The drone watched Horza, his gun still firing, his legs pumping, run up the platform like a madman, screaming and howling
and vaulting bits
of wreckage. He sprinted over the place where Yalson’s body had lain before it was brushed from the station
floor by the tumbling carriages,
then ran on, preceded by a cone of glowing light from his gun, past where the pallet had
been, to the far end of the station, where Xoxarle had
been firing from, and disappeared into the side tunnel.
Unaha-Closp floated down. The wreckage crackled and fumed; the foam fell like sleet. The ugly smell of some noxious gas started
to fill the
air. The drone’s sensors detected medium-high radiation. A series of small explosions burst from the wrecked carriages,
starting fresh fires to
replace the ones smothered by the foam now coating the chaos of the mangled metal like snow on jagged
mountains.
Unaha-Closp came up to the Mind. It lay by the wall, its surface rippled and dark, the colors of oil on water, and dull.
“Bet you thought you were smart, didn’t you." Unaha-Closp said to it quietly. Perhaps it could hear, maybe it was dead; it
had no way of
telling. “Hiding in the reactor car like that: I bet I know what you did with the pile, too; dumped it down
one of those deep shafts, near one of the
emergency ventilation motors, maybe even the one we saw on the screen of the mass
sensor on the first day. Then hid in the train. Pleased with
yourself, I’ll bet.
“Look where it got you, though." The drone looked at the silent Mind. Its top surface was collecting the falling foam. The
drone brushed its
own casing clear with a force field.
The Mind moved; it lifted abruptly about half a meter, one end at a time, and the air hissed and crackled for a second. The
device’s surface
shimmered momentarily while Unaha-Closp backed off, uncertain what was happening. Then the Mind fell back,
and rested lightly on the floor
again, the colors on its ovoid skin shifting lazily. The drone smelled ozone. “Down but not
quite out, eh." it said. The station began to darken as
the undamaged lights were clouded by the rising smoke.
Somebody coughed. Unaha-Closp turned and saw Perosteck Balveda staggering from an alcove. She was bent double, holding her
back,
and coughing. Her head was gashed and her skin looked the color of ashes. The drone floated over to her.
“Another survivor," it said, more to itself than to the woman. It went to her side and used a field to support her. The fumes
in the air were
choking the woman. Blood leaked from her forehead, and there was a wet patch of red glistening on the back
of the jacket she wore.
“What…" she coughed. “Who else." Her footsteps were un steady, and the drone had to support her as she stumbled over scattered
pieces of the train’s carriages and sections of track. Rocks littered the floor, torn from the walls of the station during
the impact.
“Yalson’s dead," Unaha-Closp said matter-of-factly. “Wubslin, too, probably. Horza’s chasing Xoxarle. Don’t know about Aviger;
didn’t see
him. The Mind is still alive, I think. It was moving, anyway."
They approached the Mind; it lay, bobbing up and down at one end every now and again, as though trying to get into the air.
Balveda tried
to go over to it, but the drone held her back.
“Leave it, Balveda," it told her, forcing her to keep heading up the platform, her feet skidding on the debris. She went on
coughing, her face
contorted with pain. “You’ll suffocate in this atmosphere if you try to stay," the drone said gently. “The
Mind can look after itself, or if not there
isn’t anything you can do for it."
“I’m all right," Balveda insisted. She stopped, straightened; her face became calm, and she stopped coughing. The drone stopped,
too,
looking at her. She turned to face it, breathing normally, her face still ashen but her expression serene. She brought
her hand away from her
back, covered in blood, and with the other hand wiped some of the red fluid from her forehead and eye.
She smiled. “You see."
Then her eyes closed, she doubled at the waist, and her head came swooping down toward the rock floor of the station as her
legs buckled.
Unaha-Closp caught her neatly in midair before she hit the floor and floated her out of the platform area, through the first
set of side doors it
found, leading toward the control rooms and accommodation section.
Balveda started to come round in the fresh air, before they had gone more than ten meters along the tunnel. Explosions boomed
behind
them, and the air moved in pulses along the gallery like beats of a huge erratic heart. The lights flickered; water
started to drip, then pour from
the tunnel roof.
Just as well I don’t rust,
Unaha-Closp said to itself, as it floated along the tube to the control room, the woman stirring in its force-field grip.
It
heard the noise of firing: laser-fire, but it couldn’t tell whereabouts the firing was because the noise came from ahead
and behind and above,
through ventilation outlets.
“See… I’m fine…." Balveda muttered. The drone let her move; they were nearly at the control room, and the air was still fresh,
the radiation
level decreasing. More explosions rocked the station; Balveda’s hair, and the fur on her jacket, moved in the
air current, releasing flakes of
foam. Water streamed down, pattering and splashing.
The drone moved through the doors into the control room; the room’s lights did not flicker, and the air was clear. No water
flowed from the
ceiling, and only the woman’s body and its own casing dripped on the plastic-covered floor. “That’s better,"
Unaha-Closp said. It laid the woman
down on a chair. More muffled detonations shuddered through the rock and the air.
Lights flickered and flashed throughout the room, from every console and panel.
The drone sat the Culture woman up, then gently shoved her head down between her knees and fanned her face. The explosions
boomed,
shaking the atmosphere in the room like… like… like stamping feet!
Dum-
drum
-dum. Dum-
drum
-dum.
Unaha-Closp hauled Balveda’s head up, and was about to scoop her from the chair when the footsteps from beyond the far door,
no longer
masked by the sound of explosions from the station itself, suddenly swelled in volume; the doors were kicked open.
Xoxarle, wounded, limping
as he ran, water streaming from his body, cannoned into the room; he saw Balveda and the drone and
headed straight for them.
Unaha-Closp rammed forward, right at the Idiran’s head. Xoxarle caught the machine in one hand and slammed it into a control
console,
smashing screens and light panels in a fury of sparks and acrid smoke. Unaha-Closp stayed there, jammed halfway into
the fused and
spluttering switch assembly, smoke pouring out around it.
Balveda opened her eyes, stared round, her face bloodied and wild and frightened; she saw Xoxarle and started forward toward
him,
opening her mouth but only coughing. Xoxarle grabbed her, pinning her arms to her side. He looked round, to the doors
he had smashed
through, pausing for a second to draw breath. He was weakening, he knew. His keratinous back plates were almost
burned through where the
Changer had shot him, and his leg was hit, too, slowing him all the time. The human would catch him
soon…. He looked into the face of the
female he held and decided not to kill her immediately.
“Perhaps you’ll stay the little one’s trigger finger…" Xoxarle breathed, holding Balveda over his back with one arm and hobbling
quickly to
the door leading to the dormitories and accommodation section and then to the repair area. He kneed the doors open
and let them close
behind him. “… But I doubt it," he added, and hobbled down the short tunnel, then through the first dormitory,
under the swaying nets, in a
flickering, uncertain light, as the sprinklers started to come on above.
In the control room, Unaha-Closp pulled itself free, its casing covered in burning pieces of plastic wire covering. “Filthy
bastard," it said
groggily, wavering through the air away from the smoking console, “you walking cell-menagerie…" Unaha-Closp
turned unsteadily through the
smoke and made for the doors Xoxarle had come through. It hesitated there, then with a sort
of shaking, shrugging motion moved away down
the tunnel, gathering speed.
Horza had lost the Idiran. He had followed him down the tunnel, then through some broken doors. There was a choice then: left,
right or ahead;