The Unwound Way
Page 16
Rubbery neck muscles partially cushioned the blow, but he staggered into the elevator, the doors bouncing off him, and then dropped as though hamstrung, collapsing across the legs of the man he’d shot. I stepped in after him, snagging his feet off the doortrack with my own boot, and pushed the down button. Lying on his belly in a bright pool of his comrade’s blood, Baldy began a noseless, back-of-the-throat snore. The other man was a corpse, already pale and waxy-looking in the elevator’s milky light. But my own hand at the button panel looked just as fake and lifeless for a dim, cold, half-deaf moment before my senses caught up with events.
The doors opened, not onto street level, but one stop short of that, the transport station. Ken Mishima must have just pushed the up button on the other side of the portal. He jumped back, then froze, staring at me and the bloody bodies at my feet. “Get in here!” I snarled, and hauled at one of his arms; the big man was too stunned to resist. I pushed the down button again.
“I…Everyone else got away,” he said, “but some men came through and I had to hide under the platform, and then I thought I might as well come back and give you some—” he hadn’t stopped staring, as I busied myself straightening the lines of my uniform—“some help.”
“You were going to just walk back in there?”
“I was sure you’d have wound up talking to them in the end. The Column always deals.”
“Not much chance of that now. And we can forget sneaking past the guards; there are two hundred of them.”
He knelt down between the bodies with an old soldier’s unconcern for gore, and I had the sudden sick feeling he’d insist we finish off Baldy. But Mishima was only interested in collecting weapons. He looked up from the crossbow and shotgun with the most expression he’d ever shown me, spooked bafflement.
“They’re both smashed to junk,” he said. “What did you—How did you—?”
The elevator doors crashed open onto a dead street.
“I had to use both hands,” I said. “Let’s go.”
◆◆◆
We jogged to the old human cemetery by way of the narrowest streets we could find, trying to stay out of sight of the elevated transport tubes in case the pursuit team should use them. Mishima was in excellent shape, despite a slight paunch, and he could talk while he ran.
“If you really are a Shadow Tribune, I have something to say.”
“I never claimed to be one,” I gasped, “but try me anyway. You’re not really a historian, are you?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m not saying anything if you won’t trust me.”
“With the information that I’m a Tribune? Would a real Shadowman admit to that?”
“Ah,” he said, “I understand.” As if that weren’t enough to kill the conversation, he added, “Truth must ripen before it can be digested.”
“Sure,” I said.
◆◆◆
The cemetery was a large wooded park at the boundary between city and wilderness; a black wall twenty meters high veed forward to meet it and curtained off all view to the north. Inside, the trees and grasses looked like variants on Terran strains—presumably Elitist imports—as did the birds and insects, the first animal life I’d seen in this underworld. As we passed through a second gate marked ELYSIUM, I realized how much larger and hillier the cemetery was than I had thought, and wondered if finding our comrades would be a problem. But then Harry Lagado hissed at us from behind a wild hedge. He said Foyle had placed him there as a lookout, then gave us directions to the hiding place.
The old paths had been overgrown hundreds of years before, but still made shadowy dents in the tall grass. Tombstones, too, were but half obscured, emerging from the waves of green like breakers. The Elitists had fashioned their memorials out of white marble, perhaps in contrast to the Titan ceramics they’d had to live with; the stones showed the wear of rain, but remained legible enough for the archaeologists to argue over. I heard Foyle’s voice first; it led us to a grassy rise.
“Here’s another one,” she was saying. “ ‘Died in the Hellway still a boy, Juli 2886.’ What sort of society engages in child sacrifice?”
“That’s only two deaths attributed to the Hellway, a hundred years apart,” Helen Hogg-Smythe replied patiently. “Maybe there are many more, but then again, maybe not. I’m finding it harder to read. Is it just me, or is the ‘sky’ getting darker? Maybe it follows the surface’s day and night.”
“Look at all these adopted children, though,” Foyle went on, undeterred. “Usually joining a family full-grown, after their rite of passage. Replacements for natural children lost in the Hellway?”
You’d have thought they’d keep their voices down, just on general principles, but no; and we would have had to shout to quiet them.
Hogg-Smythe’s tone was a plea to change the subject. “I just had a thought. Why ‘Elysium’ and ‘Persephone Walk’? Why did the Elitists switch from using Nordic names like ‘Arnheim,’ ‘Avalon,’ and so forth—after their forefathers’ tradition—to names based on Greco-Roman mythology? Just part of their rebellion?”
“A reflection of their darkest fears,” Foyle replied without hesitation. “The Elitists had turned their backs on traditional Eurosocialism. What would they be most afraid of becoming instead? What right-wing Terran political movement was deeply, viscerally tied to the old Nordic religions and lore? You’re a classicist.”
“The Nasties, you mean. Swastikas and all that.”
“Nazis, I think it was. And much more vivid in civilized memory twelve hundred years ago. I think it’s very significant that the Elitists should suddenly shy away from any Wagnerian cultural echoes. Their parent colony had a clearer conscience.”
“Oh, but really, Foyle. If you’re going to argue by opposites—”
“You should do it in whispers,” I said as Mishima and I cleared the crown of the hill. “Real nasties are searching for you even now, children.”
The six of them were sitting on a family group of tombstones, framed against the darkening sky, not quite a family group themselves—Ariel too blonde, Francisco too dark, Lagado too soft to be related to the others. But they looked at us with almost one reaction: pleasure at our survival quickly dampened as they realized that no one had reached the surface for help.
I briefly recounted how I’d eavesdropped and escaped.
“The news is not good,” I said. “There are two hundred mercenaries. They’ll keep the lake exit guarded. They’re sending in a team to actively pursue us, too, but at least it’s small, and doesn’t know where to look. And they won’t have field radios or modern weapons.”
“Why not?” Ariel asked.
“They must have their combat equipment cached aboveground somewhere. They know what the electromagnetic pulse in the lake shaft would do to it, so they haven’t gone to the trouble of bringing it down here, where they don’t need it anyway. But it must be standard to bring a complement of sport-hunting weapons along on a contract like this, to a planet with forests that can supply fresh meat. Military A-rifles, with their radar scanners and smart bullets, might be picked up by the recon satellites, but not bows and arrows and gunpowder.”
“That explains the green forest outfits, too,” Foyle remarked. “But why risk surface hunting at all?”
“They can’t have been resupplied in a long time,” I said. “And they probably need the action. Morale is poor. Didn’t you tell me about a disturbance in the bushes the other night? Well, a merc was stalking you, Foyle, until some others overpowered him.” I let that sink in a moment. “But now they’re expecting relief in a month or two. And that’s more bad news—they’re not just guarding an archaeological find. Their client wants Senator Mehta dead. They’re going to assault the base camp just before he arrives, and lay a trap for him.”
“But who would—” Ariel began.
“Their client is Sir Maximilien Condé,” I said. “An old personal enemy of Mehta’s, as you know. The Knuckle-Cracker.”
“Every powerful man has powerful enemies,” Foyle said. “Isn’t this Condé a high mucketymuck, too, admiral in the militia navy or something?”
“Not any more,” Ariel said impatiently. “Not unless the Senate investigation of defense contractors clears him. But I suppose he could still have allies in the militia; he’s paid off enough officers there…”
“I got the impression that something bigger than just an assassination is planned,” I told them. “What, I don’t know, but the details don’t really matter. One warning message to the senator can still stop it. But we’d have to be on the surface to deliver it. And I don’t see how we can get there; the mercenaries have orders to shoot on sight.”
“Speaking of which, Foyle,” Mishima said, gesturing northward. “Is it sound guerrilla practice to place your back against a wall?”
It was true that the city wall towered above us. The far slope of the hill we stood on ran directly into the prow of the huge black V, where the junction was marked by a great crypt of white marble half smothered in wild hedge and creepers. No name appeared on its front, but an open archway invited further exploration.
Foyle pointed at the crypt. “When there’s only one hole in that wall, Ken—yes, you want to be straddling the exit.”
“We can escape to the wilderness through there?” I asked.
“Very likely,” Hogg-Smythe said. “That’s why I suggested this t-stop. And I wanted to see it for its own sake. That crypt is the entrance to the Hellway. The legendary portal through which every Elitist eighteen-year-old had to go. From there he or she would travel thousands of k’s, have instructive adventures, and finally be affirmed as an adult and a citizen under the stars of the north pole.”
“Why a crypt in a graveyard?” Ariel asked.
“The usual symbolism,” Foyle said. “Entrance to the next world. Death before rebirth. That sort of thing. But the more I look at the cultural background, the less I think of the Hellway as a safe hideout.”
Hogg-Smythe looked fed up at this. “They sent their own children through it—”
“But we’re not sure why. Perhaps to justify the upper classes in their rank, by weeding out the weak and unfit. It could be a very dangerous place.”
“I must agree with Helen, Foyle,” said the friar. “We don’t know enough about the Elitists to take such a dark view of them.”
“Someone is coming!” Mishima snapped, looking down the other side of the hill. “Wait—it’s just the boy.”
“Probably wants relief,” Foyle said. “He should have waited.”
I had the feeling that I’d overlooked something important. “Helen, you said something about stars at the north pole. Is that where the other exit to the surface is?”
“I thought we’d told you that before,” she replied. “Yes. But we’d have to traverse the entire Hellway to reach it, Commissioner, and where would we be once we had? The polar wastes. Now, if we had a radio…”
“I…” Foyle’s voice was strange. She began again. “I didn’t mention it before, but I have a way of communicating with my freighter, if we did reach the surface. I could relay a message to the satellites. We could—”
“Hold on, this is important,” I said. “The Hellway is the only way to reach that exit?”
“Yes, we said that.”
“And that crypt is the only entrance to the Hellway?”
“That, too,” Foyle said dryly.
“Then, we have to get the hell out of here. Condé must have used those library terminals, too. He wrote up a post description for his guards, and—” But I was far too late.
Harry Lagado came puffing up to us. “Men in the street. Couldn’t tell if they were coming in or not. Sure they didn’t see me.”
“They didn’t have to,” I said. “Get down off those stones, people, aren’t you listening?”
I crouched next to Mishima, and he pointed south. Birds were exploding from tree after tree. “Already close,” he said. “And there may be flankers—yes, look there.”
“No choice, then,” I said. “Wild country is our only chance to lose them. Head for the crypt, everybody, the Hellway. Come on, run!”
They were slow at first, perhaps unbelieving, but then we heard thrashing sounds in nearby shrubbery, and someone shouting, “Isn’t that them?”—and like the birds, we flew.
Chapter Fourteen
We had no choice. We pounded and puffed toward the crypt, praying we’d find the way through it. I pulled ahead, wanting to inspect the ground before the others arrived. Piet Wongama must have had the same idea; his long legs carried him past me and through the entrance.
“Overhead door, maybe,” he panted when I staggered in. “But no controls.” A glance proved him right. As the others entered, I surveyed the interior. We were in a dimly lit chamber that seemed limitless in horizontal extent, although the ceiling, a black and white checkerboard of meter-square panels, was low enough to touch. A few small bright lights gleamed in the distance. The floor was black and smooth, though faint lines sketched out tiles the same size as the ceiling panels.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I was surprised by an insect drifting past me, head high. It was an oversized wasp of iridescent gold, trailed by colorful, insubstantial plumes. It shone like a queen of the air in the light from outside, then faded away into the dark interior. As the last of our people came in, Harry Lagado shepherding his father, I saw a half dozen more of the wasps following them, while a stream of others flew out, higher, through the crown of the arch.
The worn-out runners made despairing noises as they took in the situation. There was nothing for it but to run on toward the distant darkness where floor and ceiling met. Outside, brush crackled; the mercenaries were close behind us. We began another sprint, somehow. Not so hard for me, or Ariel, or Mishima, but Foyle had that backpack, Lagado his weight and clumsiness. Regardless, they all pounded on, pounded on.
Something almost brushed my head as I ran beneath it, a broad round papery mass attached to a dark square of the ceiling. It left only the faintest impression; later, I would see one more clearly. Onward, onward.
Behind us, the archway’s overhead door came down.
The entrance had been the brightest source of light. The sound of footfalls faltered, then returned, as most of us looked back. My own glance to the rear showed that Ariel had lagged a little behind me, while the others were strung out widely. If I slowed in this darkness I would just get in their way. As I faced front again, my cheek brushed against one of the big bird-of-paradise insects. I swore and lurched to one side without stopping as it serenely floated off.
There was no way of knowing how far we’d penetrated the chamber when the few lights ahead of us went out. I came to a dead halt. The rattle of footsteps died away; voices called out in the utter darkness. Thinking of Ariel and perhaps of others too trusting for their own good, I shouted, “I’m here!”
A soft but somehow immense moan sounded all around me. “I’m here,” I said again, but the sound of my voice had a different quality this time. Moments passed and the only reply was my own panting, and that, too, sounded less resonant, more closely echoed.
I reached out and touched a flat surface, hard and slick. Then my hands found two walls perpendicular to that one, and I could touch both at once. Worst of all, I now backed into a fourth. I was inside whatever it was, not outside.
I spun around in a momentary panic. It wasn’t mere claustrophobia; I was a sunplunger, after all. It was the glassy feel of the walls, like a suspend-sleep tank, where you dream and dream and trust others to wake you up before you lose all sense of what’s real and what’s not…
Assumption: partitions had risen from the floor or descended from above, t
rapping me on a square tile the area of a ceiling panel. I braced my back against one wall, raised one leg and pushed out against the other side. Then I tried both legs, full strength. There was a slight, tantalizing give in either direction, and I was sure now that I dealt with thin partitions rather than solid walls. But subsequent kicking, hitting, and swearing proved that they were both unbreakable and somehow sound-absorbent. The corners met squarely, without gaps. I wondered how fast I’d use up my air.
Lights came on, revealing the walls to be transparent. I now realized that every panel in the chamber—floor and ceiling—could be lit like a lamp. The top and bottom of my cell glowed a bright, pure white, painful after the minutes in darkness. The panels adjacent were also lit, one block in every direction past the glass. Beyond that, the main chamber’s floor and ceiling had gone totally nonreflective all around me, making my booth an island on a sea of blackness.
Not the only one, however. Every member of our party was immured in the same way, and as brightly lit. Museum displays. Homo sapiens, Early Column Era. Piet Wongama and Ken Mishima had been farther ahead in the direction of our flight, which oriented me. Ariel was nearly level with me to one side, the ever-surprising Helen Hogg-Smythe close behind. Harry Lagado was far to the rear, on a line with his father and what had to be Friar Francisco, while Foyle was a considerable distance off in her own direction, only that red head distinguishable between tiny planes of light.
Ariel waved and appeared to be shouting something as she pounded on a wall that was invisible to me. Not a sound could be heard. But it was good to see that I was not alone. Less dreamlike.
We had failed to realize that the Elitists’ rite of passage was still a living custom, presided over by their old computers.
We were being treated as candidates for adulthood, and as such could not just stroll from the crypt to the countryside. The ancient ritual demanded disorienting mysteries first, like the blindfolded walk in Freemasonry or Kanalism’s hour in the Black Chamber. I smiled back at Ariel and tried to suggest, with a shrug, that the situation wasn’t dangerous.