The Orphaned Worlds (39 page)
Well
, she thought.
Invading Crazies 2, Home Teams 0
.
Segrana’s presence withdrew but her song of grief went on, a sombre yet resolute undertone. Catriona focused her Enhanced mind and all its abilities on the defence of Segrana and the Uvovo, not allowing herself to be daunted in the least. With the weave of Segrana’s being flowing through her mind, she was able to extend her senses outward and downward, attempting to grasp all that was happening. Ambition almost got the better of her as she tried to cast her sight-smell-sound awareness as far as the four quarters, only to find herself stretched taut over the vast and endless intricacy of Segrana’s corporeal territory.
Once I was able to comprehend my own entirety from sky to soil, from coast to coast, when I was whole, when the Many-Eyes were with me. Now, such understanding is beyond me. Preserve the self that is you, Catriona, or you will be lost
…
Segrana’s thoughts loomed large, like a world whispering to her. Intricacy gaped beneath, a temptation to the Enhanced instincts that still lay within her like the fragments of an old skeleton. Webs within webs of potential, a shining darkness that overlaid slumbering primal forces, all calling to her, drawing her towards them. Cat had known of this from Segrana’s hints and passing references but this was her first encounter with the fundamental source of planetary energies, and she could sense how much danger she was in.
With an act of will she turned her mind away, pulled in her thoughts, withdrew her awareness from far-flung outwilds of Segrana. As her self strengthened she began to focus on essential reality, and the crises now ongoing. Like the heavy fighting taking place around the Brolturan base sited near Pilipoint Station in the south-east. A group of small combat craft from the still-unknown invading armada were attacking, scoring several damaging hits before the base’s force shield went up. Now missiles were flying back and forth and a number of attacking flyers were shot down, some veering off to crash into Segrana’s shoreward fringes.
This event impinged strongly on her awareness when one of those burning wrecks crashed through a gatherer village, killing three-quarters of the Uvovo inhabitants. Racked with sorrow and feelings of guilt, Cat spoke to some Listeners in the south-east and persuaded them to begin evacuating those settlements nearest the fighting. Such evacs were already under way in the north, around the area of the crash site and the valleys to the south. Since the explosions and gunfire had terrorised most wildlife in the area, Catriona was finding it hard to track down the gang of invaders. Instead she had to rely on the vaguest of sense impressions and the sporadic reports of hard-pressed Listeners.
Then an urgent contact pierced the shifting tracery of information and sensation, a message from Sorjathir, a Listener whom she had sent to scout around the crash site and check for survivors. She cleared a path for his thought-flow, and words began to filter through –
See the things that they all wear, Pathmistress, and their marks of meaning
– followed by a sequence of images, contorted alien forms lying on the grass, clothes illustrated or embroidered with a spiral emblem, others with facial tattoos or wearing a pendant, also in the form of a spiral.
She sent heartfelt thanks to Sorjathir, then sat back in the dark of the vudron, recalling what the Sentinel had told her about the Spiral Prophecy and the involvement of Julia Bryce and her team of Enhanced. The Sentinel had asked if they were likely to give in to demands to work on weaponry. Were they part of that invading armada?
Segrana’s weave of being surged around her. More impressions flowed in from the extremities, more chaos and violence. Knowing that Nivyesta and Segrana were under attack from religious zealots was not a great help so she put that aside and bent all her will and thought to managing the inflow of information, to speculate on the invaders’ purpose and direction of attack, and to prepare some kind of countermove. Wherever they were, she would make sure that Uvovo fighters were in place to harry and chase them along avenues of her choosing, leading them to utter and complete defeat.
Pyre turned out to be far worse than he had imagined.
On field-generated lift surfaces Silveira’s ship, the
Oculus Noctis
, spiralled down towards a sullen grey-brown world. Stealthing their way past inner and outer sensor shells, they descended through the fringes of a three-hundred-mile-wide dust storm. They rode out buffeting turbulence as they flew north towards the mountain range where the Human settlement was located. According to Roug information, the colony settlement was tunnelled into the base of a lone mountain east of that spine of high peaks, and a contact was supposed to be waiting for them in a high gully in amongst them. Homing in on the coordinates, Silveira brought the
Oculus Noctis
in for a quiet, smooth landing in a steep-sided dried-up river bed. They had already changed into garments matching the Pyre Humans’ fashion, although the plan was to avoid being seen by too many of them.
Silveira wore a grubby orange pau over a yellow jacket and heavy trousers, and a pair of dark goggles concealed his eyes, all beneath a brimmed hat held on with a strap. Kao Chih had on ordinary dun work clothes and over them a hooded blue coat. Their Roug companion, Mandator Qabakri, had chosen an immense dark grey robe with what seemed like acres of folds, a strange, drooping hood that hid his features, and large, stubby-fingered gloves.
Regarding the muffled and disguised Roug, Kao Chih again wondered about the Roug’s reasons for coming on this mission – in his mind’s eye he could still recall the shocking revelation that only he had witnessed back on the
Retributor
, Qabakri’s physical transformation into Human form and back to Roug. Why had he revealed this incredible talent? Kao Chih found himself bedevilled by this mystery – what was Qabakri planning? What might he hope to achieve and why?
‘Both Mandator Qabakri and myself are able to converse in Mandarin,’ Silveira said to Kao Chih as the hatchway opened and they stepped outside. ‘Which of us do you think should be the spokesman for our venture?’
‘I have no desire to assume the role,’ said the Roug. ‘But I was entrusted with an identifying code phrase.’
Kao Chih eyed Qabakri’s tall, dark-swathed bulk. Numerous folds were flapping in the wind. ‘So, who is our contact?’ he said.
‘According to our local intermediary,’ Qabakri said, ‘it is one of the Pyre Humans, a person by the name of Sister Shi …’
Silveira, who had been setting his ship’s camouflage, interrupted the Roug with an outstretched, pointing hand. A cloaked figure was climbing up the sloping river bed, arms and legs wrapped in pale green folds, face hidden by a hood. The newcomer halted several yards away and pulled back the hood to reveal the lined, distrustful features of a middle-aged Chinese woman. She regarded them one after another, dark piercing eyes giving nothing away.
‘
Weiguoren
,’ she said in Mandarin, ‘I am Sister Shi. Are you the ones sent?’
‘We are,’ said Qabakri. ‘Will you guide us to Dragon Gate Mountain?’
‘There and back again,’ she replied, then frowned and shook her head. ‘You speak like a schoolmaster. Keeping you concealed is more than sensible.’ She looked at Kao Chih. ‘You are of the Fugitives, are you not? The ones who ran?’
‘My name is Kao Chih. My grandparents escaped with Deng Guo.’
She gave a tight nod. ‘This world has changed since then. Come.’
Without another word, she replaced her hood, turned and headed back down the dusty river bed with the others following.
Beyond the gully, they were exposed to gusting breezes that flung frequent billows of dust and grit into their faces. Qabakri was already well shielded but the Humans were forced to tug their own hoods tighter, although Kao Chih tried to leave enough of a gap to take in the surroundings. His parents had shown him an ancient digiframe inherited from his grandparents, and he had marvelled at the summery pictures of children playing by a stream while woods and meadows stretched into the distance. His first experiences of Darien, the river of smells, shapes, tastes, and shades of living green that had flooded his senses, had made him sure that was what Pyre had been like.
But what he was walking through, what he saw in every direction, was desolation, a scoured landscape from which a kind of world-pain cried out. Pyre was a desiccated corpse.
A mile-long trek took them around a couple of craggy hills to a stretch of rounded, boulder-strewn hillocks. And a thirty-foot-high armoured tower which Sister Shi said was part of a chain that maintained a sensor barrier around the mountain that lay ahead. She then produced a silvery handheld device with a small emitter dish which she pointed at the top of the tower. Kao Chih heard a high-pitched whine for a few seconds. Then she nodded and turned to them.
‘The sensory apparatus has been tricked into its diagnostic mode,’ she said. ‘It will only last about a minute so we must now run!’
Abruptly she took off across the hillocks and the others followed suit with alacrity.
The dark mountain loomed, its heights blurred by wind-blown dust. Sister Shi took them over the rocky summit of a nearby hillock to an almost invisible path that sloped up the bleak mountainside. Huge shards of stone jutted from the slope and it was behind one of these that they were led, to a dark and narrow gap.
Lit by their guide’s hand-torch, they headed along a cold passage that wound through the rock. Somehow, Qabakri managed to keep up without getting his bulky garments caught or torn. At last they came to a wider section and a dark recess with a metal-faced door. Sister Shi knocked on the door in a brief rhythmic pattern. A tiny lamp winked on above the door, a narrow glowing slot appeared and nervous, beady eyes stared out.
‘Engineer,’ the woman began. ‘Don’t say my …’
‘Ah, Si Wu Chu and three mystery people …’
‘I was going to ask you not to say my name! You always forget to check.’
The beady eyes suddenly looked hurt. ‘But Si Wu Chu, how often do you say not to?’
There was a rattle of locks and the door opened. A short, round-faced man in shabby overalls ushered them in and quickly locked up again. His eyes widened on seeing Qabakri, who, wrapped in his robes, towered over everyone.
‘My, my, you are a tall fellow! I think I have a big chair somewhere that may suit you.’
‘You are most kind,’ Qabakri said in a low, whispery voice. ‘But I am happy to stand.’
Engineer Bao smiled, gave a short bow and produced small battered stools for the others. Kao Chih quickly took in his surroundings, a narrow room with high rock walls and a level floor covered in matting. There were shelves and boxes of what looked like broken domestic tools while overhead the ceiling was obscured by clusters of pipes that snaked through, criss-crossing each other, some descending the near walls, others continuing into the rock. The air was warm and faint hisses could be heard all around.
‘Engineer,’ said Si Wu Chu, ‘these are the special guests I told you about.’
‘Ah, you people are from the stars, yes? The up-and-out? From Earthhome?’
Silveira pushed his goggles up to reveal his decidedly non-Asiatic eyes and Engineer Bao laughed in amazement.
‘Round eyes!’ Engineer Bao said in delight, vigorously shaking Silveira’s hand, then Kao Chih’s. ‘But you’re not …’
Kao Chih breathed deeply. ‘No, Engineer Bao, but my grandparents fled this place with Deng Guo.’
‘Well, now.’ Bao glanced at Sister Shi, and chuckled. ‘Si Wu does not approve of you, but it seems to me a good thing that the sons of the sons return home. So, you are here to see what those Suneye devils have done to our world, yes? And afterwards, Earthhome will surely set us free when they see what pains we have suffered.’
‘That is our task, Sir Engineer,’ said Silveira. ‘What of your big friend?’ said Engineer Bao. ‘He says little, so his words must be very valuable.’
‘He is our silent observer,’ said Kao Chih. ‘And as the ancients said, actions speak louder than words.’
Engineer Bao’s eyes widened in a mystified expression which then turned into a broad smile. ‘Ah, I see, a guardian. Well, I am sure that we can conduct your business in safety – I know all the secret tunnels and paths, even a few that bypass the sealed corridors to the other districts.’
Sister Shi smiled at Engineer Bao then turned to the three offworlders with a serious face.
‘With Bao’s help your investigations will be in good hands. I must now leave to attend to my children, but I shall return to take you back to your ship when Bao sends word. Till then, may Kwan Yin watch over you.’
The Engineer saw her out through another wider door, locking it after her, then shrugged on a blue work jacket bearing many oil stains. With Si Wu Chu gone his demeanour seemed noticeably more sombre.
‘My friends from the stars,’ he said. ‘Little of what you will see is a pleasure to the eye. There are two hidden routes which lead through Yaotai District, and if there is time we shall explore them both. But I must ask you to be as quiet as mice – youth tong are everywhere and we must avoid arousing suspicion. Follow me and stay close.’
At the rear of the workshop cave, the matting gave way to grilled metal decking. The rear wall was an array of pipes and valves, both archaic needle gauges and digital, from which a low chorus of drones and hissing came. The Engineer went over to a shadowy corner, and pulled up a hinged metal grille to reveal a set of steps. Producing a stub of candle he lit it and led them down into the gloom.
Below was a long, winding tunnel whose low ceiling forced Qabakri to move at a crouch. The Roug offered no complaint and Kao Chih wondered if he was using his shapeshift ability to adapt to the cramped conditions. Indeed, when they reached a high section and a set of stairs leading up he seemed to have shrunk, yet when they emerged in a high, narrow side passage off a brighter corridor, he appeared as tall as before. Bao indicated a number of slots and openings in one wall.