by Iain Banks
She realised then that her eyes had adjusted over the hours, and his were still tuned to the wash of luminescence in the corridor outside and in the rest of the ship. She was looking for a weapon, but couldn't see anything on the surface of the bench she was hiding behind, or anywhere near by. A wrench; a big screwdriver or a length of angle iron; there ought to be hundreds of things she could use but she couldn't see any of them. She looked round in desperation as the soldier said something else and came further into the workshop. She peeped over the top of the bench again, hoping she'd missed something on its surface. The man was smoking; she could see the red glowing tip of the cigarette, being transferred from mouth to hand. Señorita…
Behind her she glimpsed something long and thin and glinting; stacked rods of some sort. She reached back, grasped. The soldier bumped into something, cursed in the semi-darkness.
It was like taking hold of a skeletal arm; two thin pipes, cold as bone and close together; ulna and radius. She felt up to a knurled collar like a cold brass knuckle. That was when she realised what she was holding. The soldier made a sound like hand rubbing flesh through cloth and said again, Señorita? The red tip of the cigarette glowed brighter, waving around in the darkness in front of the man. Light from the corridor reflected from his rifle.
She felt the end of the brasswork, then the twin hoses. They led back a few coiled metres to the tanks. They were upright but in the shadow of the door. She was still under the level of the bench. Her fingers crept up to the valves. She'd seen Broekman do this; even Philippe. She found the taps, whirled them round. The hiss of escaping gas sounded like a whole family of disturbed snakes. The soldier stopped, hesitated, then changed direction, came towards her. 'Hello…? he said. The glowing cigarette tip came closer, brandished like a sword.
When he was close enough, and the smell of the unignited gases was wafting back over her, making her dizzy, she threw herself forward, still holding the brass limbs of the oxyacetylene torch.
The gases flared on the tip of the cigarette, igniting with a whoosh and blowing flame towards the surprised soldier, flashing through the air in a vivid yellow ball. The man's hair caught; she saw his face, mouth opening, eyes closing as his brows sizzled and shrivelled and flamed blue. His burning hair lit up the beret stuffed underneath his left epaulette, the two grenades attached to his chest, the Kalashnikov strapped over his right shoulder and the belt with the oily black holster hanging over his left hip. He drew in a breath and screamed as his hair sputtered and crackled and lit up the whole workshop.
He lit the place well enough for her to see a massive wrench hanging on the wall not a metre away. She stepped smartly to it, unclipped and swung it in one movement. His scream had barely started and he had hardly moved — the cigarette he'd dropped hadn't even hit the deck — before the jaws of the wrench buried themselves in his skull, and he slammed into the metal deck as though he'd thrown himself there. His hair billowed yellow and blue for a moment, then sizzled out against his scalp, crisping it brown-black in places. The fumes stank, made her gag, and only then did she slowly pull the black tape from her mouth.
The last lick of flame, slowly consuming a set of curls over the soldier's left ear, was extinguished by the black ooze of blood welling from where the circular head of the wrench had hit.
She watched. Thought: How do I feel?
Cold, she decided. So cold. She kicked him over, pulled the assault rifle free and hoisted it, checking the safety was off. No noise from the open doorway. She waited for a few seconds then put the gun down and reached forward to take the man's uniform off. She hesitated before she touched him, then stood, hefted the wrench and smashed it into his forehead. Only after that did she strip him.
She whistled under her breath as she did it; Sousa.
She didn't mean to impersonate a soldier, she was just sick of the torn, soiled yukata. She wanted to be clothed again.
She tore some relatively clean strips off the yukata, wiped herself as clean as she could with a couple of them and tied one narrow strand round her head, keeping her hair back. The soldier wasn't too much bigger than her, so the uniform fitted. He'd been one of the ones who'd raped her; the one who'd bitten her ears. She fingered her earlobes; puffy and scabbed with blood.
She studied one of the grenades in the light spilling from the corridor. She even held the little shiny handle down, extracted the pin, inspected it, and then replaced it, letting the handle click back. She tried to recall how much time had passed between Sucre dropping a grenade into one of the groups of men, and the explosion. A bit more than five seconds, she decided.
The Kalashnikov was easier. She'd watched; safety, semi-automatic, automatic. The emplaced magazine was full and two more hung on his belt. The pistol was a Colt, just like Dandridge's; the safety was a simple switch, on and off. The soldier had a Bowie knife on the belt, so she gained that as well. A cigarette lighter and packet of Marlboros in one breast pocket. She threw the cigarettes away. She looked for a radio but he didn't have one.
She was at the door before she thought to go back and take his watch. The little Casio said 6:04.
She stared at it. It couldn't be that late. Next morning, already? She tilted the display. 6:04.
P, said the little letter to one side. P6:04.
Evening. The same day. She couldn't believe it. She was sure she'd slept for hours. She shook her head, stuffed the watch in a trouser pocket.
The corridor seemed very bright. The engine room was more brilliant still, and hummed noisily; it smelled of oil and electrics. Deserted.
She crept along the open grillework of the catwalk between the two main engines, towards the high girn of the donkey engine and the whining AC generator. The stairway to the main deck level left her feeling exposed and vulnerable, but nothing happened.
The evening air was still warm. In one corner of the sky, off to the west, a single dab of red hung thick and dim; above, over all the sky, a uniform darkness extended, starless and without moon. Thick cloud like a layer of something more than night. She decided the watch was right, and her senses had been wrong. She waited a moment, felt the eastern wind move across her face and hands, and watched the lid of cloud close over the red hole where the sun still shone, until darkness consumed the lake and the land.
The exterior of the ship was darker than she was used to; they'd turned the mast floodlights off or hadn't ever thought to turn them on. She slunk along the side of the superstructure, past dark portholes, heading forwards. She didn't know what to do. She'd dressed herself as a soldier but she wasn't one. She'd left the real soldier lying there and they'd have to go looking for him soon, so maybe she ought to forget about dressing as a soldier and strip off again and get into the water and swim away; she was a strong swimmer and the coast wasn't far…
She got to the forward edge of the superstructure. Light came from above. It wasn't the masthead floodlights; it seemed very bright in the darkness but it wasn't really, just the lights from the bridge. They weren't bothering to use the red night-lights which would keep their eyes adapted; maybe they didn't know about them. She looked at the deep shadows created by the hatches, and at the bows; the stem. Pale splinters. She went slowly forward, looking up. The bridge shone, end to end. She saw nobody. She walked backwards, then ducked into the shadow.
On hands and knees, she crawled up the slope of deck to the winches and lockers of the forecastle apron. She looked back at the bridge again; still nobody; it looked abandoned, until she saw a bloom of grey smoke climb into the air near midships, then another alongside. She waited for the smokers to appear, but they didn't. She edged forward to the closed-off V of the prow; and found herself stirring the splinters.
She was looking for the strings, but discovered the spike alone. The rest was matchwood. The pegs and strings must have been blown overboard. Whatever, she couldn't find them. She scuttled back into the shadows, the cello's spike jammed into the holster along with the Colt.
Back at the superstr
ucture she could stand again, and did so, still trying to think what she was supposed to do. She took the spike out and felt foolish. She squatted down, gun between her knees, and looked out into the darkness beyond the bows. Insects curled above her, attracted by the lights of the bridge.
She saw Philippe fall, heard Mandamus shut up by a pistol shot, watched the cello blast out and fall, felt the soldiers push into her, smelled her own flesh burn as they pressed the cigarettes against her. She thought of the sky on fire, and looked up into the night, trying to imagine the stars beyond the cloud. The length of bridge-light was made busy by the circling insects.
She crept into the ship.
The saloon was dark and silent, and smelled of dried blood and expended smoke; the whole lower deck seemed deserted. The television lounge still smelled of semen. She sniffed the dark air, drawing the sharp, animal scent into her, stomach churning.
She took to the stairs and went up to the bridge.
Snoring came through the half-open door of the captain's cabin. She pushed the door further, waiting for a creak, or at least for the snoring to stop. No creak; the snoring continued.
She edged in, fingering the door a little wider behind her as she went, to give her more light. A suite, of course; another open door. She let her eyes adjust, then approached the bedroom. The cabin smelled of dampness and shampoo. There was a man lying on the bed, torso tangled with a single sheet, arms drawn up behind his head, face turned away into the corner of the bulkhead beneath and to the side of the porthole.
Sucre. His chest was smooth, almost hairless; nipples very dark in the half-light. She crossed quietly to the bed and fumbled with the holster at her hip.
She kissed him, hair brushing the sides of his face, shadowing. He jerked awake, eyes white. She drew back a little so that he could see her; he relaxed fractionally, then the eyes balled wide and he started up, hands clutching together at the sheet beneath him before one went back up to his head, fumbling beneath the pillow.
But he was too late, and she was already pumping down with the heels of her hands, the tip of the old cello spike on his chest then bursting through as she put all her weight on it, forcing it between his ribs and into his heart.
He tried to beat her face but she dodged, and waggled the spike inside his chest with one hand while she leant forward and round and slipped the pistol out from under his pillow with the other. He gurgled once, like somebody rinsing his mouth, and darkness spread around his lips and the hole the spike had made in his chest; the moon-white sheets turned black where his blood touched.
The last noise he made as his chest subsided surprised her; then she realised it came not from his mouth but from the wound around the cello spike. She watched the dark bubbles for a moment.
She put the pistol — another Colt — into a pocket in the fatigue jacket. There was a walkie-talkie on the bedside table, so she stuffed that in a trouser pocket. She left the spike where it was. She was terrified of one of them coming back to life, so she pressed her thumb down on to Sucre's right eye while she held the Colt against one of his ears. She pressed hard but nothing happened. She drew her hand away with a shiver, suddenly afraid of the eye bursting and the fluid trickling down his cheek.
She decided Sucre was really dead. She took his Kalashnikov because it had a nightsight and dumped the other one. There was an Uzi on the table; she took that, a silencer for it and a few extra magazines. She was starting to get weighed down, and had to walk carefully as she left, trying not to clink.
The bridge smelled of tobacco, but there was nobody there. She felt cheated. She looked in all the cabins on that deck, even the one where Orrick had killed the first soldier, but there was nobody in any of them.
She went down to the next deck.
Nothing. She looked out through the blinds covering the windows on the forward lounge and saw somebody at the bows; the light from the bridge was just enough to make the man out. She scratched her head, went back out into the corridor and stood by the companionways leading up and down but heard nothing. She went back down to the main deck level and out on to the external deck under the overhang. She could still see the man. He seemed to be leaning at the very prow of the ship, his feet in the cello splinters, looking out into the night to where the dimmed lights of the distant Nakodo shimmered on the water.
She took the beret out of the epaulette, pushed the hair not held by the strip of yukata up underneath the beret, and walked quietly up the deck towards the man. She glanced up once at the bridge as she went, seeing nothing but emptiness and lights.
He didn't even hear her until she was less than five metres away. He turned, saw her, turned away again, gazing out over the water, and only then looked back, face puzzled.
She was on him while the expression of puzzlement was starting to turn into suspicion and he was reaching for his rifle. She already had hers; it cracked up and into his chin, throwing his head back and whacking it off the bulwark. He clattered to the deck like a broken doll.
He was not one of those who'd raped her and she didn't have the heart to kill him just like that, so she dragged him to the starboard anchor's chain locker, stripped him of weaponry, chucked him in, gently closed the hatch and dogged it. Carting all this hardware around was exhausting her, so she tipped all his armament and one of the Colts overboard. The splashes sounded very small and far away. She crept away again, back to the main body of the ship.
Then she found the others.
They were playing cards, below deck level, under an opened skylight set in the deck just in front of the leading edge of the superstructure. Smoke drifted out of the aperture; tobacco and hash. She took a peek over the lip and saw a table, cans of San Miguel, a thick joint, and hands of cards and hands of men.
It had been a long time since she'd smoked any dope. She lay there, shoulder against the raised metal lip round the skylight, remembering, then quietly took a grenade out of its velcro fastening, clutched the handle, removed the pin, let go the handle, sub-vocalised 'wun-ih erephantu, two-ri erephantu, tri erephantu, fori erephantu, favi erephantu', and was still chuckling to herself as she reached up and dropped the grenade through the skylight.
She heard it hit, heard a few intakes of breath, but didn't hear it bounce before the deck beneath her slammed up, the skylight flipped back on a cloud of bright mist and smashed, and a noise like planets colliding boxed her ears like an angry school bully.
She lay waiting. Her ears were singing again, ringing with their own tired noise. She unholstered the Colt, heaved herself up, looked into the cabin beneath through the smoke, and couldn't see very much. She levered herself up further, stuck her head and gun, then her head and gun and upper torso in through the gap, took a look round, and decided they were all dead or very close to it. She let a little more of the smoke clear, listening as best she could, watching the bridge and the sides of the superstructure at main deck level.
Then she swung in through the skylight, on to the table. It had been blown almost in two; strips of brown laminate sticking up like obstreperous licks of hair. She had to swing her feet to make sure she landed close to the bulkhead so that what was left of the table would take her weight. She dropped down, through the stinging smoke. Her loosely booted feet grated on grenade shards and scattered playing cards. One of the men moved and groaned. She wanted to use the knife but somehow couldn't, so put the gun to his head and fired. She did the same with the other three, though only one other showed any signs of life. Blood was making the floor sticky, glueing the cards to the deck.
Incredibly, the joint was still alight and almost intact, burning a brown mark in a shrapnel-punctured plastic seat. She knocked the end of the tip off it where a little black bit of plastic hung, and took a toke. It still tasted bad so she ground it out under one heel. It sizzled.
She sauntered from the cabin, amazed nobody had come, and only then started to think that perhaps they were all dead.
Still she didn't believe it, and searched the entire sh
ip. She found their SAMs and their plastique charges, in the chartroom off the bridge, looked again at Sucre, swathed in black and white, spike like a cupid's arrow in his unmoving chest, found the bloodstains on the bed in the cabin she'd been in briefly with Orrick (but could not find the body of the man Orrick had killed), found the three dead radio operators and the dead radio equipment (she tried to make it work, but couldn't even get the jamming signal; empty fuse cradles mocked her), looked again into the TV lounge where they'd raped her, and braved the shadowy depths of the main saloon, where the bodies still lay heaped and spread and she couldn't bear to turn on the light for fear of seeing one of them. She felt for the heavy machine-gun, needing both hands, and lifted a metal box full of ammunition. She left the gun lying in the corridor outside, then retraced her steps to the engineering workshop where the first one to die had spread his blood through his head over half the deck under the gleaming, businesslike benches.
An hour after she'd freed herself she was back on the bridge after a tour of the bows, where the soldier she'd poleaxed was making a fuss in the chain locker. She'd turned the bridge lights to red on her first visit, and strode through the blood-coloured gloom to the winch/anchor console. She tapped one finger against her lips as she inspected the controls, then reached out and flicked a switch. The starboard anchor dropped to the lake and splashed. Its chain rattled massively after it, links whipping through the chain locker where the soldier was.
The rasp of falling chain drowned the man's scream, though it must have been short anyway. If she'd waited till dawn, she thought, she'd have seen him exit through the eye of the anchor port in a red spray, but she shivered at the thought of his blood spreading over the surface of the lake. The anchor chain's thunder sounded through the ship, making the deck beneath her tremble. Unbraked, the chain kept on spilling out under its own weight. There was a boom as it stopped; she couldn't tell whether it parted or held. She rubbed one of her breasts absently, grimacing slightly when she touched one of the places where they'd burned her, and reflected that revenge could taste remarkably bland when you'd stopped feeling.