The Abyss Beyond Dreams (24 page)

A jet of flame seared into the mod-ape’s head, flowing like liquid down its torso. It shrieked, radiating its pain in a pulse which made Slvasta groan. Tears flooded his eyes as he tried
to tighten his shell against the outpouring of agony.

The mod-dwarf was standing firm, playing the flamethrower over the mod-ape as it thrashed about, legs collapsing. And Ingmar was standing a little behind it, hands pressed to his temples, eyes
shut tight in concentration as his ’path directed the mod-dwarf. Concentrating so hard he didn’t see one of the mod-horses charging.

‘No!’ Slvasta yelled with voice and ’path. ‘Ingmar, look ou—’

The great beast was going fast, lowering its head like a battering ram. It struck Ingmar in the small of his back, launching him into the air. Slvasta felt his pain and shock at the crippling
blow. Even that faded as Ingmar lost consciousness. Then Slvasta was instinctively rolling over himself as Quanda’s booted foot kicked at his head. She missed, and he rolled again. A smeared
image of Jamenk lying on his back, with one of the mod-apes pummelling him, its hoof-fist smashing his face again and again. The semi-conscious corporal’s blood running everywhere –
over his cheeks, chin, nose, mouth, neck – soaking into the ground.

Slvasta just managed to get to his feet, swaying about. He slapped an order into the mod-dwarf’s mind, telling it to aim the flamethrower at Quanda. But it simply stood there, then slowly
brought the nozzle round until it was lined up on him. And Quanda was walking quickly towards him, her face blank. Slvasta charged right at her. He had nothing else. Swinging his fist, ready to
follow up with a savage kick.

Her hand grabbed his. She was so
fast
. They’d told him Fallers were quick, but he never expected anything like this! Strong, too. It was like being clamped in an iron vice. Then
she twisted. Slvasta was spun round by the incredible force. Quanda’s heel smashed into the back of his knee.

He thought the bone had broken. Certainly something tore. The pain was horrifying. He dropped to the ground, wailing.

‘This is what they send?’ Quanda asked in a mocking tone. ‘The finest warriors on the planet?’

‘Fuck you,’ he managed to croak.

Sunlight was in his eyes. It vanished as she walked round him. He blinked up fearfully.
Is she going to eat me?

‘No. I’m not.’

A hand grasped the front of his shirt and tugged him up to his knees. Her beautiful face was centimetres from his. She studied him intently. ‘I’m not hungry. Not right
now.’

He tried to strike out with his teekay, going for her eyes just as he had with the mod-ape. But the blow rebounded from her shell, and she didn’t even flinch. Still her eyes were looking
into his. He felt the toe of her boot shove at his good knee, pushing his legs apart.

‘You things barely have thoughts,’ she said in a dry growl. ‘Just instincts. You are animal. I almost pity the one who will absorb you.’

He had to concentrate to understand her voice – Fallers had broken, gravelly voices, it was right there on page five of the Institute manual. ‘We will burn you from our world,’
he snarled defiantly. ‘I swear it. No matter what the cost.’

Her free arm swung back, then powered forward. Slvasta saw her eyes widen in anticipation just as her fist slammed into his balls. He thought the pain would fracture his skull open, it was so
intense. There was nothing else but the pain. He knew he was vomiting. Tumbling down. She stood above him, magnificent and terrible.

Then a mod-ape dragged him across the compound towards the barn he’d been so eager to reach just moments before, his face bumping along the ground, stones shredding his cheek. That pain
was infinitesimal compared to the rest. Another mod-ape tugged Ingmar along behind him. Slvasta didn’t care. The pain was too great. His eyes fell shut. And he was in darkness, him and the
pain, alone together. Falling.

*

Consciousness was more pain. It also brought the overwhelming misery, a loathing of simply being alive.

That’s not going to last for much longer
, he knew
.

Slvasta didn’t want to open his eyes. Didn’t want to scan round with his ex-sight. He was too afraid of what might be revealed.

‘Are you awake?’ Ingmar’s ’path asked him softly.

Slvasta opened his eyes, blinking away sticky tear-diluted blood. They were in the barn Quanda had been leading them to, with light filtering in through high windows. There were empty animal
stalls, while the floor of the aisle where he lay naked was hard-packed soil covered in filthy straw.

Directly in front of him were two Faller eggs. Slvasta whimpered in dread. All the stories and descriptions were true. The things were spherical, almost three metres in diameter, with a dark
crinkled skin. A naked Jamenk was spread eagled against one, like a comedy
splat
on a wall.

Tears started flowing freely down Slvasta’s torn cheeks at the sight of him. The corporal’s face and chest had already sunk below the surface. Ingmar, also stripped out of his
clothes, had been shoved sideways against the second egg. His leg and arm were already inside, with his ribcage just starting to sink in; he was craning his neck to keep his head away from the
surface.

‘No!’ Slvasta groaned, and tried to get to his feet despite his ruined knee. He couldn’t move. His bare skin suddenly became ice cold and started sweating. He turned his head.
The third Faller egg curved above him. His right arm had sunk in almost up to his elbow. He let his head fall back, and let out a wretched death-howl as he pissed himself.

‘It’s okay,’ Ingmar was saying. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Okay?’ Slvasta burbled hysterically. ‘Oh-fucking-kay? Okay? Okay? How the crud is this okay?’

His friend gave him a sad smile. ‘We can kill each other.’

Slvasta let out a demented giggle.

‘We can,’ Ingmar insisted. ‘We can use a teekay grip on each other’s heart. Squeeze together.’

‘Fuck the Skylords. Ingmar, no!’

‘Please, Slvasta. As soon as my skull reaches the egg, it’ll be over for me. It will have me. I’ll be a Faller. Is that what you want?’

‘No.’

‘Then let us do this. Together.’

Slvasta sent his ex-sight probing into the egg, trying to see what kind of grip it had on him. There wasn’t much he could perceive beyond the surface, just dense shadows. Yet there was
some kind of mind in there, steely thoughts he could make no sense of other than a simple glow of expectancy. Nothing like the bright colourful tangle of unguarded human thoughts, forever
discordant with emotion.

Although he could sense its outline, he couldn’t feel his lower arm, but it wasn’t cold, or in pain, there was just . . . nothing. He tried pulling. Of course, it didn’t move.
He shrank his teekay down to a point, like the tip of an axe, and stabbed repeatedly into the shell around his arm. Nothing. The shell didn’t bend or crack. His attack had no effect
whatsoever. He realized his arm was slightly deeper inside, the shell was now up to the top of his radius and ulna.

‘We have to do it,’ Ingmar said. He was making no attempt to spin a shell round his thoughts. Sadness and exhaustion were emanating out of him. ‘We can deny them this. We can
deny them us. It’s our last weapon.’

‘Is it?’ Quanda walked down the aisle towards them. She paused at Jamenk’s prone form, and inspected him before moving on to Ingmar. ‘What a fearsome weapon that is. Can
you feel my fear?’

‘Rot in Uracus, bitch,’ Ingmar said.

She put her hand on his cheek and glanced down at Slvasta. ‘Do it. If you want him dead.’

‘Yes,’ Ingmar pleaded. ‘Please, Slvasta. Once it gets to my brain, that’s it. Please.’

Slvasta watched through a fresh agony. He formed his teekay into a hand and slowly extended it out towards Ingmar. So close, waiting to push it through his friend’s body and crush his
heart.

‘Do it,’ Ingmar shouted.

Slvasta could sense Ingmar’s teekay hovering above his own ribs. ‘I . . . I can’t,’ he admitted woefully. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’

‘I thought you were my friend,’ Ingmar wept. ‘How can you leave me to Fall?’

Slvasta shook his head, hating himself for his weakness.

With a mirthless grin, Quanda slowly began to push Ingmar’s head. He fought her, every centimetre of the way. His neck muscles stood proud. Teekay scrabbling at her impervious shell, then
trying to reinforce his own muscles. It made no difference; the Faller was too strong. She pushed the side of his face against the egg surface. It stuck there immediately. Ingmar started wailing.
‘Slvasta, please Slvasta. It will take me. It will take all of me. I will never be fulfilled, I will not be guided to the Heart. Help me. Kill me.’

‘Monster,’ Slvasta hissed. ‘Why are you so evil?’

Quanda squatted down beside him and cocked her head to one side, studying him, always studying. ‘You make us; we are formed by you, your body and your mind. This – what I am, the way
I think – it is inherited from your kind. It is vile. You, your species, is animal, brutal, despicable. Once we have exterminated you, it will take a generation to breed you out of us. But we
will be free in the end.’

‘You will never defeat us. Freak monster. The Heart is for us, not you. You will never be fulfilled.’

‘We have been before. We will be again.’

Slvasta heard the words, but they didn’t make any sense. He tugged at his arm again, but the egg gripped it with a hold stronger than a century-old tree root. ‘Crudbitch.’ He
looked up, and examined the rafters and beams holding up the barn’s roof. A lot of the timbers were thick and heavy. Maybe . . . He used his teekay to try and shift one above Jamenk’s
egg. Just to loosen it would be enough. In his head he had a vision of a huge joist crashing down, crushing the egg.

‘You can kill Jamenk?’ Ingmar yelled in outrage.

‘Because he’s already dead. Fallen,’ Slvasta shouted back.

Quanda chuckled. Then stopped, her head coming up, eyes staring at something outside the walls. ‘Were you alone?’ she snapped.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Slvasta told her.

There was a burst of gunfire outside.

‘In here!’ Slvasta shouted, making his ’path as powerful as he could. ‘There’s a Faller in here!’ He sent out Quanda’s image, twined with all the hate
in his body.

She smacked him on the side of his head. The world didn’t make sense for a long moment. There was more gunfire. Mod-apes were chittering in fury and panic. The soft roar of
flamethrowers.

‘There,’ a voice called. ‘She’s there!’

More and more gunfire. Bullets punched through the barn’s timbers, sending small splinters whizzing through the air. Slim beams of sunlight punctured the gloomy interior, shining through
each bullet hole.

‘Die, you bitch!’ Slvasta shouted jubilantly. ‘Uracus awaits you!’ His smile was more a snarl as he turned to Ingmar. That was when his elation died. Ingmar’s cheek
and ear had sunk below the egg’s surface. He was silent, his bright familiar thoughts slowing and dimming, somehow drifting into the egg. ‘No. No, no, no! Hold on, Ingmar, fight it.
They’re almost here.’

Strong ex-sights played through the shack, examining every solid object. Slvasta dropped his shell, welcoming the scrutiny. The doors burst open.

Marines were running in. Fantastic black-clad figures, holding small carbines, their ex-sight probing hard now.

One of them, a captain, walked over to Jamenk first, then Ingmar, looking closely at his head.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ Slvasta sobbed. ‘He’s my friend and I couldn’t do it.’

‘Look away, lad,’ the captain said sternly.

Slvasta did as he was told, closing his eyes and withdrawing his ex-sight. A single shot rang out. He glanced at his arm. His elbow had been swallowed by the egg surface now. ‘Is she
dead?’ he demanded. ‘Is the Faller bitch dead?’

The captain stood over him. ‘Yeah. We got her.’

‘Then I’m fulfilled,’ Slvasta declared, with very brittle bravado. ‘Will the Skylords guide me?’

‘Were there any more of them?’ the captain asked. ‘Any more Fallers?’ Marines were manoeuvring a large cart through the barn’s open doors.

‘No. No, sir, I don’t think so. We only saw her. How did you know? How did you find us?’

More Marines were coming in. They carried heavy axes. Blades fell on the egg Jamenk was stuck to, swung with fierce enthusiasm. Before long, a thick milky liquid started to spray out of the tiny
splits. Flamethrowers began to play across the egg fluid, boiling it as procedure demanded. According to Captain Cornelius’s manual, even the egg fluid was dangerous.

‘A regiment patrol intercepted the Shilos’ cart a day and a half ago,’ the captain said. ‘They were all Fallers. Uracus of a fight, by all accounts. Looks like this nest
has been established here for a while – there are quite a few human bones left in the house. We came as soon as we got word. Shame we didn’t get to you in time.’

‘I understand.’ Slvasta took a breath and closed his eyes. ‘Do it, sir, please.’

He didn’t mean to use his ex-sight, but he perceived one of the Marines coming up behind him. Braced himself –

But there was no shot to the head. No deliverance. The Marine started wrapping a slim rope round his eggsumed arm, just below the shoulder, tying it in an unusual knot.

‘What?’ Slvasta grunted in confusion.

‘Bite on this,’ the captain said in a sympathetic voice, and pushed a small length of wood towards his face. ‘It’ll do till you faint.’

‘What?’

A Marine handed the captain a saw.

Slvasta started screaming. The wood was jammed into his mouth. The tourniquet was tightened.

He tried to squirm free. But the egg held him resolutely in place.

The grim-faced captain started sawing.

With Varlan situated just over a thousand kilometres south of the equator, every day in Bienvenido’s capital was a hot one. Even now, close to midnight, the cobbled
streets and stone walls were still radiating out the heat they’d been punished with during the day.

Kervarl looked out of the cab’s windows as it trundled along Walton Boulevard, trying not to appear like a complete neophyte to the person who rode the cab with him. He was an important
man back in Boutzen county, two thousand kilometres south at the end of the Southern City Line. But Boutzen was just a county capital, dwarfed in scale by Varlan.