Smallworld (19 page)

“
The tracks lead this way,”
said a man’s voice among the crops. “
They bin trampling the stalks flat.”

“
I HAVE MY OWN TRACTOR
,” said the voice in Apostle’s ear. The earth at the end of the track suddenly crazed and broke open as the lid of a far smaller hatchway pushed through it. The Anchorite was born into the world like a chick through an eggshell.

“
Small footprints. Kids,”
said the voice from the crops.

The Anchorite had a small metal pod adhering to the flesh of his throat. When he next spoke, Apostle heard him in two voices. “Well, don’t just sit there, get in here. Get them
all
in here. How many of you are there?”

“
Don’t care if they
are
kids. There’s someone full-grown around here using them as spotters. I want ‘em for leverage and questioning.
”
By now, he could hear heavy boots walking through the crops.

The Anchorite sprang out of the head of his tunnel like a trapdoor spider and said softly to nobody in particular:

“You, my dear fellow, have about twenty seconds to live.”

He began mouthing softly to himself, and only after several seconds did Apostle realize he was counting down. He scrambled into the hole, followed by his brothers and sisters in alphabetical order.

As soon as the Reborn-in-Jesuses had finished scrambling, the Anchorite leapt into the hole behind them and slammed the hatch, still counting inexorably towards zero.

“
Seventeen—sixteen—fifteen—”

A metre above Apostle’s head, Mr. Zhukovtsov hefted his laser and reflected that firing into the fields had possibly not been a good idea. They were burning now in a wide circle around the house, making it impossible to see lurking living humans concealed in the crops. Mr. Zhukovtsov liked to be able to see everybody around him, and be aware of their armament and intentions. He was a cautious man.

Right now, he was at the base of a crater, overgrown with potato seedlings, looking down at a metal door set into the earth.

“Found what looks like a second Panic Cellar, boss. I’m going to open it.”

He reached down, unlocked the door lever, and pulled hard.

If he experienced anything more, it was either the company of angels or devils.

*

The explosion shook earth from the roof of the tunnel. Potato roots danced weirdly.

“Two can play, you see,” said the Anchorite severely, “at the Let Us Wire Explosives To The Front Door trick.”

“Was that your front door, Uncle Anchorite?” said Measure.

“I have many front doors,” said the Anchorite. “And even more back and side ones. Now let us move further into the earth. There are more of these men, they are well-armed, and I must keep you safe. Onward.”

The tunnel—claustrophobic, only the height of a small man crawling—sloped down into a dimly-lit chamber burned out of rock rather than regolith. At the centre of the chamber, a smooth-walled shaft covered by a wire-framed safety cage gaped in the earth; a sound like breath over a bottle moaned from it.

“Merely the wind underground,” assured the Anchorite. “Back from the edge now, I’m taking off the cover. Forward to the ladder when I call your names. Now, you must remember that gravity will increase steadily as you climb down. This will be tolerable at first, but will become painful as you go deeper; you must, however, hold on. Your age will be your advantage—power-to-weight ratio, you see.” He patted Apostle on the back. “Young man, I’m afraid this will be most unpleasant for you in particular. Keep three points of contact, go down one rung at a time, and stay within the cage.”

Unity saw the rocket lift off on a tail of flame. The crops were already burning in a circle round the house now. If
all
the crops burned, there might be a serious lackof oxygen to breathe. Luckily, Armitage’s men seemed to be realizing that inability to breathe might hamper their operations, and rushing to put the fire out.

Over towards Dispater Crater, an explosion had blown a second fire out. That had to be the Anchorite. If that had dealt with more of the fake taxmen, there could surely not be too many left; but those remaining would now be particularly watchful.

She lay in the mud of the arroyo, glad of the fire overhead. Voices were calling for water.
That
would mean father would have to buy more water. Another comet fragment would have to be diverted from the rings of Anak, the next gas giant out, and towing comets cost credits.

She could hear an electric motor. Evidently they had more than one rover. A meticulous criminal, of course, would have. And more than one gun.

Wire tyres ploughed dust plumes from the regolith as the second rover stopped nearby; frighteningly nearby.

“
MR. ARMITAGE. WHY ARE WE EXPERIENCING DELAY?”

This new voice carried in itself a casual, immense menace, sounding as if it might threaten death even by issuing a greeting. It was a voice that had been studied, worked on, honed as a tool to bend other human beings to its will. Unity felt she would not at all be surprised if its owner practised in front of mirrors. And yet, the voice sounded laboured, as if fighting to expel air against resistance.

“I’m sorry, sir, there appear to be more locals than previously suspected; as many as three adults. Dangerous ones. One seems to have taken out Janos with some sort of long blade, and if you’ll look up I’m afraid you’ll see another has gotten off a message rocket.”

The Mayday Missile went into FTL drive, a glowing soap bubble of light that then went through every colour of the visible spectrum as a sudden vacuum wind seized it and threw it to the stars.

“
THAT’LL ONLY BRING MERCHANT SHIPPING. MERCHANT SHIPPING WE CAN DEAL WITH. EVERYONE FEARS THE REVENUE BUREAU. HOW ARE WE DOING WITH THE SERIES THREE?”

“Our work has been interrupted. The gravity cutter is making some headway.”

A third voice cut in. This voice could hardly be recognized as human, and was at first indistinguishable from static.
“The cutter will alert the unit’s offensive security. It should never have been used. Shut it down.”

Armitage’s voice sounded irritated. “It’s cut up to a millimetre into the epidermis—”

“
And it’ll kill whatever human contents are inside as soon as it breaks through, or render them sterile. Whoever’s doing the cutting, too. The Series Three’s outer skin contains a sheet of raw plutonium.
I
should know.
” The voice coughed suddenly, a noise that sounded like a clockwork mechanism being wound in the wrong direction.

There was a pause; during the pause, there was a crackle of ionization from the Penitentiary’s direction, accompanied by shouts and screams.

“
I hate to say I told you so.”

Armitage’s voice was quietly murderous. “It would have helped if you’d made yourself available to bestow your vast knowledge on us before, Mr. Skuse.”

“
I was unwell. These days, I spend much of my time unwell.”

“
I FEEL YOU SHOULD GET BACK TO THE GAOL, MR. ARMITAGE. IT APPEARS TO BE DEFENDING ITSELF. WE SHOULD SALVAGE THE SITUATION AND CONTINUE AT MR. SKUSE’S DIRECTION. WHAT ARE YOUR SUGGESTIONS, MR. SKUSE?”

“
Heh! Cutting is too unsubtle. We must convince it it has been subjected to a natural disaster and trigger its mercy algorithms, setting the poor prisoners free to fend for themselves. I propose extreme heat. A solar flare, which would not be uncommon in this milieu—”

“
I AM NOT COUNTENANCING SETTING OFF A NUCLEAR WEAPON, MR. SKUSE. NOT YET. I DO NOT GET ON WELL WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND NEITHER DO YOU.”

“
Tush, tush! You break into one gaol with a nuclear weapon, and you’re Nuclear Weapon Skuse for life. Besides, the man lived for several hours, did he not? Long enough for him to feel your ire, even where the Moral Purity Bureau’s nark protection unit had him put?”

“
YOU FORGET YOURSELF, MR. SKUSE.”

“
I forget little but pain nowadays, sir. No, we do not need a mushroom cloud at this juncture, pretty though it would have been. We need only to fool a few of the unit’s nerve endings, convince them that hideous stellar pyrotechnics are taking place outside. I have a detailed enough understanding of the Series Three’s sensory peripherals. You had enough government engineers tortured to give me it. We will have your box open in an acceptable number of jiffies, and Jack out of it. Though I doubt he’ll be any more capable of opening your other box than I am.”

“
JUST GET HIM OUT, MR. SKUSE, AND LEAVE THAT SECOND QUESTION TO HIM.”
There was a whirr of motors, and the rover hummed away in a cloud of fines.

Her every joint aching from enforced immobility and the cold of the water, Unity forced herself to rise onto her hands and knees, her hands and knees disappearing into the mud as quickly as she put weight on them, and crocodile-walked away down the arroyo.

*

Mr. Aidid fetched up against the wall of the Penitentiary, wanting to gulp in huge lungfuls of air, unable to let any more than a trickle of it down his throat.

“
He doubled back here. I saw him.”

“
Are you sure you didn’t see Arkadi? No-one found Arkadi’s body. He ain’t dead till we find his body.”

“
I got news for you. No-one’s ever going to find any bit of Arkadi’s body big enough to put in a DNA sampler. I saw that booby trap go off. Them hicks got this whole place wired up.”

Mr. Aidid could hear other footsteps on the top of the Penitentiary. Someone was walking up there too.

“
I should get danger pay for this. You saw what it did to Umberto.”

“
We’re on danger pay already. Skuse says we’ll be fine if we deal with it on its blind side. It’s only got its sensors extruded on the side it burned off all Umberto’s flesh on.”

“
What if it looks round?”

“
It won’t. Skuse is still giving it targets of opportunity on its eye side.”

The feeling of air molecules being pulled apart rang in through Mr. Aidid’s ears and played his bones like xylophones as it thrummed through the Penitentiary’s skin. The prison was still defending itself. But he could also hear another rhythm in the metal. Someone inside was still knocking to be let out.

Mr. Aidid’s basic crewman’s training had also involved the rudiments of Morse, and he was already aware that one of the prisoners inside the Series Three was using it to communicate. It was easy for him to distinguish the letters S-O-S, and to tap back, under cover of the din round the gaol’s other side, C-A-L-M.

W-H-O-R-U, tapped the metal.

Trying as far as possible to conceal himself between two palm trunks and the Penitentiary wall, Mr. Aidid licked his lips and tapped back:

F-R-E-N-D-O-F-B-E-G-I-L-D-STOP

The prisoner digested this and rapped back:

W-H-A-T-P-R-O-G-R-E-S-C-U-T-I-N-G-I-N-QUERY

“
Skuse says he’s going to get the box to think there’s a solar flare,”
said a voice helpfully from upstairs.

S-I-M-U-L-A-T-I-N-G-S-O-L-A-R-F-L-A-R-E-STOP, tapped Aidid with difficulty.

C-O-U-L-D-W-O-R-K, replied the metal. M-E-R-C-Y-A-L-G-O-R-I-T-H-M-S-W-I-L-L-O-P-E-N-C-E-L-L-S-STOP

There was a pause.

B-U-T-O-N-L-Y-1-A-T-A-T-I-M-E-T-H-I-S-V-I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T-W-H-E-R-E-A-M-I-QUERY

Nervously, Aidid tapped back 2-3-K-R-A-N-I-S-Y-S-T-E-M-STOP

W-H-E-R-E-I-N-M-A-T-R-I-X-QUERY-G-A-O-L-I-S-2-B-Y-2-B-Y-2-C-U-B-E-B-A-S-E-H-O-M-E-C-O-R-N-E-R-O-P-E-N-S-F-I-R-S-T-STOP

W-H-E-R-E-I-S-B-A-S-E-H-O-M-E-C-O-R-N-E-R-QUERY, tapped back Aidid.

L-O-O-K-4-M-A-K-E-R-S-L-O-G-O-STOP

Mr. Aidid looked, and realized his ear was pressed like an octopus’s sucker against a manufacturer’s logo the size of a dinnerplate.

The logo said
OUBLIETTE HUMAN INCARCERATION PRODUCTS: ADAMANTINE CHAINS AND PENAL FIRE.

F-O-U-N-D-I-T-STOP

B-U-G-E-R, said the metal through his fingertips. F-R-E-E-S-M-E-1-S-T-H-A-V-E-2-M-A-K-E-A-N-O-B-V-I-O-U-S-E-S-C-A-P-E-A-T-T-E-M-P-T-A-N-D-G-E-T-M-Y-C-E-L-L-M-O-V-D-O-N-STOP

As Mr. Adid lay in cover with his head flat against the wall, the knocking audibly travelled upwards, growing fainter and fainter.

G-E-T-O-U-T-O-F-H-E-R-E,
it tapped.

Mr. Aidid needed no further encouragement. There was now no-one on his side of the Penitentiary; they had crossed back behind the buildings, possibly unwilling to be in line of sight of the unit after What It Did To Umberto.

He crept out under the palms, scuttled into one of the empty houses, and allowed his natural lack of courage to take over, collapsing in nervous exhaustion in a dusty living room in which children seemed to have made a fortress out of some former occupant’s best furniture.

Mr. Skuse sat next to his employer in the surface rover, beyond what Mr. Skuse had insisted was the maximum range of the Penitentiary’s offensive arsenal.

“
The splices are all in place now,”
informed Mr. Skuse through the machine that nowadays served as his voice box.
“The unit should now firmly believe Ararat to be being irradiated by over a hundred million megatons of fusing plasma erupting from the surface of this system’s sun. The induction pads we’ve attached to its skin at strategic points should confirm this. Of course, the amount of heat coming through those pads could never cut its surface; hence there is no reason for the Penitentiary to interpret that data as a deliberate attack. We’re also firing hits down the fibre optics that used to be connected to its gamma sensors. It should, however, believe its prisoners will slowly cook if it doesn’t let them out to find a safer refuge on the surface. It’ll open.”

“
I HOPE SO,”
said Mr. Skuse’s employer in a low growl.

“
I know my business,”
said Skuse.
“The last time I was at this business, I lost my face, after all.”

“
I COULD REQUISITION YOU A NEW FACE TOMORROW,”
purred his employer.
“PICK A FACE, ANY FACE YOU SEE ON THE STREET. I WILL HAVE ITS OWNER ABDUCTED AND THE FACE HARVESTED. SUBJECT TO TISSUE COMPATIBILITY, OF COURSE.”