Stardogs (28 page)

The ground drum-rolled, and those who had been foolish enough to stand up fell over again.

On the other side of the ridge, up-valley, Juan was wishing desperately that he too could fly. It was what Juan-Denaari would have done if he could, rising high, being careful of the turbulence these events always caused, riding the potentially unstable thermals away over to the less disturbed sand-fields. As it was he huddled beside a huge rock, which had vibrated like a gong and shifted alarmingly a few seconds ago. Juan-Denaari had been philosophical and unsurprised by the quake. They happened all the time. They had to. It was a pity, and a tragic major killer of nestlings, which is why they had to learn to fly so early.

Juan-human, on the other hand, had been stunned and shaken in every way by the seismic event. He cowered closer to the megaton boulder. A slab of rock guillotined past him. He balled himself still tighter, trying to make himself small. He wished with every fiber of his being that he could be elsewhere. The parts of him were divided as to where ‘elsewhere’ should be. One part wanted to be aloft, heading for the memory-repositories. The other part also wanted to be aloft. A lot further aloft. Outside this damnable atmosphere which wasn’t controlled, away from ground that shook and quivered beneath your feet. It was bad enough that the ground wasn’t corridor-flat, and hurt your feet, but this! He desperately wanted to be back in his own cubicle. Even his father chewing him out would be sweet.

The part that wasn’t Juan-human seemed to think his going home feasible. After he’d returned the crown to the vaults, of course. The flood of bio-images nearly stunned the boy. So that was how it had worked!

The gigantic beachballed sheeters unrolled. They eagerly undulated back toward the ridge on their millions of cilia pseudo-feet. They were keen to begin feeding again, on all the lovely new mineral traces that would be exposed. Even in their haste they weren’t dangerously fast, just very big. The castaways had no trouble dodging them.

Mark Albeer scanned the rocky ridge carefully. “Well, the animals seem to think it’s over. But I can’t even see our cave now.”

Sam grunted, rubbing his ribs where the Prince’s flailing fist had caught him. “There’s a new section of cliff where we got across the ridge yesterday. We’ll have to try for another spot to cross.”

The broad bodyguard nodded, being glad that it hadn’t happened while they were up there. “We’d better see if any of our stuff survived first.”

“We’ve got seven packs, at least.” Martin Brettan had somehow managed three. The Viscount, his once elegant blue-black uniform torn, and his face bloody from a touch of a passing rock, didn’t look like a lady’s gentlemanly officer escort any more. He looked big and tough. And grim. Decidedly grim. “I’ll come along with you. We’d better go careful among that new-fallen stuff.”

“And the leadership race?” said Tanzo also getting to her feet, obviously intent on going along, but, as usual, tenacious.

“I think it resolved itself, back there. Who gave the orders when the crisis struck? Princess Shari. She’s the only one who kept her head, and organized. My fleet commander couldn’t have done it better,” said Martin Brettan, still shocked enough to be absolutely honest. Besides, if things were hopeless, a part of his mind said, it would be better to have a scapegoat. He could take over, by force, if things panned out well.

“I agree. Does anyone have any other ideas?”

“I do,” said Kadar softly. “But I don’t suppose anyone will listen.”

It appeared that nobody else did, or at least nobody was prepared to come out with them. They were all still too shaken up by the earthquake, and the potential loss of all that had not been rescued from the cave, to play politics now. Now they were like children, wanting someone else to provide direction.

Shari shrugged. This hadn’t been quite how she’d intended it to come out. What she’d had in mind was using Martin Brettan as a stalking horse to enforce what would be unpopular orders. But right now they needed steering. Instinctively she turned toward Deo. But he was lost in a soft-crooning, wide-eyed trance. No use thinking he could help her now with his almost imperceptible eye-signals. She took a deep breath. “Well, my first comment is that it is a poor idea for all of you to go to the cave. Sam… you go and have a look.”

He grinned his wry half-grin, without looking her in the eye. “Best if you lose the Yak, huh?” But he turned to obey.

She walked after him, and caught up with him once he was away from the rest. She took him by the shoulder. Turned him to face her. Looked him straight in the eye. Spoke quietly. “No. But I noticed you cried warning before anyone else. That’s the third time I’ve noticed you’ve known of trouble
before
it happened. I think you’re probably better at staying alive than the rest of us. If I’m right I’m going to use that. I’ll use that to keep us all alive. It will improve your chances too, if more of us survive. I haven’t forgotten that you saved Deo’s life.”

It was one of the few times in his life that Sam Teovan had been truly amazed. He looked at her expressionlessly for a moment. Then he nodded, slowly. “First time I work for a woman Capo. Bit of a shock, see. You a steppin’ razor, lady. Your old man musta taught you real good.”

“My father, God rot him, let my brothers practice their assassination skills on me. In a way that taught me, all right. It taught me the value of the loyalty that kept me alive. Now go, and be careful.”

He bowed, with respect, as to a Yak Capo, and left at a dogtrot. Privately he admitted to himself, as he approached the cliffs, that she’d earned his respect already. And respect is major requirement for loyalty.

“What was that about, Princess?” Martin Brettan asked, his suspicions rising.

“Reassurance,” she said offhandedly. “Now let’s see what we’ve actually got in the packs we grabbed.”

As they unpacked and counted stock Sam Teovan edged cautiously through the new-fallen boulders, and up towards the cave. It was still there, to his surprise. Had his survival instincts been wrong? A second look told him they hadn’t. A huge slab had peeled off the ceiling. Anyone who had stayed in the cave would have been jam. The supplies they’d carried so laboriously from the wrecked ship lay under 70 tons of rock. Squashed flat.

The long road to heaven is made of many small, steep steps. So is the road to hell, the steps are just shallower, wider and go the other way. So, when the walking’s easy, don’t believe the road signs.

From the parable of the highland pot-mender, The Gospel according to St. Gopal.

The radio-unit had survived. It had been in one of the packs that had been snatched in haste. The decision that they must go through with the plan to go to the source of the radio-signals, or at least follow the next valley up to a possible water-supply seemed inevitable now. The few remains of the ship had vanished beneath the sand during the tremor, and there seemed little to be gained by remaining here. The rough packs were divided up, and they began to walk parallel to the ridge. Although nobody said it, nobody was keen to walk too close to it. After nearly two hours of plodding, the ridge simply grew higher and steeper, and walking in the endless soft sand just grew more exhausting, Shari realized that the searing heat and walking on the sand would kill them all just as certainly as a rock-fall. It would just take longer. She pointed to an outlier-boulder. “Let’s rest in the shade a bit.” Deo was worrying her particularly. He was… so robotic. Even the small water ration so eagerly consumed by the rest, after they’d collapsed in the small patch of shadow, had to be pushed towards his mouth. He hadn’t savored it slowly or gulped it. Instead he had sniffed it, then tasted it, cautiously. And then he had poured a tiny libation of a few drops onto the ground with muttered Ghurkali words.

“He’s wasting the water!” Jarian squalled.

“It’s his ration.”

“If he doesn’t want it, I do!” Jarian reached for the cup.

The Dagger of the Goddess knocked him down, but gently, before he could defile the sacrament that had arisen from a blend of alien nano-technology, twisted Catholicism and a murderous Hindi sect. The holy assassin’s head was full of dust and shadows. Many times he had taken the sacrament in the rite of cleansing. He did not remember anyone daring to try and interrupt it. Remember? Why? It was actually happening… wasn’t it? Or was it? He stared, confused, at the boy with blood on his lip and fear and murder in his pallid blue eyes. Almost,
almost
he knew the face. But it was gone,
ignis faatus
. Devil’s work. Denaari demons sent to lead the believers from the true way. Turning away, he continued with the rite.

“What are we going to do about him? He’s a dangerous man, you know,” Tanzo asked quietly.

“He’s off his head.” Martin Brettan was himself puzzled by the strange behaviour of the man. He’d seen his dossier. Amadeo Cerros came from an unassuming background, with no strong religious overtones. What he was doing was distinctly odd. Also the dossier had rated his weapons skills as moderate, and noted that he had failed the unarmed combat module of his training. That didn’t gel with what he’d seen.

Shari shook her head, and said with confidence she was far from feeling, “He’ll be fine, I’m sure. He’s just suffering from that knock on the head.”

Martin Brettan shrugged. “You may have to make hard decisions about him, if he doesn’t recover soon. A man like that could be dangerous to all of us, you know. No use putting past loyalties in front of our survival.” He was still pointedly avoiding using her name.

Shari shrugged. “Tell that to our little Prince over there.” She shook her head again, and then raised her voice. “We should adapt ourselves to the conditions in which we find ourselves, Ladies and Gentlemen. We’ll rest in the heat of the day and move when it is cool. Also we must give up walking out here on the soft sand. It’s too tiring. We’ll have to risk walking on the rock.”

“And hope it doesn’t all fall on us,” grumbled Johannes. But he said it very quietly.

Most of them slept. Shari worried instead. When the sun began to send spiky dragon-shadows off the ridge, they got up and walked on. On the rock. Soon they would have had no choice, for another shallow ridge rose up from the sand to their right and they found themselves in an ever-narrowing valley.