She was so intent upon her readings that she did not see the armoured carriage until it had almost collided with the Melody.
Where in all the Roil had that come from? It wasn’t from Tate, but that didn’t make it friendly. At once she charged up her guns, they whined in her ears, competing with the sudden pounding of her heart.
The carriage flashed its forward lights at her.
On and off, on and off.
Margaret studied the vehicle, it was huge and clumsy looking, but cannon bristled from it like the spines of a particularly aggressive animal – and not all of it was endothermic weaponry.
Even the most cursory glance suggested that she was outgunned, even if it wasn’t nearly as elegant as the Melody.
Margaret brought her carriage to a halt. She was almost out of fuel, the cooling units were failing and the engine light had started flashing again.
A door in the side of the other carriage opened, revealing a figure clothed in a cool suit: a design similar though much inferior to her own. The rubber too thick to allow smooth movement, the person within it reduced to a lumpish clownishness, all hips and goggle eyes.
Margaret could not suppress a smile at the sight of such primitive and clunky garb: a museum piece as outdated as a carriage that would waste munitions space on regular guns, as though its designers weren’t quite sure who the enemy was.
Well, these people have not had twenty years to perfect their weaponry.
The figure gestured for her to follow, then struggled back inside its carriage and turned the vehicle around, aft guns aimed on the Melody.
Follow she did, down a short road and towards a grim thick-walled building jutting from the ground. A door in the front of the construction opened and light spilled out, so bright that she had to blink back tears, then, from the top of the opening, water streamed down, sealing the opening in a cataract of cold.
She followed the carriage in, through the falling water, and the gate closed shut behind her. The carriage stopped in front of her, she did the same. Cautiously, she climbed out, her ice guns armed.
Soldiers in more of those ridiculously antiquated cold suits stood around the Melody, their guns aimed at her.
The driver was already out of his vehicle. He came over to her and put out his hand. Margaret didn’t know what to do, she stared at the hand as though it might strike out at her.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re quite safe here. Safe as you have been in a long while, I’ll wager. My name’s Anderson. Welcome to the Interface. Of all the things I had ever expected to come from the South you are the last.”
That last line did not ring true.
You were expecting something, just not me, Margaret thought. I can see it in your face. You’re scared.
Margaret hesitated a little longer before gripping his hand; it was cold and dry. The air here was colder than the Melody’s cabin, moths would not last a second.
“Where am I?” She asked.
“Somewhere you shouldn’t be, a secret. But as always the Roil contains more secrets than even I could imagine. You shouldn’t be here, but you are. And this facility shouldn’t exist, but it does.” He dipped into a shallow bow. “This is the Council’s little enclave in the darkness. In truth it is the Interface no more.”
He tapped the fire-scored chassis of the Melody Amiss.
“That’s quite a sophisticated machine you’ve got there, and one that has seen some combat.”
Margaret refused to be fazed. He was just a man, and this Interface was nothing. Anderson had no reason to be so cocky. “My father and mother designed it,” she said. “What else would you expect?”
Anderson’s eyes narrowed, as though a thought had come upon him, and a very surprising thought at that. Margaret couldn’t tell if he was alarmed or pleased. He reached out to brush the hair from her face, and Margaret knocked his arm away.
“You’ve got the look all right.” Anderson whistled. “Penn! You’re a Penn. Why I was little more than a lad when I saw your father. Travelled all the way to Tate, back then we had train lines that ran the length of Shale.” Anderson laughed. “My, but I’m forgetting myself. You look tired. Rest a while. There is time for talk later, perhaps I’ll even explain all this to your liking.” He raised his hands in mock delight. “My, this just gets more interesting by the minute.”
“Margaret,” Margaret said as he led her away from her machine, towards a door from which had streamed cold-suited soldiers.
“Pardon?” Anderson said.
“My name is Margaret. Margaret Penn.”
“Well, Margaret Penn, I can’t tell you how pleased we are to see you.”
Margaret couldn’t say the same.
The Interface was a series of cold, long chambers guarded by sombre men and women who had seen far too much of horror. She was held for a while in the loading bay with her Melody as it was checked, with a rigour matching that of Tate, for Witmoths. Just as she was checked, her temperature taken, her pupil response measured. She did not surrender her weapons, nor was it requested that she did so.
Her fingers kept straying to the hilt of her rime blade.
They watched her now, and she could not help but feel sorry for them.
Their little enclave as Anderson put it was just that… little. Insignificant when compared to the efforts of Tate.
Margaret did not feel safe here, but that was barely an impediment.
She had grown up in the Roil and, as terrible as her last few days had been, she had endured these horrors all her life. She knew herself capable of dealing with them, and if she failed she would die. Death did not scare her. But it terrified these soldiers.
It had beaten them down, and it showed, not in their movements or the way they handled their weapons, absolute efficiency personified, but in their eyes. These people of the light had been thrown into a nightmarish place that did not hate, but just devoured. She could only begin to imagine how awful that might be.
In Tate, once the land beyond had succumbed suicide rates tripled and never really stopped. Some could not live in the dark, and you did not know if you could until you had to.
She noticed something else in these guards and the way they regarded her – a sort of grudging respect.
“You came from Tate in that?” One of them had asked, pointing back at the Melody, and here in the light Margaret could see just how much damage it had sustained, its armour dented, a rear tire worn down to metal. Seeing it so battered, Margaret had trouble believing it herself.
“Yes, all the way.”
The soldier bowed deeply. “Well, madam, you are indeed the bravest woman I have ever met, and I have Drifter in my blood. My mother and my aunts on her side were all air maidens, warrior pilots.” She laughed.
Margaret could not hold her gaze.
It wounded her. She did not consider it bravery, there had been no choice in the matter. Well, that was not quite true. She had fled, and she was not yet ready to dwell too long on those who had stayed; nor the dim quaking of the earth as brilliance swept overhead, followed by the gently falling snow.
“Not brave,” she said. “It was just stupid luck. If I hadn’t gone looking for my parents I would be dead too.”
“But you kept going. You drove through the night-dark miles and we know what’s out there. All of us do. There is no escape in the Roil, but horror after horror.”
“Crew, enough gawking,” Anderson, said. “She has been a long time coming to us, let her have some peace,”
The guards nodded and gave her space, though they did not stop their scrutiny. Within half an hour, Margaret suspected she had been viewed by the entire installation. And as for peace, they had given her very little of that.
“I’m sorry to keep you so long here, but I thought it best that people should see you.” Anderson whispered to her.