The iron was rough to the touch, and had the strong metallic smell of wet rust. He held on to it until his breath began to quieten. Then he forced himself to open his eyes and turn his head away from the cold metal, and his heart began to hammer.
He had made a mistake. The edge of the Cloud Deck had moved, further than he had thought – too far to jump.
He was stuck.
Then he heard the voice.
‘Sometimes, when my siblings Hunt, they chase their prey up a tree and then wait until it is overcome by panic.’
He jerked his head downwards. Clo Fiffithiss was gripping the column a few metres below him.
He made himself speak calmly. ‘Are you Hunting?’
‘I wasn’t. Just following, out of curiosity. But perhaps I begin to understand the attraction. What will you do now?’
Vess said nothing.
‘When you knocked me off the Deck, I had a flyer waiting,’ the being went on conversationally. ‘I take it you haven’t?’
‘No.’ There seemed no point in pretending.
‘Would you like me to call one?’
Vess stared down at the creature. ‘Can you?’ The conversation felt surreal.
‘Oh yes. Shall I? Your arms are trembling; I believe that’s a bad sign in humans.’
It was right. His muscles were burning. ‘Yes,’ he said, forcing the word out.
‘Very well. Do try not to fall.’
The flyer was very different to the stubby machine that had caught Clo Fiffithiss. It was a gauzy film suspended between two cylinders that seemed to move independently of each other. It positioned itself next to Vess at knee-height, and after a moment of doubt he let himself sag down into it. It bobbed under his weight and then angled gently down to the Cloud Deck, lifting a little to crest the railing and then tipping itself up so that he slid off it and landed on his feet.
He turned, wincing at the stab from his leg, in time to see Clo Fiffithiss swing itself once round the column and let go, crossing the gap with its limbs packed into a compact tail that tucked under it and fanned out as it landed. It looked up at him. ‘Can you walk to the house?’
It was about a hundred metres away and Vess wasn’t sure he could, but he compressed his lips and nodded.
‘Good. Ah, a moment.’ It turned towards the railing and made a complicated gesture with three limbs. There was a sharp, saw-edged buzz that faded quickly to a background hum, and the air above the rail flickered and settled into a violet-glowing haze.
‘There. After all, you’re here now.’ It made another gesture he didn’t understand.
‘Well, yes.’ He frowned. ‘Does that mean I was …’
‘Expected? Oh yes. The field would never have been off otherwise; hasn’t been since the changes below. Come on.’
Vess had never been in the house itself; during his stay he had stuck to the gardens. That meant he didn’t know what normal looked like – or if this was it.
Inside, the house was dark, so that Vess had to pause on the threshold to let his eyes adjust. There was a faint smell of tobacco smoke, and stale food, underlain by something sweaty. The combination made Vess feel slightly sick.
Then he heard the sound. It took him a moment to place it; then he recalled the thing Or-Shls had described as an Algonet – the same ghostly discords and plangent sighs. Or not quite the same, he realized. There was an extra edge to the notes, and something else as well.
His ears separated the sounds. The something else was someone crying.
Then his eyes began to adjust, and he saw them. He walked towards them.
Or-Shls was standing in front of some kind of frame, next to something that looked like a tool rack. His hands moved across the frame, pausing, tapping and sweeping, and the sound changed as he moved.
The other sound was Dimollss. She was sitting on the floor, and her eyes were wet. As Vess came up to her she looked up. ‘He hurts that thing, to make it cry,’ she said. ‘Make him stop.’
He smiled at her, doing his best to look genuine. Then he turned to Or-Shls. ‘Stop,’ he said simply.
The man nodded. ‘For a moment, but only because I want to ask you something. Why aren’t you dead?’
Vess shrugged. ‘Because Vut didn’t kill me.’
‘So they didn’t. Thus far, nor did I, but that can change.’ Or-Shls looked at him. ‘What was it like?’
‘What?’
‘When they emerged. What did it feel like?’
The man’s lips were wet, and Vess’s stomach turned. He shook his head.
Or-Shls watched him for a moment. Then he looked away. ‘Oh well. There’s still this. Listen – this is the air-hose.’ He picked up a slim tube, positioned it carefully against something on the frame and pressed a control on the end. There was a hiss, and an eerie wailing note. Dimollss moaned and covered her ears.
Vess watched for a second. His eyes had adjusted better now. It looked as if someone had nailed a large complicated flying rat to a board, wings spread. Not just spread – stretched. It writhed in time to its own wails.
Then realization struck. ‘You’re torturing it.’
Or-Shls shook his head, without turning. ‘No. Stimulating. Torture is for higher beings than this.’
Vess looked down at Dimollss. She still had her hands over her ears. He wondered why she didn’t move away; she didn’t seem to be restrained. Then he glanced at her life support globe, and understood. It was tethered to the floor. The Hollowed girl was free to move, but at the expense of severing her own connection to life.
And finally, he was angry.
He hadn’t planned it; his legs took over. He took two quick paces towards Or-Shls and shoved the big man sideways, grabbing the hose at the same time.
Or-Shls staggered, recovered far more quickly than should have been possible, and looked at Vess with something like joy. ‘At last! He feels something – but be careful with the hose, otherwise you’ll feel something quite different.’
Vess looked down at the hose. He was holding it an arm’s length above the nozzle, and the tip was snaking from side to side as the air hissed out. ‘I should find somewhere to put this.’
Or-Shls actually laughed – an unpleasant shrilling that made Vess’s spine tighten. ‘A threat, Harbour Master? On top of anger? You’re making me very happy.’ He gestured at the hose. ‘Switch the air off, and let’s walk.’ He turned and headed for the terrace without looking back. Vess inspected the hose and found the controls. He let it hang slackly and glanced at Dimollss. She was no longer crying, but her eyes were dark with rage. He held the gaze for a while. Then he nodded and followed Or-Shls.
The big man was leaning on the rail at the edge of the terrace. As Vess approached he half turned. ‘I blame you.’
‘For what?’
Or-Shls gestured outwards, over the rail. ‘That; everything. Can you see?’ He waved a hand, and the hazy shield disappeared. ‘Now look. You’ll see better.’
Vess looked. ‘What am I supposed to see?’
The gesture, again, but bigger. ‘My world, man. Our world, it was. In someone else’s hands. Your fault.’
Vess turned and stared at the man. ‘Mine? I let our boundaries shrink to an impossible minimum? I cut our fleet to the point where we couldn’t look after what was left of it, or chase it when it was stolen from under our noses? That was me, was it?’ He was shouting now, just for once – properly shouting, with his throat open and his head forward. ‘I made us dependent on a slave economy that starved the free worse than the slaves? I mortgaged our breath to our enemies so we could chase a legend?’ He shook his head. ‘Not me, Chairman.’
‘No, not you. It’s never you, is it?’ Or-Shls’s face was red. ‘I suppose you didn’t make some stupid pact with those retards in the Hive, either? They’ve turned against us, did you hear?’
Vess said nothing.
‘Or with Vut?’ There were flecks of spittle at the corner of Or-Shls’s mouth. ‘Shit, man, how low do your kind go,
bargaining with flesh-eating insects?’
Your kind. Vess took his hands off the rail and held them out in front of him, studying them. ‘I made no bargain with Vut,’ he said. ‘And I made none with you, either.’
‘And I was stupid enough to expect that you would.’ Or-Shls shook his head. ‘Well, you have another problem now.’
Vess shook his head. ‘What problem?’
Then his stomach turned to lava as a deep quiet voice close to him said, ‘Have you ever been Hunted?’
He whipped round. Clo Fiffithiss was hanging from the rail a few metres away, its body swinging near the ground, its foreclaws just a little forward.
A tiny drip formed on the end of one of them. Vess watched it uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then it dawned – it was venom.
He ran. Instinct sent him back to the house, and he followed it. As he ran he justified it to himself – a sprint over open ground was a good way to start, to gauge his opponent. He had the advantage of being in the right gravity, but the disadvantage of knowing nothing about how Clo Fiffithiss actually Hunted.
In fact, he knew, it was about Dimollss. He had inadvertently protected the young of an utterly alien species. Now it was time to do the same for a human.
When he got there she was standing as close to the creature on the frame as the length of her umbilical would allow. She smiled as he drew up in front of her. ‘I think it likes me talking to it.’
He nodded, not trusting his breath.
‘Where are the others? The fat man and the horrible one with legs?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Then he processed her words. ‘Horrible how?’
She looked down. ‘It says things.’
Another time, he would have knelt next to her. He would have held her and made small noises as she told him about horrible and about things – but horrible things were somewhere behind him, getting closer, and he had no time.
Instead, he put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Trust me,’ he said.
She managed a smile. ‘Okay.’
He stood up – and time slowed down.
His legs straightening. A breath drawn in. In the corner of his vision, her neck craning back, her mouth forming an O.
The feather touch on his shoulder.
Back in real time, he threw himself sideways. His wounded leg almost collapsed under him; he reared back, glanced off the edge of the frame and took several staggering steps backwards before he got his balance.
‘Not looking fit, Harbour Master. Back home, juveniles are taught to Hunt on wounded prey. I ought to feel young again.’
The voice seemed close to the frame. Vess backed away, trying to remember anything he knew about Hunting. There were no rules, there was only one survivor. That was it.
A skittering noise above him. He took another few steps back.
‘Nowhere to go, human. Will you concede?’
Another skittering noise. He was getting further from the frame, from Dimollss, from the light.
A memory tugged at him. He caught it, examined it. It was possible – just.
He cleared his throat. ‘What happens if I do concede?’
‘We go quietly into a corner of the forest together, and I emerge alone. Are you going to concede?’
‘No.’ A corner of the forest, he thought. That was the other thing – the best kill was cornered. That’s why it was driving him back, away from the light. Away from the frame.
‘No,’ he said again, ‘I won’t concede. Especially not to a failed Hunter.’
‘Failed?’
‘Well, that or virgin. I don’t know which would be worse.’ He realized he was crouching. He straightened up and began to walk back towards the frame. The skittering noise came again but he ignored it. It’s afraid, he thought – and that’s all I’ve got.
He was back at the frame. Dimollss was looking at him with huge eyes. The stretched creature was trembling a little, as if it feared more torture.
Then he thought of it. His hand reached down, and he found what he was looking for. His fingers closed around it.
There was the faintest sound from above him. Instinct made him half duck, half look up. Something sharp glanced down his cheek, and then Clo Fiffithiss was standing in front of him.
‘First strike to me,’ it said. ‘What do you say now?’
He raised a hand to his cheek, explored, and then looked at the blood on his fingers. ‘Not a very big strike, if you meant to kill.’
The creature laughed. It sounded horribly false – a learned noise. ‘I do mean to kill, but there is a ritual to be observed. We are a symmetrical race, human.’
It sprang upwards and for a moment Vess lost sight of it. Then it was on him again, and this time the slash went down his other cheek.
‘See? Symmetry. How do you feel?’
‘How should I feel?’
‘Weak, I expect, given that I have poisoned you twice. But only to weaken, so far. The third time is still to come.’
He stared at the creature. Then he sagged to his knees, his mouth hanging open.
And his fingers still firmly closed.
Clo Fiffithiss crouched – and sprang, claws outwards, for the centre of him. Symmetry.
His arm swept round as his fingers squeezed the control. The air hose hissed angrily.
The jet caught the oncoming creature squarely in the middle of the clustered eyes. It gave a whistling shriek and bounced away in a ball of limbs, its foreclaws wiping convulsively at its eyes. Vess let a metre or so of hose slip through his fingers and swung it across Clo Fiffithiss like a lash.
The nozzle connected with the creature’s body with an audible crack. There was another shriek, higher and harsher. Vess waited, the hose coiling round his legs.
Clo Fiffithiss stood, trembling. The side of its body looked wrong – there was an uneven crack in the smooth carapace, and as Vess watched a single globe of dark-coloured fluid oozed from the base of it. The creature took a single, complex step to one side, as if it was about to fall over. Then it seemed to shake itself. The limbs braced, and bent, and straightened abruptly and it fired itself upwards.
The hose was tangled round Vess’s legs. While he was yanking at it, Clo Fiffithiss landed on his head. He felt something sharp pushing at his hairline, and flailed his arms upwards in panic, but his hands met spiny entangling legs.
This was the kill. He shut his eyes.
There was a dull thud. His head rocked sideways, and the claws were gone. He opened his eyes and saw Dimollss standing in front of him. She was holding one of the hammers from the rack on the frame.
Vess looked round. Clo Fiffithiss was lying a few metres away. Its body was completely caved in and its limbs were jerking rhythmically.
Vess turned back to Dimollss. ‘You saved me,’ he said. And then, ‘Oh …’
The life support was still fixed to the floor. The snapped umbilical lay uselessly next to it.
The girl was still grinning, although her eyes looked wet. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘This is cool. Do one thing for me?’
He nodded. ‘Anything.’
‘Good. Find Seldyan. Tell her she’s got some catching up to do.’
He nodded again, and was about to try to think of something to say that wasn’t inane when she turned, flexed her knees and fired herself off at a flat sprint, out of the house and across the terrace towards where the silhouette of Or-Shls still stood against the railing.
The man must have heard her because he was turning as she drew near.
He was too late. The impact sounded like a stone fired into a sack – and then they were both gone.
By the time Vess got to the railing, water was beginning to pool in the centre of the Great Basin – the sluices had opened and the ancient, pointless cycle was beginning once more.
This time the water was pink. It lapped round the ugly, stubby star-shape of the big body, with the small one still clasped to it.
Vess watched until the rising water was just beginning
to float the bodies. Then he straightened up and took a breath.
The weakness was passing. And at last he had something important to do.
Solpht Observatory
THE STUDIO WASN’T wind-tight, even with the moon shutters closed. Seldyan sat on one of the tall stools and shivered. Belbis sat on the other. Every now and then he glanced up towards the shutters, and the thin lines of green light that squeezed through the gaps where the timbers didn’t quite join. She realized that for the first time since she had known him he looked completely at ease. This was where he belonged.
The Avatar hadn’t been able to tell them exactly when the beam would be powered down. ‘It’s not simple,’ it had said. ‘To power it up is immediate, but we are not only powering it down, we are also powering down a cloaking device which has been running continuously for ten millennia. There are large energy flows involved.’
At first, there had been no question of the beam being powered down at all. It had refused to be drawn further on that, but it had been almost garrulous on the subject of everything else. It went like this.
The Spin was not natural, but had been built by machines – and at this point the Avatar had expended several thousand words on explaining the meaning of ‘The Spin’ to Belbis. Then it had continued.
‘For millions of years it was assumed that most of those Machines had been lost, or destroyed. From time to time a fragment turned up, but nothing more. Then, ten thousand years ago, one was discovered intact. There was an attempt to use it, probably as a weapon, and this caused a local war. It objected, and destroyed itself. It also destroyed a planet and, in consequence, a civilization – although not one that was much mourned. The resulting astro-political turbulence took decades to calm down.’
Seldyan looked at the little machine. ‘Why don’t people remember this?’
‘I don’t know. I have been here, isolated – but I guess for two reasons. First, because the isolation has worked; the Archive has fulfilled the ambitions of its designers. Second, one assumes they have been busy.’
‘I guess.’ She sighed. ‘Go on.’
‘When some stability had been restored, the parties still in play took a joint decision to try to neuter any similar problems for the future. They spent almost a thousand years scouring the Spin for similar machines. They found far more than they expected – almost all the original construction assets, in the end.’
Iron Gods Page 27