Context (37 page)

But Tom was already on his feet.

‘This day . . .’ The old woman
paused, then: ‘You will learn a thing, my Lord.’

I’ve learned something already.

Confused, suddenly afraid, he
plunged out of the tent and into the light, the bright busy marketplace, and
stumbled towards the nearest exit. It was raw, this tunnel, but he moved on
quickly, almost running, hurrying along the tunnel’s length until he came out
into a wide natural cavern.

He stopped, catching his breath,
and then the true nature of his surroundings became clear. For everywhere the
stone was patched with sickly, moribund fluorofungus, stippled with liquid
infection and glowing deathly green. While up above, near the dripping ceiling,
dying blindmoths, feasting upon disease, fluttered in vain, unaware that
extinction was almost upon them.

And
yet, and yet...

It was the evening’s events, not
the scryer’s unsettling words, which brought the message home to Tom: that
things had changed in the world, had perhaps started to change sometime during
his four Standard Years in exile. And that these changes were unrelated to
LudusVitae and affiliated movements, who had coordinated uprisings throughout
Nulapeiron in the event known as Flashpoint. Its results had turned out to be Chaos-damned
and paradoxically unpredictable, as revolutionaries suborned so many Oracles
that neither the ruling powers nor their opponents knew any longer which
truecasts were trustworthy and which were merely simulated dreams of a future
that would never occur.

He did not know how many Oracles
remained alive. Surely there were thousands of them, still. But whether people
would ever again blindly accept the validity of their truecasts, that was
another matter.

Am I that insane?
In his alcove at the travellers’
hostel, Tom stared at the blank whitewashed wall.
Am I ready to believe an
old woman who’s injected serpent venom so often she’s probably psychotic ?

Or perhaps it was the fact that
she had made no mention of Elva which was upsetting him. And that was foolish,
since he could not rationally believe the scryer had any kind of true ability.

Though he had already run long
and hard today—just before dawnshift, in shadow-shrouded empty tunnels—he was
trembling with the need to burn more adrenaline. He changed into his cheap,
one-piece training suit, and pulled on the soft, battered climbing slippers he
had bought from a pawnshop. Then he walked out to the nearest natural caverns
and, without warm-up, began to climb.

For an hour he worked problems,
traversing his way from one cavern to another. Close to ground level, he threw
himself upwards in a series of power moves: from knees turned out in the frog
position, launching himself up to grab a ledge or crack, crimping his fingers
and smearing his inner soles against the rock.

Then he went for the heights,
concentrating on soft limberness and precise technique, the rhythm of
counter-tension versus relaxation, and passed over a narrow abyssal rift by
spidering his way across the ceiling.

Finally, he found himself near
the apex of a long, cathedral-like space, at whose far end the rockface sloped
inwards, smoothly, to a great gargoyle figure: spread-winged and leering, it
must have been a hundred metres or more in width.

Smiling, Tom worked his way along
and down. On the slope, he walked across upright, relying on friction without
using his hand, then reached the vertical rock, hooked into a fingerhold and
leaned back, so that torque pressed his feet into stone.

Something... ?

A distant clatter of sound. Tom
remained still, his breathing shallow, but there was only silence now.

Come on.

He laughed softly to himself as
he clambered up the final portion, swung across to the gargoyle’s giant stone
wingtip. Hooking one heel, Tom pointed the other foot into a narrow gap,
spreading his hips, maybe a hundred and fifty metres above the great cavern’s
chopped and fractured floor.

Then, controlling abdominal
tension, he released his finger crimp and slowly tilted backwards, until he was
hanging head down—feet spread in forward splits between two stable holds—hand
dangling down into the void, arm relaxed.

Finally...

All fear was gone, as though the
world itself had settled back into place.

Thank Fate.

It was one of those moments when
life was precious, filled with wonder, as he stared at the distant floor
above/below his head.

And
then there was movement.

They danced and flowed: from
everywhere they came, like boiling swarms of termites, into the cavern beneath
him. Long, sinuous myriapedes, their rounded segments looking hard, armoured.
Dark lev-cars. And soldiers on foot: seen from above, their helmets were like
small round pellets; but their sense of purpose was manifest.

And, as Tom hung there watching,
the first myriapedes halted, segments splitting open, disgorging troops and
equipment.

For a moment, he thought he was
seeing an invasion. But then he realized that the dun colours were those of the
Bilyarck Gébeet’s own forces, and that they were inflating bivouacs behind
defensive emplacements, and posting sentinels.

Manoeuvres?

Every demesne’s armed forces
needed training. But it seemed to Tom—as he swung himself back upright—that the
platoons and companies now entering the cavern moved less fluidly than their
comrades in the vanguard, needed officers to tell them how to order themselves
and set up camp. They might be newer recruits in training—or they might be
conscripted troops who had none of the experience and spirit of men and women
who had devoted their lives to military service.

Tom began to move, swinging from
hold to hold, going for speed and momentum now, wanting to make himself scarce
before sensor-fields were put into place and someone with an itchy finger
mistook Tom’s intentions and depressed the firing stud for that high moment of
spurting orgasmic joy when graser fire splits the air and a human body falls.

But, whatever the truth of the
events occurring below, it seemed certain—or so Tom thought, as he climbed
dangerously fast—that Bilyarck Gébeet was a realm preparing itself for war.

~ * ~

22

TERRA
AD 2142

<Story>>

[6]

Aching
blue sky. Sere red. Desert heat.

‘Message sender is Albrecht.
Subject is: How are you doing?’

So hot, it melted through to her
very bones.

‘No-read del,’ said Ro, and the
teardrop icon winked out of existence.

A broken shadow crossed the dusty
ground behind her.

‘You ready?’ Luís Starhome’s
voice.

Ro turned. His face was bronze in
the desert dawn, untouched by sweat.

‘Sure. Mrs Bridcombe’—Ro tapped
her infostrand, powering it down—‘already saddled Quarrel for me.’

She walked back to the corral,
half expecting Luís to ride Bolt—Quarrel’s half-sister: same dam, different
stallion -bareback. But Luís threw a light saddle across the strong-looking
mare, cinched the magstrap with practised ease.

Ro mounted as best she could.

They waved towards the low
pueblo-style ranch house. Behind the polarized windows, the tall figure of Alice
Bridcombe waved back.