"Fuck. Here we go," Lamm said angrily. "I might have known."
"A long walk in this gravity is just what I need," Jandraligeli said.
"It's vast!" Lenipobra was still staring at the screen. "That thing is huge!" He was shaking his head. Lamm got up from his seat, pushed the youth out of the way and banged on the door of the shuttle flight deck.
"What is it?" Kraiklyn said over the cabin speaker. "I'm looking for a place to put down. If that's you, Lamm, just sit down."
Lamm stared at the door with a look first of surprise, then of annoyance. He snorted and went back to his seat, shoving past Lenipobra again. "Bastard," he muttered, then put his helmet visor down and turned it to mirror.
"Right," Kraiklyn said. "We're putting down." Those still standing sat again, and in a few seconds the shuttle bumped carefully down. The doors jawed and a cold gust of air entered through them. They filed out slowly, into the wide views of the silent, rock-steady Megaship. Horza sat in the shuttle waiting for the rest to go, then saw Lamm watching him. Horza stood and gave a mock bow to the darksuited figure.
"After you," he said.
"No," Lamm said. "You first." He nodded his head to one side towards the open doors. Horza went out of the shuttle, followed by Lamm. Lamm always made a point of being last out of the shuttle; it was lucky for him.
They stood on a flyer landing pad, near the base of a large rectangular tower of superstructure, perhaps sixty metres tail. The decks of the tower soared into the sky above, while over the surface of the cloud bank in front, and to all sides of the pad, towers and small bulges in the mist showed where the rest of the ship was, though where it ended it was impossible to tell now that they were so low down. They couldn't even see where the nuke had gone off; there was no list, not a tremor to reveal that they were really on a damaged ship travelling over an ocean, not standing in a deserted city with clouds moving smoothly past.
Horza joined some of the others by a low restraining wall at the edge of the pad, looking down about twenty metres to a deck just visible now and again through the thin surface of the mist. Streamers of vapour flowed across the area below in long sinuous waves, sometimes revealing, sometimes obscuring a deck covered with patches of earth planted with small bushes, with little canopies and chairs scattered about and small tent-like buildings on the surface. It all looked deserted and forlorn, like a resort in winter, and Horza shivered inside his suit. Ahead of them, the view led to an implied point about a kilometre away, where a few small, skinny towers poked out of the cloud bank, near the unseen bows of the craft.
"Looks like we're heading into even more cloud," Wubslin said, pointing in the direction they were heading. There a great canyon wall of cloud hung in the air, stretching from one side of the horizon to the other, and higher than any tower on the Megaship. It shone for them in the increasing sunlight.
"Maybe it'll go away as it gets warmer," Dorolow said, not sounding convinced.
"If we hit that lot we can forget about these lasers," Horza said, looking round from the rest towards the shuttle, where Kraiklyn was talking to Mipp, who was to stay on guard at the shuttle craft while the rest went forward to the bows. "With no radar we'll have to lift off before we go into the cloud bank."
"Maybe-" Yalson began.
"Well, I'm going to take a look down there," Lenipobra said, bringing his visor down and putting one hand on the low parapet. Horza looked across at him.
Lenipobra waved. "See you at the b-bows; ya-hoo!"
He vaulted cleanly over the parapet and started to fall towards the deck five storeys below. Horza had opened his mouth to shout, and started forward to grab the youth, but, like the rest of them, he had realised too late what Lenipobra was doing.
One second he was there, the next he had leapt over.
"No!"
"Leni-!" Those not already looking down rushed to the parapet; the tiny figure was tumbling. Horza saw it and hoped that somehow it could pull up, stop, do something. The scream started in their helmets when Lenipobra was less than ten metres from the deck below; it ended abruptly the instant the spread-eagled figure crashed onto the border of a small earthed area. It bounced slackly for about a metre over the deck, then lay still.
"Oh my God…" Neisin suddenly sat down, took off his helmet and put his hand to his eyes. Dorolow put her head down and started to unfasten her helmet.
"What the hell was that?" Kraiklyn was running over from the shuttle, Mipp behind him. Horza was still looking over the parapet, down at the still, doll-like figure crumpled on the deck below. Mist thickened around it as the wisps and streamers grew thicker for a while.
"Lenipobra! Lenipobra!" Wubslin shouted into his helmet microphone. Yalson turned away and swore to herself softly, turning off her transmit intercom. Aviger stood, shaking, his face blank inside his helmet visor. Kraiklyn skidded to a halt at the parapet, then looked over.
"Leni-?" He looked round at the others. "Is that-? What happened? What was he doing? If any of you were fooling-"
"He jumped," Jandraligeli said. His voice was shaky. He tried to laugh. "Guess kids these days just can't tell their gravity from their rotating frame of reference."
"He jumped?" Kraiklyn shouted. He grabbed Jandraligeli by the suit collar. "How could he jump? I told you AG wouldn't work, I told you all, when we were in the hangar…"
"He was late," Lamm broke in. He kicked at the thin metal of the parapet, failing to dent it. "The stupid little bastard was late. None of us thought to tell him."
Kraiklyn let go of Jandraligeli and looked around the rest.
"It's true," Horza said. He shook his head. "I just didn't think. None of us did. Lamm and Jandraligeli were even complaining about having to walk to the bows when Leni was in the shuttle, and you mentioned it, but I suppose he just didn't hear." Horza shrugged. "He was excited."
He shook his head.
"We all fucked up," Yalson said heavily. She had turned her communicator back on. Nobody spoke for a while. Kraiklyn stood and looked round them, then went to the parapet, put both hands on it and looked down.
"Leni?" Wubslin said into his communicator, looking down too. His voice was quiet.
"Chicel-Horhava," Dorolow made the Circle of Flame sign, closed her eyes and said, "Sweet lady, accept his soul in peace."
"Wormshit," Lamm swore, and turned away. He started firing the laser at distant, higher parts of the tower above them.
"Dorolow," Kraiklyn said, "you, Wubslin and Yalson head down there. See what… ah, shit…" Kraiklyn turned round. "Get down there. Mipp, you drop them a line or the medkit, whatever. The rest of us… we're going forward to the bows, all right?" He looked around them, challenging. "You might want to go back, but that just means he's died for nothing."
Yalson turned away, switching off her transmit button again.
"Might as well," Jandraligeli said. "I suppose."
"Not me," Neisin said. "I'm not. I'm staying here, with the shuttle." He sat with his head bowed between his shoulders, his helmet on the deck. He stared at the deck and shook his head. "Not me. No sir, not me. I've had it for today. I'm staying here."
Kraiklyn looked at Mipp and nodded at Neisin. "Look after him." He turned to Dorolow and Wubslin. "Get going. You never know; you might be able to do something. Yalson — you, too." Yalson wasn't looking at Kraiklyn but she turned and followed Wubslin and the other woman when they set off to find a way down to the lower deck.
A crash they felt through their soles made them all jump. They turned round to see Lamm, a distant figure against the far-away clouds, firing up at flyer-pad supports five or six decks above, the invisible beam licking flame around the stressed metal. Another pad gave way, flapping and spinning like a huge playing-card, smashing into the level they stood on with another deck-quivering thump. "Lamm!" Kraiklyn burst out. "Stop that!"
The black suit with the raised rifle pretended not to hear, and Kraiklyn lifted his own heavy laser and flicked the trigger. A section of deck five metres in
front of Lamm ruptured in flame and glowing metal, heaving up, then collapsing back down, a blister of gases blowing out from it rocking Lamm off his feet so that he staggered and almost fell. He steadied and stood, visibly shaking with rage, even from that distance. Kraiklyn still had the gun pointing towards him. Lamm straightened and shouldered his own gun, coming back almost at a saunter, as though nothing had happened. The others relaxed slightly.
Kraiklyn got them all together; then they set off, following Dorolow, Yalson and Wubslin to the inside of the tower and a broad sweeping spiral of carpeted staircase which led down, into the Megaship the Olmedreca.
"Dead as a fossil," Yalson's voice said bitterly in their helmet speakers, when they were about halfway down. "Dead as a goddamned fossil."
When they passed them on their way to the bows, Yalson and Wubslin were waiting by the body for the winch line Mipp was lowering from above. Dorolow was praying.
They crossed over the deck level Lenipobra had died on, down into the mist and along a narrow gangway with nothing but empty space on either side. "Just five metres," Kraiklyn said, using the light needle radar in his Rairch suit to plumb the depths of vapour below them. The mist was getting slowly thinner as they went on, up again onto another deck, now clear, then down again, by outside stairs and long ramps. The sun was hazily visible a few times, a red disc which sometimes brightened and sometimes dimmed. They crossed decks, skirted swimming pools, traversed promenades and landing pads, went past tables and chairs, through groves and under awnings, arcades and arches. They saw towers above them through the mist, and a couple of times looked down into huge pits carved out of the ship and lined with yet more decks and opened areas, from the bottom of which they thought they could hear the sea. The swirling mist lay in the bottom of such great bowls like a broth of dreams.
They stopped at a line of small, open, wheeled vehicles with seats and gaily striped awnings for roofs. Kraiklyn looked around, getting his bearings. Wubslin tried starting the vehicles, but none of the small cars were working.
"There are two ways to go here," Kraiklyn said, frowning as he looked forward. The sun was briefly bright above, turning the vapour over them and to each side golden with its rays. The lines of some unknown sport or game lay drawn out on the deck under their feet. A tower forced out of the mist to one side, the curls and whorls of mist moving like huge arms, dimming the sun again. Its shadow cut across the path in front of them. "We'll split up." Kraiklyn looked around. "I'll go that way with Aviger and Jandraligeli. Horza and Lamm, you go that way." He pointed to one side. "That's leading down to one of the side prows. There ought to be something there; just keep looking." He touched a wrist button. "Yalson?"
"Hello," Yalson said over the intercom. She, Wubslin and Dorolow had watched Lenipobra's body being winched up to the shuttle and then left, following the rest.
"Right," Kraiklyn said, looking at one of the helmet screens, "you're only about three hundred metres away." He turned and looked back the way they had come. A collection of towers, some kilometres away, were strung out behind them now, mostly starting at higher levels. They could see more and more of the Olmedreca. Mist streamed quietly past them in the silence. "Oh yeah," Kraiklyn said, "I see you." He waved.
Some small figures on a distant deck at the side of one of the great mist-filled bowls waved back. "I see you, too," Yalson said.
"When you get to where we are now, head over to the left for the other side prow; there are subsidiary lasers there. Horza and Lamm will-"
"Yeah, we heard," Yalson said.
"Right. We'll be able to bring the shuttle closer, maybe right down to wherever we find anything soon. Let's go. Keep your eyes open." He nodded at Aviger and Jandraligeli, and they went forward. Lamm and Horza looked at each other, then set off in the direction Kraiklyn had indicated. Lamm motioned to Horza to switch off his communicator transmit and open his visor.
"If we'd waited we could have put the shuttle down where we wanted to in the first place," he said with his own visor open. Horza agreed.
"Stupid little bastard," Lamm said.
"Who?" asked Horza.
"That kid. Jumping off the goddamned platform."
"Hmm."
"Know what I'm going to do?" Lamm looked at the Changer.
"What?"
"I'm going to cut that stupid little bastard's tongue out, that's what I'm going to do. A tattooed tongue should be worth something, shouldn't it? Little bastard owed me money anyway. What do you think? How much do you think it'd be worth?"
"No idea."
"Little bastard…" Lamm muttered.
The two men tramped along the deck, angling away from the dead-ahead line they had taken previously. It was difficult to tell where exactly they were heading, but according to Kraiklyn it was towards one of the side prows, which stuck out like enormous outriggers attached to the Olmedreca and formed harbours for the liners which had shuttled to and from the Megaship in its heyday, on excursions, or working as tenders.
They passed where there had evidently been a recent fire-fight; laser burns, smashed glass and torn metal littered an accommodation section of the ship, and torn curtains and wall hangings flapped in the steady breeze of the great ship's progress. Two of the small wheeled vehicles lay smashed on their sides near by. They crunched over the debris and kept walking. The other two groups were heading forward, too, making reasonable progress according to their reports and chatter. Ahead of them there still lay the enormous bank of cloud they had seen earlier; it wasn't growing any thinner or lower, and they could only be a couple of kilometres from it now, though distances were hard to estimate.
"We're here," Kraiklyn said eventually, his voice crackling in Horza's ear. Lamm turned his transmit channel on.
"What?" He looked, mystified, at Horza, who shrugged.
"What's keeping you two?" Kraiklyn said. "We had further to walk. We're at the main bows. They stick further out than the bit you're on."
"The hell you are, Kraiklyn," Yalson broke in from the other team, which was supposed to be heading for the opposite set of side prows.
"What?" Kraiklyn said. Lamm and Horza stopped to listen to the exchange over their communicators. Yalson spoke again:
"We've just come to the edge of the ship. In fact I think we're a bit out from the main side… on some sort of wing or buttress… Anyway, there's no side prow around here. You've sent us in the wrong direction."
"But you…" Kraiklyn began. His voice died away.
"Kraiklyn, dammit, you've sent us towards the bow and you're on a side prow!" Lamm yelled into his helmet mike. Horza had been coming to the same conclusion. That was why they were still walking and Kraiklyn's team had reached the bows. There was silence from the Clear Air Turbulence's captain for a few seconds, then he said:
"Shit, you must be right." They could hear him sigh. "I guess you and Horza had better keep going. I'll send somebody down in your direction once we've had a quick look round here. I think I can see some sort of gallery with a lot of transparent blisters where there might be some lasers. Yalson, you head back to where we split up and tell me when you get there. We'll see who comes up with something useful first."
"Fucking marvellous," Lamm said, stamping off into the mist. Horza followed, wishing the ill-fitting suit didn't rub so much.
The two men walked on. Lamm stopped to investigate some state rooms which had already been looted. Fine materials snagged on broken glass floated like the cloud around them. In one apartment they saw rich wooden furniture, a holosphere lying broken in a corner and a glass-sided water tank the size of a room, full of rotting, brilliantly coloured fish and fine clothes, floating together on the surface like exotic weeds.
Over their communicators Horza and Lamm heard the others in Kraiklyn's group find what they thought was a door leading to the gallery where — they hoped — they would find lasers behind the transparent bubbles they had seen earlier. Horza told Lamm they had best not waste their time, and so they left the state roo
ms and went back out onto the deck to continue heading forward.
"Hey, Horza," Kraiklyn said, as the Changer and Lamm walked along the deck and into a long tunnel lit by dim sunlight coming through mist and opaque ceiling panels. "This needle radar's not working properly."
Horza answered as they walked. "What's wrong?"
"It isn't going through cloud, that's what's wrong."
"I never really got a chance to… What do you mean?" Horza stopped in the corridor. He felt something wrong in his guts. Lamm kept walking, away from him, down the corridor.
"It's giving me a reading off that big cloud in front, right the way along and about half a K up." Kraiklyn laughed. "It isn't the Edgewall, that's for sure, and I can see that's a cloud, and it's closer than the needle says it is."
"Where are you now?" Dorolow broke in. "Did you find any lasers? What about that door?"
"No, just a sort of sun lounge or something," Kraiklyn said. "Kraiklyn!" Horza shouted. "Are you sure about that reading?"
"I'm sure. The needle says-"
"Sure isn't much fucking sun to lounge-" somebody broke in, though it sounded as if it was accidental and they didn't know their transmit was on. Horza felt sweat start out on his brow. Something was wrong.
"Lamm!" he shouted. Lamm, thirty metres away down the corridor, turned as he walked and looked back. "Come back!" Horza shouted. Lamm stopped.
"Horza, there can't be anything-"
"Kraiklyn!" This time it was Mipp's voice, calling from the shuttle. "There was somebody else here. I just saw another craft take off somewhere behind where we landed; they've gone now."
"OK, thanks Mipp," Kraiklyn said, his voice calm. "Listen, Horza, from what I can see from here, the bows where you are have just gone into the cloud, so it is a cloud… Shit, we can all see it's a goddamn cloud. Don't-"
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