Vast low-lying sections of the floor had turned directly into quagmire from the rain and overspill. Entire forests had subsided, their trunks keeling over to lean against each other. Now they were slowly sinking deeper and deeper as the rapidly expanding subsurface water level gnawed away at the stability of the loam. Watched over the period of a day or two, it was almost as if they were melting away.
Small hillocks and knolls formed a vast archipelago of olive-green islands amid the ochre sea. Hundreds of distressed and emaciated aboriginal animals scurried about over each of them, herds of kolfrans (a deer-analogue) and packs of the small canine ferrangs were trampling the surviving blades of grass into a sticky pulp. Birds scuttled among them, their feathers too slick with mud for them to fly.
Many of the islands just below the foot of the slope had sections of road threaded across them. The eye could stitch them together into a single strand leading along the valley. It led towards a small town, just visible through the drizzle. Most of it had been built on raised land, leaving its buildings clear of the mud; as if the entire valley had become its moat. There was a church near the centre, its classic grey stone spire standing defiantly proud. Some kind of scarlet symbols had been painted around the middle.
“That’s got to be Ketton,” Franklin said. “Can you sense them?”
“Yes,” Stephanie said uncomfortably. “There’s a lot of us down there.” It would explain the condition of the buildings. There wasn’t a tile missing from the neat houses, no sign of damage. Even the little park was devoid of puddles.
“I guess that’s why these guys are like so anxious to reach it.” Cochrane jerked a thumb back down the valley.
It was the first time they’d actually seen the Liberation army. Twenty jeeps formed a convoy along the road. Whenever the carbon-concrete surface left the islands to dip under the mud, they slowed slightly, cautiously testing the way. The mud couldn’t have been very deep or thick, barely coming over the wheels. A V-shaped phalanx of serjeants followed on behind the jeeps, big dark figures lumbering along quite quickly considering none of them was on the road. On one side of the carbon-concrete strip, their line stretched out almost to the central river of mud; on the other it extended up the side of Catmos Vale’s wall. A second train of vehicles, larger than the jeeps, was turning into the valley several miles behind the front line.
“Ho-lee shit,” Franklin groaned. “We can’t make that sort of speed, not over this terrain.”
McPhee was studying the rugged land behind them. “I cannot see them up here.”
“They’ll be there,” Rana said. “They’re on the other side of the river as well, look. That line is kept level. There’s no break in it. They’re scooping us up like horse shit.”
“If we stay up here we’ll be nailed before sunset.”
“If we go down, we can keep ahead of them on the road,” Stephanie said. “But we’ll have to go through the town. I have a bad feeling about that. The possessed there know the serjeants are coming, yet they’re staying put. And there’s a lot of them.”
“They’re going to make a stand,” Moyo said.
Stephanie glanced back at the ominous line moving towards them. “They’ll lose,” she said, morosely. “Nothing can resist that.”
“We’ve no food left,” McPhee said.
Cochrane used an index finger to prod his purple sunglasses up along the bridge of his nose. “Plenty of water, though, man.”
“There’s nothing to eat up here,” Rana said. “We have to go down.”
“The town will hold them off for a while at least,” Stephanie said. She resisted glancing at Moyo, though he was now her principal concern. “We could use the time to take a break, rest up.”
“Then what?” Moyo grunted.
“Then we move on. We keep ahead of them.”
“Why bother?”
“Don’t,” she said softly. “We try and live life as we always wanted to, remember? Well I don’t want to live like this; and there might be something different up ahead, because there certainly isn’t anything behind. As long as we keep going, there’s hope.”
His face compressed to a melancholic expression. He held one arm out, moving his hand round to try and find her. She gripped his fingers tightly, and he hugged her against him. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she murmured. “Hey, you know what? The way we’re heading, it takes us right up to the central mountain range. You can show me what mountain gliding is like.”
Moyo laughed gruffly, his shoulders trembling. “Look, guys, I hate to fuck up my karma any more by breaking up your major love-in scene here, but we have to decide where we’re like going. Like now. This is one army that doesn’t take time out, you dig?”
“It has to be down to Ketton,” Stephanie said briskly. She eyed the long slope below. It would be slippery, but with their energistic power they ought to cope. “We can get there ahead of the army.”
“Only just ahead,” Franklin said. “We’ll be trapped in the town. If we stay up here, we can still keep ahead of them.”
“Not by much,” McPhee said.
“And you’ll not have time to gather any food,” Rana said. “I don’t know about you, but I know I can’t keep this pace up for much longer without eating a full meal. We must consider the practicalities of the situation. My calorie intake has been very low over the last couple of days.”
“It’s a permanent downer,” Cochrane said. “Your practical problem is that you don’t eat properly anyway.”
She glared at him. “I really hope you aren’t going to suggest I should eat dead flesh.”
“Oh brother,” he raised his arms heavenwards. “Here we go again. Check it out: no meat, no smoking, no gambling, no sex, no loud music, no bright lights, no dancing, no fucking fun.”
“I’m going down to Ketton,” Stephanie said, overriding the pair of them. She started to walk down the slope, her hand holding on to Moyo’s fingers. “If anyone else wants to come, you’d better do it now.”
“I’m with you,” Moyo said. He moved his feet along cautiously. Rana shrugged lightly, and started to follow. A reefer slid up out of Cochrane’s fist and the tip ignited. He stuck it in his mouth and went after Rana.
“Sod it!” Franklin said wretchedly. “All right. But we’re giving up by going down there. There’ll be no way out of that town.”
“You can’t keep ahead of them up here,” McPhee said. “Look at the bastards. It’s like they can walk on mud.”
“All right, all right.”
Tina gave Rana a desperate look. “Darling, those things will simply demolish the town. And we’ll be in it.”
“Maybe. Who knows? The military always makes ludicrously extravagant propaganda claims about their macho prowess. Reality invariably lags behind.”
“Yo, Tina.” Cochrane proffered the reefer. “Come with us, babe. You and me, we could like have our last night on this world together. Fucking-A way to go, huh?”
Tina shuddered at the grinning hippie. “I’d rather be captured by those beastly things.”
“That’s a no, is it?”
“No it is not. I don’t want us to split up. You’re my friends.”
Stephanie had turned to watch the little scene. “Tina, make up your mind.” She started off down the slope again, leading Moyo.
“Oh heavens ,” Tina said. “You simply never give me time to decide anything. It’s so unfair.”
“Bye, doll,” Cochrane said.
“Don’t go so fast. I can’t keep up.”
Stephanie made a deliberate effort to expel the woman’s whining from her mind. Concentrating solely on navigating her way down the slope. She had to take quite a shallow angle, constantly reinforcing the slippery soil below her boot soles with energistic power. Even then her progress was marked by long skid marks.
“I can sense a lot of possessed below us,” Moyo said when they were a hundred yards above the quagmires of the valley floor.
&nbs
p; “Where?” Stephanie asked without thinking. She hadn’t been paying attention to what waited below, traversing the tricky slope required her complete attention. Now she looked up, she could see the convoy of jeeps was barely a mile behind them. The sight gave her heart a cold squeeze.
“Not far.” His free hand pointed out across the valley. “Over there.”
Stephanie couldn’t see anyone. But now she scrutinized the mental whispers around the edge of her perception she was aware of rising anticipation in many minds.
“Hey, Moyo, man, good call.” Cochrane was scanning the valley. “Those cats are like low in the mud. I can’t see anyone.”
“Come on,” Stephanie said. “Lets find out what’s happening.”
The last section of the slope started to flatten out, allowing them to increase their speed. Stephanie was tempted just to keep to the undulating foothills that ran along the valley wall. They could certainly make good time on the reasonably dry ground. Except it curved gradually away from Ketton. One of the visible sections of road was about three hundred yards away across a perfectly flat expanse of slough. Stephanie stood on the edge, mud oozing round her ankles. Her boots kept her feet dry, but as a precaution she made the leather creep up her shins towards her knees. The silence down here was unnerving, it was as if the mud had some kind of anti-sound property. “I don’t think it’s very deep,” she ventured.
“One way to find out,” McPhee said vigorously. He struck out for the road with confident strides. Mud sloshed away slowly from his legs as he ploughed across. “Come on, ye great bunch of woofters. It’s not like we can drown.” Cochrane and Rana gave each other a reluctant glance, then started in.
“It’s going to be all right,” Stephanie said. She kept a tight grip on Moyo’s hand, and they waded in together. Tina held on to Franklin’s hand as they went in. The action drew a lecherous grin from Cochrane.
Stephanie was right about it not being particularly deep, but the mud was soon up to her knees. After a couple of attempts to clear a trench through it with her energistic power, she gave up. The mud responded so sluggishly it would have taken at least an hour for them to reach the road by such a method. This had to be crossed the hard way, and the level of exertion needed to keep going placed a terrible strain on already fatigued muscles. All of them diverted their energistic power to force recalcitrant legs forward against mud that seemed to exert an equal pressure against them. Their efforts were given an extra edge by the onward march of the army. They were travelling almost at right angles to the front line, losing precious separation distance with every minute.
Stephanie kept telling herself that as soon as they made the road they’d be able to build it back up again. But even using the road, there was a lot of mud to surmount before Ketton, and her body was already approaching its physical limit. She could hear Cochrane wheezing loudly, a sound which carried a long way over the quagmire.
“They’re right ahead of us now,” Moyo said. He’d opened the front of his oilskin jacket in an attempt to cool himself. The drizzle was seeping through his energistic barrier, combining with sweat to soak his shirt. “Two of them. And they’re not happy with us.”
Stephanie glanced up, trying to distinguish the source of the animus thoughts. The slight rise carrying the road was seventy yards in front. Badly mangled grass and a few straggly bushes gleaming dully in the grizzly skin of rainwater. Dozens of ferrangs were pelting about excitedly, running together in packs of six or seven. Their cohesive motion reminded her of fish schools, every movement enacted in unison.
“I can’t see anyone,” McPhee grunted. “Hey, shitheads,” he shouted. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Oh groovy,” Cochrane said. “Way to go, dude. That’ll make them real friendly. I mean it’s not like we’re in cosmically deep shit at this point and need help, or anything.”
Tina let out a miserable gasp as she slipped. “I hate this fucking mud!”
“You tell it as it is, babe.” Franklin helped her up, and the two of them leant against each other as they forced their way onwards. Stephanie glanced back down the length of Catmos Vale, and sucked in a fast breath. The jeeps were barely half a mile away. Fifty yards to solid ground.
“We’re not going to make it.”
“What?” Moyo asked.
“We’re not going to make it.” She was panting heavily now. Not bothering with clothes, appearance, any energistic frippery—even the satellites would be able to see her now. She didn’t care. All that mattered was maintaining the integrity of her boots and shoving near-useless legs one in front of the other. Muscle spasms were shaking her calves and thighs.
Rana stumbled, falling to her knees. Mud squelched obscenely as it closed over her legs. She blew heavily, her face radiant, glistening with sweat. Cochrane sloshed over and put his arm under her shoulders, dragging her up. The glutinous mud was reluctant to let go. “Hey, man, give me a hand here,” he yelled at the land ahead. “Come on, you guys, quit fooling around. This is like bigtime serious.”
The ferrang packs dodged round each other as they wheeled about aimlessly. Whoever the people were up ahead, they chose not to reveal themselves. A slight single-tone mechanical whine was becoming audible. The jeep engines.
“Get me to her,” Moyo hissed.
He and Stephanie staggered over to the faltering couple. McPhee had come to a halt twenty yards from the land, staring back at them. “Keep going,” Stephanie yelled at him. “Go on. Somebody’s got to get out of this.”
With her help, Moyo took some of Rana’s weight from Cochrane. They slung her between them, and kicked their way forward again. “My legs,” Rana groaned miserably. “I can’t keep them going. They’re like fire. God damn it, this shouldn’t happen, I can move mountains with my mind.”
“No matter,” Cochrane said through gritted teeth. “We got you now, sister.” The three of them stumbled forwards. McPhee had reached the land, standing just above the mud to urge them on. Tina and Franklin were almost there. The pair of them were plainly exhausted. Only the big Scot seemed to have any stamina left.
Stephanie brought up the rear. The jeeps were seven hundred yards away now, on a stretch of dry road. Picking up speed. “Shit,” she whispered. “Oh shit oh shit.” Even if McPhee started sprinting right now, he’d never make it to Ketton; they’d overhaul him easily. Perhaps if the rest of them started flinging white fire at the serjeants . . . What a ridiculous thought, she told herself. And I don’t have any to spare. I must focus on channelling my energistic power.
Ten yards to go.
I won’t put up a fight. It wouldn’t be the slightest good, and it might damage the body. I owe her that much.
At the heart of her mind she could feel the captive host stirring in anticipation. All four of them staggered up out of the mud, and simply collapsed on the soggy ground next to Tina and Franklin. And she still couldn’t see the owners of the two minds impinging so strongly on her perception.
“Stephanie Ash,” a woman’s voice said from the empty air. “I see your timing is as fucking atrocious as always.”
“Any second now,” an unseen man announced.
Both of their minds were hot with eagerness. Somewhere nearby, the slow-motion wheeze of bagpipes started up, swirling to a level piercing tone. Stephanie raised her head. Halfway between her and the jeeps, a lone Scottish piper stood facing the vehicles. Dressed in a kilt of Douglas tartan, black leather boots shining, he seemed totally oblivious of the mortal foe riding towards him. His fingers moved sedately as he played “Amazing Grace.” One of the serjeants in the front vehicle was standing up to get a clear look in over the mud-caked windscreen.
“I like it,” McPhee hooted.
“Our call to arms,” the concealed man replied. “It has a certain je ne sais quoi , no?”
Stephanie glanced round urgently, trying to pin down the voice. “Call to arms?”
An explosion sounded in the distance, rumbling fast over the quagmires and stagn
ant pools smothering Catmos Vale. A mine had detonated under the leading jeep, punching the front of the chassis into the air. It crashed down, spilling serjeants across the road. Blue white smoke billowed out from the crater in the concrete. Lumps of debris rained down. The other jeeps braked sharply. Serjeants froze all along the front line, crouching down.
The piper finished, and bowed solemnly at his enemies. There was a dull, potent thock , loud enough to quiver Stephanie’s gullet. Then another. A whole barrage started up, the individual thumps merging into a single soundwave. Tina squealed in fright.
“Ho shit,” Cochrane growled. “Those are mortars.”
“Well done,” said the woman. “Now keep down.”
It was, the Liberation’s coordinating AI acknowledged, a classic ambush, and executed perfectly. The jeeps were confined to one of the narrowest strips of land in the valley, unable to veer away. A sleet of mortar shells fell upon them, ranged precisely. High explosives detonated in a near constant bombardment, pulverizing the stalled vehicles, and shredding the serjeants riding them. Smoke, flame, and spumes of superfine mud belched out, obliterating the carnage from view.
The AI could do absolutely nothing to prevent it. Radar pulses from the SD sensor satellites swept the length of the valley, but they required several seconds to acquire lock on. The first bombardment lasted for ninety seconds, then the mortar operators switched to airburst shells, and changed elevation. Dense black clouds burst open above the line of serjeants as they toiled desperately through the quagmire. Broad circles of mud erupted into cyclones of beige foam as the shrapnel slashed down, obliterating the struggling figures.
The Naked God - Flight nd-5 Page 47