Something hit him between the shoulder blades. He jumped and looked round to see a guard holding up a handset. The man grinned. ‘You heard the noise, huh? They told me you don’t like little crawly bugs.’
Vess nodded.
The grin widened. ‘That’s okay. Most of the ones they got here are big crawly bugs. Move on! That Hollowed you’re following’s worth your skin ten times over. Next time you stop you get five seconds.’ He jabbed the handset into Vess’s ribs.
Vess suppressed a gasp. He turned and took a few quick paces down the ramp, catching up with his charge at the end of it. The ground was bare, a gritty sand that scrunched slightly as he walked. The noise added a beat to the hissing insects but he barely heard it. His heart was banging too loudly.
His dislike of insects wasn’t on the false profile they had created for him. It was one of the things he was supposed to have left behind when he came here. He didn’t seem to have left it behind very well.
He wondered what else was going to catch up with him. At the thought he actually looked over his shoulder towards the shuttle, and then smiled ruefully at himself. There was nothing much to see; just a group of stevedores unloading a crate about half their own height. It was unmarked but they were treating it carefully, and he assumed it had something to do with the race. Most things did, here.
There was a crackling hum overhead. He looked up and saw another shuttle dropping through the heat shimmer on a faintly blue cushion of ionized atmosphere.
At first sight it looked just like any other shuttle – a standard twenty-seven seater with the logos of the shipping company glaring from both sides and beneath. He got ready to shrug and move on, but then didn’t. He wasn’t sure why; something about the ship had jarred with him.
He looked again. It took a moment. Then he felt his breath quicken. It would have been easy to miss, if you hadn’t been a Harbour Master, but this was far from being any other shuttle. The subtle extra curves of the hull, the slight fattening of the engine nacelles and, yes, the fact that it was too new and the logos were too fresh and straight.
He sought confirmation and, after a second, found it. Two extra bulges, one front and one rear. Very shallow, very easy not to see, but very obvious once you had seen them.
They were weapons pods, and they clinched it. This was not an ordinary shuttle and, therefore, it did not carry an ordinary cargo. Someone important was coming to see this race.
He looked down and realized that there had been another jab at his ribs. He almost hadn’t noticed.
He turned away and followed his racer.
The Racetrack was far more complicated than either its name or its outward appearance suggested. It looked like an oval track in the sand, about a hundred metres from end to end at its longest, with room for seven runners abreast. Tiered seating stepped up from the periphery but only five steps high. It was supposed to be an exclusive spectacle, and why should important people have to sit too far away from the action?
Important being synonymous with wealthy, of course. Not that Vess could see them at the moment – he was three levels underground in one of the complicated bits. Three levels below the rich people; the irony hadn’t escaped him.
It was chaos down there, and it was very, very hot. Vess could feel sweat running down his body in sticky streams. Next to him, his racer’s life support droned loudly with the effort of keeping all those body fluids at the right temperature. Vess managed not to feel jealous.
He could hardly keep his feet. He was standing – just about – in the entrance to the Hero’s Tunnel waiting for the signal. The air stank of human sweat and non-human equivalents, and hot machinery and tension. Short of a mass grave it was the most crowded hole in the ground he could imagine.
A klaxon blared. He jumped, and broke into a trot to keep up with his runner. They joined a line of six other pairs that wound up three levels of ramps with crowds barely parting for them. Most of the throng wore the little iridescent patch on the forehead that marked them as Chancers, but you didn’t need eyes to notice that. Ears were good enough.
‘A thousand on the blue!’
‘Five hundred to red, and the same to the small one for second!’
‘Odds softening for field! Take a Chance, nobles …’
Vess had never really cared about money, if he was honest; security had been his goal – but the smell of money was in his nostrils and for once he could understand the attraction.
The Racetrack didn’t have any other names but it was an entire planetary business buried deep in the compacted sand beneath its only outward expression. After the Hive, Bantrass was the biggest income-generator in the Inside, and almost all of it happened here and almost all of it was based on gambling.
They were close to the short tunnel that led to the track. Vess tried to catch his breath, but there wasn’t enough to catch. There were still plenty of Chancers, though.
‘Last opportunity before Naming, nobles and ladies!’
Vess held what was left of his breath. Naming was important; naming was when the Hollow Runners stopped being known by their sponsor’s colours and took on Names. The Names, which lasted only for the length of a race, were cryptic, oblique, playful even, open to interpretation – but still meaningful and therefore fascinating. A Name could hint at a strength, a strategy or even a weakness. Within seconds of their release, news channels across the Inner would be alive with speculation. Pundits made fortunes, and punters more often lost them, based on Names.
The odds would shift wildly after Naming.
The klaxon sounded again.
‘Nobles and ladies – the Names! Are you ready?’
There was a swelling ‘Yes!’ from the crowd.
‘Very well. Step forward number one, in the blue.’
The blue-vested runner took three paces out of the mouth of the tunnel and stood impassively.
‘Declared Name for this race – ah, a popular one but always welcome back: Did You See My Lady?’
It meant nothing to Vess but the audience laughed, and so did someone close behind him. He looked round but couldn’t tell who.
‘Number two, in the check – Late Comer! A hint, nobles and ladies, or a confession? Or perhaps even a boast? Notwithstanding, it is another popular Name, even with its wearer!’
There was more laughter as the check-vested runner raised an arm in salute.
‘Number three, in the white, one who I have heard called the “Small One” – Whatever the Cost! A robust choice indeed, and not so frequent; only four outings in the last year. Could it be a statement of intent? Certainly size is not everything.’
Certainly it can’t have been, thought Vess, as the tiny runner stood forward. None of the Hollowed were tall – height was not an advantage – but this one barely came up to his chest.
The siren came again. They moved forward and suddenly they were out of the tunnel and the full power of the sun struck like a scourge. Under Vess’s hand the life pod hummed and his eyes closed involuntarily against the glare. He forced them to open, screwing them to defensive slits, and glanced round the track and then up at the spectators. The tiered rows of seats were shaded by a patchwork of what looked like leather stretched over splayed white poles. The leathery stuff was slightly translucent, giving the space beneath it a yellowish glow. Between the seats and the track, a diffuser field stopped the worst of the hot angry winds. It made the air in front of the seats shimmer very slightly if you looked at it sidelong.
The shade stuff really was a kind of leather. Just not one that Vess cared to dwell on – even useless racers ultimately had their uses.
But it was a popular, if exclusive sport. The crowd that welcomed the racers and their assistants – Vess included – was enthusiastic and very well-dressed. There was a movement above his line of sight. He let his eyes wander briefly up to the highest tier, and saw a banner coat of arms unfurling from the balcony of the central box.
His breath quickened again. He knew the coat of ar
ms. Everyone knew the coat of arms.
The Inside had no actual Royalty – its real rulers were the Board – but the Royalty it didn’t have were best represented by Caphraime II, the eldest daughter of a family that purported to have roots in the ruling class of an ancient iteration of the Inside called the Cordern. In those distant days, so people whispered, the Inside had been an Empire and its rulers’ voices had been heard across half the Spin.
Vess had researched the matter once, but only as far as he had dared; curiosity about things which were meant to be accepted was not a survival trait, even for middle management. As far as he could tell it was about half true, but he had stopped short of putting either half beyond doubt.
The practical effect was that Caphraime II was a figurehead where the Board was not, or better, chose not to be. Since she did nothing that anyone could see, she was blamed for nothing, and if she was sometimes praised for things she hadn’t done either, presumably the Board took that as a fair exchange.
And now she was standing, waving, her gaze sweeping the crowd but – even from down here he could tell – actually seeing none of it. Another version of doing nothing. Vess shook his head slightly and looked away.
Then his mind caught up with the image and tripped over it. Slowly, without making it obvious, he looked back at the box.
His mind had been right.
Against all expectation and certainly against all precedent, one of the spaces in the box was not occupied by one of Caphraime’s hangers-on. Instead, to her left and a respectful pace behind her, stood Or-Shls.
Vess looked away, as casually as he had looked up, but his mind began to race.
Now what was he doing there?
Alst Or-Shls would never have admitted it, but he was having fun. Not because of the company, of course – as far as he was concerned Caphraime was the half-witted product of centuries of carefully managed inbreeding, and quite right too. Her conversation was as dull as he would have expected from someone who lived a manufactured existence in the narrowest of circles, and he had only to nod, smile and let out the occasional knowing snort and she was happy. She was also dispensable, of course, especially in a good cause.
The fun was for other reasons. Not least, that there was a certain risk attached.
There was a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head towards it and saw the blunt face of Yarish, his aide. The woman had been with him for ten years, and the slightest flicker of expression was enough for her to tell him that the thing was arranged. He nodded and turned back to the racers.
Other people used elaborate technology for covert communication. He preferred people. People he trusted. People, moreover, who had a vivid appreciation of the personal consequences of breaching that trust. He made an example from time to time, just in case.
He might be making another one soon.
Meanwhile, there were the races to watch. It was his first time, not so much because he didn’t enjoy spectacle and competition, but rather because he found far more opportunity for them in the day job. You could always get people to compete with each other, he found, and it was so much more fun when the rules weren’t quite what they had thought.
But he had a particular reason for being here today. A certain risk, indeed. His optical equipment did more than most people suspected; he sent his regular lenses back along their rails and another pair replaced them. His vision swam for a second as his eyes adjusted, and then he was looking at a close-up of the runners and their handlers. Near the front of the line stood Vess. The man’s eyes were on him but then they slid away.
Well then. Battle was joined. Rather an uneven one, but never mind.
It was their turn to be announced.
‘Number four, nobles and ladies, in the red; a very popular option with the Chancers already, and that’s before we even announce a Name. I give you – ah, no, a moment?’
The announcement cut off with the silent certainty of a mute switch. There was a swelling mutter from the crowd and Vess saw people glancing towards him. He turned his eyes away.
Then the voice was back.
‘Nobles and ladies, my apologies but there is a late change of Name. As you will know I cannot share the previous Name with you, but you may draw your own conclusions about the new one, and I will be fascinated to see the effect on the Chancing. In the red – Changeling!’
For a moment there was silence. Then most of the crowd was on its feet, waving Chance sticks. The wooden numbers on the odds board high above the narrow end of the track thumped and rattled round in their sockets so that the board stuttered with colours and symbols. Vess didn’t know how to read them properly but even his amateur eye could see odds shifting. He also had no idea what the change of Name meant, but it made him feel uncomfortable.
He shrugged. Whatever it was, it was out of his control, and there was no time to speculate; the announcer had cleared his throat.
‘Well, nobles and ladies, a fas-cinating moment. Less than one race in a hundred sees a Name change, and less than one runner in a six of thousands has carried that Name. One could speculate for hours but alas, the hours elude us. Runners, last doses and forward, please.’
Vess reached for the lumpy surface of the life pod and touched a control nodule. The pod chimed and, after a pause, chimed again on a slightly higher note. The runner stood up a little straighter and flexed its fingers; between the two chimes, the pod had flooded its bloodstream with a maximum allowable dose of short-acting gene-customized stimulants.
Then the pod chimed again.
Vess raised his eyebrows. It should only have been twice. He glanced around but no one met his eye. He hadn’t seen anyone move, but suddenly he seemed to have just a little more space. He drew a breath, got ready to call out – what exactly, he wasn’t sure. And then didn’t.
For a micro-moment he remembered Dimollss, curled around her own pain.
The first of the start sirens yammered. Around him, handlers reached for the umbilicals that connected runners to pods. The connections broke with soft pops as fluid and gas pressures equalized. If he spoke out, they would stop. People would investigate. Something might not happen – whatever the something was.
His hands made the decision. He watched them reach down to his own runner’s umbilical. Grip, twist. Pop.
From that point the immediate future of a runner was very simple. Attain the start line, run the race, get back to the pod as soon as possible – or die of oxygen starvation and muscle poisoning. Whereas his own future might have become very complex. He had chosen a side, it seemed. He just wished he knew which one.
The first race was two laps of the stadium. It wasn’t a challenging distance for most runners – with proper dosing they could cover ten – but the phrase ‘proper dosing’ was the key. Runners dosed for two laps would be dead after ten. Five, even.
The second siren went off. As if to contrast with the technical complexity of the runners, the start line was almost wilfully low-tech: just a rusty stain in the shape of a line across the tawny sand of the track. The runners lined up along it. It was on the opposite side of the track to where Caphraime II stood, with Or-Shls beside her. That was deliberate; the runners would pass her line of sight after they had rounded the first two bends and were halfway down the long straight. They would be at maximum speed.
There were no more sirens. From now, it was down to the Starter. It was the one role available to retired runners, and you had to be a special sort of runner at that – the usual criminals and organ-sacrificed slaves need not apply. This one was a thin elderly figure, with a stoop that made it look as if she was hugging her own umbilical.
Vess had been told about her. Among the runners and their handlers she was a minor legend.
Barelft S’Sess had been a conventional track athlete, fairly successful but not exceptional. Then she had retired, and taken up coaching. She had specialized in working with children on disadvantaged – but not actually rebellious – planets. It attracted agreeable profile an
d she became a regular feature towards the end of the sort of news show that liked to mix heart-warming with lump-in-the-throat. Infant-starvation porn with the option of a few happy endings, was how Vess had summarized it to himself.
Then something had gone wrong. Whether by accident or through some unconscious desire actually to do some real good, Barelft S’Sess had ended up somewhere genuinely risky – a vast refugee camp caught between two war zones. It was a dangerous place and she had succumbed to one of the dangers, a parasite that established itself in the upper intestine and then multiplied with such vigour that one prickly little worm became half a million within two days.
There was no cure. In that situation, being Hollowed looked almost like a bargain. And, of course, it had done her reputation no harm at all.
Now she limped to the middle of the track, pushing her own life pod in front of her like a trophy. There was a circle of green there, a pad of carefully nurtured mosses, incongruous in the baked desert surroundings. She stopped in its centre, one hand on her pod and the other held out in front of her, palm upwards, the fingers closed around something.
The stadium fell silent.
For several seconds S’Sess didn’t move. Then her hand flicked upwards and a black dot arced into the air above her head. The throw had been strong and almost vertical; Vess found himself tipping his head back to follow the thing as it rose until it was just level with the highest tier of seating. It seemed to hang for a moment, and then flared up through the spectrum into a fierce blue-white ball that printed red and green blotches on his retinas even through his reflexively closed eyelids.
Crack.
The sharp explosion rang round the stadium and the runners leapt away from the start in a line that began dead straight and then quickly became a bunch.
Vess caught his breath. It was his first race. Intellectually he knew how fast the runners could go but nothing had prepared him, could ever have prepared him, for the fact. They leaned wildly forwards, their lightened torsos almost horizontal with the ground to counterbalance the force from the anaerobic, fast-twitch fibres that made up over ninety-five per cent of the muscle mass in their legs. Within ten paces the lead runner had touched a hundred klicks and the whole stadium was on its feet, roaring.
Iron Gods Page 17