Toby raised an eyebrow. "Do the Wolfes know you're treating rebel wounded?"
"I haven't told them. Not after the way they reacted the first time I raised the matter. I keep meaning to bring them up-to-date, but somehow I never get around to it. I don't see that it's any of their business. They only supply me with the bare necessities, even for their own people. We're a long way out from civilization, and transport costs are obscenely high. So I just do my job as I see best. We do what we can here. Patch people up and send them off. It's not unusual to see the same faces come back two or three times, bleeding from a different place each time. Rarely more than three times. Many can't take the shock of so much surgery. Others… just give up. It's a hard war and a harsh world. We don't see many flesh wounds here.
"Supplies are running low. Blood plasma, anesthetics, most drugs. The Sisterhood sends what it can, but there's a lot of fighting going on across the Empire these days, and the Sisters' resources are spread very thin. Some days this isn't a hospital. Just a butcher's shop."
"How long has the armed struggle been going on here, Bea?" asked Toby, keeping his voice low and confidential, as though it was just the two of them having a quiet talk.
"Generations," said Bea grimly. "People have been born, lived their lives and died here, knowing nothing but the war. Of course, it's escalated since the Wolfes took over the factory. The upcoming ceremony has raised the stakes for both sides. Still, it was only the rising publicity that alerted us to what was happening here and persuaded the Sisterhood to send in a mission. If they knew what was really going on here, they'd send more help. I know they would. But the Wolfes control all contact with the outside."
"What kind of war are we talking about here, Bea?" said Toby, easing her back onto the main subject.
"Pretty basic. The struggle here's settled down into trench warfare. Been stuck in the same pattern for decades. Both sides dig tunnels, but the planet's remaining wildlife lives down below, and it doesn't like competition. Fighting above-ground is almost impossible for any length of time, due to the weather. It changes so unpredictably that shelling is impractical. Same for air cover. And when the wind blows, there's so much dirt and metal floating in the air that it disperses energy beams to nothing over anything other than point-blank range. So most of the fighting is hand to hand, steel against steel, boiling up out of their trenches to fight in the no-man's-land between Wolfe and rebel positions. The frontline surges back and forth all the time, but nothing really changes. The two sides are too equally balanced. Though the arrival of the Church troops should make a difference."
"Jesuit commandos leading elite troops have cleared out resistance on many planets," said Toby.
"Technos III is different," Bea said flatly. "The rebels here have been fighting for generation upon generation for as far back as records go, learning and improving all the time. Hell, they've been breeding for warriors for centuries. And then there's the weather. You need to be superhuman just to survive here. And that's the state of war on Technos III. Right in your face and bloody. The only reason we're not totally swamped with wounded is because most of them don't last long enough to reach here. They die of the heat or the cold, the razorstorms or the blizzards. But there's always enough work coming in to keep us busy, even when we've run out of drugs and plasma, and we have to hold the patients down while the surgeons cut them apart and sew them up, hoping the shock won't kill them anyway."
Toby leaned forward a little, subtly interrupting her. She was starting to repeat herself, and he needed to keep her to the point. He was torn between getting as much good material as he could, and the knowledge that the longer he stayed here, the more likely it was that someone back at the complex would notice he and Flynn were missing, and put two and two together. "How many staff do you have here, Bea? How much help?"
"I have two surgeons, and five Sisters trained as nurses working under me. There was a third surgeon, but he cracked under the pressure and I had to send him away. He didn't want to go. Even cried when I put him on the transport, but he was too far gone, even for us. I'm still waiting for a replacement. Technos III isn't very high on anyone's list of importance. It's just a name to most people. I only came here because I was desperate to get my hands dirty in some real work after the endless sniping and intrigues at Court. If I'd known what I was letting myself in for… I'd probably have come anyway. I never was very good at looking away and pretending I didn't see anything.
"What med tech we have is top of the line, the best the Sisterhood could provide, but it was never meant to handle this many wounded. I live in fear of it breaking down. There's no one here who could repair it. The Wolfes have their own med bay in the factory. Everything you could dream of, up to and including a regenerator. One of the nurses there is sympathetic. I raid their drug supply from time to time, when I'm really desperate, and she covers for me, God bless her." She sighed and shook her head. "Can I offer either of you gentlemen a drink?"
She reached under the writing table and brought out a bottle of murky-looking spirits and two glass specimen jars. She shrugged when Toby and Flynn politely declined and poured herself a large drink. Toby gestured urgently for Flynn to keep filming. Bea was the kind of subject you prayed for in a documentary. A real character, someone who knew everyone and everything, right there in the middle of things but still able to stand back and see the big picture. It helped that she didn't look much like a nun, and the drinking was a nice touch. The viewers didn't like their saints to be too perfect. Her hand shook as she raised the glass jar to her mouth, and Toby felt suddenly, obscurely ashamed. With all he'd seen and heard, none of it had touched him the way it had obviously touched her. She cared, and he was just an unfeeling, recording eye. Just like Flynn's camera. He tried to tell himself he had to be, to get the job done, but that didn't sound as convincing as it once had. He made himself concentrate on Bea as she lowered the almost empty jar.
"God, this is awful stuff," she said calmly. "But I couldn't work here without it. Two of the Sisters pop amphetamines, and one of my surgeons has a serious drug habit. I don't say anything, as long as they can still work. We all need a little something to get us through the day. And the night. The nights are the worst. That's when most of our patients die. In the early hours of the morning, when the dawn seems farthest away. I don't know how much longer I can stand it here. It wears you down, having to fight for every life, even the simplest wounds. Nothing's simple here. Not even this tent. It's the strongest the Sisterhood could provide, but even it can't cope with the excesses of weather we have here. In the summer it gets so oppressive you can hardly move. In the winter… I've seen the surgeons stop in mid operation to warm their hands in the steaming guts they've just opened up.
"We've all changed here. I never really wanted to become a nun, you know. I fled to the Sisterhood for sanctuary, so I wouldn't have to marry Valentine Wolfe. But I ended up at the mercy of the Wolfes anyway. I never had much time for religion. I just used the Sisterhood as a power base, like many before me. And I only came here because I was bored. But here in hell I found religion after all. In the face of so much evil, you have to believe in God. It's the only thing that gives you the strength to go on."
She rose suddenly to her feet, catching Toby and Flynn by surprise. She emptied the jar of the last of the drink and put it down on the desk. "I've said enough. I'll take you around the beds, so you can see the kind of wounds we're dealing with. Some of the patients might even talk to you, though you'll have to edit out the obscenities."
She led them out of her private area and back down the long aisle between the beds. Flynn filmed everything, sweeping his camera back and forth. The tent was still eerily quiet, and no one wanted to talk to them. Toby supposed they didn't have the strength to waste on moans of pain or complaints. The other Sisters were moving quietly from bed to bed, checking bandages and temperatures, or if there was nothing else they could do, just laying a cool, comforting hand on a fevered brow. Toby kept quiet, too. The
last thing this needed was a commentary, and he didn't have any more questions. The answers were too obvious. To his surprise, he felt mostly angry. This kind of thing shouldn't be happening, not in this day and age. He'd covered up enough things himself in the past, as Gregor's PR flack, but never anything like this. A Family's troops dying, to hide a Family's shame. He kept telling himself not to get involved. That this was just a good story. And was surprised to find how close to angry, frustrated tears he was.
"Film as much as you like," said Mother Beatrice. "The odds are no one will ever see it. I keep trying to get reports out, and the Wolfes keep blocking me. They can't afford to admit they're losing the battle here. The Empress might take Technos III and the factory away from them."
"Some news did get out," said Toby. "From transport crews and the like. Of the Saint of Technos III, who threw aside her aristocracy to tend the wounded and the dying. That's what brought us here."
"I'm no saint," said Bea. "Anyone would do what I do if they could see what I've seen."
"We'll get the report out somehow," said Toby. "Even if I have to smuggle the tape out by cramming the cans up my backside."
Bea smiled suddenly. "Well," she said archly, "I always said the Wolfes were a pain in the ass."
Jack Random, Ruby Journey, and Alexander Storm followed their guides down through a maze of tunnels, away from the open trenches and the fury of the rising blizzard. The tunnels sloped sharply downward, their walls revealing the many layers of compacted trash and metal that made up the history of the planet's surface. The air was warmer underground, but the three newcomers were still shivering. Light came from metal lanterns hanging from the low ceiling, a pale yellow glow that was hard on their unaccustomed eyes. People bustled around them as they descended deeper, always in too much of a hurry to do more than stare or very occasionally nod a greeting. They were all heavily muscled, with little covering fat to blur the hard edges. Their eyes were stern and concentrated on the matter in hand, and none of them smiled or uttered an unnecessary word. Tall John and Throat-slitter Mary led the way down in silence, the stiffness of their backs rejecting the possibility of questions. Random and Ruby and Storm stuck close together, as much for shared warmth as mutual support.
"How the hell did they build all these tunnels and trenches in the first place?" said Ruby, scowling at the metal walls. "I can't see whoever the opposition was at the time agreeing to a truce while the rebels brought in digging equipment."
"They probably used captured energy weapons to blast out the original tunnels and then widened them over the years by hand," said Random. "We're looking at the end result of decades of hard work. Maybe longer."
"Damn right," said Tall John without looking back at them. "The original work happened so long ago that no one now even remembers the names of those involved. We've been building our tunnels for centuries, each generation adding what was needed at the time. We have to live underground. It's all that's left to us. In the old days, there were the military satellites, with their tracking systems and weaponry. These days, there's the weather. And besides, the factory complex has its own force Screen. We've always known the only way past the Screen was under it. The Wolfes know it, too. That's why they have their own people digging tunnels, too."
"But you're safe down here, aren't you?" said Storm.
"There's safe, and then there's safe," said Throat-slitter Mary. "Technos III's other life-forms live underground, too. They live in the deep down, where we rarely go, but they come up from time to time, and then we get to argue as to whose territory these tunnels are. We hunt them for food, and they hunt us for food. We win, more often than not. And it helps weed out the weak. See those old stains on the floor? When we make a kill, we splash the beast's blood around, to mark the territory. It keeps the bastards at bay for a while."
"You mean they get up this far?" said Ruby.
"Oh, sure," said Tall John. "In the spring, sometimes there's hardly room to move in here for fangs and claws and nasty dispositions."
"Good," said Ruby. "I could use some exercise."
"Well, that explains the bloodstains," said Storm quickly. "But what about the leg?"
Tall John and Throat-slitter Mary stopped and looked back at him. "What leg?" said Tall John.
Storm pointed silently, and they all looked up at the human leg, complete with trousers and boot, protruding from where the right-hand wall met the ceiling. Tall John scowled. "Mason Elliot! This is your area! Where are you?"
A short stocky man bundled in furs up to his chin stepped out of a side tunnel, an ugly black cigar in one comer of his mouth. "No need to shout, I'm not deaf. All right, gracious leader. I'm here. What is it this time? Lost your keys again?"
"What is that leg doing there?"
"Holding up the ceiling. We had to rebuild part of the wall after the last bloodworm attack, and we were a bit pushed for time. We were short of materials, the body was handy… and no one liked him much anyway. Give it a few weeks and the bloodworms will break through again. We can always remove the body then."
"By which time it'll be stinking to high heaven," said Tall John. "I want that leg brought down now. Get an ax and hack it off. Move it!"
"Certainly, gracious leader of us all." The short man squeezed the end of his cigar out with his fingers and put it hehind his ear. He stood glaring up at the protruding leg as Tall John led his party past. Random brought up the rear and was perhaps the only one to hear the short man mutter, "Now, what am I going to use as a signpost?"
Tall John led them on through the tunnels. Random had a suspicion he was being taken by the scenic route, so he wouldn't be able to describe the way down to anyone else. Random approved. It showed a good grasp of basic security and a healthy dose of paranoia. Unfortunately, since Random passed through the Madness Maze, he couldn't get lost. He always knew where he was in relation to everything else. He didn't think he'd tell Tall John that, though. It would only upset him. Random padded amiably along, enjoying what scenery there was. The tunnels were comfortably broad, but the ceilings were low enough that everyone walked with protectively hunched shoulders. Random suspected that the tunnels had been deliberately designed that way, to hinder and disorient invading forces. Presumably, the rebels were used to them. Random found them a pain in the neck. More people appeared as the tunnel floors finally began to level out. They wore layers of leathers and furs, and they all carried their weapons at the ready. They studied the newcomers with cold, suspicious eyes and did not respond to nods or smiles.
"Do your people always go armed?" said Storm. "Surely, you're in no danger this far down?"
"There's always danger," said Throat-slitter Mary. "If not from sudden security attacks, then from the beasts that live below. There are always people listening, but they can't be everywhere. So we're always prepared. From childhood on, we're trained to be ready to fight for our lives at a moment's notice."
"So where do you get to rest and relax?" asked Storm.
"We don't," said Throat-slitter Mary. "We can relax when we're dead."
Ruby smiled at Random. "You bring me to the nicest places."
Random smiled, but concentrated on what he was going to say to the rebels when he finally got to where he was being taken. He had a strong feeling it wasn't going to make him very popular with the underground community, but it had to be said. He'd led too many armies into battle on the hot words of rhetoric and slanted truths, and seen them die without flinching because he believed the cause was greater than the individual. He wasn't sure he believed that anymore. Either way, he was here to inspire them with the whole truth, not fast-talking. Even if it was a truth they might not want to hear. It occurred to him that he was in the hands of people who might kill him for the word he brought. Random shrugged mentally. They could try.
They came at long last to a reasonably large chamber. The ceiling was at least twenty feet above them, and Random, Ruby, and Storm straightened up with varying sighs of relief. The walls were solid polis
hed metal and ranked seating followed the walls all the way around, interrupted only by the single entrance. The seating was full of people, packed shoulder to shoulder, staring down at the newcomers with harsh, watchful eyes. A man and a woman stood in the center of the open space, waiting. They didn't look particularly welcoming, either. Tall John and Throat-slitter Mary led the three visitors forward.
"This is Ragged Tom and Specter Alice," said Tall John. "Together, we're the council of the underground. Talk to us, Jack Random. Tell us why you have come here."
Jack Random smiled and nodded at the council members, and then at the surrounding watchers. If the numbers were supposed to intimidate him, they'd thought wrong. He'd faced unfriendlier crowds than this in his time and worked under greater pressures. He took a moment to study the two new councillors.
Ragged Tom was an average height, average weight man with nondescript features, who didn't look any more ragged than his contemporaries. Specter Alice, on the other hand, looked crazy as a cornered sewer rat. She was short and old, with greasy gray furs and remarkably similar hair sticking up in spikes. She also had wide-staring eyes and a line of drool leaking from one side of an extremely disturbing smile. Random was just glad she didn't want to shake hands. He felt like throwing things at her, on general principles. Tall John mistook his pause for nervousness and started the ball rolling.
"We've been fighting here for generations, and after all we've been through, we're still fighting. The council therefore came to the reluctant conclusion that just possibly we couldn't do this on our own. We need help. Fighters, weapons, supplies. We were told the Golgotha underground could supply these things. But all they've sent us is you three. No one here has forgotten that the last time we asked for help, the cyberats not only knocked out the military satellites that had been plaguing us, they also screwed up the weather satellites. We've been living in the resultant hell ever since. Give us one good reason why we shouldn't send the three of you back to Golgotha in several small packages, to express our extreme displeasure?"