As we cruised lower and lower towards Sound, the blades cutting out more and more frequently, streets became discernible. There were a fair amount of people around. Shouting hour had just finished, and the normally sparse sprinkling of pedestrians was augmented with pairs of flushed shouters hurrying home. I hoped that if we crashed, we at least did it quietly. Grief from the people of Sound we could do without.
We passed over the mono track with less than five feet to spare, and Shelby banged the lever hard right to head us towards a patch of open ground. The blades cut out for good when we were still ten feet above the grass and suddenly all seemed very quiet as we sailed towards the ground.
'Lean backwards' I said quickly. Tuck up and roll to the side.' But she froze, staring with a horrified expression at the ground as it rushed towards us. When we were within a couple of feet I shoved her and rolled off myself, pulling Alkland with me.
We hit the ground hard. Boy did we hit that ground. All the air was kicked out of my chest and my entire body jolted with the impact as my shoulder whammed into the earth. I heard a dull crack followed by a louder splintering one, and then I blacked out.
I was out for less than thirty seconds, thankfully: I think it was oxygen loss rather than concussion. I pushed myself painfully into a sitting position, and looked quickly round.
The heliporter lay like a mangled grasshopper about ten feet away. Two of the blades were broken, but apart from that it looked less destroyed than I would have expected. Shelby lay in a slightly tidier heap on the other side of me, and I crawled towards her, panting. She was curled up into a ball and hugging her shoulder tightly, eyes screwed shut. I surrounded her with my arms, marvelling as always at how bulky slim girls feel, and put my face close to hers. She opened her eyes.
'Shelby?' I said. 'Are you okay?'
'I don't know,' she said, painfully. 'How does my hair look?'
'Fine,' I said, overjoyed that at least I hadn't got her killed. 'Rumpled, but it suits you.'
'I bet,' she said, hauling herself into a sitting position. 'Ow.'
'Move it' I said, rubbing her shoulder, and she tentatively held out her arm. She winced, but then rotated the joint gently.
'What do you know' she said, 'it works.' Seeing the look of relief draped openly across my face she smiled and patted my cheek. I'm okay' she said. 'I'm revising upwardly the cost and extravagance of the meal you owe me, though.'
'Shelby, we'll book Maxim's every night for a week.'
'If' she said, as I helped her to her feet. I looked puzzled. 'The "if" was there' she said, looking at me, 'even if you didn't say it.'
Alkland was lying in a heap a few yards away. In my hurry to check Shelby was all right I hadn't even thought of him. Now I did, and I remembered the dull snap I'd heard too, because his left leg twisted outwards in a way it clearly wasn't designed for.
'Oh fuck,' I moaned, dropping to one knee beside him. The Actioneer's breathing reminded me unpleasantly of the sound of the heliporter's blades just before they gave out for good.
'God,' said Shelby. This guy is having a brutal evening,'
I laid my fingers under Alkland's jaw. The pulse was there, but uneven and weak. 'I hate to be material at a time like this,' she added, 'but can we do anything about the 'porter?'
'It'll be taken in' I said, trying to bend Alkland's leg into a less baroque position. 'You can claim it later and they'll mono it to you.'
'Cool' she said. 'It's just I'd hate to lose it.' Something in her voice made me look up, and I nodded and smiled.
'Yeah' I said. Then I swore, because I heard the sound of shouting coming from the other side of the patch of ground, some distance away. 'Come on. Time to go.'
'Are they bad guys?' she asked, bending to help me lift Alkland.
'No, I shouldn't think so. But we don't have time to talk with them. Also ACIA will be on their way. We should go.'
Once Alkland was upright I heaved him over my shoulder and started immediately towards the looming bulk of the Cat gateway which towered out of the dark less than forty yards away. Shelby strode gamely beside me, occasionally breaking into a trot to keep up. I tried to brace Alkland's leg so that it didn't jolt around too much, but I'm sure that it was just as well that he was already unconscious.
'Er, they're running now' Shelby observed breathlessly, having glanced behind. 'Are you sure they're okay?'
'As far as I know' I panted, and then realised something. They'd shouted. The people running towards us had shouted. 'Second thoughts, they may be bad guys after all. Hurry.'
When we reached the gateway complex I took a quick glance back before we ducked into the entrance passage. Four men in suits were running towards us with an air of alarming dedication. It was too dark to be sure, but they looked dishearteningly like ACIA. One of them noticed me turn and shouted something, but I grabbed Shelby's arm and hurried her into the tunnel. At the bottom we reached the steps up to the gate itself, and vaulted up them two at a time. At the top we walked straight up to the huge old iron gate.
It didn't open.
I got into in a fight over a cat once, when I was a kid. Two older boys were chasing it. At first I didn't pay it much attention: a cat on the run is a match for a boy or two. Then I noticed that the cat was limping, and that one of the boys had a can of lighter fluid.
I ran after them, ran as fast as I could, and threw myself at the one with the can. I wasn't thinking at all. They took so long beating me up that the cat got away. At the time I have to admit I wondered if it had been worth it, but they've looked after me since.
So far.
'Hello?' I said, bewildered, as we stared up at the gate. I've been to Cat a lot of times, and the gate had always opened before. 'Hello?' The gate continued to not open.
'You like cats, don't you?' I asked eventually, turning desperately to Shelby.
'Adore them' she said indignantly. 'Why?'
'It's not letting us in. It won't let anyone in if they don't like cats.'
'Maybe Alkland doesn't like them.'
'No, he does. He tickled Spangle's ear.' I heard the sound of running steps echoing from the entrance tunnel, and looked up at the gate.
'Come on, for fuck's sake,' I hissed. 'Let us in.' I didn't know who or what I was talking to. There's no computer there, as far as I can tell, but something must work it.
'Is there any other way in?'
'No. This is it. And the walls are very high and very thick.' The sound of the footsteps behind us changed. They'd reached the nearest runnel. 'Come on, gate: those people are going to kill us.'
There was a pause, and then the gate swung open noiselessly. I shoved Shelby through it in front of me and we darted round to the side as soon as we were through, the gate closing immediately behind us.
I motioned to Shelby to follow me, and pressed myself up against the wall a few yards to the side of the entrance, just in time to hear the sound of several people clanging into the gate.
'Where'd they go?' asked a truculent voice.
'Dunno. They gotta've gone here.'
'Belag, the sodding gate is locked. They can't be through there.'
'Where, then? We came up the same passage.'
'He's right,' said a new voice, which sounded familiar. 'They're in there somewhere.'
'Look, sir: gate's locked.'
'I can see that' grated the voice, and I recognised it. It was Darv. This time it wasn't just foot soldiers after us. The big wheels were turning out. 'It's said that the gates only open if you like cats. I've always assumed that was so much hippy crap. Maybe not. Does anyone here like cats?'
'No.'
'Shit no.'
'Hate the little bastards.'
'So do I. Right. Znex, you stay here with me. You two get back out into Sound, and find someone who likes cats. Move it.'
I breathed out heavily and bitterly. Darv was obviously less stupid when out in the field, altogether more can-do. It wouldn't take long to find someone the gate should open for, and all they had to do was slip in with him. The gate seemed to be behaving a little oddly though, judging by the trouble we'd had getting in. Maybe that would help us. Maybe not.
'Stark, look,' Shelby whispered. Ten yards away, sitting upright in the shadow of the wall, was a black cat. It was regarding us gravely. I peered at it. It held my eyes for a moment, and then stood up and walked away, keeping within a few yards of the wall.
'Follow that cat,' I said.
Feeling more foolish than I had in quite a while, we followed the cat. After fifty yards it started to curve away from the wall. I looked back a little nervously, expecting to become visible to Darv and his cohort back at the gate, but the cat was carefully gauging his path, or appeared to be. The further we got to the side, the further away we could get from the wall without being seen from the gate.
I pointed this out to Shelby, who nodded, thought about what that implied, and then shook her head with a fazed expression. The cat appeared to be leading us across the large park which surrounds the interior of the. gateway towards the first main block of buildings.
'Where's it taking us?' whispered Shelby.
'To Spangle, I assume.'
'Stark, it's, I mean, it's like, just a cat though, isn't it?'
'Haven't you been here before?'
'No.'
'Oh.'
I filled her in on the interesting world of Cat Neighbourhood as the cat led us into Tabby 5. The streets were deserted, which is unusual. Normally there's a constant trickle of furry bodies sliding round the streets of Cat at night. Tonight the cobbled stones were covered in nothing but vestiges of rain and reflections from the streetlights. It was very quiet.
To my surprise we passed straight through Tabby, which is where Spangle usually hangs out when he's here, and into Persian 1. My back was beginning to really ache from Alkland's weight, and I stopped myself several times from taking a look at his face. There would only be bad news there.
As we walked I realised that the streets here were very similar to the ones I'd walked through when he and I first went into Jeamland, when I'd been following a shopping trolley. It probably didn't mean anything, and I didn't try to make it. Like I've said, I'd go mad if I tried to tie up all the loose ends in my life. I have enough trouble tying up the ends that fit together.
About twenty yards in front of us the cat stopped, and sat on the pavement. When we caught up it stood again and led us to a doorway on one side of the street. A set of worn stone steps led up to a large wooden door, mottled with age. At the top the cat sat down again, looking up at the door. We stood still for a moment, wondering what was coming next, and then Shelby laughed.
'I was sort of expecting him to open it,' she admitted shakily, reaching for the knob.
The door opened, and it took a moment before I worked out what I was seeing. At first I thought the place was full of wool of different colours, sprinkled liberally with green buttons. But it wasn't.
In front of us was an entrance hall. At the back of the hall was a staircase, a wide and stately affair that led up to a large foyer. The floor of the entrance hallway, and every available inch of the stairs, was covered in cats. Cats of every possible description and variety sat in ordered ranks, looking at us, and there was not a sound.
I heard the sound of Shelby swallowing, and turned to look at her.
'Intense,' she said. The cat who had led us stepped over the threshold and disappeared into the morass of fur and whiskers. I took the small step which put me on the doorstep. The cats didn't move. I moved forward another six inches. They still didn't move. 'What is this?'
'I don't know,' I muttered, disturbed. I get on spectacularly well with cats. It's one of my chief accomplishments. But today, first the entrance gate, and now this.
Then all at once the cats in the entrance hallway moved apart, and a narrow path opened. I stepped into the space, shifting Alkland yet again over my shoulder so that a different part of me got a turn to ache. Shelby followed me over the threshold. We got halfway across, and then the cats stopped separating.
'Now what?'
"The door,' I suggested. She shut it, and sure enough the cats sitting on the lower steps began to move apart. Then, for no reason I could see, they all suddenly got up and started milling around, easily two hundred or more of them, walking up and down the steps, padding round the entrance hall, swirling like a river in slow rapids.
When we got to the top of the stairs our guide appeared out of the melee and led us into the large foyer. About thirty yards square, with a recessed area fronted by old wooden desks over on one side, it was clearly the lobby of what had once been a hotel. The whole of the open area was a mass of hundreds, maybe a thousand, rapidly circulating cats. They didn't seem to pay any special attention to us as we walked through, but just kept padding around, rubbing against our legs.
Shelby held my arm as we made slow progress through the weaving bodies. I was almost glad that Alkland wasn't awake to see this. He would have wanted an explanation. I didn't have one.
We moved across the lobby towards a staircase on the far side, which was as wide as the first and just as covered in milling cats. When we were halfway up the stairs I turned for a moment and looked back down at the lobby, trying to see if there was any pattern in their movements, any discernible sense.
But they weren't moving any more. They were all sitting down again, all facing the way we'd come, looking at the door to the street. All I could see was the back of about a thousand cats. The same thing happened as we continued up the stairs. Once we were a few steps above them, the cats stopped moving and sat down again, facing the front in ordered ranks.
I should have been ready for the first floor of the hotel, but I wasn't. Near the top of the flight the staircase divided elegantly into two, each half going to join different sides of the first floor. As our heads rose above the level of the floor I saw that it reached some distance in front of us, and as far as the street behind. The area to the side of the stairs was about ten feet wide, a generous corridor between the stairs and the door-studded wall behind which the hotel suites presumably lay.