Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds Read Free Book Online Page A

speaking.’
    ‘I couldn’t have put it more eloquently,’ Fray said.
    ‘And the Mad Machines?’ Quillon asked.
    ‘Man’s been reading too many bedtime stories,’ Meroka said, just as her torch flickered out, plunging them into absolute darkness. ‘No machines, big or small, Cutter. Just because the tunnels exist don’t mean all the other made-up crap turns out to be real as well.’ She shook the torch until it faltered back to life.
    ‘So neither of you has ever seen anything strange, in all the times you’ve been coming through these tunnels?’
    ‘Seen some dead bodies,’ Meroka said. ‘Seen some things I’d rather not know what they used to be. But big scary machines, wandering around in here? ‘Fraid not. Spearpoint’s just a big old spike jammed into the ground. Nothing’s changed in here for thousands of years.’
    ‘Have you ever been lost?’
    ‘Happened once or twice. Especially when the package was doing too much talking.’
    ‘Hint taken.’
    Meroka wasn’t done, though. ‘Being lost isn’t the worst thing that can happen. At least if you get lost, you might wander out again. Cross a zone, that’s a different story.’
    ‘You’d hardly fail to notice if you crossed a zone,’ Quillon said.
    ‘Yeah, you’d notice. But that doesn’t mean you’d feel it coming, or be able to cross back over. You think you know Spearpoint pretty well, Cutter, but all you really know is life on the skin, out on the ledges. The zones are big out there. Someone like Fray, he hardly ever needs to leave Neon Heights.’ Her voice took on an admonitory tone. ‘Different story once you get inside. Now they get smaller and smaller, crowding in around the Eye of God, or the Mire, or whatever you want to call it. Shit gets blurred together, hard to map. Reason my light isn’t working so well: it can feel us getting closer to the transition.’
    ‘Do we have to cross over?’
    ‘Not until we leave the tunnel and get to Steamville. Unless things have shifted around in here since last time. Which is a possibility. Clock boys are already worked up about it, and not just in Neon Heights. Rest of us saw this coming way back. Last two, three years, easily. Serious movement. Something heavy heading down the pike.’ Without waiting for his opinion she added, ‘Blame the angels myself. Anything unexplained, they’re top of my shit list.’
    ‘I see.’ Quillon swallowed hard. ‘And this assumption is based on ... what, exactly?’
    ‘I’d just take it as a given, I were you,’ Fray said.
    ‘Angels piss me off,’ Meroka said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’
    They walked on in silence, Quillon unwilling to press her on the matter for fear that she would start wondering exactly why he was so interested. At least it told him one thing: Fray must have kept their mutual secret. Unless she was lying for reasons of her own, Meroka knew nothing of his origins, and that meant Fray had never broken his word.
    ‘How close are you taking us to the boundary?’ Quillon asked.
    ‘Within half a league. Can’t be more accurate than that.’
    Presently he had the sense of the tunnel widening, and when he tried to reach out he could only touch the nearest wall. ‘Keep right,’ Meroka said again, and though he could see almost nothing except the wavering spot cast by Meroka’s torch, he knew they were edging past a huge duct or shaft leading much deeper into Spearpoint.
    In the darkness he heard a quick rustle of fabric. There was a flash of yellow light and a bang that echoed and echoed into a diminishing infinity. In the after-image of the yellow flash he saw Meroka’s fist holding one of her guns, the revolver, firing it into the warm draught. He steeled himself, wondering what she had seen or sensed. Then her torch beam alighted on a scampering black form, a soot-black rat. Part of its tail was missing. The rat looked up at them with ochre eyes and rubbed its snout with its forepaws.
    He heard the click as Meroka