The Revelation Space Collection (140 page)

Now, in Chasm City, I felt something else entirely.

‘Don’t worry, Tanner. We’ll make it nice and quick on him. A real clinical job.’

‘Good. I’ll be hand-picking my own team, of course . . . is Vicuna coming with us?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then we’ll need two tents. I’m not eating from the same table as the ghoul, no matter what tricks he’s learned to do with snakes.’

‘There’ll be more than two tents, Tanner. Dieterling’ll be with us, of course - he knows snakes better than anyone - and I’m taking Gitta as well.’

‘There’s something I want you to understand,’ I said. ‘Just going up into the jungle carries some risk. The instant Gitta leaves the Reptile House, she’s automatically in greater danger than if she remained. We know some of our enemies keep a close watch on our movements, and we know there are things in the jungle that are best avoided.’ I paused. ‘I’m not abdicating responsibility, but I want you to know I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety on this expedition. All I can do is my best - but my best might not be good enough.’

He patted me on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure your best will suffice, Tanner. You’ve never let me down before.’

‘There’s always a first time,’ I said.

Our small hunting convoy consisted of three armoured ground-effect vehicles. Cahuella, Gitta and I rode in the lead vehicle, along with Dieterling. He had his hands on the joystick, guiding us expertly along the overgrown trail. He knew the terrain and was also an expert on hamadryads. It hurt me to think he was dead as well now.

Behind, Vicuna and three other security people rode in the second vehicle: Letelier, Orsono and Schmidt; all with expertise in deep-country work. The third vehicle carried heavy weapons - amongst them the ghoul’s harpoon guns - together with ammunition, medical supplies, food and water rations and our deflated bubbletents. It was driven by one of Cahuella’s old trustees, while Rodriguez rode shot-gun in the rear, sweeping the path in case anyone tried to attack us from behind.

On the dashboard was a map of the Peninsula divided into grid sections, with our current position marked by a pulsing blue dot. Several hundred kilometres to the north, but on what would eventually become the same track as us, was a red pulse which moved a little south each day. That was Reivich’s squad; thinking they were moving covertly, but betrayed by the signatures of their weapons which Orcagna was tracking. They made about fifty or sixty kilometres a day, which was about as good a rate as anyone was capable of maintaining through the jungle. Our plan was to set up camp a day’s travel south of Reivich.

In the meantime, we were passing through the lower extent of the hamadryad range. You could see the excitement in Cahuella’s eyes as he peered deep into the jungle for a hint of large, slow movement. Near-adults moved so ponderously - and were so invulnerable to any kind of natural predation - that they had never evolved any flight response. The only thing that made a hamadryad move was hunger or the migratory imperative of their breeding cycle. Vicuna said they did not even have what we would think of as a survival instinct. They had no more need of one than a glacier did.

‘There’s a ham tree,’ Dieterling said, towards the end of the day. ‘Newly fused, by the look of it.’ He pointed off to one side, into what looked like impenetrable gloom. My eyesight was good, but Dieterling’s was apparently superhuman.

‘God . . .’ Gitta said, slipping a pair of camouflaged image-amplifier goggles to her eyes. ‘It’s huge.’

‘They’re not small animals,’ her husband said. He was looking in the same direction as Dieterling, his eyes squinting intently at something. ‘You’re right. That tree must have had - what, eight or nine fusions?’

‘At the very least,’ Dieterling said. ‘The most recent fusion might still be in its transition state.’

‘Still warm, you mean?’ Cahuella said.

I could see the way his mind was working. Where there was a tree with recent growth layers, there might be near-adult hamadryads as well.

We decided to set up camp in the next clearing, a couple of hundred metres further down the trail. The drivers needed a rest after a day pushing through the trail, and the vehicles tended to accumulate minor damage which had to be put right before the next stage. We were in no haste to reach our ambush point and Cahuella liked to spend a few hours each night hunting around the camp’s perimeter before retiring.

I used a monofilament scythe to widen the clearing, then helped with the inflation of the bubbletents.

‘I’m going into the jungle,’ Cahuella said, tapping me on the shoulder. He wore his hunting jacket, a rifle slung over one shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so.’

‘Go easy with any near-adults you find,’ I said, only half joking.

‘This is just a fishing trip, Tanner.’

I reached over to the card table I had set up outside the tent, with some of our equipment on it. ‘Here. Don’t forget these, especially if you’re going to wander far.’ I held up the image-amp goggles.

He hesitated, then reached out and took the goggles, slipping them into a shirt pocket. ‘Thanks.’

He stepped away from the pool of light around the tents, unhitching the gun as he went. I finished the first tent, the one where Gitta and Cahuella were sleeping, and then went to find her to tell her it was ready. She was sitting in the cab of the vehicle, an expensive compad propped on her lap. She was thumbing through something indolently, skimming pages of what looked like poetry.

‘Your tent’s done,’ I said.

She closed the compad with something like relief and allowed me to lead her towards the tent’s opening. I had already checked the clearing for any lurking unpleasantnesses - the smaller, venomous cousins of hamadryads which we called dropwinders - but the place was safe. Still, Gitta moved hesitantly, afraid of putting her foot down on anything other than a brightly lit spot of ground, despite my reassurances.

‘You look like you’re enjoying yourself,’ I said.

‘Is that sarcasm, Tanner? Do you expect me to enjoy this?’

‘I told him it would be better for all of us if you stayed at the Reptile House.’

I unzipped the opening. Within was a pantry-sized airlock which kept the tent from deflating whenever someone came or went. We set up the three tents at the apexes of a triangle, linked together by pressurised corridors a few strides long. The tiny generator which fed the tents the air which kept them inflated was small and silent. Gitta stepped within and then said, ‘Is that what you think, Tanner - that this is no place for a woman? I thought attitudes like that died before they ever launched the Flotilla.’

‘No . . .’ I said, trying not to sound overly defensive. ‘That’s not what I think at all.’ I moved to seal the outer door between us, so that she could enter the tent in her own privacy.

But she put a hand up and held mine from the zip. ‘What is it you think, then?’

‘I think what’s going to happen here won’t be very pleasant.’

‘An ambush, you mean? Funny; I’d never have guessed that for myself.’

I said something foolish. ‘Gitta, you have to realise, there are things you don’t know about Cahuella. Or me, for that matter. Things about the work we do. Things we have done. I think you will soon have a better idea about some of those things.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘I think you should be ready for it, that’s all.’ I looked over my shoulder, towards the jungle where her husband had vanished. ‘I should get to work on the other tents, Gitta . . .’

When she answered her voice had an odd quality to it. ‘Yes, of course.’ She was looking at me intently. Perhaps it was the way the light played on it, but her face seemed extraordinarily beautiful to me then; like something painted by Gauguin. I think it was in that instant that my intention to betray Cahuella crystallised. The thought of it must have always been there, but it had taken that instant of searing beauty to bring it to light. If the shadows had fallen slightly differently across her face, I wondered, would I still have made that decision?

‘Tanner, you’re wrong, you know.’

‘About what?’

‘Cahuella. I know a lot more about him than you think. A lot more than anyone here thinks they do. I know he’s a violent man, and I know he’s done terrible things. Evil things. Things you wouldn’t even believe.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ I said.

‘No; that’s precisely the point, I wouldn’t be. I’m not talking about the violent little deeds he’s committed since you’ve known him. They’re barely worthy of consideration compared to the things he did before. And unless you’re aware of those things, you really don’t know him at all.’

‘If he’s so bad, why do you stay with him?’

‘Because he isn’t the evil man he used to be.’

Something flashed between the trees; a stammer of blue-white light, followed a moment later by the report of a laser-rifle. Something dropped through foliage to the ground. I imagined Cahuella stepping forward until he had found his kill; probably a small snake.

‘Some people would say that an evil man never really changes, Gitta.’

‘Then they’d be wrong. It’s only our deeds that make us evil, Tanner; they’re what define us, nothing else, not our intentions or feelings. But what are a few bad deeds compared to a life, especially the kinds of lives we can live now?’

‘Only some of us,’ I said.

‘Cahuella’s older than you think, Tanner. And the evil things he did were a long, long time ago, when he was much younger. They were what led me to him, eventually.’ She paused, glancing towards the trees, but before I could ask her what she had meant by that, she was already speaking again. ‘But the man I found wasn’t an evil one. He was cruel, violent, dangerous, but he was also capable of giving love; of accepting love from another human being. He saw beauty in things; recognised evil in others. He wasn’t the man I’d expected to find, but someone better. Not perfect - not by a long stretch - but not a monster; not at all. I found that I couldn’t hate him as easily as I’d hoped.’

‘You expected to hate him?’

‘I expected to do a lot more than that. I expected to kill him, or bring him to justice. Instead . . .’ Gitta paused again. There was another crack of blue light from the forest: the deadfall of another animal. ‘I found myself asking a question; one I’d never thought of before. How long would you have to live as a good man - doing good - before the sum of your good actions cancelled out something terrible you’d once done? Could any human life be long enough?’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered, truthfully. ‘But I do know one thing. Cahuella may be better than he used to be, but he’s still not anyone’s idea of citizen of the month, is he? If you define the way he is now as a man doing good, I’d hate to think what he was like before.’

‘You would, yes,’ Gitta said. ‘And I don’t think you could handle it, either.’

I bade her goodnight and returned to preparing the other tents.

TWENTY

In the midmorning, while the others struck camp, five of us walked back on foot until we had reached the point in the track where we had seen the hamadryad tree. From there it was an uncomfortable but short scramble through overgrowth until we reached the flared base. I led the party, sweeping the monofilament scythe ahead of me in an arc which cleared most of the vegetation.

‘It’s even bigger than it looked from the trail,’ Cahuella said. He was rosy-cheeked and jovial this morning, for his hunting last night had been successful, as we had discovered by the carcasses hung up outside the clearing. ‘How old do you think it is?’

‘It definitely predates the landing,’ said Dieterling. ‘Four hundred years old, perhaps. We’d need to cut it to know better.’ He began to stroll around the tree’s circumference, tapping the bark lightly with the back of his knuckles.

With us were Gitta and Rodriguez. They looked up towards the tree’s upper reaches, craning their necks and squinting against the sunlight which filtered through the jungle canopy.

‘I don’t like it,’ Gitta said. ‘What if . . .’

He had appeared out of earshot, but Dieterling answered her. ‘The chances of another snake coming by here are pretty damn minimal. Especially as this one seems to have fused very recently.’

‘Are you sure?’ Cahuella said.

‘Check it out for yourself.’

He was nearly round the back of the tree. We crunched through the overgrowth until we reached him.

The hamadryad trees were a mystery to the first explorers, in those dreamlike years before the war began. They had swept through this part of the Peninsula at haste, eyes wide for the wonders of a new world, searching for marvels, knowing that everything would be studied in greater detail in the future. They were like children ripping open presents, scarcely glancing at the contents of each wrapper before beginning to unpeel another gift. There was just too much to be seen.

If they had been methodical, they would have discovered the trees and decided that they were worthy of immediate further study, rather than simply consigning them to the growing list of planetary anomalies. Had they done so, they would only have needed to place a few trees under study for a few years before the secret would have been revealed to them. But it was many decades into the war before the proper nature of the trees was established.