Filaria - Brent Hayward [15]
The man paused. Was he listening to something?
Deidre could tell he wore a scarf but it was hard to discern what colour. And there was a device strapped to the man’s waist, on the right-hand side, the likes of which she had never seen before. He turned toward her now but did not look at her, of course: he looked right through her. But at whom? His boss? Someone he called ‘sir.’
“The coast was clear. We circled the area and landed nearby. There was a light breeze from the north and visibility was great. We found the missing cows. They had been roasted. Not eaten, sir, but roasted to cinders. As if in sport. I have never seen anything like it.”
Deidre stepped back. She did not know what a cow was but unpleasant images were certainly forming.
“Exploring the area on foot, we found a small camp, a hut and such, presumably that of a solitaire. We knocked, identified ourselves. There was no response. When we entered, we discovered the body. The victim had been tied to a chair and tortured. I prefer . . . prefer not to describe the nature of his injuries, sir, but refer you to a series of images that our camera took at the scene.
“Yes. That’s right. Ensign Conway found the footprints. Uh, yes, sir, Ensign Conway. The one and only. He was with us because no one expected our assignment to become so, so sensitive. He’d been tucked out of the way where he couldn’t cause any trouble and instead he found himself in the thick of it. Trouble found him. Trouble found all of us.
“The prints? They were huge, two individuals, not of biological origin. A new form of staff, we wondered. A new position? Undiscovered for centuries? That’s what we thought too. Regardless, the bootprint was double the size of a human man’s boot but very much a bootprint. We also found the casing of an unidentified armament. Pardon me, sir? Yes, that’s right, the flame-throwing device.”
The wavering figure contracted as if stricken, its image sliced up and then complete again. Jumping forward, temporally, the man held his goggles now, and seemed a trifle more at ease.
“ — told no one about it, but my wife believes there’s something bad coming. She had her cards read. Says this woman’s never wrong. Couldn’t sleep and kept asking me about war, and if I thought there could ever be another one. What do I know about war? I told her that every moment you’re alive something bad is coming.” He grinned. “I told her to go to sleep and to stop worrying. But maybe this woman’s right. I know, sir, I’m also pragmatic, but it’s unsettling, you must admit.”
The man ceased moving, then repeated the gesture Deidre had seen when she’d first looked in.
“A local livestock farmer had lost two cows from his flock. They wandered off when his son fell asleep.”
She diminished the gram to thumbnail size and the voice faded to nothing. She knew she had better finish mounting the bianca before it stiffened too much, but her feelings of contentment were displaced. When she got back to her setting board she did a rushed job and lost some of the white scales in her clumsiness.
After putting her equipment away, she hurried out of her sanctum; it suddenly seemed a good idea to seek out her father, to walk by his side while he made his stern morning rounds.
MEREZIAH, L23-24
Despite the fact that it was Mereziah’s birthday, he spent the early part of his shift as he spent most of his workdays now: suspended quietly, head-down, side by side with his silent brother. In the quasidarkness of the shaft, neither moved much. Not any more. Hardly a muscle twitched between them. When they breathed, it was deep, in unison, and at a very slow rate. Had anyone been watching, the distinction between this stasis and death might have been hard to detect.
No one was watching.
Nearby lift pods, inactive for ages, nestled into the curved wall, virtually sealed into place. Few would be capable of motion again, even if their services were required — a situation which seemed less and less likely.
Occasionally, gusts of warm, foul-smelling air rose from the lowest depths of the