So Vile a Sin (13 page)

Son of My Father just shrugged.

Four hours. Chris couldn’t settle. The Ogrons had gone back into their quarters, but he kept wandering around the ship. He tried jogging for a while, but it just made him feel lightheaded.

He ran a dozen diagnostics on the Hopper’s systems, checking for sabotage, then irregularities, then anything out of the ordinary. He found a few modifications in the drive system, and remembered with a surprisingly guilty start that they’d pinched the ship.

Four and a half hours. He cooked some chicken soup in the galley, but didn’t want it. He tried to grab a nap, but couldn’t, lying in his quarters waiting for the bridge computer to tell him the Doctor was back in radio range.

Eventually he tried so hard to go to sleep that he dropped off from exhaustion.

He felt the dream come down like a terrible weight on his chest, like a tornado blowing through the tiny cabin. He tried to open his eyes, grabbing at the lids with his fingers, and somehow opened them, but the dream didn’t stop, slithering out from under the bed.

Slithering. Green eyes, watching.

96

Chris stumbled across the cabin and smacked into the opposite wall. ‘Go away!’ he yelled. ‘I’m
awake
!’

A voice came hissing out of the dream’s scaly face. ‘Can’t you feel it?’ it insisted. ‘It’s all changing. Changing all around you.’

There wasn’t much stuff in the cabin, but it was blowing around as though the hull had been punctured. ‘Shit!’ shouted Chris. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Don’t you feel it?’ said the dream.

‘Yeah,’ said Chris. ‘The Doctor.’

He stumbled across the room, the wind trying to knock him over, the dream trying to curl itself around his legs.

There was no sign of the Ogrons. Chris thought of hammering on their door, but the wind pushed him away, down the narrow corridor, down to the airlock.

Somewhere out there, he knew, the Doctor was at the green eye of the storm. Oh God, this wasn’t a dream: something real was happening. Somewhere out there, deep in Artemis’s belly.

They’d gone under her skin, seen what they shouldn’t have seen, and now they were being chased across the mountain by ravening dreams like dogs let off the leash.

Chris bent over, hands pressed against his knees, gasping for breath. The images were just blowing through him, on their way to nowhere.

He pulled on the spacesuit, his pale hands appearing like insects from the ends of the fat sleeves. He shook as he tugged on and locked the gloves. He had to get out there, push into the storm, find the Doctor and pull him free.

Did he need to? He watched his hand disappear into the glove.

Wouldn’t the Doctor just shed his skin again? Wouldn’t he just let the storm burn him, burn his skin away, and crawl out of the mountain laughing?

All those skins, torn loose and blown away in the wind, all those different faces, sailing past him, glimpses of faces smiling or serious, but all of them the Doctor. Shedding his skin, his skins, shattered like a dropped cup.

One of the skins blew right up to Chris, flapping against him like an escaped newspaper. He beat it away before it could wrap itself around him, and it went blowing away, one of hundreds.

97

Chris pulled on the helmet, snapped it in place and turned on the internal environment. Instantly he was gasping, sparkles exploding in front of his eyes. The terrible weight pushed against his chest as he struggled with the helmet.

The dream crawled out of its resting place in the suit, looming in his helmet, its lethal eyes an inch from his. He shrieked, his own voice shrilling in his ears.

The sound changed, suddenly, and he realized the helmet was off and he could breathe again. Son of My Father was looking at him.

‘Bad air,’ said the Ogron. ‘You must be careful and check the air.’

‘Yes,’ Chris wheezed. He was sitting on the floor of the airlock, leaning against the wall at an awkward angle, the oxygen pack propping him up. He rolled, face down on the floor.

Son of My Father looked at the indicators. ‘No air,’ he said.

‘Not even bad air. Someone forgot to get this suit ready.’

Chris shook his head. His hair was plastered to his face. He pushed at it, clumsy in his gloves. ‘Someone must have disabled the safeties. I’ll bet you anything the other suits are the same.’

Son of My Father crouched beside him. ‘Good Ogron,’ he said,

‘good Chris. You stay here in the ship.’

‘Jeez,’ said Chris. ‘If they wanted me to stay, they only had to
ask
.’

An hour later the control board lit up with vital signs. Two sets of signs, one of them rapid with panic, the other wildly erratic.

Chris took a deep breath and said, ‘Can you hear me? What’s your condition?’ Nothing. ‘Do you require assistance?’ Nothing.

Not like he could give any. He’d tried repairing one of the sabotaged suits, working from the manual, but it was going to take hours.

‘– God’s sake say something! Can’t you hear me?’ yelled Martinique.

‘Relax, Professor, I can hear you fine.’ He’d probably only just remembered which button to press. ‘What’s your status?’

‘Dead!’ gasped Martinique. ‘Zatopek’s dead. Send the Ogrons.

I’m carrying the Doctor. I’m exhausted.’

98

Chris glanced at the second set of wavering vital signs. ‘Slow down, Professor. What happened to the Doctor? Where’s Iaomnet?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell happened to us. It all just blew up in our faces. We have to get out of here. Send the Ogrons.’

‘I can’t, Professor. All of the spare HE suits have been sabotaged.’

‘You’re lying.’ The academic was breathing hard as he dragged the Doctor along. ‘You just don’t want to help us, and your
friend
is
dying
!’

Chris made himself speak slowly and clearly. ‘What happened to him?’

‘The same thing that happened to Zatopek on the ship,’ said Martinique. ‘But a thousand times worse. A million times worse.’

‘Cassandra,’ breathed the Doctor.

Chris almost jumped at the sound of his voice, suddenly filling the bridge. ‘What is it, Doctor?’

‘Cassandra. Right now. Right away.’

Chris was about to ask who Cassandra was when he remembered. The outermost planet in the system. A week’s journey away.

‘We have to go there now, Chris.’ The Doctor’s voice was fading. ‘No choice. Get ready to leave.’

Behind Chris, Son of My Father made a noise deep in his chest.

Chris started, turned to look at the Ogron.

‘Bad rock,’ said Son of My Father.

99

Meanwhile

Kibero Patera, Io – 15 February 2982

‘Shall we play a game?’ asked Mr Fiction.

Thandiwe thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to learn something.’

‘Oh no,’ said Mr Fact and tried to scuttle under Thandiwe’s bed.

Mr Fiction pointed to where Mr Fact’s black shiny bottom stuck out from under the counterpane, his rear pair of legs scrabbling for purchase on the varnished floor. ‘Doesn’t he look funny?’ he said, and laughed.

Some of Thandiwe’s other toys joined in, especially the Fat Monster Eater. The Fat Monster Eater was a big floppy bag as big across as Thandiwe was tall and covered in fur. It had a big jolly mouth and rolling eyes and laughed at everything. Which annoyed Thandiwe sometimes, except late at night when the Monster Under the Bed was lurking in the dark.

When that happened, the Fat Monster Eater would leap into the bed with her, and chuckle softly until she went to sleep. It used to tell her stories as well, but then Mama gave her Mr Fiction, who was much smarter and knew every single story ever told – even the grown-up ones.

At first she’d been worried that the Fat Monster Eater would be jealous, but when she asked her sister about it, Gugwani had told her not to be silly. ‘They’re just bots,’ she said. ‘They don’t feel anything.’

100

Which had made Thandiwe feel all strange and upset all that afternoon until she unexpectedly started crying at dinner – when Mama found out why she spoke to Gugwani in her very quiet voice, which meant that she was really
really
angry.

Then she took Thandiwe aside and told her that although it was true that the Fat Monster Eater, Mr Fiction and Mr Fact were robots, they were very clever robots who had been – she used a long word which Thandiwe didn’t understand – to have feelings.

Mama said that as soon as the robots had seen Thandiwe they had fallen instantly in love with her. And that was the real reason the Fat Monster Eater wasn’t jealous because, when you really love someone, then their happiness is the most important thing in your life.

Thandiwe thought this over later that night and decided it sort of made sense. It was certainly true that when her mama was angry everyone seemed upset and when she was happy everyone was pleased – especially the servants. Perhaps that’s what she meant. However, she still let the Fat Monster Eater sleep in her bed as well as Mr Fiction, just so he wouldn’t feel left out – it was only fair after all.

Gugwani sulked for a whole week until Mama bought her a new dress.

If anyone came out worse in the end it was Mr Fact, as the Fat Monster Eater always seemed to side with Mr Fiction when it came to disputes – as it did when Thandiwe wanted to do something naughty and the arachnoid (which meant spider shaped) robot tried to hide under the bed.

‘I want to learn something
interesting
,’ said Thandiwe.

‘I’m not coming out!’ squeaked Mr Fact.

‘I’ll say the words,’ said Thandiwe.

‘You shouldn’t
know
the words,’ said Mr Fact. ‘It’s naughty for you to even know words like that.’

‘
Double, double, toil and trouble
,’ said Thandiwe, ‘
Fire burn
and cauldron bubble.
’

Mr Fact stopped talking and went completely still. Thandiwe ordered him to back up and turn around to face her. ‘Now open your head.’ Mr Fact obeyed, the top of his head hinging backward to reveal the machines inside. He couldn’t speak once 101

the words were said but his eight eyes always looked at her reproachfully.

Thandiwe had learnt the words by eavesdropping on a tech when she came to fix Mr Fact’s head after it had got caught in the bedroom door. It had been amazing how many times Thandiwe had had to slam the door on poor Mr Fact’s head before something had broken. She knew that there were other words, key phrases that would allow her to access the deeper structures of the robot’s brain, but as yet she hadn’t figured out a plan to get them.

Still, the words she had were enough to override some of the security protocols, especially if she reached in and flipped the microswitch just behind the third eye stalk. A simscreen unfolded out of the open top of Mr Fact’s skull and displayed a menu made up of half a dozen mikons. As usual the most active mikon was the one that terminated Mr Fact’s diagnostic mode, sealed up his head and returned him to normal activity. A tiny representation of a spider, it would scuttle around the screen, sometimes even knocking the other mikons out of the way in an attempt to get under Thandiwe’s fingertip. Mr Fact didn’t like having his head open.

Thandiwe was wise to his tricks though, and feinting with her right hand she touched the sensor mikon with her left index finger. A couple of sub-menus later and she had Mr Fact set up as an ad hoc surveillance device.

‘Who shall we spy on today?’ said Thandiwe. Mr Fiction said nothing but brushed his ears and giggled. Through Mr Fact she had access to every securicam in Kibero, allowing her to look practically anywhere, including all the tiptop secret places that Mama didn’t think she knew about.

Actually, she found the secret places pretty boring. Most of them looked like small offices full of ordinary people talking to each other. Many of them used long incomprehensible words and acronyms that Thandiwe could have asked Mr Fact to translate –

if she hadn’t had to deactivate him to spy in the first place. She quickly learnt that people were far more interesting than places.

And her family the most interesting of all.

‘I want to see what Mama is doing,’ she told the screen.

102

The sim phased in a view of her mama’s office. She was looking through one of the cameras up on the wall, she knew.

She tried to imagine she was a bot, crouching up on the wall, listening while her mother talked to a boring-looking man on a screen.

‘We’ve managed to trace her at last,’ he said. ‘Good news, Lady Forrester. We’re now certain she left Fury within two hours of the attack on ICC.’

‘Do you know where she went?’

‘I’m afraid not, My Lady, but we’re working on it. Our best lead is a missing Imperial shuttle, though it had an ISN crew.’

‘Keep me informed,’ said Mama. ‘The moment you know anything, however tenuous, tell me right away.’

‘As always, My Lady.’ The boring-looking man gave a little bow. Mama switched off the screen.

Mama looked at a screen on her desk, and then glanced up at Thandiwe – at the securicam she was looking through.

‘You’re a very naughty child,’ she said, smiling. ‘Put Mr Fact back together at once.’

‘Yes, Mama,’ said Thandiwe, although she wasn’t sure if her mother could hear her.

103

3

Cassandra

17 January 2982

‘Unlimited rice pudding,’ said the Doctor.

Iaomnet bent down and checked the medical indicators on the arm of the Doctor’s HE suit. The respiration bar was still green, but the cardiac monitor kept blinking from red to green and back again.

She stared at him through the faceplate. His eyes were open, one looking to the left, the other rolled so far up that she could hardly see the iris. She didn’t think it was a good sign. A good suit would have had proper diagnostic software, but these suits were basic and quite old, a fact that was beginning to seriously worry her.

‘Doctor, can you hear me?’

‘“Boney,” I said, “an army marches on its stomach.”’

Reaching down, Iaomnet once again got a grip on the Doctor’s shoulder straps and started dragging him along. The corridor was an octagonal cross-section, three meters across, lined with some kind of smooth black stone that gleamed in the beam of her suitlights. Ahead it stretched into the darkness, straight and featureless. And behind? Iaomnet had stopped looking behind some time ago.