“What."
“Horza wants to know what you’re doing." Yalson spoke into her helmet communicator, looking at the Changer.
“I’m searching this train; the one in the repair section. I
would
have said if I’d found anything, you know. Have you got that suit sensor
working yet."
Horza made a face at the helmet Yalson held on her knees; he reached over and switched off the communicator.
“It’s right, though, isn’t it." Aviger said, sitting on the pallet. “That one in your suit isn’t working, is it."
“There’s some interference from the train’s reactor," Horza told the old man. “That’s all. We can deal with it." Aviger didn’t
look convinced.
Horza opened a drink canister. He felt tired, drained. There was a sense of anticlimax now, having got the power on but not
found the Mind.
He cursed the broken mass sensor, and Xoxarle, and the Mind. He didn’t know where the damn thing was, but
he’d find it. Right now, though,
he just wanted to sit and relax. He needed to give his thoughts time to collect. He rubbed
his head where it had been bruised in the firefight in
station six; it hurt, distantly, naggingly, inside. Nothing serious,
but it would have been distracting if he hadn’t been able to shut the pain off.
“Don’t you think we should search this train now." Wubslin said, gazing up hungrily at the shining curved bulk of it in front
of them.
Horza smiled at the engineer’s rapt expression. “Yes, why not." he said. “On you go; take a look." He nodded at the grinning
Wubslin, who
swallowed a last mouthful of food and grabbed his helmet.
“Right. Yeah. Might as well start now," he said, and walked off quickly, past the motionless figure of Xoxarle, up the access
ramp and into
the train.
Balveda was standing with her back against the wall, her hands in her pockets. She smiled at Wubslin’s retreating back as
he disappeared
into the train’s interior.
“Are you going to let him drive that thing, Horza." she asked.
“Somebody may have to," Horza said. “We’ll need some sort of transport to take us round if we’re going to look for the Mind."
“What fun," Balveda said. “We could all just go riding round in circles forever and ever."
“Not me," Aviger said, turning from Horza to look at the Culture agent. “I’m going back to the
CAT.
I’m not going round looking for this damn
computer."
“Good idea," Yalson said, looking at the old man. “We could make you a sort of prisoner detail; send you back with Xoxarle;
just the two of
you."
“I’ll go alone," Aviger said in a low voice, avoiding Yalson’s gaze. “I’m not afraid."
Xoxarle listened to them talk. Such squeaky, scratchy voices. He tested his bonds again. The wire had cut a couple of millimeters
into his
keratin, on his shoulders, thighs and wrists. It hurt a little, but it would be worthwhile, maybe. He was quietly
cutting himself on the wire, rubbing
with all the force he could muster against the places where the wire held him tightest;
chafing the nail-like cover of his body deliberately. He had
taken a deep breath and flexed all the muscles he could when
he was tied up, and that had given him just enough room to move, but he would
need a little more if he was to have any chance
of working his way loose.
He had no plan, no time scale; he had no idea when he might have an opportunity, but what else could he do. Stand there like
a stuffed
dummy, like a good boy. While these squirming, soft-bodied worms scratched their pulpy skin and tried to work out
where the Mind was. A
warrior could do no such thing; he had come too far, seen too many die….
“Hey!" Wubslin opened a small window on the top story of the train and leaned out, shouting to the others. “These elevators
work! I just came up
in one! Everything works!"
“Yeah!" Yalson waved. “Great, Wubslin."
The engineer ducked back inside. He moved through the train, testing and touching, inspecting controls and machinery.
“Quite impressive, though, isn’t it." Balveda said to the others. “For its time."
Horza nodded, gazing slowly from one end of the train to the other. He finished the drink in the container and put it down
on the pallet as he
stood up. “Yes, it is. But much good it did them."
Quayanorl dragged himself up the ramp.
A pall of smoke hung in the station air, hardly shifting in the slow circulation of air. Fans were working in the train, though,
and what
movement there was in the gray-blue cloud came mostly from the places where open doors and windows blew the acrid
mist out from the
carriages, replacing it with air scrubbed by the train’s conditioning and filter system.
He dragged himself through wreckage—bits and pieces of wall and train, even scraps and shards from his own suit. It was very
hard and
slow, and he was already afraid he would die before he even got to the train.
His legs were useless. He would probably be doing better if the other two had been blown off as well.
He crawled with his one good arm, grasping the edge of the ramp and pulling with all his might.
The effort was agonizingly painful. Every time he pulled he thought it would grow less, but it didn’t; it was as though for
each of the too-long
seconds he hauled at that ramp edge, and his broken, bleeding body scraped further up the littered surface,
his blood vessels ran with acid. He
shook his head and mumbled to himself. He felt blood run from the cracks in his body,
which had healed while he lay still and now were being
ripped open again. He felt tears run from his one good eye; he sensed
the slow weep of healing fluid welling where his other eye had been torn
from his face.
The door ahead of him shone through the bright mist, a faint air current coming from it making curls in the smoke. His feet
scraped behind
him, and his suit chest plowed a small bow wave of wreckage from the surface of the ramp as he moved. He gripped
the ramp’s edge again
and pulled.
He tried not to call out, not because he thought there was anyone to hear and be warned, but because all his life, from when
he had first got
to his feet by himself, he had been taught to suffer in silence. He did try; he could remember his nest-Querl
and his mother-parent teaching him
not to cry out, and it was shaming to disobey them, but sometimes it got too much. Sometimes
the pain squeezed the noise from him.
On the station roof, some of the lights were out, hit by stray shots. He could see the holes and punctures in the train’s
shining hull, and he
had no idea what damage might have been done to it, but he couldn’t stop now. He had to go on.
He could hear the train. He could listen to it like a hunter listening to a wild animal. The train was alive; injured—some
of its whirring motors
sounded damaged—but it was alive.
He
was dying, but he would do his best to capture the beast.
“What do you think." Horza asked Wubslin. He had tracked the engineer down under one of the Command System train carriages,
hanging
upside down looking at the wheel motors. Horza had asked Wubslin to take a look at the small device on his suit chest
which was the main
body of the mass sensor.
“I don’t know," Wubslin said, shaking his head. He had his helmet on and visor down, using the screen to magnify the view
of the sensor.