Goliath, p.17
Goliath, page 17
Sollander ignored her. “You after more guns?” she asked Davido instead.
“Yeah. I don’t believe in having too much ordnance.”
She chuckled, fiddling with the clasp on her helmet. Cautious despite her earlier assurances she cracked the seal, carefully sniffing the ambient atmosphere. “It’s ok. A bit musty.”
“Here’s a thought,” Prentice said. “The crew committed suicide, right? What if they used a poison in the air purification plant. There might still be some in the air.”
“Not in the report,” Sollander said.
Prentice muttered something indistinguishable under her breath.
“She’s right, boss. Smells OK,” Marco said. “Dunc, give it a try.”
Always happy to allow others to step into danger first, Davido watched the others unclasping their helmets and twisting them off carefully. In turn, they sniffed the air cautiously before breathing deeply. None of them seemed to suffer any ill effects. Satisfied he removed his own helmet.
The air tasted dry and dusty. It wasn’t too cold; he could cope with that. He broke out a hand lamp from their gear and twisted the handle. Shadows scattered before the achingly bright beam, dust kicked up from their footfalls hanging in the air.
He cast his lamp over the bloody mess on the deck. It did look like more than four sets of feet. He shuddered, unless they left and came back for more sometime later. What a thought that was.
After removing what excess weight, they could the party spread out over the loading bay area, their lamps inspecting every corner for clues as to what had happened to the previous crew. The space was some twenty metres on each side, with only three exits/entrances. The second was an entrance to what appeared to be some sort of equipment storage locker, decapitated armoured suits clipped to brackets along the walls. Hard armour. There were no weapons present. Those were clearly housed elsewhere. The final doorway presented them with a problem.
“Shit, this aint right,” Ferena, one of Prentice’s crew, said. Holding onto one doorjamb, he leaned over a gap at his feet, shining his light directly downwards. “There’s a bloody great hole here.”
Sollander joined him and looked upwards. A similar gap opened up overhead. “Modular,” she said. “As I said, the Confederates used some degree of modularity. This whole section here is clearly a transit module. They didn’t get it reseated properly before they all perished. So, there’s a gap between it and the rest of the ship.”
“Dumb way of doing things,” Davido remarked, joining them at the gap.
“Not really. It allowed them to retract certain facilities deeper into the ship when they weren’t needed. We’re beneath a good eighty metres of armour here. It would take a nuclear weapon strike to get through it. In fact, I don’t even think that would do it.”
“Lovely.”
“Clever people. Luckily the first crew bridged the gap.” She aimed her light at a rickety contraption abandoned against a wall. It was a rough collection of desks bound together by cargo straps.
“Yeah, great.” Davido leaned over the gap and spat into the darkness. He watched the glob of spittle drop through the beam of his light to disappear below. It was a long way down. He aimed the beam at the other ledge. It was a good three metres across. “Also worries me a bit. Our friends pulled their bridge back after them. Didn’t stop their visitors getting across though.” He gestured towards the footprints on the deck. They were indistinct here, most of the blood having been worn off by the time they reached here.
“That’s quite a jump,” Prentice agreed.
“Well, we won’t need to jump it. Give me a hand.” Marco took hold of the makeshift bridge, steel squealing against the deck as he pulled it closer. The Smithy brothers wrestled it into place, grunting as they struggled with the cumbersome contraption. After it had touched down Sollander gingerly stepped out onto the creaking bridge.
“One at a time I think,” Prentice warned as Marco stepped up behind her. He shrugged.
Sollander had retained her pressure suit, adding an assortment of devices Davido didn’t recognise to it. A slim rucksack was on her back.
“There, it’s fine,” she said as she gained the other side. “It would be good if we could power this thing up and lock the bay into place.”
“You can go looking for the controls, my love. The rest of us will go looking for the boss’s sister,” Marco joined her, looking relieved to be back on a solid surface.
“I think now is a good time to decide what we’re going to do,” Prentice said.
“Dunc, give me your shotgun.” Davido relieved the taller Smithy twin of his weapon. “You stay here and guard the airlock with your pistol. Anyone come through here who isn’t us, shoot them.” He turned and handed the shotgun to Prentice. “You take one team, Marco and I will take the other.”
Prentice checked the weapon sceptically. “You take her,” she pointed towards Sollander with her chin.
“Fine.” Davido eased himself over the bridge, grimacing as it creaked alarmingly. “Payce, you’re with us.”
“I can stay here,” he suggested. “Keep Duncan company.”
“She’s your girl too, you know. I’d have thought you’d be eager to find her.”
“Can’t say as I’m eager to go crawling around this place. It gives me the creeps.”
“Just get your ass over here.” Davido peered into the dark recesses of the silent vessel. “Sash, can you still hear me?”
“Yes boss.” Her voice was little more than a whisper now.
“Your job is to get the shuttle back up here. We need the heavy ordnance. That’s your one job now, do anything you feel necessary.”
“Consider it done.”
“Right. Get here now,” he instructed Payce.
“Allow me to remind you, I didn’t decide to come here. This was your idea. You don’t need me with you.”
“Chickenshit bastard,” Davido breathed. “Let me put it this way: there’s something alive on this ship that likes to eat people. Remember, I’m the one with the guns. If you don’t do as I say I no longer have a reason to keep you alive.”
“I’m sure Sissy will thank you for getting me killed,” Payce remarked, but did as he was instructed. Nervously eying the makeshift bridge he edged forward slowly.
“Right, the rest are with you,” Davido said to Prentice. He turned and looked down the darkened passage again. “There looks like a split ahead. We’ll go left, you go right. Keep in touch, wont ya?”
Prentice settled the shotgun in the crook of her arm, stepping aside to allow the last of her crewmates to step over the creaking bridge. “You’re the boss, boss.”
Not waiting for the others to keep up Sollander was already studying the security checkpoint built into the junction. A corpse was behind the counter, lying haphazardly against the bulkhead behind it. She checked it quickly. It was an old body, she realised, one of the warship’s original crew. The crewman’s face was sunken and parched, almost mummified after laying there for eighty years. There was a weapon in her hands, the contents of her brain pan splattered all over the bulkhead behind her. Like the report said: they all committed suicide.
Moving on she sat in the dusty chair, checking the console. The machine was dead; there was no power in it at all. “We need to head lower,” she said as Davido approached. “We’re more likely to find active systems near the core.”
“What for?”
“There’s clearly something active on this ship. We’ll find it on the lower levels.”
“Yeah. Don’t care.” He was about to issue instructions to move out when a shriek from behind interrupted his train of thought. “What now?”
“She-it.” Marco was leaning over the gap, looking straight down. A terrified yell was issuing from it, growing quickly fainter.
“What the hell happened? Who lost it?” Davido demanded, hurrying to his side.
“Payce, Boss. Slipped.”
“You didn’t push him?”
The shorter Smithy twin looked shocked. “No!”
The screaming continued for a long time, before dwindling completely. No matter how hard they tried, or how many lamps they shone into the gap, they couldn’t see anything. Davido cursed. He didn't need the delay. It was true, he didn’t particular care about Payce’s welfare, but this was just inconvenient. He lifted his radio.
“Payce? Payce? Can you hear me?” He was met with silence.
Marco cupped his hands and yelled into the darkness. “Switch your radio on, asshole!”
“Payce?” Davido tried the radio again.
After a moment a tiny voice replied. “Yes ...yes, I’m here.”
“You ok, man?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I think so. It’s not a straight drop. The side’s curved. It’s like a big slide. I’m at the bottom .... I think.”
“Ok. Well, that’s good. Can you get out of there?”
“Aw, shit. This is disgusting.”
“What is it?”
“There’s some sort of gears down here. I slid right into them. They’re covered in grease and I have it all over me now. Damn, it smells.” They could hear the sounds of Payce wiping off globs of machine grease.
“Can you get out of there?”
“Uh? Yeah, I think so. Yes, I think I can.”
“You don’t sound so certain,” Davido said.
“No. Yes. There’s a ladder here, it looks like it heads straight back up to you.”
“Well, that’s something.” Davido looked around the others and shrugged. “Well, you do that then. Looks like you get to keep Duncan company after all. Climb back up and hang out with him while we get this over with.”
“You can’t just leave him down there,” Prentice said.
“I’m not jumping down there after him! What do you want me to do? He’ll be ok. If not ...” He shrugged. “Ok. Let’s get this done.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was not difficult following the prefect. Drefus was clearly in no hurry, dallying to observe the activities of the citizens as he passed them by, pausing at booths to survey their wares and ask idle questions of the shopkeepers. He was like a tourist on a day out. He even bought a few items, knick-knacks really, ornaments and baubles. Singh had no idea what he intended on doing with them.
Of course he was safe here, only a select few had ever met Russou’s governor. His likeness had never been taken and he never indulged interviews. To the people of Russou he was a faceless man, their ruler from the shadows. Safe to walk the streets of Mammon unrecognised.
Dressed in simple blue denims and baggy purple t-shirt he was nondescript. Easily blending into the crowds. Yet another middle aged manual labourer whiling away his free hours in the market. There were a dozen within sight of Singh at that very moment. Even the rings on his fingers and the golden chain he always wore about his neck were missing. He looked so different Singh had almost not recognised him. Only his swagger gave him away. Few were as nonchalant as the prefect. Few could afford to be.
“No, no,” Singh waved away a ragtag band of street urchins. Children of five or six, hands outstretched, begging. Seeing his rich clothing they gravitated to him automatically, pushing close, doing their best to look miserable. “Shoo, go away.” He clasped his hands over his pockets, keeping his valuables safe. Of course it was a ruse, they were run by street gangs of pick pockets, targeting anyone foolish enough to venture into these areas unprepared.
“Please, sir, just a few coins. Look, my sister... my sister has not eaten in three days.” A girl of four was pushed up to him, her face caked with grime, runnels cut through it by tears.
“Fuck off I say!” He aimed a kick at them. They scattered, practice keeping them out of the way of his boot.
“I hope the Eaters come for you!” a boy snarled as he scurried away, looking for an easier victim elsewhere.
“Little bastards,” Singh muttered under his breath. The children were a constant headache for the militia and the vendors alike. They were regularly rounded up and placed in one of the state sponsored orphanages, however within days they were back again, begging and picking pockets. No one knew where their parents were, as babes they had all been abandoned on the streets. Some left outside one of the numerous homeless shelters dotted around the city, others simply abandoned on the doorsteps of the orphanages themselves. None had any identification on them and none of their parents had ever been traced. They were the nameless masses, without parentage or heritage: human refuse. It was hardly surprising as the prefect had outlawed all forms of birth control decades ago. The human race needed repopulating, for that to happen it needed to reproduce.
Still, it was a puzzle to Singh. There never seemed to be many pregnant women around, certainly not enough to account for the dozen or so children abandoned every night. Additionally, even though watches were kept outside the shelters to catch them, few parents had ever been apprehended abandoning a child. The jail term it guaranteed ensuring they took care not to be caught.
“Dammit,” Singh cursed, realising Drefus had given him the slip while he was distracted. He cast around the market, careful not to attract attention to himself as he did so. No one here would recognise him either, but he didn’t want Drefus to see him first.
“Bloody hell,” Singh muttered, catching sight of the man down a narrow side alley, engaged in heated discussion with a prostitute. After a few moments of that Drefus laughed, throwing up his hands as if in despair and stalked off. The woman glared after him. Singh carefully sidled down the alley, careful to keep his distance without losing the prefect again.
“Like some fun, baby?” the prostitute accosted him as he passed her doorway.
He flushed. “No, thank you.”
“Well, fuck you then.”
“I rather think that’s your job,” Singh remarked, ducking as she threw something at him. With a metallic clatter, it vanished down a drain.
As before, the prefect was clearly making no attempt to avoid being followed. With a swagger in his stride, he passed into the deeper, darker recesses of the city, dropping down onto walkways over dark chasms as he worked his way towards the unexplored depths. Growing cautious Singh dropped further back, starting to wonder whether tailing him was such a good idea. There wasn’t much down here apart from the lairs of a few criminal gangs and the odd heretic. Everything of use had already been stripped from these compartments, leaving only the bare steel of compartment walls and the glittering grey composite beams of stress supports. The people he did pass made a point of ignoring him, turning to hide their faces as he hurried past. Everyone here had a secret, everyone had something to hide. They also carried knives.
Boots clattering on bare metal gratings he descended a narrow stairwell. A thick cable was clamped to the wall at about head height, the odd naked light bulb connected to it at random intervals. Some of their filaments had blown, leaving sections of the stairwell unlit. Drefus was still ahead, still descending deeper and deeper. He didn’t look back, which was fortunate as there was nowhere Singh could go to hide down here.
There was only one place he could be going, Singh realised. Other than kilometre after kilometre of dark, damp passages there was nothing down here. Not until they reached the twisted and melted bulkheads that marked the lower limits of the city. There was even less that far down. Without power those precincts were lost in eternal darkness, a maze of shattered steel, each edge sharp as a razor. Not somewhere you wanted to go without a lot of preparation.
Taking a gamble Singh turned off the main thoroughfare to venture down an even dimmer lit passage. This was a secret way. One the heretics maintained. Sliding between two ancient and dented pipes, he came across a simple platform. A steel grid suspended above a dark chasm. A simple handle stood on a steel rod in the centre, control cables running down it to the braking mechanisms that held it securely to the passage wall.
Singh planted his feet carefully and released the brakes. With a metallic squeal, the platform descended into darkness.
The ride was a deceptively short one. Rattling all the while, stale air blasting past him, Singh clung to the lever, keeping it full open. The light from above quickly vanished, receding to a point before becoming too faint to see. Halfway down the counterweight passed him, the lump of lead barely missing the platform. It clattered past loudly on loose and worn guide rails. He was glad he couldn't see it.
This was not a place he came to very often. He was conscious of being followed himself, the prefect keeping tabs on all of his closest advisors. Drefus was not known for being very trusting. Besides, there was always an informer looking out for someone to blackmail. Should he be seen and recognised down here, his life would become very difficult indeed. Presuming of course he survived the experience. Consorting with heretics would be an immediate death sentence for someone in his position.
With another shudder the platform slowed itself at the base of the passage, grinding to a halt in total darkness.
“Shit.” Singh wiped sweaty hands on his trousers before fumbling around in the dark, seeking the latch that would allow him out. With a grunt he yanked on it, almost falling over as the hatch sprang open.
The noise was the first thing that assaulted his senses. A scream. A long howling wail that never ceased. Never once in all the years since it had been discovered. A sound that pounded on your ears, eating into your mind, threatening to drive you mad. It swamped everything else, restricting communication to simple hand gestures and lip reading. Few people stayed here long. Those who did either went deaf or mad.
They called it the screaming room.
Familiar with the layout of the Euroba’s old AI processor core chamber Singh quickly sidled into a position where he could monitor anyone entering it from the main access way. There were a few lamps scattered around the chamber, their light supplemented by the glittering row of candles the heretics had set up on the shrine. The gloom ensured Singh could find a place to watch without being seen himself.
The chamber was a simple one, designed more for accessing and servicing the processor cores belonging to Mainbinary 6 than for human occupation. Six turbines protruded from the ceiling, each two metres wide and three in height, the glass cases keeping inquisitive fingers from the spinning blades of the memory crystals. There were hundreds of thousands of the crystals in each stack, each whisker thin and twenty centimetres long, each glowing a different colour as data was either read or written within it. Spinning at hypersonic velocities each stack was a blur of rainbow light, complex patterns writhing within them as the AI moved data from one core to another. Whole sections were dead, black, where the data had either become corrupted or the crystal itself had broken down. Over the years those black areas had been spreading, like a malaise slowly taking over the insane machine. Each stack was suspended about head height, where acolytes in earlier years had stood and studied them for hours on end, hoping to discern some pattern, some revelation within the glittering spokes. They had given up on that a long time ago. The only heretic here now was an old man sitting in the corner, mumbling to himself, quite deaf. Possibly as insane as the AI itself. He certainly didn’t pay Singh any attention as he sidled behind a stack of abandoned brochures and settled down to wait. He didn’t have to wait long.
