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The Changer and the two females were in the train control area with the
engineer Wubslin.
Unaha-Closp saw them, and went forward to the access ramps and the nearest
door. As it got there it paused. Air moved gently; hardly anything, but it was
there; it could feel it. Obviously with the power on, some automatic systems
were circulating more fresh air from the surface or through atmospheric
scrubbing units.
Unaha-Closp went into the train.
'Unpleasant little machine, that,' Xoxarle said to Aviger. The old man nodded
vaguely. Xoxarle had noticed that the man looked at him less when he was
speaking to him. It was as though the sound of his voice reassured the human
that he was still tied there, safe and sound, not moving.
On the other hand, talking - moving his head to look at the human, making the
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occasional shrugging motion, laughing a little - gave him excuses to move and
so to slip the wires a little further. So he talked; with luck the others
would be on the train for a while now, and he might have a chance to escape.
He would lead them a merry dance if he got away into the tunnels, with a gun!
'Well, they should be open,' Horza was saying. According to the console in
front of him and
Wubslin, the doors in the reactor car had never been locked in the first
place. 'Are you sure you were trying to open them properly?' He was looking at
the engineer.
'Of course,' Wubslin said, sounding hurt. 'I know how different types of locks
work. I tried to turn the recessed wheel; catches off . . . OK, this arm of
mine isn't perfect, but, well . . .
it should have opened.'
'Probably a malfunction,' Horza said. He straightened, looking back down the
train, as though trying to see through the hundred metres of metal and plastic
between him and the reactor car.
'Hmm. There's not enough room there for the Mind to hide, is there?'
Wubslin looked up from the panel. 'I wouldn't have thought so.'
'Well, here I am,' Unaha-Closp said testily, floating through the door to the
control deck.
'What do you want me to do now?'
'You took your time searching that other train,' Horza said, looking at the
machine.
'I was being thorough. More thorough than you, unless I misheard what you were
saying before I
came in. Where might there be enough room for the Mind to hide?'
'The reactor car,' Wubslin said. 'I couldn't get through some of the doors.
Horza says according to the controls they ought to be open.'
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'Shall I go back and have a look, then?' Unaha-Closp turned to face Horza.
The Changer nodded. 'If it isn't asking too much,' he said levelly.
'No, no,' Unaha-Closp said airily, backing off through the door it had entered
by, 'I'm starting to enjoy being ordered about. Leave it to me.' It floated
away, back through the front carriage, towards the reactor car.
Balveda looked through the armoured glass, at the rear of the train in front,
the one the drone had been looking through.
'If the Mind was hiding in the reactor car, wouldn't it show up on your mass
sensor, or would it be confused with the trace from the pile?' She turned her
head slowly to look at the Changer.
'Who knows?' Horza said. 'I'm not an expert on the workings of the suit,
especially now it's damaged.'
'You're getting very trusting, Horza,' the Culture agent said, smiling
faintly, 'letting the drone do your hunting for you.'
'Just letting it do some scouting, Balveda,' Horza said, turning away and
working at some more of the controls. He watched screens and dials and meters,
changing displays and readout functions, trying to tell what was going on, if
anything, in the reactor car. It all looked normal, as far as he could tell,
though he knew less about the reactor systems than about most of the train's
other components from his time as a sentinel.
'OK,' Yalson said, turning her chair to one side, putting her feet upon the
edge of one console and taking her helmet off. 'So what do we do if there's no
Mind there, in the reactor car?
Do we all start touring round in this thing, take the transit tube, or what?'
'I don't know that taking a mainline train is a good idea,' Horza said,
glancing at Wubslin. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]