by John Meaney
‘You should sleep now,’ said Thrumik.
‘Thank you, Master.’ Tom bowed again.
For three days Yerwo was made to fast, locked in his solitary prayer cell with only water to drink, and no food at all. Tom hoped the poor fellow was using the time well, for prayer and meditation, in preparation for a new Way.
‘Tom?’ Brother Fazner, whom Tom had accompanied into the commercial district several times, handed him a small bundle. ‘Take this to the Abbot, please.’
‘Of course, my brother.’
Tom walked to the small, plush, private chapel, and found the blue membrane which led to the Abbot’s chambers, and stepped inside.
A banquet unfolded around him. Local dignitaries were feasting upon exotic fleshbloc dishes such as Tom had not seen since his Palace days. Monks moved among them, serving. A few of the elders were dining—forcing themselves to break their normal diet—while the Abbot, in his blackstone chair, his curled hat skewed upon his shaven head, laughed uproariously at something a trader said.
‘Yes?’ One of the monks came up to Tom. ‘The Abbot cannot be disturbed. These are delicate negotiations
‘Of course.’ Tom held out the package. ‘This is for him.’
‘I’ll take it.’
‘Thank you, brother.’
As he left, Tom caught sight of a sour face among the diners, lean and with a dark goatee: Master Lochlen, of the House Of The Golden Moth.
I’ve been there, haven’t I?
Frowning, Tom walked on deep in thought, hardly noticing as he passed an open cell, just as Yerwo was being led out.
‘Tom?’
‘Ah ... Go well, my brother.’
‘What do— Fate! Don’t you realize? Don’t eat the—’
But guardian-monks took hold of him then, and Tom watched sadly as they ejected him from the monastery, and the big bronze door swung shut, cutting off Yerwo’s strange hysterical protestations.
In a narrow cloister, late in the day, Tom moved silently. Finally, he stopped before an opaque membranous door, and waited.
His mind was clear, so it was impossible to tell how much time elapsed before a tall monk stepped out, nearly bumping into Tom.
‘Oh, I —I beg your pardon.’
‘My fault,’ said Tom. ‘I was standing here.’
But as the membrane liquefied, Tom had seen the kitchen-lab’s interior. A bright holo image—a twisted, complex enzyme around which femtovectors swarmed—was hidden from view as the door vitrified once more.
‘What—what do you think you just saw, my brother?’
There was a great deal Tom had missed, but even so ...
‘I’m not sure.’ Tom shook his head. ‘I could barely make out the compiler.’
The tall monk sucked in a breath. ‘You know of such things?’
‘I’m not trained in logotrope design. But it looks clever.’
‘What does?’ The tall monk fidgeted, unsure whether to call someone.
‘The zentropes you’re putting in the food ...’
When Tom smiled, he was radiant.
‘... What a wonderful idea!’
I was always, he realized, running away from something.
But now, in his devotions, there was a beautiful, selfless goal to run towards, and that made all the difference.
‘What is the thought’—the Abbot’s soft voice came from Tom’s left—‘of one neurone firing?’
In the small plain chamber, Tom knelt facing a blank white wall: at right angles to the Abbot, unable to see the master’s expression.
There is no logic here, said a small voice inside. Thought is an emergent property of vast numbers of. . .
Tom stilled his mind.
Waiting.
And then, without volition, his one hand rose, and clapped the air.
Beside him, the Abbot bowed deeply.
The next day, when Tom returned from prayer-run, the Outer Court’s guardian-monks genuflected upon his arrival.
No-one told him, yet he knew that his place was no longer in the novitiates’ dorm.
Instead, he passed along a colonnade, to the long rows of individual cells where true monks slept and prayed, and found a holoflame burning brightly in the final cell.
He entered, sank into lotus on the meditation mat, and focused on the yellow votive flame.
The chamber flickers.
It was so obvious now.
The flame is still.
~ * ~
30
TERRA AD 2142
<
[9]
Armoured flyers, growing larger by the second.
Come on.
Sprinting, pushing hard, Ro headed away from her parked TDV, the automated tourist-station.
I’ll die without water—
Rock shards splintering, cracking beneath her boots. Dry air, already burning her throat. Sweat evaporating.
Broken shadow: a flyer overhead.
Running—
But it’s death if I stay.
Dodging around a polished stone-tree, stones spraying as she skidded. Then she moved upslope, thighs pumping, muscles beginning to burn.
Run.
Slipping, sliding in the scree. But she had to get over the top: out of sight if the flyers landed.
Run harder.
The air was a hot hand pressed against her face, covering nose and mouth. Getting harder to breathe—
Push now.
Then she was over the top, arcing through the air, but her foot caught on something and she tucked her chin against her sternum as she rolled by reflex, the clash/spray of tiny pebbles beneath her back, and then she was on her feet and running once more.
Shadow.
No.
Shadow, enveloping her.
I will not let this happen.
Then the gut-wrenching roar, and she opened her mouth to scream unheard inside the thunder, and the shock wave smashed Ro to her knees.
No.
Hot blood trickling from her nose.
Sound dying away ...
She looked up, got to one knee, as the flyer landed perhaps twenty metres away, crushing a stunted mesquite tree to oblivion, settling upon splintered stone.
Don’t give up.
Sprang to her feet, heading left, as peripheral vision registered the gull door’s swinging open.
She ran.
Watch out!
Red light, a narrow beam, blasted vertically downwards in front of her. Stones exploded, cutting her face as she dodged, ran faster.
Two more vertical beams —
Second flyer.
— as she zigzagged, but then a sheet of light pulsed down before her.
Skidding to a halt.
Anne-Louise’s killers. Must be...
Turning—
But why am I their enemy?
Behind her, eight—no, nine—mirrorvisored men jogged into position, grasers trained upon her.
I don’t want to die.
Ro’s breath heaved in and out of her struggling lungs, salt sweat stung her eyes, as she crouched at bay, looking for a way out.
Nothing.
They weren’t just going to kill her. They were going to rape her first. Make it look as if some drunken band of gang-bangers, rather than professionals, had done her in.
They have grasers.
She knew their intentions when the burliest of the men pulled off his mirrorvisor, laid it aside with his weapon, and degaussed his jumpsuit’s magseam. And walked towards her.
‘Who are you?’ she said.
No answer.
The others kept their grasers trained upon her. Mirror-bright: white sunlight reflecting off the transmission ends. Prismatic colours.
Like stone, the big man’s face.
Professionals. Anne-Louise, what were you—?
A heavy boot crashed into her stomach.
Shocked, she fell, mouth wide open like a landed fish. Struggling—
Didn‘t think he ‘
d move so fast.
Fatal error.
If she could hang on while he raped her, gain the surprise advantage later— Bad thinking. The big man was sitting on her stomach, the hot weight of his muscular buttocks and thighs pressing her down, and then his fist swung down towards her face.
No!
She blocked the first punch, but the second got through, fast, and momentary blackness exploded as its power bounced her head off the rock beneath her.
Bastard...
And then her attacker proceeded to pummel her.
No—
Parrying what she could.
No...
Wordless pain.
Inferior position. Getting weaker.
A distant sound, a muffled twinge: the crunch of ribs going.
Then he switched intention, elbow to her head—impact—and fluorescent flashes burst before her eyes.
He’s going to rape me when I’m unconscious.
Or reduced to a whimpering, brain-damaged animal—
I’m dead.
Couldn’t move her hands.
Bands of steel—
Another man.
The second attacker, huge as the first, pinned her wrists against the ground—‘No!’—while the first smashed her once more in the jaw -fractured world, spinning—and ripped her jumpsuit open. Gauntleted hand upon her breast, squeezing hard until she thought it might burst—
No!
Rough fingers inside her bikini briefs ...
Lock.
Yes, that was it: the electronic lock. In the doorway at Police HQ. And those other odd occasions scattered through the years.
... tearing the delicate fabric apart.
Remember the lock.
Reaching inside circuitry with delicacy, unlike the hard, rough fingers forcing their way inside her—
No!
A different kind of flow: liquid, tiny, incredibly complex.
I will NOT!
Building inside her, a rage-crescendo.
NEVER!
And the explosion.
JUST... DIE!
Cacophony of blazing light; a brilliance of crashing sound.
DIE, ALL OF YOU!
Roaring, coruscating blaze.
Die...
And nothing.
And came awake, hurting.
Breathe...
Hard. Great mass, pressing down upon her.
Groaning, she pushed dead weight a fraction to one side, wriggled out from underneath. Stones scraped her back, and her torn jumpsuit tangled.
Pushed herself up to hands and knees.
And knelt there, swaying.
What happened?
Two dead men lying across broken stones: her would-be rapist murderers, now bulky lifeless corpses. And—
Pain shot through her bruised and fractured ribs.
Whimpering, still on hands and knees, Ro moved to the one who had held her wrists. He lay face upwards—
God, no.
She retched, thin bile extruding slowly to the ground.
What did I do?
Where his eyes had been, opaque white jelly now lay in sockets of burnt and blackened meat. Liquefied eyes, growing sticky in the desert heat.
The other corpse’s head was twisted to one side, and a trickle, as of drying tears, had escaped down one roasted cheek. Already, scout ants had climbed the salty trail, antennae waving as they settled into their unexpected feast.
Sweet Jesus.
Crawling backwards, away from the men she had destroyed.
Danger... ?
No. Squinting, looking around— No sign of anyone else. No mirrormasked men, no flyers.
Fled?
Looked at the two corpses once more, and dry-sobbed as she pulled her torn jumpsuit around her bleeding torso.
I did it...
But suddenly her sobbing stopped, and she knew it would not occur again.
I killed both of them.
And she knew, too, that she had the power—that she had always had this power, though she had not felt it consciously before this moment—and that she would use it again should the necessity come to pass.
Good.
The tourist station was a smoking ruin. Her rented TDV was an abstract sculpture in melted slag.
They blasted everything in sight.
And fled. Because they didn’t know where the energy-attack was coming from?
Irrelevant, for now.
Call for—
But there would be no help. Her golden infostrand was twisted, fused, and would not respond to finger tap or whispered command.
Shit.
She was trapped in the desert, maybe days from anywhere, with no water. Beneath a blazing sun: it could reach 130 degrees, on the local Fahrenheit scale.
It was the twenty-second century. But without communication, in an environment not meant for unaided human survival -
Damn them to hell.
— she was already dying.
Scorching sun. Hammer, beating down.
Siebenundneunzig.
A staggering step.
Achtundneunzig.
One more.
Neunundneunzig.
Again.
Hundert.
Stumbling, righting herself, panting open-mouthed with the effort.
Skin already blistered.
One more pace. Just counting repetitions in the gym.
Ichi.
Switching to Japanese, to Nihongo. A mental trick, in extremis: reinforcing dojo discipline.
Ni.
Sand, hot against her face. Pressing ...
Fallen again.
Get up.
It was a furnace.
Slowly, slowly, rocking from side to side, she stood once more.
And step.
San. Resuming ...
Just... count.
And.
Step.
Chi.
Again.
Yon.
Again.
Unrelenting. Blazing. Hell.
Dried blood caked her face.
Cracking.
There was a need for movement.
Get up.
Hell’s furnace boiled her, tore skin away with its heat.
Get—
She crawled, a little.
Again.
Swollen tongue filling her mouth. A dry croak...
Ro tried to crawl, produced a twitch of effort. Then nothing more.
I’m dying.
Shallow, painful breathing rasped in her chest as roasting air, ultra-dry, sucked moisture from her lungs, desiccated delicate internal tissues.
It burns.
It slammed upon her: white-hot sun, intense blue sky.
A furnace.
No.
Fire, squeezing hard and powerful as the fist of God.
No...
Face in the sand.
Unable to rise.
... more.
It was an arroyo, a baked riverbed.
Ro shivered fitfully.