Harvest Time

3 - A Not So Pointless Exercise

"What exactly is Between?" I asked, wiping away my tears.

"It's where the Harvesters come from."

"Yes, I know that. But it doesn't mean anything, does it?"

Ronnack shook his head. "No, even my teachers didn't know when I asked them. All we know is that the Harvesters are machines that come through to Nervanna from beyond Between and search for the brood halls."

"Do they, um, eat the breeders?" I said, thinking of Joselle and hoping what I said wasn't true.

Ronnack shook his head. "No one knows."

"But why the breeder areas?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's because they can't run fast so they're easier to catch. They sometimes go for schools and other places where people gather as well."

"Do you think they have maps of our citadels?"

Ronnack shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe they do. They always seem to appear right in or very close to those sorts of places."

"They must have maps, then," I concluded.

"Maybe, if we could get inside one and stop it from going back, then maybe we'd be able to find out," he said. I suspected that he was just talking to prevent himself from crying yet again, but it made me wonder what could be inside one of those monsters.

There was a sound of more creaking and we saw dust rising from the roof towards the east about half a minute's walk away. One of the mirror mounts was starting to tilt alarmingly, the reflected sunlight diverging from the tunnel into which it should have been shining.

"There must be another one under the roof," Ronnack shouted.

We ran across, covering the half-minute walk in less time than half of that. Ahead of us, and to one side of the mirror mount, the roof was cracking as the walls below it were being ripped apart. Ronnack stopped at a point where the cracks were being limited by one of the supporting walls. Beyond that point, though, the mud bricks of the roof were jiggling as if they had a life of their own. Then, seconds later, they dropped from sight as another gaping hole appeared.

Creeping to the edge we peered down onto the square top of yet another Harvester as it bulldozed its way through walls. With its metal tentacles, it plucked victims from the debris whose bodies had already been crushed from the falling roof. Others, mainly children, who had escaped the collapsing bricks, tried to run from the machine. Most failed to get more than a few steps before a tentacle attached itself to an arm or a leg.

"That's one of the schools, isn't it?" I said, my voice shaking as I watched a boy half my age being whipped across above the heads of others to disappear into one of the Harvester's openings.

Ronnack nodded before his trembling voice added, "And there's absolutely nothing we can do to stop it."

To our right, the mirror mount was wobbling precariously. Its apex was no longer pointing upright as it should have been.

"Maybe we can," I said.

"What?"

"That mirror mount is going to fall soon. The harvester is moving closer to where it will drop. If we can push it at the right moment, maybe it will hit the Harvester and kill it."

Ronnack's eyes darted from me, to the wobbling mirror mount, down at the Harvester and back to me.

"Yes, let's try," he said, jumping to his feet. "They can survive mud bricks from the roof falling on top of them but a mirror mount is probably a lot heavier. And pointy."

We stepped from the safe area and felt the dome beneath our feet vibrate. Then we were behind the mirror mount and I could see that three of its four feet were no longer secured to the roof. One was already hanging in the open space above the hole. The bolts holding the final foot in position were already dancing with the vibrations.

Ronnack glanced over the edge. "We need to be quick," he said. "The Harvester is almost at the wall beneath us."

Together, we worried the final leg of the mount free and, springing back as more of the roof collapsed, we watched the whole thing teeter on the edge for a moment before plummeting down into the hole, pointy end first. There was a crash and we ran around the hole to get a better view from a different angle.

To our surprise, the Harvester had mostly stopped moving. Two of its tentacles flopped around almost helplessly, like the random movements of the arms of a newborn infant. The rest of them, including one that was still wrapped around a child, were completely still. The point of the tetrahedron had pierced the Harvester, punching a hole into its top, and remaining stuck upside down like the Harvester was wearing a new hat.

"That's like some sort of access hatch, I think," Ronnack said.

"Do you think we've actually killed it? What should we do now?"

Ronnack glanced around. "Reckon we can get down that mirror tube over there? It's part of the lighting for the school and the brood hall next to it."

I looked to where he pointed. "Yes, if it isn't blocked," I said, visualising a three-dimensional map of the tubes of this area in my head.

We shimmied down the tube. With the mirror that fed it sunlight out of action, the descent wasn't as bright as it would normally have been. At a couple of the junctions, we had to make a decision as to which route to take. Eventually, we found ourselves at the end of the tube close by to where the disabled Harvester lay silent. Below us, there were several trampled bodies, victims of the stampede to get away. We jumped the ten feet or so to the ground, trying to avoid the blood and human remains as much as possible.

Ronnack peered around the corner into the carnage. I followed him, half-expecting the Harvester to no longer be present. But its bulk still took up the majority of the space. Its tentacles no longer even twitched. I felt my breath coming quick and fast as we took the unlikely action of getting closer to it instead of – as every sense within me urged – running in the opposite direction. A girl, possibly one of the school's pupils, crept out from the shadows.

"Is it dead?" she asked.

"We don't know," Ronnack answered. I couldn't reply as my mouth felt drier than it had ever been before.

She crept towards the young boy who was still held in a tentacle. She brushed the hair and dust from his face and shook her head. With his face cleared, I recognised him as one of the younger dust collectors I had trained up just before I'd moved up the ranks to become a roof weeder. If I remembered correctly, his name may have been Tollito, and he would only have been about eight years old.

Ronnack and I exchanged a glance and then, together, we climbed the pile of debris that lay against the Harvester. I could see that, apart from the requirement to jump the last few feet, it would enable us to reach the top of the machine.

As we climbed, we both watched for any evidence of the slightest motion from either the Harvester or its tentacles. But it remained immobile. A moment later, we were level with its top into which the inverted mirror mount had buried itself.

Thanks for reading. Please don't forget to comment and vote on this story! The next part will be along in about a week's time.