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The first car left at a slow walking pace, the next a little faster, the
reactor carriage at a fast walk, and the final car at a slow run.
Smoke tugged after the departing train, then drifted back and rose to the roof
again.
. . . The camera in station six, where they had had the fire-fight, where
Dorolow and Neisin had died and the other Idiran had been left for dead, was
out of action. Horza tried the switch a couple of times, but the screen stayed
dark. A damage indicator winked. Horza flicked quickly through the views from
the other stations on the circuit, then switched the screen off.
'Well, everything seems to be all right.' He stood up. 'Let's get back to the
train.'
Yalson told Wubslin and the drone; Balveda slipped off the big seat, and with
her in the lead, they walked out of the control room.
Behind them, a power-monitoring screen - one of the first Horza had switched
on - was registering a massive energy drain in the locomotive supply circuits,
indicating that somewhere, in the tunnels of the Command System, a train was
moving.
13.
The Command System: Terminus
'One can read too much into one's own circumstances. I am reminded of one race
who set themselves against us - oh, long ago now, before I was even thought
of. Their conceit was that the galaxy belonged to them, and they justified
this heresy by a blasphemous belief concerning design. They were aquatic,
their brain and major organs housed in a large central pod from which several
large arms or tentacles protruded. These tentacles were thick at the body,
thin at the tips and lined with suckers. Their water god was supposed to have
made the galaxy in their image.
'You see? They thought that because they bore a rough physical resemblance to
the great lens that is the home of all of us - even taking the analogy as far
as comparing their tentacle suckers to globular clusters - it therefore
belonged to them. For all the idiocy of this heathen belief, they had
prospered and were powerful: quite respectable adversaries, in fact.'
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'Hmm,' Aviger said. Without looking up, he asked, 'What were they called?'
'Hmm,' Xoxarle rumbled. 'Their name . . . ' The Idiran pondered. ' . . . I
believe they were called the . . . the Fanch.'
'Never heard of them,' Aviger said.
'No, you wouldn't have,' Xoxarle purred. 'We annihilated them.'
Yalson saw Horza staring at something on the floor near the doors leading back
to the station. She kept watching Balveda, but said, 'What have you found?'
Horza shook his head, reached to pick something from the floor, then stopped.
'I think it's an insect,' he said incredulously.
'Wow,' Yalson said, unimpressed. Balveda moved over to have a look, Yalson's
gun still trained on her. Horza shook his head, watching the insect crawl over
the tunnel floor.
'What the hell's that doing down here?' he said. Yalson frowned when he said
that, worried at a note of near panic in the man's voice.
'Probably brought it down ourselves,' Balveda said, rising. 'Hitched a ride on
the pallet, or somebody's suit, I'll bet.'
Horza brought his fist down on the tiny creature, squashing it, grinding it
into the dark rock. Balveda looked surprised. Yalson's frown deepened. Horza
stared at the mark left on the tunnel floor, wiped his glove, then looked up,
apologetic.
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'Sorry,' he told Balveda, as though embarrassed. ' . . . Couldn't help
thinking about that fly in The Ends of Invention . . . Turned out to be one of
your pets, remember?' He got up and walked quickly into the station. Balveda
nodded, looking down at the small stain on the floor.
'Well,' she said, arching one eyebrow, 'that was one way of proving its
innocence.'
Xoxarle watched the male and the two females come back into the station.
'Nothing, little one?' he asked.
'Lots of things, Section Leader,' Horza replied, going up to Xoxarle and
checking the wires holding him.
Xoxarle grunted. 'They're still somewhat tight, ally.'
'What a shame,' Horza said. 'Try breathing out.'
'Ha!' Xoxarle laughed and thought the man might have guessed. But the human
turned away and said to the old man who had been guarding him:
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