Binary system, p.27
Binary System, page 27
Under the watchful eye of Skelt guards, Mahn lowered the gelware unit to the ground and set off back towards the ship.
“Second time lucky,” Charlton said under his breath.
Delia considered the captive Fahran, and the life they must lead down here – working for overbearing taskmasters without hope of escape. She’d make it her first job, at some point in the future, to free these Fahran from the yoke of the Skelt.
Mahn approached the life-raft, climbed the ramp and passed inside.
The ship was a sorry sight now; panels had been removed, along with the viewscreen. Its exo-skeleton was revealed, and between the spars she made out silver gelware dripping like syrupy ichor.
Mahn emerged a minute later, and the renewed spring of his gait told Delia that he’d been successful.
Charlton said, “Damn. That isn’t the ion-exchange unit.”
Mahn was clutching a mass of cortical leads to his chest, wires trailing. Delia glanced at Charlton. “I think he’s been clever.”
“What?”
“See that silver cylinder just showing behind the leads? That’s the unit. He’s brought out the leads as camouflage.”
Charlton smiled. “Clever indeed. I just hope he’s clever enough to evade the Skelt.”
Mahn stepped from the ramp and followed the line of Fahran away from the life-raft and across the cavern. He would be forced to deposit the mass of leads with the other mechanical detritus, and somehow conceal the cylindrical unit at the same time.
Her stomach clenched. She watched him approach the clearing, bend down and place the tangle of leads on the ground. With commendable legerdemain, he slipped the unit under his left arm, concealing it beneath his long fur.
He turned casually and rejoined the line of Fahran moving back to the life-raft.
Delia whispered, “This is where it gets dangerous.”
The line passed boulders and stalagmites – as well as a number of vigilant Skelt guards. Mahn’s only hope was to evade the attention of the guards and slip into the cover of a natural feature, and then make his way, dodging guards, all the way back to the tunnel entrance.
She found her hand clutching the butt of her laser, slick with sweat.
Mahn came alongside a stalagmite; he was at midpoint between two guards. He ducked, easing himself below the line of sight of the Skelt and using the Fahran slaves before and after him as cover. Then he quickly rolled across the rocky floor until he came to the crystal-encrusted torus of the stalagmite. He scrambled around the feature and hunkered down. Delia could only imagine the fear he must be experiencing now as he crouched behind the calcified tower and waited for the Skelt to raise the alarm.
It never came and, as the seconds elapsed, Delia breathed a little easier.
She estimated that Mahn was a couple of hundred metres from the tunnel entrance, with a dozen rock formations between him and safety. On the debit side, Skelt guards came and went between the main entrance and the life-raft – silver blurs streaking back and forth.
“Time’s on his side,” Charlton whispered to her. “There’s no need to rush things. Just take it easy, buddy. Take your time. Easy does it.”
Delia glanced at Charlton. Concern was etched into the lines of his face as he gazed down at the Fahran with yellowed, bloodshot eyes.
Mahn looked around him, waited another half minute, then made a move. He ran, doubled-up, from one stalagmite to another, ten metres away. Delia held her breath until he reached it, then released it in a rush.
“Made it! Now sit tight, pal. There’s no rush.” Charlton kept up a running commentary under his breath. “Absolutely no rush at all...”
Mahn was a hundred metres from the main tunnel entrance in the wall of the cavern. Delia watched the Skelt streaking back and forth, leaving Doppler images of themselves on her retina. Mahn peered out from his hiding place, watching the passing guards.
She could see him eyeing up his next place of concealment, a great boulder five metres away. To reach it, he would be in view from a pathway used by the Skelt. If a guard should pass just as he was negotiating the gap...
She watched him, crouching like a sprinter in the blocks, biding his time.
He took off, moving at speed from the base of the stalagmite.
Delia saw the Skelt before Mahn had any awareness of the guard’s presence. The silver blur moved from the Fahran’s left and stopped before him. To Mahn, it would seem as if the Skelt had appeared out of thin air. Mahn stopped short, cowering.
Charlton swore. Delia felt something like ice fill her belly with fear.
The Skelt advanced, drew its sickle sword and moved it towards Mahn’s chin. The insect applied upward pressure, lifting Mahn’s head as it interrogated him.
The Skelt reached out, its claw going for whatever Mahn was concealing under his arm.
Mahn danced away, backing himself up against the boulder.
Delia saw the Skelt’s mandibles clack loosely, and a second later two more Skelt appeared on the scene.
Charlton swore again and raised his laser.
“Don’t fire!” Delia hissed.
“You have a better idea?”
“I said my Imp can project images. Get back into the tunnel – take the others and make your way to the shuttle. Once I’ve created a diversion, there’s nothing further we can do here.”
“Apart from laser a few insects –”
“And in so doing risk Mahn’s life, and our own.”
She glanced back down into the cavern. The Skelt were quizzing Mahn, swords drawn.
Delia lost no time. She commanded Imp to project three images, spaced well apart, stationary to begin with but then moving off in different directions.
Instantly, images of her mother and father and Timothy Greene appeared beyond the Skelt, clearly startling them. Beside her, Charlton spoke under his breath. “So lifelike.”
The human images moved off, her mother scurrying in a way that, under any other circumstances, would have been comical. Timothy Greene turned and ran, followed by the avatar of her elderly father.
She hissed to Charlton, “Get back to the ship!”
He ran into the tunnel and ordered Javinder and the others to follow him. They vanished in an instant, and Delia suddenly felt very much alone.
Down below, the three Skelt forgot about the Fahran and moved off – three silver blurs – in the direction of the phantom humans.
Mahn lost no time. He ran, dodging boulders and stalagmites, towards the tunnel entrance. One of the Skelt stopped, change direction and went after Mahn. Instinctively, Delia raised her laser. The Skelt was a hundred metres away, and she knew that her aim wasn’t that good. But an accurate shot was not necessary in order to bring down a target. She set her weapon to constant beam, aimed it across the path of the Skelt, and depressed the firing stud.
The Skelt ran into the beam, through it, and stopped suddenly – the momentum of its halt sliding its upper torso from its pelvis and legs. For a grotesque second, its legs remained standing while its upper half hit the ground with a messy thud.
The disadvantage of using a laser in the cavern, of course, was that it attracted undue attention. She heard a welter of alarmed clacks from down below, then turned and sprinted into the tunnel, activating her headlamp.
She only hoped that Mahn had managed to evade the other Skelt and escape into the main tunnel. With luck, he would be ahead of her and racing back to the shuttle. She would fight a rearguard action, holding off the advancing Skelt with a hail of laser fire.
She came to the junction where the branch tunnel met the main tunnel, and turned left. She expected to see the running form of Mahn up ahead in the light cast by her headlamp, but all she did see was the empty tunnel. What, she asked herself, if she were running away from Mahn, leaving him to the mercy of the Skelt?
She heard a sound from up ahead, the skittering of multiple claws on rock. Var’s jet black bulk filled the tunnel, coming towards her.
“I told you to get back to the ship!” she screamed.
“And leave you and Mahn here?”
So Mahn was not ahead of her...
“There’s nothing you can do –” she began.
“Where is Mahn?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Presumably back there.”
She looked back, frozen with indecision.
“We’ve got to save him!”
“Of course,” Delia said. “I’ll go first. Hang back. You aren’t armed, and I am. And get ready to run.”
She readied her laser and ran back along the tunnel towards the cavern.
She heard a sound from up ahead, a ragged breath followed by multiple Skelt voices. A slight, dark figure appeared in the illuminated cone of her headlamp, running towards her.
“Mahn!” she cried.
“Run!” he yelled.
To Var she said, “You heard him – run!”
She knelt and took aim. Beyond the careering figure of the Fahran, she made out half a dozen tall, loping Skelt. She aimed past Mahn and fired, a brilliant lance of laser light drilling through the chest of the leading alien. Mahn passed her at a sprint and now she could wield the laser with greater abandon. She swept the beam across the tunnel, slicing through two further Skelt. More appeared behind them, clattering over the bodies of their fallen comrades. There must have been a dozen or more; the tunnel was full of the creatures, swarming towards her. She heard the whistle of something fly past her head – a crossbow bolt. She ducked, swept her laser right and left, and backed off.
Spears clattered around her. Another bolt narrowly missed her head. She heard it crack into something hard and was startled by a cry. She turned to see Var pulling the bolt from its bulging brow with a great pincer.
“I told you to run!” she said.
“And leave you alone? There are hundreds of Skelt –”
“And what the hell can you do?” she said, and immediately regretted the question.
“This!” Var said, pushing Delia aside with a great pincer.
Var scuttled up the tunnel towards the advancing Skelt, ignoring Delia’s frenzied cries of protest.
She fired around the Vo, cursing the creature as it barrelled into the leading Skelt. For long seconds all was confusion, a shadow play of Skelt arms and legs as Var attacked with her pincers, cutting the aliens in half and removing limbs at random – and receiving heavy blows herself. Delia watched impotently, unable to fire for fear of hitting Var.
She jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“There’s nothing we can do!” Mahn cried. “Come!”
In a last, futile act of defiance, Var had reared up on her back legs and wedged her shell across the tunnel. Delia ran, weeping as she went. She cast one final look over her shoulder and would never forget what she saw in the fitful light of her headlamp.
Var had succeeded in blocking the tunnel with her upended bulk, but only for so long. Her body rocked, and Delia thought the Skelt were attempting to push past it – then she saw the glint of a blade slice through the chitin, and great rents appear in the carapace, and a second later the shell exploded and three Skelt burst through.
“You murdering bastards!” she yelled, and decapitated the charging aliens with a swift sweep of her laser.
She turned and sprinted, gratified to see Mahn well ahead of her, as more Skelt burst through Var’s shell in pursuit.
She felt something thump into her right shoulder – and knew that, this time, she had been hit. She staggered on, then stumbled and fell to her knees as the pain lanced though her. Dimly she made out the lights of half a dozen Fahran guards rushing towards her.
They knelt around her, crosshatching the tunnel with laser fire, and she felt tiny hands grab her arms and legs and bear her aloft. She was carried with surprising speed and she cried aloud as the pain increased, becoming unbearable.
Then they were no longer in the tunnel. The heat of the sun burned the back of her neck. She opened her eyes and saw a blur of cobbles passing centimetres beneath her. She heard laser fire, heard spears and crossbow bolts striking stone around them.
Then the cobbles were no longer rushing along beneath her, but the smooth grey surface of the shuttle’s ramp. The pain mounted, and with it a crazed euphoria, and then she felt nothing as she passed into oblivion.
SHE CAME AWAKE and blinked up at a point of light.
She was lying on her back. The pain in her shoulder had abated, replaced by a dull ache. She turned her head. She was on a bunk in the shuttle.
Imp, how long since...?
Since you fled the Skelt cavern? Imp replied. A little over a day, Delia.
One day?
Where are we?
In the valley of Mahkanda.
She closed her eyes, relieved but at the same time obscurely troubled.
Mahn? Were was Mahn? Had he survived? And what of the drive unit?
She felt herself drifting off.
She opened her eyes. She had the vague impression that she had lost consciousness since speaking to her Imp.
Oma smiled down at her. “Delia, you’re fine. Relax.”
“But...”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
“Mahn!” she cried.
A small, blue face appeared, staring at her with huge eyes. “Here I am, Delia.”
Oma held her hand.
“Don’t ever again,” the South African said, “make me perform an operation to remove a crossbow bolt from your shoulder, instructed only by my Imp and using the shuttle’s limited surgical resources.”
Delia smiled. “It’s a promise. I won’t.”
“Fortunately the bolt didn’t hit anything vital. Shattered your collar bone, but we managed to patch that up.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed the woman’s hand. “How long have I...?”
Another voice said, “You’ve been out for over a day, Delia.”
She turned her head and smiled up at Edward Charlton.
“Var...” she said, tears pricking her eyes.
Charlton murmured, “She’ll never be forgotten, Delia. I’ve arranged for a statue to grace the esplanade, along with the three Fahran guards who perished. Also, their stories will join the Twelve.”
“The ion-exchange unit?”
Javinder said, “Done. I slaved it to the shuttle’s drive and ran preliminary tests yesterday. All the gelware has integrated and it’s running without a hitch.”
She reached out and took Mahn’s long-fingered hand. “Good work, Monkey.” She turned to the Indian. “So we can escape Valinda’s gravity well and get into space?”
“Just as soon as the work on the Orpheus’s quantum lattice is completed. We removed it yesterday, with the help of a hundred Fahran, and attached it to the shuttle’s nose-cone this morning. Not pretty, but if it survives the lift-off...”
“Yes?”
He smiled. “Then all we’ve got to worry about is whether the lattice will work and generate a wormhole long enough for us to transit.”
She shook her head in wonder. “You have Earth’s co-ordinates?”
Charlton said, “Stored in the memory cache of the Orpheus.”
“So... when do we lift-off?” she asked.
“Twelve hours from now,” Javinder said, “at sunset.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
VALINDA FELL AWAY beneath the shuttle.
The tiny planet turned imperceptibly, striated with chiffon clouds above green landmasses and blues seas. Delia stared at the alien world and felt a strange pressure in her chest. She was leaving a place she had come to love, heading hopefully for a planet and a people she loved even more.
Mahn leaned against the console and stared at the viewscreen. “My world,” he murmured, “as I’ve never seen it before. It’s beautiful. And...”
“Yes?”
“It looks so peaceful from up here. It is hard to believe that the Skelt dwell down there, enslaving my people. It is hard to believe, Delia, that everything I have ever known could be contained on a thing so tiny.”
Delia massaged her shoulder, easing the ache.
Edward Charlton came to her side. “How do you feel?”
“Never better.”
“Modern surgery and medicine,” he said. “Three hundred years ago you’d still be laid up, unable to move your shoulder.”
Oma lay in the shuttle’s command sling, jacked into the drive. Beside her, in the co-pilot’s sling, Javinder monitored the core’s performance.
The shuttle climbed into space, heading for the huge primary dead ahead.
Mahn said, “I wish Var had lived to see this, and accompany us on our journey.”
Delia smiled. “She always wanted to travel, to see the world.”
“I will miss her,” Mahn said. “Never would I have thought I would become so close to a Vo.”
Delia reached out and touched his arm.
She stared through the viewscreen at the quantum lattice that Javinder, Charlton and a team of Fahran workers had welded to the shuttle’s nose cone. The construct – which resembled the Eiffel tower made of ice – made the shuttle look like a mechanical swordfish. Not pretty, Javinder had said, but functional, or hopefully so. They would find out in the next hour.
“It’s very strange,” Charlton said.
She looked at him, this calm, quiet, eminently reassuring man who had once been a god. “What is?”
“I have dreamed of this moment for three hundred years – well, subjectively for about two months – and I’m surprised I’m feeling so... so accepting of what might lie ahead, the three possibilities.”
“That we might succeed, and pass through the wormhole to Earth; that we might fail, and spend the rest of our lives on Valinda, or that...?”
“Or that the whole process might blow-up spectacularly and kill us all.”
Delia said, “But if it doesn’t blow up, but we don’t get back to Earth?”
“Then we’ll face the rest of our lives on Valinda,” he said, “which isn’t the travail it might have been. Alone, I might have found it hard to cope; with you three, the job ahead – of aiding the Fahran against the Skelt – will be made that much easier.”
