The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone (29 page)

"What is your
problem? I want to wash! I'm sticky and dirty, and so are you! Let
me go!"

Sabre leant
closer and whispered, "That's what the mage wants."

Tassin gulped,
glancing back at the seductive pool.

"It's
stagnant. It'll make you sick," he declared, for the mage's
benefit.

As soon as
they were out of sight, she stopped and turned to him. "I didn't
think he could become something like a pool."

"No, that was
unexpected."

"You knew he
was waiting for us. Why didn't you warn me? I nearly fell for
it."

Sabre's lips
twitched in a faint smile. "I was curious to see what he'd try
next, a lost puppy or kitten."

"He's too
clever for that. Next time, tell me."

The following
afternoon, thunder clouds rolled in like a billowing grey blanket,
and icy rain slashed down. The wind lashed them while they
struggled to pitch the tents, driving the frigid water even into
the warm spots deep in their clothing.

Tassin glanced
up from the peg she was trying to hammer into the sodden ground and
pointed. "Look!"

A boulder
stood in the golden grass, resting on a smaller one, a cosy cave
between them. She began to bundle up the tent, and Sabre checked
the scanners, certain the rocks had not been there when the storm
had struck. Sure enough, where the rocks stood, a point of green
light indicated a human being, and he stilled Tassin's busy hands
with one of his.

"It's
him."

Tassin wiped
away the water that streamed down her face and gazed at him with
incredulous disappointment. "You're sure?"

He nodded.

"What should
we do?"

"Nothing; let
him sit in the rain, maybe he'll get pneumonia."

They pitched
the tents end to end and left the flaps open so they could talk,
and Sabre watched the point of light while Tassin dried her hair.
By the time they broke out the cold rations and settled down for
supper, the mage had moved away.

Weeks passed
in endless walking, except when it rained and Tassin refused to
travel. On those days, Sabre was glad of the rest, for although the
exercise kept him fit, it also sapped his strength. Despite his
massive stamina, the load he bore weighed considerably more than a
normal man could carry for any length of time. The grasslands
appeared to be uninhabited, apart from the grazing beasts and a few
slinking, cat-like predators.

They
encountered the wizard as a bubbling brook, a clump of
sweet-scented flowers, a bush full of ripe berries and a shady tree
in the heat of the day. Sabre began to enjoy the encounters, making
loud comments about the unpleasant aspects of each object. The
flowers, he warned, would give Tassin a rash. He insisted that the
brook was tainted, and claimed that he could smell its pollution
without venturing any closer. The berries were poisonous, he told
Tassin, and the tree he said was unstable and liable to attract
lightning down on their heads. Sabre wondered how long it would
take the mage to realise that he knew who hid within the
illusions.

Time passed in
slow travel, and Sabre wondered if they would reach the sea without
encountering anyone, apart from the magician. Gearn had disguised
himself as rose bush Sabre had warned Tassin was full of thorns, a
freshly killed animal he had asserted was rotten, and a thin,
friendly dog he had chased away by pelting it with stones. Several
pained yelps had rewarded his marksmanship, to his delight.

Changing his
tactics from the sublime to the ridiculous, the wizard had then
created an illusory feast set out on a table, and the aroma of
roast fowl and savoury stew had made their mouths water. They
detoured around it, Sabre declaring that it must belong to someone,
and therefore should be left alone. Since then, he had detected the
magician's life sign several times in ostensibly empty areas, and
had given them a wide berth for no apparent reason. Sabre had to
admire the mage's persistence, if nothing else.

A few days
later, they came across dozens of great swathes of short green turf
amongst the long golden grass, as if a horde of wandering madmen
had driven gigantic lawnmowers through the plains. The tracts of
lawn became more numerous, and when they found one going in the
right direction it made their journey easier, but the trails always
curved away after a while. Sabre found that, for once, the cyber
had no answer to this strange phenomenon in its vast store of
information.

The trails
remained a mystery until they crested one of the many rolling hills
one warm afternoon. In the next valley, a herd of monstrous
snail-like creatures moved through the grass, each leaving a
verdant trail behind it, dotted with manure. Sabre stopped and
studied them, while Tassin gazed at them in patent amazement. Their
curling shells were at least eight metres in diameter, pale grey
striped with dull green. Vast, rippling dark blue feet supported
them, and their heads each bore two feelers and a pair of eye
stalks tipped with simple eyes.

"What are
they?" Tassin asked, without taking her eyes off the strange
beasts.

"An indigenous
species. By the looks of it, a type of snail."

"Not him."

"No, this
would be beyond his powers, I think." He did not bother to check
the scanners.

The snails
munched the grass, their heads moving from side to side as they
mowed it.

He glanced at
her. "Let's go and have a closer look."

"What if
they're dangerous?"

"They don't
look dangerous. Besides, even you could outrun a snail."

She grinned.
"These days, I could outrun you."

He laughed.
"You think so?"

"Want to wager
on it?"

"No."

"Because you
know you'll lose."

"No, I just
don't want a tongue lashing when I win."

Sabre stepped
aside when she tried to clout him, then dumped the packs and ran
backwards, mocking her. She dropped her bundle and gave chase, and
he turned and raced away, leaving her behind. Tassin ran after him,
laughing. She must know she stood no chance of catching him, he
reflected, but clearly she enjoyed the rare moment of relaxation
and playfulness.

Sabre was far
ahead when he became aware of the cyber's warning light, and he
stopped and glanced back just as a man rose from the long grass
right in front of Tassin. She gave a startled yell and tried to
swerve, but slipped and fell with an inelegant grunt. Sabre cursed
the fact that he had not checked the scanners for some time. There
had not seemed to be much point in the open terrain, where
everything was visible from a distance, and the mage had not put in
an appearance for a while. He sprinted back to Tassin, alarmed by
the appearance of a stranger in the apparently empty plains. A
tall, tanned man with dark red hair and bright green eyes stood
over the Queen, looking concerned.

"Are you all
right?"

Tassin glared
up at him and rubbed her elbow, and Sabre arrived at her side as
she stood up. The stranger topped him by several centimetres, but
then, most men did, and it did not bother him in the least. The
man, who wore a fawn suede shirt decorated with beadwork, matching
trousers and soft leather shoes, smiled at him and made an odd
gesture.

"Greetings.
I'm Shan of the Moniliid Tribe. What tribe are you from?"

Sabre
introduced himself and Tassin, wondering if the mage had found a
disguise he could not penetrate.

Shan turned to
Tassin. "I'm sorry I gave you a fright. I was just relaxing in the
grass when I heard you coming. You might have stood on me." He
shifted under their combined scrutiny and asked, "Where's your
herd?"

"Our herd?"
Sabre asked.

"Yes, your
snails."

"We have no
snails."

Shan looked
amazed. "You're out here on your own?"

"We're
travelling in search of a cultured people."

"So you left
your herd?"

Sabre shook
his head. "We came from the forest."

Shan grinned.
"You're from a faraway land!"

"Yes."

"That's
wonderful! You must stay with us a while. Come and meet the
chief."

Looking as
excited as an overgrown schoolboy, Shan turned and headed for the
snails. Sabre glanced at Tassin. There was no way to tell if Shan
was in fact the mage, but he seemed like a harmless fellow, and had
made no attempt to get close to her even when she had been within
his reach. She raised her brows, indicating that it was his
decision. Sabre shrugged and followed Shan.

As they
approached the gigantic snails, more people appeared, as if from
nowhere. Sabre wondered if they had all been hiding in the grass.
He belatedly checked the scanners, and found twenty-seven life
signs in the cyber's human scan total, plus thirty-two aliens. The
control unit's warning light had stopped flashing, since the people
were unarmed. It did, however, detect the presence of bows and
arrows inside some of the snails. The people beamed and gathered
around, calling greetings as if he and Tassin were long lost
friends. They wore similar clothes to Shan's, some more decorative,
and the women were clad in knee-length suede dresses with tasselled
hems and beaded necklines, their feet shod in beaded ankle boots. A
short, wiry man pushed through the crowd, grinning. His thinning,
dark gold hair was slicked across his scalp, and bright blue eyes
twinkled in his deeply tanned face.

"Welcome!
Welcome! I'm Chief Clon." He made the same odd gesture as Shan had
done, and looked confused when they did not return it. Shan
whispered in his ear, and the chief's grin broadened. "People from
afar! Wonderful! You must stay with us. We want to hear all about
your land, and your travels."

Sabre nodded,
smiling. The tribe's open friendliness was infectious. "Thank you.
Where's your village?"

"Our village?
Why, you're standing in it!"

Sabre glanced
around at the munching behemoths. "I'm standing in a herd of
snails."

"Yes, this is
our home."

"You're
nomads? You live in tents?"

Clon shook his
head. "No, we live in the snails."

"In the
snails?"

"That's right.
Come, I'll show you."

Still beaming,
Clon led Sabre to the nearest snail, and the crowd followed,
murmuring and smiling. Clon rapped on its shell, and it tilted, the
flesh under it receding to form a passage just large enough for a
man to enter. Clon crawled up, and Sabre followed.

Tassin, either
unwilling to be left behind or curious, came after him. As she
crawled out of the passage, he sensed the snail's movement as it
closed the door. Above him, the shell curled away out of sight, and
a taut sheath of muscle ran up the convex wall at the front of it.
Soft golden light seeped through the shell to illuminate a spacious
living area atop the snail's back, which was flat, warm and dry,
the texture of brushed satin.

Pots, plates,
clothing and toys were scattered around, and bedding was rolled up
next to the wall. The snail's slow movements could be detected
under them as it grazed. Five steps, attached to the front of the
shell next to the muscular sheath, led up to the top of its
curve.

Clon gestured.
"This is where we live. Up there is storage and the water
reservoir." He pointed to the steps. "Of course cooking and calls
of nature are taken care of outside."

Sabre gazed
around in amazement. "How do you train them to accept you and let
you in here?"

"We don't.
They do it naturally. We believe that at some time they had an
indigenous symbiote, which the colonists probably wiped out.
Chances are, it was a predator, possibly dangerous. The snails have
a parasite that we rid them of, as their previous symbiote
undoubtedly did. In return for this service, we get a warm, dry,
safe home."

"I wonder why
the colonists allowed such a large indigenous creature to survive,"
Sabre mused.

Clon shrugged.
"Why not? They're completely harmless, and they crop the grass and
fertilise the land. There's no reason to destroy them. They eat the
tough grass that grazing animals like cattle and sheep don't, and
leave a rich green lawn in their wake, as you've seen."

"You're the
first person I've encountered on this planet who knows it was once
a colony."

The little man
swelled with pride. "Ah, well, most people have no record of what
happened. For them, the past has been swallowed up in legend. Our
people survived the holocaust because they were farmers, and didn't
live in cities. They were thinly spread over this vast planet, for
even then there were only a few million people.

"Most kept in
touch with civilisation with radios, and made biannual trips into
the cities for supplies. When the bombs destroyed the cities, the
survivors went a little mad. But for the farmers, all that changed
was they could no longer get supplies and there was no market for
their produce. Most became subsistence farmers, but some became
nomads. We still have records of what happened, which we carry with
us now, and teach our children."

Tassin asked,
"How did your people discover that they could live in the
snails?"

"We're not too
sure about that, but probably some adventurous person came across a
herd and knocked curiously on a shell. Once he had been admitted,
he must have seen the advantages of living in here instead of in
tents or shacks as they did then."

"So anyone can
knock on a shell and be admitted?"

"Oh yes, the
snail always responds to a knock by opening the passage."

She raised her
brows. "What if the people inside don't wish to be disturbed?"

"Well, the
snail waits for a while if no one enters, so the visitor will
always call out for an invitation before entering."