The Cyber Chronicles Book III - The Core (10 page)

"You almost
died."

"But I
didn't,” she said. “It's not that bad. Hell, Purr lives in there;
it's his home."

"Purr's
adapted to living in there."

"You can argue
until you're blue in the face. I'm going with you."

"You want me
to take you to the Core, with a donkey cart and a crippled child.
What about Dena?"

"I think Dena
is quite capable of surviving it," she said.

"She's a
child!"

"She’s fended
for herself since she was six, and she had an arsenal for a
playground."

"You’re nuts,
you know that?" He stared at the barrier with despairing eyes.

"Remember what
Purr said. Flux-reality tends to avoid Real-reality, up to a
point."

"So?"

"The cart will
be an island of Real-reality and make travelling through the Zone
easier, if we stay on it."

He grunted.
"You assume. What if you're wrong?"

"Then Purr's
wrong, which I doubt. After all, he should know."

"And how do
you hide a bloody great cart and two belly-aching donkeys?" he
demanded. "The monsters will be on us in droves."

"But we have
the magical weapons you got from the dead city."

Sabre faced
her again. "You've got it all figured out, haven't you? All right,
Your Majesty, have it your way. If you follow me into the Zone
alone, you won't last five minutes, so I guess I'll have to take
you with me and try to protect you as well as destroy the Core,
which means we'll probably all be killed. It'll be your epitaph,
although no one will erect a stone over your mouldering remains
once the monsters have finished chewing them. She had to have her
own way!" He marched back to the cart.

A qualm of
apprehension coiled in her gut, but it did nothing to lessen her
determination. She was going to stay with him, no matter what, and
make him notice her. Only when he felt something for her would he
make an effort to stay with her, instead of blithely accepting that
Manutim would come and take him away one day. Manutim was just a
man, even if he was a wizard. Sabre had already defeated a mage; he
could do it again if he really wanted to, and it puzzled her that
he was so defeatist about it.

Dena came back
full of childish observations, which Tassin listened to rather
absently, with a stiff smile.

As the sun's
first rays gilded the dunes, Sabre led the donkeys into the mist
wall, Dena aboard one, Tassin following him. The rainbow-shot mist
closed behind them in a solid white wall. Once again, they walked
through the wet grey rocks, the cart rattling over stony ground.
The cool dampness was a great relief after the dry heat outside,
and Tassin licked the dew off her lips. Dena gazed around in awe at
the strange new world.

After half an
hour of mist and damp rocks, the brown and green flickers shot
through the landscape and a new Flux-reality shimmered into being.
Dena clapped her hands in delight. A park-like world surrounded
them, by far the loveliest Tassin had seen. Huge fragrant blossoms
budded dew-fresh from lush foliage, moss-like grass gave under her
feet, and spreading trees were vivid green against a cobalt sky.
Tassin looked up and frowned. The sun was at midday, whereas
outside dawn had just broken. Without Purr, how would they find
their way through?

There was no
sound or smell, and Dena skipped beside the cart, poking her finger
into the semi-solid Flux-reality with cries of glee and gales of
giggles. The donkeys snatched at the vegetation, but found little
in their mouths to chew, despite the leaves they tore off. Sabre
strode ahead, apparently still angered by Tassin's stubborn
insistence on coming to the Core.

They had been
walking for about four hours when he stopped, allowing the donkeys
to attack the nearest bush. Tassin opened her mouth to ask what was
wrong when she noticed the dark shapes flitting through the trees.
She flung a look at Dena, signalling her to be quiet, then watched
the creatures. About a dozen of them moved through the bush, hard
to see, but they seemed big, and she could make out glinting tusks
or teeth and gleaming green eyes. A faint padding and scratching
accompanied the wraith-like forms, indicating that they were
Real-reality.

The beasts
headed in the direction whence the trio had come, and Tassin
guessed that these monsters were leaving the Zone in search of
better pickings outside. She shuddered at the thought of the havoc
such fearsome beasts would wreak. They did not notice the cart or
the three people, and ran on at a mile-eating lope, leaving a
putrid stench in their wake. As soon as they vanished into the
Flux-reality, Sabre led the donkeys forward once more.

By the time
they stopped to rest, they had passed through three Flux-reality
worlds, none horrible, but none as nice as the first. The sun shone
at mid-afternoon in a world of dense thorny brush and soft, sandy
soil. After eating, they took turns standing watch while the others
slept and the donkeys munched fodder. When Tassin woke,
Flux-reality had changed, and they had to wend their way through a
world of petrified trees. Dena ran about collecting pretty stones
and pieces of petrified wood, showing them to Tassin and Sabre
before storing them in her pockets. Flux-reality was becoming more
solid, and she enjoyed pushing her fingers into the dead trees.

When the green
and brown flickers warned of the next Change, they stood close to
the cart and waited for the new world to materialise. It turned out
to be a swamp, and Tassin's feet sank into the spongy ground, as
did the cart's wheels. Tracts of waving marsh reeds rolled away
under a dull grey sky, and white birds hovered and dived into the
reeds, hunting insects. A bitter, briny wind swept past, carrying a
faint mist. Sabre hauled the donkeys along as they struggled with
the heavy load, the thin wheels sliding on the wet ground. Dena
found a nest with fledglings in it and crowed with delight while
the adult birds tried to chase her away.

Sabre stopped,
his eyes riveted to the horizon, and the donkeys lowered their
heads to graze. Tassin followed his gaze, unable to make out
anything at first, then she spotted two dots in the distance. They
swelled rapidly into two-metre tall, upright lizards of a bright
emerald green hue. Powerful hind legs propelled them along at a
bouncing run, kicking up spray. Sabre rested his hand on his laser.
When the beasts drew closer, Tassin made out the forms clinging to
their backs.

"What are
they?" she asked.

He glanced at
her, frowning. "Large lizards with riders, apparently human."

Returning his
scowl, she watched the approaching lizards. The riders wore shiny
black suits that appeared to have no seams or joins. They stopped
close by, allowing the hissing lizards to sidle closer. The
saurians had tiny forelimbs, which they kept tucked close to their
chests, the hand-like paws tipped with red claws. Their eyes
gleamed red under ridges of armoured hide, and white wattles hung
from their necks. The riders sat in bucket seats held on by broad
girths, and guided the creatures with thin black reins that ended
in metal rings that pierced the lizards' lips. The creatures
appeared to have four nostrils, but two of the openings were
attached to venom sacks that hung beneath their jaws. A damp, muddy
smell wafted from them. Dena abandoned her bird's nest and climbed
onto the cart, staring wide-eyed at the newcomers.

The nearest, a
black-haired man, shouted, "Who are you, and what are you doing
here?"

Sabre called
back, "We're travellers, passing through."

The man looked
surprised, glancing at his companion, a red-haired woman wearing
garish make up. "I wasn't addressing you, cyber."

Tassin cast
Sabre a shocked look, but his face had become blank. This must be a
civilised world, one in which they had cybers.

The stranger
said, "I asked you a question, stranger. Why does your cyber
answer?"

Tassin
gathered her wits and glared up at him. She had no idea how to
behave with these strange people, and Sabre could do nothing to
help her without revealing his freedom.

"I ordered him
to speak to you, and what he says is true."

"Travellers?
In the Isigang Swamp, with a donkey cart and a... mutant?"

"That's
right."

The man
smiled. "May I ask where you're going?"

Tassin pointed
ahead. "That way."

"Very clever.
What's your destination?"

She shrugged.
"We're just passing through."

The woman
urged her lizard closer and said, "They're malsoes, we'll have to
take them in."

"With a
cyber?"

"Hired. But it
will make things...."

Brown and
green flickers shot through the land, and the woman's voice faded.
Flux-reality Changed. They stood in a forest of leafless,
branchless silver trunks growing straight up to a needle point many
metres above. A layer of grey shale covered the ground, sliding
under their feet with eel-like slipperiness. She heaved a sigh of
relief as Sabre turned to face her.

"Who were
those people?" she asked.

"They're from
a world called Emareld, a hundred and seventy-five light years
away. An unpleasant place, covered with marsh. Two cities have been
built there, but it's unpopular, so there aren't many settlers. At
least, not willing ones. Petty criminals are sent there to
cultivate the land, but many go mad in the never-ending damp.
They're called maladjusts, or malsoes, constantly trying to
escape."

"That's what
they thought we were. What would they have done with us?"

He shrugged.
"Taken us to a detention centre. I'd have been deprogrammed and
sold once they discovered I wasn't hired, you'd have been
mind-wiped and sent back to the settlement, a clean slate, so to
speak."

She shuddered.
"How horrible."

"Yeah, I'm
glad we weren't really there."

"But you could
have shot them."

"Sure, but
more would have come; they have scanners. Those two were a police
patrol, looking for malsoes. If I'd fought them, they'd have killed
me eventually."

Tassin
frowned, shaking her head in bewilderment. "But if that whole world
is a swamp, where are they trying to escape to?"

"They go mad;
they just run. Some die; most are recaptured. No one escapes from
Emareld."

Sabre tried to
get the donkeys moving again, but soon discovered that the gaps
between the trees were too narrow to allow the cart to pass. He
gave the animals some fodder and settled down to eat. Dena tried to
make piles of the slippery shale, then went to sleep under the cart
when she tired of the sport.

Tassin gazed
around at the eerie forest. The deep mauve sky glowed dimly, and
was not the source of the illumination. That, she realised, came
from the trees, which gave off a silvery radiance. The world was
utterly silent, and this was no longer due to the semi-reality of
Flux, which was now solid, and, as the last world had shown them,
audible. The warm, dry air was still, and only the donkeys'
munching broke the hush.

Sabre
stretched out on the shale and closed his eyes. Tassin soon
followed his example, and when she woke, the world had Changed. She
lay in a crystal desert, barren save for an occasional intrusion of
Real-reality. The rainbow-hued crystals chattered when she sat up,
and she found Sabre surveying their new habitat gloomily. A dull
grey sky glowered overhead, and a chill pervaded the air. Tassin
knuckled sleep from her eyes while Sabre woke Dena, who exclaimed
in delight at the crystals, running and sliding in them.

Sabre tugged
on the donkey's halters, and the beasts plodded after him.

Tassin caught
up to walk beside him. "Amazing, isn't it?"

"From a
giant's nail bed to another's sugar bowl."

She laughed.
"At least there should be no danger here."

"What makes
you say that?"

She gestured.
"Nothing could possibly live here."

"Don't bet on
it."

They walked in
silence for a while, apart from Dena's high-pitched shrieks as she
capered amongst the crystals. Tassin noticed that the crystals fell
far too slowly when Dena tossed them into the air. The child
discovered that she could make prodigious leaps, and bounced around
wildly. Tassin experimented, finding that she, too, could jump far
higher than normal. Sabre watched them with a slight smile.

"Kids," he
commented.

The novelty
soon wore off for Tassin, but Dena continued to frolic. The Queen
walked beside Sabre again, a bounce in her stride. Only the cyber
and the donkeys seemed unimpressed by the new world, which summed
up their characters nicely, she thought. About two hours later,
they came across a Real-reality pool, and Sabre stopped to refill
the water skins. As he knelt beside the pond, a scream rent the
air, and he dropped the water skin and whirled, drawing a laser
from the holster on his belt. Dena floundered in the crystal sand,
a black, snake-like appendage wrapped around her legs, dragging her
towards the place where it emerged from the crystals. Tassin dashed
past Sabre towards the stricken child, but his hand flashed out and
caught her jacket, jerking her back.

"Stay away
from it!"

The cyber
strode to Dena's side, aimed his weapon and fired. The blue beam
burnt through the tentacle with a puff of grey smoke, and the
severed limb vanished back into the sand. As he reached down to
help the frightened child, another tentacle shot out, whipped
around his legs and yanked them from under him. Again he fired,
severing the tentacle, but another lashed out, and another. Sabre
burnt through them as they appeared and latched onto him or Dena,
trying to pull the girl away. More and more emerged from the
crystal sand, gripping his legs, arms and torso, flashing out to
whip around Dena.