Free Harry Cavendish by Foul-ball Page A

upon a small bridge that crossed a clear stream. They traversed it with care, Proton leading the way, delicate as a ballerina. They could feel the boards move beneath their feet but it held fast, and when they were across, they were right beneath the mountain itself. Then the path began to rise, switching back and forth across the south face.
    It was slow, sweaty progress, especially for the Boschs lifting the cow. They marched upwards at a funereal pace like convicts on a chain gang.
    When Proton called for lunch at noon, they stopped on the curve of a wide switchback and surveyed the view, magnificent now they were some five thousand feet up. Bartislard stood crouched in the valley below, slopped from the city walls and into the jungle, and they could see the Leech, a brown thread snaking through the green forest, and the sea beyond.
    ‘I said it was a beautiful planet,’ said Proton, trying not to mind his chicken which was clucking and fretting at him in the cage on his back.
    ‘It’s lovely from up here,’ said Cormack.
    ‘There be dangers up here too,’ said Stanton Bosch. ‘Keep your eyes open.’
    The wind was picking up and there was an edge to it, so they didn’t stop long.
    All that afternoon they made measured progress, moving carefully back and forth along the switchbacks, until Stanton Bosch recommended a ridge where they could stop to make camp for the night.
    ‘This be the place,’ he said to Proton.
    Proton was not so sure. There would be little room for the tents and it was very exposed, windward to the gusts that were whipping ash and dust at them.
    ‘But this be the best place all the same,’ said Stanton Bosch. ‘Until we gets to the summit.’
    They unpacked their tents and arranged them as best they could in a tight semi-circle, backed against the mountain. Then the Boschs set the fire going and started boiling water for their tea.
    Proton set the chicken down in its steel basket next to his tent and went to talk to Stanton Bosch. They stood near the drop-off and pointed down the valley in an animated fashion, as though they were military strategists planning a raid.
    Cormack was sat with the cow by the fire.
    She appeared to have had a relapse and was loathed to talk – the stretcher borne at a tilt for most of the day had made her nauseated.
    After supper round the fire and nervous talk of tomorrow’s exertions, they all, save a few Guards and a couple of Boschs who were into the whisky, repaired to their tents. It was very cold, and they would be up at dawn for an early start.
    Cormack was exhausted, and crawled into his sleeping bag to try to get some sleep. Disconcerting images passed through his mind as he stared at the pin pricked canvas: Proton, armoured with his plastic codpiece, perched on a rock promontory like the Archangel Gabriel above Gomorrah; the gontail, tight around the cow, slicing her as though she were sausage; the face of Stanton Bosch, his liver spots linked and draining one into the other like a succession of oil strikes. Absurd, mad pictures, like frames from a cartoon. Foul Ball’s a dangerous planet, he kept thinking - Proton’s words from the Tropico, running around his head, over and over like a mantra, until he could stand it no more and fell asleep.
    He awoke with a start minutes later.
    There were sounds of a scuffle from behind his tent, and then a man screamed.
    He heard tent flaps zipped open, and saw beams from flashlights on the walls of his tent. There was shouting and yet more screaming.
    He lay quite still for a while, and when he could bear it no longer, he unzipped the flap and went out into the cold night air.
    The screams were coming from the farthest side of the camp, where there was quite a scrum around one particular tent.
    ‘What on Earth is going on?’ he said as he pressed his way forward.
    ‘Can’t really tell,’ said a Guard who was watching outside. ‘Something in there attacked Lucus.’
    There was a further commotion, and the