the harbourmaker against you. Is that clear?’
The grub seemed to understand. ‘You want me to destroy them?’
‘Yes. Or I’ll destroy you.’
‘You wouldn’t do that. It would kill you.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Sky said amicably. ‘I’m not Lago; I don’t think like him, and I certainly don’t act like him.’
He selected one of the nearer grubs and unloaded part of the machine-gun’s clip into the creature. The slugs punched thumb-sized holes in the creature’s pale-pink integument. He watched the red stuff drain out and then heard an awful shrill cry come from some part of the creature. Except he was wrong about that, now that he paid attention. The shrill cry was coming from the large grub; not the one that he had shot.
He watched the injured one collapse down into the sea of red, until only part of it was showing. Several other helper grubs undulated towards it and began to prod it with their feelers.
Gradually, the keening sound of anguish died down to a low moan.
‘You hurt me.’
‘I was just making a point,’ Sky said. ‘When Lago hurt you, he hurt you indiscriminately because he was scared. I’m not scared. I hurt you because I want you to know exactly what I’m capable of.’
A couple of helper grubs were thrashing their way ashore only metres from where Sky and Norquinco were standing.
‘No,’ Sky said. ‘Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot another one — and don’t try any funny tricks with gravity, or I’ll make the harbourmaker go off.’
The grubs halted, their fronds waving hysterically.
The yellow light — the light that bathed the whole chamber — died for a second. Sky was not expecting darkness. For an instant the terror of it was total. He had forgotten that the grubs controlled the light. In darkness, they could do almost anything. He imagined them emerging from the red lake, dragging him into it by his heels. He imagined being eaten by them, the way Lago had been. There might come a point where he could no longer tell the harbourmaker to go off; could no longer erase his own agony.
Perhaps he should do it now.
But the yellow light returned.
‘I did as you asked,’ Travelling Fearlessly said. ‘It was hard. It took all our power to push the skein out to that distance.’
‘Did it work?’
‘There are two more out there — smaller void warrens.’
The shuttles. ‘Yes. But they won’t be here for a little while. Then you can do the same trick again.’ He called Gomez. ‘What happened? ’
‘The probes just blew up, Sky — like they’d hit something.’
‘Nuclear?’
‘No. They weren’t carrying harbourmakers.’
‘Good. Stay where you are.’
‘Sky — what the hell is going on inside there?’
‘You don’t want to know, Gomez — you really don’t want to know.’
He had to strain to pick out the next question. ‘Did you find — what was his name? Lago?’
‘Oh yes, we found Lago. Didn’t we, Lago?’
Now Norquinco was speaking. ‘Sky. Listen. We should go now. We don’t have to kill the other people. We don’t want to start a war between the ships.’ He raised his voice, his helmet speaker booming out across the red lake. ‘You can protect us in other ways, can’t you? You could move us; move this whole ship — this whole void warren, to safety? Out of the range of the shuttles?’
‘No,’ Sky said. ‘I want those shuttles destroyed. If they want a war between the ships, they’ll get one. We’ll see how long they last.’
‘For God’s sake, Sky.’ Norquinco reached out to him, as if to grasp him. Sky stepped away and lost his footing on the chamber’s hard and slick surface. Suddenly he was toppling over; falling backwards into the red brine. He landed on his backpack, half submerged in the shallows. The red liquid sloshed across his faceplate with strange eagerness, as if seeking a way into his suit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two helper grubs undulating towards him. Sky thrashed, but he could not get a grip on any surface to lift himself out, let alone stand up.
‘Norquinco. Get me out.’
Norquinco moved cautiously to the edge of the red lake. ‘Maybe I should leave you there, Sky. Maybe that would be the best thing for all of us.’
‘Get me out, you bastard.’
‘I didn’t come here to do any evil, Sky. I came here to help the Santiago — and maybe the rest of the Flotilla.’
‘I have the harbourmaker.’
‘But I don’t think you have the courage to let it off.’
The grubs had reached him now — two and then a third he had not seen approaching. They were poking and prodding him with differently shaped clusters of appendages, exploring his suit. He thrashed, but the red fluid seemed to be thickening, conspiring to hold him prisoner.
‘Get me out, Norquinco. That’s your last warning…’
Norquinco still stood over him, but he had not come any closer to the edge. ‘You’re sick, Sky. I’ve always suspected it, but I never saw it until now. I really don’t know what you’re capable of.’
Then something he had not been expecting happened. He had stopped thrashing because it was almost too much effort, and now he was being lifted out of the red fluid, the fluid itself seeming to elevate him, while the grubs pushed him gently. Shivering with fear, he found himself on the shore. The last traces of the red fluid raced off him.
For a moment, wordlessly, he stared at Travelling Fearlessly, knowing that the grub sensed his attention.
‘You believe me, don’t you. You won’t kill me. You know what it would mean.’
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ Travelling Fearlessly said. ‘Because then I’d be lonely again, like I was before you came.’
He understood, and the understanding itself was vile. It still cherished his company even after he had inflicted pain on it; even after he had murdered part of it. The thing was so desperately lonely that it even desired the presence of its torturer. He thought of a small child screaming in absolute darkness, betrayed by a friend that had never properly existed, and — while at the same time hating it absolutely for its weakness — did at least understand.
And that made his hatred all the more intense.
He had to kill another grub before he persuaded Travelling Fearlessly to destroy the two approaching shuttles, and this time it was not just the murder of the grub that agonised the creature. Generating the skein seemed to pain it as well, as if the grub could sense the ship’s damage.
But by then it was over. He could have stayed; could have kept torturing the grub until it told him all it knew. He could have forced the grub to show him how the ship moved, and found out whether it was capable of taking them to Journey’s End quicker than the Santiago. He could even have considered bringing some of the Santiago’s crew here, aboard the void warren — living in its endless tunnels, forcing the grubs to adjust the air mix and temperature until it suited human tastes. How many could the alien ship have supported — dozens, or hundreds? Perhaps even the momios, if they were woken? Maybe some of them would have had to be fed to the helper grubs to keep them happy, but he could have lived with that.
But he decided, instead, to destroy the ship.
It was simpler by far; it freed him from negotiating with the grub; freed him from the sense of revulsion he felt when he recognised its loneliness. It also freed him from running the risk of the void warren ever falling into the hands of the other Flotilla vessels.
‘Let us leave,’ he told Travelling Fearlessly. ‘Clear a route right to the surface, near where we came in.’
He heard sonorous clangs as passageways were rerouted; airlocks opening and shutting. A breeze caressed the red water.
