Yalson raised Wubslin on the communicator.
“You’d better come with us," Horza told Balveda. “I don’t like leaving you here with all this equipment switched on."
“Oh, Horza," Balveda smiled, “don’t you trust me."
“Just walk in front and shut up," Horza said in a tired voice, and pointed to indicate the direction he wanted to go in. Balveda
shrugged and
started walking.
“Does she have to come." Yalson said as she fell into step beside Horza.
“We could always lock her up," Horza said. He looked at Yalson, who shrugged.
“Oh, what the hell," she said.
Unaha-Closp floated through the train. Outside, it could see the repair and maintenance cavern, all its machinery—lathes and
forges, welding
rigs, articulated arms, spare units, huge hanging cradles, a single suspended gantry like a narrow bridge—glinting
in the bright overhead lights.
The train was interesting enough; the old technology provided things to look at and bits and pieces to touch and investigate,
but Unaha-
Closp was mostly just glad to be by itself for a while. It had found the company of the humans wearing after a few
days, and the Changer’s
attitude distressed it most of all. The man was a speciesist!
Me, just a machine,
thought Unaha-Closp,
how dare he!
It had felt good when it had been able to react first in the tunnels, perhaps saving some of the others—perhaps even saving
that ungrateful
Changer—by knocking Xoxarle out. Much as it disliked admitting it, the drone had felt proud when Horza had
thanked it. But it hadn’t really
altered the man’s view; he would probably forget what had happened, or try to tell himself
it was just a momentary aberration by a confused
machine: a freak. Only Unaha-Closp knew what it felt, only it knew why it
had risked injury to protect the humans. Or it
should
know, it told itself
ruefully. Maybe it shouldn’t have bothered; maybe it should just have let the Idiran shoot them. It
just hadn’t seemed like the right thing to do at
the time.
Mug,
Unaha-Closp told itself.
It drifted through the bright, humming spaces of the train, like a detached part of the mechanism itself.
Wubslin scratched his head. He had stopped at the reactor car on his way to the control deck. Some of the reactor carriage
doors wouldn’t
open. They had to be on some sort of security lock, probably controlled from the bridge, or flight deck, or
footplate, or whatever they called the
bit at the nose the train was controlled from. He looked out of a window, remembering
what Horza had ordered.
Aviger sat on the pallet, his gun pointing at the Idiran, who stood stock still against the girders. Wubslin looked away,
tested the door
through to the reactor area again, then shook his head.
The hand, the arm, was weakening. Above him, rows of seats faced blank screens. He pulled himself along by the stems of the
chairs; he was
almost at the corridor which led through to the front car.
He wasn’t sure how he would get through the corridor. What was there to hold on to. No point in worrying about it now. He
grabbed at
another chair stem, hauled at it.
From the terrace which looked over the repair area, they could see the front train, the one the drone was in. Poised over
the sunken floor of the
maintenance area, the glittering length of the train, nestling in the scooped half-tunnel which ran
along the far wall, looked like a long thin
spaceship, and the dark rock around it like starless space.
Yalson watched the Culture agent’s back, frowning. “She’s too damn docile, Horza," she said, just loud enough for the man
to hear.
“That’s fine by me," Horza said. “The more docile the better."
Yalson shook her head slightly, not taking her eyes off the woman in front. “No, she’s stringing us along. She hasn’t cared
up till now; she’s
known she can afford to let things happen. She’s got another card she can play and she’s just relaxing
until she has to use it."
“You’re imagining things," Horza told her. “Your hormones are getting the better of you, developing suspicions and second
sight."
She looked at him, transferring the frown from Balveda to the Changer. Her eyes narrowed. “
What.
"
Horza held up his free hand. “A joke." He smiled.
Yalson looked unconvinced. “She’s up to something. I can tell," she said. She nodded to herself. “I can feel it."
Quayanorl dragged himself through the connecting corridor. He pushed open the door to the carriage, crawled slowly across
the floor.
He was starting to forget why he was doing this. He knew he had to press on, go forward, keep crawling, but he could no longer
recall
exactly what it was all for. The train was a torture maze, designed to pain him.
I am dragging myself to my death. Somehow even when I get to the end, where I can crawl no more, I keep going. I remember
thinking
that earlier, but what was I thinking of. Do I die when I get to the train’s control area, and continue my journey
on the other side, in death. Is
that what I was thinking of.
I am like a tiny child, crawling over the floor…. Come to me, little fellow, says the train.
We were looking for something, but I can’t recall… exactly… what… it…
They looked through the great cavern, searching, then climbed steps to the gallery giving access to the station’s accommodation
and storage
sections.
Balveda stood at the edge of the broad terrace which ran round the cavern, midway between floor and roof. Yalson watched the
Culture
agent while Horza opened the doors to the accommodation section. Balveda looked out over the broad cavern, slender
hands resting on the
guard rail. The topmost rail was level with Balveda’s shoulders; waist level on the people who had built
the Command System.
Near where Balveda stood, a long gantry led out over the cavern, suspended on wires from the roof and leading to the terrace
on the other
side, where a narrow, brightly lit tunnel led into the rock. Balveda looked down the length of the narrow gantry
at the distant tunnel mouth.
Yalson wondered if the Culture woman was thinking of making a run for it, but knew she wasn’t, and wondered then whether perhaps
she
only wanted Balveda to try, so she could shoot her, just to be rid of her.
Balveda looked away from the narrow gantry, and Horza swung open the doors to the accommodation section.
Xoxarle flexed his shoulders. The wires moved a little, sliding and bunching.
The human they had left to guard him looked tired, perhaps even sleepy, but Xoxarle couldn’t believe the others would stay
away for very
long. He couldn’t afford to do too much now, in case the Changer came back and noticed how the wires had moved.
Anyway, though it was far
from being the most interesting way things could fall, there was apparently a good chance that the
humans would be unable to find the
supposedly sentient computing device they were all looking for. In that case perhaps the
best course of action would be no action. He would let
the little ones take him back to their ship. Probably the one called
Horza intended to ransom him; this had struck Xoxarle as the most likely