massive energy drain in the locomotive supply circuits, indicating that somewhere, in the tunnels of the Command System, a train was moving.
13. The Command System: Terminus
'One can read too much into one's own circumstances. I am reminded of one race who set themselves against us — oh, long ago now, before I was even thought of. Their conceit was that the galaxy belonged to them, and they justified this heresy by a blasphemous belief concerning design. They were aquatic, their brain and major organs housed in a large central pod from which several large arms or tentacles protruded. These tentacles were thick at the body, thin at the tips and lined with suckers. Their water god was supposed to have made the galaxy in their image.
'You see? They thought that because they bore a rough physical resemblance to the great lens that is the home of all of us — even taking the analogy as far as comparing their tentacle suckers to globular clusters — it therefore belonged to them. For all the idiocy of this heathen belief, they had prospered and were powerful: quite respectable adversaries, in fact.'
'Hmm,' Aviger said. Without looking up, he asked, 'What were they called?'
'Hmm,' Xoxarle rumbled. 'Their name…' The Idiran pondered.'… I believe they were called the… the Fanch.'
'Never heard of them,' Aviger said.
'No, you wouldn't have,' Xoxarle purred. 'We annihilated them.'
Yalson saw Horza staring at something on the floor near the doors leading back to the station. She kept watching Balveda, but said, 'What have you found?'
Horza shook his head, reached to pick something from the floor, then stopped. 'I think it's an insect,' he said incredulously.
'Wow,' Yalson said, unimpressed. Balveda moved over to have a look, Yalson's gun still trained on her. Horza shook his head, watching the insect crawl over the tunnel floor.
'What the hell's that doing down here?' he said. Yalson frowned when he said that, worried at a note of near panic in the man's voice.
'Probably brought it down ourselves,' Balveda said, rising. 'Hitched a ride on the pallet, or somebody's suit, I'll bet.'
Horza brought his fist down on the tiny creature, squashing it, grinding it into the dark rock. Balveda looked surprised. Yalson's frown deepened. Horza stared at the mark left on the tunnel floor, wiped his glove, then looked up, apologetic.
'Sorry,' he told Balveda, as though embarrassed.'… Couldn't help thinking about that fly in
'Well,' she said, arching one eyebrow, 'that was one way of proving its innocence.'
Xoxarle watched the male and the two females come back into the station. 'Nothing, little one?' he asked.
'Lots of things, Section Leader,' Horza replied, going up to Xoxarle and checking the wires holding him.
Xoxarle grunted. 'They're still somewhat tight, ally.'
'What a shame,' Horza said. 'Try breathing out.'
'Ha!' Xoxarle laughed and thought the man might have guessed. But the human turned away and said to the old man who had been guarding him:
'Aviger, we're going onto the train. Keep our friend company; try not to fall asleep.'
'Fat chance, with him gibbering all the time,' the old man grumbled.
The other three humans entered the train. Xoxarle went on talking.
In one section of the train there were lit map screens which showed how Schar's World had looked at the time the Command System had been built, the cities and the states shown on the continents, the targets on one state on one continent, the missile grounds, air bases and naval ports belonging to the System's designers shown on another state, on another continent.
Two small icecaps were shown, but the rest of the planet was steppe, savannah, desert, forest and jungle. Balveda wanted to stay and look at the maps, but Horza pulled her away and through another door, going forward to the nose of the train. He switched off the lights behind the map screens as he went, and the bright surface of blue oceans, green, yellow, brown and orange land, blue rivers and red cities and communication lines faded slowly into grey darkness.
Xoxarle breathed in, breathed out. He flexed his muscles, and the wires slipped over his keratin plates. He stopped, when the old man wandered over to look at him.
'You are Aviger, aren't you?'
'That's what they call me,' the old man said. He stood looking at the Idiran, gazing from Xoxarle's three feet with their three slab toes and round ankle collars, over his padded-looking knees, the massive girdle of pelvic plates and the flat chest, up to the section leader's great saddle-head, the broad face tipped and looking down at the human beneath.
'Frightened I'll escape?' Xoxarle rumbled.
Aviger shrugged and gripped his gun a little tighter. 'What do I care?' he said. 'I'm a prisoner, too. That madman's got us all trapped down here. I just want to go back. This isn't my war.'
'A very sensible attitude,' Xoxarle said. 'I wish more humans would realise what is and what is not theirs. Especially regarding wars.'
'Huh, I don't suppose your lot are any better.'
'Let us say different, then.'
'Say what you like.' Aviger looked over the Idiran's body again, addressing Xoxarle's chest. 'I just wish everybody would mind their own business. I see no change, though; it'll all end in tears.'
'I don't think you really belong here, Aviger.' Xoxarle nodded wisely, slowly.
Aviger shrugged, and did not raise his eyes. 'I don't think any of us do.'
'The brave belong where they decide.' Some harshness entered the Idiran's voice.
Aviger looked at the broad, dark face above him. 'Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?' He turned away and walked back towards the pallet. Xoxarle watched, and vibrated his chest quickly, tensing his muscles, then releasing. The wires on him slipped a little further. Behind his back, he felt the bonds around one wrist slacken fractionally.
The train gathered speed. The controls and screens looked dim to him, so he watched the lights on the tunnel walls outside. They had slid by gently at first, passing the side windows of the broad control deck more slowly than the quiet tide of his breathing.
Now there were two or three lights running by for each time he breathed. The train was pushing him gently in the back, drawing him towards the rear of the seat and anchoring him there. Blood — a little of it, not much — had dried under him, sticking him there. His course, he felt, was set. There was only one thing left to do. He searched the console, cursing the darkness gathering behind his eye.
Before he found the circuit breaker on the collision brake, he found the lights. It was like a little present from God; the tunnel ahead flashed with bright reflections as the train's nose headlights clicked on. The double set of rails glinted, and in the distance he could see more shadows and reflections in the tunnel walls, where access tubes
