Slowly the four boys stood.
It was not done with yet. In fact, it was far from over, but they had got this far. And they had survived a swarm.Daniel looked about him, seeing how the others watched him, looking to him now for their lead. “Come on,” he said. “The next tap’s just north of here. We can be there within the hour.”
Dublanc rubbed his eyes, then leaned forward, pressing the pad that lowered the blinds about his gallery office.
“Commandant?”
The voice on the communicator was York’s.
‘Tes, Captain?” he asked wearily.
“I’m sorry, sir, but what do you want to do?”
Dublanc hesitated, then. “We’ll leave things be.”
“But, sir ...”
Dublanc brought his hand down, cutting the link, then sat back, closing his eyes. The drugs were wearing off. He would need to take some more if he was to stay awake for the final push.
I could end it now, he thought I could throw every thing I have at them and end it.
And what would that prove? Nothing they didn’t already know. He reached down into the second drawer of the desk and took out the box of capsules, shaking two out into his palm then swallowing them down. They’d keep him alert for another twelve hours if necessary. But he would pay for it He always paid.
None of his men knew just how much nervous energy he expended on these runs. They thought him indifferent to it all - a cold, maybe even callous, man - and he did his best to foster that illusion. But deeper down he paid for that outward lie.
Long ago, he’d had a son. An eight-year-old named Matthew. But Matthew had died in the plague, along with his mother and baby sister, while he - plain Captain Dublanc, back then - had been on duty on an orbital station above it all. Now nothing remained of that former life. Only memories. All else - all physical trace of those he’d loved - had been destroyed on those great pyres which, glimpsed from geostationary orbit high above the City, had seemed to fill the land to either side of the Rhine like sunlight glimmering on the surface of a pond.
Dropping the box back into the drawer, he slid it closed, then opened the top drawer, taking out the file on Daniel.
Like much else that was secret, there was no computer record of this file. Officially it did not even exist And much that had once existed on computer file, had been erased, to be placed here, where enquiring eyes might not see it Dublanc opened the file and quickly flipped through the handwritten pages to the latest entry. Then, taking a pen from the stand nearby, he began to write, setting down his most recent observations.
Here too were the maps of Daniel’s past excursions into Eden, bright red ink markings tracing the paths he’d taken, the obstacles he’d faced, the friends he’d lost They were impressive documents.
He took them out now and studied them a while, wondering if there was a due to Daniel in the meandering red lines. A pattern. Laying the thin, transparent sheets one upon another, he picked them up, looking at the transposition, but there was no pattern to it Daniel had faced each crossing as if it was the first Or last And this time, well... this was the strangest of them all. He set the maps aside, then took out the last of the sheets in the file It was a sketch he’d done - a picture of Daniel’s face, the visor of his helmet back, those deep green eyes staring out And behind him two tiny midge-like cameras. Watching, always watching him.
Everything was here. A list of the books he’d borrowed from the camp library. A list of friends he’d made, transcripts of conversations he’d had, a note of his dietary preferences. But nothing that gave a clue. Nothing that told you about the real Daniel Mussida.
For that real self was locked away somewhere Was buried deep inside his head where no watching camera could see.
Until now.
For something was happening inside the boy. Dublanc could sense it. And sometimes, for the briefest moment, he thought he could even see it, there in his eyes.
A metamorphosis.
Dublanc sighed, then closed the file, rubbing at his eyes once more. It would be a good ten or fifteen minutes before the drugs kicked in. Until they did, he’d lie down and take a moment’s rest Real rest, not the chemical variety. He stood and walked across the room, then settled on the long bench-like bed at the back, closing his eyes, knowing that York would wake him if anything happened.
The valley was due north, about two kilometres from the wall. To their left, just above them, was a stand of trees. To their right the ground fell away, until, about five hundred metres distant, it rose again to form a hummock. On top of that was the tap. A platform tap.
There were no buildings here, only rock and scrub and here and there the splintered shape of a tree. The land was rough, untended. Rusting machinery lay everywhere. One could not take a step here without treading on the ruins of past campaigns.
And yet, right now, the valley was deserted, the tap - clearly visible from where they stood - unguarded.
“Flame the slope,” Daniel said.
Christian stepped forward and, narrowing the aperture on the flamer, ignited it As the long tongue of the flame licked over the surface of the ground, the others raised their guns, waiting.
Normally the flamer would make any hidden machines fly up, and they would pick them off, but this time the tactic was in vain. It really was deserted. Daniel looked to Aidan, suspicious now. Aidan shrugged, then gestured at his feet Underground. Of course. Thaf s where they were. Sitting down there, waiting. Burrowers, perhaps, or beetles, or ...
He didn’t like it The situation made his skin crawl. If he could, he would have turned right round and headed for the tap to the east, but they couldn’t do that They were on low charge as it was. They needed this tap.
Only Daniel wasn’t sure they could take the tap - not against stiff opposition. There were only four of them now, and though he knew what good fighters they were, it took only a moment’s inattention and the odds against them would be shortened dramatically.
No choice, he thought, excusing himself. But it didn’t make him feel any better. “Okay,” he said. “If they’re going to come from anywhere, they’ll come from underfoot So watch out And move quickly. Right?” Without another word Daniel set off, jogging down the charred and steaming slope towards the tap, his armour feeling heavy now, unwieldy.
Every time he set his foot down, he expected something to happen. At every moment he expected the ground to explode in a fury of dark, snapping forms, but nothing... still there was nothing.
His heart was in his mouth. There was a pain of expectation in his gut that was indescribable. Behind him, the others tried their best to keep up with him, their heavy armour squeaking and rattling, the grunt of each breath they took sounding loudly in Daniel’s helmet.
Ahead of him the hillock rose up, blocking his view. Slowing he began to climb it, the second finger of his right hand aching now from where he’d held it tight against the wire-fine trigger. Come on you little bastards! Show yourselves! He climbed up, onto the solid base that surrounded the tap. A moment later Aidan joined him there, quickly followed by Ju Dun and Christian. They were all gasping for breath.
For a moment they simply stood there, their guns raised, scanning the empty valley for some sign of life, but there was stiH nothing. “What the fuck’s going on?” Aidan asked, giving a tiny incredulous laugh.
“Doesn’t it work?”
Daniel whirled about, thinking that maybe Aidan had hit upon it, but the tap was working. As he brushed his fingers against one of the metallic teats it gave him a tiny shock.
“We are still in Eden?” Christian asked. “We didn’t...” “Charge the guns,” Daniel said, with an uncharacteristic impatience. This emptiness - this lack of opposition - worried him more than anything he’d come across, for he knew it was not a chance thing. The mechanoids were not evenly spread, he knew that, but there were not - as far as he knew - whole valleys without any such life, and there wasn’t a tap that didn’t have a thousand or more of the little buggers crawling all over it So where were they? And why were they holding off? As Ju Dun and Christian charged the guns, he and Aidan kept watch.