The Line of Polity (54 page)

"Physician heal thyself," he murmured, releasing the fabric and stepping back, as he remembered the creature he had killed in Skellor's laboratory — the creature Mika had later studied so intensively.

She glanced round at him, a certain amount of calculation creeping into her woozy expression. "It was soldiers, Theocracy soldiers."

At Cormac's shoulder Gant said, "Survivors from that lander, probably."

"You well enough to walk?" Cormac asked her.

Mika nodded.

"Then we follow them — at least they're heading in the right direction."

"What about Fethan?" asked Gant.

"He'll catch up, I assume."

Later, as it became apparent that Mika no longer needed anyone's help, and while Thorn moved ahead with Gant, Cormac leaned close to her and said, "Doctor, you've been taking some of the Outlinker's medicine?"

"I have," Mika replied.

"And it's good, I think?" he said.

"Better than good," said Mika, tapping her finger against the contents indicator on her oxygen bottle. The indicator had gone from green through orange to deep dark red, which meant that the bottle was completely empty. Cormac wondered if, when she had earlier changed her bottle for a new one, she had done this just to keep up appearances, or if, like Scar, she operated more efficiently when breathing a suitably gaseous oxidant.

Even though Speelan delivered his report with a terseness and rigidity of control that was almost machinelike, Aberil could feel fear coming through the link. Whether that fear was of the hooder still out there, or of the expected wrath at Speelan's loss of a lander and twenty-four men, Aberil could not make up his mind. In fact he felt no wrath, just curiosity at what their two captives — one of them obviously an Outlinker — would have to say for themselves. The Proctor, Molat, who had been brought to him earlier in the day, had provided no information of tactical value and was beginning to bore him. Only the story about the siluroyne had been interesting because Aberil had known the Proctor was lying about something, but sufficient pressure had only revealed Molat's silly guilt over the sacrifice of an underling. Obviously Proctor Molat had reached the limit of his advancement within the Theocracy.

"Where is the rebel army now?" he asked generally.

"The other side of the swamp basin, First Commander," replied his logistics officer.

"So they're retreating towards the mountains, without us having to force them across the basin. It's too easy really."

"I don't think Captain Granch thought so, First Commander." The officer looked pale as he turned towards Aberil. "He has ordered the withdrawal of his remaining fighters."

"
Granch, what do you think you are doing?
"

The captain of
Gabriel
was quick to reply.

"
My apologies. First Commander, but they must return for refuelling and arming, with the spaceport being now unavailable.
"

Aberil grinned across the room at Proctor Molat who, like everyone else in the command lander, was listening in.

"
The one bomber we have retained is reactor-run so I do not see why it should be recalled. I am in fact adamant that it should not be.
"

Granch: "
First Commander, it cannot get in close enough, with those Polity machines there.
"

Aberil: "
Granch, I know perfectly well that your son is aboard that plane. It will, however, remain in high orbit until required — is that understood?
"

Granch did not reply, but the logistics officer spoke up. "The bomber is returning to high orbit, sir."

Aberil turned to Molat. "You see: softness, lack of faith, nepotism. We must be harder and harsher if we are to proudly take our place in the universe before God." Then, before the Proctor could reply, Aberil turned away from him and sent over the ether, "
How far away are you now, Speelan?
"

"
I have the command vehicle in sight, and will be with you within minutes, First Commander,
" came Speelan's abrupt response.

"
Bring your prisoners directly to me here,
" Aberil instructed. "
And without further damage to them.
"

Before Speelan could reply, another presence intruded:

"
Aberil, I do hope you are not allowing your little games to distract you from your main objective.
"

Aberil was out of his seat in a moment. The sheer force of the Hierarch's communication almost had his head ringing, and he felt that force could not be explained just by the message being transmitted through a high channel, formerly used solely by the Septarchy Friars.

"
This is not a distraction, Hierarch. I predict that by tomorrow's sunrise Lellan's forces will be perfectly positioned in the mountains for our nuclear cleansing. But I am very much concerned at why an Outlinker would want to be down here on the surface, let alone how he got here.
"

On a lower channel now, Loman spoke conversationally. "
Don't spend too much time finding out, if you consider it that important, use drugs, not torture.
"

Aberil did not let himself object to having to forgo the pleasure of causing pain. He in fact became suddenly wary of making any response, for even on the lower channels there was something quite overwhelming about the communication from his brother.

"
Your will, Hierarch.
"

The link closed, and Aberil swallowed and took a deep breath. In the expressions of Molat and the others, he read a hint of fear and bewilderment. They had all registered the contained power in the Hierarch, and all of them understood it not at all.

Not for the first time, Carl reached up and patted at the Polity wound dressing on the side of his face, as he stared across the swamp basin to the flute grasses on the far side. If they just opened up with their pulse-rifles they would be sure to hit some Theocracy soldiers, just as no doubt the reverse applied with the enemy and their rail-guns, but ammunition was not limitless on either side and the thick grasses had a tendency to eat up the momentum of any projectile, be it an iron slug or a pulse of ionized aluminium.

"These bastards have got thermal mesh in their body armour," said Uris, staring at the screen of a small heat detector he had managed to salvage from the tank before the vehicle got pulverized.

"Either that or you were imagining things," said Targon.

In suitable reply, a full clip of rail-gun slugs hammered into the flute grass to the right of them, with a sound like the revving of a worn diesel engine. They went face-down, flak blankets pulled over them, as the high stalks collapsed in pulpy dark green fragments. A short way off, someone started screaming, then something suddenly curtailed their noise. Another fighter broke cover and tried to dash across a channel inhabited by low plantain to seek better cover on the other side. A second rail-gun opened up, and the man just flew apart.

"Where the fuck is that coming from?" asked Carl.

Hunched up with his flak blanket over his back, Uris studied his heat detector, then abruptly gestured with his open hand. "Ten metres back from the far edge — just left of the plantain channel over there!"

"Beckle!" Carl shouted.

Beckle did not need specific instructions. He quickly set up the small mortar he had been given — as an inadequate replacement of his pulse-cannon on the tank — and fired off three rounds. Two explosions blew loam and roots into the air, but in the detritus thrown up by the third explosion Carl, as he stood up, was sure he spotted a human arm. He and Targon raised their weapons over their heads so as to clear the flute grass, and opened fire on the same area where the explosions had occurred. But then grenades started detonating to their left and the rail-gun fire became so intense that the air filled with a sleet of blasted-up mud and scraps of vegetation. Carl did not need to give any orders — his men were running again, forcing their way through thick growths of grass, stomping across already trampled spreads of moist purple leaves, staggering through muddy channels so wet that only black plantain could root there. Off to their right, others were running... falling ... dying. In their own little group it was Targon who went down first. Turning to fire back behind, he looked down for his weapon and, in numb surprise, only saw his two arms ending at the elbow. He began to yell, but collapsed into the ground like a statue made of red ash, a burst of fire just eating him away.

"You bastards!"

Beckle fired the mortar and its shell slammed into a half-seen ground car on which a heavy rail-gun had been mounted. The explosion flung the vehicle out of view, and someone ran screaming to one side — his Theocracy uniform burning, then blazing white in an oxygen fire as his air bottle ruptured. The recoil of the mortar saved Beckle's life, as it sprawled him on his back below a fusillade that cut down the cover he had been fleeing towards. Carl drew his fire across, the glowing shots from his rifle acting like tracer fire as he brought it to bear on the soldier who had been shooting at Beckle, and cut him in half.

"This is not good!" bellowed Uris, dragging Beckle to his feet.

"We're outnumbered and outgunned," Beckle spat, as the three of them dived for cover in a small crater lying behind a mound of tangled roots and earth obviously hinged up from it by a recent explosion.

"Well, you know we can't win down here, so we just have to prolong it," growled Carl.

"Be nice to come close, though," said Beckle.

"Shut up, Beckle," said Uris, then grabbed Carl's shoulder and directed his comrade's attention to the other occupant of the crater. The woman sitting there was clearly an ex-pond worker, for she still had a scole attached to her body. That she was now cradling most of the contents of that body did not seem to affect the scole at all — it was still looking healthy as it drew on what remained of her blood. Keeping his head well down, Carl crawled over to her, and felt for a pulse at the side of her severely burnt neck. After a moment he shook his head and slid back to join his companions.

"Fucking things," said Beckle and, drawing his cut-down rifle, put two shots through the creature. Smoking, it pushed itself up on its legs, as if trying to retract its head, then it sagged with red oxygenated blood pouring out of it.

"It probably finished her off," observed Carl, for a moment staring beyond her with the thought that her blood had sprayed a very long way — before realizing that what he was seeing was red gallish nodules breaking out on the grass stalks, and recognizing how utterly irrelevant human drama was to the indefatigable grind of the seasonal engine. Then, peering out of the crater in the opposite direction, he ducked as a burst of fire sprayed them with fragments of the same budding growth.

"They'll put a grenade in here any moment now," warned Beckle.

"We keep running, and hold at the mountains," said Carl, relaying the orders he had just received.

"I agree with the running bit," muttered Beckle.

"Lellan?" Uris asked — he had lost his helmet earlier and did not have Carl's coms access.

"Yes," Carl replied.

"Great, she's got a plan," said Beckle as they piled over the edge of the crater and ran for the next scrap of cover.

In such horror and chaos Carl felt it necessary to believe that someone, somewhere, knew what they were doing. To think otherwise would be to give in to despair.

When consciousness eventually returned it did so with disorientating abruptness. One moment Apis felt he was waking again from the cold-coffin in the lander, then as memory caught up he assumed he was waking on the floor of the ATV. Both scenarios turned out to be incorrect as he lifted his head and looked around. He was in a lander, sure, but not the one in which he had arrived upon this planet. This particular one had its cockpit sealed off with a heavy door, some sort of fibrous matting on the floor, and cold blue lights set in the ceiling. With a grunt of effort, Apis sat up and heaved himself to a position with his back resting against the cold wall. Eldene, sitting with her arms wrapped around her shins and her chin resting on her knees, observed him silently for a moment before saying, "You haven't noticed, have you?"

Apis wondered if she was referring to the bloody dressing on her head. He reached up, with an arm that seemed wrapped in lead, and felt the back of his own head — where it had slammed against the wall of the ATV after the Theocracy soldier had... pushed him. He lowered his arm and stared at it, then lowered his hand to his chest and probed it with the fingers of his other hand.

"I warned them that to remove it would kill you," Eldene added.

They'd shot him, but the exoskeleton had prevented the bullet penetrating, which would not now be the case for he no longer wore it. He continued probing his chest, his stomach, his biceps, his thighs. His body felt utterly wrong to him; instead of feeling just bone and gristle under his skin he found a layer of flesh, the shapes of muscles clinging to his bones like parasitic growths — in fact, utterly unaccustomed bulk. Whenever he moved, these muscles moved with him — it did not seem quite real to him that the muscles were doing the moving, and were actually part of him.

"Why aren't you dead?" Eldene asked.

Apis considered the complicated — and to his mind incredibly dangerous — procedures involved in standing up, and rejected them for the moment.

"The mycelium working inside me — it's rebuilt me as a normal-gravity human. Mika said that the exo was taking less and less of the strain, but I wasn't sure what she meant by that."

Mika?

"Where is Mika?" he asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Dead," said Eldene flatly. "They shot her, then just threw her outside like a sack of deaders."

Apis stared at Eldene, but somehow just could not find the energy to feel sorry. He'd lost his own people, he'd lost his mother, and Mika he had not even known for very long. He just did not have the grief to spare for her.

"Where are we now?" Apis asked, wanting to know more than just their location.