Durham Red: The Unquiet Grave

by Peter J Evans

  Two of the dead men were mutants. One was human. All were dressed in pale grey coveralls. None of them had been wearing breathing gear.

  Red took her mask off and sniffed. The room smelled much how she would have expected it to—scorched metal and flesh from the plasma shots, blood and shit from the dead men. Candle wax. But there was something else, something older.

  Ketta was looking at the walls. "Oh my God," she whispered. "What is this?"

  The chamber was roughly rectangular, with the airlock door behind them and a smaller door—thankfully still closed—ahead. The walls either side were set with what appeared to be long stone troughs. Above those were hooks, some with metal implements dangling from them.

  The metal things were all the same, metre-long complex constructions of black iron, handles, levers and two vicious, curving blades. They looked like huge tongs, or pincers. The stone beneath them was washed with blood and tissue.

  Red peered into one of the troughs. It was full of rancid water, dark and scummy, with fragments of matter bobbing in it. "Oh sneck. Major, I think these are what they use. You know…" She mimed lifting the top of her own head off.

  Ketta screwed her face up, then turned away. "Let's go. Somebody must have heard this."

  The door wasn't locked, but it was quite thick. Red opened it up and stuck her head around, saw only empty corridor beyond. "We're clear. Come on."

  They went through together, guns outstretched. Red felt happier with a powergun in her fist, but she was suddenly a lot more wary of Ketta. Luckily, the Iconoclast seemed more intent on the job at hand.

  Despite her talk of orders, this was personal. Red could see that a light-year off.

  Ketta stopped and raised a hand. Then she tapped her ear: listen.

  There was a machine working just around the corner. Something big, metal and primitive. Red heard cogs meshing and the clink and clatter of heavy chain. She took a deep breath and rounded the bend.

  What lay beyond was something she would remember for the rest of her days, especially when she was alone and the nights were dark.

  The corridor terminated at the entrance to a circular chamber—another bubble-cavern, although smaller than the corpse pit on the other side of the airlock. The floor had been levelled off with wooden decking and a massive construction filled the remaining space almost to the ceiling.

  It was a wheel.

  A vast, spoked wheel, tipped on its side, the rim set with gleaming spikes. Its axle was a column of black stone wider than Red was tall; giant gears were set beneath, taking power from a riot of chains and pulleys that criss-crossed the deck. Men in coveralls were straining at the chains, bringing the wheel around another notch. It looked ancient, rusted and stained. It stank of blood and thick black oil.

  There were people slung between the spokes.

  She could see four from where she stood; two men, two women. They lay on their backs, arms and legs spread and cuffed to the framework of the wheel. They wore the bloodied remnants of attendants' cloaks.

  They were all dead.

  The head of each attendant lolled backwards, emptied, drooling gouts of blood onto the wooden floor beneath.

  As Red watched, the wheel turned to its next notch; it rotated a few metres and then halted with a grinding metallic squeal. The motion brought a new attendant into Red's line of sight. She saw his body shudder in its cuffs as the monster wheel stopped.

  This one was alive.

  Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back. It was Ketta. She glared back at the Iconoclast, then saw what she had seen and took the girl's mute advice, easing further back into the corridor.

  Someone was on the deck, walking around the wheel.

  It was another grey-clad man, this one tall and powerfully muscled. He was probably human, although unlike the others his head was shaved bald and covered with odd, spiralling tattoos. To Red's dismay, she saw that he carried one of the long iron tools she had seen before.

  He had stopped under the furthest attendant. She heard the chained man moan, and struggle weakly. He must have known what was coming.

  Durham Red knew what was coming. She didn't want to see it, but it happened before she could look away.

  With one sudden, swift movement the man in grey lifted the iron tongs high, and clamped the blades around the attendant's skull. He squeezed.

  The man between the spokes screamed, long and high, the sound only cut off by a sickening crunch of iron blades tearing through scalp and bone and the layers of tissue beneath. Another blade snickered out between the handles, severing the convulsing victim's spinal cord, and in a spattering heave of blood and watery fluid, his brain slopped out of his head and disappeared into a trough set into the axle.

  The body went limp. The top of his skull bounced off the wooden floor and rolled away. Red saw it spin to a halt among the gears.

  She slumped back, her stomach flipping. Ketta was further back down the corridor, away from the sight. She had her back to the wall and was taking in great gulps of air, her eyes staring wildly.

  Red heard someone spitting a constant stream of whispered obscenities, and realised it was her. She clamped her mouth down over the words.

  Back in the chamber, rusted metal ground against metal. The wheel was on the move again.

  Red gritted her teeth and looked back at it. She saw it lock into its next position, bringing its next victim into view.

  This one was a human male. He was big, his skin corpse-pale, his short hair a colourless thatch. He was naked from the waist up, and the skin of his torso was covered in a complicated mesh of tattoos.

  Ketta was crouching at Red's side. "The heretic!" she gasped, as the shaven man beneath raised his bladed tongs to clamp down on Matteus Godolkin's skull.

  Durham Red had never moved so fast in her life: she went across the wooden deck like a comet, hitting the bald man at waist level and knocked him flying across the chamber. The iron tongs span away, shattering a head-sized chunk of stone from the wall when they hit.

  Red bounced to her feet, snarling. The bald man was lying still, but his companions had dropped their chains and were racing towards her. Plasma fire ripped out across the deck.

  She dived aside, behind the axle, letting off two shots as she went. Each shot hit a man in grey; superheated blood and bone fragments exploded back into the walls. Red peered back around the stone column, just in time to see Ketta blur out of the corridor and into the surviving attackers.

  There was a sudden cacophony of screams, blows, and breaking limbs. It ended mercifully quickly—in five seconds, maybe less—until all the grey-clad men were dead. Red didn't even see it happen. She was already looking up at Godolkin, trying to see how the cuffs would come off.

  A heartbeat later, she was flying back into the axle, her face a mask of pain.

  The stone slammed into her spine and the back of her head, sending sheets of light through her vision. Past the colours she could see the bald man, striding towards her, swinging the tongs. He'd smashed her in the jaw with them while she was distracted.

  Once, he might have got away with that. Not twice. Red launched herself from the axle, leaping at the man and slapped the awful implement away. She had hit him hard, and he went over, flailing. Red grabbed his head as he hit and slammed it over and over against the deck. On the third blow the wood gave way, and then her teeth were at his throat, puncturing the skin.

  Warm blood poured into her mouth. She sucked it down, feeling the heat of it roaring and filling her, sending sparks of raw pleasure through her veins. The man beneath her convulsed once, and then his heart misfired on empty chambers. He stilled.

  Red flung her head back and hissed in pure, animal joy.

  She stood up, wiping her mouth.

  Ketta was watching her, eyes huge. The woman's face was aghast with horror. "Monster," she whispered. And then she was gone, flinging herself back down the corridor.

  Red let out a long breath. That could have been wor
se: Ketta could very easily have started shooting.

  She looked up. "Godolkin? You still with me up there?"

  The Iconoclast tried to crane his head further back, to see below him. "Blasphemy," he slurred. "Hear you. Real?"

  "As real as I'll ever be. Hold on." She reached up to grab the nearest spoke and pulled herself up. "See?"

  He raised his heavy head to her, then let it fall back. "Tired."

  "I'll bet. Let me get these cuffs off."

  It didn't take long to get Godolkin free, but it was more of a job lowering him down to the floor without dropping him. He seemed to have been dosed with something much like Harrow had fallen prey to, although his altered biochemistry was doing a better job of fighting it.

  While he gathered his wits, Red checked the other spokes, but there were no more survivors on the wheel. The thought chilled her—another few seconds arguing with Ketta, and Godolkin's thoughts and feelings would have ended up rolling into the axle like all the others.

  How many times had this wheel spun? How many brains had ended up sliming their way down that awful trough?

  Godolkin was on his feet by the time Red had completed her search. "Mistress," he growled. "You should not have come here."

  "You're welcome." Red took the breath-mask from where she'd slung it on her belt, and slipped it on. "There's got to be another one of these somewhere. Grab a couple of guns while I find one. We're getting out of here, and fast."

  * * * *

  As before, she had forgotten how cold Lavannos could be. The chill of it went through to her bones as soon as she was out of the airlock, despite the hot blood in her belly. She had a moment's panic that Ketta might have stolen her thermocowl on the way out and flung it down into the Eye of God, but thankfully it was where she left it. The hum of its fans as she sealed it back up was a welcome sound indeed.

  "You had a companion," Godolkin said, as they made their way across the cavern floor. Neither had spoken while they were climbing down the pile of bodies. It had seemed wrong to do so, somehow. "I heard another voice."

  "Her name's Ketta," Red told him. "Iconoclast Special Agent. Mad as a snake but bloody good in a fight. Think I gave her a bit of a shock drinking that bald guy, though."

  "Did you drink from her?"

  "What? No!"

  "And yet she fought at your side?" Godolkin shook his head. "The universe has gone mad while I was away."

  Red chuckled, clambering up the sloping floor of the cavern and into the entrance tunnel. "Let's just say we wanted to kill the same people. Careful here, these steps are damn narrow, and you don't even want to think about what'll happen if you trip."

  * * * *

  She felt better once she was up on solid ground again, away from the dark chill of the caverns and their awful secrets. "Want to tell me what happened?"

  Godolkin glowered. "I was caught off-guard, mistress. My mind was otherwise engaged. They used toxin shells."

  "Ouch." Red had seen the three puckered wounds on his torso. She had wondered how he'd received them. "But the message, that was from you, right?"

  "I must confess it was. And the find is genuine."

  "Wow…" She'd almost forgotten about that. "Thanks for letting me know. I hope we get to see it before we get off this rock."

  Godolkin cleared his throat. "You should not thank me, Blasphemy. My intentions were not benign."

  Red stopped and turned to face him. "What do you mean?"

  He bowed his head. "The find was an excuse. Had the circumstances been different I would have left it where it lay and not made contact. Your orders on Gomorrah had already given me some of the freedom I craved."

  "Yeah, about that…"

  The Iconoclast raised his hand, brushing her words aside. "I dreamed of you, mistress."

  "Really?" Red's eyebrows went up. "In a nice way?"

  "No."

  "Oh."

  "In the foulest way imaginable. I dreamed of sickening acts with you, mistress—cannibal feasts so depraved as to drive a man insane. I believed your influence was behind it." He closed his eyes. "The message was an attempt to lure you into confrontation."

  Red suddenly found it difficult to speak. There must have been something wrong with the breath-mask.

  After a time she stepped closer to Godolkin, until her nose was almost touching his chest. She craned her neck back to look at him. "Let me get this straight, buster," she growled. "You dragged me all the way to Lavannos because you thought I was giving you nightmares?"

  He met her gaze. "You have my soul, blasphemy," he grated. "I want it back."

  I could tell him, she thought.

  All it would take would be a few words. She could let him know that she had no real power over him, that his beliefs were no more valid than an evening of Bela Lugosi vids. That all she had taken when she had bitten his neck on Wodan was a litre or two of rather odd-tasting Iconoclast blood.

  And if she did, he'd most likely pick her up and toss her into the Eye.

  She whirled and began stalking away. "I haven't got time for this," she snapped. "We're going to have a look at this relic of yours, pick up Harrow, and then get off this shitty little planet forever."

  "Is that an order, mistress?"

  "Snecking right it is! And then you and I, Mr Godolkin, are going to have very serious words."

  * * * *

  The monastery looked deserted by the time Red and Godolkin reached the gates. There was no one in the courtyard, or near any of the separate outbuildings. Red began to panic, until she realised that, in local time, it was a little past midnight.

  Matins was at five in the morning. The monks and attendants, those that hadn't had their brains ripped out on a giant wheel, would be getting an early night.

  They headed for the reliquary, the closest heatlock to the main gates. Not to mention the resting place of Godolkin's find. The Iconoclast went first, as he knew the territory. Red followed up with her blaster primed and set to full output.

  Once through the heatlock and inside, Red dumped the thermocowl, glad to be rid of it. The mask was no great loss, either: she'd had enough of breathing her own recycled air, flavoured with a delicate mix of plastic and sweat.

  Godolkin, of course, had been wandering about in a minus-thirty chill with nothing but a pair of leather trousers to keep him warm. When Red thought about it, she realised that Ketta hadn't let the cold bother her much, either. Iconoclast bloodwork.

  She found herself envying the pair of them, just a little.

  They walked past rows of shelves packed with dozens of artefacts. Red paid the dusty finds little attention, but was intrigued to note that a few of them seemed to be robot parts. Droids had been common enough in her day, but there were none in the Accord. The trick of making them had been one of the many branches of knowledge lost in the Bloodshed.

  No one made intelligent machines any more.

  Godolkin had moved on ahead and stopped near a long workbench. There was something on it, draped with a silvery sheet of fabric-metal. "Here, Blasphemy."

  He pulled the sheet away, revealing the object beneath. The one he'd found embedded in the wall of a cavern, right under her feet.

  It was a long, flattened cylinder of dark metal, ridged and fluted, the ends subtly rounded. It widened at one end into a broad dome, set with panels and indicator lights. It was two-and-a-half, maybe three metres long, massively built. Impossibly old.

  Durham Red recognised it immediately. She had climbed into one exactly like it, more than twelve hundred years ago.

  It was a cryotube.

  And it was intact.

  9

  Past Tense

  Not for the first time that day, Durham Red found herself without words.

  She ran her gloved hand over the ridged surface of the cryotube, feeling the faint vibration of its systems, the vast strength of its construction. If it wasn't the exact same model she had slept in for twelve centuries, it was damn close. She couldn't see any difference
s that she could remember.

  Chunks of brittle Lavannos stone still adhered between some of the ridges. She prodded one and it fell away, thumping softly onto the carpeted floor of the reliquary.

  "I came a long way to see this, Godolkin," she breathed.

  There was no chance she could have stayed away from Lavannos. If Godolkin's intention was simply to bring her here, to engineer their final confrontation, then he couldn't have picked a better way to do it. Once she knew the retreat-world harboured an intact cryotube she would have walked barefoot through lava to get her hands on the thing.

  She had woken into a universe unimaginably different from her own. A dark age of insanity, ignorance and despair had swept the galaxy clean of everything she had experienced. She was adrift in this strange, violent time. Even her world was gone.

  All her roots had been severed.

  Until now. This one object, ripped from a cavern wall under the melted, glassy surface of Lavannos, was a direct link to Earth. If nothing else it gave her a chance to touch, one last time, a little piece of home.

  As for its contents, she hardly dared hope.

  She didn't know how long tubes like this had been in service when she had gone to sleep, but her day was one of constant improvement and innovation. She couldn't imagine that this cryotube could be much younger than her own. Which meant that whoever lay inside was very probably a product of her world.

  It might even be someone she knew. More than one Strontium Dog had opted out of the world. "Godolkin? I know you didn't have my best interests at heart when you called me about this. But thanks anyway."

  He seemed mildly embarrassed by the sentiment, and she wasn't surprised when he changed the subject. "Were such devices common in your day?"

  "Well, they were around if you had the money. Cryofreezing was never cheap. It took all I had just for a short break."

  "Under the circumstances, it would appear you ended up with a bargain."

  That was a matter of opinion, but Red wasn't about to press the point. "It still has power, at least," she said, gesturing towards some of the indicator lights scattered over the tube's surface. "Micro-fusion core. It's good for about three thousand years, or so the guys at the freezer bank said."