Part 20 (2/2)

Belo lifted his legs into the shaft, raised himself over a tunnel of darkness, and fell into the future.

”I'll have your boots”

Belo was reluctant to wake. Even half-asleep he remembered the endless fall down the tight, filthy shaft, as if he was being swallowed into some terrible stomach. And now here was this ugly voice, dragging him back into the world.

”I said, I'll have your boots. I know you can hear me, soldier boy.”

Reluctantly he opened his eyes. He was dazzled by a glaring blue sky, by stars that wheeled above his head. And a face loomed over him, a man's face, broad, dead-eyed, roughly shaven, surrounded by a ma.s.s of dirty black hair.

Belo tried to speak. His throat was bone dry. ”What's your name?”

”I am Teeg. And you're in my world now”

”Really?” Belo had no idea where he was, and he wondered where Dane and Tira were if they were still alive. All that would have to wait. First he had to deal with this grubby buffoon. ”You want my boots?”

The face cracked in a grin, showing blackened teeth. ”That's right, soldier boy.”

”Try taking them.”

The grin disappeared. Then Teeg's face twisted, and he roared, and he raised two huge scarred hands. Belo aimed a kick at where he guessed the man's crotch would be, but his legs felt feeble, heavy, as if the muscles had been drained of energy. Besides, this Teeg was so ma.s.sively built, a hulk of muscle and bone dressed in filthy rags, that the kick only enraged him Teeg got his hands around Belo's throat, and pressed him back into the dirt. Belo flailed and struggled, but he was like a child battling an adult.

He had been conscious here only a few heartbeats, yet already he had given his life away. Quite a miscalculation, he thought, weakening.

”Get off him! ”A squat ma.s.s came hurtling from Belo's left side and slammed into Teeg.

Belo, the pressure on his throat gone, coughed for breath. He sat up, clinging to consciousness.

He was sitting in the dirt, on a plain of sand. Beside him a cliff face rose up into the blue. He was close to a ragged cave, perhaps the chute down which he had tumbled. People huddled, a few paces away. Four women, five kids no men. Scrawny, filthy, dressed in rags, they stared at him fearfully.

He couldn't see an end to this scrubby plain. Perhaps it was another Shelf or perhaps he had fallen all the way into the Lowland itself, he thought with a stab of despair.

And beyond the people he glimpsed something moving over the ground not on it, over it at over it at about waist height, almost like a balloon. It was a rough sphere of some silvery metal that gleamed in the blues.h.i.+fted light of the sky. Was it a machine? But it was like no machine he had ever seen, no pump or elevator or cannon. And what could possibly support such a ma.s.s of metal in the air? He longed to see more, but details were blurred by heat haze about waist height, almost like a balloon. It was a rough sphere of some silvery metal that gleamed in the blues.h.i.+fted light of the sky. Was it a machine? But it was like no machine he had ever seen, no pump or elevator or cannon. And what could possibly support such a ma.s.s of metal in the air? He longed to see more, but details were blurred by heat haze ”Soldier boy.”

Teeg's ugly voice snapped him back to the here and now.

Teeg had hold of Dane, by an arm locked around his throat. It was obviously Dane who had knocked Teeg away and saved Belo's life. Dane wasn't struggling. His injured leg was twisted back at an impossible angle. But his eyes were locked on his commanding officer, and he made no sound.

”Let him go”

Teeg looked mock-puzzled. ”How did you put it? Try taking him.”

Belo took a step forward, but the world grayed.

”No” It was Tira. She was sitting on the ground, the remnants of her bloodstained uniform in disarray. ”Don't fight him,” she said. ”Not now. He's too strong. Not yet Not yet.”

Belo looked at Teeg, and he knew she was right. But still Teeg was squeezing the life out of Dane. ”Let him go,” he said again. ”We didn't come here to do you harm.”

”I don't care why you came here,” Teeg said. ”I told you. You're in my world now. And you will do what I say. You know why? Because of the Weapon.” He held Dane at arm's length, with one mighty fist locked on Dane's collar, as if he was holding up a doll. Dane bit his lip, and his leg trailed beneath him, but still he made no sound.

And then Teeg turned and hurled Dane at the floating machine. A window opened in the side of the machine. Fire, purple and bright, snaked into Dane's belly and simply blew him apart. Then the window closed, like an eyelid shutting, and the machine continued its serene patrol around the huddling people.

Teeg grinned, c.o.c.ksure in his ragged robes. He stood over Tira, who was still sprawled the ground. ”Now, where were we before soldier boy woke up?”

Despite everything he had seen, Belo stepped forward again. ”Touch her and I will kill you, I swear”

Tira said grimly, ”I already made the same promise.”

Even in this moment of power, Teeg looked from one to the other, and something in their determined stare seemed to put him off. ”You'll keep. But you,” he said, stabbing a finger at Belo. ”Your boots.”

Belo sat down and began to work at his laces.

Teeg walked over to the group of huddled women. ”You.” The woman he had selected cowered from him, but he grabbed her by the shoulder, threw her to the ground, and began to fumble at her rags. She lay pa.s.sively; the children watched empty-eyed.

”You're right to give him a victory,” Tira whispered. ”There's nothing to be done as long as he controls that machine. We must play for time. Wait for an opportunity...” She was staring at a charred fragment of Dane's corpse, and her composure cracked. ”Oh, Belo, what horror have we fallen into?”

He said grimly, ”We are soldiers. We have been trained to survive. We will survive this, together.”

”But how long has this monster kept these women as his slaves? Can you see the faces of the children? They look like him They look like him.”

”It won't happen to you.”

”Oh, you can be sure of that,” said Tira, her voice full of hate.

Life in Teeg's nasty little kingdom turned out to be simple They lived outdoors, on the and plain. For the first couple of days they stayed close to the cliff where the time chute had decanted, huddling at night in caves or under rocky overhangs. But then they were led away by Teeg and the enigmatic hovering machine, the ”Weapon”. After that, they just slept out in the open. They ate berries they gathered from the spa.r.s.e bushes, or they chewed on strips of dried meat Belo wasn't sure yet where the meat came from. Their clothes were rags, replaced if they came across a handy corpse, like poor Dane's. But it appeared Teeg always got the best pick, like Belo's own boots.

So, by default, Belo was exploring the Lowland, the greatest mystery of all to Shelf philosophers of all persuasions. If it hadn't been so brutally hard, it would almost have been interesting.

While they walked, they carried the bits of Dane's stripped corpse with them. The women of Teeg's grim harem seemed used to this. Even the blank-eyed children stumbled along with grisly butchered remnants. Belo had no clear idea why they did this.

Indeed, his own continued existence puzzled Belo. It was obvious what Teeg wanted of Tira but why keep Belo alive? Another man could only be compet.i.tion, a threat; why tolerate him taking another breath?

And towering over all these personal issues was the deeper mystery of the Weapon: where it had come from, how and why it had been made and what its true purpose was, for he was beginning to suspect that it had nothing to do with Teeg and his petty lording. Belo couldn't even see how Teeg communicated with it; he never spoke to it directly, never touched it. Sometimes, Belo thought, it was almost as if Teeg was following the Weapon, rather than the other way around. Belo longed to examine the Weapon, but he dared not approach it, not until he understood more.

Belo tried to talk to Teeg as they walked. In his military service, he had learned that any knowledge could be a lever. But he had to bury his resentment as Teeg marched along in his own spindling-leather boots, while Belo's feet bled on the rough ground.

”You are a victim of the time pit,” he essayed.

”As are you,” Teeg snapped, as if Belo had tried to insult him.

”We are soldiers. We fled a lost battlefield.”

Teeg listened, his ma.s.sive face closed up. For all his brutish behavior, Belo sensed that this man was no fool. But Belo's talk of his times clearly meant nothing to Teeg.

Belo tried again. ”You were cast in the pit by your enemies. Perhaps it was unjust ”

”Unjust? More than that. I was born in the Attic, over Foro.”

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