by John Grant
The Autarch paused momentarily. This was unexpected. His slow brain was always nonplussed by the unexpected, because it so rarely happened: the throngs around him relied for their lives on the fact that nothing should startle the Autarch.
He pushed on down the corridor nevertheless. It narrowed progressively until its walls were almost brushing his shoulders as he forged ahead. Despite the darkness, Nalla had no fears. This passage had no branches: it led to one place alone.
His escape route.
A worrying thought began to trickle across his mind. If the lights refused to operate as they were supposed to, perhaps the escape hatch might prove equally recalcitrant?
No. Surely not. Back-ups backed up back-ups several times over to ensure that it would always function, no matter what happened to the rest of the city. An elevator would carry him hundreds of kilometers down towards the core of the planet, where there was a fully kitted bunker constructed out of deadmetal. Even if the world were blown apart he would be safe, for the bunker was rigged with full automatics and a tachyonic drive—it would take him across The Wondervale to safety without him having to lift so much as a suction-pad.
But, even so . . .
Agitated, he began to shuffle forwards even more quickly.
He discovered the doors of his escape route by the simple means of slamming his head against them. Let the might of the Autarchy curse this darkness! He reached with a forelimb up the side of the doors, seeking the sensor that would allow him ingress.
He found the sensor pad, and sucked at it with his paw.
Nothing happened.
Incredulous, he sucked at it again.
Still nothing.
He battered at the doors with his bony head, but they refused to yield.
He gave a loud trumpet of anguished frustration, and the noise echoed down the long dark corridor behind him.
The long dark narrow corridor.
He didn't have room to turn round.
#
In other circumstances the sight of a gang of Trok in spacesuits might have made Strider grin. Here, however, her first preoccupation—until the Trok and the humans started to keep a respectful distance from each other—was to make sure she didn't stand on one of them.
"Have you succeeded?" she said to Ten Per Cent Extra Free as soon as the forcefields around the dome of the city ceased their glittering display.
Yes. Qitanefermeartha has been leached of its power. Its forcefields are no more, and its defensive weaponry will not function—I have even drained individual lazguns.
"How many airlocks are there?" she said, staring at the blank door of the outermost.
Seventeen.
"How are we going to get them open if there's no power?"
Why do we need to get them open? If there is no power the city of Qitanefermeartha is sealed off entirely, and its inhabitants have no means of setting themselves free. It is only a matter of time—a short time—before the city will be dead. Already the temperature in there is beginning to drop, although as yet only by a small fraction of a degree.
"Fahrenheit or Kelvin?" said Strider.
Explain, please.
"Aw, forget it."
She raised her glove towards her helmet, trying to push her hand back through her hair before she realized the futility of the movement. They were by now no more than a few hundred meters from the grim gateways into Qitanefermeartha, the Autarch's citadel. From here it was very difficult to see anything else but the dull surface of the deadmetal.
"Could you get those locks open if I asked you to?"
It would present no great problem. I can draw energy back from my reality into this one.
"And could you get them shut again?"
Yes.
"Then I think our difficulties are over."
She tongued her spacesuit radio to change frequencies.
"Pinocchio . . ." she began as the sky above her flared into implausible brightness.
#
Segrill thought quickly. After the destruction he and his Trok colleagues had wreaked, there were probably as few as twenty Autarchy warcruisers still in orbit around Qitanefermeartha, and even the smaller of the two rebel fleets was not going to take very long to account for them.
Although it was useless pouring firepower down on to a dome made of deadmetal, somebody was, sooner or later, going to try it.
This would have unpleasant consequences for anyone who happened to be standing, to seize a figure at random, a few hundred meters away from the main ingress to the city.
He tried to raise Strider on his suit emfer, but the humans were all operating in frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum to which his own equipment did not have access. The more elaborate set-up back in his ship . . .
Yes. That was it. From there he could perhaps even be able to contact Kortland as well, which would be much more to the point.
How long would it take him to get there? The Trok had finally grounded their fleet only a kilometer or so back, but a kilometer was a long way for a Trok.
Half an hour, if he was lucky.
He set off, hopping along the barren, dusty surface.
The other Trok followed him.
#
"Half an hour, if I'm lucky," said Pinocchio.
"Then get to it," said Strider. "I want to have this done by the time Kortland gets here. I want to show him we're not just some hick species from an out-of-town galaxy. I want to wipe that smug grin off his . . . well, you get my general meaning."
The bot turned instantly and began to lope away across the breccia. Although many of the emotions he had observed in human beings were not as yet understandable to him, he was beginning to enlarge his range. He felt something towards Strider, while at the same time he was perplexed on the occasions when she acted quite unreasonably in the condition which she called "angry." He knew what "physical passion" was, because he had observed hers at close quarters, but the emotion itself was something fathomless to him. At this moment, however, he knew that what he was feeling was the thing called "pleasure": he was moving at his own natural speed rather than at the speed even the most athletic of the humans could achieve; it was a pleasure to be able to do so after all this time.
Strider's shuttle was jammed midway up the inner side of a crater. Nelson's shuttle was lying on its broken back. But either Leander's or more likely Pinocchio's own . . . There was a chance, a good chance.
Just as he left, he noticed that the Trok were likewise departing. He could think of no reason why. Surely the Helgiolath would not be so illogical as to try to bring firepower to bear on the domed city: it was well known that bombarding deadmetal was simply a waste of energy.
#
"Look at him go," said Strauss-Giolitto. She was leaning casually on Lan Yi's suited shoulder, her free hand holding one of her lazguns clear of her side. Although so much smaller than her, the out-of-Taiwanese seemed not to resent her weight. She was confused about her relationship with him. Had he been a woman, they would have been lovers by now—she was not unaware of the way that he felt towards her. In an ideal universe she would have been able to ignore how repugnant she found his body, but this was not an ideal universe. Once she had been in his cabin aboard the Santa Maria when he, unaware of her arrival, had emerged from the shower toweling his wet hair, a casual erection jutting towards his navel. She had laughed about the incident, as if it meant nothing to her, but the reminder of his masculinity had deeply distressed her.
Through the fabric of two spacesuits, however, she could tolerate some degree of physical intimacy with him.
Pinocchio she could hold close to her, but that was different. He could not threaten. He could not invade.
"Start moving away," said Strider over the suit radios' general frequency. Everyone turned towards her except Polyaggle, who seemed oblivious. Strider was gesticulating to them that they should move away around the edge of the domed city. Strauss-Giolitto knew that the edge was curved, but this close it seemed str
aight. Easing her weight off Lan Yi's shoulder, she moved across to the Spindrifter and waved her glove in front of Polyaggle's visor. Inscrutable eyes looked back through the plastite at her. As always when as close to Polyaggle as this, Strauss-Giolitto felt a sudden arousal of sexual tension: intervening spacesuits didn't seem to make any difference. She pointed towards Strider, who was already beginning to move off. Polyaggle nodded—a gesture Strauss-Giolitto jealously knew the alien had learnt from Lan Yi—and made to follow.
Travelling across the ashen plain in the sort of slow lurching run that seemed best accommodated to the low gravity of Qitanefermeartha, Strauss-Giolitto saw that the Trok, like a small pack of lemmings, were slowly working their way in a different direction. What the hell were they up to? What the hell was she up to? She was following orders that had been issued perfunctorily by Strider, without having any notion of the reason why those orders had been given. She had no expectations that she would live out the hour: her anticipation had been that by now she would have gone out in a blaze of glory, wielding her lazgun like some old-fashioned pre-holo cowboy hero as she cut a swathe through alien monstrosities until in the end "Oh, God, they got me. [Cough.] This is it, buddy. [A second and rather more anguished cough. A mixture of spittle and blood appears between the lips.] I only hope my death ain't been in [a long pause—a pause for which the word 'pregnant' could have been coined] vain." It would be the best way to go.
She had so little that she wanted to live for.
#
The craft which he had himself piloted had indeed made by far the better landing, concluded Pinocchio as he crested a low ridge to see shuttles C and D lying not very far away from each other on the rocky grey plain. For that reason it would be the more likely to be able to lift off again.
I AGREE WITH YOUR ANALYSIS, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free from somewhere inside him.
Not breaking stride, Pinocchio leapt towards Shuttle D. There were further eruptions of light in the sky, but he paid them no attention. He cared very little which set of aliens killed which other set except insofar as the outcome accorded with the wishes of Leonie Strider.
The whole enterprise was going to require a remarkable degree of synchronization with the Image. Seated in front of the shuttle's main console, checking off the various systems to make sure that nothing of importance was malfunctioning, Pinocchio allowed Ten Per Cent Extra Free to infiltrate both himself and the shuttle's puter entirely. Within a small fraction of a second the three of them had become in effect a single machine, operating in perfect consonance. For Pinocchio the experience was unlike anything he'd known before—as if he were both more than himself and only a part of himself.
Half an hour, he'd said. He'd/they'd managed to do it all in just over twenty-five minutes. Five minutes to wait, in case Strider and the others were being laggardly.
A very long five minutes.
#
Segrill was first to reach his fighter and he virtually threw himself into the cockpit, flicking on its emfer as he did so. Luckily the instrument was still trained on Strider's frequency. Through his observation shield he could see that some of the other Trok had made almost as good time as himself.
"Strider!" said Segrill urgently.
There was no reply, although he could hear the sort of noises from her that he knew constituted a Human voice. Where was the Image? Ten Per Cent Extra Free wouldn't have deserted them, would he?
"Strider!" he bellowed with the full power of his lungs.
Still her voice went on. Perhaps she thought he was just static on the line.
He could see through his monitors the small party of suited figures. They were moving slowly away from the airlock doors—far too slowly. The first Helgiolath beam that hit those doors was going to render the Humans indistinguishable from the plain around them.
He jacked up the volume, and yelled again.
This time there was a reaction. Her voice ceased abruptly, and then after a short pause she said something—something utterly incomprehensible to him.
He swore bitterly. Was there nothing he could . . .?
Wait a second—try the bot. If the Image was anywhere he was going to be with the bot.
But the bot no longer seemed to be with the Humans. Strider had now obviously called her party to a halt, and was staring towards the fleet of landed fighters. She'd at least worked out that the noise she'd picked up in her helmet had come from the Trok. With any luck she'd start moving in this direction—that would save time later.
She said something more. To him it sounded like "Sheeeeeeaaagroooolllla."
"Strider," he said again to encourage her. He wondered what sort of bastardization his voice was making of her name.
The bot didn't respond either. Of course, it was somewhere out of the line of sight. Qitanefermeartha almost certainly didn't have much of an ionosphere. Segrill could try contacting the Helgiolath or the Bredai directly, but they were still busy finishing off the planet's defenders and would have other things on their minds than listening out for communications from the surface.
Nothing for it but to change the line of sight.
Segrill barked a general instruction to his personnel that they were to stay exactly where they were and then rapidly powered up his own fighter, cursing the fact that his spacesuited hands were so clumsy on the switches and buttons because he hadn't taken the time to reoxygenate the craft's interior.
The whole fighter seemed to screech as he cut in the upthrusters at twice the boost level he'd ever tried before. For a moment he thought the craft might actually shake itself to pieces. For a moment he thought the boost might actually shake him to pieces. He forced himself not to pass out as the light on the altimeter glowed red, then orange.
That should be enough—the bot could have got only so far in this time.
Off with the upthrusters. Slam on the downthrusters.
Shit! He hadn't belted himself in.
Again consciousness became something to be groped for as his helmet hammered against the cockpit's ceiling. Then he dropped like a stone, landing belly downwards spreadeagled across the control panel.
Keep a cool head, he told himself as reality ebbed and flowed.
Yes, but where am I keeping it right at the moment? Somewhere in Heaven's Ancestor, it feels like.
He threw himself off the console and scanned it rapidly through blurring eyes to ensure his fall hadn't done anything bizarre. Hit the wrong switch and you might be half a parsec away—or heading straight for the nearest disrupting warcruiser.
No. The worst that had happened was that the heating had been turned up.
Ship's radio on to broad-band. Get moving.
He had difficulty speaking. When he first tried to say the bot's name he discovered that there was a more particular pain mixed up in his general bodily agonies. If he hadn't broken his jaw he'd done something very like it. He moved his mouth experimentally. Attempted to move his mouth.
Other races had gods. He wished that the Trok did, so that he could call upon a few of them now.
No, his jaw wasn't broken. He wasn't going to allow it to be broken. He must just have jarred it numb when he'd crashed against the top of the cockpit.
Jaw, he thought, if you've gone and broken yourself, after this is all over I'm going to break you again.
He'd lost a few teeth. They'd grow back soon, but at the moment the bits were floating around disconcertingly between his eyes and his visor.
He made another attempt.
"Pinocchio."
The bot came on-line instantly. "Segrill."
"Cannot speak Strider," said the Trok laboriously, keeping the words down to a minimum and hoping the Image would be able to make sense of what he was saying.
And then Ten Per Cent Extra Free was in his mind.
THERE IS NO NEED FOR YOU TO TALK. JUST THINK AT ME. PINOCCHIO WILL HEAR EVERYTHING THAT I HEAR.
Segrill obeyed, swiftly explaining what was very likely about to happen and his madcap
scheme for trying to prevent it.
YOU ARE CORRECT. THERE IS NO REAL ALTERNATIVE. I WILL CONVEY ALL THIS TO CAPTAIN LEONIE STRIDER.
#
"That's insane!" yelped Strider out loud before she could stop herself. The rest of the party stopped and turned to look at her—all except Polyaggle, who continued trudging towards the Trok fleet. The fighter that had rocketed skyward a short while earlier was now returning more sedately to the ground.
"Nothing," Strider said. She hoped she sounded adequately reassuring. "I'm just fixing something up with Ten Per Cent Extra Free."
She tongued off her suit radio.
"What do you think our chances are?"
BETTER THAN IF YOU STAY WHERE YOU ARE. THAT IS TO SAY, CONSIDERABLY BETTER THAN ZERO. SEGRILL IS PERFECTLY CORRECT. IT WAS VERY STUPID OF ALL OF US NOT TO HAVE THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE, BUT IT WAS PARTICULARLY STUPID OF ME. I PRESENT MY APOLOGIES.
Apologies from an Image? This was something Strider had thought she would never hear.
"It's OK," she said casually. "Just don't do it again, huh?"
She wondered how she was going to persuade her personnel to go through with this—persuading herself was going to be no easy task. They must have reasoned it out by now that this was likely to be a suicide mission all along, but there were better ways and worse ways to go. Being flash-fried seemed one of the better ways: one moment you were there and the next you weren't. No pain, no hassle—no funeral expenses. Dropping from a great height on to an airless planet struck Strider as being one of the worse ways.
"What does Pinocchio think about it?"
He is in total agreement with me.
There was something vaguely chilling in the way that Ten Per Cent Extra Free said this, but Strider didn't have time to think about it.
"All right. We'll do this. Can you hook me in with Polyaggle as well?"
Certainly.
Diplomacy, thought Strider, has always been my strongest suit—followed closely by tact, of course. I will handle this like the masterful politician I might have become had the romantic lure of starside—the glorious mysteries of the Universe—not been so great. I will cajole my people into accepting my point of view. I will use sweet reason and . . . aw, fuck it.