Neal Asher - Cowl

‘My name is Thote—if that is relevant. I’m here to help you.’

‘Now, lie face-down with your legs and arms outstretched.’

Tack considered going for her, but in this situation his new strength meant nothing and his reactions could not be faster than her trigger finger. So he obeyed, stretching out, but turning his head so he could just see Saphothere’s tent. With the barrel of her weapon still pressed against his neck, Meelan tossed a small silver sphere at the tent, which burnt through the fabric like hot iron through tissue paper. The interior was suddenly filled with a phosphorescent blaze, becoming a bright lantern for a few seconds before erupting from the fabric and consuming it. The heat was intense and Tack recognized that she had hurled a molecular catalyser, like the one Saphothere had used on the palisade of Pig City and like those still contained in Tack’s pack. Saphothere was not even given time to scream.

As the fire died down, a filigree of solidifying black smoke fell through the air as from acetylene flame. Tack felt the pressure of the gun barrel lift from his neck.

‘I have placed on your back a small mine, which, should you move abruptly, will detonate and drive into your spine fragments of glass coated with a paralytic. Do not move.’

Tack recognized that both Heliothane and Umbrathane possessed numerous varieties of explosives that could be programmed to detonate under varying circumstances—changes in temperature, humidity, position, whatever—so he did not disbelieve Meelan. His recent education had opened his eyes to just how dangerous her kind were.

Soon after she stepped into view as she went to inspect the ruins of the tent. He watched her running the toe of her boot through the thin layer of ash. Her new arm, he saw, was now nearly the size of the other, there was some sort of brace extending down the forearm and dividing up to spread down each finger. This was clearly to prevent any deformation in the rapid growth of the limb. Unfortunately, such regenerative ability was not one the Heliothane had been able to impart to himself, along with his other augmentations. Tack then realized Meelan might not know about those. Maybe the mine’s detonation was programmed to the slower movements of a twenty-second-century human, not for what he had become. Tack calculated that he had at least one and a half seconds.

With Meelan’s back now towards him, he reached round, closed his hand on cold metal, and threw the object at her, whipfast. The mine blew only centimetres from where he had been lying, but by then he was rolling down the slope towards the forest, paralytic glass fragments thumping the back of his suit. In the flash’s after-images he glimpsed Meelan spinning round and raising her weapon. Thrusting down with the flat of his hand, he changed the course of his roll as a series of explosions cut in a line down the slope towards him. Finally getting his feet underneath him, he sprang up, cartwheeled away on one hand while drawing his weapon with the other, and sent a spray of shots up the slope. A horsetail exploded into fibrous pulp right next to him as he dived headfirst into the cover of greenery. As plants continued to explode around him, he offered up thanks that both Umbrathane and Heliothane were so arrogantly self-assured of their fighting skills that they rarely relied on weapons like his seeker gun.

Deep in the jungle, the continuing explosions now behind him, he was caught unawares when a white hand snaked out from behind a giant club moss to grab his shoulder. He thrust his weapon up towards a white face, and was a microsecond from pulling the trigger before its identity registered.

‘I thought she’d killed you!’ Tack exclaimed.

‘Apparently not,’ Saphothere replied, staring up at the mountainside Tack had just left.

Tack turned to look and saw two mantisals had just appeared. Later, learning that Saphothere had left his tent briefly while Tack dozed, he was grateful that even superhumans like Saphothere needed to take a shit occasionally. The traveller began climbing the tree they were standing beneath. Tack followed him up and soon they obtained a better view of their ravaged campsite.

Their packs had been propped against a rock face behind Saphothere’s incinerated tent. Even as they watched, the group of Umbrathane set their defences, then leaving behind only two, a man and a woman, the other six, including Meelan herself, began scouring the jungle below. Tack handed back the monocular Saphothere had passed him.

‘I recognize a couple more of them from Pig City,’ he observed.

‘Well, there would have been some survivors,’ Saphothere replied.

‘So what do we do now?’ Tack asked.

Saphothere’s face was locked in an angry grimace. Then he looked around. ‘It’s turning dusk. We hit them in full dark. Then you grab a supply pack and your weapons, and just go on from here.’

He scrambled down from the tree and Tack followed, knowing that when the traveller said ‘go on from here’ he meant the moment Tack grabbed those packs he must take his implant offline and allow the tor to take him back in time. From that point he would be on his own, if he survived the coming fight. Dubiously he considered their current collection of weapons. Saphothere had wisely taken a carbine with him into the jungle and had an assortment of proximity mines hooked on his belt, while Tack possessed only his hand weapon. Though containing a hundred-round clip of explosive ammunition, that was not sufficient if you went up against eight heavily armed Umbrathane.

‘What about you?’ Tack asked, as they pushed through undergrowth.

‘I survive—or not. But your mission is vital and you must carry it out.’

‘Why not just summon the mantisal here and we could get supplies elsewhere?’

Saphothere looked at him. ‘We cannot afford the time.’

There it was: another of those pronouncements that just didn’t make sense to Tack. Nevertheless, he nodded as if he understood.

Saphothere explained, ‘When Coptic and Meelan hit us first, I was prepared to accept that as just luck on their part. But her tracking us here and being so well-prepared, I am not inclined to accept as coincidence. They are getting inside help, but most importantly they are somehow securing the energy for accurate time-shifting.’

‘Cowl,’ said Tack.

‘Maybe,’ Saphothere replied. ‘Now, this is what you must do.’

Shortly afterwards Saphothere signalled that they should now proceed in silence, sliding through the foliage, stepping only on sure ground, utterly alert. Even their comlinks were unusable in this situation as they could be detected. But their clothing shielded them from infrared detectors, and the natural motion of the foliage from motion detectors. This was to be dangerous and bloody.

When Saphothere motioned for Tack to now head off separately, he did so. It was only seconds later that the firing started.

‘What is your name?’

Thote’s voice was calm, soothing.

‘Polly.’

‘It is good to meet you, Polly.’

Polly felt herself getting lulled.

Don’t go all slushy for the first dick you ‘ve encountered in a hundred million years, Polly. You can bet your arse he’s not just your tour guide.

Nandru’s words were iced water in her face and reminded her that always, in her past, whenever someone was being nice to her they wanted a piece of her.

‘If you’re here to help me, then start by telling me what the hell is happening to me,’ she suggested succinctly.

The man flinched visibly and got a distant look on his face. After a moment he smiled again and held out his hand to her.

‘Come with me to my camp and I’ll try to explain.’