As it turned out, I was right. I wasn't surprised. It's what I would have done.
The chew-after was a miasmal waste. As far as the eye could see, which wasn't far at all given the clinging sap-mists from the night before, the land was a gouged, punished rain of ripped shoots, shredded plant-fibre, wrenched-up root balls and pressure-flattened soil. The massive track-marks of the harvesters had left wide ruts the depth of a man's waist, at the bottom of which plant material and soil was layered into a glassy flatness like they had been set in aspic.
The misty air was wet with sap and everything was crawling with lice motes and storm-bugs. They swarmed in the air, settled all over us, and we could feel them in our clothes.
By then, although we maintained our twist disguises, we were all armed and armoured at full strength. One doesn't walk into a likely trap with a blackpowder pistol and a sharp stick. I wore body armour, and carried my power sword and boltpistol. The others were similarly heavy with bat-tlegear. If we were caught now, maintaining the pretence we were twists would be the last of our problems.
Ten kilometres south, through the swirling, sticky mists, we could hear the chugging, rending sounds of the harvesters as they moved on their way. Every few metres there was another bloody smear or furry pulp, the remains of crop rodents caught in the reaping blades of the factory machines.
"You'd think/ said Inshabel, pausing to wipe the gooey sweat from his face, 'that the wildlife would have got used to the farm-factories by now. Learned to get out of the way.'
'Some things never learn/ Husmaan muttered. 'Some things always come back to the source/
'He means food. He always means food/ Nayl chuckled to me. To Duj, everything comes back to food/
According to mill statistics/ said Aemos, 'there are four billion crop-rats in every demitare of field space. Rivers of them flee before the harvesters. We've seen one rat-corpse for every twenty-two metres, which suggests only two-point-two per cent of them were unlucky enough to be caught in the blades. That means the vast percentage fled. They're smarter than you think/
He paused. Everyone had stopped and was staring at him.
What?' he asked. What? I was only saying…'
'That old geezer fantisises about maths and stats more'n I fantisise about the lay-dies/ Nayl told Bequin as we moved forward again.
'I'm not sure which of you I'm supposed to feel more sorry for/ she said.
Husmaan held up the tracker the Porcupine-girl had given us and shook it. Then he slapped it a couple of times for good measure.
We waded through the plant fibre and came level with him.
'Problem?' I asked.
'Damn thing… too old/
'Let me see it/
Husmaan handed it to me. It was a piece of crap, all right. Battered by a lifetime of hard knocks, with a nearly flat powercell. A nice touch that, I thought, noting Lyko's careful planning. An unreliable tracker made this seem so much more genuine. A brand new or well-powered unit would have been as good as a written invitation beginning 'Dear people chasing me, please come here and get killed.
I shook the device myself and got a good return. Just enough juice to lead us to our deaths.
That way/1 said.
It was close to noon. The sun was up, but the sap-mists hadn't dissipated. We were bathed in a warm, yellow, filmy glare. According to the tracker, we were about half a kilometre from the auction site.
'They're expecting me and Nayl, so we'll go in with Bequin/1 wanted an untouchable close to me. 'Inshabel, cut east with Aemos. Husmaan, west. Covering positions. Don't move in unless you hear me vox a direct command. Understand?'
The three nodded.
'If you find anything, keep it Glossia and keep it brief. Go/
Nathun Inshabel armed his lascarbine and moved away to the left with Aemos along a harvester track-bed, leaving tacky footprints in the glassy,
crashed residue at the bottom of the huge rat. Husmaan's hempcloth-wrapped long-las was already armed. He darted away to the right, quickly lost in the mist.
