The Final Nexus – Chapter Ten

The Final Nexus – Chapter Ten

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When I woke up I was out of the chair and the helmet had been removed – at least, there was nothing constraining me. But I couldn’t see anything, and for a terrifying moment I thought I had gone blind. I sat up – I’d been lying down when I woke up – and clutched at my face, and then I discovered that there were bandages wrapped around my head. I scrabbled about, trying to find the end of the bandage, and someone put a hand on my arm.

“Relax,” said a woman’s voice in my ear. “You’ll be able to take them off shortly. You’re perfectly safe. Lie back down and I’ll find Xan.”

I lay down again, discovering that there was a mound of cushions behind me. I had absolutely no idea of what was going on, but the positives were that I was still alive and that I seemed to somewhere that was warm and comfortable. How long that might last was another matter, but there didn’t seem to be much point in worrying about it now.

A few minutes later I felt someone come and sit down beside me.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, and I recognised the voice of the boy who had captured us.

“Fine,” I said. “Why is my head bandaged?”

“It doesn’t need to be any longer,” he said. “Sit up and I’ll take it off.”

So I sat up again, and this time I felt the bandage being undone and then removed. I opened my eyes and found myself in a darkened… well, it wasn’t a room as such because there were curtains all round it rather than walls… perhaps I should call it a cubicle, which contained only the large bed I was lying on and a chest at the foot of the bed. I groped around instinctively, looking for my glasses, but I couldn’t find them – and then I realised that I didn’t need them, either: I could see perfectly clearly without them. I turned to look at Xan and found him grinning at me again – and now he had finally removed his helmet, revealing that he had very long black hair, piled up on top of his head in a complicated topknot.

“Eye surgery?” I queried. “Why?”

“Because the control helmets won’t fit properly if you have those things sitting on top of your ears,” he told me. “And because they’d be a damned nuisance in a fight, getting steamed up at the wrong moment or falling off when someone’s trying to cut you in half with a pike. Not that you’ll have to worry about that for a while…we’re pretty sure Khan’s mob have crossed the Ditch too, but they don’t seem to be anywhere near us. So for now all you need to do is relax. We can start your training tomorrow.”

“Training? What training?” I said. “I don’t understand half of what you’re talking about!”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. There’s going to be a hell of a lot for you to take in, so it’s probably best not to worry about it for now – I’ll make sure you get a chance to pick everything up as we go along. Anyway, I’m Xan Temur, as I told you when you got here. That’s Xan spelled X-A-N in the western alphabet, even though it’s pronounced ‘Zhan’. It’s a Chinese X, sort of. Who are you?”

“I’m Jake Stone. What is this place?”

“This is the Horde of General Lee. I’ll explain all about it later – there’ll be plenty of time for that, because I’m assigned to you for as long as it takes. Actually, I claimed you – that’s why you’re wearing my mark on your arm, to show that you’re mine.” And he indicated the thick metal bracelet he had clamped around my upper arm.

“Yours?” I said. “As in, your slave?”

He laughed loudly.

“God, no!” he said, once he got his breath back. “We don’t have slaves! It’s true that back in the old days – the very old days – that might have happened, but not now. No, you’re my trainee. It’s my responsibility to teach you everything you need to know. Actually, you’re my first trainee – I only became band leader a couple of months ago, and you’re the first people we’ve taken since.”

“Band leader?” I said.

“Yes – you’re now a part of Xan’s Golden Riders. Not that we’ve found much gold to wear yet… still, I’m sure we will eventually.

“Let’s back up a bit. So far we’ve fixed your eyes and dealt with the language problem – and that seems to have gone without a hitch, too. You’ll hear several languages here, of course, but you’ve now got the common tongue – everyone can speak and understand this one. It’s what you might call our official language.”

“And what is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what language is it? I know a bit about languages, but I don’t recognise a single word of this one. I’ve had languages implanted before, so it’s no problem using it, but I’d like to know where it comes from.”

“It doesn’t come from anywhere in particular. It’s a sort of combination of bits of several different languages. Every culture we’ve passed through has contributed to it. The Central System keeps it up to date, and we get monthly update sessions ourselves, because it’s a language that is constantly changing. If you want to give it a label I suppose you’d call it Horde Common.”

“Right. So if I’ve had a language implanted and had my eyes seen to… how long have I been here?”

“Six days. The Central System kept your body in full working order while you were asleep, but it would be a good idea for you to get some exercise soon. Maybe we could do something after lunch. Can you ride?”

“What, on a horse? No!”

“Pity. Still, you’ll learn. I’ll take you out for a ride tomorrow. Today we’ll just do a little martial art stuff instead.”

“But I can’t do that either… don’t tell me: I’ll learn.”

“You certainly will. Are you hungry? I fancy something to eat. Come on.”

He stood up, helped me to my feet, opened one of the curtains and led me out into a narrow corridor. And it looked completely chaotic, like pictures I’d seen on the news of refugee camps, with people living on top of each other with only curtains for privacy: there were beds and chests and little else in each cubicle. But the people didn’t look remotely like refugees: they seemed completely happy, and they looked well-fed, and some of them exchanged a joke or two with Xan as we went past.

He took me to what appeared to be a small buffet restaurant, grabbing a plate from a pile by the door and heading for the table of food at one side of the room. Here he helped himself to rice, noodles and about three different types of meat. I didn’t know what anything was, so I took the same things as he did – I presumed he knew what he was doing. He led me to a small table in a corner and started to tuck in.

“Like it?” he asked, after a couple of minutes.

“Yes, it’s great! What is it?”

“That’s beef, that’s… yes, I’m pretty sure that really is chicken, and the rest is vegetable construct and flavourings.”

“I’d have sworn this was real meat,” I said, indicating something I’d thought was duck.

“No, that’s definitely construct. It’s got all the nutrition you need, but it looks most unappetising in its pure form, so the System flavours it and makes it look like meat.”

I took another bite, and I’d still have sworn it was duck. “Why do you use any real meat at all if the artificial stuff can taste this good?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I suppose we don’t really need to, but our people have a history of raising cattle, and it would be a pity to lose that tradition. And some people think we need to keep eating real meat in order to stay strong. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I’m happy to eat it, anyway. Now, once we’ve eaten we need to see about finding you some clothes. The ones you’re wearing are about due for a wash, I think.”

“Okay. And then can I see my friends?”

“Well… not right away. The pretty one is off with my deputy, and the boy in the chair is still with the medics. But you’ll see the pretty one at supper. Why, are you and he partners?”

“No – well, not really. He’d like it if we were, but…”

“Ah. You prefer girls.”

“No, it’s not that. I like boys, but I have a boyfriend already. He’s a long way away, but I still want to get back to him if I can.”

“Good. I mean it’s good that you prefer boys. I was hoping that I’d read you right… you can tell me about your boyfriend this evening if you like, and about how it is that you and he are not together.”

We finished eating and he took me to another room. This one contained a computer terminal, something that looked like an old-fashioned mainframe computer that took up one wall, and a couple of young women who were playing cards and chatting. One of them was nursing a baby at the same time.

“Afternoon, ladies,” Xan greeted them. “Who’s in the chair?”

“That’d be me,” said the one without the baby. She stood up, moved to another seat next to the mainframe, very carefully put a helmet onto her head, flicked a switch on the side of the helmet and then went back to chatting with her friend.

Xan got me to stand at a particular spot against the wall that was marked out with measurements, told me to keep still, went to the terminal and hit a couple of keys. Various things buzzed, a couple of lines of light moved across my body, one horizontally and the other vertically, and then something went ‘beep’.

“That’s it,” Xan told me. “Now we have all your measurements. Give it a moment to access the catalogue… that’s it. Now come here, sit down and choose yourself some clothes. Remember, these are clothes for use inside the crawler – the machine will fit you out with some riding kit separately.”

It was like being let loose in a fancy-dress shop: there were all manner of styles and colours. But after a moment or two my usual rather conservative personality reasserted itself and I selected a shirt, pair of trousers and shoes not so very different from those I had been wearing when I arrived.

“That’s rather boring,” commented Xan. “Still, if that’s what you like to wear, fair enough. I’ll just order you a couple of other things, though…”

He pushed me to one side and tapped in a couple of numbers so quickly that I didn’t even get a glimpse of what he was ordering for me. Then he stood up and turned the machine off.

“Thanks, Zuli,” he said to the young woman in the helmet, though as far as I could see she had done nothing at all except to sit and talk to her friend.

“The clothes will be with us this afternoon,” he told me, leading me back along the corridor. “Now I’ll give you a bit of a tour round… except it would be better to start from my room, I think. Come on.”

Along another corridor, down some stairs, through another passage and down an even narrower flight of stairs we went, and then through a door and into another section that looked like a refugee camp, only slightly less well organised.

“This is where I live,” he said. “The rest of the band are here, too, and we’d like it if you could join us. You can stay where you were this morning if you prefer – there’s a bit more space up there, I think – but I’m hoping you’ll come in with us.”

This was another room full of curtained-off cubicles, and at the far end of the room was Xan’s space. This one had a little more furniture – as well as the bed (actually just a mattress on the floor, rather than a proper bed) and the chest there was a desk with an upright chair in front of it, a small sofa, and in the corner was something that I thought was the base unit of a shower but which turned out to be a basic hole-in-the-floor-type toilet. This was completely open, with no partition or even a curtain around it, but I supposed that if this was a one-person cubicle that wouldn’t matter much. Except it turned out that it wasn’t.

“We’ll try to find you a cubicle of your own in this room as soon as we can,” Xan told me, “but I’d like it if you could share with me to start with. After all, there’s a great deal I have to teach you, and it’ll be easier if we’re together.

“You’ll find your bag in the chest – I’ll get another chest brought in for you today, because you’ll need it once your clothes get here. Now, let’s have that tour I mentioned. Try to remember where everything is – I know it’ll be difficult at first, but it won’t take long before you’ll feel completely at home. Come on.”

He led me back through the room and into the corridor beyond, taking the first door on the left into a shower room.

“This is ours,” he said. “Don’t use the next one by mistake: it’s for females, and some of them get a bit annoyed if a man walks in on them. And some of our women carry knives, so you don’t want to annoy them.”

“Is there a proper supply of water, or are we limited to when we can use this?” I asked.

“No, there’s plenty of water, in this country at least. Even in a desert there’s enough most of the time – it gets recycled if necessary. Now, if we go up these stairs here we come to our mess hall – it’s Mess Hall Three, in case you get lost and have to ask someone. We use this for breakfast and supper – if you’re in the crawler and want to eat at midday you use one of the smaller places, like the one we were in earlier. They’re mostly on Deck Three, which is the next deck up.

“Most of Deck Six – that’s the bottom one – is taken up with the various machine rooms, the ones that deal with harvesting, food preparation and the engines, and some of the Central System computers are down there as well. That’s obviously because we want them properly protected if there’s an attack. The stables and garages are at the rear of Deck Six, and you’ll see those later on, and of course again when we go riding tomorrow.

“Four and Five are mostly accommodation decks. Two and Three are operational, with Central Control on Two, and I’ll take you up there later, once your new clothes have arrived – you’ll want to look decent to meet the general. And the top deck is armaments, observation and reconnaissance. I think that’s where you’ll be stationed for inside duty – the report said you’d have the capacity for the main armament, which is quite impressive. I’m up there, too – I deal with spotters, so it’ll be good if we’re working together.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand that bit,” I said. “What do you mean by ‘inside duty’? You make it sound as if I’ve become part of the crew.”

“Well, you have. There aren’t any passengers on the crawlers, Jake – everyone has a duty of some sort. The System thinks your brain capacity is good enough for an important job, and armaments is a good place to be stationed, because obviously most of the time you’re free – it’s only when we’re fighting that you’d need to be plugged in.”

“’Plugged in’? What does that mean?”

“It means connected to the System… look, don’t worry about it, Jake. I’ll explain it all as we go along. It’ll take you a while to get used to all this. I was born here, so I sometimes forget that new recruits don’t understand how things work around here.”

“But… I wasn’t intending to stay,” I protested. “I have to get back to my own world.”

“Ah, yes – you don’t come from this world at all, do you? Sorry, I was forgetting that.”

“You mean, you know about that?”

“Yes. Your young friend has been up and running for a couple of days – he didn’t need the eye job, after all. He’s told us all about it, and the scans that were done while you were asleep confirm it. In fact the general is going to want to talk to you about that – this whole business of moving from one world to another is fascinating. Not that we really need to move ourselves: this world is close to perfect for us. But it’s an interesting subject, all the same.

“Anyway, from what I understand you need to be in a particular place to move from one world to another, and the one where you came to this world isn’t really available to you because the people there aren’t friendly. Now, we might be able to help you there, but that’s something only the general can decide. But you’re not a prisoner, Jake – you can leave any time you like, and if you do find another way to get back to where you belong we certainly won’t try to stop you. But until you do we’ll treat you just like one of us – you’ll share in our life completely. And you might find that you like it so much that you decide not to go back after all.”

“I’m not sure about that,” I said. “There are friends I want to get back to, and one in particular.”

“I understand that. Well, if I can do anything to help you get back to him I will. Now on the far side of the mess hall you’ll find the kitchen…”

He gave me a quick tour of the lower three decks of the crawler. There seemed to be computer systems everywhere – every room seemed to have a terminal of some sort, and some had several. There were several engine rooms on the bottom deck – apparently each track had a separate engine, which meant that if one engine broke down the crawler could keep moving regardless. Xan told me that even if as many as four engines failed the crawler could keep moving. There were also other engines which drove large fans – apparently the entire crawler could also function as sort of a hovercraft when crossing water or soft ground.

Also on Deck Six was the harvesting mechanism, which cut down any suitable vegetation that the crawler might be moving over for use as food, either for the crew or for their animals. Even ordinary grass could be used in the production of human food, apparently. I wasn’t too keen on that idea at first, but then I decided that if it could taste like roast duck I wouldn’t mind too much.

Next we visited the stable used by Xan’s band. Apparently there were a number of stables on the lower two decks, and most of the crew could ride – and, indeed, did so, both for recreation and in time of war. I’d never been on a horse in my life, and so Xan found me a horse that he said was easy-going and fairly placid – not necessarily the ideal war-horse, but a more comfortable choice for an absolute novice like me.

“Tomorrow we’ll go for a ride and you can try her out,” he told me. I fully expected to fall off, no matter how placid my mount, so I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

Once we’d finished our tour of the lower three decks we went back to our living quarters, and here we found that there was a package sitting on the sofa: my new clothes had arrived.

“Good,” said Xan. “So let’s go and have a shower, and then we’ll get you dressed in something presentable ready to meet the general.”

He took a couple of towels out of the chest, grabbed a couple of bottles of liquid soap from a box in the corner and led me towards the shower-room, but before we got there the door at the end of the room opened and Sam came in. He was dressed in a baggy Cossack-type shirt of emerald green, black trousers and riding boots, and he had a little black fur hat on his head. And I have to say that the clothes suited him perfectly.

“Jake!” he exclaimed, giving me a huge smile. “You’re awake! Are you okay? Isn’t this an amazing place?” And he ran towards me and jumped into my arms.

“I’ve been out on my horse,” he told me, hugging me hard. “I rode a horse a few times at the farm, but not a horse like this – she can really go! And Vanya’s teaching me martial arts, too! Oh, hello, Xan – will Jake be able to come out with us tomorrow?”

“I hope so,” said Xan. “But he says he’s never ridden a horse before, so he might not be able to come on patrol for a few days yet. We’ll have to see how he gets on.”

“All right. Look, I can’t stop now, Jake, because Vanya’s waiting for me – but perhaps we can talk properly this evening?”

“That’d be nice,” I said. “Xan said we’d see you at supper, so maybe we can arrange something then.”

“He’s obviously happy here,” I observed to Xan as Sam skipped away.

“Yes, he is. I’m glad I let Vanya overrule me there. See, strictly speaking Sam is still a child, because he hasn’t got any hair yet. But he’s thirteen, which is generally old enough to be considered a man, and Vanya saw something in him, which is why he claimed him. And he was right: he’s already looking like a decent rider, and he’s enthusiastic about everything. He’ll be a really good addition to the band.”

I followed him into the shower room, thinking that I, on the other hand, was likely to be a complete disappointment: I couldn’t ride, I couldn’t fight, and I couldn’t shoot straight, either, so why he was talking about me getting a job in the armaments department was beyond me.

There was nobody else in the shower room, which was a communal type like the ones at the Hub, though not quite so big. Xan got undressed and untied his hair, and now I saw how long it really was: it reached almost to the small of his back. I dumped my own clothes on the bench and followed him into the shower, and immediately I discovered one of the major benefits of corrective eye surgery (or whatever they had done to me): I could see clearly even under a shower. In the past, of course, I’d had to take my glasses off, which meant that I wasn’t able to appreciate my fellow bathers in the best way, but now I could see perfectly, and so I was able to admire Xan’s physique without blurred vision.

He wasn’t quite as tall as me – I was probably three or four inches taller – and he had excellent muscle definition, no doubt as the result of a lot of physical exercise. The long black hair looked amazing – I’ve mentioned before how much I like long hair on boys, and this was the longest I had ever seen, girls included. And when he turned to face me I was able to appreciate his other attributes, too. To start with, he was circumcised, so that gave us something in common. It was a little smaller than mine, but he had much more hair, a thick black forest around the base of his penis. And he had small tufts in his armpits, too, which is a stage of development I had yet to reach. I was suddenly aware that my body was starting to show signs of interest, so I quickly turned around and started washing my hair.

“You’ve missed a bit,” said a voice in my ear thirty seconds later, and there was Xan, standing right beside me. “Keep still…”

He moved the shower-head slightly, guided me into position and washed the last of the soap out of my hair.

“That’s better,” he said. “Would you like me to wash your back for you?”

“Well… all right, then,” I said. I didn’t like to say no… okay, then, I didn’t want to say no, either. And he did a wonderful job, applying a massage to my shoulders at the same time, and it felt so good that when he turned me round to face him I didn’t have the energy to resist.

“That looks good,” he said, looking down at my erection. “And it feels good, too,” he added, taking hold and stroking.

I don’t know how I didn’t explode all over him, but he let go before I disgraced myself. I was pleased to see that his was hard too – and also that I was definitely a bit bigger, probably by three-quarters of an inch or so.

“Come on,” he said, stepping back out of the water, “let’s get back to my room. We’ve got plenty of time before we have to see the general.”

He went back out to the changing area and started to towel himself down, and I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself down, switched off the water and followed him. By facing resolutely away from him I managed to get myself under control by the time I was dry.

“Good,” he said, approvingly. “Make sure your towel is done up securely – those are mixed quarters out there!” And he grinned at me, wrapped his towel around his waist, picked up his dirty clothes and stepped out into the corridor, holding the door open for me to follow him. We managed to get back to his cubicle without any accidents, and once we were inside he drew the curtain firmly shut, dumped the towel and his clothes in a container next to his desk, invited me to do the same with mine and then stepped over to the bed and lay down.

“Come on, then,” he said, holding the covers open for me. “Let’s get comfortable, and then you can tell me the story of your life.”

I dropped my towel and clothes into the container and went and lay down beside him, and he pulled the covers over us and lay back comfortably.

“I don’t know how it is in your world,” he said, “but here we take pleasures wherever they are offered. And I definitely got the impression that you were offering. Or was I wrong?”

I shook my head mutely.

“I thought not. You don’t need to look so nervous, Jake: I’m happy to do whatever you’re happy with… if that makes sense. I mean you take the lead and I’ll follow. But perhaps we ought to get to know each other a little better first – after all, so far we know each other’s names but nothing else. Well, I’m a child of the Horde – which means I don’t know who my father was: my mother was impregnated from the horde seed bank – which, I should warn you, you’ll be asked to contribute to before too long. I was born fourteen years and six months ago when the Horde was in Old France. I learned to ride when I was five years old, I like beef dumplings, my favourite colour is green, and I like boys with brains. Like you. Your turn.”

“Oh… well, I’m a couple of months older than you – which surprises me a bit, because I thought you were older than me. I was born in this country, though not in this world, and I’ve lived in another country for the past year and a half. I’ve never been on a horse in my life, but I can drive cars, provided that they’re automatics. I don’t really know what my favourite colour is – blue, I think. I’ve got a boyfriend, but he’s at least two worlds away from here and I don’t know when I’ll see him again. And I like good looking boys with nice muscles. Like you. Oh, and I really like boys with long hair, too. When did you last cut yours?”

“I can’t remember. When I was small I didn’t like getting it cut, and now I don’t have to. Of course, if it gets to the point where it’s tripping me up I might change my mind… look, Jake, I was serious about you taking the lead. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want – I respect the fact that you’ve got someone else. But I think we could have some fun together if you want us to.”

“I think I would like that, Xan. As long as you understand that if I get a chance to go back home I’ll take it.”

“Of course. And that might not be quite as difficult as you might think… Anyway, I’d really like to hear how you got here. How did you manage to end up two worlds away from your boyfriend?”

“Well…”

I rolled onto my side facing him and began to tell him how I had got from a small village in Oxfordshire to a different version of Hampshire, via several different worlds, a non-existent continent and a trip in an alien flying machine. He listened entranced, asking a question or two as the narrative continued, and at the end of my recitation he looked at me in admiration.

“That’s an amazing story,” he said. “So you and Sam and the other one all started out in different worlds? No wonder you’re so good at languages.”

“What about you?” I asked. “How did a machine with a big Chinese character on the front find its way to England?”

Xan looked at his watch. “That’s quite a long story as well,” he said, “and I don’t think we’ve got time for it now. I’ll tell you about it after supper. Right now we’d better get dressed and go and see the general. Do you think you could help me with my hair?”

He got up, walked over to the desk, took a mirror out of a drawer, set it up on the desk, took a brush out of the same drawer and handed it to me.

“Shouldn’t we get dressed first?” I asked.

“Why?”

“No reason.” I took the brush, and though I had no experience at all of brushing someone else’s hair I did what seemed logical, and Xan didn’t complain. When I thought it was looking as good as it was gong to get I put the brush down and stepped away, and he examined himself in the mirror and nodded.

“Good job, Jake. Thanks,” he said, taking a length of thin leather and tying his hair into a pony-tail. “I won’t bother tying it up tonight. I normally only do that when I’m either riding or fighting… yes, I know I said we’d do some martial arts this afternoon, but it was more fun listening to your history, so it can wait until tomorrow. Now, what are we going to wear? We could go with the riding out uniform… no, I think robes would be best. At least if that isn’t a perfect fit it won’t matter. So you’ll want this, this and these.”

He delved into the packet of clothing and extracted a long red robe with a broad white sash to use as a belt, a pair of sandals and what appeared to be a white cotton miniskirt.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“It’s an undergarment. It’s a lot healthier than those closed-off things you were wearing before. Try it.”

He took one like it out of his chest and wrapped it around his waist, doing it up with some sort of fastening on the right hand side. It took me a couple of attempts to get mine done up, and then it felt really strange: I was very much aware that my genitals were simply dangling unsupported beneath it.

“Good. Now the robe,” said Xan, slipping his own on with practised ease. It took me a little longer to work out which way around it wrapped, and I needed some help to get the sash tied, but we got there in the end. The sandals, at least, posed me no problem.

“Perfect!” said Xan, tying a green and gold ribbon around his neck. I thought the green clashed badly with the red of the robe, and so I wasn’t too put out when he told me he didn’t have a ribbon for me yet. And then he took me back out through the room and into the passage beyond.

I felt hideously conspicuous: I’d never worn anything like this before and was convinced that I looked a complete idiot, but in fact none of the people we passed gave me a second glance. Xan led me to a proper stairwell that went all the way up to the top of the crawler, took me up to Deck Two and through a door into another corridor, though this one was a little wider than the ones on the lower decks.

“Ready?” he said. And without waiting for a reply he opened the door at the end of the corridor and marched into the main control room with me at his heels.

The main control room looked like the bridge of a ship – or perhaps more like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, since the various crew members were sitting, rather than standing. But it looked like a 1950 version of the Enterprise, in that all of the computer equipment and other machinery around the walls looked old-fashioned even by the standards of my own world. Another strange thing was the number of crew members who were wearing helmets like the one worn by the woman in the clothing store, especially since these seemed to be doubling up with a lot of bare-headed crew. The helmeted people also seemed to by idling their time away playing cards or chess, reading books or – in one case – doing some knitting. I was sure that Captain Kirk would never allow knitting on the bridge of the Enterprise.

There was a large window – and I thought it was a real window and not a viewing screen – at the front of the room, and this looked out over the empty green landscape through which we’d travelled to reach the crawler. I didn’t know exactly where we were now: I knew I’d been unconscious for six days, but I had no idea of how fast the crawler was moving, if in fact it was moving at all: the landscape didn’t appear to be changing.

The captain’s chair was in about the same place as on the Enterprise, and the man in it stood up as we approached. He didn’t look that old, and nor did he look remotely Chinese: in fact he had pale skin and red hair. He was wearing a sort of red tail coat over a white shirt and white trousers tucked into riding boots, and there was a small round red and white hat – which did look a bit Chinese – perched on top of his head.

“Hello, Xan,” he said. “This is your second recruit, is it? Is this the one who knows about moving between worlds?”

“Yes, General.”

“Good. Come with me. Val, could you join us, please?”

He led us to a smaller room at the back of the main bridge, and a middle-aged woman followed us in and closed the door behind her.

“Sit down,” the general invited us, indicating a number of chairs around a polished wooden table. “This is Valeriya, my deputy.”

Valeriya was a tough-looking woman whose high cheekbones, short black hair and almond-shaped eyes suggested an ancestry somewhere further east than the general’s. She was also wearing a white shirt and white trousers, though her red jacket was shorter and rather more stylish than his coat.

“She’s also my partner,” the general continued, “which means that the operation of the Horde is as much her concern as mine. So, you’re the one whose memory-scan kept me fascinated for so long…”

For quite some time they quizzed me about my travels. Apparently they already knew quite a lot from studying the scan of my memory that had been done when I was unconscious, but they still had plenty of questions, mostly about the various peoples I had met in other worlds. I did my best to answer clearly every time.

“I’m surprised you’re so interested,” I commented at one point. “Xan tells me that this world is almost perfect for you, so why are you so interested in other places?”

“Two reasons,” said the general. “First, because we’re coming to the limits of this world. It’s true that it’ll be several years yet before we exhaust the resources of this country, but after that there’s nowhere else to go forward. Yes, there are other countries beyond the ocean, but the crawlers aren’t designed for a crossing of that magnitude. We had enough trouble just crossing the Ditch. So once we reach the limits of these islands we’ll have to stop and settle, and that isn’t really our way: we’re nomads. Of course we have left settlements behind us, and there will always be those who want to live in one place, but for nearly two hundred years we’ve been on the move, and most of us prefer to keep going.

“Second, war is almost a religion for us: we live for battle, and we’re running out of people to fight. Of course it’s still fun fighting each other, but at the height of our power we would combine to fight other enemies, and it would be good to be able to return to those days. I would greatly like to test myself against some of the peoples you have seen, especially those who have efficient military machines, such as the Empire centred on Germany, or that of the reptiles. To reassemble the Great Horde and take on such foes in battle would be to rekindle a flame that is dying. So you can understand why the concept of crossing to another world holds such attraction for us.

“There are of course problems: I understand that in most cases these crossing points are quite small, and so wouldn’t be able to accommodate the crawlers, and it would be out of the question to go without them. But there was a great deal of information about them in your memory, and the Central System is currently analysing it. Perhaps it will be possible for us to construct our own crossing-point, large enough for a crawler to pass through.”

I wasn’t sure if I was happy about that: there were already quite enough belligerent people with portal technology, and I didn’t think I’d want the Horde turning up in Elsass, any more than I wanted to see the Greys there, or the Arvelans, or the Marxists, or indeed anyone else. On the other hand, if they could master the technology it might give me another way home.

Shortly after that the general said that he had all he needed for now, but that he’d let me know if he thought of anything else. And then we were free to go to supper.

Xan took me down to the mess hall, which was laid out with long tables running almost the length of the room, with benches to sit on. There were already several people eating, including Sam, who stood up and waved as soon as he saw me. Xan and I went to the serving hatch to collect our food and then made our way to Sam’s table, and by getting everyone else to budge up a bit I was able to sit next to him.

“I really like your robe,” Sam greeted me. “I was scared to order one myself because I thought I’d look silly, but now that I’ve seen you I’ll have to ask Vanya if I can get one too. After all, I suppose it would be better to blend in a bit.”

Sam was wearing his Marxist Scout uniform, though without the beret. I thought he looked nice dressed like that, and I said so.

“Thanks, but I’m definitely going to try wearing stuff like everyone else does, I think. I already like the riding uniform – Vanya says the green goes with my eyes.”

Oh, does he, I thought, with a twinge of jealousy. Okay, I had no business feeling jealous: not only had I told Sam I really wanted to get back to Stefan, but I was also sharing a bed with Xan. But I couldn’t help the way I felt, and I didn’t like the idea of anyone else doing things with Sam.

“This is Vanya,” said Sam, indicating the boy sitting next to him and leaning back so that we could say hello.

Xan’s deputy was a boy of around my own age, and he was a good example of how mixed ancestry can combine into amazing good looks: he had shoulder-length blond hair (at least, I thought it was natural blond), very light brown skin and slightly slanted eyes with weird purple irises. He looked at me warily.

“Sam says you’re his best friend,” he told me. “Well, you don’t need to worry: I promise I’m looking after him.”

I wondered what Sam had told him about me, because Vanya seemed almost scared of me.

“I’m sure you are,” I said, smiling and offering my hand.

He relaxed, smiling back and taking it. “Sam says you’ll be joining us from tomorrow,” he said, “so you’ll be able to see for yourself how well he’s doing. He’s going to be a great rider!”

Of course that just reminded me that I wasn’t ever going to be a great rider, so I changed the subject , asking Xan how much of what we were eating was really vegetable construct. And he told me it was most of it. But it still tasted like meat to me, so I got on with it.

After supper Xan invited Vanya and Sam to come and play cards for a while in Xan’s room. I knew what would be going through Sam’s mind and, sure enough, after about ten seconds he asked me in English if we should challenge them to a game of strip poker.

“Not just yet,” I replied in the same language. “Let’s get settled in a bit first – after all, this is my first night here.”

“I bet it’s just because you’re scared of losing!”

Since I was only wearing four garments – and that was counting my sandals as two items – he was absolutely right, but I wasn’t going to say so.

“Let’s just wait until Dec is with us,” I suggested. “If he’s on our side we’ll never lose.”

“Is he definitely coming back, then?” he asked. “I was afraid maybe… well, I thought perhaps they think the same about disabled people here as they did in my world.”

“Xan, do you know when our other friend will be able to leave the medics?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. That brain of his isn’t like ours, and it might take them a while to get everything done. We can drop in tomorrow morning and ask, though.”

“Thanks, Xan, I’d like that.”

“Great!” said Sam, in English. “I was really worried… I like Dec a lot, and I didn’t want… well, you know.”

I nodded. “Me neither,” I said. I switched to Horde Common. “What are we playing, then?” I asked Xan.

“Since Vanya’s playing I thought we should play Idiot,” he replied, grinning at his deputy.

“Yes, you’re an expert at that,” replied Vanya. “You’re the biggest idiot in the entire Horde!”

“We’ll see,” said Xan, pushing the pack across the table to Vanya. “Cut?”

“Err, no!”

“You cut, then, Jake,” said Xan. But when I did so, he and Vanya laughed at me. “That makes you the idiot, Jake!” said Vanya, slapping me on the back. “Anyone who touches the cards before the deal is the idiot. Now you have to deal. Give us six cards each.”

I did so. This was a smaller pack than usual: when I’d finished dealing there were only twelve cards left. I was told to turn the first of this remnant face up to indicate trumps and then to put the remaining eleven cards on top of it. And the turned up card was nothing I recognised: the suit appeared to be horses – at least, there was a brown horse’s head underneath the squiggle that represented the number eight in Common.

The idea was to get rid of all your cards and to make your opponents pick up cards, and the play was simple: Player A put down a card, which Player B had to beat. If he couldn’t beat it, he had to pick it up. If he could beat it, the first player was allowed to try twice more to play a card that the second player couldn’t beat. In fact it was a bit more complicated than that, but Sam and I picked it up fairly quickly, despite the fact that the suits in this pack were horses, cows, swords and cups, and that the king was a general, the queen was a (clearly female) captain, the jack was a band leader and the ace was a crawler.

“Tomorrow night we’ll play properly,” Xan promised. “In the proper version, the loser has to drink a large glass of alcohol when he loses. That makes things very interesting by the end of the evening.”

“Shall I see if there’s any kumis available?” asked Vanya, grinning.

“What’s kumis?” I asked.

“Fermented mare’s milk,” said Vanya. “It’s very popular among the traditionalists on board!”

“”Or we could just use vodka and orange juice,” said Xan. “I should think it would have the same effect…”

We played for around three hours, and I thought that if we played for that length of time playing the alcoholic version, none of us would be able to stand up at the end of the session, though I was sure Xan was right when he said it would be interesting.

Vanya and Sam said goodnight and went out, and Xan drew the curtain behind them, took his clothes off and got into bed. I did the same, pausing to turn the light off first.

“Well?” asked Xan. “What did you think of your first day with the Horde?”

“It was… different,” I said. “I still don’t understand half of what’s going on, but it’s definitely interesting. But you still haven’t explained how a Chinese machine came to be here, or how a European guy came to be in charge, or… well, that will do to start with.”

“The general’s easy to explain. He’s General Lee now, but obviously he isn’t the original General Lee: he died almost two hundred years ago. But whoever takes over when the previous general dies becomes General Lee. Maybe one day I’ll be General Lee myself.”

“Oh, so it’s like the Dread Pirate Roberts,” I said.

“Who?”

“It’s from a film. The idea is that it’s the name people are scared of, not the actual person, so whoever is in charge takes the name of the original leader.”

“That’s it exactly. Besides, there’s a massive hanzi on the front of the crawler that says ‘Lee’, and it would be a damned nuisance if we had to change it every time our leader died, especially if the new man is called something like von Wesserlin-Wissemburg or something like that. And I’m not making that up, either: one of the Lees about fifty years ago did have a name like that.”

“That would take a lot of red paint… and how did you get here?”

“It’s a long story, so make yourself comfortable,” he said, settling down next to me. “What happened is this: around two hundred years ago the human race almost died out. First there was a massive, world-wide crop failure, and second, there was a plague. We don’t know what caused either, just that the results were catastrophic, and the only reason the human race survived at all is because we had outside help. Our planet was under observation by an alien race. From their point of view it was just supposed to be an observation exercise, like bird-watching is for us – not that I’ve ever really done that myself, though some of our crew spend most of their free time looking for rare species.

“Anyway, the aliens weren’t supposed to do anything but watch, but it looked to them as if we were dying out, and so their leader decided to do something to make sure that a remnant of humanity at least survived. Actually he was wrong to think the whole race was going to disappear: small numbers of people did survive in other places, and we've been running into them ever since. Anyway, he brought his ships down in the area where our ancestors lived, which was western China, roughly speaking, and over a period of time they built the Great Horde: three hundred crawlers like this one, entirely controlled by computers – except that ‘computer’ probably isn’t really the right word, because they’re only partly mechanical.”

“To be honest, I thought the computers look pretty primitive,” I said. “Those great big metal cabinets are thirty or forty years out of date in my world, and I’d have thought aliens with faster than light travel would be way beyond anything we’ve got, even two hundred years ago.”

“Don’t be fooled by the outside. Those metal cabinets are mainly there to protect against damage – this is a fighting vehicle, after all. Inside they’re like nothing on earth – literally. Anyway, the aliens knew they wouldn’t be around to fix anything that went wrong – they were breaking the rules badly enough just by helping us in the first place, and they had to leave straight afterwards – and so they installed a whole lot of repair systems using microscopically tiny machines that could repair damaged circuits, including their own. And to save space, and to reduce wear and tear, the computers use human brains to do a lot of their processing. You’ll find out about that yourself tomorrow, I expect. That’s what the helmets are for: there are little wires inside that connect to the brain through tiny holes that have been drilled in the skull – yes, in yours, too. There’s a sort of membrane that covers the holes, and the wires go through it, and when the helmet is removed afterwards the membrane repairs itself.

“Most of our systems don’t require the crew member to do anything other than sit there: the computers use part of the brain that basically isn’t doing anything else, and that’s true of most of the human brain, apparently. And once you’re used to it you can do whatever you like while you’re wearing the helmet: the computer won’t interfere with your conscious processes at all.

“Some of the systems do require the operator to play a conscious part in what is happening, and most of what’s up on Deck One involves that sort of work. Again, you’ll see for yourself tomorrow. But don’t worry – I swear you won’t come to any harm.”

I wasn’t so sure about that: it was impossible to think about humans being plugged into computer systems without thinking of The Matrix, and that wasn’t exactly reassuring.

“So, anyway,” Xan continued, “eventually all the crawlers were built and ready to go, and the Great Horde set off. We didn’t all head for the west: some went east into Mongolia and China, and some headed south towards India and South-East Asia. But most of us began to move west. These things can move a bit in an emergency, but the main idea is to move slowly, harvesting anything that might be remotely useful as we go, and capturing anyone and – more important at the start – any domestic animals we found.”

“What, and destroying every settlement you came to?” I asked.

“No, not at all. If the people there wanted to fight, of course, we’d be happy to do that, but most of the people we met were invited to join us. And that’s why we have such a mixed crew: some are descended from the original crew, but most are the result of all the recruitment that has gone on since. And nobody is judged on his origins here: if you’ve got the skills you’ll advance, wherever your parents came from.

“Of course, since we started out we’ve lost crawlers to war, or to equipment failure – after nearly two hundred years even the aliens’ repair microbes can’t fix everything. And some have found fertile plains to settle in and decided to stay there permanently, and some were lost in an insane attempt to cross the Black Sea in the middle of winter, and some simply disappeared. As far as we know only ourselves and the Horde of General Khan have crossed the Ditch to this country, and we’re still in contact with seven generals in Old France, which isn’t too far away, and another nine or ten further east and south. But the Great Horde is only a fraction of what it was, which is why the general loves the idea of another real war against a well-equipped opponent: it’s a way to draw what’s left of us together, and it also offers a glorious ending, which a lot of people think would be better than running out of places to go and having to settle down and raise cattle in one place.”

“What about you?” I asked. “You’re only fourteen, Xan – surely you don’t want to die in battle just yet?”

“Well, no. But I don’t want to be a farmer, either. Ideally I’d like to win lots of battles and reunite the Horde into a proper force once again: Xan Temur, Ruler of the Great Horde of the East… but I suppose that right now I’ll settle for a good night’s sleep and the fun of watching you falling off your horse tomorrow!”

And he grinned at me, his teeth flashing in the dim light coming in under the curtains, rolled over and appeared to go to sleep.

I lay awake for a while, thinking about what he had told me. I wondered if the aliens had been Tammids, but decided that they probably hadn’t been: this was a different Earth, and so presumably a completely different universe, too. And as for the rest of it… I supposed it made some sort of sense. As for my own position, in some ways that seemed to have improved: there was, at least, no slavery here. But on the other hand, suppose the general did manage to use the information in my head to open a crawler-size portal: could I persuade him to drop me off somewhere along the way? Because the idea of being in the crawler while it made a death-or-glory charge into a Grey tank regiment didn’t appeal to me at all…

-------------------------------------------------------

Clearly in some ways this world is better than some that Jake has visited, but the downside is that he seems to have involuntarily joined the army.

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Copyright 2011: all rights reserved. Please do not reprint, repost or otherwise reproduce this or any part of it anywhere without my written permission.

David Clarke