Bringer of Light (28 page)

‘Er, yes?’ said Taro.

‘Be welcome!’ said Big Hair expansively.

Taro hadn’t found the first lot of locals particularly welcoming. ‘Thanks,’ he said cautiously. ‘And hello to you too.’

‘Offer: we have gifts.’

One of Big Hair’s mates held something small up in his two hands to demonstrate.

‘Light of earth. Gift. Then talk.’ Big Hair had a gappy accent, but he spoke slowly and carefully.

Taro wasn’t convinced, but he needed all the help he could get. ‘Sounds good to me.’

Big Hair put a palm out and down, then raised his hand and pointed to the ship. ‘Talk there?’

‘How about I stay on the ship and you lot stay down there?’

Big Hair looked confused and Taro repeated his offer more slowly, with hand gestures.

‘Offer: gifts, then talk. There.’ Big Hair sounded pretty certain about coming up.

Whilst Taro didn’t want anyone to see the state of things in the other room, neither did he want to leave the safety of the ship. Better to meet the locals here, where the ship’s gravity would slow them down if things turned nasty.

‘You’d better come up then,’ he said. He pointed at the pair of spear-men nearest Big Hair. ‘Just you and those two, right?’

There was some muttering, then Big Hair and the guards Taro had picked out came forward. Taro stepped back to give them room to climb onto the ship, which they did with some difficulty, the two guards hauling Big Hair up between them.

As well as spears, the guards carried long sacks slung crosswise across their bodies. From the look of it, whatever was in the sacks was pretty heavy. As they stood blinking in the bright light, Big Hair turned to one of the guards, who gave him the round, flattish container he’d been waving around earlier. Big Hair unscrewed the top to reveal a bowl of luminous green-yellow goo. ‘Receive gift: light of earth,’ he said with relish, and held out the bowl.

‘Very nice,’ said Taro, smiling carefully. ‘Why don’t you just put it over there’ – he pointed to the corner of the room – ‘and I’ll find somewhere for it later.’

Big Hair wobbled his head like his neck was stiff. Combined with the screwed-up eyes the effect was pretty funny, though Taro made sure he didn’t laugh. Big Hair said, ‘Gift for now. To eat.’

‘You want me to eat that sh— stuff?’

‘Light of earth. To eat. Hosp-i-table.’

Taro
was
pretty hungry, and he didn’t want to piss the visitors off. ‘That’s good, but how about you eat some, then I eat. Right?’ He backed up his words with exaggerated hand gestures. He didn’t want to get poisoned, either.

Big Hair looked offended and Taro tensed, ready to defend himself if he’d fucked up.

Then Big Hair did a slightly different head-wobble and said, ‘Honour to eat first.’ He dipped a hand into the gloop and licked the stuff off his fingers like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. Then he held the bowl out to Taro.

‘Thanks,’ said Taro. As he closed the distance between them, he kept a wary eye on the guards. His nose was filled with the stink of unwashed bodies, and he could make out their weapons and ornaments more clearly now. The spears were tipped with bone and the ornaments were made from it too . . . or rather, from the look of the wrinkled, scabby skin at the edge of them,
grown
from bone – human bone. Taro wasn’t too freaked – his most valued possession was a flute made from his birth-mother’s arm-bone – but it appeared that, like the Undertow, this was a place where nothing, not even a human body, went to waste.

He took the bowl, and thanked them. When they looked at him expectantly he scooped up an experimental fingerful of goo and put it in his mouth. It tasted chill and bitter, but it would fill the hole in his belly and soothe his dry throat. They continued to squint meaningfully at him so he carried on eating, wiping his finger round the bowl when he’d done and giving a small belch.

He put the bowl on the floor. ‘That was
delicious.
Sorry, I ain’t got nothing to offer you in return.’

‘Offer: we have rock,’ said Big Hair, with what sounded like pride in his voice. ‘Good rock. Gift of rock, then more talk.’

‘Great,’ said Taro, wondering what they were on about.

Big Hair half turned to the others and muttered at them, still watching Taro from the corner of his eye. The two guards began rummaging in their sacks. Big Hair stepped back and stood aloof, a half-smile on his face.

Taro decided to take advantage of the pause. ‘Er, listen,’ he said, ‘what I really need is to find others like me.’

‘Query: others like me?’

‘No, others like . . .
people
, with ships – like this one. And people who—’
People who aren’t freakishly tall and covered in shit and scabs.
‘I need to find outsiders. Visitors.’

‘Visitors,’ said Big Hair enthusiastically. ‘Good!’

‘So are there any here? Could you take me to them?’

‘Visitors,’ said Big Hair again. ‘Statement: we have rock. Good rock. See?’ He stepped back and the guards straightened. They each held several lumps of rock in their cupped hands. Taro had no idea what the rocks were, though they did have a faint sheen to them.

Big Hair said, ‘Offer: we find more. Father’s father’s father find more. We save. We wait.’

‘Good for you. Are they for me, then?’ They appeared to be expecting him to actually check out the rocks.

He obliged, picking up a particularly shiny rock, hefting it in his hand, nodding sagely all the while. The effort of holding the rocks was beginning to tell on the visitors; the guard’s arms were twitching and one man dropped one of his rocks. ‘Listen, you can put them down now.’

‘Query: good enough?’

‘They’re great – like you say,
good
rocks.’ Taro pointed to the floor. ‘Go on, put them down.’

With some relief, the guards did so, dropping several in the process.

‘Thanks again,’ said Taro. ‘Now, about these visitors?’

Big Hair looked puzzled, then he pointed to Taro triumphantly. ‘Visitor,’ he said.

An unpleasant realisation began to dawn. ‘You’re saying there’s just me?’ said Taro.

‘Aye,’ said Big Hair again. ‘Come for rock.’

‘Ah.’

‘Offer: we go now, go see.’

‘Go where and see what?’

‘Offer: see rock. More good rock. To trade.’

‘Right, think we’ve got ourselves a bit tied up here. I ain’t here to trade – sorry, but that’s not it at all. I’ve crashed. I need
help
.’

Big Hair narrowed his eyes even more, and repeated, ‘Query: come see rock?’ He sounded confused.

Even if he went to look at their precious rock, they’d soon work out Taro wasn’t here to buy it. And then things were likely to turn nasty. ‘Right,’ he said in a businesslike tone, ‘tell you what, I need to, er, do some tests on the good rock you brought me. See just how good it really is, y’know? I’ll come and check out the rest of your rock later.
Later.
All right?’

‘Query: later?’ said Big Hair dubiously.

‘Yes. See rock, but not now. Now, I need to do . . . tests. And stuff. Alone. So, how about you go? Please?’

The guards exchanged glances. But Big Hair said only, ‘Later,’ and did the head wobble thing. Then they turned, leaving their rock samples, and laboriously made their way back out.

‘Thanks again for the “light of earth”,’ Taro called after them. ‘And the rocks.’

Other than getting him a meal of sorts, making contact with the locals hadn’t left him much better off. In fact, it might even be worse: given how important this rock-trading thing obviously was, they were gonna be pretty pissed off with him once they realised that wasn’t going to happen.

He had another look around the ship, just in case some sort of random miracle had occurred, but the only change was that the carnage in the central room was starting to smell. He briefly considered trying to contact Nual again, before deciding that he was way too jumpy.

So, his choices were to wait here with two dead avatars, both of whom he’d killed, until the locals came back – probably in a less ‘hosp-i-table’ mood – or to go and look for some way off this crazy world. Not much of a choice, really.

‘Fuck it!’ he said, and strode back to the exit. He checked that the crater was deserted, then stepped out of the airlock. He flew across the crater to the mouth of the tunnel, and landed, then listened hard. He heard nothing, so he went in.

Away from the starlight, the smooth walls gave off a faint yellow glow, just enough to stop him walking into them, though not enough to give him much idea of what was further down the passage. That was fine; he wasn’t going to let a bit of alien darkness freak him. When the tunnel forked he hesitated, then plumped for the left path. After a while he reached a T-junction, with the right-hand tunnel going down, and the left-hand one sloping up at a fairly steep angle. Dim light came from the right-hand passage; red, this time, unlike the walls. Interesting: he’d go that way. The ground evened out as the tunnel widened, and then began to curve. He passed a side-tunnel, but the glow was still coming from straight ahead, and it was getting brighter.

He heard a sound and stopped, listening carefully. There it was again: a long, murmuring hiss, then another sound, further off – a voice? He thought so, though he caught only a few incomprehensible words. The first sound came again as he crept carefully down the tunnel, all the while trying to work out what it was he was hearing. There was a definite pattern to it:
hiss
. . . pause . . .
hiss.

What was that? It sounded like . . . breathing.
Shit.
Something was taking vast, slow breaths, just up ahead. He swallowed, and pulled his hand away from the wall. Was it his imagination, or did it feel faintly sticky?

Whatever-it-was gave a snuffling, pained moan, and a quiver of fear thrummed through him, until the Angel mods dampened it down.

He carried on. He’d gone about a dozen steps when two locals stepped out from a side-turning further down the passage. They looked even thinner than the ones he’d meet earlier, and they weren’t carrying spears. Taro stopped and held out his hands in what he hoped was a friendly gesture, but the pair gave high fluting cries, then turned and ran.

Taro almost did the same. But he made himself pause, letting his Angel instincts overrule his natural ones. Now wasn’t the time to panic. A few moments to get calm again, then he’d carry on. He’d come this far, even if he hadn’t found anything useful yet, so he may as well—

The gaggle of locals who emerged from the side-turning
were
carrying spears. And they were coming right for him, moving in an ungainly lope that covered the ground surprisingly quickly.

Now
was the time to panic.

As he turned, he considered taking to the air, but he’d only end up flying into one of the twilit tunnel walls. Instead he ran. He regretted his decision at once: in this gravity his body didn’t react like he expected it to. But he did know how to move in low-g; he’d grown up doing it. The trick was to push off from each step carefully, like he was taking a leap across a netted gap. He found his rhythm after a few more steps.

He looked for the turning he’d come down earlier. Was it the first or the second one? Second, it was the second . . . which was good, because he’d just passed the first one.

His pursuers weren’t making any noise, which was worse, if anything. He fought the urge to look back, to see if they were gaining on him.

When he reached his turn, he failed to compensate fully for the lack of gravity. He skidded and clipped the wall, yelping at the sudden pain in his shoulder. Though he had no idea what was happening behind him, there was no one ahead, and right now that was what mattered. He passed a side passage and felt a moment of doubt, until he managed to make out the faint white circular glow up ahead: yes, that was the way out!

He wasn’t far off when he saw a shadow cross the mouth of the tunnel. With only a split second to decide what to do, he kicked off, hands straight out ahead of him, blades still sheathed – they’d be more of a liability than a help in this confined space. As Taro shot out of the entrance, he knocked the figure flying, but he ignored the fallen local, instead speeding across the crater and into the airlock—

—to see half a dozen men with spears, standing around on the ship’s bridge. One of them was holding what was left of Vy’s head, while Big Hair examined it. He turned when Taro arrived, as did his companions. Taro assessed the situation and decided they weren’t a serious threat; he’d pit hi-tech blades against bone spear-tips any day, especially as he had the added advantage of flight, and they had the added disadvantage of higher gravity than they were used to. If he stayed in the airlock, there wasn’t room for more than a couple at a time. Though he’d have to watch his back and would most likely take a few minor wounds, he could win this fight . . .

. . . but he’d had enough of killing.

‘Right,’ he said slowly and clearly, addressing Big Hair, who was clearly the man in charge, ‘is there anything at all I can say at this point that’ll stop your mates just rushing me?’

Big Hair glanced at Vy’s severed head. He sounded almost apologetic when he said, ‘Not trade. Not visitor. Enemy.’ He called out something to his men in their own language that sounded rather like an order.