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way.' He pointed to one side. 'That's leading down to one of the side prows.
There ought to be something there; just keep looking.' He touched a wrist
button. 'Yalson?'
'Hello,' Yalson said over the intercom. She, Wubslin and Dorolow had watched
Lenipobra's body being winched up to the shuttle and then left, following the
rest.
'Right,' Kraiklyn said, looking at one of the helmet screens, 'you're only
about three hundred metres away.' He turned and looked back the way they had
come. A collection of towers, some kilometres away, were strung out behind
them now, mostly starting at higher levels. They could see more and more of
the Olmedreca. Mist streamed quietly past them in the silence. 'Oh yeah,'
Kraiklyn said, 'I see you.' He waved.
Some small figures on a distant deck at the side of one of the great
mist-filled bowls waved back. 'I see you, too,' Yalson said.
'When you get to where we are now, head over to the left for the other side
prow; there are subsidiary lasers there. Horza and Lamm will - '
'Yeah, we heard,' Yalson said.
'Right. We'll be able to bring the shuttle closer, maybe right down to
wherever we find anything soon. Let's go. Keep your eyes open.' He nodded at
Aviger and Jandraligeli, and they went forward. Lamm and Horza looked at each
other, then set off in the direction Kraiklyn had indicated. Lamm motioned to
Horza to switch off his communicator transmit and open his visor.
'If we'd waited we could have put the shuttle down where we wanted to in the
first place,' he said with his own visor open. Horza agreed.
'Stupid little bastard,' Lamm said.
'Who?' asked Horza.
'That kid. Jumping off the goddamned platform.'
'Hmm.'
'Know what I'm going to do?' Lamm looked at the Changer.
'What?'
'I'm going to cut that stupid little bastard's tongue out, that's what I'm
going to do. A
tattooed tongue should be worth something, shouldn't it? Little bastard owed
me money anyway. What do you think? How much do you think it'd be worth?'
'No idea.'
'Little bastard . . . ' Lamm muttered.
The two men tramped along the deck, angling away from the dead-ahead line they
had taken previously. It was difficult to tell where exactly they were
heading, but according to Kraiklyn it was towards one of the side prows, which
stuck out like enormous outriggers attached to the
Olmedreca and formed harbours for the liners which had shuttled to and from
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the Megaship in its heyday, on excursions, or working as tenders.
They passed where there had evidently been a recent fire-fight; laser burns,
smashed glass and torn metal littered an accommodation section of the ship,
and torn curtains and wall hangings flapped in the steady breeze of the great
ship's progress. Two of the small wheeled vehicles lay smashed on their sides
near by. They crunched over the debris and kept walking. The other two groups
were heading forward, too, making reasonable progress according to their
reports and chatter. Ahead of them there still lay the enormous bank of cloud
they had seen earlier; it wasn't growing any thinner or lower, and they could
only be a couple of kilometres from it now, though distances were hard to
estimate.
'We're here,' Kraiklyn said eventually, his voice crackling in Horza's ear.
Lamm turned his transmit channel on.
'What?' He looked, mystified, at Horza, who shrugged.
'What's keeping you two?' Kraiklyn said. 'We had further to walk. We're at the
main bows. They stick further out than the bit you're on.'
'The hell you are, Kraiklyn,' Yalson broke in from the other team, which was
supposed to be heading for the opposite set of side prows.
'What?' Kraiklyn said. Lamm and Horza stopped to listen to the exchange over
their communicators. Yalson spoke again:
'We've just come to the edge of the ship. In fact I think we're a bit out from
the main side .
. . on some sort of wing or buttress . . . Anyway, there's no side prow around
here. You've sent
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'But you . . . ' Kraiklyn began. His voice died away.
'Kraiklyn, dammit, you've sent us towards the bow and you're on a side prow!'
Lamm yelled into his helmet mike. Horza had been coming to the same [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]