It was not until five hours had passed that Gorgamon allowed himself to move. He went without a sound to the door, and pushed it ajar. It moved with no noise, because he had taken the trouble to oil all of the doors the week before. He had enjoyed that too; Mandalon had thanked him for his consideration, and the guard had experienced a frisson of anticipation that had almost made him lick his lips. He shuddered slightly now, simply remembering it, and his hands clenched again, involuntarily. He looked down at them fondly. They would soon have work to do!
He crept towards the bed, and was onto the sleeping boy before the child could even move. It was a simple matter to clasp his huge hand over the mouth which had opened futilely to scream. Any sound was cut off by Gorgamon’s flesh which completely covered the lower part of the boy’s face. Mandalon’s eyes had snapped open, and the boy was absolutely terrified, Gorgamon noted with a sense of self-importance. It was gratifying to see that one was finally recognized as a source of power. His days as a mindless subordinate were over, he realized with a thrill of fulfillment. It was like coming home, he found. At last his place in Sell History was about to be defined! He had been waiting for this day for a long time.
He was so carried away by the visions in his mind, that he tightened his hand over the boy’s mouth and nose, and cut off his air supply altogether. By the time he looked down again the boy had slumped into unconsciousness, and Gorgamon hastily lightened the pressure. He did not wish the boy to die before his time! Atheron had been most insistent on that point. The boy must die by accidental means. Atheron had emphasized over and over again that he did not wish his right-hand man on Valhai to be incriminated for this deed. Gorgamon smiled to himself. Atheron was a man who knew the true value of loyalty!
He picked the slack figure up in his arms, and was through the side door down to the servant’s quarters within seconds. Once there, he let the limp boy drop into the large laundry cart on wheels which he had provided earlier, and covered him with another layer of clothes. Now he would need to use the ortholift, and although it was clearly impossible for the orthogel to follow the use of all ortholifts, there was no point in deliberately drawing attention to oneself, Atheron had told him. There was something else in the laundry cart; something which Gorgamon bent to retrieve, and attach quickly to a special belt he was wearing under his clothes. Now he was invincible!
He pushed the cart before him into the lift, and made his way down to the ground floor of the 1st skyrise. Here, he trundled his way from the back ortholift along the outer passage until he reached the terrace. Leaving the laundry cart in the outer passage, he picked up the boy and carefully dressed him in a bodywrap, leaving a pre-used and empty mask pack dangling around his neck.
He was pleased to see that the boy was beginning to come round. It would never do for him to die before his time!
At last the guard was ready. He had only to carry the boy through the airlock and throw him out onto the terrace. Once there, the atmosphere of Valhai would take care of him within a minute. It would be a quick and most effective way to die, thought Gorgamon to himself. And quite typical of a youngster who wanted to try out a new sensation! Naturally he would wait until his bodyguards were asleep! Boys were always pushing themselves one step too far, and nobody would be surprised that the young leader had failed to provide himself with sufficient mask packs. It would simply be thought that he had been overcome by lack of oxygen, and had torn off the used mask pack in a last, delirious attempt to save himself.
With a grunt, he picked up the boy, and opened the first airlock. Then he pulled the boy close to him in the enclosed space, and waited for the first airlock door to close. Turning, he held his hand up to the sensor on the rexelene door which led bare planet. The biolock clicked in approval, and the outer door opened. He flung the boy out onto the terrace, and turned to the biolock immediately. He was only planning to be exposed for about four seconds.
MANDALON 50 HAD been conscious for about a minute by now, and was waiting for a chance to contact Arcan. As he was thrust out of the airlock he put his bodywrapped hand into his mouth and bit down as hard as he could on his little finger, three times. He just hoped that it would be enough to get Arcan’s notice. He thought the bodywrap would absorb much of the impact.
He had not long to wait, Arcan’s figure appeared almost instantaneously alongside his own, and he felt himself almost pushed through the airlock to the other side, where he was able to sink down to the floor gratefully and take a deep breath of oxygenated air.
At the same time Gorgamon had spotted the arrival of the orthogel entity, and with a huge roar of anger had pulled something out of his belt. Arcan, in the second he was rescuing Mandalon, had no time to pay attention to the guard, and by the time he turned towards the Sellite, it was too late. There was a bright flash of orange, and everything went instantly black.
Gorgamon turned back to the biolock with immense satisfaction. Everything had worked out beautifully to plan. True, the boy was untouched, on the other side of the airlock, but he was collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath. It would take but a moment to catch him and put him back out on the terrace. A weak boy would be no match for him! He put his hand up to the inside door with a feeling of triumph. Atheron had thought of everything!
After a couple of seconds he turned his attention back to the biolock. The inner door should have opened by now. He passed his hand in front of it again, his body giving him an intense jolt of adrenalin as he felt the first stirrings of panic. Nothing happened. He looked closer at the device, until he could make out the digital display. It was telling him in typical short Sellite manner that his biosign had been removed from that lock, that he was not authorized to re-enter the 1st skyrise.
He realized immediately what had happened, and who must have been responsible. Atheron had ensured that he would get out through the airlock but not back in. Atheron had indeed thought of everything. It was a bitter, bitter realization. His only hope was that Mandalon 50 open the airlock from the inside. He turned towards the young boy he had brought to kill, holding one large hand out in supplication as the lack of air and the hostile atmosphere began to cut into him.
Mandalon 50 was still slumped against the wall of the inside corridor, trying to recover. He saw the guard reach out to him, saw that the biolock had not reacted to the man’s biosigns. He tried to scramble to his feet to help the guard. And then his sense of self preservation stepped in. The thought came clearly into his mind, and Gorgamon read it as easily as if it had been spoken out loud. If I release you, you will kill me.
The boy met Gorgamon’s with sad resignation, and he slid back down the wall as his legs failed him once more. He watched as the large Sellite guard died in front of him. Tears came to the young boy’s face. He didn’t know what they were. Relief, anger, shame and worry over the orthogel’s state all mixed together.
He was still trembling when they found him twelve hours later. He would need the rest of his life to forget how he had deliberately watched a man die.
Chapter 14
LEDIN CRICKED HIS neck as far back as it would go, and still couldn’t grasp the absolute enormity of the Xianthes. It was as if some giant hand had piled mountain upon mountain upon mountain upon mountain, the resultant structure rising majestically up through the atmosphere of Xiantha. Although his eyes could only follow the soaring rock as far up as the heavy cloud base, he had heard that it went right through the troposphere into the stratosphere, and that the top part of it was actually in outer space. He tried to see past the first clouds, straining his eyes to penetrate them and follow the rock as it continued upwards, but it was impossible.
Then he looked off to his right, and saw that there was another similar formation in the distance, just visible across a strangely dimpled valley.
“They are even more impressive than I had imagined!” he said.
Cimma nodded. “They are thought to be the result of a collision with another planetary body, or a major asteroid, many tho
usands of years ago.”
“What, it just tore through part of Xiantha?”
“Exactly.” She pointed to the valley beneath them. “If you look closely you can see that this valley was gouged out by something spherical. Of course, there are years and years of sediment on top of it now, but the shape is still clear.”
Ledin looked. And now that he looked, he was able to see that the impressive valley was indeed rounded in a circular shape. “This is where the planet hit Xiantha?”
“It tore through the rock, and the edges were extruded, curling upwards and outwards, driven by trillions of millions of tons of thrust to pile up at the edges of the valley. The force was such that the rock in the middle of the impact was vapourized altogether, and it was only that at the very edge of impact which survived, although molten and twisted. It cooled rapidly as it rose upwards, and formed the two Xianthes.”
“Impressive!” Ledin found it hard to look at anything except the towering wall of rock, now that they were only a few metres from the base. He shivered. “Is it safe?”
“Nobody knows. But they have been here for a very long time, so I guess they aren’t likely to fall down now. What do you think?”
“I have never seen anything like it. So a lot of people visit?”
Cimma nodded again. “Oh yes. The entrance is just over there.” She indicated a small cabin at the base of the Xianthe, where a portly ticket collector could be made out. “That is why visitors come here in their thousands. The rock is very highly magnetized and you can now travel right around this Xianthe in a cage.”
“Up through the troposphere?”
“Through the troposphere and the stratosphere. It takes you right over the top, practically in outer space, and back around past the lightning zone on the other side. The cages have a stabilizing function so that you are not actually upside down for that part of the journey.” The Sellite woman smiled, remembering a previous trip. “On the way up you get to see the blue rays, the sprites and the elves – the most incredible auroras that you will ever see. And on the way down you tremble in the most powerful electric storm which you could ever imagine too.”
Ledin felt a shiver run right down his spine. “And they might have taken Grace up there?”
Six and Diva, who had galloped off on their canths to find out whether Atheron and Xenon had been seen in the area, came back to a halt in front of them, throwing up a small cloud of surface dust.
Six waved his arms. “The sled is over there!” he shouted. “Behind the first flank of the Xianthe. They have taken a cage up. We are too late!”
Ledin looked automatically towards Arcan, who darkened in colour. “Can you take us directly into the cage, Arcan?”
“I can try,” said Arcan. “If the visitor’s sphere can get close enough to see exactly where they are, that is.”
“I am on my way,” crackled the globe, disappearing from sight and hurtling upwards at a huge rate. They tried to keep their eyes on it as it dwindled into a speck above them, but after one or two seconds it was already too high for them to detect it.
Diva glared around her, hating having to wait – never one of her best points. Six looked at her, feeling suddenly protective. She hated doing nothing almost as much as he hated having to sit through speeches! He smiled to himself.
“Something funny, nomus?” Diva snapped. “Maybe you could share it?”
He shook his head, grinning even more, but was saved from more of her wrath by the reappearance of the video camera, which was coming down so fast that it barely managed to stop before impacting in the ground. It struggled to raise itself to its usual hover, and then gave a long burst of static. “I am unable to approach the cages,” it said. “The magnetic pull of the Xianthe spur is so great that it interferes with all my systems. I regret that, in this instance, I can be of no further help to any of you. I have, however, managed to capture the position of the Blue Ray platform, where Arcan can transport you all to wait for the cage.”
Arcan shimmered. “I have it,” he said. “Who shall I take up?”
Diva looked around. “Ledin, Cimma, Six and I,” she said. Then she raised an inquiring eyebrow at the three Xianthans from the Donor Headquarters who had accompanied them.
The canth keeper thought for a moment. “I have to detail these men to take all the magsleds back to the Donor Headquarters. We cannot risk their safety; they are an integral part of the program. But I will accompany you myself. It is important that there is somebody from Xiantha to attest to the happenings here.” He gave the pertinent instructions to his men, who nodded, one of them setting off at a walk to claim back the missing sled. Then the man who kept canths nodded respectfully in Arcan’s direction. “I am ready.”
At once the scenery blurred, the canths were left behind, and the small party found themselves three-quarters of the way up the Xianthe, above the clouds and well into the stratosphere.
THEY LOOKED AROUND them, awestruck into silence.
When Six finally spoke it was with a slow whistle of appreciation. “Well,” he said, “now we know that the reports were not exaggerated.”
Ledin nodded dumbly and gazed out of the platform, away from the Xianthe itself. There, covering the sky, was a collection of bright red threads which interlinked into a shape like a Coriolan mushroom, with tentacles of orange flashes edged with emerald green reaching miles down towards the land below, shrouded in cloud. According to a picture set into a display case, these were the elves and the sprites. At a level with his eyes, he could see the blue rays, electric blue ethereal threads stretching from one side of the sky to the other. He took a breath finally, and blinked. The scene was still there, he had not imagined it. Now he could detect flashes of lightning way below them, down around the level of the clouds.
“When you two have stopped gaping,” Diva was tapping her foot. “perhaps we could start trying to find Grace.”
“I don’t think there is very much we can do just at the moment, Diva,” Six told her with resignation, “except wait.”
Ledin heard a faint scraping of metal against metal. “Look!” he said. “Here comes the first cage!”
They all raced eagerly over to the back of the platform, where the compartment would pause to allow its occupants to disembark and admire the view more slowly. The cage came slowly into view.
It was made of metallic bars on the outside, but there was a transparent rexelene box on the inside, with tubes running along it to provide oxygen, heat, humidity and the right pressure for its occupants. Inside the box were rexelene seats. All the rexelene was completely transparent, enabling the occupants of the cage to see for as far as their eyes were capable. The seats were suspended by some complicated contraption so that they could be twisted and turned to give the occupants the best view of the outside phenomena.
This one was empty. It stopped when it reached their level, and Ledin eyed it suspiciously. “Why do they have these metal bars all around it?” he asked. “And how does it stay attached to the rails?”
The canth keeper, who had been chatting politely in the background with Cimma, lifted his head.
“The bars are there for when the cage gets around to the other side,” he said. “There are perpetual lightning storms there that are so fierce that one bolt can turn half a forest into a burnt crisp. The bars somehow protect the occupants from the lightning. Even if the cage is hit, the people inside it are protected. They feel a slightly uncomfortable charge, nothing more.
“And the cages stay attached to the rails because of the huge magnetism of the Xianthes. When the planet gouged out the valley, it instantly vapourized most of the rock, but at the edges the rock was simply liquefied. The metallic parts then cooled more rapidly than the rock, forming the Xianthes, which are almost purely metallic, and very magnetic. The cages have safety features of a more conventional type, of course, but one of the main reasons they don’t fall is the magnetic attraction between the cage and the metal in the rock face.”
S
ix and Ledin walked inside the cage and looked around it, trying to visualize Grace’s position, trying to spot ways to help her. It was soon fairly apparent that there was no way to stop the cages, or to block the doors. That, the canth keeper told them sadly, could not be done. Diva strode agitatedly from side to side of the Blue Ray platform with a mutinous expression, and Cimma stared at the cage with unseeing eyes.
The cage maintained its spot at the half-way house for about ten minutes, and then a buzzer sounded a minute’s warning before the gates closed again and the cage disappeared on its upward journey, giving Six and Ledin time to disembark before it moved on.
“We have half an hour until the next one,” The canth keeper informed them.
Ledin realized at that moment that time really was relative. Never had half an hour seemed so long – and so short.
GRACE WAS BEING held upright by her bonds, and was looking out as the cage finally rose out of the cloud base and into the clear sky. She registered the hanging crimson shapes of the elves and the brilliant green and orange of the sprites with only minimal interest, since most of her energy was going on trying to think of a way to escape from the Sellites. Planning just how to escape when being held in a cage miles from the surface of the planet was taking up all her concentration, and she was making no progress whatsoever. She was tired, and cold and uncomfortable. They had put a gag in her mouth, so she was finding it difficult to breathe, and her heart was thumping with indignity at such treatment.
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