whatever-the-hell hanging from the invisibly dark and distant ceiling. The screams were coming from forward, from the interior, from the direction that Saluus and Ilen had walked in. He stood staring into that darkness, holding his breath to listen better. Sudden silence, then maybe a voice - Sal’s shouting, the words indistinct. Help? Taince? Fass?
What do I do? Run to help? Wait for Taince? Look for another torch, another gun if there is one?
A clattering noise behind him made him spin round.
Taince, bounding down from one gnarled level of the buckled wall. ‘You okay?’
‘Yes, but--’
‘Stay with me. Keep a few steps behind. Say if you can’t keep up.’ She went past him at a slow run, her gun high in one hand. Later, he would remember that there was a grim sort of smile on her face.
They ran up the shallow slope leading deeper into the ship, over increasingly large ripples in the material beneath their feet until they were leaping from ridge to ridge, then jumped down through a tear in the floor and ran slightly uphill on a half-giving surface like thin rubber over iron, vaulting one-handed over enormous, thigh-high cables strung in an irregular net across the space. Fassin followed Taince as best he could, guided by the glow patches on her fatigues. She ran and leapt more fluidly with one hand filled with pistol than he did pumping both arms. The floor pitched up more steeply, then down.
‘Taince! Fassin!’ Sal shouted, somewhere ahead.
‘Duck!’ Taince yelled, suddenly running doubled-up.
Fassin got down just in time; his hair touched the hard fold of ink-black material above. They slowed down, Taince feeling her way one-handed along the dark ceiling, then slipping sideways through a narrow gap.
Fassin followed, the cold press of ungiving material on either side making him shiver.
Light ahead. A dim confusion of tilted floor and a half-open chaos of girders and tubes forming a ceiling, spikes like stalagmites and stalactites, thin hanging cables, a frozen downward explosion of some red substance like an enormous inverted flower. And there, crouching on a narrow ledge by a jagged, vaguely triangular hole in the floor a couple of metres across, staring into it, lit by the glow patches stuck to his jacket, was Sal.
He looked up. ‘Len!’ he shouted. ‘She fell!’
‘Sal,’ Taince said sharply, ‘that floor safe for us?’
He looked confused, frightened. ‘Think so.’
Taince tested the way ahead with one foot, then knelt by the triangular hole, right at one apex. She motioned Fassin to stay back, lay on her front and stuck her head into the hole, then, muttering something about the edges being braced, signalled Fassin to the side of the hole opposite Saluus. There was more room on that side. He lay and looked in and down.
The triangle opened out into a darkly cavernous space beneath them, just vague glints of edged surfaces visible below; stepped collections of what looked like huge cooling fins. Fassin’s head seemed to swim, recognising how much of the wrecked ship was beneath the level they were on now. He remembered the flier climbing from the desert floor before entering the giant ship. How far had they climbed? A hundred metres? A little less? Plus the journey from the flier to here had been mostly uphill.
Ilen lay about six metres down, caught on a couple of arm-thick projections that stuck curving out from the nearest intact bulkhead beneath like two slim tusks. She lay on her front, her head, one leg and one arm hanging over the drop. Glow patches on her sleeves provided pale, greeny-blue light. The fractured ends of the two tusk-shaped protrusions were only centimetres from the side of her body. Off to one side at eight- or nine-metre intervals, several more sets of the tusklike shapes clawed out from the bulkhead like bony fingers grasping at the gaping space. The drop below Ilen looked fifty or sixty metres deep, down to the bladelike edges of the fins beneath.
The human
What do I do? Run to help? Wait for Taince? Look for another torch, another gun if there is one?
A clattering noise behind him made him spin round.
Taince, bounding down from one gnarled level of the buckled wall. ‘You okay?’
‘Yes, but--’
‘Stay with me. Keep a few steps behind. Say if you can’t keep up.’ She went past him at a slow run, her gun high in one hand. Later, he would remember that there was a grim sort of smile on her face.
They ran up the shallow slope leading deeper into the ship, over increasingly large ripples in the material beneath their feet until they were leaping from ridge to ridge, then jumped down through a tear in the floor and ran slightly uphill on a half-giving surface like thin rubber over iron, vaulting one-handed over enormous, thigh-high cables strung in an irregular net across the space. Fassin followed Taince as best he could, guided by the glow patches on her fatigues. She ran and leapt more fluidly with one hand filled with pistol than he did pumping both arms. The floor pitched up more steeply, then down.
‘Taince! Fassin!’ Sal shouted, somewhere ahead.
‘Duck!’ Taince yelled, suddenly running doubled-up.
Fassin got down just in time; his hair touched the hard fold of ink-black material above. They slowed down, Taince feeling her way one-handed along the dark ceiling, then slipping sideways through a narrow gap.
Fassin followed, the cold press of ungiving material on either side making him shiver.
Light ahead. A dim confusion of tilted floor and a half-open chaos of girders and tubes forming a ceiling, spikes like stalagmites and stalactites, thin hanging cables, a frozen downward explosion of some red substance like an enormous inverted flower. And there, crouching on a narrow ledge by a jagged, vaguely triangular hole in the floor a couple of metres across, staring into it, lit by the glow patches stuck to his jacket, was Sal.
He looked up. ‘Len!’ he shouted. ‘She fell!’
‘Sal,’ Taince said sharply, ‘that floor safe for us?’
He looked confused, frightened. ‘Think so.’
Taince tested the way ahead with one foot, then knelt by the triangular hole, right at one apex. She motioned Fassin to stay back, lay on her front and stuck her head into the hole, then, muttering something about the edges being braced, signalled Fassin to the side of the hole opposite Saluus. There was more room on that side. He lay and looked in and down.
The triangle opened out into a darkly cavernous space beneath them, just vague glints of edged surfaces visible below; stepped collections of what looked like huge cooling fins. Fassin’s head seemed to swim, recognising how much of the wrecked ship was beneath the level they were on now. He remembered the flier climbing from the desert floor before entering the giant ship. How far had they climbed? A hundred metres? A little less? Plus the journey from the flier to here had been mostly uphill.
Ilen lay about six metres down, caught on a couple of arm-thick projections that stuck curving out from the nearest intact bulkhead beneath like two slim tusks. She lay on her front, her head, one leg and one arm hanging over the drop. Glow patches on her sleeves provided pale, greeny-blue light. The fractured ends of the two tusk-shaped protrusions were only centimetres from the side of her body. Off to one side at eight- or nine-metre intervals, several more sets of the tusklike shapes clawed out from the bulkhead like bony fingers grasping at the gaping space. The drop below Ilen looked fifty or sixty metres deep, down to the bladelike edges of the fins beneath.
The human
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