minimum force from now on. Understand? Agree?'
'Both.'
She
turned, picked up her bag and headed for the door, glancing once into the
adjoining room through the hole the first man had made. The woman in there had
fled. The man's body was still cratered into the wall, blood like rays of
ejecta.
Sma
looked back to the machine, and spat on the floor.
'The Xenophobe's heading this way,'
Skaffen-Amtiskaw said, suddenly there in front of her, its body shining in the
sunlight. 'Here.' It stretched a field out, offering her the little chain of
bright flowers it had made.
Sma
bowed towards it; the machine slipped the chain over her head like a necklace.
She stood up and they went back into the castle.
The
very top of the keep was out of bounds to the public; it bristled with aerials
and masts and a couple of slowly revolving radar units. Two floors below, once
the tour party had disappeared round the curve of the gallery, Sma and the
machine stopped at a thick metal door. The drone used its electromagnetic
effector to disable the door's alarm and open the electronic locks, then
inserted a field into a mechanical lock, jiggled the tumblers and swung the
door wide. Sma slipped through, immediately followed by the machine, which relocked
the door. They ascended to the broad, cluttered roof, beneath the vault of
turquoise sky; a tiny scout missile the drone had sent ahead sidled up to the
machine and was taken back inside.
'When's
it get here?' Sma said, listening to the warm wind hum through the jagged
spaces of the aerials around her.
'It's
over there,' Skaffen-Amtiskaw said, jabbing forward. She looked in the
direction it had indicated, and could just make out the spare, curved outline
of a four-person module, sitting nearby; it was giving a very good impression
of being transparent.
Sma
looked around the forest of masts and stays for a moment, the wind ruffling her
hair, then shook her head. She walked to the module-shape, momentarily dizzied
by the sensation that there wasn't anything there, then that there was. A door
swung up from the module's side, revealing the interior as though opening a
passageway into another world, which was - in a sense, she supposed - exactly
what it was doing.
She
and the drone entered. 'Welcome aboard, Ms Sma,' said the module.
'Hello.'
The
door closed. The module tipped back on its rear end, like a predator preparing
to pounce. It waited a moment for a flock of birds to clear the airspace a
hundred metres above, then it was gone, powering into the air. Watching from
the ground - if they hadn't blinked at the wrong moment - a very keen-eyed
observer might just have seen a column of trembling air flick skyward from the
summit of the keep, but would have heard nothing; even in high supersonic the
module could move more quietly than any bird, displacing tissue-thin layers of
air immediately ahead of it, moving into the vacuum so created, and replacing
the gases in the skin-thin space it had left behind; a falling feather produced
more turbulence.
Standing
in the module, gazing at the main screen, Sma watched the view beneath the
module shrink rapidly, as the concentric layers of the castle's defences came
crashing in like time-reversed waves from the edges of the screen; the castle
became a dot between the city and the straits, and then the city itself
disappeared and the view began to tip as the module angled out for its
rendezvous with the very fast picket Xenophobe.
Sma
sat down, still watching the screen, eyes searching in vain for the valley on
the outskirts of the city where the dam and the old power station lay.
The
drone watched too, while it signalled to the waiting ship and received
confirmation the vessel had displaced Sma's luggage out of the trunk of the car
and into the woman's quarters on board.
Skaffen-Amtiskaw
studied Sma, as she stared - a little glumly, it thought - at the hazing-over
view on the module screen, and wondered when the best time would be to give her
the rest
'Both.'
She
turned, picked up her bag and headed for the door, glancing once into the
adjoining room through the hole the first man had made. The woman in there had
fled. The man's body was still cratered into the wall, blood like rays of
ejecta.
Sma
looked back to the machine, and spat on the floor.
'The Xenophobe's heading this way,'
Skaffen-Amtiskaw said, suddenly there in front of her, its body shining in the
sunlight. 'Here.' It stretched a field out, offering her the little chain of
bright flowers it had made.
Sma
bowed towards it; the machine slipped the chain over her head like a necklace.
She stood up and they went back into the castle.
The
very top of the keep was out of bounds to the public; it bristled with aerials
and masts and a couple of slowly revolving radar units. Two floors below, once
the tour party had disappeared round the curve of the gallery, Sma and the
machine stopped at a thick metal door. The drone used its electromagnetic
effector to disable the door's alarm and open the electronic locks, then
inserted a field into a mechanical lock, jiggled the tumblers and swung the
door wide. Sma slipped through, immediately followed by the machine, which relocked
the door. They ascended to the broad, cluttered roof, beneath the vault of
turquoise sky; a tiny scout missile the drone had sent ahead sidled up to the
machine and was taken back inside.
'When's
it get here?' Sma said, listening to the warm wind hum through the jagged
spaces of the aerials around her.
'It's
over there,' Skaffen-Amtiskaw said, jabbing forward. She looked in the
direction it had indicated, and could just make out the spare, curved outline
of a four-person module, sitting nearby; it was giving a very good impression
of being transparent.
Sma
looked around the forest of masts and stays for a moment, the wind ruffling her
hair, then shook her head. She walked to the module-shape, momentarily dizzied
by the sensation that there wasn't anything there, then that there was. A door
swung up from the module's side, revealing the interior as though opening a
passageway into another world, which was - in a sense, she supposed - exactly
what it was doing.
She
and the drone entered. 'Welcome aboard, Ms Sma,' said the module.
'Hello.'
The
door closed. The module tipped back on its rear end, like a predator preparing
to pounce. It waited a moment for a flock of birds to clear the airspace a
hundred metres above, then it was gone, powering into the air. Watching from
the ground - if they hadn't blinked at the wrong moment - a very keen-eyed
observer might just have seen a column of trembling air flick skyward from the
summit of the keep, but would have heard nothing; even in high supersonic the
module could move more quietly than any bird, displacing tissue-thin layers of
air immediately ahead of it, moving into the vacuum so created, and replacing
the gases in the skin-thin space it had left behind; a falling feather produced
more turbulence.
Standing
in the module, gazing at the main screen, Sma watched the view beneath the
module shrink rapidly, as the concentric layers of the castle's defences came
crashing in like time-reversed waves from the edges of the screen; the castle
became a dot between the city and the straits, and then the city itself
disappeared and the view began to tip as the module angled out for its
rendezvous with the very fast picket Xenophobe.
Sma
sat down, still watching the screen, eyes searching in vain for the valley on
the outskirts of the city where the dam and the old power station lay.
The
drone watched too, while it signalled to the waiting ship and received
confirmation the vessel had displaced Sma's luggage out of the trunk of the car
and into the woman's quarters on board.
Skaffen-Amtiskaw
studied Sma, as she stared - a little glumly, it thought - at the hazing-over
view on the module screen, and wondered when the best time would be to give her
the rest
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