Resolution (88 page)

What happened next was almost too swift to perceive.

Unnatural synchronization meant that the man and his wife and two of the waiting attendants moved simultaneously. The man hauled the useless boy out of the lev-chair; the woman helped swing the boy to one side, then throw him.

One attendant caught the boy as the other flipped open a hatch, and the boy went sailing inside the processor block before he could scream. The hatch banged shut.

Oh, Fate ...

The boy’s corpse, hidden from view, was already sliding apart, dissolving and merging with the broth inside, before Tom could even understand what had happened. Then horror clenched him.

No. He was your son.

But the beings who had sacrificed the boy were no longer capable of seeing their son as anything other than damaged organic matter, whose only use could be to provide nutrients for the operating components of the greater whole: the Anomaly of which they were part.

Clone-warriors pulled Tom back from the edge before his gagging reaction could betray their presence. A stone hand clamped across his face. Then they were half-carrying him across the bridge, moving bent over but fast, until they reached the cross-corridor beyond.

Two more clone-warriors were waiting at a seven-sided junction which was otherwise deserted. They stared at Tom as he tugged himself free of Ankestion’s grasp, leaned against a wall, and gave spewing vent to sour vomit, spattering onto blue-grey stone.

Oh, Destiny.

Another paroxysm took hold of Tom, and then another, as the remainder of his stomach contents hurled themselves outwards, beyond his ability to control.

After several minutes, he stepped away, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

‘Warlord?’ Ankestion used Tom’s title, though it broke the mission rules. ‘Are you all right?’

Tom looked back at the mess. One of the clone-warriors had already pulled off his surcoat and was using it to mop up the evidence. Another joined in.

‘No.’ Tom turned to Ankestion. ‘No, I’m not.’

Clone-warriors would continue to fight or operate flyers or carry out any task even as they vomited, if they ever did: that much was clear. But they did not expect that level of determination in people who were not of their kind.

The boy didn’t even scream ...

‘I won’t be all right,’ continued Tom, ‘until the Anomaly is out of our world. For ever.’

The clone-warriors looked at each other.

‘Come on,’ said Tom. ‘We have work to do.’

They met at rendezvous gamma without incident. Then all twelve clone-warriors, along with Tom, made their way to a natural cavern where a small opening was hidden in shadow. One by one, they crawled into the borehole on hands and knees.

It took them most of an hour to make their way along its twisting length. Their progress was slow because of hard effort and the need for silence, but eventually they came out onto a ledge overlooking a vast cavern, almost as big as the caverns of Realm V’Delikona.

Below them, an entire army filled the cavern floor.

Troops moved around large blocks of equipment: heavy weaponry, mining devices, basic supplies. Perhaps a thousand Enemy soldiers were encamped.

Ankestion pointed. A strip of black water, a service canal, ran through the cavern. Automated cargo-bugs floated on the canal, moving in a slow steady train.

After a moment, Tom nodded. The Enemy troops were near the battle-front and therefore alert, but no army expects to be infiltrated from
behind.
And no-one could move more silently than Ankestion’s clone-brothers, or an Academy-trained infiltration agent like Tom Corcorigan.

One at a time, the clone-warriors descended - slowly, so very slowly -from the ledge. Tom followed, spidering from one hold to another, holding very still when he rested. Their clothes were the right colour to blend with the brownish-grey rock: Trevalkin’s agent had thought carefully before leaving the garments in the supply cache.

You train your people well, Trevalkin.

Finally, Tom and the twelve warriors were hunched behind a tall container on the cavern floor, almost within touching distance of a full regiment of Absorbed troops, waiting for Ankestion’s signal.

The warriors slipped from container to stone outcrop to container, unnoticed by the milling soldiers. Soon, they were just metres from the canal. To their right, it disappeared back into a tunnel in the rockface they had descended; to their left, it arrowed through the Enemy camp.

The clone-warriors moved off at five-minute intervals. As each man reached the water’s edge he crouched very low, reached into the dark waters, and rolled silently into them. When it was Tom’s turn, he concentrated on breathing, taking huge quiet inhalations, then one last gulp as he tipped forward and went down, cold waters closing all around him.

Tom went deep, until his fingertips touched the bottom, and then began to swim.

After three minutes submerged in water, yellow fluorescence was pulsating in Tom’s eyeballs and he was desperate to breathe. He could not rise, unless he wanted graser fire to blow his body apart. There was a whole army up there.

Swim.

Tom hauled himself onwards.

Just swim.

Desperate to inhale ...

Ignore.

No. Absolutely imperative that he—

Not there yet. Ten seconds more.

Swimming. Still swimming.

You said ten seconds.

I lied.

Again. Another ten seconds.

Can’t swim any further. Breathe now.

No. Push it. Ten seconds more.

Now.

No. Push ...

Now?

Yes.

And Tom rolled to the surface, face into the air, inside a tunnel away from the cavern, burning with primeval joy as he sucked in life again.

At the edge of the canal in a deserted tunnel, the clone-brothers washed off the remainder of their disguises. Most of the theatrical make-up had failed to survive the swim. Soon, they were purple-black in the dim light, their graphite eyebrows invisible.

They made their way forward, until they came out into another cavern, where microwards were deployed upon the ceiling, and the main Collegiate defences were arrayed: graser cannons and armoured troops, dug into the heavy emplacements.

It was almost nightshirt, and neither Tom nor Ankestion had any intention of being shot by the people they were trying to help. They settled down out of sight, and waited for the darkness.