The chest fell with one whole arm and part of the other. Blood gushed out into the glassy bowl beneath and splashed almost to the rim. Alessandra glanced down at what she’d done with a look of distaste, then beckoned hidden others.
Benzamir crawled out, chunks of debris crashing on and around him. He tried to stand. Nothing would work. His field of view grew to encompass Said, Wahir and Elenya, all holding rifles. They were aiming, more or less accurately, up at the crumbling habs.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he said, then looked behind him. There were several gun barrels pointing down at them. The eyes of those behind them looked both beaten and savage at the same time.
He had to get up, put his body between them. He used his arms as leverage and opened his ruined radiator wings, but everything was broken. He was losing life-support.
‘Benzamir?’ Alessandra’s knuckles whitened around the trigger. ‘What’s wrong?’
He was blacking out, and with his failing thoughts he activated the exit sequence. What was once an extension of his body became a rigid cast. The view of outside dimmed, and the liquid started to drain from the chamber. Face down, it emptied as far as his ears, then stopped.
‘Mechanical malfunction. Aborting exit sequence. Emergency override.’
The back panel blew out, spraying those around him with viscous pink slime. The neck shunts snapped off, leaving two fat tubes stuck in his arteries. Blood started to shoot from the open ends before they clamped shut.
All this time, Benzamir was suffocating. He tried to pull his head out, free his arms. He was stuck. Something had warped inside. He heaved the first spout of liquid from his lungs, but still couldn’t breathe.
He heard Arabic, couldn’t work out what was being said, then World, and again missed its meaning. He was drowning, choking and vomiting and it really did feel like he was going to die.
Arms looped around his shoulders and pulled. More laced under his sternum and jerked him upwards.
His lungs emptied in one huge bubbling splatter. Then again as his chest was squeezed clear.
His body moved, slid out of the confines of the suit. Grit hissed against his knees and he put his face down into a pool of something warm. He felt a comforting hand press gently on his back, and he decided that he ought to try and breathe again.
His first attempt seemed to last for ever, and when he eventually stopped, he coughed it all out again, spilling more slimy liquid uncontrollably onto the dusty ground.
‘It’s all right.’ Alessandra held his shoulders. ‘Again.’
He sucked in air. It was too sharp; it hurt going in, it hurt coming out, and it did no good while it was there.
‘Again,’ she insisted.
Better. The urge to sleep, just to lie down and stop everything, started to go. He coughed again, pink phlegm staining the floor.
He tried to speak, and it sounded like he was gargling with razorblades. He spat out what was in his mouth.
‘I’m bleeding.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m bleeding from somewhere. This stuff should be clear.’ He rolled over, and for some reason found himself in her lap, his head in the crook of her elbow.
‘You’ve blood coming from your ears and nose, and your eyes are almost all red. Is this normal or should I worry?’
‘Normal enough. Get me upright.’
Said, his gun abandoned, pulled Benzamir up. His knees buckled, and the big man caught him.
‘Master?’
Benzamir could hardly see. His eyes were damaged, full of debris and barely responsive. ‘Pressure damage. I’ll heal. So why haven’t we been cut down like vermin? What’s holding them back?’
Alessandra scanned the balconies. ‘All they’re doing is watching us. Some of them aren’t even pointing their – you know – bang-sticks at us.’
‘That sounds promising.’ He called out in as big a voice as he could muster. ‘You can’t win. You know it. Ariadne will wait for you for ever if need be. Put yourself under my protection and you won’t be harmed.’ Then to Alessandra: ‘What are they doing now?’
‘That was pitiful. I don’t think they even heard you.’
A figure in black walked in front of them, picking his way nimbly over the rubble. He looked up at the hab, then down at Benzamir. He shook his head sadly.
‘I told you so. And now, look at what you’ve done. There’s been too many deaths, too much destruction. It’s not the books themselves. It’s the lust for what lies inside that leads people to madness. Even you, Mahgrebi.’
‘You were going to march in here and just demand them back, Va? That’s madness.’
‘We’ll see. I understand that the longer I talk, the more your rebels are likely to understand me. Very well, then. We will talk, and they will listen. Maghrebi, I never once asked for your help. Your way of doing things is not mine. You rely on your wit and your power. I have nothing but faith to call on.’ He smiled, and the effect was so startling that Benzamir gasped. ‘But you have friends, and that counts for a great deal. So, I ask you now, tell your friends to put their weapons down. There has to be an end to all this, and you’ll not achieve it your way.’
Benzamir saw the truth of it. ‘Wahir, Elenya. It’s time to give up the wands of insanely powerful fireballs.’
Wahir reluctantly put the gun down on the ground. Even more reluctantly, Elenya did the same.
‘We’re surrendering? To them?’ said Wahir. ‘What if they kill us?’
‘If any of them had wanted to kill us, they would have done it by now. All it would take would be one person willing to pull the trigger, but they don’t seem to have anyone left who’d do that.’
They waited.
‘Why don’t they give up, master?’ whispered Said.
‘Pride. They’ve nowhere to go, no way of getting out of this, and their schemes are in disarray. But they had such high hopes. They wanted to do good and save you from yourselves. It turned out to be one long slide into disaster, and they still can’t quite believe it.’ Benzamir coughed, and it hurt.
The white-dusted face of Peri Renzo climbed over the wreckage of the ground-floor habs. She had a small gun in one hand, obviously aiming it at Benzamir’s head. It took him a few moments to recognize her, a few more to realize what she held.
He heard the weapon power up.
‘You’ve actually collected some of the natives and brought them along for the ride? How incredibly predictable of you, Benzamir. How excruciatingly noble. Even while opposing us, you do the very thing you would stop us doing.’
Va stepped between them. ‘You are the leader of these people?’ he asked.
She tried to aim around the monk, but he shifted his weight easily and always managed to block her view.
‘Again, I ask you: are you the leader here?’
‘Yes, what of it?’ she growled in frustration. ‘Get out of my way.’
‘No. I will not.’ He walked closer until Renzo was forced to point the gun at him alone.
‘What is it you want from me?’
Va leaned in so that she could see his scars, see the fury that burned behind his eyes, feel the searing rage seeping from every pore of his skin. ‘By the authority of His Holiness Father Yeremai, patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia, I demand that you give me back my books.’
Only then did she see him for who he really was. He knocked her weapon hand aside like he was swatting a fly, took another step and he was so close, their breath touched each other’s lips.
‘Now,’ he said.
What was left of the colour in her face drained away.
‘I should have introduced you,’ said Benzamir. ‘This is Brother Va of the monastery of Saint Samuil in Arkady. He’s the sole survivor of your raid to steal the User books. He’s come all this way to get them back. He didn’t come with force of arms like I did. He just wants the books, and he’ll stay here until he gets them.’ He looked at each of the faces behind the rifles, twenty people he would once have called friends. ‘Who’s going to tell him why his brothers died? Which one of you?’