"I can't imagine how they lived," she said. "There's nothing there!"
"It's a desert, true, but even deserts have their own ecologies. You know, there are insects in there, Meg, the size of your thumb. Long, white things with hard chitinous cases. Blind things that hunt by smell alone."
"And Haavikko's going to clear it all out?"
"That's what he says. This part of it, anyway. His engineers are sealing it off to the east of here even now."
She was silent, then. "It's horrible. I keep trying to imagine what it would be like, being a child down there. Never knowing safety or happiness. Never knowing what it's like to see the sunlight."
He looked to her. "The City's little better."
"No, Ben. The City's awful, but that"—she shuddered—"That's hell, surely?"
"Pi Yu, the Han call it. The earth prison. Long before the City existed they believed in it. It was their underworld, their version of our Hell. The City . . . that was to be a Confucian Utopia—a place where every man could find his proper level. What they didn't realize was that in trying to create their ideal of Heaven, they also brought into existence—into literal existence, mind—their ideal of Hell. So it is, I guess. So it always must be. The farther we reach up, the farther down we go."
She stared at him a moment, wondering if that were true, then looked back. Ben had switched the image and was watching one of the half-tracks from close up.
"Is that Haavikko?"
"Yes."
She studied the screen, smiling. "I thought he was okay."
"For a military type."
"You didn't like him, then?"
"He was a decent enough fellow. No imagination, but honest. And that's a rarity among them!"
"I thought he was nice."
He raised an eyebrow. "Like that other fellow, Neville?"
She laughed. "What are you suggesting, Ben Shepherd? It's just that I've few opportunities to meet nice men."
He reached down and pulled her up onto his lap. "Then maybe I should arrange a few more military campaigns? You could play Florence Nightingale to the wounded, perhaps?"
She drew her head back slightly, as if hurt, but his hand was curled about her back and she was in his spell.
"You know it means nothing."
"I know," he answered, drawing her face down to his and kissing her, while behind him, on the screen, Major Axel Haavikko turned in the command turret of his half-track and urged his foot soldiers on, moving west through the Clay.
HAAVIKKO TURNED, urging his soldiers on. They had met little opposition as yet, but that was hardly surprising. He had the latest weaponry and ten thousand crack troops, while they were a rabble armed with stones and rusty metal bars. He sighed, thinking back to what Ben had said about the daymen. It was true. He hadn't really thought about it before now; hadn't conceived them as people like himself. It was too easy not to. Moreover he had a duty to the Enclave. If he didn't do this, then sooner or later someone else would have to, and by then it might prove difficult. Even so, the situation had begun to nag at his conscience.
Let's get this over with, he thought wearily, staring into the darkness up ahead through the infrared visor of his helmet. Let's get it done and get out of here.
Nor did it help that he'd been proved right about the operative. It might silence Rheinhardt's objections, but it didn't silence the tiny voice inside.
The distress signal had come in half an hour back. At once he'd sent an advance team out after it, but ten minutes later the signal had died abruptly.
Too late, he thought sadly. We're always too fucking late.
TAK FACED THE SCREEN UNEASILY; DeVore's face—four times its normal size—stared back at him impatiently. "What is it, Tak?"
Tak tried to keep the fear from his voice, but it was impossible. "They've come!"
"Who?"
"Soldiers. The Clay is crawling with them!"
DeVore's face blanched. "Where are they now?"
"In the east. Near Tavistock."
"Shit!" DeVore considered a moment. "Are there many of tlaem?"
Tak swallowed, then nodded.
The news sobered DeVore. "Are they on foot?"
"Not all of them. They have their machines. Their half-tracks."
DeVore let out a breath. "You did well, Tak. But listen. You must save yourself. Withdraw to the west and take refuge. This storm will pass, but until it does . . ."
Tak made to speak, but it was too late. DeVore had gone. He looked down, trembling. They had gambled and failed. DeVore was right. There was nothing to do now but take refuge.
ben's remotes flew on ahead of the invasion force, following the old road through the ruins of Indian Queens and Summercourt toward the Myghtern's capital.
The Clay was in turmoil, like an ant's nest opened suddenly to the air. The roads were packed with people, hurrying west with what little they owned, their eyes filled with a blind panic.
Where have they all come from? Ben wondered, amazed by their num-
bers; staggered, above all, that such a wasteland could maintain so huge a population. Like insects beneath a stone.
The gates to the town were open and unguarded. Again the crowd streamed through, unheeding, it seemed, of the strangeness of the place. That, more than anything, confirmed it. There had been rumors on the road, but now he knew for certain. The Myghtern was dead.
He found the body almost at once, lying at the foot of the steps beneath the great chair, headless, the handle of a broadsword poking from his back. Watching from afar, Ben sighed, remembering what a magnificent sight the man had been. It must have taken great strength to kill him. Great strength or greater cunning.
And even as he watched, he saw the small man—the Myghtern's lieutenant; the one who'd taken them and tortured his daymen— come into the hall and, standing above the Mghtern's headless corpse, shake his head.
"Who's that?" Meg asked.
Ben turned. He had forgotten Meg was there. "The Myghtern's lieutenant."
"And the dead man? The giant?"
But Ben wasn't listening. Ben had turned back and was keying in instructions frantically, sending his remotes out hunting once more.
"Something's been happening," he said. "Something big . . . something really big. And I missed it. I bloody well missed it!"
THE TWO HALF-TRACKS raced across the bridge into the dark. Behind them, at the center of the valley, the building was on fire, flames blackening the translucent polymer of its walls and making it slowly buckle. From the six great ventilation vents black smoke billowed out, rolling like twisting dragon's heads along the ceiling overhead.
DeVore glanced back, experiencing a moment's regret, a moment's exasperation at all the wasted effort, then he let it go. After all, nothing was permanent. And he had taken all that was really important. To get away, that was the only thing that mattered now.
He looked ahead, at the road stretching out in front of them, lit up by the powerful headlights of the half-track, then ducked inside, giving new instructions. At once the half-track slowed and slewed to the left, trundling down the embankment. The second vehicle followed at once, picking its way out across the open fields.
The cruiser station was almost directly south, some eight li southeast of the Myghtern's capital, tucked away in one of the dried-up bays of the old River Fal. If what Tak had said were true, the invasion force was somewhere near Lostwithiel by now, twenty minutes off. It gave him plenty of time.
It was getting hot, the air thin and tainted. He reached down and took a breathing mask from the rack, then, after slipping it on, used the lip mike to order his men to do the same. At his back the Clay was lit up brightly now as the chemical fires he'd set took hold. Ahead the darkness seemed to rush toward him, the ceiling coming down toward them, reflecting back their lights as they bounced over the uneven incline then falling away as they went down the steep hill on the other side. Six miles. It wasn't far now.