Blentport is situated in the Great Lowland Bowl. It is the headquarters of Horus Fleet, and the Commonwealth’s biggest port outside of Earth. It has landing and takeoff capacity for warships, freighters and liners: nine large and ten minor Grids, each able to repair, rebuild or refit a ship.
Commonwealth cities grew rapidly in the Bowl. Blentport grew rapidly too, because Horus Fleet was needed to protect the natural riches of Horus system; but the cities grew faster, making one huge conurbation surrounding the port.
You will have consulted your ship’s Codex about Blentport. Remember, however, the following:
First, how it got its name.
Second, its unique “City Centre” location. Population pressure in the Bowl conurbation is high, and Blentport is inevitably affected by (or even the cause of) the political and social pressures around it.
Third, its capacity. It can only refit, at any one time, less than half of Horus Fleet—adequate for most situations, but not for what you will find when you arrive there. The enforced deployment of the entire Fleet to a defensive cordon around Sakhra will precipitate a serious emergency, with more ships than it can handle putting in for refit.
Your ship has total priority, but the situation is volatile. The effect of anything ill-considered on your part is something you may be able to imagine better than the authors of this briefing.
They hung poised over the rim, and Foord froze. The traffic lurched forward and their road, along with all the others, commenced its long spiral descent round the sides of the Bowl. As it did so the Bowl effectively vanished; its curvature was so vast and shallow that it was no more discernible, from its own surface, than the curvature of a planet.
They were in a huge but ordinary landscape, occasionally hilly and occasionally flat. Their road was cantilevered out from the Bowl’s sides where the gradient was steep, almost flat where it was shallow. There were junctions with other major roads which forked off into the interior of the Bowl, and these roads too followed the ordinary demands of the landscape: sometimes raised on columns and sometimes at ground level, sometimes on embankments and sometimes in cuttings.
Overlaying the landscape was the Bowl’s metropolis. There was no single name for it: people tended to cling to the names of the original cities and districts, perhaps because the Bowl conurbation was too big for any single name. The cities and suburbs did not fill the Bowl levelly or evenly, like water, but crept up its sides, like brandy. As soon as the landchariot entered the multilane road spiralling down, outlying buildings rose and crowded alongside it. Some were quite mundane, like the suburbs of any city: schools, apartment blocks, shopping malls, leisure centres, vehicle workshops (including, as they passed through one of the seedier districts, workshops for landchariots).
The traffic was as heavy and slow as it had been on the rim, except for their lane, which the military still cleared ahead of them. But now they had entered the Bowl, there were more junctions and more delays. They came to a major junction and slowed, waiting to take the turnoff to the interior.
Foord said “Thahl, about the driver…”
“What of him, Commander?”
“Why is he so angry? I can feel it coming off him in waves.”
Thahl paused. “Commander, when you decided to return to Blentport by landchariot, was it something you considered important?”
“Yes. Also to make a point to Swann, but it was important to me. Why do you ask?”
“The driver believed it was important to you. That’s why he agreed to take you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Thahl waited politely until he did.
“You mean, because of the evacuation he won’t be allowed to leave...and if he has to stay he’ll have his poison glands removed?”
“Yes, Commander, that’s possible.”
“Does he know?”
“Yes, Commander. I discussed it with him back at the clearing. He said he agreed to take you in and he’ll take you.”
“Thahl, we must stop this. I had no idea. I’ll call Swann and get a flier…”
“I wouldn’t recommend it, Commander. Don’t try to stop him. He’d sooner kill you than be persuaded not to take you in.”
•
Foord snapped open his wristcom.
“Yes, Commander?”
“Cyr, we’ve entered the Bowl. We should be at the ship in an hour. How is the situation there?”
“The refit is almost finished, but we’re now fully surrounded. Our Grid is full of crews from the other ships, stranded here because of us. And Port personnel. And troops from the Port, who are supposed to keep the others away from us but aren’t. They’ve been coming since we last spoke.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Swann came to the ship. Asked to come aboard.”
“What the fuck”—Foord rarely swore audibly; this was his quota for the day—“What the fuck made him think he could come aboard my ship?”
“That was almost exactly, word for word, what Smithson said to him.”
“What did he want?”
“He said the mood of the people around us was difficult to read, and said he wasn’t going to force them off our Grid without first trying a better way.”
“Better Way? I thought you said Smithson had an idea.”
“That’s what he meant. Smithson had asked Swann to get the commander of the garrison at Blentport, Colonel Boussaid, to help. Smithson met Boussaid at one of Swann’s receptions when we first landed—”
“One of those I didn’t go to?”
“Yes, Commander. Smithson was impressed by him.”
“Smithson was impressed?”
“Yes, he said Boussaid’s one of the few real people at Blentport. Anyway, Swann only wanted to say that he’d get Boussaid to help you when you reach Blentport. That was all.”
“So Smithson asks Swann for Boussaid’s help, Swann turns up personally to say yes, and Smithson...”
“Yes, Commander. Tells him to fuck off.” She laughed. Her voice was dark and beautiful, but she could also make it ugly. “We’re still piling indignities on him, aren’t we?”
Foord knew that Thahl was smiling; not by any upward turn of the corners of his mouth or change of expression in his eyes, but Foord knew. He snapped his wristcom shut.
The landchariot hurtled on.
“Thahl, it’s too late now, isn’t it?”
“Late, Commander?”
“For the driver. Now we’ve entered the Bowl.”
“Yes, Commander.”
After a while, Foord said “Are you sure? I could put pressure on Swann, maybe invoke our priority, and….”
“And what? Refuse to lift off?” Privately, Thahl regarded Are You Sure much as Smithson regarded Do You Understand.
“Alright, but this law about removal of poison glands…..you of all people….”
“Commander, that law will almost certainly be repealed soon. Most humans here think it’s wrong. ”
They hurtled on. Cyr did not call back. The driver said nothing. Thahl said almost nothing, and Foord did not reply to it. In the window the web still quivered and salivated over the particles of wood and dry paint Foord had dropped into it—perhaps the most apocalyptic event of its recent life.