Angel Stations (35 page)

‘Father,’ Matthew greeted him, then went to stand by the blazing log fire Vaughn had stacked that morning, shortly after he had materialized before the Emperor in Tibe. ‘I don’t know how you can drink that stuff.’ Vaughn’s son nodded towards the green wood tea.

‘I like it.’ Matthew grimaced, but in a humorous way. ‘It’s strange,’ Vaughn continued, ‘how it isn’t the young who take to these things. This is the tea of Eden, of a new world. Young as she was, even your mother . . .’ He caught himself: no use digging up old memories. He smiled, showing his teeth. ‘It’s not so bad, actually, and the natives certainly seem to like it.’

Vaughn picked up a fresh shirt and put it on.
Not long
, he thought,
not long
. And then they could abandon their mountain retreat forever. He would miss it, but there would be so much else to look forward to. He studied his son. He was sure he’d burned the fire of rebellion out of him. And yet . . .

‘We’ve run an analysis on the nanocytes,’ said Matthew. ‘I thought I ought to let you know. The majority of them have departed en masse through the singularity. Including the cloud originating from the destruction of that transport ship.’

Vaughn looked up. He hadn’t anticipated that. Still, they were dealing with an ancient alien technology; it was bound to be unpredictable, though it had served their purposes well enough so far. ‘What happened when they emerged at the next Station along the chain?’

Matthew eyed him with a grim expression. ‘That’s just the thing, Father. They didn’t.’

‘They didn’t re-emerge? They were destroyed?’

‘Possibly.’ Matthew shrugged. ‘Or . . .’ He hesitated, knowing the importance of what he was about to say. ‘Or they went somewhere else.’

‘There is nowhere else for them to go,’ Vaughn said firmly. ‘I didn’t see any of this.’
But then it’s so damnably unpredictable
, he thought.
Sometimes you see it there, the future laid out as clear as day, almost. Other times, it’s like staring into a void, not knowing how certain events might turn out
.

For the moment, Elias was lost to him. He was now the closest he had ever been, but Vaughn could not detect the other man’s presence in his mind. It was frustrating and worrying, in one sense; Elias was a force to be reckoned with, as was Trencher. Only Trencher realized how great a force he was. But Trencher was taken care of, for the moment at least.

‘Matthew, did this information come through regular channels?’

‘Standard decryption of intercepted military and public datastreams. Everyone in the vicinity of the Angel Station saw it.’

Vaughn shook his head, as if he could shake off his worries. They were so close now . . . ‘Do we have an estimated time of arrival?’

‘Another day,’ said Matthew, knowing who he meant. ‘Twenty-eight hours, give or take a window of fifteen minutes. Ray and Thomas say everything is operating as normal, all the onboard guidance systems are fine. So it should achieve touchdown with no problems.’

‘You have excelled yourself, Matthew. Tell Ray and Thomas they have my thanks. You’ve all done an excellent job. Now leave us.’

Matthew departed. He was a good boy, thought Vaughn, despite his earlier faults, his former lack of commitment to the path of light and knowledge. Burning it out of him had been necessary, but heartrending, terrible. However, the boy’s vicious anarchic streak had needed to be crushed. Vaughn remembered well one clear, bright day when Matthew had found out that his friends were all to die.

Vaughn had made sure Matthew was present to witness every death.

Vincent

They were going to have to break out the pressure suits.

Sleep or rest of any kind was becoming impossible for any of them, thanks to those now all-pervasive machine bugs. Elias no longer had control of the Goblin – because as Kim now knew, despite all her frustrated attempts otherwise, he didn’t need to.

Vincent could see how hard it was for her to be effectively locked out of her own ship. Vincent still held the gun, but they were going to have to ride things out in stalemate, if they didn’t think of anything first.

In the meantime, at normal magnification the planet Kasper had grown from a point of light to a wide disc. One of the displays showed two great continents straddling the northern hemisphere, almost touching in one or two places, otherwise separated by an ocean.

The great stony spines of mountain ranges were visible, particularly twin chains that spread to the furthest northerly points. The Citadel became clearly visible at maximum magnification, a dark stain across the planet’s north pole. Further south there was a band of green and blue vegetation extending to the equator, but much of the planet was still locked in the vestiges of an ice age, now receding.

‘How long before we get there?’ Vincent had come into the cockpit to stand behind Elias, who had again taken the co-pilot’s seat. Kim had decided to let him back in, not without reservations, although Vincent had been against it. A state of detente seemed better, she had decided, than to somehow keep him prisoner.

Elias looked at Vincent for a moment before replying.

‘The shuttle’s about to enter the atmosphere. It’s already making braking manoeuvres.’ A silver bug dropped from behind a screen and landed gently on the console in front of Elias. There were scratch-marks and other signs of damage on the walls all around them. Vincent watched the bug as it used its mandibles to slowly dig a hole in some steel casing to one side of the console. He saw the faintest spark of light as its mouth parts gouged into the metal. Horrifying as it was to watch, it was also strangely fascinating. These things seemed able to cut through the toughest metal like butter. He kneeled down and tugged at the thing’s rear legs. It made no attempt to defend itself, merely returned to its destructive feast. Then he picked it up, again making no attempt to resist, and batted it through the air, away from the console.

‘Elias. We’re not going to make it there before this ship comes apart, you know that?’

‘I don’t know that. We’re less than a day away now, and I need to plot a landing trajectory. If for any reason we can’t land within range of the shuttle, we should aim for somewhere far away from any populated areas. We don’t want to have to deal with the natives if we can avoid it. Cross your fingers that shuttle doesn’t decide to land too far north or south either, or it’s going to be seriously cold.’

‘Elias, Kim is sealing off the cargo bay now, as we’ve lost most of our air pressure back there. I don’t know how long our air can last in this part of the ship either.’

Elias turned slightly. ‘That bad?’

Vincent nodded carefully. ‘Possibly worse. Only time will tell.’

An uncomfortable silence fell, and Vincent waited. He knew if he waited long enough, Elias would feel compelled to say something. Vincent was a very patient man.

‘Look,’ began Elias, ‘about what happened.’

‘There’s nothing to say, Murray. You took control of the ship. The real question is, what happens next. That’s what’s worrying me most, not whether or not you gave me a bloody nose.’ It was curious, but Vincent found himself feeling strangely sorry for Elias. There had been a brief tide of hatred, fuelled by testosterone and anger, but that had ebbed away now, faded. It made it easier for Vincent to think more clearly, to try and imagine what would happen when they reached where they were going.

‘Well, you know where I’m taking us. I’ve already talked this over with your girlfriend,’ Elias said gruffly.

‘That’s not the question I intended to ask.’

Elias stared at him pointedly.

‘Assuming we survive,’ said Vincent. ‘Assuming we don’t get slaughtered by the natives or freeze to death or starve because we don’t know what we can or can’t eat locally, what happens then?’

Elias frowned, folding his arms in a vaguely defensive gesture.

‘What you and Kim do is up to you,’ he said at length. ‘I have to find that shuttle.’

‘On your own? On a world that, unless what you say turns out to be true, may never have had more than a few dozen pairs of human feet touch it, and then only within a restricted area inaccessible to the natives? And what will you do if you manage to find that shuttle, all on your own?’

Elias became tight-lipped, looked away from Vincent and back towards the console and its permanently scrolling datafeeds.

‘You don’t have any idea what you’re doing, do you?’ continued Vincent. Still, Elias didn’t answer. ‘Something you should know,’ Vincent spoke to the other man’s back. ‘When it comes to survival, nature almost always get it right. Cooperation, Elias, is the key to survival. Cooperation, remember.’

Vincent turned away and returned to Kim’s cabin.

Ursu

‘Here, bring him here.’

The merchant was hurt, dying. The knife wound was deep, and his bright red tongue lolled feebly out from a muzzle full of carefully sharpened teeth. They had made a mat out of the heavy green water-reed infesting the marshlands that blurred the contours of the land abutting these northernmost waters of the Great Northern Sea. Ursu looked around, towards the Southern Teive Mountains, now far behind him.

The village stood within the ruins of an ancient walled city breached during some long-ago war. The city, like the land, was called Ibestresan. Ib-estr-e-san – meaning land of the reeds.

Great wooden ships had sailed far down the river that skirted the ruined city, their sails rippling with gold and black, the colours of the Emperor. The soldiers they carried were camped not far from the little settlement. There was little law here, save what the imperial soldiers brought with them.

‘There isn’t time to move on,’ said the female who had fetched Ursu to the merchant. ‘We have to help him here.’

‘Not where we might be seen by the soldiers,’ said Ursu. ‘Let’s get into that building there.’ He pointed towards a crumbling villa. Its lower level was open to the elements, the floors scattered with straw and animal droppings. Ursu took one edge of the mat and together they dragged the victim out of sight.

‘Soldiers came looking for him at home,’ said the female. ‘He managed to get away.’

Ursu thought better than to ask why, having drawn far too much attention to himself already. There was an air of rebellion here, of a kind that Ursu had not found in other places during his travels. The tribes close to the sea seemed to have a greater independence, as if they gathered succour from the vastness of the ocean itself.

One or two other townsfolk had appeared. Word would get out, he realized, that someone with the means to carry out a Raising was travelling north. But he couldn’t turn away. His backpack held something more valuable than any empire. It contained the future of everything that had ever existed.

The boat he had found deep in the forest, now many days behind him, had carried him away from immediate danger, but several times he’d barely avoided colliding with military supply ships. Abandoning the craft eventually, he crossed steep hills until he found the coast that curved north towards the edge of the world, where the seas became solid ice.

The further he travelled, the more his past had seemed to fade behind him.

‘I need to be alone now. You must all go,’ he said, waving them away.

He then probed the edges of his patient’s wound. The merchant jerked slightly at the touch as the power of the Raising flowed into him. His breathing seemed steadier now.

After a few moments, Ursu realized he was not alone.

He could sense the figure crouching behind him, but did not turn to look. Not Shecumpeh, but the other one: the Shai. He did not wish to see again those terrible lacerations across its unnatural pink flesh, those staring eyes set deep in a snoutless face.

– The soldiers have heard stories about you. They will connect you with the disappearance of the device you carry. The Shai leader wishes to prevent you reaching Baul, and he will stop at nothing to do so.

‘Last time you said he would destroy the world.’ As Ursu pinched the edges of the merchant’s wound together, the flesh began to knit with astonishing rapidity.

There was sudden shouting in the distance, and Ursu yanked up the backpack containing Shecumpeh and pulled its straps over his shoulders.

– Yes, confirmed the Shai. – Or will allow it to occur without his intervention.

Ursu stood and forced himself to turn. ‘Don’t you have anyone to tend to your wounds?’

– I can attend to them myself. There is much for you to learn. The answers lie in Baul, down in the deep caverns.

‘There is a machine there.’

– As I told you.

More shouting. Was it closer? There were still so many questions he wanted to ask the Shai.

‘We need to speak – but not now. When will you come again?’

– Soon.

The creature seemed to fade back into the deep shadows from which it had risen. ‘Wait,’ cried Ursu, in frustration. It might be days before he could speak with it again.

The Shai had come to him several times over the past few weeks, telling him secrets of the world at large, helping him understand the visions he had seen. He had even seen this city of Baul in his mind’s eye, as if from far above, and now knew it to be real. He had also seen visions of impossible places high in the sky, places filled with countless Shai.

It seemed not all Shai were the same.

He wanted to run, and hide, far away from the soldiers. And once he had reached Baul, whatever it was that the fates or the gods or strange visions of demons wanted him to do, he would do it, and then he would walk, until he was in no place he could recognize, in a land as far from Nubala as he could possibly be, and there, just perhaps, he might find himself a life of peace.

Kim

‘We’re not going to make it, Elias.’

‘We’ll make it,’ he replied tersely. ‘What’s happened back there?’

‘The cargo bay is now in vacuum, and we had to repair the seal on the connecting crawlspace because the bugs were starting to eat through that too. I’m going to move as much stuff as we can through here and seal off the cabin.’