spin, and finally managed to correct it and right herself. Her head took a few seconds to catch up with the rest of her.
As the dizziness cleared, she got her bearings. The gunship was hounding Reston hard, and only by some miracle was he eluding its fire. He managed to loose off the occasional shot of his own, but the disc outclassed him in terms of both gunpower and airspeed. He was fighting a rearguard action and it wasn’t doing him any good; it was only a matter of time before the Serpent pilots got in the two or three hits in quick succession that would polish him off.
“Reston! Keep that thing busy. I’m coming to help.”
“Whenever you like, Vaughn. No hurry. What are you going to do?”
“I have an idea, although I’m not too fond of it.”
They were using English. The pilots would be aware they were hatching something but wouldn’t know what.
“Well, like I said, no hurry. Whatever works for you. Any time in the next three seconds would be fine.”
Mal took a deep breath — I can’t believe I’m doing this, I can’t believe I’m doing this, I can’t believe I’m doing this — and soared towards the gunship. It opened up at her with its rear nacelles, but she made herself the zippiest, most elusive target imaginable, corkscrewing and loop-the-looping unpredictably, like a fly avoiding the swatter. Soon she was above the disc, out of the line of fire from any of its guns. She dived down and crash-landed on it, belly-flopping. Momentum carried her slithering across its roof to the front, where the cockpit windshield was.
Clinging on with one hand to the ridge of the windshield fairing, she started hammering the glass with the other. The pilots yelped in alarm. Over the comms link, the one who’d spoken earlier shouted at her that she was a madwoman. What was she trying to do?
“What does it look like?” she replied in Nahuatl.
The gunship went into a series of crazy bucking-bronco manoeuvres, the pilots doing everything they could to throw Mal off, but she hung on, still doggedly punching the windshield. The glass was tough but the suit of armour, or perhaps the woman inside it, was tougher. Spiderweb cracks appeared. Then a hole. Finally, with a sudden sucking crash, the entire curved sheet of glass caved in. Wind pressure drove the fragments into the cockpit at bullet speed. Mal heard screams. She detached herself from the disc and shot upwards.
The gunship slowed to a complete halt. Reston did a hairpin turn and aimed his l-gun at the hollowed-out windshield frame, and pumped a full-charge bolt into the cockpit. The disc rocked and shuddered. A tongue of flame erupted from the front like a dragon’s breath.
The gunship began a leisurely, seesawing descent, like an autumn leaf falling. It hit the lake surface quite gently, with a discreet splash. Its neg-mass drive was still functioning but was cycling down, so the disc remained buoyant on the water for nearly a minute before it began to sink. Still afire, it slipped into the darkness below with a surge of boiling bubbles and a hiss of steam.
Reston flew to Mal’s side. “We are definitely even now. That was magnificent stuff.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
“I thought I was a goner for certain.”
“To be honest, I thought so too.”
“And now, surely, we have an uninterrupted journey to shore. Nothing else could possibly go — ”
He broke off.
“Me and my big mouth.”
Mal saw what he saw.
Flying gods. Three of them.
Huitzilopochtli. Itzpapalotl. And Quetzalcoatl.
The Hummingbird God’s flame spear launcher was on his shoulder, its missile pointed directly and unarguably at Mal and Reston. Or, as Huitzilopochtli saw it, at two enemy soldiers.
“Yes,” Mal said to Reston, “you and your big fucking mouth.”
THIRTY
Same Day
“Don’t shoot!” Stuart flung his arms up into the air. “Hold your fire. We’re not what you think we are.”
Hutizilopochtli’s stance did not shift.
“Look. I’m going to move my hand now. Easy does it. I’m going to tap the side of my helmet here, like so.”
Stuart didn’t know if any of the gods could hear him through the faceplate. He hoped they could, for his and Vaughn’s sake. At the same time, he was trying to send out all the right signals through posture and attitude alone. We’re no threat. Don’t attack.
“And hey presto,” he said, as his faceplate vanished. “It’s me.”
The three gods looked at one another. Quetzalcoatl’s and Huitzilopochtli’s expressions were flat — hard to interpret. As for Itzpapalotl, her all-covering helmet gave away nothing whatsoever.
“I’m Reston. Stuart Reston. Remember? I know I’m just a human, but surely you remember me, Quetzalcoatl.”
He had no idea how good a god’s memory was when it came to lesser beings. Perhaps mortals were as hard for a deity to distinguish from one another as, say, laboratory mice were for a scientist. Quetzalcoatl had recognised him on the terrace of the Great Speaker’s palace but, it seemed, just barely. He’d offered a passing nod, but that was all. Bigger fish to fry, maybe. Or maybe Stuart’s face had been familiar but one he couldn’t place. He had forgotten the man whom he’d briefly taken under his wing only a few days earlier. Stuart had reverted to being just another anonymous human, one among the billions of such creatures who infested the earth.
“We’re not Serpents,” he said. “We’ve just borrowed these suits to get out of Tenochtitlan. Vaughn? Show them your face too.”
Vaughn’s faceplate winked out of existence.
“See? When you came to visit Tezcatlipoca earlier today, the two of us were there. But we’ve nothing to do with him. Not allies, not anything. The moment you left, as a matter of fact, he tried to have us killed.”
Quetzalcoatl cocked his head. A thin-lipped smile appeared.
“Yes, I know you,” he said. “The Serpent armour threw me off. Huitz? Lower your weapon. These are friends.”
“Fucking phew,” Vaughn said, with feeling, as Huitzilopochtli did as told.
“But you should count yourselves lucky,” Quetzalcoatl said. “We were this close to attacking. The only thing that prevented us was seeing you take down that aerodisc. It made us curious about you. Serpent Warrior versus Serpent Warrior? If not for that…”
“If not for that,” said Huitzilopochtli, “your bodies would be lying beside the gunship on the lakebed even as we speak.”
Itzpapalotl nodded in agreement.
“So it was actually a good thing we got waylaid,” Stuart said to Vaughn.
“Every cloud…” she replied.
He turned back to the three gods. “Well, I must say, Quetzalcoatl, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance again. But now, if you don’t mind, Vaughn and I will be on our way. The more distance we put between us and Tenochtitlan, the better. That place is a deathtrap.”
“Of course,” said the Plumed Serpent. “As you wish.”
As Stuart started to float past, however, Quetzalcoatl held up a hand. “Although, perhaps…”
Stuart’s heart sank. What now? What did this god want with him?
“Perhaps I ought to accompany you, at least part of the way. Huitz? Itzpapalotl? Carry out the next raid without me. Be careful.”
“Really,” Stuart said, “you don’t have to.”
“If I don’t escort you, someone else in the pantheon may mistake you for genuine Serpent Warriors, and this
