Splintered Suns Page 15

  Then a big hand swept in from somewhere and struck the Chamberlain loudly on the side of the head. Pazzyk’s assailant cried out as the force of the blow flung him aside, but he still rolled smoothly to his feet, ready to retaliate. Pazzyk’s rescuer was faster, however, and planted a hefty kick right in the Chamberlain’s midriff, which sent him flying backwards to land in a heap of something wet and malodorous.

  Some of Pazzyk’s sight was returning now, sufficient for him to be able to focus properly on his defender. It was a Barlig, one of the horsemen from the southern plains—he wore a jerkin made of leather chevrons and tough-woven leggings and his hair was tied back. And he was staring closely at Pazzyk as he helped him onto his feet.

  “Pyke,” the Barlig said. “It is you, isn’t it? It has to be you.”

  “Sorry, friend,” Pazzyk said. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else. Bregan Pazzyk is my name, freelance antiquities broker, and I cannot thank you enough for saving me from those louts …”

  Glancing sideway, he saw the Chamberlain and the Brute practically supporting each other as they limped and hobbled off into the deep shadows of the alleyway.

  “Bregan Pazzyk, eh?” The Barlig considered him for a moment. “I am, er, Rider Trogian, and there is actually a way in which you can repay my good deed—it will take only a few moments of your time, at a spot just a short distance back along the Nightmarket.”

  Pazzyk rocked his head judiciously, and agreed. The Barlig led the way back to Qalival Square, guided Pazzyk right up to the stone plinth on which the four great statues of the empire’s peoples stood. Again, Pazzyk felt that unpleasant sensation of being drawn towards the immense sculptures, towards the tall figure of the Granavian, a stern-looking, bearded man with a sword at his side, a sextant in one hand and a pair of scales in the other. Pazzyk stared at it for a turbulent moment then did an abrupt about-turn and headed the other way.

  “No, I’m … I’m very sorry but … I just …”

  “Captain, please, you need to—”

  “What did you call me?” Pazzyk slowed to glare at the taller man. “I’m not a captain.”

  And as he looked round, the Barlig’s fist was coming the other way, catching him a sharp blow on the chin.

  There was a flash behind his eyes, grey shadows sweeping in like wings, and his awareness became as calm and constant as a ship lurching and swaying in a stormy sea.

  “Sorry, Captain, I’m so sorry.” The Barlig’s voice drifted in and out of his hearing. “No, no, he’s fine, he came to pray, we’ll just rest here a little while …”

  “Why d’you … call me …”

  “See?—he’s just a bit dizzy … thank you, yes, thank you … and may she guard you, too …”

  Pazzyk felt the Barlig lower him bodily onto cold, flat stone, right beneath the Granavian statue, a big blurred shape that towered ominously over him. By now the strange sensations were practically calling out in his thoughts.

  “Right, this should do it,” the Barlig said as he took Pazzyk’s hand and slapped it down on the statue’s stone foot. There was a moment of physical oddness, like a shiver which started at his skin and shot straight into his very core.

  And Pazzyk became Pyke, knew he’d always been Pyke. Captain Brannan Pyke, dammit, large as life and twice as natural, accept no substitute!

  He levered himself up into a sitting position and squinted at his rescuer, the pony-tailed Barlig, who stared back with eyes full of worry.

  “Captain? Have you become yourself again?”

  “Damn right I have—so which one of our plucky band are you? Wait, let me guess … T’Moy the Bargalil. Am I right?”

  “Well deduced, Captain. Was it the word Barlig that gave you a clue?”

  “And the fact that they’re horse-wrangler types from the south, dead giveaway. By the way, how are you managing with two legs rather than four?”

  “It feels not dissimilar, although I have to remember not to lean back.”

  “Hah, got it. Were you already you when you woke up here, or did you have to go and goose the statue as well?”

  “The latter, Captain—I awoke as if I’d just dozed off, on a crate over in that corner.” The Bargalil pointed over to a shadowy part of the square. “I knew I was Rider Trogian but I also felt this overpowering urge to approach the Barlig statue, so I walked over, laid my hand upon it, and an instant later I was as you see me now.”

  “Interesting. So, any sign of the others?”

  T’Moy shook his head. “Only yourself—since my awakening several hours ago I have not strayed beyond the confines of the Nightmarket.”

  “Hmm, we better give this some thought.” Pyke got to his feet, gave the Granavian statue an affectionate pat, went over to the edge of the plinth and lowered himself to sit there. T’Moy came and sat beside him.

  “How do we proceed?” he said. “How should we start looking for our companions?”

  Pyke jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I look like a Granavian and you look like a Barlig, so I’m betting my granny’s coffin that Vrass is here as a Gadromi and Klane is too as one of those Shylan miners.”

  “I see—Gadromi, Gomedran, and Shylan, Shyntanil. Will this help?”

  “A little, but probably not much.” Pyke made a wide, sweeping gesture. “Granah’s population is about forty thousand, which is a honking big haystack for two out-of-town boys to rummage through.” He narrowed his eyes. “No. I reckon there’s another easier way to join up with our amigos, and it’s all to do with why we’re here.”

  T’Moy’s brow furrowed for a moment. “We have to solve a puzzle so we can move onto the next stage of the Legacy’s puzzle or game or experiment.” He glanced round at the group of statues. “Are they part of the new puzzle, do you think?”

  “Don’t think so,” Pyke said. “Clearly they serve as a trigger that reboots our original personalities …” Just as RK1 speculated. “But I’m fairly certain that I already have the first solid clue in my possession, right now!” He patted his battered, muddy satchel.

  He went on to give a brief summary of what he had been up to (as Pazzyk), a mysterious client, the auction, the unsettling pair bidding for the same lot as himself, and later being ambushed by them.

  “So this lockbooth key is important to the puzzle,” said T’Moy.

  “Vital enough for someone to send a couple of goons to try and snatch it, lawfully or otherwise.” He opened Pazzyk’s satchel, took out the folded lease, picked away the wax seal, untied the string and let the key fall into the palm of his hand. It was a plain black iron key with a large triangular bow imprinted with the letters “R-29A.” He closed his fist around it and gave a cunning smile.

  “I’m supposed to hand these over to some stuffed shirt back at Tillyfrays, but, you know what? What we should do is head over to that boxhouse and find out what’s in the dead soldier’s stash!”

  “Now?”

  “This very instant!—why, have you other plans?”

  T’Moy gave a dry laugh and shook his head. “So this key and the lockbooth—you think this is the puzzle we have to solve?”

  “No, this is only the opening teaser. I mean, look at the fabulous depth of detail all around you—a lot of effort has gone into creating and populating this simulated world so it seems to me that the mystery we’re being drawn into will be a bit more involved than figuring out how to move some pieces around on a board.”

  T’Moy stood and dusted himself off. “I recall the drone RK1 saying that the simulation scenarios would test us, for which I am ready. How far is this boxhouse?”

  “It’s right over next to the western wall,” Pyke said. “About a twenty-minute walk but the route passes through a couple of dodgy neighbourhoods. The idea is not to attract any attention but we should be ready if the locals cut up nasty. Do you have any weapons other than those handy fists of yours?”

  The Bargalil reached into his jerkin and pulled out a curved dagger, just enough for Pyke to see.


  “Hmm, deadly enough. More than can be said for the daft wee leather sap Pazzyk keeps in his pocket. We could do with some defensive weapons, say a staff for you and a weighted club for me—there’s a stall near the Dragoons Row entrance where we can get kitted up.”

  “I have only a few of these brown coins,” T’Moy said, extending a handful of coppers.

  “Don’t worry—I have a shiny gold crown and a few silvers left over from the auction. That should be plenty.”

  As they hurried off, leaving the square and its statues behind, Pyke’s mind turned gloomy even as he kept up the superficial jauntiness. He’d managed to avoid thinking about his crew, Dervla in particular as he couldn’t see how she might have survived falling out of that high window. Raven Kaligari had been hovering nearby in that grav-harness but it was pointless hoping that she might have intervened—that psycho would just have laughed herself sick as they both fell to their deaths.

  Really need to stop this, he thought. Stop it right now! Out there I’m dead and she might well be dead too but in here we need … I need to get this done, then get the next one done. This is the Legacy’s game but there’s definitely another game behind it, and I mean to find out what it is!

  CHAPTER NINE

  “There, Chief, right there!”

  Pyke, lying on his stomach at the crest of the dune, accepted the range-viewer from Ancil and fingered the zoom, bringing the distant scene into sharp focus.

  “Well, now,” he said. “Isn’t that sweet!”

  He was looking across at another section of the colossal, aeons-lost Arraveyne ship. It was roughly two hundred yards away and resting right against a wind-worn rocky outcrop. The longer Pyke stared the more he realised that this was the stern section. One end was a torn and jagged mess while at the other he could make out what appeared to be reaction drive thrusters, albeit bent and charred, and the twisted, cracked stumps of what might have been hyperfield vanes. Very clearly there was no camouflage field in operation here. Late-afternoon light cast sharp shadows across the ravaged vessel, setting every detail in sharp perspective. Most of the surface plating was missing and the hull was burst and smashed open in several places, shadowy gaps drifted and choked with sand.

  And, parked on a level stretch only about a dozen paces from the wreck, was Raven’s transport.

  “Don’t see any guards outside her ship,” said Pyke.

  “And none inside,” said Ancil.

  “How d’ye reckon that?”

  “Zoom in on the underhull, Chief—see those black spheres?”

  “Hmm, I do—they’re flickering. Some kind of exotic sensor gear?”

  “And then some. High-end self-defence with dedicated AI,” said Ancil with unmistakable relish. “Add to that several shallow blisters dotted around the fuselage.”

  “Munition turrets?”

  A nod. “Bound to be a mixture of anti-personnel, HE and armour-piercing. The whole system casts a shell of overlapping track-and-target sensor cones, and those turrets can probably shred anything that comes within their range, which extends right up to that tatty old wreck.”

  Pyke handed back the viewer. “Heh—that’s a right maggot, so it is!”

  Rays of fading sunlight struck gleams and bright points from the immense weathered wreck. Pyke squinted at it and the crouched shape of the transport it loomed over, then glanced at the sky. He looked at the transport again, then back at the sky, then he smiled.

  “Ans, are we still getting telemetry updates from the Scarabus?”

  “Certainly are, Chief.”

  “What was the latest forecast, d’ye remember?”

  “I do. Clear skies till about midnight then a storm moving in from the south.”

  Pyke’s smile was sly. “I think you were right—I reckon there’s no one onboard ’cos Raven has her entire gang of pukes with her. Bet she’s been getting similar climate data from her own ship, lurking up in orbit somewhere, so she reckons she’ll be in and out before the storm piles in.”

  Ancil nodded. “She always keeps her team small, likes ’em on site, so, yeah, that shuttle is unmanned!—except for the top-of-the-range AI defence system.”

  “Yeah,” said Pyke. “Damn thing can put out a hellish response, but only if it can actually see its target. And since we don’t have heavy enough weaponry to knock out ol’ Cerberus there, we’re going to have to blind the beast!” He grinned. “Now, what do we have with us that can kick up a bit of a duststorm?”

  For a moment or two Ancil’s face worked its way through a range of grimaces expressing various states of internal bafflement. Then comprehension dawned.

  “The fanjet thrusters on the shuttle-barge! Now, that is just the burn!—and we could manoeuvre the shuttle-barge round to direct our homemade duststorm wherever we want!”

  “And we don’t have to smother the whole craft, just blind the sensors covering the aft and port side up to the wreck. Is that doable?”

  “Doable with bells on, Chief!” Ancil said, laughing. “Oh, are all of us going on the recce, or are you wanting someone to stay behind to park the wagon someplace safe?”

  “Kinda thinking this will be an all-hands-on-deck sorta mission,” Pyke said. “Can we patch the controls through to the Scarabus?”

  “Yup, not a problem—Oleg can pilot the shuttle off to a secure spot.”

  “Okay, I’m sold—let’s head back and tell the rest.”

  It took over five minutes to trudge back to the grav-hopper, strap in and get airborne. Another five minutes of dune-hopping brought them back to where the shuttle-barge sat in the deepening shadow of a sandy ridge, and where the rest of the crew were relaxing both inside and out. The others gathered round as Ancil cabled his range-viewer to one of the shuttle’s overhead screens and played back some of the images they’d captured. Then, between them, Pyke and Ancil laid out their plan to render the sensors on Raven’s transport useless with an artificial duststorm. Everyone seemed impressed—even the Sendrukan scientist was agreeable—except for Dervla.

  “Uh-huh. Before we get geared up and go haring off, I’d like to actually see one of you demonstrate this ploy with the actual shuttle, just now.” She folded her arms. “Take her up, and let’s see you blast up some real, thick dusty clouds, boys. Carry on.”

  Pyke and Ancil exchanged a shrug and a nod then got strapped into the pilot couches, while the others decamped to watch from a short way off. It was only when Pyke started up the suspensor systems that he realised there was no hull sensor providing a view behind and beneath the stern. He mentioned this to Ancil.

  “And there’s no piloting templates for this kind of manoeuvre,” he said. “It’s going to be seat-of-the-pants jinking and nudging …”

  Ancil unstrapped himself from the couch. “I’ll be your eyes, Chief. Tell me what I should say.”

  They settled on a handful of instructions: up, down, nose up, nose down, bank left, bank right. Then, with Ancil down at the open rear hatch and leaning out (while lashed to an interior hitch), Pyke ramped up the suspensors and the shuttle-barge rose into the air. He steered the craft to a spot about two hundred yards from where the rest of the crew stood watching before starting up the aft fanjets. The noise was all-encompassing, which was why both Ancil and himself had got kitted out with headsets.

  It still needed a fair bit of shouting and gesticulating as they figured out the best combination of nose-up angle and ground proximity that would cast up billowing, swirling clouds. After less than half an hour they got to the stage where they could create a dense dustcloud and use one of the fanjets to push it in whatever direction they liked. By the time Pyke brought the shuttle-barge back to its landing spot, a deep evening darkness was rolling across the terrain as Ong’s sun sank into the horizon.

  “Okay,” Dervla said as they emerged from the aft and forward hatches. “I’m convinced. When are we doing this?”

  “Can’t afford to wait, dear heart,” Pyke said. “No telling when Raven and her goon squad
might emerge from the wreck. I so want to get the drop on them and see her little face get all red and screamy when I take the Eye back! Right, all aboard and get yourselves geared up …”

  He paused as he noticed Ancil, his head and chest pale with dust, standing upslope from the shuttle, holding a finger in the air. Then he put the finger in his mouth for a second before holding it up again. He nodded and hurried over to Pyke who said: “There’s wind? Seriously?”

  “Just a faint breeze, Chief,” Ancil said. “Better not waste any more time, though, eh?”

  The last dregs of dusk had drained away over the furthest horizon by the time Pyke, flying low and slow, got the shuttle-barge to the right location—roughly two hundred and fifty yards south-west of the colossal wreck with the shuttle’s stern pointing in the direction of travel. Up in orbit, aboard the Scarabus, Oleg was properly linked into their pilot systems so all they had to do was get under way and let the fanjets do their thing. Once they were close enough to the wreck, and the dustclouds were sufficiently dense, Pyke would bring the shuttle down to a ground-level hover, get everyone disembarked then flip the controls over to remote before bailing.

  It was a great plan, an elegant plan, a plan which was creative and direct and which very nearly worked out as everyone wanted.

  With Ancil once again providing directions from the rear hatch, Pyke manoeuvred the shuttle-barge into the correct angular posture with the suspensors then fired up the fanjets. The night sky was a giant’s hoard of jewelled stars scattered wildly across the inky empyrean of deep space. Down near the ground all was dark, impenetrable. Nothing, Pyke realised, was quite as black as a desert by night. Then the dustclouds began rising around them and were blasted aft of the shuttle by the furious force of the fanjets. Under cover of this cloak of pummelled sand, Pyke guided the shuttle backwards in the direction of the wreck and Raven’s ship.