“You are sure?”
He listened to the small thread of brain which was floating in a tank over a small, insignificant system almost 100 light years away, and then his mind gave a flash of victory which was so bright it seeped out into the consciousness of the rest of the Dessites on the planet. A burst of triumph pulsed right through the collective mind; the feedback nearly overcame the small organic thread of life in the distant spaceship.
The prognosticator damped his brain patterns down, and sternly excluded the rest of his compatriots from the connection.
“Then you know what to do,” he said, mentally sending a picture of the protocol to be followed.
The tiny traveler, in orbit around a lonely planet, flashed its understanding. It was thrilled; now there would be many honours to be received, many accolades to be reaped, many interviews to be born out nobly. It would be revered; its small part in the history of the Dessites remembered for all time. The tiny brain settled back in its nutrient solution, and resumed its scrutiny of Pyraklion. The most important part of its mission was to remain undetected. The subjects should have no idea that they were being watched. It checked hastily to make sure that both video cameras deployed on the surface were cloaked. Then it began to transmit what those cameras were seeing to Dessia.
Work slowly drew to a halt on the home planet.
SIX COILED THE rope that Grace had thrown down, and then slipped it around the column they had decided on as a belay. From now on they would have to reuse their ropes, which meant that they would have to double the rope up so that they could recover it later. The stretches, then, would be much shorter.
Ledin was spread-eagled on the rock, trying to keep his breathing calm. Although the towering columns of basalt were smooth, they also held quite a number of cracks, which helped. Even so, the mile drop beneath him was making him uncomfortable. Still, he thought, at least they weren’t being attacked by bats or avifauna, as they might have been on Pictoria.
The thought of Pictoria made him feel surprisingly homesick. There was something very special about that planet, he decided. Not just that Hanna was now buried there, either. It was the red rocks shining under the Pictoris sun, and the huge buttes stretching up into the sky. He missed it.
He fumbled a handhold, and slipped, having to use the rope to steady himself.
“Mind what you are doing!” Six had not been expecting the quick movement, and teetered himself.
“Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”
“Now might not be the best time to go off daydreaming,” suggested Six in a mild tone.
Ledin smiled at him. “Probably not.”
“What were you thinking?”
“That I prefer Pictoria.”
Six thought about it, and then looked surprised. “I know what you mean. Who would have thought we would end up liking that backward planet full of avifauna?”
“With spiders the size of dinner plates,” added Ledin.
Six grinned. “—And man-eating bats!”
“Not to mention the ortholiquid lake that traps you in underground caverns!”
Six groaned. “Don’t remind me of that! Not one of my favourite days.”
Ledin’s memory took him back to that moment, and he gave a shudder. “Nor mine.”
“This is a doddle, in comparison.”
Ledin wasn’t prepared to go that far. “I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “I can’t say I’m enjoying this much, either.”
“Only another couple of hundred metres to go!”
“Sure. A breeze.”
There was a long silence as they continued their climb down. There were deep indentations in the columns, but some stretches were completely smooth, and they needed all their makeshift skills to avoid slipping on the treacherous surface. Six thought that the sheer magnificence of the climb was breathtaking. He stared out into the distance. The planet stretched on beneath them, with just this one huge drop. The continental shelf must have subsided along this fault line at some stage, millions of years ago. But the view from this particular spot was something else.
After nearly two hours they picked a larger crevice, and wedged themselves in, before ingesting a nutripack and a waterpack each.
Ledin looked over at the horizon. “Nice to be on a planet with no lethal lifeforms,” he said.
“So far. Don’t speak too soon.”
“You think there might be some?”
“I hope not. But there is water here – it seems to collect on the top of the hexagonal rocks, doesn’t it? Which means that there should be bacteria. So there might be other lifeforms. Although I suppose they might have all been killed off by the trauma of the disruption of the planet and by the asteroid belt. I don’t know.” Six took another swig of his nutripack, and looked at it with disgust. “You know, I am getting so used to living off these things that I have nearly forgotten what sweetfruits taste like.”
“I know what you mean. They do take the fun out of eating, don’t they?”
Six stood up. “Ready for another couple of hours?”
Ledin inclined his head. “As I ever will be.” He looked up at the clouds. “And the cloud base is thickening. We had better get a move on – we don’t want Diva to be struggling against the wind, as well as everything else.”
Six had to agree. Diva was very skilled as a pilot, but there were limits to everything. “We won’t stop again.”
Ledin sighed. He looped his length of rope around a column, and began to descend. They must have gone on in this fashion for about another half an hour when they both looked up suddenly. There was a tearing noise coming from above them. It took a few seconds, and then they were both able to see a brilliant white ball of fire ripping through the atmosphere, seemingly in their direction.
“GET DOWN!” screamed Six. “If that thing explodes anywhere near us, it will knock us both off the cliff!”
Ledin looked around frantically. Six was above him right now, about to follow him down the stretch. He would be able to duck back into the crevice they had used to tie the rope. But Ledin himself was more exposed.
The sound of the meteoroid as it thundered towards them was almost supernatural. It made the same sound as a lightning ray, but multiplied by a thousand. The hairs on the back of Ledin’s neck stood on end.
He knew he was too exposed where he was, and began to let himself down precariously hand over hand. He needed to get to the next small horizontal shelf. And fast.
The last couple of metres were a race against time, and he nearly fell off the face of the cliff altogether. Then his foot found the empty air he had been hoping for, and he let himself down into a thin shelf, about three metres long, and perhaps one deep. He was aware of an immense flash of light in the sky above him as he threw himself right to the back of the rock crevice.
Nothing happened for long seconds, and then the shock wave hit them. Ledin felt the whole of the column of basalt rock shudder, and begin to tremble at the explosion. Then he was hit by a wave of energy which picked him up bodily and hurled him back against the wall, causing him to cry out in pain. He huddled back, his hands clapped over his ears, shouting out loud into the mammoth explosion of air and sound that created a cacophony around him.
It could only have lasted one or two moments, but it felt like a lifetime. His ears hurt; he knew he had been deafened by the phenomenon. He waited for an impact in the ground, a second explosion, but there was none. All of the meteoroid must have exploded above the ground
He waited some five minutes, and then crawled out of his hiding place, knowing that he had been very lucky. If that backlash had caught him exposed on the cliff face, it would have ripped him away from the stone as easily as the wind takes a flurry of dust.
He peered cautiously back up the cliff. “Six?”
A wary face appeared, staring wide-eyed down at him. “You all right?”
Ledin’s ears were still ringing, but he could tell what the question was. He examined himself. �
�I think so. You?”
Six nodded. “Some explosion!”
Ledin found the rope, still hanging placidly where he had left it. He moved it against the rock face, and Six nodded, signaling that he was on his way down.
By the time Six dropped into Ledin’s crevice, they were both able to hear some sounds again, although these still reverberated as if they were coming down a long, metallic pipe. They thumped each other on the back, both euphoric at having escaped the worst of the blast.
“Almagest was smiling on us there!” Six said.
Ledin nodded. He knew how close he had been to being blown off the rock face altogether. He thought of Grace. He hoped she had not been caught out in the open. Surely she would be back inside the pod by now?
ARCAN BURST INTO the Valhai Voting Dome like a tornado. He had been searching frantically for any traces of Petra and Mandalon, and the orthogel entity was not in his best mood.
He knew that somebody must have found Atheron’s old gate; it was the only explanation. Despite his best efforts, he could find absolutely no trace of either the missing Sellite or of his Namuri bodyguard.
Rumours that Mandalon had been abducted by the Namuri girl abounded, but Arcan knew them to be false. Grace had assured him that both Petra and Tallen regarded their blood oath as binding to death; she would never willingly have abandoned her emptor. He was working on the assumption that she was to be implicated in his disappearance, and had already spent hours going right through the abandoned corridors and vaults underneath the Valhai Voting Dome. There was no sign of them down there, although he had been able to detect several rock falls which appeared to be recent. They could be behind any one of those, but Arcan was unable to travel there; he could not go where he was not able to visualize.
So he was not in the best of humours when he burst upon the Sellites gathered in the head of house chamber.
“I cannot find either of them.”
The acting head of Sell, head of the officiator house, Zorion, stared implacably back at Arcan. “Then I do not see what can be done,” he said in a resonant voice he felt to be consistent with his new position. “We are going to have to let the rest of Sell know that Mandalon is missing; the Second Valhai Votation will have to be cancelled.” He assumed a solemn tone.
Arcan shimmered. He was not deceived by the man, who he knew to be one of Mandalon’s fiercest opponents. He thought it quite probable that Zorion had been responsible for the two disappearances in the first place.
“There is still time for Mandalon to be found before the Votation,” he said shortly.
Zorion gave a smooth smile. “With all due respect, Arcan ...” he pushed his fingertips into a steeple, and touched his thin lips with them, “... it is the Sellite people who must decide what to do – not the orthogel entity.”
Arcan turned black. “If you remember the terms of the treaty you signed with me,” he said in a voice which boomed inside their heads, making them reverberate uncomfortably, “any violence on this planet makes the agreement null and void. Which means that I am no longer bound to supply the agreed services, does it not?”
Zorion’s black eyes flickered. “There is no proof of violence.”
“Mandalon certainly didn’t disappear of his own free will, and it is clear that the orthogel fragments they both carried were wrenched from them by force.” Arcan had been horrified to find Mandalon’s amputated finger, which had been left casually in the vimpics room.
Zorion tried to assess the feelings of his fellow Sellites. He could not be seen to be assuming control too quickly; that would immediately bring suspicion down on him.
He wavered, and then gave a wide smile. “As you wish, Arcan.” He bowed, secretly vowing that he would never demean himself like that again. “I think we can afford to wait a little longer before we go public with the news.”
Arcan pulsated. “I still hope to find them alive.”
“As do we all, of course.” Zorion steepled his fingers again, and tapped his mouth for a second time, hoping to look suitably concerned. “As do we all.”
Chapter 21
IT TOOK SIX and Ledin another three hours to reach the entrance to the deep cleft in the rocks. When they did, their mouths dropped open in awe.
It was a huge fissure, and now they were there they could see that it did, indeed, lead into a cave. The rift was majestically flanked on either side by huge natural columns, and the floor was littered with the hexagonal stepping stones so typical of Pyraklion. They led to the back of the fault, where the passageway twisted, then opened up into a cave. This still admitted light, so that it was almost magical, with huge columns surrounding the waiting ortholiquid. Everything had a still, timeless feel to it.
“Why are you puffing so much?” The visitor and the trimorphs had appeared effortlessly from the ortholiquid pool.
“Well, hello? We have just climbed down a third of a mile, remember?”
“What has that to do with making so much noise when you exhale?”
“We need to get our breath back.”
“Why? Did you lose it on the climb?”
“Of course we didn’t!” Six rolled his eyes at Ledin. “—Oh, never mind.”
The bimorph looked confused. “Why should I mind? It is you that is making all the noise.”
Six decided to ignore that. The two Kwaidians checked out the fissure, and then made their way to the entrance. It was time to let Diva know that they were ready. Ledin took out a flare which he had carefully carried down with him, and pulled at the ring with one fluid motion, before holding it out away from him hurriedly.
There was a pause, and then a small rocket shot out of the end of the cylinder, powering up towards the sun. Ledin tracked it up, until it burst into a shower of red miniature stars, which in turn fell gently to land as they burnt themselves out.
“Even Diva couldn’t miss that.” Six sounded pleased. “Phase two!”
“There was no need for the fireworks; I could have told Diva you were ready.” They could see the visitor was peeved; he was spinning crossly.
“I suppose you could. We just couldn’t be sure you would be here, when we were planning everything. Anyway, Ledin didn’t want to miss the pyrotechnics.”
Ledin looked at his friend, raised a surprised eyebrow, and then grinned.
They sat on the edge of the cleft, their feet dangling over the gulf below them, until they finally heard the sound of the shuttle engines approaching. Six began to fix the small, portable grapnel to the end of one of the ropes, testing its weight in his hands. He gave a couple of practice swings of the rope with its heavy appendage.
“Here! Watch out! You nearly took my head off,” complained Ledin.
“Sorry. This thing is deceptive. It should work well.”
“Yes? Well if you don’t mind, I would appreciate some warning next time you are hurling metal anchors around in here – you nearly knocked me off the rock!”
Six sat down repentantly. “Sorry. I guess I got a bit carried away.”
“You don’t seem very experienced at this type of thing.”
“No. First time. But it can’t be hard to do, surely?”
“We’d better hope not.”
They fell into a silence, listening to the noise of the shuttle getting louder and louder, until they wouldn’t have been able to make themselves heard over the noise anyway. The thrust of the heavy engines was throbbing through the rock, and they were forced to retreat from the edge, where eddies of high velocity air were beginning to whip around.
Six stared at the vortices with a worried expression. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he muttered.
“WHAT?”
“I SAID ... OH, NOTHING!”
At last the shuttle was directly in front of the cave entrance, although just slightly above it. A long rope was hanging over the side of the acoton net, and the end of it was knotted into a loop.
“Well, it’s now or never.” Six stood up with a sigh, and pulled the rope he was
holding, with the grapnel attached, closer to him. “You had better stand back.”
But the advice was unnecessary; Ledin had already stepped hurriedly into the recesses of the cleft, and was watching from what he considered to be a safe distance.
Six began to gain momentum with the end of the grapnel, swinging it in ever faster circles from his shoulder and gradually letting some of the rope out as he did so. He fixed his attention on the loop of rope hanging from the front of the shuttle, tried to estimate the distance, and then let it fly, dropping the rest of the coil as he did, so that it could unravel freely.
The first attempt was a failure, and he only just realized in time that he needed to put his foot on the end of the coil. As it was, he very nearly lost the whole thing, which swung down towards the depths, hitting the side of the drop some ten metres further down.
“Can’t you aim any better?” said the visitor, who had appeared again from nowhere suddenly.
Six pressed his lips together, and gave him a look.
“Just making a comment,” said the bimorph in a defensive tone, subsiding into a smug sort of silence. The trimorph twins hovered behind him, but had apparently decided to hold their tongues on the subject of swinging expertise.
Six hauled the rope back up quickly, and re-coiled it. Thankfully, his second attempt caught the loop. Ledin moved in to help him pull, and they gradually drew in the slack. That done, they could now pull anything suspended in the net at the front of the shuttle into the crevice in the middle of the precipice.
Six watched as Diva brought the shuttle down, until they could see her in the small cabin, right opposite. Six blew out air. “Uuff! This is going to need some pilotry!”
It did.
Ledin was impressed. He wasn’t sure he could have held the pod quite so still in those conditions. But she was managing to allow for wind currents, interference, the engine thrust, and the echo of the rock face. He gave an admiring nod. She was good at this!
Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 Page 60