Coptic turned to Tack. ‘Hold up your arm.’
Tack obeyed and observed the avidity in the woman’s expression when she saw the band around his wrist. Coptic’s riposte was brief and at the end of it he gestured to where Meelan lay. The woman in the rock dipped her head in acknowledgement, said something more, then faded. Back by the fire, Coptic stared into the flames for some time, then with a hint of suspicion glanced at the rock before speaking.
‘The one you name “Traveller” killed Brayak and Solenz, which is the inevitable result of a violent encounter between a heliothant of his status and low-breed umbrathant,’ he stated flatly.
Tack remained silent, having not yet been given permission to speak. He guessed who the two named were, for it hadn’t escaped his notice that four individuals had originally disembarked from the mantisal they had used to get here.
‘Such is natural law,’ Coptic added. ‘But we are high-breed Umbrathane and shall prevail. And when Cowl sweeps the Heliothane from the main line, we shall travel to him beyond the Nodus to be at one with the new kind.’
Who, Tack wondered, was this man really addressing his words to? It seemed to Tack that Coptic was speaking accepted doctrine because he thought the woman in the rock might still, somehow, be listening.
‘You may speak,’ said Coptic unexpectedly.
‘What do you want of me?’ Tack asked him.
Coptic nodded slowly. ‘We detected only the travel of a heliothant through interspace, so sought to sabotage whatever plans the Heliothane might have. But now we have you and the means of learning some things Cowl would not allow us.’ He gestured to the ring around Tack’s wrist. ‘No doubt the Heliothane themselves sought to assassinate Cowl. But they would not have succeeded—they are low-breed by comparison.’
‘So, like Traveller, it is only the tor you really want?’
‘Tors he allows us, when he brings us to him.’ Coptic stared at him. ‘From the one that is growing on your arm, and about which he knows nothing, we can learn a great deal.’
So, despite their doctrine, there was little trust between Cowl and the Umbrathane.
‘You say that you are an “Umbrathane”, and that Traveller is a “Heliothane”. Are these two warring factions in the future? What are you trying to achieve?’
‘You will now remain silent,’ said Coptic.
Tack nodded and turned away, watching the sun finally breach the horizon.
Using the sensor’s facility for penetrative scan, the watcher tracked the girl inside the house to its kitchens, then through boiling steamy chaos observed her sating her ravenous appetite. The travelling entertainer, Berthold, had set up camp on one of the big house’s lawns, where the staff and servants of the various nobles here were also encamped. The watcher now tracked the girl, Polly, out of the house to where she helped erect the awning that extended from one side of the wagon, and under which she had slept like a corpse the night before—though a corpse, it had to be noted, with its hand on the automatic under its greatcoat. Afterwards, at Berthold’s insistence, Polly practised his act with him.
‘Do you mind me doing this, Mellor?’ Polly asked after Berthold, satisfied with the way she threw him objects, and her ridiculous prancing around him as he juggled them, had gone off to chat to the men in a neighbouring encampment.
‘Not really.’ Mellor grinned at her with bad teeth, then held up his hands and wriggled his fingers. ‘Gettin’ stiff as dead rabbits nowadays, and someone who looks like you do should help pull in the shillings.’
‘But I won’t be around for long.’
Mellor gaped at her. ‘What you gonna do then?’
The watcher knew, and wondered just how Polly intended to explain herself. Already she must be feeling the pull from her tor, and must be preventing it from dragging her downtime at that moment.
‘It seems I have a journey to make,’ Polly replied.
‘Where?’
The girl did not know, could not know, and the watcher pitied her.
Polly said to Mellor, ‘I don’t know yet, but I do know that when I assist Berthold tonight it will be for the one and only time. Then I will be moving on.’
‘Oh.’ The old man appeared genuinely disappointed. The unseen observer supposed he had been relishing the new-found prospect of a life of ease and pheasant pies. Then scanning forward to evening, as nothing of note seemed to be happening, this watcher observed the King’s hunting party return: all those richly clad men on their richly caparisoned horses, a chaos of hounds milling about below mud-spattered hooves, and servants trotting along behind with cut larch poles bearing the blood-dripping kills. The womenfolk came out of the house to greet the returning hunters and to congratulate them shrilly on their successful venture. The scene was bright and gay and appropriate to its time, and hopefully appreciated by Polly, what with all she would suffer soon enough. Smiling then, enclosed in living glass, the watcher observed Polly giggling on seeing Berthold dressed up in his diamond-patterned suit, silver bells and ridiculous footwear with turned-up toes. It wasn’t enough, could never be enough. It was like seeing a child walk smiling into a bear pit.
After sunrise the moeritherium departed the lake to graze their way through the thick surrounding vegetation, mooing and grumbling as they went. They passed close by, but their only reaction to the three humans was to pause while they chewed and peered up with close-set eyes, before snorting and moving on. Seeing these creatures’ continual munching reminded Tack of his own hunger, and he wondered if Coptic would ever bother to feed his prisoner.
‘There is food in the pack,’ said Coptic later, but only when the sun was high. All morning the man had been sitting utterly still and silent in a lotus position, next to Meelan. ‘And I would appreciate coffee now. If there is anything there you do not know how to use, you are permitted to ask me how it functions.’
Being already familiar with the contents of Traveller’s pack, Tack found himself some food and the makings of coffee, and had only a little trouble setting up the small electric stove. Taking up a collapsible water container, he folded it open and stood dutifully waiting until Coptic looked his way.
‘Proceed.’ Coptic gestured irritably towards the lake.
From their outcrop Tack walked back along the trail crushed by the moeritherium herd. As he stooped down by the water’s edge, he became aware that if he wanted to escape now was the time, since Coptic, though possessed of superhuman speed, might not be prepared to leave Meelan’s side. But what would he be escaping to—a lonely, possibly all too brief life in a prehistoric wilderness? For he had no idea how to summon a mantisal. After filling the container, he returned to the outcrop, where Meelan was now sitting up and looking much healthier.
Ignoring the muttered conversation of the other two, Tack filled a kettle and set it on the stove, and while watching it, sought to untangle his confusion. Though Traveller had reset Tack’s loyalty, the man had left him greater free will than he had previously experienced. Working for U-gov, Tack never had the time or inclination to consider his life as a whole. He had been nothing but an organic machine, but now he had acquired a wider compass. Now he genuinely wanted to know more about the workings of his surrounding world, to participate fully, to experience and to truly feel. To fulfil this hazy aspiration he must be free; freedom from programming and the will of others must now be his ultimate goal.
The three of them drank coffee and ate some of the supplies in the pack, while cautiously observing the nearby wending progress of three large bovids. These strange creatures bore a resemblance to both oxen and deer, but could not be firmly identified as either. Tack knew that with Traveller he could have satisfied his curiosity, but not with his present companions. Their repast finished, Coptic instructed Tack to put all the implements away and take up the pack. As with Traveller before them, Tack must act the beast of burden, though he suspected Traveller regarded him as somewhat less of a beast than did Coptic and Meelan. At the lake’s shore the mantisal again folded into existence in response to some inaudible instruction. They embarked, Coptic once again piloting the bioconstruct, and instantly fell into achromatic void.