Unaha-Closp thought the better of cutting off all communication with the outside world, and reopened its communicator channels. Nobody wanted to speak to it, however. It started to cut the cables leading into the conduit, snipping them one by one with a knife-edged force field. No point in worrying about damaging the thing after all that had happened to the train in station six, it told itself. If it hit anything vital to the normal running of the train, it was sure Horza would yell out soon enough. It could repair the cables without too much trouble anyway.
A draught?
Xoxarle thought he must be imagining it, then that it was the result of some air-circulation unit recently switched on. Perhaps the heat from the lights and the station’s systems, once it was powered up, required extra ventilation.
But it grew. Slowly, almost too slowly to discern, the faint, steady current increased in strength. Xoxarle racked his brains; what could it be? Not a train; surely not a train.
He listened carefully, but could hear nothing. He looked over at the old human, and found him staring back. Had he noticed?
“Run out of battles and victories to tell me about?” Aviger said, sounding tired. He looked the Idiran up and down. Xoxarle laughed — a little too loudly, even nervously, had Aviger been well enough versed in Idiran gestures and voice tones to tell.
“Not at all!” Xoxarle said. “I was just thinking…” He launched into another tale of defeated enemies. It was one he had told to his family, in ship messes and in attack-shuttle holds; he could have told it in his sleep. While his voice filled the bright station, and the old human looked down at the gun he held in his hands, Xoxarle’s thoughts were elsewhere, trying to work out what was going on. He was still pulling and tugging at the wires on his arm; whatever was happening it was vital to be able to do more than just move his hand. The draught increased. Still he could hear nothing. A steady stream of dust was blowing off the girder above his head.
It had to be a train. Could one have been left switched on somewhere? Impossible…
Quayanorl! Did we set the controls to—? But they hadn’t tried to jam the controls on. They had only worked out what the various controls did and tested their action to make sure they all moved. They hadn’t tried to do anything else; and there had been no point, no time.
It had to be Quayanorl himself. He had done it. He must still be alive. He had sent the train.
For an instant — as he tugged desperately at the wires holding him, talking all the time and watching the old man — Xoxarle imagined his comrade still back in station six, but then he remembered how badly injured he had been. Xoxarle had earlier thought his comrade might still be alive, when he was still lying on the access ramp, but then the Changer had told the old man, this same Aviger, to go back and shoot Quayanorl in the head. That should have finished Quayanorl, but apparently it hadn’t.
You failed, old one! Xoxarle exulted, as the draught became a breeze. A distant whining noise, almost too high pitched to hear, started up. It was muffled, coming from the train. The alarm. Xoxarle’s arm, held by one last wire just above his elbow, was almost free. He shrugged once, and the wire slipped up over his upper arm and spilled loose onto his shoulder.
“Old one, Aviger, my friend,” he said. Aviger looked up quickly as Xoxarle interrupted his own monologue.
“What?”
“This will sound silly, and I shall not blame you if you are afraid, but I have the most infernal itch in my right eye. Would you scratch it for me? I know it sounds silly, a warrior tormented half to death by a sore eye, but it has been driving me quite demented these past ten minutes. Would you scratch it? Use the barrel of your gun if you like; I shall be very careful not to move a muscle or do anything threatening if you use the muzzle of your gun. Or anything you like. Would you do that? I swear to you on my honour as a warrior I tell the truth.”
Aviger stood up. He looked towards the nose of the train.
He can’t hear the alarm. He is old. Can the other, younger ones hear? Is it too high-pitched for them? What of the machine? Oh come here, you old fool. Come here!
Unaha-Closp pulled the cut cables apart. Now it could reach into the cable-run and try cutting further up, so it could get in.
“Drone, drone, can you hear me?” It was the woman Yalson again.
“Now what?” it said.
“Horza’s lost some readouts from the reactor car. He wants to know what you’re doing.”
“Damn right I do,” Horza muttered in the background.
“I had to cut some cables. Seems to be the only way into the reactor area. I’ll repair them later, if you insist.”
The communicator channel cut off for a second. In that moment, Unaha-Closp thought it could hear something high pitched. But it wasn’t sure. Fringes of sensation, it thought to itself. The channel opened again. Yalson said, “All right. But Horza says to tell him the next time you think about cutting anything, especially cables.”
“All right, all right!” the drone said. “Now, will you leave me alone?” The channel closed again. It thought for a moment. It had crossed its mind that there might be an alarm sounding somewhere, but logically an alarm ought to have repeated on the control deck, and it had heard nothing in the background when Yalson spoke, apart from the Changer’s muttered interjection. Therefore, no alarm.
It reached back into the conduit with a cutter field.
“Which eye?” Aviger said, from just too far away. A wisp of his thin, yellowish hair was blown across his forehead by the breeze. Xoxarle waited for the man to realise, but he didn’t. He just patted the hairs back and stared up quizzically at the Idiran’s head, gun ready, face uncertain.
“This right one,” Xoxarle said, turning his head slowly. Aviger looked round towards the nose of the train again, then back at Xoxarle.
“Don’t tell you-know-who, all right?”
“I swear. Now, please; I can’t stand it.”
Aviger stepped forward. Still out of reach. “On your honour, you’re not playing a trick?” he said.
“As a warrior. On my mother-parent’s unsullied name. On my clan and folk! May the galaxy turn to dust if I lie!”
“All right, all right,” Aviger said, raising his gun and holding it out high. “I just wanted to make sure.” He poked the barrel toward Xoxarle’s eye. “Whereabouts does it itch?”
“Here!” hissed Xoxarle. His freed arm lashed out, grabbed the barrel of the gun and pulled. Aviger, still holding the gun, was dragged after it, slamming into the chest of the Idiran. Breath exploded out of him, then the gun sailed down and smashed into his skull. Xoxarle had averted his head when he’d grabbed the weapon in case it fired, but he needn’t have bothered; Aviger hadn’t left it switched on.
In the stiffening breeze, Xoxarle let the unconscious human slide to the floor. He held the laser rifle in his mouth and used his hand to set the controls for a quiet burn. He snapped the trigger guard from the gun’s casing, to make room for his larger fingers.
The wires should melt easily.
Like a squirm of snakes appearing from a hole in the ground, the bunched cables, cut about a metre along their length, slid out of the conduit. Unaha-Closp went into the narrow tube and reached behind the bared ends of the next length of cables.