Part 25 (1/2)

25.

Connected

'I see you have a greater imagination than this creature,' said the voice from Amarill's mouth.

The eagle stopped circling in the vaults, became, in the blink of an eye, a silk parachute, which floated slowly down towards them.

The Doctor ran over to Cheynor, grabbed him and pulled him out from under the console. 'Come on, man. We've got to confront it! Not run away!'

The Doctor swivelled round, beckoned the senior Pridka over. 'Try and get this thing stopped! Please!'

'I . . . will try. But the Dreamguide alone should have the authority '

'Please!' The Doctor's expression was imploring. His uneasy eyes took in the glowing gateway the green-robed Amarill the parachute, descending, with something attached to it. He licked his lips. 'The Dreamguide, as you know her, no longer exists. Her mental cells the Pridka minds themselves have been invaded by a hideous parasite. Can't you feel it in your own mind?'

The Pridka hesitated. He looked up at the gateway, and what he saw must have convinced him for, after a reverential bow, no doubt out of habit, he placed his hands on the globe and began to operate unseen controls, in sym-biosis of mind and flesh.

Cheynor grabbed the Doctor's arm. 'Doctor, look!'

Amarill, totally freed from the field of the gateway, staggered forward on to the ramp and slumped, as if the strings controlling her had been cut.

The senior Pridka looked up from the console. 'I can't discontinue the process. It's become autonomous!'

'I rather feared as much,' said the Doctor quietly.

There was a sound from the gateway, like a scream of triumph mixed with the roar of a furnace. Light poured out, for a second illuminating the entire chamber, from the steel floor to the high vaults and inert gravpads. Then, it gathered itself into a bright image of the cleanest bone-white and the darkest black a face, forming in the triangle of the gateway. It blazed with hotter, brighter power than ever before.

'Oh, dear,' said the Doctor worriedly. 'Now we really are in trouble.' He gripped Cheynor's arms and looked him in the eye. 'What were you thinking of when the eagle attacked you?'

195.

He looked momentarily confused. 'Conflict. War. The futility of my entire career.'

'I see, looking on the bright side,' muttered the Doctor. 'That wasn't an eagle, it was the a.s.similation of your fears and hatreds, just as that canister descending on the parachute is ' and the Doctor looked up, staring hard at it ' not a plasma bomb, but a nectarine.'

He was just in time, and his conviction must have been total, for at that very second the parachute smacked to the floor, scattering chunks of soft yellow fruit. 'Look after Amarill,' the Doctor said. 'I'm going to get Suzi.' He handed his umbrella to the senior Pridka, and his hat to Cheynor.

In the gateway, the elongated face was beginning to form, s.h.i.+mmering as if made up of smaller globules. The huge stripe of a smile, the deep, intoxicating eyes, the cascade of hair, all were present and clear.

It could have been Jirenal. It could have been Kelzen. It could have been Shanstra. It was feeding off the mental force of the strongest gathering of minds in the universe, and it was growing stronger.

'Doctor,' said Cheynor worriedly, 'let me come with you.'

'No. Stay here and help our friend here monitor the controls.'

'Doctor '

'Yes, it's foolhardy and terribly dangerous.'

Cheynor looked astonished. 'But that's what I was going to say!'

'I know.' The Doctor steeled himself 'Now you see why I have the advantage over you.' He rubbed his hands together like an athlete preparing for a run. 'I didn't get where I am today,' he muttered, 'by being sensible and safe.'

He ran up the ramp, took a flying jump, and leapt into the heart of the incandescent gateway.

Come, then.

Shanstra's whirlpool of light tore through the house, shredding the paintings to canvas, shattering vases with explosive retorts, with fountains of burnt earth. She embraced it, feeling her mind swelling with the power.

'Everything harmonizing. Everything as nothing. As colours blend into white, sounds into the ultimate tone, so existence moves towards a single, cohesive whole. The Infinite Requiem.'

She could do it, if she wanted to.

She could cross over, if she wanted to.

She could reunite with Kelzen and Jirenal, if she wanted to.

She didn't.

'Five hundred to battle source. Hold steady.'

The ground rushed past under Bernice Summerfield.

196.

Banksburgh would become one of those ghost cities now, she thought, a city of wreckage and skeletons, metal bones and human bones, testimony to lives fought for, won and lost. A place where the memories were etched into the surface, waiting for the archaeologists like herself to come along and uncover its secret history.

The rus.h.i.+ng red earth gave way to crumbling perimeter walls. Liebniz took the skimmer up and the city opened out beneath them, tilted like a 3-D map.

'Follow my mark,' he instructed into his comlink. 'And remember, we want to cause the maximum disturbance. You won't do that by getting yourselves killed.'

Livewire slammed the skimmer controls into full throttle, then leapt out, hit the bank, rolled on to her shoulder. She went over and over and over, conscious of the undergrowth las.h.i.+ng at her face. She slithered in the mud, down into the ditch that protected the house. As soon as she dared a matter of seconds she looked up.

The skimmer hurtled forward, churned the gravel surface of the drive. It hit the big iron gates, smas.h.i.+ng them open, scattering fragments of metal and gla.s.s across the drive, and within a second, three of Shanstra's controlled Phractons converged on it.

They blasted the skimmer without a moment's hesitation. It glowed in the aura of three beams for an instant and then lost form and substance in a billowing cloud of flame and smoke.

Livewire buried her head in the mud. When she lifted it a few seconds later, and peered through the cover of the thick undergrowth, the skimmer was still burning, like a pyre. Like her anger.

She wriggled back into the hollow of the ditch, and started looking for a good strong piece of flint.

'There it is,' Leibniz murmured, as the sparkling gold roof of the vice-governor's residence came into view. 'We're going to come in on Durorvernum Square,' he said to Bernice. 'It's the best landing site nearby.'

She nodded.

Leibniz activated the comlink again, as the ground rushed closer, details coming into view. 'Blue leader to all units. Engage.'

The bombardment began.