Inish Carraig

by Jo Zebedee

  The room emptied of prisoners, leaving only bodies behind: some still, some groaning. A group of Barath’na streamed out of the prison after the escapees, others remaining to check the bodies. Every so often, they sent a shot into a body, making John flinch. A further group split into two swarms, one climbing the stairs to the ladies’ floor and working its way down the rows of cells. He watched, paralysed with horror, knowing he should get up and do something, but with no idea what. They checked each room, closed it, and moved on to the next. The second group started at the far end of the boys’ tier.

  A small beep sounded behind John. He turned to it, crouched and alert. Jimmy’s lights flashed, pleased with itself.

  “Jimmy.” He felt like hugging the little bot, but settled for a pat on its head. “We have to get out of here.”

  He stood. His back itched. He was sure something was padding into position to take aim at him. He took a first step. A quick run to the entrance hall, forty-three steps across it, and he was clear. He looked up at the cells. Taz. He couldn’t leave Taz. They’d come this far together. He ran for the stairs, trying to keep in the shadows. The Barath’na were still working their way down the row of cells; he had a chance.

  “John!”

  He turned, and Neeta was just a few feet away. Her eyes were bright, her body poised for fight or flight. She was loving it, he could tell by her sharp smile and the way she moved towards him, like a cat, through the darkness.

  “Get under cover where you can – they’re searching,” he said. “Don’t try to get out; they’re in the entrance hall.”

  “To hell with that. I came back to help you.”

  His heart gave an odd stutter. Mad Neeta looked after herself, everyone knew that. Something moved deep down, a twist in his stomach; he’d mattered enough for someone to come back.

  “Come on,” he said, glad that his voice betrayed none of what he was feeling, and he led the way up the stairs. The swarm were intent on their work; they hadn’t noticed them in the darkness. Either that, or they didn’t care.

  John reached Taz’s cell. Three Barath’na were on the opposite side, working along that row of cells, a further group halfway up his side. Not much time.

  Taz was lying on the bed, his eyes dazed. Sammy was hovering over him and Jimmy joined the bot, their lights flashing recognition of each other. John knelt beside Taz. “Come on, mate, we have to go.”

  No movement. John cursed and looked at the door. “Come on, Taz.” Nothing. There was no hope of getting out if they had to carry him. “Come on!”

  “Don’t shout at him, it won’t help." Neeta pushed past. “It’s the worst way to get someone moving, shouting. Freaks them out.” She put her hands on her hips and lifted her head. “Taz.” Her low voice would have had Peters jumping to obey her. “You need to get up and moving.”

  Taz made a sound, deep in his throat, and started to sit up. Neeta put her hand behind Taz’s back, until he was sitting straight.

  “Good. John will help,” she said. “We’re getting out.”

  John put his arm under Taz’s shoulders and pulled him to his feet. He weighed next to nothing, and that shocked John; in Belfast, he’d been skinny, but getting him off the Cave Hill had still taken a fair bit of effort. Now there was barely anything of him. Neeta moved to the other side, taking some of his weight.

  “Let’s go,” said John.

  They stepped into the corridor. Below, the dining area was swarming with prisoners, carefully guarded by Barath’na. One of the aliens looked up at the cells, saw him, and bared its teeth. It lifted its gun and aimed.

  “Shit!” John wove to the side. A shot hit the wall behind. The metal absorbed the bullet and reformed.

  “Any ideas?” he asked Neeta.

  “The shower room.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “There’s a force field door – it’s the emergency way out.”

  “They’ll think of that!”

  “We don’t have time for a committee.”

  She was right. They set off, half running, half dragging Taz. John checked over his shoulder: a Barath’na was already on its way up the stairs behind them. The room-checking aliens weren’t far behind. He glanced at Neeta. “Can you manage Taz?”

  “Yeah.” She hefted Taz and set off. Sammy hovered above. On the second floor, shadows of the Barath’na moved from room to room.

  “Jimmy,” John said, and the bot appeared beside him. “Not just me tonight, all of us. We all need looking after. Tell Sammy.”

  There was a pulse from the bot. John moved to the top of the stairs. A Barath’na was on the flight below. It brought its rifle up. A shot fizzed off the banister.

  A weapon; he needed a weapon. There was nothing. He wrenched the iron railing at the top of the stairs, willing it to break, but it didn’t give. Jimmy beeped once and a laser-beam spun out, cutting the railing in two places.

  “Good job.” John took the bar Jimmy had created, hefting it in front of him. It felt good. Safer. He backed down the corridor.

  “Hurry!” shouted Neeta. He sped up, half-tripping. The Barath’na from below appeared at the top of the stairs. It was on its hind legs, the rifle clutched in its forelimbs. Jimmy’s laser arced out and there was a howl, one that needed no translator unit to understand, high-pitched and ululating; the bot’s aim had been good. John backed away, faster than before. A low, dangerous growl stopped him. A Barath’na stepped off the upper staircase into the corridor, its eyes a molten gold of hatred. The governor.

  “Run!” yelled John over his shoulder. He looked at Jimmy. “I’ll take the big bastard. You deal with the others.”

  The governor came down the corridor and John braced for the attack. The Barath’na sped forward, growling. John waited until it was in range. He took a swipe with his bar, but the governor jumped, not breaking its run. It snarled, diving at John, who was forced back. He slipped and went down on one knee. Instinctively, he raised the bar above his head. His arms jolted as the governor hit it and rebounded off, knocking John onto his back. The governor jerked the bar from his hands and it dropped with a dull clang. John scrabbled away.

  “Neeta!” John yelled. “Watch out!” He staggered to his feet. A sharp fizz passed his ear, and growls grew louder behind him. He picked up the bar and turned back to the governor.

  Muscles rippled under the alien’s fur. The iron bar wasn’t going to make much of an impact, but John was out of options.

  Sammy fired at the governor, singeing its fur, but the Barath’na pushed on. Neeta let go of Taz, leaving him to steady himself against the wall. She placed herself between Taz and the snarling governor. “All right, you big alien fucker.” She took up a fighting stance. “I’ve taken on worse than you.”

  The alien crouched. Sammy moved in front of Taz. John closed in from behind, the bar raised and ready. If they stopped the governor, the aliens had no leader. A shot whizzed past his ear and he swung the bar, too early. It glanced off the governor’s shoulder. The alien turned to face him, snarling.

  “Fuck!” John raised it again. Adrenaline pumped through him, giving him strength.

  The governor sprang at him, a blur of matted fur. John yelled as its teeth sank into his arm, and his grip on the bar loosened. The alien’s weight came onto him, pushing him against the wall. It released his arm, snarling, and lunged for his throat. John held it back, but his arms were tiring. The alien was too strong.

  A laser shot passed him. The smell of burned fur filled the air. The governor howled and Neeta lashed out, catching the alien square on its throat with her foot. It fell forwards, pinning John to the wall, knocking the wind from him. A second laser grazed the governor’s snout and it jumped away, howling. John slid down the wall.

  Jimmy elevated and sent another laser shot at the governor. The alien backed away. Arms grabbed John, and he and Neeta tumbled into the shower room. Taz was already there, breathing heavily, Sammy beside him. Jimmy moved in front of John and hovered in the doorway, his lights flashing,
quick and alert.

  John clutched his arm where the governor had bit it. It throbbed in sick pain, and he gritted his teeth. “What now?”

  “We go.” Neeta was standing by an open space in the wall, where a force field door would normally have been. John stepped forwards to it – the opening led to a fire-escape, its metal steps hugging the wall. At the bottom, at least thirty feet down, the island dropped away to the white surf of the roaring sea.

  “Oh, Christ.” John faced Neeta. “Get Taz down. Me and Jimmy’ll buy some time.”

  “No, we all go.”

  He shook his head. “They’ll pick us off the stairs. Go!” He grinned. “We don’t have time for a committee.”

  She gave a salute of touché, and started down. John turned, facing the open door back into the prison. It was quiet beyond it, but he wasn’t fooled. The aliens might be more careful – John glanced at Jimmy, a little stunned at the bots’ effectiveness – but they’d be coming.

  “Any ideas?” he asked Jimmy. A laser shone on a shower cubicle door. It intensified, cutting away the hinges.

  “You fucking genius,” said John. He grabbed the cubicle door as it came off, and hissed at the pain in his arm. He slammed it across the entrance to the shower room, holding it as Jimmy soldered it to cover two thirds of the doorway. The bot finished and moved back, lights flashing.

  “Good job,” said John. “But it won’t hold them long; let’s go.”

  The bot’s lights pulsed, but it didn’t move. It faced the soldered door. John looked between the little bot and the door and shook his head.

  “No, Jimmy, there’re too many. You need to come with me.”

  The bot sank to the ground and beeped, just once. The soldered door crashed as something hit it from the other side. Another hit and it buckled. Jimmy beeped again, surer this time, and John backed onto the stairs. The wind caught him with frigid fingers and the driving rain sent needles against his face and bare arms.

  “Come on, Jimmy, we can make it!” he yelled.

  The door burst open and Barath’na filled the room, coming one on top of the other. John ducked from a first shot. Jimmy moved off the floor, spinning, a pair of its laser beams firing. One of the Barath’na gave a howl and fell back.

  “Jimmy, come on!” John reached forward to grab the bot, but it danced from his grasp. More Barath’na appeared in the doorway. There was nowhere to go but down. A rifle-bolt hit the top of the staircase, inches from him, and the metal banister parted in the middle. John backed away, his mouth dry, until the railings stopped him. If he fell from here, he was dead. Jimmy beeped, insistent and loud.

  “Don’t,” John whispered. “I need you.”

  Another shot fizzed past. He had to run, he had no option. He hesitated for just one more second – it was a bot, not a person, he couldn’t go back for it – and then ran, taking the stairs two at a time, using the banister to let him half-run and half-slide. He needed its support; he could barely see past the blurring in his eyes. He blinked and told himself it was sea spray.

  A bolt passed him, just missing. “Fuck it.” He grabbed the banister. It was slippery from the rain and he leant over, sliding down on his stomach, not looking where it was going or at how far he might fall.

  A shot hit his shoulder and he yelled at the red pain searing across it, but he kept going. He looked back, half hoping to see Jimmy, and saw a row of dark shapes running down the stairs after him. There was a jolt as his feet hit the floor of the final landing and he vaulted over the edge, dropping the last six feet. He ducked into the shadow of the prison, under the bottom landing. He turned in a half-circle and cursed. Taz and Neeta were gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Carter was pushed into the back of the GC transporter, the colonel on one side of him, a Barath’na on the other. He struggled to stop shaking. It was the cold, he told himself, but when the doors closed he still shivered. He put his head back and closed his eyes. At least the aliens had stopped hurting him. “Why are we going to the prison?”

  “The prison’s security has been compromised.” Downham laughed, a soft laugh. “Apparently it was your little bots that did it.”

  He was dreaming this, he had to be. He rolled his head to the side and opened his good eye. “The bots?”

  “They decided the prison was attacking your charges. Ergo, they killed the prison’s security systems. What the hell did you have put in them?”

  It made sense. A low feeling came into his stomach, half-hope, half-dread. If the bots had found the evidence he thought they had, what had he unleashed? He turned to the colonel. There’d be no disciplinary hearing in the morning; no country estate to inherit. His ribs jabbed with every breath, his right arm hung useless at his side, and he still had to face whatever was ahead for him.

  “The designer had decommissioned a security-bot, GC compatible. I got him to put the chips in the bots and program them to the boys.” He swallowed, and his throat hurt, too. “He falsified the disposal records, and I signed off the bots."

  "Very inventive."

  "And stupid.” But maybe not. “So, quid pro quo. Why did you get involved with the virus? You knew the Zelo had pulled out.”

  The colonel paused, perhaps still seeking deniability, but gave a short laugh. “You flatter me. All I did was follow orders: make sure the virus was released and the people who did the job were dead, with no link back to the military.” He nudged Carter and by Christ, it hurt. “You fucked that one on me, right away. Since then, it’s been damage limitation.”

  “You must know it was wrong,” said Carter. “You were killing a whole species.”

  “The Earth Committee did the right thing. We’d been invaded; it was our duty to repel the invaders however we could.”

  Carter tried to shake his head, but it hurt too much. ‘I followed orders’: the weakest excuse in the world. He closed his eyes and floated to a place where there was no pain.

  ***

  John swept his eyes along the coastline. Searchlights cut the night sky at the front of the prison. From above him, on the stairs, came growls and barked orders. Where were Taz and Neeta?

  A Barath’na loped around the corner of the prison, its nose to the ground. John cringed back: if he ran, it would see him; if he stayed, he’d be found. His eyes searched the squared-off rock, panic clawing.

  A female prisoner rounded the corner, stopping at the sight of the Barath’na. The prisoner started to back away, but the alien jumped, bringing her down. She managed to scramble to her feet, but the Barath’na pounced again. It knocked her against the rocks and sprang back. The prisoner lay still. Shit.

  Something took the alien’s attention, and it turned its back on John. Now or never. John dashed to the side. The platform the prison stood on ended in a couple of yards, and he had no idea what lay beyond. There was no time to think, to doubt, to do anything but draw in a breath and stretch his arms and jump.

  He hit ground, the impact jarring his teeth. His right knee gave way and he yelled as he fell, but his old rugby instincts kicked in. He rolled to the side and protected his head with his hands. He came to a stop on a gravelled path leading to a small jetty, and waited for a searchlight to pass over. He counted. It flashed again.

  Now! He darted down the path, slipping, almost falling, and scrambled onto some scree and then a rocky beach. He ducked into the shadow of the pier as the next flash came.

  “You made it,” said a low, familiar voice: Neeta. “Way to go.”

  Relief filled John like a wave.

  Taz managed a thumbs-up from where they were both hidden in the darkness. “You looked like a twat skidding down that path,” he croaked.

  “You’re all right?” He must be: he was joking again.

  “Sort of.”

  The relief left as quickly as it had started. Taz’s sort of would be anyone else’s half-dead. The light swept over them again. Escape first, assessment later. John looked around, trying to make out any detail, but the darkness
was absolute. “We need to get to a boat.”

  “And then?” Neeta’s voice was barely audible over the waves. "I'm no sailor. Are you?"

  No. The memory of the trip over to Inish came back. As if laughing at him, the wind rushed around him. If he got off this island, he’d throw up for a year and never complain.

  “If there’s a boat, we take it.” He pointed at the distant lighthouse, its white walls standing out against the darkness. There was a path, he remembered from Jimmy’s map. “We’ll go that way and stay away from the prison.”

  Neeta shook her head. She pointed towards the front of the prison. “We go for the main harbour. It’s closer.”

  “They’ll see us,” hissed Taz.

  John looked at him. There was no way Taz could make it around the island. Besides, on a path they’d be sitting ducks. “She’s right.” He pulled himself up on a rock, and stifled a cry at the pain in his arm.

  “Let me see.” Neeta felt along the bite. Her touch was light, experienced, but it still felt like a knife running through him. There was a sound of ripping, and she wrapped something around the cut, tying it off.

  “If we get to the boats, there’ll be a first-aid kit,” she said. “But that’ll slow the bleeding for now.”

  She moved out first, taking point, Taz behind her. John brought up the rear. Sammy hovered just above, his lights out. The absence of Jimmy seemed bigger in the presence of the other bot. They started across the rocks, keeping close to the cliff edge, until they rounded the headland and could see the main pier. About ten boats, much like the one that had taken him across to the island, were moored up, two tied directly to the jetty, the others berthed up against each other. A line of five Barath’na were guarding them. John swore.

  “I’ll go scout.” Neeta moved forward, invisible in moments. John moved forward a little, watching. A hand touched his back.

  “John?” said Taz. “We need to talk.”

  John looked around; everything was still quiet, although he could see the searchlights. Once, as they swept across the front of the prison, he caught a glimpse of a prisoner escorted by a Barath’na. It wouldn’t be long until they spread out and started to check the rocks. At that thought, he saw shadows walking on all fours along the top of the cliff, looking down. His pursuers from the prison, no doubt.