“Spooky,” Aidan said after a moment “Give me something to shoot at every time.” Daniel nodded, knowing exactly what Aidan meant He didn’t mind the fighting, it was the waiting that got to him. When you were fighting you could forget and let another, more ancient, part of the brain take over, but this ... This was sheer torture.
There was the faintest vibration, deep down.
The swarm?
Daniel listened. No. It was not in the air, it was in the earth.
Aidan too had noticed it and was looking down.
“Are you almost finished?” Daniel asked, not daring to turn his back and look.
“Almost,” Ju Dun answered. “Two more guns, thaf s all.”
A minute, then, at most
Daniel swallowed. The vibration had become a steady shaking. Clods of earth were jiggling up and down on the slope just beneath them. The whole of the platform was resounding now like a struck gong.
As Ju Dun snatched the gun from the charge-nipple and turned, the whole of the bank just in front of them seemed to rear up, changing from black to red in an instant.
Daniel blinked, his mind not taking in what had happened. Then he understood. Ants. Red ants. Millions of the little fuckers. Not big, like the rest of the mechanoids, but tiny.
“Oh, shit...”Christian’s flamer roared momentarily, taking out the first wave of ants, but even as he went to spray them a second time, the fuel feed stuttered and went out.
Daniel turned and looked Ants were all over Christian’s back They had chewed through the feed line. And in a moment...
He gave the order almost without thinking, knowing how much of a risk it was, and knowing that there was nothing -absolutely nothing - else he could do. “Seal!”
And as the word died in his throat, he depressed the button on his chest and the world outside went white.
Daniel woke with a continuous high-pitched whine in his head. All about him piles of the ants lay inert where the sonic light-stunner had gone off. He lifted his head a fraction. “Aidan?”
There was a faint groan on Aidan’s channel.
“Ju Dun?”
The answer came back crisply. “Here!”
Daniel couldn’t see from where he lay, but he knew, without having to look, that Ju Dun was already on his feet “Christian?”
There was a moment’s silence, then Ju Dun answered. “He’s dead. His suit cracked.”
Daniel pulled himself up slowly, feeling as if someone had glued all of his limbs very loosely to his torso. He could still feel the shock wave in his bones. The same shock wave that had destroyed the sensitive mechanisms of the ants.
Turning, he saw at once what Ju Dun meant Christian lay there, a great jagged rent in the back of his armour. And where his flesh had been exposed, it had a transparent, almost jellied bloodiness.
For the best, perhaps, he thought, wondering how, even if Christian had survived the journey across Eden, he would have survived living without his soul-mate Johann.
But he didn’t give in. Not even after Johann’s death. He grieved and then got on with it.
WHITE SPACE
Daniel bent down and picked up one of the tiny ants between his thumb and forefinger. Taking a tiny pick-lock from the neck of his suit - one he normally used to adjust the visor mechanism - he prised the minute shell of the creature apart and looked.
Incredible, he thought, spilling it out onto his open palm. Such workmanship.
Shepherd’s, he knew instinctively. This has to be Shepherd’s work. It was like the jewelled clock Dublanc had in his room - the one with the transparent back that let you see the workings. Only this was much smaller and more delicate and the workings were far more complex. The whole of Eden was a warped creation. A land of wonders turned into a horror show. And why?
He kept returning to the question.
Why did The Man force his boys through such a violent rite of passage? Why, if he said he loved and cared for them, was he prepared to see them die in so cruel a manner?
Daniel turned. Aidan was on his feet now, dusting himself off. Ju Dun was off to the left, his gun at his shoulder, looking for anything coming in. Daniel studied the terrain, comparing it to the map he held in his head. The Exit Gate was not far now. Two-and-a-half kilometres at most If they headed directly north-east they could get there in two hours. The map. He stared at the map in his head, realising suddenly that there was only one remaining gap in it, there at the very centre of it all. A gap. Or was there something there. Something that Eden was designed to push them away from.
“Well?” Aidan said, gesturing towards the Gate. “Are we going or not?”
Daniel lifted a hand, signalling that he should be silent
It was true, now that he thought about it The nearer they got to that gap, the more intense the fighting became. Why, if the swarm hadn’t attacked, they’d have walked straight through itYes, he thought. And that’s why we’ve got to go back. But not with the bugs watching them and sending back details of their every moment Without warning, Daniel lifted his gun and began to blast the tiny midge-like probes out of the air. Eight shots later and it was done.
Aidan was staring at him as if he’d gone mad. “Daniel;”
“Come on,” he said, gesturing for them both to follow him. “We’re going back.”
“Back?” Aidan asked. “Back where?”
“Back to the very centre of Eden.”
“But we’re almost out The Exif s within reach now, Daniel!” But Daniel shook his head. “Don’t you see? Getting out alive isn’t the point. If it was, then why send us back time and again? No ... that’s where it is ... there, in the white space at the heart of it all.”
Things flew at them and scuttled into position, almost like someone was hurling everything they could at them to stop them.
They had come almost five kilometres now, following the course of the river, heading north. Now Daniel took them directly west again, climbing, skirting the Hinterwaldkopf , the river ahead of them. When they hit the river they would go directly south, then turn west again at Notschrei and, taking the old road, head north.
Into white space.
They had no rockets and no flamers, and they were low on ammunition, but they were still fully-charged. K they had to, they would burn their way in. Aidan’s voice whispered in his helmet “Daniel... remotes.”
He made no sign that he’d heard. “Where?”
“Across the river. Two hundred, maybe two-fifty metres off. You can see them glinting in the sun.”
“You sure they’re remotes?”
“They’re keeping parallel with us and making no attempt to come any closer. I’d say they were remotes, wouldn’t you?”
“Then let’s deal with them. We’re going into the trees. If they want to see what we’re doing, they’ll have to follow us.”
He scanned the hillside to his left. If there were any mechanoids in there, he couldn’t see them, but they’d have to take that risk. The odds were much better if they weren’t being watched.
“Ju Dun,” he said. “We’re going into the trees. Keep tight with us and watch yourself.”
He glanced at Aidan. “Ready?”
Aidan grinned back at him. “Ready as I’ll ever be!”
“Okay, then let’s go.”
As one they broke into a trot, coming off the river path and into the cover of the trees.
On the far side of the river the remotes slowed then, reacting to a distant command, came straight across, moving at speed, following the boys into the trees.