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sets of poles which hung from the ceiling. Perhaps a hundred of them filled
the room, like fishing nets hung out to dry.
'They must have found them comfortable, I guess,' Horza said. He looked round.
There was nowhere the Mind could have hidden. 'Let's go,' he said. 'Balveda,
come on.'
Balveda left one of the net-beds swinging gently, and wondered if there were
any working baths or showers in the place.
He reached up to the console. He pulled with all his strength and got his head
onto the seat. He used his neck muscles as well as his aching, feeble arm to
lever himself up. He pushed round and swivelled his torso. He gasped as one of
his legs caught on the underside of the seat and he almost fell back. At last,
though, he was in the seat.
He looked out over the massed controls, through the armoured glass and into
the broad tunnel beyond the train's sloped nose; lights edged the black walls;
steel rails snaked glittering into the distance.
Quayanorl gazed into that still and silent space and experienced a small, grim
feeling of victory; he had just remembered why he'd crawled there.
'Is that it?' Yalson said. They were in the control room, where the station
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functions were monitored. Horza had turned on a few screens, checking figures,
and now sat at a console, using the station's remote-control cameras to take a
final look at the corridors and rooms, the tunnels and shafts and caverns.
Balveda was perched on another huge seat, swinging her legs, looking like a
child in an adult's chair.
'That's it,' Horza said. 'The station checks out; unless it's on one of the
trains, the Mind isn't here.' He switched to cameras in the other stations,
flicking through in ascending order. He paused at station five, looking down
from the cavern roof at the bodies of the four medjel and the wreckage of the
Mind's crude gun carrier, then tried the roof camera in station six . . .
They haven't found me yet. I can't hear them properly. All I can hear is their
tiny footsteps. I
know they're here, but I can't tell what they're doing. Am I fooling them? I
detected a mass sensor, but its signal vanished. There is another. They have
it here with them but it can't be working properly; maybe fooled as I hoped,
the train saving me. How ironic.
They may have captured an Idiran. I heard another rhythm in their step. All
walking, or some with AG? How did they get in here? Could they be the Changers
from the surface?
I would give half my memory capacity for another remote drone. I'm hidden but
I'm trapped. I
can't see and I can't hear properly. All I can do is feel. I hate it. I wish I
knew what is going on.
Quayanorl stared at the controls in front of him. They had worked out a lot of
their functions earlier, before the humans had arrived. He had to try to
remember it all now. What did he have to do first? He reached forward, rocking
unsteadily on the alien-shaped seat. He flicked a set of switches. Lights
blinked; he heard clicks.
It was so hard to remember. He touched levers and switches and buttons. Meters
and dials moved to new readings. Screens flickered; figures began blinking on
the readouts. Small high noises bleeped and squeaked. He thought he was doing
the right things, but couldn't be sure.
Some of the controls were too far away, and he had to drag himself halfway on
top of the console, being careful not to alter any of the controls he had
already set, to reach them, then shove himself back into the seat again.
The train was whirring now; he could feel it stir. Motors turned, air hissed,
speakers bleeped and clicked. He was getting somewhere. The train wasn't
moving but he was slowly bringing it closer to the moment when it might.
His sight was fading, though.
He blinked and shook his head, but his eye was giving out. The view was going
grey before him;
he had to stare at the controls and the screens. The lights on the tunnel wall
in front, retreating into the black distance, seemed to be dimming. He could
have believed that the power was failing, but he knew it wasn't. His head was
hurting, deep inside. Probably it was sitting that was causing it, the blood
draining.
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