My slot is right now—Runcible Six," he said. "They're set for group departures and mine's got only eight minutes to run."
"So quickly?" said Hannah.
Dax grabbed her and hugged her. "I'll be in contact as soon as possible." He released her and stooped down to Cormac. "I could say look after our mother, but I won't be so patronising. Look after yourself… Cormac."
"I will…"
"Where are you going?" Hannah asked, as Dax began heading away.
"A place called Cheyne III—never heard of it."
And that was it: he was gone.
Cormac abruptly found his mother seizing hold of his hand and holding it tightly. "Let's go," she said, her expression grim.
Following arrows painted upon the floor, they joined the crowd of arrivals and trudged out with them. Now amidst that crowd rather than gazing at it from a distance, Cormac gained a better view of the grotesqueries it contained. Certainly there were tho
se with missing limbs, but many other injuries were on display too. He observed a woman, her skin reddened and cracked like river mud in a drought, but protected by a translucent layer. Had these wounds been burns the injury could have been dealt with by tank growth, grafting or repair under shellwear. With what little he knew of such things Cormac supposed the injury was the result of some biological or chemical agent, hence the protective layer.
"Don't stare," said his mother.
The woman, noticing his inspection, smiled, the skin of her cheeks cracking open. She didn't seem to notice.
Also travelling parallel to them was a man in a lev-chair. He was just a torso and head, all his limbs missing and the point of severance visible under the same sort of translucent layer the woman wore. Only later, checking his p-top, did Cormac discover that the translucent layer slowed the action of diatomic acid—a substance that was very difficult to neutralize. These people were heading for one of the few clinics where a successful neutralization process had been found. Some of the others he had seen in shellwear, he understood later, were those with old acid burns, who had lost large areas of skin and necessarily wore shellwear permanently until a cure could be found.
