in the hotel.’
‘That’s consoling to know.’
‘No more does the tide of Chaos threaten our Emperor.’
Meh’Lindi in stealer guise was racing at a crouch through dark ducts and service tunnels. She mounted ancient stairways that spiralled so high around shafts dribbling with condensation as to shrink into their own vanishing points. She crossed gantries bridging delving chasms. She descended other stairways. She popped through hatchways into alleys and back into ducts again. Always she chose the most deserted routes. Only occasionally did she encounter fugitives from the slaughter who had wisely dodged into such hidey holes. These she brushed aside and raced by, to their evident great relief. Still, from the major avenues the rumble and squall of flight reached her constantly, a doleful drum-backing to her own claw-clicking progress.
At one intersection, she paused, senses alert.
Quarter-facet... Grimm trotted along a precarious overhead catwalk above a river of humanity, puffing, ‘Huh, huh, huh.’ Below, the surge was growing ever denser as if that river had met a dam ahead. Moving pavements must have failed under the weight they bore, otherwise one side of the crowd would surely be pulled to the rear.
Bodies were conglomerating together, asphyxiating. Corpses were carried along, standing upright. The nimblest escapees hopped across the heads of the living and the dead, until a twisted ankle or a gasping angry hand brought them down. Then they sprawled afloat upon the waves of craniums, arms thrashing.
The very walls of the avenue seemed likely to burst. Upthrusts of men and women forced cones of tangled, crushed bodies higher than the rest of the mass. The flood of tormented flesh appeared to be one single myriad-headed entity which was now compressing itself insanely until eyes started, skin split, until blood vessels sprayed. If Grimm fell into that...
Already human trees were growing towards his catwalk as survivors clawed and clutched upward. Glow-strips flickered, as if to this stifling hell of pain and terror was soon to be added darkness.
‘Why no knock-out gas?’ Grimm shouted over the groans and shrieks, as though some responsible official might heed him. ‘Does your governor want even more of his population culled?’
A hatch popped. A black claw seized Grimm. Lifting him clear off his feet, a horny black arm hugged him. The little man’s head was pressed against a jutting jaw.
Grimm gibbered in his own tongue, obviously regretting his impetuous excursion to visit the war front.
Then Jaq and Googol heard him pray squeakingly in proper Imperial Gothic, as if thus he might be heard across the galaxy. ‘Oh my ancestors! Oh let me not betray my race!’ That prayer might as well have been couched in his own patois. In Imperial Gothic he should have been praying to the God-Emperor for help.
Googol guffawed. ‘The poor tyke must think she’s going to give him the genestealer kiss. Oh, la belle dame sans merci .’
‘Don’t utter sorcerous spells,’ Jaq said sternly.
‘I wasn’t. That’s a phrase from some antique poem. It suggests, well... a fatal woman. Meh’Lindi.’
‘Very fatal,’ agreed Jaq.
‘Not towards our friend Grimm; though he doesn’t realize.’
Meh’Lindi had darted back into a service tunnel and was decamping as fast as could be, cradling Grimm, who was wailing like a baby.
‘She’s taking him somewhere special and secret to deliver the fatal kiss,’ decided Googol. ‘That’s what he’ll be thinking. Forever after he’ll have to stay celibate to avoid polluting his people.’
‘Celibate? You’re joking. The victims of stealers forget that they’ve been infected. The stealer that kisses mesmerizes too.’
‘So the victim simply yearns to mate?’
‘With ordinary mortals, ha! And enthral those in the same enchantment.’
The hybrid babies that were born would likewise hypnotize their parents to perceive beauty where there was twisted ugliness.
‘That’s consoling to know.’
‘No more does the tide of Chaos threaten our Emperor.’
Meh’Lindi in stealer guise was racing at a crouch through dark ducts and service tunnels. She mounted ancient stairways that spiralled so high around shafts dribbling with condensation as to shrink into their own vanishing points. She crossed gantries bridging delving chasms. She descended other stairways. She popped through hatchways into alleys and back into ducts again. Always she chose the most deserted routes. Only occasionally did she encounter fugitives from the slaughter who had wisely dodged into such hidey holes. These she brushed aside and raced by, to their evident great relief. Still, from the major avenues the rumble and squall of flight reached her constantly, a doleful drum-backing to her own claw-clicking progress.
At one intersection, she paused, senses alert.
Quarter-facet... Grimm trotted along a precarious overhead catwalk above a river of humanity, puffing, ‘Huh, huh, huh.’ Below, the surge was growing ever denser as if that river had met a dam ahead. Moving pavements must have failed under the weight they bore, otherwise one side of the crowd would surely be pulled to the rear.
Bodies were conglomerating together, asphyxiating. Corpses were carried along, standing upright. The nimblest escapees hopped across the heads of the living and the dead, until a twisted ankle or a gasping angry hand brought them down. Then they sprawled afloat upon the waves of craniums, arms thrashing.
The very walls of the avenue seemed likely to burst. Upthrusts of men and women forced cones of tangled, crushed bodies higher than the rest of the mass. The flood of tormented flesh appeared to be one single myriad-headed entity which was now compressing itself insanely until eyes started, skin split, until blood vessels sprayed. If Grimm fell into that...
Already human trees were growing towards his catwalk as survivors clawed and clutched upward. Glow-strips flickered, as if to this stifling hell of pain and terror was soon to be added darkness.
‘Why no knock-out gas?’ Grimm shouted over the groans and shrieks, as though some responsible official might heed him. ‘Does your governor want even more of his population culled?’
A hatch popped. A black claw seized Grimm. Lifting him clear off his feet, a horny black arm hugged him. The little man’s head was pressed against a jutting jaw.
Grimm gibbered in his own tongue, obviously regretting his impetuous excursion to visit the war front.
Then Jaq and Googol heard him pray squeakingly in proper Imperial Gothic, as if thus he might be heard across the galaxy. ‘Oh my ancestors! Oh let me not betray my race!’ That prayer might as well have been couched in his own patois. In Imperial Gothic he should have been praying to the God-Emperor for help.
Googol guffawed. ‘The poor tyke must think she’s going to give him the genestealer kiss. Oh, la belle dame sans merci .’
‘Don’t utter sorcerous spells,’ Jaq said sternly.
‘I wasn’t. That’s a phrase from some antique poem. It suggests, well... a fatal woman. Meh’Lindi.’
‘Very fatal,’ agreed Jaq.
‘Not towards our friend Grimm; though he doesn’t realize.’
Meh’Lindi had darted back into a service tunnel and was decamping as fast as could be, cradling Grimm, who was wailing like a baby.
‘She’s taking him somewhere special and secret to deliver the fatal kiss,’ decided Googol. ‘That’s what he’ll be thinking. Forever after he’ll have to stay celibate to avoid polluting his people.’
‘Celibate? You’re joking. The victims of stealers forget that they’ve been infected. The stealer that kisses mesmerizes too.’
‘So the victim simply yearns to mate?’
‘With ordinary mortals, ha! And enthral those in the same enchantment.’
The hybrid babies that were born would likewise hypnotize their parents to perceive beauty where there was twisted ugliness.
Similar Books
