The Red Queen (51 page)

Here Ahmedri fell silent for a time, and what else Straaka had said, he did not tell, only that when he woke, he was no longer fevered, only dreadfully weak. He was thin too, and had the uneasy feeling days had passed. He thought luck had been with him again, for the
rhenlings
had not come and attacked while he was helpless.

‘The truth is that what saved me was the fact that I did not light a fire save on that one disastrous night at the oasis, and that I slept so heavily and deeply and used the silver blanket for warmth every night as I travelled in the direction my brother had bidden me go. For aside from being drawn to any light less than full moonlight, the
rhenlings
are very sensitive to body heat. It is the chief way they find prey, other than by sound,’ he said. ‘Idiot’s luck, Jakoby calls it.’

‘It may be that the swarm he saw the first night was bound for Habitat,’ Swallow said. ‘Ana says that the sound we heard is in part too high for humans to hear, but it travels very far, and it is this that draws the
rhenlings
.’

‘Perhaps,’ Ahmedri said, smiling a little. ‘I have learned there is very much that I did not know when I thought myself so knowledgeable in Sador. It has so shattered my certainty that I fear I am inclined to think now that almost everything I know is but the smallest part of the great deal I do not know.’

Ana laughed, but Swallow only looked somewhat sour.

‘Go on!’ Dragon begged.

Ahmedri did, saying that it had taken him many days to reach the settlement his brother had told him about, for he could travel no more than an hour or so before having to rest. He soon ran out of water, but in a dream his brother came again to tell him that one of the devices he carried had the ability to create water.’

‘What device?’ I asked, but Ana spoke too, saying eagerly that she knew which device he meant, for when she had been searching the storage in Midland for useful devices, God had suggested a waterbox. Locating it, she had immediately recognised it as identical to one of the devices Swallow had brought down from the observing house in the mountains. It produced a very little amount at any one time, no more than a cup every two hours. Ahmedri nodded, saying that was exactly it, and that it worked best at night. So though he had water, he was in a constant torment of thirst, yet it was enough to keep him from dying. He spent hours at a time lying under the silver blanket, sleeping for the most part, but twice he saw the
rhenlings,
once a great terrifying swarm of them that had blotted out a sliver of waxing moon – and once a smaller swarm that had passed very close, as they swooped on a seep of water he had left not more than an hour before. The Sadorians called such a seep a lick, he explained courteously, when Dameon asked. He had seen the seep from afar because it glowed and he had feared it was tainted until he came close enough to see it was seething with the same little shining insects we had seen in the mountains and in the
graag
. Draining water through cloth, he had remembered how the great concentration of them in the midst of the
graag
had prevented the creatures approaching.

And so had he begun to build his knowledge of the
rhenlings
.

Twice throughout his journey, the scratches on his hand flared up again, though never so severely as the first time, but each time he was forced to lie shivering and sweating for hours under the silver blanket, drifting in and out of sleep. He was sustained by the few gulps of water the Beforetime device provided and by some dried berries he had got from tiny plants in the oasis, which was all he could stomach. He had the remnants of our supplies in the one pack he had found, but in truth it was difficult for him to eat and his weakness increased.

By the time he saw the unmistakable outline of Beforetime buildings in the distance, and knew he had reached the settlement described by his brother, he was virtually starving and barely capable of sensible thought. Only fear of the
rhenlings
kept him moving, because that day, the sky clouded over darkly and whatever moon there was would be completely hidden.

‘I saw them rising from a distance, glancing back,’ he said. ‘A great boiling cloud of them coming right for me and I was on a flat sandy plain rather than half hidden in the dunes. I knew that if I did not find cover very quickly they would have me. I threw down my burdens, knowing I could return for them later, and began to stumble along as quickly as I could.

‘It was then that I realised a wolf was loping along beside me.’

‘A
wolf
?’ I asked, startled. ‘Was it Descantra?’

Before he could answer, God spoke. ‘User Seeker, Anomaly Miryum is waking.’

‘What?’ I rose, dismayed, dimly registering Ahmedri’s look of astonishment at hearing a voice coming from nowhere. ‘I did not bid you resurrect her!’

‘As your mind broke the sleep imposed by the cryopod, so did the mind of the woman, Miryum,’ God said. ‘Medication was increased, but the cryosleep was broken. The anomaly must be fully resurrected before she can safely be returned to cryosleep.’

‘God, what of the sickness she carries?’ Ana asked.

‘It has become active, Technician Ana, but the anomaly will be returned to cryosleep before then,’ God said.

‘Are you so sure of that?’ I asked. ‘After all, I did not return to cryosleep. You had to have the andrones put me in Habitat. It will be the same with this anomaly. But I believe Hannah gave you some instruction about her.’ This was a wild guess, but perhaps Hannah had enabled me to go into the special storage because she had foreseen Miryum would be there, and would need help to wake so that she could serve my quest.

‘User Hannah said User Seeker must be given all possible aid within the parameters of my programming, in order that she can complete her mission,’ God said.

‘Then I think you know from our conversations, God, that my quest requires some information held by the woman you are calling Anomaly Miryum. I think your programming will allow you to let her wake even if she is an anomaly.’

‘All anomalies may be removed from cryopods for investigation and gathering of data,’ God said. ‘Anomaly Miryum can be permitted to remain conscious until she expires if you wish, User Seeker. But she must be sealed within a biohazard unit before the Endrax virus becomes contagious, in accordance with Safety Protocol Fourteen.’

I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Dameon. ‘It must have been us. Somehow by shattering her dream we roused her so successfully that she was able to use coercion to break the cryosleep.’

‘She will know nothing of her sickness, nor how weak she will be when she wakes,’ Dameon warned.

‘I know it,’ I said. ‘Nor will she have any idea of how long she has been asleep. I had better go now and try to reach her mind; prepare her somewhat, if I can, before she becomes conscious.’

‘I will go with you,’ Dameon said, rising.

Ahmedri rose too and said he must go with us. I wanted to tell the tribesman to rest, for there was nothing he could do until Miryum woke. But one look at his face told me he would not be dissuaded. Bidding the others remain when they would have come, I departed with the two men, Dameon holding my elbow lightly, for the way was not yet familiar to him. As we passed through the streets of a city falling into false dusk, I explained succinctly what sort of state Miryum would be in and told Ahmedri everything God had told me about the Endrax virus. I had been somewhat alarmed about his scratches, but seeming to divine this, he looked at his wrist and said he had certainly not been bitten. He hardly seemed to notice our surroundings, and he did not wonder at all how it could be dusk beneath the ground, but maybe Swallow had told him some of it.

‘My brother’s woman could be saved if this computermachine could reach out to another computermachine?’ he asked at last.

‘It would have to be a govamen computermachine,’ I said, and then explained how we meant to repair the connection between Midland and Northport so that, if we did find a govamen computer, we could reach out to God and connect it to the store of information it needed to concoct a cure, not just for Miryum but for all the sleepers who had been infected with the same sickness, or with others that could be cured. Dameon added that such a connection would also enable God to release all of the people in Habitat.

‘I am hoping that you will take all of this information to Dell in Oldhaven and to Garth at Obernewtyn and even to Norseland where our dreams tell us they have unearthed a computermachine, in the hope that one of them is a govamen computermachine, and can be made to work.’

‘That would take time,’ Ahmedri said slowly. ‘Does she have that time?’

I explained my hope that Miryum would allow herself to be returned to cryosleep so that the sickness she carried would not progress to the infectious stage. That way she could sleep until a cure was found.

‘You would have her remain here in one of these cryopods?’ the tribesman asked.

‘If she will not, she will die of the sickness she carries in a month or so. I would not even have resurrected her, had I any say in it. I meant to enter her mind and speak to her to learn whatever it is that I need to know for my quest, then to offer her the choice. I hope she is only to
tell
me something. And of course I will ask her about Straaka’s body . . . his bones.’

Ahmedri nodded and fell silent, frowning to himself. After a time, Dameon asked him if the wolf that had run beside him as he approached the settlement had been the wounded female we had found injured just before the sandstorm.

‘It was a male, old and grizzled,’ Ahmedri answered. ‘Not one of Rheagor’s pack, from what I could tell. At first I feared it meant to attack me, but then I saw it was limping and I realised it was running from the
rhenlings
, too. All the while this was going through my mind, I was stumbling and staggering along, certain any minute the
rhenlings
would have their claws in my neck. Then I could hear them, feel the rush of wind from their wings, smell their reek. I thought we were dead, but somehow they did not attack before we reached the settlement and hurled ourselves into the first building with an open door. I slammed it and barricaded a broken window. Soon after a great cloud of
rhenlings
flew over us. At first I thought they were attacking, but they were too high. Through a crack I saw the air was thick with them. It seemed an age before the last of the column passed over us.

‘Gradually the sound faded completely. Only then did I look at the wolf, and it looked back at me. I thought it might attack me, for it was clearly starved, but it was as if there was a truce between us. It sat down and then stretched out, watching me all the while. I had no food or water to offer it, having thrown down my burdens the better to run, so there was nothing to do but wait out the night. I sat down very slowly by the wall, keeping my back to it and closing my hand around a rock. I had a knife at my belt, but I feared to draw it. I was afraid the wolf would attack if I made any movement that it interpreted as aggressive, then I feared it would attack if I fell asleep. Eventually I did sleep and when I woke, the wolf was lying by the door sleeping, too. I was so weary and wretched that I simply stretched out on the ground, thinking it could have me if it had the energy to eat me. I slept again, and when I woke, it was dawn and I was terribly thirsty. The wolf was sitting by the door. It looked at me. I opened the door and it ran out and vanished.

‘I thought I had seen the last of it and counted myself lucky. I went to the things I had let fall, drank the little water the waterbox had produced, and after a rest, carried everything back to the building where I had spent the night. It was not the building my brother had shown me, but I was too weak to look elsewhere yet. I rested again, and then gathered enough fuel for a tiny fire which I lit just outside the door, then, for the first time since we had parted, I cooked some food, and in doing so, remembered that we had cooked in the
graag
when there had been
rhenlings
all around us. The food had not roused them. By the time the food was ready, I found I could not eat. Another bout of sickness was almost upon me. It was dusk again, and looking out, I noticed the wolf standing on the other side of the fire looking at me.’ He laughed softly. ‘In that moment, I thought I would not mind if it made a meal of me.’

I glanced at Dameon, who was listening intently, his face full of compassion.

Ahmedri shook his head. ‘I was full of self-pity and half fevered again. I told myself I was a fool and had imagined Straaka speaking to me. Then I saw that the wolf’s tongue was lolling out and there was foam about its muzzle. I pitied it, and poured half of the water from the waterbox into a pan. I pushed it towards the wolf right on the threshold of the room. It looked at me for a long time before it came forward and drank. I pushed the food I could not stomach towards it and it ate that too, watching me the whole while with its glaring eyes. I felt a strange joy in seeing it drink. I think now that my greatest hunger was not for food or drink, but for companionship, though I had not then been alone for very long and had always preferred my own company.’

‘You are sure it was not one of Rheagor’s wolves?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘It was the same kind of wolf – what you have called Brildane – but while all of the wolves looked alike to begin with, by the time they left us, I had come to know all of them by sight and some by their manners. I had no memory of this one.’

He stopped, for we were approaching the entrance to the Galon Institute. The glass doors slid open smoothly and we crossed the dark, gleaming floor of the foyer to the elevating doors, which opened and I was pleased to see light flowing softly from it. We entered and I asked God to bring us to the level of the resurrection chamber. I felt a lightness that told me we were descending swiftly.

Dameon suggested Ahmedri go on with his story, and I guessed that he had empathised the tribesman’s fear, despite his impassive expression, and sought to distract him.