Within an hour he was back on level ground, then walking fast down a watercourse that wound in the general direction of the peninsula. He chose this route as a precaution against there being motion detectors aimed out across the plain above him. He suspected, though, that Cowl, if he entertained at all the possibility of the Heliothane getting through to him, would expect from them a massive assault, not a lone assassin.
After a further two hours, Tack reached a shallow estuary debouching beside the shoulder of the peninsula. Here he searched around until he found a trench formed by a wide crack in the granite, through which a small rill bubbled. Aiming to follow this as far as it would take him towards his destination, he was pleased when it continued meandering as far as a point adjacent to the citadel. On a nearby slab he again erected his tent, then climbed up the side of the trench to take a look.
Getting out to the citadel presented no problem. The sea would offer Tack more concealment than he had anticipated: since all his equipment was waterproof, by wearing his mask he could approach the place underwater. The problems started once he got inside it as, now gazing at the citadel through his monocular, he could see Umbrathane working on structures running round the outer surfaces of the lily’s petals.
With the exception of those who had established Pig City, the Umbrathane had dispersed into cells as they had fled into the past, so presenting the usual problems of any guerrilla organization. It was not so much the damage they could inflict—their attacks were mosquito bites to the great beast that was the Heliothane Dominion—but the extravagant use of resources needed just to track them down. Saphothere had conjectured that Cowl might be gathering them to him—and this was the case. So, to locate Cowl, Tack must not only avoid the citadel’s security system, but its hostile Umbrathane population as well.
Lowering the monocular, he decided that no matter what plans he made now, they would probably need to change once he entered the citadel. But the logistics programs Pedagogue had loaded him with were protean and his lethal skills at their peak. He must just go in and do what he had been sent to do. Sliding back into the trench, he opened his pack and began to extract those items that would assist him in the task.
First he donned a weapons harness, with all its stick pads and pockets to carry the necessary devices. Sliding the carbine into its back holster, next to the climbing-harpoon launcher, he hooked a further power supply and another two-thousand-round box for it at his right hip. A spare carbine he considered for one long moment, then left aside.
The five molecular catalysers—coins of red metal ten centimetres across, with a virtual console on the front—he pressed against stick pads in a line down one chest strap. Each of these was set to react with a different material, but each was also capable of being reset. Into one trouser pocket he emptied the pack of mini-grenades, and into the other he put the multispectrum scanner. The grenades were all set for a standard three-second delay—the countdown starting the moment they exceeded a one-metre proximity to the transponder in his weapons harness. Ten larger programmable grenades he attached around his belt; they were made of hard fragmentation glass and contained an explosive that made C4 look silly. His handgun, which could take the same explosive ammunition as the carbine, he adjusted for silent running—much like more primitive guns, with a silencer screwed onto the barrel, though this operated by slinging out a sound-suppressor beam in line with the bullet, generated by the same impelling charge.
Then he took from his pack the less standard items. Five field generators he attached to the other chest strap, their power supply operated from a thermal battery that burnt itself out within a few seconds. He hoped he would not need these, as it would probably mean he was on the run. The two tactical nukes—like the one Saphothere had used on Pig City—went into a bag attached to the left-hand side of his belt. These he would use at his discretion. Finally he took out the last item: his seeker gun. It contained twenty rounds, and its system, via recordings, had already acquired Cowl. This he put in his thigh pocket, there being no position provided for it on the harness. He was ready.
As he climbed out of the trench and headed down to the sea, sealing his hood and pulling on his gloves, Tack wondered vaguely why he had not been provided with a long-range missile launcher, or one of those excellent Heliothane scoped assault rifles. But he dismissed that thought as he entered the water. It did not once occur to him to wonder how, once his mission was completed, he would be able to get away from this place and this time. His programming did not allow him that.
17
Engineer Goron:
We know that many thousands of torbearers have been dragged back through time towards the Nodus, but how many survived the journey we have no idea. It is also a matter for conjecture whether any who did survive the journey then survived their encounter with Cowl. His utter disregard for human life makes this seem unlikely. I have to admit to feeling some guilt at our contribution of Tack to that likely offhand slaughter, though with what is at stake it was wholly justified. But it makes me question our own regard for human survival, evolutionary imperatives and all that these entail. Is not Cowl the summit of our own aspirations? And does not our attitude to him prove the falsity of our world view?
The robot did not have a name, so Polly christened it Wasp and altered its programming so that it recognized when it was being addressed. Originally Aconite had designed it for one simple purpose: to check if those of Cowl’s samples who caught on the ledge were still alive. For Wasp’s wings not only served as a lid for its rear compartment; it could fly. Polly did suggest that it might be worth building an aquatic robot to retrieve those falling into the sea, but Aconite demurred. The woman liked to swim and had no wish to dispense with her reason for doing so. Consequently Polly learnt to swim as well, soon being able to cover the hundred metres out from the beach as fast as Aconite herself. But thus far neither she nor Aconite had managed to retrieve any survivors, so the accumulation of bones and slowly decaying corpses below the citadel continued to grow. Polly spent six months with Aconite before things changed.
Wasp tells me she’s got a live one.
Immediately Polly rolled from her bed and stood up. Stepping naked into her shower cubicle, she switched it from water spray to UV-block, and closed her eyes while the moving shower head coated her skin with a substance that prevented her getting flayed by the ultraviolet outside. The block being quickly absorbed, she stepped out of the shower, pulled on the skin-tight garment that served as both clothing and wetsuit, slipped on her boots, whose loose upper material immediately tightened around her ankles, then took up her mask and headed outside. Aconite was trudging up the slope, with Wasp, heavily laden, following as usual.
‘At last,’ said Polly as she walked down to the troll woman, aware that the average had now become a live one for every two thousand dead, and that every death seemed to bruise something inside Aconite. Polly had come to realize that from childhood on it had always been Aconite’s purpose to clear up Cowl’s messes, to leaven his ruthless violence, and try to protect him from his own destructive impulses. She it was who had found for him a pre-eminent position amongst the Heliothane; and she it was who had come with him into the past, to continue performing her childhood duties.