9. Refuge
They hesitated, held back by the same irrational yet powerful thought that it was uncuss to enter someone’s house uninvited.
“Should we?” whispered Paul. “It seems awfully like – you know, a trap.”
She couldn’t focus her thoughts. “Yes – maybe – Ko, what do you – ?”
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
What he’d said almost made sense – didn’t it? Was he trying to tell her something, but it came out wrong?
“I mean…” Her thoughts lurched, slow and dazed. “I – are you – I mean, can you…”
“I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn,” said Kokalina. “I go, but I return.”
“Shut up, both of you.” Paul pushed the door open. “Come on.”
Flame blinked at him. “What?”
“I said – hey, did you hear that?”
She shut her eyes – blessed darkness – and after a moment, heard an odd clicking noise from somewhere off to her right. Opening her eyes, she peered into the mist – then stared at the shapes toiling up the hill towards them.
“For Lawsakes, Flame!” Paul grabbed her arm and dragged her through the door.
She jumped as a bell jangled above her head. Paul stood on tiptoe and took hold of it – a little bell, hanging where the door would brush against a strip of some dry, brittle material hanging from the clapper – and eased the door shut. The sound the bell had made had been oddly flat, and the bell itself was black and coated with something like rust. There was also a peculiar smell, strange and powerful even through their masks. She ignored it as they crouched behind the door.
Something more urgent was pricking at the back of her mind. Something about the things she’d seen climbing the hill hadn’t looked quite right.
The upper half of the door was a window, matching a bowed window to their left. Real windows, thought Flame, unlike the ones they’d seen recently, where the glass (or whatever it really was) was often joined seamlessly with whatever stone the rest of the building was made from, as though someone had simply decided to make a particular area transparent. Some of the windows she’s seen had been odd shapes – a star, perhaps, or a picture, such as a face. It was as though the limited capacity to redesign houses that was common in the World had been taken to its logical conclusion in the city, with buildings that could be reshaped at whim and windows that could be painted onto a wall wherever desired.
They crouched, peering over the windowsill at the figures that had appeared in the street outside.
“Hey!” whispered Paul. “What the Hell are they?”
Clearly not Horathrai. They were human-sized, and looked like men wearing monks’ habits, although thin strips of material had been cut out and allowed to hang down, with slivers of something polished fastened to them. She couldn’t tell if they wore hoods or long, glistening hair, nor could she see their faces – the only light came from a street lamp opposite, which turned them into silhouettes.
She shivered. She couldn’t say exactly what about them that was wrong, but somehow their bodies didn’t seem to quite be fitted together properly; and the way they moved was somehow odd, though they covered the ground quickly enough.
The five who led carried poles bearing crescent-shaped blades, something like scythes; next came a line carrying a net held chest-high; finally, one carrying what looked like an unlit lantern on a pole.
They glided past in unearthly silence broken only by a faint clicking noise, like beads knocking together.
Flame and Paul remained motionless and silent for a long time after they’d gone past. Flame could hear her heart thumping. Eventually Paul rose to his feet, reached up to stop the bell ringing, and eased the door open.
He looked up and down the street, then whispered, “they’ve gone.”
“Thank Lawkus.” It had crossed her mind that they might be hiding from potential rescuers – but somehow she knew that wasn’t so. She’d received the distinct impression that the figures might be human-sized and human-shaped, but that was as far as the resemblance went.
Anyway, she wasn’t going to run out and try to call them back. She yawned and, for the first time, looked round at their refuge.
At first sight, it looked like a murky cave. Indistinct shapes loomed amongst the shadows. As Flame’s eyes adapted to the light that crept through the dusty windows, she made out a room that was insanely cluttered.
Tables, chairs, hall stands, tallboys, wardrobes, an intricately carved sideboard and book cases were jammed together, apparently haphazardly. Every flat surface was stacked with miscellaneous junk – vases, plates, figurines, books (many, many books, most of them stacked in disintegrating towers), nests of wicker baskets, boxes, tins, models – a sailing ship, cars, a tiny rocking chair – a stuffed swan missing one eye; a dusty arrangement of cut glass bowls, glasses and decanters; clocks, hat stands, letter racks, toys in transparent boxes, machines of metal, glass and plastic; fishing rods; display cases of jewellery; the head of some creature mounted on a plaque; a rolled up carpet; a poster, faded but with the words “Tough Babies tour Airstrip One” just visible; a tree made of wire and semiprecious stones; a straw hat; a letter rack; an umbrella stand, and… oh, hundreds of other things, not to mention the flags and pictures hanging on the walls and the light fittings (none lit) hanging from the ceiling. All crowded into a room that was roughly the size of their dining room at home.
However, that wasn’t what made her start and rub her eyes in disbelief. For a moment, she thought everything was on fire, although the smoke was falling rather than rising. But that clearly wasn’t what was happening, for there were no flames. The vision she’d had for a few seconds of a room crowded with furniture and knick-knacks was, surreally, blurring, sliding downwards as though made of melting ice.
She blinked several times, and finally made out what was happening. A haze of powdery dust was falling from the larger structures – tables, wardrobes, book-cases – all seemed to be slowly disintegrating, she supposed disturbed by the air currents introduced by their entrance.
They stared as though entranced by the slow rain of dust falling from every piece of furniture for what seemed like several minutes before a shelf gave way with a loud crack and the vaguely book-shaped objects that had been resting on it burst into a cloud of brown flakes.
As though this was a signal, a number of items of furniture started to slowly genuflect, shedding shelves of books and ornaments in waterfalls that made a soft sighing, crackling sound and raised further clouds of dust and debris. Ceramic objects, glass, stone and a few bits of metal and jewellery tumbled to the ground. Flame stared in a sort of numb wonder, as though this was a spectacle put on for her benefit that she was too tired to appreciate.
After a short while the room had settled into crouching heaps of miscellaneous debris in which some items still stood or leaned at ridiculous angles – a grimy mirror, a stone torso hung with jewellery, a vase like a huge, smooth, weirdly tattooed face – and many other things that blurred before her eyes.
Paul had taken out the glow bulb, but after a moment he put it back in their sack. “Better not,” he said. “Why don’t you keep a look out, while I take a look around?”
She gave a long, extravagant yawn. “All right.”
She turned and scanned the street through watering eyes. Still empty, thank God. Behind her, she heard Paul moving around. He muttered something – she heard a faint chink – silence for several seconds – a cough – a thud and a muffled, “Ow!” She frowned and turned to peer into the gloom.
The lamp outside cast dull orange-yellow oblongs through the dusty window panes; odd shapes glinted, indistinct mounds rose. She leapt at a crack like a plate breaking; Paul whispered, “Damn!”
She glanced nervously outside, then turned back and hissed, “Paul, stop being so God-damned clumsy, will you?”
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Can’t you use your chron, for Lawsakes?”
“Oh, yes – good idea.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes as a feeble green light started to dance back and forth behind her, like a fairy fluttering in the gloom. Keeping an ear to the crack in the door, she watched Paul explore.
The air was thick with dust, almost as though they’d brought the fog in from outside. Without their breathing masks, she thought, they’d be reduced to sneezing wrecks, if not worse. There was still a strong smell, different from what they’d experienced outside, but still unpleasant, she supposed released from all the junk that had been slowly decaying for perhaps centuries. The ghostly shipwrecks of semi-collapsed items of furniture littered the room. At the back, against the right-hand wall, a counter stood intact, with a large brass cash register at one end.
Behind it…
Flame gasped.
Paul looked round. “What?”
She pointed. “In the corner!”
Paul turned his chron towards the tall, dark shape. Flame’s nerves stretched as Paul stared at it in silence, and she slowly started to draw the sword.
Finally, Paul’s shoulders relaxed. “It’s only a dummy,” he said, moving closer and reaching out to touch it. “Lawkus, it’s life…”
The shape – figure, as she could now see; it hadn’t been her imagination – made a creaking sound and bowed stiffly. In a wheezing, dusty, distorted voice it ground out a series of just recognisable words. “May – I – be – of – ass-is-tance – young – sir?”
Paul yelled; Flame shrieked and dropped her sword with a crash.
They stood frozen for several seconds. Then Paul said in a strangulated voice, “No – no, thank you.”
The figure gave a spectral smile. “Please – feel – free – to – look – around. Ask – if – you – need – ass-is-tance.”
“Thanks,” said Paul, backing away. “It only goes down to the waist,” he said to Flame. “It’s on a stand.”
“What is this – this – collection?” asked Flame.
Paul picked up a dusty glass bowl. “Junk.” He paused, squinting through the bowl at the street light, “Why isn’t anything in here dirty?”
Flame scratched her head; her hair felt as though it was crawling with ants. “It is dirty, Paul.”
“It’s dusty, not dirty. Not like outside, I mean. I wonder…”
Abruptly, Kokalina said, “Comparing infinite sets is not an easy task.”
Flame looked at Paul, smiling slightly – then froze; in the silence, something had made a quiet clicking sound, like beads knocking together.
She rushed back to the door.
Shadowy figures were streaming up the hill, blades and hooks flashing above their heads.
Flame eased the door shut, then gave a muffled shriek as the bell clanged above her head. She crouched, peering over the lip of the window, as the figures, smoky shadows against the orange glow of the street lamp, approached.
She screamed as something crashed against the door. It quivered in its frame, but didn’t open. She wondered why they didn’t just turn the handle.
“Get out of the way!” shouted Paul. She turned and saw that he was staggering towards her carrying a small chest made of some material that was made to look like wood but clearly wasn’t, as it was still solid. She dived to one side and he dropped it against the door. He started to drag some of the more substantial surviving items into place to form a barricade. After a few minutes they’d shifted most of the remaining solid items into an untidy heap piled against the door, which had resounded to several further blows in the meantime, but seemed undamaged.
“That should hold it,” gasped Paul, stepping back.
They jumped as something struck the window a ringing blow.
“Oh Lord,” said Flame. “What about the windows?”
Paul gripped her arm. “If they’re like the rest of this unholy city, we’re all right,” he said, staring at the dark shapes moving back and forth outside. Flame started as something crashed against the window – which remained intact, just giving out a musical chime.
“You’re right, thank Lawkus,” she said.
“We’d better go and see if there’s a back door,” said Paul.
She stared at him while this suggestion percolated through layers of tiredness.
“Right.”
“How nice to be a little cloud,” said Kokalina.
“Flame…” Paul picked up their sack and upended it on a table. “You’d better have something to eat.”
She watched as he took out the few remaining scraps. “Shouldn’t we…”
“Just do as I say!” shouted Paul. “Sorry,” he added. “It’s just, well, I think we need Kokalina.”
“Oh. Yes.” She picked up a biscuit and crunched through it, swallowing the gritty lumps, drank some water, choked down a piece of rubbery dried fruit. Paul, in the meantime, prowled around the back of the room, disappearing for a while behind a curtain on the back wall. She chewed a piece of dried meat. Despite the tastelessness of the food, she felt a slight lift.
“Ko?”
“Don’t believe the human eye, in sunlight or in shade.”
There was a crash as something threw itself against the door. A vase and a tarnished epergne fell from their barricade and rolled across the floor, leaving trails in the dust.
She swallowed a gob of meat. “Ko?”
“Indeed, it is I. From your adrenalin levels, the situation – ah, I see… CHI signals – ah, yes, weak but – yes, it’s responding.”
A soft clunk came from somewhere nearby.
“Good,” said Kokalina. “This building has a central locking system. All the doors and windows are now locked – which I imagine means molecularly bonded to their frames.”
A few seconds later, something struck the door again – but this time the impact gave the same chime as the window, and their barricade didn’t even rattle. Flame leaned against the wall, dizzy with relief.
“We’d better check the rest of the place,” said Paul.
Flame shivered. “Paul, how do we know we’re alone in here?”
“Because anything else coming in would have made all that stuff collapse?”
“Good point - but there might be a back entrance.”
“True. So keep your sword ready.”
She recovered it from the floor and held the blade nervously extended as she surveyed the shadows.
Then she jumped, and perhaps gave a small shriek, as the room was flooded with light. She blinked at Paul as he reduced the glow bulb’s illumination to a more comfortable level.
“Sorry, but I don’t think there’s much point in pretending we’re not here. And,” he added with a grin, “I don’t want you sticking that thing in me.”
“No. Sorry.” Flame lowered the trembling sword. The room now looked ordinary, shabby and non-threatening, although shadows still billowed behind the remains of what had been furniture and miscellaneous bric-a-brac. She followed Paul to the back of the room.
As they passed the mechanical sales assistant, it turned creakily towards them. It was, she now saw, a tall, thin, old-looking man with silver hair combed back from shadowed eyes; although its face was too smooth to look completely real. Slowly and wheezily, it asked, “Do – you – require – any – ass-is-tance?”
“Yes,” said Paul. “Shout if anyone tries to sneak up on us from behind.”
He pulled aside a curtain on the back wall – which, together with its supporting rail, fell from the wall, landing on him in a shower of dust.
Coughing, he wrestled it aside while Flame stifled an urge to laugh. The opening led into a corridor.
Paul looked around, then said, “the smell’s gone. I was wondering…”
He started to undo the straps of his mask. Flame stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “Wait. Mine’s easier.”
She removed her mask and cautiously sniffed the air. It was old and dry and smelled vaguely of various things, but the strong earlier smell had almost gone. Now it reminded her of flowers, and it was just – air.
She wiped her eyes, feeling a curious tightening in her stomach, almost like grief. “Damn,” she said. “It almost smells like home.”
Paul removed his mask and put it on a small ledge projecting from the wall. “This will be home if we can’t find anywhere else to go,” he said; then he sneezed several times.
A staircase went up to their left; the floor was deep with dust, which was drifted higher against the right-hand wall, doubtless the remains of some piece of furniture that had disintegrated. However, the cloud of dust raised by Paul’s battle with the curtain had vanished – looking back, she could see motes swirling on the other side of the opening, but none came through. She raised her hand to the gap, felt a slight resistance.
A door slid open at the far end of the short corridor as they approached, and they entered a smaller room. This contained a table, four chairs and a scattering of fragments in one corner; the walls were lined with cupboard doors, except for the wall facing them as they entered, from which their dishevelled reflections stared back at them. A – no, not a mirror – a large glass door with windows on either side, half hidden by curtains. Don’t pull them, Paul, she said, or thought she said. But Paul was only pulling at the door handle. “Locked,” he grunted. “Good.”
She looked at the furniture, which seemed solid, then waved her hand vaguely at the windows. “Turn the bulb off, Paul. I want to look outside.”
He complied, and as their eyes adjusted they made out a small garden. Crumbling walls surrounded a patio and a patch of soil, in which grew things like long, spindly, hairy legs; a pod plant was entwined around the corroded remains of some garden furniture. A grey shape rose above the spider-leg plants (as Paul promptly named them) – a sculpture of some kind, or perhaps a birdbath.
The scene was lit by a faint orange glow, presumably from a light outside, above the door; that, and the normality of the room they were in, gave it an unreal, other-worldly look.
They jumped back as a tall, featureless black shape moved into view from somewhere off to the left. It struck the window with something; they heard a faint metallic ringing and a musical chime.
“Go away!” shouted Paul, thrusting the bulb towards the window and turning it on. The outside world instantly disappeared behind their reflections.
He turned to Flame, who had sunk into a chair. “Give me that,” he said, taking the sword hilt from her limp fingers. “You stay here. I’ll go and look upstairs.”
“No – ” She half stood, then sank back, the room swimming around her. It vaguely crossed her mind that she didn’t want to be left here alone, with those dreadful things outside, but the thought was swamped by tiredness. The windows were secure – and, by God, she was so tired of running from danger!
“All right,” she muttered. “Be careful.”
Paul was shaking her shoulder. She raised her head groggily, and tried to focus on his face.
“I’ve had a look round,” he said. “There’s no one else here, and all the doors and windows are secure. There is one thing…”
She yawned. “What?”
“There’s a – ah, a body in the small bedroom.”
She looked up. “A what?”
“A body. It’s very old – dried up.”
“Ugh.”
“Yes. But it’s harmless.”
She stared him, trying to take in what he was saying. Only one thing seemed important. “Did you say it’s in the small bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“So there’s a big one?”
Paul nodded. “Yes. Upstairs, with a big bed. It looks like it’s made of city stuff – you know, it isn’t falling apart.”
She struggled to her feet and moved unsteadily towards the door. “Show me.”
She awoke nine hours later with a sense of loss. She’d been dreaming about Hayashi Gonsuké, the Gold Knight – but the awful thing was that she’d known that, now, he really was only a figment of her sleeping mind. The real him had gone – forever, as far as she knew.
She was lightheaded and unbelievably hungry. She slid off the bed, took the bulb from the bedside table and went downstairs, leaving Paul asleep.
The place was curiously lacking in some of the things she might normally have expected. In contrast to the front room, the rest of the place contained no personal items, or much else that wasn’t purely functional. There were five rooms – two bedrooms, the front room, a bathroom, and what she assumed was a kitchen, though there was nowhere to prepare food or wash up. She went there now.
They hadn’t found any lights, either. The bulb showed what looked like cupboard doors, though they wouldn’t open – some stools, and a large table that looked as though it had been extruded from the floor – which looked tiled, but felt completely smooth.
She placed her bulb on the table and glanced at the kitchen windows, blind black rectangles. “Ko,” she whispered, “are you there?”
“I am.”
“Can you – ah, you know – do something?”
“Unholy Hell!” Paul sat up groggily. “Where in Hate’s black bowels did you get that?”
“From the kitchen.” She grinned as she set the tray down.
Paul stared open mouthed at two plates bearing identical rolls, identical slices of cheese and identical pats of butter, at two identical bowls of soup and two cups filled to precisely the same level with tea. The smell was indescribable, wonderful, heart-breaking.
“It’s real,” she said. She giggled. “Ko got it out of a machine.”
“A nanofab,” said Kokalina. “It makes things from molecules – that is, from raw materials.”
Paul stared at Flame for a second longer. Then he grabbed a roll, tore it in two, and stuffed half in his mouth.
“I don’t care!” Her voice rose to a shriek. “I can’t stand this any longer!”
“All I said was that we should be careful to conserve supplies,” said Kokalina, his voice muffled by the blouse she was pulling over her head. “There may not be much water available.”
“A shower, for Lawsakes! Just a God-damned shower!”
“At least fill the basin first.”
Paul started up from where he was sitting on the toilet seat. “Good idea,” he said, touching the oval indentation that caused the basin to fill, from no apparent source, with cold water. “That’s something,” he said doubtfully. “Maybe we should – ”
But Flame was already in the shower cubicle. There was a sound like rain gusting against a window, followed by what sounded like a shriek of pleasure. The frosted glass door turned brown for a few seconds, then started to clear.
Flame began to sing.
“The rest of the dirt is in your mind,” said Kokalina as she scrubbed and flannelled his face for the fifth time. “And I’m afraid I won’t wash off.”
“I can try,” she said, taking another handful of liquid soap from the nozzle and rubbing it into the silver dents of his eyes.
A little later, she finally acknowledged Paul’s yells that she had used enough water.
While Paul showered far more circumspectly, she examined herself in the bathroom mirror. Despite her efforts, her skin still seemed to have a greyish cast. Although it could, she supposed, be an illusion caused by the flat white bulb-light.
She had an unexpected mental image of another mirror, with Simon on the far side – gaunt and unshaven, his eyes red and dark ringed, much as hers were now. Like a saint, a martyr, a fallen angel – Oh, Simon, Simon, when shall I ever see you again? Shall I see you again?
She bit her lip and ran her hand through her hair, trying to control the tears that were suddenly hot in her eyes; and then did control them, as the sound of running water was replaced by the whir of the air blowers.
Paul stepped from the shower. “Done,” he said. “Bet I didn’t use half as much water as you.”
She smiled slightly at the hand covering his genitals. “Don’t we look awful?”
“Like rotting fruit,” he agreed.
She was worse than him, with colourful bruises on her forehead and shoulder, the latter also extensively, though not deeply, scratched. He had a bruise spiralling up one arm where the Horathra’s whip had wound around it; aside from which they both bore numerous cuts and swellings, as well as blisters on their shins, perhaps the result of prolonged contact with the mud.
Have we really been in Hell for less than a day? she thought, glancing at her chron - though in truth they’d acquired all their wounds in the first few hours.
They were getting lunch when Flame became aware of something outside.
It was pressed against the window, or she wouldn‘t have seen it, the rest of the outside world being hidden by the reflection of the kitchen. A man-high black shape with a white face – an oddly perfect face, yet expressionless, white and curiously shiny in the bulb light.
“So they haven’t gone away,” said Paul.
There was a silence. They stared at the creature, which stared back with no change of expression.
“It’s like a mask,” said Paul.
“It is a mask, I think,” said Kokalina. “I wonder…”
He broke off as the shield-shaped face withdrew.
“What it really looks like?” said Paul.
“Indeed,” said Kokalina. “Anyway, let’s not worry about them now. I’ve managed to break the password protection on the HOS – the house operating system.”
“The what?”
“The house can be controlled by your CHIs…”
“You’ve mentioned those a few times,” said Paul. “What are they?”
“Pre-Desecration science?” said Flame, in the same tone she might have used to say, ‘divine providence’.
“Indeed. The Computer-Human Interface was one of many modifications to your ancestors’ genome – ah, the thing that determines their physical traits – which you have inherited. It is a brain modification originally intended to give people the ability to easily control the complex machinery that filled their lives. However, your rulers have disabled various safeguards to let them use it to show you supposedly supernatural visions – which, since you haven’t been taught about CHIs, people accept at face value.”
There was a pause while they looked at each other, baffled by most of what he’d said. The Paul said, “So you can control the house?” Then, after another pause. “What does that actually mean?”
“For one thing, I can now tell you about the facilities – ah, that’s interesting! – and available supplies. I’d say that if we’re careful we have enough food and water for about two weeks.”
“I hope their curiosity wears off before then,” said Paul, glancing towards the window, where his own troubled reflection looked back at him.
“I wouldn’t bank on it,” said Kokalina.
“But surely – ”
“The Horathrai seemed pretty intent on capturing us. Maybe they had a good reason, or thought they did.”
“Yes, all right.” Paul shifted uncomfortably. “So what would you have us do? Sit here and feel scared? I’d like a break from that if it’s all the same to you.”
“You could check on what they’re doing.”
They extinguished the light, and looked out of the bedroom window.
For a moment, the street below appeared deserted. But then Flame noticed the figures sitting beneath the street lamp. They looked like large, shapeless sacks arranged in a rough circle, but the poles with hooked blades resting against the wall behind them left no doubt as to their identity.
The terror that had been waiting patiently at the back of her mind shuffled forwards. She and Paul were in a prison; the fact that they’d locked it themselves didn’t make it less so.
One of the shapes beneath the lamp extended an arm and tossed some small white things on the ground. They leaned forwards; another one scooped them up and threw them again.
They’re playing a game, she thought miserably. They’ve settled down for a long wait.
They made a small heap of the items they’d been carrying: a box of ointments and salves, a pouch, a jar of salt, a belt, a glow bulb, a gun that didn’t work, Calgium’s medallion, and their air masks. They had abandoned their tattered, filthy clothes in a corner of the bathroom, bundled up inside the sheet they’d lain on, with no desire to touch them ever again. At first Flame had thought they might make clothes from bed sheets, which (now that Kokalina had unlocked the cupboards) were in plentiful supply, but then Kokalina had announced another discovery, not quite as wonderful as the food dispenser, but welcome, nonetheless. He called it an ‘Air Loom’ – a molecular assembly machine, disguised as an empty cupboard in the large bedroom, that created clothes to order.
The process – mentally visualising a garment, specifying the materials, adjusting the style – was simplicity itself, and they had soon produced a couple of sets of clothing, though Kokalina warned again about not using up all the raw materials.
Now they were comfortably clad, he suggested making some protective clothing, on the assumption that they would eventually find a way to leave. He started by having the Air Loom make a couple of breathing masks, then progressed – being mindful not to use up too much raw material – to producing samples of light, flexible material with surfaces that would repel dirt, and warm or cool the wearer as necessary.
These would have made reasonable protective clothing, in Flame’s opinion, but it turned out he was just getting into his stride.
Eventually, after spending a while producing a number of samples of material that he had Paul test in various ways, he announced that he was ready to produce suits of protective clothing.
“I’m thinking of a sort of second skin,” he told them. “Something similar to what I imagine evolution would produce if people lived in the conditions outside for enough generations. Apart from being light, flexible, dirt resistant and so on, they should collect and purify your sweat, be impact resistant – include face shields, and have appearances that can be CHI-controlled, in case you need to look like something different. That can vary from virtually invisible to an appearance of normal clothing…”
“You can do all that?” said Paul.
“The material will be a molecular-level machine, much like living tissue.”
Flame made a small noise that might have indicated distaste.
“I realise that might seem a bit – creepy,” said Kokalina, “but I assure you there’s nothing to worry about. You can control their properties with your CHIs – I just need to adjust yours, Flame, to deactivate the constraints the Custodian has added to your genome, and I can send a patch across to Paul’s. Don’t worry, this will make more sense once I’ve done it, it basically gives you thought control over suitable technology. I will include manual controls, too, in any case. I suggest you start with your suits brightly coloured, so you can easily see one another, but you’ll be able to turn them black or reflective at will, which will mean you can become almost invisible in some circumstances.”
“Deft,” Paul nodded.
“Sounds like magic,” said Flame.
“As a clever person once said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I’ll throw in a couple of breathing masks with similar features in case you have to remove the suits. These will shrink to pea-size when not in use, but will expand instantly when placed on your face or given a suitable CHI command. To outside appearances they will look like pearls worn on strings around your necks.”
“Well,” said Paul, “that certainly changes things. Once we’ve got that gear we could walk out, and the Creeps wouldn’t be able to touch us.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Kokalina. “They could still capture you and smother you, drown you or starve you…”
“Yes, all right,” said Paul. “Anyway, assuming we can get away from the Creeps, then what?”
“We resume our journey to Irin Druk.”
“And then?”
“We’ll enlist their aid in reaching Tarika, if necessary. And before you ask, then we’ll return to the Garden of Night. And then we’ll find our way back into the House of God. And we’ll find Simon. And we’ll rescue your parents; and, indeed, everyone else.”
“Good, I’m glad you’ve got a plan. Can we do all that before next Ascension Day?”
“You mean – within the next one hundred and nineteen days, give or take a few hours? I don’t know. Perhaps, if fortune is on our side.”
Flame opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. Half of her wanted to scream that Kokalina was mad, that so far all they’d achieved was to get themselves almost killed several times, and now imprisoned in this place which might become their tomb.
But the other half knew he was right. They had to do all that he’d said – and they’d have no chance of success unless they believed they could.