The Red Queen (65 page)

‘I will go back and hold the door and send Hendon to you, so he can test the glides and tell us if they will work,’ Ana said.

I nodded and accepted the lightstick she offered, knowing she would be able to get back to the door by the androne’s headlight. After she left, I made a slow, wary circuit of the first of the oval-shaped forms, wondering if it could really be something that flew. In no wise did the unwieldy-looking things bear any resemblance to the slender, pod-shaped fliers I had seen in Beforetime dreams, and there had been four of them, from what Hendon had said. Nor could I see any means by which it could move, let alone get out of the hangar chamber. I could not even see how one would get into the thing.

‘Elspeth,’ Ana said.

I turned to find her and Hendon approaching. I was about to demand to know why she had let the door to the surface shut when she grinned wryly and lifted one leg. I saw then that she was wearing only one of her Beforetime boots. Her foot was filthy and I wondered how she could bear to walk on the droppings, but she seemed to be only slightly disgusted as she set it down again. ‘Tell her, Hendon,’ she urged the androne.

‘These are the glides commissioned and purchased by the Pellmar Corporation to service the Pellmar Quadrants,’ the androne said.

‘But there are only three of them.’

‘Exactly! ’ Ana said eagerly. ‘So Kelver Rhonin must have taken the fourth! That means they can be made to work, else how should he have got the other one out?’

‘The absence of one glide is not much of an argument,’ I said sharply.

She gave me an exasperated look. ‘There were four glides, and now there are three. Kelver Rhonin was looking for a glide to fly away. I used the big golator God fixed so it would show if we were anywhere near Kelver Rhonin’s golator, and it didn’t do anything, which means he is not in Northport.’

‘He came here to connect God to a govamen computermachine,’ I said tersely. ‘
God
said that.’

‘I know, but it wasn’t possible, so he went to Whelmer, and I bet he flew the other glide there, just as we decided to do,’ Ana said triumphantly. ‘What else could have happened to the fourth glide?’

It
was
logical I had to admit. In truth the strange ease with which we had found the glides felt like fate. I looked up and said, ‘How are we to test the glides to see if they will work, without waking the
rhenlings
?’

Ana turned to the androne. ‘Hendon, can you test the glides without waking the
rhenlings
?’

‘Yes, User Seeker,’ the androne said.

Ana looked questioningly at me, and I had to force myself to nod. Suddenly I felt very frightened at the thought of the
rhenlings
clustered on all sides. ‘Do it now, please, Hendon,’ Ana said.

We both watched the androne approach the first glide.

‘Wait,’ I hissed, and it stopped. I pointed to a clump of
rhenlings
under the hull where there was a faint ripple of movement, and then I looked up and saw it was the same with the
rhenlings
overhead. They were definitely stirring. As we watched apprehensively, they settled. It took somewhat longer for my heart to stop galloping. ‘You are sure the tests will not wake them?’ I whispered to the androne.

‘The noise of the test will not be sufficient to wake them at this phase of their sleep,’ Hendon said, then the androne seemed to pull off the end of its middle finger. I grimaced in revulsion until I saw that it was merely a cover for a truncated finger shape, from which protruded several tiny posts of silver. Hendon moved towards the glide and I froze at the thought that it might brush the
rhenlings
aside, but it merely stopped at the side and reached up to flip open a tiny door in the hull beneath a dusty black window. There was not an opening beneath it but a flat panel with some minuscule workings. The androne pressed the bared posts in its finger into an opening that seemed made for them. Nothing happened, and after a short time, the androne removed its finger and moved to the next glide where it did the same thing. It was not until it came to the third glide that I remembered that the same tiny silver posts stuck out from the end of the memory seed and the red token.

The androne turned to me. ‘All three glides are viable, Technician Ana. The damage done by the mutants’ saliva and excretions appears to be minimal and superficial.’ The androne turned suddenly and looked away into the darkness.

‘What is it?’ I asked uneasily.

‘Hendon, do not do anything to rouse the
rhenlings
,’ Ana warned.

‘Something approaches,’ the androne said.

My mouth went dry as Ana, who had drawn closer to me, took the lightstick from my fingers and played an unsteady beam of light in the direction the androne was looking. The shadows of the pillars swayed and loomed alarmingly, and then to my inexpressible joy and astonishment, I saw Maruman prowling towards us on silent paws, his single good eye gleaming a caustic yellow. Before I could speak or move, the androne pointed its hand at the old cat.

‘Stop Hendon!’ Ana screamed, grabbing the androne’s arm.

A whispering chitter arose from the
rhenlings
and filled the air like a gust of wind blowing desiccated leaves and Maruman flattened himself to the ground, even his tail motionless. None of the rest of us moved and gradually the
rhenlings
quieted.

‘Hendon, stop,’ I said very calmly and quietly.

The androne had frozen when Ana cried out but it was still pointing its hand at Maruman. It said, ‘This animal is feline, an older specimen, carnivorous, surgically altered and physically damaged. Hertz-kraagen pulses indicate mental instability and high levels of aggression. It may be a danger to you, User Seeker, and to your technicians. I will destroy it.’

I stepped firmly between the androne and the cat, biting back the desire to attack it. ‘I order you not to destroy anything,’ I said. Then I explained that the cat was known to me and was another of my technicians. At last the androne’s hand dropped to its side. Trembling, I turned and went to Maruman, restraining the desire to scoop the old cat into my arms. I squatted down to look into his fierce eye. ‘Mydearone/Marumanyelloweyes/Moonwatcher. I have missed you so terribly. I cannot tell you how relieved/happy I am to see you.’

‘I have been waiting for you ElspethInnle,’ Maruman sent composedly, his tail switching in a way that told me my emotions were irritating him. I struggled to constrain fear and love, and only when I had managed to calm my heart, did Maruman come close and suffer me to butt my forehead against his. Only then did I open my arms to him, and he came into them and allowed me to lift him up to my shoulder where he clawed his way into his favourite position around my neck and then settled, tail coiling delicately over my shoulder to hang alongside my plait.

For a long moment, I stood there fighting back tears, fighting down joy and relief. I sensed his irritation but he endured it until, again, I managed to bring my feelings under control.

‘Did you foresee that I would come here?’ I beastspoke him.

‘I foresaw it and the oldOnes came to me/sent me to thisplace to wait/to stop ElspethInnle.’

‘Stop me?’ I echoed, taken aback. Then, ‘The oldOnes! So Astyanax succeeded!’

‘Do not speakloudly/cry out now ElspethInnle,’ Maruman warned. ‘The
rhenlings
grow restless and soon they will wake. We must find a way/opening from this place before they sense us.’

‘You were to stop me because we would do something here that would wake them?’ I asked.

‘To stop you taking a flying
glarsh
that will fall/drop from the sky,’ he sent. ‘The only safe
glarsh
Hannah chose. You can/must use thatone, lest we/you/all who go with you die.’

‘How can I know which one Hannah chose?’ I demanded incredulously.

‘The oldOnes said the Seeker must seek a sign left by she/Hannah, ElspethInnle,’ Maruman said.

I wondered what he could possibly mean. The only sign remaining was the one in Dragon’s mind. Was that what the oldOnes had meant? Yet how could some memory of hers, acquired in the Red Land, help me find the glide Hannah had presumably foreseen? Dragon had never been here any more than any of her ancestors had. My eyes widened at the realisation that
she
had not come here but Hannah had gone to the Red Land and had told Dragon’s ancestor many things. Ana asked what Maruman had said and I told her, both of us looking up uneasily at the
rhenlings
stirring and shifting.

‘Under,’ Ana muttered cryptically.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Maybe you are seeking complication where there is only simplicity. Miryum said there were two keys, and that box Swallow showed me that contained Cassandra’s key had a place for two things. Maybe the other one is here.’

I groped for Cassandra’s key and ran my finger along the side of it, wondering if it could be that easy. Then I drew in a breath. ‘The words scribed on the grave marker!
That which was parted must be reunited.
Why put it like that when Jacob and Hannah were already united? Unless the words refer to something else?’

‘Let’s look,’ Ana said. ‘It can’t hurt and it’s not sunset yet.’

She was right and it was she who, some twenty minutes later, found the plast device suspended on a chain from a protuberance just under the wide end of the last glide in the row. She called me to her softly and I held my breath as she reached through the stirring
rhenlings
very carefully to lift it free. We moved away from the glide to the androne so that we could make use of its headlight, and when Ana held it up, I held the plast device I had got from the grave beside it. At first I thought they were exact copies, but the indentations were down opposite sides. Ana suggested the indentations might fit together but they did not marry and I then saw that they were slightly different as well. I slipped the chain of the second key over my head, and was startled to feel the tokens move of their own accord. Ana looked closely and said the two chains had come together and bonded into a single thick chain, while the two tokens had fitted together along the indentations.

‘It looks like wings,’ she said wonderingly.

At that moment the light in her lightstick failed. I had turned mine on to search and I handed it to her, asking the androne how long and how difficult it would be to give the glide its instructions.

‘The coordinates and instructions I carry cannot be uploaded without the assistance of a mainframe computer, User Seeker,’ Hendon said.

Ana looked almost comically dismayed.

‘What does it mean?’ I asked.

‘Kelver Rhonin’s code key is stopping Hendon from being able to communicate with the mainframe computermachine here, and he needs its help to transfer God’s instructions and all of the directions to Eden she put into him for the glide computermachine,’ Ana said. ‘And of course we now know we can’t make it reach out to God to have her do it either.’

‘There must be a way to manage this because Hannah had to have foreseen it,’ I said. ‘Why else would she bother with all of this, the scribing on the marker, the second key left here? It
must
be possible for us to use the glide. Hendon, is there some other way to make the glide take us to Eden other than you getting the computermachine here to take the instructions God gave you and put them inside the glide?’

‘Maybe the computermachine at Whelmer . . .’ Ana murmured.

‘The directions to Eden are based on obsolete coordinates which means the destination is approximate,’ the androne said ponderously.

‘I know that,’ I snapped, frightened at the thought of trusting us all to a Beforetime machine and now frightened to abandon it when Hannah had foreseen us using it. Maruman dug his claws into my shoulder and I forced myself to calm down. ‘I am asking only if the glide can be made to carry us to this approximate destination by some other means than by your putting in God’s directions and instructions.’

‘There is only one way,’ Ana said suddenly, her voice very calm. ‘I have just realised it. Hendon has the directions and the instructions about how to make the glide work. He can’t give them to the glide computer, so he must come with us and drive the vessel, drawing on the instructions he carries.’

‘Is this possible?’ I asked the androne. ‘Will your . . . program let you do that?’

‘My instructions are to lead User Seeker and her party of technicians to Northport; to protect them and offer all assistance within my capacities and in accordance with my programme, in the fulfilment of User Seeker’s program. Additionally, I am to make every effort to ensure the establishment of a viable link between the mainframe computer in Northport and God in Midland and to gather all incidental data available during these activities and upon my return to Midland. Given that there is no possibility of fulfilling my instruction to link Northport to Midland here, and because I have been given no time frame within which to obey my instructions from God, it is possible to factor in the possibility that a government computer could forge a connection to Northport, bypassing the code key of Kelver Rhonin, to establish a connection to Midland. You, User Elspeth, and your technicians, propose that there is a government computer at Eden, which is your destination. I have calculated an 87 per cent probability that this computer exists undamaged and had a viable passive link to a government computer. Therefore, I can go with you in the glide.’

‘But can you make it fly to Eden, Hendon?’ I asked. ‘Can you get us there in this machine without killing us?’

‘As Technician Ana has said, I am able to make contact with the glide computer, and feed into it God’s coordinates and directions as required,’ the androne said in its dry monotone. ‘But I can make no alterations to the route nor order any stops that have not been input by God, if I access the glide computer directly. God’s coordinates will not be able to be reversed or altered. The glide will proceed without deviation to the input destination contained in my memory banks and then stop.’

I felt the prick of Maruman’s claws at my neck, and the old cat gave a soft hiss. Looking at him, I saw that he was gazing upward and I realised the
rhenlings
on the roof were stirring.

‘I think we had better talk about this outside,’ I said. I took Ana’s arm and began to move towards the door, but seeing my intent, Maruman sent complacently that the door that he had passed through was now closed. We must seek another.

I stared at him in dismay, then told Ana. Her face paled, but she turned to Hendon and asked if he could lead us to another way out.

‘All fire escapes are closed from the inside, save when the sensors detect gas or smoke or noxious fumes, or when the elevators fail,’ Hendon said. ‘Then the emergency exit touch pads become active. However at this time . . .’

‘They are not active, of course,’ I growled.

‘Surely the lifts have failed if we can’t use them,’ Ana said.

‘The lift system is inactive, Technician Ana,’ the androne said mildly.

‘Can you suggest a way out?’ Ana said.

‘It may be possible to access the mechanism of the computermachine, since it is not active and therefore is disconnected from the mainframe computer,’ God said.

The androne led us into the vast darkness beyond the glides, and we followed, saying not a word, for we were both all too aware that the afternoon must be drawing to a close. We passed through a door and into a series of hallways, all of them heavily infested with
rhenlings
, though not so thickly as in the glide chamber. Neither of us spoke about the passing of precious time, or about where the elevating chamber we found would bring us out, or about the
rhenlings
growing ever more restless.

Then Hendon said very softly that it must extinguish its light, for the
rhenlings
had reached the level of wakefulness where they would be aware of the light. We must also be silent and not touch any of them, yet we must move swiftly, because soon the scent of our bodies would rouse them. We went on, Ana and I walking arm in arm behind the androne, our other hands outstretched to keep contact with it. The now empty shelves protruding absurdly from its back served as perfect handles. Fortunately it had some means of sensing out the shape of the chamber and objects that did not require light. As we progressed in this way, blind and silent, Maruman, perched on my shoulder, began to growl softly. I did not try to hush him for I could feel that his reaction was not conscious, but a visceral response to the threat of the
rhenlings
.

After what seemed an eternity of creeping along, all the while hearing the increasing rustle and chitter of
rhenlings
near to waking, Hendon stopped. There was a soft sound and then a muffled hum that made Maruman dig in his claws hard. Then we heard the blessed sound of a machine whirring to life and the unmistakable sound of the elevating chamber doors opening.

‘Ye gods,’ I gasped, as we entered and the doors closed behind us. I heard the sound of movement and metal on metal, and then there was another whirring sound and the elevating chamber began to rise at last. I felt as if I were lifting it up with the sheer force of my longing to return to the surface.

Ana asked the androne to make light, and I saw that its hand was buried inside an opening it had created by pulling off a small panel on the wall. I supposed it had been the place a person would ordinarily lay their hand to get the doors to open or close from within. Ana asked the machine man if it would be safe to take the elevating chamber back down once it had delivered us to the surface and do whatever was required to prepare the glide to fly us to Eden.

‘Yes, Technician Ana,’ it said. ‘My substance material is impervious to the claws and teeth of the mutants.’

After we had got out and the doors closed, Ana and I looked at one another for a long moment. Her face was pale and frightened and no doubt mine was the same.

‘Wait till we tell the others,’ Ana said. Then she looked down at her begrimed foot and grimaced. ‘Damn, I’ve left my other boot down there and we will have to run.’

She was right, for the air and city were ruddy with dusk. Maruman insisted on being put down and bounded lightly along beside me as we sprinted along the streets. I farsent the others, but my probe would not locate. No doubt they were in the basement already. I tried to reach the beasts, too, so that I could tell them that Maruman was with me and safe, but to no avail. It would have to wait until morning. That would give me time to make up my mind about whether we would spend the next day travelling to and from the Whelmer Dam to see if Hannah had left anything for me there, and to try to find out if there truly was any possibility of reaching out to a govamen computermachine, or whether to give up the idea and simply summon the beasts and leave in the glide.