He was starting to fall through the air, the gateway only a bodylength away now. He brought Chay out from the side of his chest, moving her to a more central position, grasping her with both forelimbs as he pushed her in front of him. If there was really only one more person, one more coded consciousness allowed through, let it be her. He would have to take his chances here, accept whatever extra punishment these fiends could devise.
She might be in no state to tell what had befallen them, of course; she might forget or deny all they had experienced. She might not believe it had happened at all. She had denied the existence of the Real while she was here, surrendering all too easily to the grinding actuality of the horror around her; why would she not likewise deny the unbelievable gruesomeness of Hell once she was safely back in the Real, if she was even able to remember it properly?
What if she remained catatonic on the other side? What if she really had gone mad and no return to reality would change that?
Was he to be gallant to the point of stupidity, or hard-headed to the point of selfishness, just wanting to save his own skin?
He tucked himself in, balling up and tumbling, somersaulting through the air as the blue-glowing doorway rushed towards him. He would go through first, holding Chay out behind him.
He would never abandon her. She might abandon him.
At that point the contraband code’s run-time reached its end. He changed back immediately, an instant before the two little Pavulean bodies flew into the blue glowing mist.
Seven
The Halo 7 rolled magisterially across the misty plain, its stately progress marked by little lofted tufts and wisps of vapour which seemed to cling longingly to its tubes and spars as though reluctant to let go. The giant Wheel left a temporarily cleared track through the mist behind it like a wake, affording glimpses of the land beneath before the silent grey presence flowed slowly back in.
Veppers floated in the pool, looking out over the misted landscape to where some high, rounded hills rose out of the grey, maybe twenty or more kilometres away. The water around him trembled and pulsed as the pool car’s shock absorbers struggled to iron out the Halo 7’s trundling progress across the mist-swaddled terrain.
The Halo 7 was a Wheel, a vehicle built to navigate the great plains, rolling hills and shallow inland seas of Obrech, Sichult’s principal continent. One hundred and fifty metres in diameter by twenty across, the Halo 7 looked entirely like a giant fairground wheel which had broken free from its supports and gone rolling across the land.
The Veprine Corporation’s Planetary Heavy Industries Division (Sichult) constructed several standard sizes and types of Wheel. Most were mobile hotels, taking the rich on cruises across the continent; the Halo 7, Veppers’ own privately owned vehicle, was the grandest and most impressive of the largest spokeless class, being no greater in diameter than the rest but possessing thirty-three rather than thirty-two gondolas.
The Halo 7’s separate cars held sumptuous bedroom suites, banqueting halls, reception rooms, two separate pool and bath complexes, gyms, flower-filled terraces, kitchens, kitchen gardens, a command and communication pod, power and services units, garages for ground vehicles, hangars for fliers, boat-houses for speedboats, sailboats and minisubs, and quarters for crew and servants. Much more than a mode of transport, the Halo 7 was a mobile mansion.
Rather than being fixed to the Wheel’s rims, the thirty-three cars could alter position, either at Veppers’ whim or according to the dictates of the landscape beneath; negotiating – and especially traversing – a steep slope, where there was no ready-made Wheel road, all the heavier pods could be brought down close to the ground, preventing the device from becoming dangerously top-heavy and so allowing it take on angles of lean that looked both unlikely and alarming. Perched at the top in a gimballed observation gondola during such a manoeuvre, Veppers had been known to take great delight in terrifying guests with that trick. Getting from one pod to another could mean as little as a single step if the cars had been brought up against each other, or a ride in one of several circumferential elevator units that moved round a smaller-diameter ring fixed inside the Wheel’s principal structure.
Veppers gazed out at the distant blue hills, trying to remember if he owned them or not.
“Are we still within the estate?” he asked.
Jasken was standing at the pool-side, keeping politely out of his master’s view. Jasken was scanning the misty landscape, the Enhancing Oculenses covering his eyes zooming in on details, revealing the ground’s mostly chilly heat signature and showing him any radio sources. “I’ll ask,” he said, and muttered something, putting a finger to the comms bud attached to his ear as he listened. “Yes, sir,” he told Veppers. “Captain Bousser informs us we are about thirty kilometres inside the estate’s boundaries.” Jasken used a small keypad on the back of the cast covering his left arm to call up the requisite overlay on the view the Oculenses were presenting. Thirty klicks was about right.