The Gods and their Machines (21 page)

Chamus scowled, cursing to himself. One part of his mind had continued to think of this all as a game, even when he had seen the second glider crash. But now he was faced with failure. He had never considered any cause important enough to risk his life – that was to say, no cause that he was
ever likely to actually be involved with. But now he tried to weigh up everything that would happen if this pilot succeeded and he found that it was so big, he could not even relate to it. Plagues and war were huge, historic things that seemed to bear little relation to this bizarre dogfight, up here in the dark. Alone in his cockpit, he knew it would be easy to turn around and let the glider go. He was a
schoolboy
who was supposed to be worried about homework and acne and embarrassing himself in front of girls. He had
nothing
to do with war and terrorists.

Then he thought of the people he had met in the last few days. Of Riadni, and Sostas and Leynid, and Paronig and the others and he thought about what was about to happen to them. Riadni’s family was right in the centre of the glider’s target, and she and her father would rush back to save them as soon as they had spread the message over the radio, how could they not hurry back to their family? In truth, he didn’t even like the ones he’d met, and they obviously didn’t like him. But the difference was that he knew Riadni, and he knew she and Sostas, and everyone close to them, were going to die if the glider pilot succeeded in dropping his payload. They would die slowly and painfully because two lots of fanatics could not sort out their differences. And so Chamus, who could not bring himself to give his life for the good of thousands, brought his bright yellow biplane high up over the tail of the black glider and banked hard,
bringing
the nose of the aeroplane to bear on the path of the other aircraft – to save the lives of a bunch of near-strangers.

He opened up the throttle, relishing the roar of the big, oily, smoky engine, watching the glider desperately jinking
right and left to try and avoid him, but Chamus had learned from his opponent. He had learned the importance of committing himself to his goal. He did not try to clip the other flyer’s tail, or attempt to herd him in a different
direction
. He brought his aeroplane screaming down at the
cockpit
of the glider, roaring at the top of his voice, the wind dragging at his face, pressing the goggles against his eyes. The glider grew larger and larger in his sights, and the pilot was looking up at him, trying to pitch himself sideways to avoid the oncoming biplane, but he was too slow and too late.

The biplane smashed right through the glider’s cockpit, the lighter aircraft shattering apart, the crippled biplane plummeting on down, starting to roll, debris from the glider still being chewed and spat out by the broken shards of the propeller. Chamus’s engine coughed and died, choking on fragments of its enemy, and the yellow biplane continued to tumble down into the dark silence.

Zero

V
el Sillian was flying in a school trainer over western Bartokhrin, part of the massive search that had been launched for Chamus Aranson. On top of the official search and rescue teams, the Aransons had called on every pilot they knew, including those in Chamus’s school, to join the hunt for Chamus’s biplane.

Two days had passed since the now infamous gliders had set out on their mission. The first message had been heard broadcasting from a radio out here, an aid station in a town called Yered. That had been started by a Bartokhrian girl and her father, who had been the last people to see Chamus alive. The story of the gliders and the radioactive dust had spread far and wide, ham operators and then news stations taking up the message. The military had denied the story, and people believed them at first, but then the first glider had been found smashed up in a gully and aid workers had reached it before the military could. The lethal payload had still been sealed securely in its lead reservoir.

Another glider had been discovered, landed safely in a field a few miles away, with its payload also intact. There
had been no sign of the pilot. Sillian was impatient. He had been assigned an area twenty miles from the nearest glider and saw little chance of finding Chamus. His schoolmate was now a hero, but two days after the event he was still missing and everyone was beginning to fear the worst. Sillian had been secretly impressed by the plan to seed the Bartokhrian towns with radioactivity, but now, flying over the area, he realised that if the glider had succeeded in releasing its payload, he would be in as much danger as anyone else should he be forced to land for any reason. Radiation did not distinguish between the good and the evil.

A spot of bright yellow out to his right caught his eye and he turned towards it. As he drew closer, he could make out the broken body of the biplane lying on the north-facing slope of a hill, the wings on one side sheared off, its cheerful paintwork covered in dust. He flew in lower, saw the
cockpit
was empty and swung around to see Chamus lying under the shade of one of the wings. Sillian dipped his wings, but there was no answering wave. He tried again, but the body did not move. Sillian thumped the side of his cockpit and was just climbing back up to look around for a place to land, when he saw the tailfin of a glider lying less than a mile from the wrecked biplane. He swooped in to be sure what it was, then opened the throttle and pulled into a steep climb, his heart racing. Had he got too close?

He checked the position of the biplane on the map and called it in, telling the search controller about the glider wreckage. Then he cast an uneasy eye on his fuel gauge, and not liking what he saw, set off for home.

Benyan Akhna’s eyes opened, but nothing changed. He could not see. For a moment he panicked, but then the Lenttons spoke to him, reassuring him. They whispered into his mind, describing his surroundings. He was in a pale-green room, in a high bed with rails on the sides, a machine sat on a narrow wooden table beside him. The machine had buttons and lights on the front, and behind a rectangular piece of glass a line of light darted from left to right, zigzagging up and down as it passed the middle. There were wires stuck to his chest and a needle in his arm, to which a plastic tube was attached. The tube ran up to a bag of clear fluid that hung from a metal stand. There were
curtains
on the window, and it was dark outside. A small lamp was the only light in the room. There was a metal clipboard hanging from the end of the bed. His was one of a dozen beds in the room, most of which were empty; the rest held sleeping bodies. Benyan had heard of such places. He was in an Altiman hospital. So he was still alive.

Thomex Aranson was here, the Lenttons told him. They could sense him. He was here with his son and grandson. All three were on the next floor. There was still a chance for him to reach paradise. Benyan went to sit up and grunted. A pain lanced through his chest and hip and he fell back, lying still until the pain passed. The ghosts hissed angrily. They had listened while the Altiman doctors had stood over his body, speaking in hushed tones, astounded that he was still alive, if only just. They had heard the arguments that he should be allowed to die, that there was no hope. The spirits had
wrestled
with death, using all their remaining power to keep this body breathing, hanging tentatively to life in the hope that
they might still wreak their revenge. They would not be stopped now.

Benyan cried out as a violent force sat him up and used his arms to prop himself as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. One hand went to his face, found a bandage over his eyes and pulled it up. He gasped as the dressing was peeled away from the blistered powder burn. But he was still blind. He started to sob, but the ghosts stood him up. He wheezed as another bolt of pain went through his chest and then he was wobbling on his feet. The broken edges of bone in his hip ground against each other as he started to walk, Benyan could only surrender to the will of the spirits. He sensed that they were weaker now, that their power was waning and that soon they would have nothing more to carry him, and he prayed to Shanna for that release.

Chamus opened his eyes. He was in a room with pale-green walls, lit only by a small lamp. He was lying in a hospital bed in what must be a private room. His mother sat slumped and asleep in a chair next to his bed and there were flowers in vases on every flat surface except the floor. He let his mother sleep for a few minutes while he gathered his thoughts.

He remembered hunting the gliders, but there were only flashes of the dogfights, and for a while he could not quite remember why he had been after them. His leg ached. He pushed the covers back and peeled off a dressing to see one large wound and a couple of smaller ones, all of which had been stitched. That had been the shrapnel from the cannon shells. The shin of his other leg itched and he pulled the
covers aside to see his left leg in a cast up to his knee. There were scratches on his face and neck, his right forearm was bandaged up and he was bruised all over. A sharp pain in his side told him he had cracked a rib or two as well.
Memories
of crashing his biplane flickered in his mind and he groaned.

Nita’s eyes opened drowsily and then she sat up. Her face lifted in a smile and she leaned forward and gave him a gentle hug.

‘Hi Mum.’

‘Oh Cham,’ she said, her voice cracking, ‘we were so worried. Thank God.’

He hugged her back, bursting with emotion and unable to speak.

‘You’re quite the hero,’ she sat back, wiping tears from her face and trying to be more reserved than she was. She knew he got embarrassed when she got motherly. ‘The whole
country’s
talking about you. There have been reporters looking for you and Riadni …’

‘You’ve met Riadni?’ he asked.

‘She’s here,’ Nita replied. ‘She came with that aid worker, Leynid, when they brought you here. Everyone’s here. Your father and grandfather are only down the hall, and Riadni and Leynid too.’

A nurse looked in the door.

‘Ah! You’re awake,’ she observed. ‘I’ll fetch the doctor.’

She left and Nita turned back to her son.

‘You stopped the gliders. The message went out all over the country on the radio, but not in time to force them from calling back the mission. The government is furious, all of
the Board and most of the air-force and army commanders say they didn’t know what was going on. But nobody believes anybody now. They’re at each others’ throats. But what matters is you stopped a catastrophe before it could happen. My little boy’s a hero!’

‘Aw, Mum …’

He was spared further cringing by the arrival of his father and grandfather, who hugged him carefully, his ribs still objecting to overenthusiastic embraces, and more
thanksgiving
and singing of praises followed. Riadni came in then, dressed in a conservatively long, blue skirt and blouse that she had obviously bought in Victovia, along with an Altiman-styled wig and some lightly applied make-up. Chamus found it difficult to talk to her in normal
surroundings
with everyone else around, and once she had assured herself that he was alright, she seemed happy just to sit by and let his family do the talking.

He noticed his grandfather was very quiet too, and a little cold, despite his wide smile. Chamus wondered if anybody knew of the part he had played in the plan, but decided to say nothing. It would all come out eventually. For now, Chamus just wanted to enjoy being safe and back with his family … and bask in the glory of being a hero.

‘You had us absolutely terrified,’ his father was saying, ‘when you didn’t turn up during the first couple of days, and then we found the first two gliders. We were almost ready to give you up for lost. Then, when your friend found the plane and spotted you lying there, but saw the wrecked glider at the same time, it was the worst moment of our lives …’

Chamus saw his mother take his father’s hand as Kellen
spoke and remembered Lakrem Elbeth holding the mask to his face, the feel of the old man’s dry hands against his ears, the darkness as his eyes had been covered …

‘Then Riadni here and Leynid led a group to your plane. There was a leak in the glider’s container, but it was small and the wind blew most of the radiation away from you. The doctors said you picked up a bit, but they’ve been treating you for it …’

Chamus felt a chill as he heard the hissing whispers of voices, inside his head, but distant, and getting closer. Kellen paused, puzzled by the expression on his son’s face.

‘Cham? What’s wrong?’

‘There’s somebody coming. Someone’s coming to hurt us.’

He felt stupid and helpless, sitting there in the bed,
crippled
and afraid of something he couldn’t describe. But his fear was catching. His mother leaned towards him. His father stood up and Riadni cocked her head. She thought she could hear a familiar voice from somewhere. Thomex, who was closest to the door, opened it wider and rolled his
wheelchair
forwards to look out into the corridor. What he saw caused him to panic, trying to turn the chair while still in the doorway. It jammed and he pulled frantically at the footrest that caught on the doorframe.

‘Dad?’ Kellen frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Kellen, get back son! Get me in, close the door for God’s sake!’

Kellen pushed his seat aside and leaned out over his father to look into the hallway. A Bartokhrian boy suddenly seized the old man’s hair with one hand. He was chanting prayers and had burns on his face and bleeding wounds in
his chest. He wrapped the other arm around Thomex’s neck and butted Kellen in the face as the younger man tried to free his father.

Flames burst from the boy’s mouth and hands and engulfed the old man and they both fell back into the corridor. Kellen was forced backwards by the heat, calling desperately for his father. Alarms went off and there were screams up and down the corridor. Chamus went to climb off the bed to help, but his mother stopped him. The fire blazed brightly for a few more moments, then seemed to tire out and die down. Riadni grabbed his blankets and she and Kellen threw them over the two burning figures.