We left because it was no longer safe, and we were needed down here, yells the bird. As to who pushed you into the shaft, I imagine it was probably a state employee.
What, a Security geezer or something? But-?
Please; I can't tell you any more. Our commander may be able to answer any other questions you have. Look; would you mind running?
Running? I says, Why, is there somebody after us? I glance behind expecting to see Security people pursuing us but there's just the long bright tunnel stretching way into the distance.
No, shouts the bird, it's just this pace is very tiring for us.
Sorry, I says, and break into a run. Doesn't do my chafed bum no good but it keeps the two lammergeiers happy, beating alongside.
And so that was how I arrived at the lammergeiers' HQ; breathless, on the double and with my pants spotted with cack.
The head lammergeier is a fierce big bugger of a bird; taller than me when he's perched and wings longer than I'm tall. He isn't no old guy neither, he's in his prime with sleek black and white feathers, steely looking talons, a naked neck that looks old and bright, and jet-black eyes. I don't know if he's got a name; we haven't been properly introduced.
He's sitting on a perch, I'm sat on the floor. The room is funnel shaped and the broad circular roof has an image of a blue sky with little fluffy clouds in it. There's another half dozen or so other lammergeiers perched around the room too.
You have been a proper pest to certain people, master Bascule, the big bird says, staring at me and rocking from side to side and sort of stamping its feet on the perch. A most persistent pest.
Thank you very much, I says.
That was not a compliment! the bird screeches, flapping.
I sit back, blinking (my eyes are still a bit sore after all that wind roaring past me when I fell). What do you mean? I ask.
It's quite possible that we have given away our new position here by turning on the lift fans so we could save your miserable hide! the bird shouts.
Well, sorry I'm sure, but I was told you might have some information about the whereabouts of a friend of mine.
What? the head bird says, sounding puzzled. Who?
It's an ant. Her name is Ergates.
The bird stares at me. You're looking for an ant? he squawks, and sounds incredulous.
A very special ant. (I narrow my eyes.) What was taken by a lammergeier.
The bird shakes its head. Well, it wasn't done by one of us, it says, shaking its feathers.
Oh yeah? I says.
We are chimerics, master Bascule. This… ant must have been taken by a wild lammergeier.
And where are they then? I ask. (Damn, thought I was on the right track at last!)
Dead, the head bird says.
I blink my eyes. Dead?
The state had them killed during yesterday evening when it realized we opposed it; most of them were mobbed by chimeric crows and brought down. We believe we were the real targets. Two of us were caught and destructed. All the wild lammergeiers are dead.
Oh, I said. Oh dear, I thought.
Hmm, I said, I don't suppose you know if any of them said anything about-?
Wait a minute, the bird says, waving one wing at me. It closes its eyes for a moment. It opens them again.
It looks steadily at me for a moment, then sort of half shakes its head. Well, master Bascule, it says. As I said, you have been nothing if not persistent. And you have not been frightened to risk your life. It stamps its feet again. There is something you might do.
Do for what, for who?
I can't tell you too much, young sir; it's best for you if you don't know too much, believe me; but there are some very important things happening right now, things which affect — and which will affect — all of us. The state — the people who have attacked our friends the sloths and have tried to kill you — are trying to prevent something happening. Will you give us your help in making it happen?
What happen? I ask, suspicious. They say there's an emissary from the chaotic bits of the crypt around, wanting to infect the upper layers.
The big bird shakes its wings impatiently. The emissary, it says, is called an asura and it is from one of the few parts of the crypt which has not been touched by the chaos. It carries within it the means of our salvation, but its mission is in jeopardy; the state opposes it to because the fulfilment of its mission would — conceivably — mean the end of the present power structure. Of course the state has used the bogey of the chaos to attempt to turn others against the asura and those who would aid it. The fact remains it is our only hope. If it does not succeed we are all lost.
I shift my bum a bit. I really should have asked to clean up a bit before all this. Not that a place where lammergeiers are is likely to be big on washrooms, judging from the state of some of the floors I've seen around here. I'm thinking through what the head geezer's just told me. It might be true, but I very much doubt I'm being told the whole truth here.
And what am I supposed to do? I ask.
The head bird looks distinctly uncomfortable, and flaps its wings a bit. It's dangerous, it says.
I'd kind of guessed that, I says urbanely, feeling pretty grown-up, thank you very much. What did you have in mind? I ask.
The lammergeier fixes me with its ice-black eyes. Going back up the fast-tower, it says. Only higher this time. (It stamps its feet, one after another, and the other birds do the same thing.) Much higher.
I sit back. Throats gone a bit dry.
You got a toilet I could use? I ask.
Looks like the whole bleeding fast-tower's just packed with shafts. We're here at the foot of another one. It's bigger than the one I fell down; a lot bigger. This is the one in the centre of the tower and it must be easily half a kilometre across. Very faint light filters down from… blimey, I don't know; hell of a far up, that's for sure.
We are here courtesy of the war, the head bird tells me. Both sides think the other controls this space.
Oh really.
Yes; the fact they may be about to reach an accommodation shortly is another reason for there being a degree of urgency about the present situation.
The head bird is perched with his half-dozen pals on what looks like a peace of crumpled, soot-blackened missile wreckage near the centre of the shaft base. Other lammergeiers are flitting about the place through the shadows. The rock floor of the shaft looks like it used to be smooth but it's all chipped and scarred now and littered with bits of broken machines. There's a double set of rails leading in from the side of the shaft which is where we came from; there's a big cavern there what looks like a museum of rocket flight or something; full of big sheds and mysterious bits of equipment and rusting missiles and big spherical tanks and telescopes and radar dishes and deflated silver balloons like discarded bolgounz.
I look straight up. Didn't know you could get vertigo looking up.
This is the main shaft, the head bird says, and poses. Once it led to the stars.
I look up again and I can believe it. My head spins at the thought & I almost fall over.
The top of the fast-tower has been inaccessible for as long as anybody or anything can remember, the lammergeier tells me. Many attempts have been made, mostly in secret, to reach its heights. All have failed, as far as we know. It lifts up one foot and looks down at the bit of missile it's perched on. You see some of the wreckage around you.
Uh-huh, I says. Something up there keeps shooting them down, yeah?
No; but there appears to be an armoured conical base to the tower's upper reaches at about 20 kilometres which nobody has been able to penetrate.