Against A Dark Background (55 page)

`Isn’t she lovely?’ he asked Sharrow, his eager, puffy face peeking out from the little girl’s skirts. The girl turned her face away from Sharrow.
Her name is Breyguhn,’ her father told her.
Breyguhn,’ he said, lowering her a little so that her head was level with his,
this is Sharrow. She’s your big sister.’ He looked at Sharrow again.
You’re going to be the best of friends, aren’t you?’

Sharrow looked at the other child, who hid her face behind her father’s head.

`Who’s her mummy?’ Sharrow asked eventually.

Her father looked dismayed, then cheerful. `Her mummy’s going to be your new mummy,’ he said.
She’s an old friend of mine. . . of your mummy and mine, and. . .’ He smiled broadly, swallowing.
She’s very nice. So is Breyguhn, aren’t you, Brey? Hmm? Oh, don’t cry; what’s to cry about? Come on, say hello to your big sister. Sharrow; say hello to - Sharrow?’

She’d got down off the trafe bird and walked round to the ride’s controls. She glared up at Skave and pushed him out of the way.

`Now, now, Miss Sharrow. . .’the old android said, stepping back awkwardly and almost falling.

She’d seen the android work the controls. She pushed the brake lever up and swung the power handle across. The merry-go-round buzzed and hummed and started to move.

‘Sharrow?’ her father said, walking into sight, still holding the crying child.

Now, now, Miss Sharrow,’ Skave said as she pushed it further back through the assorted weyr-beasts, monsters and extinct animals of Golter’s real and imagined past. The old android’s hands fluttered in front of its chest as she kept on pushing it.
Now, now, Miss Sharrow. Now, now - ah!’

Skave fell off the edge of the ride, twisted with bewildering speed and landed safely on all fours, looking surprised.

Sharrow!’ her father shouted.
Sharrow! What do you think you’re doing! Come back here! Sharrow!’

The ride buzzed up to full speed, humming deeply like an ancient spinning top.

`Sharrow! Sharrow!’

She clambered back up onto the neck of the trafe bird and closed her eyes.

She stood on the piazza, leaning on the marble balustrade and looking down at the old blow-stone merry-go-round on the terrace below. The androids restoring the ride were trying to start its ancient hydraulic motors for the first time in centuries; mostly they were finding where all its leaks and inadequately secured seals and joins were, each attempted start resulting in a fresh burst of water from some new part of the furiously complicated, gaudily decorated old fairground ride. The terrace around it was covered with water.

She watched as one more creaking, groaning half-revolution of the antique roundabout culminated in another wet explosion and a hissing fountain arcing into the air.

She glanced at the others sitting, bored, in the pavement section of a cosmetically restored but closed cafe on the other side of the piazza, then she turned to Feril.

We are going to the Embargoed Areas,’ she told the android,
to try to find the last Lazy Gun.’

Feril looked down. `You did not need to tell me that.’

`I suspected you had already guessed.’

Indeed,’ Feril said,
I must admit that I had.’

She cleared her throat. `Feril, I’ve talked this over with the others, and we’d like you to come along with us, if you want.’

Feril looked silently at her for what seemed a long time.
I see,’ it said. It looked down at the old roundabout on the terrace beneath, watching its fellows swarm over it, making adjustments.
Why?’ it said.

Because we feel you could be useful,’ she said,
and because we feel we need another person along, and because I think you might benefit from the experience, and because . . . we like you.’ She looked away for a moment.
Though it will be dangerous.’ She cocked an eyebrow.
Maybe if we really liked you, the last thing we’d do would be to invite you along quite possibly to get killed.’

Feril made a shrugging motion.
If I accompanied you, I would save my current personality with the city,’ it said.
Should I be destroyed, I would only lose the memories of the experiences after I left here. I would continue to exist as an entity within the city AI cluster, and I would obtain a guarantee that I would live again when the next batch of androids is allowed to be built.’

She was silent, watching it.

You are sure,’ it said,
that the others in your team would not object to my presence?’

She glanced at Zefla, Miz and Dloan again. Dloan and Zefla were talking. Miz was watching her, chin on his uninjured hand.

They trust who I trust,’ she told the machine.
Any one of them could have vetoed the idea. We want you to come with us.’

The android tapped one steel and plastic finger on the marble, then nodded as it turned to her. `Thank you. I accept. I shall come with you.’

She put her hand out to the machine. `I hope you will not have cause to regret this,’ she said, smiling.

It gripped her hand gently. `Regret is for humans,’ it said.

She laughed. `Really?’

The machine shrugged and let go of her hand. `Oh, no. It’s just something we tell ourselves.’

Trees stood in dense, dark-massed profusion from mountain-top to tideline. The ocean lay flat, black and still against the silent shore as though it had fallen under the heavy green spell of the forest. A bird flew slowly across the water parallel with the land, like a pale sliver of the soft grey clouds cast out of the sky and searching for a way back.

Half a kilometre out from the fjord mouth, the surface of the ocean swirled and frothed, then swelled and spilled from three dark, bulbous shapes.

The tri-hull submarine surfaced and floated stationary for a moment, water streaming from its fins and stubby central tower. Then a series of dull clanging noises chimed out across the water and with a swirl of wash churning round its smooth black flanks the central section and starboard hull slid slowly astern, leaving the port hull floating alone and facing the shore.

When it had dropped just behind the single hull, the submarine went ahead again, using delicate surging pulses of power from its bow to snick its rounded snout into the hull’s stern. A great slow stream of water washed out behind the submarine as it drove quietly for the shore, pushing the hull ahead of it.

The leading hull grounded in the shallows of a small sandy beach on the southern edge of the fjord’s mouth, its hemispherical black nose rising as it pushed a broad bulging wave across the few metres of water towards the crescent’s pale slope. Surf washed up the beach and along the rocks on either side.

`I do hope you understand; I have of course given much thought to this, but in the end I have the safety of my ship and crew to consider. Of course this is covered in our contract-’

`Of course.’

`- but it really would be asking for trouble to take you any further in. The fjord is quite deep - though there are underwater ridges in places according to our deep scan - but it’s just so narrow; a boat this size just wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre at all. With the obvious danger of hostile action, it would be foolhardy to venture further. As I say, I have my crew to think about. Now, if I could just have your signature . . . I mean, many of them have families . . .’

`Indeed.’

‘I’m so glad you understand. Our underwriters have been blowing very cool in this last financial year, I can tell you, and even switching the log-graph off is going to make them suspicious. You can turn that trick only so many times, believe me. Ah . . . here and here . . .’

The captain held his clipboard up for her to sign the release papers. She took off one glove, picked up the stylo and scribbled her name. She was dressed in insulated combat fatigues and knee boots; a warm, ballisticised fur cap covered her head, the ear-pads clipped up. She and the. captain were standing on deck near the bow of the grounded port hull; its single hemi-door had swung open and a ramp had been extended from the interior to the shallows. The first of the two big six-wheel All-Terrain trucks fired into life and rumbled slowly out of the hull, down the ramp, through the water and up onto the white-sand beach. The deck beneath them shifted as the vehicle’s weight was transferred from hull to land.

The AT’s grey and green camouflage flickered uncertainly for a few moments as it adjusted, then settled to a suitably nondescript set of interleaved shades that exactly matched the colour of the sand and the shadows under the trees. A heavy stub-nosed cannon sat stowed above one of the two cab hatches.

The captain turned over a couple of pages.
And here and here, please,’ he said. He shook his head and made a clicking noise with his tongue.
If only the fjord was a little wider!’ He stared concernedly at the mouth of the fjord, as though willing the ridgestraked slopes of the mountains to draw back from the dark waters. He sighed, his breath smoking in the cold, still air.

`Yes, well,’ Sharrow said.

The second All-Terrain lumbered out of the front hull section and onto the beach, making the hull bob again. Zefla waved from one of the vehicle’s roof hatches.

`And one last one here . . .’ the captain said, folding the flimsies back over the clipboard. Sharrow signed again.

‘There,’ she said.

`Thank you, Lady Sharrow,’ the captain said, smiling. He put his gloves back on and bowed deeply. The sunglasses he hadn’t needed when they’d surfaced fell out of a pocket in his quilted jacket. He stooped to retrieve them, his gloves making the operation difficult.

He straightened to find her smiling bleakly at him, holding her hand out. He stuck the sunglasses in his mouth, the clipboard under his armpit and took one glove off again. He shook her hand.
A pleasure, Lady Sharrow,’ he told her.
And let me wish you all the best in. . .’his gaze flicked round the quiet forests and the tall mountains,’. . . whatever you may be undertaking.’

`Thank you.’

`Well, see you in four days’ time, unless we hear from you,’ he said, grinning.

Right,’ she said, turning away.
Until then.’

`Good hunting!’ he called.

Sharrow made her way down a thin, metal ladder to the hull’s interior, where the sub’s deck crew were getting ready to retract the ramp and close the door again; she checked there was nothing left behind, then walked down the ramp to the shore, her boots sinking into the sand.

Just as she turned to look back at the gaping round mouth of the hull, a white jet of steam flew up into the air behind it from the submarine’s conning tower. The shriek of the vessel’s emergency siren shook the air above the beach, then cut off as the white feather of the steam plume stood, just beginning to drift in the air. The men in the mouth of the opened hull section froze. A voice boomed out above them; the captain’s, breathless and panicky.
Air alert!’ he shouted through the speakers.
Aircraft coming! Repeat; aircraft approaching! Abandon the hulls! Scuttle both!’

`Shit!’ Sharrow said, spinning on her heel.

The men in the hull swarmed up the ladder to the deck; Sharrow clambered into the cab of the second AT. Zefla was standing on her seat, head and torso out of the hatch above, watching the seaward skies through a pair of high-power field-glasses. Feril was at the vehicle’s wheel, poised and delicate amongst the AT’s chunkily business-like controls.

Fucking hell,’ Miz’s voice said over the Comm,
that was quick. Thought they didn’t bother much with the surv-sats these days.’

Maybe we were misinformed,’ Sharrow said, glancing at the android as the AT in front sprayed sand from its six big tyres and lumbered up the beach for the rocks bordering the saplings and grass at the edge of the forest.
Follow MIZ,’ she told Feril. The android nodded and slipped the vehicle into Drive.

The truck lurched forward, following the leading AT towards the trees. Sharrow looked back through the side window to watch the last few crewmen jump from the sub’s beached section to the main hull, then saw the water froth round the rear of the fat boat as the vessel abandoned both hulls and powered astern, surrounding itself with foam. The small figures sprinted along the hull and disappeared down a hatch, swinging it shut. The submarine surged back through its own wake, starting to turn and submerge at the same time; the grounded hull section bobbed in the wash while the jettisoned starboard hull rolled back and forward, gently rising and falling in the waves.

`There’s no fucking way into these trees!’ Miz yelled.

`Then make one,’ Sharrow told him.

No,’ they heard Dloan’s calm voice say.
Look.’

‘Hmm,’ Miz replied. `Narrow . . .’ The leading AT swivelled right.

‘Zef?’ Sharrow said, glancing up. ‘Zef?’ she shouted.

Zefla ducked down, shaking her head, her hair gathered up inside a combat cap. `Nothing yet,’ she said, grabbing an intercom stalk and clipping it to her ear as she stood again.

The AT in front of them bounced over rocks and charged across the grass towards the trees, tyres gouging scooped trenches in the grass and spraying earth back at them as it climbed over springy saplings and pressed between the taller trunks beyond. Clods and stones thumped and whacked into the sloped chin and screen of their AT.

Sharrow glanced back; the submarine was submerged save for its tower, sinking rapidly into the swirling water as it continued to swing out astern from the shore.

Miz and Dloan’s AT shouldered its way between the trees, slowing.

Got it,’ Zefla said through the intercom.
Single plane. Low; looks big . . . fairly slow.’

`Think they saw us?’ Sharrow asked as Feril manoeuvred the snout of their AT to within a metre of the vehicle in front.

`Difficult to say,’ Zefla said.

Miz was turning his vehicle into a small clearing to the right, the ATs mottled camouflage darkening as it burrowed deeper under the overhanging branches.