Teddy held his hand up. "OK, people. Hoods on."
Eleanor reached back and pulled it over her head. A circle of skin around her eye sockets tingled briefly. The photon amp fed its monochrome image into her retinas, suit graphics confirming the neck seal's integrity. She breathed air through the filters, dry and metallic.
She took it as an offhand compliment that nobody checked to see if she'd fixed her hood properly.
The stream ran through a thick braided cassia hedge ten metres ahead, the dividing line between the sugar-cane fields and a broad tract of undulating meadowland. Eleanor saw a line of posts spaced seven or eight metres apart had risen up in front of the hedge, two metres high and featureless except for a small red light flashing away on top. The earth around them had been torn as they'd pushed their way up out of their recesses.
Her photon amp picked out a band of forest about eight hundred metres past the hedge. She didn't like to think about lugging the Rockwell all that way. And how far was the manor beyond the forest?
THREE HUNDRED METRES, the graphics told her, Oh well.
"Boundary," Teddy said. His voice was muffled by his hood filters. "Now is when it starts to hit the fan. OK, Suzi."
Both of them brought up their AK carbines. There was a bass stutter and the two posts on either side of the stream disintegrated. They switched their aim to the next pair.
In the end they took out eight before Teddy was satisfied. His arm signalled the advance.
Eleanor meshed the infrared into her image, alert for any sign of the sentinels. The function fuzzed the outlines a little, but she saw a couple of pink spots pelting away from the stream. Stoats, invisible before.
The meadowland here offered little or no cover. The grass was knee-high, laced with weeds and keck. Nothing had grazed on it for months.
Two hundred metres past the boundary markers and Teddy stopped them again. He plucked one of the smallest spherical grenades dangling from his waist and twisted the timer. "Down."
Eleanor squatted, her backside below the surface of the water. Growing cold. Teddy lobbed the grenade out across the meadowland. Crouching down. Five seconds later there was a barely audible thud.
Another line of posts rose out of the ground ahead of them. Eleanor could hear grass and soil ripping. This time there were no red lights on top.
Suzi and Teddy took aim with their AKs.
PRESSURE-SENSITIVE PICKET, said the graphics, when she asked. There were another two picket lines between them and the forest. The memory core didn't have any information about what they did if you walked between them. Presumably, if you were talented enough to be on this kind of mission you ought to know.
They yomped on.
The stream's banks were growing perceptibly steeper. Eleanor thought the water was getting deeper too. Her view across the meadowland was shrinking. Thick patches of watercress choked both sides of the stream. Roddy and Nicole had to walk through it, kicking away a tangled wrap of tendrils from their legs every few paces.
Eleanor was glad of the brief rest when they came to the next picket line.
Victor pressed his head up to hers. "You OK?"
The AKs demolished another set of pillars.
"Fine."
There was a quick squeeze on her upper arm.
Suzi and Teddy reloaded their carbines, jamming in fresh magazines with hard snaps.
The stream fell on harder rock. It was narrower now, deeper. The water came up to Eleanor's knees, Teddy slowed the pace, edging cautiously round the sharper turns.
"How about a couple of us walk along the side?" Suzi said. The banks had risen until they were level with Eleanor's head. She couldn't see much of the meadowland now. What was visible seemed to be small deep hollows, and ground-hugging bushes. There could've been anything hidden out there. Her breathing was coming faster.
"No," Teddy said.
Suzi didn't argue. Discipline, Eleanor thought it would've made a lot of sense to have someone who could look out over the meadowland.
They rounded a bend and saw the last line of picket pillars had already emerged from the earth. Five AK carbines came up in reflex. There was a moment's pause.
The sentinel came at them through the air like a guided missile. Eleanor saw it as a pink streak arcing overhead, forelegs at full stretch, an angel of death reaching for Des. All five AKs opened up, filling the air with a guttural roar. Des was falling backwards, still firing. The sentinel's heavy streamlined body juddered in mid-flight, its edges distorting as the slugs chewed it apart. Momentum kept it going. Des hit the water. Eleanor's image was suddenly degraded by a spray of blood painting her hood's photon-amp receptors. The sentinel landed almost on top of Des, already dead.
"Keep watching!" Teddy bellowed as they all began to move towards the carcass.
Des still hadn't surfaced. Eleanor felt vomit about to rise from her belly. Forced herself to hold it down. She'd drown if she puked with the hood on.
"Eleanor, Victor, see to him." Teddy's words became lost in a strident whistle; already piercing it was rapidly broaching her pain threshold. Eleanor jammed her hands over her ears and floundered towards the dark soggy hump which was the sentinel.
The four pillars nearest the stream had begun to glow violet. Eleanor's photon amp hurriedly faded them down. She felt her bones beginning to shake from the noise.
Victor was at her side, shoving at the bulky sentinel. She helped him, pushing its hindquarters. It began to move with desperate slowness. The sound from the pillars had turned to fire, drilling into her ears. Concentration was becoming impossible. The dead cat rolled over, and Des thrashed to the surface. Victor pulled at his hood, breaking the neck seal. Des was choking, squirting water, and gasping for air.
The hideous sound level had begun to reduce, Eleanor risked a glance round. Teddy and Suzi were blasting away at the brilliant pillars. Nicole and Roddy were poised in a half crouch, AKs held ready, scanning the top of the banks.
Des's desperate coughing subsided. The last violet pillar crumpled. Eleanor found she was trembling violently.
Silence closed about them.
Victor shook Eleanor's arm.
"What?" She couldn't even hear her own voice.
He was jabbing a finger at Des's arm. She saw the jumpsuit fabric was torn above the elbow, slashed by the sentinel's claws. Blood was streaming out of the wound.
The sight snapped Eleanor out of her daze. She made Victor clamp his hand around the wound, reducing the flow of blood. Nicole was carrying the field first-aid kit. She let Eleanor take it from her without ever breaking her vigilance.
Teddy fished the Rockwell and its power units from the water while Eleanor pulled an elasticated sheath up around Des's wound. It ballooned out as she touched the inflation stud, analgesic foam setting in seconds. She helped Des to his feet. Even with the photon amp's peculiar vague shading she could tell his face was chalk-white.
Teddy handed an AK to Victor and hung one of the power units on Des. He gave the second power unit to Eleanor after she'd lifted the Rockwell again, taking the message laser himself.
"Come on. Outta here."
Eleanor knew Teddy must've shouted it, but barely heard the sound over the occlusive ringing in her ears. The weight of the weaponry was tormenting her spine. Her mind chucked out stupid irrelevances like cold feet and keeping watch across the meadowland to concentrate on the important: thrusting one foot at a time through the churning water. Her flesh was going through the routine, disjointed from her mind. Solitude's anguish unravelling around her. Alone with people she didn't know, walking to a place she didn't want to go to.
They were fifty metres from the forest when Nicole opened fire, her AK a subliminal rumble. The sentinel was hunkered down behind a bush, a clenched shadow, coiled up waiting to leap. It managed a short jump before the slugs bit into its skull. Crashing down into the watercress.
Teddy never even broke stride.
Eleanor trudged past the sentinel, dimly acknowle
dging how stately its huge head was, humiliated by cracked bone and ripped flesh. There was no honour in death, and it wasn't even a true enemy.
We malign life, she thought, suborning its grace and majesty to our own purpose, mocking it. Even the reservoir dolphins were a sin, so far from their true home, tame, unable to return. She knew water would never be a refuge for her again, not after tonight.
The stream's banks dipped down as they reached the forest, but the water remained knee-high. Tall acacias and virginciana trees threw boughs right across the stream; black heart leaves interlaced above Eleanor, blocking even the ashen phosphorescence of moonlit clouds. The trunks were knotted columns coiled by ivy and ipomoea vines; grape-cluster flower cascades dangled down, brushing against her head. A thick carpet of fleshy flowers covered the forest floor, tiny star shapes closed against the night, light grey in her image feed. She imagined the air would be thick with their scent if she removed her hood.
The forest had to be a human concoction, a designer ideal of fey woodland wilderness. Eleanor was staggered by how much it must've cost.
"OK," said Teddy. And she could hear him better this time. "So far, so good. Now, we've got a couple of lasers overlooking the stream before we reach the lake. Suzi, you trailblaze, clean 'em out. The rest of you keep watching for sentinels. This here is prime ambush country. When you leave the tree cover remember to keep yourselves below the water before you reach the lake; means crawling, but make fucking sure you don't let more than your head show. Those Bofors masers will zap anything over fifty centimetres in diameter. If you do get hit, dive fast, wind up cannibal lunch otherwise."
"What about the people inside Wilholm?" Victor asked. "They've got to know we're here after the racket the pickets kicked up."
Teddy patted the message laser. "We put this on wide-beam and use morse code to rap with 'em."
"Morse code!"
"Sure, man. Walshaw's ex-military, isn't he?"
"Yes," Victor agreed.
"Then he'll know morse. Tell him to take a look at you. Means your hood's gotta come off, though. You be careful."
"Careful. Christ."
"OK, let's move," Teddy barked.
Suzi took the lead, walking down the living wooden tunnel a couple of metres in front of Teddy.
The forest was alive with creatures, picked out by the infrared as quick-moving pink blotches snaking around the trees. Squirrels, Eleanor guessed. More pink spots slipped across the ground, not even disturbing the flowers. It was faintly macabre, seeing the unseen. Distracting.
The stream began to change, big quarried rocks had been used to line the banks, similar to marble. Water was frothing around their rough-hewn edges. It was getting slippery underfoot. Eleanor's soles were sliding over loose oval stones. The water was climbing up over her knees.
Suzi stopped in mid-stride, her jumpsuit glaring an all-over claret, rising swiftly towards vermilion. Eleanor marvelled at the girl's cool as the AK carbine swung round slowly, picking out the laser hidden in the tree. She could never have done that, more like scream and run round in circles. Finally understanding what Teddy meant by discipline, far more than following orders. Curlicues of steam were rising from the stream around Suzi's legs, the water bubbling. The girl had found the laser, taking sight, pulling the carbine's trigger.
A sentinel landed on Roddy's back. Jaw clamped on his neck, hind legs raking his lower back with dagger-like claws.
Eleanor screamed.
Roddy pitched forwards, ridden down by the sentinel. Foaming water fountained up as the two writhed about beside her.
"Behind you!" someone yelled.
Victor began firing his carbine back up the stream.
Teddy was pointing his at Roddy and the sentinel, unable to shoot. The sentinel was tossing the man about as though he was a doll.
Eleanor yanked the Braun from her belt, leaning forwards. Saturated black fur twisted into view below her outstretched hand, she jabbed the laser down until it hit something solid and tugged the trigger. There was a blur of infrared energy, flash of singeing fur.
Hot pain smashed into her belly, ripping. Oblivion was smothering in soft black velvet—
". . . coming outta it."
"Come on gal, up you get."
Swirling pearl-grey mists resolved into two figures wearing energy dissipater jumpsuits. Hard lumpy stone pressed into Eleanor's back. Water was gurgling round her feet.
"The sentinel," she cried.
"Dead," Teddy answered.
There was absolutely no sensation coming from her abdomen; no cold, warmth, pain. Nothing. That frightened her more than having a nagging pain. She glanced down: a cauliflower oval of analgesic foam was clinging to the front of her jumpsuit. "Roddy?"
"Giving St. Peter a hard time. Come on, gal. Up."
Strong hands gripped under her shoulders, lifting. She stood, fighting the dizziness which blanked out her vision for a moment.
"Can you carry anything?"
"I—yes, I'll try." Eleanor was curiously unmoved by Roddy's death. His body had been dragged out of the stream, lying on the rocky bank, limbs bent oddly, head kinked at an impossible angle. They must've infused her with something; and she didn't particularly mind, it was nice having thoughts this peaceful.
Teddy handed her the Rockwell again, Nicole taking the second power unit. Suzi took up position on her flank. When Eleanor looked round she saw Victor limping behind her, a ring of analgesic foam around his left thigh.
One dead, three walking wounded. If it wasn't for the drug she knew she'd have given up right there and then.
Teddy led them on.
The stream continued its inexorable advance up Eleanor's legs. Solid footing was hard to find, the fast current pushing insistently at the back of her knees. A raggedy curtain of pigtail ivy ribbons hung from the gnarled branches above her, long enough to trail in the water, an irritant she was constantly having to sweep aside. There were big boulders in the stream now, creating a turbulent white-water surface. The stone-lined banks were closing in, becoming steeper. She and Des were pressing together, Suzi occasionally bumping into her. The stream was being channelled for some reason.
Teddy made them stop, then walked on alone, struggling to keep his balance. The second laser found him, inflaming his jumpsuit to a lambent crimson. His AK sent a burst of slugs back along the beam. A pyrotechnic shower of sparks erupted from a big acacia tree.
"OK people, last stage. Easy does it." Teddy waited for the others to reach him, and they began to move off together.
Eleanor heard a low rumbling coming from somewhere ahead. Couldn't quite place the sound, her ears still had a residual ringing from the pickets. The water reached her waist.
"Hey—" Victor began.
Teddy snarled a curse and vanished from view. Eleanor took a step forwards, and found the stream bed falling away. Instinct made her tighten her grip on the Rockwell, she knew she'd never be able to fight the water, she had to let it take her. Her feet were swept from under her, dunking her below the water. She breathed out, expelling air from the filter nozzle until she broke surface. Bobbing around like a piece of driftwood. The stone banks were like cliffs whizzing by. Ivy fronds slapped at her. She shifted the Rockwell round, hugging it to her numb chest. The rumbling was growing steadily louder. Memory placed it: waterfall.
Eleanor twisted desperately, getting her feet out in front, locking her legs straight. Slaloming round the last bend she saw Wilholm manor dead ahead. The building was floodlit, its roof blanked out, hidden in shadow. Biolum lights glared from the windows of the top two storeys, the ground floor was a featureless slate-grey band. There was a vast expanse of flat exposed lawn surrounding it. Killing ground, she thought. Then she went over the lip.
The waterfall wasn't high, three metres. She seemed to hang in the air, floating down.
MASER ATTACK, shouted scarlet graphics. The photon-amp image dimmed. Thick fog exploded around her.
Eleanor hit the lake hard, her back
side taking the impact. The Rockwell knocked the breath out of her. Don't drop it, her only thought.
The weight of the weapon and the jumpsuit held her down, Rising with terrible slowness, her lungs bursting. Water had defeated the photon amp, all she could see was a uniform powder-blue mist.
Eleanor surfaced, keeping the water level above her shoulders, bracing herself for the graphic warning again. It remained off. Treading water. Somehow she'd turned round to face the waterfall. A dark figure shot over the lip, arms flapping at the air. The curving torrent of water behind it boiled furiously again as the manor's Bofors masers fired.
"Check in," a voice called out.
"Teddy? Teddy, I'm here, it's Eleanor."
"Christ, gal. OK, you still got the Rockwell?"
Eleanor paddled her one free hand, cumbersome in the thick garment, turning until she spotted him, a small mound protruding from the lake's gently rippling surface. "I've got it."
"Thank you, sweet Jesus."
"Father, Suzi here."
"Victor held the power unit."
"Terrific."
Eleanor saw Teddy bring the message laser out of the water.
"Shit," Des's voice, high and panicky. "Being lasered."
There was a splash somewhere off to Eleanor's left.
"Nicole, 'nother unit."
The façade of the manor seemed to flicker, its brightness oscillating. Tiny points of bright-red light twinkled from the second-storey windows.
LASER ATTACK. The photon-amp image went completely white.
Eleanor drew a deep breath and sank below the surface. The photon-amp image reverted to blue with slashes of black. This time she could make slightly more sense of it; three intense dots of brighter blue above her, where the lasers from the manor were striking the surface, bubbles fizzing up around her. She kicked with her feet, moving away.
"—look you bastards," Teddy was shouting as Eleanor came up. "Christ," he ducked below the lake.
White. LASER ATTACK.
The blueness was speckled with red and green, throbbing. Her lungs burnt. Can't do this many more times.