Warlow—“Stand by to broadcast a message from
“Not much. There are only seven low-orbit observation satellites left. They took a real pounding in the battle yesterday. But, Joshua, someone detonated a nuke down there earlier this morning.”
“Jesus. Where?”
“I think it was at Durringham. The satellite only saw the blast as it fell below the horizon.”
Joshua accessed the main sensor image. The red cloudbands over the tributaries had expanded dramatically. Individual strands had blended together producing a homogenized oval smear that covered the entire Juliffe basin. He realized the bright flame-glimmer Durringham had produced before was missing.
Then he noticed a large circular section of cloud in the south-east had lost its red nimbus altogether, becoming a malaised grey. Interest stirred at the back of his mind; it almost looked as if the red cloud was being ruined by some cancerous growth. He datavised the flight computer for a guidance grid.
“It’s south of the Quallheim villages,” he said with a sense of growing confidence.
“That grey patch?” Sarha asked.
“Yeah. Exactly where Kelly said they were going.”
“Could be,” Dahybi said. “Maybe the mercenaries have found a way of damaging the cloud.”
“Perhaps. Melvyn, focus our dish on it, and start transmitting. See if you can punch through and raise Kelly directly.” Joshua centred an optical sensor on the area and upped the magnification. The hoary amorphous cloudscape rushed out to fill his mind. It wasn’t giving any clues away, there were no breaks, no glimpses of the ground below. “Ashly, have you been following this?”
“Yes, Joshua,” the pilot answered from the spaceplane cabin.
“We’ll be in orbit in another three minutes. I want you to launch as soon as we finish decelerating. Loiter above those mountains in the south, and we’ll see if the mercenary team can get out from under the cloud. Under no circumstances are you to go under it.”
“No fear.”
“Good.” He datavised the flight computer to open the spaceplane hangar doors. “Anything from Kelly, yet?”
“Sorry, Joshua, only static.”
“She said they wouldn’t be out from under the cloud until the afternoon,” Sarha pointed out. “It isn’t quite noon there yet.”
“I know. But that cloud is still growing, even the grey section. If it reaches the mountains they’ll be in serious trouble. The hovercraft won’t be able to handle that sort of country. They’ll be trapped between the two.”
“We can wait,” Dahybi said. “For a week if we have to.”
Joshua nodded vaguely, eyes tight shut as he flipped through sensor inputs, desperate for any sort of hint. “Come on, Kelly,” he murmured. “Show us you’re there.”
Ryall padded stealthily through the long grass. The scent of humans was strong in the air. Many had passed by very recently. But none were near him now.
After leaving his master he had run swiftly east, the big weight fastened round his neck jouncing about uncomfortably. After a couple of kilometres the masterlove thoughts in his brain had guided him to one side. He had traced a wide curve over the savannah, now he was heading back to his starting point.
When he reached a wide swath of grass, beaten down by many tramping feet, Ryall waited at the edge for a moment—listening, sniffing. Instinct told him he was alone. Satisfied, the masterlove thoughts urged him out. The swath led all the way back to the jungle, he turned the other way. Five hundred metres ahead of him, the homestead cabin jutted up out of the grassland. He hurried towards it, a hungering sensation racing through his blood.
The grass was beaten down all around the cabin. Fences had been broken. Cows wandered about, grazing placidly, paying no attention to him. Goats saw him coming and ran jerkily until they realized he wasn’t chasing them. Chickens escaped from their smashed pen were scratching in the dirt; they scattered squawking when he trotted up to the cabin.
Height. The masterlove thoughts wanted him to have height. Ryall swung his big head from side to side, viewing the back wall of the cabin; then loped over to a pile of composite pods stacked at one corner. He jumped, bounding up the pods, then sprang for the eaves. Paws skated unsteadily on the solar-cell panels nailed to the roof, but he found his footing on the ginger qualtook-bark tiles and scampered his way up to the apex.
His master used his eyes to peer out across the savannah. The line of men carrying pikes were a kilometre away. And almost lost in the gloaming ahead of them the band of knights on horseback galloped after their prey.
Ryall felt a curious mix of excitement and sorrow. But the masterlove thoughts were full of gentle praise. He thumped his tail on the qualtook tiles in response.
Then the masterlove thoughts were guiding his left forepaw to the heavy weight hanging from his neck. He bent his head round and watched attentively as his extended nails caught the edge of a small hinged panel and eased it open. Glowing squares were revealed.
Masterlove adoration flowed through him. Very carefully his nail touched one of the squares. Once. Twice. Thrice—
The spaceplane stopped shaking as it dropped to subsonic velocity. It had been a fast, steep descent, Ashly had made the little craft stand almost on its tail to aerobrake. Now he levelled out and datavised the wings into their forward-sweep position. Nose-mounted sensors showed him the mountains rolling past below; the fringe of the cloud was fifty kilometres to the north. Short puffy fronds extended out from the main bulk, snaking through the air like blind searching insect antennae towards the foothills.
He datavised the flight computer for a channel up to
“Nothing,” Joshua replied. “Sarha says the observation satellites recorded that patch of cloud turning grey immediately after the Durringham nuke. We’re not too sure what that means, but then I don’t think normal logic applies here.”
“Too right. I’ve got enough power in the electron matrices for a five-hour flight before I have to come back up and recharge. If you want that extending I could land on one of these peaks, they’re fairly isolated.”
“No. You keep airborne, Ashly. Frankly, if they’re not out of there in five hours I don’t think we’ll see them again. And I’ve already lost one crewman today.”
“You didn’t lose him, Joshua. Silly old fart. Now I’ve got to come back and wander through Aethra’s parkland talking to the trees. Hell, he’ll love that. Kill himself laughing I expect.”
“Thanks, Ashly.”
The pilot loaded a course into the computer, a patrol circuit along the length of the grey cloud section, staying at eight thousand metres. Thermals shooting up off the rocky slopes rocked the wings in agitated rhythms as the spaceplane flew overhead.
Jay thought it was a lightning bolt. Blackness suddenly and silently turned to bright scarlet. She sucked in a breath—it must have been frightfully close. But there was no thunderclap. Not at first.
The redness faded away. She risked opening her eyes. Everything seemed normal, except it was a lot lighter than it had been before. As if the sun was finally rising behind her back. Then the noise started, a dry roar which built and built. She heard some of the children start to whimper. The ground began to tremble, the gully wall vibrating her back. And the brightness behind her kept growing. A sheet of white light sprang across the top of the gully, throwing the floor into deep shadow. It began to tilt downwards, turning the opposite bank unbearably bright. Jay could just hear the lady beside her shouting what sounded like a prayer at the top of her voice. She closed her eyes again, little squeaks of fear escaping from her throat.
