Deborah was playing with Rachel when he reached home. The little girl held up a sheet of hemp paper crisscrossed by blue and green lines. “Look, Daddy!” she said, crowding round his legs and nearly tripping him. “I drew the fields. It’s for Aras.”
“That’s lovely, sweetie. I think he’ll like it.” He scooped her up in his arms and stood over Deborah, who was packing brushes and paints back into their box. “He called, then?”
“He’ll be here tomorrow. He didn’t say much.”
“Well, the Frankland woman is ready.”
“She’s all right. I think you should put some trust in her.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She cleaned up her room before she left. Very thoroughly, I might add. That tells you something about a person.”
Josh laughed. “Yes, I imagine she’s someone who always cleans up after herself.”
“Why’s Aras got claws?” Rachel cut in.
“Because he’s Aras,” said her mother.
“He says his people don’t have claws.”
“Well, Aras is very special, even for a wess’har, darling. Don’t talk about that when the visitors are around, though, will you? You know it’s our secret.”
“Yes, Mummy. Is he an angel?”
“No, he’s someone who takes care of us. And we’ll take care of him, too, won’t we? We’ll keep his secret.”
Rachel put her finger to her lips in a mime of silence. Then she wriggled free of Josh’s arms and skipped off with her drawing.
“Whatever happens,” Deborah said, “we’ll all come through it. The hardest part was staying alive this long.”
Josh gave her a weak smile and sat down to the tea and citrus cake she placed on the table in front of him. Deborah was usually right. It was just the “it” they would have to come through that worried him.
“Take care with the roads,” Josh said, striding confidently. “They’re alive.”
Shan trailed behind Bennett, Becken, Mesevy and Rayat, mirroring their steps along the slight convex curve of the matted vegetation. Ahead of them, Josh picked out the path.
“The wess’har build organic roads?” asked Mesevy.
“No, the firm ground through the marshy areas is made up of colonies of organisms. We just use them as paths.” Josh had that patient tone of someone used to dealing with small children asking the same question for the fortieth time. “The tracks move around from time to time. Look out for the darker moss. That’s where the boggy ground is.”
“How deep is it?” Shan called.
Josh didn’t turn his head. “Meters,” he said. “Fall in and you’ll be gone.”
Mesevy and Rayat said nothing, but Shan noted they hitched their backpacks a little as if to make absolutely sure of their balance. Bennett and Becken both carried metal poles in one hand, apparently standard survival kit in treacherous terrain. It wasn’t the sort of precaution Shan was used to in urban Europe, although the poles looked handy enough to give a troublesome yob a quick whack round the ear.
“What’s it for?” she whispered to Bennett. He exuded soap and tidy determination. “Testing depths?”
“No, ma’am. For getting out of a tight spot.”
The bog—or quicksand—looked deceptively solid. In places, it was almost as lush and velvet-perfect as a bowling green, but liquid pooled in places and gave a hint of the real danger there. Without the network of tangled plant-life that formed a substantial but gradually shifting web across its surface, the bog would have formed a natural barrier between the colony and the rest of the island.
From time to time, Mesevy and Rayat paused to place a probe into the ground and take readings. Josh stood over them, watching carefully: Mesevy unfurled a roll of white tape, tore off a ten-centimeter strip with gloved hands and dragged the tape with slow care across the surface of the bog. “Is this okay, Josh?” she asked. “I’m just picking up surface cells for analysis.”
Josh seemed satisfied it was non-invasive. The bog didn’t seem to care. “Fine by me,” he said, and from then on Mesevy stopped at every color change on the route to swipe her tape across it and bag the samples. Rayat simply followed her, looking unhappy. Then he stumbled.
“Careful,” called Becken. “Slow down. Don’t want to have to fish you out, do we?”
I wouldn’t bother, that’s for sure, Shan thought. Miserable sod. She reached for her swiss and stood still to check the transmission digest back at camp. Eddie was busy on the line, uploading voice copy. God only knew how he managed to make so much story material simply out of building a camp, installing plumbing and seeing orange grass in the distance: she had to give him credit for ingenuity.
Bennett turned and waited for her. He smiled nervously and let her catch up before resuming his careful progress. The living road was about a meter and a half wide.
“Wow,” said Mesevy. She pointed. Ahead of her, flashing out of the surface of the bog like a leaping salmon, was a glistening sheet of something transparent. Shan held the swiss up to catch a few images.
“Aras calls that a sheven,” Josh said. “Stay clear of it. They hunt by enveloping prey and they can be big, really big. Then they digest you.”
“Like being sucked dry by cling-film,” Shan said.
“Does everything here do that?” Bennett asked. Shan had mentioned the rockvelvets to him, and it did not appear to fascinate him at all. He almost shuddered visibly. “Don’t they have harmless furry things?”
Josh didn’t answer.
They watched the sheven flapping around like a plastic bag and then it plunged back below the surface with a slurping noise. It had probably found some unnamed and unknown victim in the depths of the mud. Shan felt a familiar uneasiness at the thought of unseen misery.
“Like you said, Superintendent, we can always use the database,” Mesevy said, and seemed relieved not to have to tackle the sheven with a swipe of tape. Shan pocketed the swiss. Maybe the prospect of wildlife with nasty eating habits would encourage the payload not to push their luck over samples.
The road began to narrow. Josh paused and looked around. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s moved since last week. There was a path through here before but it’s gone now. Turn around slowly and stand still while I pass you.”
They tried to present as narrow a profile as they could to allow Josh to retrace his steps and take up the lead position again. Shan could feel a slight bounce as the live road sprang like a rope bridge at every step. Josh stepped carefully in front of Shan and looked around again.
“Sorry,” he said. “It looks like we’ll have to double back the whole way. Next time I’ll use the surface craft. This is getting too risky.”
It was only a single yelp that made them turn. And there was no Mesevy, at least not on the path. She was knee-deep in the bog, then waist-deep in a second, struggling but silent.
“Jon!” Bennett shouted, pointing and holding his arm like a compass as he made his way back towards the end of the line. “Overboard—there.”
Shan wondered where the sheven had got to.
Becken shook the pole out into its full length and lay flat to slide it out towards her. Bennett squatted beside him and drew a length of line out of his jacket. Mesevy was treading water in slow motion. She had also found her voice.
“Oh, god I’m going down I’m going down I’m—”
“Stay still,” Bennett said, very steady and controlled. “Just stop struggling. Stay still.”
“I can’t.”
“Over on your back. Go on. Just let go and pretend you’re lying down on grass.”
“I—”
“Now. On your back.”
She managed to twist and lean back, eyes wide in terror. Becken pushed the pole under her spine. “Try and slide it under your hips.”
Shan stepped forward. She knew there wasn’t anything she could do that the marines couldn’t, but it felt odd not to take control of an emergency. Where was that sheven? Everybody must have been
thinking the same thing. Nobody said a word.
Bennett was still trying to get the pole positioned under Mesevy. “Stop struggling,” he said. “Faster you move, higher the viscosity. You know about shearing forces, don’t you? Talk to me, Sabine. Shearing forces. Look at me. Just relax.” He turned to Shan and handed her the end of the length of line. “Anchor this, ma’am. Can you tie a bowline?”
“Just about.” Shan detached from the reality. She fumbled the line into place round her waist. And the old mnemonic came back to her, as surely as the SB ever did: she was suddenly with her dad at the seaside, watching him show her how to tie knots, studying his hands. Rabbit comes out the hole—round the tree—down the hole.
She tugged on the knot and it held fast. Detached or not, she also recalled how to release it if she had to. Bennett paid out the line in his hands and edged down next to Becken. Mesevy began thrashing around again, unable to control her panic enough to lie still and float with the pole lending more buoyancy to her hips. She was going under.
There was a plastic-bag flash a few meters away.
“Shit,” Bennett said.
If he hesitated, it was for a split-second, no more. He rolled onto the surface of the bog with his pole and let himself float, pushing slowly towards Mesevy and grabbing her hard. The whole sequence was slow and almost silent, except for Mesevy’s sobs. Bennett got the line round her and Becken began reeling her in slowly.
“Go limp,” Bennett shouted at her. “Go on. Do a starfish. Arms and legs apart. Stop struggling.”
And then she was half on the firm ground. Becken grabbed her and rolled her inboard. Bennett, on his back with his pole under his spine, waited for Becken to throw the line back and pull him in.
Part of the sheven flashed above the bog again. It might have been a small one. It could have been huge. Shan still held tightly to the rope knotted round her waist.
“That was close,” said Rayat. He hauled Mesevy to her feet and steadied her. The two marines stood panting with exertion, coated in more samples than Mesevy could ever want.
“Back to base,” Shan said, spotting the point at which they expected her to take control, and relieved by its familiarity. “I think it’s endex for the day. Follow Josh.”
She put her hand on Bennett’s shoulder. “Nice job,” she said.
He didn’t answer. He was staring ahead, white-faced, and his legs looked like they were starting to buckle. It took her a while to recognize terror. When she saw it, it seemed more shocking than watching Mesevy being sucked into the bog. She caught his elbow. She didn’t want the others to see him go down.
“You okay?” she said.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“No you’re not.” She grabbed his face in both hands and forced him to look at her. The slime and mud was still thick on him, and his eyes, fixed and wide, seemed startling. “Come on. Breathe slowly.”
The others were a little ahead, and Becken stopped to look: then he ushered the others on, seeming to realize Bennett didn’t want an audience.
“It’s okay. Come on. Deep breaths.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Hey, no problem. Just stand still for a while.”
“Okay. Okay.” He jerked his head out of her hands and vomited to one side of the path. Abject fear; sheer bloody animal fear. She felt something of his embarrassment. But he’d held on long enough to save Mesevy, and that took more guts than she could imagine. The sheven would have meant an unpleasant death, one that she didn’t feel like facing to save a stranger.
“I’ll never live this one down.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving another smear of bog behind it, and walked stiffly ahead. He had lost more than control of his stomach. He’d soiled himself. “Some fucking marine I am. Sorry, ma’am. No offense.”
Shan matched his pace and wished desperately that she had a knack for reassurance. “Don’t be bloody daft,” she said. “I’ve lost my bottle a few times, I can tell you. You’d have to be a fool not to be afraid out here.”
“But I lose it all the time. And everyone knows when it happens.” He held out his left palm, lit and live with data transmissions that charted spiked heart rate and peak adrenaline. “This bloody thing transmits all the time. I can’t fart without it relaying the fact.”
“No privacy, then? Ever?”
He shook his head. “Full-body diagnostics and voice. Battlefield fail-safe. I can’t disable it without a technician. Except the video, of course.”
She took his arm carefully. “There’s no shame in fear, Ade.” Using his first name seemed nakedly familiar. “It’s nature’s way of telling you not to be a dick-head.”
“No, I’m a panicker. That’s why I joined up, to get a bloody grip on it.”
“You didn’t look like a panicker to me today.”
He shrugged, sad and so deserving of a hug that she almost attempted it. There weren’t many heroes in her world. Bennett, who could face fear bad enough to make him lose control of his bowels and still function, had just become one of them.
Before they reached the camp, the reality of Bennett’s ever-vigilant bioscreen came home to her. Qureshi and Balwant Singh Chahal ambled towards them, grinning.
“Nice one, Sarge,” they called. “Waste of time making you breakfast, eh?” Bennett ignored the jibe and walked on.
“Oi, leave it out,” Shan snapped. The marines stood frozen. “It’s not a fucking joke, all right? Show some respect.”
She regretted the outburst instantly, and was surprised to see the two marines snap upright. They stopped a fraction short of saluting.
Bennett turned to her. “That’s very kind of you, ma’am, but they know I dumped because I was scared. I’ve done it before. But thanks anyway.”
“That damn thing records everything you do and say?”
“Everything.”
“Really everything?”
Bennett caught on. “Ah…yes. It’s not just the medication that keeps you celibate when you’re missionactive. Once they switch you on, everyone knows what you get up to.”
Their glances met for just a second too long for either of them to feel comfortable, and Shan was surprised to feel some dismay at the prospect of broadcast sex. She hadn’t even realized she found him appealing in that way. Shame. He was a nice bloke, a brave one, but that was as far as it could go. She made him his mug of coffee in the mess hall, not in his cabin, just to avoid thinking those undisciplined thoughts again. It was nothing she couldn’t suppress, after all.
“Guess what,” said Champciaux. His fine-boned patrician face appeared round Shan’s half-open hatchway. Now that he’d shaved off his thinning hair, he looked rather striking. “The AI got the cartography scanner back on line.”
“I know,” said Shan. “I saw the downlink activate.”
“Yes, but I’ve done some work on the images. Have you got five minutes to take a look?”
She closed the screen and leaned back in her chair, unsure what thrill a geologist could possibly show her. Champciaux had a kind of innocence about him, or perhaps she had imposed it on him because he was funded by less aggressive organizations than the others. He was a pure academic. He just examined rocks. He didn’t change genes or juggle disease against profit or defy nature. He just looked at creation.
Now he showed her what he looked at. It was a very vivid image on smartpaper, and somehow that seemed more real than the usual images on screen. She held the sheet and stared at it, not sure what she was seeing. The reds and blues and lime greens were three-dimensional; an image of a landscape like a fly-through, gently rolling land sliced with meandering streams. On top of the miniature world were superimposed yellow and violet lines, very regular, very unnatural, a grid like a wiring diagram. The bizarre tartan covered the whole sheet.
“City,” he said.
“I can’t get the scale.”
“Think Angkor Wat,” said Champciaux. “A city of millions. Even if the physical traces like walls and r
oads have disappeared with time, they still leave depressions and variations in the natural landscape. You can sometimes only see it with sonar or laser satellite imaging.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the archaeology shows. Tell me where this is.”
“These are the islands down the chain we’re on. Not only that, but I’ve got similar images from the coastline all the way down the continent. This was a heavily inhabited planet at some time in the past. Now, I’m not an expert on this, because I’m a rock man, but I can read geophys data like this as well as anyone.”
Shan was suddenly standing with Josh Garrod staring out at unspoiled alien heath, being told that there had once been a settlement there, a settlement that had been wiped away—not wiped out, not razed to the ground, but wiped away, erased in every sense of the word. She tried to orientate herself on the map.
“And where are we?”
Champciaux flicked the icon at the margin of the smartsheet, and a new image appeared. “Right here,” he said. He flicked the sizing icon and the scale enlarged.
Shan could pick out the coastline, the tiny speck of their camp and the barely discernible lace of Constantine’s concealed domes. The building was superimposed on a layer of fainter grid lines that covered the whole island like a net. And when she changed scale, there it was again, on the next island, and the next.
The network of traces might have been older than the missing city. The planet’s history was one of those blanks she would have to fill in, and for all she knew it could have been just like much of inhabited Earth, building on building, century after century. But she knew in her gut that it wasn’t like that at all.
The wess’har hadn’t just wiped away a city. They had obliterated a nation.
“May I hang on to this? I want to show it to someone.”
Champciaux nodded. “What do you think? I know we’re not here for archaeology, but this has got to be a hell of a find.”
City of Pearl Page 13