A sayce snarled at him. “Killl.”
“Get that fucking thing out of my way!”
Yuri Wilken dragged Randolf aside.
The whole afterdeck complement was watching Karl. He reached the hatchway over the feed mechanism that shunted logs into the furnace. It was hidden beneath a clutter of composite pods. “Help me move these,” he yelled.
Barry MacArple emerged from the furnace room, a brawny twenty-year-old, sweaty and sooty. He had kept indoors for most of this trip, and carefully avoided any member of the posse. None of the Lambourne family had mentioned that he was an Ivet.
The noise came to an abrupt halt. Karl was very aware of the apprehensive faces focusing on him, the silent appeal for guidance. He held up his hands as Barry started to haul the pods off the hatchway. “OK, we’re riding on some sort of rock. So I want all the kids to slowly make their way forwards. Slowly mind. Then the women. Not the men. You’ll upset the balance with that much weight forward. And whoever those horses belong to, calm them down now.”
Parents hustled their children towards the prow. A hushed murmur swept round the adults. Three men were helping Barry clear the hatchway. Karl lifted off a couple of the pods himself. Then he heard the noise again, but it was distant this time, not from the Swithland’s hull.
“What the hell—” He looked up to see the Hycel a hundred metres astern.
“Karl, what’s happening?” Rosemary’s voice demanded from the handset.
He raised the unit to his mouth. “It’s the Hycel, Mum. They’ve hit it as well.”
“Bloody hell. What about our hull?”
“Tell you in a minute.”
The last of the pods were cleared away, revealing a two-metre-square hatch. Karl bent down to unclip the latches.
That was when the second sound rang out, a water-muffled THUNK of something heavy and immensely powerful slamming into the keel. Swithland gave a small jolt, riding up several centimetres. Some of the more loosely stacked cases and pods tumbled over. The colonists shouted in panic and dismay, and there was a general surge for the prow. One of the horses reared up, forelegs scraping the air.
Karl ripped the hatch open.
THUNK
Ripples rolled away from the Swithland as it wallowed about.
“Karl!” the handset squawked.
He looked down into the hull. The log-feed mechanism took up most of the space below the hatch, a primitive-looking clump of motors, pulley loops, and pistons. Two grab belts ran away to the port and starboard log holds. The black mayope planks of the hull itself were just visible. Water was welling out of cracks between them.
THUNK
Karl stared down in stupefaction as the planks bowed inward. That was mayope wood, nothing could dint mayope.
THUNK
Splinters appeared, long dagger fingers levering apart.
THUNK
Water poured in through the widening gaps. An area over a metre wide was being slowly hammered upwards.
THUNK
THUNK
Swithland was rocking up and down. Equipment and pods rolled about across the half-abandoned afterdeck. Men and women were clinging to the rail, others were spread-eagled on the decking, clawing for a handhold.
“It’s trying to punch its way in!” Karl bellowed into the handset.
“What? What?” his mother shouted back.
“There’s something below us, something alive. For Christ’s sake, get us underway, get us to the shore. The shore, Mum. Go! Go!”
THUNK
The water was foaming up now, covering the hull planks completely. “Get this shut,” Karl called. He was terribly afraid of what would come through once the hole was big enough. Together, he and Barry MacArple slammed the hatch back down, dogging the latches.
THUNK
Swithland’s hull broke. Karl could hear a long dreadful tearing sound as the iron-hard wood was wrenched apart. Water seethed in, gurgling and slurping. It ripped the log feeder from its mountings, crashing it against the decking above. The hatch quaked violently.
A gloriously welcome whine from the paddle engines sounded. The familiar slow thrashing of the paddles started up. Swithland turned ponderously for the unbroken rampart of jungle eighty metres away.
Karl realized people were sobbing and shouting out. A lot of them must have made it forward, the boat was riding at a downward incline.
THUNK
This time it was the afterdeck planks. Karl, lying prone next to the hatch, yelled in shock as his feet left the deck from the impact. He twisted round immediately, rolling over three times to get clear. Pods bounced and pirouetted chaotically. The horses were going berserk. One of them broke its harness, and plunged over the side. Another was kicking wildly. A blood-soaked body lay beside it.
THUNK
The planks beside the hatch lifted in unison, snapping back as if they were elastic. Water started to seep out.
Barry MacArple was scrambling on all fours along the deck, his face engorged with desperation. Karl held out his hand to the Ivet, willing him on.
THUNK
The planks directly below Barry were smashed asunder. They ruptured upwards, jagged edges puncturing the Ivet’s belly and chest, then ripping his torso apart like a giant claw. A metre-wide geyser of water slammed upwards out of the gap, buffeting the corpse with it.
Karl turned to follow the water rising, fear stunned out of him by the incredible, impossible sight. The geyser roared ferociously, shaking Karl’s bones and obliterating the impassioned shouts from the colonists. It rose a full thirty metres above the decking, its crown blossoming out like a flower. Water, silt, and fragments of mayope plank splattered down.
Clinging for dear life to one of the cable drums as the Swithland bucked about like a wounded brownspine, Karl watched the geyser chewing away at the ragged sides of the hole it had bored. It was creeping forward towards the superstructure. The bilges must be full already. Slowly and surely more and more wood was eroded by the terrific force of the water. In another minute it would reach the furnace room. He thought of what would happen when the water struck all fifteen tonnes of the searingly hot furnace, and whimpered.
Rosemary Lambourne had a hard struggle to stay upright as the Swithland tossed about. Only by clinging to the wheel could she even stay on her feet. It was the sheer fright in Karl’s voice which had spurred her into action. He wasn’t afraid of anything on the river, he had been born on the Swithland.
That deadly battering noise was knocking into her heart as much as the hull. The strength behind anything that could thump the boat about like this was awesome.
How much of the Swithland is going to be left after this? God damn Colin Rexrew, his laxness and stupidity. The Ivets would never dare to revolt with a firm, competent governor in charge.
A roar like a continual explosion made her jump, almost sending her feet from under her. It was suddenly raining on the Swithland alone. The entire superstructure was trembling. What was happening back there?
She checked the little holoscreen which displayed the boat’s engineering schematics. They were losing power rapidly from the furnace. Reserve electron-matrix crystals cut in, maintaining the full current to the engines.
“Rosemary,” the radio called.
She couldn’t spare the time to answer.
Swithland’s prow was pointing directly at the bank sixty-five metres away, and they were picking up speed again. Pods and cases were scattered in the boat’s wake, jouncing about in the water. She saw a couple of people splashing among them. More people went falling from the foredeck; it was as tightly packed as a rugby scrum down there. And there wasn’t a thing she could do, except get them to the shore.
Off on the port side, Nassier was floundering about, paddles spinning intermittently. Rosemary saw a giant fountain of water smash through the middle of its superstructure, debris whirling away into the sky. What the fuck could do that? Some kind of water monster skulking around the riverbed? Even as th
e fantasy germinated in her mind she knew that wasn’t the real answer. But she did know what the roaring noise behind her was now. The knowledge sucked at the last of her strength. If it hit the furnace . . .
Nassier’s prow lifted into the air, shoving the afterdeck below the water. The superstructure crumpled up, large chunks being flung aside by the tremendous jet of water. Dozens of people were swept into the river, arms and legs twirling frantically. In her mind she could hear the screams.
There were just too many people on board the paddleboats. Rexrew had already increased the numbers of colonists they were made to carry, refusing to listen to the warning from the captains’ delegation. Then he dumped this posse on them as well.
If I ever get back to Durringham, you’re dead, Rexrew, she promised herself. You haven’t just failed us, you’ve condemned us.
Then the Nassier began to capsize, rolling ever faster onto her starboard side. The jet of water died away as the keel flipped up. Rosemary saw a huge hole in the planks amidships as it reached the vertical. That was when the water must have rushed in on the furnace. A massive blast of white steam devoured the rear of the boat, rolling out across the surface of the river. Mercifully, it shielded the final act in the Nassier’s convulsive death.
Swithland’s prow was fifteen metres from the trees and creepers which were strangling the bank. Rosemary could hear the sound of their own bedevilling geyser reducing. She fought the wheel to keep the boat lined up straight on the bank. The bottom was shelving up rapidly, the forward-sweep mass-detector emitting a frantic howl in warning. Five metres deep. Four. Three. They struck mud eight metres from the long flower-heavy vines trailing in the water. The big boat’s awesome inertia propelled them along, slithering and sliding through the thick black alluvial muck. Bubbles of foul-smelling sulphurous gas churned around the sides of the hull. The geyser had died completely. There was a moment of pure dreamy silence before they hit the bank.
Rosemary saw a huge qualtook tree dead ahead; one of its thick boughs was the same height as the bridge. She ducked—
The impact threw Yuri Wilken back onto his belly just as he was starting to get up again. His nose slammed painfully against the deck. He tasted warm blood. The boat was making hideous crunching sounds as it ploughed into the frill of vegetation along the bank. Long vine strands lashed through the air with the brutality of bullwhips. He tried to bury himself into the hard decking as they slashed centimetres above his head. Swithland’s blunt prow rammed the low bank, jolting upwards to ride a good ten metres across the dark-red sandy earth. The paddle-boat finally came to a bruising halt with its forward deck badly mangled, and the qualtook tree embedded in the front of the superstructure.
Screams and wailing gave way to moans and shrill cries for help. Yuri risked glancing about, seeing the way in which the jungle had shrink-wrapped itself around the forward half of the boat. The superstructure looked dangerously unstable, it was leaning over sharply, with tonnes of vegetation pressing against the front and side.
His limbs were shaking uncontrollably. He wanted to be home in Durringham, taking Randolf for walks or playing football with his mates. He didn’t belong here in the jungle.
“Are you all right, son?” Mansing asked.
Sheriff Mansing was the one who had signed him on for the expedition. He was a lot more approachable than some of the sheriffs, keeping a fatherly eye out for him.
“I think so.” He dabbed at his nose experimentally, sniffing hard. There was blood on his hand.
“You’ll live,” Mansing said. “Where’s Randolf?”
“I don’t know.” He climbed shakily to his feet. They were standing at the front corner of the superstructure. People were lying about all around, slowly picking themselves up, asking for help, wearing a numb, frightened expression. Two bodies had been trapped between the qualtook trunk and the superstructure; one was a small girl aged about eight. Yuri could only tell because she was wearing a dress. He turned away, gagging.
“Call for him,” Mansing said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get pretty soon.”
“Sir?”
“You think this was an accident?”
Yuri hadn’t thought it was anything. The notion sent a tremble down his spine. He put his lips together, and managed a feeble whistle.
“Twelve years I’ve been sailing up and down this river,” Mansing said grimly. “I’ve never seen anything like that geyser before. What the hell can shoot water about like that? And there was more than one of them.”
Randolf came lumbering up over the gunwale, his sleek black hide covered in smelly mud. The sayce had lost all of his usual aggressive arrogance, slinking straight over to Yuri and pressing against his master’s legs. “Waaterrr baddd,” he growled.
“He’s not far wrong there,” Mansing agreed cheerlessly.
It took quarter of an hour to establish any kind of order around the wrecked paddle-boat. The sheriffs organized parties to tend to the wounded and set up a makeshift camp. By general consensus they moved fifty metres inland, away from the river and whatever prowled below the water.
Several survivors from the Nassier managed to swim to the stern of the Swithland which was half submerged; the boat formed a useful bridge over the stinking quagmire which lined the bank. The Hycel had managed to reach the Zamjan’s far bank; it had been spared the destructive geyser, but its hull had taken a dreadful pounding. Radio contact was established and both groups decided to stay where they were rather than attempt to cross the river and join forces.
Sheriff Mansing located an unbroken communication block amongst the remnants of the posse’s gear, and patched a call through the LDC’s single geostationary satellite to Candace Elford. The shocked chief sheriff agreed to divert the two BK133s to the Swithland and fly the seriously injured back to Durringham straight away. What she never mentioned was the possibility of reinforcing the forsaken boats. But Sheriff Mansing was above all a pragmatic man, he really hadn’t expected any.
After making three trips to the camp, carrying pods of gear from the paddle-boat, Yuri was included into a small scout party of three sheriffs and nine deputies. He suspected they only included him because of Randolf. But that was OK, the other detail of deputies was now removing bodies from the Swithland. He preferred to take his chances with the jungle.
When Yuri and the scouts marched away, colonists with fission-blade saws were felling trees on one side of the camp’s glade so the VTOL aircraft could land. A fire was burning in the centre.
It didn’t take long for the groans of the casualties to fade away, blocked by the density of the foliage. Yuri couldn’t get over how dark this jungle was, very little actual sunlight penetrated down to ground level. When he held his hand up the skin was tinted a deep green, the cinnamon-coloured jacket they had issued him with to protect him from thorns was jet black. The jungle around Durringham was nothing like this. It was tame, he realized, with its well-worn paths and tall trees spiralled with thin colourful vines. Here there were no paths, branches jutted out at all heights, and the vines were slung between boughs either at ankle height or level with his neck. A sticky kind of fungal mould slimed every leaf for three metres above the ground.
The scouts paired up, fanning out from the camp. The idea was to familiarize themselves with the immediate area out to five hundred metres, search for any more survivors from Nassier, and verify that no hostiles were near the camp.
“This is stupid,” Mansing said after they had gone fifty metres. He was leading, chopping at the vines and small branches and bushes with a fission-blade machete. “I couldn’t see you if you were three metres away.”
“Perhaps it thins out up ahead,” Yuri said.
Mansing slashed at another branch. “You’re giving away your age again, son. Only the very young are that hopelessly optimistic.”
They took turns to lead. Even with the fission blade hacking out every metre of path it was tiring work. Randolf loped along behind, occasionally butting aga
inst Yuri’s calves.
According to Mansing’s guidance block they had travelled about three hundred metres when the sayce stood still, head held up, sniffing the humid air. The species didn’t have quite the sense of smell terrestrial canines possessed, but they were still excellent hunters in their own territory: the jungle.
“Peeeople,” Randolf grunted.
“Which way?” Yuri asked.
“Here.” The sayce pushed into the severed branches that made up the walls of the path. He turned to look at them. “Here.”
“Is this for real?” Mansing asked sceptically.
“Sure is,” Yuri answered, stung by the doubt. “How far, boy?”
“Sooon.”
“All right,” Mansing said. He started to hack at the jungle where the sayce indicated.
It was another two minutes of sweaty labour before they heard the voices. They were high and light, female. One of them was singing.
Mansing was so intent on cutting the cloying vegetation away, swinging the heavy machete in endless rhythm, that he nearly fell head first into the stream when the creepers came to an abrupt end. Yuri grabbed his jacket collar to stop him slipping down the small grassy slope. Both of them stared ahead in astonishment.
Sunlight poured down through the overhead gap in the trees, hovering above the water like a thin golden mist. The stream widened out into a rock-lined pool fifteen metres across. Creepers with huge ruffed orange blooms hung like curtains from the trees on the far side. Tiny turquoise and yellow birds fluttered about through the air. It was a scene lifted from Greek mythology. Seven naked girls were bathing in the pool, ranging from about fifteen years up to twenty-five. All of them were slender and long limbed, sunlight glinting on their skin. White robes were strewn over the black rocks at the water’s edge.
“Nooo,” Randolf moaned. “Baddd.”
“Bollocks,” Yuri said.
The girls caught sight of them and shrieked with delight, smiling and waving.
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 57