The Soterion Mission

by Stewart Ross

  Holding onto a rope handrail that led to the broad bough of an adjacent oak, Cyrus, Taja and the boy climbed into its branches and slithered down the trunk to the ground. Their young guide then confirmed what Cyrus and Taja already suspected: they were well beyond the murderous perimeter of the Gova settlement. When they had thanked him repeatedly for saving them, they searched out a sheltered hollow, checked it for snakes and lay down to rest.

  Before going to sleep, the Tallins insisted that their new friend explain what was going on. The boy’s story, told simply and without self-glorification, sparkled with intelligence, kindness and remarkable courage. It also brought a smile to Cyrus’ face and allowed him to close his eyes with a glimmer of hope in his bruised heart.

  Timur, too, had been the recipient of startling news from the mouth of a youngster. Its bearer was the favoured message-carrier whom the Malik had singled out as a possible heir apparent.

  “Zeds!” gasped the young man, struggling for breath after running halfway down the hill in search of his master. “Giv seen Zeds!”

  Timur’s brow furrowed like dirty snow. Zeds? Of course the fool could see Zeds! “What Zeds?” he asked, restraining himself from striking the youth for his stupidity.

  “Enemy Zeds, Malik! Not Grozny!”

  The creases on Timur’s brow deepened. Interference from another Zed tribe was the last thing he needed. It was difficult enough keeping his numbheaded warriors in some sort of line when there were no distractions. If they had to contend with other Zeds as well, it would be beyond even his ferocious powers of control. He needed detail.

  “Where are these Zeds, Giv? Point!”

  “Er, leff!” cried Giv proudly, sticking out the correct arm like a salute in the direction of the shallow valley below.

  At least they’re not behind us, thought Timur. “Good, Giv. You have the makings of a mind. Now, see if you can use it again. This might not be easy, but how many are there?”

  The youth’s grin was replaced by a pained expression that betrayed his difficulty in grasping the question. Like all common Zeds, he was unable to count.

  Timur tried again. “How many bad Zeds?” He held up three long white fingers. “This many?”

  Giv shook his head. “No, Malik. More bad Zeds.” He held up both his hands with all the fingers outstretched. “Hundred!”

  “Make up your mind, ratvomit!” screeched Timur, whose patience was fraying rapidly as the potential danger of the situation became apparent. “Ten fingers are not a hundred!” He held up his own hands, the digits extended like asparagus sticks. “This is ten. Got it, leadhead? Ten.”

  “Giv see ten bad Zeds over leff,” the lad explained carefully, pointing again towards the river.

  Timur nodded. “Learning fast, Giv. Well, let’s see what can be done about them.”

  When Timur reached the top of the hill from which Giv had come, he found his men in a state of high excitement. Delighted by the prospect of action, they were jumping about, punching each other and brandishing their weapons in the air. Their leader realised at once that he wouldn’t be able to deny their animal craving for action. He peered down the slope. Yes, Giv was almost right. Some fifteen hundred paces away was a small group of men – he could see nine – who appeared to be hurrying away from him. Their peculiar assortment of weapons and lack of clothing marked them as Zeds.

  “Want go kill!” grunted a tall man with a dark hole where his left eye had been. “Zeds want go kill!”

  “Listen to me!” yelled Timur. “Listen!” The men gradually fell silent. “You men here, only you may go and kill those Zeds! Just you! Repeat!”

  “Just you!” echoed the mob. Misunderstanding the command, three or four warriors started to move.

  “Stop!” screamed Timur. “Batbrains! Wait for the orders of your Malik. Giv, you tell the men on the left, and Jamshid, you tell the men on the right” – to make sure he was understood, he indicated both directions as he spoke – “that they must stay in the line. Understand? Stay in the line! Repeat!”

  “Stay in the line,” they chorused eagerly.

  “Brilliant! Now go!”

  As Giv and Captain Jamshid ran off, Timur turned once again to the men clustered around him. “Now, you brainless bloodshedders, go and get those Zeds! Ready…charge!”

  With a medley of savage war cries, the band of some forty Zed warriors rushed madly down the hill. It was at this point that Timur’s strategy collapsed. The Zeds at the bottom of the hill, fleeing from what was clearly a much larger force, broke into a run and veered away to the right. This brought them within sight of another group of Timur’s men. Before Jamshid arrived with orders to stay put, this force of about forty abandoned their positions and joined the furious charge of their confederates.

  Seeing what was about to descend on them, the targeted Zeds hesitated for a few seconds then doubled back to Timur’s left. The same pattern of indiscipline was repeated on this flank. Without waiting for orders, the frenzied warriors screamed with delight at the sight of potential victims and hurtled down the slope after them. By now well over one hundred men – nearly all the Grozny Zeds’ military force – were careering out of control in pursuit of a rapidly retreating enemy.

  Timur groaned. For the moment there was nothing he could do as most of his men were already out of earshot. It would probably take them the rest of the day to catch their prey, kill it and bring what was left of the bodies back to him. When they did so, however, someone was going to pay for this indiscipline. Pay a very painful price indeed.

  Cyrus was dreaming. He was lying on soft grass back in Della Tallis. Ozlam was talking to Roxanne. He leaned across and whispered something in her ear. She laughed, tossing back her hair to reveal the Zed tattoo. The High Father opened his mouth in a joyless smile and ran his finger over the cruel scar. When she did not object, he took her hand, raised her from the ground and started to lead her away.

  “No! Roxy! Don’t go! Please don’t go!” It was dream-speech. Cyrus didn’t know whether he was really talking or not.

  “I won’t go again, Cy.”

  Again? What did that mean? Floating between sleeping and waking, Cyrus opened his eyes. Ozlam had gone, but not Roxanne…Roxanne? He was suddenly wide awake.

  Memories of the previous night slipped into focus: the boy, the musty tunnel, the hollow where they had gone to sleep. He remembered, too, what the boy had told them. He was sure Roxanne had managed to get away…

  Cyrus didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He stood up and walked slowly over to where she was standing beside the boy. This was a greater miracle than anything Gova was supposed to have done. Wrapping his arms around the woman who had changed the purpose and meaning of his life, he held her to him. “Oh, Roxy!” he whispered, his face buried in her thick dark hair. “Oh, Roxy, I really do – ”

  “How sweet! How childishly, pathetically sweet!” Taja’s voice was thick with more than sarcasm. “I thought we were on a mission to find the Soterion, Cyrus, not a lover.”

  Keeping hold of Roxanne’s hand, Cyrus took a step back. “Listen, Taja. We are in the middle of a crucial and very difficult operation. It has been painful and will probably get worse – ”

  “So we must concentrate on the task in hand and not let personal feelings get in the way.” Taja’s eyes were black and furious.

  “Precisely, Taja,” replied Cyrus slowly, meeting her gaze and holding it. “We must not let personal feelings get in the way.”

  It was the boy who brought the exchange to a halt. “Excuse me,” he interrupted, “I don’t know nothing about this personal feelings stuff, but shouldn’t we be getting on with something else?”

  Roxanne put an arm round his thin shoulders. “Thank you for reminding us, Sammy. But I think there’s a bit of explaining to do first, don’t you?”

  The emergency
tunnel, which ran from the hall to the concrete tree over a thousand paces away, had been built into the structure of the Gova settlement at the same time as the electric fence. Its purpose was to allow entry and exit if the gates malfunctioned. The position of the hatch in the hall was indicated by an enamel sign – the one Roxanne had started reading. When Ozlam noticed her doing this, it gave him another reason to get rid of her: she knew his secret.

  As literacy had died out soon after the community’s foundation, the sign had lost its meaning. Furthermore, as the tunnel was never used and the floor of the hall became covered with thick layers of dust, within thirty years the very existence of the escape route was forgotten.

  It had been rediscovered by the literate refugee Constants who, when sheltering among the Children of Gova, had mocked their unscientific cult. Frinaspa, the High Father of the time, had ordered the iconoclasts’ swift burial for heresy and kept the knowledge of the tunnel to himself. He passed it on only to his successor.

  The High Fathers who followed found the secret extremely useful. To stop anyone abandoning the settlement, they came up with the practice of throwing the insulation from the handles over the fence. This left the levers as deadly as the surrounding wire and struts. The Fathers, or occasionally a trusted Magus, then used the tunnel to sneak out under the cover of darkness to recover the insulation. Its restoration, they explained, was one of Gova’s miracles.

  This dishonest ritual continued unchanged until the time of Ozlam’s predecessor, Torpekai. Both he and Ozlam shared the same unpleasant characteristics: they were cowards and strongly disliked women. Neither man fathered children. Instead, they surrounded themselves with a group of favoured boys whom they educated – as Taja had correctly guessed – to be the future Magi. The secret of the tunnel was revealed to one of these lads so that he, and not the High Father or a Magus, ran the risk of going beyond the fence to collect the insulation. Ozlam’s great mistake was in his choice of boy.

  The lad’s full name was Sammy Songova, although he never referred to himself as that. “Songova” was the surname given to all future Magi – and he hated it. Fearless, bright, lively and scrupulously honest, Sammy was a born rebel.

  Although the “electricity heresy” of twenty-eight years previously had been wiped out, some of the Children still felt their leaders were not being quite straight with them. A few even went so far as secretly to question the whole Gova idea. It was only a story, they said, invented to maintain the tyrannical overlordship of the High Father and the Magi. Among these dissenters were Sammy and his young friends, the self-named “No-Goves”.

  When Sammy heard of Ozlam’s order to execute the newly arrived Constant lady with the kindly eyes, he determined to help her – and free himself at the same time. His aim was to lead her and her friends out on the same night. So they would not be at the mercy of Zeds beyond the fence, he had not destroyed their weapons, as Ozlam had commanded, but hidden them in the tunnel and burned some old wooden posts as substitutes.

  Sammy got his timing wrong. While he was sliding back the bolt on the door of Roxanne’s prison, he heard someone approaching. It was a Magus on his way to take over the night-time chant. As Sammy was backing away from the door, the man looked at him suspiciously: community rules said everyone had to stay in their dormitories from dusk to dawn. Fortunately, the Magus passed by without comment. He must have assumed that Sammy, Ozlam’s favourite, was on his way to see him.

  “I can imagine how you felt, Sammy,” said Roxanne, “when you came back after the man had gone and discovered the bolt of my prison closed again and me missing!”

  The boy grinned. “I tell you, lady, I thought maybe you’d gone up in smoke! But I had a sneaky look at the trapdoor in the hall. The dirt around it had been moved so I knew someone had opened it. Smart lady, I thought to myself. She’s got away alright.”

  Cyrus glanced across at Taja. While she was listening to the story as keenly as himself, it was clear from her disappointed expression she found it painful. A short while ago, although a captive, she had been alone with him. Now Roxanne was back, her hopes had been dashed once more. But she could wait, she told herself. Her time may yet come.

  As soon as the coast was clear, Roxanne was explaining, she had let herself out of the prison chamber and made a quick plan of action. The first move was to rescue Corby, whose whining she had heard over the sound of the chanting. That done, she planned to use the dog to help her find Cyrus, Taja and Navid. She had not gone more than five steps before she realised the idea wouldn’t work: Corby’s loud snuffling would wake the whole settlement in no time.

  Reluctantly, she decided it was best to leave immediately – assuming that the tunnel was still intact and led somewhere safe – and return the next day to collect the others. She reckoned she could work out where they were by watching the settlement during daylight.

  Roxanne looked at Cyrus rather sheepishly. “No, I didn’t abandon you, Cy. I simply reckoned it was better to get out than be caught. You see, I thought I was the only one who knew about the tunnel.

  “The plan didn’t work, anyway. When I got up here, I found the tree surrounded by Zeds.” She frowned. “They were obviously looking for us, probably heading for that bridge I mentioned. I went back into the tunnel, where I’d left Corby, and the two of us hid there all day. We were famished and thirsty. Poor Corby’s tongue was hanging out so far I thought it would drop off!”

  Roxanne stooped and patted the dog’s broad flank. “When the Zeds had gone, I hauled him up to the tunnel entrance by his collar. Almost strangled you, didn’t I?” she said playfully, scratching the top of his head. “Sorry, old thing, but it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

  The creature looked up at her with huge eyes as if to say, “Well, I suppose so.”

  “The moment I got him on the ground, he shot off to find water, just as he did when he sniffed out that stream after the ambush.”

  The rest of the tale was soon told. Refreshed with water from a muddy hollow and her hunger satisfied with wild fruits, Roxanne lay down to sleep with Corby at her side. Shortly before dawn, she was woken by his damp nose pushing against her face. He seemed to want to go somewhere. At first light, Roxanne let him have his way and followed him to the hollow where she found Cyrus, Taja and Sammy fast asleep.

  The whole story now came together. Once it was discovered that Roxanne and Corby had vanished, rumours began to circulate among the Children of Gova. The Magus who had bumped into Sammy in the middle of the night told others what he had seen. By mid-morning, the boy felt people were watching him wherever he went. He now needed to free the remaining Constants and get away himself.

  “So, here we all are,” Sammy concluded cheerily. “I’ll miss my mates, sure. But I tell you, anything’s better than being stuck in that wicked place. That Ozlam, he’s really nasty, he is.”

  “I’m sure he is, Sammy,” said Cyrus, “and I can’t tell you how grateful we are for what you have done. However, we mustn’t forget that poor Navid, my Defender companion, is still inside.”

  “It was his choice,” cut in Taja. The edge had returned to her voice, Cyrus noted. What extraordinary self-control she had! She sounded tougher, more determined than ever.

  “Yes, but he made that choice when he thought the mission was over and Corby was dead. If he could see us now – and Corby – I bet he’d want to come back.”

  Taja shrugged. “Maybe. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “Excuse me, lady,” interrupted Sammy, “there is something. I’ll go and get him!”

  A heated conversation followed, but in the end Sammy had his way. He knew where Navid was and assured them he could smuggle him out. As soon as it was dark, he said goodbye to his new friends and re-entered the tunnel. As proof to Navid that his companions and his beloved Corby were alive and well, in his pocket he carried the dog’s leather collar and
a ring Cyrus had inherited from his father.

  Sammy was gone half the night. When he reappeared, followed by a rather guilty-looking Navid, even Taja allowed herself to smile. Roxanne embraced Sammy and called him a hero. Cyrus shook his friend warmly by the hand and assured him he had no need to apologise for what had gone on. Not to miss out on the rejoicing, Corby ran around licking every hand within reach. By the time all the laughing, congratulating and story-swapping had finished, dawn was already breaking. Taking up their weapons, the Constants set off once more in the direction of the River No-Man.

  Having lost several days, the mission was eager to move quickly. Knowing that Timur and his Zeds were somewhere ahead, apparently going the same way, they proceeded with extreme caution. They were surprised, therefore, when towards evening on the third day they arrived at the ruined bridge on the banks of the No-Man without having seen or heard anything of the enemy.

  As Timur had feared, it had taken his warriors the better part of a day to chase down their enemy. The six slower runners were swiftly overhauled and hacked to death. The remaining three proved harder to catch. Having run in a group for a few thousand paces, they separated and headed off in different directions. This led to a ferocious argument among the pursuers, who eventually divided themselves into three groups. They did not corner the last man until nightfall. As was their custom, he was not slaughtered, as the others had been, but bound and saved for the grizzly ritual of the spit.

  Timur had left his position on the hill in order to follow his undisciplined men and save time. That was why, when the Constants skirted round the same hill a day later, they came across nothing to suggest that the Grozny Zeds had ever been there.

  The advance of the Grozny Zeds was further slowed by victory celebrations, including the ceremonial spit feast, and the whipping and mutilation of those he held responsible for leaving their positions without his permission. The fighting men also had to wait for the rest of the tribe – the dogs, children, breeding slaves and other menials – to catch them up. Thus two days had passed before Timur re-established his line and resumed sweeping across the countryside between himself and the river.