'Technos III is different,' Bea said flatly. 'The rebels here have been fighting for generation upon generation for as far back as records go, learning and improving all the time. Hell, they've been breeding for warriors for centuries. And then there's the weather. You need to be superhuman just to survive here. And that's the state of war on Technos III. Right in your face and bloody. The only reason we're not totally swamped with wounded is because most of them don't last long enough to reach here. They die of the heat or the cold, the razorstorms or the blizzards. But there's always enough work coming in to keep us busy, even when we've run out of drugs and plasma, and we have to hold the patients down while the surgeons cut them apart and sew them up, hoping the shock won't kill them anyway.'
Toby leaned forward a little, subtly interrupting her. She was starting to repeat herself, and he needed to keep her to the point. He was torn between getting as much good material as he could, and the knowledge that the longer he stayed here, the more likely it was that someone back at the complex would notice he and Flynn were missing, and put two and two together. 'How many staff do you have here, Bea? How much help?'
'I have two surgeons, and five Sisters trained as nurses working under me. There was a third surgeon, but he cracked under the pressure and I had to send him away. He didn't want to go. Even cried when I put him on the transport, but he was too far gone, even for us. I'm still waiting for a replacement. Technos III isn't very high on anyone's list of importance. It's just a name to most people. I only came here because I was desperate to get my hands dirty in some real work after the endless sniping and intrigues at Court. If I'd known what I was letting myself in for… I'd probably have come anyway. I never was very good at looking away and pretending I didn't see anything.
'What med tech we have is top of the line, the best the Sisterhood could provide, but it was never meant to handle this many wounded. I live in fear of it breaking down. There's no one here who could repair it. The Wolfes have their own med bay in the factory. Everything you could dream of, up to and including a regenerator. One of the nurses there is sympathetic. I raid their drug supply from time to time, when I'm really desperate, and she covers for me, God bless her.' She sighed and shook her head. 'Can I offer either of you gentlemen a drink?'
She reached under the writing table and brought out a bottle of murky-looking spirits and two glass specimen jars. She shrugged when Toby and Flynn politely declined and poured herself a large drink. Toby gestured urgently for Flynn to keep filming. Bea was the kind of subject you prayed for in a documentary. A real character, someone who knew everyone and everything, right there in the middle of things but still able to stand back and see the big picture. It helped that she didn't look much like a nun, and the drinking was a nice touch. The viewers didn't like their saints to be too perfect. Her hand shook as she raised the glass jar to her mouth, and Toby felt suddenly, obscurely ashamed. With all he'd seen and heard, none of it had touched him the way it had obviously touched her. She cared, and he was just an unfeeling, recording eye. Just like Flynn's camera. He tried to tell himself he had to be, to get the job done, but that didn't sound as convincing as it once had. He made himself concentrate on Bea as she lowered the almost empty jar.
'God, this is awful stuff,' she said calmly. 'But I couldn't work here without it. Two of the Sisters pop amphetamines, and one of my surgeons has a serious drug habit. I don't say anything, as long as they can still work. We all need a little something to get us through the day. And the night. The nights are the worst. That's when most of our patients die. In the early hours of the morning, when the dawn seems farthest away. I don't know how much longer I can stand it here. It wears you down, having to fight for every life, even the simplest wounds. Nothing's simple here. Not even this tent. It's the strongest the Sisterhood could provide, but even it can't cope with the excesses of weather we have here. In the summer it gets so oppressive you can hardly move. In the winter… I've seen the surgeons stop in mid operation to warm their hands in the steaming guts they've just opened up.
'We've all changed here. I never really wanted to become a nun, you know. I fled to the Sisterhood for sanctuary, so I wouldn't have to marry Valentine Wolfe. But I ended up at the mercy of the Wolfes anyway. I never had much time for religion. I just used the Sisterhood as a power base, like many before me. And I only came here because I was bored. But here in hell I found religion after all. In the face of so much evil, you have to believe in God. It's the only thing that gives you the strength to go on.'
She rose suddenly to her feet, catching Toby and Flynn by surprise. She emptied the jar of the last of the drink and put it down on the desk. 'I've said enough. I'll take you around the beds, so you can see the kind of wounds we're dealing with. Some of the patients might even talk to you, though you'll have to edit out the obscenities.'
She led them out of her private area and back down the long aisle between the beds. Flynn filmed everything, sweeping his camera back and forth. The tent was still eerily quiet, and no one wanted to talk to them. Toby supposed they didn't have the strength to waste on moans of pain or complaints. The other Sisters were moving quietly from bed to bed, checking bandages and temperatures, or if there was nothing else they could do, just laying a cool, comforting hand on a fevered brow. Toby kept quiet, too. The last thing this needed was a commentary, and he didn't have any more questions. The answers were too obvious. To his surprise, he felt mostly angry. This kind of thing shouldn't be happening, not in this day and age. He'd covered up enough things himself in the past, as Gregor's PR flack, but never anything like this. A Family's troops dying, to hide a Family's shame. He kept telling himself not to get involved. That this was just a good story. And was surprised to find how close to angry, frustrated tears he was.
'Film as much as you like,' said Mother Beatrice. 'The odds are no one will ever see it. I keep trying to get reports out, and the Wolfes keep blocking me. They can't afford to admit they're losing the battle here. The Empress might take Technos III and the factory away from them.'
'Some news did get out,' said Toby. 'From transport crews and the like. Of the Saint of Technos III, who threw aside her aristocracy to tend the wounded and the dying. That's what brought us here.'
'I'm no saint,' said Bea. 'Anyone would do what I do if they could see what I've seen.'
'We'll get the report out somehow,' said Toby. 'Even if I have to smuggle the tape out by cramming the cans up my backside.'
Bea smiled suddenly. 'Well,' she said archly, 'I always said the Wolfes were a pain in the ass.'
Jack Random, Ruby Journey, and Alexander Storm followed their guides down through a maze of tunnels, away from the open trenches and the fury of the rising blizzard. The tunnels sloped sharply downward, their walls revealing the many layers of compacted trash and metal that made up the history of the planet's surface. The air was warmer underground, but the three newcomers were still shivering. Light came from metal lanterns hanging from the low ceiling, a pale yellow glow that was hard on their unaccustomed eyes. People bustled around them as they descended deeper, always in too much of a hurry to do more than stare or very occasionally nod a greeting. They were all heavily muscled, with little covering fat to blur the hard edges. Their eyes were stern and concentrated on the matter in hand, and none of them smiled or uttered an unnecessary word. Tall John and Throat-slitter Mary led the way down in silence, the stiffness of their backs rejecting the possibility of questions. Random and Ruby and Storm stuck close together, as much for shared warmth as mutual support.
'How the hell did they build all these tunnels and trenches in the first place?' said Ruby, scowling at the metal walls. 'I can't see whoever the opposition was at the time agreeing to a truce while the rebels brought in digging equipment.'
'They probably used captured energy weapons to blast out the original tunnels and then widened them over the years by hand,' said Random. 'We're looking at the end result of decades of hard work. Maybe longer.'
'Damn right,' said Tall John without looking back at them. 'The original work happened so long ago that no one now even remembers the names of those involved. We've been building our tunnels for centuries, each generation adding what was needed at the time. We have to live underground. It's all that's left to us. In the old days, there were the military satellites, with their tracking systems and weaponry. These days, there's the weather. And besides, the factory complex has its own force Screen. We've always known the only way past the Screen was under it. The Wolfes know it, too. That's why they have their own people digging tunnels, too.'
'But you're safe down here, aren't you?' said Storm.
'There's safe, and then there's safe,' said Throat-slitter Mary. 'Technos III's other life-forms live underground, too. They live in the deep down, where we rarely go, but they come up from time to time, and then we get to argue as to whose territory these tunnels are. We hunt them for food, and they hunt us for food. We win, more often than not. And it helps weed out the weak. See those old stains on the floor? When we make a kill, we splash the beast's blood around, to mark the territory. It keeps the bastards at bay for a while.'
'You mean they get up this far?' said Ruby.
