Shade's Children (16 page)

The first set of Deceptor batteries ran out as they were climbing up into the largest and most overgrown pine tree, a monster easily one hundred fifty feet high and sixty feet in circumference. Ella, reasonably rested now thanks to the piggyback from Drum, was just reaching out for the next branch up, blinking against the rain, when she felt the vibration at her hip and looked down to see the last few furiously blinking seconds of the red warning light.

“Battery’s gone,” she announced, still climbing. “Yours will probably go any minute now.”

“Yeah, mine is too,” said Ninde, stopping where she was, balanced on a wide branch. “Should I change it?”

“Not yet,” replied Ella. “Let’s hope we can leave them off till nightfall. Let’s get a bit higher up and get some cover between here and the ground. You’d better turn yours off too, Drum, Gold-Eye.”

The others nodded or muttered assent and continued to climb. Five minutes later they were all sitting on three huge branches, close up to the mighty trunk. The sharp smell of pine needles hung around them, brought out strongly by the rain.

“It’s cold,” said Ninde, pulling her arms and legs in as close as she could without falling off. The rain was so heavy that drops and overflows from higher growth were still reaching them, trickling down Ninde’s face and the back of her neck.

“The rain will keep the Trackers from picking up our scent,” said Ella. “So you should be grateful. It’s good the lightning has eased off too.”

“Storm front has passed over,” said Drum, pointing east to a small open patch between two branches, where they could just see distant lightning. The boom of thunder was receding.

“See if you can pick up anything, Ninde,” instructed Ella.

“You’re sure I’m allowed to?” asked Ninde sarcastically. “Drum? Gold-Eye?”

“Yes,” said Gold-Eye seriously. “Good to know.”

“That’s not what I…oh, never mind,” snapped Ninde, sticking one well-chewed knuckle in her mouth and closing her eyes.

“They’ve reached the edge of the cemetery, following our footprints,” she said dreamily. “Heaps of them. But they’ve lost the footprints on the gravel paths and the Trackers can’t pick up anything. There’s a Myrmidon Master…. No, there’s three…. Wingers too, but they hate flying in the rain and keep trying to go back to their aeries or to hide somewhere dry…. Wait…. There’s a big one flying in, quite close…and a…a…I think it’s an Overlord
—blaaarggh!
”

Her eyes flashed open and she threw up. Vomit cascaded down the trunk, splashing on the lower branches, overcoming the pine smell with the acrid odor of sick.

Gasping and dry-retching, Ninde hung on to the branch with her head down. Ella crept around the trunk to her and held her water bottle to Ninde’s mouth.

Ninde took a mouthful, rinsed, spat, and then drank.

“Thanks,” she said miserably.

“What was it?” asked Drum from a neighboring branch. “The Overlord?”

Ninde nodded wordlessly, not answering for a moment. Then she said, “I’ve never been able to hear an Overlord’s thoughts before. It wasn’t like a creature’s at all…. It was like…it was like…”

“What?” asked Drum gently.

“A human!” exclaimed Ninde, bursting into tears. “It was a person!”

“Like us?” asked Gold-Eye, puzzled.

“Yes,” sobbed Ninde. “Just like us.”

“But why?” asked Gold-Eye. If the Overlords were human, why were they killing children to make their dreadful creatures? Why have the creatures at all?

“It’s all right, Ninde,” Ella soothed, hugging her. “I’ve thought they might be human. Drum has too, and some of the others…who are gone now. We could never be sure under that armor…but it was always a possibility.”

“How could they?” asked Ninde, raising her tear-stained face to be washed by the rain. “I wish…I wish they were aliens or…or just something…something else….”

“It doesn’t really matter if they do look human under that armor,” piped Drum. “What they’ve done has made them something else. Not human…not people…Overlords.”

“Shade knows Overlords human?” asked Gold-Eye.

Ella hesitated, then said, “Probably. He would certainly suspect. Ninde! What are you doing?”

Ninde withdrew her knuckle and said, “Having another listen while I can. I’ll be okay.”

Before Ella could stop her, she was chewing on her knuckle again. It seemed to take her longer than usual to connect, and when she started speaking, it was with obvious effort.

“It’s Black Banner…hard to listen…only surface thoughts…some about us…a question—that we might be…like renegade Overlords from…from somewhere where he comes from…. I can’t…ah…I can’t!”

Ella caught her as she started to fall forward out of the tree, knuckle still firmly gripped between her teeth. Ella wrenched it out, and Ninde went completely limp, almost causing both of them to fall.

A second later her body began to jerk and convulse with such violence that Ella had to wrap her legs around the branch and hang on to Ninde as hard as she could, till Drum jumped across and put his strength to work holding both of them.

“Hope this branch’ll take my weight,” he remarked as Ninde quieted and the groaning of the limb in question became apparent.

“So do I,” replied Ella. Seeing that Drum had Ninde well secured, she jumped back to his previous branch. By the time she’d turned around to look back, Ninde’s eyes were open and she seemed pale but basically in control of herself.

“I’m okay,” she muttered, shrugging her shoulders out of Drum’s grip. “It’s always hard to listen to a human’s thoughts, and…Overlords…are even harder.”

“You were saying Black Banner thinks we’re renegade Overlords or something,” prompted Ella.

“They’re from somewhere else,” said Ninde slowly. “Not here somehow. I mean they’re from Earth, but a sort of different dimension or something. I think. And it…he thinks we might be from there as well, but not with the Overlords’ permission. Enemies of the Overlords that have somehow got here. And I think there was something about Shade, as well.”

“Shade!” exclaimed Ella. “What! By name?”

“No…” replied Ninde, shaking her head slowly, obviously confused. “Black Banner was thinking about who could have got into the Meat Factory, and how, and there was some connected thought about ‘person in a computer’ or something. It was all very fuzzy….”

“Black Banner was at the University,” commented Drum, his high-pitched voice difficult to hear through the beat of the rain. “He may have recovered that Professor Leamington thing.”

“Maybe,” said Ella doubtfully. “Maybe. We’d better try and get back to the Sub tonight, I think, without waiting for the drains to go down. Aboveground, using Deceptors.”

“Shade let us back?” asked Gold-Eye, thinking of Shade’s threats as they’d left. He was still worried that they would not be welcomed back, no matter what information they brought.

“Of course he will,” said Ella confidently.

“Is there some doubt?” questioned Drum.

“Shade thought rescuing you was a waste of resources and we’d all just end up in the Meat Factory anyway,” said Ninde. “But he was wrong, wasn’t he?”

“You came without Shade’s permission?” asked Drum, troubled. “That hasn’t been done for a long time. I hope—”

“It’ll be okay,” interrupted Ella. “Let’s not worry about it till we’re there. Just try and get some rest. Drum, you’ve had the longest sleep of anyone—are you okay to take the first watch?”

“Yes,” said Drum.

“Okay,” continued Ella. “Everyone get your spare batteries handy. If we do get spotted, we’ll snap the Deceptors on and move out. But I hope they won’t see us. To make sure, from now on try not to move. And if you have to talk—for a good reason—whisper. I’ll take the second watch at three, Drum, and we’ll move out at five. It should be getting dark by then, with this rain.”

With that said, she put her back to the trunk, wrapped her legs firmly around the branch again, and closed her eyes. After a few minutes of minor noise as everyone got settled, there was just the steady beat of the rain and the rustle of branches in the wind.

But Ella was far from at rest. With her eyes closed she saw not blackness, but the long lines of bodies, thousands of them, in Red Diamond’s “storehouse” part of the Meat Factory alone. And that was probably only a month’s supply for the parts of the Meat Factory where the creatures were actually made…. Beyond the white doors…

With all these thoughts, she could also hear Ninde’s cry.

“How could they?”

They had to use the Deceptors only once, in the early afternoon, when a trio of Trackers came sniffing and skulking around the base of the tree.

Ella, who had the watch, heard them coming, so all Deceptors were active—and the Trackers eventually moved on. One did seem to pick up the traces of rain-washed vomit, but was incapable of connecting it with an empty tree. Myrmidons followed the Trackers, crashing along the graveled paths, with a Myrmidon Master at their head, but they did no more than look up briefly as they passed.

By four o’clock it was almost full dark, the rain and clouds bringing dusk early. Ella went down for a scout around and confirmed that the Myrmidons, Trackers, and Wingers were returning to their respective lairs. The Ferrets were probably coming out, but they would be slow, reluctant to leave the comfort of their dry underground nests for a rainy night.

At five o’clock they all climbed down and started heading back toward the bay and the Submarine.

It was an odd journey—the Deceptors allowing them to just get back on the freeway and follow it all the way into the city proper. They walked silently in single file, weaving in and out between the cars, occasionally dodging some bedraggled Ferrets or changing lanes to take advantage of still-functioning streetlights.

With nightfall it had started getting colder again—cold enough to be worrying, particularly in their drenched state, with no sign of the rain letting up. Ninde was already sneezing, and they had no ColdCure tablets in their first-aid kits. A rarity even before the Change, the few tablets that had been found were stored in the Sub for the worst cases, usually people on the verge of pneumonia.

The cold and the rain combined to make them think of hot showers, and they increased their pace, till their minds were largely fixed on just reaching their destination. Even walking in the open down Central Avenue didn’t raise much interest, nor did their passage beneath the vast City Tower, where white light and Winger cocoons merged with cloud halfway up its one hundred fifty floors.

Finally they crossed Governor’s Park and followed a footpath overlaid with rushing sheets of water, the path taking them down the green hill to the Blue Inlet finger wharves—where they stopped. Here they instinctively moved closer together as they looked out with horror.

Where the dark bulk of the Submarine should be visible against the lighter sea, there were lights. Hundreds and hundreds of witchlights all along its length, and Myrmidons stamping to and fro on the hull and on the wharves, the echo of their nailed boots just audible above the beat of the rain and the rushing of the wind.

Glints of color came off the Myrmidons as the witchlight caught them, color refracted by the raindrops, shining through the wet haze like luminous blood. Red, for Red Diamond.

No one spoke for a while as they stared down at their former home—the only hope they had ever had.

Finally Ella said, “Stay here. I’ll go down and have a closer look.”

“What for?” asked Ninde, shivering. “They’re all over it. Everyone will be gone. Everything…”

“Some might have got away,” whispered Drum. “Any teams that were out…. At least it’s obvious they’re there. We could have just walked back in.”

“What…where we go?” asked Gold-Eye. He was shivering too. It had been less than a week since he’d been found by the others, but his previous life seemed like a dream—a nightmare he didn’t want to go back to.

“One of the emergency caches, first,” replied Ella. “Probably the closest one, at the mouth of the Eastern Line railway tunnel, if it’s not too badly flooded. But stay here for a few minutes—I won’t be long.”

She started off down the wharf, carefully watching her footing and the moving witchlights at the other end. Witchlights hung by the dozens on branches carried by ill-tempered Myrmidons, who looked angry at being kept awake beyond dusk.

The others crouched under the eaves of a shed that had once been a Naval Police guardhouse.

Ella crept closer to the Submarine till she was about twenty yards away. The Myrmidons had obviously been there for some time, because most were simply standing around as if awaiting further orders. There was one maniple on the wharf, another on the hull of the Submarine.

All wore the ruby breastplates and scarlet ring mail that proclaimed their allegiance to Red Diamond.

Watching them, Ella was struck for a second with the hope that they might be standing there because they couldn’t get in. Then one of the witchlight bearers moved to avoid the wash of an ambitious wave, and she saw that a hole had been cut into the Submarine’s deck. A long, rectangular hole, as if the top of the hull had been peeled back like the lid of a sardine can.

Something was moving about in the hole, and Ella was just about to creep closer, trusting to her Deceptor, when she realized that the movement came from something climbing out, something that wore a red helmet that glowed like fire, brighter than the yellow witchlights above. It could only be Red Diamond.

Instantly she threw herself flat on the planks, hoping the darkness and rain would cloak her from the Overlord’s sight. If it was human, as Ninde claimed, then the Deceptor definitely would not work.

The Overlord climbed onto the deck, red helmet blazing and cloak flickering with yellow-and-orange fires. It seemed to turn toward the shore and look right at Ella. She pressed herself still further into the planks, trying to become just a piece of old wood, praying for the rain to double in intensity, for fog to suddenly rise…anything…

Red Diamond turned and looked out to sea—then went back down the hole, leaving a hot after-image burning at the back of Ella’s eyes.

As soon as it disappeared, she squirmed backward on her belly. When she judged she was far enough away, she spun around and ran back to the others.

They heard her coming, footsteps quick and heavy on the planks, and were waiting with drawn swords, ready to face possible pursuers.

“Overlord on the Sub,” explained Ella, panting. “Red Diamond. They peeled back the top of the Sub to get in. We’d better get to the cache before they do—if they aren’t there already.”

“Why? They never question anyone,” said Ninde. “They just take them to the Meat Factory…don’t they?”

“They certainly have never acted as if they question people,” replied Ella. “But then we’ve never broken into the Meat Factory before. It isn’t the people talking I’m worried about. It’s Shade.”

“Shade?” asked Gold-Eye, thinking back to the dark, empty room where he’d first met Shade. “How Overlords know he even there?”

“Black Banner knew something about a ‘person in a computer,’” replied Ella grimly. “If Shade’s still there, they’ll find him. And Shade knows everything….”

“What do you mean, if he’s still there?” asked Ninde. “How can he not be? I mean, the computer’s there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied Ella. “But he may have another one to send his personality to. Mac…one of the older people when I first came…said he’d helped get hardware for it….”

“Shade wouldn’t have had time,” said Drum. “Not if they went in through the deck. That was the whole point of the automatically locking hatches and having us all die defending each corridor. To give Shade enough time to download himself to another location.”

“That’s not true!” said Ella—but she didn’t say it with any confidence.

“I know that’s what he planned,” said Drum softly. “I used to talk to the oldsters too, remember? And I know that it would take quite some time for him to do it. I think that for better…or worse…we’re no longer Shade’s Children.”