Creations (38 page)

This time Oliver was there to greet him, recognisable by his sheer width if nothing else. He stood at the top, blocking Max’s way. “Where do you think you’re going, Lowrie?” he said as Max climbed the last few steps. Max however didn’t have time to stop. Instead he slipped past Oliver, almost pushing him out of the way in the process, and ran back to the far end of the platform.

Ariel had another charge in his hands when Max returned. It looked as if he was about to throw it over.

“What are you doing?” Max said.

Ariel looked at Max briefly, seemingly in irritation, and carried on with arming the timer. It was Damon who answered.

“There’s nothing else we can do,” he said. “We can’t just stand here and wait for them to bring the whole place down.”

There wasn’t time to argue, Max decided. Instead he moved along the platform to where there was more room and set the marker poles down in front of him. Ariel had already thrown the charge over the side and Max found himself instinctively turning away in case any fragments came his way. He felt the force of the explosion hitting the structure, then he carried on working. First he took the spade and banged it repeatedly against the metal floor until the end of it had bent round like a lip. Then he picked up one of the poles and laid it on top of the spade, with the sharp end pointing forward and the other end slotted into the lip. Finally, he gripped the whole thing by the handle of the spade, held it high above his right shoulder, and let loose.

It was an action he had practised many times in the past. As his right arm came forward like a javelin thrower, he let the free end of the spade arc outward, effectively lengthening his arm by almost two feet. The pole moved forward too, but held back by its own inertia it began to bend in the middle as Max propelled it forward by its back end. Even the spade itself flexed slightly, so fast was the motion. Then, just as the force of the stroke reached its peak, the spade and the pole sprang back again, releasing the energy stored in them and adding their own contributions to the speed and force of the throw. The pole shot away from Max, faster than his eyes could follow, and flew down toward the machines beneath him.

It hit one of them right in the centre of its body, burying itself almost a foot inside the thing. The machine staggered, then fell over onto its side, its limbs thrashing as if still trying to run. Safi and the others had been looking at Max in amazement but now all eyes were on the machine, as it writhed across the ground,
burying itself in the dust.

“Jesus, what did you just do to it?” Damon said.

“It’s an atlatl, an old hunting weapon,” Max said, already preparing the next spear. “Prehistoric probably, but it still works against these things.”

The next two shots were misses, but at the third attempt he hit another of the machines. This one was hit in the head and once it had fallen, it didn’t move at all.

“Nice work,” Harris said. “Reckon you can get the rest of them?”

Max looked down at the poles at his feet. There were barely two dozen of them left, though by now more than forty machines were swarming round Anchorville, breaking up its lower supports.

“Do any of those other rovers have poles like these?” he said. “I didn’t get time to look.”

“I don’t know,” Damon said. “Let me go and check.” He ran back along the platform until he could spot the rovers below him. “I can see some!” he said. “Wait there!”

He carried on along the length of the platform, heading for the top of the stairway. He was about halfway along when two more explosions rocked the structure, as one of the ESOS groups resumed their attacks on the machines. The group was right next to where Damon was running and had obviously decided for themselves that risking the explosions was better than doing nothing. Damon staggered briefly against the safety rail as the platform shook, then carried on. Safi started running after him, shouting at the ESOS group as she did do.

“Stop! You don’t need to use those!” she called. “We’ve got” Then she stopped dead.

The whole section of platform, over fifty feet in length, had just collapsed right in front of her. It went down slowly, much slower than it would do on Earth, but there was still no time for those standing on it to react. First it bowed in the middle as the
pillar supporting it gave way, then it folded up completely, sliding off the neighbouring pillars and plunging fifty feet to the ground below. In the space where seven people had been standing, now there was nothing. Most of them had been from ESOS. One of them had been the injured man they’d carried up the stairs. One of them had been Damon.

Safi ran to the edge and looked over. “Oh my God, they’re still moving,” she said. “They’re still alive!”

Everyone else was on the scene in seconds, the remaining ESOS men on one side of the gap, and, Max, Harris and Ariel on the same side as Safi. Down below was in chaos. Of the seven people who had fallen, two were lying motionless. One of them was face down, and it was clear that his faceplate had been shattered by the fall. The other five were moving, but only two of them were on their feet. They could tell from the shoulder patches that Damon was one of them.

Harris and Safi were shouting to him, but the communication channels were clogged with shouts and calls from other people. In amongst the yelling they could hear groans and cries from those still lying on the ground. Then the first of the machines arrived.

Four of them came at first, cutting and grabbing at any metal parts they could find, stripping out the refined materials that were their ultimate objective. For the men on the ground, that included the suits they were wearing.

The first to die was one of the ESOS men, lying in a heap amongst a pile of twisted metalwork. If he even saw the machine approaching, he wasn’t able to avoid it. Those above however could easily see as the machine cut into one of his legs, his arms and his other leg suddenly flailing in pain and panic as he realised what was happening to him.

Max got the spear thrower reloaded just as the man was being dismembered. With only the slightest pause, he raised it up and took aim at the machine. Safi was standing on one side of him
and Ariel was on the other. They both moved outward to give him more room. Max reached back and flung the spear down, almost vertically. It hit the machine dead centre.

The machine stopped, jerked once, then fell over onto its side, motionless. For the man on the ground, however, it was too late. The machine had already cut away most of the metalwork he was lying on, shredding whatever parts of his body happened to be in the way. All that could be seen of his legs and lower half was a mess of suit material and dark brown matter, the remains of his flesh, freeze-dried by the vacuum. His hands clenched and unclenched in spasms as what was left of his body went through the last few seconds of its life, but there was no sound at all; inside that depressurised suit, even his final scream was denied him.

It was no different to what they had seen happen to the rover driver on the video link, but somehow this was far worse. Max turned away at once, clutching for the safety rail, trying to keep himself standing. Something far more pressing than staying upright was now on his mind though: he was going to throw up, and if he did then he was as good as dead. He would block the breathing hoses in his suit and suffocate in seconds.

He gripped the rail, squeezing his eyes shut, and tried to slow his breathing. He could feel the oxygen supply being blown over his face and he tried to empty his mind of everything except the pine-scented coolness of the gas and the humming of the fans. However, he didn’t manage it for long. Whatever was happening on the ground below him, it appeared that the machines were now taking fresh victims, and this time every detail could be heard.

The sounds coming through his headset were indescribable: one wailing scream after another, grown men shrieking and crying, barely knowing what was happening to them except that they were about to die, and in amongst it he could hear his own name too, being shouted out again and again. It was Safi’s voice,
and Harris’s as well, shouting at him to get back to the edge, to carry on taking out the machines and save whoever might be left. All Max wanted however was for the noise to stop. If he could have reached inside his helmet and ripped the headset away from his ears then he would have done. In reality though, he knew what he had to do. He forced himself away from the railing, then went back to the edge and looked down. And what he saw below him was like a vision of hell.

Ten machines were now on the scene, taking advantage of the sudden windfall of high-grade metals and materials. They were frantically cutting up the pile, hacking through anything or anyone that got in their way, while the two people who were still on their feet did their best to fend them off. Damon and the other man could be seen hitting one of them with lengths of girder that they’d found among the wreckage but with little real effect. Then Damon picked up another piece of debris, sharp-tipped where it had broken off its support, and stabbed the machine through its side. It looked as if it had taken all of his strength to do it, but that at least had more of a result. The machine shuddered, then lashed out with its legs, rolling away from them across the wreckage as its limbs flailed and jerked at random before finally coming to rest. There were still more machines to deal with though, as one after another arrived at the site of the collapse.

On the other side of the gap more ESOS men were now running back toward the stairs having decided to help those on the ground rather than just watch. Max, however, was on the wrong side of the divide so wouldn’t have been able to get down even if he’d wanted to. He was secretly glad that he didn’t have to make the choice. Instead, he stayed where he was and did the only thing he could do. He picked up the first of the remaining poles, fitted it to the thrower, and launched it down amongst the machines. Then he did the same again, and again, hurling them down as quickly as his strength would allow.

The machines were crowding in tightly now and he was
hitting them more often than he was missing, but he still couldn’t aim too close to the men in case he got the wrong target. As a result, the machines that were doing the real damage were carrying on unhindered and the screams of the men they were hacking into were getting louder every second. Damon and the other man were doing their best to fight them off, and were having some success too, but against the numbers they were facing there was little hope. Before long even Max couldn’t help them anymore, as the last of his spears was used up. The pile of dead machines he’d created was impressive, but nowhere near enough.

It was Safi who first realised they should give up. The three injured men on the ground were now as good as dead whatever was done for them, and by putting themselves in danger, those who were still on their feet would only add to the body count. Just by wearing suits made of metal and plastic they had made themselves targets for the gathering instincts of the machines.

“Damon!” she called. “Get out of there! Get everyone out of there!”

There was no answer, but they could tell he’d heard her. He backed off from the nearest machines, climbing part way up the rubble pile, and looked around him at the field of wreckage and human bodies being carved up on all sides. He must have decided she was right, because then he looked round again, as if searching for a way out. However his way to the stairs was now blocked where other machines had moved in to take their share of the scrap pile. The only way Damon could go was into the structure itself.

Safi saw and called to him again. “Head inside!” she shouted. “There’s an access ladder to the canopy! At the far end!”

Again there was no word from Damon, but he seemed to understand. He ran up the rubble pile then down the other side, into the main body of Anchorville and out of their view. The ESOS man he had been fighting alongside went with him.

Those who had gone down to join the fight however were now doing exactly that, with their fists alone in some cases. They were attacking the machines from behind which gave them some advantage, but every time a machine turned to face them, anyone who took it on would be overwhelmed. Again the sounds of their deaths flooded the radio channels and this time there was nothing Max could do to help. Sickened, he reached down, knowing that he shouldn’t but unable to stop himself, and turned his communicator off altogether.

Cocooned in a sudden bubble of silence, even time itself seemed to flow differently. He was now detached from the scene below him as the swarming machines inundated the men trying to disable them. He hadn’t noticed until now, just how haphazard the machines’ fighting was, as if the colony that had built them hadn’t yet had a chance to learn from previous fights against humans, but he could easily see how lethal they were when they did go for a human target. He wondered how long it would take them to learn better tactics, given their rate of development so far, and how invincible they would become when that happened.

Suddenly a movement caught his eye off to the left, and he looked up quickly. Another section of platform, this time on the far corner, had just collapsed, silently sinking from view behind the intervening framework. Whatever was happening on the ground there was out of sight to him, but it was obvious that even more machines must have been there the whole time, eating into the pillars and eroding their supports. He had no idea how many they were facing now, but it must have been almost a hundred. How so many had appeared out of Kambria so quickly was unbelievable, as was their ferocity. Max saw Safi and Harris turn suddenly, their eyes drawn by something happening behind him. He tried to do the same, but before he could get round, Ariel had grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him backward, almost pulling him off his feet in the process. Max shouted out as he staggered back, briefly forgetting that he couldn’t be heard, but
then he saw what they’d seen: another section of walkway, just two feet from where he’d been standing, slowly caving in on itself and dropping to the ground. Now all that was beneath their feet was an isolated platform, supported by just two of the pillars, with the four of them standing at the top.