The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [92]
Space adjusted itself again as the Pilot climbed onto the floor, staring at the gap where the Montgomery had been. It’s translation out of space had removed it from all the creature’s eyes, the thousand honeycombs of vision that opened up the world to it all saw that it was gone, gone. A feeling that was like fear, and like rage, but also the product of an alien heart to which such feelings were meaningless, rent its chest in two, and then smoothed itself back together.
The ship would return. The ship always returned. It never left for long. The creature looked down at the ground, where heat swirled up in curling spirals of squares. There was brass on the floor, and the creature folded itself in half so that its arms were low enough to touch it.
It was a piece of brass, the length of a human hand. A part of the Pilot’s mind, untouched by the hideous transformation that had translated its body, spoke. That was one of the harmonic stabilizers, it said. The Pilot was unconcerned.
The man had shot it off. The voice insisted.
The pilot didn’t care. The ship would be back soon.
Shit.
The Montgomery lurched back into normal space.
Thirty: Down the Mountain
They were only halfway up the stairs when the explosion came, and this time Beckett really was deafened. It crashed against his ears, reverberated against the walls, and brought with it a flood of images. He was choking in the sea, now looking at the City of Brass, now he saw the moon, looming strangely in the sky…
“No!” Beckett gripped his mind with an iron fist. “No,” he said, though he couldn’t hear himself. The floor of the castle had begun to tilt. Slightly at first, but the angle was becoming alarming. “Out.”
Beckett counted his steps with gasps. One-two-three breathe. One-two-three breathe. Keep moving. Keep moving. The floor of the great hall was at a forty-five degree angle by the time Beckett reached it, and he could feel knives stabbing at his heart.
“Wake up, Valentine!” He threw the younger man to the ground and began slapping his face. “Fucking wake up!” It was no use. The man was completely unconscious.
Grimacing, Beckett found their coats, still piled by the main doors. He dressed himself and then Valentine, as quickly as he could without slipping; his senseless, stupid fingers betrayed him again and again as he fumbled with the clasps. Then, he took out the travel case for his veneine. There were two ounces of the drug left. Beckett drained it all into the syringe, then thrust the needle into his carotid artery and mashed down on the plunger.
The world was covered with a blanket almost instantly. The pain in his legs and back and arms wandered away, his heart pounded from the end of a very, very long hall. The ringing in his ears receded, and there was nothing but pleasant warmth engulfing all his senses.
You’re not done, yet, a voice told him, but Beckett ignored it. The sound of rushing water was coming to him, the great sea that would lead him to the city, and he didn’t mind at all; light and warmth suffused his being.
The voice spoke again, now with a strong and furious tone. It was his father’s voice, the voice of the overseer on the factory floor, the voice of his sergeant from the Royal Marines. I said that you are not. Fucking. Finished. Get up. Beckett didn’t move. Get up! His body refused to respond. GET UP!
He lurched to his feet. All sense of his body was muted by the drug. It made him unsteady as he pulled Valentine onto his shoulders. The floor had canted to a frighteningly steep angle as he ran down the hall, legs now insensitive to the pain and exhaustion he had to work through.
Likewise, the cold touched him with only the barest hint of an edge. The veneine kept it all at bay, as Beckett gripped the hemp rope down the glacier in his iron fist. He could tell that his glove was being worn away as he dragged himself faster and faster down the hillside. He suspected that it eventually eroded the