"Great," said Ben sourly. "So our little search won"t be over till we"ve accidentally gone through every one of them."
Creben shook his head. "I imagine we"ll have reached our destination long before then."
"Always there with a cheery thought, ain"t you."
"We"ll just have to look harder in the places we can can see," see,"
said Tovel decisively. "Starting here."
Even as Tovel spoke, Ben noticed with a jolt some dark fleeting movement on the pillar behind him. "What"s that?"
Tovel protested mildly as Ben shoved him aside. A thin black trail had appeared on the pillar. It stretched vertically down from top to bottom, where it resolved itself into a sticky liquid pooling round his boots.
"Blood out of a stone," he murmured nervously, while Tovel just swore in disbelief.
"Where"s it coming from?" Creben demanded, unholstering his gun. The others followed suit.
"Up there," said Tovel.
Ben took a few steps back and several shaky breaths.
Whatever was at the top of the column, spilling blood, it was obscured by the huddle of statues crouched over it.
"If we want to see what"s bleeding," Ben said grimly, "we"re gonna have to climb for it."
Joiks laughed briefly. "You"re crazy."
"You volunteering?" Roba said expectantly as he knitted his huge fingers together into a makeshift stirrup.
Ben looked round anxiously. "Well..."
"We"ve got to know what"s there, after all," Creben said mildly.
"He"s right," said Tovel with the faintest of smiles. "Reckon you can make it?"
So, it was time to earn his place with the boys again. Fair enough. The column was broad, but there were occasional chips and ridges that could give him footholds.
He put his right foot in Roba"s hands and the giant propelled him upwards. The trail of blood smeared against his body as he wrapped his arms round the pillar, holding on tight while he kicked about for a footing. He heard whistles and claps, shouts of encouragement, urging him on. His breath pushed out in ragged gasps through clenched teeth, his heart was racing, but slowly he was scaling the column.
The rough stone scuffed and stung his palms as he searched for cracks and ledges he could use to help lever himself further up. His feet caught in crevices, and some were p.r.o.nounced enough to take his weight. He was going to make it. Then he tried to imagine what grisly scene was waiting for him at the top, and felt less elated.
Far below, the lads still shouted their encouragement. The sounds echoed strangely up here, were almost lost under the rustling of the vegetation, thick with fleas, and the ghostly clinking of the gla.s.s tapestry. As he climbed the final few feet, the shadowy statues at the top loomed above Ben. He saw their wings, their smooth stone backs lit with a gentle radiance.
"I made it!" he shouted.
One of the statues twisted round to look down at him.
Ben"s pounding heart nearly stopped dead. He wanted to shout out, but the sound died in his throat.
The statue"s stone eyes were wide and innocent. Its thick lips were smiling at him benignly.
A sc.r.a.p of wet, dark material tell from its huge b.l.o.o.d.y hands, flapping like a bat past Ben"s face.
In the thick shadows at the statue"s feet he thought he glimpsed a human hand, slender fingers twisted and outstretched.
The smiling stone angel reached for his neck.
Chapter Ten.
The Secret Adversary
I.
Ben slid painfully down the column as fast as he could go, resisting the instinct to abandon it altogether and take his chances with the fall. He caught crazy corkscrew glimpses of the angel as he spiralled downwards, the pitted rock clawing at his arms and legs. Around him, bolts of energy shot up into the ceiling, pounded into the pillar, caught the statue full in the face. Slowly, the other enormous cherubs reacted to the onslaught. Heads c.o.c.ked to one side. Arms reached slowly out towards the soldiers. Stone wings began to flap, and the air twittered with movement.
Lazily, the smiling statues launched themselves into the air and drifted down after him, like falling leaves.
Ben leaped down the last ten feet, fell awkwardly. Roba stopped firing long enough to scoop him up and push him towards the mouth of the tunnel.
"Out!" yelled Tovel. The soldiers scattered as the angels drifted after them, pushing through the air like swimmers through water. The air seemed alive with the soft, rhythmic sound of their wings beating.
Ben pelted for the opening in the rock. He was almost there when a bolt of searing brightness shot from out of the darkness. It nearly took his face off. Finding himself under attack again, Ben threw himself instinctively to the ground and landed in a pile of fallen fleaweed. "There"s something in the tunnel!" he yelled, his voice cracking in panic, the pale fleas dancing about him, crawling and jumping over his face.
He crawled away, spat them out, saw the grey angels as they floated ever nearer.
Two more yellow bolts whizzed into the room. Then Ben heard a familiar voice, and realised he"d almost been killed by the cavalry.
"What are they?" Haunt was standing in the mouth of the tunnel, brandishing her rifle, looking on appalled.
"They were statues before," Roba said, backing away until he stood beside her. "Just statues"
Haunt"s voice was barely audible. "Constructs. Morphiean constructs."
"There"s a girl"s body up there," Ben said, the words tumbling off his tongue. "I dunno whose, I only saw the shadow. G.o.d knows what they"d done to her."
The angels bobbed closer in utter silence. Their smiles were compa.s.sionate. Their fingers dripped blood.
"Come on." Joiks led the way out of the chamber, and Tovel and Roba pushed through after him. Haunt stared at the creatures, revulsion on her face, clutching her stomach like she was going to be sick. "Angels," she said. She seemed transfixed by the drifting statues. The nearest of them was almost close enough to touch.
"What are you waiting for?" Ben almost screamed. He grabbed Haunt by the arm and dragged her out of the room after him, without looking back.
II.
Shade roared with pain as Polly pressed some kind of surgical wipe to his sticky red face.
"This will soothe the skin, make you feel better," she said shakily, but wasn"t sure who she was trying to convince.
Truthfully, she"d never seen anyone look so awful. Ordinarily she wasn"t too bothered by blood. She"d seen plenty of fights before, living in London. Cuts and bruises dished out down alleyways or outside clubs. She"d even been the reason for them starting once or twice. But looking down at Shade there was no comparison to a bloodied nose, or a cut cheek.
Shade"s entire face was an open wound. The blood was bright red, watered down with a sticky clear fluid. As fast as Polly could mop it up, it kept squeezing back out. How much more could there be in him?
Her senses felt numbed and she put it down to shock. High above, the slabs of gla.s.s in the ceiling winked and glowed with reflected light, disorientating her.
"Pain... kill..." Shade croaked.
"No," she told him. "No, you"ll be fine."
"Killer," Shade said more desperately. "For pain." Polly screwed up her nose as she wiped away a miniature mountain range of hard black crumbs from one of his gashes. "Big hypo."
Polly got his meaning. She left him for a moment, mumbling apologies, and scrabbled through the medical box until she found something that fitted the description: a sort of metal syringe with odd ends attached. What was she meant to do with it?
She needed a second opinion. "Doctor!" she called. "I need your help!"
The Doctor reluctantly left his hole in the console and pottered over to see. "How is he?"
"Terrible," Polly said sadly.
She handed the syringe-thing to the Doctor, who studied it for a moment curiously. Then he twisted a dial and jabbed a wide nozzle into Shade"s neck. The soldier yelled again, louder than ever, then started to convulse. Polly bit her lip and wondered if the Doctor had got it all wrong. But a few moments later the fit pa.s.sed, and Shade lay back, eyes closed, his breathing swift and shallow.
The Doctor looked down at Shade and tutted to himself.
"Remarkable," he murmured. "His body seems to be rejecting the dead tissue in his face, forcing it out through his skin."
"Is he going to die?" Polly whispered, in case Shade was listening.
"I don"t think so, my child," the Doctor said thoughtfully.
"No, I don"t think so. But his body is reacting to some kind of stimulus..." His eyes narrowed. "A force of some kind. A force that we have not yet identified, and yet may be all around us."
"Is that why Shel got sick too?" Polly wondered.
"It could well be, yes."
"But if he set all this up... how come he didn"t make himself immune to this... whatever-it-is?" She glanced over at the Schirr bodies. Had they been immune? Had they killed each other in some terrible madness? A horrid thought occurred to Polly: "Will the rest of us get sick?"
"I"m afraid I cannot tell," the Doctor confessed.
The two of them sighed together, which brought faint smiles to their faces. They spent a few moments silently with their thoughts. Gradually, Shade"s breathing began to ease.
"The worst of the pain is over for this young man," the Doctor announced. "He"ll need rest, but he should recover."
"In time for what," breathed Polly.
"Now, if you don"t mind watching over him alone, my dear, I shall return to..."
His voice trailed off. Something was wrong. As if in slow motion, Polly turned to see. Her heart lurched.
The corpse in the chair had vanished.
So had yet another body from the platform.
"DeCaster," muttered the Doctor. "Their leader."
"How?" whispered Polly. "The stasis field is jammed on. The console and the junction box are ruined!"
The Doctor seemed not to hear her. "He is at large again, it would seem."
Polly grabbed the Doctor"s sleeve. "But how? how? We never left! We never left!
We only turned our backs on them for a few moments!"
"The one in the chair," bl.u.s.tered the Doctor. "DeCaster"s most trusted disciple. Shel called him Pallemar..."
"He can"t have been dead," Polly said in a small voice.
"But he was. was. He was dead." The Doctor sounded furious, like a cheated child. "I examined the corpse myself. Death has its own posture and appearance..." He shook his head, as anger gave way to bewilderment. He was dead." The Doctor sounded furious, like a cheated child. "I examined the corpse myself. Death has its own posture and appearance..." He shook his head, as anger gave way to bewilderment.
Polly shivered. All the Schirr were scary, but the thought that DeCaster, who had murdered so many millions of people, could be walking about somewhere on the asteroid terrified her half to death.