The Orphaned Worlds (24 page)
The barge suspensors finally ceased functioning a quarter of a mile from the edge of the lake and at an altitude of roughly three hundred feet. The Legion Knight’s own suspensors, protesting under the weight, kept both it and the barge in the air for several seconds more. The drones were closing in, as if scenting a kill. The barge, possessing the aerodynamic qualities of a brick, hurtled towards the dark, choppy waters and the Knight, suddenly struck by an intuitive hunch, triggered the bomb release just before it plunged nose first into the lake.
Cutting the plasma thrusters, he used the manoeuvring jets to drive down into the hazy depths. Sensors mostly blind, he was still getting readings from the bomb, which had been built into a survival pod – the sentry drones were converging to investigate. Meanwhile, the lake floor was coming into view, an underwater vista of shattered boulders, jagged fissures and upthrust fangs of rock scores of metres long, almost as if it were some weed-choked battlefield that had lain here, drowned, for centuries. Seeking out a shallow ravine, he brought the barge to rest at the bottom, kicking up clouds of sandy mud, then triggered the bomb.
There was a brief lag before the booming sound wave hit, closely followed by a shock wave. The roaring and the shuddering and buffeting arrived all at once, then the bangs and thumps of rocks bouncing off the hull. For a second or two the cacophony lessened … before something massive crashed down onto the barge, then a second and a third. The hull cracked, and emergency alerts clamoured as datalines were severed. Feeling panic, and at once suppressing it, the Legion Knight opened up the manoeuvring jets. Nothing. He tried to use the plasma drive but the controls were dead. Internal monitors reported flooding in several sectors and the imminent failure of the upper hull support, which would flood the main hold and transfer the load onto the cradling framework.
No external sensors were functioning but he did still have a squad of Bargalil work drones left over from the in-flight rebuild. The smallest one he sent to a secondary airlock, cycling it through to the outside where it was able to send back a few seconds of visuals before the pressure and the water overwhelmed its systems.
A massive shard of rock had fallen into the ravine, breaking into several pieces which had buried the barge. Now he was trapped, interred alive, entombed by unforeseen consequences. Fury and frustration clawed at him. The hull was failing and the compartments were flooding; after all his long ages of survival, after all his planning and building and brilliant guile, how could it all end here?
The procession ascended the rough-hewn tunnels at a stately pace. Steel girder supports braced the walls and bright pinlights shed harsh white light on the two large dark blue missiles as they glided along on agrav loaders. Heavily armed Henkayan fighters led the way and brought up the rear while Julia and the others followed directly behind. Irenya was on her left and Konstantin on her right, both appearing drawn and weary yet still tensely alert. Thorold and Arkady were a pace or two back and last time she glanced round they had looked the same.
Not surprising
, she thought.
We don’t know if we’re walking towards more captivity or to our deaths
.
Their guards were the same ones who had secured the underground workshops where they had been confined for the last three weeks. Julia had grown tediously accustomed to the malicious sneers and hate-filled glares that these pious warriors had bestowed on their lowly Human prisoners. In her mind’s cortical net she had been running hierarchic-dependent social power models, trying to foresee how their captors might deal with them, now that the holy weapons were ready. Every time it came down to the level of piety, the intensity of memetic internalisation. On one hand, the Enhanced humans’ knowledge and skills could not outweigh their blasphemous origins, but on the other hand their value might now be exhausted, leading only to the extermination of abominations.
She shivered. The tunnel air was cold and had a powdery quality that she could feel on her tongue. Before departing the workshops they were told to put on knee-length hooded shifts of some thin, pale yellow material that did little to retain body heat. However, it was very good at reminding her that, like the others, she had not bathed properly for nearly four weeks. She tried to convince herself that it was a minor discomfort compared to the threat of the cretinous, prayer-babbling guards with their guns, but didn’t always succeed.
From the bay doors of the main machine shop, the ascending tunnel had so far made two 180-degree turns, the width sufficient to accommodate the thirteen-metre-long missiles. As the procession approached the third turn, a Human female came round the corner and walked jauntily down to meet them. She had on a dark blue onepiece, the kind of thing a tech worker would wear, red gloves on her hands, a tool belt, and a pair of paint-splashed heavy boots. Her hair was short and black with bleached highlights and her features were small, neat and arrestingly beautiful. The eyes were dark, clear and almost seemed to twinkle with merriment; only frequent acquaintance would show it to be a cold cruelty.
Julia steeled herself.
If the eyes are the windows of the soul, then Corazon Talavera’s are cracked
.
Talavera brought the missile procession to a halt with a raised hand then spoke to the senior guard in Kelasti, one of the main tongues of the Yamanon refugees. In four weeks Julia had learned enough for basic communication and only caught a word or two from the exchange. Talavera looked round at the Enhanced, surveying them all, and smiled.
‘Just a slight change in our little cavalcade – Hurnegur’s orders. He wants a greater distance between you and the holy missiles …’ She waved the loader operators to continue, waited until a gap of about fifteen metres had opened up, then made a sweeping gesture, urging the rest to resume.
‘Onward, my friends, onward to victory!’ She laughed, moving alongside Julia. ‘Such long faces. This is a happy day, folks – you should be celebrating your amazing achievement. Hurnegur and Jeshkra have laid on a special surprise, a small ceremony to let the devout express their feelings for these babies and the great battle that lies ahead.’ Her smile widened. ‘I just know you’re going to find it fascinating.’
With that she hurried on ahead to catch up with the missiles just as they were turning the next corner.
‘What is that bitch up to now?’ Konstantin said in a low murmur. ‘Is this it?’
‘Stay calm,’ she said while thinking the same, wondering what twisted pageant lay ahead. As they then turned the corner, Julia’s mind went back to the first time she saw Corazon Talavera, when she and her gang of mercenaries had walked into the dim-lit Highwatch observation lounge just minutes after the departure of the
Qol-Valish
, the ship that was meant to take the Enhanced on to Earth.
Like her thugs, Talavera had been wearing dull green body armour but her smile had been wide and hungry.
‘Humans,’ she had said loudly. ‘I want the Humans!’
Scores of frightened gazes had looked round to where Julia and the others were sitting in a bulkhead alcove with their escort, two of Velazquez’s officers from the
Heracles
. Both were shot dead as they drew their weapons, after which Talavera had smiled, crooked a beckoning finger at Julia and the rest and said, ‘This way and smartly if you please.’
Weapon muzzles prodded them towards the main exit. Once they were out in the corridor Talavera had paused in the doorway, gloved hands resting on either side of the frame while her underlings aimed weapons into the lounge. Then she had started to speak in one of the common interlinguals, pointing to a number of shiny packages lying in a heap near where she stood. As she spoke, gasps and frightened moans came from the passengers, who comprised sentients from several different species. A moment later she stepped back and the doors closed and sealed.
Inside the lounge, the fighting began.
Julia and the others were taken down to the
Qol-Valish
’s cargo hold, past still bodies, splashes of blood and the sounds of weapons-fire. Talavera then oversaw their transfer via the big airlock to another vessel with pale walls and circular transverse passages and at no time did she mention what had just happened. She just had her thugs march them along to a room with three double cots and a small partitioned area, not answering Julia’s questions except with an intense, grinning stare.
‘Welcome to the revolution’ was all she said before the room’s only door slid shut and locked.
Later, in hushed voices, they had debated it, trying to understand, arriving at a grotesque conclusion. That Talavera had told the passengers that the lounge would be evacuated to open space, then leaving them to fight over a small number of vacsuits. Only several days later, after their arrival on Zophor 3, did Julia find out that their guess was correct from a news article spotted during one of the brief sessions of tiernet research they were allowed.
At the top of the final stretch of tunnel, the walls opened out to a large cave with a pair of armoured doors at the far end. Hurnegur and Jeshkra waited there, the former a hulking, four-armed Henkayan garbed in angular, dun-coloured combat armour while the Gomedran wore a featureless matt black suit that extended up to a cowl. They raised their hands and the procession slowed to a halt; the armoured doors emitted muffled thuds and began to draw apart.
At once Julia heard a babble of voices coming from outside, chanting voices mounting higher and erupting in a mass roar. With the insurgent leaders at the front, the procession moved forward and the noise surged. Hurnegur and Jeshkra produced long wooden staffs wound with silver spiral patterns and began brandishing them in unison, and the crowd bellowed along in time. Julia exchanged glances with Konstantin and Irenya then recalled Talavera saying that this was a small ceremony. Before them a covered walkway led away from the armoured doors, a framework wrapped with off-white plastic sheeting. Devout Spiral followers were crammed in along either side, behind low barriers manned by guards with shockmaces. Underfoot the central aisle was covered in a textured matting, softening the rocky sand of the barren ground.
As the first of the long, midnight-blue missiles came into view, the mob burst into a thunderous roar that was insensate and savage. A few moments later the procession came to a halt and the two leaders moved to either side, standing near the barriers, surveying scraps of paper held out by members of the crowd. A moment later they came back with two ragged-clothed pilgrims, a Kiskashin and a Gomedran, who were given small black sticks then led over to the missiles. Staring intently, Julia suddenly realised that the believers were writing on them – she could just make out embellished script in a shiny metallic ink. Several minutes later the pilgrims rejoined the crowds behind the barriers and the procession moved on.
After about ten paces everyone stopped to repeat the inscription ritual. By now, Julia and the Enhanced had emerged fully from the cave and were standing in full view of the fervent wor-shippers. The full-length hooded garments had a function, she now realised, concealing much of their alien Human features while blinkering the wearers’ field of view. Yet Julia, out of curiosity, could not resist turning for a quick glance … and the faces she glimpsed were no different from those she had seen after arriving here, that first day on Zophor 3 …
After less than a day aboard Talavera’s cylindrical vessel, they had been transferred to a small, battered cargo shuttle. As the craft made a jolting, shuddering atmospheric descent to some unknown world, Talavera had surveyed them with those dangerous, gleeful eyes.
‘Usually, recruits for revolutions get fast-tracked into the struggle, willingly or otherwise,’ she had said. ‘But you five, ah, you’re special. Heard about those engineered brains of yours, those neural pathways that you can program by yourselves. I mean, that’s practically like growing a quantum computer in your head and devoting a lifetime to its development. It’s almost like being a high-autonomy AI, but without all the tiernet bugs, all those loyalty issues. Any one of you would be considered an asset of unequalled value, and look – I’ve got five!’ She had snapped her gloved fingers and laughed.
None of the Enhanced spoke. They had earlier agreed to say nothing unless under threat of violence, which had not so far played a part. But Julia had decided that it might be worthwhile risking a question or two.
‘What makes you so sure that we’re who you think we are?’ she had said. ‘Growing a computer in your head! Who ever heard of such a thing?’
‘Hmm, so the queen bee speaks at last,’ Talavera said. ‘What, you mean you’re really just innocent travellers, blameless tourists on your way to gape at the worlds of Halzaan and Fensahr before returning to Earth? With those military escorts of yours?’ She chuckled. ‘Sorry – I’ve seen the scans we carried out while you slept last night. Hell, I’ve seen your files! Yes, you are Julia Bryce and I claim my right as a cold-hearted mercenary bitch to hire you out to the highest bidder, who in this case happens to be the Covenant Order of the Spiral Prophecy.’
The shuttle had trembled with turbulence and the pitch of the jets deepened.
‘Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up,’ Julia had said dryly. ‘What’s our cut of the deal?’
‘It’s great, the best,’ said Talavera, a dangerous gleam in her eye. ‘Basically, you do what you’re told, and … you get to go on living.’
‘Could be worse.’ ‘You’ve no idea.’
As the shuttle made its landing approach, Talavera took out a pistol-grip injector and gave them all a dose each.
‘Broad-spectrum shutout tailored for your very special profiles,’ she had said. ‘I still wouldn’t go kissing the locals, though.’
The shuttle came down with a wavering, swaying motion ending with a cushioned thud. A side hatch unsealed with a wheeze of pressure equalisation and Julia felt her ears pop. Restraints were loosened and the Enhanced were steered down a ramp and out into a bright dusty heat. At the foot of the ramp Julia had paused to stare in astonishment at the vista of squalid poverty that spread in every direction. The shuttle had landed on a steep-sided outcrop overlooking a noisy sprawling expanse of shacks, huts, tents, and small, spidery-frameworked domes partially covered in grubby, sun-bleached sheeting. Inhabitants milled around, staring up at the newcomers, a variety of species, mainly Bargalil, Gomedran and Henkayans with a smattering of reptilian Kiskashin.
