The Night's Dawn Trilogy (295 page)

“Die,” Stanyon snarled. “Die a little bit at a time. Die hurting big.”

He was walking towards the stairwell door when his walkie-talkie squawked: “We got him! He’s down here.”

Stanyon snatched the unit from his belt. “Where? Who is this? Which floor are you on?”

“This is Talthorn the Greenfoot; I’m on floor forty-nine. He’s just below us. We can all sense him.”

“Everybody hear that?” Stanyon yelled gleefully. “Fiftieth floor. Get your arses down there.” He sprinted for the

stairwell.

•  •  •

“They’re coming,” Dariat said.

Tatiana flashed him a worried-but-brave grin, and finished tying the last cord around her pillow. They were in a long-disused
residential apartment; its polyp furniture of horseshoe tables and oversized scoop armchairs dominating the living room. The
chairs had been turned into cushion nests to add a dash of comfort. The foam used to fill the cushions was a lightweight plastic
that was ninety-five per cent nitrogen bubbles.

They were, Rubra swore, perfect buoyancy aids.

Dariat tried on his harness one last time. The cords which he’d torn from the gaudy cushion fabric held a pillow to his chest
and another against his back. Seldom had he felt so ridiculous.

His doubt must have leaked onto his face.

If it works, don’t try to fix it,
Rubra said.

Ripe, from someone who’s devoted his existence to meddling.

Game set and match, I won’t even appeal. Would you like to get ready?

Dariat used the starscraper’s observation routines to check on the possessed. There were twelve of them on the floor above.
A rock-skinned troll was leading the pack; followed by a pair of cyber-ninjas in black flak jackets; a xenoc humanoid that
was all shiny amber exoskeleton and looked like it could rip metal apart with its talons; a faerie prince wearing his forest
hunting tunic and carrying a longbow in one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other; three or four excessively hairy Neanderthals;
and regular soldiers in the uniforms of assorted eras.

“The loonies are on the warpath tonight,” Dariat muttered under his breath. “Finished?” he asked Tatiana.

She shifted her front pillow around and tightened the last strap to hold it in place. “I’m ready.”

The bathroom’s muscle-membrane door parted silently. Inside was an emerald-green suite: a circular bath, vaguely Egyptian
in design, matched by the basin, bidet, and toilet. They were still all in perfect condition. It was the plumbing which had
degraded. Water was dripping from the brass shower head above the bath; over the years it had produced a big orange stain
on the bottom. Slimy blue-green algae was growing out of the plug. The sink was piled high with bars of soap; so old and dry
now that they’d started to crumble, snowing flecks over the rim.

Dariat stood in the doorway, with Tatiana pressed against him, looking eagerly over his shoulder. “What’s supposed to be happening?”
she asked.

“Watch.”

A bass crunching sound was coming from the toilet. Cracks appeared around its base, expanding rapidly outwards. Then the whole
bowl lurched upwards, spinning around precariously before toppling over. A two-metre circle of floor around it was rising
up like a miniature volcanic eruption. Polyp splintered with a continual brassy crackling. A fine jet of water sprayed out
of the fractured flush pipe.“Lord Tarrug, what are you doing?” Tatiana asked.

“That’s not Tarrug, that’s Rubra,” Dariat told her. “No dark arts involved.”

Affinity with the local sub-routines allowed him to feel the toilet’s sphincter muscle straining as it contorted in directions
it was never intended, rupturing the thin shell of polyp floor. It halted, fully expended. The cone which it had produced
quivered slightly, then stilled. Dariat hurried over. There was a crater at the centre, leading down to an impenetrable darkness.
The muscle tissue which made up the sides was a tough dark red flesh, now badly lacerated. Pale yellow fluid was oozing out
of the splits, running down to disappear in the unseen space below.

“Our escape route,” Dariat said, echoing Rubra’s pride.

“A toilet?” she asked incredulously.

“Sure. Don’t go squeamish on me now, please.” He sat on the edge of the sphincter and swung his legs over the crater. It was
a three-metre slither down into the sewer tubule below. When his feet touched the bottom he knelt down and held a hand out.
His skin began to glow with a strong pink light. It revealed the tubule stretching on ahead of him, a circular shaft just
over a metre in diameter, and angled slightly downwards.

“Throw the pillows down,” he said.

Tatiana dropped them, peering over the edge of the crater with a highly dubious expression. Dariat shoved the two harnesses
into the tubule, and started to worm his way in after them. “When I’m in, you follow me, okay?” He didn’t give her the chance
to answer. It was awkward going, pushing the pillows ahead of him as he crawled along. The grey polyp was slippery with water
and fecal sludge. Dariat could hear Tatiana grunting and muttering behind him as she discovered the residue smearing the sides.

There were ridges encircling the tubule every four metres, peristaltic muscle bands that assisted the usual water flow. Despite
Rubra expanding them wide, they formed awkward constrictions which Dariat had to pull himself through. He had just squeezed
past the third when Rubra said:
They’ve reached the fiftieth floor. Can you sense them?

Not a chance. So in theory they won’t be able to find me.

They know the general direction, and they’re heading towards the apartment.

Dariat was too intent on inching himself along to review the images.
What about the rest?

On their way down. The stairwells are absolutely packed. It’s like a freak-show stampede out there.

He elbowed his way through another muscle band. The light from his hand showed the tubule walls ending two metres ahead. A
thick ring of muscle membrane surrounded the rim. Beyond that was a clear empty space. He could hear a steady patter of rain
in the darkness.

“We made it,” he shouted.

His only answer was another outbreak of grunted curses.

Dariat pushed the filthy pillows and their tangled cords over the edge, hearing them splash into the water. Then he was sliding
himself over.

The main ingestion tract into which the sewer tubule emptied ran vertically up the entire height of the starscraper. It collected
the human waste, discarded organic matter, and dirty water from every floor and carried it down to the large purification
organs at the base of the starscraper. They filtered out organic compounds which were pumped back to the principal nutrient
organs inside the southern endcap via their own web of specialist tubules. Poisons and toxins were disposed of directly into
space. Fresh water was recirculated up to the habitat’s storage reservoirs and parkland rivers.

Normally the main ingestion tract was a continual waterfall. Now, though, Rubra had closed the inlet channels and reversed
the flow from the purification organs, allowing the water level to rise up the tract until it was level with the fiftieth
floor.

The cold surface closed over Dariat’s head, and he felt his feet clear the tubule. A couple of swift kicks and he surfaced,
puffing a spray of droplets from his mouth. Thankfully this water was clean—relatively.

He held an arm up in the air, a sharp blue flame flickering up from his fingertips. Its light showed the true extent of the
tract: twenty metres in diameter, with walls of neutral grey polyp that had the same crinkly surface texture as granite. Sewer
tubule outlets formed black portals all around, their muscle-membrane rims flexing like fish mouths. The pillows were bobbing
about a few metres away.

Tatiana had pushed her shoulders past the tubule’s muscle membrane, and was craning her head back to look around. The tract’s
height defeated the illumination thrown out by Dariat’s small flame, revealing barely fifteen metres of the walls above the
water level. A heavy shower was falling out of the darkness which roofed them, chopping up the water’s surface with small
ripples.

“Come on, out you come,” Dariat said. He swam back to her and helped ease her through the opening. She gasped at the water’s
chilly grip, arms thrashing about for a moment.

Dariat retrieved the two sets of pillows and strapped himself into the harness. He had to tie Tatiana’s cords for her, the
cold had numbed her fingers. When he was finished, the sewer tubules all started to close silently.

“Where are we going now?” Tatiana asked nervously.

“Straight up.” He grinned. “Rubra will pump fresh water back into the base of the tract. It should take about twenty minutes
to reach the top. But expect an interruption.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

•  •  •

Stanyon arrived at the fiftieth floor to find it in turmoil. The vestibule was packed with excitable possessed. None of them
seemed to know what was going on.

“Anybody seen him?” Stanyon shouted. Nobody had.

“Search around, there must be some trace. I want the teams that were searching floors thirty-eight and thirty-nine to go down
to fifty-one and check it out.”“What’s happening?” Bonney’s voice asked from the walkie-talkie; there was a lot of crackling
interference.

Stanyon held the unit to his face, pulling out more aerial. “He’s dodged us again. But we know he’s here. We’ll have him any
minute now.”

“Make sure you stick with procedure. Remember it’s not just Dariat we’re up against.”

“You’re not the only council member left. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m a minute away from the lobby. I’ll join you as fast as I can.”

He gave the walkie-talkie a disgusted look and switched it off. “Terrific.”

“Stanyon,” someone called from the other end of the vestibule. “Stanyon, we’ve found something.”

It was the troll, the faerie prince, and both of the cyber-ninjas who had broken into the apartment. They were hanging around
the bathroom door when Stanyon arrived. He pushed his way past them impatiently.

The sides of the ruptured toilet sphincter had sagged, squeezing more of the yellow fluid out. It was running down the outside
of the cone to smear the surrounding dune of polyp chippings. Water from the fractured pipe was sloshing over the floor.

Stanyon edged forwards, and peered cautiously over the crater’s lip. There was nothing to see, nothing to sense. He pointed
at the smaller of the two cyber-ninjas. “You, go see where it leads to.”

The cyber-ninja looked at him. Red LEDs on his visor flashed slowly, an indolent blinking to mirror the thoughts they fronted.

“Go on,” Stanyon said impatiently.

After a brief rebellious moment, the cyber-ninja demate-

rialized his flak jacket and lowered himself down into the

sewer tubule.

•  •  •

Dariat had been worried about the undercurrents. Needlessly, as it turned out. They were rising fast up the giant tract with
only the occasional swirl of bubbles twisting around them. It was still raining heavily, but the whole process was eerily
silent.

He maintained the small flame burning coldly from his fingers, mainly for Tatiana’s benefit. There was nothing to see above
them, only the empty blackness. They slid smoothly past the intermittent circlets of closed tubules with monotonous regularity,
their only real measure of progress.

Dariat was warm enough, circulating heat through his skin to hold the water’s numbing encroachment at bay. But he did worry
about Tatiana. She’d stopped talking, and her chittering teeth were clearly audible. That left him alone with his own thoughts
of what was to come. And the whispers of the damned, they were always there.

Rubra, have you ever heard of someone called Alkad Mzu?
he asked.

No. Why?

Capone is very interested in finding her. I think she’s some kind of weapons expert.

How the hell do you know what Capone wants?

I can hear it. The souls in the beyond are calling for her. They’re quite desperate to find her for the Organization.

Affinity suddenly gave him a sense of space opening around him. Then an astonishingly resolute presence emerged from the new
distance. Dariat was at once fearful and amazed by its belief in itself, a contentment which was almost the opposite of hubris;
it knew and accepted itself too well for arrogance. There was a nobility about it which he had never experienced, certainly
not during the life he had led. Yet he knew exactly what it was.

Hello, Dariat,
it said.

The Kohistan Consensus. I’m flattered.

It is intriguing for us to communicate with you. It is a rare opportunity to talk to any non-Edenist, and you are a possessor
as well.
Make the most of it, I won’t be around for much longer.

The action you and Rubra are undertaking is an honourable one, we applaud your courage. It cannot have been easy for either
of you.

It was realistic.

His answer was accompanied by Rubra’s emission of irony.

We would like to ask a question,
Consensus said.
Several, in fact.

On the nature of possession, I assume. Fair enough.

Your current viewpoint is unique, and extremely valuable to us.

It’s going to have to wait a minute,
Rubra said.
They’ve found the toilet.

•  •  •

The cyber-ninja had squeezed down into the sewer tubule and was squirming along on his belly. His mind tone was one of complete
disgust. Pale violet light illuminated the lenses on his low-light enhancement goggles, casting a faint glow across the polyp
directly in front of him. “They were in here,” he yelled back over his shoulder. “This shit’s all been smeared around.”