Ruthless (26 page)

"Must be, eight, nine, ten metres," said Squid, still carefully pulling it from the mud. "Maybe even fifteen."

"That's a big pair of curtains," said Wulf.

"Sneck that," said Johnny. "You don't have curtains in a room with no windows."

"So what is it then?" asked Squid.

"Grave clothes," said Nigel. "A long robe wrapped around the body."

"It's not wrapped around anything," said Squid. "It started over there and I'm just following it..."

Even as he spoke, he realised what he was saying. The robe might have been wrapped around the body of Kulta when he was laid to rest, but a century in the galaxy's slowest tumble drier could have scattered it all over the place. And now Squid was getting to the end of the trail. The fabric at the end was wrapped around something much more solid. He had found a body.

"Is it him?" asked Nigel.

"Who else would it snecking be?" spat Squid, uneasy about what he was going to turn up.

The others gathered around, helping Squid ease the material free of the mud. There was something tangled in it. Another stick perhaps, Squid thought. The item tangled free and Squid stepped back in revulsion. It was the twin long bones of a human arm.

"This is our man," said Wulf.

Up on the ledge, the Boy peered into the gloom, shining his torch down to create a spotlight on the others. He sneered in annoyance as four backs blocked his view, but he was able to see enough. There was a body there, all right.

Squid lost his balance, flopping over in the mud again. Johnny took his place, gently easing a mass of earth and mud up from the swampy floor. As divots of earth fell away, the Boy's torch picked out the yellowed strips of a rib cage, several of its bones broken and protruding.

"He had a while to decay," whispered Nigel. "Then the pyramid rolled and threw him around inside the chamber. This has to be him, it has to be."

Johnny snuck a glance at the rest of the chamber. Squid's walk across the floor with the unravelled cloth had covered a lot of ground. There were no other lumps protruding from the mud, and they were clustered at the lowest point. If there were any valuables left with the body, then they would have naturally settled here.

Johnny and Nigel carefully felt their way through the mud, their hands moving in slow motion. The ribcage tapered into a collarbone, and the collarbone into a neck. Johnny's gloved hands found the back of what had to be a skull, and he gently began to lift it from the mud.

HEADLESS

Something wasn't quite right with the head. It was being dragged to one side as they lifted. Johnny moved his hand for a better grip and found something sticking out of the forehead, like the handle of a saucepan. It was certainly a very useful thing to grab onto, and he did. With a final tug, most of the upper body of Kulta now sat clear of the mud.

He wasn't in a good way. The corpse had been bounced around in its final resting place, half-crushed beneath rockfalls, soaked in puddles of meltwater and then left to set in a morass of decayed flesh and sodden earth. Matted clumps of long hair clung to the remains of the skull, tangled in a circlet that remained clamped to the forehead.

Johnny lifted the head further, confused at the handle he'd been hanging onto. It was like a spike on the front of the crown; a sixty-centimetre length of metal sticking out from the wearer's forehead. It would have made Kulta look like a unicorn.

Johnny stared back at the fabric, seeing for the first time the faded remnants of its pattern - the last vestiges of black and white zebra stripes.

"Holy sneck," he whispered.

"Johnny," said Wulf, "this body is like der Alnitak man. Why is it like der Alnitak man?"

"I don't know," said Johnny. He couldn't understand it, but he wasn't sure he should care. Gangsters liked to emulate figures from the past. It made them feel like they were part of a greater tradition; like the Sicilians and their Caesar complexes and the
cholos
who imitated Aztec kings. And the Vanilla Ices, of course, with their chiselled cheekbones and hair gel. Maybe Alnitak was a big fan of Kulta.

"We've found him," said Nigel. "We've snecking found him."

"Something's not right," said Johnny.

"Yeah," said Squid. "We've found the treasure and we are still hanging around looking at each other. Let's get out of here."

Johnny looked hard at the walls of the chamber, its floor and ceiling. He stared with alpha eyes at the plinth itself, searching for any cracks or lines that might hide something else. But the room was undeniably solid. If there were any secret passages or doors, he couldn't see them.

"Is this it?" asked Wulf. Was this what dozens of men, women and bird-people had died for, a single novelty crown? Wulf had raided far more lucrative graves in his time. Why, there was that time in Scania when he had plundered the tomb of Sven the Unwise, whose last resting place contained sacks, literally sacks full of precious silver coins from Serkland. They were easily transportable, easily divided among the men he was with, and most importantly, easily exchangeable without recourse to the black market or the unwelcome attentions of displeased relatives.

Johnny frowned. Part of him didn't much care. The real treasure was still sitting in a stasis chamber on the
Sherman
. But since he was here inside a giant metal tomb of a forgotten dictator who bore such an uncanny resemblance to a modern-day crimelord, yes, he was curious.

"I don't see any other passageways," said Johnny. "No secret rooms."

"Have you looked with der magicky eyes?" asked Wulf.

"Yes," said Johnny irritably. "All the way in. Nothing."

Nigel tugged on the head's long hair, wrenching a shank free with a loud tearing sound.

"Hey," said Squid. "That's not the way to do it." He grabbed a much bigger handful of hair and shooed Johnny's hand away from the unicorn horn adornment.

"Careful," said Nigel, as Squid yanked on the crown, bracing himself by placing his foot on the skull. Squid heaved and the neck of the corpse twisted and snapped.

"Sod that," said Squid. He gave the crown one last tug, booting the skull back out from under it. Kulta's once-royal skull came apart in mid-air, its top falling free from the bottom and bouncing across the chamber. Squid excitedly held the crown aloft, tangles of ancient hair still dangling from it.

"What do you think, Johnny?" he laughed. "How much is it worth?"

"Isaiah's the man to ask," said Nigel, zipping up his environment suit. "Let's go."

"What did you just take?" said Squid, suspiciously.

"What?" asked Nigel.

"What did you just take? Was there something else?" demanded Squid.

Nigel sighed and unzipped his environment suit again.

"Search me, if you want," he said, turning to look at Johnny and rolling his eyes in exasperation. But all Nigel had below his outer coat was a few muddy handprints and lumps of detritus. His acquisition was no different from anything anyone else had found, and, to a man, they were looking forward to scraping the dirt of the tomb off, preferably during a long hot bath.

"Okay, then," said Squid, patting Nigel's chest and armpits in a desultory fashion. "I thought you might be taking something."

"Hello," said Nigel. "You're the one with the snecking crown in your hands. Don't think you're walking out of here without cutting us in."

"The very thought," gasped Squid in fake shock. "Anyway," he added, "
I
found the cloth. And the cloth was attached to the body."

"Wait," said Wulf. "That doesn't mean that der crown is yours."

"I never said it was!" protested Squid.

"You thought it, though!" yelled the Boy from above. It was an uncharacteristically verbose outburst from him; he was clearly getting agitated. Johnny had been in situtations like this before. He knew what the rising voices meant, and he knew what would come next if someone didn't stamp on the brewing conflict.

"Enough," he shouted. The burial chamber suddenly fell quiet. The squabblers turned to look at him, waiting.

"I don't give a
toss
right now about who gets what share of the snecking crown," he said. "We can worry about that when we are not stuck in a tin pyramid with a bunch of pirates between us and the road home under a star that could snecking go off at any minute."

The dark burial chamber fell quiet, Johnny's words ringing down the corridor in search of escape. Johnny was already mulling over a series of strategies, each designed to keep potential trouble to manageable levels. Squid wasn't leaving without the crown, and wasn't going to give it up without finding out about Ruth. Malcolm was outside waiting for the crown, and Alnitak was out there, somewhere in the cosmos, waiting for Malcolm. And somehow in the middle of it all, they were going to have to take back the
Sherman
, because the most important thing was to rescue Ruth, who was waiting to have her first baby. This was going to be complicated.

The night sky pulsed with quiet fire, dropping silent sparks and slow meteors across the glacier. It made it very difficult to see what was actually moving on the ground, and what was just a trick of the light.

Something howled in the distance, its cries doubling, first with the natural echo, and then with answering roars from others. Blarg patted his Westinghouse nervously on his mittened palm and wished he were somewhere else.

"The snow tigers are out," said Johnny, levering himself out of the entrance shaft to the pyramid.

"Yeah," said Blarg, not taking his eyes off the ground in front of the glacier. "You get what you came for?"

"I think so," said Johnny. "Sneck knows what Alnitak wants it for, but we've got it."

The others clambered out of the pyramid, Squid clutching the unicorn crown to his chest with pathological enthusiasm. Wulf gently deposited the Gronk on the night snow while Nigel and the Boy helped each other out.

"Get inside the
China
lander and power her up," said Johnny. "We're leaving."

Blarg didn't need telling twice. He holstered his gun and began a swift descent, skidding and bumping on the icefall. The rest of Johnny's party began to clamber down after him.

"Look casual," said Johnny, to stares of much befuddlement. He looked down at the two landers and saw only a couple of men standing outside the
Sherman'
s. The others must be inside, huddled for warmth, or doing whatever it was that gangsters did when others were doing their dirty work for them.

The aurora in the sky made the icefall treacherous. Things that looked like safe handholds turned out to be tricks of the light. Even Johnny slipped several times, his bulky environment suit cushioning his stumbles.

Blarg was first to the bottom of the icefall. He padded across the icy ground, his feet losing their hold several times. There was no avoiding it. He went right past the
Sherman'
s lander. They couldn't miss him.

"Did you get it?" called Malcolm from the lander's entrance hatch.

Johnny motioned Nigel, the Boy and the Gronk to head after Blarg.

"I'm not leaving this crown," growled Squid.

"Okay then," said Johnny. "You bring it over to Malcolm with us."

"I'm not giving it to him."

"He's coming with us, he just doesn't know it yet."

"It is going to be der tight fit in der lander," said Wulf glumly.

"That's the least of our problems," said Johnny.

Malcolm beamed at them as they approached. His fellow minion didn't even look their way, preferring instead to suck hungrily on a cigarette, his naked fingers trembling out of their mitten. The smell of tobacco carried far in the pristine arctic conditions.

"Let's see it." said Malcolm. Squid held the crown up to him.

"And the skull?" asked Malcolm.

"Er..." said Squid.

"Where's the snecking skull?" asked Malcolm. "Alnitak wants the skull."

"I thought you just wanted the crown," said Johnny.

"You thought?" sighed Malcolm. "What's he gonna do with a snecking crown?"

"What's he gonna do with a snecking skull?" shouted Johnny.

Malcolm looked again at the crown, still caked with mud and dirt, the straggly clumps of Kulta's hair still clinging to it in places.

"Hmm," he said. "I suppose this will have to do. Give it me."

"So now we go find Alnitak," said Johnny.

"He'll find us," said Malcolm. "Give to me."

"Where is Alnitak?" asked Wulf. Malcolm scowled at him.

"You know," he said. "Now is not the time for questions. Just give me the snecking crown."

Squid clutched at it protectively. "What's it worth?" he asked.

"To you?" said Malcolm. "Nothing."

Squid blinked in surprise.

"You don't believe me?" said Malcolm. "Get your Gronk to lick it. It's the same worthless junk as the whole pyramid. Now give it here."

Squid looked down forlornly at the crown, visions of yachts and girls in bikinis fading from his mind. It was worthless, just like everything else on this pointless snecking trip.

"That's it," said Malcolm. "Jem," he said to the minion, "take it."

Flicking away his cigarette, Jem marched up towards Squid who was still staring in dumb disappointment at his hard-won prize.

"Worthless..." mumbled Squid between gritted teeth. "Snecking worthless."

Squid shrank away from Jem, his arms swinging, while Malcolm tried to duck, but it was too late. Squid caught him in the side of the head with the crown, knocking him to the ground. Jem made a grab for the crown, but Squid jumped, swinging it round in mid-air to hold it by its circlet. Jem tried to evade it but Squid caught him in the chest with the long spike.

"Worthless," said Squid in pink anger, driving the spike through the minion's chest. Jem's hands spasmed and twitched. He clutched at the crown, but then was still. Squid panted in the cold night air, slowly coming to understand that he had actually done something useful.

"Wulf!" shouted Johnny, pointing at the unconscious form of Malcolm. "Run."

Wulf snatched up Malcolm, hauling him over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, and ran for the
China
lander. Squid pelted after him, skidding and sliding on the patches of ice, leaving the crown sticking out of Jem's chest.