Rows of black oblongs stood between them and the bridge. The rows were set irregularly, so they would have to pick their way through. Pinn, who had been one of the first down the steps, was staring into one of the oblongs, watching the progress of the blue lightning as it moved slowly across the darkness.
‘What are they?’ Pinn asked.
‘Batteries,’ said Silo. ‘Best guess, anyway.’
‘Then what are they? ’ Malvery asked. The doctor had turned around and was looking behind them. The wall to either side of the stairs was covered with dozens of strange bulges. They were bulbous at one end and thinned to a point, almost two metres end to end. They looked like seed pods, except that there was machinery integrated into the leathery white exteriors, a framework of metal with many small dials and gauges set into it.
Before anyone could advance an opinion, they heard shouts from overhead. Sammies, somewhere out of sight. Reinforcements.
‘Don’t touch nothin’,’ said Silo, and they moved on into the forest of oblongs. This whole damn place set him on edge. The sight of that engine… It was against nature, against Mother. Metal and flesh, fused. Was it alive in some way?
He spat. Didn’t want to think about the possibilities. What kind of people built a thing like that?
As they moved further into the rows, they saw Sammies emerging onto the gallery above them. One of them aimed his rifle, but another man knocked the barrel aside angrily. Silo couldn’t hear them well enough to ma enough ke out the words, but it seemed to be a heated discussion.
Then, nothing. Nobody fired. Nobody made any move to descend the stairs and pursue.
Silo didn’t like that one bit.
‘Why aren’t they following?’ Pinn asked.
Silo saw something move out of the corner of his eye, further down the row. He spun towards it; but whatever it was, it had moved out of sight. After a moment, he wondered if there had been anything there at all.
‘Keep goin,’ he said, his voice low and wary. He kept staring at the spot where he’d seen the movement, but he saw nothing more. After a moment, he took his own advice.
Better to say nothing. He was supposed to be the leader here. Spooking the troops to no good end would only make them doubt him.
They moved through the oblongs as if through an alien forest, staying close to the silent objects in order to keep out of the Sammies’ line of fire. The guards didn’t look inclined to shoot, but Silo felt threatened all the same. No one wanted to present their backs to the Sammie guns, so they slipped from cover to cover in awkward little runs.
Each oblong was spaced apart from the others, so it was possible to slip through the rows quite rapidly, but it also meant that it would be easy for something to get close to them without being spotted. They trod gingerly, careful not to touch the objects, until Pinn stumbled and bumped into one. When he didn’t suffer any kind of terrible death, they relaxed a little. But only a little.
‘Silo!’ said Malvery suddenly, coming up on his shoulder. Silo turned. The doctor’s face was serious, eyes hard behind his green-lensed glasses. ‘Think I saw something.’
Silo nodded. He looked to his left and right. The Century Knights were prowling up on either side. Bess lumbered noisily past him, oblivious to the Sammies on the gallery. The others were spaced out more widely than he’d like. He opened his mouth to tell them to tighten up, when he heard the clank and scrape of sudden movement from Bess.
He found her looking off to one side, her metal body tensed. She turned this way and that, twisting her whole body because she had no neck. Her agitation was obvious. She’d seen something, or sensed it.
‘Easy, Bess,’ said Silo. Clutching his shotgun, he passed her and moved on to the next row. He looked to his left, and went still.
It was so strange that it took a moment for his senses to untangle it. His first reaction was instinctive repulsion. It looked like a giant white spider, the size of a man. But as it moved, he saw muscle and mechanisms, and a face of sorts, a rounded blank mask studded with a half-dozen lenses of various sizes. It was plated with someted withthing like chitin, but flesh flexed wetly at its joints.
The thing had climbed up the side of one of the black oblongs, a short way along the row. Two sets of spindly legs stood on the floor, a third gripped the oblong’s sides, and its forelegs functioned like arms. Each of these arms split at the last joint into several thin appendages, which ended in drills, pincers, soldering irons and other devices that Silo couldn’t easily identify.
An automaton? No. An animal? Not that, either. It was a bastard hybrid of meat and machine and other arts, something entirely unnatural, like that terrible engine which pumped and screeched nearby.
As Silo watched, the hybrid slid out a section of the oblong from near the top, where there had seemed to be no join at all. It was about the size of a dinner tray, and completely black. The hybrid began tapping at it with one of its appendages. Immediately, Silo noticed a change in the oblong itself. The movement of that lazy lightning had altered somehow, curling and rolling in a different manner to the way it had before.
He couldn’t see what the thing was up to, but he recognised its purpose. Maintenance. This creature was a caretaker, looking after the power station, millennia after its makers had gone.
He trained his shotgun on it as it slid the tray closed. The appendages in its forelegs folded up and retracted and it climbed off the oblong and down to the floor. It appeared to notice him then, tilting its face towards him for the first time. The lenses in its mismatched eyes whirred as they focused in and out.
Then it came walking unhurriedly along the row towards him, moving with a repulsively arachnid gait.
Silo felt the urge to shoot it out of sheer horror, but he mastered himself. He backed up instead, keeping it in view, watching for any sudden moves. He’d only gone a few steps when he bumped into Bess, who was coming through the rows behind him. The golem swivelled, and suddenly froze, like a cat spotting a mouse. She’d seen what he had.
‘Easy, Bess,’ he said again. He glanced up at the Sammies on the gallery, then back at the approaching hybrid. No wonder they hadn’t come down here. They were scared of these things.
The golem moved, a quick, uncertain jerk. She was alarmed and agitated, and that wasn’t good. He wished Crake were here to calm her. Grudge appeared in the next row, autocannon trained on the hybrid; at the same moment, Samandra ghosted in behind it, her shotguns ready. The creature continued on its way, apparently unconcerned by the guns.
‘Say the word,’ said Samandra to Silo.
‘Don’t,’ said Silo. ‘It don’t seem too hostile. Maybe best if we just get out of its w-’
He was interrupted by a roar from Bess. She pushed past him, shoving him roughly asideroughly with the implacable strength of a bulldozer, and lunged forward.
‘Bess!’ he barked.
She skidded to a halt, directly in the path of the hybrid, her shoulders set in a challenge. The hybrid stopped and looked her up and down, eye-lenses whirring.
‘What the spit is that thing?’ Malvery asked, from over Silo’s shoulder.
‘Looks like something I caught off a whore one time,’ Pinn quipped merrily.
Silo paid no attention. Pretty much everything that came out of Pinn’s mouth could be safely ignored. Instead he focused on the golem.
‘Bess?’ he said, as if placating a wild dog. ‘Leave that thing alone, Bess. It ain’t harmin’ us right now. Best not to mess with what we’ve yet to figure out. Let’s just leave it to be about its business.’