He walked and travelled through the vast ship, attracting glances every-where — in a ship of thirty million people, not all of them human or drone, he was the only Chelgrian — but was only rarely forced into conversation.
The avatar had warned him that some of the people who would want to talk to him would be, in effect, journalists, and might broadcast his comments on the ship’s news services. Huyler’s indignation and sarcasm were an advantage in such circumstances. Quilan would have carefully measured his words before speaking them anyway, but he would also listen to Huyler’s comments at such moments, seemingly lost in thought, and was quietly amused to see that he gained a reputation for inscrutability as a result.
One morning, before Huyler had made contact again after the hour of grace, he rose from his bed and went to the window which gave out onto the external view, and — when he ordered the surface transparent — was not surprised to see the Phelen Plains outside, scorched and cratered and stretching into the smoke-filled distance beneath an ashen sky. They were traversed by the punctured ribbon of the ruined road on which the blackened, crippled truck moved like a winter-slowed insect, and he realised that he had not awakened or risen at all, and was dreaming.
The land destroyer jerked and shook beneath him, sending waves of pain through his body. He heard himself groan. The ground must be shaking. He was supposed to be beneath the thing, trapped by it, not inside it. How had this happened? Such pain. Was he dying? He must be dying. He could not see, and breathing was difficult.
Every few moments he imagined that Worosei had just wiped his face, or had just sat him up to make him comfortable, or had just spoken to him, quietly encouraging, gently funny, but each time it was as though he had somehow — unforgivably — fallen asleep when she had done these things, and only woken up after she had slipped away from him again. He tried to open his eyes but could not. He tried to talk to her, to shout out to her and bring her back, but he could not. Then a few more moments would elapse, and he would jerk awake again, and feel certain once more that he had just missed her touch, her scent, her voice.
‘Still not dead, eh, Given?’
‘Who’s that? What?’
People were talking around him. His head hurt. So did his legs.
‘Your fancy armour didn’t save you, did it? They could feed most of you to the chasers. Wouldn’t even have to mince you up first.’ Somebody laughed. Pain jolted from his legs. The ground shook beneath him. He must be inside the land destroyer with its crew. They were angry that it had been hit and they had been killed. Were they talking to him? He must have dreamt it turretless and burning, or perhaps it was very big inside and he was in an undamaged part. Not all dead.
‘Worosei?’ said a voice. He realised it must be his own.
‘Oo, Worosei! Worosei!’ another voice said, mimicking him. ‘Please,’ he said. He tried to move his arms again, but only pain came.
‘Oo, Worosei, oo, Worosei, please.’
In the old faculty building, beneath the Rebound courts, in the Military Technical Institute, Cravinyr City, Aorme. That’s where they had stored them. The souls of the old soldiers and military planners. Unwanted in peace, now they were seen as an important resource. Besides, a thousand souls were a thousand souls, and worth saving from destruction by the rebel Invisibles. Worosei’s mission; her idea. Daring and dangerous. She’d pulled strings to make it happen, the way she had before when they’d joined up, to make sure that she and Quilan would be posted together. Time to go: Move! Now! Jump!
Had they been there?
He seemed to remember the look of the place, the warren of corridors, the heavy doors, all dark and cold, glowing falsely in the helmet visor. The others; two squires, Hulpe and Nolica, his best, trusted and true, and the Navy special forces triune. Worosei nearby, rifle balanced, her movements graceful even in the suit. His own wife. He should have tried harder to stop her but she’d insisted. Her idea.
The substrate device was there, bigger than they’d been expect- ing, the size of a domestic chiller cabinet. We’ll never get this onto the flyer. Not with us at the same time.
‘Hey, Given? Help me get this off. Come on. It might help.’ Somebody laughing.
Get this off. Never get this back. The flyer. And she’d been right. Two of the Navy people went with the thing. They’d never get off. Never. Was that Worosei? She’d just wiped his face, he could have sworn. He struggled to call her back, to say anything.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘No idea. Who cares?’
One arm was very sore. Left arm or right arm? He was angry at himself for not being able to tell which. How absurd. Ow ow ow. Worosei, why…?
‘You trying to tear it off?’
‘Just the glove. Must come off. He’ll have rings or stuff. They always do.’
Worosei murmured something in his ear. He’d fallen asleep. She’d just gone. Worosei! he tried to say.
The Invisibles came, with heavy weaponry. They must have a ship, probably escorted. The Winter Storm would try to stay hidden, then. They were on their own. Waiting for the flyer to return for them. Then the discovery, attack, and losing them all. Madness, flashes and explosions all over as the Loyalist side shelled and counter-attacked from who-knew-where away. They ran out into the rain; the building behind them burned and slumped and fell, turned to glowing slag by the energy weapons. It was night by then and they were alone.
‘Leave him alone!’
‘We just—’
‘You just do as you’re fucking told or I’ll drop you on the fucking road, understand? If he lives we’re going to ransom him. Even dead he’s worth more than you two brain-dead fuckwits, so make sure he’s alive when we get to Golse or you’ll be following him to heaven.’
‘Make sure he’s alive? Look at him! He’ll be lucky if he lasts the night!’
‘Well, if we pick up any medics less fucked up than he is, we’ll make sure they deal with him first. In the meantime; you do it. Here. Medpac. I’ll see you get extra rations if he lives. Oh, and there’s nothing worth taking.’
‘Hey! Hey, we want a cut in the ransom! Hey!’
They’d dived into the crater, sliding and falling. A big explo- sion had punched them half into the mud. Killed them if they hadn’t been suited up. Something whacked into his helmet, sending the speakers crazy and filling the visor with blinding light. He pulled the helmet off; it rolled into the pool of water in the foot of the crater. More explosions. Stuck, jammed into the mud.
‘Given, you’re just a heap of fucking trouble, you know that?’
‘What’s this do?’
‘Fuck knows.’
The land destroyer, turretless, trailing smoke and leaving one wide segmented track unravelled on the slope behind it, ground and skidded and rumbled its way into the crater. Worosei had recovered first, hauling herself out of the ooze. She tried to pull him free, then fell back as the machine rolled down on top of him. He screamed as the huge weight pressed him into the ground and his legs caught against something hard, breaking bones, pinning him.
He saw the flyer leave, taking her to the ship, to safety. The sky was full of flashes, his ears were pounded by the concussions. The land destroyer shook the ground as its munitions detonated, each pulse making him cry out. Rain lashed down, soaking his face and fur, hiding his tears. The water in the crater was rising, offering an alternative way to die, until another explosion in the burning machine hammered the ground, and air blew out of the centre of the filthy pool and it all frothed and drained away into a deep tunnel. That side of the crater collapsed into it as well, and the land destroyer’s nose tipped down, its rear went up and it pivoted off him, thundering down into the steam of the hole and shaking with another series of explosions.
He tried to drag himself out with his hands, but could not. He started trying to dig his legs free.
The next morning, an Invisible search and recovery team found him in the mud, semi-conscious, surrounded by a shallow trench he’d dug around himself but still unable to free himself. One of them kicked his head a few times and put a gun against his forehead, but he had just enough wits left to tell them his rank and title, so they pulled him from the mud’s embrace, ignoring his screams, dragged him up the slope and threw him into the back of a half-wrecked armoured truck with the rest of the dead and dying.