The Gods and their Machines (19 page)

Riadni was distraught. Her brother was dead, Kinasa badly hurt, Crivak deafened and Chamus would soon be dead too, if he wasn’t already. And she felt as if it was all her fault. She had started it all. She sat alone in her room, still in the clothes she had worn for the last few days, wading in her misery. Somewhere in the house, her mother was sobbing over her dead brother. Kinasa and Bowrin had decided to join the Hadram Cassal. They would ride back to Sleeping Hill in the morning. Their father had not tried to dissuade them. He was down in the gathering room with Brother Fazekiel, who had come to offer what comfort he could to the family. She could hear them in the room below, speaking softly, the pain in her father’s voice audible even through the floorboards.

Riadni covered her eyes and tried to pray, but the peace it normally brought her would not come. Eventually, she gave up. Shanna was not listening. She opened her clothes chest and took out another wig and a headscarf to secure it. She
picked herself up and started down the stairs. Rumbler’s
saddlebags
lay untouched outside the door, she took some things from them and put them in her knapsack. With a careful peek around outside, she walked out into the yard and off towards the hills. No one saw her leave.

Two

C
hamus was lost among his whispers, the more he listened, the more he was sure he heard voices he recognised. He was sure some of them sounded like his dead classmates. He could feel their frustration and hatred welling up in him and he strained against his bonds. Then another voice came across, even clearer than the others. This one he definitely knew. He listened intently. It was different, it crackled and buzzed like a radio. It had static. Then it became clear, as if someone had tuned it in properly. It was his father. Chamus blinked, the voice was unmistakable, and it wasn’t in his head; it was carrying down the cave from a radio where three men sat listening. He gaped in amazement.

‘… I repeat. This is Kellen Aranson trying to contact the men who have my son. If you can hear me, please reply. Over.’

‘We can hear you, Kellen Aranson,’ Elbeth answered. ‘What do you want? Over.’

‘I want to speak to my son. Over.’

Elbeth motioned with his head and one of the other men
walked over to Chamus and dragged his stretcher over to the radio. Elbeth held out the mike.

‘Dad?’

‘Chamus, son, is that you?’ his father was close to tears. In the background he could hear his mother break into a sob. ‘Are you alright? Have they hurt you?’

‘No,’ Chamus said dizzily, ‘but I got shot by a plane. I got its registration number.’

His mother cried out and he could hear his father comforting her.

‘Now,’ Elbeth took the mike back, ‘his wound has been treated and we are keeping him safe, but his grandfather has not cooperated. I am glad to see you are more reasonable. You called us just in time. Unfortunately you have contacted us on an open channel without the use of a code, so you will be no use to us as an informant. I am sure that your security services are on their way to your house as we speak. Over.’

‘Listen to me,’ Kellen urged him. ‘I’m only concerned for the safety of my son. There is a mission planned against you tonight, a glider mission. It will be completely silent; you won’t hear them coming. I am telling you this so that you can save yourselves and take my son with you. Over.’

Chamus lifted his head. What was that about gliders?

‘We are not afraid of your aeroplanes,’ Elbeth smiled. ‘What is one more bombing to a people who have suffered hundreds? Yes, we await your gliders, Mr Aranson. Let them come. Over.’

‘This is serious,’ Kellen insisted. ‘You’re in danger and my son with you. Over.’

Elbeth leaned over and looked out towards the entrance
of the cave. The light outside was starting to fade.

‘Your son will be released to authorities in the Altiman flatlands tomorrow. Goodbye.’

He put down the microphone and turned off the radio.

‘We don’t have much time,’ he said to his comrades. ‘Tell the rest of the men to start packing up immediately. I want the camp cleared by the time we return from the Blessing. Tell them not to wait for us. Now, let us take our young warrior up to prepare him for his release.’

Chamus’s mind was racing. A glider attack, it would be silent. No one would hear it and no one would see it in the dark – not until it hit. No, he thought, they wouldn’t even realise it then. Not this kind of attack. The scale of the plan stunned him, it was not intended to kill the terrorists, at least not directly. He remembered the drawings on his grandfather’s desk, the mounting for the glider, the compressed air cylinders. They were going to fly low over an area, spraying dust, radioactive dust. No one would even know about it. There would be no sign of it until people started getting sick. And then the Bartokhrians would not know what to do. They would have what looked like an epidemic on their hands and no way of dealing with it. They would ask for help from Altima and that help would be sent immediately, in the form of emergency medical services with the support of the military.

The army would roll right into Bartokhrin, at the request of the Bartokhrian government, and they would seize
control
of the area and then any other area to which they
suspected
the ‘disease’ might spread.

He reeled at the idea of it. His country was going to invade
Bartokhrin in the hunt for the Hadram Cassal, and they were going to kill scores, possibly hundreds of people to give them an excuse.

Two men came over and picked up his stretcher.

‘You should listen to my father,’ he called after Elbeth. ‘You don’t know what they’re going to do. This is more than just a bombing run …’

‘You mean the radiation?’ Elbeth asked, turning around to stare at him. ‘The plan to contaminate my country, to leave hundreds of my people dead and dying? I know all about it Chamus. We have our spies in your military and it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. They will have found out that we are camped near Kemsemet and that will be good enough for your air force. They will seed the whole town with radioactive powder.’

He gestured to the two men carrying the stretcher and they walked out of the cave and started up the steep climb to the top. Chamus was taken aback. How could he just stand by and do nothing?

‘But if you know about it, why don’t you stop it?’ he gasped. ‘It won’t work if people know about it beforehand. There’d be hell to pay if people knew about this. They wouldn’t dare go ahead with it. You only have to get on the radio and start telling anyone who’ll listen.’

‘Yes,’ Elbeth nodded solemnly, ‘you’re right, I could stop it right now.’

His face darkened as he climbed, setting in an expression of grim determination.

‘But if you think there would be hell to pay if people heard about it beforehand, think about what will happen
after
it has happened…when we tell the world what Altima has done to us.’

The full impact of what he was saying hit Chamus like a physical blow.

‘You’re going to let it happen?’

‘Of course. Think of it. Your country launches a new weapon on us, contaminating thousands of our people, its army sitting at its borders waiting to invade. When the truth emerges, there will be an uprising like the world has never seen. Altima will bring down the wrath of all the
“Fringelands
”, as well as its own wealthy allies. And then there will be all the vengeful young men who will rush to join our cause. Instead of one or two Blessed Martyrs sneaking into your cities, there will be hundreds, swarming across your borders, bringing death to your doorsteps. Altima’s great plan will be its own destruction. Praise Shanna for her infinite wisdom.’

Chamus felt sick. The stretcher swayed from side to side and he gazed up into the sky, watching the clouds scudding across from the deep orange of the east to the purples and yellows of the west. The whispering in his head was stronger than ever and his muscles knotted with hatred and rage. These men were insane, as mad as the men who had
conceived
the plan to release the radiation. Everything his parents had taught him about life, about right and wrong, none of it meant anything as long as men like these were able to steer countries with their insane logic.

They reached the top of the hill and the stretcher was laid down against a bank that faced Chamus straight into the setting sun.

‘You are a privileged young man,’ Elbeth said to him. ‘You are to be the first heathen to be given the Blessing of the Martyrs. Normally, we would indulge in a more elaborate ceremony, but it takes a lifetime of religious devotion to
prepare
the soul for what you are about to undergo and we are somewhat pressed for time. Do you remember this?’

He held a photo up in front of Chamus’s face. It was the picture that had been stolen from his locker, Chamus with his father and grandfather standing in front of the prototype of an aeroplane they had named after him. It had been one of the proudest moments of his life.

‘You won’t make an assassin out of me!’ he spat. ‘I won’t kill for you!’

‘You won’t have to,’ Elbeth said, soothingly. ‘It will all be done for you.’

Chamus watched the five men make their preparations, his breaths short and shallow, his heart beating wildly with fear. They lit a fire and threw the contents of his bag into the flames, then tossed in the bag itself. His imagination ran riot, trying to anticipate what was about to happen. Images of pagan sacrifices flashed through his mind. Would it be
painful
? Would he still be alive afterwards, or would his body just be a walking corpse, steered by ghosts? Please God, give me strength, he thought. The men kneeled, covered their eyes and prayed. Chamus looked up at the sky again and cursed to himself. He wondered if they were doing this to torment him. But as long as they prayed, they left him alone.

He heard the word ‘Glahmeth’ and knew it was over. The men lifted their heads and Lakrem Elbeth kneeled stiffly by his side and rubbed something on his face. The priest then
produced a stone mask from a bag at his hip. There were no holes for the nose or mouth and in the place of eyeholes, there were two purple crystals. The other four men grabbed Chamus’s arms and legs. He was terrified. Why did they have to hold him when he was already tied? What were they going to do to him that would make him go wild enough to break his bonds? The strangeness of the mask filled him with dread and when Elbeth placed it over his face and clamped it to him by gripping the sides of his head with his fingers, Chamus screamed. He could barely breathe and he thrashed around, but they held him firm. Inside his head, the voices had suddenly gone quiet when the mask had been pressed against his face and this scared him even more. It was completely dark, then the shadow that was Elbeth moved aside and the sun’s light shone through the crystal eyeholes. A purple glow bathed his mind and he felt a presence reach deep inside him. Then suddenly he was reliving the moment his classmates had died. He was standing at the door of the briefing room, the
Fringelander
was in front of the desk, Ellese was demanding to know who he was. Chamus wanted to warn him, to tell all of them to get out and then the Fringelander opened his mouth and Chamus saw the street in the town with the adobe buildings and the sireniser plunging like a spear into the ground, standing straight up like some kind of modern-day totem pole and then the sound …

The vision disappeared, the purple glow was back,
drawing
something out from him along the path of the light. He felt the voices then. They started from deep in his torso, rushing up frighteningly fast, filling him with panic and bursting out of him in a deafening shriek. For a moment, the
sireniser was real again. Its detonation, carried back from some devastated village to be unleashed in the hangar’s classroom, had been reincarnated once more as it was
channelled
up through Chamus and exploded out, the sound’s shockwave crashing into the men around him.

The stone mask shattered over his face and he squeezed his eyes shut against it. Some part of him registered a terrible noise, but he did not hear it, as if it were there but had
nothing
to do with him. When he became fully aware again, he found the cords holding one of his hands was loose and he twisted free of it, wiping the stone dust from his face and opening his eyes. Three of the five men lay dead. There could be no mistaking the lifeless sprawl of their bodies. Elbeth and another were still alive, Elbeth sitting some
distance
away and staring at Chamus in shock and confusion, blood leaking from his ears. The other man staggered around with his hands to the sides of his head.

The man saw Chamus open his eyes and snarled. Pulling a knife from his belt, he walked over, the blade poised to deliver a backhand stroke across the boy’s throat. There was a loud pistol shot and the man was knocked backwards. He toppled to the ground and groaned, clutching his shoulder. Riadni came up from behind Chamus, pistol still raised.

‘Good shot!’ was all Chamus could think of saying.

Riadni shrugged. She had been aiming for the man’s chest. Still, he was down. She helped Chamus free himself from the stretcher and supported him as he stood up. He winced as he put weight on his injured leg. Casting one wary look at Elbeth, he considered getting Riadni to reload the pistol and finish the job. But he just wanted to get out of there. With
one arm over her shoulders, he went with her down the narrow, winding path. It took some time to reach the bottom of the hill and he was pale, sweating and exhausted when they got there.

Standing near the mouth of the main cave was her father. He had a revolver in his hand.

‘Papa …’ she started, but then there was the sound of a stone bouncing down the path behind her and Elbeth
stumbled
out of the shadows.

‘Ah, Sostas,’ he said, speaking very loudly. ‘You’ve arrived just in time to see the true nature of your daughter. I didn’t know you had it in you to raise such a traitor.’

‘Let her go,’ Sostas said, ‘for the sake of our friendship, Lakrem.’

‘Can’t hear a word you’re saying,’ Elbeth held up his hands in helplessness. There was an automatic pistol in his right hand. ‘You could say your words are falling on deaf ears. The Altimans sent a martyr of their own, it seems. Something had already planted the seed. Didn’t see it coming. The
ceremony
brought the death out of him. And here he stands, untouched by it. I didn’t see it coming.’