Spitting dirt, Neen hammers a peg into rubble as a cold wind throws grit into his face. A yank of the cord and his pup tent rises, as its crossbars inflate to create the space he will share with Haze. Silver foil lines the inside to preserve body heat and the door has a double flap, which should help keep this bloody wind out.
My tent is up. Colonel Vijay is already in his.
The way he looks as he crawls inside to seal the flap against the rest of us, I wonder if he is ever coming out again. You can’t accuse a senior officer of cowardice, it’s insubordination. Well, you can. But you have to do it in private and then kill him afterwards.
He keeps looking at us, opening his mouth and then closing it again.
‘Shock,’ says Shil, sounding like she actually pities the useless little shit.
‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘Permission to speak.’
Not sure where he got that phrase from. But he uses it now and then, when he’s worried his question is going to piss me off.
‘Go ahead.’
‘About the colonel-’
He knows it is the wrong thing to say before he’s even finished. Must be the way I go still and stare at him. ‘What about him?’
‘Sir,’ Neen says. ‘Did he . . . Did he say why we’re here?’
Neen sees my sour grin and knows he’s just saved his skin.
‘We’re looking for a missing U/Free observer, apparently.’ I got that apparently from General Jaxx. He tags it onto the end of his sentences.
‘A U/Free?’ Neen looks shocked. ‘Who would kidnap a U/Free?’
‘If he was kidnapped,’ I say. ‘Could have just fallen off a cliff . . .’ Although that doesn’t explain what a U/Free observer was doing crawling around Hekati in the first place.
Dusk comes early, and with it that wind to hurl dirt in our faces. It is as if, for an hour or so, the whole habitat wants to reject us. We go from survivable temperature to sub-zero in the time it takes to find a wall tall enough to make a windbreak for our tents.
By the time the last tent is up, the wind is already dropping. We will know next time, and find ourselves a wall in advance. Because the whole habitat is a maze of the bloody things. Unfortunately, most of the walls aren’t high enough to trip a child. They are like memories.
A map of a city scrubbed back to ground level.
I don’t say this. Haze does, but he’s full of stuff like that. All the same, the rest of us know what he means. Hekati is what happens if you cram seven million people onto a ninety-mile-long strip around the inside of a ring world, then get rid of the people and let their city crumble to dust.
Oh yeah, and build a few huts on top of the ruins.
The wall we are sheltering behind is stained with age. Neen claims it’s recycled asteroid. Shil thinks it’s ancient stonefoam blocks. I don’t give a fuck what it is so long as it stops my pup tent blowing away in the night.
After a minute of listening to them argue, I tell them to shut up and go do something useful. So Shil lights a fire, using dry wood to keep the smoke down, and Neen collects firewood.
Finding a spring, Franc sniffs the water and sips a little.
When it doesn’t taste sour, she scoops a mouthful and drinks that as well. If she’s not rolling around in agony in ten minutes I will let the others drink it too . . . As for Rachel, she’s on top of an outcrop behind us. A building once, I guess. Now it just looks natural.
Rachel has night sights and thermal imaging on that Z93z of hers. She might as well use them.
‘How many?’ I ask when she comes running back.
‘Five people for certain, sir.’
‘Silver Fist?’ If they are, we have a problem.
The problem won’t be that they are Silver Fist. We’ve killed half a dozen of those already today. We can kill five more easily enough. No, the problem will be they have found us. That means spy cameras somewhere high in the habitat’s roof. And I don’t like the idea of being watched from above.
‘Well?’ I say to Rachel.
‘Not Silver Fist, sir.’
Imagine a long strip of mountain with a valley floor to the side, and a long shoreline parallel to that. In daylight, the sea seems to stretch out for ever. That is only because the opposite wall is painted blue. Walk straight ahead, along the shore, the valley or a mountain path, and eventually you will come back to where you started.
That’s ring worlds for you.
A hundred million tons of rubble to create ninety miles of valley, with four central spokes rising through the roof and meeting at the mirror hub in the ring’s middle. We saw cities when we came in. Although they’re more towns, really. The biggest is half a mile away. It has wooden walls and earth roofs. And I took my best look at it fifteen minutes before the wind came up and grit started to thicken the air.
‘Reckon they’re hunting us?’
She nods.
‘They know where we are yet?’
Rachel shakes her head. ‘Doubt it, sir.’
We have two choices for our U/Free’s captors. Assuming he didn’t just fall down a cliff. Either they’re illegal prospectors. Or they’re the descendants of Hekati’s original miners, now grouped into warring tribes. Seemingly three hundred years of being locked in an oversized child’s toy does that to you.
Well, it does according to Haze.
‘Let them come,’ I tell Rachel.
Saluting, she turns to go and freezes as I tell her to stop.
‘You’re wearing a helmet.’
‘Sir?’
‘Next time use its comms system.’
One of the strangers is taller than the rest, muscled across the shoulders and carries two knives to everyone else’s one. An ancient rifle is slung across his broad back. He might have white hair, cropped tight to his skull, and wear a stinking goatskin jacket, but he’s clear-eyed, and he counts our tents as he comes into the camp.
I watch him do it. Not hard to work out who’s boss.
‘Get Colonel Vijay,’ I tell Neen.
Whatever Neen says works because the colonel crawls from his tent, zips it carefully behind him and sits by the fire. All right, he refuses to look at the rest of us and he keeps his arms wrapped tightly round his knees, but at least he is here.
‘Our leader,’ my sergeant says.
He might as well be speaking gibberish. So I try city tongue and that doesn’t work either. On my orders, Haze tries machine cult. When the man still looks blank, I try traveller because it is the oldest language of all.
The man nods. ‘I am Pavel,’ he says. ‘Caudillo of the O’Cruz.’
It seems five armies, ejercitox in his terms, came together to defeat another thirteen and created a force that took on all comers, until one caudillo ruled a quarter of the habitat. Doesn’t matter the average size of an ejercitox seems to be less than fifty men. This group are the O’Cruz Itcific. It means O’Cruz unbeaten. They have remained unbeaten for three centuries. Having nodded, to show I am impressed by this history lesson, I introduce myself.
‘I’m Sven,’ I tell him. ‘Sub-caudillo of the Aux.’ Maybe my height convinces Pavel of my claim. Unless it’s the glint of my arm in the firelight.
‘Tell him who I am,’ whispers Colonel Vijay.
Nodding at the colonel, I say, ‘Our caudillo.’
‘He looks weak.’
Unfortunately, that is true.
‘His family are very important.’ That is also true. No one gets to be a colonel in the Death’s Head at his age without serious backing. Back in Farlight, backing translates as money or political power.
‘Ahh,’ says Pavel.
Families have meaning for the O’Cruz. A fact I file away. Know a people’s strength and know their weaknesses. And, most important of all, know how to turn one into the other.
‘Where are his guards?’ Pavel asks, looking puzzled.
I gesture at the Aux.
‘Women,’ he says. ‘Children.’
‘Who have slaughtered thousands between them.’
Pavel’s eyes widen.
To Neen, I say, ‘Hand him your cup.’ And to Rachel, who is out in the darkness, ‘You’re on.’
A shot spills Neen’s coffee onto the dirt.
To make the hit, Rachel has to slide her shot between Pavel’s elbow and his stinking jacket. We let the O’Cruz caudillo glare round him, scowling as he tries to work out if the bullet came from an outcrop above. That is twice the distance his weapon can manage. Jerking his chin towards Rachel’s hiding place, Pavel says: ‘From there. Yes?’
I nod. And that’s when it all goes wrong.
As Rachel yells a warning through our helmet speakers, Neen scrambles to his feet. Jacking the bolt on his rifle, he flicks on his searchlight. Shil and Franc are doing the same. It’s one of those moments when everyone knows there’s danger, but no one knows where from.
‘Incoming,’ says my gun.
‘Where . . . ? ‘
Doesn’t matter. The incomer is here.
As we watch, a bare-chested boy tramples our fire and turns his horse in a tight circle. Sparks fly from beneath its hooves. A leather thong ties back the boy’s black hair. He’s holding the reins in one hand. His other hand is holding a rifle.
He’s shouting what sounds like a battle cry.
‘Fuck,’ says Shil. ‘Will you look at that.’ She’s not talking about the horse either.
Caught in the cold brightness of her searchlight, the boy throws up his arm, realizes it’s not enough to shield his eyes and aims his rifle. I have time to knock up Shil’s muzzle. But not enough time to stop the boy from pulling his own trigger.
In the silence that follows, everyone freezes except for the bloody pony. So I punch it to the ground.
Dragging the boy from beneath his animal, I throw him against a rock. My foot’s on his throat and I am treading down when Pavel unslings his own rifle and his fighters draw their blades.
So I tread down harder.
‘Sven,’ whispers Colonel Vijay. ‘Not again.’
I take my foot off the boy’s throat.
As the boy clambers to his feet, he tells me who he is. He’s Racta, and he’s the old man’s grandson. Sorry, that is Don Racta, heir to Pavel, caudillo of the O’Cruz. He’s not happy with his grandfather or me.
‘Shut it,’ I tell the boy.
When he doesn’t, I kick his feet from under him. And when half a dozen ejercito, as members of an ejercitox seem to be called, step forward, I put my foot back on his throat.
‘Sven . . .‘
‘He’s negotiating,’ says Haze.
Colonel Vijay stares at him.
‘Seen it before, sir. Best to leave him to it.’
That’s no way for a trooper to talk to an officer; never mind talk to a colonel. Soon Colonel Vijay is going to wonder why Haze never takes his helmet off. But there is stuff I need to do and the SIG has just come up with a good reason why I should do it sooner rather than later.
‘See that blood,’ it says. ‘It’s yours.’
Neen finds a slug against my rib, flattened from where it ricocheted off my arm. Extracting the misshapen lump of copper he walks over to where Racta kneels, still gasping and clutching his neck, and tosses it at his feet.
‘Do that again,’ says Neen, ‘and he’ll cut your throat.’
Turns out, we couldn’t have chosen a better way to reach a deal. As the old man looks on approvingly, Shil stitches the edges of my wound shut. She’s done it before and her needle-work’s good.
Colonel Vijay has some questions.
Has Pavel seen anything odd recently?
‘Just ask it,’ he says, when I look surprised.
So I do, and get a long rambling answer that I don’t bother to translate.
‘What did he say?’
‘Life’s strange.’
The colonel’s lips tighten. ‘I ask a question, you translate exactly. Do you understand?’
Shil’s wondering how I’m going to answer.
‘Of course, sir.’ ‘Ask him about people dressed like us.’
‘Like us?’
‘Yes,’ says the colonel. ‘Like us.’
Sounds as if we’re not the first Death’s Head mission to this place. Pavel doesn’t know anything. At least, not directly. He’s heard from someone in another tribe. Of course, the other tribe lies. They lie like . . . well, Azari, which is what they are. Anyway . . .
‘What happened?’
Well, the Azari say the ghosts took them, but they’re superstitious fools, and not to be trusted. Because everyone knows women lead them. Unlike the O’Cruz, who . . . See, I told Colonel Vijay he didn’t need me to translate every word.
‘Tell him,’ says the colonel, ‘anyone who helps us will also get gold.’
Pavel wants to see it.
As we watch, Colonel Vijay reaches into his jacket and removes a roll of coins heavy enough to make his hand tremble. The man is an idiot, he might as well have drawn a line around his throat and written cut here.
‘What?’ demands the colonel.
He asks because Neen has jacked the slide on his rifle.
When Pavel looks at me, his eyes are amused. ‘So young,’ he says. ‘So stupid . . .’ He shrugs. ‘Undoubtedly, he will get himself killed.’
‘But not tonight,’ I say. ‘Because I’m here to keep him alive.’
Pavel considers this.
‘Five gold coins,’ he says.
I’m not sure if that is his price for helping us, or for not trying to cut Colonel Vijay’s throat on the spot.
The caudillo shows me a horse he wants to sell Colonel Vijay. It’s cheap, only ten gold pieces. He laughs when I refuse without bothering to check with the colonel first. The five gold pieces in his pocket have made us allies, apparently.
‘Here,’ he says. ‘Yours . . . No cost.’
The leather flask is filled with wine that tastes like vinegar.
‘Our finest,’ he announces.
We are about to move out when the caudillo makes a final offer. I’ve told him about the missing U/Free observer. Although I tell Pavel the missing man is a friend of my caudillo, who may have been captured or fallen.
‘A weak man?’ Pavel asks.
He means, weak like your caudillo?
I shrug. It’s possible. The U/Free don’t strike me as physically strong.
‘Could have fallen,’ Pavel admits. ‘These mountains are treacherous . . . You need to be tough.’
His offer is simple. The gang’s best trackers will go with us. They know all the high paths. That is when he says something interesting. Bad things have come to these mountains.
Ghosts and snakeheads, Pavel calls them.
Maybe he sees a flicker of interest in my eyes. Because his grin says he knows he’s got a deal. The O’Cruz are going to take us right round Hekati in five days. All it will cost, he says, is another twenty gold coins.
‘Five,’ I say.
Pavel shakes his head. ‘Fifteen.’
‘Ten, but only if we find my caudillo’s missing friend.’
‘Five now,’ says Pavel. ‘Five then.’
I take his offer to Colonel Vijay, since he is the one with the gold. Even at the ten gold coins I tell him it will cost, five for us and five for Pavel, the colonel thinks it’s a bargain. So do I, until I discover the Itcific trackers are to answer to Racta, who is still clutching his rifle. The boy’s bare-chested, his skin is oiled and his hair is twisted into a long plait.
When he grins at Shil, she actually smiles back.
‘See,’ whispers Colonel Vijay. ‘Dialogue helps.’
Neen takes rear and I take point, with the colonel behind me. The rest of the Aux slot into their usual positions, with the trackers riding ahead. It’s early morning by the time we move out and the sun is just over the mountain. Well, it is bouncing off a mirror at an angle chosen to give that impression. Haze is busy telling Rachel how the mirror hub works. She sounds interested. Maybe she is.
Snipers are strange.
As Racta rides, his men run behind, heavy knives stuck in their belts and their heads protected against the sun by caps with flaps that hang down their necks. The trackers look tough, made fit by living on these slopes. Much more running, though, and they will be useless before mid morning.
‘Crap horse, shitty little tribal prince, treacherous ravines . . .’ My gun sighs. ‘You could get slaughtered out here and I wouldn’t be found for a thousand years.’
‘You’re on silent.’
‘So,’ it says, ‘I adjusted myself.’
‘You can’t-’
‘Emergency override.’
‘What’s the emergency?’
‘That little idiot,’ says the gun. ‘He’s going to get you killed.’ Takes me a second to realize he means Racta and not the colonel.
‘Listen-’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ says the SIG. ‘I know, you’re fucking invincible . . .’ It hesitates, and I am shocked, because the SIG never hesitates. ‘You going to tell the colonel what Pavel said about snakeheads?’
‘After last time?’
The SIG sees my point. ‘What about those ghosts?’
‘Stealth camouflage.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Obvious.’
The SIG goes silent. When I next check it’s whirring to itself. A little while later, it shuts down and goes back to sleep. Behind me, Shil’s watching Racta preen and prance on his little horse. Not that I’m jealous or anything.
Me, I usually buy my women.
That way, there’s no misunderstanding. You make conversation, you fuck, you make a little more conversation, and then you fuck again. Everyone is happy. I don’t see any sense in running around with my tongue out. Although, watching Shil, I don’t think there’s any doubt who has her tongue out, and who knows he’s-
‘Down.’
Five Aux hit the dirt. I don’t need to turn round to know it has happened. Wish I could say the same for Colonel Vijay.
‘Sir,’ I say.
He stares at me.
‘If you could get down?’
A hawk, a rodent fifty paces away, a flock of crows above a slope that leads to a silver ribbon of stream far below. Racta’s leaving tracks a blind man could follow. And I have no trouble finding him up ahead.
A single wave of my hand brings the others forward. They take cover behind rocks and clumps of rough grass without being told. I’m impressed, although I’m not about to tell them that. Colonel Vijay joins me last, takes a long look at the horizon and wants to know what he is missing.
‘Watchers, sir.’
‘Where?’
That’s my problem.
Sun glints from a thousand rocks. Whatever makes up the slopes ahead reflects light in all directions. Not all of it, obviously, otherwise we’d be looking at a mountain made entirely of glass; but enough shiny black rock juts through red earth to blind anyone who looks for too long.
‘Sir,’ says Shil.
Racta has vanished from sight.