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Car took to rivers twice, bumping and twisting down their courses, ducking
under bridges, splashing through shallows and bridging over the deeper pools,
rigid links between the carriages supporting each one in turn.
In the evening light the Car passed along the shore of the Scodde Sea, over
gravel fields and open meadows where a variety of grazing animals fled from
it, bouncing and leaping across the grasslands in bleating, bellowing herds.
As the Car turned a corner round a farm wall, she saw the
Lesson Learneds leading carriage, and caught a glimpse of some brown shapes
running underneath, between the vehicle's first two sets of giant wheels.
She had heard that some animals ran on just in front or underneath Land Cars
for hours at a time, until their strength or their hearts gave out and they
fell.
She looked away.
She rose on the last day she would spend in the Car. A line of white piled
clouds ahead marked the Airthit
Mountains; beyond lay Yadayeypon. The hills and forests thickened out of the
arable land of Marden County as the
Lesson Learned started to gain height again. She had given up trying to get
them to take messages; they still hadn't answered the door buzzer.
She watched the trees thin and disappear; when the wind-torn clouds parted
above, it was to reveal distant peaks, sharp and brilliant white. The air in
the cell became cold and her breathing became laboured. Then they were through
the pass and descending into trees again. The
Lesson Learned had entered Yadayeypon Province.
She sat in the steeply tipped cell, swallowing and yawning now and again to
clear her ears as the air pressure increased, and thought of how she might
kill herself.
But she could not see suicide as a way of cheating them; rather it would feel
like giving in. It was probably the sensible thing to do, but it would be
ignominious. She thought she understood now the old warrior codes which held
that when every other choice and freedom had been removed from one, it was
still possible to confound the enemy by dying well, no matter how terrified
one felt. Certainly she had not felt so without hope since her ship had been
tumbling powerless towards Nachtel's Ghost, fifteen years earlier, but she had
survived that. At a cost, perhaps, but she had survived.
She hadn't slept well during the night, as every revolution of these great
wheels brought her closer to Yadayeypon, and the fear and despair grew inside
her. She sat cross-legged on the bunk, trying to cheer herself up, until the
very desperation of her attempts became pathetic and she wept.
After a while she fell asleep again, wan and exhausted, against the slope of
trembling bulkhead behind her narrow cot.
She woke suddenly and didn't dare hope it was what she thought it might be. An
explosion shook the cell, jarring her teeth; she passed through fear, elation
and back to fear again in a second.
A jolt sent her flying off the bunk; she landed on all fours on the floor. She
could hear gunfire. The cell tipped as the carriage rattled and bounced along
an incline, jarring her and everything in it. She struggled up the slope to
the bunk and grabbed the window bars, trying to see outside.
The Land Car's tall shadow was flung up a steep, grassy hillside towards a
distant line of trees; the vehicle was crashing over and through what looked
like dry stone walls. A smoky trail appeared suddenly from underneath the
carriage in front, crossed a small field and detonated against a wall in a
dirty fountain of earth and stone. A ripple
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shook the cell and vibrated through the bars in her hands as a part of the
Lesson Learned's shadow five or six carriages along was suddenly obscured in a
dark, blossoming cloud. There was a flash of light from one end of the stand
of trees. Something burst from the carriage in front of her, spraying
wreckage: the cell leapt around her. A light tank in dazzle camouflage
appeared from the trees, tearing down the hillside towards the Land Car; earth
exploded into the air in front of it.
There was a terrific crash from behind her, she had a brief impression of the
front of the Land Car's shadow twisting and of the light tank firing again,
then the cell whipped and heaved around her, shaking her like a dice in a cup.
The carriage rolled right over six times. She was conscious through it all.
She fought the urge to brace herself and just went limp, crashing round the
cell with the cot's mattress and sleeping bag flopping and falling continually
around her; it was like being trapped in a tumble drier. She had time to
reflect that there was something to be said for padded cells, and that you
could tell each time the wheels hit the ground because the bounce was slightly
different.
It stopped; she was weightless for a moment, then slammed into the padded cell
door, hurting her left shoulder.
The mattress and sleeping bag fell on top of her.
Another massive crash shook the whole carriage.
There was silence.
She stood awkwardly, rubbing her shoulder and feeling her head, looking for
bruises or blood. Gunfire sounded in the distance.
She tried to climb up to the bunk but there was nothing to hold on to. She
jumped, caught the window bars and pulled herself up, ignoring the pain in her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]