The Marriage of the Living Dark

A minute, then, at most

Daniel swallowed. The vibration had become a steady shaking. Clods of earth were jiggling up and down on the slope just beneath them. The whole of the platform was resounding now like a struck gong.

As Ju Dun snatched the gun from the charge-nipple and turned, the whole of the bank just in front of them seemed to rear up, changing from black to red in an instant.

Daniel blinked, his mind not taking in what had happened. Then he understood. Ants. Red ants. Millions of the little fuckers. Not big, like the rest of the mechanoids, but tiny.

“Oh, shit...”Christian’s flamer roared momentarily, taking out the first wave of ants, but even as he went to spray them a second time, the fuel feed stuttered and went out.

Daniel turned and looked Ants were all over Christian’s back They had chewed through the feed line. And in a moment...

He gave the order almost without thinking, knowing how much of a risk it was, and knowing that there was nothing -absolutely nothing - else he could do. “Seal!”

And as the word died in his throat, he depressed the button on his chest and the world outside went white.

Daniel woke with a continuous high-pitched whine in his head. All about him piles of the ants lay inert where the sonic light-stunner had gone off. He lifted his head a fraction. “Aidan?”

There was a faint groan on Aidan’s channel.

“Ju Dun?”

The answer came back crisply. “Here!”

Daniel couldn’t see from where he lay, but he knew, without having to look, that Ju Dun was already on his feet “Christian?”

There was a moment’s silence, then Ju Dun answered. “He’s dead. His suit cracked.”

Daniel pulled himself up slowly, feeling as if someone had glued all of his limbs very loosely to his torso. He could still feel the shock wave in his bones. The same shock wave that had destroyed the sensitive mechanisms of the ants.

Turning, he saw at once what Ju Dun meant Christian lay there, a great jagged rent in the back of his armour. And where his flesh had been exposed, it had a transparent, almost jellied bloodiness.

For the best, perhaps, he thought, wondering how, even if Christian had survived the journey across Eden, he would have survived living without his soul-mate Johann.

But he didn’t give in. Not even after Johann’s death. He grieved and then got on with it.

WHITE SPACE

Daniel bent down and picked up one of the tiny ants between his thumb and forefinger. Taking a tiny pick-lock from the neck of his suit - one he normally used to adjust the visor mechanism - he prised the minute shell of the creature apart and looked.

Incredible, he thought, spilling it out onto his open palm. Such workmanship.

Shepherd’s, he knew instinctively. This has to be Shepherd’s work. It was like the jewelled clock Dublanc had in his room - the one with the transparent back that let you see the workings. Only this was much smaller and more delicate and the workings were far more complex. The whole of Eden was a warped creation. A land of wonders turned into a horror show. And why?

He kept returning to the question.

Why did The Man force his boys through such a violent rite of passage? Why, if he said he loved and cared for them, was he prepared to see them die in so cruel a manner?

Daniel turned. Aidan was on his feet now, dusting himself off. Ju Dun was off to the left, his gun at his shoulder, looking for anything coming in. Daniel studied the terrain, comparing it to the map he held in his head. The Exit Gate was not far now. Two-and-a-half kilometres at most If they headed directly north-east they could get there in two hours. The map. He stared at the map in his head, realising suddenly that there was only one remaining gap in it, there at the very centre of it all. A gap. Or was there something there. Something that Eden was designed to push them away from.

“Well?” Aidan said, gesturing towards the Gate. “Are we going or not?”