Battle for Earth (11 page)

They left the shuttle and poked their bubbled heads over the edge of the rocks, just in time to watch a full complement of Krun exit the sphere and waddle inside the pyramid. Up close, it appeared to Johnny that he and Clara were hiding behind the very top of a vast, ancient wall that had at one time bordered the complex, but was now all but buried by rusty brown Martian soil. The pyramid itself was like pictures he'd seen of Egypt, only on a far grander scale (and with a small spaceship out in front). Though worn by never-ending sandstorms, it retained some of the features left behind by the original builders—a great entrance was clearly visible, and the sides were pitted with small black squares, perhaps shafts leading into its interior. It can't have been the Krun who built it—they were scavengers who lived off what others left behind. Something about the structure, perhaps its red coloration, again made Johnny think of Atlantis. Although cruel and terrible, the Atlanteans had built a great spacefaring civilization that spanned half the galaxy. Of course they would have come here—it was right on their doorstep. If Johnny hadn't drowned Atlantis beneath the ocean, Terra (the old name for Earth) and not Melania might now be ruling the Milky Way.

In the low Martian gravity, it was an easy jump down the
far side of the wall. Taking great long strides, they jogged toward the pyramid and, drawing close, began to notice a network of dark red paths leading away from hollows in the ground and toward the towering structure. It was as if some very heavy objects had left their mark and, as they passed the lone sphere, it was clear the depressions were the same size as Krun spaceships.

Johnny and Clara joined one of the paths. It looked as if someone had sloshed red paint over the ground, as well as scattering occasional little white stones and tubes, that made a satisfying crunch when stepped on in their space boots. Like a river network, their path merged with another and widened before joining yet another tributary until they reached the base of the pyramid itself. Here the route onward could have been a vast river delta, running underneath a gigantic door through which the Krun had just entered. The ground was soggy underfoot, as though freshly painted.

“What now?” Clara asked.

When breaking and entering, it didn't seem wise to use the front door and, for once, his sister couldn't fold them inside.

“I think I can get us in—this way.” Johnny had spotted what looked like a side entrance further along. They bounded toward it, feeling terribly exposed, but once they arrived at least the lock turned out to be electronic. Johnny closed his eyes, picturing the way the currents flowed and the magnetic fields they produced. He could feel how it worked—what would open it—and directed the electrons to their appointed places at the right speeds. Very quickly the door shot upward, retracting into a gap above to reveal an airlock with fragments of painted walls. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the picture of an ancient waterway—maybe the stories about canals on Mars were true after all. They stepped inside and Johnny made the door slide closed behind them. The airlock was automatic. A
breathable, pressurized atmosphere soon surrounded them and the door at the other side of the narrow chamber opened.

A corridor, supported by ornate pillars carved to look like reeds, led steeply upward. The walls were lined with white stone, on which the elaborate mural continued, only here inside the pyramid it looked nearly as perfect as the day it had been created. It depicted colorful boats being pulled by dolphins. Johnny could almost hear the seagulls and smell the salt air. Now there could be no doubt who built this place—it was like being back in Atlantis.

Johnny's suit told him the air was perfectly breathable, so he touched a button on his collar and his bubble-headed helmet collapsed cleverly into the lining of the suit around his neck.

Clara did the same. “Yuk … What's that smell?” she whispered.

Johnny shook his head. It was like decay, something rotting. “We'll get used to it,” he replied.

“I'm not so sure,” said his sister, smiling again. “It's worse than your bedroom.”

They climbed quickly, their way lit by shafts in the roof at regular intervals. Then they rounded a corner and found the way blocked by an organic curtain of sticky yellow mucus. Clara hung back and Johnny could see it was up to him to tear it aside. This wasn't as bad as it looked, largely because of the suit's gloves, but pieces clumped together around his fingers like a thick spider's web. More mucus covered the floor beyond, and organic sacs, their yellow membranes stretched and lined with green veins, hung partway up the walls. Inside every one was a few black blobs, each the size of a marble. Johnny and Clara kept going, but found their boots sticking to the floor, making progress awkward.

The sound of approaching footsteps sent them into a panic. The only way to hide was to press themselves into one of the
narrow gaps between the sacs on the wall and pray they weren't seen. The clammy mucus stuck fast to Johnny's spacesuit, making it hard to move at all. Into the corridor, wearing overalls, waddled a line of ugly insect-like creatures with long snouts protruding from their fly-like heads and four hinged arms by their sides. It was a troop of Krun workers. Buzzing around them were a handful of fat flying insects, like little moths, which settled on the sacs and crawled inside. Thankfully, the Krun lined up with their backs to Johnny and Clara, each in front of one of the milky yellow bags of gloop attached to the opposite wall. Then, with one pair of arms, the Krun hoisted a sac each into the air, holding it up to their faces while, with the other arms they squeezed along their snouts, squirting jets of yellow fluid out into the wobbly containers. All the while, the two arms and the snout were making strange clicks. It was one of those times when Johnny wished he didn't have the sliver of the Hundra's soul living within him, translating.

“
Who's going to be a big boy … that's right—eat it all up … a special treat from the Queen.
”

Johnny whispered, “They're birthing eggs.”

His sister slapped a gloved hand over his mouth and gave him a scowl that suggested anyone with even a quarter of a brain cell would have already guessed as much. Happily, the Krun were too busy feeding their young to look around. Then a leftover little bug flew toward Johnny and settled on the tip of his nose. He felt himself going cross-eyed, trying to focus on it, but didn't dare do anything that might make another sound. Leaving a cold trail of slime as it went, it hopped onto his cheek and he felt the patter of the tiniest of feet across his face. He tried to shake his head to get rid of it, but pulling away from the webbed mucus created a slurping noise and he was forced to stop. Whatever the thing was, it had reached his ear. Johnny was willing it,
Don't go inside … don't go inside,
but it
felt as if the insect had done exactly that. Johnny hoped he'd imagined it—that the creature had taken a quick peek and then flown away. He still daren't move. The Krun workers finished and reattached their sacs to the wall. Once they were done, they waddled away in the direction they'd come. Inside each of the sacs, several of the little black blobs were now moving around within the fluid that held them. It was disgusting.

Johnny tried sticking a gloved finger inside his ear, but removed it to find only wax. Carefully he and Clara followed the retreating Krun to a junction in the corridor, where the aliens disappeared out of sight. As Johnny neared it he began to hear a new, much lower-pitched Krun voice that seemed to be coming from the walls. Over and over again it was whispering, “
Feed me
.”

“Who's that?” he said, running to peer around the corner. There were several metal doors leading off the corridor and he wondered if the strange speaker was behind one of them.

“What are you talking about?” asked Clara, frowning. Johnny pressed his ear to the cold metal of the nearest door, but heard nothing. Clara tugged at his spacesuit as other voices approached. Johnny nodded and, with the subtlest of commands, he sent the metal barrier upward into a recess. They slipped inside and the door closed behind them.

The chamber they'd entered took up nearly one whole side of the pyramid, with great shafts of light from outside crisscrossing the cavernous space. It was a vast vault, with row after row and column upon column made of transparent tanks, linked by tubes, all the same. Floating in the murky waters must have been thousands of the human-alien hybrid amphibians like Peter, their skins glowing faintly green, organic tubes like Krun snouts leading into every tank.

“Why? What are they for?” Clara asked, as she gazed upward, totally horrified.

Johnny shook his head, unable even to guess. The pair walked between rows, wiping the crud off their spacesuits as they went, their footsteps echoing up and down the huge space. The poor things inside were at every stage of development, from babies up to young adults, but they all followed Johnny and Clara with their eyes. Several of the more developed specimens swam to the very edges of their tanks, pressing their faces against the sides. It was horrible—Johnny felt powerless to help and was glad when he reached what looked like an open elevator that might take them higher up the vault, hopefully to another level where they could leave this place behind.

It took a lot of effort to coax Clara onto the platform. Finally she crouched on all fours as far from the edges as possible and looked only at the elevator floor. As soon as Johnny pressed the “up” button she grabbed his leg so tightly it almost cut off his circulation, even through the spacesuit. They rose slowly into the air. Clara's eyes were squeezed shut and Johnny was glad she wasn't watching the thousands of sad faces that followed their progress as they went higher.

He decided to take them as close to the top of the pyramid as the elevator went, ignoring a few open corridors they passed during the ascent. By working their way down systematically, he hoped they'd discover what the Krun were up to. It made for a long ride. When they finally jerked to a halt Clara's eyes opened in a silent, terrified scream as she took in the huge drop below. She crawled away from it on all fours, beyond their platform and onto the more solid ground of an open corridor at the side, oblivious to the mucus that covered the floor and walls and the flesh-like flaps that dangled from the sloping ceiling. Johnny hoped they'd be able to find another route down—no way would Clara return to the open elevator. After scrambling noisily on her hands and knees for several meters, she finally stopped and leaned her back against the wall between a clump of birthing
sacs like the ones they'd seen earlier. She was breathing very hard but, as Johnny caught up, she nodded to indicate she was OK. He carried on past to investigate a light at the far end of the corridor.

They were near the very apex of the pyramid. The corridor they'd entered led to an opening above a square chamber, adjoining a walkway that encircled the walls, high above the floor. Clara wouldn't like the drop, but the only way to go was forward. There were voices coming from below, so Johnny lay on his front and peered over the sides. Directly beneath him, a familiar large blue globe was slowly spinning. It was a projection of Earth, semitransparent, and through it he could see the insect-like faces of several Krun staring up from around a circular table. They were studying the planet so intently he was sure none would have noticed his head poking over the ledge. Another alien floated above the scene, chained to the ground. Brown and gray and shaped like a slightly deflated soccerball, it was a Hundra, one of the galaxy's translators. The creature's leathery hide was covered with glowing red welts.

“Clara—look at this,” he hissed.

Despite clearly being Earth, the globe looked very unusual. North and South America, while clearly marked, were simply blacked out. Instead of properly showing the continents, it was the oceans where the information was mapped in minute detail. Deep trenches, underwater mountain ranges and all manner of other detail about places on the seabed had been highlighted. Nearly three-quarters of Earth's surface was covered by water. Johnny hated to think why the Krun were so interested. It sounded as if an argument was in progress at the foot of the chamber and, now Johnny looked closer, he could see somebody else, wearing a suit, standing before the table of aliens.

“Of course I will find it, and soon. These briefings cause
unnecessary delays—if I could simply merge with the collective …” Bizarrely the voice was speaking English, but with every stressed syllable it cracked a fearsome whip into the Hundra, forcing the captive creature to translate into Krun. It was a sickening sight. Johnny recognized the whip wielder instantly. It was Bugface himself, the Krun known as Stevens who had shot dead his dad. He'd once thought that he'd watched this particular alien die, but Stevens later delighted in telling Johnny that he was one of nine, all identical, from the same birthing egg.

The synchronous reply came from all the other Krun around the table. “We serve the Queen. She deems vital detail may be lost should you transform before giving your reports. Your joining will not be delayed much longer.” These aliens were thought to have a single, hive mind, meaning they thought and spoke as one.

“But it is so inefficient,” said Stevens. “I loathe it—I loathe them and everything about their stinking human form.” The tips of his whip crackled with electricity over the body of the Hundra.

Johnny winced on each stroke. He scoured the room for anything that might help him stop this, but the only thing he recognized was a DNA shower, the device by which the aliens manifested as human when on Earth.

“Perhaps you have forgotten the importance of your mission,” replied the other Krun. “Find what we seek and, once Terra is ours, the whole galaxy will be next. Our new fleet will be unstoppable. Fail and you know the consequences—the dead flesh we feed the Queen is not to her liking—she has been asking for live prey.”