by Neal Asher
"What are our chances of getting down there without getting buried in mud?" he asked generally.
"Do we need to get down there?" Gant asked.
"We need to get down there," said Mika quickly. Cormac glanced at her avid expression as she studied black bones and broken flesh, the glitter of a million scales, and masses of pseudopods spilt like intestines, beyond real intestines spilt like nacre and brass castings in a broken framework of sickle blades and tangled bare spinal columns.
"Said without any bias at all, of course," he said. Mika glared at him as he turned back to Gant and Scar. "Nevertheless, we do need to get down there. I want to know for sure that this Dragon is dead," he continued.
Gant nodded, then gestured to their left where the mounded debris rose highest at the head of the crater. "Limestone further up the slope there — probably torn up by the impact. I think I can see a way down."
Cormac glanced at the greyish-white smear down the slope he indicated, then gestured for Gant to lead the way. As a group, they trudged round the lip of debris. Here, Cormac found, was the highest elevation they had reached since crashing the lander. And here, gazing round, he saw just how utterly they were isolated in the middle of a bland and boggy wilderness.
The stands of flute grass mostly stood high enough to conceal those areas between. There lay long valleys inhabited by blister mosses, low spreads of purple-leaved native rhubarb, and other growths with no Earthly comparison or name. Travelling them was easier than pushing through the grass stands but, since they had no maps of this wilderness, it was necessary to stick doggedly to a straight-line march so as not to be drawn off course by attempting easier routes. Those areas were also preferable to Cormac, for in them he occasionally got to see some of the native fauna: creatures both reptilian and bovine hurtling away in an odd gliding lope, ubiquitous tricones puncturing the surface and submerging again instantly, groups of creatures that appeared very like terrapins until their spiderish heads protruded and they contemplatively grated together their mandibles. Some of those same shelled creatures roamed the slope close by, and it was reassuring to see them bumbling along feeding on the broken vegetation rather than something more animate. In the distance Cormac could see creatures that he at first took to be wading birds, until he gave himself a reality check.
"I've got no sense of scale here," he admitted to Gant. "What do you see out there?"
"Creatures standing… about four metres above the flute grass. No way of telling their actual height, as there could be a few metres of leg and foot going way down through the grass and mud. They're moving away from us, anyway. It's those other ones that aren't visible which I find more worrying."
"I beg your pardon," said Cormac.
Gant shrugged. "I've led us round some big wormlike things that lie underground — don't know if they're predators or not — and Scar here stung the arse of something that started homing in on us all just before this happened." He gestured towards the crater.
"I'll thank you to keep me informed in future," said Cormac, almost unconsciously bringing his fingers up to the touch control of his shuriken holster as he scanned their surroundings.
"Those are heroynes," said Mika.
Cormac turned to her. "What?"
She pointed at the distant creatures. "Heroynes."
"Dangerous?" Cormac asked.
"As dangerous to a human as a terrestrial heron is to a frog," said Mika. "They might mistake us for food."
"Shouldn't be too much of a problem, then," said Cormac. Mika just stared at him, as he went on with, "Last I heard, terrestrial frogs didn't go around armed."
At this, Apis let out a laugh that sounded almost like a gasp of pain. Perhaps it was the surreal imagery; perhaps he was just losing it. He laughed again, tears in his eyes, then shook his head and made a weak gesture towards Scar, who was now crouching, with his attention still directed down into the crater, as it had been from the first. Cormac nodded, allowing that Scar bore a resemblance to a large and heavily armed frog, then turned his attention to Gant as the Golem gestured beyond the distant heroynes.
"That's not all," he said. "From the direction they and those other things in the grasses are heading, I'm seeing munitions flashes; and from what I've been able to pick up on uncoded frequencies, there's some sort of war going on."
"The Underground," said Cormac. "They'll be taking the surface now. From what I know they would have grabbed the opportunity presented."
They soon reached the area earlier indicated by Gant, where the impact had peeled up a huge slab of limestone from the bedrock and dropped it like a ramp up the slope of mud. Also peeled up with this rock was a mass of chalk and tricone shell conglomerate that lay in boulders half-sunk all around. Chalky water had drained from these and from the slab, and had run down the slope to gather in milky pools. There was movement here as well, as tricones gobbled their way under the surface dragging crushed vegetation down to be munched at their leisure. Gant led the way down into the crater, quickly followed by Mika with instruments, recently taken from the pack Scar carried, clutched in both hands. The dracoman came down last — reluctant and hissing quietly as he stepped delicately down the stone. Broken shell in the chalky slurry across the face of the stone made footing firm and it was only minutes after stepping onto it that they could all step off it to trudge through a chalky morass towards the remains of Dragon.
"Ambient temperature's low. From previous experience, too low. And there are no electrochemical signatures… nothing out of the ordinary," observed Mika.
"You're saying it's definitely dead?" said Cormac, who had stopped to change his oxygen bottle. "No ambivalence in the readings, like there is in Dragon's conversation?"
"I think… yes, I am sure," said Mika.
"Okay, we'll give you an hour here — so find out what you can," he said.
Mika looked round at him. "Only an hour, why?" she asked.
"Now that question sounded almost natural," Cormac replied. "It's a shame that the answer is quite obvious." He held up his empty oxygen bottle, and then tossed it aside. Mika went quickly to work.
Eldene allowed the ATV to roll to a halt as it broke through into the clearing. Thorn, who was inspecting the turret gun magazines from a drop-down ladder, swore then released his hold to land on the floor in a crouch. Fethan had reached the weapons-control chair before him and held the targeting visor ready to press against his own face.
Eldene looked round. "Something's happened to them," she said.
Thorn came smoothly upright and was beside her in a second, one hand leaning on the console as he gazed through the screen.
"Ease us forward," he said. Then with a glance back at Fethan, "Stay on it."
The last of the flute grass parted before the vehicle, to reveal a mossy clearing around a low outcrop of limestone nested amongst black plantains and the nodular volvae of rhubarbs. What lay near this outcrop was identifiable as the armoured car that had fled them, but only just so. It had teen torn apart: the back end, along with one axle still bearing shredded balloon tyres, lay to the right, a section containing a torn-open engine and one tread lay in front of them, and the remaining tread, cabin and guns seemed to have been put through a mincer, then pounded into the ground.
"They must have been carrying planar explosives or something," said Thorn. He glanced at Eldene. "Stop us here. I want to have a look at this."
He and Fethan were out through the door, even as Eldene was shutting down the motor and applying the brake. Before following them, she studied the scene a moment longer — such a savage wreck, but no burn marks… She left the ATV with her pulse-rifle held across her stomach, and with its safety off.
"Has to be a planar load," Thorn was saying. "I can't think of anything else that would make such a mess."
Eldene noted how Fethan scanned the surrounding grasses, his gaze coming to rest at last on an only just visible channel pressed through it. The old cyborg then tilted his head and listened intently.
"Where are they?" Eldene asked.
Thorn glanced round at her. "What?"
"Where are the soldiers?"
With a puzzled expression Thorn stepped closer to the wreckage to study it. He prodded at a shredded tyre with the barrel of the pulse-gun he had drawn, Eldene standing now behind him, nervously surveying their surroundings.
"Not there," said Fethan. "Over here." The cyborg crooked a finger at them.
Eldene and Thorn walked over to him and gazed down at what he indicated on the ground. The moss here was red, as such mosses often were, but this red was wet and glistening and recognizable as human blood — which she'd seen enough examples of quite recently. Also, scattered here and there, were small diamonds of human skin and fragments of bone. Fethan squatted down, picked up one of these fragments, and held it up to show how one edge had strange concave serrations, as if someone had drilled a line of holes before breaking the bone along them.
"Back to the ATV. I'll drive," he instructed. Then, pointing off to the right, "We go that way."
"What is it, Fethan?" Eldene asked, feeling something crawling up her spine.
"It's almost pointless to run if it comes after us," he replied. "In the mountains I had cover, and that was a small one."
"Quit with the mysterious bullshit," said Thorn.
"Hooder," said Fethan, pointing to their left. "It's about half a klom over there, as far as I can estimate, digesting its meal." Indicating the wreckage, he finished with, "And, judging by what's happened here, that meal was just an entrée."
Standing behind the Captain's chair, Aberil studied with cold satisfaction the screens and readouts in front of the man. Lellan had failed to take the spaceport, and would now be caught between hammer and anvil. The Lee and Portentous carried two armoured divisions each, and they would provide the hammer. The forces contained in the three remaining ships — Ducking Stools Gabriel, and Witchfire, the last of which he was presently aboard — were the anvil against which the rebellion would be crushed. It annoyed him now that he had chosen to board one of the ships carrying the fleet of landers, but he had not expected Lellan's failure to take the spaceport, and had not wanted to be stranded in orbit, merely conveying his orders to the attack leaders. Gazing around at his staff officers and orderlies, who were clinging to the rope nets ranged behind the seated command crew of the ship, and who would soon accompany him to the surface, he nodded with satisfaction then sent:
"God defend the right, only when the right cannot sufficient defence make. Captains of the Lee and Portentous, take your ships down and begin the attack."
Back through his aug he got a wash of approval. General Coban on the Lee sent back:
"We'll take the fast-track launchers out first — that'll give them something to chew on while we bring out our tanks. Then they'll know we've arrived. God defend the faithful."
Aberil winced at Coban's abrupt and cursory, "God defend…" — the man, like so many other officers in the army, did not have a sufficient fear of his superiors to convey the required sincerity of tone. It was something that, after this present situation was dealt with, he would have to look into. Presently, General Coban was too experienced and useful to alienate.
Now turning fully to his chosen staff Aberil addressed them aloud. "We must allow these fighters their head in the coming battle, but in the future they must be brought back into the fold. Too long, I think, they have forged their own path within the confines of Charity."
There was much nodding and grim-faced agreement — he had chosen these people himself, and knew them to be of like mind. He enjoyed their company, and with them knew exactly where he was: on top.
"Now it is time for us to disembark. Our landing will be in the wilderness one hundred kilometres south of Valour, and from there we shall sweep in, our line impenetrable."
"First Commander Dorth, what of those rebels who flee to the caverns?" asked Speelan — a thin and intense individual about whom Aberil sometimes had his doubts also.
"In the end there is always Ragnorak, but Lellan will know about that and therefore not allow her forces to retreat. She'll realize there will be no quarter given, and none expected."
"Should we pursue them down below, if they do flee?" Speelan asked.
"No, we merely seal the entrances and carve RIP on the rocks above."
After the dutiful laughter, Aberil towed himself along the ropes to the exit tube leading from the bridge, his officers and orderlies following close behind. Soon, by the convoluted ways of this mu-class ship, they came to the chaos of the lander bays, where men in white and pale blue uniforms covered in samples of scripture found some relief from cramped landing craft where they were racked as closely in the bays as bullets in a magazine. Many of these men, Aberil noticed, were praying, whilst others found more comfort in checking their weapons and body armour. It irked him that none of them became sufficiently silent and attentive at his approach, and that those who bowed or saluted seemed to do so with nonchalant lack of respect.
The command lander was twice the size of all the others, containing as it did communications equipment, heavy Polity pulse-cannons, as well as the luxury of grav-plates and some civilized space. Aberil was glad to be back aboard and, as he took his seat beside the pilot's — with its screens and logistics displays — he once again felt totally in control. Anyone from outside the Theocracy would immediately have noticed the lack of communications equipment, but then such people would come from a society where wearing an aug was still a matter of choice.
"General Coban, status?"
The General snapped back over the ether, "Two hours and we'll be down. Lellan's forces seem in disarray: some are heading back to Valour, and some are just rolling back out into the wilderness."
Aberil checked his screens and saw that this was true. He turned to his command crew, who were seating themselves at their various consoles.
"What is your assessment?" he asked a fat mole of a man called Torthic, who was the logistics officer of the group.
"Seems like a falling out amongst thieves," the man replied as he checked the data he was receiving. "Either that or the head has been cut off. We know a carrier was destroyed in the initial attack."
Aberil linked into the public address channel of his aug: "All troops return to landers. We begin descent in one half of an hour." Then he sat back and contemplated the coming obliteration of the Underground. He really hoped Lellan was not dead, as he had been so looking forward to meeting her, in the flesh. But if she were dead, there would be plenty of other prisoners to provide instruction and entertainment back on the cylinder worlds.
The sun set upon the land, bringing the grey hour that served to highlight the flashing of weapons used in sporadic conflicts towards every horizon. After changing his location for the fifth time that day — more out of boredom than any need to elude pursuit — Stanton began to bring his stolen aerofan down into thick flute grass, saw something large thundering towards him with what he felt were not the best intentions, and quickly jerked the column up and away to get out of range. A great flat beak clapped shut with a sound like a mat being beaten on concrete. He caught a glimpse of an array of glowing green eyes below a domed head, the muscled column of a body with more limbs than seemed plausible, and a whiff of quite horrible halitosis. Pulling away, he heard something that sounded like someone swearing in a quite obscure language.
"A bloody gabbleduck!" he exclaimed.
"Say again," said Jarvellis over com.
"Gabbleduck just tried to get me. You don't normally see them around here — the noise from the spaceport scares off their prey, so they don't bother coming in."
"Lellan said something about that earlier: seems the fighting is attracting things in from the wilderness and down from the mountains. There's even been a report of a hooder going into one of the compounds and systematically emptying squerm ponds."
"Perhaps humans dying make similar sounds to those of their normal prey."
"Per
haps — or perhaps they've just decided that enough is enough with these damned squabbling humans."
"Be nice to think that," said Stanton. "But we'll probably find it's some frequency of radio emission or the smell of some explosive or incendiary that attracts them in."
"Aren't you the optimist."
"Yeah," said Stanton, bringing the aerofan down into the middle of an area of low vegetation — wide plates of blister moss and grey thistles, rhubarb volvae just opening to expose leaves like tightly screwed-up black paper — which was well away from any stands of concealing flute grass, so he had a clear view of his surroundings. "It's called experience," he added.
As the motor of the aerofan wound down into silence, a deep thrumming vibration became evident. For a moment, Stanton surveyed the fragmented cloud strewn across the darkening sky, before stooping to open his pack. From this he now removed a square flat package that opened like a small briefcase to reveal a flat screen and miniconsole — a touch-console clustered around a single ball control — as well as a small winged egg. The screen he removed and secured against a rail of the aerofan by means of its rear stickpad. The egg he tossed up into the air and watched flutter away like a sparrow. Soon the flying holocam had given him a perfect view of the spaceport and all the activity there.
"You got this, Jarv?"
"Yeah, busy little soldiers, aren't they? Lellan says it's two of their ships coming down — they should be in view within a few minutes. A swarm of craft are coming down from the remaining three, and should be landing about the same time, probably in the south."
"Shame we can't have a surprise ready for them as well," Stanton opined.
"You wouldn't want that actually, knowing now who's coming down with the landers. Be far too quick for him."
