The Half-Made World (41 page)

—You piece of shit Marmion you pieces of shit all of you I pray the Line destroys and devours you but only after I am gone safely to my grave so so be it then: west it is.

Liv’s horse had fled a little way when the shooting began. Not far. Now it waited nervously, and Liv waited with it.

She watched Creedmoor lower his Gun. He put his head in his hand and his chest rose and fell as he breathed slowly, deeply.

She didn’t dare move.

At last he lifted his head and turned to Liv.

“Liv? Still here? Good. Our plans have changed. We will not be continuing to Greenbank and to old dear friends and east to civilization and to warm baths and a change of clothes and the councils of our betters. We will be fleeing west, into uncharted, uncreated lands. We will be pioneers.”

He pointed with a grand flourish across the valley below, in a direction that Liv supposed was westward. He smiled as if he were trying to sell it to her.

The river below was wide and white-rushing. Its banks were stony and the river itself broke around sharp black rocks. Her heart clenched at the thought of fording it. Beyond the river were sandy plains of yellow grass and a dark forest of tangled oaks; hills and a forest of pine; sharp hills like broken teeth for miles and miles, under a haze of heat and clouds; blue mountains wreathed in white—And Creedmoor’s grinning teeth were discolored and uneven, and his eyes bloodshot.

“Let me go, Creedmoor.”

“No.”

Lowry got nothing out of Fanshawe. He worked Fanshawe over, and the old man just kept laughing through bloodied broken teeth. Lowry’s satisfaction in the task didn’t last long, and after it was gone, the job still stretched out ahead of him through a long, long afternoon in the ash and ruins of Greenbank. Eventually he got sick of the whole sordid business and handed it over to his professional interrogators. Unlike the Agents, he was not a sadist, he was not a pervert, he did not relish cruelty for its own sake.

He returned to Kloan, and to the warm noisy shadows of his communications tent.

He spent some time drafting a message to be wired back to Angelus and Kingstown.

THREE AGENTS OF THE ENEMY EXECUTED AT GREENBANK.
“FANSHAWE” TAKEN ALIVE. TARGET IN HANDS OF FOURTH AGENT, BELIEVED TO BE “JOHN CREEDMOOR,” LOCATION PRESENTLY UNKNOWN.

They would punish him for losing Creedmoor. A message would come, not to him but to some underling, Thernstrom perhaps, an order that he go the way Banks went.

In hopes of saving his neck, he noted that

DR. ALVERHUYSEN IS STILL WITH AGENT AND TARGET.
SIGNAL DEVICE ENABLES PURSUIT OF TARGET. SIGNAL
DEVICE WAS PLANTED ON DOCTOR AT SUGGESTION OF
ACTING CONDUCTOR LOWRY.

It was a stroke of extraordinary good luck that the Agent had taken her with him. Had he not, Lowry would probably have shot himself hours ago, to save the Engines the expense of a telegram.

He tried to think of a way to suggest, without precisely lying, that it had been part of his plan all along that the Agent would take the Doctor with him. . . .

“Sir.”

“What is it, Thernstrom?”

“The interrogators have finalized their report.”

“Fanshawe. Yes. And?”

“In summary, sir: He was contacted two months ago in Gibson City with instructions to—”

“No. Where’s Creedmoor? Where’s Creedmoor going? Does he know that?”

“Southeast. He was to accompany Creedmoor and the target to a place in Keaton called—”

“Have it destroyed. That’s a thousand miles away. Where is he going now?”

“Unknown.”

“Execute him.”

“Sir—”

“Execute him. We can’t spare men to look after him. And look, I’ve already stamped the forms.”

He stamped the forms to authorize the disposal of the three Agents’ bodies by fire. He stamped a series of further forms authorizing the payment of compensation for damage and loss of life to Greenbank, in return for permanent representation of the Line’s interests in Greenbank’s administration.

And then he had to deal with his Subalterns, who wanted to tell him just how severe their losses were: how many vehicles had been lost, how many men, how much matériel. . . . His stamp was needed on a whole weary afternoon’s worth of forms.

The next day he reorganized the patrols, taking into account the recent degradation of his forces. He spread them out to cordon off all points southeast of Greenbank.

No signs of Creedmoor were reported.

The Signal Corps reported that the device was working poorly; Creedmoor might be anywhere in a thirty-mile radius.

No orders came that he should be relieved of command.

Nor the next day.

Thernstrom came rushing in again. It was the late evening of the third day after the Greenbank incident.

“What, Thernstrom.”

“The Signal Corps, sir. The device is working again. It passed through some interference, but it’s transmitting again with tolerable precision.”

“Well?”

“Precise location unknown. But he’s gone west.”

“West?”

“Straight west. Fast, too.”

“There’s nothing west of here. Slag it, there’s hardly anything
here
. Where’s he going?”

“West, sir. He has several days’ lead on us. He’ll be out past the farthest outlying settlements and into wild territory.”

“Then we follow.”

“Sir? We’re undermanned for any such expedition. Conditions will be unfavorable for—”

“We follow. No delays. No time for reinforcements. All presently available vehicles and men to be mobilized. Go on. Get out of here, Thernstrom. No one sleeps tonight.”

Thernstrom stepped out. Lowry sat in the shadows with his head in his hands.

West. Unmade lands. Part of him was so terrified, he could vomit; part of him was so relieved, his sallow jaw kept creasing into a smile. . . . If the empty sky and frightening hills here on the western rim were bad, the lands beyond would be a nightmare. On the other hand, Lowry did not plan on waiting around in Kloan to be relieved of command if there was any respectable alternative. So west it was, then.

CHAPTER 28

THE RAINS

West of the western rim: the first thing that fell apart was the weather. It rained for ten fucking days, and all Lowry’s motor trucks mired in mud. The Heavier-Than-Air Vessels were grounded. Even the tents were washed away in mudslides, and somehow dozens of Lowry’s men managed to drown, to fucking
drown,
miles from any river or sea, on flat mud. So much mud, the Engines themselves might flounder and drown in the depths. The rain fell in shafts that hammered Lowry’s skull; it fell in sheets that washed the world away five feet in front of Lowry’s face. And the signal from the device in the gold watch the woman carried was weak; in the constant crashing rain, the ethereal vibrations of the device’s delicate hammers and rods were lost—drowned—
damn
it. Four artillery pieces and two motor guns sank in mud. Two of the telegraph devices were ruined, and one of the two amplifiers, despite all efforts to waterproof them. Patrols went out and they came back days late, or not at all, as if washed away. Their weapons jammed so bad, it was a good thing they
couldn’t
catch up with the Agent; he would have slaughtered them. They crept forward. Every foot they slogged forward, they slid six inches back.

After ten days, the rains broke without warning or apology—just plain stopped and the clouds parted and the sun came roaring on in, and within ten minutes the Linesmen were steaming and baking in their soaked uniforms. Some of the men put their heads back and turned their pale faces to the sun.

“Well, come on, then,” Lowry roared. “Let’s get moving again. Come on, come on.”

Fuck the weather out here
. It made no sense and it had no decency at all. That was how it was out there, over the border of creation and into lands not yet reduced to order. How Lowry longed to see all that land subdued and made sane.

The rains had come out of a cloudless sky without warning—a sudden madness of the heavens. Mud and rain came roaring downslope toward them. The first thing they lost were their horses. One was washed from its feet and broke its leg. The other fled into the rains and was lost from view. After that, Creedmoor and Liv moved on foot from shelter to shelter, caves and overhangs, as one rat-hole after another flooded. Very soon there was no shelter. “High ground,” Creedmoor said. “High ground!” He slung the General’s brittle body over his shoulder. Liv staggered behind, sliding in the mud; sometimes Creedmoor had to carry her, too. The rains seemed to pour down for years; they seemed to have been pouring forever. The drumming and pounding of it drove all thoughts out of Liv’s skull except survival, and soon even that was beyond her, and all she could do was inch along in Creedmoor’s wake. From time to time, Creedmoor was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear his words; in the gray hell of driving water, she could barely see his mouth working.