The Night's Dawn Trilogy (414 page)

But I would fit into the level-one chambers.

That was what I was going to suggest,
Samuel said.
We ought to be able to reach one of them. And I doubt the hellhawk could swallow in to harass you. Whereas if you came back
here to fight your way past the Tyrathca ship, it could certainly complicate the situation for you.

I can do it,
Oenone
insisted.

Are you sure? This isn’t just bravado, is it?

You know I can. And we would honour
Udat
’s memory by doing so.

All right.
Syrinx couldn’t hide the pride and simmering excitement in her mind.
Samuel, we’ll attempt to pick you out from one of the axial chambers.

Thank you,
Samuel said emphatically.

______

Oski and Renato were almost running as they emerged from the control office airlock. Their suit programs were having to limit
the augmentation to stop them from hitting their heads on the airlock chamber ceiling. “I’ve found the archive.” Renato datavised
the layout file over to Monica, Samuel, and the serjeants. “It’s on the other side of the ring, a kilometre away.”

“Move out,” Monica datavised. Her guidance block was analysing the new data, incorporating it into existing files.

“According to this file, there’s a ramp up to the second level just past the archive,” Samuel datavised. “I’ll blow the airlock
hatch, and we’ll evacuate through there as soon as you’ve got the information.”

“Sounds good,” Renato datavised.

The five of them were skating along the lightless streets in long low bounds, utterly reliant on their guidance programs.
Nothing changed around them. At every turn, the wintered towers were the same ahead and behind, their infrared signatures
identical.

“The Tyrathca are on their way down the ramp to this ring,” datavised the serjeant who was guarding the entrance. “I’ve rigged
the airlock. Do you want me to blow it?”

“No,” Monica datavised. “Wait until they’re all inside the ring, then blow it.”

“You want to trap them in here?” Renato datavised. “With us?”

“Good tactics,” Samuel confirmed. “If we block them now, we won’t know where they are, nor how they gain entry. But once they’re
in, they can’t get out easily, and we can monitor them via the sensor disks. It gives us the strategic high ground.”

______

A glimmer of infrared started to shine down the corridor ahead of the diversion serjeant, like an autumnal dawn. Ione stopped
and slapped a magazine of smart-seeker missiles in the launcher, datavising the Tyrathca profile into their processors. Suit
sensors showed a similar infrared glow expanding behind her.

Surrounded,
she informed her other selves.
Be warned. They really are making good use of their knowledge.

A couple of neutron pulse tipped missiles were fired at the group behind her. She dropped a grenade, and started to run forwards.
Smart-seeker missiles sliced out of the big launcher ahead of her. The neutron pulses went off. She triggered the grenade,
bringing down the corridor roof. Small EE detonations were flaring up ahead as the missiles punctured the Tyrathca spacesuit
fabric, burying themselves deep in the xenoc bodies before detonating.

Infrared vision was wiped out in splashes of brilliant crimson. Still firing missiles. Something like a medium-sized cannonball
hit her right leg. Exploding. She was flung violently against the ceiling, bouncing down against the floor. Internal bones
snapped. Cracks multiplied across her exoskeleton. But the armour held, reinforced by the molecular binding generators.

The diversion serjeant raised its head, dislodging various rocks which were lodged on its helmet. It moved its arms, actuators
pushing hard against the weight of rocks holding its torso down. More rocks slithered off the armour. Two soldiercaste Tyrathca
were bounding towards it. Ione waited until they were fifteen metres away, and fired a couple of homing grenades.

______

The sensor disk by the spiral ramp up in level one noted a rise in the thermal environment beyond its pre-set parameters,
and broadcast an alert. Visual observation showed twenty new Tyrathca marching into the interior.

______

“Oh God,” Monica datavised. “Just what we need.”

“It will take them forty minutes to reach ring five,” Samuel datavised. “If Oski hasn’t retrieved what we need by then I doubt
it will matter.”

They were fifty metres short of the ring wall, passing the last of the towers. Five sets of suit lights slithered erratically
over the wall, kindling small refractive auras from the curtain of frosted creeper leaves.

“There,” Renato datavised. Rather uselessly, he raised an arm and pointed. But the others saw where his suit lights had come
to rest, and focused their own beams on the spot. The airlock door to the archive was very similar to those of the control
offices. And like them, open.

“It’s recent,” Oski datavised. “Several faint infrared footprints, very similar to those at the control offices.”

“Monica, you go in with them,” Samuel datavised. “I’ll set the charges ready to open that ramp for us.”

Monica drew an X-ray laser rifle from her belt, and switched her homing grenades to active mode. Feeling slightly more confident,
she stepped through the open airlock. Oski and Renato had been issued with the same weapons suite as she, but not even full
field combat programs could turn a pair of academics into decent troops. She didn’t have surprise on her side. Instead she
went for speed, flashing through the final doorway with sensor gain on maximum. Radar and infrared covered the whole interior
of the archive chamber in milliseconds. The results filtered through her tactical location program, which declared there was
nothing active inside.

“You can come in,” she datavised.

The archive was substantially different to the control offices. A lot larger, a long hall tunnelled out of naked rock, with
an arching ceiling thirty metres high. Despite having Tyrathca-sized computer terminals and display cases, it was the most
human place they’d seen in Tanjuntic-RI.

Principally, Monica decided, because it was instantly recognisable: a museum. Five-metre glass cube display cabinets were
standing in regimented rows the whole length of the hall. The glass was fogged by grime and ice. When they shone their suit
beams on the cabinets, the contents were visible only as intriguing dark shadows. From what they could discern, it was machinery
inside; the outlines had too many flat sides and regular angles to be anything biological.

Each line of cubes was divided into sections by broad areas given over to computer terminals clustered round a central hexagonal
pedestal of giant display screens. Oski walked over to the nearest one. “These zones must be the archive’s operating stations,”
she datavised. Her light beams fanned up and down the casings, then settled on the screens. “There’s a plaque here.” Neural
nanonics put her Tyrathca translation program into primary mode. “Atmospheric engineering,” she read out. “They must cover
different disciplines at each station. Try and find anything relating to navigation or communications.”

“Can you see if the Kiint repaired any of the terminals?” Renato asked. “That would save a minute or two.”

“Nothing like that showing yet,” Monica datavised.

Renato walked along a row of the big cubes, annoyed they were all so opaque. The first station of terminals was mineral distillation,
followed by thermal maintenance, then distillation mining. On impulse he wiped a gauntlet against the ice on one cube, upping
the brightness on his suit lights. It was a chunk of machinery inside. “These gizmos look like they’re brand new,” he datavised.
“I’m not sure this is a museum. Could be they archived actual physical components, the ultimate template back-up in case something
screwed up their electronics.”

“Any kind of disaster big enough to eradicate their crystal memories would wreck these machines first,” Oski datavised. “Besides,
think how many different components there are to make Tanjuntic-RI work. A hell of a lot more than we can see in here.”

“Okay, so it’s just the really critical ones.”

“I think I’ve found it,” Monica datavised. “This terminal has been spruced up, and it’s still a couple of degrees warmer than
the rest.”

Oski scanned her suit sensors round to locate the ESA operative. “What’s the station?”

“Planetary habitation.”

“That doesn’t sound quite right.” She hurried over to where Monica was standing, suit lights converging on one of the terminals.

“The Tyrathca are now in ring five,” the serjeant guarding the ramp entrance datavised. “I am blowing the airlock behind them.”

Despite her high suit sensor resolution, Monica could receive no indication of the explosion. “Oski, we really don’t have
any more time to hunt round,” she datavised. “Just get what you can from this terminal, and pray the Kiint knew what they
were doing.”

“Confirmed.” The electronics specialist knelt down beside the terminal, and started working on the front panel.

______

Ione was tracking the Tyrathca through multiple observation points as they spread out through the streets of ring five. As
soon as the airlock detonated and collapsed behind them, trapping the last two in the rubble, they had deployed in a wide
sweep formation. The sensor disks were picking up microwave radar pulses from several of the soldiers. Their emissions helped
to target the first batch of homing grenades which she launched, eliminating a further three. Then they wised up to that and
switched the radars off. She launched a swarm of smart seeker missiles, programming them to flit above the tops of the towers.
Arrowing down as soon as they located a suit.

The launch betrayed her general direction. Ultimately, another plus point. She was on the other side of the airlock from the
control offices and archive, drawing them away from the exploration team.

One of the sensor disks showed a soldier raise a rifle the size of a small human cannon. Ione started running, not caring
about the lack of cover. A tower disintegrated behind her; the blast strong enough to create a rumble in the ring’s near-non-existent
atmosphere. Big nodules of debris crashed into neighbouring towers, shattering the brittle concrete. Three of them toppled
over, throwing up thick clouds of black dust which surged along the streets in every direction, blocking vision in all spectrums.

______

Monica followed what she could of the fight via the sensor disks. Nervous energy created a nasty itch along her spine and
ribs. It was impossible to scratch through the suit. Even twisting round inside the armour was useless. There was nothing
she could do to assist Oski and Renato. The pair of them had exposed the terminal’s electronics, and were busy attaching their
own blocks to the primitive components inside. Their fluid motions were bringing effective results. Little lights were flashing
around the rosette keyboard, and the monitor screen was producing a snowstorm of green and scarlet graphics.

She started walking round the outlying display cubes, alert for any other signs of Kiint activity. It was the one contribution
she could still make. Not that it would be a lot of use at this point. It wasn’t until after she’d started on her second circuit
of the planetary habitation station that her subconscious alarm grew strong enough to make her stop and take a proper look
at what she was seeing. The shapes inside the opaque cubes were no longer nice and regular.

With real unease replacing her anxiety now, Monica swiped her gauntlet over the crinkled, sparkling ice, rubbing a patch clear.
Her suit lights brightened, converging on the cube. Visual sensors altered their focus. Monica took a half step back, breath
catching in her throat. Her medical monitor program warned her of a sudden fast heart rhythm. “Samuel?” she datavised.

“What is it?”

“They’ve got xenocs in here. Xenocs I’ve never seen before.” She scanned her sensors across the creature inside the cube,
building up a pixel file image for the Edenist. It was bipedal, shorter than a human, with four symmetrically arranged arms
emerging from mid-torso. No elbow or knee joints were apparent, the limbs moved as a single unit. Bulbous shoulder/hip joints
hinted at a considerable articulation. All four arms ended in stumpy hands with four claw-fingers; while the legs finished
in rounded pads. The head was a fat cone, with deep folds of skin ringing a thick neck, which would permit a great deal of
rotation. There was a vertical gash, which could be either a nose or mouth, and deep sockets that could have held eyes.

“My God, Samuel, it’s sentient. It’s wearing things, look.” She focused on an arm, where a silver bracelet was wrapped around
the wizened caramel skin. “That could be a watch, I think. It’s certainly technological. They caught a sentient xenoc and
stuffed the poor bastard for their kids to look at in this freak show. Oh for Christ’s sake, what are we dealing with here?”

“You’re jumping to some very wild assumptions, Monica.”

“Then you explain what the fucking hell it’s doing in here. I’m telling you, they put it on show. It must have come from one
of the planets they stopped at.”

“You’re in an archive, not a circus zoo.”

“Is that supposed to make me happy? So this is scientific not entertainment. What were they doing studying it? It’s sentient.
It’s not a laboratory creature.”

“Monica, I know it’s shocking, but it isn’t relevant to our current situation. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to ignore it
for the moment.”

“Jesus fucking wept.” She spun round, and marched back towards the terminal where Oski and Renato were working. Heat and anger
kept her going for several paces. Then she stopped and scanned the cube again. Her suit lights refracted off the gritty ice
with its dark adumbrate core of sorrow and suffering.

When they’d come on board, she’d wondered about Tyrathca souls watching them. Now all she could think about was the soul of
the unknown xenoc; lost and alone, crying out desperately for others of its kind. Could it see her now? Was it shouting its
pleas for salvation from some obscure corner of the dreadful beyond? Unheard even by its own deities?