The Abyss Beyond Dreams (62 page)

She lay down on top of the mattress and withdrew her ex-sight. It wasn’t that she couldn’t help at a practical level; there were a dozen housekeeping jobs that needed doing every day
while they were camped. In truth, she simply didn’t want to spend any time outside where she couldn’t ignore the mound of corpses. In here, confined by the bright walls of the tent
fabric, she could shut out the horror. Pretend her little bubble of existence was somewhere else entirely.

‘You were right,’ her whisper told the memory of Jymoar. ‘This desert can drive you mad.’

Her u-shadow produced a list of books she’d loaded in her storage lacunas from
Skylady
’s memory. She picked one called
The Hobbit
, and started reading.

*

It was past midnight when the noise woke Kysandra. The same as the previous evening – a pronounced clang, metal scraping raw against metal. Then silence.

She was sitting upright, heart pounding, sending out her ex-sight to probe the night beyond the tent.

‘It’s all right,’ Fergus said. He was sitting close to the tent, rifle cradled across his lap. ‘Nothing here.’

‘Humm,’ Nigel said. He was lying on his mattress next to her. A module close by had a purple light winking steadily. It was sending out a stream of raw data.

Just like last night.

‘Was that another quantum event?’ she asked as the nonsense tables slipped across her exovision.

‘Yes. The same as yesterday. Except it’s not precisely a daily event. The last one was twenty-seven hours and twenty-nine minutes ago.’

‘Is there something inside the exopod pile, some piece of machinery that’s still working?’

‘I’m not ruling anything out, but if it’s there, it was amazingly inert during the day for us not to detect anything at all.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Hey, it’s okay. This place freaks me out, too.’

‘When are we leaving?’

‘Tomorrow. Promise, okay? Fergus and I will finish off during the day, then we’ll pack up and start the trek back. We’ll be back at Blair Farm in three or four
weeks.’

Kysandra exhaled loudly. ‘Thank you.’

*

Most of Croixtown turned out to greet them as they rode back into the village. Sitting up in her saddle, her clothes filthy, sand itching everywhere, a sunhat flopping down
over her eyes, Kysandra couldn’t help but grin at the sight of them. Men, women and children gathering around, gazing up, half in awe, half in fear.

The mayor stood in front of them, flanked by several tough-looking men. She saw Jymoar hurrying through the crowd behind him, smiling in relief and delight. She grinned at him, gave a small
wave.

‘We are happy to see you again, señor,’ the mayor said to Nigel. He looked awkward. Apprehension was leaking through his shell. ‘Nobody has ventured into the Desert of
Bone in living memory.’

‘It is not a place you want to go,’ Nigel replied solemnly. ‘I will never return there.’

‘Is it true? Are there mountains of bones at the centre?’

‘There are bodies there,’ Nigel said loudly. The villagers let out a collective gasp. ‘A great many bodies. Thousands, probably.’ He gifted them the image of the
mummified face, forever arrested with its mouth open, teeth amalgamated with the lips. ‘They are incredibly old, killed thousands of years ago. We don’t know by what.’

‘Were they eaten?’

‘No. The bodies were all intact. There are no Fallers in the Desert of Bone, no nests.’

A few people applauded. Everyone was smiling openly now, and began to press forward, eager for details – mainly about the monster. ‘We did hear strange sounds at night,’ Nigel
said gravely, ‘but we never saw anything.’

Kysandra shook her head at his consummate showmanship. He would say nothing that was an outright lie, yet by the time he was finished, no one from Croixtown would ever travel into the desert,
and the word would spread among the other ranchero villages skirting the savannah, reinforcing the legend. The exopods would remain inviolate for another century. Or, ‘Long enough for me to
sort this mess out,’ as Nigel said on the trek back. She thought that pure bravado. But . . .

She climbed down from her horse wearily and handed the reins to Russell before slipping though the crowd. Jymoar was standing in the same place as she’d seen him, his face anxious, yet
optimism burnt hot behind his shell.

‘Told you I’d make it back,’ she said with a taunting grin.

He took an uncertain step forward. ‘You did. I never doubted you, señorita. Not you.’

She leaned forward quickly and gave him a small kiss. And he was the one who blushed. ‘I’m a mess,’ she said ruefully.

‘Never!’

Kysandra laughed, and gestured down at herself. The brown suede riding skirt was creased with mud and water stains. Her long boots were coated in sand, inside and out. White blouse had turned
grey, made worse by the unpleasant sweat stains. ‘Stop being gallant. I haven’t washed since we left, and that was weeks ago.’

‘You’ve been through a desert,’ he said. ‘And you still look amazing.’

‘Come on.’ She started walking towards the
Gothora.
When she took her floppy hat off, her hair barely moved, it had so much dirt caked in.

Arriving at the gangplank, she was inexplicably glad to see the old steamship. It resembled a stability she hadn’t known she missed, a stolid representative of her world and the way she
had lived before Nigel.

‘So what was it like?’ Jymoar asked.

‘Bad. Remind me to believe you next time.’

‘Next—’ He gave her an appalled look, which made her smirk. For all he’d travelled a lot more than her on boats up and down the Mozal, he was the naive one.

Kysandra walked round the wheelhouse where she was hidden from the shore and the rapt crowd gathered around Nigel – who was still playing them. She cast a mild fuzz and started to undo the
buttons on her blouse.

‘Uh!’ Jymoar grunted. He gave an anxious look round, but he was the only one who could see her.

She kicked the boots off and slipped her skirt down. ‘I need this very badly.’ She plonked her hat down on his head in a quick playful motion. ‘You going to join me?’ she
asked as she slithered quickly out of her grimy underwear, then jumped straight into the river.

The water was cold and delicious. There had been times, back in the desert, when she’d doubted it ever existed, that water was just some figment of her sun-punished brain. She stayed under
for a long moment, feeling the dirt start to flake off. Her hair began to move again, long strands sloughing about languidly in the current. She kicked hard and broke surface. Just in time to see a
naked Jymoar leaping off the gunnel.

He swam over to her as she luxuriated in the clean flow of water. ‘What did you find out there?’ he asked timidly.

‘Death. Death and suffering on a scale that really could drive you mad. But, strangely, in the end, it helped me.’

His open features produced a sorrowful frown. ‘How?’

‘I grew up a bit out there. I think. I know now that I’m not going to live a normal life, Jymoar. And I think what I saw, what I discovered about this world, made me come to terms
with that. I know not to waste this life I have. I know so many things are petty and stupid, and that you should grab happiness when you can, for you never know what this universe is going to throw
at you. I want to celebrate those moments of happiness. I need to be happy after the desert.’ She put her arms on top of his shoulders and twined her fingers through the thick dark hair at
the back of his head. Looking unflinchingly into his eyes as she let a lot of her shell drop. Waiting . . .

Jymoar pulled her to him and kissed her. They sank below the surface, then bobbed up together, spluttering and laughing in delight.

*

From Croixtown, it took them just two and a half weeks to reach Blair Farm. Kysandra was disappointed at how fast the
Gothora
made the trip back to Portlynn, but with
the relentless current pushing them along as well as the ship’s steam engine labouring away, they made it downstream in five days. Nigel had sold their animals to one of the rancheros in
Croixtown (at a loss), which left the forward cargo hold empty. They altered its bamboo frame and canvas so it was more like a tent, where she and Jymoar spent most of the trip locked together in
sweaty carnal bliss.

Kysandra was worried that, when it was over, she’d be unable to say goodbye. But when they did tie up at a jetty on the west shore of Nilsson Sound, just below the railway station, she
just cried a lot and wrapped her arms round him for a long hug. They both promised to write all the time and made elaborate plans and promises for her to visit next year.

It was a lovely fib to end it on. As she walked beside Nigel along the platform to the first-class carriages of the Varlan express, her eyes were still damp. She expected a lot of teasing from
Nigel, but there was none. He was supportive and sympathetic, treating her like an equal.
Like he always does, actually
, she realized. Understanding that was probably the best conclusion
the trip could possibly have.

It took the
Skylady
’s smartcore four days to read all the data from the assortment of damaged electronics they’d brought back. Then it spent another two
days piecing together coherent sequences from dozens of broken files.

‘Are you ready for this?’ Nigel asked as he came back to the farmhouse carrying a module with the newly transcribed master file in a simple old-fashioned Total Sensory Immersion
format, covering a time period lasting twenty-seven hours and forty-two minutes.

Kysandra was about to give him a boisterous: ‘’Course I am,’ but his pensive expression made her hesitate. ‘How bad is it?’

‘It explains what happened. And from a historical perspective, it’s fascinating. You’ll actually get to see Captain Cornelius. But I have to warn you, it’s not
pretty.’

‘Worse than the Desert of Bone?’

‘The scale isn’t quite the same.’

‘I’d like to see it. No. Actually, I have to see it. You know that.’

‘Yes. I know.’

She settled back in the front room’s deep settee and told her u-shadow to access the file. Her nerves tingled, as if someone had stroked a feather over all of her skin at once. Exovision
produced a blurred full-colour optical image. And she looked out of Laura Brandt’s eyes as the tank yank pulled her roughly back to consciousness.

Months of preparation, months of watching and the interminable waiting had finally paid off. They’d intercepted the eggs. Then along came the regiment squad and almost
wrecked everything. Kysandra stood on the prow of the steam-powered cargo barge as it backed away from the wanno trees lining the riverbank. Directly ahead of her, clustered in a gap between the
trees’ big weeping boughs, the idiot one-armed lieutenant and his troops watched as the pistons below deck chugged loudly, taking them away from the temporary mooring and out into the broad
channel of fast-flowing water.

‘Wave. Smile. Be happy,’ Nigel said as he stood beside her. He raised his own arm solemnly.

Across the muddy water, Lieutenant Slvasta responded with a fast, precise gesture – half-wave, half-salute.

Kysandra held back from giving him a mildly obscene gesture and waved her hand without any enthusiasm. ‘Wow, I’m amazed we’ve not been completely overrun by Fallers if
that’s what passes for officer material these days.’

‘I don’t think you’ll find a more devoted officer, frankly,’ Nigel said. ‘He’s certainly dedicated to exterminating Fallers. And he knows something’s
not quite right about us.’

‘But lacks the courage to do anything about it.’

‘That’s not lack of courage. You’re talking about someone who escaped being eggsumed. I’ve never heard of anyone being saved before.’

‘Captain Xaxon’s granddaughter,’ she said automatically as they turned from the lieutenant and made their way back to the mid cabin.

‘Who?’

‘Big part of Mrs Brewster’s history lessons. I’ll tell you about it one day. But for anyone in the regiment to succumb to a lure is just pathetic.’

Nigel sighed. ‘You’re becoming very judgemental these days.’

‘Can’t think why.’

The barge reached the middle of the river and turned downstream. The pistons reversed amid a loud clattering and began to power the boat forwards. They soon rounded a curve, taking them out of
sight of Lieutenant Slvasta and his troops.

‘You were getting very friendly with him,’ she accused. ‘I thought you were prepping him for domination.’

‘Just planting a few seeds of doubt, that’s all. The good lieutenant is seething with righteous indignation at the way things are. That’s always to be encouraged.’

Kysandra glanced at the thumb which Slvasta had cut, frowning in disapproval. ‘I’m going to get some antiseptic on this. We all should before we die of blood poisoning from your
righteous friend’s paranoia.’

‘He’s a good man in a bad world. You never know when you might need someone like that.’

‘He’s a loser.’ She gave Nigel a jubilant grin. ‘Forget him. Come on, we actually did it!’

Nigel nodded thoughtfully before breaking into a wide smile. ‘We did, didn’t we?’

Two hours later they caught up with the third steam barge, the
Mellanie
. ‘Old girlfriend?’ Kysandra had baited when Nigel renamed the boat after it had undergone a
fortnight’s refit in Adeone’s largest boatyard. Ma had been slowly squeezing the owner out over the past two years – a position Nigel had subsequently regularized to become a
sleeping partner.

‘Someone I underestimated once,’ he said with a certain distant gaze. ‘Don’t worry; it doesn’t happen often.’

In the
Mellanie
’s wheelhouse, Fergus reduced speed so they could come alongside. Kysandra followed Nigel, hopping over the narrow gap while the two barges chugged along steadily.
Russell and his team were quite content to stay on their barge, looking after the horses.

Ma Ulvon was waiting for them on deck, dressed in a tailored grey suit under a black longcoat that was still damp from the rain. A pump-action shotgun was slung across her chest on a polished
leather strap. ‘Any problems?’ she asked.