The Shadow and Night

by Chris Walley

  “Is it made of other things? Like the other creatures? A bit of bird, a bit of lizard?”

  “I can’t see it.” She shook her head. “I just think it has a sort of elemental quality.”

  “By which you mean . . . what?”

  She grimaced. “It seems quantitatively different from the cockroach-beasts and ape-creatures. They can be considered as bits and pieces of different organisms put together. This is something else.”

  “Could this sheet-dragon be a genuinely alien creature?”

  “Maybe . . .” She stared at him, her eyes wide in the darkness of the cabin.

  “Any advice if we meet it?”

  “Fire first. No, I have a few thoughts. Size, first: We think the wingspan is just below two meters; say the width of your outstretched arms. And the way the mouth is structured, it’s not going to be a great biter. The gape isn’t that wide. But if it got a chance at exposed flesh . . .” She shivered.

  Like the back of a horse or a human face.

  Anya stared at the images again. “What else? Oh, and the tail could be nasty; it might be able to use it as a whip.”

  “Ah . . . In other words, keep your distance.”

  They exchanged glances, and Merral felt that there was more being transmitted between them than just thoughts about this strange and dreadful creature. Silently, she tapped the screen off.

  “I see,” he said after a while. “But you are worried, aren’t you?”

  Merral received a confiding glance. “Yes, yes I am. I have no idea what is in that ship. I hope we can immobilize it, seal it up, and deal with what’s in it at our leisure.” She glanced around the cabin, and Merral, following her gaze, saw that no one was looking at them. She reached out, touched his hand briefly and shyly, then withdrew it.

  “And, my Tree Man,” she said, with an affection that was no longer concealed, “I’m concerned that something may happen to you.”

  “I see,” Merral answered, his mind already clouded with all sorts of strange thoughts. Suddenly, finding Anya’s unmistakable expression of affection too overwhelming, he realized that he needed to focus on other things. He could not afford to be distracted, and anyway, the unresolved matter of Isabella still hung over him. With a flustered apology, he got up and went forward into the cockpit.

  There the lighting had been turned down so low that it was hard to see anything at first other than silhouettes of the three people in the cockpit outlined against the multicolored lights of their screens. Merral was trying to regain his composure when he saw Perena’s head turned toward him.

  “Okay, Captain?” he inquired.

  “Yes . . . ,” she said, turning back to look ahead. “The ship’s fine. Fully laden and we are flying too low for comfort, but we are in good shape.”

  “Where are we?”

  She gestured to a glowing map nearby. “Still going north, well over the horizon from the most northern coastal settlements. In fifteen minutes, we cut due west toward the coast and come in just north of the Nannalt Delta. So we will have the first landing in about an hour.”

  There was a catch in her voice. He bent his head forward so that he could talk to her without the others hearing. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she murmured back. “I suppose so. . . . I’m just in a strange mood. Am I worried? Is that it?”

  “Understandable. I mean—”

  “No,” she interrupted, apparently realizing something. “It’s not worry. Or not entirely. It’s a feeling—I suppose—of awe. That we are, somehow, on the edge of something immense. Something momentous? Is that the word?” She paused. “Sorry, I guess I’d better focus. This is not the time for reflection.”

  She fell silent, and Merral decided to take the small spare seat at the extreme back of the cockpit. He tried to run through everything in his mind to be sure that he hadn’t overlooked anything. Had he done everything that he had to? There was so much to manage. The idea nagged him again that he had forgotten something, that there was something that he should have done but hadn’t. But what was it?

  His thoughts were interrupted a few minutes later when a low bell tone chimed, and then he heard Perena’s voice on the speakers. “Captain Lewitz here. Just to say that we are nearly as far north as we get and very shortly I’m going to start flying due west to put us toward the northeastern edge of the crater. From now on, we will be at a very low altitude, and I want to reduce the possibility of us being seen by dimming the interior lights even further. I should warn you that as we go overland, the ship is going to bounce around. So be prepared. Fifty minutes to Landing Site One. All being well, my next message will be just before the landing maneuvers.”

  Behind him, Merral saw the corridor lights fade out, and a moment later the ship started to drop in height and began a leisurely turn. Out of the small window to his side, Merral peered into darkness. I should go back to the passenger cabin. But if he went there, he had to choose to sit next to Anya or not. Part of him badly wanted to sit next to her, but he was somehow uneasy about what might happen between them. There seems to be the potential for things to happen between us that I ought to think hard about. There are matters too that I must sort out with Isabella first.

  There were footsteps beside him, and he looked up to see Vero, bracing himself unsteadily against the wall. Vero bent down so that he could speak to Merral and not be heard by anyone else.

  “Merral,” he whispered in a strained, hesitant voice, “I just want to say that I am sorry about the business with Felicity. I really am.” His unsteady tone suggested an intense unhappiness. “I am very worried that I may have jeopardized things. At the time, it seemed a good idea. . . .”

  “Oh, Vero, stop it!” Merral whispered back, clapping him on the shoulder. “Have I blamed you?”

  “No, but I blame myself,” he murmured.

  “Well, better not to,” Merral answered. “I need you with your mind alert here. We are entering unknown territory. All our actions have a risk.”

  “Yes, you are right,” he said a few moments later, a renewed resolve apparent in his voice. “Sorry . . . But I was just shaken by what we saw earlier.”

  “Me too. But it may have done us a service. We have learned a lot more about the intruders. We know there is another type.”

  “Yes. And it is carnivorous. Each new thing unsettles me more,” Vero responded. “I can only hope and pray that we have not gotten involved in something too big for us to manage.”

  “That’s out of our control now. We must just do what we have to do.”

  “I guess so.”

  Perena turned her head toward them. “Coastline coming up,” she called out in a low voice.

  Vero tapped Merral on the shoulder. “Many thanks. I’m going to get strapped in. See you when we land.”

  Merral stared out of the window into the darkness, and a few minutes later, he was rewarded by seeing a faint line of starlit white breakers and then a pale ghostly strip of the seastrand. Then they were flying over ground, low enough for him to sense the rough fabric of the forests racing away underneath and to distinguish the raw, ash-colored rocks around. They were so low—perhaps barely five hundred meters above the ground—that although he knew Perena had slowed the speed down, they still seemed to be going appallingly fast.

  As Merral peered down, seeing starlight glimmering on dark lakes, the ship began to sway laterally and vertically in a sickening motion. It’s the computer, nudging us over and around the oncoming landscape. In the cabin ahead, he could make out the crew scanning their sensor screens, trying to detect anything unusual. This far north there would be no one to see them. At least, he thought ruefully, that was what he had once believed as a certainty. Now though, that—as so much else—was in doubt.

  Time passed as the Emilia Kay swayed this way and that and the shadowy landscape slipped by underneath. Suddenly Perena was talking to him, her voice terse. “Captain D’Avanos, no anomalies ahead at Site One. Do we go for landing?�
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  “Yes,” he said, “or rather, affirmative.”

  Seconds later Perena’s voice came over the speakers. “Landing maneuvers starting in thirty seconds. Brace yourselves. On my command, Lieutenant Larraine’s team begin to disembark.”

  The Emilia Kay started to reduce speed even more, and a new whispering whine indicated the vertical thrusters were firing. As Merral watched out of the window, they sank down into a river valley and then in a series of fierce turns began to veer from side to side as they followed the meanders. Outside in the darkness, he could now see silhouettes of crags above him. There was a hissing and a soft clanking noise as the landing gear was extruded, and the speed dropped to what he judged was little more than walking speed.

  A moment later, the ship slowed to a dead stop, dropped slightly, and then, with a thud and a gentle bounce, settled slowly down to a horizontal angle.

  “Stable,” Perena pronounced over the speakers. “Location correct. Team, you are clear to leave. God be with you.”

  Even before she had finished speaking, Merral was already heading for the hold. By the time he arrived, the port-side door was raised, a ramp had been lowered, and in the dim lighting, men were already working on unloading the sled.

  Carefully, Merral clambered down the ramp and stood on the ground. Here there was a cool, fresh breeze on his cheek. The smell of pinewoods wafted past him, clearing away the stale and all-too-human air from the hold. The night air seemed to speak to him of the past, of the unsullied days before the intruders arrived, and for a moment, Merral felt he could almost weep. He was aware of Zak giving low, curt orders to his men as they manhandled the sled out on its trolley and then the whispers and grunts as the men pushed and rolled it down the ramp.

  Merral looked at the stars above the ragged tips of the firs. I would give a lot to see the hexagon of the Gate again. And a lot more still to be camping out here with no cares except that of filling in my trip report. As if to deepen his mood, there came the call of an owl from within the woods.

  A few minutes later there was the faintest of whines as, safely distant from the ship’s electronics, the gravity-modifying engine came on and the sled floated up and free. As they loaded the trolley back into the hold, Merral saw someone come over and stand by him. In the starlight he recognized Zak.

  “Sir,” Zak said in clipped tones, and it came to Merral that no one had acquired the trappings of soldiering better than Zachary Larraine, “my team is clear and the sled is operational.”

  “Good work so far, Zak,” Merral said. Then he realized that he didn’t know what else to say to a man who, in all probability, he would next meet at the scene of a battle.

  Merral hugged him.

  “For the Assembly, sir,” said Zak, returning the hug.

  “For the Assembly, amen and amen,” Merral answered, feeling surprisingly moved.

  Zak stood back, and in the darkness, Merral made out a salute. Merral returned it and clambered back on board. “Perena,” he announced, looking toward the wall microphone, “Zak’s team is clear. Ready to go.”

  “Okay,” came the response, and even as the hatch door slid down, the faint hull vibration trebled its force. Within seconds, the Emilia Kay was airborne and turning on her axis.

  Merral climbed up out of the hold, which now looked much less crowded, and returned to the cabin. Exchanging smiles with Anya, he went over and squatted by Louis and Erika who were making desultory conversation.

  “Twenty minutes or so going south and then we drop you off,” Merral said. “You’re ready?”

  The diplomatic team had seen some of the images from Felicity, but only Fred Huang, the team leader, had seen the awful final frame. Louis looked at him. “Yes. I’m trying to maintain my faith that negotiation may work. But now, after those images, I expect otherwise.” His voice was calm and resolute, and Merral found himself with a new respect for this man.

  “I also,” returned Merral after a pause.

  Erika just nodded an obviously reluctant assent. Then, after a short silence, she turned to Merral and spoke in a confiding tone. “Captain, I just want to say that if our mission gets in trouble, I expect you to put gaining the intruder ship as a priority.”

  “Thank you,” Merral answered slowly. “I know that, but I am grateful for you saying it. Fred and Nate will do their best. They are under orders to get out as soon as there are any hostilities.”

  Louis merely nodded with an air of resignation.

  “Not long now then,” was all he said.

  Shortly after, Perena set down the ship on a bank of rough sand on the side of another river valley, and as they manhandled the cumbersome hoverer onto the ground, Merral clambered out again. Unlike the sleds, the hoverer had conventional hydrogen turbines and could have been switched on in the hold, but it was still too crowded and there was too much sand and dust about. As they heaved and slid it out down the ramp, Merral walked some paces clear from the ship and peered around in the darkness.

  At first, all he could see was the dull sparkling silver water of the river as it tumbled down out of the crater on its way to the sea. Then, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, he began to make out towering cliff walls on either side, with dark gray forests draping their flanks. Behind him stood the great mass of the Emilia Kay, with little figures moving below it holding shielded flashlights as the pale hull of the hoverer emerged on the sandbank. They were a hundred and fifty kilometers away from the intruder ship here, but it had been estimated that it would take most of the rest of the night for the sluggish machine to make its way up the river and across the rough ground to the southern part of Fallambet Lake Five.

  As a cool gust of air blew past him, Merral shivered slightly. Even with the start of summer only a few weeks away, here in this windy valley it was still barely warm. Merral looked up at the thousands of perfect twinkling diamonds of the stars and was strangely reminded of that fateful night before Nativity when he had first met Vero and had seen the stars on the journey south from Wilamall’s Farm. As he thought about it, Merral was reminded that it had been that night that he had had the first strange conversation with Jorgio Serter.

  Jorgio!

  With a start, Merral realized what it was that he had forgotten to do. He had made a promise to contact Jorgio before there was any fighting. He was halfway to switching on his diary before he realized that it was disabled. He jogged back across the coarse, gritty sand to the Emilia Kay, where Vero was standing quietly in the hold doorway.

  “Vero!” Merral said. “I’ve just remembered. I’ve got to call Jorgio. Can I use your diary?”

  Vero, his dark face lit only by the dull gleam of the dimmed interior lights, appeared to hesitate. “Is it really needed?” he said. “I’m trying to keep communications to the minimum.”

  “He said that he would pray for us if it came to a fight.”

  “Ah.” Vero nodded in the darkness. “I suppose you’d better tell him. After what I have seen today, I feel unsettled. I think we will need all the help we can get. But—please—say as little as you can. Be brief.”

  Fortunately, Jorgio turned out to be with his brother Daoud and had not yet gone to bed. “Jorgio! It’s Merral.”

  “Why now, Mister Merral!” said the old man, staring at the diary from such an odd angle that Merral wondered whether he had ever used one. “And where might you be with so little light, eh?”

  “About the King’s business. On a task we discussed.”

  “Oh, war. So it has come to that, has it?” The old man scratched his crooked nose leisurely. “About time really. Well, I suppose I’m glad of it. Hmm . . .” He seemed to drift off into his own thoughts.

  “You asked me to tell you. I—we—need your prayers.”

  “I thank you. I knew it would happen, but I appreciate not being forgotten. And I will pray.”

  “Thank you,” Merral replied.

  Jorgio looked at him with his thick eyebrows raised. He smiled strangely. “Off to war! Just li
ke Lucas Ringell in the old days. You remember him?”

  Merral shivered, and as he did, the cold metal disc tingled against his chest. “Yes, Jorgio. I know of him. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Quite so. And things change. . . . Or do they?” There was now a strange, wild look on the old man’s face. Out of the corner of his eye, Merral saw Vero watching him and gesturing urgently with his hand.

  “I must go, my friend. But do you have any counsel?”

  “Me?” There was a tilted grin. “Oh, hardly. Only I’ll pray. But I think you’ll have some help.”

  “From who?”

  “Well, I’d say as the King will send whoever he sees fit. And who it is will depend on who they are. But I hardly think he’ll let you be outmatched. Mind you, he sets his own terms.”

  “I see,” Merral answered, trying to memorize the words so that he could puzzle over them later. “Well, thank you.”

  “Fight well, Mister Merral. And remember there are many enemies. Fight well.”

  Merral ended the transmission and handed the diary back to Vero.

  “So was he helpful?” his friend asked.

  “In a way, yes. He thought there would be help.”

  “I hope so,” Vero said in a low, self-pitying voice. “The nearer we get, the worse I feel about it.”

  There were the sounds of the hoverer being pulled and pushed free of the landing gear.

  “Ah, we’re ready,” Vero said, pointing to where, by the faint, bleached shape of the hoverer, a man was gesturing. They walked carefully over in the darkness to where Merral could hear the flags on the hoverer making weak fluttering noises in the breeze.