'What, human?' Xoxarle's voice rumbled down the tunnel. He hadn't bothered to turn round when he talked; he spoke to the clear air of the foot tunnel leading to station seven, his powerful bassy voice easily heard even by Wubslin and Aviger, who were bringing up the rear of the small, motley band.
'You did it again,' Horza said wearily, talking to the back of the Idiran's head. 'The one killed while asleep: it was a she; a woman, a female.'
'Well, the medjel attended to her. We laid them out in the corridor. Some of their food proved edible; it tasted like heaven to us.'
'How long ago was that?' Horza asked.
'About eight days, I think. It is hard to keep time down here. We tried to construct a mass sensor immediately, knowing that it would be invaluable, but we were unsuccessful. All we had was what was undamaged from the Changer base. Most of our own equipment had been attacked by the beast of the Barrier or had to be abandoned when we set off from the warp animal to come here, or left en route, as we died off.'
'You must have thought it was a bit of luck finding the Mind so easily.' Horza kept his rifle trained on the tall Idiran's neck, watching Xoxarle all the time. The creature might be injured — Horza knew enough about the species to tell that the section leader was in pain just from the way he walked — but he was still dangerous. Horza didn't mind him talking, though; it passed the time.
'We knew it was injured. When we found it in station six, and it did not move or show any sign of noticing us, we assumed that those were only the signs of its damage. We already knew that you had arrived; it was only a day ago. We accepted our good luck without second thoughts, and prepared to make our escape. You only just stopped us. Another few hours and we would have had that train working.'
'More likely you'd have blown yourselves into radioactive dust,' Horza told the Idiran.
'Think what you like, little one. I knew what I was doing.'
'I'm sure,' Horza said sceptically. 'Why did you take all the guns with you and leave that medjel on the surface without a weapon?'
'We had intended to take one of the Changers alive and interrogate him, but failed; our own fault, no doubt. Had we done so we could have reassured ourselves there was nobody else down here ahead of us. We were so late in getting here, after all. We took all the available weaponry down with us and left the servant on the surface with only a communicator so-'
'We didn't find the communicator,' Horza interrupted.
'Good. He was supposed to hide it when not checking in,' Xoxarle said, then went on, 'So we had what little firepower we did possess where it might be needed most. Once we realised that we were in here by ourselves, we sent a servant up with a weapon for our guard. Unhappily for him, it would appear he arrived very shortly after you did.'
'Don't worry,' Horza said, 'he did well; damn nearly blew my head off.'
Xoxarle laughed. Horza flinched slightly at the sound. It was not only loud, it was cruel in a way Xoralundra's laugh had not been.
'His poor slave soul is at rest, then,' Xoxarle boomed. 'His tribe can ask for no more.'
Horza refused to pause until they were halfway to station seven.
They sat in the foot tunnel, resting. The Idiran sat furthest down the tunnel, Horza across the tunnel from him and roughly six metres away, gun ready. Yalson was by his side.
'Horza,' she said, looking at his suit and then at her own, 'I think we could take the AG of my suit; it does detach. We could rig it up to yours. It might look a bit untidy, but it would work.' She looked into his face. His eyes shifted from Xoxarle for a moment, then flicked back.
'I'm all right,' he said. 'You keep the AG.' He nudged her gently with his free arm and lowered his voice. 'You're carrying a bit more weight, after all.' He grunted, then rubbed the side of his suit in faked pain when Yalson elbowed him hard enough to move him fractionally across the floor of the tunnel. 'Ouch,' he said.
'I wish I hadn't told you, now,' Yalson said.
'Balveda?' Xoxarle said suddenly, turning his huge head slowly to look up the tunnel, past Horza and Yalson, over the pallet and the drone Unaha-Closp, past Wubslin — watching the mass sensor — and Aviger to where the Culture agent sat, her eyes closed, silent, against the wall.
'Section Leader?' Balveda said, opening her calm eyes, looking down the tunnel to the Idiran.
'The Changer says you are from the Culture. That is the part he has cast you in. He would have me believe you are an agent of espionage.' Xoxarle put his head on one side, looking down the dark tube of tunnel at the woman sitting against the curved wall. 'You seem, like me, to be a captive of this man. Do you tell me you are what he says you are?'
Balveda looked at Horza, then at the Idiran, her slow gaze lazy, almost indolent. 'I'm afraid so, Section Leader,' she said.
The Idiran moved his head from side to side, blinked his eyes, then rumbled, 'Most strange. I cannot imagine why you should all be trying to trick me, or why this one man should have such a hold over all of you. Yet his own story I find scarcely credible. If he really is on our side then I have behaved in a way which may hinder the great cause, and perhaps even aid yours, woman, if you are who you say. Most strange.
'Keep thinking about it,' Balveda drawled, then closed her eyes and put her head back against the tunnel wall again.
'Horza's on his own side, not anybody else's,' Aviger said from further up the tunnel. He was speaking to the Idiran, but his gaze shifted to Horza at the end of his sentence, and he dropped his head, looking down at a container of food at his side and picking a last few crumbs from it.
'That is the way with all of your kind,' Xoxarle said to the old man, who wasn't looking. 'It is how you are made; you must all strive to claw your way over the backs of your fellow humans during the short time you are permitted in the universe, breeding when you can, so that the strongest strains survive and the weakest die. I would no more blame you for that than I would try to convert some non-sentient carnivore to vegetarianism. You are all on your own side. With us it is different.' Xoxarle looked at Horza. 'You must agree with that, Changer ally.'
'You're different all right,' Horza said. 'But all I care about is you're fighting the Culture. You may be God's gift or plague in the end result, but what matters to me is that at the moment you're against her lot.' Horza nodded at Balveda, who didn't open her eyes, but did smile.
'What a pragmatic attitude,' Xoxarle said. Horza wondered if the others could hear the trace of humour in the giant's voice. 'Whatever did the Culture do to you to make you hate it so?'
'Nothing to me,' Horza said. 'I just disagree with them.'
'My,' Xoxarle said, 'you humans never cease to surprise me.' He hunched suddenly, and a crackling, booming noise like rocks being crushed came from his mouth. His great body shuddered. Xoxarle turned his head away and spat onto the tunnel floor. He kept his head turned away while the humans looked at each other, wondering how badly injured the Idiran really was. Xoxarle became silent. He leaned over and looked at whatever he had spat up, made a distant, echoing sort of noise in his throat, then turned back to Horza. His voice was scratchy and hoarse when he spoke again. 'Yes, Mr Changer, you are a strange fellow. Allow a little too much dissention in your ranks, mind you.' Xoxarle looked up the tunnel to Aviger, who raised his head and glanced at the Idiran with a frightened expression.
'I get by,' Horza told the section leader. He got to his feet, looking round the others and stretching his tired legs. 'Time to go.' He turned to Xoxarle. 'Are you fit to walk?'
'Untie me and I could run too fast for you to escape, human,' Xoxarle purred. He unfolded his huge frame from its squatting position. Horza looked up into the dark, broad V of the creature's face and nodded slowly.
'Just think about staying alive so I can take you back to the fleet, Xoxarle,' Horza said. 'The chasing and fighting are over. We're all looking for the Mind now.'
'A poor hunt, human,' Xoxarle said. 'An ignominious end to the whole endeavour. You make me ashamed for you, but then, you are only human.'
'Oh shut up and start walking,' Yalson told the Idiran. She stabbed at buttons on her suit control unit and floated into the air, level with Xoxarle's head. The Idiran snorted and turned. He started to hobble off down the foot tunnel. One by one, they followed him.
