Yalson turned away, switching off her transmit button again.
“Might as well,” Jandraligeli said. “I suppose.”
“Not me,” Neisin said. “I’m not. I’m staying here, with the shuttle.” He sat with his head bowed between his shoulders, his helmet on the deck. He stared at the deck and shook his head. “Not me. No sir, not me. I’ve had it for today. I’m staying here.”
Kraiklyn looked at Mipp and nodded at Neisin. “Look after him.” He turned to Dorolow and Wubslin. “Get going. You never know; you might be able to do something. Yalson — you, too.” Yalson wasn’t looking at Kraiklyn but she turned and followed Wubslin and the other woman when they set off to find a way down to the lower deck.
A crash they felt through their soles made them all jump. They turned round to see Lamm, a distant figure against the far-away clouds, firing up at flyer-pad supports five or six decks above, the invisible beam licking flame around the stressed metal. Another pad gave way, flapping and spinning like a huge playing-card, smashing into the level they stood on with another deck-quivering thump. “Lamm!” Kraiklyn burst out. “Stop that!”
The black suit with the raised rifle pretended not to hear, and Kraiklyn lifted his own heavy laser and flicked the trigger. A section of deck five metres in front of Lamm ruptured in flame and glowing metal, heaving up, then collapsing back down, a blister of gases blowing out from it rocking Lamm off his feet so that he staggered and almost fell. He steadied and stood, visibly shaking with rage, even from that distance. Kraiklyn still had the gun pointing towards him. Lamm straightened and shouldered his own gun, coming back almost at a saunter, as though nothing had happened. The others relaxed slightly.
Kraiklyn got them all together; then they set off, following Dorolow, Yalson and Wubslin to the inside of the tower and a broad sweeping spiral of carpeted staircase which led down, into the Megaship the Olmedreca.
“Dead as a fossil,” Yalson’s voice said bitterly in their helmet speakers, when they were about halfway down. “Dead as a goddamned fossil.”
When they passed them on their way to the bows, Yalson and Wubslin were waiting by the body for the winch line Mipp was lowering from above. Dorolow was praying.
They crossed over the deck level Lenipobra had died on, down into the mist and along a narrow gangway with nothing but empty space on either side. “Just five metres,” Kraiklyn said, using the light needle radar in his Rairch suit to plumb the depths of vapour below them. The mist was getting slowly thinner as they went on, up again onto another deck, now clear, then down again, by outside stairs and long ramps. The sun was hazily visible a few times, a red disc which sometimes brightened and sometimes dimmed. They crossed decks, skirted swimming pools, traversed promenades and landing pads, went past tables and chairs, through groves and under awnings, arcades and arches. They saw towers above them through the mist, and a couple of times looked down into huge pits carved out of the ship and lined with yet more decks and opened areas, from the bottom of which they thought they could hear the sea. The swirling mist lay in the bottom of such great bowls like a broth of dreams.
They stopped at a line of small, open, wheeled vehicles with seats and gaily striped awnings for roofs. Kraiklyn looked around, getting his bearings. Wubslin tried starting the vehicles, but none of the small cars were working.
“There are two ways to go here,” Kraiklyn said, frowning as he looked forward. The sun was briefly bright above, turning the vapour over them and to each side golden with its rays. The lines of some unknown sport or game lay drawn out on the deck under their feet. A tower forced out of the mist to one side, the curls and whorls of mist moving like huge arms, dimming the sun again. Its shadow cut across the path in front of them. “We’ll split up.” Kraiklyn looked around. “I’ll go that way with Aviger and Jandraligeli. Horza and Lamm, you go that way.” He pointed to one side. “That’s leading down to one of the side prows. There ought to be something there; just keep looking.” He touched a wrist button. “Yalson?”
“Hello,” Yalson said over the intercom. She, Wubslin and Dorolow had watched Lenipobra’s body being winched up to the shuttle and then left, following the rest.
“Right,” Kraiklyn said, looking at one of the helmet screens, “you’re only about three hundred metres away.” He turned and looked back the way they had come. A collection of towers, some kilometres away, were strung out behind them now, mostly starting at higher levels. They could see more and more of the Olmedreca. Mist streamed quietly past them in the silence. “Oh yeah,” Kraiklyn said, “I see you.” He waved.
Some small figures on a distant deck at the side of one of the great mist-filled bowls waved back. “I see you, too,” Yalson said.
“When you get to where we are now, head over to the left for the other side prow; there are subsidiary lasers there. Horza and Lamm will—”
“Yeah, we heard,” Yalson said.
“Right. We’ll be able to bring the shuttle closer, maybe right down to wherever we find anything soon. Let’s go. Keep your eyes open.” He nodded at Aviger and Jandraligeli, and they went forward. Lamm and Horza looked at each other, then set off in the direction Kraiklyn had indicated. Lamm motioned to Horza to switch off his communicator transmit and open his visor.
“If we’d waited we could have put the shuttle down where we wanted to in the first place,” he said with his own visor open. Horza agreed.
“Stupid little bastard,” Lamm said.
“Who?” asked Horza.
“That kid. Jumping off the goddamned platform.”
“Hmm.”
“Know what I’m going to do?” Lamm looked at the Changer.
“What?”
“I’m going to cut that stupid little bastard’s tongue out, that’s what I’m going to do. A tattooed tongue should be worth something, shouldn’t it? Little bastard owed me money anyway. What do you think? How much do you think it’d be worth?”
“No idea.”
“Little bastard…” Lamm muttered.
The two men tramped along the deck, angling away from the dead-ahead line they had taken previously. It was difficult to tell where exactly they were heading, but according to Kraiklyn it was towards one of the side prows, which stuck out like enormous outriggers attached to the Olmedreca and formed harbours for the liners which had shuttled to and from the Megaship in its heyday, on excursions, or working as tenders.
They passed where there had evidently been a recent fire-fight; laser burns, smashed glass and torn metal littered an accommodation section of the ship, and torn curtains and wall hangings flapped in the steady breeze of the great ship’s progress. Two of the small wheeled vehicles lay smashed on their sides near by. They crunched over the debris and kept walking. The other two groups were heading forward, too, making reasonable progress according to their reports and chatter. Ahead of them there still lay the enormous bank of cloud they had seen earlier; it wasn’t growing any thinner or lower, and they could only be a couple of kilometres from it now, though distances were hard to estimate.
“We’re here,” Kraiklyn said eventually, his voice crackling in Horza’s ear. Lamm turned his transmit channel on.
“What?” He looked, mystified, at Horza, who shrugged.
“What’s keeping you two?” Kraiklyn said. “We had further to walk. We’re at the main bows. They stick further out than the bit you’re on.”
“The hell you are, Kraiklyn,” Yalson broke in from the other team, which was supposed to be heading for the opposite set of side prows.
“What?” Kraiklyn said. Lamm and Horza stopped to listen to the exchange over their communicators. Yalson spoke again: