Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  The locals had gone to seek shelter, but Joy stood in the rain, cupping her hands to let the water pool. Grey with silt, not clear at all, but neither was Martian rain. Only Earth had rain as clear as crystal, and there, according to Finn, the rolling hills of Somerset drank the water until the soil was fat and dark; until the grass grew green and glittering with dew, and the moors bloomed with white rock rose and teasel.

  Rain was life. She opened her hands and let the water trickle onto Cato's dust. Perhaps it wasn't such a dead world after all. Perhaps pink-tipped mallow and butter-yellow brittlebush would burst from its plains. Perhaps the delicate scent of creosote bushes would soon drift over oasis-dimpled dunes.

  Rain was life, and rain was hope.

  37. Cassimer

  The rain turned the plains into marshland. The Epona skidded across sludge and down wobbling dunes, its wheels grinding through a roiling tangle of spiders. Hopewell had switched on the electrical defence system, and smoke billowed in their wake as mud crusted and fell in brittle chunks from the vehicle. Ash-coated legs scribbled confused lines across windows and camera lenses, clinging on even as the EDS fried them to husks.

  "In the interest of full disclosure," Hopewell said through gritted teeth, as eight-legged tumbleweeds rolled across the windscreen, "you should know that I'm bloody terrified of spiders."

  "No mention of arachnophobia in your file," Rhys said.

  "Right, because when I was applying to join one of the most elite companies in the galaxy, I was going to put 'scared of spiders' on the form."

  The Epona came to a shuddering stop, warning lights painting the interior crimson. Hopewell swore. A torrent of mud washed over the windscreen as the wheels turned, but the vehicle didn't budge. Then came the scratching and scraping - on the roof and under the floor, on the walls and skittering down the windows; a wave of darkness overtaking the Epona. Hopewell swore again and tried to reverse. Something in the engine block made a chunking sound and smoke filled the interior, dark and tacky.

  "Earth have mercy." Lucklaw looked sickly behind his firmly sealed visor.

  "EDS down," Hopewell said. "Electronics are compromised. Engine sensors are reporting fires."

  "Hopewell, Florey, let's see what we can do. Lucklaw, you're in charge of the Epona. Do nothing without Hopewell's instruction." As soon as the two gunners were in position, Cassimer yanked the door open.

  A writhing mass of spiders fell from the door, landing wetly in mud. Many more came pouring in. Little green lights on his HUD, not so terrifying - but then somebody switched their suit lights on.

  Fat bodies brushed against his boots, pale-bristled legs moving tentatively across the floor. Spiders the size of mice and spiders the size of rabbits. A few were larger still, waddling as they dragged pearl-like clusters of eggs.

  Hopewell made a strange little noise, and Cassimer could feel the mood turn, could feel irrational terror sink its talons into the team.

  "Let's get this done." Biting back his own fear, he jumped into the sucking mud. He sank deep, all the way to his knees, but the spiders were faring worse. Their flight had turned to struggle, and all around he saw them drown, saw them pull their own legs off in desperate attempts to get out of the mud, saw them curl up and die.

  He waded towards the front of the Epona, Florey and Hopewell following closely behind. The ground was saturated, and the rainwater had begun to pool. Only inch-high now, but rising fast, and the gorge they were in made sudden and dreadful sense. Steep mountain ridges on either side, a ravine in the middle - not a valley at all, but a riverbed, thirsty and eager to run thick with rain.

  Hopewell wrenched the Epona's hood open. Tiny fires fizzled and died in the rain. White smoke rose in tendrils between frayed wiring and squirming legs. The spiders had made a shelter of the Epona's innards, a colony nesting around the power cell housing, as though they sought its heat. A mesh of cobwebs, black with grease, stretched across the engine.

  One spider, its underbelly teeming with spiderlings, crawled up Hopewell's arm and scurried onto her shoulder. Its spindly forelegs tapped her visor, and Hopewell, with admirable restraint and gentleness, closed her gauntleted hand around the spider and set it down in the mud.

  "Not going to sugar coat it, Commander - it looks real dire. I'll do what I can. Florey - you keep these bloody critters off me while I work, yeah?"

  The Epona's wheels had disappeared below charcoal sludge. Fulgurite branches had etched a criss-cross pattern on the coachwork, and her undercarriage was buckled and taking on water. Cassimer had enlisted before he'd been old enough to drive and while he'd learned the basics in training, cataphracts didn't drive, and commanders rarely needed to. Still, it didn't take an expert to see that there was a good chance they'd have to abandon the Epona.

  It wasn't as if he hadn't already considered that particular outcome. Expect the worst and it won't feel as bad when it inevitably happens. Someone had given him that advice once, but he couldn't remember who. Unlikely to be someone from his cataphract days, because cataphracts knew better than that. Cataphracts knew that the worst came like a blindside from a hundred-gun frigate. The worst took the imagined worst outcome and put an unexpected twist on it, the kind of twist that made the worst hurt all the more.

  A low rumble rolled through the valley, and he glanced towards the south, expecting lightning to fork across the sky. Through torrential rain, he saw the mountains west of the ruined city quiver and begin to shed bulky layers of soil. Rippling and rushing, the mass poured into the city, dust clogging narrow alleys, mud forcing its way through buildings, cascades of black water streaming from broken windows.

  The leaning tower block collapsed under the onslaught. The mudslide swallowed brick and warped metal. Within seconds, the cenotaph of dead dreams was gone.

  Cassimer's HUD reported tremors, and through his Hyrrokkin's scope, he saw the state of the surroundings with brutal clarity. Water poured in runnels down the craggy mountainsides, stripping moss green fulgurite and jogging loose boulder-sized clods of soil. The riverbank was sloughing its old skin to make way for the new waters.

  "Hopewell, is the Epona ready to go?"

  The lieutenant looked up, eyebrows arched behind her translucent visor. "Negative. Give me another hour, and I might be able to patch her up."

  "No time. The mountain's about to come down on us." He pulled the Epona's door open, his suit lights falling on Rhys as the medic stomped a spider. Dark stains spattered the vehicle's interior, and dribbling spider corpses were stacked in a pile behind the seats. Disgusting, and under any other circumstances, Rhys'd be spending the rest of the journey scrubbing the Epona clean. "We'll cover the rest of the distance on foot. Grab your gear."

  The tremors turned to quakes, and when Lucklaw, last to leave, exited the Epona, the choppy waters lapped their waists. The comms specialist took one look at the surroundings and muttered for mercy.

  "Let's go," Cassimer said. Had to be calm; had to stand firmer than the mountains. "Hopewell, you've got the coordinates for the mining complex?"

  She nodded, sharing them with the team. On each of their HUDs, a glowing dot marked the location. "Less than two klicks away."

  "Landslide might trap us in there. We've no way of knowing if there are any other exits," Florey said.

  "We first met Somerset in an old mining complex. She accessed that via old sewage tunnels. Stands to reason this place would be connected to a similar system."

  "Stands to reason that torrential rain might flood old sewage tunnels."

  Florey made good points, and a selfish voice in the back of Cassimer's mind added another: Hunkering down in the mining complex would add hours, if not days, to their ETA. If they had to dig their way out, or traverse unknown tunnel networks, there was no telling how long it would take. Days. Weeks. Maybe more. The team were equipped to survive that - but Joy was alone in hostile territory.

  He'd once judged Duncan and Voirrey for deserting Joy. As he'd watched her disappear into th
e train station, he'd told himself that his orders for her were different, that as a soldier, she had the support of the Primaterre and the team even if they were separated by hundreds of kilometres, that the mission would give her the focus she needed to survive. But in truth, because of him, she was more alone than ever. He'd loved her from the moment he saw her, and he'd made her walk into danger and darkness alone. For the mission - and to convince himself that he could still make the hard calls.

  And now he had to make another one.

  "The mining complex is our best chance." The mountain ridges were growing fat and quivery. Before too long, the dead river would run once more. "Double-check your coordinates. Stay in close formation. Do not let anybody fall behind."

  He took point, leading the team in a wedge formation through the swelling tide. The entrance to the mining complex was an unassuming concrete building at the base of the eastern ridge. There'd be a door, Joy had said, leading to a reception area overlooking a deep excavation site. Elevators descended into the pit where a tunnel, large enough to drive mining equipment through, bored into the mountain.

  When you told me about Xanthe, it was that pit I was picturing, she'd said. The deep and the dark, but the silence most of all. It seemed so complete, as though it had to be intentional. As though something in the pit was doing its very best to stay quiet, just long enough to lure prey within reach.

  In his own nightmares, Xanthe was hell in flux. Whispers in the hiss of thermogenic methane escaping cracks in gold-speckled walls. Noxious geysers, where bubbles burst with a shriek. Heat, humid and all-consuming. Chaos painted yellow, a cacophony of laughter and screams and slithering corruption.

  Never silent - but Joy's description had unsettled him then, and unsettled him still. The Hecate had become noise and disarray, but before that, had it not been silent? Had he not gone to sleep that night to the sound of nothing but humming engines? In that silence, the demons had been watching and waiting for a moment to strike. For an impure thought to weaken a mind. For prey to come within reach.

  Visibility had dropped to zero; he couldn't see his own hands, couldn't hear the sound of his own breath over the relentless drumming of rain. The ground was as slippery as it was treacherous; several times, he put his foot down only to find no solid footing and had to pull himself free. As the ground churned, more and more sinkholes opened up, sensors showing gaping maws and shafts between the skeletal framework of the buried city.

  Their march became a slog, and when Hopewell fell, she couldn't get up, sinking deeper into a pocket of quicksand with her every effort.

  Cassimer ordered Rhys and Lucklaw to keep going to secure the complex entrance. Under his feet, the ground bucked and rolled, and he knew that the mountains had begun to collapse. Behind - ahead - all around, Cato came tumbling down, dark and roaring.

  "Florey," Hopewell said, her eyes wide and bright behind her translucent visor. The mud had her from the neck down, but her black-caked arms were slung around Florey's neck. "Not like this, please."

  "Not like this," Florey promised, but all his strength and all his love were not enough to pull the lieutenant free.

  Unacceptable.

  Cassimer waded through the mud, as close as he dared. Hopewell was at the edge of a rapidly widening chasm. She floated, suspended high above city streets.

  "I'm going to need you to lean back, Lieutenant."

  "I'll sink," she cried, on the cusp of panic, spittle misting her visor.

  "Florey's got you, and your suit will keep you safe. You're going to have to trust me on this. Lean back, and you'll float to the surface, making it easier for us to pull you out."

  "Yes, Commander." Meek, but that was better than panicked.

  Her head was soon swallowed by the black waters, no sign of her but for ripples on the surface. Cassimer reached into the sludge, searching for a leg or a foot to grab. Mud squelched between his fingers. Something large brushed against his hand, and he closed his fist around it, only for the thing to burst. A spider, he thought and knew that it was true, because pale-bodied tangles bobbed all around.

  "You should go, Commander." Florey, on a private channel. The gunner was hunched over, his arms buried deep in mud as he held onto Hopewell. "Need to act in the best interest of the mission."

  "I am."

  "Respectfully, Commander, I disagree."

  "Duly noted." His hands closed around something solid and wriggling, and his imagination conjured images of snakes, but his HUD confirmed it to be Hopewell. "Got her."

  They pulled Hopewell from the sucking mud and to her feet. The rain was coming down like a solid wall of water, but Lucklaw had made it to the mining complex, and Cassimer's HUD traced the corporal's path like a line of light through the haze and rising sludge.

  And then there it was, a grey box of a building protruding from bedrock, and they staggered through its massive doors and into a concrete chamber in a rush of mud.

  The pit was flooded, turned into a frothing cauldron. The foam was tinged red with lichen, and bones bobbed on the water's choppy surface. Lucklaw made a noise of horror, but Cassimer felt only relief. Joy had been right not to go down there, and now the team wouldn't need to, either. Whatever had lain in wait was gone, drowned or -

  - or fled into the upper section of the mining complex. He turned his Morrigan's light on the many (too many) corridors leading from the reception hall, and took a deep breath.

  38. Joy

  One hundred and ninety-one hours fifty-eight minutes. One hundred and ninety-one hours fifty-nine minutes. Joy watched the seconds go by on her HUD, as if this turning of the hours would be the one.

  One hundred and ninety-two hours.

  Neave Crescent Creek played on repeat in her ears. There had been a lot of screaming during the night. She'd drowned it out with music, volume as high as the earpiece would allow. But now, in the gloom of a Cato sunset, she commanded the music to stop. Then she waited.

  Waited and waited. Listened to nothing but silence until it became nearly as bad as the screaming. Any second now, she was sure, there'd be a call for her over the comms.

  In her own opinion, she'd done well so far. Even Imaginary Finn had offered a compliment or two as she'd snuck around town, gathering intel and making a plan. The arrival of the RebEarthers had shot the original plan to pieces. Visitors were relegated to the undercity, and the entrance nearest the landing pads - the entrance she'd recommended the team use - was crowded with men in red-and-black armour. Busy smoking and drinking, mainly, but that didn't make their numbers or guns any less of an obstacle.

  The RebEarth presence did have its advantages, though. The Nexus locals either flocked to them to socialise and trade - she'd seen one of Keeva's men there, the big grin on his face indicating that the greet-shine business was booming - or they hid in their ramshackle homes, staying well clear of the strangers. Nobody cared much about one rag-cloaked girl when the circus was in town.

  She'd used that advantage to follow Hal around. In order to get the key, learning his routine was, well, key. Fortunately, Hal was a man of habit. Once, he'd gone to the market place, and once, he'd gone to the spaceport, skulking around the RebEarth ship until the guards chased him off. But for the most part, he did his three shifts at the generator hut and between shifts, he stayed at home - which had turned out to be a shuttle in better condition than most of the vessels in Nexus. Clean too, with not a spot of corrosion. It was large enough to house several families, but in all her time watching Hal, she'd seen no one else come or go.

  So that was step two of the plan sorted: break into Hal's home and get the key.

  Burglary is a pretty big step up the criminal career ladder for a girl who's never even jaywalked.

  "It's not crime, Finn. It's a mission." Still, he was right. Her skin prickled with anxiety just thinking about doing something wrong, and if she got caught, she was bound to die of embarrassment if nothing else.

  But first, it was time for step one.

 
; ◆◆◆

  Soft light streamed from the barred windows of Voirrey's clinic. Long past sunset now, but not past doctor's hours, because Joy could hear voices. Voirrey's, curt and clipped. Her assistant Sumner was in there too, and at least one other man, whose voice, plaintive and self-pitying, was oddly familiar.

  "...kind of a doctor are you anyway? I've got bits falling off me and all you do is..."

  "Keep you alive. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you seek medical care elsewhere."

  Joy crept alongside the building towards a small window. It didn't really matter who was in there, because she'd have to wait for them to leave regardless, but she was sure she knew that voice.

  "Stand up," Voirrey ordered her patient. Metal clanged, deep and dull, and the ground shook. Joy stumbled backwards, hitting the wall of the neighbouring shed. That sound was more than familiar. That sound was learned terror and remembered desperation. It was the sound of an Ereshkigal suit on the move, and though her instinct was to run, she couldn't.

  Steeling herself, she tiptoed to the window.

  Andrew Scarsdale was alive. Or something close to it - he turned his face towards the light, and Joy had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying out. The Ereshkigal suit might've protected him from impact and fire, but radiation had got the better of it.

  Clusters of cherry-sized blisters deformed his face. One of the remaining patches of hair on his head had slid downwards, sprouting awkwardly above his left eyebrow. His retinas had peeled, laying bare the implants in his eyes, two silver orbs growing larger as the light hit them. The Ereshkigal suit was dented and scuffed, its paint-job flaked away to reveal the plain grey underneath, but looked otherwise intact. The cuirass had been removed to allow Voirrey to treat and examine the man, and the naked torso within was a milky blue. Thin skin stretched across ribs pounded by the violent beat of his overworked heart.