It wasn’t important. Even weaponless, if it came to it, she knew she could handle them.
Hezzka lay alone in the rubble. His senses returned slowly and he became aware of nearby movement, of small scuttling upright beasts. Hairless mammals, parasites, two of them. Yes, the Secunda, Jottipher, a small light source flicking around the room, the residue of the blast, the strongbox, the footgun. The footgun. Oh Goddess. A pronounced coldness chilled his extremities and a huge heavy pain pressed down on the left side of his skull. He felt old, tired and stupid, the resounding blast the trumpeting of his failure. The two parasites were talking, but he couldn’t hear their words clearly. He felt no anger, and wondered why.
Oh Goddess, he was dying. The relaxant chemical designed to soothe his passing had been triggered. Already he could feel himself being lifted away, leaving his broken body behind in the dust, borne on the flying rug of the host of wing-shelled chorusing angels. And nothing mattered, not the glory of the empire, nor the parasites, and all were as one, and the universe, all of it, galaxy superimposed over galaxy like trickling raindrops, was but a glittering array of ice-cold barbs floating off, a large hot thing of great meaning cooling and reducing to smallness and insignificance.
Minutes passed. He was aware that the parasites had left him. As on the verge of sleep he felt the inner part of him, the soul, turning loose, freed from the body. All he had to do now was to wait.
Then, distant, twisted by innumerable echoes, a sound cut through the blackness. A pipe, a signal? No.
Fear ran through his helpless body, and the pain surged back.
The Arionites.
He pictured them squirming in the dark, their clammy bodies seeking him out, their leech-like mouths sinking into his hide, sucking away his still-warm blood, serrating fresh arteries and absorbing the life-fluids that pumped out. The ancient enemies, cruel and artful despite their size, lured to him by the odour of his fear.
With terror, Hezzka realized that he was not dying.
The sound came closer, that awful high-pitched burble, precursor of a bloody and prolonged death. Now very close, coming nearer. He attempted to withdraw, but his head and his rear right foot were somehow blocked and would not obey his commands. He sank down, paralysed and helpless.
He opened one eye and found his vision blocked by a dust-covered membrane. Blinking it back, he saw movement, a figure moving through the darkness, making that awful noise. It was not an Arionite, but a parasite. Tall and slim, he couldn’t distinguish its sex in the poor light, and moving closer. It hadn’t seen him.
Instinctively, he opened his mouth to utter a warning, although only a gurgling grunt came from his lips. His gums were awash with the iron taste of blood.
‘Hello,’ the parasite said in doubtful tones, possibly preparing to run.
Hezzka growled again. ‘Treach… treacherous… parasites…’ Fluid seeped into his eye. He moved his head and a wave of agony flashed along his inner organs; his shell had split at the front. The parasite moved nearer, stepping with difficulty around the fallen chunks of rubble, clearing its lungs.
‘Is that the General? General Hezzka?’
Forrester, moving down through the blacked-out tunnels, realized that she was heading back towards the gaming centre and the residential block. Bernice had been right, then.
She reviewed the upward journey mentally. About a minute and a half on their way up, they’d passed through a forked junction that debouched in three directions. Finding herself back there, she felt her way over to the tube that led downwards. Each step she took shattered the stillness like a gunshot. Several times she thought she’d caught a flicker of dim green light, reflected off the upper tubeways hundreds of metres above, and was certain that she’d heard muffled voices, one male, one female, but nobody she’d recognized.
The door of the gaming centre was open. She checked the locking plate, and her fingers curled around an override key that had been slid into the panel. She removed and pocketed it, then stepped through, moving cat-like through the gaming centre, her senses alert for any sign of movement.
There was nothing.
She flattened her back against the wall and felt her way to the door that led to the guest quarters. This also was open. She stepped through, thankful for the deep carpet that softened the fall of her boots as she prowled down the hallway beyond.
The movement, when it came, was too abrupt for her to react. Something thudded between her shoulder blades, a heavy weight that forced her to her knees. Before she could move, a hand clasped around her neck. The surprise of the attack receded, and with relief she registered that her assailant was fumbling and unconfident. It was the fat guy, Taal. Letting him think he was getting somewhere, she went limp for a few seconds, then reared up, knocked his hand from her throat, grabbed his shoulders and kicked him in the groin. He collapsed into her arms, cursing.
‘Not very clever, was it?’
‘It’s you, then.’ His voice came through gasps.
‘Who were you expecting?’
‘Nobody in particular.’
‘You’ve got a date to keep, haven’t you?’
He pulled himself from her grip. ‘It’s rude to listen at doors.’ A strong odour of alcohol tainted his breath. ‘You’re an agent, aren’t you? I reckoned as much when I first set eyes on you and the lad. I hope you’ve got some transport, that’s all. Not much hope in hanging about here, eh?’
Forrester never got to give her reply. The light returned suddenly, causing both her and Taal to blink. Oddly, the silence seemed deeper than ever.
Taal paced back to the gaming centre. Forrester now saw that slung over his shoulder was a grey string bag. He’d been packing. ‘Subsidiary support functions only,’ he said, waving to the light sources. He patted the sides of the inert gaming machine. ‘Nothing else has come back on. Somebody must have re-routed a bit of power to the store.’
‘Your colleague Christie, perhaps?’ suggested Forrester. ‘You did tell her how to find the computer section.’
‘Young Christie?’ Taal waved a dismissive hand. ‘Don’t be daft, the girl’s barely… ah.’ He ticked his lips. ‘I suppose it might be. Must be brighter than she looks.’
‘She could hardly be dimmer.’ Forrester clapped an arm on his shoulder. ‘Let’s keep that appointment, shall we?’ She pointed to the door that led back out into the tubes. ‘Lead on.’
In the pale light of the reactivated ceiling-globes of the Secunda’s office, Bernice saw the extent of the damage to the wall and to Hezzka. Most of the debris had fallen on top of him; his shell was covered in a layer of white brickdust, and one large block had smacked him squarely on the top of the head. Her good nature had her heave it off and cast it aside. Beneath, at a point directly above his left eye, there was a deep dent, a kind of groove in Hezzka’s toughened skull. Bernice winced.
‘Why… do you help me?’ Hezzka asked.
‘I’m just a nice person.’ Inspecting Hezzka’s wounds, she realized that one of his rear feet was missing. It had been shot off. A blackened stump remained, flexing above a pool of congealed blood. She felt a surge of frustration. There was little she could do to help. ‘You were attacked?’
‘Tricked. Ah, Ivzid was right, the treachery…’ He tried to lift up his front section, but his forward limbs floundered and he sunk back down, making a strange sucking sound with his gums to signify his anger. ‘It was planned… I was a fool to… believe a word of the…’ His eyes closed and like a dragon he exhaled a cloud of blue smoke through his nostrils.
Bernice crouched down in front of him, and to her own surprise, stroked him gently across the cheek, down which a hot tear was running. ‘General, please. Is there anything I can do?’
His eye opened briefly and he muttered, ‘Parasite.’
‘I don’t know how to help you.’
‘Leave me. Leave me… to die…’
Bernice sighed. ‘Hezzka, you aren’t going to die. Now either you sit here and rot or I
try my best to get you moving.’
‘I cannot move, parasite. My carapace… it is cracked.’ Bernice peeked over his head and saw the winding crack that ran across the crest of his shell. ‘If I move, I die.’
Bernice thought. ‘There must be some way to get you patched up. Come on!’
There was a brief but significant silence. Hezzka looked up at last, and said, ‘Sealing salve… I have a tank of salve attached to my left mid-under section. But,’ she edged back slightly as his eyelids narrowed and his eyes turned yellower, ‘only another of my people may touch me.’
‘There isn’t time to worry about that.’ Bernice crawled around him, clambering over pieces of the wall, and peered beneath the left side of his shell. Clamped to his lower half was a thin blue plastic flask. ‘Is this it?’ she called up, tugging at the clamps.
‘To touch me is… forbidden…’ His voice faded.
‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’ Bernice examined the nozzle at one end of the flask, and worked out that by twisting a small lever it would be possible to release the contents. She directed the nozzle to the thin end of the crack and twisted the lever. Blue, quick-setting foam sprayed out. She applied the jet back and forth along the wound, and was pleased to see it setting quickly. The tension in Hezzka’s posture lessened gradually, he relaxed his remaining limbs, and he gave a long groan.
Satisfied with her work – the fast-acting gel had already solidified – Bernice stood up. ‘Say thank you.’
‘I cannot… thank a parasite.’ Already he sounded stronger.
‘All right. Who did this to you?’
‘You talk to me like I was your… hatchling…’ He opened his eyes again. ‘The Secunda… she tricked me… she has Ivzid’s footgun…’ He straightened up. ‘Ivzid. I must contact him.’ He moved his head awkwardly, and an angled piece of wire whirred out from the side of his shell. A gridded unit at its tip swung open before his mouth. It bleeped. ‘Ivzid. Ivzid, this is the General. Report your situation.’
Bernice folded her arms. ‘Some gratitude. I’ll just fade away, shall I?’
‘Ivzid, report. Report!’ Hezzka moved forward slowly, his rear section sagging to the left where his foot had been blasted off. He looked up at Bernice. ‘This is… irregular. It is Ivzid’s duty to answer.’
‘Why tell me?’
His head slumped. ‘Oh, who else is there left to tell?’
Smith followed the Doctor as he leapt nimbly from rock to rock, navigating the massed sub-herd with the ease of a circus performer. It was noticeably colder in this cavern than elsewhere, and Smith pulled her jacket closer around her as they skirted one of the largest flanks of the Zamps’ artifact. The evident relish with which the Doctor had dropped his bombshell irritated her; it really was very unprofessional to carry on like that. ‘You’ve had your –’ she began, but slipped as she spoke. She found herself wobbling on one leg, her arms cartwheeling wildly. Although they were quite harmless, she had no wish to fall into a pile of the Zamps.
The Doctor took her hand and pulled her clear. 'I’ve had my what?’
She rattled a finger at him. ‘Moment of theatre! I’d like some facts in support of your, your…’
‘Theory?’
‘Silliness!’
He smiled, and leant against a ledge in the rock wall. ‘Describe the colour red.’
Might as well play his game. ‘Well it’s… it’s the colour of your handkerchief.’ She pointed to where it rested, neatly folded, in his top pocket.
‘Ah, yes. I agree. Because we agree on the appearance of the colour red.’
Smith was fuming. ‘I’m not a child.’
‘Do you want me to explain or don’t you?’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘I didn’t invite you down here.’
‘Get on with it.’
He spoke animatedly, his rubbery features twisting with enthusiasm. He looked to Smith less of the great scientist she’d taken him for; now, as he rambled on, putting emphasis on all the wrong words and rolling every ‘r’ in his path, he looked more like an entertainer who might be hired for a children’s party. ‘Our agreement on the idea of the colour red, or any shared concept. Where does it take place? The dimension of thought.’ He waved about at the Zamps. ‘The Zamps are a part of the Management, occupying the same space, if you like, in that dimension. The consortium’s great creation, very different parts of one machine.’
‘If what you claim is true, why did the Management call me in? If he is the Zamps, he’d have known what was wrong, and he’d have surely drawn attention to them carting away half the construction materials from yard six.’
The Doctor shook his head. 'Not necessarily. As with any psychological problem, the first step is recognizing there is one. If a part of your mind starts to go wrong, you may well be the last person to notice.’ He knelt down and poked gently at the nearest group of Zamps with the tip of his umbrella. ‘And remember, the Management isn’t a living being like you or me, but a system. A very sophisticated system, I grant you, but still only a system, designed for a particular purpose.’
‘Construction?’
‘Yes.’ One of the smaller Zamps coiled its rear section around the umbrella, and the Doctor lifted it up to illustrate his point. ‘An enormous telepathic group-mind, a particular kind of invisible intelligence, attuned to design and build battleships, while another part of the system – the part that you saw on your Inscreens – conducts the business side of things. The trouble, I think, started when nature decided to fight back.’ The Zamp’s feelers wiggled at the Doctor, who pulled a stupid face and wiggled his fingers back in response. ‘The original behaviour pattern of these creatures started to reassert itself.’
Smith was equally tempted to pull out her hair and to trip him over. ‘I know that, it’s what I’ve spent eight years trying to figure out.’
‘And not getting very far, for, I think, two reasons.’ He shook the Zamp back to its fellows, chuckled, and raised his hat in farewell. ‘Firstly, and you can hardly be blamed for this, there was nothing to suggest the connection between the Management and the Zamps. He didn’t make things clearer because… well, I suppose the part of him we saw had no knowledge of it. Not essential, you see. More complexity, more industrial security. So when its function was overtaken by the Zamps, it had no way of protecting itself.’
‘And the second of my failings was?’
‘With your equipment, you couldn’t examine the change in the Zamps, because it wasn’t a simple biological change.’
‘It was happening in the thought dimension, I suppose?’ Smith calmed herself down. She had a distressing feeling that the Doctor was right.
‘Yes.’ He stepped forward again, pointing to the very top of the Zamp artifact, which was obscured by a ball of white light that it hurt to look at. ‘I wonder how they do that?’
Smith took his arm. ‘And the upshot of this change is the building of that thing. What possible use can it be to them?’
‘Somebody’s found a way to trip the power circuits.’ The Secunda looked over her shoulder at Mr Jottipher, who was sweating from the exertion of lugging the Chelonians’ strongbox along the inert walkways of the Complex. ‘Quicker than I’d hoped. Probably Taal.’
Mr Jottipher slumped against the plastic tube. ‘Can’t we rest here just a moment?’ He lowered the strongbox. Although fitted with anti-density discs it was a prodigious weight, and his fingers ached where the grip, designed for the foot of a Chelonian, had rubbed away layers of his skin.
The Secunda strode back along the tunnel and looked down at him. From below, her face had a hard look to it he’d not noticed before. ‘There’s still a Chelonian wandering free in these tubeways. What will be his reaction to the sight of us, skulking away with his money?’
Mr Jottipher leapt up immediately and felt for the handle of the strongbox. Even now he wouldn’t dare to ask the Secunda to help him.
He followed her upwards, thankful that the reception sphere was now in sight.
Ivzid tried to ignore Hezzka’s call. He was emerging from the hatchway at the base of the warship, shaking his head. Fifty metres below was an elliptically-shaped section of gantry that ran the width of the construction yard, and tapered at the far end before passing into a gap in the wall. Ivzid estimated that there was enough room for him to crawl through, and examine what lay beyond. Powering his buffers, he counted to three and let himself drop. He landed with ease, shook the dizziness from his ears, and set off, his mind clear and his purpose fixed. He was flushed with prestige, and felt calmer and more settled than ever before. The enemy had played its hand, revealed itself. It was his task to fight back. Without the trappings and trivialities of everyday existence, life took on an epic quality. A true adventure! No more the monotonous repetition of shipboard inspections and parades and exercises.
Hezzka’s voice, sounding especially fatigued, buzzed in his ears like a flying insect. Oh, he would have to shut the elderly poop up. ‘Yes?’
‘Ivzid! At last, I have been calling you for some minutes –’
‘That I know,’ Ivzid said priggishly. ‘What, pray, is the nature of your enquiry?’ It gave him great pleasure to imagine the General’s spluttering face.
‘Ivzid,’ Hezzka’s voice said, ‘are you back at the shuttle?’
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