Winterstrike

by Liz Williams

  I found it hard to disagree. ‘At least the thing hasn’t escaped in the night.’

  ‘I suppose that’s something.’

  ‘Evishu implied that it might die.’

  Rubirosa gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Maybe it will. Apparently the other one has. No loss, if you ask me. At least they could dissect it.’

  Privately, I thought that was the best way to treat them. Yes, species ought to be preserved, and if I was still back in Winter-strike, maybe I’d be able to have the luxury of a compassionate view. But something about the sinuous form of the demothea had repelled me so much that I found it difficult to care. When Rubirosa next said, ‘Let’s go and have a look at it, shall we?’ I had to battle with myself not to refuse.

  The demothea lay in an adjacent cell: bound tightly in some kind of netting. When I laid eyes on it, I thought that Evishu had probably been right and that it was dying. The lustrous skin looked dull and dry and the tentacles that emerged from it seemed to have shrivelled and withered.

  ‘Not pretty, is it?’ Rubirosa said.

  The demothea’s eyes were closed, or at least, not open; it did not appear to have proper lids. It looked as though its eyes had sunk back into the surrounding flesh to leave blank skin, with a tiny hole at each centre.

  ‘It’s disgusting,’ I said.

  ‘Evishu said they could create illusions,’ Rubirosa said. ‘I don’t think we want to spend too much time around this thing.’

  I agreed, gratefully. Perhaps Rubirosa, too, shared my revulsion. We left the demothea lying there and went back to the hut. Shortly after that, Evishu appeared and announced that we would be leaving at noon.

  Apart from the small, narrow boats, I hadn’t seen any evidence of transport, so when it arrived it was something of a shock. I heard it before I saw it: a low humming, out across the marsh. At first, I thought the sound was a wave and had to fight down panic. Then I saw the dragonfly shape skimming over the reeds.

  When it came in over the camp, it was bigger than I’d thought, too. Some kind of military orthocopter, with massive blades and a deep body, all vitrinous so that whoever travelled in it would have a 360-degree view. And it would look as though you were sitting on nothing, too.

  ‘Malayan,’ the kappa explained. It had an emblem on the side and on the big water runners that now swung down from the body of the craft. When it landed, fragments of reed lifted up from the roofs of the huts and whirled away on the wind. It looked far too technological for the hunched figures of the kappa and their little huts.

  Two of the kappa brought out the demothea, strapped to a stretcher, and the pilot, a human woman, helped them to load it on board. I could see the demothea through the glass and it seemed to be twitching.

  ‘Has it regained consciousness?’ I asked Evishu.

  ‘Somewhat. But it’s hard to tell.’ Evishu looked uneasy. I couldn’t blame her. Rubirosa and I were invited on board and belted in; Evishu and another of the kappa followed. Looking through the glassy walls of the orthocopter, I spotted the Library looking back at me. Gradually, she faded.

  ‘Hold tight,’ the pilot said and the blades started up again. The roar in the long cockpit was immense. We swung up over the settlement and I could see, now, how tiny it really was in all that expanse of reed and water. The striped sandbanks I’d seen as we came in were still prominent and there were shadows in the shallows. I wondered what kind of buildings they had been; who had lived here all those centuries before when the shallow seas rose up and took the land. They would be as alien to me now as the kappa themselves, perhaps more so. The settlement was soon lost behind us. We turned south in an arc and I strained to see the place where the ship had come down, but couldn’t make it out. The craft turned again. Clouds had come up now, sweeping across the ocean, and soon the orthocopter was enveloped in mist. It was not, I noticed, a haunt-craft.

  We had been flying for perhaps half an hour when I first became aware that something was wrong. It started as an indefinable sense of unease, a hollowness at the pit of my stomach. Looking round, I saw what must have been a similar expression to my own on the face of Rubirosa.

  ‘Evishu?’ I heard her say. My vision went momentarily dark. and when I looked out of the front of the cockpit I saw a vast black cloud rising up before us. The pilot cried out. All of a sudden I was reminded of the weir-wards at Calmaretto, the instinctive fear that they were geared to instil, and I did the meditative exercise that had served me so well in the Mote. The fear ebbed, leaving my vision clear again.

  ‘Evishu!’ I shouted. ‘It’s the demothea!’ The kappa was already making her way to the back of the craft, holding a stunner. We plummeted, dropping like a stone. The kappa, swept off her feet and dropping the gun, grabbed a stanchion and clung. The pilot, responding to something that only she could see, flung her arms up in front of her face. Rubirosa swore. When the orthocopter briefly righted itself, I hurled myself at the front of the cockpit. The pilot struck out, blindly. I saw panic in her face.

  ‘It isn’t real!’ I shouted, but she wasn’t listening. I dragged her out of her seat and Rubirosa grabbed her arms. They wrestled as the orthocopter dived nose-down into a murk of cloud. I snatched at the controls and the orthocopter came up again. I could feel what the demothea was trying to do now, and it was the same thing as a weir-ward: the same summoning of impressions and forces from the beyond. But I knew how to deal with that now, and while the demothea continued to throw illusions at me, I took the vehicle on into the rain.

  We seemed doomed not to escape the swamp, I thought, as I searched the geographies for hard ground. Most of it looked like sandbank, but there was something just on the edge of the scanner, a round rim of shore . . . I headed for it.

  The craft lurched as we broke through the cloud. There was a cry, abruptly cut off, from the back of the orthocopter but I didn’t dare look round from the unfamiliar controls to see what was happening. Rubirosa had left the pilot in a heap on the floor. Cloud streamed past us and I could see the shore below: waves breaking white on a long curve of rock – no, wall. It looked too regular to be natural and I could see the remains of what had once been a massive barrage reaching out from it. I remembered what the Library had said about a city.

  Now that we had found land, my problem was finding somewhere on it to set us down. The wall itself was too broken; years of battering by the sea had reduced it to a series of teeth. Behind it, I could see further structures and what might be a roof. It was flat, anyway; I’d just have to hope that it could take the weight of the orthocopter. It looked solid enough as I took the craft down through a veil of rain. Once the orthocopter was safely landed, I turned.

  Evishu was pressing herself against the wall. A flicker of blackness whisked in front of her face. Rubirosa and the second kappa were flat on the floor.

  ‘It’s getting loose!’ Evishu shouted. The tentacle snapped like a whip across the body of the second kappa and the kappa stiffened and did not move again. Next moment it struck the pilot and she, too, dropped.

  ‘Rubirosa! Get back!’

  The marauder rolled under the bench, the whip missing her by inches. I threw open the hatch and Evishu disappeared backwards onto the roof. The smell of rainy air was invigorating and I realized how stuffy the interior of the craft had become. Next moment, the demothea rocketed out of the holding cell. It clung to the ceiling for a moment like a spider, and its oval head swivelled from side to side. Its skin was still dry and flaking, but its eyes were huge. A thin tongue flicked out and tasted the air, then the demothea was gone through the hatch, arrowing like a squid.

  Evishu was shouting, but there was a high wind blowing outside and I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I paused briefly to check the body of the fallen kappa, but as far as I could tell she was dead, and so was the poor pilot. I didn’t know what the demothea had done to her – electrocution? – but it had certainly been lethal. Rubirosa was already out of the hatch and I followed.

  It was pouring with
rain. The kappa was a small blur at the far end of the roof and we ran to meet her. She was looking down into what had once been a street: pale stone buildings, their windows reinforced against wave action, stood in a canal of grey water.

  ‘Where did it go?’ I asked.

  The kappa pointed. ‘Down there.’

  ‘All right.’ I glanced back at the orthocopter. ‘Better make sure that’s secure if we’re going after it. Is that what you plan to do?’ I rather hoped the answer would be No, but that left the question of what would happen to Rubirosa and myself: I doubted that the kappa would be willing to drop us off somewhere more civilized.

  ‘It’s been tagged,’ the kappa said. ‘We can track it if we wish.’

  Rubirosa looked uneasily down into the canal. There was a reek of salt water and weed; the whole city stank of the sea. It might have been a fine place once. I thought of cold Winterstrike, swallowed by its own canals, and repressed a shudder.

  ‘This is supposed to be a haunt of demothea,’ I said. Evishu gave me a level look. ‘Yes, it is. Are you willing to proceed? Two of us are already dead. I can’t force you to go with me.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said. I’d come too far to turn back now – not that I had much to go back for, except a court martial from Gennera and probably worse. ‘But I don’t want anything stealing our only way out of here.’

  ‘I’ll go, too,’ Rubirosa said. ‘Makes more sense to stick together.’ She smiled at me.

  ‘Very well, then,’ Evishu said, an unlikely general. Her webbed feet made a faint sucking sound on the concrete as we went back to the orthocopter and secured it. Then, with Evishu carrying the rescued stun gun, we set off.

  The name of the city had been lost, the Library said. We went down a flight of stairs, the carpet long since rotted to faint stains on the stone, and through a gloomy hall. Paintings hung on its walls, almost indistinguishable under blots of mould, long-dead human faces staring out beneath their blemishes. Some of them were men and their painted gaze made my skin crawl as we walked between their ranks. Maybe they’d been rulers here, or maybe it was just a family. Calmaretto’s family portraits, I reflected, were in the most part the same face.

  At the end of the hall Evishu paused to check the tracker. ‘It came through here,’ she said. ‘It’s somewhere further down in the building.’

  ‘Is it still moving?’

  ‘No. Sometimes they hole up and wait for prey.’

  ‘What do they eat?’ I asked. The thing had been so alien that it was hard, somehow, to see it being open to animal needs.

  ‘Anything they can,’ the kappa said. Cautiously, we pushed open the door and came out into a long corridor. The light of the kappa’s torch played dimly over the walls, which were covered with rotting wood: the remnants of old panelling. ‘If it’s gone into the cellars,’ the kappa said, ‘we might not be able to follow it. At least, you might not. They’re bound to be flooded.’

  ‘Look, if that turns out to be the case, we’re going back to the orthocopter,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to try to catch that thing in water.’

  ‘It would not be wise,’ Evishu agreed.

  Halfway down the next flight of stairs, the kappa’s torch went out. Rubirosa bumped into her and swore. There was an odd, pungent smell, like burned hair, overlaid with something less tangible and more familiar.

  ‘Someone’s got haunt-tech here,’ I whispered.

  These ruins are pre-haunt,’ the kappa said.

  ‘Nevertheless.’

  It was growing stronger, making my skin creep. There hadn’t been the same smell when the demothea had attacked us in the orthocopter; this was different and made me think that it might be coming from another source. I hoped so.

  The kappa nudged me. ‘It’s underneath. Look.’ On the little antiscribe that she held, a red dot hovered below us. When we got to the next flight of stairs, the smell was stronger yet, but this time it was accompanied by sound: a thin, increasing hiss.

  ‘Wait,’ I said to the kappa. I stole down the short flight of stairs, to where a ruined wall rose out of dark water. It didn’t make me feel any more secure about the foundations of the structure. I looked through a gap in the wall and couldn’t see anything, but I could hear it: many things, whispering. Gradually, my eyes adjusted a little. Writhing motion, black upon black. Not one demothea, but a multiplicity of them. I scrambled back up the stairs and told the kappa.

  We didn’t risk staying long after that. We went through the hall as fast as possible.

  ‘Perhaps my superiors will see this as cowardly,’ Evishu said as we hastened.

  ‘At least you’re alive.’

  ‘They will not necessarily regard that as a plus.’

  ‘You did your best,’ I said.

  Evishu turned to me and I saw, if not despair, then a profound concern in her round amphibian eyes. ‘You see, now, what we face? What’s been breeding here, perhaps evolving?’

  ‘Evolving?’ Rubirosa echoed.

  ‘The Changed were bred with swift genetic codes,’ I said, ‘to deal with swiftly changing environments. Hardly surprising if new conditions bring out the worst in them. It made them weak, but adaptable. I’m sorry,’ I added with belated tact to Evishu. ‘I know you’re one of them.’

  We’re used to it,’ the kappa said mildly. ‘I take it as a compliment, even, that you don’t see me as so very different to yourself, that you can forget. We were engineered for a specific purpose, however, and later than the rest, so that the mistakes that were made in the early days had become more obvious and could be avoided by the time it was our turn.’ She gave me her wide smile. ‘The kappa have a reputation for gravity, slowness, ponderousness. And that’s being charitable.’

  ‘Better that than murderous and mad,’ I said.

  ‘As you say.’

  The rain had blown itself out into the rides of the great Ropa Sea and there was a pallid stretch of sky in the west, as blue as an eggshell. To my great relief, the orthocopter was still where we had left it, but that didn’t mean it was safe. I wanted it thoroughly checked for lurking life forms before we took off.

  Evishu was looking at the scanner. ‘She’s on the move again,’ she murmured. I wasn’t pleased, remembering that writhing coil of life in the cellars. The meeting had broken up, perhaps.

  ‘But we don’t know if it’s on its own,’ Rubirosa said.

  ‘We can’t take the chance,’ I added.

  ‘I agree,’ the kappa said, with regret. ‘But perhaps if we can see . . .’

  ‘Also I wouldn’t put it past that thing to hand the tag on.’ Rubirosa’s mouth turned down. ‘It’s as intelligent as we are, allegedly.’

  ‘They didn’t build this city, did they?’ I asked. ‘This is human?’

  ‘Yes. The demothea don’t seem very interested in buildings. Out in the marshes, they live in burrows and the hollows of trees.’

  We made as thorough a check of the orthocopter as we could, both inside and out. We had to hurry, mindful of what might already be sliding up the stairs, but I didn’t want to find that something had been clinging to the roof when we were in the air. The kappa kept checking the tag.

  ‘She’s moving away from here,’ she said. ‘Fast, along the street down there. She’s probably swimming.’

  ‘All clear here,’ Rubirosa said from the ceiling of the orthocopter. She slid down to join us on the roof. As far as I can tell.’

  That illusionary thing,’ I began.

  ‘Don’t start,’ said Evishu, spreading webbed hands. ‘Once you get going with that, you’re never free of paranoia. And dealing with these beings, that’s no bad thing. Keep your eyes out and your head as clear as you can.’

  So this is what we did, whirling the orthocopter back up into the air. Evishu had tidied her colleagues’ bodies under the seats, not wanting to leave them for the demothea. They made extra weight, but it didn’t seem right, she said. I could not blame her. We agreed, however, to take the orthocopter over the city a
nd see if we could glimpse our escapee. The demothea’s capacities apparently did not extend to air bombardment: their defences were biological rather than technological and it was, at least, something to be grateful for.

  At the heart of the city, rising out of the floods, was the top of a great iron tower, like a cage or a pylon.

  ‘What was that, do you think?’ Rubirosa asked, leaning forward.

  ‘Some religious structure, no doubt. Some cultures put their dead out for the prey birds: sky burial, they call it. They do it in the Thibetan shamandoms, so I’ve heard.’ The kappa spoke with authority and I wished we’d had more time to talk to her. Now that we’d made it to Earth, I had a hankering for more sightseeing than the endless dreariness of the Ropa seas. The rain was sweeping in again, driving a wall of mist before it.

  ‘Where’s our quarry?’ I asked. The kappa consulted the tracker, which showed a red bead moving swiftly into the heart of the city.

  There.’

  ‘I can take us lower,’ Rubirosa said. The orthocopter swung down through the veils of mist, taking us over pale buildings, dappled with mildew as the water claimed them. Then the mist broke away and I saw a long avenue beneath us, wavelets breaking across its surface. Once, the people who lived there had put water doors in their homes, just as we did on Mars, but now the levels had risen and only the tops of the doors were visible, some of them decorated with signs and symbols whose meaning I did not understand, but at which I could guess. Superstitions had been rife, once it became clear that the seas were here to stay.

  In the middle of the avenue, creating a small white wake of its own, arrowed a dark shape.

  ‘Got her!’ Rubirosa said.

  ‘Not yet.’ I turned to the kappa.

  ‘There’s a netting device at the base of the orthocopter,’ Evishu said. ‘It’s not much use out in the marshes – the reeds and the treetops catch it. But here, without a lot in the way . . .’

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ I said. I motioned to Rubirosa to take the craft lower and we glided downwards. I thought, though I could not be certain, that the demothea’s oval head moved up to look. Then it dived, and I was sure. I swore.