“They’re pushing us out,” Aidan mouthed, his visor pressed to Daniel’s so that the watching bugs could not see what they were saying to each other. “You think we’re heading into a trap?” Daniel mouthed back.
“If s possible.”
“Then maybe we should cross the river.”
Aidan frowned. Here it was relatively easy to get across, but further east the land fell away between rocks and the current was much stronger. It would be much harder to cross back. And they would have to cross back if they were going to get to the Exit Gate.”I’d rather not.” “Then we go north.” “Into danger, you mean?”
Daniel smiled. “I feel I’ve been pushed far enough, don’t you?”
Aidan grinned. “Yes.” “Then lef s go.”
Dublanc was in the back room, lying on his bunk, half-dozing, when one of his assistants came in. He yawned, then opened one eye. “What1 s up?”
“They’re on the move again, sir.”
“Across the river?”
“No, sir. They’re heading north.”
Dublanc sat up, suddenly alert. “North?”
He had expected them to cross the river, then try to re-cross further up, at Ebnet, maybe, or Brand, but north ...
“They’re going through the town?”
“It looks like it, sir.”
Dublanc frowned, genuinely surprised. He stood, then walked out onto the gallery, seeing the team at once, there on the big screen, their backs to the remote as they moved in tight formation into the ancient, ruined town of Freiburg.
“Where’s the nearest tap?”
At once a map was superimposed upon the right of the screen, a flashing light indicating an energy-tap a kilometre north of where the team were. “Do you think they’ll head for that, sir?”
“No.” But even as he said it, he knew that if they were to survive at all, they would have to expend a great deal of their energy, so they’d need a tap.
He narrowed his eyes. If he could nudge them slightly east
“Let them get in deep,” he said, conscious of how his own team were watching him. “Hold back until they hit the high ground, then push them towards Breisgau.”
The air was filled with an angry buzzing sound. Daniel turned, seeing at once a great swarm of hornet-like creatures with long glass bodies approaching from the direction of the Square below.
“Shit!” Daniel said, recognising the creatures. They were small but those long glass bodies were full of burning acid that could rot a suit in seconds. If only one or two got through the results could be disastrous. But the rest of the team were already distracted, fighting off a nest of beetles that were threatening to overwhelm them.
Snapping a grenade from his belt, Daniel tossed it up onto the root where the beetles were coming from, even as Aidan did the same. The twin explosions threw dozens of the fist-sized mechanoids into the air and blew a hole in the tiled roof. But still they came, hundreds and hundreds of the black, scuttering things.
Daniel turned back. The others would have to cope now; the hornets were almost on them.
“Clench your teeth, Daniel,” Aidan said, unclipping a big shovel-mouthed gun from his back and taking off the safety.
Daniel did as he was told. A moment later he felt the huge concussion in the air as the stun shell went off in the midst of the swarm, dropping instinctively as the wave of sharp glass shards swept over him.
There was laughter in his helmet - Aidan’s laughter.
“Hey, Daniel!” he shouted. “Do you think someone’s got it in for us?”
Dublanc slumped back in the chair, letting the tension ease from him. It was his job to distance himself from his charges, to test them as one might test machines, but sometimes - just sometimes - one found oneself getting involved. Linked somehow.
It didn’t happen often, but when it did he found himself, as now, pushing harder to compensate, as if to prove to himself that he didn’t really care. He stood, pacing the gallery slowly, considering what he should do next It was within his power to crush them - to make good and certain that they didn’t stand a chance - but what was the point of that?
Unseen, he made a face into the darkness. Some days he wondered what the point was anyway? He selected these boys and trained them, and then ... nothing. Those that came out alive were sent back to the camps, where they’d be trained yet more before being sent back here. Until, finally, they did not emerge from Eden. There was a point. Of course there was. He’d been assured by Horacek many a time that DeVore had a good reason for all of this, even if that reason was not spelled out, but some days Dublanc”s faith in the Man wavered. One did not train one’s shock troops only to expend them in these endless exercises. So what did DeVore want? The perfect killer? A machine to outgun the machines? Or was he just a sadist?.
That answer did not satisfy. If DeVore was a sadist, why did he not ask for copies of the tapes? Why did he express no interest whatsoever in the fate of his charges?
Or was that true? Horacek, for certain, had expressed an interest in Daniel. And Horacek had the Man’s ear.
Dublanc sat once more, looking across at the bank of screens, watching as the team regrouped.
The trouble was, it was hard to know precisely what DeVore did want On the three occasions on which he’d actually met the man, he’d had the distinct feeling that - all reassurances to the contrary - DeVore didn’t give a fuck what he did, nor how he went about it And yet...
Dublanc paused, coming, as he always did in this internal debate, to the nub of it.
And yet he’s given over att of this time and effort to creating the camps and running them. And to building Eden, and the mechanoids, and... He huffed irritably. There had to be a reason for it It made no sense unless there was a reason. But even he, who was in charge of it all, could not say what that reason was.
“The Man has a plan,” Horacek had said to him once, grinning that horrible feral grin of his, “and it is not our place to question it. We do as he asks when and where he asks it and no more. You understand?”
At times like this Dublanc wished he did understand. He sighed. Maybe Daniel understood. If anyone had an inkling of what was going on, it was the boy. Those eyes of his were so knowing, so full of seeing and understanding.
None of the other boys had that
“Commandant?”
He went to the rail and looked down onto the floor of the operations room. His Duty Captain stood there, at attention, looking up at him. “Yes, Captain York?”
“Do you want us to take any special measures, sir?” “Not yet,” he answered. “Besides, if they keep on in the direction they’re heading, I think they’re going to be busy enough, don’t you?” “Sir.”
York turned back, facing his operatives once more, moving quietly from desk to desk, giving orders, while on the gallery above Dublanc paced slowly in the half dark, his gloved hands clasped together behind his back.
They faced a field of pods. Row after row of small, rounded pods. Or what looked like pods. Aidan stood there just in front of Daniel, the biggest of his guns clutched to his chest, staring out across the field warily, waiting for his scouts to return.
Slaven was on his feet now. He stood to Daniel’s left, groggy but unwilling to be carried any further.
The town was behind them. Ahead, beyond the field, lay a low range of hills. To their left was a ravine, to their right a long slope covered in thick bracken through which a single path zig-zagged.
“What are they?” Johann asked, stepping up beside Aidan.
“I don’t know,” Aidan answered. “I’ve never seen them before.” Daniel lifted his gun and picked off an approaching hoverfly. “If s a minefield.”
“You know that?” Aidan asked, glancing at him.
“No. But what else could it be?”