Pelaru’s eyes flicked to him disdainfully, then back to the Azryx device.
‘Alright then. I’m gonna take a closer look. Doc, you wanna come?’
‘Bloody right I do,’ Malvery said.
Frey took off his earcuff and tossed it to Ashua. ‘Keep hold of that, will you? I can’t handle conversation in my ear when I’m being sneaky. Everyone else, stay here. If those scientists come back, well. .’ He made a vague motion in the air. ‘You can handle a couple of scientists, can’t you?’
There was a hatch in the floor in the corner of the room. It was open, and they saw a metal ladder leading down into the chamber, secured against the outer wall. They descended and stepped out from among the banks of machinery, peering around warily as if someone might be hidden in here, waiting to catch them. There was a large door to the chamber, big enough to drive a vehicle through, but it was securely closed and there was no one else in sight.
Once they’d established that they were safe, they approached the Azryx machine. The coloured gas in the cylinder was hard on the eyes; it became disorientating if stared at too long. Parts of the device hinted at familiar technology, but that only made the rest stranger by contrast. Frey had seen the preserved bodies of the Azryx, and knew them to be human, but they seemed unfathomably alien nonetheless. Their works awed him a little. After seeing a Juggernaut in action, it was hard not to be afraid of what they could do.
‘Buggered if I know what it is,’ Malvery declared, after a cursory inspection. ‘We ought to smash it or something.’
‘I dunno,’ said Frey. ‘Remember what happened last time we tried to smash up a piece of Azryx tech? Wiped out everything within a dozen kloms.’
Malvery waited for his point.
‘We’re within a dozen kloms,’ Frey elaborated, measuring the distance from Malvery to the machine with his arms.
‘Never thought I’d hear you arguing against wanton property destruction, Cap’n,’ the doctor said.
‘Old age has mellowed me,’ said Frey. It was good to hear a bit of banter from Malvery again. His mood had improved considerably since Frey had decided to infiltrate the Awakener base. Frey gave himself a mental pat on the back for his excellent crew-handling skills, then remembered Jez and Crake and stopped patting.
Malvery resumed his study of the device. ‘You think the Sammies gave ’em an instruction manual with this thing?’ he asked.
Frey scanned the room, searching for something that might shed light on its purpose. Habit made him check on his crew, and he glanced up at the window of the observation room. Jez was waving at him frantically. He wondered what on earth she was doing. When he twigged, alarm bells went off all over his body.
‘Doc!’ he snapped, racing towards a bank of machinery at the edge of the chamber. Malvery huffed after him, and the two of them hid amid the clicking cabinets and whirling gyroscopes. Not a moment too soon: the door to the chamber hissed and slid upwards, and four Awakeners trooped in.
They were unlike any that Frey had ever seen. They didn’t wear the traditional cassocks of their order, but red hooded cloaks emblazoned with the Cipher, and fitted silver armour as exquisite as a Century Knight’s. Their rifles were polished and top of the line, and their faces were covered with red silk masks below their eyes. On their foreheads were more Ciphers, tattoos displaying their faith.
Frey didn’t need Crake to guess what they were. The Lord High Cryptographer’s honour guard. The supreme leader of the Awakeners was about to make his entrance.
A half-dozen Sentinels followed, along with a red-cassocked Interpreter and the two scientists they’d observed earler. With them came a tall hooded lady in black and red walking at the side of the Lord High Cryptographer himself.
It wasn’t hard to pick him out. The Awakeners dressed in an austere fashion as a rule, but not their leader. He was draped in white and gold, swathed in fine fabrics, and though he was small and bent with age he seemed to shine in the dim light of the chamber. An embroidered red mantle hung about his shoulders, and he wore a great golden collar that made his head seem tiny in comparison. That head was covered with a skin-tight white fabric mask that concealed the face totally, and across his eyes was a strange grilled visor that wrapped from ear to ear, giving him a disconcertingly mechanical look.
‘That’s the bastard behind it all,’ whispered Malvery, clenching a fist. ‘Just give me ten minutes alone with that decrepit son of a bitch. I’ll kick his arse to dust.’
‘Easy, mate,’ said Frey. ‘Lot of firepower in here. I plan to be around to see the good guys win.’
All eyes were on the Lord High Cryptographer as he shuffled into the room. There was something fascinating about that strange, anonymous figure. An aura, for want of a better word. He felt somehow precious and fragile. Frey wanted to protect him, and didn’t know why.
The Lord High Cryptographer whispered to the hooded lady, who bowed down to hear him.
‘The Lord High Cryptographer asks if all is in readiness,’ she announced in a ringing voice.
‘Everything is ready,’ said the balding scientist, with a warning glance at his companion. ‘The device has been thoroughly tested.’
The Lord High Cryptographer whispered again and the hooded woman spoke. ‘The Mouth of the Allsoul demands to know how quickly his great weapon can be deployed.’
‘We can have it aboard an aircraft within an hour, Honoured One,’ said the Interpreter, a tall narrow man with slicked-back black hair. ‘It can be anywhere in Vardia in two days.’
The Lord High Cryptographer conferred with his aide again. Frey felt a powerful desire to hear the old man’s voice. He could see why some people fell for the teachings: the Lord High Cryptographer commanded the room without even showing his face. Even the sceptical scientist with the beard gazed at him with a sort of bewildered wonder in his eyes.
‘The Lord High Cryptographer advises you that the time is very near,’ the aide announced. ‘Our triumphant assault will soon begin, and it will fall like a hammer blow upon the enemy. The Lord High Cryptographer himself will accompany the fleet in his flagship, such is his belief in our victory. By the Allsoul’s will, we shall prevail over those who seek to silence us.’
‘As the Code dictates,’ some of the assembled muttered.
Frey exchanged a glance with Malvery. Normally he rolled his eyes at the pompous overblown language that boring people used to sound important, but this talk of hammer blows and triumphant assaults worried him. It sounded like the Awakeners were planning something big, and soon.
‘The Lord High Cryptographer may rest assured,’ said the Interpreter, ‘the device will work as our Samarlan allies have promised. Our enemies’ weapons will jam, their lights will fail, and they will fall from the skies.’
Frey felt his heart turn to ice. He knew exactly what the Azryx machine did now. He’d experienced its power in the Samarlan desert, when an identical device had disabled the Ketty Jay and brought her crashing down. That one was destroyed when the Azryx city was obliterated, but there must have been others. The Samarlans had got hold of one, and they’d sold it to the Awakeners.
He saw in his mind’s eye what would happen if that device was activated in the middle of a fleet. Frigates, fighters, gunships, spiralling out of control or diving unstoppably earthward as their aerium tanks vented. Those that didn’t crash would just hang in the air, sitting ducks for the enemy guns.
Hundreds of aircraft. Thousands of lives. Rot and damnation, it would be a massacre.
He’d been content to drift through the civil war and let it work itself out without much help from him, safe in the knowledge that the Coalition could handle itself. But matters had become a whole lot more urgent all of a sudden. He’d never really thought the Awakeners might actually win.