Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  While they were waiting for the rest of the convoy to come through, Vance told his e-i to bring up the map again. Something somewhere didn’t tally. Either the map was wrong, or the inertial guidance. But each vehicle had an independent guidance system, and they were all agreeing on where the convoy was. Logically then, it had to be the map.

  Vance studied the profiles and contours carefully, trying to find a recognizable landmark. Apart from the tributary itself, there wasn’t one. But as Leif said, it was just a question of travelling due south. They had to reach it at some point. Their fuel levels would have to be reassessed when—

  ‘Oh shit, shit!’ Ophelia exclaimed over the ringlink.

  ‘It’s going, it’s going,’ Gillian added.

  Vance accessed the MTJ’s rear mesh just in time to see truck-2 sinking into the snow. It started to tilt over. Vance sucked down an anxious breath. Before the angle grew acute enough to tip it on its side the movement stopped, but the truck was now embedded in snow to the top of its wheels. The sledge it was towing slid serenely along one side, then twisted sharply as the cable jerked it to a halt.

  ‘Oh for crap’s sake,’ Omar protested. ‘There goes the rest of today.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Vance agreed in a jaded tone. ‘Looks like it.’

  It took ten minutes to get ready for the outside. The four of them squirmed round, putting their clothing layers back on. Vance pulled a high-neck sweater over his quilted shirts and thermal underwear. Then there were another two sweaters before he fixed his armour on. Thermal overtrousers went on next, followed by waterproof trousers. Two sets of gloves. Surprise – Angela hadn’t knitted him one of her balaclavas, so he had a printed version which scratched his ears, and a thick hat which just fitted under his helmet. With all the layers on, he was free to struggle into his parka. Finally there were the goggles.

  ‘What do we ever do if we need to get out fast?’ Camm grunted from the rear seat as he wrestled his parka on. ‘Anyone got a contingency protocol for that?’

  ‘Just get out,’ Antrinell said flatly. ‘Worry about the cold later. It takes a couple of minutes before it does any real damage.’

  ‘Good to know,’ the xenobiologist grunted sarcastically.

  They climbed out into the bitter air. Vance tramped along the side of the track the MTJ had created, boots sinking ten centimetres into the virgin snow, which made every step an effort. When he passed truck-1 and the tanker he got back onto the track, walking down the depression rut made by the tyres.

  Ophelia Troy had already got her outer layers on, and was outside, inspecting what had happened. Gillian remained in truck-2’s cab, looking disgusted with herself.

  ‘Why didn’t you follow the track?’ Vance asked Ophelia. He was looking at the snow, seeing the way truck-2 had veered away from the track he and MTJ-2 had cleared.

  ‘We picked up some sideways drift going down the slope,’ Ophelia said. ‘No point trying to correct when you’re going down. Gillian would have just steered back onto the track when we were back on the flat. Which we were doing. It wasn’t much. Crap’s sake, if you’d been three metres further over it would have swallowed you too.’

  Vance nodded slowly. She was right. The snow where the truck had sunk down didn’t look any different, the surface was a little more puckered perhaps, but nothing to indicate how light it was underneath. In fact he didn’t understand why the density was so different. Just another obstacle St Libra was throwing at them with its usual dispassion.

  The other convoy members were gathering round. Vance was pleased to see the Legionnaires were all carrying their weather-sheathed carbines. Leif and Darwin peered down into the holes which had captured the wheels.

  ‘There was running water under here,’ Darwin decided. ‘I think it chewed the snow away from underneath. The truck fell through the roof of a small ice cave. It’s sitting on a whole lot of crushed ice now.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Antrinell said. ‘We’re at the bottom of a slope. Maybe this used to be some kind of run-off.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Vance said, knowing how petulant he sounded and not caring. A week of the relentless delays and frustrations which the convoy had thrown at them had worn away any vestige of humour.

  The first priority was to dig the wheels out. The sledge towed by Tropic-2 was broken open and spades handed round. Two people per wheel began scooping the snow away. It was difficult work; with the loose snow crumbling easily, the ramps they were making had to be twice as wide as the tyres to prevent them falling in on themselves.

  Karizma went over to the sledge towed by biolab-2, and hauled out the flex grids that they would place under the truck’s tyres. She and Erius started locking the individual units together to form four long strips. Leif himself tethered the truck’s sledge full of bioil bladders to MTJ-2, and carefully pulled it clear.

  While the tyres were being dug out, Vance ordered all the vehicles to top up their tanks. He was helping unwind a hose from the side of the tanker when Angela came over.

  ‘The fuel’s lasting surprisingly well,’ she said. ‘I’ve been keeping track of consumption.’

  ‘Given we spend most of our time idle while we wait for the lead MTJ to make some progress that’s hardly surprising. Keeping the cabs warm doesn’t use up half as much bioil as driving.’

  ‘But we’re taking a long time getting anywhere.’

  ‘The tributary can’t be more than a day away now, no matter how poor our map is.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘All right, Angela, what’s bothering you?’ He glanced round the convoy. Most people were out of the vehicles, either helping with the refuelling or digging round truck-2. Five Legionnaires walked a simple patrol pattern round them, scanning the empty white landscape. There had been no hint of the creature since they left Wukang.

  ‘The fuel may be holding out,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure the food will.’

  He closed his eyes. Please Lord, just let one thing go right. ‘Really?’

  ‘Elston, it’s been a week, and we’ve barely covered three hundred kilometres. We were planning on taking two and a half weeks, three tops. I calculated the food load on that basis, plus a week’s worth of composition gel in case of emergency.’

  Vance checked round again, this time making sure no one was close enough to overhear them. ‘Are you telling me we haven’t got enough food?’ he asked in rising frustration.

  ‘I’m telling you that if we take more than another couple of weeks it’ll be touch and go. For a start you need to tell everyone to cut down. They’re all eating as if there was a resupply flight about to drop crates of gourmet meals on us tomorrow. We also need to get them used to the composition gel. Once it’s prepped a carton gives you a perfectly calculated two thousand calories per day; that’s all you really need. And if it looks like we’re going to take longer, then they can go on a diet for a week. Wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll break that news once we’ve got truck-2 clear. We’ll start to alternate composition gel with our standard meal packets tonight.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Have you ever tasted composition gel after it’s been prepped?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Consider yourself fortunate.’

  Vance carried on with the refuelling, dragging the hose nozzle over to MTJ-2. The snow field around him was abuzz with activity as the hoses were pulled out, and tanks filled. The front wheels of truck-2 had now been cleared, and Erius was down on his belly, wriggling and shoving, trying to get the obstinate strips of flex grid into place along the crude ramps of ice chunks. Leif had already attached a pair of tow cables to the front of truck-2, now he was waiting for the MTJs to finish refuelling and manoeuvre into place. The two vehicles plus the truck’s own hub motors should be enough to pull it out of the collapsed ice cave, so Leif claimed.

  After ninety minutes of hard work by everyone, truck-2 was ready to be liberated. The MTJs were hooked up to the cables, and slowly rolled across the snow,
angling so that their pull would compensate for the way the truck was leaning. Leif drove MTJ-2, while Antrinell was behind the wheel in 1; Gillian was in truck-2’s cab, determined to make amends for the disruption she’d caused.

  Vance stood back with a big group, watching as the tow cables took up the slack and became taut. Ophelia Troy was down on her knees beside the truck’s offside front wheel, just above the ramp, watching to see if the tyre tread was moving onto the flex grid, linked to Gillian to relay what was happening. Paresh Evitts walked alongside MTJ-2, keeping an eye on its performance for Leif, while Dean Creshaun was performing the same duty for MTJ-1. Vance could see the vehicles start to shake as they applied pressure. A rear wheel on MTJ-2 spun as it lost grip. Truck-2 shuddered and lurched a few centimetres forward.

  ‘Tyres touching the grid,’ Ophelia said. ‘Take it easy, we’re almost there.’

  Smiles were appearing amid the watchers as the truck began to lumber forwards, slowly shifting back to the vertical. The motion caused the tow cables to slacken off for a moment. Both MTJs lunged ahead, tugging the limp cables taut again, exerting their full force in less than a second.

  Then the cable connecting the truck to MTJ-1 snapped. It happened with a crack like a gunshot, which made Vance flinch, muscles contracting to deliver him into a half crouch. The two halves of the cable slashed through the air, releasing their tension energy at high velocity. They emitted a menacing whispering whistle as they moved. But even that sound wasn’t enough to alert those nearby to what was happening, so fast was the cable moving.

  Abruptly freed of its load, MTJ careered forward, beginning a wild turn. The back end of the vehicle caught Dean Creshaun as it spun, knocking him sideways. Meanwhile its cable end slashed through the cold air, keeping parallel to the snow. It slammed directly across Paresh Evitts’ chest. The armour vest he wore underneath his parka saved him from being sliced in half, though the tough woven filaments of the breastplate section buckled and cracked from the ferocious impact, dissipating the impact back through the layers of sweaters and shirts. His arm was also flicked by the cable. Again the armour protected him from any direct lacerations, though the humerus was instantly snapped in two and the shoulder dislocated. He was flung backwards several metres through the air to land on fresh snow, already unconscious.

  Ophelia Troy was still kneeling at the side of the ramp of ice that had been dug down to the truck’s offside front wheel. The truck was rolling laboriously up the ramps, bringing its chassis level with her head when the tow cable snapped. The length still attached to the truck lashed sideways with its signature high-frequency whistling. Ophelia’s brain was just starting to register something was wrong when the cable caught her across the side of her throat, above the collar of her armour waistcoat. Her unprotected neck was severed clean in two by the guillotine-like swipe. The muscles of her body took a moment to lose their rigidity, holding her headless torso in its upright crouch position while her heart’s last few beats sent blood fountaining up out of her severed carotid artery. Only as the sickening jet of blood finally dwindled did Ophelia’s body relax and topple over.

  In the cab, Gillian didn’t know what had gone wrong, only that an unexplained judder ran down the length of the vehicle. She was also aware of a slight hiatus in her progress forward. In response she twisted the throttle, determined not to lose the momentum that had brought the tyres out onto the flex grids. ‘Come on!’ she yelled at the recalcitrant truck. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the rear of MTJ-1 starting to skid sideways. It smashed into poor Dean Creshaun. ‘Shit!’ But still she kept power on, forcing the truck up the ramp towards freedom. Paresh Evitts flew through the air, and a whole cascade of icons burst into her grid like a firework explosion. That was when she acknowledged what her subconscious already knew: something was drastically, terribly wrong.

  Truck-2 lumbered out of the ramps, and Gillian eased the power back. Then she began to focus on what the red icons were telling her. At the same time, the shouts and screams came thundering through the cab’s makeshift insulation.

  Angela had no memory of running. One second she was standing with everyone else as the truck did its weird quiver, the next she was panting from exertion, staring down frantically at Paresh’s limp body. The front of his parka had been split as if someone had taken a knife to it, cutting through the padding to expose his armour. That too was battered, she could see the thick weal of stress cracks across the front, ironically mimicking a frost pattern. Her e-i was accessing his bodymesh medical smartcells. He was still alive. She ripped his goggles off, and tugged the skewed balaclava round. A faint breath mist puffed out of his lips. Blood was dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Paresh!’ she screamed.

  Dr Coniff emerged from the crowd that was arriving, and sank down beside Angela. ‘Move,’ she barked as she tugged her gloves off. Angela shuffled aside, allowing the doctor to reach for Paresh’s face, finger pressing to find a pulse. ‘Airway open, no sign of obstruction. Mark, scanner!’

  Mark Chitty dropped to his knees on the other side of Paresh, extracting a small hand-held scanner from his pack. The doctor started waving it across Paresh.

  Angela hated how helpless she was. It was all she could do not to interrupt the doctor and demand an explanation. Instead, all she could do was watch.

  ‘Damnit,’ Coniff growled. ‘Can’t get through the armour. Okay, arm’s broken, but that’s clean. Shoulder will need relocating. Can’t inspect the chest wall for flail segment, but there’s going to be a lot of soft tissue damage. Mask!’

  Chitty had already got a clear oxygen mask ready, a plastic tube coiling back into his pack.

  ‘I need a stretcher,’ Coniff called out. ‘Mark, stabilize the arm and get him into the biolab.’ She clambered to her feet and looked round to where Dean Creshaun was sitting up in a daze, surrounded by his buddies Olrg and Lance.

  ‘Wait,’ Angela yelled as the doctor started hurrying over to Dean. ‘What about Paresh?’

  ‘We need to get him inside,’ Coniff said over her shoulder. ‘I can treat him properly when I can get him scanned. He’s stable enough.’

  ‘Ho crap!’ Angela exclaimed. She gripped Paresh’s hand, squeezing him through the protective gauntlet. ‘I’m here, sweets, you hear me? I’m here. You’re going to be fine, just fine.’

  Mark Chitty cut the parka off Paresh’s broken arm with a small powerblade, and rolled a tube sleeve up the armour. The sleeve inflated quickly.

  It seemed like hours before Juanitar Sakur and Sergeant Raddon came shambling gracelessly through the fluffy snow, carrying the stretcher. Paresh was eased on to the canvas. Angela took one of the corners, and they made their way back to biolab-2 as fast as they could. As they went she was dimly aware of a commotion breaking out, a hysterical Erius was shouting at Leif. Everyone knew that Erius and Ophelia had a thing going back at Wukang. Now, Erius was blaming Leif for the calamity, since he was the one who’d connected the tow cables . . . and he was the one whose plan they’d been following.

  ‘Your fault, you bastard!’ Erius screamed, and took a maddened swing. In so many clothes it was a pitiful blow, slow and cumbersome. But his fist did make contact, and Leif swayed back, stumbling. So then he launched himself at Erius in equally furious retribution. Several Legionnaires waded forward, pulling them apart.

  That was when the stretcher bearers passed Ophelia’s corpse. Someone had covered it with a plastic sheet, but it wasn’t wide enough to conceal the spray of frozen blood that was scattered across the churned-up snow. A couple of metres away another, smaller, sheet was draped over the head. Angela felt her stomach churn, and thought she was going to be sick.

  Paresh groaned. Blood started to fleck the inside of his mask as he coughed.

  ‘You’re okay,’ Angela shouted at him, trying to bend over as she trudged along, putting her face above his. His eyes were fluttering. She wasn’t sure he was fully conscious. ‘You hear me? You’re doing okay. The doc’s coming
and everything’s going to be fine.’

  They reached the mobile biolab and manoeuvred Paresh into the small door compartment. The outside door slid shut, and Angela stomped her feet impatiently while they got him through into the central cabin area. When the door slid back again Coniff had arrived with Ken Schmitt helping a limping Dean Creshaun. So again Angela had to wait while Dean and the doctor went inside.

  When she did finally get through the door compartment, the central cabin was badly cramped. They’d moved Luther to the driver’s cab passenger seat; the other members of the xenobiology team travelling in the vehicle had vacated into the lab section to give the medical team space to work. Dean was sitting in a corner, with Juanitar Sakur helping him get his layers off. Paresh was lying on a gurney with Mark Chitty and Antrinell removing the last of his armour. The oxygen mask was still clamped over his mouth and nose, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

  Dr Coniff gave Angela an annoyed look. ‘We don’t have room. Wait outside, please.’

  ‘Make me,’ Angela spat back.

  Antrinell gave her an exasperated glance.

  ‘Come sit with me,’ Luther said, and patted the driver’s seat. Angela gave him a fast nod, slightly shocked by how sickly the catering supervisor still looked, and wormed her way round to the little oval hatchway, scraping snow off her boots and gaiters as she went. It started melting right away. She stared at the little puddles in a daze. The inside of the biolab was life from another time and world: white light, warm dry air. She’d been braced against the grinding cold for so long that this was the milieu which felt wrong now.

  With Luther’s cautious help, she began removing her own layers. Coniff slid a big scanner arm across Paresh, her eyes closed as she concentrated on the image. Chitty began cutting the last T-shirt away. Angela’s breath caught as she saw the vivid purple and black welts discolouring the skin across his chest.