The Recollection (23 page)

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^76% FIGHTING

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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

PREDATORY FISH

The first step was the worst. Inching out above the churning sea, Ed dug his fingers into the crumbling shale of the cliff wall. The stone barked his knuckles. The cold sea air scraped his throat, numbed his hands. His clothes felt like rags, still damp with sweat. His muscles ached from his fight with Krous.

From the cave mouth, Alice watched with wide, appalled eyes.

“Be careful,” she said.

Ed bit his lip. He could hardly breathe. He was trying not to look down. Blindly, his foot searched for purchase. He got a toehold, but his boot slipped. Shards of dislodged stone spiralled away towards the white water below.

“Ed!”

“I’m okay.”

He tried again, until he found a more secure hold. Then he pulled himself up, making room for her.

“Come on.” He held out a hand, but Alice shook her head.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to try.” He suppressed a shiver. It was cold out here. The light had started to die in the sky. All their warm clothes had been lost with the Land Rover. If night fell and the temperature dropped, they’d be in trouble.

“Come on. You’re one of the bravest people I know.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

He reached for her again. As he did so, actinic white light flashed in the depths of the cavern. Alice turned her head to look back at the arch.

“Oh!”

She scrambled out onto the bare rock, putting her feet where his had been a moment before. Her auburn hair caught the light. Behind her, a raptor appeared, snapping at her heels. Its claws skittered on the rock and in its determination to catch her, it almost tipped over the edge, into the sea. Ed grabbed Alice by the arm and helped her find a secure handhold.

“Okay?”

She swallowed. She had her eyes shut.

“They followed us.”

“I thought they would.”

Ed turned to reach for the next ledge. He could see the lip of the cliff above, tantalisingly close. Moving only one limb at a time, he levered himself painfully upward. His arms shook with the effort. The rough stone hurt his hands.

“Keep going,” he panted. “We’re nearly there.”

His breath came in clouds before him. In the cave mouth, the creature snarled and snapped like an angry dog.

“Ed?”

“Don’t worry. It can’t get to us.”

Suddenly, the creature yelped. Ed glanced down to see it tumbling end-over-end into the abyss, all six paws scrabbling desperately at the thin, cold air. As it neared the bottom, it started to howl. Ed looked away before it hit.

“Jesus.”

Shivering against the cold, he heaved himself up and over the cliff’s crumbling edge. For a few seconds, he lay panting in the dirt, his shaking hands curled in agony. Then he gathered the last of his strength and rolled onto his front, reaching down over the edge of the precipice.

“Okay,” he said to Alice, “I’m here.”

A sunburned head appeared at the mouth of the cave, looking down at the fallen raptor.

Krous!

Ed froze. Seeing his expression, Alice glanced down. Her face paled. She looked up with a question in her eyes:
What do we do?

Ed put a finger to his lips. He cast around, hunting for a weapon. Behind him, gently rolling heath stretched away to a range of hills. All he could see that might be of use were stones.

At the mouth of the cave, Krous turned to look upward. He’d been mauled again. There were fresh scratches across the peeling skin of his face and neck. His eyes were the dull eyes of a predatory fish, and his tongue lolled from beneath the remains of his moustache.

“Leave us alone,” Ed warned.

Krous didn’t answer. With slow deliberation, he edged out onto the rock face, moving with the confidence of an experienced climber.

Ed thrust his hand down to Alice. “Quickly,” he said.

She began pulling herself up, her fear lending her a new burst of strength. She was close to the top, but Krous climbed faster.

“Get away from her,” Ed said. He caught Alice by the arm and dragged her up and over the edge, onto firmer ground.

“Can you run?” he said.

Alice shook her head. She had no breath to talk. Her hands were bleeding. The knees of her jeans were worn ragged. Desperately, Ed surveyed the desolate scenery. Even if she were capable of moving, he couldn’t see any shelter.

“Stay here,” he said. He picked up a fist-sized stone and showed it to Krous.

“Why are you doing this? Why did you kill her?”

The soldier paused, hanging from his hands and feet.

“Lieutenant Cole?” He turned his head and spat. “What does it matter? What difference does it make? We’re all dead, aren’t we. None of us are going home. We’re all alone out here.”

“But you killed her.”

The soldier slid a knife from his thigh pocket.

“Don’t,” said Ed. He raised the stone. Krous ignored him. With the blade between his teeth, he started climbing again.

“I mean it.” Ed let the stone drop. It hit the other man in the shoulder. Krous let out a grunt of annoyance, and the stone fell away into empty air.

Ed picked up another, slightly larger.

“Stay back,” he said.

Krous glowered at him, and pulled the knife from his mouth.

“I’m going to kill the two of you as soon as I get up there,” he said. His eyes flashed. “Although, of course, I may take my time with your little friend.” He reached up and pulled himself another metre closer to the top. Ed’s heart hammered. His mouth was dry. He squeezed the stone in his fist.

“That’s it,” he said. “That is
it
.”

He got to his knees and whipped the stone down with as much force as he could muster. It hit Krous on the arm, almost dislodging him completely. The soldier cried in pain and anger, dropping the knife. The injured arm dangled uselessly.

Ed scrambled over to a larger stone. This one was the size of a human skull, and heavy enough that he could only just heft it in one hand. He dragged it over to the cliff edge and looked down at Krous. The man swung from his one good hand.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Ed said. He could hardly breathe. He’d never been this angry in his entire life. “I’ve had enough of the arches, of you and those animals, and the
fucking
Serbians.”

Krous snarled up at him. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Hands shaking, Ed raised the rock above his head.

“Last chance,” he said.

Krous laughed hoarsely. “Fuck you. You’re a painter, you don’t have the guts.”

Ed tasted something sour at the back of his throat. His pulse drummed in his ears.

“No,” he said. He climbed to his feet. Krous looked up at him. For a long moment, the two men stared into each other’s bloodshot eyes, and Ed saw in them the madness that had crept in following the loss of his comrades and the days he’d spent alone at sea on that giant wooden hulk. Ordinarily, Ed would have felt sorry for the man, but out here, there could be no truce, no discussion. Krous had already killed once and Ed had every reason to believe he’d kill again, just as soon as he reached solid ground. They couldn’t outrun him and they couldn’t placate him. Out here, the only thing they could rely on was themselves.

He gave the rock a final squeeze, swallowed hard, and let it fall. Krous tried to turn away but it slammed into his chest. He cried out and lost his grip. His hands flailed as he desperately tried to save himself. Then he fell, tumbling backward into the abyss.

Amplified by the rock walls, his scream went on for a long, long time. Even after it was over, it seemed to hang in the frosty air, rolling back and forth across the cliff tops in time to the surge of the waves on the rocks below. Neither Ed nor Alice spoke. They just stood, looking down at the crumpled figure in the surf. Ed kept glancing at his open right hand—and the rock it no longer held. Then, as the final echoes faded to nothing, he became aware of another sound. He tilted his head.

“Can you hear something?”

He turned slowly, just as a camouflaged halftrack appeared over the nearest rise. Its caterpillar tracks flicked up dust and stones, and an unfamiliar flag flapped from its aerial. Soldiers fanned out behind it, guns at the ready. One of them jerked a thumb at the floor.

“Get down,” he barked. “Put your hands behind your back.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

MEET THE MONSTER

Victor booked them into a hotel suite on Strauli, in a city less than fifty kilometres from the Abdulov family compound. The room looked out over the spaceport. It had a large double bed, and the staff delivered a bowl of fresh fruit each and every morning. They’d been together for six subjective months, and now they were planning to ship out from the Quay together, as crew-members on a Blue Star Trading vessel taking a run up the coreward stars to Nolton Relay, on the very edge of explored space.

In the week before the departure, they lay wrapped in each other’s arms, telling each other of the sights they would see and the wonders they would experience. It was their dream. They had both flown before, but this time it would be different, as they were doing it for each other. They would crew together and save up enough to buy their own ship.

“Not one of those old clunkers,” Victor said, looking out of the window at the derelicts left rusting in the rain at the edge of the port. They were old ships no-one could be bothered to repair. They had outlived their usefulness and, in some cases, their owners. They had names like
Tortilla Moon, Candy Star
and
Ameline.

“We’ll get a new one, a fast one,” he said. “The best we can afford.”

Kat had already emptied the trust fund her family had put aside for her, and transferred the balance to an anonymous account. When topped-up with their earnings from this trip, it would be enough to put a deposit on a new trading ship.

She hugged him.

“We can, can’t we? We can do that.”

Then, the morning before they were due to leave, she took a pregnancy test. She’d been feeling strange for a few days. At first, she’d put it down to excitement. Then she started feeling queasy at night, as she lay in bed. She took the test in the bathroom of the hotel suite, while Victor was out, buying in a few last minute essentials. When the test came up positive, she stared at it in dismay. She didn’t know how it had happened. Or rather, she did, but didn’t know how they could have been so careless. She was twenty-two years old and just taking her first steps away from home. She didn’t want to be pregnant. Not now. She wanted to prove herself, get her own ship first. She didn’t want Victor to feel obligated. It was too soon in their relationship.

So she delayed the decision.

She pulled on her coat and took herself off to the hospital.

The operation was a simple one: a small incision, the foetus removed and placed in storage; still alive but frozen. The whole procedure took less than ten minutes. Afterwards, the surgeon glued her closed and told her she wouldn’t even have a scar. He told her to stop crying. She could have the child re-implanted at any time, and carry it to term naturally, if that’s what she wanted. In the meantime, it would be here on ice, waiting for her.

Outside the hospital, the rain still pattered on the pavements. At this stage her baby—
their
baby—was only a cluster of cells, smaller than her smallest fingernail. Would it know it had been frozen? Would it feel time passing it by?

She walked all the way back to the hotel, water streaming down her face. By the time she got there, she was a wet, sniveling mess.

“Where have you been?” Victor said. He had their cases packed and ready to go. A bottle of wine stood open on the nightstand, two plastic glasses ready to toast their adventure. When she told him what she’d done, he sat on the bed. He scratched the bridge of his nose.

“You should have told me,” he said.

Kat folded her arms across her chest. She sniffled miserably.

“I thought you’d be angry.”