The White Mountain

by David Wingrove

  On the sixth day they took her from the cell, out into a brightness that made her screw her eyes tight, tiny spears of pain lancing her head. Outside, they hosed her down and disinfected her, then threw her into another cell, shackling her to the floor at wrist and ankle.

  She lay there for a time, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the light. After the foetid darkness of the tiny cell she had the sense of space about her, yet when finally she looked up, it was to find herself eye to eye with a naked man. He was crouched on all fours before her, his eyes lit with a feral glint, his penis jutting stiffly from between his legs. She drew back sharply, the sudden movement checked by her chains. And then she saw them.

  She looked about her, appalled. There were forty, maybe fifty naked people in the cell with her, men and women both. All were shackled to the floor at wrist and ankle. Some met her eyes, but it was without curiosity, almost without recognition. Others simply lay there, listless. As she watched, one of them raised herself on her haunches and let loose a bright stream of urine, then lay still again, like an animal at rest.

  She shuddered. So this was it. This was her fate, her final humiliation, to become like these poor souls. She turned back, looking at her neighbour. He was leaning towards her, grunting, his face brutal with need, straining against his chains, trying to get at her. One hand was clutched about his penis, jerking it back and forth urgently.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said softly. ‘Please…’ But it was as if he was beyond the reach of words. She watched him, horrified; watched his face grow pained, his movements growing more frantic, and then, with a great moan of pain, he came, his semen spurting across the space between them.

  She dropped her eyes, her face burning, her heart pounding in her chest. For a moment – for the briefest moment – she had felt herself respond; had felt something in her begin to surface, as if to answer that fierce, animal need in his face.

  She lay there, letting her pulse slow, her thoughts grow still, then lifted her head, almost afraid to look at him again. He lay quietly now, no more than two ch’i from her, his shoulders rising and falling gently with each breath. She watched him, feeling immense pity, wondering who he was and what crime he had been sent here for.

  For a time he lay still, soft snores revealing he was sleeping, then, with a tiny whimper, he turned slightly, moving on to his side. As he did she saw the brand on his upper arm; saw it and caught her breath, her soul shrivelling up inside her.

  It was a fish. A stylized fish.

  Chen stood in the doorway to the Mess, looking into the deeply shadowed room. There was the low buzz of conversation, the smell of mild euphorics. Sitting at the bar, alone, a tall glass at his elbow, was Debrenceni. Seeing Chen, he lifted his hand and waved him across.

  ‘How are the kidneys?’

  Chen laughed. ‘Sore, but no serious damage. She connected badly.’

  ‘I know. I saw it.’ Debrenceni was serious a moment longer, then he smiled. ‘You did well, despite that. It looked as if you’d been doing the job for years.’

  Chen dropped his head. He had been in the sick bay for the last six days, the first two in acute pain.

  ‘What do you want to drink?’

  Chen looked up. ‘I’d best not.’

  ‘No. Maybe not.’ Debrenceni raised his glass, saluting Chen. ‘You were right about the girl, though.’

  ‘I know.’ He hesitated, then, ‘Have you wired her yet?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’ Debrenceni sat back a little on his stool, studying him. ‘You know, you were lucky she didn’t kill you. If the Security forces hadn’t worked her over before we’d got her, she probably would have.’

  Chen nodded, conscious of the irony. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Nothing. I thought we’d wait until you got back on duty.’

  It was not what Chen had expected. ‘You want me to carry on? Even after what happened?’

  ‘No. Because of what happened.’ Debrenceni laid his hand lightly on Chen’s shoulder. ‘We see things through here, Tong Chou. To the bitter, ineluctable end.’

  ‘Ineluctable?’

  ‘Ineluctable,’ repeated Debrenceni solemnly. ‘That from which one cannot escape by struggling.’

  ‘Ah…’ In his mind Chen could see the girl and picture the slow working out of her fate. Ineluctable. Like the gravity of a black hole or the long, slow process of entropy. Things his son, Jyan, had told him of. He gave a tiny, bitter laugh.

  Debrenceni smiled tightly, removing his hand from Chen’s shoulder. ‘You understand, then?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘No one here has a choice.’

  ‘Then I understand.’

  ‘Good. Then we’ll start in the morning. At six sharp. I want you to bring her from the cells. I’ll be in the theatre. Understand?’

  It was late when Chen returned to his room. He felt frayed and irritable. More than that, he felt ashamed and – for the first time since he’d come to Kibwezi – guilty of some awfulness that would outweigh a lifetime’s atonement. He sat heavily on his bed and let his head fall into his hands. Today had been the day. Before now he had been able to distance himself from what had been happening. Even that last time, facing her in the cell, it had not really touched him. It had been something abstract; something happening to someone else – Tong Chou, perhaps – who inhabited his skin. But now he knew. It was himself. No one else had led her there and strapped her down, awaiting surgery. It was no stranger who had looked down at her while they had cut her open and put things in her head.

  ‘That was me,’ he said, shuddering. ‘That was me in there.’

  He sat up, drawing his feet under him, then shook his head in disbelief. And yet he had to believe. It had been too real – too personal – for disbelief.

  He swallowed deeply. Drake had warned him. Drake had said it would be like this. One day fine, the next the whole world totally different; like some dark, evil trick played on your eyesight, making you see nothing but death. Well, Drake was right. Now he too could see it. Death. Everywhere death. And he a servant of it.

  There was a knocking at the door.

  ‘Go away!’

  The knocking came again. Then a voice. ‘Tong Chou? Are you all right?’

  He turned and lay down, facing the wall. ‘Go away…’

  Ywe Hao had never run so far, or been so afraid. As she ran she seemed to balance two fears in the pit of her stomach: her fear of what lay behind outweighing her fear of the dark into which she ran. Instinct took her towards the City. Even in the dark she could see its massive shape against the skyline, blotting out the light-scattered velvet backdrop.

  It was colder than she had ever thought it could be. And darker. As she ran she whimpered, not daring to look back. When the first light of morning coloured the sky at her back she found herself climbing a gradual slope. Her pace had slowed, but still she feared to stop and rest. At any moment they would discover her absence. Then they would be out, after her.

  As the light intensified, she slowed, then stopped and turned, looking back. For a while she stood there, her mouth open. Then, as the coldness, the stark openness of the place struck her, she shuddered violently. It was so open. So appallingly open. Another kind of fear, far greater than anything she had known before, made her take a backward step.

  The whole of the distant horizon was on fire. Even as she watched, the sun’s edge pushed up into the sky, so vast, so threatening, it took her breath. She turned, away from it, horrified, then saw, in the first light, what lay ahead.

  At first the ground rose slowly, scattered with rock. Then it seemed to climb more steeply until, with a suddenness that was every bit as frightening as anything she had so far seen, it ended in a thick, choking veil of whiteness. Her eyes went upward… No, not a veil, a wall. A solid wall of white that seemed soft, almost insubstantial. Again she shuddered, not understanding, a deep-rooted, primitive fear of such things making her crouch into herself. And still her eyes went up until, beyo
nd the wall’s upper lip, she saw the massive summit of the shape she had run towards throughout the night. The City…

  Again she sensed a wrongness to what she saw. The shape of it seemed… Seemed what? Her arms were making strange little jerking movements and her legs felt weak. Gritting her teeth, she tried to get her mind to work, to triumph over the dark, mindless fear that was washing over her, wave after wave. For a moment she seemed to come to herself again.

  What was wrong? What in the gods’ names was it?

  And then she understood. The shape of it was wrong. The rough, tapered, irregular look of it. Whereas… Again her mouth fell open. But if it wasn’t the City… then what in hell’s name was it?

  For a moment longer she stood there, swaying slightly, caught between two impulses, then, hesitant, glancing back at the growing circle of fire, she began to run again. And as she ran – the dark image of the sun’s half-circle stamped across her vision – the wall of mist came down to meet her.

  It was just after dawn when the two cruisers lifted from the pad and banked away over the compound, heading north-west, towards the mountain. Chen was in the second craft, Drake at the controls beside him. On Chen’s wrist, scarcely bigger than a standard Security field comset, was the tracer unit. He glanced at it, then stared steadily out through the windscreen, watching the grassy plain flicker by fifty ch’i below.

  ‘We’re going to kill her, aren’t we?’

  Drake glanced at him. ‘She was dead before she came here. Remember that.’

  Chen shook his head. ‘That’s just words. No, what I mean is that we are going to kill her. Us. Personally.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘No. Not in a manner of speaking. This is real. We’re going out to kill her. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but I can’t help it. It seems…’ He shook his head. ‘It’s just that some days I can’t believe it’s me, doing this. I’m a good man. At least, I thought I was.’

  Drake was silent, hunched over the controls as if concentrating, but Chen could see he was thinking; chewing over what he’d said.

  ‘So?’ Chen prompted.

  ‘So we set down, do our job, get back. That’s it.’

  Again Chen stared at Drake for a long time, not sure even what he was looking for. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there. He looked down at the tiny screen. Below the central glass were two buttons. They looked innocuous enough, but he wasn’t sure. Only Drake knew what they were for.

  He looked away, holding his tongue. Maybe it was best to see it as Drake saw it. As just another job to be done. But his disquiet remained, and, as the mountain grew larger through the front screen, his sense of unreality grew with it.

  It was all so impersonal. As if what they were tracking was a thing, another kind of machine – one that ran. But Chen had seen her close; had looked into her eyes and stared down into her face while Debrenceni had been operating. He had seen just how vulnerable she was.

  How human…

  He had put on the suit’s heater and pulled the helmet visor down – even so, his feet felt like ice and his cheeks were frozen. A cold breeze blew across the mountain now, shredding the mist in places, but generally it was thick, like a flaw in seeing itself.

  There was a faint buzz on his headset, then a voice came through. ‘It’s clearing up here. We can see right up the mountain now, to the summit.’

  Chen stared up the slope, as if to penetrate the dense mist, then glanced back at Drake. ‘What now?’

  Drake nodded distractedly, then spoke into his lip-mike. ‘Move to within a hundred ch’i. It looks like she’s stopped. Gustaffson, you go to the north of where she is. Palmer, come round to the east. Tong Chou and I will take the other points. That way we’ve got a perfect grid.’

  Drake turned, looking up the mountain. ‘Okay. Let’s give this thing a proper test.’

  Chen spoke to Drake’s back. ‘The trace ought to be built into a visor display. This thing’s vulnerable when you’re climbing. Clumsy, too.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Drake answered, beginning to climb. ‘It’s a bloody nuisance. It should be made part of the standard Security headgear, with direct computer input from a distance.’

  ‘You mean wire the guards, too?’

  Drake paused, mist wreathing his figure. ‘Why not? That way you could have the coordinator at a distance, out of danger. It would make the team less vulnerable. The runner couldn’t get at the head – the brains behind it.’

  Halfway up, Drake turned, pointing across. ‘Over there. Keep going until you’re due south of her. Then wait. I’ll tell you what to do.’

  Chen went across, moving slowly over the difficult terrain, then stopped, his screen indicating that he was directly south of the trace, approximately a hundred ch’i down. He signalled back, then waited, listening as the others confirmed they were in place. The mist had cleared up where he was and he had eye contact with both Gustaffson and Palmer. There was no sign of the runner.

  Drake’s voice sounded in his headset. ‘You should be clear any minute. We’ll start when you are.’

  Chen waited, while the mist slowly thinned out around him. Then, quite suddenly, he could see the mountain above him, the twin peaks of Kebo and Mawensi white against the vivid blue of the sky. He shivered, looking across, picking out the others against the slope.

  ‘I see you,’ Drake said, before he could say anything. ‘Good. Now come up the slope a little way. We’ll close to fifty now. Palmer, Gustaffson, you do the same.’

  Chen walked forward slowly, conscious of the others as they closed on him. Above him was a steep shelf of bare earth. As he came closer he lost sight, first of Drake, then of the other two.

  ‘I’ll have to come up,’ he said into his lip-mike. ‘I can’t see a thing from down here.’

  He scrambled up and stood there, on the level ground above the shelf, where the thick grass began. He was only twenty ch’i from the trace signal now. The others stood back at fifty, watching him.

  ‘Where is she?’ he said, softer than before.

  ‘Exactly where the trace shows she is,’ said Drake into his head. ‘In that depression just ahead of you.’

  He had seen it already, but it looked too shallow to hide a woman.

  ‘Palmer?’ It was Drake again. Chen listened. ‘I want you to test the left-hand signal on your handset. Turn it slowly to the left.’

  Chen waited, watching the shallow pit in front of him. It seemed as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Good,’ said Drake. ‘Now you, Gustaffson. I want you to press both your controls at the same time. Hold them down firmly for about twenty seconds. Okay?’

  This time there was a noise from the depression. A low moaning that increased as the seconds passed. Then it cut off abruptly. Chen shuddered. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Just testing,’ Drake answered. ‘Each of our signals is two-way. They transmit, but they also have a second function. Palmer’s cuts off all motor activity in the cortex. Gustaffson’s works on what we call the pain gate, stimulating nerves at the stem of the brain.’

  ‘And yours?’ asked Chen. He could hear the breathing of the others on the line as they listened in.

  ‘Mine’s the subtlest. I can talk to our runner. Directly. Into her head.’

  The line went silent. From the depression in front of Chen came a sudden whimper of pure fear. Then Drake was speaking again. ‘Okay. You can move the signal back to its starting position. Our runner is ready to come out.’

  There was a tense moment of waiting then from the front of the shallow pit a head bobbed up. Wearily, in obvious pain, the woman pulled herself up out of the deep hole at the front lip of the shallow depression. As her head came up and round she looked directly at Chen. For a moment she stood there, swaying, then she collapsed and sat back, pain and tiredness etched in her ravaged face. She looked ragged and exhausted. Her legs and arms were covered in contusions and weeping cuts.

  Drake must have spoken to her again, for sh
e jerked visibly and looked round, finding him. Then she looked about her, seeing the others. Her head dropped and for a moment she just sat there, breathing heavily, her arms loose at her sides.

  ‘Okay,’ Drake said. ‘Let’s wrap things up.’

  Chen turned and looked across at Drake. In the now brilliant sunlight he seemed a cold and alien figure. His suit, like all of them, was non-reflective. Only the visor sparkled menacingly. Just now he was moving closer in. Twenty ch’i from the woman he stopped. Chen watched as Drake made Palmer test his signal again. As it switched off, the woman fell awkwardly to one side. Then, moments later, she pushed herself up again, looking round, wondering what had happened to her. Then it was Gustaffson’s turn. He saw how the woman’s face changed, her teeth clamped together, her whole body arching as she kicked out in dreadful pain.

  When she sat up again, her face twitched visibly. Something had broken in her. Her eyes, when they looked at him now, seemed lost.

  He looked across at Drake, appalled, but Drake was talking to her again. Chen could see his lips moving, then looked back and saw the woman try to cover her ears, a look of pure terror on her face.

  Slowly, painfully, she got up and, looking straight at Chen, clambered over the lip and began to make her way towards him, almost hopping now, each touch of her damaged leg against the ground causing her face to buckle in pain. But still she came.

  He made to step back, but Drake’s voice was suddenly in his headset, on the discreet channel. ‘Your turn,’ it said. ‘Just hold down the left-hand button and touch the right.’

  She was less than two body-lengths away from him now, reaching out to him. He looked down at the tiny screen, then held and touched.

  The air was filled with a soft, wet sound of exploding matter. As if someone had fired a gun off in the middle of a giant fruit. And there, where the signal had been, there was nothing.

  He looked up. The body was already falling, the shoulders and upper chest ruined by the explosion that had taken off the head. He turned away, sickened, but the stench of burned flesh was in his nostrils and gobbets of her ruptured, bloodied flesh were spattered all over his suit and visor. He stumbled and almost went down the steep, bare bank, but stopped there on the edge, swaying, keeping his balance, telling himself quietly that he would not be sick, over and over again.