by Dan Abnett
Then she thought, Maybe I’m inside the actual machine. Maybe I’m inside some kind of pipe or tube or channel, and it seems giant to me, but that’s only because the machine’s so big. Maybe it’s going to suddenly fill with… water or oil or liquid waste or atomic sludge or energy. Maybe it shoots down here at regular intervals as part of the machine’s operation, and I’ve simply arrived between those intervals, and if I stay here much longer I’m going to get drowned or washed away or burned to a frazzle or irradiated, or—
Amy began to panic. She began to feel very, very claustrophobic. She hurried along the hallway-that-might-also-be-a-pipe looking for an exit, or a door, or at the very least something to get up onto.
She found something else instead.
A scratching sound, a skittering noise, a flash of light in the shadows, just a glint.
‘Who’s that? Who’s there?’ she asked boldly. Experience had taught her that being bold often helped. Well, not so much as bolshie. Whatever, it made her feel better anyway.
Then she saw what was making the sound. She saw the rats.
They weren’t actually rats. She realised that straight off. But rats were what they made her think of, and rats was the word that registered in her brain.
They had too many legs to be rats. Too many legs, and not nearly enough eyes or hair. Plus, they were the size of terriers, which was quite unusual for rats.
But by golly there were a lot of them.
CHAPTER 10
UNDERNEATH THE MOUNTAIN
They were going to eat her.
There was no doubt in Amy’s mind about that. They were scurrying towards her along the hallway floor in a great tide of wrinkled, grey-pink bodies, with chattering teeth that looked like they were coated with metal and designed for biting through wire.
She wasn’t exactly sure why she thought they were going to eat her. It wasn’t as though they had a malicious look in their eyes, because they didn’t have eyes. They just had sockets where eyes were supposed to be, sockets that looked like surgical excisions, sockets that had been emptied and then packed with brown material the texture of foam, like the covers to headphone buds or a voice mic. They had claws that resembled bird-foot articulations built from old compass and divider sets. They had tails that looked like the coating of black electrical cable stretched over bike chains.
‘Oh my god, you’re all completely horrible!’ she exclaimed, and began to retreat very fast. They responded by accelerating towards her, rushing in a sudden flood, the larger rats pushing smaller ones aside or trampling them. The nasty, wrinkly grey flesh on their bodies was taut enough to reveal the outlines of their ribcages.
‘And you’re hungry!’ she yelped, finally understanding what had tipped her off. They were famished, and they were behaving the way any hungry creatures did when they detected food.
She started to sprint. They were after her. Their jaws snapped wide, ready to bite, revealing dentition that would have looked much more at home on posters for a film about memorable summers on Amity Island.
One of the rat-things leapt at her. It missed, but it nearly took a chunk out of her left calf with a snap of its teeth. Another leapt. She swatted it away with her hand. A third sprang at her and she struck at it but failed to connect, and it seized her mitten in its mouth, attaching itself to her through-sleeve elastic like a fish to a line.
‘Get off!’ she yelled, and swung the thing hard so that it bashed into the hallway wall. It took two fairly deliberate smacks to make it let go of the mitten and fall onto the floor.
By then, the main portion of the rat flood had reached her. She screamed in horror. What was about to happen was going to be unpleasant. About as unpleasant as unpleasant ever got.
What actually happened next was unpleasant, but not in the way she had been expecting. There was a shrill noise, like some kind of alarm or whistle. It stabbed into her ears like knitting needles and made her cry out in pain and stumble to her knees. It was an awful sound. It was the sort of sound that felt like it would break your ears, microwave your brain, and make smoke come out of your nose.
It actually did that to several of the rats. Some dropped dead in their tracks. Others fell, twitching and writhing in pain. The rest simply recoiled and fled. Their frantic metal claws made skritchy, squealy, teeth-on-edge noises as they fled down the metal hallway, noises that Amy would not have enjoyed at all if she’d been able to hear them. Her ears, however, were still ringing from the monstrously shrill sound.
Shaking her head, she got up. The Doctor was standing right behind her, with Arabel and Samewell, both looking scared, behind him. The Doctor was smiling.
‘———,’ he said. ‘———.’
‘What?’ Amy asked.
‘———,’ the Doctor replied, still smiling, but looking concerned.
‘Give me a clue,’ she said. ‘Is it a book? How many words? Why aren’t you talking to me?’
The Doctor turned and said something equally inaudible to Arabel and Samewell.
‘It’s my ears, isn’t it?’ asked Amy. ‘That sound knackered my ears, didn’t it?’
The Doctor turned back to her. He pointed to his sonic screwdriver, and made a sad face. ‘——,’ he said.
She could read his lips. She knew what sorry looked like.
Sol Farrow was a strong man, noted for his labour in the fields and heathouses. Sol was not quite as big as Jack Duggat, for Jack Duggat was the biggest of all Morphans in Beside, but he was an ox of a man nevertheless. Elect Groan had given him the task of nightwatching Beside’s westgate, and offered him his choice of arms to take. Sol had chosen a fine, long-handled shovel with a shipskin tongue. He’d also taken a good sickle from the tool store, and hooked it into his belt under his heavy winter coat. Sol did not intend to be found wanting. He’d heard the stories over the past weeks, all of them: the tall figures glimpsed in the woods, the killed cattle and sheep, the stars that did not stay still. What were those things in the woods? Were they real, real giants of the forest, regarding the plantnation with evil intent? Or were they just figments of the imagination, sprites conjured by the fearful mindset of the Morphans?
Sol Farrow was a sound man, and would have normally supposed the latter. People jumped at shadows, and at sounds in the night. They saw things sometimes that weren’t really there. The hard winters and the snow, well, that was a misfortune, a hardship they had to bear, but it was making people agitated, and in that agitation, their minds raced and imagined.
Now he was not so sure. There was too much that couldn’t be accounted for, more than could be explained by imagination and a rogue dog.
How many men had not returned from the search today? There was no trace of them. If they’d been taken by something, like the livestock had been taken, then the population of Beside had suffered a mortal blow.
Nightwatching had not been done in his time, or his father’s, or his father’s father’s. According to the practices listed in the word of Guide, nightwatching had been done in the early times, when the Morphans first came to Hereafter. Nightwatch had been posted around the first camps, while the towns were being raised and constructed. Back then, the Morphans had not known much about the world Hereafter, and had no idea what hid in the dark when it fell.
Bill Groan had reinstated the practice of nightwatch after the third livestock killing. He posted watchmen at the compass gates of Beside, plus another at the heathouses, another at the well, and two to patrol from the byre to the dairy. Another watchman would beat the bounds of the plantnation through the night. Bill Groan had been determined that no mad dog would get into the town and threaten the children or the old.
A precaution. That’s all it had seemed at first. And a burden, because men like Sol had to stand out all hours in the cold weather.
After the day they’d just had, it seemed like a necessity.
It was bitter cold, and light snow was falling. Sol could hear the hiss and whisper of it. From his vantage, with the town at
his back, he had the edge of the woods and the open land of Fairground ahead of him. To his left, he could see the slight glow of the solamps in the heathouses. To his right, like a dark and cloudy phantom behind the snow, he could just make out the bulk of Firmer Number One.
The cold was getting to him. He had a small brazier for warmth, crackling near his feet, a flask of broth, and he made sure he did not stand still for too long. Pacing kept his feet warm. He left the end of his shovel resting on the ground, supporting it with one hand, and kept the other hand tucked inside his coat for warmth. Every few minutes, he would change hands and stuff the other away.
Sol put both hands on the shovel and raised it. He had heard something. He was sure he’d heard something. Across Fairground, out near the woods. It sounded as though something had moved. He waited, listening, peering into the darkness, seeing nothing. It was probably just snow-gather building up on a branch, finally snapping it under its accumulated weight or sloughing off. Since the snows had come, that sort of odd sound, noises of slumping and fluttering as fallen snow redistributed itself, had become very common.
Sol glanced back towards Beside. Lamps were burning throughout the heart of the settlement. It looked reassuring, almost cosy. He longed to be down there, at a fireside, talking with friends and eating a good supper. That community and companionship was what life was about. The hard toil and struggle of the Morphan existence was made bearable by the simple reassurances of hot food and a hearth, and a circle of friends.
Sadly, Sol reflected, that was not why the lamps were lit in Beside tonight. The council and the community were meeting in the assembly.
Crisis talks, Cat A.
Bill Groan stood in the porch of the assembly hall under the light of a solamp, listening as Old Winnowner read out the list.
Eight names. Eight good Morphan men of Beside who had not returned at day’s end. Eight fathers, eight strong labourers, part of the backbone of the community. How could eight men go missing in the snow during the daytime? A fall or other mishap might take one, two if things were really unlucky. But eight?
They were all his friends.
Winnowner read the other names on the list. Harvesta Flurrish, of course, the poor girl whose disappearance had started the search in the first place. Winnowner had reminded Bill that it was the anniversary of Tyler Flurrish’s death. Perhaps Vesta had been marking that loss. Perhaps that was why she had not come for labour at the chime of Guide’s Bell. It seemed a particularly cruel twist of Guide’s will for her to disappear on the anniversary of her father’s passing. What horrible fate had befallen her, Bill wondered. Had the dog got her? Had it cornered her and brought her down like a lamb? Or, Guide help them all, was there some truth in these stories of giants in the woods?
Arabel Flurrish was missing too. No one had seen her or Samewell Crook since the morning meeting. Bill Groan knew Arabel Flurrish well. She was one of the brightest and best, strong-willed and quick-witted. Bill had no doubt Bel would rise to a high Morphan office like Nurse Elect in her time. Vesta was sweet and kind, but Bel was strong and driven. Bill was certain Bel had gone out to look for her sister anyway, permission or no permission. It was typical of her headstrong behaviour. Samewell Crook, well he was driven by his hopeless heart and good nature. He was so struck on Arabel, if she’d told him to jump in the mill race with his boots on, he’d have done it. He’d gone with her, to help her, that was obvious too.
But they hadn’t come back. By nightchime, they had not returned. Worse still, just after noon, Jack Duggat had discovered that the two strangers had vanished from the compter too. Jack had gone down to take them some food and water, and found the cage open. Had they let themselves out? If so, how? The lock on the cage was a good, strong one, and it had not been forced.
Bill suspected that Bel, perhaps in some delusion, had let them out. He would not put such unilateral action past her, especially when she was so lacking in patience and concerned for her sister. She’d been eager to question the strangers, after all. Perhaps they had promised to show her where her sister had gone in return for release?
Even so, how had Bel opened the cage? A want of patience was a true vice, and certainly one of Arabel Flurrish’s personal flaws, but even she, fired up and on a mission, could not manufacture a key out of nowhere.
Perhaps the matters weren’t connected. Perhaps Bel and Samewell had gone off, and the strangers had got out of their own accord.
All Bill Groan could plainly see was that in the middle of the hardest winter the Morphans had ever known, two strangers who seemed to come from no plantnation, which was the only place anyone could have come from, turned up on the self-same day eleven Morphans of Beside went missing.
‘They’re taking their seats, Elect,’ said Chaunce Plowrite, stepping out of the assembly to speak to Bill.
Bill Groan nodded.
‘We should go in,’ said Winnowner. In the low solamp light, she looked older than ever. Age and effort, and the stress of the current times had shaved more years off her. Bill felt a tightness. Winnowner Cropper could be difficult and set in her ways, but he relied upon her. A doctrine of continuity had kept the Morphans alive for twenty-seven generations, and it was just as vital as the doctrine of patience. One generation learned from the last. Knowledge and skills were stockpiled and maintained. The young did not have to make the same mistakes their predecessors had done, because the results of mistakes were taught so they could be avoided. Time and effort were not wasted by learning through experience. Morphans prospered by listening to their elders and learning. Hereafter was a hard place to live and a slow place to terrafirm. It did not offer second chances, but if you paid attention to the wisdom of your elders, it reduced the chances of you needing any.
Bill could not bear to think of Winnowner going. He did not know what he would do without her. He could not imagine being Nurse Elect and not having her years and counsel to call upon. If this crisis of ice and mysteries had hastened the end of Winnowner Cropper’s life, then he…
He tried not to think about it. The plantnation records and oral histories both attested to the fact that it was always a sorry time when the last of a generation passed. It always marked the end of an era, and reminded the Morphan community of the vulnerability and the sheer duration of the lifecycle they had been born into. Bill knew that Winnowner’s death would be a watershed in his service as Elect, and his life too. He prayed to Guide that it wouldn’t happen when they were in the midst of such an unprecedented Cat A calamity.
‘We should go in,’ she repeated.
‘And tell them what?’ Bill asked.
‘Speak fairly to them,’ she replied. ‘There’s nothing we can do tonight except keep warm and keep watch.’
‘And tomorrow?’
She shrugged. ‘We search again.’
Bill sighed. ‘What if they are true?’ he asked.
‘If what are true, Elect?’
‘The stories of giants.’
‘There is nothing in all of Guide’s words about giants,’ she said.
‘There was nothing about strangers either,’ he said, ‘but today strangers came.’
‘They were unguidely, and they brought conjury with them,’ she replied.
‘I understand that,’ he said. ‘I do. But just because something is unguidely, just because it is not part of Guide’s law, it doesn’t mean we can ignore it. It could be killing us, Winnowner. Do we let it?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Survival is the greatest doctrine of all. What is happening to us may be exceptional, and therefore not covered in specifics in Guide’s words, but Guide will not fail us. We must look again. Study the passages. Guide will instruct us in ways we have not yet imagined.’
Bill Groan nodded. ‘I think so too. We should start again tonight. All night, if it takes it.’
‘Agreed,’ said Winnowner. ‘We will go in and you will say some words of consolation and comfort. Then I will open the Incrypt, and we will withdraw with
the council for study.’
Chaunce Plowrite held the door for them and they entered the assembly. It was crowded. Almost every Morphan had come out, except those on nightwatch or with evening labours to perform.
Or those already lost, Bill Groan thought.
There was a hum of chatter in the room, but it died away as they came in and joined the other members of the council to take their seats. Small and very obvious knots of agitation surrounded the families of the missing men.
‘What will you do, Elect?’ Ela Seed asked, standing up almost at once. Her voice was clear and loud, but strained with worry. Her husband, Dom Seed, was one of the men who had not been seen since Guide’s Bell had chimed middle-morning.
‘I will ask Guide for direction, Ela,’ said Bill Groan.
‘Is that not what we have been doing for weeks now?’ asked Lane Cutter. Several of the Morphans around her uttered a rumble of support.
‘It is,’ said Bill.
‘And what good has it done?’ Lane asked, her face severe.
‘Such talk is verging on the unguidely, Lane,’ said Chaunce Plowrite. ‘I know you are most concerned at Hud’s absence, but—’
‘Unguidely, am I now?’ asked Lane with a brittle laugh. ‘I think Guide has deserted us.’
There was a flurry of talk, some of it dismayed.
‘I agree,’ said Ela Seed. ‘I know we must trust in Guide, and I know patience is our greatest virtue, and I know that those who are patient will provide for all of the plantnation, but we cannot just wait by for this to overcome us. My husband…’
Her voice broke. Her sister rose to steady her.
‘We will consult Guide’s words tonight,’ said Bill. ‘Winnowner is going directly to open the Incrypt. We will not rest until we have searched every passage and every section for truth and pertinence.’