Текст книги "The Abyss Beyond Dreams"

Автор книги: Peter F. Hamilton

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

‘Do you think they train Marines to read a trail properly?’ Slvasta asked wistfully. He’d been awestruck by the Marines back in Prerov. They were smart and decisive and overloaded with genuine authority; no screw-ups in their ranks. And those black uniforms had looked amazingly cool. When they walked down a street, girls didn’t even bother glancing at anyone wearing a regimental uniform. Marines were the toughest troops on Bienvenido, responsible directly to the Captain himself. Slvasta desperately wanted to ask how you joined. But even he knew he should wait until he had a couple of successful egg hunts under his belt. Maybe even axed one open himself.

‘Not that again?’ Ingmar moaned.

‘Why not? Don’t you have any ambition?’

‘Sure I do. What I lack is delusion.’

Slvasta licked along the bottom of his teeth. ‘Hey, corporal?’ he asked loudly.

‘What?’ Jamenk said.

‘How do you get to join the Marines?’

‘I . . . What are you talking about?’

‘I was thinking of joining.’

Ingmar laughed out loud. Slvasta dropped the shell round his thoughts to feign hurt feelings.

‘They wouldn’t take you,’ Jamenk said irritably.

‘Why not?’

‘Firstly, you have to be sponsored by a Marine. Do you know any?’

‘Ah. No.’

‘Well, then. Now keep watch, please. This isn’t a drill.’

Slvasta smirked at Ingmar, who winked back – amplified enormously by his glasses. They both started studying the surrounding woods with mock alertness.

It was the longest two kilometres Slvasta had ever known, taking an age to stride through the lingrass and then tougher undergrowth as the ground became wetter. The slope they were walking down became more pronounced. Stones and boulders were more prevalent. It grew even hotter, the humidity climbed ever upwards. There were thick vines tangled in the gaps between the trees, black creepers with tattered moss-like sponge for leaves. They gave off a sharp salty smell.

Slvasta was cursing Jamenk for his piss-poor navigation skills – they’d done at least five klicks, surely – when the forest ended abruptly. A huge swathe of trees had been felled, leaving a field of pointed stumps sticking up out of the muddy ground, softened by the puffy fungus that had smothered them. They were over a kilometre from the swift-flowing river which cut a curving line along the floor of the valley. The forest rose up in wide undulations on the other side of the water, its canopy seemingly untouched. Native birds drifted about overhead, long black and green triangles with upturned wingtips. He was sure the specks right at the end of the valley were mantahawks; anything smaller would have been invisible at that distance. His ex-sight wasn’t nearly powerful enough to perceive them and confirm the sighting. But he gifted Ingmar his optical sight anyway; one of their big arguments as kids was that the mantahawks were just a myth, that nothing of their alleged size could actually fly.

‘Neat,’ Ingmar muttered.

Slvasta took a good long look round Romnaz valley, taking in the size, the steep undulations, the trees that packed every square metre. There was no way the three of them were going to sweep it properly for Faller eggs, not in eight days, not even with the mod-bird’s keen eyes.

‘Oh, crud.’

The track was more distinct through the expanse of felled trees. Jamenk set off with long strides, allowing a degree of confidence to show through his shell. He certainly hadn’t shown much conviction before.

A hundred metres into the clearing, and Slvasta saw his first waltan fungus. It was a huge fan-shaped piece, looking like perished leather the colour of sour milk, moving terribly slowly as it crawled across the track. It had taken Bienvenido’s botanists and entomologists a long time to agree, but the botanists had ultimately triumphed. The waltan fungus was an ambulatory plant, moving between lumps of rotting cells. They mostly digested dead vegetation, but some varieties also consumed animal flesh.

‘There’s the croft,’ Jamenk said. He frowned, looking down at the track they were on as if seeing it for the first time, then looking round the slope of tree stumps to the river at the bottom. ‘How do they haul so many trees out along the track?’

Slvasta and Ingmar exchanged a look.

‘I think they tie them together in rafts and float them out on the river, sir,’ Ingmar said. ‘It’s a tributary to the Colbal, so they can go all the way down to Varlan if they want to.’

‘Ah, yes, right,’ Jamenk said. ‘Of course.’

The Shilo family’s compound was on the edge of the clearing, three hundred metres above the river. There was a sprawling lodge in the middle. The original cabin had clearly been added to over the years, with new sections getting progressively larger and more solid, until it now formed a disorderly E-shape. The only stone structure was a chimney stack in the middle, sending up a ribbon of blue-grey smoke. Sturdy wooden stables and barns formed two sides of the compound, with a slat fence marking out the rest of the area. The ground within it was laid out in the green strips of terrestrial vegetation.

Slvasta could see over a dozen mod-apes shambling round inside the fence, while bulky mod-horses were snorting away inside one of the barns. Just the kind of creatures a family would wrangle to help with cutting down the trees and hauling the trunks down the slope to the river.

As they approached, Jamenk sent his mod-bird swooping low over the compound. ‘Ah, someone’s there,’ he said.

Slvasta watched curiously as the corporal immediately began to straighten his clothes, slicking back his sweat-damped hair.

Two mod-apes opened the big gates at they approached. They swung back to reveal a girl smiling in greeting. She was probably about twenty, with the blackest skin Slvasta had ever seen. In contrast, she wore a white shirt with only a couple of buttons done up; he tried not to stare. A pair of suede trousers clung to long legs, tucked into boots which came up to her knees. A thick mass of curly ebony hair framed a delightfully spry face. The smile was just perfection.

He felt his heart start to beat faster as he smiled back at her.

‘Hello, guys,’ she said in an amazingly sultry voice. ‘My name’s Quanda. I live here with my parents.’

‘I’m Corporal Jamenk from the Cham Regiment. There’s been a Fall in this district. But don’t worry, my squad has been assigned to sweep this valley. We’re going to make sure you’re safe.’

‘That’s wonderful. Come in, please,’ she said, and turned to walk towards the cluster of outbuildings. As they passed the ramshackle wooden lodge building, Slvasta gave it a puzzled look. It was large enough for a lot more than just three people. And he was sure the farmer who’d brought them to the top of the valley had said three branches of the Shilo family lived in the valley.

The mod-apes shut the gates after them.

They walked past the chicken run – though there were no chickens anywhere. The vegetable garden had a lot of weeds growing up among the terrestrial plants.

Slvasta didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt even hotter as he walked across the compound. It was a good heat. He couldn’t take his eyes off Quanda’s powerful legs. And that shirt, with just a couple of buttons done up – so provocative. She must know that, he thought. It was a nice thought.

‘Are your parents here?’ Ingmar asked; he was glancing at the long croft house.

Quanda stopped and turned round. She had the most delectably naughty smirk lifting her lips. ‘No. They’re on the other side of the clearing, marking out a new batch of trees for felling. They won’t be back until the sun goes down. So that means I’m going to be here alone with three of you for the whole time. How’s that for a turn on?’

For a second, Slvasta thought he’d misheard that husky voice. His heart was still yammering away inside his chest. It was making him feel lightheaded in a very pleasurable way, as if he’d just glugged down a couple of beers in quick succession. That, and he was getting rather seriously aroused by Quanda.

‘What?’ Jamenk said in a strained voice.

‘You heard.’ And she walked right up to the corporal and kissed him.

Slvasta gazed on in astonishment and not a little jealousy, feeling his erection growing.

She broke away, grinning. ‘You heard and you understood. We’re alone for the afternoon. That means you can do whatever you want with me.’ She turned to Slvasta and kissed him. He’d never known a kiss so full of dirty promise. Her teekay closed around his cock, and slowly tweaked just so.

Slvasta’s eyes were moist when the kiss ended, making the world misty and out of focus. His ragged breathing produced an overwhelming sense of anticipation. Her scent was thick and sweet, enchanting. He wanted more. A lot more. To crush her to him, and inhale until he burst.

Quanda moved on to kiss Ingmar. ‘I never even get to see a man for months on end,’ she murmured hoarsely. ‘Do you have any idea how frustrating that is? And now, when I’m by myself, three of you appear all at once, like a gift from Giu itself.’ She stood before them and undid both the buttons on her shirt.

Slvasta moaned in delight as she lifted the cotton aside. He took a helpless step towards her, just like Jamenk and a befuddled Ingmar. Quanda laughed, and danced away from them. ‘Come on,’ she beckoned urgently. ‘We’ll do it in the barn. You don’t have to take turns. I want to know what it’s like to have all three of you inside me at the same time. I want that so bad.’

Slvasta could barely hear or see anything else, just her, the hottest, most perfect girl he’d ever known. He was drunk on lust and it was fantastic. Her shirt fluttered to the ground. When he walked over it, his erection had become so hard it was almost painful.

From somewhere a long way off, he heard Ingmar say: ‘Where’s your cart?’

‘Away,’ Quanda rasped dismissively.

‘Shut up, Ingmar,’ Jamenk sneered.

Quanda’s nimble teekay hadn’t let go of Slvasta’s cock. ‘You’re the one I want to take me from behind,’ her private ’path told him. Then her laughter was echoing round him as he whimpered in furious desire.

Slvasta started to run after her. He had to get to her fast. To fuck himself senseless with that lean body. The carbine bounced annoyingly against his side.

‘Get rid of it,’ Quanda said in sympathy. ‘It’ll only be in the way when you bend me over.’ Her teekay slid down to begin playing with his balls.

He started fumbling with the awkward strap as he ran. The barn and its long afternoon of sexual paradise was so tantalizingly close now.

‘But we didn’t pass a cart on the track,’ Ingmar’s whiney voice complained.

‘They left a while ago,’ Quanda said; she sounded irritated. That upset Slvasta. Pathetic, pedantic Ingmar was ruining the state of delirium he’d been elevated to.

‘I thought your parents were marking trees.’

‘My aunt took the cart.’

Slvasta shook his head angrily so he could concentrate and tell his so-called friend to shut the crud up. When he turned his blurry vision on Ingmar, he saw three mod-apes shambling towards them. He blinked in confusion; shambling wasn’t the right description. They were running. ‘Uh, hey!’ Raw Neanderthal predator-fear instinct kicked all the joy out of his body at the sight of the approaching alien beasts. He used his ’path to shove an order to halt directly into the closest mod-ape’s mind. It paid no attention – which wasn’t possible. His orders were strong; the creature’s mind should have received and obeyed immediately. He instinctively strengthened his own shell, teekay shifting from a basic protection against prying ex-sight to a barrier that would deflect any physical strike. His hands tugged at the carbine, trying to bring it round towards the clearly deranged mod-creatures. ‘Come here,’ he ’pathed one of their pair of mod-dwarfs. It responded sluggishly. ‘Deploy the fire weapon.’

Quanda was laughing still. But the timbre had changed drastically. It was an awful sound now, devoid of any humour or happiness.

‘What is wron—?’ Jamenk began. He was tugging his revolver out of its holster when Quanda struck him with a backhanded blow, and he went tumbling through the air, crying out more from surprise than pain. Two of the mod-apes landed on him.

‘Faller!’ a terrified Ingmar wailed.

Now Slvasta finally understood: it had been the egg lure which had bewitched him, corrupting his thoughts, with Quanda’s lustful promises lulling him still further. He used his teekay, shaping the invisible force into a blade-shape and stabbing it straight at the eye of the mod-ape that was almost upon him. Blood burst out and the creature dropped dead.

He fumbled the safety catch on the carbine, pulling back the loader lever on the side, preparing the firing mechanism. It was taking forever. Quanda moved fast, sprinting straight at him. He tried to get his teekay inside her skin, into her ribcage where her heart was, desperate to squeeze, to tear arteries – even Fallers had those. But her teekay shell was as hard as iron.

Slvasta fired the carbine. It wasn’t even aimed at her to start with, more like panic shooting. The recoil shoved him about, and he brought the carbine back under control. A couple of shots must have hit her as she raced forwards. They didn’t get through her shell. The magazine ran out of bullets. He turned, lunging away desperately. Her fist lashed out, and he wasn’t quite out of reach. His shell saved him from the worst of the blow, but it was still strong enough to send him sprawling. One of the mod-apes loomed above him, its thick muscular arm raised ready to hammer smash . . . ‘Crud!’

A jet of flame seared into the mod-ape’s head, flowing like liquid down its torso. It shrieked, radiating its pain in a pulse which made Slvasta groan. Tears flooded his eyes as he tried to tighten his shell against the outpouring of agony.

The mod-dwarf was standing firm, playing the flamethrower over the mod-ape as it thrashed about, legs collapsing. And Ingmar was standing a little behind it, hands pressed to his temples, eyes shut tight in concentration as his ’path directed the mod-dwarf. Concentrating so hard he didn’t see one of the mod-horses charging.

‘No!’ Slvasta yelled with voice and ’path. ‘Ingmar, look ou—’

The great beast was going fast, lowering its head like a battering ram. It struck Ingmar in the small of his back, launching him into the air. Slvasta felt his pain and shock at the crippling blow. Even that faded as Ingmar lost consciousness. Then Slvasta was instinctively rolling over himself as Quanda’s booted foot kicked at his head. She missed, and he rolled again. A smeared image of Jamenk lying on his back, with one of the mod-apes pummelling him, its hoof-fist smashing his face again and again. The semi-conscious corporal’s blood running everywhere – over his cheeks, chin, nose, mouth, neck – soaking into the ground.

Slvasta just managed to get to his feet, swaying about. He slapped an order into the mod-dwarf’s mind, telling it to aim the flamethrower at Quanda. But it simply stood there, then slowly brought the nozzle round until it was lined up on him. And Quanda was walking quickly towards him, her face blank. Slvasta charged right at her. He had nothing else. Swinging his fist, ready to follow up with a savage kick.

Her hand grabbed his. She was so fast. They’d told him Fallers were quick, but he never expected anything like this! Strong, too. It was like being clamped in an iron vice. Then she twisted. Slvasta was spun round by the incredible force. Quanda’s heel smashed into the back of his knee.

He thought the bone had broken. Certainly something tore. The pain was horrifying. He dropped to the ground, wailing.

‘This is what they send?’ Quanda asked in a mocking tone. ‘The finest warriors on the planet?’

‘Fuck you,’ he managed to croak.

Sunlight was in his eyes. It vanished as she walked round him. He blinked up fearfully. Is she going to eat me?

‘No. I’m not.’

A hand grasped the front of his shirt and tugged him up to his knees. Her beautiful face was centimetres from his. She studied him intently. ‘I’m not hungry. Not right now.’

He tried to strike out with his teekay, going for her eyes just as he had with the mod-ape. But the blow rebounded from her shell, and she didn’t even flinch. Still her eyes were looking into his. He felt the toe of her boot shove at his good knee, pushing his legs apart.

‘You things barely have thoughts,’ she said in a dry growl. ‘Just instincts. You are animal. I almost pity the one who will absorb you.’

He had to concentrate to understand her voice – Fallers had broken, gravelly voices, it was right there on page five of the Institute manual. ‘We will burn you from our world,’ he snarled defiantly. ‘I swear it. No matter what the cost.’

Her free arm swung back, then powered forward. Slvasta saw her eyes widen in anticipation just as her fist slammed into his balls. He thought the pain would fracture his skull open, it was so intense. There was nothing else but the pain. He knew he was vomiting. Tumbling down. She stood above him, magnificent and terrible.

Then a mod-ape dragged him across the compound towards the barn he’d been so eager to reach just moments before, his face bumping along the ground, stones shredding his cheek. That pain was infinitesimal compared to the rest. Another mod-ape tugged Ingmar along behind him. Slvasta didn’t care. The pain was too great. His eyes fell shut. And he was in darkness, him and the pain, alone together. Falling.

*

Consciousness was more pain. It also brought the overwhelming misery, a loathing of simply being alive.

That’s not going to last for much longer, he knew.

Slvasta didn’t want to open his eyes. Didn’t want to scan round with his ex-sight. He was too afraid of what might be revealed.

‘Are you awake?’ Ingmar’s ’path asked him softly.

Slvasta opened his eyes, blinking away sticky tear-diluted blood. They were in the barn Quanda had been leading them to, with light filtering in through high windows. There were empty animal stalls, while the floor of the aisle where he lay naked was hard-packed soil covered in filthy straw.

Directly in front of him were two Faller eggs. Slvasta whimpered in dread. All the stories and descriptions were true. The things were spherical, almost three metres in diameter, with a dark crinkled skin. A naked Jamenk was spread eagled against one, like a comedy splat on a wall.

Tears started flowing freely down Slvasta’s torn cheeks at the sight of him. The corporal’s face and chest had already sunk below the surface. Ingmar, also stripped out of his clothes, had been shoved sideways against the second egg. His leg and arm were already inside, with his ribcage just starting to sink in; he was craning his neck to keep his head away from the surface.

‘No!’ Slvasta groaned, and tried to get to his feet despite his ruined knee. He couldn’t move. His bare skin suddenly became ice cold and started sweating. He turned his head. The third Faller egg curved above him. His right arm had sunk in almost up to his elbow. He let his head fall back, and let out a wretched death-howl as he pissed himself.

‘It’s okay,’ Ingmar was saying. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Okay?’ Slvasta burbled hysterically. ‘Oh-fucking-kay? Okay? Okay? How the crud is this okay?’

His friend gave him a sad smile. ‘We can kill each other.’

Slvasta let out a demented giggle.

‘We can,’ Ingmar insisted. ‘We can use a teekay grip on each other’s heart. Squeeze together.’

‘Fuck the Skylords. Ingmar, no!’

‘Please, Slvasta. As soon as my skull reaches the egg, it’ll be over for me. It will have me. I’ll be a Faller. Is that what you want?’

‘No.’

‘Then let us do this. Together.’

Slvasta sent his ex-sight probing into the egg, trying to see what kind of grip it had on him. There wasn’t much he could perceive beyond the surface, just dense shadows. Yet there was some kind of mind in there, steely thoughts he could make no sense of other than a simple glow of expectancy. Nothing like the bright colourful tangle of unguarded human thoughts, forever discordant with emotion.

Although he could sense its outline, he couldn’t feel his lower arm, but it wasn’t cold, or in pain, there was just . . . nothing. He tried pulling. Of course, it didn’t move. He shrank his teekay down to a point, like the tip of an axe, and stabbed repeatedly into the shell around his arm. Nothing. The shell didn’t bend or crack. His attack had no effect whatsoever. He realized his arm was slightly deeper inside, the shell was now up to the top of his radius and ulna.

‘We have to do it,’ Ingmar said. He was making no attempt to spin a shell round his thoughts. Sadness and exhaustion were emanating out of him. ‘We can deny them this. We can deny them us. It’s our last weapon.’

‘Is it?’ Quanda walked down the aisle towards them. She paused at Jamenk’s prone form, and inspected him before moving on to Ingmar. ‘What a fearsome weapon that is. Can you feel my fear?’

‘Rot in Uracus, bitch,’ Ingmar said.

She put her hand on his cheek and glanced down at Slvasta. ‘Do it. If you want him dead.’

‘Yes,’ Ingmar pleaded. ‘Please, Slvasta. Once it gets to my brain, that’s it. Please.’

Slvasta watched through a fresh agony. He formed his teekay into a hand and slowly extended it out towards Ingmar. So close, waiting to push it through his friend’s body and crush his heart.

‘Do it,’ Ingmar shouted.

Slvasta could sense Ingmar’s teekay hovering above his own ribs. ‘I . . . I can’t,’ he admitted woefully. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’

‘I thought you were my friend,’ Ingmar wept. ‘How can you leave me to Fall?’

Slvasta shook his head, hating himself for his weakness.

With a mirthless grin, Quanda slowly began to push Ingmar’s head. He fought her, every centimetre of the way. His neck muscles stood proud. Teekay scrabbling at her impervious shell, then trying to reinforce his own muscles. It made no difference; the Faller was too strong. She pushed the side of his face against the egg surface. It stuck there immediately. Ingmar started wailing. ‘Slvasta, please Slvasta. It will take me. It will take all of me. I will never be fulfilled, I will not be guided to the Heart. Help me. Kill me.’

‘Monster,’ Slvasta hissed. ‘Why are you so evil?’

Quanda squatted down beside him and cocked her head to one side, studying him, always studying. ‘You make us; we are formed by you, your body and your mind. This – what I am, the way I think – it is inherited from your kind. It is vile. You, your species, is animal, brutal, despicable. Once we have exterminated you, it will take a generation to breed you out of us. But we will be free in the end.’

‘You will never defeat us. Freak monster. The Heart is for us, not you. You will never be fulfilled.’

‘We have been before. We will be again.’

Slvasta heard the words, but they didn’t make any sense. He tugged at his arm again, but the egg gripped it with a hold stronger than a century-old tree root. ‘Crudbitch.’ He looked up, and examined the rafters and beams holding up the barn’s roof. A lot of the timbers were thick and heavy. Maybe . . . He used his teekay to try and shift one above Jamenk’s egg. Just to loosen it would be enough. In his head he had a vision of a huge joist crashing down, crushing the egg.

‘You can kill Jamenk?’ Ingmar yelled in outrage.

‘Because he’s already dead. Fallen,’ Slvasta shouted back.

Quanda chuckled. Then stopped, her head coming up, eyes staring at something outside the walls. ‘Were you alone?’ she snapped.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Slvasta told her.

There was a burst of gunfire outside.

‘In here!’ Slvasta shouted, making his ’path as powerful as he could. ‘There’s a Faller in here!’ He sent out Quanda’s image, twined with all the hate in his body.

She smacked him on the side of his head. The world didn’t make sense for a long moment. There was more gunfire. Mod-apes were chittering in fury and panic. The soft roar of flamethrowers.

‘There,’ a voice called. ‘She’s there!’

More and more gunfire. Bullets punched through the barn’s timbers, sending small splinters whizzing through the air. Slim beams of sunlight punctured the gloomy interior, shining through each bullet hole.

‘Die, you bitch!’ Slvasta shouted jubilantly. ‘Uracus awaits you!’ His smile was more a snarl as he turned to Ingmar. That was when his elation died. Ingmar’s cheek and ear had sunk below the egg’s surface. He was silent, his bright familiar thoughts slowing and dimming, somehow drifting into the egg. ‘No. No, no, no! Hold on, Ingmar, fight it. They’re almost here.’

Strong ex-sights played through the shack, examining every solid object. Slvasta dropped his shell, welcoming the scrutiny. The doors burst open.

Marines were running in. Fantastic black-clad figures, holding small carbines, their ex-sight probing hard now.

One of them, a captain, walked over to Jamenk first, then Ingmar, looking closely at his head.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ Slvasta sobbed. ‘He’s my friend and I couldn’t do it.’

‘Look away, lad,’ the captain said sternly.

Slvasta did as he was told, closing his eyes and withdrawing his ex-sight. A single shot rang out. He glanced at his arm. His elbow had been swallowed by the egg surface now. ‘Is she dead?’ he demanded. ‘Is the Faller bitch dead?’

The captain stood over him. ‘Yeah. We got her.’

‘Then I’m fulfilled,’ Slvasta declared, with very brittle bravado. ‘Will the Skylords guide me?’

‘Were there any more of them?’ the captain asked. ‘Any more Fallers?’ Marines were manoeuvring a large cart through the barn’s open doors.

‘No. No, sir, I don’t think so. We only saw her. How did you know? How did you find us?’

More Marines were coming in. They carried heavy axes. Blades fell on the egg Jamenk was stuck to, swung with fierce enthusiasm. Before long, a thick milky liquid started to spray out of the tiny splits. Flamethrowers began to play across the egg fluid, boiling it as procedure demanded. According to Captain Cornelius’s manual, even the egg fluid was dangerous.

‘A regiment patrol intercepted the Shilos’ cart a day and a half ago,’ the captain said. ‘They were all Fallers. Uracus of a fight, by all accounts. Looks like this nest has been established here for a while – there are quite a few human bones left in the house. We came as soon as we got word. Shame we didn’t get to you in time.’

‘I understand.’ Slvasta took a breath and closed his eyes. ‘Do it, sir, please.’

He didn’t mean to use his ex-sight, but he perceived one of the Marines coming up behind him. Braced himself –

But there was no shot to the head. No deliverance. The Marine started wrapping a slim rope round his eggsumed arm, just below the shoulder, tying it in an unusual knot.

‘What?’ Slvasta grunted in confusion.

‘Bite on this,’ the captain said in a sympathetic voice, and pushed a small length of wood towards his face. ‘It’ll do till you faint.’

‘What?’

A Marine handed the captain a saw.

Slvasta started screaming. The wood was jammed into his mouth. The tourniquet was tightened.

He tried to squirm free. But the egg held him resolutely in place.

The grim-faced captain started sawing.