wall, banging it in futile anger with the butt of his rifle. ‘I am Calder Durk, a prince of Hesperus,’ he roared. ‘I fought the Narvalak fleet to a standstill with nothing more than a flotilla of ice schooners and loyal men armed with crossbow, shield and sword. I’ve laid piles of corpses around me until the heaps grew larger than even the bards’ songs could accurately count. I am an apostate, sentenced to death by burning by every dirty priest and corrupt cardinal on my planet. I have been betrayed and exiled. There is nothing in this damp, humid, furnace of a half-corpse world that can cost me more than I have already lost, so I spit upon you, you wall-banging coward. Throw aside the shadows and enter! Face me and let us see which one of us knows fear!’
The banging seemed to stop. Calder was amazed. He’d only been trying to mask his creeping sense of dread, but had the prowling entity actually taken his challenge to heart? The robot hummed about its impending self-inflicted amnesia like a priest holding to a mantra. What was left of Lento had tugged the sheet over her face as if she couldn’t see the threat, it wouldn’t exist. He was as good as on his own here. Calder eyes flicked towards the ceiling, desperately searching for any sign of what he thought he had seen outside. The moon on the left winked at him. Then the smaller moon on the right. Then the fat crimson lunar disk in the centre winked too. All three moons sending him a strange semaphore signal. Is this how Lento’s madness began ? Suddenly, the blinking orbs resolved into the fluttering shadow of wings as a flight of dragons dropped close enough for their cawing challenge to overwhelm the external speakers’ ability to process the volume. Calder and Momoko fell over as the lodge rocked and shook on its foundations, the exiled nobleman sprawling across Lento’s huddled form, the afterimage of lizard-like heads as large as ground vehicles throwing their thundering open maws against the roof, fang scratches left against the juddering camera dome. Calder had dropped his rifle in the dragon-created earthquake. He scooped it up again. A mouse lifting a toothpick against an ambush of tigers.
CHAPTER TWO
The mother-lode.
Lana glanced up as Skrat’s shuttle drifted away over the rain forest canopy, steam burning up from the clearing where the craft’s engines had burnt the ground, dipping down low enough for her and Zeno to leap off the loading ramp. In the distance were the mountain range’s black shadows and the glow of the mine head. Zeno had turned their mission to uncover the truth behind the local operation into melodrama, altering the pigment of his artificial skin into dark camouflage stripes. You could take the actor out of the android, but you could take the android out of the actor. Lana knew he was well capable of adjusting his face to match the background in real-time… becoming almost invisible to the naked eye. The camo tiger strips were purely for show. Possibly to show Lana what he thought about her plan to sneak into the mine.
‘The road to the mountains is half a mile in that direction,’ said Lana. ‘You want to walk to it, or would you prefer to roll across the ground and take cover behind a tree every few yards?’
‘I’m as serious about doing this as you,’ said Zeno. ‘Relations between you and the professor are frosty enough as it is. I don’t need us to be discovered creeping around the miners’ high-value mineral stores for things to get any worse.’
‘I’m not letting my feelings about that damn woman get in the way,’ said Lana. ‘I’d be doing this whoever Dollar-sign had sent to dig out this world.’ And I’d be doing this for any member of crew, too. Not just Calder.
‘Sure,’ said Zeno. ‘Keep on telling yourself that. There can be only one.’
‘What?’
‘Classic media reference,’ said Zeno. ‘Don’t worry your head about it.’
‘I won’t. You can lead the way,’
The banging seemed to stop. Calder was amazed. He’d only been trying to mask his creeping sense of dread, but had the prowling entity actually taken his challenge to heart? The robot hummed about its impending self-inflicted amnesia like a priest holding to a mantra. What was left of Lento had tugged the sheet over her face as if she couldn’t see the threat, it wouldn’t exist. He was as good as on his own here. Calder eyes flicked towards the ceiling, desperately searching for any sign of what he thought he had seen outside. The moon on the left winked at him. Then the smaller moon on the right. Then the fat crimson lunar disk in the centre winked too. All three moons sending him a strange semaphore signal. Is this how Lento’s madness began ? Suddenly, the blinking orbs resolved into the fluttering shadow of wings as a flight of dragons dropped close enough for their cawing challenge to overwhelm the external speakers’ ability to process the volume. Calder and Momoko fell over as the lodge rocked and shook on its foundations, the exiled nobleman sprawling across Lento’s huddled form, the afterimage of lizard-like heads as large as ground vehicles throwing their thundering open maws against the roof, fang scratches left against the juddering camera dome. Calder had dropped his rifle in the dragon-created earthquake. He scooped it up again. A mouse lifting a toothpick against an ambush of tigers.
CHAPTER TWO
The mother-lode.
Lana glanced up as Skrat’s shuttle drifted away over the rain forest canopy, steam burning up from the clearing where the craft’s engines had burnt the ground, dipping down low enough for her and Zeno to leap off the loading ramp. In the distance were the mountain range’s black shadows and the glow of the mine head. Zeno had turned their mission to uncover the truth behind the local operation into melodrama, altering the pigment of his artificial skin into dark camouflage stripes. You could take the actor out of the android, but you could take the android out of the actor. Lana knew he was well capable of adjusting his face to match the background in real-time… becoming almost invisible to the naked eye. The camo tiger strips were purely for show. Possibly to show Lana what he thought about her plan to sneak into the mine.
‘The road to the mountains is half a mile in that direction,’ said Lana. ‘You want to walk to it, or would you prefer to roll across the ground and take cover behind a tree every few yards?’
‘I’m as serious about doing this as you,’ said Zeno. ‘Relations between you and the professor are frosty enough as it is. I don’t need us to be discovered creeping around the miners’ high-value mineral stores for things to get any worse.’
‘I’m not letting my feelings about that damn woman get in the way,’ said Lana. ‘I’d be doing this whoever Dollar-sign had sent to dig out this world.’ And I’d be doing this for any member of crew, too. Not just Calder.
‘Sure,’ said Zeno. ‘Keep on telling yourself that. There can be only one.’
‘What?’
‘Classic media reference,’ said Zeno. ‘Don’t worry your head about it.’
‘I won’t. You can lead the way,’
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