Evening's Empires (Quiet War 3) by Paul McAuley Page A

in twelve tough spheres, the lifepod struck the crest of the ridge, spun through the air and bounced across a garden of thorny plants spread across the crater’s floor, shedding momentum with
every impact. Inside, in the grip of the crash couch’s holster, Hari was jarred and inverted and thrown from side to side. Every bounce a crunching wham! crash! followed by a moment of
soaring grace, then wham! crash! again.
    He was unconscious long before the lifepod’s lumpy parcel struck a terraced cliff at the far side of the crater and rebounded and came to rest in the middle of a run-out of tumbled
boulders. And woke to find himself marching with a stiff bounding gait across a gently rumpled plain. The sun hung just above the horizon behind him and a single lamp burned high in the dark blue
sky, so that he walked at the apex of a double shadow.
    The cryoflask containing Dr Gagarian’s head was hooked to the belt of his p-suit and bumped his left hip with every other step.
    He slowed by degrees, came to a halt close to a spatter of rocks flung from a small impact crater. According to the p-suit’s eidolon, he was in the low northern latitudes, some twenty-two
kilometres north-east of the crash site. He had been walking for more than six hours. His breathing was laboured and his legs ached. His whole body hurt, in fact, bruised and battered by the hard
landing. The pain was a remote, not unpleasant throb, pushed away by something the p-suit had given him.
    ‘Talk to me,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you did.’
    The eidolon appeared beside him, a sketch in light and shadow, the two stars of her eyes level with his. She said, ‘You were unconscious. I could not wake you. And because our pursuers
must have tracked our descent I decided it would be best to put some distance between us and the lifepod as soon as possible.’
    ‘The authorities in Fei Shen would have tracked it, too. I was relying on them to rescue me.’
    Hari was angry at the eidolon’s presumption, humiliated at the thought of being turned into a meat puppet. And he’d lost the lifepod, his last link with his family’s ship . .
.
    The eidolon apologised for her presumption, picted a map. ‘You require replenishment of power and other supplies, and a place to rest. There is a shelter seventeen point four kilometres
away. It will supply everything you need.’
    ‘Is that where I was heading before I woke up?’
    ‘You were walking straight towards it.’
    ‘This shelter, does it have a direct link to Fei Shen?’
    ‘I believe so.’
    ‘You have it all figured out.’
    ‘I am trying my best to be of service.’
    ‘Don’t ever help me again unless I ask for your help. Is that clear?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Good. Now let’s find this shelter.’
    Hari walked on. Using craters as waypoints, comparing them with the eidolon’s map, trying to keep to the line she had drawn to the shelter. He discovered that he was not afraid. He was
determined to survive this. He would not give up his life easily: dying would mean that he had failed his family. He had survived a hijack and a kidnap attempt and a spaceship crash. He would
survive a short stroll across the surface of Vesta.
    The sun set inside a kind of shell of hard, pinkish light that slowly faded out of the darkening sky. The lamp swung overhead and another rose ahead of Hari, followed by Vesta’s moon, a
pale splinter of bone with a tiny diamond glinting off-centre: the city of Fei Shen, tantalising, unreachable.
    Hari set a rhythm, walking for twenty minutes, resting for ten, squatting on his haunches, sipping water, moving on. The dusty plain was punctuated by small craters, thickets of wiry grey
plants, stray boulders, rippling aprons of black sand. It reminded Hari of his father’s viron. He would not have been surprised to see the old man walking towards him, opening windows in the
air, preparing a campaign to recapture his ship.
    But this ashy desert was still and silent, and there was no