A large bundle, wrapped in more waterproof oilskins and bound up in rope, emerged into the evening light. They heaved it up the rest of the way, manhandling it over the lip of the well and onto the weedy flagstones by their feet.
Jacob glanced back down the well, thinking.
‘What is it?’ asked Kulic, seeing Jacob’s attention was elsewhere.
Jacob bent at the knees, picking up a rock and dropping it into the well. Several seconds passed before he heard a splash.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Jacob, glancing at the sodden rope tightly bound around the oilskin-wrapped bundle. ‘Do we have anything that can cut this rope?’
‘Just a moment,’ said Kulic, returning to his horse and producing a long knife from his saddle-pack. He used it to saw through the ropes, then stepped back so that Jacob could peel away the oilskins, revealing a heavy wooden chest.
Jacob opened the chest, lifting out some of the precious gifts that lay inside; various pieces of modular equipment and, most importantly, a plastic case containing another pin-sized transceiver, which sprang to life as soon as he picked it up.
He nodded with grim satisfaction at the new data the transceiver contained. Clearly, Sillars had been hard at work prior to his murder at the hands of his fellow agents. Indeed, given what the transceiver was telling him, Sillars had more than made up for the failings of his compatriots.
Jacob pulled off the ragged shirt and trousers given him by Kulic, wadding them up and dropping them into the well. Then he placed the miniature transceiver back in its case and pocketed it, before studying the rest of the chest’s contents. He discovered several pocket-sized A-M mines, each of which could gouge a crater a mile wide, along with a collection of slim metallic components that, separately, did not appear to have any immediate use but, when snapped together in the right order, comprised a powerful beam-based weapon scarcely less devastating than the mines. It was designed to be broken into parts that would each fit in the pockets and hidden recesses of his combat suit.
He quickly packed the contents of the chest about his person before standing and nodding towards the ruins surrounding the well.
‘There’s a cellar under this building,’ he announced to Kulic.
The old man peered towards the ruins, seeing only weeds, rotted wood and a few bricks outlining the position of the building’s foundations. ‘How do you know?’
‘Sillars left a message when he buried all this,’ Jacob explained, unconsciously brushing one hand against the pocket in which he had placed Sillars’ transceiver. He then stepped amongst the ruins of the building, pushing past a tangle of sharp-bladed bushes until he came to some half-rotten floorboards, which he stamped on with one foot until one of them cracked, fragments of it dropping into the darkness below.
Jacob pulled on a pair of gloves and began tearing away the clumps of bush and weed around him until more planks were exposed. He could just make out a dim shape in the darkness of the cellar beneath him, hidden under half-rotten rags that had been draped over it.
‘Give me a hand,’ Jacob grunted, bending down to lift one end of a plank.
Kulic stepped gingerly over, helping to clear away some more of the weeds covering one end of the plank. The plank shattered unexpectedly, the end Jacob was grasping nearly catching him under the chin as it angled upwards. Jacob batted it away, watching it drop into the space below.
They worked like this for several minutes, smashing or lifting planks, although Kulic proved too weak and slow to be of any real practical use. But he worked uncomplainingly, for which Jacob was grateful, until the cellar had been exposed sufficiently that Jacob could drop down into the darkened space below.
‘What is that thing down there?’ Kulic called down, his voice querulous.
‘A flier,’ said Jacob, stripping away the rotting sheets covering it.
The machine was a product of Coalition science, easily more advanced than even the starship that had brought him to Darwin. Its hull still gleamed despite its long years buried in dust and filth, and when Jacob reached out to touch its smooth hull with his bare fingertips, it shivered almost as if it were alive.
In a sense, the vehicle was alive. According to Sillars’ own memories, encoded within his transceiver, the distinction between organic and inorganic technology within the Coalition had by now become entirely academic. The flier could think and feel, after a fashion, and as his fingers brushed its skin, Jacob could sense something very much like loneliness radiating from it after so many long decades of waiting.
Jacob climbed back out of the cellar and dusted himself off with a grimace, before using the last of Kulic’s beer to wash the worst of the filth from his hands.
‘Step back,’ Jacob told him.
Kulic goggled as a low, grating hum began to resonate through the air, more dirt and wood tumbling into the cellar as the hum grew. The flier rose slightly from its resting place, pushing against those few planks that still remained in place. They soon snapped under the strain, tumbling down or spinning away as the flier’s AG field took hold of them.
The flier rose into the air above the ruined cellar, shedding yet more dirt, twigs, and bird-shit in the process. Kulic stared up at the craft in stupefaction as it moved towards a patch of clear ground next to the ruins, where it dropped back down and came to a rest.
Kulic turned to gape at Jacob, his eyes shining with undisguised awe. ‘And all this time . . . it was just waiting there? I never knew!’
‘Sillars never told the others about it – not Bruehl, and not even your father. He didn’t trust anyone else with the knowledge.’
‘And it was lying here all this time just waiting for you?’
‘For someone like me, yes,’ Jacob explained. ‘That was your father’s job, as it was Bruehl’s and Sillars’ – to find ways to exploit and subvert the Coalition’s security networks, and make it possible for me to fulfil my duty.’ Sillars had transformed the flier into a weapon no less deadly and efficient than any of the devices packed into the case that had so aroused Kulic’s curiosity.
Jacob stretched and flexed his fingers inside their gloves until he could feel the bones and muscles pop and stretch. A memory came to him, of long-ago training camps, where he had been forced to crawl through muck and dirt one day, then dart across boulder-strewn craters in near zero gee the next, while mechants armed with live weaponry attempted to gun him down. By the time his training had finished, he had learned dozens of new ways to kill people.
Kulic must have seen something in his expression. His face grew pale, and he started to back away, glancing towards his horse and cart still tied up nearby.
‘I’ll do anything I can to help you complete your mission,’ Kulic stammered, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down as he swallowed. His voice took on a whining tone. ‘I helped you out of the woods and hid you. I . . .’
‘I know that,’ said Jacob, his voice soothing as he stepped closer to the old man. ‘And I’m grateful, really I am. But the fact is this mission is much too important to take any risks. Your father would have understood that.’
‘Is it because I tried to open that case?’ Kulic cried out, still backing away towards the well. ‘I didn’t mean any harm, I, I was just curious . . .’
Kulic nearly stumbled over a rock hidden amongst the weeds. Jacob glanced towards the well, and Kulic caught the look, glancing over at it himself before turning back to regard Jacob with bottomless terror.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Kulic whispered, his breath coming in shaky gasps. His ancient watery eyes stared at Jacob with something almost like longing.