Part 37 (1/2)

”You have the rifle, Frank.”

”If not for that ape of his, I'd do it. He killed Sun, you know. He planned it; he planned it somehow. Sun knew-Sun knew what he was up to. I don't. Thank G.o.d I don't. I'm afraid, Shaw. I hear voices, whispering the most terrible things.”

”That's enough, Frank.”

”Of course. You don't want to wake, do you? You're in it with him. You're all as mad as each other.”

”I think perhaps I should take the rifle for a while, Frank. What do you say? You could do with a rest.”

Frank released the rifle without a struggle.

”I have a boy, you know. My son. In London. Studying to be a doctor, of all things. Atwood promised to pay for his education.”

”Good man, Mr Frank. Good man.”

Dimmick watched all of this, grinning nastily.

That night Atwood permitted them to stop and sleep if they could.

Arthur slept. When he woke-to Atwood's boot poking his shoulder-Dimmick and Frank were both gone. Atwood held up the lamp. Vaz was still asleep. Payne sat upright, staring fixedly at his boots.

What appeared to have happened was that Frank had murdered Dimmick in the night, killing him with his own ice-axe while he slept. Some bloodstains, snagged threads, and other clues suggested that Frank had then wrapped Dimmick's body in a blanket and rolled it over the rocks into a creva.s.se, before fleeing into the darkness, where probably he, too, had ended up in a creva.s.se. The motive was unclear. Mutiny of a sort, presumably. Madness. Revenge. n.o.body had much interest in investigating further.

”I thought Dimmick might outlast us all,” Arthur said.

”He had his strengths,” Vaz said, judiciously.

”See here,” Atwood said. He crouched down and held the lamp low. There were b.l.o.o.d.y bootprints on the rock next to where Atwood had been sleeping.

”He meant to kill me, too, as I slept. Gentlemen, did you know what he planned? Know this: if I die, you are at the mercy of this place.”

”Don't threaten us, Atwood. We've come this far with you. We'll see it through. What other choice do we have?”

”I know, Shaw. I know. I'm sorry.”

Suddenly, and to Arthur's surprise and disgust, it looked as if Atwood might be about to cry.

”You've been a good friend to me, Shaw.”

”Well, Atwood. Well. If you say so.”

”I shall miss Dimmick; he would have been very useful in what's to come. My trials are not done.”

They were already on the march again when the sun rose. At their current dizzying elevation, the sunrise was a sudden explosion of blazing violet light. It revealed that a field of glittering flint lay before them, and in the middle distance, there was a ruin.

It was much larger than the tower they'd explored in the lowlands. Sweeping walls enclosed a dozen smaller structures: a strange too-steep dome and a scatter of broken towers. A bewildering profusion of sharply perpendicular objects-crenellations? fortifications? spires? obelisks? ornaments?-somewhat recalled the Houses of Parliament. The outer wall's stone was laced with flint or mica or crystal, and with the full force of sunrise falling on it, it shone as if it were on fire. The whole structure stood on the edge of a wide impa.s.sable creva.s.se. A sheer cliff loomed behind it. Beyond that, the mountain continued to rise for mile after mile into streaming black clouds.

There was no time to study it. Atwood clapped his hands together and croaked, his voice suddenly choked with relief, or joy, or fear. There! It exists! At the same moment, Payne cried out and fired his rifle into the air. Arthur turned to see what he was shooting at.

A thousand miles of sunlit geography lay behind them. Terrain that had seemed flat and monotonous as they marched revealed itself, when seen from above, as an endless rolling sea of hills. Valleys they'd crossed revealed themselves as hundred-mile shadows, ancient gouges in the face of Mars, radiating outwards in every direction.

Payne lifted his rifle to the sky and fired again. There were wings overhead, blue and red and purple. Six, seven, eight Martians, maybe more, airborne, just a few hundred yards away. They'd been circling in the dark, waiting for dawn to reveal their prey. Now they descended. A strange sawing hum filled the air; Arthur recognised it now as the sound of Martians in flight.

Payne reloaded, fired again. His third shot caught one of the Martians square in the chest, and it fell from the sky.

”Not now,” Atwood shouted. ”Not now! Run, run all of you, run!”

He ran for the shelter of the ruin, and Arthur followed, scrabbling over the sharp stone. The sun was behind him and his shadow was long and sharp before him, legs and arms madly stretching and shrinking, shrinking and stretching. Long wing-shadows streamed closer. The castle ahead was almost too bright to look at, and the glare underfoot nearly blinded him. The wings were so close that the glitter in the stones underfoot reflected beads of blue.

Arthur ran in great bounding leaps, sliding and skidding on the stones. The pack on his back threatened to tip him head over heels or side to side. Wings whirred. Something swept with a rush of wind over his head. Then he stumbled, gasping, and one of them had seized his collar in its fist. For a moment he thought it might lift him into the air, like a hawk with a mouse; but it clearly hadn't reckoned with his weight. Starved as he was, he was still three times the spindly Martian's weight. He remained earthbound and the thing went heels-over-head. A blue face fell upside down past him, silver eyes wide with astonishment. It sprawled along the stones. He skidded on its splayed wings-an eerie, icy sort of surface.

He came to the ruin's outer wall. True to form, there was no door, only high windows, in one of which stood Atwood, his hand outstretched.

”Jump, Shaw!”

He jumped with all his strength, thanking G.o.d for Martian gravity. Atwood caught his hand and pulled him into darkness. A moment later Vaz fell on top of him, then Payne.

Chapter Thirty-eight.

As the sun rose and its angle s.h.i.+fted, the field of stones grew dim again.

Orpheus, who'd severely underestimated the weight of an Earthman, was bruised and bloodied and somewhat humbled by his roll over the stones.

Hestia was dead.

Poet and Far-Traveller lifted her up by her arms, and together the whole party rose and hurried her away from the plain of stones. They flew sunwards. The ruin shrank beneath them.

~ Dead, Orpheus said.

~ Yes, Josephine said. They have weapons ...

It was no easy matter to explain what a gun was. The Martians had few tools, made little use of fire, and regarded their own bodies and minds as quite adequate weapons. The concept of a machine for a killing was foreign to them.

~ Like something the Eye might have made, Orpheus said. He was appalled, terrified. ~ You didn't tell us.

She said nothing. It was true. It had never occurred to her that the humans might be armed.

~ We should have acted sooner. We should have swooped on them in the dark.

They'd caught sight of the expedition's lantern during the night. She had persuaded them to wait until morning to act, in the hope that by daylight they might be able to avoid violence.