“Found what looks like a second Panic Cellar, boss. I’m going to open it.”
He reached down, unlocked the door lever, and pulled hard.
If he experienced anything more, it was either the company of angels or devils.
*
The explosion shook earth from the roof of the tunnel. Potato roots danced weirdly.
“Two can play, you see,” said the Anchorite severely, “at the Let Us Wire Explosives To The Front Door trick.”
“Was that your front door, Uncle Anchorite?” said Measure.
“I have many front doors,” said the Anchorite. “And even more back and side ones. Now let us move further into the earth. There are more of these men, they are well-armed, and I must keep you safe. Onward.”
The tunnel—claustrophobic, only the height of a small man crawling—sloped down into a dimly-lit chamber burned out of rock rather than regolith. At the centre of the chamber, a smooth-walled shaft covered by a wire-framed safety cage gaped in the earth; a sound like breath over a bottle moaned from it.
“Merely the wind underground,” assured the Anchorite. “Back from the edge now, I’m taking off the cover. Forward to the ladder when I call your names. Now, you must remember that gravity will increase steadily as you climb down. This will be tolerable at first, but will become painful as you go deeper; you must, however, hold on. Your age will be your advantage—power-to-weight ratio, you see.” He patted Apostle on the back. “Young man, I’m afraid this will be most unpleasant for you in particular. Keep three points of contact, go down one rung at a time, and stay within the cage.”
Unity saw the rocket lift off on a tail of flame. The crops were already burning in a circle round the house now. If all the crops burned, there might be a serious lackof oxygen to breathe. Luckily, Armitage’s men seemed to be realizing that inability to breathe might hamper their operations, and rushing to put the fire out.
Over towards Dispater Crater, an explosion had blown a second fire out. That had to be the Anchorite. If that had dealt with more of the fake taxmen, there could surely not be too many left; but those remaining would now be particularly watchful.
She lay in the mud of the arroyo, glad of the fire overhead. Voices were calling for water. That would mean father would have to buy more water. Another comet fragment would have to be diverted from the rings of Anak, the next gas giant out, and towing comets cost credits.
She could hear an electric motor. Evidently they had more than one rover. A meticulous criminal, of course, would have. And more than one gun.
Wire tyres ploughed dust plumes from the regolith as the second rover stopped nearby; frighteningly nearby.
“MR. ARMITAGE. WHY ARE WE EXPERIENCING DELAY?”
This new voice carried in itself a casual, immense menace, sounding as if it might threaten death even by issuing a greeting. It was a voice that had been studied, worked on, honed as a tool to bend other human beings to its will. Unity felt she would not at all be surprised if its owner practised in front of mirrors. And yet, the voice sounded laboured, as if fighting to expel air against resistance.
“I’m sorry, sir, there appear to be more locals than previously suspected; as many as three adults. Dangerous ones. One seems to have taken out Janos with some sort of long blade, and if you’ll look up I’m afraid you’ll see another has gotten off a message rocket.”
The Mayday Missile went into FTL drive, a glowing soap bubble of light that then went through every colour of the visible spectrum as a sudden vacuum wind seized it and threw it to the stars.
“THAT’LL ONLY BRING MERCHANT SHIPPING. MERCHANT SHIPPING WE CAN DEAL WITH. EVERYONE FEARS THE REVENUE BUREAU. HOW ARE WE DOING WITH THE SERIES THREE?”
“Our work has been interrupted. The gravity cutter is making some headway.”
A third voice cut in. This voice could hardly be recognized as human, and was at first indistinguishable from static. “The cutter will alert the unit’s offensive security. It should never have been used. Shut it down.”
Armitage’s voice sounded irritated. “It’s cut up to a millimetre into the epidermis—”
“And it’ll kill whatever human contents are inside as soon as it breaks through, or render them sterile. Whoever’s doing the cutting, too. The Series Three’s outer skin contains a sheet of raw plutonium. I should know.” The voice coughed suddenly, a noise that sounded like a clockwork mechanism being wound in the wrong direction.
There was a pause; during the pause, there was a crackle of ionization from the Penitentiary’s direction, accompanied by shouts and screams.
“I hate to say I told you so.”
Armitage’s voice was quietly murderous. “It would have helped if you’d made yourself available to bestow your vast knowledge on us before, Mr. Skuse.”
“I was unwell. These days, I spend much of my time unwell.”
“I FEEL YOU SHOULD GET BACK TO THE GAOL, MR. ARMITAGE. IT APPEARS TO BE DEFENDING ITSELF. WE SHOULD SALVAGE THE SITUATION AND CONTINUE AT MR. SKUSE’S DIRECTION. WHAT ARE YOUR SUGGESTIONS, MR. SKUSE?”
“Heh! Cutting is too unsubtle. We must convince it it has been subjected to a natural disaster and trigger its mercy algorithms, setting the poor prisoners free to fend for themselves. I propose extreme heat. A solar flare, which would not be uncommon in this milieu—”
“I AM NOT COUNTENANCING SETTING OFF A NUCLEAR WEAPON, MR. SKUSE. NOT YET. I DO NOT GET ON WELL WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND NEITHER DO YOU.”
“Tush, tush! You break into one gaol with a nuclear weapon, and you’re Nuclear Weapon Skuse for life. Besides, the man lived for several hours, did he not? Long enough for him to feel your ire, even where the Moral Purity Bureau’s nark protection unit had him put?”
“YOU FORGET YOURSELF, MR. SKUSE.”
“I forget little but pain nowadays, sir. No, we do not need a mushroom cloud at this juncture, pretty though it would have been. We need only to fool a few of the unit’s nerve endings, convince them that hideous stellar pyrotechnics are taking place outside. I have a detailed enough understanding of the Series Three’s sensory peripherals. You had enough government engineers tortured to give me it. We will have your box open in an acceptable number of jiffies, and Jack out of it. Though I doubt he’ll be any more capable of opening your other box than I am.”
“JUST GET HIM OUT, MR. SKUSE, AND LEAVE THAT SECOND QUESTION TO HIM.” There was a whirr of motors, and the rover hummed away in a cloud of fines.
Her every joint aching from enforced immobility and the cold of the water, Unity forced herself to rise onto her hands and knees, her hands and knees disappearing into the mud as quickly as she put weight on them, and crocodile-walked away down the arroyo.
*
Mr. Aidid fetched up against the wall of the Penitentiary, wanting to gulp in huge lungfuls of air, unable to let any more than a trickle of it down his throat.
“He doubled back here. I saw him.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see Arkadi? No-one found Arkadi’s body. He ain’t dead till we find his body.”
“I got news for you. No-one’s ever going to find any bit of Arkadi’s body big enough to put in a DNA sampler. I saw that booby trap go off. Them hicks got this whole place wired up.”
Mr. Aidid could hear other footsteps on the top of the Penitentiary. Someone was walking up there too.
“I should get danger pay for this. You saw what it did to Umberto.”
“We’re on danger pay already. Skuse says we’ll be fine if we deal with it on its blind side. It’s only got its sensors extruded on the side it burned off all Umberto’s flesh on.”
“What if it looks round?”
“It won’t. Skuse is still giving it targets of opportunity on its eye side.”
The feeling of air molecules being pulled apart rang in through Mr. Aidid’s ears and played his bones like xylophones as it thrummed through the Penitentiary’s skin. The prison was still defending itself. But he could also hear another rhythm in the metal. Someone inside was s
till knocking to be let out.
Mr. Aidid’s basic crewman’s training had also involved the rudiments of Morse, and he was already aware that one of the prisoners inside the Series Three was using it to communicate. It was easy for him to distinguish the letters S-O-S, and to tap back, under cover of the din round the gaol’s other side, C-A-L-M.
W-H-O-R-U, tapped the metal.
Trying as far as possible to conceal himself between two palm trunks and the Penitentiary wall, Mr. Aidid licked his lips and tapped back:
F-R-E-N-D-O-F-B-E-G-I-L-D-STOP
The prisoner digested this and rapped back:
W-H-A-T-P-R-O-G-R-E-S-C-U-T-I-N-G-I-N-QUERY
“Skuse says he’s going to get the box to think there’s a solar flare,” said a voice helpfully from upstairs.
S-I-M-U-L-A-T-I-N-G-S-O-L-A-R-F-L-A-R-E-STOP, tapped Aidid with difficulty.
C-O-U-L-D-W-O-R-K, replied the metal. M-E-R-C-Y-A-L-G-O-R-I-T-H-M-S-W-I-L-L-O-P-E-N-C-E-L-L-S-STOP
There was a pause.
B-U-T-O-N-L-Y-1-A-T-A-T-I-M-E-T-H-I-S-V-I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T-W-H-E-R-E-A-M-I-QUERY
Nervously, Aidid tapped back 2-3-K-R-A-N-I-S-Y-S-T-E-M-STOP
W-H-E-R-E-I-N-M-A-T-R-I-X-QUERY-G-A-O-L-I-S-2-B-Y-2-B-Y-2-C-U-B-E-B-A-S-E-H-O-M-E-C-O-R-N-E-R-O-P-E-N-S-F-I-R-S-T-STOP
W-H-E-R-E-I-S-B-A-S-E-H-O-M-E-C-O-R-N-E-R-QUERY, tapped back Aidid.
L-O-O-K-4-M-A-K-E-R-S-L-O-G-O-STOP
Mr. Aidid looked, and realized his ear was pressed like an octopus’s sucker against a manufacturer’s logo the size of a dinnerplate.
The logo said OUBLIETTE HUMAN INCARCERATION PRODUCTS: ADAMANTINE CHAINS AND PENAL FIRE.
F-O-U-N-D-I-T-STOP
B-U-G-E-R, said the metal through his fingertips. F-R-E-E-S-M-E-1-S-T-H-A-V-E-2-M-A-K-E-A-N-O-B-V-I-O-U-S-E-S-C-A-P-E-A-T-T-E-M-P-T-A-N-D-G-E-T-M-Y-C-E-L-L-M-O-V-D-O-N-STOP
As Mr. Adid lay in cover with his head flat against the wall, the knocking audibly travelled upwards, growing fainter and fainter.
G-E-T-O-U-T-O-F-H-E-R-E, it tapped.
Mr. Aidid needed no further encouragement. There was now no-one on his side of the Penitentiary; they had crossed back behind the buildings, possibly unwilling to be in line of sight of the unit after What It Did To Umberto.
He crept out under the palms, scuttled into one of the empty houses, and allowed his natural lack of courage to take over, collapsing in nervous exhaustion in a dusty living room in which children seemed to have made a fortress out of some former occupant’s best furniture.
Mr. Skuse sat next to his employer in the surface rover, beyond what Mr. Skuse had insisted was the maximum range of the Penitentiary’s offensive arsenal.
“The splices are all in place now,” informed Mr. Skuse through the machine that nowadays served as his voice box. “The unit should now firmly believe Ararat to be being irradiated by over a hundred million megatons of fusing plasma erupting from the surface of this system’s sun. The induction pads we’ve attached to its skin at strategic points should confirm this. Of course, the amount of heat coming through those pads could never cut its surface; hence there is no reason for the Penitentiary to interpret that data as a deliberate attack. We’re also firing hits down the fibre optics that used to be connected to its gamma sensors. It should, however, believe its prisoners will slowly cook if it doesn’t let them out to find a safer refuge on the surface. It’ll open.”
“I HOPE SO,” said Mr. Skuse’s employer in a low growl.
“I know my business,” said Skuse. “The last time I was at this business, I lost my face, after all.”
“I COULD REQUISITION YOU A NEW FACE TOMORROW,” purred his employer. “PICK A FACE, ANY FACE YOU SEE ON THE STREET. I WILL HAVE ITS OWNER ABDUCTED AND THE FACE HARVESTED. SUBJECT TO TISSUE COMPATIBILITY, OF COURSE.”
“It would not be my face,” hissed Skuse. “This face is more honest.”
“AS YOU WISH. WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?”
Skuse smiled liplessly. A notch on the frame that hung around his honest face emitted a cooling mist to moisturize his mucous membranes. “The structure is preparing to open. The base home corner opens first.”
“WHICH IS THE BASE HOME CORNER?”
“Look for the manufacturer’s logo.”
“…YES. I SEE.”
A blunt-cornered square had opened in the structure; a square of light. The dull red daylight on Ararat was dimmer than the Earth-standard illumination in the prison’s interior.
A square section of the gaol’s side punched out, falling into the mosaic gravel at its base.
A dark shape shouldered its way out of the light. A voice bellowed, impossibly loud, seemingly right inside Mr. Skuse’s skull.
“BY MY MOTHER’S SAINTED VIRGINITY,” boomed the voice. “I BREATHE AIR I HAVE NOT BREATHED BEFORE. THAT IMPERFECT DEMIURGE WHO IMPRISONED ME COULD NOT MAKE A WALL I COULD NOT BREAK. I DID IT, WITH THE POWER OF MY WILL, I, LEGION, FATHER OF LIES, GIVER OF GOOD AND EVIL. WHERE ARE THOSE WHO ONCE FORCED ME INTO THIS VILE PRISON? THEY SHALL PAY UNTO THE SEVENTH GENERATION—”
“Oh dear,” said Mr. Skuse
“DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM, MR. SKUSE?”
“I fear we may, sir. Notice how Thorsten is attempting gamely to resist shooting himself with his own sidearm, and Nicolae is banging his head repeatedly against the side of a building? I fear we may have set free the wrong person, to wit a rather dangerous psychotic homicidal telepath—”
“SHALL I PUT THE ROVER INTO REVERSE?
“I feel that may be wise. I apologize; I was under the impression, from our densitometer, that our man was currently in the base home corner. The cells inside must have shifted.”
The rover’s engines cut in almost silently, and the machine hummed back up the track past the single signpost marked SADDLE LANDING, guiding itself on autopilot as Mr. Skuse’s employer gave occasional watchful glances into its mirrors.
“DO WE HAVE A CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR THIS EVENTUALITY?”
Mr. Skuse’s repulsively visible facial musculature rippled in a welter of emotions. “I suspect this man to be highly dangerous; if my memory serves correctly, he can only be one William Yancy Voight, raised in a somewhat backward colony of Skanker Christians on Presterjohn, next planet out from Krell in the Altair system. The Skankers were slow to realize they had an unidentified telepath in their midst, and in those days research on the subject was far less advanced. Their response was derived directly from the malleus maleficarum. Voight’s own mother, among others, was tried and sentenced as a witch. Voight, whose home life had been troubled, and whose upbringing religious, strict, and unforgiving in the extreme, genuinely came to believe himself to be the Devil in his neighbours’ midst. His own mother, burned in his stead, had told him so, screaming abuse at him as the flames consumed her.”
“I AM GLAD, AT ANY RATE, THAT WE ARE NOT GENUINELY CONFRONTING THE TRUE DEVIL INCARNATE.”
“I fear your relief may be misplaced. The community on Presterjohn was backward, but its inhabitants could manufacture primitive firearms. They were capable of defending themselves. Even after they’ d identified him as a threat, Voight wiped out every man, woman and child in a hundred-thousand-inhabitant colony. His mind had a telepathic reach greater than the range of any weapon they could send against him; he was able to detect any attempt to attack him and simply coerce his attackers to turn their weapons on themselves. He was only eventually captured by the Gifted Perpetrators Unit of the MRB, using robotic constables coordinated from a vessel in orbit. He has, thankfully, never learned to get inside mechanical minds.”
The Rover came to a gradual halt. Both men continued to stare in the direction of the community of Second Landing, where men were running, screaming, falling, apart from one figure striding bold among the buildings.
“WE MAY NEED,” concluded Mr. Skuse’s employer, “TO USE THE NUCLEAR WEAPON AFTER ALL.”
“I knew,” said Mr. Skuse, “you would come to my way of thinking in the end, sir.”
Apostle collapsed i
n the dim circular chamber at the base of the ladder. His heart was thudding in his chest. His eyes, bizarrely, hurt with every heartbeat.
An indignant voice called down the ladder. “‘Postle, Measure won’t come any further down the ladder. She says her head hurts.”
Apostle had head problems of his own. “Kick her till she comes. Try not to break any bones or make her bleed.”
An inevitable wailing started further up the ladder. Apostle did not greatly care. One of the advantages of a large extended family was that discipline could be outsourced.
The Anchorite was standing over him.
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