Bizarre, and even – indeed – perverse.
‘Okay.’ He coughed (one lung, the drone knew, filling up with blood). ‘Let’s go.’ He pushed himself away from the tree. Skaffen-Amtiskaw abandoned its game with the two insects regretfully. The drone felt odd, being here; the planet was known about but had not yet been fully investigated by Contact. It had been discovered through research rather than physical exploration, and – while there was nothing obviously outlandish about the place, and a very rudimentary survey had been carried out – technically it was still terra incognita, and Skaffen-Amtiskaw was on a relatively high state of alert, just in case the place held any nasty surprises.
Sma went to the bald-headed man and put her arm round his waist, helping to support him. Together they walked up the small slope of lawn towards a low ridge. Skaffen-Amtiskaw watched them go, from the cover of the tree tops, then swooped slowly down towards them as they walked to the summit of the gentle slope.
The man staggered when he saw what was on the far side, in the distance. The drone suspected he would have fallen to the grass if Sma hadn’t been there to hold him up.
‘Shiiit,’ he breathed, and tried to straighten, blinking in a sudden slant of sunlight as the mists continued to evaporate.
He stumbled another couple of steps, shook Sma off, and turned round once, taking in the parkland; shaped trees and manicured lawns, ornamental walls and delicate pergolas, stone-bordered ponds and shady paths through quiet groves. And, in the distance, set amongst mature trees, the tattered black shape of the Staberinde.
‘They’ve made a fucking park out of it,’ he breathed, and stood, swaying, bent slightly at the waist, looking at the battered silhouette of the old warship. Sma walked to his side. He seemed to sag a little, and she put her arm round his waist again. He grimaced with pain; they walked on, down towards a path which led to the ship.
‘Why did you want to see this, Cheradenine?’ Sma said quietly as they crunched along the gravel. The drone floated behind and above.
‘Hmm?’ the man said, taking his eyes off the ship for a second.
‘Why did you want to come here, Cheradenine?’ Sma asked. ‘She isn’t here. This isn’t where she is.’
‘I know,’ he breathed. ‘I know that.’
‘So why do you want to see this wreck?’
He was silent for a little while. It was as though he hadn’t heard, but then he took a deep breath – flinching with pain as he did so – and shook his sweat-sheened head as he said, ‘Oh; just for… old times’ sake…’ They passed through another copse of trees. He shook his shaved head again as they came out of the grove, and saw the ship better. ‘I just didn’t think… they’d do this to it,’ he said.
‘Do what?’ Sma asked.
‘This.’ He nodded at the blackened hulk.
‘What have they done, Cheradenine?’ Sma said patiently.
‘Made it.’ He began, then stopped, coughed, body tense with pain. ‘Made the damn thing… an ornament. Preserved it.’
‘What, the ship?’
He looked at her as though she were crazy. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes; the ship.’
Just a big old battleship hulk cemented into a dock, as far as Skaffen-Amtiskaw could see. It contacted the Xenophobe, which was passing the time by making a detailed map of the planet.
– Hello, ship. This ship-ruin in the park; Zakalwe seems very interested. Just wondering why. Care to do some research?
– In a while; I’ve still got one continent, the deep sea beds and the sub-surface to do.
– They’ll still be there later; this could prove interesting now.
– Patience, Skaffen-Amtiskaw.
Pedant, thought the drone, breaking off.
The two humans walked down twisty paths past litter bins and benches, picnic tables and information points. Skaffen-Amtiskaw activated one of the old information points as it passed. A slow and crackly tape started up; “The vessel you see before you…” This was going to take ages, Skaffen-Amtiksaw thought. It used its effector to speed the machine up, winding the voice up into a high-pitched warble. The tape broke. Skaffen-Amtiskaw delivered the effector equivalent of an annoyed slap, and left the information machine smoking and dripping burning plastic onto the gravel beneath, as the two humans walked into the shadow of the battered ship.
The ship had been left as it was; bombed, shelled, strafed, blasted and ripped but not destroyed. Where hands could not reach and rain did not strike, traces of the original soot from flames two centuries old still marked the armour plate. Gun turrets lay peeled open like tin cans; gun barrels and range-finders bristled askew all over the mounting levels of deck; tangled stays and fallen aeriels lay strewn over shattered search lights and lop-sided radar dishes; the single great funnel looked tipped and subsided, metal pitted and flayed.
A little awning-covered stairway led up to the ship’s main deck; they followed a couple with two young children. Skaffen-Amtiskaw floated, almost invisible, ten metres away, rising slowly with them. One of the toddlers cried when she saw the hobbling, bald-headed man with the staring eyes behind her. Her mother lifted her up and carried her.
He had to stop and rest when they got to the deck. Sma guided him to a bench. He sat doubled up for a while, then looked at the ship above, taking in the blackened rusted wreckage all around. He shook his shaven head, muttered to himself once, then ended up laughing quietly, holding his chest and coughing.
‘Museum,’ he said. ‘A museum…’ Sma put her hand on his damp brow. She thought he looked terrible, and the baldness didn’t suit him. The simple dark clothes they’d found him wearing when they picked him up from the citadel’s curtain wall had been torn and crusted with blood; they’d been cleaned and repaired on the Xenophobe but they looked out of place here, where everybody seemed to be dressed in bright colours. Even Sma’s culottes and jacket were sombre compared to the gaily decorated dresses and smocks most of the people were wearing.
‘This an old haunt of yours, Cheradenine?’ she asked him.
He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he breathed, looking up at a last few tendrils of mist flowing and disappearing like gaseous pennants from the tilted main mast. ‘Yes,’ he repeated.
Sma looked round at the park behind and the city off to one side. ‘This where you came from?’
He seemed not to hear. After a while, he stood slowly, and looked, distracted, into Sma’s eyes. She felt herself shiver, and tried to remember exactly how old Zakalwe was. ‘Let’s go, Da -… Diziet.’ He smiled a watery sort of smile. ‘Take me to her, please?’
Sma shrugged and supported the man by one shoulder. They went back to the steps that led back down to the ground.
‘Drone?’ Sma said to a brooch on her lapel.
‘Yep?’
‘Our lady still where we last heard?’
‘Indeed,’ said the drone’s voice. ‘Want to take the module?’
‘No,’ he said, stumbling down a stair, until Sma caught him. ‘Not the module. Let’s… take a train, or a cab or…’
‘You sure?’ Sma said.
‘Yes; sure.’
‘Zakalwe,’ Sma sighed. ‘Please accept some treatment.’
‘No,’ the man said, as they reached the ground.
‘There’s an underground station right and right again,’ the drone told Sma. ‘Alight Central Station; platform eight for trains to Couraz.’
‘Okay,’ Sma said reluctantly, glancing at him. He was looking down at the gravel path as though concentrating on working out which foot to put in front of another. He swung his head as they passed under the stem of the ruined battleship, squinting up at the tall curving V of the bows. Sma watched the expression on his sweating face, and could not decide whether it was awe, disbelief, or something like terror.
The underground train whisked them into the city centre down concrete-lined tunnels; the main station was crowded, tall, echoing and clean. Sunlight sparkled on the vault of the arched glass roof. Skaffen-Amtiskaw had done its suitcase impression, and sat lightly in Sma’s hand. The wounded man was a heavier weight on her other arm.
The Maglev train drew in, disgorged its passengers; they boarded with a few other people.
‘You going to make it, Cheradenine?’ Sma asked him. He was slumped in the seat, resting his arms on the table in a way that somehow made them look as though they were broken, or paralysed. He stared at the seat across from him, ignoring the cityscape as it slid by, the train accelerating along viaducts towards the suburbs and the countryside.
He nodded. ‘I’ll survive.’
‘Yes, but for how much longer?’ said the drone, sitting on the table in front of Sma. ‘You are in terrible shape, Zakalwe.’
‘Better than looking like a suitcase,’ he said, glancing at the machine.
‘Oh, how droll,’ the machine said.