Snare (85 page)

‘Oh? If you’re mechanical, then why do you want to die? How come you’re lonely?’

‘Functionality left unutilized over long periods of time tends to decay and become unstable, thus producing illogical output.’

Loy snorted. ‘Have it your way, then. Now, let me see. What kind of news can I give you?’

Sibyl leaned back in her chair. ‘How many Cantons now exist? Let us start with numerical data and proceed from there to personalities.’

In the hot summer morning the warparty headed north. Even though he rode instead of running, Zayn felt sweat trickle down his back and soak his shirt. Rather than lope at full speed, the Chof jogged along slowly enough for Zayn to notice little patches of green dappling the ground, as if the plants in the N’Dosha canyon were spreading into the valley, but the farther north they rode, the more green he saw, lying thick along the canal, scattered in the dry blue grass. Somewhere north, then, the Settlers must have created a second garden. Gradually the grass became pale gold, not blue – dry green grass, not dry purple. They stopped to eat at midday in the shade of a grove of trees of a type he’d never seen before, as tall as oaks and roughly the same shape,
with billowing green leaves above sturdy trunks.

‘Do you know what the Settlers called these trees?’ Zayn said.

‘Marrons,’ Stronghunter Man said through Fifth Out. ‘When summer end-each-year, we come here, collect the hard little balls they grow. Crack the shells, roast them in embers, and they taste good. Our women, they put some of the raw balls in the ground. New trees grow-after.’

While they were eating a breeze rose, rippling the yellow grass and shivering the green leaves of the trees. Stronghunter Man told the others to stay where they were, handed his spear to Zayn to hold, then walked north some hundreds of yards. He stopped with his pseudo-arms crossed over his chest and tipped his head back.

‘He seek-now,’ Fifth Out said, ‘for enemies.’

‘He can smell them?’ Zayn said.

‘Oh yes. For long long way.’

In a few minutes Stronghunter Man returned with information. Other Chur, including one Chur Vocho, were heading towards them from the north.

‘Six in all.’ Stronghunter Man took his spear back from Zayn. ‘I think-maybe it be Yarl’s renegades. If so, we meet-soon them. We go-now and see-next.’

Each Chof, except for Stronghunter Man, carried extra spears tied to his back. They took turns unloading each other and passing them out, till each Chof carried two spears, one in each hand. Stronghunter Man handed Zayn a spear as well. With its thick, short shaft and fire-hardened point, edged with obsidian flakes, the weapon balanced and wounded so differently from a Kazraki lance or comnee spear that it would be useless in his hands, but he thanked the Chur Vocho anyway.

‘Before we go,’ Stronghunter Man said, ‘there be-now a thing you do-must. Take cloth and stop up your ears.’

The order struck Zayn as so bizarre that at first he figured he’d misunderstood. ‘Do what?’

‘Stop your ears.’ Stronghunter Man pointed to the side of Zayn’s head with a spear-tip. ‘You hear-must-not. Soon we challenge and fight. Your ears bleed-next if sound touch them.’

Zayn rummaged through his saddlebags and found the rag he kept for polishing his long knife. He cut two strips over the obsidian flakes on the spear, but they made less than efficient earplugs.
Stronghunter Man let out an experimental shout that made Zayn wince despite them.

‘Not good enough,’ the Chur Vocho pronounced. ‘Here, give back to me the spear. Here be-now your orders. When we see renegades, you fall-next back, stay back some many feet, and put-next your hands over your ears. Understood?’

‘Yes sir,’ Zayn said automatically, but while he understood what to do, he had no idea of why.

Another hour’s riding brought him the answer. They were slogging their way through high thatchy grass when Stronghunter Man raised his head high and sniffed the air. He inflated his throat sac and began barking orders.

‘He say-now we fall back,’ Fifth Out said.

The other Chof formed a line across the valley at right angles to the cliffs. Fifth Out lagged well behind as they began to walk forward, one slow stride at a time. At some far distance ahead of them another Chur boomed, high enough for Zayn to hear it. Another joined in, and another, until he could pick out six voices, thrumming and booming in the still air.

‘They challenge,’ Fifth Out said. ‘Cover your ears.’

Zayn put in his improvised earplugs and laid his hands flat over his ears, and just in time. Stronghunter Man and his Chur filled their throat sacs, then answered with a boom of their own, a huge sound that seemed to crush the air as it surged forward. They boomed again, then thrummed, sent the air vibrating so hard that Zayn felt it through his skull. He gritted his teeth and pressed his hands down as hard as he could. The renegades ahead boomed again, closer now, and again Stronghunter Man’s warparty answered. Back and forth they went, louder and louder as the renegades approached. Despite his precautions Zayn’s ears hurt; he hunched his shoulders in a futile attempt to cover them a little more. Fifth Out turned his head to glance at him, then began to walk backwards, but they needed to stay reasonably close to protect themselves from the renegades.

Finally the two lines of Chof stood a bare twenty feet apart, and still they boomed and thrummed. First Zayn’s head ached; then it began to burn, or so it felt, with slivers of hot metal lodged in his temples. He shut his eyes to hide them from the blazing sunlight. His ears crackled and throbbed with every round of the strange battle being fought with sound alone. All at once – silence.

Zayn raised his head and opened his eyes, but his ears still rang and crackled in the outer silence, an absence of noise as thick as water, it seemed, oozing through the battered air. The two lines of Chof stood poised, spears ready. Stronghunter Man took one step and boomed. His line followed; each Chur shook his pair of spears and they all chattered from deep within their quivering throat sacs. The renegades stood their ground. Another step, another boom and thrum from Stronghunter Man – the renegades broke and ran. As they fled east they howled and yipped, then began to make the bubbling whine of abject surrender.

Fifth Out trotted forward to rejoin the main line of spear Chur. When Zayn removed the strips of cloth, he saw tiny drops of blood on one of them. His ears and his head still ached, but slowly the pain began to ease.

‘You see-now why I tell you, hide ears?’ Stronghunter Man said.

Zayn had trouble hearing Fifth Out’s relay. ‘Yes, I sure do.’

‘Cowards run-always,’ Stronghunter Man continued, ‘and they who back Yarl, they be cowards. They betray-then him, too, as they run. They say, oh please kill-not us, Yarl he be at the North Gate.’ Stronghunter Man dipped his pelvis as if to squat, and Fifth Out copied him. ‘Cowards!’

‘Are we going to head straight there? Soutan must have heard the fight.’

‘Yes, we go now, in case those Chur, they find courage and come back. Yarl be-not so far now, not so far at all.’

It was the horses that gave Soutan away. Late that same afternoon, Ammadin spent a long time scanning the valley east of the traps. When she saw the renegade Chur fleeing in panic, her first thought was that Zayn had run into trouble, but a few miles on she found him and the actual warparty. For some while she watched them jogging across the monotonous landscape. Out of boredom she moved the focal point of the scan north along their projected line of march.

Some miles ahead of the warparty one of the traps jutted farther to the east than the others, forming a sharp right angle of cliff where it met the face to its south. The Settlers had worked this angle of cliff into another marvel of architecture, with caves and ledges, facades and windows of dwellings, sculptures of H’mai and animals, all set among the natural pillars and arches eroded by
wind and rain. The largest cave entrance lay right at ground level in the point of the angle, a perfect semi-circle guarded by two sculptures of longtooth saurs, haunched with their mouths open and their front legs up to show claw.

In front of this cave, a carpet of green plant life spread out, heaped and mounded over what appeared to be enormous stones. In and among them pools of water gleamed, and just beyond, in a long meadow of green grass, horses grazed at tether, switching their tails. Soutan and Arkazo could hide inside caves, but their horses had to eat. Ammadin focused her crystal down and increased magnification. What she’d taken for boulders under the blanket of greenery were the remains of machines. Here and there she could pick out the rim of a giant wheel tangled in vines, an arc of silver metal gleaming through ferns, or the white glitter of flexstone among tall weeds.

Someone called her name – Loy, walking down from the camp to join her.

‘I think I’ve found Yarl’s hiding place,’ Ammadin said.

‘Good!’ Loy said. ‘Is there time for me to take a look?’

Ammadin handed over the crystal. Loy stared into it, her eyes narrow.

‘I can’t believe it!’ she whispered. ‘That’s the North Gate of N’Dosha. I’ve seen pictures. Let me just – merde! It’s breaking up! The image, I mean, not the gate.’

‘The Riders set fast down here.’

‘They certainly do.’ Loy handed the crystal back. ‘I should have come out sooner.’

‘Are you done talking with Sibyl already?’

Loy held up her hand, so red and swollen that she couldn’t make a fist when she tried. ‘I can’t write one more word.’

‘How cold is the canal water? You should soak that.’

‘Good idea. I will. And here I always thought that writers’ cramp was a myth. But if you want to, why not go back to Sibyl’s? She’s still got power in her banks.’

‘Good idea. I will.’

Ammadin started to gather up her crystals in order to carry them with her, hesitated, then handed the saddlebags to Loy. ‘You might as well keep these out here. I don’t know how long I’ll be, and you’ll probably want to scan on the next pass.’

‘Yes, I will.’ Loy was looking at the saddlebags in a kind of
wonder. ‘Thank you. I appreciate it, being trusted with these, I mean.’

Ammadin smiled, then strode away, heading for the cave.

The hologram appeared as soon as she entered the silver room: Sibyl sitting in her blue chair, her hands on her knees. Above a decidedly sour curve of mouth, the image’s eyes appeared to move and study her.

‘Good afternoon, Ammadin,’ Sibyl said in a weary tone of voice. ‘I suppose you have more questions.’

‘I have, yes,’ Ammadin said. ‘I was wondering if any of the Company people had themselves turned into REVs.’

‘No. I can offer you pictures of your ancestors, but they are only records, not fully functional AI units.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand that.’

‘They are recordings, that is, they appear as a picture and a voice, but they are at code-source no different from a page in a book. You cannot speak with them, only listen to their testimonies.’

‘That sounds better than nothing. Can I see some?’

‘Yes. Whom do you wish to hear?’

‘Lisadin and Dallador, I mean Dallas ador Jenz and Lisa adin Bar. Or wait – tell me this first. Why do we all have din and dor at the end of our names?’

‘This suffix was an identity tag demanded by the Hirrel before your people were allowed to settle on Ruby. It identifies the user as a clone or descendant of a clone. In their language, those words are gender-specific adjectives that mean “false, artificial.” The Hirrel are a very insular race. Biotechnology disturbs them.’

‘Oh does it? I’ll bet they were glad enough to let my ancestors die for them.’

‘You have a very high probability of winning that wager. In fact, I remember feeling contempt for the Hirrel based on their attitude to your people. As for your request, those records both exist. Which do you wish to view first?’

‘The Mother of Horses.’

‘Very well. I suspect you will find her congenial.’

Sibyl vanished, and the chair went with her. A small picture appeared, hanging in mid-air above the dais. At first it showed only a stationary view of sky and the purple grass of the plains; then suddenly it expanded to some ten feet on an edge. Off to one side of the image sat a sleek, white object with swept-back
wings and a pointed nose, one of the ships, Ammadin assumed. She could hear sound, somewhat garbled, in the language she now knew as Tekspeak – ‘No come over farther, stand on the mark, dammit, always difficult aren’t you?’ The view began to travel in the same way that a crystal would sweep over countryside. The ship disappeared, and the view settled upon a woman, dressed in narrow tan trousers and a tan shirt cut like Sibyl’s blue one, with coloured squares on the pocket and little metal birds on the corners of the collar.

During her stay in the hohtes of the Cantons, Ammadin had seen herself in mirrors for the first time. She did look like Lisadin, she realized, close enough to be her sister. The image hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her trousers and stood with her feet a bit apart.

‘My name is Colonel Lisa Barlamew, or as the shit-licking Hirrel called me, Lisa adin Bar. I am making this record just in case my descendants want to see it someday, not so the pack of bungling bastards in the fleet can find it and bring their databanks up to date.’

An incomprehensible voice chattered at her.

‘Go to hell,’ Lisa said. ‘Where was I? Oh yeah. Listen, children, if you exist. This is not what we planned for you. They promised us a world of our own, a place in a newly discovered shunt-cluster of habitable worlds. But their damned astrogator made a mistake, not that he’ll admit it, and so here we are. This means accommodations have to be made, especially for the native race. It’s not their fault that a pack of brainless Shipfolk fucked up and dumped H’mai Inborn into their laps.

‘Anyway, I want to tell you about the horses and why I fought so hard to get them for you. We’re sharing a world with men who think women are little children who need taking care of. This is a mental disease, and I don’t want our men to get it, too. The horses belong to you women, to make sure the men never trample you down. Women, whatever you do, keep the horses under your control. Keep the money they’ll bring from the Karashiki under your control. It’s freedom, it’s power, it’s safety. Some of our men might decide that it’s a good idea to have some kiss-arse females mincing around their tents. If nothing else, if worse comes to worst, take the horses and the sensible men and ride away.