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work with, they could be something of a mixed blessing; while a figure in the
air tended to be harder to hit than one on the ground, it also tended to
attract a lot more fire. The only other person in the Company with AG was
Kraiklyn, but he said he preferred to use his for surprise or in emergencies,
so he was still on the ground with the rest of them.
'I'm at the walls!' Horza thought it was Odraye's voice. 'This looks all
right. The walls are really easy; the moss makes it - '
Horza's helmet speaker crackled. He wasn't sure if there was something wrong
with his communicator or if something had happened to Odraye.
' - ver me while I'm - '
' - on you useless - ' Voices clashed in Horza's helmet. He kept wading
through the cane grass, and thumped the side of his helmet.
' - asshole!' The helmet speaker buzzed, then went silent. Horza swore and
stopped, crouching down. He fumbled with the communicator controls at the side
of the helmet, trying to coax the speaker back into life. His too-big gloves
hindered him. The speaker stayed silent. He cursed again and got to his feet,
pushing through the scrub and long grass to the temple wall.
' - rojectiles inside!' a voice yelled suddenly. 'This - . . . - cking
simple!' He couldn't identify the voice, and the speaker went dead again
immediately.
He arrived at the base of the wall; it slanted out of the scrub at about forty
degrees and was covered in moss. Further along, two of the Company were
clambering up it, almost at the top, about seven metres above. Horza saw a
flying figure weaving through the air and disappearing over the parapet. He
started climbing. The clumsily large suit made it more difficult than it
should have been, but he got to the top without falling and jumped down from
the parapet onto a broad wall-
walk. A similar moss-covered wall sloped up to the next storey. To Horza's
right the wall turned a corner beneath a stubby tower; to his left the
wall-walk seemingly disappeared into a blank cross-
wall. According to Kraiklyn's plan Horza was supposed to head along that way.
There ought to be a door there. Horza jogged along towards the blank wall.
A helmet bobbed up from the side of the sloped wall. Horza started to duck and
swerve, just in case, but first an arm waved from the same place, then both
helmet and arm appeared, and he recognised the woman Gow.
Horza threw back the visor on his helmet as he ran, getting a faceful of
jungle-scented
Marjoin air. He could hear some rattling projectile fire from inside the
temple, and the distant thud of an exploding Microhowitzer round. He ran up to
a narrow entrance cut in the sloped wall, half covered by streamers of mossy
growth. Gow was kneeling, gun ready, on the splintered remains of a heavy
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wooden door which had blocked the passageway beyond. Horza knelt beside her
and pointed at his helmet.
'My communicator's out. What's been happening?'
Gow touched a button on her wrist, and her suit PA said, 'OK so far. No hurts.
They on towers.' She pointed up. 'Them no fly go in. They enemy got projectile
guns only, them fall back.'
She nodded and kept glancing round through the doorway and into the dark
passageway beyond. Horza nodded too. Gow tapped his arm. 'I tell Kraiklyn you
go in, yes?'
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'Yeah, tell him my communicator's out, OK?'
'Yeah, sure. Zallin same trouble had. You be safe, OK?'
'Yeah, you be safe, too,' Horza said. He stood up and entered the temple,
scuffing over splinters of wood and fragments of sandstone scattered over the
moss by the door's demolition. The dark corridor branched three ways. He
turned back to Gow and pointed. 'Centre corridor, correct?'
The crouched figure, silhouetted against the light of the dawn, nodded and
said, 'Yeah, sure.
Go middle.'
Horza set off. The corridor was covered in moss. Every few metres dim yellow
electric lights burned from the walls, casting murky pools of light which the
dark moss seemed to absorb. Soft-
walled, sponge-floored, the narrow passage made Horza shiver, though it wasn't
cold. He checked that his gun was ready to fire. He could hear no other sound
apart from his own breathing.
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