Consider Phlebas (46 page)

‘Hold it,’ Horza said suddenly. The screen near his cheek had flickered. ‘Wait there. I’m picking up some sound from ahead.’ He stopped, sat still in mid-air and put the sound from outside through the helmet speakers.

A low noise, deep and boomy, like heavy surf from a long way off, or a thunderstorm in distant mountains.

‘Well, there’s something making a noise up there,’ Horza said.

‘How far to the next station?’ Yalson said.

‘About two kilometres.’

‘Think it’s them?’ Neisin sounded nervous.

‘Probably,’ Horza said. ‘OK. I’m going ahead. Yalson, put Balveda in the restrainer harness. Everybody check weapons. No noise. Wubslin, Neisin, go forward slowly. Stop as soon as you can see the station. I’m going to try talking to these guys.’

The noise boomed vaguely on, making him think of a rockslide, heard from a mine deep inside a mountain.

He approached the station. A blast door came into view round a corner. The station would be only another hundred metres beyond. He heard some heavy clunking noises; they came down the dark tunnel, deep and resonant, hardly muffled by the distance, sounding like huge switches being closed, massive chains being fastened. The suit registered organic molecules in the air - Idiran scent. He passed the edge of the blast door and saw the station.

There was light in station six, dim and yellow, as though from a weak torch. He waited for Wubslin and Neisin to tell him they could see the station from their tunnels, then he went closer.

A Command System train stood in station six, its rotund bulk three storeys tall and three hundred metres long, half filling the cylindrical cavern. The light came from the train’s far end, high at the front, where the control deck was. The sounds came from the train, too. He moved across the foot tunnel so he could see the rest of the station.

At the far end of the platform floated the Mind.

He stared at it for a moment, then magnified the image to make sure. It looked genuine; an ellipsoid, maybe fifteen metres long and three in diameter, silvery yellow in the weak light spilling from the train’s control cabin, and floating in the stale air like a dead fish on the surface of a still pond. He checked the suit’s mass sensor. It registered the fuzzy signal of the train’s reactor, but nothing else.

‘Yalson,’ he said, whispering even though he knew it was unnecessary, ‘anything on that mass sensor?’

‘Just a weak trace; a reactor, I guess.’

‘Wubslin,’ Horza said, ‘I can see what looks like the Mind in the station, floating at the far end. But it’s not showing on either sensor. Would its AG make it invisible to the sensors?’

‘Shouldn’t,’ Wubslin’s puzzled voice came back. ‘Might fool a passive gravity sensor, but not - ‘

A loud, metallic breaking noise came from the train. Horza’s suit registered an abrupt increase in local radiation. ‘Holy shit!’ he said.

‘What’s happening?’ Yalson said. More clicking, snapping noises echoed through the station, and another weak, yellow light appeared, from beneath the reactor car in the middle of the train.

‘They’re fucking about with the reactor carriage, that’s what’s happening,’ Horza said.

‘God,’ Wubslin said. ‘Don’t they know how old all this stuff is?’

‘What are they doing that for?’ Aviger said.

‘Could be trying to get the train to run under its own power,’ Horza said. ‘Crazy bastards.’

‘Maybe they’re too lazy to push their prize back to the surface,’ the drone suggested.

‘These . . . nuclear reactors, they can’t explode, can they?’ Aviger said, just as a blinding blue light burst from under the centre of the train. Horza flinched, his eyes closed. He heard Wubslin shout something. He waited for the blast, the noise, death.

He looked up. The light still flashed and sparkled, under the reactor car. He heard an erratic hissing noise, like static.

‘Horza!’ Yalson shouted.

‘God’s balls!’ Wubslin said. ‘I nearly filled my pants.’

‘Its OK,’ Horza said. ‘I thought they’d blown the damn thing up. What is that, Wubslin?’

‘Welding, I think,’ Wubslin said. ‘Electric arc.’

‘Right,’ Horza said. ‘Let’s stop these crazies before they blow us all away. Yalson, join me. Dorolow, meet up with Wubslin. Aviger, stay with Balveda.’

It took a few minutes for the others to arrange themselves. Horza watched the bright, flickering blue light as it sizzled away under the centre of the train. Then it stopped. The station was lit only by the two weak lights from the control deck and reactor car. Yalson floated down the foot tunnel and landed gently at Horza’s side.

‘Ready,’ Dorolow said over the intercom. Then a screen in Horza’s helmet flashed; a speaker beeped in his ear. Something had transmitted a signal near by; not one of their suits, or the drone.

‘What was that?’ Wubslin said. Then: ‘Look, there. On the ground. Looks like a communicator.’ Horza and Yalson looked at each other. ‘Horza,’ Wubslin said, ‘there’s a communicator on the floor of the tunnel here; I think it’s on. It must have picked up the noise of Dorolow setting down beside me. That was what transmitted; they’re using it as a bug.’

‘Sorry,’ Dorolow said.

‘Well, don’t touch the thing,’ Yalson said quickly. ‘Could be boobied.’

‘So. Now they know we’re here,’ Aviger said.

‘They were going to know soon anyway,’ Horza said. ‘I’ll try hailing them; everybody ready, in case they don’t want to talk.’

Horza cut his AG and walked to the end of the tunnel, almost onto the level platform of the station. Another communicator lying there transmitted its single pulse. Horza looked at the great, dark train and switched on his suit PA. He drew a breath, ready to speak in Idiran.

Something flashed from a slit-like window near the rear of the train. His head was knocked back inside the helmet, and he fell, stunned, his ears ringing. The noise of the shot echoed through the station. The suit alarm beeped frantically at him. Horza rolled over against the tunnel wall; more shots slammed down on him, flaring against the suit helmet and body.

Yalson ducked and ran. She skidded to the lip of the tunnel and raked fire over the window the shots were coming from, then swivelled, grabbed Horza by one arm and pulled him further into the tunnel. Plasma bolts crashed into the wall he’d been lying against. ‘Horza?’ she shouted, shaking him.

‘Command override, level zero,’ a small voice chirped in Horza’s buzzing ears. ‘This suit has sustained system-fatal damage automatically voiding all warranties from this point; immediate total overhaul required. Further use at wearer’s risk. Powering down.’ Horza tried to tell Yalson he was all right, but the communicator was dead. He pointed to his head, to make her understand this. Then more shots, from the nose of the train, came bursting into the foot tunnel. Yalson dived to the floor and started firing back. ‘Fire!’ she yelled to the others. ‘Get those bastards!’

Horza watched Yalson shooting at the far end of the train. Laser trails flicked out from the left side of their tunnel, tracer shells from the right, as the others joined in. The station filled with a spastic, blazing light; shadows leapt and danced across the walls and ceiling. He lay there, stunned, dull-headed, listening to the muffled cacophony of sound breaking against his suit like surf. He fumbled with his laser rifle, trying to remember how to fire it. He really had to help the others fight the Idirans. His head hurt.

Yalson stopped shooting. The front of the train glowed red where she’d been firing at it. The explosive shells from Neisin’s gun crackled round the window the first shots had come from; short bursts of fire. Wubslin and Dorolow had come out of the main tunnel, past the slab of the train’s rear. The crouched near the wall, firing at the same window as Neisin.

The plasma fire had stopped. The humans stopped shooting, too. The station went dark; the gunfire echoed, faded. Horza tried to stand up, but somebody seemed to have removed the bones from his legs.

‘Anybody - ‘ Yalson began.

Fire cascaded around Wubslin and Dorolow, lancing out from the lower deck of the last carriage. Dorolow screamed and fell. Hand spasming, her gun blasted wildly over the cavern roof. Wubslin rolled along the ground, shooting back at the Idirans. Yalson and Neisin joined in. The carriage’s skin buckled and burst under the fusilade. Dorolow lay on the platform, moving spasmodically, moaning.

More shots came from the front of the train, bursting around the tunnel entrances. Then something moved midway up the rear carriage, near the rear access gantry; an Idiran ran from a carriage door and along the middle ramp. He levelled a gun and fired down, first at Dorolow where she lay on the ground, then at Wubslin, lying near the side of the train.

Dorolow’s suit was blown tumbling and burning across the black floor of the station. Wubslin’s gun arm was hit. Then Yalson’s shots found the Idiran, scattering fire across his suit, the structure of the gantry and the side of the train. The ramp supports gave way before the Idiran’s armoured suit; softening and disintegrating under the stream of fire, the gantry tubing sagged and collapsed, sending the top platform of the ramp crashing down, trapping the Idiran warrior underneath the smoking wreckage. Wubslin cursed and shot one-handed at the nose of the train, where the second Idiran was still firing.

Horza lay against the wall, his ears roaring, his skin cold and sweat-slicked. He felt numb, dissociated. He wanted to take his helmet off and gasp at some fresh air but knew he shouldn’t. Even though the helmet was damaged it would still protect him if he was shot again. He compromised by opening the visor. Sound assaulted his ears. Shockwaves thrummed at his chest. Yalson looked back at him, motioned him further back down the tunnel as shots smacked into the floor near him. He stood, but fell, blacking out briefly.

The Idiran at the front of the train stopped firing for a moment, Yalson took the opportunity to look back at Horza again. He lay on the tunnel floor behind her, moving weakly. She looked out to where Dorolow lay, her suit ripped and smouldering. Neisin was almost out of his tunnel, firing long bursts down the station, scattering explosions all over the nose of the train. The air boomed with the rasping noise of his gun, ebbing and flowing through the cavern and accompanied by a pulsing wave of light that seemed to reach back from where the bullets struck and detonated.

Yalson was aware of somebody shouting - a woman’s voice, yelling - but she could hardly hear over the noise of Neisin’s gun. Plasma bolts came singing down the platform from the front of the train again, from high up, near the forward access ramps. She returned fire. Neisin poured shots in the same direction, paused.

‘ - in! Stop!’ the voice shouted in Yalson’s ears. It was Balveda, ‘There’s something wrong with your gun; it’ll - ‘ The Culture agent’s voice was drowned by the noise of Neisin firing again. ‘ - crash!’ Yalson heard Balveda scream despairingly; then a line of light and sound seemed to fill the station from one end to the other, ending at Neisin. The bright stalk of noise and flame blossomed into an explosion Yalson felt through her suit. Bits of Neisin’s gun were scattered across the platform; the man was thrown back against the wall. He fell to the ground and lay still.

‘Motherfucker,’ Yalson heard herself say, and she started running up the platform, enfilading the front of the train, trying to widen the angle of fire. Shots dipped to meet her, then cut out. There was a pause, while she still ran and fired, then the second Idiran appeared on the top level of the distant access ramp, holding a pistol in both hands. He ignored both her and Wubslin’s fire and shot straight across the breadth of the cavern, at the Mind.

The silvery ellipsoid started to move, heading for the far foot tunnel. The first shot seemed to go right through it, as did a second; a third bolt made it vanish completely, leaving only a tiny puff of smoke where it had been.

The Idiran’s suit glittered as Yalson and Wubslin’s shots struck home. The warrior staggered; he turned as though to start firing down at them again, just as the armoured suit gave way; he was blown back and across the gantry, one arm disappearing in a cloud of flame and smoke; he fell over the edge of the ramp and crashed down to the middle level, the suit burning brightly, one leg snagging over the guard rails on the middle ramp. The plasma pistol was blown from his hand. Other shots tore at the wide helm, fracturing the blackened visor. He hung, limp and burning and pummelled with laser fire, for a few more seconds; then the leg caught on the guard rail gave way, snapping cleanly off and falling to the station floor. The Idiran slid, crumpling, to the deck of the ramp.

Horza listened, his ears still ringing.

After a while it was quiet. Acrid smoke stung his nose: fumes of burned plastic, molten metal, roasted meat.

He had been unconscious, then woken to see Yalson running up the platform. He had tried to give her covering fire, but his hands shook too much, and he hadn’t been able to get the gun to work. Now everybody had stopped firing, and it was very quiet. He got up and walked unsteadily into the station, where smoke rose from the battered train.

Wubslin knelt by Dorolow’s side, trying with one hand to undo one of the woman’s gloves. Her suit still smouldered. The helmet visor was smeared red, covered with blood on the inside, hiding her face.

Horza watched Yalson come back down the station, gun still at the ready. Her suit had taken a couple of plasma bolts to the body; the roughly spiralled marks showed as black scars on the grey surface. She looked up suspiciously at the rear access ramps, where one Idiran lay trapped and unmoving; then she opened her visor. ‘You all right?’ she asked Horza.

‘Yes. Bit groggy. Sore head,’ he said. Yalson nodded; they went over to where Neisin lay.

Neisin was still just alive. His gun had exploded, riddling his chest, arms and face with shrapnel. Moans bubbled from the crimson ruin of his face. ‘Fucking hell,’ Yalson said. She took a small medipack from her suit and reached through what was left of Neisin’s visor to inject the semi-conscious man’s neck with painkiller.

‘What’s happened?’ Aviger’s tiny voice came from Yalson’s helmet. ‘Is it safe yet?’ Yalson looked at Horza, who shrugged, then nodded.