“Diane and Rogers and D’Arcy and a number of other groups are co-operating. There will be a large military escort and as many trucks as we need.” Thorburn cracked a gritty smile. “Not so much marching this time. You’ll be glad of that, for one, Old Chronic.”
“That I will,” huffed and puffed Old Chronic, putting on the act, pretending to be the old hasbeen he very nearly was, in all truth.
“We’re going in and establishing the usual forward depot. We’re likely to be Out for a month or more. Depends on mining progress with the main party.”
“Main party?” That was Cardon, sharp and edgy.
Thorburn leaned back, tossing down the pencil he had been using. “Main party. The other day Boris marched in with full sacks, and with only three men left of his group.”
He quietened the astonished, shocked exclamations.
“Boris had had to go into the Outside and ran into trouble. Rangs. But he brought back sacks of berries.”
“Berries!”
Thorburn looked calmly on their excitement, their flushed faces, fists banging the tables, curses and ejaculations. Everyone—everyone except Stead—seemed filled with a violent storm of emotion and excitement… and dread.
“You know the value of a sackful of berries.” Thorburn glanced at Stead. “No? Well, after the celebrations in the Controllers’ quarters, the stock of berries will have been drastically reduced. I’ve heard that the Captain and his Crew are particularly partial to berries, particularly so.”
They all laughed, all except Stead. He stared about, patiently, waiting for them to tell him and yet annoyed and angry and ashamed, now, that he did not know the most elementary things of the world, things that everyone else knew and took for granted. It all made him very insignificant.
Then Julia leaned across and whispered to Thorburn. The leader’s massive head nodded briefly. He looked back at Stead. “What you have to know about berries, Stead, is that they are among the most valuable commodities Foragers can bring in. Automatically they are the personal property of the Captain. For us… well, for us they represent an extra hazard in collecting them.”
“We do the dirty work and collect them,” Cardon spoke savagely and almost incoherently. “And the blasted Captain takes them all for his own pleasure.” He paused, and then said, “Well, nearly all.” Then he laughed. Thorburn fixed him with an eye and Cardon slumped in his seat, his hand caressing that wickedly-sharp machete.
“Don’t say anything you’ll be sorry for, Cardon.” He turned to Stead. “Berries grow on things called trees that the immortal being sometimes creates on the Outside. But this means we have to venture right out where the Demons can see us.” He stopped, looking levelly at Stead. “You know, now, what that means.”
“Yes,” said Stead, on a breath. “Yes, I know.”
A Forager rolled across to their table, cursing furiously and beating at his camouflage cape that nearly had him on his nose twice. “Get back down, you pesky Rang-disease-ridden-Scunner-bait! Get down there where you belong!” Bang! He hit the cape a great flat-handed blow, knocked it away from where a licking flap crept around his ankle to trip him. “I’ll show you who’s the master around here!”
“Hullo, Boris,” called Thorburn. “Glad to have you along.”
In Boris, Stead saw elements of Thorburn and Vance and Old Chronic. Boris, like Thorburn, was a leader and held himself with a leader’s authority. Like Vance, he brooded grim and frightening in his uniform and weapons and armor, grim, seamed, and a veteran. But, like Old Chronic, he was ageing and growing slow, losing some of essential flashing mobility of the expert Forager.
“You mean Boris is coming along, too?” demanded Julia.
Thorburn nodded. “He knows where the berries are growing. He’ll take us.”
Old Chronic snuffled his maps forward. “Mark it on here. I can take you out.”
Boris said, “Delia—she was my navigator—didn’t come out from under a Rang’s claws. I’ll take you.”
After that there was no further dissent. Manager Purvis and the Controller Commander were going on the forage and as Stead mounted into Thorburn’s group’s truck, he saw the size and extent of the convoy. There must have been over a hundred trucks. As each one pulled out past the blue light and the barrier rose swishing the gas curtain away, the sentries turned out the guard and gave a ceremonial send-off.
No doubt they were happy to do so, being thankful they weren’t going Outside with the Foragers.
The soldiers cleared a good path and the trucks rumbled through long echoing runnels. They made good time and pulled at last into a flat, open expanse with the roof safely ten feet above their tops. Water, gas and electricity supplies were tapped, with a suitable “thank you” to the immortal one’s prescience in placing them here. The camp grew, pickets were posted and duty rotas issued. So far everything had gone with a reasuring familiarity. Stead’s fears, alive within him, slept.
Boris’s three survivors from his last disastrous forage had joined Thorburn’s group as a sub-group with Boris as subgroup leader. All told, there were thirteen men and women marching out in the darkness of the world of runnels beneath the world of buildings searching for a wealth of berries. Thirteen.
The three latecomers, veterans all, were Jan and Moke, taciturn, rubbery little men, and Sylvi, with brown hair and bright eyes and a body as tough as a man’s. They fitted in quietly and inconspicuously.
By the time they all set off down the lead-off runnel where engineers had strung lights, Boris had his cape tamed. “Wasn’t due for a new one for another three years. But that eternally-damned Rang ripped my old one up, very painful—and I inherited this little blighter.”
Thorburn directed Sims and Wallas into the lead. Car-don acted as rear marker. Between these two extremes the others marched as they wished, for now.
A disagreeable lump had formed a hard knotty little ball * and lodged in the center of Stead’s chest, just below his breastbone. Although the lump snuggled in his chest it had sprouted a smaller twin brother that clogged in his throat. He kept on swallowing, but both lumps stayed there. He supposed that he was too afraid to feel fear; he’d gone beyond that tenuous dividing line.
At every step he expected the ghastly form of a Scunner to rattle out on him, seeking, clutching, rending. But, in a way he could not explain and hadn’t the courage to pry into, he knew for certain that he mustn’t own to his fear, mustn’t turn tail and run, when Honey marched at his side.
The swollen party reached a wooden wall, very dusty, with discarded Flang skins crackling like broken glass beneath their feet. When Thorburn ordered the lights doused that eerie, pallid, blue-white illumination crept out again from the world of buildings beyond the wooden wall. Out there lay—Outside.
And yet… and yet Stead knew with a stark dread that he would have to go out there. It had been carefully explained to him. The immortal being created these strange objects called trees and placed them in the world of buildings. To reach them and their precious crop of berries men must grope out into the full sight and range of the Demons. There was no other way.
Jan and Moke, Boris’s men, passed forward, each carrying a sack, full, brilliantly banded in red paint, the word poison prominent in white and black.
Sylvi said, “We’ll be only too happy to do this. Delia was my sister.”
Forager engineers had cut an exploratory hole the previous night. Julia stepped back from the round inhibitingly inviting orifice, said, “All clear. No beams.”
“They’re not on to us yet, then.” Thorburn hitched at his weapons belt, looked back slowly along the line of expectant faces, then with a swift decisive movement ducked his head and vanished through the hole.