Panting from exhaustion, Saphothere led the way to an escalator composed of that strange flowing metal, then to an open cylindrical elevator shaft containing a circular platform one step up from the floor. As soon as they mounted this, it accelerated upwards till the platform finally came level with the floor of a domed chamber, which Tack surmised must be at the very top of Sauros. The moment they stepped off it, the elevator dropped away, leaving an open well.
For the very first time, Saphothere seemed at a loss as to what to do next, and stood clenching and unclenching his hands and looking around him.
Goron was standing by a wide pillar of twisted vorpal glass from which sprouted transparent spheres containing multiple interior and exterior images of Sauros, as well as complex shapes: three-dimensional flow-charts and scrolling formulae which Tack now recognized as representations of ten-dimensional Heliothane technology. The Engineer’s right hand was pressed inside a sphere as his left manipulated a virtual control panel. Tack saw at once that Goron’s trouser leg was soaked with blood and that he had tracked bloody footprints around the column. Other personnel manipulated consoles, while still others were enclosed in other bizarre constructs of vorpal glass, and were standing at the edges of the chamber like the gods of a civilization of glass spiders. Saphothere glanced at Tack, then nodded to one side. They walked over to the windows surrounding the chamber.
‘How did Cowl do that?’ asked someone nearby.
‘There’s only one explanation,’ Goron replied. ‘Somehow he knew our field frequencies. That’s not enough for an all-out attack, but enough for assassination attempts. He simply rode in with the torbeast.’ Goron surveyed all those in the room meaningfully before returning his attention to his controls. Another man, throwing off virtual gloves in disgust, stood up and walked over to stand beside Tack and Saphothere.
‘Palleque,’ Saphothere acknowledged.
Tack studied the newcomer, who was tall, white-haired, and tough-looking. Though this individual had reptilian yellow eyes and a twisted mouth, he could have been Saphothere’s brother.
To Saphothere the man observed, ‘It would seem Cowl is somehow receiving inside information. He came through and killed Vetross—nearly got Goron as well.’
Saphothere nodded dumbly, seeming too tired to reply. Palleque glanced at Tack disdainfully and looked about to make some comment.
‘Incursion. One-seventy, two-ten and lateral.’ Tack presumed the voice came from one of those enclosed in vorpal tech.
Palleque grimaced. ‘Three hours earlier and Cowl would have really fucked us over. But the torbeast won’t be getting through now we’re up to power again.’
‘The push?’ Saphothere asked.
‘Yeah. Like riding the top of a fountain and everything gets scrambled. The constant energy feed can’t be switched, so the capacitors have to be drained to the limit before we can shut off and stabilize. Took us an hour this time before we could even get the defence fields back up.’
‘I don’t think I need to hear any more of this,’ said Saphothere and Tack could see that he was angry, gazing at Palleque with suspicion. Palleque shot a further contemptuous glance at Tack before returning to his console.
‘Silleck,’ Goron said abruptly, to the speaker who was warning of the incursion. ‘Don’t use the D-generators this time. Take a direct power-feed from one of the abutments and put a laser into the flaw.’
‘Level?’ asked Silleck, the woman with her head and shoulders concealed in insectile technology.
‘Megajoule range—I want to monitor. Should the incursion move in, I want the level to rise comparatively,’ Goron replied.
Tack stared out of the windows at the developing incursion—a pillar of heat haze opening out on the smoking landscape, his gaze veering aside to the charcoaled vegetation and to the leviathan corpses of a dinosaur herd. He watched the incursion swell and then the flaw develop, opening into that hellish alternate. But before the monster could fling out any of its feeding mouths, smoke began to pour out—glaring emerald in lased light.
‘Must be running out of energy,’ Saphothere opined.
‘What must?’ Tack asked.
‘The torbeast. If it had been coming through inside Sauros, as we saw it in the abutment chamber, Goron would not have been fooling about with lasers. He’s using the laser to measure the energy potential behind the rift.’
‘It’s not holding!’ Silleck yelled.
‘Put a tactical into it,’ Goron stated.
A missile whipped out from somewhere below and Tack shaded his eyes. Arc light flickered and, once it went out, he lowered his hand to watch the expanding firestorm. This rolled towards the city, eating up everything on the ground that was not already incinerated. Tack prepared to get away from the windows but, seeing that Saphothere showed no inclination to do the same, he held his position. The fire reached them, roaring across all around them, and Sauros itself shuddered. Then the flame drew back into the centre of the blast, sucked in by ground winds feeding the blazing tree that rose before them. A tree that in time lost its fire and became a smoky ghost. Then the incursion was gone.
‘That finished it. It’s dropping back down the slope,’ said Palleque. ‘It can’t sustain this level of loss at the moment.’
‘How long before it hits us again?’ Goron asked.
‘Twenty minutes is the most we have,’ Palleque replied.
Goron stepped away from his controls and limped over to join Saphothere and Tack.
‘Engineer,’ said Saphothere, with a brief nod.
‘Can you manage a short-range shift?’ Goron asked abruptly.
‘I can,’ replied Saphothere, looking even more tired.
‘Then get him out of here.’ Goron pointed at Tack, then turned and headed to his controls.
Tack glanced at Saphothere, who with a second nod indicated the elevator shaft. There would be no time to rest here—it was time to go.
The breath of the allosaur hot in her face, Polly knew that not to act would be to die. Thumbing its charge wheel all the way over, Polly fired her taser straight at the dinosaur’s nose.
With a snarling roar the creature jerked backwards, losing its footing and collapsing on its hindquarters. It shook its head vigorously, sneezing and snorting, then swivelled round, throwing up a shower of pebbles with its tail as it accelerated away. The higher cliff on the further edge of the beach it only just cleared, sprawling on its chin as its hind feet scrabbled at the edge. Then it was off into the forest, still bellowing.
You are one lucky fuck.
Polly wondered at Nandru’s definition of luck. She had survived, that was all. Slumping with her back against the rock, she waited until she felt her shaking legs could bear her, then stood up and walked back towards the stream. She was desperately tired, but dared not sleep, so concentrated on the possibilities the container had raised. After washing it out, she inspected it closely, but found nothing that revealed its origin to her.
‘Perhaps there are other time travellers?’ she suggested.
That would now seem the most likely answer.
‘Then I must find them.’
Nice idea, but how would you go about that?
Still, the item had given her renewed hope that she might somehow escape from this insane journey. She looked around. Perhaps if she searched this whole area carefully, she’d come across some other indications of human presence. Just then a roar from the jungle discouraged that plan.
Can you shift again yet?
‘Yes, I think I so,’ she replied. With shaking hands she filled the handy container to its brim with water from the stream.
As she concentrated on the shift, Polly saw the strange structure growing around her once more, and the world sliding away. Jungle turned grey and black and she was weightless in a cage of glass bones over that midnight sea.