Neal Asher - Cowl

‘Information,’ said Iveronica. ‘Cowl won’t be pleased that we didn’t capture the torbearer.’ She glanced aside. ‘Here’s Olanda now. That’s all of us?’

‘Yes, all,’ conceded Soudan. ‘That fucking primitive got Oroida and burnt Golan before she jumped him. I doubt she survived the drag-through—she was a real mess.’

‘He was augmented,’ said Iveronica, her face expressionless as she gazed at Meelan. ‘That’s why he first escaped. Golan and Oroida knew this. They made an error.’

Soudan was glaring at Saphothere, and did not seem to register her companion’s words. She was probing her prosthetic jaw as if she felt it might fall away.

‘Obviously not as genetically advanced as your fellows,’ said Saphothere. ‘How long ago in your time has it been since I just missed hitting that sack of shit between your ears?’

With a snarl Soudan swung her weapon back up. But then a shot hit Soudan squarely between the eyes, spraying Iveronica with pieces of her bone and brain. Saphothere rolled smoothly, snatching up his carbine and firing at the Umbrathane leader as she shook the bloody mess from her eyes. Meelan turned, just as smoothly, and put a cluster of shots into Olanda’s chest, flinging the man back in an explosion of gore. Fire cut up into the sky as Iveronica went down, one leg blown away at the knee. She tried to bring her weapon to bear, but further shots from Saphothere smashed away her weapon and her right arm.

Saphothere stood and glanced round at Meelan. ‘That could have gone better.’

‘How so?’ asked Meelan tightly, as she holstered her weapon and strode over to stare down at Iveronica. ‘I don’t see any of them getting up again.’

The Umbrathane leader, Iveronica, looked up at the two of them.

‘Why?’ she managed, as she bled into the dirt.

‘Seven thousand of our people were on Callisto,’ spat Meelan. ‘When you sat in your nice comfortable ships and leapt back through time with Cowl, what of them?’

‘Losses… were inevitable,’ said Iveronica.

‘You could have picked them up. Callisto was under your control once Cowl erected the phase barrier. You didn’t bother because my kind of Umbrathane has always been cannon fodder for your kind. My people were reduced to less than atoms.’

‘Many have died in our cause.’ Iveronica managed to push herself up onto her remaining elbow. The bleeding from her shattered arm had ceased as her body already began to repair itself. ‘And you have betrayed them all.’

‘Do you need to hear any more?’ Saphothere asked Meelan.

Meelan turned and stared at him for a moment, then abruptly stooped, her right hand closing around the supine woman’s throat and her left hand catching her flailing left arm. With a raised eyebrow Saphothere looked on while Meelan slowly choked Iveronica to death. When it was over, he said, ‘You know, putting that mine on Tack was a bit risky.’

‘Not really.’ Meelan stood, still staring down at the dead woman. ‘No paralytic on the glass, and I set it to detonate far enough away from him to cause no damage as long as he was wearing that suit.’

‘I meant when he threw the damned mine at you,’ said Saphothere, shouldering his carbine and turning away.

After a moment Meelan followed him and they walked down the slope to where the incursion had manifested. Reaching the bottom, Saphothere turned over with the toe of his boot one of the many active scales discarded by the torbeast—one of the tors Cowl had made it leave behind for his Umbrathane allies.

‘Well, friend Tack was a little more dangerous than we supposed,’ said Meelan finally. ‘I think Coptic could attest to that. Anyway, who are you to talk about taking risks?’ She held up her hand and shifted it in its brace, inspecting it closely. ‘Maxell is not best pleased with us, you know.’

‘Of course I know. She made that plain when I finally brought Tack to New London. Apparently she didn’t think I should have risked losing him for the sake of finding and destroying Pig City.’

Meelan turned to look at him. ‘She perhaps sees the bigger picture.’ She gestured back at Iveronica. ‘Like she did.’

‘Perhaps,’ Saphothere conceded. ‘But even Maxell would have to agree that the results have been… gratifying.’ He again nudged one of the tors with the toe of his boot. ‘Iveronica would have stayed in her stronghold and never have gone to Cowl until no other option was available. With Pig City gone, and her energy sources destroyed, she and those who survived with her became just as much refugees as any other Umbrathane, and like them, needed tors to escape nasty Heliothane killers like myself.’

Meelan snorted. ‘Yes, everything has worked very nicely. But why this?’ She was still inspecting her hand.

‘Veracity.’

Closing her hand into a fist, Meelan abruptly spun round and drove it into Saphothere’s torso. He accepted the blow without retaliating, dropping down on one knee and clutching his gut.

‘Veracity,’ she spat.

Regaining his breath, Saphothere said, ‘Iveronica would have wondered about why only you and Coptic survived, and perhaps have been less inclined to give you the energy feed leading to Pig City. Being badly injured, your continued hatred of Heliothane would be believed and they would understand how you had neglected to scan Tack.’

‘And why atomics?’

Saphothere stood. ‘I had to destroy those generators and there was no time to set up catalysers or conventional explosives. I knew there would be survivors and you would be amongst them—your mantisal, though damaged, was within easy reach. I also knew that with the generators destroyed it wouldn’t be possible for Iveronica to get more than a few mantisals here—I did not want hundreds of umbrathants turning up. And I knew you would be amongst the riders. It could only work this way.’

‘Survivors,’ said Meelan, staring at him bleakly. ‘I got out about a second ahead of the blast, with an enteledont trying to chew my head, and just rode out the bleed-over of that blast into interspace.’

‘Comes with the territory.’

‘I sometimes wonder precisely what your priorities are, Saphothere.’

‘You know my priorities, Meelan. And you knew the dangers when you signed up with me,’ Saphothere replied. ‘Also I hope you fully understand how things are most likely to go from now on.’

‘Yes, I understand,’ Meelan hissed.

The glassy skeleton around her was veined with red, like glowing wires centred in cloudy black, and the air inside it stale yet again. To Polly it seemed like an engine pushed to its limits—a malfunctioning hydrocar driven to the point where the components of its engine were growing red hot. Every now and again it vibrated, as if something was going out of balance prior to some final smash. When this was becoming unbearable, she found she did not need to use much force of will to push herself out of this hell. Just looking into the grey and black, and contemplating summoning up that place of hyperspheres and endless surfaces, was enough to push her out into the real again.

No sea was visible, or audible, this time. She glimpsed twilit sky through boiling black smoke, a river of fire snaking down from the boiling caldera of a volcano, while a cataclysmic roar filled her ears. The stink of sulphur was strong and acrid. She sneezed as something salty and stinging went up her nose, then tasted grit and ashes in her mouth, stumbled away over whorled stone, the heat from which she could already feel through her boots, and that same stone shook and jerked under her like a dying beast. A boulder the size of a family car hammered down to her right, deforming around its glowing core rather than breaking, as it bounced once, smashing the larval crust beneath it to release gouts of yellow vapour, then crumping down a second time, much of its bulk penetrating down into a gas-formed cavern.