“What are they?” asked Hepton.
“Aerial photographs,” said Werner. “Taken from fifteen thousand feet.”
“And what is it that they think they’re supposed to show, exactly?” asked Hepton, a faint but supercilious sneer playing round his mouth.
“That their god created this world.”
“Tall order,” quipped Tulliver.
“And what happens if it proves nothing of the sort?” pressed Hepton.
“Then we’re probably dead men.”
The chatts no longer stood before a counter, but an altar. It had become not a darkroom, but a chapel. The senior chatt stood holding the amphora before the counter with its shallow trays. The nymphs approached in procession behind it, each holding its silk-wrapped glass plate like an offering.
“Right, let’s do it,” said Hepton. “Then I can get out of here.” He went to take the amphora, but the chatt reared up on its legs, hissing venomously. Realising he had misjudged the situation, Hepton backed off.
“You must guide them only,” said Werner.
Hepton was horrified at the thought. “Guide them? But look at ’em. How can I get proper results – and proper results is what we’re after, if we want to live – with those things?”
“You will die if you try to do it yourself, Herr Hepton. It is a heresy. They are quite insistent on that,” said Werner.
Hepton curbed his belligerence, but it still simmered beneath the surface as he directed the chatts to pour the sacred ‘balm’ in the shallow troughs, and then have an acolyte nymph uncover the first plate and place it in the solution.
There was a slight delay when Hepton suggested that they agitate the troughs and swill the liquid over the plate. Well, not so much a delay, Tulliver observed ruefully, as a complete theological debate. Was this merely a task that could be performed by an acolyte, or did the very transformative nature of the ritual require a greater degree of initiation and honour? After all, if this ‘ritual’ worked, it would make manifest the hidden hand of GarSuleth itself.
By now, Werner had to restrain Hepton to stop him interfering.
“But don’t you see? If you leave it too long–”
Tulliver felt just as frustrated.
By the time the chatts had discussed the matter and decided that this was no work for a mere acolyte but an Anointed One, and with Hepton unable to intervene, the plate had been in the fluid too long.
It had turned black.
THE BLOOD-ENCRUSTED WARRIOR strode over to the Tommies.
“God damn it, Everson. This is all your fault!” he screamed as he threw out an arm at the bloody aftermath around them. With his other he ripped off the necklace about his neck and thrust it out at the officer accusingly. Hung from it were the collected identity discs of too many dead men.
Shocked, Everson took them and stared at the man, whose face was so streaked with blood and dirt that he couldn’t place him immediately. It didn’t take him long, though; he hadn’t exiled many men. “Rutherford? Dear God, man. What’s happened to you?”
Rutherford looked at the officer with disbelief, his rage and invective spent. “You happened, sir. You exiled us, sent us out to die, that’s what happened. We’d only been out a few days when a Zohtakarrii patrol captured us. Bains, me and the rest of them bought the urmen time to escape. Our uniforms saved us.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “They said they were looking for us.”
“Werner,” Atkins realised.
Everson pressed the point. “The chatts saved you?”
“For this,” spat Rutherford as he gestured towards the bloody carnage.
“Where are Bains and the others now?”
“Dead, for all I know, but that’s what you wanted, isn’t it, sir? You were too cowardly to sentence us to a firing squad, wanted to spare your conscience, did you? Well, just because you didn’t order anybody to pull the trigger, doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for their deaths,” he said with rancour.
Everson looked at the filth-encrusted Tommy, sure now of his actions. “This is the mutineer that hit you, Padre,” he said sourly.
The Padre studied Rutherford’s face. “No, no it isn’t, John. He was there. He tried to stop the other fellow.”
Everson reeled as if he had been dealt a physical blow. He looked at Rutherford aghast.
“Yes. Wilson. He framed me,” said Rutherford simply, as realisation dawned on the officer’s face. “I won’t lie, I took part, but I wasn’t guilty of the crime you punished me for. But that’s Army justice for you.”
Padre Rand stepped forward. “Son, this is not the time for recrimination–”
“Sir!” yelled Mercy, directing Everson’s attention to the far side of the arena, where another gate opened.
“There’s no time,” said Rutherford. “Prepare yourselves, sir. God knows what the chatt bastards’ll send out this time.”
All enmity was swept aside in that moment. Survival was all that mattered.
“Make for the rock,” ordered Everson. “It’s our only defensible position.”
The section advanced towards the outcrop, rifles pointed at the opening gate and void beyond.
Atkins deployed his men, using the outcrop as cover. He sent Gazette up the incline to its peak, where they could use his sniper skills. “What the hell is this place?” he asked Rutherford. “Is this their sport, pitting men against monsters?”
“After a fashion,” Rutherford said. “They think it their holy calling to protect their world from the spawn that rises from the crater. They bring ’em here, and force urmen to fight against them so they can study the creatures, the better to defend against them in the future.”
A high-pitched screech echoed round the arena and Atkins watched, tensed, as a huge squat creature lumbered out of the tunnel behind the open gate. A sulphurous stench accompanied it as it plodded into the ring. Moving on four pairs of short, thick legs, each wreathed in folds of tough leathery skin, it walked with a graceless movement, as if it were completely out of its element. Atkins could see no eyes, but the head bristled with long twitching hairs arrayed around a large maw. Scabrous growths covered its leathery back, and a heavy fanlike tail dragged behind it.
At the sight of the demonic thing, Padre Rand made the sign of the cross and offered up a hasty prayer.
The chatts wrangling the beast took their electric lances to it and it bellowed with pain and rage as they herded it into the centre of the arena.
It looked slow and clumsy, but Atkins didn’t let his guard down. Some of the deadliest things on this world barely moved at all. He had no idea what defences this creature might have. None of them did. Neither, it seemed, did the damn chatts, which he supposed was the whole point of the exercise.
“Fire!” barked Everson.
A volley of rifle fire slammed into the creature. It screeched and retreated. The electric lances of the chatts behind it crackled pitilessly, driving it forward again. It bellowed in pain and confusion, its maw opening to reveal a gullet easily big enough to swallow a man and filled with inward-pointing spines.
Everson gazed round at the stands of chatt scentirrii. “They expect us to fight for our lives,” he confided to Atkins. “They want us to fight. They’ve pitched us against this monster to study our strengths and weaknesses, but we’re not going to give them the satisfaction.”
“Then may I ask what you intend to do?” said Atkins, keeping one eye on the beast as it lumbered round the amphitheatre, snuffling blindly at the dead bodies.
Everson grinned. “Something they won’t expect, Corporal. Escape.”
The creature charged towards the outcrop with a territorial roar, building up a surprising momentum until, head down, it butted the rock. The outcrop shuddered under the impact.