The tunnel breathed at them, a breath neither warm nor cold, but damp. And from deep within it, came a humming that was very far and strange.
“Max,” Jim said hoarsely. “They’ve gone for the subways of the city. A red force is coming this way.”
Pol sank down with a shake of his head and a deep-voiced curse.
Jim tucked his arms about his knees and wished to go to that null place that had always been there, that he saw some of the guard-azi attain, waiting orders. He could not find it now. Tape-thoughts ran and cycled endlessly, questions open and without neat answers.
He stared at Max and at the Kontrin, at the Kontrin most of all, for in those dark and angry eyes was a mutual understanding. It became quieter finally, that glance, as if some recognition passed between them.
“If you’ve her mind-set,” Pol said, “use it. We’re sitting in the most dangerous place in the city.”
He looked into the dark and answered out of that mindset, consciously. “The hive,” he said, “is safety.”
Pol’s retort was short and bitter.
iv
Itavvy rose and walked to the door, walked back again and looked at his wife Velin as the infant squirmed and fretted in her arms, taxing her strength. One of the Upcoast women offered a diversion, an attempt to distract the child from her tears. Meris screamed in exhausted misery . . . hunger. The azi outside the glass, with their guns, their faceless sameness, maintained their watch.
“I’ll ask again,” Itavvy said
“Don’t,” Velin pleaded.
“They don’t have anger. It isn’t in them. There are ways to reason past them. I’ve dealt—” He stopped, remembered his identity as Merck Sod, who knew little of azi, swallowed convulsively.
“Let me.” The gangling young Upcoaster who had spent his time in the corner, sketch-pad on his knee, left his work lying and went to the door, rapped on it.
The azi ignored it. The young artist pushed the door open; rifles immediately lowered at him. “The child’s sick,” the youth said. “She needs milk. Food. Something.”
The azi stood with their guns aimed at him . . . confused, Itavvy thought, in an access of tension. Presented with crisis. Well-done.
“If you’d call the kitchens,” the artist said, “someone would bring food up.”
Meris kept crying. The azi hesitated. unnerved, swung the rifle in that direction. Itavvy’s heart jumped.
Azi can’t understand, he realised. No children. No tears.
He edged between, facing the rifle. “Please,” he said to the masked face. “She’ll be quiet if she’s fed.”
The azi moved, lifted the rifle, closed the door forcefully. Itavvy shut his eyes, swallowed hard at nausea. The young artist turned, seta hand on his shoulder.
“Sit down,” the youth said. “Sit down, ser. Try to quiet her.”
He did so. Meris exhausted herself, fell whimpering into sleep. Velin lifted bruised eyes and held her fast.
Then, finally, an azi in ISPAK uniform brought a tray to the door, handed it in, under guard.
Drink, sandwiches, dried fruit. Meris fretted and ceased, given the comfort of a full belly. Itavvy sat and ate because it was something to do.
The identity of Merek Sed would collapse. They were being detained because someone was running checks. Perhaps it had already been proven false. They would die.
Meris too. The azi had no feeling of difference.
He dropped his head into his hands and wept.
v
The truck laboured, ground up the slope from the riverbed, picking up dry road in the headlights. Raen threw it to idle at the crest, let what men had gotten off climb on again, the truck pinking on its suspension as it accepted its burden. She read the fuel gauge and the odometer, cast a look at Merry, who opened the door to look out on his side. “They’re all aboard,” he said.
“Then go back to sleep.” She said it for him and the two azi crowded in between them, and eased the truck forward, walking it over ruts that jolted it insanely and wrenched at her sore arms. A thousand kilometres. That was one thing on the map, and quite another as Istrans built roads. The track was only as wide as the truck. The headlights showed ruts and stones, man-high grass on either side of the road, obscuring all view.